HUMAN SACRIFICE REARS ITS UGLY HEAD…AGAIN

Those of you who've been following some of my books like Babylon's Banksters and more recently Grid of the Gods (with Dr. Scott D. de Hart) will know that one of the concerns I've had is the ancient rise and practice of bloody sacrifice, including in some cultures, human sacrifice. As I've outlined in those books, and will be doing so again in a future book, oftentimes this practice is justified in "financial" terms, as the payment of a debt (which, in most versions of the "reasoning", can never be repaid anyway, leading to the question, "Why bother then?").

I've long thought that various modern practices - the Holocaust, abortion, euthanasia in some cases, and even, in some cases, capital punishment (to which I am opposed incidentally) - are revivals, oftentimes but thinly disguised, of ritual sacrifices.  There are, indeed, aspects of ritual sacrifice that seem to hover on the edges even of some infamous serial murder cases, such as the notorious Zodiac murders.

Now, the Associated Press is reporting actual cases of an old cult reemerging in Mexico:

Mexican border family suspected of human sacrifice

Admittedly the article notes that the followers of the Santa Meurte cult do not all practice the barbaric practice, but that it is an aberration...

....but it is? In a society that is itself suffused with the influence of a religion that justified yet another sacrifice on a Cross as the payment of an infinite debt that mankind could not itself pay? That reduced the whole barbaric Gospel story to terms of a financial transaction with God an angry banker demaning payment to balance the books?

Don't get me wrong, that practice itself is barbaric, but equally barbaric are the consistent notions of debt, payment, and bloody sacrifice that suffuse our culture...that is the root of the problem; Santa Meurte is just the twigs on the branches growing from that root.

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Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and "strange stuff". His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into "alternative history and science".

53 Comments

  1. Laura Lee on May 12, 2012 at 9:19 am

    From the Border:

    That’s Santa Muerte, please



  2. LSM on May 10, 2012 at 2:28 pm

    for over a decade David Icke has been trying to inform people of the extent of this hideous practice- but because he minces no words in describing the magnitude of this satanic practice he is just so conveniently labled as a nut-case- people just conveniently want to believe that when isolated reports of such practices emerge they are nothing more than isolated incidents of an abhorrent abberation-

    people are just to terrified to think that a publicized “incident” of this nature just may be more common than one thinks and the places where these kinds of things occur are disguised as God-like institutions- too petrifying for most to believe-

    but, hey, denial isn’t a river in Egypt…

    and all roads lead ultimately to Rome- think about it



    • legioXIV on May 10, 2012 at 3:30 pm

      Nice call Larry.
      The concept of ‘sacrifice’ is all around us today. For example soldiers are expected to ‘sacrifice’ themselves for ‘King and Country’ and other such claptrap. People are expected to ‘sacrifice’ for the common good. Needless to say that goes for the ‘Plebs’, not the ‘Patricians’.
      I sometimes wonder if the wars we are called upon to fight are merely a gigantic sacrifice to appease those bloodthirsty and intolerant gods, or should I say those who wish to be gods?

      Regards,
      Luke.



      • LSM on May 11, 2012 at 8:35 am

        Hi Luke,

        many thanks for your response and I hope you are well-

        “I sometimes wonder if the wars we are called upon to fight are merely a gigantic sacrifice to appease those bloodthirsty and intolerant gods, or should I say those who wish to be gods?”-

        yeah, you and me both- but I think we already know the answer-

        warmest regards,

        Larry in Germany



  3. SSNaga on May 9, 2012 at 9:36 am

    You Are What you Eat – and conversely, you Become What Eats you. … Feed yourself to the Center Serpent (Risen), “The Fyre That Consumes, But Does Not Destroy.” Feeding yourself to the left-or-right Snakes-of-Illusion is called, “Death.” … (My 1st guess was Taurus; 2nd was Scorpio. “Deamon” dinner tonite.)



  4. Greg Parent on May 9, 2012 at 4:54 am

    From Touchstone interview with Rene Girard:

    “You have advocated what is seen as a “non-sacrificial” reading of the death of Christ that is significantly at odds with the usual understanding of that death as a “hilasterion” that satisfies the wrath and justice of God. Could you describe that view and how your study of the formation and maintenance of human cultures has led you to it?

    RG: Oh, this is a question that will require a long answer! It is not quite true that I take what you have called a “non-sacrificial reading of the death of Christ.” We must establish first of all that there are two kinds of sacrifice.

    Both forms are shown together (and I am not sure anywhere else) in the story of Solomon’s judgment in the third chapter of 1 Kings. Two prostitutes bring a baby. They are doubles engaging in a rivalry over what is apparently a surviving child. When Solomon offers to split the child, the one woman says “yes,” because she wishes to triumph over her rival. The other woman then says, “No, she may have the child,” because she seeks only its life. On the basis of this love, the king declares that “she is the mother.”

    Note that it does not matter who is the biological mother. The one who was willing to sacrifice herself for the child’s life is in fact the mother. The first woman is willing to sacrifice a child to the needs of rivalry. Sacrifice is the solution to mimetic rivalry and the foundation of it. The second woman is willing to sacrifice everything she wants for the sake of the child’s life. This is sacrifice in the sense of the gospel. It is in this sense that Christ is a sacrifice since he gave himself “for the life of the world.”

    What I have called “bad sacrifice” is the kind of sacrificial religion that prevailed before Christ. It originates because mimetic rivalry threatens the very survival of a community. But through a spontaneous process that also involves mimesis, the community unites against a victim in an act of spontaneous killing. This act unites rivals and restores peace and leaves a powerful impression that results in the establishment of sacrificial religion.

    But in this kind of religion, the community is regarded as innocent and the victim is guilty. Even after the victim has been “deified,” he is still a criminal in the eyes of the community (note the criminal nature of the gods in pagan mythology).

    But something happens that begins in the Old Testament. There are many stories that reverse this scapegoat process. In the story of Cain and Abel, the story of Joseph, the book of Job, and many of the psalms, the persecuting community is pictured as guilty and the victim is innocent. But Christ, the son of God, is the ultimate “scapegoat”—precisely because he is the son of God, and since he is innocent, he exposes all the myths of scapegoating and shows that the victims were innocent and the communities guilty.”

    Read more: http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=16-10-040-i#ixzz1uN9dSbvf



    • paul degagne on May 9, 2012 at 5:55 am

      GregParent,

      I really must re-read that Girard book I once read when I was in Kinder-garden. ( you bring it up often and it’s worth further investigating. (as an anthropological view that is?)

      I know it would help me in understanding George Bataille better. ( I sense Bataille but that’s about it for I aint that deeeeeeeppppp yet he (Bataille is some EAGLE like NAGA, HA, HA!

      I am just a post-modern DRARF compared to those TWO-REINCARNATED GIANTS WHO ESCAPED THE CLUTCHES OF FARRELL INVENTORY! !



      • Greg Parent on May 9, 2012 at 6:23 am

        You simply cannot talk about culture, especially vis-a-vis the culture of Sacrifice, and it’s relation to religion and myth without addressing Girard in some manner. He is the GIANT in the room. For those who are not familiar with his work, I would start with ‘Violence and Sacred’, and ‘The Scapegoat’. I would also recommend Gil Bailie’s ‘Violence Unveiled’ (Bailie is Girard’s foremost interpreter).



        • paul degagne on May 9, 2012 at 6:45 am

          i am getting “finnicky’ here Greg — is it Culture or some Exchange Theory? ( two views of the same ‘object”) And to anticipate you response — theories are Culture or Part of culture then we go on to those endless merry-go-round debates about parts and whole. I just FEEL IT when I come to or TRANSGRESS ‘thresholds or borders” we are advised by LAWYERS or MENTORS to REMAIN SILENT!

          Their advice and concern for us —-It’s true—— but IF WE ALL REMAIN SILENT WHAT HAPPENS MIGHT JUST BE WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF WE SHUT OUR DAM MOUTHS ANYWAY —HA, HA!!!!!)

          NO RELIEF THERE

          Thanks for the Stimulation Greg.

          Thanks Again!



      • Daniel Jones on May 9, 2012 at 7:32 am

        Notice here as well that Girard’s analysis and ‘solution’ is only applicable along the lines of a certain notion of paganism which the Hebrew mentality was a part of and grew up out of. It is only analyzed from that point of view, because the categories it works with are still within the context of guilt, exchange, and blood and how those things can be overcome and transcended.

        The Egyptian or Pythagorean stand-point completely and entirely cuts the legs out from under these ‘problems.’ In other words, Girard’s notion doesn’t even touch other attitudes of donitive sacrifice that ‘lifts’ us, and is more or less a hasty generalization of what is the ‘pagan’ world.



        • paul degagne on May 9, 2012 at 9:17 am

          Intelligent discussions like this aren’t bad. (they keep me coming back which I am not sure is a good thing if FARRELL aint going to BAN ME then WHO KNOWS HOW FAR IT CAN GO?

          I don’t know who you hang around with Daniel, but — as soon as I cross the threshold called my apartment’s doorstep Society usually ends there if I am not lucky enough to meet someone like you who can use that terminology. ( I seldom do off line for as you might already know —don’t show people the two-antennas that stick out of our head, ha, ha!)

          More reason to let oneself be sucked into the POWER OF THE INTERNET! ( as often as the techies say this —COMPUTERS REPRODUCE THEMSELVES EVERY GENERATION …… I say COCKAPOOIE! Computers cant make babies — it takes people to make computers!



          • Daniel Jones on May 9, 2012 at 12:05 pm

            Paul,
            I try to give a ‘pationately’ reasoned response, because I think people should be moved by the ‘intelligence of the heart’ which is what the Egyptian god Thoth symbolized for the human mind: ‘the heart and intelligence of Re.’ Pe-netr-Re or “Poimandres” in the Greek Hermetica. Both the heart and the mind.

            Even without the Egyptian or Pythagorean or Neoplatonic or Hermetic understanding as a point of reference for rebuttal, should we accept the answers and the context that these answers have been provided? I don’t think so. If one can toss out better ethical and normative standards than what arose from that ANE context, than we should ascent to them, rather than attending to the same ol’ same ol’. Thankfully there is a tradition to draw upon, it’s just been so choked out in the choices the West took in its historical narrative.

            And as far as who I hang around, well it’s hard to find people that actually ‘dig’ this stuff and are interested in pursuing it with a vengeance free from the canons of dogmas they have to abide by in whatever religious tradition that might be.

            Thanks,
            Daniel



          • Daniel Jones on May 9, 2012 at 12:07 pm

            Excuse me that should be *passionately*



          • paul degagne on May 15, 2012 at 4:32 am

            TO MISTER JONES,

            PASSION!!!!!!!!!!!!! —

            don’t get me started, ha, ha!

            (I might ‘break out’ of my BODY-SNATCHING POD TOO EARLY!)

            and

            And always remember this —-“Never point at Donald Sunderlain!” (however his name is spelled?)

            ITS NOT POLITE?

            HA, HA!



    • Daniel Jones on May 9, 2012 at 6:55 am

      Actually, what this article highlights is the ‘barbarism’ that exists in the Old Testament.

      First, if one looks at the current scholarly literature that outlines ancient Ugarit, Canaanite and Hebrew religion have much more in common than what has usually been stated both in regard to Polytheism and in cult practice. It’s only later after the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians, that the Hebrew god El/Yahweh “failed” to protect them, and as such Monotheism was doctored in as a solution for their disobedience. But here, notice the moral schizophrenia on the part of Solomon, he’s willing to ‘split’ the child in order to provoke a reaction out of one or the other. Of course, it’s quite natural to show sympathy towards one’s own humanity, and the second one woman is the protector, but the first woman is not totally out of line with “traditional” practice.

      “You shall not delay to offer from the fullness of your harvest and from the outflow of your presses. The first-born of your sons you shall give to me. You shall do likewise with your oxen and with your sheep: seven days it shall be with its dam; on the eighth day you shall give it to me.” – Exodus 22:29-30

      “Moreover I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not have life; and I defiled them through their very gifts in making them offer by fire all their first-born, that I might horrify them; I did it that they might know that I am the LORD.” – Ezekiel 20:25-26

      “[O]nly at a particular stage rather late in the history of Israel was child sacrifice branded as counter to the will of YHWH and thus ipso facto idolatrous.” Jon D. Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), p. 5.

      Secondly, the above article equivocates on what “pagan sacrifice” is. This is a problem with terminology because with the inception of Christianity–or Yahwism more generally–you have unarticulated notions of monotheism vs. “everybody else” indiscriminately. Pythagoreans, which are basically the transition of the Egyptian religion into a Greek context, are absolutely horrified by the idea of sacrifice as a payment for sin or the idea that blood is a payment for wrong doing. The same attitude exists with Hermeticists and Neoplatonists, this attitude all coming from the Egyptian religion. The problem with the category ‘sacrifice’ in these contexts–to contrast them with the biblical version–is that it is focused on the ‘upward motion’ of the spiritualized “moist air” that is produced from such offerings (e.g. burning incense or the burning and cooking of the [dead] animal that is to be eaten). These were all symbols for the mind to trace out the divinity as it exists in matter. In the biblical version, it is the blood that has intrinsic value to turn away Yahweh’s anger towards sin. In the Egyptian mysteries, Pythagorean mysteries, and Eleusinian mysteries, it is not the blood or slaughter to payoff divine wrath, for God needs nothing from us, but rather, the ‘sacrifice’ is to ‘push’ us upward symbolically (the Pythagorean Central Fire). And lastly, since Pythagoreans were ‘frugal’ rather than strict vegetarians, ‘animal sacrifice’ was the least desired due to the sensitivity that has to be taken into account for the ‘suffering’ animal. There is no doubt that some “pagans” viewed ‘sacrifice’ the way Touchstone article states. I see the Hebrew religion as one that is nothing but struggling with how to handle this notion in their own ‘Land of Canaan,’ but their practices at least early on were largely indistinguishable from their Canaanite friends. To ‘gloss’ the rest of the world as having this attitude as well –ESPECIALLY Egypt–is nothing but academic dishonesty. One can barely even find a ‘notion’ of Animal Sacrifice in Egypt much less Human sacrifice.

      For more information, one can read Porphyry’s attitude about sacrifice in On Abstinence and Iamblichus’ On the Pythagorean Life and The Egyptian Mysteries for what the “PAGAN” intelligentsia thought of ‘sacrifice’ and how it should be carefully regarded.

      I’ll let the readers decide who had the more ethical notions and care for ‘life.’



      • Daniel Jones on May 9, 2012 at 7:52 am

        To go further, Girard’s analogue of King Solomon and the split of the child and the two women as a type of Christ, fails. The woman that says “No, give the child to her,” cannot be an analogue for the Sacrifice of Christ. While she is willing to selflessly give up her pride of want, she is not thereby giving herself as a substitute or sacrificial lamb for slaughter as Christ does. From the biblical stand-point, there can be no ‘life’ and no ‘forgiveness’ for “the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” (Heb 9:22) While Christ’s life portrayed this attitude that Girard notes, thankfully!, Christ must still undergo the ‘shedding of blood’ to please God the Father for forgiveness to ensue. Try as he may, one still has to deal with the context of blood-sacrifice and propitiation/expiation, or sponge away certain texts that are uncomfortable to one’s theory.



      • Greg Parent on May 9, 2012 at 10:21 pm

        You are missing Girard’s Point…an you would probably need to get more than a snippet from one interview to understand his analysis. The point is not that there is no barbarity in the Old Testament; the point is that there is a progressive unveiling of the pagan sacrificial mechanism, which still operates in the Old Testament. The Prophets, the Psalms and the Gospels tell the story from the the viewpoint of the victim. This is unprecedented and discontinuous from the archaic myths and religions (and the rituals described in the anthropological literature) wherein the story is told from the viewpoint of the persecutors. The mistake that has been made since the Enlightenment is that you can always assimilate texts/rituals/religions which have homologous structures (a la Levi Strauss) when in fact there is something quite unique going on with the Prophets, Psalms, and Gospels which actually demystifies archaic religion and myths. He has good reasons for making these claims and cites numerous examples, but in order to understand his position, you have to get into the nuts and bolts of his theory–which can only be done by jumping into his works.



      • Daniel Jones on May 10, 2012 at 6:54 am

        Greg,
        I read through the pertinent parts of ‘Violence and the Sacred’ to see how he understood traditional Greek religion. My post was premised on these understandings. I think he fundamentally misunderstands some of the context for Greek tragedy and ‘sacrifice.’ For a more coherent one try Peter Kingsley: Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic: Empedocles and the Pythagorean Tradition. Kingsley is an expert in the field. In other words, Girard’s analysis fails to understand the allegorical journey of the ‘rite’ of rebirth and incubation that is involved with Greek shamanic practice in Orphic, Bacchic, and Eleusinian mysteries. It is the Hero who [allegorically] throws himself into Tartarus, the Krater “mixing bowl,” and is changed by Hades (fire). The change is an alchemically altered consciousness to become the “new man,” this transition of consciousness is what is called ‘anger’ and ‘violence’ that Plato talks about in the Phaedo. Sound familiar? It should, because that sounds similar to Christ’s descent into Hades, rising again as the “new man,” and ‘ascent to Heaven’ (raising of consciousness). From this stand-point, the Pythagorean Central Fire makes better ethical and moral sense of Christ’s “dying before you die” and raising of consciousness than does the biblical text (as is). There is no idea here like that of Hebrews 9:22 from the Pythagorean.

        In some ways I agree with the psychology that Girard articulates in his book, but I think it only applies to a certain ANE and limited pagan context. In other words, his exegetical skills and understanding of the pagan world is short sighted. This goes back to lumping ‘Christian’ vs. ‘Everybody else’ as if ‘everybody else’ is working with this ‘bad notion’ of sacrifice that has to be transcended. His analysis makes perfect sense within the Canaanite ritual context, and some of that I agree with though not without qualification and more ‘evidence.’ His analysis of continual ‘improved’ barbaric practices in the OT is exactly what we would expect from a ‘human made’ religion, and that’s exactly what it is. El/Yahweh and his council of gods as the traditional practice, which involved child sacrifice, had failed Israel as Babylon conquered and humiliated them. So here we have, during the Exile, the rise of Monotheism and the repudiation of old cult ‘Canaanite’ practice. Very convenient and how does Girard’s theory going to deal with the careful editing of texts by a priestly caste. Maybe they learned better ethics from the Babylonian Astro-Theological religion? Science and Philosophy and an Ethical Astro-theological Ritual can have that tendency to rise one above barbarism.

        Your post fails to get around what I stated. In other words, I gloss ‘blood-sacrifice’–as a payment or fullfillment for conditions of forgiveness (Heb 9:22), sin offering (Ezekiel 44:27), atonement and turning away wrath (Rom 3:25, Heb 2:17, 1 Jn 2:2)–just as bad sacrifice. Girard cannot get around what he ultimately would ‘wish’ to affirm. I do so from the standpoint of the Egyptian, Pythagorean, Hermetic, and Neoplatonic. I do so for reasons that it twists and distorts the process of Platonic ‘reversion’ towards God. It cuts off what constitutes a ‘thing’ for what it is and how it should be regarded properly. From my view, it is the most evil and barbaric practice to visit man upon man and should be tossed aside. There’s another tradition–a perennial one–that does not operate from the categories that Girard imagines from the get-go. And I think it should be regarded or at least considered as better answers to man’s questions. If you’ve been reading Joseph’s books (start reading from Giza Death Star Destroyed pg. 100 – to the Appendix to ch.9), Neoplatonic doctrine anticipates modern theoretical physics (especially quantum mechanics) because it was the underpinning philosophy for it all along. I’m not in 100% agreement with Joseph’s weapon hypothesis of the Giza plateau, but I am in 100% agreement that the ‘sacred science’ physics was there as he has carefully articulated. Maybe, just maybe, if we focused our minds to understanding the processes of nature, which is nothing but understanding God, we wouldn’t need to be committing all this ‘barbarism’ to begin with.



        • Daniel Jones on May 10, 2012 at 7:47 am

          I’m obviously not alone here either in Girard’s generalizations of civilizations. A Christian theologian’s review notes:

          “Girard’s generalizations do sweep the thinker along. The careful student of literature, scripture, history, or anthropology will find herself questioning whether Girard’s claims do account for the entire range of social, religious, philosophical, and psychological phenomena which he says they do. That these matters are important themes or threads in civilization is not as large a claim as that these matters are the origin of all civilizations, for all humankind, throughout all time.”

          William E. Abshire, “VIOLENCE AND THE SACRED: INTERPRETATIONS OF RENÉ GIRARD IN CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY AND PEACE STUDIES,” ANNALES PHILOSOPHICI, (2010), p.8

          William E. Abshire
          The Anna B. Mow Endowed Professor and Chair
          Department of Philosophy and Religion
          Bridgewater College
          Bridgewater, Virginia USA



        • Greg Parent on May 10, 2012 at 11:27 pm

          I used to be a big fan of Kingsley–but then I was also a student of Norman O. Brown’s back in the day–and both are (were in Nobby’s case) apologists for the Sacrificial system which is grounded in mimetic desire and its relation to the scapegoat mechanism that the gospels demystify and undermine. Of course, Christ’s death is structurally homologous to what happens in some other religions–It has to be! This relates to Girard’s criticism of Structuralism. The scapegoating of Jesus fails to do what it is supposed to do within a well functioning sacrificial system–and that is unite the community and bring peace. He didn’t come to bring peace, but a sword! There was temporary unification right after the arrest wherein Jesus was abandoned is some way by all of his disciples (except the women who were outside of the sacrificial system). Girard does a very poignant analysis in “The Scapegoat” of the betrayal of Peter, showing how his behavior was an attempt to melt back into the community of persecutors. The point is that after the crucifixion, a significant minority takes the side of the innocent victim. It wasn’t the case of the persecutors rehabilitating the victim who became the container of the violence of the community. The persecutors are always unconscious of the mechanism–because it is not in their control. “They know not what they do!” As long as there is unanimity and everyone agrees that the scapegoat is guilty–and later the scapegoat is expelled, which brings peace and the divinization of the scapegoat–as long as their is unanimity, the mechanism remains hidden. By unveiling the mechanism, the Gospels undermine its efficacy–which begins a long slow process of dismantling. Although it will keep re-asserting itself, many times by later Christians themselves, the scapegoat mechanism will never again be effective in ending violence and chaos. it’s been outed! It’s not hidden anymore–everyone can point out when someone is being scapegoated–there was no consciousness of this before the Prophets, Psalms and Gospels. Persecutors no longer get a free ride! There is no concern in archaic societies for victims. The Scapegoat mechanism does a good job of containing violence–but at the expense of those people in the community who stand out. The Crucifixion is the sacrifice that ends sacrifice–it is a self-chosen sacrifice of Love. The hour was chosen by Him, not the persecutors. However, Girard does criticize in ‘The Scapegoat’ the sacrificial theology expressed in Hebrews. Of course, I can only scratch the surface here in a post, but I will leave you with a tease: the apocalypse is essentially a result of the dismantling of the scapegoat mechanism—but you’ll have to read Girard to find out why. He wrote a good book on Clausewitz and his relation to the time we are in now: “Battling to the End.”

          Many people have brought up a lot of good questions with regard to Girard’s theory–and since he has dealt with all of them himself, and in a much more adequate manner than I could possibly do, I will not even begin to try and answer them. I simply refer you to his ouvre.



          • Daniel Jones on May 11, 2012 at 7:16 am

            Greg Parent,
            I cannot make you engage my position, but I sure can ask you to try. If you think Kingsley’s Pythagoreanism is premised on mimetic desire, scapegoat mechanism, and bloody sacrifice as the resolve, then I have to conclude you have either never read him or you are misleading people here. I’m researching all this right now as I am writing a book on Ancient Egyptian philosophy and its children the Pythagoreans, Hermetists, and Neoplatonists.

            First, the premise of Kingsley’s work is on the allegorical dialectic of ‘descent -ascent’ of shamanic practice. To experience what Kingsley calls ‘Reality’ we must undergo and experience the ‘anger’ and ‘violence’ of Truth–throwing ourselves into the Krater Alchemical ‘mixing bowl’ and being changed by the Fire of Tartarus. These are all allegories for the stages of consciousness transformation-a Gnostic ideal, not a “bloody-sacrificial” one. As we are changed, we throw off utterly what we used to know, we are a new ‘babe’ — Dionysus — and must rush to the breasts of Persephone for nourishment or the goddess Isis in the Egyptian context so we can ‘rise’ again. She symbolizes the Shamanic Hermetic teacher to help us in our journey of discovery. The same type of thinking is in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave: the dialectic of ‘descent-ascent’. The sage must descend into the cave to help others and lead them UP out of it to intuit Reality, again and again and again. It’s a continuum of knowledge from empirical, living things, mathematics, to intuition. Each higher stage is inclusive of the other. They came to heal and lead others to the same experiences, not to divide people. Where is the ‘guilt’ relationship, where is the ‘scapegoat’ mechanism, where is the ‘sacrifice’ to pay off a deity? They aren’t there. Why? Because they aren’t operating from Girard’s Cain and Abel paradigm to resolve the conflict. Conflict can only be ‘resolved’ when one decides to throw oneself into the Krater and heal themselves being consciously transformed. No need for saviors, messiahs, and other such ‘substitutes’ to do this act for you. One must peel off the layers to recognize the divinity in oneself to be healed, and everybody must do it if they wish to be healed. That’s the Pythagorean Way of Life. If you don’t like it that’s fine, but I see the other version as barbaric and has caused nothing but endless division for humanity by the Monotheistic Yahwist religions.

            Second, Pythagoreans were frugal vegetarians, though they were not strict vegetarians. When they did eat meat it was ceremonial meat and ‘sacrificial’ meat, but the idea of ‘sacrifice’ here is completely unimaginable by Girard’s paradigm. This “sacrifice” here is a ‘meal’ and a symbolic one of the same representation and structure of the shamanic journey. You have the central fire that burns and cooks the meal, you have the meat placed on the “mixing-bowl” to be changed, you have the upward motion of ‘moist-air’ symbolizing the soul being purified by fire. All symbols of the shamanic journey that we are purified by mythological and allegorical fire. The emphasis here by the Pythagoreans is not even on blood at all, but rather on the “moist air” symbolizing the soul as it is pushed UPward, the purification of matter. Again, where is the symbolic “blood-victim” to pay off a deity? It isn’t there. When Pythagoreans ate meat, they did it ethically, taking care not to cause an animal to suffer. Now does that sound very different to you than the way some other Ancient Near Eastern cultures, namely Canaanites and Hebrews handled the issue where Girard’s criticisms apply? Girard isn’t ‘cooking with gas’ here.

            Third, when I said that aspects of Christ’s descent and ascent in the biblical text mirrored Pythagoreanism, I totally meant to undermine the traditional interpretation. In other words, I don’t believe a man was killed on a cross (an astrotheological symbol), buried three days in a tomb to rot, and then completely overcame the principles of God’s physics to rise again. The earlier Egyptian and Pythagorean ‘descent-ascent’ unmotivates that interpretation. I have no doubt that the biblical text has been judaized and historicized of what is a shamanic and allegorical practice of ‘descent-ascent’. The Pythagorean interpretation here of Christ’s ‘descent-ascent’ leaves Girard’s analysis of Christ as overcoming the scapegoat victim unnecessary, and that is because it is a gnostic one. True Gnosis overcomes conflict. Once you and I have tasted the ‘bitter-sweet’ and ‘violent’ descent of Reality, our differences are gone. We become united in a non-local consciousness while retaining our unique particularity. This is the Pythagorean Way of Life and why Iamblichus saw that Christianity was no answer at all, but this comes with a price. It requires us growing up becoming men and women and no longer having someone do our ‘thinking’ for us–spoon feeding a bunch of answers to us, or in the case of the traditional interpretation of Christ, doing our dying and descending for us.

            Fourth, I’m all for Girard criticizing Hebrews, but what about Romans, 1 John, the other epistles? What’s going to be left of the New Testament after one guts the “bloody scapegoat” mentality out of it but a thin veneer of Gnosticism?

            Finally, I’ve interacted with your position here. Would you be so kind as to deal with Jan Assmann in the ‘Price of Monotheism’ or the ‘Egyptian Moses’, that Monotheism and its exclusive proclamation claims of truth are responsible for the impossibility of ending social division and theological division amongst various cultures?



          • Greg Parent on May 11, 2012 at 10:43 pm

            Again, I can reiterate only that you’ve brought issues that have already addressed by Girard in at least one or more of his many books. I think you will find Girard’s answers to your questions–I’m not saying you will be satisfied with them–when you take your reading of Girard beyond the internet–and actually read his books. Now, I can see that we will never see eye-to-eye on this issue as you are operating from a paradigm I no longer adhere to. That being said, let reiterate a few points:

            The scapegoat mechanism is hidden–very few archaic myths and religions actually put it on display. The further you are from the actual precipitating violence–the more it becomes sanitized and metamorphosed into something far more benign. This can be seen even in the development of philosophy where violence is transmuted into a philosophical concept. If you look at the per-Socratics, it is clear that the logos is a logos of violence. For Heraclitus, the logos of violence was an ordering principle that was generated by disorder itself. So we find violence at the root of the Greek logos–and thus it quite distinct from the logos of John, which is a non-violent logos.

            Now Kingsley is very creative and imaginative, but his Pythagoreanism should not be confused with the authentic tradition. Since he was an early translator of Guenon, it is too bad it didn’t imbibe Guenon’s later work. He has created a counterfeit tradition. Plenary Gnosis, or Gnosis not tied into an authentic tradition–which means an unbroken chain of transmission (mostly oral), is a romantic myth. Henry Corbin and his followers make the same mistake by cutting Islamic mysticism off from Islamic Orthodoxy. You cannot be a Sufi without being a practicing Muslim and all that it entails. Ibn’ Arabi, one of my favorite Islamic saints, had a most orthodox exoteric practice. Charles Upton, himself a practicing Muslim and Sufi has written extensively on this subject (also see his articles in Sacred Web). Kingsly and Corbin are engaged in the manufacture of pseudo-traditions. Now when I was last engaged with KIngsley’s work, he belonged to a Sufi organization. That would make him a monotheist, no? I also remember that he was impressed with the Christianity of Clement of Alexandria. So from the early Gnostics to Theosphy to the latest neo-marcionism we have pseudo-traditions that represent syncretisms rather than true syntheses.

            And finally, I will refer you to Chapter 2 of “Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, A non-sacrificial reading of the Gospel text.” You may not find the presentation to your satisfaction, but I can’t do Girard better than Girard–so there you go. Good luck with your project–and I’m sorry can’t be in sync with you on Kinglsey, Girard, and number of things. I have experienced a metanoia–and there is no turning back.



  5. robert on May 9, 2012 at 1:11 am

    The Auschwitz mass destruction seems to follow more the paradigm of Ford/Taylor mass production (of death in Auschwitz), rather than sacrifice. Maybe this is the reason, why paperclip scientist were integrated so easily and felt so comfortable in post-war US, whereas other german intellectual emigrants made a shocking experience of industrial society in the US. After some years of social research the german philosopher Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno went back to germany, traumatized by the caricature of the ideal of a full developed and independent social subject, he had experienced in the US. Charly Chaplin gave a good illustration in his “Modern Times” of this picture.
    In his “Dialectic of enlightment” Adorno states that something has gone wrong within this process of enlightment. Adorno himself speaks about sacrifice. If I remember right, it is in the process of individualization from nature estate when the subject has to suppress/sacrifice his own nature, to constitute itself as a subject. This negation and suppression of the own nature and the tendency of abstract thinking to blind out the specific caracteristic of things (or persons) leads, according to Adorno, to the sadistic and destructive treatment of individuals in the rationalized modern world.
    Adorno felt trapped between Nazism and sofisticated capitalism. Desesperately he was searching for the possibility of existence of a subject in full disposicion of his forces and faculties, like the german classic Schiller expressed this ideal of personal development (sorry, I can’t indicate now, where he stated this, but I’m quite sure), in contrast of the mutilating modern societies, that converts all subjects in potential mutilators.



    • paul degagne on May 9, 2012 at 4:21 am

      I like the ‘part’ in this article where —- the practices could be considered ‘revivals,” oftentimes thinly disguised rituals”.

      It would be interesting to know if the perpetrators were even aware of the above or conscious of the suggestion they are repeating something from the ancient past? (that would be an interesting ‘tibit’ to know about this kind of phenomena? (maybe it was induced by some who do?)

      Robert this is the first mention I’ve heard in here of the Frankfurt School Member Adorno.

      John Coleman ‘subverted’ my mind in his mention of a Cultural War against the United States. In it he states, ” The Music of the Beatles” was created by Adorno? Have you heard anything further in this vein? ( a thought I say is nonsense but it nags at me and wont go away.)

      Have You viewed the entire scene of when (sic) they toppled the Iraq dictator’s statue like they did Lenin’s in the Fall of the Soviet Union but unlike that protest the Iraq demonstration was one big ‘ Black Opts” propaganda operation! (if they fooled us once then it is entirely possible to ‘fool us’ again?)

      My wife was a flutist (her favorite instrument – she claims she can play 5 instruments (no money to buy any?) brought up by a musical child prodegy mother who gave it up to marry a Mormon so I sometimes give credence to her sic – stories. Also she recently bought a 75 dollar computerized electrical organ on sale and is writing songs she ‘claims’ to exchange with someone prominent down in Nashville. ( It’s sometimes hard to differentiate what’s what with her but I have seen things and know ‘Credit does not automatically go where it belongs? People get screwed out of things but then some of these people are so innocent (unvengeful) in a way that the only thing they believe what matters is pure Idealism?).

      She (wife) claims the Beatles Music is so fantastical good from a Musical Theorist Point of View? Something that matches up with Adorno’s Abilities in that area (I cant ‘refute’ her for I know absolutely Nothing about Music Theory?)

      Is it IMPOSSIBLE TO BELIEVE that the first arrival of the Beatles in America off the plane was STAGED????????? Considering who owns or has mighty influence with the media or both?

      Yea — teenage girls did go into an ancient-ritual like FRENZIES AT BEATLES CONCERTS ( it would be crazy to say anything ‘contra’ about that but the very first HYPED-UP arrival I think could be staged (it’s very possible but a tricky operation that could have back-fired. WAS IT? —SNOW-BALLING that is?)

      Some of these CONSPIRACY WRITERS ARE PRETTY GOOD AT THEIR BUSINESS!!!!!!!! ( here —believe this shit that I know your ‘dying to believe.’ Frightening because that statement could be LITERARY TRUE or LETS ALL KILL OURSELVES AND JUMP ON THE UFO HIDING ON THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON cult from southern cal.)

      A RUMOR could have just as much Objective Impact on people as a real Objective Fact. Illusion it may be but if enough people believe it – the Power of the Illusion CREATES something that is certainly NOT AN ILLUSION? Try false reports about a certain corporation on a internet chat room and watch the Stock’s Value DIVE only to be cleared up and ESCALATE back up in the next couple of days? Some teenage kid from Conneticit (how ever you spell that New England State’s Name).

      Who did just that and turned a small investment into a quarter of a million dollar gain. (smart kid but he got caught. Only certain people are ALLOWED to do such things with impunity, get my drift? I forgot what punishment they dished out to the kid. I remember they took back the goodies(money) but they probably ‘could use a good man (ops, kid) like him around. (maybe had later plans of hiring/using him in the future? The Elite wont waste talent unless as Farrell hints — they need some VICTIM/SUCKER for a Rite? (even if the sucker believes he/she is going to a better place makes no ETHICAL DIFFERENCE!) I don’t know for I didn’t follow up on the “boy-wonder” scoop.

      Well so much for the ‘Price of Rice in China.” It is all related in a CORRELATION kind of way rather in a DIRECT CAUSAL WAY because >>>are the sic ILLLUMINATI (????) or Babylon’s Bankers ever going to exercise their DIRTY DEEDS in plain view? (Not Hardly — which gives us some ‘tiny’ hope for why HIDE IT IF….?)

      So the BAD GUYS — do know something can be done against CRIME but we are the last to know for obvious reasons except for those who still COGNATED. They show the same INDIFFERENCE TO US — for do they know our ‘knowledge’ of some of their activities could be a dangerous thing or is it THEY ACCURATELY (????) we’re TOO WEAK to do anything about it? ( The word COGNATE is a little snipe but not really a snipe but a good-nature rib at Robert M if this is the same Robert?)

      Yeah — That ‘Rib” we give to Eve pays off every once in a while. ( I mentioned the above proposition to my wife and she will not have ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT for she adores or worships the Beatles Music Inc.( yeah, all we need is love and like Paul Mac Carthy secretly says — A billion Dollars along with it helps, ha, ha! What HYPOCRITES!!!!!!).

      If what Coleman states is FACT I can see why my wife’s adverse reaction to it for it does not feel good (great sudden anxiety) can be aroused the ‘times’ or moments we become aware of being DUPED and the ground or platform beneath us momentarily disappears! (think birdlike — no anxiety for if a tree branch breaks “What’s the Problem” for we have wings but we are TOO SILLY correcting each others spelling mistakes and forget that!!

      DID ULYSSES HAVE A —-GIGANTIC EGO or was it – Ego – even ‘possible’ in that day and age? ( maybe Ulysses he was one of those funny CREATIONS in GGMN?

      Ha, ha — for that is another tickler by Farrell ( he’s not the first to come up with that thought but as a ‘writer’ he does a pretty good job putting it in a ‘parculiar’ way or light that — tickles me!

      In part two called “The Background” in a Book titled “The Savage God’ subtitled “A Study of Suicide” the author A. Alvarez has quotes or presents quotations from others — one of them was this?

      “If you cant stand a giggle, you shouldn’t have joined the club.

      — old saying

      ((((( is this old saying SAYING what I think it is for after all this is a book on SUICIDE and even more A SAVAGE GOD?

      It’s hard to take or assimilate those ‘feelings’ (better to run and hide and ESCAPE as Erich Fromm another one disliked because of his populist bent by other Frankfurters? ( he’s one that certainly believed in the Concept of ‘Plain English” unlike ADORNO. ( If I must say so?)

      Have a Fine Day — this very Day === TODAY.



      • paul degagne on May 9, 2012 at 5:23 am

        I was trying to be more ‘collegent’ in this Adorno post but I really cant write that fast without agonizing rewrites. ( The IDEAS I know are fine but the grammatical structure PERTURBS some for they may think to themselves if they do bother to spend time foolishly — “He can nail such thoughts down but then he’s one big asshole when it comes to putting them on paper ( that’s your opinion for my philosophy is that the IDEA—– when push comes to shove —-is the most important and not some pretty ‘SALAD DRESSING call scientific rationality (really pragmatism taken to the EXTREME)..

        I wandered off this dense forest —-some writers can write very fast — I need the 99% elbow grease in order to say anything in Farrell’s Liking.

        I jumped around ‘ass-u-me(ing) you already know the areas of discussion I was mentioning. (something that I am guilty of —assuming you read what I read? Or, assuming ‘no one will read this crap (ha, ha!) or should I say — writing to myself or Pretending I am writing to myself is a pretty good practice that may help budding authors.

        I know it helps me in an ‘odd sort of way?” (then again writing is not a ‘black art or death related as some authors believe> Is It? The Death of the Author has some validity because if a MUSE really is the one who wrote it then WHERE THE HELL WAS THE AUTHOR DOING. ( and I am not talking about ‘this surrealistic-automatic-hand jive. Probably something like Multiple-Selves wrote it if you fall for that explanation. I don’t!)

        To get back to what I mean to assert. I could have made an ‘EXCELLENT PRESENTATION with the prior post of mine if I had the time and motivation to do so but it would probably have took 5 hrs or so ‘poring’ over EXACT wording to INDUCE AN EFFECT.

        Hey — this is Farrell’s Bulletin Board and not some fancy business prospectus or presentation I have to make at a Bank in order to get the loan! (it also helps too spend money on an expensive folder but then again they only ‘fall for’ what’s in the prospectus and not some ‘pretty gift-wrap!)

        The articles Farrell posts here — how long do you think he takes to write them? (if very long then he wont have time for much else?)

        No one writes on Internet bulletins Boards the way they could or do when writing a book? So for people like me ( a turtle and a plowing-plodder and some people even call me a ‘drudge’ but I have a middle ‘finger” for those kind of people!)

        I could spend all day writing a short essay to post the next day on this site. ( I would if some one gave me cash) but to expend such EFFORT for free here — What do You Think I look like? ( I am seeking unsuccessfully here a little commardaree but I am FAILING. Something is happening to SOCIETY. It’s being replaced by cold-blooded LIZARD indifference. Is Society as a Concept Obsolete? Not yet that is but if those at the Royal Academy of Science have their way we will all be sucking on thin ‘feeding tubes’ for our nourishment while we are posting/reading on the INTERNET!

        That’s the REAL MATRIX! ( just think — you wont have to wait til your last dying two weeks on tubes to ‘enjoy the experience” like the offer made to my mother the last two days of my father’s life?”

        What a DISTOPIC FUTURE! ( YOU ALL MIGHT AS WELL BE —-

        E. G. MARSHALL AND VOLUNTEER FOR EUGENIC CINAMOSCOPE THEATERS like he did in that MOVIE Solvent Green —- if you buy this SCENARO?????

        A Time might come> YOU JUST THINK YOU WONT? (BUT THINK AGAIN — how do we know for certain this later COGNATIVE THOUGHT IS part of SCHEMING NLP Programmers? Take a real look at them COGNATIVE BEHAVIORISTS — THEY LOOK LIKE A —TOUCHED UP third school, new and improved SKINNERITE!
        out to bend your will where YOU WILL BUY ANYTHING and the biggest FAULT you may have is BELIEVE THEY CANT DO IT!!!!!!!!!



      • paul degagne on May 9, 2012 at 6:26 am

        Also besides or ALONG WITH THE MEDIA (medium) and the first stage(ing) when the Beatles got off the plane —- a certain NOTATIONAL MUSIC FREQUENCY of their music —- was the DEVICE that effects people’s brain-waves and in this case not some SECRET DEVICE behind that hill in the desert where no one else can see? it would be SIMPLE —- is simple always best — hell, how should I know!!!!!!!

        By the way —studies have been done on people who wear —get this = TIN-FOIL HATS WITH PAPER CLIPS as ANTENNAS because it stops THEM’ from entering their poor deranged brains!

        ( The studies indicated ( again is this just some scientific jazzy technical propagandistic-type language) some RECORDable difference was MEASURABLE and REPEATABLE (double entre) in the person’s brain waves when they DID SO AND SO to the tin-heads that did not occur to all those NORMAL PEOPLE!

        I’ll have to ask someone over at DARPA about this? HA,HA!

        I tell you it’s so CRAZY its almost believeable — What did that famous Catholic Theologian once say in defense or PROOF OF GOD DEBATE —-I BELIEVE IN GOD BECAUSE IT IS IMPOSSIBLE!

        ( I think the Saint had something here but I do know some CONSPIRACY WRITERS are such GOOD WRITERS/ARTISTS that they leave me almost defenseless. ( the best ones I would not even know this because….?)



        • SSNaga on May 9, 2012 at 6:51 am

          P – Let’s see what your daemon (genius/geni) is doing? Your starsign is? They so luv to play with their Red Wagons (four wheels. The Radio Flyer is Top of the Line).



          • paul degagne on May 9, 2012 at 8:54 am

            NAGA,

            Who stole my ‘little red wagon’ (someone actually did but I told his mother and she made him go down to into his cellar and give me back my little red wagon. (at that earlier age -around 7yrs. old I was astounded that someone or people do such things! Little do I know some mothers not only look the other way but laugh because they saved money they didn’t have getting their kid a toy they couldn’t afford. If all property is theft as the Marx Brothers said and if your black in the ghetto that makes sense if and only if you swipe the bloody-red wagon from someone who wont miss it (just get another one the next day)

            Some rich successful Black Adult Professor ( or anyone for that matter. Funny thing though —does adult mean Emotional Mature and does it always correlate with the word Professor????)) who escaped the ghetto might one day CRY AS WELL for he never had one growing up! (but killing someone for their Michael Jordan AIRHEAD sneakers is a TRAGEDY!)

            Substitute ‘red wagons” for any WOE and their you have it —- a psychotherapist’s income stream, ha, ha, HI THERE?

            A Roman Catholic — Guardian Angel was granted to me the moment the priest recites those words at Catholic Baptism or (genii as you put it —-no wonder Christianity found so many adherents for in those days only the Emperor or Caesar had one?)

            i really shouldn’t poke ‘fun’ at my right shoulder. I keep on telling that little one with the horns sitting on my LEFT shoulder “KNOCK IT OFF but he never listens!

            Taurus if you must know? >>>>>( I should never do stuff like this because because if you (naga) not who you appear to be (frozen in MN. at 70 below ha,ha!) then I may be stepping in deep du-du but at least you aint getting samples of my fingernail or hair clippings. (that’s pushing it too far.)

            Screw this Radio-flier steven king’s Happy Days kind of thing with the red hair/ freckles and drive ins. ( middle class dreaming notaslgia of bye gone days. I prefer ZOMBIES ON THE LOOSE at A & W ‘s root beer stands. ( not really but it’s something to do to ward off the ENNUI as Baudelaire might say if he were alive today.

            You get me going Naga. Your fancy mystical hoo-doo languages stimulate my thinking-cap or should I say my IMAGINATION process but still — at the end of the day I know ‘What is and What isn’t (fun little game though) And I take her home after the dance is over. (as always)

            TOOT, TOOT, TOOT! ( but you ZAPPED ME yesterday over this crockadile issue. Naga — awnser me this for after all I told you my Sun Sighhhhh. Would it make a big difference if your remains are in the stomach of a crockadile or if you were being digested in the belly of some giant Anaconda?

            Same difference if you ask me or as it is said by Buddha (so they say) A poisoned arrow in your chest — you better PULL IT OUT right away for if we debate the fine NICITIES of poisoned arrows then your a DEAD DUCK! Ha,ha!

            Quack, quack!



          • SSNaga on May 9, 2012 at 9:35 am

            You Are What you Eat – and conversely, you Become What Eats you. … Feed yoursekf to the Center Serpent (Risen), “The Fyre That Consumes, But Does Not Destroy.” Feeding yourself to the left-or-right Snakes-of-Illusion is called, “Death.” … (My 1st guess was Taurus; 2nd was Scorpio. “Deamon” dinner tonite.)



          • SSNaga on May 10, 2012 at 6:08 am

            P – Well, looks like the gods will feast. You had/have the ‘right’ idea: read books. Sorry. The alternative is, well, “Up there.” … Watch out for the good old “bad company.” And some day, realize that “reading” books smacks of the “outside” – when any sage worth their salt knows the old adage: “seek within.” There’s always next life. (The “Birth of Life”/you & “an Apple”/life make the gods salivate. I presume your daemon sits at dinner with them.) Ever read, “The Dimensions of Paradise,” by John Mitchell? Good book.



      • mizzu on May 9, 2012 at 2:38 pm

        Hi Paul,
        I’m not sure if I get it all what you said. My english skills are modest. I understand well Dr. Farrell, but there are a lot of comments on the blog, I don’t understand. It’s not only linguistic, it’s also cultural lack of knowledge.
        You commented Erich Fromm: He wrote a book with the title: “Anatomy of the human destructivity” (Anatomie der menschlichen Destruktivität, it’s my traduction, maybe the english title is diferent). He analyses there within a psychoanalystic approach the biografie of leading Nazis for to determine the main causes of their destructive behavior. Another example of a german intellectual who desparetely tried to understand what happend to the german culture.

        By the way, there are recent psychoanalytic studies about violence by an argentinian author: Laura Gutman “Maternity: Coming Face to Face with Your Own Shadow”. She explains there which processes generate violence in the relation between couples and children-mother (chapter 12). If we really want to get out of the violence wheel, we have to treat our children with respect.
        Here’s her webside, if anyone is interested. It’s for women, but men also can understand something there.
        http://www.lauragutman.com.ar/version_english/libros.html

        Adorno and the Beatles: I don’t know. I think he was already back in germany when the Beatles went America. I know that Adorno didn’t like Jazz. He thought it were identical to industrial production, without spirit, only rhythm and scales. I think this is a very ideologic and statement, I find in all kind of music lovely pieces. But we can imagine his take on pop music, although the Beatles maybe are an exception for there proximity to classic music and popular music as well.
        Adorno wanted to be a compositor. But like Nietzsche he declined later to philosophy.

        Adorno surely didn’t compose the Beatles songs, if I understand right what you asked for. He was only a desperate man like all of the no-Nazi german intellectuals. It was hard to understand the contradiction of cultural sensibility and barbarism. They lost their trust in cultural ethic development and they saw all around totalitarisms (Stalin) or fascist capitalism.

        Farrells history speculation isn’t funny neither. It’s all about technic and the inherent destructive potential and dominance by technical know how. Mankind seems to be immature to handle some kind of technics.

        Is there any hope that mankind could awake to a higher degree of (self-) understanding and be a gardener of this world instead of looting it? Or does “mature” mean to understand that mankind is necessarily that violent and there’s no other way than controlling, manipulating and dominating the herd, to protect us all. We should soon join the army or CIA than, and any other hope or expectation would be childish.

        We are standing on the peek of history and we have got the privilege to be present in a crucial moment of mankind. I want to believe that a positive transformation is possible. We have so much technological means, we just have to do the right thing with it. But we need another kind of understanding whats technology and how to handle it.
        If not, we’ll wipe us out, soon.



        • robert on May 9, 2012 at 2:51 pm

          Sorry, I forgot to change the alias: mizzu = robert

          I take the opportunity to apologize for a very silly commentary about Lyndon Larouche, I made some time ago as “mizzu”. It was just ignorance.
          I leave this alias now.

          Have a nice day too, Paul.



          • paul degagne on May 16, 2012 at 4:00 am

            Dear MIZZU or is it ROBERT?,,,,,

            “””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””ALIASES”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””

            I guess people assume alias(es) to avoid FLACK or the sense they just got “BRANDED’ with white-hot steel on their HIDES for something they said!! (Sometimes it does feel like that?)

            Kind of reminds me of that song by Rupert Holmes— PINA COLADA where a couple who lost the ‘feeling’ in their relationship SURPRISED THEMSELVES when they meet again under different circumstances and BACK TO IT AGAIN… (that song got played to DEATH!)

            So as they say “A Dirty Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste” and I am not wasting mine, ha, ha!

            So I will reinvent a few words of the lyrics of that song and sing — la, de, da —‘Do you like PENISES AND CLITORAS….” and walks on the beach.



          • paul degagne on May 16, 2012 at 4:20 am

            Robert,

            One more thing,

            This is the first time I have used my real ‘birth” name on the internet.(except when making purchases)

            I go by the handle ZYGMUNT ( or ziggy sometimes!) When I was out in the ‘meat market’ (I’m married now) once in a while I use to get Polish Woman Immigrants ‘sniffing’ around to see if …. but they left as quickly as they came when they found out Zygmunt was not my real name? ( too bad for I like Good Polish Cooking, ha,ha!)

            My Wife changed her birth name to the ‘legal’ MELODY BRYNNE —- the brynne I think stand for some ancient ‘firestone!” ( she’s a fireball in her own way = 157 IQ but brains aren’t everything???????. ASK the King to went to the Delphic Oracle to find out if who will win the war he was about to wage and the Oracle only told him the King —- A Great Kingdom Will Be Lost?)



        • paul degagne on May 15, 2012 at 5:37 am

          MIZZU,

          Thank you for the interesting thought-provoking points you made and I’ll take them into consideration. Please excuse me for the delay in my response for I have been very busy as of late with other matters that are of prime concern to me?

          Better late than never, here goes:

          1) Yes, I liked Erich Fromm’s Anatomy of Human Destruction which I read years ago. I still remember most of what he said. (something I cant say for many other authors) i just picked up this book by W. G. Sebard called “On The Natural History of Destruction’ and am reading the chapter on Jean Amery?

          About Fromm’s book — I liked his explanation on the difference between Sadism and Necro-phila! And that the later term is really all about COMPLETE CONTROL rather than it’s general reduced to sexual connotations. ( so some techs maniacs may never desire to touch a ‘CORPSE’ yet still be NECRO-PHILIACS! VERY SCARY IF YOU ASK ME? (very dark but fascinating subject. By the way Fromm was the first to coin the word BIOPHILA which took a few decades to get around until E. Wilson caught on and re-introduced the concept or term to a wider audience. It’s a non-religious justification for Morality or its sense?)

          2) You wrote — It’s for Woman. I will look up that book but I am not expecting any surprises (maybe?) for I have done extensive ‘shadow’ work in the past. In fact I am concentrating on Jean Amery, A. Alvarez (wouldn’t you know I found out he’s Jewish? Why am I not surprised for they seem to have a monopoly on certain subjects?) and good old fashioned out of date/style re-reading of CAMUS for something I most certainly overlooked or was it i just I wasn’t mature enough to grasp the meaning of a meaningless ABSURDITY?

          Anyway — thanks for the tip about this author. ( as far as I know ‘nobody’ has joined the Anima/Aminus complex together. maybe some in the bisexual community have solved the Androminity (spelt wrong) problem but I ‘doubt it!” Wait and see?

          3) NOW about ADORNO — that is my main concern and you brought up some fair reflections that go against the Ideology of John Coleman. My main concern is not so much on who wrote the Beatles songs for them ( which i take you believe no-one has except the Beatles) so much as the ability of a propagandist to get us to TOTALLY BELIEVE AN UNTRUTH which we are even willing to swear by. That ‘possibility’ even if it is TOTALLY IMAGINARY bugs the hell out of me because I know deep in my heart we have been DUPED now and then and I rather have a faraway and not now “then” ha, ha!

          I am a Fool and I know I am a Fool but even WISE MEN call them selves FOOLS yet I am absolutely certain I am no WISE MAN. ( if so I am probably some reincarnated Lepricaun who lost his way from Mother Ireland. ( and I’m not even Irish but of French-Canadian Ancestry/)

          Back to ADORNO,

          MIZZU —-Calling him ‘desperate’ don’t do much good. Hey, he’s a Jewish Exile fleeing from persecution knowing his people are being exterminated and his native country destroyed. MIZZU —- if he wasn’t desperate then something would be wrong with the picture – wouldn’t you say? (that is just the “critics” who aren’t very critical and lack awareness or even a complete intelligence by missing the most obvious and by getting status downing someone whom their “standing on his shoulders.” Like Freud for it’s not to wise to bash or undermine the foundation of one’s very beliefs (theirs) when one is standing on SHOULDERS! (they give LILLYPUTINS — a bad name, ha, ha!)

          4.) One term you used that struck me between the eyes was the term ‘GARDENER to paint a picture of the ELITES’ ENLIGHTMENT plans/designs/etc.

          Think of the word WEEDS — NO — God help you if you ‘just happen to fit that words description’ to someone (gardener) who has the power to do some weeding in the garden. (jews were weeds and didn’t have the right to even exist in that Horrible German Garden called a STATE!)

          Garden is a very fine METAPHOR and it still has miles of traction left in it. (Wilderness is the best because some weeds prevent the rise of bugs or insects (also soil erosion) and a weed is a plant with thousands of variations (diversity) so if one or two of the only strands of grain and domesticated plants go extinct, so what, you have thousands of others to replace them unlike domesticate vegetation?)

          Weeds serve a VITAL ECOLOGICAL FUNCTION humans are most certainly bound to learn the hard way soon enough?

          5.) Ah yes, Civilization in Transition as one Volume is titled in Jung’s CW! And we are at the PEEK OF IT! (pardon the pun)

          Who knows!

          DOOM OR SALVATION! (I’m betting on doom but I hope I am wrong! I could try and tackle HEIDEGGER’S ideas of TECHNOLOGY AND BEING but his language is awful so I just get by cafeteria style — a bite here, a bite there from NORMAL PEOPLES’ translations and memiors of him.

          I am in a fix(ee) position of being somewhat ANTI-TECH yet my daughter is a recipient of a liver-transplant that saved her life over a decade ago. (see my point?)

          Again — Thanks Again MI—-.I want you to know you have an ‘audience” here—-Yours Truly = ME?



  6. marcos anthony toledo on May 8, 2012 at 3:46 pm

    This society has been built on human and other lifeforms sacifices for ages they just cover it up under different names war,pest control,legalize you name it with slavery the base of it all.



  7. terrylee3000 on May 8, 2012 at 3:11 pm

    There is much to be said about ignorance and the dealings with occult practices. When one can be drawn into such a belief system without the knowledge of critical thinking then one could wander aimlessly into the darkest side of belief systems. Have not people been doing this for thousands of years. Plundering, overpowering, stealing artifacts from other cultures, including their gold and riches. Stealing their knowledge, burning their homes and raping their children. This seems to be an never ending chess game of this is mine now and what are you going to do about it. Tough shit. We have your stuff and now you have nothing. You are dead as a culture and we are now the winners. We show your stuff in our museums and charge the world a fortune and it isn’t even from our country or our heritage. Nice. In Berlin right now and the Pergamon museum is a fine example of this. Gates of Ishtar. Why are they in Berlin? How about the head of Nefertiti? Joseph…what do you think about Michael Tsarion’s proposition that Nefertiti is of Irish Origin. Possibly Druid. I don’t know but when I look into her face she definitely does not look Egyptian. Who really cares in the first place but I am fascinated by the wonderment and how ancient history has rolled itself out.



    • Johnycomelately on May 9, 2012 at 4:30 am

      Isn’t the nature of the material world sacrificial? Doesn’t the sun sacrifice itself to sustain life on earth? If the God of this world is entropy isn’t sacrifice necessary to sustain life? Even parenthood is sacrificial in its nature, where sacrifice is perverted is sacrificing another for ones own gain.



      • paul degagne on May 9, 2012 at 5:45 am

        John —

        Catholics taught me this with a little help from Levenas—-

        The biggest sin is to ‘Use an “Other” as a MEANS TO AN END!” ( which is what you just said stated using such ‘thoughtful words.”)



      • Daniel Jones on May 10, 2012 at 7:33 am

        If God is a self-contained ‘closed system’ Being, I guess that might make some sense. But If God is No-thing, Beyond Being, an Open System, if there is entropy, where is it?



  8. Awake on May 8, 2012 at 1:12 pm

    They need some excuse and con for killing the best and the worst of us. Imagine being an inbred ruleing family and haveing your subjects wondering why they are following your more and more less noble appearing families leadership when this other family line is produceing such physically and mentally superb heroes and strategists. Easy to see why the con and need of sacrifice springs up and is followed when such families also rule and supress the spiritual expressions of their sheeple.



  9. robert fritsche on May 8, 2012 at 11:29 am

    I found the research, explained in Babylon Banksters, on the relation between cult and bull in ancient times, very interesting. The analogy of our finance debt system and the christian believe in debt of mankind, only reconciled by sacrifice could explain how deeply inserted is our economic structure to our christian believe system.
    But isn’t the very concept of “debt” far more older than even bull or any kind of money exchange? I want to say: Don’t we find analogies in all of these different contexts whenever we use the term “debt” ?

    I’m not sure about the right definition of the Nazi-Cult. I don’t know if they believed in a god. But I understood the “Holocaust” as an intent of “purification” or “reconstruction” of a an alleged arian race, not as a sacrifice to any god. And the way they did it doesn’t show up a ritual paradigm. It’s seems quite the opposite. It’s the application of pseudo-science, or real science but in a wicked religious cultish context, but exercised in a quite rational manner with the cold blood rof blind administrators of death (all the Eichmanns) or sadistic researchers (all the Mengeles). I don’t see the element of sacrifice. ( I admit that my lecture of Babylons Bankster was a fast one, and the Grid of the Gods I haven’t read yet).

    Maybe there is a deep-rooted religious motive in the above listed “modern sacrifices” abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment. But it’s not the main motive. It’s more like a cultural background that promotes such practices. Even like the apocalyptic tendencies of the “Yawaenisms”.

    The ritual practice of Skull and Bones or similar is ridiculous and outdated. Maybe they could impress their members in the 20s or 30s of the last century, but since the 60s and following we’ve past through a whole lot of psycho dynamic technics that lets look these ritual stuff like long bearded old men fantasies. If they slaughter human beings to reassure themselves in the seriousness of their believe they belong to psychiatric arrest. They are ill.
    Are these the people that watch over us…… all day, all night, and thats all right …?



  10. Robert Barricklow on May 8, 2012 at 9:06 am

    It’s never gone to bed.
    In fact, they never really quit, they just take breaks.

    The Franklin Cover-up: Child Abuse, Santanism, And Murder In Nebraska by John W DeCamp
    In this nonfiction work, a secret society, with very high echelon elites, practice bloody sacrifice entwined with perverted sexual practices, in their lovely webs of satanist rites/madness.



  11. SSNaga on May 8, 2012 at 6:36 am

    Puh-lease; wake up, look “around.” Creation Is ‘”The Issue” of The Virgin, or “UnSealing the BloodFlow.” What Is the Intent of Creation? Is that Hard to Realize? Obviously. What does “The Denouement” (of Creation!) Accomplish? … The Sweet-Harlot is soo Alluring… and the ELemental Beast is Her Pimp. The Blood Must Flooowww… (po-poor closet consciousness, unseeing in the Dark, blind in the LiEght. Yin-Yang, Two Source-lyghts.) … Its also called, “The Sacrifice.”



  12. paul degagne on May 8, 2012 at 5:44 am

    Forgive me for I have sinned against Robert and literate language by slipping in a ‘fast one”

    I will correct myself and say, “… the word Robert used – Cognate, to substitute for the word –thinking.

    No, that’s still doesn’t sound right?

    The Arbitrary sign or word ‘Cognate’ as a substitute or in place of the Arbitrary sign or word “thinking.”

    It’s more PROPER but it still doesn’t do the trick?

    Ah, screw it —

    See what I mean about LANGUAGE DIFFICULTIES. ( just like Statistics and those who USE STATISTICS?)



  13. insane on May 8, 2012 at 5:09 am

    Dr Farrell,

    how come amazon.com does not allow us to buy Yahweh The Two-Faced God ?



    • paul degagne on May 8, 2012 at 5:34 am

      Dear Insane,

      How can you ask such a ‘sane’ question?(ha, ha!)

      One of the reasons Feral used or uses Feral Press. (hidden forms of censure-ship by ‘critics on the payroll>” They think we are children who aren’t intelligent enough to make up our own minds and will be — get this, corrupted. (pass the hemlock boys. Thank heavens that FORM of Censure-ship is over at least for most of us in the west but those poor buggers over at GITMO would ‘beg to disagree?” England still has Anti-Sedition Laws on the books just like Massachusetts had but erased their little in-the-past LAW” = You are allowed to whip your wife with a bitch stick no larger than 3/4 of an inch or so it goes!

      Feral Press is not the Inquirer News(?) paper where stories like “I married an Alien with two heads! i don’t know if you can remember or read the confessional book called “I Married a Communist.’ Better yet in the early sixties I use to read my two older teenage sisters TRUE CONFESSIONS MAGAZINES laying all over the house. Every other story had some theme as “”I Was a Teenage UNWED MOTHER!! (OH Mary, the SHAME OF IT!)

      HARD TO BELIEVE ISN’T IT. ( but don’t think to long or the word Robert substituted for thinking, ‘Cognate” because if you do all this Culture (the devil made me do it?) will ‘get to you’ AND YOU WILL BEGIN TO BELIEVE IT, HA, HA!!!!!!!!!



      • paul degagne on May 8, 2012 at 5:48 am

        Farrell used instead of Feral use… I better quit because “I am beginning to get tongue-twisted and beside myself?”

        Have a great TUESDAY AFTERNOON as the Moody Blues would put it,

        This very DAY === TODAY!



      • paul degagne on May 8, 2012 at 6:09 am

        Also Amazon is Monopolistic and is succeeding but I heard small community-based bookstores ( people even volunteer for no salary as the store’s clerks and what not) are gaining ‘slight’ prominance here and there or SPROUTING UP LIKE YOUNG SPRINGS SHOOTS in various ‘LOCAL’ locations?

        For how long? — BEFORE will ‘the beast’ Amazon or Somebody else STEPS ON or CRUSHES THEM! Who knows how much time we have left? ( patronize them but I cant afford or TOO POOR to for I am caught in the snare of Wal-mark and those like me whom they have over a barrel!)



        • Joseph P. Farrell on May 9, 2012 at 10:26 am

          Amazon just suspended the kindle because THEIR system does not support our mathematical notations…so get the LULU edition…I am traveling right now and unable to address the issue…



          • paul degagne on May 12, 2012 at 5:11 am

            I get a kick out of the capitalization of THEIR in Farrell’s post. It is highly understandable why a author will ‘tip-toe’ around the word Amazon. I even might if I was in his shoes use the justification or (sic) rationalization — I don’t know IF IT IS for the definitive book on Amazon isn’t completely out or done with? (or is it? — see what I mean.)

            I am just going on the duck theory?

            Amazon makes this point in defense of itself by prefigure(ing) ahead of time what may be the customers (consumers) wants or needs. for example this phrase: “Others who have purchased this book have also bought such and such….? I have to confess this free service is like a bibliography. ” I found a few (mind you just a few this way == is a terrific amount ) of authors I never heard of but were describing in such a way that put the little magnitized data (thousands of thoughts) I constantly wrestle with all in one handy whole — Just what a SYMBOL is supposed to operate as – as a unifying factor.

            ( I notice BORDERS BIT THE DUST— hurrah– instead of all the little guys (Bordeers did this to how many MOM and POPs == good enough for what goes around comes around) —

            I cheered because I remember the small failed strike I think around 1989 or 90 where the poorly paid book stackers (many were students paying out-ragous tuition/fees ) were legitimately griping about the ‘peanuts’ thrown to them while Amazon was raking in BILLIONS GALOR or UP THE YIN/YANG!! ( Maybe Amazon will sometimes be like the old-fashioned non-existent democrats or Bosses who threw the bums a dime once in a while to make them think it was all worthwhile?)

            Well anyway,

            I don’t know how many people are awre of this but Marketers’ can now TARGET or select their potential buyers down to two thousand people in a area of say a million people. It wasn’t that long ago where they couldn’t do this and had to waste money delivering the message also to people they knew wouldn’t buy?

            it’s a bit scary ‘being guided’ by a corporation?

            Still I use it – but I often wonder to my self “How much do they really know about Us? (besides the every-little thing we do which can be observed?)

            You all know who said, “The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living” so he commits suicide by cop (hemlock when as legends put it he could have escaped late at night when a ‘someone -who’ opened the prison door to escort him to a waiting Sea-vessel and he said NAY!)

            Could it be he knew something that he didn’t want to tell us for —-“It’s Not Very Positive, better to let them go on thinking… which is kind of sane/rational but not exactly an Answer to Life?

            Then again it could be some DOMINANT paradigm or EPISTEME and you know what ‘they say’ about the reigning IDEAS of each generation are those of the……? (or not of our own making or creating — a GUIDING….?)



          • paul degagne on May 12, 2012 at 5:27 am

            This most recent post of mine is not very ‘bright’ if one is looking for the light-switch. ( I am too dire for most people’s taste!)

            Your better off not paying attention to it if you have the ‘freedom’ to do so?

            I have been of ‘sorts’ lately.

            I think I need to ‘cool it’ for a while and restudy my Camus and Amery and not be distracted by this interesting and fascinating website I call a Circus Parade Flowing By Me.

            I never liked the word ‘narrow’ but I think I need to NARROW DOWN and pin-point some EXACTITUDE and put the rest of the details on a side-back burner for later consideration?

            I think I will and add a little Thomas Merton CONTEMPLATION to the remainder!

            I’ll COOK that and see what happens.

            See ya around — the next go-around folks?



          • paul degagne on May 12, 2012 at 12:08 pm

            Borders —- A case where one BIG FISH gets eaten up by an even BIGGER FISH! (borders did have comfortable sofas to drink espresso’s from. Especially up in the Balcony as in its Boston Downtown Crossing Store. KILLING TIME between rondevouses — Just read ‘free magazines’ and enjoy life and it’s leisures. Watch the flow of faces (customers —- and I laugh when one hears ‘books are obsolete>) A cheapskate friend of mine I met at this bookstore used to buy the book then return it within the next few days for his money back, ha, ha! (do you think LOW-PAID CLERKS are going to report it or ask him for ID to make sure the name he gave is not an alias?)

            Maybe nowadays the kids are ROBOTIC but even as late as 1990’s they weren’t? Today a good german shepard pooch or I should say a motivated SECURITY GUARD are so into it they’ll kill you for your SKIDDLES —AND never respond to the police with a cell phone in your hand. ( …not if you black and its dark?)

            My unemployed buddie got to eat the great seafood Boston Has. Save a lot of money that way and Borders didn’t need the money like he did. ( I can hear someone say, “Just maybe the authors did? fair point)

            In the North Side of Chicago there is this 60’s nostalgia bookstore I rarely visit right next door to this divey-looking lounge that seen its better days and a 50’s genuine DINNER ( not this made to look that way kind — a real dinner still alive!) on the corner.

            Well, I was watching this new documentary on TV about Al Capone’s Mob or Racket and what do you know — they showed this same LOUNGE right next to this bookstore I mention and said it was Big Al’s main headquarters til he moved to Cicero (suburb to beat the cops).

            I laugh for I once saw this big yellow school bus painted black and on it was written GANGLAND TOURS! (before I could cognate, I said to my self —WHAT/ but then I realized it was a TOUR of previous GANGS!) anyway some enterprising entreproneur has found a successful way to make a BUCK!

            I thought about doing this that night. Taking Tourists down to the GHETTO and raking in the green stuff but I changed my mind because I don’t have the money for BULLET-PROOF WINDOWS. ( If I did that would be some TOURIST THRILL! maybe not for it might be too real and I would have a lawsuit on my hands when someone had a heart-attack? Liability insurance eats up profit, nah, not a good idea, ha, ha!)

            They use to have TOUR BUSES in Haight Ashbury —- Hey Ma! Look at all those freaks!! I think their called “Kooks” nowadays!)

            Borders, Amazon, Al Capone —– it’s all the same RACKET!



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