April 2003
The Makings of Modern Society
~ Marx, Mammon, Molech and Masonry ~
PETER
GRACE
The following is an attempt to winkle out some realities underlying the "spin" dressing with which modern society presents itself. It consists mainly of quotations from three publications (all emphases are inserted, unless otherwise stated).
The first is an article entitled Why is everybody losing their cool? by Mick Brown, which appeared in the Daily Telegraph Colour Supplement for 23rd October, 1999. The author quotes the work of Oliver James, clinical psychologist and author of Britain on the Couch.
"James believes that, in examining the rising incidence of rage, it is not enough simply to look at the circumstances in which it occurs. At root, he says, is the simple fact that, while as a nation we are richer than we were 50 years ago, we are by all indexes unhappier; infected with a collective feeling of unease, insecurity and disenchantment, a lowering of the spirits, which finds its expression in depression and aggression. In neurological terms, we have become what James calls 'a low-serotonin society'. Serotonin is the neurotransmitter in the brain which reflects how good we feel about ourselves and the world around us. People with low serotonin levels are more likely to be depressed, irritable, and prone to loss of temper. Our brain chemistry, says James, changes according to our experiences... The changes that have occurred in society over the past 50 years... have contributed to acollective lowering of serotonin levels, with calamitous consequences. His argument isthat we have two basic instincts that need to be satisfied for acontented life: toseek status and to make relationships with other people. 'Since 1950 the trends in the developed world have been disastrous in terms of meeting these two instincts.'
"The high divorce rate, with its deleterious effects on adults and children, greatly increases the incidence of low serotonin levels. 'The psychological impact of deaths and separation during the Second World War was as nothing compared to the impact of the present divorce rate,' says James. Our uncertainty about the changing roles of men and women has led to what James calls 'gender rancour', with the consequence that relationships between them have never been worse...
"Modern life - or, as James has it, 'advanced capitalism' - is,he believes, a recipe for 'maladjusted social comparison'. Since 1950, he argues, we have moved from being a collectivist society(1) to an individualist one, in which our social identity is no longer ascribed to us by our family and community, but achieved through education and occupation. We are now, in short, a society inwhich people are judged not by who they are, but what they achieve: asociety of 'winners and losers'.
"We have become, says James, 'anation of wannabees.' This boosting of the idea that what really matters is to be something special has led to a culture of narcissism, of people being excessively preoccupied with themselves. . .
"'It might become easier to control an explosion in anaircraft,' says David Lewis, (aBritish Airways spokesman), 'but if it doesn't happen there, it will happen in the car driving back from the airport. The fact is that we have a very angry society. And there's really no cure unless we adopt a completely different philosophy which is alien to our culture'."
Marx
The notable thing here is the progression from psychology, registering the states of mind associated with rage, to philosophy, seen as the vehicle of ideas and values underlying those states of mind. It would probably have been "uncool" for either Mick Brown or David Lewis to indicate that the underlying problem is the absence of religion and its supporting philosophy. It does not take much nous to identify that religion as Christianity, and the philosophy as Scholasticism.
It is highly significant that Oliver James,approaching the problem from the psychological point of view, should identify the basic movement away from the world of reality to the world of desire: "people are judged not by who they are, but by what they achieve", that is, the replacement of being by doing.In the terms of Scholastic Philosophy, it is a shift from substance (one's innermost being) to accident (those qualities inhering in the substance, one of which is the ability to act). Another aspect of it is the cult of the informal (form here is the external manifestation of substance) and the disordered, leading progressively to the shapeless, the ugly and the horrific. That is all linked with evolution "theory" by which no species is stable, but is forever changing.
If the current philosophy underlies a dominant state of mind (road-rage, air-rage, etc.) in society, and needs to be supplanted by one alien to it, and that alien culture is the Christian one, then it is a short step to identifying Marxism as a major component of the current philsophy. I can hear the cries of protest: "Oh, Communism collapsed ten years ago". That is true of the political systems of Europe, but it is as well to remember that a large proportion of our race are still under Communist political domination in China. However, the collapse of Marxism as a political system in Europe has simply enabled it to pass unnoticed over the ruins of the Iron Curtain to dominate the ostensibly democratic societies of the West from inside. You do not have to look far for Marxism and its ramifications:
- women at work and out of the home
- the children in state-run creches and schools
- the attack on marriage as an institution by the promotion of free love, which is being pursued in the form of sex-education right down to the kindergarten(2) and also by fiscal policies
- government by the imposition of decrees from unelected bodies
- the steady drive to one-continent, and then one-world government
- the radical whittling away of History in education, and the destruction of tradition by government policies.
Mammon
From Marx we pass on to Mammon, and the quotations, with linking passages, are taken from Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution, by Anthony C. Sutton.
"Lord Milner, member of the British War Cabinet, 1917, and director of the London Joint Stock Bank," was a socialist and an admirer of Marx ... "While opening the way for recognition of the Bolsheviks, Milner also promoted financial support for their opponents in South Russia and elsewhere, as did Morgan (J. P. Morgan, Wall Street banking house) in New York. This dual policy is consistent with the thesis that the modus operandi of the politicised internationalists - such as Milner and Thompson (William Boyce Thompson) - was to place state money on any revolutionary horse that looked a possible winner."
"On May 1st, 1918, - an auspicious date for Red revolutionaries – the American League to Aid and Cooperate with Russia was established, and its program was approved in a conference held in the Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. … Vice-presidents were the ever active William Boyce Thompson … and Frederick C. Howe, who wrote Confessions of a Monopolist, the rule book by which monopolists could control society."
"So the simplest explanation (for the "unholy alliance" [of Americans and Russian revolutionaries]) of our evidence is that a syndicate of Wall Street financiers enlarged their monopoly ambitions and broadened horizons on a global scale. The gigantic Russian market was to be converted into a captive market and a technical colony to be exploited by a few high-powered American financiers and the corporations under their control [author's emphasis]. What the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Federal Trade Commission under the thumb of American industry could achieve for that industry at home, a planned socialist government could achieve for it abroad – given suitable support and inducements from Wall Street and Washington, D.C." "… recorded history totally ignores the 700,000-man Green Army, composed of ex-Bolsheviks, angered at betrayal of the revolution, who fought the Whites and the Reds [author's emphasis]. In other words, we are suggesting that the Bolshevik Revolution was an alliance of statists: statist revolutionaries and statist financiers aligned against the genuine libertarian elements in Russia… The financiers were power-motivated and therefore assisted any political vehicle that would give them an entrée to power…"
Molech
After Marx and Mammon, we have Molech, the god of the Semites, who intrudes into the history of the Jews at various points in Scripture, and who symbolises, for the purpose of this article, the occult powers battling against God and His creation. The quotations are from Randall N. Baer, Inside the New Age Nightmare, a title derived from his horrendous experience of the Satanic realities underlying the exciting attractions of New Age thought and practice, in which he had been a leading figure for ten years. The revelation of what it was really all about traumatised him severely, and he converted to Christianity. The various facets are arranged under headings.
Altered States of Consciousness (ASC): "The basic idea is that there are thousands of different levels of higher consciousness available to man, each level accessing a different type of universal experience and corresponding benefit. It is said that man's evolutionary imperative is to claim these aspects of his unlimited divine heritage in order to grow into a more evolved, more advanced human being – the New Age god-man of unlimited consciousness abilities… There are many associated tools and methods used for inducing ASCs, including: mystical New Age music, guided creative visualisation, hypnosis, swirling, psychedelic light shows, twirling occult dances and repetitious body movements, repetitious drum beating, repetitious chanting… all types of New Age meditation."
Yoga: "The aim of the many kinds of yoga schools of thought is for the individual to be absorbed into a state of Universal Oneness-Bliss, like a drop of water dissolving into a great cosmic sea. Individual identity is lost, as a type of selfless Nirvana is attained. Self becomes 'God' – the root of New Age heresy. In order to do this, the different yoga traditions all have systematic disciplines for awakening the kundalini – serpent power, which is said to reside dormantly at the base of the spine. Through long, diligent hours of emptying the mind or endlessly repeating mantras (Hindu deity-names) in meditation, a progressive evolutionary ladder is said to be climbed over thousands of reincarnations." (The author mentions a number of "extreme dangers involved in awakening the kundalini practices. They include nervous-system burn-out, outrageous ego-inflations, sexual obsessions, hallucinations").
Create your own reality: the "Health, Wealth and Godhead" Doctrine: "One of the loudest trumpet calls in the New Age Movement is CREATE YOUR OWN REALITY. You are god and can create things. By my power, all things are created by me. Mind power creates all success. Thought power creates all reality."
Family Structure Devaluation and Breakdown: "The enormous amount of self-centredness among New Agers plus a severe breakdown of morals leaves many families broken, dismantled or ignored to an alarming degree... I often came across New Age parents who either didn't live with their children or who had left them. Often the parents did so out of preference, not necessity... Subtle and overt neglect of children, while the parents cater first and foremost for their own desires, is a widespread phenomenon in the New Age."
Free-thinking Sexual Ethics: "Waiting to have sexual intercourse until marriage is quite rare. The belief that sex should take place only in marriage is considered old-fashioned and even 'limiting your potential'."
"Me! me! me!": the New-Age Chorus: "A basic New Age axiom is: to discover yourself is to discover the entire universe, for you and the cosmos are one ... A famous guru, Swami Muktananda, takes this to its logical conclusion: 'Kneel to your own self. Honour and worship your own being. God dwells within you as You!'."
Personal Identity Problems: New Agers create problems of their own identity as persons because of invasion from outside. "... This is considered part and parcel of everyday thinking, widely accepted as normal, e.g., thinking that you are a "walk-in" - this is where a highly advanced celestial being or master comes into an adult body and possesses it, as the original soul is displaced. Such a walk-in is supposed to be here on Earth on a crucial mission to enlighten the human masses... The belief in reincarnation is an exceptionally fertile ground for sprouting false identities, such as believing that one is, e.g., a reincarnated priestess of the magical mysteries of the Isis cult (goddess worship)."(3)
Channels, Channels, Everywhere: 'Channels' are occult lines of communication, conveying to the recipient information from outside sources. "... channeling is hot on the New Age scene. The demonic agents and the sly, slick mediums and psychic readers feed people what they want to hear - advice on problems, projections of success for the future, the glories of self."
The Extent of the Problem: "A 1978 Gallup Poll indicated 10 million Americans to be engaged in some form of Eastern mysticism. Forty million Americans believe in astrology... There are over 200,000 registered witches in America. Untold numbers are unregistered."
It seems only amatter of time before the three Ms of the title of this article finally triumph. Yet Satan thought he had finally triumphed when Jesus was laid in the tomb - Easter Day proved him wrong.
Masonry: The Invisible 'M'
The difference between this 'M' and the others is that they can all be seen in our midst: the Marxist machinations of governments are discernible, however much clouded by "spin"; the publicised activities of big business and high finance are reported in the daily press; the New Age ideas and methods are found in publications, business meetings, even in schools. But Freemasonry is a secret society, which cultivates a public image when necessary. What really goes on is kept secret from the public, and even from its own members, as we shall see.
In its present form, the society was founded in 1717, but its antecedents stretch back into ancient times. Cardinal Caro y Rodriguez, Archbishop of Santiago, Chile, says in his book, The Mystery of Freemasonry Unveiled, written in the early 1920s:
"Proudon (sic)(4) one of the most famous Masons of the past century, said: 'Our own principle is the negation of all dogma; our point of departure, nothing. To deny, always to deny is our method. It has led us to place as our principle: in religion, atheism; in politics, anarchy; in political economy, non-ownership'."
Dealing with the initiation-rite of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, he says:
"The 19th degree (Scottish Knight of St. Andrew)(5) of the same rite sums it up in these words: 'War on the Cross of Jesus Christ! Adopt the cult of Lucifer, of fire, and of flesh'." [See 'the nudity explosion' further on].
There we have the battle-cry of the modern Masons, 'modern' referring to the period from the end of the Middle Ages onwards. Again, from the same period:
"Thus, after having renounced in the 13th degree (Knight Rose-Croix) the divinity of the Redeemer, in this act he tramples with his feet the instrument of Redemption, with a show of horror and disdain... At the same time they teach the initiate to defile the cross, they invite him to adore Nature... It reaches such a point that they even show him Baphomet, that infamous idol, well remembered for the adoration rendered it in former times by the Templars and even before by the Gnostics."
The Templars and Cabbala
Here the historical extension of the abominable acts of blasphemy are indicated, the Templars, i.e., the Knights Templar, being mediaeval, and the Gnostics dating back to the time of Our Lord, with roots extending to the mystery religions of ancient times. The Order was founded in 1118, in the course of a crusade against the Saracens in the Holy Land, 'Templar' referring to the Temple at Jerusalem. Unfortunately, they became rich (Mammon again) and fell away from their founding ideals. The following is an account of the interrogation held by Pope Clement V in 1307 taken from Nesta H. Webster's book, Secret Societies:
". .. an examination of the Grand Master, Jacques du Molay, and the Preceptors of the Order was held in the presence of 'three Cardinals and four public notaries and many other good men.' These witnesses, says the official report, 'having sworn with their hands on the Gospel of God'... that 'they would on all the aforesaid things speak the pure and full truth, they, separately, freely, and spontaneously, without any coercion and fear, deposed and confessed among other things, the denial of Christ and spitting upon the cross when they were received into the Order of the Temple... Some of them, too, confessed certain other horrible and disgusting things on which we are silent'."
On the subject of the Templar Tradition, we read:
"The same (Masonic) writer(6) goes on to show that some of the most important Masonic symbols, the equilateral triangle and the Mason's square surmounting two pillars, came through from Gothic. … Moreover, according to a Masonic tradition, an alliance definitely took place between the Templars and the Masonic guilds at this period (ca. 1150-1530)."
Yet the origins of the Order goes back much further. The Cabbala is
"a secret traditional lore, theological, metaphysical, and magical, of Jewish rabbis, who read hidden meanings into the Bible" (Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary).
Nesta Webster again: "Edersheim asserts that: 'It is undeniable that, already at the time of Jesus Christ, there existed an assemblage of doctrines and speculations that were carefully concealed from the multitude. They were not even revealed to ordinary scholars, for fear of leading them towards heretical ideas. This kind bore the name of Kabbalah, and, as the term (Qibbel, to receive [instruction]) indicates, it represented the spiritual traditions transmitted from the earliest ages, although mingled in the course of time with impure or foreign elements'."
Illuminized Masonry and 1789
There seems to have been, down the ages, a unity of direction in the development of organized evil, pointing to a single mind: Satan, ever opposing his Arch-enemy, God. The element of deception has been ever-present in the Order. One degree does not know what happens in a higher degree, and that is true right through to the two top degrees, 32 and 33.(7) As we have seen, the Order, as we have it today, was founded in 1717, and was aimed at the heart of the Catholic Church to accomplish its destruction. Its first "achievement" was the French Revolution of 1789, followed by the Terror, in which nobles and clergy were done to death, the monarchy obliterated and general destruction wrought on the Church. But there had taken place a vital development in the years leading up to the Revolution. Here is Nesta Webster:
"If, then, it is said that the Revolution was prepared in the lodges of Freemasons - and many French Masons have boasted of the fact - let it always be added that it was Illuminized Freemasonry(8) that made the Revolution, and that the Masons who acclaim it are illuminized Masons, inheritors of the same tradition introduced into the lodges of France in 1787 by the disciples of Weishaupt, 'patriarch of the Jacobins.' Many of the Freemasons of France in 1787 were thus not conscious allies of the Illuminati. According to Cadet de Gassicourt, there were in all the lodges only twenty-seven real initiates; the rest were largely dupes who knew little or nothing of the source whence (came) the fresh influence among them."
Referring to the support given by the upper echelons, including royalty, the writer makes the following statement:
"A contemporary relates that no less than thirty princes - reigning and non-reigning - had taken under their protection a confederation from which they stood to lose everything (since it was a revolutionary movement, intent on consigning royalty to the history-books) and had become so imbued by its principles that they were inaccessible to reason."
Here we see the embracing of the irrational, which is one of the most disturbing features of present-day society in its responding to emotion rather than to reason.
Injurious Motto
Perhaps the most permanent and damaging deception of the Illuminati's revolutionary campaign is the motto, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. They are all attractive concepts: who wants to be coerced into accepting something undesirable, or to be treated unfairly in society, or to suffer from a lack of brotherly love? However, the version imposed by the Illuminati was perverted into an attack on all those human basics.
"Liberty" is freedom from the natural law governing our being, which is implanted in our humanity - the law is, so to speak, God's users' instructions for the proper handling of ourselves. It is supplanted by the vagaries of personal choice, which, of course, create endless clashes of interest in a group. Here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say:
"The natural law expresses the original moral sense which enables man to discern by reason the good and the evil, the truth and the lie" (#1954).
Its in-built nature is illustrated forcefully by the following quotation from the writings of the Roman statesman, orator and philosopher, M. T. Cicero (C.C.C. #1956):
"'For there is a true law: right reason. It is in conformity with nature, is diffused among all men and is immutable and eternal; its orders summon to duty; its prohibitions turn away from offence... To replace it with a contrary law is a sacrilege; failure to apply even one of its provisions is forbidden; no one can abrogate it entirely'" (De Re Publica, III, 22, 33).
Cicero died in 43 B.C., and therefore some seventy years before Christ came to give the pagan writer's words His divine authentication. Liberty, in revolutionary usage, means a liberal interpretation of the natural law, by which everyone is free to think and do whatever does not clash with revolutionary thought. Hence the Terror, under the auspices of Madame la Guillotine.
Likewise with "Equality": in the natural law, all men (used in the generic sense of standard English) are equal, as persons created in the image and likeness of God, as Genesis says.
People are therefore equal in dignity as human beings, with all the rights that accrue to that dignity; but the overwhelmingly dominant feature of creation, apart from its structural complexity, is its variety. In every respect other than their human dignity no two people are identical, and hence there can be no equality. The "Illuminated" sense of the term is well expressed by George Orwell in Animal Farm: "All men are equal, but some are more equal than others." In other words, that concept of equality is irrational: the reality is twisted round into an ideal to be achieved by social engineering, the classic example of which is the French Revolution. The aristocracy and clergy were seen to be violating the principle of equality, so "justice" required that they be forcibly removed from society permanently.
"Fraternity" we have seen already, rising to its peak of brotherly love in the ministrations of Sister Guillotine.
Nesta Webster quotes a remarkable prophecy from the Essai sur la Secte des llluminés, made by the Marquis de Luchet, a liberal noble, at the very outset of the Revolution:
"Deluded people, ... learn that there exists a conspiracy in favour of despotism against liberty, of incapacity against talent, of vice against virtue, of ignorance against enlightenment … This society aims at governing the world ... its object is universal domination."
That was written in 1789; today we see the tentacles of Illuminist Masonry creeping across the country as it drives relentlessly on to a World Government and a World Religion. Its ends are unwittingly pursued by hosts of "useful idiots", who are deceived by the high-sounding rhetoric of those in authority, of "experts" and the media, and by the apparently desirable objectives proposed by them. We have seen the quotation from de Luchet, in which the kings and princes (i.e., the upper class, which was to fill the tumbrels rattling along the streets of Paris to the guillotine) were so completely bemused by the seductive words of the Illuminati that they were no longer open to the exercise of reason. The quotation continues:
"Intoxicated by the flattery lavished on them by the priest of Illuminism (i.e. Weishaupt), they adopted a religion of which they understood nothing."
Highly significant here is the mention of religion. One of the stated objectives of the Illuminati was the destruction of Christianity, for which they substituted a pseudo-religion, and we are back at the threefold rallying-cry of the Revolution, which, as we have seen, was based on the irrational.
Behind the Lodge Door
We shall now see that theme elaborated in a book by James D. Shaw, who reached the very heart of Masonry, the 33rd Degree, and Tom McKenney, The Deadly Deception:
"As I studied more and more, I saw with increasing clarity that Masonry teaches that whatever a man sincerely and conscientiously believes is truth, and that all religions are of equal worth and validity. Thus, Jesus Christ is reduced to the level of the other 'exemplars', such as Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, Pythagoras and Emmanuel Swedenborg. ...Albert Mackey wrote (in The Masonic Ritualist), 'Thus ... the fact is that all religions are never as good as the pure teachings of Freemasonry'."
How very revealing! False ecumenism, which is perhaps the most deleterious of the false belief-systems undermining the doctrines and practice of the Roman Catholic Church, is part of the Masonic belief-system. The authors go on to explain, in Appendix A, under the heading "MASONIC DOCTRINE":
"God is, basically, whatever we perceive Him to be; our idea or concept of God becomes our God. Usually referred to with the vague and general term, 'Deity', the god of Masonry can be the one of our choosing, spoken of generically as 'The Great Architect'."
… "However, those who pursue the higher studies in Masonry learn that God is the force of nature, specifically the Sun with its life-giving powers."
And so we are right back at the pagan pantheon with its array of sun-gods, e.g. Re-Atun in Egypt, Shamash in Babylon (cf. Hebrew common noun SHeMeSH, 'sun'), Phoebus Apollo in Greece, Sol in Rome. The text goes on:
"To the 'advanced, enlightened ones,' the adepts at the top, this nature worship is understood as the worship of the generative principles (i.e. the sex organs), particularly the phallus. Human Nature is also worshipped by some as 'Deity', as are Knowledge and Reason. Since Masonry is a revival of the ancient pagan mystery religions its god can also be said to be Nature, with its fertility (sex) gods and goddesses representing the Sun and Moon (in Egypt, Osiris(9) and Isis)."
From Appendix B, 'MASONIC SYMBOLISM': "... the phallus, the male 'generative principle', has been worshipped as representing the Sun's rays. In this way, the phallus has been worshipped and the rituals climaxed with sexual union in the mystery religions of Isis and Osiris, Tammuz and Baal(10) etc. In summary, then, since the Ancient Mysteries (especially those of Egypt) are in fact the 'Old Religion', of which Freemasonry is a revival, the symbols of Masonry should be expected to be phallic in true meaning. This, in fact, is the case."
From Appendix C, 'MASONIC MORALITY': "The masses of 'ordinary' (Blue Lodge - i.e., belonging to the initial degrees) Masons, who pay their dues and work faithfully to make the entire system possible, are deliberately deceived as to the true nature of what they are saying and doing. But this deliberate deception becomes 'right' in Masonic morality, simply because the elite decides that it is right."
Examples of this deceitfulness are given: "The Master Mason swears not to 'violate the chastity' of the mother, wife, sister or daughter of another Master Mason, 'knowing her to be such.' This may sound good superficially, but it permits intercourse with anyone else's mother, etc., etc."
Under the heading, 'LYING AND PERJURY': the obligations, if Masonic teachings are believed, may require a Mason to give false testimony, perjure himself or (in the case of a judge) render a false verdict in order to protect another Mason.
Under 'CHEATING, WRONGING, DEFRAUDING': the Mason swears to keep the secrets of another, protecting him even if it requires withholding evidence of a crime. In some degrees, treason and murder are excepted, in other, higher degrees, there are no exceptions to this promise to cover up the truth.
Serving the Deeper Conspiracy
We return to Nesta Webster and the French Revolution for our conclusions.
"The Reign of Terror, like the outbreak of Satanism in the Middle Ages, can be explained by no material causes - the orgy of hatred, lust, and cruelty directed not only against the rich but still more against the poor and defenceless, the destruction of science, art, and beauty, the desecration of the Churches, the organized campaign against all that was noble, all that was sacred, all that humanity holds dear, what was this but Satanism? In desecrating the churches and stamping on the crucifixes, the Jacobins had in fact followed the precise formula of black magic: 'For the purpose of infernal evocation... it is requisite ... to profane the ceremonies of the religion to which one belongs and to trample its holiest symbols under foot' (A. E. Waite: The Mysteries of Magic). So in the 'great shipwreck of civilization', as a contemporary has described it, the projects of the Cabbalists, the Gnostics, and the secret societies, which for nearly eighteen centuries had sapped the foundations of Christianity, found their fulfilment."
That all happened some two hundred years ago.
"Weishaupt's design of enlisting the clergy in the work of world-revolution has been carried out according to plan. Those Catholic priests in Ireland who inflamed popular passions acted as the tools of the international Atheist conspiracy and found at last the movement turning against themselves. The Protestant clergymen who profess 'Christian Socialism' are playing the same part. Doubtless without knowing it, they act as the agents of the Continental illuminati and pave the way, as did the emissaries of Weishaupt, for the open attack on all forms of religion. It is not a mere accident that the blasphemous masquerades of the French Revolution have recently been repeated in Russia. ... Is it only a coincidence that last year a Socialist and Communist meeting in Trafalgar Square displayed a red banner bearing the motto: 'No King, no God, no Law'?"
The author was writing in the early 1920s - the book was published in 1924; so she is referring to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The most important development in the revolutionary campaign is that direct action, such as the public propaganda described above and the exiling of enemies of the Communist regime to the Gulag Peninsula by a totalitarian government, has given way to policies overtly democratic, but covertly achieving the revolutionary ends.
Examples of the above are the policies attacking life, such as abortion and the morning-after pill, under the guise of "reproductive health", and the promotion of extra-marital sex and one- parent families under the guise of enforcing the "right" of individuals to enjoy whatever kind of sexual relationship they may want.
The author continues:
"Socialism, with its hatred of all superiority (nowadays known as 'elitism', as giving a sharper class-warfare twist), of noble virtues - loyalty and patriotism - with its passion for dragging down instead of building up, serves the purpose of the deeper conspiracy. If the Christian Intelligentsia can be destroyed or won over and the nation deprived of all its natural leaders, the world-revolutionaries reckon that they will be able to mould the proletariat according to their desires. We have only to look around us in the world today to see everywhere the same disintegrating power at work - in art, literature, the drama, the daily press - in every sphere that can influence the mind of the public ... And in the realms of literature, not merely in works of fiction but in manuals for schools, in histories and books professing to be of serious educative value and receiving a skilfully organized boom throughout the press, everything is done to weaken patriotism, to shake belief in all existing institutions by the systematic perversion of both contemporary and historical facts, whilst novels and plays calculated to undermine all ideas of morality are pressed upon the public as works of genius which, in order to maintain a reputation for intellect, it is essential to admire. … The heart of the people is still sound, but ceaseless efforts are made to corrupt it."
The Nudity Explosion
Very significant is that last quoted sentence ("The heart of the people, etc."): the process of corruption works at the deepest level, striking at the very heart of individuals and therefore of society. The soundness of heart was maintained until the fifties; then the steady erosion of moral principles and of finer feeling resulted in the 'nudity explosion'. The strict roles governing the relationship between the sexes were observed generally by society. Boys, schooled separately, were brought up to respect girls and their privacy. A young man would discreetly approach the girl of his choice. After a suitable deepening of acquaintance, he would court her and they would get to know one another. He would then propose marriage to her, and, if accepted, they were under serious obligation, externally indicated by the engagement ring, to break the commitment only by mutual consent. All being well, they would get married with due ceremony, and the marriage would last until one of the spouses died. There was no thought of going to bed immediately for an experimental session, followed perhaps by marriage, perhaps not; hence there was no pre-marital sex. The couple would look forward to bringing up children, and the woman would give up her job to devote herself to her real vocation: motherhood and making a home.
At least, those were norms imposed by the standards observed in society as a whole, although, of course, there was always the small wayward minority which failed to do so. The totally different moral climate obtaining before the sixties is reflected in the films made before 1960. Immoral scenes were taboo, and they were so because the public was offended by any sexual immorality shown on the screen, or, for that matter, in the printed media. For instance, if a woman's skirt was accidentally raised above the knee in the course of the action, she would hastily pull it down again. The rule was for modesty in clothing styles: arms, legs and bosoms were, generally, covered. Engaged couples would look forward to having four, five or six children. Divorce was frowned upon. However, it must be said here that there was some relaxation of attitude portrayed in American films: e.g., divorce and "'wolf-whistles" were featured in some of them. Then came the 'nudity explosion'. In 1966 I returned home from a thirteen-year absence in Africa, to be plunged into a welter of mini-skirts. It signalized a departure from the moral norms that had obtained in the preceding ages. It was, of course, unashamedly presented in the press; adverts appeared that would never have been allowed. As for contraception, abortion, teen-age sex, homosexual relationships, generally speaking, they did not even enter the day-to-day thought-processes - they were unthinkable.
Theological Dimensions of Satanic Degradation
It must be difficult for the present generation, never having known the difference, to grasp the significance of the change. Some insight may be obtained from a consideration of the religious dimensions. After the Fall of Adam and Eve, God tackled them in the garden of Eden. They had already found their sexual motions disturbed, since they wore fig-leaves over their genitalia: God demanded an explanation of their conduct, and proceeded to eject them from Paradise. Their fall from supernatural grace came about because, egged on by Satan in the form of a serpent, they sought to master the secrets of life, which they had to do in order to be equal to God, as promised by the Tempter.
Now, the secret of the transmission of life is in sexual union of some sort; and the divide between God's activities and Satan's are marked in their demands on human sexual relations. In the Law of Moses, there was strictest of control over intercourse. Any violation was punishable by stoning to death, for example, the woman taken in adultery, whom Christ admonished to go and sin no more. He had just saved her from execution. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by fire for their obsession with homosexual acts - sodomy. The word for Hell in the New Testament, Gehennah, refers to the Valley of Hinnom, just outside Jerusalem, where Satanic worship, that is, human sacrifice, took place. Satanic rituals are attended by naked dancers, and the climax of the Black Mass ritual is sexual intercourse. All those abominations are attacks on life, and hence on God's sovereignty; and such perversions are systematically fostered by Western society, "the culture of death", in the words of Pope John Paul II.
The other signs of Satan's attack on men mentioned by Nesta Webster, such as the attack on art and the reign of ugliness and disorder in self-expression, are all present in modern society. Here also there has been an escalation since 1960. There are six main areas of development since 1924:
- The corruption of the young, e.g., drink and drugs.
- The corruption of the media, particularly T.V., with its sex, violence and horror.
- The corruption of music, the worst of which is Satanic.
- The corruption of the graphic arts (painting, sculpture, etc.)(11) and drama.
- Feminism, which has assumed a dominant role in society.
- The further corruption of reason and the predominance of feeling, at its worst as introduced into the educational system.
Emphasis, however, remains on the Satanic assault on life. That includes, of course, the life of the soul, the supernatural life, and here Satan is at his most menacing.
Catholic Counter-attack
The remarkable thing about Webster's commentary is that it was written almost eighty years ago, yet it reflects perfectly the present state of our society, necessarily omitting those features which have developed in the intervening period of time. The most serious item she considers is the winning over of the Christian Intelligentsia. That process has been steadily advancing since before the French Revolution, and we now suffer the tragic situation of having the Church divided into Roman Catholic and Newchurch, the latter based on the heretical teachings of the Modernist Intelligentsia, which ideas have been steadily injected into Christian thought, increasingly since about the middle of the 18th century, now permeating the life of the Church right down to parish level.
In this regard, I once wrote an article titled On the Threshold - Comments on Talks 2 & 3, which dealt with a speaker's references to the God/god of personal experience, the implications of which I further dealt with in a critique of a talk by Sister Mercy Buckley. They revealed that the logical conclusion to the current ideas about the God/god of experience is New Age doctrine and its associations with the occult. So, as indicated earlier in excerpts of "MASONIC DOCTRINE" from The Deadly Deception, we have Masonic ideas injected into the official course of instruction for catechumens, On the Threshold being the parish R.C.I.A. course, and also into a talk given to lay people by a nun, which, in turn, is reported in detail in a magazine for the Lay Associates of the Congregation. It is also the God/god taught in many Catholic schools.
The impact of all this on the Church over the last forty years is devastatingly obvious, at least to those who knew the Church before Vatican II. We Roman Catholics face a stern fight to achieve the victory of true Church teachings. The counter-attack of the faithful, and those who are loyal to the true Church, must be grounded in prayer and sacrifice, and express itself in action. May God help us and guide us through His holy Mother.
FOOTNOTES:
(1) It is assumed that he does not mean a socialistic collectivism, but a society in which the individual sees himself as part of a collectivity, in which he is happy to assume the role allotted to him by his position in society, as determined by family background, education and the requirements of the community in which he lives. At least, that characterises the society into which my wife and I were born in the years between the wars, and I take it that that is what James is alluding to.
(2) There is no intention here to impugn the integrity of those teachers who genuinely believe that teenage abortions can be reduced by more and more sex-education. The increasing degeneracy of society is marked by the efforts of well-intentioned people who believe the "spin" and cannot see the reality.
(3) Cf. the tenets of Feminist Theology.
(4) Pierre Proudhon (1809-1865), French anarchist and writer. His works cover philosophy, history of religions and political economy.
(5) The structure of the Masons is hierarchical each stage being known as a degree. The highest degree is the 33rd. Each one has a name, such as "Knight Rose-Croix".
(6) Sidney Klein: Ars Quattuor Coronatorom.
(7) Cf. Jim Shaw & Tom Chase McKenney, in The Deadly Deception: "Hear the arrogant words of Albert Pike, Supreme Pontiff of Universal Freemasonry, that pre-eminent Masonic authority: 'The Blue Degrees (the ordinary Masons) are but the court or portico (porch) of the Temple. Part of the symbols are displayed there to the initiate, but he is intentionally misled by false interpretations. It is not intended that he shall understand them; but it is intended that he shall imagine that he understands them... their true explication is reserved for the Adepts, the Princes of Masonry, i.e. those of the 32nd and 33rd Degrees" [Morals and Dogma, Page 819].
(8) That is, inducted into the secret society known as the Illuminati. It was founded by Adam Weishaupt in Germany, and infiltrated the French Masonic lodges. Notice the arrogance of the name, implying that the initiates possessed a knowledge superior to that of other men, i. e. gnosticism.
(9) According to An IlIustrated History of the World's Religions, Ed. Geoffrey Parrinder, Osiris was chiefly god of the dead.
(10) Tammuz was a Babylonian god, mentioned by Ezekiel, Ch. 38; Baal was a Canaanite-Phoenician (i.e. Palestinian) god. The word is a common noun meaning 'lord', 'master', 'husband'. It occurs frequently in the Bible.
(11) Note that the graphic arts should reflect the beauty of God's creation. The attack on them results in the ugliness, that is, disorder, which is distressingly obvious in our society, especially in the liturgical context.
USHERING IN THE ONE-WORLD RELIGION This
month in Geneva, hundreds of spiritual and religious leaders
met at the United Nations for ... the first ever UN summit of
women religious leaders... endorsed by UN Secretary General
Kofi Annan... Although there was much talk about peace and how
women can harness their "feminine energies" to bring peace to
a hurting planet, there was no mention of the Prince of Peace,
Jesus Christ. The summit was a direct outcome of the Millennium
World Peace Summit of religious and spiritual leaders held at
the United Nations in New York two years ago.... The belief
that there are many ways to heaven was part of the New Age gospel
at the summit. Participant Hanna Strong said, "...peace to me
is being one with the source." When asked if she was referring
to God "the Creator," she said, "Well, I don't necessary call
it Creator, but, it's one name." Robert Maginnis, a former director
of the Family Research Council, said of the summit [that] it
appears the hidden agenda is to unite people under one religious
umbrella so they will peacefully accept the UN's radical political
goals: "I would submit that the United Nations is very
anti-life, they are anti-faith, anti-family, they're anti-national
sovereignty, Wendy Griffith, CBN News Reporter, 23/10/02 |