Posted on 08/23/2004 6:34:52 AM PDT by missyme
In the UK, Brighton proudly wears the title these days -Capital of Occulture. This year's Occulture festivities began on July 19th and exhibited bigger than ever venues - sacred music and dance, clarivoyance, psychic and tarot readers, chakra, traditional witchcraft, tatooing, piercing, fetish satanism, shamanism, transcendent techniques, and lectures favoring paganism from the original Book of Shadows.
Marquee this year was the 'Pleasure Dome" where magicians, sorcerers and witches discussed their trade, including Mogg Morgon, founder of the Golden Dawn Occult Society, Ralph Harvey, a prominent Wiccan High Priest, and Emrys, a Shaman of the Cromlech Covenant.
According to the Occulture Festival's News Page, Mark Ramsden, an accomplished jazz musician with deep interest in the occult was this year's compere. "Old Occulture hands may remember Mark from the infamous Black Friday 2001 - 'a night of dark lascivious delights'" - the website says.
In the U.S., the number of earth-worshipping pagans at the Burning Man Festivals have grown to tens of thousands. People come from Canada, Brazil, Germany, Russia, and 25 other countries to an isolated corner of Black Rock Desert in Nevada, where other wiccans, satanists, goddesses, nudists, and a consortium of party-goers converge on the hot Nevada desert for a Labor Day weekend of "glorious Hell on earth."
Recent Burning Man festivals included The Floating World, based on the New Age concept that "Reality is so big we must protect ourselves from it.... Our little worlds, in truth, are ships that float upon a sea," the Chaos Cabaret, a dinner theater devoted to celebrating the two purest forms of chaos: the Maelstrom (a violent, disordered, turbulent state bursting with activity) and the Abyss ( an immeasurable place of the damned), "Motel 666", and "Crucifixion With a Celebrity" where one could purchase a picture of a crucified obese Elvis while eating hamburgers sold by devil-worshippers at the McSatan cafe wearing T-shirts that proudly proclaimed, "Praise The Whore!"
As in the past, this year's clothing-optional Burning Man offers a no-holds-barred "Woodstock" style festival where neo-pagans, wiccans, transvestitie entertainers, curiosity seekers, and old hippies can go to trance, perform rituals, burn sacrifices to deities, fornicate, and otherwise "express" themselves.
The 40-foot-high effigy Burning Man (the "Spirit Cave Man"-- sacred to local Indians and New Agers) will be torched as usual together with just about everything else at the close of the festivity.
UNDERSTANDING THE OCCULT FIRES PHENOMENON
The spirit of the occult has existed since the beginning of time. Like an insidious cancer—unseen, patient, deadly—it has grown. Indications of its presence have been felt occasionally, and confirmations of its actuality have been documented from Brighton to Washington D.C.
As we approach the culmination of the “new order of the ages,” cult experts forecast a continuing revival of such mysticism. While church attendance continues to decline across the United States and Britain, adherents of the occult expand their "services" to meet the desires and mystical interests of a spiritually hungry world.
New Age expert Judy Vorfeld says, “Dabbling in the realm of the occult is currently stylish. Even some Christians seem unable to avoid the attraction of this colorful, seductive world.”
She's right. From Burning Man festivals to public school Environmental Education to faddish television good-guys and bad-girls, today’s generation is lapping up as much New Age Occultianity as they can get their hands on. Whether it's comic book heroes that teach youth the dangerous Persephonian idea that a person can be in league with the devil and still be a good person, or the syncretistic goals of the Occulture Festival and Burning Man, the glowing fire of pagan revival can no longer be denied.
THE REAL BURNING MAN
From a Biblical point of view, powerful and ancient entities are behind the revival of paganism. In the air above and the earth beneath are nefarious progenitors of esoteric mysticism. “Demons” to some and “gods” to others, such forces have numerous titles. They can appear in hideous forms or as beautiful angels of light. They are the “wicked spirits” (poneria: the collective body of demon soldiers comprising Satan’s hordes), “rulers of darkness” (kosmokrators: governing spirits of darkness), “powers” (exousia: high ranking powers of evil), and “principalities” (arche: commanding generals over Satan’s fallen army) of Ephesians 6:12. As the "gods and goddesses" of the underworld, they live today and encourage mysticism among pagans, witches, New Agers and even church-goers.
We had an evening of Gospel music this weekend. Shouting, stomping Gospel music. 20 musical and other groups played and sang. Our quartet played a hymn right out of the hymnal, but not exactly as written--some improv. :) Rocked the rafters all night in the biggest venue in town.
Yes, but not PEACE to the world...
I honestly believe Satan is behind it.
The real "Burning Man" was a Celtic sacrifice. They confined other people: criminals, outcasts, prisoners, etc, in a man-shaped wicker cage and burned it. Nice folks the Druids were. Gives me a lot of sympathy for the Romans exterminating them.
Gee, that's a pretty good origin for this celebration, eh?
Satan has been let loose for a time. Pray that you can hold off satan from your life.
It's not "occulture." It's spelled "Haut Culture." *snicker*
It's the truth. And its also the truth that Christ states he did not come to bring peace ... but division. Bottom line, war is a feature of our world that cannot be escaped.
Neo paganism is just another in the long of attempts to fill a god shaped hole in the heart. Without Christ, something, has to, must be taken to at least attempt to fill it. The pagan, ironically, avoids the Christian with idea there is actually more peace in avoiding the conflict altogether.
It is a deception nearly perfected.
And the seemingly innocent late October bonfire is a vestige of the Celtic bonefire, stoked by the bodies of their condemned.
A pagan can be anybody who either does not know God, or has rejected him for some other "god". That "god" could be money, sex, power, all the usual prideful things that are wrapped up in serfishness and the primoridal "non serviam" (I will not serve) which was Lucifer's cry.
While a pagan does not literally have to worship a graven image, some do. with others, it is a figurative image. There are many, many different levels and echelons to paganism - both organized and unorganized. The higher you go, the closer you get to literal worship of Satan.
But many are "sucked in" - quite unaware of the ramifications of what they are fooling with. Any dabbling with the occult - no matter how seemingly innocent - is asking for trouble. It is, in a sense, inviting evil to sit in your living room and have tea.
The more one gets involved with activities and associations of the occult, the more lost he becomes - and the harder it is for him to extricate himself...by himself. After a while, it becomes nearly impossible - as the door to god is shut and locked. The consciense has had its fuses removed, and does not work anymore.
At higher levels, the more serious wiccan/luciferian is more consciously giving control of himself - and giving of himself in a conscious act of worship. He requests power from demons - and gets it. These people are the most dangerous because they are not useful idiots, they know exactly what they are bargaining for, and like it.
Why the flurry of interest? The failure of the Roman Catholic Church to function as a vessel of sacramental grace in the aftermath of vatican II. It's that simple. And all the once spiritually strong Protestant denominations have followed suit in a way, losing what ever grace they had in the strong faith of their preaching.
It is all a sign of these times......and is the result of the Fatima "or" chosen by Pope John XXIII.
The author of my parish's CCD programme (BLEST ARE WE),Fr Fragomeni, speculaed at a Raj Mohney religious conference about his multiple past lives....and these people propose to teach my children Roman Catholicism?
Increasingly I find that my heroes are Patrick, Martin, Boniface, and other fourth and fifth century brave souls who carried the light of Christ to the outer darkness on the fringes of a crumbling empire.
For some wonderful Celtic Christianity put to music listen to John Michael Talbot's "God of Life" recording. I listen to it all week around March 17 and all through the octave of the Holy Trinity.
Simple. Chesterton said it best.
"When men cease to believe in the one, true God, they don't just believe in nothing. They believe in anything."
We've turned away from God. The spiritual yearning of man must therefore be filled by something else. Pagan and occult gods. Demons masquerading as New Age enlightenment. The spiritual vacuum must be filled.
All falsehood and all false gods, of course, have one source. Satan.
Do you think we are in the End Times?
The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw an explosion of interest in seances, necromancy and all forms of spiritualism. This has simply been built upon to the point where today, a considerable number of wretched souls openly worship Satan.
Similarly, the same errors which have swept through the Catholic Church recently, were germinating long before V-II. Pius X was so concerned about it that he wrote an encyclical condemning modernism.
From this one article, the mag isn't so "cutting edge". Can't say the occult revival has swept anywhere around here.
Suuure, those freaks only go to the Burning Man for the witchcraft and Playboy is only bought for the articles.
"How many pagans are there in the US?"
Counting just the ones in the Episcopal Church, seems there are a couple million.
It was my desire to share your welcome!
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