Personal Blogs

You can’t go online and research anything without coming across the ‘illuminati’.  Apparently, these are the elite who really run the world (and you can see just what a great job they’re doing!), they rope in all the top celebrities and are soooo evil because they believe in and worship the devil!!!  Wooooh! Scary stuff!

They’re supposed to be interconnected with the Freemasons and a load of other secret societies who, allegedly, possess old ‘knowledge’ or ‘magic’. They share symbols (pentagons, all seeing eyes etc) and you go through a ceremony or initiation when you join. Miley Cyrus is supposed to be one, and that would be enough to ensure it’s a club that I, and I’m sure many others, would never want to join!

I have actively avoided mentioning any of this up until now because I think it is all just another load of old crap, designed to distract and divide us, while the mega-rich continue to plunder the world’s resources for themselves.

Now if you want to run around with your trousers up over your knees, give secret handshakes (like a bunch of schoolboys), cover one of your eyes in photos and make hand gestures to signify your loyalty to Satan, then you really need to take a long hard look at yourself and grow up. Just writing that shows how absurd and rather pathetic it all is, ‘Oh, look at us! We’re Satanists, how evil are we?!’

If you look at it logically, if you believe in the devil, then you have to believe in God, I mean, you cannot have the ultimate evil without the ultimate good, it goes against the laws of physics. And I know whose side I would want to be on.

In the Navajo tradition, they believe that man is bad and has to learn to be good, a bit like the old Catholic teaching on original sin but not as fascist. I don’t think the Navajo would have excluded a child from the family burial plot because someone hadn’t poured water on its head and said some ‘magic’ words. The more you break this stuff down, the more ridiculous it all appears.  How could competent and intelligent people have been persuaded to believe this?! Then again, look around!

There was a time when I believed that man was inherently good but the events of this last year have made me reassess that belief. When you look at it logically, again, we have to learn to be, not only good, but to be human/humane. As M. Scott Peak pointed out in The Road Less Travelled series, it is natural to defecate in your pants, but you learn to control it, just as you can learn how to behave and control your emotions and actions.

There are several well known cases of children brought up with animals who adopted the behaviour of the animals. Psychology will also tell you that if language and a host of other ‘human’ behaviours have not been acquired by the age of 7, then the chances of acquiring them after that become slim. It would appear therefore, that there are no inherent instincts or behaviours that make us human and our ‘humanity’ is something that has to be learned. We are animals, whether we like to believe it or not; I was going to say animals with manners, but I don’t think our manners are as good as many other animal species (eg: elephants).  In the face of that, I think we need to show a lot more humility, and a lot less arrogance, about who we think we are and what we know.

M Scott Peck in People of the Lie pointed to laziness as the source of underlying evil in humanity. Being good requires effort, being evil requires no effort at all. Consciousness is that effort and begins early in humans, anyone who has children will remember the three year old who asked why, why, why? We also learn what we are allowed to question and what we are not. If you live in a society where you are forbidden from challenging or asking questions about that society and/or the belief systems you live under, you never develop beyond the psychological boundaries of childhood and mature into full adult consciousness. You remain passive and obedient, mindlessly accepting and believing everything you’ve been told or, at least, pretending to.

Ireland has had one of the hardest lockdowns in the world over the ‘pandemic’ and has been one of the least vocal in speaking out against it and the restrictions. The consciousness of the majority of the population remains undeveloped and immature. Centuries of British rule and the autocracy of the Catholic Church have created a passive and cowardly population. Here in the north, there is an additional factor to that submissiveness.  On the nationalist side, many people still fear Sinn Fein and what they, or their cohorts, might do if they go up against them. The silence against lockdown has been deafening on the nationalist side, a side many would have thought would have been the first to object to having their freedom taken away. But it’s amazing what the Council for Foreign Relations (aka CIA) can buy for €4.6m (Political principles, Ms McDonald?  That’ll do nicely, Mr Haass.) See link below.

There have been several voices of dissent on the Unionist/Protestant side (Sammy Wilson, Van Morrison) which, when you look at history, comes as no surprise. The first ‘Irish rebels’ were Presbyterians, going back to Wolfe Tone in 1798 and, in the Easter Rising, there were many from the Presbyterian tradition initially involved in the fight for freedom and equality. It was only afterwards, on the issue of Home Rule, that the divide opened up across religious grounds, leading to the political division of a mainly Protestant North and a Catholic South. These were the same tactics the British used to divide India from Pakistan and set Muslim against Hindu, and vice versa.

The false humility promoted by ‘Christianity’, along with nationalism/republicanism, has created a culture of victimhood and martyrdom. The nodding assent on display is the result of a population who are not used to thinking for themselves, or questioning authority, or rather the authorities who are supposed to be on their side. Religious, political and community leaders continue to exploit this victimhood mentality to maintain power and control over the masses. (A strategy not confined to Ireland and now being used by the manipulators behind the BLM movement). This is not to say that the Irish haven’t endured some horrific abuses over the centuries and there is a kind courage in bearing suffering that is beyond your control. But none at all, when it is fully within your control as a grown adult.

When it comes to being good or evil, I don’t care if you worship God or Satan.  I do however, believe that both those entities are the excuse many use for a lot of self-righteous hypocrisy and some extremely questionable behaviour. I believe the choice between good and evil is ours and our alone, but it does require consciousness, and that can only be fully achieved with the right support and advice growing up, and begins with observing, thinking and asking questions. People may be able to control your actions at times, and we may not always be allowed to openly question what we are being told, but the majority of us still have the capacity to think, even if we can’t always express those thoughts.

Some believe that we need religion to provide the moral framework for the development of a conscience and that, without religion, people would not be good at all and evil would flourish. I disagree; there are some religions/belief systems that are fairly benign, eg: Buddhism, but the evils committed under Christianity would do Hitler proud and are no guarantee that a person will act morally or from a place of consciousness.  Religion may tell us what to believe but consciousness makes us think.

When we think about evil, we think about the great evils of Stalin or Hitler who as I pointed out in previous posts, never actually killed anyone. As Scott Peck pointed out, there is another low level of evil, within all of us that we need to be aware of and recognise. We would consider breaking a child’s bones an evil act, but would we feel the same about a resentful and jealous parent breaking a child’s spirit? Or what about the overly involved parent, who gives their child everything, as a way of emotionally manipulating the child and sabotaging their autonomy?

Then there are the diabolical horrors committed by humans against each other when in a state of war, or in defence of an ideology. I’m only a couple of chapters into the Gulag Archipelago and I’m appalled to think about the minds that dreamt up the tortures detailed in it. It’s easy to think the perpetrators were psychotic, and I’m sure there were a few psychos among them, but they couldn’t all have been, or maybe the devil made them do it.

As Solzhenitsyn points out in Chapter 4, ‘If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil, cuts through the heart of every human being’.

He acknowledges the potential within himself to do what his tormentors are doing. He wonders how he would behave if his life had taken a different direction, and questions what makes decent men complicit within these types of situations. He concludes that it is because they believe they are doing good and, as the old saying goes, ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions’.

The corruption on display around the world by those in power today could make one think that maybe they are minions of Satan and Old Nick, himself, is running the show. But I’m not convinced.  They say the devil makes work for idle hands but I think it is the weak minded who are most easily led towards corruption.

I don’t know if the Illuminati are a real thing or are just a few deluded celebrities desperately trying to give themselves some ‘street cred’. Illuminati means enlightened and if they really are seeking enlightenment, then they will have difficulty finding it in the vileness that Satan represents. As Jordan Peterson says, ‘truth is the path to true enlightenment’ and truth is the very antithesis of the devil, aka, the Father of Lies. 

The population, at present, are being lied to on a grand scale. The powers behind the lies have been doing this for decades and are well practised in making a lie appear as truth, and the truth, a lie. They use censorship and propaganda to confuse and misdirect us, and people have been manipulated into believing they are doing good by wearing masks, social-distancing and taking ‘vaccines’, without any real scientific truth being presented to validate those claims . Debates rage in families and online regarding the efficacy of these measures and keep us divided and distracted, again.

The only defence against a lie is to consciously seek the truth and be authentic, and that begins with us and us alone. We have within us the power to do good or evil, and recognising and acknowledging our capacity for evil, as well as good, is the first step towards consciousness, and that requires honesty and effort. As we try to navigate our way through the web of lies and deceit that has been created as part of this ‘crisis’, remember the words of Edmund Burke, ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing’, so think on.

Apologies forgot to add in the links:

https://theirishsentinel.com/2021/03/20/sinn-feins-deal-with-the-devil-e4-6-million-was-just-the-start/

https://rense.com/general81/miley.htm

So, Il Duce is coming, sorry...Il Papa, is coming to Ireland this week, hot on the heels of the Grand Jury Report from Philadelphia (for a World Meeting of Families, no less!!  You couldn't make it up!) which outed a stomach-turning 300 plus paedophiles who operated in the Philadelphia area, and who abused more than a 1000 children over 70 years, and also detailed how their crimes were consistently covered up by the Roman Catholic Church.  

The Pope issued a half-baked apology promising to do more which means nothing considering how long this issue has been going on and also considering, how little has been done so far.  I watched the video of the Grand Jury report and the details were sickening. I really don't know how anyone with a 'Christian' conscience could continue to support this organisation.  But in my experience, I have found that the better Catholic you are, the less 'Christian' you are.  Does the actual reality of what has been done never fully hit home?  Grown men, so-called 'men of God', raped and sexually abused children, some as young as 18 months old!  How can anyone be ambiguous about that? But, unfortunately, they will and I include members of my own family in that, it's like talking to a wall. It is so ingrained in their lives and their thinking, they can't envisage a life without the Catholic Church, too scared to let go and driven by some perverted sense of loyalty, their Catholic identity intricately tied in with their Irish identity and unable to separate the two.  Like the DUP supporters and their Britishness who turned out to support Ian Jr recently; it's their side, so they'll stand by them to the death, regardless of how rotten or corrupt they are.

But as sickening as this is, what gets me even more is the cowardice and hypocrisy of the clergy, those so-called 'good' priests within the Church who are supposed to be decent people and who stay silent, and kow-tow to the hierarchy, refusing to condemn the horror in their midst and helping, still, to cover it up; too lazy and/or too scared to rock the boat, settling for the easy life, going along to get along. 

Most of the priests and nuns, I’ve ever known, were priests and nuns, not out of any great spiritual experience but because of family pressure, a way of avoiding life or as a place to hide out.  In Ireland, not so much now, as back in the day (but it still goes on too) it was the perfect hide out for homosexual men and women; a way of gaining acceptance and respect in society without any awkward questions ever being asked. It also provides an easy life; they never have to worry about bills, where they will live, or where the next meal is coming from.  They are taken care of, they never face any real challenges and, as a consequence, they never really grow up either. 

But my biggest problem with the whole Catholic ethos is the perversion, not just within their ranks, but the perversion of the life and legacy of Jesus.  I mean, if Jesus Christ was here now, what do you think he would say about an institution that has covered up the rape and sexual abuse of children?   ‘Suffer little children to come unto me?’  I don’t think so. 

But Catholics do love to suffer, it’s an integral part of the whole religion, how Christ suffered and died for our sins. His suffering on the cross, the suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane, the slaughter and suffering of the Holy Infants when he was born, John the Baptist's suffering,  Mary’s suffering at losing her son, everybody suffering under the yoke of the Roman Empire.  Keep piling on the guilt trips because this was all done for you, you, worthless ingrate!  At least, that’s what they tried to tell us.

Well, I never asked him to, quite frankly, I think it was a waste of his time.  By the way, the whole ‘coming back’ thing, I don’t think it’s going to happen, I mean it’s been 2000 years, something tells me, he’s not coming.

However, this narrative plays out so well in Ireland because we suffered too.  We suffered at the hands of the British Empire, we suffered under their yoke, we suffered to hold on to our Catholic faith when it was outlawed by the state, and we continue to suffer.  We suffered under the hammer of the Orangemen and still we suffer…have you seen our politicians?  And, the weather is crap at the moment too and the Tories are still in power, aarrrggghhhh!   My God, this suffering never ends! 

But again, this is all to a point, because the more you suffer, the greater your reward will be in Heaven, like those fanatical Muslims and their 76 virgins, their reward for martyrdom!  Funny, I was wondering about this the other day, (I know, I really need to get out more!) but what happens after you’ve shagged the 76 virgins?  

Anyway, back to the suffering…what this does, is to allow for suffering to continue, it’s imbues it with honour, just stay on your knees and keep praying for things to get better, or for the ‘strength to endure the suffering’.  Oh, they like that one, the strength to endure.  Sounds good, doesn’t it?  Plays right into the whole martyrdom thing.  Instead of saying ‘Right, that’s it, I’ve suffered enough, I’m going to get up off my knees and do something about this, you endure your suffering, you wear it like a badge of honour, where everyone can see it, especially, where everyone can see it.  You keep enduring, wallowing in self-pity at your hard time because you do it for 'God' and your faith!  Like the abused Catholic wife, enduring the assaults, the infidelity, the misery of it all because she has 'made sure' everyone knows what a bastard he is but she will keep going because she's a good Catholic, and she made her vows, and because she knows she will get her reward when she is DEAD!??

Now, I’m not saying a little suffering or a hard time can’t teach you some life lessons but come on, let’s get some balance here.  You will suffer at some point in life that is guaranteed, we will lose people we loved and cared for, we will run into 'bastards' along the way but to make the life of Christ into a marathon of suffering and endurance is to miss the point completely.  It's a perversion of what Jesus was about. The Christian Church should be about what he said, how he challenged the Pharisees and their hypocrisy, how he stripped away the social hierarchies and treated everyone as equals.  Those things have been lost in the midst of the suffering, the re-writing of history, the attempts at social control and most importantly, the money-making.  

Yes, because in reality the Catholic Church is business first, I was going to say, spirituality second, but there is absolutely nothing spiritual or sacred in an institution that protects the vilest of humanity and covers up their crimes.  There is no second, apart from protecting their wealth and position at all costs.  The details of what happened in Philadelphia and what was covered up, is nothing more than the tip of a very large iceberg.  This has been going on for decades, not just in Philadelphia but around the world, I dread to think what they got away with in places like Africa and South America and are, in all probability, still getting away with.  Those that stayed silent, who helped to cover up the abuses and who continue to obstruct justice, are just as culpable as the perpetrators.  And the faithful?  What of them? 

Ireland has changed a lot in many ways since the last visit by a Pope.  I remember it well, the whole place was decorated with Pope flags and thousands headed off on buses to see him.  I wasn’t among them.  Now, there isn’t a flag in sight, other than in the local churches and I don’t think there will be too many bus loads this time either.  However, some things haven’t changed and they still maintain a lot of control through the schools which is why the majority here still go along to get along. Weekly attendance at mass may have gone down but the congregations still turn out for the occasions, Christmas, Easter, Holy Communions etc:  Social Catholics rather than devout followers.  But the point is, they still keep turning out which keeps the Church going financially and institutionally, and as long as the money keeps rolling in, and they aren’t being fully held to account, then there is no incentive to change or fully address these issues head on.

It will be interesting to see what kind of reception he gets, and how many do turn out.  There is opposition and some quite vocal opposition but Ireland as a whole, is still too eager to please, too keen to show the world how grown-up they are, or think they are, too willing to overlook and forgive the unforgivable.  Because it’s easier to say I forgive and turn away with false humility than to address it head on and call it out for what it is, an appalling abuse of power and dereliction of duty against the weakest and most vulnerable in society. 

I was reading an article in The Observer at the weekend by Stewart Lee where he was comparing Donald Trump’s meeting with the Pope as a ‘good vs evil’ encounter.  Trump in this scenario being likened to Satan, and the Pope being the ‘good’ guy.  Whatever your opinion on ‘the Donald’, I really don’t think he is completely evil any more than the Pope is completely ‘good’.  I mean, is Donald Trump really more ‘evil’ than the Pope?

 Look at it this way, the Pope has, for most of his life, been a member of the Catholic Church.  An organisation that has been responsible for the systemic rape, abuse and possible murder of the most vulnerable of children, on a global scale.  There is nowhere on the planet where the Catholic Church has been, that doesn’t have a legacy of the most appalling physical and sexual abuse of minors and that is a fact. I don't really think the title Pope, is short for Protector of Paedophiles, I think that's just a rumour...

Now, as far as I know, Donald Trump hasn’t done anything like that to children.  He does have his faults but paedophilia I don’t think, is among them and certainly not on the scale committed by the Catholic Church.  Now, Pope Francis is head of that organisation and he appears to be a ‘good’ person.  He makes a lot of statements about humanity and appears to say all the right things.  However, as a member of that organisation and now head, what has he done to root out the paedophiles?   Does he have a legacy of outing paedophiles or railing against the terrible abuses being carried out by the membership?

Jimmy Saville, who was once a much-loved ‘national treasure’, is now reviled for the rape and sexual abuse of children, young girls and vulnerable adults.  Would you worship in a church led by Jimmy Saville or even an organisation that regarded him as a ‘good’ person?   Yet, the Pope and the Catholic Church are still seen as something that should be respected? 

Jimmy Saville got away with the things he did because so many ‘good’ people stood by and either said nothing or covered up his behaviour.  This same man was given a knighthood and dined with Margaret Thatcher every Christmas at Chequers.  There is a clip of a video online where the great John Lyndon (aka Johnny Rotten) talks about Saville and what he gets up to.  The clip was never shown back in the 70’s, the powers that be, protecting Saville.  Yet, Johnny Rotten was held up by the media, at the same time, as a threat to the decency of the nation.

There is much that I disagree with Donald Trump about, but I don’t believe he is inherently evil.  He is certainly a product of his environment and upbringing.  Arrogant?  For sure!  Misogynistic? Definitely, but evil?  Well, who’s to say...yet?  And credit where credit is due, he did get rid of TTIP, that foul trade agreement that was going to hand over the nations of Europe to the corporate elite, as if they didn’t have enough of us already. 

Now, his trade deal with Saudi Arabia could be regarded as an evil act but the British government is the world’s second biggest arms dealer/supplier, and to some very dodgy states.  Are they evil or are they just 'protecting' the nation? 

There are acts of evil being committed around the world day and daily.  Some deliberately, some accidentally; like Theresa May, ‘accidentally’ losing that list of paedophile MP’s when she was Home Secretary or now, wanting to bring back a ‘sport’ that involves the hunting, terrorising and tearing to shreds of that most beautiful of animals, the fox.  Not to mention being part of a party that seems intent on grinding the poor, the vulnerable and the working class into the ground.

Which acts are more evil, and which people?  Those who commit the deeds or those who stand silently by and let them happen or help cover them up? 

By the way folks, election coming up, so don't forget to vote, the future of Reynard may depend on you...

Well, our feminist is on the rant again I see. You don’t want to take her too seriously, she gets a bit carried away at times. However, she does make you think about some of the issues around marriage. There are so many ways of looking at it and I was going to take a different angle on this but I was watching the news the other night and they reported a story about Fr. Brian D’Arcy being censured by the Vatican for expressing some views in support of marriage for priests, or against celibacy, if you prefer to look at it that way.  Fr Brian is well-known in Ireland and writes a column in a newspaper, the Sunday World, and he sometimes does a stint in the ‘spiritual’ section, on the Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Radio 2. 

As someone who was brought up Catholic, I’d like to throw out a few ideas around the issue, and would be interested in what other people think. I have been watching the BBC 2 series, Divine Women, and have found it interesting how the early Christian Church operated, compared with all the patriarchal rules and regulations that have been imposed upon it since. 

So consider this, within the Catholic Church, when a man or woman wants to become a priest or a nun, they have to go through years of study to prepare themselves before they are allowed to make that lifetime commitment and, in effect, when they do, they become married to God. Now, on the other hand, any gombeen with a notion to, can give 3-6 months notice, do a pre-marriage course or not ( I don’t think they are compulsory) and then get married. 

Within the Catholic Church, there is no divorce and there is certainly no re-marrying in the Church if you have been divorced. Now just for arguments sake, lets concentrate on the nun’s perspective on this. A nun wears a wedding ring and is considered a bride of Christ. She can leave the Church, which many have done, and she can then get married in Church. Why is that allowed? She is able to divorce herself from God and re-marry in Church, even though she went through all those years of training in preparation for her marriage to God or taking Holy Orders, as it is called.   

But an ordinary woman or man cannot do the same, even though they may have had little or no preparation at all before marriage. Is there a double standard operating here?  Is marriage to God, not as important as marriage to another human being? Holy orders and marriage are considered sacraments in the eyes of the Church, how is it possible within the law of the Church to be able to marry God, then leave him/her or it, and then marry a person in the Church?

And there’s another thing, if any of you have watched the Big Fat Gypsy Wedding series on Channel 4, I wonder if you think like me that there is something immoral about allowing sixteen year olds to marry. What does anyone know about anything at sixteen, not to mention the realities and responsibilities of a marital relationship?

What is marriage supposed to be about?  What is it’s purpose?  We were taught at school, a Convent Grammar, that the purpose of marriage is to have children. So, if you can’t have children are you entitled to get an annulment? Or if you know beforehand that you can’t have children, should you be denied the right to marry? 

I’m just asking these questions because I’ve actually come to believe that there is something unnatural about the whole situation or maybe it’s more about the whole approach to marriage.

I’ve been on this whole spiritual journey for many years now (I may have mentioned it in one or two other posts) and the more I look at these things the less sense they seem to make. Among my friends, there has recently been a plethora (great word that by the way, I remember it from The Three Amigos, if I recall correctly!)  a plethora of relationship break-ups, and all the break ups were instigated by the females, funnily enough. Some of the couples were married, some not, but all involved children. 

A few months back there was a great story in the Observer newspaper about a woman who was approaching her forties, she wasn’t in a relationship but wanted to be a mother. If you know the story you can skip ahead but if you don’t, read on, because it’s really interesting. What she did was, she advertised for a man who wanted to be a father because she wanted the child to have parents who were both interested in being parents. She wasn’t having much luck, as most of the men she interviewed shared different ideas about parenting. Then a friend recommended a gay man who they knew also wanted to be a father. They got together, had shared ideas about parenting and so they decided to go ahead and have the child. And this is where it gets really interesting…he fell in love with her, even though he had lived his whole life as a gay man and had never had a romantic relationship with a woman. They are now very happily married and the child is about two years old. 

Isn’t that a fascinating story??

So maybe the conversation we should be having before marriage is not what colour the bridesmaids should wear, or who to invite, but how to bring up the children? Because the pre-nuptial agreement, which is very popular among the rich to protect their assets, is something that could be brought in and extended to cover not just the monetary assets but every aspect of the marital relationship from childcare to housework and, in case there is a breakdown, living arrangements, finances, and contact arrangements for the children. People think about their monetary assets but give no consideration at all to what will surely be their greatest asset, their children!!

We jump into these situations assuming everything will work itself out in time and the real issues are seldom addressed before the wedding, then it’s too late afterwards and when I look around me, I honestly don’t see very many genuinely happy marriages. That is not to say that marriage can’t work and there aren’t good marriages out there but I don’t believe the preparation is anywhere near adequate for the task ahead and I really believe that parenting is something that should be taught in schools.

I also think that no girl should be allowed to marry under the age of twenty-five, and I would make that twenty-nine for a man. I know people have got married at younger ages and stayed together but I really believe that it needs much more thought and preparation than it is currently given and, I think with a few changes, we might have better marriages and fewer divorces.