← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Hilaire Belloc
Thread ID: 20742 | Posts: 13 | Started: 2005-10-25
2005-10-25 01:26 | User Profile
You can read the whole section of his book "Survivals and New Arrivals" in which he deals with neo-paganism(and its very insightful), but this quote is where Belloc hits the nail on the head.
** [url]http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/SURVIV.HTM#5[/url]
"The Paganism of the Mediterranean basin, from which all our culture springs, was not originally affected very much by the Paganisms of Asia; by the Paganism of the Black races it was affected hardly at all: not because they would not have had some natural affinity with any other Paganism, but because there was little physical contact between them. Today such opportunity is universal, and is increasing in effect. [u]Today the barrier, the only effective barrier, against such infiltration of Pagan ideas from races other than our own, is a strong anti-Pagan moral system and creedââ¬âand there is none such outside the Catholic Church[/u]."**
And they say Christianity isnt racialist enough! :D
2005-10-25 11:51 | User Profile
[FONT=Book Antiqua][COLOR=#000000] But though the way in which the New Paganism is establishing itself differs according to whether the society in which it takes root was originally Catholic or Protestant, it is everywhere of much the same tone, and its effects are very similar, whether you find them in Italy or in Berlin, in an English novel or a French one; and the marks peculiar to Paganism are very clearly apparent in all.[/COLOR][/FONT] [FONT=Book Antiqua][COLOR=#000000] Of these marks the [B]two most prominent[/B] are, [I]first[/I], the postulate that [B]man is sufficient to himself[/B][SIZE=-1]-----[/SIZE]that is, [I]the omission of the idea of Grace[/I]; the [I]second[/I] [a consequence of this], [B]despair[/B]. [/COLOR][/FONT] [URL="http://www.catholictradition.org/belloc2-1.htm"]http://www.catholictradition.org/belloc2-1.htm[/URL]
Hilaire Belloc: [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilaire_Belloc"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilaire_Belloc[/URL]
2005-10-25 17:28 | User Profile
[QUOTE=perun1201]"The Paganism of the Mediterranean basin, from which all our culture springs, was not originally affected very much by the Paganisms of Asia; by the Paganism of the Black races it was affected hardly at all: not because they would not have had some natural affinity with any other Paganism, but because there was little physical contact between them. Today such opportunity is universal, and is increasing in effect."[/QUOTE]
One of the main ideas of the subversive counter-culture in the 1960s was the idea that Blacks were "natural pagans" and that Whites should imitate their culture if they wanted to get rid of "Christian dualism" between body and mind and "return to nature"... I think this imitation of Black paganism was a major theme in the sexual revolution.
Already in late 18th century, radical revolutionaries were admiring the unrestricted sexuality of Blacks and their "closeness to nature":
[SIZE="3"][FONT="Times New Roman"][COLOR="Blue"]"[B]Swedenborgââ¬â¢s thinking on the Africans is relevant in regard to Blakeââ¬â¢s revolutionary spirit Orc, who is referred to as ââ¬Åthe Image of God who dwells in the darkness of Africaââ¬Â ([I]America[/I] 2:8-9; E52). Blake appears to draw on Swedenborgââ¬â¢s lengthy praise of the Africans, who ââ¬Åexcel all other Gentiles in clearness of interior judgment,ââ¬Â and therefore have a superior understanding of God.[/B] To Swedenborg, God is not insubstantial ââ¬Åetherââ¬Â or in ââ¬Åthe form of a cloudââ¬Â as he is to some Christians. [B]The Africans understand that God is man raised to awareness of his own divinity, and they have ââ¬Åno other idea of God than that of a Divine Man.ââ¬Â
"In [I]Divine Love and Divine Wisdom[/I], [B]Swedenborg writes that the Africans, who ââ¬Åentertain the Idea of God as of a Man,ââ¬Â reject the ââ¬ÅIdea of God as existing in the Midst of a Cloud,ââ¬Â [/B]and, ââ¬Åwhen it is said among the Christians, they deny that it is possibleââ¬Â (n11).[/B][52] "[/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE]
[url]http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/VolumeV/Blake.htm[/url]
Petr
2005-10-25 17:37 | User Profile
I thought Blake was a staunch Christian, as exemplifed by his poem Jerusalem?
* And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England's mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God On England's pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here Among these dark Satanic mills?
Bring me my bow of burning gold: Bring me my arrows of desire: Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold! Bring me my chariot of fire.
I will not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green and pleasant land. *
2005-10-25 17:44 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Hilaire Belloc]I thought Blake was a staunch Christian, as exemplifed by his poem Jerusalem?*[/QUOTE]
Perun, I once thought so too. But I must now, with heavy heart, declare that I was wrong.
As I studied these issues further, Blake turned out to be a very heretic radical that was master in using [I]pious-sounding code-talk[/I] to conceal his true views - like esoteric heretics often are.
This citation below finally made the scales drop off from my eyes on Blake:
[COLOR="Red"][FONT="Garamond"][SIZE="3"]"[B]One of the great debates which took place among the sects was whether God granted divinity to Christ or whether, as Blake believed, all humanity was divine with God existing through the thoughts and actions of human beings.[/B] Such debates seem of little interest to us now, but at the time they helped to establish an egalitarian, humanist religion.
[B]"A friend of Blake's, Crabbe Robinson, once asked him how he saw the great question of the divinity of Christ. [U]Blake said, 'He is the only God,' but then he added, 'and so am I and so are you'[/U].[/B]4"[/SIZE][/FONT][/COLOR]
[url]http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj62/cox.htm[/url]
Petr
2005-10-25 17:49 | User Profile
Well I'll be damned.
2005-10-25 17:55 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Hilaire Belloc]Well I'll be damned.[/QUOTE]
Yup. Sniffing out and screening out heretics is nasty but unfortunately necessary activity for Christians.
(If you have studied the history of Inquisition, you will know that inquisitors were specifically trained to see through the pious-sounding platitudes that suspected heretics often employed to conceal their real opinions.)
Here is an example of how even lay-Christians like John Bunyan knew how to see through the doctrines of Quakers, who denied the physical resurrection but concealed it with spiritual slogans:
[SIZE="3"][FONT="Times New Roman"][COLOR="Indigo"]"Third. [B]They will own the resurrection of the saints, but their meaning is only thus much, that the saints are raised from the state of nature to a state of grace[/B], and herewith they will fight against this truth; namely, the resurrection of the bodies of saints out of their graves, into which they were laid, some thousands, some hundreds of years before. [B]And if they do say they do own the resurrection of the saints out of their graves, they do mean out of the grave of sin only, and nothing else.[/B]"[/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE]
[url]http://www.qhpress.org/texts/bvb/jbvbcs1.html#149.6[/url]
Petr
2005-10-25 18:05 | User Profile
Well I have the typically Ukrainian lack of the Inquistor vigour, hence why there hardly was an Inquisition in Ukraine. Even the Old Believers had a better life in Ukraine than in Russia.
2005-10-25 18:09 | User Profile
Btw, Blake openly promoted free sexuality, and on one English Literature course that I took, these verses were said to contain [B]phallic imagery[/B]:
[B][I] Bring me my bow of burning gold: Bring me my arrows of desire: Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold! Bring me my chariot of fire. [/I][/B]
Petr
2005-10-26 00:47 | User Profile
Like many of the writers of his period, Allen Ginsberg had a desire to attain the mystical. The metaphysical poets of the nineteenth century, including [B]William Blake[/B], were perhaps his greatest influence. Reading William Blake in a Harlem apartment one summer day in 1948, the 26-year-old Ginsberg had a tremendous mad vision in which Blake came to him in person. This was the great moment of his life, and he joyfully told his family and friends that he had found God. [IMG]http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/ginsberg/images/portrait_t.jpg[/IMG] [B]William Blake and Allen Ginsberg, Poets of a Fallen World, Prophets of the New World[/B] [URL="http://www.angelfire.com/ab2/blake1/"]http://www.angelfire.com/ab2/blake1/[/URL] This thesis looks at the prophetic tradition in the poetry of William Blake and Allen Ginsberg and the artistic kinship that Ginsberg felt toward the poet he considered his "guru."
2005-10-26 01:27 | User Profile
[QUOTE=albion]Like many of the writers of his period, Allen Ginsberg had a desire to attain the mystical. The metaphysical poets of the nineteenth century, including [B]William Blake[/B], were perhaps his greatest influence. Reading William Blake in a Harlem apartment one summer day in 1948, the 26-year-old Ginsberg had a tremendous mad vision in which Blake came to him in person. This was the great moment of his life, and he joyfully told his family and friends that he had found God. ."[/QUOTE]
William Blake appearing to a drug-addled pedophile Jew. Will wonders ever cease?
2005-10-26 01:49 | User Profile
Robert Southey, one of the Lake School poets, referred to writers in the vein of Shelley and Blake as belonging to the 'Satanic School', for their "pride" and "audacious impiety."
Blake had a distinctly Gnostic outlook.
2005-10-31 19:25 | User Profile
Great, you completely drifted a thread about Belloc's views on neo-paganism to one about William Blake and the Lake School poets. You people disgust me! ;-)