Tract For Our Times

A Tract for our Times
Responding to the Challenges of Modern Science

Steven S. Jones
Dedicated to Keble, Pusey, DeKoven and all the Tractarians

1
A Tract for our Times 1
Introduction 1
The Dilemma of Modernism 5
Biblical Veracity & Modern Day Societal Belief Systems
The Scientific Affairs and Todays Current Belief System
Darwin: A Recent Case in Point 7
Velikovsky: A More Modern Day Case in Point 9
Velikovskys Analysis of the Ipuwer Exodus Papyrus 10
Various Ancient Accounts of the Earth Stalling in its Rotation 14
Modern Belief Systems - the Conundrum
What is Change? 27
Change, Being and Thought
The Grand Illusion: The Dilemma
Faith By Will Alone? 33
Faith and Reason
Solipsism 37
The Ego-Centric Predicament: Fr. Bittle vs. Bp. Berkeley
Fr. Bittles Argument Against Bp. Berkeley 40
The Ego-Centric Predicament 43
Modern Science and Platos World of Illusion
Paradox as Truth - A Solipsism of the Present Moment 45
The Legend of Thoth (Taaut/Hermes), the Tautology [Taaut-ology], and the Two-Fold Truth
The Two-Fold Truth: the Ancient Basis of Dualism
Existentialism and the corruption of the Modern Church
Relativity: the Modern Two-Fold Truth 55
Appendix to Chapter - Other Proofs
Adam and Eve as Metaphors for Faith and Belief 59
The Doctrine of Original Sin (West), or the First Sin (East)
The Application to the Eucharist
Ancient References to the Eucharist Itself as Being Salvific 65
The Genesis Foundations for the Eucharist 66
Salvation 72
The Ethics of Liturgy 74
The Real Presence: an Ancient Doctrine 77
A Reasonable Test of Faith
Epilog 87
The Dilemma of Pilate
Centrifugal Force - the Scientific Discovery that never was. 87
End Notes

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1
Created: 1 January 2009, 12:52
Modified: 25 January 2009, 17:16
Status: Revised Draft
Label: Chapter
Keywords:
Steven S. Jones
Dedicated to Keble, Pusey, DeKoven and all the Tractarians

Introduction

Should one discard this thesis about reality as being arbitrary and an exercise in pure logic,
it would then become extremely difficult not to fall into solipsism. Albert Einstein

The whole of religion, the whole of philosophy, is centralized over one issue, what is truth.
This is the very question Pilate asked Christ at the pivotal point of the Gospel story. Yet, there is
a hidden pitfall in approaching this question. Before I can decide whether this doctrine, or that
doctrine, is worthy of my allegiance, I must first decide Is it true. The pitfall is that the very
definition of truth is also a truth itself. If I decide wrongly everything necessarily falls from
there. While all philosophy seemingly must end in a decision over truth, it must also begin
there. A miss-assumption over the nature of truth could spawn other false-truths, eventually
jeopardizing the endeavor all together.

Clearly, any religion worth its salt must address this issue, no less Christianity. And, if Chris-
tianity is to survive, it must do it not only in a relevant way, but in a profound way that stands the
test of time. Indeed, the problem with modern Christianity is that it offers no truth that stands it
apart from any other spirituality, or even something I might discover myself watching television.
It is also burdened with a volume of stories, most no longer believed to be true, that it must
continually apologize for. To most, the Bible has become an antiquarian version of Aesops Fa-
bles. Modern clergy approach this dilemma fairly lack-lusterly, if they are troubled by it at all.
Typically they try to avoid the dilemma, resorting to several techniques: illuminating obscure
facts; finding subtle word nuances; illustrating weird cultural circumstance of the day all try-
ing to show how the fable in question actually was hip to our modern approach to truth, despite
the misguided traditional understanding. The laity, for their part, are willing accomplices they
want their coffee table truths affirmed.

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Yet, if we take a class in mathematics or even woodworking, we expect to actually learn
something, a teaching that is not merely insightful, but practical, perhaps even profound. A
teaching is just another word for doctrine, and aside from the Golden Rule and its several
overly permeated variances, the Church today has none. Indeed, the Golden Rule of today has
literally become I permit you whatever, so long as you permit me the same. We call this Rela-
tivism, more of a universal politeness than a doctrine.

If you think this is the disease of just the Liberal Church, it is not. The Conservative Church
merely arrives at the same destination by a different horse: whatever responsibilities I might have
to a true doctrine Christ has absolved me of, for I have proclaimed myself saved.

To the outsider, both methods seem to be ways to finesse the inconvenient fact the Church
is obsolete, it is in denial. Still, modern society seems to be yearning for an answer. Something
must fill this void left by Christianity and at the end of the day, after all the parties, the football
Sundays, the Soccer matches, something must supply a purpose to all these diversions.

We live in an era where truth has little to do with what ancient man thought truth to be.
Truth was once an appeal towards an absolute, a tangible doctrine. Today, if one were to look
up truth in a dictionary of philosophy one would find a definition like, truth is what most peo-
ple believe, almost trying to protect the word itself from the failure of future discoveries.

The ancient definition of truth was this: Truth is conformity of mind to reality.

Here we have the essence of all philosophy. We have the observer and the observed, me and
everything I perceive. Yet, there is a boundary between that which I conceive, and that which I
perceive, a veil that must be overcome. Every time I declare this is that, I try to brave that
word is. No ones perceptions are without error, the world around us is never perfectly known.
Therefore, truth is a continuous risky endeavor of trying, and declaring, to understand as we per-
ceive things as they are. My truth is only as accurate as it depicts faithfully the reality I live in.
My truth is only useful to the extent that I can communicate it and act upon it. It is only eternal
to the extent that it resolves in the Most High. Yet, this is not the modern definition of truth. Nor
is it the one the Church teaches.

Modern truth comes in two forms, both emblems of the fact that the modern world has no
formula for faithfully bridging the gap between me and the world I perceive. The modern world
seldom makes a commitment to is. Therefore, we end up with two truths, one representing
that which I am certain of, me, and the thing I can never be certain of, everything else called
the other. These two notions of truth, permanently at odds with each other, result in the two-
truths:

1) Truth is my own thoughts, the sincere notions I ponder, the emotions I hold, the things
relevant to me.
2) Truth is the general mood of society, a political endeavor. It is simply that which most
people believe. Like all politics, it changes with the wind - it has no eternal answer, merely one
that suits the mood of the day and the current direction of the majority.

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The result of all this is this: what was once a connection between me and reality, a declara-
tive is, is now merely a subtle nuanced negotiation, a fad I must keep up with to stay con-
nected. The old definition of truth resulted in absolutes. It was an attempt at arriving at cer-
tainty. The modern attempt is anything but certain. It thrives on uncertainty. Uncertainty, or
relativism, hides the fact that things can be known. While it places no confidence in a purposeful
reality (making God obsolete), it allows me to do as I will when I will.

This leads to the ancient definition of morality: Morality is conformity of what I do to what I
believe.

You see, without a known truth, the basics or philosophy cannot begin. Without a basic un-
derstanding of some sort of philosophy, science cannot begin. Without the certainty that my real-
ity holds for others, too, then there are no moral imperatives.

One might ask, so what? The fact is this simple dilemma: if I cannot be sure that the world
around me can be known with certainty, then I am necessarily alone. The world is merely a fig-
ment of my own imagination. Real or unreal, it makes no matter, it is merely a thought, a phan-
tasm of no consequence, a device merely to be used (and used up) at my will. Without purpose,
Man has no purpose. Society becomes merely a scheme for getting what you want. Morality be-
comes merely another diversion, a way of impeding the prosperity of others, so that you can get
more for you.

So, we are left with this: is the Church obsolete? Has it become a mere social club, a mass de-
lusion? (sic) It has if we refuse to acknowledge the dilemma, if we continue to be in denial, for
then the delusion is ours. If the Church is to take its troubles seriously it must find real reasons
for the positions it holds, not just vague cultural preferences and habits. It must appeal to the
common sense of everyman without reducing itself to a mere notion everyman can concede. For
example, if it is to declare women clergy an abomination, it must produce real evidence as to
why that is true. If it is to hold that only Man and Woman can marry, then it must show that the
rules against such were not just arbitrary proclamations of a defunct culture. It must show that its
rituals and actions arose from a love of wisdom, and are not a product of cultural fads. If we
fail to substantiate these things, proving that they were authentic beliefs of the ancient Church
will only serve as proof that the Church ought to be made obsolete. It only furthers the assump-
tion that dogma is just a cultural phenomena. If God is real, He is not arbitrary, and modern soci-
ety will not serve arbitrary beliefs that are merely part of a dead tradition.

I will attempt to show that the issue of truth was the central issue of Christianity. That this
issue was best represented by the Scholastics, who not merely an odd anomaly of the late Middle
Ages/Renaissance but had hit on the main core of Christian thinking. Further, these doctrines
were derived from ancient, original sources, without which Christianity becomes an aberration.
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The Dilemma of Modernism
Status: Revised Draft
Label: Chapter
Keywords:
Biblical Veracity & Modern Day Societal Belief Systems

I have been studying Perennial Philosophy, Modernism, and Tradition for many rears. It has
led me to a very stark conclusion: philosophy typically does not lead, it follows. The belief sys-
tem of the average Man is seldom well thought out. It is not the product of a sincere regimen of
education, spirituality, and moral conviction. While the average person is philosophical, he sel-
dom has a philosophy. What we call philosophy, now and never has been the study of the fun-
damental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an aca-
demic discipline. Rather, philosophy usually is what educated people do, to fill in the gaps,
once the lines have already been drawn. Seldom does philosophy reason, it usually rationalizes.
The only time it leads is when it reveals a truth all must concede.

Man lives in this world and through his investigations arrives at certain evidence. Then, in
an effort to make sense of the evidence at hand, he synthesizes a belief system, not to only
handle the day-to-day events of life, but also to ponder higher truths and spiritualities. Man
can only believe what the evidence allows him to believe. The better he understands the evi-
dence, the more refined his belief system becomes. When this belief system becomes honed to
a very high caliber, it begins to become a philosophy.

However, seldom does Man ever approach anything close to a True Philosophy. Inevitably
Man comes across contradictory evidence. It threatens to shake his belief system. How he han-
dles that evidence is critical. If he is able to adjust his beliefs to accommodate the data, all is
well, truth reigns and he can move on forming his philosophy.

But something quite different happens if the contradictory evidence is so strong, so impene-
trable, that it cannot be accommodated, it cannot be made sense of the belief system begins
to erode. Eventually it will cease to be a belief system at all, but just a collection of beliefs,
notions. If it collapses entirely, it will become the notion that nothing is true.

Often, and typically, the Church will accommodate this theory that nothing is true. Para-
doxes have their own allure they almost seem mystical. Man, seeking a spiritual solution for
the desperation that contradiction brings, will synthesize a new belief system. It cannot be
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rightly called a philosophy for it isnt based on truth, there is no truth in contradiction. Rather,
it is set of beliefs, minimal beliefs at that, that are at least true for me.

This is not a profound quest at this point. Belief systems are not proactive but retroactive,
merely social schemes that allow the individual to operate in society providing a sort of safe ha-
ven for the individual. The newly found contradiction could threaten the system, but perhaps it
is just easier to withdraw. This act of withdrawing from reality appears profound to the individ-
ual for it seems to be a solution, a spirituality. As he begins to dismiss the evidence of the
world as potentially harmful, a new spirituality begins to grow inside that seeks merely a cer-
tain minimal peace of mind. He who would proclaim a truth threatens this new inner peace.
The current dogma in all religions, then, is to never produce evidence that might shake the belief
system as this would threaten the current state of peace.

This act of observing reality, making sense of those observations, and moving towards con-
clusions, is what was once called science. Assimilating these facts into a belief system was
once called philosophy. Over time, this became a teaching, or a doctrine. The spiritual re-
sponse to this was called religion. But what happens when science starts to contradict itself?
The philosophy of the Church is very much dictated to it by the world image provided to it by
modern science. Being that in modern society this scientific belief system reigns over the mere
spiritual belief system provided by the Church, the religious are left with little to construct a
religion out of that isnt paradoxical. The reason for this is that a non-paradoxical world image
has long been toppled.

While the modern day critic of religion thinks his truths are the result of his own ingenuity
and boldness to believe, this is the furthest from the truth. His scientific mind has ignored
something fundamental: the very same contradictory evidence that threatens the Church was
produced by science, science that has gone astray. The slings and arrows cast by science fall on
itself, too, and to them it must also answer. It was a distrust of reality that broke that Church and
it will break science also, if it is not already broken. One by one as science dispelled the myths
of religion, religion withdrew into itself becoming an inner spirituality. But skepticism has a
habit of devouring itself as it seeks more and more prey. It is like the child who continually asks
why there has to be an end a just because. But science knows no such boundary. Eventually
it devours itself and the whole method of search and discovery collapses on itself with the only
left known solipsistic me.

A long series of scientific discoveries rooted in Descartes, but beginning with Darwin and
ending with Einstein, has led to a scientific belief system grounded in paradox and contradiction.
Seeking a mathematical formula to explain all, science came to the Theory of Relativity. Ac-
commodating this Theory into its fold, science has frozen the investigative process, resorting
merely to mathematical prowess as its only means of seeking higher truths.

Evidence that contradicts the Theory of Relativity is routinely dismissed and discredited by
scientist and seldom reported on. This allows the highest truth of all, the theory of everything to
remain an unchallenged paradox, something even science knows cannot exist or its entire en-
deavor is worthless, unfounded, ungrounded and suspect. Yet it clings to this truth not merely
as its own truth, but as a societal ethic all dare not doubt. Much like a fraternity hazing scheme,
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all would-be academicians must brave the chasms of Relativity and its manifold offspring. They
must bow to its manifestations, or accept discreditation amongst their peers as not being wor-
thy.

The fruits of relativism are vast: lower more flexible ethical expectations, a broadened
scheme of acceptable knowledge, diversity in all things (especially ones that might produce
paradoxical new vistas). One would think that in this new belief system there would be ample
room for all diversities, including a traditional. Yet, this is not allowed for. If there is one thing a
traditional true philosophy clings to is that a paradoxical, contradictory belief system is not a
truth at all, but a mere scheme by which to get ones social agenda advanced. It is this that cant
be allowed.

I will begin not by trying to defend religion, but by showing that science, too, is subject to its
own belief system. That if this system were levied against itself, it, too, could not survive the
challenge it would have to bury the evidence, burn the books in order to survive. This has
already happened.

The Scientific Affairs and Todays Current Belief System

Darwin: A Recent Case in Point

There have been those who have proposed that it was Friedrich Nietzsches philosophy of
Nihilism (the belief that nothing is true) that began the erosion of the Church. More accurately,
Nietzsche was just reading the writing on the wall. Emerging new scientific evidences were
casting doubts on Biblical inerrancy. It was beginning to be discredited as a historical document.
Nietzsche, the son of a Lutheran pastor, and himself an aspiring student of theology, merely
faced the spirit of the times and was bold enough to admit where it was heading. Not only was
science eating away at religious faith, it was destroying Mans system of belief altogether. Most
prominent in this were the two Charles, Darwin and Lyell.

The key data that led to the Theory of Evolution was not gathered by Darwin. Darwins initial
publications of Origin of the Species does not mention such a theory. Darwin was the local con-
tact person of the explorer/researcher Russell Wallace. At this point in time, science was not so
much concerned with where does man come from than the yet to be understood concept of he-
redity and genetics. Wallace was one of many researchers who went into the world to gather spe-
cies as evidence. Once gathered, he would send his specimens and theories back to Darwin in
England for proper dissemination into the scientific community. But Darwin became jealous.
When Wallaces achievements began to outstrip Darwins aspirations, Darwin began to sequester
the data. And then Darwin read this line of text, called Wallaces Sarawak Law:

Every species has come into existence coincident both in space and time with a pre-existing
closely allied species.

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To Darwin the case had been cracked and he, not Wallace, deserved the credit. With Lyell,
Darwin did not just envision a mere explanation for biological diversity, but an entirely new
motive force in the world of undaunted almost imperceptible change. The true theory of evolu-
tion offered by Wallace was not based on survival of the fittest. It had a subtle difference, one
that must be there if evolution is to work: that it is the environment that constrains evolution,
without that constraint, the world would be unbridled and constantly evolving. The environment
doesnt cause evolution, it puts the brakes on it.

Yet, Wallaces original Theory of Evolution came to this striking conclusion:

Because mans physical structure has been developed from an animal form by natural selec-
tion, it does not necessarily follow that his mental nature, even though developed pari passu
with it, has been developed by the same causes only.
1

To Darwin (who also had religious aspirations), Wallaces theories were leading in the wrong
direction. Mounting geological evidence led by Charles Lyell was beginning to show that the
earth was much older than that being allowed by Biblical interpreters. What began to emerge was
a theory of long gradual change called Uniformitarianism the earth and its creatures were
not formed by deliberate action or instant causes, but by slow gradual change. To the religious,
this put into doubt essential parts of the Bible: no act of creation, no Deluge, no parting of the
Red Sea, etc. The main point is that this new theory of Uniformitarianism did not need God, all
change could be neatly handled by this newly discovered motive force.

But Wallaces theory departed significantly from Darwins. To Wallace the evidence showed:
these speculations are widely held to be far beyond the bounds of science a superior intelli-
gence has guided the development of man and for a special purpose, just as man guides the
development of many animal and vegetable forms.
2

It was Wallaces understanding that the mind of Man was so unlike anything else in nature
that it could not be explained by his own theory there was nothing remotely like it for to have
evolved from.

Yet, Uniformitarianism contradicts much within nature and ancient Biblical record (more
on that later). This caused many like to Nietzsche to seek spiritual/philosophical refuge else-
where. In the late 1800s many were turning to Buddhism, but here Nietzsche discovered a flaw:
unbridled change unwinds the fact of knowledge and truth. The modern day Big Bang theory is
actually inherited from Buddhism
3
.

The theory is that the current universe is the product of an eternal breathing action an ini-
tial act of creation is followed by a long universal expansion of reality. At some point, the uni-
verse has expanded all it can so it begins to breath in and collapse. Once collapsed, it restarts
with a bang and the same process repeats over and over again. This is called the eternal re-
turn. This seemed reasonable to Nietzsche, much more scientifically acceptable than the West-
ern version, and also consistent with science with only one problem. As Nietzsche endeavored
to understand and translate the philosophy into a Western perspective he realized that upon each
successive creation the laws of physics would necessarily be re-written. There was nothing to say
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up would be up, + would be plus, or - would be minus. Without a grounding for eternal
laws, not even scientific ones, Nietzsche felt he had once and for all acquired the definitive an-
swer to the worlds philosophical dilemma: there was no truth, even the concept itself was a de-
lusion. Any attempt at solving the dilemma is purely a waste of time. It was in this philosophical
conundrum that Nihilism was proposed.

Nietzsche was right. The consequence of Uniformitarianism is that its motive force makes
truth unnecessary. Ultimately, there will never be a way of definitively settling the issue, we
cant go back in time to observe the event, there will always be some little piece of data that con-
tradicts prevailing thought. Yet, there is one piece of evidence we cannot dismiss: the mind of
Man.

Velikovsky: A More Modern Day Case in Point

In 2006, Hollywood movie producer James Cameron, in conjunction with the History Chan-
nel, released a documentary called The Exodus Decoded: Biblical Folklore or Historical Fact. It
displays the life-work of researcher Simcha Jacobovici and his scientifically based research to
validate the Exodus and the events surrounding the Biblical event now doubted by most histori-
ans. He has a rather novel way of uniting facts with science and artifacts. Numerous theories are
advanced as the bizarre episodes related to the tale are given scientific plausibility. One by one
Jacobovici gives historical credibility to the events, yet suspiciously missing from the documen-
tary is one thing: the name of the person who originally collected all the evidence and formulated
the theory, Immanuel Velikovsky.

The mention of the name Velikovsky in scientific circles is enough to receive pronounce-
ments of eternal damnation and scorn from academia and religious alike. Velikovsky ignited an
academic firestorm of controversy in the 1950s that has been largely suppressed to the public.
Yet, it is an episode in history, a peculiar
one at that. Im convinced that it was
critical in shaping the modern day climate
in which Christianity attempts to function
and repair itself. Largely forgotten about
today, the questions posed, the dilemma
created still haunts us and is a significant
part of the paradox we hope to solve.
Whether Velikovsky was completely
right, partially right, or insane, it matters
not. What the episode will show is that
academia has no interest in solving the
dilemma it has created. Science will only
submit to facts that are conducive to its
own agenda.

Papyrus Ipuwer

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Immanuel Velikovsky was a distinguished researcher. Born in Russia, adept at languages and
mathematics, he graduated with a gold medal from the Medvednikov Gymnasium in Moscow.
He attended the University in Edinburgh and eventually received a degree in medicine from
Moscow University. Well respected in psychology, he was an associate of Freuds research
group and was instrumental in leading the foundation of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. It was
here where he became an associate of Albert Einstein. Born a Jew, Velikovsky was and remained
an agnostic his entire life. This is important: he was not trying to prove the Bible to save his
faith.

Initially Velikovsky merely desired to find historical precedence for the Oedipus events
which are so much apart of Freudian theory. Seeking historic foundations for the myth, he began
to research Egyptian historical records. He stumble upon more and more evidence that Egyptian
history was consistent with Biblical records. This was something nobody believed to be true
anymore, yet Velikovsky believed that Egyptian records were patriotically falsified to give
credibility to their claim as the most ancient of cultures.

Turning to the Biblical Exodus, a story rife with spectacular, devastating events, he began to
think that such events, if true, should be documented elsewhere than the Bible. These events af-
fected the entire Egyptian nation, why were they omitted from its history? Unless of course they
were a Jewish myth. It was unthinkable that something so devastating to society would receive
no attention at all, else they be false.

Velikovsky became aware of an ancient Egyptian document called the Ipuwer Papyrus. In it
were contained bizarre Egyptian correlations with the Biblical Exodus:

Velikovskys Analysis of the Ipuwer Exodus Papyrus
from Ages in Chaos

JEWISH / EXODUS EGYPTIAN / IPUWER
Lamentation
2:8 Forsooth, the land turns round as does
a potter's wheel.
2:11 The towns are destroyed. Upper
Egypt has become dry (wastes?).
3:13 All is ruin!
7:4 The residence is overturned in a min-
ute.
4:2 Years of noise. There is no end to
noise.
Blood /
1st plague
7:21 there was blood throughout
all the land of Egypt.
7:20 all the waters that were in the
river were turned to blood.
2:5-6 Plague is throughout the land. Blood
is everywhere.
2:10 The river is blood.
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Water was
Loathsome
7:24 And all the Egyptians digged
round about the river for water to
drink; for they could not drink of the
water of the river.
7:21 And the fish that was in the river
died; and the river stank, and the
Egyptians could not drink of the water
of the river;
2:10 Men shrink from tasting human
beings, and thirst after water.
3:10-13 That is our water! That is our
happiness! What shall we do in respect
thereof? All is ruin!
Destruction of
fields
9:25 and the hail smote every herb
of the eld, and brake every tree of the
eld.
9:31-32 ... the ax and the barley was
smitten; for the barley was in the ear,
and the ax was boiled. But the wheat
and the rye were not smitten: for they
were not grown up.
10:15 ... there remained not any green
thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the
fields, through all the land of Egypt.
4:14 Trees are destroyed.
6:1 No fruit nor herbs are found hunger.
10:3-6 Lower Egypt weeps... The entire
palace is without its revenues. To it belong
(by right) wheat and barley, geese and
fish.
6:3 Forsooth, grain has perished on every
side.
5:12 Forsooth, that has perished which
yesterday was seen. The land is left over
to its weariness like the cutting of ax.
Consuming
fire
9:23-24 the re ran along the
ground there was hail, and re min-
gled with the hail, very grievous.
2:10 Forsooth, gates, columns and walls
are consumed by re.

Starving cattle
9:3 the hand of the Lord is upon
the cattle which is in the eld there
shall be a very grievous murrain.
5:5 All animals, their hearts weep. Cattle
moan
Cattle flee
9:19 .. gather thy cattle, and all that
thou hast in the eld
21 And he that regarded not the word
of the Lord left his servants and his
cattle in the eld.
9:2-3 Behold, cattle are left to stray, and
there is none to gather them together. Each
man fetches for himself those that are
branded with his name.

9th plague
Darkness
10:22 ... and there was a thick dark-
ness in all the land of Egypt.
9:11 The land is not light

12

The Last Night before the Exodus
this night... against all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment
(Exodus 12:12)
A book by Artapanus, no longer extant, which quoted some unknown ancient
source and which in its turn was quoted by Eusebius, tells of hail and earthquake
by night [of the last plague], so that those who fled from the earthquake were killed
by the hail, and those who sought shelter from the hail were destroyed by the earth-
quake. And at that time all the houses fell in, and most of the temples.
Destruction
struck swiftly
12:27 [The Angel of the Lord] passed
over the houses of the children of Is-
rael in Egypt, when he smote the
Egyptians, and delivered our houses.
12:29 And it came to pass, that at
midnight the Lord smote all the first-
born in the land of Egypt, from the
firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his
throne unto the firstborn of the captive
that was in the dungeon.
12:30: there was not a house
where there was not one dead.
The residence is overturned in a minute.
On a previous page it was stressed that
only an earthquake could have overturned
and ruined the royal residence in a min-
ute.
4:3, and 5:6 Forsooth, the children of
princes are dashed against the walls.
6:12 Forsooth, the children of princes are
cast out in the streets.
6:3 The prison is ruined.
2:13 He who places his brother in the
ground is everywhere.
A great cry
12:30 there was a great cry in
Egypt.
3:14: It is groaning that is throughout the
land, mingled with lamentations.
Revolt and Flight

4:2 Forsooth, great and small say: I wish I
might die.
5:14f. Would that there might be an end of
men, no conception, no birth! Oh, that the
earth would cease from noise, and tumult
be no more!
The Pillar of
Fire
13:21 ... by day in a pillar of a cloud,
to lead them the way; and by night in
a pillar of re, to give them light; to
go by day and night.
7:1 Behold, the re has mounted up on
high. Its burning goes forth against the
enemies of the land.
The translator added this remark: Here
the re is regarded as something disas-
trous.
13

The Jews
were pursued
and swal-
lowed under
unusual cir-
cum-stances
After the first manifestations of the
protracted cataclysm the Egyptians
tried to bring order into the land.
They traced the route of the escaped
slaves. The wanderers became en-
tangled in the land, the wilderness
hath shut them in (Exodus 14:3).
They turned to the sea, they stood at
Pi-ha-Khiroth. The Egyptians pur-
sued after them. The Egyptians
marched after them. A hurricane
blew all the night and the sea ed. In
a great avalanche of water the sea
returned to his strength, and the
Egyptians fled against it. The sea
engulfed the chariots and the horse-
men, the pharaoh and all his host.
The Papyrus Ipuwer (7:1-2) records only
that the pharaoh was lost under unusual
circumstances that have never happened
before. The Egyptian wrote his lamenta-
tions, and even in the broken lines they are
perceptible:

weep the earth is on every
side weep

Is it conceivable that there were two such events? Having become an expert in Egyptian his-
tory, he re-figured all the datings so that everything worked out and correlated. He used little
data that hadnt been advanced elsewhere and accepted. Yet, he struggled with one point: if all
the events were true, so must be the event documented as the Sun standing still in the sky.

14
Various Ancient Accounts of the Earth Stalling in its Rotation

Being a historian first and thinking such an event as the Sun standing still must be world-
wide, he sought correlation in other cultural records. He found this:

PLACE SOURCE TEXT / LEGEND
Israel Bible, 2 Kings 20:11
Hezekiahs Sun - That the Sun
regressed 10 degrees and on a Sun-
dial/Astrolabe lengthening the day
about 40 minutes
And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the
LORD: and he brought the shadow ten de-
grees backward, by which it had gone down
in the dial of Ahaz.
Israel Bible, Isaiah 38:8
Hezekiahs Sun - That the Sun
regressed 10 degrees and on a Sun-
dial/Astrolabe lengthening the day
about 40 minutes
Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the
degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial
of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun
returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was
gone down.
India Mahabharata section 146 A day was lengthened to accommodate a bat-
tle.
Western China Huai-nan-tse
Forke, A. 1925. The World Conception of
the Chinese, pp. 86-87.
When the Duke of Lu-yang was at war
against Han, during the battle the sun went
down. The Duke, swinging his spear, beck-
oned to the sun, whereupon the sun, for his
sake, came back and passed through three
solar mansions.
Eastern China Chinese Legend
J. Gill, 1810. An Exposition of the Old
Testament,
At the time of Kingcungus, the planet Mars
went back three degrees.
North America Menomonee Indians
Thompson, S. 1929. Tales of the North
American Indians, pp. 42-43.
The Sun was taunting a hunter so he tied it to
the sky lengthening the night
Central Amer-
ica
Popol Vuh (Aztec Legend)
A. Caso, 1937. The Religion of the Aztecs,
(Mexico City: Popular Library of Mexican
Culture, Central News Co.), pp. 15-16.
Make it dark again, old one! the buzzard
was told. Very well, said the old one, and
instantly the old one darkened the sky
California Northern Indians
Olcott, W. T., 1914. Sun Lore of all Ages,
pp. 131- 132.
Sun accidentally fell from the sky just prior
to sunrise
15
South America
(Peru)
Andean Legend
Goetz, D. and S. G. Morley, translators.
1950. Popul Vuh: The Sacred Book of
the Ancient Quiche- Maya is Volume 29
in The Civilization of the American Indian
Series. Translated from the Spanish trans-
lation of Adrian Recinos. pp. 151-152.
Indians legend that the sun was caught held
with a chain causing a brightening darkness
Polynesia Perhaps a borrowing of the An-
dean legend
Chief Maui traveled east to ensnare the Sun
Greece Greek Legend Helios, already in mid-career, wrested his
chariot about and turned his horses heads
towards the dawn. The seven Pleiades, and
all the other stars, retraced their courses in
sympathy; and that evening, for the first and
last time, the sun set in the east.
Canaan Bible, Joshua 10:11-13
Joshua commands the Sun to
stand still in the sky (a long
day)
THE LORD cast down great stones from
heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they
died: they were more which died with hail-
stones than they whom the children of Israel
slew with the sword. Then spake Joshua in
the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon
Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Aja-
lon. And the sun stood still, and the moon
stayed and hasted not to go down about a
whole day.
Greek neid (Virgil) Book IV, 1, 489
[also quoted in The City of God
(Augustine)]
A witch who can reverse the wheeling of the
planets, halt rivers in their flowing.
Egypt Greek historian Herodotus
manuscript
Totten, C. A. L., 1891. Joshuas Long
Day and the Dial of Ahaz, A Scientific
Vindication and A Midnight Cry, 3rd Edi-
tion
Reports that priests presented an ancient
manuscript telling of a day which lasted
twice as long as a normal day.
Egypt Hieroglyphs - translated by
Fernand Crombette**
as recorded in Cercle Scientifique et
Historique, France and Belgium.
The sun, thrown into confusion, had re-
mained low on the horizon, and by not rising
had spread terror amongst the great doctors.
Two days had been rolled into one. The
morning was lengthened to one-and-a-half
times the normal period of effective day-
light
16
China Chinese History - John Gill
It has been contended that this
date puts it at the date of the
Moses/Joshua events in the Bi-
ble ~1400-1500 BC
Gill, John. 1810. An Exposition of the
Old Testament (London: Matthews and
Leigh), vol. 2, p. 831.
In the Chinese history it is reported, that in
the time of their seventh emperor, Yao, the
sun did not set for ten days, and that men
were afraid the world would be burnt, and
there were great fires at that time; and though
the time of the suns standing still were en-
larged beyond the bounds of truth, yet it
seems to refer to this fact, and was manifestly
about the same time; for this miracle was
wrought in the year of the world 2554, which
fell in the 75th, or, as some say, the 67th year
of that emperors reign, who reigned 90
years.
North America Wyandot Indian Legend from
missionary Paul Le Jeune
(NY: G. P. Putnams Sons)
A legend of a long night
North America Ojibwa Indian Legend - Olcott,
A legend of a long night
North America Dgrib Indian Legend
The Sun was caught at noon.
North America Omaha Indian Legend
The Sun was caught in a trap before dawn
Central Amer-
ica
Annals of Chauhtitlan
Caso, A. 1937. The Religion of the Aztecs,
(Mexico City: Popular Library of Mexican
Culture, Central News Co.), pp. 15-16.
... So a conclave of the gods was called in
Teotihuacan, and there it was decided that
one of them should offer himself as a sacri-
fice that once again the world might have a
sun The sacrificed gods had disappeared in
the braziers flames, but as there was no sign
of the sun, the remaining wonder when it
would first appear. At long last, the sun burst
forth But the sun, despite
his brilliant light, did not move; he hung on
the edge of the sky, apparently unwilling to
begin his appointed task.
17
Central Amer-
ica
Popol Vuh (Mayan Legend)
Goetz, D. and S. G. Morley, translators,
1972. Popul Vuh: The Sacred Book of
the Quich Maya, Part III, Chapters 4-7,
pp. 172-190.
They did not sleep; they remained standing
and great was the anxiety of their hearts and
their stomachs for the coming of the dawn
and the day Oh, if we only could see
the rising of
the sun! What shall we do now? They
talked, but they could not calm their hearts
which were anxious for the coming of the
dawn.
South America
(Peru)
Andean Legend
Montesinos, F., 1882. Memorias Antiguas
Historiales de Peru. The manuscript for
that book dates from 1648. A translation
of it was done by P. A. Means for the
Habluyt Society of London in 1920.
Notes from Z. Stichin, The Lost Realms,
(New York: Avon Books), Ch. 7.
The Sun was hidden for nearly 20 hours in
the third year of the reign of Titu Yupanqui
Pachacuti II (~1400 BC) because of sin in the
land
South Pacific Fijian Legend
Frazer, J. G., 1914. The Magical Control
of the Sun, Golden Bough, 3rd ed.,
1:316.

Natives would tied weeds together in order to
keep the sun from going down and this once
did happened.
Lithuania Legends collected by Jerome of
Prague from the east
Tales of a night that lasted several months.
Japan Japanese Legend
Tales of a night that lasted several months.

This table is essentially derived from Velikovskys book Worlds in Collision as correlated by
Gerardus D. Bouw, Ph.D. in his book, The Geo-centricity Primer: Introduction to Biblical Cos-
mology. It is not the intention here to advocate any particular conclusion particularly that Venus
was ejected from Jupiter became a comet and nearly collided with the Earth (Velikovsky), or,
that the Earth is at the center of the Cosmos (Bouw). Rather, it is the purpose to show the tre-
mendous proliferation of this account throughout the world, thus showing that the modern scien-
tific explanation is woefully inadequate: a myth does not explain the numerous accounts, a
fact means our physics is faulty. There is nothing to prove the data false.

The Scholastic axiom he who proves too much proves nothing at all should be kept in mind, a
warning both Velikovsky and Bouw would have been wise to heed. Yet, if we accept the data,
what conclusions do we draw? I do not know that this data correlates into one or two provable
18
episodes as both Velikovsky and Bouw contend. However, it does indicate an alarming synchro-
nicity for what should be an almost unthinkable event. Most remarkable of all are the similarities
between the Moses/Joshua event in the Bible (~1400-1500 BC), the dated Chinese event, the
dated South Central America event, and the Egyptian account.

More interesting than the legends themselves is the alternative plasma based physics developed
by Velikovsky to accommodate this data. Velikovsky himself believed these accounts were a di-
rect challenge to the accepted gravity/inertia based physics of Einstein and Newton he believed
it was the scientific implications that created the most controversy, not the fact the theory backed
up the Bible.
___________________________________________________

**[Fernand Crombette complete text] The sun, thrown into confusion, had remained low
on the horizon, and by not rising had spread terror amongst the great doctors. Two days had
been rolled into one. The morning was lengthened to one-and-a-half times the normal period of
effective daylight. A certain time after this divine phenomenon, the master had an image built to
keep further misfortune from the country.
Hephaistos grant protection to your worshipers. Prevent the words of these foreign travel-
ers from having any effect. They are impostors. Let these enemies of the sacrifices to the images
be destroyed in the temples of the great gods by the people of all classes. Make life harder for
these cursed worshipers of the Eternal. Punish them. Increase the hardships of these shepherds.
Reduce the size of their herds. Burn their dwellings.
Rameses, our celestial ancestral chief; you who forced these wretched people to work, who
ill-treated them, who gave them no help when they were in need: cast them into the sea. They
made the moon stop in a small angle at the edge of the horizon. In a small angle on the edge of
the horizon, the sun itself, which had just risen at the spot where the moon was going, instead of
crossing the sky stayed where it was. Whilst the moon, following a narrow path, reduced its
speed and climbed slowly, the sun stopped moving and its intensity of light was reduced to the
brightness at daybreak. The waves formed a wall of water against the boats that were in the har-
bor and those that had left it. Those fishermen that had ventured onto the deck to watch the
waves were washed into the sea.
The tide, which had risen high, overflowed into the plains where the herds were grazing. The
cattle drowned represented half the herds of Lower Egypt. The remains of abandoned boats bro-
ken against the sides of the canals were piled up in places. Their anchors, which should have
protected them, had been ground into them. Quite out of control, the sea had penetrated deep
into the country. The expanding waters reached the fortified walls constructed by Rameses, the
celestial ancestral chief. The sea swept around both sides of the region behind, sterilizing the
gardens as it went and causing openings in the dikes. A great country had been turned into a
wilderness and brought into poverty. All the crops that had been planted had been destroyed and
heaps of cereal shoots lay scattered on the ground.
_________________________________________________

It had long been advanced, beginning with Isaac Newton, that the Universe ran like a clock
something initially wound-up with tremendous inertia, and then left to wind-down as it
dissipated that inertia. This Newtonian physics had been validated by observation and mathe-
matical analysis. Even Albert Einsteins Universe is merely a refinement of Newtons gravita-
19
tionally based model. Yet, there is no allowance in such a scheme for a momentary stoppage and
restarting of the Solar System as made necessary by the Sun standing still in the sky.

Could physics be wrong? Velikovsky thought it might be, so he began to formulate a new
Physic that could account for the evidence. He noticed a major force of nature that Newtonian-
Einsteinian physics does not account for in its cosmology electro-magnetic energy often
called plasma. Yet, electro-magnetic energy is billions and billions of time stronger than grav-
ity!

Think of it this way: when astronauts travel to space, it doesnt take long before they travel
beyond the force of Earths gravity, they become weightless. The force of gravity is just not that
strong. Yet, starlight travels from distant galaxies, streams of plasma are discharging traveling
millions of miles. The power of electro-magnetic energy is billions of times more powerful, yet it
is not accounted for in modern cosmology (modern physics speculates on things like black
holes to make up for the missing mass and energy that is easily accounted for by plasma). To
make the Biblical events possible Velikovsky proposed a theory that rewrote centuries of physics.
The Universe was essentially powered not by a winding down of Big Bang inertia, but a perpet-
ual electro-magnetism something that could be slowed or sped up at times! Further, Ve-
likovsky proposed a theory of evolution that does not require the uniformitarian motive force
genetic mutation through plasma radiation. In other words, the Solar System is like a huge elec-
tric generator/motor that speeds or slows according to cosmic plasma activity!

Is the Earths rotation effected by cosmic activity? It has been shown that Solar flares do af-
fect the rotation of the Earth.

In 1950, Immanuel Velikovsky wrote a textbook for college use explaining his vast evidence
for his theories, Worlds in Collision. He included evidence from ancient sources that Earths ro-
tation had been slowed significantly in the past. Rebelling against the accepted inertia/gravity
based celestial mechanics, he proposed an electrical/plasma dependent system. Further, Ve-
likovsky deduced from ancient records that the reason for the slowing was an astronomical cata-
clysm involving Venus and Mars he proposed that Venus was once an immense comet dis-
charged by Jupiter, once nearly collided with Mars and the Earth, caused the events of Exodus
and the Earths pole to become shifted, and then attained orbit around the Sun. This seemed pre-
posterous to the scientific community, where is the evidence for that?

Worlds in Collision was accepted for academic publication by Macmillan & Co. It had gone
through all the required peer review. Thousands of copies were printed for distribution. But, Ve-
likovsky had approached Harlow Shapley of the National Science Foundation in 1946 to ask his
help in promoting a manuscript. Shapleys reply was this:

the structure of the Solar System during historical times has implications which apparently
he [Velikovsky] has not thought through or perhaps was unable to convey to me in our brief con-
versation. If in historical times there have been these changes in the structure of the Solar Sys-
tem in spite of the fact that our celestial mechanics has been for scores of years able to specify
without question the positions and motions of the members of the planetary system for many mil-
lennium for and aft, then the laws of mechanics which have worked to keep airplanes afloat, that
20
operate the tides, to handle the myriads of problems of everyday life, are fallacious. But they
have been tested competently and thoroughly. In other words, if Dr. Velikovsky is right, the rest
of us are crazy. astronomer Dr. Harlow Shapley, founder of the National Science Founda-
tion, director of the Harvard Observatory.

Shapely went on to successfully have the
book indexed and banned as a textbook. Faced
with an academic boycott of all its textbooks,
Macmillan had all copies of Worlds in Collision
literally destroyed, and the publication rights
were sold. With Velikovskys career in sham-
bles, he spent the rest of his life defending his
truth against science. He felt the centerpiece of
his discoveries was his new physics. Carl Sagan
was an unknown until he was designated by
academia to be their henchman. Remarkably,
Velikovsky re-befriended Einstein in the last
years of Alberts life. On his death-bed, facing
the newly found evidence that Jupiter was, in
fact, discharging electro-magnetic waves as Ve-
likovsky alone had predicted, Einstein admitted
conditionally that Velikovsky was right and
that his own theory was not adequate.

Unquestionably, Velikovskys conclusions were over-reached still, denying him altogether
is just as questionable. While it is impossible to prove the reliability of all these accounts, their
coincidence is startling. Both Nikola Tesla and Velikovsky insisted that modern physics had be-
come derailed. Modern science has totally ignored a force billions of times stronger than gravity
and chalked the discrepancy up to sinister dark entities that cant be observed. With modern
String Theory having produced nothing in 50 years, astronomers continue to seek and detect the
undetectable, all based on Quantum Mechanics certitudes of Uncertainty, all sponsored by out-
rageous government funding. One wonders who is right.

Velikovsky describing the Comet Venus from Worlds in Collision:

Hevelius wrote (in Latin): In the year of the world 2453 (1495 B.C.), according to certain
authorities, a comet was seen in Syria, Babylonia, India in the sign Jo, in the form of a disc,
at the very time when the Israelites were on their march from Egypt to the Promised Land. So
Rockenbach, The Exodus of the Israelites is placed by Calvisius in the year of the world
2453, or 1495 B.C.

I was fortunate enough to locate one copy of Rockenbachs De cometis tractatus novus
methodicus in the United States. This book was published in Wittenberg in 1602. Its author
was professor of Greek, mathematics, and law, and dean of philosophy at Frankfort. He
wrote his book using old sources which he did not name: ex probatissimis & antiquissimis
Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky in the
midst of their cosmological debate series. It
was often reported that Velikovsky was the
more astute.

21
veterum scriptoribus (from the most trustworthy and the most ancient of the early writers).
As a result of his diligent gathering of ancient material, he made the following entry:

In the year of the world two thousand four hundred and fifty-three as many trustworthy
authors, on the basis of many conjectures, have determined a comet appeared which Pliny
also mentioned in his second book. It was fiery, of irregular circular form, with a wrapped
head; it was in the shape of a globe and was of terrible aspect. It is said that King Typhon
ruled at that time in Egypt Certain [authorities] assert that the comet was seen in Syria,
Babylonia, India, in the sign of Capricorn, in the form of a disc, at the time when the children
of Israel advanced from Egypt toward the Promised Land, led on their way by the pillar of
cloud during the day and by the pillar of fire at night.

The Little & Ives Complete Book of Science Illustrated (c) 1958 reprinted in 1963 listed these
texts under the topic Venus:

Venus may be called the earths twin planet, for in size, density, and general constitution, if
not in all physical characteristics, Venus is much like the earth... Spectroscopic evidence
shows the presence of a surprisingly high concentration of carbon dioxide... Measurements
of the surface temperature of the planet indicate a range from 333 K. (140 F.) on the sunlit
portion, down to 253 K. (-4 F.) for the dark regions.

This was the believed state of Venus until the early 60s, earth-like. Scientist were convinced
of this fact until February 26, 1963.
This was when the results of the Ameri-
can Mariner II space-probe of Venus
were announced to the public. The
spacecrafts findings were: the atmos-
pheric temperature of Venus was ex-
tremely hot (800 deg F) and that it was
comprised of hydrocarbons (or organic-
like, little understood compounds).
These findings had scientists scram-
bling for an explanation. It seems they
had been reading only the very upper
atmosphere, underneath was something
much hotter, and more exotic. The the-
ory that resulted was called the Green-
house Effect. If it were only that sim-
ple

It seems many ancient texts have re-
cords of Venus that are inexplicable.
The Babylonians, without the aid of a
telescope, somehow knew the phases.
Sir Walter Raleigh pondered the same
in his History of the World (1616). How

The huge canyon system scar in the middle of the picture
is Valles Marineris (Valley of the Mariners) It cannot be
explained by any Martian natural phenomenon.

22
could it be that the phases of Venus just discovered by Galileo had been known anciently? so
great a miracle happened in the star of Venus, as never was seen before nor in after-times: for the
colour, the size, the figure, and the course of it were changed. That there is an epistemological
problem here was well known, How could the ancients have known

Immanuel Velikovsky speculated on these very problems. Largely without the aid of scientific
apparatus, and guided almost exclusively by ancient texts, he predicted the Mariner II discover-
ies nearly 20 years before its excursion to Venus. Velikovsky argued that the sunlit envelope of
Venus is giving false readings, that the planet is young (is still cooling down), and it radiates heat
from both day and night hemispheres (meaning its producing its own heat without the aid of
sunlight). Also, Venus is rich with petroleum gases and hydrocarbon dust.

What baffled scientists was that Velikovskys
seemed to have been able to predict three seemingly un-
related facts about the Solar System mostly relying on
ancient texts and the physics demanded by those texts --
the far-reaching magnetosphere of the Sun and planets,
radio noises from Jupiter, and the extremely high tem-
perature of Venus caused by an exotic mixture of gases,
gases that are impenetrable to sunlight.

Mariner II confirmed Velikovskys predictions: the
surface temperature of Venus is at least 800 deg F; the
planets atmosphere is heavy and 15 miles thick; it is
composed not of carbon dioxide or water, but of heavy
molecules of hydrocarbons. Harpers editor Eric Larra-
bee wrote:

Velikovsky offers evidence from numerous other sciences, in particular geology and ar-
chaeology. Breaking the barriers between disciplines, he arrives at conclusions which no
discipline had reached independently.

The fact is this: the temperatures on Venus cannot be accounted for by a mere Greenhouse Ef-
fect, the temperature is just too extreme, and the surface gets far too little sunlight. The very sce-
nario of a visually dense layer trapping in heat over a visually clear layer as it passes light to
warm the surface is wrong. The scenario does not exist. One must remember, this is the very cir-
cumstantial evidence on which Global Warming was formulated - the very reason the alternate
theory was disregarded was not because it was unscientific, but because it was formulated using
ancient texts that are supposed to be myth.

Mariner Space Craft

23

Modern Belief Systems - the Conundrum

While this all may seem fantastic to the average person, evidence keeps piling up that Ve-
likovsky was essentially correct on several points. It seems preposterous to think that worlds
have collided and were documented in the Bible, such a non-uniformitarian event. Still In De-
cember 1984 a meteorite was found at Allan Hills, Antarctica. It was tagged ALH84001. In 1996
analysis on the meteorite was beginning to produce evidence that it wasnt a meteorite in the tra-
ditional sense at all. It had come from Mars! President Clinton announced that it had proved life
on Mars (it hadnt). Subsequent analysis indicates that ALH84001 has come from the very scar
on Mars considered to be a remnant of the Worlds in Collision. While there might be a few ex-
planations none are more provable than Velikovskys. It has one advantage over any other pro-
posed explanation: his has survived the test of predictability, a test too late for any other explana-
tion. Velikovsky has left us in a dilemma if we are to believe in the data, the data might lead
to the seemingly absurd and fantastic, but not the contradictory. He has predicted numerous
things once held impossible. His theory, while never advanced or advocated in its entirety, still
remains never proven wrong.

While few are willing to risk their credibility
as out-and-out adherents to Velikovskys theo-
ries, his plasma physics do appear to be gaining
some notable support. They seem to build upon
the theories and discoveries of another scien-
tific oddity, Nikola Tesla, a person also
drummed into obscurity even though his elec-
trical discoveries form the backbone of our
modern technological society. These supporters
include highly respected astrophysicist Geof-
frey Burbidge (University of California, San
Diego - Director of Kitt Peak National Obser-
vatory), astrophysicist Margaret Burbidge (di-
rector of the Royal Greenwich Observatory,
University of London Observatory, Yerkes Ob-
servatory of the University of Chicago, Cav-
endish Laboratory in Cambridge, England, the
California Institute of Technology, first director of the Center for Astronomy and Space Sciences
at the University of California), Noble Prize winner Hannes Alfven, respected astronomer Sir
Fred Hoyle (Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge University), Halton Arp (Mount Wilson Ob-
servatory and Palomar Observatory, Palomar Observatory, Max Planck Institute for Astrophys-
ics), and numerous others.

Adherence to non-orthodox scientific theories has extracted huge cost to the careers of those
who dare to believe differently. All the above have suffered such consequences. All their beliefs

Nikola Tesla calmly working in his laboratory
surrounded by his plasma aether.

24
came about by trying to remain true to the evidences at hand. No one could accuse them of being
religious fanatics, if religious at all. Well-respected scientists all, they reap the very same wrath
that is levied on modern religion that their theories are not consistent with prevailing scien-
tific thought. Their theories require no adherence to Einsteinian paradoxes and remain com-
pletely true to the observable facts. They can account for, by other simpler means, every so-
called proof of Relativity without the exotic incomprehensible mathematics. Yet, they, too, are
accused of heresy.

Physicists are no longer physicists, that is, observers of natural things. No, they are mathe-
maticians first, and the mathematical reality they discover dictates to them how they are to
understand reality mathematics is perfect, observable reality is a chaos fallen from those natu-
ral harmonies. Yet, this mathematically perfect reality is not three nor even four dimensions, it is
upwards of thirty! And as you increase dimensions you increase the number of possible solutions
to the mathematical theory of everything. This has opened the door for this new bread of stud-
iers of reality to speculate on innumerable realities. Indeed, some have even speculated each
moment of chance spawns a new reality. They believe this because it mathematically covers
their conundrum of seeking a principle that will explain and account for everything:

They had spent a long time searching for a principle that would select a unique theory, but
no such principle had been discovered The question driving the field was no longer how to
find a unique theory but how to do physics with such a huge collection of theories Even if
we limit ourselves to theories that agree with observation, there appear to be so many theo-
ries that some of them will most certainly give you the outcome you want. Why not just take
this situation as a reductio ad absurdum! That sounds better in Latin, but its more honest in
English, so lets say it: If an attempt to construct a unique theory of nature leads instead
to 10
500
theories, that approach has been reduced to absurdity. The Trouble with Physics:
the Rise of String Theory, the Fall of Science, and What Comes Next, Lee Smolin p.159

There is only one conclusion that the objective observer can reach in all this: modern science
is as much faith based as the religion it claims to have made obsolete. It is as much of a belief
system as is any spirituality. Even if we are to totally believe in modern science, we cannot
avoid the fact that many of its visionaries were also crackpots. More often than not, the person
achieving the title authority was given it through nefarious means. Africa was not determined
as the cradle of society because a systematic approach was well thought out and embarked upon,
but because Leakey, daily driving by a rubbish dump to work, decided one day that, while civili-
zations had come and gone, this particular garbage dump hadnt. He dug until he found ancient
bones and voila, the birthplace of Man was found. More often than not discoveries are accidents
that eventually have practical value. We shamelessly use Teslas modern day electrical power
distribution system and the motors that power our society, but we sentenced him to destitution.

Preconceived notions of what holds true in philosophy and society run deep, and this does
not just pertain to religion. Yet, no notion of truth is attainable if one must wrestle constantly
with criteria that sheds doubt not only on religion, but on itself. Formulations that seem to fix
these problems by incorporating truth is paradox scenarios are no answers at all. They have
merely done away with the litmus test truth to keep their particular aspirations alive. This is
significant for in such a society virtually any and all truth can survive and appear to thrive, but
25
only because the criteria of truth has been made obsolete. While this new thought systems
seek authority by appealing to the likes of Descartes, Plato, the fact is the modern day schemes
are seldom so well thought out, so inquisitively pondered, so innocent. They are the product of
a self-willed ignorance so that ones morality can remain consistent with ones aspirations. Not
the hard-fought path of understanding, but the path of least resistance. The appeal to authority
is only invoked to disarm the adversaries.

Not understanding the problem the traditional church has analyzed the problem wrongly, and
it has prescribed the wrong prescription. The traditional church seeks to win, yet it has no strat-
egy. It has come to conclusions that cant be supported. It remains adhered to ancient customs
not because they are true but because they are quaint. While the Traditions are still true, we di-
minish them with our quaintness. Its not that the ancients were ignorant, it is that we have not
listened. Instead, we must seek a new way, understanding that the traditions of the Church were
established out of Truth, and that they will remain traditional only to the extent that they can
stand the test of truth. To do this will take at least a partial admission that much of what has
come to be known as tradition is not traditional at all, but remnants of prior modernisms:
prior attempts to will the Church into truth instead of submitting to a rational understanding of
truth and the direction it might lead. We thought we were doing that with the emergence of mod-
ern science, but we were swindled and we have yet to realize it. We protect the revelation of the
Truth, not the various attempts to translate it into quaint customs of the day and period of time.
To do this does not mean a submission to current trends, the whims of science nor even the
speculations of Velikovsky, but to know that the issues have yet to be decided and that the chal-
lenges once posed have failed. To succeed we truly must understand the basis of what happened.
The work of religion is to encounter the miraculous. The work of science has been to reduce
everything to the mundane.
27
What is Change?

Status: N/A
Label: Chapter
Keywords:

Change, Being and Thought

The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. - Psalm 14:1
The only certainty is that nothing is certain. - Pliny the Elder

It is important to see that the issue of change, what it is, how it operates, is key to the under-
standing of nature. Darwins failure is not whether evolution exists or not, it is that his theory
necessarily leads to the complete collapse of the fact of knowledge. As Nietzsche correctly ob-
served, the result is a denial of the very thing most obvious to me, my own thoughts. And, just as
Nietzche, with that collapse goes sanity, the fiery hell of my own thoughts permanently witness-
ing a reality that is a fraud.

It is a very subtle problem but a very real one. In any given moment I look around, I see this, I
can identify that. Then the next moment comes. I still see this, I still can identify that. Then the
next moment Wait a second, that has changed! It has become something completely different!
Ok, I must have remembered what it once was or I would not have noticed that it had changed.
Still, what it is now is completely different than what it was. Nothing is retained from its former
identity, what once was has all dissipated. Was it a magic act? Did the old thing just disappear
and the new pop into existence? The identifiable features of the old have all vanished, still, I
know this new thing was once that! How? The new thing must have retained some knowable
quality of the old or I would have no reason to believe the new thing had anything to do with the
old. What was that quality or is that, too, an illusion?

Even more puzzling, in all this world of change, is my friend from around the world who I
have not seen in years. He can come back into my entirely changed world and know who I am,
name the things that have little likeness to the past, and eventually plug into a completely new set
of circumstances without much bother. He looks entirely different. Science even tells me that in
the 10 years that Ive not seen him his substance has completely changed. Each cell has decayed
and been replaced with a new. Yet, he still carries something that allows me to know who he is.
Is this not a miracle, perhaps one of the most profound of all?

28
The question is, how does something become something else? When a thing changes (the
weather, iron into a car, the baby into an adult) what is retained and what is lost? I was once
young, I cannot go back. Times of peace, faith, love, are all allusive, theyre here, then theyre
gone. Eventually even the mountains tumble to the seas. Often change seems to have a purpose,
or at least an order to it, when the planets revolve around the sun, when the right mixture be-
comes the perfect recipe. But often, change has no purpose at all - its just mere corruption. The
senseless death, the house the burns for no apparent reason and can never be brought back. The
thought and talents one once had and are now forgotten. There must be some correlation between
my thoughts and what is. How do I know this change was good, this one bad.

But there would be those who deny this correlation. Ancient Gnosticism was based on some-
thing called the Two-Fold Truth the notion that the disparity between my thoughts and what
is is a mystical truth in itself. This literally makes the problem of change inconsequential, for it
does not seek an answer to change. Everything just is in the present moment. The problem of
cognition also has a novel solution what we think of as ourselves is merely an illusion of a
broader spirituality, a One, in that act of thinking. I no longer worry about me because I am
an illusion.

Modern science has recreated this dilemma. Einstein has re-introduced it to us through the
paradoxes of Relativity. Freud has re-introduced it to us by making us all slaves to our desires.
Newton has re-introduced us to it by making the cosmos a mere clock that has been wound up.
Descartes has re-introduced us to it by insisting that the only knowable reality is ourselves. To
save itself from obsolescence, and keep up-to-date, religion has returned to that same Two-Fold
Truth. We call it Existentialism.

The Grand Illusion: The Dilemma

The question of change dates back to early Greek thought. It is, in reality, a search for perma-
nence. Am I to find permanence in me, something external, perhaps a God, perhaps atoms and
molecules, or all the above. The problem could be summed up does change primarily exist in
the perceiver or the perceived? When I see change, am I reading into it more than is there? Or
less? I see the Mona Lisa. Is it the real one or the forgery? My friend has rebuilt his antique car,
yet, hes literally replaced all the parts. Why is it still his antique car and not a new one? What
act of cognition allows me to bridge the gap, to identify this with that? Or, perhaps its just a
largely made-up convention, a game weve all agreed to play. Who is to say the red is in the rose,
and not my mind? It is merely another way of saying Is reality real or a figment of my imagi-
nation? It should be remembered that the dilemma of change is not foreign to Christian meta-
physics - it is the essence of the Eucharist. The various solutions are represented by the four
Greek thinkers, Anaximander, Parmenides, Heraclitus and Zeno.

29
Anaximander (c. 570 BC) is perhaps the first scien-
tist. He created the first scientific instrument, the gno-
mon. He reasoned that 1) the earth must hang in suspen-
sion, and; 2) the Cosmos is an ordering. This necessi-
tated an earth that floats in an ordered space. Anaxi-
mander began the method of scientific investigation as a
search for permanence in the world. Knowledge de-
mands that all cannot be relative there must be a ref-
erence point. An Earth floating in space seems to con-
test that permanence. Without an external permanence,
knowledge becomes subjective, self-centered. Anaxi-
mander is the beginning of Materialism that reality is
real and can be investigated.

Parmenides (544 BC) is perhaps the first philoso-
pher. He believes reality is ultimately an illusion, there-
fore he is the first Idealist. Rather than investigating the
world, like Anaximander, he tries to use his own reason
to discover truth. He believed that material change is an
illusion of the mind. While we can question his reason-
ing, it is he who first speculates on the self-evident:
principles that need no proof. He begins the task of
logic.

Parmenides proof that change is an illusion runs like
this:

Proof
1) Being is being what ever is, IS [Principle of Identity]
2) Non-being is non-being what ever is not, IS NOT [Principle of Identity]
3) Both cannot be identical [Principle of non-Contradiction]
4) Conclusion: what ever is, is, whatever is not, is not. Nothing has nothing to give, therefore
change is an illusion (not-being cannot become being, therefore material reality doesnt actually
exist, it is an illusion).

Parmenides, Idealism, seemingly has dealt away reality. Yet he has discovered some absolutes.
He shows that there are certain essential truths, mental realities, that exist prior to the evidence
gathered. But Parmenides doesnt trust the gap that divides the mind from reality. Anaximander
acknowledges reality, but cannot find a permanence. Is it possible to link the two?

Anaximanders floating Earth seems to remove his reference point, but we must also see that
change does the same in its own way they both threaten a certain permanence. Not only
must something carry over from the thing that was to the thing that it is becoming, it must be dis-
cernible to the mind, too.

The central portion of Raphaels paint-
ing The School of Athens where Aris-
totle the Realist is leading Plato the Ide-
alist into the hall of the philosophers.
Plato has his finger pointing up, Aris-
totle has his hand firmly grounded on
reality. It is found in the Vatican oppo-
site the similarly themed painting, also
by Raphael, The Disputation of the
Eucharist where the same debate rages
only concerning transubstantiation.

30
Aristotle eventually solves this dilemma through two classes of being - actual and potential.
But by confusing potential being with actual being, Parmenides thinks being itself must be an
illusion, or if it is not, then the change must be. He does not see that what something becomes
is a potential within each thing as it now is. Missing that, he believes change is merely an illu-
sion. Parmenides system, however, implies immortality: the outside world is an illusion, that
which is changeless is eternal (the observer) if you dont change, then you are eternal. (This is
the basis of Eastern mysticism)

Heraclitus (535 475 BC) begins to offer a solution. He also uses a word that is to be crucial
to understanding the Bible. He is famous for the phrases, Nobody steps into the same river
twice, and, The only thing certain is change. To him, reality is process or a state of flux.
Heraclitus approach seems to be the most rational at first glance, however, it leaves this impor-
tant question: If I am constantly changing, and, I am materially not the same person as I was
moments ago, what right do I have to refer to myself as me? This point of view leads to the no-
tion that there are no absolutes and that everything is contradiction, an early form of Einsteins
Relativism. If everything is change then nothing is true; man has no identity; what ever he is now
has nothing to do with whatever he was then or will be tomorrow. Man is doomed.

Yet, beneath the observable world of constant change Heraclitus believes must exist a substrate
of the invisible, a logical ordering. This he calls the logos - a spiritual, divine rationality. If man
has knowledge beyond that grasped by his senses, he must have a faculty that understands that
knowledge. Hence, man must have an intellect, a mind. Heraclitus writes, Eyes and ears are
bad witnesses for men with barbarian souls. It takes a rational soul, not a barbarian, to perceive
the logos. The Bible states, the Word became Flesh, but the term Word actually says logos.
It is Heraclitus term we should keep in mind when we read Word. It his observation of con-
stant change that leads him to conclude an underlying permanence of reason the logos. Hera-
clitus begins to solve the dilemma, yet he has not bridged the gap between me and reality.

A fourth player in the game of change is Zeno. He is hardly worth mentioning, but he does
provide a solution. It is just obviously the wrong one. But it is mathematical and it is actually
the basis for the mathematical solution used by science today. Hopefully, if we see the absurdity
in Zenos solution we will see the same in sciences. Zenos is the most absurd: change doesnt
exist, anywhere. It is from Zeno that we get the famous race between the tortoise and the hare
(sometimes called Achilles). It was once Zenos proof.

Imagine a stadium where there is a race between a runner (Achilles or the hare) and a much
slower tortoise. The tortoise who has been given a big head start and the runner tries to catch up.
After the runner closes the difference by half, in that momentary now, he still has half to go.
Again, he closes that distance by half, but still has half to go no matter how many halves the
runner closes he never catches the tortoise. Being that the remainder can always be halved, the
runner never gets to the other end. Zeno concludes that change, itself, must be an illusion. Many
now think that Zenos paradox was actually an attempt to illustrate absurdity with absurdity.
Zeno is perhaps trying to illustrate a flaw in thought.

So, are we to doubt the testimony of our senses in favor of some philosophical elegance?
Zenos notion of space/time is the result of trying to make a mathematical analogy where none
31
exists and this is why his paradox was largely ignored until the Enlightenment. Eventually, it be-
comes rates of change, or calculus. While calculus provides a method of measuring change, it
does not explain it on what permanence do we base our ability to know?

Lets restate the dilemma: if both the world and I are in a constant state of flux, nothing can be
true for there is no permanence the mind has nothing to conform to, nothing to compare
goodness to. If I am that permanence, and the world is in a state of flux, I am eternal but my life
is pointless I am the only reality I can know, all else is a mere figment. If the world itself is
the permanence and I am the thing in flux, what right have I to call me me? Why should I as-
sume that the me of this moment survives to the next moment? Must I not retain something of
me to be me?

Clearly, change must retain some permanence or a new reality would be popping into exis-
tence every moment this is Zenos absurdity. How do I continue to the next moment and re-
main me? Aristotles solution is the only one: the me as I actually am right this moment is the
potential me of the next moment. All change is potential existence moving toward actual exis-
tence potentiality and actuality are different aspects of the same existence. What holds for me
as a changing being holds for other things in change also. The permanence we seek is the logos,
the substrate of knowledge, rationality and purpose.

Change can be defined thusly:

change the transition of a being from potency to act
actual a being in act true being that has achieved its full potential
potential true being not in act, but possible to be in act

A piece of marble is potentially a statue. When it actually becomes a statue, it under goes
change. Many try to make a distinction between change and movement, however, movement
is really just an action, therefore movement can be defined thusly:

motion the actualization of potency as such. St. John Damascene

The mere fact that man can witness change proves that the soul to some extent must exist out-
side of time. If it were not for mans awareness of time moving on, he would have no indication
of an eternity. Therefore, the fact that man can perceive time means he must be outside of it.

The modern tendency is to confine movement to a mere change of place, or a mere change in
appearance, etc. Truly, movement is any passage from potency into act (actuality). If we pass
from ignorance to knowledge, we consider it a change. If we continuously pass from ignorance
into knowledge, it is a type of movement. Continuous change is a movement. When we consider
movement in regards to a before-and-after, we are measuring it. This is time, a measurement of
movement.

time a measurement in past and the future, and its parts have a connecting limit, which is the
present instant in time. - St. John Damascene

32
When we consider all the different kinds of movement, we realize each type needs sufficient
reason, a sufficient instigator. Knowledge, materiality, light, compassion, comparisons, change
in all its different forms. From rest into motion, from ignorance to knowledge, from non-
existence into existence, it is clear there needs to be a Prime Mover this is God. However, if
we fail to admit to this thing the logos, the Spirit of Truth and Understanding, all this fails.

So, where is this in the Bible? It was once summed up by the Scholastics: there is nothing in
the intellect that is not first in the senses (Nihil est intellectu quod non prius fuerit insensu).
This seems hardly enough to anchor truth, yet it is. St. Paul refers to a similar notion:

Now faith is the substance (hypostasis) of things hoped for, the evidence of things not
seen Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so
that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. Hebrews 11:1

Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom (sophia) teacheth, but
which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural
(psychic) man receiveth not the things of the Spirit (pneuma) God: for are foolishness unto
him: neither can he know (ana-krino/high discern) them, because they are spiritually dis-
cerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth (krino) all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
For who hath known the mind (nous) of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the
mind (nous) of Christ. 1 Corinthians 2:13

For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. 1 Corinthians 2:10b

And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil
is understanding. Job 28:28

33
Faith By Will Alone?
Status: N/A
Label: Chapter
Keywords:

Faith and Reason
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
- St. Paul

My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.
Magnificat anima mea Dominum, et exultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo.
- Our Lords Mother

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
- Jesus the Christ

The dilemma posed by faith and reason has plagued the Church for centuries. It has led to bi-
zarre solutions such as faith alone, or Bible alone. If there is one thing we have learned thus
far it is this: knowledge, even sanity, rests with the correlation of known to the unknown, and
that with and ideal. An isolated monism is solipsism. An unconnected, uncorrelated dualism is
no better than a monism.

What most people consider today as belief is not belief at all, it is faith. Faith to most is a
mental act of resolve, something I will myself to think against the evidence. St. Augustine called
it a mere abiding because it lays aside the problem of understanding. It is only through a certain
amount of mental understanding does one acquire conviction. True belief creates conviction. If I
know something to absolutely true, it requires no act of will on my part because something that is
true could not be otherwise. It just is. This is belief.

Belief has a method: we gather the evidence; the evidence is then weighed; we then form a
mental conviction to that which is true, discarding the false as counterfeit.

Until recently, the church relied on the ancient Greek definitions of faith and belief (from
Aristotle). There is a significant difference between the two.

34
faith - knowledge as it relates to perceiving (sensing) physical reality
belief - knowledge as it relates to conceiving known spiritual truths and absolutes; to under-
stand

Faith, in Greek thought, was when you are aware of something, to perceive. But when we un-
derstand something, we conceive, we have belief. The mind comprehends by accumulating data
through the senses, judging that evidence, and then formulating convictions. These convictions,
when rightly considered, become universal truths and absolutes.

Divine Truth - the conformity of reality to mind (God conceives the world, His will cre-
ates)
Logical Truth - the conformity of mind to reality (man perceives reality, he conforms his
thought)
Moral Truth - the conformity of reality to mind (man acting as if what he believes is true)

By the time of the Reformation, the necessity of belief began to be questioned. Doubting Aris-
totle, we were returning to the dilemmas of Parmenides and Heraclitus (via Plato) if God
speaks to us inwardly, what is the purpose of belief? If all thoughts come from God, how dare we
judge them? Perhaps we should just have faith in those inner thoughts, which could only come
from God.

This led to William of Occams Razor - simpler is better. It denied the distinction between
faith and belief and termed all knowledge as just faith. It was Occam who taught Gabriel Biel
and he who taught Martin Luther. Luthers Faith Alone is merely a summation of this doctrine
put into practice; it is a denial of the Greek formula of truths and absolutes.

The pre-Reformationists, Luther, Biel, Occam, Valla, etc. were actually advocating a certain
learned ignorance (Nicholas of Cusa) whereby the rational, intellective mind was actually a
hindrance to salvation.

. . . Biel follows . . . with an argument Occam himself had so often used, the principle of econ-
omy known as Occams Razor: non est ponenda pluralitas sine necessitate. That means, in
this case, that the plurality of forms in the soul is rejected: the sensitive soul is indivisible ex-
actly because it is the same as the intellective soul.
4

The cornerstone of Christianity has always been Free Will; that man can and must freely
choose Christ. Yet the emerging Calvinism was not denying the will, just that it was free. Any
free choice requires an act of deliberation a weighing of the good, the true, with the counterfeit.
Without deliberation, choices are either random acts or compelled by an outside force. If one
were absolutely compelled to choose something, the choice would not be free. Yet, this is pre-
cisely what is in jeopardy in the Protestant formulation of faith.

Martin Luther says, whoever advocates Free Will brings death and Satan into his soul. The
genuine razor is this: if God is infinite goodness, then that goodness should be so compelling as
to cause anyone upon perceiving it to instantly turn to God, much as a dog desires a steak once
he smells it. Those not so compelled could only resist if that was their predetermined destiny.
35
Therefore, reason is unnecessary, a hindrance to genuine faith; all that is necessary is faith
alone.

The focus of the Reformations attack was not works per se. The Reformation was a direct as-
sault on Aristotle and the Scholastic system of rationality. Therefore, by faith alone must be
rightly translated by instinct alone (instinct being the sensual, non-rational mind). Evidence of
this assault on Aristotle is Luthers own words:

Our theology and St. Augustine are progressing well, and with God's help, rule at our Univer-
sity. Aristotle is gradually falling from his throne, and his final doom is only a matter of time. It
is amazing how the lectures on the Sentences [Lombards Book of Sentences, once the basis of
all education] are disdained. Indeed no one can expect to have any students if he does not want
to teach this theology, that is, lecture on the Bible and on St. Augustine or another teacher of ec-
clesiastical eminence. Martin Luther

It became a favorite hobby of the Humanists (the anti-Scholastics) to devise mental para-
doxes such as how many angels can sit on a pin, or, triangles and lines are actually the same
because a triangle with an infinite hypotenuse must have infinite legs in order that they add up to
infinity. If this all seems incomprehensible, that is the point. It is these very mind games, these
mental tautologies, that require a paradoxical leap. This leap is a supposed to be a source of
mystery the only true access man has to God. They affirm that God is Truth, yet they deny
any evidence that might lead one to that conclusion. To them, all truth does not lead to Christ, He
is merely the last thing standing after everything else has been reduced to absurdity. Make no
mistake, the Humanist movement, out of which the Reformation arose, was a direct challenge to
the theory of knowledge that served as the very foundation of Christian thought and the Fathers
who taught it: the Protestants were reformulating the very basis of revelation itself.

True Philosophy makes a distinction between the two basic mental faculties of man: the soul
(Gk. psyche, Lt. anima), and the mind (Gk. nous, Lt. intellectus or spiritus). These two faculties
represented the irrational faculty (faith) and the rational faculty (belief).

As man interacts with the world, his senses present data to him. Data of the senses is called
phenomena. The mind integrates this phenomena (data) into what is called a phantasm - an im-
age of reality. From this mental image, the mind discerns what is believed to be true. This is
called noumena (from the Greek nous/mind). It is from this notion of truth that man can make
inferences (chains of judgments) which allows him to determine appropriate actions (morality).
Truth, then, is: conformity of mind to reality. Morality is conformity of action to mind by virtue of
truth. Knowledge comprehended by the mind over time leads to what is called understanding.
This is Aristotles basic formulation of how man comes to understand reality. This is how early
Church Fathers like St. John Damascene explained reality. This became there is nothing in the
intellect that is not first in the senses. In the Bible:

For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of
Christ. 1 Corinthians 2:16

36
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being under-
stood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without
excuse: Romans 1:20

Belief is the result of a process of reasoning or inference brought about by making compari-
sons; it is not something that the mind can merely leap to. It is not the property of the mind to
know without understanding. Yet, God transcends the senses. If nothing comes into the mind
accept through the senses, how do we begin to comprehend God? This is done by perceiving the
collective ordering, harmonies and purposefulness of reality. It is by perceiving the thought in
oneself and in others and realizing that intelligence is not something that creates itself, it must
come from something. By these faithful acts belief is attained and a new sense, a new vision, is
cultivated and achieved. A higher faith with an eye towards an abstract not perceived by the
normal, mundane senses. Faith, in the grand sense, attempts to grasp the actual qualities of God:
Truth, Unity, Goodness. The intertwined harmony of these is Beauty.

St. John Damascene:

The reasoning part, it should be understood, naturally bears rule over that which is void of
reason. For the faculties of the soul are divided into that which has reason [ra-
tional/intellectus/nous], and that which is without reason [irrational/anima/psyche].

The importance of this cannot be overstated. What will be shown is that the basis of sin is a sort
of willed ignorance. It will be shown that this is the metaphorical lesson at the Garden of Eden. It
is the lesson of each and every Eucharist. It is on the basis of this the Church either lives or dies.

37
Solipsism
Label: Chapter
Keywords:
The Ego-Centric Predicament: Fr. Bittle vs. Bp. Berkeley

Hell is oneself,
Hell is alone, the other figures in it
Merely projections.
T.S. Eliot , The Cocktail Party

In the middle of the 20
th
century, Fr. Celestine Bittle compiled perhaps the last complete an-
thology of Scholastic thought. About halfway through the course near the middle of the book
Reality and the Mind: Epistemology lives a chapter entitled Fallacy of Idealism.

In this chapter, Fr. Bittle begins by illustrating the maze of conflicting philosophies and ide-
ologies that have led to the dilemma we now call Modernism. All of Modernism seems to be an
elaboration of one root-idea which Fr. Bittle calls the idealist postulate. The unnamed philoso-
phical foe of Fr. Bittle is the idealist Anglican bishop George Berkeley. One can sum up Ber-
keleys position in the often paraphrased, If a tree fall in the forest, and there is no one to hear
it, does it make a sound? One could argue that Bittle is taking his foe out of context, but the ar-
gument is still valid Modernism is based on Idealism. Idealism is essentially the doubting of
reality, that it can be known and discerned. That it demands judgments and demands moral con-
victions.

The Scholastic argument hinges on the term substance. It was simply defined as: the what-
ness of a thing as it is known. In a world of constant change, substance is what survives from
minute to minute, from second to second. It was a simple way of teaching the abstract concept of
change with an easily understood concept. Yet, simple it did not stay.

Substance literally means, to stand beneath, or uphold. Philosophically it is that which es-
sentially exists in itself. It is the very same term that appears in the Nicene Creed and fueled the
controversy between the heretic Arius and the saint Athanasius. It was said the fate of Christian-
ity rested on an iota (the difference between Arius term and Athanasius). The word substance
allowed Christianity to continue (when understood correctly) and spawned a Christian sect called
Islam (when understood incorrectly). Make no mistake, this is the word that is at the seat of
every controversy, every heresy, every schism, every sophism.

38
Bittle, to prove his case, uses Aristotelian logic, the syllogism All men are mortal, Socrates
is a man, therefore, Socrates is mortal. Yet many are convinced the syllogism offers no real
proof of anything, it is just a linguistic art form. They believe words represent nothing substan-
tial. They are merely a learned convention and represent nothing that has universal meaning.

We cannot say that all men are mortal unless by it we mean that all, a universal, applies to
man, a real thing. Man can have many attributes: shapes, sizes, and colors, just as there are
many shapes, sizes, and colors of triangles. But the shapes, sizes and colors of a thing do not
determine what the thing is, they are merely attributes of the thing confined by its thing-ness. Yet
the critiques of this doctrine insist the attributes are the thing substance is an illusion. Some
called it logomachy, a game (notice the similarity to the term logos).

The confusion is this: a certain thing exists because of its shape, size and color, etc. It is these
qualities that have come together in a particular way to form this particular thing, yet, these
qualities are not the thing itself for they are all variable. They must exist in (inhere) the thing,
but as they are variable, they are not the thing. At least, so the Scholastics taught. We can
change all the attributes (accidents) of a thing all we like, but once it becomes something else,
the substance is changed. If we were to vary that which is not variable the thing would no
longer be what that thing is, it would be something else; therefore, that which is not variable
must exist in its own right.

We are at a crucial fork in the road here. If we are honest, if we are truly honest, we must ad-
mit to one thing: by Christianitys own proclamation (at Nicea), its own legitimacy rests on the
term substance. The Nicene Creed is the foundation of everything that is the Church. It is the
crucial term in that Creed. Once we change that term, the legitimacy of the Church is suspect.
The Fathers of the Church said it, I did not.

The commonly accepted Scholastic definition of substance is this:

Substance that which can exist in its own right without requiring some other thing as a
foundation or substratum in which to inhere.

St. Athanasius records this in justifying the term substance. He is saying that the Word is
substantially the same as the Father. If substance is a game, so are his words:

Again, when the Bishops said that the Word must be described as the True Power and Image
of the Father, like to the Father in all things and unvarying and as unalterable, and as always, and
as in Him without division;
5

Bishop Whately sums up his position thus:

NOTHING has a greater tendency to lead to the mistake just noticed, and thus to produce un-
detected Verbal Questions and fruitless Logomachy, than the prevalence of the notion of the Re-
alists, that genus and species are some real THINGS, existing independently of our conceptions
and expressions.
6

39
While many cultures might have different names for the same thing, the thing, what the
names signify, is never in question light is light as perceived by different people regardless of
the name or convention we give it. Yet this has not prevented some very knowledgeable people
from confusing the name of something with the what that the name represents. This has led
many intelligent people to thinking it is all an illusion. And, being the name is merely a
thought, a convention, that the what is also just a thought, a convention (i.e., co-invention).
If all the whats in the world are just mere thoughts, then logic is merely an art-form for the sign
and symbols of language have no real significance. They stand for nothing that can be known
with certainty. All observation, the basis of all science, becomes game. This is the problem
Whately is skirting.

To clarify this we can appeal to St. Hilary of Poitiers (AD 315 367) who lived in this same
Nicene period; he lived, worked, and knew the Eastern bishops and is commonly referred to as
the Athanasius of the West. St. Hilary of Poitiers writes:

Since, however, we have frequently to mention the words essence and substance, we must
determine the meaning of essence, lest in discussing facts we prove ignorant of the significa-
tion of our words. Essence is a reality which is, or the reality of those things from which it is,
and which subsists inasmuch as it is permanent. Now we can speak of the essence, or nature, or
genus, or substance of anything. And the strict reason why the word essence is employed is be-
cause it is always. But this is identical with substance, because a thing which is, necessarily
subsists in itself, and whatever thus subsists possesses unquestionably a permanent genus, na-
ture or substance. When, therefore, we say that essence signifies nature, or genus, or substance,
we mean the essence of that thing which permanently exists in the nature, genus, or sub-
stance.
7

It should be apparent here that the term substance was not a term conveniently concocted by
the Scholastics and Aquinas. Modern society has spoken and has decided that this whole debate
over substance is folly, yet is it? We often hear in classrooms an argument that runs like this: the
entirety of Aristotle was once lost to Western civilization. When it was reintroduced, it was
Aquinas who misapplied the text, invented an entire doctrine around trans-substantiation, per-
manently corrupting the Catholic Church.

As is the case with much conventional wisdom, it is not necessarily true. The Aristotelian
teaching had survived, via Boethius, Lombard and Damascene. What did trouble the Scholastics
of the Middle Ages was the rediscovery of the term substance in the newly re-introduced Arab
Aristotelian texts. It was the discovery of the Arab term manu that left them confused. It is of
much interest, being that Aquinas is accused of wrongly associating that term with the Eucharist,
that the term manu is derived from the Hebrew term manna. Mannas first translation (look it up)
is what is this stuff?. The similarities of a bread from heaven and what-ness are clearly es-
tablished. The original term for daily bread in the Lords prayer was also super-substance
bread.

So, if there is such a thing as substance, and it is so crucial to all of this, can we prove that
such a thing exists? Yes we can:

40
Proof of Substance: everything must either exist in itself or in another (accidents). If it exists
in itself, it has merely affirmed the definition. If it exists in another, the other must exist in itself,
or yet exist in still another, ultimately demanding either a final substance that exists in itself or an
infinite regression of accidents (which is absurd).

Fr. Bittles Argument Against Bp. Berkeley

Fr. Bittle begins with the phrase
8
:

Idealism [we can also read Modernism] arose out of the difficulty of understanding and ex-
plaining how the mind can transcend itself and know extra-mental reality

Fr. Bittle tries to explore the problem in terms of a particular mental predicament: how do I
know that the world is not a figment of my own imagination? I know that mental reality is real,
how do I know extra-mental reality is? He implies that the mind almost desires to create its own
prison by denying reality, and it is from this the mind must be rescued. Fr. Bittle believes that it
is Descartes I think, therefore I am that began the corruption of Scholastic thought.

How do we assimilate data gathered by our senses? I see, I hear, I feel, but how does my mind
reach out and encapsulate what it perceives. It is as if something of the thing I see and escapes it,
entering my mind with the essential knowledge. Yet, this cant be so, can it? The modern theory
of light is this: light rays illuminate objects, the object reflecting those rays which are gathered in
and sensed by the eye, the mind then processes the data. Yet, light rays alone are not enough to
explain how the mind knows what it is looking at. What about this piece of glass? Its colorless,
odorless, shapeless. Im not sure of its weight. It tells me not what it is. Still, I know

Fr. Bittle, The greatest difficulty lies in the fact of the dissimilarity which exist between mind
and matter. The mind is mental, while the object is physical. . . All knowledge, then, since it pro-
ceeds from the mind and takes place in the mind, must be purely mental. Physical objects are,
therefore, absolutely excluded from knowledge: the objects of knowledge are mental objects,
ideas.

Put another way, how do I trust that what I perceive is materially real when upon my perceiv-
ing it, it immediately becomes an idea? Indeed, Descartes I think, therefore I am, when refined
becomes Berkeleys being is perceiving; the object, for us, doesnt exist unless it is perceived.
This doctrine, that the mind in its knowing can only know its own ideas or percepts is Ideal-
ism; and when accepted as an axiom or postulate, it is the idealist postulate.

That Berkeley has difficulty accepting this can be shown in his own words: What are the
aforementioned objects but the things we perceive by sense? And what do we perceive beside
our own ideas and sensations? And is it not plainly repugnant that any of these, or any combina-
tion of them, should exist unperceived?

In short, being is perceiving. One could argue that Berkeleys perceiver in this is God it is
Gods perception that sustains the Cosmos. Perhaps he is using an odd ontological argument to
41
prove Gods existence. Yet, for those who deny God, the postulate remains: objects cease to exist
once they cease to be perceived. Fr. Bittle creates a syllogism to sum up this Idealism:

Ideas or sensations cannot exist unperceived;
But sensible objects are ideas or sensations;
Ergo, sensible objects cannot exist unperceived.

This seems almost logical, but the fallacy is in the second minor premise, that sometimes
sensible objects are ideas and sensations. True, but sometimes they are not. The Idealist has
rigged the conclusion by equivocating the word are; he is making sensible objects equivalent to
ideas. Sensible objects are ideas, but they also might not be ideas he is saying that sensible ob-
jects are the same as ideas, which is true only once they become thought. The Idealist could say,
but there are no objects outside perception to worry about. However, this is exactly what he is
trying to prove: he cant assume what requires proof.

To make the objection clearer, Fr. Bittle recasts the argument as a hypothetical, if, then syl-
logism:

If something has a purely subjective existence, it has a mental existence;
But perceived objects have a mental existence;
Ergo, perceived objects have a purely subjective existence.

While both premises are true, the logic is wrong. For example, I can say if A, then B. This
means: if I posit A it demands B. However, I cannot posit B and then demand A, for that
would be if B, then A. All balls may be round, but not all round things are ball. In other words,
the B term of the second minor premise must match the A term of the first major premise
for the logic to flow through it should read But perceived objects have a purely subjective ex-
istence. For the logic to work, the syllogism should look like this:

If something has a purely subjective existence, it has a mental existence;
But perceived objects have a purely subjective existence;
Ergo, perceived objects have a mental existence.

True enough, but, so what? Even though the minor premise assumes what the idealist is trying
to prove, that being is perceiving, it still begs the question. The idealist has yet to prove his
point logically: that perceived objects have an exclusively mental existence, even though he
assumes it in his own premise.

The only remaining logical formulation of the problem is this:

If something has a mental existence, it has a purely subjective existence;
But perceived objects have a mental existence;
Ergo, perceived objects have a purely subjective existence.

The conclusion logically follows however it is not valid for it is merely a reiteration of the ma-
jor premise. Fr. Bittle asks: Is it a fact that, if something has a mental existence, it has a purely
42
subjective existence? This is the very point which the idealist intends to prove by the argument.
one cant assume what one is trying to prove.
In order for a syllogism to be true, it must stick to three terms. It is the middle term that links
the two outer terms. But if one were to equivocate that middle term, in other words, use one term
to hide the fact that it represents two ideas, it looks like the point has been proved, but in fact the
logic has been destroyed. In other words, this:

Bars are rods of metal;
An establishment that sells beer is a bar;
Ergo, an establishment that sells beer is a rod of metal.

The term bar has been equivocated. All idealism rests on this:

What is subjective is not externally real;
All objects of which we are aware are subjective;
Ergo, all objects of which we are aware are not externally real (mere ideas).

The term that is being equivocated is subjective; it does not mean the same thing in the ma-
jor and minor premise. Both are true but in the first, subjective refers to a distinction made in
the mind, it does not deny objective reality only distinguishes it. There are realities that are ex-
clusively mental, such as emotions, but that does not prove that all reality has an emotional na-
ture, yet, this is what Gnosticism maintains: that truth is mere inner relevancy.

At this point we quote Cardinal Mercier, The contention of the realists is that we can be cer-
tain of the existence of the external world.
9

His proof is this:

Argument drawn from the passive character of sensations. We are conscious that we are the
subject of certain internal experiences in the presence of which we are purely passive. These
facts of experience require a sufficient reason for their occurrence. Now since our consciousness
bears us testimony that we are passive, this sufficient reason must be, at least in part, exterior to
ourselves. Therefore some reality outside the ego must exist, there must be an external world.

The problem with Berkeley and Whately is that they miss a simple point. Substance is a term
very close to the simple idea being itself or existence. The term that connects the subject and
predicate is also a term very close to existence itself; is. When we ask, is substance a thing,
we are really trying to make the sentence Is is is? Clearly, there is nothing that can be made
further specific of or by the word is. Because is cannot be made further specific, there is little
for the mind to grasp on to, the idea becomes too abstract. The point is that, is does not have
constituent parts to be made further specific. Does this mean that substance doesnt exist or is
just rhetoric. No, this would be wrong, also. For you cannot say, Is is not is. It is enough to
say that existence cannot be a subject of itself, it just is and somehow we know it.

43
All this is similar to God telling Moses I AM. When Moses asks God to be more specific, all
that God can say is I AM THAT I AM. We could refine this, I AM the One whose essence is
to exist.

The Ego-Centric Predicament

Now if we think back to Anaximander and Parmenides we will remember the hint of two other
solutions. The One-Mind solution allows for an external sort of reality, but knowledge of that
reality is fed to you directly by God. This is Plato, but the price is the loss of individuality for
God is literally doing your thinking for you. This is the basis of the Occult.

The second solution can only end in one way: solipsism all of reality is a figment of ones
own imagination.

Therefore, one must make a choice; lose reality or lose the self. Which one do you choose to
be the illusion?

The third option, the only remaining option, is the one the Church took: the condition of our
being is a predicament. We either accept this predicament and the solution once offered by the
Church, or we begin to back down the ladder into the abyss of the Idealism, or perhaps Material-
ism. It does not matter, they end in the same place. Both end in its own style of solipsism: either
reality is not real and it cant be known, or you are an illusion. Which is it? This predicament is
what ancient Christianity called the Veil of Tears.

The only solution is this: everything that enters our consciousness has an element of truth, a
reality that can be known, and an element of uncertainty, that which cant be known or is yet to
be known. It is the minds duty to sift between that which we can be certain of and that which we
cant the counterfeit. In everything that we perceive there is a degree of certitude, of infallibil-
ity, that must be ferreted out. This is the task of knowledge and the basis of meaning. If we get it
wrong, in some subtle idealistic way, we create our own hell. We literally begin to will our own
existence away.

Modern Science and Platos World of Illusion

One may read the above and claim Im innocent! Science, by its own nature, is driven to ex-
plain observable reality. However, it, too, must make faith claims; laws of gravity, causality,
math, etc. If this were not so, it would deprive itself of the very tools it needs to operate. Yet, the
very claim to explain material reality demands the question by what? Since it already has out-
lawed the spiritual as a viable explanation, it must dig deeper and deeper into observable phe-
nomena. Eventually it runs out as the atoms of dissection become smaller and smaller. Like it or
not, you eventually end in some sort of less than knowable plasma (something Aristotle called
44
Prime Matter). Eventually science creates its own paradox when the act of examination literally
becomes the thing examined (Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle).

Take man; scientifically, he is a sack of chemicals, mostly made up of water. And what of
these chemicals? They are made up of atoms. And the atoms? They are made up of sub-atomic
particles. And what of these particle. Well, they barely exist at all, they are a kind of energy, but
not really, they are a kind of matter, but not really. . . .well, anyway, the atom is mostly made up
of space. In fact, all material reality is mostly made up of space, it is only a matter of mathemati-
cal probability that my fingers dont pass right through the keyboard I am typing on!
10
Likewise,
with relativity, the math destroys comprehension. A world based on phenomena alone is, in
reality, the furthest from what it claims: while building up a reality based on formulas and
chemicals, it leaves man to live in a world where any opinion of the visible is as good as the
next.

Are we in hell yet?

45
Paradox as Truth - A Solipsism of the Present Moment
Status: N/A
Label: Chapter
Keywords:

The Legend of Thoth (Taaut/Hermes), the Tautology
[Taaut-ology], and the Two-Fold Truth

Part of the groundwork laid for Christianity by the Jews while under the polytheistic Persian
captivity was a philosophical innovation. The basis of this is the proposition that God, the high-
est of the high, is one not two. Christianity added to this the proposition that God, in order to be
knowable, must have distinctions: a monism has no distinctions and therefore is not knowable or
approachable.

At issue here is another subtle point: God, if He is to be
highest of the high, cannot be secondary to some other
higher principle or law. Otherwise He would not be God.
He would be what is called a demiurge, a secondary be-
ing that must submit to these higher principles, no differ-
ent than anyone else. In the Christian scheme, if there
were a higher law or principle, then that would be God.
Laws and principles have no personality. They are
mathematical in nature. Being that Man does have per-
sonality, the trait of person-ness needs to have its
source, God. A simple law or principle is not sufficient
enough to explain this person-ness.

In the Persian/Egyptian scheme God is indeed a demi-
urge subservient to two higher, equal but opposite reali-
ties, good and evil. This two-fold principle, in this
scheme, applies to everything all of reality has its du-
alistic counterpart. Material vs. immaterial, hot vs. cold,
faith vs. reason, etc., all of which are at odds with each
other. In this scheme concrete reality is a negative duality
to the positive mental ideal, it is a barbarian and ought
not to be.

The Wand of Hermes as it appears
suspended between two barren
trees.

46
Also, in this scheme, Man is not so much human,
a composite of mind and body, but a mind inhabiting
a body. The physical body is more of a grave than a
living being. Much as a person drives a car, man
drives his body. Therefore he is not entirely re-
sponsible for all the predicaments the body might get
in to. Man needs his body to gather information and
sense the illusions of reality that surround him. But
in this scheme, reality has no real truth to offer. In
this scheme Man is like an angel, but in the words of
the scholastic Anton Pegis, how did they ac-
count for the fact that man, who is for them very lit-
tle less than the angels, is yet an incarcerated angel?
What, after all, is an angel doing with a body?

While many attribute the source of this Gnosticism
to Plato, the source is actually ancient dualism,
where good and evil are equally powerful first prin-
ciples. This came down to the modern era through
Hermeticism as exemplified in the occult Corpus
Hermeticum rediscovered at the beginning of the
Renaissance. It is this text that is at the source of
most Christian heresy.

Hermeticism began as an attempt to politically
syncretize religion. Hermes Trismegistus, the syn-
cretic deity of this religion, was amalgamated from
separate deities representative of the various cultures
that existed prior to and within the Persian Empire:
Mercury, Marduk, Baal, Thoth, Taaut, Hermes, etc.
It is believed that the source of incivility is when cul-
tures within a broader emerging culture cling to their
past customs rather than adapt to the new. The for-
mula for peace, then, is to insist on a clever balance
between diversity and homogeneity: innocuous cus-
toms can be retained for they add color to society,
yet profound deeply held beliefs must be neutralized
for they are the seeds of bigotry, wars and religious
intolerance. The Persians tried it, the Greeks tried it,
the Roman Empire tried it as has every major gov-
ernment known, yet it never works. People will not
abandon truth for customs, unless of course, they can
be convinced there is no truth, or that truth is para-
dox. It was this politicized, syncretism that infuriated
the Jews when they were subjected to it under the
Persian Empire. It emerged again under the Roman
a

b

c

a) The Egyptian god Thoth Shepherd of
Souls. b) Hermes as Mercury holding the
caduceus. c) Hermes Trismegistus displayed
as a Zoroastrian priest revealing the Two-
Fold nature of truth

47
Empire. It caused the Jews to insist God was one, not
many.

With the globalization of modern society a similar
crisis faces religion. While there is no empire per
se, the emergence of global economies, mass mar-
keting, mass communication, a similar polytheistic
pressure exists along with political pressure to syn-
cretize religion. There are those who would blame a
particular country (such as the US), but this just
doesnt hold as no country has the same access to
society as does do corporations (China, a political
foe to the US, is a willing accomplice in trade). This
has caused a syncretic view to once again ree-
merge, along with sophisticated psychological
marketing and multi-cultural strategies and games.

The practical application of these strategies is not
just to sell goods, but to blend the broader society
into a willing consumer. Ignorant of the games and
theories underlying these games, the broader society
sees the details of religion as no longer relevant but
mere dressing. God as an intelligible reality is re-
place with a shared, common, almost mundane
heightened sense of inner spirituality. Religion is
stripped of unnecessary customs, trappings, rituals
and overly dogmatic beliefs, all in service of the
hermetic reality.

While the point may be subtle, it is still there: there
is historically no other more controversial debate
than the one over the existence or non-existence of
reality itself. How this debate is settled determines
the fate of Christianity. It was traditional Christianity
that uniquely insisted on the absolute existence of
not just a concrete reality, but Man as a true individ-
ual, and God as a personable entity. These are the
things lost to modern spirituality. The effect is,
while the names have been changed, this new Gnos-
ticism is identical to the old. Both require dualism to
succeed. All dualism is based on what was called the
Two-Fold Truth.

Two Hermetic Texts

48
The Two-Fold Truth: the Ancient Basis of Dualism

Zoroastrianism is the dualistic prototype for Gnosticism. It was founded by Zoroaster, of the
school of the Magi. Legend holds Zoroastrianism was derived from the worship of Baal
(Bel/Baal-zebub). It maintained that there were two Gods, a good one and an evil one, that con-
tested for dominion of the cosmos. The good God was the God of light (fire, the Sun).

The Persian emperors whose ancestors knew Zoro-
aster were beginning to be skeptical of Sun Worship
and were looking for a more substantial religion.
This is the reason why they began looking favorably
upon the Jews, ending their captivity and allowing
their return back to Jerusalem. This occurred under
the Emperor Cyrus when Daniel proved to him that
the religion of Bel (Baal) was a hoax (the story of
Bel and the Dragon).

Dualism begins when we take a nothing and ele-
vate it to the status of a something. Instead of evil
being the absence of good, it becomes a dual,
counter reality. The dilemma posed is not as easy as
one might think. The scholastics proposed a simple
solution, Evil is the absence of the Good. In this
scheme, evil doesnt actually exist at all. What we
perceive as evil is actually a lack of the goodness
man creates evil as a result of his straying from
the good. Evil, as a naturally occurring reality, does
not exist per se.

The problem with this is that there are many evils
in the world that just arent the result of Mans er-
rors: the wicked tsunami, the innocent child that dies
at birth, the misfortunate coincidence that appears to be no ones fault, the biologically evolved
creature (the mosquito, or the screw fly) that serves no purpose yet reeks havoc on society. One
can understand evils of this sort if understood as Gods method of teaching Man, yet this just
doesnt seem satisfactory in every circumstance. True evil must exist, then, in some fashion or
another, but why would a true God allow it to exist at all?

Balancing such issues has caused theologians many sleepless nights. Many abandon religion
altogether, yet, we are left with Mans rationality from where did it come? The essence of the
intellectual process is to discern order. However, if intelligence is merely a result of a random
chance (evolution), how do we account for order, or our ability to discern it? We are left with the
proposition that there must be a reason for reason to exist, or reason itself is unreasonable.

The Faravahar, the holy symbol of the
Zoroastrian Two-Fold Truth.

Winged depictions of disks were derived
from visions people beheld during
eclipses of the Solar plasma emanating
from behind the Moon darkened Sun. It is
conjectured that this plasma represented
logos to the ancients. The turned man
climbing out of the disk represented
Mans dilemma of picking the most cor-
rect of the Two equally powerful but
opposite Truths. Should he pick wrongly,
he would be sentenced to a life of evil.

49
We are seemingly left with the same problem,
then, as to what defines good and evil. The
temptation to slip in to dualism is great and a
philosophically difficult situation. How do we
avoid irrationality? Even if we define good as
that which produces the greatest good we seem
to have avoided the definition good. Good,
therefore, must just be. A substance in itself,
something we just know when we see it.

The philosophical source for dualism is found
in the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. Thoth
or Taaut is the guardian of the Hall of the Two-
Truths. (Tao/Taut is also often used as a refer-
ence to God in some cultures) This is the Hall of
Justice, the Hall of the Two-Truths that one must
enter immediately upon ones death. The de-
ceased is presented before the judge, Lord of
Truth, Master of the Two Legs. What is re-
quired of the deceased is a Declaration of Inno-
cence before he can go to the world beyond. At
that moment, he is held accountable for all the
actions of his life this is the moment of the
final judgment and only the innocent can pass.
But who is innocent? No one. No matter how
sincere ones action, how truthful ones truth, all
have fallen short. Thoth, however, has figured a
way out of this game. Thoth invents the Thoth-
ology proving that there is no such thing as truth
truth is an illusion, a mere symbol (an exam-
ple statement This sentence is false is it, or
isnt it?). If there is no truth, how can one be ac-
countable before God for ones actions? In a
sense, Thoth gets off on a technicality and so
do all those of the Two-Fold Truth. Thoth, as the
proto savior of mankind, becomes the shepherd
of souls and guardian of the Hall of the Two
Truths. The tautology becomes the very declara-
tion of innocence, the secret response for getting
into heaven, and through life.

The Caduceus or Wand of Hermes/Thoth.
Notice the two truths represented by the
two Serpents (evoking the Serpent of the
Garden of Eden) Also, that they reach past
the veil/abyss towards the Zoroastrian
Two-Fold Truth.

50

The Hall of the Two Truths depicted in the Egyptian Book of the Dead
This is where justice is weighed.

Christ says, Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Aqui-
nas echoes this in his belief that all of creation appears to serve those who serve the Truth. In
both, the thing that determines what man ought to do is truth itself. Yet, in todays climate of
political correctness, that which primarily controls morality is a Thothic declaration of inno-
cence I am not guilty for I have kept my truths to myself and I have allowed others to do the
same for there is no known truth. I am not responsible for my actions for it is in my nature to
act in such a way, its just the way I am and I must submit. I am just as amazed by my actions
as you, I witnessed myself doing that but I could not stop. Life is a game, the only rules that
apply are the ones I gain by. All are Thothic declarations of innocence, an abandonment of
judgment as a ticket to heaven.

CRITICAL POINT: In all these declarations of innocence a certain mental maneuver must
take place: the personality is psychologically split. The person identifies self with the one doing
thinking, but creates and objectifies a second natural self on which the blame can be deposited.
It is this second more natural self which is not blame-worthy because it possesses no rational-
ity to be held accountable.

The new formulation of the Golden Rule is no different. Originally it was intended to estab-
lish a standard of behavior based on a level of human dignity. Today, it has become a declara-
tion innocence I will not judge your actions if you will not judge mine. It has become a
washing of the hands of guilt, like Pontius Pilate.

Morality, today, is still primarily driven by the Thothology, that I am innocent of any crime as
long as the Truth cannot be known. This shows up in modern day marketing. For example, in
learning to drive a car, I must first learn to use the brake. Using the brake is not natural, it must
be learned. After repeated use, the learned response becomes a habit, based on reason - it be-
comes second nature.

51
The basis of the occult is just this sort of psychology: to create a false second nature, based on
uncontrollable desire. For example, if you are naturally afraid of crowds, I can get you to shop in
my store by playing into your need to feel safe. You assume there are rules, I know there are not,
I can always concoct a game outside the rules that you will lose. If I keep you shopping at my
store, eventually it will become second nature. It may actually be in your best interest to shop
elsewhere, but as long I play into and manipulate your desires youll keep buying my goods. The
way I keep you confused is the tautology - Do you really trust those other guys? Of course you
dont, you never met him. My statement sounds true, even thought it is not. But by making you
feel safe, I become rich.

Modern Existentialism is merely this tautology applied to religion and philosophy. By present-
ing you with a paradox, I can create a sense of anxiety. If I then can assuage that anxiety through
some benefit to you, I will win you as a disciple (or consumer). Any attempts at reason merely
re-ignite that anxiety, pulling you back into my fold.

Dualism is the basis of paradox. Perhaps, it was once an innocent religion, but it is now phi-
losophically bankrupt. It was Hermes/Thoth who provided a means of cheating its paradoxical
formulation. It is the Modernist who uses this truth as paradox to will his way through life,
cheating those unaware of its methods. Modernism has its roots in the Renaissance. The Renais-
sance has its roots in Gnosticism. Gnosticism has its roots in the Two-Fold Truth.

St. Gregory the Sinaite writes:

The memory was originally simple and one-pointed [fold], but as a result of the fall its natu-
ral powers have been perverted: it has lost its recollectedness in God and has become compound
instead of simple, diversified instead of one-pointed [fold].

It is mans sentence to be of a two-fold nature, faith and belief, and to have to struggle past that
boundary, uniting the two as best he can to behold truth.

52

The Caduceus of Hermes displayed anciently with two Cornucopias (Horns of Plenty, Horns
of Amalthea) The cornucopia is a horn literally filled with bountiful fruits. The Eucharist im-
plication is that the horn concept is based on the ancient rhyton of the Persian Empire. In
vogue during the Hebrews captivity, it was the central vessel around which the Wine Feast
was based. Rhytons were originally horns sawed from bulls, but over time they were became
golden, ornately decorated vessels. It is from the rhyton that more modern wine chalice
evolved. The Persian metaphor was at the pinnacle of the feast a toast was made to ones ad-
versaries after which the wine was consumed as drinking the blood of ones adversaries.
This was the very feast that would have been celebrated in the Book of Esther. This feast (and
episodes of that feast) served as the model for the yearly Feast of Purim celebrated by the
Jews. It was the yearly marking of that feast that numbered the years of Daniels prophecy for
the coming of Christ. (See my book The Time of the Christ, S. Scott Jones, where I argue
that the true model of the Last Supper was the Persian wine feast as memorially celebrated at
Purim. See also Josephus for the annual liturgy of that celebration noting its bizarre similari-
ties to the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday) It should be noted that the religion
of the Persian Empire, Zoroastrianism, based on the Two-Fold Truth, is the true ancient basis
of Islam and its two-fold philosophy.
11

53

Existentialism and the corruption of the Modern Church

With modern science breathing down its back, Christianity has found itself hanging on to more
and more doctrines that seemingly are becoming dubious. Geological findings contradict strict
Biblical interpretations. Science has discovered too many new species and too much evidence
that the age of the earth was much older than biblically allowed. Perhaps Biblical truths had be-
come over-extended over time into notions not originally intended. How does one retain spiritu-
ality against this mounting (but often dubious) facts of science?

A divorce was sought. The domain of religion became limited to a form of social psychology,
with science claiming the rest. The Bible became reduced to an anomaly of symbolic importance
only, mere symbolism and emotional relevancy. With so many customs and truths to balance, it
became easier to see the Church as a mere undefined vehicle for an undefined spiritual ambi-
ance. Mystery had become paradox and contradiction. To be holy was to be incomprehensible.

The Existentialist, Sren Kierkegaard, provides the model for most modern Christian philoso-
phy. Consider his statement:

Paradox is the passion of thought; and the thinker who is without paradox is like a lover with-
out passion an inconsiderable fellow. But the highest power of every passion is to want its own
destruction, and so it is likewise the highest passion of understanding to want a stumbling block,
even though the stumbling block may in one way or another prove its destruction. That is
thoughts highest paradox, to want to discover something it cannot think.

Early in the 19th century, many Westerners began to look toward the East for either a replace-
ment of, or a new interpretation for Christianity. This fueled a new search for essential Oriental
texts. Buddhism seemed to lead the way as a spirituality compatible with paradox. It is these
texts that inspired the western philosophies of Existentialism and Nihilism. Much of this phi-
losophy is revealed by the very notable scholar Eugne Burnouf in his book Introduction
lhistorie du Buddhisme indien. Burnouf writes:

Whatever danger there is in precisely stating opinions to understand through texts still as in-
completely known as those from Nepal, I imagine that Shakyamuni, by entering religious life,
had a starting point the facts given to him by the aesthetic doctrines of the Samkhya, which were
ontologically the absence of God, the multiplicity and eternity of human souls, and physically,
the existence of an eternal nature, endowed with qualities, able to transform itself, and possess-
ing the elements of the forms the human soul assumes in the course of its journey through the
world. Shakyamuni took from this doctrine both the idea that there is no God and the theories of
the multiplicity of human souls, of transmigration, and of Nirvana, or deliverance, which be-
longed to all the Brahmanic schools in general. Only, it is not easy to see today what he meant
by Nirvana because he did not define it anywhere. But since he never speaks of God, Nirvana for
him cannot be the absorption of the individual soul into a universal God, as the orthodox Brah-
mins believed; and as he spoke hardly more of matter, his Nirvana is not the dissolution of the
54
human soul with physical elements either. The word empty, which already appears on the
monuments proven to us to be the most ancient, leads me to think that Shakya saw the su-
preme good in the destruction of the thinking principle. He imagined it, as an often repeated
comparison makes one assume, as the disappearance of the light from the lamp that has been
extinguished.

But with the absence of religious dogma came the promise of unbridled freedom. With this
came a new-found power to destroy the customs and traditions of past eras through subjecting
those truths to tautologies and paradoxes. Professor Marjorie Grene of the University of Chicago,
an Existentialist herself, having studied with Kierkegaard and Jaspers, sums up the technique of
Existentialism in its understanding of desire; she is quoting Sartres theorem via Simon de
Beauvoir:

What we really want is to cast a spell on the enemys freedom, to seduce it like a woman: the
alien consciousness must remain free with regard to the content of its acts; it must freely
acknowledge its past faults, repent, and despair; but an external necessity has to force it to this
spontaneous movement.

Eliminated from any possibility at all is mans search for truth and the satisfaction in finding
that truth. Like an alchemical magician, the modern Existentialist seeks the voyeuristic pleasure
of attempting to chemically wed that which is foreign to each other and then delight in the bestial
intercourse that results. An essential occult alchemical theory was always the wedding of things
that ought not be wed in an effort to delight in new and unnatural realities. Taste becomes not a
matter of what is appropriate, but what you can appropriately get away with. Creativity becomes
redefined as just such an exercise in what the Existentialist calls poetry.

The Existentialist can provoke just such happenings by interjecting statements like, There
are no absolutes, and The only certainty is change. We become his unknowing accomplice.
Aligning himself with the god of disorder, his evangelism is spreading disorder and creating
doubt. He seeks to unite with this conjugal Force believing that uniting contradictions propels
the Cosmos into higher and higher levels of consciousness. He purposely rigs the data so that we
never notice the inconsistencies. It is the Two-Fold Truth becoming the accepted paradoxical ba-
sis of reality.

We can argue that science has a better grasp of reality, but only material reality, and only mar-
ginally. The paradoxes we are left with has left Man even less explained than the ancients a
bag of chemicals that somehow thinks and feels a spiritual demon locked in a dying corpse.

It is my conjecture that if we had the opportunity of chronological distance, if we could look
back from 500 years in the future, we would see the present era for what it truly is: another Dark
Ages. The scientific principle that we are absolutely sure of as it rapidly becomes the myth of
tomorrow. As a whole, then, we are living amongst more myths than truths even by sciences
own estimation. The mathematical fictions explaining the cosmos arent even comprehensible to
the physicists themselves.
55

Relativity: the Modern Two-Fold Truth

Modern cosmologist have ordered the universe around gravitational models developed by
Newton and Einstein, yet have out-of-hand dismissed plasma forces billions of times greater.
Theyve dismissed evidence by Georgs Sagnac and Roland DeWitte that Einstein was wrong
without so much as an apology. When astronomer Halton Arp of Mount Wilson and Palomar
Observatories had found unequivocal evidence that the Big Bang had not happened he was
summarily removed from observational status and eventually dismissed. The Black Hole and
Dark Matter Theories needed to balance modern cosmological models are really no better than
the Satanic Prince of Darkness explanations of the past. We still have the habit of taking all the
principles we cant understand, wrapping them up into a nice package we can name, and then
assigning it all the magical properties we need to hide our ignorance. The fact of the matter is the
status quo needs relativism to keep its agenda moving forward. The Existentialists have reigned
too long. Theyve turned the world into a game and all of us into their play-thing. Its time weve
had enough.

The Sagnac Interferometer
Einsteins Theory of Relativity was supposedly verified by Michelson & Morley. The experiment claimed
to have proved that the speed of light was an absolute. Georgs Sagnac, noticing errors in the experi-
ment, reconfigured the test with his own device. Sagnac was able to exceed the speed of light, thus col-
lapsing any paradoxes of relativity. While Sagnac Devices are commonly installed in modern fighter
planes (replacing gyroscopes for navigation), physicists are reluctant to concede that the device actually
works on the principles by which it was invented its all relativity, you know. When Einstein was con-
fronted by Sagnac and his effect, Einstein said, That has nothing to do with relativity. Sagnac retorted,
In that case, Dr. Einstein, relativity has nothing to do with reality.

56

Astronomical Object NGC 7603
The Big Bang Theory is primarily based on what is called the Red Shift that the further an astro-
nomical object is away, the more its light spectrum is lowered towards the red frequencies. The theory
states that it is essentially a Doppler shift the higher the speed, the greater the distance, the bigger the
shift. Yet, by this very theory it would appear that the Earth is the center of the cosmos for there are no
major stars racing towards us. Also, by the same theory, the cosmos must be literally older than light:
there are cosmic structures larger than the time allotted under the theory. Essentially, to work the entire
universe would have to be moving at relativistic speeds creating everyday relativistic events everywhere,
a necessity of Relativity. (An object moving away from me at near light speed means I am moving away
from it at the same speed relative to it causing space/time paradoxes a man moving at such speeds ages
slower than a man standing still, yet were both moving those speeds relative to each other. These para-
doxes are a result of the theory that the speed of light, c, is an absolute. It cant be exceeded even if part-
ing objects are both attaining their own light speed: c + c = c.)
The bigger object above is a low red shifted object. The object to the left, connected by a wispy tail, is a
high red shifted object. According to modern theory, they cannot both be the same distance away or all
our cosmological theories fail, the age of the universe, the size of the universe, etc. Here they are clearly
connected proving them to be the same distance away. Dr. Arp has numerous other evidences of the
same, all discounted by academia.
There are other theories that explain the Red Shift. One simply says that light becomes tired. Planks
Constant stipulates that higher frequency light requires more energy than lower frequency light. As light
travels tremendous distances, it uses up energy trying to maintain its speed (the speed of light is a con-
stant, but not an absolute). With nowhere else to derive its energy from, it must lose frequency (shift to-
wards the red) to maintain its speed. Another theory states that the spectral fingerprint of luminous ele-
ments are not fixed. Matter, as it is created in the formation of galaxies, generates different, shifted, fin-
gerprints from their stable counterparts. Its possible ALL these theories are true to a degree, yet modern
science only considers the Big Bang explanation even though it requires Dark Matter to work.
57
Appendix to Chapter - Other Proofs

The Cambridge philosopher GE Moore was an arch defender of reality, but he would often re-
sort to a rather odd sort of logic that is valid but little understood. His proof of reality runs thusly:

MOORES PRIMARY PROOF OF REALITY

(1) Here is a hand. [Uttered while making a gesture with one hand.]
(2) Here is another hand. [Uttered while making a gesture with the other hand.]
Therefore,
(3) There exists external things [Reality is proved, Idealism falsified].

While it appears to run short of a proof on the surface, the logic is, in fact, impeccable. This
has caused many philosophers to re-examine Anselms Ontological proof of God as actually be-
ing true, valid and profound. Is of the same modal category as Anselms Ontological Proof.

ANSELMS ONTOLOGICAL PROOF OF GOD

(1) God is the thought object than which no thought object can be thought to be greater
(2) Now suppose that God is only in the intellect (i.e. God is thought of, but does not exist)
(3) But certainly any thought object that can be thought to exist in reality can be thought to be
greater than any thought object that is only in the intellect.
(4) And it cannot be doubted that God can be thought to exist in reality.
Therefore,
(5) Some thought object can be thought to be greater than the thought object than which no
thought object can be thought to be greater [1,2,3,4] which is a contradiction, whence we have to
abandon our supposition that God is only in the intellect, so he has to exist in reality, too.
12

The true brilliancy of Anselms proof is concealed by the above, common over simplification.
The proof actually runs like this: the comparative goodness of any two things cannot be deter-
mined solely by comparing them to each other, invariably a third ideal is needed to set a stan-
dard of comparison. This not only holds true for any goodness, but also any goodness one can
think of, such as greatness. This applies when comparing any two commodities one can con-
ceive, regardless how great. Therefore, for thought to be possible, a supreme Ideal, or Great-
ness, higher than any conceivable ideal, must exist or any comparison or description would be
stymied. It is this supreme Ideal Greatness we call God.

MOORES PROOF THAT GOODNESS IS A PRIMARY ESSENCE, NOT IN THE EYE
OF THE BEHOLDER

Platos doctrine invariably led to that notion that God was defined as the greatest good, yet
he seemingly made even this notion escape reason when he introduce the notion beauty is in the
eye of the beholder. Invariably, this is the mantra of the non-traditionalists. Moore, similarly,
had an argument against this:

58
In short, this modern theory that all art is form, is exclusively subjective. It denies that an ob-
ject is beautiful in itself, but it does not see that it is not even an object in itself. It is just as true
to say that a sunset is beautiful as to say that a sunset exists. I would therefore try to define the
beautiful as that with regard to which you have a specific emotion, the nature of which can only
be discovered by looking into yourself, whenever you say that an object is beautiful, and finding
what you mean thereby. But I must also maintain that this emotion is not merely yours, and ca-
pable of attaching itself to any object whatever, but that some objects are by their very nature
more capable than others of exciting it. When you say that a particular red is beautiful, you mean
that you feel a pleasant emotion in contemplating it; and that emotion at once constitutes it a dif-
ferent object: it is no longer that particular red, to be distinguished only by intellectual marks; it
is no longer given you only as an object of knowledge, but actually given as an object of feeling.

But different people think different things to be beautiful, and the same thing is thought ugly
by one person and beautiful by another; how then can you say that that same thing is beautiful or
ugly? I must reply by a question: Is it the same thing? When the two people say beautiful, they
have to some extent the same notion: else the word "beauty" would be utterly without meaning,
and we should never pass such a judgment at all. When, therefore, two people say of a thing, one
that it is beautiful, and the other that it is ugly, the thing of which they are speaking is not the
same thing. Part of the thing is the same, else they could not understand one another: but part
also is different, since for one the fixed notion of beauty is wrapped up in it, for the other its op-
posite.

But how are we to judge between them? If they are asserting opposite propositions about dif-
ferent things, they are not contradicting one another. But they are contradicting one another; and
are also asserting opposite propositions about the same thing. We can only decide between them
by shewing that in the very notion, which makes it possible for them to contradict one another,
there is implied that which makes one of them wrong and the other right. In other words, we
must make the bare notion of beauty determine itself, and decide for itself with what other marks
it is consistent and with what it is inconsistent.

But can we do this? We shall be told: there is no disputing about tastes. But it is a curious
thing that, though we are constantly being told this and may even think we are convinced of it,
we do nevertheless dispute about tastes and contradict our theory by our practice. More than this
we are even amenable to reason on the point, and may be convinced that a thing which we had
taken for ugly is beautiful: which seems to shew that our taste is in a sense rational, and has laws
of its own, which may be expressed. Indeed, it follows from the fact that we attach any meaning
at all to beauty, that beauty must have a nature of its own, absolutely definite, and which there-
fore excludes certain objects and must include others; and further that this definite nature may be
known, but though certain that we can know it, yet perhaps we cant; for we find we cant do
everything which we know we can do.
13

59
Adam and Eve as Metaphors for Faith and Belief
Status: N/A
Label: No Label
Keywords:

The Doctrine of Original Sin (West), or the First Sin (East)

And man when he was in honour did not understand;
he is compared to senseless beasts, and is become like to them. Psalm 49:12

Knowledge is the light of the rational soul St. John Damascene

Whoever Adam was, whether he lived 10,000 years ago or 10 million years ago, matters not to
this discussion. The story of Adam is the story of the first creature to wake up one morning and
realize he was rational, that he was legitimately aware of himself and his surroundings, and the
dilemma posed to such an awareness. It is the crisis of how he would come to realize the impli-
cations of that awareness and how those same implications interact with reality. Adam, who ever
he was, would have been the first to struggle with what it means to be curious, what it means to
communicate, what it means to identify this from that, what it means to be me. He would have
been the first to face the notion of free will and the fact that he could not have all that he desires
or imagines. If the family pet were to one day became rational, it would face the same crisis.

The story of Adam and Eve is a particularly ancient one. While it appears in many cultures, the
gist of the story seems to cleverly modify from place to place to emphasize each cultures unique
tradition. However, there are some peculiar elements to the story that seem to have significance.
(One should know that it is often taught that the Biblical texts are derived from the Hebrew,
when it is well known that the oldest surviving texts were derived from the Greek Septuagint.
This puts in to doubt how intricately one can reconstruct the story. I will stick to broad themes.):

1) The name Adam is usually understood to be a cryptogram for something. One tradition
uses the name as an anagram for the four corners of the Earth: anatole (east), dusis (west), arktos
(north), and mesembria (south). The commonly held belief that Adam means red, or earth is
actually a fairly recent invention (2nd cent.). The name also seems to have a plural connotation
indicating that the name was intended to apply to mankind or the entire class of beings called
Man.

60
2) God is referred to in the plural let us make man. This is often understood to be the
basis of the three-in-one Trinity, yet, this concept is particularly difficult to grasp, even now.

3) While it is usually avoided in most
translations, there are problems with just
who Eve is. The discrepancy begins with
God having created both male and female
together, then later having to create Eve
again from Adams side. This has led to
several novel solutions to the problem. One
says that Adam was created first as a
hermaphrodite, male and female together,
and later separated by pulling woman from
his side. Another lilith account has it that
woman is somehow evil, perhaps identified
with the tempting serpent. Without getting
into details, Lilith lends to the general con-
cept woman a somewhat diabolical na-
ture, particularly when acting on her own.
Hebrew tradition often advocates a certain
spiritual solution to resolve these and other
discrepancies the basis of which is that
Adam and Eve are separate entities of a
union that was intended to be complemen-
tary, married together, to be complete. The
female nature appears to be able to act in-
dependently, intuitionally, but goes astray
diabolically. The male nature appears to be
lost without the female, he needs her as a
complement, yet she must be subordinate
or she is capable of undermining the enter-
prise. Still, and perhaps most curiously, it is
Adam who is culpable for the misdeeds,
not Eve. Eve is tempted, yet Adam sins.

4) Day cannot just mean day as a 24
hour period. There are strong indications
that the word used, in context, refers to di-
visions of some sort, usually ages, but not
necessarily so. The Gnostics used such di-
visions to refer to the seven heavens
which were layers of reality. Again, the
word age is used to denote, not time nor yet
a part of time as measured by the move-
ment and course of the sun, that is to say,
composed of days and nights, but the sort

The basic Tree of Porphyry. Notice the ancient me-
dieval common reference to the Tree as an actual
existing tree, here, with a crown on it. It is very easy
two take the seven aeons of Creation, treat them as
logical branch-levels and replace the Porphyrian
terminology with Biblical with God making logical
divisions (God divides void into form and form-
less, light divides into matter and non-matter,
etc.).

61
of temporal motion and interval that is co-extensive with eternity. St. Gregory Naziansus
14

5) The Tree of Knowledge, found in Eden, is intrinsic, almost salvific in nature. It is crucial
to the story, yet its significance appears to be lost to tradition. It is prominent in the story, yet
usually disregarded. It is the apple taken from that Tree that is the center of the crisis and the
cause of the temptation leading to the Sin, the Fall of Man, and the need for resolution in Christ.

Therefore, we must consider that the Adam and Eve text is not, nor never was intended to
be a mere gratifying myth, a cultural fable. It was at the very least intended to be a moral story,
perhaps a hidden mystery text, or a philosophical wisdom text.

The Scholastics maintained that the core of Christianity was the phrase Nihil est intellectu
quod non prius fuerit insensu, there is nothing in the mind that isnt first in the senses. This was
backed up by the much maligned phrase, from nothing, nothing comes (it was intended to
prove God as a necessary contingency to the fact that things exist. Occultist often used it to deny
reality we cant perceive God, God is a nothing, therefore reality is an illusion).

Also used were certain axioms: nothing can be that which it is not the first absolute and the
essence of the principle of non-contradiction. Another, as above, so below, indicating that
truths found on a metaphysical level absolutely applied on a material level.

The purpose of these axioms often were to prove the necessity of God, yet they were also used
to establish the basis of Original Sin: the Sin of Man could be deposited directly on his igno-
rance, the veil of tears, the ego-centric predicament. Also, it has always been understood in
Catholic circles that the Eucharist was integral to the remission of sins. Therefore, if the source
of all Sin was a certain ignorance, then the resolution of that ignorance must somehow be found
in the Corpus of the Eucharist. To penetrate the mystery of Adam and Eve and the Eucharist we
must connect the two.

An ancient third teaching device used by the Scholastic, often taught to be introduced to Chris-
tianity in the Middle Ages, is the Tree of Porphyry. As the name indicates it was formulated by
Porphyry (3rd cent.) but is commonly attributed to Aristotle.

The importance of this device cannot be overstated. Not only did it give meaning to the order
of creation, it also served as a device for explaining the operation of language, particularly as the
mind is capable of making distinctions. The Renaissance Humanist Lorenzo Valla began his as-
sault on Aristotle by attacking the Tree of Porphyry.

All sentences were once seen as subjects and predicates, examples of how knowledge worked
in Man. He perceives this thing as a class of things, by predicating something of the subject.
He knows the what-ness of that thing by distinguishing classes and attributes. I see Socrates, I
recognize Socrates as a man (a class of being of which I am a member). I then begin to know
Socrates as an individual by continuing to make distinctions and mentally collecting attributes.

Ive purposely used the words class and attributes as they are words we are used to hearing.
The Medieval convention would have been substance and accidents, but we hear those words
62
differently now. In this system, it was taught, Mans knowledge functioned both by taking attrib-
utes and combining them into classes (comprehension), and by taking classes distinguishing
them into attributes (extensions). The understanding and utilization of this process formed the
essence of communication and knowledge theory. It also helped them to ponder and comprehend
things transcendental (beyond speech).

Today, Middle Age philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas are accused of corrupting pure
Christianity by wedding it to Aristotle. That the use of the Tree of Porphyry was not just a Scho-
lastic contrivance (a mere elaboration of Christian philosophy by Aquinas) is attested to by the
fact that it appears in the early Christian writings of St. John Damascene.

St. John Damascene was born in the year 675 and died in the year 749. He worked for a Mus-
lim magistrate at the very time Islam began to assert itself, taking over countries, sequestering
books in an effort to accumulate all of knowledge under its authority. Realizing the impending
Dark Ages, John decided to write a complete exposition of the faith for posterity. He called it the
Fount of Knowledge. It was the basis for Aquinas Summa Theologica. Damascene extensively
uses Aristotle to formulate his Complete Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. In fact, Damascene
clearly says, I shall say nothing of my own, but I shall set down things which have been said in
various places by wise and godly men, in other words, the Church Fathers. It is clear from the
text that an Aristotelian understanding of scripture is the only one justified because the words
used are Aristotelian philosophical terms. The opposing Platonic understanding is declared a
heresy by Damascene. Rather than invent a new religion, as the Protestants claimed, Aquinas had
merely connected the dots back to the original.

Damascene is commonly regarded as the Aquinas of Eastern Orthodoxy. He writes:

Being is divided into substance and accident, not a genus into species, but as an equivocal
term, or as those things which are derivative and relative.
Substance is a most general genus. It is divided into corporeal and incorporeal.
The corporeal is divided into animate and inanimate.
The animate is divided into sentient, or animal, zoophyte, and non-sentient, or plant.
The animal is divided into rational and irrational.
The rational is divided into mortal and immortal.
The mortal is divided into man, ox, horse, dog, and the like.
Man is divided into Peter, Paul, and all other individual men. These are individuals, hypos-
tases, and persons.

63

A middle 20th century Tree of Porphyry from Logic: the Science of Correct Thinking, Fr. Celestine
Bittle (Roman Catholic).

To elaborate this doctrine I supply the following chart. It is my contention that the original
Tree of Knowledge found in Genesis is the same pedagogical device. It is related in the story in
the best language available at that period of time, a written convention yet to invent an alphabet
and limited to symbolism, later converted into a written language. By days/aeons are sym-
bolically represented divisions of reality. The broadness of applying this term indicates not so
much a primitive myth, but the extreme antiquity of the teaching device, it was the only term
available to indicate division:

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65
The Application to the Eucharist

Ancient References to the Eucharist Itself as Being Salvific

From the Bible: Matthew 26:26-28: And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it,
and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the
cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the
new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

From the Ancient Sarum Mass: Likewise, after supper, taking this most excellent chalice into
his holy and adorable hands, and [bowing] giving thanks to thee, he blessed it, and gave it to his
disciples, saying, Take and drink ye all of this. [Lifting the chalice a little] For this is the cup of
my blood of the new and everlasting testament, the mystery of faith, which shall be shed for you
and for many for the remission of sins.

Also: Lord, holy Father, almighty everlasting God, grant me so worthily to receive this most
holy body and blood of thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ, that I may thereby be found fit to obtain
remission of all my sins, and to be filled with thy Holy Spirit, and to have thy peace; because
thou art God alone and there is none other beside thee, whose kingdom and glorious dominion
abideth, world without end. Amen

And numerous other references

From the most ancient Stowe Missal: Who the day before He suffered, took bread into His
Holy and venerable Hands, and with His eyes lifted up to heaven to Thee, God, His Almighty Fa-
ther, gave thanks to Thee, He Blessed, He broke, and gave to His disciples, saying: Take and
eat from this all of you, for this is my Body. In a similar manner after the supper, He took this
excellent Chalice in His Holy and venerable Hands: also giving thanks to Thee, He Blessed, and
gave to His disciples, saying: Take and drink from this all of you, for this is the Chalice of my
Blood, of the new and eternal testament: the mystery of faith: which is shed for you and for many
unto the remission of sins.

The notion that the Church of Rome brought Christianity to Britain via Augustine of Canter-
bury is completely untenable. It is largely a product of a campaign to delegitimize the prior
Celtic Church primarily by using a text by Venerable Bede, The Ecclesiastical History of the
English People. That this text is somewhat propaganda, attempting to prove that the ecclesial his-
tory of Britain legitimately began with Augustines mission in the 590s, is backed up by the nu-
merous references of a Church pre-existing that date.

A very thorough job of illustrating this has been done by F E Warren in The Liturgy and Ritual
of the Celtic Church, Oxford.
15
For example: Athanasius (AD 363) in a letter states adherence of
the British Churches to the Nicene Creed; St. Chrysostom (AD 386-398) states even the British
Isles have felt the power of the word, with differing voices but not with differing belief.
Warren literally sites too many examples to list here. Evidence of this earlier liturgy is primarily
found in the Stowe Missal (prior to 584).
16
It is often taught that the literalness of the phrase this
66
is my body, implying Real-Presence, was an invention of the Scholastic Roman Catholic
Church during the Middle Ages, that prior to this, liturgy was a casual, more or less informal
service of praise, perhaps with a shared meal of remembrance.

The Stowe Missal is a Celtic liturgy that predates the Roman Churchs influence in Britain. It
is evidence that this early liturgy was of a Catholic style and Eucharistic. Likewise, one can
find similar examples in Eastern Orthodox liturgies. It is a fact, then, that all of Christendom
prior to the Reformation took the phrase literally. Chrysostoms statement alone signifies an im-
portant point: that the beliefs in all of Christendom conformed to the sanctity of the Eucharist as
found in these ancient liturgies, and most importantly, that this tradition was not merely a
Romish invention.

The Genesis Foundations for the Eucharist

If the First Sin was a particular predicament of ignorance, and the Eucharist is a resolution of
that same predicament, one would need to do two things: 1) that the First Sin was precisely a
failure of the proper relationship between faith and belief; 2) that the Eucharist, properly under-
stood, was a re-unification of this faith and belief relationship. I also will hazard another hurdle,
that if such a truth could be shown to be true, that this truth be not a truth confined to Christian-
ity, but a truth that represents a universal predicament and solution, a condition of Man, a univer-
sal dogma that applies to everyone.

Modern man has an aversion to dogma. He hears the word as a strict regulation that could po-
tentially restrict his freedom. Dogma means law, yet no one would feel like the law of gravity,
or the speed of light impinged on his freedom. The reason the modern rejects dogma is not be-
cause it is a law, but because it seems to him to be arbitrary; a mere opinion not based on truth
but designed to restrict his freewill. In a modern society, anything that smells like an absolute is
considered to be dogma and is considered arbitrary.

The word absolute is derived from the Latin ab and solvo. Ab means from. Solvo literally
means without ties. Our words solvent is also derived from solvo. Absolute, ab-solution,
like dissolve, would mean without any further taking apart. Philosophically, absolute means
self-sufficient or self-evident. It is the opposite of relative, which means with ties. How-
ever, relativism denies that there are self-evident absolutes. Yet, the word absolvo is not too far
removed from other Christian metaphors such as the ceremonial ablution of washing away sins,
or the washing of ones hands to symbolize a cleansing of obligation, such as Pontius Pilate.

I have long held the conviction that there are three levels of right and wrong, not merely two,
moral and immoral. Allow me to illustrate. Imagine you are sitting at a table across from Adolf
Hitler. You are aware that he has killed 3 million Jews and he is about to kill 3 million more.
You have a loaded gun and nothing is stopping you from killing him accept this: Thou shalt not
kill. Do you indirectly allow the certain death of millions, or do you bear the guilt of committing
murder. (I know the difference between the various translations of murder vs. kill, please disre-
gard for this thought experiment). Most moral decisions are not a simple good vs. evil deci-
sions. They are usually a picking of the best of two questionable alternatives. Seemingly, either
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way you choose a death is on your conscience. Yet, there is a third choice, to do nothing, to not
participate.

To do nothing, to not get morally involved, seemingly sidesteps the issue and takes you out of
guilts way. Like, Thoth, it is a declaration of innocence. Yet, think of Pilate, was he guilty? This
is modernism, the objectivization of reality, the non-judgmental dodging of moral issues to es-
cape blame. Is this really moral? The only solution is if we allow for a third possibility besides
the moral and the immoral, the amoral, the suspension of reason so as to be unaccountable.

If you do nothing in the above example, have you really dodged the guilt? Modern society of-
ten teaches yes. To do nothing places you in the morally superior position of not getting your
hands dirty. Yet, doing nothing will lead to an evil. The only solution is defining doing noth-
ing as amoral, and placing that amorality beneath suffering the immoral act of murder.

It is easy to do good when there are only good choices, but what of the mother who must steal
to feed her baby, the war that must be fought to retain freedom. Often the immoral person has a
concept of the good, he merely suspends that judgment to approach a perceived greater good (he
still seeks what he perceives is good). But the amoral person has no conception of good or evil,
he is merely trying to save himself. By this, he has lost his humanity, his soul.

The amoral person is the sociopath. He literally uses everything to further his own well-being.
Here is the key point: the connection between himself and reality only goes one way, and that is
towards the self, it is as if reality has no consequence. To kill Hitler is still based on a moral
principle, something the amoral person, perhaps Hitler himself, knows not. Moving on

The basis of dogma should not be opinion, but, things that are self-evident, the 1 + 1 = 2. The
fact of ones own existence is self-evident. Self-evident facts are intuitive and are known imme-
diately. Immediately means without a medium, a middle. If something is self-evident, no
connection between self and reality is necessary. There is no veil of tears to conquer.

Most things, however, are not known immediately, but mediately - they are not self-evident,
they require a medium to communicate the truth. Realty, all reality, requires a vehicle for com-
munication to take place. A part of that reality that is to be approached must actually imbed itself
within that vehicle or the fact of knowledge would be thwarted. Most of what man knows re-
quires a medium to convey that reality. Even when I look out into the world, my senses act as a
medium to the world around me. We call movies and CDs media.

If mans senses were truly one with his mind, this veil would not exist he would need no me-
dia, all mans intuitions would be without error. In Platonic theory, ultimately nothing is learned
mediately, for all knowledge comes from within, therefore, all knowledge is immediate or intui-
tive. Platonism falsely simulates a state of grace, that access to all truth is intuitive. However, it
is evident that this is not the case. Therefore, mans task is to adjust his beliefs to correspond
with what is real. Once he believes something to be real, he must act as if it is true.

Divine knowledge, once it is awakened in us, teaches us that the perceptive faculty natural to
our soul is single, but that it is split into two distinct modes of operation as a result of Adams
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disobedience. This single and simple perceptive faculty is implanted in the soul by the Holy
Spirit. St. Diadochos of Photiki, from The Philokalia, an ancient Orthodox text

According to this, the evidence of the Original Sin is this deficiency, this lack of intuition. This
veil is inherent to the nature of man.

The Bible gives evidence that God expected Israel to be obedient prior to dispensing His com-
mandments, yet man fell short of this expectation of knowledge. Even in Eden, Man was ex-
pected not to sin. The expectation was that man should intuitively know the essence of good and
evil. Adam (man) and Eve (woman) could be considered a metaphor for the relation faith has to
belief and its proper operation.

In order for this metaphor to work, Adam and Eve must be a legitimate representations of
something basic to our nature: this split between faith (our ability to sense) and reason (our abil-
ity to understand). Original Sin is part of mans nature. Ancient Christianity defined man as did
Aristotle, as a rational animal. Surprisingly the word Adam means precisely that. Rabbi Mi-
chael Monk:

Adam literally means man, yet, in Hebrew it means much more. It should be remembered
that the Scholastic definition of man is rational animal. The Hebrew word Adam is actually
an anagram composed of three letters: a (A) stands for the man as a being in the image of the
One God; d (D) stands for dialect, the power of speech and reason; m (M) stands for motion,
mans ability to be animate. The root of the word Adam is derived from the Hebrew word
meaning to compare or the ability to differentiate. The word Adam literally means rational
animal.

Referring to the fall St. John Damascene writes:

Since God had endowed mans nature with a free will, He made it a law for him not to taste
of that tree of knowledge of which we have spoken sufficiently and to the best of our ability in
the chapter on paradise. This command He gave to man with the promise that he let reason
prevail, recognizing his Creator and observing the Creators ordinance, and thus preserve the
dignity of the soul, then he would become stronger than death and would live forever in the en-
joyment of everlasting bliss. On the other hand, should he shake off the yoke of his Maker and
disregard His divine ordinance, thus subordinating soul to body and preferring the pleasure of
the flesh, not understanding his own honor and compared to senseless beasts, [psalm 49:12]
then he would be subject to death and corruption and would be obliged to drag out his miser-
able existence in toil. For it was not profitable for him to attain incorruptibility while yet un-
tried and untested, lest he fall into pride and the judgement of the devil. [1 Ti. 3:6] St.
John Damascene, Fount of Knowledge, Book II, Chapter 30

This text refers not only to the fall of Adam, but also of mankind. As Damascene is com-
monly regarded by the East and West as a Church Father, if not one of the most Orthodox of all
teachers, his doctrine must be taken extremely seriously. The words let reason prevail can re-
fer to nothing other than the philosophical concept belief (intellectus). The words subordinat-
ing soul to body and preferring the pleasure of the flesh can refer to nothing other than the phi-
69
losophical concept faith (animus). It was Eve via the temptation that led Adam astray, this
quote unites the Fall with a philosophical paradigm.

Therefore, metaphorically, Adam and Eve represent this:

Adam belief/intellectus the intellect, literally the rational animal
(man the rational principle - when acting without faith becomes false idealism)

Eve faith/animus the will, intuition, desire
(woman the irrational principle - when acting without belief becomes misguided intuition)

Eden/paradise truth the unity of the soul/spirit

Sinless would be as if the intellect and the will could be joined with no split no veil, all
truth is self-evident, intuitional. The knowledge of good and evil would be immediate, requir-
ing no middle. It would be a state of grace for there would be no disparity between what one
sensed and what one thought.

Faith, the senses, are confined to the present moment; they are irrational and do not anticipate
nor have a memory. Confined to the now, faith can assume that it is sinless. Without reason it
can make a declaration of innocence. Yet, the senses have no moral imperative, they are just de-
vices for gathering information. It is only when the mind steps in and wills the senses in a par-
ticular direction that they must succumb. Therefore, the senses alone dodge the moral issue. Di-
vorced from reason, they go as they will, gathering information without judgment or direction.
The weight of morality falls on a free-will decision that the senses are not capable of. Faith
knows not the distinction between good and evil.

Adam and Eve have been given a simple command:

And he commanded him, saying: Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat: But of the tree of
knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it,
thou shalt die the death. - Genesis 2:16

Eve (the will) is tempted by the Serpent to disregard Truth (God) and act out of concert with
the intellect (Adam).

Upon meeting with the Serpent, Eve is promised that if she takes of the apple, Ye shall not
surely die. This is precisely a promise of eternal life through an abandonment of the intellect as
a participant. Eve desires her own knowledge, the ability to know good and evil (to make distinc-
tions). Representing faith, she approaches the Tree of Knowledge and reaches out for the evi-
dence, the apple, the thing that delights the senses. Acting alone, she divorces herself from the
faith/belief unity intended by God.

Eve, as faith, illustrates how the will on its own can recreate a state of dualism. Eve tastes of
the fruit for it is desired to make one wise. Yet, the sin was not counted against Eve this
would be counted against Adam, representing belief, the half of the intended marriage that ought
70
to know the difference. It is Adams duty to guide Eve, but in this he fails. Eve seduces Adam,
convincing him that knowledge can be had by the abandonment of reason, disregarding Gods
imperative, sacrificing Him in favor of the apple which delights the senses.

It is the tendency of belief, and man, to be impatient, to become lazy and to shy from responsi-
bility. To reason is weighty, it is hard. It is natural for faith to desire. To desire is easy, but it is
the duty of belief to guide the will, not be seduced by it. Sin begins when belief gives in to the
ease of faith. One might think of this as the false Eucharist, the falsely directed act of grace for it
abandons knowledge for the immediacy of sensory satisfaction. Man has declared himself an an-
gel when he is not. Eve has seduced him in this. She becomes the first priestess offering Adam
the false Eucharistic substance of the apple.

THIS IS THE FALL

With this understanding, several metaphors hold true:

1) Eve is the Feminine nature. (I do understand the implications of sexism in a modern
feminist society - we are talking ancient cultural metaphor here. Ill leave the reader to decide
the implications. Consider stereotypical truths used by womens movements themselves such
as, womens intuition, or that women are more emotionally connected to their inner self, or
women are more nurturing) Eve represents the will or faith acting alone and its hunger to be
satisfied by a false, incomplete intuition. However, the will must be wedded to the intellect to
function properly and not fall into Dualism. This obedience, then, is also exemplified in Mary
(the Second Eve), and the Church who becomes wise through its obedience, unifying the split.
Mary represents wisdom, not the fullness of wisdom as would be Christ, but the wisdom of seek-
ing obedience in natural order, an innocent wisdom of its own as a response to grace. Reason
tempered by compassion. In this way she is Mother of Mankind and an example for us all. She is
the will of mankind submitting to truth.

2) Adam is the Masculine nature. He represents the intellect belief and reason, but an un-
tempered reason. His task is to guide the will, but, acting alone he is a perversion, he is literally a
solipsism, a lost individual with no purpose. By himself he is barren, the intellect severed from
reality, a Gnostic idealism, again a Dualism. Adam is a pre-figuration of Christ (the second
Adam) for the opportunity of proper sacrifice was his. He is an icon of the priesthood for the in-
tellect must guide the will. The weight of decision and the burden of sin is placed on him, the
spirit of this intellect.

3) The natural state of Man is one where these two natures are unified, faith and reason,
female and male in a natural wedding. The natures complement each other and lead to a true
comprehension of reality, visible and invisible. The marriage of these natures extends to both the
material and immaterial world. A proper immateriality leads to a proper system of knowledge.
When this knowledge is properly wed to the material world the result is proper morality and eth-
ics. A marriage of reason to reason, or will to will would be a crime against the natural order
rather than temperance, the lack of fruit in such relationships would encourage the worst in both
natures.

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4) The apple represents the Eucharist element itself, the medium, the connective element
between God and Man. It also represents the copulative is connecting Mans mind with his fac-
ulty of perceiving reality. This is should also extend to the Mosaic I AM, or I AM the One
whose essence is to exist, the grounding of all being. The Eucharist, then, is representative of a
certain ethical use and directionality to the act of comprehension, Gods grace to Man, Mans
obedience back to God. Should this action be jeopardized, the literal act of comprehension would
not be able to transcend to a pure knowledge of God. Eve presenting the apple and Adam receiv-
ing it represents the thwarted act of understanding, the false directionality leading to a false un-
ion. This leads to a spirituality based on simple emotionalism and selfism.

The Fall resulted when Eve, the will, attempted to guide Adam, the intellect. This is only pos-
sible if the intellect abandons its authority and seeks a false union. The First Sin fell on Adam,
and not Eve, because it is natural for the will to desire but not natural for the intellect to give up
its authority.

Man can pervert his authority in two ways: 1) by deciding that the will is unnecessary (leading
to Idealism); or 2) by surrendering authority over to the will (making reason subservient to his
desires). It is the Eucharist, then, that was instituted to heal this split, to lessen the veil. The Body
and Blood are the New Apple taken for the remission of Sin. From this, one can see that a
woman priesthood is a re-enactment of the original fall a woman priest distributing com-
munion is a re-enactment of that original temptation of the apple. Accepting it would be return to
the first sin.

It is interesting to note that nowhere is the word apple used in the account. Instead, the Greek
word karpos is used (phonetically similar to Corpus as the Eucharistic elements are called
such linguistic similarities in ancient language should not be dismissed out-of-hand). While
modern society has been taught to think of Hebrew as being the genuine language of the Old
Testament, Scholars are well aware that the Greek is the most definitive. The original language
of the Old Testament was lost in 270 BC when it was replaced by the Greek.

The usage of this term by no means is confined to a literal apple. There are strong indications
that this term was used metaphorically as it is still used to this day: fruit of your labors; fruit of
righteousness; fruit of the kingdom. does, in fact, mean fruit, however, more spe-
cifically it mean fruit of the tree or a given predicament or crisis. Even more specifically, He-
braistically, it means fruit of the loins, of a relationship, and more interestingly, praise-
offering.
17

Examples of this last usage are:

Hosea 14:8 Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have heard
him, and observed him: I am like a green fir tree. From Me is thy fruit found.

Proverbs 18:20 A man' belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth; and with the
increase of his lips shall he be filled. Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they
that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

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Proverbs 31:30 Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth THE
LORD, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise
her in the gates.

Matthew 7:15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but in-
wardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of
thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt
tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt
tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and
cast into the fire.

Acts 2:30 Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to
him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his
throne;

The simple point, of course, is that fruit () is often used in the Bible as a veiled refer-
ence to both an offering/sacrifice and Christ Himself. In New Testament times it came to mean
Christian. Anciently it meant a fruit or a wheat. It was believed that fruit juice was actually
the blood of the gods - to drink it would to be as God. The apple, then, is significant of mans
attempt to assimilate the mind of God.

If we return to the Tree of Porphyry, the crux, the loin if you will, is where the dialectical
splits. Linguistically it is the very point of the copulative is, and a decision must be made, is it
this or that? For example, the class animal splits into rational and irrational. We think of
the copulative is as the point where the subject and predicate meet in an idea - something is
predicated of the subject distinguishing this thing from a broader class of things.

This essence of being is the essence of the existable of which the ontological essence is God
Himself, the Grand Is. Being able to distinguish this essence is the basis of reason, of logic,
thought and sanity. It is where one either decides correctly or incorrectly. If one misses the point
or chooses mere fruit, he misses the spiritual decision facing this dilemma, and the dilemma of
every rational decision - one must see past the veil and risk a correct realistic decision or the
conception of reality begins to whither.

Salvation

Ancient Christian philosophy is unique in that it uniquely places a priority of substance over
symbolism. Therefore, the one most important continuing action of the Church, the Eucharist,
must also be a triumph of substance over symbolism or sin would not be defeated. If we are to
believe entirely our as above, so below, and that there is no disparity between faith and reason,
then we must see the practical as well as the miracle. Indeed, the miracle without the practical
has the air of magic, not truth.

The modern Protestant notion of salvation is this: that salvation was won on the cross by God
sacrificing Himself to Himself to appease his own anger at Adam who was sinful. A human sac-
73
rifice would not be enough to appease a God, therefore, the only sacrifice worthy of such a crime
was another God. God would have to duplicate Himself to appease His own anger. One might
strain to understand a vengeful God, but a God that must extract vengeance on Himself? Is this
then not a demiurge?

This is logically absurd. Sin began with the split between the irrational will/psyche and the ra-
tional intellect/spirit, the veil of tears. Man assumed himself to be purely intuitive, an angel if
you will. Therefore, Man, everyman, must be taught this lesson as this split is part of Mans
eternal predicament. It would only be natural for God to institute a way for man to examine and
heal that split. The fall resulted in a deficiency in mans ability to discern. Therefore, the heal-
ing of that deficiency should also be an act of discernment; the Eucharist must be, if only mo-
mentarily, a healing of that split through mans discernment of the Grace within the elements.

The process of the Original Sin began when Eve (the will/faith alone) assuming intuition was
enough to discern, grasped the apple without the aid of reason. But truth is not something that
can be discerned by the will alone. Properly, the will is a servant of the intellect. Then, she
tempted Adam after Reason (God) had said not to eat of the apple. Abandoning reason, Adam ate
of the apple. This was Mans sentence to oblivion.

Again, imagine if the pet dog awoke one day and discovered it could reason, something it
never had before experienced. That initial decision, do I use it, or do I exploit it, would set the
stage for every reasonable dog after that. Something would have to derail that condition or the
dog would be better remaining a dog.

The Fall was the result of mans rational faculty giving into irrational desires. Under this con-
dition Man becomes not just immoral but amoral. He has exploited the most treasured gift from
God, his intellect. Put another way, it is when we, assuming our eyesight to be clear and unfail-
ing, never question our own motives. It is my contention that simply told, the Adam and Eve
story conveys the essence of all these metaphysics, even to the child. Its only in a fallen age that
we require the elaborate explanation.

It is the function of the will to present evidence of reality to the intellect. It is the task of the in-
tellect to see beneath the mere symbolism, and detect the substance within. But in sin, it is the
intellect that has strayed by a false temptation. At some point, the intellect must convince the
senses that they cant have all that they desire. Therefore, the senses must be taught that they
must desire truth, something unseen - something that transcends perception. It is substance that
determines truth. Ultimately, then, the will must be taught to seek substance, something unnatu-
ral for substance cannot be seen. Therefore, to conquer sin, it must be possible for the intellect to
reverse this for God to present evidence to the will that would otherwise be imperceptible;
intellectual evidence, to turn desires from the mundane towards the Highest Good, to reestablish
the complete harmony that once existed between the will and intellect. Therefore, it must be pos-
sible for the intellect to lead the will back. Therefore, the copulative is must be intellectually
representative of God himself.

And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to the dis-
ciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it
74
to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed
for many for the remission of sins. Matthew 26:26

If the Eucharist is a reversal of the First Sin, it must be an enterprise that unifies the will and
the intellect. Just as the will (Eve) seduced the intellect (Adam) to stray, now the intellect, con-
ceiving God Himself in the Body and Blood, must lead the will back as an act of faith, reversing
the original event. This action, in order to maintain and support the individual nature in each per-
son, must be a continuing and personal event.

Salvation, therefore, must have two components, the once-for-all opening the door to all Man-
kind (Christs crucifixion), and the continued personal abiding (the Eucharist). If the Platonic
God gives us our ideas from within formulation were true, there would be no need for any re-
occurring event God could have just willed us to think the ideas we needed for salvation.
Every Eucharist is an exercise in the intellects charge over the will it is the reeling back of the
will into a momentary unity around this Presence despite all the outward appearances and
temptations. If communion is for the remission of sins, and the First Sin was the severing of the
irrational mind from the rational, the Eucharist must be a healing of this two-fold nature of man.
This would make complete sense if it were an exercise in recognizing Christs presence in the
Eucharist as super-substance (as in the Lords Prayer when daily is translated correctly).

Salvation of Mankind was won the instant the Word became flesh; this was completed at the
crucifixion. The crucifixion is not the singular redeeming event. It is natural for man to desire; it
is rational to desire to know; it is salvation to desire to know God. An Idealist religion based on
mental contrivances alone ultimately leads to the philosophical undermining of reality - it will
eventually defy the witness if the senses (faith). A real religion must be rooted in reality to keep
it from wandering into imagination, the Eucharist is just such a marriage between the material
and the immaterial. Thus, the importance of tradition is to preserve the perceivability and know-
ability of God. This is the importance of the Eucharist as an exercise in faith and perception.

The Ethics of Liturgy

It should be apparent from the above that the focus of religion, and particularly liturgy, cannot
be emotional fulfillment. This sentimentalism (sentient-mentalism) would be the re-creation of
this false sense of intuition. If the First Sin was based on the flesh leading the body astray, then
the act of liturgy cannot be a continuation of that act (as it is today). Churches were once tem-
ples, now they are living rooms; liturgy was respectful, now it is entertainment. What was once
an act of devotion, is now an act of inner relevancy. The once personal act of the Eucharist has
become reinterpreted as a communal love feast based on emotionalism.

This is where one of Aristotles prime truths comes into focus: the last in execution is the first
in intention. Any misconception over what the final goal is, the last end, will result in an entire
life spent wasted. It is the first in intention that shapes everything one does. If the first in inten-
tion is a proper understanding of God, everything one does, including liturgy, becomes aimed at
that goal. A misconception of God has the reverse effect. It is this that causes man to seek happi-
ness in the wrong places. It is diabolical is to seek God where He is not. It is Gods deepest de-
75
sire that all should be saved it is His deepest agony that man should not cooperate with His
grace. Part of that grace is tradition as exemplified in liturgy.

Today we have two types of liturgy; one is concerned with man as having a proper end to
which he can attribute a sense of purpose, the other has no concern with a proper end but only
evoking a certain type of experience. When mans highest goals are emotional, he becomes less
than an animal - a mere machine enslaved to his senses. Today, freedom is to do whatever one
wants. But true freedom has to do with mans ability and responsibility to choose a proper end
and then to conform his life, his work towards that end.

The best that can be hoped for in modernism is to serve mankind; religion becomes nothing
more than socialism. The modern church has changed the heart of Christianity by directing it ex-
clusively towards psychology and social equality. Without balance they become perversions of
the original. Justice is the need to be right with truth. Not the need to be on-board with the major-
ity. Void of truth, psychology becomes mere mental manipulation.

One of the primary truths as put by St. Thomas Aquinas All human occupations appear to
serve those who contemplate the truth. The reverse can be summed up by the proto-Nihilist Gor-
gias: There is no truth; if there were truth, it could not be known, if it could be known, it could
not be communicated. In other words, without truth, life is pointless there literally is nothing
to be done. This is Hell.

The purpose of all this is habit. It is mans continuing action that creates a habit of doing
this becomes second nature. Liturgy is just such a habit. When habit is properly focused it be-
comes virtue. This is what modernism lacks, a formula for virtue for the only ethical act today is
remaining true to oneself. Therefore, the correct formula for morality is this: grace leads to faith,
faith leads to belief, belief puts a focus on mans actions, which leads to virtue. When we focus
upon mans actions, we perceive the intent that started the process. Ye shall know them by their
fruits. (Matthew 7:16) For this reason, it is the first act of perceiving truth that sets the whole
process in motion; the beginning of wisdom is fear, not inner awareness.
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The Real Presence: an Ancient Doctrine
Status: N/A
Label: No Label
Keywords:

A Reasonable Test of Faith

By the beginning of the Reformation, the Catholic Church had painted itself into a corner.
While the average layperson understood the debate as a struggle over faith and works, the actual
debate went much deeper. The real cause was a basic underlying shift from an Aristotelian
world-view to a Platonic world-view. The Renaissance that proceeded was largely the result of a
re-configuring of all of philosophy. The Council of Florence, originally intended to be a reunit-
ing of the Eastern and Western Churches, signified the reintroduction of texts and translations
unknown to the West. While the West had of most of Aristotle, Islam had interpreted the texts
differently. The primary text unknown to the West was the occult Corpus Hermeticum. Consid-
ered as a quasi-lost testament of the Bible, many believed written by Moses himself, it served as
a springboard for the re-conceptualizing of the Bible as a Platonic Idealistic philosophical text
where reality is anything but concretely real. The most important point for consideration is this:
prior to the Renaissance faith/reason, religion/science were considered complimentary enter-
prises. In this new Idealism there was no such expectation. Faith became severed from reason,
religion from science. It is doubtful whether this new platonism was even legitimately from
Plato for it had been derived from occult sources more in allegiance with numerology than ad-
vancing the needs of the Republic.

It was at this point in time that modern science began its departure from its marriage with phi-
losophy, chasing a young maiden called mathematics. Today, mathematics rules the roost over
modern science. Science, the practice of discovering truth through observation of reality, has
been subordinated to the mathematical re-constructions of reality by the new relativists. The
modern day astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle remarked that the modernists have relegated the tele-
scope to the trash-bin of history for anything cosmologists seeks in the sky has been preordained
by the mathematician evidence contrary to their numerological claims are routinely dismissed.

Since the Renaissance the weight of Idealism has bearing down hard on the Church. When we
hear the history of science today, we hear the dressed-up version, the noble quest for truth
against an oppressive Church. These discoveries are found through the expertise of inspired
sages in the art of observation. Most scientists up to and including Isaac Newton were grounded
in alchemistry, with its associated occult ties. Excluded from this history is the philosophy be-
78
hind those observations, the fact most were seeking the vindication of the Platonic/Occult dark
science against the prevailing Aristotelian world-view. The essence of the Dark Science is that
reality is a barbarian, an illusion, that is more approximated by numbers than logic or observa-
tion. The political intention of scientific discoveries were seldom to advance the cause of reality,
but to befuddle philosophy so that it would ultimately have to give in to mathematics, the inten-
tion was always to topple the authority of the Church. The modern scientific thought that con-
founds the Church to this day has been preloaded with just such disdain for reality, something it
considers a mere barbaric analogy for a pure, pristine mathematically driven reality underneath.

For a time Rome fought back. It burned the likes Giordano Bruno at the stake. It rightly
claimed that much of Protestant doctrine was occult inspired. However, the biggest enemy of
Rome came from within Rome herself, Nicolas of Cusa, Copernicus, Marsilio Ficino, Pico Della
Mirandola, Lorenzo Valla all worked from within, many ordained by the Church. All were seek-
ing occult explanations to reality. Each new scientific discovery ushered in another level of Pla-
tonism, each using discoveries grounded in observation designed to undermine and contradict the
Aristotelian philosophy of Realism. All of this was instituted not so much in deference to Plato
the teacher of Aristotle, but to Hermes Trismegistus the mythological inventor of magic. It is this
same world of mathematical illusion that drives science to this day.

The true challenge to this newfound Idealism came by way of the philosophy of Thomas
Aquinas. However, back in the days of Augustine and the Pelagian heresy it was claimed the
Doctrine of Infallibility, Rome would have to admit upon what authority Aristotle could be wed
to Christianity. Aquinas Summa Theologica was, in reality, an expansion of, Damascenes
Fount of Knowledge, specifically formulated to not only beat back Islamic philosophy, but to
bolster Romes authority. Rome had unwittingly confounded itself: How does one appeal to the
authority of the Orthodox Church while at the same time retain Papal authority? In short, and to
perhaps overly simplify, to defeat Platonism would require an admission that the source of the
True Philosophy was the East, making Romes authority suspect. This is Romes dilemma to
this day.

This controversy ultimately plays out in the trial of Galileo. The Platonists desired observa-
tional contradictory evidence that Platonism is the True Philosophy. Aristotle had claimed, by
way of observation, that the Earth was the center of the cosmos. To prove otherwise would prove
Aristotles fallibility. Several decades before the trial of Galileo the Church had installed a new
calendar to account for errors in the calendar. This had already made geo-centric theory suspect,
and the Church knew it. The idea of solar-centricity was, in fact, very old, and the Catholic priest
Nicholas of Cusa had already speculated on the concept years earlier. However, the primary fo-
cus the Galileos trial was not geo-centricity, but the Aristotelian concept of hylomorphism, or,
how is it that elements change one into the other? This assertion of Galileos threatened the
doctrine of transubstantiation it caused Galileo to be declared a heretic. The Protestants, armed
with Vallas proof that Romes temporal powers had been considerably over extended (the Do-
nation of Constantine), were seeking any means of becoming Romes philosophical superior.
18

The more volatile part of the trial was the application of this new physics to the Eucharist and
its dependence on the possibility of a transubstantial shift in substance. Evidence of this volatil-
ity can still be found in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer:
79

Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine) in the Supper of the
Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, over
throweth the nature of the Sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions. Art. 28,
Articles of Religion, Anglican.

And in Luther:

What signifies it to dispute and wrangle about the abominable idolatry of elevating the sac-
rament on high to show it to the people, which has no approbation of the Fathers, and was intro-
duced only to confirm the errors touching the worship thereof, as though bread and wine lost
their substance, and retained only the form, smell, taste. This the papists call trans-
substantiation, and darken the right use of the sacrament.
19

For various reasons, the authority of Rome was suspect, and Protestants sought more. Little of
modern science was understood at this time. In a plague stricken society, often people would go
to church and come home to die. Not understanding the transmission of disease, many attributed
disease to magic, and the Eucharistic was taught to be just such an act. The turning of the Sa-
cred Elements into Christ began to be seen as a hocus pocus, derived from the Latin phrase in
the mass where the shift in substance took place.

In a Platonic understanding, God literally is found in everything. As reality is an illusion, what
we perceive is merely a projection of Gods thoughts into our own - a concrete reality (and an
explanation as to what is change) is unnecessary. What we see with our eyes, smell with our
nose, is merely an illusion - and that illusion is God thinking those thoughts within us. A concrete
reality literally gets in the way of our conceiving of the Divine.

Aristotles approach, on the other hand, required some real change to happen, an underlying
shift in substance. This is a very difficult concept to explain simply, but in an Aristotelian world
what you think, the language you use to think it, and the reality underneath are inextricably tied
together. They are infused into each other in such a way as one does not exist without the other
the reality of each is dependant on the reality of the other. It was thought that the what-ness of a
thing was contained in the original idea of that thing called substance. The outward appear-
ances of that thing were merely appearances as they aspire towards the reality dictated by the
substance, what that thing was intended to be. The appearances were real, but the substance
underneath was even more real.

The doctrine at first glance seems counter intuitive, but it is an explanation of reality and does
hold up philosophically (some would even say scientifically Atom in the History of Human
Thought, Bernard Pullman, Oxford, 1998). Consider a piece of paper as it burns to ash at some
point it ceases to be paper, at some point it becomes ash. The question was, what survives this
change? Today we understand this as atoms and molecules as they change, but to the medieval
mind a very real philosophical change occurred the substance shifted. The thing that sur-
vived was called prime matter as it hylomorphed (meaning matter/forms) one into the other.
It was very easy for them to conceptualize just such a change. The Eucharist was just such a
change, except the accidents (the Bread and Wine) appeared to remain the same.
80

Archaic doctrine you say! No need for that today. But wait. The atomic explanation is the
better one when we consider things like paper and ash, but visible reality is the least of our
problems. What about when one atom changes into another, or one subatomic particle changes
into another. We can delve deeper and deeper, and smaller and smaller, but at some point our
atomic explanation fails and becomes numerology. To retain reality something approaching the
concept of Prime Matter becomes necessary.

Lest we think that modern science has settled this issue I must warn NOT True! The funda-
mental issue facing all of physics is, Is light a particle or a wave? There are just as many argu-
ments for one answer as the other, and with our present understanding it cant be both. The phys-
ics is contradictory. Particles are things. Waves?... not so much. Much as light could be frozen
resonances, reality seem to be things formed from waves - something suspiciously like Aris-
totles hylomorphism.

Today, we teach about three states of matter, solid, liquid, and gas. Often left out is plasma, a
forth state. Its easily recognizable as fire, or lightening, or the stuff inside the electronic plasma
sphere one can buy. And, indeed, many physicists do speculate that matter is formed from
plasma, a substance one could liken to Heraclitus logos (especially when one considers this
substance was anciently associated with the plasma that becomes visible around the Sun during
an eclipse). Indeed, plasma, by itself, is literally nebulous, without definition. Once it begins to
aspire towards being a this or a that some set of circumstance must determine towards which
substance it begins to move. We find out what that is once it takes on appearances. Many al-
ternate physicists are advocating an electric model of the Universe where the fundamental sub-
stance is indeed this plasma.

The Scholastic position can be summed up thus:

Man cannot understand without images (phantasms); the image is a similitude of a corporal
thing, but understanding is of universals which are to be abstracted from particulars
20

Universals are substances as they are commonly beheld by man. Particulars are the acci-
dents, appearances, as these substance are perceived. The phrase is derived from this:

It often happens that a man cannot recall at the moment, but can search for what he wants and
find it. This occurs when a man initiates many impulses, until at last he initiates that which the
object of his search will follow. For remembering really depends upon the potential exis-
tence of the stimulating cause. Aristotle.
21

And something that exists potentially does really exist. Here, corporal thing and stimulating
cause refer to real things. The debate, here, centers around what is memory? Memory is to be
understood as mental images, not things remembered as in the modern sense. If we can imag-
ine something, does that alone make it real? No, but that imagination must be based on some-
thing real or we couldnt think it.

81
To a pure Platonist mental images are not abstracted from reality but re-memoried directly in
the mind from archetypes placed there by God. The Aristotelian mental image is also an abstrac-
tion, but it is an abstraction derived from a concrete, actually occurring event. In a sense, his
memory pushes forward, gathering more and more evidence from which to understand reality.
The Platonist, on the other hand goes backwards, he has all the evidence he needs stored inter-
nally inside him, it only needs to be re-realized.

The Eucharist is a meal of remembrance. To the Scholastic it is important that the evidence
be real and not counterfeit. To the Platonist, it is not important that the evidence be real for it is
only intended to remind him and awaken inner truths that already exist inside him, a mere mne-
monic device. In other words, the conundrum is this: if the Eucharist were proved to not change
substantially, then the Platonic argument would be the only one that works, and it forces an en-
tirely different view of reality. The world becomes pantheistic if God is to be at all, He is liter-
ally to be everything that is. All of reality is truly just God in disguise, the concrete forms we
see being mere illusions. The Eucharist must resort to being a meal among friends, a hospitality
feast with no real liturgy because anything you encounter, anything you intake is God.

While it is easy to envision a hospitality feast with modern translations of the Bible, ancient
translations create a problem. The term substance and its Eucharistic association is, in fact, part
of scripture, but has been missed by most since the Reformation. It exists as part of the Lords
Prayer. The qualification of bread as daily, cotidianum, tglich, does not appear in the Greek
text. What does appear in the Greek original is the term rtouoto.

(KJVA) Give us this day our daily bread. (both Matthew and Luke versions)
(GNT) ov opov cv ov rtouoto oo tv orpov (Matthew 6:11)
(GNT) ov opov cv ov rtouoto otoou tv o ko0 rpov (Luke 11:13)
(Vulgate) panem nostrum supersubstantialem da nobis hodie (Matthew 6:11)
(Vulgate) panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis cotidie (Luke 11:13)
(DRB) Give us this day our supersubstantial bread. (Matthew 6:11)
(DRB) Give us this day our daily bread. (Luke 11:13)

It should be noted that there are two Lords prayers in the Bible while both use the term rt~
ouoto in the Greek, the Latin use a different term in Matthew than it does in Luke. This distinc-
tion survived even until the modern Douay-Rheims. The confusion results from the fact that the
word is unique to this prayer. Some claim sounds like the Hebrew word for daily (insisting
that the text ought not be in Greek despite no other text exists), but rtouoto is a contraction of
two words:

epi, rt; a primary preposition properly meaning superimposition (of time, place, order, etc.),
as a relation of distribution
ousia, ouoto; from the feminine of ousa, [being];

This is, in fact, how St. John Damascene understood the term for he refers to it:

This bread is the first-fruits
22
of the future bread which is rtouoto, i.e. necessary for exis-
tence [supersubstantial bread
23
]. For the word epiousion [supersubstantial] signifies either the
82
future, that is Him [the bread of the world] Who is for a future age, or else Him of Whom we
partake for the preservation of our essence. Whether then it is in this sense or that, it is fitting to
speak so of the Lords body. For the Lords flesh is life-giving spirit because it was conceived of
the life-giving Spirit. For what is born of the Spirit is spirit. But I do not say this to take away the
nature of the body, but I wish to make clear its life-giving and divine power.
24
.

This connection between substance, essence, God as super-substance, and God the
prime mover has a dating back into antiquity. Here is Socrates:

Even in foreign names, if you analyze them, a meaning [an essence] is still discernible. For
example, that which we term substance [ouoto] is by some called essence [roto], and by
others again holy [ooto]. Now that the essence of things should be called estia, which is akin
to the first [roto] of these, is rational enough. And there is reason in the Athenians calling that
[roto] which participates in substance [ouoto]. For in ancient times we too seem to have said
essence [roto] for substance [ouoto], and this you may note to have been the idea of those who
appointed that sacrifices should be first offered to estia, which was natural enough if they meant
that estia was the essence of things. Those again who read holy [ooto] seem to have inclined to
the opinion of Heracleitus, that all things flow and nothing stands; with them the pushing princi-
ple (prime mover) [o0ouv] is the cause and ruling power of all things, and is therefore rightly
called holy [ooto].
25

Returning, now, to St. John Damascene we find:
But if some persons called the bread and the wine antitypes
26
of the body and blood of
the Lord, as did the divinely inspired Basil
27
, they said so not after the consecration but be-
fore the consecration, so calling the offering itself.
Participation is spoken of; for through it we partake of the divinity of Jesus. Communion, too,
is spoken of, and it is an actual communion, because through it we have communion with Christ
and share in His flesh and His divinity: yea, we have communion and are united with one another
through it. For since we partake of one blood we all become one body of Christ and one blood,
and members one of another, being of one body with Christ.

With all our strength, therefore, let us beware lest we receive communion from or grant it to
heretics; Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, saith the Lord, neither cast ye your pearls
before swine
28
, lest we become partakers in their dishonour and condemnation. For if union is in
truth with Christ and with one another, we are assuredly voluntarily united also with all those
who partake with us. For this union is effected voluntarily and not against our inclination. For we
are all one body because we partake of the one bread, as the divine Apostle says.
29, 30

It is clear from this that the fruits of the Eucharist are to be spiritually discerned that
should a dog be able to discern such it would be no test of faith (Occams razor as understood
by Luther comes to mind when he specifically likens the preferred discernment of God as to be
likened to the faith of a dog drawn to a steak). St. John Damascene also defines substance or
ousia in the same text:

83
Substance is a thing which subsists in itself and has no need of another for its existence. And
again: substance is everything that subsists in itself and does not have its existence in another
that is to say, that which is not because of any other thing, nor has its existence in another, nor
has need of another to subsist, but which is in itself and is that in which the accident has its exis-
tence. Thus, color was made because of the body, that it might color it, but the body was not
made because of the color. And the color exists in the body, not the body in color. For this reason
the color is said to belong to the body and the body not to belong to the color. Thus, for example,
although the color may often be changed and altered, yet the substance, that is to say, the body, is
not changed but remains the same. Now ouoto, or substance, is so called from its rtvot, or be-
ing (in the proper sense. On the other hand, ourko, or accident, is so called from its ou~
otvrtv, or happening, and sometimes being and sometimes not being, because it is possible for
the same accident to exist in the same thing or not to exist, and not only that, but for its contrary
to exist there. Fount of Knowledge, St. John Damascene, Philosophical Chapters, Ch. 39

There is a proof to substance and it is this:

Proof of Substance: everything must either exist in itself or in another (accidents). If it exists
in itself, it has merely affirmed the definition. If it exists in another, the other must exist in itself,
or yet exist in still another, ultimately demanding either a final substance that exists in itself or an
infinite regression of accidents (which is absurd).

It is often contended that Aquinas unnaturally used Aristotle to bolster is philosophical under-
standing of the Eucharist, thereby forcing a Catholic version of the Faith. However it is clear is
views derive there basis from the as Damascene. St. Thomas Aquinas tries to elaborates further:

We must observe that the conversion of bread into the Body of Christ falls under a different
category from all natural conversions. In every natural conversion the subject remains, and in
that subject different forms succeed one another: hence these are called formal conversions.
But in this conversion subject passes into subject, while the accidents remain: hence this conver-
sion is termed substantial. Now we have to consider how subject is changed into subject, a
change which nature cannot effect. Every operation of nature presupposes matter, whereby sub-
jects are individuated; hence nature cannot make this subject become that, as for instance, this
finger that finger. But matter lies wholly under the power of God, since by that power it is
brought into being: hence it may be brought about by divine power that one individual substance
shall be converted into another pre-existing substance. By the power of a natural agent, the op-
eration of which extends only to the producing of a change of form and presupposes the exis-
tence of the subject of change, this whole is converted into that whole with variation of species
and form. So by the divine power, which does not presuppose matter, but produces it, this matter
is converted into that matter, and consequently this individual into that: for matter is the principle
of individuation, as form is the principle of species. Hence it is plain that in the change of the
bread into the Body of Christ there is no common subject abiding after the change, since the
change takes place in the primary subject [i.e., in the matter], which is the principle of individua-
tion. Yet something must remain to verify the words, This is my body, which are the words sig-
nificant and effective of this conversion. But the substance does not remain: we must say there-
fore that what remains is something beside the substance, that is, the accident of bread.
Summa Contra Gentiles, St. Thomas Aquinas, Book 4, 63
84

The important point to note is the term individuation. The primary subject referred to is the
substance as a principle of individuation, in other words naming. Just as Adam named the
species, the individuals of class (genus), the particular is individualized as it is named from those
items of a class which remain nameless. By giving something a name, you give it a what, and it
becomes an individual, a species signified. Think back to the Aristotle. Also his phrase, the first
in cause/intention is the last in execution. In other words, to Aristotle, the marble begins to be-
come the statue at the moment the marble is named, conceptualized by the sculptor. This is the
first cause, the conceptualization. Upon the completion of the statue, the intention of the artist is
revealed, but it was the first intention that set the course. In the Christian conception of reality all
things are ultimately drawn towards God, though they may resist out of their own free will. God
must allow this freedom or man would not be truly an individual. He would be an automaton,
neither sinful nor sinless. The price of the individual is the potential dangerous use of freedom
and free will. The act of naming is not insignificant (sic). It is the declaration of this as a
that that begins the process of transformation from this towards that. It is not unlike the act of
Christening, declaring something (naming) as Christs own. It is not the priests act of naming
the Eucharistic elements, nor the laitys affirmation that begins this process, but God condescen-
sion to do the same that begins the process of drawing the elements towards Him. And, being
God necessarily exists outside of time (remember, time is literally defined as mans measure-
ment of change - being God is defined as changeless, He is outside of time) the final cause, the
execution has already occurred the instant God wills it. Whether this sounds preposterous to the
scientifically minded, one must understand the Aristotelian conception of reality: the Alpha is the
Omega, the first in cause/intention is the last in execution. Whether you believe in the Big
Bang, the Steady State, or a completely mathematical conceptualization of reality, the fate of any
system is sealed at the start of that system and it is only a free will from a thinking, rational mind
that can change it. Without free will, even the cosmos is merely a set of mathematical processes
set in motion moving towards completion.

It is a metaphysical fact that the act of naming has transformation properties. As I am named,
so my name becomes identified with me. In time, my name becomes me, and I my name. It is a
fact of linguistics, come to think of it, a miracle in rationality by itself, that I can be identified by
name and that mere utterance of those sounds can have a rational significance to another. Yet,
the utterance, by itself, evokes nothing if not linked to a real existing thing. The utterance, at
least in the case of me, springs nothing to life, creates by itself no reality. Yet, let God speak

Yet, if God only infuses existence into this or that, allowing it to be, how outrageous, how
audacious to call this thing God, much less ask it to shift the grounding of its being towards the
Divine Essence - an act beyond mans boundaries and Gods necessities, an unnecessary indi-
viduation in a pantheistic world. Why would man desire such a request? He didnt, it was ex-
tended to him by God in an effort to corral Mans free will gone astray. A test of faith designed
to hone is reasoning in a particular way, towards a particular direction. That Gods act of creation
is not limited merely to bringing things into existence, to changing this into that, but creating the
unknown from the known creating a spiritual reality from a mundane particular reality. Are we
not reminded of the same when a cherished picture evokes an emotion long forgotten, when a
faint smell takes us to a place were not sure weve been? What is at stake here is a particular
way of thinking, for if ideas are generated from within, then no such remembrance should be
85
possible. But what a hurdle our minds must cross if a mere peculiar order of some musical notes
should send us weeping. And if this is true, which it must be, then what potential does the Divine
have if it chooses to reach down through a mere mundane piece of bread? No, the change must
happen somehow or we would never know it as anything other than a crumb.

The convention of naming this and renaming that to suit our purpose is within our power. Who
hasnt taken that particular knife, renamed it a screwdriver, used it as such, and then returned to
the status knife? To a greater or lesser degree, things do substantially shift all the time. My
wifes lap makes a handy pillow at times, the trunk of my car is often my daughters handy
closet, the tree a convenient umbrella during a shower. But none of these changes are permanent
as is the paper burning, or the bread once changed consumed and digested. Its destiny is set, not
only by God, but as it becomes part of my vital force, escaping the bread, wedded to my suste-
nance as the particulars move through my system to be discarded later. And what miracle is
that? That a piece of bread, a sip of wine, can carry with it a life it once had as a living plant to
help in replenishing my weariness? The true miracles of life are not the bombastic events de-
signed to impress, but the simple truths we might miss should they not be pointed out, made sig-
nificant, and sufficiently realized! The very ground of our being is based on subtleties that might
otherwise seem insignificant.

That Man should find himself in the very same predicament as Adam is of eternal conse-
quence. To be a true individual requires freedom of will, the freedom to choose correctly or in-
correctly. Mans choices are handicapped by his senses, his knowledge is largely not intuitive, so
man must struggle with the truth hidden behind the veil. He must also struggle with the abstract
nature of the concept itself and the fact that not only is reality itself susceptible to counterfeit in-
terpretation, but there are a lot of charlatans using the same phraseology to there own ends. Man
must decide which is in fact real but which philosophy gets him closest to the true nature of the
world. That God should offer His grace to Man is a one-time, eternal event. The fact that Man
must respond and cooperate with that grace is an on-going test of faith.

The question that remains is, does it matter how I philosophically view the Eucharist? Where
there is the possibility of heresy, there must be a philosophy, for the action in both the heretical
and the non-heretical stays the same. The difference is the mental understanding, which can only
be philosophical. For the Eucharist to be the most sacred of all acts, it must reach right down to
the core of what comprises reality. The fundamental question any man can ask is, how do I
know that reality is not just a figment of my imagination? To answer one way saves reality, the
other way is the basis of the occult. Therefore, how one answers must matter.

It is the irrational mind that senses, that has faith and presents the world to the mind. It is the
rational mind that formulates these impressions into a concrete understanding of reality with its
reason. Both are needed as a sympathetic union for the mind to function properly. Yet, if it
stopped there, man would still be doomed. Both faith and reason need to be stretched, as a unity,
a marriage of near opposites, to conceptualize something past what each can apprehend by itself.
It is only the Eucharist that does that, yet, if we formulate the Eucharist as an act of mere notic-
ing a preexisting inbred quality, neither faith nor reason are stretched. The very holiest of acts
becomes reduced to a mere exercise in pantheism. The intention of the Eucharist is not to create
86
a paradox, or to totally defy reason, but to teach Man how to orchestrate his nature to cooperate
with grace.

The importance of this is simple: if the First Sin was the result of the irrational mind leading
the rational mind astray, shouldnt it be possible for the intellect to corral the will and lead it
back? And what act of submission would be greater than evidence supplied by the intellect to the
will that defied the wills sensibilities? If it was a mere apple that led the will astray, shouldnt it
be the unlikely presence of God that brings it back? Isnt the Eucharist a reversal of the apple?
A true test of faith?

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Epilog
Status: N/A
Label: No Label
Keywords:

The Dilemma of Pilate

At Lystra there was a crippled man, lame from birth, who had never
walked. He listened to Paul speaking, who looked intently at him, saw that
he had the faith to be healed, and called out in a loud voice, Stand up
straight on your feet. He jumped up and began to walk about. When the
crowds saw what Paul had done, they cried out in Lycaonian, The gods
have come down to us in human form. They called Barnabas Zeus and
Paul Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. Acts 14:8-12

The connection between the laws of physics, ethics, and the basis of religion is nebulous to
most people, but it is very real. Like a logical argument, a theory is only as sound as the premises
it is based on all religion and philosophy today must stand the test of religion. If science is
skewed, so will be religion. Yet we often invent forces (objectify causes) to seemingly make
things clearer.

Centrifugal Force - the Scientific Discovery that never was.
Enter most any modern museum and somewhere you will find what is called a Spiral Wishing
Well Coin Vortex Funnel. A revenue generating machine disguised as a science project, it is a
gravity vortex where you drop a coin down watching it spiral into oblivion. It is intended to
simulate the cosmic operation of Newtons/Einsteins gravity based universe. You are told that it
is Centrifugal Force that keeps the coin adhered to the outside edge as it spirals down the vortex.

Yet, as any good scientist will tell you, centrifugal force doesnt actually exist. It is really the
coins inertia, its tendency to travel in a straight line in an ever increasing curve, that keeps the
coin pinned to the surface as it ever increases in speed centrifugal force doesnt exist per se.
Yet, it looks like it does. Such is how our Universe is held together!

The same exhibit will often show a picture demonstration of the Newtonian Cosmos. The
weight of 3D globe sits on the surface of a 2D reality, distorting the trampoline of 2D space as
the weight pulls the 2D space down. Yet, in the illustration, 2D space requires a 3D force outside
its dimensionality to pull the globe down, to make the picture work. Yes, but its just a picture.
88
Yet, it is a little bit of a ruse, no matter how you figure it you need another dimension, one
more than you already have, to provide the force to make the warping effect work. Regardless
how many dimensions you pick for the weight of attraction must come from outside the sys-
tem, otherwise, what ever force carried the power to warp would also have to submit to the
same force. Its hard to think about. We tend to think of gravity like magnetism, as an actual
force (which would make sense), but were not talking about a real force here. We are talking
about the warping of space deceptively simulating a force to our senses. Einstein is literally say-
ing gravity does not exist, it is an illusion, he is trying to explain the force away by using
space/time warpage. He does this to salvage a Newtonian mechanics developed in the 1660s be-
fore electro-magnetism was discovered. It seems to have a child-like simplicity, yet it doesnt
because a warpage of space cannot produce a simulated force that acts upon itself - you need a
real force.

In other words, if the earths gravity warps space, is the earth, too, part of that space? Is it also
warped by itself (in which case how would you know or measure it), or is it in its own dimension
just to salvage cause and effect? The temptation to worship the preternatural, scientifically or
otherwise, is great.

The simple fact is that the reason the mainline Church is failing is the Christians are leaving. In
an era of relativism, where there are no absolutes on which to base moral integrity, the only way
of advancing any issue is to resort to an amoral Machiavellian style morality.

The Church has evolved into a preternatural scheme. While it may disguise its methods as as-
sertiveness training, consumerism, management training, self-worth seminars, conflict
management, the fact is they are all merely ways of advancing agendas once normal moral in-
tegrity has collapsed and there is no right and wrong to appeal to. Like the rest of society, the
Church has resorted to these very same culturally neutral tactics, games. While the once main-
line Church may have a hierarchy, it is a hierarchy based on nothing - a barren tree of authority
with nothing to be authoritative on. The dogma of the Church has become a centrifugal non-
existent force we think we are seeing but we are actually not.

More often than not these schemes have been developed by occult psychologists, like Carl
Jung, disguising preternatural techniques as scientific method. This modern psychological fix
usually involves the creation of an objectified presence so that we, the subjective audience, can
ponder the dilemma and proffer a cure. But often this objectification extends right into the
mind of each person, creating a subtle dual existence between the spiritual man and the natu-
ral man as we seek a remedy to the situation. How else are we to examine objectively our own
faults, failures, and prejudices, but to distance ourselves from them and put this other-self un-
der the inquisitors lamp?

But the natural (psychic) man receiveth not the things of the Spirit (pneuma) God
- I Corinthians 2

89
Like any good physician the Great physician understands both the disease and the cure,
even if we dont it is not necessary for us to understand the chemical properties for it to
work. The disease centers around belief and to understand how the cure works flirts with
jeopardizing the remedy. At the center of this disease is doubt, and if Relativism has given
modern man anything it is doubt. Yet, it is also doubt that is the foil to this prescription,
with doubt the remedy will not work. The same could be said for the re-formulization of
any of the ingredients like a doctors prescription, the ingredients have been carefully
balanced for effectiveness, change one, and the prescription is less effective, if it works at
all. The disease is the unnatural split, the duality within mans own psyche. The prescrip-
tion is intended to heal that split, dissolving the natural, objectified man absorbed into and
within the spiritual godly man without obliterating this dual existence altogether. For the
split is necessary in its own way, like free will, something we must struggle with, conquer,
but never totally alleviate for we are human, not angels.

Every authority needs something on which to base its authority and the hierarchy of the Church
is no different, but it appears the modern Church is basing its hierarchy on the fact of its own hi-
erarchy. Lacking reason, method, understanding, and faith, it clings to the only remaining ingre-
dient: the hollow structure of authority. Yet, it has abdicated the basis of that authority to other
disciplines: physics, psychology, historians, biology, etc. The modern formula to salvation has
become based on a mere affiliation to that empty hierarchy. While I have no doubt that the True
Church is intended to have a hierarchy, it must also be intended that that authority be authorita-
tive on something, which the modern church cant because it has hog-tied itself through relativ-
ism. The result is a Machiavellian institution hiding underneath a faade of reasonableness that
cant work. Like an alchemist trying to make gold out of lead, it blindly keeps re-juggling the
ingredients hoping to accidentally hit on something that works. Not trusting the Physician and
his prescription, it has resorted to self-medication. Shying from the commitment of true morality,
the only concoctions it finds effective are the ones based on the amoral formulizations of Dr.
Machiavelli, a method that dodges a true grounding in dogma.

Likewise, the true clergy are also hog-tied. To which do they remain loyal? To Christ or to
their own hierarchy, neither of which they can envision a Church without.

So, in an attempt to create new prescription, we turn to the mind as both patient and cure. We
resort to psychology and a new form of objectification: we create the sick psyche within, the bad
guy on to which we can deposit blame for all our miss-steps. In other words, avoiding the natural
the Church flirts with the preternatural, the Occult, the Other. Most of these prescriptions are
disguised as various schemes to promote self-worth.

Eminent psychologists, some non-Christian have noticed this oddity. From The Psychology as
Religion: the Cult of Self-Worship by psychologist Paul C. Vitz (New York University):

Objectification is an intellectual act, central to all criticism, which takes a naive, unexamined
experience and turn the source or cause of the experience into an object of study. p.153

90
The power gained by the self as it objectifies more an more objects that come under its in-
creasingly sophisticated control feeds self-growth or individuation. The process is experienced
as actualization, as becoming autonomous, becoming independent of the objects the places,
people, and customs now located outside, in the environment with which the self was first
unself-consciously fused. p.154

What we are seeing is a re-emerging of the new dualism a preternatural Other from within
that the mind of man knows not how to contend:

The self as subject frantically trying to gain control over others the objectsin order to
build its own self as subject. As more and more people have their consciousness raisedthat
is, they are liberated from objecthood and take on the role as subjectsthe competition be-
comes fierce.

The dualistic battle within ones own mind as modern day institutions teach us this art of self-
examination, objectifying a portion of our own actions, our own motives, until, not wanting to be
blamed for our own failings, we objectify and distance ourselves from our own Other within.

Therefore this syndrome might be called existential narcissism Its end is the psychological
death (in some cases physical death as well) of the self.

The psychological model for the new age actualization is Carl Jung, also an affiliate of Freud.
Looking for inspiration to set his credentials apart from his mentor, he resorted to the very same
text that started the New Age, the Renaissance, the split in the Church, the very same text that
inspired Julian the Apostate. Jung merely retranslated the Corpus Hermeticum text into modern
scientific terms to disguise its occult philosophy to a modern, self-indulgent society. It is this text
that is at the heart of everything from the Mormons, Free Masonry, Cabbala, Numerology, As-
trology, Hermeticism, and the Occult. It serves as the inspiration of most charismatic cults (to me
modern physics is suspiciously cabbala-esque). It was doubt in the Eucharist that forced the
Church to seek a new inspirational source. It was Carl Jung and the occult Corpus Hermeticum
that would seemingly provide a scheme of salvation through the new emerging charismatic
movement.

The Aryan Christ: the Secret Life of Carl Jung, Richard Noll (Harvard University - also The
Jung Cult: Origins of the Charismatic Movement):

Through years of reflection on Jungs considerable impact on the cultural and spiritual land-
scape of the twentieth century, I have come to the conclusion that, as an individual, he ranks with
Julian the Apostate (fourth century C.E.) as one who significantly undermined orthodox
Christianity and restored polytheism of the Hellenistic world in Western civilization the
patriarchal monotheism of the orthodox Judeo-Christian faiths has all but collapsed this
twentieth-century mask was constructed deliberately, and somewhat deceptively, by Jung to
make his own magical, polytheistic, pagan worldview more palatable to a secularized world
conditioned to respect only those ideas that seem to have a scientific air to them.

91
But it was not uniquely Jung that was the conduit back to Hermeticism, science at it heart is
also based on it, derived from its alchemical source in its infant life. What Rome tried to burn as
a counterfeit 3rd Testament to the Bible emerged again in the beginning of the 20th century, and
again when the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered, once again giving credibility to the occult an-
gelic lost text.

But whatsoever human souls have not the Mind as [their] pilot, they share in the same fate
as souls of lives [creatures] irrational. For [the One-Mind] becomes co-worker with them,
giving full play to the desires toward which [men] are borne; [urges] that, from the rush of
lust, strain after the irrational. Just like irrational animals, [they] cease not irrationally to rage
and lust, nor are they ever satiate of ills. For passions [desires] and irrational desires [fits] are
ills exceeding great; and over these God hath set up the Mind to play the part of judge and
executioner. . . All works, my son, are Fates [destinys]; and without Fate [destiny] naught
[nothing] of things corporal, or good, or ill, can come to pass. But it is fated [predestined],
too, that he who doeth ill, shall suffer. And for this cause he doth it, that he may suffer what
he suffereth, because he did it. the Corpus Hermeticum

Malachi Martin - exorcist, former Jesuit professor at the Vatican Pontifical Biblical Institute,
advisor to the Pope has noticed this link between the occult, and this preternaturality in man:

The most obvious and striking effect common to all possessed persons, whether observed
in or apart from Exorcism, is the great loss in human quality, in humanness The difficulty
comes, instead, from the insistence of latter-day opinion makers that the religious view of good
and evil is outdated; that the personality of each man, woman, and child exists only as a cross
section of single traits and attributes best revealed in scores we achieve in psychological tests;
that the truest and purest models for our behavior come from lower animals and from the
natural mana mythical invention that has never existed and that we cannot imagine. Hos-
tage to the Devil, p.409

The essence of any drama, any narrative is discovering who you are in the story, which charac-
ter represents you. We started this discussion with the realization that something caused the Jews
to seek a spiritual separation from the worldly, pagan deities pushed upon them. It was seen
that empires use similar formulas to accomplish this. Eventually, after trying to amalgamate the
various contradictory traditions, a form of Eastern Egyptianism is resorted to: truth is made para-
doxical, the two-fold truth becomes the essence of wisdom, virtue ceases to be a ethical act of
doing as you believe in truth but a mere inner self-consistency to self.

In such an endeavor, the Golden Rule becomes universalized. Seeking an unobjectionable
dogma on which to base the plurality of society, do unto others as you would have others do unto
you seems the best of all candidates. Yet, even this rule is too weighty for most, so it is retrans-
lated to I will permit you to do whatever you will so long as you permit me the same. In this
clever manipulation right and wrong become mere poetical preferences, values as the nihilist
Nietzche put it. As we have discussed, the philosophical act of considering ones self free of
moral imperative is always involved - amorality is placed as the highest of virtues when it dis-
guises itself as judging not.
92

It should not be surprising, then, that just such an action shows up in the Biblical narrative right
at the crux of the story you are intended to be Pilate at this point in the narrative. Pilate is
Thoth, the culmination of the ancient dilemma.

When Pilate asks Christ, what is truth, it is not for want of a pregnant pause that Christ does
not answer. It is because Christ could provide no better answer than the concrete reality of His
presence; this is Grace. What we have here is the Christian paradigm for salvation in its essence.
Remember the Thothic confession of Hermes before God. The key to Hermetical salvation is the
abandonment of reason - that the disciple is willing to sacrifice his free-will, his truth, as an act
of devotion. Christ, on the other hand, knows that true salvation can never deprive man of his
free-will. Pilate needs to confess God as God of by his own free-will, which demands Truth -
even at this most pivotal moment of salvation, Christ will not announce His own divinity before
Pilate for to do so would be to deny Pilate, and us, coming to that conclusion freely. True Chris-
tian devotion cannot be based on a coerced confession, but because the disciple has followed
what he believes to be true. Even today, how often has the Church asked its disciples to abandon
their own conscience to prove their devotion - this is not something Christ wouldve done.
93
End Notes

1
A Delicate Arrangement: the Strange Case of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace, Arnold
Brackman, p. 301. The chief philosophical architect of Vatican II was the Jesuit paleontologist Fr. Pi-
erre Teilhard de Chardin. His cosmological theology was the only one to seemingly fit the emerging
new science. Yet, principally based on the truth of evolution, his theology was based on the finds and
evidences produced by these very same paleontologists and anthropologists, of which he was one. In-
strumental was the Piltdown Man, a find later proved to be a hoax planted by Pierre himself.
2
Ibid, p. 281.
3
Although its modern day formulation and push came from inside the Roman Catholic Church - Fr.
George LeMatre
4
See The Harvest of Medieval Thought, H. Oberman, Baker, p. 58 particularly Ch. 3, Faith and Under-
standing.
5
Defense of the Councils phrases from the substance and one in substance, Athanasius
6
Elements of Logic, Richard Whately
7
On the Councils, sec. 12.
8
Reality and the Mind: Epistemology, Fallacy of Idealism, Celestine N. Bittle, O.F.M. Cap., Bruce-
Milwaukee, 1936
9
A Manual of Modern Scholastic Philosophy, Criteriology, Cardinal Mercier, Herder Books, 1953, p. 394
10
Argument from Ten Philosophical Mistakes, Mortimer Adler, Colliers, 1985
11
All the key elements of Easter have their prefiguration:

The Fast of Esther was honored. A final Wine Banquet or last supper was held on the night of
the 13th, the day of revenge, the eve of the 14th, to commemorate the impending doom and mas-
sacre of the nation of the Jews.
The betrayal for blood money.
The waking of the next morning, the 14th, to find that they have been spared and that the con-
spirators, Haman and his two sons have been caught.
A condemned scapegoat ritual is enacted where a common criminal is led through the streets in
procession.
The crucifixion of Haman and his two sons is reenacted Haman is crucified in the center with
his sons being also crucified one on either side as fellow criminals. While many historians insist
crucifixion is a uniquely Roman form of execution, the Jewish text, Jewish tradition, and Josephus
History of the Jews all insist that it is an actual crucifixion, not a mere hanging, that is specified in
Esther. Regardless, at the time of Christ Jewish tradition believed it to be a crucifixion and this is
what would have been practiced in effigy.
To illustrate the charitable nature of the Jews, and the charity of Artaxerxes, a prisoner is to be
voted on and set free.
A casting of lots (rolling of dice) ritual is acted out - the fate of the Jews was held in the balance
by this act (purim literally means casting of lots).
On the 15th, the Jews rested and prepared for the Sabbath.
A two-fold truth crisis is posed to the governor in charge (Artaxerxes, Pontius Pilate)

12
From an article by Gyula Klima, http://www.fordham.edu/gsas/phil/klima/anselm.htm
13
Moore: GE Moore and the Cambridge Apostles, Paul Levy, p. 170-1
14
Gregory Naziansus, Orat. 35. 38. 42
94
15
Extent and Duration of the Celtic Church.By the term Celtic Church is meant the Church which ex-
isted in Great Britain and Ireland (with certain continental offshoots) before the mission of St.
Augustine, and to a varying extent after that event, until by absorption or submission the various parts
of it were at different dates incorporated with the Church of the Anglo-Saxons. p.3 The Liturgy and
Ritual of the Celtic Church, Warren, Oxford University Press,
16
It originally belonged to some church in Munster, that church being possibly the monastery founded
by St. Ruadhan at Lothra in the Barony of Lower Ormund and County Tipperary, where he died as its
first abbot and patron AD 584 p.198, The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church, Warren, Oxford.
17
A Greek to English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Walter Bauer,
University of Chicago Press
18
This is the same debate that occurred in the trial of Galileo. The trial documents of Galileo as found in
the Vatican Secret Archives (from Galileo Heretic, Pietro Redondi, Princeton University Press p.335):

I must now reply to the digression on heat in which Galileo openly declares himself a follower of the
school of Democritus and Epicurus. But since he has dealt here in a few lines, without any development,
with a problem that deserves an entire book, and since it is difficult for me to discuss it with him, whose
principles I do not know, for these reasons I will not make any statement on this opinion. Let him defend
it uncontested. On this matter, judgment will fall to those who, teachers of a thought in conformity with
truth and of scrupulous language, watch over the safety of the faith in its integrity. Yet, I cannot avoid
giving vent to certain scruples that preoccupy me. They come from what we have regarded as incontest-
able on the basis of the precepts of the Fathers, the Councils, and the entire Church. They are the qualities
by virtue of which, although the substance of the bread and wine disappear, thanks to omnipotent words,
nonetheless their sensible species persist; that is, their color, taste, warmth, or coldness. Only by the di-
vine will are these species maintained, and in a miraculous fashion, as they tell me. This is what they af-
firm. Instead, Galileo expressly declares that heat, color, taste, and everything else of this kind are outside
of him who feels them, and therefore in the bread and wine, just simple names. Hence. When the sub-
stance of the bread and wine disappears, only the names of the qualities will remain. - from Document
G3 of the Vatican Secret Archives to the Trial of Galileo

19
Table Talk, Luther.
20
De Memoria, Thomas Aquinas
21
De Mem. et rem., 452 8 16.
22
Cyril. loc. cit.
23
Cf. St. Matthew 6:11, The Lords Prayer commonly translated as daily; Cyril of Jerusalem, op cit.
15 some claim that the word is unique to this prayer.
24
St. John 6:63
25
As quoted Platos Cratylus.
26
Anastas., Hodegus, ch. 23
27
Cf. Liturgy of St. Basil, prayer of the epiclesis; F.E. Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western 1
28
St. Matthew 7:6
29
I Cor. 10:17
30
On The Orthodox Faith (Fount of Knowledge), St. John Damascene, Book 4, Ch. 13.
95
LIST OF SCIENCE, PHYSICS AND COSMOLOGICAL SOURCES
The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of Science and What Comes Next, Lee
Smolin, Houghton Mifflin, 2006
The Big Bang Never Happened, Eric J. Lerner, Random House, 1991
A Delicate Arrangement: The Strange Case of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, Arnold C.
Brackman, (New York) Times Books, 1980
Piltdown: A Scientific Forgery, Frank Spencer, Oxford University Press, 1990
Seeing Red: Redshifts, Cosmology and Academic Science, Halton Arp, Apeiron, 1998
Cosmological Electrodynamics, Hannes Alfvn and Carl-Gunne Flthammer, Oxford University Press,
1963
The Electric Sky: A Challenge to the Myths of Modern Astronomy, Donald E. Scott, Mikamar Pub., 2006
Thunderbolts of the Gods: A Radical Reinterpretation of Human History and the Evolution of the Solar
System (book & film), David Talbott & Wallace Thornhill, Mikamar, 2005
The Virtue of Heresy: Confessions of a Dissident Astronomer, Hilton Ratcliffe, Authorhouse, 2007
Big Bang Blasted: The Story of the Expanding Universe and How It Was Shown to Be Wrong, Lyndon
Ashmore, Booksurge, 2006
Worlds in Collision, Emmanuel Velikovsky, Doubleday & Co., 1950
Earth in Upheaval, Emmanuel Velikovsky, Doubleday & Co., 1955
Creation: The Physical Truth, Harold Aspden, Book Guild Publishing, 2006
Universe: The Cosmology Quest (film), Randall Meyers prod., Norsk Film Institutt, 2003
Galileo Heretic, Pietro Redondi, Princeton University Press, 1987
Psychology as Religion: the Cult of Self-Worship, Paul C. Vitz, Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1977
The Atom in the History of Human Thought, Bernard Pullman, Oxford, 1998
From Paracelsus to Newton: Magic & the Making of Modern Science, Charles Webster, Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1982
The Aryan Christ: The Secret Life of Carl Jung, Richard Noll, Macmillan/Random House, 1997
The History of Twelfth-Century Philosophy, Peter Dronke ed., Cambridge University Press, 1988
The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy, Etienne Gilson, University of Notre Dame Press, 1936

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A Tract for our Times

Responding to the Challenges of Modern Science

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