Dance of the Salii and Ronald Reagan.

Dance of the Salii.  On this date in ancient Rome, the gods Mars and Saturn were invoked each year by dancing priests brandishing spears and clashing holy shields.  The evil spirits of Winter were thus expelled from the city, and the growth of crops and gardens was stimulated through sympathetic magic.

Interesting to think that on this day in 1983 President Ronald Reagan proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative, popularly known as "Star Wars." 

Hmmmm.

Spring Equinox and Beer

The astronomical spring in the Northern Hemisphere began on Monday, March 20 and ended on Wednesday, June 21.  Yes, the first day of Spring, the Spring, or Vernal, Equinox is celebrated by Wiccans and Witches throughout the world.  Spring equinox (which is also known as Festival of the Trees, Alban Eilir, Ostara, and the Rite of Eostre) is a fertility rite celebrating the birth of Spring and the reawakening of life from the Earth.  On this sacred day, Witches light new fires at sunrise, rejoice, ring bells, and decorate hard-boiled eggs -- an ancient Pagan custom associated with the Goddess of Fertility.  The aspects of the Goddess invoked at this Sabbat are Eostre (the Saxon goddes of fertility) and Ostara (the German goddess of fertility); in some Wiccan traditions, the Green Goddess and the Lord of the Greenwood are worshiped on this day.  Like most of the old Pagan festivals, Spring Equinox was Christianized by the Church into the religious holiday of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ.


Is it any wonder that on this day in the year 1933, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt signed a bill allowing Americans to consume wine and beer with a maximum 3.2 percent alcohol level, triggering the end of Prohibition.  Happy days were truly here again.

Al Gore addressed the International Telecommunications Union on this day in 1994.  He said, "The Global Information Infrastructure will help educate our children and allow us to exchange ideas within a community and among nations."  President Clinton had asked Vice President Gore to handle the "information highway" thing.  Republicans called the "Internet Thing" another example of the Democrats Tax-and-Spend waste.   Within four years, the "Internet Thing" would be what it is today: our lifeline to information, both true and untrue.

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You cannot separate yourself from humanity even if you want to.  You live in it, for it, and together with it.  We are all created for interaction and communication with each other, but this is impossible without self-denial.

-- Marcus Aurelius

Dionysus lives - March 19

In ancient times, Greek theatrical performances known as the Urban Dionysus began annually on this date in honor of the god Dionysus.  They continued for five consecutive days.  Funny, it was on this same day in 1895 that the Lumière brothers, Louis and Auguste, shot a very short film of workers leaving a factory in Lyon.  That movie, the first in history, was seen by a small circle of friends and no one else.  It wasn't until December 28 that the Lumière brothers gave a public showing, along with nine more of their shorts, which also recorded fleeting moments from real life.

In that basement of the Grand Café in Paris, there was a full house:  Thirty-five people at a franc a seat.

Georges Méliès was in the audience.  He wanted to buy their movie camera.  Since they wouldn't sell it to him, he had to invent his own.


Yes, Dionysus lives.

We're All Hindu Today Mr. President

The annual Hindu festival of Holi is held in India on this date to celebrate Spring and to commemorate the burning death of the child-eating, she-demon known as Holika. Ceremonial fires are lit and Saturnalian street processions take place; with the usual distinctions of caste, sex and rank suspended, the revelers cover each other in powders and colored water and licentious frivolity is tolerated.  The frolicking recalls Krishna's adventures with the cowgirls (gopīs). Images of the gods placed on special platforms are ritually swung during the festivities; this is the Dolayãtra.

For all its popularity, the festival has little to do with the principles of orthodox Hinduism, and it seems clear that its origins are more ancient, lying in the primitive celebrations of new life and the need to restore fertility to the earth.

Notes on King Philip IV, Pope Clement V, and the Knights Templar.

March 11th has arrived, and what you should know about this day is that it is the day the last Grand Master of the Order of the Knights Templars, Jacques de Molay, died. Yes, he was burned alive at the stake on this date in the year 1314.  Shortly before he died, however, he accurately predicted the death of King Philip IV of France within the year and the death of Pope Clement V within forty days.   

The Templars  

The original Templars were founded in the 12th Century to guard pilgrims on their way along the dangerous roads that led to Jerusalem. Its members were effectively armed monk-like knights who were granted certain legal privileges and whose status was backed by the church. They were reputed to be the possessors of great wealth and power. 

King Philip IV

In 1306, King Philip IV expelled all Jews from France, seizing their property and confiscating the monies owed to them. Philip’s devotion to St. Louis was witnessed that same year by elaborate ceremonies in his honor, and Louis’s anti-Semitic proclivities might have inspired Philip to act against the Jews, whose usefulness as a source of regular revenue had in any case been exhausted by his earlier repeated impositions.

Feeling his oats from his successful removal of the Jews, King Philip then attacked the Knights Templars, the wealthy, powerful, independent crusading order that had long acted as the French monarchy’s financial agent. Philip’s newfound interest in uniting the crusading orders made him mistrustful of the Templars’ opposition to such plans. Thus, he was receptive to charges of heresy and sodomy presented against them in 1305, and so in September 1307, he ordered the seizing all Knights Templars in France.

Pope Clement V

Pope Clement V (1264 – April 20, 1314), born Bertrand de Goth (also occasionally spelled "Gouth" and "Got"), was Pope from 1305 to his death. He is memorable in history for suppressing the order of the Templars. He was Philip IV The Fair's personal choice for Pope, and more or less served Philip's interests.

Clement on throne

On October 13, 1307, came the arrest of hundreds of the Knights Templar in France, an action apparently financially motivated and undertaken by the efficient royal bureaucracy to increase the prestige of the crown. Philip IV was the force behind this ruthless move, but it has also tarnished the historical reputation of Clement V. From the very day of Clement V's coronation, the King had charged the Templars with heresy, immorality, and abuses, and the scruples of the Pope were compromised by a growing sense that the burgeoning French State might not wait for the Church, but would proceed independently. Clement was initially slow to respond to these charges and "with considerable courage … refused to give the king an answer … at once." He tried to "fend off" Philip's "demand for an inquiry" until Philip ordered the arrest of all members of the order. Clement interpreted this as an attack on the Church itself, and issued a bull ordering the "kings of the Christian lands … to arrest the Templars in their countries" but to do so in the name of the Pope. Clement may have hoped that the Templars' innocence would be proved, so yielded to the King's pressure to move against them. However, charged with heresy, sodomy, and all manners of abominations, they were, despite Clement's delaying tactics, eventually found guilty. Clement tried to avoid taking personal responsibility by sending a delegation of Cardinals to Paris to interrogate the prisoners.
In 1311, Council of Vienne was convened to pass judgment. Most of its 300 members thought the charges unproved but Philip himself testified to the order's guilt. Then, the Bull Vox in excelsis, dated March 22, 1312, written by Clement, was read. In this Bull, "the pope said that though he had no sufficient reasons for a formal condemnation of the order, nevertheless, because of the common weal, the hatred borne them by the King of France, the scandalous nature of their trial, and the probable dilapidation of the order's property in every Christian land, he suppressed it by virtue of his sovereign power, and not by any definitive sentence." Many of the knights were executed, and the order's wealth was confiscated. Although the order's assets were meant to devolve to the Hospitallers, they were appropriated by Philip. The guilt or innocence of the Templars is one of the more difficult historical problems, partly because of the atmosphere of hysteria that had built up in the preceding generation and the habitually intemperate language and extravagant denunciations exchanged between temporal rulers and churchmen, and partly because the subject has been embraced by conspiracy theorists and pseudo-historians.

The Deaths

King Philip’s stubborn resolve to defend morality and the faith was shown when, with royal acquiescence, the grand master of the Templars, Jacques de Molay, was burned at the stake after retracting his earlier confession. 

Clement V died in April 1314. According to one story, while his body was lying in state, a thunderstorm developed during the night and lightning struck the church where his body lay, igniting the building. The fire was so intense that, when it was extinguished, the body of Pope Clement V was almost completely destroyed. He is buried at La Chaise-Dieu in Auvergne.

The death of Clement V was a blow to King Philip.   Shortly after hearing of this death, the king had a minor stroke. Having regained strength, he travelled to his birthplace, Fontainebleau, and there, a day before his death, he halted collection of his last tax and provided for a crusading expedition to be conducted in his name.

We now return you to your normal broadcasting.  

Devil's Trill Sonata

Ah, you're going to love this, on this day in the year 1909, the famous Dutch clairvoyant and psychic healer Gerard Croiset wss born in the Netherlands.  What makes him so special?  Well, using his clairvoyant abilities, which manifested early in his childhood, Croiset healed hundreds of patients daily at his clinic.  He also worked with various police departments as a psychic criminologist and solved crimes in more than half a dozen countries.  His death occurred on July 20, 1980.

Also on the night of this day way back in 1712, the Devil visited the young violinist Giuseppe Tartini and played for him in his dreams.

Giuseppe didn't want to wake from this dream, he wanted it to go on and on, but it didn't, but he was left with his greatest work:  Devil's Trill Sonata.

A Pagan thought on International Women's Day.

March 8th you say, so what?   Well, so what, it is Mother Earth Day, a festival which honors the birthday of the Earth as a Mother Goddess, is celebrated annually on this day throughout China.  The festival consists of street parades, the lighting of firecrackers, feasting and partying, Birthday presents!

Weeeee....

 Guess what?

For the last 2000 years this honor has been screwed by a few good men.  Here is what they said:

Aristole:  "Woman is an incomplete man."

Saint Thomas Aquinas:  "Woman is the misbegotten product of some defect in the male sees."

Martin Luther:  "Men have broad shoulders and narrow hips, and accordingly they possess intelligence.  Women have narrow shoulders and wide hips, to keep house and bear and raise children."

Regarding their nature:

Francisco de Quevedo:  "Hens lay eggs and women lay men."

Saint John of Damascus:  "Woman is a sicked she-ass."

Arthur Schopenhauer:  "Woman is an animal with long hair and short sight."

Regarding their fate:

Jehovah said to women, according to the Bible: "Thy husband shall rule over thee."

Allah said to Mohammed, according to the Koran:  "Righteous women are obedient."


So what's in your wallet?

March 7, Esoterically Speaking

In the year 1770, the English Parliament debated a law to punish wily women.

Perfidious females had been seducing His Majesty's subjects and tricking them into matrimony using such evil arts as "scents, paints, cosmetic washes, artificial teeth, flase hair, Spanish wool, iron stays, hoops, high-heeled shoe or bolstered hips."

The authors of these frauds, the bill said, "shall incur the penalty of the law in force against withccraft and the like misdemeanours and the marriage, upon conviction, shall stand null and void."

Given the technological backwardness of the times, the bill failed to mention silicone, liposuction, Botox, plastic surgery and other medical and chemical innovations.

                                                                  --Eduardo Galeano

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On this day in the year 1890, the poet William Butler Yeats was initiated into the Isis-Urania Temple
of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.  There, he studied the magical arts and took the magical name Daemon est Deus Inversus (The Devil is God Reversed.")

George W. Bush Refuses UFO Disclosure and the Beat Goes On.

So, appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to promote his new book of paintings of soldiers wounded in the wars he started, former President George W. Bush refused to reveal anything about the government’s classified “UFO documents.

Kimmel asked, “This is a question that I think is very important to me and very important to the country.  When you were in office — and I don’t know when this happened or if it happened — did you go through the secret files; the UFO documents?”

The audience broke into laughter. Bush answered: "Maybe, I’m not telling you nothing."

So, the former President Bush is following the clever lines of the, then, president Obama, who had told Kimmel live, jokingly I might add: "The aliens won’t let it happen… they exercise strict control over us...I can’t reveal anything.”

Now, wouldn't it make sense for these guys to tell us something to lessen our interest in the subject if they could?  I don't know, maybe something like, "There's nothing there!"   Obviously, they don't gain anything from the vague answers.

As John Lennon once sang, "All I want is the true, just give me some truth... no short haired son...."

3

Ah yes, March 3rd fellow earthlings, or should I say... Pagans?   Witch?  Truth Seeker?  (I just demonstrated the Rule of Three's in writing there, very clever of me).   Nonetheless, today is the third day of the third month, and as you may or may-not know, "three" is a very magical number.  

The third day of the month is believed to be a very favorable time for Witches and practitioners of magic throughout the world.  This day is sacred to all Triple Goddesses and deities of the Moon (which shows itself in three aspects: waxing, full, and waning). 

The 3rd card of the Major Arcana is The Empress, symbolizing creative intelligence.  She is the perfect woman, the ultra-feminine, Mother Earth nurturer, who is our dreams made real, our hopes and aspirations embodied.  The Empress represents positive traits of charm, grace and unconditional love, and negative traits of vanity and affectation, as well as intolerance for imperfection.

And for those of you who are still holding on to the dying, false religion of duality and cruelty, the 3rd verse of the 3rd chapter of the 3rd book of the Shakespearean version (King James) bible (also know as Leviticus 3:3), says, "And he shall offer of the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire unto the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards."

Okay, that makes no sense, something about using your body fat to light a candle, I think (?)

Regarding the Kabbalah, the Third day of creation G-d created the grass, trees and fruits. This is also the only day that G-d says: “it is good” twice! Therefore, three represent the need for space, freedom and success (fruitful) in your work.

So get off your ass and do something. 

Now that I understand.  Don't you?

Mother March

In various parts of Europe (also on March 9th by some calendars, and not to be confused with the Woman March against Donald Trump, although closely related), women celebrate Mother March each year on this date.

The Mother-Goddess who presides over the third month of the year is honored and a festive parade is held to commemorate all women who have created life.
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If you understand yourself as a spiritual being, you can save yourself from all troubles.  No matter what happens to you, you will be untouchable.

-- Father Tolstoy

March 1st, Esoterically Speaking.

On this day in 1692, in Salem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Sarah Goode, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba, an Indian slave from Barbados, are charged with the illegal practice of witchcraft. Later that day, Tituba, possibly under coercion, confessed to the crime, encouraging the authorities to seek out more Salem witches.

Interesting that also on this day in the year 1888, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (an influential Western occult order and secret society) was established.  It offered teachings on ceremonial magic, divination, Kabbalah, and other occult oriented sciences.  Many of its rituals are still in use by modern-day practitioners of High Magic.  Aleister Crowley (one of the Golden Dawn's most famous members) was initiated into the Order in the year 1898 but was later expelled.

The only thing missing is a human sacrifice, wait, there was one: on this day in 1932, Charles Lindbergh Jr., the twenty-month-old son of aviation hero Charles Lindbergh, was kidnapped from the family’s new mansion in Hopewell, New Jersey.  For those of you who don't know, Lindbergh had become famous around the world five years earlier when he flew The Spirit of St. Louis across the Atlantic.  Unfortunately, the kidnappers had dropped the twenty-month old son off the ladder making their escape and he died immediately.