How did we get here?
There are, at present, some 42 different books all claiming to be THE Bible. The answer to the question, “Which is the real one?” is, probably, “None of them.” The real Coptic Bible is possibly closest to the original but to what extent this has also been “edited” is difficult to determine.
I have not, of course, read all of these. Indeed, I am most familiar with the King James version. However, nowhere have I found any support for the assertion that the human body is repulsive to God. To the contrary, many references in the Old Testament and some in the Gospels make it plain that casual nudity was, at that time, commonplace. Further, I recall Jesus rebuking those who tried to send the children from him saying “lest ye be as one of these………..”
How many small children are afraid of their bodies? This fear that you suffer from is something which you teach them as they get older just as you were taught to fear.
In the first century AD the Christian movement had two distinct branches: The one was pacifist egalitarian society based upon the common ownership and common responsibility similar to the Jewish Kibbutz. The other was an aggressive misogynous movement using the revolutionary zeal fostered by the Roman occupation to attain personal power and wealth with “divine approval”. It was “Saint” Paul and similar who whipped up their supporters against the pacifist “heretics” (who had forsworn all weapons and violence) and had them all, men women and children, murdered.
Thus was the modern Christian movement defined.
In the convocations of bishops from the late fourth to the early sixth centuries in Constantinople, much was done to consolidate the personal political power and wealth of the bishops. It was also out of there that the bishop of Rome (at first one amongst equals) gradually became the Pope or “king” of a dynasty which was to enjoy virtually unlimited power across Europe for more than a thousand years.
At these convocations, the scriptures were heavily edited to support the political and financial ambitions of the bishops. Most references to reincarnation (a few still remain) were removed as were almost all references to Goddess. Here also was the doctrine of male supremacy first codified. The Copts, however, did not attend these convocations and refused, subsequently, to either ratify or to adopt the wholesale editing of The Bible. This lead to the Vatican later issuing its’ own version of the Coptic Bible – a book very different to the real one and the one you’re most likely to get if you ask for The Coptic Bible in a library.
One of the tools which the bishops created for themselves was the “right” to control and licence love and sexuality: By becoming the organisation through which everyone had to obtain permission for the most central activities of all human societies, they placed themselves in the position of being able to control the whole of the European population.
On Tuesday the 27th of November 1095, Pope Urban II declared an exception to The Ten Commandments: Taking a trip to Palestine, he said, killing the Islamic population (and anyone else who just happened to get in the way) and stealing their property was declared to be God’s Will. Further, anyone dying on such a venture would be guaranteed immediate and preferential entry to Heaven.
He established, thereby, a precedent which certain parties are today following and for which they are abusing the name of Islam.
The true reason, of course, had nothing whatsoever to do with any danger to “The holy Land” – Jerusalem is also a Holy Shrine of Islam and Jesus a revered prophet. The Moslems saw themselves as protectors of The Holy Land from barbarians and maintained the Holy Shrines open to all pilgrims. The only problem was their refusal to accept papal authority over Palestine and to pay tribute.
By the end of the 12th century, the Catholic Church had become so corrupt that revisionist sects sprang up, most notably in the South of France. The bishops and priests had abandoned many of their responsibilities and concentrated themselves upon the accumulation and enjoyment of great wealth even to the extent of refusing marriage and burials unless handsomely paid in advance. In some churches, no mass had been held for 30 years!
Most notable of the revisionists were the Cathars in Southern France. A doctrine of simple, mutual respect taught by well educated itinerant priests living a life of simplicity made very rapid inroads into papal power.
In the year 1208, Pope Innocent III declared that anyone taking up arms to exterminate the Cathars was to be freed of all debt interest, could confiscate all Cathar property and would be absolved in advance for any crimes he committed in this “holy war” or beforehand. Thus was the first well-documented case of European ethnic cleansing perpetrated.
Following on from this, the inquisition was born to stamp out “heretical activities”, i.e. anything damaging to papal power and wealth. Although the proceedings are, perhaps, best known from the Spanish Inquisition, it must be borne in mind that Spain, at that time, was as Islamic country where the papacy held no sway. The Inquisition was a continent wide phenomenon which, although it no longer has the power to randomly torture and murder, still exists today. It was only in England, relatively immune to papal sponsored invasions, that the Inquisition never held any real sway.
The Inquisition developed techniques copied in toto in the last century by the Gestapo and KGB to create a culture of mass fear. Randomly accused would be offered “salvation from being burned alive” in exchange for anonymously betraying other “heretics”. Needless to say, this was abused by many to settle old grievances – denouncing rivals as heretics without fear of reprisal became commonplace. Nobody could know whom to trust and thus the feared Inquisition became the absolute rulers of town and city.
Following the successful extermination of the Cathars and one or two similar groups, the church found itself with a tool in its’ hand with which it could effect a “final solution” to a long running problem:
Although the church had long had a firm hold on town and city, it’s authority in the countryside (remember, please, that, at that time, the majority of the population was rural) was much shakier. A great many paid merely lip service to the church, perceiving their deities to be merely new faces of God and Goddess. Many of the older Celtic rituals and feasts were still widely celebrated even though the church had tried, since the early seventh century, to put a “Christian” face upon them. One of these, the celebration of the annual awakening or arrival of the fertility Goddess Ester, still bears her name and the date of Easter is still calculated by the moon calendar.
The church had a further, even greater problem: That of the Wicca or Wise Women. These were those to whom was passed the traditional knowledge of herbal medicine, midwifery and mental balance. It was to the Wise Women and not to the ill-educated priests that the populace turned for advice and assistance.
In the year 1458 the inquisitor, Nicholas Jaquerius, claimed that the situation then pertaining of dismissing “witchcraft” as a meaningless superstition was incorrect and that the witches (Wicca or Wise Women) were in league with the Devil (the nature God, Pan, relabelled by the church) and were the cause of widespread misfortune, infant mortality and sickness. In 1484, in a papal bull issued by Pope Innocent VIII, this assertion was ratified and the inquisition instructed to root out this “evil” and all heretical adherents to it.
Simultaneously, a pact was made with the doctors of medicine, who had the same problem of impotence in the countryside due to the superior competence and lower cost of the Wise women. On the one hand, the fury of the inquisition was to be let loose upon the Wise Women and on the other, the doctors of medicine became the “divinely approved” curers. A status which they still enjoy today.
In 1491, it was declared that to argue against these assertions was the crime of impeding the inquisition for which the punishment was to be burned at the stake.
The Papal bull of 1484 also laid the framework for declaring Wicca (witchcraft) to be a concerted demonic conspiracy against The Holy Church.
Possessing knowledge of herbs or midwifery or, often, simply being an assertive woman was treated as proof of participation in the demonic conspiracy and hundreds of thousands were burned alive for this crime!
In 1486, the inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and Johann Sprenger produced, under papal auspices, a book entitled “Malleus Maleficarum” or “Hammer of Witches”. This is very probably the most obscenely pornographic book ever published by man. Despite this, it became, by papal decree, the standard work to be used by all judges both ecclesiastical and secular up until comparatively recent times. Even the later protestant churches adopted it wholesale leading to the notorious burning of Witches in Salem in the 18th Century!
Although perfectly obvious to modern psychologists that the authors were psychopathically misogynous with a pathological fear of women, this book was used by the church as the justification for the wholesale murder of vast numbers of women across Europe and The New World throughout the ensuing centuries.
According to the “Malleus” the exposure of “a woman’s nether regions” was proof that she was copulating with devils. The sight of her breasts was proof that she was feeding demonic familiars. Having an orgasm was letting the Devil enter her soul.
Much of the ”Malleus” could be prosecuted under various Obscene Publication Laws were it not a “religious Work”.
Traumatised by centuries of horror, mankind is slowly returning to sanity and human dignity. Despite this, many priests of neo- (perhaps more correctly, pseudo-) Christian sects are still using the tenets of the “Malleus Maleficarum” to control their congregations. The sight of a human body is still taught to be a demonic manifestation. Pathological fear of one’s own body continues to be taught and used as a tool through which the priesthood, having a self proclaimed “divine monopoly” on forgiveness, maintains its’ hold upon the minds of men and women and manipulates them for its’ own self-aggrandisement.
At this time of re-awakening many tools are being laid into mankind's hands to help end this reign of terror and to return dignity and peace to the hearts of all.
Some of them can be found on these websites:
http://www.thedoorwaytoyourself.com
http://www.non-smokercelebration.com
© Karma Singh 2006
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