Contempt

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  Instead of “the word of God” someone dubbed them “Ten ways of keeping out of jail.” Those who go no further than the Bible for their knowledge of man’s moral development, see its origin and flowering in the Jews, surrounded by ignorant, Godless heathen, yet thousands of years before the Jews were ever heard of the Egyptians, whom they painted as morally inferior, had a well-developed sense of morality. The evidence for this lies in the Egyptian “Oath of Clearance,” which in toto contains six of the ten commandments. It reads in part as follows: I have not committed fraud and evil against men. I have not diverted justice in the judgment hall. I have not caused a man to do more than his day’s work. I have not caused a slave to be ill-treated. I have not taken milk from the mouths of children. I have not stolen cattle. I have not been weak. I have not been wretched. I have not been impious or impure . . .2 Any race that could even devise such a code is not without a high moral sense. What is more, it reveals a more enlightened kind of morality than that of the Mosaic law—“An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” “If an ox gore a person and he die, the ox shall be stoned, and his owner put to death.” Holding an ox guilty of homicide implies belief in the animal’s moral responsibility, and killing its owner, ignorance of moral justice. The Mosaic law recognizes a man’s right to sell his daughter into slavery and makes rules to govern it. There is nothing that low in the Egyptian and Babylonian codes. It is not only our opinion but that of able scholars that morality flowed to not from the Hebrews. Here we quote from one of them—James H. Breasted. “We are all aware that Egyptian-Babylonian culture set European civilization going; but few modern people have observed the fact, so important in the history of morals and religion, that Egypto-Babylonian culture also set Hebrew civilization going.” How presumptuous then for this semibarbarous tribe, still in the nomadic state, to sit in judgment upon a race whose culture even then was twelve thousand years old. According to Herodotus the Egyptian gods were “in existence twenty thousand years ago.” If we take literally the “piromis stones,” we must admit such antiquity, though they too may be somewhat mythological. There were 340 of these, representing the generations down to Sethon, 720 B.C., and after Sethon twenty more, making in all 360. Now an Egyptian generation was 36 years. Thus 360 times 36 equals 12,960 years. Our false concept of the ancient Egyptians is due in part to our own ignorance, but the evil we attribute to them is due entirely to the libelous nature of Hebrew mythology. I think we have proved the mythological nature of Moses, but what about Aaron?

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  And the great man David met his death by falling downstairs, all implying the fall of spirit into matter. These noncanonical tales are called Midrasbes , commentaries on the Old Testament. They are very useful because they throw light behind the literal word. Abel comes from hibbel and means “transient as the wind, or breath.” He was not, therefore, intended to survive. Abel is one with Hemera, the ephemeral, the prephysical elements in Involution. His death is in keeping with our statement that nothing remains of the prephysical when the physical is reached. There are parallels to this murder throughout all mythology, including both Old and New Testament. Romulus, the mythical founder of another city, Rome, slew his brother Remus. Set, the Egyptian, slew his brother Horus. Iphicles, brother of Hercules, was killed, not this time by his brother, but by a serpent, matter. Cain’s famous retort to the accuser—”Am I my brother’s keeper?”—has ever been held up as a reproach to the coldly indifferent, but in this story it has no human significance at all. For Cain it was the only answer. The process must go on else it will never reach the plane where this retort is morally applicable, the human plane. The murder of Abel was therefore in the interest of the Creator, and Cain’s act no more a crime than Adam’s. Furthermore, they were both “acts of God.” There is another absurdity here. The God of this chapter is shocked and horrified at the murder of one man, but later we find him urging Moses and Joshua to slaughter men by the thousands. The key to the paradox is that these murderous patriarchs and their God are Cain now rampant in Evolution. Recently we spoke of the murderous nature of first life, and in this murder by the first man, not second, the Jhwhist is telling us the same thing, not once but twice for Lamech was also a murderer (Gen. 4:23). Such a source of life would never do for religion, however, so here the priest steps in and changes the line of descent. The last two verses of this chapter did not exist in the Jhwhist’s account. This ends with verse 24, that is, the Editor ended it there, and substituted two verses from the next chapter which is priestly throughout. This should alert us to the fact that the Editor was, himself, a priest. This is the white-washer of the Jhwhist’s unvarnished truth everywhere, hence the interpolation which makes Seth our source and this source sinless. 25. And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew. This substitute Seth is but a priestly subterfuge to hide from us the true nature of the Creative Principle. Because of this it does not tell us where the author got the name and idea.

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  Can we not see that the latter is but our myth and superstition? Undoubtedly these pagan divinities were as real and sacred to their devotees as ours are to us. The slain Tamuz was so very real, the women of Haran wept for him and would not be comforted. Yet he passed and so will ours. Gods and Saviors are as successional and chronological as popes and kings; they endure longer only because they are racial and national. Already our Trinity is passing, Catholic-wise; given a few more generations and it will no longer be Father, Son and Holy Ghost, but Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Among Catholics there are some who habitually vilify the Jews, then run to church to worship three of them. In this they see no paradox because in things religious they can see nothing. And the same may be said of Christians in general; incapable of creating a religion of their own, they had to borrow one from the Jews, who, in turn, borrowed theirs. Now from immaculate conception by a virgin, virgin birth is inevitable. That we may see how the cosmical becomes literalized, humanized and fixed in the racial mind, let us consider that first reference to a “virgin birth,” namely, that in Isaiah 7:14. “. . . Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” Why not Jesus, if it were He? And just to show how the New Testament employs the Old to substantiate its arguments, we quote from Matthew, Chapter 1. 22. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, 23. Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel (Greek spelling), which being interpreted is, God with us. More correctly, “all this was done,” to make it appear that Jesus was the fulfillment of a previous prophecy. Yet how could it apply to Jesus since Isaiah spoke of the child as of his day? “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given . . .” 9:6. As for the passage itself: it was translated from the Greek text, and there the word used was parthenos , which does mean a virgin, but the word used in the original Hebrew, from which the Greek was taken, did not mean a virgin. The word there is almah , which means simply a young woman. In the later Greek translation, the error was corrected, the proper Greek equivalent neanis being substituted. But it suited the purpose of the Church to leave it in its “virgin” Greek, and so it has come down to us.

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  He gave it over to a woman he loved and believed in and was left with nothing. But as I said, Michael shares only the parts of this story that are flattering to his guru. He takes us into his spiritual home but only shows us the parlour, which has been cleaned and polished, and ignores the other rooms where the paint is peeling, the floors are rotten, and piles of garbage are creating a horrible stench. It’s almost like he’s gaslighting himself , which, while I was reading the book, felt both strange and eerily familiar. One of the biggest flaws in any devoted cult follower’s logic is that the end justifies the means. Michael’s book is firmly planted in the defence of that position. In fact, it seems to be the book’s raison d’être. He doesn’t detail how abusive Limori was, but by referring to her as simply a “tough teacher” he justifies her every despicable and disgusting behavior. How she treated people is beside the point, he is saying. What matters is that she was “serving God.” My thesis, as you will likely have understood if you’ve read this far, is the opposite of that. How we treat each other matters. If we don’t treat each other with love, compassion, and kindness, it doesn’t matter which deity we say we’re working for. As you have read, my finally being able to see that disconnect was the reason I was able to leave Limori’s cult. Michael’s position is the same as Limori’s was: that breaking down a spiritual disciple’s ego is more important than kindness or compassion, than trusting that each person is as valuable as the next. I believe that “breaking” people, in any way and no matter what deity you say you serve, is an approach that is indefensible. LyndaYours truly features in a chapter of Michael’s book called Those Who Fell Short, a title that leaves readers with no doubts about how he feels about me and anyone else who stopped following Limori. Franky, I’m amazed he mentions me personally at all. Michael shares his views about why he broke up with me and why, in his opinion, I left the group. I made the decision to “turn away from the Light,” he says, and I was being engulfed in negative energies. He refers to me as a “princess of darkness,” and therefore had no choice but to break up with me, given his status as a Light Being. Of course, I disagree with his assessments of both my character and the reason Limori had him break up with me, but you’ve just read an entire book about that, so I don’t need to reiterate. Here’s one puzzling thing, though. In that chapter, he calls me “Lynda,” and this is the only pseudonym he uses in the book. I’m assuming he uses that name because I was called Lynda until I was 19.

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: 17. For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand? (Chap. 6). And this is called wisdom, “divine revelation,” and the like. I say it is priestcraft using cosmology to frighten the ignorant into submission to it; its wild imagery, but intellectual terrorism used to gain power. Today no one should give it a moment’s serious thought, that is religiously. But to complete the story: The first two verses that follow are from chapter 8, the last three, from chapter 10. The reader may say this is tampering with text to prove our theory but no, these bits and pieces were deliberately scattered about to conceal and deceive. We are but putting them back in their proper place . And this is not the only case where this must be done. 1. And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. 2. And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets. 5. And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, 6. And sware by him that liveth for ever . . . that there should be time no longer: 7. But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound (future), the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets. The seventh seal represents the seventh and final plane in Evolution, and as time is concomitant with matter, there shall “be time no longer.” Here Evolution is at an end, the work is finished, and all is well. And so said Job: “in seven no evil shall touch thee” 5:19. And such is the mystery of God—Creation and its sequel. Such also is the mystery of Revelation, not a vision of heaven but a review of time, not a revelation from God but a plagiarized account of Evolution. And how does it differ from ours save in language? We too said there were seven planes and seven cycles; we too said their manifestation was sequential and henotheistic. We also said our theory was “gospel truth,” but unlike Ezekiel and John we did not take it from older sources and say we got it in a vision. We thought it out—and long before we perceived it in the ancient archives. That is why we can interpret them. As Emerson said of traveling, so with occult literature: we see in things only what we take with us, already know. This is also why the race cannot see cosmology in the scriptures; it does not know cosmology, nor has it the means of seeing it.

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  But Laban also cheated Jacob, not only in wages “ten times” but in women also; he substituted Leah for Rachel on the wedding night. One would think that a smoothie like Jacob would know his women, but sophisticated moderns have no right to laugh, for they don’t know Leah from Rachel either. The word Leah means weary (“Leah, the Forsaken”). And our version says she was “tender-eyed,” therefore sweet and beautiful, we think, but the original meaning was tender in the sense of sore and unpleasant—hence the fraud by night. Jacob must have been as drunk as Lot and as dumb as Adam, and we are not being disrespectful of “holy scripture”; merely explaining unholy nature and exposing priestly fraud. Laban’s excuse was that the younger must not marry before the firstborn. If this was the law, one would think that Laban would have told his future son-in-law the fact before the marriage, not after. In our society this act would be a serious offense but not in nature. In the creative process, first elements come first, hence Leah the elder. Throughout the Bible the youngest offspring means forward in the creative process; Jacob’s love for the younger Rachel is his adherence to it. So now Laban promises Jacob the younger daughter if he will work another seven years. These various seven years, three in all, are the septenary stages in Involution. Laban calls them weeks; “fulfill her week,” he said. These, however, are planetary weeks and identical with the “days” of the first chapter. And now the hard-working Jacob earns a different kind of wages, the wages of bigamy. He marries Rachel also, but alas, she too is barren; but not for long, for now begins the champion baby marathon of all history, and even mythology. Leah and Rachel, vying for Jacob’s favor through offspring, race not only with each other, but use their handmaidens to help them win. They also use mandrakes. This little touch is not even mythology, but local superstition. The Druses of Syria, even today, have a legend that “the sons of God” created man by animating the plant mandragora, or man-dragon. The plant is shaped like a man and so became a symbol of fertility to barren women. Apparently it worked, for the result of this marital race was twelve sons and one daughter, of which more anon. And now Jacob would leave Laban—but not with much. By another sly deception, he separates the good cattle from the scrubs and steals away in the night.3 Jacob was a thief and his wife was no better. She stole her father’s gods, or images, and carried them away to another land. And when Laban, in his effort to recover them, caught up with her, she “put them in the camels’ furniture and sat on them. And Laban searched all the tent but found them not” (31:34). No wonder the young Joseph made good in Egypt; with such a parentage, how could he fail?

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  Replying to Justin’s arguments, this Jew had this to say: “Now Christ, if he has indeed been born and exists anywhere, is unknown and does not even know himself and has no power until Elias come and make him manifest to all. And you, having accepted a groundless report, invent a Christ for yourselves and for his sake are inconsiderately perishing.” The saintly martyrs for mythology. Elsewhere Trypho refers to Jesus as “that Jesus who you say was crucified . . .” Thus we have a very early Jewish denial of Christ’s existence. If, as some in desperation argue, Trypho was but a foil for Justin’s argument, the words still carry weight, for they express contemporary Jewish opinion. Whether accepting or rejecting Christ, one would think the Jewish historians would at least admit so great a personage was of their race. And if anyone would do so, it should be Philo. This philosopher-historian lived both before and after the time of Christ, yet never mentions him. The only direct reference to Jesus in Jewish history of the time is found in Josephus, born in Jerusalem , 37 A.D., but no serious student today, not even the theologian, believes Josephus wrote it. It is so palpably false that it is now attributed to those notorious forgers, the early Christians. It does say Jesus was the Christ, and it does imply He was superhuman, and for such words Christ was allegedly crucified and His disciples stoned. If Josephus, a Jewish official, had written these words he would have suffered a similar fate. Spinoza, sixteen centuries later, was cursed and banished for much less. As this passage from Josephus is often desired by serious students, we quote it in full: “About this time lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed he should be called man. He wrought miracles and was a teacher of those who gladly accept the truth, and had a large following among the Jews and pagans. He was the Christ. Although Pilate, at the complaint of the leaders of our people, condemned him to die on the cross, his early followers were faithful to him. For he appeared to them alive again on the third day, as god-sent prophets had foretold this and a thousand other wonderful things of him. The people of the Christians which is called after him, survive until the present day.” Jewish Antiquities . As long as the mythological source and meaning of Christ was unknown, the authenticity of such statements could be defended but when we know this being never existed, how can we believe his near-contemporaries wrote them? The one just quoted clearly admits the Jews’ responsibility for the death of Christ; would the Catholic hierarchy today be absolving them if it believed Josephus wrote it? The Social ContextNeither the Christian religion nor the Christian Church dates from the alleged time of Christ, or even from the first century.

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  The Gnostics knew better and in words that are occult, cryptic and terse one gives us the real “plan of salvation,” but where, you might never guess. 4. John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne (Rev. 1). Here begins Exodus and Evolution according to the New Testament, but let us present the whole preamble. 10. I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day (the planetary sabbath), and heard behind me (as did Moses) a great voice, as of a trumpet, 11. Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and what thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea. 12. And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; 13. And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. 14. His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; 15. And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. 16. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. 17. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: 18. I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. 19. Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter; 20. The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches (Chap. 1). No doubt the reader has seen pictures of this monstrosity, an awesome figure with eyes of fire and a flaming sword proceeding from his mouth—fear engendering priestcraft, this and nothing more. It has no literal meaning whatever but is, as in the Eden story, symbolic only of the punitive laws of nature. And since the stars are but symbols of angels and the candlesticks symbols of churches, and the angels and churches themselves but symbols, it is all symbolic imagery.

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  We should not look upon Genesis 5 as even chronological, to say nothing of genealogical; it is cosmological, therefore parallel. And so we come to another mystery—the amazing longevity of these ancients. It need not trouble us, however, for this is as mythological as all the rest. No man at any time lived eight or nine hundred years, but as mythology, this is modest indeed. From the cuneiform records of Babylon, 2170 B.C., we learn that postdiluvian man lived a mere twelve hundred years, but prior to this he lived for unbelievable ages. King Alulim, for instance, lived 18,900 years, and King Alalmar, 36,000. Beroseus, who lived about 260 B.C., thought this insufficient and so stretched it to 63,000. There’s numerology here, not genealogy. You may notice that these figures add up to nine, a significant number even in Revelation. It should be obvious that these kings were personifications of great epochs, and so are the men of Genesis. This truth was lost even in Josephus’s day. Believing the literal word, he had this to say of them: “. . . those ancients were beloved of God, and lately made by God himself; and because their food was then fitter for the prolongation of life, might well live so great a number of years: and besides God afforded them a longer time of life on account of their virtue, and the good use they made of it in astronomical and geometrical discoveries.” But unfortunately Josephus was born thirty centuries too late to know the truth, and so, like his successors, he but babbled words he did not understand. The same may be said of Polyhistor, who tells us that Abraham created astronomy. Calendars are based on astronomy and long before the alleged time of Abraham, the people of the Euphrates valley had a calendar of 223 lunations or 6,585‧ days, the error amounting to only one day in 1,800 years. The Egyptians had a calendar based on the Sothic (Sirus) cycle that began in 4241 if not 5701 B.C., the cycle being 1,460 years. The Chinese had a calendar older than the world of Dr. Lightfoot and Bishop Usher. The Zodiac and the Great Pyramid are also astronomical and they were hoary with age before the alleged time of Abraham. Later we will see what this astronomy ascribed to Abraham really means. Here we will say only that it is no more factual than that of the Priest. In spite of “the word of God” there was no first man called Adam, or woman called Eve; there was no idyllic Garden, no talking snake, no “fall” and no “sin”—save that of Creation. Therefore we should no longer think of “the beginning” in these terms. So misleading are they, it were better they had never been written. Because of their diversionary influence we have wasted two millennia saving our souls from an act of God some trillions of years ago. Billions of dollars have been spent on churches instead of schools.

• From Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex (1994)

  I don’t just mean to say that more explicit and arousing (and in some cases, better produced) sex is available in the nearby adult store, though it is. There is something at work here, because adult sex films in the United States rarely have violent overtones and what force is used is almost always within the dramaturgy of bondage or sadomasochism. Adult sex films are full of little more than explicit consensual adult sex. The sex found in Basic Instinct not only isn’t particularly arousing, it is one with mutilation and murder—the murder fuels the sex, the sex fuels the murder. This is true of virtually all action films, teenage slasher films, horror movies, war movies, martial arts movies. For all that people persist in assuming pornography is filled with violence, a quick trip to the adult store proves otherwise; images linking sex with violence are simply not readily available in adult stores. Somehow in our social thinking we’ve come to a point where people feel morally upright at the mall multiplex no matter what is playing, and immoral when they rent a soft-core romance for the privacy of their home. Blockbuster Video won’t stock NR-17 movies. Their aisles are filled with a lot of films I won’t rent for myself and won’t allow my teenagers to rent—cheap horror movies, ninja combat films, “super-action” movies filled with brutality, and bimbo-driven sex comedies like Happy Gigolo. Blockbuster also has a section of cheap and rough soft-core with titles like Stripped to Kill and Night of the Wilding, Gator Bait and Bad Girls Dormitory—films loaded with images of sexual violence and rape that would be laughed out of a XXX store. These movies are labeled with stickers that read “Youth restricted viewing—must be 17 or older.” Not far away, both Basic Instinct and Body of Evidence are sticker-free. I watched a boy not older than fourteen rent Basic Instinct without a hitch. Perhaps Basic Instinct reflects a time of promiscuous interest in sex, a pornographic culture. Many people, I’m sure, would use it to prove their belief that the corruption caused by the existence of pornography is infecting mainstream film. I say Basic Instinct reflects a prudish and censoring culture, much like the particularly intense pornography produced in Victorian England. The filmmakers and actors were willing to produce as explicit and titillating a film as possible. The censors with their oddball ideas of what is and isn’t okay for children to see think the often tender sex of Henry and June is more objectionable than mutilation. Basic Instinct is a film about how confused and scared people are about sex.

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. 4. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come. 6. And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. 7. Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. About sixty gallons; that’s a lot of wine for a little wedding. 8. And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it (Chap. 2). Again, why six waterpots? Because there are six involutionary planes which Jesus, like Aquarius, fills with what is everywhere called waters , those same waters the Genesic Creator by his spirit moving on them turned into matter. The wine is that same wine this Creator, alias Noah, made, drank, and was drunken on, namely the wine of Life. 9. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was (but the servants which drew the water knew); the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, 10. And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now (Chap. 2). There is a momentous fact here quite unknown to present humanity, namely, that the best part of Creation is the last part, Evolution, and even the last part of this. This is the difference between the substantial Jesus and the spiritual Christ. Therefore those who think of the first part, God and his hosts, as the best, should ponder this statement deeply. We have challenged their concept from the beginning, and now the scriptures substantiate us. Nor is this the first place—consider the riddle Samson propounded. Out of the dead carcass of the lion, Leo the sun, comes earth and the sweetness of life. There is still another lesson here for us. “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” “Who is my mother and who are my brethren?” “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” Such statements and Christ’s treatment of his mother have ever been a difficulty to the Church, and so it would change them. In the latest Catholic revision it has softened them so as not to cause embarrassing questions. With a few more revisions the Bible will be “foolproof” and conformable to the faith. And thus does ignorance prevent its own enlightenment. We have here a good example of the consequence of blindly accepting a false hypothesis; in this case, a human mother and son.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “What’s it about?” “My novel’s about Brooklyn.” “The tree? Or the kids or the murderers or the junkies?” Vivaldo swallowed. “All of them.” “That’s quite an assignment. And if you don’t mind my saying so, it sounds just a little bit old-fashioned.” He put his hand before his mouth and burped. “Brooklyn’s been done. And done.” No it hasn’t, Vivaldo thought. “You mean,” he said, with a smile, “that it doesn’t have any TV possibilities?” “It might have, who knows?” He looked at Vivaldo with friendly interest. “You really have a sneer in your voice when you say TV, you know that? What are you so afraid of?” He tapped Vivaldo on the chest. “Art doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it isn’t just for you and your handful of friends. Christ, if you knew how sick I am of this sensitive-young-man horseshit!” “I’m sick of it, too,” said Vivaldo. “I don’t think of myself as a sensitive young man.” “No? You sound like one and you act like one. You look down your nose at everybody. Yes,” he insisted, for Vivaldo looked at him in some surprise, “you think that most people are shit and you’d rather die than get yourself dirtied up in any of the popular arts.” Then he gave Vivaldo a deliberate, insolent once-over. “And here you are, in your best suit, and I bet you live in some dingy, ice-water apartment and you can’t even take your girl out to a night club.” His voice dropped. “The colored girl, Miss Scott, you see I do remember names, she’s your girl, isn’t she? That’s why you got pissed off at me. Man, you’re too touchy.” “I thought you were too free.” “I bet you wouldn’t have felt that if she were a white girl.” “I’d have felt that about any girl who happened to be with me.” But he wondered if Ellis were right. And he realized that he would never know, there would never be any way for him to know. He felt that Ellis had treated Ida with a subtle lack of respect. But he had spoken to her in the only way he could, and it was the way he spoke to everyone. All of the people in Ellis’ world approached each other under cover of a manner designed to hide whatever they might really be feeling, about each other or about themselves. When confronted with Ida, who was so visibly rejected from the only world they knew, this manner was forced to become relatively personal, self-conscious, and tense. It became entangled with an effort to avoid being called into judgment; with a fear that their spiritual and social promissory notes might suddenly be called up. By being pressed into the service of an impulse that was real, the manner revealed itself as totally false and because it was false, it was sinister.

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  “The Church of Rome defended by violence the empire which she had acquired by fraud.”2 The Dark and Middle AgesAnd now that Christianity is firmly established, what do we find? “The kingdom of heaven upon earth”? On the contrary, a moral and intellectual degradation unparalleled in human history. According to Lecky, “The two centuries after Constantine are uniformly represented by the Fathers as periods of general and scandalous vice.” And the following two were no better. Bishop Gregory of Tours wrote an account of them and it is one of the darkest pictures in all history. On reading it, Gibbon remarked: “It would be difficult to find anywhere more vice or less virtue.” As for the fifth century, Salvianus, a priestly historian, had this to say: “Besides a very few who avoid evil, what is almost the whole body of Christians but a sink of iniquity? How many in the church will you find that are not drunkards, or adulterers, or fornicators, or gamblers, or robbers, or murderers—or all together?” And we are told Christianity uplifted the race, rid the world of pagan sin and paved the way for true civilization. This too is Catholic scholarship. According to this, the saved and sanctified Christians were not responsible for these wretched conditions; they were the result of the invasion of the barbarians and their destruction of the Roman Empire. Only after this, they say, did morality and learning sink to abysmal depths. They do not tell us these “awful barbarians” were also Christians. A hundred years before the invasion Bishop Ulfilas had given them a Gothic Bible, and they had embraced the faith.3 It was not then a case of barbarous pagans against civilized Christians, but barbarous Christians against semicivilized Christians. And of the two, the former were the more morally decent. Immorality is a civilized vice, and the higher the civilization, the more depraved its vicious-ness. Tacitus, in his book The Morals of the Germans , shamed the Romans by holding up to them the superior morals of their invaders. Hodglein, in his history, Italy and Her Invaders , called these Vandals “an army of Puritans”; and so did Salvianus. The latter also said that the invaders were scandalized by the moral indecencies of Christian Carthage. And here for once Catholic scholarship concurs, “Crimes of all kinds made Africa one of the most wretched provinces in the world.” Catholic Encyclopedia . Dean Milman, a Protestant historian, admits that “Christianity has given to barbarism hardly more than its superstition, and its hatred of heretics and unbelievers. Throughout assassinations, parricides and fratricides intermingle with adultery and rape.” After examining the morals of Italy under the Ostrogoths, he implies that those of pagan Rome were better than those of Christian Rome.

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  And the angel said unto her, Fear not Mary: for thou hast found favor with God. 31. And behold, thou shalt conceive in the womb, and bring forth a son, and shall call his name Jesus. (The Greek equivalent of Joshua— savior.) 32. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David; 33. And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. The same Old Testament promises. Were they intended literally, they would be as false as those given to Jacob and David, for Jesus never reigned over the house of Jacob or sat on David’s throne. Is it possible Gabriel was so mistaken? Not when you understand it: the house of Jacob is the world, and over it reigns the planetary Logos, and of its kingdom “there shall be no end,” at least for us. You see such statements make no sense when applied to man, the epigenetic; they are, as stated, applicable only to the planet, that is, the genetic. It is this the Creator is interested in, not a peasant girl in Galilee. To see it otherwise is to be guilty of the most benighted anthropomorphism. The Old Testament’s “angel of the Lord” now has a name, Gabriel, and the planetary genetic is now “the Holy Ghost,” verse 35. And how did he get into the New Testament? We did not find him in the Old. He got in by way of Persia and for a time contested Christianity, see page 452. As for Gabriel, he is the Hebrew Hermes, the messenger of the gods, and so he announced to the female aspect, which is matter, that from its virgin womb a physical sun should be born, here the planetary embryo on the sixth plane, as yet invisible. 34. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? The problem should not be difficult by this time; it is but the mother of Isaac, Samson and Samuel, all skeptical of barren, or virgin, space producing a sun. How shocking to say that this “virgin Mary” and Jonah’s whale are one and the same. 35. And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God (“Dr.” Luke, Chap. 1). If today a doctor reported a pregnancy in this manner, what would we think of him? The “good doctor” seems a bit confused and also contradictory. According to him Joseph had no part in this supernatural affair; it was the Holy Ghost. Yet later we learn that Jesus was of David’s line because Joseph was David’s descendant. How can this be when Joseph had no part in it?

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  That we may see this let us consider the Hindu Trinity: Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva—Creator, Preserver and Destroyer. But of what? Why, of the world, of course, hence cosmology, not religion. Brahma creates the substance of the world, Vishnu preserves it for billions of years, but finally Siva destroys it through radiation. If you would see all three at once you have only to look at the sun, the earth and the moon, the three stages in the cosmic process. Now compare this with the Christian Trinity. In his metaphysical incompetency Western man turns to his semi-Oriental Bible for his spiritual knowledge, but if this be the source of it, there should be no doctrine of the Trinity or belief in it, for this does not come from the Bible; indeed the word Trinity does not appear in the Bible, at least in the original. The nearest approach to it is the reference in John’s gospel to “three witnesses in heaven,” and all authorities today pronounce this an interpolation as late as the ninth century. How then did it get into the creeds? The doctrine of the Trinity is a wholly pagan concept, taken over by triumphant Christianity without its authors’ understanding of it. One of the chief contenders with early Christianity was Mithraism, the religion of the Persians. This had a Trinity, and in their efforts to win the Mithraists over to Christianity the Founding Fathers incorporated this pagan Trinity in their faith. Thus the Athanasian Creed is but an ecclesiastical attempt to harmonize Jewish monotheism with pagan polytheism. Originally the Trinity was part of ancient cosmology; it was only in the Zodiacal Night that it became religionized. The Christian Fathers took the pagans’ concept literally and on it founded the most spiritually illiterate Faith in all the annals of religious fanaticism. All others have some relic of the wisdom-knowledge in them; Christianity not only lacks it, it destroyed it. By the time this creed was written, all knowledge of Causation and Creation was lost, and so these creed makers knew no more about cosmogenesis than little children know about biogenesis. Over the one little word filioque , son, the Pope of Rome, Leo IX, and the patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Ceru-larius, excommunicated each other. And neither knew what he was talking about. This mutual excommunication occurred in 1054 and it took the Church 911 years to revoke it, in 1965. That is its pace and tardy reform. Only when the more enlightened laity makes of it an anachronism does it hasten to reform, hence the recent Ecumenical Council. Another “gathering” of the “ecclesia,” but how different from the first—some twenty-five hundred lords and princes of the Church in which “Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” And what was the purpose thereof? To discuss the great fundamentals, Causation, Creation, Truth, Reality? No, for of these they know nothing. And in what were “the sweeping changes” wrought? Poverty, ignorance, commercialism, communism, birth control?

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  In order to appear extraordinary and deeply in God’s favour, Limori cultivated an image of wealth and status. Her clothes have long been custom made by Susan. She wears jewelry that may not be the most expensive around, but is dramatic and eye catching, especially when paired with her wardrobe and charisma. The suite she had added for herself at Wolf’s Den was eye-poppingly lavish the one time I saw it: elegant, dark wood furniture upholstered in white, white area rugs, porcelain vases decorating the mantels, floor-to-ceiling picture windows that looked out on the lake, Gayle’s beautiful and arresting art hanging on the walls. When I walked through the door into the suite for the first and last time, it was as though I had been transported in a time machine to how I imagine an elegant hotel in 1920s Paris would look and feel. All this, in the middle of the Canadian wilderness. And, as I’ve previously mentioned, Wolf’s Den was not Limori’s home year-round. She took to travelling extensively in the mid-1990s and then to staying for months at a time in Hawaii and Arizona. Each home she rented and occupied would be furnished and outfitted to the standard she was used to, i.e., to that befitting a queen. She travelled first class when she flew, partly because of her self-appointed status and partly because of her girth; she would be hard pressed to fit into a coach seat on an airplane. So where did the money for all this lavish and expensive fluffery come from? Well, for starters she often used her charm to finagle fantastic deals on what she purchased from a storeowner or, even better, to get the storeowner to gift her the purchase outright. Limori always attributed these types of gifts to the fact that people recognized her as the right hand of God. Second, she always carried quite a bit of debt in order to live her lifestyle. She complained frequently about the debt but always followed up with, “God will make sure that the bills get paid. I’m just doing what he tells me to do. I don’t want to do all this travelling to Monte Carlo and Hawaii, but He insists, so I go.” And, as with most gurus, Limori’s disciples played a large part in keeping her in the style to which she wanted to become accustomed. I was never flush with money during the time I knew Limori, so I was never subjected to much mandatory donating to her cause, except for chipping in for things like the Wolf’s Den mortgage and the fees for workshops. But I have heard stories from others. For example, Gayle was coerced into giving Limori fifty thousand dollars, some of which was the widow’s benefits she received when her husband died. It is important to note that Limori always kept these types of financial transactions and gifts secret from those not directly involved.

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  The former idea came from the Latin Vulgate and reads as follows: “Cumque descenderet Moyses de monte Sinai, tenebat duas tabulas testimonii, et ignorabat quod cornuta esset facies sua ex consortio sermonis Domini “Translated this means: “And when Moses came down from Mount Sinai, he held two tables of the testimony, and he did not know that his face was horned from conversation with the Lord.” Modern scholars believe it should read rays rather than horns , but that is because they don’t know Moses. It is also why they can’t translate properly. Every attempt they make but robs the Bible of its true meaning. Horns are mythological accessories, and in no sense peculiar to the Hebrew Moses. Many mythical beings had them, among which was Bacchus, called by some “the horned child,” and by others, “Zagreus son of Zeus,” and Koré, or Persephone. Thus in the Dionysiacs we read: A Dragon-Bridegroom coiled in love-inspiring fold . . . Glided to dark Kore’s maiden couch . . . Thus by the alliance with the Dragon of Aether, The womb of Persephone became alive with fruit, Bearing Zagreus, the Horned Child. Moses is the earth, the horned beast of Revelation; he is Aries, the genetic Ram; he is Pan, the goatlike Aries on earth; he is Phallus Erectus, or the serpentine force thereof in Evolution. Thus the Vulgate is right and the rest are wrong. As one saved from water, Moses is what was saved after the Deluge. As such he is identical with the slimy dragon that Apollo discovered after the flood dried up. And this dragon is the devil of scripture, and its devil and its Moses are one. Both have horns and this is what the key word horns is trying to tell us. Like all the other Bible heroes, Moses is but a personification of the creative power, particularly its violent aspect. His milder brother, Aaron, like Abel, is the genetic consciousness; the word Aaron itself means “to conceive,” and it is he who does the prolific conceiving later on. It is this that eventually reveals the meaning and purpose of the earth, and so Aaron becomes a mouthpiece for its mindless partner, as did Joseph for Pharaoh, the one involutionary, the other evolutionary. Miriam, their sister, stricken with leprosy represents matter afflicted with disintegration. Were it otherwise, why did not these two miracle-workers cure her? The answer is, their miracles were the miracles of Creation, not man. Just here we wonder if the name Miriam derives from Meriram, chief of the Turbulents, see page 108. Moses’ serpentlike rod is the Hebrew Caduceus, symbol of the creative power, and wherever it strikes the earth a miracle is wrought. But so was it with Mises, and also Abaris, a high priest of Apollo. According to Pindar, Apollo gave this great one an arrow with which to work miracles. Why do we not believe these stories also?

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  As long as the Israelites remained in the flesh and followed the law of the body and the jungle, they pleased God immensely; as soon as they turned to pacific ways his wrath was kindled against them. Attributing punishment for their acts to God, however, is but more ignorance of Evolution and its constructs. It is only man’s own moral sense that condemns the evil doers, and only when this legally or psychologically catches up with them are they punished. This it is that sees in secret and rewards openly, but Paul, like his forebears, attributed it to God. 19. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God: For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness (1 Cor. 3). The wise here are not wise or they would not set in motion the punitive laws in nature. Its subtle law (cause and effect), operating on the psychic and mental planes, was just too deep for Paul. As the ignorant saints have always done, he interpreted it as detection and punishment by divine Omniscience. Paul understood Hebrew and Greek but apparently he did not understand Latin—Demon est deus inversus . If he had he would have known that a fallen God becomes a devil, and that it was this that was bedeviling him. 18. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh), dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present in me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. 19. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do (Rom. 7). And so said Ovid before him: “I see and approve the better things of life, the worse things I follow.” 23. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. The perplexed saint did not realize that this law in his members was the very God that he thought so good—the Creative Principle with its constructs—desire, lust, passion, greed—at war with his own human morality, the genetic versus the epigenetic. The trouble with Paul was that he had too much of the genetic in him and not enough of the epigenetic. He was not one of those “lukewarm” fellows of Laodicea; he belonged to Pergamos —or is it Pergonos?—the per standing for perversion, the “thorn” in his flesh. 20. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me (Rom. 7). Very well, if it was not he, why not learn who it really was and stop agonizing about it? Since it was not the epigenetic Paul, it was the genetic God. As Whitman said: It was not I that sinned the sin; The wretched body dragged me in. And so said the Hindu seers: “Desire does it. I do not do it.

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven (Matt. 16). Thus the Catholic Church is founded on Peter whom, four verses later, Jesus openly calls Satan. 23. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me . . . Thus if the Catholic Church is founded on Peter, it is founded on Satan—a fact we have long suspected. Satan means matter, and so does Peter the rock; therefore the two are one. Peter is but the New Testament Esau who founded, or rather was, the city called Petra, rock, and also édom, atom, earth. This it is that binds and looses according to its laws—St. Peter’s keys— and what it binds and looses is the Life Principle. The seven churches of Revelation are an outline of this. This binding and loosing Peter is also the New Testament Pharaoh; he too bound and loosed the life force. Moses’ warfare with him represents this, and Paul’s quarrel with Peter has the same meaning, cosmologically. As this binding and loosing is of nature, that of the Church is utterly false and pretentious. And this includes its blessings and its cursings; its excommunication, so dreaded by its people, has no moral or spiritual effect whatever; its results are political and social only and so but another means to power. And such also is Peter. Aside from its cosmological meaning, Peter’s story is the veriest nonsense—one mortal man endowed with the power over all humanity for all eternity; we thought that only God had this authority. In things religious, Catholics are indeed credulous but can they be so credulous as to believe that pre-Christian sages like Pythagoras, Plato, Socrates, and even Buddha require this ignorant Jewish fisherman to bind and loose their souls? And what of those pre-Christian Initiates from whom these ignorant religionists got their knowledge? Are they too bound and loosed by Peter? No, and neither are we. Such a man as Peter never existed; what then of the Catholic claim that he founded the Papacy of Rome? It is one with Romulus founding Rome itself; thus Peter is but an eponym. Yet the Catholic Encyclopedia says his founding of the Roman bishopric is “among the best ascertained facts of history,” and “no scholar now dares contradict it.” This is just a sample of Catholic scholarship. With its capacity for intellectual dishonesty, anything can be proved. And if no scholar dares contradict it, it is only because no scholar has sufficient knowledge to do so, thanks to two thousand years of Catholic scholarship.

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead. 31. And he called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, Rise up, and get ye forth from among my people, both ye and the children of Israel; and go, serve the Lord as ye have said. Thus stands the record, and upon that record religion must stand or fall, for if it be literally true and historical, this monster should be damned instead of worshiped; and if it be but mythology, the Bible’s religious authority is gone forever. The latter, we claim, is its true nature. That the race can read it, believe it, and still worship its monstrous God is an index of our intelligence, our knowledge of Causation, Reality, Truth. It is that of the child and the savage, yet this is the intelligence that is running our world; this is the intelligence that sustains our religion, nationalism, commercialism—and the giving away of countries on the words of a myth. These are not the fruits of wisdom and understanding but of incredible ignorance. Do you wonder then that we have war and oppression, crime and corruption? What would you expect of beings still in the God-worshiping stage? The destruction of the firstborn was the final touch; the broken Pharaoh was willing now to let the people go. Had this been history they would have been driven out or put in a ghetto. But what were these firstborn, and what the destruction? Literally, it should be the lastborn, final elements in the atomic table, but it all depends on what the mythologist was thinking about. Perhaps he knew that these last and heaviest elements were the first to be afflicted with disintegration and radiation. Our scientists are well aware of this process but they are not fully aware of its biologic significance, namely, that through disintegration and radiation creative intelligence becomes free from matter to create biologic forms, and atomic energy free to become biotic energy. As such it becomes vital enough to warrant a place in creation mythology; as history it does not. The ancients were well aware of the significance of this process but a mythologist could not say so in plain words, and so he made an allegory out of it. And the priestly scribe gave it a name; he called it “circumcision”—the removal through radiation of the genetic’s obstruction, namely, physical matter; and ridiculous as the terminology is, this is the place for it, Exodus, not Genesis. To quote the Kabbalah again: “The spirit clothes itself to come down and unclothes itself to go up.” And so all the elements going out must be circumcised (chapter 12). Later we will find them clothing themselves in flesh and again the priest has a strange and wonderful name for it.