The Truth About The Talmud

A Documented Exposé Of Supremacist Rabbinic Hate Literature
By Michael A. Hoffman II
12-18-7


The Talmud is Judaism's holiest book (actually a collection of books). Its authority takes precedence over the Old Testament in Judaism. Evidence of this may be found in the Talmud itself, Erubin 21b (Soncino edition): "My son, be more careful in the observance of the words of the Scribes than in the words of the Torah (Old Testament)."

The supremacy of the Talmud over the Bible in the Israeli state may also be seen in the case of the black Ethiopian Jews. Ethiopians are very knowledgeable of the Old Testament. However, their religion is so ancient it pre-dates the Scribes' Talmud, of which the Ethiopians have no knowledge. According to the N.Y. Times of Sept. 29, 1992, p.4:

"The problem is that Ethiopian Jewish tradition goes no further than the Bible or Torah; the later Talmud and other commentaries that form the basis of modern traditions never came their way."

Because they are not traffickers in Talmudic tradition, the black Ethiopian Jews are discriminated against and have been forbidden by the Zionists to perform marriages, funerals and other services in the Israeli state.

Rabbi Joseph D. Soloveitchik is regarded as one of the most influential rabbis of the 20th century, the "unchallenged leader" of Orthodox Judaism and the top international authority on halakha (Jewish religious law). Soloveitchik was responsible for instructing and ordaining more than 2,000 rabbis, "an entire generation" of Jewish leadership.

N.Y. Times religion reporter Ari Goldman described the basis of the rabbi's authority:

"Soloveitchik came from a long line of distinguished Talmudic scholars...Until his early 20s, he devoted himself almost exclusively to the study of the Talmud...He came to Yeshiva University's Elchanan Theological Seminary where he remained the pre-eminent teacher in the Talmud...He held the title of Leib Merkin professor of Talmud...sitting with his feet crossed in front of a table bearing an open volume of the Talmud." (N.Y. Times, April 10, 1993, p. 38).

Nowhere does Goldman refer to Soloveitchik's knowledge of the Bible as the basis for being one of the leading authorities on Jewish law.

The rabbi's credentials are all predicated upon his mastery of the Talmud. Other studies are clearly secondary. Britain's Jewish Chronicle of March 26, 1993 states that in religious school (yeshiva), Jews are "devoted to the Talmud to the exclusion of everything else."

The Talmud Nullifies the Bible

The Jewish Scribes claim the Talmud is partly a collection of traditions Moses gave them in oral form. These had not yet been written down in Jesus' time. Christ condemned the traditions of the Mishnah (early Talmud) and those who taught it (Scribes and Pharisees), because the Talmud nullifies the teachings of the Holy Bible.

Shmuel Safrai in The Literature of the Sages Part One (p.164), points out that in chapters 4 and 5 of the Talmud's Gittin Tractate, the Talmud nullifies the Biblical teaching concerning money-lending: "Hillel decreed the prozbul for the betterment of the world. The prozbul is a legal fiction which allows debts to be collected after the Sabbatical year and it was Hillel's intention thereby to overcome the fear that money-lenders had of losing their money."

The famous warning of Jesus Christ about the tradition of men that voids Scripture (Mark 7:1-13), is in fact, a direct reference to the Talmud, or more specifically, the forerunner of the first part of it, the Mishnah, which existed in oral form during Christ's lifetime, before being committed to writing. Mark chapter 7, from verse one through thirteen, represents Our Lord's pointed condemnation of the Mishnah.

Unfortunately, due to the abysmal ignorance of our day, the widespread "Judeo-Christian" notion is that the Old Testament is the supreme book of Judaism. But this is not so. The Pharisees teach for doctrine the commandments of rabbis, not God.

The Talmudic commentary on the Bible is their supreme law, and not the Bible itself. That commentary does indeed, as Jesus said, void the laws of God, not uphold them. As students of the Talmud, we know this to be true.

Jewish scholar Hyam Maccoby, in Judaism on Trial, quotes Rabbi Yehiel ben Joseph: "Further, without the Talmud, we would not be able to understand passages in the Bible...God has handed this authority to the sages and tradition is a necessity as well as scripture. The Sages also made enactments of their own...anyone who does not study the Talmud cannot understand Scripture."

There is a tiny Jewish sect which makes considerable effort to eschew Talmud and adhere to the Old Testament alone. These are the Karaites, a group which, historically, has been most hated and severely persecuted by orthodox Jewish rabbinate.

To the Mishnah the rabbis later added the Gemara (rabbinical commentaries). Together these comprise the Talmud. There are two versions, the Jerusalem Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud.

The Babylonian Talmud is regarded as the authoritative version: "The authority of the Babylonian Talmud is also greater than that of the Jerusalem Talmud. In cases of doubt the former is decisive." (R.C. Musaph-Andriesse, From Torah to Kabbalah: A Basic Introduction to the Writings of Judaism, p. 40).

This study is based on the Jewish-authorized Babylonian Talmud. We have published herein the authenticated sayings of the Jewish Talmud. Look them up for yourself.

We publish the following irrefutable documentation in the hope of liberating all people, including Jewish people, from the corrosive delusions and racism of this Talmudic hate literature, which is the manual of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews the world over.

The implementation by Jewish supremacists of Talmudic hate literature has caused untold suffering throughout history and now, in occupied Palestine, it is used as a justification for the mass murder of Palestinian civilians. The Talmud specifically defines all who are not Jews as non-human animals.

Some Teachings of the Jewish Talmud

Where a Jew Should Do Evil

Moed Kattan 17a: If a Jew is tempted to do evil he should go to a city where he is not known and do the evil there.

Penalty for Disobeying Rabbis

Erubin 21b. Whosoever disobeys the rabbis deserves death and will be punished by being boiled in hot excrement in hell.

Hitting a Jew is the same as hitting God

Sanhedrin 58b. If a heathen (gentile) hits a Jew, the gentile must be killed.

O.K. to Cheat Non-Jews

Sanhedrin 57a . A Jew need not pay a gentile ("Cuthean") the wages owed him for work.

Jews Have Superior Legal Status

Baba Kamma 37b. "If an ox of an Israelite gores an ox of a Canaanite there is no liability; but if an ox of a Canaanite gores an ox of an Israelite...the payment is to be in full."

Jews May Steal from Non-Jews

Baba Mezia 24a . If a Jew finds an object lost by a gentile ("heathen") it does not have to be returned. (Affirmed also in Baba Kamma 113b). Sanhedrin 76a. God will not spare a Jew who "marries his daughter to an old man or takes a wife for his infant son or returns a lost article to a Cuthean..."

Jews May Rob and Kill Non-Jews

Sanhedrin 57a . When a Jew murders a gentile ("Cuthean"), there will be no death penalty. What a Jew steals from a gentile he may keep.

Baba Kamma 37b. The gentiles are outside the protection of the law and God has "exposed their money to Israel."

Jews May Lie to Non-Jews

Baba Kamma 113a. Jews may use lies ("subterfuges") to circumvent a Gentile.

Non-Jewish Children are Sub-Human

Yebamoth 98a. All gentile children are animals.

Abodah Zarah 36b. Gentile girls are in a state of niddah (filth) from birth.

Abodah Zarah 22a-22b . Gentiles prefer sex with cows.

Insults Against Blessed Mary

Sanhedrin 106a . Says Jesus' mother was a whore: "She who was the descendant of princes and governors played the harlot with carpenters." Also in footnote #2 to Shabbath 104b of the Soncino edition, it is stated that in the "uncensored" text of the Talmud it is written that Jesus mother, "Miriam the hairdresser," had sex with many men.

Gloats over Christ Dying Young

A passage from Sanhedrin 106 gloats over the early age at which Jesus died: "Hast thou heard how old Balaam (Jesus) was?--He replied: It is not actually stated but since it is written, Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days it follows that he was thirty-three or thirty-four years old."

Jesus in the Talmud:

Horrible Blasphemies Against Jesus Christ

While it is the standard disinformation practice of apologists for the Talmud to deny that it contains any scurrilous references to Jesus Christ, certain Orthodox Jewish organizations are more forthcoming and admit that the Talmud not only mentions Jesus but disparages him (as a sorcerer and a demented sex freak). These orthodox Jewish organizations make this admission perhaps out of the belief that Jewish supremacy is so well-established in the modern world that they need not concern themselves with adverse reactions.

For example, on the website of the Orthodox Jewish Hasidic Lubavitch group--one of the largest in the world--we find the following statement, complete with Talmudic citations:

"The Talmud (Babylonian edition) records other sins of 'Jesus the Nazarene':

1) He and his disciples practiced sorcery and black magic, led Jews astray into idolatry, and were sponsored by foreign, gentile powers for the purpose of subverting Jewish worship (Sanhedrin 43a).

2) He was sexually immoral, worshipped statues of stone (a brick is mentioned), was cut off from the Jewish people for his wickedness, and refused to repent (Sanhedrin 107b; Sotah 47a).

3) He learned witchcraft in Egypt and, to perform miracles, used procedures that involved cutting his flesh, which is also explicitly banned in the Bible (Shabbos 104b).

End quote from http://www.noahide.com/yeshu.htm (Lubavitch website) June 20, 2000.

[Note: we have printed and preserved in our files a hard copy of this statement from the Lubavitch"Noah's Covenant Website," as it appeared on their website at http://www.noahide.com on June 20, 2000, in the event that denials are later issued and the statement itself suppressed].

Let us examine further some of these anti-Christ Talmud passages:

Gittin 57a. Says Jesus is in hell, being boiled in "hot excrement."

Sanhedrin 43a. Says Jesus ("Yeshu" and in Soncino footnote #6, Yeshu "the Nazarene") was executed because he practiced sorcery: "It is taught that on the eve of Passover Jesus was hung, and forty days before this the proclamation was made: Jesus is to be stoned to death because he has practiced sorcery and has lured the people to idolatry...He was an enticer and of such thou shalt not pity or condone."

Kallah 51a."The elders were once sitting in the gate when two young lads passed by; one covered his head and the other uncovered his head. Of him who uncovered his head Rabbi Eliezer remarked that he is a bastard. Rabbi Joshua remarked that he is the son of a niddah (a child conceived during a woman's menstrual period). Rabbi Akiba said that he is both a bastard and a son of a niddah.

"They said, 'What induced you to contradict the opinion of your colleagues?' He replied, "I will prove it concerning him." He went to the lad's mother and found her sitting in the market selling beans.

"He said to her, 'My daughter, if you will answer the question I will put to you, I will bring you to the world to come.' (eternal life). She said to him, 'Swear it to me.'

"Rabbi Akiba, taking the oath with his lips but annulling it in his heart, said to her, 'What is the status of your son?' She replied, 'When I entered the bridal chamber I was niddah (menstruating) and my husband kept away from me; but my best man had intercourse with me and this son was born to me.' Consequently the child was both a bastard and the son of a niddah.

"It was declared, '..Blessed be the God of Israel Who Revealed His Secret to Rabbi Akiba..."

In addition to the theme that God rewards clever liars, the preceding Talmud discussion is actually about Jesus Christ (the bastard boy who "uncovered his head" and was conceived in the filth of menstruation). The boy's adulterous mother in this Talmud story is the mother of Christ, Blessed Mary (called Miriam and sometimes, Miriam the hairdresser, in the Talmud).

"The Editio Princeps of the complete Code of Talmudic Law, Maimonides' Mishneh Torah -- replete not only with the most offensive precepts against all Gentiles but also with explicit attacks on Christianity and on Jesus (after whose name the author adds piously, 'May the name of the wicked perish')... --Dr. Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, p. 21.

"The Talmud contains a few explicit references to Jesus...These references are certainly not complimentary...There seems little doubt that the account of the execution of Jesus on the eve of Passover does refer to the Christian Jesus...The passage in which Jesus' punishment in hell is described also seems to refer to the Christian Jesus. It is a piece of anti-Christian polemic dating from the post-70 CE period..." --Hyam Maccoby, Judaism on Trial, pp. 26-27.

"According to the Talmud, Jesus was executed by a proper rabbinical court for idolatry, inciting other Jews to idolatry, and contempt of rabbinical authority. All classical Jewish sources which mention his execution are quite happy to take responsibility for it; in the talmudic account the Romans are not even mentioned.

"The more popular accounts--which were nevertheless taken quite seriously--such as the notorious Toldot Yeshu are even worse, for in addition to the above crimes they accuse him of witchcraft. The very name 'Jesus' was for Jews a symbol of all that is abominable and this popular tradition still persists...

"The Hebrew form of the name Jesus--Yeshu--was interpreted as an acronym for the curse, 'may his name and memory be wiped out,' which is used as an extreme form of abuse. In fact, anti-zionist Orthodox Jews (such as Neturey Qarta) sometimes refer to Herzl as 'Herzl Jesus' and I have found in religious zionist writings expressions such as "Nasser Jesus" and more recently 'Arafat Jesus." --Dr. Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, pp. 97- 98, 118.

Talmud Attacks Christians and Christian Books

Rosh Hashanah 17a. Christians (minnim) and others who reject the Talmud will go to hell and be punished there for all generations.

Sanhedrin 90a. Those who read the New Testament ("uncanonical books") will have no portion in the world to come.

Shabbath 116a. Jews must destroy the books of the Christians, i.e. the New Testament.

Dr. Israel Shahak of Hebrew University reports that the Israelis burned hundreds of New Testament Bibles in occupied Palestine on March 23, 1980 (cf. Jewish History, Jewish Religion, p. 21).

Sick and Insane Teachings of the Talmud

Gittin 69a . To heal his flesh a Jew should take dust that lies within the shadow of an outdoor toilet, mix with honey and eat it.

Shabbath 41a. The law regulating the rule for how to urinate in a holy way is given.

Yebamoth 63a. States that Adam had sexual intercourse with all the animals in the Garden of Eden.

Yebamoth 63a. Declares that agriculture is the lowest of occupations.

Sanhedrin 55b. A Jew may marry a three year old girl (specifically, three years "and a day" old).

Sanhedrin 54b. A Jew may have sex with a child as long as the child is less than nine years old.

Kethuboth 11b. "When a grown-up man has intercourse with a little girl it is nothing."

Yebamoth 59b. A woman who had intercourse with a beast is eligible to marry a Jewish priest. A woman who has sex with a demon is also eligible to marry a Jewish priest.

Abodah Zarah 17a. States that there is not a whore in the world that the Talmudic sage Rabbi Eleazar has not had sex with. On one of his whorehouse romps, Rabbi Eleazar leanred that there was one particular prostitute residing in a whorehouse near the sea, who would receive a bag of money for her services. He took a bag of money and went to her, crossing seven rivers to do so. During their intercourse the prostitute farted. After this the whore told Rabbi Eleazar: "Just as this gas will never return to my anus, Rabbi Eleazar will never get to heaven."

Hagigah 27a. States that no rabbi can ever go to hell.

Baba Mezia 59b. A rabbi debates God and defeats Him. God admits the rabbi won the debate.

Gittin 70a. The Rabbis taught: "On coming from a privy (outdoor toilet) a man should not have sexual intercourse till he has waited long enough to walk half a mile, because the demon of the privy is with him for that time; if he does, his children will be epileptic."

Gittin 69b. To heal the disease of pleurisy ("catarrh") a Jew should "take the excrement of a white dog and knead it with balsam, but if he can possibly avoid it he should not eat the dog's excrement as it loosens the limbs."

Pesahim 111a. It is forbidden for dogs, women or palm trees to pass between two men, nor may others walk between dogs, women or palm trees. Special dangers are involved if the women are menstruating or sitting at a crossroads.

Menahoth 43b-44a. A Jewish man is obligated to say the following prayer every day: Thank you God for not making me a gentile, a woman or a slave.
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US to be watchful-Israel is the worst enemy of its friends

Israeli high-tech, spies, and commandos merge in Cambridge firm


By Wayne Madsen

The arrest by the FBI of Elliot Doxer, a financial employee of the Cambridge-based Akamai Technologies, Inc. for trying to sell company secrets to officials of the Israeli Consulate in Boston has once again raised the profile of the firm that was also at the center of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

After first approaching the Israeli Consulate, Doxer made 62 “dead drops” with an undercover FBI agent who Doxer believed was an Israeli intelligence agent. The dead drops occurred between September 2007 and March 2009.

As is usually the case with Israeli espionage cases, the Justice Department documents filed in the case merely refer to Israel as “Country X.” The Justice Department reportedly said “Country X,” cooperated in the investigation of Doxer. However, the Justice Department does not indicate when “Country X’s” cooperation began. The US Attorney’s Office in Boston claims that Israeli consular officials cooperated with U.S. officials before accepting Doxer’s offer, but it does not indicate when the cooperation actually began — upon initital contact by Doxer or after a period of time subsequent to initial contact.

Doxer was only charged with a single count of wire fraud. The Justice Department is not alleging any wrongdoing by Israel.

According to court filings by the government, Doxer wrote an e-mail to the Israeli Consulate and stated: “I am a Jewish American who lives in Boston. I know you are always looking for information and I am offering the little I may have.” Eventually, the information Doxer turned over to the FBI’s undercover agent included a list of Akamai’s clients, contracts with clients, a full list of Akamai employees, and details on access to the company’s computer systems and physical spaces. Akamai provides Internet services.

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It’s Official: Zionist Southern Poverty Law Center Is Now Part of DHS

As the below document makes clear, Southern Poverty Law Center is Now Officially Part of DHS. The CEO of SPLC now sits on the DHS “Working Group on Countering Violent Extremism” along with the leaders of other So-called Non Government Organizations (but can we really call them such now that they are part of the government?) And select “law enforcement” officers such as the Clark County Nevada Sheriff, Doug Gillespie. What does the working group do? Make recommendations on training and how to use all of the local resources – police, social services, media, NGO’s, you name it – to fight “extremism. So, now no need to file a FOIA request to discover that SPLC is writing the reports naming constitutionalists as possible terrorists. Now it is in your face and the mask is off.

When you read the below document, keep in mind the current ordeal of the Irish family where their newborn baby was taken based on an affidavit that notes the father’s “association with a militia group known as Oath Keepers.”. Pay attention to who sits on this panel (see pages 26-30), to who DOESN’T, how they plan on reaching DHS tentacles down into every level of society, and how they talk overtly about the need to utilize local SOCIAL WELFARE and MENTAL HEALTH agencies to counter “violent extremism.”. In other words, what is now being done to the Irish family will be done all over.

This is the overt politicization of DHS, to use it against political enemies

I will post more on this later today.

Stewart Rhodes

Hsac Cve Working Group Recommendations

Source

American killings in Mexico may set record pace

Forty-eight Americans were murdered in Mexico during the first six months of 2010 - a deadly pace that appears likely to exceed any previous year of homicides on record, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of the U.S. State Department's death registry.

The tally doesn't include two Texans reported killed Sept. 30 in separate incidents in isolated areas of Tamaulipas, where the terrorist group known as the Zetas has been warring with their Gulf Cartel rivals in communities all along the southeast Texas border.

A college freshman from Brownsville, Jonathon William Torres Cazares, was shot and killed after authorities say his public bus got hijacked on a highway in Tamaulipas.

"He was 18 years old and traveling in Mexico visiting his family," according to a statement issued by Leticia "Letty" Fernandez, a spokeswoman for the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College. "Our thoughts go out to his family and friends."

Meanwhile, David Michael Hartley, 30, of McAllen, was reported to have been shot in the head by a boatload of armed men while jet skiing on the Mexican side of the binational Falcon Reservoir, shared by Texas and Tamaulipas. His body has not yet been recovered.

State Department data shows at least three other Americans were slain this year in Tamaulipas. But no details were available. In much of Tamaulipas, the news media are no longer reporting on crime because of threats and violence against journalists carried out by drug traffickers.

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Kings of the Short Run in the Land of Flaming Shit.

Dog Poet Transmitting…….

Sunday is10/10/10. The government and other professional liars have had something to say about the date. Everything the government and media say are lies, or the groundwork for lies to come. All of it is especially, sculpted soft stool from the Dairy Queen machinery of a banker’s ass. You’re expected to eat and enjoy it, without knowing the composition or the source. The complexity of their intentions can be summed up quite simply. They want to take you to the point where you don’t know what the ice cream is made of, or where it came from, to the point where you line up with your cones in hand and wait in a rapt, religious hunger to obtain it from the source. Your eyes should gleam with gratitude as you walk away, knowing that you have seen one of the key mysterious out workings of God. You are free to speak in tongues as soon as your tongue is freed up for the opportunity. Fecallalia is the new glossolalia and you are now tanked up with shit for your own part in the performance. Please be creative with your lies. You’re playing musical chairs in front of a crematorium.

You are not dead. You are dreaming but the dream grows dark, when you are surviving on a dead man’s shit.

Humanity has many enemies. It has as many enemies as there is room in the mind to contain them. The most enduring and powerful of these enemies is the most invisible when it is most obviously before your eyes; appearing as something else. There is only one enemy and that is your mind. It is also your best friend, depending on who is in charge of it. Your life is either a virtual cathedral or a toilet designed as the object of desire. Gold plated shit-nacks are the bronzed baby shoes of your dreams that died in the cradle. It doesn’t really matter if you’re Chuck Berry lying face up under a glass table or lining up behind a banker’s ass. It’s still you. it’s still shit. The first place it happens is in your mind. A lot more people would understand the allegory of the temptation in the Garden of Eden and the resulting civilization if they studied all of the meanings of transposition or, maybe not. Maybe you need to know what the apple is. Maybe you need to understand the dynamics of the cosmic attractive force. Maybe the best way to understand how the mind works is to empty it first. Anyone who can empty their mind and relentlessly keep it empty for a period of time will get a first hand education on how the mind works and all of the implications as well.

The mind is divided or the mind is single.

In an age of darkness, those present are in their particular states of awareness based on past behaviors. Attending them are some amount of wolves and some amount of shepherds. There are more wolves than there are shepherds. Most shepherds are solitary and they are attended by wolves who have been converted to friends of the flock. I do not mean to disparage wolves. The sheep are not actually sheep and the wolves are not actually wolves, even though they are.

There are a lot of ways to say something and a lot of ways to understand what is said. All of this is dependent upon one’s relationship to the mind. It’s one reason that false prophets and true prophets nearly always preach to the choir, except in The Apocalypse, when a certain trembling, radiant vibration begins to quicken the baking ingredients in the bowl and in the oven.

We are now in the moment of accelerating change. We are all seeing it in states of relative difference depending on the mind’s capacity to be independent in its observations; depending on who is in control of your mind. This is the critical purpose of media and entertainment control. You can think of a casino, where super bowl bets are being taken. You can think of either team as representative of a particular end result. In this game, both teams expect to win and the spectators follow the teams into the dressing rooms at the end of the game. There are a lot of ways to say something and a lot of ways to understand what is said.

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'Israel is a Lunatic State' - Finkelstein on Gaza Flotilla Attack

Mithraism: Zoroastrian Gnosticism

By David Livingstone

The theory, originally proposed by Franz Cumont, that Mithraism evolved from Persian Zoroastrianism, is now generally dismissed. However, the theory has not been carefully examined. A primitive version of the Mithraic mysteries certainly existed among them, as can be determined from circumstantial evidence, where they contributed heavily to the Greek traditions of Orphism, which not only later emerged as prominent themes in Mithraism, but of Hellenistic mysticism in general. While based on these earlier tradition, Mithraism nevertheless, modified during these times, to conform to these same Gnostic tendencies.


The Magussaeans

On all sides, the Persians were surrounded by nations that celebrated mysteries, by Egyptians to Isis and Osiris, the Syrians to Bel and Astarte, the Phrygians to Attis and Cybele, and the Greeks to Dionysus and Persephone. As these gods were merely considered national versions of the same gods, they would have been regarded among the Persians as the equivalent to Mithras and Anahita, to whom mysteries would undoubtedly have been dedicated by the heretical Magi.

We do not know the content of these mysteries, but we can gather a fair idea of the doctrines of the “Magi” who inhabited Asia Minor from where they might have originated. Here, Zoroaster was confounded as the founder of the Chaldeans, a school of Babylonian astrologers. As Cumont and Bidez have pointed out, these “Magussaeans” practiced a heretical or Zurvanite form of Zoroastrianism combined with elements of Chaldean astrology.


Daeva-Worship

Though the Magi had continued the astrological traditions of the Chaldeans, they were primarily recognized as specialists in theurgy, or necromancy, that is, divination by means of summoning the spirits of the dead. It is with the practices by these “Magi” that Heraclitus, in the fifth century BC, equated with the bull-slaying rites of the Dionysiacs or Bacchants. He commented: “if it were for Dionysus that they hold processions and sing hymns to the shameful parts [phalli], it would be a most shameless act; but Hades and Dionysus are the same, in whose honor they go mad and celebrate the Bacchic rites,” and of the “Nightwalkers, Magi, Bacchoi, Lenai, and the initiated,” all these people he threatens with what happens after death: “for the secret rites practiced among humans are celebrated in an unholy manner.”

A papyrus from Derveni, near Thessalonika, belonging to the fourth century BC, contains an allegorical interpretation of a theogony by Orpheus and prescriptions for rituals. In it we read about “incantations” of the magoi that are able to “placate daimones who could bring disorder… Therefore, the magoi perform this sacrifice as if they would pay an amend,” and initiates of Dionysus, “first sacrifice to the Eumenides, like the magoi.” In Magic and the Ancient World, Fritz Graf, Professor of Classics at Princeton University, remarks:

Not only does the unknown author connect the rites of the magi with those of the mystery cults (a topic which becomes fundamental with the Greco-Egyptian magical papyri), but also he introduces the magoi as invokers of infernal powers, daimones whom he understands as the souls of the dead, the disorder that they bring manifests itself in illness and madness, which are healed by rituals of exorcism.i

Though communion with evil spirits was strictly forbidden in the orthodox version of the faith, the accounts of Greek authors accord in many respects with the doctrines of those referred to in the Avesta, and other Zoroastrian literature, as a certain people hostile to the orthodox community, called “sorcerers” or “deava worshippers”. The prime object of their worship was Ahriman, for “by the religion of the sorcerers (Ahriman) so inclines men to love him and to hate Ahura Mazda that they abandon the cult of Ahura Mazda and practice that of Ahriman.”ii

Essentially, the Magussaeans were daeva worshipping Magi who practiced mystery rites dedicated to Mithras. They preserved the dualism of Zoroastrianism, though in the heretical form of Zurvanism, which they combined with Chaldean astrology. They venerated fire as the symbol of the divine, and adopted the trinity worshipped by the Babylonians, composed of a father, mother and their offspring, a son-god, represented by the Sun, Moon, and Venus, which they identified with the Persian deities of Ahura Mazda, Anahita and Mithras. They conserved the Chaldean doctrine of pantheism, regarding the universe as a single living being, governed by a fate determined by the stars. Astrology was connected to mathematics, and the use of numerology was widespread in their literature. The Zodiac of the Chaldeans was divided according to the four elements traditionally worshipped by the Persians. The soul was seen to be subjected to numerous reincarnations, sometimes into beasts, causing them to abstain from the meat of animals. Porphyry explained that the seven grades of the Mithraics, ordinarily, were associated with signs of the Zodiac, but that they also concealed the mystery of reincarnation.

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President Jackson's Veto Message Regarding the Bank of the United States; July 10, 1832

WASHINGTON, July 10, 1832.

To the Senate.

The bill " to modify and continue " the act entitled "An act to incorporate the subscribers to the Bank of the United States " was presented to me on the 4th July instant. Having considered it with that solemn regard to the principles of the Constitution which the day was calculated to inspire, and come to the conclusion that it ought not to become a law, I herewith return it to the Senate, in which it originated, with my objections.

A bank of the United States is in many respects convenient for the Government and useful to the people. Entertaining this opinion, and deeply impressed with the belief that some of the powers and privileges possessed by the existing bank are unauthorized by the Constitution, subversive of the rights of the States, and dangerous to the liberties of the people, I felt it my duty at an early period of my Administration to call the attention of Congress to the practicability of organizing an institution combining all its advantages and obviating these objections. I sincerely regret that in the act before me I can perceive none of those modifications of the bank charter which are necessary, in my opinion, to make it compatible with justice, with sound policy, or with the Constitution of our country.

The present corporate body, denominated the president, directors, and company of the Bank of the United States, will have existed at the time this act is intended to take effect twenty years. It enjoys an exclusive privilege of banking under the authority of the General Government, a monopoly of its favor and support, and, as a necessary consequence, almost a monopoly of the foreign and domestic exchange. The powers, privileges, and favors bestowed upon it in the original charter, by increasing the value of the stock far above its par value, operated as a gratuity of many millions to the stockholders.

An apology may be found for the failure to guard against this result in the consideration that the effect of the original act of incorporation could not be certainly foreseen at the time of its passage. The act before me proposes another gratuity to the holders of the same stock, and in many cases to the same men, of at least seven millions more. This donation finds no apology in any uncertainty as to the effect of the act. On all hands it is conceded that its passage will increase at least so or 30 per cent more the market price of the stock, subject to the payment of the annuity of $200,000 per year secured by the act, thus adding in a moment one-fourth to its par value. It is not our own citizens only who are to receive the bounty of our Government. More than eight millions of the stock of this bank are held by foreigners. By this act the American Republic proposes virtually to make them a present of some millions of dollars. For these gratuities to foreigners and to some of our own opulent citizens the act secures no equivalent whatever. They are the certain gains of the present stockholders under the operation of this act, after making full allowance for the payment of the bonus.

Every monopoly and all exclusive privileges are granted at the expense of the public, which ought to receive a fair equivalent. The many millions which this act proposes to bestow on the stockholders of the existing bank must come directly or indirectly out of the earnings of the American people. It is due to them, therefore, if their Government sell monopolies and exclusive privileges, that they should at least exact for them as much as they are worth in open market. The value of the monopoly in this case may be correctly ascertained. The twenty-eight millions of stock would probably be at an advance of 50 per cent, and command in market at least $42,000,000, subject to the payment of the present bonus. The present value of the monopoly, therefore, is $17,000,000, and this the act proposes to sell for three millions, payable in fifteen annual installments of $200,000 each.

It is not conceivable how the present stockholders can have any claim to the special favor of the Government. The present corporation has enjoyed its monopoly during the period stipulated in the original contract. If we must have such a corporation, why should not the Government sell out the whole stock and thus secure to the people the full market value of the privileges granted? Why should not Congress create and sell twenty-eight millions of stock, incorporating the purchasers with all the powers and privileges secured in this act and putting the premium upon the sales into the Treasury?

But this act does not permit competition in the purchase of this monopoly. It seems to be predicated on the erroneous idea that the present stockholders have a prescriptive right not only to the favor but to the bounty of Government. It appears that more than a fourth part of the stock is held by foreigners and the residue is held by a few hundred of our own citizens, chiefly of the richest class. For their benefit does this act exclude the whole American people from competition in the purchase of this monopoly and dispose of it for many millions less than it is worth. This seems the less excusable because some of our citizens not now stockholders petitioned that the door of competition might be opened, and offered to take a charter on terms much more favorable to the Government and country.

But this proposition, although made by men whose aggregate wealth is believed to be equal to all the private stock in the existing bank, has been set aside, and the bounty of our Government is proposed to be again bestowed on the few who have been fortunate enough to secure the stock and at this moment wield the power of the existing institution. I can not perceive the justice or policy of this course. If our Government must sell monopolies, it would seem to be its duty to take nothing less than their full value, and if gratuities must be made once in fifteen or twenty years let them not be bestowed on the subjects of a foreign government nor upon a designated and favored class of men in our own country. It is but justice and good policy, as far as the nature of the case will admit, to confine our favors to our own fellow-citizens, and let each in his turn enjoy an opportunity to profit by our bounty. In the bearings of the act before me upon these points I find ample reasons why it should not become a law.

It has been urged as an argument in favor of rechartering the present bank that the calling in its loans will produce great embarrassment and distress. The time allowed to close its concerns is ample, and if it has been well managed its pressure will be light, and heavy only in case its management has been bad. If, therefore, it shall produce distress, the fault will be its own, and it would furnish a reason against renewing a power which has been so obviously abused. But will there ever be a time when this reason will be less powerful? To acknowledge its force is to admit that the bank ought to be perpetual, and as a consequence the present stockholders and those inheriting their rights as successors be established a privileged order, clothed both with great political power and enjoying immense pecuniary advantages from their connection with the Government.

The modifications of the existing charter proposed by this act are not such, in my view, as make it consistent with the rights of the States or the liberties of the people. The qualification of the right of the bank to hold real estate, the limitation of its power to establish branches, and the power reserved to Congress to forbid the circulation of small notes are restrictions comparatively of little value or importance. All the objectionable principles of the existing corporation, and most of its odious features, are retained without alleviation.

The fourth section provides " that the notes or bills of the said corporation, although the same be, on the faces thereof, respectively made payable at one place only, shall nevertheless be received by the said corporation at the bank or at any of the offices of discount and deposit thereof if tendered in liquidation or payment of any balance or balances due to said corporation or to such office of discount and deposit from any other incorporated bank." This provision secures to the State banks a legal privilege in the Bank of the United States which is withheld from all private citizens. If a State bank in Philadelphia owe the Bank of the United States and have notes issued by the St. Louis branch, it can pay the debt with those notes, but if a merchant, mechanic, or other private citizen be in like circumstances he can not by law pay his debt with those notes, but must sell them at a discount or send them to St. Louis to be cashed. This boon conceded to the State banks, though not unjust in itself, is most odious because it does not measure out equal justice to the high and the low, the rich and the poor. To the extent of its practical effect it is a bond of union among the banking establishments of the nation, erecting them into an interest separate from that of the people, and its necessary tendency is to unite the Bank of the United States and the State banks in any measure which may be thought conducive to their common interest.

The ninth section of the act recognizes principles of worse tendency than any provision of the present charter.

It enacts that " the cashier of the bank shall annually report to the Secretary of the Treasury the names of all stockholders who are not resident citizens of the United States, and on the application of the treasurer of any State shall make out and transmit to such treasurer a list of stockholders residing in or citizens of such State, with the amount of stock owned by each." Although this provision, taken in connection with a decision of the Supreme Court, surrenders, by its silence, the right of the States to tax the banking institutions created by this corporation under the name of branches throughout the Union, it is evidently intended to be construed as a concession of their right to tax that portion of the stock which may be held by their own citizens and residents. In this light, if the act becomes a law, it will be understood by the States, who will probably proceed to levy a tax equal to that paid upon the stock of banks incorporated by themselves. In some States that tax is now I per cent, either on the capital or on the shares, and that may be assumed as the amount which all citizen or resident stockholders would be taxed under the operation of this act. As it is only the stock held in the States and not that employed within them which would be subject to taxation, and as the names of foreign stockholders are not to be reported to the treasurers of the States, it is obvious that the stock held by them will be exempt from this burden. Their annual profits will therefore be I per cent more than the citizen stockholders, and as the annual dividends of the bank may be safely estimated at 7 per cent, the stock will be worth 10 or 15 per cent more to foreigners than to citizens of the United States. To appreciate the effects which this state of things will produce, we must take a brief review of the operations and present condition of the Bank of the United States.

By documents submitted to Congress at the present session it appears that on the 1st of January, 1832, of the twenty-eight millions of private stock in the corporation, $8,405,500 were held by foreigners, mostly of Great Britain. The amount of stock held in the nine Western and Southwestern States is $140,200, and in the four Southern States is $5,623,100, and in the Middle and Eastern States is about $13,522,000. The profits of the bank in 1831, as shown in a statement to Congress, were about $3,455,598; of this there accrued in the nine western States about $1,640,048; in the four Southern States about $352,507, and in the Middle and Eastern States about $1,463,041. As little stock is held in the West, it is obvious that the debt of the people in that section to the bank is principally a debt to the Eastern and foreign stockholders; that the interest they pay upon it is carried into the Eastern States and into Europe, and that it is a burden upon their industry and a drain of their currency, which no country can bear without inconvenience and occasional distress. To meet this burden and equalize the exchange operations of the bank, the amount of specie drawn from those States through its branches within the last two years, as shown by its official reports, was about $6,000,000. More than half a million of this amount does not stop in the Eastern States, but passes on to Europe to pay the dividends of the foreign stockholders. In the principle of taxation recognized by this act the Western States find no adequate compensation for this perpetual burden on their industry and drain of their currency. The branch bank at Mobile made last year $95,140, yet under the provisions of this act the State of Alabama can raise no revenue from these profitable operations, because not a share of the stock is held by any of her citizens. Mississippi and Missouri are in the same condition in relation to the branches at Natchez and St. Louis, and such, in a greater or less degree, is the condition of every Western State. The tendency of the plan of taxation which this act proposes will be to place the whole United States in the same relation to foreign countries which the Western States now bear to the Eastern. When by a tax on resident stockholders the stock of this bank is made worth 10 or 15 per cent more to foreigners than to residents, most of it will inevitably leave the country.

Thus will this provision in its practical effect deprive the Eastern as well as the Southern and Western States of the means of raising a revenue from the extension of business and great profits of this institution. It will make the American people debtors to aliens in nearly the whole amount due to this bank, and send across the Atlantic from two to five millions of specie every year to pay the bank dividends.

In another of its bearings this provision is fraught with danger. Of the twenty-five directors of this bank five are chosen by the Government and twenty by the citizen stockholders. From all voice in these elections the foreign stockholders are excluded by the charter. In proportion, therefore, as the stock is transferred to foreign holders the extent of suffrage in the choice of directors is curtailed. Already is almost a third of the stock in foreign hands and not represented in elections. It is constantly passing out of the country, and this act will accelerate its departure. The entire control of the institution would necessarily fall into the hands of a few citizen stockholders, and the ease with which the object would be accomplished would be a temptation to designing men to secure that control in their own hands by monopolizing the remaining stock. There is danger that a president and directors would then be able to elect themselves from year to year, and without responsibility or control manage the whole concerns of the bank during the existence of its charter. It is easy to conceive that great evils to our country and its institutions millet flow from such a concentration of power in the hands of a few men irresponsible to the people.

Is there no danger to our liberty and independence in a bank that in its nature has so little to bind it to our country? The president of the bank has told us that most of the State banks exist by its forbearance. Should its influence become concentered, as it may under the operation of such an act as this, in the hands of a self-elected directory whose interests are identified with those of the foreign stockholders, will there not be cause to tremble for the purity of our elections in peace and for the independence of our country in war? Their power would be great whenever they might choose to exert it; but if this monopoly were regularly renewed every fifteen or twenty years on terms proposed by themselves, they might seldom in peace put forth their strength to influence elections or control the affairs of the nation. But if any private citizen or public functionary should interpose to curtail its powers or prevent a renewal of its privileges, it can not be doubted that he would be made to feel its influence.

Should the stock of the bank principally pass into the hands of the subjects of a foreign country, and we should unfortunately become involved in a war with that country, what would be our condition? Of the course which would be pursued by a bank almost wholly owned by the subjects of a foreign power, and managed by those whose interests, if not affections, would run in the same direction there can be no doubt. All its operations within would be in aid of the hostile fleets and armies without. Controlling our currency, receiving our public moneys, and holding thousands of our citizens in dependence, it would be more formidable and dangerous than the naval and military power of the enemy.

If we must have a bank with private stockholders, every consideration of sound policy and every impulse of American feeling admonishes that it should be purely American. Its stockholders should be composed exclusively of our own citizens, who at least ought to be friendly to our Government and willing to support it in times of difficulty and danger. So abundant is domestic capital that competition in subscribing for the stock of local banks has recently led almost to riots. To a bank exclusively of American stockholders, possessing the powers and privileges granted by this act, subscriptions for $200,000,000 could be readily obtained. Instead of sending abroad the stock of the bank in which the Government must deposit its funds and on which it must rely to sustain its credit in times of emergency, it would rather seem to be expedient to prohibit its sale to aliens under penalty of absolute forfeiture.

It is maintained by the advocates of the bank that its constitutionality in all its features ought to be considered as settled by precedent and by the decision of the Supreme Court. To this conclusion I can not assent. Mere precedent is a dangerous source of authority, and should not be regarded as deciding questions of constitutional power except where the acquiescence of the people and the States can be considered as well settled. So far from this being the case on this subject, an argument against the bank might be based on precedent. One Congress, in 1791, decided in favor of a bank; another, in 1811, decided against it. One Congress, in 1815, decided against a bank; another, in 1816, decided in its favor. Prior to the present Congress, therefore, the precedents drawn from that source were equal. If we resort to the States, the expressions of legislative, judicial, and executive opinions against the bank have been probably to those in its favor as 4 to 1. There is nothing in precedent, therefore, which, if its authority were admitted, ought to weigh in favor of the act before me.

If the opinion of the Supreme Court covered the whole ground of this act, it ought not to control the coordinate authorities of this Government. The Congress, the Executive, and the Court must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the Constitution. Each public officer who takes an oath to support the Constitution swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others. It is as much the duty of the House of Representatives, of the Senate, and of the President to decide upon the constitutionality of any bill or resolution which may be presented to them for passage or approval as it is of the supreme judges when it may be brought before them for judicial decision. The opinion of the judges has no more authority over Congress than the opinion of Congress has over the judges, and on that point the President is independent of both. The authority of the Supreme Court must not, therefore, be permitted to control the Congress or the Executive when acting in their legislative capacities, but to have only such influence as the force of their reasoning may deserve.

But in the case relied upon the Supreme Court have not decided that all the features of this corporation are compatible with the Constitution. It is true that the court have said that the law incorporating the bank is a constitutional exercise of power by Congress; but taking into view the whole opinion of the court and the reasoning by which they have come to that conclusion, I understand them to have decided that inasmuch as a bank is an appropriate means for carrying into effect the enumerated powers of the General Government, therefore the law incorporating it is in accordance with that provision of the Constitution which declares that Congress shall have power " to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying those powers into execution. " Having satisfied themselves that the word "necessary" in the Constitution means needful," "requisite," "essential," "conducive to," and that "a bank" is a convenient, a useful, and essential instrument in the prosecution of the Government's "fiscal operations," they conclude that to "use one must be within the discretion of Congress " and that " the act to incorporate the Bank of the United States is a law made in pursuance of the Constitution;" "but, " say they, "where the law is not prohibited and is really calculated to effect any of the objects intrusted to the Government, to undertake here to inquire into the degree of its necessity would be to pass the line which circumscribes the judicial department and to tread on legislative ground."

The principle here affirmed is that the "degree of its necessity," involving all the details of a banking institution, is a question exclusively for legislative consideration. A bank is constitutional, but it is the province of the Legislature to determine whether this or that particular power, privilege, or exemption is "necessary and proper" to enable the bank to discharge its duties to the Government, and from their decision there is no appeal to the courts of justice. Under the decision of the Supreme Court, therefore, it is the exclusive province of Congress and the President to decide whether the particular features of this act are necessary and proper in order to enable the bank to perform conveniently and efficiently the public duties assigned to it as a fiscal agent, and therefore constitutional, or unnecessary and improper, and therefore unconstitutional.

Without commenting on the general principle affirmed by the Supreme Court, let us examine the details of this act in accordance with the rule of legislative action which they have laid down. It will be found that many of the powers and privileges conferred on it can not be supposed necessary for the purpose for which it is proposed to be created, and are not, therefore, means necessary to attain the end in view, and consequently not justified by the Constitution.

The original act of incorporation, section 2I, enacts "that no other bank shall be established by any future law of the United States during the continuance of the corporation hereby created, for which the faith of the United States is hereby pledged: Provided, Congress may renew existing charters for banks within the District of Columbia not increasing the capital thereof, and may also establish any other bank or banks in said District with capitals not exceeding in the whole $6,000,000 if they shall deem it expedient." This provision is continued in force by the act before me fifteen years from the ad of March, 1836.

If Congress possessed the power to establish one bank, they had power to establish more than one if in their opinion two or more banks had been " necessary " to facilitate the execution of the powers delegated to them in the Constitution. If they possessed the power to establish a second bank, it was a power derived from the Constitution to be exercised from time to time, and at any time when the interests of the country or the emergencies of the Government might make it expedient. It was possessed by one Congress as well as another, and by all Congresses alike, and alike at every session. But the Congress of 1816 have taken it away from their successors for twenty years, and the Congress of 1832 proposes to abolish it for fifteen years more. It can not be "necessary" or "proper" for Congress to barter away or divest themselves of any of the powers-vested in them by the Constitution to be exercised for the public good. It is not " necessary " to the efficiency of the bank, nor is it "proper'' in relation to themselves and their successors. They may properly use the discretion vested in them, but they may not limit the discretion of their successors. This restriction on themselves and grant of a monopoly to the bank is therefore unconstitutional.

In another point of view this provision is a palpable attempt to amend the Constitution by an act of legislation. The Constitution declares that "the Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever" over the District of Columbia. Its constitutional power, therefore, to establish banks in the District of Columbia and increase their capital at will is unlimited and uncontrollable by any other power than that which gave authority to the Constitution. Yet this act declares that Congress shall not increase the capital of existing banks, nor create other banks with capitals exceeding in the whole $6,000,000. The Constitution declares that Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive legislation over this District "in all cases whatsoever," and this act declares they shall not. Which is the supreme law of the land? This provision can not be "necessary" or "proper" or constitutional unless the absurdity be admitted that whenever it be "necessary and proper " in the opinion of Congress they have a right to barter away one portion of the powers vested in them by the Constitution as a means of executing the rest.

On two subjects only does the Constitution recognize in Congress the power to grant exclusive privileges or monopolies. It declares that "Congress shall have power to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." Out of this express delegation of power have grown our laws of patents and copyrights. As the Constitution expressly delegates to Congress the power to grant exclusive privileges in these cases as the means of executing the substantive power " to promote the progress of science and useful arts," it is consistent with the fair rules of construction to conclude that such a power was not intended to be granted as a means of accomplishing any other end. On every other subject which comes within the scope of Congressional power there is an ever-living discretion in the use of proper means, which can not be restricted or abolished without an amendment of the Constitution. Every act of Congress, therefore, which attempts by grants of monopolies or sale of exclusive privileges for a limited time, or a time without limit, to restrict or extinguish its own discretion in the choice of means to execute its delegated powers is equivalent to a legislative amendment of the Constitution, and palpably unconstitutional.

This act authorizes and encourages transfers of its stock to foreigners and grants them an exemption from all State and national taxation. So far from being "necessary and proper" that the bank should possess this power to make it a safe and efficient agent of the Government in its fiscal operations, it is calculated to convert the Bank of the United States into a foreign bank, to impoverish our people in time of peace, to disseminate a foreign influence through every section of the Republic, and in war to endanger our independence.

The several States reserved the power at the formation of the Constitution to regulate and control titles and transfers of real property, and most, if not all, of them have laws disqualifying aliens from acquiring or holding lands within their limits. But this act, in disregard of the undoubted right of the States to prescribe such disqualifications, gives to aliens stockholders in this bank an interest and title, as members of the corporation, to all the real property it may acquire within any of the States of this Union. This privilege granted to aliens is not "necessary" to enable the bank to perform its public duties, nor in any sense "proper," because it is vitally subversive of the rights of the States.

The Government of the United States have no constitutional power to purchase lands within the States except "for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings," and even for these objects only "by the consent of the legislature of the State in which the same shall be." By making themselves stockholders in the bank and granting to the corporation the power to purchase lands for other purposes they assume a power not granted in the Constitution and grant to others what they do not themselves possess. It is not necessary to the receiving, safe-keeping, or transmission of the funds of the Government that the bank should possess this power, and it is not proper that Congress should thus enlarge the powers delegated to them in the Constitution.

The old Bank of the United States possessed a capital of only $11,000,000, which was found fully sufficient to enable it with dispatch and safety to perform all the functions required of it by the Government. The capital of the present bank is $35,000,000-at least twenty-four more than experience has proved to be necessary to enable a bank to perform its public functions. The public debt which existed during the period of the old bank and on the establishment of the new has been nearly paid off, and our revenue will soon be reduced. This increase of capital is therefore not for public but for private purposes.

The Government is the only "proper" judge where its agents should reside and keep their offices, because it best knows where their presence will be "necessary." It can not, therefore, be "necessary" or "proper" to authorize the bank to locate branches where it pleases to perform the public service, without consulting the Government, and contrary to its will. The principle laid down by the Supreme Court concedes that Congress can not establish a bank for purposes of private speculation and gain, but only as a means of executing the delegated powers of the General Government. By the same principle a branch bank can not constitutionally be established for other than public purposes. The power which this act gives to establish two branches in any State, without the injunction or request of the Government and for other than public purposes, is not "necessary" to the due execution of the powers delegated to Congress.

The bonus which is exacted from the bank is a confession upon the face of the act that the powers granted by it are greater than are "necessary" to its character of a fiscal agent. The Government does not tax its officers and agents for the privilege of serving it. The bonus of a million and a half required by the original charter and that of three millions proposed by this act are not exacted for the privilege of giving "the necessary facilities for transferring the public funds from place to place within the United States or the Territories thereof, and for distributing the same in payment of the public creditors without charging commission or claiming allowance on account of the difference of exchange," as required by the act of incorporation, but for something more beneficial to the stockholders. The original act declares that it (the bonus) is granted " in consideration of the exclusive privileges and benefits conferred by this act upon the said bank, " and the act before me declares it to be "in consideration of the exclusive benefits and privileges continued by this act to the said corporation for fifteen years, as aforesaid." It is therefore for "exclusive privileges and benefits" conferred for their own use and emolument, and not for the advantage of the Government, that a bonus is exacted. These surplus powers for which the bank is required to pay can not surely be "necessary" to make it the fiscal agent of the Treasury. If they were, the exaction of a bonus for them would not be " proper."

It is maintained by some that the bank is a means of executing the constitutional power "to coin money and regulate the value thereof." Congress have established a mint to coin money and passed laws to regulate the value thereof. The money so coined, with its value so regulated, and such foreign coins as Congress may adopt are the only currency known to the Constitution. But if they have other power to regulate the currency, it was conferred to be exercised by themselves, and not to be transferred to a corporation. If the bank be established for that purpose, with a charter unalterable without its consent, Congress have parted with their power for a term of years, during which the Constitution is a dead letter. It is neither necessary nor proper to transfer its legislative power to such a bank, and therefore unconstitutional.

By its silence, considered in connection with the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of McCulloch against the State of Maryland, this act takes from the States the power to tax a portion of the banking business carried on within their limits, in subversion of one of the strongest barriers which secured them against Federal encroachments. Banking, like farming, manufacturing, or any other occupation or profession, is a business, the right to follow which is not originally derived from the laws. Every citizen and every company of citizens in all of our States possessed the right until the State legislatures deemed it good policy to prohibit private banking by law. If the prohibitory State laws were now repealed, every citizen would again possess the right. The State banks are a qualified restoration of the right which has been taken away by the laws against banking, guarded by such provisions and limitations as in the opinion of the State legislatures the public interest requires. These corporations, unless there be an exemption in their charter, are, like private bankers and banking companies, subject to State taxation. The manner in which these taxes shall be laid depends wholly on legislative discretion. It may be upon the bank, upon the stock, upon the profits, or in any other mode which the sovereign power shall will.

Upon the formation of the Constitution the States guarded their taxing power with peculiar jealousy. They surrendered it only as it regards imports and exports. In relation to every other object within their jurisdiction, whether persons, property, business, or professions, it was secured in as ample a manner as it was before possessed. All persons, though United States officers, are liable to a poll tax by the States within which they reside. The lands of the United States are liable to the usual land tax, except in the new States, from whom agreements that they will not tax unsold lands are exacted when they are admitted into the Union. Horses, wagons, any beasts or vehicles, tools, or property belonging to private citizens, though employed in the service of the United States, are subject to State taxation. Every private business, whether carried on by an officer of the General Government or not, whether it be mixed with public concerns or not, even if it be carried on by the Government of the United States itself, separately or in partnership, falls within the scope of the taxing power of the State. Nothing comes more fully within it than banks and the business of banking, by whomsoever instituted and carried on. Over this whole subject-matter it is just as absolute, unlimited, and uncontrollable as if the Constitution had never been adopted, because in the formation of that instrument it was reserved without qualification.

The principle is conceded that the States can not rightfully tax the operations of the General Government. They can not tax the money of the Government deposited in the State banks, nor the agency of those banks in remitting it; but will any man maintain that their mere selection to perform this public service for the General Government would exempt the State banks and their ordinary business from State taxation? Had the United States, instead of establishing a bank at Philadelphia, employed a private banker to keep and transmit their funds, would it have deprived Pennsylvania of the right to tax his bank and his usual banking operations? It will not be pretended. Upon what principal, then, are the banking establishments of the Bank of the United States and their usual banking operations to be exempted from taxation ? It is not their public agency or the deposits of the Government which the States claim a right to tax, but their banks and their banking powers, instituted and exercised within State jurisdiction for their private emolument-those powers and privileges for which they pay a bonus, and which the States tax in their own banks. The exercise of these powers within a State, no matter by whom or under what authority, whether by private citizens in their original right, by corporate bodies created by the States, by foreigners or the agents of foreign governments located within their limits, forms a legitimate object of State taxation. From this and like sources, from the persons, property, and business that are found residing, located, or carried on under their jurisdiction, must the States, since the surrender of their right to raise a revenue from imports and exports, draw all the money necessary for the support of their governments and the maintenance of their independence. There is no more appropriate subject of taxation than banks, banking, and bank stocks, and none to which the States ought more pertinaciously to cling.

It can not be necessary to the character of the bank as a fiscal agent of the Government that its private business should be exempted from that taxation to which all the State banks are liable, nor can I conceive it "proper" that the substantive and most essential powers reserved by the States shall be thus attacked and annihilated as a means of executing the powers delegated to the General Government. It may be safely assumed that none of those sages who had an agency in forming or adopting our Constitution ever imagined that any portion of the taxing power of the States not prohibited to them nor delegated to Congress was to be swept away and annihilated as a means of executing certain powers delegated to Congress.

If our power over means is so absolute that the Supreme Court will not call in question the constitutionality of an act of Congress the subject of which "is not prohibited, and is really calculated to effect any of the objects intrusted to the Government," although, as in the case before me, it takes away powers expressly granted to Congress and rights scrupulously reserved to the States, it becomes us to proceed in our legislation with the utmost caution. Though not directly, our own powers and the rights of the States may be indirectly legislated away in the use of means to execute substantive powers. We may not enact that Congress shall not have the power of exclusive legislation over the District of Columbia, but we may pledge the faith of the United States that as a means of executing other powers it shall not be exercised for twenty years or forever. We may not pass an act prohibiting the States to tax the banking business carried on within their limits, but we may, as a means of executing our powers over other objects, place that business in the hands of our agents and then declare it exempt from State taxation in their hands. Thus may our own powers and the rights of the States, which we can not directly curtail or invade, be frittered away and extinguished in the use of means employed by us to execute other powers. That a bank of the United States, competent to all the duties which may be required by the Government, might be so organized as not to infringe on our own delegated powers or the reserved rights of the States I do not entertain a doubt. Had the Executive been called upon to furnish the project of such an institution, the duty would have been cheerfully performed. In the absence of such a call it was obviously proper that he should confine himself to pointing out those prominent features in the act presented which in his opinion make it incompatible with the Constitution and sound policy. A general discussion will now take place, eliciting new light and settling important principles; and a new Congress, elected in the midst of such discussion, and furnishing an equal representation of the people according to the last census, will bear to the Capitol the verdict of public opinion, and, I doubt not, bring this important question to a satisfactory result.

Under such circumstances the bank comes forward and asks a renewal of its charter for a term of fifteen years upon conditions which not only operate as a gratuity to the stockholders of many millions of dollars, but will sanction any abuses and legalize any encroachments.

Suspicions are entertained and charges are made of gross abuse and violation of its charter. An investigation unwillingly conceded and so restricted in time as necessarily to make it incomplete and unsatisfactory discloses enough to excite suspicion and alarm. In the practices of the principal bank partially unveiled, in the absence of important witnesses, and in numerous charges confidently made and as yet wholly uninvestigated there was enough to induce a majority of the committee of investigation-a committee which was selected from the most able and honorable members of the House of Representatives-to recommend a suspension of further action upon the bill and a prosecution of the inquiry. As the charter had yet four years to run, and as a renewal now was not necessary to the successful prosecution of its business, it was to have been expected that the bank itself, conscious of its purity and proud of its character, would have withdrawn its application for the present, and demanded the severest scrutiny into all its transactions. In their declining to do so there seems to be an additional reason why the functionaries of the Government should proceed with less haste and more caution in the rene\val of their monopoly.

The bank is professedly established as an agent of the executive branch of the Government, and its constitutionality is maintained on that ground. Neither upon the propriety of present action nor upon the provisions of this act was the Executive consulted. It has had no opportunity to say that it neither needs nor wants an agent clothed with such powers and favored by such exemptions. There is nothing in its legitimate functions which makes it necessary or proper. Whatever interest or influence, whether public or private, has given birth to this act, it can not be found either in the wishes or necessities of the executive department, by which present action is deemed premature, and the powers conferred upon its agent not only unnecessary, but dangerous to the Government and country.

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society-the farmers, mechanics, and laborers-who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government. There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing. In the act before me there seems to be a wide and unnecessary departure from these just principles.

Nor is our Government to be maintained or our Union preserved by invasions of the rights and powers of the several States. In thus attempting to make our General Government strong we make it weak. Its true strength consists in leaving individuals and States as much as possible to themselves-in making itself felt, not in its power, but in its beneficence; not in its control, but in its protection; not in binding the States more closely to the center, but leaving each to move unobstructed in its proper orbit.

Experience should teach us wisdom. Most of the difficulties our Government now encounters and most of the dangers which impend over our Union have sprung from an abandonment of the legitimate objects of Government by our national legislation, and the adoption of such principles as are embodied in this act. Many of our rich men have not been content with equal protection and equal benefits, but have besought us to make them richer by act of Congress. By attempting to gratify their desires we have in the results of our legislation arrayed section against section, interest against interest, and man against man, in a fearful commotion which threatens to shake the foundations of our Union. It is time to pause in our career to review our principles, and if possible revive that devoted patriotism and spirit of compromise which distinguished the sages of the Revolution and the fathers of our Union. If we can not at once, in justice to interests vested under improvident legislation, make our Government what it ought to be, we can at least take a stand against all new grants of monopolies and exclusive privileges, against any prostitution of our Government to the advancement of the few at the expense of the many, and in favor of compromise and gradual reform in our code of laws and system of political economy.

I have now done my duty to my country. If sustained by my fellow citizens, I shall be grateful and happy; if not, I shall find in the motives which impel me ample grounds for contentment and peace. In the difficulties which surround us and the dangers which threaten our institutions there is cause for neither dismay nor alarm. For relief and deliverance let us firmly rely on that kind Providence which I am sure watches with peculiar care over the destinies of our Republic, and on the intelligence and wisdom of our countrymen. Through His abundant goodness and heir patriotic devotion our liberty and Union will be preserved.

ANDREW JACKSON

Source

Bin Laden is Dead, Long Live Bin Laden

Hungary sludge flood called 'ecological disaster'

William Cooper's Mystery Babylon: Part 42 – Darkness

Transcribed by wakingup72 @ http://www.waronyou.com/forums

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Welcome, once again, to the Hour of the Time. I'm William Cooper.

Ladies and gentlemen, make sure that you stay glued to your radio tonight as we bring you another in the neverending series that we call Mystery Babylon.


(opening music: unknown orchestral music)


Tonight's episode, ladies and gentlemen, is entitled "Darkness."


[reading from The Veil of Isis]:


(start of quote)
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There is no study so [intriguing and yet so mysterious then] that of the early religions of mankind. To trace back the worship of God to its simple origin, and to mark the gradual process of those degrading superstitions, and unhallowed rites which darkened, and finally extinguished His presence in the ancient world.

At first men enjoyed the blessings of nature as children do [in an age of innocence], without inquiring into causes. It was[, in fact,] sufficient for them that the earth gave them herbs, that the trees bore them fruit, that the stream quenched their thirst. They were happy, and every moment though unconsciously they offered a prayer of gratitude to Him whom as yet they did not know.

And then a system of theology arose amongst them vague and indefinite, as the waters of the boundless sea. They taught each other that the sun, the earth, the moon, and the stars were moved and illumined by a Great Soul which was the source of all life, which caused the birds to sing, the brooks to murmur, and the sea to heave. It was a sacred Fire which shone in the firmament, and in mighty flames. It was a strange Being which animated the souls of men, [and] which when the bodies died, returned to itself again.

[Ancient man] silently adored this Great Soul in the beginning, and spoke of Him with reverence, and sometimes [they] raised their eyes timidly to His glittering dwelling-place on high.

And soon they learned to pray. When those whom they loved lay dying, they uttered wild lamentations, and flung their arms despairingly towards the mysterious Soul; for in times of trouble the human mind so imbecile, so helpless, [always] clings [back] to something that is [much] stronger than itself.

As yet [in that time] they worshiped only the sun, the moon, and the stars -- and not as [God] but as visions of that Divine Essence, which alone ruled and pervaded the earth, the sky, and the sea.

They adored Him kneeling, with their hands clasped, and their eyes raised. They offered Him no sacrifices, they built Him no temples; [you see,] they were content to offer Him their hearts which were full of awe, in His own temple which was full of [the] grandeur [of nature]. [William Cooper: For the God they worshiped was, indeed, nature's God.] And it is said [by some] that there are yet some barbarous islands where men have no churches nor ceremonies, and where they [still] worship God, reflected in the work of His [uncountable] hands [William Cooper: in the mystery and the balance and the perfection of nature].

But[, you see,] they were not long content with this simple service.

[William Cooper: There were those amongst them who learned how to subvert and twist so that they could control the others around them.]

Prayer which had first been an inspiration fell into a system, and men already grown wicked prayed the Deity to give them abundance [with] wild beast's skins, and to destroy their enemies.

They ascended eminences, [mountaintops, and they built towers] as if hoping that thus [they're] being nearer God, He would prefer their prayers to those of their rivals. [And those who control those eminences became powerful. And] such is the origin of that superstitious reverence for high places which was universal throughout the whole [entire] heathen world.

[William Cooper: And then, it is clear in the ancient annals, someone came forth.]

...Orpheus was born. And he invented instruments which to his touch and to his lips, gave forth notes of surpassing sweetness, and with these melodies he enticed the wondering [innocent] savages into the recesses of the forest, and there[, there Orpheus] taught them precepts of obedience to the great Soul, and of loving-kindness towards each other in harmonious words[, and he became the high priest].

[And] so they devoted groves and forests to the worship of the Deity.

There were men who had watched Orpheus, and who had seen and envied his power over the herd who surrounded him[, for even then there were sheeple]. They resolved to imitate him, and having studied these barbarians, they banded together, and called themselves their priests. Religion -- is divine, but its ministers[, after all,] are men.

[William Cooper: And the idea, from the beginning, that imperfect men can rule imperfect men is flawed.]

[For] alas! sometimes they are demons with the faces and wings of angels.

[You see, ] the simplicity of men, and the cunning of their priests has destroyed or corrupted all the religions of the world[, bar none].

[For] these priests[, ladies and gentlemen,] taught the people to sacrifice the choicest herbs and flowers. They taught them formulas of prayer, and bade them make so many obeisances to the sun, and to worship those flowers which opened their leaves when he rose, and which closed them as he set.

[William Cooper: For the great ball of fire that makes its way from dawn to dusk across the sky was seen as the savior to those who huddled in the cold darkness, surrounded by wild beasts of prey, and it was to that sun that they directed their worship. And the great symbol in the heaven of the power of God and the source of life on this earth. [sic] For remember, theirs were the worship of nature's God.]

They composed a language of symbols which was perhaps necessary, [and as time] since letters had not been invented, but which perplexed the people and perverted them from the worship of the one God.

[William Cooper: Those symbols are still used upon the sheeple of the world today...the great herd.]

[Thus, the sun represented the great doctrine of this religion and the moon represented the church, reflecting the pure light of the sun. And] the sun and moon were worshiped as emblems of God, and fire[, by the philosophers of fire,] as an emblem of the sun, water as an emblem of the moon [which, by faith, reflected the pure light of its master].

The serpent [represented the full body of the priesthood, the initiates,] was to be worshiped..as an emblem of wisdom and eternal youth, since it renews its skin every year, and thus [and] periodically casts off all symptoms of old age [and begins anew -- reborn, if you will].

And the bull, [the] most vigorous of animals, and whose horns resemble those of the crescent moon [was also worshiped].

The priests observed the avidity with which the barbarians adored these symbols, and increased them.

[William Cooper: It was a time of great mystery and little understanding of any that was seen around them. To ancient man, the sun was seen to die and darkness descended around them, to the time of great danger and cold. And then, as if by magic, the sun was reborn each morning and made its way across the sky, were it became old and then died again. And they began to measure their world by the seasons of the sun, and their religion reflected all of this. And religions today, even though denying any connection with this ancient paganism, still reflects this exact religion in ceremonies and its holy days...even to the layout of its churches.]

To worship the visible is a disease of the soul inherent to all mankind, and the disease which these men could have healed [instead] they pandered to.

It is true that the first generation of men might have looked upon these merely as the empty symbols of a Divine Being, but it is also certain that in time the vulgar forgot the God in the emblem, and worshiped that which their fathers had only honored [and, therefore, the symbol became the god]. Egypt was the fountain-head of these idolatries, and it was in Egypt that the priests first applied real attributes to the sun, and to the moon whom they called his wife[, and sister, and mother. And the sun became Osiris, the moon became Isis, brother and sister, mother and son, husband and wife].

It may[, it may] perhaps[, for those of you who have not heard it, and maybe have not been listening to this broadcast for a great period of time...it may perhaps] interest you to listen to the first[, very first,] fable of the world.

From the midst of chaos was born [Nimrod (*note, the text reads Osiris)], and at his birth a voice was heard proclaiming -- "The ruler of all the earth is born."

[And] from the same dark and troubled womb were born [Semiramis (*note: the text reads, "Isis")] the Queen of Light, and...(*note: the text reads, "Typhon") the Spirit of Darkness.

This [Nimrod] traveled over the whole world, and civilized its inhabitants, and taught them the art of agriculture. [And his wife, Semiramis, built the first fortified cities and walls.] But on his return...the jealous [darkness (*note: text reads, "Typhon")] laid a stratagem for him, and in the midst of a banquet had him [slain (*note: text reads, "shut up in a chest which exactly fitted his body"]. He was nailed down in his prison, which cast into the [river (*note, text reads, "Nile")] floated down to the sea...which even in [that ancient] time...was never mentioned...but with marks of detestation.

[And] when [Semiramis] learnt these sad news she cut off a lock of her hair, and put on her mourning robes, and wandered through the whole country in search of the...dead body of her husband.

[William Cooper: Eventually, she found it. By casting a magic spell, a magical intercourse was obtained between Semiramis and the dead Nimrod from which a child emerged. The child was Tammuz. And Semiramis fed the infant with her finger instead of with her breast and put in every night into fire to render him immortal. And now, let me read you a later story of the same myth, only with different names. And [I have to depart] from my narration here and read this to you:]

[repeats text using the original names]: From the midst of chaos was born Osiris, and at his birth a voice was heard proclaiming -- "The ruler of all the earth is born."

[And] from the same dark and troubled womb were born Isis the Queen of Light, and Typhon the Spirit of Darkness.

This Osiris [moved] over the whole world, and civilized its inhabitants, and taught them the art of agriculture[, brought them together in societies for the mutual benefit and protection]. But on his return to Egypt the jealous Typhon laid a stratagem for him, and in the midst of a banquet had him shut up in a chest which exactly fitted his body. He was nailed down in his prison, which cast into the Nile floated down to the sea by the Taitic mouth, which even in the time of Plutarch was never mentioned by an Egyptian [expect with disdain and loathing].

When Isis [heard the news] she cut off a lock of her hair, and put on her mourning robes, and wandered through the whole country in search of the chest which contained the dead body of her husband.

At length she learnt that the chest had been carried by the waves to the shore of Byblos, and had there lodged in the branches of a tamarisk bush, which quickly shot up and became a large and beautiful tree, growing round the chest so that it could not be seen.

The king of the country amazed at the vast size the tree had so speedily acquired, ordered it to be cut down to be hewn into a pillar to support the roof of his palace -- the chest being still concealed in the trunk.

The voice which had spoken from Heaven at the birth of Osiris made known these things to poor Isis, who [then] went to the shore of Byblos and sat down silently by a fountain to weep. The damsels of the queen met her and accosted her, and the queen appointed her to be nurse to her child. And Isis fed the infant with her finger instead of with her breast, and put him every night into fire to render him immortal, while transforming herself into a swallow she hovered round the pillar which was her husband's tomb, and bemoaned her unhappy fate.

It happened that the queen thus discovered her, and shrieked when she saw her child surrounded by flames. By that cry she broke the charm and deprived him of immortality.

By that cry Isis was summoned back to her goddess-form, and stood before the awe-struck queen shining with light and diffusing sweet fragrances around.

She cut open the pillar, and took the coffin with her, and opened it in a desert. [And] there she embraced the cold corpse of Osiris, and wept bitterly.


(break music: dark, dramatic instrumental)


[continues reading]:


[Isis] returned to Egypt and hid the coffin in a remote place: but Typhon, hunting by moonlight, chanced to find it, and divided the corpse into fourteen pieces. Again Isis set out on her weary search throughout the whole land, sailing over the fenny parts in a boat made of papyrus. She recovered all the fragments except one which had been thrown into the sea. Each of these she buried in the place where she found it, which explains why in Egypt there are so many tombs of Osiris.

And instead of the limb which was lost, she gave the phallus to the Egyptians -- the disgusting worship of which was thence carried into Italy, into Greece, and into all the countries of the East.

[William Cooper: And today, people pay obeisance to this phallus when they stand in awe of the Washington Monument, or when they attend SPIKE training. For truly (laughs)...for truly, it is the shaft.]

When Isis died, she was buried in a grove near Memphis. Over her grave was raised a statue covered from head to foot with a black veil. And underneath was engraved these divine words: "I am all that has been, that is, that shall be, and none among mortals has yet dared to raise my veil."

Beneath this veil[, ladies and gentlemen,] are concealed all the mysteries and learning of the past. A young scholar, his fingers covered with the dust of venerable folios, his eyes weary and reddened by nightly toil will now attempt to lift a corner of this mysterious and sacred covering.

[William Cooper: The folios are the old books that I have discovered in the used bookstores across the country and around the world. And truly, in some of those dark and dim corners and shelves which have never been touched, I have literally been covered with the dust of years that have settled upon these ancient volumes. Those I could afford found their way into my library, where they still serve today.]

[You see,] these two Deities, Isis and Osiris were the parents of all the Gods and Goddesses of the Heathens, or were indeed those Gods themselves worshiped under [many] different names[: Nimrod, Semiramis, Isis, Osiris, Diana, Dionysus]. The fable itself was received into the mythologies of the Hindus and the Romans. Sira is said to have mutilated Brahma as Typhon did Osiris, and Venus to have lamented her slain Adonis, as Isis wept for her husband-god[, brother, son].

[And] as yet the sun and moon alone were worshiped under these two names. And as we have seen, besides these twin beneficial spirits, men who had begun to recognize sin in their hearts had created an Evil One who struggled with the power of light, and fought with them for the souls of men.

[I must tell you that in my studies I find that it has been natural, through all history,] for man to fabricate something that is worse than himself[, rather than take the responsibility upon his own shoulders]. [And] even in the theology of the American Indians which is the purest of the modern world, there is found a Mahitou or dark Spirit.

Osiris or the sun was now worshiped throughout the whole world, though under different names. He was the Mithra of the Persians, the Brahma of India, the Baal or Adonis of the Phoenicians[; he was] the Apollo of the Greeks, the Odin Of Scandinavia, the Hu of the Britons, and the Baiwe of the Laplanders.

Isis[, ladies and gentlemen,] also received the [name] of Islene, Ceres, Rhea, Venus, Vesta, Cybele, Niobe, Melissa -- Nehalennia in the North; Isi with the Indians; Puzza among the Chinese; and Ceridwen among the ancient Britons.

[In] the Egyptians were sublime philosophers who had dictated theology to the world. And in Chaldea arose the first astrologers who watched the heavenly bodies with curiosity as well as with awe, and who made divine discoveries, and who called themselves The Interpreters of God.

[And] to each star they gave a name, and to each day in the year they gave a star.

And the Greeks and Romans who were poets, wreathed these names into legends. Each name was a person, [and] each person was a god.

From these stories of the stars originated the angels of the Jews, the genii of the Arabs, the heroes of the Greeks, and the saints of the Romish Church.

[And then] corruption grew upon corruption, and superstition flung...black and hideous veil over the doctrines of religion. [You see,] a religion[, ladies and gentlemen,] is lost [-- utterly lost --] as soon as it loses its simplicity: truth has no mysteries: it is deceit alone that lurks in obscurity.

[William Cooper: It is only the lie that is hidden behind a door!]

Men multiplied God into a thousand names, and created Him always in their own image. Him, too, whom they had once deemed unworthy of any temple less noble than the floor of the earth and the vast dome of the sky [which He had created], they worshiped in caves, and then in temples which were made of the trunks of trees rudely sculptured, and ranged in rows to imitate groves [of trees], and with other trunks placed upon them transversely [William Cooper: to form the cross that is seen when you hold up your son behind some obstacle. [sic] They streak across the sky.]

[These] were the first buildings of worship erected by man from no reverence for the Deity, [or God,] but [only] to display that which they...conceived to be a stupendous effort in art [William Cooper: and to display their knowledge and power, so as to more adequately rule and subjugate the herd, the sheeple, the profane, humanity, that had not a clue -- and still doesn't, by the way.]

It may...be [necessary] to remind some of [you] that a superior being [-- God, if you will -- must view the elegant temples of the Romans, the gorgeous pagodas of India, and [the] Gothic cathedrals [of the Western world] with feelings similar to those with which we [might] contemplate the rude efforts of the early heathens [or a hill of ants], who deemed God unworthy of the fruits and flowers which he himself had made, and offered to him the entrails of beasts, and the hearts of human beings.

[William Cooper: Can you imagine the audacity, the arrogance of such a thing?]

We [can] compare[, ladies and gentlemen,] an ancient and fallen religion to the ship of the Argonauts, which the Greeks desiring to preserve to posterity, repairing in so many different ways, that at length there did not remain a fragment of [the original] vessel which had born to Colchis the conqueror of the Golden Fleece.

[So let's] pass over a lapse of [many, many] years [-- centuries, if you will --] and then contemplate the condition of [the] nations in whom religion had been first born. We find the Egyptians adoring the most common of plants, the most contemptible of beasts, the most hideous of reptiles. The solemnity and pomp of their absurd ceremonies held them up to the ridicule of the whole world.

Clemens of Alexandria describes one of their temples[, thusly quote]: "The walls shine with gold and silver, and with amber, and sparkle with the gems of India and Ethiopia: and the recesses are concealed by splendid curtains. But if you enter the penetralia, and inquire for the image of God for whose sake the fane was built; one of the Pastophori, or some other attendant on the temple approaches with a solemn and mysterious face, and putting aside the veil suffers you to obtain a glimpse of the divinity. [And] there[, upon an altar,] you behold a snake, [or] a crocodile, or a cat, or some other beast, a fitter inhabitant of a cavern, or a bog than of a temple."

[William Cooper: Or a giant penis, the phallus of Osiris, which Isis had substituted upon the altar of Egypt.]

The priests of Egypt [were] always impostors, but once so celebrated, had...degenerated into a race of jugglers [or circus, if you will].

Also the Chaldœans lived upon the fame of their fathers, and upon their own base trickeries.

[William Cooper: No one was honest anymore. No one could point to God. No one understood that all the symbols of the universe and in nature represented the power of an unseen God that the first men worshiped.]

The Brachmans or Brahmins, [whose] priests of India, once so virtuous and [celebrated as being] so wise...they too had fallen. Once they had forbidden the shedding of so much as an insect's blood: one day in the year alone, at the feast of Jagam, they were authorized to sacrifice the flesh of a beast, and from this many had refrained from attending, unable to conquer their feelings of abhorrence.

But now they had learnt from the fierce Scythians and from the Phoenicians who traded on their coasts to sacrifice the wife upon her husbands pyre -- to appease the gentle Brahmah with the blood of men.

[William Cooper: And that ceremony continues to this day.]

Now the angels who had presided over them became savage demons, who scourged them on to cruel penances, [even] to life-times of suffering and famine.

[And] in the sacred groves where once the Brachman Fathers had taught their precepts of love, men emaciated, careworn, [even] dying, wandered sadly, waiting for death as tortured prisoners wait for their liberty.

But worse still, these wicked priests sought through the land for the most beautiful young women, and trained them to dance in the temples, and to entice the devotees to their arms with lustful attitudes and languishing looks, and with their voices which mingled harmoniously with the golden bells suspended on their feet. [William Cooper: They became prostitutes for the priesthood.] They sang hymns to the gods in public, and in private enriched the treasuries of the pagoda with their infamous earnings. [And] thus a pure and simple religion was debased by the avarice and lewdness of its priests: till the temples became a den of thieves: till prostitution sat enthroned upon the altars of the Gods.

[William Cooper: And today it continues, although prostitution in a different way. Most religious meetings today are spiritual consumerism. It begins with a problem, and when the hour is over the problem has been solved, and the coffers of the priests, the minister, have been filled in the process.]

Greece and Rome buried in sloth and luxury did not escape the general contamination. The emblem of generation [-- the phallus --] which Isis had bestowed upon the Egyptians, and which they had held in abstract reverence, had now obtained a prominent place in the festivals of these nations as did the Lingam [and] those of the Hindus [And] it was openly paraded in processions [-- before guests in the home -- in processions] in the streets: it was worn by Roman nations in bracelets upon their arms.

[William Cooper: It adorned our nation's capital as the Washington Monument and stands, mocking us, in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas.]

The sacred festivals and mysteries which they had received from the Egyptians, and for which the women had been wont to prepare themselves by continence, and the men by fasting, were now mere vehicles for [all the] depravities [and deceptions] of the [very] lowest kind. Men were permitted to join the women in their worship of Bacchus, [or] Adonis, of the Bona Dea, and even of Priapus, and so dissolute did the Dionusia become, [ladies and gentlemen,] that the civil powers were compelled[, ye, forced,] to interfere with those of religion, and the Bacchanalia were abolished by a decree of the Roman senate.

[William Cooper: But it was too late, for Rome's fate had been sealed.]

And the Jews, the chosen people of God, had not their religion changed? Had not God, weary with their sins, yielded them to captivity, scourged them with sorrow, menaced them with curses?

[William Cooper: And isn't the state of Israel more a secular state than a religious state today, despite the claims of Zionism?]

They worshiped Baal-Peor, the Priapus of Assyria, they sacrificed their children to Moloch: they had dancing-girls in the holy temple.

[William Cooper: And this corruption spared no race, no people, no religion, and no one can point to any other and say, truthfully, that they're more guilty than they. For all are guilty -- all people, all religions, all nations all over this world have destroyed the simple precepts of all the different religions of the world, and none resemble even slightly what they began to be.]

[And I'm] not [going to] go deeper into particulars [that are] so degrading to human nature. [William Cooper: I can see you squirming in your seats as it is, so I will have mercy.] I will[, instead,] invite you to follow me [by steadily listening to the Hour of the Time into] a corner...where [you may begin to more readily understand where we are at, and where we are going, for there are many who have traveled this route before in the history of the world. It is enacted in cycles, and those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. There is a place in the world where], at least for many ages religion was preserved in its pristine purity, and whose priests, through a barbarous soldiery, were received as martyrs [they claim] in heaven before they had [even] learned to be knaves upon [this] earth.

It was an isolated spot unknown to the world in the earlier ages of vice. It is now a kingdom renowned for its [once great] power [that encircled the grove] and for its luxuries from hemisphere to hemisphere[, and for its civilizing influence and also its abject cruelty].

It was encircled by the blue waters of the German and Atlantic Seas, and abounded in the choicest gifts of nature.

It was called The White Island from those cliffs which still frown so coldly upon Gaul, and The Land of Green Hills from its verdant mountains.

[William Cooper: There's a song during World War II called, White Cliffs of Dover. In subsequent broadcasts, and they may not be coming soon, I will take you to that land...]

...and I will show you its priests in their white robes, and its warriors in the blue paint of war, and its virgins with their long and glossy yellow hair.

[William Cooper: And I will tell you the truth of the ancient religion of Britain, and it has absolutely nothing to do with any lost tribe of Israel. We will begin that journey some...some propitious evening, where...]

...I will lead you back into the past, and relate to you why this land was called Albion, and why Britain.



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(end of quote)

Good night, ladies and gentlemen, and God bless each and every single one of you.


(closing music: unknown dramatic instrumental)