Posted on 10/24/2005 3:28:38 AM PDT by kjvail
Oct. 31, 2005 issue - Sometimes Anne Rice won't leave her bedroom for days on end—and neither would you. Glass doors open onto a terrace that looks over the red-tiled roofs of La Jolla, Calif., to the Pacific Ocean. A live-in staffer brings meals to the table at the foot of her ornately carved wooden bed, which faces an ornately carved stone fireplace. She exercises in a huge bike-in closet. She's got two computers and enough books to last her a year. Splendid isolation? Splendid, sure. But she's often got family visiting in a downstairs guest suite, she reads The New York Times every morning—"Nicholas Kristof is a hero to me"—watches news "till I can't stand it anymore," and spends up to an hour and a half a day e-mailing with her extraordinarily faithful readers. They've been worried about her. After 25 novels in 25 years, Rice, 64, hasn't published a book since 2003's "Blood Chronicle," the tenth volume of her best-selling vampire series. They may have heard she came close to death last year, when she had surgery for an intestinal blockage, and also back in 1998, when she went into a sudden diabetic coma; that same year she returned to the Roman Catholic Church, which she'd left at 18.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Interesting. I recall seeing some rather weird New Agey gnostic quotes from her recently, which is not surprising. But it would be nice if she learned that the true mystery and profundity is to be found in the orthodox Catholic faith, not in garbled versions of it that are believed to contain special coded messages for the elect.
Of course, that would mean accepting Catholic moral and ethical beliefs. The whole problem with New Agers is that they want to separate the ethical from the "spiritual," and you really just can't do that. They want to float off into a mystical cloud while still practicing or advocating any depravity or self-centered behavior that pops into their heads. This was always a hallmark of gnostic movements in the past, and one of the reasons that the Church fought them so fiercely.
My wife and I wondered this a few months ago. She was doing an interview, and mentioned that she was changing her life around.
Alice Cooper, Ann Rice,... it is great that some of the more off beat people find Christ.
The Gospel According to Anne
Absolutely correct. Paul said that the evidences of the spirit are ethical.
A finer distinction can be made between religious and spiritual. Gnostics want ritual and dogma as a replacement for morality. That does not work either.
Actually, one thing gnostics don't want is dogma - they want to be free to believe whatever serves them at a particular moment. And in terms of ritual, gnostics are famous for dreaming up new ones that suit them better than the traditional Christian ones.
The problem from the gnostic point of view is that Catholic liturgy - particularly the traditional Mass - is permeated with ethical and dogmatic references, and gnostics dread it. That's why New Agers in the Church are always trying to invent new liturgies, and why New Agers outside of the Church are busy setting up drum circles and crystal healing rituals. They have to shape the entire environment to their demands and the demands of the immoral lives they wish to lead.
Like the Phoenix, the Gnostics and Cathars are rising out of the ashes. Seven hundred years have past...
Sounds interesting.
ping
churchillbuff posted the story 10/23 on News and it got 3100 views. Wow.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1507819/posts
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