A Contender for the Papacy in the Mold of Francis
A Contender for the Papacy in the Mold of Francis
Cardinal Luis Tagle of the Philippines is known as the “Asian Francis.” But he has been criticized for not being vocal enough about his country’s brutal drug war and clerical sex abuse.
April 29, 2025
Updated 12:27 a.m. ET
Cardinal Luis Tagle of the Philippines is on many unofficial short lists of “papabile” cardinals, or those with a good shot at succeeding the ailing Pope Francis.Credit...Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters
By Sui-Lee Wee and Aie Balagtas See
Sui-Lee Wee reported from Bangkok and Aie Balagtas See from Manila
He never aspired to be a priest. After he rose to be a bishop, he implied that he suffered from impostor syndrome. And when Cardinal Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle of the Philippines is asked if he could become the first Asian pope — a frequent question in recent years — he says it is impossible.
“Thinking of myself in that position, no, no, I laugh at it,” Cardinal Tagle told the BBC in 2015. “I cannot even manage my life. How can I manage a worldwide community?”
By then he had already been talked about as a potential replacement for Pope Benedict XVI. Now 67, Cardinal Tagle (pronounced TAG-leh) is once again on many unofficial short lists of “papabile” cardinals, or those with a good shot at succeeding Pope Francis. The most prominent candidate from Asia, his election would be an emphatic marker of the Roman Catholic Church’s shift away from Europe to Africa and Asia, where it continues to grow.
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Sui-Lee Wee is the Southeast Asia bureau chief for The Times, overseeing coverage of 11 countries in the region.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/29/world/asia/luis-tagle-asian-pope.html
Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle (/ˈtɑːɡleɪ/ TAH-glay; [lʊˈwis ɐnˈtonɪo ˈtaɡlɛ]; born June 21, 1957) is a Filipino prelate of the Catholic Church currently serving as the Pro-Prefect for the Section of First Evangelization of the Dicastery for Evangelization (formerly the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples) since June 5, 2022,[2] and as the President of Interdicasterial Commission for Consecrated Religious since December 8, 2019. He was the 32nd Archbishop of Manila from 2011 to 2020. Tagle is the Cardinal-Bishop of San Felice da Cantalice a Centocelle (pro hac vice) and also serves as the President of the Catholic Biblical Federation, Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical Urbaniana University, and as a member of various departments and dicasteries in the Roman Curia.
Tagle, who generally prefers to be called by his nickname "Chito" rather than by his clerical title,[3] has been involved in many social issues in the Philippines, with emphasis on helping the poor while defending the Catholic Church's opposition to abortion,[4] contraception,[5] and what he has called "practical atheism".[6] Dubbed the "Asian Francis",[3][7] he is often seen as a representative of the Catholic Church's progressive wing.[8][9][10] Tagle has criticized the Catholic Church for using "harsh words" to describe LGBTQ people as well as divorced and remarried Catholics,[11] who he believes should be allowed to receive Holy Communion on a case-by-case basis.[12] Since Francis's death, Tagle has been highlighted as a possible candidate for election as pope.[13][14]
Early life and studies
Tagle was born on June 21, 1957,[15] in Manila[16][17], the eldest child of devout Catholic parents, Manuel Topacio Tagle, an ethnic Tagalog and his Chinese Filipino wife, Milagros Gokim, who previously worked for Equitable PCI Bank.
Tagle's paternal grandfather, Florencio, came from Imus, Cavite; the Tagle family were from the Spanish, lowland Christian aristocracy known as the Principalía, which were the elite prior to the 1896 Philippine Revolution.[18] Florencio was injured by a bomb explosion during the Second World War; Tagle's grandmother made a living by running a local diner.
After completing elementary and high school at Saint Andrew's School in Parañaque, Rizal in 1973, he was influenced by priest friends to enter the Jesuit San José Seminary, which sent him to the Jesuit Ateneo de Manila University.
Tagle earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in pre-divinity from the Ateneo in 1977 and then a Master of Arts in theology at the same University's Loyola School of Theology.[19] Tagle earned his Doctorate in Sacred Theology at the Catholic University of America from 1987 to 1991. He wrote his dissertation under the direction of Joseph A. Komonchak on "Episcopal Collegiality in the Teaching and Practice of Paul VI".[20] Tagle also attended doctrinal courses at the Institute of Pope Paul VI University.[21] In Komonchak's estimation, Tagle was "one of the best students I had in over 40 years of teaching" and "could have become the best theologian in the Philippines, or even in all of Asia" had he not been appointed bishop.[22] Tagle has received honorary degrees from Catholic Theological Union[23] and La Salle University.[24] Tagle is a native Tagalog speaker and is fluent in English and Italian. He is also proficient in reading Spanish, French, Korean and Latin.
Early priesthood
Tagle was ordained in the Diocese of Imus on February 27, 1982. After ordination, he held the following positions: associate pastor of San Agustín Parish – Méndez-Núñez, Cavite (1982–1984), spiritual director (1982–1983) and later rector (1983–1985) of the diocesan seminary of Imus. After studies in the United States from 1985 to 1992, he returned to Imus and was Episcopal Vicar for Religious (1993–1995) and parish priest and rector (1998–2001) of Nuestra Señora del Pilar Cathedral-Parish. He also taught theology at San Carlos Seminary (1982–1985) and Divine Word Seminary in Tagaytay.[25]
Pope John Paul II appointed Tagle to the International Theological Commission, where he served from 1997 to 2002 under its President, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. From 1995 to 2001, he was a member of the editorial board of the "History of Vatican II" project.[21]
Bishop of Imus
Coat of Arms as Bishop of Imus
In 2001, Tagle was appointed Bishop of Imus on October 22 and consecrated on December 12 after previously serving as parish priest of the Cathedral-parish of Imus.[26] During his ten years in Imus, he made a point of living simply, owned no car, and invited the destitute to join him for a meal.[3] At the first gathering of bishops under Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, he spoke from the floor about the inadequacy of the number of priests in the Philippines.[27] He said:[28]
To respond to the hunger for the Eucharist, priests say many Masses, accept multiple intentions and send lay ministers for the service of the Word with Communion.... The Faithful know the difference between a bible service and Eucharist, a priest and a lay minister. Many communities wait for the gift of the priesthood and the Eucharist with humility.
To the concept that priestly vocation are a gift from God he countered: "we should also ask whether the Church is a good steward of the gift." He told a news conference that "The first Sunday after my ordination as a priest, I said nine Masses, and that is regular in the Philippines."[29] Discussing priestly celibacy, Cardinal Angelo Scola, the synod moderator, expressed reservations about modifications to the Church's requirement of celibacy for the priesthood. In response, Tagle suggested that the Church should consider such a change to combat the shortage of priests.[30][31][32]
At the 2008 International Eucharistic Congress in Quebec, Canada, he delivered a talk on the importance of the Eucharist that, by one report, moved the audience to tears.[22] He contrasted Christian worship with false forms of adoration:[33]
It is sad that those who worship idols sacrifice other people while preserving themselves and their interests. How many factory workers are being denied the right wages for the god of profit? How many women are being sacrificed to the god of domination? How many children are being sacrificed to the god of lust? How many trees, rivers, hills are being sacrificed to the god of "progress"? How many poor people are being sacrificed to the god of greed? How many defenseless people are being sacrificed to the god of national security?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Antonio_Tagle
Head:
1. See Illness, mental
2. The superior general, head of the Society [666]"
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."
Donald Trump The Art of the Deal
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DLcbnLrl6moQT7nGj1JitG6AiQ6qgK0y/view?usp=sharing
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 45th president from 2017 to 2021.
Born into a wealthy family in the New York City borough of Queens, Trump graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968 with a bachelor's degree in economics. He became the president of his family's real estate business in 1971, renamed it the Trump Organization, and began acquiring and building skyscrapers, hotels, casinos, and golf courses. He launched side ventures, many licensing the Trump name, and filed for six business bankruptcies in the 1990s and 2000s. From 2004 to 2015, he hosted the reality television show The Apprentice, bolstering his fame as a billionaire. Presenting himself as a political outsider, Trump won the 2016 presidential election against the Democratic Party's nominee, Hillary Clinton.
During his first presidency, Trump imposed a travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries, expanded the Mexico–United States border wall, and enforced a family separation policy on the border. He rolled back environmental and business regulations, signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and appointed three Supreme Court justices. In foreign policy, Trump withdrew the U.S. from agreements on climate, trade, and Iran's nuclear program, and initiated a trade war with China. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020, he downplayed its severity, contradicted health officials, and signed the CARES Act. After losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, Trump attempted to overturn the result, culminating in the January 6 Capitol attack in 2021. Trump was impeached in 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and in 2021 for incitement of insurrection; the Senate acquitted him both times. After his first term, scholars and historians ranked him as one of the worst presidents in American history.
Trump is the central figure of Trumpism, and his faction is dominant within the Republican Party. Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racist or misogynistic, and he has made false and misleading statements and promoted conspiracy theories to a degree unprecedented in American politics. Trump's actions, especially in his second term, have been described as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding. In 2023, Trump was found liable in civil cases for sexual abuse and defamation and for business fraud, and in 2024, he was found guilty of falsifying business records, making him the first U.S. president convicted of a felony. After winning the 2024 presidential election against Kamala Harris, Trump was sentenced to a penalty-free discharge, and two felony indictments against him were dismissed.
Trump began his second presidency by pardoning around 1,500 January 6 rioters and initiating mass layoffs of federal workers. He imposed tariffs on nearly all countries and began trade wars with Canada, Mexico, and China. Many of his administration's actions, including his unprecedentedly broad use of executive orders and deportations of immigrants, have drawn lawsuits challenging their legality. High-profile cases have underscored Trump's broad interpretation of a unitary executive theory of power, and led to significant conflicts with the federal courts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump
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
John Donald Imus Jr. (/ˈaɪməs/ EYE-məs; July 23, 1940 – December 27, 2019), also known as Imus, was an American radio personality, television show host, recording artist, and author. His radio show Imus in the Morning was aired on various stations and digital platforms nationwide until 2018.
Imus began his first radio job at KUTY in Palmdale, California in 1968. Three years later, he landed the morning broadcast position at WNBC in New York City. He was fired from WNBC in 1977, worked for a year at WHK in Cleveland, and was rehired by WNBC in 1979. He remained at WNBC until it left the air in 1988, at which time his show moved to WFAN, which took over WNBC's former frequency of 660 kHz. Howard Stern's success with national syndication led Imus in the Morning to adopt the same model in 1993.
Imus was labeled a "shock jock" in his later career.[2] He was fired by CBS Radio in April 2007 after describing the Rutgers University women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos".
In January 2018, Cumulus Media told Imus that the company was going to stop paying him, and his final show aired on March 29, 2018.[3] He died the following year of complications from lung disease.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Imus
Vatican reaffirms 'grave sin' of Freemasonry, says Catholics cannot join the world's largest secret society
Freemasonry has been prohibited for Catholics since 1738, when Pope Clement XII called the secret society 'depraved and perverted'
By Timothy H.J. Nerozzi Fox News
Published November 15, 2023 12:25pm EST
The Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) has reaffirmed the Catholic Church's teachings that laity or clerics participating in Freemasonry are in "a state of grave sin."
The DDF released the Nov. 13 document to the public with the signatures of Pope Francis and the DDF Prefect Cardinal Victor Fernández, urging the faithful not to participate in or affiliate with Freemasonry groups.
https://www.foxnews.com/faith-values/vatican-reaffirms-grave-sin-freemasonry-catholics-cannot-join-worlds-largest-secret-society
PART VI 1THE PERSONAL LIFE OF THOSE ALREADY ADMITTED AND INCORPORATED INTO THE BODY OF THE SOCIETY
SECTION 1: THE APOSTOLIC CHARACTER OF OUR VOWS IN GENERAL
143 §1. Our consecration by profession of the evangelical counsels, by which we respond to a divine vocation, is at one and the same time the following of Christ poor, virginal, and obedient and a rejection of those idols that the world is always prepared to adore, especially wealth, pleasure, prestige, and power. Hence, our poverty, chastity, and obedience ought visibly and efficaciously to bear witness to this attitude, whereby we proclaim the evangelical possibility of a certain communion among men and women that is a foretaste of the future kingdom of God.[1]
§2. Our religious vows, while binding us, also set us FREE:
FREE, by our vow of poverty, to share the life of the poor and to use whatever resources we may have, not for our own security and comfort, but for service;
FREE, by our vow of chastity, to be men for others, in friendship and communion with all, but especially with those who share our mission of service;
FREE, by our vow of obedience, to respond to the call of Christ as made known to us by him whom the Spirit has placed over the Church, and to follow the lead of all our superiors.[2] [1] See GC 32, d. 4, no. 16; see GC 31, d. 16, no. 4; d. 17, no. 2; d. 18, no. 3. [2] GC 32, d. 2, no. 20. 215
The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms
https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf
Valley of Traverse City
ANCIENT ACCEPTED SCOTTISH RITE
The History and Legend of Scottish Rite Origins
The Story Unfolds…
Like much of early Masonic history, the origins of the Scottish Rite are uncertain. This is primarily due to the lack of historic documentation prior to the early 1700’s and not to any great veiled mystery. The few records kept were subject to loss, fire, weather and aging. So we can at best only speculate on many of our origins by looking at the few documents, historical references and legends that remain.
What We Know
n 1754, near Paris, Chevalier de Bonneville established the Chapter of Clermont. The Chapter resided in the College of Jesuits of Clermont, hence the name. It is said to have been created to honor the Duc de Clermont, then Grand Master of the English Grand Lodge of France.
The Chapter of Clermont was a “Chapter of the Advanced Degrees” and initially entailed six degrees and was later extended to 25 known degrees. The six initial degrees were 1˚, 2˚ and 3˚ St John’s Masonry, 4˚ Knight of the Eagle, 5˚ Illustrious Knight or Templar, 6˚ Sublime Illustrious Knight.
Interestingly enough historically, prior to the time of the Rite’s creation, James II had been in residence at Clermont in exile from Britain from 1688 to his death in 1701. As noted by German Masonic historian, Lenning… “whilst in exile, James II residing at the Jesuit College of Clermont in France, allowed his closest associates to fabricate certain degrees in order to extend their political views.” Lenning believed this to have been an attempt on the part of James and his associates to regain control of the British throne for the House of Stuart. If Lenning is right, this places the origins of the “Rite of Perfection” in the hands of James II and the Jacobite (Stuart) Freemasons who at the time were in exile from Great Britain throughout France and Italy. Lenning also contends that these degrees were introduced into French Freemasonry under the name of the Clermont System.
James II died in exile in 1701. His son James III is said to have continued his father’s Masonic legacy and later created further higher degrees.
Perhaps James II saw in the Jesuit morality plays of the College of Clermont a vessel for passing on a set of moral lessons. Some of the world’s greatest playwrights had emerged from Clermont. Jesuit tutelage had previously produced great writers such as Lope de Vega, Moliere, Racine, and the Corneille brothers. Ensconced in exile, I believe James II did find the inspiration and the training to help produce what would later become the first six degrees. From out of the darkness… comes light.
To be continued… (Author’s note… An in depth look at the Templar influence in Scottish Rite masonry’s origins can be found by visiting the Rosslyn Templars’ website.)"
https://web.archive.org/web/20190615041607/http://www.traversecityscottishrite.com/scottish-rite-history.html
Note 370.—"Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret. The 32nd degree of the Ancient and Accepted rite, and for many years, or until the institution of the 33d degree, this was the highest degree, or ne plus ultra of Masonry. The body is styled a Consistory, and should be held in a building of two stories. The officers are, a Thrice Illustrious Commander, First and Second Lieutenants, a Minister of State, a Grand Chancellor, a Grand Treasurer, a Grand Secretary, and a Grand Captain of the Guard. In the East a throne, elevated on seven steps, which is the seat of the Thrice Illustrious Commander, who wears a robe of royal purple, and he and the Lieutenants, wear swords. The collar of this degree is black, lined with scarlet, and in the center, at the point, a double-headed eagle, of silver or gold, on a red Teutonic cross. The apron is of white satin, with a border of gold lace, one inch wide, lined with scarlet; on the flap is a double-headed eagle, on each side of which is the flag of the country in which the body is located, the flag of Prussia and the Beause- -ant of the Kadosh degree; on the apron is the camp of the Crusaders, , which is thus explained; it is composed of an enneagon, within which is ' inscribed a heptagon, within that a pentagon, and in the center an equilateral triangle, within which is a circle. Between the heptagon and pentagon are placed five standards, in the designs of whigjl are five letters, which form a particular word. The first standard is purple, on which is emblazoned the ark of the covenant, with a palm, tree on each side; the ark has the motto Laus Deo. The second is blue, on which is a lion, of gold, couchant, holding in his mouth a golden key, with a collar of the same metal on his neck, and on it is the device, Ad majorem Dei gloriam. The third is white, and displays a heart in flames, with two wings; it is surmounted by a crown of laurels. The fourth is green, and bears a double-headed black eagle, crowned, holding a sword in his right claw, and a bleeding heart in his left. The fifth bears a black ox. on a field of gold. On the sides of the enneagon are nine tents, with flags, representing the divisions of the Masonic army; on the angles are nine pinions, of the same color as the flag of the tent that precedes it. The hall of the Consistory is hung with black, strewed with tears of silver. The jewel is a double-headed white and black eagle, resting on a Teutonic cross, of gold, worn attached to the collar or ribbon. ^The members are called Sublime Princes of the Royal Secret. The moral of the degree teaches opposition to bigotry, superstition, and all the passions and vices which disgrace human nature."—Macoy's Encyclopaedia and Pictionary of Freemasonry, Article Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret
32 Let Christ the king of Israel now come down from the cross, that we may see, and believe. They also that were crucified with him, reviled him.
Mark 15:32
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mark%2015&version=GNV
MISSIONS FROM THE SUPREME PONTIFF
252 §1. To be truly Christian, our service to the Church must be anchored in fidelity to Christ, who makes all things new; to be proper to the Society, it must be done in union with the successors of Peter[32]
The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms
A Complete English Translation of the Official Latin Texts
THE INSTITUTE OF JESUIT SOURCES
SAINT LOUIS, 1996
https://web.archive.org/web/20200211182223/https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf
CODEWORD BARBELON
BILL CLINTON AND OTHER LEARNED AGENTS OF THE GREAT
SECRET SOCIETY
Notwithstanding Phi Beta Kappa being called a "giant evil," this has ot detracted from its appeal. Famous members include:" William Howard Taft (founder of Skull and Bones); George H.W. Bush Nelson Rockefeller; John D. Rockefeller, Jnr.; Alger Hiss; Henry Kissinger: Pat Robertson: Senator Joseph Lieberman: Eliot Spitzer; Condoleezza Rice; Bill Clinton; AND Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Samuel Alito; former Chief Justices William Rehnquist and John Marshall; and the current Chief Justice John Roberts. All of these Justices, except John Marshall, are Catholics.
Earlier I promised to furnish proof of Bill Clinton's Masonic membership and affiliations. Here it is: from a notice posted in The Jerusalem Post, November, 1994 by "The Grand Lodge of the State of Israel." You will see it is addressed "To the Masons of Peace": "Yitzak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel," "King Hussein of Jordan," and "The Honourable Bill Clinton, President of the United States."
The Grand Lodge of the State of Israel
of Uncient Free and Receptes Mere
To the Masons of Peace
The Honorable Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel His Majesty King Hussein of jordan
The Honorable Bill Clinton, President of the United States
!
With warm fraternal congratulations on the signing of the peace agreement between Israel and Jordan
Ephraim Fuchs President of the leal Order of Masons
This advertisement, as you can see, refers to President Bill Clinton as one of "the Masons of peace, and ends with: "With warm fraternal congratulations" and is signed-Ephraim Fuchs, President of the Israel
Order of Masons.
15 See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phi Beta Kappa.
180
Phi Beta Kappa, Literary Societies & Bill's Masonic Membership Not only is Bill Clinton a high-ranking Freemason, a Rhodes scholar, Phi Beta Kappa, and an ex-Yale law school dropout-Yale is the headquarters of Skull and Bones-his Alma Mater is Georgetown University; the first Jesuit university in America. Impeccable credentials for any good double agent of the great secret society.
our leaders-are Freemasons or belong to one of the many "literary' But why should it matter to us whether or not people-particularly societies? Why should we care if people like Bill Clinton, Hilary Chinton, George Bush, Barack Obama (whose Presidential running mate, Joseph R. Biden, is a staunch Roman Catholic)" and Condoleezza Rice, are members of Phi Beta Kappa, Alpha Beta Kappa, or Skull and Bones"? Well, according to the eminent Freemason, Arthur Edward Waite, it is because these secret societies frequently "determine in the depths fi.e. behind the scenes] the changes that take place on the surface. Moreover, virtually every one of the literary societies' (or sororities) at American universities are offsprings of that "giant evil" called Phi Beta Kappa, which was formed as an American echo of Adam Weishaupt's conspiratorial Illuminati Order. These societies require that their members take oaths, pledging allegiance to organizations other than the state, or country of their domicile.
11
On July 4, 1798, Timothy Dwight, President of Yale University. warned the people of New Haven about the Illuminati's use of American politics, religion and education to further their sinister ends: "Shall we introduce them into our government, our schools, our families? Shall our sons become the disciples of Voltaire (a French Jesuit-trained writer) and the dragoons of Murat, or our daughters, the
16 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 the end of this chapter. Even he is under the influence of the Jesuits honoray degree from the same university, in 1976. As to Mr. Obama, see in which one of the characters overseering the initiation is dressed as A known Masonic Order, that uses blood oaths and ritual initiations. the Pope. Like Weishaupt's Illuminati new members of Skull and Bones are assigned secret names denoting their function within the Order, such as Long Devil, and Boaz (short for Beelzebub).
17
18 In A. Ralph Epperson's, The Unseen Hand: An Introduction to the Conspiratorial View of History (Tucson, A: Publius Press, 1985), p. 126.
181
CODEWORD BARBELON
concubines of the Illuminati."" Unfortunately, many of the leading milies of America have become disciples of Illuminism through the stem of college sororities, or fraternaties: "The most prominent haracteristic of American undergraduate social life." But Albert C. tevens reminded us, all of the college fraternities have been extensively orrowed from Freemasonry. Here is the full text of his earlier quote:
Slome of the better known college fraternities give unmistakable evidence, to those of their members in a position to judge, of having been rummaged in the bureau drawers of Freemasonry, Odd Fellowship, Forestry, the Templars, Knights of Malta, and other 'orders' for ritualistic finery. Zeta Psi was founded by Freemasons. Delta Psi, Columbia, 1817, was dressed up by someone who had access to rituals of the bastard Masonic rites of Misraim and Memphis. Psi Upsilon hung its harp low on the tree of symbolic Masonry, while its offspring.... Theta Delta Chi went far afield and returned with the Forestic legend, while the earlier "Alpha Delts" were evidently inspired by what they knew of Royal Arch Masonry and the Red Cross degree as conferred in commanderies of Masonic Knights Templars [sic]."
Sadly, however, as Stevens writes on p. XV of his book The Cyclopaedia of Fraternities: "Very few among the six million members of nearly three hundred secret societies, fraternities, and sisterhoods in the United States are familiar with the origin or history" of these organizations. And yet, a little research will reveal that these college fraternities are the legacy of the Jesuit Adam Weishaupt, founder of the Bavarian Illuminati. How profound was the observation of French historian Louis Blanc when he wrote, Weishaupt was "one of the profoundest conspirators who have ever existed."
And lest the reader is inclined to think lightly of this fact-of leaders like Bill Clinton and others belonging to these Masonic organizations-I share a statement from the respected Masonic Professor Manly P. Hall,
19 Sermon, Duty of Americans, at the Present Crisis... Fourth July, 1798, at the request of the Citizens of New Haven, 1798, pp. 20,21; cited in Esther Ernestine Brown, The French Revolution and the American Man of Letters (University of Missouri, 1951), p. 135; Robert Ernest Spiller et al. Literary History of the United States, (1953), p. 120.
20 Albert C. Stevens, The Cyclopedia of Fraternities, op. cit., p. 328.
21 Stevens, The Cyclopedia of Fraternities, op. cit., 346-347.
22 Louis Blanc, d'Histoire de la Révolution de Février 1848, p. 84.
182
"Phi Beta Kappa , Literary Societies And Bill Clinton's Masonic Membership"
Codeword Barbelon book One
by PD. Stuart
Bill Clinton is hospitalized for observation and testing after developing a fever
A source close to the 42nd president told NBC News that the situation is "not urgent" and that Clinton is "awake and alert."
Dec. 23, 2024, 2:20 PM PST
By Kristen Welker, Elyse Perlmutter-Gumbiner and Dareh Gregorian
Former President Bill Clinton has been hospitalized in Washington after he developed a fever, a top aide told NBC News on Monday.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/bill-clinton-hospitalized-developing-fever-rcna185287
Pope works on signature reform from hospital as pneumonia recovery continues
March 15, 2025 / 9:05 AM EDT / AP
World
Pope works on signature reform from hospital as pneumonia recovery continues
March 15, 2025 / 9:05 AM EDT / AP
Pope Francis entered the fifth week of hospital treatment for double pneumonia on Saturday very much looking ahead as he continued work on a signature priority of his papacy and signs of his recovery remained on a positive trajectory.
Working from the Gemelli hospital, Francis has approved a three-year implementation and evaluation process for his reform project that aims to make the church a more welcoming and responsive place. The Vatican office for the synod, or gathering of bishops, released a timetable through 2028 to implement the reforms and said Francis had approved the calendar last week.
The Vatican announced Friday that it would provide medical updates on the pope less frequently, in what it called a positive development. It also has ceased issuing brief morning advisories that the pope had slept well and was starting his day.
Doctors this week said the 88-year-old pontiff was no longer in critical, life-threatening condition, but have continued to emphasize that his condition remained complex due to his age, lack of mobility and the loss of part of a lung as a young man.
A mass was held in St. Peter's Basilica Friday in honor of Pope Francis as the 88-year-old marked two milestones this week: His 12-year anniversary as pontiff and the one-month mark since he was hospitalized.
Francis was admitted to the hospital on Feb. 14 after a bout of bronchitis that made it difficult for him to speak. Doctors soon added a diagnosis of double pneumonia and a polymicrobial (bacterial, viral and fungal) infection.
The first three weeks of his hospitalization were marked by a rollercoaster of setbacks, including respiratory crises, mild kidney failure and a severe coughing fit.
But medical updates this week have focused on his continued physical and respiratory therapy, as well as the rotation from high-flow oxygen through nostril tubes during the day and a non-invasive ventilation mask at night to help ensure his rest. An X-ray this week confirmed that the infection was clearing.
With little more to report, doctors on Friday canceled a planned medical update. The next is likely to be issued later Saturday. Doctors have not indicated how much longer Francis will be hospitalized.
The pope this week participated in Lenten spiritual exercises from the hospital, which Vatican officials have said implied a lighter workload.
The only public sign of life from the pope since his hospitalization was a recorded audio message thanking people for their prayers for his recovery in a weak and labored voice. It was played in St. Peter's Square for the faithful gathered for a nightly recitation of the rosary prayer.
For the last four Sundays, the traditional blessing that the pope delivers from a window overlooking St. Peter's Square has been released as a text.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pope-francis-works-on-signature-reform-from-hospital-recovery-continues/
Covid origins: Chinese scientists publish long-awaited data Published 7 April
By Victoria Gill Science correspondent, BBC News
A research team in China has published analysis of samples taken more than three years ago from the market linked to the outbreak of Covid-19. The Huanan seafood and wildlife market has been a focal point in the search for the origin of the coronavirus. But this is the first peer-reviewed study of biological evidence gathered from the market back in 2020. By linking the virus with animals sold in the market, it could open new lines of inquiry into how the outbreak began. The research reveals swabs that tested positive for the virus also contained genetic material from wild animals. Some scientists say this is further evidence that the disease was initially transmitted from an infected animal to a human. But others have urged caution in interpreting the findings and it remains unclear why it took three years for the genetic content of the samples to be made public. Another theory has centred on the suggestion that the virus accidentally leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan. No definitive proof The Chinese research team posted an early version of their study online back in February 2022, but they did not publish the full genetic information that was contained in the samples gathered from the market. In March this year, another international group of researchers shared their own assessment of what those crucial market swabs had revealed, after spotting that the genetic sequences had been posted on a scientific data-sharing website. This new analysis, which has been validated by other scientists before being published in the journal Nature, includes more important detail about the content of those samples, which were collected from stalls, surfaces, cages and machinery inside the market. The Chinese research team's paper showed that some samples - collected from areas where wildlife was being sold - had tested positive for the virus. Their analysis also showed that animals now known to be susceptible to the virus, particularly raccoon dogs, were being sold alive in those locations. But the Chinese researchers have pointed out that their discoveries fall short of definitive proof of how the outbreak started. "These environmental samples cannot prove that the animals were infected," the paper explains. The possibility remains, it adds, that the virus was brought into the market by an infected person, rather than an animal. Prof David Robertson, from the University of Glasgow, is a virologist who has been involved in the genetic investigation into the origin of SARS-CoV-2 since it emerged in 2020. He told BBC News: "The most important thing is that this very important dataset is now published and available for others to work on." But he added that the contents of the samples were "compelling evidence that animals there were probably infected with the virus". "It's the whole body of evidence that's important," he said. "When you bring this together with the fact that the early Covid-19 cases in Wuhan are linked to the market, it's strong evidence that this is where a spillover from an animal in the market occurred." The published findings come amid signs that the lab leak theory is gaining ground among authorities in the US. The Chinese government has strenuously denied suggestions that the virus originated in a scientific facility, but the FBI said it now believes that scenario is the "most likely", as does the US Department of Energy. Various US departments and agencies have investigated the mystery and produced differing conclusions, but on 1 March the FBI's director accused Beijing of "doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate", and disclosed the bureau had been convinced of the lab leak theory "for quite some time now". The FBI has not made their findings public, which has frustrated some scientists. The lead researcher of the new report, from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) in Beijing, has been contacted by the BBC for comment."
Covid origins: Chinese scientists publish long-awaited data - BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65204169
Crown Plaza - Chinese restaurant 1 Tiyuguan Rd Wuchang District, Wuhan, Hubei China 430071
"Nowadays, everyone is aware of the word “corona” in the wake of the COVID-19 global pandemic. “Corona” is a Latin word which means “crown or garland”. Coronaviruses have a crown or halo-like appearance of their envelope glycoproteins.[1] Few body structures and dermatoses also share the name corona. This article summarises all such structures and diseases." Coronavirus is Not the Only Corona We Know in Dermatology - PMC (nih.gov)
East Lake High-tech Zone is short for Wuhan East Lake High-tech Development Zone, which is also known as Optics Valley of China (OVC). East Lake High-tech Zone was founded in 1988 and was approved by the State Council in succession as one of the first national high-tech zones, the second National Innovation Demonstration Zone, the China (Hubei) Pilot Free Trade Zone – Wuhan Area and the core area for the Hubei Cross-Straits Industrial Cooperation Zone. Optics Valley has also been recognized as a National Optoelectronic Information Industrial Base, a National Bio-industry Base, a talent base for central SOEs, a National Innovation and Entrepreneurship Demonstration Base, as well as a National Memory Base.
Developmental milestones Establishment of East Lake High-tech Development Zone (1988)
Approved as one of the first national high-tech zones (1991)
Recognized as National Optoelectronics Information Industrial Base, also known as Wuhan Optics Valley of China (2001)
Approved as National Bio-industry Base (2007)
Approved by the State Council as the second National Innovation Demonstration Zone (2009)
Wuhan Future City was set to be a talent base for central SOEs (2011)
Recognized as China (Hubei) Pilot Free Trade Zone Wuhan Area (2016)
Recognized as one of the national innovation and entrepreneurship demonstration bases (2016)
National Memory Base (2016)
Listed as one of the top 10 high-tech zones to receive prioritized support by Ministry of Science and Technology (2017)
The zone has a planned area of 518 square kilometers and a population of about 1.8 million. It has 42 institutes of higher learning, including Wuhan University and Huazhong University of Science and Technology. It also has 56 research institutes at the national, provincial and ministerial levels and more than 300,000 professional and technical personnel, making Optics Valley one of the three most talent-intensive areas in the country. The zone has eight sub-districts: Guandong, Fozuling, Baoxie, Jiufeng, Huashan, Zuoling, Longquan and Binhu. It has eight industrial parks: the Biolake, Wuhan Future City, Wuhan East Lake Free Trade Zone, Optics Valley Optoelectronic Information Industrial Park, Optics Valley Modern Service Industrial Park, Optics Valley Smart Manufacturing Industrial Park, Optics Valley Chinese Sci-tech City and Optics Valley Central City. To augment its industrial ecosystem, the zone is constructing two world-class trillion-yuan-level industry clusters – namely the "Optics, IC, Displays, Terminals and Internet" cluster and the biomedicines cluster. It is also vigorously developing industrial forms of new economy and advancing the layout of future industries such as artificial intelligence, to constantly upgrade its primacy. In accordance with a three-step strategy for its development as a World Optics Valley, the zone is adhering to international standards. It is vigorously implementing a three-year action for high-quality development and is accelerating its construction as an internationally innovative Optics Valley, a modern and prosperous Optics Valley and an environmentally beautiful Optics Valley. OVC is currently home to 144 enterprises recognized among the new group of little giant companies set by the Department of Economy and Information Technology of Hubei Province."
Profile (chinaopticsvalley.com)
http://www.chinaopticsvalley.com/2021-03/23/c_631197.htm
The CORONA [1] program was a series of American strategic reconnaissance satellites produced and operated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Directorate of Science & Technology with substantial assistance from the U.S. Air Force. The CORONA satellites were used for photographic surveillance of the Soviet Union (USSR), China, and other areas beginning in June 1959 and ending in May 1972."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CORONA_(satellite)
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019.[7] Most scientists believe the SARS-CoV-2 virus entered into human populations through natural zoonosis, similar to the SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV outbreaks, and consistent with other pandemics in human history.[8][9] Social and environmental factors including climate change, natural ecosystem destruction and wildlife trade increased the likelihood of such zoonotic spillover.[10][11][12][13] The disease quickly spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic.
The symptoms of COVID‑19 are variable but often include fever,[14] fatigue, cough, breathing difficulties, loss of smell, and loss of taste.[15][16][17] Symptoms may begin one to fourteen days after exposure to the virus. At least a third of people who are infected do not develop noticeable symptoms.[18][19] Of those who develop symptoms noticeable enough to be classified as patients, most (81%) develop mild to moderate symptoms (up to mild pneumonia), while 14% develop severe symptoms (dyspnea, hypoxia, or more than 50% lung involvement on imaging), and 5% develop critical symptoms (respiratory failure, shock, or multiorgan dysfunction).[20] Older people are at a higher risk of developing severe symptoms. Some complications result in death. Some people continue to experience a range of effects (long COVID) for months or years after infection, and damage to organs has been observed.[21] Multi-year studies are underway to further investigate the long-term effects of the disease.[22]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19
Havana syndrome ’ and the mystery of the microwaves by Gordon Carera
"Doctors, scientists, intelligence agents and government officials have all been trying to find out what causes "Havana syndrome" - a mysterious illness that has struck American diplomats and spies. Some call it an act of war, others wonder if it is some new and secret form of surveillance - and some people believe it could even be all in the mind. So who or what is responsible? It often started with a sound, one that people struggled to describe. "Buzzing", "grinding metal", "piercing squeals", was the best they could manage. One woman described a low hum and intense pressure in her skull; another felt a pulse of pain. Those who did not hear a sound, felt heat or pressure. But for those who heard the sound, covering their ears made no difference. Some of the people who experienced the syndrome were left with dizziness and fatigue for months. Havana syndrome first emerged in Cuba in 2016. The first cases were CIA officers, which meant they were kept secret. But, eventually, word got out and anxiety spread. Twenty-six personnel and family members would report a wide variety of symptoms. There were whispers that some colleagues thought sufferers were crazy and it was "all in the mind". Five years on, reports now number in the hundreds and, the BBC has been told, span every continent, leaving a real impact on the US's ability to operate overseas. Uncovering the truth has now become a top US national security priority - one that an official has described as the most difficult intelligence challenge they have ever faced. Hard evidence has been elusive, making the syndrome a battleground for competing theories. Some see it as a psychological illness, others a secret weapon. But a growing trail of evidence has focused on microwaves as the most likely culprit. In 2015, diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba were restored after decades of hostility. But within two years, Havana syndrome almost shut the embassy down, as staff were withdrawn because of concerns for their welfare. Initially, there was speculation that the Cuban government - or a hard-line faction opposed to improving relations - might be responsible, having deployed some kind of sonic weapon. Cuba's security services, after all, had been nervous about an influx of US personnel and kept a tight grip on the capital. That theory would fade as cases spread around the world. But recently, another possibility has come into the frame - one whose roots lay in the darker recesses of the Cold War, and a place where science, medicine, espionage and geopolitics collide. When James Lin, a professor at the University of Illinois, read the first reports about the mysterious sounds in Havana, he immediately suspected that microwaves were responsible. His belief was based not just on theoretical research, but first-hand experience. Decades earlier, he had heard the sounds himself. Since its emergence around World War Two, there had been reports of people being able to hear something when a nearby radar was switched on and began sending microwaves into the sky. This was even though there was no external noise. In 1961, a paper by Dr Allen Frey argued the sounds were caused by microwaves interacting with the nervous system, leading to the term the "Frey Effect". But the exact causes - and implications - remained unclear. In the 1970s, Prof Lin set to work conducting his experiments at the University of Washington. He sat on a wooden chair in a small room lined with absorbent materials, an antenna aimed at the back of his head. In his hand he held a light switch. Outside, a colleague sent pulses of microwaves through the antenna at random intervals. If Prof Lin heard a sound, he pressed the switch. A single pulse sounded like a zip or a clicking finger. A series of pulses like a bird chirping. They were produced in his head rather than as sound waves coming from outside. Prof Lin believed the energy was absorbed by the soft brain tissue and converted to a pressure wave moving inside the head, which was interpreted by the brain as sound. This occurred when high-power microwaves were delivered as pulses rather than in the low-power continuous form you get from a modern microwave oven or other devices. Prof Lin recalls that he was careful not to dial it up too high. "I did not want to have my brain damaged," he told the BBC. In 1978, he found he was not alone in his interest, and received an unusual invitation to discuss his latest paper from a group of scientists who had been carrying out their own experiments. During the Cold War, science was the focus of intense super-power rivalry. Even areas like mind control were explored, amid fears of the other side getting an edge - and this included microwaves. Prof Lin was shown the Soviet approach at a centre of scientific research in the town of Pushchino, near Moscow. "They had a very elaborate, very well-equipped laboratory," Prof Lin recalls. But their experiment was cruder than his. The subject would sit in a drum of salty seawater with their head sticking out. Then microwaves would be fired at their brain. The scientists thought the microwaves interacted with the nervous system and wanted to question Prof Lin on his alternative view. Curiosity cut both ways, and US spies kept close track on Soviet research. A 1976 report by the US Defense Intelligence Agency, unearthed by the BBC, says it could find no proof of Communist-bloc microwave weapons, but says it had learnt of experiments where microwaves were pulsed at the throat of frogs until their hearts stopped. The report also reveals that the US was concerned Soviet microwaves could be used to impair brain function or induce sounds for psychological effect. "Their internal sound perception research has great potential for development into a system for disorienting or disrupting the behaviour patterns of military or diplomatic personnel." American interest was more than just defensive. James Lin would occasionally glimpse references to secret US work on weapons in the same field. And while Prof Lin was in Pushchino, another group of Americans not far away were worried that they were being zapped by microwaves - and that their own government had covered it up. For nearly a quarter of a century, the 10-storey US embassy in Moscow was bathed by a wide, invisible beam of low-level microwaves. It became known as "the Moscow signal". But for many years, most of those working inside knew nothing. The beam came from an antenna on the balcony of a nearby Soviet apartment and hit the upper floors of the embassy where the ambassador's office and more sensitive work was carried out. It had been first spotted in the 1950s and was later monitored from a room on the 10th floor. But its existence was a secret tightly held from all but a few working inside. "We were trying to figure out just what might be its purpose," explains Jack Matlock, number two at the embassy in the mid-70s. But a new ambassador, Walter Stoessel, arrived in 1974 and threatened to resign unless everyone was told. "That caused something like panic," recalls Mr Matlock. Embassy staff whose children were in a basement nursery were especially worried. But the State Department played down any risk. Then Ambassador Stoessel, himself, fell ill - with bleeding of the eyes as one of his symptoms. In a now declassified 1975 phone call to the Soviet ambassador to Washington, US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger linked Stoessel's illness to microwaves, admitting "we are trying to keep the thing quiet". Stoessel died of leukaemia at the age of 66. "He decided to play the good soldier", and not make a fuss, his daughter told the BBC. From 1976 screens were installed to protect people. But many diplomats were angry, believing the State Department had first kept quiet, and then resisted acknowledging any possible health impact. This was a claim echoed decades later with Havana syndrome. What was the Moscow signal for? "I'm pretty sure that the Soviets had intentions other than damaging us," says Matlock. They were ahead of the US in surveillance technology and one theory was that they bounced microwaves off windows to pick up conversations, another that they were activating their own listening devices hidden inside the building or capturing information through microwaves hitting US electronic devices (known as "peek and poke"). The Soviets at one point told Matlock that the purpose was actually to jam American equipment on the embassy roof used to intercept Soviet communications in Moscow. This is the world of surveillance and counter-surveillance, one so secret that even within embassies and governments only a few people know the full picture. One theory is that Havana involved a much more targeted method to carry out some kind of surveillance with higher-power, directed microwaves. One former UK intelligence official told the BBC that microwaves could be used to "illuminate" electronic devices to extract signals or identify and track them. Others speculate that a device (even perhaps an American one) might have been poorly engineered or malfunctioned and caused a physical reaction in some people. However, US officials tell the BBC no device has been identified or recovered. After a lull, cases began to spread beyond Cuba. In December 2017, Marc Polymeropolous woke suddenly in a Moscow hotel room. A senior CIA officer, he was in town to meet Russian counterparts. "My ears were ringing, my head was spinning. I felt like I was going to vomit. I couldn't stand up," he told the BBC. "It was terrifying." It was a year after the first Havana cases, but the CIA medical office told him his symptoms didn't match the Cuban cases. A long battle for medical treatment began. The severe headaches never went away and in the summer of 2019 he was forced to retire. Mr Polymreopolous originally thought he had been hit by some kind of technical surveillance tool that had been "turned up too much". But when more cases emerged at the CIA which were all, he says, linked to people working on Russia, he came to believe he had been targeted with a weapon. But then came China, including at the consulate in Guangzhou in early 2018. Some of those affected in China contacted Beatrice Golomb, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, who has long researched the health effects of microwaves, as well as other unexplained illnesses. She told the BBC that she wrote to the State Department's medical team in January 2018 with a detailed account of why she thought microwaves were responsible. "This makes for interesting reading," was the non-committal response. Prof Golomb says high levels of radiation were recorded by family members of personnel in Guangzhou using commercially available equipment. "The needle went off the top of the available readings." But she says the State Department told its own employees that the measurements they had taken off their own back were classified. A host of problems plagued early investigations. There was a failure to collect consistent data. The State Department and CIA failed to communicate with each other, and the scepticism of their internal medical teams caused tension. Only one out of the nine cases from China was initially determined by the State Department to match the criteria for the syndrome based on Havana cases. That left others who experienced symptoms angry, and feeling as if they were being accused of making it up. They began a battle for equal treatment, which is still going on today. As frustration grew, some of those affected turned to Mark Zaid, a lawyer who specialises in national security cases. He now acts for around two dozen government personnel, half from the intelligence community. "This is not Havana syndrome. It's a misnomer," argues Mr Zaid, whose clients were affected in many locations. "What's been going on has been known by the United States government probably, based on evidence that I have seen, since the late 1960s." Since 2013, Mr Zaid has represented one employee of the US National Security Agency who believed they were damaged in 1996 in a location which remains classified. Mr Zaid questions why the US government has been so unwilling to acknowledge a longer history. One possibility, he says, is because it might open a Pandora's Box of incidents that have been ignored over the years. Another is because the US, too, has developed and perhaps even deployed microwaves itself and wants to keep it secret. The country's interest in weaponising microwaves extended beyond the end of the Cold War. Reports say from the 1990s, the US Air Force had a project codenamed "Hello" to see if microwaves could create disturbing sounds in people's heads, one called "Goodbye" to test their use for crowd control, and one codenamed "Goodnight" to see if they could be used to kill people. Reports from a decade ago suggested these had not proved successful. But the study of the mind and what can be done to it has been receiving increased focus within the military and security world. "The brain is being seen as the 21st Century battle-scape," argues James Giordano, an adviser to the Pentagon and Professor in Neurology and Biochemistry at Georgetown University, who was asked to look at the initial Havana cases. "Brain sciences are global. It is not just the province of what used to be known as the West." Ways to both augment and damage brain function are being worked on, he told the BBC. But it is a field with little transparency or rules. He says China and Russia have been engaged in microwave research and raises the possibility that tools developed for industrial and commercial uses - for instance to test the impact of microwaves on materials - could have been repurposed. But he also wonders if disruption and spreading fear were also the aim. This kind of technology may have been around for a while - and even have been used selectively. But that would still mean something changed in Cuba to get it noticed. Bill Evanina was a senior intelligence official when the Havana cases emerged, and stepped down as the head of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center this year. He has little doubt about what happened in Havana. "Was it an offensive weapon? I believe it was," he told the BBC. He believes microwaves may have been deployed in recent military conflicts, but points to specific circumstances to explain a shift. Cuba, 90 miles off the Florida coast, has long been an ideal site to collect "signals intelligence" by intercepting communications. During the Cold War, it was home to a major Soviet listening station. When Vladimir Putin visited in 2014, reports suggested it was being re-opened. China also opened two sites in recent years, according to one source, while the Russians sent in 30 additional intelligence officers. But from 2015, the US was back in town. With its newly opened embassy and a beefed-up presence, the US was just beginning to establish its footing, collecting intelligence and pushing back against Russian and Chinese spies. "We were in a ground fight," one person recalls. Then the sounds began. "Who had the most to benefit from the closing of the embassy in Havana?" asks Mr Evanina. "If the Russian government was increasing and promulgating their intelligence collection in Cuba, it was probably not good for them to have the US in Cuba." Russia has repeatedly dismissed accusations it is involved, or has "directed microwave weapons". "Such provocative, baseless speculation and fanciful hypotheses can't really be considered a serious matter for comment," its foreign ministry has said. And there have been sceptics about the very existence of Havana syndrome. They argue that the unique situation in Cuba supports their case.
Contagious Stress
Robert W Baloh, a Professor of Neurology at UCLA, has long studied unexplained health symptoms. When he saw the Havana syndrome reports, he concluded they were a mass psychogenic condition. He compares this to the way people feel sick when they are told they have eaten tainted food even if there was nothing wrong with it - the reverse of the placebo effect. "When you see mass psychogenic illness, there's usually some stressful underlying situation," he says. "In the case of Cuba and the mass of the embassy employees - particularly the CIA agents who first were affected - they certainly were in a stressful situation." In his view, every-day symptoms like brain fog and dizziness are reframed - by sufferers, media and health professionals - as the syndrome. "The symptoms are as real as any other symptoms," he says, arguing that individuals became hyper-aware and fearful as reports spread, especially within a closed community. This, he believes, then became contagious among other US officials serving abroad.
There remain many unexplained elements. Why did Canadian diplomats report symptoms in Havana? Were they collateral damage from targeting nearby Americans? And why have no UK officials reported symptoms? "The Russians have literally tried to kill people on British soil in recent years with radioactive materials, yet why are there no reported cases?" asks Mark Zaid. "I would probably put on pause the statement that no-one in the UK has experienced any symptoms," responds Bill Evanina, who says the US is now sharing details with allies to spot cases. Some instances may be unrelated. "We had a bunch of military folk in the Middle East who claimed to have this attack - turned out they had food poisoning," says one former official. "We need to separate the wheat from the chaff," reckons Mark Zaid, who says members of the public, some with mental health issues, approach him claiming to suffer from microwave attacks. One former official reckons around half the cases reported by US officials are possibly linked to attacks by an adversary. Others say the real number could be even smaller. A December 2020 report by the US National Academies of Sciences was a pivotal moment. Experts took evidence from scientists and clinicians as well as eight victims. "It was quite dramatic," recalls Professor David Relman of Stanford, who chaired the panel. "Some of these people literally were in hiding, for fear of further actions against them by whomever. There were actually precautions we had to take to ensure their safety." The panel looked at psychological and other causes, but concluded that directed, high energy, pulsed microwaves were most likely responsible for some of the cases, similar to the view of James Lin, who gave evidence. But even though the State Department sponsored the study, it still considers the conclusion only a plausible hypothesis and officials say they have not found further evidence to support it. The Biden administration has signalled it is taking the issue seriously. CIA and State Department officials are given advice on how to respond to incidents (including 'getting off the X' - meaning physically moving from a spot if they feel they are getting hit). The State Department has set up a task force to support staff over what are now called "unexplained health incidents". Previous attempts to categorise cases as to whether they met specific criteria have been abandoned. But without a definition, it becomes harder to count. This year, a new wave of cases arrived - including Berlin and a larger group in Vienna. In August, a trip by US Vice-President Kamala Harris to Vietnam was delayed three hours because of a reported case at the embassy in Hanoi. Worried diplomats are now asking questions before taking foreign assignments with their families. "This is a major distraction for us if we think that the Russians are doing things to our intelligence officers who are travelling," says former CIA officer Polymreopolous, who finally received the medical treatment he wanted this year. "That's going to put a crimp in our operational footprint." The CIA has taken over the hunt for a cause, with a veteran of the hunt for Osama bin Laden placed in charge.
Markers In The Blood
An accusation that another state has been harming US officials is a consequential one. "That's an act of war," says Mr Polymeropolous. That makes it a high bar to reach. Policymakers will demand hard evidence, which so far, officials say, is still lacking. Five years on, some US officials say little more is known other than when Havana syndrome started. But others disagree. They say the evidence for microwaves is much stronger now, if not yet conclusive. The BBC has learnt that new evidence is arriving as data is collected and analysed more systematically for the first time. Some of the cases this year showed specific markers in the blood, indicating brain injury. These markers fall away after a few days and previously too much time had elapsed to spot them. But now that people are being tested much more quickly after reporting symptoms, they have been seen for the first time. The debate remains divisive and it is possible the answer is complex. There may be a core of real cases, while others have been folded into the syndrome. Officials raise the possibility that the technology and the intent might have changed over time, perhaps shifting to try and unsettle the US. Some even worry one state may have piggy-backed on another's activities. "We like a simple label diagnosis," argues Professor Relman. "But sometimes it is tough to achieve. And when we can't, we have to be very careful not to simply throw up our hands and walk away." The mystery of Havana syndrome could be its real power. The ambiguity and fear it spreads act as a multiplier, making more and more people wonder if they are suffering, and making it harder for spies and diplomats to operate overseas. Even if it began as a tightly defined incident, Havana syndrome may have developed a life of its own."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-58396698
I want 5G, and even 6G, technology in the United States as soon as possible. It is far more powerful, faster, and smarter than the current standard. American companies must step up their efforts, or get left behind. There is no reason that we should be lagging behind on.........
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 21, 2019
Michael Andrew Fox (born June 9, 1961), known professionally as Michael J. Fox, is a Canadian and American activist and retired actor. Beginning his career as a child actor in the 1970s, he rose to prominence portraying Alex P. Keaton on the NBC sitcom Family Ties (1982–1989) and Marty McFly in the Back to the Future film trilogy (1985–1990). Fox went on to star in films such as Teen Wolf (1985), The Secret of My Success (1987), Casualties of War (1989), Doc Hollywood (1991), and The Frighteners (1996). He returned to television on the ABC sitcom Spin City in the lead role of Mike Flaherty (1996–2000).
In 1998, Fox disclosed his 1991 diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. He subsequently became an advocate for finding a cure, and founded the Michael J. Fox Foundation in 2000 to help fund research. Worsening symptoms forced him to reduce his acting work.
Fox voiced the lead roles in the Stuart Little films (1999–2005) and the animated film Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001). He continued to make guest appearances on television, including comedy-drama Rescue Me (2009), the legal drama The Good Wife (2010–2016) and spin-off The Good Fight (2020), and the comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm (2011, 2017). Fox's last major role was the lead on the short-lived sitcom The Michael J. Fox Show (2013–2014). He officially retired in 2020 due to his declining health.[1]
Fox has won five Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Grammy Award. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2010, and was inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame in 2000 and the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2002. For his advocacy of a cure for Parkinson's disease, he received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in 2022[2] and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2025.[3][4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_J._Fox
The Actes and Monuments (full title: Actes and Monuments of these Latter and Perillous Days, Touching Matters of the Church), popularly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, is a work of Protestant history and martyrology by Protestant English historian John Foxe, first published in 1563 by John Day.
It includes a polemical account of the sufferings of Protestants under the Catholic Church, with particular emphasis on England and Scotland. The book was highly influential in those countries and helped shape lasting popular notions of Catholicism there.
The book went through four editions in Foxe's lifetime and a number of later editions and abridgements, including some that specifically reduced the text to a Book of Martyrs.
Background
After the Reformation, Catholic apologists raised the issue of the novelties of Protestant doctrines, as "exploiting religious credulity for material and sexual ends."[a] Protestant apologists such as Calvinist Anglican John Foxe "sought to establish the continuity of a proto-Protestant piety from apostolic times to the Reformation."[b]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxe%27s_Book_of_Martyrs
Église St-Pierre de Montmartre
Montmartre & Northern Paris,Paris,France,Europe
Montmartre & Northern Paris
All that remains of the former Benedictine Abbey of Montmartre, this church dates back to the 12th century and is one of the oldest in Paris, though it has been much restored. Built atop a Roman temple to Mars, it was witness to the founding of the Jesuits in 1534, who met in the crypt under the guidance of Ignatius of Loyola.
Some say that the name Montmartre is derived from ‘Mons Martis’ (Latin for Mount of Mars); others prefer the Christian ‘Mont Martyr’ (Mount of the Martyr), a reference to the 3rd-century St Denis, who, according to legend, walked across Montmartre and on to the site of today’s Basilique de St-Denis after having been beheaded by Roman priests."
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/france/paris/montmartre-and-northern-paris/attractions/eglise-st-pierre-de-montmartre/a/poi-sig/1264286/1323143
Pedro Arrupe y Gondra, SJ (14 November 1907 – 5 February 1991) was a Spanish Catholic priest who served as the 28th superior general of the Society of Jesus from 1965 to 1983.[3] He has been called a second founder of the Society, which he led in the implementation of the Second Vatican Council, especially with regard to faith that does justice and preferential option for the poor.[4][3]
Born in 1907 in Bilbao, Arrupe joined the Jesuits in 1927 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1936. While serving as a novice master outside Hiroshima in 1945, Arrupe used his medical background as a first responder to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.[5]
In 1983, paralysis from a stroke caused Arrupe to resign from office. He lived on until 1991, when he died in the local Jesuit infirmary.[5] His cause for sainthood was opened by the Jesuits and the Diocese of Rome in 2018.
Education and training
Pedro Arrupe attended school at the Santiago Apostol High School in Bilbao. In 1923, he moved to Madrid to attend the Medical School of the Universidad Complutense. There he met Severo Ochoa, who later won the Nobel Prize in Medicine. One of his teachers was Juan Negrín, a pioneer in physiology, who would become Prime Minister of the Spanish Republic during the Civil War (1936–1939). Arrupe received the top prize in the first year anatomy course.[4]
In 1926, Arrupe's father died, an event which filled him with great sadness. In the summer of the same year he went on a pilgrimage to Lourdes with his four sisters. The experiences he gathered from Lourdes were fundamental for his future life. In the conversations with Jean-Claude Dietsch, SJ he described his experiences as follows:
"For me Lourdes is the city of miracles. I stayed there for some three months. Being a medical student, I obtained permission to observe the work of the Office of Verification. I was, thus, the witness of three miraculous cures from the very moment they took place in the midst of the faithful who were praying to the Virgin Mary, and then on through the medical verification that was carried out by the doctors who were atheists. This impressed me very much, because I had often heard my professors in Madrid, who also were atheists, speak of the "superstitions of Lourdes." There was born my vocation, in that atmosphere of both simplicity and grandeur at the feet of the Virgin Mary, midst the noisy insistent prayer of the pilgrims and the sweet murmurings of the river Gave."[6]
Subsequent to these gathered findings, Arrupe decided not continue his medical studies. On 15 January 1927, he joined the Society of Jesus.
He was unable to pursue his studies for the priesthood in Spain, since the Jesuits had been expelled by the Spanish Republican government (1931–1939). Accordingly, the young Arrupe did his studies in the Netherlands and Belgium and at Saint Louis University School of Divinity in St. Marys, Kansas, where he was ordained in 1936.[7][8] Arrupe then completed a doctorate in Medical Ethics.[9]
Assignment in Hiroshima, Japan
After his doctorate, Arrupe was sent to work as a missionary in Japan. His early years as missionary were very frustrating for him. No matter what he did, what he organised, people did not attend, and few if any converted to Christianity. When the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred in Hawaii on 7 December 1941, it was 8 December in Japan. Arrupe was celebrating the Eucharist for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception when he was arrested and imprisoned for a time, being suspected of espionage. On Christmas Eve, Arrupe heard people gathering outside his cell door and presumed that the time for him to be executed had arrived. However, to his utter surprise, he discovered that some fellow Catholics, ignoring all danger, had come to sing him Christmas carols. Upon this realization, Arrupe recalled that he burst into tears.[10] His attitude of profound prayer and his lack of offensive behaviour gained him the respect of his jailers and judges, and he was set free within a month.
Arrupe was appointed Jesuit superior and novice master in Japan in 1942, and was living in suburban Hiroshima when the atomic bomb fell in August 1945. He was one of eight Jesuits who were within the blast zone of the bomb, and all eight survived the destruction, protected by a hillock which separated the novitiate from the center of Hiroshima. Arrupe described that event as "a permanent experience outside of history, engraved on my memory."[11] Arrupe used his medical skills to help those who were wounded or dying. The Jesuit novitiate was converted into a makeshift hospital where between 150 and 200 people received care. Arrupe recalled, "The chapel, half destroyed, was overflowing with the wounded, who were lying on the floor very near to one another, suffering terribly, twisted with pain."[12] In 1958, Arrupe was appointed the first Jesuit provincial for Japan, a position he held until being elected Father General in 1965.
Prior to being elected Father General, Arrupe made a visit to Latin America and, on one occasion, was celebrating the Eucharist in a suburban slum. He was deeply moved at the devotion and respect the people had for Christ, in the midst of their abject poverty. After the service, a man invited Arrupe to his hovel, where he told him that he was so grateful for his visit and that he wanted to share the only gift he had, that of watching the setting sun together. Arrupe reflected, "He gave me his hand. As I was leaving, I thought: 'I have met very few hearts that are so kind.'"[10]
Superior General
At the thirty-first General Congregation of the Society of Jesus in 1965, Arrupe was elected twenty-eighth Superior General of the Jesuits, and served in that post until 1983. He was the second Basque to be Father General, the first being the founder Ignatius of Loyola himself.[13] Jesuit Vincent O'Keefe, a friend and advisor to Arrupe, said Arrupe was "a second Ignatius of Loyola, a refounder of the Society in the light of Vatican II."[14][15] At his election, Moscow Radio spoke of an unusual man who would bring the Society of Jesus to its powers of the past.[16]: 218
After the changes following Vatican II (1962–1965), there was tension within the Society as to how the life of a Jesuit was to be lived. While some religious groups in the Catholic church have limits on the works they take on, the Society of Jesus encourages its members to follow their interest and talents and the needs of the times into a whole range of ministries – as theologians, missionaries, retreat directors, teachers, artists, writers, musicians, counselors, scientists, and pastors – to bring glory to God in all areas of human endeavor.[17] This is in line with the crowning contemplation of Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises through which Jesuits learn to find God in all things (#236). As Arrupe's biographer said of him, he "saw the hand of God in everything."[16]: 226
Arrupe warned of repeating the answers of yesterday for tomorrow's problems, saying: "If we speak a language no longer appropriate to the hearts of people, we speak only to ourselves because no one will listen to us or try to understand what we say."[16]: 228 Arrupe was "hailed as a prophet of our time",[16]: 231 not unlike Jesuit Pope Francis,[citation needed] who was undertaking theological studies, learning, when Arrupe became Superior General and began speaking his "prophetic" words. The Union of Superior Generals of religious, seeing Arrupe as the right man for our time, elected him five times as their president.[16]: 231
Faith and justice
In an address to Jesuit alumni in 1973, Arrupe coined the phrase "men for others" which has become a theme for Jesuit education worldwide, educating students to be "men and women for others".[18][19][20]
At the thirty-second General Congregation which convened in 1975, Arrupe's dream of working for the poor was crystallised in the document "Our Mission Today: the Service of Faith and the Promotion of Justice." It stated: "Our faith in Jesus Christ and our mission to proclaim the Gospel demand of us a commitment to promote justice and enter into solidarity with the voiceless and the powerless."[21] Thus, the decree basically defined all the work of the Jesuits as having an essential focus on the promotion of social justice as well as the Catholic faith. Arrupe was keenly aware that in the political climate of the 1970s, the Jesuits’ commitment to working for social justice would bring great hardship and suffering, particularly in those Latin American countries ruled by military juntas.[21][13]
In a speech to European educators Arrupe made it clear where he stood on matters of faith and justice, saying: "I take very seriously the words of Gandhi, 'I love Christ but I despise Christians because they do not live as Christ lived.' Without a doubt Christian love of neighbor entails a duty to care for the wounds of those that have fallen victim to robbers and are left bleeding by the wayside."[16]: 270 In the late 1960s and into the 1980s some theologians in Latin America became increasingly involved in the political sphere, adopting Marxist rhetoric. Many Jesuits were at the forefront of the movement which was called liberation theology and concentrated on seeing Christ as the liberator not only from sin but from all forms of oppression. In its extreme manifestations, liberation theology seemed to subordinate the message of the Gospel to political revolution, with a wholesale acceptance of Marxism. But Arrupe's strong support for relieving the burden of the poor in Latin America enables one to see his "cautionary statements about liberation theology, as efforts to impose self-discipline to fend off more severe sanctions from outside the order."[22]
A cause worth dying for
On 20 June 1977 the White Warriors Union death squad threatened to kill all 47 Jesuits serving in El Salvador unless they abandoned their work with the poor and left the country within a month.[23] After consulting with the Jesuit community in El Salvador, Arrupe replied "They may end up as martyrs, but my priests are not going to leave because they are with the people."[3] A few months earlier, Jesuit Rutilio Grande, a proponent of liberation theology, was assassinated in El Salvador. On 16 November 1989, six Jesuits (Ignacio Ellacuría, Armando Lopez, Joaquin Lopez y Lopez, Ignacio Martín-Baró, Segundo Montes and Juan Ramon Moreno, along with their housekeeper (Julia Elba Ramos) and her daughter (Celina), would be murdered at the Jesuit University of Central America. Others also suffered martyrdom: the chief bishop in El Salvador Archbishop Óscar Romero (who, in keeping with his longstanding commitment to Catholic social teaching, became increasingly concerned with the plight of the poor and marginalized[24]) was gunned down whilst celebrating the Eucharist on 24 March 1980. Lay missionary Jean Donovan, Ursuline sister Dorothy Kazel and Maryknoll sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford were beaten, raped and murdered by non-uniformed members of the Salvadoran National Guard on 2 December 1980.[25] They joined some 75,000 Salvadorans who were killed during this troubled period.[25]: 97 All the while, Arrupe continued to support and pray for those people who were willing to lay down their lives to help the poor initiate change.[10]
Jesuit Refugee Service
Touched by the plight of the "Vietnamese boat people" in 1979, Pedro Arrupe sent cable messages to some 20 Jesuit major superiors throughout the world sharing his distress at the suffering of these people.[20] He asked them what they could do to help bring relief to refugees and displaced persons in their own regions. He received a positive response, with numerous offers of personnel, medicine, and funding. The following year in 1980, Arrupe founded the Jesuit Refugee Service to coordinate the Society's refugee work. In a speech launching the service he said "Saint Ignatius called us to go anywhere where we are most needed for the greater glory of God. The spiritual as well as the material need of more than 16 million refugees throughout the world today could scarcely be greater. God is calling us through these helpless people." In 2017, JRS listed 47 countries where its 10 regional offices were currently serving nearly 950,000 individuals.[26] Over the years JRS had served an estimated 40 million refugees.[4]
Later life
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]
Death and burial
Arrupe died at 7:45pm on 5 February 1991, the anniversary of the 26 Martyrs of Japan. His final words had been: "For the present, Amen; for the future, Alleluia."[28]
His funeral was held in the Church of the Gesu, Rome, on February 9 and was attended by crowds that filled the piazza outside the church. Also in attendance were 10 cardinals, 20 bishops, Giulio Andreotti (the Prime Minister of Italy), as well as other religious and civil dignitaries. His body, first interred in the Jesuit mausoleum at Campo Verano, was brought back into the Church of the Gesù where it currently lies in a side chapel.[29]
Beatification process
On 11 July 2018, the Father General of the Society of Jesus, Arturo Sosa, announced the beginning of Arrupe's beatification process by the Diocese of Rome.[30] On 14 November 2018, a website was established with testimonials and archival material on his life.[31] On 14 November 2024, Cardinal-elect Baldassare Reina presided over the diocesan tribunal's termination of its inquiry at the Lateran Palace. The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints will next determine whether Arrupe should be declared Venerable.[32]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Arrupe
Windham Lawrence Rotunda (May 23, 1987 – August 24, 2023), better known by his ring name Bray Wyatt, was an American professional wrestler best known for his tenures in WWE from 2009 until his death in 2023.
Rotunda was a third-generation wrestler, following in the footsteps of his grandfather Blackjack Mulligan, his father Mike Rotunda, and his uncles Barry and Kendall Windham. His younger brother Taylor is also a wrestler under the ring name Bo Dallas. Alongside his brother, he held the FCW Florida Tag Team Championship twice while in WWE's then-developmental territory, Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW). He wrestled under various ring names between 2008 and 2012 in FCW, and wrestled on WWE's main roster from 2010 to 2011 as a member of The Nexus under the ring name Husky Harris.
After returning to WWE's developmental territory, which had been rebranded as NXT, Rotunda was repackaged as Bray Wyatt. Portrayed as the villainous leader of a bayou-dwelling cult called The Wyatt Family, he returned to the main roster alongside Wyatt Family members Luke Harper and Erick Rowan in 2013. He subsequently became a one-time WWE Champion, two-time WWE Universal Champion, one-time SmackDown Tag Team Champion (alongside Harper and brief Wyatt Family member Randy Orton under the Freebird Rule), and one-time Raw Tag Team Champion (with Matt Hardy).
After a hiatus from August 2018 to April 2019, Wyatt returned with a new split personality gimmick, which saw him switch between the two characters of a Mr. Rogers-esque children's TV host named Bray Wyatt and a grotesque monster resembling an evil clown called The Fiend. He was released from WWE in July 2021, but returned in October 2022 with a new character that claimed to be his "real-life" self, though he gradually reincorporated his previous personalities in addition to new ones. In what would become his only televised match during this return, he defeated LA Knight in January 2023; he took a medical hiatus in February due to a COVID-19 infection that exacerbated a pre-existing heart condition, and died of a heart attack in August at the age of 36.
Death
Rotunda died in his sleep at his home in Clermont, Florida, on August 24, 2023 at the age of 36. The cause of death was a heart attack.[270][271] His death was announced by WWE's chief content officer Triple H, following a phone call he had received from Rotunda's father Mike Rotunda.[272] Rotunda had been dealing with an undisclosed illness since February, which was reportedly life-threatening. Just days before his death, reports were published stating that he was making progress in his recovery. Shortly after his death, it was revealed that the illness was due to an earlier COVID-19 infection, which had exacerbated a pre-existing heart condition.[270] He had been hospitalized for a heart issue one week before his death, and was advised to wear a specialized vest containing a self-activating defibrillator; at the time of his death, he was not wearing the vest, which police found in his car.[271][273]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bray_Wyatt
Almost two millennia later, even though Pier Luigi Nervi and Annibale Vitellozzi created a closed ROTUNDA with a LANTERN for their Palazzetto dello Sport (1956-1958) the dome rebuilds the sky here as well. The central circle represents the sun and grants a floating lightness to the lantern. The constructive engineering is elegantly transformed into a sophisticated shell of sun rays enclosing all spectators." A Brief History of Rome's Luminous Rotundas | ArchDaily
A Brief History of Rome's Luminous Rotundas | ArchDaily
https://www.archdaily.com/775844/a-brief-history-of-romes-luminous-rotundas
A rotunda (from Latin rotundus) is any roofed building with a circular ground plan, and sometimes covered by a dome. It may also refer to a round room within a building (a famous example being the one below the dome of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.). The Pantheon, Rome is the most famous and influential rotunda. A band rotunda is a circular bandstand, usually with a dome."
Rotunda (architecture) - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotunda_(architecture)#:~:text=A%20rotunda%20(from%20Latin%20rotundus,Capitol%20in%20Washington%2C%20D.C.).
Rotunda died of a HEART attack on August 24, 2023, at the age of 36.[281] His death was announced by WWE chief content creator and former wrestler Triple H on X.[282]"
Bray Wyatt - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bray_Wyatt
On September 10, 2012 during Raw at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec, not long after defeating Punk and Dolph Ziggler in a tag-team match with Randy Orton, Lawler legitimately collapsed at the announcers table while Kane and Daniel Bryan competed against Titus O'Neil and Darren Young.[52][53] Cole continued to call that match alone, as well as the next match, before WWE (through Cole) announced the medical situation with Lawler. The remaining matches on the show went ahead as scheduled but without commentary and updates on Lawler's condition were provided by Cole. At the end of the broadcast, it was announced that he had received CPR, but was breathing independently and reacting to stimulation. Doctors said that Lawler was clinically dead for almost 30 minutes.[54] It was later confirmed on WWE.com that Lawler had suffered a heart attack.[55] On September 11, 2012, he underwent an angioplasty to improve blood flow to his heart.[56] On September 12, 2012, Lawler was reported to be slowly being eased off sedation, his ventilator removed. He was able to blink, nod, and squeeze with his hands,[57] and that same day, the results of several CT scans showed no signs of brain damage.[58] By September 17, Lawler had returned to his home in Memphis."
Jerry "The King" Lawler - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Lawler
On September 25, 2020, Paul was hospitalized after slurring his words while speaking during a livestream event. Paul later posted a photo of himself in a hospital bed to his Twitter page, along with the statement "I am doing fine. Thank you for your concern".[261]"
Ron Paul - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Paul
During the Cold War, science was the focus of intense super-power rivalry. Even areas like mind control were explored, amid fears of the other side getting an edge - and this included microwaves.
Prof Lin was shown the Soviet approach at a centre of scientific research in the town of Pushchino, near Moscow. "They had a very elaborate, very well-equipped laboratory," Prof Lin recalls. But their experiment was cruder than his. The subject would sit in a drum of salty seawater with their head sticking out. Then microwaves would be fired at their brain. The scientists thought the microwaves interacted with the nervous system and wanted to question Prof Lin on his alternative view.
Curiosity cut both ways, and US spies kept close track on Soviet research. A 1976 report by the US Defense Intelligence Agency, unearthed by the BBC, says it could find no proof of Communist-bloc microwave weapons, but says it had learnt of experiments where microwaves were pulsed at the throat of frogs until their hearts stopped.
The report also reveals that the US was concerned Soviet microwaves could be used to impair brain function or induce sounds for psychological effect. "Their internal sound perception research has great potential for development into a system for disorienting or disrupting the behaviour patterns of military or diplomatic personnel."
‘Havana syndrome ’ and the mystery of the microwaves - BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-58396698
Razor Ramon: Taking His Piece of America”
by Keith Elliot Greenberg - WWF Magazine [October 1992]
“The crowd on the Havana dock surged toward the rickety fishing boat. The vessel rocked back and forth perilously as people rushed onto the deck, clutching bundles of their belongings and squealing children. In the distance, a siren was heard. The army was coming to try to force the refugees to remain on Cuban shores, so it was imperative to leave immediately."
https://droptoehold-blog.tumblr.com/post/49522530268/razor-ramon-taking-his-piece-of-america-by
Scott Oliver Hall (October 20, 1958 – March 14, 2022)
Fourteenth Rule. Although there is much truth in the assertion that no one can save himself without being predestined and without having faith and grace; we must be very cautious in the manner of speaking and communicating with others about all these things.
The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YC_luOfFWl0Bm0BWkbANKZGC1kkmdHQf/view?usp=sharing
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://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf
was an American professional wrestler. He was best known for his tenures with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) under his real name and with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) under the ring name Razor Ramon.
Born in St. Mary's County, Maryland, Hall began his career in 1984. He rose to prominence after signing with the WWF in May 1992, assuming the name Razor Ramon. While within the company, he won the WWF Intercontinental Championship four times. He departed the company in May 1996, and subsequently signed with rival promotion WCW, where he became a founding member of the New World Order (nWo) faction, along with Hulk Hogan and Kevin Nash. In the company, he became a two-time WCW United States Heavyweight Champion, a one-time WCW World Television Champion, and a seven-time WCW World Tag Team Champion. He left WCW in February 2000, returning to the WWF (later renamed WWE) for a brief stint in 2002.
He spent the rest of his career wrestling for various promotions, such as Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), where he held the TNA World Tag Team Championship once, with Kevin Nash and Eric Young. He wrestled his final match in June 2016. Although he never won a world championship in a major promotion, Hall held the WWC Universal Heavyweight Championship once for the Puerto Rico-based promotion World Wrestling Council. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as a singles competitor in 2014, and as a member of the nWo in 2020. Hall struggled with alcoholism and substance abuse for much of his career and later life, and died in March 2022, at the age of 63.
Death
In March 2022, Hall was hospitalized after falling and breaking his hip.[166] He was immobile on the floor for days before being discovered during a wellness check by his friend Diamond Dallas Page, who took him to the hospital.[167] After Hall underwent hip replacement surgery, a blood clot was dislodged, and resulted in Hall having three heart attacks on March 12, 2022, after which he was put on life support at WellStar Kennestone Hospital in Marietta, Georgia.[168] He was taken off life support on March 14, 2022, after his family had traveled to the hospital to see him and be with him at his bedside. He died about 4 or 6 hours later at the age of 63.[169][170][171] WWE announced his death later during that day's Raw episode with a tribute video.[172]
Four days after Hall's death, Sean Waltman revealed to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Hall had relapsed back into alcohol abuse when the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns rendered him unable to have social interactions, and at one point he had dropped weight down to 210 pounds (95 kg) from his usual 287 pounds (130 kg). Waltman also revealed that Hall was in particularly bad shape the night before the 2021 Hall of Fame induction ceremony, and even passed out at a bar.[167] Waltman also stated Hall's condition worsened throughout the two years prior to his death and that he had offered to move in with Hall in February 2022 to help with his health issues.[167] Page also returned to help with Hall's alcoholism.[167]
Hall was buried on April 8, 2022, at Trinity Church Cemetery at St. Mary's, Maryland, his hometown, and the service was attended by fellow wrestlers Kevin Nash, Sean Waltman, Triple H, Shawn Michaels, and Page.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Hall
Windham Lawrence Rotunda (May 23, 1987 – August 24, 2023), better known by his ring name Bray Wyatt, was an American professional wrestler best known for his tenures in WWE from 2009 until his death in 2023.
Rotunda was a third-generation wrestler, following in the footsteps of his grandfather Blackjack Mulligan, his father Mike Rotunda, and his uncles Barry and Kendall Windham. His younger brother Taylor is also a wrestler under the ring name Bo Dallas. Alongside his brother, he held the FCW Florida Tag Team Championship twice while in WWE's then-developmental territory, Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW). He wrestled under various ring names between 2008 and 2012 in FCW, and wrestled on WWE's main roster from 2010 to 2011 as a member of The Nexus under the ring name Husky Harris.
After returning to WWE's developmental territory, which had been rebranded as NXT, Rotunda was repackaged as Bray Wyatt. Portrayed as the villainous leader of a bayou-dwelling cult called The Wyatt Family, he returned to the main roster alongside Wyatt Family members Luke Harper and Erick Rowan in 2013. He subsequently became a one-time WWE Champion, two-time WWE Universal Champion, one-time SmackDown Tag Team Champion (alongside Harper and brief Wyatt Family member Randy Orton under the Freebird Rule), and one-time Raw Tag Team Champion (with Matt Hardy).
After a hiatus from August 2018 to April 2019, Wyatt returned with a new split personality gimmick, which saw him switch between the two characters of a Mr. Rogers-esque children's TV host named Bray Wyatt and a grotesque monster resembling an evil clown called The Fiend. He was released from WWE in July 2021, but returned in October 2022 with a new character that claimed to be his "real-life" self, though he gradually reincorporated his previous personalities in addition to new ones. In what would become his only televised match during this return, he defeated LA Knight in January 2023; he took a medical hiatus in February due to a COVID-19 infection that exacerbated a pre-existing heart condition, and died of a heart attack in August at the age of 36.
Death
Rotunda died in his sleep at his home in Clermont, Florida, on August 24, 2023 at the age of 36. The cause of death was a heart attack.[270][271] His death was announced by WWE's chief content officer Triple H, following a phone call he had received from Rotunda's father Mike Rotunda.[272] Rotunda had been dealing with an undisclosed illness since February, which was reportedly life-threatening. Just days before his death, reports were published stating that he was making progress in his recovery. Shortly after his death, it was revealed that the illness was due to an earlier COVID-19 infection, which had exacerbated a pre-existing heart condition.[270] He had been hospitalized for a heart issue one week before his death, and was advised to wear a specialized vest containing a self-activating defibrillator; at the time of his death, he was not wearing the vest, which police found in his car.[271][273]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bray_Wyatt
Lyon County Sheriff's Office - Nevada
February 26, 2020 ·
Sixteen years ago today, the Serenko family lost a loved one and the Lyon County Sheriff's Office lost one of our brothers.
Deputy Mick Serenko was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey but lived most of his life in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The day after he graduated high school Mick joined the Navy and he always said it was the best move he ever made. The Navy gave him stability and focus in his life, it enabled him to see much of the world, and it helped him gain an education (majoring in Criminal Justice).
When Mick talked about retiring from the Navy it was always with the idea of becoming a law enforcement officer. He and his lovely wife, Sharon, checked out several areas around the country (including Texas and Washington State) but ultimately decided on Nevada as the place to plant their roots.
Mick went to work for the Lyon County Sheriff's Office and served there until the night he suffered a major heart attack on the job. He was hospitalized and passed away a couple days later on February 26, 2004.
Deputy Mick Serenko loved being a cop and he is sorely missed.
https://www.facebook.com/story.php/?story_fbid=1234461393427621&id=100064937010102
Alameda County Sheriff's Office
February 14, 2022 ·
DEATH OF ALAMEDA COUNTY DEPUTY SHERIFF AUBREY PHILLIPS
For Immediate Release:
It is with tremendous sadness we report the sudden and unexpected death of Deputy Sheriff Aubrey Phillips.
On Saturday, February 12, 2022, Deputy Phillips was assigned as a patrol officer to the City of Dublin, California a contract police service of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office. About 1:46 am, Deputy Phillips conducted a traffic enforcement stop in which she arrested the driver of the vehicle. During the process of that arrest, while seated in her patrol vehicle, Deputy Phillips suffered a severe and acute medical emergency. Another officer noticed Deputy Phillips in distress and immediately began life saving efforts and called for emergency medical services. Deputy Phillips was rushed to Stanford Valley Care Hospital in Pleasanton, California and was listed in critical condition. She was transported to John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek for life saving intervention. Tragically, medical professionals were unable to save her life and she passed away.
Deputy Phillips was a registered organ donor and she will donate her organs to others as a result of her death. Sheriff Gregory Ahern stated, “This tragic event has touched each member of this agency. Aubrey’s short life will live on even after her passing. Aubrey will continue to serve her community by giving the gift of life to others in need. She was truly a remarkable person and served this agency and Alameda County with dignity and honor.”
Deputy Phillips was 36 years old. She was a five year veteran of the Agency and assigned as a midnight shift patrol officer in the City of Dublin. Deputy Phillips is the daughter of an honorably retired Alameda County Deputy Sheriff and her husband is a current Deputy Sheriff for Alameda County. Deputy Phillips and her husband have three young children.
Our Agency is heartbroken over the sudden death of Deputy Phillips. We are providing counseling and peer support to our members impacted by her loss.
Further information regarding funeral services will be provided at a later date.
*Photographs of Aubrey Phillips are attached for media use.
Lt. Ray Kelly
Chief of Staff
Public Information officer
Alameda County Sheriff’s Office
1401 Lakeside Dr. 12th Floor
Oakland, CA 94612
https://www.facebook.com/ACSOSheriffs/posts/pfbid03FbGAv9eFcNaheypozH59kCLJkzHLwrL7qgUHbStiV9MtbcBU9pUt7KpTPk8Hbngl
Salvador Miranda (October 18, 1939 – June 1, 2024) was an American bibliographer, librarian and church historian.[1][2]
Biography
Miranda was born on October 18, 1939, in Havana, Cuba.[2] In 1958, he graduated from the Jesuit-run Colegio de Belén in Havana after which he attended the law school at the University of Havana.[2] After the Cuban Revolution in 1963, he moved to Puerto Rico to study humanities at the University of Puerto Rico.[2] As a young Cuban exile, he was a member of the Cuban-American expeditionary force in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion.[1] He then returned to school graduating with a B.A. in History and Philosophy from Biscayne College; an M.A. in Modern European History in 1974 from Villanova University; and an M.S. in Library and Information Science in 1976 from Florida State University.[2] After graduating from Florida State, he accepted a position as the Latin American and Caribbean Bibliographer at the University of Florida Libraries in Gainesville.[2] In 1986, he served as assistant director for Collection Management at Florida International University Libraries in Miami.[2] On June 30, 2001, he retired.[2]
The title of his 319-page master's thesis in history was The Sacred College of Cardinals in the Twentieth Century (1903-1973): Developments, Documents and Biographies[2] which he expanded to include earlier cardinals and then digitized, making it available as an online resource.[1] In appreciation of his research, Bishop Cipriano Calderón Polo, the founding director of the Spanish edition of the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano and the vice president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, whom he corresponded with for years over the history of the episcopacy, invited him to present at the first continental meeting of bishops from Latin America in 1999.[1][3]
His research and expertise has been used as a resource by various publications including The New York Times,[4] The Cleveland Plain Dealer,[5] Religion News Service,[6] La Stampa,[7] and The Wall Street Journal.[8]
On 28 June 2023, Miranda posted on The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church's main page that he had been hospitalized with cardiac issues.[9] He died on June 1, 2024, at the age of 84.[10][11]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Miranda_(historian)
Jeremy Dane Laymon[2] (March 10, 1976 – December 25, 2024) was an American professional wrestler, better known by his ring name, Jax Dane. He was known for his tenure with various National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) member promotions. He was a former NWA World Heavyweight Champion, NWA National Heavyweight, NWA North American Heavyweight and NWA World Tag Team Champion. He was also known for his work for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), Impact Wrestling, and Ring of Honor (ROH).
Return to NWA (2020–2024)
On the February 25, 2020, episode of NWA Powerrr, Dane appeared with Danny Deals to challenge Tim Storm.[citation needed]
Jax lost the NWA National Championship to Cyon at NWA 74 at The Chase Ballroom in St. Louis, MO on August 27, 2022.[citation needed]
He remained active in the NWA until his death. His final match, where he and Baron Von Storm defeated Jake Dumas and Zyon, took place at the NWA Samhain 2 taping and aired on December 17, 2024.[citation needed]
Death
Following complications from a heart attack suffered in November, Dane died on December 25, 2024 at the age of 48. The National Wrestling Alliance issued a statement on his death on their website.[31]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jax_Dane
REMOTE CONTROL HEART ATTACK WEAPONS
"The brain is on the verge of becoming the next battlefield with weapons currently being designed to hack directly into your nervous system.
"Controlled Personnel Effects"
(see image, right) is one of the Air Force’s ambitious long-term challenges. It starts with better and more accurate bombs, but moves on to discuss devices that "make selected adversaries think or act according to our needs… By studying and modeling the human brain and nervous system, the ability to mentally influence or confuse personnel is also possible."
The first stage is technology to “remotely create physical sensations.”
They give the example of the Active Denial System "people zapper" which uses a high-frequency radiation similar to microwaves as a non-lethal means of crowd control.
Other weapons can affect the nervous system directly. The Pulsed Energy Projectile fires a short intense pulse of laser energy. This vaporizes the outer layer of the target, creating a rapidly-expanding expanding ball of plasma. At different power levels, those expanding plasmas could deliver a harmless warning, stun the target, or disable them – all with pinpoint laser precision from a mile away.
Early reports on the effects of PEPs mentioned temporary paralysis, then thought to be related to ultrasonic shockwaves. It later became apparent that the electromagnetic pulse caused by the expanding plasma was triggering nerve cells
Details of this emerged in a heavily-censored document released to Ed Hammond of the Sunshine Project under the Freedom if Information Act. Called “Sensory consequence of electromagnetic pulsed emitted by laser induced plasmas,” it described research on activating the nerve cells responsible for sensing unpleasant stimuli: heat, damage, pressure, cold. By selectively stimulating a particular nociceptor, a finely tuned PEP might sensations of say, being burned, frozen or dipped in acid — all without doing the slightest actual harm.
The skin is the easiest target for such stimulation. But, in principle, any sensory nerves could be triggered. The Controlled Effects document suggests “it may be possible to create synthetic images…to confuse an individual’ s visual sense or, in a similar manner, confuse his senses of sound, taste, touch, or smell.”
In other words, it may be possible to use electromagnetic means to create overwhelming ‘sound’ or ‘light’, or indeed ‘intolerable smell’ which would exist only in the brain of the person perceiving them.
There is another side as well. The “sensory consequences” document also notes that the nervous system which controls muscles could be influenced to cause what they call “Taser-like motor effects.” The stun gun’s ability to shock the muscles into malfunction is relatively crude; we might now be looking at are much more targeted effects.
The American military may want to attack the nervous system, with pain rays and laser plasma pulses. But they’re not the only ones.
The Russians have long studied such systems, too — including one weapon that could, in theory, remotely trigger heart attacks.
In 2003, at the 2nd European Symposium on Non-Lethal Weapons, Anatoly Korolev and his colleagues from Moscow State University presented a paper with the snappy title "Bioelectrodynamic Criterion of the NLW Effectiveness Estimation and the Interaction mechanisms of the multilayer Skin Tissues with electromagnetic Radiation." This is a study of how radio-frequency weapons — like the American Active Denial System — affect the skin. After wading through a mass of technical data showing how complex the interactions are we reach the punch line:
The sensations modality (pricking, touch, pressure, gooseflesh, touch, burning pain etc) depends on the field parameters and individual concrete human being factors. As a matter of fact, we can really choose the non-lethal bioeffect.
The effects include sensations similar to those discussed previously, and more besides. The paper discusses effects on cell membranes and affecting the body’s normal function, including "information transfer to the organs of control."
At the same conference, V Makukhin of the Trymas Engineering Center in Moscow described "Electronic equipment for complex influence on biological objects." And when he says "biological objects," he means you and me.
His laboratory apparatus uses a modulated beam of radio waves to produce what he terms "disorder of autonomic nervous system," put forward as a possible non-lethal weapon. Makhunin notes that there is no general agreement on how EM waves disrupt nerves – he mentions ion channels similar to those in the plasma paper – but he certainly seems to be seeing the same effects as American researchers.
But it need not be a non-lethal weapon. Makhunin also mentions the effects of "change of electrocardiogram" and what he calls "function break of heart muscle."
The vulnerability of the heart to electrical stimulation (including that produced by EM waves) is well documented.
A lethal device would interfere with the electrical potentials that keep the chambers of the heart synchronized, producing fibrillation and rapid death. A death ray doesn’t need to be a truck-sized laser that
reduces the target to smoking heap; a small device that stops the heart will do the job.
Little has been openly published in this area in the public domain, but this may be the tip of the iceberg. We are likely to be hearing more in future – especially if the Russians manage to find funding.
I don’t think we need tinfoil hats just yet. But a layer of conducting mesh built into body armor might save a lot of heartache in years to come."
REMOTE CONTROL HEART ATTACK WEAPONS
https://www.impactlab.com/2006/02/15/remote-control-heart-attack-weapons/
Claim circulates that COVID-19 vaccines increase heart attack risk
November 3, 2023
A clip has resurfaced of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claiming that COVID-19 vaccines cause heart attacks in vaccinated people at five times the rate of unvaccinated people. The clip originally circulated in January.
The persistence of this false claim increases its risk. Debunking messaging may emphasize that COVID-19 vaccination is not associated with an increased heart attack risk—COVID-19 infection is. In fact, in people with previous COVID-19 infections, COVID-19 vaccination may decrease the risk of heart attack, stroke, and other cardiovascular issues. Severe adverse reactions following COVID-19 vaccines are extremely rare.
https://publichealthcollaborative.org/alerts/claim-circulates-that-covid-19-vaccines-increase-heart-attack-risk/
Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy was wearing a pink Chanel suit when her husband, U.S. President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.[1][2] She insisted on wearing the suit, stained with his blood, during the swearing-in of Lyndon B. Johnson that afternoon and for the flight back to Washington, D.C. Jacqueline Kennedy was a fashion icon, and the suit is the most referenced and revisited among her clothing items.[3][4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Chanel_suit_of_Jacqueline_Bouvier_Kennedy
Pink Floyd
The new group rebranded as the Pink Floyd Sound in late 1965.[24][25][26][27] Barrett purportedly created the name on the spur of the moment when he discovered that another band, also called the Tea Set, were to perform at one of their gigs.[28] The name Pink Floyd is derived from the given names of two blues musicians whose Piedmont blues records Barrett had in his collection, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council.[29] By 1966, the group's repertoire consisted mainly of rhythm and blues songs, and they had begun to receive paid bookings, including a performance at the Marquee Club in December 1966, where Peter Jenner, a lecturer at the London School of Economics, noticed them. Jenner was impressed by the sonic effects Barrett and Wright created and, with his business partner and friend Andrew King, became their manager.[30] The pair had little experience in the music industry and used King's inheritance to set up Blackhill Enterprises, purchasing about £1,000 (equivalent to £23,500 in 2023[31]) worth of new instruments and equipment for the band.[nb 7] Around this time, Jenner suggested the band drop the "Sound" from their name.[33]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Floyd
Queen Of The Underdogs: 5 Reasons Pink Is an Underappreciated Gay Icon
The androgynous star has been a longtime advocate for LGBTQ rights.
By Patrick Crowley
10/23/2017
https://www.billboard.com/culture/pride/pink-gay-icon-5-reasons-8007038/
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
Tracing boards are painted or printed illustrations depicting the various emblems and symbols of Freemasonry. They can be used as teaching aids during the lectures that follow each of the Masonic Degrees, when an experienced member explains the various concepts of Freemasonry to new members. They can also be used by experienced members as reminders of the concepts they learned as they went through the ceremonies of the different masonic degrees.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracing_board
Pinkerton is a private security guard and detective agency established around 1850 in the United States by Scottish-born American cooper Allan Pinkerton and Chicago attorney Edward Rucker as the North-Western Police Agency, which later became Pinkerton & Co. and finally the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. At the height of its power from the 1870s to the 1890s, it was the largest private law enforcement organization in the world.[1] It is currently a subsidiary of Swedish-based Securitas AB.[2]
Pinkerton became famous when he claimed to have foiled the Baltimore Plot to assassinate President-elect Abraham Lincoln in 1861. Lincoln later hired Pinkerton agents to conduct espionage against the Confederacy and act as his personal security during the American Civil War.[3][4]
Following the Civil War, the Pinkertons began conducting operations against organized labor.[5] During the labor strikes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, businesses hired the Pinkerton Agency to infiltrate unions, supply guards, keep strikers and suspected unionists out of factories, and recruit goon squads to intimidate workers.[6] During the Homestead Strike of 1892, Pinkerton agents were called in to reinforce the strikebreaking measures of industrialist Henry Clay Frick, who was acting on behalf of Andrew Carnegie, the head of Carnegie Steel.[7] Tensions between the workers and strikebreakers erupted into violence, which led to the deaths of three Pinkerton agents and nine steelworkers. [8][9] During the late nineteenth century, the Pinkertons were also hired as guards in coal, iron, and lumber disputes in Illinois, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, and were involved in other strikes such as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877.[10]
During the 20th century, Pinkerton rebranded itself as a personal security and risk management firm. The company has continued to exist in various forms to the present day and is now a division of the Swedish security company Securitas AB, operating as Pinkerton Consulting & Investigations, Inc., doing business as Pinkerton Corporate Risk Management. [11] The former Pinkerton Government Services division, PGS, now operates as Securitas Critical Infrastructure Services, Inc..[12]
Origins
In the 1850s, Allan Pinkerton, a Scottish immigrant, met Chicago attorney Edward Rucker in a local Masonic Hall. The two men formed the North-Western Police Agency, later known as the Pinkerton Agency.[13][14][15] Pinkerton used his skills in espionage to attract clients and begin growing the agency. Historian Frank Morn writes: "By the mid-1850s, a few businessmen saw the need for greater control over their employees; their solution was to sponsor a private detective system. In February 1855, Allan Pinkerton, after consulting with six midwestern railroads, created such an agency in Chicago."[16] The Pinkerton Agency began to hire women and minorities shortly after its founding because they were useful as spies, a practice uncommon at the time.[17]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency)
Don't forget, folks, Monday, March 15th, 8pm, LaFayette Hotel, 2223 El Cajon Boulevard in San Diego. I'll be there, I'll be giving a three-hour presentation, entitled The Sacrificed King: On the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. In it, I will directly connect to the occult worship of Mystery Babylon, the secret societies, and specifically to the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, which really is just the outward form of the old Knights Templar. And I also believe, have reason to believe, that the sovereign and military order of the Knights of Malta was involved, which is just another branch of the old Templar order. So make sure that you're there. Forty dollars is the admission fee unless you're a CAJI member, then the admission fee if thirty dollars. I managed to negotiate a 25% discount with the people who are putting this on and who have invited me to speak. If you're not a CAJI member, you can purchase advance tickets at the Controversial Bookstore in San Diego. If you are a CAJI member, you must buy your tickets at the event. That's the only way, uh, that we can get you the discount. If you would like information on this whole conference that lasts the whole weekend, there's a whole lot of Looney Tunes stuff going on there. There are some good speakers. Uh, my workshop is, uh, Monday night, the last one of the whole conference, and it's not a workshop ticket, so it's a separate event altogether. But you can call and find out about the whole thing in case you want to spend the whole weekend. Call (619)492-8588, that's (619)492-8588, and we still donations to pay for this airtime, folks. C'mon, get out your checkbooks and money orders and help us out here. Send your donation to Stan and make your checks and money orders to WWCR, not to me, I don't want your money. It goes to pay for airtime, that's it, period. Send them to Stan, P.O. Box 889, Camp Verde, Arizona, 86322. That's Stan, P.O. Box 889, Camp Verde, Arizona, 86322. Tell him Bill sent you (laughs), and while you're at it, and even if you don't send a donation, write to Stan or call him and tell him you'd like to receive a packet of information. He'd be glad to send it to you. If you'd like to call him, his number is (602)567-6109. That's (602)567-6109. Please call him during normal waking hours. Stan's getting up there and he likes his sleep, and I don't blame him, so please don't call him, uh, late in the evening or late at night. Let him have some, some of his own time. Call him during the day, during waking hours or early evening, please. Thank you very much for those of you who are doing that. Those of you who are not, please start. Well, let's continue where we left off and, uh, this is about the society in the Middle East known as the Assassins, and we've covered quite a bit of their history already:
[Reading from A History of Secret Societies]:
But this secret society, [the] most successful of secret societies showed that its strength ultimately depended upon a powerful leader. [Well,] Kia Mohammed was no such [leader]. [And] little by little it became obvious that his son, Hasan the Hated, was the stronger personality. [Now remember, Kia Mohammed was the Old Man of the Mountain, and the mountain lair was called: The Eagle's Nest.] Now Hasan, through some magnetic power, was able to capture the imagination of the Assassins, soon having it believed that he himself was none other than the Power of All Powers, the Hidden Imam, who had been mentioned by the first Grand Master; an incarnation of all greatness. So important was [Hasan] that he was the fountain of power, and others only held a [very small] measure of authority because he allowed them to have it [and for no other reason].
This final absurdity was lapped up by members who had been conditioned to believe in things which were not, shall we say, exactly self-evident to the ordinary man. The doctrine of the all-powerful Invisible Imam was a part of Ismailism; and Hasan was ready even during his early manhood to assume the role. But, since his father was able to assert himself by having some two hundred and fifty of Hasan' followers murdered, he thought it wiser to hold his hand. In 1163 his chance came. Mohammed died, and Hasan II issued an order to all Ismailis to collect below the castle of Alamut.
Never before had such an assembly of killers, fanatics and dedicated perverters of the truth been seen. Hasan, probably in a state of megalomania, assured them that he had received a message from the Almighty that as from now, all the bond of religion were loosed: everyone might do as he liked. [Later, in the modern age, we would hear that again as: “The whole of the Law shall be: do as thou wilt.”] It was not necessary [he said] to keep up pretences. And, furthermore, he, Hasan, was none other than the Hidden Imam. His word was law; and he was a form of the divinity, not merely relaying instructions from above [but the divinity].
Hour 12: The Templars and the Assassins (aired March 2nd, 1993)
https://viefag.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/transcripts-of-william-cooper-s-mystery-babylon-series.pdf
The Misfits is a 1961 American contemporary Western film directed by John Huston and written by Arthur Miller, who adapted his own 1957 short story. It stars Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, and Montgomery Clift, alongside Thelma Ritter and Eli Wallach. The plot centers on a newly divorced woman (Monroe), and her relationships with a friendly landlady (Ritter), an old-school cowboy (Gable), his tow-truck driving and plane-flying best friend (Wallach), and their rodeo-riding, bronc-busting friend (Clift). The Misfits was the last completed film for both Gable (who died three months before the premiere) and Monroe (who died a year after its release).
The Misfits was released by United Artists on February 1, 1961. It was a commercial failure, but received critical acclaim for its script and performances. Its reputation has enhanced over the years, and many critics now consider it to be a masterpiece and one of the best films of the 1960s. The film also gave name to the punk band Misfits formed in 1977.
Plot
In Reno, Nevada, 30-year-old Roslyn Tabor files for a quickie six-week residency divorce from her inattentive husband, Raymond. Afterward, Roslyn's landlady Isabelle takes her to a cocktail lounge at Harrah's for drinks. They meet an aging cowboy named Gaylord Langland, and his tow truck driver best friend, Guido. The friendly Guido tells Roslyn and Isabelle about his unfinished house in the country. Later that day, the group goes to the unfinished house Guido has built for his late wife. After drinking and dancing, Roslyn has had too much to drink, so Gaylord drives her home to Reno.
Eventually, Roslyn and Gaylord move into Guido's half-finished house and work on it. One day, Gaylord tells Roslyn how he wishes he were more of a father to his children, whom he has not seen for years. Later, he discovers rabbits have been eating the lettuce in the garden they have planted. Gay wants to kill the rabbits with his shotgun, an idea that Roslyn opposes.
When Guido and Isabelle show up, Guido suggests that they round up wild mustangs to sell. They go to a local rodeo in Dayton to hire a third man. They run into Perce Howland, a cowboy friend of Gaylord's, who wants to compete in the rodeo. Gaylord offers to pay the broke Perce's $10 entry fee if he will help round up mustangs the next day. Guido, Perce, Roslyn and Gaylord go to a bar and nearly get into a fistfight when a drunk spanks Roslyn's bottom.
At the rodeo, Roslyn becomes somewhat upset when Guido tells her how the horses are made to buck with an irritating flank strap. Perce is thrown by a bucking horse, and Roslyn begs him to go to a hospital, but he insists on riding a bull he had already signed up and paid to ride. He gets thrown again, sustaining a head injury.
Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Rex Bell, Eli Wallach, and Montgomery Clift
Later, he passes out in a Dayton back alley. When he regains consciousness, he sees Roslyn crying over him. He says that he never had anyone cry for him before and that he wished he had a friend to talk to. He tells her how his mother changed after his father died, giving his stepfather the ranch Perce's father wanted to leave to Perce. A drunken Gaylord then fetches Roslyn, telling her that he wants her to meet his kids, claiming he unexpectedly ran into them. When Gaylord discovers his children have already left Dayton, he causes a public scene.
Later on, during the drive home, a drunken Guido asks if Roslyn has left Gaylord and offers to take his place. Back at Guido's house, Guido attempts to finish the patio he started. Later, Gaylord asks Roslyn if a woman like her would ever want to have a child with him. She avoids the issue.
The next day, Gaylord, Guido and Perce go after the mustangs, with Roslyn reluctantly tagging along. Roslyn becomes upset when she learns that they will be slaughtered for dog food. Gaylord tells Roslyn that he did things for her that he never did for any other woman, such as making the house a home and planting the garden. After they catch a stallion and four mares, Roslyn begs Gaylord to release the horses. He considers it, but when she offers to pay him $200, it angers him. Guido tells Roslyn that he would release them if she would leave Gaylord for him. She rebuffs him. Perce asks her if she wants him to set the horses free, but she declines because she thinks it would only start a fight. Perce frees the stallion anyway. After Gaylord chases down and subdues it by himself, he lets it go and says he just did not want anybody making up his mind for him. As they are driving away in Gaylord's truck, Roslyn tells Gaylord that she will leave the next day. He stops the truck to pick up his dog and watches her joyfully untethering him. They realize that they still love each other and drive off into the night.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Misfits_(1961_film)
miss(v.)
Old English missan "fail to hit, miss (a mark); fail in what was aimed at; escape (someone's notice)," from Proto-Germanic *missjan "to go wrong" (source also of Old Frisian missa, Middle Dutch, Dutch missen, German missen "to miss, fail"), from *missa- "in a changed manner," hence "abnormally, wrongly," from PIE root *mei- (1) "to change, go, move." Reinforced or influenced by cognate Old Norse missa "to miss, to lack." Related: Missed; missing.
Sense of "fail to find" (someone or something) is by late 12c. Meaning "fail to note, perceive, or observe" is from early 13c. Meaning "fail to reach or attain what one wants" is from mid-13c. Sense of "perceive with regret the absence or loss of (something or someone)" is from c. 1300. Meaning "omit, leave out, skip" is by mid-14c. Sense of "to escape, avoid" is from 1520s.
Sense of "to not be on time for" is from 1823; to miss the boat in the figurative sense of "be too late for" is from 1929, originally nautical slang. To miss out (on) "fail to get" is by 1929.
miss(n.1)
late 12c., "loss, lack; " c. 1200, "regret occasioned by loss or absence," from Old English miss "absence, loss," from source of missan "to miss" (see miss (v.)). Meaning "an act or fact of missing; a being without" is from late 15c.; meaning "a failure to hit or attain" is 1550s.
Phrase a miss is as good as a mile (1761) was originally an inch, in a miss, is as good as an ell (1610s; see ell). To give (something) a miss "to abstain from, avoid" is attested by 1919, perhaps from earlier use of the term in billiards, "to avoid hitting the object ball" (1807).
There are few of the niceties of the game that require more care than that of "giving a miss," and particularly when the player wishes to mask the ball. I recollect a game I played with Mr. Burke, of Cheltenham. He went off, and doubled, as was his custom, the red ball nearly over the baulk corner pocket. Not feeling disposed, against so skilful an antagonist, to run the risk of playing for a canon off his ball, I gave a miss, thinking I had masked the ball. His eye, keen and penetrating, discovered at a glance that I had just left him room to pass. He played at the red ball and holed his own ball off it by a fine cut, and scored forty points from the break. [Edward Russell Mardon, "Billiards," London, 1849]
also from late 12c.
miss(n.2)
"the term of honour to a young girl" [Johnson], originally (17c.) a shortened form of mistress (compare Mrs., pronounced mis-ez). By 1640s as "prostitute, concubine." By 1700 as "a young, unmarried woman."
Misses as a trade term (originally in the mail order business) for sizes or styles of clothes for girls from about 10 to 17 years old is by 1880. Miss America is from 1922 as the title bestowed on the winner of an annual nationwide U.S. beauty/talent contest. Earlier it meant "young American women generally" or "the United States personified as a young woman," and it also was the name of a fast motor boat. In the 1811 reprint of the slang dictionary, Miss Laycock is given as an underworld euphemism for "the monosyllable."
also from 17c.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/miss
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.
Career
Arrival in England
Flaad and his son Alan had come to the favourable notice of King Henry I of England who, soon after his accession, brought Flaad and Alan to England. Eyton, consistently following the theory of the Scottish origins of the Stewarts, thought this was because he was part of the entourage of the Queen, Matilda of Scotland,[7] Round pointed out that Henry had been besieged in Mont-Saint-Michel during his struggle with his brothers,[1] an event which probably occurred in 1091. He is known to have recruited Breton troops at that time and, after his surrender, left the scene via the adjoining regions of Brittany, where Dol is situated. This is a likely explanation for the Bretons in the military retinue he brought to England after the death of William Rufus.
Alan's career in England can be traced largely through his presence as a witness to charters granted by the king during his travels in the first decade or more of his reign. Some of his activities were traced by Eyton, and his researches overlap with William Farrer's calendar of Henry I travel. All of the business in which he took part was ecclesiastical, involving grants, sometimes disputed, to churches and monasteries.
Appearances at court
Alan appeared in Henry I's company at least as early as September 1101, probably at a court held in Windsor Castle,[8] when he witnessed important grants to Norwich Cathedral, confirming its foundation and various endowments.[9][10] Next, he appeared with the king at Canterbury in 1103,[11] where he witnessed the grant of a market to the nuns of Malling Abbey and land acquisitions by Rochester Cathedral, then in the process of rebuilding.[12]
Later that year,[13] or early in the next,[14] Alan was with the king in the New Forest, where the business concerned Andover Priory, a daughter house of the great Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Florent de Saumur.[15] He was probably selected deliberately for this meeting because of his family's close connections with Saumur Abbey: one of his uncles was a monk there.[16] William Rufus had decreed that all chapels in the parish of Andover church should be handed over to the monks or destroyed.[17] One problem at issue revolved around the Foxcote chapel, which was evidently being defended from destruction or annexation by Edward de Foscote, a local landowner. Another seems to have been the administration of justice in the monastic estates.[18] Wihenoc, a monk of St Florent, had initiated an action against the reeve of Andover to have these issues clarified and resolved. Alan Fitz Flaad was called upon to witness a compromise, although Foxcote was among the properties confirmed to the priory by Pope Eugenius III in 1146.[19]
In the autumn of 1105, Alan was called to York to witness confirmation of Ralph Paynel's transfer of his refounded Holy Trinity Priory in York to Marmoutier Abbey, Tours[20][21] and his many endowments of the priory itself.[22][23] At some point, he also witnessed the Roger de Nonant's gift of the church at Totnes and various tithes to the Abbey of Ss Sergius and Bacchus at Angers, a gift earmarked as being for the souls of the royal family.[24]
In May 1110, Alan was at court at Windsor again to witness the king's settlement of a property dispute between Hervey le Breton, Bishop of Ely, and Ranulph Flambard, Bishop of Durham, resolved in favour of the former.[25]
Probably only later did he appear as a witness to a royal command issued to Richard de Belmeis I, the Bishop of London and the king's viceroy in Shropshire, to see that justice was done in the case of a disputed prebend at Morville.[26][27] The collegiate church there had been dissolved and replaced with a priory attached to Shrewsbury Abbey[28] and it seems that the son of one of the prebendaries was resisting the loss of what he regarded as his patrimony. Alan is listed among a group of Shropshire magnates, including Corbets and a Peverel, meeting perhaps during Henry I's 1114 military expedition into Wales. Johnson and Cronne tentatively place the meeting at Holdgate Castle in Shropshire. Eyton dates the event earlier, around the time of a royal expedition to Shropshire in 1109.[29] Whatever the date, it shows Alan as an important member of the Shropshire landowning class.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_fitz_Flaad
Stuart's Cape Audio CD – CD, May 1, 2013
Stuart's got problems...It's raining. He's bored.And worst of all, he's new in town.So he's got a lot to worry about.But what does a kid like Stuart need in order to have an adventure? A cape, of course.
https://www.amazon.com/Stuarts-Cape-Sara-Pennypacker/dp/1470886391
Elizabeth died childless. Her successor was her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots' son James VI of Scotland. The thrones of England and Scotland were joined in a dynastic union until 1707. The seven monarchs of this period continued to use the style King/Queen of France, though their claim was merely nominal. None of them was willing to engage in military campaigns for France against the actual Kings of France Henry IV, Louis XIII and Louis XIV of France. Indeed, Charles I married a sister of Louis XIII, and his son Charles II spent much of his exile during the Interregnum in France (at which time, even if not formally abandoning his claim for its throne, he certainly did not emphasise it).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_claims_to_the_French_throne
The Capetian dynasty (/kəˈpiːʃən/ kə-PEE-shən; French: Capétiens), also known as the "House of France", is a dynasty of Frankish origin, and a branch of the Robertians and the Karlings. 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 favour 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 are still reigning over Spain and Luxembourg.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capetian_dynasty
Rosalia Lombardo (13 December 1918 – 6 December 1920)[1] was a Palermitan child who died of pneumonia, resulting from the Spanish flu,[2] one week before her second birthday. Rosalia's father, Mario Lombardo, grieving her death, asked Alfredo Salafia, an embalmer, to preserve her remains.[3] Sometimes called "Sleeping Beauty",[4] hers was one of the last corpses to be admitted to the Capuchin catacombs of Palermo in Sicily.
Embalming
Lombardo's body in 2012.
Thanks to Salafia's embalming techniques, the body was well-preserved. X-rays of the body show that all the organs are remarkably intact.[5] Rosalia Lombardo's body is kept in a small chapel at the end of the catacomb's street and is encased in a glass covered coffin, placed on a wooden pedestal. A 2009 National Geographic photograph of Rosalia Lombardo shows the mummy is beginning to show signs of decomposition, most notably discoloration. Her body is starting to take on a yellow waxy skin texture.[6] To address these issues, the mummy was moved to a drier spot in the catacombs, and her original coffin was placed in a hermetically sealed glass enclosure with nitrogen gas to prevent decay.[7] The mummy remains one of the best preserved bodies in the catacombs.
While there are claims that Capuchin catacombs curator Dario Piombino-Mascali and his associates were the first to discover Salafia's unpublished manuscripts, Professor Umberto Di Cristina and co-author were the first to discover the unpublished manuscript in their book La Dimora delle Anime, which was published in February 2007, two years before Dario Piombino-Mascali and his colleagues published their work. An English translation by the authors of "The discovery of the Salafia handwritten manuscript and formula. Chronological and biological considerations" note 21, p. 90 from the book La Dimora delle Anime by Di Cristina et al., 2007:"Alfredo Salafia studied the process of mummification of the bodies and dedicated his life to the research of the methods to preserve the corpses by the use of pharmacological substances and chemical preparations. He wrote a treatise entitled Nuovo Metodo Speciale per la conservazione del cadavere umanointero alla stato permanentemente fresco (New Special Method for the Preservation of the Entire Human Cadaver in the State of Permanent Freshness). It consists of around 30 handwritten pages where Salafia performs a concise description of the mummification techniques from the Egyptians to the Capuchins, and provides information on the European and American studies in the first years of the twentieth century; in his treatise he describes his own (embalming) method and describes the history of the embalming procedures of some illustrious personages, (whose bodies were) well-preserved thanks to his method: among those (are), Francesco Crispi, the cardinal Michelangelo Celesia, Archbishop of Palermo, and the Senator Giacomo Armò»." The authors state that "there are no published documentary, archival or photographic sources which support the claim that Alfredo Salafia embalmed Rosalia Lombardo" [8] The embalming formula, as stated by Dario Piombino-Mascali et. al, is described as "one part glycerin, one part formalin saturated with zinc sulfate and zinc chloride, and one part of an alcohol solution saturated with salicylic acid", and was entered into the body through a single-point injection, most likely into the femoral artery via a gravity injector.[1][9] Rossella Lorenzi of Discovery News reported that the formalin was used to kill bacteria, the glycerin used to prevent desiccation, and the salicylic acid used to eliminate any fungi within the flesh, with the purpose of the zinc salts being petrifaction.[9]
The mummy has achieved further notoriety for a phenomenon in which her eyes appear to open and close several times a day, revealing her intact blue irises.[10] In response to speculation about her moving eyelids, Piombino-Mascali stated that "It's an optical illusion produced by the light that filters through the side windows, which during the day is subject to change ... [her eyes] are not completely closed, and indeed they have never been".[11]
In 2021, a German heavy metal band Under The Night Sky released an EP called Rosalia (1918-1920).[12][13][14]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalia_Lombardo
The Lombards (/ˈlɒmbərdz, -bɑːrdz, ˈlʌm-/)[1] or Longobards (Latin: Longobardi) were a Germanic people[2] who conquered most of the Italian Peninsula between 568 and 774.
The medieval Lombard historian Paul the Deacon wrote in the History of the Lombards (written between 787 and 796) that the Lombards descended from a small tribe called the Winnili,[3] who dwelt in northern Germany[4] before migrating to seek new lands. Earlier Roman-era historians wrote of the Lombards in the first century AD as being one of the Suebian peoples, also from what is now northern Germany, near the Elbe river. They migrated south, and by the end of the fifth century, the Lombards had moved into the area roughly coinciding with modern Austria and Slovakia north of the Danube. Here they subdued the Heruls and later fought frequent wars with the Gepids. The Lombard king Audoin defeated the Gepid leader Thurisind in 551 or 552, and Audoin's successor Alboin eventually destroyed the Gepids in 567. The Lombards also settled in Pannonia (modern-day Hungary). Near Szólád, archaeologists have unearthed burial sites of Lombard men and women buried together as families, unusual among Germanic peoples at the time. Contemporary traces have also been discovered of Mediterranean Greeks and a possible migrant from France.
Following Alboin's victory over the Gepids, he led his people into northeastern Italy, which had become severely depopulated and devastated after the long Gothic War (535–554) between the Byzantine Empire and the Ostrogothic Kingdom. The Lombards were joined by numerous Saxons, Heruls, Gepids, Bulgars, Thuringians and Ostrogoths, and their invasion of Italy was almost unopposed. By late 569, they had conquered all of northern Italy and the principal cities north of the Po River except Pavia, which fell in 572. At the same time, they occupied areas in central and southern Italy. They established a Lombard Kingdom in north and central Italy, which reached its zenith under the eighth-century ruler Liutprand. In 774, the kingdom was conquered by the Frankish king Charlemagne and integrated into the Frankish Empire. However, Lombard nobles continued to rule southern parts of the Italian peninsula well into the eleventh century, when they were conquered by the Normans and added to the County of Sicily. In this period, the southern part of Italy still under Lombard domination was known to the Norse as Langbarðaland ('land of the Lombards'), as inscribed in the Norse runestones.[5] Their legacy is also apparent in the name of the region of Lombardy in northern Italy.
Name
According to their traditions, the Lombards initially called themselves the Winnili. After a reported major victory against the Vandals in the first century, they changed their name to Lombards.[6] The name Winnili is generally translated as 'the wolves', related to the Proto-Germanic root *wulfaz 'wolf'.[7] The name Lombard was reportedly derived from the distinctively long beards of the Lombards.[8] It is probably a compound of the Proto-Germanic elements *langaz (long) and *bardaz (beard).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombards
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/.../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
Louis de Bourbon (1438 – 30 August 1482 in Liège) was Prince-Bishop of Liège from 1456 until his death.
Family
He was the son of Charles I, Duke of Bourbon, and Agnes of Burgundy.[1] His own sister Isabella was the second wife of Charles the Bold.
He was brought up and educated by his uncle Philip, Duke of Burgundy, who let him study for ten years at the University of Leuven.[2]
It has been said that Louis married, in secret in 1464, Catherine, daughter of Arnold, Duke of Gelderland; these claims date only from the seventeenth century and are now believed to be false.
Louis' three children (all likely to have been born from a mistress) were:
Pierre de Bourbon, bâtard de Liège (1464–1529)[3]
Louis de Bourbon, bâtard de Liège (1465–1500)
Jacques de Bourbon, bâtard de Liège (1466–1537)
Louis' eldest son, Pierre, founded the Bourbon-Busset family.
Conflict over the bishopric
In 1456, Louis was given, through the efforts of Philip, Duke of Burgundy, the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, by influencing Pope Callixtus III and removing the 69-year-old John of Heinsberg.[4] Given the strategic position of Liège almost enclosed by Burgundian possessions, Louis was a poor choice because his behavior quickly led to troubles, permitting French meddling.[a]
The citizens rejected the new bishop and the Burgundian influence, which led to the Liège Wars. Louis was exiled to Maastricht.[6] Marc de Bade was put in place by the Liégeois, who fought under Raes van Heers, restored the bishop, but Liège lost its sovereignty. Another revolt in 1467 was crushed at the Battle of Brustem.
In the summer of 1468, Louis was back in his prince-bishopric, after a papal legate had intervened, but was captured at Tongeren by a raiding party from Liège, at that time again asserting independence of Charles the Bold of Burgundy.[7] An unlikely alliance of Charles with Louis XI, who in 1465 had helped the Liégeois against the bishop, saw Bishop Louis released. Liège was taken,[8] and sacked on 30 October 1468.[9] In gratitude Louis gave Charles the Horn of St Hubert, now in the Wallace Collection[10]
Later life
Louis sold Condé and Leuze to Marie de Montmorency.
In 1477, Charles the Bold was killed, and his daughter and heiress Mary of Burgundy was forced to sign the Peace of Saint-Jacques, consolidating the bishop's position but returning sovereignty to Liège. He was at this time amongst the advisers of Mary who wanted her to marry the future Charles VIII of France, then Dauphin of France.[11]
Louis ruled until 30 August 1482, when he was assassinated by William de la Marck, an adventurer who from 1478 had been operating against the territory from the Castle of Logne.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_de_Bourbon,_Bishop_of_Li%C3%A8ge
The Carolingian dynasty (/ˌkærəˈlɪndʒiən/ KARR-ə-LIN-jee-ən;[1] known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charles Martel and his grandson Charlemagne, descendants of the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD.[2] The dynasty consolidated its power in the 8th century, eventually making the offices of mayor of the palace and dux et princeps Francorum hereditary, and becoming the de facto rulers of the Franks as the real powers behind the Merovingian throne. In 751 the Merovingian dynasty which had ruled the Franks was overthrown with the consent of the Papacy and the aristocracy, and Pepin the Short, son of Martel, was crowned King of the Franks. The Carolingian dynasty reached its peak in 800 with the crowning of Charlemagne as the first Emperor of the Romans in the West in over three centuries. Nearly every monarch of France from Charlemagne's son Louis the Pious until the penultimate monarch of France Louis Philippe have been his descendants, Charlemagne's death in 814 began an extended period of fragmentation of the Carolingian Empire and decline that would eventually lead to the evolution of the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire.
Name
The Carolingian dynasty takes its name from Carolus, the Latinised name of multiple Frankish kings including Charlemagne and Charles Martel.[3] Incidentally, the US states of North and South Carolina are also based on the name Charles, having been named after King Charles II of England. The name originates from a common Germanic word, rendered in Old High German as Karl or Kerl,[4] meaning 'man', 'husband', or 'freeman'.[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_dynasty
Pope Alexander VI[Note 2] (born Rodrigo de Borja[Note 3]; 1 January 1431 – 18 August 1503) (epithet: Valentinus ("The Valencian")[6] was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 11 August 1492 until his death in 1503. Born into the prominent Borgia family in Xàtiva in the Kingdom of Valencia under the Crown of Aragon (now Spain), Rodrigo studied law at the University of Bologna. He was ordained deacon and made a cardinal in 1456 after the election of his uncle as Pope Callixtus III, and a year later he became vice-chancellor of the Catholic Church. He proceeded to serve in the Curia under the next four popes, acquiring significant influence and wealth in the process. In 1492, Rodrigo was elected pope, taking the name Alexander VI.
Alexander's papal bulls of 1493 confirmed or reconfirmed the rights of the Spanish crown in the New World following the finds of Christopher Columbus in 1492. During the second Italian war, Alexander VI supported his son Cesare Borgia as a condottiero for the French king. The scope of his foreign policy was to gain the most advantageous terms for his family.[7][8]
Alexander is one of the most controversial of the Renaissance popes, partly because he acknowledged fathering several children by his mistresses. As a result, his Italianized Valencian surname, Borgia, became a byword for libertinism and nepotism, which are traditionally considered as characterizing his pontificate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Alexander_VI
Francis Borgia SJ (Valencian: Francesc de Borja; Spanish: Francisco de Borja; 28 October 1510 – 30 September 1572) was a Spanish Jesuit priest. The great-grandson of both Pope Alexander VI and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, he was Duke of Gandía and a grandee of Spain. After the death of his wife, Borgia renounced his titles and became a priest in the Society of Jesus, later serving as its third superior general. He was canonized on 20 June 1670 by Pope Clement X.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Borgia
Borja (Borgia)
Spanish: habitational name from a place in Zaragoza province named from Arabic burj ‘tower’. See also Borgia .
https://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=borja
One World Trade Center, also known as One WTC and erroneously as the Freedom Tower,[note 1] is the main building of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, One World Trade Center is the tallest building in the United States, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, and the seventh-tallest in the world. The supertall structure has the same name as the North Tower of the original World Trade Center, which was destroyed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The new skyscraper stands on the northwest corner of the 16-acre (6.5 ha) World Trade Center site, on the site of the original 6 World Trade Center. It is bounded by West Street to the west, Vesey Street to the north, Fulton Street to the south, and Washington Street to the east.
The construction of below-ground utility relocations, footings, and foundations for the new building began on April 27, 2006. One World Trade Center became the tallest structure in New York City on April 30, 2012, when it surpassed the height of the Empire State Building. The tower's steel structure was topped out on August 30, 2012. On May 10, 2013, the final component of the skyscraper's spire was installed, making the building, including its spire, reach a total height of 1,776 feet (541 m). Its height in feet is a deliberate reference to the year when the United States Declaration of Independence was signed. The building opened on November 3, 2014;[12] the One World Observatory opened on May 29, 2015.[13]
On March 26, 2009, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) confirmed that the building would be officially known by its legal name of "One World Trade Center", rather than its colloquial name of "Freedom Tower".[15][16][17] The building has 94 stories, with the top floor numbered 104.
The new World Trade Center complex will eventually include five high-rise office buildings built along Greenwich Street, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, located just south of One World Trade Center where the original Twin Towers stood, and the World Trade Center Transportation Hub to its east. The construction of the new building is part of an effort to memorialize and rebuild following the destruction of the original World Trade Center complex.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_World_Trade_CenteR
Pope John XXIII's coat of arms.
Of gules, a silver sash, a silver tower mazonada and clarified with sable especially, accompanied chiefly by two fleurs-de-lis of the same, a silver chief with a winged leopard lion, holding a gospel with the front right leg open with the text "PAX TIBI MARCE EVANGELISTA MEUS", all in gold and saber letters.
https://br.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restr:C_o_a_John_XXIII.svg
Pope John XXIII (Latin: Ioannes XXIII; Italian: Giovanni XXIII [dʒoˈvanni ventitreˈɛːzimo]; born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, Italian: [ˈandʒelo dʒuˈzɛppe roŋˈkalli];[a] 25 November 1881 – 3 June 1963) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 28 October 1958 until his death in June 1963.
Roncalli was among 13 children born to Marianna Mazzola and Giovanni Battista Roncalli in a family of sharecroppers who lived in Sotto il Monte, a village in the province of Bergamo, Lombardy.[8] He was ordained to the priesthood on 10 August 1904 and served in a number of posts, as nuncio in France and a delegate to Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. In a consistory on 12 January 1953 Pope Pius XII made Roncalli a cardinal as the Cardinal-priest of Santa Prisca in addition to naming him as the Patriarch of Venice. Roncalli was unexpectedly elected pope on 28 October 1958 at age 76 after Pope Pius XII's death. Pope John XXIII surprised those who expected him to be a caretaker pope by calling the historic Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), the first session opening on 11 October 1962, which is now his feast.
John XXIII made many passionate speeches during his pontificate. His views on equality were summed up in his statement, "We were all made in God's image, and thus, we are all Godly alike."[9][10] He made a major impact on the Catholic Church, opening it up to dramatic unexpected changes promulgated at the Second Vatican Council and by his own dealings with other churches and nations. In Italian politics, he prohibited bishops from interfering with local elections, and he helped the Christian Democracy party to cooperate with the Italian Socialist Party. In international affairs, his Ostpolitik engaged in dialogue with the communist countries of Eastern Europe. He especially reached out to the Eastern Orthodox churches.
His overall goal was to modernize the Church by emphasizing its pastoral role, and its necessary involvement with affairs of state. He dropped the traditional rule of 70 cardinals, increasing the size to 85. He used the opportunity to name the first cardinals from Africa, Japan, and the Philippines. He promoted ecumenical movements in cooperation with other Christian faiths. In doctrinal matters, he was a traditionalist, but he ended the practice of automatically formulating social and political policies on the basis of old theological propositions.[11]
He did not live to see the Second Vatican Council to completion. In September 1962, he was diagnosed with stomach cancer and died eight months later on June 3, 1963. His cause for canonization was opened on 18 November 1965 by his successor, Pope Paul VI, who declared him a Servant of God. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2000. On 5 July 2013, Pope Francis – bypassing the traditionally required second miracle – declared John XXIII a saint, based on his virtuous, model lifestyle, and because of the good which had come from his opening of the Second Vatican Council. He was canonized alongside Pope John Paul II himself on 27 April 2014.[12][13] John XXIII today is affectionately known as "the Good Pope" (Italian: il papa buono).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_XXIII
Facade of St. Peter's
On February 10, 1608 the first stone was laid and on July 21, 1612 most of the work was completed. It took another two years for the ornamentattion.
The inscription (1m high) states: "Paul V Borghese, Roman, Pontiff, in the year 1612, the seventh of his pontificate, [erected] in honour of the Prince of Apostles".
From the central balcony, called the Loggia of the Blessings, the new pope is announced with "Habemus Papum", and gives the Urbi et Orbi blessing. The relief under the balcony, by Buonvicino, represents Christ giving the keys to St. Peter.
https://www.stpetersbasilica.info/Exterior/Facade/Facade.htm
Pope Paul V (Latin: Paulus V; Italian: Paolo V) (17 September 1550 – 28 January 1621), born Camillo Borghese, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 16 May 1605 to his death, in January 1621. In 1611, he honored Galileo Galilei as a member of the papal Accademia dei Lincei and supported his discoveries.[2] In 1616, Pope Paul V instructed Cardinal Robert Bellarmine to inform Galileo that the Copernican theory could not be taught as fact, but Bellarmine's certificate allowed Galileo to continue his studies in search for evidence and use the geocentric model as a theoretical device. That same year Paul V assured Galileo that he was safe from persecution so long as he, the Pope, should live. Bellarmine's certificate was used by Galileo for his defense at the trial of 1633.[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Paul_V
Borghese
Recorded in many forms including Bourges, Bourgaize, Bourgeois, (France), Burgess, Burges and Burgis (England and Scotland), Borghese, Borgesio and Burgisi (Italy), and others, this interesting surname is of pre 8th century Old French origins. It derives from the word "burgeis", meaning inhabitant and FREEMAN of a fortified town, one which could apply municipal rates, taxes, and duties. A burgeis generally had tenure of land or buildings from a landlord by "burgage", which involved the payment of a fixed money rent. In Scotland, the position of burgess required not only the making of payments, but to be availble to take part in guarding the town. The surname is one of the earliest recorded anywhere in the world. These recordings are from England because this country was the first to adopt both hereditary surnames and to make the necessary registers in which to record them. France was several centuries later, and Italy, not until the 19th century in most areas. Early recordings showing the influence of the Norman-French in England after the Invasion of 1066 include: Ralph le Burgeis, in the Pipe Rolls of the county of Sussex in 1195, and Philip Bourges in the cartulary of Oseney Abbey, Oxford in 1197. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Geoffrey Burgeis, which was dated 1115, in the "Winton Rolls" of Hampshire. This was during the reign of King Henry 1st, known as "The Lion of Justice", 1100 - 1135. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. Over the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop", often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.
https://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Borghese
Petite bourgeoisie (French pronunciation: [pətit(ə) buʁʒwazi], literally 'small bourgeoisie'; also anglicised as petty bourgeoisie) is a term that refers to a social class composed of small business owners, shopkeepers, small-scale merchants, semi-autonomous peasants, and artisans. They are named as such because their politico-economic ideological stance in times of stability is reflective of the proper haute bourgeoisie (high bourgeoisie or upper class). In ordinary times, the petite bourgeoisie seek to identify themselves with the haute bourgeoisie, whose bourgeois morality, conduct and lifestyle they aspire and strive to imitate.[1]
The term, which goes as far back as the Revolutionary period in France, if not earlier, is politico-economic and addresses historical materialism. It originally denoted a sub-stratum of the middle classes in the 18th and early-19th centuries of western Europe. In the mid-19th century, the German economist Karl Marx and other Marxist theorists used the term petite bourgeoisie to academically identify the socio-economic stratum of the bourgeoisie that consists of small shopkeepers and self-employed artisans.[2][3][4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petite_bourgeoisie
Freemason Karl Heinrich Marx, 1818 – 1883 #155
Karl Marx, “the Father of Modern Communism” was himself an occultist and high-level Jewish Freemason, intimately associated with Rome’s Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872)—the foremost Freemason on the Continent and founder of the Mafia—and Albert Pike (1809-1891), the foremost Freemason in Fourteenth Amendment America and a leader of the first Ku Klux Klan. He was privately tutored by Jesuits in the huge Reading Room of the British Museum while writing The Communist Manifesto based upon the ten maxims or “planks” the Order had perfected on its Paraguayan Reductions (1609-1767) and its Maryland Reductions (1650-1838). His writings (including The Jewish Question in promoting the Company’s European “Jewish Question Agitation,” Marx claiming, “behind every tyrant stands a Jew, as a Jesuit stands behind every Pope,” and exhorting “the workers of the world to fight and eliminate such a cancer”) were financed by the Society’s wealthy, White Gentile cartel-capitalists, such as John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and J. P. Morgan, also 33rd Degree Freemasons who, being in their doctrines and deeds, were in fact the revived old Order of the crusading Papal Knights Templars. Brought to international fame in 1870 via the Order’s Paris Commune, Marx, a racial Jew, was chosen for this task, the Order intending to blame all the brutal and savage evils of their absolutist, Communist Inquisition on the Semitic/Hebrew/Israelitic/Jewish Race. This masterstroke of Jesuit genius was fulfilled by the Black Pope’s Third Reich with its invasion of Russia during “Operation Barbarossa,” followed by the Order’s SS “extirpation” of “infidel” European and Russian Jewry with the aid of Stalin, Churchill, and FDR pursuant to the bigoted and accursing Council of Trent. Marx and Satan, Richard Wurmbrand, (Westchester, Illinois: Crossway Books, 1986) p. 41. Karl Marx: A Life, Francis Wheen, (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1999).
Vatican Assassins:
“Wounded In The House Of My Friends”
Third Edition
by Eric Jon Phelps
https://ia802505.us.archive.org/28/items/EricJonPhelpsVaticanAssassins3rdEdition/Eric%20Jon%20Phelps%20-%20Vatican%20Assassins%203rd%20Edition.pdf
Karl is a Germanic masculine name meaning "free man". The name originates in Old Norse. It is a variant of the English Charles, and the Latin Carolus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_(given_name)
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 Misfits are an American punk rock band often recognized as the pioneers of the horror punk subgenre, blending punk and other musical influences with horror film themes and imagery. The group was founded in 1977 in Lodi, New Jersey, by vocalist, songwriter and keyboardist Glenn Danzig. Over the next six years, Danzig and bassist Jerry Only were the group's main members through numerous personnel changes. During this period, they released several EPs and singles, and with Only's brother Doyle as guitarist, the albums Walk Among Us (1982) and Earth A.D./Wolfs Blood (1983), both considered touchstones of the early-1980s hardcore punk movement. The band has undergone many lineup changes over the years, with bassist Jerry Only being the group's only constant member.
The Misfits disbanded in 1983, and Glenn Danzig went on to form Samhain and then Danzig. Several albums of reissued and previously unreleased material were issued after the group's dissolution, and their music later became influential to punk rock, heavy metal, hard rock, and alternative rock, including high-profile acts such as Metallica, Guns N' Roses, Marilyn Manson, Green Day, NOFX, AFI, Avenged Sevenfold and My Chemical Romance.[1][2][3] After a series of legal battles with Danzig, Only and Doyle regained the rights to record and perform as the Misfits. They formed a new version of the band in 1995 with singer Michale Graves and drummer Dr. Chud. This incarnation of Misfits had more of a heavy metal sound, and released the albums American Psycho (1997) and Famous Monsters (1999) before dissolving in 2000. Jerry Only then took over lead vocals and recruited former Black Flag guitarist Dez Cadena and former Ramones drummer Marky Ramone for a Misfits 25th anniversary tour.
This lineup released an album of cover songs in 2003, titled Project 1950, and toured for several years. In 2005, Marky was replaced by Robo, who had been Misfits' drummer from 1982 to 1983 and also played with Black Flag. This lineup released a single titled "Land of the Dead" in 2009. The Misfits' lineup of Only, Cadena, and drummer Eric "Chupacabra" Arce released a new album titled The Devil's Rain in October 2011. In 2015, it was announced that Cadena would be taking a break from music after receiving a cancer diagnosis, and was replaced by Only's son Jerry Caiafa II, presented as Jerry Other. That same year Soulfly's Marc Rizzo joined the band, also playing guitar. He filled in for Cadena, before Caiafa would become the sole guitarist for the band.
In September 2016, for the first time in 33 years, Danzig, Only, and Doyle reunited for two headlining shows as the Original Misfits at that year's edition of Riot Fest, along with drummer Dave Lombardo and second guitarist Acey Slade. The Original Misfits lineup has continued performing sporadically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misfits_(band)
Danzig \m/ Misfits \m/ Samhain \m/
Mister Black
Yesterday at 10:50 AM
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid022oBchCj21q8CUuNv5uGntURwDp82gq98xR9ABK3xvapzADmRJHu8xbWoQjDeoN1Sl&id=100063638194899
Alan the Black (Latin: Alanus Niger, French: Alain le Noir; died 1098) was the second lord of the Honour of Richmond from 1093 until his death. He was a younger son of Odo, Count of Penthièvre. He succeeded his elder brother, Alan Rufus ("Alan the Red"), at Richmond. There is no record of him being in England prior to 1093.[1]
Alan either had an affair with, or was married to, the nun Gunnhild of Wilton Abbey, a daughter of King Harold II. Gunnhild had earlier eloped with his elder brother. There is contemporary documentation that after the death of Alan Rufus in 1093, Gunnhild lived with Alan the Black. Before this, there is no record of Alan having any wife; there is no record of children. He was succeeded at Richmond by another brother, Stephen, Count of Tréguier.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_the_Black
Alan, 1st Earl of Richmond (before 1100 – 15 September 1146),[1][a] Breton Alan Penteur, also known as "Alan the Black", was a Breton noble who fought for Stephen, King of England.[2] Alan was the third son of Stephen, Count of Tréguier, and Hawise de Guingamp.[3]
Life
The Honour of Richmond had been founded by Alan's uncle, Count Alan Rufus, who had died heirless, so it passed to a younger brother, Count Alan the Black, and then to a yet younger brother, namely Count Stephen. After Count Stephen's death in 1135/6, his Breton lands were inherited by his eldest son, Geoffrey Boterel II, whereas his English lands, the Honour of Richmond, went to Alan. During the Anarchy, Geoffrey supported the dispossessed Empress Matilda and her husband Geoffrey of Anjou, while Alan allied with King Stephen. Alan married Bertha of Brittany, daughter of Conan III, Duke of Brittany,[3] in a politically arranged marriage, perhaps in a move to draw Brittany onto Stephen's side in the conflict against Empress Matilda. In part to promote the alliance with Conan III of Brittany. Stephen created Alan 1st Earl of Richmond. Additionally, Stephen recognized Alan as Earl of Cornwall, in recognition of another of Alan's uncles, Brian, who, Alan claimed, had formerly possessed Cornwall. After the Battle of Lincoln (1141), Alan was captured by Ranulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester and tortured until he relinquished his claim to the Earldom of Cornwall.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan,_1st_Earl_of_Richmond
Spaniard becomes Jesuits' new "black pope"
By Reuters
January 19, 20085:07 AM PSTUpdated 17 years ago
By Stephen Brown
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Spaniard Adolfo Nicolas was elected the Jesuits' "black pope", as the head of the largest and perhaps most influential, controversial and prestigious Catholic order is known, in a secret conclave on Saturday.
Nicolas, 71, has run Jesuit operations in east Asia and Oceania since 2004 and spent most of his career in the Far East after being ordained in Tokyo in 1967.
The order said in a statement that Nicolas had been elected to succeed Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, who received permission from Pope Benedict to retire as head of the order formally known as the Society of Jesus at the age of 79.
Jesuit superior generals are known as "black popes" because, like the pontiff, they wield worldwide influence and usually keep their position for life -- and because their simple cassock is black, in contrast to the pope who dresses in white.
The 468-year history of the Jesuit order has often included stormy relations with the Vatican. Benedict's predecessor, Pope John Paul, believed the order had become too independent, leftist and political, particularly in Latin America.
Soft-spoken, white-haired Dutchman Kolvenbach won widespread praise for mending relations with the Vatican during his years in the post, after conflicts between his charismatic Basque predecessor and Pope John Paul.
Kolvenbach also had to deal with declining vocations and the future of the order founded by St Ignatius Loyola in 1540.
In the 1960s, the all-male order peaked with some 36,000 members worldwide. It now has about 19,200 members involved in education, refugee help and other social services.
The general congregation that elected Nicolas gathered 217 electors from all over the world at Jesuit headquarters, a block from the Vatican.
They spent four days in prayer and what is known in Latin as "murmuratio", or murmurings, about who should be elected. It is strictly forbidden to lobby for the post and anyone actively seeking the job must be 'turned in' by the other delegates.
The election is by secret ballot and delegates are not allowed to leave the room until Pope Benedict is informed who has won, in keeping with a tradition that the "white pope" is first to know who is the new "black pope".
But unlike a conclave to elect the pontiff, a Jesuit general congregation can continue for weeks or even months after the election to discuss future challenges and priorities.
https://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyle/spaniard-becomes-jesuits-new-black-pope-idUSL19414053/
https://www.facebook.com/4williamdunn/posts/pfbid02FRL11tU7odXDeZid6x3qMnHD2DDGhBg3dP1jDXxCq689Q7LY5d4QFhiNDZZbSCH2l
Mom wishes son's death meant something to someone
Sunday May 27, 2007
DAYTON - On Sunday, Andra Woolman was someplace no parent should be; standing next to the grave of her 13-year-old son.
On the one-year anniversary of Jeremy Woolman's death, the Stagecoach mother still feels like the eighth-grader's demise matters to no one. The cause of death was determined to be accidental overdose. The supplier of the drugs unknown. And Andra has spent countless hours trying to unravel the truth about the hours leading up to Jeremy's death when he was found unconscious on the couch of a 50-year-old neighbor who was known to let the kids party at her house, Andra said.
"I just can't believe that I don't get the chance to finish raising Jeremy," she said.
On the day her son died, Andra said goodbye to Jeremy when she left her house at 6:30 a.m. to go to work. She said, just as she was getting ready to go home she got a call from the neighbor on Mustang Trail who told her that Jeremy had stopped breathing and the paramedics were taking him.
She said the woman told her that Jeremy had said he took three pills sometime around 7:30 a.m. and when he said he didn't feel well, she told him to lie on the couch and she went to bed. Andra said she's heard that Jeremy had complained he had insomnia and someone told him the pills would help.
At noon, the woman's daughter tried to wake Jeremy, but couldn't. The woman, noticing Jeremy's lips were blue, put a blanket on him, Andra said.
Sometime later when Jeremy still wouldn't rouse, the woman called two neighbor boys from three blocks away to help her get him into a shower.
Andra said, at 2:15 p.m., after Jeremy had stopped breathing, paramedics were called. They were able to revive him and take him to a Reno hospital. But it was too late, the damage was done.
At 6:13 p.m. Andra watched her son die.
The Sheriff's Department and District Attorney's Office said no charges will be filed in the incident.
District Attorney Bob Auer, who took office in January, said if his office had more evidence as to who gave the prescription medication to Jeremy, then they would be able to move forward and prosecute. He said he has reviewed the file and agrees with the decision of his predecessor Leon Aberasturi. "The issue is civil in nature. (The woman) may have been negligent in civil action, but that doesn't raise it to the level of criminal."
Andra said that excuse is ridiculous.
"The sheriff's department knew what was going on at that woman's house. She used to have all the teenagers over. She wanted to be the cool mom," she said. "Neighbors called the police and (child protective services) on her at least half a dozen times."
Andra has filed a civil suit against the woman who now lives in Carson City. The woman could not be located for comment.
"I just want (the authorities) to do something about it," she said. "If it was their kids they'd do something."
On Sunday as winds whipped across the desert cemetery, Jeremy smiled out from large photographs his mother set up near the plot of earth where she buried her youngest boy.
In some a blond-haired Jeremy posed in football and baseball uniforms, another shows him in kindergarten flashing a wide toothless grin. The largest pictures shows him smiling with laughing eyes in his first year as a teenager and the last year of his life.
His grave is adorned with whirligigs, a large angel sculpture painted by his grandmother and solar powered lights because Jeremy didn't like the dark.
Andra visits twice a week, she said, watering a cherry tree she's planted nearby or sometimes just crying.
She's saved up $1,100 toward the $2,000 needed to buy her boy a proper headstone to replace the gold-metal sheet that carries his name and the dates of his birth and death.
She'll have engraved on it a poem about love that Jeremy had given her one mother's day when he was in elementary school.
"Life without Jeremy Michael Bruce Woolman in it is miserable and incomplete," she said.
• Contact reporter F.T. Norton at ftnorton@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1213.
https://www.nevadaappeal.com/news/2007/may/27/mom-wishes-sons-death-meant-something-to-someone/
Thirteenth Rule. To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it, believing that between Christ our Lord, the Bridegroom, and the Church, His Bride, there is the same Spirit which governs and directs us for the salvation of our souls. Because by the same Spirit and our Lord Who gave the ten Commandments, our holy Mother the Church is directed and governed."
The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YC_luOfFWl0Bm0BWkbANKZGC1kkmdHQf/view?usp=sharing
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
ON 27 SEPTEMBER 1540, THE SOCIETY OF JESUS RECEIVED PAPAL APPROVAL
https://www.jesuits.global/2021/09/26/on-27-september-1540-the-society-of-jesus-received-papal-approval/
The choice made by General Congregation 32 concerning the mission of the Society in today s world as the service of faith, of which the promotion of justice is an absolute requirement, must give new vigor to our formation, so that it may respond to the requirements of evangelization in a world that is often infected by atheism and injustices,[5] and may equip our members for entering into dialogue with people and meeting the cultural problems of our times.[6]
The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms
https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf
Misfits take on murder mystery
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
The Misfits Theater Group of Dayton takes on a comedy production with a murder mystery thrown in just for fun in "Murder Most Fouled Up."
"This performance is a little bit of a different genre than our usual melodrama," said Kay Thornburg. "It is a modern day comedy with plenty of hilarious antics to keep you rolling in your seats, with a little bit of murder mystery thrown in just for fun."
"Murder Most Fouled Up," by Nikki Harmon, is being performed by the Misfits through special arrangements with The Dramatic Publishing Company of Woodstock, Ill.
The year is 1971 in autumn. The play takes place in the study of the Randolph Estate, complete with secret panels, ghosts popping in and out, and a raven who quotes Edgar Allen Poe.
As lawyer Sylvia Mead, played by Gail Gundersen, finishes reading Edwin Randolph's will to the assemblage of greedy relatives and servants, the treasure hunt begins. Several generations of Randolphs have hidden millions of dollars within the house, and the family has been murdering each other over it ever since.
Andra Woolman directs "Murder Most Foul," and also plays the ghost of Cece Randolph.
Other actors include Jason Woolman as Sanders the butler; Carol Bauer as Mrs. Jessel the housekeeper; Steve Whiteside as Jason Randolph; Mary Wilson as Barbara Randolph; Misty Simola as Kya Randolph; John Peters as the ghost of Ridgley Randolph; and Sue Whiteside as the ghost of Judith Randolph.
Performances will be at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday and Oct. 27-28 in the Odeon Hall, 65 Pike St., Old Town Dayton. Tickets are $10.
For advanced reservations, call Carol at (775) 246-9622.
https://www.nevadaappeal.com/news/2011/oct/19/misfits-take-on-murder-mystery/
Rosemary Johnson
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Intro
johnson_r.legalshieldassociate.com
https://www.facebook.com/rosemary.johnson.3958
Rosemary's Baby is a 1968 American psychological horror film written and directed by Roman Polanski, based on Ira Levin's 1967 novel. The film stars Mia Farrow as a newlywed living in Manhattan who becomes pregnant, but soon begins to suspect that her neighbors have sinister intentions regarding her and her baby. The film's supporting cast includes John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer, Maurice Evans, Ralph Bellamy, Patsy Kelly, Angela Dorian, and Charles Grodin in his feature film debut.
The film deals with themes related to paranoia, women's liberation, Catholicism, and the occult.[3] While it is primarily set in New York City, the majority of principal photography for Rosemary's Baby took place in Los Angeles throughout late 1967. The film was released on June 12, 1968, by Paramount Pictures. It was a critical and box office success, grossing over $30 million in the United States, and received acclaim from critics. The film was nominated for several accolades, including multiple Golden Globe Award nominations and two Academy Award nominations, winning Best Supporting Actress (for Ruth Gordon) and the Golden Globe in the same category. Since its release, Rosemary's Baby has been widely regarded as one of the greatest horror films of all time. In 2014, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
The movie successfully launched a titular franchise, which includes a 1976 made-for-TV sequel, a streaming exclusive prequel, Apartment 7A (2024), and a television miniseries adaptation.
Plot
In 1965, Rosemary Woodhouse and her husband, stage actor Guy, tour the Bramford, a large Renaissance Revival apartment building in Manhattan. They notice the previous tenant, an elderly woman who recently died, displayed odd behaviors. For example, she moved heavy furniture in front of a linen closet she had still been using. Despite warnings from their current landlord and friend, Hutch, about the Bramford's dark past, Rosemary and Guy move in.
In the basement laundry room, Rosemary meets a young woman, Terry Gionoffrio, a recovering drug addict whom Minnie and Roman Castevet, the Woodhouses' elderly neighbors, have taken in. The Woodhouses first meet the Castevets when they return home to find Terry dead of an apparent suicide, having jumped from the Castevets' seventh-floor apartment. The Woodhouses have dinner at the Castevets' apartment the following evening, but Rosemary finds them meddlesome. She is bothered when Minnie offers her Terry's pendant as a good luck charm, claiming it contains "tannis root". Unexpectedly, Guy, initially reluctant to socialize with the Castevets, becomes seemingly fascinated with Roman, visiting him repeatedly.
Guy is cast in a prominent play after the lead actor inexplicably goes blind. With his career flourishing, Guy wants him and Rosemary to procreate. On the night that they plan to conceive, Minnie brings over individual cups of chocolate mousse for their dessert. When Rosemary complains that it has a chalky "undertaste", Guy angrily brands her as ungrateful. Rosemary consumes a bit more to mollify Guy, then discreetly discards the rest. Soon after, she grows dizzy and passes out. In a dream state, Rosemary hallucinates being raped by a demonic presence. The next morning, Guy explains the scratches covering her body by claiming that he did not want to miss "baby night" and had raped her while she was unconscious. He states he has since cut his nails.
Rosemary becomes pregnant, with the baby due on June 28. The elated Castevets insist that Rosemary go to their close friend, Dr. Abraham Sapirstein, a prominent obstetrician, rather than her own physician, Dr. Hill. During her first trimester, Rosemary suffers severe abdominal pains and loses a considerable amount of weight. By Christmas, her gaunt appearance alarms her friends as well as Hutch, who has been researching the Bramford's history. Before Hutch can share his findings with Rosemary, he falls into a mysterious coma. Rosemary, unable to withstand the pain, insists on seeing Hill, while Guy argues against it, perceiving Sapirstein will be offended. As they argue, the pains suddenly stop and Rosemary feels the baby move for the first time.
Three months later, Hutch's friend, Grace Cardiff, informs Rosemary about his death. Prior to passing away, he briefly regained consciousness and instructed to give Rosemary a book on witchcraft, All of Them Witches, along with the cryptic message: "The name is an anagram." Using Scrabble tiles, Rosemary works out that Roman Castevet is an anagram for Steven Marcato, the son of a former Bramford resident and a reputed Satanist. She suspects that the Castevets and Sapirstein belong to a coven and want her baby. Guy discounts this and later throws the book away, making Rosemary suspicious. Terrified, she goes to Hill for help, but Hill deduces she is hysterical and calls Sapirstein. He arrives with Guy to drive her home and the pair threaten to commit her to a psychiatric hospital if she does not comply.
Rosemary locks herself into the apartment. Somehow, coven members infiltrate it, and Sapirstein sedates Rosemary, who goes into labor and gives birth. When Rosemary awakens, she is informed the baby was stillborn. As she recovers, though, she notices her pumped breast milk is being saved rather than discarded. She stops taking her prescribed pills, becoming less groggy. When Rosemary hears an infant crying, Guy claims tenants with a newborn have moved in upstairs.
Believing her baby is alive, Rosemary discovers a hidden door in the linen closet leading directly into the Castevets' apartment, the same closet the previous tenant had blocked and the same hidden door the coven members had used to access the Woodhouses' apartment. Guy, the Castevets, Sapirstein and other coven members are gathered around a bassinet draped in black with an upside down cross hanging over it. Peering inside, Rosemary is horrified and demands to know what is wrong with her baby's eyes. Roman proclaims that the child, Adrian, is Satan's son and the supposed Antichrist, who inherited his father's eyes. Roman urges Rosemary to mother her child, promising she does not have to join the coven. When Guy attempts to calm her, assuring they will be rewarded and can conceive their own children, she spits in his face. Upon hearing the infant's cries, however, Rosemary gives in to her maternal instincts and gently rocks the cradle.
Cast
Mia Farrow as Rosemary Woodhouse
John Cassavetes as Guy Woodhouse
Ruth Gordon as Minnie Castevet
Sidney Blackmer as Roman Castevet
Maurice Evans as Hutch
Ralph Bellamy as Dr. Abraham Sapirstein
Angela Dorian as Terry Gionoffrio
Patsy Kelly as Laura-Louise McBirney
Elisha Cook as Mr. Nicklas
Emmaline Henry as Elise Dunstan
Charles Grodin as Dr. Hill
Hanna Landy as Grace Cardiff
Philip Leeds as Dr. Shand
D'Urville Martin as Diego
Hope Summers as Mrs. Gilmore
Marianne Gordon as Rosemary's girlfriend
Wendy Wagner as Rosemary's girlfriend
Tony Curtis as Donald Baumgart (uncredited)
Production
Development
In Rosemary's Baby: A Retrospective, a featurette on the DVD release of the film, screenwriter/director Roman Polanski, Paramount Pictures executive Robert Evans, and production designer Richard Sylbert reminisce at length about the production. Evans recalled William Castle brought him the galley proofs of the book and asked him to purchase the film rights even before Random House published the book in April 1967. The studio head recognized the commercial potential of the project and agreed with the stipulation that Castle, who had a reputation for low-budget horror films, could produce but not direct the film adaptation. He makes a cameo appearance as the man at the phone booth waiting for Mia Farrow's character to finish her call.
François Truffaut claimed that Alfred Hitchcock was first offered the chance to direct the film but declined.[1] Evans admired Polanski's European films and hoped he could convince him to make his American debut with Rosemary's Baby.[4] He knew the director was a ski buff who was anxious to make a film with the sport as its basis, so he sent him the script for Downhill Racer along with the galleys for Rosemary's Baby.[5] Polanski read the latter book non-stop through the night and called Evans the following morning to tell him he thought Rosemary's Baby was the more interesting project, and would like the opportunity to write as well as direct it.[6] After negotiations, Paramount agreed to hire Polanski for the project, with a tentative budget of $1.9 million, $150,000 of which would go to Polanski.[6]
Polanski completed the 272-page screenplay for the film in approximately three weeks.[6] Polanski closely modeled it on the original 1967 novel by Ira Levin and incorporated large sections of the novel's dialogue and details, with much of it being lifted directly from the source text.[7]
Casting
Mia Farrow's performance as Rosemary Woodhouse received widespread critical acclaim.
Casting for Rosemary's Baby began in the summer of 1967 in Los Angeles.[8] Polanski originally envisioned Rosemary as a robust, full-figured, girl-next-door type, and wanted Tuesday Weld or his own fiancée Sharon Tate to play the role. Jane Fonda, Patty Duke and Goldie Hawn were also reportedly considered for the role.[8][9][10]
Since the book had not yet reached bestseller status, Evans was unsure the title alone would guarantee an audience for the film, and he believed that a bigger name was needed for the lead. Farrow, with a supporting role in Guns at Batasi (1964) and the yet-unreleased A Dandy in Aspic (1968) as her only feature film credits, had an unproven box office track record; however, she had gained wider notice with her role as Allison MacKenzie in the popular television series Peyton Place, and her unexpected marriage to noted singer Frank Sinatra.[11] Despite her waif-like appearance, Polanski agreed to cast her.[11] Her acceptance incensed Sinatra, who had demanded she forgo her career when they wed.[12]
Robert Redford was the first choice for the role of Guy Woodhouse, but he turned it down.[13] Jack Nicholson was considered briefly before Polanski suggested John Cassavetes, whom he had met in London.[13] In casting the film's secondary actors, Polanski drew sketches of what he imagined the characters would look like, which were then used by Paramount casting directors to match with potential actors.[14] In the roles of Roman and Minnie Castevet, Polanski cast veteran stage/film actors Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon. Veteran actor Ralph Bellamy was cast as Dr. Sapirstein. (Many years earlier, Bellamy and Blackmer had appeared in the pre-Code 1934 film, This Man Is Mine.) [14]
When Rosemary calls Donald Baumgart, the actor who goes blind and is replaced by Guy, the voice heard on the phone is actor Tony Curtis. Farrow, who had not been told who would be reading Baumgart's lines, recognized his voice but could not place it. The slight confusion she displays throughout the call was exactly what Polanski hoped to capture by not revealing Curtis' identity in advance.[citation needed]
Filming
The Dakota served as a stand-in for exterior shots of the fictional Bramford Building
Principal photography for Rosemary's Baby began on August 21, 1967, in New York City.[1] The Dakota's exteriors served as the location for the fictional Bramford. Levin modeled it on buildings like the Dakota.[15] In the novel, Hutch even urges Rosemary and Guy to move into "the Dakota" instead of the Bramford.[16]
When Farrow was reluctant to film a scene that depicted a dazed and preoccupied Rosemary wandering into the middle of Fifth Avenue into oncoming traffic, Polanski pointed to her pregnancy padding and reassured her, "no one's going to hit a pregnant woman". The scene was successfully shot with Farrow walking into real traffic and Polanski following, operating the hand-held camera since he was the only one willing to do it.[1][17]
By September 1967, the shoot had relocated to Paramount Studios in Hollywood, where interior sets of the Bramford apartments had been constructed on sound stages.[1] Some additional location shooting took place in Playa del Rey in October 1967.[1] Farrow recalled that the dream sequence in which her character is attending a dinner party on a yacht was filmed on a vessel near Santa Catalina Island.[18] Though Paramount had initially agreed to spend $1.9 million to make the film, the shoot was overextended due to Polanski's meticulous attention to detail, which resulted in his completing up to fifty takes of single shots.[19] The shoot suffered significant scheduling problems as a result, and ultimately went $400,000 over budget.[20] In November 1967, it was reported that the shoot was over three weeks behind schedule.[1]
The shoot was further disrupted when, midway through filming, Farrow's husband, Frank Sinatra, served her divorce papers via a corporate lawyer in front of the cast and crew.[19] In an effort to salvage her relationship, Farrow asked Evans to release her from her contract, but he persuaded her to remain with the project after showing her an hour-long rough cut and assuring her she would receive an Academy Award nomination for her performance.[21] Filming was completed on December 20, 1967, in Los Angeles.[1]
Music
Rosemary's Baby (Music from the Original Motion Picture Score)
Soundtrack album by Christopher Komeda
Released 1968
Recorded 25 June 1968
Studio Western Recorders, Hollywood, California
Genre
Film scorejazz
Length 25:21
Label Dot Records
Producer Tom Mack
The lullaby played over the intro is the song "Sleep Safe and Warm", composed by Krzysztof Komeda and sung by Farrow.[22] A tenant practicing "Für Elise" is also frequently used as background music throughout the film, the skill improving throughout the film to demonstrate the progression of time. The original film soundtrack was released in 1968 via Dot Records. Waxwork Records released the soundtrack from the original master tapes in 2014, including Krzysztof Komeda's original work.[23]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary%27s_Baby_(film)
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 Complementary Norms
https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf
The Big Little Jesus
Dragnet
Plot
Synopsis - The Big Little Jesus Season 3 Episode 17 12-24-53 Friday, Smith are small talking while Joe prepares his Christmas cards for mailing. They are working robbery when the phone rings, the Old Mission Church has had a theft, the baby Jesus statue was taken from the manger; gone. Friday, Smith are on the way to the church.
Joe narrates the church was at Sunset Blvd. and Main, it was there before the trains came to town; an old church. Father Xavier Rojas meets with the officers, saying the manger scene was put up every December 21st and taken down after the holy season; the infant statue was missing, it had been there thirty years. It was last scene the night before, the Father would like it returned before Christmas Day Mass, less than twenty-four hours. Friday, Smith say they would see what they could do. Father Rojas tells the men the statue can be replaced at a low cost, but it would not be the same, as children have come and some gone while the statue has been at the church.
Pawn shops are notified of the theft, one altar boy is questioned, he went home immediately after mass, the other altar boy was not at home, his father said he had a part-time job, but he would be able to meet the police afterward. Friday, Smith check with Mr. Flavin, a religious artifacts shop-owner, eccentric is Mr. Flavin, no luck with anyone selling him a statue.
Friday, Smith move on to their next possible lead. At HQ, Joseph Heffernan, the other altar boy comes in reporting the statue could have been there, but he was not certain. There was one person left in the sanctuary when he left, a familiar parishioner, no name given, a description given and a possible employer. Checking with the employer yielded nothing, but they did get his name, Claude Stroup. The altar boy noticed Stroup was carrying a bundle when he left the church.
The officers go to a transient hotel, where Stroup lives, talk to the desk clerk. He says Stroup is not in, telling the men of times long ago when Stroup was accused of a robbery. Friday thinks Stroup is their guy based on the bundle he was carrying and his past troubles. Friday, Smith leave word with the desk clerk to call them when he sees Claude, and not to say anything to him.
Friday narrates Stroup's name was run through records, there was no record of him under that name. The Captain insists they meet a criminal coming down from up north, priority over finding the statue even though the hotel clerk just called; Stroup is in the lobby. The Captain has a change of mind, says he can send two others to meet the bus, he orders Friday, Smith to attend to the missing statue.
Friday, Smith pick up Claud Stroup at his hotel and bring him downtown for questioning. He borrowed a friend's car, when he leaving, the car bumped another vehicle, that is what he thinks the police are questioning him. The bundle was his torn-pants in for repair. He says he would not take a statue. Friday says he does not think Claude would either; Friday tells him to go home, Smith says there is no report of any vehicle accident or otherwise. It is time they tell the priest they have been unsuccessful.
Friday, Smith go tell the priest they have had no luck finding the statue. The Father said he understood. A little boy is coming into the church, pulling a wagon, the statue is in the wagon. The Father addresses the boy as poquito. The boy's name is Paco Mendoza, he took the statue yesterday, saying he had promised the baby Jesus would have the first ride in the new wagon if his prayers were answered; he got the wagon. Paco Mendoza and Father Rojas return the statue to the manger.
Father Rojas explains the firemen fix old toys and give them to children. Paco's family is poor says Father; Friday replies, Are they Father? Friday, Smith walk out of the church; case closed.
Church interiors were photographed in the Old Mission Plaza Church, founded September 4, 1781, the founding date of The City of Los Angeles.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0565840/plotsummary/?ref_=tt_ov_pl
Matthew 13:47-50
New King James Version
The Parable of the Dragnet
47 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered some of every kind, 48 which, when it was full, they drew to shore; and they sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but threw the bad away. 49 So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from among the just, 50 and cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2013%3A47-50&version=NKJV
Pope Francis Unveils Christmas Nativity With Baby Jesus Atop A Keffiyeh
The pontiff declared "Enough wars, enough violence!" while presenting a scene by two Palestinian artists near the Vatican on Saturday.
Kelby Vera
By
Kelby Vera
Dec 8, 2024, 07:29 PM EST
Pope Francis made a plea for peace while unveiling a nativity featuring baby Jesus nestled in a keffiyeh in Vatican City on Saturday.
The pontiff declared “Enough wars, enough violence!” while receiving a delegation of representatives from the Palestinian groups that organized the project by Bethlehem-based artists Johny Andonia and Faten Nastas Mitwasi, Vatican News reported.
Part of a series of scenes from a collection titled “Nativity of Bethlehem 2024,” the biblical tableau shows figures of the holy family carved from olive wood while baby Jesus lies atop a keffiyeh, a style of scarf worn across the Middle East which has become a symbol of Palestinians’ resistance to the ongoing occupation by Israel.
Above the family is a panel of glass inscribed with, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill to all people” in Latin and Arabic.
At the event, the pope went on to tell his audience to “remember the brothers and sisters, who, right there [in Bethlehem] and in other parts of the world, are suffering from the tragedy of war,” according to the Times of Israel.
Following the nativity’s dedication, the New Arab reported that a mass for peace and a ceasefire in the region took place at the Angeli Chapel.
Pope Francis has previously called the public to support a ceasefire between Palestine and Israel as well as the safe release of hostages taken in the Oct. 7 attacks.
The head of the Holy See directly questioned Israel’s aggressive military response in interviews from a new book published last month, in which he calls for an investigation into whether Israel’s actions in Palestine “fits into the technical definition” of genocide.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/pope-francis-baby-jesus-keffiyeh-nativity_n_67560b2fe4b06b50ac931068
Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu Hardcover – May 1, 2018
by Anshel Pfeffer (Author)
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A deeply reported biography of the scandal-plagued Israeli Prime Minister, showing that we cannot understand Israel -- its history, present, and future -- without first understanding the life and worldview of the man who leads it
Benjamin Netanyahu is embroiled in numerous scandals, all of his own making, and may soon be ousted from the office he has held longer than any prior Israeli Prime Minister outside of David Ben Gurion. But Bibi, as he is known by friend and foe alike, is no stranger to controversy. For many in Israel and elsewhere, he is an embarrassment, a threat to democracy, even a precursor to Donald Trump. He nevertheless continues to dominate Israeli public life -- and he may yet survive his current crises, the most challenging of his career. How can we explain Netanyahu's rise, his hold on Israeli politics, and his outsized role on the world's stage?
In Bibi, the Haaretz journalist Anshel Pfeffer argues that we must view Netanyahu as representing the triumph of the underdogs in the Zionist enterprise. Born in 1949, one year after the state of Israel itself, Netanyahu came of age in a nation dominated by liberal, secular Zionists. Yet Netanyahu's grandfather and father bequeathed to him a brand of Zionism integrating Jewish nationalism and religious traditionalism, and he identified with the groups at the margins of Israeli society: right-wing Revisionists, orthodox, Mizrahi Jews, and small-time professionals living in the new towns and cities dotting the Israeli landscape. Netanyahu cultivated each faction individually and then fused them into a coalition that has frequently proven unstoppable in Israeli politics.
Netanyahu is also a child of America, where he spent many years as a young man, and where he learned the techniques of modern political campaigns as well as the necessity of controlling the media cycle. The product of the affluent East Coast Jewish community and the Reagan era, Netanyahu's politics and worldview were formed as much by American Cold War conservatism as by his family's hardline right-wing Zionism.
As Pfeffer demonstrates in this penetrating biography, Netanyahu's influence will endure even if his career soon comes to an end. The Israel he has helped make is a hybrid of ancient phobia and high-tech hope, tribalism and globalism -- just like the man himself.
https://www.amazon.com/Bibi-Turbulent-Times-Benjamin-Netanyahu/dp/0465097820
Luke 13:31-33
1599 Geneva Bible
31 [a]The same day there came certain Pharisees, and said unto him, Depart, and go hence: for Herod will kill thee.
32 Then said he unto them, Go ye and tell that [b]fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and will heal still [c]today, and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be [d]perfected.
33 [e]Nevertheless I must walk today, and tomorrow, and the day following: for it cannot be that a Prophet should perish out of Jerusalem.
Read full chapter
Footnotes
Luke 13:31 We must go forward in the case of our calling, through the midst of terrors, whether they be true or fained.
Luke 13:32 That deceitful and treacherous man.
Luke 13:32 That is, a small time, and Theophylact saith, it is a proverb: or else, by Today, we may understand the time that now is, and by Tomorrow, the time to come, meaning thereby all the time of his ministry and office.
Luke 13:32 To wit, when the sacrifice for sin is ended.
Luke 13:33 There are nowhere more cruel enemies of the godly, than they which are within the Sanctuary and Church itself: but God seeth it, and will in his time have an account of it.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2013%3A31-33&version=GNV
On March 1, 1932, Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. (born June 22, 1930), the 20-month-old son of colonel Charles Lindbergh and his wife, aviatrix and author Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was murdered after being abducted from his crib in the upper floor of the Lindberghs' home, Highfields, in East Amwell, New Jersey, United States.[1] On May 12, the child's corpse was discovered by a truck driver by the side of a nearby road.[2][3]
In September 1934, a German immigrant carpenter named Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested for the crime. After a trial that lasted from January 2 to February 13, 1935, he was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Despite his conviction, he continued to profess his innocence, but all appeals failed and he was executed in the electric chair at the New Jersey State Prison on April 3, 1936.[4] Hauptmann's guilt or lack thereof continues to be debated in the modern day. Newspaper writer H. L. Mencken called the kidnapping and trial "the biggest story since the Resurrection".[5][6] American media called it the "crime of the century"; legal scholars have referred to the trial as one of the "trials of the century".[7] The crime spurred the U.S. Congress to pass the Federal Kidnapping Act (commonly referred to as the "Little Lindbergh Law"), which made transporting a kidnapping victim across state lines a federal crime.[8]
Kidnapping
At approximately 9 p.m. on March 1, 1932, the Lindberghs' nurse, Betty Gow, found that 20-month-old Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. was not with his mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, who had just come out of the bath. Gow then alerted Charles Lindbergh who immediately went to the child's room, where he found a ransom note, containing poor handwriting and grammar, in an envelope on the windowsill. Taking a gun, Lindbergh went around the house and grounds with the family butler, Olly Whateley;[9] they found impressions in the ground under the window of the baby's room, pieces of a wooden ladder, and a baby's blanket.[10] Whateley telephoned the Hopewell police department while Lindbergh contacted his attorney and friend, Henry Breckinridge, and the New Jersey state police.[10]
Investigation
An extensive search of the home and its surrounding area was conducted by police from nearby Hopewell Borough in coordination with the New Jersey State Police.
The ransom note
After midnight, a fingerprint expert examined the ransom note and ladder; no usable fingerprints or footprints were found, leading experts to conclude that the kidnapper(s) wore gloves and had some type of cloth on the soles of their shoes.[11] No adult fingerprints were found in the baby's room, including in areas witnesses admitted to touching, such as the window, but the baby's fingerprints were found.
The brief, handwritten ransom note had many spelling and grammar irregularities:
Dear Sir! Have 50.000$ redy 25 000$ in 20$ bills 15000$ in 10$ bills and 10000$ in 5$ bills After 2–4 days we will inform you were to deliver the mony. We warn you for making anyding public or for notify the Police the child is in gut care. Indication for all letters are Singnature and 3 hohls.[12]
At the bottom of the note were two interconnected blue circles surrounding a red circle, with a hole punched through the red circle and two more holes to the left and right.
Re-creation of the ransom note's "signature", with black dots representing punctures in the paper
On further examination of the ransom note by professionals, they found that it was all written by the same person. They determined that due to the odd English, the writer must have been foreign and had spent some time in the United States but little. The FBI then found a sketch artist to make a portrait of the man that they believed to be the kidnapper.[13]
Another attempt at identifying the kidnapper was made by examining the ladder that was used in the crime to abduct the child. Police realized that while the ladder was built incorrectly, it was built by someone who knew how to construct with wood and had prior building experience. No fingerprints were found on the ladder. Slivers of the wood were examined, as the police believed that this evidence would lead to the kidnapper. They had a professional see how many different types of wood were used, what pattern was made by the nail holes and if it had been made indoors or outdoors. This was later a key element in the trial of the man who was accused of the kidnapping.
On March 2, 1932, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover contacted the Trenton New Jersey Police Department. He told the New Jersey police that they could contact the FBI for any resources and would provide any assistance if needed. The FBI did not have federal jurisdiction until May 13, 1932 when the President declared that the FBI was at the disposal of the New Jersey Police Department and that the FBI should coordinate and conduct the investigation.
The New Jersey State police offered a $25,000 reward, equivalent to $558,000 in 2023, for anyone who could provide information pertaining to the case.
On March 4, 1932 a man by the name of Gaston B. Means had a discussion with Evalyn Walsh McLean and told her that he would be of great importance in retrieving the Lindbergh baby. Means told McLean that he could find these kidnappers because he was approached weeks before the abduction about participating in a "big kidnapping" and he claimed that his friend was the kidnapper of the Lindbergh child. The following day, Means told McLean that he had made contact with the person who had the Lindbergh child. He then convinced Mrs. McLean to give him $100,000 to obtain the child because the ransom money had doubled. McLean obliged, believing that Means really knew where the child was. She waited for the child's return every day until she finally asked Means for her money back. When he refused, Mrs. McLean reported him to the police and he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison on embezzlement charges.[14]
Violet Sharpe,[a] who was suspected as a conspirator, died by suicide on June 10,[15][16] before she was scheduled to be questioned for the fourth time.[17] Her involvement was later ruled out due to her having an alibi for the night of March 1, 1932.
In October 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt announced that the Federal Bureau of Investigation would take jurisdiction over the case.[citation needed]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindbergh_kidnapping
Rapture
rapture (n.)
c. 1600, "act of carrying off" as prey or plunder, from rapt + -ure, or else from French rapture, from Medieval Latin raptura "seizure, rape, kidnapping," from Latin raptus "a carrying off, abduction, snatching away; rape" (see rapt). The earliest attested use in English is with women as objects and in 17c. it sometimes meant rape (v.), which word is a close relation to this one.
The sense of "spiritual ecstasy, state of mental transport or exaltation" is recorded by c. 1600 (raptures). The connecting notion is a sudden or violent taking and carrying away. The meaning "expression of exalted or passionate feeling" in words or music is from 1610s.
also from c. 1600
https://www.etymonline.com/word/rapture
40 Christians Kidnapped from Church During Worship 5/09/2023
Nigeria (International Christian Concern) – Gunmen kidnapped 40 Christians on Sunday, during church worship in northern Nigeria.
https://www.persecution.org/2023/05/09/40-christians-kidnapped-during-worship/
PARTICULAR AND DAILY EXAMEN
It contains in it three times, and two to examine oneself. The first time is in the morning, immediately on rising, when one ought to propose to guard himself with diligence against that particular sin or defect which he wants to correct and amend. The second time is after dinner, when one is to ask of God our Lord what one wants, namely, grace to remember how many times he has fallen into that particular sin or defect, and to amend himself in the future. Then let him make the first Examen, asking account of his soul of that particular thing proposed, which he wants to correct and amend. Let him go over hour by hour, or period by period, commencing at the hour he rose, and continuing up to the hour and instant of the present examen, and let him make in the first line of the G------- as many dots as were the times he has fallen into that particular sin or defect. Then let him resolve anew to amend himself up to the second Examen which he will make. The third time: After supper, the second Examen will be made, in the same way, hour by hour, commencing at the first Examen and continuing up to the present (second) one, and let him make in the second line of the same G------- as many dots as were the times he has fallen into that particular sin or defect. FOUR ADDITIONS FOLLOW TO RID ONESELF SOONER OF THAT PARTICULAR SIN OR DEFECT First Addition. The first Addition is that each time one falls into that particular sin or defect, let him put his hand on his breast, grieving for having fallen: which can be done even in the presence of many, without their perceiving what he is doing. Second Addition. The second: As the first line of the G------- means the first Examen, and the second line the second Examen, let him look at night if there is amendment from the first line to the second, that is, from the first Examen to the second. Third Addition. The third: To compare the second day with the first; that is, the two Examens of the present day with the other two Examens of the previous day, and see if he has amended himself from one day to the other. Fourth Addition. The fourth Addition: To compare one week with another, and see if he has amended himself in the present week over the week past. Note. It is to be noted that the first (large) G------- which follows means the Sunday: the second (smaller), the Monday: the third, the Tuesday, and so on.
GGGGGG
"The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola
TRANSLATED FROM
THE AUTOGRAPH
BY
FATHER ELDER MULLAN, S.J.
I.H.S.
NEW YORK
P.J. KENEDY & SONS
PRINTERS TO THE HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE
https://ia801306.us.archive.org/8/items/a588350800loyouoft/a588350800loyouoft.pdf
Fifthly.—The “Just Man made Perfect” is the Alchemist (or rather, Rosicrucian) who, having found the Philosophers’ Stone (San Graal, or Holy Grail, or “Sang Reale,” or “Holy Rapture,” or Magic Birth into the Celestial Fire, or Flame of Self-Extinguishnient, or of “Ecstacy”), becomes immortal (and disappears, or “dies” to the world. His “chariot of fire” being that of Enoch, or “Translation.” To die is simply the falling asunder and disintegration of the mecha-nism of the senses,* which have contracted inwards and formed (in life) the prison of the soul—a prison of pains and penalties; from between the bars of the windows of which (or out of the eyes) the suffering, languishing SPIRIT looks for the often long-coming releasing GREAT SPIRIT— DEATH. To “Rise”—is to cast off the chains of mortality. To become “Glorified” is to discover in one’s own identity the glorious, godlike gifts or MAGIC—which are the wings upon which to rise. Those men who have passed (as through a door) in their lifetime from the “hither” side (or world) to the “thither” side (or the world invisiblefollowing into the LIGHT the divine beckon to Paradise of the ANGELS of LIGHT, are the BROTHERS of the ROSY CROSS, or the ROSICRUCIANS, as they have been called; who “know everything,” can “do anything,” and have even arrogated to themselves, when in them should be set-up the same angelical-magical spirit which was in the Christ-Jesus, to be of the “COUNCIL of GOD.” Though, in the world, they were the humblest of the servants of the Almighty."
The Rosicrucians Their Rites and Mysteries by Hargrave Jennings
https://libarch.nmu.org.ua/bitstream/handle/GenofondUA/2321/14424326d2ce7345a64d668efea1e7e0.pdf?sequence=1
The Falling Man is a photograph taken by Associated Press photographer Richard Drew of a man falling from the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks in New York City. The unidentified man in the image was trapped on the upper floors of the North Tower, and it is unclear whether he fell while searching for safety or he jumped to escape the fire and smoke. The photograph was taken at 9:41:15 A.M.
The photograph was widely criticized after publication in international media on September 12, 2001, with readers labeling the image as disturbing, cold-blooded, ghoulish, and sadistic.[1][2] However, in the years following, the photo has gained acclamation.[3]
A Time magazine retrospective published in 2016 stated "Falling Man's identity is still unknown, but he is believed to have been an employee at the Windows on the World restaurant, which sat atop the North Tower. The true power of Falling Man, however, is less about who its subject was and more about what he became: a makeshift Unknown Soldier in an often unknown and uncertain war, suspended forever in history."[4]
Background
See also: Casualties of the September 11 attacks
On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, four passenger jets were commandeered by 19 al-Qaeda terrorists after takeoff. Two of these hijacked airliners, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, were intentionally crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center complex in New York City, killing or trapping well over 1300 people above the 91st floor of the North Tower and more than 600 above the 76th floor of the South.
That morning, an estimated 200 people were witnessed falling from the upper levels of the burning skyscrapers.[5][6] All but three came from the North Tower, where considerably more people were confined to a much smaller number of floors. Most of the people who fell from the World Trade Center deliberately jumped to their deaths to escape the smoke, flames, and extreme heat (in some places, estimated at over 2,000 °F (1,090 °C)). A smaller percentage of the falling deaths were accidents caused by people losing their grip or being knocked off-balance near window ledges, or attempting to climb down to a lower floor below the fire. Officials could not recover or identify the remains of those forced out of the towers due to the conditions on the ground near the base of the building at the time, prior to their collapse. The New York City medical examiner's office said it does not classify them as "jumpers," explaining that a "jumper" is defined as someone who "goes to the office in the morning knowing that they will commit suicide," adding that the victims who fell from the towers did not want to die but "were forced out by the smoke and flames or blown out."[6] The medical examiner's office listed manner of death as homicide for all deaths associated with the 9/11 attacks.
The morning of September 11, Richard Drew was on assignment for the Associated Press, photographing a maternity fashion show in Bryant Park.[7][8] Alerted by his editor to the attacks, Drew took the subway to the Chambers Street subway station, near the World Trade Center site.[7][9] He took the falling man image while at the corner of West and Vesey Street from a low angle.[10] He took eight photographs in sequence, after realizing that a series of loud cracking sounds was not that of falling concrete, but rather people hitting the ground.[10] He took between ten and twelve different sequences of images of people jumping from the tower, before having to leave the site due to the South Tower's collapse.[7]
The man fell from the south side of the North Tower's west face. Thus, the left half of the backdrop features the North Tower while the South Tower is visible on the right. The photograph gives the impression that the man is falling straight down; however, a series of photographs taken of his fall shows him to be tumbling through the air.[9][11][12]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Falling_Man
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
The Origin of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture Doctrine
June 11, 2022
By Mark Williams.
How did the pretribulation doctrine come about? A brief rundown would go something like this:
In 1591 a Jesuit priest named Francisco Ribera wrote a 500-page commentary on the grand points of Babylon and the antichrist, the object being to set aside the Protestant teaching that the Papacy is the antichrist. In his commentary, he assigned the first chapters of Revelation to the first century. The rest he restricted to a literal three and a half years at the end of time, BEFORE the resurrection. He taught that the Jewish temple would be rebuilt by a single individual antichrist that would abolish the Christian religion, deny Christ, pretend to be God, and conquer the world. Thus was laid the foundation for Dispensationalism.
In 1812 another Jesuit priest, named Emmanuel Lacunza, started teaching that there would be a 45-day tribulation period, AFTER Christ’s coming.
In 1826 Edward Irving translated Lacunza’s book and published it in 1827. Sometime after that, Irving started to teach a three-and-a-half-year tribulation after Christ’s coming.
In 1830, a man named John Darby of the Plymouth Brethren started teaching a seven-year tribulation period. He came to America seven times to promote his teaching. When George Muller of Bristol came up against the Dispensationalist doctrines of the Brethren movement, he severed all connection with it. “The time came,” he said, “when I had to either part from my Bible or part from John Darby. I chose to keep my precious Bible.”
So in 1812, we see the teaching of a 45-day tribulation after the rapture.
Around 1827 Edward Irving taught a three and a-half-year tribulation after the rapture. Then in 1830, the final turn to a seven-year tribulation after the rapture. Others picked up on this new doctrine and added to it.
In 1909, C. I. Scofield published the Scofield Reference Bible. His dispensational notes were mixed in with the verses of the Bible so well that if you didn’t know better, you would think they were part of the Holy Scriptures. Over two million copies of his Bible were sold with this new dispensational teaching. Scofield, although not a Plymouth Brethren, was a devoted disciple of John Darby.
After that, W. E. Blackstone wrote a book titled Jesus Is Coming Again. A millionaire financed sending several hundred thousand copies of this book to missionaries throughout the world.
After Israel became a nation in 1948, prophecy teachers sprung up like wildfire, teaching that the Second Coming would happen approximately forty years after Israel became a nation. They got this belief from misinterpreting the word “generation” in Matthew 24. Hundreds of books were written on this subject. People learned about this new doctrine, not from the Bible, but from these so-called prophecy books.
Today Dispensationalism has become the generally accepted belief of the Fundamentalist wing of popular Protestantism.
In his tract, “Who is the Antichrist?” a former Catholic priest, Joseph Zacchello, says: “The Jesuits were the first ones to introduce a new theory in order to divert men’s minds from perceiving the fulfillment of the prophecies of the antichrist in the papal church. The Jesuit Ribera brought out the futuristic system, which asserts that the antichrist is yet to appear.” And to this statement, he adds: “Protestants who advocate the futuristic system are pleasing the pope and are playing into the hands of Rome.”
The teaching that the Church is to be raptured to heaven just prior to a time called the great tribulation was not known prior to the 1800s. It’s amazing with all the writings left to us from early Christians on the rapture, all agreed that if there is going to be a tribulation at the end of time, the Church would go through it. Since no voice spoke out in favor of a pre-tribulation rapture, the only conclusion possible is that the Church did not teach this in the beginning and that it should not be teaching it now.
Conclusion
This material was condensed down from hundreds of pages of notes just to give you a quick insight into the problem we are facing today. If we continue to curl up into a ball and keep our mouths shut because somebody might get their feelings hurt, the original truth that was taught by Jesus and his apostles, will one day vanish.
I’m not saying that we should go out and create war with those who disagree, but we should, in a loving manner, spread the whole truth of the Gospel. And if it were only on the last days, it would be easier for me to keep my mouth shut. But Satan has caused Christians to pervert his truth in dozens of chapters throughout the Bible.
It’s sad to think that a large part of God’s Church teaches that the Abrahamic covenant is yet to be fulfilled and yet the Bible teaches it has been fulfilled to the very letter. It’s sad to see Christians teaching that Jesus Christ isn’t reigning now when a simple study of the Bible shows he is and that Jesus is reigning from David’s throne now just as the Scriptures foretold. It’s sad to see Christians misleading the world into believing that after Christ comes back, there will still be a chance for salvation, and again, the Bible says no such thing. Friends, the Bible warns against believing in false doctrine, and yet to many, it’s not a problem. I believe that Christians can come together with a more unified understanding of the Scriptures, but only if we take the time to study amongst ourselves and not be afraid to ask questions or get our feelings hurt. Our goal should be stamping out false doctrine and becoming unified in Christ Jesus. Remember, we are commanded to study to show ourselves approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Now if you still disagree with my notes, I would love to hear what you have to say and I promise to keep an open and honest heart. I for one do not want to stand face to face with Jesus only to find out that I’ve been deceived my whole life and neither should you.
Download a PDF file of this article.
https://www.jamesjpn.net/basic-bible/the-origin-of-the-pre-tribulation-rapture-doctrine/?print=pdf
https://www.jamesjpn.net/basic-bible/the-origin-of-the-pre-tribulation-rapture-doctrine/
– Chapter Three – The Final Edit
The End-Time Anti-Christ scenario begins with the “strong covenant”22 which will initiate the Seven Year Great Tribulation of the juxtaposed Seventieth Week of Daniel. The doctrine states that this “man of sin” who brings this treaty to build the Jewish Temple, will not be revealed until an ambiguous restrainer23 is taken out of the way. This ambiguous restrainer is believed to be the Holy Ghost by the Futurist, however this belief can only be pure speculation.24 The Leading Role So when this seven year covenant-agreement-treaty is made between some prominent person and Israel (and whoever else needs to be involved?), the pre-tribulation rapture is supposed to immediately take place, and Great Tribulation will ensue because the Holy Spirit is also supposed to be removed from the earth as well as all true Christians. Since about the time that Jimmy Carter was the U.S. President, beginning with the Camp David Accords in 1978, it seems that it has fallen to U.S. Presidents to broker peace deals in the mid-east. So it would seem likely that it will be a U.S. President that will play the part of the pseudo anti-christ character who will broker a deal for the building of a Third Temple. Just who will step up to bring an agreement which includes building the Temple? Who wants to be pegged as the Anti-Christ figure of the popular but fictional prophecy? Early in his 22Dan. 9.27 ESV 232 Thes 2.6 ESV 24See the chapter, The Restrainer in my book, The Rapture Will be Canceled, for a Historicist understanding of this passage. 34 – Chapter Three – The Final Edit presidency I thought that Barack Obama was an easy candidate, but here we are several days after the election of Donald Trump and the following article appears in the Breaking Israel News: Sanhedrin Asks Putin and Trump to Build Third Temple in Jerusalem25 “The Nascent Sanhedrin is calling on Russian President Vladmir Putin and US president-elect Donald Trump to join forces and fulfill their Biblically-mandated roles by rebuilding the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.” The article then likens the pair of leaders to Cyrus the Great who helped Israel rebuild the Temple after the Babylonian desolation, but because of positive statements they have made in the past about Israel and Jerusalem. “We are poised to rebuild the Temple. The political conditions today, in which the two most important national leaders in the world support the Jewish right to Jerusalem as their spiritual inheritance, is historically unprecedented,” Rabbi Weiss told Breaking Israel News. Only time will tell if it will be a US president that will be credited with the peace process that is responsible for bringing about the necessary treaty or agreement to make the building of a Third Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount a reality. But when it does happen, that's when the fun begins! Any prominent statesman, perhaps the Presidents son25http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/78372/bin-exclusive-sanhedrin-asksputin-trump-build-third-temple-jerusalem/#blXplPAIWtjSHfz9.99 Let the Show Begin – 35 in-law Jared Kushner, could be put up for the role, but this is one role that I can't imagine many are eager to volunteer for. However the Futurist interpretation of the Daniel Seventieth Week and the several Thessalonian combined text on this is so ambiguous that however things work out it is flexible enough to accommodate.
Let the Show Begin
Entertain if you will the scene as the curtain opens: So it begins and no one is raptured away. How long will the adherents wait before they give up on the pretribulation rapture? The groundbreaking for the Temple takes place and the construction is moving along smoothly, three months pass, six months pass, a year! It has become all too obvious that the pre-tribulation rapture was the wrong one of the three multiple choices. But that is the beauty of this interpretation, there are two more choices. However, this first failure or nonevent exposes the Futurist Restrainer Doctrine fallacy, for the Holy Spirit cannot exit the earth if Christians are still present – but the treaty has been signed and the Anti-Christ has been revealed. Or was he? Remember! The man of sin cannot be revealed until the restrainer (Holy Spirit) is taken out of the way! So not only is the pre-tribulation Rapture wrong, but the Restrainer/Holy Spirit assumption is also wrong. Some may even be comforted by the fact that neither of these assumptions were ever explicitly stated in the scripture (that's why they are assumptions). Nevertheless many will just move along to accept the mid-tribulation/pre-wrath option instead, regardless of the fact that these are also based upon the same type of shallow assumptions and conjecture. 36 – Chapter Three – The Final Edit But there are lingering questions: Since the Holy Spirit remains, who is the Anti-Christ, since he could not be revealed yet? Who made the “strong covenant” that kicked off the tribulation? Can the mid-tribulation position be a real option if the pre-tribulation fails to materialize? For all of those who hold to a mid- or posttribulation position this conundrum should be resolved well in advance of the arrival of their expected Seven Year Great Tribulation period. Nonetheless, we can easily imagine a series of events like the following taking place in the near future:
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Dateline: 2023 With the intervention of the most popular Pope in recent history into the peace process, the US President, took credit for the agreement hammered out by his team of negotiators between The State of Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf in the Mideast peace process. Thereafter it was announced by the Temple Institute that ground breaking for the Third Jewish Temple would commence within ninety days. The actual Architectural drawings had already just been completed and it was believed that the sacrifice could begin in time for the commencement of Passover 5785, four short years away. The Islamic protest throughout the Mideast was vocal, violent, expected and well covered, but the Palestinians would finally get the autonomy they desired in the West Bank and Gaza strip. The Jewish protest, based upon prevailing orthodox thought, that the Temple must be built upon the very spot occupied by The Dome Let the Show Begin – 37 of the Rock and then only after the Messiah appeared, were just as vocal but lacked mainstream attention due to the absence of violence. Pastor John Hogee thundered from his televised mega church pulpit, “Are you ready to be raptured? We will fly away – oh glory – as soon as the agreement takes affect…” which of course made sense because the treaty was signed and they were not gone yet. The Pastor proclaimed it now undeniable, the identification of the current U.S. President as the bible predicted end-time Anti-Christ. The Temple cornerstone which had been prepared several years in advance was placed symbolically in a ground breaking ceremony 96 days later. Still no rapture of true believers took place. Notorious debates raged since the day the agreement was signed, millions of disappointed Evangelicals were now ready to embrace the Mid-tribulation position, some even moved to the Post-trib position. Also becoming very vocal, and drawing many converts was the Universal Church that holds to a no-rapture position, instead teaching that the rapture is part of the Millenarian Heresy, “When none of the three raptures materialize, all those disappointed will be welcomed to the True Church with open arms,” could be easily proclaimed by the popular Catholic Evangelist, Mark Malleti. Most Evangelicals took a wait and see position, because the Mid-trib place was so neatly and beforehand prepared for them. The Agreement called for The Temple Mount to be expanded and partitioned between the three great Abrahamic Faiths and completed over the next seven years. The Dome of the Rock would remain according to 38 – Chapter Three – The Final Edit the new Jewish interfaith initiative. The “God’s Holy Mountain Vision” project hoped to defuse religious strife by showing that the Jews’ “end-of-days vision” could harmoniously accommodate Islam’s present architectural hegemony on the Temple Mount. “This vision of religious shrines in peaceful proximity can transform the Temple Mount from a place of contention to its original sacred role as a place of worship shared by Jews, Muslims and Christians,” said Yoav Frankel, director of the initiative. Frankel considers the scenario: … that the Temple be rebuilt on the current or an extended Temple Mount in peaceful proximity to the Dome and other houses of prayer such as the Aksa Mosque and nearby Christian shrines. There would also be room for a Christian Cathedral on a northward extension. True to form, Mega Pastor John Hogee released his newest book, Rapture Delayed – The Mercy of God, before the year was out, this would be an even bigger best seller than his last multimillion seller during the Blood Moon mania of 2014. In the pages of this book you would learn why God had delayed the rapture to the mid-tribulation position, of course backed by as many biblical references as his prior pre-tribulation position. You could also find overt hints that God may wait further to the post-tribulation position, and that no matter which position was Gods final decision, all true believers would go to heaven when they die if they asked Jesus into their hearts, “Give your heart to Jesus today…” he would say. Albert and Rosanne Henderson, a couple in their late 60s, had attended Northside Evangelical Church for more than 30 years, where not a whole lot of time was Let the Show Begin – 39 spent on bible prophecy until now. Oh yes, they believed in the pre-tribulation rapture ever since the book The Late Great Planet Earth was major part of bible study back around 1980. The excitement and urgency had long since worn off. What was there to get excited about? Their church, as almost all of the American Evangelical world did not have to worry about such things as dealing with the coming One World Mark Monetary System, because they would all be simply pre-wrath raptured away before anything bad happened to them. But with the added heavy weight of current events, it was time to rethink their long held position. A friend had given them a book, The Rapture Will Be Canceled, several years ago, but now it was time to actually read it, they could not forget the haunting title which had presently become accurately prophetic.
Pastor Bob preaches at his own little church on the other side of town. He becomes very excited about everything that happens in Israel, waiting with baited breath to be whisked away at any moment. He has no tolerance for those who question the official view of prophecy accepted by him and the giants of the kingdom such as John Hogee and Chuck Mistler, neither does he have the time of day for weak minded Christians who revere God’s Law or god forbid, won’t eat pork! His faith and consequently the faith of his entire little congregation was shaking to its core. Bob was seriously considering returning to his roots and the Universal Mother Church, now feeling that he’d been led astray so many years ago by Evangelical arguments. He pondered his absolute rage while watching a YouTube video several months ago, Show me the Gap Chuck or something like that: how anyone could challenge a giant 40 – Chapter Three – The Final Edit in Gods Kingdom like Chuck Mistler on prophecy brought him to a rage of four letter epithets he could not easily forget. But now he avoided mention of the rapture debate and failure at all, his sermons were beginning to sound very ecumenical these days. Three years of mounting Islamic protest, violence, sabotage and continual bomb threats had all but stopped the progress of the God’s Holy Mountain Vision, most specifically for the Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount. The expansion on the north end was progressing nicely, but every attempt to progress beyond the eastward expansion where the Jewish Temple was being built was met with resistance from every quarter. Islam protested, Animal Rights protested, Environmentalists protested, even Orthodox Jewry protested. No one was happy, the treaty would need to be renegotiated. And behind the scenes that’s exactly what was happening. The Vatican was now playing the major role in the peace process as a voice of reason and sanity. The Temple Mount Cathedral on the North Expansion was progressing nicely and well in balance with the stature of the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque combination on the south, also undergoing renovation for the great celebration. The compromise? Jews would settle for a Temple type National Synagogue of similar stature on its East Expansion. No animal sacrifice would be allowed on the Temple Mount whatsoever, period. Those progressive Jews which played the major role now proposed that the sacrifice could satisfy every tenet of Torah Law if commenced off site. Orthodox Jews maintained that Messiah would come and build the Temple after removing the Christian and Islamic edifices on the Mount, then the sacrifice Let the Show Begin – 41 would commence, they were content to wait. Appropriate changes for the Temple Mount National Synagogue were already in the works. With the end of the prospect for a Jewish sacrifice even the Islamic protests died down to an unmentionable murmur. At the same time Evangelical rapture adherents announced that the end of the prospective sacrifice satisfied their interpretation of the Daniel prophecy, “and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease.” And it was in the middle of their Seven Year Tribulation. Months passed and nothing happened. Four years from the signing of the agreement – the 1260 days; the times, time and half a time; three and a half years had undeniably passed. Still no mass rapture of true believers took place.
Most of the Evangelical, the true rapture believers, moved to the only remaining position available for them, the Post-tribulation position. There was no other position available as far as they were concerned. Rapture theology had been so completely scrutinized over the last four years that a majority of Evangelicals had already left it behind, some concluding that the whole seven year tribulation was not even biblical. The holdouts were scorned and embarrassed so much that it only strengthened their resolve that they would be raptured away at the post seven year tribulation position. Then the world would see, but “because of Gods merciful delay there would be no second chance for those left behind,” said John Hogee, “they would surely experience the wrath of God when Jesus suddenly appeared and destroyed all of the wicked.” 42 – Chapter Three – The Final Edit The Grand Opening Celebration date of the “God’s Holy Mountain Vision” was set, seven years to the day of the signing of the agreement. Those diehard Evangelical Rapturists remained firm, but were secretly scared that it would not happen, those who put off the belief were afraid, but hopeful that it would happen. Finally the day came. The Vicar of Christ took the podium and proclaimed the beginning of a new era of world peace. A majority of Evangelicals who had once vociferously proclaimed the rapture, were now drawing attention to the fact that the rapture was always in contention even within the ranks. “Pre, Mid, and Posttribulation debates were always the norm, perhapsevidently the whole rapture idea was mistaken. In this world without end all the faithful will certainly go to heaven when they die, that is when we will join the resurrection of the dead,” were now the comforting words of Pastor John Hogee. For many of the elect, it was like waking from a dream, a great delusion – the scales had fallen from their eyes. They finally recognized the true Biblical and Historical Anti-Christ, he had been seated in plain sight all along. They could not go along, they knew what was coming and the only escape was in Christ alone to protect them even if martyrdom was their fate. It was widely preached and well accepted, few would make it to His return through the tribulation of the days to come. They would now be excluded from the one world Mark Money System. They could not, would not participate. The Mark of the Beast Inquisitions were growing stronger every year, the black market was an outlawed and dangerous necessity. There were few places of refuge from the long arm of the UN police and Let the Show Begin – 43 relocation forces in the fragmented States of the northern continent. Chaos and disorder was a regional hardship and also their ally. Losing their livelihoods and their homes, the true church was on the move spreading the gospel as they went. Miraculous provision, circumstance and healing was commonplace with this sojourning church movement, they had truly become, the church in the wilderness. We left home in the middle of the night. The reports were all too common – they would also come for us. I had been a fan of alternative media so had plenty of exposure to prepper ideas, but never went all out for the storage food bunker mentality of the extremist bent. I had a different tact: never let the fuel go below half a tank and head for the hills when bug out time did arrive. We hooked the small two horse trailer to the back of our three quarter ton pickup truck, of course we brought our two best horses and all the food and comforts we could cram in with us. There would be provisions where we were going. Mountain Home was an 8500 foot seasonal resort community where there were plenty of empty cabins. We were certainly frightened, but we knew this day was coming.
==================
When the Temple Mount Agreement is announced many believe they will immediately be raptured away, so rather than being alarmed they are elated but soon will discover that they were mistaken. By the end of the play many of those who trusted the false “rapture/left behind” prophets may be ready to listen to a more historical position on Bible Prophecy. The rest of the story will be lived out beyond the seven year tribulation 44 – Chapter Three – The Final Edit deception by each and every one of us who live long enough to see it through.
The Abraham Accord
Harbinger of the Temple Mount Play about to Begin
by Nicklas Arthur
https://www.nicklasarthur.info/The-Abraham-Accord-Rapture.off
How and to whom did Jesus pay our ransom?
A ransom is something that is paid to provide for the release of someone who is held captive. Jesus paid our ransom to free us from sin, death, and hell. Throughout the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy are found God’s requirements for sacrifices. In Old Testament times, God commanded the Israelites to make animal sacrifices for substitutionary atonement; that is, an animal’s death took the place of a person’s death, death being the penalty for sin (Romans 6:23). Exodus 29:36a states, "Each day you must sacrifice a young bull as an offering for the atonement of sin."
God demands holiness (1 Peter 1:15-16). God’s Law demands holiness. We cannot give God full holiness because of the sins we commit (Romans 3:23); therefore, God demands satisfaction of His Law. Sacrifices to Him satisfied the requirements. This is where Jesus comes in. Hebrews 9:12-15 tells us: "Once for all time he took blood into that Most Holy Place, but not the blood of goats and calves. He took his own blood, and with it he secured our salvation forever. Under the old system, the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow could cleanse people’s bodies from ritual defilement. Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our hearts from deeds that lead to death so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins. That is why he is the one who mediates the new covenant between God and people, so that all who are invited can receive the eternal inheritance God has promised them. For Christ died to set them free from the penalty of the sins they had committed under that first covenant."
Also, read Romans 8:3-4, "The law of Moses could not save us, because of our sinful nature. But God put into effect a different plan to save us. He sent his own Son in a human body like ours, except that ours are sinful. God destroyed sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the requirement of the law would be fully accomplished for us who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit."
Clearly, Jesus paid the ransom for our lives to God. That ransom was His own life, the shedding of His own blood, a sacrifice. Due to His sacrificial death, each person on earth has the opportunity to accept that gift of atonement and be forgiven by God. For without His death, God’s Law would still need to be satisfied—by our own death.
https://www.gotquestions.org/Jesus-pay-ransom.html
Psalm 49
1599 Geneva Bible
49 1 The holy Ghost calleth all men to the consideration of man’s life, 7 showing them not to be most blessed that are most wealthy, and therefore not to be feared: but contrariwise he lifteth up our minds to consider how all things are ruled by God’s providence: 14 Who as he judgeth these worldly misers to everlasting torments, 15 so doth he preserve his, and will reward them in the day of the resurrection, 1 Thess. 1:6.
To him that excelleth. A Psalm committed to the sons of Korah.
1 Hear [a]this all ye people: give ear, all ye that dwell in the world,
2 As well low as high, both rich and poor.
3 My mouth shall speak of wisdom, and the meditation of mine heart is of knowledge.
4 I will incline mine ear to a parable, and utter my grave matter upon the harp.
5 Wherefore should I [b]fear in the evil days, when iniquity shall compass me about, as at mine heels?
6 They trust in their [c]goods, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches.
7 Yet a man can by no means redeem his brother: he cannot give his ransom to God,
8 (So [d]precious is the redemption of their souls, [e]and the continuance forever)
9 That he may live still forever, and not see the grave.
10 For he seeth that wise men [f]die: and also that the ignorant and foolish perish, and leave their riches for [g]others.
11 Yet they think their houses and their habitations shall continue forever, even from generation to generation, and [h]call their lands by their names.
12 But man shall not continue in honor; he is like the [i]beasts that die.
13 This their way uttereth their foolishness; yet their posterity [j]delight in their talk. Selah.
14 [k]Like sheep they lie in grave; [l]death devoureth them; and the righteous shall have domination over them in the [m]morning; for their beauty shall consume, when they shall go from their house to grave.
15 But God shall deliver my soul from the power of the grave; [n]for he will receive me. Selah.
16 Be not thou afraid when one is made rich, and when the glory of his house is increased.
17 For he shall take nothing away, when he dieth, neither shall his pomp descend after him.
18 For while he lived, [o]he rejoiced himself; and [p]men will praise thee, when thou makest much of thyself.
19 [q][r]He shall enter into the generation of his fathers, [s]and they shall not live forever.
20 Man is in honor; and [t]understandeth not; he is like to beasts that perish.
Footnotes
Psalm 49:1 He will entreat how God governeth the world by his providence, which cannot be perceived by the judgment of the flesh.
Psalm 49:5 Though wickedness reign, and enemies rage, seeing God will execute his judgments against the wicked in time convenient.
Psalm 49:6 To trust in riches is mere madness, seeing they can neither restore life, nor prolong it.
Psalm 49:8 That is, so rare or not to be found, as prophecy was precious in the days of Eli, 1 Sam. 3:1.
Psalm 49:8 Meaning, it is impossible to live forever: also that life and death are only in God’s hands.
Psalm 49:10 In that that death maketh no difference between the persons.
Psalm 49:10 That is, not to their children, but to strangers. Yet the wicked profit not by these examples, but still dream an immortality in earth.
Psalm 49:11 Or, labor that their name may be famous in earth.
Psalm 49:12 As touching the death of the body.
Psalm 49:13 They speak and do the same thing that their fathers did.
Psalm 49:14 As sheep are gathered into the fold, so shall they be brought to the grave.
Psalm 49:14 Because they have no part of life everlasting.
Psalm 49:14 Christ’s coming is as the morning, when the elect shall reign with Christ their head over the wicked.
Psalm 49:15 Or, because he hath received me.
Psalm 49:18 Hebrew, he blessed his soul.
Psalm 49:18 The flatterers praise them that live in delight and pleasures.
Psalm 49:19 Or, his soul.
Psalm 49:19 And not pass the term appointed for life.
Psalm 49:19 Both they and their fathers shall live here but a while, and at length die forever.
Psalm 49:20 He condemneth man’s ingratitude, who having received excellent gifts of God, abuseth them like a beast to his own condemnation.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2049&version=GNV
2030: The Year of the Metal Dog
In addition to being associated with a zodiac animal, each new lunar year also aligns with one of the five traditional Chinese elements. These elements are known in Chinese as the 五行 (wǔxíng).
While we won’t delve into the details of this aspect of zodiac philosophy due to its complexity, keep in mind that each lunar year consists of a combination of 10 heavenly stems (干 gàn) and 12 earthly branches (支 zhī). These unite to form a system of 60 stem-branch combinations. Each combination is symbolized by one of the five elements (fire, water, wood, metal and earth).
According to this system, 2030 is the Year of the Metal Dog.
For anyone interested in diving deeper into doctrines of Chinese astrology, the internet provides a great database of resources for continued study.
https://studycli.org/chinese-zodiac/year-of-the-dog/
The Wandering Jew (occasionally referred to as the Eternal Jew, an antisemitic calque from German "der Ewige Jude") is a mythical immortal man whose legend began to spread in Europe in the 13th century.[a] In the original legend, a Jew who taunted Jesus on the way to the Crucifixion was then cursed to walk the Earth until the Second Coming. The exact nature of the wanderer's indiscretion varies in different versions of the tale, as do aspects of his character; sometimes he is said to be a shoemaker or other tradesman, while sometimes he is the doorman at the estate of Pontius Pilate.
Name
An early extant manuscript containing the legend is the Flores Historiarum by Roger of Wendover, where it appears in the part for the year 1228, under the title Of the Jew Joseph who is still alive awaiting the last coming of Christ.[3][4][5] The central figure is named Cartaphilus before being baptized later by Ananias as Joseph.[6] The root of the name Cartaphilus can be divided into kartos and philos, which can be translated roughly as "dearly" and "loved", connecting the legend of the Wandering Jew to "the disciple whom Jesus loved".[7]
At least from the 17th century, the name Ahasver has been given to the Wandering Jew, apparently adapted from Ahasuerus (Xerxes), the Persian king in the Book of Esther, who was not a Jew, and whose very name among medieval Jews was an exemplum of a fool.[8] This name may have been chosen because the Book of Esther describes the Jews as a persecuted people, scattered across every province of Ahasuerus' vast empire, similar to the later Jewish diaspora in countries whose state and/or majority religions were forms of Christianity.[9]
A variety of names have since been given to the Wandering Jew, including Matathias, Buttadeus and Isaac Laquedem, which is a name for him in France and the Low Countries in popular legend as well as in a novel by Dumas. The name Paul Marrane (an anglicized version of Giovanni Paolo Marana, the alleged author of Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy) was incorrectly attributed to the Wandering Jew by a 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article, yet the mistake influenced popular culture.[10] The name given to the Wandering Jew in the spy's Letters is Michob Ader.[11]
The name Buttadeus (Botadeo in Italian; Boutedieu in French) most likely has its origin in a combination of the Vulgar Latin version of batuere ("to beat or strike") with the word for God, deus. Sometimes this name is misinterpreted as Votadeo, meaning "devoted to God", drawing similarities to the etymology of the name Cartaphilus.[7]
Where German or Russian is spoken, the emphasis has been on the perpetual character of his punishment, and thus he is known there as Ewiger Jude and vechny zhid (вечный жид), the "Eternal Jew". In French and other Romance languages, the usage has been to refer to the wanderings, as in le Juif errant (French), judío errante (Spanish) or l'ebreo errante (Italian), and this has been followed in English from the Middle Ages as the Wandering Jew.[5] In Finnish, he is known as Jerusalemin suutari ("Shoemaker of Jerusalem"), implying he was a cobbler by his trade. In Hungarian, he is known as the bolyongó zsidó ("Wandering Jew" but with a connotation of aimlessness).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wandering_Jew
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
Dracula 2000 (also known as Wes Craven Presents: Dracula 2000 and internationally as Dracula 2001)[3] is a 2000 American vampire film co-written and directed by Patrick Lussier and produced by Joel Soisson. Starring Gerard Butler in the title role along with Christopher Plummer, Jonny Lee Miller, Justine Waddell, Omar Epps, Colleen Fitzpatrick, Jeri Ryan and Jennifer Esposito, the plot follows Dracula, who arrives in New Orleans, Louisiana in the 21st century and seeks out Mary Heller, the daughter of Abraham Van Helsing.
Dracula 2000, under its promotional title Wes Craven Presents: Dracula 2000, builds upon Bram Stoker's original 1897 novel Dracula, with Count Dracula resurrected in contemporary America. The film was a critical and commercial failure, though two direct-to-video sequels, both written and directed by Lussier, were produced.
Plot
In 2000 London, Matthew Van Helsing, a descendant of 19th-century physician Abraham Van Helsing, owns an antique shop built over the site of Carfax Abbey. One night, Van Helsing's secretary, Solina, her boyfriend Marcus, and their companions Trick, Nightshade, Dax, and Eddie break into the shop's underground vault, believing it must contain valuables. Instead, they discover a sealed silver coffin. While attempting to open the coffin, Eddie and Dax are impaled by spikes, spraying the coffin with blood and alerting Van Helsing to their presence. Assuming the coffin must contain his valuables, the group escapes with it aboard a plane to New Orleans, and Van Helsing arranges a flight to pursue them, unwittingly accompanied by his apprentice, Simon Sheppard.
Aboard their plane, Nightshade unlocks the coffin, revealing the withered body of Dracula. Having been awakened by the blood on his coffin, Dracula attacks and vampirizes Solina and her group. Rejuvenated, Dracula has a vision of a young woman, Mary Heller, who simultaneously sees him. After the plane crashes in a Louisiana swamp, the seemingly deceased passengers are taken to a makeshift morgue, while Dracula vampirizes Valerie Sharpe, a presenter reporting on the crash. He then travels to New Orleans to find Mary. Estranged from her family, Mary has recently been experiencing vivid dreams about Dracula, unaware of who he is.
Van Helsing and Simon arrive in New Orleans and destroy most of Dracula's newborn vampires. Afterward, Van Helsing confesses to Simon that he is the Abraham Van Helsing, who defeated Dracula in 1897, and has extended his own life by regularly injecting Dracula's blood. In the century since, Van Helsing has failed to find a method of permanently killing Dracula. All that is known, is that Dracula is enraged by God and Christian iconography, and has a vulnerability to silver. Van Helsing also reveals that Mary is his daughter. She was conceived after Van Helsing began his injections and thus shares a connection to Dracula. Van Helsing's wife left with Mary after learning of what he had done.
Dracula is led to Mary's home by her friend Lucy, whom he seduces and vampirizes. There, he later confronts and kills Van Helsing. On her return, Mary finds her father's bloodied corpse and is ambushed by Dracula and his brides: Solina, Valerie, and Lucy. Simon arrives just in time to save her from Dracula's beast form. The pair briefly escape into a church cemetery, but Dracula soon catches and abducts Mary. Dracula explains that he has spent centuries searching for someone like him, but born rather than vampirized like his thralls.
On a rooftop, Dracula transforms Mary and reveals that he is Judas Iscariot, the Apostle who betrayed Jesus to the Romans for a bribe of thirty pieces of silver. After Jesus was crucified, Judas hanged himself in atonement at sunset, but was revived and turned into the first vampire. Dracula reveals his intent to spite Jesus by spreading his vampiric immortality to humanity and corrupting them with forbidden pleasures. Mary suggests that Dracula cannot die because he has not sought God's forgiveness, but Dracula refuses to ever submit to Jesus or God again. After Simon kills Valerie, he is subdued by Solina and Lucy and brought to Dracula, who offers his blood to Mary. She feigns the bite before she and Simon kill the remaining brides, and stab Dracula to avenge her father.
An enraged Dracula attacks Mary, who wraps some retaining cable from a large crucifix around his neck and drags him over the roofedge. As dawn breaks, and Dracula looks up at the image of Jesus on the crucifix, the sunlight immolates him. He releases Mary from her vampirism before perishing. Sometime later, Mary has taken her father's role guarding Dracula's remains, to ensure that he remains dead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracula_2000
The Twilight Saga: New Moon (or simply New Moon) is a 2009 American romantic fantasy film directed by Chris Weitz from a screenplay by Melissa Rosenberg, based on the 2006 novel New Moon by Stephenie Meyer.[2] The sequel to Twilight (2008), it is the second installment in The Twilight Saga film series. The film stars Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner, reprising their roles as Bella Swan, Edward Cullen, and Jacob Black, respectively.[3]
Summit Entertainment announced it had greenlit the film on November 22, 2008, following the early success of Twilight.[4] Principal photography began on March 23, 2009, in Vancouver, Canada,[5][6][7] and ended in Montepulciano, Italy on May 29.[8][9]
The Twilight Saga: New Moon premiered in Los Angeles on November 16, 2009, and was theatrically released in the United States on November 20, by Summit Entertainment. The film received mixed to unfavorable reviews from critics, who criticized its story, pacing, Weitz' direction, its darker tone, and Lautner's performance, but praised its visual effects, Pattinson and Stewart's performances, and Desplat's musical score.[10][11] Despite the reviews, it grossed $711 million worldwide, becoming the seventh-highest-grossing film of 2009. It set domestic box office records as the biggest midnight opening in the United States and Canada, grossing $26.3 million, which was superseded by its sequel, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. This led to the highest single-day domestic gross on an opening day, with $72.7 million,[12] until it was beaten by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011).[13] The film also became the widest independent release, playing in 4,024 theaters, until it was surpassed by The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.[14] New Moon was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on March 20, 2010.[15] As of July 2012, the film has grossed $184.9 million in North American DVD sales, selling more than 8.8 million units,[16] four million of which were sold within its first weekend, beating Twilight's 3.8 million units sold in its first two days.[17]
The film received three sequels, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1, and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, in 2010, 2011, and 2012, respectively.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twilight_Saga:_New_Moon
April 2030 - Moon Phase Calendar
This is a calendar of future Moon Phases that will occure in 5 years and 1 month . The month will begin on Monday, April 1st with a Waning Crescent phase that will be 1.0% illuminated. Explore this April Moon Phase Calendar by clicking on each day to see detailed information on that days phase. Also see more information about the Full Moon and New Moon in April 2030 including local viewing times.
https://www.moongiant.com/calendar/april/2030/
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
Historical Basis for Believing Jesus was Crucified in AD 30
by Avatar photoJim Liles
6 years ago
[Editor’s note: I asked Jim for clarification on his belief about this since I’ve encountered people equally sure of the years 29, 30, and 33 AD for the death and resurrection of Christ. This article is his response.
Although such a topic may seem far afield from our usual creation vs. evolution discussions, it is still at the intersection of the Bible and science. It may not change anything about how you interact with others, but it can strengthen your confidence that we have not believed cleverly devised fables, but historically verifiable reality!]
Is 30 AD the Year of the Crucifixion?
To answer this question, I will combine information from Scripture as well as extra-biblical material on which there is much, but not total, agreement. Let’s begin with the year of Jesus birth:
Year of Birth: We know from Scripture that Jesus is born at the time of the first Roman census (Luke 2:1-2Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)) when Quirinius was Governor of Syria. A review of Roman documents describe this time frame as late October or November of 5 BC. We know that the second census, 10 years later, was in 6 AD at the same time of year when Caesar Augustus ruled.
Year of Baptism: This birth date above would mean that Jesus was 12 years old at Passover in 9 AD as described in Luke 2:41-52Open in Logos Bible Software (if available). From these two dated events we can determine that Jesus is about 33.5 years old twenty-one years later at Passover in 30 AD. This is consistent with the Baptism of Jesus in August or September of 26 AD, in the fifteenth year of Tiberius (Luke 3:1-23Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)) whose reign began in July of 11 AD. This is followed by a public ministry lasting a little over three-and-a-half years ending on Passover in 30 AD.
Date of Crucifixion: The year of the Crucifixion is confirmed by several historians due to the darkness that occurred from noon until 3:00 PM on Nisan 14-Passover in 30 AD. It is important to note that the term ‘Passover’ can refer to Nisan 14, the Preparation for the Feast of Unleavened Bread, or Nisan 15-the first day of seven for the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The historians Phlegon, Thallus, Africanus and Tertullian all mention this three hour period of darkness that does not have a scientific explanation. It was neither a lunar or solar eclipse for many reasons. Eclipses do not last three hours and cannot happen during the full moon of Passover.
Julius Africanus, writing about the historian Thallus states:
Upon the whole world there came a most fearful darkness. Many rocks were split in two by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down.
It seems very unreasonable to me that Thallus, in the third book of his histories, would try to explain away this darkness as an eclipse of the sun. For the Jews celebrate their Passover on the 14th day according to the moon, and the death of our Saviour falls on the day before the Passover. But an eclipse of the sun can only take place when the moon comes under the sun, how then could an eclipse have occurred when the moon is directly opposite the sun? (Scientifically it is impossible to have a full moon on the same day that there is an eclipse of the sun.)
The Roman historian Phlegon is mentioned by Origen who describes a darkening of the sun in the eighteenth year of Tiberius on Nisan 14-Passover which would be 30 AD. A few people have used this Roman history report stating the year of the Crucifixion is 33 AD. They mistakenly start Tiberius’ reign in 14 AD after the death of Augustus instead of the start of his joint reign in 11 AD.
On the Gregorian-Hebrew solar calendar found in ESC, the date of the Crucifixion is Friday April 5-Nisan 14, 30 AD. On this Hebrew solar calendar Nisan 14-Passover always falls on April 5 in a non-leap year and April 3 in a leap or special year on the Gregorian calendar we use today. This is clearly new information about the accuracy and inerrancy of the specific dates in Scripture.
This type of assessment of the Bible’s accuracy was only possible in recent years with computers, Excel spreadsheets, Bible software, and calendar converters like www.rosettacalendar.com.
Resources:
ESC = Earth’s Sacred Calendar: The Dated Events of the Old Testament by Jim Liles; Pub 2014.
CARM: Is there non-biblical evidence of a day of darkness at Christ’s death?
Bible History.net The Crucifixion Darkness
https://thecreationclub.com/historical-basis-for-believing-jesus-was-crucified-in-ad-30/
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://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
Fourteenth Rule. Although there is much truth in the assertion that no one can save himself without being predestined and without having faith and grace; we must be very cautious in the manner of speaking and communicating with others about all these things.
The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YC_luOfFWl0Bm0BWkbANKZGC1kkmdHQf/view?usp=sharing
AI Overview
Learn more
When someone says "2000 years of age," it means a period of time spanning 2,000 years, often used in historical or astrological contexts to refer to a specific era or "age" like the "Age of Pisces" which is considered to have lasted for 2,000 years in some interpretations.
Key points about "2000 years of age":
Astrological usage:
In astrology, different "ages" are associated with different zodiac signs, and each age is often calculated as lasting around 2,000 years based on the Earth's axial precession.
Example:
Currently, many astrologers consider the "Age of Aquarius" to be starting around the year 2000, signifying a new era.
Not perfectly accurate:
While 2,000 years is often used for simplicity, the actual length of an astrological age based on precession is closer to 2,160 years.
https://www.google.com/search?q=age+meaning+2000+years&sca_esv=813837a4ab300c6b&sxsrf=ADLYWIIlFsM6w2q46pw2FDIKPtl6eHh4KA%3A1735980154611&ei=evR4Z4uCJdejkPIP2Oay2A4&ved=0ahUKEwiLp8-D1tuKAxXXEUQIHVizDOsQ4dUDCBA&uact=5&oq=age+meaning+2000+years&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiFmFnZSBtZWFuaW5nIDIwMDAgeWVhcnMyCBAAGIAEGKIEMggQABiABBiiBDIIEAAYgAQYogQyCBAAGIAEGKIEMggQABiABBiiBEjKEVCTCVjSDXACeAGQAQCYAW6gAf8CqgEDMy4xuAEDyAEA-AEBmAIGoAKRA8ICChAAGLADGNYEGEfCAggQABgHGAgYHsICCBAAGAgYDRgewgILEAAYgAQYhgMYigXCAgoQIRigARjDBBgKmAMAiAYBkAYIkgcDNS4xoAfoFA&sclient=gws-wiz-serp
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
1 Corinthians 15:52-53
1599 Geneva Bible
52 In [a]a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet: for the trumpet shall blow, and the dead shall be raised up incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption: and this mortal must put on immortality.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20corinthians%2015%3A52-53&version=GNV
Heaven's Gate was an American new religious movement known primarily for the mass suicides committed by its members in 1997. Commonly designated a cult, it was founded in 1974 and led by Marshall Applewhite (1931–1997) and Bonnie Nettles (1927–1985), known within the movement as Do and Ti. Nettles and Applewhite first met in 1972 and went on a journey of spiritual discovery, identifying themselves as the two witnesses of the Book of Revelation, attracting a following of several hundred people in the mid-1970s. In 1976, a core group of a few dozen members stopped recruiting and instituted a monastic lifestyle.
Scholars have described the theology of Heaven's Gate as a mixture of Christian millenarianism, New Age, and ufology, and it has been characterized as a UFO religion. The central belief of the group was that followers could transform themselves into immortal extraterrestrial beings by rejecting their human nature, and they would ascend to heaven, referred to as the "Next Level" or "The Evolutionary Level Above Human". The death of Nettles from cancer in 1985 challenged the group's views on ascension; while they originally believed that they would ascend to heaven while alive aboard a UFO, they came to believe that the body was merely a "container" or "vehicle" for the soul and that their consciousness would be transferred to "Next Level bodies" upon death.
On March 26, 1997, deputies of the San Diego County Sheriff's Department discovered the bodies of the 39 active members of the group, including Applewhite, in a house in the San Diego County suburb of Rancho Santa Fe. They had participated in a coordinated series of ritual suicides, coinciding with the closest approach of Comet Hale–Bopp. Just before the mass suicide, the group's website was updated with the message: "Hale–Bopp brings closure to Heaven's Gate ...our 22 years of classroom here on planet Earth is finally coming to conclusion – 'graduation' from the Human Evolutionary Level. We are happily prepared to leave 'this world' and go with Ti's crew."[1]
History
The son of a Presbyterian minister and a former soldier, Marshall Applewhite began his foray into Biblical prophecy in the early 1970s. He was fired from the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas, over an alleged relationship with one of his male students. In March 1972, he met Bonnie Nettles, a 44-year-old married nurse with an interest in theosophy and Biblical prophecy.[2] The circumstances of their meeting are unclear. According to Applewhite's writings, the two met in a hospital where she worked as a nurse while he was visiting a sick friend. James Lewis suggests that Applewhite may have been a patient in the facility.[3] Applewhite later recalled that he felt that he had known Nettles for a long time and concluded that they had met in a past life.[4] She told him their meeting had been foretold to her by extraterrestrials, persuading him that he had a divine assignment.[5][6]
Applewhite and Nettles pondered the life of St. Francis of Assisi and read works by Helena Blavatsky, R. D. Laing, and Richard Bach.[7] They kept a King James Bible and studied passages from the New Testament focusing on Christology, asceticism, and eschatology.[8] Applewhite also read science fiction, including works by Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke.[9] By June 19, Applewhite and Nettles's beliefs had solidified.[10] They concluded that they had been chosen to fulfill biblical prophecies and given higher-level minds than other people.[11] They wrote a pamphlet that described Jesus' reincarnation as a Texan, a veiled reference to Applewhite.[12] Furthermore, they concluded that they were the two witnesses described in the Book of Revelation,[13] and occasionally visited churches and spiritual groups to speak of their identities,[14] often referring to themselves as "The Two", or "The UFO Two".[7][15] They believed they would be killed and then resurrected and, in view of others, transported onto a spaceship. This event, which they referred to as "the Demonstration", was to prove their claims.[12] These ideas were poorly received by other religious groups.[16]
The Two would gain their first follower in May 1974: Sharon Morgan, who abandoned her children to join them. A month later, Morgan left The Two and returned to her family. Nettles and Applewhite were arrested and charged with credit card fraud for using Morgan's cards, although she had consented to their use. The charges were dropped. A routine check revealed that Applewhite had stolen a rental car from St. Louis nine months earlier, which he still possessed. Applewhite spent six months in jail primarily in Missouri, and was released in early 1975, rejoining Nettles.[16]
Eventually, Applewhite and Nettles resolved to contact extraterrestrials and sought like-minded followers. They published advertisements for meetings, where they recruited disciples, called "the crew".[17] At the events, they purported to represent beings from another planet, the Next Level, who sought participants for an experiment. They said those who agreed to participate in the experiment would be brought to a higher evolutionary level.[18] In April 1975, during a meeting with a group of eighty people in Studio City, Los Angeles, they shared their "simultaneous" revelation that they were the two witnesses in the Bible's story of the end time.[19] According to Benjamin Zeller, while accounts of the meeting differ, all describe it as momentous and agree that Applewhite and Nettles presented themselves as charismatic leaders with an important spiritual message. About 25 individuals joined the group.[20]
In September 1975, Applewhite and Nettles preached at a motel hall in Waldport, Oregon. After selling all "worldly" possessions and saying farewell to loved ones, around 20 people vanished from the public eye and joined the group.[2] Later that year, on CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite reported on the disappearances in one of the first national reports on the developing religious group: "A score of persons from a small Oregon town have disappeared. It's a mystery whether they've been taken on a so-called trip to eternity – or simply been taken."[19] In reality, Applewhite and Nettles had arranged for the group to go underground. From that point, "Do" and "Ti" (pronounced "doe" and "tee"), as the two now called themselves, led nearly one hundred members across the country, sleeping in tents and sleeping bags and begging in the streets. Evading detection by the authorities and media enabled the group to focus on Do and Ti's doctrine of helping members of the crew achieve a "higher evolutionary level" above human, which the leaders claimed to have already reached.[19][21]
Applewhite and Nettles used a variety of aliases over the years, notably "Bo and Peep" and "Do and Ti". The group also had several names prior to the adoption of the name Heaven's Gate. At the time Jacques Vallée studied the group, it was known as Human Individual Metamorphosis (HIM). The group re-invented and renamed itself several times.[22][23] Applewhite believed he was directly related to Jesus, meaning he was an "Evolutionary Kingdom Level Above Human". His writings, which combined aspects of Millennialism, Gnosticism, and science fiction, suggest he believed himself to be Jesus' successor and the "Present Representative" of Christ on Earth.[19] Do and Ti taught early on that Do's bodily "vehicle" was inhabited by the same alien spirit that belonged to Jesus; Ti was presented as God the Father, Do's "older member".[19]
The crew used various recruitment methods as they toured the United States in destitution, proclaiming the gospel of higher-level metamorphosis, the deceit of humans by "false-God spirits", envelopment with sunlight for meditative healing, and the divinity of the "UFO Two".[19] In April 1976, the group stopped recruiting and became reclusive, and instituted a rigid set of behavioral guidelines, including banning sexual activity and the use of drugs. Applewhite and Nettles solidified their temporal and religious authority over the group. Benjamin Zeller described the movement as having transformed "from a loosely organized social group to a centralized religious movement comparable to a roving monastery".[24]
Some sociologists agree that the popular movement of alternative religious experience and individualism found in collective spiritual experiences during that period helped contribute to the growth of Heaven's Gate. Sheilaism, as it became known, was a way for people to merge their diverse religious backgrounds and coalesce around a shared, generalized faith, which followers of new religious sects like Applewhite's crew found to be an appetizing alternative to traditional dogmas in Judaism, Catholicism and evangelical Christianity. Many of Applewhite and Nettles' crew hailed from these diverse backgrounds; most of them are described by researchers as having been "longtime truth-seekers" or spiritual hippies who had long since believed in attempting to "find themselves" through spiritual means, combining faiths in a sort of cultural environment well into the mid-1980s.[25] Not all of Applewhite's crew were hippies recruited from alternative religious backgrounds – one such recruit early on was John Craig, a respected Republican and ranch owner who came close to winning a 1970 Colorado House of Representatives race. He joined the group in 1975.[26][27] As its numbers grew in its pre-Internet days, the clan of "UFO followers" seemed to have in common a need for communal belonging to an alternative path to higher existence outside the constraints of institutionalized faith.[citation needed]
Identifying itself by the business name "Higher Source," the group used its website to proselytize and recruit followers beginning in the early 1990s. Rumors started spreading among the group in the following years that the upcoming Comet Hale–Bopp housed the secret to their ultimate salvation and ascent into the kingdom of heaven.[28]
Contemporary media coverage
Title of a flyer for a Heaven's Gate recruitment meeting, Berkeley, California, May, 1994
Heaven's Gate received coverage in Jacques Vallée's book Messengers of Deception (1979), in which Vallée described an unusual public meeting organized by the group. He expressed concerns about contactee groups' authoritarian political and religious outlooks, and Heaven's Gate did not escape criticism.[29] Known to the media (though largely ignored), Heaven's Gate was better known in UFO circles, and through a series of academic studies by sociologist Robert Balch.
In January 1994, LA Weekly ran an article on the group, then known as "The Total Overcomers".[30] Richard Ford, who would play a key role in the 1997 group suicide, discovered Heaven's Gate through this article and eventually joined them, renaming himself Rio DiAngelo.[19] Coast to Coast AM host Art Bell discussed the theory of the "companion object" in the shadow of Hale–Bopp on several programs as early as November 1996. Speculation has been raised as to whether Bell's programs contributed to Heaven's Gate's group suicide. Knowledge Fight host Dan Friesen blames more on Courtney Brown rather than Bell.[31][32]
Louis Theroux contacted Heaven's Gate for his BBC2 documentary series, Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends, in early March 1997, weeks before their mass suicide. In response to his e-mail, Theroux was told that Heaven's Gate could not participate in the documentary: "at the present time a project like this would be an interference with what we must focus on."[33]
Mass suicide
In October 1996,[34] the group rented a large house which they called "The Monastery", a 9,200-square-foot (850 m2) mansion located near 18341 Colina Norte in Rancho Santa Fe, California. They paid the $7,000 per month rent in cash.[35] The same month, the group purchased alien abduction insurance that would cover up to fifty members and would pay out $1 million per person (the policy covered abduction, impregnation, or death by aliens).[36] In June 1995, they had purchased land near Manzano, New Mexico, and began creating a compound out of rubber tires and concrete, but had left abruptly in April 1996.[37]
On March 13, 1997, media reported on a mass sighting of unidentified lights over Phoenix.[38] During March 19–20, Marshall Applewhite taped himself in a video titled Do's Final Exit, speaking of mass suicide and "the only way to evacuate this Earth". After asserting that Comet Hale–Bopp was the sign that the group had been looking for, as well as the speculation that an unidentified flying object (UFO) may have been trailing the comet, Applewhite and his 38 followers prepared for ritual suicide, coinciding with the closest approach of the comet, so their souls could reach the Next Level before the closure of "Heaven's Gate". Members believed that after their deaths, a UFO would take their souls to another "level of existence above human", which was described as being both physical and spiritual. Their preparations included most members videotaping a farewell message.[39][40][41] The 39 adherents – 21 women and 18 men between the ages of 26 and 72 – are believed to have died in three groups over three successive days, with the remaining participants cleaning up after the prior group's deaths.[42]
The suicides began on March 22–23 in three waves.[43][44][a] To kill themselves, members took phenobarbital mixed with apple sauce or pudding and washed it down with vodka. After ingesting the mix, they secured plastic bags around their heads to induce asphyxiation. All 39 were dressed in identical black shirts and sweatpants, brand-new black-and-white Nike Decades athletic shoes, and armband patches reading "Heaven's Gate Away Team" (one of many instances of the group's use of the terms of Star Trek). Each member carried a five-dollar bill and three quarters in their pockets.[49][43] According to former members, this was standard for members leaving the home for jobs and "a humorous way to tell us they all had left the planet permanently"; the five-dollar bill was for covering the cost of vagrancy laws and the quarters were for calling home from pay phones.[50][43] Another former member stated that it was a reference to a Mark Twain story, which said $5.75 was "the cost to ride the tail of a comet to heaven."[51] No such passage from the writings of Twain is known to exist.[52]
After a member died, a living member would arrange the body by removing the plastic bag from the person's head, followed by posing the body so that it lay neatly in its own bed, with faces and torsos covered by a square purple cloth, for privacy. In a 2020 interview with Harry Robinson, two members who were not in Rancho Santa Fe when the suicides happened said that the identical clothing was a uniform representing unity for the mass suicide, while the Nike Decades were chosen because the group "got a good deal on the shoes".[43] Applewhite was also a fan of Nikes "and therefore everyone was expected to wear and like Nikes" within the group. Heaven's Gate had a saying, "Just Do it", echoing Nike's slogan, but pronouncing "Do" as "Doe", to reflect Applewhite's nickname.[53]
Among the dead was Thomas Nichols, brother of the actress Nichelle Nichols, best known for her role as Uhura in the original television series of Star Trek.[54] Applewhite was the third to last member to die; two people remained after him, and were the only ones found with bags over their heads and not having purple cloths covering their top halves. Before the last of the suicides, similar sets of packages were sent to numerous Heaven's Gate affiliated (or formerly affiliated) individuals,[42] and at least one media outlet, the BBC department responsible for Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends, for which Heaven's Gate had earlier declined participation.[citation needed]
Among those on the list of recipients was Rio DiAngelo. The package DiAngelo received on the evening of March 25,[39] as other packages sent had,[42] contained two VHS videotapes, one with Do's Final Exit, and the other with the "farewell messages" of group followers.[39] It also contained a letter stating that, among other things, "we have exited our vehicles just as we entered them."[55] DiAngelo informed his boss of the contents of the packages, and received a ride from him from Los Angeles to the Heaven's Gate home so he could verify the letter. DiAngelo found a back door intentionally left unlocked,[55] and used a video camera to record what he saw. After leaving the house, DiAngelo's boss, who had waited outside, encouraged him to make calls alerting the authorities.[39]
The San Diego County Sheriff's Department received an anonymous tip through 911 at 3:15 p.m. on March 26,[34] suggesting they "check on the welfare of the residents".[56] Days after the suicides, the caller was revealed to be DiAngelo.[39][55]
Caller: Yes, I need to report an anonymous tip, who do I talk to?
Sheriff's Department: Okay, this is regarding what?
Caller: This is regarding a mass suicide, and I can give you the address [...]
— San Diego County 911 call, March 26, 1997, 3:15 p.m. PST[55]
The lone deputy who first responded to the call entered the home through a side door,[56] saw ten bodies, and was nearly overcome by a "pungent odor".[34] (The bodies were already decomposing in the hot Southern California spring.)[34] After a cursory search by two more deputies found no one alive, they retreated until a search warrant could be procured.[56] All 39 bodies were ultimately cremated.[citation needed]
Aftermath
The Heaven's Gate deaths were widely publicized in the media as an example of mass suicide.[57] When the news broke of its relation to Comet Hale–Bopp, the co-discoverer of the comet, Alan Hale, was drawn into the story. Hale's phone "never stopped ringing the entire day". He chose not to respond until the next day at a press conference after researching the details of the incident.[58] Speaking at the Second World Skeptics Congress in Heidelberg, Germany on July 24, 1998:[59]
Dr. Hale discussed the scientific significance and popular lore of comets and gave a personal account of his discovery. He then lambasted the combination of scientific illiteracy, willful delusions, a radio talk show's deception about an imaginary spacecraft following the comet, and a cult's bizarre yearnings for ascending to another level of existence that led to the Heaven's Gate mass suicides.[60]
Hale said that well before Heaven's Gate, he had told a colleague:
"We are probably going to have some suicides as a result of this comet." The sad part is that I was really not surprised. Comets are lovely objects, but they don't have apocalyptic significance. We must use our minds, our reason.[60]
News of the mass suicide motivated the copycat suicide of a 58-year-old man living near Marysville, California.[61] The man left a note dated March 27, which said, "I'm going on the spaceship with Hale–Bopp to be with those who have gone before me," and imitated some of the details of the Heaven's Gate suicides as they had then been reported. The man was found dead by a friend on March 31 and had no known connection with Heaven's Gate.[62]
At least three former members of Heaven's Gate died by suicide in the months following the mass suicide. On May 6, 1997, Wayne Cooke and Chuck Humphrey (known as "Rkkody" within the group) attempted suicide in a hotel in a manner similar to that used by the group. Cooke died, but Humphrey survived and was saved by authorities.[63][64] Another former member, James Pirkey Jr., died by suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot wound on May 11. In February 1998, Humphrey killed himself in Arizona. His body was found carrying a five-dollar bill and four quarters in his pocket; next to him, a note: "Do not revive".[63][64][65]
On March 22, the same day as the Heaven's Gate suicide, five members of the Order of the Solar Temple group also died in a mass suicide.[66] The Solar Temple happened to be a group with similar beliefs, in both cases believing that suicide would allow their souls to be transported into space.[67][68] This led to initial suspicions of a connection,[69][70] though police investigating the Heaven's Gate deaths refused to acknowledge these speculations.[71] The Solar Temple suicides had been timed for the vernal equinox on March 20, not the comet, but due to several failed attempts it only happened on the 22nd.[72] There was no apparent connection between the two groups.[68]
Although most people considered the event a mass suicide, sociologist and former member of a cult, Janja Lalich, referred to the event as "murder".[73] UCLA psychiatrist Louis J. West described the dead members as "victims of a hoax [...] There was villainy here."[74]
Two former members, Marc and Sarah King of Phoenix, Arizona, operating as the TELAH Foundation, are believed to maintain the group's website.[28][75]
The house at which the mass suicide took place became a stigma on the neighborhood. Local residents opted to rename the street on which it was located to "Paseo Victoria". The property itself ended up being purchased by a local developer in 1999 for $668,000 during a foreclosure sale, well below half its assessed value of $1.4 million. It was subsequently purchased by neighbors who razed the building, built a new house in its place, and changed the address to 18239.[76][77]
Belief system
Scholars disagree over whether the theology of Heaven's Gate is fundamentally either New Age or Christian in nature. Benjamin Zeller has argued that the theology of Heaven's Gate was primarily rooted in Evangelicalism but it also had New Age elements.[78] Scholars have described the theology of Heaven's Gate as a mixture of Christian millenarianism, New Age, and ufology, and as such it has been mainly characterized as a UFO religion.[79]
The group adopted the ancient astronaut hypothesis, which was prominent at the time of the group's formation due to the then-recent publication of works like Erich von Däniken's Chariots of the Gods?.[80] The term "ancient astronauts" is used to refer to various forms of the concept that extraterrestrials visited Earth in the distant past.[81] Applewhite and Nettles took part of this concept and taught it as the belief that "aliens planted the seeds of current humanity millions of years ago, and have to come to reap the harvest of their work in the form of spiritually evolved individuals who will join the ranks of flying saucer crews. Only a select few members of humanity will be chosen to advance to this transhuman state. The rest will be left to wallow in the spiritually poisoned atmosphere of a corrupt world."[82] Only individuals who joined Heaven's Gate, follow Applewhite and Nettle's belief system, and make the sacrifices required by membership would be allowed to escape human suffering.
Paralleling the beliefs of ancient astronaut theorists like Däniken, Heaven's Gate interpreted the Bible as recording events of extraterrestrial contact.[80]
Initially, recruits had been told that they would be biologically and chemically transformed into extraterrestrial beings and would be transported aboard a spacecraft, which would come to Earth and take them to heaven – the "Next Level". When Bonnie Lou Nettles (Ti) died of cancer in 1985, the group's doctrine was confounded because Nettles was "chosen" by the Next Level to be a messenger on Earth, yet her body had died instead of leaving physically to outer space. Their belief system was then revised to include the leaving of consciousness from the body as equivalent to leaving the Earth in a spacecraft.[83]
The group declared that it was against suicide, because in its own context, to commit suicide is "to turn against the Next Level when it is being offered", and the members of the group also believed that their human bodies were only "vehicles" which were meant to help them on their journey. Therefore, by committing suicide, they would not allow their consciousness to leave their human bodies and join the next level; they would remain alive rather than participate in the group suicide because suicide was considered the suicide of their consciousness. In conversations, when they referred to a person or a person's body, they routinely used the word "vehicle".[84]
The members of the group adopted names which consisted of three letters followed by the suffix -ody to signify themselves as "children of the Next Level". This is mentioned in Applewhite's final video, Do's Final Exit, filmed March 19–20, 1997, just days prior to the suicides.
They believed that "to be eligible for membership in the Next Level, humans would have to shed every attachment to the planet". This meant all members had to give up all human-like characteristics, such as family, friends, gender, sexuality, individuality, jobs, money, and possessions.[12] "The Evolutionary Level Above Human" (TELAH) was a "physical, corporeal place",[85] another world in our universe,[86] where residents live in pure bliss and nourish themselves by absorbing pure sunlight.[87] At the next level, beings do not engage in sexual intercourse, eating or dying, the things that make humans "mammalian".[88] Heaven's Gate believed that what the Bible calls God is a highly developed extraterrestrial.[89]
Members of Heaven's Gate believed that evil space aliens – Luciferians – falsely represented themselves to Earthlings as "God" and conspired to keep humans from developing. As technically advanced humanoids, these aliens have spacecraft, space-time travel, telepathy, and increased longevity.[90] They use holograms to fake miracles.[88] They are carnal beings with gender, and they stopped training to achieve the Kingdom of God thousands of years ago.[90] Heaven's Gate believed that all existing religions on Earth had been corrupted by these aliens.[91]
Although these basic beliefs of the group generally stayed consistent over the years, "the details of their ideology were flexible enough to undergo modification over time".[81] There are examples of the group's adding to or slightly changing their beliefs, such as: modifying the way one can enter the Next Level, changing the way they described themselves, placing more importance on the idea of Satan, and adding several other New Age concepts. One of these concepts was the belief of extraterrestrial walk-ins; when the group began, "Applewhite and Nettles taught their followers that they were extraterrestrial beings [...] after the notion of walk-ins became popular within the New Age subculture, the Two changed their tune and began describing themselves as extraterrestrial walk-ins."[81] A walk-in can be defined as "an entity who occupies a body that has been vacated by its original soul". Heaven's Gate came to believe an extraterrestrial walk-in is "a walk-in that is supposedly from another planet".[92]
The concept of walk-ins aided Applewhite and Nettles in personally starting from what they considered to be "clean slates". In this clean slate, they were no longer considered to be the people they had been prior to the start of the group, but had taken on a new life; this concept gave them a way to "erase their human personal histories as the histories of souls who formerly occupied the bodies of Applewhite and Nettles".[92] Over time, Applewhite revised his identity in the group to encourage the belief that the "walk-in" that was inhabiting his body was the same that had done so to Jesus 2,000 years ago. Similar to Nestorianism, this belief stated that the personage of Jesus and the spirit of Jesus were separable. This meant that Jesus was simply the name of the body of an ordinary man that held no sacred properties, that was taken over by an incorporeal sacred entity to deliver "next level" information.
Techniques to enter the next level
According to Heaven's Gate, once the individual has perfected himself through the "process", there were four methods to enter or "graduate" to the next level:[93]
Physical pickup onto a TELAH spacecraft and transfer to a next level body aboard that craft. In this version, what Professor Zeller calls a "UFO" version of the "Rapture", an alien spacecraft would descend to Earth and collect Applewhite, Nettles, and their followers, and their human bodies would be transformed through biological and chemical processes to perfected beings.[94]
Natural death, accidental death, or death from random violence. Here, the "graduating soul" leaves the human container for a perfected next-level body.[95]
Outside persecution that leads to death. After the deaths of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, and the events involving Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge, Applewhite was afraid the American government would murder the members of Heaven's Gate.[96]
Willful exit from the body in a dignified manner. Near the end, Applewhite had a revelation that they might have to abandon their human bodies and achieve the next level as Jesus had done.[95] This occurred when 39 members died by suicide and "graduated".[97]
Animals were said to have souls, and a soul in an animal could enter the next level, a human soul, if it becomes a servant of humans, such as in a guide dog, and "sees itself as a family member in that human family".[98]
Structure
The group was only open to adults over the age of 18.[85] Members gave up their possessions and lived an ascetic life devoid of indulgences. The group was tightly knit, and everything was communally shared. In public, each member of the group always carried a five-dollar bill and a roll of quarters.[99] Eight men in the group, including Applewhite, voluntarily underwent castration as an extreme means of maintaining the ascetic lifestyle.[100] The group initially attempted castration by having one of its members, a former nurse, perform the castration, but this almost resulted in the patient's death, and caused at least one member to leave Heaven's Gate. Every castration that followed was done in a hospital.[101]
The group earned revenue by offering professional website development under the business name Higher Source.[102]
The cultural theorist Paul Virilio described the group as a cybersect, due to its heavy reliance on computer-mediated communication prior to its collective suicide.[103]
In popular culture
In 1979, Gary Sherman produced the made-for-TV movie Mysterious Two for NBC, based on the exploits of Applewhite and Nettles, then relatively unknown, which aired in 1982.[104]
In its first live episode following the mass suicide, Saturday Night Live aired a sketch where the cult members made it to space. It was followed by a commercial parody for Keds, featuring the tagline, "Worn by level-headed Christians," as well as footage of the Nike-clad corpses of the Heaven's Gate members.[105][106]
In 2018, rapper Lil Uzi Vert posted a concept album art for their then-upcoming album, Eternal Atake. Soon after, they were threatened with legal action by Marc and Sarah King, the couple responsible for maintaining the group's website and intellectual property. A representative for the two wrote "[Uzi] is using and adapting our copyrights and trademarks without our permission and the infringement will be taken up with our attorneys. This is not fair use or parody; it is a direct and clear infringement". The teased cover contained a logo almost identical to the Heaven's Gate logo, with similar text and visuals below. When the album officially released, it would be changed substantially to instead feature three figures standing on the moon, accompanied by a UFO overhead.[107]
Heaven's Gate: The Cult of Cults, a documentary miniseries about the cult, was released on HBO Max in 2020.[108]
In 2021, Heaven's Gate was one of the subjects in the first season of Vice Media's documentary television series Dark Side of the 90s entitled "A Tale of Two Cults".[109]
Heaven's Gate was the subject of the 10-part podcast of the same name produced by Glynn Washington to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the mass suicide.[110]
In February 2023, a movie following the story of Applewhite and Nettles entitled The Leader was introduced during the Berlin Film Festival.[111] In October 2023, it was announced that Michael C. Hall and Grace Caroline Currey had joined the cast.[112]
Nike Decades
The infamy which was caused by the mass suicides, their limited availability, and their sudden discontinuation have been cited as reasons for the high resale value of Nike Decades.[113][114]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven%27s_Gate_(religious_group)
In the philosophical subdiscipline of ontology, animalism is a theory of personal identity that asserts that humans are animals. The concept of animalism is advocated by philosophers Eric T. Olson, Peter Van Inwagen, Paul Snowdon, Stephan Blatti, David Hershenov and David Wiggins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animalism_(philosophy)
Animal sacrifice is the ritual killing and offering of one or more animals, usually as part of a religious ritual or to appease or maintain favour with a deity. Animal sacrifices were common throughout Europe and the Ancient Near East until the spread of Christianity in Late Antiquity, and continue in some cultures or religions today. Human sacrifice, where it existed, was always much rarer.
All or only part of a sacrificial animal may be offered; some cultures, like the ancient and modern Greeks, eat most of the edible parts of the sacrifice in a feast, and burnt the rest as an offering. Others burnt the whole animal offering, called a holocaust. Usually, the best animal or best share of the animal is the one presented for offering.
Animal sacrifice should generally be distinguished from the religiously prescribed methods of ritual slaughter of animals for normal consumption as food.
During the Neolithic Revolution, early humans began to move from hunter-gatherer cultures toward agriculture, leading to the spread of animal domestication. In a theory presented in Homo Necans, mythologist Walter Burkert suggests that the ritual sacrifice of livestock may have developed as a continuation of ancient hunting rituals, as livestock replaced wild game in the food supply.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_sacrifice
If God hates human sacrifice, how could Jesus’ sacrifice be the payment for our sins?
Answer
The Bible makes it quite clear that God hates human sacrifice. The pagan nations that surrounded the Israelites practiced human sacrifice as part of the worship of false gods. God declared that such “worship” was detestable to Him and that He hates it (Deuteronomy 12:31; 18:10). Furthermore, human sacrifice is associated in the Old Testament with evil practices such as sorcery and divination, which are also detestable to God (2 Kings 21:6). So, if God hates human sacrifice, why did He sacrifice Christ on the cross and how could that sacrifice be the payment for our sins?
There is no doubt that a sacrifice for sin was necessary if people are to have any hope of eternal life. God established the necessity of the shedding of blood to cover sin (Hebrews 9:22). In fact, God Himself performed the very first animal sacrifice to cover, temporarily, the sin of Adam and Eve. After He pronounced curses upon the first couple, He killed an animal, shedding its blood, and made from it a covering for Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:21), thereby instituting the principle of animal sacrifice for sin. When God gave the Law to Moses, there were extensive instructions on how, when, and under what circumstances animal sacrifices were to be offered to Him. This was to continue until Christ came to offer the ultimate, perfect sacrifice, which made animal sacrifice no longer necessary. “But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:3–4).
There are several reasons why the sacrifice of Christ on the cross does not violate the prohibition against human sacrifice. First, Jesus wasn’t merely human. If He were, then His sacrifice would have also been a temporary one because one human life couldn’t possibly cover the sins of the multitudes who ever existed. Neither could one finite human life atone for sin against an infinite God. The only viable sacrifice must be an infinite one, which means only God Himself could atone for the sins of mankind. Only God Himself, an infinite Being, could pay the penalty owed to Himself. This is why God had to become a Man and dwell among men (John 1:14). No other sacrifice would suffice.
Second, God didn’t sacrifice Jesus. Rather, Jesus, as God incarnate, sacrificed Himself. No one forced Him. He laid down His life willingly, as He made clear speaking about His life: “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again” (John 10:18). God the Son sacrificed Himself to God the Father and thereby fulfilled all the requirements of the Law. Unlike the temporary sacrifices, Jesus’ once-for-all-time sacrifice was followed by His resurrection. He laid down His life and took it up again, thereby providing eternal life for all who would ever believe in Him and accept His sacrifice for their sins. He did this out of love for the Father and for all those the Father has given Him (John 6:37–40).
https://www.gotquestions.org/human-sacrifice.html
Hebrews 10
1599 Geneva Bible
10 1 He proveth that the sacrifices of the Law were imperfect, 2 because they were yearly renewed. 5 But that the sacrifice of Christ is one, and perpetual, 6 he proveth by David’s testimony: 19 Then he addeth an exhortation, 29 and severely threateneth them that reject the grace of Christ. 36 In the end he praiseth patience, 38 that cometh of faith.
1 For [a]the law having the shadow of good things to [b]come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices, which they offer year by year continually, sanctify the comers thereunto.
2 For would they not then have ceased to have been offered, because that the offerers once purged, should have had no more conscience of sins?
3 But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again of sins every year.
4 For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins.
5 [c]Wherefore when he [d]cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not: but a [e]body hast thou ordained me.
6 In burnt offerings, and sin offerings thou hast had no pleasure.
7 Then I said, Lo, I come (in the beginning of the book it is written of me) that I should do thy will, O God.
8 Above, when he said, Sacrifice and offering, and burnt offerings, and sin offerings, thou wouldest not have, neither hadst pleasure therein (which are offered by the Law.)
9 Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God, he taketh away the [f]first, that he may stablish the second.
10 By the which will we are sanctified, even by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once made.
11 [g]And every Priest [h]standeth daily ministering, and ofttimes offereth one manner of offering, which can never take away sins:
12 But this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, sitteth forever at the right hand of God,
13 [i]And from henceforth tarrieth, till his enemies be made his footstool.
14 For with one offering hath he consecrated forever them that are sanctified.
15 [j]For the holy Ghost also beareth us record: for after that he had said before,
16 This is the Testament that I will make unto them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my Laws in their heart, and in their minds I will write them.
17 And their sins and iniquities will I remember [k]no more.
18 Now where remission of these things is, there is no more offering for [l]sin.
19 [m]Seeing therefore, brethren, that by the blood of Jesus we may be bold to enter into the Holy place,
20 By the new and living way, which he hath prepared for us, through the veil, that is, his [n]flesh:
21 And seeing we have an high Priest, which is over the house of God,
22 [o]Let us draw near with a [p]true heart in assurance of faith, our [q]hearts being pure from an evil conscience,
23 And washed in our bodies with [r]pure water, let us keep the profession of our hope, without wavering, (for he is faithful that promised.)
24 And let us consider one another, to provoke unto love, and to good works,
25 Not forsaking the fellowship that we have among ourselves, as the manner of some is: but let us exhort one another, [s]and that so much the more, because ye see that the day draweth near.
26 For if we sin [t]willingly after that we have received and acknowledged that truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,
27 But a fearful looking for of judgment, and violent fire, which shall devour the [u]adversaries.
28 [v]He that despiseth Moses’ Law, dieth without mercy under two, or three witnesses:
29 Of how much sorer punishment suppose ye shall he be worthy, which treadeth under foot the Son of God, and counteth the blood of the Testament as an unholy thing, wherewith he was sanctified, and doeth despite the Spirit of grace?
30 [w]For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me: I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall [x]judge his people.
31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
32 [y]Now call to remembrance the days that are passed, in the which, after ye had received light ye endured a great fight in afflictions,
33 Partly while ye were made a [z]gazing stock both by reproaches and afflictions, and partly while ye became [aa]companions of them which were so tossed to and fro.
34 For both ye sorrowed with me for my bonds, and suffered with joy the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves how that ye have in heaven a better, and an enduring [ab]substance.
35 Cast not away therefore your confidence which hath great recompense of reward.
36 For ye have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.
37 For yet a very [ac]little while, and he that shall come, will come, and will not tarry.
38 [ad]Now the just shall live by faith: but if any withdraw himself, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.
39 But we are not they which withdraw ourselves unto perdition, but follow faith unto the conservation of the soul.
Footnotes
Hebrews 10:1 He preventeth a privy objection. Why then were those sacrifices offered? The Apostle answereth first touching that yearly sacrifice which was the solemnest of all, wherein (saith he) there was made every year a remembrance again of all former sins. Therefore that sacrifice had no power to sanctify: for to what purpose should those sins which are purged be repeated again, and wherefore should new sins come to be repeated every year, if those sacrifices did abolish sin?
Hebrews 10:1 Of things which are everlasting, which were promised to the Fathers, and exhibited in Christ.
Hebrews 10:5 A conclusion following of those things that went before, and comprehending also the other sacrifices. Seeing that the sacrifices of the Law could not do it, therefore Christ speaking of himself as of our high Priest manifested in the flesh, witnesseseth evidently that God resteth not in the sacrifices, but in the obedience of his Son our high Priest, in which obedience he offered up himself once to his Father for us.
Hebrews 10:5 The Son of God is said to come into the world, when he was made man.
Hebrews 10:5 It is word for word in the Hebrew text, Thou hast pierced mine ears through, that is, thou hast made me obedient, and willing to hear.
Hebrews 10:9 That is the sacrifices, to establish the second, that is, the will of God.
Hebrews 10:11 A conclusion, with the other part of the comparison. The Levitical high Priest repeateth the same sacrifices daily in his sanctuary: whereupon which it followeth that neither those sacrifices, neither those offerings, neither those high Priests could take away sins. But Christ, having offered one sacrifice once for the sins of all men, and having sanctified his own forever, sitteth at the right hand of the Father, having all power in his hands.
Hebrews 10:11 At the altar.
Hebrews 10:13 He preventeth a privy objection, to wit, that yet notwithstanding we are subject to sin and death, whereunto the Apostle answereth, that the full efficacy of Christ’s virtue hath not yet showed itself, but shall at length appear when he will at once put to flight all his enemies, with whom as yet we strive.
Hebrews 10:15 Although there do yet remain in us relics of sin, yet the work of our sanctification which is to be perfected, hangeth upon the selfsame sacrifice which never shall be repeated: and that the Apostle proveth by alledging again the testimonies of Jeremiah, thus, Sin is taken away by the new Testament, seeing the Lord saith that it shall come to pass, that according to the form of it, he will no more remember our sins: Therefore we need now no purging sacrifice to take away that which is already taken away, but we must rather take pains, that we may now through faith be partakers of that sacrifice.
Hebrews 10:17 Why then, where is the fire of Purgatory, and that Popish distinction of the fault and the punishment?
Hebrews 10:18 He said well, for sin: for there remaineth another offering, to wit, of thanksgiving.
Hebrews 10:19 The sum of the former treatise: We are not shut out now of the holy place, as the Fathers were, but we have an entrance into the true holy place (that is, into heaven) seeing that we are purged with the blood not of beasts, but of Jesus. Neither as in times past, doth the high Priest shut us out by setting the veil against us, but through the veil, which is his flesh, he hath brought us into heaven itself, being present with us, so that we have now truly an high Priest, which is over the house of God.
Hebrews 10:20 So Christ’s flesh showeth us the Godhead as it were under a veil, for otherwise we were not able to abide the brightness of it.
Hebrews 10:22 A most grave exhortation, wherein which he showeth how that sacrifice of Christ may be applied to us: to wit, by faith, which also he describeth, by the consequence, to wit, by sanctification of the Spirit, which causeth us surely to hope in God, and to procure by all means possible one another’s salvation, through the love that is in us one toward another.
Hebrews 10:22 With no double and counterfeit heart, but with such an heart as is truly and indeed given to God.
Hebrews 10:22 This is it which the Lord saith, Be ye holy, for I am holy.
Hebrews 10:23 With the grace of the holy Ghost.
Hebrews 10:25 Having mentioned the last coming of Christ, he stirreth up the godly to the meditation of an holy life, and cites the faithless fallers from God, to the fearful judgment seat of the judge, because they wickedly rejected him in whom only salvation consisteth.
Hebrews 10:26 Without any cause or occasion, or show of occasion.
Hebrews 10:27 For it is another matter to sin through the frailty of man’s nature, and another thing to proclaim war as it were to God as to an enemy.
Hebrews 10:28 If the breach of the Law of Moses was punished by death, how much more worthy death is it to fall away from Christ?
Hebrews 10:30 The reason of all these things is, because God is a revenger of such as despise him: otherwise he should not rightly govern his Church. Now there is nothing more horrible then the wrath of the living God.
Hebrews 10:30 Rule or govern.
Hebrews 10:32 As he terrified the fallers away from God so doth he now comfort them that are constant and stand strongly setting before them the success of their former fights, so stirring them up to a sure hope of a full and ready victory.
Hebrews 10:33 You were brought forth to be ashamed.
Hebrews 10:33 In taking their miseries, to be your miseries.
Hebrews 10:34 Goods and riches.
Hebrews 10:37 He will come within this very little while.
Hebrews 10:38 He commendeth the excellency of a sure faith by the effect, because it is the only way to life, which sentence he setteth forth and amplifieth by setting the contrary against it.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews%2010&version=GNV
Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson (born 11 October 1948) is a Ghanaian Catholic prelate who has served as chancellor of the Pontifical Academies of Sciences since 2022.[1] He was president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace from 2009 to 2017 and the inaugural prefect of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development from 2017 to 2021.[2]
Turkson was previously Archbishop of Cape Coast from 1992 to 2009, and was made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 2003. He has been viewed as papabile, a candidate for election to the papacy, both during the 2013 papal conclave which elected Pope Francis, as well as during the events leading up to the upcoming 2025 papal conclave.
Early life and priesthood
Turkson is an ethnic Fante and was born in Wassa Nsuta in Western Ghana to a Methodist mother and a Catholic father.[3] He is the fourth child of ten children. His mother sold vegetables in the open market while his father worked as a carpenter. He had a paternal uncle who was a Muslim.[4] He studied at St. Teresa's Minor Seminary in Amisano and St. Peter's Regional Seminary in Pedu, Cape Coast, before attending St. Anthony-on-Hudson Seminary in Rensselaer, New York, where he graduated with an M.A. in Theology and a Master of Divinity. He was ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop John Amissah on 20 July 1975. Additionally, he earned a licentiate in Sacred Scripture from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome in 1980. He returned to St Teresa's for a year, 1980–81, and became vice-rector at St Peter's Seminary in 1981. He also did pastoral work in a parish annexed to the seminary. From 1987 to 1992, he pursued doctoral studies in Sacred Scripture at the Pontifical Biblical Institute but his work on his thesis was interrupted by his appointment as archbishop of Cape Coast.
Episcopal career
On 6 October 1992, Turkson was appointed Archbishop of Cape Coast by Pope John Paul II. He received his episcopal consecration on 27 March 1993 from Archbishop Dominic Kodwo Andoh, with Archbishops Peter Poreku Dery and Peter Kwasi Sarpong serving as co-consecrators. He served as President of the Ghana Catholic Bishops' Conference from 1997 to 2005, and as Chancellor of the Catholic University College of Ghana beginning in 2003.[citation needed]
John Paul II created Turkson Cardinal-Priest of San Liborio in his final consistory of 21 October 2003. Turkson is the first Ghanaian cardinal and was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the papal conclave of 2005 that elected Pope Benedict XVI and the papal conclave of 2013 that elected Pope Francis.[citation needed]
Roman Curia
On 24 October 2009, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Turkson president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.[5] Turkson is also a member of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church and, since 4 March 2010, the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses.[6] On 12 June 2012, Turkson was appointed a member of the Congregation for Catholic Education.[7]
On 16 October 2010, Pope Benedict named him to a five-year renewable term as a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.[8][9] Since 2009, Turkson had been president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
In the spring of 2011, Pope Benedict XVI sent Cardinal Turkson as a mediator to contribute to a diplomatic, non-military solution to the civil conflict in Ivory Coast, where Laurent Gbagbo had refused, in spite of international condemnation and local protests and resistance, to step aside and hand over power to Alassane Ouattara, the certified winner of the presidential election. Atrocities have been committed by both sides.[10]
In October 2011, Turkson called for the establishment of a "global public authority" and a "central world bank" to rule over financial institutions that have become outdated and often ineffective in dealing fairly with crises. His text was very specific, calling for taxation measures on financial transactions.[11] It said that "The economic and financial crisis which the world is going through calls everyone, individuals and peoples, to examine in depth the principles and the cultural and moral values at the basis of social coexistence". The document condemned "the idolatry of the market" as well as "neo-liberal thinking" that looked exclusively at technical solutions to economic problems. "In fact, the crisis has revealed behaviours like selfishness, collective greed and hoarding of goods on a great scale." It added that world economics needed an "ethic of solidarity" among both rich and poor nations.[12][13]
On 13 October 2012, at a Vatican conference of bishops meant to address evangelizing lapsed Catholics, Turkson showed a YouTube video called "Muslim Demographics" that makes alarmist predictions about the growth of Islam in Europe, a video Reuters called "spurious".[14] Vatican Radio described it as a "fear-mongering presentation".[15] It resulted in "the most raucous back-and-forth most synod veterans have ever witnessed."[16] On 15 October, he apologized and said he had only hoped to focus discussion on more practical issues.[15]
Cardinal Turkson pictured in Helsinki, Finland, in 2016
In 2016, Pope Francis sent Turkson as his special envoy to pursue peace in South Sudan: to urge an end to violence in the country, and to help establish dialogue and trust between the warring parties. Turkson traveled to Juba to support the archbishop and to meet with the country's leaders. He also carried with him a letter from Francis for President Salva Kiir and one for Vice President Riek Machar who are historic enemies and represent different ethnic groups.[17]
On 31 August 2016, Pope Francis created the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, naming Turkson as its first prefect, effective 1 January 2017.[18]
Ahead of the World Meeting of Families 2018 in Dublin, Turkson was announced as homilist at the opening ceremony at the Cathedral of the Assumption, Carlow.[19]
On 23 December 2021, Pope Francis ended Turkson's service as prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development at the conclusion of his five-year term, appointing Cardinal Michael Czerny as his temporary replacement.[2]
On 4 April 2022, Pope Francis named him chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.[1]
Turkson speaks English, Fante, French, Italian, German, and Hebrew, in addition to understanding Latin and Greek.[20]
Papabile status
Following the announcement on 11 February 2013 of the planned resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, Turkson was identified by the media as a possible candidate for the papacy.[20][21][22][23][24][25] Bookmakers Paddy Power and Ladbrokes made Turkson the favourite to be elected pope,[26] with Paddy Power giving 2/1 odds.[27] Odds variously of 4/1,[28] 11/4 against (by Paddy Power), and 5/4 against (by Ladbrokes) were given.[29] Parties unknown placed fake election posters in Rome with the caption "At the conclave, vote Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson!"[30]
After the death of Pope Francis and with the 2025 papal conclave due to begin in May 2025, Turkson was again seen as papabile, although as of 23 April 2025, Turkson's papabile status is mixed, with The Guardian and BBC News seeing him as the next pope,[31][32] though being omitted from CNN and CBS News' speculation stories.[33][34]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Turkson
Latium is a 1669 work by the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher. It was dedicated to Pope Clement X and a 1671 edition was published in Amsterdam by Johannes van Waesbergen.[1] The work was the first to discuss the topography, archeology and history of the Lazio region.[2] It was based partly on Kircher's extensive walks in the countryside around Rome, although it included sites that he had probably not visited in person.[3] The work included many illustrations of the contemporary countryside, as well as reconstructions of ancient buildings.[4]: 92 It also included an account of his discovery of the ruined sanctuary at Mentorella, which he had already recounted in his 1665 work Historia Eustachio Mariana.[4]: 94
Contents
Kircher’s stated purpose in Latium was to use the physical remains of ancient Latium as illustrations of human mutability and transience.[5] It was divided into five books. The first covered the origins and ancient history of the Latins. The second contained chapters describing (I) the region of Monte Cavo, Lake Albano and the ancient town of Alba Longa; (II) Tusculum; (III) the ancient Praeneste and the modern town of Palestrina, and (IV) the region of Labici and the ancient Hernici tribe. The third book examined the ancient history of Tivoli and the fourth, the countryside and ancient remains around it. The fifth book was devoted to the Pontine marshes.[1][6] The Pontine Marshes to the southeast of Rome had been discussed by Kircher in his 1658 work Scrutinium Physico-Medicum because they were a source of malaria that prevented the agricultural development of the neighbouring region and imposed a heavy burden of disease on its population. Kircher was probably one of the first people to recommend the taking of quinine in Rome to counter malaria. Pope Urban VIII had brought in the Dutch engineer De Wit to begin draining the marshes and in Latium Kircher noted these efforts approvingly, illustrating the devices used to pump out the water.[7]
Ancient history of Latium
In Book I, Kircher advanced the theory that Latium had been populated after the time of the Tower of Babel, or possibly before. Indeed he held that it had originally been settled by Noah, and that this was supported by local legends about Saturn and Janus, who he believed were in fact Noah himself.[5] Thus, he held, the mythological account of the castration of Saturn was a variant of the Biblical story of the discovery of Noah's nakedness by Ham. Such speculative theories were to be developed in his later works Turris Babel and Arca Noë.[8]: 44
During his countryside walks, Kircher was searching for evidence that would allow him to reconstruct the history of the region from its earliest times right up to the pontificate of Pope Alexander VII. Although the timeline he constructed was highly inaccurate, the evidence he gathered was the first attempt at a complete chronological reconstruction of the region’s history.[9]
The Nile mosaic
Around 1600 a Roman mosaic was discovered at the Temple of Fortuna Primigenia at Praeneste. It is known to modern scholarship as "the Nile mosaic" because it is understood to represent the course of the River Nile from the mountains of Ethiopia through Sudan and Egypt to the sea. However in Book III of Latium Kircher offered a completely different interpretation of the piece, based on the idea that it depicted ceremonies in honour of the goddess of fortune. The upper part, he said, depicted wild animals, representing fortune's dangers. He noted that the people of ancient Praeneste were devotees of Hercules, who was famous for having destroyed monsters and overcome ill fortune. Beneath this, he said, was depicted the veneration of the goddess and consultation of her oracle. He correctly identified the temple of Serapis but this did not serve as a clue of the mosaic's real subject. At the bottom there are festivals and processions in honour of the goddess.[4]: 87–88
Illustrations
Latium was published in folio with 27 engraved plates. These included illustrations, maps, and plans, including 15 double-page foldouts.[10] The illustrations included views of the countryside, sculptures, mosaics, coins and mechanical devices such as watermills.[6]
The frontispiece was by Romeyn de Hooghe. It depicted a seated figure of the genius loci Latia. On one side of her stands a mountain on which Atlas hold up the world, and on the other figures a volcano. These emblems represent, perhaps, the temporal and spiritual power of Rome respectively. Above her hang both ancient and contemporary arms. Romulus and Remus and their she-wolf adopted mother play behind her back while a putto presents her with the papal tiara and the keys of Saint Peter. She is wearing regalia that show that her presence and her power are intimately connected with the Catholic Church.[3] Her crown identifies her as the protector of a city, and the star above it is the symbols of the Chigi family to which Pope Alexander VII belonged. She holds a long sceptre topped with the hand of justice and her eyes fall on a mitre, a cardinal's hat, and other Catholic religious objects. Her robe covers the imperial eagle and her foot rests on the orb of temporal power, indicating her primacy over the Holy Roman Emperor. Beneath Latia is inscribed the Latin motto 'Latium cui par nihil est, nihil Secundu' ('Latium, to which none is equal, and second to none'). At the bottom of the illustration the male figures are the gods of the river Tiber and its Tivoli tributary the Aniene. The female figure with butterfly wings is the goddess of the Aniene, otherwise Ino, resting on symbols of her mythological shipwreck.[4]: 39
The imagery of the frontispiece was intended to emphasise the purpose of Kircher’s claim that his contemporary Rome was connected not just to the ancient city that preceded it, but to a both the ancient classical and biblical worlds. The figure of Latia was Etruscan, the sceptre she hold resembled the regalia of ancient Egypt, while Greece was represented by the winged figure of Ino.[9]
The illustration depicting the apotheosis of Homer was signed by Giovanni Battista Galestruzzi. The aerial view of Palestrina and the plate of the Nile mosaic were signed by Agapito de Bernardini.[6]: 178 [4]: 51 The maps in the book were the work of Innocenzo Mattei.[11] The book also reused a number of earlier illustrations from previously published works, by Étienne Dupérac, Daniele Stoopendahl and Matteo Greuter. The image of the reconstruction of Hadrian’s villa was a replica of the illustration by Francesco Contini and the image of the temple of Fortune was a replica of a piece by Domenico Castelli.[6]: 182
Critical reception
The work was criticised by many scholars of Kircher’s time for its inaccuracies and speculations about ancient history. Raffaello Fabretti pointed out that Kircher’s text was full of mistakes,[5] his images of aqueducts were inaccurate and his map wrongly located the source of the Aqua Virgo near Colonna.[12] Kircher intended to write a similar work on Etruria, entitled Iter Etruscum, but this was never published, because the Jesuit censors would not approve it.[3][13]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latium_(1669)
THE American Capitol abounds with clues of its Roman origins. “Freedom,” the Roman goddess whose statue crowns the dome, was created in Rome at the studio of American sculptor Thomas Crawford. We find a whole pantheon of Roman deities in the great fresco covering the dome’s interior rotunda: Persephone, Ceres, Freedom, Vulcan, Mercury, even a deified George Washington. These figures were the creation of Vatican artist Constantino Brumidi. The fact that the national Statehouse evolved as a “capitol” bespeaks Roman influence. No building can rightly be called a capitol unless it’s a temple of Jupiter, the great father-god of Rome who ruled heaven with his thunderbolts and nourished the earth with his fertilizing rains. If it was a capitolium, it belonged to Jupiter and his priests. Jupiter’s mascot was the eagle, which the founding fathers made their mascot as well. A Roman eagle tops the governing idol of the House of Representatives, a forty-six-inch sterling silverand- ebony wand called a “mace.” The mace is “the symbol of authority in the House.”4 W h e n the Sergeant-at-arms displays it before an unruly member of Congress, the mace restores order. Its position at the rostrum tells whether the House is in “committee” or in “session.” America’s national motto “Annuit Coeptis” came from a prayer to Jupiter. It appears in Book IX of Virgil’s epic propaganda, the Aeneid, a poem commissioned just before the birth of Christ by Caius Maecenas, the multi-billionaire power behind Augustus Caesar. The poem’s objective was to fashion Rome into an imperial monarchy for which its citizens would gladly sacrifice their lives. Fascism may be an ugly word to many, but its stately emblem is apparently offensive to no one. T h e emblem of fascism, a pair of them, commands the wall above and behind the speaker’s rostrum in the Chamber of the House of Representatives. They’re called fasces, and I can think of no reason for them to be there other than to declare the fascistic nature of American republican democracy. 6 A fasces is a Roman device. Actually, it originated with the ancient Etruscans, from whom the earliest Romans derived their religious jurisprudence nearly three thousand years ago. It’s an axe-head whose handle is a bundle of rods tightly strapped together by a red sinew. It symbolizes the ordering of priestly functions into a single infallible sovereign, an autocrat who could require life and limb of his subjects. If the fasces is entwined with laurel, like the pair on the House wall, it signifies Caesarean military power. The Romans called this infallible sovereign Pontifex Maximus, “Supreme Bridgebuilder.” No Roman was called Pontifex Maximus until the title was given to Julius Caesar in 48 BC. Today’s Pontifex Maximus is Pope John Paul II. As we shall discover in a forthcoming chapter, John Paul does not hold that title alone. He shares it with a mysterious partner, a military man, a man holding an office that has been known for more than four centuries as “Papa Nero,” the Black Pope. I shall present evidence that the House fasces represent the Black Pope, who indeed rules the world. Later, I will develop what is sure to become a controversial hypothesis: that the Black Pope rules by divine appointment, and for the ultimate good of mankind.
Rulers of Evil
by F. Tupper Saussy
https://archive.org/details/rulers-of-evil-f.-tupper-saussy_202201/Rulers%20of%20Evil%20F.%20Tupper%20Saussy/
Pope Addresses Congress
Blesses crowd outside the Capitol
Pope Francis addressed a joint session of Congress on Thursday, Sept. 24.
The Pope, who became the first pontiff to address Congress, thanked lawmakers for their warm welcome.
"I am most grateful for your invitation to address this joint session of Congress," he said.
"Each son or daughter of a given country has a mission, a personal and social responsibility. Your own responsibility as members of Congress is to enable this country, by your legislative activity, to grow as a nation. You are the face of its people, their representatives."
Before the speech, House Speaker John Boehner met with Pope Francis in a room outside the House chamber, where the Pope complimented the Speaker's green tie, saying it was the "color of hope."
After his remarks, Pope Francis stopped in Statuary Hall, where he blessed a statue of Junipero Serra, an 18th century Spanish missionary, whom the Pope had canonized the previous evening. Serra is the first saint to be canonized on U.S. soil and his statue is one of two California has in the Capitol collection.
Pope Francis, Speaker Boehner, Vice President Joe Biden, and other Congressional leaders then stepped out onto the Speaker's balcony, where the Pope blessed a crowd who cheered "papa, papa."
Speaking in Spanish, he greeted the crowd with "Buenos Dias."
"I am so grateful for your presence," he told the crowd via a translator.
http://www.speaker.gov/pope [ Link changed in new Congress, content kept for historical reasons. ] Speaker Boehner's behind-the-scenes photos and video on his website of the Pope's visit.
https://www.house.gov/feature-stories/2015-9-24-pope-addresses-congress
Presidential elections are scheduled to be held in the United States on November 7, 2028, to elect the president and vice president of the United States for a term of four years.
In the 2024 elections, the Republican Party gained a majority of seats in the House of Representatives and Senate. Incumbent president Donald Trump won a non-consecutive second term; per the limits set by the 22nd Amendment, he is constitutionally barred from being elected president again.[1]
Background
See also: 2024 United States elections
The Republican Party returned to power in the United States with a government trifecta in January 2025 following the 2024 election. Trump, who was elected president in 2016 but lost a re-election bid in 2020 to Joe Biden, and JD Vance, a then-senator from Ohio defeated vice president Kamala Harris, who began her campaign following Biden's exit from the 2024 election, and Minnesota governor Tim Walz. Trump's victory was credited to a post-pandemic surge in inflation,[a] a migrant crisis at the U.S.–Mexico border,[b] and a global anti-incumbent backlash.[8][9][10] In addition, Republicans secured control of the Senate, flipping four seats and earning a three seat majority, while also retaining a House majority, though the party's majority narrowed to three seats after losing two seats.[11]
Electoral system
Main article: United States Electoral College
See also: United States presidential primary and Primary elections in the United States
The president and vice president of the United States are elected through the Electoral College, determined by the number of senators and representatives with an additional three representatives for Washington, D.C. A majority of 270 votes is needed to win the election. Forty-eight states use a winner-take-all system, in which states award all of their electors to the winner of the popular vote. In Maine and Nebraska, two votes are allocated to the winner of the popular vote, while each of the individual congressional districts have one vote. Electoral votes are certified by state electors in December and by Congress on January 6.[12] Presidential candidates are selected in a presidential primary, conducted through primary elections run by state governments or caucuses run by state parties which bind convention delegates to candidates.[13] A brokered convention occurs when a candidate does not receive a majority of votes on the first round of voting,[14] or when a candidate withdraws.[15]
Election Day in the United States has been held on the first Tuesday that falls after the first Monday in November.[16] Previously, states could determine their own Election Day prior to the first Wednesday in December. The 2028 presidential election will occur on November 7, 2028.[17]
Eligibility
The United States Constitution limits occupancy of the presidency to individuals who are at least thirty-five, who have been a resident in the United States for at least fourteen years, and who are a natural-born citizen.[18] Section three of the Fourteenth Amendment prevents current and former federal, state, and military officials from holding office—including the presidency—if they have "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the United States;[19] in March 2024, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Trump v. Anderson that former president Donald Trump could seek office after challenges to his ballot eligibility were raised by several state attorneys general.[20] A convicted felon may serve as president.[21] Elon Musk, who emerged as a political influencer in the 2024 presidential election, is ineligible to serve as president as he was born in South Africa and is a naturalized citizen.[22]
Trump is ineligible to be elected to a third term, as the Twenty-Second Amendment forbids any person from being elected president more than twice.[23] Nonetheless, he has repeatedly suggested running for a third term, an idea supported by several of his allies, including Steve Bannon.[24] In January 2025, Tennessee representative Andy Ogles proposed a resolution to amend the Twenty-Second Amendment, allowing for presidents who have served two non-consecutive terms to seek a third term. The verbiage of the amendment would prevent living presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, all currently ineligible under the 22nd Amendment, from running for a third term.[25] At CPAC 2025, conservative groups, such as the Third Term Project, supported the Ogles resolution and promoted the idea of Trump running for an as-yet unconstitutional third term.[26][27] In response, New York Democratic representative Dan Goldman planned to introduce a resolution affirming the Twenty-Second Amendment.[28]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2028_United_States_presidential_election
Kamala Devi Harris (English: /ˈkɑːmələ ˈdeɪvi/ ⓘ,[1] born October 20, 1964) is an American politician and attorney who has been the 49th and current vice president of the United States since 2021, serving under President Joe Biden. Harris is the Democratic presidential nominee in the 2024 United States presidential election. She is the first female vice president of the United States, making her the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history. She is also the first African American and first Asian American vice president. From 2017 to 2021, she represented California in the United States Senate. Before that, she was Attorney General of California from 2011 to 2017.
Born in Oakland, California, Harris graduated from Howard University and the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. She began her law career in the office of the district attorney of Alameda County. She was recruited to the San Francisco District Attorney's Office and later to the office of the city attorney of San Francisco. She was elected district attorney of San Francisco in 2003 and attorney general of California in 2010, and reelected as attorney general in 2014. As the San Francisco district attorney and the attorney general of California, Harris was the first woman, the first African American, and the first Asian American to hold each office.
Harris was the junior U.S. senator from California from 2017 to 2021. She won the 2016 Senate election, becoming the second Black woman and first South Asian American U.S. senator. As a senator, Harris advocated for stricter gun control laws, the DREAM Act, federal legalization of cannabis, and reforms to healthcare and taxation. She gained a national profile for her pointed questioning of Trump administration officials during Senate hearings, including Trump's second Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh.
Harris sought the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination in 2019, but withdrew from the race before the primaries. Biden selected her as his running mate, and their ticket defeated the incumbent president and vice president, Donald Trump and Mike Pence, in the 2020 election. Presiding over an evenly split Senate upon entering office, Harris played a crucial role as president of the Senate. She cast more tie-breaking votes than any other vice president, which helped pass bills such as the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 stimulus package and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. After Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential election, Harris launched her campaign with Biden's endorsement and soon became the presumptive nominee. On August 6, 2024, she chose Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, as her running mate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Harris
Kali (/ˈkɑːliː/; Sanskrit: काली, IAST: Kālī), also called Kalika, is a major goddess in Hinduism, primarily associated with time, death and destruction. The origins of Kali can be traced to the pre-Vedic and Vedic era Goddess worship traditions in Ancient India.[1] Kali is the first of the ten Mahavidyas in the Hindu tantric tradition and is the supreme deity in the Kalikula worship tradition.[2]
The first major appearance of Kali in the Sanskrit literature was in the sixth-century CE text Devi Mahatmya.[1] Kali appears in numerous stories, with her most famous being when she sprang from the goddess Durga's fury to defeat the demon Raktabija. She is stated to destroy evil and defend the innocent. Kali is worshipped as the Divine Mother, Mother of the Universe, and Divine feminine energy.[3][4][5]
Shakta and Tantric sects additionally worship Kali as the ultimate reality or Brahman.[5] She is also seen as the divine protector and bestower of moksha (liberation).[3] Worshipped throughout South Asia but particularly in Nepal, Southern India, Bengal, and Assam, Kali is a central figure in the goddess-centric traditions of Hinduism as well as in Shaivism.[1][6]
Etymology
The term Kali is derived from Kala, which is mentioned quite differently in Sanskrit.[7] The homonym kālá (time) is distinct from kāla (black), but these became associated through popular etymology.[8] Kali is then understood as "she who is the ruler of time", or "she who is black".[7] Kālī is the goddess of time or death and the consort of Shiva.[9] She is called Kali Mata ("the dark mother") and also kālī, which can be read here either as a proper name or as a description: "the dark (or black) one".[8]
Origins
Although the word Kālī appears as early as the Atharva Veda, the first use of it as a proper name is in the Kathaka Grhya Sutra (19.7).[10] Kali originated as a tantric and non-Vedic goddess. Her roots are most probably connected to the Pre-Aryan period.[11] According to Indologist Wendy Doniger, Kali's origins can be traced to the deities of the Pre-Vedic village, tribal, and mountain cultures of South Asia who were gradually appropriated and transformed by the Sanskritic traditions.[1]
Legends
Her most well-known appearance is on the battlefield in the sixth century text Devi Mahatmyam. The deity of the first chapter of Devi Mahatmyam is Mahakali, who appears from the body of sleeping Vishnu as goddess Yoga Nidra to wake him up in order to protect Brahma and the world from two asuras (demons), Madhu-Kaitabha. When Vishnu woke up he started a war against the two asuras. After a long battle with Vishnu, the two demons were undefeated and Mahakali took the form of Mahamaya to enchant the two asuras. When Madhu and Kaitabha were enchanted by Mahakali, Vishnu killed them.[12]
In later chapters, the story of two asuras who were destroyed by Kali can be found. Chanda and Munda attack the goddess Kaushiki. Kaushiki responds with such anger that it causes her face to turn dark, resulting in Kali appearing out of her forehead. Kali's appearance is dark blue, gaunt with sunken eyes, wearing a tiger skin sari and a garland of human heads. She immediately defeats the two asuras. Later in the same battle, the asura Raktabija is undefeated because of his ability to reproduce himself from every drop of his blood that reaches the ground. Countless Raktabija clones appear on the battlefield. Kali eventually defeats him by sucking his blood before it can reach the ground, and eating the numerous clones. Kinsley writes that Kali represents "Durga's personified wrath, her embodied fury".[12]
Other origin stories involve Parvati and Shiva. Parvati is typically portrayed as a benign and friendly goddess. The Linga Purana describes Shiva asking Parvati to defeat the asura Daruka, who received a boon that would only allow a female to kill him. Parvati merges with Shiva's body, reappearing as Kali to defeat Daruka and his armies. Her bloodlust gets out of control, only calming when Shiva intervenes. The Vamana Purana has a different version of Kali's relationship with Parvati. When Shiva addresses Parvati as Kali, "the dark blue one", she is greatly offended. Parvati performs austerities to lose her dark complexion and becomes Gauri, the golden one. Her dark sheath becomes Kaushiki, who while enraged, creates Kali.[12]
In the Devi Bhagavata Purana, Kali turns black out of rage, while battling the demons Shumbha and Nishumbha.[7]: 221
Slayer of Raktabīja
In Kāli's most famous legend, Durga and her assistants, the Matrikas, wound the demon Raktabīja, in various ways and with a variety of weapons in an attempt to destroy him. They soon find that they have worsened the situation for with every drop of blood that drips from Raktabīja, he reproduces a duplicate of himself. The battlefield becomes increasingly filled with his duplicates.[12] Durga summons Kāli to combat the demons. This episode is described in the Devi Mahatmyam, Kali is depicted as being fierce, clad in a tiger's skin and armed with a sword and noose. She has deep, red eyes with tongue lolling out as she catches drops of Raktabīja's blood before they fall to the ground and create duplicates.[13]
Kali consumes Raktabīja and his duplicates, and dances on the corpses of the slain.[12] In the Devi Mahatmya version of this story, Kali is also described as a Matrika and as a Shakti or power of Devi. She is given the epithet Cāṃuṇḍā (Chamunda), i.e. the slayer of the demons Chanda and Munda.[13]: 72 Chamunda is very often identified with Kali and is very much like her in appearance and habit.[12]: 241 Footnotes
Iconography and forms
The goddess has two depictions: the popular four-armed form and the ten-armed Mahakali avatar. In both, she is described as being black in colour, though she is often seen as blue in popular Indian art. Her eyes are described as red with intoxication and rage. Her hair is disheveled, small fangs sometimes protrude out of her mouth, and her tongue is lolling. Sometimes she dons a skirt made of human arms and a garland of human heads. Other times, she is seen wearing a tiger skin. She is also accompanied by serpents and a jackal while standing on the calm and prostrate Shiva, usually right foot forward to symbolize the more popular dakṣiṇācāra ("right-hand path"), as opposed to the more infamous and transgressive vamachara ("left-hand path").[14] These serpents and jackals are shown to drink Raktabīja's blood as it drips out of his head while the goddess carries the head in her hand, preventing it from falling on the ground.
In the ten-armed form of Mahakali, she is depicted as shining like a blue stone. She has ten faces, ten feet, and three eyes for each head. She has ornaments decked on all her limbs. There is no association with Shiva.[15]
The Kalika Purana describes Kali as "possessing a soothing dark complexion, as perfectly beautiful, riding a lion, four-armed, holding a sword and blue lotus, her hair unrestrained, body firm and youthful".[16]
Popular form
Classic depictions of Kali share several features, as follows:
Kali's most common four armed iconographic image shows each hand carrying variously a Khadga (crescent-shaped sword or a giant sickle), a trishul (trident), a severed head, and a bowl or skull-cup (kapāla) collecting the blood of the severed head.
Two of these hands (usually the left) are holding a sword and a severed head. The sword signifies divine knowledge and the human head signifies human ego which must be slain by divine knowledge in order to attain moksha. The other two hands (usually the right) are in the abhaya (fearlessness) and varada (blessing) mudras, which means her initiated devotees (or anyone worshipping her with a true heart) will be saved as she will guide them here and in the hereafter.[16]: 477
She wears a garland of human heads, variously enumerated at 108 (an auspicious number in Hinduism and the number of countable beads on a japa mala or rosary for repetition of mantras) or 51, which represents Varnamala or the Garland of letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, Devanagari. Hindus believe Sanskrit is a language of dynamism, and each of these letters represents a form of energy, or a form of Kali. Therefore, she is generally seen as the mother of language, and all mantras.[16]: 475
She is often depicted naked which symbolizes her being beyond the covering of Maya since she is pure (nirguna) being-consciousness-bliss and far above Prakriti. She is shown as very dark as she is Brahman in its supreme unmanifest state. She has no permanent qualities—she will continue to exist even when the universe ends. It is therefore believed that the concepts of color, light, good, and bad do not apply to her.[16]: 463–488
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali
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
Devī (/ˈdeɪvi/;[1] Sanskrit: देवी) is the Sanskrit word for 'goddess'; the masculine form is deva. Devi and deva mean 'heavenly, divine, anything of excellence', and are also gender-specific terms for a deity in Hinduism.
The concept and reverence for goddesses appears in the Vedas, which were composed around the 2nd millennium BCE. However, they did not play a vital role in that era.[2] Goddesses such as Durga, Kali, Lakshmi, Parvati, Radha, Saraswati and Sita have continued to be revered in the modern era.[2] The medieval era Puranas witness a major expansion in mythology and literature associated with Devi, with texts such as the Devi Mahatmya, wherein she manifests as the ultimate truth and supreme power. She has inspired the Shaktism tradition of Hinduism. Further, Devi is viewed as central in the Hindu traditions of Shaktism and Shaivism.[2][3]
Etymology
Devi and deva are Sanskrit terms found in Vedic literature around the 3rd millennium BCE. Deva is masculine, and the related feminine equivalent is devi.[4] Monier-Williams translates it as 'heavenly, divine, terrestrial things of high excellence, exalted, shining ones'.[5][6] Etymologically, a cognate of devi is Latin dea.[7] When capitalised, Devi maata refers to the mother goddess in Hinduism.[8] Deva is short for devatā and devi for devika.[5]
According to Douglas Harper, the etymological root dev- means "a shining one", from *div-, "to shine", it is an Indo-European cognate of the Greek dios, Gothic divine and Latin deus (Old Latin deivos); see also *Dyēus.[9]
A synonym for the word Devi in the Vedas is Bhagavati. Bhagavatī (Devanagari: भगवती, IAST: Bhagavatī), is an Indian epithet of Sanskrit origin, used as an honorific title for goddesses in Hinduism and Buddhism. In Hinduism, it is primarily used to address the goddesses Lakshmi and Durga. In Buddhism, it is used to refer to several Mahayana Buddhist female deities, like Cundā.[10]
History
The worship of Devi-like deities dates back to period of Indus Valley civilisation.[11][12]
The Devīsūkta of the Rigveda (10.125.1 to 10.125.8) is among the most studied hymns declaring that the ultimate reality is a goddess:[13][14]
I have created all worlds at my will without being urged by any higher Being, and dwell within them. I permeate the earth and heaven, and all created entities with my greatness and dwell in them as eternal and infinite consciousness.
— Devi Sukta, Rigveda 10.125.8, Translated by June McDaniel[15][16]
The Vedas name numerous cosmic goddesses such as Devi (power), Prithvi (earth), Aditi (cosmic moral order), Vāc (sound), Nirṛti (destruction), Ratri (night) and Aranyani (forest); bounty goddesses such as Dinsana, Raka, Puramdhi, Parendi, Bharati and Mahi are among others are mentioned in the Rigveda.[2]: 6–17, 55–64 However, the goddesses are not discussed as frequently as gods (devas).[2] Devi appears in late Vedic texts dated to be pre-Buddhist, but verses dedicated to her do not suggest that her characteristics were fully developed in the Vedic era.[2]: 18–19 All gods and goddesses are distinguished in Vedic times,[2]: 18 but in post-Vedic texts, particularly in the early medieval era literature, they are ultimately seen as aspects or manifestations of one Devi, the Supreme Power.[17]
Devi is the supreme being in the Shakta tradition of Hinduism; in the Smarta tradition, she is one of the five primary forms of Brahman that is revered.[18][19] In other Hindu traditions, Devi embodies the active energy and power of Deva, and they always appear together complementing each other. Examples of this are Parvati with Shiva in Shaivism, Saraswati with Brahma in Brahmanism and Lakshmi with Vishnu, Sita with Rama and Radha with Krishna in Vaishnavism.[20][21][22]
Devi-inspired philosophy is propounded in many Hindu texts such as the Devi Upanishad, which teaches that Shakti is essentially Brahman (ultimate metaphysical Reality) and that from her arises prakṛti (matter) and purusha (consciousness) and that she is bliss and non-bliss, the Vedas and what is different from it, the born and the unborn and all of the universe. Shakti is Parvati, Shiva’s wife. [23] She is also mentioned as the creative power of Shiva in Tripura Upanishad, Bahvricha Upanishad and Guhyakali Upanishad.[13]
Devi identifies herself in the Devi Upanishad as Brahman in her reply to the gods stating that she rules the world, blesses devotees with riches, that she is the supreme deity to whom all worship is to be offered and that she infuses Ātman in every soul.[23] Devi asserts that she is the creator of earth and heaven and resides there.[13] Her creation of the sky as father and the seas as the mother is reflected as the 'Inner Supreme Self'.[13] Her creations are not prompted by any higher being and she resides in all her creations. She is, states Devi, the eternal and infinite consciousness engulfing earth and heaven, and 'all forms of bliss and non-bliss, knowledge and ignorance, Brahman and Non-Brahman'. The tantric aspect in Devi Upanishad, says June McDaniel, is the usage of the terms yantra, bindu, bija, mantra, shakti and chakra.[13]
Among the major world religions, the concept of Goddess in Hinduism as the divine feminine has had the strongest presence since ancient times.[24]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devi
The name Monita has its roots in India and is derived from the Sanskrit word manita, which means 'honored' or 'respected.' This ancient name reflects the cultural traditions and values of Indian society, where respect and honor hold great significance. Monita has been prominent in Indian history since ancient times, often given to those who were esteemed for their noble character and high social standing. In historical texts and scriptures, the name Monita is often associated with individuals who were recognized for their wisdom, integrity, and leadership qualities.
In modern-day usage, the name Monita continues to evoke a sense of honor and respect. It is a popular name choice among families who value tradition and wish to bestow upon their child a name that reflects these virtues. Monita is often given to female children, symbolizing the strength and dignity they possess. In some cases, the name Monita is also used as a name, further emphasizing the family's heritage and the importance they place on respect and honor.
Overall, the name Monita has a rich history rooted in Indian culture and embodies the values of honor and respect. From ancient times to the present day, this name has stood as a testament to the qualities that society holds in high regard and continues to be cherished by families who wish to pass on these values to future generations.
https://www.ancestry.com/first-name-meaning/monita
Monita
A Latin word meaning "instructions":
Monita, work by Abbot Porcarius I of Lérins (c. 500)
Monita Secreta, an alleged code of instructions of the Jesuits
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monita
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://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
Fourteenth Rule. Although there is much truth in the assertion that no one can save himself without being predestined and without having faith and grace; we must be very cautious in the manner of speaking and communicating with others about all these things.
The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YC_luOfFWl0Bm0BWkbANKZGC1kkmdHQf/view?usp=sharing
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
Tracing boards are painted or printed illustrations depicting the various emblems and symbols of Freemasonry. They can be used as teaching aids during the lectures that follow each of the Masonic Degrees, when an experienced member explains the various concepts of Freemasonry to new members. They can also be used by experienced members as reminders of the concepts they learned as they went through the ceremonies of the different masonic degrees.[1]
History and development
Floor and table designs
In the eighteenth century Masonic lodges met chiefly in private rooms above taverns, and the symbolic designs used in catechesis were chalked on the table or floor in the centre of the hired room, usually by the Tyler or the Worshipful Master.[2] Evidence suggests that a simple boundary was drawn (usually a square or rectangle, or sometimes a cross) within which various Masonic symbols were added, often of a geometric type (such as a circle or pentagram). In many lodges the boundary shape may have been drawn by the Tyler, with the Master adding the symbolic detail. Later various symbolic objects were incorporated, examples including a ladder, a beehive, and an hourglass, and sometimes drawings were interchangeable with physical objects.[3] At the end of the work a new member was often required to erase the drawing with a mop, as a practical demonstration of his obligation of secrecy.
Though the various Grand Lodges were then generally hostile to the creation of any physical representations of the ritual and symbols of the Craft, the time-consuming business of redrawing the symbols at every meeting was gradually replaced by keeping a removable "floor cloth" on which the various symbols were painted. Different portions might be exposed according to the work being executed.[4] By the second half of the eighteenth century the Masonic symbols were being painted on a variety of removable materials ranging from small marble slabs to canvas, to give a more decorative and elaborate symbolic display.
Painted boards
During the nineteenth century there was a rapid expansion of the use of permanent painted tracing boards, usually painted on canvas and framed in wood. Many artists produced competing designs, and most lodges commissioned sets of bespoke boards which were therefore of a unique design, despite following common themes. Some designs became particularly popular, leading to some repetition of favoured design features. Boards by John Cole and Josiah Bowring were examples of popularly recurring designs.[5]
The English artist John Harris was initiated in 1818 and produced many different series of tracing boards, including a miniature set of 1823 which became popular after Harris dedicated the design to Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, the Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE).[6] Eventually the Emulation Lodge of Improvement sought to bring a measure of standardisation in tracing board design, and organised a competition in 1845, to which many different designs were submitted. Harris himself submitted at least two different sets to the competition, but one of his designs was the winner. Harris revised the designs in 1849, and these "Emulation" tracing boards are today considered a definitive design within British and Commonwealth Freemasonry.[7]
Contemporary use
In lodges under the UGLE, and many jurisdictions derived from English Freemasonry, tracing boards are an essential part of lodge furniture, sometimes displayed flat on the floor, and sometimes vertically against a pedestal or on the wall. Sets of three boards, usually of older designs, may often be found in special cases for storage and display within lodge rooms. There are sometimes tracing boards in other degrees.[8] The Royal Arch tracing board has fallen into disuse in most places, and examples are now rare. In the Mark Master Mason and Royal Ark Mariner degrees as administered from London, the tracing boards have experienced a great revival in popularity from the end of the twentieth century, and official rituals for the explanations of these tracing boards are again in regular use in English lodges.
As different Masonic jurisdictions established official, or standard, degree rituals the creation of new tracing boards by artists waned, and has since largely disappeared in favour of standard designs. Nonetheless, some masonic artists have experimented with very modern designs for the twenty-first century.[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracing_board
Mallotus philippensis is a plant in the spurge family. It is known as the kamala tree or red kamala or kumkum tree, due to the fruit covering, which produces a red dye. However, it must be distinguished from kamala meaning "lotus" in many Indian languages, an unrelated plant, flower, and sometimes metonymic spiritual or artistic concept. Mallotus philippensis has many other local names. This kamala often appears in rainforest margins. Or in disturbed areas free from fire, in moderate to high rainfall areas.
It occurs in South Asia, Southeast Asia, as well as Afghanistan and Australia. The southernmost limit of natural distribution is Mount Keira, south of Sydney. The species name refers to the type specimen being collected in the Philippines, where it is known as banato.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallotus_philippensis
Revelation 22
1599 Geneva Bible
22 1 The river of water of life is showed, 2 and the tree of life: 6, 7 Then followeth the conclusion of this prophecy, 8 where John declareth, that the things herein contained are most true. 13 And now the third time repeateth these words, All things come from him, who is the beginning and the end.
1 And [a]he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God, and of the Lamb.
2 In the midst of the street of it, and of either side of the river was the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and gave fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree served to heal the nations with.
3 And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall serve him.
4 And they shall see his face, and his Name shall be in their foreheads.
5 And there shall be no night there, and they need no candle, neither light of the Sun: for the Lord God giveth them light, and they shall reign for evermore.
6 [b]And he said unto me, These words are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy Prophets sent his Angel to show unto his servants the things which must shortly be fulfilled.
7 Behold, I come shortly. Blessed is he that keepeth the words of the prophecy of this book.
8 And I am John, which saw and heard these things: and when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the Angel which showed me these things.
9 But he said unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren the Prophets, and of them which keep the words of this book: worship God.
10 [c]And he said unto me, [d]Seal not the words of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand.
11 [e]He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.
12 [f]And behold, I come shortly, and my reward is with me, to give to every man according as his work shall be.
13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
14 Blessed are they, that do his Commandments, [g]that their right may be in the tree of Life, and may enter in through the gates into the City.
15 For without shall be dogs and enchanters, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth or maketh lies.
16 [h]I Jesus have sent mine Angel, to testify unto you these things in the Churches: I am the root and the generation of David, and the bright morning star.
17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come: and let him that is athirst, come: and let whosoever will, take of the water of life freely.
18 [i]For I protest unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book.
19 And if any man shall diminish of the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy City, and from those things which are written in this book.
20 [j]He which testifieth these things, saith, Surely I come quickly, Amen. Even so, come Lord Jesus.
21 [k]The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, AMEN.
THE END
Footnotes
Revelation 22:1 Here is absolved and finished the description of the celestial Church (as I showed before, Rev. 21:12) by the effects in 5 verses, and then this book is concluded in the rest of the chapter. The effects proceeding from God, who dwelleth in the Church are these: the everlasting grace of God in this verse, the eternal living of the godly, as Rev. 2:7, the eternal fruits which the godly bring forth unto God, themselves and others, verse 2, freedom and immunity from all evil, God himself taking pleasure in his servants and they likewise in their God, verse 3. The beholding and sight of God, and sealing of the faithful from all eternity, verse 4, the light of God, and an everlasting kingdom and glory, verse 5.
Revelation 22:6 The whole book is concluded and made up by a confirmation, and a salutation. The confirmation hath three places: The words of the Angel unto verse 15, the words of Christ: verses 16, 17, and the obtestation made by S. John from divine authority, thence unto verse 20. By speech of the Angel this prophecy is confirmed unto verse 8 and then he speaketh of the use of this book in the verses following. The prophecy is first confirmed by the Angel from the nature thereof, that it is faithful and true. Secondly from the nature of the efficient cause, both principal which is God, and instrumental, which is the Angel in this verse. Thirdly from the promises of God concerning his coming to effect all these things, and concerning our salvation, verse 7. Fourthly, from the testification of S. John himself, verse 8. The rest of the speech of the angel tending to the same and S. John interrupted or brake off by his unadvised act of worshipping him, in the same verse which the Angel forbidding, teacheth him that adoration must be given not to him, but only to God, as for himself, that he is of such nature and office, as he may not be adored: which thing also was in like manner done, Rev. 16:10.
Revelation 22:10 The Angel returneth unto his former speech: in which he teacheth the use of this book, both towards ourselves, in this and the next verse and in respect of God for declaration of his truth, thence unto verse 15.
Revelation 22:10 That is, propound this prophecy openly unto all, and conceal no part of it. The contrary whereunto is commanded, Isa. 8:6 and Dan. 8:26.
Revelation 22:11 An objection prevented. But there will be some that will abuse this occasion unto evil, and will wrest this Scripture unto their own destruction, as Peter saith. What then saith the Angel, the mysteries of God must not therefore be concealed, which it hath pleased him to communicate unto us. Let them be hurtful unto others, let such be more and more vile in themselves, whom this Scripture doth not please: yet others shall be further conformed thereby unto righteousness and true holiness. The care and reformation of these may not be neglected, because of the voluntary and malicious offense of others.
Revelation 22:12 The second place belonging unto the use of this book, as I said, verse 10. Also (saith God by the Angel) though there should be no use of this book unto men: yet it shall be of this use unto me, that it is a witness of my truth unto my glory, who will come shortly to give and execute just judgment, in this verse: who have taught that all these things have their being in me, in verse 13, and have denounced blessedness unto my servants in the Church, verse 14, and reprobation unto the ungodly, verse 15.
Revelation 22:14 The blessedness of the godly set down by their title and interest thereunto: and their fruit in the same.
Revelation 22:16 The second place of confirmation, as I said, is the speech of Christ, ratifying the vocation of S. John, and the authority of his calling and testimony, both from the condition of his own person being God and man, in whom all the promises of God are Yea and Amen, 2 Cor. 1:20: and also from the testification of other persons, by the acclamation of the holy Ghost, who here is as it were an honorable assistant of the marriage of the Church as the spouse: and of every of the godly as members: and finally from the thing present, that of their own knowledge and accord they are called forth unto the participation of the good things of God, verse 17.
Revelation 22:18 The obtestation of Saint John (which is the third place of the confirmation, as was noted, verse 6) joined with a curse of execration, to preserve the truth of this book entire and uncorrupted, in two verses.
Revelation 22:20 A divine confirmation or sealing of the obtestation: first from Christ avouching the same, and denouncing his coming against all those that shall put their sacrilegious hands hereunto: then from Saint John himself, who by a most holy prayer calleth Christ to take vengeance of them.
Revelation 22:21 The salutation Apostolical, which is the other place of the conclusion, as I said, verse 6, and is the end of almost every Epistle: which we wish unto the Church, and to all the holy and elect members thereof in Christ Jesus our Lord, until his coming to judgment, Come Lord Jesus, and do it. Amen, again, Amen.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2022&version=GNV
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Super Blood Blue Moon Over Gloucester | Kim Smith Films
The moon can be symbolically linked to the church in several ways. One common analogy is that the church, like the moon, receives its light from Christ, the "Sun of Righteousness". Additionally, the moon can symbolize faith, guiding us through spiritual darkness, and the Bible can be seen as a source of light like the moon. The Unification Church, founded by Reverend Moon, is another connection, though this involves a unique theological interpretation and controversial practices.
Here's a more detailed breakdown:
Symbolic Representation:
Light and Reflection:
.
The church is often compared to the moon, which reflects the light of the sun (Christ). The church is seen as a vessel for God's light and truth, illuminating the world.
Faith and Guidance:
.
The moon can symbolize faith, guiding us through spiritual darkness, similar to how the Bible is a source of light and guidance.
Easter and the Paschal Full Moon:
.
The date of Easter is tied to the full moon in the spring, signifying the resurrection of Christ and a new beginning, according to Wikipedia.
Historical and Theological Context:
The Unification Church:
.
Founded by Reverend Sun Myung Moon, this church has a unique theological stance and a strong emphasis on family, marriage, and a "True Parent," Moon himself.
Lunar Influences on Religious Practices:
.
Many cultures, including those with religious traditions, are oriented by the lunar calendar, says Wikipedia. The moon plays a role in various festivals and practices.
Moon as a Celestial Sign:
.
In the Bible, the moon is one of the two great luminaries, serving as a sign for seasons, days, and years, according to the Jewish Encyclopedia.
In essence, the moon is a powerful symbol that can be linked to the church in various ways, ranging from its role in reflecting Christ's light to its influence on religious practices and calendars, to the unique teachings and practices of the Unification Church.
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month(n.)
"one-twelfth part of a year; one of the twelve parts into which the calendar year is arbitrarily divided," Old English monað, from Proto-Germanic *menoth- (source also of Old Saxon manoth, Old Frisian monath, Middle Dutch manet, Dutch maand, Old High German manod, German Monat, Old Norse manaðr, Gothic menoþs "month"), which is related to *menon- "moon" (see moon (n.)). Originally the month was the interval between one new moon and the next (a sense attested from late Old English).
Its cognates mean only "month" in the Romance languages, but in Germanic they generally continue to do double duty. The development of the calendrical meaning for words from this root in Greek (mēn) and Latin (mensis) was accompanied by the creation of new words for "moon" (selēnē, luna).
The colloquial phrase a month of Sundays "a very long time" is from 1829 in British parliamentary debate (roughly 7 and a half months, but never used literally).
https://www.etymonline.com/word/month
Black History Month is an annually observed commemorative month originating in the United States, where it is also known as African-American History Month.[4][5] It began as a way of remembering important people and events in the history of the African diaspora, initially lasting a week before becoming a month-long observation since 1970.[6] It is celebrated in February in the United States[7] and Canada,[8] where it has received official recognition from governments, and more recently has also been celebrated in Ireland and the United Kingdom where it is observed in October.[9][10]
Origin
Carter G. Woodson (1875–1950)
Negro History Week (1926)
The precursor to Black History Month was created in 1926 in the United States, when historian Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) announced the second week of February to be "Negro History Week".[11] This week was chosen because it coincided with the birthday of Abraham Lincoln on February 12 and that of Frederick Douglass on February 14, both of which Black communities had celebrated since the late 19th century.[11] For example, in January 1897, school teacher Mary Church Terrell persuaded the Washington, D.C. school board to set aside the afternoon of Douglass's birthday as Douglass Day to teach about his life and work in the city's segregated public schools.[12] The thought process behind the week was never recorded, but scholars acknowledge two reasons for its birth: recognition and importance.[13] In 1915, Woodson had participated in the Lincoln Jubilee, a celebration of the 50 years since emancipation from slavery held in Bronzeville, Chicago. The summer-long Jubilee, which drew thousands of attendees from across the country to see exhibitions of heritage and culture, impressed Woodson with the need to draw organized focus to the history of black people. He led the founding of the ASNLH in Chicago that fall, toward the end of the Jubilee.[12]
Early in the event's history, African-American newspapers lent crucial support.[14] From the event's initial phase, primary emphasis was placed on encouraging the coordinated teaching of the history of Black Americans in the nation's public schools. The first Negro History Week was met with a lukewarm response, gaining the cooperation of the departments of education of the states of North Carolina, Delaware, and West Virginia as well as the city school administrations of Baltimore, New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.[15] Despite this limited observance, Woodson regarded the event as "one of the most fortunate steps ever taken by the Association", and plans for an annual repeat of the event continued.[15]
At the time of Negro History Week's launch, Woodson contended that the teaching of Black History was essential to ensure the physical and intellectual survival of Blacks within broader society:
If a race has no history, it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated. The American Indian left no continuous record. He did not appreciate the value of tradition; and where is he today? The Hebrew keenly appreciated the value of tradition, as is attested by the Bible itself. In spite of worldwide persecution, therefore, he is a great factor in our civilization.[16]
In 1929, The Journal of Negro History noted that, with only two exceptions, officials with the state departments of education of "every state with considerable Negro population" had made the event known to that state's teachers and distributed official literature associated with the event.[17] Churches also played a significant role in the distribution of literature in association with Negro History Week during this initial period, with the mainstream and Black press aiding in the publicity effort.
Throughout the 1930s, Negro History Week countered the growing myth of the South's "lost cause", which argued that enslaved people had been well-treated, that the Civil War was a war of "northern aggression", and that Black people had been better off under slavery. Woodson wrote, "When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions, you do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his 'proper place' and will stay in it."[18]
Negro History Week grew in popularity throughout the following decades, with mayors across the United States endorsing it as a holiday.[11]
Black History Month (1970)
The Black United Students first Black culture center, Kuumba House in Kent State, where many events of the first Black History Month celebration took place[7]
Black educators and Black United Students at Kent State University first proposed Black History Month in February 1969. The first celebration of Black History Month took place at Kent State a year later, from January 2 to February 28, 1970.[7]
Six years later, Black History Month was being celebrated all across the country in educational institutions, centers of Black culture, and community centers, both great and small, when President Gerald Ford recognized Black History Month in 1976, during the celebration of the United States Bicentennial. He urged Americans to "seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history".[19]
Observance by region
United States
Black History Month on the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) deployed in February 2015 in the 5th Fleet area of operations supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, strike operations in Iraq and Syria. Photo removed online by the Trump administration in 2025.
In the United States, Black History Month is commemorated during the month of February.[20] Since its inception, the Black community met the creation of Black History Month was met with enthusiastic response; it prompted the creation of Black history clubs, an increase in interest among teachers, and interest from progressive whites.[11] Black History Month has also expanded beyond its initial acceptance in educational establishments. Carter Woodson's organization, now known as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), designates a theme each year.[21] For example, "Black Health and Wellness" in 2022 focused on medical scholars, health care providers, and health outcomes.[22] The Wall Street Journal describes Black History Month as "a time when the culture and contributions of African Americans take center stage" in a variety of cultural institutions, including theaters, libraries, and museums.[23]
Black History Month has garnered attention from the U.S. business community.[24] In 2018, Instagram created its first Black History Month program with the help of its Head of Global Music & Youth Culture Communications, SHAVONE. Instagram's Black History Month program featured a series of first-time initiatives, including a #BlackGirlMagic partnership with Spotify and the launch of the #CelebrateBlackCreatives program, which reached more than 19 million followers.[25] In February 2020, many American corporations commemorated Black History Month, including The Coca-Cola Company, Google, Target Corporation, Macy's, United Parcel Service and Under Armour.[26]
On February 18, 2016, 106-year Washington, D.C., resident and school volunteer Virginia McLaurin visited the White House as part of Black History Month. When asked by President Barack Obama why she was there, McLaurin said: "A Black president. A Black wife. And I'm here to celebrate Black history. That's what I'm here for."[27][28]
In 2025, the Defense Intelligence Agency cancelled internal celebrations of Black History Month and other "special observances" due to the second Trump administration's efforts to stop diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. However, at the start of February, President Donald Trump signed a proclamation honoring National Black History Month.[29][30]
United Kingdom
1822 handbill advertising a Black boxing tutor in Alnwick, Northumberland; tweeted by Northumberland Archives as part of Black History Month in 2020[31]
In the United Kingdom, Black History Month was first celebrated in October 1987[32] The year of 1987, recognized as the African Jubilee, was coincidentally the year of the 150th anniversary of Caribbean emancipation, the centenary of the birth of Marcus Garvey and the 25th anniversary of the Organization of African Unity, an institution dedicated to advancing the progress of African states.[33] Black History Month in the UK was organised through the leadership of Ghanaian analyst Akyaaba Addai-Sebo, who had served as a coordinator of special projects for the Greater London Council (GLC) and created a collaboration to get it underway.[34][35] The first Black History Month celebration in the UK was held in London on October 1, 1987, when Dr. Maulana Karenga from the US was invited to an event by the Greater London Council about Black people's contributions to history.[36]
Some institutions have faced criticism for supporting Black History Month with images of people from British Asian backgrounds, using the term "black" to refer to political blackness encompassing all people of color.[37]
Germany
In Berlin, Germany, in 1990, members of the Black German community began observing Black History Month. Programs have included discussions of black Europeans, international African perspectives, the history of civil rights in the U.S., and apartheid in South Africa.[38]
Canada
In 1995, after a motion by politician Jean Augustine, representing the riding of Etobicoke—Lakeshore in Ontario, Canada's House of Commons officially recognized February as Black History Month (French: Mois de l'histoire des Noirs) and honored Black Canadians.[39] In 2008, Senator Donald Oliver moved to have the Senate officially recognize Black History Month, which was unanimously approved.[8]
Black History Month was first proclaimed by the City of Toronto in 1979, and then by the Province of Ontario in 1993. Work done by the Ontario Black History Society helped lead to these proclamations.[40]
Canada defines the festivity as an opportunity to celebrate "the achievements and contributions of Black Canadians and their communities who … have done so much to make Canada a culturally diverse, compassionate, and prosperous country".[41]
Jamaica
In Jamaica, Black History Month is observed during the month of February,[42][43] which had been informally adopted by the mid-1990s.[44] Special attention is given to this period as February also marks Reggae Month,[43] which coincides with the birthdates of the King of Reggae, Robert Nesta Marley OM, and the Prince of Reggae, Dennis Brown.[42][45] It has been a time to acknowledge and honour the achievements and inventions of black figures throughout history, and to reflect on liberation, past racial adversity and struggles.[42][46][47] During this period, locals especially reflect on and pay homage to the contributions of prominent African American civil rights activists, and Jamaican activists and pioneers who have been impactful internationally and nationally— such as Marcus Garvey, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Harry Belafonte, Ferdinand Smith, John Brown Russwurm, and others. Reggae's role in global social and political activism against apartheid, oppression and inequality,[43][48][49] has amplified the significance of Black History Month on the island. Since January 9, 2008, February has been officially declared as Reggae Month, which also celebrates the genre's musical, cultural and economic contributions to the development of the island.[45]
In the past, some critics questioned the rationale and relevance of commemorating an "imported" event to Jamaican contexts— in light of differences in demographics and experiences between the United States and Jamaica, and Jamaicans' penchant of adopting anything emanating from the United States.[44] Others argued for greater attention to local heroes, while demonstrating solidarity with Black Americans.[44]
Republic of Ireland
Ireland's Great Hunger Institute, at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, notes: "Black History Month Ireland was initiated in Cork in 2010. This location seems particularly appropriate as, in the 19th century, the city was a leading center of abolition, and the male and female anti-slavery societies welcomed several black abolitionists to lecture there, including Charles Lenox Remond and Frederick Douglass."[50]
France
In France, Black History Month was first organized in 2018 in Bordeaux.[51] Since then, there have been celebrations in Paris, Le Havre, Guadeloupe, La Rochelle and Bayonne. In 2022 the month was dedicated to Josephine Baker, a dancer and member of the French Resistance during World War II born in the United States.[52]
Africa
In 2020, Black History Month was celebrated in seven African countries for the first time. Participating countries were Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Ivory Coast, Comores, Senegal and Cameroon. The event was initiated by the organisation Africa Mondo founded by Mélina Seymour. Starting in 2021, an African History Month was celebrated in March.[citation needed]
Developments
When first established, Black History Month resulted in some controversy.[53] Those who believed that Black History Month was limited to educational institutions questioned whether it was appropriate to confine the celebration of Black history to one month, as opposed to the integration of Black history into mainstream education for the whole year.
Another concern was that, contrary to the original inspiration for Black History Month, which was a desire to redress how American schools failed to represent Black historical figures as anything other than enslaved people or colonial subjects, Black History Month could reduce complex historical figures to overly simplified objects of "hero worship".
Other critics refer to the celebration as a form of racism.[54] Actor and director Morgan Freeman and actress Stacey Dash have criticized the concept of declaring only one month as Black History Month.[55][56] Freeman noted, "I don't want a Black history month. Black history is American history."[57]
In February 2025, Google announced that Black History Month would no longer be highlighted by default on Google Calendar, arguing that it was no longer "scalable or sustainable" to continue adding the growing number of national and international "cultural moments" manually to its calendars.[58]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_History_Month
February(n.)
month following January, late 14c., ultimately from Latin februarius mensis "month of purification," from februare "to purify," from februa "purifications, expiatory rites" (plural of februum "means of purification, expiatory offerings"), which is of uncertain origin, said to be a Sabine word. De Vaan says from Proto-Italic *f(w)esro-, from a PIE word meaning "the smoking" or "the burning" (thus possibly connected with fume (n.)). The sense then could be either purification by smoke or a burnt offering.
The last month of the ancient (pre-450 B.C.E.) Roman calendar, so named in reference to the Roman feast of purification, held on the ides of the month. The Old English name for it was solmonað, which is said to mean "mud month." English first borrowed the Roman name from Old French Feverier, which yielded Middle English Feverer, Feoverel, etc. (c. 1200) before the 14c. respelling to conform to Latin.
also from late 14c.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/February
Topical Encyclopedia
Maath is a biblical figure mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus Christ as recorded in the Gospel of Luke. His name appears in the New Testament, specifically in Luke 3:26, which traces the lineage of Jesus through His earthly father, Joseph. The Berean Standard Bible renders this verse as follows: "the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of Josech, the son of Joda."
Genealogical Context
Maath is part of the genealogy that Luke presents, which is distinct from the genealogy found in the Gospel of Matthew. Luke's genealogy traces Jesus' lineage back to Adam, emphasizing Jesus' connection to all humanity. This lineage is believed to follow the line of Mary, Jesus' mother, highlighting His biological descent. Maath is situated several generations before Joseph, indicating his role in the ancestral line leading to the Messiah.
Name Meaning and Significance
The name "Maath" is of Hebrew origin, though its exact meaning is not definitively known. It is often associated with the Hebrew root that implies "small" or "insignificant," which may reflect the humble and often overlooked individuals in the lineage of Christ. This aligns with the biblical theme that God frequently chooses the humble and lowly to fulfill His divine purposes.
Theological Implications
The inclusion of Maath in the genealogy of Jesus underscores the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies regarding the Messiah's lineage. It highlights the continuity of God's redemptive plan through history, as each individual in the genealogy plays a role in the unfolding of salvation history. The genealogies in the Gospels serve to affirm Jesus' rightful place as the promised Savior, rooted in the history and promises of Israel.
Historical and Cultural Context
In the cultural context of the New Testament, genealogies were crucial for establishing identity, inheritance rights, and religious legitimacy. For the Jewish audience, the genealogy of Jesus would have been significant in affirming His messianic credentials. Maath, though a lesser-known figure, contributes to this broader narrative by being part of the lineage that connects Jesus to the patriarchs and ultimately to God’s covenant with humanity.
Conclusion
While Maath himself is not a prominent figure in biblical narratives, his mention in the genealogy of Jesus serves as a reminder of the intricate and divinely orchestrated history that leads to the birth of Christ. Each name in the genealogy, including Maath, represents a link in the chain of God's faithful promises to His people.
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary
Maath
wiping away; breaking; fearing; smiting
Smith's Bible Dictionary
Maath
(small), son of Mattathias in the genealogy of Jesus Christ. (Luke 3:26)
Easton's Bible Dictionary
Small, a person named in our Lord's ancestry (Luke 3:26).
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
MAATH
ma'-ath (Maath): An ancestor of Jesus in Luke's genealogy in the 12th generation before Joseph, the husband of Mary (Luke 3:26).
Greek
3092. Maath -- Maath, an Israelite
... 3091, 3092. Maath. 3093 . Maath, an Israelite. Part of Speech: Proper
Noun, Indeclinable Transliteration: Maath Phonetic Spelling ...
//strongsnumbers.com/greek2/3092.htm - 6k
Library
C. The Genealogy of Jesus. Ch. 3:23-38
... son of Jannai, the son of Joseph, 25 the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the
son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Naggai, 26 the son of Maath, the son ...
/.../erdman/the gospel of luke an exposition/c the genealogy of jesus.htm
Genealogy According to Luke.
... son of Jannai, the son of Joseph, 25 the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the
son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Naggai, 26 the son of Maath, the son ...
/.../mcgarvey/the four-fold gospel/iv genealogy according to luke.htm
Thesaurus
Maath (1 Occurrence)
...MAATH. ma'-ath (Maath): An ancestor of Jesus in Luke's genealogy in the 12th generation
before Joseph, the husband of Mary (Luke 3:26). ...Maath (1 Occurrence). ...
/m/maath.htm - 7k
Ma'ath (1 Occurrence)
Ma'ath. Maath, Ma'ath. Maaz . ... Luke 3:26 the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias,
the son of Semein, the son of Joseph, the son of Judah, (See RSV). ...
/m/ma'ath.htm - 6k
Naggai (2 Occurrences)
... Luke 3:26 the 'son' of Naggai, the 'son' of Maath, the 'son' of Mattathias, the
'son' of Semei, the 'son' of Joseph, the 'son' of Juda, (YLT). ...
/n/naggai.htm - 7k
Juda (11 Occurrences)
... Luke 3:26 the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son
of Joseph, the son of Judah, (Root in WEB KJV DBY WBS YLT). ...
/j/juda.htm - 12k
Maasmas
/m/maasmas.htm - 6k
Mattathi'as (2 Occurrences)
... Luke 3:26 the 'son' of Naggai, the 'son' of Maath, the 'son' of Mattathias, the
'son' of Semei, the 'son' of Joseph, the 'son' of Juda, (See RSV). ...
/m/mattathi'as.htm - 6k
Mattathias (2 Occurrences)
... Luke 3:26 the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of
Joseph, the son of Judah, (WEB KJV WEY ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS NIV). ...
/m/mattathias.htm - 8k
Sem'e-in (1 Occurrence)
... Luke 3:26 the 'son' of Naggai, the 'son' of Maath, the 'son' of Mattathias, the
'son' of Semei, the 'son' of Joseph, the 'son' of Juda, (See RSV). ...
/s/sem'e-in.htm - 6k
Semei (1 Occurrence)
... Luke 3:26 the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of
Joseph, the son of Judah, (Root in WEB KJV WEY ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS NIV). ...
/s/semei.htm - 7k
https://biblehub.com/topical/m/maath.htm
In Egyptian mythology, Ma'at, pronounced as 'Muh-aht', is goddess of law, morality, and justice. Ma'at regulated the stars, seasons, and the actions of both people and gods. Her first role in Egyptian mythology was the weighing of words that took place in the underworld, Duat.
Ma’at weighed the heart of the dead person against her feather of truth on a scale during the journey to the afterlife. She placed the dead man's heart on the other side while her husband Thoth wrote down the results of the scale to see if that person was good or bad and if they would have a happy afterlife or be eaten by Ammit the devourer. Without Ma’at, the universe would become chaos once again. If the dead person’s heart was heavier than the feather, then it had done evil deeds like lying when it was alive. When that happened, the heart was devoured by a monster and was not able to go to the afterlife. If it was lighter than the feather, then it was allowed to go onto the afterlife.
Physical Description
Ma’at had dark skin and hair. She was usually shown wearing a white linen dress. She, like Isis, was a winged goddess and she wore lots of armbands and necklaces made from gold and jewels. Her feather of truth was strapped to her head. Like the other gods and goddesses, she wore the black eye makeup around her eyes and on her eyebrows which is known as "kohl", which showed her high ranking status.
Law
The chief judge in charge of the Egyptian law courts was known as “The priest of Ma’at.” He began court hearings wearing the feather of Ma’at. The person that won his case got to have the feather of Ma’at. The guilty party had violated Ma’at, and it was assumed that he or she would suffer failure, poverty, sickness, blindness and deafness, with the final judgment waiting in the court of the dead. Tomb robbery was considered one of the worst crimes, and might involve 100 strokes of a cane, five bleeding cuts added or brands as a sign of permanent dishonor. Often, the entire family of the guilty suffered as well. When individuals were sentenced into exile, their children were automatically outlawed with them. Ma’at represented truth, order, balance and justice in the universe. This concept said that everyone, not including slaves, should be viewed as equals under the law. The king made sure that was carried out, and he/she would decide the case and the proper justice, maybe asking his viziers who often acted as judges. Even the lowliest fisherman was allowed to bring a legal case to the viziers.
Power and Magic
All goddesses including Ma'at had power over the Egyptians, and different powers over the other gods. One of the powers Ma'at gave the gods was the ability to breathe air. Like the water of life, Ma'at's potion brought an afterlife after death to the peaceful and law-abiding people, but death to violent and cruel people. Ma'at was very powerful, but she still had limits to her powers. She could not make the sun travel through the sky like Ra could, she could not control the netherworld like Osiris could, and she could not make the stars shine like Nut could but she still had her own unique powers like her potion.
Worship
The Pharaohs prime task in governing was to uphold Ma’at and they often held seated images of Ma’at in their hand , which showed that the Pharaoh represented the divine order. The words “I have done Ma’at", were spoken by several Pharaohs and several others called themselves, “Beloved of Ma’at.” Even the gods were sometimes shown praising Ma’at. People were interested in how they could please her but they also were afraid of her. It was said that a small image of Ma’at was more pleasing to the gods than piles of rich offerings. It was also said that a little truth was more welcome than huge bribes.
There was only one temple for Ma'at in Karnak but she was still worshiped in all Egyptian temples. In every Egyptian temple one area was called the hall of two truths or the hall of Ma'at. In the hall of two truths Ma'at weighed a man's heart against the feather of truth to see if the man would have an afterlife or his heart would be eaten by, the devourer.
Ma'at as a principle
Ma'at as a principle was at least made into a set of laws, and expressed the idea of right and wrong based on truth and a respect for and adherence to a divine order believed to be set forth at the time of the world's creation.
The doctrine of Ma'at is represented in the declarations to Rekhti-merti-f-ent-Ma'at and the 42 negative affirmations listed in the Papyrus of Ani:
Declarations to Rekhti-merti-f-ent-Ma'at
1. Verily I have come to thee, I have brought to thee Ma'at.
2. I have not done iniquity to mankind.
3. Not have I done harm unto animals.
4. Not have I done wickedness in the place of Ma'at.
5. Not have I known evil.
6. Not have I acted wickedly.
7. Not have I done each day and every works above what I should do.
8. Not hath come forth my name to the boat of the Prince.
9. Not have I despised God.
10. Not have I caused misery.
11. Not have I caused affliction.
12. Not have I done what is abominable to God.
13. Not have I caused harm to be done to the servant by his chief.
14. Not have I caused pain.
15. Not have I made to weep.
16. Not have I killed.
17. Not have I made the order for killing for me.
18. Not have I done harm to mankind.
19. Not have I taken aught of the oblations in the temples.
20. Not have I purloined the cakes of the gods.
21. Not have I carried off the offerings of the blessed dead.
22. Not have I fornicated.
23. Not have I defiled myself.
24. Not have I added to, not have I diminished the offerings.
25. Not have I stolen from the orchard.
26. Not have I trampled down the fields.
27. I have not added to the weight of the balance.
28. Not have I diminished from the weight of the balance.
29. Not have I carried off the milk from the mouth of the babe.
30. Not have I driven away the cattle which were upon their pastures.
31. Not have I captured the birds of the preserves of the gods.
32. Not have I taken the fishes [with bait] of their own bodies.
33. Not have I turned back water at its season.
34. Not have I cut a cutting in water running.
35. Not have I extinguished a flame at its hour.
36. Not have I violated the times for the chosen offerings.
37. Not have I driven back the cattle of divine things.
38. I have not repulsed God in his manifestations.
I, even I, am pure. Times four.[3]
42 Negative Confessions
1. Not have I done wrong.
2. Not have I despoiled.
3. Not have I robbed.
4. Not have I slain men: twice.
5. Not have I defrauded the offerings.
6. Not have I diminished [oblations].
7. Not have I despoiled the things of the god.
8. Not have I spoken lies.
9. Not have I carried off food.
10. Not have I afflicted [any]
11. Not have I committed fornication.
12. Not have I made to weep.
13. Not have I eaten my heart.
14. Not have I transgressed.
15. Not have I acted deceitfully.
16. Not have I desolated ploughed lands.
17. Not have I been an eavesdropper.
18. Not have I set my mouth in motion [against any man].
19. Not have I raged except with a cause.
20. Not have I defiled the wife of a man.
21. Not have I defiled the husband of a woman.
22. Not have I polluted myself.
23. Not have I caused terror.
24. Not have I committed offense
25. Not have I inflamed myself with rage.
26. Not have I made deaf myself to the words of right and truth.
27. Not have I caused grief.
28. Not have I acted insolently.
29. Not have I stirred up strife.
30. Not have I judged hastily.
31. Not have I been an eavesdropper.
32. Not have I multiplied my words upon words.
33. Not have I harmed, not have I done evil.
34. Not have I made curses of the king.
35. Not have I fouled water.
36. Not have I made haughty my voice.
37. Not have I have I cursed God.
38. Not have I committed theft.
39. Not have I defrauded the offerings of the gods.
40. Not have I carried away offerings from the beatified ones.
41. Not have I carried off the food of the infant, not have I sinned against the god of the town.
42. Not have I slaughtered the cattle divine.[4]
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma%27at
HOLY COW!!!!
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As you read this, people all across the country are contributing in huge numbers to the Democratic National Committee before their FEC deadline ends at midnight.
They are chipping in to help beat Elon Musk in Wisconsin, to win special elections in Florida, and to stop Trump from cutting Medicaid to pay for huge tax cuts for billionaires.
Can you add one more donation to the DNC tonight? Before midnight. Use this link:
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Look at this chart of the donations the DNC has received in just the last hour. Holy Cow!
Chart of the donations the DNC has received since Trump started his speech
Every single dot represents someone who is ready for a Democratic Party willing to stand up and take the fight to Trump and the Republican Party.
Together, it all adds up to something meaningful.
Now those who have already donated are hoping you'll do the same tonight. What do you say?
Can you please make a $10 contribution to the Democratic National Committee before their FEC deadline ends at midnight? They will put your donation to work stopping Trump and electing Democrats up-and-down the ballot.
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Paid for by Harris Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee authorized by Harris for President, the Democratic National Committee and the State Democratic Parties in these states: AK, AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, HI, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, and WY.
Cardinal Peter Turkson from Ghana wants Kamala Harris gone (dead) and Peter Turkson is Officer Self Hatred. If Turkson is elected Pope, will Turkson be Pope Francis II?
Bernie Mac: Officer Self Hatred
Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood
Bernie Mac credited as playing...
Officer Self Hatred
Ashtray: We didn't even do nothing.
Officer Self Hatred: What? You think you tough?
[pulls gun on Ashtray]
Officer Self Hatred: You ain't so tough now, little nigga. I hate your black bastards, you *stink*! I hate your black skin. I hate your black pants. I hate black pepper. I hate black keys on a piano. I hate my gums, because they're black. I hate Whoopi Goldberg's *lips*. I hate the back of Forrest Whittaker's neck. Huh? Most of all, I hate that black-ass Wesley Snipes.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116126/characters/nm0005170
The Serpent and the Rainbow is a 1988 American horror film directed by Wes Craven and written by Richard Maxwell and Adam Rodman. It is loosely based on the non-fiction book of the same name by ethnobotanist Wade Davis, wherein Davis recounted his experiences in Haiti investigating the story of Clairvius Narcisse, who was allegedly poisoned, buried alive, and revived with an herbal brew which produced what was called a zombie. The film stars Bill Pullman, Cathy Tyson, Zakes Mokae, and Paul Winfield.
The Serpent and the Rainbow was released in the United States by Universal Pictures on February 5, 1988.
Plot
In 1978, a Haitian man named Christophe mysteriously dies in a French missionary clinic, while a voodoo parade marches past his window. The next morning, Christophe is buried in a traditional Catholic funeral. A mysterious man dressed in a suit who was outside Christophe's hospital window on the night he died is in attendance. As the coffin is lowered into the ground, Christophe's eyes open and tears roll down his cheeks.
Seven years later, Harvard anthropologist Dennis Alan is in the Amazon rainforest studying rare herbs and medicines with a local shaman. He drinks a potion and experiences a hallucination of the same black man from Christophe's funeral, surrounded by corpses in a bottomless pit.
Back in Boston, Alan is approached by a pharmaceutical company looking to investigate a drug used in Haitian Vodou to create zombies. The company wants Alan to acquire the drug for use as a "super anesthetic". The corporation provides Alan with funding and sends him to Haiti, which is in the middle of a revolution. Alan's exploration in Haiti, assisted by Dr. Marielle Duchamp, locates Christophe who is alive after having been buried seven years earlier. Alan is taken into custody, and the commander of the Tonton Macoute, Captain Dargent Peytraud—the same man from Christophe's funeral and Alan's vision in the Amazon—warns Alan to leave Haiti.
Continuing his investigation, Alan finds a local man, Mozart, who is reported to have knowledge of the procedure for creating the zombie drug. Alan pays Mozart for a sample, but Mozart sells him rat poison instead. After embarrassing Mozart in public, Alan persuades Mozart to show Alan how to produce the drug for a fee of $1,000. Alan is arrested again by the Tonton Macoutes, and tortured by having a nail driven through his scrotum, and then dumped on a street with the message that he must leave Haiti or be killed. Alan again refuses to leave and meets with Mozart to create the drug.
Alan has a nightmare of Peytraud, revealed to be a bokor who turns enemies into zombies and steals their souls. When Alan wakes up, he is lying next to Christophe's sister who has been decapitated. The Tonton Macoutes enter, take photos, and frame Alan for murder. Peytraud tells Alan to leave the country and never return, lest he be convicted of the murder, executed, and then his soul stolen by Peytraud. Peytraud puts Alan on a US bound plane, but Mozart sneaks on board and gives Alan the zombie drug. Mozart asks Alan to tell people about him, so that Mozart can achieve international fame. Alan agrees and returns to Boston with his mission apparently completed.
At a celebration dinner, the wife of Alan's employer is possessed by Peytraud, who warns Alan of his own imminent death. Alan returns to Haiti, where his only ally, a houngan named Lucien Celine, is killed by Peytraud and Mozart is beheaded as a sacrifice for Peytraud's power. Alan is then sprayed with the zombie powder and dies; later, Peytraud steals Alan's body from the hospital before the death can be reported to the US Embassy. Peytraud takes Alan to a graveyard where, helpless in his coffin, Alan sees that Peytraud has captured Marielle and will sacrifice her. Peytraud shows Alan Celine's soul in a canari. Alan is then buried alive with a tarantula to "keep him company". Waking up in his coffin a few hours later, Alan is rescued by Christophe who was also turned into a zombie by Peytraud.
Having escaped Peytraud's trap, Alan returns to the Tonton Macoute headquarters looking for Marielle. There, Alan defeats Peytraud through a battle of wills, using Celine's white magic to drive a nail into Peytraud's groin, and sends his soul to hell. As the Haitian people celebrate the downfall of Jean-Claude Duvalier, Marielle proclaims "The nightmare is over".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Serpent_and_the_Rainbow_(film)
"Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" is a song originally performed by Motown recording act the Undisputed Truth in 1972, though it became much better known after a Grammy-award winning cover by the Temptations was issued later the same year. This latter version of the song became a number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100.
"Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" was written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong in 1971. Whitfield produced the original Undisputed Truth version, which was released as a single in May 1972. This version of the song peaked at number 63 on the Pop Charts and number 24 on the R&B Charts. The song was included on the Undisputed Truth's album Law of the Land (1973).
Later in 1972, Whitfield cut a different version of the song, turning it into a 12-minute track for the Temptations. This version was included on their 1972 album All Directions. The edited 7-inch single release of this Temptations track was issued in September 1972, and this version was a number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and won three Grammy Awards in 1973. While the original Undisputed Truth version of the song has been largely forgotten, the Temptations' version of the song has been regarded as an enduring and influential soul classic. The full-length album version was ranked number 169 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, one of the group's three songs on the list. In retrospect, the Temptations' Otis Williams considers the song to be the last real classic the group recorded (it would be the Temptations' last number one hit and would win them their second and final Grammy Award in a competitive category).
Overview
Beginning with an extended instrumental introduction (3:53 in length), each of the three verses in the Temptations's version is separated by extended musical passages, in which Whitfield brings various instrumental textures in and out of the mix. A solo plucked bass guitar part, backed by hi-hat cymbals drumming, establishes the musical theme, a simple three-note figure; the bass is gradually joined by other instruments, including a blues guitar, wah-wah guitar, electric piano, handclaps, strings and solo trumpet; all are tied together by the ever-present bass guitar line and repeating hi-hat rhythm.
The official album version of the song is 12:04 not 11:45 as stated on the record label. When All Directions was issued on CD, it was shorter at 11:45.[5] The full LP version is featured on the Temptations' Psychedelic Soul compilation.[6]
Vocal duties are performed in a true ensemble style: Temptations singers Dennis Edwards, Melvin Franklin, Richard Street (who was a frequent fill-in for Paul Williams and his eventual replacement) and Damon Harris (who had replaced Eddie Kendricks as the group's falsetto singer the previous year) alternate vocal lines, taking the role of siblings questioning their mother about their now-dead father; their increasingly pointed questions, and the mother's repeated response ("Papa was a rollin' stone/wherever he laid his hat was his home/and when he died, all he left us was alone") paint a somber picture for the children who have never seen their father and have "never heard nothing but bad things about him."
Friction arose during the recording of "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" for a number of reasons. The Temptations did not like the fact that Whitfield's instrumentation had been getting more emphasis than their vocals on their songs at the time, and that they had to press Whitfield to get him to produce ballads for the group. Whitfield forced Edwards to re-record his parts dozens of times until he finally got the angered, bitter grumble he desired out of the usually fiery-toned Edwards.[7] Whitfield's treatment of the group eventually led to his dismissal as their producer.[7] Legend has it that Edwards was angered by the song's first verse: "It was the third of September/That day I'll always remember/'cause that was the day/that my daddy died", as his father was said to have died on the third of September. Edwards's father actually died on the third of October.[7]
The solo trumpet part in the introduction was played by Funk Brothers member Maurice Davis; guitar parts were played by fellow member Melvin "Wah-Wah Watson" Ragin[8] and a young Paul Warren.[9] The Temptations' version of "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" followed in the extended-length "cinematic soul" tradition of the work of Isaac Hayes and others, and future songs like Donna Summer's 14-minute "Love to Love You Baby" and the instrumentals of MFSB expanded upon the concept in the mid-1970s.
Release
A seven-minute edited version of "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" was released as a single in September 1972. For this mix, congas were added to bolster the song's sparse percussion; this version appeared on the 1973 Anthology triple LP. The Temptations' box set Emperors of Soul has the edited version in stereo, but without the congas. The B-side was the instrumental backing by the Funk Brothers without the Temptations' vocals (though Damon Harris' final chorus is included after a single "Unngh!" at the end of the second verse), this version appears on the Funk Brothers' 2003 compilation 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection.
Reception
"Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" rose to number one on the U.S. pop charts and number five on the U.S. R&B charts, becoming the Temptations' final pop number-one hit. The song, the anchor of the 1972 Temptations album All Directions, won three 1973 Grammys: its A-side won for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Group; its B-side won for Best R&B Instrumental (awarded to Whitfield and arranger/conductor Paul Riser); and Whitfield and Barrett Strong won for Best R&B Song as the song's composers. In 1999, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.[10]
Kelefa Sanneh described the song as "nearly seven glorious minutes long (the album version was twelve) sustained by little more than a perfect bassline and a few artfully placed hand claps."[11]
Stereogum called it "a monolith. A towering monument out of tense hi-hats and pulsating bass and shivering strings and hard-strutting chicken-scratch guitars and panicked trumpet-blasts. And the merciless four-four stomp-clap beat predicted not just disco but house music, as well."[12]
Covers and remixes
Bill "Wolf" Wolfer created an electronic cover of the song for his 1983 debut album Wolf.[13][14] The single peaked at number 55 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1983, as well as number 47 on the R&B Charts.[15] Michael Jackson provided backing vocals.[16]
The group Was (Not Was) covered the song on their 1990 album Are You Okay?. Their version reached number 12 in the UK.[17]
George Michael performed "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" live at the Wembley Arena in March 1991 and released it in a remixed version together with the Adamski song "Killer" on the 1993 EP Five Live. It was released as a single and charted at number 69 on the US Billboard Hot 100.[citation needed]
American pop metal band Ugly Kid Joe released their cover of the song, featuring Australian singer-musician Dallas Frasca, which appears on the band's fourth album Uglier Than They Used ta Be, released in 2015.[citation needed]
On May 17, 2024, British-American musician Slash released a cover of the song as part of his second solo studio album Orgy of the Damned (2024); the track featured American singer Demi Lovato.[18]
Personnel
Undisputed Truth version
Lead and background vocals by Joe Harris, Billie Rae Calvin, and Brenda Joyce
Temptations version
Lead vocals by Dennis Edwards, Melvin Franklin, Richard Street, and Damon Harris
Background vocals by Dennis Edwards, Melvin Franklin, Richard Street, Damon Harris, and Otis Williams
Arranged and conducted by Paul Riser
Instrumentation by the Funk Brothers (specific musicians listed below) and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra
Guitars by Melvin "Wah Wah Watson" Ragin[8] and Paul Warren[9]
Fender Rhodes electric piano by Earl Van Dyke[19]
Organ by Johnny Griffith[20]
Trumpet by Maurice Davis
Bass by Bob Babbitt,[21][22] Leroy Taylor,[23] or James Jamerson[24]
Drums by Aaron Smith[25]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papa_Was_a_Rollin%27_Stone
“The Rolling Stone” Mark 1:29-39
— A rolling stone gathers no moss. God’s mission often requires movement. Movement is hard to do when you are settled in and comfortable. But God’s plan is more important. We must do what we were meant to do.
I am sorry to say that this sermon is not about the band the Rolling Stones. Sorry to disappoint if you were excited about that. Even though it is Super Bowl Sunday, and the stones did play the halftime show in 2006, don’t be mistaken. We are going to talk about Jesus. Jesus was the original Rolling Stone. Even before the magazine existed, before the band, before Bob Dylan even wrote the song “Like a Rolling Stone.” Let me explain.
Many of you have heard the old proverb, “a rolling stone grows no moss.” If a stone is always on the move, it can’t form a suitable base for moss to grow. Moss needs stability and consistency. Movement destroys the ability for moss to grow on a rock.
In our scripture from Mark this morning, Jesus can’t stay in one place. He is focused on His mission. Jesus came to spread the good news, and that is what he has to do. Jesus had to keep moving. He said so himself in Matthew 8:20, …”Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Jesus had to keep moving. Jesus was sent into the world with a far reaching mission. Jesus could never have accomplished His mission if he had stayed in Capernaum. Much to the disappointment of many who expected to find him in the town of Capernaum, that is.
Jesus is our Rock and our Redeemer, just like Psalm 19 says. But Jesus was always moving, like a rolling stone. No matter how good things seemed, Jesus couldn’t stand still because his job was to do something GREAT, not settle for something that is good. You and I can learn from Jesus’s example. That is because you and I have been included in Jesus’s mission. We ought not get to comfortable with our current circumstances. Comfort in our circumstances is like moss that grows on a stone. If we get to comfortable in our jobs, our homes, our relationships, our routines, we might not want to follow Jesus by going outside our comfort zone. God wants us to be meeting new people and preaching to them with our words and deeds.
The message from scripture this morning is that you and I, together with all of God’s people, are called to live in this world, but we do not belong here. We are strangers, or foreigners, or refugees in this world. We should not get too comfortable here.
In 1 Peter 17, we read, “Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear.” Peter reminds us that we are all “strangers in a strange land” when we put our faith in Jesus. We are citizens of heaven, and have an important mission given to us by God. We are called to act differently from others who do not believe. We must not let the comforts of this world keep us from taking part in God’s redemption plan. We have to keep on rolling along, like rolling stones.
This is a HARD teaching of Jesus. One of the hardest teachings that Jesus ever taught. But if you understand and try to live out this teaching, your life will almost certainly make God happy. Jesus did not get comfortable where he was. So it follows that we ought not get overly comfortable where we are Well, the opposite of comfort is DIS-comfort. Also known as PAIN. You’ve heard the expression “no pain, no gain?” I think that sums up why it is so hard to follow Jesus. People don’t like to feel any kind of pain, physical or emotional. Following Jesus is painful. But all the pain serves a higher purpose, and only hurts so much because we have such weak faith in God. That’s just how we sinful humans are. But I doubt the original Apostles were super-happy that Jesus kept on rolling from place to place, getting into trouble.
In our scripture from Mark this morning, we read about the very early days of Jesus’s public ministry. And things were going remarkably well according to Mark! Jesus found the perfect spot to set up shop as a teacher and a healer. Jesus had just called some of his first disciples in the Galilee area, which was a beautiful, green area. There is a huge lake there. I visited Galilee in 2012 and if it was like what I saw when Jesus was alive, it was an ideal place to be. Jesus’s kicks off his earthly ministry in a lakeside town called Capernaum. His ministry starts out well. People are amazed that he teaches with authority and can cast out demons. His miraculous healing is impressive as well. As soon as the word goes out, people start coming in from all over town, bringing people to be healed, and coming to listen to his teachings about God. Seems like a good start to spreading the Good news that the Kingdom of Heaven has come near!
But Jesus doesn’t settle for good. He can’t. He was sent to do something GREAT. And so, Jesus heads out of town and hikes up a hill to be alone and pray. When the disciples caught up, they told Jesus everyone was looking for him. I am sure even more people showed up overnight to be healed and to learn from Jesus.
Instead of worrying about the crowd looking for him, Jesus says, let’s go to another town. That is why I came in the first place! And from that time on, he travelled around the whole region, preaching and healing. And we know from the scriptures that people in the rest of the region were not always as receptive to Jesus as they were in Capernaum.
The mission that Jesus began can not be carried out without movement. Jesus explains this ongoing mission to his disciples in Luke 24, “he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things.”
You and I are called to follow Jesus in our lives. We are called to keep rolling toward our goal of preaching repentance for the forgiveness of sins to all nations, starting in our home town. Every time we have movement in our life, it is an opportunity to preach in Jesus name. And so we ought to prepare ourselves to keep moving.
Moving to a different place is one way to keep moving, but that is not the only way to keep moving. You can have movement even if you do not move away. Movement doesn’t only mean physical relocation. Movement can mean that we make new relationships. That we keep getting better and better at loving God and loving others. If a selfish person learns to be generous, that is movement. If you change jobs, that is another kind of movement because you have a new set of people to be in relationship with. Movement simply means a change that draws you closer to being like Jesus.
It is important for me to emphasize that movement has to be change that draws you closer to being like Jesus. Otherwise, change is just motion, but not movement. Movement is motion that is directed toward a specific goal or location. Not simply change for change’s sake.
The opposite of movement is doing nothing, having everything stay basically the same. This is a sure way to limit your ability to participate in Jesus’s mission to preach repentance for forgiveness of sins to all the nations.
Back to our rolling stone example, getting comfortable with things the way they are is like a stone sitting around, growing moss. The moss represents all the obligations and circumstances and routines that keep us from being effective preachers of Jesus in our lives. The moss anchors down the rock and makes it even harder for the stone to roll. And that is what the Devil wants for us. The Devil wants us to live like stones covered in moss, too comfortable to make much of a difference for Jesus.
So we must resist the moss and keep rolling. Jesus set this example for us in scripture, and there are many applications for us as a congregation, in our work, and in our personal lives. If we are going to follow Jesus’s example we must be like a rolling stone, always rolling toward the goal… to preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ.
As a congregation, we can continue rolling by building change into the way we organize ourselves. Every ministry program that we implement ought to have a life-span. When that program is no longer effective or producing repentance in people’s lives, we should stop it and do something different. Many ministry programs in many congregations run on for decades after they have become irrelevant because they are comfortable. When someone says to you “that’s the way we’ve always done it” to resist change, what they are really telling you they are too comfortable with the way things are.
Not only programs, but everything in the congregation should serve the people in worshipping God and making disciples. The building, the staff, the music, the liturgy are some examples. All these things are tools for the congregation’s ongoing mission. When the congregation starts serving the stuff and not the other way around, it is time for a change in order to break the comfort.
In our work, we can continue rolling by not being afraid to stand up for what is right even if it has a cost for our career. Jesus loves justice and part of repentance is making people aware of injustice so that they might change their minds. An example of this might be, if your boss asks you to do something shady or to lie. If you refuse, and expose your boss, you will likely not get promoted. That will hurt your career and could even get you fired! You are comfortable getting that paycheck. Being out of work and finding a new job would be discomfort to the max. But you will be following Jesus, preaching repentance for the forgiveness of sins. You may not use those exact words, but you are standing up for truth and righteousness and exposing sin. This is a large part of what Jesus did in his earthly ministry. But comfort can keep us from taking action to follow Jesus.
In our personal lives, we can continue rolling by making sure we don’t invest all our social energy into a closed group of friends. This is super important if you want to follow Jesus. Jesus did not only make relationships with his relatives and his friends who were like him. No, Jesus hung out with the undesirables and engaged socially with many different people. In fact, that is one reason why Jesus had to keep moving from town to town. Jesus could have had everyone come to Capernaum to be ministered to. But that would have been too comfortable. He would have dealt with mostly the same people day in and day out. Instead, Jesus took his disciples and went from town to town. Constantly changing shop keepers and innkeepers. Each town had a different Synagogue to preach in, and a new community to engage.
I have seen many people fall into a rut where they have mostly the same friends they knew from high school or college, and they go through life in this small, closed circle. The attitude seems to be, am comfortable with my people, and we are all good. I don’t really need any new people in my life. And that may be true, but God asks us to live our lives for God and not only for ourselves. When we open our lives and make space for new people to be in relationship with us, we live out Jesus’s mission to preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins in Jesus name. When new folks get to know us, and see us struggle to live for Jesus, that, along with our words will show them God’s salvation in Jesus. It might be risky and uncomfortable to invest in relationships with new, unknown people. But if we don’t practice doing this, we are not making any movement in the mission of Jesus to the world/ Jesus could have stayed in Capernaum, and only invested in his close circle of friends. But instead, he got right up in new people’s lives, healing them, and teaching them about God.
You and I are called to follow Jesus, the original rolling stone, in our lives. We are called to keep rolling toward our goal of preaching repentance for the forgiveness of sins to all nations, starting in our home town. It may be tempting not to move, and to collect the moss of comfort. But we need to shake off the moss and get rolling. Every time we have movement in our life, it is an opportunity to preach in Jesus name.
https://hillcrestupc.org/sermon/the-rolling-stone/
Matthew 28
1599 Geneva Bible
28 1 The women go to the sepulcher. 2 The Angel. 9 The women see Christ. 18 He sendeth his Apostles to preach.
1 Now in [a]the [b]end of the Sabbath, when the first day of the week [c]began to dawn, Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, came to see the sepulcher.
2 And behold, there was a great earthquake: for the Angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.
3 And his [d]countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow.
4 And for fear of him, the keepers were astonied, and became as dead men.
5 But the Angel answered, and said to the women, Fear [e]ye not: for I know that ye seek Jesus which was crucified:
6 He is not here, for he is risen, as he said: come, see the place where the Lord was laid,
7 And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead: and behold, he goeth before you into Galilee: there ye shall see him: lo, I have told you.
8 So they departed quickly from the sepulcher, with fear and great joy, and did run to bring his disciples word.
9 [f]And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus also met them, saying, God save you. And they came, and took him by the feet, and worshipped him.
10 Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid. Go, and tell my brethren, that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me.
11 ¶ [g]Now when they were gone, behold, some of the watch came into the city, and showed unto the high Priests all the things that were done.
12 And they gathered them together with the Elders, and took counsel, and gave large money unto the soldiers,
13 Saying, Say, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept.
14 And if this matter [h]come before the governor to be heard, we will persuade him, and so use the matter that you shall not need to care,
15 So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is noised among the Jews unto this day.
16 ¶ [i]Then the eleven disciples went into Galilee, into a mountain, where Jesus had appointed them.
17 And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted.
18 And Jesus came, and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me, in heaven, and in earth.
19 [j]Go therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them [k]in the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the holy Ghost,
20 Teaching them to observe all things, whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you [l]alway, until the end of the world, Amen.
Footnotes
Matthew 28:1 Christ having put death to flight in the sepulcher, riseth by his own power, as straightway the Angel witnesseth.
Matthew 28:1 At the going out of the Sabbath, that is, about daybreak after the Roman’s count, which reckon the natural day, from the sun rising to the next sun rising: and not as the Hebrews, which count from evening to evening.
Matthew 28:1 When the morning after the first day after the Sabbath began to dawn: and that first day is the same, which we now call Sunday or the Lord’s day.
Matthew 28:3 The beams of his eyes, and by the figure Synecdoche, for the countenance.
Matthew 28:5 The word (Ye) is spoken with force to confirm the women, now that the soldiers were afraid.
Matthew 28:9 Christ appeareth himself after his resurrection, and sending the women to his disciples, showeth that he hath not forgotten them.
Matthew 28:11 The more the sun shineth, the more are the wicked blinded.
Matthew 28:14 For it was to be feared, that it would be brought to the governor’s ears.
Matthew 28:16 Christ appeareth also to his Disciples, whom he maketh Apostles.
Matthew 28:19 The sum of the Apostleship is, the publishing of the doctrine received of Christ throughout all the world, and the ministering of the Sacraments: the efficacy of which things hangeth not of the ministers, but of the Lord.
Matthew 28:19 Calling upon the name of the Father, the Son, and the holy Ghost.
Matthew 28:20 Forever: and this place is meant of the manner of the presence of his spirit, by means whereof he maketh us partakers both of himself and of all his benefits, but is absent from us in body.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2028&version=GNV
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