Malaria Cured?

This is a stunning story from essentially reliable sources, as well as a century long back story and the current recognition that a simple protocol cleanses malaria from the blood stream inside of hours.  It is also no trick to apply this anywhere and it is also a core method of purifying water with decades of application history.

We suddenly have a way to shelter human society from malaria directly through the water system so the disease can never generate a reservoir.

So far this story is too good to be true and may just be that.  Yet the agency is simple to use and confirm by any victim.  Red Cross foot dragging may be questionable, or it could be an excess of caution or the results are all fraudulent, except then we would hear that.  Silence is an admission of guilt as to motive by the Red Cross itself.

In the meantime this story is not going to be allowed to die.

Proof: MMS cures malaria, despite Red Cross cover-up

Monday, July 29, 2013

Ethan A. Huff,

http://www.naturalnews.com/041392_master_mineral_solution_malaria_cure_Red_Cross.html#ixzz2aSDu8MLb

(NaturalNews) The International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the parent organization of the more widely known American Red Cross, is currently engaged in a massive cover-up of a simple, non-toxic cure for malaria. A recent field trial conducted with a team of Red Cross humanitarian workers in Uganda found that 100 percent of malaria victims treated with a simple solution mixed in water were healed within 24 to 48 hours -- but now the Red Cross is disassociating from the findings, claiming the trial never even happened.

A leaked documentary film recently posted to YouTube shows a team of experts heading to the small Ugandan village of Iganga, where a joint trial evaluating the effects of sodium chlorite activated to produce chlorine dioxide, a solution more popularly known as MMS, took place back in December with the help of Ugandan Red Cross workers. The film, which features a number of Red Cross officials and other workers administering the solution to local villagers, details the progress of the trial from start to finish, highlighting its important findings.

You can watch the film here:

http://youtube.com

Narrated by Klaas Proesmans, CEO of the Water Reference Center, a group affiliated with the Red Cross, the film demonstrates how MMS is an effective treatment and cure for malaria, and how it has the potential to improve the quality of life for millions of people living in Africa and elsewhere by preventing millions of needless deaths. Specifically, the film highlights how every single villager given MMS as part of the field trial was cleared of malaria in two days or less, an astounding success rate that is worthy of further inquiry.

"Every other day we had around 150 to maybe 200 patients," participate in the study, states Proesmans in the film. "In total, we identified 154 malaria positive patients, together with the local health authorities or the doctors. All of them were treated. All of them were, between 24 hours and 48 hours, malaria negative ... without any side effects."

The film also features many others who divulge the benefits of MMS as observed during the study, focusing as well on how existing water treatment protocols involving sodium chlorite are already helping local villagers avoid or become cured of malaria. The obvious takeaway from the film, in other words, is that MMS holds incredible potential for curing malaria quickly, inexpensively, and safely, something that any humanitarian-minded individual or organization, including the Red Cross, should welcome with open arms.

Is the Red Cross as a humanitarian organization really all about helping people?

But rather than acknowledge these powerful findings and look into them further, the Red Cross dragged its feet in analyzing the data and proceeded with business as usual, without any further inquiry into the potential benefits of MMS. When pressed, the organization later denied having any affiliation with the research, implying that no trial was ever even conducted. Now that actual footage of the trial has been leaked, however, the Red Cross has some serious explaining to do.

"To date, the Red Cross has done nothing with the results, except, of course ... to hide the truth and tell lies," says Leo Koehof, an MMS specialist who was involved with producing the film. "This is equivalent to genocide," he adds, noting that even Klaas Proesmans, who was featured in the film as an apparent proponent of MMS, has backed off and disassociated himself from the findings.

Proesmans and the Red Cross apparently take their cues from the much larger medical-industrial complex and its "humanitarian" affiliates, which are apparently disinterested in actually finding a cure for malaria. If they really were all about saving lives as they claim, then they would take seriously the findings of this buried field trial and conduct further research on MMS. But their actions prove that they are more interested in towing the status quo rather than actually helping people.

Be sure to check out the film on the MMS trial here:

http://youtube.com

You can also read a transcript of the film here:

http://mmswiki.org

Sources for this article include:

http://youtube.com

http://mmswiki.org

http://mmswiki.org

http://www.genesis2church.org

http://science.naturalnews.com

Hi, I’m Jim Humble,

In the late 90s, in the jungle of Guyana, South America, I discovered a cure for Malaria--A disease that now kills about 1.2 million people a year. Since then, I’ve diligently worked to get this discovery, which I call MMS, into the mainstream. It appears there are those who would rather I, and my discovery go away. I won’t bother you with the details. They’re in my books and all over the internet already.

In late 2012, Leo Koehof, one of my associates, along with the Uganda Red Cross, the International Red Cross and the Water Reference Center, came together to perform a test to once and for all determine if MMS really works. Something I and others had proven many times over.

154 malaria victims were treated and easily cured to the SURPRISE of the Red Cross staff. Then, to OUR surprise... the Red Cross dragged their feet for months, refusing to announce the results. Finally, when we pushed the issue, they came out with a public statement saying they strongly dissociate themselves from the claim of a ‘miracle’ solution to defeat malaria. Furthermore, they claim they were never involved in any “clinical trials.” There were 3 different people from around the world who documented the test by video, not including the actual medical documents the Red Cross generated. One was our man Leo, who released his video recently. Then, there was a local Ugandan video guy, and another, I believe, from Holland.

The other day, we were informed that the guy from Uganda had completed a video that unquestionably documents that the test really happened. This video has been sitting on YouTube--unlisted--since January of this year.

I now invite you to watch this revealing video that proves MMS, which is sodium chlorite plus an activator, cures malaria. A video of a test that supposedly never happened! When you’re done watching, I would like to ask you for ONE small favor: Please let your friends and family know about this secret that the Red Cross apparently doesn’t want anyone to know. Just post a link to this video on your Facebook or wherever you wish… and help spread the word.

Thanks for listening... Here’s the video:

#####

My name is Klaas Proesmans. I am the CEO and founder of the Water Reference Center; affiliated with the International Federation of Red Crosses and Red Crescents. My career started at the Belgian Special Forces; and as a career with general aviation, which is private jets. Followed by a career as Director of Operations with Virgin Airlines. Now why do I mention this? Because my career was always about getting high results, under a lot of pressure, with very few tools. It’s always been like that with Special Forces. It’s been like that in the airline business. It is like that with humanitarian operations. We came across a number of interesting technologies. Always in the field of water, health, energy. We came across one of those purifying systems that already exists… and it’s probably a little over a hundred years. And it’s a purifying system based upon sodium chlorite. And, the first records of use of this sodium chlorite was actually in Flanders; like maybe 20km from my home town in Ostende. Where we have a spa; and in that spa before the first World War… 1914… 1918, there were able to help people with skin diseases… small infections… always with the use of sodium chlorite. It has been said and written that the use of sodium chlorite cleans the body within one hour to four hours of the malaria parasite. And that was too good to be true, not to go further and do an investigation. Through our network… since we are affiliated with the International Red Cross we contacted a number of national societies where malaria is present. One of them was Uganda. We contacted the National Society Secretary General. We explained what the intentions were. And, we came over here just to look at the field what different steps one need to make in order to do this kind of test… pilot case. We visited the Naitonal Drug Agency; the Ministry of Health; all the people that have something to do with public health and purifying of water. We identified a village… actually it is the National Society who identified a village. We had nothing to do with it. They chose Iganga. It has been chosen by the Red Cross National Society for two reasons. One, because the National Authorities use sodium chlorite as a way to purify water, which is exactly the same way as our Water Reference Center purifies water. Second reason is, because they do have ongoing water and sanitation programs in that area, which is very convenient to the Water Reference Center. Because, what we actually want to do in this month of December is look at the effect that sodium chlorite has on the human body after being offered a glass of water. We started with mobilizing the local population. We had the use, or the cooperation of the National Society. Lots of volunteers went on their bikes, bicycles, cars, motorbikes… whatever you have… all around the streets. The first day of operation we gathered about 163 patients from all the villages around, and we identified only 5 malaria positive people.

Cerasee And Cancer

Here is another plant that has anti cancer effects to add to our steadily increasing arsenal of plant based curatives.  The problem of course for most victims, by the time you discover the problem, the horse is running and catching it from a cold start is well nigh impossible from a cold start.  This pretty well drives drastic intervention which usually ends up as a stop gap that also weakens the individual.

However we will add it to our list of good foods and recall that switching to a pure vegan diet immediately is strongly indicated.  This makes the system alkaline as does strong doses of baking soda.  Thus adding in additional cancer fighting plants ups the assault on the cancer.

Never getting the disease is still the best cure but unlikely in our world for most.  By the time you pay attention you are already a captive audience.

Hidden Jamaican Vine Stops Cancer Cold

http://www.alsearsmd.com/

I’ve finally replanted all the cerasee in my yard.

If you remember, I wrote to you recently about how this healing vine used to grow along my fence. Until my neighbor read that it was a weed and he killed it all with Roundup.

But cerasee is no weed

True, it’s not very well known in the West. Apparently not even by the botanists at the University of Florida where my neighbor got his information.

But this lime-green vine that grows wild in Jamaica, and now at my house again, deserves more respect.

Especially since it fights cancer.

The Jamaicans who eat the reddish-orange fruit and its seeds are known for their iron-hard bones and incredible health.

My friend Ivey Harris, the last living descendant of the 500-year tradition of Maroon herbalists in Jamaica, tells me that they’ve been making tea and tonics from the leaves for centuries. They use it to cure rashes, stomach pain and diabetes.

Cerasee, or bitter melon, has so many healing properties that researchers brought it to the University of Miami to study it. They discovered that an enzyme in the ripe fruit can inhibit growth of cancer cells.

A recent study looked at a compound called “kuguaglycoside C” that’s in the leaves of cerasee. They found that the extract killed off cancer cells of the nerve tissue (neuroblastoma) in just 48 hours.1

One of the ways it works is by increasing “apoptosis-inducing factor” or AIF inside the cancer cells. This stops the cancer cells from making energy, and tells them to shut down and die off.

Another compound in cerasee called DMC works to kill breast cancer tumor cells.2 Extracts of cerasee also fight hepatitis B, and kill off liver cancer cells.3

A fatty acid that’s in both the fruit and the seeds called alpha-eleostearic acid kills off leukemia cells and colon cancer cells as well.4

The leaves are also an excellent choice for skin problems. Researchers have discovered that cerasee interferes with an enzyme that’s been linked to psoriasis.

Ivey tells me that for many skin problems, or even just to have naturally healthier and cleaner skin, they crush cerasee leaves and add them to their baths.

The Maroon healers traditionally use cerasee for diabetes – although they didn’t understand the causes or progression of the disease. Still, they made a good choice, because cerasee contains a compound that helps normalize blood sugar5 – a major problem for diabetics.

When I traveled to India I found bitter melon there, too. Although Ayurvedic medicine, the oldest system of medicine in the world, calls it karela.

I always have faith that something works when I see the same tradition of use spring up in totally unrelated places around the world.

Ayurveda treats diabetes with it as well. And like the Maroon tradition from thousands of miles away, having had no contact with each other, both cultures use cerasee to help strengthen eyesight. Turns out it has the nutrients lutein and zeaxanthin which both improve eyesight.

The fruit looks a bit different in India, with pointier ends, and they use it in their cooking when it’s still green.

I sometimes use cerasee in my cooking, too. I cut the green fruit open lengthwise without peeling. Then I remove the seeds and the unripened fruit from inside and chop it like a green pepper. Then I boil them until the pieces are tender, and add them to my stir-fry.

I also like cerasee (momordica charantia) because you can use the leaves and the flower to make a detoxifying and purging daily tonic or tea. In Jamaica, they usually use the young leaves to make “bush tea” and drink it for breakfast. All you have to do to make it is:

Add 10 grams of dried or fresh cerasee leaves to ¼ liter of boiling water

Simmer on low for 5 minutes

Turn off the heat and steep for 10 minutes

Strain off the tea into a cup

To make it sweeter, add a bit of brown sugar and ginger

To Your Good Health, 

Al Sears, MD

Gay Scandal in Vatican?

Two or three years ago we had the egregious spectacle of the leading candidate for the presidency of France or some such post, brought down by a sudden allegation of attempted rape by a New York chamber maid.  It all since has pretty well gone away but not without smashing the man’s career.

In the meantime, the leader of Italy carries on like Caligula in his prime making one wish for a restoration of that other fine Roman custom of a sharp knife from a best friend.

Whatever the result here, it will be handled professionally and compassionately as that is what the Church brought to our civilization, however imperfectly.   In the meantime we read nonsense.

Pope Francis is strengthening the virtue of humility in the Catholic Church and this is welcome.  Without question there are long festering errors to resolve but starting with humility is a good start.  Do not forget that problems of this sort are identifiable and been caused by people, can be resolved by people.  One can only look at the confrontation with the problem of pedophiles that did finally get handled and cleansed. Could if have been sooner?  Of course.  However it could never have been even started until society itself understood the problem and also confronted its own failings.  The Church, the boy scouts, our teachers all needed to confront the reality that they were even unwittingly an office of enablement that a blind eye had been turned to for centuries.

Today our communities are aware of the risks and this allows all our institutions to resolve historical abuses.  It is not entirely over yet but it is certainly well begun.

And now we want to jump all over homosexuality. That is what makes this piece of gossip so annoying.  It is not the homosexuality that is an issue here, but whether or not the prelate broke his vow of chastity.  He may well not have but that is surely something between him and his superior.  It certainly appears that he was reckless in appearances.

As it is, I consider priestly chastity as a not so divinely inspired historical anomaly that served the Church well this past Millennia to prevent dynastic ambitions within the fabric of the Church.  Those are gone now and it needs a Divine rethinking to strengthen the Church.  After all, couples are today living well past the demands of child rearing and sustaining an active old agvge that is now likely to run between 60 and 90 years of age.  This population is a natural recruiting ground for pastoral work.

Gay scandal at the heart of the Vatican: Pope Francis faces his first crisis

Damian Thompson Religion Last updated: July 20th, 2013

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100227354/gay-scandal-at-the-heart-of-the-vatican-pope-francis-faces-his-first-crisis/

Pope Francis is discovering just what a nasty place the Vatican can be. Having acknowledged that there was a "gay lobby" in the Curia, the Pope has been told that the man he's appointed to be prelate of the Vatican Bank, Monsignor Battista Ricca, has an allegedly scandalous gay past. Moreover, Ricca is not only Francis's personal representative at the bank: he's also Director of the Domus Santa Marta, where Francis has chosen to live. Indeed, the Pope often eats with the 57-year-old Ricca, whose supposed sexual indiscretions are the subject of an explosive article by Sandro Magister, Vatican expert of L'Espresso magazine.

The best guide through this troubling affair is Dr Robert Moynihan, one of the most respected of all commentators on Vatican affairs and the author of a new book about Pope Francis. I receive his email newsletter, the Moynihan Report, in which he sets out the sequence of events:

Ricca, a 57-year-old Italian prelate is a career Vatican diplomat who … in the past year, has directed the Domus Santa Marta, where the Pope is now living. In his post at the Secretariat of State, Ricca was in charge of accounting for all financial expenditures in all the nunciatures of the world. So he has a certain competence in economic matters.

His staff confirm that he is a considerate, thoughtful man. I myself, during recent stays in the Domus, have spoken with him several times, and he has spoken eloquently of the need for Christians to live out the Christian faith, especially through acts of charity toward the poor and needy.

During these years, Ricca got to know Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio [who] came not only to know Ricca, but to trust him.

When Bergoglio became Pope, and decided to remain in the Domus Santa Marta, he turned to Ricca, with whom he often took his meals at the great central table in the dining room, to help him in his work of cleaning up and reforming the Roman Curia, one of the main things the cardinals asked for in the days leading up to the conclave.

On June 15, the Pope named Ricca to perhaps the key post in the overall effort to reform the curia: his personal representative at the Vatican bank, to oversee every aspect of the managment and reform of the bank.

Since the Vatican bank is a very important "nodal point" for the Curia and for the Church, the Pope's decision to appoint Ricca as his "eyes and ears" at the bank immediately made Ricca much more important than he had ever been before, and a potential target of those who might wish that something up until now hidden at the Vatican bank might not come to light.

In other words, if there were any "weak points" in Ricca's personal or professional past that could be used either to condition, control, or discredit him, his appointment might have made it urgent (to some) to discover those "weak points," and then make use of them.

On July 3, Magister – himself a renowned Vaticanologist – ran an articleclaiming there was evidence that Ricca had engaged in "scandalous behaviour" while in the nunciature in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 2000 and 2001. But there were no specifics. As Moynihan says, it seemed like a public warning to Pope Francis. Nothing happened. Then Magister published a much more damning article, entitled "The Prelate of the Gay Lobby". He wrote:

The black hole in Ricca's personal history is the period he spent in Uruguay, in Montevideo, on the northern shore of the Rio de la Plata, across from Buenos Aires.

Ricca arrived at this nunciature in 1999, when the mandate of the nuncio Francesco De Nittis was coming to an end. Previously he had served at the diplomatic missions of Congo, Algeria, Colombia, and finally Switzerland.

Here, in Bern, he had met and become friends with a captain of the Swiss army, Patrick Haari. The two arrived in Uruguay together. And Ricca asked that his friend be given a role and a residence in the nunciature.

The nuncio rejected the request. But a few months later he retired and Ricca, having become the chargé d'affaires “ad interim" until the appointment of the new nuncio, assigned Haari a residence in the nunciature, with a regular position and salary.

At the Vatican they let it go. The substitute for general affairs in the secretariat of state at the time was Giovanni Battista Re, a future cardinal, he too originally from the diocese of Brescia.

The intimacy of the relations between Ricca and Haari was so open as to scandalize numerous bishops, priests, and laity of that little South American country, not last the sisters who attended to the nunciature.

The new nuncio, Janusz Bolonek of Poland, who arrived in Montevideo at the beginning of 2000, also found that “ménage” intolerable immediately, and informed the Vatican authorities about it, insisting repeatedly to Haari that he should leave. But to no use, given his connections with Ricca.

In early 2001 Ricca also got into a scrape over his reckless conduct. One day, having gone as on other occasions – in spite of the warnings he had received – to Bulevar Artigas, to a meeting place for homosexuals, he was beaten and had to call some priests to take him back to the nunciature, with his face swollen.

In August of 2001, another mishap. In the middle of the night the elevator of the nunciature got stuck and in the early morning the firemen had to come. They found trapped in the car, together with Monsignor Ricca, a young man who was identified by the police authorities.

Nuncio Bolonek asked that Ricca be sent away from the nunciature and Haari fired immediately. And he got the go-ahead from the secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano.

Ricca, dragging his heels, was transferred to the nunciature of Trinidad and Tobago, where he remained until 2004. There as well he butted heads with the nuncio. Finally to be called to the Vatican and removed from diplomatic service on the ground …

In Uruguay, the facts reported above are known to dozens of persons: bishops, priests, sisters, laypeople. Without counting the civil authorities, from security forces to fire protection. Many of these persons have had direct experience of these facts, at various moments.

But at the Vatican as well there are those who know about them. The nuncio at the time, Bolonek, always expressed himself with severity with regard to Ricca, in reporting to Rome.

And yet a blanket of public silence has covered until today these past episodes of the monsignor.

But if the article was intended to force Francis's hand, it didn't work. To quote Moynihan:

Once again, the Pope was not moved. He authorized Father Lombardi [his press officer] to deny the allegations, saying that Magister's report was "not trustworthy," and he did not ask for Ricca's immediate resignation.

So now the world is wondering: what is the truth? Why are these allegations emerging now, instead of (for example) when the Pope decided to stay in the Domus, directed by Ricca?

Why is the Pope not asking for Ricca's resignation, removing even the suspicion of scandal from the initial efforts of his pontificate to reform the Roman Curia?

In the past week, a couple of well-informed priests have contacted me about this crisis. Both noticed the same detail in Magister's second report. When allegations about Ricca were flying around, one of the Vatican officials who apparently chose not to act was Giovanni Battista Re – who went on to become a cardinal and Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops. Re is loathed by traditionalists, who blame him for undermining the pontificate of Benedict XVI; certainly as Prefect until 2010 he arranged the appointment of many bishops who were out of sympathy with Benedict's liturgical and theological opinions – and, also, he didn't handle the paedophile scandals with any skill. The last thing conservatives want is for Re to start flexing his muscles under the new regime; perhaps the Ricca affair will curb his ambitions.

What are we to make of all this? Moynihan is surely right that this is a crucial juncture in Francis's pontificate – his first crisis, and not a small one. But I think Moynihan hits exactly the right note when he writes:

I have been a Vaticanist for a quarter century. In those years, I have seen many cases when what seems to be true at first glance is not the truth, or not the whole truth. There is information, and there is disnformation. There are maneuvers to gain influence or to ward off change. This can even include discrediting a person with false charges. We must be very attentive to weigh all evidence and to ask: Is it true? Who provided the evidence? For what purpose or goal? Why now? And, could the facts have a more innocent explanation than appears at first glance? In short, we have to be cautious, and careful, and fair.

Casting out the Devil

The demon metaphor for mental disturbances has often been productive, whatever one may think of the actuality of such an entity.  Not though that key differences exist compared to the many common mental disturbances we all must confront in those around us.

The problem persists of course and what is needed is active reporting of all cases in order to observe predictable patterns and understand therapy success.  All the real challenges chase away the doctors who cannot help at all.  Thus it falls upon a handful who are tasked to confront these problems.  Of course, no records are kept.

I find the utility of Latin interesting and Hebrew in particular for Satan even more suggestive.  There is a real language barrier that I would never have assumed or guessed.

Have fun contemplating this stuff.

Casting Out The Devil

 SATURDAY, JULY 20, 2013

http://www.phantomsandmonsters.com/2013/07/casting-out-devil.html

New North, 'Rhinelander', Wisconsin - 12 October 1893

Description of the Operation, by a Believer

The possessed woman of [?] is cured now, not by the doctors, who were unable to do anything for her, but by the theological science of the cure of the parish and the firmness of Monsignor [?oux], Bishop of Versailles, which shows that exorcism has its reasons for existence and that “possession” is as real as hysteria. As a matter of fact, the church has never laid down her arms in the presence of the the devils.

There are four principal signs through which the possessed one is recognized. First, no known remedy relieves him; second, he speaks of incidents and facts beyond his natural reach, and which nobody has revealed to him; third, he foretells events and speaks several languages unknown to him before his affliction; fourth, in the presence of a priest and at sacred ceremonies he trembles, suffers pain, writhes and blasphemes.

[ this is pretty clear cut and quite distinct from the natural range of mental disturbances that we commonly encounter – arclein ]

The Catholic priests and especially the Dominicans have, from away back, practiced exorcism. According to the canons the exorcist belongs to one of the minor orders which precede the priesthood. He must be humble of heart in his ministry, and, if he operated with any thought of display, he risks for himself the contagion of the evil spirits that still remain to be cast out.

Ordinarily the ceremony takes place in the church in the presence of the faithful assembled at prayer, particularly at the feasts of the Nativity, of the Resurrection, of the Ascension, of Pentecost, of the Virgin Mary, and of the Apostles. After the morning mass, to which the possessed one assists, the exorcist puts on the surplice and assists the priest who puts on the violet colored cape, the symbol of the pains of Purgatory. The patient who has confessed then approaches. A stole is passed around his neck to tie the devils that have become the masters of his body. Then the sign of the cross is made upon him and he is sprinkled with the holy water. In Latin, the devil is commanded to tell his name, to say whether or not he is alone, and why he is there. Finally, he is ordered to depart. The conjuration in any other language, and especially in Hebrew, is useless. Hebrew is reserved for Satan himself.

The Flagelllum demonum contains the most complete formulas of exorcism, consisting of well-known prayers mingled with the most ancient and strangest appelations of God, such as Oh, Adonal Tetragrammaton, and others, which come in part from Chaldea, from Phoenicia, and from Greece. The words are supposed to possess in themselves a certain power of evocation of celestial virtues which terrify the infernal legions. The words of Christ, according to Saint Matthew, 1, 2, 3, are the most in use to drive out evil spirits.

If the demon does not retire immediately , the exorcist takes a painted image representing him and throws it into the consecrated fire along with incense [?] and sulphur with strong mystic odor, intending to prove by this act that he will send the evil back into his natural element, hell. This done, he places upon the head of the possessed one the Book, the Relles, the Crucifix, and sometimes even the Host, the last and invincible remedy. According to the authority of certain demonographs, the devil then comes out through the nose of the patient.

In the ancient monasteries they made the exorcist carry upon his person certain amulets containing protective formulas. Sometimes these formulas, written upon pieces of parchment, were swallowed. In the process of digestion the exorcism was accomplished without fatigue

In our days exorcism has taken refuge in La Trappa. The clergy are somewhat averse to it, while at the same time they do not refuse to admit it. The man who breaks the spells is very old. But the devils cast out by the good monks are reduced to the tormenting of animals. Pigs are their favorites. Then the old spell smasher whips them with beads and sprinkles them with holy water, and the pigs recover and become happy, because the devils go away.

J.K. Huysmans has been able to speak of the power of demons and the efficacity of exorcisms. Morever, the emiment writer was well acquainted with one of the most learned demongraphers of his time, the Abbe Bonlian, who ran through hell in his bare feet, and holding the Host in his hands.

Either the Church of Sancipt or the Church of Senneville I received this curious document from M. Gilbert Augustin Thieery, the author of [?] The cure of Petites Dalles, in curing the possessed, says a special mass, called the “red mass” or “mass of the martyrs.” Red flowers are placed upon the altar, and the priest wear a tredle. The church is draped in purple.

But, stranger still, a few years ago the wife of the editor of a leading Catholic journal in Paris, being troubled by evil spirits, witnessed the death of the Dominican priest who was endeavoring to exorcise her, and who was unable to guard himself against the forces with which he was contending. –Paris Figaro

NOTE: I'm fascinated by these early accounts of the supernatural and religion...especially the way it is described in the news. Though I'm not affiliated with a religious denomination, I am very spiritual. I have a keen interest in early religions, practices and dogma...in particular the Middle Ages. I was raised a Christian and subjected to various denominations through my family members (Amish Mennonites, Lutheranism, German Dunkards, Church of the Brethren). As a result, I feel my perspective on the subject is somewhat heterogeneous...Lon

Conrad Black on the British Monarchy

I must admit that I grew up ambivalent towards the House of Windsor, particularly with the pipes of Culloden ringing in my ears from my Scottish mother by way of Nova Scotia.  That said, I have come to appreciate the institution and its possibilities going forward.

Without question money and power needs to be mediated through an electoral system and that has or is becoming the global norm because it actually succeeds given enough time.  And so it has come to pass.  Nor any longer is one family called upon to provide timely leadership but potentially any one of us is called for superior results.

What the role now does is focus the flow and ebb of the intangible flux of influence.  This may sometimes be about money and power, but not necessarily.  Influence often faces a vacuum which is something kingship is able best to fill through its agents

Our polity is an unfinished enterprise that will surely take centuries to well sort out.  After all, the US Constitution is still less than 250 years old, while a representative parliament with power is around 350 years old.  That after thousands of years of one man rule in its various forms.  This is something that we are only now seriously seeing off with decades yet to work through.

In my own writings I have introduced the Rule of Twelve as a natural tool to facilitate the flux of influence. I posit that its success will establish happiness as a human norm.

Is telling however that George will live a good one hundred years.   He will know his great grandmother who lived most of the twentieth century.  That is almost two centuries of institutional memory that is living history.  Money and power touch our world like moths to the flame and are gone.  Money is only a counting tool and power is what is willingly granted.  Influence is a test of character and intelligence.

Conrad Black: The monarchy’s upswing started with a death, not a birth

Conrad Black | 13/07/27 

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/07/27/conrad-black-the-monarchys-upswing-started-with-a-death-not-a-birth/

Nothing could be more natural than the celebrations that have followed the birth of a healthy baby boy to the Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William.

But even before the birth, the level of international interest in this relatively routine event had been astonishing.

The racks of periodicals in supermarkets and pharmacies have been heavy-laden for many weeks with glossy magazines proclaiming the child’s imminent arrival. Media reports, not entirely implausibly, claimed the event would produce billions of dollars of tourist revenue for the labouring U.K. economy, in part through the sale of trinkets and mementos and bric-a-brac.

It was only 16 years ago, at the time of the tragic death of this baby’s paternal grandmother, that the same media, and in some cases the same individuals, were triumphantly proclaiming the imminent demise of the monarchy itself.

At the time of the death of Princess Diana, I lived not far from her home in Kensington Palace, where the new baby and his parents are now living. My wife Barbara and I walked over to the palace to take in the astonishing sight of the masses of informal mourners, and observe, since news film and photos of it were scarcely credible, the flowers piled up to a depth of several feet, up to 20 feet out from the palace fence.

Many perspectives were represented. A card asserting: “You were a neat Chick — God be with you” was on a bouquet next to “Gays of East London will never forget what you did for us.”

And I recall various people solemnly, and no doubt sincerely, informing tourists from Europe and North America this tragic loss was not in vain, as it had set in train the republicanization of the country. A number of people announced quite confidently the monarchy had gone down with the princess.

In fact, horrible though it was, the death of Diana was the watershed that marked the beginning of the revival of the monarchy from one of its periodic dips.

Diana had been running a parallel monarchy: She declined, unlike her mother-in-law’s great-grandmother, Queen Alexandra, consort of Edward VII, to be a silent and indulgent pretty face and girlish figure, while her husband ran an open-plan marriage. The media were thoroughly manipulated by Diana as she leaked damaging information to selected reporters while the more irresponsible sections of the press hacked the Prince of Wales’s cellphone and even recorded his ill-considered descent into scatology in conversation with his later wife, the Duchess of Cornwall. (“Tampax Britannica” was the headline in the Spectator magazine — which my associates and I owned at the time — after he compared himself to a tampon.)

No one imagines the Royal Family is composed of brilliant people, though some are quite intelligent, but they are solid, reliable and dedicated

The marriage disintegrated before the titillated and prurient eyes of the nation and the world.

No one knows what goes on in someone else’s marriage, but Diana had no difficulty establishing herself as the wronged party and the popular favourite; and the Palace, unaccustomed to being on its back foot, looked like a superannuated heavyweight blinking in disbelief at the blows being rained on it by an agile underdog opponent.

When Diana died, the Royal Family remained in Scotland, and, as was then the custom when the Queen was not resident in London, there was no flag over Buckingham Palace to lower. The prime minister, Tony Blair, advised the Queen emotions were unprecedentedly profound and visible in London and she had to become more involved. The Daily Mirror bannered on its front page: “Show Us You Care, Ma’am.”

The Queen returned to London, the royal standard was raised to half-staff, and she decreed a ceremonial funeral at Westminster Abbey. She spoke to the nation briefly but eloquently on television and radio on the eve of the funeral, and expressed her sorrow “as a grandmother and as your Queen.”

The 76-year-old Prince Philip walked with the Prince of Wales and the princess’s sons and brother behind the caisson bearing her casket; the 97-year-old Queen Mother stumped majestically up the aisle, and the House of Windsor paid its respects with immense dignity and moved into a new era.

The media got off Prince Charles’ back, the Queen Mother passed on, and the Queen soldiered through her 50th and 60th anniversaries as monarch, and closes in on Queen Victoria’s record of almost 64 years, the mother of the nation at last.

The Queen has never offended or embarrassed her subjects these 61 years, not once, a performance of astounding virtuosity

She is not always the most imaginative or evidently vivacious sovereign, but she is intelligent and dutiful, and has never offended or embarrassed her subjects these 61 years, not once, a performance of astounding virtuosity.

There is not a twitch, whisper, or wisp of republican sentiment in Britain today. Everyone knows that Britain can’t unite the roles of chief of state and head of government in the same person, as France and the United States do.

In the United States, the Constitution established three co-equal branches, executive, legislative and judicial, and they are entirely separated, completely unlike, and not adaptable to British traditions; which is why nobody in Great Britain, even in the asylums for the deranged, advocates jettisoning the whole set-up of British government.

(In France, Charles de Gaulle ended the 170-year battle between monarchists and republicans through two monarchies, two empires, three restorations, four republics, a directory, a consulate, a government in exile, provisional governments and a “state,” by re-establishing a monarchy in the form of his presidency and calling it the Fifth Republic. This is not the British way.)

The enthusiasm over this royal birth goes far beyond happiness that the next three monarchs — Charles, William and George Alexander Louis — are now in view; and beyond natural goodwill for the evident pleasure of this attractive young couple.

It reflects an appreciation for something beyond the failure, the mediocrity, humbug, and frequent incompetence of the political class in post-Thatcher Britain.

No one imagines the Royal Family is composed of brilliant people, though some are quite intelligent, but they are solid, reliable and dedicated. And the British institutions that are headed by people of whom the same can be said are so scarce that, apart from the military, it is a challenge to think of any.

It was not the Queen who ditched Britain’s closest allies and most selfless supporters in the world, the old Commonwealth of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, to plunge into a Europe that is now in shambles except for Germany and its coteries of satellites.

The monarch did not commit Britain beyond reason to the special relationship with the United States, which ended abruptly when a new American regime decided it had no interest in Britain and sent back the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office.

Her Britannic Majesty has her ministers to thank for those brainwaves, and they have gone, and she’s still there, and will remain, even unto the third following generation, and beyond.

There is no need to incant “God save the Queen,” not because God is dead, as has also been reported, but because the Queen is in no need of salvation. The people are.

Permian Extinction Update

However it came about, the Permian extinction was toxic to marine life and we are not quite sure how this became a problem while somewhat sparring life on land.  Perhaps the simplest explanation is best.  The sustained volcanism poisoned both land and sea but the land had the mechanism of transferring such poison directly to the seas.  The poisoning rate was higher that the sea’s ability to absorb that poison.

Suphur is the best prospect for this.  The extent of the traps suggest that the process was continuous for a very long time.  Thus acidity may have built up in the sea to a point a simple eruption burst took everything all over the top.

That life must have thrived throughout this in natural refugia at least conforms to this model.  In fact it may have done rather well although stressing the population to individual extinctions.

Canada’s Arctic islands yield new clues in ancient mass extinction

BY RANDY BOSWELL, POSTMEDIA NEWS JULY 14, 2013 1:00 PM

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/science/Canada+Arctic+islands+yield+clues+ancient+mass/8658571/story.html

Canadian scientists probing two sites in the High Arctic have found fresh evidence pointing to a fiery Siberian suspect in the greatest mass extinction of all time — a planet-wide cataclysm that wiped out more than 90 per cent of the Earth’s species about 250 million years ago.

The so-called “Great Dying” at the end of the Permian geological era killed off a larger proportion of species than any of the 25 other mass extinctions scientists have identified from sudden and widespread gaps in the fossil record at certain layers of rock corresponding to specific periods of time.

The precise cause of the biological catastrophe 252 million years ago has been debated by scientists for decades. But nothing else in Earth history compares to the Late Permian disaster, which eclipsed 95 per cent of all marine life and about 70 per cent of species on land.

Some have argued that a massive meteorite strike — like the one widely presumed to have triggered the end of the dinosaur age 65 million years ago — must have been to blame. Others point to extreme climate change linked to ocean acidification, oxygen depletion, mercury poisoning or other species-snuffing effects as the main driver of the extinctions.

And without discounting the other forces as potential contributors to the Great Dying, a growing number of scientists — including several groups of Canadian researchers who are among the world’s leading investigators of the die-off — have fingered a prolonged series of enormous volcanic eruptions in northern Asia known as the “Siberian Traps” as the main culprit in the Permian extinction.

The latest clues in the prehistoric puzzle, which reinforce the volcanism theory, come from Ellesmere Island and nearby Axel Heiberg Island in the Canadian Arctic, where five researchers from the University of Calgary and the Geological Survey of Canada have found evidence undercutting the idea that oxygen depletion occurred uniformly throughout the world’s oceans and may have been the prime agent of death in the Great Dying.

At Axel Heiberg’s Lake Buchanan and Ellesmere’s West Blind Fiord, geological sites offering two of the best-known windows on the Permian extinction, the Canadian team tested rock samples for the element molybdenum — a “powerful tracer” used in reconstructing the oxygen levels of ancient marine environments — to better understand what was happening in waters off the coast of the supercontinent Pangea 252 million years ago.

At that time, the now-exposed Lake Buchanan and West Blind Fiord sites were lying at the bottom of the primordial ocean close to the equator.

The researchers, led by U of C geoscientist Bernadette Proemse, determined that the Lake Buchanan site — which preserves a deep-water seabed environment from the time of the Great Dying — showed clear signs of “anoxia” or extreme oxygen deprivation.

But the shallower Permian seafloor found at West Blind Fiord, which preserves a stretch of Pangea’s extinction-era continental shelf, showed a fairly well-oxygenated marine environment even as the Great Dying was unfolding.

In short, the findings confirm oxygen starvation as a significant factor in some phases or sites of the global crisis, but rule it out as the underlying cause of the planet-spanning extinctions, the researchers conclude.

Their study was published in the latest issue of the journal Geology.

“It is clear that anoxia cannot be the direct cause of the extinction,” the scientists argue, pointing to the oxygenated seawater available at the Ellesmere Island site. “Rather than the direct cause of global extinction, anoxia may be more a contributing factor along with numerous other impacts associated with Siberian Traps eruption and other perturbations to the Earth system.”

The impacts from the Siberian eruptions, “the largest volcanic event in Earth history, are increasingly recognized as devastating to global ecosystems” at the end of the Permian era, the researchers added. “Widespread anoxic conditions are more likely a symptom of other external factors placing multiple stresses on the global environment due to massive eruptions of the Siberian Traps at that time.”

Traces of the ancient volcanic calamity itself can be seen across a wide area of present-day Russia near the Siberian city of Norilsk.

The researchers involved in the new Geology study have published previous papers on the Permian extinction. Co-authors Stephen Grasby, a GSC geologist who also teaches at the University of Calgary, and fellow U of C scientist Benoit Beauchamp collaborated on a 2011 research project that pointed to layers of coal ash found at Lake Buchanan as “smoking gun” proof that the fiery Siberian Traps were wreaking havoc on the global climate and suffocating life almost everywhere around the world.

In 2008, another team of Canadian scientists announced the discovery of a thin band of rock running through B.C., Alberta and Arctic Canada that appears to have served as a rare coastal refuge for life during the Great Dying.

The refuge was identified by its diverse and abundant deposits of fossils, proof that a “thriving” array of clams, worms and other seabed species endured in at least one narrow strip of ancient Canada at time when nearly all of the world’s other terrestrial and marine ecosystems had become poisonous to life.

rboswell@postmedia.com