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.

Page 138 of 253 · 20 per page

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  This story of Sheba, by the way, was taken from the Mahabharata , a book of Hindu poetry dating from about 500 B.C. If proof is needed that this part of the Bible is neither ancient, historical nor original, it is here. It proves that 1 and 2 Kings were not written during the alleged time of Solomon, nor were his proverbs. One wife, however, was not enough for this wise man. He had hundreds. Now what does this mean? Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had but one or two, but as we said, from the third plane down primordial matter became infinitely discrete or divided— the “monadic host,” as others called it. So here again a son of God saw the daughters of men and took them to wife. 1. But King Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites; 3. And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart (Chap. 11). Thus did the Jews libel all women—not that it has no biologic basis, but why make them the entire cause? It takes two to make a concubine. It’s all right in mythologized cosmology, however; the holy Krishna of India had more than twice that number. Women in creation myths always represent matter or the material elements; Solomon’s many women then were but the many material elements the genetic principle united with to form a physical world, the seven hundred being symbolic of the seven planes. This it was that turned away Solomon’s heart, from the spiritual to the material—Demon est Deus inversus again. The implication is that from here on Solomon became evil, and so we learn now that, like all Old Testament personifications of God, Solomon was a murderer, killing even his own brother, Adonijah. Thus Solomon is the Cain of this story. Nevertheless, “the Lord loved him,” and commissioned him to build His “holy temple.” For this, Solomon sent his ships to the ends of the then-known world for materials, but elsewhere we were told that David assembled these. This is not a contradiction, just an overlap of two sun myths. This “holy temple” has gone down in history as one of the greatest of all buildings, yet according to specifications it was small indeed, only about 40 by 125 feet, and the chancels built around it were so puny as to be meaningless. Compared to other ancient temples, this one was insignificant. Consider Nagkon-Wat in Cambodia, for instance. It is 769 by 588 by 250 feet, elaborately carved and columned. In the stonework there are approximately 100,000 figures, one picture occupying 240 feet. Solomon’s temple, like Solomon himself, never existed on this earth, for the simple reason, it is the earth—that “temple not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,” that same temple the Great Pyramid symbolizes. Thus Solomon is one with Philithion, its alleged builder, not actual but mythical.

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  5:2).” This is a modern literalist wrestling with ancient occultism, and no more knowledgeable than those at Ezimgeber and Ararat. Solomon’s temple is the sun; the city of David is the earth. Pharaoh’s daughter is its matter, which later went up from the earth to form the evolutionary part of the temple. Thus these three buildings—the temple, the king’s palace, and the queen’s house—are occultly identical with the Sphinx—Leo, Libra, and Virgo. It is also one with the Phoenix but alas, there’s been no Oedipus to solve its riddle. The scriptures also make much of ancient Israel’s military power, but this we suspect was as mythical as its naval power. Wherever the military accounts of other nations speak of the Jews at all, it is to record a complete triumph over them. Their scriptural triumphs, therefore, were but literary compensation for their lack of military and political power. As Spengler aptly put it: “For the Chaldeans and Persians there was no need to trouble here about proof—they had by their God conquered the world. But the Jews had only their literature to cling to, and this accordingly turned to theoretical proof in the absence of positive. In the last analysis, this unique national treasure owes its origin to the constant need of reacting against self-depreciation.” To this end they perverted other races’ history to glorify themselves. As recorded by them, Hezekiah, with the help of their God, completely and miraculously destroyed Sennacherib’s army at the gates of Jerusalem, whereas in fact, this calamity did not happen at Jerusalem at all. It happened at Pelusium near the border of Egypt, and it wasn’t miraculous. Thus the Jews and their God had nothing to do with it. They merely used another’s misfortune to fake a glorious history. When no such factual event served this purpose, they invented one—the cruelty of a Pharaoh, the weakness of the Syrians, etc. Chapter 20 of 1 Kings, for instance, tells about 7,000 Jews killing 100,000 Syrians in one day, but the symbolic language and literal absurdities should make us suspect its mythological nature. 29. And they pitched one over against the other seven days. And so it was, that in the seventh day the battle was joined: and the children of Israel slew of the Syrians an hundred thousand footmen in one day. 30. But the rest fled to Aphek, into the city; and there a wall fell upon twenty and seven thousand of the men that were left. . . . That must have been a big wall, so big indeed it killed the fact as well as the footmen. Had we read it in some ancient pagan book we would dismiss it as mythology. Well, it is Hebrew mythology, and this is why so many events in Jewish history take place on the seventh day or year and require forty days or years to complete them: “And the seventh year Jehoiada sent and fetched the rulers over hundreds” 2 Kings 11:4.

• From The Erotic Engine (2011)

  It happens that consumers of pornography are an excellent test market for a product that could have ramifications for hundreds of millions of people around the world. Antoine Metivier refers to his company’s client base as “the digitally nervous, and the digitally excluded.” Metivier, a transplanted Frenchman now living in London, is the head of European sales for a company called uKash. His is one of two companies pioneering the use of cash transactions on the Internet. For suppliers, cash transactions have the benefit of zero risk for chargebacks. In turn, customers can be sure that their payments are untraceable and that there is no danger of unauthorized debits from their credit cards or bank accounts. As with so many other technologies, cash-based Internet transactions did not begin in the adult world, but the adult world is the proving ground where the system is prepared for mainstream use. The gambling industry was the first to implement the system—online gamblers liked how nobody knew how much they were spending, and nobody knew how much they were winning. Spouses, tax collectors, creditors and anybody else who might lay claim to the spoils of a lucky wager had no way to follow the money. Gambling and pornography are often lumped together as “vice industries” by people who are involved with neither. Within these two sectors, though, not all vices are equal. The gambling industry does not care to have its reputation sullied by an association with porn, and many in the porn world view gambling in the same light. “I used to work for a company that was specializing in the gambling industry,” Metivier told me, “and the first thing I told them was, ‘Why don’t we do adult?’” But the company was reluctant to tarnish itself by allying with purveyors of pornography. (Those in the porn business see their own industry as the morally superior of the two. “If you’re addicted to gambling, you can lose your house,” one adult webmaster told me. “Even if you’re addicted to pornography, that’s not going to happen.”) Metivier’s company’s gambling clientele was largely based in the Middle East and South Asia, where gambling was better tolerated than pornography. It took an economic downturn and some changes in leadership before the company was willing to explore the pornographic markets for online cash. Once it made the move, it found that anti-pornographic sentiment actually worked to its advantage. Many countries limit the scope of the pornography industry through financial regulations that affect the use of credit cards and bank accounts. Cash is much more difficult for a government to control, and is therefore much more appealing to customers. Metivier sees client comfort level as the most important value point of his company’s system.

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  These tablets speak of the Habiri, and our apologists assume these were Hebrews. There is no proof of this nor would they be construed as such but for the priestly necessity. The Tell-el-Amarna tablets contain a political correspondence between Ikhnaton (Amenhotep IV) of Egypt and Barrburyash II, king of Assyria 1375 B.C., and at that time the Hebrews as a distinct sect did not exist, the Bible to the contrary. Only as the sequel to the allegorical Genesis does this scriptural Exodus become intelligible. As such it tells the same shocking story—the nonmoral and murderous nature of Causation; that is, the Jhwhist part does; the others try to conceal it. The first chapter, and the second down to the tenth verse, is from the Elohist and Priestly accounts, and here as elsewhere they extol the virtues of God and his “chosen people,” then the Jhwhist steps in and tells us the truth—Moses is a murderer. 11. And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren. 12. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand (Chap. 2). Thus does life begin. Why have we overlooked this beginning in every Bible myth? Because it was subsequently covered over with sanctity, divinity and poetry, the harlotry of scriptural mythology. In this account we have a good example of that whitewashing referred to in our Preface. Neither the Priestly nor Elohist account mentions this murder, yet if their God was opposed to murder why did he pick this murderer, Moses? Because a murderer was just the man he needed. Life itself is murderous and the Jhwhist knew it. Being nearest to the Zodiacal Day, he was, like the Greek mythologists, an Initiate in the Mysteries and knew the cosmic facts. Then came the darkness and the priests, knowing nothing. These destroyed the mythic legacy. Midway between the two was the Elohist, and there you have the three, not four, sources of the Bible. That both priest and prophet used the same formula “And God said” implies one source, and one concern—sin, not truth. If those parts of the Bible attributed to prophets were not written by professional priests, then they were written by priestly minded nonprofessionals. After this crime, Moses fled to Midia, and the “sons of the snake.” There he meets Zipporah, watering her father’s flock, as did Rebekah and Rachel. And Moses marries her, as did Isaac and Jacob. But according to Josephus, he had a wife already, Tharbis, daughter of the king of Ethiopia, that same Aethiopia of Genesis. This is no scandal in Moses’ life, however, for in mythology Egypt and Ethiopia are one, and also one with Midia, the middle point in Creation, namely, earth.

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  Pope Leo the V was deposed by another Christopher, who was in turn deposed and succeeded by the aforesaid criminal Sergius III, who murdered his predecessors. At this time it was not the Holy Ghost that selected the popes but what Cardinal Baronius called scortas , whores. This was the “rule of the courtesans,” sometimes called the Pornocracy, or reign of the whores. Among them was one Baronius called the “shameless whore,” Theodora, and her equally shameless daughter Marozia. Both had sons by Sergius III, and both put their illegitimates on the papal throne—John XI and John XII. The first was imprisoned, the second “turned the Lateran Palace into a brothel.” There was no crime he didn’t commit—murder, perjury, adultery, incest with his two sisters, bleeding and castrating his enemies, etc. He died, we are told, at the hands of an outraged husband. According to the record, Cardinal Francone had Benedict VI strangled, after which he became Boniface VII, “a horrid monster surpassing all other mortals in wickedness,” according to Gerbert. He was no worse however than Boniface VIII—”a strong and courageous Pope.” Yes indeed! To gain his tiara he had the halfwit Celestine V disposed of. He did not long enjoy his victory for soon he was driven out by the Romans. Under a successor, Clement V, he was tried posthumously and found guilty of every crime including pederasty and murder. And when Clement died, his successor, John XXII, revealed that Clement had been so very clement he had given his nephew the equivalent of five million dollars of papal money. It was at this time the papal court was moved to Avignon, and now St. Peter had two successors, one at Avignon and one at Rome. But even this was not enough; there were at one time three—Gregory XII, Alexander V, and John XXIII.9 So corrupt was the latter, Sigmund of Hungary called a council to investigate him. The result was fifty-four articles describing him as “wicked, irreverent, unchaste, a liar, disobedient and infected with many vices.” As a cardinal he had been “inhuman, unjust and cruel.” As Pope he was “an oppressor of the poor, persecutor of justice, pillar of the wicked, statue of the simoniacs, addicted to magic, the dregs of vice . . . wholly given to sleep and carnal desires, a mirror of infamy, a profound inventor of wickedness.” He secured the Papacy by “violence and fraud and sold indulgences, benefices, sacraments and bulls.” He practiced “sacrilege, adultery, murder, rape and theft.” And now we can understand Petrarch’s remark—”a sink of iniquity.” Some of these popes so outraged decency they were exiled. At least two of them had their eyes and tongues cut out, then were dragged through the streets tied to the tail of an ass. Still others were so despised their corpses were exhumed and thrown into the Tiber.

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  S. Mead, in Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.? The answer to his query is, Yes, mythologically. This was the Jesus of the pre-Christian Nazarites. More recently Tillich concluded: “Historical research has made it obvious that there is no way to get at the historical events which have produced the Biblical picture of Jesus who is called the Christ with more than a degree of probability.” And Dr. Schweitzer came to the same conclusion. In trying to explain away this silent century, the excuse is made that Judea was isolated and that there was no “news service” in those days; therefore these men did not know about Christ. No, but they did know about the new religion: Jerome refers to Seneca as “our own Seneca,” therefore Seneca knew; Theodoret, writing of Plutarch, said, “he had heard of our holy Gospel and inserted many of our sacred mysteries in his works.” Yes, he had heard of the “sacred mysteries” (and who hadn’t in those days?) but not of Christ, and the reason is that the Christ of religion did not then exist. “We find nothing like divinity ascribed to Christ before Justin Martyr (141 A.D.) who from being a philosopher became a Christian.” Dr. Priestly. Not much of a philosopher, we suspect, for he became convinced of a historical Christ by reading the Old Testament prophecies of a Messiah—and they are not prophecies. We should not, in passing, miss the significance of this: if the philosophers of the time could not distinguish myth from history, what of the ignorant masses? This too will be dealt with later. Those who accepted Christianity were unquestionably ignorant, but our modern apologists cannot charge the aforesaid pagans with it; they were all men of exceptional intelligence. Some of them held high office and therefore knew their world. Pliny the Elder was procurator in Spain; Pliny the Younger was governor of Bithynia; Josephus was governor of Galilee; Seneca was the brother of Gallio, proconsul of Achaia at precisely the time Paul is said to have preached there. While he wrote of many lesser things, no mention is made of Paul or the wonder-working Christ. Yet surely the latter’s miracles, virgin birth, and so on, would have interested him. They would have made excellent material for his Questionum Naturalium . Just here we could explain another mystery: Why did none of these world Saviors write a book? The reason should now be obvious—world Saviors do not make books; books make them. They are the creations of mythologists, not historians, of occultists, not literalists. Coming down to the aforesaid Justin Martyr, we have, perhaps, the strongest refutation of all. This particular phantast sought to convert the rejecting Jews to Christianity, and in his writings he tells us of his encounter with one named Trypho.

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  As Moses was told to go to Sinai to receive power and do great works, so Paul was told to go to Damascus for like reasons. Moses built a tabernacle, Paul a church. Moses preached biologic Tightness, Paul, moral righteousness. Moses fought against Pharaoh for the release of the Life Principle, and Paul fought against Peter, the rock, for the same purpose. As the Israelites were imprisoned, so were the apostles, and both were released by miraculous powers. The cue to this parallel is given in Acts, which gives Paul’s history. Chapter 7 recounts the whole story of Moses that we may see the connection. The account of Moses is very convincing, and so is that of Paul, but the conviction lies not in historical fact but in the art of literature. The Jewish literati instead of divinifying man, so divinified falsehood that it looks like truth. As the founding of a new priesthood was their purpose, they falsified even the Pauline doctrine. The crux of this lies in a fact wholly unknown to the Christian masses, namely, the distinction between the words Christ and Chrest By the time the Christians got done with it, second and third century, the title given to Jesus was everywhere spelled Christ, but prior to this it was Chrest, possibly from the Greek word chre , which meant kind, gracious, etc., or the Egyptian karast , meaning fleshed—the word made flesh. In his Apology , Justin Martyr calls his coreligionists Chrestians. And so it was for three centuries. To quote from Massey: “In Bockh’s1 Christian Inscriptions, numbering 1,287, there is not a single instance of an earlier date than the third century wherein the name is not written Chrest or Chreist.” This was changed by those “who added or removed what seemed good to them in the work of correction,” as Origen said. It was this pre-Christian Gnostic symbol of spiritual being that Paul preached, and so came into conflict with the priests and their prerequisite. This conflict, presented as between Paul and Peter, is not understood today, even by the most learned theologians. They assume it was some internal dispute about the teachings of the gospel Christ. It was, on the contrary, the conflict between the supporters of this gospel Christ and the pregospel Greek Chrestos, the universal Logos, as of John. The adherents of this more esoteric doctrine called themselves Chrestianoi. Their headquarters was in Antioch, in Asia Minor, and it was there, not Jerusalem, that the sect first became known as Chrestians, as set forth in Acts but now written Christians. The Judean sect was not even known as Christians, though later this was applied to them derisively; they called themselves Nazarenes, Galileans, and Brethren. These were priestly minded and bent on founding a religion on a personal Christ; naturally then they were shocked and annoyed to learn of an antecedent and rival sect appropriating the name Chrestians without reference to their Christ.

• From Simply Jesus (2011)

  The Temple had, as it were, been a great signpost pointing forward to another reality that had lain unnoticed for generations, like the vital clue in a detective story that is only recognized as such in the final chapter. Remember the promise to David—that God would build him a “house,” a family, founded on the son of David who would be the son of God? David had wanted to build a house for God, and God had replied that he would build David a “house.” David’s coming son is the ultimate reality; the Temple in Jerusalem is the advance signpost to that reality. Now that the reality is here, the signpost isn’t needed anymore. But it isn’t just that the signpost had become redundant with the arrival of the reality. The Temple, as many other first-century Jews recognized, was in the wrong hands and had come to symbolize the wrong things. It was, for a start, a place that for many Jews stank of commercial oppression. This is an additional rather obvious overtone of Jesus’s action in driving out the money changers and the traders. But it gets worse. The Temple was the center of the banking system. It was where the records of debts were kept; the first thing the rebels did when they took over the Temple in the great revolt was to burn those records. That tells you quite a lot about how people saw the Temple. I had a letter today from the tax man, politely asking me for my annual contribution to government finances. If I don’t answer it, the next one won’t be so polite. Now imagine letters and records building up, detailing all the debts of ordinary people in Jerusalem, while the chief priests, who ran the system, lived in their fine mansions in the nice part of town and went about in their smart clothes. If you were an ordinary, hardworking resident of Jerusalem or the surrounding area, what would you think of the building that was supposed to be God’s house, but that stored the records of your debts, while the rich rulers who performed the religious rituals marched by with their noses in the air on their way to put on their splendid vestments and chant their elaborate prayers? Yes, that’s exactly how many people saw the Temple. It gets worse again. The Temple had come to symbolize the nationalist movement that had led many Jews to revolt against pagan oppression in the past and would lead them to do so once more.

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  Yet what would you expect if they were men of God? The Jews are proud of being the “chosen” of this God, but little do they realize its occult implication. As for the epithet: the bald-headed Elisha was but the bald-headed earth, still naked and bare like Adam and Noah, and biologically wanting like Belshazzar. The children’s voices crying, “Go up, thou bald head,” are the same voices Elijah heard saying, “What doest thou here, Elijah?”—the planetary urge to rise and create. In an Oriental book a thousand years older than the Bible, the bare, primeval earth is called “bald head,” and in Mexico a sacred hill where their God was crucified bears the same name. Later we will come to another— Calvary. Chapter 4 tells us about Elisha miraculously filling the poor woman’s vessel with oil, as Elijah had filled another’s barrel with meal; also of his feeding a hundred men with a few loaves of barley. Thus Christ was not the first to multiply food for the hungry, nor yet to raise the dead. Both Elijah and Elisha did that. A Shunammite woman had befriended Elisha, and when her child fell sick she sent for this man who had just killed forty-two children. Is there no one in all Christendumb sufficiently enlightened to see the meaning of these contradictions? No, not in two thousand years, and the reason was given in our Preface—the metaphysical incompetency of Western man. His borrowed Bible is just too subtle for his blunted mind to understand. Of its contents he comprehends only the literal word, and so, like a child reading a fairy tale, he believes this scriptural infanticide was at the same time so divine he could bring the dead to life even after he himself was dead. 20. And Elisha died, and they buried him. . . . 21. And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet (Chap. 13). And Western man believes that. Here again he cannot see that this is but the work of the genetic palmed off on him as that of the epigenetic. Elisha is the genetic principle, and its task is to raise biologic life from “dead matter.” And such are all scriptural raisings of the dead. Before Elisha died he carried out Elijah’s command to anoint Jehu king of Israel. And so we have another anointed trinity—Elijah, Elisha, and Jehu. And what a strange way these people had of ordaining their leader. In this case a young man was chosen to carry a box of oil to Jehu’s quarters, and, by hook or by crook, pour it on him and run. This he finally accomplished, then “opened the door and fled.” 11.

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  We said John of the Gospels knew not the Christ of religion, and neither did the Revelator. To him the Son of God is a power, not a person. 19. I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first. The church of Thyatira, number five, represents life and consciousness on the fifth major plane. Here the “eyesalve” has been found and used, and so the greed and selfishness, blindness and ignorance of the fourth plane consciousness become charity, service, faith, and patience, and altruistic work more than all. These are some of those last things , now attained. They are also things the Church would have us practice but does not know how to condition us so that we want to do them. This is a matter of consciousness, a factor the Church cannot develop. Yet we are what our consciousness is; therefore if we are “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked,” it is because our consciousness is likewise, and morally and spiritually the Church is to blame. In this vast enterprise it has nothing to offer but that worn-out tale of Christ and him crucified, and what is there in this to enlighten and thus develop consciousness? It is new knowledge that does that. And what is there in business? Verse 20 answers that. 20. Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols (the Borborites; Chap. 20). This implies unwise adherence of spiritual consciousness to material things, and we not only adhere to them, we are bogged down and mired in them. Not even fifth-plane consciousness is perfect and so it lets in these fourth-plane desires to make a brothel, fornix , out of it—and this is the fornication of Thyatira. In the modern book just referred to, this Jezebel is referred to as a woman contemporary with this church and the suggestion is made that she may have been the bishop’s wife. And such is priestly understanding. Not even the Old Testament Jezebel is referred to, yet she too stands for all that undeveloped nature consists of. She is therefore used here to symbolize the desires and passions of the lower planes. 21. And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not. 22. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. 23. And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works (Chap. 2).

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  While he spoke as a Gnostic, there is much that is deep and profound in his words, but alas, he could not escape his heritage. His preachments, like those of his forebears, are all of the goodness of God and the unworthiness of man, the sins of the flesh and salvation by faith. Indeed faith was his watchword and by faith he endures. Faith has its place, but what does it get us if what we have faith in doesn’t exist—a loving God and a saving Christ? Were two such wondrous beings running the world, how could it be as it is? And why should we worry about it? The fact is, we don’t and because of our faith in these false doctrines. Such faith is well expressed in this little offering of pious ignorance. A year untried before me lies; What it shall bring of strange surprise Of joy or grief I cannot tell But God my father knoweth well I make it no concern of mine But leave it all with love divine. Anon, (and it is well) For two thousand years we too have left it all with “love divine,” and what a mess it has made of it—incessant warfare, poverty and ignorance. In peace and plenty we live by “faith in Christ” and the “grace of God,” and when war comes they fail us miserably. Fair-weather allies, these! If we must have faith in something, let us first determine whether that something exists, or at least has a substantive in Reality. But this, we are told, is not faith at all; faith is belief in the unknown. But since the unknown is likely the unreal also, what good is faith in it? Faith in the unknown is foolishness; if should have no place in human thought whatever, and especially in religion. When you come to the unknown, let suspended judgment take over. Beyond this lies only belief in other believers’ ignorant assumptions. Intelligent faith is faith in the known and its as yet, unrevealed powers and possibilities. As for instance: the world is known and it has limitless powers and potencies still unmanifested; man is known and he too has limitless possibilities, still to manifest. Here then are objects of intelligent faith, yet these are the very things those who advocate faith refuse to have faith in. As an example of intelligent faith we might quote the following from Condorcet. “No bounds have been fixed to the improvement of the human faculties; the perfectability of man is absolutely indefinite; the progress of this perfection, henceforth above the control of every power that would impede it, has no other limit than the duration of the globe upon which nature has placed us.” And this magnificent faith was written while Condorcet was in prison and facing the guillotine. This is intelligent faith—belief in the, as yet, unseen possibilities of the known.

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  In the literal sense he suffered but a few hours; we, his creation, for millions of years. Let’s keep our pity then for those who still suffer, not waste it on fictional pain. Such pain is easy to bear, as proved by stage and screen. Uninformed Christians, and that means most of them, believe that only their Savior suffered death on a cross, whereas some sixteen of them died in just this way. A list may help the credulous to escape their crucifixion upon the cross of superstition. Jesus—Nazareth Krishna—India Sakia—India Iva—Nepal Indra—Tibet Mithra—Persia Tammuz—Babylonia Criti—Chaldea Attis—Phrygia Baili—Orissa Thules—Egypt Orontes—Egypt Witoba of the—Telingonese Odin—Scandinavia Hesus—the Druids Quetzalcoatl—Mexico Please note the similarity in name of the Druidic and Christian Saviors. Occultly, they are all similar, for all are the Creative Principle crucified upon the cross of matter. The cross is not, therefore, Christian in its origin; it is a universal symbol found on temples, tablets, and artifacts throughout the entire ancient world. Centuries B(efore) the C(onfusion), the city of Nicaea was laid out in the form of a cross; and centuries after, the cross was used by the Aztecs, who never heard of Christ until his followers came to rob and kill them. In man himself, standing erect with arms outstretched, we see the living symbol of this cross and the model on which the mythical cross was made. The latter is cosmic, not human. The significance of the cross is not, therefore, due to the fact that a Savior was crucified upon it, but, on the contrary, all Saviors were said to have been crucified upon it because of its significance. John, more occult than the rest, has Christ carry his own cross, and thus does he imply that each of us should do likewise. Why then expect even a Son of God to carry it for us? Whether we know it or not we are carrying it, and all we need to carry it triumphantly is superreligious enlightenment. The cross, like all Christian paraphernalia, is but an appropriation of pagan mythology. What is more, this appropriation did not occur until about three hundred years after the alleged crucifixion. Until then the Christian symbol was the swastika, originally a symbol of creative motion. The word is Sanskrit, and derived thus: su (good), asti (being), and with the suffix ka , becomes “It is well.” As such it was worn as a talisman and token of good cheer. Later a lamb was used, Aries, “slain from the foundation,” etc. When all knowledge of the natural and creative significance of the crucifixion was lost, and the tortured Savior from sin began to dominate the Christian mind, the crucifix was substituted. Now every Catholic home has one or more, and pictures of the tortured Christ hang in every room. Yet such things do not bring peace to such homes; only enlightenment can do that.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  For the first time, large numbers of homeless men and women started sleeping rough on the streets of London. An underpass near Waterloo station, where people erected shelters out of boxes, became known as Cardboard City; there was a soup kitchen for the destitute on the South Bank. In the Middle East, religious certainty led to such atrocities as the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in October 1981; in Britain, Thatcher’s economic and political certainty had pushed people onto the streets. As far as I could see, certainty made people heartless, cruel, and inhuman. It closed their minds to new possibilities; it made them complacent and pleased with themselves. It also did not work. The new regime in Iran seemed just as oppressive as that of the shah, the murder of Sadat did not lead to a new era in Egypt, and Thatcherism too would prove to be an expensive mistake. This type of certainty was unrealistic, and out of step with the way things really worked. Religious people seemed particularly prone to this dogmatism, and even though there was nothing remotely religious or Christian about Mrs. Thatcher’s regime, the experience of living in “Maggie’s Britain” made me even more leery of faith, dogmatism, and orthodoxy, which so often—even in a good cause—made people ride roughshod over other people’s sensitivities. That kind of certainty had damaged me in the past, and I wanted no more of it. Sally was one of the first people I had met in my own generation who had been totally untouched by religion. Unlike the Harts or Susan, my former housemate, she did not recoil from religion in principled disgust, but regarded it as a strange, incomprehensible eccentricity, like swimming in the Serpentine on Christmas Day. Why would anybody want to do anything so bizarre! The basic doctrines of Christianity had passed her by. When she was having difficulty in her classes on Milton’s Paradise Lost, I tried to explain the concept of original sin. Sally was appalled. “You’re not serious!” she exclaimed. “All that fuss over eating a piece of fruit. What a system!” I could see her point. What kind of God would damn the whole human race because of one momentary lapse? Only one that I wanted nothing to do with. In fact, the more I thought about God these days, the more I realized how much I had probably always, subconsciously, disliked him. These days it seemed that he had lurked in my life like Big Brother in George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-four, spying on everything I did, thought, and felt, endlessly dissatisfied, and doling out favors and punishments indiscriminately. Sally was quite right.

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  There is but one other subject we would like to deal with here—the disciples. Who were they, and what were they? As presented, they were the few among millions spiritual enough to discern the divine nature of Christ, and this in spite of the recorded fact that they were “unlearned and ignorant men” (Acts 4:13). There’s a lesson for us in that, but not the chief one. If these constant companions of Jesus were historical characters, how is it St. Paul knew nothing about them? Concerning this, Robertson in his Christianity and Mythology has this to say: “On the face of all the gospels alike, the choosing of the Twelve Apostles is an unhistorical narrative; and in the documents from which all scientific study of Christian origins must proceed— the Epistles of Paul—there is no evidence of the existence of such a body. In only one instance is it mentioned, and that is demonstrably part of a late interpolation, whatever view we may take of the original authenticity of the Epistles.” Paul then knew nothing of a “twelve.” His Jesus was the mythic, pre-Christian symbol. The authors of the Gospels knew quite well who these twelve were but they had a professional reason for disguising them. They were thus like our professional detective story writers, in knowing something the reader doesn’t know, namely, “whodunit.” And so, like their modern counterparts they blind and deceive the reader by every trick of their trade. It is for us to see through this trick and thereby learn for ourselves “whodunit.” Had Western man done this in the beginning he would have saved himself two thousand years of spiritual madness. It’s rather late now, but suppose we apply it to this scriptural “whodunit.” Among occultists these twelve have ever been identified with the twelve signs of the zodiac, but only in its annual and solar sense. This is modern understanding and not enough. We must learn to see them in terms of the greater, cosmogonical zodiac. As such they are the New Testament’s Elohim, the twelve creative forces; they are Jacob’s twelve sons, and the twelve tribes of Israel. Among the Chinese they were the Tien Hoang, or “world creators”; among the Hindus, the twelve Aditya, the twelve Nidanas, or “causes of being.” In Greece they were the twelve Titans, and in Scandinavia the twelve Aesirs of Asgard. The gods Osiris and Marduk also had their twelve helpers. The twelve disciples are but the New Testament equivalent of these pagan deities, in other words, the dramatis personae in the drama of Creation. Now “in order of appearance” the first of these were fishermen or watermen, and the waters here are the same as in Genesis and Aquarius, the primordial sea. Chief of these was Peter, whom Jesus said was the son of Jonah the fishman. Calling Peter a son of Jonah, though figurative, is an occult hint of Peter’s original nature, the primordial waters.

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth:. . . The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal (because it is a globe). 17. And he measured the wall thereof, a hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel. The angel is the creative power and this and Man, capital m , are one. The number of cubits in the wall is the same as those who are saved, namely, 144. This and the number of the beast, 666, the number of the “woman clothed with the sun,” 1,260, and even Adam, spelt in Hebrew Adm , are numerically the same. And all are the earth entity. And it is this drab entity that St. John describes so glowingly: 18. And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass. 19. And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald; 20. The fifth, sardonyx; the six, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst. The twelve zodiacal divisions with their birthstone symbology are shown in the list below. Jewish gem symbology based on the lesser zodiac is as follows: [image "image" file=Image00012.jpg] This is “the Holy City” on which we base our faith in a heaven hereafter. If it isn’t a hoax what is it? As an ideal, it is but a dream of the Zodiacal Night; now that that is passing we must wake and buckle down to the task of building this city on earth. 21. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass. And this is our “pearly gates” and “streets of gold”! This is the city this saintly humbug saw “coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband”—gran-diloquent symbology of this old world in its radiant sun period. Yet on such bases religions are founded. Such is the power of words, particularly on fear and ignorance. Indeed, so powerful are they, anyone with sufficient command of them can rule the world. This was the priests’ original objective. Instead of visions of God and his holy city, Revelation is but the ancient Gnosis of the pagan mystics whom the Christian Fathers with inhuman cruelty exterminated. But this so-called saint, actually gnostic, was too smart for them; he wrote their “hated doctrine” up in such a way as to make them accept it as a cornerstone in their temple of lies. And there for two thousand years they have bowed in reverent awe before the thing they hated most.

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  But Pilate answered them, saying, Will ye that I release unto you the King of the Jews?1 10. For he knew that the chief priests had delivered him for envy. 11. But the chief priests moved the people, that he should rather release Barabbas unto them. 14. Then Pilate said unto them, Why, what evil hath he done? And they cried out the more exceedingly, Crucify him (Mark 15). 24. When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it (and if we were as wise as Pilate we, too, would wash our hands of it; Matt. 27). So much argument over the question, Who killed Jesus? yet do not the scriptures make it clear? Not the Romans, whose Governor sought to save him; not the whole Jewish people, for “many heard him gladly”; but the priests, the crucifiers then as now of truth and progress. And what hate and bigotry, persecution and war they have caused! Brother against brother and nation against nation, and all for what? A Creation myth mistaken for history. Roman and Jew, priest and apostle are but characters in the drama thereof. Jesus, the lead, is the Life Principle, His silence, its unconsciousness; His courage, its determined purpose. Throughout the Old Testament, the Jews represent the Life Principle, and the Gentiles its opponents; in the Gospels this is reversed, then John of Revelation reverts to the Old Testament symbolism—proof that he is not the John of the Gospels. Pilate, a historical figure, is here made to represent, as in Genesis, that which would stay the descent of spirit into matter. Because of Pilate’s effort, taken literally, the Coptic Church made him a saint and celebrates his day in May. In both the Coptic and the Greek Orthodox Church, his wife Claudia Procla is also a saint, October 27 being St. Procla’s Day. Saint in one country, devil in another, and all for want of knowledge. In the Barabbas incident there’s an occult touch that is indeed revealing. In his effort to save Jesus, Pilate offered the crowd a murderer, but they rejected him. What an indictment of the Jews, we say, demanding that the Son of God be crucified instead of a criminal. The real indictment, however, is of ourselves, for it proves we are spiritually benighted. The Son ōf God and the murderous Barabbas are one. The full name of the latter was Jesus Barabbas, the first name being dropped only after the name Jesus became sacred. Bar-abbas means “son of the fathers”; therefore Jesus Barabbas, son of the Father(s), and Jesus Christ, Son of God, are one and the same. The only possible difference is that between creative consciousness and its violent energy, the Cain of this story. In other myths it’s the murderous Set of Egypt, and the ruthless Romulus of Rome.

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  This Passover was observed in an “upper room,” the still prephysical part of the new world; and here this Sun of God and his twelve aspects ate their “last supper” in Involution, a supper of bread and wine—the nectar and ambrosia of the gods. Here Jesus declares that one of these aspects will betray Him, as later another denied Him—Judas, matter, and Peter, rock. Thus Judas and Peter are the Delilah and Medusa of this myth. Now compare this cosmic picture with Christian art and custom—Da Vinci’s “Last Supper,” and the sacrament. As they partook of this meal Jesus instituted the latter. As he ate and drank the bread and wine, he said, “Do this in remembrance of me,” and ever since deluded people have been doing it, not because they understand it, but because they don’t. Here perhaps they can find out. The wine and bread are symbols of the two aspects, consciousness and energy, changed or transubstantiated in the creative process. This is the transubstantiation symbolized by the “holy eucharist.” The involutionary elements are different on the evolutionary side; they become isosmeric, that is, same in substance but different in quality. Indeed they undergo two changes: first, in the sun-earth organism, second, in the plant-animal organism. Thus transubstantiation is a significant factor in Creation, hence also in mythology. The ancients, as we said, knew much more about these things than we do; they evidently studied nature, not divinity, and left their knowledge in esoteric allegory. This we have interpreted literally, and so become the victims of one of the most baseless and superstitious forms of religion in all the annals of theomania. The Aztecs may have been crueler, but not more credulous. Anyone who thinks that ordinary bread and wine are actually “transubstantiated” into the flesh and blood of Christ by the mumbled words of an ignorant priest should put a little arsenic in them first. He will find then that the flesh and blood of Christ are deadly poison. This ignorant Christian custom of eating and drinking commonplace bread and wine in the hope of gaining some Christlike virtue is but a relic of the savage rite of omophagia—the eating and drinking of another person’s or animal’s flesh and blood to acquire his or its qualities, strength, courage, and so on. But the civilized, so-called, have gone the savage one better; they eat a god instead of a man, and so the savage’s anthropophagy is now theanthropóphagy. It is on this and the crucifixion that the Catholics base their Mass, a pious mumbo-jumbo to which nature answers, “Me no understand.” Every word and gesture is supposed to have profound significance, yet what significance can they have when the whole ritual is based on something that never happened? How educated and supposedly intelligent men can believe such antics important can be explained only by the spiritual ignorance of Western man.

• From Boys & Sex (2020)

  Friendship is sweet. Brotherhood is sustaining. But pay attention to the tenor of those all-male groups: under certain circumstances, they can feed aggression, antipathy toward women, and assault. When looking at colleges, inquire about options, aside from Greek life, for nighttime and weekend socializing. Boys who are thinking of joining fraternities should do their due diligence on various houses’ reputations, talking not only to current members, but to unaffiliated students on campus, including girls who’ve attended their parties. Have student publications or local news outlets revealed incidents of sexual misconduct, racial slurs, hazing, hazardous drinking? Is sexual conquest prioritized over female dignity (a freshman at a Southern California college told me he dropped out of his frat after his pledge class was paired with a “lower-tier” sorority, so that, unbeknownst to the girls, the guys could practice their hookup technique before meeting more desirable prospects)? What programming has been put in place to educate about consent, irresponsible drinking, gender inequity, positive sexuality? How are parties made safe and comfortable for everyone, including students of color, LGBTQ+ students, and women (of any ethnicity or orientation)? These are not trivial concerns: as I previously said, fraternity members are more likely than other boys to commit assault—as much as three times more likely, according to some research. It’s unclear whether a given fraternity’s disregard for women and greater tolerance for sexual misconduct is itself enough to transform otherwise nonviolent young men. What does seem to be true, though, is that high school boys who are interested in going Greek already score higher than others on proclivities for sexual aggression as well as belief in certain rape myths, such as that assault only involves physical violence or that inebriation is a reasonable excuse for male misconduct. Fraternity life validates those tendencies, makes them acceptable. That’s an argument not only for ongoing, mandatory educational interventions in frat houses, but for programming geared toward boys long before college.

• From Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (1975)

  And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all. 42. And they did all eat, and were filled. 43. And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes. 44. And they that did eat of the loaves were about five thousand men (not a woman among them; Mark, Chap. 6). And Christians believe that! It seems the author here was trying to shock credulity into doubting, but he did not reckon with the spiritual obtuseness of Piscean man. This fellow can see nothing but the literal word, not because he lacks intelligence but because he is so materialistic the spiritual and cosmic are quite beyond him. Were he made aware of this fact he would not be so sure of his convictions or hard on those who differ with him. As suggested elsewhere, he should read other races’ literature. The Judean place where this miracle took place was called Bethany, and in an Egyptian similitude it is Bethanu. And they called it “the place of multiplying bread.” If this miracle by Jesus was a one-and-only-time event, how did it get into the Egyptian scriptures thousands of years earlier? The raising of Lazarus also occurred here, and that too is copied from Egyptian mythology, see page 338. So near-contemporary a writer as Origen (second century) said he could find no trace of “Bethany beyond Jordan.” What then of the miracle that happened there? The feeding of five thousand with enough for five was never done by God or man. This is but the law of increase in nature, and applies to Involution as well as Evolution. In our outline we said that on this fourth plane primordial substance greatly increased and became partite, that is, infinitely divided into the monadic host. The nature of this miracle then is the division of planetary substance. This is the bread of that “house of bread,” Bethlehem, the source; it is also the “bread that cometh down from heaven; not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever” (John 6:58). Apparently John did not fully understand his subject either, for this bread and this manna are the same; the only difference is that the one is involutionary, the other evolutionary. It was of this John spoke thus: “Whosoever eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day”—of Creation. And on such impersonal promises is our hope of immortality based. You see, the Bible is not speaking of us at all, but of the Life Principle. This, we repeat again, is “the worm that never dies,” not the human soul or spirit.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  As far as I could see, certainty made people heartless, cruel, and inhuman. It closed their minds to new possibilities; it made them complacent and pleased with themselves. It also did not work. The new regime in Iran seemed just as oppressive as that of the shah, the murder of Sadat did not lead to a new era in Egypt, and Thatcherism too would prove to be an expensive mistake. This type of certainty was unrealistic, and out of step with the way things really worked. Religious people seemed particularly prone to this dogmatism, and even though there was nothing remotely religious or Christian about Mrs. Thatcher’s regime, the experience of living in “Maggie’s Britain” made me even more leery of faith, dogmatism, and orthodoxy, which so often—even in a good cause—made people ride roughshod over other people’s sensitivities. That kind of certainty had damaged me in the past, and I wanted no more of it. Sally was one of the first people I had met in my own generation who had been totally untouched by religion. Unlike the Harts or Susan, my former housemate, she did not recoil from religion in principled disgust, but regarded it as a strange, incomprehensible eccentricity, like swimming in the Serpentine on Christmas Day. Why would anybody want to do anything so bizarre! The basic doctrines of Christianity had passed her by. When she was having difficulty in her classes on Milton’s Paradise Lost, I tried to explain the concept of original sin. Sally was appalled. “You’re not serious!” she exclaimed. “All that fuss over eating a piece of fruit. What a system!” I could see her point. What kind of God would damn the whole human race because of one momentary lapse? Only one that I wanted nothing to do with. In fact, the more I thought about God these days, the more I realized how much I had probably always, subconsciously, disliked him. These days it seemed that he had lurked in my life like Big Brother in George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-four, spying on everything I did, thought, and felt, endlessly dissatisfied, and doling out favors and punishments indiscriminately. Sally was quite right. What a system!