"One must not circulate in writing the doctrine of mysteries which none but the initiated are allowed to see." - St. Augustine
Let me first star out by saying that I am in no way attacking the average Roman Catholic church goer with this article. I do hope to show that Papal Rome has no only been complicit in allowing occult knowledge to flourish, but that since it's inception the Vatican has not only encouraged occult practices (so long as the knowledge was passed along to the Vatican, often through the Jesuits), but it also embraced those involved, some of whom are now considered preeminent Roman Catholic authorities or members of the "33 Doctors of the Church".
Over the last few century the lines between Christianity and Roman Catholicism have become blurred. Countless "documentaries" have sought to directly link paganism, war mongering, and treachery to the teachings of Christ, through the actions Papal Rome. Atheists and pagans alike have continuously pointed a finger toward the inquisition, insisting Rome declared war on anyone that followed ancient pagan tradition, or sought to challenge the superstitious and mythological understandings of how the universe works by presenting scientific evidence to the contrary.
What both of these groups fail to realize is that neither is actually true.
Papal Rome has always been the paganism of the mystery schools repackaged so as absorb pagan and Christian alike. Pagan festivals like Saturnalia and Juvenalia were renamed "Christmas". Some Christians who for 400 years had been hunted down, fed to lions, burned at the stake, etc... were willing to compromise their faith by celebrating the "birth of Christ", if for no other reason than they were no longer to be persecuted by Rome.
Many "Christian" groups, like the Waldenses were declared heretics for daring to preach outside of the control of the clergy. In 1211 more than 80 were burned as heretics at Strasbourg, which began several centuries of persecution that nearly destroyed the sect.
The Jesuit Confession of Faith imposed on papists in Hungary stated, "We also swear, that we will persecute this cursed evangelical doctrine, as long as we have a drop of blood in our bodies; and. we will eradicate it secretly and publicly; violently and deceitfully, with words, and with deeds; the sword not excluded." -reprinted The London Protestant Journal 1831
On the other hand, in 1258 Pope Alexander IV explicitly refused to allow the Inquisition to investigate charges of witchcraft: "The Inquisitors, deputed to investigate heresy, must not intrude into investigations of divination or sorcery without knowledge of manifest heresy involved."
"At the height of the "Great Hunt" (1567-1640) one half of all witchcraft cases brought before church courts were dismissed for lack of evidence. No torture was used, and the accused could clear himself by providing four to eight "compurgators", people who were willing to swear that he wasn't a witch. Only 21% of the cases ended with convictions, and the Church did not impose any kind of corporal or capital punishment." Keith Thomas (Religion and the Decline of Magic)
And such has been the Vatican's treatment of occult knowledge and actions for thousands of years. Do what you want, but lie about it and the Holy See, will allow it. In fact, the Vatican hasn't just let occultists off the hook for publicly renouncing their deeds, in several cases, it has given them high ranking positions of authority within the church, in several cases revering them in their elite class of "33 Doctors of the Church".
Albertus Magnus, also one of the revered 33 Doctors was a Dominican friar and bishop who achieved fame for his comprehensive knowledge of and advocacy for the peaceful coexistence of science and religion. Albertus' wrote thirty-eight volumes of knowledge of topics such as logic, theology, botany, geography, astronomy, astrology, mineralogy, chemistry, zoology, physiology, phrenology and others; all of which were the result of logic and observation. Albertus directly oversaw, trained, and taught Thomas Aquinas.
Albertus, like other revered men such as Issac Newton was an alchemist and magician. On the subject of alchemy and chemistry, he wrote treatises on Alchemy; Metals and Materials; the Secrets of Chemistry; and a Concordance which is a collection of Observations on the philosopher's stone; and other alchemy-chemistry topics, collected under the name of Theatrum Chemicum.
He is credited with the discovery of the element arsenic (Element #33 on the Periodic Table as it has 33 protons). He believed that stones had occult properties, as he related in his work De mineralibus. However, there is scant evidence that he personally performed alchemical experiments.
Albertus was deeply interested in astrology, as has been articulated by scholars such as Paola Zambelli.
Within his worldview, it was logical to believe that astrology could be used to predict the probable future of a human being. Albertus made this a central component of his philosophical system, arguing that an understanding of the celestial influences affecting us could help us to live our lives more in accord with Christian precepts.
It should also be noted that this study of astrology had nothing to do with the Mazzaroth of the Old Testament. This was directly related to studying the stars to determine the outcome of ones life, or... the lives of others. If there was any legitimacy to this form of astrology, one could see how Albertus' quest to understand how the stars related to a person's fleshly weaknesses could be used against those the church sought to control. It would be comparable to mind reading and then using that information to exploit an individual's weaknesses.
So here we see this revered man, a member this elite group of 33 special "Doctors" of the Church was for all intents and purposes, a wizard.
While travelling to Rome to publish and debate his 900 Theses Pico had an affair with the wife of one of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s cousins. Giovanni attempted to run off with the woman, but he was caught, wounded and thrown imprisoned. After his release, Pico spent several months in Perugia and nearby Fratta, recovering from his injuries. It was that he wrote "divine Providence... caused certain books to fall into my hands. They are Chaldean books... of Esdras, of Zoroaster and of Melchior, oracles of the magi, which contain a brief and dry interpretation of Chaldean philosophy, but full of mystery."
It was also in Perugia that Pico was introduced to the mystical Hebrew Kabbalah, which fascinated him, as did the late Classical Hermetic writers, such as Hermes Trismegistus. The Kabbalah and the Hermetica were thought in Pico's time to be as ancient as the Old Testament, and for that reason, he accorded them an almost scriptural status.
Upon finishing Oration on the Dignity of Man to accompany his 900 Theses he traveled to Rome and had them published in December 1486 offering to pay the expenses of any scholars who came to Rome to debate them publicly.
In February 1487, Pope Innocent VIII halted the proposed debate, and established a commission to review the orthodoxy of the Theses. Thirteen of the Theses were condemned.
Pico agreed in writing to retract them, but then proceeded to write an Apologia defending them. When the Pope was apprised of the circulation of this manuscript, he set up an inquisitorial tribunal, forcing Pico to renounce the Apologia as well which he also agreed to do.
Pico wasn't jailed for heresy. He wasn't burned at the stake for practicing divination or studying hermeticism. He was simply forced to make a public retraction. An inquisitional tribunal wasn't needed until Pico went back on his word and defended his beliefs, openly challenging papal authority.
Later, Pico would die under very mysterious circumstances in 1494. It was rumored that his own secretary had poisoned him.
It was recently announced that forensic tests have now shown that Pico likely died of arsenic poisoning... Good ol' Element #33, as was already noted, discovered by the Roman Catholic Church.
Some time after his death Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem was published. Disputationes is influenced by the arguments against astrology espoused by one of his intellectual heroes, St. Augustine of Hippo, and also by ideas held by his teacher, Marsilio Ficino, who may have encouraged him to write it. In fact, The manuscript was edited for publication after Pico’s death by his nephew was likely amended to be more forcefully critical of astrology.
I believe the church made an example of Pico, not because he was an occultist, but because he double crossed and humiliated the Pope with his insistence that Platonism, Neoplatonism, Aristotelianism, Hermeticism and Kabbalah formed a complete system of physics.
One could easily write off Pico's death as the end of a heretical movement and/or threat to the church, as many atheists, pagans, and occultists would like you to believe, but that's simply not the case.
Mirandola's work on Kabbalah was further developed by Athanasius Kircher, a Jesuit priest, hermeticist and polymath; in 1652, Kircher wrote on the subject in Oedipus Aegyptiacus. Though they both worked from within the Christian tradition, both were more interested in the syncretic approach. Their work led directly into Occult and Hermetic Qabalah. -Christian Kabbalah
In Oedipus Aegyptiacus, Kircher argued under the impression of the Hieroglyphica that ancient Egyptian was the language spoken by Adam and Eve, that Hermes Trismegistus was Moses, and that hieroglyphs were occult symbols which "cannot be translated by words, but expressed only by marks, characters and figures."
Kircher was also actively involved in the erection of obelisks in Roman squares, often adding fantastic "hieroglyphs" of his own design in the blank areas that are now puzzling to modern scholars.
Obviously Kircher was not oppressed by the Vatican. As a Jesuit he was allowed and encouraged to embrace the occult as he sought to give the order a greater understanding of the mysteries of Egypt.
As such, it can then only be assumed that Count Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's work, although declared heretical by the Pope, was still embraced heavily by the Jesuit order. This is because the Roman Catholic Church functions both exoterically and esoterically. They put on a dog and pony show of righteousness for the outer world, but inwardly they're no different than any other secret society... longing for secret stranglehold on occult knowledge and power.
Need more proof?
The Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems was a 1632 book by Galileo Galilei.
In the Copernican system the Earth and other planets orbit the Sun, while in the Ptolemaic system everything in the Universe circles around the Earth. The Dialogue was published in Florence under a formal license from the Inquisition. In 1633, Galileo was convicted of "grave suspicion of heresy" based on the book, which was then placed on the Index of Forbidden Books, from which it was not removed until 1835 (after the theories it discussed had been permitted in print in 1822.) In an action that was not announced at the time, the publication of anything else he had written or ever might write was also banned.
We're all familiar with Galileo being convicted of heresy by the Vatican and how stupid it was because, of course, Galileo was right.
But what most people don't know is that just like Count Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Galileo didn't run into trouble until he insisted on going public with his findings.
After 1610, when he began publicly supporting the heliocentric view, which placed the Sun at the centre of the universe, he met with bitter opposition from some philosophers and clerics, and two of the latter eventually denounced him to the Roman Inquisition early in 1615. Although he was cleared of any offence at that time, the Catholic Church nevertheless condemned heliocentrism as "false and contrary to Scripture" in February 1616, and Galileo was warned to abandon his support for it—which he promised to do. When he later defended his views in his most famous work, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, published in 1632, he was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy," forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.
The parallel to Pico runs even deeper than that. "Pope Urban VIII personally asked Galileo to give arguments for and against heliocentrism in the book, and to be careful not to advocate heliocentrism.
More eye opening than is by checking dates you'll find Galileo wasn't accused of anything until 1615. Yet we know that as early as 1611 Galileo was meeting with and visiting Jesuit astronomers in Rome. Christoph Grienberger, one of the Jesuit scholars on the faculty, sympathized with Galileo’s theories, but was asked to defend the Aristotelian viewpoint by Claudio Acquaviva, the Father General of the Jesuits.
So there is no denying the Jesuits knew well in advance that Galileo was correct and they asked him to hide it from the public. The Pope asked Galileo to hide his findings from the public. Brought before the Inquisition in 1615 he was found innocent simply by promising that he would recant his findings, which he later refused to do until his life was on the line. He then recanted and spent out the rest of his days under house arrest.
There is a very distinct and definitive pattern here. The fingerprint of the the dualistic nature of a society made up of the initiated seeking to keep the uninitiated from learning their secret knowledge.
How is this justified? More double speak of course.
LONDON, JAN. 12, 2002
Pope John Paul II noted that Jesus has exhorted us not to make useless attempts to find out what is reserved for God´s knowledge only. We should seek to use well the time that each one of us has available, motivated with filial love in spreading the Gospel´s message. -The Future is Reserved to God
Outwardly John Paul was telling people it's futile to try to figure out the future and the knowledge that is for God's eyes only. Christians don't need the Pope to tell them this, as the Bible makes it abundantly clear time and time again that divination and astrology are forms of witchcraft which we are expressly forbidden from embracing.
But what John Paul failed to mention is how the Pope and those that serve him would be excluded from this statement and as such, by papal decree have the right to explore any and all fields of occult knowledge, for all is known to God and in Papal Rome's eyes, the Pope IS GOD.
"To believe that our Lord God the Pope has not the power to decree as he is decreed, is to be deemed heretical." The Gloss of Extravagantes of Pope John XXII, Cum. Inter, title 14, chapter 4, "Ad Callem Sexti Decretalium", Column 140, Paris, 1685.
"The Pope takes the place of Jesus Christ on earth...by divine right the Pope has supreme and full power in faith, in morals over each and every pastor and his flock. He is the true vicar, the head of the entire church, the father and teacher of all Christians. He is the infallible ruler, the founder of dogmas, the author of and the judge of councils; the universal ruler of truth, the arbiter of the world, the supreme judge of heaven and earth, the judge of all, being judged by no one, God himself on earth." -Quoted in the New York Catechism.
This is just more proof that the Vatican is indeed filled with the pride of the spirit of antichrist and as such believes itself to be ruled over by their pope/god whom is to be viewed as all powerful, all mighty, and infallible. As such, he is well within his rights to have his minions seeking out occult knowledge so as to offer him the ability to be all knowing.
For pagans, and alchemists, and atheists, and scientists that view the Vatican as "Christian", they are wrong. If they view the Vatican as a hindrance to scientific knowledge, they again are wrong. The Vatican may have slowed the stream of scientific knowledge, but it must be understood that it wasn't always viewed as science. Much of it was directly tied into the occult. Chemistry was alchemy. Astronomy was Astrology.
The rejection of Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems was used to create just that.
Science and magic are not two wholly separate concepts. Any scientific laws which regulate this planet were set in motion by God. We simply came to understand them by the workings of men looking to "hack the operating system of the universe".
The Vatican always had a vested interest in keeping this knowledge safely hidden from the masses until such time as it could be used to create a schism in the way we think, driving a wedge between those that put their faith in science and those that put their faith in God. In reality, having faith in God is believing His ways are what's best for this planet. Scientific law is just a part of that and it bears witness to the genius behind Creation.
Men run into problems when they look to hack into and alter God's design. When they turn to astrology to understand themselves better, they're negating the Holy Spirit as the only guiding light needed in their lives.
I can understand why Pope after Pope has been hell bent on comprehending the secrets of the occult world, specifically those directly tied into divination and soothsaying. For a supposedly all powerful "vicar of Christ" these popes have been nothing more than fallible men in a fallen state with no more power than the armies, assassins, inquisitions, and men that follow their orders. A little supernatural power surely wouldn't hurt their quest to be viewed as god men.
The Vatican does NOT represent Christianity. It is nothing more than a secret society with a secret archive of knowledge, "The Vatican Secret Archives" estimated to contain 52 miles of shelving. The way it conducts it's business is no different than any other secret society. It presents the world with the exoteric, or outwardly showing of good deeds in sheep's clothing. They flaunt the name of Christ while embracing the spirit of antichrist.
And for those that refuse to understand this, for those that believe that Galileo wasn't an astrologer, that Newton wasn't an alchemist/magician, or that Kircher wasn't just a do gooding Jesuit and Renaissance man simply because all did their deeds under the guise of Christianity and in the name of Jesus Christ, then I'm sorry that I can't help you to understand the difference between judging men by their fruit and not by their words.
I will leave you with an illustration that I hope will enlighten you as to how the esoteric presentation of Christian concepts ties the occult world of black ritual magic directly back to Rome. If the reknown Satanist Eliphas Levi could invoke Christian concepts to bend the reality of his sorcery so as to fit the familiar exterior of Christianity, then no one and I mean no one involved in the occult while playing the role of a good Christian should be viewed as anything other than an occultist. You simply cannot have it both ways. Anyone playing the part of a Christian while invoking magic is just playing the game of Esotericism for acceptance while inwardly their spiritual fruit is rotten to the core.
"The fatherland of Catholic Christianity is that of the sciences and of the fine arts; and the eternal Word of the Gospel, living and incarnate in a visible authority, is still the light of the world... And do you know what the Catholicism of the future must be?
It will be the dogma of the Gospel, tried like gold by the critical acid of Voltaire, and realized, in the kingdom of the world...
Immense calamities may again hang over the world. The armies of the Apocalypse may, perhaps, one day, unchain the four scourges. The sanctuary will be cleansed. Rigid and holy poverty will send forth its apostles to uphold what staggers, lift up again what is broken, and anoint all wounds with sacred oils.
And the government of the future will be that whose model is shown to us in nature, by the family, and in the religious world by the pastoral hierarchy. The elect shall reign with Jesus Christ during a thousand years, say the apostolic traditions: that is to say, that during a series of centuries, the intelligence and love of chosen men, devoted to the burden of power, will administer the interests and the wealth of the universal family.
At that day, according to the promise of the Gospel, there will be no more than one flock and one shepherd." -Eliphas Levi: "The Key of The Mysteries" Pg 31 as translated by Aleister Crowley
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