Connections

“Nothing real existed, except as a symbol for something else.” -James Burke

“It is not I who say, it is the thing itself that says.” -Umberto Eco

A list of connections:

Hellenistic Syncreticism: a philosophical/mystical/religious tradition combining elements of Greco-Egyptian-Near Eastern religion (esp. the Mystery Cults), Zoroastrianism, Jewish Kaballah, and Platonism and Neo-Platonism. Common themes are the inherent corruption/corruptibility of matter, God as a purely spiritual entity apart from the physical universe. Many Hellenistic ideas show up in Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Catharism, and Satanism.

The fall of the library of Cordoba in 1013 introduces Muslim learning and reintroduces Greek and Roman literature to Western Europe. The texts take over a century to fully translate and help kick off the European Renaissance. Following the methods of Aristotle and the Arab natural philosophers, university scholars in France and Italy begin to write manuscripts calling into question the teachings of the church fathers and the Bible itself. The Order of Preachers (the Dominicans) is founded to combat this. They serve a central role in the Inquisition and the reconquest of Spain.

The Investiture Conflict of 1075 touches off several centuries of conflict between the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope over temporal power in Italy. The central issue is the role of the Pope as a figure of political, worldly authority and as a landowner. Although this conflict is nominally resolved with the Concordat of Worms in 1122, echoes of it will continue. The conflict over the Franciscans, the Avignon papacy, the Italian conflict between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, and ultimately the Lutheran Reformation will all reference the themes regarding the Pope's wealth and temporal power.

In 1119, 12 monks form the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon (the Knights Templar). In 1307, the Templars are ordered disbanded by Phillip the Fair, and are brought to trial on charges of heresy. Two of the accusations are that, during initiations, new knights were asked to trod upon a crucifix or image of the Virgin Mary, and that they kissed a brother's ass. Denying the divinity of Mary and the crucifixion are two features of Catharism, as is anal sex (used as a form of birth control). The Cathars are also known as the Albigensians, and take much of their dogma from the earlier Paulicans, Bogomils, and Bougres. ('Bougre' also becomes 'bugger' in English, a reference to anal sex.)

Supposedly, some Templars also survive in Scotland. Knights with red crosses and white cloaks are reported at the battle of Bannockburn (1314) (which may also recall the lost IX Legion Hispania, supposedly gone missing in Scotland, and the later knights of the Round Table). Spencer's “The Faerie Queen” is filled with Templar and Rosicrucian imagery.

Certain of the Grail traditions hold that Joseph of Arimathea, who brought the Grail out of Judea, landed in Southern France, near Marseilles on his way to Brittany. Some brief mentions in Merovingian period texts hint at a Judaic state in Southern France, later occupied and absorbed into France by Charlemagne. Southern France, especially Provins (Provence) and Chartres later become strongholds of the Templars. Finally, the Languedoc becomes the center of a Cathar community that is crushed in 1229 by the Albigensian crusade. Suspicions remain about the orthodoxy of the former Cathars. The Inquisition is founded to combat crypto-Catharism.

In 1209 Francis of Assisi begins preaching the absolute poverty of Christ. He inspires a number of followers, who become the Friars Minor or Minorites. Eventually, they emerge as the Fraternal Order of St. Francis (the Franciscans), charged with teaching orthodoxy to heretics. They are a form of memetic inoculation against unorthodox beliefs and practices. Along with the Dominicans they become intimately involved with the Inquisition.

Following the ideas of the Friars Minor, others preach against the wealth of the pope and the bishops. Some heretical groups, such as as the Dulcinians under Fra Dolcino, put these ideas into practice, forming bands of peasants who kill landowners and priests and plunder their estates. The Dulcinians (or Dolcinites) are finally crushed on Mount Rubello in 1307 (the same year the Templars are arrested).

In 1309 the seat of the Papacy is moved from Rome to Avignon in southern France. Ostensibly, this is done to remove it from the corruption of Rome, but it also places the Pope under the thumb of the King of France, which control Phillip the Fair exerts during the trial of the Templars.

In 1609, the Rosicrucian manifestos are printed and circulated in Germany. They promise the existence of an unknown fraternity: learned men who move through Europe adopting the customs and dress of the communities where they live and working for the reform of mankind and combating the wickedness and avarice of the church. They promise to live in the community, and healing at no charge (much like the original Friars Minor). Unlike them, they wear no distinctive habit and preach no exoteric doctrine (hoping to avoid the persecution?) From the idea of the hidden fraternity of learned men, Boyle refers to the need for an Invisible College in 1640. The dream of unifying the educated of Western Europe will finally materialize in the Royal Society.

After the Revolution, France will found the Conservetoire des Arts et Metiers, collecting all the products of the sciences in one place. They will installit in St. Martin des Champs, built on Bacon's plans for the Temple of Solomon, whose wisdom is praised in the Fama.

1613 Wedding of Princess Elizabeth (daughter of James I of England) marries Frederick, Elector Palatine of the Rhine. Bacon arranges an allegorical play on mystic knighthood. In Heidelberg, the groom is celebrated as Jason of the Golden Fleece on a float that includes the emblem of the Order of the Garter (see Tomar).

Throughout the 18^th and 19^th centuries, the Royal Society will serve as a clearinghouse of science and learning, patronizing chemists, physicists, and naturalists (including Charles Darwin). During the reign of Napoleon, the benefices of the Royal society permit mutual visitations of academics between France, Germany, and England. The Royal society thus may have become a cover for sub rosa doings: conspiracies, spies, and intrigues.

The Royal Society in turn will help guide the formation or codification of the Freemasons (the Freemasons themselves may date back further, to Scotland and the 16^th century. Some claim they are inspired by the Knights of Brannockburn). The Invisible College will also play a role in the iconography of various Romantic thinkers and poets including Shelly and Wordsworth. Later, Grant Morrison will write it into The Invisibles.

The Knights Templar of Portugal survive the purge in France and become the Knights of Christ (settled around Tomar). They settle into a number of strongholds on the Atlantic shore. Notably, King Henry the Navigator is a Knight of Christ. His school of navigation sets of a series of explorations south along the coast of Africa. Ultimately, Christopher Columbus sails West under the banner of a red cross on white – the Templar emblem. The castle at Tomar is remodeled under henry the Navigator, who includes the emblems of the Garter and the Golden fleece.

North America: the Avalon of the grail cycles? Tir Na Nog? Ultimate Thule of Germanic myth (remembering that the NSDAP emerged out of the theosophical Thule Society). The oak island money pit. Masons in New England. References to the New World and the art of the sphere in the Rosicrucian manifestos.

Columbus sails West seeking the East: Prester John? Agharttha/Shamballah? Alamut?

Parallels exist between the occult tradition of the Templars and Sufism and mystical Islam. Templars were accused of worshiping a bearded idol/devil named Baphomet, and crying out to Yallah. Connection to Mahomet and Allah?

Martinism “Martinism is a form of mystical and esoteric Christianity concerned with the fall of the first man, his state of material privation from his divine source, and the process of his return, called 'Reintegration' or illumination.” Source of 'illumination' in Freemasonry. Martinism becomes the basis for “mystical” Freemasonry, and informs many of the doctrines of the later Golden Dawn.

1776, the year of convergence: Deceleration of Independence signed. The Wealth of Nations published, which underlies the theoretical justifications for free markets (America = capitalism?). Volume one of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire published (America = Rome?). May 1, in Inglestadt, Adam Weishaupt founds the Ancient Illuminated Seers of Bavaria. Their agenda: secularism, papicide, and revolution. Beethoven's First Symphony is dedicated to the AISB, commissioned in celebration of King Ludwig's closing parochial schools in Bavaria in favor of state-run secular schools.

The Freemasons forbid all discussion of politics and religion in Temple. They substitute a Theistic conception of God with the Deist “Great Architect” (echoes of this in alcoholics Anonymous 'higher power as we understand it'). Masons adopt the myth of Hiram of Abiff, the Widow's Son. Hiram is killed by three ruffians named Jubelo, Jubela, and Jubelum (the endings mirror the -o, -a, -um gender inflections of many Latin words. Also see Jack the Ripper, “It was the juwes who did it” and the recurrent whiff of Freemasonry in the Ripper case.) Hiram dies of three wounds, one to the head, throat (or mouth), and heart. These allegorically represent the death of free speech, the death of free thinking, and the resultant death of the soul. The Freemasons preserve and spread the ideas of Rationalism, the Enlightenment, and liberty.

These same ideas of liberty and rationalism underlie the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the American Revolution of 1776, and the French Revolution of 1789. The presence and influence of the Freemasons is well known in the latter two. Upon becoming dictator in France, Napoleon is inducted into various lodges and becomes honorary Grand Master. Although known as a dictator and conqueror, Napoleon does spread the ideals of the French Revolution throughout Europe. Allegedly important moments in Napoleon's career: he attempts to conquer Egypt and brings engineers and scientists with him (uncovering the Rosetta stone in the process), fails to suppress the civil war that leads to Haitian independence, he sells Louisiana to Thomas Jefferson (a known Mason), attempts to conquer England (the nation of the Faerie Queen and the Knights of Brannockburn), instigates the peninsular campaign and the attempted conquest of Portugal, launches the nonsensical invasion of Russia. The ultimate paradox of Napoleon: although a militaristic dictator, Napoleon spreads the ideals of the French Revolution (and to a lesser extent, Freemasonry) throughout Europe.

Cecil Rhodes gets rich from South African diamond mines, buys his own country (Rhodesia), and founds academic round tables (an Invisible College) encouraging co-operation between WASP England and the U.S. These round tables survive today as the Council on Foreign Relations (founded 1921), whose membership rolls permeate the highest levels of the U.S. Government, high finance, and academia. Rhodes also founds the Rhodes scholarships, funding the best and brightest of the U.S. To go to school in England so that they can coordinate and learn world domination (the initial Rhodes scholarships specified only blond, blue-eyed men, of course).

The Deutsches Arbeiterpartei (DAP) emerges from the Thule Society in 1999. Hitler later reorganizes the DAP into the NSDAP. Hitler's military aspirations parallel many of Napoleon's: conquest of France, planned invasion of England, aspirations towards Gibraltar, invasion of Russia, a North African campaign aimed at Egypt and beyond. Where Napoleon makes gestures towards reconciliation of the Jews, Hitler attempts to eliminate them. Interestingly, great lengths are gone to cataloging all of the possessions of the victims: their clothes and shoes are warehoused and meticulously gone over.

Theosophy attempts to find the central, unifying message in world religions. It's principle success is a synthesis of Hinduism, Hermeticism, and Christianity. A central tenet of Helena Blavatsky's is the existence of an unknown number of Secret Masters or Unknown Superiors; immortal and wise, they move invisibly through the populace secretly controlling everything; or else they live in Agharttha, a secret refuge beneath the Nepalese Himalayas, where they contemplate the occult secrets of the universe. Another of Blavatsky's theories is the conflict between anarchy (the present divided, sectarian governments and religions of the world) and 'synarchy' (the harmonious government of the secret masters for the betterment of all). Theosophy will later influence Bormann and Hess, two high figures in Hitler's government.

Propaganda Due or the P2 is founded sometime in the late 1970's within the Italian Grand Orient Lodge of Egyptian Freemasonry. It had ties to the Vatican bank, the Mafia, and the CIA's operation Gladio anti-Communism project. Gladio inaugurated the 'strategy of tension', instigating terrorist incidents and then blaming them on Communists so that the government would have to crack down on them. P2 may have played a part in assassinating Pope John, plotted a fascist coup in Italy, laundered money through the Vatican Bank, and engaged in other corruption and crony ism.

The partner organization to the Templars, the Knights of the Hospital of St. John, survive to the modern era as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (the Knights of Malta). One of the prominent Knights was William Modern Knights of Malta include William Casey, Reinhard Gehlen, Alexander Haig, Licio Gelli, Roberto Calvi, and Michele Sindona.

The Order of the Golden Dawn is a Martinez inspired mystical Freemasonic chapter founded in 1881. They contribute to the revival of Hermeticism in the West in the early 20^th Century. Standing behind the Golden Dawn is the Ordo Templi Orientalis, a mystical society that claims it's origins in Templarism: the OTO claims that the highest grade in the Golden Dawn is the lowest grade of the OTO. The Golden Dawn eventually changes itself, stripped of many of its Masonic elements, into the Stella Martuitus (Star of Morning).

In 1912, Aleister Crowley is made one of the five Outer Heads of the OTO by inadvertently publishing the highest esoteric secret of the OTO in his Book of Lies. Sometime afterward, Crowley founds the A A to prepare the world for the Aeon of Horus he has prophesied.

Ignatius Loyola founds the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) to promote the Catholic church's Counter-Reformation and combat the Reformation. The Jesuits serve as the church's theological shock troops: trained in theology, law, philosophy, rhetoric, debate, and strategy. Their aim is to shore up the faith and political reliability of Catholic monarchs and aristocrats and help them combat Lutheranism and employ the new tools of rationalism, science and technology in the service of Catholicism. Outlawed and driven underground at various times and places, the Order survives to this day.

The Rand Corporation is founded as a corporate think tank. The go-to organization for systems analysis, game theory and social engineering. They become pivotal advisers on Cold War strategy and players in cryptography, digital computing, and the space program.

People:

Hermes Trismegistus (?): Divine author of the Hermetic Corpus and the legendary Emerald Tablets. The foundation of Western Hermeticism. Probably a result of Greco/Egyptian synecritism.

Joseph of Arimathea (?) : Member of the council of Saducees and follower of Yeshua of Nazareth. He owned the Garden of Gethsemane where the Last Supper and the Crucifixion occurred, and the tomb where Yeshua was supposedly buried. Legend holds that he caught the blood of the Crucifixion in the Sang Graal and smuggled it out of Palestine to Southern France, and from there to Brittany or to Britain.

Joachim of Floris (1132 – 1202): Christian mystic who divided history into three ages: the Age of the Father, the Age of the Son, and the Age of the Holy Spirit (paralleling the revelations of Moses, Jesus, and Joachim). May have been an inspiration for Crowley's Age of the Mother, Age of the Father, and Age of the crowned and conquering child (Isis, Osiris, and Horus). Also founded an Order of the Illuminati which practiced poverty, which – centuries later – would fall under the influence of Fra Dolcino.

Francis of Assisi (1181 – 1226): Preached the absolute poverty Christ in the face of church wealth and power. He and his Minorite followers are in perpetual danger of being declared heretical.

Nicholas Flamel (1330 – 1418): An early alchemist. Claimed to possess a text Book of Abraham the Sage. Exposition of the Hieroglyphical Figures is attributed to Flamel. Supposedly turned iron to silver and lead into gold; secret truths may be inscribed on his tombstone.

Guillaume Postel (1510 – 1581): French polymath and religious philosopher. A close ally of the Jesuits, but parted ways with them. May have been an influence on the Rosicrucians, if not the writer of the manifestos.

John Dee (1527 - 1608): Court Astrologer for Queen Elizabeth I. Summoned angels and one demon, and developed Enochian. Promoted may voyages of discovery, and became interested in maps and ciphers of various sorts later in life.

Giordono Bruno (1548 – 1600): Italian theologian. Early proponent of the Heliocentric view of the solar system and the existence of extra-solar life. His life, writings, and execution may have played a part in the prosecution of Galileo. Also preached the inherent equality of man before God (a heretical notion that denies both the priesthood and the aristocracy), a theme later taken up in the French Revolution.

Johann Valentian Andreae (1554-1601): German theologian. The Rosicrucian documents were frequently ascribed to him. He frequently denied it, but later in life claimed to have authored the Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz as a joke or intellectual exercise.

Edward Kelley / Edward Talbot (1555 – 1559): John Dee's medium and crystal gazer. A scholar of alchemy in his own right.

Heinrich Khunrath (1560 – 1605): Alchemist and Christian mystic. Attempted to reconcile alchemy and Christian theology. A major influence in the rise of theosophy.

Francis Bacon (1562 – 1626): English natural philosopher and ploy-intellectual. Developed a plan for inductive reasoning that underlies the Western scientific tradition. Also wrote The New Atlantis, which gives the dimensions of the Temple of Solomon. May have been the author of the Rosicrucian manifestos. The focus of any number of 17^th century conspiracy theories (Hite's “Six degrees of Francis Bacon”). The priory of Saint Martin des Champs in Paris (in the old Templar quarter) is said to built to the plan of the Temple of Solomon from The New Atlantis, and now houses the Musee des Arts et Metiers

Jakob Boehme (1575 – 1624): Theologian and contributer to Christian theosophy. Introduced the idea that sin and the Fall of Man is necessary for redemption, an idea picked up by a number of quasi-Satanic groups.

Christopher Marlowe (1596 – 1563): Playwright and poet. Nothing is provable, but there are perpetual whiffs around him: association with the English intelligence community, possible atheism or Catholicism, possible association with various Elizabethan secret societies and conspiracies. Supposedly stabbed over a tavern bill, “When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child, understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room.” - Shakespeare

Comte St. Germain (1712? - 1784?): French/German/Italian adventurer, alchemist and musician. Claimed to be many centuries old. Claimed to have discovered the Philosopher's stone and to have changed lead into gold.

Martinez de Pasqually (1727 - 1774): Introduced illuminism into Freemasonry and founded many, many, many Mason chapters.

Alessandro Cagliostro / Guiseppe Balsamo (1743 – 1795): Italian adventurer and occultist. Implicated the Affair of the Diamond necklace.

Louis-Claude St. Germain (1743 – 1803): A disciple of Martinez de Pasqually and early contributer to what would become Theosophy. Shares the name of the more notorious St. Germain.

Eliphas Levi (1810 – 1875): French occultist and reviver of Hermeticism. Perhaps best known for his drawing of Baphomet (the idol the Templars were accused of worshiping).

Leon Foucault (1819 – 1868): French physicist. Sanguinphobic. Demonstrated the first Foucault's pendulum, which proves the rotation of the Earth, in the priory of Saint Martin des Champs (see Francis Bacon, above).

Helena Blavatsky (1831 -1891): Founder of the Theosophical Society, and a pioneer of organized pan-religious theosophy. Attempted to unify Christian theology, Hermeticism, and Hinduism. Posited the existence of the Secret Masters of Agharttha, and the conflict between “anarchy and synarchy”.

Aurthur Waite (1857 - 1942): Member of the Golden Dawn and co-author of the Rider-Waite tarot deck.  Friend of Arthur Machen (inspiration for H. P. Lovecraft) and foe/rival of Aleister Crowley.

Margaret Murry (1863 - 1963): Author of The Witch-Cult in Western Europe which posits the survival of pre-Christen religion in Western Europe. Kept secret from the public at large, the cult supposedly practices its rites in secret. This book becomes one of the foundations of Gardnerian Wicca. It is also a strong influence on the pulp-era writings of both R. E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft.

Gerald Gardner (1884 – 1964): Developed modern Wicca out of 19^th century theosophy and Golden Dawn hermeticism. “So mote it be!” is a Masonic invocation later popularized in Wicca.

Martin Bormann (1900 – 1945): Adolf Hitler's personal secretary. Wrote that Nazism was “wholly incompatible with Christianity”. Bormann may have been in the forefront of Hitler's interest in Teutonic myth and the occult.

Reinhard Gehlen (1902 - 1979): The “Superspy” of Western Europe. Was chief of the Abwehr's Soviet Intelligence section during World War II. Defected to the U.S. At the end of the war, supposedly on the strength of his intelligence regarding the Soviet military establishment. Operated the Gehlen apparat as an entirely independent intelligence organization feeding intelligence to the CIA. [The present author had the interesting experience of meeting his great-granddaughter once...]

Jack Parsons (1914 – 1952): Early American follower of Crowley. One of the founders of CalTech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. May or may not have affected the course of the space race and the cold war through various rituals performed in the desert.

James Jesus Angleton (1917 - 1987): CIA counter-intelligence director from 1954 – 1974. Was obsessed with the idea that the KGB had infiltrated a high-level mole into the U.S. Government. May or may not have been connected to the Kennedy assassination. Also helped form and run Operation Gladio in Italy.

E Howard Hunt (1918 - 2007): A known CIA agent in the later half of the 20^th Century. Hunt was a known operative for the Department of Operations, having participated in the overthrow of the Arbenz government of Guatemala and the Bay of Pigs operation in Cuba. He frequently arises in many of the theories regarding the Kennedy assassination. He later served three years in prison for connection to the Watergate burglary.

Licio Gelli (1919 - ): Knight of Malta, Freemason, and the central figure of the Italian P2 conspiracy. Collected boxes of blackmail material on quite a number of major and minor officials in the Italian government. Evaded arrest several times, was tried once and acquitted, and was never convicted of any crime related to P2 or Gladio.

Roberto Calvi (1920 - 1982) : President of the Banco Ambrosiano and a figure in the P2 conspiracy in Italy. Found dead, hanging from a London bridge. Believed that potere occulto ran the world; the secret to success was to “find the hidden group that held the most power and join it.”

Michele Sindona (1920 - 1986): Mafia lawyer, Knight of Malta, and P2 conspirator. Assisted in the laundering of P2 funds. Died in his cell while awaiting trial for plotting a pro-Fascist coup in Italy.

Raymond Buckland (1934 - ): Author of Buckland's Complete Guide to Witchcraft, considered by some to be the definitive work on modern Wicca (known colloquially to a few as “Uncle Bucky's Big Blue Book of Wicca”).

William Casey (1913 - 1987): Knight of Malta and Director of Central Intelligence under Ronald Reagan, who once said, “Some things are right and some things are wrong. Eternally right and eternally wrong.” As DCI, Casey oversaw Operation Black Eagle, that traded weapons to Iran for money to give to the Nicaraguan Contras (the Iran Contra scandal). According to some theories, he also aided importation of cocaine into the U.S. In order to fund anti-Communist guerrillas in Central America. Casey died of a brain tumor before he could be investigated.

Bill Leeb, where have you gone?

Recently, in pursuit of Bruederschaft's "Return", I picked up a compilation of electronic music from 2008. Now, I've been a follower of various forms of industrial and electro (darkwave, coldwave, dark electro, hellectro, powernoise, acid house, trip hop, psychadelic sleaze... seriously, this sub-genre labelling nonsense has to stop) pretty much since these genres were codified. I was shocked all of a sudden to discover that there is a thriving strain of synthpop and electropop. I was even more astonished to discover that this new breed of synthpop and electropop (and the distinction between the two is somehow very important, although I'll be buggered if I can see it) is just as vapid, trivial, and bubblegum as pop music has always been.

Now, I understand that groganards like me should freely pass the torch to a new generation, who can do with the music as they please. But what happened to the meaning? To the focus? To the impact? When Funker Vogt wrote "This world is made of battlefields", one felt the horror of the devestation of total war in way that hippie ballads could never convey (almost as if it were Tom Clancy's conscience speaking in the dead of night). "Suffer the Flesh" stripped away pretensions of love, and even of lust and desire, to reveal, raw, consuming, self-abnegating need.

Sasha's burned out, Jourgensen has lost his way, Reznor has lost his anger. Faderhead has the look and the sound, but hasn't found the vision yet. Andy has been creating almost a caricature of himself. Ronan remembers every now and then that he used to be angry ("Automatic" is a beautiful piece of work that contains the fire of his early work) Mssrs. Leeb, DeMarco, and More, where did you go?

OTOH, Rotersand and Seabound are still doing inspirational work (including Rotersand showing us all how dubstep can be done right.) The bright (dark?) spot here is that Android Lust is working on a new album, one that threatens to go back to her roots and the magnificent "Resolution". Here's to her efforts...

Lessons from the Front Lines

- One can tell the truth, or one can have friends.  Never both.

- The more "honest" someone claims they are, the more they are hiding from themselves.

- A good deed has a half-life measured in minutes; a mis-spoken phrase festers and lingers.

- When someone else is pissed off, especially if one can't repair or atone for it, the only thing to do is to vanish.
...

When you realize that no one would miss you,
and the knife has the most genuine and gentle smile,
when your obituary is more readily greeted
than a 2:00 AM phone call.
Then, you are free to speak your mind.

Someone is Still not Getting It

Yesterday, I caught a radio show extolling one of the same old arguments against secular Darwinism.  Said argument is essentially this: anyone purporting a theory of biological evolution removes God from human life.  Without God, there is no foundation for moral behavior, and thus people will become amoral, ruthless killers.  Further, he purports that accepting theories of biological evolution, especially human biological evolution, leads to eugenics and institutional racism, and all of the atrocious excesses that go with them.  Then, of course, he proceeded to Godwin himself, asserting that atheism perforce leads to Nazism and the Holocaust.

Unfortunately, he makes several fallacies in the process, and his argument doesn't really hold water (as much as it holds another substance useful for the fertilization of crops).  Let's go through it.

As we have covered before[1][2], humans are social animals, much like chimpanzees, crows, or wolves.  We organize into bands, clans, and tribes.  The social organizations we form all have rules: behaviors that are co-operative and pro-group survival are encouraged, those that are unco-operative or anti-group survival are discouraged.  Our morals do not require an outside, abstract entity for their basis and enforcement; we are capable of getting along all by ourselves.  There is no reason at all why a lack of a God-figure[3] would reduce us to antisocial stealing, raping, and killing.  And if the belief in a God is the only restraint on a person, something has gone very wrong for them.

Secondly, eugenics is not specifically tied to theories of biological evolution, Darwinian or otherwise.  One of the fundamental  breakthroughs  popularized by The Origin of Species is natural selection.  This is the observation that organisms that are not well suited by their environments tend to be culled, while organisms that are better suited tend to survive and reproduce.  This concept of natural selection did not develop in a vacuum, it is a direct counterpart to the principle of artificial selection.  Artificial selection is the principle that humans can select for certain traits in domesticated plants and animals.  For instance, by allowing only the fastest racehorses to breed, over multiple generations racehorses tend to become faster.  The fruits of artificial selection are all around us: domesticated sheep are docile, domesticated cattle give more milk, domesticated grasses produce many large seeds and have stiffer stalks (according to Diamond, one of the motivators for the adoption of agriculture in the Near East).

Artificial selection has been with us for 40,000 years, ever since humans learned to tame animals and plants and breed them for desirable traits.  Eugenics is simply artificial selection extended to human beings.  Autocratic regimes and classes believe that they own stocks of human beings, and can breed desirable traits into or out of the species that way.  Darwin isn't needed: this is artificial selection at work.

The most fundamental fallacy at work here is argumentam ad consequentiam.  Even if Darwinism or a theory of biological evolution were a sufficient condition for Nazism, they are not a necessary condition.  At the same time, even if they led somehow inevitably to Nazism, doing so would not invalidate either as scientific theories.  Scientific theories gain that status because they provide a description for processes occuring in the natural universe.  That one does not like the possible consequences of a scientific theory is not proof against it; I dislike the fact that things break when I drop them, but that is not proof against any given theory of gravity or the field of materials science.  Scientific theories do not require belief to be true (for some value of 'true').  That is the nature of science.

...

The insinuation that secularism is somehow responsible for atrocities is a pretty blatant post hoc ergo propter hoc.   Sure, I'll grant you that many of the atrocities of the 20th century were at the hands of secularists; previous to the twentieth century, they were at the hands of those who profess to be religious.  I'll see your Hitler and raise you a Richelieu, a Torquemada, a Charlemagne, and an Amaury.  Any ideologiy can be used as a justification for atrocity, and no ideology is immune.  Even today, I know of many devout theists that would burn the heretics and stone the sodomites if they could get away with it.  It is not secularims that leads to atrocity, but ambition, tribalism, and human nature.

Language and Social Order in Spartacus

Somewhat unexpectedly, the previous post on Latin conventions in Spartacus has garnered quite a readership.  Vox Populi, I guess.  Poking around the web has uncovered some other criticisms of the show that might be relevant.

There are those that object to some of the vulgarities.  One commenter elsewhere suggested that words like f***, s***, and c*** were inappropriate for characters who, on the other side of the translation convention, should be speaking Latin.  It's true, those particular words have Germanic roots, but it's not like classical spoken Latin would have been entirely without local equivalents.  A long enough immersion in colloquial Italian would uncover a range of colorful invective, metaphorical imagery, interjections and curses.  There's no reason to expect that the language of classical-period Capua would lack such things.  We don't find a lot of evidence for it in the extant Latin literature, but those works were written in a deliberate formal style for an upper-class audience.  The invective of the streets would naturally be filtered out.

There is further criticism of the show, in that some of the characters speak in accents.  This is the result of a long standing trope (known to tv.tropes.org as The Queen's Latin).  We as viewers are accustomed to upper-class Romans speaking English in RP.  Meanwhile, the lower class slaves speak in a motley assortment of accents, reinforcing the concept that they come from many places within and without the Republic.  That the cast is multinational only helps reinforce this convention.

The characters portrayed in the series are not (with a few exceptions) Roman aristocracy.  All of the gladiators we see are slaves.  They carry infamia.  They are non-persons, and standard Roman dignities would not apply to them.  Further, they live communally in an all-male, testosterone-fueled environment.  Modern concepts of privacy and modesty don't apply to them.  They would, by necessity, become accustomed to bathing, eating, sleeping, and performing other activities in each others presence.  It is almost inconceivable that they would watch their language.  A modern equivelant is to look at modern soldiers, sailors, or marines living with one another in the field.  To 'swear like a sailor' is already a truisim in our culture.

Despite the infamia, these gladiators are also celebrities (this is one of the contradictions of the gladitorial games).  It's sometimes helpful to think of them as some combination of modern professional wrestlers, professional athletes, and rock stars.  Extant graffiti uncovered in Pompeii reveals adulation of  popular gladiators, much of it quite vulgar.  Reinforcing the image was the popular perception of gladiators as "beasts in human form", full of barely suppressed fury and violence.  The Freudian and Jungian associations between violence, gore, and sex should be obvious to most modern viewers.  The blatant sexual displays seen at the gladiatorial games is unlikely to be out of place.  Many modern stadium rock stars experience similar skin exposure, and some revel in 'groupies' attempting to take advantage of their reputations for sexual prowess.

Beyond that, this is a protrayal of pre-Christian Greco-Roman culture.  One could realistically expect more open portrayal of sex and sexual characteristics.  While one would not expect naked sexual behavior to be openly desplayed, there is little cultural repression of sex and sexuality in Roman culture.  Fecundity, fertility, and virility are celebrated traits, to the point where sculpture openly displays such attributes.

The behavior of Batiatus and his wife is a little more unexpected, but not entirely out of place.  Batiatus is portrayed as a middle-class Roman, pater familia of a gladiatorial ludus, but with social ambitions.  His profession is not illegal, but isn't considered quite in keeping with the propriety of an aristocrat.  His position might be roughly equivelant to a modern owner of a football team or gentleman's club.  Further, he's removed from the political and cultural center at Rome.  Thus, it's not entirely unquestionable that he would use his property (villa, slaves, and gladiators) as a mechanism to secure favor and patronage.  Being removed from Rome allows visiting aristocrats to engage in licentious behaviors without the reprobation or negative reputation they might gain from public exposure.  They thus preserve a veneer of respectability, and Batiatus hopes to gain from protecting it.

The language and behavior thus shown in Spartacus is not entirely out of the question, and such criticisms levelled against the show are not entirely merited.  While there is not a concrete historical record in support of the things the creators have chosen to show us, such tropes are not entirely unlikely.

I gotta be me

"You cannot go against nature, because when you do
 go against nature, that's part of nature too."
-Love and Rockets, "No New Tale to Tell"

"I just have to be who I am."  Who else would you be?  The people who we choose to be at any given time are part of who we are.  So is the person we aspire to be.  Many roles, same actor.

Even now, two thousand years later, I'm gripped with the suggestion that underneath all of the dogmatic structure, abstract theology, and socio-political manuevering, there lies within the heart of Catholicism a Hellenistic syncretic mystery religion struggling to get free.

Maybe that's why it fascinates me so.

...
There is some criticism laid against the christian tradition, criticism that is often vehmently denied:

The dead and resurrected god figure: Dionysus, Osiris, Orpheus, Persephone, Mithras (?), Enki.

The hidden king: Moses, Oedipus, Sargon.

The semi-divine birth: Gilgamesh, Perseus, Theseus, Herakles.

The divine mother: Ashterath, Innana, Mary, Isis.

Why not embrace being part of a Near Eastern tradition that goes back millenia, rather than trying to deny your roots?