Mary Martin was 11 years old when her father taught her to box. She would come home from school scratched and bruised, her ears ringing with abuse from the playground. Mary Martin had the unhappy distinction of being the granddaughter of Britain’s last convicted witch.Mrs Martin knew her grandmother, Helen Duncan, as a comforting woman she could trust, the granny with a special gift: talking to spirits. But this was April 1944, at the height of the war with Germany. Mrs Duncan had just been branded by an Old Bailey jury as a witch and spy guilty of revealing wartime secrets.

Some 50 years after Mrs Duncan’s death, a fresh campaign has been launched to clear her name, with a petition calling on the home secretary, John Reid, to grant a posthumous pardon. Her conviction, said Mrs Martin, was simply “ludicrous”.

The appeal is winning international support from experts in perhaps the world’s most infamous witch trial: the conviction and execution of 20 girls, men and women at Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. “Helen Duncan was very much victimised by her times, and she too suffered,” said Alison D’Amario, education director at the Salem Witch Museum.

Mrs Duncan, a Scotswoman who travelled the country holding seances, was one of Britain’s best-known mediums, reputedly numbering Winston Churchill and George VI among her clients, when she was arrested in January 1944 by two naval officers at a seance in Portsmouth. The military authorities, secretly preparing for the D-day landings and then in a heightened state of paranoia, were alarmed by reports that she had disclosed - allegedly via contacts with the spirit world - the sinking of two British battleships long before they became public. The most serious disclosure came when she told the parents of a missing sailor that his ship, HMS Barham, had sunk. It was true, but news of the tragedy had been suppressed to preserve morale.

Desperate to silence the apparent leak of state secrets, the authorities charged Mrs Duncan with conspiracy, fraud, and with witchcraft under an act dating back to 1735 - the first such charge in over a century. At the trial, only the “black magic” allegations stuck, and she was jailed for nine months at Holloway women’s prison in north London. Churchill, then prime minister, visited her in prison and denounced her conviction as “tomfoolery”. In 1951, he repealed the 200-year-old act, but her conviction stood. Mrs Martin recalls that news of Mrs Duncan’s conviction spread through her working-class suburb of Craigmillar in Edinburgh like a virus. “It was in all the papers, and of course the evil eye, witch-spawn - you name it, we were called it. My older sister, Helen, just wouldn’t mention it. She shut it out of her mind. It was grim. I was only 11 years old, and children can be the cruellest under the sun. It taught us how to look after ourselves, I can tell you that much.”

She remains nonplussed that the case ever went to court. “The arrest was silly really. If they’d spoken to her she would’ve stopped giving seances until the war was over. Let’s be honest: she’d two sons in the navy, and one in the RAF, and my father in the army. So why would she turn around and put the country at risk?”

The petition has been set up by an arts festival and the holder of a medieval barony, Gordon Prestoungrange, in the coastal town of Prestonpans east of Edinburgh, a few miles from Mrs Martin’s home. Two years ago, Dr Prestoungrange used his ancient powers as the local baron to pardon 81 women and men from the area executed for witchcraft in the 16th and 17th centuries. “The prosecution and conviction of Helen Duncan as a witch was clearly as much of an injustice as those of the 16th and 17th centuries,” he said.

“It’s hardly credible that a 20th century court would be prepared to convict someone of witchcraft - within living memory of many in this present government. As well as the deprivations suffered by Helen Duncan in prison, the effect of the stigma on her family was and remains considerable.”

Mrs Martin and her supporters face a battle to convince the Home Office to act. But Tony Blair’s apology for Britain’s role in slavery, and the official pardon for more than 300 first world war servicemen convicted of cowardice, have reinvigorated the campaign. Convicted witches are being pardoned across the US. Mrs Duncan died in 1956, three months after being arrested again in a police raid on a seance in Nottingham. Paranormal investigators denounced her as a fraud who used cheesecloth, rubber gloves and egg whites to create the “ectoplasm” she claimed to produce.

Mrs Martin insists her grandmother was a genuine spiritualist, “an ordinary woman with a gift. I just want her name cleared. She was never given the chance to defend herself at the trial. It was such an injustice. While all this was happening, our troops were preparing for D-day. Why did they spend 10 days trying an old lady for witchcraft?”

The witchcraft laws

Witch hunts reached their peak in the UK in the 17th century, when the church viewed witches as devil-worshipping heretics. In 1604 James I issued a statute against witchcraft. Numerous trials followed, including those instigated by Matthew Hopkins, self-appointed witchfinder general, from 1644 to 1647.

Hopkins travelled the south-east seeking out witches, using torture to secure confessions and using methods such as swimming - throwing the accused into a river and judging them innocent if they sank - to determine guilt. He is thought to have executed 200-400 “witches”. In Manningtree, Essex, alone, he accused 36 women, 19 of whom were executed; a further nine died in prison.

The accused were overwhelmingly female, often widows with no family to protect them. Some were herbalists or healers, practices opposed by church teachings, and some probably did practise dark arts, though most were innocent. The last execution for witchcraft in England was in 1684, when Alice Molland was hanged in Exeter. James I’s statute was repealed in 1736 by George II. In Scotland, the church outlawed witchcraft in 1563 and 1,500 people were executed, the last, Janet Horne, in 1722.

Gerald Brousseau Gardner founded the modern Wicca movement in the 1940s, 11 years before the repeal of Britain’s witchcraft laws. Followers revere nature, worship a goddess and practice ritual magic. In the 2001 census, 7,000 people listed Wicca as their religion.

Source: Guardian Unlimited

From a business perspective, Dragon’s Paradox, a Contoocook gift shop specializing in metaphysical items, is not a rousing success after its first 10 months. On a good day, the store gets three customers, said owner KaLea Thoits. But for Thoits, 31, finances are secondary - to her, the store represents the fulfillment of part of her spiritual journey as a witch.

“I don’t consider it a success or a failure based on how many customers I have,” she said. “It’s a success because I made it, because it’s here. Anything above that is a bonus.”

Tucked away in a barn next to her home on Burnham Intervale Road, Dragon’s Paradox is an out-of-the-way haven. A pellet stove with a burning fire heats the room and folksy music plays in the background. A deck of purple “fairy affirmation cards” offering messages like “never give in” is spread out on a table and a rug with a pentacle lies near the door. A bookshelf holds titles like Ecstatic Dance and Develop Your Psychic Skills. Most gifts, from jewelry to paintings, are handmade by Thoits, her husband or others she met in the pagan community.

But although many of the shop’s wares cater to a pagan or Wiccan clientele, Thoits stresses that it is not exclusive. Smooth, colored crystals can be used for healing or meditation, but Thoits bought some of them just because she liked their look. Wands of maple wood or cherry wood, carved by her husband, Chuck, a builder and carpenter, are on sale for between $8 and $175.

“They can be used for ceremony and ritual, or to hang them on a wall because they look cool,” Thoits said. The 6-foot staffs Chuck Thoits carves, which cost $75 for a plain wood stick or $125 for one with delicate stones and a dreamcatcher on top, can also be used either for ceremonies or for a hike in the woods.

Thoits, who makes the shop’s jewelry, has even made rosary beads, so crosses hang near healing herbs and incense. Recently, she started crafting necklaces and bracelets out of freshwater pearls. Ranging in price from about $13 to $150, her creations are unique - one features yellow and green round pearls interspersed with purple squares.
“The store’s eclectic, you never know what I’m going to have,” Thoits said. “When it started, I wanted a metaphysical shop, but it became a shop of cool things.” For example, her husband insisted the store needed a full suit of armor, although, she said, he was upset that the suit fit the blacksmith and not him.

Thoits first imagined opening her own store when she was around 19 years old and started learning about Wicca. She was always interested in the subject - as a child, her answer to “What do you want to be when you grow up?” was always “a witch.” She said she would play with her mother’s tarot cards and Ouija board, and always felt she had strong intuition and a connection with nature.

But at 19, she started meeting Wiccan friends, celebrating holidays, and reading about the practice. She also started shopping in metaphysical stores. “I felt the majority of metaphysical, new age, witch shops had all the same thing,” she said. “I wanted to have my own stuff.”

At 22, Thoits was living in Dublin with the father of her three children. She still dreamed of opening a store, but said it was not the right time or place. They eventually split up, and she began drifting away from Wicca and developing her own philosophy. “Part of being a witch for me is trying to live a life of balance, taking responsibility for everything I do, trying to teach my children to do the same,” she said.

In October 2003, she met Chuck and in April 2004 moved to Hopkinton. “He took my dream of a store and ran with it,” she said. She started making jewelry; he carved knife handles, boxes and wands. They opened the store last March and began traveling to Renaissance fairs, buying and selling crafts, and connecting with artists and craftsmen. They are still expanding, building a stone circle between the house and the store to be used for fire circles and holiday celebrations.

Thoits has done little advertising, hoping that signs at the end of the road and word of mouth will be sufficient, although she knows the store is off the beaten path. But she said she is not nervous about staying in business, despite minimal traffic. She said, “This is what I want to do, so I did it.”

Dragon’s Paradox, at 67 Burnham Intervale Road in Contoocook, is open Monday through Friday from 11 to 6 and Saturday and Sunday from 10 to 4. The website is dragonsparadox.com.

Source: Concord Monitor

If the past is a foreign country, then ancient religion may be its most exotic locale. The HBO series “Rome,” which returns for its second season on Sunday, is hardly “Fodor’s Guide to Paganism,” but by venturing off some well-worn cinematic paths, the show has given the worship of the gods a generous treatment in a genre dominated by stories of gladiators and the advent of Christ.

The creators of the serial drama, which focuses on the power struggles during the last days of the Roman Republic in the first century B.C.E., wanted to portray Roman religion not as a doomed prologue to Christianity but as a vibrant and meaningful part of everyday life.

In an illustrative scene from the series’ first season, the rough-hewn soldier Titus Pullo, who is imprisoned for insubordination, makes a rather pathetic prayer.

“Forculus, if you be the right god for the business here, I call on you to help me,” Pullo says. “If you will open this door I will kill for you a fine white lamb, or failing that, if I couldn’t get a good one at a decent price then six pigeons.”

Packed into Pullo’s lines is more than comic relief. Given that several Roman deities preside over the different parts of the door–Limentinus is guardian of the threshold, the goddess Cardea over the hinge–Forculus, who presides over the door itself, seems like a safe bet, but Pullo hedges it a little, just in case.

Conversations with the Gods
As Rome expanded through conquest, so did its pantheon. Its religion was not a belief system so much as a series of cults dedicated to different gods who were expected to help people out in the here and now–if properly worshipped. Major gods who were believed to be essential to the success of the nation, like Mars or Jupiter, were the province of state-run priestly colleges but privately people worshipped their own gods. On all levels of society, Romans looked for signs of the gods’ intentions and sought their favor whether it be for a business venture or an act of legislation.

Pullo’s offering is not an act of ethics or repentance. A Roman god wants recognition and respect, so Pullo negotiates sacrifices rather than promising to reform his behavior and stay out of jail in the future. And the pigeons? Well, there’s historical evidence that reneging on a promise of sacrificial offerings is a serious affair. An inscribed stone from the third century C.E. in the Roman province of Asia, modern-day Turkey, records that a woman couldn’t afford to fulfill a promised sacrifice of a bull to a god, so she offers the stone instead.

“People were in constant conversation with the gods,” says Bruno Heller, the show’s co-creator, head writer and one of its executive producers. “Switching allegiances from one god to the other or trying to find out what god is applicable to the situation makes a difference to people’s behavior and morality when they don’t have that overarching superego telling them what’s right and wrong. It makes for, in many ways, a freer and more liberated society, but on the other hand a far more brutal and cruel one.”

The first season of the series told the story of the six years from Julius Caesar’s defeat of Gaul to the fall of the Roman Republic and Caesar’s rise to dictatorship and his assassination in 44 B.C.E. If that seems like a lot for 12 episodes, the second season compresses an even greater span of time–the following 14 years, during which Caesar’s adopted son Octavian eliminates his political opponents and becomes Augustus, Rome’s first emperor.

A key to Augustus’ consolidation of power was religion, and he framed his struggle with rivals Mark Antony and Cleopatra as a fight between the gods of Rome and the gods of Egypt.

Departing from traditional portrayals of the ancient superpower going back to Shakespeare, which tended to focus on the intrigues of the upper classes, “Rome” splits its narrative between the power brokers of the period and the daily lives of two lower-class soldiers, Pullo and Lucius Vorenus.

Daily life for Romans included a strong measure of religion, and Heller says it was clear early in his research for the show that its omnipresence meant that matters of faith had to play a major role in the series.

“You couldn’t really explain individual psychology and character without explaining something of their sense of religion and their cosmological sense,” Heller says. “If you think you’re going to disappear into nothingness when you die, you behave very different from someone who believes that they may be wafted up to the Elysian Fields if they please the gods.”

Violence, Cruelty, and Spiritual Transformation
Acts of violence and cruelty pave the way for the spiritual transformations in the series’ second season. Vorenus, a pious if guileless conservative, loses his family and embraces the gods of the underworld. In the first season the accidental knocking over of a statue of Janus, yet another god of doorways as well as the god of beginnings, at a party celebrating a new business venture is cause for despair and penance. In contrast, in the second season he deliberately smashes a statue of the goddess Concordia in a display of sacrilege.

Headed the opposite direction is the amoral Jewish horse trader and henchman Timon, who slowly embraces the ethical tenants of Judaism when his zealous brother pays him a visit from Judea. His brother’s influence comes to a head while Timon tortures a rival of his patron and discovers there is a limit to how much brutality he is willing to put another human being through.

Source: Beliefnet.com

While the so-called mainstream media is promoting the world view of capitalist-colonial totalitarians, serious researchers in Europe and America are busy digging the roots of never ending global conflicts and ongoing turmoil. Some have revealed the vested interest of the corporate world and its individual pawns in the ongoing wars and occupations.

Others have exposed the neo-cons totalitarian designs to remake the world in their image with force. Yet others tell the world with undeniable evidence how Christian Zionists and other Christianists stand strongly behind the political front’s bloody adventures across the world. If we sum up the whole spectrum, we find that is the church and state alliance that has put the future of humanity at stake. The so-called mainstream media and other corporate entities are doing their best to keep public away from knowing the truth.

For a clear understanding of what is really happening we have to go back in history. A society does not tell the truth about its own history. This is a history of the alliance of church and state destroying other cultures (e.g. as told by a historian educated in the remnants of Hellenic culture). It was this destruction of libraries and cultural institutions over a period of 350 years which dropped Western society into the several hundred years of the Dark Ages.[1]

Public’s ignorance of the reality is not something new. During the 350 years of suppression of all intellectual thought (chronology below) there would have been suppressions here and there throughout the empire but most would have lived out their lives in peace, not knowing, or ignoring what crimes were actually being committed. Only when the suppression took place in their region, or if they were a soldier of the empire, would the average citizen be affected by that violence.

Most citizens of empires of that 400- year-period lived their lives out in peace. Except for the occasional battle between empires, only those in a region being suppressed were imminently subject to violence.

And so it is today. Battles between empires seem to be over today, those in the centers of empire live their lives out in peace, while those on the periphery face both the violence of poverty and the violence of suppression.  The mass-media is effectively keeping their public ignorant of the truth.    

In collusion with the church-state alliance, the “mainstream” media is simply repeating the history. Library of Alexandria was burnt to the floor. In the Library of Alexandria was a functioning steam engine. A study of an artifact discovered in the Middle East concluded it could only have been a battery. This, and the libraries and culture centers throughout the Roman Empire, proves the destruction of other cultures, so as to expand and protect the power of an already powerful culture. This delayed the Industrial Revolution for 1,200 to 1,500 years.[2]

Some of the non-Muslim researchers, who learnt how Christians destroyed the Library of Alexandria and killed every educated Egyptian, and who studied the history of Christian destruction of the Hellenic culture, have come to the conclusion that the Muslim religion was established as a defense against being forced into Christianity and that protection accounts for the rapid establishment of that religion. Although, not really so, it is undeniable to conclude that Islam put a halt to the totalitarian onslaught of Church-State alliance earlier in history. Islam is still considered the only formidable block in the way of continuing de facto colonization in the regions which remained under the direct colonial occupation. Therefore, all knowledge and analysis is acceptable to one or another degree. However, those sources are considered a threat which explains how the church-state alliance and their corporate backers are waging a war of ideology in the name of democracy to sustain de facto colonization of the Muslim world in particular.

This alliance of church and state, killing all who threatened either capitalist or Christian powerbrokers, has been in place for 1700 years. Until they came up against the old cultures of Asia, they enslaved the gentle societies they came across. The die off was genocidal, it was: become Christian and capitalist or die. Those who accepted Christianity and/or the legal structure of the capitalist order, they fared better but still were essentially slaves. The poor within capitalism are still essentially slaves.

The theft of the world’s wealth permitted the Christian/capitalism alliance to provide for their citizenry, which was supposed to be kept under control so that they don’t object to the illegitimate, bloody colonial adventures abroad. Thus, citizens have to display that they are good persons in order to qualify to the little fake freedoms and sham rights. Real and equal rights and the struggle for fairness and the right to self-determination is a serious threat to the Christian/capitalist alliance.

Any source of intellectual discussion, at home or abroad, which struggles for equality and real rights, is considered a serious threat. Thus there is the continual battle as capitalists suppress the rights of labor and the rights of oppressed, suffering under the never ending colonialism. Since, masses cannot be kept in darkness forever and capitalism cannot survive without continued expansion, one of these days it will crash and full rights can be attained. 

The important point to note is the continued battle to overwhelm the Muslim world, which has prevented the evolution of rights within the Muslim community. The end of direct colonial occupations in the 20th century was merely a strategic withdrawal. Since then, indirect colonization continues with the help of institutions such as the United Nations, World Bank, the IMF, through using various tactics, such as political interference, overthrow of popularly elected governments, support of repressive regimes, and above all the through the use of overwhelming military power.

The Qur’an and teaching of Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) are filled with stress on equality of human beings and protection of equal rights for all irrespective of the position and power. Islam guarantees the most basic right of equal access to all resources and defense again exploitation, oppression and injustice. That’s why Muslims’ struggle for self-determination and self-rule according to the principles of Islam is one of the basic threats to the survival or present colonial order, the interest of the alliance of church and state and the survival of corporate entities such as the British Telecommunication.

Most importantly, what we observe today is that the alliance of church and states is using secularism as a weapon to separate Muslims from Islam so as to sustain de facto colonization in the interest of global capitalist order. As a result, Muslims’ final protection has withdrawn into fundamental beliefs. It is that or be overwhelmed. We witnessed it in Afghanistan before and we are witnessing it again these days. No matter how irreligious Afghans had become; no matter how much they were indulged in practices against the clear injunctions of the Qur’an and the Sunnah, but when the Soviet occupation became a matter of life and death for them. The same phenomenon is being replayed under the Western occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq today.

The church and state alliance thought that occupation of Iraq would be a cake walk but those egotists did not realize the power of the fundamentals of Islam. That’s probably what the colonizers refer to as fundamentalism. They are paying for that now. There is no way any army can control a society when all will give their life for their freedom from foreign occupation. If it were the matter of Islam alone, Iraqis lived under an un-Islamic, secular, Ba’athist regime for decades. However, when it comes to the struggle against the capitalist alliance of Church and State, they oppressed Muslims will go to any length to not let it succeed. Already they have whipped the so-considered crusaders in Iraq. People living under occupation realize that and are organizing to push the occupiers further out of the Muslim lands.

The sensible of the power brokers in the West know this and are appalled at those at the forefront of church and state alliance, stepping right into their trap and enraging all Muslims and other weaker nations around the world. The fraud of their cover stories stand exposed and there simply is no cover story under which they can now hide. The oppressors don’t see any solution other than escalating wars and continuing oppression. We are living through the greatest world upheaval in history. Iraqis, Afghans and Palestinians are battling for the world’s freedom. And the “mainstream media” is engaged in an exercise in futility to keep the public ignorant.

Abid Ullah Jan’s latest book The Ultimate Tragedy was relased by the ICSSA (www.icssa.org) in December 2006.

NOTES

——————————————————————————–

[1] The exact dates of the beginning and ending of the Dark Ages, is a relative thing.

[2] The world could have had trains, cars, phones, and TV sets over 1,200 years ago. One or two Millennia ago China also had the foundation of an industrial society (a large iron industry, rotary drills, mechanical seeders, and a navy which plied the oceans) and it too declined into a feudal peasant economy.

     We do not have the answers to all this but there are similarities between protection and expansion of power in these ancient histories which dropped the world into the several hundred years of the Dark Ages and today’s expansion and protection of power and wealth through military force

***

Facts from history

Following is the story of how the Hellenic race and culture was wiped off the map by the alliance of Church and State. The advent of Christianity meant the destruction of Hellas.

Followers of Hellenic religion were persecuted and their ancient temples destroyed.  Just the way Islam is fast becoming an accusation today, the word Hellenas became an accusation. In the year 393, Emperor Theodosius outlawed the Olympic Games.  The Library of Alexandria, a centre of Hellenistic civilization and learning, was burnt down with most of its books.  Classical works of science and literature were hunted down and destroyed.  The dark ages commenced with the demise of the Hellenic civilization.

Below was summarized from Vlasis Rassia’s Book: ‘Demolish Them’ (in Hellenic), Athens 1994, Diipetes Editions (emphasis added). 

To study this further, Google keyword “libraries, burned, Christians.” Those of you who know the history of the collapse of the Chinese, or any other, proto-industrial society, please share that with us.

Year 314 CE   (Christian Era)
Immediately after its full legalisation, the Christian Church attacks the Gentiles: The Council of Ancyra denounces the worship of the Goddess Artemis.  

Year 324   CE 
Emperor Constantine declares Christianity the only official religion of the Roman Empire. At Dydima, Asia Minor, he sacks the Oracle of God Apollo and tortures its Pagan priests to death. He evicts the Gentiles from Mt. Athos and destroys all local Hellenic Temples.  

Year 326  CE  
Emperor Constantine, following the instructions of his mother Helen, destroys the Temple of the God Asclepius in Aigeai of Cilicia and many Temples of the Goddess Aphrodite in Jerusalem, Aphaca, Mambre, Phoenice, Baalbek, etc.  

Year 330 CE   
Constantine steals the treasures and statues of the Pagan Temples in Greece to decorate Nova Roma (Constantinople), the new capital of his Empire.  

Year 335 CE    
Constantine sacks many Pagan Temples of Asia Minor and Palestine and orders the execution by crucifixion of “all magicians and soothsayers”. Martyrdom of the neoplatonist philosopher Sopatros.  

Year 341 CE   
Emperor Constas, son of Constantinus, persecutes “all the soothsayers and the Hellenists”. Many Gentile Hellenes are either imprisoned or executed.  

Year 346 CE   
New large-scale persecutions of the Gentiles in Constantinople. Banishment of the famous orator Libanius, who is accused of being a “magician”.  

Year 353 CE  
An edict of Constantius decrees the death penalty for all forms of worship involving sacrifice and “idols”.  

Year 354  CE  
A new edict of Constantius orders the closing of all Pagan Temples. Some of them are profaned and turned into brothels or gambling rooms. Executions of Pagan priests.  The first burning of libraries in various cities of the Empire. The first lime factories are built next to closed Pagan Temples. A large part of Sacred Gentile architecture is turned into lime.  

Year 356  CE 
A new edict of Constantius orders the destruction of the Pagan Temples and the execution of all “idolaters”.  

Year 357 CE  
Constantius outlaws all methods of Divination (Astrology not excluded).  

Year 359 CE   
In Skythopolis, Syria, Christians organize the first death camps for the torture and execution of arrested Gentiles from all around the Empire.  

Year 361 to 363 CE   
Religious tolerance and restoration of Pagan cults declared in Constantinople (11th December 361) by the Pagan Emperor Flavius Claudius Julianus.  

Year 363 CE   
Assassination of Emperor Julianus (26th June).  

Year 364 CE   
Emperor Flavius Jovianus orders the burning of the Library of Antioch. An Imperial edict (11th September) orders the death penalty for all Gentiles that worship their ancestral Gods or practice Divination (“sileat omnibus perpetuo divinandi uriositas”). Three different edicts (4th February, 9th September, 23rd December) order the confiscation of all properties of Pagan Temples and the death penalty for participation in Pagan rituals, including private ones.  

Year 365 CE   
An Imperial edict (17th November) forbids Gentile officers of the army to command Christian soldiers.  

Year 370 CE    
Emperor Valens orders a tremendous persecution of Gentiles throughout the Eastern Empire. In Antioch, among many other  Pagans, the ex-governor Fidustius and the priests Hilarius and Patricius are executed. Tons of books are burnt in the city-squares of the Eastern Empire. All friends of Julianus are persecuted (Orebasius, Sallustius, Pegasius etc.), the philosopher Simonides is burned alive and the philosopher Maximus is decapitated.  

Year 372 CE    
Emperor Valens orders the governor of Asia Minor to exterminate the Hellenes and destroy all writings of their wisdom.  

Year 373 CE    
New prohibition of all methods of Divination. The term “Pagan” (pagani, villagers) is introduced by the Christians to lessen the Gentiles.  

Year 375 CE   
The Temple of the God Asclepius in Epidaurus, Greece, is closed down.  

Year 380 CE   
On the 27th February, Christianity becomes the exclusive religion of the Roman Empire by an edict of Emperor Flavius Theodosius, requiring that “all the various nations, which are subject to our clemency and moderation should continue in the profession of that religion, which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter”. Non-christians are called “loathsome, heretics, stupid and blind”. In another edict Theodosius calls “insane” those that do not believe in the christian god and outlaws all disagreements with Church dogma. Ambrosius, bishop of Milan, starts destroying all the Pagan Temples of his area. Christian priests lead the mob against the Temple of the Goddess Demeter in Eleusis and try to lynch the hierophants Nestorius and Priskus. The 95 year-old hierophant Nestorius, ends the Eleusinian Mysteries and announces the predominance of mental darkness over the human race.  

Year 381 CE    
On May the 2nd, Theodosius deprives Christians that return to the Pagan Religion of all their rights. Throughout the Eastern Empire, Pagan Temples and Libraries are looted or burned down. On 21st December, Theodosius outlaws even simple visits to the Temples of the Hellenes. In Constantinople, the Temple of the Goddess Aphrodite is turned into a brothel and the Temples of Sun and Artemis into stables.  

Year 382 CE   
“Hellelu-jah” (Glory to Yahweh) is imposed in the Christian mass.  

Year 384  CE 
Emperor Theodosius orders the Praetorian Prefect, Maternus Cynegius (a dedicated Christian), to cooperate with the local bishops and destroy the Temples of the Gentiles in Northern Greece and Asia Minor.  

Year 385 to 388 CE    
Maternus Cynegius, encouraged by his fanatic wife, and his bishop “Saint” Marcellus, scour the countryside with their gangs, sack and destroy hundreds of Hellenic Temples, shrines and altars. Amongst others they destroy the Temple of Edessa, the Cabeireion of Imbros, the Temple of Zeus in Apamea, the Temple of Apollo in Dydima and all the Temples of Palmyra. Thousands of innocent Gentiles from all sides of the Empire suffer martyrdom in the notorious death camps of Skythopolis.  

Year 386 CE  
Emperor Theodosius outlaws (16th June) the care of sacked Pagan Temples.  

Year 388 CE   
Public talks on religious subjects are also outlawed by Theodosius. The old orator Libanius sends his famous Epistle “Pro Templis” to Theodosius, with a hope that the few remaining Hellenic Temples will be respected and spared.  

Year 389 to 390 CE  
All non-Christian calenders are outlawed. Hordes of fanatic hermits from the desert flood into Middle Eastern and Egyptian cities, destroying statues, altars, Libraries and Pagan Temples, whilst Gentiles are lynched. Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, starts heavy persecutions against the Gentiles, turns the Temple of Dionysos into a church, burns down the Mithraeum of the city, destroys the Temple of Zeus and burlesques the Pagan priests before they are killed by stoning. The Christian mob profanes the cult images.  

Year 391  CE  
On 24th February, a new edict of Theodosius prohibits not only visits to Pagan Temples but also looking at vandalised statues. New heavy persecutions all around the Empire. In Alexandria, Egypt, the Gentiles, led by the philosopher Olympius, revolt and  after some street fights, finally lock themselves inside the fortified Temple of the God Serapis (The Serapeion). After a violent siege, the Christians occupy the building, demolish it, burn its famous Library and profane the cult images.  

Year 392 CE    
On 8th November, the Emperor Theodosius outlaws all non-Christian rituals and names them “superstitions of the Gentiles”  (“gentilicia superstitio”). New full scale persecutions against the Gentiles. The Mysteries of Samothrace are ended and priests slaughtered. In Cyprus the local bishop, “Saints” Epiphanius and Tychon destroy almost all the Temples of the island and exterminate thousands of Gentiles. The local Mysteries of Goddess Aphrodite are ended. Theodosius’ edict declares: “the ones that won’t obey pater Epiphanius have no right to keep living on the island”. The Gentiles revolt against the Emperor and the Church in Petra, Aeropolis, Rafia, Gaza, Baalbek and other cities of the Middle East.  

Year 393 CE   
The Pythian, Aktia and Olympic Games are outlawed as part of the Hellenic “idolatry”. Christians sack the Temples of Olympia.  

Year 395 CE  
Two new edicts (22nd July and 7th August) lead to new persecutions against the Gentiles. Rufinus, the eunuch Prime Minister of Emperor Flavius Arcadius directs the hordes of the baptised Goths (led by Alaric) to the country of the Hellenes. Encouraged by Christian monks, the barbarians sack and burn many cities (Dion, Delphi, Megara, Corinth, Pheneos, Argos, Nemea, Lycosoura, Sparta, Messene, Phigaleia, Olympia, etc.), slaughter or enslave innumerable Hellenes and burn the Temples. Among others, they burn down the Eleusinian Sanctuary and burn alive all of its priests (including the hierophant of Mithras Hilarius).  

Year 396 CE    
On 7th December, a new edict by Emperor Arcadius orders that Paganism be treated as high treason. Imprisonment of the few  remaining Pagan priests and hierophants.  

Year 397 CE   
“Demolish them!” Emperor Flavius Arcadius orders all the still erect Pagan Temples demolished.  

Year 398 CE    
The Fourth Church Council of Carthage prohibits to all, including its bishops, the study of Gentile books. Porphyrius, bishop of Gaza, demolishes almost all the Pagan Temples of his city (except nine of them that remain active).  

Year 399 CE    
With a new edict (13th July) Emperor Flavius Arcadius orders all remaining Temples, mainly in the countryside, to be immediately demolished: «Si qua in agris templa sunt, sine turba ac tumultu diruantur. His enim deiectis atque sublatis omnis superstitioni materia consumetur» 

Year 400 CE    
Bishop Nicetas destroys the Oracle of God Dionysus in Vesai and baptises all the Gentiles of this area.  

Year 401 CE    
The Christian mob of Carthage lynches Gentiles and destroys Temples and “idols”. In Gaza too, the local bishop, also a..,”Saint”, Porphyrius sends his followers to lynch Gentiles and demolish the remaining nine still active Temples of the city. The 15th Council of Chalkedon orders all Christians that still keep good relations with their gentile relatives to be excommunicated (even after their death).  

Year 405 CE  
John Chrysostom sends his hordes of gray-clad monks armed with clubs and iron bars to destroy the “idols” in all the cities of Palestine.  

Year 406  CE  
John Chrysostom collects funds from rich Christian women to financially support the demolition of the Hellenic Temples. In  Ephessus, he orders the destruction of the famous Temple of Goddess Artemis. In Salamis, Cyprus, “Saints” Epiphanius and Eutychius continue persecutions of the Gentiles and the total destruction of their Temples and sanctuaries.  

Year 407 CE   
A new edict outlaws once more all non-Christian acts of worship.  

Year 408 CE   
The Emperor of the Western Empire Honorius and the Emperor of the Eastern Empire Arcadius, order together that all sculptures of the Pagan Temples be either destroyed or confiscated. Private ownership of Pagan sculpture is also outlawed. The local bishops lead new heavy persecutions against Gentiles and new book burning. Judges showing pity for Gentiles are also persecuted.  

Year 409  CE  
Once again, an edict orders Astrology and all methods of Divination to be punishable by death.  

Year 415  CE  
In Alexandria, Egypt, the mob urged by the bishop Cyrillus, attacks a few days before the judaeo-christian Pascha (Pesach-Easter) and hacks to pieces the famous and beautiful philosopher Hypatia. Pieces of her body are paraded by the Christian mob through the streets of Alexandria, and are finally burned together with her books in a place called Cynaron. On 30th August, new persecutions start against all the Pagan priests of North Africa, who end their lives either crucified or burned alive.  

Year 416 CE   
The inquisitor Hypatius, alias “The Sword of God”, exterminates the last Gentiles of Bithynia. In Constantinople (7th December), all non-Christian army officers, public employees and judges are dismissed.  

Year 423 CE   
Emperor Theodosius II, declares (8th June) that the Religion of the Gentiles is nothing more than “demon worship” and orders all those who persist in practicing it to be punished by imprisonment and tortured.  

Year 429 CE   
The Temple of Goddess Athena (Parthenon) on the Acropolis of Athens is sacked. Athenian Pagans are persecuted.  

Year 435 CE   
On 14th November, a new edict by Theodosius II orders the death penalty for all “heretics” and “pagans” of the Empire. Only Judaism is considered a legal non-Christian Religion.  

Year 438  CE  
Theodosius II issues an new edict (31st January) against the Gentiles, incriminating their “idolatry” as the reason for a recent plague!  

Year 440 to 450 CE   
The Christians demolish all the monuments, altars and Temples of Athens, Olympia, and other Greek cities.  

Year 448  CE 
Theodosius II orders all non-Christian books burned.  

Year 450  CE  
All the Temples of Aphrodisias (City of Goddess Aphrodite) are demolished and its Libraries burned down. The city is renamed Stauroupolis (City of the Cross).  

Year 451  
A new edict by Theodosius II (4th November) emphasizes that “idolatry” is to be punished by death.  

457 to 491 CE    
Sporadic persecutions against Gentiles of the Eastern Empire. Among others, the physician Jacobus and the philosopher Gessius are executed. Severianus, Herestios, Zosimus, Isidorus and others are tortured and imprisoned. The proselytiser Conon and his followers exterminate the last Gentiles of the island of Imbros, in the northeast Aegean. The last worshippers of  Lavranius Zeus are exterminated in Cyprus.  

Year 482 to 488 CE    
The majority of the Gentiles of Asia Minor are exterminated, after a desperate revolt against the Emperor and the Church.  

Year 486 CE    
More “underground” Pagan priests are discovered, arrested, burlesqued, tortured and executed in Alexandria, Egypt.  

Year 515 CE   
Baptism becomes obligatory, even for those that already say they are Christian. The Emperor of Constantinople, Anastasius orders the massacre of the Gentiles in the Arabian city Zoara and the demolition of the Temple of local God Theandrites.  

Year 528 CE   
Emperor Jutprada (Justinianus) outlaws the “alternative” Olympian Games of Antioch. He also orders the execution (by fire, crucifixion, tearing to pieces by wild beasts, or cutting by iron nails) of all who practice “sorcery, divination, magic or idolatry” and prohibits all teachings by the Gentiles (”..the ones suffering from the blasphemous insanity of the Hellenes”).  

Year 529  CE  
Emperor Justinianus outlaws the Athenian Philosophical Academy, which has its property confiscated.  

Year 532   CE 
The inquisitor Ioannis Asiacus, a fanatical monk, leads a crusade against the Gentiles of Asia Minor.  

Year 542 CE    
Emperor Justinianus allows the inquisitor Ioannis Asiacus to convert the Gentiles of Phrygia, Caria and Lydia in Asia Minor. Within 35 years of this crusade, 99 churches and 12 monasteries are built on the sites of demolished Pagan Temples.  

Year 546 CE   
Hundreds of Gentiles are put to death in Constantinople by the inquisitor Ioannis Asiacus.  

Year 556 CE   
Justinianus orders the notorious inquisitor Amantius to go to Antioch, to find, arrest, torture and exterminate the last Gentiles of the city and burn all the private libraries down.  

Year 562 CE    
Mass arrests, burlesquing, tortures, imprisonments and executions of Gentile Hellenes in Athens, Antioch, Palmyra and  Constantinople.  

Year 578 to 582 CE   
Christians torture and crucify Gentile Hellenes all around the Eastern Empire, and exterminate the last Gentiles of Heliopolis (Baalbek).  

Year 580 CE   
Christian inquisitors attack a secret Temple of Zeus in Antioch. The priest commits suicide, but the other Gentiles are arrested. All the prisoners, the Vice Governor Anatolius included, are tortured and sent to Constantinople to face trial. Sentenced to death they are thrown to the lions. The wild animals are unwilling to tear them to pieces and they end up crucified. Their corpses are dragged through the streets by the Christian mob and afterwards thrown unburied in the city dump.  

Year 583 CE   
New persecutions against the Gentile Hellenes by the Emperor Mauricius.  

Year 590 CE    
Throughout the Eastern Empire, Christian accusers “discover” Pagan conspiracies. A new wave of torture and executions erupts.  

Year 692 CE   
The “Penthekte” Council of Constantinople prohibits the remains of Calends, Brumalia, Anthesteria, and other Pagan / Dionysian festivals.  

Year 804 CE   
The Gentile Hellenes of Laconia, Greece, resist successfully the attempt of Tarasius, Patriarch of Constantinople, to convert them to Christianity.  

Year 950 to 988 CE   
Violent conversion of the last Gentile Hellenes of Laconia by the Armenian “Saint” Nikon.

Source: Al-Jazeerah.info, GA

The woman who was Tony and Cherie Blair’s host for their controversial holiday in Florida is a former porn star, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Dwina Murphy-Gibb appeared in several blue movies in the early Seventies. And she was expelled from a women’s liberation group when they found out about her past.

Dwina and her husband, Bee Gee Robin Gibb, opened their £4 million waterfront home in Miami Beach to the Blairs over New Year, prompting another ‘freebie’ holiday row.

It also led to a series of revelations about Dwina’s colourful past as a wild-living, bisexual Druid priestess.

But now her former fiance, David Waterfield, has disclosed her biggest secret in a further embarrassment for the Blairs.

“Dwina did porno before she knew me,” said Mr Waterfield. “We are talking before videos. We are talking black and white movies.”

The Mail on Sunday revealed last week that Dwina and Cherie have grown close over the past 12 months, sharing an interest in human rights.

Mr Waterfield, 63, a former porn baron who now lives in a remote bamboo hut near Chiang Mai in northern Thailand with his pregnant Thai fiancee, said he was ‘amazed’ someone with Dwina’s background was allowed into Downing Street.

“There must surely be some checking device. They should have known her background.”

Recalling their two-year romance, he said Dwina was fascinated by tarot cards, spiritualism and ‘witchery’ which he said was nurtured by bohemian friends with an interest in the occult.

He described his former lover as ‘honourable and honest’ and said: “If she is a friend of Cherie Blair, then Cherie has got a good friend.”

Waterfield - then a wealthy 29-year-old ‘wheeler dealer’ - met Dwina when she was a 20-year-old art college student in London in 1972.

“In my game, there are a lot of women around. But she was different. She was lovely with a big smile and a no-nonsense attitude. She wasn’t a greedy or avaricious person,” he said.

“I remember I had just bought a yellow E-type Jag - the first V12 model. It cost me £3,400 and at the time it was the only thing in my life I’d ever wanted.

“When I met Dwina, I’d never taken a girl out in it before. I thought, “She’s going to love this.”

“I told her I had my car parked round the corner and she turned the corner and said, “Is that your car?” I said, “Yes.” And she said, “I’m not getting in that.”

“I was gutted. I said, “You’re joking” but she refused to get in. It turned out she’d been in a sports car with another guy the week before, and it went too fast and they had an accident.

“She got in eventually. But that’s the kind of person she was. Everyone likes money to a degree but she’s not a greedy person. She’s a kind person, a very generous person.

“She would do all she could to help anybody. She helped a poor disabled girl. She bought her a wheelchair. Anyone will tell you she is just a kind person.”

Their unconventional relationship involved Waterfield having to accept bisexual Dwina’s female lovers.

“What she did with women had nothing to do with me - she made that very plain to me,” he said. “But I learnt a lot about it [lesbianism] from her, luckily I’m not afflicted with jealousy.”

Throughout their time together, Waterfield said Dwina had an uncanny ability to network with the rich and famous.

“She meets everyone - just by chance. Everywhere she goes, she is one of those people who attracts famous people,” he said.

“She even bumped into Princess Anne when she was getting engaged.

“It doesn’t surprise me she’s friends with the Blairs. Wherever she goes, she meets actors and famous people. It’s just the way she is. She doesn’t go looking for it. She bumps into people.

“When I was with her, every day she met and made friends with someone famous. One day it would be Warren Mitchell. Another day it was Patrick Mower. I never met anyone.

“I don’t know what her secret is. She’s from Ireland and she’s just gifted that way. She is very open.”

During their two years together, Waterfield said, her interest in the occult grew.

“At first she wasn’t that interested at all but a little bit later, she got very much into that kind of thing - witchery and all of that, and spiritualism too.

“Not superstitions but things to do with bringing good luck. She’s very much into tarot cards and things like that. She was very, very knowledgeable about that kind of thing.”

Dwina remained a close friend of Waterfield after their split and he recalled a meeting with her shortly before learning of her romance with Robin Gibb.

“She was sat down with me one day - I don’t know if she knew Robin or not at the time - and she was really skint,” he said.

“She was playing with her tarot cards and her witchery and all that and she told me: “I think I’ve got to marry a millionaire.”

And the next minute - boom - she’s married Robin Gibb. Dwina believes very strongly in karma. She believes what you do will come back.”

She was also passionate about feminism and vegetarianism, Waterfield said. “Dwina convinced me and I became a vegan - two years of bread, potato and cabbage,” he said.

Waterfield met Dwina’s parents when they visited from Ireland for her 21st birthday.

“They were very nice people - very ordinary,” he said. “They didn’t know what I was doing for a living. I don’t think the subject was raised.”

The porn dealer’s seedy dealings surfaced spectacularly in 1975, however, as his relationship with Dwina was fading, when he was jailed for three years for importing porn films into Britain.

“Dwina stood by me as best she could, the poor girl,” he recalled. “What did she know? She was a young girl from Ireland.”

Dwina apparently saw no conflict between her ideas on feminism and Waterfield’s career as a pornographer, which he insisted was “more about fighting censorship than making money”.

Although their relationship faded, Dwina and Waterfield stayed in touch.

Still without a job or anyone to support her financially, she worked for his new business producing bean bags and cushions after his release from prison.

“Dwina worked on a sewing machine for a year or two years,’ Waterfield said. “She was a very good worker - neat too. She made loads of bean bags and many people still sit on them.”

Waterfield helped Dwina with a mortgage on a house when she met a new partner but has had no contact with her since shortly after the beginning of her relationship with Robin Gibb more than 20 years ago.

“I had a phone call from her soon after she met Robin. She told me she was going to get married, he said.

“I didn’t even know who the Bee Gees were so I wasn’t that impressed. I discovered them after that. Now I play their music every day.”

But he has no regrets about his hermit lifestyle in Thailand, where he says he does nothing but grow mangoes.

“I’m an old man now,’ he said. “This is what I want.

“Isn’t this what everyone wants? This is a wonderful spot and we’re very, very happy here.”

Source: This is London