A preview of the artwork for my forthcoming book, Licence To Depart, can now be glimpsed at my website.
Also, as it appears to be Satanism week over at the Daily Telegraph, I thought that Journalists might be after a pundit to talk knowledgeably about the dangers of Exorcism *cough* I mean Demonic Possession. With this in mind I have re-vamped the Press page.
Filed under Comment, Licence To Depart, Religion, Site Update
His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI has said that condoms are permissible in a certain number of cases, e.g. if one is a Prostitute. And just to clarify the point, he means male, female AND transgendered ones.
Presumably then, this also means that Prostitutes’ Clients are also allowed to use them as well, otherwise it would be an empty gesture! Perhaps this means that Catholics are now allowed to employ sex-workers???
I can see where this is going. The Church is probably now going to say that a Priest is not guilty of Paedophilia if it can be proved he took money off the victim!
Seriously though, I do not particularly fancy having to become a Gigolo just so that I can be in communion with the Catholic Church and use a condom at the same time. The fact of the matter is that Pope Benedict XVI has made a major blunder by not allowing the use of condoms to a category of people who are far and away more deserving of them than prostitutes – with all due respect.
I refer, of course, to ordinary married people – or even just ordinary people who were hoping to get married one day – who have become infected with HIV through no fault of their own. When you consider that in parts of Africa this amounts to 30% of the local population, this is actually a very large number indeed.
Courtesy of AstroDienst.com
Following on from my successes at predicting the outcome of the UK general election, and England’s chances in the world cup, I now present what I predict will occur when His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI arrives tomorrow for his state visit to the United Kingdom. This I have done by comparing the Pope’s birth-chart with the transits which are occurring at this time.
Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Alois Ratzinger) was born on 16th April 1927 at Marktl-Am-Inn in Bavaria, Germany, at 0830 local time. He is due to touch down in the UK at 1030 am (British Summer Time) tomorrow – 16th September 2010 – at Edinburgh International Airport. Inputting this data into AstroDienst.com I have come up with a chart with which one can compare the Pope’s birth chart (inner ring) with the transits occurring during the visit (outer ring) – see diagram.
Generally speaking in astrological terms, there is a currently Square aspect between three planets. Jupiter and Uranus are conjunct in Pisces: whilst Pluto squares both of them in Capricorn. What makes this interesting is that these three form a “T” with Pope Benedict’s ascendant – which itself is conjunct his natal Mars and Caput Draconis.
Uranus and Jupiter squaring his natal ascendant (etc) presages that Pope Benedict will manage to stir up a major incident of controversy or a crisis during this trip – relating to the nature of the his job as Pope. The Mars influence suggests that the Pope, blinded by overconfidence, will have an outburst of anger which will alienate a lot of people. The Caput Draconis influence indicates that this major incident will coincide with one of his public speeches which happens to be about a popular religious, philosophic, educational, or cultural trend.
We should not be surprised if Pope Benedict suffers some sort of accident involving physical injury during this visit.
As it happens, retrograde Neptune is conjunct his natal MC, and square to his natal Venus. The Pope may feel that he is in the middle of a career-crisis! The influence of his natal Venus is a strange one: were it not for the fact that the Pope is (supposedly) celibate, his chart would indicate now would be a good time for him to embark on a new love-affair!!
(This is what happens when you try to learn astrology from books intended for members of the general public, not the heads of major religions).
Pope Benedict’s apparent woes are reinfoced by Saturn transitting his 5th natal house. This indicates that he has issues over how deserving he is of attention from others, and he may feel unloved. (Compare this with the criticism that the Pope’s visit has been receiving from people such as Richard Dawkins, Peter Tatchell and Iain Paisley) However, the Pope also has a long-term opportunity to improve his standing and that of the church (nb: by long-term I mean it probably won’t occur during the duration of the visit itself, but only make itself apparent afterwards).
On the plus side, Pluto’s influence means that the Pope’s ambition and drive to succeed are incredibly strong now. He feels a compulsive need to achieve. The Pope may also find that some of the people he meets will turn out to be very important to him, and become hugely influential – even to the extent of presenting a new opportunity of mutual benefit to themselves and the Pontiff.
The conjunction of transitting Uranus & Jupiter with natal Mercury indicates that this is an auspicious time for the Pope to use his state visit as a public relations exercise. Specifically, he will find it easy to come up with new ideas, make decisions, deliver speeches, and generally put himself across. Also: his natal Venus, which is in his twelfth house (ruled by Mercury), will also be affected, so he will feel the need to promote and improve his relationships with others and to establish new ones as well. The internet and electronic-media will greatly help in this regard. I note that one of his plans is to visit a school assembly which will be broadcast live over the web.
Filed under Supernatural
The Vatican apparently is now interested in astrobiology, i.e. life among the stars. This has set many tongues wagging, with commentators pointing out that if life does exist on other planets, this would go against a literal interpretation of the Bible. I do not think this will be too much of a problem, as the Catholic Church has not let its magisterium be constrained by something so inconvenient as actually reading the source text up to now.
However – never mind about what happens with regards to Christianity when life on other planets is confirmed: more importantly, how will this affect the Qabalah?
The Tree of Life
I have heard some people argue that the Qabalah is in fact a universal principle, given that there have been instances on earth of Crop Circles in the form of the Tree of Life. (Strange how our alien brethren approve of the Kircher version of the Tree of Life, as opposed to, say, the Lurianic version!) Now the Sepher Yetzirah makes great mention of the fact that the Qabalah is based on the number ten, not nine, ten, not eleven. But… what kind of Qabalah would an alien with a different number of fingers to us humans have come up with?
Now some people, still pointing to the crop circles as proof, have tried to argue that the number ten is a universal principle which has nothing to do with the number of fingers that we have. However: the evidence is in Sepher Yetzirah that the magic number ten is indeed associated with our fingers, as Qabalistic attributions are given thereto: moreover, it attaches importance to being able to form letters of the Hebrew alphabet with ones fingers. This incidentally is how Leonard Nimoy devised the Vulcan Salute. It is actually the sign a Cohen makes as he is giving the valedictory blessing in a synagogue (it actually represents the letter Shin).
Most authorities are of the opinion that we use a decimal system as opposed to any other simply because we have ten fingers – because they are our first counting tools. I therefore say this. If aliens have a version of the Qabalah and the Tree of Life, it will be based not on Ten sephiroth, but on whatever number-base they happen to use – i.e. which is most likely to be the number of fingers they have, if indeed they have fingers.
Astrology
The most popular forms of Astrology present on Earth are by their very nature Geocentric. The constellations are the way that the stars appear from Earth, and the belt of the Zodiac is defined by the route which the Sun – our Sun – takes through the heavens.
However, if Aliens had their own version of Astrology, firstly it would not be Geocentric; secondly it would be based on a completely different Sun and set of planets; and thirdly there would be no correlation to our constellations whatsoever, as their own would appear to be completely different. The only feature of our astrology which might feature in their version would be the fact that our Sun might be visible from their own solar system. This is significant because the development of Astrology on our own planet has been governed by attaching importance to that which is most visible (the Sun, the Moon), and then defining the rest of the system in relation to that. It is therefore reasonable to assume that Alien Astrologers would only attach importance to the objects which are most noticeable from their own home planet(s), which could mean that if our Sun is in what is to them a relatively obscure part of their sky, it may not enter into their consideration at all.
This is somewhat by the by, though, as I predict that Earth Astrology is soon going to be refuted according to its own logic. This has nothing to do with astronomy purporting to have refuted it already. I shall explain: Earth Astrology relies on a given birth / event / etc having a time, date and place somewhere on the planet’s surface, because the key to the Horoscope is the Ascendant, the sign which is on the horizon at the time for which the chart is drawn.
However, the higher one is above the ground, the more fluid the concept of the horizon becomes, until when one has left the Earth altogether, it ceases to have any meaning. Thus – at some point in the future, there is going to be a human being born in outer space, and when that happens, it will be impossible to draw up a horoscope for that person. Therefore I say that at that point conventional astrology will have to be abolished, because there will be at least one person alive to whom it cannot apply.
There is such a thing as Heliocentric astrology, although because of the peculiarities of the heliocentric system it is not suitable for dealing with the kind of issues for which geocentric astrology is currently used. However, even Heliocentric astrology is going to be refuted when the first human being is born outside our solar system. Which brings me back to Alien Astrology – if aliens do exist in other solar systems, then we cannot apply our astrology to them.
The Age of Aquarius
Finally, I shall just like to briefly mention this: the whole idea of cosmic ages is another geocentric notion which is going to go the same way as geocentric astrology. Now, as noted above, I predict that astrology is going to be refuted when at least one human being is born in outer space. Reason suggests that this is going to be sometime in the next hundred or two hundred years. The Age of Aquarius is due to begin in the next hundred or two hundred years – at approximately the same time that the whole concept of the Age of Aquarius will be refuted according to the logic of Astrology. Irony of ironies! Were I a superstitious man I would be inclined to say that the birth of the first human in space will be the actual event that signifies the Age of Aquarius. In any case the challenge of the next great aeon will be to move away from a human-centric, ego-centric, notion of mysticism and to evolve a more cosmological outlook.
Filed under Comment
Sol Ascendans - The Website of Alex Sumner 
Church of England creating its own Pagan Church… or not, as the case may be.
Dearly beloved brethren, let us now sing our next hymn, “My Erotic Angel” by Inkubus/Sukkubus.
It’s that time of year again when tired internet hacks try to capitalise on the symbolism of the Summer Solstice in a pathetic attempt to drive traffic to their website. But enough about me, and let’s have a good chortle at what journalists around the web have been down to recently. 😉
Your humble blogmaster’s interest was briefly awakened this morning when I saw a news report saying that the Church of England is trying to create its own Pagan Church. The otherwise sensible Daily Telegraph even went as far as saying:
This reminds me of a sketch from Not The Nine O’Clock News some thirty years ago, in which the premise was that the Church of England was so desperate for members that it was now accepting practising Satanists into its ranks. Cue trendy vicars trying to justify why this was a sensible proposition.
As always, the truth is far more boring. Since the news report first came out, the Church Mission Service – the body alleged to be wanting to create this Pagan CofE church – has issued a clarification:
The Jesus Deck – Christian oracle cards!
Perhaps though, the CMS could teach the Catholic Church in Ireland a thing or two. The Association of Catholic Priests there has said that Irish people have “to all intents and purposes, become pagan.” NB: in the mind of the ACP this is supposedly a Bad Thing. Their response however is bizarre. Ask any right-thinking person why this state of affairs might have come to pass, and they will probably say it is because the Irish Church has made a complete balls-up, including most notably – but not exclusively – the scandal surrounding its treatment of child molesters. Ah no, says the ACP, it is because the Irish have been seduced by the evils of materialism and consumerism – it’s not the Church’s fault at all! Hence the answer is not wholesale reform of the Church but more evangelisation. Which is another way of saying more of the kind of stuff that got it into so much trouble in the first place.
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Filed under Comment, Religion
Tagged as catholic church, church of england, paganism, Solstice