Thursday, November 29, 2018

Thomas Sowell on Slavery


Thomas Sowell has been one of the my favorite writers and thinkers for quite some time now. I love his intellect and he is one of the most quotable people when it comes to race, politics and economics. Here is an excert on slavery from Black Rednecks and White Liberals by Thomas Sowell:

SLAVERY WAS AN EVIL OF GREATER SCOPE and magnitude than most people imagine and, as a result, its place in history is radically different from the way it is usually portrayed. Mention slavery
and immediately the image that arises is that of Africans and their descendants enslaved by Europeans and their descendants in the Southern United States—or, at most, Africans enslaved by Europeans in the Western Hemisphere. No other historic horror is so narrowly construed. No one thinks of war, famine, or decimating epidemics in such localized terms. These are afflictions that have been suffered by the entire human race, all over the planet—and so was slavery. Had slavery been limited to one race in one country during three centuries, its tragedies would not have been
one-tenth the magnitude that they were in fact.

Why this provincial view of a worldwide evil? Often it is those who are most critical of a “Eurocentric” view of the world who are most Eurocentric when it comes to the evils and failings of the human race. Why would anyone wish to arbitrarily understate an evil that plagued mankind for thousands of years, unless it was not this evil itself that was the real concern, but rather the
present-day uses of that historic evil? Clearly, the ability to score ideological points against American society or Western civilization, or to induce guilt and thereby extract benefits from the white population today, are greatly enhanced by making enslavement appear to be a peculiarly American, or a peculiarly white, crime.

Listen to an audio rendition of this here:


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Wednesday, November 28, 2018

The Haunted Chamber at Glamis Castle


The Haunted Chamber at Glamis Castle 

 A SUGGESTED SOLUTION OF THE MYSTERY - Article in Chamber's Journal 1898

THERE are few stories of haunted chambers in ancestral castles better known than that which is connected with Glamis Castle. Several variants of the tale are given; but these all have in common the notable peculiarity that the location of the mysterious chamber is unknown. In this respect the legend differs from the common ghost-story. It is not a bedroom where some crime has been committed, and which the spirit of the wronged person haunts at the midnight hour, causing terror and dismay in the heart of the luckless temporary guest. There are no indelible bloodmarks shown; no clanking fetters are heard; no white lady is ever seen pacing the oaken floor with restless steps, and wailing her griefs upon the startled air. So far as is known, the ghost of Glamis has hardly ever been seen by mortal eye; though sometimes, it is alleged, on stormy nights, when the wild wind whistles around the quaint towers and gables of the ancient structure, the sounds of blasphemous language may be heard above the raging fury of the elements. Hence the mystery of Glamis Castle is more profound than the average ghostly tale; and yet it may be possible to suggest a very simple explanation of it.

In 1791 Sir Walter Scott visited Glamis Castle, and he refers to this event in his famous Quarterly Review article on 'Landscape Gardening,' published in 1828, and also in his Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, issued in 1830. The former deals only with the exterior of the Castle; but in the latter Scott incidentally mentions the secret chamber, and describes his own 'eerie' feelings during the night which he spent at Glamis. Unfortunately Sir Walter did not relate any of the traditions which he heard in connection with Glamis Castle, though these would have been quite within the scope of his work.

The first reference in literature to the ghost of Glamis is to be found in The Picture of Scotland, by Robert Chambers, published by William Tait of Edinburgh in 1826. The passage forms the foundation of all later allusions, and may here be quoted:

'As in all other old Scottish castles, there is a room in Glamis supposed to be haunted, and therefore shut up. But in the intricacies of the Castle it is supposed that there is also one which, if discovered, would be found to present a scene far beyond the simple horrors of a haunted chamber. Alexander, the Earl of Crawford, so notorious in Scottish history for his rebellion against James II., is popularly known in Fife and Angus by the descriptive appellation of Earl Beardie, and is, moreover, invested with all the terrible attributes understood by the term "a wicked laird." Certes he was, according to Bishop Lesley, "a verrey awful and rigorus man to all baronnes and gentlemen of the cuntry, and keist down mony of their houses in Angus quha wald nocht assist him, quhairof sindrey remains yit unbiggit again in this our dayis." It is the tradition of Glamis that he was playing at cards in the Castle, when, being warned to desist, as he was losing, he swore in a transport of fury that he would "play till the day of judgment." On this the devil appeared in the company, and they, room and all, disappeared. It is not known in what part of the house this room is situated, but it is well enough understood that, if ever discovered, Earl Beardie will be found, with all his party, still playing, and to play till the end of time. Some go the length of affirming that, on windy nights, the doomed gamesters are heard stamping their feet at one another, and mingling their impious exclamations with the passing blast.'

There can be no doubt that Robert Chambers obtained this tradition on the spot, and it is certain that the legend is still repeated in the district, and is well known wherever ghostly tales are current. The late Earl of Crawford and Balcarres (then Lord Lindsay) in his Lives of the Lindsays, published in 1836, relates the story almost in the words of Robert Chambers, referring to The Picture of Scotland for his authority. Andrew Jervise, in his Land of the Lindsays, published in 1853, alludes to the legend in the same terms. In the account of Glamis Castle given in A. H. Millar's Historical Castks of Scotland, published in 1890, some additional particulars are noted. The passage runs thus:

'There is a well-known tradition current in Forfarshire to the effect that there is a mysterious chamber in Glamis, the entrance to which is only known to three persons at one time—the Earl, the heir-apparent, and the factor on the estate—and that 'Beardie,' the fourth Earl of Crawford, is confined within its walls, doomed, as the penance for a hasty vow, to play dice till the day of judgment. It is hopeless to convert lovers of legendary lore from their belief by telling them that an authentic record declares that Earl Beardie "tuik the hot fever and died in the year of God ane thousand four hundreth fifty-four years, and wes buried with great triumph in the Grey Friars of Dundee in his forebears' sepulchre;" but it would be wrong for the incredulous scoffer to conclude that the tradition as to a secret chamber is altogether unfounded. We have the best authority for stating that such an apartment exists, and that its entrance is concealed, though the story of Earl Beardie's connection with it is a popular delusion.'

Quite a different version of the Glamis legend is given by J. H. Ingram in Haunted Homes, published in 1884. This writer alludes to 'an ominous chamber, said to be now cut off by a stone wall, and none is supposed to be acquainted with its locality save Lord Strathmore, his heir, and the factor of the estate. This wall is alleged to have been erected some few years ago by order of the late proprietor, in consequence of certain mysterious sights and sounds which he had both seen and heard.' The late Earl of Strathmore succeeded to the title in 1846 and died in 1865, so that the period of this 'alleged' closing of the entrance to the haunted chamber must have occurred between these dates. The cause of this action on Lord Strathmore's part is given by Mr Ingram on the authority of a correspondent of Dr Lee, and is in these terms:

'There is no doubt about the reality of the noises at Glamis Castle. On one occasion, some years ago, the head of the family, with several companions, was determined to investigate the cause. One night, when the disturbance was greater and more violent and alarming than usual—and, it should be premised, strange, weird, and unearthly sounds had often been heard, and by many persons, some quite unacquainted with the ill-repute of the castle—his Lordship went to the haunted room, opened the door with a key, and dropped back in a dead swoon into the arms of his companions; nor could he ever be induced to open his lips on the subject afterwards.'

Dr Lee's informant supplies the only record of a spectral appearance at Glamis. The story is as follows:

'On one occasion a lady and her child were staying for a few days at the Castle. The child was asleep in an adjoining dressing-room, and the lady, having gone to bed, lay awake for a while. Suddenly a cold blast stole into the room, extinguishing the night-light by her bedside, but not affecting the one in the dressing-room beyond, in which her child had its cot. By that light she saw a tall mailed figure pass into the dressing-room from that in which she was lying. Immediately thereafter there was a shriek from the child. Her maternal instinct was aroused. She rushed into the dressing-room, and found the child in an agony of fear. It described what it had seen as a giant, who came and leant over its face.'

Here are the details of the usual ghost-story, with the customary lack of corroboration. No other instance is known of the appearance of a figure, mailed or otherwise, at Glamis. It is important to notice that the only point in which all these stories agree is as to the existence of a secret chamber. One of the writers quoted above refers to this statement as being 'on the best authority.' The following incident, bearing upon this point, was related about thirty years ago by an aged, superannuated servant, who had long been in the service of the Strathmore family. On one occasion, early in the present century, when the Strathmore family was from home, some of the inquisitive domestics set themselves to discover the locality of the secret chamber. The plan they took was effectual. They went through every room in the castle, and placed towels outside of every window. There was one window which had no towel, and of course it was concluded that it belonged to the mystic room. It was said that when Lord Strathmore returned and found that the secret had been so far discovered, he dismissed the ringleaders in the conspiracy, and bound the others over to perpetual secrecy. To this day the exact position of this mysterious room is known only to three persons at one time.

An examination of the evidence shows that the oral tradition was in existence about a century ago, and that the earliest printed record dates back for over seventy years. Earl Beardie was dead three centuries and a half before the former time, yet his name may have survived as a nursery bugbear, just as that of the Black Douglas was used to terrify children in Sir Walter Scott's early days, as testified by the rhyme:

Hush ye, hush ye, do not fret ye,
The Black Douglas shall not get ye!

The evil reputation of Earl Beardie was a local Forfarshire superstition long after he had gone to receive the reward of his misdeeds. A story, therefore, which had any mystery connected with it would naturally be associated with his name. Hence the secret chamber at Glamis need not have been constructed previous to 1454—the date of Earl Beardie's death—so as to link his name with it. Indeed, it is far more likely to be an erection of a much later date, when the name of the 'Tiger Earl' had been canonised in an evil sense. It may here be explained that many structural curiosities at Glamis Castle have been only recently discovered. A splendid fireplace in the drawing-room, which was not known to exist, was accidentally found a few years ago; and a secret staircase, which appears to have been built about 1670, had been closed up, and was discovered in 1849, when some alterations were in progress. The principal renovator of the ancient Castle of Glamis was Patrick, first Earl of Strathmore, who was born in 1642 and died in 1695. In the Book of Record, written by this Lord Strathmore, and published by the Scottish History Society in 1890, he gives very full details of the work done by him at Glamis Castle. For instance, the construction of this back staircase, so long forgotten, is distinctly described; and from his references to certain leaden statues which he had erected in the grounds these works of art were recovered from their undignified seclusion in some of the cellars, and have been restored to their original positions.

When confronted with a mystery like that of the secret chamber, one naturally turns to the Book of Record to see if it contains any allusion to this apartment. The diligent student of that remarkable book will find two curious entries that seem to have some bearing on this subject. Writing on 24th June 1684, Lord Strathmore records the following transaction:

'Agried with the four masones in Glammiss for digging down from the floor of the litil pantry off the Lobbis a closet designed within the charterhouse there, for wch I am to give them 50 lib. scotts and four bolls meall.'

The work of constructing this closet or small chamber was more serious than the Earl had contemplated. Judging from similar chambers which he caused to be made at his other residence of Castle Lyon (now Castle Huntly) in the Carse of Gowrie, this closet was probably dug out of the thickness of the wall. On 25th July there is another reference to this closet, which shows that its construction was an arduous undertaking:

'I did add to the work before mentioned of a closet in my charter-house severall things of a considerable trouble, as the digging thorrow passages from the new work to the old, and thorrow that closet againe so that as now I have access off on flour [one floor] from the east quarter of the house of Glammis to the west syde of the house thorrow the low hall, and am to pay the masones, because of the uncertainty y'of dayes wages, and just so to the wright and plasterer.'

From these precise entries it is plain that in 1684 the first Earl of Strathmore caused a secret chamber or closet to be constructed, with an entrance from the charter-room. This was by no means an unusual thing, for many noble Scottish families have had frequent occasion to conceal documents that would have compromised them in times of war, and even a charter-room might not have been secure against the searches by enemies. The first Lord Strathmore himself, for instance, was deeply implicated in a Jacobite plot with the Earls of Southesk and Callander in 1689; and though he afterwards became reconciled to William III., it would be useful for him to have a secure hiding-place for treasonable papers. Several of his descendants were concerned in the risings of 1715 and 1745, and a chamber of this kind would be useful either to secrete documents or to afford shelter to a fugitive. The third Earl of Strathmore died of wounds he received at Sheriffmuir in 1715. By that time the masons who had constructed the secret chamber thirty years before would have passed away, and the lingering rumours of its existence would be linked in the popular mind with the mysterious Earl Beardie. For obvious reasons the successive Earls of Strathmore would not seek to dispel this superstition, and thus the simple 'closet designed within the charter-room' has been elevated to the dignity of a haunted chamber. At least this suggestion is a reasonable one. Certainly the secret of this mysterious closet has been faithfully kept alike by the Earls of Strathmore and their factors. In the middle of last century this secrecy was of vital importance. It has since become habitual and traditional.

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Monday, November 26, 2018

Areopagitica, John Milton's Free Speech Manifesto


Areopagitica by John Milton

[The great poet John Milton wrote perhaps the first great defense of free speech when the English republican Parliament reintroduced censorship via the Licensing Order of 1643 (censorship had effectively been abolished in 1640 along with the Star Chamber, which tried Lilburne).~Iain Murray]

See also Free Speech IS the Speech You Hate - Quotations on Freedom of Expression

Here is the text of the Areopagitica:

It has been said of "Areopagitica, a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing to the Parliament of England," that it is "the piece that lies more surely than any other at the very heart of our prose literature." In 1637 the Star Chamber issued a decree regulating the printing, circulation, and importation of books, and on June 14, 1643, the Long Parliament published an order in the same spirit. Milton felt that what had been done in the days of repression and tyranny was being continued under the reign of liberty, and that the time for protest had arrived. Liberty was the central principle of Milton's faith. He regarded it as the most potent, beneficent, and sacred factor in human progress; and he applied it all round—to literature, religion, marriage, and civic life. His "Areopagitica," published in November, 1644, was an application of the principle to literature that has remained unanswered. The word "Areopagitica" is derived from Areopagus, the celebrated open-air court in Athens, whose decision in matters of public importance was regarded as final.

1: The Right of Appeal

It is not a liberty which we can hope, that no grievance ever should arise in the Commonwealth—that let no man in this world expect; but when complaints are freely heard, deeply considered, and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty attained that wise men look for. To which we are already in good part arrived; and this will be attributed first to the strong assistance of God our Deliverer, next to your faithful guidance and undaunted wisdom, Lords and Commons of England.

If I should thus far presume upon the meek demeanour of your civil and gentle greatness, Lords and Commons, as to gainsay what your published Order hath directly said, I might defend myself with ease out of those ages to whose polite wisdom and letters we owe that we are not yet Goths and Jutlanders. Such honour was done in those days to men who professed the study of wisdom and eloquence that cities and signiories heard them gladly, and with great respect, if they had aught in public to admonish the state.

When your prudent spirit acknowledges and obeys the voice of reason from what quarter soever it be heard speaking, I know not what should withhold me from presenting ye with a fit instance wherein to show, both that love of truth which ye eminently profess, and that uprightness of your judgment which is not wont to be partial to yourselves, by judging over again that Order which ye have ordained to regulate printing: that no book, pamphlet, or paper shall be henceforth printed unless the same be first approved and licensed by such, or at least one of such, as shall be thereto appointed.

I shall lay before ye, first, that the inventors of licensing books be those whom ye will be loth to own; next, what is to be thought in general of reading, whatever sort the books be; last, that it will be primely to the discouragement of all learning and the stop of truth. I deny not that it is of greatest concernment in the Church and commonwealth to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves, as well as men. For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are.

Nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively and as vigorously productive as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and, being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet, on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to life beyond life. 'Tis true, no age can restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great loss; and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations fare the worse.

We should be wary, therefore, how we spill that seasoned life of man, preserved and stored up in books, since we see a kind of homicide may be thus committed, that strikes at that ethereal essence, the breath of reason itself, and slays an immortality rather than a life.

2: The History of Repression

In Athens, where books and wits were ever busier than in any other part of Greece, I find but only two sorts of writings which the magistrate cared to take notice of—those either blasphemous and atheistical, or libellous. The Romans, for many ages trained up only to a military roughness, knew of learning little. There libellous authors were quickly cast into prison, and the like severity was used if aught were impiously written. Except in these two points, how the world went in books the magistrate kept no reckoning.

By the time the emperors were become Christians, the books of those whom they took to be grand heretics were examined, refuted, and condemned in the general councils, and not till then were prohibited.

As for the writings of heathen authors, unless they were plain invectives against Christianity, they met with no interdict that can be cited till about the year 400. The primitive councils and bishops were wont only to declare what books were not commendable, passing no further till after the year 800, after which time the popes of Rome extended their dominion over men's eyes, as they had before over their judgments, burning and prohibiting to be read what they fancied not, till Martin V. by his Bull not only prohibited, but was the first that excommunicated the reading of heretical books; for about that time Wickliffe and Huss, growing terrible, drove the papal court to a stricter policy of prohibiting. To fill up the measure of encroachment, their last invention was to ordain that no book, pamphlet, or paper should be printed (as if St. Peter had bequeathed them the keys of the press also out of Paradise), unless it were approved and licensed under the hands of two or three glutton friars.

Not from any ancient state or polity or church, nor by any statute left us by our ancestors, but from the most tyrannous Inquisition have ye this book-licensing. Till then books were as freely admitted into the world as any other birth. No envious Juno sat cross-legged over the nativity of any man's intellectual offspring. That ye like not now these most certain authors of this licensing Order, all men who know the integrity of your actions will clear ye readily.

3: The Futility of Prohibition

But some will say, "What though the inventors were bad, the thing, for all that, may be good?" It may be so, yet I am of those who believe it will be a harder alchemy than Lullius ever knew to sublimate any good use out of such an invention.

Good and evil in the field of this world grow up together almost inseparably. As the state of man now is, what wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear, without the knowledge of evil? I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. That which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary. And how can we more safely, and with less danger scout into the regions of sin and falsity than by reading all manner of tractates and hearing all manner of reason? And this is the benefit which may be had of books promiscuously read.

'Tis next alleged we must not expose ourselves to temptations without necessity, and next to that, not employ our time in vain things. To both these objections one answer will serve—that to all men such books are not temptations, nor vanities, but useful drugs and materials wherewith to temper and compose effective and strong medicines. The rest, as children and childish men, who have not the art to qualify and prepare these working minerals, well may be exhorted to forbear, but hindered forcibly they cannot be by all the licensing that sainted Inquisition could ever yet contrive.

This Order of licensing conduces nothing to the end for which it was framed. If we think to regulate printing, thereby to rectify manners, we must regulate all recreations and pastimes, all that is delightful to man. No music must be heard, no song be set or sung, but what is grave and Doric. There must be licensing dancers, that no gesture, motion, or deportment be taught our youth but what by their allowance shall be thought honest. Our garments, also, should be referred to the licensing of some more sober workmasters to see them cut into a less wanton garb. Who shall regulate all the mixed conversation of our youth? Who shall still appoint what shall be discoursed, what presumed, and no further? Lastly, who shall forbid and separate all idle resort, all evil company? If every action which is good or evil in man at ripe years were to be under pittance and prescription and compulsion, what were virtue but a name?

When God gave Adam reason, he gave him reason to choose, for reason is but choosing. Wherefore did he create passions within us, pleasures round about us, but that these rightly tempered are the very ingredients of virtue?

Why should we then affect a rigour contrary to the manner of God and of nature, by abridging or scanting those means which books freely permitted are both to the trial of virtue and the exercise of truth?

4: An Indignity to Learning

I lastly proceed from the no good it can do to the manifest hurt it causes in being, first, the greatest discouragement and affront that can be offered to learning and to learned men. If ye be loth to dishearten utterly and discontent the free and ingenuous sort of such as were born to study, and love learning for itself, not for lucre or any other end but the service of God and of truth, and perhaps that lasting fame and perpetuity of praise which God and good men have consented shall be the reward of those whose published labours advance the good of mankind, then know that so far to distrust the judgment and the honesty of one who hath but a common repute in learning, and never yet offended, as not to count him fit to print his mind without a tutor and examiner, is the greatest displeasure and indignity to a free and knowing spirit that can be put upon him.

When a man writes to the world he summons up all his reason and deliberation to assist him; he searches, meditates, is industrious, and likely consults and confers with his judicious friends. If in this, the most consummate act of his fidelity and ripeness, no years, no industry, no former proof of his abilities can bring him to that state of maturity as not to be still mistrusted and suspected, unless he carry all his considerate diligence to the hasty view of an unleisured licenser, perhaps much his younger, perhaps far his inferior in judgment, perhaps one who never knew the labour of book-writing, and if he be not repulsed or slighted, must appear in print with his censor's hand on the back of his title, to be his bail and surety that he is no idiot or seducer, it cannot be but a dishonour and derogation to the author, to the book, to the privilege and dignity of learning.

And, further, to me it seems an undervaluing and vilifying of the whole nation. I cannot set so light by all the invention, the art, the wit, the grave and solid judgment which is in England, as that it can be comprehended in any twenty capacities how good soever, much less that it should not pass except their superintendence be over it, except it be sifted and strained with their strainers, that it should be uncurrent without their manual stamp. Truth and understanding are not such wares as to be monopolised and traded in by tickets and statutes and standards.

Lords and Commons of England, consider what nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the governors—a nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious and piercing spirit, acute to invent, subtle and sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach of any point the highest that human capacity can soar to. Is it for nothing that the grave and frugal Transylvanian sends out yearly from as far as the mountainous borders of Russia, and beyond the Hercynian wilderness, not their youth, but their staid men, to learn our language and our theologic arts? By all concurrence of signs, and by the general instinct of holy and devout men, God is decreeing to begin some new and great period in His Church, even to the reforming of Reformation itself. What does He, then, but reveal Himself to His servants, and as His manner is, first to His Englishmen?

Behold now this vast city—a city of refuge, the mansion house of liberty, encompassed and surrounded with His protection. The shop of war hath not there more anvils and hammers waking to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed justice in defence of beleaguered truth than there be pens and heads there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions and ideas wherewith to present, as with their homage and their fealty, the approaching Reformation; others as fast reading, trying all things, assenting to the force of reason and convincement. What could a man require more from a nation so pliant and so prone to seek after knowledge? Where there is much desire to learn, there, of necessity, will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making. A little generous prudence, a little forbearance of one another, and some grain of charity might win all these diligencies to join and unite in one general search after truth, could we but forego this prelatical tradition of crowding free consciences and Christian liberties into canons and precepts of men.

Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks. Methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam; purging and unsealing her long-abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance; while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means, and in their envious gabble would prognosticate a year of sects and schisms.

What should ye do then? Should ye suppress all this flowery crop of knowledge and new light? Should ye set an oligarchy of twenty engrossers over it, to bring a famine upon our minds again, when we shall know nothing but what is measured to us by their bushel? Believe it, Lords and Commons, they who counsel ye to such a suppressing do as good as bid ye suppress yourselves. If it be desired to know the immediate cause of all this free writing and free speaking, there cannot be assigned a truer than your own mild, and free, and humane government. It is the liberty, Lords and Commons, which our own valorous and happy counsels have purchased us, liberty, which is the nurse of all great wits. Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience above all liberties. And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple. Whoever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter? For who knows not that Truth is strong, next to the Almighty? She needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensing to make her victorious. Those are the shifts and defences that error uses against her power. Give her but room, and do not bind her when she sleeps.
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Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Christmas Among the Pagans


The twenty-fifth of December, the shortest day in the year, has been celebrated for many ages and among many peoples as a time of rejoicing. On this day the Egyptians held a festival in honor of the birth of their god Horus. The Romans called it “the birthday of the invincible sun,” and dedicated it to Bacchus, rejoicing with him that the sun was about to return and revivify the vineyards. The Persians observed it with ceremonies of uncommon splendor, keeping it as the birthday of Mithras, the mediator, a spirit of the sun. In China it has long been a joyous holiday, and in India it is a day in which homes are decorated with tinsel and flowers and presents are exchanged much as in America.

Just when this day came to be celebrated as the birthday of Christ, history does not tell us. We know that Christmas was observed in the early church at the beginning of the second century; for in 138 A.D., a bishop issued an order concerning it. It was apparently alreadya popular festival. There seems t) have been, however, a difference in the date when it was kept, as the eastern church observed it on Jan. 6, and the western church during the latter part of December. Finally, in the fourth century, Pope Julius assembled the principal theologians to examine the evidence, and they fixed on Dec. 25 as the date of Christ's birth and the appropriate day to hold the Christmas festival.

The customs which have attended the observance of Christmas are part pagan and part Christian, and it is not always easy to distinguish between the two. The Christmas log is the yule log of the worship of Odin. The mistletoe under which the Christian youth kisses the Christian maid is a remnant of Druidism. The Christmas tree finds its pagan prototype in the German Yggdrasil—~a great tree whose roots were hidden in the ground, but whose top reached to Walhalla (Valhalla), the old German paradise, where its leaves nourished the trout upon whose milk fallen heroes restored themselves. The pagan origin of our jolly friend, Santa Claus, is too well known to need consideration here.

In this country at first Christmas was excluded. The Pilgrim fathers rejected it because of its pagan connections. Thanksgiving largely occupied its place and was nicknamed the New England Christmas. But the Dutch settlers brought over with them their Christmas festival, and it soon rooted itself in the affections of the people, till it became our most joyous and welcome festal day. We need not hesitate because Christian and anti-Christian elements mingle in it. What paganism there is has been baptized to a noble service. But one thing we do need to guard, and that is that our feelings in the celebration be Christian and not pagan, that we recognize the religious meaning of Christmas, and that we observe it with that spirit of thankful gratitude which should characterize those for whom Christ came and died, rather than with the wild spirit of dissipation which characterized the Yuletide days.—Rev. Samuel Plantz, Ph.D., in California Advocate 1903

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Monday, November 19, 2018

The Best Quotes About Vampires and Werewolves


Zombies, vampires, Frankenstein's monster, robots, Wolfman - all of this stuff was really popular in the '50s. Robots are the only one of those make-believe monsters that have become real. They are really in our lives in a meaningful way. That's pretty fascinating to me. ~Daniel H. Wilson

Vampires get the joy of flying around and living forever, werewolves get the joy of animal spirits. But zombies, they're not rich, or aristocratic, they shuffle around. They're a group phenomenon, they're not very fast, they're quite sickly. So what's the pleasure of being one? ~Margaret Atwood

Werewolves were far more terrifying than vampires. It is probably the idea of seeing the human within the beast and knowing you can't reach it. It might as well be a great white shark. There is no sitting down and discussing Proust with it, which the traditional vampire model seems to leave room for. You can have a conversation. ~Glen Duncan

All writers are vampires. ~James Gandolfini

Before vampires were aesthetically appealing, they were physical anomalies and ostracized outsiders whom we banished to the dark, and they didn't have the appeal that they do now. ~Ian Somerhalder

Vampires have become tragic or romantic figures. Vampire are largely seduction tales. They're no longer the scary creature in the dark. ~Stephen Graham Jones

Europe is so much the home of Horror, with its myths of vampires, werewolves, witchcraft and the undead, yet it's like those myths were exported to Hollywood, leaving Europe the room to develop a new tradition as a way of processing its traumas, particularly the two world wars. ~Mark Gatiss

I have a lot of artifacts - books on witchcrafts and talismans. I have a big, big collection of original occult books from the 1800s and 1700s, and some of the oldest books on apparitions and vampires. All original printings. It's not that I'm a crazy believer, I just find it to be amazing research material. ~Guillermo del Toro

People have always had a fascination with the supernatural going back to the beginning of time and with vampires in particular. This phenomenon is not new. ~Richelle Mead

There are many vampires in the world today... you only have to think of the film business. ~Christopher Lee

In the 1970s vampires were pretty boring. The scariest vampire was Count Chocula. One bite of Count Chocula and you were cursed with Type 2 diabetes. ~The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson

The idea of death is something that doesn't make sense to a lot of people. But to bring something back - or vampires who never die - is a logical fantasy for a human being. ~Martin Landau

I often think a lot of women's attraction to vampires is based on the fact that vampires come from centuries ago, from eras of chivalry and courtly virtues. ~Stephen Moyer

Vampires, werewolves, fallen angels and fairies lurk in the shadows, their intentions far from honorable. ~Jeaniene Frost

I've done movies that I've been advised not to do. 'Dog Soldiers,' the movie I did 11 years ago now, I remember my agent at the time was like, 'You shouldn't do that. It's a weird film about werewolves,' and it became a cult hit. ~Kevin McKidd

“Another werewolf thing. Like most animals, we spent a large part of our lives engaged in the three Fs of basic survival. Feeding, fighting and... reproduction.” ~Kelley Armstrong

"Where the hell am I supposed to find silver bullets? K-Mart?" ~Rudy, The Monster Squad

"Never moon a werewolf." ~Mike Binder

"I saw a Werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand." ~Warren Zevon

"Werewolves did not consider wolves one of their own; in fact, wolves were inferior. They were hunters, strong and ravenous like them, but they weren't as big or as intelligent." ~Janiera Eldridge

"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray a vampyre's gaze to keep. If I turn before I wake, Beware the sunlight, cross and stake." Unknown

"Heh Heh Heh! Lisa! Vampires are make believe, just like elves and gremlins and eskimos!" ~Homer Simpson

"I always thought the appeal for vampires are the same as religion, the desire to avoid death and live forever." ~Bentley Little

You won't find a vampire in a Ford Fiesta. ~CHARLAINE HARRIS, Dead Until Dark

The tiger and lion may be more powerful, but the Wolf does not perform in the circus.

"But first, on earth as vampire sent,
Thy corpse shall from its tomb be rent,
Then ghastly haunt thy native place,
And suck the blood of all thy race;
There from thy daughter, sister, wife,
At midnight drain the stream of life;
Yet loathe the banquet which perforce
Must feed thy livid living corpse." ~LORD BYRON, The Giaour

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Sunday, November 18, 2018

The Mystery of the Irresistible Impulse by Emma May Buckingham


The Mystery of the Irresistible Impulse by Emma May Buckingham 1906

An irresistible impulse to write to a friend, or make an unpremeditated visit, or to postpone an intended journey, because something seemed to say, "You must not go," we have all experienced. To illustrate my meaning, I will relate a true occurrence. A gentleman, after engaging his stateroom for an ocean voyage, postponed his journey for a fortnight, because he had a startling impression that he should not sail in a certain vessel. The ship was run down by a tramp steamer and nearly all on board perished. A week later he set sail on another ocean liner and landed at Havre in safety. But why did not all on the doomed boat have a similar warning?

During the great Centennial Fair I started with my sister one morning for the Quaker City. An irresistible impulse to return home, after we had reached the station and were just stepping into the car, caused my sister to exclaim: "Stop! I must go home! We will take the next train." It was vain to urge her to go then, and she went home. As she entered the house the maid handed her a valuable ring which she had found on the breakfast table, and said: "I was afraid you would come back for it and lose your train." "Yes," said my sister, "there it goes now, but we will take the next one."

We went back to the station and the agent said: "It was fortunate that you did not take the early train, for it was wrecked at G_____, a dozen miles below us, and many of the excursionists were killed and wounded."

"Now I know why I had to go home," said my sister; "it was truly a Providential impression which caused our delay this morning, for everything was all right at my home."

We reached the city of Philadelphia in safety, thanks to an over-ruling Providence. But the wreck of the morning train was the worst during the Centennial Exposition.

Martin Luther felt an irresistible impulse to fling his inkstand at the devil. Did he see the devil with his mortal eyes? Does everybody experience such sensations? What is irresistible impulse? Is it a temptation from the evil one—or a germ of latent insanity? Or of suicidal mania? Or the whisper of a spirit?

Scientists have failed to give a lucid explanation. Mental philosophy does not clearly explain why a man will yield to an uncontrollable desire to place his hand under the falling hammer on an anvil or jump from the Brooklyn Bridge. I have never been able to explain why I cannot stand upon the deck of a ship or in front of a coming steam engine, or above the rapids of Niagara, on a high tower, or above the roaring machinery in the iron rolling mills, without feeling an almost irresistible impulse to fling myself down. And this desire is always without any known motive. If there is a latent desire to experience the awful sensation of falling, of being ground to atoms beneath ponderous machinery, or of being hurled by a boiling maelstrom of relentless, hungry waters into eternity, and in one breathless moment to realize a waking nightmare, I know not; for I cannot analayze my feelings at such a time. My whole being seems to be wrapped up in the sublimity, of the awful height, or power, or grandeur of the scene beneath my eyes. Fear is for the time dead. A sort of fiendish exaltation holds possession of my mind, nerves and brain; yes, every particle of my flesh is alive with this awful longing to make the fatal plunge. Did Christ experience this desire to fling himself down, I wonder, when he was tempted by Beelzebub on that high mountain? Or did he see the tempter in person? Is this desire the origin of suicidal mania? Again, where does this unnatural impulse end? Medical experts tell us that it is not insanity, for every one is, at times, subject to such impulsions, and they reason that if it is a mania, then that all men are monomaniacs, more or less; that it would be impossible to draw the line between the sane and insane. But, be this true or false reasoning, I ask again, where does this so-called irresistible impulse end? Do you answer, In self-destruction? Do you remind me of the recent case of the boy murderer who, when on trial, declared that his desire to kill was too strong for his powers of resistance— that he "had to kill" his victims—that he took their innocent lives because, in his own words, he "had to do it?"

A few months ago a man leaped from the top floor of a foundry into a caldron of burning or liquid iron, in my native State.

From the Trenton Advertiser, October 5, 1884, I copy the following extract of a letter from Bradford, Pa., dated October 4, 1884. It says: "A day or two ago a tall, handsome woman got into the ladies' car at Dunkirk. With her was a bright little boy, some two years old. The child laughed and played with the passengers. When the train left Cataragus the woman who seemed nervous, got out of her seat, picked up the baby and started for the rear of the car.

"A short distance east of Cataragus is a long, deep gulf, over which the cars run over a high trestle. The distance from the top of the trestle to the wagon road below is perhaps one hundred feet. A sharp and short curve leads to it. As the train rushed over the gulf a woman's piercing shriek was heard. 'I looked,' said the brakeman, 'and saw an object leap from the platform into the rocky gulf. That object, sir, was the lady passenger; and in her arms, closely pressed to her breast, was her infant. I pulled the bell cord and the train came to a halt. How it happened I cannot say, but at the time the woman jumped a load of hay, drawn by a pair of oxen, passed under the trestle. Mother and child landed squarely in the centre of the hay and were thus saved from a horrible death. The woman, who was not hurt in the least, said her name was Mrs. Adam Schell, and her home was in Michigan. She was on her way to visit friends in the oil country.' Mrs. Schell said that she could not explain her action. When near the car door she was seized with an insane desire to jump from the train." I should call the above an excellent illustration of irresistible impulse.

Is not the suicidal mania an irresistible impulse?

I have somewhere seen a painting by a celebrated artist, in which the central figure was a noble-looking youth. On his right was an angel whispering in his ear, on his left a fiend endeavoring to lead him astray. Is the old artist's idea true? Are these morbid impulses the suggestions of the evil spirit, and do our good impressions and desires and monitions come from our guardian angels? Are conscience and desire, which sway us like reeds in the gale and lead us into good or evil against our own will power, only suggestions from guardian angels or lost spirits? Again, has not the Holy Spirit been sent into the world since the age of prophecy and miracles "to reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment," also, to "guide" us "into all truth?" And will not this Holy Spirit save us from self-destruction, from the suggestions of the soul's worst enemy, if we open the ears of our hearts and receive His teachings?

May irresistible impulse belong to, or be a product of, habit? Habits of unbridled thoughts and actions and idle day dreams may lead the soul astray. Habit cannot be classed among the natural attributes of individuals. It is always something acquired.

Our spiritual, intellectual and physical natures form a trinity. Give the first, or emotional, full reins, and it runs into melancholia, or religious mania. Allow the second full sway, and we have insanity. Leave the third, or animal, tendency unchecked by conscience, reason, human laws or Divine love, and lo! instead of the noblest work of God, behold a brute—an orangutang or chimpanzee!

We are all monomaniacs to a greater or less degree. Is not habit itself a sort of mania, a species of insanity? May not the practice of drinking spirituous liquors, of chewing, smoking or snuffing tobacco, drinking tea and coffee to excess, as well as eating morphia, hashish, quinine, camphor, caffeine, arsenic, and using chloral, be classed with other kinds of mania?

Cannot an unnatural craving for certain beverages or edibles be called a habit? The practice of contracting debts, of gambling, betting, using profane language, of carelessness in dress, or in speaking one's mother tongue, also of indulging in slang phrases and obscene expressions, has, in all instances, been acquired, and may consequently be classed with the manias or bad habits.

It is always easier to fall into a habit than to correct it. Personal habits, like evil thoughts, run in certain grooves or brain cells. "Doing good deeds, aiding the poor, visiting the sick, praying or attending church regularly, may," says a writer on psychology, "be classed as habits."

Some have a penchant for making collections of plants, insects, marine curiosities or minerals; birds, pictures, china and bric-a-brac; stamps and autographs, or rare books, Indian relics and implements of warfare. Sleeplessness, soliloquizing, somnambulism, loquacity, gossiping, exaggerating, as well as seeing spectres and being subject to singular hallucinations or victims to suicidal mania, kleptomania or irresistible impulses, may, I should suppose, be classed as habits.

Imagination, glorious and indispensable gift to mortals, may be so unduly cultured that its possessor may be accused of drifting into all kinds of absurd isms, if not dementias.

May not the various forms of insanity, also of seeing ghosts, be attributed to diseased or overtrained imagination? Or, does the victim of superstition allow his thoughts to dwell upon the unknown until, like the Witch of Endor, he can summon at will all sorts of hobgoblins? Were those who were possessed of evil spirits in Christ's time simply insane, or were they suffering from diseased imaginations, or were they really possessed of devils? Is that the case of the insane to-day? And if devils or evil spirits can enter the minds of human beings still, what is to hinder spirits, good or bad, from appearing in visible form in the twentieth century?

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Friday, November 16, 2018

Socialism as an Irrational Religion By John Eustace Giles 1838


The Religion of the Socialist is Irrational in its Foundation

In “the Book of the New Moral World, by Robert Owen,” and bearing for its motto, “Sacred to truth, without mystery, mixture of error, or fear of man,” the foundation of the system is stated as follows,

“The Five Fundamental Facts, and Twenty Facts and Laws of Human Nature, on which the Rational System is founded.”

In another production entitled, “Outline of the Rational System,” &c. the Five facts are announced without the Twenty, as “the fundamental facts on which the Rational System of Society is founded;” while the Twenty are in no way spoken of as fundamental to the system, but denominated “The Constitution and Laws of Human Nature, or Moral Science of Man.”

In these two announcements, made in the same year, 1837, the Founder of Socialism, though he proclaims himself to the world as the wisest of men, and an infallible guide to happiness, has fallen, you perceive, into flat contradiction, on a point of no less importance than the foundation of his system. For while in the former statement he mentions at least “Twenty Facts and Laws of Human Nature,” as fundamental to his theory, in the latter he describes them as constituting, not the basis of his system, but the system itself, which he manages to found upon the five facts only. And whether he would have us adopt the first or the second of these statements, or, putting up with a little inconsistency, blend them both together; whether we are to regard his five facts as the foundation of the system, to the exclusion of the twenty, or the twenty to the exclusion of the five; and why in the former case the twenty are described as fundamental, or the five in the latter; whether we are to regard them all as equally fundamental, and why, if such be his meaning, the whole might not have been announced as the Five-and-twenty facts on which the Rational System is founded; or whether, finally, we are to consider the five fundamental to the twenty, as the twenty, in turn, are fundamental to the system; and, upon this supposition, by what process, excepting that of multiplying by four, he has contrived from his five facts to produce twenty, it is impossible, either from the announcements themselves, or the explanation given of them, to determine. Nor is there any way of accounting for statements so perplexing, at the very beginning of a work “sacred to truth, without mystery, or mixture of error,” (how evidently so ever written without “fear of man,”) unless we conclude either that the author, in imitation of ancient philosophers, designed to be unintelligible, or, in laying the foundation of his system, had dug so deep beneath the level of common sense, as to get lost in darkness. One thing, however, you perceive is certain, that the sole basis on which he pretends to found his opinions, is his knowledge of “human nature:” which may be shewn to be not only imperfect, but, though ever so perfect, insufficient for his purpose.

1. The Socialist's religion, then, is irrational in its basis, because founded upon an imperfect knowledge of human nature. Though it will be easy to evince, when necessary, that his boasted “facts and laws” are, many of them, nothing but unproved and worthless assertions, it will be sufficient for the general argument which we are now maintaining, to shew that his knowledge of man falls short of perfection. Professing to give a perfect standard of belief and practice, both with regard to our Maker and our fellow-men, he demands from us nothing less than the consignment of our entire happiness to his care; and consequently is bound, though there were no absurdity in making a knowledge of our nature only the ground of such lofty pretensions, to convince us that his acquaintance with that subject is complete. Because, if otherwise, he founds his system in partial ignorance of the nature for which he undertakes the work of universal legislation; and, for any thing he can affirm to the contrary, ignorance of what may be closely connected with its highest obligations, and most stupendous destinies. Our present argument, therefore, turns upon the simple inquiry, does the Founder of “the Rational System” possess an acquaintance with human nature thus perfect? Unabashed by the examples of great men in all ages, who by common consent have bewailed the deficiency of their knowledge, he answers this question, if we are to judge from his writings, in the affirmative. His book, as we have already seen, is “sacred to truth, without mystery, or mixture of error;” he pronounces his dogmas to be “divine,” “eternal and universal truths;” declares that they “demonstrate what human nature is,” and are in unity with “all” and “every part” of nature; and modestly triumphing in his immeasurable superiority to the wisdom of all nations and all ages, the wisdom not only of earth but of Heaven, “how opposed,” he exclaims, “are the harmony and unity of this science, to all the religions and codes of laws invented by the past generations of men, while ignorant of their own organization, and of the laws of nature!” But such pretensions, without covering the ignorance, only serve to shew the vanity and presumption in which his system is rooted; and it would be well for him to remember, that the boast of infallibility, whatever its success under the darkness of the middle ages, is sure, in the present day, to meet with pity or derision instead of reverence, being invariably regarded by wise men as the most hopeless symptom of dullness or insanity.

On the supposition, however, of its being necessary to put the perfection of his knowledge of human nature to the test, we have no occasion to torture him either with long or abstruse interrogation, since a few questions on one of the most simple occurrences of life will be sufficient for our purpose. If, for instance, we ask him to explain the process by which he lifts his arm? he replies with promptitude, “volition moves the brain, the brain the nerves, the nerves the muscles, and the muscles the bones, integuments, and skin, and thus the whole arm is put in motion.” But when we ask further, how volition moves the brain, or how the brain stimulates the nerves? the question strikes him dumb, and he stands in speechless ignorance before the most lenient tribunal of inquiry. Yet this blind and helpless creature, who cannot explain the twinkling of an eyelid, or the movement of a limb, but, as he creeps through life, picks up mystery at every step, places himself as a candidate for our faith, in opposition to the Lord and Saviour of the world; and offering to illuminate the path of happiness with his discoveries, calls upon us to toss away, and extinguish, if possible, the Lamp of life.

But, irrational as his pretensions to knowledge have been already found, let us view them in connection with some of the leading principles of his own system, and their absurdity will appear yet more glaring and contemptible. “Man,” he tells us, “is the creature of circumstances;” and, though he scoffs at the christian doctrines of the fall and depravity of our nature, he holds a theory of original sin and corruption peculiar to himselft Instead of the agency of Satan, whose existence he denies, he attributes the fall of man to the intervention of magistrates and priests; the latter, by the inculcation of religion, and the former, by the enforcement of laws, especially the law of marriage. Consequently, the whole human race have sunk into a state of ignorance, vice, wretchedness, and irrationality, entirely artificial. Their very organization, he affirms, has lamentably degenerated, and that to raise one of them from this condition, is utterly impossible, without an entire revolution in their circumstances.”

Now admitting, for the sake of argument, these statements to be true, whence, we naturally inquire, has the Founder of Socialism derived that perfection of knowledge and virtue, which renders him so infallible a guide to happiness? Generated from the common mass of corruption, and bred amidst circumstances which “compel men without their will” to be unnaturally vicious, ignorant, wretched, and irrational, he could never, according to his own theory, possess either the capacity or materials of wisdom; and, if desirous of being consistent, is reduced to the alternative either of renouncing his principles or his pretensions. But, in the reasoning of the Socialist, consistency is ef little importance; and, therefore, in defiance both of his five “fundamental facts and his twenty facts and laws of human nature,” he professes to have become mise, though born as the mild ass's colt. “The character of man is formed for him and not by him;” yet this mysterious being has formed a character of perfect excellence for himself. “Though man is the creature of circumstances,” he has not only successfully resisted their power, but, resolving to change the condition of the world, intends to shew that while man is the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of man. Artificial by education, and even by birth, with nothing too but what is artificial around him, he has become a perfect child of nature, in habit, feeling, and thought. From a book of unmingled falsehood, he has acquired the knowledge of unadulterated truth; in a land of Egyptian darkness, a darkness that may be felt, he has contrived, though hermetically sealed against a gleam from Heaven, to fill himself with unclouded light: and, throwing open the treasury of his knowledge to the world, offers to enrich mankind with sterling maxims of virtue, wisdom, and happiness, which have avowedly been drawn from a bank of wretchedness, insanity, and crime. When, therefore, the author of “the moral science of man” proclaims himself a teacher of “truth, without mystery or mixture of error,” offers himself as an infallible guide to all governments, all classes and nations, and professes to have found the means which, without the intervention of a miracle, shall transform “a Pandemonium into a terrestrial Paradise,” what, let me ask, can equal the absurdity of such pretensions except the folly of believing them! And since the root of his system is rottenness, what can be expected but that the blossom therof should go up as dust!

2. But were the views of human nature, upon which Socialism is based, not thus necessarily defective, it would still be irrational in its foundation, because the mere knowledge of man is too narrow, a ground upon which to dogmatize on morals and religion. As there are five fingers to the hand, and five senses to the body, let us admit that the “Fundamental facts of human nature” are neither more nor less than the “five” which the Socialist has given us; so that to extend them into six, or reduce them down to four, would be treason to common sense. Instead of multiplying them by four, and thus, as we have already hinted, converting them into twenty secondary facts, let us also suppose that to multiply by five, which makes them five-and-twenty, or by three, which reduces them to fifteen, would be a daring outrage against truth. Let us accept, I say, these arithmetical whims of the system, as the soundest logic and purest philosophy; compared with which, the discoveries of Newton are only as the transient gleam of a dew-drop to the immortal glitter of a star; yet how, from the contemplation of five, or twenty, or five-and-twenty, or any number of facts concerning human nature only, can he acquire the right of perpetual dictatorship in religion? or pronounce, with the infallible certainty which he professes, what it is safe to believe or disbelieve, to do or leave undone, in relation to the eternal God?

That some of the truths, both of religion and morality, may be drawn from the study of man, we readily allow; and, had the Socialist offered his opinions to the world as nothing more than the partial conclusions of a mind conscious of imperfection and liability to err, he never could have been assailed from our present position. But he professes to give the entire sum of religious truth and duty. He presumes to tell mankind that they are irrational in extending the circumference of their faith or practice a single inch beyond the puny circle of his discoveries; and, as he professes that his claims to implicit reverence are founded upon the observation of human nature only, his system is manifestly absurd in the main principle upon which it rests. Every relation supposes the existence of at least two parties; and, in order that we may understand the duties which lie between them, it is necessary that both should be considered. But the Socialist, admitting the existence of a First Cause, who sustains towards man the relation of a supreme, creative, and disposing power, absurdly and impiously presumes, with, avowedly, nothing but his observations on the inferior party before him, to scoff at the idea of revelation, and fix the obligations of creatures to their God.

In order that a servant might understand the duties owing to his master, would it be sufficient that he should consult simply his own inclinations; and, finding himself an idle, selfish, and sensual being, conclude that he had nothing more to do than, taking wages without work, to expend them on his lusts? Yet such is an exact illustration of the principle upon which “the children of the New Moral World” have founded their religion. To know what they owe to God, they look exclusively at man. To know the sun, they look at the moon. Consulting neither the nature nor the will of the Being who made them, they consider only themselves; and, finding in their hearts principles of selfishness, sensuality, and hatred to the Divine service, call upon mankind to quit the worship of God; and, regarding nothing but their worldly happiness, to live and die like the brutes which perish. Thus these modern Babel-builders, like those in the plains of Shinar, take for their basis a narrow space of earth; and, forgetting that a fabric so founded must end in a point infinitely short of their object, say to their fellows, “Go to, let us build a city and a tower, whose top shall reach to heaven.” So proceeding to their work, they have brick for stone, and slime have they for mortar, assertions for facts, and dogmatism for argument; and thus they rear a structure, which begins in error, rises in discord, and terminates in vain babblings and confusion.

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Thursday, November 15, 2018

Vampires, Ghosts & the Bleeding Nun in 19th Century Fiction


Vampires, Animated Corpses & Ghosts in Romantic Fiction by Edward Yardley 1880

WHEN a vampire dies, he rises from his grave at night, and supports a fresh existence by sucking the blood of other persons whilst they are asleep. These other persons soon die, and themselves become vampires. A body suspected of Vampirism is disinterred, and is generally recognised by the freshness of the face. A stake is driven through the heart of the vampire, who then utters a loud scream. The body is burnt to ashes. This is supposed to be the only way of finally getting rid of the nuisance. Lord Byron's lines in the 'Giaour' will be remembered. A story is to be found in Phlegon's treatise on wonderful things concerning a girl of the name of Philinnium, a native of Tralles, in Asia Minor, who not only after her death visited her lover, but ate, drank, and even cohabited with him. This event, which happened in the time of the Emperor Hadrian, is the subject of Goethe's poem, 'The Bride of Corinth.' Similar stories have been told by Alexandre Dumas, Washington Irving, and perhaps by others. Hauff has a story concerning a vessel, which a couple of shipwrecked sailors boarded. They found only corpses in the vessel, but at nighttime these corpses were animated, and worked the ship, In Coleridge's 'Ancient Mariner' dead seamen are reanimated. In a story by Marryat, half the crew of a vessel murdered the other half, including the boatswain, and threw their bodies overboard. At night the guilty survivors hear the boatswain's whistle, accompanied by the summons for all hands to go on deck. They go, and find the corpses, of which they thought they had rid themselves, still on deck. They try to throw them into the sea again, but the corpses cling to the murderers, and roll with them overboard.


Apparitions are generally ghosts, but there may be apparitions, raised by magic or witchcraft, which are not ghosts. Such are the apparitions of the armed head, bloody child, and eight kings in 'Macbeth.' The apparitions of the dead have always been an important element in the supernatural. Amongst others, the spirit of Caligula is said to have walked very much in the manner of a modern ghost. It will be quite impossible to deal completely with the ghosts that belong to romantic fiction. Some, like the spirits of Hamlet and Guido Cavalcanti, are too celebrated to require mention; others are too numerous and too insignificant. A few, however, will be specified. The Wild Huntsman, if not himself a ghost, is always in ghostly company. He is supposed by some to be Odin, by others to be one of the classic gods. He issues from the Venusberg, the refuge of the classic gods of antiquity, who fled thither on the prevalence of Christianity. He rides on stormy nights, followed by a train both of the living and the dead. The ghost of the Trusty Eckart, who died contending with the demons of the Venusberg, and who in vain warned Tannenhauser not to enter it, precedes the hellish crew, and warns men of their approach. For it is dangerous to meet them; and if any person is so unfortunate as to come across them, he is generally smitten with paralysis or insanity. Those who have met nymphs, peris, and fairies seem to have been liable to a similar mischief. Heme the Hunter, described by Shakspeare, is a ghost who bears some resemblance to the Wild Huntsman. The Willis, or Wilis (for the name seems to be spelt either way), exist chiefly in Hungary. They are the spirits of brides, who die on their wedding-day before consummation of marriage. They are to be seen by moonlight, where cross-roads meet; and they dance to death any unlucky man who encounters them. The story of Burger's 'Lenore' is this: Lenore's lover, William, had fought on King Frederick's side at the battle of Prague. The army returns, but no news is heard of William; and Lenore, in spite of her mother's supplications, curses God. At midnight she hears the tramp of a horse's hoofs beneath the window, and the voice of her lover calling her to ride with him to their wedding-bed. She descends and mounts behind him, learning too late that she is carried off by the spectre of her lover, who is bearing her to the grave, to punish her for her blasphemy. This, however, may perhaps be more properly considered a devil in the form of a lover than a ghost.

Another German ghost is the Bleeding Nun. This was a nun who, after committing many crimes and debaucheries, was assassinated by one of her paramours, and denied the rites of burial. After this she used to haunt the castle, where she was murdered, in her nun's dress, with her bleeding wounds. On one occasion, a young lady of the castle, wishing to elope with her lover, in order to make her flight easier, personated the bleeding nun. Unfortunately the lover, whilst expecting his lady under this disguise, eloped with the spectre herself, who presented herself to him and haunted him afterwards. This story is told by Lewis in his 'Monk,' and also by Musaeus. The Belludo is a Spanish ghost, mentioned by Washington Irving in his 'Tales of the Alhambra.' It issues forth in the dead of night, and scours the avenues of the Alhambra and the streets of Granada, in the shape of a headless horse, pursued by six hounds, with terrible yells and howlings. It is said to be the spirit of a Moorish king, who killed his six sons. And these sons hunt him in the shape of hounds at night-time in revenge. Besides the apparitions of the dead, there are apparitions of the living. It is mentioned, in one of the notes to 'Monsieur Oufle,' by the Abbe Bordelon, that monks and nuns, a short time before their death, have seen the images of themselves seated in their chairs or stalls. Another example may be given. Catherine of Russia, after retiring to her bedroom, was told that she had been seen just before to enter the state chamber. On hearing this she went thither, and saw the exact similitude of herself seated upon the throne. She ordered her guards to fire upon it. Another sort of ghost of the living is mentioned in an Eastern story. A soldier of the guard of a certain king met a spirit in the form of a beautiful woman, who was wailing bitterly; and she told him that she was the soul of the king, his master, who was fated to die within three days. Ghosts sometimes leave behind them substantial marks of their visits. In Scott's well-known ballad the phantom knight impresses an indelible mark on the lady who has been his paramour. In the Tartar stories, written by a Frenchman, a series of stories neither original nor well constructed, a ghost appears to Prince Faruk in a dream, and touches him on the arm. The prince finds the mark of the burn when he awakes.

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Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Death in Classic Fiction


Death in Romantic Fiction by Edward Yardley 1880

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DEATH is generally personified as a skeleton. Milton's conception of it is more imposing. He describes it as shapeless, unsubstantial, shaking a dreadful dart, and having the likeness of a kingly crown on what seemed its head. Death is a personage in Fouque's 'Sintram,' which is rather a weak romance, having been written for the purpose of illustrating a picture. In the 'Castle of Otranto' a skeleton appears in the garb of a monk; but this is rather the apparition of a dead man than the image of Death itself. In a drama by Calderon on the 'Purgatory of Patrick,' a figure uncloaks itself, and reveals to Lodovico Enio the form of a skeleton. In Slavonic folk-tales the plague is personified as a woman of hideous aspect. That the wounds of a murdered man should bleed afresh, whenever the murderer approaches the corpse, is a common superstition. In the 'Nibelungen Lied' the body of Siegfried thus proves the guilt of Gunther. Southey has a ballad, founded on one of the lays of Marie de France, on the subject of Sir Owen's descent into Purgatory. Sir Owen himself is alive, but he sees the place where the dead are. He gets very much frozen and very much burnt; and finally awakes to life at the entrance of the cavern into which he had descended. The aborigines of Mexico believed that the souls of the good became clouds or beautiful birds, or precious stones, and that the souls of the bad become beetles, rats, and other vile animals. The souls of defunct Mussulmans (Muslims) are supposed to inhabit green birds. Lord Byron, in the 'Bride of Abydos,' passes the soul of Selim into a bulbul, and that of Zuleika into a rose. The following story may perhaps here find its right place. A Spanish cavalier was in the habit of visiting a nun, with whom he had an intrigue. One night, on his way to her, he passed a church, where burial service was being performed for the dead. He asked the priest for the name of the dead person. To his horror and dismay, they mentioned his own name. He mounted his horse, and returned home, but was accompanied by two strange dogs. Immediately when he dismounted at his house, the dogs strangled him. As the circumstances could only be divulged by himself, it is not apparent how they were made known. The story is told by Alexandre Dumas, and is also mentioned by the Abbe Bordelon, in the 'Adventures of Monsieur Oufle,' as coming from the 'Hexameron.'

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Sunday, November 11, 2018

The New World Translation Bible Defended (Nov 11 2018)


Introducing a new blog dedicated to the New World Translation Bible, a Bible version that is often unfairly criticized. Simply visit https://newworldtranslation.blogspot.com/ and right now it features the following articles:

The New World Translation and Matthew 5:3

The King James Bible and Its Influence on Language
"An excellent habit to cultivate is the analytical study of the King James Bible. For simple yet rich and forceful English, this masterly production is hard to equal; and even though its Saxon vocabulary and poetic rhythm be unsuited to general composition, it is an invaluable model for writers on quaint or imaginative themes." ~Atheist Horror Writer H.P. Lovecraft

What They are Saying About the Trinity Doctrine Online
Forgive me for stating the obvious, but the Christian doctrine of the trinity is utterly ridiculous. Not only do I find the idea to be unfeasible and nonsensical, but as far as I can tell, it isn’t even necessary for the Christian religion to exist.

Jehovah Sounds Too "Mythological"

All Things Were Made BY Him By James YATES (F.R.S.), Ralph Wardlaw (D.D.) 1815

The Word ELOHIM and the "Holy Bible - Best God Damned Version"

Bible Versions from Ancient Syrian, Coptic, Latin, Aramaic CDROM (PDF Format)

Emanuel Swedenborg on the Name Jehovah

A Sloppy Criticism of John 1:1 in the New World Translation

James D. G. Dunn on John 1:1

An 1827 Journal on John 8:58


The Trinity a Source of Mental Confusion
We have seen that the doctrine of the Trinity is said to "perplex the understanding"; "bewilder the mind"; we cannot "comprehend it"; "when thinking of it, I lose myself as in a trance or ecstacy"; "it is strange and unaccountable"; "it is the mystery of mysteries"; "seemingly incredible"; "it contradicts our reason"; "it makes us use words without meaning". Such are the exclamations of learned and devout men who say they believe it.

The BDAG Lexicon, Revelation 3:14, and Jesus as "First Created"

The LORD Possessed Me...or the LORD Created Me at Proverbs 8:22?

The Trinity A Hindrance to the Spread of Christianity, By Hugh Hutton Stannus

The Deity of Christ and a Sponge Analogy

John L. Mckenzie, and "the Word was a divine being"

The New World Translation Bible Companion DVDrom (PDF)

The Absurdity of Trinitarian Belief by George Stuart Hawthorne 1851

Philo and the Logos as a Second God and Archangel

The Interrogation of Unitarian Anabaptist Martyr Herman van Vlekwijk

Erasmus and the Trinity Doctrine
If Erasmus was not Unitarian, in the proper sense of the term, he at any rate, by his strictly philological exegesis, supplied weapons to the adversaries of the Trinity, particularly to the Anabaptists of the Low Countries.

60 Different Versions & Editions of the King James Bible on DVDROM (PDF)

Excerpts from James L. Tomanek's 1958 New Testament
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God. In the beginning This Word was with God. All was done through It, and without It not even one thing was done.

Medicine in the Bible

The History of the Athanasian Creed by John Hamilton Thom
No general Council of the Church established the Athanasian creed; nor does any one know who wrote it, nor when it was first introduced. 

The Tetragrammaton and the New Testament

The Sex-Determinant in Mormon Theology-A Study in the Erotogenesis of Religion By Theodore Schroeder

Removing the Divine Name Renders a Bible Worthless

Emanuel Swedenborg on the Trinity Doctrine

Learn New Testament Bible Greek - 200 PDF Books on DVDrom

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