Tag Archives: Christianity

January 6, 2023 · 7:49 am

Proposal for a new holiday: Astrology Day!

The Visitation of the Magi by Alex Sumner

Happy Epiphany! Or, if you are a member of one of the Orthodox Churches, or are reading this in Africa, Merry Christmas! This post is a follow-up to my previous Epiphany-themed post, Jesus Christ: Pagan Messiah.

Astrologers are mentioned with high-praise in the Bible! All you Christian Fundamentalists who say that Astrology is evil, are ignoring the literal word of the good book, for the Gospel of St Matthew clearly says that the first foreigners to recognise Jesus as Christ were Astrologers. In fact, the Churches have instituted a day to honour the fact – today, the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6th.

Yes indeed. The Magi who came to offer gold, frankincense and myrrh were astrologers, who used their powers of casting horoscopes to predict the birth of the Messiah. The key to understanding this is the passage:

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.”

Matthew 2:1-2

The phrase at its rising has been also been translated as “in the East.” This has given rise to an erroneous belief that there was an actual Star of Bethlehem, moving comet like through the sky to guide the Magi to the place of Jesus’ birth. Some have also speculated, also erroneously, that the passage refers to a planetary conjunction which occurred in 6BC. (NB: all stars rise in the East, simply because of the Earth’s rotation).

However, to an Astrologer, the passage takes on a completely different meaning. It refers to Jesus’ “rising sign” or Ascendant. Hence the Magi computed Jesus’ Horoscope. Incidentally, the Rising Sign is the literal “Horoscope” – the word means “house marker,” hence the Ascendant is the point from which the Houses of the chart are measured. Likewise they used the power of Astrology to identify the specific house in Bethlehem (it so happens that there is a method in Horary Astrology where the geographical location of a thing may be determined by the position of the ruler of the house under which it falls in the Horary chart – see, e.g. here).

This has given me a brilliant idea – the Christian Church should celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany as Astrology Day, precisely because it is the day when a group of Astrologers came to visit Baby Jesus. Given that every other Christian holiday inevitably becomes secularized soon enough, we may rely on the power of big business to soon open it up to people of all religions and none! Heck, if this idea takes off and finds widespread popular appeal, we shall soon have internet memes going round saying it was a pagan feast day all along!

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October 25, 2012 · 10:51 am

The Paradox of Christianity and Occultism

An intriguing use of the chequered pavement!

It’s getting to that time of year again when certain types of Christian pastor pop out of the wood-work and alternatively rail against the supposed pagan and / or satanic origins of Halloween, or more creatively try to put on their own alternate events. Mind you I did find it ironic that one town in Pennsylvania was putting on a series of events apparently without realising there is already a Christian holiday associated with the day (All Saints’ Day) – “Fall Family Fun,” anyone?

I would like to give away one of the “greatest secrets” of occultism at this point. It’s not actually a great secret as far as occultists are concerned, but it is to many Fundamentalist preachers judging from their ravings, and even to some of the fluffier types of pagans. It is this: many occultists are in fact Christians themselves. Not Christopagans, nor even Gnostic Christians, but actual Christians. They tend not to draw attention to themselves, but they are there. These are the sort of people who join organisations like the Martinists, the Elus Cohens, the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross and other Qabalistic organisations which are sympathetic to Jesus Christ.

Reading the Hebrew letters from Fire going anti-clockwise spells “Yeheshuah.”

These are the sort of people who point out that the Pentagram is the symbol of the Pentagrammaton (“Yeheshuah”), the Qabalistic-spelling of Jesus: hence each time one performs the LBRP, one is actually invoking Jesus in the four quarters without realising it!

In fact, given that Neo-Paganism is predominantly a movement dating from the latter half of the twentieth century, the vast majority of the members of the original Golden Dawn and its offshoots were themselves Christian, and sought to incorporate Christian symbology into their Qabalistic practices.

I appreciate this will probably sound like the most outrageous heresy to Fundamentalist Christians. I believe the common attitude amongst such people is typified by the following:

The extent of occult involvement is universal.  Spiritual warfare is all around us, and if Satan cannot keep us from knowing Christ he will try containing us by drawing us into deception.  The Enemy is a deceiver, liar, tempter, and devourer of human souls…..

[…]

Actually, occultists’ practices are a counterfeit of God’s power, and as such they do reveal some amazing things — but these things are not the ultimate truth.  … [A]n increase in demonic activity is to be expected as a sign of the end times.

What is the Occult?

Pity the poor occultist! He or she is trapped in a real dilemma! If one invokes Satan, one is obviously Satanists, and if one invokes God, His Angels, or Jesus, etc – even in all apparent sincerity – one is still invoking Satan because the Father of Lies is pulling the wool over their eyes. One cannot win!

What these Fundamentalist Christians don’t realise – or they conveniently forget – is that Jesus Himself was accused of dabbling in the occult when He was alive! To wit:

And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebub,” and, “By the ruler of the demons He casts out demons.”

So He called them to Himself and said to them in parables: “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself, and is divided, he cannot stand, but has an end. No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. And then he will plunder his house.

“Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they may utter; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation”— because they said, “He has an unclean spirit.”

Mark 3:22 – 30

Replace “Scribes” in this passage with “Fundamentalist preachers” and you basically have the entire plight of the modern occultist who nevertheless professes to be a Christian. Logic would suggest – and Jesus Himself explicitly states here – that one cannot perform something which is objectively good and still be in thrall to the powers of Evil. So to address the quote from “What is the occult?” I would say it is seriously unwise to accuse an occultist of being deceived by Satan, because one might just be blaspheming against the Holy Spirit, i.e. committing the unforgiveable sin.

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October 31, 2011 · 12:55 pm

The Halloween Conspiracy – An exposé!

Merry Samhain!

There is a sinister Halloween conspiracy afoot. It is a truly insidious attempt to subvert this traditional holiday and turn it into something evil. As far as I am aware, this has never been talked about publicly before, so powerful is the wall of silence surrounding this dastardly scheme. This conspiracy is so disturbing it makes the members of the Warren Commission look like pillars of rectitude, and the extraordinary renditions of British citizens to Libya during Tony Blair’s time in office as UK Prime Minister nothing more than an attempt to send these people on holiday.

However, that is all about to change as I, Alex Sumner, the World’s Greatest Conspiracy Theorist, now blow the gaffe on the great Halloween Conspiracy. What is fundamental to understand is that this particular conspiracy is being perpetrated by an unholy partnership of Christians and secular groups on Wiccan, Pagans, Occultists  – and indeed other Christians.

I shit ye not! This all occurred to me when I was pondering why there has been a move away from traditional Halloween costumes in recent years towards costumes which are not particularly scary at all. Heidi Klum’s effort to look like a dead-body is probably the worthiest Halloween costume that your humble blogmaster has seen this year: it is not only a highly artistic effort, but splendidly enters into the macabre spirit of things. Other costumes however seem to be missing the point of Halloween, with a lot of people under the impression that all that is required is “fancy dress.”

I have said this before, but for the avoidance of doubt I will say it again: a costume is only an authentic Halloween costume if it amounts to a disguise – i.e. so that if an evil spirit came along, it would not recognise you. This is how the tradition of wearing costumes Halloween derives from the pagan celebration of Samhain.

That’s when it hit me: the move from traditional scary costumes to non-traditional fancy dress is a deliberate ploy to take the “Samhain” out of “Halloween” ! Now a lot of Christian Fundamentalists simply come out and say: “Don’t celebrate Halloween, because it’s Satanic,” and all they achieve is they manage to publicise the pagan festival which is its origin. However: the Halloween Conspiracy seeks to spread the idea that Halloween is not about scary costumes but about fancy dress – and hence subtly sever the associations to Samhain. It is in fact the Pagan equivalent of All Souls’ Day, the day of honouring ones deceased relatives. I believe the ancient Church recognised this and deliberately chose to mark All Souls’ Day as close to Samhain as possible (November 2nd) for this very reason.

By severing the connection between Halloween and Samhain, it plays partly into Christian hands who find a secular fancy dress holiday more palatable than one associated with wrongly-so-called Satanic imagery. However, far more pernicious is the fact that it also plays into the hands of secular-politically-correct-atheistic-liberal-consensus that is uncomfortable with any mention of spirituality whatsoever.

Hence: what Christians and Pagans should be doing is, instead of fighting each other, join forces to combat the growing rise of secularism. This can only be done by Christians embracing the scary imagery, and by pagans realising that Christians are not necessarily the enemy but potential allies in the cause of Keeping Samhain Spiritual.

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May 19, 2011 · 1:24 pm

Alex explains The Rapture

The Rapture. You're Doing It Wrong.

Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord for ever.

1 Thessalonians 4:17

Meet me Jesus, meet me,
Meet me in the middle of the air,
If my wings should fail me Lord
Please meet me with another pair.

Led Zeppelin, In My Time Of Dying.

Following on from my post about the coming Apocalypse, I thought I would share my thoughts on the Initiated view of the so-called Rapture. The popular notion is that on a certain day, the Lord will call His Own to Himself, which will result in them ascending physically into the sky. This will entail great joy for the Virtuous; great lamentation for the not-quite-so-Virtuous; great consternation for those of the Virtuous who were stuck indoors on the day it happens; and widespread looting and partying for everyone else.

Let’s ignore for one moment the fact that the idea of the Rapture is (a) preposterous and (b) inconsistent with other eschatological passages in the New Testament in both the Gospels and  the Book of Revelation. The whole idea about the Rapture is based on the passage from 1 Thessalonians quoted above: the operative word in the verse is “air.” In Greek this would have been Aera i.e. the air of the atmosphere or sky, as opposed to Pneuma or breath. In Hebrew however, this is Shamayim.

Shamayim, spelled with final (top) and medial versions of Mem.

Correctly spelled, this enumerates in Gematria to 1090 – which reduces by Theosophic Reduction (aka Aiq Beker) to 10, the number of Malkuth. Furthermore, the technically-incorrect spelling using the medial Mem instead of the final, which enumerates to 430 – the same as Nephesh.

This casts the situation in a far different light altogether. “Nephesh” is the vital or animal-soul of a person: the word is used in the Old Testament as a synonym for a “living being.” It may also be thought of as bearing the same relation to the Ruach as the Sub-conscious mind does to the Conscious mind. In the Qabalah the Nephesh is associated with Malkuth.

Thus by analysing it Qabalistically, it starts to look pretty much that far from meeting the Lord somewhere above the troposphere, He will manifest down here in the midst of our life in Malkuth within our very own being. After all, Jesus did say (He was quoting Psalm 37 when he did so) that it would be the Meek who inherit the Earth, not the unvirtuous.

NB: This interpretation may sound far-fetched but it is far more reasonable than some of the explanations put about by those who believe in a literal Rapture.

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