========================================== The Dark Ages and The Inquisition Very Intense Periods of HELL on Earth. "Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate." (Abandon Hope, all ye who enter here.) In truth, the Dark Ages have not ended, nor has the Inquisition. Darkness descended as the power of the so-called Christian movement ascended, and as a consequence (it would surprise no one to know) the Dark Ages only affected the Christianized kingdoms. While those ruled by the Christian Church were in this darkness, other cultures and races prospered, and examples are the Islamic countries, the Chinese culture, Japan, India, and all the more distant ones, the Mayas, Incas, and so on. For some Christian countries, the Dark Ages have lasted into this century. There is no doubt that the dark ages were caused by the philosophy which is called Christianity directly. Knowledge was stopped and was replaced by ignorance, and that is because the evilchristian hierarchy claimed that: "One of the diabolic symptoms of the oncoming end of the world was going to be the spread of knowledge". It then tried to check this spread by book burning, destroying libraries and schools and prohibiting all forms of education. By the end of the 5th century A.D. when the Christian rulers had taken command, they abolished the study of the main disciplines, including Philosophy, Mathematics, Medicine, and Geography. Lactantius forbad Christians to study astronomy. It was Pope Gregory the Great who denounced all secular education and forbad the reading of the Bible under threat of punishment of death. He too joined in the book burning and destroyed at the Palatine Apollo. Any new opinion or any knowledge with which the church did not agree was called heretical and devilish and those who had this knowledge or opinion were hounded and slaughtered. The years were marked by gross vandalism and destruction. Theodosius burnt the greatest collection of knowledge that the Ancient World could probably produce - The Library at Alexandria. As if the church had achieved some marvellous cleansing, St. John Chrysostom gloated as the church destroyed everything it could get its hands on and said: "Every trace of the old philosophy and literature of the ancient world has vanished from the face of the earth". Eupanius, a historian and guardian of the Eleusinian Mysteries, is quoted as saying the Roman Empire was being overwhelmed by a "fabulous and formless darkness (the evil pseudo-christian philosophy) mastering the loveliness of the world." The darkness was all the work of the so-called new anti-Gnostic Christian church. It is worth repeating that the Roman Empire, contrary to what the church historians have written, did no persecute religious minorities. In fact, all deities were incorporated and all religious people were willing to co-exist with the Empire except for the so-called Christians. By 382 AD the church had officially declared that any opposition to its own Creed in favor of others, must be punished by the Death Penalty. But of course the history of those early years has been distorted by church historians. Many of those so-called Christians were criminals, vagabonds and trouble-makers and they were prosecuted by the Roman Authorities, not for their religion, but for civil crimes. There were guilty of vandalism and arson when they tried to burn Rome. In spite of the overwhelming evidence that the church brought all knowledge and the process of learning to a halt, one still often hears the excuse erroneously given by apologist for the church that if it was not for the church, all knowledge would be lost completely. This is completely opposite to the facts. The Church saves what suited its purpose and destroyed the everything else it could get its hands on. Sure it disseminated Christian Art, architecture, music and letters (of perverted history) but all else was destroyed. And most of this dissemination was for self-aggrandizement. What possible spiritual benefit can there be in the treasures of the vatican? Other than that which they may have kept and are denying the world of, about the ancient ways, absolutely nothing! Even many of the so-called Pagan Temples were converted to Christian ones by simply adding St. in front of the deities' name, as occurred at the shrine of Sophia (the Wisdom of the Divine Mother Goddess) which became St. Sophia. The church closed the minds of the people and stifled education. And it was for this reason that any part of Europe in which it had some controlling influence, fell into ruin. The intelligentsia were persecuted by the illiterate. The only other record of history at that time was the inaccurate recordings of balladeers, and they too would be cautious of their words for the ears of the church were everywhere. There is no scientific testing of theories for theological societies prevented this. Those like Roger Bacon who tried to introduce scientific methods suffered greatly. They paid a heavy price. Unfortunately, the oppression was such that many of the so-called Christianized countries never recovered from the church's tyranny. For example, even today, Spain and Italy are severely repressed by the church Authority. And many people in the poorer parts of these countries are still frightened to speak openly against the church who they fear more than they fear the Mafia. The Dark Age mentality has continued in the church from the earlier times when the church took control. And so it is that in 1562 when the missionaries reached the Mayas at Yucatan, the first thing they did was burned the books they found. It was about this time that the countries involved in the Reformation became more educated directly as a result of the steps they took to decease the church's power. Initially, the church had set out not to educate laymen so that it could control the people better. But as time went on, of course, because of no advances in knowledge were made, even the clergy became extremely ignorant. Temples of other Creed were taken over by force and books and doctrines of those other beliefs systems were destroyed and supplanted by the so-called Christian ones. The church became obsessed with aesthetic Monotheism and tried to eradicate all rudiments of other belief systems. Ignorance thrived, so much so that Lactantius was able to prove to the ignorant masses by quoting the Bible, that the world was flat and, or course, there was great opposition to anyone who contradicted this. The people of the ancient world knew the world was round. In fact, the Hindus drew it as an egg. The Babylonians, Chaldeans, and Greeks had worked out its circumference and distance from other heavenly bodies and many other things, but all this knowledge was destroyed. The principles of science and the shape of the earth and astronomy needed to be rediscovered many centuries later In spite of the Christian Church. Men of Science not only had to fight the veils of ignorance but also the church, the so-called Holy Mother which defended the ignorance desperately. As the list of those scientific and intellectual pioneers who were burned at the stake shows, for a long, long time they and knowledge, including science, came off second best. Enlightenment in any field usually meant being burned at the stake if one dared to speak up. It was mainly by political curtailment of the church's power by governments and dictators such as Napoleon, and by literally kicking out groups like the Jesuits and other bigoted, ignorant fanatics, that countries began to awaken. Others sought their spiritual freedom in the schismatic countries and the New World. Here are examples of those burned at the stake and of government interventions to curtail the rapaciousness and evil of the church and its efforts to maintain ignorance. 1498 Savonarola burned at the stake in Florence (b.1452) 1535 Study of Canon Law forbidden in Cambridge 1570 Calvinist, Lutherans, and Moravian Brothers of Poland ally against Jesuits 1583 Giordano Bruno publishes his 'On the Infinite Universe and Worlds'. 1594 Giordano Bruno seized by the Vatican for supporting Copernicus theory of the universe. 1600 Giordano Bruno burned as a heretic in Rome 1609 The Emperor Rudolf II permits freedom of religion in Bohemia. 1633 Galileo forced by the Inquisition to renounce the theories of Copernicus 1716 Christian religious teaching prohibited in China. 1719 Jesuits expelled from Russia 1751 Powers of the Portuguese Inquisition curtailed by government. 1759 Expulsion of Jesuits from Portugal. 1767 Jesuits expelled from Spain, Parma, and the Two Sicilies. 1772 Inquisition abolished in France 1808 Napoleon abolishes the Inquisition in Spain and Italy 1814 Pope Pius VII returns to Rome and restores the Inquisition. 1872 Jesuits expelled from Germany 1875 Religious orders abolished in Prussia 1879 Anti-Jesuit laws introduced in France. 1904 Church and State separated in France 1919 Church and State separated in Germany 1950 Evangelical HUMANAI GENERIS of Pius XII condemned various intellectual tendancies in the Catholic Church. As we know, Galileo and Christopher Columbus and many others were publicly harassed and persecuted for contradicting the Falsehoods of the Bible. And to make sure about its monopoly on knowledge, the church banned not only Galileo's work, but Kepler's and Copernicus' as well. The ignorance that resulted gave the church more and more power, so much so that it was able to accumulate great wealth. However, there were many pockets of resistance to it and many people realized the Truth of things as they discovered Gnosticism. Many others objected to the church's despotism and when truthful and enlightening knowledge from the outside the so-called Christian Church filtered in. And this enlightening knowledge, together with self-realization is what sparked off the Renaissance. In 1460 Leonardo of Pistoia brought the Greek manuscript of the Gnostic Corpus Hermeticum to Florence from Macedonia. And in 1471 the first printed edition of Ficino's Latin translation of the Divine Pymander appeared. But the renaissance however, there was the horrendous Inquisition. This consisted of a reign of terror through many centuries and it was to force the populace to accept a church which it did not want. And as it is often now amusingly mocked, this church had only one commandment - "Bring hither the money!" Many spoke out against the church. Frere Ryamond Jean said: "The church which governs us is symbolized by the Great Whore of the Apocalypse who persecutes the poor and the ministers of Christ." You can guess how ended up - Burned Alive! Even among its own ranks the church had dissenters and the members of the Franciscan splinter group called the Fraticelli, were outspoken in calling the Pope the Antichrist. They could see through the church's nefarious activities. Unfortunately for them, they paid the price the church asked for their clear vision, and they were all slaughtered by Pope Martin the Fifth. There was public disgust at the Church's avarice during the time of the Inquisition and there was also a growing suspicion of its evil practices. This suspicion was sparked by Gnostic philosophies which came from the east and these Gnostic Philosophies revealed the spurious claims of the myths that the church put forward. Again they queried the need for Salvation, the story of the Garden of Eden, the Fall of Man, the Taint of Original Sin, Heaven and Hell, the Virgin birth, and so on. The Gnostics said boldly in public that these were myths. In its attempt to distort the Truth and conceal its exposure, the church hierarchy mendaciously likened the spread of truth to a social cancer which had to be stopped at all costs. Apart from destroying these dessenters, the Inquisition can be described, as others have in the past, as the most elaborate extortion racket ever devised, primarily developed to give the church profit while it eradicated people against whom it could not win arguments about religious philosophy. In the words of Jules Henry: "Organized Religion which likes to fancy itself the Mother of Compassion long ago lost its right to claim that by its organized support of organized cruelty." The promise of a place in Heaven through its intercession for the people was what enabled the church to brainwash them into accepting all the suffering and misery which in effect it helped inflict on them. What a miserably evil scheme it was. What a perfect way to make sure that, not only would they give up their money to the church, but also that they would accept all the exploitations they would experience, and not fight back nor try to awaken to the Truth of things. The church told them that they could go to Heaven by using its unique sacraments (most of which it had really copied from the Mithraic rites and other religious practices) and that they could shorten relatives' and their own eventual stay in Purgatory by paying Indulgences to the Church. It convinced people to toe the line. Otherwise it would send them to Hell by refusing to absolve them of their sins, by withholding so-called indispensable sacraments and by excommunicating them. Hence, it manipulated people's live to such a degree that they were kept repressed and totally in the darkness. This fantasy of a Heavenly reward if people did what they were told by the church was not pushed as much, or course, as the fear of eternal damnation in Hell. And this fear engendered much guilt and destroyed many lives, for many could not cope with the fear adequately. Can you think of anything more cruel than this? In fact, even today the percentage of mentally ill Catholics, whose church has thrived on this fear approach, is greater than in the community at large. But, In spite the fact that this so-called Christian doctrine preached love, tolerance and non-violence for the sake of attaining a Heavenly abode on the one hand, and on the other hand people were exhorted to kill and maim when the church said so, otherwise they too would be excommunicated, burned at the stake and supposedly punished in Hell forever. 1521 Pope Leo X, via a papal bull, ordered the Venetian Doge and the Venetian Senate to execute heretics even though the Doge and Senate opposed the executions. This shows the power the papacy had! And apart from destroying all other modes of learning except its own spurious doctrines, which it made up as it went alo;ng in every era, the church's presence since shortly after the death of Jesus has meant fear, hatred, intolerance, oppression, and the most inhuman acts of barbarism and violence. If the atrocities of the church were the result of one or two or even a few who ruled the church, one would expect its bellicosity to be a passing phase. But the fact that it not only persisted but also became its most salient characteristic suggests that the very essence driving the church is evil and exploitaive, and indeed it is. Metaphysics aside, the real historical facts leave us with no other conclusion. If the church was sincere, would it not give back the lands and wealth that it stole from the people? Would it not acknowledge its own mistakes and not only publicly confess this but perform restitutions as well? Like all those of an evil essence, the church never recants. If the church was really the Holy Mother, would it not care for its people first and foremost with total disregard for its own pomposity, arrogance and self-aggrandizement? One of the excuses given by some of the clergy for the wealth and extravagance displayed by the churchs is that nothing is too good for God. But one must ask What does God care for temporal things? What does HE care or a gold chalice when HIS people go hungry? * Where is the love? * Where is the tolerance? * Where is the care to be found in the church? Certainly NOT in its past history Many times people with Gnostic knowledge confronted the church and its clergy. For example, the horrors of the plagues that Europe suffered revived the Gnostic opinions of an evil demigod conatrolling the plane and causing the scourges on purpose. But the church, instead of confronting this information, looked for scapegoats and found the hebrews. It encouraged the persecution of the Jews to divert attention from that developing idea that the terrible palgues which killed half of Europe's population, were caused by a malicious god. Killing the Jews vented the people's anger which they had against the clergy, many of whose members cowardly deserted plague stricken areas. And it is documented that the Great Plagues of the 14th Century were blamed on the Jews who were said to have caused this pestilence bypoisoning the wells and streams. Each plague led to a pogrom. They were persecuted everywhere. In France, Spain, Bavaria, Palestine and in Cologne there are explicit details of the most wanton atrocities against them. The Inquisitors in Spain used the excuse of the plagues to expel the Jews and take their property which was their real aim. In 1492 the year of Columbus' discovery of the New World, by order of the Inquisitor-general Torquemada, Spanish Jews were given three months to accept Christianity or leave the country. The church claimed it was ligitimate to persecute and seize the property of the Jews and anyone hwo it thought heretical and the offical church policy is quoted as stating that - "No illegitimate violence is being done to Jews, infidels and heretics because these people have no rights" So much for the Brotherhood of Man and Brotherly Love. And of course the Inquisitors were able to point to anyone and say they were heretics, without fear of contradiction, for no one accused by them ever escaped punishment or was acquitted. This hatred of the Jews extended even further so that St. Bernard is quoted as saying "It would be an insult to Christ is the offspring of a Jew occupied the throne of Peter." How easily he and the church forgot the race of which Jesus was born. Apart from the diverse beliefs in doctrine which allowed the church to persecute the Gnostics, the Gnostics separated from the Christian church because they saw it hopelessly materialistic. >From the earliest days the Gnostics had declared that the God of the new (non-Jesus following) Christian church was evil, and that Ressurection of the flesh was a lie. And yet Tertullian, one of the founding church fathers had said that the Ressurection simply had to be believed because it was so absurd! As early as 190 A.D., it was declared that anyone who denied the ressurection was a heretic. The Gnostics also claimed that Baptism, as the church presented it, was useless and this the church would not tolerate. Throughout the ages the church changed its doctrine to suit the times. It had no hard and fast rules about God and Divinity. I will cite two examples of past cases: * The church tolerated Abortion until 1869 when it decided that the soul entered the body of the fetus at concept. Before then, the church did not disapprove of abortion saying that the fetus was soulless until the obstetrical phenomenon of "Quickening". In other words, it taught there was no soul until the fifth month. What hypocrisy there is in its change of policy of respect for the unborn child and in its excuse of the earlier folly by saying God had erred in not informing the church aboutthe correct time of the soul's entry into the fetus. * The second example is the one of Mesmer. When Mermer in 1840 demostrated that alteration of the state of consciousness was able to cure his subject of many psychosomatic diseased, the Vatican approved. But by 1847 it was reported that many subjects under such changed states of consciousness were having religious (ie spiritual) experiences, rediscovering their clairvoyance and other psychic powers which resulted in prophetic utterings. Immediately, the church declared mesmerism hertical and in 1856 an encyclical letter warned that Mesmerism was a dangerous error. Apart from the turn of face, which demostrates that the church hierarchy is NOT in contact with the Higher, Purer realms which provide the truth at all, it is another example of the church refusing to admit that spiritual illumination can come from within the person. In past times it wanted full control and wanted to prevent connection of people to their Higher Consciousness. And so it was that Luther questioned whether the church had such power in Heaven. The church was able to bribe many to do it dirty work. For example, warriors in the Crusades were promised indulgences regardless of crimes they committed in those Crusades or would commit in future. Was such an dispensation not the obvious assumption of a power only God could have? Where did the church draw the line and mark where its power ended? Nowhere...it declared itself omniopotent. The Crusades The Crusades to the Holy Land were not about liberating Holy Places at all. There were commercial enterprises to break into the Middle East and capture Arab trade which had been bypassing the very greedy 'holy?' Roman Empire for some time. The First Crusade of 1095 was a bloodbath! The Crusaders killed Jews, Greeks, Turks, etc..., as they went Eastward. Eventually local armies were forced to be called to repel them and kill the Crusaders. Another act of barbarism occurred in 1098 when the Crusaders massacred the entire population of Jerusalem. Many Jews were burnt alive in the synagogues. In 1204 they sacked Constantinople. These were acts of gross vandelism rather than the liberationf for a Christian cause. Even Richard the Lionheart, acting for the church, violated his Truce and slaughtered all his hostages. And yet even today he is looked upon as a 'Goody'. Europe was Christianized by force. All pagan communities who did not pay the Papacy were attacked. Other Gods were defamed and the church became more and more fanatical in its dictatorial policies. It was groups such as the Bogomils, the Cathars, the Albigensians who called the church the synagogue of Satan. They correctly condemned the worship of images, denied the power of the sacraments which the church could make up, read the bible for themselves and called Jehova a demon. And so it was the church instigated thr Crusades against the Albigensians in 1209 in which half the population of those districts was exterminated with the famous quote "Kill them all, the Lord knows his own." These Crusades, it is now realized by historians, probably destroyed the most advanced population of Europe and they led further into the Inquisitions. Apologist defend the Church by saying he had to defend herself. But what danger was there in the thoughts of others that induced it to go to such extremes? The answeris this: The church was fearful of the DANGER OF EXPOSURE which came from the Truth the Gnostics uttered! Posted: Thursday, May 08, 1997