Author Topic: THE EARTHMOVERS (Read 103644 times)

cantatedomino · « **Reply #165 on:** February 15, 2014, 05:42:40 AM »

THE EARTHMOVERS: Astronomy then, became the science of Emperors and Kings; the first and most important developed natural science for mankind before and after the global flood. Cassini goes on to tell us how astronomy allowed and assisted man to venture over the great landmasses from Spain to China, while at the same time enabling them to voyage throughout the seas and great oceans of the earth. He shows how maps of the world were created with astronomical help, and how this same art of measuring led Alexander and his army deep into territories ‘that nature seems to have hidden away.’

But these discoveries were only the prelude to those of the New World. Christopher Columbus, for example, on the basis of the knowledge he had of astronomy and the measurements determined by the astronomers of Almamon, and what he had learned in the books of Ptolemy, went straight west, taking care always to observe the position of the sun by day and of the fixed stars by night. This precaution kept him from straying, for those who have written his biography say that the observations of the sky made him see with his telescope a variant that was unknown to him, and also helped him to realign himself unto the night course throughout the year. Once trade and commerce resulted, nations gained great wealth and development. Astronomy, it seems, was power, and no wonder the men that excelled in it were revered and sometimes treated as gods.

Of interest is Cassini’s short account of the Gregorian Calendar:

While Tyco was observing in Denmark, many famous astronomers gathered in Rome under the aegis of Pope Gregory VIII, worked with great success at correcting the errors that had crept in insensibly in the old calendar by the precession of Equinoxes and through anticipation of new Moons. These errors later would have completely overturned the order established by the Councils for the celebrations of moveable feasts had the calendar not been revised according to modern observations of the movements of the Sun and of the Moon compared with the old times. It was Aloysius Lilius (1510-1576) who invented the new form of the Gregorian year, but after his death Christoph Clavius (1537–1612) perfected it, gave its explanation, and its defence.

If one reads some accounts of history written by those who would like to portray Copernicus as the main influence in the updating of the Julian calendar, it seems he had little to do with its reform:

Among Catholics, Christoph Clavius was the leading astronomer in the sixteenth century. A Jesuit himself, he incorporated astronomy into the Jesuit curriculum and was the principal scholar behind the creation of the Gregorian calendar. Like the Wittenberg astronomers, Clavius adopted Copernican mathematical models when he felt them superior, but he believed that Ptolemy's cosmology, both his ordering of the planets and his use of the equant, was correct. - - - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

But there was yet a higher purpose to astronomy.

To what we have said on the usefulness of astronomy, one can add the advantages that have been drawn and continue to be drawn every day for the propagation of the Faith, because it is by the use and protection afforded by this science, that those dedicated to preaching the Gospel to the Infidel, penetrate the furthest countries and live there not only in safety but even with full freedom to preach the truths of the faith, that they draw the admiration of peoples, and they work their way into familiarity with the powers that be, and they even win the favour of Sovereigns. Thus this science has opened up to missionaries the vast Empire of China, whose entry was forbidden by the laws of the land and for reasons of State to all foreigners, and it was used to obtain permission to build churches there and publicly to practice the true faith.

This is why the King [Louis XIV] wanted the missionaries who go to preach the Gospel to China, in the Kingdom of Siam, and in the other states of the East Indies, to be instructed in the ways the Academy makes astronomical observations, and that they take from the Academy very ample memories of what they have to do and remember in their travels. The observations that these missionaries have already made in conjunction with the Academy and which they have sent back to it, compared with those made at the same time at the observatory, have already communicated great lights; and it is not to be doubted that progress will continue to be made in these far-off countries, greatly to contribute to the progress of astronomy; and if the persons who work at this science in foreign lands set up correspondence with the Academy and send it their observations, as the Academy offers likewise to share with them its own; there is reason to hope that in a short while not only astronomy, but also geography and the art of navigation will be raised to their highest perfection. (J.D. Cassini, The Progress of Astronomy, pp.51-52.)

cantatedomino · « **Reply #166 on:** February 15, 2014, 06:17:42 AM »

THE EARTHMOVERS:

Chapter Six: The Progress Of Astronomy

Ptolemy

To determine the known history of accurate measurement in modern astronomy we go to Alexandria, a city at the mouth of the Nile built by Alexander the Great. Greek scholars gathered there, and the Museum or University of Alexandria grew into a great centre of learning. Around 330BC, a famous school of astronomers was founded on this campus, and here the Greeks, with their craving for knowledge and the precision of it, began to observe the sky, constantly improving instruments for measuring and gathering data on the heavens. This school flourished for centuries.

The first and most obvious astronomical understanding was the relationship between the sun and the earth. From earth we see the sun rise in the east, pass overhead and disappear westward under the horizon until it appears again in the east to continue its movement. This time period, divided into 24 hours, was classed as one astronomical day. This ‘day’ was also divided into two periods, one from sunrise to sunset, called daytime, and sunset to sunrise, called night-time.

The second recurring motion noted was that of the moon. As well as turning around the earth every day, it also shifted position in the sky for 29.33 days before returning to its original position. This was interpreted as a full rotation of the moon around the earth every month.

The third time period was based on a different movement of the sun. From all points on earth, the daily motion of the sun shifts north and south and back again completing this movement over around 365 days. Careful measuring showed this path, if begun at the centre line around the earth (the Equator), goes 23.5 degrees north (called the Tropic of Cancer) and back down again to a point 23.5 degrees south of the Equator (called the Tropic of Capricorn) when it begins the cycle again. Like a precision instrument, the sun thus continues to deliver spring, summer, autumn and winter to both hemispheres in turn. This period was called a year.

Alas, this tropical year as it is called, does not divide evenly into twelve months, so adjustments in the number of days allocated to each of the twelve months had to be made. If the civil year (365 days) were to hold to the tropical year (365.242264 days), as the ancient Egyptians did, the dates would regress through all the various seasons of the year performing a complete revolution in 1508 years. Julius Caesar tried to solve this problem by the intercalation every fourth year of a leap year consisting of 366 days. But this too, because it made each year 365.25 days, now progressed the year by 11 minutes 12 seconds doing a complete cycle in 47,213 years.

As it happened, Caesar’s 27.85 seconds a day aberration meant that by the early 1600s the Spring Equinox was 10 days out. To resolve this, in Oct. 1582, Pope Gregory XIII, after great consultation, removed 10 days off the new ‘Gregorian Calendar,’ which, because it was out by a mere second, means our successors will have to make further adjustments in 4,000 years.

As a matter of interest it was Dionysius who in the 6th century proposed the year of the Incarnation of Christ as the year zero or nought, when the sun was in the constellation of Pisces, the sign of the fish, the beginning of the age of Pisces.

Then there is the astronomer Hipparchus who worked out that there is another ‘day,’ the period in which the stars do a complete daily revolution around the earth. [Hipparchus (died 125BC) was born in Nicaea in north-western Asia Minor. Little else is known about his personal life and fortune. Most of what we do know of his astronomy is due to the references made by the equally famous Ptolemy (died 187AD.) in his Almagest because, with one small exception, his works have been lost.]

This star measured day is called a sidereal day. But this presented another problem because an astronomical day - measured by the sun’s meridian passage - exceeds the sidereal day, measured by the meridian passage of any fixed star, by nearly four minutes every day. This in turn of course resulted in a star measured year, a sidereal year, and some 20 min 20 seconds shorter than the tropical year. This disparity is responsible for the phenomenon called the precession of the equinoxes, a retrograde motion of the equinoxes that will complete a full revolution in the plane of the ecliptic every 25,869 years.
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cantatedomino · « **Reply #167 on:** February 15, 2014, 07:17:07 AM »

THE EARTHMOVERS:

Let us try to understand this precession. Were it possible to determine every cause of motion in the universe and extrapolate backwards, we would have to arrive at a first thing or things moved either directly by God or by the Angels as commanded by Him. Alas, we do not know what is moved by His will alone or as a result of secondary causes that flow from the First Cause. In His geocentric world revealed in Scripture, it could be God keeps the universe alive and moving using His will alone or by consigning an angel to direct every body in it according to His will.

If we try to reason out this primary movement by God that prevails in a geocentric universe, one possibility is that it is the firmament or space itself that God rotates, another that all the stars rotate within the universe. Earlier we saw how Cardinal Bellarmine in one of his lectures in 1571 considered a similar situation: Does the universe with the stars fixed into it itself turn or do the stars move in unison? This first movement causes within it effects that act upon the matter contained within the bubble of revolving space, just as a gyroscope radiates dynamic angular momentum and direction such as is found in electromagnetism. Such a proposal, we know, cannot be proven or falsified scientifically, but is as theologically and philosophically credible as any ever presented.

‘As with any spinning-top such as an animated gyroscope, the spin-axis is visibly seen to precess in a repeating fixed period. In other words over a fixed period the precessional axis would seem to behave as a closed-curve completing a full circle. The periodicity of the precessional phenomenon is often given as 25920 years which is 2 x 216 x 60 or twice 6-cubed by sixty. In the heliocentric explanation for precession the earth alone spins taking on the movement of a spinning top. Now we ask and answer an important question.

‘Q. Under relative movement wherein anywhere can be the centre of the universe, can we say anywhere will also have the axis of a revolving universe through it?’

A. We can certainly say that but would anyone believe it? Giordano Bruno spoke of an infinite universe, its ‘centre everywhere.’ These three words are difficult for the mind to grasp let alone associated with one or more spin-axes? Leaving aside the fact that even today there is no general analytical solution for the three-body problem (see chapter on Sir Isaac Newton); consider how many things need to happen with multiple bodies at SPECIFIC times for the relativity version of precession to be believable.’

cantatedomino · « **Reply #168 on:** February 15, 2014, 07:23:20 AM »

THE EARTHMOVERS:

Then there are the stars. A more careful look (before telescopes) at them showed that while all rotate about the earth every day, five of them shifted around the sky with independent movements of their own. These stars, known then as the ‘wandering stars,’ were not as brilliant or sparkling like the others and in time were identified as sun-reflecting planets called Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

With the planets now identified as such, and they seemingly turning about the earth every day, the first depicted model of the universe was simple. It showed the stars, sun, all the known planets at the time, moving in concentric circles, the one simple circle outside of which is another circle, outside of which is another circle etc. This is known as the Concentric System.

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Neil Obstat · « **Reply #169 on:** February 16, 2014, 04:23:54 AM »

.

This is very interesting. Thank you.

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Neil Obstat · « **Reply #170 on:** February 16, 2014, 04:38:43 AM »

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Dear cantatedomino,

When you are going to use different sizes of letters in the same post with the Times font, you have to repeat the "font=times" and "/font" within each pair of "size" commands, or else your letters will show up smaller than usual.

It doesn't seem that would make any difference, but it does, here on CI. I have repeated your earlier post, below, with that one thing changed: see how the words are slightly larger here. I'm just mentioning that in case it helps in future posts. You can click on "QUOTE" -- the blue button in the top right corner, and see how these codes in my post here are arranged.

THE EARTHMOVERS:

Chapter Six: The Progress Of Astronomy

Ptolemy

To determine the known history of accurate measurement in modern astronomy we go to Alexandria, a city at the mouth of the Nile built by Alexander the Great. Greek scholars gathered there, and the Museum or University of Alexandria grew into a great centre of learning. Around 330BC, a famous school of astronomers was founded on this campus, and here the Greeks, with their craving for knowledge and the precision of it, began to observe the sky, constantly improving instruments for measuring and gathering data on the heavens. This school flourished for centuries.

The first and most obvious astronomical understanding was the relationship between the sun and the earth. From earth we see the sun rise in the east, pass overhead and disappear westward under the horizon until it appears again in the east to continue its movement. This time period, divided into 24 hours, was classed as one astronomical day. This ‘day’ was also divided into two periods, one from sunrise to sunset, called daytime, and sunset to sunrise, called night-time.

The second recurring motion noted was that of the moon. As well as turning around the earth every day, it also shifted position in the sky for 29.33 days before returning to its original position. This was interpreted as a full rotation of the moon around the earth every month.

The third time period was based on a different movement of the sun. From all points on earth, the daily motion of the sun shifts north and south and back again completing this movement over around 365 days. Careful measuring showed this path, if begun at the centre line around the earth (the Equator), goes 23.5 degrees north (called the Tropic of Cancer) and back down again to a point 23.5 degrees south of the Equator (called the Tropic of Capricorn) when it begins the cycle again. Like a precision instrument, the sun thus continues to deliver spring, summer, autumn and winter to both hemispheres in turn. This period was called a year.

Alas, this tropical year as it is called, does not divide evenly into twelve months, so adjustments in the number of days allocated to each of the twelve months had to be made. If the civil year (365 days) were to hold to the tropical year (365.242264 days), as the ancient Egyptians did, the dates would regress through all the various seasons of the year performing a complete revolution in 1508 years. Julius Caesar tried to solve this problem by the intercalation every fourth year of a leap year consisting of 366 days. But this too, because it made each year 365.25 days, now progressed the year by 11 minutes 12 seconds doing a complete cycle in 47,213 years.

As it happened, Caesar’s 27.85 seconds a day aberration meant that by the early 1600s the Spring Equinox was 10 days out. To resolve this, in Oct. 1582, Pope Gregory XIII, after great consultation, removed 10 days off the new ‘Gregorian Calendar,’ which, because it was out by a mere second, means our successors will have to make further adjustments in 4,000 years.

As a matter of interest it was Dionysius who in the 6th century proposed the year of the Incarnation of Christ as the year zero or nought, when the sun was in the constellation of Pisces, the sign of the fish, the beginning of the age of Pisces.

Then there is the astronomer Hipparchus who worked out that there is another ‘day,’ the period in which the stars do a complete daily revolution around the earth. [Hipparchus (died 125BC) was born in Nicaea in north-western Asia Minor. Little else is known about his personal life and fortune. Most of what we do know of his astronomy is due to the references made by the equally famous Ptolemy (died 187AD.) in his Almagest because, with one small exception, his works have been lost.]

This star measured day is called a sidereal day. But this presented another problem because an astronomical day - measured by the sun’s meridian passage - exceeds the sidereal day, measured by the meridian passage of any fixed star, by nearly four minutes every day. This in turn of course resulted in a star measured year, a sidereal year, and some 20 min 20 seconds shorter than the tropical year. This disparity is responsible for the phenomenon called the precession of the equinoxes, a retrograde motion of the equinoxes that will complete a full revolution in the plane of the ecliptic every 25,869 years.

cantatedomino · « **Reply #171 on:** February 16, 2014, 02:22:19 PM »

THE EARTHMOVERS: As astronomy progressed, more accurate means of calculating and predicting the movements of the sun and moon were sought. For example, if the sun moved in a perfect circle around the earth, and at a constant speed, then they should retain the same apparent size and apparent speed at all times as viewed from earth. But the fact is, as careful and accurate measuring showed, the sun does not retain the same apparent size and speed, it appearing bigger or smaller and appearing to travel faster or slower at different times. The ancients at that time, however, were committed to all celestial turns following a divine law of perfect circles and constant speeds. How then did the Greeks overcome this problem while keeping intact their belief in perfect circles?

Simple, the earth (E) was placed slightly off a mathematical centre of the sun’s circle rotation (C).

Eccentric-sun (or moon)

Now while this was a compromise on symmetry, it accommodated all the mathematical and philosophical needs of the time, the same circle accounting for the sun and moon seemingly getting bigger and smaller and seemingly moving faster and slower throughout time.

[I wonder if this eccentricity has something to do with the fall of Creation suffered at the time of the sin of our first parents.]

The next problem was that of the seasons. If the sun moves in a perfect circle with the earth as the centre of that circle, and at a constant speed, then the seasons we experience should be similar and of equal length. But again, from careful measuring they discovered this is not the case, for the solstices and equinoxes are not a quarter of 365.25 days apart, (91.31 days) but vary in the following way:

Winter – winter solstice to spring equinox = 90.125 days.

Spring – spring equinox to summer solstice = 94.5 days.

Summer – summer solstice to autumn equinox = 92.5 days.

Autumn – autumn equinox to winter solstice = 88.125 days.

So, how did the Greeks, in particular Hipparchus, account for these differences? Simply and ingeniously: the earth is displaced from the centre so that the corresponding 90º arcs taken from the earth accommodates the observed arcs of time as they occur. His calculations (see illustration) showed that the eccentricity needed to be 1/24th of the radius of the circle, and that the line from earth to centre had to make an angle of 65½º with the spring equinox hitherto not-defined.

cantatedomino · « **Reply #172 on:** February 16, 2014, 02:43:21 PM »

I made some kind of a boo boo. Have to re-post the above.

cantatedomino · « **Reply #173 on:** February 16, 2014, 02:51:14 PM »

THE EARTHMOVERS: As astronomy progressed, more accurate means of calculating and predicting the movements of the sun and moon were sought. For example, if the sun moved in a perfect circle around the earth, and at a constant speed, then they should retain the same apparent size and apparent speed at all times as viewed from earth. But the fact is, as careful and accurate measurement shows, the sun does not retain the same apparent size and speed; it appears bigger or smaller and appears to travel faster or slower at different times.

The ancients however, were committed to all celestial turns following a divine law of perfect circles and constant speed. How then did the Greeks overcome this problem? Simple, the earth (E) is placed slightly off a mathematical centre of the sun’s circle rotation (C). This construction is the Eccentric.

Now while this was a compromise on symmetry (the earth not the centre), it accommodated all the mathematical and philosophical needs of the time - the same circle accounting for the sun and moon seemingly getting bigger and smaller and seemingly moving faster and slower throughout time.

The planets however, do not behave like the sun and moon; they appear in the sky to perform loop-the-loops in their journeys. Earlier we showed the movements of four of the planets as we see them from earth. We now know that it is the angle at which we see (from the earth) the planets move around the sun that gives the illusion they move in loops etc. To account for such retrograde motions of planets they invented another calculator; the epicycle.

Using a deferent circle, another circle is drawn around a point on its circuмference and both move at a constant speed proper to themselves. Then by selecting the sizes of the radii and speeds, a reasonably accurate description of the motion of planets could be imitated.

Epicycle

How the system combines to imitate the visible path of a planet as seen from earth over time.

cantatedomino · « **Reply #174 on:** February 16, 2014, 03:03:01 PM »

THE EARTHMOVERS: Ptolemy inherited the astronomy of Hipparchus with its cycles and epicycles. These, it was known, produced retrograde arcs equal in length and uniformly spaced apart, but they lacked the precision necessary for exact calculation. To find this accuracy, Ptolemy introduced what astronomers and geometricians of all ages acknowledge as a ‘masterstroke’ - the Equant.

An old eccentric calculator

Eccentric with the addition of Ptolemy’s equant.

In a moment of sheer inspiration he hit on a way to track the planets more accurately, a standard (it being a complimentary symmetrical point to the earth about the centre lying on the same diameter shared by the earth and the centre of the circle) that led the way to some unbelievably accurate astronomical data. Simply put, Ptolemy introduced a second focus (F) as far away on the other side of the centre (C) as the earth was this side of the centre on a straight line.

For centuries Plato’s dream of a coherent and calculable cosmos looked impossible with the methods devised by the early astronomers. But Ptolemy, in this book, presented a new system, a tool rather, that further advanced the accuracy of saving appearances and the paths of the sun, moon, and planets as they moved at a constant speed in their different orbits through the sky. In the Almagest, Ptolemy described a detailed scheme for each planet and gave tables from which the motion of each heavenly body could be read off.

Here was a gorgeously complicated system of main circles and sub-circles, with different radii, speeds, tilts, and different amounts and directions of eccentricity. The system worked: like a set of mechanical gears, it ground out accurate predictions of planetary positions for year after year into the future, or back into the past. And, like a good set of gears, it was based on essentially simple principles: circles with constant radii, rotations with constant speeds, symmetry of equant (EC=CF{Q}), constant tilts of circles, and the Earth fixed in a constant position. (E.M. Rogers: Physics for the Enquiring Mind, Princeton University Press, 1960, p.240.)

cantatedomino · « **Reply #175 on:** February 16, 2014, 03:23:37 PM »

THE EARTHMOVERS: Ptolemy’s device sufficed for astronomers and navigators in Europe for fourteen hundred years. It was so accurate that it could pinpoint all the major happenings in the cosmos. In time Ptolemy’s tool, as shown below, became accepted by most as a depiction of the true order of the universe. And who could blame them, for it did save all the appearances, those of the senses and those sought through astronomy and mathematics, as well as its agreement with the moving sun and immobile earth as revealed in the Scriptures.

A more complete Ptolemaic system, showing co-ordinates for the sun (s), and two planets: (P) and (P¹), a geocentric tool for charting cosmic movements, past, present and future.

The next problem was that of the seasons. If the sun moves in a perfect circle with the earth as the centre of that circle, and at a constant speed, then the seasons we experience should be similar and of equal length. But again, from careful measuring they discovered this is not the case, for the solstices and equinoxes are not a quarter of 365.25 days apart, (91.31 days) but vary in the following way:

Winter – winter solstice to spring equinox = 90.125 days.
Spring – spring equinox to summer solstice = 94.5 days.
Summer – summer solstice to autumn equinox = 92.5 days.
Autumn – autumn equinox to winter solstice = 88.125 days.

So, how did the Greeks, in particular Hipparchus, account for these differences? Simply and ingeniously, the earth is displaced from the centre so that the corresponding 90º arcs taken from the earth accommodates the observed arcs of time as they occur (see illustration above). His calculations showed that the eccentricity needed to be 1/24th of the radius of the circle, and that the line from earth to centre had to make an angle of 65½º with the spring equinox hitherto not-defined.

A geometrical and mathematical illustration of the seasons

Neil Obstat · « **Reply #176 on:** February 17, 2014, 03:32:40 AM »

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This is all very helpful for those who want to understand the pre-Copernican models. There is a lot more detail here than what is offered in The Principle (movie), which I was most privileged to view yesterday. I highly recommend to readers to study this book, THE EARTHMOVERS, before watching The Principle, as you would do yourself the favor of having a most beneficial background going into the film.

This 'book' is a marvelous INTRODUCTION to the topic, for the movie is fast-paced and most intense. You will find that having read this 'book' beforehand will greatly increase your enjoyment of the film, because without the material in this 'book' your ignorance of these details and concepts will result in some degree of bewilderment watching the movie.

I don't want to get off topic here, but wanted to encourage readers that your time spent reading this 'book' will go far toward your viewing the movie in a more relaxed and informed position.

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cantatedomino · « **Reply #177 on:** February 21, 2014, 01:59:05 PM »

THE EARTHMOVERS:

Chapter Seven: 1460: The Seeds of Copernicanism

In 1460 . . . a Tuscan monk rode unobtrusively into Florence on a donkey. Attached to his side was a bundle of cloth in which a small collection of books had been packed. Leonardo da Pistoia, who had traveled a long way, took his precious cargo directly to the Doge of Florence, Cosimo de’ Medici. An intellectual nuclear bomb was about to explode. (Graham Hancock & Robert Bauval: Talisman, Sacred Cities, Sacred Faith, Michael Joseph/Penguin Books, 2004, p.143. )

On May 29, 1453, the ancient Egyptian city of Byzantium fell to the Ottoman Turks. Libraries were raided and ancient books became available for the first time in 1000 years. From these stores came the manuscripts purchased by Leonardo for the enormously wealthy and influential Cosimo de’ Medici. The docuмents were said to contain divine wisdom, knowledge and teachings that came directly from Thoth, the wisdom god of the post-diluvian Egyptians, otherwise known to the Greeks as Hermēs Trismegistus (Hermēs Thrice Great), supposedly the greatest philosopher, priest and king who ever lived.

Scholars now accept that these books - containing a synthesis of ancient hermetical magical, esoteric and philosophical systems - were in fact physically compiled in Alexandria in the first three centuries AD. (In her book, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, 1964, Frances Yates informs us Isaac Casaubon showed that the hermetic corpus was more 2nd century than ancient.) This would explain similarities to be found in other composites of teachings known to have been written up at that time, those of the Christian heretics, the Gnostics, and those of Jєωιѕн rabbis who read hidden meanings into the Bible, the Cabbala or Kabbalah.

These interpretations taught ‘a secret traditional lore, theological, metaphysical and magical.’ We see then that in the first centuries after Christ and the completion of the Sacred Scriptures, there was amassed a potpourri of pagan, Jєωιѕн and Christian gnosis with the sole intent to pervert the true interpretation and teaching of the Old and New Testaments in order to confuse and undermine Christianity.

It is important to note here that copernicanism, a heresy against divinely revealed faith, overturns the supernatural order, primarily. The target of this erroneous teaching is dissolution of belief in the inerrancy of the literal sense of Sacred Scripture. It divides the minds of men from the Truths needed for Happiness. Truth is the formal object of the intellect. Heresy privates and corrupts the mind. Wherefore copernicanism is intellectual poison, resulting in all manner of grievous effects.

History records that the Church reacted by condemning and suppressing all such books, and, it could be said, over-reacted at times with the treatment meted out to the heretics themselves.

A section of the [hermetic] text which Lactantius called "Sermo Perfectus" (the Perfect Word), treats the sun as an intermediary between the divine light and the world, indeed as a second God . . . "the Sun, or Light - for it is through the intermediary of the solar circle that light is spread to all - the Sun illuminates the other stars not so much by the power of his light as by his divinity and sanctity. He must be held as a second god. The world is living and all things in it are alive and it is the sun which governs all living things." (Jennifer Trusted: Physics and Metaphysics, Rutledge, London, 1991, p.37.)

And it was this sun-centred magical plan contained in the Hermetic texts, this gnosis, that arrived on the back of a donkey, into intellectual Europe. The timing was perfect, for the world was now ready for it; the Protestant and humanist revolt against Catholicism was in the air and all it needed was for someone to introduce this world-order revolution under the guise of science to give it credibility.

The sun was not only on its way to becoming the dominant globe of a solar system that included the beautiful life-laden earth as a simple planet, but for many, even within the Catholic Church, [was becoming] the source of all life on earth, as is reflected in modern cosmology and the evolutionary sciences. By placing the earth, the first created matter, into a solar system, Lucifer again shines and fecundates all by proxy, as he did with the ancient pagans. The Catholic Church has taught from the beginning that the very existence of the universe and man depends totally on God. Moreover, because of Adam’s sin, it teaches all humans are weak, prone to disobey or deny the will of God of all kinds and only with the help of Christ now can we be saved. The Hermetic books however, insist men, and women, have unlimited potential, capable even of becoming god-like; and they suggest ways of achieving these heights.

With a little twisting, turning and baptising, we can see how the magic formula of Hermeticism could also be presented as a way to salvation. But more than that, for if a solar-system could be established as a reality, how much more credible would Hermeticism be.

cantatedomino · « **Reply #178 on:** February 21, 2014, 02:04:13 PM »

THE EARTHMOVERS: The early Christian heretics, the Gnostics, had lots in common with hermetic thought. Gnosticism flourished especially towards the close of the first century and during the whole of the second century after Christ. Gnostic dualism manifested itself, on the one hand, in their belief in the existence, of a ‘Pleroma of Light, Life and Spirit,’ a realm of light, just like the Egyptian sky, which was pure and presided over by a loving god.

Accordingly they worshipped the sun, moon and stars, just like the old Egyptians. Then, on the other hand, perverting the teachings of the Fall of angels and man, they saw the sphere of matter, the earth, as affected by an evil god, offering only hardship, suffering, pain and finally death. To the Gnostics, Christ was not a human person, not made of evil matter, but merely a spirit of the heavenly god.

It is clear from St. Irenaeus and other Church Fathers that the main doctrinal point of hostility between Roman Christianity and Gnosticism was the divinely revealed account of creation ex nihilo as found in Genesis One, and the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity.

This is of the utmost importance to our fight for Tradition in 2013. The errors of modernity, from copernicanism to liberalism, are not modern, not new. Secondly they have for their object the destruction of the Theology of Creation. The revolution is essential anti-creationism. Paula Haigh likes to say that everything presupposes creation. Likewise, everything revolutionary denies creation. Big bang, copernican darwinism denies creation ex nihilo, in toto. It exists precisely in order to deny the Genesis account of Creation.

All Catholic counter-revolution must begin with a cogent, clear, and complete Theology of Creation. This is what is lacking in Lefebvrism. Lefebvrism starts with the consequential effects of the destruction of the theology of Creation. It does not go far back enough to locate the arch-principles of revolution. It does not lay the axe to the root. The SSPX does not upbuild and restate of the Theology of Creation. It limits itself to defending against the errors of liberalism, mostly in the political sphere.

The theology of the SSPX has always been reactionary, for which cause it has fallen. It built on sand, understandably, as it came to be during a crescendo of chaos and disorder in the universal Church. But we are now in the post-SSPX era, which means that our form and brand of counter-revolution needs to be reorganized and cohered around the arch-principle of Truth - the Genesis account of Creation.

Apostles of Creation are the pressing need of the Church in this time.

Fr. Joseph Pfeiffer, God bless him, has begun in earnest to blaze the trail. In his December 23rd sermon on demonic evolution, he coined a term, theology of the devil or demonic theology, referring to evolution. He rightly called evolution the worst heresy of them all. Some of what he preached really must be transcribed because it is that good.

Demonic "theology," or shall we say the demonic worldview, is not liberal or modernist in its essence. It is anti-creation in its essence. Catholics must, then, if they are going to rebuild the City of God, become essentially creationist, If we do not believe like, think like, sound like, work like, and live like the Fathers of the Church, then we are cut off from our Catholic essence.

The Church of Rome accepted a literal interpretation [of Scripture] whereas the Gnostics preferred a metaphorical or allegorical understanding. Today, after the Copernican revolution, Rome now holds to a similar hermeneutics, one they claim has been shown by science. The Gnostics also professed to have a ‘secret knowledge’ of the origin, control and destiny of the universe, claiming to have ‘magic formulae’ for salvation, which were only for the select few who were then bound by solemn oaths not to reveal the cult’s secret rites to others.

This recalls the elitist "religion" of ancient Egypt that provided for an "afterlife" for a select few.

Herein then we find the proto anti-Catholic Illuminati, the first of many to come throughout the ages, such as high-degree Freemasons who also take oaths, and pass on secret knowledge and magic from one generation to another, and administer penalties to those who betray them. Here then, in 1460, for the first time in over a thousand years, Hermēs’s and other ancient gnosis could again wield its magic.

cantatedomino · « **Reply #179 on:** February 21, 2014, 02:06:59 PM »

THE EARTHMOVERS: Immediately Cosimo had the Greek texts translated into Latin by his adopted son Marsilio Ficino, a man obsessed with secret knowledge. The fourteen books or Hermetica took Ficino a year to complete.

Ficino was ordained a priest and eventually became a high official of the Cathedral in Florence . . . But what is less appreciated is the huge, indeed revolutionary, effects that Ficino’s translations of the Hermetica was also to have on western culture and on the Catholic Church itself. (Hancock & Bauval: Talisman, p,156.)

Given that the printing press had just been invented, the texts were further translated into other languages and vast numbers of copies, often edited by others, were published, distributed and read throughout all Europe. But these were ‘Inquisition’ times also; times when heresy was abounding, times when the Churchmen of the Roman Catholic Church wielded huge temporal power. If it was seen that the newfound hermetic knowledge threatened tradition, theology or the philosophy of the Church, which it did, lives could be at risk.

Now when one considers some of the proposals the pagan-based books contained, this threat was very real. For example, a shared hermetic-Gnostic text called the Asclepius actually describes how, by the use of magic talismans, one could transmit the spirits and influence of the sky into statues and various artefacts. In other words, as in witchcraft, devils could be called to possess things and do wonders.

In his December 23rd sermon on demonic evolution, Fr. Pfeiffer makes excellent commentary on the reality of witchcraft, calling its formal object the same as the formal object of all luciferianism - the destruction of all order.

To abate accusations that some were actually trying to replace the teachings of Moses with the writings of Hermēs Trismegistus, followers were careful to place the genealogy of Hermēs after Moses in time. They did this by appealing to the opinion of St Augustine (354-430) who, before his conversion, held that Hermēs did succeed Moses in the history of the world. Another who held this position is the often quoted Cardinal Cesare Baronius, chief Church historian of the Counter Reformation. Baronius claimed Hermēs Trismegistus was one of the pagan prophets heralding the birth of Christ. (Baronius is often quoted to support a heliocentric reading of Scripture. For example: ‘Let us recall the celebrated saying attributed to Baronius, Spiritui Sancto mentem fuisse nos docere quomodo ad coelum eatur, non quomodo coelum gradiatur. Pope John Paul II, 1992.)