Lohengrin to manhood grew And gave the Grail his service true … Across the sea a maiden dwelt … She a princess of Brabant. From Munsalvach he was sent Whom the Swan did bring … Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival Swan Knight The Swan Knight tale occurs in...
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Aleister Crowley is, few would argue, the father of modern occultism, neopaganism, and New Age spirituality. Today’s Thelemites (avowed followers of Crowley and his spiritual doctrine of Thelema) far outnumber the small cadre he recruited in his lifetime. His motto “Do What Thou Wilt” has had a subtle...
The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was a useful tool for many powerful clients, ranging from the CIA and the Medellín cartel to Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and influential figures in both the Republican and Democratic parties of the USA. When BCCI was finally shut down,...
Plato, as the speaker Timaeus, refers to the Demiurge frequently in the Socratic dialogue Timaeus, circa 360 BC. The Demiurge as the entity who “fashioned and shaped” the material world. The Demiurge is the craftsman. The term demiourgos or craftsman is itself surprising – one might expect such...
The music of Jón Leifs is often inspired by Iceland’s powerful nature and literary heritage. From early on he was profoundly influenced by the medieval tradition of Icelandic literature, preserved in a handful of manuscripts, including the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda. Leifs’ magnum opus is the...
He who desires to philosophize must first of all doubt all things. He must not assume a position in a debate before he has listened to the various opinions, and considered and compared the reasons for and against. Never judge or take up a position on the evidence...
Marta Hillers’s only consolation was that she had refused to put her name on the extraordinary manuscript in which she had so meticulously recounted the Soviet conquest of Berlin during the cold spring of 1945. It had been a time when her life—like that of tens of thousands...
The Order of the Knights Templar was dissolved by Pope Clement V at the beginning of the fourteenth century. From its humble beginnings, this society of warrior-monks grew into an extraordinary military and financial power. Eventually, a king wanted to get rid of this order, which had become...
Those who love to regurgitate the word ‘democracy’ are usually those who know little about its meaning in the first place. One could draw a parallel with a criminal on trial who never calls himself a crook. It is only his accusers who call him a crook. De...
With the Dublin Brigade tells the story of one man’s role in the Irish War of Independence. First published in 1929, the author, Charles Dalton, was but a young man, only twenty-six years old, when he decided to write about his experiences during the conflict that resulted in...
The Druids gathered and important questions were to be answered via divination. The means of determining the future? A human victim who was to be back-stabbed. From the movements of his death throes, the future was revealed to the forest magicians. As it is the practice of modern...
‘The sovereign nations of the past can no longer solve the problems of the present: they cannot ensure their own progress or control their own future. And the Community itself is only a stage on the way to the organised world of tomorrow.’ Closing Words of Jean Monnet’s...