Washington Rebel

Get On it

   

Hentoff took to heart the words from his mentor, I. F. "Izzy" Stone, the renowned investigative journalist who died in 1989: "If you're in this business because you want to change the world, get another day job. If you are able to make a difference, it will come incrementally, and you might not even know about it. You have to get the story and keep on it because it has to be told."  America Under Barack Obama -- an Interview with Nat Hentoff

This is a Rebel Blog.  Some of the folks who read here -- or post here -- are more traditional in their Christianity than I am.  My "religion", if you would call it that, would come under the specific heading, Celtic-Dreamer-Jewish-Hindu-Egyptian.  Take your pick.

(On the subject of Christianity, I try to avoid disputes.  Suffice it to say I believe the literalists commandeered that historic moment called Jesus Christ and turned it into a Wal-Mart display.  That's all I have to say on the matter.)

As a Rebel, I take the position that America is a Roscicrucian nation.   (Some would say Masonic.)  What do I mean by that?  There was a critical period in European History (not taught much in the schools, I'm afraid) called the Rosicrucian Enlightenment.  It boils down to this: the very educated and rebellious European elite of the 17th Century saw formal religion as a detriment to science, and saw science as a method of proving and confirming religion.  It was the early Rosicrucians that gave us Deism (an outgrowth of utilizing Science to study the "Mind of the Maker"); who insisted that no civilization worthy of the name civilized proscribed or prescribed religion (by their standards, truly, Islam is, and remains, heathen); it was them who championed the idea, via secret societies, that liberty was the natural destiny of man and his sole key to happiness and should not be impeded by the State.  This alone is the single Key to understanding the precipice we're perched on.  You can read about that aspect in The Discovery of Freedom.

The Enlightenment, as we understand it, and, therefore, the United States, began in an intellectual rebellion with the publications of two controversial "manifestoes", the Fama Fraternitatis and the Confessio.  Didn't know that, did you?  Think ol' Cicero's pulling your leg, don't you?  Aren't Rosicrucians those dumb asses with the stupid ads in stupid magazines?

The Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross is what people like Dan Brown are sensationalizing with his books (the People Magazine version of history).  Think of it this way: the rose super-imposed on a cross is symbol of the spiritual flowering of a human individual.  One bar of the cross is scientific inquiry (horizontal), the other bar revelation (vertical).  Think about that for a bit and ask yourself, Does this not describe the direction taken by the West?  Did you not know you were given a key to your freedom by these courageous geniuses, your spiritual forbears?

Whether you acknowledge it or not, that is what has shaped your destiny as a Westerner.  Think about what I just told you in light of this observation:

Patrice Chaplin: City of Secrets

'Mystical Legends - Girona, A City Of Secrets' from Carrie kirkpatrick on Vimeo.

Washington Rebel Previously reviewed Patrice Chaplin's book, City of Secrets, here.  In light of Cicero's observations regarding religion in his latest correspondence, it will come as no surprise to our regular readers that we regard the Grail myth as an initiatic -- or mythopoetic -- corpus;  emblematic, rather than symbolic.  Those who have delved into the Grail imagery know full well it has played a much more central role in Western history than is currently imagined, and this has nothing to do with Dan Brown's cute little books!

After Walter Stein, the 20th Century's leading Grail scholar was none other than Rudolf Steiner, a true hero by any reckoning.  Now comes the third, and most mysterious, installment: proof, so far as I'm concerned, that there was a Qabbalistic order in Spain entrusted with the ritual aspects of the Grail!  All Rosicrucian aspirants can appreciate the significance of this marvelous book, City of Secrets.  Can't wait for the sequel!!

Missa Luba: Kyrie (Muungano National Choir, Kenya)

Hildegard Von Bingen - Vision

Chivalry and the Death of a Nation

Angelo Codevilla, The Character of Nations

“From all that I had read of History of Government, of human life and manners, I had drawn the conclusion, that the manners of Women were the most infallible barometer, to ascertain the degree of morality and virtue in a nation. All that I have since read and all the observations I have made in different nations, have confirmed me in this opinion. The manners of women, are in the surest criterion by which to determine whether a Republican government is practicable, in a nation or not. The Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, the Swiss, the Dutch, all lost their public spirit, their Republican Principles and habits, and their Republican forms of Government, when they lost the modesty and domestic virtues of their women…

The foundations of national morality must be laid in private families. In vain are schools, academies, and universities instituted, if loose principles and licentious habits are impressed upon children, in their earliest years. The mothers are the earliest and most instructors of youth….The vices and examples of the parents cannot be concealed from the children. How is it possible that children can have any sense of the sacred obligation of morality or religion if, from their earliest infancy, they learn that their mothers live in habitual infidelity to their fathers, and their fathers in as constant infidelity to their mothers?” – John Adams, Autobiography IV: 123.

We live in a time where official news organizations are becoming less and less relevant. With the decentralization of information sourcing, monolithic news organizations no longer have the ability to be significantly instrumental in uniquely forming the public mind. This is a vast change from a short 35 years ago when three major networks and a handful of large public newspapers dictated the public mind. The public mind is so splintered that building an American consensus on just about any issue is next to impossible.  Iron Ink

True Chivalry

A Girl's Response to Chivalry

"Truth does not become more true by virtue of the fact that the entire world agrees with it, nor less so even if the whole world disagrees with it." --Maimonides (1135-1204)

"Madness is to hold an erroneous perception and argue perfectly from it." --French writer Voltaire (1694-1778)

"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice." --physicist Albert Einstein (1879-1955)  Patriot Post

City of Secrets: One Woman's True-Life Journey to the Heart of the Grail Legend

  

Museu d’Història dels Jueus a Catalunya -
Centre Bonastruc Ça Porta

The Kabbalist Center of Gerona.  From the very beginning two opposing tendencies appear among the kabbalists, the first seeking to limit the Kabbalah to closed circles as a definitely esoteric system, the second wishing to spread its influence among the people at large.  Throughout the history of the Kabbalah right down to recent times these two tendencies have been in conflict.  Parallel with this, from the time of the appearance of the Kabbalah in Gerona, two attitudes developed concerning the relationships of the bearers of the rabbinic culture to the Kabbalah.  The kabbalists were accepted as proponents of a conservative ideology, and as public defenders of tradition and custom, but at the same time they were suspected, by a substantial number of rabbis and sages, of . . . . being innovators whose activities must be curtailed wherever possible . . . . In these disputes, the Kabbalah of the Gerona scholars seemed to be a symbolic interpretation of the world of Judaism and its way of life, based on a theosophy which taught the inner secrets of the revealed Godhead and on a rejection of rationalist interpretations of the Torah and the Commandments.

.  .  .  .

This combination of the theory of the Sacred Names and the speculations using the methods of gematria with the theory of the Sefirot of the Gerona kabbalists contains . . . . . a powerful renewal of ecstatic tendencies, which took on the new form of "prophetic Kabbalah."  Gershom Scholem.

I first became aware of Patrice Chaplin while listening to the Coast-to-Coast show, Mysterious Portals (Is she dating Dr. Who?, an impatient listener asked).  Before that time I knew nothing of the importance of Gerona to the development of Kabbalah -- just as I knew nothing of Patrice Chaplin.  I am grateful many times over that I caught that delightful installment, which I have downloaded to my computer and am listening to as I write this!  I ordered Patrice's book, City of Secrets, (published by Quest Books) and devoured it as soon as it arrived.  In fact, I took time off from work today to read it a second time for the puporse of this review, and believe me, I didn't need to be forced.  The book is vital, energizing, and intelligent -- an excellent, invigorating ride.  I can't say enough about it!