Trump wants to make Canada part of the US. Some Canadians are interested

Trump wants to make Canada part of the US. Some Canadians are interested

As the 47th president continues to suggest Canada could become a ‘51st state,’ Holly Baxter speaks to the Canadians who think he might have a point

Monday 27 January 2025 10:35 EST

Diane Francis didn’t move to Canada to cause controversy. She crossed the border from her native U.S. with something entirely different in mind: “I immigrated with a draft dodger during the Vietnam War.”

Long after the war was over, she stayed, she gained Canadian citizenship, she raised her children in her adopted country. And then she wrote the book that had her “blacklisted” from some media circles and frozen out from others.

“A lot of Canadians hated the book,” she says, in a video interview from her luxury condominium in Toronto. “They hated the idea that someone would even write the book.” Though it sold well in a number of countries, it was barely reviewed inside Canada: people didn’t want to talk about the elephant in the room, she believes. Francis’s Canadian kids “did not like it,” either.

Then, 12 years later, Donald Trump said Canada should become America’s 51st state. And people started to whisper about whether Francis might have been right all along.

The book in question was The Merger of the Century: Why Canada and America Should Become One Country. Published in 2013, it wasn’t entirely received as Francis intended.

“It was really a warning,” she tells me. “Okay, get yourself organized, guys. You’ve got a great country — we’ve got a great country here, and you know, frankly, we don’t want their gun laws and we don’t want their lousy healthcare system, their crime rates, blah, blah. So let’s do something about it. Or — and I said this very clearly — they’re gonna make a takeover bid, and they’re gonna gobble us up.”

Francis understands why Canadians would bristle at the suggestion (indeed, a recent study found 94 percent of Canadians are opposed to becoming part of the U.S.). She herself found Trump’s comment about Canada becoming America’s 51st state offensive. But it was clearly just “trash talk,” she says. “It was insulting. But I don’t criticize Trump for that, because frankly — and I’m saying this as an American citizen, and I love the place — they’re very ignorant about other countries.”

Nevertheless, there’s something legitimate there to open a negotiation, she adds. “If I were the prime minister of Canada tomorrow, I’d go down and say: ‘Look, President Trump, totally understand your M.O., I get it. You’re right. I wrote a book about it. We haven’t been pulling our weight. Here’s what we propose. We will double the amount we spend on the military. We will procure everything from pencils to tanks from U.S. suppliers — that will help with the trade deficit. And that’s my pledge.’ For him, that’s a big win.”

“I’d just say, you know, we can’t take a tariff,” she adds, of Trump’s recent threats to impose sweeping 25 percent tariffs on goods from Canada. “That’ll cause trouble for you guys too. And so, would you please rethink the tariff if we do those things? And what else would you like us to do? We’ll consider.”

Francis has been saying for a while that the merging of Canada and the U.S. is “inevitable,” and that the best way Canadians can respond to that inevitability is by working seriously on the deal. In one of the thought experiments she put forward in the past, she suggested that promising free healthcare for life would soften the blow for Canadians wary of a fully merged Canada-U.S.

These days, however, she thinks that if Canada and the U.S. did become one country, their political systems would have to remain separated. Although she points out that many northern American states — such as Vermont, Washington, New York, Oregon, or Maine — tend to have laws very similar, or even more progressive, than Canada itself, she accepts that other states have moved further apart from their Canadian neighbors on issues like abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment and gun control since she wrote the book. That would mean a less easy, though still workable, union, where politics are devolved.

Considering that it’s already very easy for Americans and Canadians to live and work in each others’ countries, a fully open border wouldn’t be seen as a positive these days, either — by Americans or Canadians. Canada — whose health care system is “far superior,” Francis points out — could become “deluged with health care refugees.” Either the U.S. changes its approach to health care (which she thinks is coming, especially after the outpouring of anger following the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York) or the border should have some controls retained around it. That’s likely what Americans want right now, as well, considering the anti-immigration bent of Trump’s second term.

By working to merge in an intelligent and nuanced way, however, the countries could still work together to take advantage of Canada’s vast natural resources, she says. That doesn’t mean the U.S. simply trying to seize Canada’s assets for its own (“I don’t think the Americans realize how much it would cost them. The calculation I made was 17 trillion [dollars]. That’s half a million per person in Canada. That’s a lot of money. And why do it unless you have to? They don’t have to.”).

But it does mean that “Canada could say: ‘Yeah, you know, you’re right about the Arctic, but we have a small population. We’ll build military bases up there to help and you can partner in resource development, but we don’t have any infrastructure up there. So, we’ll do some of that. That’s how it could be structured.” Indeed, Francis is a true pragmatist, who isn’t interested in being dragged into the war of words she sees escalating between American and Canadian politicians right now: “The grandstanding is amusing to me.”

In a recent op-ed for Fortune, Canadian author Don Tapscott laid out his own vision for a United States of Canamerica. In it, he agreed there could be distinct economic advantages for the U.S. and Canada if they were to become one big, happy country — but added that there would be some stipulations Canadians would be unwilling to rethink. Like Francis, he was particularly concerned by the health care issue: “Canadians also live six years longer than their American counterparts and perform better on virtually every other health measure, from infant mortality to obesity and mental health,” he wrote. Nationalized healthcare would make sense both from a quality-of-life perspective and a financial perspective, considering Canada spends just 11 percent of its GDP on health care (compared to the U.S.’s 19 percent) and manages to cover every citizen.

Climate change, too, would have to get back on the agenda, Tapscott added. “True, we’ve historically benefited from fossil fuels, but we play our role in the green economy through government investments, entrepreneurship, and yes, carbon taxation,” he said.

Allowing in more refugees, standardizing K-12 education, and bringing in strict political campaign financing laws also made Tapscott’s list. Needless to say, those are all fairly unlikely to make Republican hearts sing south of the Canadian border.

However, Rupa Supramanya, an Ottawa-based journalist for American online news outlet The Free Press, found a warm reception for the idea of a CanAmerica merger in her city — especially among people in their 20s and 30s.

Over email, Supramanya told me she wasn’t surprised. “Put simply, they see better opportunities if Canada is attached to a more dynamic economy,” she told me.

It isn’t just the economy that Canadians envy. It’s also, Supramanya believes, the fact that Americans have a stronger sense of their own identity. “Americans have a positive sense of who they are centered around their culture and history,” she says, with a pop culture output that “dominates the world.” On the other side of the border, “many Canadians, especially on the left, identify themselves as non-American. In other words, Canadian identity is ‘we’re not American,’ which is a negative and fragile sense of who they are.”

Supramanya believes there could be an EU-style agreement between the U.S. and Canada on the horizon, “especially if the Canadian economy continues to underperform the US.” But with a lame duck prime minister, a prorogued parliament and “an ongoing liberal party leadership contest that will not be resolved until March,” Justin Trudeau has “an extremely weak hand” to play against Trump, she adds.

Diane Francis agrees: Canada needs someone better than Trudeau to negotiate terms, she said in a recent YouTube video, because Trump is “eating him alive already.” During our interview, I suggest that maybe Mar-a-Lago will come calling for her instead, considering her long history of taking a merger seriously.

She smiles. “The team has my book — I know this. I’ve gotten calls.”

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/trump-canada-tariffs-51st-state-americans-b2681170.html

Canadian Bacon is a 1995 comedy film written, produced, and directed by Michael Moore which satirizes Canada–United States relations along the Canada–United States border.[5] The film stars an ensemble cast featuring Alan Alda, John Candy (in his final film role), Bill Nunn, Kevin J. O'Connor, Rhea Perlman, Kevin Pollak, G. D. Spradlin, and Rip Torn. It tells the story of a struggling President who is persuaded by his confidants to fight with Canada when a local sheriff and his friends get involved.

The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival,[6] and was the final film released starring John Candy, though it was shot before the earlier-released Wagons East as both films are dedicated in memory of him. It is also Moore's only non-documentary film to date.[7]

Plot

In Niagara Falls, New York, thousands of former employees are outraged with military businessman R. J. Hacker having closed down his weapons manufacturing plant, Hacker Dynamics. Local sheriff Bud Boomer and his deputy/girlfriend Honey then prevent the despondent former Hacker employee Roy Boy from committing suicide at Niagara Falls.

At a conference held at Hacker Dynamics, Hacker pins the blame for the shutdown of his business on the President of the United States, who has just arrived. The President defends his own belief that the future of the children is more important than war which has caused major decline in his approval rating.

After the press conference where Boomer saved the President from an assassination attempt, the President confides in General Dick Panzer and National Security Advisor Stuart Smiley (who is revealed to have ties with Hacker) that he's unhappy about not having an enemy to engage with. An attempted negotiation with Russian President Vladimir Kruschkin to start a new cold war with Russia fails and the President's suggestion of a war on international terrorism is deemed too absurd.

Later that night, Boomer offensively criticizes Canadian beer while attending a hockey game with Honey, Roy Boy, and deputy sheriff Kabral Jabar between the neighboring nations in Niagara Falls, Ontario causing a brawl to break out. The ensuing riot ends up on the news the next day and catches Stuart's attention which led to everyone getting detained overnight. In turn, Stuart collects more information about Canada from a CIA agent named Gus and suggests Canada as their new enemy during a cabinet meeting.

Before long, U.S. television channels are littered with anti-Canada propaganda which Boomer believes wholeheartedly. He prepares for war by distributing guns to his fellow sheriffs, Honey, Roy Boy, and Kabral. He also helps form a local militia. After they apprehend a group of Americans "dressed as Canadians" attempting to destroy a hydroelectric plant despite Gus's protests that they are just Americans, they sneak across the border to litter on Canadian lands which leads to Honey being left behind and arrested by the Mounties. In a rescue attempt, Boomer, Roy Boy, and Kabral sneak into a Canadian power plant and cause a countrywide blackout. When the President learns of this, Stuart orders the Omega Force to remove Boomer from Canada before it is too late as Boomer gets separated from Kabral and Roy Boy.

Seeking revenge on the President for shutting down his business, Hacker uses a software program ("Hacker Hellstorm") to activate missile silos across the country. The President learns that the signal causing the activation of the silos originated from Canada. As Stuart tells the President that the information is classified, the President summons Hacker for some answers. Hacker offers to sell a program to the President that can cancel out the Hellstorm—for $1 trillion. Fed up with the President being too busy to give Hacker the money, Stuart realizes that a departing Hacker is the one controlling the silos, not Canada. After storming up, Stuart takes the operating codes from him required to stop the Hellstorm while accidentally killing Hacker in the process. The still busy President orders Stuart's arrest despite his protests that he is now able to give the codes to the President so they could deactivate the missiles which are aimed at Moscow. As the US government loses contact with Omega Force and as the launch time approaches, the President pleads with Canadian Prime Minister Clark MacDonald over the phone to stop the launch.

Meanwhile, Honey was taken to a hospital upon her capture and escaped all the way to the CN Tower. She discovers the central computer for the Hellstorm and destroys it with a machine gun, aborting the launch sequence. Honey then reunites with Boomer and they return to the United States on a speedboat. Before the final shot of Boomer and Honey's speedboat unknowingly heading towards the waterfall is shown, an epilogue reveals the characters' fates:

Boomer realizes his dream of appearing on Cops.

Honey is named "Humanitarian of the Year" by the National Rifle Association of America.

The President was defeated in the next election by a large landslide and now hosts Get Up, Cleveland.

Stuart served eight months in prison, but was pardoned by the new President Oliver North.

General Panzer committed suicide by gunshot after learning that Hogan's Heroes was fictional.

Hacker's body has been viewed daily at the Republican National Headquarters from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

Gus was last spotted heading to Mexico in a tank.

Kabral has become a hockey star, winning the Hart Memorial Trophy three years in a row. It was then shown that it was ironically for the Toronto Maple Leafs as his hockey card shows him playing for them.

Roy Boy's whereabouts are unknown.

MacDonald is "still ruling with an iron fist".

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

Can. 666 In the use of means of social communication, necessary discretion is to be observed and those things are to be avoided which are harmful to one’s vocation and dangerous to the chastity of a consecrated person."

TITLE II. RELIGIOUS INSTITUTES (Cann. 607 - 709) CODE OF CANON LAW

https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/eng/documents/cic_lib2-cann607-709_en.html

Ultramontanism was a school of thought of the Catholic Church which promoted supreme papal authority in matters of spirituality and governance. Ultramontanism rejected modern ideals in favour of the supremacy of Catholicism and the Catholic Church in public life. This school of thought was particularly influent in the French-Canadian society during the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/ultramontanism 

Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban,[a] 1st Baron Verulam, PC (/ˈbeɪkən/;[5] 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Bacon argued the importance of natural philosophy, guided by scientific method, and his works remained influential throughout the Scientific Revolution.[6]

Bacon has been called the father of empiricism.[7] He argued for the possibility of scientific knowledge based only upon inductive reasoning and careful observation of events in nature. He believed that science could be achieved by the use of a sceptical and methodical approach whereby scientists aim to avoid misleading themselves. Although his most specific proposals about such a method, the Baconian method, did not have long-lasting influence, the general idea of the importance and possibility of a sceptical methodology makes Bacon one of the later founders of the scientific method. His portion of the method based in scepticism was a new rhetorical and theoretical framework for science, whose practical details are still central to debates on science and methodology. He is famous for his role in the scientific revolution, promoting scientific experimentation as a way of glorifying God and fulfilling scripture.

Bacon was a patron of libraries and developed a system for cataloguing books under three categories – history, poetry, and philosophy – [8] which could further be divided into specific subjects and subheadings. About books he wrote: "Some books are to be tasted; others swallowed; and some few to be chewed and digested."[9] The Baconian theory of Shakespeare authorship, a fringe theory which was first proposed in the mid-19th century, contends that Bacon wrote at least some and possibly all of the plays conventionally attributed to William Shakespeare.[10]

Bacon was educated at Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, where he rigorously followed the medieval curriculum, which was presented largely in Latin. He was the first recipient of the Queen's counsel designation, conferred in 1597 when Elizabeth I reserved him as her legal advisor. After the accession of James I in 1603, Bacon was knighted, then created Baron Verulam in 1618[2] and Viscount St Alban in 1621.[1][b] He had no heirs, and so both titles became extinct on his death of pneumonia in 1626 at the age of 65. He is buried at St Michael's Church, St Albans, Hertfordshire.[12]

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

Elizabeth I (7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603)[a] was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. She was the last monarch of the House of Tudor.

Elizabeth was the only surviving child of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, his second wife, who was executed when Elizabeth was two years old. Anne's marriage to Henry was annulled, and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate. Henry restored her to the line of succession when she was 10, via the Third Succession Act 1543. After Henry's death in 1547, Elizabeth's younger half-brother Edward VI ruled until his own death in 1553, bequeathing the crown to a Protestant cousin, Lady Jane Grey, and ignoring the claims of his two half-sisters, the Catholic Mary and the younger Elizabeth, in spite of statutes to the contrary. Edward's will was set aside within weeks of his death and Mary became queen, deposing and executing Jane. During Mary's reign, Elizabeth was imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels.

Upon her half-sister's death in 1558, Elizabeth succeeded to the throne and set out to rule by good counsel.[b] She depended heavily on a group of trusted advisers led by William Cecil, whom she created Baron Burghley. One of her first actions as queen was the establishment of an English Protestant church, of which she became the supreme governor. This era, later named the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, would evolve into the Church of England. It was expected that Elizabeth would marry and produce an heir; however, despite numerous courtships, she never did, and because of this she is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen".[2] She was eventually succeeded by her first cousin twice removed, James VI of Scotland, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots.

In government, Elizabeth was more moderate than her father and siblings had been.[3] One of her mottoes was video et taceo ("I see and keep silent").[4] In religion, she was relatively tolerant and avoided systematic persecution. After the pope declared her illegitimate in 1570, which in theory released English Catholics from allegiance to her, several conspiracies threatened her life, all of which were defeated with the help of her ministers' secret service, run by Sir Francis Walsingham. Elizabeth was cautious in foreign affairs, manoeuvring between the major powers of France and Spain. She half-heartedly supported a number of ineffective, poorly resourced military campaigns in the Netherlands, France, and Ireland. By the mid-1580s, England could no longer avoid war with Spain.

As she grew older, Elizabeth became celebrated for her virginity. A cult of personality grew around her which was celebrated in the portraits, pageants, and literature of the day. Elizabeth's reign became known as the Elizabethan era. The period is famous for the flourishing of English drama, led by playwrights such as William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, the prowess of English maritime adventurers, such as Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh, and for the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Some historians depict Elizabeth as a short-tempered, sometimes indecisive ruler,[5] who enjoyed more than her fair share of luck. Towards the end of her reign, a series of economic and military problems weakened her popularity. Elizabeth is acknowledged as a charismatic performer ("Gloriana") and a dogged survivor ("Good Queen Bess") in an era when government was ramshackle and limited, and when monarchs in neighbouring countries faced internal problems that jeopardised their thrones. After the short, disastrous reigns of her half-siblings, her 44 years on the throne provided welcome stability for the kingdom and helped to forge a sense of national identity.[3]

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

Elizabeth Ann Hulette[5] (November 19, 1960 – May 1, 2003),[5] best known in professional wrestling circles as Miss Elizabeth, was an American occasional professional wrestler, professional wrestling manager, and professional wrestling TV announcer.[1][2][3] She gained international fame from 1985 to 1992 in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) and from 1996 to 2000 in World Championship Wrestling (WCW), in her role as the manager to wrestler "Macho Man" Randy Savage, as well as other wrestlers of that period. She died as a result of an acute toxicity on May 1, 2003, in the home she shared with wrestler Lex Luger.[7]

Early life

Hulette was born in Frankfort, Kentucky.[8] She graduated from Franklin County High School[9] and the University of Kentucky with a degree in communications.[5]

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

James IV (17 March 1473 – 9 September 1513) was King of Scotland from 11 June 1488 until his death at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. He inherited the throne at the age of fifteen on the death of his father, James III, at the Battle of Sauchieburn, following a rebellion in which the younger James was the figurehead of the rebels. James IV is generally regarded as the most successful of the Stewart monarchs. He was responsible for a major expansion of the Scottish royal navy, which included the founding of two royal dockyards and the acquisition or construction of 38 ships, including the Michael, the largest warship of its time.[1]

James was a patron of the arts and took an active interest in the law, literature and science. With his patronage the printing press came to Scotland, the University of Aberdeen and the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh were founded, and he commissioned the building of the Palace of Holyroodhouse and Falkland Palace. The education act passed by the Parliament of Scotland in 1496 introduced compulsory schooling. During James's 25-year reign, royal income doubled, the Crown exercised firm control over the Scottish church, and by 1493 had overcome the last independent Lord of the Isles. Relations with England improved with the Treaty of Perpetual Peace in 1502 and James's marriage to Margaret Tudor in 1503, which led to the Union of the Crowns in 1603.

The long period of domestic peace after 1497 allowed James to focus more on foreign policy, which included the sending of several of his warships to aid his uncle, John of Denmark, in his conflict with Sweden; amicable relations with the Pope, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and Louis XII of France; and James's aspiration to lead a European naval crusade against the Turks of the Ottoman Empire.[2] James was granted the title of Protector and Defender of the Christian Faith in 1507 by Pope Julius II.

When Henry VIII of England invaded France in 1513 as part of the Holy League, James chose the Auld Alliance with the French over the 'Perpetual Peace' with the English, and led a large army across the border into England. James and many of his nobles were killed at the Battle of Flodden on 9 September 1513, fighting against the English forces of Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII's wife and regent. James was the last monarch in Great Britain to be killed in battle, and was succeeded by his son James V.

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

John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, KG, PC, FSA Scot (/bjuːt/; 25 May 1713 – 10 March 1792), styled Lord Mount Stuart between 1713 and 1723, was a British nobleman who served as the Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1762 to 1763 under George III. He became the first Tory to hold the position and was arguably the last important royal favourite in British politics. He was the first prime minister from Scotland following the Acts of Union in 1707. He was also elected as the first president of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland when it was founded in 1780.

Early Life

Family

He was born in Parliament Close, near to St Giles Cathedral on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh on 25 May 1713, the son of James Stuart, 2nd Earl of Bute, and his wife, Lady Anne Campbell.[1] He attended Eton College from 1724 to 1730.[2] He went on to study civil law at the Universities of Groningen (1730–1732) and Leiden (1732–1734) in the Netherlands,[3][4] graduating from the latter with a degree in civil law.[5]

A close relative of the Clan Campbell (his mother was a daughter of the 1st Duke of Argyll), Bute succeeded to the Earldom of Bute (named after the Isle of Bute) upon the death of his father in 1723. He was brought up thereafter by his maternal uncles, the 2nd Duke of Argyll and Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of Argyll, 1st and only Earl of Ilay. In August 1735, he eloped with Mary Wortley Montagu, whose parents Sir Edward and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu were slow to consent to the marriage.[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart,_3rd_Earl_of_Bute

John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute (1713-1792)

The main influence on the education and early reign of George III, John Stuart, Earl of Bute, was briefly prime minister in the 1760s and quickly became one of the most vilified men in the British world. Burned in effigy (often represented by a jackboot) from London to Virginia, the Scottish Lord Bute was a powerful symbol of pervasive fears that hidden forces behind the throne were bent on corrupting the British constitution.

Bute was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on May 25, 1713, the oldest son of James, 2nd Earl of Bute, and Lady Anne Campbell, the daughter of the 1st Duke of Argyll. He was educated at Eton College and the University of Leiden. In 1737 Bute was elected one of the 16 Scottish representative peers in the House of Lords, but he rarely attended its sessions. He left Scotland for London in 1745 shortly after the outbreak of the Jacobite rebellion. There he became close to Frederick, the Prince of Wales, who was at the center of the political opposition to George II (Frederick's father). After Frederick's death in 1751, Bute became principal tutor to his oldest son, who would become George III.

It would be difficult to overstate Bute's influence on George III. Bute designed the curriculum that shaped the future king's thoughts on history, law, and politics, relying heavily on works such as a manuscript version of William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (not published until 1765) and Henry St. John Bolingbroke's The Idea of the Patriot King (1740). Bolingbroke's idealistic and highly flawed work largely ignores the practical challenges posed by the British constitution and its recent history, but it framed George III's perspective on his broader role as king. Bolingbroke stressed that a king's decisions should be guided by the interests of the nation, without regard to the politics of the day, and a king should choose ministers for their moral virtue rather than more mundane characteristics such as their ability to maintain a majority in the House of Commons. Bute's education plan for the future king led to an unsuccessful attempt in 1752 by Horace Walpole and other Whig leaders to have him removed from the position.

Walpole's fears proved well-founded when George III became king on October 25, 1760, and enacted ideas which resulted in an almost complete transformation — and destabilization — of British politics. It took only two days for George III to appoint Bute to the Privy Council; five months later Bute was named Secretary of State for the Northern Department. His rapid elevation caused confusion in the Cabinet, especially among William Pitt and his ministerial colleagues, who were focused on vigorously prosecuting the Seven Years War against France. The growing divide between Pitt and Bute reached a crisis point over strategy against Spain and over the terms of peace with France (the King and Bute wanted a quick end to the conflict, rather than a comprehensive one). Pitt consequently lost his hold over the Cabinet and resigned his office on October 5, 1761. Pitt's successor, the Duke of Newcastle, followed suit on May 26, 1762, over a dispute with the King and the isolationist Bute about whether to continue a subsidy to Prussia. The very next day, the King seized this opportunity and appointed Bute as First Lord of the Treasury and prime minister. Bute's 317 days at the head of the government would be among the most tumultuous of the century and lay much of the groundwork for the constitutional disputes which culminated in the American War for Independence.

Bute was immediately blasted by the London press as a conniving Scot and a Jacobite-leaning Tory who cared nothing for protecting the British constitution and its hard-won victories in the costly war. The Treaty of Paris that ended the Seven Years War was largely Bute's handiwork — and however skillfully negotiated and advantageous it was to Britain in hindsight, at the time it was derided by leaders such as Pitt and quickly turned into a political disaster for Bute. With the enormously popular Pitt now in opposition, the treaty became rich fodder for political writers such as John Wilkes. Wilkes' North Briton was launched specifically to attack Bute and the peace, and its writings helped establish the theme of constitutional corruption that fueled the political fears of radical Whigs in America and Britain. By the spring of 1763, Bute was the most hated man on both sides of the Atlantic and was attacked — often physically — almost everywhere he went. His decision to impose a cider tax in England led to widespread rioting. He also wanted to tax Americans to raise further revenue to pay for a permanent British army presence in the colonies (the Sugar Act and Stamp Act were eventually put forward by Bute's protégé and successor as Prime Minister, George Grenville).

Recognizing that his continuation in office would only make matters worse for the government, Bute resigned on April 8, 1763, and claimed to withdraw from political life. Rumors soon circulated that he remained George III's chief advisor, perhaps more influential out of office than he was in it. Considerable damage was done to British political culture when the rumors turned out to be true. Grenville demanded Bute's removal from the King's court, and the situation sparked rampant speculation that ministerial policies were the product of an unconstitutional conspiracy surrounding the throne. Pitt's return to office in 1766 effectively ended Bute's relationship with the King, although the myth that the constitution was being actively undermined by secret forces would taint transatlantic politics throughout the American Revolution, and Bute would remain a symbol of that corruption in satirical prints through the 1780s.

Except for a trip to Italy, Bute spent his long retirement from public life at his estate in Hampshire and used his considerable wealth to support Scotland's universities, including several endowed chairs at the University of Edinburgh. He also wrote a number of works on botany. One of his sons, Charles Stuart, fought for Britain in the American War for Independence from 1775 to 1779, eventually commanding the 26th Regiment of Foot. Bute died in London on March 10, 1792, and is buried in Rothesay on the Isle of Bute.

https://www.ouramericanrevolution.org/index.cfm/people/view/pp0049

The Crowns of America

So often one hears politicians quoting the British Constitution as if it actually exists by way of adocumentary privilege — but it does not. It is simply an accumulation of old customs and precedents concerning parliamentary sanctions, together with a number of specific laws defining certain aspects. Since Scotland's 1320 Declaration of Arbroath was nullified by England's Treaty of Union in 1707, the oldest Written Constitution now in force is that of the United States of America. It was adopted in 1787, ratified in 1788, and effected in 1789. In that same year began the French Revolution, which abolished feudalism and ‘absolute’ monarchy in France, thereby influencing politics in much of Europe. In close to 200 years since the Revolution, France and other European States (with Britain as a noticeable exception) have adopted Written Constitutions to protect the rights and liberties of individuals — but who champions these Constitutions on behalf of the people? A popular alternative to absolute monarchy or dictatorship has been found in Republicanism. The Republic of the United States was created primarily to free the emergent nation from the despotism of Britain’s House of Hanover. Yet its citizens tend still to be fascinated by the concept of monarchy. No matter how Republican the spirit, the need for a central symbol remains. Neither a flag nor a president can fulfil this unifying role, for by virtue of the ‘party system’ presidents are always politically motivated. Republicanism was devised on the principle of fraternal status, yet an ideally classless society can never exist in an environment that promotes displays of eminence and superiority by degrees of wealth and possession. For the most part, those responsible for the United States’ morally inspired Constitution were Rosicrucians and Freemasons, notable characters such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Charles Thompson. The last, who designed the Great Seal of the United States of America, was a member of Franklin’s American Philosophical Society — a counterpart of Britain’s Invisible College. The imagery of the Seal is directly related to alchemical tradition, inherited from the allegory of the ancient Egyptian Therapeutate. The eagle, the olive branch, the arrows, and the pentagrams are all occult symbols of opposites: good and evil, male and female, war and peace, darkness and light. On the reverse (as repeated on the dollar bill) is the truncated pyramid, indicating the loss of the Old Wisdom, severed and forced underground by the Church establishment. But above this are the rays of ever-hopeful light, incorporating the ‘all-seeing eye’, used as a symbol during the French Revolution.

In establishing their Republic, the Americans could still not escape the ideal of a parallel monarchy — a central focus of non-political, patriotic attachment. George Washington was actually offered kingship, but declined because he had no immediately qualifying heritage. Instead he turned to the Royal House of Stuart. In November 1782 four Americans arrived at the San Clemente Palazzo in Florence, the residence of Charles III Stuart in exile. They were Mr Galloway of Maryland, two brothers named Sylvester from Pennsylvania, and Mr Fish, a lawyer from New York. They were taken to Charles Edward by his secretary, John Stewart. Also present was the Hon Charles Hervey-Townshend (later Britain’s ambassador to The Hague) and the Prince's future wife, Marguerite, Comtesse de Massillan. The interview — which revolved around the contemporary transatlantic dilemma — is doctimented in the US Senate archives and in the Manorwater Papers. Writers such as Sir Compton Mackenzie and Sir Charles Petrie have also described the occasion when Charles Edward Stuart was invited to become ‘King of the Americans’. Some years earlier, Charles had been similarly approached by the men of Boston, but once the War of Independence was over George Washington sent his own envoys. It would have been a great irony for the House of Hanover to lose the North American colonies to the Stuarts. But Charles declined the offer for a number of reasons, not the least of which was his lack of a legitimate male heir at the time. He knew that without a due successor the United States could easily fall to Hanover again at his death, thereby defeating the whole Independence effort. Since those days, many other radical events have taken place: the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, two major World Wars, and a host of changes as countries have swapped one style of government for another. Meanwhile, civil and international disputes continue just as they did in the Middle Ages. They are motivated by trade, politics, religion, and whatever other banners are flown to justify the constant struggle for territorial and economic control. The Holy Roman Empire has disappeared, the German Reichs have failed, and the British Empire has collapsed. The Russian Empire fell to Communism, which has itself been disgraced and crumbled to ruin, while Capitalism teeters on the very brink of acceptability. With the Cold War now ended, America faces a new threat to her superpower status from the Pacific countries. In the meantime, the nations of Europe band together in what was once a seemingly well conceived economic community, but which is already suffering from the same pressures of individual custom and national sovereignty that beset the Holy Roman Empire. Whether nations are governed by military-style regimes or elected parliaments, by autocrats or democrats, and whether formally described as monarchist, socialist or republican, the net product is always the same: the few control the fate of the many. In situations of dictatorship this is a natural experience — but it should not be the case in a democratic institution based on the principle of majority vote. True democracy is government by the people for the people, in either direct or representative form, ignoring class distinctions and tolerating minority views. The American Constitution sets out an ideal for this form of democracy ... but, in line with other nations, there is always a large sector of the community that is not represented by the party in power. Because presidents and prime ministers are politically tied, and because political parties take their respective turns at individual helms, the inevitable result is a lack of continuity for the nations concerned. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but there is no reliable ongoing institution to champion the civil rights and liberties of people in such conditions of ever-changing leadership. Britain does, at least, retain a monarchy, but it is a politically constrained monarchy, and as such is ineffectual in performing its role as guardian of the nation. The United States, unlike Britain, has a Written Constitution — but has no one with the power to uphold its principles against successive governments who determinedly pursue their own politically vested interests. Is there an answer to the anomaly — an answer that could bring not just a ray of hope but a shining light for the future? There certainly is, but its energy relies on those in governmental service appreciating their roles as ‘representatives’ of society rather than presuming to stand at the head of society. Alongside the political administration, an appointed Constitutional champion would be empowered to keep check on any potential disparities and infringements of the Constitution that might occur. This can be achieved in the manner first envisaged by George Washington and the American Fathers. Their original plan was for a democratic Parliament combined with a working Constitutional Monarchy bound not to Parliament or the Church but to the people and their Written Constitution. In such an environment, sovereignty would ultimately rest with the people, while the monarch (as an operative Guardian of the Realm) would pledge an ‘Oath of Fealty to the Nation’ — not the reverse, as in Britain’s case, whereby the nation pays homage to the sovereignty of Parliament and the monarchy. The unfulfilled ambition of the American Fathers was that government ministers should be elected by the majority vote of the people, but that their actions be directed within the boundaries of the Constitution. Because that Constitution belongs to the people, its champion — as George Washington perceived — should be a monarch whose obligation is not to politics or religion but to the sovereign nation. Through the natural system of heredity (being born and bred to the task), such a Constitutional guardian would provide an ‘ongoing continuity’ of public representation through successive governments. In this regard both monarchs and ministers would be servants of the Constitution on behalf of the Community of the Realm. Such a concept of moral government lies at the very heart of the Grail Code, and it remains within the bounds of possibility for every civilized Nation State. A leading British politician recently claimed that it was not his job to be popular! Not so—a popular minister is a trusted minister, and holding a deserved electoral trust facilitates the democratic process. No minister can honestly expound an ideal of equality in society when that minister is deemed to possess some form of prior lordship over society. Class structure is always decided from above, never from below. It is therefore for those on self-made pedestals to be seen to kick them aside in the interests of harmony and unity. Jesus was not in the least humbled when he washed his Apostles’ feet; he was raised to the realm of a true Grail King — the realm of equality and princely service. This is the eternal ‘Precept of the Sangréal’, and it is expressed in Grail lore with the utmost clarity: only by asking ‘Whom does the Grail serve?’ will the wound of the Fisher King be healed, and the Wasteland returned to fertility.

pages 438-443 "The Sangreal Today"

Bloodline of the Holy Grail by Laurence Gardner

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zsH4O_ls0IgWEYXLXWCo7I3IUi32FJhq/view?usp=sharing 

James Ray Hart[2] (born January 1, 1944) is an American professional wrestling manager, executive, composer, and musician. He is currently signed to WWE in a Legends deal.[1] He is best known for his work in WWE when it was still known as the World Wrestling Federation (WWF; renamed WWE in 2002) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW), and used the nickname "the Mouth of the South" (one that was also given to Ted Turner).

Regarded by many to be one of the greatest managers in professional wrestling history, Hart has managed the likes of Andy Kaufman, The Honky Tonk Man, Bret Hart (no relation) and Jim Neidhart (The Hart Foundation), Greg "the Hammer" Valentine, Jerry "the King" Lawler, "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase, Irwin R. Schyster, The Mountie, The Natural Disasters, Dino Bravo, the Nasty Boys, The Giant, and Hulk Hogan. He was briefly the AWA Southern Heavyweight Champion in 1981.

Before becoming involved with professional wrestling, Hart was a member of rock band The Gentrys, best known for their 1965 top five Billboard Hot 100 hit, "Keep on Dancing".[3]

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

Keith Adonis Franke (September 15, 1953 – July 4, 1988) was an American professional wrestler better known by his ring name Adrian Adonis. He was best known for his appearances with the American Wrestling Association and World Wrestling Federation throughout the 1980s.

Adonis debuted in 1974 under his real name, until he adopted the Adrian Adonis name in the late 1970s. He later began working for the American Wrestling Association (AWA), forming a tag team with Jesse Ventura called the “East-West Connection,” winning the AWA World Tag Team Championship. They debuted for the World Wrestling Federation in late 1981, but Ventura stopped wrestling regularly due to injuries. After this, Adonis began teaming with Dick Murdoch as the “North-South Connection,” winning the WWF Tag Team Championship.

In 1986, Adonis underwent a gimmick change as an effeminate, flamboyant wrestler who wore pink clothing and garish makeup, adopting the “Adorable” Adrian Adonis name. He would be involved in a feud with Roddy Piper, which culminated in a hair vs. hair match at WrestleMania III. After he was fired in mid-1987, he made a brief return to the AWA and would make appearances in small promotions until his death in a car accident in 1988. His career was a subject of an episode of the fourth season of Viceland's documentary series, the Dark Side of the Ring, that aired in 2023.

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

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18, and the first edition was published anonymously in London on 1 January 1818, when she was 20. Her name first appeared in the second edition, which was published in Paris in 1821.

Shelley travelled through Europe in 1815, moving along the river Rhine in Germany, and stopping in Gernsheim, 17 kilometres (11 mi) away from Frankenstein Castle, where, two centuries before, an alchemist had engaged in experiments.[2][3][4][note 1] She then journeyed to the region of Geneva, Switzerland, where much of the story takes place. Galvanism and occult ideas were topics of conversation for her companions, particularly for her lover and future husband Percy Bysshe Shelley.

In 1816, Mary, Percy, John Polidori, and Lord Byron had a competition to see who wrote the best horror story.[5] After thinking for days, Shelley was inspired to write Frankenstein after imagining a scientist who created life and was horrified by what he had made.[6]

Frankenstein is infused with elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement, and the novel has had a considerable influence on literature and on popular culture, spawning a complete genre of horror stories, films, and plays. Since the publication of the novel, the name "Frankenstein" has often been used, erroneously, to refer to the monster, rather than to his creator/father.[7][8][9]

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

François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand[a] (26 October 1916 – 8 January 1996) was a French politician who served as President of France from 1981 to 1995, the longest holder of that position in the history of France. As a former Socialist Party First Secretary, he was the first left-wing politician to assume the presidency under the Fifth Republic.

Due to family influences, Mitterrand started his political life on the Catholic nationalist right. He served under the Vichy regime during its earlier years. Subsequently he joined the Resistance, moved to the left, and held ministerial office several times under the Fourth Republic. Mitterrand opposed Charles de Gaulle's establishment of the Fifth Republic. Although at times a politically isolated figure, he outmanoeuvered rivals to become the left's standard bearer in the 1965 and 1974 presidential elections, before being elected president in the 1981 presidential election. He was re-elected in 1988 and remained in office until 1995.

Mitterrand invited the Communist Party into his first government, which was a controversial decision at the time. In the event, the Communists were boxed in as junior partners and, rather than taking advantage, saw their support erode. They left the cabinet in 1984. Early in his first term, he followed a radical left-wing economic agenda, including nationalisation of key firms and the introduction of the 39-hour work week, but after two years, with the economy in crisis, he somewhat reversed course. He instead pushed a socially liberal agenda with reforms such as the abolition of the death penalty, and the end of a government monopoly in radio and television broadcasting. He faced major controversy in 1985 after ordering the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior, a Greenpeace vessel docked in Auckland. Mitterrand’s foreign and defense policies built on those of his Gaullist predecessors, except as regards their reluctance to support European integration, which he reversed. His partnership with German chancellor Helmut Kohl advanced European integration via the Maastricht Treaty, and he reluctantly accepted German reunification. During his time in office, he was a strong promoter of culture and implemented a range of costly "Grands Projets". He was the first French President to appoint a female prime minister, Édith Cresson, in 1991. Mitterrand was twice forced by the loss of a parliamentary majority into "cohabitation governments" with conservative cabinets led, respectively, by Jacques Chirac (1986–1988), and Édouard Balladur (1993–1995). Less than eight months after leaving office, he died from the prostate cancer he had successfully concealed for most of his presidency.

Beyond making the French Left electable, Mitterrand presided over the rise of the Socialist Party to dominance of the left, and the decline of the once-mighty Communist Party. (As a share of the popular vote in the first presidential round, the Communists shrank from a peak of 21.27% in 1969 to 8.66% in 1995, at the end of Mitterrand's second term.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Mitterrand

François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande (French: [fʁɑ̃swa ʒeʁaʁ ʒɔʁʒ nikɔla ɔlɑ̃d] ⓘ; born 12 August 1954) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2012 to 2017. Prior to his presidency, he was First Secretary of the Socialist Party (PS) from 1997 to 2008, Mayor of Tulle from 2001 to 2008, as well as President of the General Council of Corrèze from 2008 to 2012. Hollande also held the 1st constituency of Corrèze seat in the National Assembly twice, from 1988 to 1993 and again from 1997 until 2012.

Born in Rouen and raised in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hollande began his political career as a special advisor to newly elected President François Mitterrand, before serving as a staffer for Max Gallo, the government's spokesman. He became a member of the National Assembly in 1988 and was elected First Secretary of the PS in 1997. Following the 2004 regional elections won by the PS, Hollande was cited as a potential presidential candidate, but he resigned as First Secretary and was immediately elected to replace Jean-Pierre Dupont as President of the General Council of Corrèze in 2008. In 2011, Hollande announced that he would be a candidate in the primary election to select the PS presidential nominee; he won the nomination against Martine Aubry, before he was elected to the presidency (becoming also, ex officio, Co-Prince of Andorra) on 6 May 2012 in the second round with 51.6% of the vote, defeating incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy.

During his tenure, Hollande legalized same-sex marriage by passing Bill no. 344, reformed labour laws and credit training programmes, signed a law restricting the cumul des mandats, withdrew French forces in Afghanistan,[1][2] in addition to concluding an EU directive on the protection of animals in laboratory research through a Franco-German contract. Hollande led the country through the January and November 2015 Paris attacks, as well as the 2016 Nice attack. He was a leading proponent of EU mandatory migrant quotas and NATO's 2011 military intervention in Libya. He also sent troops to Mali and the Central African Republic with the approval of the UN Security Council in order to stabilise those countries, two operations however largely seen as failures. He drew controversy among his left-wing electoral base for supporting the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen.[3][4][5]

Under Hollande’s presidency, Paris hosted the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference and his efforts to bring the 2024 Summer Olympics to the city were successful. However, with domestic troubles – in particular due to Islamic terrorism – over the course of his tenure, and unemployment rising to 10%,[6] he faced spikes and downturns in approval rates, ultimately making him the most unpopular head of state under the Fifth Republic.[7][8] On 1 December 2016, he announced he would not seek reelection in the 2017 presidential election, for which polls suggested his defeat in the first round.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Hollande

Pope Francis (Latin: Franciscus; Italian: Francesco; Spanish: Francisco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio;[b] 17 December 1936) is the Pope and head of the Catholic Church, the bishop of Rome and sovereign of the Vatican City State. He is the first pope to be a member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), the first one from the Americas, the first one from the Southern Hemisphere, and the first one born or raised outside Europe since the 8th-century papacy of the Syrian Pope Gregory III.

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Bergoglio worked for a time as a bouncer and a janitor as a young man before training to be a chemist and working as a technician in a food science laboratory. After recovering from a severe illness of pneumonia and cysts, he was inspired to join the Jesuits in 1958. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1969, and from 1973 to 1979 was the Jesuit provincial superior in Argentina. He became the Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and was created a cardinal in 2001 by Pope John Paul II. He led the Argentine Church during the December 2001 riots in Argentina. The administrations of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner considered him to be a political rival.

Following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI on 28 February 2013, a papal conclave elected Bergoglio as his successor on 13 March. He chose Francis as his papal name in honour of Saint Francis of Assisi. Throughout his public life, Francis has been noted for his humility, emphasis on God's mercy, international visibility as pope, concern for the poor, and commitment to interreligious dialogue. He is credited with having a less formal approach to the papacy than his predecessors, for instance choosing to reside in the Domus Sanctae Marthae guesthouse rather than in the papal apartments of the Apostolic Palace used by previous popes.

Francis has made women full members of dicasteries in the Roman Curia.[2][3] He maintains that the Catholic Church should be more sympathetic toward members of the LGBT community and has permitted the blessings of same-sex couples, so long as the blessing does not resemble a marriage.[4] Francis is a critic of unbridled capitalism, consumerism, and overdevelopment;[5] he has made action on climate change a leading focus of his papacy.[6] Widely interpreted as denouncing the death penalty as intrinsically evil,[7] he has termed it "an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person", "inadmissible", and committed the Church to its abolition,[8] saying that there can be "no going back from this position".[9]

In international diplomacy, Francis has criticized the rise of right-wing populism, called for the decriminalization of homosexuality,[10] helped to restore full diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba, negotiated a deal with China to define how much influence the Communist Party has in appointing Chinese bishops, and has supported the cause of refugees during the European and Central American migrant crises, calling on the Western World to significantly increase immigration levels.[11][12] In 2022, he apologized for the Church's role in the "cultural genocide" of the Canadian indigenous peoples.[13] On 4 October 2023, Francis convened the beginnings of the Synod on Synodality, described as the culmination of his papacy and the most important event in the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council.[3][14][15]

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

Revelation 13:16-18

King James Version

16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2013%3A16-18&version=KJV

The Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran (formally named the "Major Papal, Patriarchal and Roman Archbasilica Cathedral of the Most Holy Savior and Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist in Lateran, Mother and Head of All Churches in Rome and in the World", and commonly known as the Lateran Basilica or Saint John Lateran)[c] is the Catholic cathedral of the Diocese of Rome in the city of Rome, and serves as the seat of the bishop of Rome, the pope. The archbasilica lies outside of Vatican City proper, which is located approximately four kilometres (2+1⁄2 miles) northwest. Nevertheless, as properties of the Holy See, the archbasilica and its adjoining edifices enjoy an extraterritorial status from Italy, pursuant to the terms of the Lateran Treaty of 1929.[a] Dedicated to the Christ, in honor of John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, the place name, Laterano (Lateran) comes from an ancient Roman family (gens), whose palace (domus) grounds occupied the site; the adjacent Lateran Palace was the primary residence of the pope until the Middle Ages.

The church is the oldest and highest ranking of the four major papal basilicas as well as one of the Seven Pilgrim Churches of Rome, holding the unique title of "archbasilica". Founded in 324, it is the oldest public church in the city of Rome, and the oldest basilica of the Western world.[1] It houses the cathedra of the Roman bishop,[2][3] and has the title of ecumenical mother church of the Catholic faithful. The building deteriorated during the Middle Ages and was badly damaged by two fires in the 14th century. It was rebuilt in the late 16th century during the reign of Pope Sixtus V. The new structure's interior was renovated in the late 17th century, and its façade was completed in 1735 under Pope Clement XII.

The current rector is Cardinal Archpriest Angelo De Donatis, Vicar General for the Diocese of Rome.[4] The president of the French Republic, currently Emmanuel Macron, is ex officio the "First and Only Honorary Canon" of the archbasilica, a title that the heads of state of France have possessed since King Henry IV.

The large Latin inscription on the façade reads: Clemens XII Pont Max Anno V Christo Salvatori In Hon SS Ioan Bapt et Evang. This abbreviated inscription translates as: "The Supreme Pontiff Clement XII, in the fifth year [of his Pontificate, dedicated this building] to Christ the Savior, in honor of Saints John the Baptist and [John] the Evangelist".[5] The inscription indicates, with its full title (see below), that the archbasilica was originally dedicated to Christ the Savior and, centuries later, rededicated in honor of Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist. Christ the Savior remains its primary dedication, and its titular feast day is 6 August, the Transfiguration of Christ. As the cathedral of the pope as bishop of Rome, it ranks superior to all other churches of the Catholic Church, including Saint Peter's Basilica.

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

Daniel 7:7-8

1599 Geneva Bible

7 After this, I saw in the visions by night, and behold, the [k]fourth beast was fearful and terrible and very strong. It had great [l]iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped [m]the residue under his feet: and it was unlike to the beasts that were before it: for it had [n]ten horns.

8 As I considered the horns, behold, there came up among them another little [o]horn, before whom there were [p]three of the first horns plucked away: and behold, in this horn were [q]eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking presumptuous things.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Daniel+7&version=GNV 

Sir Isaac Newton :: Chapter 6. Of the ten Kingdoms represented by the ten horns of the fourth Beast.

Part I. Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel.

Chap. 6.

Of the ten Kingdoms represented by the ten horns of the fourth Beast.

Now by the wars above described the Western Empire of the Romans, about the time that Rome was besieged and taken by the Goths, became broken into the following ten kingdoms.

1. The kingdom of the Vandals and Alans in Spain and Africa.

2. The kingdom of the Suevians in Spain.

3. The kingdom of the Visigoths.

4. The kingdom of the Alans in Gallia.

5. The kingdom of the Burgundians.

6. The kingdom of the Franks.

7. The kingdom of the Britains.

8. The kingdom of the Hunns.

9. The kingdom of the Lombards.

10. The kingdom of Ravenna.

Seven of these kingdoms are thus mentioned by Sigonius. Honorio regnante, in Pannoniam Hunni, in Hispaniam Vandali, Alani, Suevi & Gothi, in Galliam Alani Burgundiones & Gothi, certis sedibus permissis, accepti. Add the Franks, Britains, and Lombards, and you have the ten: for these arose about the same time with the seven. But let us view them severally.

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/newton_isaac/prophecies/daniel06.cfm

"All historians acknowledge the ascendancy of the popes began in 308 A.D., when King Clovis of the Salian or Merovingian Franks (later France), won the decisive battle in the Catholic and Arian religious war, thereby settling the dispute in favor of the Catholics. But the popes' temporal reign officially began in the year 538 A.D. when Roman Emperor Justinian subdued the last of the three kingdoms, or "horns," that opposed the rise of the Papacy."

-page 137

Chapter 19 "Exposed (Again): 1260 Years of World Domination

Codeword Barbelon book 2 by P.D. Stuart

https://www.facebook.com/billy.dunn.50767/posts/pfbid035xnEp3Ly2wiUwdPzYuyuedPDSdcSEVe8gzHxCZfovqX8epcgRL4v7RbqwVsjavD3l

Frankenstein - Edgar Winter Group | The Midnight Special

Jan 25, 2024

The Edgar Winter Group performed on September 7, 1973

Frankenstein - Edgar Winter Group | The Midnight Special - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzCn8rQvyOo 

St. John Lateran Basilica in Rome is considered the mother church of all the Catholic churches in the Western world; inscribed on the church facade for all to see are the Latin words “omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum mater et CAPUT,” meaning, “The mother and HEAD of all the churches of the city and of the world.”

https://www.simplycatholic.com/st-john-lateran-basilica/#:~:text=John%20Lateran%20Basilica-,St.,city%20and%20of%20the%20world.%E2%80%9D

"Hugh Capet got the name "Capet" as a nickname, and despite popular belief, it was not used as a surname of any sort during the king's lifetime. The etymological origins of the name Capet are unknown. It is hypothesized that the name comes either from Latin CAPUT, meaning "HEAD", and means "chief""

https://homework.study.com/explanation/how-did-hugh-capet-get-his-name.html#:~:text=Hugh%20Capet%20got%20the%20name,%22chief%22%20or.

"In the second prelude, for Chief- Gene ral read highest Leader, and for captain read leader. For the first Leader the Spanish Autograph has Captain General, and for the second (leader), caudillo ; the former title expressing, as Father Rothaan remarks, a Commander-in-Chief of lawful warfare, the latter designating rather the leader of a faction, and being often used in a bad sense, as of a captain of robbers or malefactors. In order to express in some measure this distinction, he has made use of the terms Dux Generalis (LeaderGeneral) and CAPUT (HEAD) in his literal Version. The Common Version makes no distinction ; and hence, in order to render this Version with strict faithfulness, must read, both here and in the next two paragraphs, leader instead of captain, although (as the reader will already have perceived) this latter is the term which erceived) this latter is the term which corresponds the more nearly with the Spanish original. In all three places Father Rothaan has caput : in the third prelude he has again Dux instead of Imperator : see above. In the first point, in order to be strictly with the Common Version, readier?/ and smoky chair in stead of chair offire and smoke ; although this latter is what the Autograph has, a certain great chair of fire and smoke, " in which", observes Father Rothaan, there is no solidity, no true glory, but mere agitation and perpetual disturbance joined with thick darkness"; And this image", he adds, " exhibits the evil spirit such as he is, but not such as he offers himself to men's minds."

The Spiritual Exercises of Loyola

https://ia600303.us.archive.org/3/items/a588350800loyouoft/a588350800loyouoft.pdf

The Crown of Ba'al and Master Trusts of the World

The Crown of Ba'al, also known as the Papal Tiara and Triregnum is a three-tiered jewelled papal crown and symbol of claimed papal supremecy since the 16th Century. Since the 16th Century, it has featured prominently as part of the coat of arms of the Vatican, usually with the crossed keys of claims of authority from St Peter. Any text or other claim that alleges the three-tiered crown is older than the 16th Century is deliberately false.

Prior to Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303) the antipopes of the Roman Cult wore fabric, not metallic headdress, similar to the Persian High Priests of Mithra. However in 1302 Boniface issued his infamous Papal Bull Unam Sanctam, being the first Express Trust claiming control over the whole planet and effectively "King of the world". In celebration, he commissioned a gold plated headdress in the shape of a pinecone, with an elaborate crown at its base.

The pinecone is an ancient symbol of fertility and one traditionally associated with Ba'al as well as the Cult of Cybele.

The 1st Crown of Crown Land

While Pope Boniface VIII was the first leader in history to create the concept of a Trust, the first Testamentary Trust through a deed and will creating a Deceased Estate was not until Pope Nicholas V in 1455 through the Papal Bull Romanus Pontifex. This is only one of three (3) papal bulls to include the line with the incipit "For a perpetual remembrance." This Bull had the effect of conveying the right of use of the land as Real Property from the Express Trust Unam Sanctam to the control of the Pontiff and his successors in perpetuity. Hence, all land is claimed as "crown land".

This 1st Crown is represented by the 1st cestui Que Vie Trust created when a child is born, depriving them of all their beneficial entitlements and rights on the land at birth.

The 2nd Crown of the Commonwealth

The second Crown was created in 1481 with the papal bull Aeterni Regis meaning "Eternal Crown" by Sixtus IV being only the 2nd of three papal bulls as deeds of testamentary trusts.

This Papal Bull created what is known as the "Crown of Aragon", later known as the Crown of Spain, being the highest sovereign and highest steward of all Roman Slaves subject to the rule of the Roman Pontiff. Spain lost the crown in 1604 when it was granted to King James I of England by Pope Paul V after the successful passage of the "Union of Crowns" or Commonwealth in 1605 after the false flag operation of the Gunpowder Plot.

The Crown was finally lost by England in 1975 when it was returned to Spain and King Carlos I, where it remains to this day.

This 2nd Crown is represented by the 2nd cestui Que Vie Trust created when a child is born being the sale of the birth certificate as a Bond to the private central bank of the nation, depriving them of ownership of their flesh and condemning them to perpetual servitude as a Roman person, or slave.

The 3rd Crown of the Ecclesiastical See

The third Crown was created in 1537 by Paul III through the papal bull Convocation also meant to open the Council of Trent being the third an final testamentary deed and will of a testamentary trust, being the trust set up for the claiming of all "lost souls", lost to the See.

The Venetians assisted in the creation of the 1st cestui Que Vie Act of 1540 to use this papal bull as the basis of Ecclesiastical authority of Henry VIII. This Crown was secretly granted to England in the collection and "reaping" of lost souls.

The Crown was lost in 1815 due to the deliberate bankruptcy of England and granted to the Temple Bar, which became known as the Crown Bar, or simply the Crown.

The Bar Associations have been responsible ever since in administering the "reaping" of the souls of the lost and damned, including the registration and collection of Baptismal certificates representing the souls collected by the Vatican and stored in its vaults.

This 3rd Crown is represented by the 3rd cestui Que Vie Trust created when a child is baptized being the grant of the Baptismal certificate by the parents to the church or Registrar being the gift of title of the soul. Thus, without legal title over one's own soul, a man or woman may be "legally" denied right to stand as a person, but may be treated as a creature and thing without legally possessing a soul. Hence, why the Bar Association is able to legally enforce Maritime law against men and women- because they can be treated as things, cargo that does not possess a soul.

http://www.friendware.net/final_writs_rome/final_writs_Master_Trusts.html

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

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

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

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

WWF 9 11 Twin Towers Predictive Programming Illuminati Satanic Lighting Bolt WWE WCW NWO Exposed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQhaRjh3QXI

The Esoteric Meaning of the Twin Pillars Boaz & Joachim

Masonic Life  Masonic News  Within the craft

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

By: R∴W∴Robert Palazzo, DDGM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Two Pillars

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

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

A Gateway

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

The Pillars of Hercules guarding the passage towards the unknown.

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

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

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

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

In Freemasonry

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

– 1 Kings Chapter 7

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Esoteric Meaning

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Qabbalistic Meaning

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

page 221

The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms

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

LESSON 38-232

 The Our Father

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

 desiring what its petitions express.

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

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

 because we belong to Him, our loving Father, who

 created us and watches over us, who adopts us

 through sanctifying grace as His children, and who

 destines us to live forever with Him in heaven, our

 true home.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 God may be known and honored by all men.

 The name represents the person. God's

 name represents God Himself. The first

 desire of love is that God should be

 known, loved, and honored by all. Hal

lowed means "acknowledged as holy

 and all-perfect." The four Hebrew letters

 spell "Jahweh," meaning "I am who

 am" (Ex. 3, 13-14).

 "This is 

My name forever'

 (Ex. 3, 15).

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

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

 the kingdom of God's grace may be spread through

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

 to enter the true Church and to live as worthy mem

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

 to the kingdom of God's glory. ^

THE NEW

 Saint Joseph

 Baltimore

 Catechism

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

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

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

Grove, Cornelius Lee

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED291653 

Pope Francis urges people to get vaccinated against Covid-19

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

By Devin Watkins

August 18 2021

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

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

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

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

Vaccination is an act of love

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

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

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

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

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

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

Listen to our report

‘Strength of faith’

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

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

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

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

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

Safe, effective vaccines

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unity across the Americas

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

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

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

A TRULY MYSTIC SEAL 

THE GREAT SEAL OF THE UNITED STATES AND ITS MYSTIC SIGNIFICANCE 

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

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

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

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

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

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

FUNDAMENTAL LAWS 

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

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

Pope Francis (Latin: Franciscus; Italian: Francesco; Spanish: Francisco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio;[b] 17 December 1936) is the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State. He is the first pope to be a member of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuit Order), the first from the Americas and the Southern Hemisphere, and the first born or raised outside Europe since the 8th-century papacy of the Syrian pope Gregory III.

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Bergoglio worked for a time as a bouncer and a janitor before training to become a chemist and working as a technician in a food science laboratory. After recovering from a severe case of pneumonia and cysts, he was inspired to join the Jesuits in 1958. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1969; from 1973 to 1979, he was the Jesuit provincial superior in Argentina. He became the archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and was created a cardinal in 2001 by Pope John Paul II. He led the Argentine Church during the December 2001 riots in Argentina; the administrations of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner considered him to be a political rival.

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

Arturo Marcelino Sosa Abascal SJ (born 12 November 1948) is a Venezuelan Catholic priest who serves as the 31st and present superior general of the Society of Jesus. He was elected by the Society's 36th General Congregation on 14 October 2016, succeeding Adolfo Nicolás. He is the first person born in Latin America to lead the Jesuits.

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

[William Cooper]: And, now, you know the final truth, ladies and gentlemen. Now you know the purpose of the free trade agreements. Now you know the purpose of GATT and NAFTA. Now you know where we're headed. Now you know the middle class in this country is doomed. Now you know that the New World Order is being brought about by the intelligence community and the secret societies, whose headquarters are in the United States of America, just thirteen blocks from the White House. Now you know, in the incredible admissions, in their own writing, in this book, published by the Ancient Order of the Rose and Cross. Now you know that the Illuminati is real; that Freemasonry is a part of the Illuminati; that the Rose and Cross is a part of the Illuminati; that they are also called the Order, the Brotherhood; that they also consist of the Knights Templars; they also consist of the Knights of Malta and all of the other secret societies whose organizational structure is in the shape of the pyramid, with a few at the top who really know what the Great Work and the Great Plan is. And a whole bunch of slathering idiots thirsting after the secrets on the bottom, who will never, ever, know anything. 

[William Cooper]: Are the cockroaches scattering? If this broadcast doesn't do it nothing will. If this doesn't wake you up, nothing will. If you don't understand now, the eighteen hours of the series that I've aired on the Mystery Schools, you will never understand it, now or in the future. If you don't know where we are headed now, then you never will. 

[William Cooper]: If you are not concerned now, then you have already placed the chains upon your ankles and you have already watched freedom fly. If this broadcast does not do it, nothing will. This is the last voice of freedom. This is the only revelatory media source in the world today. The Hour of the Time is the only outlet for truth left upon this earth. 

[William Cooper]: Ladies and gentlemen, what you have heard tonight is the final parting of the curtain. It is the opening of the last door that was to be opened. It is the final understanding of where we have been, where we are at and where we are going. It is the light. It is the Illumination in the darkest corners. You are looking at the forbidden fruit. You have heard tonight what you were never to hear, what has been forbidden for thousands of years. You now know what the Great Work is. You know who is bringing it about. 

[William Cooper]: You, too, can find this book if you search hard enough. And the incredible admissions that are contained within it will give you the ammunition and the armor to march out here on the battlefield with me, and many others, who are trying to stop what is coming. 

[William Cooper]: Remember what Mr Swinburne said at the end of his article and I'll read that too you again: "May it not be long until the Holy Pyramid shall be completed and may it be completed without the shedding of blood. Lovingly given, R. Swinburne Clymer. 'Beverly Hall,' Quakertown, Pennsylvania, July 6th, 1916." And I am telling you now, their goal is to destroy all other religions save theirs, destroy all existing nation states save theirs, and shackle the mob, and that is you. 

Good night, dear listeners, and God bless you all.

68th Convocation of the Rose Cross Order (aired May 11th, 1993)

https://viefag.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/transcripts-of-william-cooper-s-mystery-babylon-series.pdf 

Our democracy

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Chair Jaime Harrison (via Democrats.org) Unsubscribe

 

Mon, Jan 6, 9:21 AM

 

to me

DemocratsJoin us.

William,

Four years ago, the world watched as Donald Trump inspired a violent mob to storm our Capitol, attacking law enforcement and threatening our democratic institutions.

Today, we especially remember the 140 officers who were injured on January 6 and those who lost their lives due to the Capitol attack. We reaffirm our commitment to making sure this kind of violent attack on our democracy never happens again.

What happened on January 6, 2021, was an assault on one of America’s most fundamental freedoms: the right to have your vote counted in a free and fair election.

The peaceful transfer of power is a hallmark of our democracy — especially when elections do not turn in our favor.

And while our democracy has prevailed, it’s up to all of us to remain vigilant in defending the values our country was founded on. As this new administration begins, we must make sure our democratic processes and institutions continue to function in service of the American people, no matter who wins and loses.

To do this, we cannot let up for even a minute. The Democratic National Committee has made historic investments in protecting voters nationwide and electing Democrats who will fight for what is right. No matter who our president is and who controls Congress, that work continues.

If you are able, I hope you’ll consider making a contribution to support these efforts.

Today and every day, thank you for being a part of this work.

Jaime

Jaime Harrison

Chair

Democratic National Committee

Chair Jaime Harrison

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Mon, Jan 6, 10:46 AM

 

to feedback

the reality is your democracy or republic keeps everyone at each others throats because democracy is neverending battle where no one in this life can have peace because American insurrection attacking democracy while soldiers are defending the democracy overseas, what a sick demented retarded hypocrisy this democracy is and you all prove the vindictiveness and when you gaslight and play stupid while lacing emails and speech with clues you are no better than the Jesuit Nazi that burned Jews in ovens in Nazi Germany. This democracy is in insane debt and your idea of a bettering economy is to go to war! 

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2

Case No. 25 PO 00002 3G

PO Rec No.: 323314

254400044

FILED

2025 JAN-7 PM 4:58 JUSTICE PEACE

IN THE JUSTICE COURT OF DAYTON TOWNSHIP

3

4

JOSHUA JAMES COX

5

Applicant,

VS.

6

BILLY DUNN

7

Adverse Party.

8

COUNTY OF LYON, STATE OF NEVADA

TEMPORARY PROTECTION ORDER AGAINST STALKING OR HARASSMENT

9

Expiration: This order was issued by the Court above on January 7, 2025 and will expire

10

on FEBRUARY 21, 2025 at 11:59 pm unless the Court orders otherwise. Hearing to Extend:

11

12

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

There will be a hearing to determine whether to extend this order on FEBRUARY 18, 2025 at 3:00 pm at the Court listed above.

If you do not attend, the court may rule against you.

The Applicant filed a verified application for a protective order. The Court has jurisdiction over this matter. See NRS 200.591, et seq. The Court finds that stalking, aggravated stalking and/or harassment has occurred. Accordingly, and good cause appearing, it is the ORDER of the Court that the following orders apply to the Adverse Party:

1. YOU ARE PROHIBITED from threatening, physically injuring, or harassing the

Applicant and/or the following persons:

Protected Parties: The following persons are protected under this order: Applicant: JOSHUA JAMES COX

2. YOU ARE ORDERED to not contact the protected parties at all in any way,

including but not limited to in person, by phone/text, by email, or through social

media.

3. YOU ARE ORDERED to stay away from Applicant's residence located at: 2024 LONNIE LANE, DAYTON, NV 89403

20

02020 Nevada Supreme Court

Temporary Protection Order Against Stalking or Harassment (Revised October 2020)

Page 1 of 3

8.

7.

6.

How do you know the person you need protection from (check all that apply)?

We are related by blood or marriage. Explain We are or used to be friends/acquaintances.

We are

neighbors

or reside in the same

We are or were co-workers.

Other: (specify relationship):

in any court?

neighborhood.

Are there any other current or prior court cases that involve you and the Adverse Party

No.

Yes. If you know, please list the case type, county, state, and case number:

Firearms/Guns.

Does the Adverse Party own a gun or have a gun in his/her possession or control?

No

Yes

I don't know.

Most Recent Event. Think about the most recent event. These questions ask about the most recent event only.

Approximate date it happened:

City/State/Location where it happened:

Did the other person use or threaten to use a weapon? No Yes.

What Happened? Explain the most recent event and describe any injuries. Give specific and detailed information about the event. You can list past events on the next page. If you are filing on behalf of a child, include details about who happened to the child.

I WAS LEAVING CALIFORNIA ON JANUARY 2ND WHEN THE CFO

AT MY JAR MESSAGED ME AND

ASKED ME TO MEET HER IN HER OFFICE SOMETIME THAT WEEK. I INFORMED HER THAT I WAS OUT OF TOWN BUT WOULD BE THERE IN THE MORNING (JANUARY 3RD). I ASKED WHAT IT WAS ABOUT AND

02020 Nevada Supreme Court

Application for Protection Order

(Revised October 2020)

Page 3 of 8

SHE SAID THAT SOMEONE THAT SHE DIDN'T KNOW WAS TEXTING HER AND 14 OTHER PHONE NUMBERS. AND THEY SENT HER A VIDEO ALSO, BILLY DUNN who RESIDES AT 2031 LONNIE LANE WAS THE PERSON THE OWNERS SENDING THE TEXTY AND VIDEO, HE SENT THESE TO AND FAMRY MEMBERS THAT HE IS STALKING, HARASSING AND CYBER BULLYING ME AND OTHER PEOPLE ONLINE. HE MIGHT DO: IT IS ESCALATING AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT ELSE

EMPLOY ME.

Attach more pages if you need more room (pages 4a, 4b, 4c).

C2020 Nevada Supreme Court

Application for Protection Order (Revised October 2020)

Page 4 of 8

9.

Past Event(s).

Think about any other times the person you want protection from threatened or abused you happened. and/or the child/children. The following questions ask about any past events that may have

Approximate Date:

What Happened:

JUNE 12TH 2024 I GOT HOME

FROM WORK AND MY NEIGHBOR APPROACHED WE AND ASKED IF I SAW A POST THAT BILLY SUNN HAD POSTED ON A TACEBOOK GROUP (RE DAYTON NEVADA JOB SEEKERS). I TOLD HIM NO I HAVEN'T SEEN IT AND ASKED TO SEE IT HE HAD AN A. I., APP ASE TO MAKE A STORY ABOUT ME COMMITTING SUICIDE. I HAVE REPORTED THE VIDEOS ONLINE, BUT I KNOW IT ISN'T ENDUGH AND MY FAMILY AND EMPLOYERS AFE WORRIED FOR ME AND WHAT HE MIGHT DO NEXT!

Approximate Date: What Happened:

10. Law enforcement involvement.

Was law enforcement informed?

No

Yes

a. If so, please provide a copy of the police incident report Was anyone arrested? No Yes (Who),

Is the Adverse Party in jail? A No

Yes

C2020 Nevada Supreme Court

Application for Protection Onder (Revised October 2020)

Page 5 of 8  

About Extended Protection Orders:

This application automatically asks the judge to issue up to a 45-day temporary protection order without notifying the other person first.

You can also ask for an extended order that could last for up to 2 years.

If you do, the judge will set a hearing. You and the other person will have to appear in court and explain your side before the judge can extend the protection order.

12.

Length of Protection Order.

X

I want an order up to 45 days only.

I want an order up to 45 days PLUS an extended order that could last up to 2

years.

13. Other Exhibits. You may attach documents, pictures, or anything else that you would like the judge to look at and consider when reviewing your application. The Adverse Party will receive a copy of all documents/evidence you provide.

Describe what you are attaching: Phoras OF TEXTS TO MY EMPLOYER AND PICTURES POSTED ON SOCIAL MEDIA OF ME ALONG WITH THE FICTITIOUS STORY HE HAD MADE AND POSTED. POLICE REPORT FILED ONLINE ALSO.

14. This document does not contain the personal information of any person as defined by NRS 603A.040.

I declare under penalty of perjury under the law of the State of Nevada that the foregoing is true and correct.

Dated MONDAY JAMY 6, 2025.

Submitted by:

Adh

Toster

(your signature)

Joshut J. Cox

(print your name)

VERIFICATION

I declare that I am the applicant in the above-entitled action; that I have read the foregoing application and know the contents thereof; that the pleading is true of my own knowledge, except for those matters therein contained stated upon information and belief, and that as to those matters, I believe them to be true. I declare under penalty of perjury under the law of the State of Nevada that the foregoing is true and correct.

Dated MONDAY ANUARY 6, 2025.

Submitted

by: Vacher

©2020 Nevada Supreme Court

Page 8 of 8

(your signature)

Joshua J. Cox

(print your name)

Application for Protection Order (Revised October 2020)

On January 6, 2021, the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., was attacked by a mob[40][41][42] of supporters of then-president Donald Trump in an attempted self-coup d'état,[43] two months after his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. They sought to keep him in power by preventing a joint session of Congress from counting the Electoral College votes to formalize the victory of the president-elect Joe Biden. The attack was ultimately unsuccessful in preventing the certification of the election results. According to the bipartisan House select committee that investigated the incident, the attack was the culmination of a seven-part plan by Trump to overturn the election.[44][45] Within 36 hours, five people died: one was shot by the Capitol Police, another died of a drug overdose, and three died of natural causes, including a police officer who died of natural causes a day after being assaulted by rioters.[d][35][46] Many people were injured, including 174 police officers. Four officers who responded to the attack died by suicide within seven months.[36] Damage caused by attackers exceeded $2.7 million.[47]

Encouraged by Trump,[48][49] on January 5 and 6, thousands of his supporters gathered in Washington, D.C., to support his false claims that the 2020 election had been "stolen by emboldened radical-left Democrats",[50][51][52][53] and to demand that then-vice president Mike Pence and Congress reject Biden's victory.[54] Starting at noon on January 6 at a "Save America" rally on the Ellipse,[55] Trump gave a speech in which he repeated false claims of election irregularities[56] and said, "If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore".[57][58] As Congress began the electoral vote count, thousands of attendees, some armed, walked to the Capitol, and hundreds breached police perimeters.[59][60] Among the rioters were leaders of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers militia groups.[61]

The FBI estimates that between 2,000 and 2,500 people entered the Capitol Building during the attack,[62][63][64] some of whom participated in vandalism and looting,[65][66] including in the offices of then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Congress members.[67] Rioters also assaulted Capitol Police officers[68] and journalists.[69] With building security breached, Capitol Police evacuated and locked down both chambers of Congress and several buildings in the Complex.[70] Rioters occupied the empty Senate chamber while federal law enforcement officers defended the evacuated House floor.[71][72] Pipe bombs were found at both the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee headquarters, and Molotov cocktails were discovered in a vehicle near the Capitol.[73][74] Trump resisted sending the National Guard to quell the mob.[75] Later that afternoon in a Twitter video,[76] he restated false claims about the election and told his supporters to "go home in peace".[77][78] The Capitol was cleared of rioters by mid-evening,[79] and the electoral vote count was resumed and completed by the early morning of January 7, concluding with Pence declaring the final electoral vote count in favor of President-elect Biden and Vice president-elect Kamala Harris. Pressured by his cabinet, the threat of removal, and many resignations, Trump later conceded to an orderly transition of power in a televised statement.[80][81]

A week after the attack, the House of Representatives impeached Trump for incitement of insurrection, making him the only U.S. president to be impeached twice.[82] In February, after Trump had left office, the Senate voted 57–43 in favor of conviction, but fell short of the required two-thirds, resulting in his acquittal.[83] Senate Republicans blocked a bill to create a bipartisan independent commission to investigate the attack,[84][68] so the House instead approved a select investigation committee.[e][85][86] They held nine televised public hearings on the attack,[87] voted to subpoena Trump,[88] and recommended that the Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecute him. Following a special counsel investigation, Trump was in August 2023 indicted on four charges,[89][90] which were all dismissed in November 2024, following his reelection to the presidency.[91]

Trump and elected Republican officials have promoted a revisionist history of the event by downplaying the severity of the violence, spreading conspiracy theories, and portraying those charged with crimes as hostages and martyrs.[92]

As of May 2024, of the 1,424 people then charged with federal crimes relating to the event[93] 1,010 pled guilty,[93] and 1,060 have been sentenced, 64% of whom received a jail sentence.[93] Some participants in the attack were linked to far-right extremist groups or conspiratorial movements, including the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and Three Percenters,[94][95] some of whom were convicted of seditious conspiracy.[96] Enrique Tarrio, then the chairman of the Proud Boys, received the longest sentence, a 22-year prison term.[97]

On January 20, 2025, upon taking office, Trump granted clemency to all January 6 rioters, including members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers along with those who violently assaulted police.[26]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capitol_attack 

Cox Report

The Report of the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China, commonly known as the Cox Report after Representative Christopher Cox, is a classified U.S. government document reporting on the People's Republic of China's covert operations within the United States during the 1980s and 1990s. The redacted version of the report was released to the public on May 25, 1999.

Committee created by the U.S. House of Representatives

The report was the work product of the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China. This special committee, created by a 409–10 vote of the U.S. House of Representatives on June 18, 1998, was tasked with the responsibility of investigating whether technology or information was transferred to the People's Republic of China that may have contributed to the enhancement of the nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles or to the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction.

A similar investigation had already begun in the U.S. Senate under the leadership of Senator Fred Thompson (Republican-Tennessee). Thompson had opened his hearings on China's influence in America's 1996 presidential and congressional elections 11 months earlier (on July 8, 1997).

The Chairman of the committee was Republican Rep. Christopher Cox of California, whose name became synonymous with the committee's final report. Four other Republicans and Democrats served on the panel, including Representative Norm Dicks, who served as the ranking Democratic member. The committee's final report was approved unanimously by all 9 members. The redacted version of the report was released to the public May 25, 1999.

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

A famous Jesuit General Michael Angelo Tambourini once boasted, in 1720, to the Duke of Brissac: " See, My Grace  [my Lord], from this room, I govern not only Paris, but China; not only China, but the whole world, without anyone knowing how it is managed."

"Andrew Steinmetz, History of the Jesuits, Vol. 1 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Lea and Blanchard Publ.,/New York: Richard Bentley, 1848), pp.107, 168-169; see also, Constitution of the Jesuits, edited by Paris Paulin (1843); Eugene Sue (Marie Joseph), The Wandering Jew, (London: Chapman and Hall, 1844/ New York; Harper & Brothers,, 1845), Bk I, Chap. XV, P. 183; see also, p. 618, and Bk. II, p. 21; Abrige de I'Hist. Eccles. de Racine, Chap. xii. P. 77." page 129 Chapter XII "Unhesitating Obedience: The General And The Holy Office" Codeword Barbelon book One by P.D. Stuart

"Steinmetz was fourteen years a Jesuit; see also, Constitutions of the Jesuits, ed. by P. Paulin (1843); Morale Pratique Des Jesuites: Histoire De La Persecution De deux Saints, Vol. I (Cologne, 1669), pp. 50 and 51." "Epilogue-For Such A Time As This"

Pope Francis Lord of the World 

by P.D. Stuart 

Pope meets Jimmy Fallon and 105 other comics at Vatican

By Malu Cursino, BBC News

Pope Francis has met with more than 100 comedians from across the world, including Jimmy Fallon, Chris Rock and Whoopi Goldberg, at the Vatican in Rome.

The Pope said comedians have the "power to spread serenity and smiles" in a world where people are immersed in "many social and personal emergencies".

"You unite people because laughter is contagious," he added.

The entertainers were hosted in the Vatican hours before the pontiff was expected in Puglia for the G7 summit.

During the audience with 107 comedians from 15 countries, the Pope praised their ability to make people smile.

"You can also laugh at God, of course, and that's not blasphemy," the pontiff told comedians, adding that "it can be done without offending the religious feelings of believers".

According to reports on US media, comedian Jimmy Fallon was seen larking around the front of the audience hall before proceedings got under way - he was reportedly quickly told take his seat as the pope was due to walk through the door.

Fallon was joined by other big names in the entertainment industry, including US comedian Chris Rock, Italy's Silvio Orlando, and British actor and comedian Stephen Merchant.

Comedian Whoopi Goldberg, well known for Sister Act, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, from hit-show Veep, were also in attendance.

The cultural event preceded the pope's appearance at the G7 in the southern Italian region of Puglia - the first time a leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics attends the summit of the world's seven largest advanced economies.

The 87-year-old pontiff has called for global regulation of AI, warning of its danger to ethics and human rights.

In reference to current global events, the pope told comedians that while communication today "often generates conflict," the entertainers are able to bring together diverse realities.

"How much we need to learn from you," he added.

After the audience the Pope met briefly with each comedian, exchanging a few words with each - though some interactions were somewhat one-way.

"Well it was brief, he spoke in Italian, so I'm not quite sure what was said," quipped late-night host Conan O'Brien.

"It was quick... I had a wonderful time," he added.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c722vd9274yo

Deadpool is a character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Fabian Nicieza and Rob Liefeld, the character first appeared in New Mutants #98 (December 1990). In his comic book appearances, Deadpool is initially depicted as a supervillain of the New Mutants and X-Force, though later stories would portray him as an antihero. Deadpool is the alter ego of Wade Wilson, a disfigured Canadian mercenary with superhuman regenerative healing abilities. He is known for his tendency to joke incessantly and break the fourth wall for humorous effect.

The character's popularity has seen him featured in numerous other media outlets. In the 2004 series Cable & Deadpool, he refers to his own scarred appearance as "Ryan Renolds [sic] crossed with a Shar Pei".[7][8] Reynolds developed an interest in portraying the character after reading the comic,[9] which was ultimately realized in the X-Men film series, including X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), Deadpool (2016), and its sequels Deadpool 2 (2018) and Marvel Cinematic Universe's Deadpool & Wolverine (2024),[10][11][12][13] in the latter of which Blake Lively, Matthew McConaughey, Paul Mullin, Nathan Fillion, Peggy, and Reynolds' children Inez and Olin portray alternate universe variants of Deadpool.

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

Deadpan, dry humour, or dry-wit humour[1] is the deliberate display of emotional neutrality or no emotion, commonly as a form of comedic delivery to contrast with the ridiculousness or absurdity of the subject matter. The delivery is meant to be blunt, ironic, laconic, or apparently unintentional.

Etymology

The term deadpan first emerged early in the 20th century, as a compound word (sometimes spelled as two words) combining "dead" and "pan" (a slang term for the face). It appeared in print as early as 1915, in an article about a former baseball player named Gene Woodburn written by his former manager Roger Bresnahan. Bresnahan described how Woodburn used his skill as a ventriloquist to make his manager and others think they were being heckled from the stands. Woodburn, wrote Bresnahan, "had a trick of what the actors call 'the dead pan.' He never cracked a smile and would be the last man you would suspect was working a trick."[2][3]

George M. Cohan, in a 1908 interview, had alluded to dead pans without using the actual term "deadpan". Cohan, after returning from a trip to London, told an interviewer that "the time is ripe for a manager to take over about a dozen American chorus girls and wake up the musical comedy game. The English chorus girls are dead–their pans are cold.”[4]

The Oxford English Dictionary cites a 1928 New York Times article as having the first appearance of the term in print.[5] That article, a collection of film slang compiled by writer and theatrical agent Frank J. Wilstach, defines "dead pan" as "playing a role with expressionless face, as, for instance, the work of Buster Keaton."[6] There were several other uses of the term, in theater and in sports, between the 1915 Bresnahan article and the 1928 article in the Times.[3]

The usage of deadpan as a verb ("to speak, act, or utter in a deadpan manner; to maintain a dead pan") is recorded at least as far back as 1942.[5]

Examples

See also: List of deadpan comedians

Rat Pack comedians Joey Bishop and Brad Jewell, noted for their deadpan style, with Jennie and Terrie Frankel (Doublemint Twins), Sig Sakowicz, Tony Diamond, Sara Sue, Tippi Hedren and Mel Bishop

The English music hall comedian T. W. Barrett, working in the 1880s and 1890s, is credited with being the first to perform in a deadpan manner, standing completely still and without a smile.[7]

Early in his vaudeville days, Buster Keaton developed his deadpan expression. Keaton realised that audiences responded better to his stony expression than when he smiled, and he carried this style into his silent film career.[8] The 1928 Vitaphone short film The Beau Brummels, with vaudeville comics Al Shaw and Sam Lee, was performed entirely in deadpan.[9] The 1980 film Airplane! was performed almost entirely in deadpan;[10] it helped relaunch the career of one of its supporting actors, Leslie Nielsen, who transformed into a prolific deadpan comic after the film.[11] Actor and comedian Bill Murray is known for his deadpan delivery.[12]

Many popular American sitcoms use deadpan expressions to deliver dry humour, including Curb Your Enthusiasm, Arrested Development, and My Name Is Earl. More recent examples are Andre Braugher as Captain Raymond Holt from the TV show Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Matthew Perry as Chandler Bing in Friends, Nick Offerman as Ron Swanson and Aubrey Plaza as April Ludgate in Parks and Recreation, Jennette McCurdy as Sam Puckett in iCarly, and Louis C.K. in Louie. Another example is the comedy of Steven Wright.[13]

Deadpan delivery runs throughout British humour.[14] In television sitcoms, John Cleese as Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers and Rowan Atkinson as Edmund Blackadder in Blackadder are both frustrated figures who display little facial expression in their put-downs.[15] Atkinson also plays authority figures (especially priests) while speaking absurd lines with a deadpan delivery. Monty Python include it in their work, such as "The Ministry of Silly Walks" sketch.[16] For his deadpan delivery Peter Sellers received a BAFTA for Best Actor for I'm All Right Jack (1959). A leading figure of the British satire boom of the 1960s, Peter Cook delivered deadpan monologues in his double act with Dudley Moore.[17] In his various roles Ricky Gervais often draws humour from an exasperated sigh.[18] While in his various guises such as Ali G and Borat, the comedian Sacha Baron Cohen interacts with unsuspecting subjects not realising they have been set up for self-revealing ridicule; on this The Observer states, "his career has been built on winding people up, while keeping a deadpan face."[19]

Dry humour is often confused with highbrow or egghead humour, because the humour in dry humour does not exist in the words or delivery. Instead, the listener must look for humour in the contradiction between words, delivery and context. Failure to include the context or to identify the contradiction results in the listener finding the dry humour unfunny. However, the term "deadpan" itself actually refers only to the method of delivery.

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

"The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was created under the National Security Act of 1947, which President Truman signed on July 26, 1947. The CIA officially came into existence on September 18th that same year, which is when we celebrate our birthday.

With the passage of the 1947 Act, Truman achieved his goals of modernizing and unifying America’s armed services, and, by creating a centralized intelligence agency, reformed our intelligence capabilities. To protect American’s civil liberties, he made sure to clearly divide intelligence roles between domestic and foreign: FBI would handle anything domestic, while CIA was limited to foreign intelligence only. Furthermore, the Act specified that CIA would have no police, subpoena, or law enforcement powers.

President Truman appointed Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter as the first CIA director, known as the Director of Central Intelligence. He had been the Director of one of our immediate “ancestors,” called the Central Intelligence Group. The CIG was a bureaucratic anomaly with no independent budget, no statutory mandate, and staffers assigned from other departments of the government. America needed a peacetime, centralized intelligence agency with its own budget and mandate. That’s why Truman replaced the CIG and created the CIA.

The 1947 Act loosely defined CIA’s mission into four broad tasks:

The 1947 Act was relatively unchanged until 2004. President Bush, after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, made major updates to the 1947 act, including the creation of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

If you’re interested, you can find out more about what is called “the National Security Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of December 2004” on the DNI’s website.

The importance of the 1947 National Security Act cannot be overstated. It created our Nation’s first peacetime intelligence agency, reflected America’s acceptance of its position as a world leader, and it remained a cornerstone of our national security policy for 75 years… and counting.

~ Molly

https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/ask-molly-the-national-security-act-of-1947/

Molly

fem. proper name, a diminutive of Moll, which is a familiar form of Mary.

molly (n.1)

a common 18c. colloquial term for "homosexual man" or "man who is deemed effeminate, a sissy," by 1707, perhaps 1690s. The fem. proper name Molly or Moll served as a type-name of a low-class girl or prostitute in old songs and ballads (perhaps in part for the sake of the easy rhymes).

But the colloquial word also resembles Latin mollis "soft," which also had been used classically in a specific pejorative sense in reference to men, "soft, effeminate, unmanly, weak," in Cicero, Livy, etc. A 1629 publication from the Catholic-Protestant theological disputes, "Truth's triumph ouer Trent," written in English with swerves into Latin, at one point describes the denizens of Hell as fideles fornicarios, adulteros, molles, and so forth, and molles is translated parenthetically in the text as "effeminate." Molly House as a term for a brothel frequented by gay men is attested in a court case from 1726.

also from 18c.

molly (n.2)

seabird, 1857, short for mollymawk, mallemuck, from Dutch mallemok, from mal "foolish" + mok "gull."

also from 1857

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

Operation Mockingbird is an alleged large-scale program of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that began in the early years of the Cold War and attempted to manipulate domestic American news media organizations for propaganda purposes. According to author Deborah Davis, Operation Mockingbird recruited leading American journalists into a propaganda network and influenced the operations of front groups. CIA support of front groups was exposed when an April 1967 Ramparts article reported that the National Student Association received funding from the CIA.[1] In 1975, Church Committee Congressional investigations revealed Agency connections with journalists and civic groups.

In 1973, a document referred to as the "Family Jewels"[2] was published by the CIA containing a reference to "Project Mockingbird", which was the name of an operation in 1963 which wiretapped two journalists who had published articles based on classified material.[3] The document does not contain references to "Operation Mockingbird".[4]

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

Kodashim (Hebrew: קׇדָשִׁים‎, romanized: Qoḏāšim, lit. 'holy things') is the fifth of the six orders, or major divisions, of the Mishnah, Tosefta and the Talmud, and deals largely with the services within the Temple in Jerusalem, its maintenance and design, the korbanot, or sacrificial offerings that were offered there, and other subjects related to these topics, as well as, notably, the topic of kosher slaughter.

Topics

This Seder (order, or division) of the Mishnah is known as Kodashim (“sacred things” or “sanctities”), because it deals with subjects connected with Temple service and ritual slaughter of animals (shehitah). The term kodashim, in the Biblical context, applies to the sacrifices, the Temple and its furnishings, as well as the priests who carried out the duties and ceremonies of its service; and it is with these holy things, places and people that Kodashim is mainly concerned. The title Kodashim is apparently an abbreviation of Shehitat Kodashim ("the slaughter of sacred animals") since the main, although not the only subject of this order is sacrifices.[1][2][3]

The topics of this Seder are primarily the sacrifices of animals, birds, and meal offerings, the laws of bringing a sacrifice, such as the sin offering and the guilt offering, and the laws of misappropriation of sacred property. In addition, the order contains a description of the Second Temple (tractate Middot), and a description and rules about the daily sacrifice service in the Temple (tractate Tamid). The order also includes tractate Hullin, which concerns the slaughter of animals for non-sacrificial use, as well as other dietary laws applying to meat and animal products. Although Hullin is about the slaughter of animals for non-sacrificial, and therefore unsanctified purposes, because the rules about the proper slaughter of animals and birds, and their ritual fitness for use were considered to be an integral part of the concept of holiness in Judaism, they were also included in the order regarding “holy things”.[2][3]

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

And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

Revelation 18:2

Zevachim (“Sacrifices”), with FOURTEEN chapters, and originally called Shehitat Kodashim ("slaughtering of the holy animals") deals with the sacrificial system of the Temple period, namely the laws for animal and bird offerings, and the conditions which make them acceptable or not, as specified in the Torah, primarily in the book of Leviticus (Lev 1:2 and on).[1][2][4]

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

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

page 221

The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms

A Complete English Translation of the Official Latin Texts

THE INSTITUTE OF JESUIT SOURCES

SAINT LOUIS, 1996

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

14 And deceived them that dwell on the earth by the signs which were permitted to him to do in the sight of the beast, saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make the [t]image of the [u]beast, which had the wound of a sword, and did live.

Revelation 13:14

Himmler used the Jesuits as the model for the SS, since he found they had the core elements of absolute obedience and the cult of the organisation.[59][60] Hitler is said to have called Himmler "my Ignatius of Loyola".[59] As an order, the SS needed a coherent doctrine that would set it apart.[61] Himmler attempted to construct such an ideology, and deduced a "pseudo-Germanic tradition" from history.[61] Himmler dismissed the image of Christ as a Jew and rejected Christianity's basic doctrine and its institutions.[62] Starting in 1934, the SS hosted "solstice ceremonies" (Sonnenwendfeiern) to increase team spirit within their ranks.[63] In a 1936 memorandum, Himmler set forth a list of approved holidays based on pagan and political precedents meant to wean SS members from their reliance on Christian festivities.[64] In an attempt to replace Christianity and suffuse the SS with a new doctrine, SS-men were able to choose special Lebenslauffeste, substituting common Christian ceremonies such as baptisms, weddings and burials. Since the ceremonies were held in small private circles, it is unknown how many SS-members opted for these kind of celebrations.[65]

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

The large Latin inscription on the façade reads: Clemens XII Pont Max Anno V Christo Salvatori In Hon SS Ioan Bapt et Evang. This abbreviated inscription translates as: "The Supreme Pontiff Clement XII, in the fifth year [of his Pontificate, dedicated this building] to Christ the Savior, in honor of Saints John the Baptist and [John] the Evangelist".[5] The inscription indicates, with its full title (see below), that the archbasilica was originally dedicated to Christ the Savior and, centuries later, rededicated in honor of Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist. Christ the Savior remains its primary dedication, and its titular feast day is 6 August, the Transfiguration of Christ. As the cathedral of the pope as bishop of Rome, it ranks superior to all other churches of the Catholic Church, including Saint Peter's Basilica.

Name

The archbasilica's Latin name is Archibasilica Sanctissimi Salvatoris ac Sancti Ioannis Baptistae et Ioannis Evangelistae ad Lateranum,[6] which in English is the Archbasilica of the Most Holy Savior and Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist at the Lateran, and in Italian Arcibasilica [Papale] del Santissimo Salvatore e Santi Giovanni Battista ed Evangelista in Laterano.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archbasilica_of_Saint_John_Lateran#Lateran_Palace

From modest beginnings the SS (Schutzstaffel; Protection Squadrons), became a virtual state within a state in Nazi Germany, staffed by men who perceived themselves as the “racial elite” of Nazi future.

In the Nazi state, the SS assumed leading responsibility for security, identification of ethnicity, settlement and population policy, and intelligence collection and analysis. The SS controlled the German police forces and the concentration camp system. The SS conceived and implemented plans designed to restructure the ethnic composition of eastern Europe and the occupied Soviet Union.

From 1939, the SS assumed responsibility for “solving” the so-called Jewish Question; after 1941, its leadership planned, coordinated and directed the so-called Final Solution of the Jewish Question. This “solution” was the annihilation of the European Jews, which we now refer to as the Holocaust

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/ss

2 §1. The character and charism of the Society of Jesus arise from the Spiritual Exercises which our holy father Ignatius and his companions went through. Led by this experience, they formed an apostolic group rooted in charity, in which, after they had taken the vows of chastity and poverty and had been raised to the priesthood, they offered themselves as a HOLOCAUST to God,[2] so that serving as soldiers of God beneath the banner of the cross and serving the Lord alone and the Church his spouse under the Roman Pontiff, the vicar of Christ on earth,[3] they would be sent into the entire world[4] for the defense and propagation of the faith and for the progress of souls in Christian life and doctrine. [5]

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

The ratlines (German: Rattenlinien) were systems of escape routes for German Nazis and other fascists fleeing Europe from 1945 onwards in the aftermath of World War II. These escape routes mainly led toward havens in the Americas, particularly in Argentina, though also in Paraguay, Colombia,[1] Brazil, Uruguay, Mexico, Peru, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Bolivia, as well as the United States, Canada, Australia, Spain, and Switzerland.

There were two primary routes: the first went from Germany to Spain, then Argentina; the second from Germany to Rome, then Genoa, then South America. The two routes developed independently but eventually came together.[2] The ratlines were supported by rogue elements in the Vatican, particularly an Austrian bishop and four Croatian clergy of the Catholic Church who sympathized with the Ustaše.[3][4][5] Starting in 1947, U.S. Intelligence utilized existing ratlines to move certain Nazi strategists and scientists.[6]

While consensus among Western scholars is that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler died by suicide in 1945, in the late 1940s and 1950s the U.S. investigated claims that he survived and fled to South America..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratlines_(World_War_II)

20. It is better and safer to make alliance and amity with [Moslem] Turks, [Communist] Infidels, or [Talmudic and anti-Torah, Zionist] Jews, than with [Reformation Bible-believing] Heretic Protestants [and Baptists], because they may draw us into the errors of their novelties. {1}

Absolutist Papal Maxims of the Jesuits

Qetesh (also Qodesh, Qadesh, Qedesh, Qetesh, Kadesh, Kedesh, Kadeš or Qades /ˈkɑːdɛʃ/) was a goddess who was incorporated into the ancient Egyptian religion in the late Bronze Age. Her name was likely developed by the Egyptians based on the Semitic root Q-D-Š meaning 'holy' or 'blessed,'[2] attested as a title of El and possibly Athirat and a further independent deity in texts from Ugarit.[3]

Due to lack of clear references to Qetesh as a distinct deity in Ugaritic and other Syro-Palestinian sources, she is considered an Egyptian deity influenced by religion and iconography of Canaan by many modern researchers, rather than merely a Canaanite deity adopted by the Egyptians (examples of which include Reshef and Anat)[4][5]

Character

In Egyptian religion, the functions of Qetesh are hard to determine due to lack of direct references, but her epithets (especially the default one, "lady of heaven") might point at an astral character, and lack of presence in royal cult might mean that she was regarded as a protective goddess mostly by commoners. Known sources do not associate her with fertility or sex, and theories presenting her as a "sacred harlot" are regarded as obsolete in modern scholarship due to lack of evidence.[6]

Her epithets include "Mistress of All the Gods", "Lady of the Stars of Heaven", "Beloved of Ptah", "Great of magic, mistress of the stars", and "Eye of Ra, without her equal".[7] A connection with Ptah or Ra evident in her epithets is also known from Egyptian texts about Anat and Astarte.[8][9]

Iconography

Stele of Qetesh / Kadesh, Dynasty XIX (1292–1186 BC), Museo Egizio

Qetesh wearing the headdress of Hathor and standing on a lion; she holds a lotus flower and a snake and is flanked by Min on the left and Resheph on the right (Louvre).

On a stele representing the deity, Qetesh is depicted as a frontal nude (an uncommon motif in Egyptian art, though not exclusively associated with her), wearing a Hathor wig and standing on a lion, between Min and the Canaanite warrior god Resheph. She holds a snake in one hand and a bouquet of lotus or papyrus flowers in the other.[10][11]

Origin

Early researchers attempted to prove Qetesh was simply a form of a known Canaanite deity, rather than a fully independent goddess. William F. Albright proposed in 1939 that she was a form of the "lady of Byblos" (Baalat Gebal), while René Dussard suggested a connection to "Asherat" (e.g. the biblical Asherah) in 1941. Subsequent studies tried to find further evidence for equivalence of Qetesh and Asherah, despite dissimilar functions and symbols.[12]

The arguments presenting Qetesh and Asherah as the same goddess rely on the erroneous notion that Asherah, Astarte and Anat were the only three prominent goddesses in the religion of ancient Levant, and formed a trinity.[13] However, while Ashtart (Astarte) and Anat were closely associated with each other in Ugarit, in Egyptian sources, and elsewhere,[14][15] there is no evidence for conflation of Athirat and Ashtart, nor is Athirat associated closely with Ashtart and Anat in Ugaritic texts.[16] The concept of Athirat, Anat and Ashtart as a trinity and the only prominent goddesses in the entire region (popularized by authors like Tikva Frymer-Kensky) is modern and ignores the large role of other female deities, for example Shapash, in known texts, as well as the fact El appears to be the deity most closely linked to Athirat in primary sources.[17][18] One of the authors relying on the Anat-Ashtart-Athirat trinity theory is Saul M. Olyan (author of Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel) who calls the Qudshu-Astarte-Anat plaque "a triple-fusion hypostasis", and considers Qudshu to be an epithet of Athirat by a process of elimination, for Astarte and Anat appear after Qudshu in the inscription.[19][20]

Modern egyptologists, such as Christiane Zivie-Coche, do not consider Qetesh to be a hypostasis of Anat or Astarte, but a goddess developed in Egypt possibly without a clear forerunner among Canaanite or Syrian goddesses, though given a Semitic name and associated mostly with foreign deities.[21]

In popular culture

Qetesh is the name given to the Goa'uld that once possessed Vala Mal Doran, a recurring and then regular character in Seasons 9 and 10, respectively of the science fiction television series Stargate SG-1.

Qetesh is also the name used in The Sarah Jane Adventures episode Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith, and confirmed to be the humanoid species (also known as "soul-stealers") of Ruby White (the episode's villain) who feeds off excitement and heightened emotion and have stomachs that live outside their bodies.

Moreover is Qadesh, also called Qwynn, a character in Holly Roberds' fantasy novel "Bitten by Death", published in 2021.

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

What It Means:

"Kadosh" is the Hebrew word for "holy," but it goes beyond just being sacred or set apart. It signifies something that is entirely devoted to God, pure, and distinct from the ordinary.

Why It Matters:

This term is a cornerstone of the Hebrew Bible and frequently appears in passages that describe God’s nature and His expectations for His people. When God is described as "Kadosh," it emphasizes His ultimate purity and separation from all that is common. It's not just about reverence; it’s about living in a way that reflects God’s holiness in our own lives.

Fun Fact:

In Isaiah 6:3, the seraphim around God's throne declare, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty" ("Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh"). This triple repetition highlights the supreme and unparalleled holiness of God, making it a central aspect of divine praise. It’s as if they're shouting, "God is incredibly, utterly holy!"

In ancient Israel, the most sacred place ever is the Temple site in Jerusalem. Perched on a high hill in the heart of the holiest city, it was the ultimate example of setting something aside for special protection. Inside the Temple’s inner chamber, known as the Holy of Holies, was where the presence of the Lord was believed to reside.

What About You?:

Is there something special in your spiritual life that you cherish and want to protect? Maybe it’s a personal ritual, a cherished belief, or a special moment of connection that you hold dear?

Note 345.—'*As to the history of the Kadosh degree, it is said tg have been first invented at Lyons, in France, in 1743. where it appeared under the name of the Petit Elu. This degree, which is said to have been based upon the Templar doctrine heretofore referred to, was afterwards developed into the Kadosh, which we find in 1758 incorporated as the Grand Elect Kadosh into the system of the Council of Emperors of the East and West, which was that year formed at Paris, whence it descended to the Scottish Rite Masons. Of all the Kadoshes. two only ai*e now important, viz.: the Philosophic Kadosh, which Kas been adopted by the Grand Orient of France, and the Knight Kadosh, which constitutes the thirtieth degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, this latter being the most generally diffused of the Kadoshes."—Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, Article Kadosh.

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 " RITE OF PEEPECTION" ^THE " EITE OF HEEEDOM" THE " ANCIENT SCOTTISH rite"—THE " RITE OF KILWINNING" AND LAST, AS THE " SCOTTISH RITE, 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

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

A Complete English Translation of the Official Latin Texts

THE INSTITUTE OF JESUIT SOURCES

SAINT LOUIS, 1996

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

I began by attending Fordham University in the Bronx, mostly because I wanted to be close to home. I got along very well with the Jesuits who ran the school, but after two years, I decided that as long as I had to be in college, I might as well test myself against the best. I applied to the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania and I got in. At the time, if you were going to make a career in business, Wharton was the place to go. Harvard Business School may produce a lot of CEOs—guys who manage public companies— but the real entrepreneurs all seemed to go to Wharton: Saul Steinberg, Leonard Lauder, Ron Perelman—the list goes on and on."

The Art of the Deal

Donald Trump

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DLcbnLrl6moQT7nGj1JitG6AiQ6qgK0y/view?usp=sharing

University of Scranton welcomes President Biden

The university has illuminated its Class of 2020 Gateway in red and blue lights.

Author: WNEP Web Staff

Published: 10:52 PM EDT October 19, 2021

Updated: 10:52 PM EDT October 19, 2021

SCRANTON, Pa. — In preparation for President Joe Biden's visit, a university lit up their lights in his honor.

The University of Scranton has illuminated its Class of 2020 Gateway in blue and red with the number 46 prominently displayed to welcome the 46th president."

University of Scranton welcomes President Biden | wnep.com

https://www.wnep.com/article/news/local/lackawanna-county/university-of-scranton-welcomes-president-biden-gateway-lights/523-cdba68b1-822b-4747-94be-4cd7e4de9d67

"His son, Hunter Biden, 38, is a longtime federal lobbyist for the Jesuit university located in his father's hometown, Scranton PA. According to federal disclosures, Hunter Biden has been earning about $80,000 a year since 2006 to lobby for this university. Senator Biden himself has lectured at the Jesuit University of Scranton, and received an honorary degree from the same university, in 1976."

Codeword Barbelon by P.D. Stuart 

Trump is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement (again), reversing U.S. climate policy

January 21, 2025 5:00 AM ET

By

Nate Perez,

Rachel Waldholz

President Donald Trump is withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement — again.

Under the international climate accord, first negotiated in 2015, countries around the world agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to limit global warming and forestall the worst impacts of climate change.

Trump has argued the agreement imposes unfair burdens on the American economy, and he withdrew the U.S. during his first term in office. The U.S. officially rejoined under President Joe Biden in 2021.

On Monday, Trump started the process over again, signing an order onstage before supporters at the Capital One Arena, just hours after taking office.

"I'm immediately withdrawing from the unfair, one-sided Paris climate accord rip-off," he said during earlier remarks, to loud cheers from the audience. "The United States will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity."

An aerial view of oil storage containers near the Chevron Pasadena Refinery in June 2024 in Pasadena, Texas. The U.S. is the world's largest oil producer. President Trump says he is declaring a national energy emergency as one of his first acts in office.

Politics

Trump has declared a 'national energy emergency.' What does that mean?

China is currently the largest global emitter of greenhouse gases, though it also leads the world in the deployment of renewable energy. U.S. emissions have been decreasing since the mid-2000s, but it remains the largest historical contributor of total carbon dioxide emissions.

The move to exit the Paris Agreement wasn't a surprise, given that Trump's campaign signaled the departure months ago.

But it comes after the hottest year on record, as major wildfires are still burning in Los Angeles, and just months after devastating hurricanes hit communities from Florida to North Carolina. Climate change is increasing the risk from hurricanes, driving more extreme rainfall, and making more intense and destructive wildfires more likely.

:A woman tries to cool off with a fan that spray water to refresh people during a hot day as the National Weather Service on Monday issued a warning due to hot weather that will remain in effect until Wednesday night in New York City, United States on July 15, 2024.

Climate

2024 was the hottest year on record. The reason remains a science mystery

Environmental groups harshly criticized the decision. Rachel Cleetus, policy director for the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental watchdog group, said the human and economic consequences of climate change will only grow if the U.S. doesn't do its part to limit warming.

"Even now…we're seeing these droughts, storms, heat waves, flooding, sea level rise accelerating," Cleetus said. "It is just stunning already the kinds of impacts that are unfolding."

Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation and an architect of the Paris Agreement, said in a statement that the U.S. pulling out of the deal is unfortunate. But, she said, international climate action "has proven resilient and is stronger than any single country's politics and policies."

"This moment should serve as a wake-up call to reform the system, ensuring that those most affected – communities and individuals on the front lines – are at the center of our collective governance," Tubiana said.

An ambitious global tool — that has so far fallen short

Under the Paris Agreement, nearly every country in the world agreed to a goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.

But the world is not currently on track to meet these goals. Last year was the hottest in human history, as global average temperatures hovered around that 1.5 degree Celsius level of warming.

Greenhouse gases reach a new record as nations fall behind on climate pledges

Climate

Greenhouse gases reach a new record as nations fall behind on climate pledges

As part of the Paris Agreement's terms, countries submit targets for emissions reductions and provide periodic updates on their progress. Before Biden left office, he announced a new U.S. goal: to cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than 60% from peak levels by 2035, a goal that would likely require a rapid transition away from fossil fuels. That target is now moot.

In the order signed Monday, Trump directed his U.N. ambassador to submit formal notice of the U.S. exit. (Trump's nominee for ambassador to the U.N., New York Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, has not yet been confirmed by the Senate.) While the order says U.S. withdrawal will be effective "immediately" once notice is given, the Paris Agreement itself stipulates that the process takes a full year.

Though Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement during his first term in office, it wasn't easy to leave. The administration was bound by restrictions on exiting the accord during its first few years. It ultimately took nearly four years before the U.S. was actually out of the agreement, said David Waskow, who leads  international climate policy and politics at the World Resources Institute.

"That is very different this time," Waskow said.

Leaving the accord could prove damaging, Waskow said, by potentially sidelining the U.S. from some clean energy and green tech markets and reducing leverage with other countries. That could hamper some of Trump's broader economic goals for the U.S.

Trump has been hostile to many renewable energy initiatives and other climate measures, including efforts to promote electric vehicles. His nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, acknowledged the reality of human-caused climate change in his confirmation hearing, but has indicated the Trump administration would seek to roll back many environmental regulations.

Revoking Biden-era climate efforts

Trump also issued a barrage of other orders Monday aimed at boosting fossil fuels and undoing Biden-era initiatives to limit greenhouse gas emissions. He declared a national energy emergency and revoked many of Biden's executive orders on climate change. New orders instruct agencies to roll back restrictions on offshore drilling and reconsider protections for Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Trump also issued a moratorium on new wind power projects on federal lands, pausing new leases and permits for both onshore and offshore wind farms. He revoked an executive order that compelled government regulators to assess the risks of climate change to the financial system. And he instructed agencies to review any regulations that might "burden the development of domestic energy resources."

That could include major Biden administration climate policies, including EPA rules limiting emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants and new fees on methane emissions from the oil and gas industry.

https://www.npr.org/2025/01/21/nx-s1-5266207/trump-paris-agreement-biden-climate-change

Fulcanelli’s main strategy, the key to unraveling the mystery, lies in an understanding of what he calls the “phonetic law” of the “spoken cabala,” or the “language of the birds.” This punning, multilingual wordplay can be used to reveal unusual and, according to Fulcanelli, meaningful associations between ideas. “What unsuspected marvels we should find, if we knew how to dissect words, to strip them of their bark and liberate the spirit, the divine light which is within,” Fulcanelli writes. He claims that in our day this is the natural language of the outsiders, the outlaws and heretics at the fringes of society. (See appendix A, “Fulcanelli on the Green Language,” for the complete text of this chapter.) 6 This spoken cabala was also the “green language” of the Freemasons (“All the Initiates expressed themselves in cant,” Fulcanelli reminds us) who built the art gothique of the cathedrals. “Gothic art is in fact the art got or art cot —χοτ—the art of light or of the spirit,” Fulcanelli informs us. Ultimately the “art got,” or the “art of light,” is derived from the language of the birds, which seems to be a sort of Ur-language taught by both Jesus and the ancients."

The Mysteries of the Great Cross

by Jay Weidner

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vrxcBcn4h7RRM2SA3X1SS1DsooSxfitI/view?usp=sharing

How to Speak Ignatian: Common words and phrases of the Society of Jesus

Adapted from “How to Speak Loyola,” a glossary developed by the Office of Mission &

Identity, Loyola University, Chicago.

Microsoft Word - How to Speak Ignatian.doc (jesuithighschool.org)

https://www.jesuithighschool.org/sites/main/files/file-attachments/how_to_speak_ignatian_0.pdf

Hollywood Work Was Already Drying Up. Then the Fires Hit.

The wildfires have given new urgency to discussions about how to revive one of Los Angeles’s defining, and dominant, industries: film and television production.

The Hollywood sign seen from the distance, with smoky haze over the hills.

The Hollywood sign was shrouded in smoke this month as several wildfires burned across Southern California. Credit...Loren Elliott for The New York Times

By Nicole Sperling and Matt Stevens

Nicole Sperling and Matt Stevens reported from Los Angeles.

Jan. 26, 2025

Even before the devastating wildfires, Hollywood was struggling.

Squeezed by studio cutbacks and competition from other states and countries, film and television production in the Los Angeles region had already fallen to a near-record low last year, imperiling the livelihoods of not just casts and crews but also the caterers, drivers and many others who depend on the entertainment industry. Some, seeing their work dry up, were leaving for other states that have lured productions with tax credits.

Then the fires swept through, dealing yet another blow to a region, and an industry, that had been buffeted in recent years by a pandemic and then strikes that halted production amid a rapidly changing entertainment landscape. The Southern California fires have given new urgency to efforts by state and local officials to keep Los Angeles a place where films and television shows are made, and not just greenlit by studio executives to be shot elsewhere.

At stake is the future of a defining industry that helps make Los Angeles a vibrant creative capital, employing tens of thousands of workers in a wide variety of fields — people like John W. Rutland, a cinematographer, and his wife, Marta Gené Camps, a television writer.

Just a week before the fires the couple had been looking over their mortgage documents. They wanted to reassure themselves that even though work had grown sparse, the equity in their three-bedroom home was on the rise. Then the Eaton fire rampaged through the eclectic art hamlet of Altadena, burning their pet chickens, destroying their home and leaving them with “a worthless strip of charred land,” as Rutland described it.

Image

The rubble of a burned home under a smoky sky.

The home of John W. Rutland, a cinematographer, and his wife, Marta Gené Camps, a television writer, was destroyed in the Eaton fire.Credit...John Rutland

“Who knows when it’ll be safe to come build again?” asked Rutland, 44. “And if we want to build again?”

As Los Angeles begins to think about how to rebuild homes and whole neighborhoods that were reduced to rubble, officials are renewing their efforts to revive local film and television production. Even after recent setbacks, the region remains the business’s epicenter. The entertainment industry contributes more than $115 billion annually to the regional economy, local officials estimate, and helps sustain 681,000 jobs in a wide variety of fields.

But things have not been going well for some time. Still reeling from the long shutdowns and extended periods of unemployment during Covid, the business ground to a halt for another six months in 2023 when the writers and actors went on strike.

After production resumed, studios retrenched, effectively ending the peak television era. The number of television series produced in the United States last year fell for the second year in a row, and are down 23 percent since 2022, according to a study by Luminate.

Image

Camps, Rutland and their daughter, Sofia. “Who knows when it’ll be safe to come build again?” asked Rutland. “And if we want to build again?”Credit...Alex Welsh for The New York Times

Image

Rutland salvaged a commemorative plate from when he was born.Credit...Alex Welsh for The New York Times

The slowdown has had a big impact in Los Angeles. Location shoots in the region fell last year to its second-lowest total on record, behind only 2020, the year the pandemic stopped work, according to FilmLA, the film permitting office. The number of location shooting days in the region has dropped 40 percent since reaching a high in 2016, according to data from the office. Reality TV has seen an especially steep decline, it reported.

The fires underscored how few major movies are being filmed in Hollywood these days. When the blazes erupted, only two movies from major studios were affected — because only two movies were shooting in Los Angeles at the time.

Local officials said Los Angeles was losing productions to other nations and other states, including Georgia and New Mexico, which have wooed them with generous tax incentives. A survey by the The New York Times last year found that 38 states offer such incentives, and have spent more than $25 billion attracting productions over the past two decades. Most economists consider such subsidies a poor investment for states, but the programs continue to be popular with legislatures and studios, and have lured many productions from Los Angeles.

“More and more jurisdictions have come online to compete and take business away from L.A. and the U.S., and they’re broadening what’s eligible for those credits or refunds,” said Paul Audley, the president of FilmLA.

While Los Angeles County had 35 percent of the nation’s film and television jobs before the 2023 strikes, its share dropped to 27 percent afterward, according to a recent report from Otis College of Art and Design.

California has its own tax credit program, which offers $330 million a year in incentives, but state and local officials say that is not enough to remain competitive. In October, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed more than doubling the funding to $750 million annually.

Colleen Bell, the state’s film commissioner, said that expanding the credit was essential, and that she often had to turn away projects because the program was oversubscribed.

“The truth is, people want to shoot in California,” she said. “I hear this over and over and over again, the depth and talent of our crews, our equipment, innovation, our infrastructure.”

Image

A sign on the side of a street says “Writers Guild of America on Strike.”

The film and television industry had been diminished even before the fires, after the pandemic and then the strikes halted production amid a rapidly changing entertainment landscape.Credit...Stella Kalinina for The New York Times

Last week thousands of people in the entertainment industry signed the #StayinLA petition, calling for uncapping the state’s tax incentive program for the next three years for projects that shoot in Los Angeles County, and calling on studios and streamers to pledge to increase local production by at least 10 percent during that period.  

This month the Los Angeles City Council approved a $1 billion project to build and enhance sound stages and production facilities at the Television City complex at Beverly Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue. Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles, who supports increasing the state tax credit, is planning to meet this week with a council of entertainment industry leaders to discuss keeping more productions local.

But many workers in the industry who have seen jobs dry up say they now face a choice: keep hanging on in the hopes that things turn around, or try something new. And those who lost their homes in the fires could be forced to decide soon.

The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which represents a wide range of professionals including makeup artists, set decorators and animal wranglers, said that at the peak of the crisis, 8,100 of its members were in evacuation zones. At least 300 lost their homes. “Pretty devastating,” said Michael Miller, a union vice president.

Marco Cordero, 42, a director of photography, was among the workers stressed by the shrinking job market even before his home in Altadena was destroyed.

“We all know so many people that haven’t worked a very long time, that are either leaving the industry, considering doing so or moving somewhere else, where the cost of living is lower,” he said, “because the amount of work that was here to support them isn’t here anymore.”

Adrienne McDonnell, 46, a makeup and special effects artist, and her husband, BJ McDonnell, 49, a director and camera operator, lost their house in the Sunset Mesa neighborhood of Malibu.

“Everybody was starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” she said. “Negotiations are done, the strikes are done. Newsom is going to finance some incentives for us to get filming back here. We were all hopeful — and then this happens.”

The loss of so many homes and the skyrocketing cost of housing in the region could be the last straw that pushes some workers out of the state, or even the industry.

But nearly a dozen members of the film and television industry who lost their homes said in interviews that they plan, at least for now, to stay and rebuild.

Many said they have been overwhelmed by the support they received. When Olivia Newman, the director of the upcoming film “Remarkably Bright Creatures,” lost her home in the Eaton fire, Netflix set her family up in a home in Vancouver, British Columbia, where the movie is being made.

Unions set up pop-up donation centers with everything from basic supplies to opportunities to meet with emergency resource officials. Fire victims said it had become clear their support system was in Los Angeles.

Image

BJ McDonnell, a director and camera operator, and Adrienne McDonnell, a makeup and special effects artist, lost their house.Credit...Alex Welsh for The New York Times

Image

The McDonnells were able to save their rabbits Lola and Bun Bunz when they evacuated during the Palisades fire.Credit...Alex Welsh for The New York Times

Others worry that they may not be able to afford to leave, if their insurance is not enough to pay off their mortgages, or if doing so would leave them with no savings. Some said their losses had granted them a moment to contemplate what they wanted their futures to look like.

“Is this our get-out-of-jail-free card?,” the cinematographer Gabriel Patay, 40, said he wondered after he and his wife, a documentary producer, lost the home they spent nine years restoring.

“We are tied to this property, we are stuck in L.A.,” he has thought. “Should we leave?”

Patay is cleareyed that his insurance will not cover the cost of rebuilding. He and his wife are looking into mortgage deferment and recently applied for hardship status with their bank.

Job opportunities have not been robust either. Patay recently finished work on a documentary for Hulu, but described current job prospects as “bleak.” Now the couple is considering rebuilding their home, slowly over time, if they can somehow make the economics work.

Some have rethought their futures in other ways.

Madeline Power, a 32-year-old producer, had been just about ready to leave Los Angeles before the diaster.

With no work, the past 12 months had been “the worst financial year of my life,” she said, noting that she took odd jobs babysitting and cleaning. She felt, at times, like the city itself was rejecting her.

Then her house burned down. She found purpose using her skills as a producer to help raise money for her neighbors, and when people heard of her situation, some came to her with job leads. Now she, too, has $30,000 in donations — more money than she says she has ever had.

There is no question in Power’s mind. She is staying.

“L.A. caught me,” she said. “L.A. came and just showed up.”

John Koblin contributed reporting from New York and Alyce McFadden from Los Angeles.

Nicole Sperling covers Hollywood and the streaming industry. She has been a reporter for more than two decades. More about Nicole Sperling

Matt Stevens writes about arts and culture news for The Times. More about Matt Stevens

A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 27, 2025, Section C, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Amid Crises, Hollywood Ponders Its Future. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

See more on: Governor Gavin Newsom, Karen Bass

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/26/movies/los-angeles-wildfires-hollywood-production.html

Pope Francis at 9/11 memorial: ‘We can never forget them’

Catherine E. Shoichet

By Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN

 4 minute read

Updated 7:42 PM EDT, Fri September 25, 2015

New York

CNN

 —

He calls his church a field hospital for the spiritually wounded. And on Friday, Pope Francis spoke to hundreds who are still trying to heal.

Praying with families of victims of the September 11 attacks at a ground zero memorial and speaking at an interfaith service, Francis offered a message of hope at a place of horror.

“The name of so many loved ones are written around the towers’ footprints. We can see them, we can touch them, and we can never forget them,” Francis said.

“Here, amid pain and grief, we also have a palpable sense of the heroic goodness which people are capable of. … Hands reached out, lives were given.

“This place of death became a place of life, too, a place of saved lives, a hymn to the triumph of life over the prophets of destruction and death, to goodness over evil, to reconciliation and unity over hatred and division,” Francis said.

On Friday, his first full day in New York and his fourth day in the United States, Francis spoke at the UN General Assembly, sang with children at a school in Harlem, rumbled through Central Park in his Popemobile and celebrated a Mass with thousands of Catholics at Madison Square Garden.

His visit to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum was billed as a moment to pause and reflect in a day packed with large events in the public eye.

‘This really is the beginning’

At a place that’s often the site of somber memorials, the arrival of Pope Francis brought a chorus of cheers and chants.

Outside the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, about 1,000 family members of victims of the 2001 terror attack greeted the Pope.

Standing steps away from where their relatives perished, they lined up along guard railings to catch a glimpse of Francis.

Some got the chance to talk with him one-on-one. Others watched from behind barriers, trying to catch his attention.

A man shouted: “Francisco! Our whole family’s here! A blessing, please!”

It wasn’t long before the crowd joined him: “Our blessing, please! Francisco! Francisco! Francisco!”

Nixia Mena-Alexis held a bouquet of yellow roses in one hand and wore a photograph of her sister pinned to her shirt.

The flowers, she said, symbolize the Catholic Church – and hope. She said she hoped to give some to the Pope and place some beside her sister’s name – one of thousands surrounding the reflecting pools at the memorial.

Diarelia Mena worked in IT for Cantor Fitzgerald. She had just turned 30 and had a 2-year-old daughter when she was killed on September 11.

“She was full of life and her laughter was contagious,” her sister said as her eyes filled with tears.

The lifelong Catholic said coming here fills her with a mix of emotions. But Mena-Alexis knew she wanted to be here when the Pope came.

“To me, he symbolizes peace, and that’s part of what we’re striving for after what happened here,” she said. “This is sacred ground, so I wanted to be present when he came.”

Jean Colaio, 50, lost her two brothers on 9/11. Both worked at Cantor Fitzgerald.

Being in the Pope’s presence, she said, will help heal her family.

“We were here on that day and witnessed everything and evacuated. We had our horrible experience here,” Colaio said. “And this really is the beginning. We’ve been working on our healing. But I think this really has propelled it.

“I feel close and connected to my brothers because he’s here.”

Marjorie Kane, whose father was killed on 9/11, said she felt differently after seeing the Pope than she ever had at the site.

“It’s honestly the first time I can recall being on this ground and feeling this peace and calm,” she said. “I’m usually full of such sorrow and such sadness coming here.”

Papal power

It wasn’t just Catholics who said they were inspired by the Pope’s message.

Dr. Gunisha Kaur, who offered a Sikh prayer onstage at the ceremony, is pregnant and asked the Pope to bless her baby.

Onstage, before the crowd, he placed his hand on her belly.

“That is the power of this pope, that he means something to all religions,” her husband, Simran Jeet Singh, said after the service.

Kaur said she was moved by Francis – and all the faiths that were part of the program.

“During prayers that were in languages that I don’t know, I I found myself singing along,” she said. “It really felt like we were all there praying together.”

https://www.cnn.com/2015/09/25/us/pope-francis-united-nations-friday/index.html

A Look at the Museum’s Memorial Hall

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

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

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

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

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

Rose Cross Over The Baltic by Suzanne Ackerman

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

CHAPTER THE NINTH.

FIRE-THEOSOPHY OF THE PERSIANS

THE Fire-Philosophers, or Philosophi per ignem, were a fanatical sect of philosophers, who appeared towards the close of the sixteenth century. They made a figure in almost all the countries of Europe. They delcared that the intimate essences of natural things were only to be known by the trying efforts of fire, directed in a chemical process. The Theosophists also insisted that human reason was a dangerous and deceitful guide; that no real progress could be made in knowledge or in religion by it; and that to all vital—that is, supernatural—purpose it was a vain thing. They taught that divine and supernatural illumination was the only means of arriving at truth. Their name of Paracelsists was derived from Paracelsus, the eminent physician and chemist, who was the chief ornament of this extraordinary sect. In England, Robert Flood, or Fludd, was their great advocate and exponent. Rivier, who wrong in France; Severinus, an author of Denmark; Kunrath, an eminent phyisican of Dresden; and Daniel Hoffmann, professor of divinity in the University of Helmstadt,—have also treated largely on Paracelsus and on his system.

Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelsus was born in 1493, at Einsiedeln, a small town of the canton of Schwitz, distant some leagues from Zurich. Having passed a troubled, migratory, and changeful life, this great chemist, and very original thinker, died on the 24th of September 1541, in the Hospital of St. Stephen, in the forty-eighth year of his age. His works may be enumerated as follow:

The German editions: Basil, 1575, in 8vo; Ib. i, 1589-90, in 10 vols. 4to; and Strasbourg, 1603-18, in 4 vols. folio.

2. The Latin editions : Opera omnia Medico-chymico-chirurgica, Frankfort, 1603, in 10 vols. 4to; and Geneva, 1658, in 3 vols. folio. 3.

The French editions : La Grand Chirurgerie de Paracelse, Lyons, 1593 and 1603, in 4to; and Montbeliard, 1608, in 8vo. See Adelung, Histoire de la Folie Humaine, tom. vii.; Biographie Universelle, article “Paracelse;” and Sprengel, Histoire Pragmatique de la Médecine, tom. iii.

“Akin to the school of the ancient Fire-Believers, and of the magnetists of a later period,” says the learned Dr. Ennemoser, in his History of Magic (most ably rendered into English by William Howitt), “of the same cast as these speculators and searchers into the mysteries of nature, drawing from the same well, are the Theosophists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These practised chemistry, by which they asserted that they could explore the profoundest secrets of nature. As they strove, above all earthly knowledge, after the divine, and sought the divine light and fire, through which all men can acquire the true wisdom, they were called the Fire-Philosophers (philosophi per ignem). The most distinguished of these are Theophrastus Paracelsus, Adam von Boden, Oswald Croll; and, later, Valentine Weigel, Robert Flood, or Fludd, Jacob Bohmen, Peter Poiret, &c.” Under this head we may also refer to the Medico-surgical Essays of Hemmann, published at Berlin in 1778; and Pfaff’s Astrology.

As a great general principle, the Theosophists called the soul a fire, taken from the eternal ocean of light.

In regard to the supernatural—using the word in its widest sense it may be said that “all the difficulty in admitting the strange things told us lies in the non-admission of an internal causal world as absolutely real: it is said, in intellectually admitting, because the influence of the arts proves that men’s feelings always have admitted, and do still admit, this reality.”

The Platonic philosophy of vision is, that it is the view of objects really existing in interior light, which assume form, not according to arbitrary laws, but according to the state of mind. This interior light, if we understand Plato, unites with exterior light in the eye, and is thus drawn into a sensual or imaginative activity; but when the outward light is separated, it reposes in its own serene atmosphere. It is, then, in this state of interior repose, that the usual class of religious, or what are called inspired, visions occur. It is the same light of eternity so frequently alluded to in books that treat of mysterious subjects; the light revealed to Pimander, Zoroaster, and all the sages of the East, as the emanation of the spiritual sun. Bohmen writes of it in his Divine Vision or Contemplation, and Molinos in his Spiritual Guide,—whose work is the ground of Quietism: Quietism being the foundation of the religion of the people called Friends or Quakers, as also of the other mystic or meditative sects. We enlarge from a very learned, candid, and instructive book upon the Occult Sciences.

Regard Fire, then, with other eyes than with those soulless, incurious ones, with which thou hast looked upon it as the most ordinary thing. Thou hast forgotten what it is— or rather thou hast never known. Chemists are silent about it; or, may we not say that it is too loud for them?

Therefore shall they speak fearfully of it in whispers. Philosophers talk of it as anatomists discourse of the constituents (or the parts) of the human body—as a piece of mechanism, wondrous though it be. Such the wheels of the clock, say they in their ingenious expounding of the “whys” and the “wherefores” (and the mechanics and the mathematics) of this mysterious thing, with a supernatural soul in it, called world. Such is the chain, such are the balances, such the larger and the smaller mechanical forces; such the “Time-blood,” as it were, that is sent circulating through it; such is the striking, with an infinity of bells.

It is made for man, this world, and it is greatly like him that is mean, they would add. And they do think it, if they dare add their thinkings. But is this all? Is this the sum of that casketed lamp of the human body?—thine own body, thou unthinking world's machin —thou Man! Or, in the fabric of this clay lamp (lacquered in thy man’s Imperial splendours), burneth there not a Light? Describe that, ye Doctors of Physics! Unwind the starry limbs of that phenomenon, ye heavy-browed, doctorial wielders of the scalpel!—useful, however, as ye be, in that “upholstery warehouse” of nature to which bodies and their make be referred by the materialists as the godless origin of everything.

Touch at its heart, ye dissectors of fibres and of valves; of sinews and of leaves (hands, perchance); of the vein-work, of the muscles, as bark-integument; of the trunk!

Split and pare, as with steel tools and wedge, this portent —this “Tree” (human though it be),—round which ye cluster to examine, about which ye gather, with your “persuasions,” to wind into the innermost secret of. Cyclops— one-eyed and savage-break into meaning this portent, Man, on your science-wheels!

Note the goings of the Fire, as he creepeth, serpentineth, riseth, slinketh, broadeneth. Note him reddening, glowing, whitening. Tremble at his face, dilating; at the meaning that is growing into it, to you. See that spark from the blacksmith's anvil!—struck, as an insect, out of a sky containing a whole cloud of such. Rare locusts, of which Pharaoh and the Cities of the Plain read of old the secret!

One, two, three sparks;—dozens come:—faster and faster the fiery squadrons follow, until, in a short while, a whole possible army of that hungry thing for battle, for food for it —Fire—glances up; but is soon warned in again!—lest acres should glow in the growing advance. Think that this thing is bound as in matter-chains. Think that He is outside of all things, and deep in the inside of all things ; and that thou and thy world are only the thing between: and that outside and inside are both identical, couldst thou understand the supernatural truths! Reverence Fire (for its meaning), and tremble at it; though in the Earth it be chained, and the foot of the Archangel Michael—like upon the Dragon—be upon it! Avert the face from it, as the Magi turned, dreading, and (as the Symbol) before it bowed askance. So much for this great thing—Fire !

Observe the multiform shapes of fire; the name-wreaths, the spires, the stars, the spots, the cascades, and the mighty falls of it; where the roar, when it grows high in Imperial masterdom, is as that of Niagara. Think what it can do, what it is. Watch the trail of sparks, struck, as in that spouting arch, from the metal shoes of the trampling horse.

It is as a letter of the great alphabet. The familiar London streets, even, can give thee the Persian’s God: though in thy pleasures, and in thy commerce-operations, thou so oft forgettest thine own God.

Whence liberated are those sparks?—as stars, afar off, of a whole sky of flame;—sparks, deep down in possibility, though close to us —great in their meaning, though, small in their show;—as distant single ships of whole fiery fleets;—animate children of, in thy human conception, a dreadful, but, in reality, a great world, of which thou knowest nothing. They fall, foodless, on the rejecting, barren, and (on the outside) the coldest stone.

But in each stone, flinty and chilly as the outside is, is a heart of fire, to strike at which is to bid gush forth the waters, as it were, of very Fire, like waters of the rock!

Truly, out of sparks can be displayed a whole acreage of fireworks. Forests can be conceived of flame-palaces of the fire; grandest things—soul-things—last things—all things!

Wonder no longer, then, if, rejected so long as an idolatry, the ancient Persians, and their masters the Magi,—concluding that they saw “All” in this supernaturally magnificent element,—fell down and worshipped it; making of it the visible representation of the very truest; but yet, in man’s speculation, and in his philosophies,—nay, in his commonest reason,—impossible God: God being everywhere, and in us, and, indeed, us, in the God-lighted man; and impossible to be contemplated or known outside,—being All!

Lights and flames, and the torches, as it were, of fire (all fire in this world, the last background on which all things are painted), may be considered as “lancets” of another world—the last world: circles, enclosed by the thick walls (which, however, by the fire are kept from closing) of this world. As fire waves and brandishes, will the walls of this world wave, and, as it were, undulate from about it. In smoke and disruption, or combustion of matter, we witness a phenomenon of the burning as of the edges of the matterrings of this world, in which world is fire, like a spot: that dense and hard thing, matter, holding it in. Oxygen, which is the finest of air, and is the means of the quickest burning out, or the supernatural (in this world) exhilaration of animal life, or extenuation of the Solid; and, above all, the heightening of the capacity of the Human, as being the quintessence of matter: this oxygen is the thing which feeds fire the most overwhelming. Nor would the specks and spots and stars of fire stop in this dense world-medium,—in this tissue or sea of things,—could it farther and farther fasten upon and devour the solids: eating, as it were, through them. But as this thick world is a thing the thickest, it presses out, thrusts, or gravitates upon, and stifles, in its too great weight; and conquers not only that liveliest, subtlest, thinnest element of the solids, the finest air, by whatever chemical name—oxygen, azote, azone, or what not—it may be called; which, in fact, is merely the nomenclature of its composition, the naming of the ingredients which make the thing (but not the thing). The denseness of the world not only conquers this, we repeat; but, so to figure it, matter stamps upon, effaces, and treads out fire: which, else, would burn on, back, as in the beginning of things, or into itself, —consuming, as in its great revenge of any thing being created other than it, all the mighty worlds which, in Creation, were permitted out of it. This is the teaching of the ancient Fire-Philosophers (reestablished and restored, to the days of comprehension of them, in the conclusions of the Rosicrucians, or llluminati, of later times), who claimed to have discovered the Eternal Fire, or to have found out “God” in the “Immortal Light.”

There are all grades or gradations of the density of matter; but it all coheres by the one law of gravitation.

Now, this gravitation is mistaken for a force of itself, when it is nothing but the sympathy, or the taking, away of the supposed thing between two other things. It is sympathy (or appetite) seeking its food, or as the closing together of two like things. It is not because one mass of matter is more ponderable or attracting than another (out of our senses, and in reality), but that they are the same, with different amounts of affection, and that like seeks like, not recognising or knowing that between. Now, this thing which is, as it were, slipped between, and which we strike into show of itself, or into fire-surprised and driven out of its ambush—is Fire. It is as the letter by which matter spells itself out—so to speak.

Now, matter is only to be finally forced asunder by heat; flame being the bright, subtle something which comes last, and is the expansion, fruit, crown, or glory of heat: it is the vivid and visible soul, essence, and spirit of heat—the last evolvement before rending, and before the forcible closing again of all the centre speeding weights, or desires, of matter. Flame is as the expanding out (or even exploding) flower to this growing thing, heat: it is as the bubble of it—the fruit (to which before we have likened it), or seed, in the outside Hand upon it. Given the supernatural Flora, heat is as the gorgeous plant, and flame the glorying flower; and as growth is greater out of the greater matrix, or matter of growing, so the thicker the material of fire (as we may roughly figure it, though we hope we shall be understood), so the stronger shall the fire be, and of necessity the fiercer will it be perceived to be—result being according to power.

Thus we get more of fire—that is, heat—out of the hard things: there being more of the thing Fire in them.

Trituration, mechanical division, multiplication, cutting up, precipitating, or compounding, are states into which the forces outside can place matter, without searching into and securing its bond, and gathering up (into hand off it) its chains, and mastering it. These changes can be wrought in matter, and, as it were, it can be taken in pieces; and all this dissolution of it may be effected without our getting as at the fire-blood of our subject.

But Fire disjoints, as it were, all the hinges of the house —laps out the coherence of it—sets ablaze the dense thing, matter—makes the dark metals run like waters of light— conjures the black devils out of the minerals, and, to our astonishment, shows them much libelled, blinding, angel white!

By Fire we can lay our hand upon the solids, part them, powder them, melt them, fine them, drive them out to more and more delicate and impalpable texture—firing their invisible molecules, or imponderables, into cloud, into mist, into gas: out of touch, into hearing; out of hearing, into seeing; out of seeing, into smelling; out of smelling, into nothing—into real NOTHING—not even into the last blue sky. These are the potent operations of Fire—the crucible into which we can cast all the worlds, and find them, in their last evolution, not even smoke. These are physical and scientific facts which there can be no gainsaying— which were seen and found out long ago, ages ago, in the reveries first, and then in the practice, of the great Magnetists, and those who were called the Fire-Philosophers, of whom we have spoken before.

What is that mysterious and inscrutable operation, the striking fire from flint? Familiar as it is, who remarks it?

Where, in that hardest, closest pressing together of matter —where the granulation compresses, shining even in its hardness, into the solidest lamince. of cold, darkest blue, and streaky, core-like, agate resembling white—lie the seeds of fire, spiritual flame-seeds to the so stony fruit? In what folds of the flint, in the block of it-in what invisible recess —speckled and spotted in what tissue—crouch the fire sparks?— to issue, in showers, on the stroke of iron—on the so sudden clattering (as of the crowbars of man) on its stony doors: Stone caving the thing Fire, unseen, as its sepulchre; Stroke warning the magical thing forth. Whence comes that trail of fire from the cold bosom of the hard, secret, unexploding flint?—children as from what hard, rocky breast; yet hiding its so sacred, sudden fire birth!

Who —and what science-philosopher —can explain this wondrous darting forth of the hidden something, which he shall try in vain to arrest, but which, like a spirit, escapes him? If we ask what fire is, of the men of science, they are at fault. They will tell us that it is a phenomenon, that their vocabularies can give no further account of it. They will explain to us that all that can be said of it is, that it is a last affection of matter, to the results of which (in the world of man) they can only testify, but of whose coming and of whose going—of the place from which it comes, and the whereabout to which it goeth—they are entirely ignorant, —and would give a world to know!

The foregoing—however feebly expressed—are the views of the famous Rosicrucians* respecting the nature of this supposed familiar, but yet puzzling, thing—Fire.

We will proceed to some of their further mystic reveries.

They are very singular.

But the consideration of these is exceedingly abstract and difficult. The whole subject is abstruse in the highest

degree.

* In regard to the singular name of the Rosicrucians, it may be here

stated that the Chemists, according to their arcana, derive the Dew

from the Latin Ros, and in the figure of a cross (+) they trace the

three letters which compose the word Lux, Light. Mosheim is positive as to the accuracy of his information."

The Rosicrucians Their Rites and Mysteries

by Hargrave Jennings

https://dn790005.ca.archive.org/0/items/rosicruciansthei00jenn/rosicruciansthei00jenn.pdf

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

Prelude to Hell

Canto I

Gustave Doré's engravings illustrated the Divine Comedy (1861–1868). Here, Dante is lost at the start of Canto I of the Inferno.

The poem begins on the night of Maundy Thursday on March 24 (or April 7), 1300, shortly before the dawn of Good Friday.[3][4] The narrator, Dante himself, is 35 years old, and thus "midway in the journey of our life" (Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita)[5] – half of the biblical lifespan of 70 (Psalm 89:10 in the Vulgate; numbered as Psalm 90:10 in the King James Bible). The poet finds himself lost in a dark wood (selva oscura),[6] astray from the "straight way" (diritta via,[7] also translatable as 'right way') of salvation. He sets out to climb directly up a small mountain, but his way is blocked by three beasts he cannot evade: a lonza[8] (usually rendered as 'leopard' or 'leopon'),[9] a leone[10] (lion), and a lupa[11] (she-wolf). The three beasts, taken from Jeremiah 5:6,[12] are thought to symbolize the three kinds of sin that bring the unrepentant soul into one of the three major divisions of Hell. According to John Ciardi, these are incontinence (the she-wolf); violence and bestiality (the lion); and fraud and malice (the leopard).[13]

It is now dawn of Good Friday, April 8, with the sun rising in Aries. The beasts drive him back despairing into the darkness of error, a "lower place" (basso loco)[14] where the sun is silent (l sol tace).[15] However, Dante is rescued by a figure who announces that he was born sub Iulio[16] (i.e., in the time of Julius Caesar) and lived under Augustus: it is the shade of the Roman poet Virgil, author of the Aeneid, a Latin epic which also featured a journey through the underworld.

Canto II

On the evening of Good Friday, Dante hesitates as he follows Virgil; Virgil explains that he has been sent by Beatrice, the symbol of Divine Love. Beatrice had been moved to aid Dante by the Virgin Mary (symbolic of compassion) and Saint Lucia (symbolic of illuminating Grace). Rachel, symbolic of the contemplative life, also appears in the heavenly scene recounted by Virgil. The two of them then begin their journey to the underworld. Feeling uncertain of his worthiness for the journey, Dante reflects on the paths of Aeneas and Paul, who were granted access to the realms of the afterlife, and doubts his own capability to undertake such a passage (Inf. 2.10-36).

Canto III: Vestibule of Hell

Dante passes through the gate of Hell, which bears an inscription ending with the phrase "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate",[17] most frequently translated as "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here".[nb 1] Dante and his guide hear the anguished screams of the Uncommitted. These are the souls of people who in life took no sides; the opportunists who were for neither good nor evil, but instead were merely concerned with themselves. Among these Dante recognises a figure who made the "great refusal", implied to be Pope Celestine V, whose "cowardice (in selfish terror for his own welfare) served as the door through which so much evil entered the Church".[18] Mixed with them are outcasts who took no side in the Rebellion of Angels. These souls are forever unclassified; they are neither in Hell nor out of it, but reside on the shores of the Acheron. Naked and futile, they race around through the mist in eternal pursuit of an elusive, wavering banner (symbolic of their pursuit of ever-shifting self-interest) while relentlessly chased by swarms of wasps and hornets, who continually sting them.[19] Loathsome maggots and worms at the sinners' feet drink the putrid mixture of blood, pus, and tears that flows down their bodies, symbolising the sting of their guilty conscience and the repugnance of sin. This may also be seen as a reflection of the spiritual stagnation in which they lived.

Gustave Doré's illustration of Canto III: Arrival of Charon

After passing through the vestibule, Dante and Virgil reach the ferry that will take them across the river Acheron and to Hell proper. The ferry is piloted by Charon, who does not want to let Dante enter, for he is a living being. Virgil forces Charon to take him by declaring, Vuolsi così colà dove si puote / ciò che si vuole ("It is so willed there where is power to do / That which is willed"),[20] referring to the fact that Dante is on his journey on divine grounds. The wailing and blasphemy of the damned souls entering Charon's boat contrast with the joyful singing of the blessed souls arriving by ferry in the Purgatorio. The passage across the Acheron, however, is undescribed, since Dante faints and does not awaken until they reach the other side.

Nine circles of Hell

Overview

Virgil proceeds to guide Dante through the nine circles of Hell. The circles are concentric, representing a gradual increase in wickedness, and culminating at the centre of the earth, where Satan is held in bondage. The sinners of each circle are punished for eternity in a fashion fitting their crimes: each punishment is a contrapasso, a symbolic instance of poetic justice. For example, later in the poem, Dante and Virgil encounter fortune-tellers who must walk forward with their heads on backward, unable to see what is ahead, because they tried to see the future through forbidden means. Such a contrapasso "functions not merely as a form of divine revenge, but rather as the fulfilment of a destiny freely chosen by each soul during his or her life".[21] People who sinned, but prayed for forgiveness before their deaths are found not in Hell but in Purgatory, where they labour to become free of their sins. Those in Hell are people who tried to justify their sins and are unrepentant.

The Map of Hell painting by Sandro Botticelli, among the extant ninety-two drawings originally included in his illustrated manuscript of the poem

Dante's Hell is structurally based on the ideas of Aristotle, but with "certain Christian symbolisms, exceptions, and misconstructions of Aristotle's text",[22] and a further supplement from Cicero's De Officiis.[23] Virgil reminds Dante (the character) of "Those pages where the Ethics tells of three / Conditions contrary to Heaven's will and rule / Incontinence, vice, and brute bestiality".[24] Cicero, for his part, had divided sins between violence and fraud.[25] By conflating Cicero's violence with Aristotle's bestiality, and his fraud with malice or vice, Dante the poet obtained three major categories of sin, as symbolized by the three beasts that Dante encounters in Canto I: these are Incontinence, Violence/Bestiality, and Fraud/Malice.[22][26] Sinners punished for incontinence (also known as wantonness) – the lustful, the gluttonous, the hoarders and wasters, and the wrathful and sullen – all demonstrated weakness in controlling their appetites, desires, and natural urges; according to Aristotle's Ethics, incontinence is less condemnable than malice or bestiality, and therefore these sinners are located in four circles of Upper Hell (Circles 2–5). These sinners endure lesser torments than do those consigned to Lower Hell, located within the walls of the City of Dis, for committing acts of violence and fraud – the latter of which involves, as Dorothy L. Sayers writes, "abuse of the specifically human faculty of reason".[26] The deeper levels are organised into one circle for violence (Circle 7) and two circles for fraud (Circles 8 and 9). As a Christian, Dante adds Circle 1 (Limbo) to Upper Hell and Circle 6 (Heresy) to Lower Hell, making 9 Circles in total; incorporating the Vestibule of the Futile, this leads to Hell containing 10 main divisions.[26] This "9+1=10" structure is also found within the Purgatorio and Paradiso. Lower Hell is further subdivided: Circle 7 (Violence) is divided into three rings, Circle 8 (Fraud) is divided into ten bolge, and Circle 9 (Treachery) is divided into four regions. Thus, Hell contains 24 divisions in total.

First Circle (Limbo)

Main article: First circle of hell

The Harrowing of Hell, in a 14th-century illuminated manuscript, the Petites Heures de Jean de Berry

Canto IV

Dante awakens to find that he has crossed the Acheron, and Virgil leads him to the first circle of the abyss, Limbo, where Virgil himself resides. The first circle contains the unbaptised and the virtuous pagans, who, although not sinful enough to warrant damnation, did not accept Christ. Dorothy L. Sayers writes, "After those who refused choice come those without opportunity of choice. They could not, that is, choose Christ; they could, and did, choose human virtue, and for that they have their reward."[27] Limbo shares many characteristics with the Asphodel Meadows, and thus, the guiltless damned are punished by living in a deficient form of Heaven. Without baptism ("the portal of the faith that you embrace")[28] they lacked the hope for something greater than rational minds can conceive. When Dante asked if anyone has ever left Limbo, Virgil states that he saw Jesus ("a Mighty One") descend into Limbo and take Adam, Abel, Noah, Moses, Abraham, David, Rachel, and others (see Limbo of the Patriarchs) into his all-forgiving arms and transport them to Heaven as the first human souls to be saved. The event, known as the Harrowing of Hell, supposedly occurred around AD 33 or 34.

Dante encounters the poets Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan, who include him in their number and make him "sixth in that high company".[29] They reach the base of a great Castle – the dwelling place of the wisest men of antiquity – surrounded by seven gates, and a flowing brook. After passing through the seven gates, the group comes to an exquisite green meadow and Dante encounters the inhabitants of the Citadel. These include figures associated with the Trojans and their descendants (the Romans): Electra (mother of Troy's founder Dardanus), Hector, Aeneas, Julius Caesar in his role as Roman general ("in his armor, falcon-eyed"),[30] Camilla, Penthesilea (Queen of the Amazons), King Latinus and his daughter, Lavinia, Lucius Junius Brutus (who overthrew Tarquin to found the Roman Republic), Lucretia, Julia, Marcia, and Cornelia Africana. Dante also sees Saladin, a Muslim military leader known for his battle against the Crusaders, as well as his generous, chivalrous, and merciful conduct.

Dante next encounters a group of philosophers, including Aristotle with Socrates and Plato at his side, as well as Democritus, "Diogenes" (either Diogenes the Cynic or Diogenes of Apollonia), Anaxagoras, Thales, Empedocles, Heraclitus, and "Zeno" (either Zeno of Elea or Zeno of Citium). He sees the scientist Dioscorides, the mythical Greek poets Orpheus and Linus, and Roman statesmen Marcus Tullius Cicero and Seneca. Dante sees the Alexandrian geometer Euclid and Ptolemy, the Alexandrian astronomer and geographer, as well as the physicians Hippocrates and Galen. He also encounters Avicenna, a Persian polymath, and Averroes, a medieval Andalusian polymath known for his commentaries on Aristotle's works. Dante and Virgil depart from the four other poets and continue their journey.

Although Dante implies that all virtuous non-Christians find themselves here, he later encounters two (Cato of Utica and Statius) in Purgatory and two (Trajan and Ripheus) in Heaven. In Purgatorio XXII, Virgil names several additional inhabitants of Limbo who were not mentioned in the Inferno.[31]

Second Circle (Lust)

Main article: Second circle of hell

Gustave Doré's depiction of Minos judging sinners at the start of Canto V

Canto V

Dante and Virgil leave Limbo and enter the Second Circle – the first of the circles of Incontinence – where the punishments of Hell proper begin. It is described as "a part where no thing gleams".[32] They find their way hindered by the serpentine Minos, who judges all of those condemned for active, deliberately willed sin to one of the lower circles. At this point in Inferno, every soul is required to confess all of their sins to Minos, after which Minos sentences each soul to its torment by wrapping his tail around himself a number of times corresponding to the circle of Hell to which the soul must go. The role of Minos here is a combination of his classical role as condemner and unjust judge of the underworld and the role of classical Rhadamanthus, interrogator and confessor of the underworld.[33] This mandatory confession makes it so every soul verbalises and sanctions their own ranking amongst the condemned since these confessions are the sole grounds for their placement in hell.[34] Dante is not forced to make this confession; instead, Virgil rebukes Minos, and he and Dante continue on.

In the second circle of Hell are those overcome by lust. These "carnal malefactors"[35] are condemned for allowing their appetites to sway their reason. These souls are buffeted back and forth by the terrible winds of a violent storm, without rest. This symbolises the power of lust to blow needlessly and aimlessly: "as the lovers drifted into self-indulgence and were carried away by their passions, so now they drift for ever. The bright, voluptuous sin is now seen as it is – a howling darkness of helpless discomfort."[36] Since lust involves mutual indulgence and is not, therefore, completely self-centred, Dante deems it the least heinous of the sins and its punishment is the most benign within Hell proper.[36][37] The "ruined slope"[38] in this circle is thought to be a reference to the earthquake that occurred after the death of Christ.[39]

Gianciotto Discovers Paolo and Francesca by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

In this circle, Dante sees Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Paris, Achilles, Tristan, and many others who were overcome by sexual love during their life. Due to the presence of so many rulers among the lustful, the fifth Canto of Inferno has been called the "canto of the queens".[40] Dante comes across Francesca da Rimini, who married the deformed Giovanni Malatesta (also known as "Gianciotto") for political purposes but fell in love with his younger brother Paolo Malatesta; the two began to carry on an adulterous affair. Sometime between 1283 and 1286, Giovanni surprised them together in Francesca's bedroom and violently stabbed them both to death. Francesca explains:

Love, which in gentlest hearts will soonest bloom

  seized my lover with passion for that sweet body

  from which I was torn unshriven to my doom.

Love, which permits no loved one not to love,

  took me so strongly with delight in him

  that we are one in Hell, as we were above.

Love led us to one death. In the depths of Hell

  Caïna waits for him who took our lives."

  This was the piteous tale they stopped to tell.[41]

Francesca further reports that she and Paolo yielded to their love when reading the story of the adultery between Lancelot and Guinevere in the Old French romance Lancelot du Lac. Francesca says, "Galeotto fu 'l libro e chi lo scrisse".[42] The word Galeotto means 'pander', but is also the Italian term for Gallehaut, who acted as an intermediary between Lancelot and Guinevere, encouraging them on to love. John Ciardi renders line 137 as "That book, and he who wrote it, was a pander."[43] Inspired by Dante, author Giovanni Boccaccio invoked the name Prencipe Galeotto in the alternative title to The Decameron, a 14th-century collection of novellas. Ultimately, Francesca never makes a full confession to Dante. Rather than admit to her and Paolo's sins, the very reasons they reside in this circle of hell, she consistently takes an erroneously passive role in the adulterous affair. The English poet John Keats, in his sonnet "On a Dream", imagines what Dante does not write, the point of view of Paolo:

... But to that second circle of sad hell,

Where 'mid the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw

Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell

Their sorrows. Pale were the sweet lips I saw,

Pale were the lips I kiss'd, and fair the form

I floated with, about that melancholy storm.[44]

As he did at the end of Canto III, Dante – overcome by pity and anguish – describes his swoon: "I fainted, as if I had met my death. / And then I fell as a dead body falls".[45]

Third Circle (Gluttony)

Main article: Third circle of hell

Cerberus as illustrated by Gustave Doré

Canto VI

In the third circle, the gluttonous wallow in a vile, putrid slush produced by a ceaseless, foul, icy rain – "a great storm of putrefaction"[46] – as punishment for subjecting their reason to a voracious appetite. Cerberus (described as il gran vermo, literally 'the great worm', line 22), the monstrous three-headed beast of Hell, ravenously guards the gluttons lying in the freezing mire, mauling and flaying them with his claws as they howl like dogs. Virgil obtains safe passage past the monster by filling its three mouths with mud.

Dorothy L. Sayers writes that "the surrender to sin which began with mutual indulgence leads by an imperceptible degradation to solitary self-indulgence".[47] The gluttons grovel in the mud by themselves, sightless and heedless of their neighbors, symbolising the cold, selfish, and empty sensuality of their lives.[47] Just as lust has revealed its true nature in the winds of the previous circle, here the slush reveals the true nature of sensuality – which includes not only overindulgence in food and drink, but also other kinds of addiction.[48]

In this circle, Dante converses with a Florentine contemporary identified as Ciacco, which means 'hog'.[49] A character with the same nickname later appears in The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio, where his gluttonous behaviour is clearly portrayed.[50] Ciacco speaks to Dante regarding strife in Florence between the "White" and "Black" Guelphs, which developed after the Guelph/Ghibelline strife ended with the complete defeat of the Ghibellines. In the first of several political prophecies in the Inferno, Ciacco "predicts" the expulsion of the White Guelphs (Dante's party) from Florence by the Black Guelphs, aided by Pope Boniface VIII, which marked the start of Dante's long exile from the city. These events occurred in 1302, prior to when the poem was written but in the future at Easter time of 1300, the time in which the poem is set.[49]

Fourth Circle (Greed)

In Gustave Doré's illustrations for the fourth circle, the weights are huge money bags

Canto VII

The Fourth Circle is guarded by a figure Dante names as Pluto: this is Plutus, the deity of wealth in classical mythology. Although the two are often conflated, he is a distinct figure from Pluto (Dis), the classical ruler of the underworld.[nb 2] At the start of Canto VII, he menaces Virgil and Dante with the cryptic phrase Pape Satàn, pape Satàn aleppe, but Virgil protects Dante from him.

Those whose attitude toward material goods deviated from the appropriate mean are punished in the fourth circle. They include the avaricious or miserly (including many "clergymen, and popes and cardinals"),[51] who hoarded possessions, and the prodigal, who squandered them. The hoarders and spendthrifts joust, using great weights as weapons that they push with their chests:

Here, too, I saw a nation of lost souls,

  far more than were above: they strained their chests

  against enormous weights, and with mad howls

rolled them at one another. Then in haste

  they rolled them back, one party shouting out:

  "Why do you hoard?" and the other: "Why do you waste?"[52]

Relating this sin of incontinence to the two that preceded it (lust and gluttony), Dorothy L. Sayers writes, "Mutual indulgence has already declined into selfish appetite; now, that appetite becomes aware of the incompatible and equally selfish appetites of other people. Indifference becomes mutual antagonism, imaged here by the antagonism between hoarding and squandering."[53] The contrast between these two groups leads Virgil to discourse on the nature of Fortune, who raises nations to greatness and later plunges them into poverty, as she shifts, "those empty goods from nation unto nation, clan to clan".[54] This speech fills what would otherwise be a gap in the poem, since both groups are so absorbed in their activity that Virgil tells Dante that it would be pointless to try to speak to them – indeed, they have lost their individuality and been rendered "unrecognizable".[55]

Fifth Circle (Wrath)

The fifth circle, illustrated by Stradanus

The Barque of Dante by Eugène Delacroix

In the swampy, stinking waters of the river Styx – the Fifth Circle – the actively wrathful fight each other viciously on the surface of the slime, while the sullen (the passively wrathful) lie beneath the water, withdrawn, "into a black sulkiness which can find no joy in God or man or the universe".[53] At the surface of the foul Stygian marsh, Dorothy L. Sayers writes, "the active hatreds rend and snarl at one another; at the bottom, the sullen hatreds lie gurgling, unable even to express themselves for the rage that chokes them".[53] As the last circle of Incontinence, the "savage self-frustration" of the Fifth Circle marks the end of "that which had its tender and romantic beginnings in the dalliance of indulged passion".[53]

Canto VIII

Phlegyas reluctantly transports Dante and Virgil across the Styx in his skiff. On the way they are accosted by Filippo Argenti, a Black Guelph from the prominent Adimari family. Little is known about Argenti, although Giovanni Boccaccio describes an incident in which he lost his temper; early commentators state that Argenti's brother seized some of Dante's property after his exile from Florence.[56] Just as Argenti enabled the seizing of Dante's property, he himself is "seized" by all the other wrathful souls.

When Dante responds "In weeping and in grieving, accursed spirit, may you long remain,"[57] Virgil blesses him with words used to describe Christ himself (Luke 11:27).[58] In a literal sense, this reflects the fact that souls in Hell are eternally fixed in the state they have chosen, but allegorically, it reflects Dante's beginning awareness of his own sin.[59]

Entrance to Dis

In the distance, Dante perceives high towers that resemble fiery red mosques. Virgil informs him that they are approaching the City of Dis. Dis, itself surrounded by the Stygian marsh, contains Lower Hell within its walls.[60] Dis is one of the names of Pluto, the classical king of the underworld, in addition to being the name of the realm. The walls of Dis are guarded by fallen angels. Virgil is unable to convince them to let Dante and him enter.

Canto IX

Dante is threatened by the Furies (consisting of Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone) and Medusa. An angel sent from Heaven secures entry for the poets, opening the gate by touching it with a wand, and rebukes those who opposed Dante. Allegorically, this reveals the fact that the poem is beginning to deal with sins that philosophy and humanism cannot fully understand. Virgil also mentions to Dante how Erichtho sent him to the lowest circle of Hell to bring back a spirit from there.[59]

Lower Hell, inside the walls of Dis, in an illustration by Stradanus; there is a drop from the sixth circle to the three rings of the seventh circle, then again to the ten rings of the eighth circle, and, at the bottom, to the icy ninth circle

Sixth Circle (Heresy)

Canto X

In the sixth circle, heretics, such as Epicurus and his followers (who say "the soul dies with the body")[61] are trapped in flaming tombs. Dante holds discourse with a pair of Epicurian Florentines in one of the tombs: Farinata degli Uberti, a famous Ghibelline leader (following the Battle of Montaperti in September 1260, Farinata strongly protested the proposed destruction of Florence at the meeting of the victorious Ghibellines; he died in 1264 and was posthumously condemned for heresy in 1283); and Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti, a Guelph who was the father of Dante's friend and fellow poet, Guido Cavalcanti. The political affiliation of these two men allows for a further discussion of Florentine politics. In response to a question from Dante about the "prophecy" he has received, Farinata explains that what the souls in Hell know of life on earth comes from seeing the future, not from any observation of the present. Consequently, when "the portal of the future has been shut",[62] it will no longer be possible for them to know anything. Farinata explains that also crammed within the tomb are Emperor Frederick II, commonly reputed to be an Epicurean, and Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, whom Dante refers to as il Cardinale.

Canto XI

Dante reads an inscription on one of the tombs indicating it belongs to Pope Anastasius II – although some modern scholars hold that Dante erred in the verse mentioning Anastasius ("Anastasio papa guardo, / lo qual trasse Fotin de la via dritta", lines 8–9), confusing the pope with the Byzantine emperor of the time, Anastasius I.[63][64][65][66] Pausing for a moment before the steep descent to the foul-smelling seventh circle, Virgil explains the geography and rationale of Lower Hell, in which the sins of violence (or bestiality) and fraud (or malice) are punished. In his explanation, Virgil refers to the Nicomachean Ethics and the Physics of Aristotle, with medieval interpretations. Virgil asserts that there are only two legitimate sources of wealth: natural resources ("Nature") and human labour and activity ("Art"). Usury, to be punished in the next circle, is therefore an offence against both; it is a kind of blasphemy, since it is an act of violence against Art, which is the child of Nature, and Nature derives from God.[67]

Virgil then indicates the time through his unexplained awareness of the stars' positions. The "Wain", the Great Bear, now lies in the northwest over Caurus (the northwest wind). The constellation Pisces (the Fish) is just appearing over the horizon: it is the zodiacal sign preceding Aries (the Ram). Canto I notes that the sun is in Aries, and since the twelve zodiac signs rise at two-hour intervals, it must now be about two hours prior to sunrise: 4:00 a.m. on Holy Saturday, April 9.[67][68]

Seventh Circle (Violence)

Cantos XII–XIV

The Seventh Circle, divided into three rings, houses the Violent. Dante and Virgil descend a jumble of rocks that had once formed a cliff to reach the Seventh Circle from the Sixth Circle, having first to evade the Minotaur (L'infamia di Creti, "the infamy of Crete", line 12); at the sight of them, the Minotaur gnaws his flesh. Virgil assures the monster that Dante is not its hated enemy, Theseus. This causes the Minotaur to charge them as Dante and Virgil swiftly enter the seventh circle. Virgil explains the presence of shattered stones around them: they resulted from the great earthquake that shook the earth at the moment of Christ's death (Matthew 27:51),[69] at the time of the Harrowing of Hell. Ruins resulting from the same shock were previously seen at the beginning of Upper Hell (the entrance of the Second Circle, Canto V).

"Along the brink of the vermilion boiling, / Wherein the boiled were uttering loud laments. / People I saw within up to the eyebrows ..."[70]

Harpies in the wood of the suicides, from Inferno Canto XIII, by Gustave Doré, 1861

Brunetto Latini speaks with Dante in Canto XV, an engraving by Gustave Doré

Ring 1: Against Neighbors

In the first round of the seventh circle, the murderers, war-makers, plunderers, and tyrants are immersed in Phlegethon, a river of boiling blood and fire. Ciardi writes, "as they wallowed in blood during their lives, so they are immersed in the boiling blood forever, each according to the degree of his guilt".[71] The Centaurs, commanded by Chiron and Pholus, patrol the ring, shooting arrows into any sinners who emerge higher out of the boiling blood than each is allowed. The centaur Nessus guides the poets along Phlegethon and points out Alexander the Great (disputed), "Dionysius" (either Dionysius I or Dionysius II, or both; they were bloodthirsty, unpopular tyrants of Sicily), Ezzelino III da Romano (the cruelest of the Ghibelline tyrants), Obizzo d'Este, and Guy de Montfort. The river grows shallower until it reaches a ford, after which it comes full circle back to the deeper part where Dante and Virgil first approached it; immersed here are tyrants including Attila, King of the Huns (flagello in terra, "scourge on earth", line 134), "Pyrrhus" (either the bloodthirsty son of Achilles or King Pyrrhus of Epirus), Sextus, Rinier da Corneto, and Rinier Pazzo. After bringing Dante and Virgil to the shallow ford, Nessus leaves them to return to his post. This passage may have been influenced by the early medieval Visio Karoli Grossi.[nb 3]

Ring 2: Against Self

The second round of the seventh circle is the Wood of the Suicides, in which the souls of the people who attempted or died by suicide are transformed into gnarled, thorny trees and then fed upon by Harpies, hideous clawed birds with the faces of women; the trees are only permitted to speak when broken and bleeding. Dante breaks a twig off one of the trees and from the bleeding trunk hears the tale of Pietro della Vigna, a powerful minister of Emperor Frederick II until he fell out of favour and was imprisoned and blinded. He subsequently committed suicide; his presence here, rather than in the Ninth Circle, indicates that Dante believes that the accusations made against him were false.[72] The Harpies and the characteristics of the bleeding bushes are based on Book 3 of the Aeneid. According to Dorothy L. Sayers, Dante presents the sin of suicide as an "insult to the body; so, here, the shades are deprived of even the semblance of the human form. As they refused life, they remain fixed in a dead and withered sterility. They are the image of the self-hatred which dries up the very sap of energy and makes all life infertile."[72] The trees have also been interpreted as a metaphor for the state of mind in which suicide is committed.[73]

Dante learns that these suicides, unique among the dead, will not be corporally resurrected after the Final Judgement since they threw their bodies away; instead, they will maintain their bushy form, with their own corpses hanging from the thorny limbs. After Pietro della Vigna finishes his story, Dante notices two shades (Lano da Siena and Jacopo Sant' Andrea) race through the wood, chased and savagely mauled by ferocious bitches – this is the punishment of the violently profligate who, "possessed by a depraved passion [...] dissipated their goods for the sheer wanton lust of wreckage and disorder".[72] The destruction wrought upon the wood by the profligates' flight and punishment as they crash through the undergrowth causes further suffering to the suicides, who cannot move out of the way.

Ring 3: Against God, Art, and Nature

The third round of the seventh circle is a great Plain of Burning Sand scorched by great flakes of flame falling slowly down from the sky, an image derived from the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:24).[74] The Blasphemers (the Violent against God) are stretched supine upon the burning sand, the Sodomites (the Violent against Nature) run in circles, while the Usurers (the Violent against Art, which is the Grandchild of God, as explained in Canto XI) crouch huddled and weeping. Ciardi writes, "Blasphemy, sodomy, and usury are all unnatural and sterile actions: thus the unbearing desert is the eternity of these sinners; and thus the rain, which in nature should be fertile and cool, descends as fire".[75] Dante finds Capaneus stretched out on the sands; for blasphemy against Jove, he was struck down with a thunderbolt during the war of the Seven against Thebes and is still scorning Jove in the afterlife. The overflow of Phlegethon, the river of blood from the first ring, flows boiling through the Wood of the Suicides (the second ring) and crosses the Burning Plain. Virgil explains the origin of the rivers of Hell, which includes references to the Old Man of Crete.

Canto XV

Protected by the powers of the boiling rivulet, Dante and Virgil progress across the burning plain. They pass a roving group of Sodomites, and Dante, to his surprise, recognizes Brunetto Latini. Dante addresses Brunetto with deep and sorrowful affection, "paying him the highest tribute offered to any sinner in the Inferno",[76] thus refuting suggestions that Dante only placed his enemies in Hell.[77] Dante has great respect for Brunetto and feels spiritual indebtedness to him and his works ("you taught me how man makes himself eternal; / and while I live, my gratitude for that / must always be apparent in my words");[78] Brunetto prophesies Dante's bad treatment by the Florentines. He also identifies other sodomites, including Priscian, Francesco d'Accorso, and Bishop Andrea de' Mozzi.

A Gustave Doré wood engraving of Geryon, Canto XVII

Canto XVI

The Poets begin to hear the waterfall that plunges over the Great Cliff into the Eighth Circle when three shades break from their company and greet them. They are Iacopo Rusticucci, Guido Guerra, and Tegghiaio Aldobrandi – all Florentines much admired by Dante. Rusticucci blames his "savage wife" for his torments. The sinners ask for news of Florence, and Dante laments the current state of the city. At the top of the falls, at Virgil's order, Dante removes a cord from about his waist and Virgil drops it over the edge; as if in answer, a large, distorted shape swims up through the filthy air of the abyss.

Canto XVII

The creature is Geryon, the Monster of Fraud; Virgil announces that they must fly down from the cliff on the monster's back. Dante goes alone to examine the Usurers: he does not recognize them, but each has a heraldic device emblazoned on a leather purse around his neck ("On these their streaming eyes appeared to feast").[79] The coats of arms indicate that they came from prominent Florentine families; they indicate the presence of Catello di Rosso Gianfigliazzi, Ciappo Ubriachi, the Paduan Reginaldo degli Scrovegni (who predicts that his fellow Paduan Vitaliano di Iacopo Vitaliani will join him here), and Giovanni di Buiamonte. Dante then rejoins Virgil and, both mounted atop Geryon's back, the two begin their descent from the great cliff in the Eighth Circle: the Hell of the Fraudulent and Malicious.

Geryon, the winged monster who allows Dante and Virgil to descend a vast cliff to reach the Eighth Circle, was traditionally represented as a giant with three heads and three conjoined bodies.[80] Dante's Geryon, meanwhile, is an image of fraud,[81] combining human, bestial, and reptilian elements: Geryon is a "monster with the general shape of a wyvern but with the tail of a scorpion, hairy arms, a gaudily-marked reptilian body, and the face of a just and honest man".[82] The pleasant human face on this grotesque body evokes the insincere fraudster whose intentions "behind the face" are all monstrous, cold-blooded, and stinging with poison.

Eighth Circle (Fraud)

Main article: Malebolge

Cantos XVIII–XXI

Dante now finds himself in the Eighth Circle, called Malebolge ("Evil ditches"): the upper half of the Hell of the Fraudulent and Malicious. The Eighth Circle is a large funnel of stone shaped like an amphitheatre around which run a series of ten deep, narrow, concentric ditches or trenches called bolge (singular: bolgia). Within these ditches are punished those guilty of Simple Fraud. From the foot of the Great Cliff to the Well (which forms the neck of the funnel) are large spurs of rock, like umbrella ribs or spokes, which serve as bridges over the ten ditches. Dorothy L. Sayers writes that the Malebolge is "the image of the City in corruption: the progressive disintegration of every social relationship, personal and public. Sexuality, ecclesiastical and civil office, language, ownership, counsel, authority, psychic influence, and material interdependence – all the media of the community's interchange are perverted and falsified".[83]

Illustration by Sandro Botticelli: Dante and Virgil visit the first two bolge of the Eighth Circle

Punishment of sorcerers and diviners in the Fourth Bolgia, Canto XX, illustrated by Stradanus

Dante's guide rebuffs Malacoda and his fiends between Bolge V and VI, Canto XXI

Bolgia 1 – Panderers and seducers: These sinners make two files, one along either bank of the ditch, and march quickly in opposite directions while being whipped by horned demons for eternity. They "deliberately exploited the passions of others and so drove them to serve their own interests, are themselves driven and scourged".[83] Dante makes reference to a recent traffic rule developed for the Jubilee year of 1300 in Rome.[83] In the group of panderers, the poets notice Venedico Caccianemico, a Bolognese Black Guelph who sold his own sister Ghisola to the Marchese d'Este. In the group of seducers, Virgil points out Jason, the Greek hero who led the Argonauts to fetch the Golden Fleece from Aeëtes, King of Colchis. He gained the help of the king's daughter, Medea, by seducing and marrying her only to later desert her for Creusa.[83] Jason had previously seduced Hypsipyle when the Argonauts landed at Lemnos on their way to Colchis, but "abandoned her, alone and pregnant".[84]

Bolgia 2 – Flatterers: These also exploited other people, this time abusing and corrupting language to play upon others' desires and fears. They are steeped in excrement (representative of the false flatteries they told on earth) as they howl and fight amongst themselves. Alessio Interminei of Lucca and Thaïs are seen here.[83]

Bolgia 3 – Simoniacs: Dante now forcefully expresses his condemnation of those who committed simony, or the sale of ecclesiastic favours and offices, and therefore made money for themselves out of what belongs to God: "Rapacious ones, who take the things of God, / that ought to be the brides of Righteousness, / and make them fornicate for gold and silver! / The time has come to let the trumpet sound / for you".[85] The sinners are placed head-downwards in round, tube-like holes within the rock (debased mockeries of baptismal fonts), with flames burning the soles of their feet. The heat of the fire is proportioned to their guilt. The simile of baptismal fonts gives Dante an incidental opportunity to clear his name of an accusation of malicious damage to the font at the Baptistery of San Giovanni.[86] Simon Magus, who offered gold in exchange for holy power to Saint Peter and after whom the sin is named, is mentioned here (although Dante does not encounter him). One of the sinners, Pope Nicholas III, must serve in the hellish baptism by fire from his death in 1280 until 1303 – the arrival in Hell of Pope Boniface VIII, who will take his predecessor's place in the stone tube until 1314, when he will in turn be replaced by Pope Clement V, a puppet of King Philip IV of France who moved the Holy See to Avignon, ushering in the Avignon Papacy (1309–1377). Dante delivers a denunciation of simoniacal corruption of the Church.

Bolgia 4 – Sorcerers: In the middle of the bridge of the Fourth Bolgia, Dante looks down at the souls of fortune tellers, diviners, astrologers, and other false prophets. The punishment of those who attempted to "usurp God's prerogative by prying into the future",[87] is to have their heads twisted around on their bodies; in this horrible contortion of the human form, these sinners are compelled to walk backwards for eternity, blinded by their own tears. John Ciardi writes, "Thus, those who sought to penetrate the future cannot even see in front of themselves; they attempted to move themselves forward in time, so must they go backwards through all eternity; and as the arts of sorcery are a distortion of God's law, so are their bodies distorted in Hell."[88] While referring primarily to attempts to see into the future by forbidden means, this also symbolises the twisted nature of magic in general.[87] Dante weeps in pity, and Virgil rebukes him, saying, "Here pity only lives when it is dead; / for who can be more impious than he / who links God's judgment to passivity?"[89] Virgil gives a lengthy explanation of the founding of his native city of Mantua. Among the sinners in this circle are King Amphiaraus (one of the Seven against Thebes; foreseeing his death in the war, he sought to avert it by hiding from battle but died in an earthquake caused by Zeus' thunderbolt when trying to flee) and two Theban soothsayers: Tiresias (in Ovid's Metamorphoses III, 324–331, Tiresias was transformed into a woman upon striking two coupling serpents with his rod; seven years later, he was changed back to a man in an identical encounter) and his daughter Manto. Also in this bolgia are Aruns (an Etruscan soothsayer who predicted the Caesar's victory in the Roman civil war in Lucan's Pharsalia I, 585–638), the Greek augur Eurypylus, astrologers Michael Scot (served at Frederick II's court at Palermo) and Guido Bonatti (served the court of Guido da Montefeltro), and Asdente (a shoemaker and soothsayer from Parma). Virgil implies that the moon is now setting over the Pillars of Hercules in the West: the time is just after 6:00 a.m., the dawn of Holy Saturday.

Bolgia 5 – Barrators: Corrupt politicians, who made money by trafficking in public offices (the political analogue of the simoniacs), are immersed in a lake of boiling pitch, which represents the sticky fingers and dark secrets of their corrupt deals.[90] They are guarded by demons called the Malebranche ("Evil Claws"), who tear them to pieces with claws and grappling hooks if they catch them above the surface of the pitch. The Poets observe a demon arrive with a grafting Senator of Lucca and throw him into the pitch where the demons set upon him. Virgil secures safe-conduct from the leader of the Malebranche, named Malacoda ("Evil Tail"). He informs them that the bridge across the Sixth Bolgia has collapsed (as a result of the earthquake that shook Hell at the death of Christ in 34 AD) but that there is another path further on. He sends a squad of demons led by Barbariccia to escort them safely. Based on details in this Canto (and if Christ's death is taken to have occurred at exactly noon), the time is now 7:00 a.m. of Holy Saturday.[91][nb 4] The demons provide some satirical black comedy – in the last line of Canto XXI, the sign for their march is provided by a fart: "and he had made a trumpet of his ass".[93]

Canto XXII

One of the grafters, an unidentified Navarrese (identified by early commentators as Ciampolo), is seized by the demons, and Virgil questions him. The sinner speaks of his fellow grafters, Friar Gomita (a corrupt friar in Gallura eventually hanged by Nino Visconti – see Purgatorio VIII – for accepting bribes to let prisoners escape) and Michele Zanche (a corrupt Vicar of Logodoro under King Enzo of Sardinia). He offers to lure some of his fellow sufferers into the hands of the demons, and when his plan is accepted he escapes back into the pitch. Alichino and Calcabrina start a brawl in mid-air and fall into the pitch themselves, and Barbariccia organizes a rescue party. Dante and Virgil take advantage of the confusion to slip away.

Cantos XXIII–XXIV

The Thieves tortured by Serpents: engraving by Gustave Doré illustrating Canto XXIV of the Inferno

Bolgia 6 – Hypocrites: The Poets escape the pursuing Malebranche by sliding down the sloping bank of the next pit. Here they find the hypocrites listlessly walking around a narrow track for eternity, weighted down by leaden robes. The robes are brilliantly gilded on the outside and are shaped like a monk's habit – the hypocrite's "outward appearance shines brightly and passes for holiness, but under that show lies the terrible weight of his deceit",[94] a falsity that weighs them down and makes spiritual progress impossible for them.[95] Dante speaks with Catalano dei Malavolti and Loderingo degli Andalò, two Bolognese brothers of the Jovial Friars, an order that had acquired a reputation for not living up to its vows and was eventually disbanded by Papal decree.[95] Friar Catalano points out Caiaphas, the High Priest of Israel under Pontius Pilate, who counseled the Pharisees to crucify Jesus for the public good (John 11:49–50).[96] He himself is crucified to the floor of Hell by three large stakes, and in such a position that every passing sinner must walk upon him: he "must suffer upon his body the weight of all the world's hypocrisy".[94] The Jovial Friars explain to Virgil how he may climb from the pit; Virgil discovers that Malacoda lied to him about the bridges over the sixth bolgia.

Bolgia 7 – Thieves: Dante and Virgil leave the bolgia of the Hypocrites by climbing the ruined rocks of a bridge destroyed by the great earthquake, after which they cross the bridge of the seventh bolgia to the far side to observe the next chasm. The pit is filled with monstrous reptiles: the shades of thieves are pursued and bitten by snakes and lizards, who curl themselves about the sinners and bind their hands behind their backs. The full horror of the thieves' punishment is revealed gradually: just as they stole other people's substance in life, their very identity becomes subject to theft here.[97] One sinner, who reluctantly identifies himself as Vanni Fucci, is bitten by a serpent at the jugular vein, bursts into flames, and is re-formed from the ashes like a phoenix. Vanni tells a dark prophecy against Dante.

Canto XXV

Vanni hurls an obscenity at God and the serpents swarm over him. The centaur Cacus arrives to punish him; he has a fire-breathing dragon on his shoulders and snakes covering his equine back. (In Roman mythology, Cacus, the monstrous, fire-breathing son of Vulcan, was killed by Hercules for raiding the hero's cattle; in Aeneid VIII, 193–267, Virgil did not describe him as a centaur). Dante then meets five noble thieves of Florence and observes their various transformations. Agnello Brunelleschi, in human form, is merged with the six-legged serpent that is Cianfa Donati. A figure named Buoso (perhaps either Buoso degli Abati or Buoso Donati, the latter of whom is mentioned in Inferno XXX.44) first appears as a man, but exchanges forms with Francesco de' Cavalcanti, who bites Buoso in the form of a four-footed serpent. Puccio Sciancato remains unchanged for the time being.

Dante and Virgil observe the false counsellors, Canto XXVI

Canto XXVI

Bolgia 8 – Counsellors of Fraud: Dante addresses a passionate lament to Florence before turning to the next bolgia. Here, fraudulent advisers or evil counsellors move about, hidden from view inside individual flames. These are not people who gave false advice, but people who used their position to advise others to engage in fraud. Ulysses and Diomedes are punished together within a great double-headed flame; they are condemned for the stratagem of the Trojan Horse (resulting in the Fall of Troy), for persuading Achilles to sail for Troy (causing Deidamia to die of grief), and for the theft of the sacred statue of Pallas, the Palladium (upon which, it was believed, the fate of Troy depended). Ulysses, the figure in the larger horn of the flame, narrates the tale of his last voyage and death, a creation of Dante's that illustrates the extent of his own pride despite his condemnation of this principal vice throughout the Divine Comedy.[98] Ulysses tells how, after his detainment by Circe, his love for neither his son, his father, nor his wife could overpower his desire to set out on the open sea to "gain experience of the world / and of the vices and the worth of men". As they approach the Pillars of Hercules, Ulysses urges his crew:

Consider well the seed that gave you birth:

you were not made to live your lives as brutes,

but to be followers of worth and knowledge.[99]

This passage exemplifies the danger of using rhetoric without proper wisdom, a failing condemned by several of Dante's most prominent philosophical influences.[98] Although Ulysses successfully convinces his crew to venture into the unknown, he lacks the wisdom to understand the danger this entails, leading to their death in a shipwreck after sighting Mount Purgatory in the Southern Hemisphere.

Canto XXVII

Dante is approached by Guido da Montefeltro, head of the Ghibellines of Romagna, asking for news of his country. Dante replies with a tragic summary of the current state of the cities of Romagna. Guido then recounts his life: he advised Pope Boniface VIII to offer a false amnesty to the Colonna family, who, in 1297, had walled themselves inside the castle of Palestrina in the Lateran. When the Colonna accepted the terms and left the castle, the Pope razed it to the ground and left them without a refuge. Guido describes how St. Francis, founder of the Franciscan order, came to take his soul to Heaven, only to have a demon assert prior claim. Although Boniface had absolved Guido in advance for his evil advice, the demon points out the invalidity: absolution requires contrition, and a man cannot be contrite for a sin at the same time that he is intending to commit it.[100]

Canto XXVIII

Bolgia 9 – Sowers of Discord: In the ninth bolgia, the Sowers of Discord are hacked and mutilated for all eternity by a large demon wielding a bloody sword; their bodies are divided as, in life, their sin was to tear apart what God had intended to be united;[101] these are the sinners who are "ready to rip up the whole fabric of society to gratify a sectional egotism".[102] The souls must drag their ruined bodies around the ditch, their wounds healing in the course of the circuit, only to have the demon tear them apart anew. These are divided into three categories:

Religious schism and discord: Chief among this category is Muhammad, the founder of Islam: his body is ripped from groin to chin, with his entrails hanging out. Dante apparently saw Muhammad as causing a schism within Christianity when he and his followers splintered off.[102][103] Dante also condemns Muhammad's son-in-law, Ali, for schism between Sunni and Shiite: his face is cleft from top to bottom. Muhammad tells Dante to warn the schismatic and heretic Fra Dolcino.

Civil strife and political discord: In this category are Pier da Medicina (his throat slit, nose slashed off as far as the eyebrows, a wound where one of his ears had been), the Roman tribune Gaius Scribonius Curio (who advised Caesar to cross the Rubicon and thus begin the Civil War; his tongue is cut off), and Mosca dei Lamberti (who incited the Amidei family to kill Buondelmonte dei Buondelmonti, resulting in conflict between Guelphs and Ghibellines; his arms are hacked off).

Family disunion, or discord between kinsmen: Finally, in the third category of sinner, Dante sees Bertran de Born (1140–1215). The knight carries his severed head by its own hair, swinging it like a lantern. Bertran is said to have caused a quarrel between Henry II of England and his son Prince Henry the Young King; his punishment in Hell is decapitation, since dividing father and son is like severing the head from the body.[102]

Canto XXIX

Dante et Virgile by William-Adolphe Bouguereau: Capocchio, an alchemist who was burned as a heretic, is attacked by Gianni Schicchi, who impersonated the dead Buoso Donati to claim his inheritance, Canto XXX

Bolgia 10 – Falsifiers: The final bolgia of the Eighth Circle is home to various sorts of falsifiers. A "disease" on society, they are themselves afflicted with different types of afflictions:[104] horrible diseases, stench, thirst, filth, darkness, and screaming. Some lie prostrate while others run hungering through the pit, tearing others to pieces. Shortly before their arrival in this pit, Virgil indicates that it is approximately noon of Holy Saturday, and he and Dante discuss one of Dante's kinsmen (Geri de Bello) among the Sowers of Discord in the previous ditch. The first category of falsifiers Dante encounters are the Alchemists (Falsifiers of Things). He speaks with two spirits viciously scrubbing and clawing at their leprous scabs: Griffolino d'Arezzo (an alchemist who extracted money from the foolish Alberto da Siena on the promise of teaching him to fly; Alberto's reputed father the Bishop of Siena had Griffolino burned at the stake) and Capocchio (burned at the stake at Siena in 1293 for practicing alchemy).

Canto XXX

Suddenly, two spirits – Gianni Schicchi de' Cavalcanti and Myrrha, both punished as Imposters (Falsifiers of Persons) – run rabid through the pit. Schicchi sinks his teeth into the neck of an alchemist, Capocchio, and drags him away like prey. Griffolino explains how Myrrha disguised herself to commit incest with her father King Cinyras, while Schicchi impersonated the dead Buoso Donati to dictate a will giving himself several profitable bequests. Dante then encounters Master Adam of Brescia, one of the Counterfeiters (Falsifiers of Money): for manufacturing Florentine florins of 21 (rather than 24) carat gold, he was burned at the stake in 1281. He is punished by a loathsome dropsy-like disease, which gives him a bloated stomach, prevents him from moving, and an eternal, unbearable thirst. Master Adam points out two sinners of the fourth class, the Perjurers (Falsifiers of Words). These are Potiphar's wife (punished for her false accusation of Joseph in Genesis 39:7–19[105]) and Sinon, the Achaean spy who lied to the Trojans to convince them to take the Trojan Horse into their city (Aeneid II, 57–194); Sinon is here rather than in Bolgia 8 because his advice was false as well as evil. Both suffer from a burning fever. Master Adam and Sinon exchange abuse, which Dante watches until he is rebuked by Virgil. As a result of his shame and repentance, Dante is forgiven by his guide. Sayers remarks that the descent through Malebolge "began with the sale of the sexual relationship, and went on to the sale of Church and State; now, the very money is itself corrupted, every affirmation has become perjury, and every identity a lie"[104] so that every aspect of social interaction has been progressively destroyed.

Central Well of Malebolge

Titans and Giants, including Ephialtes on the left, in Doré's illustrations

Canto XXXI

Dante and Virgil approach the Central Well, at the bottom of which lies the Ninth and final Circle of Hell. The classical and biblical Giants – who perhaps symbolise pride and other spiritual flaws lying behind acts of treachery[106] – stand perpetual guard inside the well-pit, their legs embedded in the banks of the Ninth Circle while their upper halves rise above the rim and are visible from the Malebolge.[107] Dante initially mistakes them for great towers of a city. Among the Giants, Virgil identifies Nimrod (who tried to build the Tower of Babel; he shouts out the unintelligible Raphèl mai amècche zabì almi); Ephialtes (who with his brother Otus tried to storm Olympus during the Gigantomachy; he has his arms chained up) and Briareus (who Dante claimed had challenged the gods); and Tityos and Typhon, who insulted Jupiter. Also here is Antaeus, who did not join in the rebellion against the Olympian gods and therefore is not chained. At Virgil's persuasion, Antaeus takes the poets in his palm and lowers them gently to the final level of Hell.

Ninth Circle (Treachery)

Dante speaks to the traitors in the ice, Canto XXXII

Cantos XXXII–XXXIV

Ugolino and His Sons by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (Metropolitan Museum of Art) depicts Ugolino della Gherardesca's story from Canto XXXIII. Imprisoned for treachery, Ugolino starves to death with his children, who, before dying, beg him to eat their bodies.

At the base of the well, Dante finds himself within a large frozen lake: Cocytus, the Ninth Circle of Hell. Trapped in the ice, each according to his guilt, are punished sinners guilty of treachery against those with whom they had special relationships. The lake of ice is divided into four concentric rings (or "rounds") of traitors corresponding, in order of seriousness, to betrayal of family ties, betrayal of community ties, betrayal of guests, and betrayal of lords. This is in contrast to the popular image of Hell as fiery; as Ciardi writes, "The treacheries of these souls were denials of love (which is God) and of all human warmth. Only the remorseless dead centre of the ice will serve to express their natures. As they denied God's love, so are they furthest removed from the light and warmth of His Sun. As they denied all human ties, so are they bound only by the unyielding ice."[108] This final, deepest level of hell is reserved for traitors, betrayers and oathbreakers (its most famous inmate is Judas Iscariot).

Round 1 – Caina: this round is named after Cain, who killed his own brother in the first act of murder (Genesis 4:8).[109] This round houses the Traitors to their Kindred: they have their necks and heads out of the ice and are allowed to bow their heads, allowing some protection from the freezing wind. Here Dante sees the brothers Alessandro and Napoleone degli Alberti, who killed each other over their inheritance and their politics some time between 1282 and 1286. Camiscion de' Pazzi, a Ghibelline who murdered his kinsman Ubertino, identifies several other sinners: Mordred (traitorous son of King Arthur); Vanni de' Cancellieri, nicknamed Focaccia (a White Guelph of Pistoia who killed his cousin, Detto de' Cancellieri); and Sassol Mascheroni of the noble Toschi family of Florence (murdered a relative). Camiscion is aware that, in July 1302, his relative Carlino de' Pazzi would accept a bribe to surrender the Castle of Piantravigne to the Blacks, betraying the Whites. As a traitor to his party, Carlino belongs in Antenora, the next circle down – his greater sin will make Camiscion look virtuous by comparison.[107]

Round 2 – Antenora: the second round is named after Antenor, a Trojan soldier who betrayed his city to the Greeks. Here lie the Traitors to their Country: those who committed treason against political entities (parties, cities, or countries) have their heads above the ice, but they cannot bend their necks. Dante accidentally kicks the head of Bocca degli Abati, a traitorous Guelph of Florence, and then proceeds to treat him more savagely than any other soul he has thus far met. Also punished in this level are Buoso da Duera (Ghibelline leader bribed by the French to betray Manfred, King of Naples), Tesauro dei Beccheria (a Ghibelline of Pavia; beheaded by the Florentine Guelphs for treason in 1258), Gianni de' Soldanieri (noble Florentine Ghibelline who joined with the Guelphs after Manfred's death in 1266), Ganelon (betrayed the rear guard of Charlemagne to the Muslims at Roncesvalles, according to the French epic poem The Song of Roland), and Tebaldello de' Zambrasi of Faenza (a Ghibelline who turned his city over to the Bolognese Guelphs on Nov. 13, 1280). The Poets then see two heads frozen in one hole, one gnawing the nape of the other's neck.

The gnawing sinner tells his story: he is Count Ugolino, and the head he gnaws belongs to Archbishop Ruggieri. In "the most pathetic and dramatic passage of the Inferno",[110] Ugolino describes how he conspired with Ruggieri in 1288 to oust his nephew, Nino Visconti, and take control over the Guelphs of Pisa. However, as soon as Nino was gone, the Archbishop, sensing the Guelphs' weakened position, turned on Ugolino and imprisoned him with his sons and grandsons in the Torre dei Gualandi. In March 1289, the Archbishop condemned the prisoners to death by starvation in the tower.

Round 3 – Ptolomaea: the third region of Cocytus is named after Ptolemy, who invited his father-in-law Simon Maccabaeus and his sons to a banquet and then killed them (1 Maccabees 16).[111][112] Traitors to their Guests lie supine in the ice while their tears freeze in their eye sockets, sealing them with small visors of crystal – even the comfort of weeping is denied to them. Dante encounters Fra Alberigo, one of the Jovial Friars and a native of Faenza, who asks Dante to remove the visor of ice from his eyes. In 1285, Alberigo invited his opponents, Manfred (his brother) and Alberghetto (Manfred's son), to a banquet at which his men murdered the dinner guests. He explains that often a living person's soul falls to Ptolomea before he dies ("before dark Atropos has cut their thread").[113] Then, on earth, a demon inhabits the body until the body's natural death. Fra Alberigo's sin is identical in kind to that of Branca d'Oria, a Genoese Ghibelline who, in 1275, invited his father-in-law, Michele Zanche (seen in the Eighth Circle, Bolgia 5), and had him cut to pieces. Branca (that is, his earthly body) did not die until 1325, but his soul, together with that of his nephew who assisted in his treachery, fell to Ptolomaea before Zanche's soul arrived at the bolgia of the Barrators. Dante leaves without keeping his promise to clear Fra Alberigo's eyes of ice ("And yet I did not open them for him; / and it was courtesy to show him rudeness").[114]

Round 4 – Judecca: the fourth division of Cocytus, named for Judas Iscariot, contains the Traitors to their Lords and benefactors. Upon entry into this round, Virgil says "Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni" ("The banners of the King of Hell draw closer").[115] Judecca is completely silent: all of the sinners are fully encapsulated in ice, distorted and twisted in every conceivable position. The sinners present an image of utter immobility: it is impossible to talk with any of them, so Dante and Virgil quickly move on to the centre of Hell.

Centre of Hell

See also: Dante's Satan

Satan in the Inferno is trapped in the frozen central zone in the Ninth Circle of Hell, Canto XXXIV (Gustave Doré).

In the very centre of Hell, condemned for committing the ultimate sin (personal treachery against God), is the Devil, referred to by Virgil as Dis (the Roman god of the underworld; the name "Dis" was often used for Pluto in antiquity, such as in Virgil's Aeneid). The arch-traitor, Lucifer was once held by God to be fairest of the angels before his pride led him to rebel against God, resulting in his expulsion from Heaven. Lucifer is a giant, terrifying beast trapped waist-deep in the ice, fixed and suffering. He has three faces, each a different colour: one red (the middle), one a pale yellow (the right), and one black (the left):

... he had three faces: one in front bloodred;

and then another two that, just above

  the midpoint of each shoulder, joined the first;

  and at the crown, all three were reattached;

the right looked somewhat yellow, somewhat white;

  the left in its appearance was like those

  who come from where the Nile, descending, flows.[116]

Dorothy L. Sayers notes that Satan's three faces are thought by some to suggest his control over the three human races: black for the African (the race of Ham), yellow for the Asiatic (the race of Shem), and red for the Europeans (the race of Japheth).[117] All interpretations recognise that the three faces represent a fundamental perversion of the Trinity: Satan is impotent, ignorant, and full of hate, in contrast to the all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving nature of God.[117] Lucifer retains his six wings but these are now dark, bat-like, and futile: the icy wind that emanates from the beating of Lucifer's wings only further ensures his imprisonment in the frozen lake. He weeps from his six eyes, and his tears mix with bloody froth and pus as they pour down his three chins. Each face has a mouth that chews eternally on a prominent traitor. Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus dangle with their feet in the left and right mouths, respectively, for their involvement in the assassination of Julius Caesar (44 BC) – an act which, to Dante, represented the destruction of a unified Italy and the killing of the man who was divinely appointed to govern the world.[117] In the central, most vicious mouth is Judas Iscariot, the apostle who betrayed Christ. Judas is receiving the most horrifying torture of the three traitors: his head is gnawed inside Lucifer's mouth while his back is forever flayed and shredded by Lucifer's claws. According to Dorothy L. Sayers, "Just as Judas figures treason against God, so Brutus and Cassius figure treason against Man-in-Society; or we may say that we have here the images of treason against the Divine and the Secular government of the world."[117]

At about 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, Virgil and Dante begin their escape from Hell by clambering down Satan's ragged fur, feet-first. When they reach Satan's genitalia, the poets pass through the centre of the universe and of gravity from the Northern Hemisphere of land to the Southern Hemisphere of water. When Virgil changes direction and begins to climb "upward" towards the surface of the Earth at the antipodes, Dante, in his confusion, initially believes they are returning to Hell. Virgil indicates that the time is halfway between the canonical hours of Prime (6:00 a.m.) and Terce (9:00 a.m.) — that is, 7:30 a.m. of the same Holy Saturday which was just about to end. Dante is confused as to how, after about an hour and a half of climbing, it is now apparently morning. Virgil explains that it is as a result of passing through the Earth's centre into the Southern Hemisphere, which is twelve hours ahead of Jerusalem, the central city of the Northern Hemisphere (where, therefore, it is currently 7:30 p.m.).

Virgil goes on to explain how the Southern Hemisphere was once covered with dry land, but the land recoiled in horror to the north when Lucifer fell from Heaven and was replaced by the ocean. Meanwhile, the inner rock Lucifer displaced as he plunged into the centre of the earth rushed upwards to the surface of the Southern Hemisphere to avoid contact with him, forming the Mountain of Purgatory. This mountain – the only land mass in the waters of the Southern Hemisphere – rises above the surface at a point directly opposite Jerusalem. The poets then ascend a narrow chasm of rock through the "space contained between the floor formed by the convex side of Cocytus and the underside of the earth above,"[118] moving in opposition to Lethe, the river of oblivion, which flows down from the summit of Mount Purgatory. The poets finally emerge just before dawn on the morning of Easter Sunday (March 27 or April 10, 1300) beneath a sky studded with stars.

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

The Visions and Circles of Power

Transcript of audio tape from Betty J. Mills

http://educate-yourself.org/cn/bettymillsvisonsandcirclesofpowerjan1991.shtml

January 1991

The Visions and Circles of Power by Betty Mills (Jan. 1991)

http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/hoax/circlesofpower.htm

This is a transcript of a tape made by Betty J. Mills in January, 1991.   Also see the transcript of Betty’s tape, that illustrates the influence wielded by leaders of the Conservative - Christian/Conservative "New Right" which, Betty asserts, has held the door open for the liberal agenda. An Open Letter to Members of Eagle Forum and Serge Monast's transcript on Project BlueBeam

The Visions and Circles of Power

by Betty J. Mills

My name is Betty J. Mills . It is January 1991. The title of this tape is The Vision and Circles of Power.  This tape is undoubtedly the most difficult tape I have ever made and some of you may say it is also the most unbelievable.     First, let me say, as I have said in my tape and booklets, when I discuss the Catholic Church, the Vatican, the Pope and the all-Catholic SMOM (Sovereign Military Order of Malta). I am not condemning Catholics and their faith.  The Catholics' faith is their business.  I only enter when it is political and a threat to the freedom of my grandchildren and all other children - and also when it is a threat to the restoration of the sovereignty of the United States of America and its Constitutional Republic.  

Also, when I discuss the world policy makers or President George Bush [Sr.] and his administration and the war in the Gulf, I am in no way in opposition to our service men and service women.  I honor and respect them.  However, I am not behind the policy of president George Bush and his administration.  I am not behind their policy which is the policy of the World Policymakers, whose dream was - and is - the New World Order.... and the war in the Gulf is a vitally important part of this plan.  

Here is a question as part of a scenario.  What would you believe or think?... what would you say and what would you do if ?... tomorrow your children came into the house screaming, "Mommy! Daddy! Come look at the sky!"     You run outside and looking up at the sky you see a VISION.  THE VISION could be the Virgin Mary.  It could be Christ. It could be both or it could be some other [religious figure].     At this time you also hear a voice telling you that you will be receiving a message and that you must carry out the instructions you are given.  Then other members of the family come out of the house and they inform you that they have seen the same VISION on television.     You listen to the radio and you hear the message about THE VISION and other instructions that you are to follow.  You try to call relatives and friends but you find that the phone lines are busy.  Perhaps a recording will be giving some information.  You learn from television and radio that THE VISION is being seen all over the world and the messages are being heard in the language of their country or area

The Struggle for World Dominion Between Pope John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Capitalist West

Now... let us return to the present and reality. It will lead us to a book written by Malachi Martin considered by many as the voice for Pope John Paul II.  As I discuss Malachi Martin's book, it will lead us back to THE VISION.  From August the 2nd, 1990 until the present ... January 1991 - it is less than a six-month period of time, but it certainly is a most historical time.  During this short period of time, president George Bush implemented a vital part of the U.S. State Department plan 7277.

This is one of the final steps leading into the New World Order. President George Bush accomplished this when he placed the U.S. military into an International Military Force under the United Nations. We have nearly one-half million service men and women over in the sand, and they are functioning under United Nations' resolutions. President George Bush then announced the NEW WORLD ORDER. Following this came a startling book by Malachi Martin entitled Keys of This Blood. The jacket of this book tells us what the book is about. It says it is the "struggle for world dominion between Pope John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbachev and the Capitalist West". I challenge that statement and will detail it later.

Simon & Schuster, the publishers of this book, call it "explosive" - and indeed it is.  If the book had been written by just somebody, it would not have meant too much.  However, the author of this book is Malachi Martin who is an eminent theologian and expert on the Catholic Church.  He is a former Jesuit and a former professor at the Vatican Pontifical Biblical Institute.  He served in Rome from 1958 to 1964.... and one thing to remember is that Malachi Martin made it very clear that Pope John Paul II has offered no objection to what he, Malachi Martin, has written. This fact certainly makes the book, Keys of This Blood "explosive" - as it was called by its publishers.

Following are my remarks and highlights of the book review of Simon & Schuster.  If there is any doubt as to the New World Order meaning a One World Government, I would say that Malachi Martin's book and the book review verify the statement that the New World Order and a One World Government are one and the same. The book review states that before the end of the 1990's we will see the first One World Government that has ever existed in the society of nations.    The Simon & Schuster book review shows that Malachi Martin's statements are startling and that he, Malachi Martin - for the first time - reveals the ongoing plans and policies of a reigning pope who is of course, at this time, Pope John Paul II. Malachi Martin exposes coveted Vatican intelligence data concerning the competition among these three major powers - as stated... the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev, the Capitalist West and Pope John Paul II with his world-wide Roman Catholic church.     It is with the intent to set up and maintain the New World Order which Pope John Paul II expects to be in place before the end of the 1990's

"...Pope John Paul II as the Servant of Heaven's Grand Design"

Malachi Martin says the battle between the pope, Mikhail Gorbachev and the Capitalist West will be a "winner-take-all" battle. He says that it:

"will end in a global government being a New Economic and Political World Order that is so vast that it will have to be presided over by a super bureaucracy superior to all individual nations".

We must surely understand from those statements that this would mean the absolute end of any attempt of restoring the sovereignty of the United States of America and its Constitutional Republic with its freedom and independence - a freedom never before enjoyed by any country. Malachi Martin says that, outside of his rivals, few people see Pope John Paul II as he sees himself. He said that the Pope sees himself as a contender with the power and the determination to establish and maintain the New World Order. Malachi Martin says that Mikhail Gorbachev and the Capitalist West do not have what it takes to make them the winners. Malachi Martin says:

    "the world at large must reckon with Pope John Paul II as the servant of Heaven's Grand Design."

I would say that sounds very "New Age". And... throughout the book Malachi Martin makes it a point to tell us that Pope John Paul II is a slave to the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. Also, after Pope John Paul II was shot he said he had a personal communication from heaven. After this communication from heaven, Pope John Paul II concluded that the Fatima message linked with his One World Government plans. I would agree with that statement. In fact, that is what I feared and wrote about five years ago. Malachi Martin says the other two contenders feel that their present moves are in the last stages on the road to a New World Order which is already in view. AND... he said that Pope John Paul II is waiting for an event that will separate human history and that the event is THE VISION. I believe he is absolutely correct in his thinking, although I do not believe that "the vision" comes from whence Malachi Martin says.

The Message of Fatima

At the time the people view THE VISION in the sky it is very possible that they will receive the third message of Fatima. For those of you who are not familiar with this third message of Fatima, I will give just a small sketch of the story. Space does not allow the telling of the story in detail. I would suggest that any who are not familiar with the story of Fatima... get the booklet and read the story. It should be available in most Catholic book stores.The third message of Fatima could well be one of the most important messages ever heard by the people on this earth because it can be used by the world policymakers to their advantage in implementing the New World Order. It was nearly five years ago that I became very concerned about the third message of Fatima being used by the world policy-makers. I wrote a bit on it.  Yes... with the Pope being totally committed to the Virgin Mary (who is the lady of Fatima), with the Pope being the powerful religious partner of the world policy-makers and with the third message - being what the world policy-makers want it to be - the third message of Fatima could be absolutely overwhelming in their New World Order plan.

I labeled the Pope as a partner of the other two that Malachi Martin calls "adversaries" of the Pope. The Capitalist West, Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union and the Pope may be one another's adversaries at times. In a sense, while they may be adverse to one another at times, they are also at times one and the same. Now I will go back to the story of the Lady of Fatima. Fatima is a village in the center of the country of Portugal. It was near Fatima that three children saw "an angel" and later said they saw the blessed mother - the Virgin Mary. She gave them messages. Two of the messages were published. During this period of time when she was appearing before the children it was said that thousands of people viewed the sun zig-zagging in the sky. The one child, Lucia, grew to adulthood and became a nun. Lucia scribed a third message from the Virgin Mary which was eventually given to the Pope. It was to be revealed in 1960. It has not yet been revealed

When the Vision appears the Pope..."will control the Will and minds of men"

I believe now as I did before - that this message will be used by the world policymakers in helping to implement their New World Order and that the message will be what they want it to be. Remember, this could be a powerful tool in bringing about their New World Order plan.     Malachi Martin tells us that a VISION will appear and at that time the Pope's authority must be accepted and that "he will control the will and minds of men". If THE VISION and the third message of Fatima are used together it will be a most powerful means for the Pope's implementation of the New World Order along with the world policymakers. These statements are in no way intended to desecrate or defile the Virgin Mary. Our concern in this respect has been that the world policymakers will use her to further their global plan.

Malachi Martin says that the Pope will be on one of his trips when the VISION appears. I would advise that everyone take the third message of Fatima and the VISION - very seriously.      I truly believe that the world policymakers will decide what the message will be... and, that they'll also contrive the VISION by using the advanced science, technology and holography which is available today.     As I have said, this is in no way a reflection on the dedicated people who have worked diligently on the space program and in our science and technology. Also, keep in mind the irony of the fact that the Pope was supposedly in opposition to Communism.     The Capitalist West was also supposedly in opposition to Communism. Yet, one of the key members of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM) - William Casey - who is totally committed to the Pope and who is also part of the Capitalist West, helped build Communist Russia into a mighty military complex.      That is just one example of the Circles of Power being partly one-and-the-same. Also, there's the Vatican-Moscow Agreement which shows that at all times they could not have been totally adverse to Communism. The United States is of course a great power of the Capitalist West.     If the United States Capitalist West is an adversary of the Pope why, then, did the U.S. develop an ambassadorship with the Vatican? And... why have they always filled the post with a member of the Knights of Malta (Sovereign Military Order of Malta) who is totally committed to the Pope?      Consider the Knights of Malta (SMOM) members who are tied to the "New Right" Leadership, who in turn have numerous organizations, the membership of which is made up of people who should be opposing the New World Order.      To every true American I say...

"There is a web being woven about us from which we can never escape unless we demand a return to our Sovereignty and Constitutional Republic."

    Consider what a power structure Malachi Martin is promulgating. He is speaking to audiences which are said to be mostly Catholic. His speeches about the Pope taking control is applauded by these audiences. It is frightening when people applaud the loss of U.S. sovereignty while we send a half-million American service men and women to possibly die to "restore" sovereignty to Kuwait... which has never been sovereign.

The Papal Plan

Now... we will go to the scenario in the back of the book by Malachi Martin. Malachi Martin tells of the organizations which the Pope will approve when he takes control with his New World Order. One of the groups is Opus Dei - a powerful Catholic group.    Another - Malachi Martin says - is a group which exists on a world-wide basis and has remained in total secret. Malachi Martin does not tell us the name of this group. Malachi Martin also, when discussing the Pope's plan, notes the Knights of Malta (SMOM) as playing an important and impressive role. At this point Malachi Martin calls it the "Papal Plan".      Again, I say, remember... take this VISION seriously because this Pope would surely never allow his reputation to be placed in a position like this except that he knows this VISION is to take place. And also remember... with our science, technology, space program and advanced holography it is possible to create a VISION in the sky which every person in this world would be able to see.

U.S. State Department Plan - 7277

I would hope you would not believe THE VISION is of God. I myself definitely believe it will be of man. For those who might say that in the end times a VISION may well appear, please note that Malachi Martin does not associate this with the end times. He describes this VISION to appear in a time of peace prior to the end time.     Also, two other important points to remember. Please take note... for the New World Order to be set in cement it is necessary to totally eliminate the sovereignty of the United States of America with its Constitutional Republic and block our efforts to regain the vast part which we have already lost.      And.. as previously stated, the U.S. State Department 7277 plan must be completed with its International Military Force. Also, for the New World Order to be complete it is necessary to make sure that any part of the world with its own strong religion, strong culture, or strong economic stability is convinced of the overwhelming, invincible power of the International Military Force.      Through the war in the Gulf I am sure the middle east and other countries have been convinced.     That leaves the second part of 7277 to be implemented - that part being the transfer of all arms of all nations and all individuals into the U.N. International Military Force. Yes... 7277 is the plan for General and Complete Disarmament, meaning disarming all nations and transferring all arms to the International Military Force.      Pope John Paul II sanctioned the Five-Continent Initiative. Much of its leadership was New Age. A key issue of this initiative was "general and complete disarmament". Those were the very words of the 7277 plan.      You may ask, "Am I implying that this is an all-Catholic planned takeover?"  No. I am not. As we show in our Colonel North, William Casey, and the Knights of Malta booklet... it is more than that. The world policymakers who intend to rule this world are made up of the billionaire cartel of banking, business, industry, oil, agriculture, minerals, gems and all else. The world policymakers are made up of Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Humanists, Atheists and others.      The world policymakers were wise enough to know they needed a religious head with great charisma. You see, there is no political power that is all powerful without the connection of religion. These world policymakers have strived for years to build their New World Order - One World Government and they have used the United Nations since its inception as a powerful international tool.     The U.S. State Department plan 7277 was their dream for an International Military Force, and the second part of the 7277 plan is an extremely important part. We question, "When will president Bush or another implementor drop the other shoe and implement the second part?" That is the total disarmament of every nation and every individual by the means of transfer of all arms to an International Military Force.      Former Congressman, John Ashbrook, of Ohio warned of 7277 in no uncertain terms. He warned us of the deadly internationalists with their New World Order plans. He warned us of Global Perspectives in Education, Incorporated.     It was amazing the things that this man saw that we had to know were going to take us into the New World Order. But, we had to face Congressman Ashbrook’s untimely death. His death was viewed with suspicion by many. His voice was the kind that many members of the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate could not tolerate... and indeed the world policymakers could not tolerate John Ashbrook.

Circles of Power = World Policymakers

Who are the world policymakers?  They are the Circles of Power which Malachi Martin talks about in his book, Keys of This Blood... and far more than that. We know they include the Rockefellers, Rothschilds and other powerful groups – the Bilderbergers, the Bohemian Club, Club of Rome and the Order of Skull and Bones at Yale University.     These groups are in turn interconnected with the Council on Foreign Relations, the Committee on Economic Development and the Trilateral Commission. The powerful Sovereign Military Order of Malta also comes into play as a very important part in all of it. Within the Knights of Malta (SMOM) there is Louis Lehrman who was formerly Jewish, Bowie Kuhn, William Buckley, Alexander Haig, J.Peter Grace... and thousands more. This network is massive and it all interconnects.      The world policy-makers needed the right man as an implementor. What better man than President George Bush, a member of the Order of Skull and Bones? They needed a powerful religious head with great charisma to make the New World Order a powerful Order. Pope John Paul II is the powerful religious head who can make their political power - all-powerful.      In March of 1988 I wrote a paper, The Conservative Interlock - As I See It. After years of research, and finding no one indicating otherwise, I have reached the following conclusions.    Those listed below are part of the powerful conservative right leadership: Pope John Paul II, the Vatican, the Knights of Malta (SMOM), president Ronald Reagan and the "New Right" Leadership [Phony Conservatives; Controlled Opposition].     The New Right leadership includes Paul Weyrich [Jesuit-trained], Phyllis Schlafly [Dame of Malta-female counterpart to SMOM], Richard Viguerie, Louis Lehrman [Zionist Jew?], Jerry Falwell [Judeo-Christian] and numerous others including powerful Protestant clergy.      This entire conservative right leadership from Pope John Paul II down to the New Right leadership and their associates - both Catholic and Protestant - must be fully understood or... As I see it, what is remaining of our Republic, our sovereignty and our freedom in the United States of America will be lost forever - as well as any hope for the rest of the world.      A vast amount of money is given to various people within this powerful conservative and New Right Leadership. Contributors include those in large corporations and companies. They are also aided by tax-exempt foundations. Membership dues and contributions undoubtedly make up a considerable sum. Many people were amazed to find that some of the powerful conservative and New Right Leadership are funded by the United States Government - our tax dollars [i.e., Phyllis Schlafly]

Conservative Right Leadership

The key element that must be understood about the Conservative Right Leadership is the fact that the Conservative Right Leadership functions as internationalists and socialists. There are many organizations which were always considered those that we should be opposing and we found the New Right Leadership functioning right along with them. Frightening? Indeed it is. Who would ever have believed it? ==Liberals and Conservatives promoting the same One World Government actions for the New World Order.      Conservatives and New Agers working together.      Conservatives and Reverend Moon joining together.      The world policymakers must be stunned at how well their plans have worked. The top leadership of the internationalist socialists are part of the world policymakers. Yes, they are the billionaire cartel of business, banking, etc., plus religion... and they do heavily influence nearly every government in the world.      Keep in mind the Revolutionary War has never really ended. We fought to be free of tyranny under a king and we insisted on living in freedom under a government of we, the people. One group of people came to America to enjoy political and religious freedom and insisted that others should enjoy the same.      But note... there was another group that came to America. They came to impose their political and religious beliefs on everyone. They were already world policymakers made up of the internationalist socialists and other European political and religious leaders.      The Revolutionary War was thought to be ended, but the group who wanted to impose their religious and political beliefs on us all had a foreign allegiance and they were still here. They were well embedded in America.      Now, generations later their off-spring continue in high places, working with European leaders and are still determined to impose their political and religious beliefs on us all. They are determined to abolish sovereign America and develop their own One World Government - New World Order with a One World Religion.      Remember... religion makes it easier to control [the masses - people] and far more powerful.     Then, following this, we were faced with further proof that the New Right leadership were functioning in a manner to silence all out-cry to the New World Order and that they were indeed functioning as internationalists and socialists.      It was only a few months ago that a full page ad appeared in our local paper in Indiana. This paper has a vast readership. On a full page in large, bold letters it advertised a meeting concerning the New World Order to be held here in Fort Wayne, Indiana.      Fifteen years ago, in 1976, this bold statement on the New World Order would have had hundreds of people on their feet waiting to go to the meeting and being infuriated at the idea of the pursuit of the New World Order. But, it is now fifteen years later and there was barely a sound. One organization had their spokesman come to Fort Wayne and voice their objections. A very few from here, who cared, attended.      How could it be that many of these things, including the New World Order could be met with near silence? The answer is tragic and simple. The answer is... it is because of the New Right Leadership. Fifteen years ago individuals who were considered dedicated Americans began to join the organizations of the New Right Leadership.      It is amazing how the New Right Leadership has been able to take people under the umbrella of their organizations and somehow convince them to absolutely oppose nothing but what they – the New Right Leadership – tell them to oppose. It is a sad day. I would never have believed this could all happen in so short amount of time... and it has happened.     The New Right Leadership and associates has millions of members and followers. They have had millions of dollars at their disposal. Why, then, do we continuously lose? Our justice system, our educational system - our entire government is a disaster. What is the New Right Leadership all about?  I repeat my question from previous papers: "Are the New Right Leaders [alleged Christian-Conservatives] one-worlders or are they unqualified?"      President George Bush was called all kinds of names a few years ago, but once the party accepted him the people fell silent and now today he is their king. Many religious leaders are totally behind him... not all, but many. Some of the very prominent are behind him all the way.      President George Bush lied to the people, but it doesn't matter. Isn't that amazing? It just doesn't matter.      Now, I wonder, how can we ever answer to the souls from those thousands and thousands of caskets from the previous terrible wars and those who will lose their lives in this one? How can we ever explain what all these caskets were about? How is it possible, as I have asked previously, that the sovereignty of Kuwait could be so important that we give away the sovereignty of our own nation by going into the International Military Force and declaring a New World Order?      We have been given a lot of reasons for our being in Kuwait. I would like the administration to tell us what we're really there for. Remember, we are told that our State Department led Saddam to believe that we were not interested in the border dispute between Iraq and Kuwai

The Gadhafi Fiasco (often pronounced Kadhafi)  

I cannot forget the Gadhafi fiasco that our State Department is still keeping hidden. Knight of Malta (SMOM), William Wilson, was chosen by President Ronald Reagan to be the first Ambassador to the Vatican. Our efforts, along with others, in opposing this Ambassadorship was totally ignored. William Wilson, the U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican, made an unauthorized trip to Libya. He traveled to Libya and met privately with Libyan officials. Following Ambassador Wilson's visit, Gadhafi stated that an American diplomat had been sent to reduce tensions with Libya. The U.S. State Department said they were unaware of Ambassador William Wilson's trip to Libya and the State Department flatly denied Gadhafi's statement. To the embarrassment of the United States, it was then discovered that Gadhafi was telling the truth and that the U.S. Government was not and Ambassador Wilson would not affirm or deny anything of substance about this trip.

When this first happened columnist William Sapphire said that if this was true of Ambassador Wilson he had made a liar of the United States, a mockery of our stern pronouncements and had made the U.S. a laughing stock in the eyes of our allies. Bernard Kalb, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs resigned as a result of this disinformation in relation to Ambassador Wilson's unauthorized trip to Libya. There is another important factor to consider about Gadhafi and Libya. President Ronald Reagan had called Gadhafi a mad dog and had made some very strong threats. The U.S. Government had been affirmative about bombing Libya and it resulted in killing civilians and at least one of our American pilots. Libya was considered so undesirable that we killed their civilians without any hesitation in the face of the possibility of losing our American servicemen's lives without any hesitation.

There was no outcry against five big oil companies filling their pockets while dealing with Gadhafi and while taking lives of civilians and our servicemen with absolutely no concern.  Again, we find a company headed by a Knight of Malta (SMOM) involved. It is J. Peter Grace, president of W. R. Grace. Eight members of the W. R. Grace company are said to be members of the Knights of Malta (SMOM) who are beholden to the Pope. During this period of time, Secretary of State, George Schultz [Zionist Jew] and his wife attended mass with Pope John Paul II [World Christian Leader], and Ambassador Wilson [SMOM] and his wife stood next to them. At this time Secretary of State George Schultz acknowledged that Ambassador Wilson had met with Gadhafi's Libyan officials even though the Reagan Administration had a ban against travel by U.S. citizens to Libya and of having contact with its leaders. Surely Ambassador Wilson should have been fired. But... all we heard was Secretary of State George Schultz stating, "Obviously it's an embarrassment".

Apparently even the powerful George Schultz felt he could not challenge Knight of Malta (SMOM), William Wilson. But, of course, we must remember, George Schultz is a member of the CFR - Council on Foreign Relations, the Bohemian Club and the powerful Bechtel CorporationThe CFR and the Bohemian Club has ties with the Knights of Malta (SMOM) as well as with the Order of Skull and Bones of which president George Bush is a member.      That is just a minute example of the interlock of individual organizations and corporations with the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Our booklet, Colonel North, William Casey and the Knights of Malta details this, but this is also only the tip of the iceberg. Our booklet also shows the Vatican-Moscow Agreement. As I have stated, the Circles of Power that Malachi Martin mentions are actually intertwined even though at times they may "appear" as adversaries.

The power of the Knights of Malta (SMOM), who are beholden to the Pope, became very clear to me when I spent months trying to get a bit of information on the unauthorized actions of Knight of Malta, Ambassador Wilson. The State Department just continued to stall us as the letter in our booklet on the Knights of Malta shows. The Pope's Knights of Malta (SMOM) appear to have near unlimited power. They can make history as it is proven by their influencing of U.S. domestic and foreign policy and this is also stated in a Catholic paper. They can also un-make history as our Knight of Malta booklet shows. In the 1930's Knight of Malta, John J. Raskob was involved in a plot to seize the White House. Major-General Butler exposed it after they had approached him to take part in their take-over plan. Congressional hearings were held. I have copies of the hearings. All of General Butler's testimony was accepted as truth, but Knight of Malta (SMOM), John J. Raskob, and other top people involved were never called to testify... and they were never brought to account. Just the same old story - just as with Knight of Malta Ambassador Wilson and the Libyan-Gadhafi affair and... just as with Knight of Malta William Casey and the Iran Contra affair. Check your history books. Check your library. We did. And we found no record of this plot to seize the White House.

This was certainly a very important historic event but it seems it went down the black hole. Sounds like George Orwell's 1984. We consider our tape and booklet entitled Colonel North, William Casey and the Knights of Malta serving as a forerunner to this paper which we call The Vision and Circles of Power.      Going back to THE VISION we do again want to make it clear that we are in no way condemning our space program or our science, technology and holography. We just want people to stop and think about what the world policymakers may do with the accomplishments of these people in the space program and with science and technology such as we feel they will use in THE VISION.  

We of course have been aware of the New World Order plans of the world policymakers but we were also stunned at the fast moves that have been made from August 2nd of 1990 to the present time, January of 1991.  Just a five month period and yet enough happenings for many lifetimes. We've had the war in the Gulf; the implementation of the International Military Force; president George Bush announcing the New World Order; Malachi Martin's book announcing the New World Order - One World Government with Pope John Paul II in control; then continuing on with the mind-boggling event being THE VISION.... It is absolutely unbelievable

Pope John Paul II as Servant of the Grand Design

As I was reading Malachi Martin's book I told a friend that it was like everything we had researched and opposed was suddenly the absolute past and that we were stepping into a totally new era. How ironic that was because when I reached page 639 of Keys of this Blood, the words seemed to jump out at me... Malachi Martin was saying the very same thing. Malachi Martin told how THE VISION would be an absolute separation of the past and the immediate future. He further stated how all designs of all nations would be null and void. Think about that.      And he said that God's design would be introduced at the time of THE VISION and that the Pope would then become THE SERVANT OF THE GRAND DESIGN and that would be when the Pope's ministry would begin. That is certainly New Age. Malachi Martin inferred that after THE VISION there would be an era of peace and he mentions throughout the book the importance of the time until the year 2000

World Policymaker, Member of Skull & Bones - President George HW Bush - Echos Malachi Martin's Words

I finished reading the incredible book by Malachi Martin and I then read the speech that President George Bush delivered at the 45th Session of the United Nations' General Assembly in New York City on October the first, 1990. It was amazing.      Following are just certain statements he made during his speech. You may get a copy from your Congressman or Congresswoman: President George Bush said that the last two months of cooperation made him feel that he has never been more proud to serve in the ranks of the United Nations and that never had he been more proud that the United States is the host country for the United Nations.      You know, some years ago – and this is my statement – there was an effort to get the United Nations out of the United States and the United States out of the United Nations. Supposedly that is what conservatives and strong Americans sought and wanted and now the United Nations is considered a great thing.      I will go on with President Bush. He mentions "...pressing forward toward a New World Order and a long era of peace".      One has to stop and think about who they are reading and listening to... Malachi Martin or president George Bush. President George Bush goes on to mention, "... the dream of the New International Order and the separate past from the whole new beginning".      Again, he sounds just like Malachi Martin.      Isn't it odd that all of this happened at the same time?... Malachi Martin's book, President George Bush's speeches?... It makes one wonder. But then... as we've said, the world policymakers have been working together for the very same thing for years.      President George Bush then made a very disturbing statement in his speech to the United Nations when he said, "I see a world of open borders... open trade".      He went on to say, "... a world that celebrates the common heritage that belongs to all the world's people, taking pride, not just in home-town or home-land but in humanity itself".      More New Age. President George Bush was saying the very things that those today, who are standing behind him, had at one time vigorously opposed. Yes, fifteen years ago all of this would have been opposed by these conservatives - great pro-Americans - who are now part of the New Right and their organizations. President Bush said:

     "The world must know and understand, from this hour, from this day, from this hall we step forth with a new sense of purpose, a new sense of possibilities. We stand together prepared to swim upstream, to march up hill, to tackle the tough challenges as they come."

     And he made it clear that it wasn't as just our nation, which it should be, but he said, "...as nations of the world united. And so let it be said of the 20th Century, that this was a time when human kind came into its own".      His New Age statements are certainly unbelievable.

"... when we emerged from the grit and the dust of the industrial age, to bring about a revolution of the spirit and the mind and began a journey into a new day, a new age and a new partnership of nations".

"The United Nations is now fulfilling its promise as the world's parliament of peace. I congratulate you, I support you. I wish you God's speed in the challenge ahead."

What About our American Sovereignty?

 My questions are, Mr. President, "What about our sovereignty? What about our Constitutional Republic?"  But no, President George Bush was too busy giving all honor to the United Nations. I repeat. Think about that. That again is my statement. We would hope that enough people will become informed about THE VISION so that most would not believe it is of God or hopefully enough could be exposed so that the world policymakers would not have it appear.      But regardless of what happens we must have our people of America become informed. I will go back to Malachi Martin and his appearance before the audiences. It is very difficult to understand how all of these people - Americans - can be clapping and be so taken with Malachi Martin and what he is saying. Not only because of the fact of giving up our sovereignty and going into a World Government, but the fact that this Pope is a New Age Pope and the majority of these people, as I understand it, are traditional Catholics.      I've worked with many Catholics who have studied and understand and they said they cannot reach their fellow Catholics. Somehow or another they have been totally taken by all of this and... As I see it, Malachi Martin and George Bush are both leading the sheep into the deadly jaws of the wolves in sheep's clothing.

Auguste Comte

I refer here to a booklet that I read by Erica Carle where she tells about August Comte who was a philosopher with a master plan who wanted to direct the spiritual reorganization of the civilized world. Now let us place ourselves at beginning in 1820. This master planner, Auguste Comte was 22 years old at that time and he had already set his goal. He wanted nothing less than to reconstruct the entire religious, moral, scientific and political structure of the world. He believed his goal to be so worthy that he dedicated his entire adult intellectual life to outlining his plan. His name was not God, it was August Comte and August Comte said that in his plans you divided people into two basic types - those who did not believe in God and those who did believe. Those who did not believe in God, he decided, would become immediate followers of the religion of humanity. [New Age, humanism].  

Those who did believe in God would be subjected to a long period of training and change. As generations pass, both Christian and non-Christian religions could be brought closer and closer together until eventually all believers in God would be willing to become Catholic in a Catholic church which had been taken over by Comte ideology. There would then be only Catholics and humanitarians and these two major religions, now almost alike, would eventually emerge into one great, world-wide, sociologically controlled religion of humanity. I would say, it has near happened.  May God help us regain and retain our American sovereignty and our Constitutional Republic.

 How can we give such precious things away when so many of our service men and women have died to save them?  I have watched the Protestants go the same New Age road as the Catholics, but when I saw the conservative Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod being impressed with Jean Houston, a follower of Teilhard de Chardon, the Catholic humanist priest; and then hear Catholics applaud New Age Pope John Paul II, who honored Teilhard de Chardon, the humanist priest... there wasn't much left to say except.... "Welcome to the New Age - New World Order". Betty J. Mills

bibliography: Auguste Comte - Give us the Young - by Erica Carle (pg 11-15) Teilhard de Chardon - the article, Vatican Notes Teilhard de Chardon Centenary from the Vatican City Special to The Wanderer Jean Houston - Director, The Foundation for Mind Research - New York; Chairman of the Temple of Understanding - United Nations Conference ["ONE is the Human Spirit"] from the article Lutheran Brotherhood Colloquium on the Church in Future Society - the Woodland's Inn, Houston, Texas - January 29 - February 2, 1979 Paul Weyrich - from Capital Research Center titled Organization Trends, Feb., 1987; Heritage Foundation; an article titled A Conservative's Lament by Paul Weyrich, The Washington Post, Sunday March 8, 1987; Distant Drums - editor, Ron S. Miller - Volume V, Num. II, May, 1983 Knights of Malta (SMOM) Sovereign Military Order of Malta - The Keys of this Blood by Malachi Martin pg 687 - Simon & Schuster (still in print); magazine article from Harpers and Queen, April, 1990 - c/o Mercury Airfreight International Limited Incorporated, 2323 Randolph Avenue, AVENEL, NJ 07001; People of God by Penny Lernoux, by Viking (still in print) pgs 283-301; Averting Armageddon, by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts, Doubleday (still in print); The Catholic Reporter - Catholic Newspaper - [John J. Raskob] Opus Dei - In God's Name, by A. Yallop, Bantom Books (still in print) pgs 265-266; Averting Armageddon pgs 131 and 278; People of God pgs 35, 36, 42 46, 99, 106, 255, 302-324, 326, 327, 346 and 350; The Keys of this Blood pg 692;

"He is waiting, rather, for an event that will fission human history, splitting the immediate past from the oncoming future.  It will be an event on public view in the skies in the ocean, and on the continental landmasses of this planet  It will particularly involve our human sun, which every day lights up and shines upon the valleys, the mountains and the plains of this earth for our eyes.  But on the day of this event, it will not appear mere.y as the master star of our so-called solar system. Rather, it will be seen as the circumambient glory of the Woman whom the apostle describes as "clothed with the sun" and giving birth to "a child who will rule the nations with a scepter of iron."

New York Times, March 24, 1994 Section A, pg 13, special to the New York Times by Alan Cowell - article regarding death of Opus Dei leader, Alvaro del Portillo Colonel North, William Casey and the Knights of Malta, booklet by Betty J. Mills, August, 1989 (should be read as a forerunner to THE VISION and Circles of Power) General Smedley Butler Hearings - (ask your Library to get it from inter-loan) Public Hearings before the Special Committee on unAmerican Activities - House of Representatives, 73rd Congress, 2nd Session at Washington, D.C., December 29, 1934 Hearings No.73-D. C.- 6 Part I

https://educate-yourself.org/cn/bettymillsvisonsandcirclesofpowerjan1991.shtml

Come Play With Us: Meet ‘The Shining’ Twins

By David Weiner

“Come and play with us Danny. Forever, and ever, and ever.”

No empty hotel hallway anywhere can ever be the same after watching THE SHINING, especially when you turn a corner and half expect to see the ghostly Grady sisters standing side-by-side, inviting you to join them.

Lisa and Louise Burns were 10 when they started filming Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of the Stephen King novel, and finished after they celebrated their 11th birthday on the set. Decades after the iconic film’s release, the identical-twin Brits go about their London lives maintaining their anonymity, unless they’re making a convention appearance. Lisa is a banker, and Louise is a genetic engineer.

From the comfort of their Colorado hotel room just down the hall from room 237, the charming duo (who speak quickly and often finish each other’s sentences) gave me new insight into what clinched their SHINING audition, what it was like to work with Kubrick, how it felt to be covered in blood, and what they really think of the wild SHINING conspiracy theory film ROOM 237.

LISA: We’d worked in TV, but we’d never done anything in films.

LOUISE: We’d just gone to London for the day sightseeing. We had an agent and she said there’s an audition at Elstree Film Studios, and dad said, “You know, if we go along, then we can look around the film studios.” Studios didn’t do tours too much like they do now. And he said, “Don’t worry, if you don’t get the part, at least you get to see maybe how they make a movie, maybe meet some fun people.”

LISA: We’d been walking around London, we’d been shopping, so we looked a bit shop-soiled. (laughs)

LOUISE: We washed our faces, brushed our hair. We must’ve seemed like the least horrific children in the entire room.

LISA: We met [Kubrick] at the audition. I remember we both said, “Hello Mr. Kubrick,” at the same time and he really thought that was freaky. (laughs). 

LOUISE: I don’t think they told us it was a horror movie until the end. In fact, the filming of the girls laying in blood was one of the last scenes filmed. … That took about three days to film, to prepare us, to talk about what was going to happen, and to allay any anxieties. It was a very closed set. There were very few people on set that day, where usually at the time you might have two actors and there’s 50 stage people hanging around.

LOUISE: It didn’t seem that horrific.

LISA: We might’ve been very brave children.

LOUISE: It wasn’t real blood. It was just Kensington Gore (fake theatrical blood) that the makeup man Tom Smith made up. In preparation for that, he would show us how movies can make anything seem very, very real. We had a cat, and he painted cat scratches on my face, and it looked like the cat had really done them. I was so proud of them that I went to lunch and showed everybody. “Look at my cat scratches!” It was very funny. And he gave us some blood to take home. He said, “Put some on your fingers and show all your friends. Make them think you cut yourself.” It was really very interesting.

LISA: And the outside of [The Overlook Hotel], that didn’t exist; the whole front looked so real. When you walked ‘round it, it was [a facade] set against a hill so it doesn’t fall over. You’d think, “Wow, these people could take anything and they can make what I know to be fake look so real that you’re fooled.” We were accustomed to the idea that these people were almost like magicians. They could make something that was fake seem real, so when they said it wasn’t real blood, you’re like, “Yeah, that’s fine.” We knew it would look real.

LOUISE: My biggest worry was being cold. That it would be cold blood. (laughs) And I also remember keeping the set very quiet by not having lots of people.

LISA: Because [Kubrick] only had one take. And that [closed set] was probably for him, because he liked re-shooting. He liked to take lots of takes.

LOUISE: It was one take because there was only one set dressing. Once it was covered in blood, that was really it.

DW: Did he say “play dead”? How did he direct you?

LISA: [to Louise] He didn’t say hold your breath, did he?

LOUISE: He didn’t say play dead! I think we breathed quite shallowly. He wanted one to be the mirror of the other. He liked repeating themes.

LISA: Oh god, no. 

LOUISE: We used to hang out together. We went sightseeing a lot with his parents. You wouldn’t think they were making a big expensive movie. It was like a collection of people got together and just thought, “You know, we might have a little bit of fun doing this.” Our worst bit was is takes a long, long time to do anything, for anything to happen. You spend a lot of time just waiting. You might be on call every single day, but you might not perform for a week.

LISA: But you turn up and sit around.

LOUISE: Kids find themselves entertainment, don’t they?

LISA: But in those days there weren’t any of the hand-held devices there are now.

LOUISE: We could either choose to be bored [or not]. Stan had his own children come, and his daughter was making a documentary. She let us look down the camera and show us how to do different things.

LISA: And she explained what the crew members did. We weren’t allowed to to “play” as such, but were were allowed to touch things and move around the movie lot sets.

LOUISE: I remember sitting on Jack Nicholson’s knee. The caretaker’s apartment — that seemed to be the place where most people congregated at the end of the day.

LISA: It was not a real place and just a set, but it was all made so real that you’d just use it anyway.

LOUISE: They were very serious about what they did, but they didn’t stand on ceremony and speak to each other in hushed tones. You wouldn’t know that Stanley Kubrick was a world-famous director. He just seemed like a very regular person.

DW: How old were you when you finally saw the film?

LISA: I saw it at university on TV.

LOUISE: It was on TV one night and I lived in a house with other people, and it came on and I said, “I’m in that movie.”

LISA: No one believes you.

LOUISE: And I said, “No seriously, straight up, wait ’til the end.”

LISA: They think I merely have the same name. Who would go through the trouble of taking someone else’s name?

LOUISE: I think its impact as a horror movie is an homage to how good Stanley Kubrick was. I think Stanley could direct anything he chose to. … You get so embedded in [the film] that you feel like you’re in the story, and I think that’s what he did with all of his films. But I think THE SHINING’s one of his more accessible films.

DW: Lastly, what did you think of the documentary ROOM 237 and all of its wild theories about THE SHINING and its hidden meanings? Were you amused by it? Do you subscribe to any of it? Do you actively want to debunk anything in it?

LOUISE: It’s all bollocks. (laughs)

LISA: I find it very funny that the Americans who landed on the moon prefer to believe that Kubrick faked it. But generally speaking, I find people who’ll believe the fake much more quickly than they would ever believe [the truth], they prefer to be lied to. They really don’t seem to mind. It’s just weird. But it’s all over the world that people will believe what would seem incredible, when the real truth isn’t that incredible and it also isn’t considered to be believable either.

LOUISE: We do love a good conspiracy theory.

https://itcamefromblog.com/2021/02/19/come-play-with-us-meet-the-shining-twins/

According to the pantheon, known in Ugarit as 'ilhm (elohim) or the children of El, supposedly obtained by Philo of Byblos from Sanchuniathon of Berythus (Beirut) the creator was known as Elion, who was the father of the divinities, and in the Greek sources he was married to Beruth (Beirut meaning 'the city'). This marriage of the divinity with the city would seem to have Biblical parallels too with the stories of the link between Melqart and Tyre; Chemosh and Moab; Tanit and Baal Hammon in Carthage, Yah and Jerusalem.

The union of El Elyon and his consort Asherah would be analogous to the Titans Cronus and Rhea in Greek mythology or the Roman Saturnus and Ops.

In Canaanite mythology there were twin mountains, Targhizizi and Tharumagi, which hold the firmament up above the earth-circling ocean, thereby bounding the earth. W. F. Albright, for example, says that El Shaddai is a derivation of a Semitic stem that appears in the Akkadian shadû ('mountain') and shaddā'û or shaddû'a ('mountain-dweller'), one of the names of Amurru. Philo of Byblos states that Atlas was one of the elohim, which would clearly fit into the story of El Shaddai as "God of the Mountain(s)". Harriet Lutzky has presented evidence that Shaddai was an attribute of a Semitic goddess, linking the epithet with Hebrew šad, 'breast', as "the one of the breast". The idea of two mountains being associated here as the breasts of the Earth, fits into the Canaanite mythology quite well. The ideas of pairs of mountains seem to be quite common in Canaanite mythology. The late period of this cosmology makes it difficult to tell what influences (Roman, Greek, or Hebrew) may have informed Philo's writings.

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

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

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

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

A Look at the Museum’s Memorial Hall 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rosicrucianism - Wikipedia 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Order of Calatrava - Wikipedia 

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

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

World Trade Center Oculus 

50 Church Street New York, NY 10007

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

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

Eataly NYC Downtown - Italian restaurant

101 Liberty St

New York, NY 10007

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

(212) 897-2895

Closed ⋅ Opens 7 AM Sat 

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

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

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

Todd Beamer - Wikipedia 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blue Mass - Wikipedia 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Serge Monast - Wikipedia 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rollback - Wikipedia 

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

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

"What has this got to do with Islam? 

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

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

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

How the Vatican created Islam (remnantofgod.org) 

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

"Yer Blues" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, from their 1968 double album The Beatles (also known as "the White Album"). Though credited to Lennon–McCartney, the song was written and composed by John Lennon[3][4] during the Beatles' retreat in Rishikesh, India. The song is a parody of blues music, specifically English imitators of blues.

Composition

Lennon said that, while "trying to reach God and feeling suicidal" in India, he wanted to write a blues song, but was unsure if he could imitate the likes of Sleepy John Estes and other original blues artists he had listened to in school. In "Yer Blues," he alludes to this insecurity with a reference to the character Mr. Jones from Bob Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man," and with the third verse, which draws on Robert Johnson's "Hellhound on My Trail"[citation needed]. Instead, Lennon wrote and composed "Yer Blues" as a parody of British imitators of the blues, featuring tongue-in-cheek guitar solos and rock and roll-inspired swing blues passages.[5]

The half-satirical, half-earnest song mockingly acknowledges the British blues boom of 1968 and the debate among the music press at the time of whether white men could sing the blues.[6] According to Walter Everett, the song's "ponderous earnestness ... belies the composer's satirical tone."[5] In the chorus, Lennon sings, "If I ain't dead already, girl you know the reason why." Beatles biographer Jonathan Gould interprets this to be a "joke [in] that nobody knows the reason why—or, for that matter, what any of these bluesy poetics are really supposed to mean." Gould called "Yer Blues" an example of the "cultural realism" that distinguished the Beatles from their musical contemporaries in Britain: "[T]heir acceptance of the idea that, except as a subject of self-parody, certain expressive modes of African-American music lay outside the realm of their experience and hence beyond their emotional range as singers."[7]

The song is in the key of E major, but like many blues numbers, it prominently features accidentals, such as G♮, D♮, and B♭. It is primarily in a 6

8 meter, but as with several of Lennon's tunes, the time signature and tempo are altered many times.[8]

Recording

"Yer Blues" was recorded in EMI Studio Two's "annexe," which was actually a large closet in the control room.[9] In 2016, Paul McCartney recalled, "We were talking about this tightness, this packed-in-a-tin thing. So we got in a little cupboard – a closet that had microphone leads and things, with a drum kit, amps turned to the walls, one mic for John. We did 'Yer Blues' live and it was really good."[10] In interviews for The Beatles Anthology series, Ringo Starr affectionately recalls recording this song in the stripped-down conditions, saying it was like the old days of live performances by the Beatles. The stripped-down, bluesy nature of the number bears similarity to much of Lennon's early solo output, including "Cold Turkey" and his 1970 John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album and marks a retreat from the concerns that Lennon had with such studio experimentation as had marked such songs as "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Strawberry Fields Forever." The track, along with "Glass Onion", "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Sun King", is one of few Beatles songs on which Paul McCartney used a 1966 Fender Jazz Bass rather than his better-known 1963 Höfner 500/1 Violin Bass or his 1964 Rickenbacker 4001S-LH (Fire-glo) bass. Contributing to the live sound of the recording, loud yelling between band members can be heard in the instrumental tracks.

Live performance

Just after the album The Beatles came out in late 1968, Lennon performed a 4:27[nb 1] rendition of "Yer Blues" at The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus with a supergroup dubbed "The Dirty Mac," consisting of himself, Eric Clapton on lead guitar, Keith Richards on bass, and Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience on drums.[11] The performance was followed with a 4:49[nb 2] boogie instrumental jam called "Whole Lotta Yoko," featuring dissonant avant-garde violinist Ivry Gitlis and vocals by Yoko Ono. The recording was never originally broadcast, and for decades this performance was only available through bootleg recording. It was finally officially released, on both CD and video, in 1996. Lennon's performance with the Dirty Mac was his first live performance since the Beatles' last concert in 1966 and may have contributed to his renewed enthusiasm for live performances in 1969. (See The Beatles' rooftop concert, "Give Peace a Chance" and Live Peace in Toronto.)

Legacy

Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of its release, Jacob Stolworthy of The Independent listed "Yer Blues" at number eight in his ranking of the White Album's 30 tracks. He wrote of the song: "This track sees Lennon take on the blues to deliver a song that stands tall among the greats he attempted to emulate (see: Sleepy John Estes, John Lee Hooker). The result is evidence that Lennon rarely did wrong – even when he himself half expected to."[12]

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

Plaisance of Antioch (1235/1236 or ca. 1235 – September 27/22, 1261) was Queen of Cyprus by marriage to King Henry I. She served as regent of the kingdoms of Cyprus and Jerusalem for their son, King Hugh II, in 1254–1261 and 1258–1261 respectively.

Biography

She was a daughter of Bohemund V of Antioch and his second spouse, the Italian noblewoman Lucienne of Segni, a relative of Pope Innocent III.

She was firstly married in 1250 to King Henry I of Cyprus, who died in 1253. Their son, the infant Hugh II, became King of Cyprus with Plaisance as regent. Plaisance re-married to Balian of Arsuf, the son of John of Arsuf, but they divorced and had the marriage annulled in 1258.

The official King of Jerusalem at the time was the absentee Conrad of Hohenstaufen, who died in 1254, with his title passing to his son Conradin, also still in Germany. The position of regent belonged by birthright to the underage Hugh, who was Conradin's immediate heir and hereditarily the next king if Conradin failed to have his own progeny. In 1258, Plaisance's brother Bohemund VI of Antioch brought Hugh and Plaisance to Acre and demanded that they be recognized as King of Jerusalem and regent, respectively. John of Ibelin (count of Jaffa), the Knights Templar, and the Teutonic Knights agreed with this, against the opposition of the Knights Hospitaller and various jurists who still wished to recognize Conradin as king, even though he was not present in the kingdom.

Plaisance, supported by a majority of the nobles, was accepted as acting regent and then appointed her former father-in-law John of Arsuf to rule as bailiff in her place; he had already been bailiff before her arrival and both Bohemund and John of Jaffa had hoped the presence of Plaisance and Hugh would eliminate the need for another bailiff. The dispute, however, continued and Pope Alexander IV sent the Genoese to attempt to settle it; John of Jaffa convinced Bohemund and Plaisance to unite Jerusalem, Antioch, and Tripoli against them. In 1260 the high cleric (a future pope) Jacques Pantaleon arrived to take up the vacant patriarchate, hoping to solve the crisis. Around this time Plaisance apparently became John of Jaffa's mistress, against the new patriarch's wishes. Pope Urban may have issued a papal bull to Plaisance expressing his disapproval of her relationship, Audi filia et.

Plaisance died at Cyprus in 1261 and the regency of Hugh II passed to Hugh of Antioch-Lusignan, while the regency of Jerusalem passed to her sister-in-law Isabella, who was the sister of Plaisance's late husband. However, Hugh II died in 1267 before reaching adulthood, and was succeeded by Hugh of Antioch who reigned until 1284.

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

Plaisance (1047) 

French:1. from the medieval female personal name Plaisance, meaning ‘pleasantness’, a feminine form of the much rarer personal name

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

Donald Henry Pleasence (/ˈplɛzəns/;[2] 5 October 1919 – 2 February 1995)[3] was an English actor. He began his career on stage in the West End before having a screen career, which included starring in a 1954 BBC adaptation of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, before playing numerous supporting and character roles in films including RAF Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe in The Great Escape (1963), the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice (1967), SEN 5241 in THX 1138 (1971), and the deranged Clarence "Doc" Tydon in Wake in Fright (1971).

Pleasence starred as psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Loomis in Halloween (1978) and four of its sequels, a role for which he was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Actor. The series' popularity and critical success led to a resurgent career for Pleasence, who appeared in numerous American and European-produced horror and thriller films. He collaborated with Halloween director John Carpenter twice more, as the President of the United States in Escape from New York (1981) and as the Priest in Prince of Darkness (1987).

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

During the War of the Rough Wooing, the invading English armies of the Earl of Hertford inflicted structural damage on Holyrood Abbey in 1544 and 1547. Lead was stripped from the roof, the bells were removed, and the contents of the abbey were plundered. In 1559, during the Scottish Reformation, the abbey suffered further damage when a mob destroyed the altars and looted the rest of the church.[12] With the reformation and the end of monastic services, the east end of the abbey church became redundant. In 1569, Adam Bothwell, the commendator of Holyrood, informed the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland that the east end was in such a state of disrepair that the choir and transept should be demolished. This was done the following year, retaining only the nave, which by then was serving as the parish church of the burgh of Canongate. Between 1570 and 1573 an east GABLE was erected, closing the east end of the former nave, all but two of the windows in the nave were blocked up, the royal tombs were removed to a new royal burial vault in the south aisle and the old east end was demolished.[12]

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

William Clark Gable (February 1, 1901 – November 16, 1960) was an American film actor. Often referred to as the "King of Hollywood",[2] he had roles in more than 60 films in a variety of genres during a career that lasted 37 years, three decades of which was as a leading man. He was named the seventh greatest male movie star of classic American cinema by the American Film Institute.[3]

Gable won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the romantic comedy, It Happened One Night (1934). He was further Oscar-nominated for his roles as Fletcher Christian in the drama Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), and Rhett Butler in the historical romance drama Gone with the Wind (1939). He received Golden Globe Award nominations for his comedic roles in Teacher's Pet (1958), and But Not for Me (1959). He also starred in Call of the Wild (1935), Key to the City (1950), and Mogambo (1953). His final on-screen role was as an aging cowboy in The Misfits (1961).

Gable was one of the most consistent box-office performers in the history of Hollywood, appearing on Quigley Publishing's annual Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll sixteen times. He appeared opposite many of the most popular actresses of their time. He frequently acted alongside Joan Crawford, Myrna Loy, Jean Harlow, Lana Turner, Norma Shearer and Ava Gardner. Gable died of a heart attack in 1960 at the age of 59.

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

Clark

also Clarke, surname, from common Middle English alternative spelling of clerk (n.). In many early cases it is used of men who had taken minor orders.

Entries linking to Clark

clerk (n.)

c. 1200, "man ordained in the ministry, a priest, an ecclesiastic," from Old English cleric and Old French clerc "clergyman, priest; scholar, student," both from Church Latin clericus "a priest," noun use of adjective meaning "priestly, belonging to the clerus" (see cleric).

Modern bureaucratic usage is a reminder of the time when clergy alone could read and write and were employed as scribes and account-keepers by secular authorities. In late Old English the word also can mean "king's scribe; keeper of accounts." And by c. 1200 clerk took on a secondary sense in Middle English (as the cognate word did in Old French) of "man of letters, anyone who can read or write."

This led to the senses "assistant in a public or private business" (c. 1500), originally a keeper of accounts, also "officer of a court, municipality, etc. whose duty it is to keep its records and perform its routine business" (1520s), and later, especially in American English, "a retail salesman" (1790). Meaning "an employee who registers guests in a hotel" is by 1879.

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

The Ric Flair Woo - What is the origin of this signature catchphrase?

By

Danny Wolstanholme

Modified Jul 07, 2021 08:39 GMT 

No matter what arena or stadium you step into to watch a WWE show, you're going to hear many fans doing the Ric Flair Woo at the top of their lungs. You will notice many other fans join in, and the 'WOOOOO's' start to circulate around the venue to a full orchestra of 'WOOOOO's'.

For anyone attending their first WWE event, especially in today's modern era, you're probably a little confused as to what this all means. Many wrestlers past and present have their own catchphrases, or items that make them stand out amongst the rest.

For example, you have Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson with his signature catchphrase 'If you smell.. what The Rock Is Cookin'!' or you have Jake 'The Snake' Roberts carrying a snake in the ring.

Now, not to be confused with Zack Ryder's 'Woo Woo Woo' catchphrase, the origins of the Ric Flair Woo go back all the way to the 70's. Yes, it has been around 50 years since Ric Flair Woo started!

How and when did the Ric Flair Woo originate?

According to Ric Flair's memoir 'To Be The Man' released in 2015, the Ric Flair Woo originated in the 1970's thanks to the Jerry Lee Lewis classic 'Great Balls of Fire'.

Part of the song ended with 'Woo' and Ric Flair decided to use it day-to-day, and even on-screen cutting promos. Flair also later confirmed on his The Ric Flair Show that he put a much greater emphasis on his 'Woo' than on the hit song.

The famous Nature Boy catchphrase also extended into popular culture, and has been used by many celebrities in honor of the sixteen-time World Champion.

Ric Flair and Jay Lethal had a Woo-off in IMPACT Wrestling

Back during the TNA heydays, during the Hogan-Bischoff-Carter era, there was a particular segment that amused many fans around the world.

Jay Lethal was performing his Black Machismo character, which was a take on 'Macho Man' Randy Savage, who he made impressions of.

So when Lethal crossed paths with 'The Nature Boy' Ric Flair in the then-named TNA, a huge impromptu Ric Flair woo-off ensued. All credit to Jay Lethal, who delivered the PERFECT impression of Ric Flair, rattled the Limosine rider and Jet flyer, and they continued to exchange words.

The segment became one of TNA's funniest and most memorable moments in the history of the company, and is talked about to this very day.

It is safe to say that Ric Flair Woo will live on forever.

https://www.sportskeeda.com/wwe/the-ric-flair-woo-what-origin-signature-catchphrase

Mount Hollywood Congregational Church is a United Church of Christ congregation in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Mount Hollywood was founded in 1905.[1] John Raitt was once a soloist in the choir, Judge Lance Ito was enrolled in its Sunday School, and Los Angeles County Supervisor John Anson Ford was a member.[1]

Membership had been as high as 600 in the 1920s, when it built its sanctuary, but is around 50 today.[1] In 2012 the church sold its sanctuary, citing high maintenance costs, and moved into a converted storage shed behind Hollywood Lutheran Church.[1]

The congregation has long been an advocate for social justice. In 1941 it came to the aid of Hollywood Independent Church, a Japanese-American congregation, by safeguarding the church's property and homes of its members after they were sent to internment camps.[1] All of the ministers in Mount Hollywood's history have been pacifists.[1]

The church's altar has a wooden cross made from camphor wood off of a tree in the yard of a church that had been bombed in Hiroshima. The cross is inscribed with "He is our peace."[1]

The Rev. Anne Cohen was installed as the church's pastor on Nov. 3, 2013.[1]

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

Arthur's Seat (Scottish Gaelic: Suidhe Artair, pronounced [ˈs̪ɯi.əˈaɾt̪ʰəɾʲ]) is an ancient extinct volcano that is the main peak of the group of hills in Edinburgh, Scotland, which form most of Holyrood Park, described by Robert Louis Stevenson as "a hill for magnitude, a mountain in virtue of its bold design".[1] It is situated just to the east of the city centre, about 1 mile (1.6 km) to the east of Edinburgh Castle. The hill rises above the city to a height of 250.5 m (822 ft), provides excellent panoramic views of the city and beyond, is relatively easy to climb, and is popular for hillwalking. Though it can be climbed from almost any direction, the easiest ascent is from the east, where a grassy slope rises above Dunsapie Loch. At a spur of the hill, Salisbury Crags has historically been a rock climbing venue with routes of various degrees of difficulty. Rock climbing was restricted to the South Quarry, but access was banned altogether in 2019 by Historic Environment Scotland.[2]

Name

It is sometimes said that its name is derived from legends pertaining to King Arthur, such as the reference in Y Gododdin. Some support for this may be provided by several other hilltop and mountaintop features in Britain which bear the same or similar names, such as the peak of Ben Arthur (The Cobbler) in the western highlands, sometimes known as Arthur's Seat,[3] and Arthur's Chair on the ridge called Stone Arthur in the English Lake District.

Geology

Arthur's Seat is the largest of the three parts of the Arthur's Seat Volcano site of special scientific interest (the other parts being Calton Hill and the Castle Rock) which is designated to protect its important geology (see below), grassland habitats and uncommon plant and animal species.

Like the rock on which Edinburgh Castle is built, it was formed by a volcanic system of early Carboniferous age (lava samples have been dated at 341 to 335 million years old),[4] which was eroded by a glacier moving from west to east during the Quaternary (approximately the last two million years), exposing rocky crags to the west and leaving a tail of material swept to the east.[5] This is how the Salisbury Crags formed and became basalt cliffs between Arthur's Seat and the city centre. From some angles, Arthur's Seat resembles a lion couchant.[6][7] Two of the several extinct vents make up the 'Lion's Head' and the 'Lion's Haunch'.

Duration: 2 minutes and 19 seconds.2:19

Aerial footage of Arthur's Seat and the George Square area of Edinburgh

Arthur's Seat and the Salisbury Crags adjoining it helped form the ideas of modern geology as it is currently understood. It was in these areas that James Hutton observed that the deposition of the sedimentary and formation of the igneous rocks must have occurred at different ages and in different ways than the thinking of that time said they did. It is possible to see a particular area known as Hutton's Section in the Salisbury Crags where the magma forced its way through the sedimentary rocks above it to form the dolerite sills that can be seen in the Section.

The hill bears a strong resemblance to the Cavehill in Belfast in terms of its geology and proximity to a major urban site.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur%27s_Seat 

The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a landmark which consists of 2,800[1] five-pointed terrazzo-and-brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles. The stars, the first of which were permanently installed in 1960, are monuments to achievement in the entertainment industry, bearing the names of a mix of actors, musicians, producers, directors, theatrical/musical groups, fictional characters, and others.

The Walk of Fame is administered by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, who hold a trademark right to the combined star & movie camera symbol only, and maintained by the self-financing Hollywood Historic Trust. The Hollywood Chamber collects fees from celebrities (or their sponsors) that wish to have a star (currently $75K)[2] which pays for the creation and installation of the star, as well as maintenance of the Walk of Fame. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce does not own trademark rights to the star with other symbols (i.e. television, microphone, record disc), so those symbols are free to use for commercial purposes.[3] It is a popular tourist attraction, receiving an estimated 10 million annual visitors in 2010.[4][5]

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

World, the: 1. It is proper to our vocation: to go to diverse places and live in whatever part of the world and to be sent wherever the greater service of God and the help of souls can be hoped for [82, 92, 304, 308, 588, 603, 605, 626, 749]; to this purpose is directed the vow of special obedience to the supreme pontiff regarding missions, FI no. 3 [603, 605], 2 §1; consequently a complete availability, mobility, and universality are necessary, 110, 121 4°, 242 §3, 246 7°, 248, 259, 411; at the service of which is chastity, 144 §2; consequently our community is a community for dispersion, 255 §1, 312, 314 §2, 315, 317; thus also the need for communicating with different cultures of the world and for insertion into them, 99 §2, 106 §2, 110, 111, 246 2°; and for promoting that perfect and open cooperation among the members of the entire Society, of whatever province or region they may be, 396 §2. See also Cooperation, interprovincial and supraprovincial; Culture(s); Insertion 2. God is present in the world: exercising the ministry of healing and reconciliation, 246 4°; thus he is there to be sought and found, 223 §§3-4; the world, in great part afflicted with atheism and injustice and increasingly divided by diverse economic, social, and ethnic systems and by other sources of division and opposition, 59 §2, 223 §3, 246 4° 3. The world, as distinguished from religious life: is to be left behind, trampled underfoot, and renounced [30, 50, 53, 61, 66, 297]; it is to be despised because of the love for and imitation of Christ [101]; contempt for it assists in the union of minds and hearts [671]: customs which smack of the world are not to be introduced, 322.

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

The Holyrood or Holy Rood is a Christian relic alleged to be part of the True Cross on which Jesus died. The word derives from the Old English rood, meaning a pole and the cross, via Middle English, or the Scots haly ruid ("holy cross"). Several relics venerated as part of the True Cross are known by this name, in England, Ireland and Scotland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holyrood_(cross)

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://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 the myths surrounding King Arthur and the Round Table and of those Knights of the Holy Grail who are the forerunners of the Order of the Garter and other knighthoods, one particularly is worthy of interpretation, demonstrating as it does, the use and abuse of power.

The story of Merlin is soon told:

"Merlin was the son of no mortal father, but of an Incubus, one of a class of beings not absolutely wicked, but far from good, who inhabited regions of the air. Merlin's mother was a virtuous young woman, who, on the birth of her son, entrusted him to a priest, who hurried him to the baptismal fount, and so saved him from sharing the lot of his father, though he retained many marks of his unearthly origin.

"At this time Vortigern reigned in Britain. He was a usurper, who had caused the death of this sovereign, Monies, and driven the two brothers of the late king, whose names were Uther and Pendragon, into banishment. Vortigern, who lived in constant fear of the return of the rightful heirs of the kingdom, began to erect a strong tower for defense. The edifice, when brought by the workmen to a certain height, three times fell to the ground, without any apparent cause. The king consulted his astrologers on this wonderful event and learned from them that it would be necessary to bathe the corner-stone of the foundation with the blood of a child born without a mortal father.

"In search for such an infant, Vortigern sent his messengers all over the kingdom, and they, by accident discovered Merlin, whose lineage seemed to point him out as the individual wanted. They took him to the king; but Merlin, young as he was, explained to the king the absurdity of attempting to rescue the fabric by such means, for he told him the true cause of the instability of the tower was its being placed over the den of two immense dragons whose combats shook the earth above them. The king ordered his workmen to dig beneath the tower, and when they had done so they discovered two enormous serpents, the one white as milk, the other red as fire. The multitude looked on with amazement, till the serpents, slowly risen from their den, and expanding their enormous folds, began the combat, when everyone fled in terror, except Merlin who stood by clapping his hands and cheering on the conflict. The red dragon was slain, and the white one, gliding through a cleft in the rock, disappeared.

"These animals typified, as Merlin afterwards explained, the invasion of Utherand Pendragon, the rightful princes, who soon after landed with a great army. Vortigren was defeated, and afterwards burned alive in the castle he had taken such pains to construct. On the death of Vortigren, Pendragon ascended the throne. Merlin became his chief adviser, and often assisted the king by his magical arts.

"Merlin, who knew the range of all their arts,

Had built the King his havens, ships and halls." -- Vivian.

"Merlin continued to be a favorite counselor through the reigns of Pendragon, Uther, and Arthur, and at last disappeared from view, and was no more found among men, through the treachery of his mistress, Viviane, the Fairy, which happened in this wise.

"Merlin, having become enamored of the fair Viviane, the Lady of the Lake, was weak enough to impart to her various important secrets of his art, being impelled by fatal destiny, of which he was at the same time fully aware. The lady, however, was not content with his devotion, unbounded as it seem to have been, but 'cast about,' the Romance tell us, how she might 'detain him for evermore,' and one day addressed him in these terms: 'Sir, I would that we should make a fair place and a suitable, so contrived by art and by cunning that it might ever be undone, and that you and I should be there in joy and solace.' 'My lady,' said Merlin, 'I will do all this.' 'Sir,' and she, 'I would not have you do it, but you shall teach me, and I will do it, and then it will be more to my mind.' 'I grant you this,' said Merlin. Then he began to devise, and the damsel put it all in writing. And when he had devised the whole, then had the damsel full great joy, and showed him greater semblance of love then she had ever before made, and they sojourned together a long while. At length it fell out that, as they were going one day hand in hand through the forest of Breceliande, they found a bush of white-thorn, which was laden with flowers; and they seated themselves under the shade of this white-thorn, upon the green grass, and Merlin laid his head upon the damsel's lap, and fell asleep. Then the damsel rose, and made a ring with her wimple round the bush, and round Merlin, and began her enchantments, such as he himself had taught her; and nine times she made the ring, and nine times she made the enchantment, and then she went and sat down by him, and placed his head again upon her lap.

"And when he awoke and looked round him, it seemed to him that he was enclosed in the strongest tower in the world, and laid upon a fair bed. Then said he to the dame: 'My lady, you have deceived me, unless you abide with me, for no on hath power to unmake this tower but you alone.' She then promised she would be often there and in this she held her covenant with him. And Merlin never went out of that tower where his Mistress Viviane had enclosed him; but she entered and went out again when she listed.

"After this event Merlin was never more know to hold converse with any mortal but Viviane, except on one occasion. Arthur, having for some time missed him from his court, sent several of his knights in search of him, and, among the number, Sir Gawain, who met with a very unpleasant adventure while engaged in this quest. Happening to pass a damsel on his road, and neglecting to salute her, (as all true Knights should) she revenged herself for his incivility by transforming him into a hideous dwarf. He was bewailing aloud his evil fortune as he went through the forest of Breceliande, when suddenly he heard the voice of one groaning on his right hand; and looking that way, he could see nothing save a kind of smoke, which seemed like air, and through which he could not pass. Merlin then addressed him from out of the smoke, and told him by what misadventure he was imprisoned there. 'Ah sir,' he added, 'you will never see me more, and that grieves me, but I cannot remedy it; I shall never more speak to you, nor to any other person, save only my mistress. But do thou hasten to King Arthur, and charge him for me to undertake, without delay, the quest of the Sacred Grail. The knight is already born, and has received knighthood at his hands, who is destined to accomplish the quest.' And after this he comforted Gawain under his transformation, assuring him that he should speedily be dischanted; and he predicted to him that he should find the King at Carduel, in Wales, on his return, and that all the other knights who had been on like quest would arrive there the same day as himself. And all this came to pass as Merlin had said."

[William Cooper]: Now the interpretation of this story, ladies and gentlemen, goes something like this:

And remember in the earlier hour, ladies and gentlemen, we learned that, to the Mysteries, the Holy Grail represents the soul. The soul. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, and they don't even believe that most people have a soul until they prepare the body to receive it. (laughs) So, you are learning...you are learning much faster than you ever could on your own. Skipping ahead:

"In this respect, the Pyramid is a perfect symbol of man when he has reached the state called Illumination of Soul, or Soul Consciousness, or in other words, 'has found the Center, or located the All-Seeing Eye.'"

Skipping ahead again:

"[Dr. Clymer asking:] 'May we look to Masonry in completing the great work, or will it continue to be purely materialistic? Let this be the mission of Masonry, to perfect the work for which its outer symbology stands. Shall it be so?'"

This is an admission that they are purely materialistic at this point and have been throughout their history.

"While this is truly a Masonic work, the work for which the Mason has made a good foundation when he has completed his three degrees, yet it is also a work for every man, and especially a work for those who have taken up, or who have opportunity and inclination to take up, the special training offered freely today by the representatives of the Ancient Schools, through the Illuminati, Sons of Osiris, Magi, and other Fraternities.

Skipping ahead again, several pages...:

"The 'Fire Philosophy' is the basis of all Religious Mysteries and all the secret philosophies of the Universe. It is also the underlying principal on which All Secret Occult Brotherhoods are founded. It was taught in the Ancient Mysteries, and, although the knowledge of it has long been lost to the world, it has always been preserved in the Occult Fraternities.

"'The aim of all true initiation, no matter what the name of the Fraternity may be is to know the nature of the Secret Fire that regenerates the world and which renders him who comes into its possession immortal...'

"...The mystic has always held that Masonry was one of the basis upon which religion was founded, that the Mysteries of Masonry when fully understood, are the same as the Ancient Mysteries, and therefore the Mysteries of religion itself.

"...[section header:]THE WAY TO GODHOOD[?] Be thou a man and thou mayst be a god."

Be a man and thou mayst be a god -- this is the divine command of the New Age. The new commandment teaches how to live that man shall be the first great stage of growth and that God could, may follow manhood. Lt. Col. James "Bo" Gritz is a 32nd degree Freemason of the Scottish Rite, he is a member of the Mormon church and has been initiated in the temple ceremony in which it is revealed to him that Lucifer is the god he follows; that Christ had his chance on earth and failed, and that it is Lucifer's turn. This can be found and referenced and confirmed fully in a book entitled, The Godmakers, and in the video tape by the same name.

Rose Cross College, Part II (aired February 23rd, 1994)

https://viefag.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/transcripts-of-william-cooper-s-mystery-babylon-series.pdf

Trump International, Scotland

@TrumpScotland

Donald J Trump, 45th President of the United States, announced today the start of a new golf venture in Scotland: the MacLeod course, to be built at Trump International Scotland in Aberdeenshire in honor of his late mother Mary Anne MacLeod.

10:47 AM · May 1, 2023

https://x.com/TrumpScotland/status/1653093764271857666

President Donald J. Trump Keeps His Promise To Open U.S. Embassy In Jerusalem, Israel

  Issued on: May 14, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/ybbaeepj

James Francis Edward Stuart (10 June 1688 – 1 January 1766) [a] was the House of Stuart claimant to the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland from 1701 until his death in 1766. The only son of James II of England and his second wife, Mary of Modena, he was Prince of Wales and heir until his Catholic father was deposed and exiled in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. His Protestant half-sister Mary II and her husband William III became co-monarchs. As a Catholic, he was subsequently excluded from the succession by the Act of Settlement 1701.

Raised primarily in France and Italy, when his father died in September 1701 James claimed the thrones. As part of the War of the Spanish Succession, in 1708 Louis XIV of France backed a landing in Scotland on his behalf. This failed, as did further attempts in 1715 and 1719. Led by his elder son Charles Edward Stuart, the 1745 Rising was the last serious effort to restore the House of Stuart.

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

Pope Francis (Latin: Franciscus; Italian: Francesco; Spanish: Francisco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio;[b] 17 December 1936) is head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State. He is the first pope to be a member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), the first from the Americas and the Southern Hemisphere, and the first born or raised outside Europe since the 8th-century papacy of the Syrian Pope Gregory III.

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

James Ray Hart[2] (born January 1, 1944) is an American professional wrestling manager, executive, composer, and musician. He is currently signed to WWE in a Legends deal.[1] He is best known for his work in WWE when it was still known as the World Wrestling Federation (WWF; renamed WWE in 2002) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW), and used the nickname "the Mouth of the South" (one that was also given to Ted Turner).

Regarded by many to be one of the greatest managers in professional wrestling history, Hart has managed the likes of Andy Kaufman, The Honky Tonk Man, Bret Hart (no relation) and Jim Neidhart (The Hart Foundation), Greg "the Hammer" Valentine, Jerry "the King" Lawler, "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase, Irwin R. Schyster, The Mountie, The Natural Disasters, Dino Bravo, the Nasty Boys, The Giant, and Hulk Hogan. He was briefly the AWA Southern Heavyweight Champion in 1981.

Before becoming involved with professional wrestling, Hart was a member of rock band The Gentrys, best known for their 1965 top five Billboard Hot 100 hit, "Keep on Dancing".[3]

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

The Supreme Council, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction, USA is the first Supreme Council of Scottish Rite Freemasonry, founded in 1801. Its official full name is "The Supreme Council (Mother Council of the World) of the Inspectors General Knights Commander of the House of the Temple of Solomon of the Thirty-third Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry of the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States of America."[1] It is also commonly known as The Supreme Council, 33°, Southern Jurisdiction, or by some other varying degree of complete titulage. It is sometimes called the Mother Supreme Council of the World. It is the governing body of Scottish Rite Freemasonry in its jurisdiction,[2] and is one of five Supreme Councils in the United States, along with the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, two Prince Hall Affiliated Supreme Councils, and the Supreme Council of Louisiana.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Council,_Scottish_Rite_(Southern_Jurisdiction,_USA)

The Supreme Council, 33º, SJ, USA

1733 16th St. NW

Washington, DC 20009

https://scottishrite.org/

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/.../scottish-rite-history.html

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

The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus and Their Complementary Norms 

https://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

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.

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

The Mount St. Helens major eruption of May 18, 1980, remains the deadliest and most economically destructive volcanic event in U.S. history.[4] Fifty-seven people were killed; 200 homes, 47 bridges, 15 miles (24 km) of railways, and 185 miles (298 km) of highway were destroyed.[5] A massive debris avalanche, triggered by a magnitude 5.1 earthquake, caused a lateral eruption[6] that reduced the elevation of the mountain's summit from 9,677 to 8,363 ft (2,950 to 2,549 m), leaving a 1 mile (1.6 km) wide horseshoe-shaped crater.[7] The debris avalanche was 0.6 cubic miles (2.5 km3) in volume.[8] The 1980 eruption disrupted terrestrial ecosystems near the volcano. By contrast, aquatic ecosystems in the area greatly benefited from the amounts of ash, allowing life to multiply rapidly. Six years after the eruption, most lakes in the area had returned to their normal state.[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_St._Helens 

Updated May 18, 2023 

Defense Primer: Directed-Energy Weapons 

Both the 2022 National Defense Strategy and the House Armed Services Committee’s bipartisan Future of Defense Task Force Report have identified directed energy as a technology that could have a significant impact on U.S. national security in the years to come. As the Department of Defense (DOD) continues to invest in directed-energy (DE) weapons, Congress may consider implications for defense authorizations, appropriations, and oversight. Overview DOD defines DE weapons as those using concentrated electromagnetic energy, rather than kinetic energy, to “incapacitate, damage, disable, or destroy enemy equipment, facilities, and/or personnel.” DE weapons include high-energy lasers (HEL) and high-powered microwave (HPM) weapons; other DE weapons, such as particle beam weapons, are outside the scope of this In Focus. HELs might be used by ground forces in short-range air defense (SHORAD), counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS), or counter-rocket, artillery, and mortar (C-RAM) missions. The weapons might be used to “dazzle” (i.e., temporarily disable) or damage satellites and sensors. This could in turn interfere with intelligence-gathering operations; military cmmunications; and positioning, navigation, and timing systems used for weapons targeting. In addition, HELs could theoretically provide options for boost-phase missile intercept, given their speed-of-light travel time; however, experts disagree on the affordability, technological feasibility, and utility of this application. In general, HELs might offer lower costs per shot and— assuming access to a sufficient power supply—deeper magazines compared with traditional munitions. (Although a number of different types of HELs exist, many of the United States’ current programs are solid state lasers, which are fueled by electrical power. As a result, the cost per shot is equivalent to the cost of the electrical power required to fire the shot.) This could in turn produce a favorable costexchange ratio for the defender, whose marginal costs would be significantly lower than those of the aggressor.

Similarly, HPM weapons could provide a nonkinetic means of disabling adversary electronics and communications systems. These weapons could potentially generate effects over wider areas than HELs, which emit a narrower beam of energy. As a result, some analysts have noted that HPM weapons might provide more effective area defense against missile salvos and swarms of drones. HPM weapons have also been considered for use as nonlethal “heat ray” systems for crowd control. Directed-Energy Weapons Programs A number of countries are investing in directed-energy weapons programs. This In Focus discusses a selection of unclassified DE weapons programs in three leading military powers: the United States, China, and Russia. United States DOD requested approximately $1 billion for unclassified DE programs in FY2024. (For additional information about specific U.S. DE weapons programs, see CRS Report R44175, Navy Lasers, Railgun, and Gun-Launched Guided Projectile: Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke, and CRS Report R45098, U.S. Army WeaponsRelated Directed Energy (DE) Programs: Background and Potential Issues for Congress, by Andrew Feickert.) DOD does not currently have any DE programs of record. DOD directed energy programs are coordinated by the Principal Director for Directed Energy within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD[R&E]). The Principal Director for Directed Energy is additionally responsible for development and oversight of the Directed Energy Roadmap. According to OUSD(R&E), DOD’s current DE roadmap outlines DOD’s plan to increase power levels of DE weapons from around 150 kilowatts (kW—a unit of power), as is currently feasible, to 300 kW by FY2023, “with goal milestones to achieve 500 kW class with reduced size and weight by FY2025 and to further reduce size and weight and increase power to MW [megawatt] levels by FY2026.” For reference, although there is no consensus regarding the precise power level that would be needed to neutralize different target sets, some analysts believe that lasers of around 100 kW could engage unmanned aircraft systems, small boats, rockets, artillery, and mortars, whereas lasers of around 300 kW could additionally engage cruise missiles flying in certain profiles (i.e., flying across—rather than at—the laser). Lasers of 1 MW could potentially neutralize ballistic missiles and hypersonic weapons. In addition to the DE roadmap, OUSD(R&E) manages the High Energy Laser Scaling Initiative (HELSI), which former Principal Director for Directed Energy Dr. Jim Trebes notes is “to demonstrate laser output power scaling while maintaining or improving beam quality and efficiency.” HELSI is intended to strengthen the defense industrial base for potential future directed energy weapons by providing near-term prototyping opportunities for industry partners. Dr. Trebes additionally notes that OUSD(R&E) has completed a DOD-wide Laser Lethality Analysis Process Review to identify future needs for the Department and best practices for DE development and use. According to OUSD(R&E), DOD is also testing a Directed Defense Primer: Directed-Energy Weapons https://crsreports.congress.gov Energy Lethality Database that is to serve as a searchable repository for the department’s DE analyses. China According to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, China has been developing DE weapons since at least the 1980s and has made steady progress in developing HPM and increasingly powerful HELs. China has reportedly developed a 30-kilowatt roadmobile HEL, LW-30, designed to engage unmanned aircraft systems and precision-guided weapons. Reports indicate that China is also developing an airborne HEL pod. According to the Defense Intelligence Agency, China is additionally pursuing DE weapons to disrupt, degrade, or damage satellites and their sensors and possibly already has a limited capability to employ laser systems against satellite sensors. China [has likely fielded] a ground-based laser weapon that can counter low-orbit spacebased sensors ... and by the mid-to-late 2020s, it may field higher power systems that extend the threat to the structures of non-optical satellites. Russia Russia has been conducting DE weapons research since the 1960s, with a particular emphasis on HELs. Russia has reportedly deployed the Peresvet ground-based HEL with several mobile intercontinental ballistic missile units. Although little is publicly known about Peresvet, including its power level, some analysts assert it is to dazzle satellites and provide point defense against unmanned aircraft systems. Russia’s deputy defense minister Alexei Krivoruchko has stated that efforts are underway to increase Peresvet’s power level and to deploy it on military aircraft. Reports suggest that Russia may also be developing HPMs as well as additional HELs capable of performing antisatellite missions. Potential Issues and Questions for Congress Technological Maturity Directed-energy weapons programs continue to face questions about their technological maturity, including the ability to improve beam quality and control to militarily useful levels and the ability to meet size, weight, and power (SWaP) and cooling requirements for integration into current platforms. Some DE systems are small enough to fit on military vehicles, but many require larger and/or fixed platforms that could potentially limit deployment options and operational utility. In what ways, if any, are DOD technology maturation efforts reducing the SWaP and cooling requirements of DE systems? Weapons Characteristics Although HELs may offer a lower cost per shot than traditional weapons such as missiles, they are also subject to a number of limitations. For example, atmospheric conditions (e.g., rain, fog, obscurants) and SWaP and cooling requirements can limit the range and beam quality of HELs, in turn reducing their effectiveness. Traditional weapons, in contrast, are not affected by these factors. How, if at all, might HEL limitations be mitigated by technological developments, concepts of operation, or other methods? What impact might a failure to mitigate these limitations have on future military operations? Mission Utility Given the strengths and weaknesses of DE weapons, DOD is continuing to examine their role within the military. DOD is additionally conducting multiple utility studies to analyze potential concepts of operation for DE weapons and to assess the scenarios in which they might be militarily useful. How might Congress draw upon the conclusions of these analyses as it conducts oversight of DE weapons programs? What is the appropriate balance between DE weapons and traditional munitions within the military’s portfolio of capabilities? Defense Industrial Base Some analysts have expressed concerns that, in the past, DOD did not provide stable funding for DE weapons programs or sufficient opportunities for the DE workforce. According to OUSD(R&E), HELSI is intended to address these concerns by providing industry with assured prototyping opportunities. In what ways, if any, has HELSI strengthened the defense industrial base for DE weapons? What, if any, challenges does the base continue to face and how might they be mitigated?

Intelligence Requirements

Some analysts have questioned whether DOD has sufficient knowledge of adversary DE weapons systems and materials to develop its weapons requirements. DOD is currently attempting to further define its DE collection requirements for the intelligence community (IC) through the Directed Energy Lethality Intelligence initiative. To what extent, if at all, is this initiative improving connectivity between DOD’s DE community and the IC? What collection requirements, if any, remain? Coordination within DOD Pursuant to Section 219 of the FY2017 National Defense Authorization Act (P.L. 114-328), OUSD(R&E)’s Principal Director for Directed Energy is tasked with coordinating DE efforts across DOD and with developing DOD’s Directed Energy Roadmap, which is to guide development efforts. To what extent are the military departments and defense agencies adhering to this roadmap? What, if any, additional authorities or structural changes would be required to ensure proper coordination throughout DOD? Related CRS Products CRS Report R46925, Department of Defense Directed Energy Weapons: Background and Issues for Congress, coordinated by Kelley M. Sayler. This report was originally co-authored by John Hoehn. Kelley M. Sayler, Analyst in Advanced Technology and Global Security IF11882 Defense Primer: Directed-Energy Weapons https://crsreports.congress.gov | IF11882 · VERSION 8 · UPDATED Disclaimer This document was prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). CRS serves as nonpartisan shared staff to congressional committees and Members of Congress. It operates solely at the behest of and under the direction of Congress. Information in a CRS Report should not be relied upon for purposes other than public understanding of information that has been provided by CRS to Members of Congress in connection with CRS’s institutional role. CRS Reports, as a work of the United States Government, are not subject to copyright protection in the United States. Any CRS Report may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety without permission from CRS. However, as a CRS Report may include copyrighted images or material from a third party, you may need to obtain the permission of the copyright holder if you wish to copy or otherwise use copyrighted material"

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11882 

Mattel WWE Ultimate Edition Survivor Series 1990 Undertaker & Gobbledy Gooker!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/235529441707

The Gobbledy Gooker is a professional wrestling turkey mascot originally portrayed by Héctor Guerrero. In the weeks leading up to the 1990 Survivor Series, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) hyped its debut by showcasing a large egg at live shows, causing much speculation among wrestling fans. Guerrero was jeered by fans in attendance when he hatched out of the egg and the character was quickly dropped by the promotion.

It subsequently attained a legacy as being one of the worst characters in the history of professional wrestling. After a lengthy hiatus, WWE began sporadically using the character again and several other wrestlers have donned the Gobbledy Gooker costume. Thirty years after its debut, it won the WWE 24/7 Championship at the 2020 Survivor Series.

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

Earth's inner core is the innermost geologic layer of the planet Earth. It is primarily a solid ball with a radius of about 1,220 km (760 mi), which is about 20% of Earth's radius or 70% of the Moon's radius.[1][2]

There are no samples of the core accessible for direct measurement, as there are for Earth's mantle.[3] The characteristics of the core have been deduced mostly from measurements of seismic waves and Earth's magnetic field.[4] The inner core is believed to be composed of an iron–nickel alloy with some other elements. The temperature at its surface is estimated to be approximately 5,700 K (5,430 °C; 9,800 °F), about the temperature at the surface of the Sun.[5]

The inner core is solid at high temperature because of its high pressure, in accordance with the Simon-Glatzel equation.[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_inner_core

Solar flares are not directly related to the Earth's mantle, but they can have a significant impact on Earth if they are directed towards it:

Explanation

Solar flares are explosions on the Sun that release magnetic energy and cause a burst of radiation. They can occur in active regions of the Sun, often around sunspots.

Classification

Solar flares are classified by their peak brightness in X-ray wavelengths, with X-class flares being the most intense and A-class flares being the least intense.

Effects on Earth

When a solar flare is directed at Earth, it can cause a geomagnetic storm that can interfere with power grids, communications, and navigation systems. The severity of the interference depends on the intensity of the storm.

Monitoring

NASA, NOAA, and the US Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) monitor the Sun for solar flares and their associated magnetic storms

https://www.google.com/search?q=solar+flares+mantle&oq=solar+flares+mantle&gs_lcrp=EgRlZGdlKgYIABBFGDsyBggAEEUYOzIKCAEQABiABBiiBDIKCAIQABiABBiiBNIBCDM3ODNqMGoxqAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

The Earth's mantle is a layer of silicate rock between the crust and the outer core. Its mass of 4.01 × 1024 kg is 67% the mass of the Earth.[1] It has a thickness of 2,900 kilometres (1,800 mi)[1] making up about 84% of Earth's volume. It is predominantly solid, but in geological time it behaves as a viscous fluid. Partial melting of the mantle at mid-ocean ridges produces oceanic crust, and partial melting of the mantle at subduction zones produces continental crust.[2]

Other planets

Mercury has a silicate mantle approximately 490 kilometers (300 miles) thick, constituting only 28% of its mass.[1] Venus's silicate mantle is approximately 2,800 kilometers (1,700 miles) thick, constituting around 70% of its mass.[1] Mars's silicate mantle is approximately 1,600 kilometers (990 miles) thick, constituting ~74–88% of its mass,[1] and may be represented by chassignite meteorites. Uranus and Neptune's ice mantles are approximately 30,000 km thick, composing 80% of both masses.[3]

Moons

Jupiter's moons Io, Europa, and Ganymede have silicate mantles; Io's ~1,100 kilometers (680 miles) silicate mantle is overlain by a volcanic crust, Ganymede's ~1,315 kilometers (817 miles) thick silicate mantle is overlain by ~835 kilometers (519 miles) of ice, and Europa's ~1,165 kilometers (724 miles) km silicate mantle is overlain by ~85 kilometers (53 miles) of ice and possibly liquid water.[1]

The silicate mantle of the Earth's moon is approximately 1300–1400 km thick, and is the source of mare basalts.[4] The lunar mantle might be exposed in the South Pole-Aitken basin or the Crisium basin.[4] The lunar mantle contains a seismic discontinuity at ~500 kilometers (310 miles) depth, most likely related to a change in composition.[4]

Titan and Triton each have a mantle made of ice or other solid volatile substances.[5][6]

Asteroids

See also: 4 Vesta § Geology

Some of the largest asteroids have mantles;[7] for example, Vesta has a silicate mantle similar in composition to diogenite meteorites.[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantle_(geology)

English mantle and mantel both derive from the Latin word for "cloak," mantellum, which was adopted into Old English in the form mentel. The word eventually evolved to mantle under the influence of Anglo-French mantel—a derivative of the Latin term that was borrowed into early Middle English. Initially, mantle referred to a loose, sleeveless cloak or a protective garment or blanket. It then specified the long cloaks worn by royalty, dignitaries, and ecclesiastics as symbols of authority or preeminence. By the 17th century, this sense of mantle gained figurative use in contexts describing a transfer of power, with allusion to the allegorical passing of Elijah's mantle to Elisha in the biblical Books of Kings.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/usage-mantle-vs-mantel

Harry Truman and Mount St. Helens | KATU In The Archives

KATU News

May 14, 2022  #Portland #Katu2abc #KATU

In 1980, prior to the eruption of Mount St. Helens, Harry Truman refused to leave his lodge at Spirit Lake. When the mountain erupted, Spirit Lake, Harry Truman, and Mt. St. Helens Lodge were overrun by a pyroclastic flow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9TkFVh-m7I

AI Overview

Learn more

If every volcano on Earth erupted simultaneously, the safest place to go would likely be a ship in the middle of the ocean as it would be furthest away from the volcanic ash and potential hazards on land, allowing you to wait until the atmosphere clears before returning to shore; an underground bunker could also be a viable option depending on its location and accessibility.

Key points to consider:

Volcanic ash spread:

A global volcanic eruption would spread ash across the planet, making land areas highly dangerous due to respiratory issues and potential crop failures.

Air quality concerns:

Breathing volcanic ash can be extremely harmful, so staying in a clean air environment is crucial.

Access to resources:

A ship in the middle of the ocean would have access to water and potentially some food supplies, although long-term sustainability would be a significant challenge.

Generative AI is experimental.

The Natural Disasters were a professional wrestling tag team composed of Earthquake (John Tenta) and Typhoon (Fred Ottman) who worked in the World Wrestling Federation between 1991 and 1993.[1] They won the WWF Tag Team Championship once. They had feuded with each other before becoming a team.

Formation and feud with Legion of Doom (1991–1992)

Their precursor to formation happened on a June 1991 episode of WWF Superstars of Wrestling when Jimmy Hart announced he had signed André the Giant to form a tag team with Earthquake. When asked by interviewer Gene Okerlund to confirm, André denied the claims, leaving Hart angry and humiliated. Earthquake responded by attacking André from behind with Hart's megaphone and injuring André's knee.[5]

Jimmy Hart got revenge for the humiliation a few weeks later during a six-man tag team match featuring Earthquake and The Nasty Boys against the massive Tugboat and The Bushwhackers. It was revealed in this match that Hart secretly signed Tugboat, who turned on his partners after a few minutes of action and joined the Earthquake in laying the two New Zealanders out cold with a big splash.[6] After the heel turn Tugboat changed his name to Typhoon and together they became known as “The Natural Disasters”,[7] and name that had been used for Earthquake's team at Survivor Series 1990.

The Natural Disasters faced the Bushwhackers, with André in their corner, at the 1991 SummerSlam pay-per-view, whom they made very short work of.[8] After destroying the Bushwhackers, the Disasters targeted André, but the assault was stopped by the Legion of Doom who ran off the Natural Disasters and kicked off the Legion of Doom / Natural Disasters feud. Later that night, the Legion of Doom won the WWF World Tag Team Championship from the Nasty Boys,[9] which meant that the Natural Disasters became first in line to get a shot at the new champions.

The first big meeting between the teams came at the 1991 Survivor Series where they were on opposing sides in an elimination match. Typhoon was eliminated due to a miscommunication with team member Irwin R. Schyster followed by Earthquake walking out with him, leaving the Legion of Doom as the eventual winners.[10] From November[11] to January[12] the Disasters challenged for the tag team championship on the house show circuit, usually without a decisive outcome. At the 1992 Royal Rumble, they won a title match via countout, but not the title.[13]

Face turn and feud with Money Inc. (1992)

In February, Natural Disasters' manager Jimmy Hart led Money Inc. (Ted DiBiase and Irwin R. Schyster) to the WWF Tag Team Championship over the Legion of Doom, who briefly left the WWF.[9] The Natural Disasters were outraged that their manager would go behind their backs and get another team a shot at the title, the storyline explanation was that Jimmy Hart used the Disasters' guaranteed return match for Money Inc. When the Natural Disasters challenged Money Inc. they won the fan support as they fired manager Jimmy Hart.[4] The Disasters first got their hands on Money Inc. at WrestleMania VIII, and again won a championship match but not the title, as the champions were counted out.[14] They challenged for the title repeatedly on house shows until winning it on July 20, 1992.[9]

After losing the title, Money Inc. focused on the challenges from the Legion of Doom, which gave the Natural Disasters the opportunity to defend the belts against new competition. They defeated The Beverly Brothers (managed by The Genius) at SummerSlam 1992,[15] the Disasters' first PPV pinfall in a year. They faced the Nasty Boys and Money Inc., both managed by Jimmy Hart. After the Nasty Boys fell out with Hart, Money Inc. regained the title in October 1992.[9] While the now-babyface Nasty Boys feuded with the champions, the Natural Disasters were phased out of the tag team division, last teaming on PPV at the 1992 Survivor Series, where they were eliminated by Money Inc.[16]

Split and aftermath (1993, 2001)

In 1993, Earthquake and Typhoon began showing signs of dissention, most noticeably at the 1993 Royal Rumble.[17] Typhoon was already in the ring when Earthquake entered as #23 and he immediately went after his tag team partner, focusing only on him until Typhoon was eliminated.[18] The Disasters’ feud never came to fruition as Earthquake left the WWF very early in 1993.

Typhoon briefly stayed with the WWF after Earthquake left. In mid-1993, he signed with WCW and made an infamous debut as The Shockmaster. Typhoon briefly returned to the WWF midcard in 1994.[19]

Earthquake traveled to Japan in 1993 and returned in 1994 for a short “Sumo Vs Sumo” feud with Yokozuna.[20][21] For the few months Earthquake was in the WWF, no mention of the tag team was made. He then went to WCW, where he wrestled as Avalanche at first and later became The Shark and finally wrestled under his real name before leaving. Earthquake briefly returned to the WWF in 1998 as the masked mute Golga, as a member of The Oddities.[22]

In 2001, the WWF hosted a quasireunion of the Natural Disasters as they were both involved in the Gimmick Battle Royal of WrestleMania X-Seven, but Fred Ottman wrestled as Tugboat instead of Typhoon.[23] Commentator Bobby Heenan alluded to their previous alliance. Earthquake wound up eliminating Tugboat. That December, he defeated a jobber in a tryout dark match at a SmackDown! taping.

Earthquake died from metastatic bladder cancer in 2006.

The Natural Disasters appear in WWE 2K16, WWE 2K17 and WWE 2K18.

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

The Richter magnitude of an earthquake is determined from the logarithm of the amplitude of waves recorded by seismographs. Adjustments are included to compensate for the variation in the distance between the various seismographs and the epicenter of the earthquake. The original formula is:[6]

M_L: Represents the local magnitude of the earthquake.

A: Is the amplitude of the seismic wave recorded on a seismograph.

A_0(δ): Is a reference amplitude for a standard earthquake at a specific epicentral distance (δ).

https://www.google.com/search?q=The+original+formula+is%3A%5B6%5D+M+L+%3D+log+10+%E2%81%A1+A+%E2%88%92+log+10+%E2%81%A1+A+0+(+%CE%B4+)+%3D+log+10+%E2%81%A1+%5B+A+%2F+A+0+(+%CE%B4+)+%5D+%2C+%7B%5Cdisplaystyle+M_%7B%5Cmathrm+%7BL%7D+%7D%3D%5Clog+_%7B10%7DA-%5Clog+_%7B10%7DA_%7B%5Cmathrm+%7B0%7D+%7D(%5Cdelta+)%3D%5Clog+_%7B10%7D%5BA%2FA_%7B%5Cmathrm+%7B0%7D+%7D(%5Cdelta+)%5D%2C%5C+%7D&oq=The+original+formula+is%3A%5B6%5D+M+L+%3D+log+10+%E2%81%A1+A+%E2%88%92+log+10+%E2%81%A1+A+0+(+%CE%B4+)+%3D+log+10+%E2%81%A1+%5B+A+%2F+A+0+(+%CE%B4+)+%5D+%2C+%7B%5Cdisplaystyle+M_%7B%5Cmathrm+%7BL%7D+%7D%3D%5Clog+_%7B10%7DA-%5Clog+_%7B10%7DA_%7B%5Cmathrm+%7B0%7D+%7D(%5Cdelta+)%3D%5Clog+_%7B10%7D%5BA%2FA_%7B%5Cmathrm+%7B0%7D+%7D(%5Cdelta+)%5D%2C%5C+%7D&gs_lcrp=EgRlZGdlKgYIABBFGDkyBggAEEUYOdIBBzUwN2owajGoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

where A is the maximum excursion of the Wood-Anderson seismograph, the empirical function A0 depends only on the epicentral distance of the station,

δ

{\displaystyle \delta }. In practice, readings from all observing stations are averaged after adjustment with station-specific corrections to obtain the ML  value.[6]

Because of the logarithmic basis of the scale, each whole number increase in magnitude represents a tenfold increase in measured amplitude. In terms of energy, each whole number increase corresponds to an increase of about 31.6 times the amount of energy released, and each increase of 0.2 corresponds to approximately a doubling of the energy released.

Events with magnitudes greater than 4.5 are strong enough to be recorded by a seismograph anywhere in the world, so long as its sensors are not located in the earthquake's shadow.[7][8][9]

The following describes the typical effects of earthquakes of various magnitudes near the epicenter.[10] The values are typical and may not be exact in a future event because intensity and ground effects depend not only on the magnitude but also on (1) the distance to the epicenter, (2) the depth of the earthquake's focus beneath the epicenter, (3) the location of the epicenter, and (4) geological conditions.

The intensity and death toll depend on several factors (earthquake depth, epicenter location, and population density, to name a few) and can vary widely.

Millions of minor earthquakes occur every year worldwide, equating to hundreds every hour every day.[15] On the other hand, earthquakes of magnitude ≥8.0 occur about once a year, on average.[15] The largest recorded earthquake was the Great Chilean earthquake of May 22, 1960, which had a magnitude of 9.5 on the moment magnitude scale.[16]

Seismologist Susan Hough has suggested that a magnitude 10 quake may represent a very approximate upper limit for what the Earth's tectonic zones are capable of, which would be the result of the largest known continuous belt of faults rupturing together (along the Pacific coast of the Americas).[17] A research at the Tohoku University in Japan found that a magnitude 10 earthquake was theoretically possible if a combined 3,000 kilometres (1,900 mi) of faults from the Japan Trench to the Kuril–Kamchatka Trench ruptured together and moved by 60 metres (200 ft) (or if a similar large-scale rupture occurred elsewhere). Such an earthquake would cause ground motions for up to an hour, with tsunamis hitting shores while the ground is still shaking, and if this kind of earthquake occurred, it would probably be a 1-in-10,000-year event.[18]

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

World Wrestling Federation (1989-1993, 1994)

Various feuds (1989–1991)

After making two dark-match appearances under his real name in March 1989,[15] Tenta joined the WWF full-time in September 1989. In his first match after signing on, a dark match on September 21, 1989, he portrayed a lumberjack character named Earthquake Evans that was billed as being from the "Northern Yukon Territory" who was managed by Slick, and defeated Paul Roma.[3] Tenta then made his WWF television debut on the November 11, 1989, edition of WWF Superstars of Wrestling, where he was planted in the audience as a normal spectator at the taping held in Wheeling, West Virginia. During an in-ring interview with Gene Okerlund, Dino Bravo challenged The Ultimate Warrior to a strength competition. In order to demonstrate, Bravo and manager Jimmy Hart suggested that they pick a random audience member to come into the ring and sit on the backs of Bravo and the Ultimate Warrior as they did push-ups to see who could do the most. The Ultimate Warrior agreed, and Hart, after pretending to look around the audience, centered his attention on the very large Tenta who was sitting in the audience in casual clothing and appearing surprised. Tenta came down into the ring, identified himself as "John from West Virginia" and proceeded to sit on Bravo's back as he did a set of push-ups. During the Ultimate Warrior's set, however, Tenta leapt down onto the prone Ultimate Warrior using a seated senton that was adapted to be his signature move. Bravo and Tenta then beat and unleashed multiple big splashes on the prone Warrior. Both then celebrated as Tenta was inaugurated into the WWF as a heel with Hart as his manager.[16] Tenta was pushed as The Canadian Earthquake – and by WrestleMania VI, simply Earthquake – an unstoppable monster heel who often sent his opponents out on a stretcher after repeatedly hitting them with his sitdown splash.

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

On October 17, 1989, at 5:04 p.m. local time, the Loma Prieta earthquake occurred at the Central Coast of California. The shock was centered in The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park in Santa Cruz County, approximately 10 mi (16 km) northeast of Santa Cruz on a section of the San Andreas Fault System and was named for the nearby Loma Prieta Peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains. With an Mw magnitude of 6.9[10] and a maximum Modified Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), the shock was responsible for 63 deaths and 3,757 injuries. The Loma Prieta segment of the San Andreas Fault System had been relatively inactive since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake (to the degree that it was designated a seismic gap) until two moderate foreshocks occurred in June 1988 and again in August 1989.

Damage was heavy in Santa Cruz County and less so to the south in Monterey County, but effects extended well to the north into the San Francisco Bay Area, both on the San Francisco Peninsula and across the bay in Oakland. No surface faulting occurred, though many other ground failures and landslides were present, especially in the Summit area of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Liquefaction was also a significant issue, especially in the heavily damaged Marina District of San Francisco, but its effects were also seen in the East Bay, and near the shore of Monterey Bay, where a non-destructive tsunami was also observed.[11]

Because it happened during a national live broadcast of the 1989 World Series, the annual championship series of Major League Baseball, taking place between Bay Area teams San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics, it is sometimes referred to as the "World Series earthquake", with the championship games of the year being referred to as the "Earthquake Series". Rush-hour traffic on the Bay Area freeways was much lighter than normal because the game, being played at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, was about to begin, and this may have prevented a larger loss of life, as several of the Bay Area's major transportation structures suffered catastrophic failures. The collapse of a section of the double-deck Nimitz Freeway in Oakland was the site of the largest number of casualties for the event, but the collapse of human-made structures and other related accidents contributed to casualties occurring in San Francisco, Los Gatos, and Santa Cruz.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Loma_Prieta_earthquake

Donald Trump: 'Two Corinthians 3:17. That's the whole ballgame, right?'

By Jim Galloway

Jan 19, 2016

https://www.ajc.com/blog/politics/donald-trump-two-corinthians-that-the-whole-ballgame-right/qr5x0JMa30Tn8eL8HrP4jL/

Published: 10 October 1996

Russian documents Set out 'tectonic weapon' research

Carl Levitin 

Moscow. The first official details have emerged in Moscow of ambitious research into 'tectonic warfare' carried out by the former Soviet Union and subsequently by the government of Russia, and involving atte mpts to stimulate 'artificial' earthquakes as weapons of destruction. According to documents obtained by the newspaper Moscow News, two research programmes, the first known as ' Mercury ' and the second as ' Volcano', were aimed at creating new earthquake epicentres by using underground nuclear explosions . Geophysicists are aware that impending earthquakes may be triggered by underground nuclear explosions . But Western geophysicists remain sceptical about tectonic warfare and have all but abandoned research after two unsuccessful phases of activity in the 1960s and 1980s, says Roger Clark, a lecturer in geophysics at the University of Leeds. Clark is not at all surprised that th e Russians tried to create earthquakes and control their location electromagnetically, however. "This sort of science is very much part of their heritage. We don't think it is impossible, or wrong , but past experience suggests it is very, very unlikely. "

The programme , which was secretly launched by the Communist rulers of the former Soviet Union in 1987, and has been unofficially known to Western geophysicists for several years, is now believed to have been abandoned. It would certainly contravene the terms of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which Russia signe d at the United Nations in Geneva last month . The Mercury project was launched in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, but came to a halt when the republic became independent. It was superseded by the Volcano project. Three underground nuclear tests are believed to have taken place at sites in Kyrgyzstan.

According to the documents, the Mercury project was launched by a secret decree of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union. The objective was to "develop a methodology for remote operation on an earthquake epicentre by using weak seismic fields and research possibilities of transferring the seismic energy of an explosion ".

The documents say that the Mercury project involved 22 scientific and industrial organizations, including the Geological Institute of the Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences in Baku. The remit extended to developing the electronic equipment to be installed aboard space satellites that would control the tectonic weapon. The scientists were given three years to complete research, with testing planned for 1990.

During the research phase, Azerbaijani scientists grew increasingly confident and, according to the documents, were sure that " after [a] nuclear explosion, subterranean energy may accumulate at huge distances from the epicentre and reach massive capacity, after which the next directed explosion can release it all ".

Underground testing began at the town of Batken in Kyrgyzstan, and was directed by lkram Ke rimov , of the Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences. The documents say that scientists detonated an underground nuclear charge and tried to control the direction of seismic energy release d using British-built equipment known as 'system 9690 ' .

A report prepared by the Mozhaisky Military Engineering Institute concluded that the test had been a success. But progress slowed considerably following Azerbaijan's independence from the Soviet Union. At about this time , Russia embarked on a more comprehensive tectonic warfare programme known as the Volcano project. The Earth Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) became the project headquarters .

Research was scheduled to be completed in 1992, with underground testing beginning the following year. The final test was carried out at a place code-named S36NZ-0Kh; Moscow News believes the letters 'NZ' refer to Novaya Zemlya, where Soviet nuclear testing began in the 1950s."

https://www.nature.com/articles/383471a0 

On Topic: 'Atlas Shrugged' and the motor of the world

Michael Chevy Castranova

Aug. 18, 2011 1:15 pm

John Galt, probably the most famous engineer in fiction, is asked what he would do if he were Atlas, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Shrug, he replies.

The comment from one of the characters in Ayn Rand's famous 1957 novel, “Atlas Shrugged,” is electrifying in its tone and in its confidence - or arrogance, depending on your perspective on this controversial book and its author.

The plot of the large novel, in case you somehow escaped it in your college readings, concerns Dagny Taggert, who's trying to save the family railroad business, and Hank Reardon, head of Reardon Steel who has invented a new metal stronger than the world has ever seen. Because he won't share its secret formula, competitors and the federal government try to bring him down.

Oh, and Dagny and Hank fall in love.

Meanwhile, smart people - the engineers, the managers, the “prime movers” of the world - are disappearing without trace. Or, put another way, they're intentionally dropping out, frustrated by government intervention and the stupidity of other, less-worthy industry leaders.

Those tired, ineffectual plods are described at one point by Dagny, the railroad queen with her one-track imagination, as being like “extinguished signals.”

As the economies of the planet slowly grind to a halt - after all, the real brains are abandoning their posts as captains of industry - a catch phrase takes hold, repeated in the novel by executives and homeless alike: “Who is John Galt?”

It's used to mean, “Oh, well, what's the point?” In today's pop parlance we say, “It is what it is.” (The origin of that expression, I think, is from the U.S. Army - orders are orders, whether they make sense or not, and soldiers just have to get on with it.)

Yet the main feature of this and Rand's other famous novel, “The Fountainhead,” is its philosophy.

Rand called it Objectivism, promoting what her characters call “enlightened self-interest.” Advocates read it as free-market zeal, in capital letters, while critics deem it Selfish-ism.

Rand's beliefs have had a strong following in American politics for decades. The Ford administration counted several fans, officials who were inspired by Rand as others might quote Harper Lee or Shakespeare.

Rand's views became politicized, molded into an Economic School of Thought - just as the author had intended.

But, my goodness, her characters are a hard-boiled bunch.

Her novels' heroes are “superlatively efficient” at what they do, Rand writes. They want hard challenges, strong affections and tough mates.

And they desire no truck with those who are less steely, weighed down with dreary human failings.

Reardon tells the reader he “despised causeless affection” and those who “enjoy unearned luxury.” His own mother notes:  “Hank Reardon's not interested in man, beast or weed unless it's tied in some way to himself and his work. … I've tried my best to teach him some humanity, I've tried all my life, but I've failed.”

But, see, here's the thing: From the author's point of view, we're meant to side with Reardon, not his - apparently - ungrateful mother.

Reardon and the other unapologetic heroes of Rand's novels “take pride in being proud,” as they declare, and they work to their own aims. Reardon proclaims to a packed courtroom: “I work for nothing but my own profit.”

And: “The public good be damned, I will have no part of it!” The courtroom crowd cheers.

When the mysterious John Galt himself turns up, having stopped the “motor” of the world, he announces to Dagny, “‘The road is clear ….'

“He raised his hand and over the desolate earth he traced in space the sign of dollar.”

Are these truly the folk we want running a world so in need of compassion, innovation, quirkiness and cooperation?

For decades, spay-painted on a bridge overpass leading into downtown Youngstown, Ohio, hard alongside blazing steel mills, were the words: “Who is John Galt?” They may be there still.

Growing up there, I'd no idea what that was about. Today, however, having read Rand's muscular writing - conceding some of it but certainly not agreeing with all of it - I can perceive the symbolism of that unintentional imagery: Those mills are shuttered, many demolished.

In some ways, that motor indeed has stopped.

As we look for the means to restart the U.S. engines, we'll need those determined, hard-focused Objectivists. But we'll also require the people who can comprehend myriad sides to complex, perplexing issues.

Or what kind of world will we be bringing back?

https://www.thegazette.com/business/on-topic-atlas-shrugged-and-the-motor-of-the-world/

Rhea Ripley Delighted By Sound Of The Undertaker’s Dong

By James Holder • Published 8th January 2025

Rhea Ripley can’t believe she got to experience The Undertaker’s dong.

After a lengthy rivalry with Liv Morgan, Rhea Ripley is the Women’s World Champion once again. Ripley finally got her revenge on the January 6th episode of Raw, pinning Morgan in the middle of the ring.

After the match, Ripley headed up to the ramp to celebrate where The Undertaker surprisingly joined her before the pair posed for the crowd.

Despite claims to the contrary, The Undertaker didn’t take a spot meant for Becky Lynch, as the former Women’s Champion was never scheduled to appear on Raw. Not only that, she wasn’t even in Los Angeles, although she has agreed a new contract with the company.

Rhea Ripley Reflects On “Insane” Moment With The Undertaker

During the post-show press conference, Ripley was asked about her celebration with The Deadman by Unlikely’s Adrian Hernandez. The star said she’ll never forget the moment ‘Taker’s music hit having grown up watching him on TV.

“Honestly, I thought that kicking Dom in the nuts was going to be the highlight, and then Taker came out,

It’s such a special moment. I’ve been able to be in the ring with people that I watched growing up. The greats. I’ve been able to go out there while part of the Judgment Day and step in the ring with people that I never thought I’d step in the ring with.

I was part of Randy Orton’s comeback match, CM Punk’s return, Randy’s first promo back in WWE after being injured for so long. I got to step in the ring with all these cool people.

After winning my Women’s World Championship and having the Deadman come out, hearing the ‘dong’ in real life, it was absolutely insane. It’s a moment I’m never going to forget. Watching him growing up, I thought he was absolutely amazing. I can’t wait to be rubbing this in Damian Priest’s face.”

Meanwhile, it’s been reported that WWE has huge plans for Rhea Ripley heading into WrestleMania, and this was behind the decision to have her win the Women’s World Title. At the spectacular, the company is expected to have two singles matches for its Women’s Titles, with the likes of Ripley, Charlotte Flair, and Becky Lynch all involved.

https://tjrwrestling.net/news/rhea-ripley-delighted-the-undertakers-dong/

The "shot heard round the world" is a phrase that refers to the opening shot of the battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, which sparked the American Revolutionary War and led to the creation of the United States. It originates from the opening stanza of Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1837 poem "Concord Hymn". The phrase has subsequently been applied to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, a catalyst event for World War I, and hyperbolically applied to feats in sports.

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

"nowhere to run" is a correct and commonly used phrase in written English.

It can be used in various contexts to convey a sense of being trapped or having no options. Example: The fugitive realized he had nowhere to run as the police closed in on him. I searched through the entire house, but there was nowhere to run from the scary noises I heard. The team was losing by a large margin with only a few minutes left in the game - it seemed like there was nowhere to run for a comeback.

https://ludwig.guru/s/nowhere+to+run

Earth's Core Spins Faster than Earth

The motion of the Earth's inner core had never been detected before two seismologists decided to investigate an unproven theory. They discovered that the fast-spinning inner core makes a complete revolution inside the Earth in about 400 years.

July 30, 2004

The world turns. And deep within our planet, the Earth's inner core also turns -- only it's spinning faster than the surface. Every 400 years or so, it overtakes those of us riding on the outside.

The motion of the inner core had never been detected or measured before this startling discovery was made in 1996 by two NSF-funded seismologists working at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University. They took on the challenge of investigating an unproven theory that states that the inner core rotates separately from the rest of the planet, as predicted by an unproven model of the Earth's magnetic field.

Using seismic wave readings from 38 earthquakes between 1967 and 1995, researchers Xiaodong Song, now at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and Paul Richards tracked waves that moved from the south Atlantic, through the inner core, to College, Alaska. They found that the waves in the 1990s were 0.3 seconds faster than those in the 1960s. In human terms, this change may seem negligible, but by geological standards it means that the inner core is a fast mover.

The discovery indicates that the inner core -- a solid iron crystal whose mass is comparable to the size of the moon -- is spinning independently from the rest of the solid Earth. It is driven by magnetic and electrical effects within the near-frictionless liquid outer core that surrounds it.

The finding, reported in the journal Nature, will likely advance understanding of how the Earth's magnetic field is created and why it reverses periodically; how heat flows through the planet; and how the Earth's multi-layered interior has evolved.

"The inner core rotates in the same direction as the Earth but slightly faster," explained Jim Whitcomb of NSF's Earth Sciences division. "Over the past 100 years that extra speed has gained the core a quarter-turn on the planet as a whole. Such motion is remarkably fast for geological movements -- some 100,000 times faster than the drift of continents."

The discovery has sparked research to explain the pattern of changes in Earth's magnetic field, including the way the north and south poles have "wandered" and reversed periodically during Earth's history. It will yield new knowledge about temperatures at the center of the Earth, and the flow of planetary heat that ultimately drives the motions of tectonic plates at Earth's surface.

"For decades, the motion of the inner core has been the realm of theoreticians," says Paul Richards. "For the first time, we now have a hard piece of observational evidence, an actual measurement, of what's happening down there."

In addition to the 38 earthquakes that occurred between 1967 and 1995 near the South Sandwich Islands, the scientists also measured travel times of seismic waves to Norway from earthquakes in the Kermadec Islands near New Zealand. These waves took longer to travel through the inner core in the 1990s than they did in the 1980s. Song and Richards calculated that over a year, the inner core rotates about one longitudinal degree more than the Earth's mantle and crust, meaning the inner core makes a complete revolution inside the Earth in about 400 years.

The core was formed very early in Earth's history as heavier molten iron sank toward the center of the planet. As the planet cooled and dissipated its internal heat toward the surface, some molten iron began to solidify to create the dense, solid inner core. Enormous pressure keeps the inner core solid in a region with temperatures in the range of 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit and possibly much higher. Fluid iron in the outer core has continued to solidify at the boundary between the inner and outer cores, so that over a billion years, the inner core has grown steadily to its present diameter of 1,500 miles.

 -- Cheryl Dybas

https://new.nsf.gov/news/earths-core-spins-faster-earth

After John Cena won the WWE Championship in April 2005, he introduced his own custom belt, the "Spinner Belt", which had a gold and diamond bling-bling style reflecting his hip hop character at the time. Although originally a custom belt for Cena, it became the WWE Championship's primary design from April 12, 2005, until February 18, 2013. The scratch WWE logo, placed between an eagle on top and the word "Champ" and a name plate below, could be spun like spinner wheels or a turntable in keeping with the hip-hop theme. The WWE logo was encrusted with diamonds while other parts of the championship were emblazoned with various other jewels. The inner side plates read "WWE Champion", though before 2008, one side plate indicated the brand the title was designated to. The spinning function was phased out in later years and the logo set in a fixed place, most notably during The Miz's first reign (2010–2011) when the logo was turned upside down to look like an "M".[52]

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

2030-2031 APPARITION CHARACTERISTICS

Another general rule for predicting oppositions of Mars is from the following: the planet has an approximate 15.8-year periodic opposition cycle, which consists of three or four Aphelic oppositions and three consecutive Perihelic oppositions. Perihelic oppositions are also called "favorable" because the Earth and Mars come closest to each other on those occasions. We sometimes refer to this as the seven Martian synodic periods. This cycle is repeated every 79 years (± 4 to 5 days) and, if one were to live long enough, one would see this cycle nearly replicated in approximately 284 years. The 2031 Mars apparition is considered Transitional (between Aphelic and Perihelic) because the orbital longitude at opposition will be 68.4° from the aphelion longitude of 70° Ls and 111.6° Ls from perihelion (250° Ls).

NOTE: Ls is the planetocentric longitude of the Sun along the ecliptic of Mars’ sky. 0° Ls is defined as that point where the Sun crosses the Martian celestial equator from south to north, that is the planet’s northern hemisphere vernal equinox. The other Ls values that define the beginnings of Martian northern hemisphere seasons are: summer, 90° Ls; autumn, 180° Ls; and winter, 270° Ls. For Mars’ southern hemisphere these values represent the opposite seasons. Distance (A.U.) - Distance from Earth to Mars in astronomical units, where one (1) A.U. equals 92,955,807.267 miles or 149,597,870.691 km.

Opposition occurs 11 months after conjunction when Mars is on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun. At that time, the two planets will lie nearly in a straight line with respect to the Sun, or five weeks after retrogression begins. Opposition will occur at 1157 UT on May 04, 2031 (138.4° Ls) with an apparent planetary disk diameter of 16.7 arcsec. Mars will remain visible for more than twelve months after opposition and then become lost in the glare of the Sun around May 31, 2032 as it approaches the next conjunction (July 11, 2032). The cycle is complete in 780 Earth days.

Closest approach occurs at 0350 UT on May 12, 2031 (142.1° Ls) with an apparent planetary disk diameter of 16.9 at a distance of 0.5533578 astronomical units (AU) or 51,437,823 miles (82,781,152 km). During closest approach in 2031 the apparent diameter of Mars will be 2.4 arcsec larger than it was at the same period in 2029; however, it will be 17.1 degrees lower in the sky - not quite as good for observing the Red Planet for observers in the northern hemisphere. It should also be noted that closest approach between Earth and Mars is not necessarily coincident with the time of opposition but varies by as much as two weeks.

https://www.alpo-astronomy.org/jbeish/2031_MARS.htm 

The Arab Spring (Arabic: الربيع العربي, romanized: ar-rabīʻ al-ʻarabī) or the First Arab Spring (to distinguish from the Second Arab Spring) was a series of anti-government protests, uprisings and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in Tunisia in response to corruption and economic stagnation.[1][2] From Tunisia, the protests then spread to five other countries: Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain. Rulers were deposed (Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia in 2011, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya in 2011, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt in 2011, and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen in 2012) or major uprisings and social violence occurred including riots, civil wars, or insurgencies. Sustained street demonstrations took place in Morocco, Iraq, Algeria, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Sudan. Minor protests took place in Djibouti, Mauritania, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and the Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara.[3] A major slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world is ash-shaʻb yurīd isqāṭ an-niẓām! (Arabic: الشعب يريد إسقاط النظام, lit. 'the people want to bring down the regime').[4]

The wave of initial revolutions and protests faded by mid-2012, as many Arab Spring demonstrations were met with violent responses from authorities,[5][6][7] pro-government militias, counterdemonstrators, and militaries. These attacks were answered with violence from protesters in some cases.[8][9][10] Multiple large-scale conflicts followed: the Syrian civil war;[11][12] the rise of ISIL,[13] insurgency in Iraq and the following civil war;[14] the Egyptian Crisis, election and removal from office of Mohamed Morsi, and subsequent unrest and insurgency;[15] the Libyan Crisis; and the Yemeni crisis and subsequent civil war.[16] Regimes that lacked major oil wealth and hereditary succession arrangements were more likely to undergo regime change.[17]

A power struggle continued after the immediate response to the Arab Spring. While leadership changed and regimes were held accountable, power vacuums opened across the Arab world. Ultimately, it resulted in a contentious battle between a consolidation of power by religious elites and the growing support for democracy in many Muslim-majority states.[18] The early hopes that these popular movements would end corruption, increase political participation, and bring about greater economic equity quickly collapsed in the wake of the counter-revolutionary moves by foreign state actors in Yemen,[19] the regional and international military interventions in Bahrain and Yemen, and the destructive civil wars in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen.[20]

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

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations members in 2015, created 17 world Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They were created with the aim of "peace and prosperity for people and the planet..."[1][2][3] – while tackling climate change and working to preserve oceans and forests. The SDGs highlight the connections between the environmental, social and economic aspects of sustainable development. Sustainability is at the center of the SDGs.[4][5]

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

Elon Musk: “We’re going straight to Mars. The Moon is a distraction.”

Eric Berger – Jan 3, 2025 9:28 AM |  1.1k

https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/elon-musk-were-going-straight-to-mars-the-moon-is-a-distraction/

Spring 2030 in United States

Spring Starts: Wednesday, Mar 20 6:51 am PDT

https://www.calendardate.com/spring_2030.htm

Easter in 2030

Date: April 21, 2030

Day: Sunday

Dates of Moon Phases in 2030 Year

New Moon 

Apr. 2, Tue 03:04 PM 

https://www.calendar-12.com/moon_phases/2030

John Cena Says WWE Farewell Tour Will Be Around 36 Dates, 'I've Given The Calendar Year 2025 To WWE'

Robert DeFelice Aug 13, 2024 8:59AM

John Cena paints a clearer picture of how many times WWE fans will be able to see him on his retirement tour in 2025.

Twenty years after capturing his first WWE Championship, John Cena is hanging up the jorts with a retirement tour that will last the entirety of 2025. With stops including the Royal Rumble, the first-ever WWE Raw on Netflix, and what will be his final WrestleMania in Las Vegas, Cena wants his retirement to work to be a celebration of the best parts of being a WWE Superstar and hopes to give his fans as many possible chances to say goodbye to him the right way.

Related Article

AJ Styles Provides Update On His Injury Recovery

In a new interview with Collider, Cena revealed that his retirement tour would be approximately 36 dates in 2025. He noted that Peacemaker season 2 would finish filming around the end of 2024. He also stated that he's reserved the 2025 calendar year for his WWE family and that the tour would be his primary focus.

"I can probably confirm that Peacemaker will take us to the end of 2024, and I can say that with the utmost conviction because I have given the calendar year 2025 to WWE. I am retiring in 2025, and I start that farewell tour in January. I'll end it in December, and it's going to be right around 36 dates around the world to pay thanks and gratitude to the WWE audiences around the world. So that's what I'm doing in 2025."

When Cena was commended for taking on the tour because of the physical toll that WWE can take on one's body, he took the opportunity to again shine a spotlight on the best parts of being a WWE Superstar and the gratitude that fans extend the performers.

"Well, it's also very rewarding, and I'm grateful. The audience has been there for me for close to 25 years now, so I just want to say, 'Thank you.'"

At this link, fans can read what Triple H has to say about being given the opportunity to help mold the story that will lead to John Cena's retirement.

CM Punk is one of John Cena's former in-ring rivals, and he is hoping to mix it up with him one more time on John's farewell tour. Read Punk's comments here.

https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/john-cena-says-wwe-farewell-tour-will-be-around-36-dates-i-ve-given-calendar-year-2025-wwe

On 7 August 1981, after a long and tiring trip throughout the Far East, Arrupe suffered a stroke just after his plane landed at Rome's Fiumicino Airport. He was paralysed on his right side and was able to speak only a few words. This ability gradually deteriorated until he was completely mute. From that time on he lived in the infirmary at the Jesuit headquarters in Rome. He then became the first-ever Jesuit superior general to resign. Pope John Paul II appointed Paolo Dezza as his personal delegate and interim Father General of the Society, passing over Arrupe's own choice (his vicar general). Many Jesuits saw this as an unwarranted papal interference in Jesuit affairs. For his part, Arrupe never expressed any disagreement or resentment.[13] Jesuit disobedience to the pope that was expected by some at the Roman Curia never came about.[27] With new respect for the Jesuits, Pope John Paul allowed Dezza to call the thirty-third General Congregation and elect a successor to Arrupe, whose resignation was accepted on 3 September 1983 during the Congregation. He was succeeded by Peter Hans Kolvenbach. During the opening Session of the Congregation, Arrupe was wheeled into the hall, and a prayer which he had written was read aloud:

"More than ever I find myself in the hands of God. This is what I have wanted all my life from my youth. But now there is a difference; the initiative is entirely with God. It is indeed a profound spiritual experience to know and feel myself so totally in God's hands."[9]

During his ten years in the infirmary, Arrupe received many and frequent well-wishers, including Pope John Paul II. Arrupe had earlier expressed what some regard as the key to his life: "Nowadays the world does not need words but lives that cannot be explained except through faith and love for Christ's poor."[4]

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

"Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" is a television film that served as the series finale of the American television series M*A*S*H. The 2½-hour episode first aired on CBS on February 28, 1983, ending the series' original run. The episode was written by eight collaborators, including series star Alan Alda, who also directed. As of 2025, it remains the most-watched single episode of any television series in U.S. history, and for twenty-seven years was the most-watched single broadcast in television history.

The episode's plot chronicles the final days of the Korean War at the 4077th MASH; it features several storylines intended to show the war's effects on the individual personnel of the unit and to bring closure to the series. After the ceasefire goes into effect, the members of the 4077th throw a party before taking down the camp for the last time. After tear-filled goodbyes, the main characters go their separate ways, leading to the final scene of the series.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodbye,_Farewell_and_Amen

GEOLOGY OF THE VIRGINIA CITY QUADRANGLE,

 NEVADA

 By GEORGE A. THOMPSON

 ABSTRACT

 Most of the Virginia City quadrangle, Nevada, is covered by a thick series 

of Tertiary and Quaternary volcanic deposits, but pre-Tertiary rocks are exposed 

in small patches. The pre-Tertiary rocks consist of metamorphosed sedimentary 

nud volcanic rocks probably of Triassic age. They have been folded along axes 

Avhose average trend is a little east of north, and are intruded by granitic rocks 

of Cretaceous age.

 The oldest of the Tertiary rocks are rhyolite pyroclastic rocks, which are ten- 

tatively considered to be of Oligocene age. Overlying these is a thick and 

complex sequence of andesitic flows and pyroclastic rocks, which have been 

divided into an older unit, the Alta formation, and a younger unit, the Kate Peak 

formation. The Davidson granodiorite is intruded into the Alta formation. 

Hypabyssal intrusions of andesite porphyry cut both the Alta and Kate Peak 

formations. The Alta formation and older rocks, and to a lesser extent the 

Kate Peak formation, were extensively altered. Much later, surficial weather- 

ing of the altered rocks that contain pyrite produced large areas of bleached 

rocks.

 Stream and lake deposits of the Pliocene Truckee formation overlie and partly 

interfinger with the Kate Peak formation. The lake deposits were laid down 

in structural basins formed by warping and block faulting. Contemporaneous 

rhyolitic eruptions contributed pumice to the Truckee formation and also formed 

a large rhyolite dome at Washington Hill. The sediments of the Truckee for- 

mation were warped and faulted, and a surface of low relief was eroded on the 

soft sediments. Later, flows of basalt and basaltic andesite were erupted from 

several vents and covered large areas.

 Still younger volcanic rocks, Quaternary in age, include andesite and olivine 

basalt. These are scattered and relatively small in volume. Quarternary 

stream and lake deposits were laid down in the intermontane basins and are 

still accumulating in parts of the basins. Extensive Quaternary hot-spring 

deposits have accumulated at Steamboat Springs. The Quarternary deposits 

have been warped and faulted like the older rocks, though to a lesser extent.

 The pre-Tertiary structures, insofar as they are known, trend about north, 

and the Cenozoic folds and fault blocks, although divergent in detail, also trend 

generally north. The similarity between the older and younger structures is 

limited to their trend, however; for the older structures are compressional folds, 

like those of the Appalachians and other folded mountains. On the other hand, 

the Cenozoic (basin and range) structures are more diverse; they include many 

normal faults (exemplified by the Comstock fault), warped and tilted blocks

 45

46 

CONTRIBUTIONS TO ECONOMIC GEOLOGY

 (well shown along the western side of the Virginia Range), and anticlinal folds 

(best illustrated by the anticline west of Virginia City). These Cenozoic struc- 

tures are best interpreted as forming contemporaneously, or nearly so, over a 

long period of time beginning at least as early as Miocene and continuing, per- 

haps sporadically, to the present.

 The present topography is the result of a long history of constructional 

volcanism, warping, block faulting, and differential erosion.

 The best known metallic mineral deposits of the quadrangle are the famous 

silver-gold deposits of the Comstock lode. Similar deposits of quicksilver, 

gold, silver, and tungsten have been mined or prospected in several places.

GEOLOGY OF THE VIRGINIA CITY QUADRANGLE, NEVADA 51 

AL.TA FORMATION

 The older of the two extensive andesite f ormations was described by 

Gianella (1936, p. 53) as the Alta andesite, after the Alta shaft on the 

Comstock lode. The formation consists mainly of tuff-breccia, flow 

breccia, and lava flows, but it contains the sedimentary Sutro member, 

which ranges in texture from shale to conglomerate. The andesites 

are extensively exposed in the southern two-thirds of the Virginia 

City quadrangle; the Sutro member is present only in the Comstock 

lode district. In the northern part of the quadrangle the Alta is 

missing, but similar andesites reappear northwest of Reno on the slopes 

of Peavine Peak.

 Calkins (1944, p. 12) divided the Alta andesite of the Comstock 

lode district into four members with an aggregate thickness of about 

2,700 feet, but this subdivision and thickness have only local signifi- 

cance, for elsewhere the section is less complete, and the members are 

less easily recognized. The lower member is most distinctive; it is 

commonly a tuff-breccia altered to shades of red and green. This tuff- 

breccia is composed of andesite fragments containing sparse pheno- 

crysts of hornblende and abundant phenocrysts of plagioclase about 

1 

millimeter in diameter. The sedimentary Sutro member is gen- 

erally above the lower member, but it forms discontinuous lenses at 

different stratigraphic horizons. Where it is coarsest it consists of 

andesite and rhyolitic debris; its most characteristic rock, however, is 

a fine-grained evenly bedded grayish-green shale.

 Above the Sutro is a pyroxene andesite, which where fresh is almost 

as dark as basalt and has many transparent phenocrysts of plagioclase 

about 2 millimeters in diameter, inconspicuous phenocrysts of pyrox- 

ene, and scattered phenocrysts of hornblende. Where the rock is 

weathered it is greenish gray, and the feldspar phenocrysts are white, 

and the pyroxenes are represented by conspicuous dark pseudomorphs. 

This pyroxene andesite, together with the tuff-breccia of the lower 

member, constitutes the most widespread rock types in the Alta forma- 

tion. 

The uppermost member described by Calkins is hornblende- 

pyroxene andesite with larger phenocrysts than the other members; it 

may be an intrusive rock with associated intrusion breccias.

 In Steamboat Valley and near Jumbo the Alta includes a soda 

trachyte. The soda trachyte is generally a light to medium purple, 

but it has been derived from a black semivitreous rock; this unaltered 

rock is exposed in a small area in Steamboat Hills west of the quad- 

rangle. The trachyte consists of small tabular phenocrysts of sodic 

plagioclase, with or without hornblende, in a very fine grained ground- 

mass of plagioclase, potash feldspar, and red iron oxide. In many 

places the phenocrysts and elongated crystals of the groundmass show 

a striking alinement, which has given the rock a platy parting.

52 

CONTRIBUTIONS TO ECONOMIC GEOLOGY

 The Alta formation is more altered on the average than the younger 

rocks; the groundmass is everywhere devitrified, and the hypersthene 

is almost all replaced by secondary minerals.

 One of the extrusive centers of the Alta formation was almost cer- 

tainly in the Comstock lode district, for its thickness and its diversity 

of composition decrease rapidly away in all directions from this area. 

Possibly the main vents were in the area now occupied by the Davidson 

granodiorite. The Alta formation probably interfingers with the 

overlying Kate Peak formation in some places near Bailey Canyon 

and Sixmile Canyon but the rock types are not sufficiently distinctive 

to be absolutely sure of this relation; the division between the two 

formations is necessarily arbitrary in many areas. Unconformable 

relations are demonstrated locally by fresh andesite of the Kate Peak 

lying on Alta formation that has been hydrothermally altered and 

weathered.

 The best indication of the age of the Alta is given by fossil leaves 

found in the Sutro member in a road cut in Long Canyon. They 

suggest a.n Oligocene age (Axelrod, 1949, p. 1935).

https://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/1042c/report.pdf 

Shale – Shake

We Are Shale 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syNpwC9awOg

https://www.facebook.com/billy.dunn.50767/posts/pfbid0rJPzUFdZtkeZ6LKx9e6wfYBoffi8Tw6wCXHDYwEqe17d1oXgc6xLjq6tC7CbAJkdl

Earthquake Promo [1991-01-26]

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

Space Fence surveillance radar site declared operational

The $1.5 billion Space Fence can track tiny objects in low Earth orbit as small as a marble.

Sandra Erwin

March 28, 2020

WASHINGTON — The space surveillance radar site known as the Space Fence is ready for use after five years in construction, the U.S. Space Force announced March 27.

The $1.5 billion Space Fence — located on Kwajalein Island in the Republic of the Marshall Islands — is a ground-based radar system that tracks satellites and space debris primarily in low Earth orbit. Lockheed Martin was selected as the prime contractor in 2014.

The Space Fence can track tiny objects as small as a marble. It also provides a search capability for objects at higher orbits. Data from the Space Fence will feed into the military’s Space Surveillance Network.

The Space Surveillance Network tracks about 26,000 objects. The addition of the Space Fence will increase the catalog size significantly over time, the Space Force said in a news release.

The Space Fence is operated by the 20th Space Control Squadron based in Huntsville, Alabama. The squadron provides data to the 18th Space Control Squadron located at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, the unit responsible for maintaining the space object catalog.

“Space Fence is revolutionizing the way we view space by providing timely, precise orbital data on objects that threaten both manned and unmanned military and commercial space assets,” said Chief of Space Operations Gen. John Raymond.

The solid-state S-band radar will detect closely spaced objects, breakups, maneuvers, launches, conjunction assessments and depleted rocket boosters.

https://spacenews.com/space-fence-surveillance-radar-site-declared-operational/

Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025

In 2025, US aerospace forces can own the weather by capitalizing on emerging technologies and focusing development of those technologies to war fighting applications. Such a capability offers the war fighter tools to shape the battlespace in ways never before possible. It provides opportunities to impact operations across the full spectrum of conflict and is pertinent to all possible futures. The purpose of this paper is to outline a strategy for the use of a future weather modification system to achieve military objectives rather than to provide a detailed technical road map. A high risk, high reward endeavor, weather modification offers a dilemma not unlike the splitting of the atom While some segments of society will always be reluctant to examine controversial issues such as weather modification, the tremendous military capabilities that could result from this field are ignored at our own peril. From enhancing friendly operations or disrupting those of the enemy via small scale tailoring of natural weather patterns to complete dominance of global communications and counterspace control, weather modification offers the war fighter a wide range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary. Some of the potential capabilities a weather modification system could provide to a war fighting commander in chief CINC are listed in table 1. Technology advancements in five major areas are necessary for an integrated weather modification capability 1 advanced nonlinear modeling techniques, 2 computational capability, 3 information gathering and transmission, 4 a global sensor array, and 5 weather intervention techniques. Some intervention tools exist today and others may be developed and refined in the future."

Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025 (dtic.mil)

As early as 1990, weather force specialists at the U.S. Air Force Academy were hard at work studying how to chemically mix and lay “aerial obscuration” they called “chemtrails.” Project Cloverleaf began quietly enough (as all classified projects do) with the 1994 Hughes Aircraft patent for Welsbach Seeding For Reduction of Global Warming. Welsbach seeding called for spreading highly reflective materials in the atmosphere to reflect back into space 1–2 percent of incoming sunlight and thus slow down “global warming.” However, it was also about beginning to create a more conductive atmosphere in preparation for Bernard Eastlund’s High-frequency Active Auroral Research Project (HAARP) already under construction in Alaska. The reflective material (~10 microns) to be added to jet auxiliary fuel tanks was the highly conductive compound aluminum oxide (Al2O3). The jet’s main tanks would be reserved for takeoff and landing, and the auxiliary loaded with Al2O3 for cruising altitude. Lawrence Livermore National Labs priced the program at US$1 billion per annum (in 1994 dollars). By the late 1990s, aerial grids were being laid over chosen regions and cities of the U.S. and other NATO nations. In 1996, the military went public with two documents that obliquely referenced what Cloverleaf was up to: the Pentagon paper “Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025” in Air Force 2025,1 which called the chemical whitening effect “cirrus shielding”; and U.S. Space Command’s Vision for 2020 calling for full spectrum dominance of space, land, sea, and air.2 Air traffic controllers (ATC) at major airports were coached to re-route commercial air traffic around military craft engaged in “classified aerial operations” at 37,000–40,000 feet. ATC radar revealed a haze of aluminum and barium—Al2O3 for solar radiation management (SRM) geoengineering, barium stearate Ba(C18H35O2)2 for lubrication, radar imaging, and highpowered RF-microwave beam weapons.

A wide range of particles could be released into the stratosphere to achieve the SRM objective of scattering sunlight back to space. Sulfates and nanoparticles currently favored for SRM include sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, carbonyl sulfide, black carbon, and specially engineered discs composed of metallic aluminum, aluminum oxide and barium titanate. In particular, engineered nanoparticles are considered very promising. The particles would utilize photophoretic and electromagnetic forces to self-levitate above the stratosphere. These nanoparticles would remain suspended longer than sulfate particles, would not interfere with stratospheric chemistry, and would not produce acid rain. However, while promising, the self-levitating nanodisc has not been tested to verify efficacy, may increase ocean acidification due to atmospheric CO2 entrapment, has uncharacterized human health and environmental impacts, and may be prohibitively expensive.3

The truth is that the 10 billion SRM discs 10 micrometers across and 50 nanometers thick are engineered with a core of aluminum, a top layer of aluminum oxide, and a bottom layer of barium titanate—aluminum to reflect heat up, heavier barium purportedly to push the discs up (photophoresis). Introduce a magnetic component, then spray, and the nanoparticles will follow the Earth’s magnetic field into the upper atmosphere. By 1998, the Ontario Ministry of Environment (Canada) found 7X the safe limit for aluminum in rainwater samples. More and more citizens complained of sudden headaches, joint pains, dizziness, fatigue, acute asthma, gastrointestinal pain, coughs, and feverless flu symptoms. In 2000, Cloverleaf went public in an offhand way with a comment from an anonymous airline executive to independent scientist Clifford Carnicom, then the most visible scientist collecting data on the aerosol fallout over northern New Mexico. According to this “Deep Throat,” the purpose of Cloverleaf was “to allow commercial airlines to assist in releasing these chemicals into the atmosphere.”4 Military jets simply could not keep up with the “global dimming” now called solar radiation management (SRM), so the entire airline industry was being drafted in the name of national security."

Under An Ionized Sky: From Chemtrails To Space Fence Lockdown by Elana Freeland

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oneu_kEMMH5AeAffiWOR_7NJ0HptHJrC/view?usp=sharing

Solar flares are not directly related to the Earth's mantle, but they can have a significant impact on Earth if they are directed towards it:

Explanation

Solar flares are explosions on the Sun that release magnetic energy and cause a burst of radiation. They can occur in active regions of the Sun, often around sunspots.

Classification

Solar flares are classified by their peak brightness in X-ray wavelengths, with X-class flares being the most intense and A-class flares being the least intense.

Effects on Earth

When a solar flare is directed at Earth, it can cause a geomagnetic storm that can interfere with power grids, communications, and navigation systems. The severity of the interference depends on the intensity of the storm.

Monitoring

NASA, NOAA, and the US Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) monitor the Sun for solar flares and their associated magnetic storms

https://www.google.com/search?q=solar+flares+mantle&oq=solar+flares+mantle&gs_lcrp=EgRlZGdlKgYIABBFGDsyBggAEEUYOzIKCAEQABiABBiiBDIKCAIQABiABBiiBNIBCDM3ODNqMGoxqAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

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 Sphere (officially Große Kugelkaryatide N.Y., also known as Sphere at Plaza Fountain, WTC Sphere or Koenig Sphere) is a monumental cast bronze sculpture by German artist Fritz Koenig (1924–2017).[2]

The world's largest bronze sculpture of modern times stood between the Twin Towers on the Austin J. Tobin Plaza of the World Trade Center in New York City from 1972 until the September 11 attacks. The work, weighing more than 20 tons, was the only remaining work of art to be recovered largely intact from the ruins of the collapsed Twin Towers. After being dismantled and stored near a hangar at John F. Kennedy International Airport, the sculpture was the subject of the 2001 documentary Koenig's Sphere. Since then, the bronze sphere has become a memorial for the attacks.

The sculpture was installed in Battery Park between 2002 and 2017, when the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey moved it to Liberty Park, overlooking the September 11 Memorial and its original location.[2] The sculpture, rededicated at its permanent location on August 16, 2017, has been kept in the badly damaged condition it was found in after the September 11 attacks.

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

Social Park USA

November 15 at 9:11 AM   

The Sphere and the North Tower 🇺🇸

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid02Ggy86MmsLCbJAubHGqxADhb5N4Au3hWPsHkTKjXqKuZbsb2wuZGWHHutJUST59r3l&id=61555655113607

Wicked Wins Cinematic and Box Office Achievement Award at 2025 Golden Globes

“This is for you, the fans out there who came to the movie theaters, who bring their friends and family and stay in the dark," director Jon M. Chu said

By Liza Esquibias

Updated on January 6, 2025 12:03AM EST

 Wicked won its first award at the 2025 Golden Globes.

The film took home the cinematic and box office achievement award at the 82nd annual ceremony on Sunday, Jan. 5. In his acceptance speech, director Jon M. Chu, who was joined on stage by Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum and Marc E. Platt, honored everyone who helped make the adaptation so successful.

“We love you, thank you and we stand on your shoulders,” Chu said, speaking of the original play, which debuted in 2003. “My parents came to this country and loved Wizard of Oz. They'd tell us about the yellow brick road and the place over the rainbow, where all dreams come true if you dare to dream it. So I'm up here looking at you, living the dream and looking at this beautiful, beautiful cast. It's more beautiful than I ever thought it could be.”

He went on to recognize all the behind-the-scenes crew members and lovers of film who contributed to the creation of the film. 

 “We all fell in love with movies at some point. We were all in the dark when we saw something that changed our brains and made us see a perspective we've never thought before, or opened a culture that we never believed existed before and made us drop everything and risk everything to be here in this town right now. I think about that and I think about how beautiful that is,” Chu said.

“This is for you, the fans out there who came to the movie theaters, who bring their friends and family and stay in the dark. We saw your videos, we saw your singalongs, we saw your makeup, your hair products, your bakery items. And it shows us how important making this stuff is,” he concluded. “In a time when pessimism and cynicism rule the planet right now, we can still make art that is a radical act of optimism, that is empowerment and that is joy. So when we discover that maybe the world isn't exactly the way we thought it was, and maybe [we all have] a little bit of Elphaba inside of us ... that maybe we have that courage and that strength to not give up but to rise up. Take the road off the yellow brick road and maybe discover we can fly.” 

https://people.com/golden-globes-2025-wicked-wins-cinematic-and-box-office-achievement-award-8769536 

Anne Heche

House Destroyed in Fiery Wreck Restored ...

And Back on the Market

4/23/2024 2:44 PM PT

The Southern California home Anne Heche destroyed in the car accident that claimed her life has been fully restored -- and it's on the market too ... going for a bundle.

The 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom Los Angeles residence looks strikingly different from the last time we saw it -- as it was previously a scorched wreck from the fiery collision that led to Anne's untimely passing in 2022.

These days, the house boasts a fresh coat of white paint with a black trim along the side. A small, but sunny front porch juts out into a modest front yard. The front of the structure is completely rebuilt too ... and looks nothing like it did a couple years ago.

Due to the home's desirable location -- Venice is a famous beachside neighborhood -- the current owners are looking to sell the residence for $1.35 million.

The house reportedly first hit the market in February at $1.499 million ... but has dropped twice in price now.

Remember, a couple months after Anne's death, her estate was sued for $2 million in damages by the home's tenant, Lynne Mishele, who claimed she was left traumatized and without most of her possessions because of the car accident.

Lynne also said she and her pets nearly died when Anne's Mini Cooper came barreling into her home without warning.

The owners of the home, Jennifer and John Durand, followed suit with a complaint of their own ... seeking compensatory damages of at least $2 million.

Anne's son Homer Laffoon is the executor of her estate after battling it out in court against his late mother's ex, James Tupper. Anne and James shared one child together, son Atlas.

You'll recall ... Anne died after being taken off life support. She had sustained an anoxic brain injury in the crash ... which, according to her rep at the time, she would never recover from.

As tragic as her death was, it looks like the owners of the place are trying to turn the page from that saga ... and unload this place once and for all.

https://www.tmz.com/2024/04/23/anne-heche-house-car-wreck-crash-fully-restored-sale-death/

Volcano is a 1997 American disaster film directed by Mick Jackson, written by Jerome Armstrong and Billy Ray, and produced by Neal H. Moritz and Andrew Z. Davis. The film stars Tommy Lee Jones, Anne Heche, Don Cheadle and Keith David. It tells the story of an effort to divert the path of a dangerous lava flow through the streets of Los Angeles following the formation of a volcano at the La Brea Tar Pits. The story was inspired by the 1943 formation of the Parícutin volcano in Mexico.

Volcano was released by 20th Century Fox in the United States on April 25, 1997. It received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $122.8 million worldwide on a $90 million budget.

Plot

In downtown Los Angeles, an earthquake strikes. Mike Roark, the new director of the city's Office of Emergency Management, insists on coming to work to help out with the crisis even though he has been on vacation with his daughter Kelly. His associate Emmit Reese notes that the quake caused no major damage, but seven utility workers are later burned to death in a storm drain at MacArthur Park. As a precaution, Mike tries to halt the subway lines near the location of the earthquake. MTA Chairman Stan Olber opposes, believing that there is no threat to the trains. Seismologist Dr. Amy Barnes believes that a volcano may be forming beneath the city due to the earthquake opening a fissure in the fault line; however, she has insufficient evidence to make Mike take action.

Early the next morning, Amy and her assistant Rachel venture in the storm sewer to investigate. While they take samples, another (more powerful) earthquake strikes the city. Rachel falls into a crack and is killed by a rush of hot gases. A subway train derails from falling debris, and a power outage occurs across the entire city. Later, in the La Brea Tar Pits, the volcano begins to erupt. As Mike helps injured firefighters out of the area, lava begins to flow down Wilshire Boulevard. The lava incinerates everything in its path and kills two firefighters in an overturned fire truck. The Roarks become separated, as Kelly is injured when a lava bomb burns her leg and is taken to Cedars-Sinai Hospital along with other patients. Meanwhile, Stan leads his team through the tunnel to the derailed train to search for survivors. While his team save everyone aboard, Stan rescues the driver just as lava reaches the train, causing it to disintegrate. Stan sacrifices his life by jumping into the lava flow to throw the driver to safety.

Mike, Amy, and LAPD lieutenant Ed Fox devise a plan to use concrete barriers to create a blockade, which obstructs the lava in its path. A fleet of helicopters dump water collected from the ocean to subdue the lava and volcano, forming a crust and making the plan a success. However, Amy thinks that the magma is still flowing underground through the subway because of the amount of ash still falling. When Mike helps her confirm her suspicions, she calculates that another eruption will occur at the end of the Red Line at Cedars-Sinai and, after calculating the speed of the flowing lava, determines the lava will reach the end of the tunnel in thirty minutes.

Mike devises another plan to demolish a 22-story condominium building to block the lava's path from flowing towards the hospital and the rest of the West Side of Los Angeles, redirecting it into a nearby storm drain. As the lava arrives, Mike's co-worker Gator and an LAPD Bomb Squad officer (trapped under debris) sacrifice their lives to detonate the final explosive charge. Mike then spots Kelly nearby, trying to retrieve a little boy she was watching who wandered off; the two are in the direct path of the collapsing building. Mike barely manages to save them from being crushed as the building collapses. The plan succeeds, and the lava flows directly into the ocean. As it begins raining, the trio emerge from the rubble unscathed and reunite with Amy before heading home.

The film ends with a view of the volcano, named Mount Wilshire. Status: A.C.T.I.V.E.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcano_(1997_film)

The Round Table of King Arthur is a Grand Mythological Synthesis.

It is a whole Mythology in itself. It is perennial. It is Christian.

By tradition, the Round Table of King Arthur devolves from the very earliest period. The illustration opposite page 340 was copied from the original with great care and attention. King Arthur, in the principal seat, is idealised in the person of King Henry the Eighth, in whose time the Round Table is supposed to have been repaired and refaced. In the Revolution, Cromwell's soldiery, after the capture of Winchester, and in the fury at the imputed idea of idolatry (the Round Table is the English “Palladium “), made a target of it. The marks of many balls are still conspicuous. The five-leaved Roses (Red and White Roses; Rhodion, Rhodes—Knights of Rhodes or of Malta, the successors of the Templars) typify the Ten Original Signs of the Zodiac Red-Rose, Five Signs (Aspiration or Ascension); White-Rose, Five. 

Signs (or Leaves), Descension (or “Con”-descension, or S.S., or Holy Ghost (the key of the whole apotheosis, according to the mystical Jacob Boehmen). The whole is radiant (notwithstanding that the rays are green; otherwise expressive of the “Linea Viridis” seu “Benedicta Viriditas:”—Rosicrucian). (See pages 162-164) from the “seed-spot,” or “Golden Sun” (Grand Astronomical Central Flame), in the centre).

This double-rose, “barbed” or “thorned,” Sol, is (in this form) the

Tudor Rose (the Rose-en-Soleil, be it remembered, was another of the Tudor badges); denoting the union of the Houses of York and Lancaster in the person of Harry the Eighth. It will be observed that each Knight of the Round Table is seated as at the base of an obelisk. The architectural “obeliscar” form (rayed, or spread, or bladed) is universal, all the world over, both in old times and modern times. The Egyptian Obelisks are sacred to the Sun. The Paladins of Charlemagne were Twelve in number. The Marshals of France should be twelve in number. The Judges of England, according to old constitutional rationale, should be twelve; as the number of a Jury are twelve. All these are mythical of the Twelve Signs, or Divisions, of the Zodiac, the Twelve Jewish Tribes, the twelve oracular stones in the breastplate of the High Priest of the Jews, and, in the Christian aspect of the mysticism, the Twelve Apostles; with the “Reprobate Condemned Central Sign” as Judas, the Traitor. The whole is Cabalistic in the highest degree ; and therefore ordinarily unintelligible.

It signifies the Second Dispensation, or the astrological reproduction and re-arrangement of the Zodiac, when the original Ten Signs of the Ecliptic (mythically the gladius of the Archangel Michael) became Twelve ; and when the mystic system underwent the GREATEST CHANGE—presenting a new traditionary and reproductive face. (Refer to Chapter on the origin of the Order of the Garter, page 282, and thenceforward."

The Rosicrucians Their Rites and Mysteries by Hargrave Jennings

https://ia800501.us.archive.org/7/items/rosicruciansthei00jenn_0/rosicruciansthei00jenn_0.pdf

Roman Britain was the territory that became the Roman province of Britannia after the Roman conquest of Britain, consisting of a large part of the island of Great Britain. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410.[1][2]

Julius Caesar invaded Britain in 55 and 54 BC as part of his Gallic Wars.[3] According to Caesar, the Britons had been overrun or culturally assimilated by the Belgae during the British Iron Age and had been aiding Caesar's enemies. The Belgae were the only Celtic tribe to cross the sea into Britain, for to all other Celtic tribes this land was unknown.[4] He received tribute, installed the friendly king Mandubracius over the Trinovantes, and returned to Gaul. Planned invasions under Augustus were called off in 34, 27, and 25 BC. In 40 AD, Caligula assembled 200,000 men at the Channel on the continent, only to have them gather seashells (musculi) according to Suetonius, perhaps as a symbolic gesture to proclaim Caligula's victory over the sea.[5] Three years later, Claudius directed four legions to invade Britain and restore the exiled king Verica over the Atrebates.[6] The Romans defeated the Catuvellauni, and then organized their conquests as the province of Britain. By 47 AD, the Romans held the lands southeast of the Fosse Way. Control over Wales was delayed by reverses and the effects of Boudica's uprising, but the Romans expanded steadily northwards.

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

Alan fitz Flaad (c. 1060 – after 1120) was a Breton knight, probably recruited as a mercenary by Henry I of England in his conflicts with his brothers.[1] After Henry became King of England, Alan became an assiduous courtier and obtained large estates in Norfolk, Sussex, Shropshire, and elsewhere in the Midlands, including the feudal barony and castle of Oswestry in Shropshire.[2][3][4] His duties included supervision of the Welsh border.[5] He is now noted as the progenitor of the FitzAlan family, the Earls of Arundel (1267–1580), and the House of Stuart,[6] although his family connections were long a matter of conjecture and controversy.

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

A plan was hatched by a joint collaboration of the Pope and the Jesuits to blow up the House of Lords during the state opening of Parliament on 5th November 1605. Robert Catesby was the leader of a group of English Catholics who plotted to assassinate the protestant King James 1 in the failed gunpowder plot.

Guy Fawkes, a key member of the group was chosen to bomb the parliament owing to his experience as a soldier in the Spanish army. He smuggled 36 barrels of gun powder into a cellar directly below the Parliament which was enough to obliterate the entire building thereby killing all the key members of the state including the king and high ranking officials.

However, through Divine providence, an anonymous letter was sent to a Catholic called William Parker who was a member of the Parliament. The letter warned him to stay away from the opening of the Parliament. Alarmed by this, he brought this to the attention of King James who then ordered a search of the basement of Parliament. Guy Fawkes was found hiding in one of the cellars guarding a stash of gunpowder and explosives. After being tortured, Guy Fawkes revealed that this was a preplanned Jesuit led Catholic conspiracy to annihilate England’s Protestant government and replace it with a Catholic one.

https://www.secretsunlocked.org/bible/bible-history/guy-fawkes-day-the-jesuit-treason-and-the-gunpowder-plot

British Israelism (also called Anglo-Israelism) is a pseudo-historical[1][2] belief that the people of Great Britain are "genetically, racially, and linguistically the direct descendants" of the Ten Lost Tribes of ancient Israel.[3] With roots in the 16th century, British Israelism was inspired by several 19th century English writings such as John Wilson's 1840 Our Israelitish Origin.[4] From the 1870s onward, numerous independent British Israelite organizations were set up throughout the British Empire as well as in the United States; as of the early 21st century, a number of these organizations are still active. In the United States, the idea gave rise to the Christian Identity movement.

The central tenets of British Israelism have been refuted by archaeological,[5] ethnological,[6] genetic,[7]: 181  and linguistic research.[8][9]: 33–34 

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

It is alleged that George Washington requested the stars on the Great Seal to be put in the shape of a hexagram because that's also the shape of the Star of David – supposedly as a way of thanking the Jewish patriot Haym Salomon for his service to the country, particularly his financial help during the Revolution.

Haym Solomon (or Salomon) (April 7, 1740 – January 6, 1785) was a Spanish and Portuguese Jew who immigrated to New York from Poland during the period of the American Revolution, and who became a prime financier of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War against Great Britain.

Descended from Jewish refugees from Portugal, Solomon was born in Leszno, Poland. He studied Hebrew and had basic education, but he did not know how to write in Yiddish.[2] In the 18th century, he journeyed throughout western Europe, during which time he acquired a knowledge of finance as well as fluency in several languages. He returned to Poland in 1770 but left two years later during the Partitions of Poland. After traveling to England, Solomon immigrated to New York City in 1775, where he established himself as a financial broker for merchants engaged in overseas trade.

Sympathizing with the Patriot cause, Solomon joined the New York branch of the Sons of Liberty. In September 1776, he was arrested as a spy but the British pardoned him, only after serving 18 months of his sentence and claims of torture on a British boat, in order to use his abilities as an interpreter for their Hessian mercenaries. Solomon used his position to help prisoners of the British escape and encouraged the Hessians to desert the war effort. In 1778 Solomon was arrested again and sentenced to death, but he managed to escape, whereupon he made his way with his family to the rebel capital in Philadelphia.

Once resettled, Solomon resumed his activities as a broker. He became the agent to the French consul, as well as the paymaster for the French forces in North America. In 1781, he began working extensively with Robert Morris, the newly appointed Superintendent for Finance for the Thirteen Colonies. Often working out of the "London Coffee House" in Philadelphia, Solomon sold about $600,000 in Bills of Exchange to his clients, netting about 2.5% per sale. During this period he had to turn to Morris for help when one sale of over $50,000 nearly sent him to prison. Morris used his position and influence to sue the defrauder and saved Solomon from default and disaster.

In August of 1781, the Continental Army had trapped Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis in the little Virginia coastal town of Yorktown. George Washington and the main army and the Count de Rochambeau with his French army decided to march from the Hudson Highlands to Yorktown and deliver the final blow. But Washington's war chest was completely empty, as was that of Congress. Washington determined that he needed at least $20,000 to finance the campaign. When Morris told him there were no funds and no credit available, Washington gave him a simple but eloquent order: "Send for Haym Solomon". Haym again came through, and the $20,000 was raised. Washington conducted the Yorktown campaign, which proved to be the final battle of the Revolution, thanks to Haym Solomon.

Solomon negotiated the sale of a majority of the war aid from France and Holland, selling bills of exchange to American merchants. Solomon also personally supported various members of the Continental Congress during their stay in Philadelphia, including James Madison and James Wilson. Acting as the patriot he was, he requested below market interest rates, and he never asked for repayment.

The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, ended the Revolutionary War but not the financial problems of the newly established nation. It was Haym Solomon who managed, time-after-time, to raise the money to bailout the debt-ridden government.

Solomon was involved in Jewish community affairs, being a member of Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia, and in 1782, made the largest individual contribution towards the construction of its main building. In 1783, Solomon was among the prominent Jews involved in the successful effort to have the Pennsylvania Council of Censors remove the religious test oath required for office-holding under the State Constitution. In 1784, he answered anti-Semitic slander in the press by stating: "I am a Jew; it is my own nation; I do not despair that we shall obtain every other privilege that we aspire to enjoy along with our fellow-citizens."

https://www.dcmessageboards.com/topic/21364-star-of-david-found-on-capitol-hill/

The Kingdom of Jerusalem, also known as the Crusader Kingdom, was one of the Crusader states established in the Levant immediately after the First Crusade. It lasted for almost two hundred years, from the accession of Godfrey of Bouillon in 1099 until the fall of Acre in 1291. Its history is divided into two periods with a brief interruption in its existence, beginning with its collapse after the siege of Jerusalem in 1187 and its restoration after the Third Crusade in 1192.

The original Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted from 1099 to 1187 before being almost entirely overrun by the Ayyubid Sultanate under Saladin. Following the Third Crusade, it was re-established in Acre in 1192. The re-established state is commonly known as the "Second Kingdom of Jerusalem" or, alternatively, as the "Kingdom of Acre" after its new capital city. Acre remained the capital for the rest of its existence, even during the two decades that followed the Crusaders' establishment of partial control over Jerusalem during the Sixth Crusade, through the diplomacy of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen vis-à-vis the Ayyubids.

The vast majority of the Crusaders who established and settled the Kingdom of Jerusalem were from the Kingdom of France, as were the knights and soldiers who made up the bulk of the steady flow of reinforcements throughout the two-hundred-year span of its existence; its rulers and elite were therefore predominantly French.[4] French Crusaders also brought their language to the Levant, thus establishing Old French as the lingua franca of the Crusader states, in which Latin served as the official language. While the majority of the population in the countryside comprised Christians and Muslims from local Levantine ethnicities, many Europeans (primarily French and Italian) also arrived to settle in villages across the region.

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

Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099-1291)

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The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was founded as a result of the First Crusade, in 1099. Destroyed a first time by Saladin in 1187, it was re-established around Saint-Jean d'Acre and maintained until the capture of that city in 1291. During these two centuries it was for Western Europe a genuine centre of colonization. As the common property of Christendom it retained its international character to the end, although the French element predominated among the feudal lords and the government officials, and the Italians acquired the economic preponderance in the cities.

https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08361a.htm

Towards the middle of the twelfth century, when the Kingdom of Jerusalem had attained its greatest dimensions, it comprised the entire coast of Syria from Beirut on the north to Raphia on the south. On the northeast its territory, bounded by the Lebanon district, which separated it from the Moslem principality of Damascus, was hardly more than a few leagues in breadth; on the southeast it extended beyond the Dead Sea and the Jordan as far as the Arabian Desert and even included the port of Aïla on the Red Sea. In the north the Countship of Tripoli was under the suzerainty of the King of Jerusalem. But in the very interior of the kingdom the power of the king was checked by numerous obstacles, and the sovereignty belonged less to the king than to the body of feudatories whose power was centered in the High Court, composed of vassals and rear-vassals. Its authority governed even the succession to the throne, in event of dispute between two members of the royal family; it alone was empowered to make laws or "assizes", and to its initiative was due the compilation of the "Assizes of Jerusalem", erroneously ascribed to Godfrey of Bouillon. The king took an oath in presence of this court and had no right to confiscate a fief unless in accordance with the regular judgment of that assembly. Moreover, if the king were to violate his oaths, the assizes formally proclaimed the right of the lieges to resist. The High Court, presided over by the constable or marshal, assembled only when convoked by the king; in judicial matters it constituted the supreme tribunal and its judgments were without appeal: "Nulle chose faite par court n'en doit estre desfaite" (Assizes, I, clxxvii). A "Court of the Burgesses", organized in the twelfth century, had analogous jurisdiction over the burgesses and could sentence to exile or even condemn to death. In the great fiefs mixed courts of knights and burgesses had similar control independently of the liege. Even within these limits the king was incapable of compelling vassals to fulfill their feudal obligations. Domiciled in impregnable castles, the architecture of which had been perfected after Moslem models, the nobles led an almost independent life. A fief like that of Montréal with its four castles of Crac, Crac de Montréal, Ahamant, and Vau de Moïse, situated between the Dead and Red Seas, formed a really independent state. Renaud de Châtillon, who became Lord of Montréal in 1174, himself waged war against the Moslems, whom he terrified by his cruise in the Red Sea, and his individual policy was counter to that of King Baldwin VI, who was powerless to prevent him from waging war against Saladin.

The Church, at this period, was also a power independent of the kings, and, with the exception of the king, the Patriarch of Jerusalem was the most important personage in the realm. After the First Crusade a very powerful Latin Church was established in Palestine; numerous monasteries were founded and received large donations of landed property in Palestine as well as in Europe. Some patriarchs, especially Daimbert, who was at enmity with Baldwin I, even endeavoured to found a power thoroughly independent of royalty; nevertheless, both of these powers generally lived in harmony. The Patriarch of Jerusalem, who was elected by the clergy and acclaimed by the people, had his powers confirmed by the pope, who continued to exercise great authority in Palestine. Moreover, the orders of religious knighthood, the Hospitallers of St. John, organized in 1313, the Templars founded by Hugh of Payens in 1128, and the Teutonic Knights created in 1143, formed regular powers, equally independent of Church and State. Most lavishly endowed, they soon owned an incalculable number of fiefs and castles in Palestine and in Europe. In spiritual matters they were directly subject to the pope; but the king could not interfere in their temporal affairs, and each of the three orders had its own army and exercised the right of concluding treaties with the Moslems.

https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08361a.htm

The Avignon Papacy (Occitan: Papat d'Avinhon; French: Papauté d'Avignon) was the period from 1309 to 1376 during which seven successive popes resided in Avignon (at the time within the Kingdom of Arles, part of the Holy Roman Empire, now part of France) rather than in Rome (now the capital of Italy).[1] The situation arose from the conflict between the papacy and the French crown, culminating in the death of Pope Boniface VIII after his arrest and maltreatment by Philip IV of France. Following the subsequent death of Pope Benedict XI, Philip pressured a deadlocked conclave to elect the Archbishop of Bordeaux as pope Clement V in 1305. Clement refused to move to Rome, and in 1309 he moved his court to the papal enclave at Avignon, where it remained for the next 67 years. This absence from Rome is sometimes referred to as the "Babylonian captivity" of the Papacy[2][3] (cf. Italian cattività avignonese, i.e. "Avignonese captivity").

A total of seven popes reigned at Avignon, all French,[4][5] and all under the influence of the French Crown. In 1376, Gregory XI abandoned Avignon and moved his court to Rome, arriving in January 1377. After Gregory's death in 1378, deteriorating relations between his successor Urban VI and a faction of cardinals gave rise to the Western Schism. This started a second line of Avignon popes, subsequently regarded as illegitimate. The last Avignon antipope, Benedict XIII, lost most of his support in 1398, including that of France. After five years besieged by the French, he fled to Perpignan in 1403. The schism ended in 1417 at the Council of Constance.[6]

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

The Western Schism, also known as the Papal Schism, the Great Occidental Schism, or the Schism of 1378 (Latin: Magnum schisma occidentale, Ecclesiae occidentalis schisma), was a split within the Catholic Church lasting from 1378 to 1417 in which bishops residing in Rome and Avignon both claimed to be the true pope, and were joined by a third line of Pisan claimants in 1409. The schism was driven by personalities and political allegiances, with the Avignon Papacy being closely associated with the French monarchy.

The papacy had resided in Avignon since 1309, but Pope Gregory XI returned to Rome in 1377. The Catholic Church split in 1378 after Gregory XI's death and Urban VI's election. A group of French cardinals declared his election invalid and elected Clement VII as pope. After several attempts at reconciliation, the Council of Pisa (1409) declared that both rivals were illegitimate and elected a third purported pope. The schism was finally resolved when the Pisan claimant Antipope John XXIII called the Council of Constance (1414–1418). The Council arranged the renunciation of both Roman pope Gregory XII and Pisan antipope John XXIII. The Avignon antipope Benedict XIII was excommunicated, while Pope Martin V was elected and reigned from Rome.

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

The Diet of Worms of 1521 (German: Reichstag zu Worms [ˈʁaɪçstaːk tsuː ˈvɔʁms]) was an imperial diet (a formal deliberative assembly) of the Holy Roman Empire called by Emperor Charles V and conducted in the Imperial Free City of Worms. Martin Luther was summoned to the diet in order to renounce or reaffirm his views in response to a Papal bull of Pope Leo X. In answer to questioning, he defended these views and refused to recant them. At the end of the diet, the Emperor issued the Edict of Worms (Wormser Edikt), a decree which condemned Luther as "a notorious heretic" and banned citizens of the Empire from propagating his ideas. Although the Protestant Reformation is usually considered to have begun in 1517, the edict signals the first overt schism.

The diet was conducted from 28 January to 25 May 1521 at the Bischofshof palace in Worms, with the Emperor presiding.[1] Other imperial diets took place at Worms in the years 829, 926, 1076, 1122, 1495, and 1545, but unless plainly qualified, the term "Diet of Worms" usually refers to the assembly of 1521.

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

416 Finally, those means that are proposed by our holy father Saint Ignatius in Part X of the Constitutions for the preservation and development not only of the body or exterior of the Society but also of its spirit, and for the attainment of the objective it seeks, which is to aid souls to reach their ultimate and supernatural end, [10] are to be observed eagerly and diligently by all, with a truly personal sense of responsibility for its increase and development, for the praise and service of our God and Lord Jesus Christ, and the help of souls. [11]

L. D. S. "

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

Rosicrucianism is a theosophy advanced by an invisible order of spiritual knights who in spreading Christian Hermeticism, Kabbalah,

and Gnosis seek to enliven and to preserve the memory of Divine

Wisdom, understood as a feminine flame of love called SOFIA or

Shekhinah, exoterically given as a fresh unfolded rose, yet, more akin to the BLUE FIRE of alchemy, the blue virgin. Rosicrucians have no organisation and there are no recognizable Rosicrucian individuals, but the order makes its presence known by leaving behind engrammatic writings in the genre of Hermetic-Platonic Christianity.

The historical roots of Hermeticism is to be located in Ancient

Egypt. Long before the rise of Christianity, Hermetic texts were structured around the belief that organisms contain sparks of a Divine mind unto which they each strive to attend. Things easily transform into others, thereby generating certain cyclical patterns, cycles that periodically renew themselves on a cosmic scale. These transformations of life and death were enacted in the Hermetic Mysteries in Ancient Egypt through the gods Isis, Horus, and Osiris. In the Alexandrian period these myths were reshaped into Hermetic discourses on the transformations of the self with Thot, the scribal god. These discourses were introduced in the west in 1474 when Marsilio Ficino translated the Hermetic Pimander from the Greek. The story of Christian Rosencreutz can be seen as a new version of these mysteries, specifically tempered by German Paracelsian philosophy on the Lion of the darkest night, a biblical icon for how the higher self lies slumbering in consciousness."

Rose Cross Over The Baltic: The Spread of Rosicrucianism In Northern Europe

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

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

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

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dT28PyPUPfqDfC0iVg7nGFsle8vYBXLf/view?usp=sharing

THE CONFLICT: PRIORY OF SION VERSUS KNIGHTS TEMPLAR

Secret societies by virtue of their very secrecy have often kept historians at bay, and the historians, reluctant to confess their ignorance, prefer to diminish the consequence of their subject. Freemasonry.. is of vital importance to any social, psychological, cultural or political history of eighteenth-century Europe, and even to the founding of the United States; but most history books don't even mention it. It is almost as if an implicit policy obtained: If something cannot be exhaustively documented, it must be irrelevant and thereby not worth discussing I at all. Investigators of the Holy Grail' Freemasonry, French and English, as we know it today, finds its loots in two organizations of the Middle Ages - the Priory of Sion and the Order of the Knights Templar. What follows is the fascinating, if sometimes complicated and obscure history, of how these two modern, anti-Christian secular secret societies - English and French Freemasonry - developed from two groups that themselves had roots in the occult. We will see how the Priory of Sion desired to rule the world from the throne of David in Jerusalem through its counterfeit Jewish Merovingian bloodline, and how its own creation, the Knights Templar, moved beyond its role as police and protector of Sion to financial masters of medieval Europe. We will trace the alliance of Sion and the Templars, their dispute over the discovery of Solomon's treasures, and the terrible intrigues which followed that led to the undoing of the Templars in their struggle over wealth, power, and politics. We will reveal the beliefs of these two groups: that Jesus fathered children by Mary Magdalene; that a spiritual god of good (Satan) battles a material god of evil; that Lucifer, not Jesus, deserves worship; that a "Spear of Destiny" (later sought and possessed by Hitler) allows the holder to rule the world. We will also present data about the whereabouts of King Solomon's wealth, the plan to one day return it to Jerusalem, and reveal that the ultimate goal of these two groups is world government, and that their descendants, English and French Freemasonry, desire the same. The Historical Trail: The Priory of Sion and the Holy Grail In 1982 and 1986 three secular revisionist authors, Michael Baigent~ Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln published Holy Blood, Holy Grail followed by The Messianic Legacy. These two books dramatically reveal a secret order structured in the manner of Freemasonry, and founded in Europe twelve centuries before the Grand Lodge was officially formed in 1717. This order protects both the Holy Grail and the Merovingian bloodline, which bloodline carried Mystery Babylon into the Catholic Church in 496 A.D. 56 The Holy Grail, of course, is the so-called cup from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper. The Merovingians, owners of the Holy Grail, teach that Jesus fathered children by Mary Magdalene. The Merovingians claim to be the offspring of that "holy" union, and as such, assert they are Jews of the Davidic line.

In Revelation 17:3-5 the apostle John describes a vision, which Rev. J. R. Church in Guardians of the Grail believes is fulfilled in the Grail legend. The Whore of Babylon is holding in her hand a golden cup full of blasphemy. Church believes the cup is the blasphemous Holy Grail Another element of the Grail legend is the spear supposed to have pierced the side of Jesus, also known as the Spear of Longinus or the Spear of Destiny. Whoever possesses this spear, so the legend goes, will rule the world. The Merovingians, whose descendants are the Habsburg pretenders to the Austrian throne today, are in possession of the spear. It is on display in the Habsburg museum in Vienna, Austria~ No one, however, knows the location of the Holy Grail. At least no one is telling. Although heretical, this secret society should not be discounted, for it is alive and well today. In fact, in 1956, an Order calling itself the Prieure de Sion, or Priory of Sion, registered itself publicly for the first time with the French government. (Sion is French for Zion.) It is from this Order that the legend of the Holy Grail originated five centuries after Christ's death. Rev. Church remarks of this organization: This mysterious group is presently made up of over 9,000 men, including Protestants, Roman Catholics, Jews, and Moslems. The members of this secret sect should be considered unfaithful to their respective beliefs, for in reality they are neither Christian nor Catholic, they are neither Jew nor Moslem. Their doctrine sidesteps the basic tenets of those beliefs and replaces them with the teachings of their greatest prophet - whom they believe to be Buddha.2 From this secret order J. R. Church believes will come the Anti-Christ, for he writes, "Their ultimate goal is world government!'"

Scarlet and the Beast by John Daniel

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zCd0nFuvnM4OYWuVW5QUBCpsTfBv5bYx/view?usp=sharing

The pyramid of Cestius (in Italian, Piramide di Caio Cestio or Piramide Cestia) is an ancient Roman pyramid in Rome, Italy, near the Porta San Paolo and the Protestant Cemetery. It was built in the style of the Nubian pyramids as a tomb for Gaius Cestius, a member of the Epulones religious corporation.[1] It stands at a fork between two ancient roads, the Via Ostiensis and another road that ran west to the Tiber along the approximate line of the modern Via Marmorata. Due to its incorporation into the city's fortifications, it is today one of the best-preserved ancient buildings in Rome.

Physical attributes

Detail of the pyramid

The pyramid was built about 18–12 BC as a tomb for Gaius Cestius, a magistrate and member of one of the four great religious corporations in Rome, the Septemviri Epulonum. It is of brick-faced concrete covered with slabs of white marble standing on a travertine foundation. The pyramid measures 100 Roman feet (29.6 m) square at the base and stands 125 Roman feet (37 m) high.[2]

Pyramid Caius Cestius room inside

In the interior is the burial chamber, a simple barrel-vaulted rectangular cavity measuring 5.95 metres long, 4.10 m wide and 4.80 m high. When opened in 1660, the chamber was found to be decorated with frescoes, which were recorded by Pietro Santo Bartoli. Only scant traces of these frescoes survive, and no trace of any other contents. The tomb had been sealed when it was built, with no exterior entrance, but had been plundered at some time thereafter, probably during antiquity. Until the end of restoration works in 2015, it was not possible for visitors to access the interior,[2] except by special permission typically only granted to scholars. Since the beginning of May 2015, the pyramid is open to the public every second and fourth Saturday each month. Visitors must arrange their visit in advance.

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

The name Ormus also represents Sion's religion. Ormus was the name of an Egyptian sage and mystic who was supposedly converted to Christianity in 46 A.D. In reality he was a gnostic adept

of Alexandria, blending Christianity with Masdaism, which was the Greek-Roman form of Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism was a modification of Brahamanism (now Hinduism) at a time when Buddhism was a reformation of the same. As was common practice in the eastern mystery religions, the Priory of Sion often used mind-expanding drugs in their ceremonies.

The Priory of Sion set out to emulate the Knights Templar by using the religion of the Egyptian, Ormus. Ormus and his initiates had taken the red cross as their identifying symbol four centuries

before Merovee (founder of the Merovingian Holy Grail dynasty) was born with the red cross birthmark above his heart. The Knights Templar adopted Merovee's red cross six centuries later.

To emulate the Templars, the Priory of Sion took the red cross of Ormus as its own emblem, then adopted the title l'Ordre de Ia Rose-Croix Veritas, which means "The Order of the mie Red

Cross." This additional name was added at the behest of Sion's Grand Master, Jean de Gisors.

Thus, Jean de Gisors is considered the founder of the Rose-Croix, or Rosicrucians."

Scarlet and the Beast

by John Daniel

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

The Prieuré was cited by name in references extending from the twelfth to the early seventeenth century. Then, in documents dating from 1619, it was stated to have incurred the displeasure of King Louis XIII of France, who evicted them from their seat at Orléans and turned the premises over to the Jesuits.5 After that, the Prieuré de Sion seemed to vanish from the historical record, at least under that name, until 1956, when it appeared again, registered in the French Journal officiel. And yet the present-day Order had repeatedly cited certain of its activities between 1619 and the twentieth century, certain historical events in which it had played a role, certain historical developments in which it had some sort of vested interest. When we examined the events and developments in question, we found indisputable evidence attesting to the involvement of an organised and coherent cadre working in concert behind the scenes, sometimes using other institutions as a façade. This cadre was not named specifically, but everything indicated that it was indeed the Prieuré de Sion. What was more, it proved to involve precisely the same network of interlinked families claiming Merovingian descent. Whether it was the intrigues and the Wars of Religion in the sixteenth century, the insurrection known as the Fronde in the seventeenth century or the Masonic conspiracies of the eighteenth century, successive generations of precisely the same families were implicated, operating in accordance with a single consistent pattern."

The Messianic Legacy

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UV7FwghOOhdkp4fdk2SzG7oem2nRleW0/view?usp=sharing

The Priory of Sion is an initiatory Order of chivalry, founded on July 15 1099 in Jerusalem, by Godfrey of Bouillon, at the Abbey "Our Lady of Mount Sion" as "Order of our Lady of Mount Sion."The Order, after being registered for the first time in history, in 1956, and then being dissolved in 1993, was newly registered in 2015, perpetuating the legitimate Pierre Plantard de Saint-Clair's lineage, through the actual Grand Master, Marco Rigamonti.The Priory of Sion is characterized by a gnostic and rosicrucian influence, who sets himself the task of supporting and nurturing personal growth, moral and spiritual, with respect and in harmony with the personal objectives that each of us, by nature, has to carry through in life experience.It's also our purpose the esoteric research as the study and experience related to the transcendent and mystical in an environment of communion with our Brothers and Sisters, Members of the Order.The Priory of Sion today inherits a tradition of esoteric, philosophical, spiritual and cultural legacy, which favors the cultivation of values and principles that offers the way to live a more aware and noble personal dimension.We work through symbols, ancient rituals, theurgic practice and traditions, in order to live a personal and collective sprirituality in communion with our Brothers and Sisters.The Order is apolitical and forbids its members to be made a place of political debate, or even worse, to be exploited for such purposes."

http://www.prieure-de-sion.com/

The origins of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem date back to the First Crusade, when its leader, Godfrey de Bouillon, liberated Jerusalem. As part of his operations to organize the religious, military and public bodies of the territories newly freed from Muslim control, he founded the Order of Canons of the Holy Sepulchre. According to accounts of the Crusades, in 1103 the first King of Jerusalem, Baldwin I, assumed the leadership of this canonical order, and reserved the right for himself and his successors (as agents of the Patriarch of Jerusalem) to appoint Knights to it, should the Patriarch be absent or unable to do so.The Order’s members included not only the Regular Canons (Fratres) but also the Secular Canons (Confratres) and the Sergentes. The latter were armed knights chosen from the crusader troops for their qualities of valor and dedication; they vowed to obey Augustinian Rule of poverty and obedience and undertook specifically, under the command of the King of Jerusalem, to defend the Holy Sepulchre and the Holy Places.Very soon after the First Crusade the troops – including the Knights of the Order of Canons of the Holy Sepulchre – began to return to their homelands. This led to the creation of priories all over Europe, which were part of the Order as they came under the jurisdiction of the noble knights or prelates who had been invested on the Holy Sepulchre itself and who, although they were no longer in the direct service of the King of Jerusalem, continued to belong to the Order of Canons.The Order first began to fail as a cohesive military body of knights after Saladin regained Jerusalem in 1182, and completely ceased to exist in that format after the defeat of Acre in 1291. The passing of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem left the Order without a leader, though it continued to survive in the European priories thanks to the protection of sovereigns, princes, bishops and the Holy See. The priories kept alive the ideals of the Crusader Knights: propagation of the Faith, defense of the weak, charity towards other human beings. With the exception of events in Spain, it was only rarely that the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre ever took part again in military action to defend Christianity.In the 14th century, the Holy See made an extremely high payment to the Egyptian Sultan so that he would grant the right to protect the Christian Sanctuaries to the Franciscan Friars Minor. Throughout the whole period of the Latin Patriarchate’s suppression, the right to create new Knights was the prerogative of the representative of the highest Catholic authority in the Holy Land: the Custos.In 1847 the Patriarchate was restored and Pope Pius IX modernized the Order, issuing a new Constitution, which placed it under the direct protection of the Holy See and conferred its government to the Latin Patriarch. The Order’s fundamental role was also defined: to uphold the works of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, whilst preserving the spiritual duty of propagating the Faith.In 1949, Pius XII decreed that the Grand Master of the Order should be a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and assigned the position of Grand Prior to the Patriarch of Jerusalem. In 1962 Pope John XXIII and, in 1967, Pope Paul VI reorganized and revitalized the Order by adding more specific regulations to the Constitution with the intention of making the Order’s activities more co-coordinated and more effective.In February 1996, the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II enhanced the Order’s status. Today it is a Public Association of faithful with a legal canonical and public personality, constituted by the Holy See under Canon Law 312, paragraph 1:1.

https://eohsjeastern.org/a-brief-history/

Horses: the extent to which they can be possessed in our houses [575, 576]; the extent to which they can be used on missions [574, 625]"

The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms

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1236

June 29 – Siege of Córdoba: Castilian forces under King Ferdinand III (the Saint) capture Muslim Córdoba from Emir Ibn Hud, as part of the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula.[2]

July – At a diet (princely convention) in Piacenza, Emperor Frederick II proclaims his wish to recover all Italy for the Holy Roman Empire.[3]

Pope Gregory IX condemned the links that both the Knights Templer and Knights Hospitaller have with the Assassin fighters in the Middle East. He issues a bull, a formal proclamation issued by the pope, preventing further contact with the Assassins.

May 6 – Roger of Wendover, English Benedictine monk and chronicler, dies at St. Albans Abbey. His chronicle is continued by Matthew of Paris.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1236

Atheism: resisting it with all our forces is a special mission given to the Society by the supreme pontiff, 253 2°; a mission which should permeate all forms of our apostolate, 254; our efforts are to be directed toward nonbelievers, ibid.; toward that end, an experience of God must be fostered in ourselves, 223 §§3-4, 224, 247

1° 2° 3° 6°;

and also in others, by means of the Spiritual Exercises, 271

The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus and Their Complementary Norms

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The idea of uniting the Templars with the Hospitallers was first argued publicly in a book published in 1305 by Raimon Llull, a renowned illuminatus from Majorca. Llull’s book, Libre de Fine, (“Free At Last”) appeared in the midst of a raging controversy between the French monarchy and the Roman papacy over who held jurisdiction over the Templars. That is the subject of our next chapter.

Rulers of Evil

by F. Tupper Saussy

https://dn790006.ca.archive.org/0/items/rulers-of-evil-f.-tupper-saussy/Rulers%20of%20Evil%20-%20F.%20Tupper%20Saussy.pdf

The historian Newman gives this eloquent assessment, "The Jesuit missionary or worker in any sphere may adapt his dress, manner of life, and occupation to the exigencies of the occasion. He may disguise himself and figure as a Protestant or a Brahmin, if by so doing he can gain an entrance otherwise difficult for Catholic teaching. The story is familiar of a Jesuit who mastered the Sanskrit language and the Vedas, assumed the dress and the mode of life of a Brahmin priest, and finally wrote and palmed off as ancient a Veda in which Roman Catholic Christianity under a thin disguise was taught." pages 217-218

"Sons of Loyola: Their Subtlety, Genius, and Various Disguises"

Codeword Barbelon book One

by P.D. Stuart

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The alumbrados of Castile were a movement that caused much trouble during the first three decades of the sixteenth century. Their ideas were represented by the “Big Three” beatas who, under noble patronage, for at least a decade previous to the arrest in 1524 of the “mother” of the movement (Isabel de la Cruz) had successfully proselytized and spread their ideas throughout Old and New Castile.1

The alumbrados certainly were a charismatic bunch; they enjoyed success with the elites of Castilian society, comuneros, but above all with women and conversos. As a religious movement led by women the alumbrados were part of a growing trend of individual, charismatic female piety. By the time of Cardinal Cisneros’s death in 1517, however, the era of the alumbrados and their grassroots converso spirituality was nearing its end. While the actual heyday of their movement was short-lived the alumbrados made a huge impact upon the minds Prospering in the environment of Catholic spiritual exploration fostered by the personal theological interests of the Archbishop of Toledo Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros the alumbrados presented an interiorized approach to Christianity. Equipped with the meditational practice of dejamiento the alumbrados stressed the importance of an individual, pseudo-mystical “abandonment” to God and His will. They also emphasized the insignificance of external rituals and works, calling them ataduras or “shackles” to the material world, ties that only served to hinder one’s abandonment to God.

of the Inquisitors who prosecuted them and upon the Spanish religious imagination, an impact that would last across seas and time."

EL SABOR DE HEREJIA: THE EDICT OF 1525, THE ALUMBRADOS

AND THE INQUISITORS’ USAGE OF LOCURA

By

JAVIER A. MONTOYA

http://etd.fcla.edu/UF/UFE0041385/montoya_j.pdf

Alumbrado, (Spanish: “Enlightened”, ) Italian Illuminato, plural Illuminati, a follower of a mystical movement in Spain during the 16th and 17th centuries. Its adherents claimed that the human soul, having attained a certain degree of perfection, was permitted a vision of the divine and entered into direct communication with the Holy Spirit. From this state the soul could neither advance nor retrogress. Consequently, participation in the liturgy, good works, and observance of the exterior forms of religious life were unnecessary for those who had received the “light.” The Alumbrados came primarily from among the reformed Franciscans and the Jesuits, but their doctrines seem to have influenced all classes of people. The extravagant claims made for their visions and revelations caused them to be relentlessly persecuted. The Inquisition issued edicts against them on three occasions (1568, 1574, and 1623)."

https://www.britannica.com/event/Alumbrado

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Pali Buddha (“the Awakened One, the Enlightened One”), from buddha (“awakened, enlightened”), from Sanskrit बुद्ध (buddha, “awakened, enlightened”), past participle of बोधति (bodhati, “to wake, to awaken”). Distantly related to English bid and bede. Also cognate with Russian будить (buditʹ, “to wake up”)."

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Buddha

Gautama

surname of the Buddha, from Sanskrit Gotamah, properly a patronymic, literally "descendant of the greatest ox," from superlative of gauh "ox, bull, cow."

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

Unam Sanctam

One God, One Faith, One Spiritual Authority

Pope Boniface VIII - 1302

Bull of Pope Boniface VIII promulgated November 18, 1302

Urged by faith, we are obliged to believe and to maintain that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and also apostolic. We believe in her firmly and we confess with simplicity that outside of her there is neither salvation nor the remission of sins, as the Spouse in the Canticles [Sgs 6:8] proclaims: ‘One is my dove, my perfect one. She is the only one, the chosen of her who bore her,‘ and she represents one sole mystical body whose Head is Christ and the head of Christ is God [1 Cor 11:3]. In her then is one Lord, one faith, one baptism [Eph 4:5]. There had been at the time of the deluge only one ark of Noah, prefiguring the one Church, which ark, having been finished to a single cubit, had only one pilot and guide, i.e., Noah, and we read that, outside of this ark, all that subsisted on the earth was destroyed.

We venerate this Church as one, the Lord having said by the mouth of the prophet: ‘Deliver, O God, my soul from the sword and my only one from the hand of the dog.’ [Ps 21:20] He has prayed for his soul, that is for himself, heart and body; and this body, that is to say, the Church, He has called one because of the unity of the Spouse, of the faith, of the sacraments, and of the charity of the Church. This is the tunic of the Lord, the seamless tunic, which was not rent but which was cast by lot [Jn 19:23- 24]. Therefore, of the one and only Church there is one body and one head, not two heads like a monster; that is, Christ and the Vicar of Christ, Peter and the successor of Peter, since the Lord speaking to Peter Himself said: ‘Feed my sheep‘ [Jn 21:17], meaning, my sheep in general, not these, nor those in particular, whence we understand that He entrusted all to him [Peter]. Therefore, if the Greeks or others should say that they are not confided to Peter and to his successors, they must confess not being the sheep of Christ, since Our Lord says in John ‘there is one sheepfold and one shepherd.’ We are informed by the texts of the gospels that in this Church and in its power are two swords; namely, the spiritual and the temporal. For when the Apostles say: ‘Behold, here are two swords‘ [Lk 22:38] that is to say, in the Church, since the Apostles were speaking, the Lord did not reply that there were too many, but sufficient. Certainly the one who denies that the temporal sword is in the power of Peter has not listened well to the word of the Lord commanding: ‘Put up thy sword into thy scabbard‘ [Mt 26:52]. Therefore, both are in the power of the Church, namely, the spiritual sword and the material. But indeed, the latter is to be exercised on behalf of the Church; and truly, the former is to be exercised by the Church. The former is of the priest; the latter is by the hand of kings and soldiers, but at the will and sufferance of the priest.

However, one sword ought to be subordinated to the other and temporal authority, subjected to spiritual power. For since the Apostle said: ‘There is no power except from God and the things that are, are ordained of God‘ [Rom 13:1-2], but they would not be ordained if one sword were not subordinated to the other and if the inferior one, as it were, were not led upwards by the other.

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

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

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

The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms

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Historical Institute of the Society of Jesus: a Roman work of the entire Society, 304 §2

The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms

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St. John Lateran Basilica in Rome is considered the mother church of all the Catholic churches in the Western world; inscribed on the church facade for all to see are the Latin words “omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum mater et CAPUT,” meaning, “The mother and HEAD of all the churches of the city and of the world.”

https://www.simplycatholic.com/st-john-lateran-basilica/

The Capetian dynasty (/kəˈpiːʃən/; French: Capétiens), also known as the House of France, is a dynasty of Frankish origin, and a branch of the Robertians. It is among the largest and oldest royal houses in Europe and the world, and consists of Hugh Capet, the founder of the dynasty, and his male-line descendants, who ruled in France without interruption from 987 to 1792, and again from 1814 to 1848. The senior line ruled in France as the House of Capet from the election of Hugh Capet in 987 until the death of Charles IV in 1328. That line was succeeded by cadet branches, the Houses of Valois and then Bourbon, which ruled without interruption until the French Revolution abolished the monarchy in 1792. The Bourbons were restored in 1814 in the aftermath of Napoleon's defeat, but had to vacate the throne again in 1830 in favor of the last Capetian monarch of France, Louis Philippe I, who belonged to the House of Orléans. Cadet branches of the Capetian House of Bourbon house are still ruling over Spain and Luxembourg."

Name origins and usage

The name of the dynasty derives from its founder, Hugh, who was known as "Hugh Capet".[4] The meaning of "Capet" (a nickname rather than a surname of the modern sort) is unknown. While folk etymology identifies it with "cape", other suggestions indicate it might be connected to the Latin word caput ("head"), and explain it as meaning "chief" or "head".[citation needed]

Historians in the 19th century (see House of France) came to apply the name "Capetian" to both the ruling house of France and to the wider-spread male-line descendants of Hugh Capet. It was not a contemporary practice. The name "Capet" has also been used as a surname for French royalty, particularly but not exclusively those of the House of Capet. One notable use was during the French Revolution, when the dethroned King Louis XVI (a member of the House of Bourbon and a direct male-line descendant of Hugh Capet) and Queen Marie Antoinette (a member of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine) were referred to as "Louis and Antoinette Capet" (the queen being addressed as "the Widow Capet" after the execution of her husband).

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

When were the Jesuits restored?

August 7, 1814

Pressured by the royal courts of Portugal, France and Spain, Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Society, causing Jesuits throughout the world to renounce their vows and go into exile. Pope Pius VII, a Benedictine, restored the Society on August 7, 1814."

https://www.xavier.edu/jesuitresource/online-resources/video-resources/jesuit-values-videos/suppression-of-the-society-of-jesus

In the second prelude, for Chief- Gene ral read highest Leader, and for captain read leader. For the first Leader the Spanish Autograph has Captain General, and for the second (leader), caudillo ; the former title expressing, as Father Rothaan remarks, a Commander-in-Chief of lawful warfare, the latter designating rather the leader of a faction, and being often used in a bad sense, as of a captain of robbers or malefactors. In order to express in some measure this distinction, he has made use of the terms Dux Generalis (Leader General) and CAPUT (head) in his literal Version. The Common Version makes no distinction ; and hence, in order to render this Version with strict faithfulness, must read, both here and in the next two paragraphs, leader instead of captain, although (as the reader will already have perceived) this latter is the term which erceived) this latter is the term which corresponds the more nearly with the Spanish original. In all three places Father Rothaan has caput : in the third prelude he has again Dux instead of Im perator : see above. In the first point, in order to be strictly with the Common Version, readier?/ and smoky chair in stead of chair offire and smoke ; although this latter is what the Autograph has, a certain great chair of fire and smoke, &quot; in which&quot;, observes Father Rothaan, there is no solidity, no true glory, but mere agitation and perpetual disturbance joined with thick darkness"; And this image&quot;, he adds, &quot; exhibits the evil spirit such as he is, but not such as he offers himself to men's minds."

The Spiritual Exercises of Loyola

https://ia600303.us.archive.org/3/items/a588350800loyouoft/a588350800loyouoft.pdf

Head:

1. See Illness, mental

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

page 463

The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms

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

Constitution of the Society of Jesus Papal Bull, 1540

THE PLAN of the proposed rule follows and is this: In our society, which we wish to be called by the name Jesus, let whoever desires to fight under the sacred banner of the Cross, and to serve only God and the Roman pontiff, His vicar on earth, after a solemn vow of perpetual chastity,-let him keep in mind that he is part of a society, instituted for the purpose of perfecting souls in life and in Christian doctrine, for the propagation of the faith through public preaching, ministering the word of God, spiritual macerations, works of charity, and especially through the teaching of the young and uninstructed in the Christian precepts; and lastly for giving consolation to believers in hearing their confessions. Let him think first of God, then of the rule of this order, which is the way to Him; and let him follow after the end proposed by God with all his strength. Let each one, nevertheless, rest in the grace given him by the Holy Spirit, and in the proper grade of his calling, and lest anyone use zeal but not discretion, let the deciding of the grade of each, of the offices, and whole arrangement be in the hands of the general or prelate selected through us, in order that the harmony so necessary in all well-governed institutions may be preserved. Let this general, with the council of his associates, have the power in council to draw up rules suitable for the end proposed, the majority of all voters of the society always having the right of deciding. Let it be understood that there be consultation in regard to the more important or permanent questions, the majority of the whole society, that can conveniently be convoked; in the case of less important or transient matters, all those that are present where the general lives. The right of carrying out laws, however, belongs only to the general. Let all members know, and let it be not only at the beginning of their profession, but let them think over it daily as long as they live, that the society as a whole, and each of them, owes obedience to our most holy lord, the pope, and the other Roman pontiffs, his successors, and to fight with faithful obedience for God. And however much he may be learned in the Gospel, and however we may be taught in the orthodox faith, let all Christians profess themselves under the Roman pontiff as leader, and vicar of Jesus Christ. For the greater humility of our society, and toward the complete self-mortification of each one, and in order to aid the abnegation of our own wills to the greatest extent, let each one, besides that common obligation, be devoted to this by special vow. So that whatever the present or other Roman pontiffs order that concerns the saving of souls and the spread of the faith, and to whatever provinces he shall wish to send us, this let us strive to accomplish as far as in us lies, without any turning back or excuse; whether he shall send us to the Turks, or to any other infidels, even those living in the lands that are called the Indies; or to any heretics or schismatics, or believers, whatever. Wherefore let those that are about to join us consider long and well, before they put their shoulders to this task, whether they have enough grace for good deeds to mount this citadel at the command of their superiors; that is, whether the Holy Spirit that urges them promises to them enough grace to enable them with God’s help to bear the weight of this calling. And after they have given their name, at the inspiration of the Lord, to the service of Jesus Christ, having thus girded up their loins, they will be prompt to fulfill this grand vow. Lest in some way there arise ambition or jealousy in regard to such missions or provinces, let all agree never either directly or indirectly to interfere with the Roman pontiff in this regard, but let them leave all such concern to God, and to the pontiff himself, His vicar, and to the general of the society. And let the general himself promise the same as the others, not to take upon himself a mission in any direction unless by the council of the society, with the agreement of the pontiff."

Given at Rome at St. Mark’s, in the year of Incarnation of our Lord 1540, the fifth before the Kalends of October, in the sixth year of our pontificate."

http://www.catholiclawyersmalaysia.org/sites/default/files/constitution_of_the_society_of_jesus.pdf

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a 1989 American action adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by Jeffrey Boam, based on a story by George Lucas and Menno Meyjes. It is the third installment in the Indiana Jones film series and the sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Harrison Ford returned in the title role, while his father is portrayed by Sean Connery. Other cast members featured include Alison Doody, Denholm Elliott, Julian Glover, River Phoenix, and John Rhys-Davies. In the film, set in 1938, Indiana Jones searches for his father, a Holy Grail scholar, who has been kidnapped and held hostage by the Nazis while on a journey to find the Holy Grail.

After the criticism that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) received, Spielberg chose to make a more lighthearted film for the next installment, as well as bringing back several elements from Raiders of the Lost Ark. During the five years between Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade, he and executive producer Lucas reviewed several scripts before accepting Jeffrey Boam's. Filming locations included Spain, Italy, West Germany, Jordan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.[2]

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was released in the United States on May 24, 1989, by Paramount Pictures. The film received positive reviews and was a financial success, earning $474.2 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film of 1989. It also won the Academy Award for Best Sound Effects Editing and was nominated for Best Original Score and Best Sound at the 62nd Academy Awards. Although Spielberg and Lucas originally intended for The Last Crusade to be the end of the series, a sequel, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, followed in May 2008, while a fifth and final film, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, was released in June 2023.

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

Henry II (5 March 1133 – 6 July 1189), also known as Henry Fitzempress and Henry Curtmantle,[2] was King of England from 1154 until his death in 1189. During his reign he controlled England, substantial parts of Wales and Ireland, and much of France (including Normandy, Anjou, and Aquitaine), an area that altogether was later called the Angevin Empire, and also held power over Scotland and the Duchy of Brittany.

Henry became politically and militarily involved by the age of fourteen in the efforts of his mother, Matilda (daughter of Henry I of England), to claim the English throne, at that time held by Matilda's cousin Stephen of Blois. Henry's father, Geoffrey, made him Duke of Normandy in 1150, and upon Geoffrey's death in 1151, Henry inherited Anjou, Maine and Touraine. His marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine brought him control of the Duchy of Aquitaine. Thus, he controlled most of France. Henry's military expedition to England in 1153 resulted in King Stephen agreeing, by the Treaty of Wallingford, to leave England to Henry, and he inherited the kingdom at Stephen's death a year later. Henry was an energetic and ruthless ruler, driven by a desire to restore the royal lands and prerogatives of his grandfather Henry I. During the early years of his reign Henry restored the royal administration in England, which had almost collapsed during Stephen's reign, and re-established hegemony over Wales. Henry's desire to control the English Church led to conflict with his former friend Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury. This controversy lasted for much of the 1160s and resulted in Becket's murder in 1170. Soon after his accession Henry came into conflict with Louis VII of France, his feudal overlord, and the two rulers fought, over several decades, what has been termed a "cold war". Henry expanded his empire at Louis's expense, taking Brittany and pushing east into central France and south into Toulouse; despite numerous peace conferences and treaties, no lasting agreement was reached.

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

Steven Terner Mnuchin[1] (/məˈnuːʃɪn/ mə-NOO-shin;[2] born December 21, 1962) is an American investment banker[3] and film producer who served as the 77th United States secretary of the treasury as part of the first cabinet of Donald Trump from 2017 to 2021. Serving for nearly a full presidential term, Mnuchin was one of the few high-profile members of Trump's cabinet whom the president did not dismiss during his first term.[4]

Mnuchin was born in New York City. Upon graduating from Yale University in 1985, Mnuchin joined the investment bank Goldman Sachs where his father, Robert Mnuchin, was a general partner. Mnuchin worked at Goldman Sachs for 17 years, eventually becoming its chief information officer. After he left Goldman Sachs in 2002, he worked for and founded several hedge funds and launched Dune Entertainment, a film production company that financed several films for 20th Century Fox. He later served on the boards of Kmart and Sears Holdings. During the financial crisis of 2007–2008 he bought failed residential bank Indymac, which he reorganized as OneWest Bank and resold, becoming embroiled in lawsuits over questionable foreclosures.

Mnuchin joined Trump's presidential campaign in 2016, and was named National Finance Chairman for the campaign. On February 13, 2017, Mnuchin was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Secretary of the Treasury by a vote of 53–47.[5] As Secretary of the Treasury, Mnuchin supported the Trump tax cuts and the tax reform of 2017, and advocated reducing personal and corporate tax rates.[6] In regard to regulatory policy, Mnuchin supported President Trump’s partial repeal of the Dodd–Frank Act, citing the complexity of the legislation.[7]

Early life and education

Steven Mnuchin was born on December 21, 1962, in New York City, the second-youngest son in his family.[8][9] Mnuchin's family is Jewish.[9][10][11] He is the son of Robert E. Mnuchin of Washington, Connecticut, and Elaine Terner Cooper of New York.[12] Robert Mnuchin was a partner at Goldman Sachs in charge of equity trading and a member of the management committee. He is also the founder of an art gallery in New York City, the Mnuchin Gallery.[12][13] Mnuchin's great-grandfather, Aaron Mnuchin, a Russian-born diamond dealer who later resided in Belgium, emigrated to the U.S. in 1916.[14]

Mnuchin attended Riverdale Country School in New York City. He graduated from Yale University in 1985 with a bachelor's degree in economics.[8][15][16] At Yale, Mnuchin was publisher of the Yale Daily News,[17][18] and was also initiated into Skull and Bones in 1985.[19][20] While a student at Yale, Mnuchin drove a Porsche and lived at New Haven's Taft Hotel.[21]

Mnuchin's first job was as a trainee at investment bank Salomon Brothers in the early 1980s, while still studying at Yale.[20][22]

Finance and banking career

Goldman Sachs

Mnuchin graduated from Yale in 1985 and started working for Goldman Sachs, where his father had been employed since 1957.[8][23] Mnuchin started in the mortgage department, and became a partner at Goldman in 1994.[10][24] Until he left the company in 2002, Mnuchin held the following positions as a partner:[25][26]

November 1994 – December 1998: Head of the Mortgage Securities Department

December 1998 – November 1999: Overseeing mortgages, U.S. governments, money markets, and municipals at Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities Division

December 1999 – February 2001: Member of the Executive Committee and co-head of the Technology Operating Committee

February 2001 – December 2001: Executive Vice President and co-chief information officer

December 2001 – 2002: Executive vice president, member of the Management Committee, and chief information officer[27]

Mnuchin left Goldman Sachs in 2002 after 17 years of employment, with an estimated $46 million of company stock and $12.6 million in compensation that he received in the months prior to his departure.[10]

Hedge funds

After he left Goldman Sachs in 2002, Mnuchin briefly worked as vice-chairman of hedge fund ESL Investments, which is owned by his Yale roommate Edward Lampert.[28] From 2003 to 2004 he worked as Chief Executive Officer at SFM Capital Management, a fund backed by George Soros.[29][30] Mnuchin founded a hedge fund called Dune Capital Management,[31] named for a spot near his house in The Hamptons, in 2004 with two former Goldman partners.[8] After its founding, Mnuchin served as the CEO of the company.[7] The firm invested in at least two Donald Trump projects, the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Honolulu and its namesake in Chicago. Dune Capital Management and other lenders to the skyscraper in Chicago were sued by Trump before a settlement was reached.[32][33]

Mnuchin became a director of Kmart when it exited bankruptcy through an investment by ESL. When the company merged in 2005 with Sears to form Sears Holdings, he continued on the board of the new company until his nomination as Treasury secretary in 2016.[34] After Sears Holdings' bankruptcy in 2018 the company's estate sued the former management, including Lampert and Mnuchin, for "asset stripping" during their tenure.[35] The lawsuit ended in 2022 with a $175 million settlement in the estate's favor.[36]

Mnuchin was outbid by Lone Star Funds on a portfolio of residential mortgage-backed collateralized debt obligations being sold by Merrill Lynch during the financial crisis, which sold for $6.7 billion.[8]

Mnuchin has been criticized for his use of offshore entities for investment purposes as a hedge-fund manager, which is a common practice in the industry. Mnuchin has stated: "In no way did I use [offshore entities] to avoid U.S. taxes."[37]

OneWest

Purchase of IndyMac and other loan portfolios

In 2009, a group led by Mnuchin bought California-based residential lender IndyMac, which had been in receivership by the FDIC and owned $23.5 billion in commercial loans, mortgages, and mortgage-backed securities. The purchase price was a $4.7 billion discount to its book value.[38][8] Mnuchin's investment group included George Soros, hedge-fund manager John Paulson, former Goldman Sachs executive J. Christopher Flowers, and Dell Computer founder Michael Dell.[8][39] The FDIC agreed to retain some of the more problematic assets of the bank, and signed a loss-sharing agreement. The FDIC was estimated to be required to pay $2.4 billion to IndyMac under the shared loss agreement.[40] After purchasing IndyMac, renamed OneWest Bank, Mnuchin moved into a 20,000 square foot house in Bel Air to begin his tenure as CEO and chairman.[39] OneWest then bought several other failed banks including First Federal Bank of California in 2009 and La Jolla Bank in 2010. Furthermore, OneWest bought a portfolio belonging to Citi Holdings for $1.4 billion.[8] OneWest was profitable one year after Mnuchin had bought it, and it became the largest bank of Southern California, with assets worth $27 billion.[32]

Sale to CIT

In 2015, Mnuchin sold OneWest to CIT Group for $3.4 billion.[33][32] After the acquisition by CIT, Mnuchin remained at OneWest, and became a member of CIT Group's board of directors.[39] As of August 2016, Mnuchin owned $97 million in CIT Group stock, most of which he had received in exchange for his stake in OneWest.[20] On December 2, 2016, Mnuchin resigned from the board of directors of CIT as a result of his selection as nominee for Secretary of the Treasury.[41]

Foreclosures

OneWest was criticized for aggressively foreclosing on homeowners. In the five years following Mnuchin's acquisition of OneWest, the bank foreclosed on 36,000 homes in California, leading local activists to begin calling Mnuchin "the foreclosure king."[42] The high foreclosure rate might have been a result of the loss sharing agreement with the FDIC, whereby the FDIC had to reimburse OneWest for losses.[8] According to The New York Times, OneWest "was involved in a string of lawsuits over questionable foreclosures, and settled several cases for millions of dollars".[43] Because of these foreclosures, around 100 protesters of Occupy Los Angeles gathered outside Mnuchin's home in October 2011 and held signs that read "Make Banks Pay".[32] Two California fair-housing groups filed complaints to the federal government alleging that OneWest had violated the Fair Housing Act by not lending money to African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians.[28][33][44]

In November 2016, after OneWest was sold to CIT, the California Reinvestment Coalition submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to learn more about CIT's reverse mortgage subsidiary, Financial Freedom.[44] According to the HUD's response, CIT/Financial Freedom foreclosed on 16,220 federally insured reverse mortgages from April 2009 to April 2016. This represented about 39% of all federally insured reverse mortgage foreclosures during that time. CRC estimated that Financial Freedom serviced only about 17% of the market and thus was foreclosing more than twice as often as its competitors.[45] CIT Group disclosed to investors that it had received subpoenas from HUD's Office of the Inspector General in the third and fourth quarters of 2015.[46] In November 2016, two non-profits filed a complaint with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, alleging redlining by OneWest Bank.[47][48][49]

In 2017 a leaked internal memo from the California attorney general's office was published, stating that the prosecutor's office had found more than a thousand violations of foreclosure law by OneWest during Mnuchin's tenure. The prosecutor, Kamala Harris, had declined to file a civil enforcement suit.[50][51][52]

Liberty Strategic Capital

After Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, Mnuchin established an investment fund, Liberty Strategic Capital. The fund obtained funds from the Saudis, Emirati and Qatari sovereign wealth funds.[53] According to the New York Times, "The scale of Mr. Mnuchin’s fund and its investments from countries where he traveled as Treasury secretary have raised questions about whether he used his government role to enrich himself."[54]

On March 6, 2024 Liberty lead the group of investors including Hudson Bay and Reverence Capital to invest over $1B in NYCB. Mnuchin became a board member of the bank, that was suffering from heavy losses.[55]

On March 14, 2024 Mnuchin announced that he's putting together the group of investors to buy TikTok. “This should be owned by U.S. businesses. There’s no way that the Chinese would ever let a U.S. company own something like this in China,” Mnuchin said.[56]

Film production career

In 2004, Mnuchin founded Dune Entertainment as a side business. It financed a number of large-budget films, mostly for 20th Century Fox, including the X-Men film franchise and Avatar.[7][57][58] In 2012, after Dune's deal with 20th Century Fox ended, Mnuchin worked with the filmmaker Brett Ratner and the Australian businessman James Packer to merge his Dune Entertainment company with Ratner and Packer's newly founded RatPac Entertainment joint venture. This formed RatPac-Dune Entertainment, which agreed a financing deal with Warner Bros.

Between 2013 and 2018, RatPac-Dune financed many films for Warner Bros., including American Sniper and Mad Max: Fury Road. Mnuchin was co-chairman of the trio's movie company, Relativity Media, but left seven months before it went bankrupt.[43] A source close to the company said he had resigned because of the potential for a conflict of interest between his duties at Relativity and OneWest.[57] He and other investors reportedly lost $80 million.[58]

Filmography

Year Role Titles

2014 Executive producer The Lego Movie

Winter's Tale

Edge of Tomorrow

Jersey Boys

This Is Where I Leave You

The Judge

Annabelle

Inherent Vice

American Sniper

Blended

2015 Executive producer Run All Night

Get Hard

Mad Max: Fury Road

Entourage

San Andreas

Vacation

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Black Mass

The Intern

Pan

Our Brand Is Crisis

In the Heart of the Sea

Focus

Jupiter Ascending

2016 Executive producer How to Be Single

Midnight Special

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Keanu

The Conjuring 2

Central Intelligence

The Legend of Tarzan

Lights Out

Suicide Squad

Sully

Storks

The Accountant

Collateral Beauty

Producer Rules Don't Apply

2017 Executive producer The Lego Batman Movie

Fist Fight

CHiPs

Going in Style

Unforgettable

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

Wonder Woman

The House

Annabelle: Creation

The Disaster Artist

Politics

Donations

Before joining the presidential campaign of Donald Trump in 2016, Mnuchin had been involved in politics only by donating money to campaigns.[59] Between 1995 and 2014, he donated over $120,000 to political organizations, PACs, politicians, and political parties. His contributions to candidates included 11 donations to Republicans and 36 donations to Democrats. The campaigns of Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Mitt Romney were among those to which he donated money.[60] Mnuchin later stated most of those donations were favors for friends.[32]

Between June and September 2016, Mnuchin donated over $400,000 to the Republican Party, including donations to Paul Ryan and Donald Trump. Earlier in 2016, Mnuchin had donated $4,000 to Democrats Kamala Harris and Michael Wildes.[60]

2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump

Mnuchin was an early supporter of Trump, and attended his victory party after the New York Republican primary victory on April 19, 2016, for which he received a last-minute invitation.[33] He was called the following day by Trump, who asked him if he wanted to be the national finance chairman of his campaign.[32] Mnuchin, who later said in an interview he had known Trump "for over fifteen years", accepted the offer.[7][32] In a statement announcing the appointment, Trump said: "Steven is a professional at the highest level, with an extensive and very successful financial background." He also said Mnuchin would bring "unprecedented experience and expertise" that would benefit the Republican Party. After being appointed as the Trump campaign's main fundraiser, Mnuchin said: "It's a great privilege to be working with Mr. Trump to create a world-class finance organization to support the campaign in the General Election."[61]

Mnuchin worked with Republican National Committee counterpart Lewis Eisenberg on a late-developing joint operation for the committee and the Trump campaign. Before Mnuchin's appointment, no large-scale fundraising operation had been started for the Trump campaign. The late-summer fundraising goal was close to $500 million.[32] The New York Times described Mnuchin's role during the campaign as "relatively behind the scenes", and the newspaper noticed he never "seemed to seek the spotlight".[7] During an interview, Mnuchin said that because of his connection to the Trump campaign, "a lot of people in California and New York [...] wanted to stop being friends".[62] After Trump won the election, he announced that Mnuchin would join the transition team on November 11.[63]

Political views

In a November 30, 2016, interview on CNBC, Mnuchin called it the Trump administration's job to "make sure that the average American has wage increases and good jobs". Furthermore, he said his priority was getting a sustained growth of GDP of 3% or 4%. He said in order to get there, "our number one priority is tax reform". Mnuchin said he would reduce corporate taxes to 15%, cut taxes for the middle class, and simplify the tax system. When asked about trade, he said he believed in trade deals with individual countries, as opposed to regional trade deals. Mnuchin said, "This president [...] is going to have open communication with business leaders", when asked about keeping jobs from being offshored to Mexico.[6] During the interview, he also said he wants to "strip back parts of Dodd–Frank" because he argued it was too complicated, and it prevented banks from lending. He called the stripping back of Dodd–Frank "the number-one priority on the regulatory side".[7] David Levinthal, a senior political reporter for Business Insider stated in a 2020 article at the Center for Public Integrity that Mnuchin lacks a definite political orientation and that he was sought by candidate Trump due to his financial connections and ability to raise campaign funds.[64]

Secretary of the Treasury (2017–2021)

Nomination and confirmation

Mnuchin being sworn in at the Oval Office

On November 30, 2016, Donald Trump announced on his website that he would nominate Mnuchin as United States Secretary of the Treasury.[15] In the statement, Trump called Mnuchin a "world-class financier, banker, and businessman", and he said Mnuchin played an important role in developing his "plan to build a dynamic, booming economy". Mnuchin himself said he was "honored to have the opportunity to serve our great country in this important role". He called Trump's economic agenda a "bold" one "that creates good-paying jobs and defends the American worker".[15]

On February 1, 2017, the Senate Finance Committee approved his nomination by a vote of 11–0 with all Democrats boycotting the vote, sending the nomination to the Senate floor.[65]

After the nomination was announced, Mnuchin resigned from his position on the board of trustees of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, to which he had donated between $100,000 and $250,000.[66][67] When the pick was announced, Mnuchin was also a member of the boards of UCLA Health System, the NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital, and the Los Angeles Police Foundation.[15]

The New York Times noted that Mnuchin's selection "fits uneasily with much of Mr. Trump's campaign attacks on the financial industry". For example, an ad of Trump's campaign said Goldman Sachs' CEO had "robbed [the] working class". Mnuchin is the third former Goldman-Sachs executive to serve in the job, after Hank Paulson, under President George W. Bush, and Robert Rubin, under President Bill Clinton, in the 2000s and 1990s, respectively.[33]

Mnuchin, Larry Kudlow and Sajid Javid at 11 Downing Street, 2019

During his Senate confirmation hearing on January 19, 2017, Mnuchin was criticized by Democrats for OneWest's foreclosure practices. Mnuchin said: "Since I was first nominated to serve as treasury secretary, I have been maligned as taking advantage of others' hardships in order to earn a buck. Nothing could be further from the truth".[68] During the hearing, it was also noted that Mnuchin had failed to disclose $95 million of real estate that he owned and his role as director of Dune Capital International, an investment fund in a tax haven. Mnuchin described the omissions as mistakes made amid a mountain of bureaucracy.[69]

Following Trump's January 2017 announcement about an investigation into voter registration, it was discovered that Mnuchin is registered to vote in both California and New York.[70]

On February 13, 2017, Mnuchin was confirmed as secretary of the treasury by a vote of 53–47. He received unanimous support from Senate Republicans but from only one Senate Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia.[71]

Tenure

Mnuchin's first official secretary portrait

A close-up of a United States twenty-dollar bill, featuring the signature of Mnuchin.

Artificial intelligence

Mnuchin, when asked in an interview with Mike Allen of Axios "whether he was worried about AI displacing jobs, replied: 'not at all ... I think we are so far away from that' — 50 or 100 years — 'it's not even on my radar screen'." Former treasury secretary Lawrence Summers was among critics of the statement, likening it to climate denial and creationism.[72] Fortune columnist Alan Murray, noting the dispute, said he thought "the core of the misunderstanding is the term 'artificial intelligence'". While he felt Mnuchin expressed understanding of the role of technology in the labor market and also worried that the secretary and President Donald Trump were both in their ways underestimating technology's impact, he thought the climate-denial charge was excessive.[73]

Environment

In January 2020, Mnuchin dismissed environmental activist Greta Thunberg, saying she should go to college and study economics before weighing in on policy.[74] Others responded to Mnuchin, noting that thousands of economists with PhDs had signed a letter calling for taxation of carbon dioxide emissions.[75]

Federal budget and benefits

On June 12, 2017, Mnuchin denied the debt ceiling not being raised before the August recess would cease federal government operations, and said Congress should weigh the option of "changing the timing so that the debt ceiling matches the budget process so we don't have to deal with this in this format" during a House appropriations subcommittee hearing.[76] On June 14, during a prepared testimony ahead of the House subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs, Mnuchin said the budget proposal on the part of the Trump administration "should send a message that the international financial institutions need to operate more efficiently".[77]

On July 13, in response to limited lifespans being reported of Social Security and Medicaid, Mnuchin said: "To help make these programs sustainable into the future, we should focus on strengthening the economy today. Compounding growth will help ease projected shortfalls."[78]

Turkey

On July 27, 2018, at the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting in Argentina, Berat Albayrak, one of the 'Most Successful Economy Ministers' in the field of economy in international politics, met with the President. Berat Albayrak and Steven Mnuchin after the bilateral meeting “We discussed in detail many important issues in the context of our economic cooperation and strategic partnership between our countries.”[79]

Taxes

Mnuchin is a member of the so-called "Big Six", a group of politicians convened to write a tax reform proposal that incorporated input from members of the House of Representatives, Senate, and White House. In addition to Mnuchin, the group consists of senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY); representatives Kevin Brady (R-TX) and Paul Ryan (R-WI); and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn.[80]

Shortly after the November 2016 election, Mnuchin, as the planned nominee for secretary of the treasury, stated in an interview with CNBC that "any reductions we have in upper-income taxes will be offset by less deductions so that there will be no absolute tax cut for the upper class",[81] which Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) subsequently called "The Mnuchin Rule" during his Senate confirmation hearing.[82]

Brad McMillan, chief investment officer for Commonwealth Financial Network, said a preliminary tax reform proposal by Trump in April 2017 "allocates much of the tax relief to the wealthy" and could increase the budget deficit.[82] In a May 2017 event moderated by CNBC, Mnuchin stated the intent was to deliver a "middle-income tax cut", but that final results depended on the actions of Congress.[83] Mnuchin appeared with White House Director of Legislative Affairs Marc Short in a July 2017 event when they vowed to have the tax reform proposal before Congress after it resumed operations on September 5, and Mnuchin added that "lowering the top [earners'] rate [would be offset by] elimination of huge deductions. So, for most people in the top rate, they're not going to get a tax cut."[84] Mnuchin walked back the "Mnuchin Rule" in a September 2017 interview with CNN prior to the release of the proposed tax reforms, saying the "no absolute tax cut for the upper class" phrase "was never a promise ... never a pledge ... it was what the president's objective was". Under the tax reform proposal, the top tax rate would decline from 39.6 to 35 percent, and the budget deficit would likely increase.[85]

Cabinet meeting in August 2018

During an appearance at the Milken Institute Global Conference on May 1, 2017, Mnuchin said the White House and House Republicans were united in views on tax reductions: "We're all on the same page. On 80% of the details, we're in agreement. Another 20%, we need to work through."[86]

During a conference in Ottawa on June 9, Mnuchin said government tax receipts were "coming in somewhat lower", but that this did not concern the administration.[87]

While appearing on ABC News on July 9, Mnuchin confirmed the administration was not considering a tax increase on the American upper class and the upcoming tax plan would finance itself.[88]

Mnuchin advocated for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, a bill expected to add $1.5 trillion to the deficit.[89] Mnuchin asserted that the bill would pay for itself by causing explosive economic growth; he promised the treasury was working on an analysis that showed that, and that the analysis would be made public before Congress voted on the legislation.[89] However, on November 30, 2017, sources within the Treasury department said Mnuchin had ordered no analysis of the tax plan and that there was no Treasury analysis that showed that the tax cuts would pay for themselves.[89] In December 2017, the treasury released a one-page report on the tax plan which acknowledged that the plan would not pay for itself through economic growth.[90][91]

In May 2018, Mnuchin instructed his staff to accept a non-low-income tract in Storey County, Nevada, as an Opportunity Zone shortly after attending a Milken Institute event in Beverly Hills with Michael Milken.[92] Milken was already an investor in the Nevada tract.[92] In August 2018, Mnuchin attended a Milkin Institute conference on "opportunity zones" in the Hamptons with Milken and later accepted a flight to Los Angeles with Milken on his private jet.[92] Treasury later issued a regulatory guidance that allows prior investors to benefit from newly designated "opportunity zones".[92]

International relations

Mnuchin led the U.S. delegation to Israel in May 2017 for the inauguration of the newly relocated U.S. embassy in Jerusalem.

Mnuchin, Secretary Pompeo Secretary Nielsen and Advisor Kushner with Mexican president-elect López Obrador, July 13, 2018

At a March 18, 2017, meeting of G-20 country finance ministers, Mnuchin supported the Trump administration's trade policy of economic protectionism.[93][94]

During an April 24, 2017, White House briefing, Mnuchin announced Department of Treasury sanctions against the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center. He said the sanctions were designed to create accountability for the Bashar al-Assad regime and its supporters in the wake of their violations both of U.N. Security Council resolutions and of the Chemical Weapons Convention.[95]

On June 29, 2017, Mnuchin announced that the U.S. had placed sanctions on the Bank of Dandong, a Chinese bank. He charged the bank with acting "as a gateway for North Korea to access the U.S. and international financial systems".[96]

Mnuchin and Saudi Arabian Director of PIF and Chairman of Saudi Aramco, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, discuss energy opportunities and investments in the United States, October 31, 2019

On March 15, 2018, Mnuchin unveiled a series of sanctions, first time under CAATSA as well as Executive Order 13694, against various Russian entities and individuals.[97][98]

Beginning in November 2019, Mnuchin facilitated negotiations between the governments of Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan with respect to the filling and operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam after tripartite negotiations between the three countries languished after eight years of talks.[99] Egypt has opposed the dam, fearing that it will reduce the amount of water it receives from the Nile. In February 2020, Mnuchin stated that "final testing and filling should not take place without an agreement."[100] Ethiopian Foreign Minister Gedu Andargachew said Mnuchin's advice to Ethiopia was "ill-advised".[101]

Support for President Trump

While briefing reporters on April 26, 2017, Mnuchin said President Trump "has no intention" to release his tax returns, asserting that Trump "has released plenty of information".[102]

In the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, opposing the removal of Confederate statues, protesters included neo-Nazis and Klansmen, leading to violent conflicts. President Trump said there was "blame on both sides". Several hundred of Mnuchin's Yale classmates drafted a letter urging him to resign from the administration in protest.[103] Mnuchin responded by saying: "While I find it hard to believe I should have to defend myself on this, or the president, I feel compelled to let you know that the president in no way, shape, or form, believes that neo-Nazi and other hate groups who endorse violence are equivalent to groups that demonstrate in peaceful and lawful ways."[11]

On September 24, Mnuchin appeared on This Week and State of the Union to defend Trump's call to "get that son of a bitch off the field right now", referring to the protests by professional athletes starting in 2016, most notably marked by Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the pregame singing of the national anthem. Mnuchin said: "... it's not about race, it's not about free speech. They can do free speech on their own time. ... [T]his is about respect for the military and first responders in the country."[104]

Comments on Lego Batman movie

In March 2017, Mnuchin drew ethics concerns as regarding a statement he had made urging parents to "send all your kids to LEGO Batman" during an interview with Axios, apparently endorsing The Lego Batman Movie, of which he was an executive producer. Earlier in the interview, Mnuchin acknowledged: "I'm not allowed to promote anything that I'm involved in."[105] In response, Mnuchin wrote in a letter to Walter Shaub at the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) that he "should not have made that statement", and assured the OGE that "it was not my intention to make a product endorsement".[106]

Divestment from prior businesses

In May 2017, it was reported that Mnuchin's fiancée, Louise Linton, had succeeded him as the interim CEO of Dune Entertainment effective February 2017. Mnuchin had stepped down from the role as part of his ethics agreement to divest his business roles in preparation for his appointment as Secretary of the Treasury.[107][108] Linton's announcement of her role at Dune Entertainment drew the attention of Senator Ron Wyden [D-Oregon], a member of the Senate Finance Committee, who questioned whether the appointment of Linton meant Mnuchin had fully divested from the company. Although the Department of the Treasury replied that she was serving in an uncompensated capacity, Linton resigned as interim CEO later in May.[109]

Use of government aircraft

Gulfstream Aerospace C-37A (Gulfstream V), photographed in 2005

Following criticism of his use of a United States Air Force jet on a trip to Kentucky that involved viewing the solar eclipse, the Treasury Department's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) opened up an inquiry into Mnuchin's use of government aircraft.[110] The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request regarding Mnuchin's use of government aircraft. After the government failed to respond to the FOIA request, CREW sued the Department of the Treasury to release the documents.[111] Mnuchin denied the trip was related to viewing the solar eclipse, saying: "People in Kentucky took [the solar eclipse] very seriously. Being a New Yorker, I don't have any interest in watching the eclipse."[112] Mnuchin, who was accompanied by his wife Louise Linton on the trip, reimbursed the government for Linton's travel to Kentucky, which amounted to $595 out of a total cost of $26,900.[113][114]

During the OIG's investigation into Mnuchin's use of government aircraft, it was revealed that Mnuchin had requested a military jet for his honeymoon travel to Europe in June 2017. Mnuchin stated that, as a member of the United States National Security Council, he needed access to secure communications during his honeymoon, but withdrew his request for the military jet after an alternative was identified.[115] Mnuchin stated: "I'm very sensitive to the use of government funds. I've never asked the government to pay for my personal travel ... The story [regarding the honeymoon travel request] was quite misreported."[112] The OIG investigation also showed Mnuchin had taken a United States Air Force C-37A, the military designation of the Gulfstream V, to return from New York to Washington on August 15 after flying to New York commercially. Although the request for travel on the military jet was initiated by Mnuchin's office, the aircraft had previously been used to fly Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao from Joint Base Andrews to Teterboro Airport. Mnuchin's return flight lasted less than an hour and had an operating cost of at least $25,000.[116]

The OIG released its report on October 4, 2017, concluding that there was "no violation of law in these requests and uses" of government aircraft by Mnuchin, but also expressing concern regarding "a disconnect between the standard of proof called for in the Daley memo and the actual amount of proof provided by Treasury and accepted by the White House in justifying these trip requests".[117] The referenced Daley Memo was issued by then-White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley on April 4, 2011, and it stated the standards for use of government aircraft by senior executive branch officials were given in OMB Circular A-126, dated February 10, 1993. The Daley Memo also states that travel using military aircraft must be considered a White House Support Mission, taken at the specific direction of the President under one of a set of limited circumstances that "make commercial transportation unacceptable".[117] The typical reimbursement paid by requesting federal executive agencies covers only the cost of an equivalent coach ticket on a commercial flight.[116]

In the report, the OIG reviewed nine travel requests by Mnuchin for military air transportation since March 2017, of which seven were approved and taken, one was withdrawn, and one was approved with travel pending in late October 2017.[117] The total cost of the seven trips taken was $811,800, calculated from per-hour cost and operating hours for the specific aircraft, or Air Force-provided direct costs of operations. Two of the flights, taken to Europe in March and May 2017, each cost more than $300,000. On one flight, to Ottawa in June, Mnuchin was accompanied by his then-fiancée Linton. The total cost of the Ottawa trip was $16,350, and the reimbursement repaid for Linton's cost of travel was $744.[114][118] Due to an inconsistency in the records provided for the trip to New York on August 15, the OIG opened a second inquiry in October 2017, "to assure that [the OIG] have in fact received all relevant records".[119]

Student heckling incident

Mnuchin spoke at the University of California, Los Angeles on February 26, 2018, where he was heckled and initially blocked the video from being released.[120] The university said in a statement that Mnuchin, who at first "subsequently withdrew" his approval for the video to be posted online, later gave consent for the video to be published.[121]

Effort to invoke the 25th amendment

Mnuchin was one of several cabinet officials who discussed invoking the 25th amendment to remove Donald Trump from office following the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, according to Politico.[122]

“I was aware of all these discussions,” Mnuchin said regarding the 25th Amendment, per Politico, citing a forthcoming book by Jonathan Karl. “It would not be an unreasonable assumption to think that people were calling me, okay, and talking about it, whether they were pushing it or not pushing it.”

Personal life

Mnuchin's mother was a long-time investor with Bernie Madoff. After his mother died in early 2005, Mnuchin and his brother liquidated her investments, making $3.2 million. A Madoff trustee sued to retrieve the money from the Mnuchins, but a court ruled that the Madoff trust could recoup money only from those who had cashed out less than two years before the December 2008 collapse of Madoff's company.[123]

Marriages

From 1992 to 1999, Mnuchin was married to Kathryn Leigh McCarver.[citation needed]

In 1999, Mnuchin married Heather deForest Crosby,[12][20] and they had three children together.[124] Heather Mnuchin was active in philanthropy and AZIAM yoga.[125][126] After he bought IndyMac, Mnuchin moved to a 21,000-square-foot (2,000 m2), $26.5 million house in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California, because the company's headquarters was in Pasadena.[8][124] They divorced in 2014.

Mnuchin married actress Louise Linton on June 24, 2017.[127] Vice President Mike Pence presided over the ceremony.[128] A 2017 photo of Mnuchin and Linton holding up the sheet of new $1 bills, as they toured the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, drew wide mockery on the Internet and became a meme.[129]

Non-profit work

Mnuchin served as a member of the development board of Yale University, as a board member of the Riverdale Country School, as a member of the national board and senior member of the non-profit youth organization Junior Achievement, to which he had donated money, and as a board member of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.[26][130]

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

John Sarris

2020-07-16 at 2:57 pm

Thanks to you both. According to you, my suspicion is correct. The 69th week ended when Jesus was anointed and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him. He preached for 3 1/2 years and was cut off in the middle of the week as Daniel clearly states. The Word continued to go forth to Israel for the next 3 1/2 years ending with the stoning of Stephen – enter the Great Tribulation, Jacob’s Trouble, which has now lasted for roughly 2000 years.

It does puzzle me as to why the vast majority of Bible students/teachers don’t see what seems to me to be so clearly evident. The points you both made are so obvious.

Thanks

The 490 years and Israel’s covenant ended at Stephen’s stoning.

https://revelationbyjesuschrist.com/stoning-of-stephen/ 

Cut-offs

Also called "cutoffs". A generic term for trousers where the legs have been cut off mid-way. The concept has been around since the 1930s when shorts began to be acceptable wear outside the sports field.[17] During the 1960s and 1970s the concept of deliberately cutting off the legs of jeans, allowing the raw edge to fray, along with other means of customising them, took hold as part of Western youth culture.[36] Whilst cut-offs can be home-made from existing jeans, ready-made cut-offs are also commercially retailed.[37] Extremely short denim cut-offs are known as "Daisy Dukes" (see below).[38]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorts#Cut-offs

Michael Stephen Manna (born October 9, 1971), better known by his ring name Stevie Richards, is an American retired professional wrestler and media personality. Since June 2024, Richards has hosted The Stevie Richards Show, presented by co-host James Romero on the WSI Network.[12][13][14]

Over the course of his career, Richards has performed for major professional wrestling promotions including Eastern/Extreme Championship Wrestling, World Championship Wrestling, World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling and Ring of Honor. Championships held by Richards include the ECW World Tag Team Championship, the WWE Hardcore Championship (21 times),[15] the NWA National Heavyweight Championship and the Extreme Rising World Championship.

Professional wrestling career

Early career (1992–1994)

Michael Manna trained as a professional wrestler under Jimmy Jannetty at Mike Sharpe's wrestling school in Brick Township, New Jersey. He wrestled his first match on February 25, 1992, for the Tri-State Wrestling Alliance as "Stevie Richards", facing Jannetty. He wrestled a handful of matches for Eastern Championship Wrestling before spending two years working on the independent circuit for seasoning.[10]

NWA Eastern / Extreme Championship Wrestling (1994–1997)

Raven's Nest (1994–1996)

See also: Raven's Nest

Richards returned to Eastern Championship Wrestling on June 26, 1994, as "Steve Richards" (later tweaked to "Stevie Richards") in a preliminary wrestling role. His first televised appearance was on the June 28, 1994, episode of NWA Eastern Championship Wrestling, teaming with Hack Meyers in a loss to Dory Funk Jr. and Terry Funk. Shortly after his return, Richards was given a valet, Angel. In addition to his in-ring role, Richards answered calls to the ECW hotline under the pseudonym "Lloyd Van Buren".[16]

At Heat Wave on July 16, 1994, Richards lost to Tommy Dreamer. In late-1994, he developed an "identity crisis", performing under the ring names "Stevie Flamingo", "Stevie the Body", and "Stevie Polo"—all references to former ring names used by Scott Levy in World Championship Wrestling and the World Wrestling Federation. After sustaining another loss to Dreamer, Richards became irate and claimed he would present "the real Johnny Polo". On the January 7, 1995, episode of ECW Hardcore TV, Levy—now known as "Raven"—made his ECW debut, with Richards as the first member of Raven's Nest, Raven's stable of lackeys. As a member of Raven's Nest, Richards began wearing jean shorts and half shirts for glam metal bands such as Cinderella, Nelson, Poison and Winger. His behavior attracted the scorn of commentator Joey Styles, who repeatedly described him as a "clueless putz" and referred to his attending the Blue Oyster Bar, a (fictional) gay bar.[17]

Immediately upon debuting in ECW, Raven began feuding with Dreamer.[18] On April 8, 1995, at Three Way Dance, Raven revealed that he and Dreamer had attended summer camp together as teenagers, where Raven slept with Beulah McGillicutty, an overweight girl with acne who had been spurned by Dreamer. Richards then revealed that he had tracked down McGillicutty, who was now a Penthouse model, who also harbored a grudge against Dreamer.[19] Later that night, Raven wrestled Dreamer for the first time, defeating him following interference from both Richards and McGillicutty. The feud between Raven and Dreamer would continue for another two years, with Dreamer constantly unable to pin Raven.[20][21]

In May 1995 at Enter the Sandman, Dreamer introduced Luna Vachon to ECW to counter the continual interference from Richards and Raven's Nest. On June 30, 1995, at Mountain Top Madness, Raven and Richards defeated The Public Enemy to win the ECW World Tag Team Championship.[22] At Hardcore Heaven on July 1, 1995, Raven and Richards defeated Dreamer and Vachon in a tag team match. Two weeks later at Heat Wave, Vachon defeated Richards in a cage match.[23]

In the summer of 1995, an unnamed woman began appearing in the audience during Richards' matches. On August 26, 1995, Richards introduced her to Joey Styles as his girlfriend, Francine.[24] Francine began accompanying to Richards to ringside, but tensions quickly arose between her and McGillicutty. On August 26, 1995, McGillicutty defeated Francine after Richards turned on her by super kicking her at the behest of Raven.[25] Francine subsequently aligned herself with The Pitbulls, helping them defeat Raven and Richards for the ECW World Tag Team Championship at Gangstas Paradise on September 16, 1995. Raven and Richards regained the titles from The Pitbulls on October 7, 1995 at South Philly Jam, only to lose them to The Public Enemy later that evening.[26]

At November to Remember on November 18, 1995, Richards introduced a lackey of his own, The Blue Meanie. Over the following year, Richards and The Blue Meanie would perform numerous parodies of other wrestlers, including "Baron von Stevie" and "Colonel DeMeanie"; "Lord Stevie" and "Sir Meanie"; "Stevie Alexander Bagwell" and "Meanie Riggs"; and "Flyboy Stevie Rock" and "Meanie Grunge". In late 1995, Richards received another lackey, Super Nova.[4][21][27]

During the opening of Holiday Hell on December 29, 1995, Richards received a kiss from Missy Hyatt, who was seated at ringside, after claiming he could get her "a date with Raven" in return. Later that evening, Richards and The Blue Meanie were squashed by Dreamer in consecutive matches. Dreamer went on to face Raven, who defeated him yet again after repeated interference from Richard and The Blue Meanie.[28] At House Party on January 5, 1996, Richards attempted to kiss McGillicutty, who refused, eventually announcing that she was pregnant. After Raven angrily confronted McGillicutty, she informed him that he was not the father, causing Raven to attack Richards. McGillicutty then revealed that Tommy Dreamer was the father, with Dreamer storming the ring and beating down Raven, Richards and The Blue Meanie.[29] On February 3, 1996, at Big Apple Blizzard Blast, Richards announced that he was suing Missy Hyatt—who had aligned herself with The Sandman—for sexual harassment (a reference to Hyatt's lawsuit against her former employer, World Championship Wrestling).[30] On June 1, 1996, at Fight the Power he served Hyatt by stuffing a summons into her cleavage.[31][32] The angle concluded at Natural Born Killaz on August 24, 1996, when Richards offered to drop the lawsuit if Hyatt would insult The Sandman. After Hyatt complied, The Sandman caned her, breaking their alliance.

In August 1996, Richards, The Blue Meanie, Super Nova and Don E. Allen parodied the rock band Kiss at The Doctor Is In as "Stevie Stanley", "Meanie Simmons", "Nova Frehley", and "Don E. Criss" respectively. At the same event, Richards substituted for Raven in his ECW World Heavyweight Championship title defense against The Sandman, with Raven entering the ring at the end of the match and pinning The Sandman.[21][25] Later that month, Richards took part in ECW's first tour of Japan, defeating Keizo Matsuda in a bout in Korakuen Hall as well as helping Raven defend his title against Tommy Dreamer.

The relationship between Raven and Richards began to deteriorate in late 1996. At Ultimate Jeopardy on October 5, 1996, Raven was scheduled to team with Brian Lee against Dreamer and The Sandman in a match with Raven's ECW World Heavyweight Championship on the line. After Raven was announced as being unable to compete, Richards substituted for him, with Raven losing his title after The Sandman pinned Richards. Upon his return, Raven blamed Richards for the loss.[33]

At "High Incident" on October 26, 1996, Richards was involved in one of ECW's most controversial angles, with Raven's Nest "crucifying" The Sandman by tying him to a cross and placing a crown made of barbed wire on his head. The angle, which was widely criticised as being in poor taste, led to Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle severing his links with ECW and delayed the promotion's debut on pay-per-view.[33][34][35][36]

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

Jerusalem Corpus Separatum 

...Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. (Luke 21:24) 

Corpus Separatum (Latin for "separated body") is a term used to describe the Jerusalem area in the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. According to the plan the city would be placed under international regime, conferring it a special status due to its shared religious importance. The Corpus Separatum was one of the main issues of the Lausanne Conference of 1949, besides the other borders between Israel and Palestine and the question of the right of return of the Palestinian refugees. The plan was adopted by the General Assembly with a two-thirds majority, although its implementation failed and the view that Jerusalem should be the capital of both Israel and Palestine internationally is widely supported now. (wikipedia)

Israel Resource Review, The Vatican's Jerusalem Agenda. Did Shimon Peres make a deal with the Vatican? 

Consider the evidence: 

On Sept. 10, '93, just three days before the signing of the Declaration of Principles in Washington, the Italian news magazine La Stampa reported that part of the peace deal was an unwritten understanding that the Vatican would receive political authority over the Old City of Jerusalem by the end of the millennium. The newspaper reported that Shimon Peres had promised the Pope to hand over the holy sites of Jerusalem the previous May and that Arafat had accepted the agreement. In March '94, the Israeli newsmagazine Shishi published an interview with Mark Halter, a French intellectual and close friend of Shimon Peres. He said he delivered a letter from Peres to the Pope the previous May, within which Peres offered the Vatican hegemony over the Old City of Jerusalem. The article detailed Peres's offer which essentially turned Jerusalem into an international city overseen by the Holy See. In March '95, the radio station Arutz Sheva announced that it had seen a cable sent by the Israeli Embassy in Rome to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem outlining the handover of the Old City of Jerusalem to the Vatican. Two days later Haaretz published the cable on its front page. The Foreign Ministry explained that the cable was genuine but someone had whited out the word "not." ie We will not transfer authority to the Vatican. Incredibly, numerous Bnei Brak rabbis who had canceled Passover meetings with Peres over the issue of the cable accepted the explanation and re-invited him to their homes. The Foreign Ministry's Legal Affairs Spokesperson, Esther Samilag, publicly complained about "various capitulations" to the Vatican. She was immediately transferred to a post at the Israeli Embassy in Katmandu, Nepal. MK Avraham Shapira announced in the Knesset that he had information that all Vatican property in Jerusalem was to become tax exempt and that large tracts of real estate on Mount Zion were given to the pope in perpetuity. Jerusalem's late Deputy Mayor Shmuel Meir announced that he had received "information that properties promised to the Vatican would be granted extra-territorial status." Beilin was forced to answer the accusations. He admitted, "Included in the Vatican Agreement is the issue of papal properties in Israel that will be resolved by a committee of experts that has already been formed." If so, this committee has not since released any proof of its existence. 

With all this in mind, how do we interpret the Vatican's current position on Jerusalem? 

The following report, circulated by MSANews may shed some light on that:

Vatican City, Jun 14, 1997 (VIS) - Archbishop Renato Martino, apostolic nuncio and Holy See permanent observer to the United Nations, spoke June 9 on the status of Jerusalem at the New York headquarters of the Path to Peace Foundation. The archbishop addressed members of this foundation as well as U.S. members of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. He began by briefly summarizing the "well-known and long-standing position of the Holy See with regard to Jerusalem. He stated that Jerusalem "for us, of course, along with the rest of the Holy Land, is that special link between heaven and earth, that place where God walked and ultimately died among men. And of course we recognize that others revere Jerusalem as the city of David and the prophets and the city known to Mohammed.... It is a spiritual treasure for all of humanity, and it is a city of two peoples, Arabs and Jews, and of the three monotheistic religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam." Archbishop Martino added that "in recent years it has been increasingly difficult to break through the political and media-imposed stranglehold on the question of Jerusalem." he recounted Jerusalem's recent history, recalling in particular the UN's General Assembly Resolution 181 of 1947 calling for Jerusalem to be considered a 'corpus separatum' under the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations," a resolution which Israel accepted. He pointed out that, in addressing the gridlock which has resulted from the 1967 Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, "the Holy See has therefore advocated the granting to Jerusalem of an 'internationally guaranteed special statute. That is the phrase used by Pope John Paul II in his 1984 Apostolic Letter 'Redemption is Anno'."

This statute "asks that regardless of how the problem of sovereignty is resolved and who is called to exercise it, there should be a supranational and international entity endowed with means adequate to insure the preservation of the special characteristics of the City, its Holy Places, the freedom to visit them, its religious and ethnic communities, a guarantee of their essential liberties, and its city plan'." The apostolic nuncio recalled the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Holy See and Israel in 1993, when both signed the 'Fundamental Agreement." He noted Article 4 of this agreement where "both the Holy See and Israel affirm their continuing commitment to the 'Status quo' in the Christian Holy Places." He also spoke of the problems sparked by Israel's recent authorization of "a project for the construction of settlements in occupied territory in East Jerusalem" for which "there was wide-spread international condemnation." This issue, he reminded those present, was brought before the UN Security Council on March 7 and March 21 of this year, but without resolution "because the sole country on the Security Council which opposed the Resolution was the United States." An Emergency Session of the General Assembly, "organized only nine other times in the history of the United Nations" was held on April 24-25. The Holy See delegation was contacted and asked for suggestions for a Resolution, Archbishop Martino said. And he recounted the meetings, rough drafts of proposals and negotiations which followed. The approved texts of the eventual Resolution, he underlined, contained "those points championed by the Holy See.... The General Assembly has here called for 'internationally guaranteed provisions' - the equivalent of the 'internationally guaranteed special status' called for by Pope John Paul II. This is particularly noteworthy because in this case, the Arab delegations all voted for this Resolution and therefore for this provision." "The Holy Places within Jerusalem," concluded Archbishop Martino, "are not merely museum relics to be opened and closed by the dominant political authority, no matter who that might be at any given moment. They are living shrines precious to the hearts and faith of believers." 

DELSS/STATUS JERUSALEM/UN:MARTINO VIS 970616 (640)

Could that supra-national entity which will oversee the international city of Jerusalem be the Vatican just as Peres promised? And how do we react to Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert's recent announcement that he will begin negotiations with the Vatican, but "only over holy sites?" 

(used by permission of the author, Barry Chamish,) 

----------------------------------------------------------------

Even after Israel pushed it's aggressor enemies beyond Jerusalem's boundaries in 1968, Israel remained compliant to the U.N. recommendation by allowing the Islamic Waqf to maintain control over the Temple Mount. I can think of no other reason why Israel did not move in and destroy the Dome of the Rock and other Islamic edifices to take possession of the Temple Mount other than “the times of the Gentiles” prophetically spoken of by Jesus has not yet been fulfilled. The Daniel chapter two Mystery Babylon Image still stands. For the most part the world refuses to recognize Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem even though the United States Congress in 1995 overwhelmingly passed the "Jerusalem Embassy Act" stating that "Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of Israel and the United States Embassy in Israel should be established in Jerusalem no later than May 31, 1999." The provocative nature of this issue continues to prevent the actual move to this day. The facts on the ground ultimately prove that even the United States denies Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem until this very day.

Jerusalem Old City Initiative 

The Jerusalem Old City Initiative, was bolstered by the implementation of the Oslo Peace Accord and is a fruit of the peace process and inter faith dialogue. The 2005 formation of The Council of the Religious Institutions of the Holy Land with Muslims, Jews, Catholics and Christians in its governing body has in their statement of faith the declaration of a one world type of religion which contends that all faiths lead to the same god. 

Statement of faith: 

As religious leaders of different faiths, who share the conviction in the one Creator, Lord of the Universe; we believe that the essence of religion is to worship G-d and respect the life and dignity of all human beings, regardless of religion, nationality and gender.

The Rapture Will Be Cancelled

by Nicklas Arthur

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hwvsMLXT7Z35KlbSdXw6x5EH0VLHPZsM/view?usp=sharing

Pope Stephen I (Greek: Στέφανος Α΄ Latin: Stephanus I) was the Bishop of Rome from 12 May 254 to his death on 2 August 257.[1] He was later canonized as a saint and some accounts say he was killed while celebrating Mass.

Early life

Stephen was born in Rome but had Greek ancestry. He served as archdeacon of Pope Lucius I, who appointed Stephen his successor.

Pontificate

Following the Decian persecution of 250–251, there was disagreement about how to treat those who had lapsed from the faith. Stephen was urged by Bishop Faustinus of Lyon to take action against Marcian, the Novatianist bishop of Arles, who denied penance and communion to the lapsed who repented. The controversy arose in the context of a broad pastoral problem. During the Decian persecution some Christians had purchased certificates attesting that they had made the requisite sacrifices to the Roman gods. Others had denied they were Christians while yet others had in fact taken part in pagan sacrifices. These people were called in Latin lapsi, the fallen. The question arose as to whether, if they later repented, they could be readmitted to communion with the church, and if so, under what conditions.[2]

Stephen held that converts who had been baptized by splinter groups did not need re-baptism, while Cyprian and certain bishops of the Roman province of Africa held rebaptism necessary for admission to the Eucharist. Stephen's view eventually won broad acceptance in the Latin Church.[1] He is also mentioned as having insisted on the restoration of the bishops of León and Astorga, who had been deposed for unfaithfulness during the persecution but afterwards had repented.[1]

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

Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author. Widely known for his horror novels, he has been crowned the "King of Horror".[2] He has also explored other genres, among them suspense, crime, science-fiction, fantasy and mystery.[3] Though known primarily for his novels, he has written approximately 200 short stories, most of which have been published in collections.[4]

His debut, Carrie (1974), established him in horror. Different Seasons (1982), a collection of four novellas, was his first major departure from the genre. Among the films adapted from King's fiction are Carrie (1976), The Shining (1980), The Dead Zone and Christine (both 1983), Stand by Me (1986), Misery (1990), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Dolores Claiborne (1995), The Green Mile (1999), The Mist (2007) and It (2017). He has published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman and has co-written works with other authors, notably his friend Peter Straub and sons Joe Hill and Owen King. He has also written nonfiction, notably Danse Macabre (1981) and On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000).

Among other awards, King has won the O. Henry Award for "The Man in the Black Suit" (1994) and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller for 11/22/63 (2011). He has also won honors for his overall contributions to literature, including the 2003 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters,[5][6] the 2007 Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America[7] and the 2014 National Medal of Arts.[8] Joyce Carol Oates called King "a brilliantly rooted, psychologically 'realistic' writer for whom the American scene has been a continuous source of inspiration, and American popular culture a vast cornucopia of possibilities."[9]

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

Jimmy Carter in 1980: ‘Moon looks like a golf course’ compared to Mount St. Helens

Dec 29, 2024, 2:46 PM | Updated: 2:47 pm

BY FELIKS BANEL

Local historian

After Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980, President Jimmy Carter declared all of Washington a federal disaster area and then paid a visit to see the devastation for himself.

Carter, who served just one term in office, died after a long illness on Dec. 29, 2024. He was 100 years old.

While the 39th Commander-in-Chief first entered hospice in 2023, it seemed like a good reason to look back to when Carter visited Washington and Oregon a few days after the 1980 eruption and a great excuse to listen to vintage audio clips from the somewhat unusual presidential visit to the Pacific Northwest.

Air Force One landed at the Air National Guard Base at Portland International Airport on the evening of Wednesday, May 21, 1980. The entourage traveled by motorcade to a briefing at the Gifford Pinchot National Forest headquarters in Vancouver, Washington, and then to the Marriott Hotel in Portland, Oregon, for the night.

The next morning, Carter, Washington Gov. Dixy Lee Ray, and other officials (and the news media) took off from the air base in a fleet of seven helicopters. For the next hour or so, they viewed mud and debris from the eruption clogging the Columbia River (near the mouth of the Cowlitz, which was also clogged) and blocking freight traffic in the busy corridor; flooding near Longview; homes in the Toutle Valley and other areas damaged by mudflows coming down the Toutle River; and the unimaginable devastation in the immediate vicinity of the volcano.

After the tour, the helicopters landed at Kelso Airport and then went by motorcade a few miles to Cascade Middle School in Longview (home since 1961, as everyone knows, to the mighty Cavaliers.)

School in the Longview/Kelso area had been canceled all week because of the eruption, but the gymnasium at Cascade had been converted into a Red Cross shelter for people who lost their homes or whose homes were now threatened. Carter met many of the 40 or so people staying at the shelter, listened to their stories, and offered words of support.

Longtime Sen. Warren Magnuson of Washington was also on the tour with Carter that day, and at one point, newspaper accounts say, he and Governor Ray tussled verbally over state versus federal funding required to aid in disaster recovery – Ray wanted federal dollars, Magnuson said the feds were broke.

This was 1980, after all, and the country was deep in an economic downturn, mired in the ongoing Iran hostage crisis, and on the brink of the United States’ boycott of the Summer Olympics in Moscow (in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan).

As it turned out, three of the highest-ranking elected officials who toured the volcano that day – Carter, Gov. Ray, and Sen. Magnuson – would lose their reelection bids later that year as the “Reagan landslide” radically changed Evergreen State politics (though Ray would lose earlier in the primary to Jim McDermott.)

But, those elections were still months away when, at the Kelso Airport, Carter made one of his most memorable comments about the devastation he’d witnessed from the helicopter.

“I’ve never seen or heard of anything like this before,” Carter told the gathered members of the media. “Somebody said it looked like a moonscape. The moon looks like a golf course compared to what’s out there.

“It is a horrible-looking sight.” Carter said.

More from Feliks Banel: How Seattle observed VE Day in 1945

Leaving Kelso, the entourage then headed back to Portland and the Marriott Hotel for a news conference. The president’s remarks made it very clear that what he had seen with his own eyes had made a deep impression.

“The absolute and total devastation of a region . . . encompasses about 150 (square) miles,” Carter said. “It’s the worst thing I have ever seen. It is literally indescribable, and it’s devastating.

“There is no way to prepare oneself for the sight that we beheld this morning,” the president continued. “I don’t know that … in recorded history in our nation, there has ever been a more formidable explosion.”

And even just four days after the deadly disaster which took the lives of 57 people, Carter was already looking ahead somewhat presciently, if sheepishly, to what would eventually become the reality of Mount St. Helens once the eruptive activity subsided.

“When safe places are fixed for tourists and others and scientists to come in and observe it,” the president said, “I would say there would be, if you’ll excuse the expression, a tourist attraction that would equal the Grand Canyon or something.”

“It’s an unbelievable sight,” he said.

Air Force One departed from Portland and headed back east. The jet touched down briefly in Spokane so the president could see the ash damage in Eastern Washington and meet with officials there before getting back on the plane and returning to Washington, D.C.

Editors’ note: This piece originally was published on May 18, 2023. It has been updated and republished since then.

Feliks Banel has served as KIRO Newsradio’s Resident Historian since 2015, and was originally hired by the radio station in 1991. Read more from Feliks here; subscribe to The Resident Historian Podcast here; and subscribe to Feliks’ Unsolved Histories podcast here. Feliks frequently posts about Northwest history on his Facebook page; follow him there for previews and updates. If you have a story idea or a question about Northwest history, please email Feliks.

https://mynorthwest.com/history/president-carter-moon-golf-course-compared-mt-st-helens/3888183

Updated Nov. 22, 2023

Why Ivana Trump Was Buried at Bedminster Golf Course: 3 Theories

Portrait of Margaret Hartmann

By Margaret Hartmann, senior editor for Intelligencer who has worked at New York since 2012

Ivana Trump, former president Donald Trump’s first wife, died on July 14, 2022 at the age of 73, owing to injuries she suffered in an accidental fall on the “grand curving staircase” at her Upper East Side townhouse. Her funeral drew about 400 people and featured a gold-hued coffin, Secret Service agents, and loving remembrances from her three adult children as well as several friends. Then this icon of ’80s glamour and New York tabloid drama was laid to rest … at a New Jersey golf course?

Many found the decision to bury Ivana at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster puzzling. She is the first person to be buried at the former president’s New Jersey property, and the ground had to be consecrated so she could have a traditional Catholic burial.

A New York Post photographer scoped out the site shortly after Ivana was laid to rest and found that while her grave isn’t literally on the golf course, the whole vibe is surprisingly understated:

Photos taken by The Post Thursday show Trump’s grave alone against a bucolic scenery of trees and shrubbery. The grave looks upon a sprawling green space upon the country club’s vast estate.

The plot where Ivana was buried has a bouquet of more than two dozen white flowers and a plaque that reads in all capital letters Ivana Trump with the dates she was born and died.

The grave is in a place where golfers would not see it as they tee off for a round of golf. The small section of the club is below the backside of the first tee.

A little over a year later, the mystery persists. Photographs published by The Daily Mail on August 12, 2023 show that Ivana’s grave is marked with a small headstone, which “has become overgrown with grass and is barely visible.”

So what exactly is going on here? I have a few theories.

Theory 1: Trump really loves northern New Jersey.

If Trump National Golf Club Bedminster held a special place in Ivana’s heart, there’s no record of it. Donald bought the property in 2002, a full decade after their divorce was finalized. While Ivana maintained a friendship with her ex-husband through her final days, and her daughter, Ivanka, was married at the club, it does not appear that Ivana ever publicly praised the property.

There is, however, ample evidence that Donald Trump thinks Bedminster is a phenomenal place to be laid to rest. “Wouldn’t you want to be buried here?” he mused to The Wall Street Journal in 2015. The idea has been on his mind for at least 15 years. Back in 2007, Trump filed paperwork to build a windowless wedding chapel at Bedminster that would later be converted into a mausoleum for himself and his family.

Drawings filed with the Somerset County township called for what NJ.com described as a “19-foot-high, classical-style stone structure” with “four imposing obelisks surrounding its exterior and a small altar and six vaults inside. Locals balked at the proposal, which they deemed gaudy, and Trump withdrew the plan. Five years later, he came back with a new idea: Instead of a mausoleum, he would be buried at a large cemetery with more than 1,000 graves. “The idea, apparently, was that Trump’s golf-club members would buy the other plots, seizing the chance at eternal membership,” the Washington Post reported.

Facing continued opposition to his ghoulish ambitions, Trump revised his plans once again. In 2014, the Trump Organization filed paperwork to build two graveyards at Bedminster. One would have 284 lots for sale to the public, while the other would consist of just ten plots for Trump and his family near the first tee. The company’s filing with the state said Trump “specifically chose this property for his final resting place as it is his favorite property.”

In an October 2023 interview, Eric Trump revealed it was his father’s idea to have his mother laid to rest at the “family funeral plot.” “He was the one to say, you know, ‘I want her with us,’” Eric said. “It was pretty amazing again, you know, kind of a wife long removed — ex-wife long removed. He’s an incredible man. He’s got a heart of gold.”

Theory 2: Trump is running an elaborate tax scheme.

Some remain skeptical that Trump actually considers this the most fabulous piece of property he owns:

The Trump National Golf Club Bedminster on July 31. Photo: Jared C. Tilton/LIV via Getty Images

The average person might say Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s seaside Florida resort, is more spectacular, but they’re not looking at Bedminister through the eyes of a person with an alleged passion for tax avoidance. This tweet from Brooke Harrington, a professor of sociology at Dartmouth, sparked speculation that Bedminster’s real appeal as a graveyard lies in New Jersey tax law.

As a tax researcher, I was skeptical of rumors Trump buried his ex-wife in that sad little plot of dirt on his Bedminster, NJ golf course just for tax breaks.

So I checked the NJ tax code & folks...it's a trifecta of tax avoidance. Property, income & sales tax, all eliminated. pic.twitter.com/VDZBlDyuhQ

— Brooke Harrington (@EBHarrington) July 31, 2022

Indeed, as Insider reported, there are some surprising perks to being the proprietor of a New Jersey graveyard:

Under New Jersey state tax code, any land that is dedicated to cemetery purposes is exempt from all taxes, rates, and assessments. Cemetery companies are also specifically exempt from paying any real estate taxes, rates, and assessments or personal property taxes on their lands, as well as business taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, and inheritance taxes.

And the Trump family has definitely been pursuing the tax advantages of cemetery ownership. A document published by ProPublica shows that the Trump Family Trust sought to designate a property in Hackettstown, New Jersey, about 20 miles from Bedminster, as a nonprofit cemetery company back in 2016.

But there is reason to question this too-Trumpy-to-be-true allegation. First, all this cemetery business is unnecessary because he has already found a way to drastically reduce his Bedminster tax burden. When the Post’s David Farenthold looked into Trump’s cemetery obsession in 2017, he concluded it wouldn’t be very profitable as a business venture or a tax-avoidance scheme:

… the savings would hardly be worth the trouble. That’s because Trump had already found a way to lower his taxes on that wooded, largely unused parcel. He had persuaded the township to declare it a farm, because some trees on the site are turned into mulch. Because of pro-farmer tax policies, Trump’s company pays just $16.31 per year in taxes on the parcel, which he bought for $461,000.

According to a 2019 HuffPost analysis, Trump slashed his Bedminster tax bill by about $88,000 a year by keeping eight goats and farming 113 acres of hay on the property.

Is is possible that the cemetery business is some kind of backup tax- avoidance scheme? I suppose, but it doesn’t make a ton of sense to this humble TurboTax user.

Theory 3: Trump is just keeping it weird.

“It’s always been my suspicion that there’s something we don’t know” about Trump’s cemetery plan, Bedminster land-use board member Nick Strakhov told Farenthold in 2017.

It does seem we’re missing a key piece of the boneyard puzzle. But there is one thing we know about Trump now that wasn’t quite as apparent back then: He is a super-weird guy. He has managed to be weird with various kinds of paper, toilet bowls, aircraft carriers, and “dangerous fruit,” to name just a few of his proclivities. The thought of our inevitable demise brings out strange feelings and behavior in most people. Some of the rich plan to freeze themselves or shoot their remains into space; is it any surprise that Trump has some grandiose idea about how he and his family should be laid to rest?

“It’s never something you like to think about, but it makes sense,” Trump told the New York Post during his first attempt to make Bedminster a cemetery in 2007. “This is such beautiful land, and Bedminster is one of the richest places in the country.”

Trumpy commentary on the wealth of northern New Jersey aside, that sounds astonishingly well adjusted.

This piece was updated to include Eric Trump’s comments on his mother’s gravesite.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ivana-trump-buried-bedminster-3-theories.html 

Trump two-gender edict will upend ‘X’ identity on passports

Tami Luhby

By Tami Luhby, CNN

 2 minute read 

Updated 12:35 AM EST, Tue January 21, 2025

CNN

 — 

The federal government will only recognize two sexes, male and female, under an executive order that President Donald Trump signed Monday.

The order reverses efforts by the Biden administration to broaden gender identity designations, including on passports.

“As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female,” Trump said during his inaugural address Monday, taking an early step to fulfill one of his culture war campaign promises.

Titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” the order says that “sexes that are not changeable, and they are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”

The federal government will also shift from using the term “gender” to “sex,” and that sex is “an individual’s immutable biological classification,” a Trump administration official told reporters Monday.

All government agencies will ensure that official documents, including passports, visas and Global Entry cards, “accurately reflect the holder’s sex,” the executive order says. Also, departments running federal prisons, migrant shelters, rape shelters and other “intimate spaces” will be directed to protect single-sex spaces for privacy. And employee records will also adhere to the executive order, as will federal departments’ messaging.

“Agencies are no longer going to promote gender ideology through communication forms and other messages,” the official said, adding that grants and contracts will be reviewed to ensure that “federal funds shall not be used to promote gender ideology.”

Reversing Biden expansion

Trump’s executive order will dismantle efforts by the Biden administration to be more inclusive of Americans’ gender identification.

As of 2022, US citizens have been able to select “X” as their gender marker on passports. One’s marker does not need to match the gender on citizenship documents or photo ID, nor is medical documentation needed to change one’s gender, according to the State Department.

“We promote the freedom, dignity, and equality of all people – including LGBTQI+ individuals,” the department’s website says. “We are demonstrating this commitment to better serve all U.S. citizens, regardless of gender identity.”

Later that year, Americans were able to start changing their sex identification with the Social Security Administration without needing to provide medical certification. However, Social Security’s record systems still require a designation of male or female, though the administration said it was exploring policy and systems updates to support an “X” designation.

“The Social Security Administration’s Equity Action Plan includes a commitment to decrease administrative burdens and ensure people who identify as gender diverse or transgender have options in the Social Security number card application process,” said Kilolo Kijakazi, the administration’s acting commissioner at the time.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/20/politics/two-genders-us-passports-federal-government-trump/index.html 

416 Finally, those means that are proposed by our holy father Saint Ignatius in Part X of the Constitutions for the preservation and development not only of the body or exterior of the Society but also of its spirit, and for the attainment of the objective it seeks, which is to aid souls to reach their ultimate and supernatural end, [10] are to be observed eagerly and diligently by all, with a truly personal sense of responsibility for its increase and development, for the praise and service of our God and Lord Jesus Christ, and the help of souls. [11]

L. D. S. "

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 

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

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

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

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

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

FREEMASONRY AND CATHOLICISM

by MAX HEINDEL

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

Pope John Paul II (Latin: Ioannes Paulus II; Italian: Giovanni Paolo II; Polish: Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła [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.

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

As May 18 dawned, Mount St. Helens's activity did not show any change from the pattern of the preceding month. The rates of bulge movement and sulfur dioxide emission, and ground temperature readings did not reveal any changes indicating a catastrophic eruption. USGS volcanologist David A. Johnston was on duty at an observation post around 6 mi (10 km) north of the volcano: as of 6:00 am, Johnston's measurements did not indicate any unusual activity.[9]

At 8:32 am, a magnitude-5.1 earthquake centered directly below the north slope triggered that part of the volcano to slide,[31] approximately 7–20 seconds after the shock,[9] followed a few seconds later by the main volcanic blast. The landslide, the largest subaerial landslide in recorded history, traveled at 110 to 155 mph (177 to 249 km/h) and moved across Spirit Lake's west arm. Part of it hit a 1,150 ft-high (350 m) ridge about 6 mi (10 km) north.[9] Some of the slide spilled over the ridge, but most of it moved 13 mi (21 km) down the North Fork Toutle River, filling its valley up to 600 feet (180 m) deep with avalanche debris.[31] An area of about 24 sq mi (62 km2) was covered, and the total volume of the deposit was about 0.7 cu mi (2.9 km3).[9]

Scientists were able to reconstruct the motion of the landslide from a series of rapid photographs by Gary Rosenquist, who was camping 11 mi (18 km) away from the blast 46°18′49″N 122°02′12″W.[9] Rosenquist, his party, and his photographs survived because the blast was deflected by local topography 1 mi (1.6 km) short of his location.[32]

Sound of the eruption of Mount St. Helens, as heard from 140 miles away

Duration: 44 seconds.0:44

Amateur recording of a series of booms produced by the eruption, as heard from the town of Newport, Oregon (audio filtered and amplified).

Problems playing this file? See media help.

Most of St. Helens's former north side became a rubble deposit 17 mi (27 km) long, averaging 150 ft (46 m) thick; the slide was thickest at 1 mi (1.6 km) below Spirit Lake and thinnest at its western margin.[9] The landslide temporarily displaced the waters of Spirit Lake to the ridge north of the lake, in a giant wave about 600 ft (180 m) high.[33] This, in turn, created a 295 ft (90 m) avalanche of debris consisting of the returning waters and thousands of uprooted trees and stumps. Some of these remained intact with roots, but most had been sheared off at the stump seconds earlier by the blast of superheated volcanic gas and ash that had immediately followed and overtaken the initial landslide. The debris was transported along with the water as it returned to its basin, raising the surface level of Spirit Lake by about 200 ft (61 m).[9]

Four decades after the eruption, floating log mats persist on Spirit Lake and nearby St. Helens Lake, changing position with the wind. The rest of the trees, especially those that were not completely detached from their roots, were turned upright by their own weight and became waterlogged, sinking into the muddy sediments at the bottom where they are in the process of becoming petrified in the anaerobic and mineral-rich waters. This provides insight into other sites with a similar fossil record.[34]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_eruption_of_Mount_St._Helens

Updated May 18, 2023 Defense Primer: Directed-Energy Weapons Both the 2022 National Defense Strategy and the House Armed Services Committee’s bipartisan Future of Defense Task Force Report have identified directed energy as a technology that could have a significant impact on U.S. national security in the years to come. As the Department of Defense (DOD) continues to invest in directed-energy (DE) weapons, Congress may consider implications for defense authorizations, appropriations, and oversight. Overview DOD defines DE weapons as those using concentrated electromagnetic energy, rather than kinetic energy, to “incapacitate, damage, disable, or destroy enemy equipment, facilities, and/or personnel.” DE weapons include high-energy lasers (HEL) and high-powered microwave (HPM) weapons; other DE weapons, such as particle beam weapons, are outside the scope of this In Focus. HELs might be used by ground forces in short-range air defense (SHORAD), counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS), or counter-rocket, artillery, and mortar (C-RAM) missions. The weapons might be used to “dazzle” (i.e., temporarily disable) or damage satellites and sensors. This could in turn interfere with intelligence-gathering operations; military cmmunications; and positioning, navigation, and timing systems used for weapons targeting. In addition, HELs could theoretically provide options for boost-phase missile intercept, given their speed-of-light travel time; however, experts disagree on the affordability, technological feasibility, and utility of this application. In general, HELs might offer lower costs per shot and— assuming access to a sufficient power supply—deeper magazines compared with traditional munitions. (Although a number of different types of HELs exist, many of the United States’ current programs are solid state lasers, which are fueled by electrical power. As a result, the cost per shot is equivalent to the cost of the electrical power required to fire the shot.) This could in turn produce a favorable costexchange ratio for the defender, whose marginal costs would be significantly lower than those of the aggressor.

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11882

https://www.facebook.com/billy.dunn.50767/posts/pfbid02QQKPJ8GadPDUKRL2nJhrpyZxr1TvbtT9JFzyyoZdfYPiXRDPuq8AbM513HXEkfhwl 

Published: 10 October 1996

Russian documents Set out 'tectonic weapon' research

Carl Levitin 

Moscow. The first official details have emerged in Moscow of ambitious research into 'tectonic warfare' carried out by the former Soviet Union and subsequently by the government of Russia, and involving atte mpts to stimulate 'artificial' earthquakes as weapons of destruction. According to documents obtained by the newspaper Moscow News, two research programmes, the first known as ' Mercury ' and the second as ' Volcano', were aimed at creating new earthquake epicentres by using underground nuclear explosions . Geophysicists are aware that impending earthquakes may be triggered by underground nuclear explosions . But Western geophysicists remain sceptical about tectonic warfare and have all but abandoned research after two unsuccessful phases of activity in the 1960s and 1980s, says Roger Clark, a lecturer in geophysics at the University of Leeds. Clark is not at all surprised that th e Russians tried to create earthquakes and control their location electromagnetically, however. "This sort of science is very much part of their heritage. We don't think it is impossible, or wrong , but past experience suggests it is very, very unlikely. "

The programme , which was secretly launched by the Communist rulers of the former Soviet Union in 1987, and has been unofficially known to Western geophysicists for several years, is now believed to have been abandoned. It would certainly contravene the terms of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which Russia signe d at the United Nations in Geneva last month . The Mercury project was launched in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, but came to a halt when the republic became independent. It was superseded by the Volcano project. Three underground nuclear tests are believed to have taken place at sites in Kyrgyzstan.

According to the documents, the Mercury project was launched by a secret decree of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union. The objective was to "develop a methodology for remote operation on an earthquake epicentre by using weak seismic fields and research possibilities of transferring the seismic energy of an explosion ".

The documents say that the Mercury project involved 22 scientific and industrial organizations, including the Geological Institute of the Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences in Baku. The remit extended to developing the electronic equipment to be installed aboard space satellites that would control the tectonic weapon. The scientists were given three years to complete research, with testing planned for 1990.

During the research phase, Azerbaijani scientists grew increasingly confident and, according to the documents, were sure that " after [a] nuclear explosion, subterranean energy may accumulate at huge distances from the epicentre and reach massive capacity, after which the next directed explosion can release it all ".

Underground testing began at the town of Batken in Kyrgyzstan, and was directed by lkram Ke rimov , of the Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences. The documents say that scientists detonated an underground nuclear charge and tried to control the direction of seismic energy release d using British-built equipment known as 'system 9690 ' .

A report prepared by the Mozhaisky Military Engineering Institute concluded that the test had been a success. But progress slowed considerably following Azerbaijan's independence from the Soviet Union. At about this time , Russia embarked on a more comprehensive tectonic warfare programme known as the Volcano project. The Earth Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) became the project headquarters .

Research was scheduled to be completed in 1992, with underground testing beginning the following year. The final test was carried out at a place code-named S36NZ-0Kh; Moscow News believes the letters 'NZ' refer to Novaya Zemlya, where Soviet nuclear testing began in the 1950s."

https://www.nature.com/articles/383471a0

Earthquake Promo [1991-01-26]

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

It's hard to see how the fishing industry will pick itself up again. Takeshi is moving away from the coast as is his neighbor and fellow fisherman. His wife has refused to return here since the tsunami hit. At the age of 77, he is unlikely to be able to start from scratch. But he picks up any remnants of his fishing gear he can find, just in case. What is left intact barely fills one small basket. His neighbor finds his clock. It has stopped at 3:22pm -- the exact moment his life changed and countless others ended." Misplaced trust: 30-foot tsunami wall didn't save Japanese village by Paul Hancocks

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/31/japan.tsunami.village/index.html

Skull and Bones, The Order, Order 322 or The Brotherhood of Death is an undergraduate senior secret student society at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut."

"There is a secret that binds the two men who would be the next leader of the free world. President George W Bush and Senator John Kerry both spent a portion of their youth laying bare their sex lives in Gothic rituals presided over by a human skull and the skeletal remains of various other animal species in a windowless building known as the Tomb. They also formed an unusual attachment to the number 322, which holds a special resonance for the club's members." Skeletons in the closet

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/may/20/usa.internationaleducationnews

"It is perhaps worth noting, in light of George W.'s controversial episode at Bob Jones University and the specter of anti-Catholicism, that at one point in the proceedings every initiate kisses the slippered toe of the "Pope." At last the initiate is formally dubbed a Knight of Eulogia. Amid more raucous ritual he is cast from the room into the waiting arms of the patriarchs."

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/05/george-w-knight-of-eulogia/304686/

A major landslide occurred 4 miles (6.4 km) east of Oso, Washington, United States, on March 22, 2014 (3/22/2014), at 10:37 a.m. local time. A portion of an unstable hill collapsed, sending mud and debris to the south across the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River, engulfing a rural neighborhood, and covering an area of approximately 1 square mile (2.6 km2). Forty-three people were killed and 49 homes and other structures destroyed."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Oso_mudslide

Operation Mockingbird is an alleged large-scale program of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that began in the early years of the Cold War and attempted to manipulate domestic American news media organizations for propaganda purposes. According to author Deborah Davis, Operation Mockingbird recruited leading American journalists into a propaganda network and influenced the operations of front groups. CIA support of front groups was exposed when an April 1967 Ramparts article reported that the National Student Association received funding from the CIA.[1] In 1975, Church Committee Congressional investigations revealed Agency connections with journalists and civic groups.

In 1973, a document referred to as the "Family Jewels"[2] was published by the CIA containing a reference to "Project Mockingbird", which was the name of an operation in 1963 which wiretapped two journalists who had published articles based on classified material.[3] The document does not contain references to "Operation Mockingbird".[4]

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

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was created under the National Security Act of 1947, which President Truman signed on July 26, 1947. The CIA officially came into existence on September 18th that same year, which is when we celebrate our birthday.

With the passage of the 1947 Act, Truman achieved his goals of modernizing and unifying America’s armed services, and, by creating a centralized intelligence agency, reformed our intelligence capabilities. To protect American’s civil liberties, he made sure to clearly divide intelligence roles between domestic and foreign: FBI would handle anything domestic, while CIA was limited to foreign intelligence only. Furthermore, the Act specified that CIA would have no police, subpoena, or law enforcement powers.

President Truman appointed Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter as the first CIA director, known as the Director of Central Intelligence. He had been the Director of one of our immediate “ancestors,” called the Central Intelligence Group. The CIG was a bureaucratic anomaly with no independent budget, no statutory mandate, and staffers assigned from other departments of the government. America needed a peacetime, centralized intelligence agency with its own budget and mandate. That’s why Truman replaced the CIG and created the CIA.

The 1947 Act loosely defined CIA’s mission into four broad tasks:

The 1947 Act was relatively unchanged until 2004. President Bush, after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, made major updates to the 1947 act, including the creation of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

If you’re interested, you can find out more about what is called “the National Security Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of December 2004” on the DNI’s website.

The importance of the 1947 National Security Act cannot be overstated. It created our Nation’s first peacetime intelligence agency, reflected America’s acceptance of its position as a world leader, and it remained a cornerstone of our national security policy for 75 years… and counting.

~ Molly

https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/ask-molly-the-national-security-act-of-1947/

Molly

fem. proper name, a diminutive of Moll, which is a familiar form of Mary.

molly (n.1)

a common 18c. colloquial term for "homosexual man" or "man who is deemed effeminate, a sissy," by 1707, perhaps 1690s. The fem. proper name Molly or Moll served as a type-name of a low-class girl or prostitute in old songs and ballads (perhaps in part for the sake of the easy rhymes).

But the colloquial word also resembles Latin mollis "soft," which also had been used classically in a specific pejorative sense in reference to men, "soft, effeminate, unmanly, weak," in Cicero, Livy, etc. A 1629 publication from the Catholic-Protestant theological disputes, "Truth's triumph ouer Trent," written in English with swerves into Latin, at one point describes the denizens of Hell as fideles fornicarios, adulteros, molles, and so forth, and molles is translated parenthetically in the text as "effeminate." Molly House as a term for a brothel frequented by gay men is attested in a court case from 1726.

also from 18c.

molly (n.2)

seabird, 1857, short for mollymawk, mallemuck, from Dutch mallemok, from mal "foolish" + mok "gull."

also from 1857

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

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"Fulcanelli’s main strategy, the key to unraveling the mystery, lies in an understanding of what he calls the “phonetic law” of the “spoken cabala,” or the “language of the birds.” This punning, multilingual wordplay can be used to reveal unusual and, according to Fulcanelli, meaningful associations between ideas. “What unsuspected marvels we should find, if we knew how to dissect words, to strip them of their bark and liberate the spirit, the divine light which is within,” Fulcanelli writes. He claims that in our day this is the natural language of the outsiders, the outlaws and heretics at the fringes of society. (See appendix A, “Fulcanelli on the Green Language,” for the complete text of this chapter.) 6 This spoken cabala was also the “green language” of the Freemasons (“All the Initiates expressed themselves in cant,” Fulcanelli reminds us) who built the art gothique of the cathedrals. “Gothic art is in fact the art got or art cot —χοτ—the art of light or of the spirit,” Fulcanelli informs us. Ultimately the “art got,” or the “art of light,” is derived from the language of the birds, which seems to be a sort of Ur-language taught by both Jesus and the ancients." The Mysteries of the Great Cross by Jay Weidner

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vrxcBcn4h7RRM2SA3X1SS1DsooSxfitI/view?usp=sharing

How to Speak Ignatian: Common words and phrases of the Society of Jesus

Adapted from “How to Speak Loyola,” a glossary developed by the Office of Mission &

Identity, Loyola University, Chicago.

Microsoft Word - How to Speak Ignatian.doc (jesuithighschool.org)

https://www.jesuithighschool.org/sites/main/files/file-attachments/how_to_speak_ignatian_0.pdf

IF WE LOOK AGAIN TO THE BOOK OF DANIEL, this time to chapter 8, verse 25, the prophet foretold that Anti-Christ would cause "craft" to prosper: "And through his policy also he shall cause 'craft" to prosper in his hand: and he shall magnify himself..." What is "kraft"? Strong's Concordance defines the word craft (#4820) as meaning "fraud, deceit, and treachery." Thus, Anti-Christ "through" craft, deceit and treachery (viz., deception) would advance  its position, influence and agenda.

But how do we know that this entity (referred to by Daniel) is indeed the dreaded Anti-Christ? We know this entity is Anti-Christ because it opposes and magnifies itself against Jesus Christ: "he shall magnify in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes" (latter part of Dan. 8: 25).

Earlier in verse 23 of Daniel 8 it says "he" shall also understand dark sentences." Strong's Concordance tells us that the word for dark is the same word for sentences (#2420). Both words mean "a puzzle," or "trick" saying. The expression "dark  sentences" comes from the root word meaning "to put forth (#2330)." Thus, Antichrist would put forth, or utter dark sentences-language not readily understood by the unintiated, which language will have a double meaning designed to trick or mislead the hearer. The "puzzle, or trick" in these "dark sentence" will be the issuing of double meaning in the same statements. In other words, reader, Anti-Christ would have a double rule-"one for its private and particular use, and another to flaunt with before the world."

The agents, or spokesmen of Anti-Christ will speak with mental reservation and amphibologies. That is to say, with double sensed or ambigous words, or to use the words of Constantine Labarum "justification of the means by the end, and many other maxims,

+I say agents of Anti-Christ, because no sensible individual could really believe that Anti-Christ is a single man, for Paul says Anti-Christ (its early manifestation) was already in existence in his day and would continue till the end of time.+

subversive of honesty and morality." In short, Anti-Christ would be a system of unscrupulous duplicity, of impostors, of wolves in sheep's clothing!

Have we any example in the long anals of history of such a duplicitous system using "craft" "deceit" "fraud" and "treachery" as it crept into power over the world? William Tyndale, the great English Reformer, in his Practice of Prelates, speaks of the rise of this phenomenon by the following graphic parable:-

"To see how the holy father came up, mark the ensample of the ivy. First it springeth up out of the earth, and then awhile CREEPETH ALONG BY THE GROUND, till it finds a great tree, and creepeth up a little and a little, fair, and softly. At the begininning, while it is yet thin and small, the burden is not perceived; it seemeth glorious to garnish the tree in the winter. BUT IT HOLDETH FAST WITHAL, AND CEASETH NOT TO CLIMB UP TILL IT BE AT THE TOP, AND EVEN ABOVE ALL. And then it sendeth its branches along by the branches of the tree, and overgroweth all, and waxeth great, heavy, and thich : and sucketh the moisture so sore out of the tree and his branches that choaketh and stifleth them. And then THE FOUL, STINKING IVY waxeth MIGHTY in the stump of the tree, and becometh a seat and a nest for all unclean birds, and for blind owls, which hawk in the dark, and dare not come to the light. EVEN SO THE BISHOP OF ROME, NOW CALLED THE POPE, AT THE BEGINNING CROPE ALONG UPON THE EARTH...."

How accurate is William Tyndale's description of the rise of the pope and the popedome as predicted by prophet Daniel: "in the latter time... a king.. understanding dark sentences, shall stan up... and shall he cause craft to prosper" "and shall prosper, practice, and shall destroy..." (Dan. 8:23,24,25).

Yeah, with what clearness and boldness, and considerable amount of historical learning, does Tyndale trace the way by which the supremacy of the pope arose. It has been said of this passage by one learned author that there is "probably nowhere in the English language any passage superior in force and graphic skill o the well-known description of the rise of the Pope." And we may add here that like the stinking ivy-which plant is almost impossible to entirely kill-it is also very difficult to rid our world of popery: this requires a lot of hard work, courage and persistence, and still the dead stump may yet shoot up again.

Said historian Henry Grattan Guinness, "In the fourth century, with the the fall of paganism, began a worldly, imperial Christianity, wholly unlike primitive apostolic Christianity, a sort of Christianized  heathenism: and in the fifth and sixth centuries sprang up the Papacy, in those career the apostasy culminated later on. The mighty Caesars had fallen; Augustus, Domitian, Hadrian, Diocletian were gone; even the Constantines and Julians had passed away. The seat of sovereignty had been removed from Rome to Constantinople. Goths and Vandals' had overthrown the western empire; the once mighty political structure lay delivered into broken fragments. The imperial government was slain by the Gothic sword. The Czesars were no more, and Rome was an actual desolation Then slowly on the ruins of old imperial Rome an actual desolation. Then slowly on the ruins of an old imperial Rome rose another power and another monarchy-a monarchy of loftier aspirations and more resistless might, claiming dominion, not only within the omits of the fallen empire, but throughout the entire world. Higher and higher [like the stinking ivy] rose the Papacy, till in the dark ages all Christendom was subject to its sway...."

The 'craft' of Rome, both in medieval times and today, is the art of fabrication and daring falsehoods: "Like the successive strata of the earth covering one another, SO LAYER AFTER LAYER OF FORGERIES AND FABRICATIONS HAS BEEN PILED UP IN THE CHURCH |OF ROME|," bolstered by a Jesuitical "literaryand academic flexibility and elastic versatality of pen hitherto confined to journalism." "Anti-Christ Would Use "Craft" And Deceit To Prosper" Codeword Barbelon book Two by P.D. Stuart

Billy Dunn - "Anti-Christ Would Use "Craft" And Deceit To Prosper"... | Facebook

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Harry R. Truman (October 1896 – May 18, 1980) was an American businessman, bootlegger, and prospector. He lived near Mount St. Helens, an active volcano in the state of Washington, and was the owner and caretaker of Mount St. Helens Lodge at Spirit Lake near the base of the mountain. Truman came to fame as a folk hero in the weeks leading up to the volcano's 1980 eruption after refusing to leave his home despite evacuation orders. He was killed by a pyroclastic flow that overtook his lodge and buried the site under 150 ft (46 m) of volcanic debris.

After Truman's death, his family and friends reflected on his love for the mountain. In 1981, Art Carney portrayed Truman in the docudrama film St. Helens. He was commemorated in a book by his niece, and also in various pieces of music, including songs by Headgear, Billy Jonas, and Shawn Wright and the Brothers Band.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_R._Truman

Newly added to Digital Collections: Harry S. Truman Letters

July 14, 2020

Did you know that President Harry S. Truman (1884-1972) was in correspondence with Melvin Maynard Johnson (1871-1957), the head of the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction's Supreme Council during the 1940s and 1950s? A number of recently digitized letters, written from Truman to Johnson on White House stationery are available through the Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives Digital Collections website. They reveal a friendly relationship, with President Truman beginning his letters to Johnson by addressing him "Dear Mel."

Truman became a Freemason in 1909. By 1940, he was elected Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Missouri. In 1945, Truman was created a 33rd degree Sovereign Grand Inspector General in the Scottish Rite's Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction. That same year, the Supreme Council, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, awarded Truman its first Gourgas Medal, the Supreme Council's highest honor.

The letters in this collection include both those from Harry Truman as well as one written by his wife, Bess Truman (1885-1982). The majority of the correspondence in this collection consists of letters written by President Harry S. Truman to his friend and fellow Freemason, Melvin Maynard Johnson (1871-1957). Johnson served as the Supreme Council, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction's Sovereign Grand Commander from 1933 to 1953.

For more about the friendship between Truman and Johnson, have a look at one of our earlier blog posts, A Mason Answers His Country's Call and Receives the Scottish Rite's Highest Award.

There are now over 750 items in the Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives Digital Collections website. Be sure to visit and check them all out!

Caption:

Letter from President Harry S. Truman to Melvin M. Johnson, 1948 August 3. Collection of Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, Lexington, Massachusetts. SC069.

https://nationalheritagemuseum.typepad.com/library_and_archives/harry-s-truman/

Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the U.S. and 33rd degree Freemason, in full occult regalia, in an official lodge portrait. Truman ordered the atomic incineration of two Japanese cities, killing at least 150,000 people, mostly women and children. Roosevelt's chief of staff, Admiral Leahy, admitted to Walter Trohan of the Chicago Tribune, that Japan was ready to surrender conditionally without an invasion by U.S. ground forces. It was Truman's insistence upon "unconditional surrender" that set the stage for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare

by Michael A. Hoffman II

Then she that is mine enemy shall see it, and shame shall cover her which said unto me, Where is the LORD thy God? mine eyes shall behold her: now shall she be trodden down as the mire of the streets.

Michah 7:10

Santa Maria della Strada

Q: Is there a Jesuit Madonna of the Street? Who is she?

A: Roberto Ferruzzi's The Madonna of the Streets is not the only prominent Madonna of the Streets. The Jesuits also have a famous MADonna of the Streets displayed in the Gesu Church in Rome under the title Santa Maria della Strada, or Our Lady of the Street (or Way).

Going back to the fifth century, 425 A.D., the Astalli family erected a shrine to the Virgin Mary in district seven of the ancient city of Rome. The Madonna of this shrine was sometimes called the Madonna degli Astalli, or the Madonna of the Astalli family, which later became known as the Jesuits' Madonna della Strada.1

After establishing the Society of Jesus in 1540, Paul III gave the first Church to St. Ignatius and his companions in February, 1541,2 after the former pastor and owner, Peter Codacio, became a Jesuit.3 The name of the church was Santa Maria Della Strada.

In 1568, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese erected the Gesu Church of Rome, the mother church of the Jesuits, in place of the church of Santa Maria della Strada in which the icon, Madonna della Strada, was displayed. The tradition was to commemorate shrines and churches that already existed on the land set aside for the new church by building chapels dedicated to those displaced within newer and larger churches.4

Thus, the chapel of the Madonna della Strada came into existence as the home of the icon of the same name. The presence of the icon of the Mother and Child offers two points of immediate interest regarding the meaning of the icon in the context of this major Jesuit Church.

The icon is strategically located between two altars, the first dedicated to St. Ignatius, the second, the main altar of the Church, dedicated to the Holy Name of Jesus. The Church itself is dedicated overall to "God, the Virgin, and Jesus."5 This location of the MADonna chapel illustrates the characteristically intercessory role of Mary; first in the architecture of the Gesu Church, secondly, in the iconographic scheme of the same church,6 which is based upon the Triple Colloquy of Spirituality of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, the heart and foundation of Ignatian spirituality.

The icon of the Madonna della Strada is also the main altarpiece in the Madonna chapel.7 Other paintings include scenes from the life of Mary in the Protoevangelium of James, from the Songs of Songs, and Isaiah of the Hebrew Bible, and from the infancy narratives of the Christian Testament.8

– Father Louis A. Bonacci, S.J. "

Santa Maria della Strada : University of Dayton, Ohio (udayton.edu)

https://udayton.edu/imri/mary/s/santa-maria-della-strada.php

Micah 7:10

Then [she that is] mine enemy shall see [it]

The Chaldeans and Edomites shall see people of the Jews rising out of their calamities, brought out of the darkness of their captivity in Babylon, and enjoying the light of peace and prosperity in their own land. Some editions of the Targum, and Jarchi and Kimchi, have, in their glosses on this verse and ( Micah 7:9 ) , Rome, of whom they interpret this enemy, as Mr. Pocock observes; and so R. Elias F4 says the Targum is, "then shall Rome see"; by which they mean the Christians, in opposition to the Jews; otherwise it would not be amiss to interpret it of Rome Papal, or antichrist, in opposition to the church of God; seeing the antichristian party will see witnesses of Christ, slain for his sake, rise again, and ascend to heaven, or be brought into a glorious and comfortable state; see ( Revelation 11:12 ) ; and may be applied to any age of the church, and to any particular saints raised out of a state of darkness and affliction into a prosperous one, in the sight of their enemies, and in spite of them, to their great mortification; see ( Psalms 23:4-6 ) ; and shame shall cover her which said unto me, where is the Lord thy

God?

as the Heathens; the Chaldeans, did to the Jews, ( Psalms 115:2 ) ; and which must be very cutting to them, as it was to David, ( Psalms 42:10 ) ; when they flouting and jeering said, where is thy God thou boastedst of, and didst put thy trust and confidence in, that he would deliver and save thee? what is become of him, and of thy confidence in him? The Targum is, "where art thou that art redeemed by the Word of the Lord thy God?" but when they shall see that the Lord God has returned unto them, and wrought salvation for them, they will be ashamed of their flouts and jeers; and by reason of their sad disappointment, add the change of things for the worse to them, who now will be brought into calamity and distress themselves: mine eyes shall behold her;

the enemy: their fall, as the Targum; being in a most despicable and ruinous condition, under the vengeance of the Almighty; and that with pleasure and satisfaction, not from a private spirit of revenge, but because of the glory of divine justice, which will be displayed in their righteous destruction; see ( Psalms 58:10 ) ; now shall she be trodden down as the mire of the streets;

that is, entirely conquered, and utterly destroyed; reduced to, the utmost meanness, and had in the greatest contempt: this was fulfilled when Babylon was taken by the Medea and Persians; and when the Edomites were conquered and brought into subjection to the Jews by the Maccabees; and will be the case of all the enemies of Christ and his church, of all the antichristian states, one day.

FOOTNOTES:

F4 In Tishbi, p. 227.

https://www.biblestudytools.com/micah/7-10.html

The Meyer Family :15 | Ancestry®

Ancestry

About Ancestry: Start your family history journey today with Ancestry®. With our massive collection of historical records, access to family trees, and DNA technology, we’re here to help you discover your personal history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1FTlu2x1GY

What is the relevance of the genealogies in the Bible?

Answer

The Bible contains multiple genealogical records. Many of us either skim these sections or skip them altogether, finding them largely irrelevant and perhaps even boring. However, they are part of Scripture, and, since all Scripture is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16), they must bear some significance. There must be something we can learn from these lists.

First, the genealogies help substantiate the Bible’s historical accuracy. These lists confirm the physical existence of the characters in the Bible. By knowing family histories, we understand that the Bible is far from a mere story or a parable for how we should live our lives. It is authentic, historical truth. An actual man named Adam had actual descendants (and, therefore, his actual sin has actual consequences).

The genealogies also confirm prophecy. The Messiah was prophesied to come from the line of David (Isaiah 11:1). By recording His lineage in Scripture, God confirms that Jesus was descended from David (see Matthew 1:1-17 and Luke 3:23-38). The genealogy is yet another attestation of Jesus Christ’s fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies.

The lists also demonstrate the detail-oriented nature of God and His interest in individuals. God did not see Israel vaguely, as a nebulous group of people; He saw with specificity, with precision and detail. There is nothing detached about the genealogies. They show a God involved. The inspired Word mentions people by name. Real people, with real histories and real futures. God cares about each person and the details of his or her life (Matthew 10:27-31; Psalm 139).

Finally, we can learn from various people listed in the genealogies. Some of the lists contain narrative portions that give us glimpses into the lives of the people. For instance, the prayer of Jabez is found within a genealogy (1 Chronicles 4:9-10). From this, we learn about God’s character and the nature of prayer. Other genealogies reveal that Ruth and Rahab are in the Messianic line (Ruth 4:21-22; Matthew 1:5). We see that God values the lives of these individuals, even though they were Gentiles and not part of His covenant people.

While genealogies may at first glance appear irrelevant, they hold an important place in Scripture. Genealogies bolster the historicity of Scripture, confirm prophecy, and provide insight into the character of God and the lives of His people.

https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-genealogies.html

Matthew 1

1599 Geneva Bible

The Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ, According to Matthew

1 1 That Jesus is that Messiah, the Savior promised to the Fathers. 18 The nativity of Christ.

1 The [a][b]book of the [c]generation of Jesus Christ the son of David, the [d]son of Abraham.

2 Abraham begat Isaac. And Isaac begat Jacob. And Jacob begat Judah and his brethren.

3 And Judah begat Perez, and Zerah of Tamar. And Perez begat Hezron. And Hezron begat Ram.

4 And Ram begat Amminadab. And Amminadab begat Nahshon. And Nahshon begat Salmon.

5 And Salmon begat Boaz of Rahab. And Boaz begat Obed of Ruth. And Obed begat Jesse.

6 And Jesse begat David the King. And David the King begat Solomon of her that was the wife of Uriah.

7 And Solomon begat Rehoboam. And Rehoboam begat Abijah. And Abijah begat Asa.

8 And Asa begat Jehoshaphat. And Jehoshaphat begat Joram. And Joram begat Uzziah.

9 And Uzziah begat Jotham. And Jotham begat Ahaz. And Ahaz begat Hezekiah.

10 And Hezekiah begat Manasseh. And Manasseh begat Amon. And Amon begat Josiah.

11 And Josiah begat Jakim. And Jakim [e]begat Jeconiah and his brethren about the time they were carried away to Babylon.

12 And after they were carried away into Babylon, Jeconiah begat Shealtiel. And Shealtiel be-gat Zerubbabel.

13 And Zerubbabel begat Abiud. And Abiud begat Eliakim. And Eliakim begat Azor.

14 And Azor begat Zadok. And Zadok begat Achim. And Achim begat Eliud.

15 And Eliud begat Eleazar. And Eleazar begat Matthan. And Matthan begat Jacob.

16 And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, that is called Christ.

17 So [f]all the generations from Abraham to David, are fourteen generations. And from David until they were carried away into Babylon, fourteen generations: and after they were carried away into Babylon until Christ, fourteen generations.

18 ¶ Now the birth of [g]Jesus Christ was thus, When as his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the holy Ghost.

19 Then Joseph her husband being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly.

20 But while he thought these things, behold, the Angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, the son of David, fear not to [h]take Mary thy [i]wife: for that which is [j]conceived in her, is of the holy Ghost.

21 And she shall bring [k]forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall [l]save his people from their sins.

22 And all this was done that it might be fulfilled, which is spoken of the Lord by the Prophet, saying,

23 Behold, a [m]virgin shall be with child, and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is by interpretation, God with us.

24 ¶ Then Joseph being raised from sleep, did as the Angel of the Lord had enjoined him, and took his wife.

25 But he knew her not, [n]till she had brought forth her first born son, and he called his name JESUS.

Footnotes

Matthew 1:1 Jesus Christ came of Abraham of the tribe of Judah, and of the stock of David as God promised.

Matthew 1:1 Rehearsal: As the Hebrews used to speak: as Gen. 5:1, The book of the generations.

Matthew 1:1 Of the ancestors of whom Christ came.

Matthew 1:1 Which Christ is also the son of Abraham.

Matthew 1:11 That is, the captivity fell in the days of Jakim and Jeconiah: for Jeconiah was born before their carrying away into captivity.

Matthew 1:17 All those which are reckoned up in this pedigree of David’s stock, as they begat one another orderly in their degrees.

Matthew 1:18 Christ is the true Emmanuel, and therefore, Jesus (that is, Savior) is conceived in the Virgin by the holy Ghost, as it was foretold by the Prophets.

Matthew 1:20 Receive her at her parents’ and kinsfolk’s hands.

Matthew 1:20 Which was promised, and made sure to thee to be thy wife.

Matthew 1:20 Of the mother’s substance by the holy Ghost.

Matthew 1:21 Christ is born of the same Virgin which never knew man: and is called Jesus of God himself, by the Angel.

Matthew 1:21 Deliver, and this showeth us the meaning of this name Jesus.

Matthew 1:23 There is in the Hebrew and Greek text, an article added, to point out the woman, and set her forth plainly: as you would say, that Virgin, or a certain virgin.

Matthew 1:25 This little word Till, in the Hebrew tongue, giveth us to understand also, that a thing shall not come to pass in time to come: as Michal had no children Till her death day, 2 Sam. 6:23. And in the last Chapter of this Evangelist: Behold, I am with you till the end of the world.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew%201&version=GNV