MARIANNE FAITHFULL, JOHN LENNON AND THE DEVIL…. PERHAPS

MARIANNE FAITHFULL: WALKER ON WAYS LESS TRAVELLED

The life story and various narcotic, psychic and near death experiences of rock chic, Marianne Faithfull, are so unusual they justify clichés like “fact more remarkable than fiction”. Faithfull (1994) and Memories, Dreams and Reflections (2007)are autobiographical sources but they raise many questions so I’ve always wanted to know the singer’s true horoscope to have other perspectives. Which I feel I finally now have.

As regards Marianne’s experiences and stellar signatures for especially anything “Chez Satanic” (title of a chapter in Faithfull) there’s a real connection with issues I intended to write about this month re John Lennon but will now lead up to instead via Marianne. I feel almost obliged to examine the new and occult Lennon controversy given my Blogs of April and May ‘07, a version of which got published as "Imagine There’s No Heaven" in Investigate Magazine for April ‘08 in New Zealand. (The article was refused for a couple of suitable UK outlets as likely to cause public outcry while a trendy religious periodical said I was being “too esoteric” dealing with the afterlife!). But first to the intriguing Marianne.

Someone who unearthed an old magazine article of mine recently wrote complimenting me on my rectification skills (finding and testing true birth times) especially in finding the most convincing working chart for Shakespeare. But the elusive Marianne has always eluded me and I’d given up trying only to discover recently an accepted time is supposed to be 12.30 pm in London (Dec 29,1946) giving 3 degrees Taurus rising and placing the singer’s Capricorn sun in the 9th house. This pattern seems right and if it isn’t, I’ll eat my hat because factors now emerge like a telling accuracy with asteroids which I could never obtain before but felt I might need in order to describe and explain elements of Marianne’s story sufficiently. But what accuracy! The sheer fatedness is striking.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS: RELATIONSHIP AND SUICIDAL POTENTIAL

To encourage reader confidence in details like asteroids I’ll first mention two telling features for Marianne’s pattern independent of any birth time accuracy.

Uranus, planet of the shocking, unusual, brilliant, eccentric and often gay, is same degree conjunct Fama (fame) in communicating Gemini. So Marianne will always deliver shocks and surprises; she’ll not just sing but speak out, be heard and celebrated for notoriety, not least in relation to ultra radical gay men (Uranus) like Alan Ginsburg for whom she taught at the Naropa Institute, film director, Kenneth Anger for whom she acted, and writer William Burroughs whose example gave her the bizarre ambition to become a street junkie. (If the birth time is correct this shock effect is primarily and suitably conveyed through Marianne’s personal values sector).

But we know Marianne will also be famous for being involved with the very hetero Rolling Stones. Amazingly, Mars in Marianne Faithful’s chart, (the men in her life, the kind of man or men she wants) is degree exact conjunct asteroid, Rolling Stones!

If the birth time is correct, that Marianne will always be before the public and known as just herself is aided by the fact that asteroid, Marianna, loosely conjuncts her destiny/career/reputation Midheaven (MC) point from within her career house too. (MC 13 Cap.32,Marianna, 17Cap41 - note asteroids, traditionally deemed feminine, used to be named even for men with a feminine “a” on the end)

Reverting to the Rolling Stones, assuming again that 12.30 pm is correct, Mars rules Marianne’s Scorpio dominated partnerships/marriage sector. Marianne and Rolling Stone, Mick Jagger, (Marianne was also wildly attracted to band member, Keith Richard) could have married or at least had a child together but Marianne lost the child after several months. The event plunged her into the depression which triggered the drug addiction which helped separate her from Jagger. The pain and passion in relations(s) is reflected in the wounded Chiron in Scorpio conjuncting the unions angle while the often misleading romanticism directed by Marianne on relationships is signaled by asteroid, Fantasia also conjunct here. Even so, the basic wealth, generosity and luck attending Marianne’s partnerships (Jagger even bought Marianne’s mother a house) despite any pain involved is nonetheless described by the conventionally super fortunate Jupiter/Venus conjunction falling in the partnerships sector.

Marianne Faithfull is more than usually the proverbial “cat with nine lives “ and Jupiter/Venus is arguably one of its secrets to the extent this conjunction is notoriously fortunate wherever found. But in Marianne’s unions sector it suggests others will likely come to her aid, including to rescue her from death (Scorpio) - as has happened on several occasions! Jagger saved her just in time from her Sydney suicide attempt with an overdose of Tuinals.

Of course, the Venus/Jupiter in sexy if death ridden Scorpio is also a key to Marianne’s Faithfull’s one time sexy pin-up status and legendary self indulgence (which arguably includes a virtual love affair with death itself!) Another clue to the singer’s psychology, especially the celebrated addictive and bisexual tendencies, is the afflicted Neptune (it afflicts both Sun and Mars), a signature almost invariably found in bisexuality so far as I can tell, and reinforced by a no boundaries and “lost”, if mystical and musical, Piscean moon in the lost, unconscious twelfth sector.

However……all this collection of relevance which I merely make in the course of bolstering my point about asteroid accuracy is almost trivial against what asking certain ethical and spiritual questions led me to discover.

MARIANNE FAITHFUL: FROM ARTIST’S LICENCE TO DANCES WITH THE DEVIL

Marianne Faithfull likes artists and has always aspired to be one herself but has taken to utmost extreme the licence European culture and its aristocracies, have traditionally accorded artists to avoid the norms and conventional morals. In Marianne’s case this tendency is perhaps helped by the fact her Austrian great grand uncle was Baron Sacher-Mosach (from whence the supposed joys of masochism). No matter how personally simpatico and/or vaguely pathetic one finds Marianne one may still grow tired of hearing, for example, that some drug pusher, addict and recreational thief like Henrietta Moraes who in her last years, Marianne says, kept manifesting a demon, or Alan Ginsburg who wanted Marianne to have sex with her pupils at Naropa (she didn’t) and apparently wanted and believed in sex with kids, or some mother who apparently left her “carelessly neglected” kids disturbed (one dying a junkie) like wealthy aristocratic writer descended from a line of witches, Caroline Blackwood, were just the most marvelous endearing persons you could ever hope to meet. “I loved the glee with which she viewed folly, wickedness and perversity” writes Marianne of Caroline to whom she felt she owed “fealty” though “she was clearly an instrument of the sacred god of chaos”.

In the same spirit we now and again hear in press interviews things like the devil is the most fun person at any party (Marianne has on occasions acted the part of the devil for stage). Though I’m stressing asteroids it’s not irrelevant that as regards planetary symbolism Marianne as a Capricorn. It's a sign “ruled” by the Saturn traditionally associated with, work, guilt, limits, exact requital, and by medieval astrologers the devil. Under this sign there tends to be more disposition to be casual about, even feel affinity for Satan - Marilyn Manson is the rock world’s extreme example. (The other relevant sign is Libra, the sign in which Saturn/Satan is said to be “exalted”. This was the sign both of arch Satanist, Aleister Crowley and his admirer, John Lennon of whom presently).

So….it’s time to ask the question, if, despite protestations in Memories,, she’s not the witch or Satanist many imagine but merely a humanist with an individual spiritual track, is Marianne nonetheless a bit more responsible for influencing modern belief than she realizes and more of the devil’s party than she understands?

The placement of Marianne Faithfull’s Capricorn sun in her ninth sector, apart from covering for her foreign connections, links her to all and any issues of belief. So did Marianne help, however unintentionally, to birth modern Satanism when she encouraged Jagger towards reading The Master and the Margarita which prompted him to compose Sympathy for the Devil, or again when she took the part of devil’s bride Lilith, in Kenneth Anger’s film Lucifer Rising ? She admits the latter decision was folly and regrets it, but chiefly because Anger terrified her by subsequently cursing her. As an old proverb goes “it takes a long spoon to sup with the devil”. Marianne, who thinks the devil is a fun person, seems often to have been closer to dancing with him than just supping with a long spoon at table.

MARIANNE FAITHFUL’S ASTROLOGY OF THE DARK SIDE

Or so one may be inclined to think if we pursue Marianne’s astrology which is rather devastating in the area of beliefs with the dark side seemingly inscribed in her life pattern quite notably.

There are two devil asteroids, Lucifer, which can be considered the devil as light (Lucifer, light bearer), and Malin (French for devil) that is more like the devil as darkness. Malin conjuncts Marianne’s Midheaven, destiny/career point from within the career house within two degrees. The way in which the devil in Marianne’s career was originally involved with a reading of Bulgakov’s novel, The Master and the Margarita appears signaled by within the same career/reputation house a striking and unexpected same degree conjunction of Malin with asteroid, Margarita! Then, although not similarly aspected, the fact that asteroid, Lilith, (in Jewish mythology, Satan’s wife) also falls in Marianne’s career/reputation sector is suggestive of more “chez Satanic” tales, like her Lilith role in a Satanist’s film.

There is however another more vivid astrological Lilith, a point in the heavens called Black Moon Lilith. It’s much used by continental astrologers and never felt to represent anything good. Interestingly, this point is found in Marianne’s chart (at whatever the time of birth) at 26 Sagittarius which means it conjuncts the Galactic Centre which has a vital association with events in religion. If the birth time is exact, then this point additionally falls exactly conjunct Marianne Faithfull’s ninth house cusp of religion and philosophy which is to say she risks representing or channelling a Black Moon Lilith philosophy which could include the quasi challenge of suicidal urges – BML is opposite her Part of Suicide.

Of course Marianne won’t realize who and what is pulling the destiny strings, if such is the case, because for her the devil should be light and amusing, perhaps even bringing some good despite himself – like the Satan-Wolland figure in Bulgakov’s novel albeit the Master and the Margarita who have dealings with him won’t have salvation. One notes that Lucifer, placed - suitably for Marianne’s positive Satan images - in her chart in goody Virgo closely trines from there of all things asteroid, Rolling Stones. This betrays how there will be ample opportunity to influence Jagger with her interests. This aspected Rolling Stones falls besides in the philosophy/religion sector of Marianne’s chart signifying perhaps that Jagger could be almost Marianne’s philosophy or deity just in himself (one has the impression that that’s how things once were!) while she can in turn be his muse helping him to invent a bit of Satanic philosophy for public consumption even if (as is the case) he believes none of it personally.

Marianne’s mother, Eva, with whom Marianne had a love/hate relation and who respected Mick - with some reason as he gifted her a home! - tending to blame Marianne for any relationship problems with him, seems shown by the Eva asteroid. Eva’s relation with Jagger is indicated by the easy, potentially fortunate trine aspect to Rolling Stones. However, we learn that later in life the Catholic, half Jewish, Eva (Baroness Erisso) became “very religious” and when Marianne made her first suicide attempt which occurred in Sydney Eva arranged for nuns to be with her. So, on the basis conjunctions are very pro or con something, that asteroids Lucifer and Eva are conjunct and in turn conjunct the Christ asteroid, seems suggestive of the mother’s struggle for her daughter’s soul.

As if to certify that point, the struggle is in effect reinforced and duplicated by the way the Jesus asteroid suspiciously makes exact-to-the-degree conflict square to Malin/Devil. Not that if there’s any battle here it’s one that Lucifer is automatically fated to win – astrology is more about tendencies than pure fate and the Part of Success (given correct birth time) conjuncts Christ more than Lucifer.

One can’t know, especially from astrology alone, exactly where Marianne might stand with the Creator God she says nowadays she doesn’t believe in unless it’s a case of believing (as she puts it) that we’re all chips off some great Cosmic Rock. But it’s interesting that Marianne’s Sun is challengingly opposite asteroid, Bhagwat, Hinduism’s name for Lord (God) or personal deity, an asteroid which I believe works to symbolize especially God as Creator. Note this Bhagwat falls in the sign of the mothers, Cancer, so I imagine, especially as Marianne read Robert Graves’ The White Goddess at her mother’s death, any god desired or believed in by Marianne would tend to be the Goddess, who might then morph into just Lilith! It looks like Marianne has long courted and been considerably influenced by forces that make her second autobiography’s claim to be only a humanist not very convincing. But now for the big dark side question...

DID JOHN LENNON PACT WITH THE DEVIL?

The kind of apparently relevant occult data seen in Marianne Faithfull’s natus leads naturally to the question to what extent individuals can and do enter into relations with the dark side. It seems more likely that un-summoned the devil and spirits of whatever kind appear - I can’t recall the relevant line from Jung or Holderlin about this - rather than because anyone actually invokes or pacts with them. Attitudes and behaviour alone, and some might add family inheritance (Marianne admits to at least a family inheritance in terms of feelings for decadence) can amount to an invitation to spirit presence and the influence can be unconscious. This might explain a few dark corners of Marianne’s story. Obviously, though, some people historically have invoked and today still do invoke entities.

By contrast to the story of Marianne’s haphazard occult involvements there’s a new book out called The Lennon Prophecy which at time of writing I’ve ordered but haven’t yet read but whose central, already much contested claim, can likewise be subjected to a measure of astrological analysis and even without my reading all the details first.

Joseph Niezagoda proposes John Lennon made a twenty year pact with the devil for fame and fortune – he supposedly told a friend, Tony Sheridan, he had sold his soul. The book has been called gripping but, say critics, only as commercial fiction or bestselling conspiracy theory. I can’t help feeling that if the book’s advocates are to be called superstitious sensationalists (as is happening) their critics might need to be called the Lennon Angel party, people for whom their idol couldn’t be wrong and so be other than now in heaven’s front row (as I’ve seen suggested) merely because he said, very Libran style, “Give Peace a Chance” and “All you need is love”. One wonders did they never hear of Lucifer as light or being a deceiver? Obviously they aren’t aware of the conflicted quality of Lennon’s pattern which reveals, for example his Part of Honour conjunct his Part of Corruption, albeit I’m never so confident of evidence from Arabic Parts on a horoscope as compared to asteroids. However Lennon’s very close conjunction of truthful Jupiter with (at best) pragmatic Saturn, tells the same story. People with this conjunction under any sign – many of us believe Jesus was born under such – seem more than usually involved with moral choices and could be notably good or evil.

Whatever the truth, critics should at least know that the Yellow Submarine album cover of 1967 presented arch Satanist, Aleister Crowley, as one of the “people we like”. And early in the Beatles’ career it’s biographically established Lennon had associations with bohemians in Germany dabbling in the dark side. Nizagoda, a devoted Beatles fan, isn’t trying to make notably religious points. He is puzzled and conflicted about the evidence he claims regretfully to have unearthed over years but evidence which he feels alone makes sense of certain events, lyrics and statements.

JOHN LENNON’S SINISTER LIFE AND DEATH SKIES

Let’s suspend disbelief for a moment. Whatever the facts this much makes a pact theory plausible - astrologically. The Pact was supposedly made in second half December 1960 shortly before the Beatles’ meteoric rise to fame began. Although by transit Jupiter was coming to contact Lennon’s career Midheaven which would be helpful for propelling an ambitious person into the spotlight there is the paradox from any conventional astrological standpoint that the previous lunar eclipse fell within Lennon’s undermining twelfth house (hidden enemies) while the previous solar eclipse had conjuncted his co-ruler of the same sector, the dreamy, otherworldly Neptune. So, in late ‘60 Lennon might not have been seeing things too clearly (perhaps in a drugs haze?) and courting the fantastic and harmful. It was nevertheless still a dynamic time for him in which transiting Uranus was making tension/conflict square to his natal Uranus all month. So he might well do something a bit off-beat Uranian crazy then. But what? It happens that the transiting Uranus was near enough conjunct (under two degrees) his natal Malin (devil as darkness).

That Lennon might easily contact, even savour and favour the dark side and hell in its way - he said he loved the dreams that took him to worlds like those of the painter, Hieronymus Bosch - is indicated by a natal pattern that shows Lennon’s career relevant, close Jupiter/Saturn conjunction in earthy Taurus, making easy, opportunity giving, degree exact trine to hell asteroid, Hella (remember the “a” principle for asteroids I mentioned).

There’s no asteroid for Pact but it’s my considered opinion that asteroid, Constantia, stands for anything firm, lasting and Covenant-like. It could, then, be relevant that Constantia conjuncts Lennon’s sun at birth suggesting a covenant might define his life in some fashion; especially so as in Dec ‘60 Constantia was in (underworld associated) Scorpio, sign of Lennon’s Mercury, the planet/symbol involved in any agreements or contracts. And then, at Lennon’s death we do find Constantia conjunct death planet Pluto.

If that is suggestive of covenanted death dues then in line with that idea it may be relevant, and it’s suggestive, that at the time of Lennon’s shooting on 8th Dec 1980 Hella was at 25 degrees Leo. This means it was in direct so to speak completing aspect to that same Uranus square to natal Uranus pattern at 25 Taurus prevailing throughout December 1960 when Niezagoda theorizes the pact was made and then square the opposition of Uranus to Lennon’s natal Uranus at the time of death. There’s something else sinister around Uranus mentioned presently.

In the actual Event Chart for the shooting at 10.50 pm Dec 8th 1980 in New York, asteroid Hella was in the unconscious, underworld, place of loss as was suitably enough also asteroid Yoko. Asteroid Lennon was all of
a) conjunct the event defining moon of the moment (which last was also conjunct Chapman’s natal moon)
b) also directly aspecting the ascendant, signifying the event itself and its place in the world which would certainly hear about Lennon
c) conjuncting Lennon’s natal Midheaven, his destiny.

It is most interesting if plain sinister that asteroid, Chapman, was rising in the New York event chart in degree exact fortunate trine to aggressive Mars reflecting how easy the murder would be – almost given to Chapman who apparently believed he was about Satan’s business in the matter. After all, Lennon should have waited for his car to be taken round to the Dakota building’s security entrance at the back, not have exited on the street before the front entrance! Purists might demand that Malin(Devil) should be rising or even conjunct the event’s ascendant. I note however that it was within conjunction of the South Nodes at the time – generally regarded as involving matters from one’s past that need to be dealt with.

Re Chapman….Incredibly, asteroids Lennon and Hella are closely conjunct in his natus (18 Cap 18 and 18 Cap 35 respectively) and they link to his natal sun at 19 Taurus by favourable trine which bespeaks the love/hate relation to Lennon that biography records and that would be helpful to contacting Lennon and which surely made the murder all said and done a choice. Yet the hand of fate was still there somehow…..Lucifer at 26 Taurus in Chapman’s birth was conjunct Lennon’s 25 Taurus Uranus, and we have seen that transiting Uranus to Uranus is very much the trigger in this whole story. I have never mentioned the position of Lucifer as opposed to Malin in Lennon’s birth. It was 0 Cancer, which astrologers deem a world point. If it weren’t there arguably it would be less likely there would be widespread speculation upon just what the relation of Lennon to the forces of evil may have been.

FINALLY….DOES THE LENNON PACT MAKE SENSE OF A HELL VISION?

Even all these signs can still be dismissed as coincidence. But if there had been some mad Faustian bargain shadowing Lennon’s life it helps makes more sense of that most difficult of hell visions my Blog and magazine article (see above) tried to make sense of.

I wouldn’t wish to treat as holy writ the alleged vision of the seven Colombians who visited heaven and hell with Jesus in April ‘95 and supposedly encountered Lennon in hell. I always stated my doubts about probably culture contaminated elements in report of that vision. Memory can distort. Yet nothing can quite get round the pattern in the heavens at the time the vision was claimed. How could factors like the celestial signs at the time that the group either wouldn’t know or else not approve under American Protestant influence, such as asteroids Lennon and Christ in conjunction, reflect the events described? Anyway, it was claimed Lennon called out to Jesus as the screaming, terrified Colombians passed through hell and then cursed him because Jesus would not respond as he did to others in perdition. If this vision has any validity why would Christ not respond? Because Lennon was in some wise a special offender – which if he had been pacted with the devil and vowed to various blasphemies he would undeniably be?

Let’s suppose all the astrology here is misleading and the Colombians got things wrong too. When I had read the criticisms of Nizagoda’s book I read this from the Blog he established for his book. Again, like the vision of the Colombians, I can’t quite get round it.

Apparently the last song Lennon was recording was one asking the Lord to help him. In the background he utters strange words apparently accepting how things had to be. There does seem to be something genuinely sinister here, a bit like a Marlowe’s Faustus trying to call on God (with regret but not in any real repentance, simply wanting a way out) but getting the idea it’s probably too late. I cite Niezgoda:

"...Like many of those who enter into a pact with the Devil they are aware of their allotted time, and as the time of the pact draws to a close, they begin to feel remorse, and start looking for a way out of their fatal pact. In this final song we hear John pleading with the Lord, “I’m asking this question in the hope that you’ll be kind, please help me Lord, help me to help myself.” In the song John uses the old adage ‘the Lord helps those who help themselves’. Was he hoping for a way out of his pact?

Eerily, if you listen closely, in the final moments of the song John can be heard talking to himself in a faint voice, saying, “I see, that’s how you’re going to do it, Huh, ok.” What could John possibly be talking about, “That’s how you’re going to do it,” DO WHAT?

If anyone has another interpretation, we’d be interested to hear what you have to say!“

I hope there could be other interpretations but I may instead be forced to take the author’s point…..You can call all this superstitious – I know the pact theory is being dismissed as crazy. I’m not prepared to say that it automatically is so. Like Marianne, but for different reasons in different ways, I know the dark side exists - I have had my own encounters with it. I discuss this in my new book, Cosmic Father; Spirituality as Relationship (Some details in my last Blog). Especially in the book's third chapter called, Suffering, A Secret Hidden Doctrine and Hell Itself, as in the 07 Blog articles on Lennon I try to make sense of the whole idea of hell and the demonic. They are subjects which sound unreal until you really look into the matter with an open mind.

COSMIC FATHER: SPIRITUALITY AS RELATIONSHIP

A BOOK OF UNUSUAL EXPERIENCES AND ANSWERS

My new book, Cosmic Father: Spirituality as Relationship is now out and available on Amazon.com. Though many authors like to call their book exceptional, this one unquestionably is so starting with the fact it combines claims to direct experience of the divine with the kind of intellectual inquiry into God and Bible that almost never accompanies such. It broaches questions like:

• How and why did Christianity, the religion that prays “Our Father”, become a Son religion to the extent it scarcely addresses or knows this Father?

• What is God, and God as an interacting Trinity, like? Answers go beyond conventional ones like God is love and the Trinity just a sacred mystery.

• Why suffering? While there can be no complete answer to that question there is one that Christian philosophers almost consistently ignore but which explains most and is the most logical answer rather than the total mystery and “God’s Problem” that skeptics like Bart Ehrman make it..

• What about God and eros?

• What is the meaning and function of prophecy?

• Who and what precisely is Yahweh and is there a Godhead beyond God?

• How and why have popular religious writers on God like Jack Miles, Karen Armstrong and Deepak Chopra got it wrong about God?

TO ORDER
Cosmic Father can be ordered on Amazon.com by entering either the book's title or the author's name.

BACKGROUND
On professional advice Cosmic Father has gone onto Amazon direct because it could be assumed the difficulties and delay of issuing such an unusual book through conventional channels whether secular or religious would be too great – necessarily so I now think. I have been told by a currently bestselling author of a book on God that he went through 36 publishers and many agents before having his book accepted. The simple and controversial fact many would doubtless deny (but which is only what I more or less heard at the Society of Authors lecture a good few years ago), is that mainstream publishing industry isn’t interested to publish relative to God or Christianity unless negatively, gnostically, skeptically. I hope this is wrong but I have seen and experienced enough to believe otherwise.

I am pasting below the book’s back cover blurb and a list of chapters titles. (I expect to put a few excerpts from the book onto the Net at least on my Rollan McCleary website, if not a separate site devoted to it, but all such may have to await the assistance of my usual helper in web matters who is presently dealing with acute problems keeping them from all work).

BLURB

What does it mean to talk about, talk to, or be addressed by, God as Father? Is it even any longer helpful or meaningful in an era of inclusive gender language, high personal autonomy and a new pop atheism? Is there any awareness to be had beyond the new age guides to God consciousness, prolific “conversations with God” or the literary deconstructions of divine character from such as Jack Miles and Harold Bloom?

If Milton’s justifying the ways of God to man was always problematic, to argue for the existence and concept of God as specifically Father is still more difficult today. There is everything to consider from the apparent case against God in light of events like the Holocaust to feminist objections to a patriarchal God. There are therefore some high barriers to pass before anyone can hope to perceive the biblical God as Creator and Father. And this may require re-examining how and why we read the Bible as we do, listen to some philosophers we do and discovering if there a line in divine “thought” behind the Bible’s more difficult stories and reported acts of God.

This very original book offers a wide ranging, challenging mixture of reflections along with an open ended inquiry into God’s “character” and the nature of visionary/prophetic experience that has traditionally most claimed to reveal this. But the quest is also one prompted and illuminated by sudden, unexpected contact with “The Father” that the author is left forced to process along with a thoroughgoing examination of what is signified by the Trinity. Whether or not the reader would accept the testimony to personal experience that influences some of the conclusions drawn, it is still an impulse towards gaining some original insights and the quest engaged can deliver some real, perhaps life changing, surprises.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 Divine Contact

CHAPTER 2 “Our Father in Heaven” but What Sort?

CHAPTER 3 Human Suffering, A Hidden Secret Doctrine and Hell Itself

CHAPTER 4 Divine Character by Names

CHAPTER 5 Biography and History of God

CHAPTER 6 How God “Thinks”

CHAPTER 7 Reading God between the Lines

CHAPTER 8 Things the Magi Didn’t Tell You

CHAPTER 9 Losing the Father

CHAPTER 10 Finding the Father and What It All Means

ARCHBISHOPS BEHAVING BADLY

CAN EVEN GOD SAVE ARCHBISHOP WILLIAMS?

No, the question is valid; I mean it. Rowan Williams doesn’t even believe God can save the planet, so why himself? To announce, as the Archbishop of Canterbury did last month, that the environmental fate of the world is entirely in our own hands and we may destroy ourselves without God intervening marks a flat denial, not the Archbishop’s first, of the Bible and tradition he’s supposed to represent. A prophetic statement like Revelation’s: “O Lord God, sovereign over all, you are and you were…..now is the time to destroy those who would destroy the earth” (Rev 11: 17, 18. REB) involves the idea there will be a time when the planet is threatened and the same God who gave the earth in stewardship to humanity will not permit its destruction to occur.

But no, the Archbishop either hasn’t heard it, doesn’t believe it or isn’t interested. When did you last hear him preaching anything remotely apocalyptic and in any case Rowan William’s skeptical, democratic generosity to most or all positions except the orthodox is such he believes even atheism should be taught as part of religion in schools with the help of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials novels. He has also proposed that some Sharia Law could be introduced to England to help the Muslims, none of whom, like the Archbishop himself, ever seems to have the will to object how Christians don’t even have the basic right to worship in Islam’s centre, Saudi, while under Sharia Law in Pakistan countless women are in jail because they dare to protest their rape under a system which allows such protest only if (improbably!) four men can stand witness to their claims! (Whether the Archbishop’s sympathy for Sharia bears connection to known sympathies with Islam of Prince Charles, rumoured to be privately a convert to Sufism, I have no idea).

What sort of appeasing, retreating, gutless un or anti-evangelical Christianity is this? Indeed what creedal elements of the religious denomination he leads does the basically rationalist Archbishop (inbetween an incongruous cult of icons and the Mary he wants to pray along with) really believe? Certainly he doesn’t believe in the Magi – he spoiled a good few people’s Christmas and possibly faith in ‘07 insisting the Magi probably never existed and the gospel Christmas narratives can be taken as myth accordingly. This itself was nonsense even if one entertained doubts about details of the narrative. Travelling oriental/Persian Magi (astrologers) were such a long-standing, half feared feature of the ancient world the Emperor Constantine banned them in 321 in what was a questionable move the churches have never quite recovered from against the astrology that features in Christ’s birth and we ought to be aware of.

As it happens a Welsh priest of my acquaintance in Australia who had on and off communicated with Williams in the past, recommended and sent through a book of mine dealing with discoveries regarding the astrology of Christ’s birth. Whether from Williams himself or his office, the courtesy of a reply was never received and the world was given the gift of Williams’ skepticism instead. He might at least have acknowledged other lines of thought exist on the magi but prelates don’t seem to think like that. One could say they mostly favour a “fair” skepticism….but rather dogmatically and dismissively!

CAN RICHARD HOLLOWAY BELIEVE ANYTHING AT ALL?

A good example of this corrosive "fairness" is Richard Holloway, former Archbishop or Bishop Primus (it amounts to the same thing) of Edinburgh of the Scottish branch of Anglicanism. His religion is in effect a spirituality of honesty in not believing or claiming anything specifically Christian at all. According to a suitably uninspiring Easter weekend feature in The Australian which influences my comments, Holloway admits to being “completely allergic to people who say that they know the ultimate, absolute truth”. He believes in “the virtue of uncertainty” and “If you know the mind of the mystery you call God, it makes you do terrible things”.

“Terrible things”? This is libel! Are we to suppose that, say, Christian doctors and nurses who are helping people and happen orthodoxly to believe that Christ is “the way, the truth and the life” and hence some kind of ultimate mystery, are actual or potential world destroyers like biblically illiterate, or just plain illiterate, medieval Crusaders on rampage overseas? But for this Archbishop such believers wouldn’t need to be pushing any of their beliefs in Christ anyway, even nicely, because “Evangelism is an abuse of power”. It’s even nothing but a fear based threat and the Church just a power structure. And it seems there would be nothing and nobody to evangelize anyway because the first of the Archbishop’s 26 published books was Beyond Belief: Godless Morality, (1981) which made the point there is effectively no Christian morality because atheists can be good – which doubtless they can be just as they can be evil. But is this the point and is it worth cutting down trees to make paper to publish it? Indeed, what publishers are complicit with promoting this religion of skepticism 26 times over when so much in religion can’t get published? What Holloway represents is an “abuse” of influence by an Archbishop who admits to have changed his mind so many times he is not sure what he believes but is ready to call himself "The Church in Exile". The Church in Auto-Destruct mode might be more appropriate!

As one priest remarked to me, people like this may be brilliant scholars (Williams is a linguist fluent in perhaps ten languages) but they would be better in academic posts where they would be free to change ideas and perspectives by the week rather than leading whole churches. I would agree their role is now so negative it belongs with Miltonics like “the hungry flock look up and are not fed”, or, more darkly and cynically if one were to cite Baudelaire, “It’s the Devil who holds the strings that make us dance”. In 2002 Richard Holloway did actually resign his post as was appropriate. Today he oddly describes the real beginning of his disillusion as being the 1998 Lambeth Conference with its fireworks over the subject of homosexuality. Gays and their cause seems to be the one of the few things the Archbishop can feel able to barrack for with any conviction. Admittedly Lambeth ‘98 seems to have been a conference to end all conferences…...

I attended a party a few years ago and not realizing I was talking to a bishop told him, when he asked me, about my doctoral studies which were in gay spirituality. This prompted him to inform me just how horrific the Lambeth Conference had been. So bad he said he never wished to attend anything like it again in his life. The atmosphere had apparently been electric with venom and potential and actual aggressive behaviour unworthy of Christians. But if such was the case the party chiefly guilty for stirring the pot was another unworthy Archbishop, Archbishop Akinola of Nigeria, of whom there were tales about trying to throw a gay delegate on the floor – possibly in attempts to exorcize him since he apparently believes gays are mostly demon possessed. From the under-belief of prelates western style we pass to over-belief African style.

CAN THE FANATIC ARCHBISHOP AKINOLA JUST SHUT UP?

I shall pass over whatever Akinola may have said and done since ‘98 (which includes hysterically calling all homosexuals "lower than the beasts",trying to split the entire Anglican Communion over homosexuality and make himself alternative head of some split off group) to quote him only in the very recent past. In recent attempts by the Nigerian government to move legally against gays (who get assaulted and generally persecuted in Nigeria as in other African countries like Uganda and aided and abetted by the churches) Akinola has made representations to a parliamentary committee. He has proposed gay marriages should be entirely illegal with anyone involved in such being jailed for 5 years and even anyone attending such marriages jailed for a year. He regards homosexuality as “capable of engendering moral and social holocaust” (i.e. the condition is catching if gay unions were permitted the population rate would either decline or be wiped out by AIDS!).

According to Akinola (as cited in Blaze Gay Magazine for South Australia, March 25th) “Same sex marriage apart from being ungodly is unscriptural, unnatural, unprofitable, unhealthy, un-cultural, un-African and un-Nigerian. Homosexuality is capable of existinctating (sic) mankind and as such should never be allowed to take root in Nigeria…”

Well, of course same sex marriage is unscriptural because the chiefly relevant biblical society (Israel’s) like most ancient societies didn’t envisage it - though it virtually does in the peculiar covenant union of David and Jonathan. One wonders what the Archbishop would think if we reminded him that Archbishops themselves are unscriptural, no such individuals are ever mentioned in the Bible. And heaven knows few Archbishops have done the churches much good. However, this angry and meddlesome Archbishop who doesn't wish to be in the same room as a homosexual and certainly won't take communion with them, is either grossly ignorant or else a gross liar if he contends that homosexuality is “un-African”. Lock this troublemaker up for 5 years and force him to read anthropological studies like Boy-Wives and Female Husbands: Studies in African Homosexualities (eds) Stephen O Murray and Will Roscoe, a couple of anthropologists….! A biology text wouldn't hurt either as this prelate remains under the pre-scientific illusion that homosexuality is not found in nature as amusingly in the case of Ninio the elephant in the Warsaw zoo and the penguins in Berlin's.

AND COULD ARCHBISHOP AKINOLA READ THE BIBLE?

…..But if he won't confront anthropology and biology at least make Akinola study the Bible. There are a few things Archbishop Akinola needs to know including about the Bible. One of them concerns what and who according to the Sermon on the Mount risks the hell fires. The very symbol used for the anger which is the root of violence and murder is the attitude which exclaims “Racah, you fool” (Matt 5:22). In the Aramaic it means something like abusing someone as an “effeminate pervert” or cursing someone as a faggot. Accordingly something like an ancient form of homophobia is used here as symbolic of the root mentality behind discriminating hatreds against outsider minorities of all kinds, social and racial, that can prompt bashings or even murder. Under the old Law, to the extent what probably referred there to sacred prostitution can even be applied to “homosexuality” as we now understand it, capital punishment was involved. But by rejecting hatred of marginal people as a potentially murderous attitude unacceptable to God, Jesus is tacitly rejecting whatever laws of his time might penalize same sex relations because under the old Law, angry attitudes like Akinola’s that justified discrimination and even execution would be acceptable.

Even if you don’t agree with this particular reading of the text, there are other hints in the gospels that Jesus did not regard what today we call “homosexuality” as the evil and unmentionable subject clerics like Akinola have made it over the centuries and we may affirm that point no matter what St Paul may or may not have thought and taught in this area. The Pauline position is something which for modern scholarship is anyway a contentious issue, far less clear than Christian conservatives care to acknowledge…..

Once again, as it happens, I somewhat addressed this issue in the mentioned book, reception of which the Archbishop of Canterbury didn’t acknowledge. I had more to say in my A Special Illumination, based on a world first doctorate from a religious studies dept and assessing the varieties of gay theology and spiritualities. It also happens that an acquaintance of the Archbishop (Rev.Canon Martyn Percy of Cambridge) described what I’d written as probably the best treatment of gay theologies ever done. Yet although the Archbishop has complained the church lacks guidance and knowledge in dealing theologically and otherwise with the gay theme, again, no recommendation of my work has had any effect. What might have helped clerics and committees debating gay issues to have more facts and a broader critical overview has not been cited or used. But since on most subjects those Anglican attitudes which count are still too often just snobbishly or cliquishly determined by the old boy network “no good thing comes out of Australia” may well have played its part. (I don’t just speak for my own work. For example it’s hard to see how a useful, magisterial study on the interpretation of the Sodom story across history from another Australian scholar - Michael Carden’s Sodom - could have been quite so ignored).

HOMOSEXUALITY BECOMING THE MAIN SUBJECT FOR BAD ARCHBISHOPS

There is something that unifies my bad Archbishops story and could extend it (since I haven’t explored Archbishop Jensen of Sydney, an ally and advocate of the infernal Akinola) and it’s the subject of homosexuality which is coming to outdo all other theoretically more important issues for Christianity from creedal orthodoxy to actual cure and care of souls.

Again the wavering Rowan Williams seems much to blame. He has giddied back and forth on the subject of homosexuality in a theological incertitude which like so much in Anglicanism has owed something to mere politics. (Anglicanism itself is a state church whose archbishops are selected by the Prime Minister who may care nothing for religion so that a lot of what spirituality and theology should be regulating can become a matter for social compromises and the supposed needs of national consensus rather than the church itself). When the economically powerful evangelical block was threatening withdrawal of funds over issues of gay ordinations and unions Williams became more conservative though enraging conservatives by unannounced attending a Eucharist with gay Christians as though to appease and apologize to them.

I believe that the blessing of same sex unions is and was a more vital pastoral issue than whether or not in the interests of simple equality there should be gay bishops in our generation. But had Williams taken a firm line in harmony with his original stated beliefs and purposes and ordained as first gay bishop, Canon Jeffrey John who was no longer in gay relationship he could well have forestalled other more serious controversies and schisms. These broke out over the unilateral decision of American Episcopalians, determined to have some gay bishop since Williams wouldn’t act as expected, to instead make a divorced bishop in a relationship (and as it turned out had alcoholic problems too) flag bearer for the new protest line. This poor piece of PR was then the trigger to the debates and politicking which brought out Akinola and his poison in full force.

Yet Akinola is really more political than almost anyone engaged in Anglicanism’s wrecking ball gay debate. Anglicanism’s own Robert Mugabe, Akinola is excused enormities and not described as a thoroughly despicable person largely, I think, because he is black and we don’t wish to be charged with racism. His macho pursuit of gays is exacerbating problems for gays and gay Christians throughout Africa where it has sent some to into depression and suicide and made them vulnerable even to death threats. (See reports from such as “Other Sheep” a gay religious organization which reports on what is going on in African churches). The macho patriotism of Akinola’s protests disguises the extent to which in fact he is weakly appeasing Muslim forces in Nigeria which would attack the church if it showed certain kinds of human rights concerns. Akinola also appears to have had certain ambitions to dominate a separate, schismatic church, so that in no way can his attitudes to homosexuality be considered the disinterested, biblically conservative position that allies like Archbishop Jensen of Sydney will make it out to be.

THREATS TO RELIGIOUS FREE SPEECH AND SPITTING OUT TRUTH'

Akinola-speak encourages nothing but a hate Christ attitude among secular gays internationally. It is the sort of phenomenon which moreover fuels the new hardline approach of the secular society in its opposition to Christianity and religion generally and which (opportunistically one suspects) raising the spectre of homophobia, drastically changes laws to confine abuse but in ways that threaten free speech itself.

Only this past week a worker for England’s St James Community that assists the homeless was dismissed from his post for the crime under new laws of having expressed his view to a co-worker that as a Christian he didn’t believe in same sex relations and gay marriage. Who could and should care that he doesn’t believe in such things as long as he’s not insulting gays or denying them assistance in line with his job? To everyone their beliefs. And who was the Judas of a co-worker friend who went off to report him as politically incorrect? But such is the unfortunate legacy to society that results from the fanatical homophobia historically and still today of clerics of Akinola’s kind and which not even modern western prelates like Jensen have hastened to condemn as they should. So the world will now legally defend people against it, and, because clerics have not troubled to express themselves within bounds of the generous or sensible it will now decide how people in religion will express themselves.

In almost nothing have the Archbishops of our time truly helped us. They are not defenders or proclaimers of the faith nor of human rights in suitable ways. They seem little short of a disaster. One could well wonder how might God see them. I don’t think simply because they probably mean well it would be correct to repeat, mantra-like, clichéd phrases like “God loves them very much”. Frankly, one suspects the inveterate confusion represented might be more liable to obtain something like the unsettling judgment on the indifferent Laodicean church - “I will spit you out of my mouth” (Rev 3:17).

KEVIN RUDD’S DINNER DISPUTE AND DAVID WILKERSON’S FIREWORKS

RUDD DIETARY PREFERANCES AND A LETTER TO THE PAPER

I’m going to deal with two “explosive” topics. The first is Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd’s airline dinner dispute that's current news (though it happened months ago) and about which I have written to The Australian newspaper. Whether or not the letter is published I duplicate it here and it’s pretty self-explanatory. Rudd, like myself, didn’t want red meat served to him – I have noticed airlines that will serve full vegetarian meals can get into problems if you ask for anything more particular like “no red meat and no dairy products”. For Prime Ministers, airlines should sort themselves out. I wrote….

The fuss over Rudd's bad temper is almost incredible. It's dead annoying not to be served the food one orders especially if health issues are involved and it's remarkable a Prime Minister is not served exactly what he orders. People in leading positions often have "a lot on their plate" besides food and can be expected to suffer more strain than others. That's precisely why in most nations in the world it's considered leaders can and should be a bit pampered. The flight attendant is offended, gets weepy, and files complaint? Fire her! This story is about Opposition party resentments and/or some element of Australian egalitarianism going crazy. Why not be efficient and indulge those with major responsiblities? Almost anywhere else would and almost nowhere would a leader reckon to have to apologize for such trivialities as raising their voice. Unless there are features to this story we don't know about, it's almost certainly Rudd who deserves the apology. Does the public want only to humiliate those in power?

DAVID WILKERSON'S MUSICAL PROBLEMS

To the extent it’s about an explosion of feeling and controversially raising one’s voice in public all this has a loose connection with the next tale. It's a strange one I've unearthed since the last article but which arguably confirms and clarifies assumptions I made there about famed pastor, David Wilkerson, in relation to fires and gays. It’s also, from a certain point of view almost hilarious.

So...back to Gotham City where way back in 1987, David Wilkerson, attended a Christian rock concert led by Christian convert, Mylon LeFevre. Wilkerson is entitled not to like rock music, (I’m no great fan myself) and I dare say a few questions could be asked about the phenomenon of Christian rock music (about which I know nothing). However Wilkerson’s reaction turned out explosive beyond explosive and at that around the music making of a person in good standing among musicians (Elvis Presley once used a Mylon song) and Christians to this day who seem never to have understood Wilkerson’s “prophetic” reaction.

Before commenting I excerpt from account of the relevant occasion as described by David Wilkerson at considerable length in “Driven to Darkness” at
http://www.tscpulpitseries.org/english/1980s/ts870803.html
and which at some points I italicize.

IN GOTHAM CITY AND EXPLOSIVELY DECLARING, DAVID WILKERSON STYLE

“Last night I attended a Christian music festival.……Since leaving the concert I have been weeping for hours, groaning in the Spirit feeling the wrath of a holy God burning against what I saw……No preacher [the leader of the rock band, Myron] anywhere could have spoken with more conviction and sincerity - the words were right. [However……]

Suddenly the singer [Myron] yelled in the microphone, "Jesus is coming - He is going to crack the skies - get ready!" The song was entitled, "Crack The Skies." [The song’s subject was the belief in “The Rapture” - Jesus’ return on the clouds]. Suddenly smoke was billowing out of smoke machines, the pounding beat was turned up to a frenzied pitch, eerie lights began flashing, the musicians stood like phantoms rising from a murky swamp. It was ghostly, weird, strange - and the crowd went wild. At the same festival [during the same song?] a wild spiked hair group had entertained - with painted faces, prancing about like homosexual peacocks.
[These sound like punks but gays have never had notable links to punks or punk styles]

At first, I couldn't believe what I was seeing on stage. I said out loud, "This can't be happening at a Christian festival - they can't do this to my Jesus!..... Oh God - what has happened to your church that its leaders, its people, can't see the evil of this abomination?"…… Suddenly I was on the ground, on my back, weeping and sobbing, and groaning in the Spirit. I sat up and took another look at the stage. I was horrified by what I saw in the Spirit. I saw demonic images rising from that stage! I heard Satan laughing! ….I stood to my feet, literally shaking with the fear of God - consumed with a sense of His holy wrath against such wickedness. I rushed into the crowd crying at the top of my voice - Ichabod! (The glory of the Lord has departed!). I ran through the crowd, pushing aside chairs, weeping, shouting at the top of my voice, "Ichabod - this is satanic! Stop! God is grieved!" I was mostly ignored and I think most thought I was a crazy lunatic…. I wanted to get to a microphone and cry like an Elijah - "This is vomit on the table of the Lord!.... [but Elijah never said that] What kind of blasphemy is this?"

I will not shut up on this matter! …….What hurt my spirit the most….is that this particular group, and many others, attend Pentecostal churches. The musician I refer to told me he gave up drugs, drinking, evil sex [is evil as opposed to sinful sex mean to imply gay sex?] and rock and roll performing when he got saved. He cut his long, feminine hair, he quit dressing like an exhibitionist [like a “homosexual”? – Myron is married with kids ] and began to change all his ways. It was a pastor who encouraged him to "quit looking so square and use rock and roll to reach the kids”. ……..It's now the middle of the night and I can't sleep! I can't stop weeping inside. I am shut in with God in my study diligently asking Him to show me what is happening… Has God given up on some who are set on bringing devilish practices into the realm of worship……?”

HOLY HOMOPHOBIA, BATMAN, I CAN FEEL THE FIRES!

We already know that David Wilkerson has a visionary thing about fires and as someone who would anyway probably recall the Harlem riots and fires of 1964 it wouldn’t be hard for him to imagine similar in New York’s future and to feel nervous at the prospect. We also know that where gays are concerned no Michelangelos ever existed, gays are regularly referred to, (much like fires), as social “menace” or “threat” and Wilkerson has preached in Sweden in defence of the pastor in legal trouble for declaring gays to be a “cancer” on the body of society.

So it’s noticeable in Wilkerson’s account of the concert that he becomes troubled when the beat becomes frenzied and there is smoke and flashes of light, like flames. This has him worked up and disturbed – fireworks are going off in his mind - but tension is increased, or has been building up, through the presence at the concert of men like “homosexual peacocks” and near to this man who once had, and apparently on advice again has, “feminine” (some, might have said “wild” but Wilkerson says “feminine”) long hair.

The fact that the music is “abomination” suggestively links it to the abomination of same sex (probably sacred prostitution though fundamentalists would ignore that point) as defined by Leviticus. The combined effect of noise, fire and sexual associations is truly overwhelming. The pastor is now weeping, shaking and apparently thrown on his back with the intensity of it all! The next thing is that Wilkerson is – almost necessarily - seeing and hearing Satan himself, surely the only reason for him legitimately and self- righteously to back away from what the supposedly religious message from the supposedly genuinely religious performer is otherwise telling the pastor about life, religion, art, eros or just himself. Is the fear of God he refers to and that the other Christians are not feeling, fear of himself? If holy homophobia could ever suffer long negative orgasm this could be the nearest, most historic instance!

Once again it looks like it’s a case of “the heaven’s declare…” (Ps 19). Interestingly David Wilkerson’s rocking super drama occurs at the beginning of August ‘87 with transiting Mars (anything to do with sex, with macho, with aggression, noise, with Rock etc) is hovering around 17 Leo, the fire sign of high dramas and big effects and violent tempers and declarations if once loosed. And David Wilkerson was born with Mars in this fiery sign and at this degree so his Mars is getting stimulated and released in his chart at this time. And recall how I noted last article that his natal Mars was aspected because those other related factors will be suitably triggered along with the Mars. It’s a prescription for big fireworks.

As in the charts of many gays Wilkerson’s natal Mars is in favourable aspect (trine) to the gay planet, Uranus, and in this case in raw sex sign, Aries. Given a natal Mars in Leo Wilkerson would necessarily see and respond in some strong way or another to any strutting gay peacocks….or his Mars would if his Uranus weren’t also afflicting or afflicted by Jupiter (beliefs and religion) in watery Cancer. This Jupiter is disposed not only to make all things gay appear bad with all the potential exaggeration of Jupiter and to be shockingly and surprisingly lachrymose water sign style where religion is concerned but also to bring up “phantoms from a murky swamp” i.e., the wet and tearful worlds of feminine Cancer who in this affliction won’t like the men who steal from her realm by wearing “feminine” hair.

Given the previous article I feel the point is now sufficiently made that David Wilkerson wants to be a prophet, (apparently an Elijah shouting things Elijah never said), and has a strong vein of the fantasist or sensationalist about him. Accordingly, and even though we do inhabit a period of quasi-apocalyptic crises and disasters – the Italian quake is the latest headline - I feel it would be unwise to listen too closely to his “urgent” prophecies for our times. They look to represent an over-active imagination and the negative side of Pentecostalism which is precisely over-active imagination with sometimes a repression that permits false readings of the self or others. This denomination does nonetheless now and again turn up the genuine prophet with the fulfilled forecast. I make the point in the course of my forthcoming Cosmic Father book.

CONCERNING COSMIC FATHER

This project I’ve mentioned before is now very much underway. I have received a proof, have made some corrections and so must now receive a new and hopefully last proof. Towards month’s end it is likely the book will be out.

THE AMERICAN AND DAVID WILKERSON DISASTER SYNDROME

ONE PROPHECY TOO MANY?

American films and culture thrive on disaster scenarios. It may have something to do with the role of the apocalyptic in American religion or the feeling engendered by the competitive atmosphere of American capitalism that life itself is one big crisis. It's rare however with so many false prophets and doomsters in America that a preacher can have a forecast made on only his Blog internationally known and into sceptical press outlets like The Australian. But David Wilkerson as founder of Teen Challenge, (now World Challenge) and one of the first pastors anywhere back in the sixties to tackle inner city drug and crime problems and as such himself once the subject of a bestseller and a film, can go further than most.

Wilkerson enjoys trust and respect not reliant upon alleged prophetic gifts. And despite negative things I shall say here I have to concede this preacher and activist deserves some respect as a pioneer and a person of integrity who has raised a voice against corruption among such as tele-evangelists in America. But like the angels who lost their first estate one feels he really shouldn't have aspired to the role of prophet he periodically assumes and now so devastatingly.

This time he has it that “soon” - but he doesn't know when - there will be an earth shattering event in which especially New York but other cities in America and even the world will be in flames as gangs pillage and loot and the scenario will be so terrible people will be trembling with fear. You can read his declaration of March 7th at this address.

http://davidwilkersontoday.blogspot.com/
and click the corner with Urgent Message

I don't terribly believe this forecast for reasons that will become apparent, but it's an interesting case and there are reasons not to dismiss it completely. So I want to do two things: a) say something about Wilkerson himself and his reliability and b) indicate when it's most likely his calamity would eventuate if it should happen to do so “soon” this year at all.

DAVID WILKERSON AS WOULD-BE PROPHET

Wilkerson, a Pentecostal, has never claimed in strict charismatic – pentecostal terms to be a prophet (i.e. someone given the specific role and giftings of a prophet) he is just someone who has prophetic flashes now and again. Critics may deem this position almost a cop-out seeing he has repeatedly spoken dogmatically and as though he were a prophet and no matter how wrong he has been. And prophets are not supposed to be wrong or they should be silent and strictly speaking the biblical rule is that those who fail are not supposed to be listened to either. (Fundamentalists however can read their Bibles more selectively than they admit!)

David Wilkerson's bestselling and still highly influential work of 1973, The Vision, includes the information that the late healer, Kathryn Kuhlmann, would be persecuted (she never was) similarly to Billy Graham who now nearly ninety enjoys a good reputation he is not now likely to lose. The book foresaw (soon!) a vast economic crisis and collapse leading to a one world order, but it begins in Europe not America like the current crisis, the most serious since the 1930s. If by chance W was glimpsing events today (even accurate prophets can get wrong time frames) he does see banks and the automobile industry collapsing, that much can be granted him. But this pastor would subsequently predict total collapse through the Y2K and then total economic collapse in 2004. He also maintained America would “die” back in August '98 when a gay Jesus play which didn't last long on Broadway, was premiered. Back in 1994 he was predicting that within five years America would have no further gospel networks but they are still with us like the reputation of Reagan who was supposed to leave office in disgrace, just as America was supposed to lose the Gulf War. Well over 30 years after his initial main vision nudity is not featured on at any rate mainstream US TV and there is certainly no nude dancing in churches.

DAVID WILKERSON AND HOMOSEXUAL PANIC

No amount of failure can diminish Wilkerson's influence as prophet even if people get hurt and misled along the way like people back in 1993 told to stock up with a month or more's goods in order to manage the impending crisis. (The latest warning advises similarly). Gays could well complain that Wilkerson's The Vision, along with other statements, is virtual fons et origo of much contemporary Christian conservative prejudice and paranoia since the book saw gays as becoming so strong and “brazen” (W's image of gays is derived almost wholly from pride parades!) they will be raping kids in the parks – as the Bible forecasts (which of course it doesn't). I don't have my copy of The Vision to supply page and exact quote for that but I recall my shock at reading the libel and I see from a published book of mine that on p. 78. W associates gays with the coming church of the Antichrist. There's not a thing in or out of religion or public space gays could do right!

Wilkerson is seriously one of the homosexual panic types for whom no real distinction exists between homosexual and pedophile, a confusion conservatives almost need to keep alive in order to protest the laws as they do. Given this assumption everything becomes a slippery slope towards pedophilia if society tolerates gays and a slippery slope nationally towards fires from heaven too since any tolerance duplicates doomed Sodom. Wilkerson has been so far from risking fires from heaven and contamination for himself and associates that in the past I recall reading somewhere he excluded gays from his drug cure programs. If so, it's one of the most questionable, unattractive things about him and which if it went on overtly today would have him up for politically incorrect behaviour, one imagines.

It's worth mentioning in parenthesis that when a couple of years ago I tried to communicate some criticisms to Rev Wilkerson I found that like most American religious orgs one is against a fortress system which wants to limit and rank any questions and suggestion in advance thus making almost any personal contact with the “star” figure impossible, (though W's latest development towards influential blogging appears to allow contact). Whatever, there is no question that Wilkerson's reading should include such as Dr Michael Carden's study, Sodomy: The Story of a Christian Biblical Myth (2004). Its scholarship conclusively demonstrates that Sodom as home of homosexuality and judged for it from heaven is a late invention of Christian rather than Jewish rabbinic commentators and some Christians, like especially medieval fanatic, Peter Damien, similarly to Wilkerson, are happy to misquote scripture to have the kind of Sodom, Sodomy and Sodomites they choose to imagine.

There is a lot of choosing to do where Wilkerson is concerned. I was amazed that he released his recent urgent prophecy to unburden himself. Normally one would expect a prophet would release a major forecast under the immediate direction of God and granted he does begin by saying the Holy Spirit compels him - a major claim he should really hesitate to make given his history of failures - but it's typical of the ambiguities that attend his absolutes that he speaks of an unburdening of soul to us which, given his history and style, is very likely the case. But as though introducing an element of doubt he suggests we do with the message as we choose. If this really is a divine message whatever happened to the uncompromising delivery “Thus says the Lord”?

DAVID WILKERSON, CULT FIGURE

As a well-established figure people want, even need, to believe Wilkerson. I see there is even an urban myth (someone who recently used it to “prove” to a religion site that believers must listen to Wilkerson as a true prophet has since apologized for mentioning it) that he and his Times Square Church people foresaw 9/11 to the point they prepared sandwiches the night before to be given out to those in distress. There is another myth that Wilkerson's org itself has had to deny that he forecast the closing of all American banks following troubles in Latin America. The forecast is from someone many years ago but keeps getting recycled to this day. Such myths arise because to a certain sensibility W's forecasts, often delivered in woeful and even weeping when not angry tones (one wonders does this pastor/prophet ever laugh) seem wonderfully stirring and sensational; it's some people's idea of the biblical “real thing” even though, so far as one can see, it's either untrue or at most half true.

Ironically, the relative success of the gay movement that W never understood, is the nearest to his hitting the prophetic gong and for good reason. Though his various forecasts in 1973 of the advent of gay clergy and acceptance of gayness as gift etc probably seem magically accurate to his average reader, someone living in the major gay centre of New York and aware the MCC church was founded in 1968 by an excommunicated Pentecostal pastor who had been ordaining gays and preaching an inclusive message, would supply Wilkerson his rumour-like prophecies. Noticeably W's prophecies in this area didn’t extend to foreseeing the more recent and unexpected movement for gay marriages which slippery slope conservatives now have to portray as an attack upon marriage itself.

Wilkerson’s latest urgent forecast seems strangely like a re-hashed enlargement of the fires and mayhem in New York vision that he released in 1993 and gave the next year as the latest time for its fulfillment. It's as though the pastor has an idee fixe around fires, the fires of anger and lust, the fires of hell, of judgment fires from heaven and now the fires of Manhattan.

But let's imagine for a moment that Wilkerson, like people who certifiably had insistent dreams about the sinking of the Titanic, is seeing fires because they will be coming. To some extent it's almost inevitable they will, whether or not W has the information from divine inspiration or the collective unconscious or simple deduction...

CHANCES FOR A NEW YORK DISASTER.

Forecasting fires and mayhem in at least New York is by now almost as sure a bet as declaring there will be a major earthquake in California - surely it's just a matter of time! And America is now in big trouble that is going to cause disturbances because despite appearances to the contrary, things are not going to be getting better in that country quickly. Despite the fact that for Wilkerson, astrology, biblical though it is through the Magi, is demonic, occult and always wrong, the fact is that good astrologers like Richard Nolle have been forecasting the collapse of the world economic system and what has happened to America for some time now and would insist that the US and the world hasn't seen the worst yet. We haven't yet approached the kind of aspects that prevailed at the worst of the Depression in the thirties, but we have had the initial socio-economic reality check that factors like the entry of Pluto in Capricorn last year warned would strike us. So, hopes of improvement will for the time being prove illusory and worse will come, hence one can indeed expect some protest leading to mayhem on the streets.

I now myself turn to a little astrology and prediction. I have noticed something that could prove relevant to disaster in N York and further afield and perhaps this year. There is an interestingly exact and potent placement of the asteroid Manhattan (there is no New York asteroid) opposite America's natal Neptune and this pair stand in close affliction square to America's Mars. By the usual rules this does suggest a real potential for serious Manhattan disaster one day given sufficient activation of the foundation pattern. Neptune is a malefic with a variety of associations, obviously floods but also various forms of human loss and within certain patterns quakes, while Mars is certainly involved with violence, mayhem, fires, reckless action and disturbances of many kinds. One just needs the right eclipse, progression or mix of heavy transits to set this kind of potential off.

Predicting for America is nevertheless a tougher than usual job for astrologers because no one is agreed on the foundation time but I follow Michael O'Reilly, Marc Penfield and the White House acknowledged time of around 2.20 pm which gives a Scorpio rising pattern. This seems to work accurately and highlights present problems. This year, though at least there aren't the hits to America's dangerous Uranus that seem to manifest with major disasters like Hurricane Katrina and which therefore should ideally be present for Wilkerson's world shattering calamity, nevertheless there are factors that could increase the nation's current challenges and disturbance levels.

There is a solar eclipse in July challengingly and ponderously opposite the national Pluto, (ruler of the whole pattern if we have the right birth time), and two lunar eclipses, one in July opposite the national sun and in August near to a conjunction with the base of the chart (which could have implications for the land, property and phenomena like weather patterns). During much of this time, (if we have the right birth time), transiting malefic Neptune is necessarily conjuncting the national moon in its sector of home base, land, property.

What perhaps most gathers up all these tricky negative indicators and moreover does so when serious Pluto has returned to a world point - a potent point for report of international events and disasters - is the lunation of 20th August. This falls in a fire sign setting up various interesting connections including to Wilkerson's own chart which would need to be engaged if his forecast came true and put him in the news. I feel, then, that overall if there are to be any of the earth shattering, fiery calamities starting in Manhattan and that I remain sceptical about, then mid August to mid September looks to have most potential for them.

ASTROLOGY, A PICTURE OF TRENDS

Astrology is not prophecy or fortune telling or divination (though people like Wilkerson are always saying so to demonize it) but one can usually “get the idea”, at least a general idea of trends and prevailing energies through astrology. On this Blog and not knowing Obama's birth time and given doubts about his birth place (an important point), I forecast that Hillary Clinton would win the presidential election but that if she didn't there seemed to be positive factors for her and her family despite this so that she and they would be quite happy in losing.

This of course was correct because early in the year factors like a lunar eclipse suggesting an advance for Hillary's career was in fact linked to assumption of the role of Secretary of State. I'll say it was easier for me to see this using Hillary's personal chart than dealing with questions around the disputed US pattern. So...to summarize and repeat. I have serious doubts that Wilkerson is right but if he should be so, I'd be most careful to watch the summer period, from July on and especially mid August to mid September since most potential for trouble seems to lie there. But the period could just mark another challenging period for America within its current cycle of ongoing challenges.

As to Wilkerson himself, a (stubborn, persistent) Taurean born May 19th 1931, can we see his burdens and obsessions in his natal pattern? Actually, yes, and even very much so. His Uranus (shocks, surprises, revolutions, and in some contexts anything to do with the gays and astrologers he doesn't favour) is significantly placed in fire sign Aries in major close affliction to a Jupiter/Pluto conjunction itself much involved with his being famous – there are more people in Who's Who with Jupiter/Pluto aspects than anything. This negative aspect alone, I don't say there aren't others, will dispose Wilkerson to think, sometimes mistakenly, in terms of big fires (Jupiter enlarges) and big and ominous threats (Pluto) from gays (Uranus). “The heavens declare....” (Ps 19). It's a pity for himself and all of us Rev. Wilkerson isn't listening and watching them more.

JOAN RIVERS WANTED TO INTERVIEW ME

TAKING MY CHANCES AT MARDI GRAS

It’s the biggest Sydney Gay Mardi Gras ever. American comedienne, Joan Rivers, upset not to be allowed on a float, is here as chief media compere. And for those who are in the parade it’s a sticky night with hours of waiting at Start Section Two. Bored, I go to watch Start One’s departing floats.

Suddenly three marshals are upon me: “Joan Rivers wants to interview you”. "Seriously? Why?" - they don't know but heck, I think I could guess; so much so at first I thought they’d say the police wanted to disqualify or charge me. “She’s seen you”. "How?" I hadn’t noticed media snooping round where I’m placed near parade’s end in front of the glittery Hoopaholics who’ve taken my gear on their van. “Your number?” I swallow hard. Do I really want this? More’s here for me than meets the eye, and that’s enough. Put me on live TV and even hidden behind sunnies I could risk reputation changes in certain circles. “OK… I’m 131 in front of the Pink Puffs but I’ve moved back to before Hoopaholics at 134 as they have my things”.

I’d thought it enough to take on the police tonight, but the stakes are getting higher and beyond the fact that with a Joan interview I could be negotiating anything from jokes about crown jewels to why I’m representing a cycle group I don’t organize and sans bicycle. (I have an inter-state visitor’s excuse for that - I arrived yesterday). But I’m supposed to be an academic, a writer on religion, the first to survey gay spiritualities in depth and with a really serious book on God out shortly. Whatever am I doing here and at that within days of the death of ultra-radical theologian, Marcella Althaus-Reid, celebrated for outrageous works I never agreed with like Indecent Theology and The Queer God? In these theology mixes with porn and fiesta. Did I want an “Indecent Theologian” mantle? Not really.

JOKING WITH JOAN RIVERS OR CHALLENGING AUSTRALIAN MEDIA?

Joan Rivers has her agenda, I have mine. Can they gel? I’m not here for fun only. What I want is to set a precedent and say something serious if given the chance such as this could now be. My aim isn’t to shock (though I probably will) but force a media curiously restrictive and censoring in some areas to be aware of the craziness, even oppression and corruption in Australia, especially Queensland, around the nudity that should be partly or wholly de-criminalized. Police pursue nudists like artist Ken Wenzel on deserted beaches (his trials dragged across two years). There’s not a single legal free beach in the state. Sydney’s Mardi Gras, though raunchier than most, still inexplicably excludes nudity and gay nudists despite the Rev Nile’s complaints about nudity (he really means “flesh”). Australia, join the rest of the West and change this! This year’s MG theme is, after all, “United Nations”.

There are rumours of nudity escaping charges in the last two parades. But if so those involved weren’t officially anybody and perhaps not gay. I’ve traced a pic of a man led by rope from his penis by a woman. I fail to see the joke or the gay pride and suspect a fetish shop advertising itself. It’s time for some truth and justice. If an official float (i.e. registered group or person) can get away with being nude here, future MGs might be a bit different and laws a little better handled since MG is trend setting.

I’d decided two or three of us, one a Queensland branch organizer, will represent the Seattle founded World Naked Bike Ride event. This occurs almost everywhere in the West naked but not in Brisbane and not for men in Australia. Our placard will read: (W)orld (N)aked (B)ike (R)ide org. for Gay and Nude Rights - Everywhere. Required to state our costume I said small jockstraps but meaning…at the Start, anyway. I thought they’d got the idea but I’ve arrived here to discover the official programme declares this group has agreed to cover modesty - if only with bicycle clips. Right now I’m not covering much modesty. The jock is a fishnet see-through notionally conceding to NSW law “the member shall be covered”. People have been sent off or fined for less offence in years past.

REFUSING THE RIO GLITZ MOULD

Some girls of next row’s lesbian nurses float have been in riots about me. “You are just….” cameras flash – when I have my sunnies on. But I feel awful. I’m exhausted since flying in, so much walking, shopping, last minute fuss to have the placard. And the WNBR organizer can’t be here. I’m solo and feeling out of place amid seas of glitz more like Rio Carnival than Toronto Pride. I don’t feel energetic or erotic and I fancy I don’t look it. The jock is a bit uncomfortable and not my idea of aesthetic and so doesn't suit my mood or perhaps anything .....if you’re vain about being photographed or think size matters which some people seem to think it should. (But why?)

When I rose from sleep at 5 pm I was so tired I forced myself to Start for the 6 pm deadline (though we can’t leave before 9 pm earliest). Now I don’t feel like being here. And I’m doubly hesitant now Joan wants to see me. I was going to risk it and bare all in Oxford Street. Now I’ll need to endure the jock I have no affinity for, feel or be small in body, mind and spirit up Oxford Street to Taylor Square’s media point. It’s the guy in “that” jock who’s wanted.

Help! I’m thinking I want to exit fast. At the other end of Start a marshal says you’re not going anywhere, you’re in lock down. (I’d need to pretend ill to get out!). Suffer and prepare! I swallow some Glucodin tablets for energy – some are curious is this my drug of choice. The camera clicking lesbian nurses are encouraging. Take off once en route; les girls will defend you. A couple of “Freedom-to-Be” Pentecostals smile and wave. (God’s blessing on me?). I try to speak to them but they have their interview right here and now.

The wars of religion seem everywhere this year. MG is getting ever closer to original Lent Carnivals with their parodies and protests round the sacred. Gorgeously attired Popes and Cardinals are dancing and swaying. The MCC Church has been mischievously placed besides Sydney Gay Atheists. The latter look a sober lot. No costumes or fun there; at best a young Chinese looking like one of my pupils back in HKong, flapping around looking happy living la vida godless. “Atheism is boring” I whisper to a bored looking blond who turns away disgusted. I meet the gay Jews. One rolls up his Tee shirt. Underneath is another with a Go Nude logo. He likes me. We agree poor P.O.W. Galid Shalit is so gorgeous in his quirky way he simply ought to be gay. Someone else likes me, is all over me, will join me – if he can carry the placard. He can hug me all he likes, but I’ll have my placard. Sorry. I ask a nearly nude leatherman wandering around like a lost soul to join me. “Thanks, but I’m not that brave” he says meaning probably also “not that stupid”. Looks like my role in this Carnival is to be Holy Fool - although at least two biblical prophets did go about naked to proclaim, I'll not call myself "prophet" in these proceedings despite my interest in justice and consistency in the laws where nudity in Oz is concerned.

ONTO THE STREETS AND MEETING THE CROWDS

Finally at 9.45 after so much disco dancing - there’s nowhere to sit - you wonder how Hoopaholics can still stand, we depart, me in notional jock. I register some hesitation around me near the gate but no one debars me.

Only half seeing the crowds from the centre of the street I bowl along, sometimes half blinded even behind my sunnies by the flood lights of a float ahead. It’s like doing theatre which is OK by me. I feel relaxed but unhappy. I’d rather jolly the crowd but decide I’d better grip the placard and look serious enough about my cause to justify being present at all. Besides, the Pinks in front are doing enough street theatre for ten floats so I can’t compete and this being Australia I could be accused of indecent exhibitionism if I tried to fraternize like Toronto nudists shaking hands or exchanging words with the curious at the barriers. “Can’t you shout?”, a marshal dashes up to ask me. Not really. I’d thought “Happy Naked Mardi Gras” seemed right and practiced it driving to the airport but it didn’t feel right still wearing this silly jock and psyching myself up for possible encounter with Joan Rivers.

The route is 2.5 kms. After what seems a long time we reach its first third, the Taylor Square media station. Lights and cameras everywhere. No Joan Rivers but perhaps posted by her another host is suddenly towering above me in vivid green. (Why are drag queens often so tall and major high heels users too?) “You leave nothing to the imagination”….I don’t go with that one but dive in insisting I’m here protesting what’s less known about Oz laws and liberties. I can’t recall more than that. But it’s a relief to have the grouse out on TV even if it’s not giving people the wanted happy talk. First job done. Keep going!

NAKED AS NATURE INTENDED OR AS AUSTRALIA NEEDS

Into Flinders Street I feel freer to take off. But heck, where? Pinks are moving at great pace and the Hoopaholics van driving behind. I need to stop to get the jock off without falling over it in twists. Finally a pause and suddenly it’s off. Relief! It’s like a miracle, proof of some “follow your bliss” principle. Energy returns, I feel confident. Forget the police. Che sera, sera. I begin to look at the audience more. I seem variously to puzzle or enthuse them; the Mediterranean crowd seem more enthused. They clap and laugh. Anyway, I’m doing what I’ve come to do and it feels more like gay pride and liberation.

Out of the crowds appears a radio commentator. Time to offer more propaganda. As I'm feeling mentally freer and less physically cramped he almost seems more concerned I might progress to, well, I'm not sure what - porn demos? “Aren’t you worried that….?” “No I’m not” I snap back almost laughing”, “if you’re a nudist you don’t worry about that”. “Oh”… a bit non-plussed he fades back into the crowd. Next another media point and another tall drag queen on another blazing stage from which costume prizes will be awarded. She declares to the crowds that here’s a gentleman won’t receive any prizes. He has no costume at all. Great! Getting this generally said is almost a prize in itself! I’m doubly happy now I’ve passed what seems like many police ignoring me. Probably I’ll have walked about one km naked. You’d need to go to Barcelona to be or feel this free again. (Urbanudismo is permitted there).

Suddenly the “End of Parade” lights loom at Moore park, and the noise recedes. Home and dry, sort of, hopefully with sufficient liberating precedent made. A strange experience, especially as I and the crowds nearly didn’t have it. I almost cancelled Sydney when a friend had an accident and couldn’t put me up so that I needed to find a hotel room at the last minute – a major challenge at MG time. I obtained the last room in a central hotel that wasn’t over-the-top expensive.

It would have been a real experience to have met Joan Rivers but then I'm good at seeing and/or missing stars. When I first arrived in Hollywood, an actor who had been working with her invited me to meet Jane Fonda with him at a party the next day. (I actually managed to have the worst most splitting in my life which left me helpless in bed in the hotel). However expecting to meet Joan Rivers stopped me going naked up Oxford Street as intended. But by that Joan probably helped my enterprise because if I hadn’t had the known promise of interview or if I’d de-jocked at or near Start on Oxford Street either marshals or police (often in cahoots ) might well have stopped me before I began. So it all panned out rather nicely. And as I’d told God…. but I don’t have to tell you about that. Yet as though the supernatural dimension was unavoidable, when I thanked the shiny pants Hoopaholics driver he said, (and if it was in jest it didn’t sound like it, or it was truth in jest) “You’re a lucky guy. It all worked out just as you needed - so well anyone would think God himself arranged it all”…. “Oh, yes” I said a bit taken aback and unsure how to reply.

RAW REALITIES OF SYDNEY’S OXFORD STREET

Back onto Oxford Street in board shorts I go for some refreshments. Fame has hit. “You’re the naked bike guy!”. “Yes”, I say and apologize for the lack of bike, not clothes. My aims are understood and commended. Tired, I feel I still need to wind down by hitting the discos. Almost impossible; you need to be pre-booked for the clubs tonight though you might jostle tight in the bars which seem to getting more like discos with even leathermen moving. A real gay change I rather approve – anywhere, anytime is good to disco and anyone should. I’ll go to the hotel, change and return. Further down the street, choked with people and awash with discarded cans, back inside a shopping arcade a girl in blue is lying unconscious, possibly dead (O’D’d?) surrounded by police and medics. A sobering picture amid the festivities.

Returned from the hotel the streets still remain busier and more thick with crowds than during daytime and I revert to my quest for a disco wind down. I haven’t however taken the warnings too seriously, the atmosphere seemed so peaceful one could hardly expect trouble. Suddenly as I approach the Brighton Hotel about six people ahead of me in the crush a girl suddenly screams “F.....ing dyke!” (i.e.lesbian). I just duck in time to avoid flying glass. Beer bottles are thrown or smashed on the pavement. Women seize people’s hair, men start punching one another. There are shouts and screams. I’m close to a public brawl the likes of which I’ve never witnessed and the crowds are so thick I can hardly get out or avoid it. Police, lots of them, are on the spot in seconds grabbing yelling people. Suddenly a policeman seizes me. I am momentarily terrified I am considered party to this melee. However he thrusts me, half throws me, towards the wall where I can see some people are virtually sheltering from the sheer force of these explosions of anger and rage nearer the curbside. I await gingerly while people are dragged off.

After this I decide I’ve had enough. I’d really like to party but decide perhaps I’d better get home after all. As I approach the hotel and am crossing the road (fortunately since we can’t stop on a main road), a youth crossing in the other direction spits out at me “You faggot”. OK, I finally accept it about Sydney. The talk about drink and violence and Mardi Gras arousing homophobic aggression isn’t all exaggeration. It must be taken seriously. I drop into bed exhausted, elated by the night’s success but troubled by Sydney and its nightlife too. It’s unlike me, but I don’t go to sleep quickly.

THE PUBLICATION OF COSMIC FATHER

However improbably. despite all this carnival fun and risk taking, (holy fool kind or otherwise), there’s a connection of sorts between my MG experiences and the “serious” (not theologically indecent) book on God I’ve been writing and finished not long before I left for Sydney. (It was one of several reasons I needed a break and haven't been blogging much since books are exhausting and this one is going out soon too). The connection is quite simply the element of shock and surprise that the book’s ideas, discoveries and experiences engage throughout. And though I’m not Althaus-Reid, I do happen to include the subject of pornography within the scheme, not because it’s any natural theme with me but because I include the story of a friend who got involved in its making. The consequences would turn out to be unexpected to the point of almost unthinkable. And from the other side of the world they finished by involving me in dramas which make my Sydney experiences, good and bad, like storms in the proverbial teacup. I shall never be the same again and it’s possible readers of Cosmic Father: Spirituality as Relationship, will also experience a few mind/life changes.

Publishers prefer you to fit into trends rather than to be one. This is a book so ground breakingly different I have been advised by someone in media not to offer it to the likely rejections and slow processes of the current, highly secular, publishing system. It will go to Amazon direct before I think about offering it anywhere. It should be uploaded in a day or two and, all being well, should be available as soon as I have received and approved the proof which outside of America will be slower in reaching me – the whole system is more complex for non Americans. I would give the process 6 weeks. But look out - this Blog will update on what's relevant for dates - and be surprised. You likely won’t be disappointed on that score. God is beyond Mardi Gras excitement. Honestly.

MACK IN THE SHACK: LESS THAN A REVELATION

BEING RELEVANT TODAY
Late last year I more or less closed down the blogging because I said I was writing a book. It’s now the new year and I am editing rather than writing the book. And this time it will be published quite soon as befits its material because all being well I am going to put it to the Net - hopefully at the end of February when I should be giving details about this.

The book will be called, Cosmic Father: Spirituality as Relationship and even I couldn’t have imagined when I began it last September just how topical and relevant some of the book’s themes were, not least because I hadn’t then heard of the extraordinary successes of a novel, The Shack. It has shot from self publication, on the Net in '07 to best selling status in the mainstream in no time – already there are 3 million copies in print. There is so much to say about this phenomenon and the contents of the novel I think an article to a magazine might be appropriate. No Blog could do the subject justice.

FROM FALSE PROPHECY TO FICTION AS LIES
I won’t say that Paul Young’s The Shack is bad fiction as such, it’s actually rather well written and absorbing. It’s also poignant and at least in some areas psychologically insightful as it tells the tale of how Mack, (Mackenzie) overcomes the Great Sadness involved with the disappearance and murder of his daughter, Missy.

Overall however I will say that The Shack is one of the most misleading books I have read in a long time – or at least since The Da Vinci Code. The fact that it has taken especially many religious circles by storm with some churches in America distributing it by the crateful says something about the current state of religion. We are looking here at something akin to the false prophecy syndrome I wrote about last year.

There are actually Christians declaring they now understand the doctrine of the Trinity after having read the allegory which this novel mostly is and as such has got itself an overnight status as a modern Pilgrim’s Progress. Please! Clearly the churches haven’t been teaching members the basis and history of Trinitarian doctrine and the derivative heresies, otherwise heresy would have been sooner recognized. But before one tries to absorb the underlying doctrines behind a story which has God the Father as a big African American Momma, the Spirit as a Mongolian woman and Jesus as a bumbling, unhandsome man who can’t catch a fish no matter how hard he tries, one should be wary that this is not a promising scenario any for revelations!

If you can describe Jesus and the Spirit, even in allegorical fantasy, as looking at the central character with stupid grins on their faces, it is questionable what sort of understanding of God the author has and questionable too what sort of faith in believers is being helped and clarified by the allegedly therapeutic, consciousness raising effects of reading the book.

I don’t want to be judgmental but I wouldn’t say either that the author’s rather peculiar background which includes a history of childhood sexual abuse and in adulthood a seriously damaging affair with his wife’s best friend, is the best preparation for conveying the potentially devastating revelations the novel attempts to supply. (Actually it was first intended as a sort of fairy tale for his children who would need to have been rather mature to grasp its meanings!). I regret to be like a spoiler at the feast but I do feel The Shack is really rather dreadful and am concerned there is a whole campaign going on to have this most unexpected of best sellers made into a film.

The tide of deception at all levels that has been such a feature of '07 and '08 bids fair to continue this year and we may all need to love truth a bit more not to get swept away by it. Cuidado!

FAITH AND FACT IN THE ERA OF OPRAH CHURCH

An article by me with the above title will be published in the Christmas edition of Investigate Magazine, out next Monday, Nov 17th.

Investigate is a New Zealand glossy mag better known for reporting political scandals than religious ones. The editor who last year took on my Lennon related article was a long time wondering if he could accept the various controversies of this latest offering which beyond the Oprah theme includes re suppression and distortion of facts related to my researches on the nativity of Christ. For the Christmas season the magazine's cover draws attention more to that side of the feature than the Oprah theme as such.

Investigate is available in NZ and Australia but not in the US. So I may sooner or later issue the complete original text of the article on this Blog. Especially so if some misunderstandings ensued on the lead theme or re my specialized researches due to some late cuts to the article that I haven't seen to judge the impression.

RECESSION, DEPRESSION AND TAKING A BREAK

IT'S A MOMENT IN HISTORY BUT EVEN SO..

There's going to be not just a recession but a depression with a capital D as surely as night follows day. The various efforts to salvage the US economy are not going to work - we see the bailout already faltering - nor will future efforts do much unless very temporarily. To sound, on top of all this, like a real doomster I have to say I believe there will be quite a few more problems for America than America, always optimistic, currently imagines. And if the loquacious, substanceless Barack Obama gets into the White House he won’t be a good manager of the problems that will arise. The more socially than audience minded Hillary would have done a better job.

From the celestial point of view at least, the economic and other bad news for America is involved with the near approach of Pluto into Capricorn (it enters later next month) and onto a world point. Pluto and any major planet into a cardinal sign (Capricorn is one of the four and it’s if anything the most economic and political of them) can be trigger to recession/depression. And it’s not as though other factors weren’t involved and the US chart simply waits to be hit in various negative ways. In fact, though the message hasn’t sunk in, or the matter isn't fully clear yet, what we are witnessing is the beginning of the end, (and it could be a fairly rapid decline now), of the American empire, about which none of us are laughing because we shall all be affected in the West.

TO TAKE A BREAK

Gloomy stuff and with the presidential election looming it might seem like a good time to be commenting and blogging. And if events impel me so much that I just can’t not comment then I will. However, though I won’t fiddle while Rome burns, I shall be taking a break for perhaps the rest of the year. Quite simply I am too creatively busy with writing a book.

A few weeks ago I suddenly realized that perhaps after all my diary based Thunder Perfect Minds was not a book I should strive to get published after all but that various of its ideas and experiences should be transferred into a rather different work of more general application and not linked to just Australia. I have worked at quite a bit of this already but in the wake of the particularly virulent flu strain that has hit here, it has been all rather draining so I shall not give other articles priority for the moment.

If however an article of mine on Oprah Winfrey that a certain editor tells me he is agonizing over because of some points I have included, doesn’t finally get taken up, I shall put it up instead of any regular Blog article. I hope everyone finds this last part of '08 a good experience amidst its distracting problems.