Letter Never Sent Tell me when to go.

Pretty nice article. Makes me want to read that book.

A French Philosopher [Jean Baudrillard] Talks Back to Hollywood and ‘The Matrix’

This apocalyptic message owes something to the work of the science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick (1928-82), a cult figure who wrote extensively about the moral problems that result when the distinctions between the natural and synthetic began to blur through cloning, artificial intelligence and android technology. Mr. Dick foresaw a future in which synthetic beings were mass-produced to be used as soldiers, assassins, Stepford-style love slaves and synthetic families next door, manufactured to keep settlers company when humans colonize other planets.

His most widely known novel, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” ? made into the wildly successful film “Blade Runner” ? centered on synthetic beings that escape servitude to pass as human, only to be tracked down and “retired” by a bounty killer. Hollywood’s indifference to the moral fine points was evident by the way it changed the plot. The bounty killer in Mr. Dick’s novel returns home to a realistically problematic marriage and a flesh-and-blood wife. In the movie, he falls in love and runs away with a synthetic woman manufactured by a firm whose motto is “More human than human.” Since “Blade Runner,” erotic involvement between humans and androids has evolved into a new form of soft-core cinema porn.

The hero of “The Matrix,” played by Keanu Reeves, has the dignity to decline when offered an intimate digital encounter with a virtual blonde. This is a nice touch ? and one of many references to Mr. Baudrillard’s theories ? but not enough to keep the movie from succumbing to the techno- and cyber-chauvinism that the philosopher hammers away at in “Simulacra and Simulation.”

1. Reality of Simulation Great Baudrillard site
2. America, America . . . (From Paraxysm, Verso 1998 – A great collection of Interviews by Philippe Petit) interview with Baudrillard
3. Buy it online at amazon

lyrics by Woody Guthrie

Let’s have Christ for President.
Let us have him for our King.
Cast your vote for the Carpenter
that you call the Nazarene.

The only way we can ever beat
these crooked politician men
Is to run the money changers out of the temple
And put the Carpenter in
O It’s Jesus Christ for president
God above our king
With a job and a pension for young and old
We will make hallelujah ring

Every year we waste enough
to feed the ones who starve
We build our civilization up
and we shoot it down with wars
But with the Carpenter on the seat
away up in the capital town
The USA would be on the way prosperity bound!

Interesting article in The London Times on new evidence relating to the destruction of the Knights Templar by the Vatican and Prince Philip the Fair. This episode is the main reason the Masons have a historical animosity towards the Catholic Church:

Vatican file shows pope pardoned massacred Knights

L’Avvenire, the Catholic daily, said that the record of the Pope’s investigation was thought to have been lost when Napoleon looted the Vatican during his invasion of Italy in the 18th century, and that its rediscovery was an exceptional event.

The Templar Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, was burnt at the stake on the orders of Philip IV of France (known as Philip the Fair), who coveted the Templar order’s land and treasure and began a campaign of dawn arrests and torture in 1307. At least 2,000 Knights were killed in an attempt to obliterate the order altogether. It was revived in the 18th century as part of the masonic movement, which is said to have inherited some of the Templars’ secret rituals.

Barbara Frale, a researcher at the Vatican School of Paleontology, said that the consensus among historians was that Clement V, who was himself French and a former Archbishop of Bordeaux, had been pliant and weak, and had colluded in Philip the Fair’s scheme to wipe out the Templars and seize their fortune. But documents found in the Vatican archives, including a long-lost parchment, proved that the Pope had in fact manoeuvred ‘with skill and determination’ to ensure that his own emissaries questioned de Molay and other leading Templars in the dungeons of Chinon castle in the Loire in 1308, in what amounted to a papal trial.

Signora Frale, who is writing a book based on the Chinon parchment, told the Italian monthly Hera, a journal of historical mysteries, that the result was the complete exoneration of the Knights.

The Pope had accepted the Knights� explanation that the charges against them of sodomy and blasphemy were due to a misunderstanding of arcane rituals behind closed doors which had their origins in the Crusaders� bitter struggle against the Muslims, or Saracens. These included �denying Christ and spitting on the Cross three times�, as well as �kissing other men�s behinds�. Adriano Forgione, editor of Hera, said that these were intended to simulate the kind of humiliation and torture that a Crusader might be subjected to by the Saracens if captured. They were taught how to abuse their own religion �with the mind only and not with the heart�.

The Knights Templar � properly called The Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon � were founded during the early Crusades in the 12th century, when they protected pilgrims to the Holy Land, together with the Hospitallers (or Knights of St John). The Templars were so called because they were given part of the former Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem as their headquarters.

Noting that de Molay and the Knights had asked his pardon, the Pope wrote: �We hereby decree that they are absolved by the church and may again receive Christian sacraments.� Signor Forgione said that the Pope had failed to make this absolution public because the scandal of the Templars had aroused extreme passions and he feared a church schism. Philip IV had de Molay and other Templar leaders put to death before the Pope�s verdict could be published, and it was subsequently lost.

.heramagazine.net/home2.html”>Hera Magazine of Archaeological Mysteries I hope you can read Italian. If not you might try translating it with google.

The Apostle Paul was not one of the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth (Yahoshua Ben Yosef). Even by the earliest timelines, he didn’t show up on the Christian scene till ten years after the execution of Jesus. He was, however, the father of Christianity. Without Paul there is no Christianity. Modern Christianity owes more to Paul than to Jesus. In this sense, most modern Christians are followers of Paul rather than followers of the example of Christ. Paul expresses ideas which directly contradict the message of Christ. Paul introduced meat eating, the divinity of Jesus, non-equality of women, belief instead of holiness, acceptance of slavery, and harmony with Roman law.

Many people have found it difficult to reconcile the Christian message of love with all the other garbage in the Bible. The glaring contradiction between the messages of Paul and Jesus creates a cognitive dissonance that is impossible to accept until you reject one way or the other. Thomas Jefferson cut Paul almost entirely out of his edition of the bible. In his words, “Paul was the first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus.” The Quakers with their egalitarian sensiblities rejected the misogyny of Paul. Maybe it’s time to abolish the authority of Paul.
The Apostle Paul was a counter-revolutionary, who twisted the legend and doctrines of Jesus completely around. Consider the following biblical passages:

In the words of Jesus:

And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

In the words of Paul:

For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.

Here are a few good quotations about the conflict between Paul and Jesus:

“Where possible Paul avoids quoting the teaching of Jesus, in fact even mentioning it. If we had to rely on Paul, we should not know that Jesus taught in parables, had delivered the sermon on the mount, and had taught His disciples the ‘Our Father.’ Even where they are specially relevant, Paul passes over the words of the Lord.” — Albert Schweitzer

“Paul substituted faith in Christ for the Christlike life.” — Walter Kauffman

“Fundamentalism is the triumph of Paul over Christ.” — Will Durant