[enlightenment] and the allure of the dark

Don't mess with dark forces or you might end up inside a Wicker Man.

Eva Green, ex-Bond girl was quoted:

There is no verbal fat with Green, no messy non sequiturs. The only cracks in her composure appear when she talks acting projects: a Jordan Scott drama set in an English boarding school and something "very exciting I can't tell you about yet" - all with the common thread of being "dark". "I do like dark things," she admits with relish.

With relish - yes. Tell me, which persona do you find more interesting in me - reformed sinner with a suspect lifestyle or staid moral crusader? I didn't ask which you approved of. :)

Changing tack, you might recall this incident:

After putting her four-year-old daughter into the back seat of the family SUV, Madelyne Gorman Toogood took a quick look around the parking lot just to make sure nobody was watching.

But despite her best effort to conceal what she was about to do, nearly everyone with a television has seen what happened that afternoon outside an Indiana department store, where a surveillance camera captured Mrs. Toogood shaking and slapping her daughter Martha in a violent fit of rage.

Before we get on to who the Irish Travellers are, a glance at the incident involving a Romani and Giovanna Reggiani might jog the memory.

The Romanian government commented on it at the time.

This post appears to be jumping all over the place but contends that it's all part of the same process, so that gives it continuity.

Another jump cut - remember this film?

Sergeant Neil Howie is sent an anonymous letter recommending that he investigate the disappearance of a young girl, Rowan Morrison, on the remote Hebridean island of Summerisle.

He flies to the island and during his investigations discovers that the entire population follows a neo-pagan cult under the island's owner Lord Summerisle, believing in re-incarnation, worshipping the sun and engaging in fertility rituals and sexual magic in order to appease immanent natural forces.

Howie, a devout Christian, is increasingly shocked by the islanders' behaviour; yet he is attracted and repelled by the alluring and sexual Willow, the daughter of the landlord of the inn where he is staying.

Here is an excellent analysis of the plot, which includes:

The Wicker Man puts the liberals on the defensive by showing what a society literally based on and worshipping sex might be like. Sergeant Howie is as noble as any Knight of the Round Table, yet defenseless against the wiles of foes who do not believe in his goodness.

Another great analysis here although Christians should be warned it's a bit irreverent.

The most famous scene is Howie's temptation by Willow [Britt Ekland] which was really a test by the local laird to see if Howie was corruptible. The Youtube here is the original, from the movie and deals with the real issue.

Warning, a clean, innocent version is below this clip if you'd prefer :

[Well, I'm stunned - YouTube have this evening pulled this clip - post to follow now. OK - I'll just have to describe the clip to you:

Britt Ekland, playing Willow, daughter of the publican on the island, has been put up to seduce the Christian policeman Edward Woodward, who is investigating her disappearance years ago. She dances naked round her room, slapping the walls and tables and inviting him to come into her room. He almost does but resists the temptation, which ultimately leads to his doom.]

And here is the Wiccan sanitized version with lots of lovely Bambis and nature love which the morally upright should view instead.

Germane to this post is James Berardinelli's review, which says, in part:

The Wicker Man places us in Howie's shoes, although his dour disposition and puritanical outlook on life makes it difficult to sympathize with him entirely. He sees the men and woman of Summerisle as monstrous heathens; we view them a little less judgmentally (at least initially). But, like Howie, we suspect that there's something rotten at the core of the community, and, also like the dauntless police officer, we don't figure out what it is until it's far, far too late. The brilliance of the writing is such that we don't seen the twist coming until it's nearly upon us.

Could almost be a commentary on the years we're moving into now, dour prophets of doom being ignored and marginalized.

While we're still in Scotland, the little matter of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry is worth exploring. There's a lot of wild material out there but this seems the sanest [although admittedly Christian] source:

Establishing the facts concerning the incompatibility of Freemasonry and Christianity requires having access to the documents which contain the evidence.

And now, swinging back to the Irish Travellers, here is coverage, including an interview, of that Toogood baby beating case:

Murphy Village Travelers dress their preschoolers - kids as young as five to six years old - in sequined designer gowns. They put makeup on their toddlers.

"They're taught to dance early in very voluptuous ways that you wouldn't have your little girl you know, to touch themselves, to rub themselves, to move, to get attention," says Patsy Hart, one of few outsiders to marry an Irish Traveler in Murphy Village.

She says those parties are often negotiations for money and marriage.

"They could be playing in a sandbox one day, and snatched up and took and got married the next and be ten years old and have a baby by the time they are 11," says Hart.

Patsy Hart says her husband was 17 when he married his first wife - who was only 11.

Slate refers to white gypsies:

Irish Travelers, also known as "White Gypsies," are members of a nomadic ethnic group of uncertain origin. Scholars often speculate that they are descended from a race of pre-Celtic minstrels and that their ranks were swelled by displaced farmers during Oliver Cromwell's bloody campaigns of the mid-1600s.

A further insight is this message board comment by a Romanichal connected young man. This then brings us to the question of "white witchcraft":

Although nominally Christianized, there is little doubt that the early medieval Irish retained many remnants of their former paganism, especially those with elements of magic.

One of my friends over here is a faith healer, I suppose a "white witch", who knows all the incantations. He also knows about "black witchcraft" which this post won't deal with, on his advice but this article does:

Magick really isn't black or white. It just is.

By the way, what do you think of the current popular games [last ten years] which the kids love on the net? Healthy or dark?

The point of this post is that it all emanates from the same Firm, which currently has the environmental movement in its grip and herein lies the problem.

No one inside will recognize whom they are following, who the Lucis Trust is, who Maitreya and Djwahl Kuhl really are and who all the political and business organizations adopting this type of bureauspeak, relativism and light diffused colours are really serving at their upper management levels.

I'm not even going to try to argue it because it's a question of mindset. To me it is quite clear why the declining educational, judicial and moral standards, e.g.:

"Never before in the history of telecommunications media in the United States has so much indecent (and obscene) material been so easily accessible by so many minors in so many American homes with so few restrictions." - U.S. Department of Justice, Post Hearing Memorandum of Points and Authorities, at l, ACLU v. Reno, 929 F. Supp. 824 (1996).

... but those not of my bent would put it all down to the "incompetence" of Blair, Brown, Bush and of sprawling bureaucracy. No one will lay the blame at the upper echelons who really must know that selective incompetence at certain key times trumps overt malice aforethought.

We can look at any example you like of "incompetence" in the political sphere. What about the London Bombings and the incompetent surveillance operation which David Davis bought into, one claim being:

But the serious mistake that Panorama has identified is that at the time MI5 never informed West Yorkshire Special Branch about the surveillance operation that ended up in its patch.

Or how about on 9 July, 2005 when it came out that all four CCTV cameras on the 30 bus were not working. The Guardian said "the security camera" wasn't working.

Or Diana. CTV's London Bureau Chief Tom Kennedy said, about the security cams suddenly breaking down before Diana's death in that tunnel:

"For example we do know that as they were driving into that Paris tunnel that night... the car they were driving hit another car... that car was never found and the eyewitness driving that car was never found." "The security cameras in Paris that night, many of them were not working, so there's not a detailed security camera record of the movements of the car that night... conspiracy theorists will always say that this was something that was organized by very powerful people.

Maybe so but non-conspiracy theorists might say there is an interesting motif of incompetence of this nature at the time of key tragedies. Certain things always happen to go wrong.

You probably feel I've gone off the deep end but IMHO, the Wickerman and this "selective incompetence" are not so far apart when one peels back sufficient layers to reveal the ultimate source of all the mischief.

Incompetence versus Intention

This dilemma will never be resolved because we are arguing from vastly different standpoints. As a Christian [and the Black Magicians and Satanists would also agree inwardly here] - it's as clear as night what it's all about and nothing in world events in the last four decades, along with the deterioration of western culture, provides any surprise whatsoever.

Others will argue, till the cows come home, bringing up quite intelligent models which would explain all the phenomena. The whole Philosophy Industry is about that and bloggers can wile away hours arguing over the "bleedin' obvious". Some of my best blogger friends do this.

Interesting hand gesture, seen being used by Bush, Clinton, Berlusconi, various industry leaders and the Queen, among others. Of course, the one of the Queen must have been photo touching.

Politeia declares:

After roaming the earth for some decades I can now declare beyond a doubt, that man - while knowing what's right and wrong and thus being a moral creature - has a talent for the worst.

I can therefore officially join the ranks of Calvinists and paleo-conservatives who, on theological grounds have always said so.

Man doesn't do the worst because he is bad. Intentional evil is rare and in a class of its own, but it exists and we have to shield against it.

But he is lazy, preferring the easy way out rather than the best. Man moreover, loves shortcuts: getting something for nothing. So he demands love and respect so he can fool others in believing that he's earned it.

On one hand, a certain mindset puts world problems and the slide into the new feudalism down to instincts mentioned by Politeia above here and to sheer human incompetence. A different mindset, interestingly shared by sworn enemies, puts it down to intention, a game plan, utilizing subterfuge to cover-up and obscure what's going down.

I like this in the above quote:

Man moreover, loves shortcuts: getting something for nothing ... Intentional evil is rare and in a class of its own, but it exists and we have to shield against it.

But if you don't believe in intentional evil in the first place, then surely you're a sitting duck?

Warning the villagers that killing him is not going to save them