Da Vinci Code on Sacred Feminine - IX - Mary Magdalene

As seen in the Last Supper

Da Vinci lays it all out in the open in The Last Supper. The one seated in the place of honor, at the right hand of the Lord is an individual with flowing red hair, delicate folded hands, and the hint of a bosom. It was, without a doubt… female. The woman to Jesus’ right was young and pious-looking, with a demure face. This is the woman who single-handedly could crumble the Church? Who is she? That, my dear, is Mary Magdalene.

The Last Supper tells us that the Holy Grail was a person. And not just any person: A woman who carried with her a secret so powerful that, if revealed, it threatened to devastate the very foundation of Christianity!

Who was Mary Magdalene?

The unfortunate misconception that she was a prostitute is the legacy of a smear campaign launched by the early Church. The Church needed to defame Mary Magdalene in order to cover up her dangerous secret - her role as the Holy Grail.

The early Church needed to convince the world that the mortal prophet Jesus was a divine being. Therefore, any gospels that described earthly aspects of Jesus’ life had to be omitted from the Bible. Unfortunately for the early editors, one particularly troubling earthly theme kept recurring in the gospels. Mary Magdalene. More specifically, her marriage to Jesus Christ.

Married?

It’s a matter of historical record and Da Vinci was certainly aware of that fact. The Last Supper practically shouts at the viewer that Jesus and Magdalene were a pair.

Notice that Jesus and Magdalene are clothed as mirror images of one another. Sure enough, their clothes were inverse colors. Jesus wore a red robe and blue cloak; Mary Magdalene wore a blue robe and red cloak. Yin and yang.

Venturing into the more bizarre, note that Jesus and His bride appear to be joined at the hip and are leaning away from one another as if to create this clearly delineated negative space between them.

Symbol of M

In the painting, if you view Jesus and Magdalene as compositional elements rather than as people, you will see another obvious shape leap out at you – A letter of the alphabet.

Glaring in the center of the painting was the unquestionable outline of an enormous, flawlessly formed letter M.

Why is it there?

Conspiracy theorists will tell you it stands for Matrimonio or Mary Magdalene. To be honest, nobody is certain. The only certainty is that the hidden M is no mistake. Countless Grail-related works contain the hidden letter M - whether as watermarks, underpaintings, or compositional allusions. The most blatant M, of course, is emblazoned on the altar at Our Lady of Paris in London, which was designed by a former Grand Master of the Priory of Sion, Jean Cocteau.

The marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene is part of the historical record. Moreover, Jesus as a married man makes infinitely more sense than our standard biblical view of Jesus as a bachelor.

Why?

Because Jesus was a Jew and the social decorum during that time virtually forbid a Jewish man to be unmarried. According to Jewish custom, celibacy was condemned, and the obligation for a Jewish father was to find a suitable wife for his son. If Jesus were not married, at least one of the Bible’s gospels would have mentioned it and offered some explanation for His unnatural state of bachelorhood.

What the Gospels tell?

The Gnostic Gospels, the Nag Hammadi and Dead Sea scrolls are the earliest Christian records. Troublingly, they do not match up with the gospels in the Bible. Flipping toward the middle of the book, we find a passage:

And the companion of the Saviour is Mary Magdalene. Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on her mouth. The rest of the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval. They said to him, “Why do you love her more than all of us?

As any Aramaic scholar will tell you, the word companion, in those days, literally meant spouse.

Read the first line again. And the companion of the Saviour is Mary Magdalene.

The book clearly suggested Magdalene and Jesus had a romantic relationship.

This is from the Gospel of Mary Magdalene:

And Peter said, “Did the Saviour really speak with a woman without our knowledge? Are we to turn about and all listen to her? Did he prefer her to us?”

And Levi answered, “Peter, you have always been hot-tempered. Now I see you contending against the woman like an adversary. If the Saviour made her worthy, who are you indeed to reject her? Surely the Saviour knows her very well. That is why he loved her more than us.

The woman they are speaking of, is Mary Magdalene.

Whom to carry on His Church?

Peter is jealous of her. Not only because Jesus preferred Mary, the stakes were far greater than mere affection. At this point in the gospels, Jesus suspects He will soon be captured and crucified. So He gives Mary Magdalene instructions on how to carry on His Church after He is gone. As a result, Peter expresses his discontent over playing second fiddle to a woman. We daresay Peter was something of a sexist.

According to these unaltered gospels, it was not Peter to whom Christ gave directions with which to establish the Christian Church. It was Mary Magdalene.

Jesus - the original feminist!

That was the plan. Jesus was the original feminist. He intended for the future of His Church to be in the hands of Mary Magdalene.

And Peter had a problem with that. See Peter in the Last Supper. You can see that Da Vinci was well aware of how Peter felt about Mary Magdalene.

In the painting, Peter was leaning menacingly toward Mary Magdalene and slicing his blade-like hand across her neck. The same threatening gesture as in Madonna of the Rocks!

Royal Blood

Few people realize that Mary Magdalene, in addition to being Christ’s right hand, was a powerful woman already. Mary Magdalene was of royal descent. Magdalene was recast as a whore in order to erase evidence of her powerful family ties. I it was not Mary Magdalene’s royal blood that concerned the Church so much as it was her consorting with Christ, who also had royal blood. As you know, the Book of Matthew tells us that Jesus was of the House of David. A descendant of King Solomon - King of the Jews. By marrying into the powerful House of Benjamin, Jesus fused two royal bloodlines, creating a potent political union with the potential of making a legitimate claim to the throne and restoring the line of kings as it was under Solomon.

The legend of the Holy Grail is a legend about royal blood. When Grail legend speaks of ‘the chalice that held the blood of Christ’… it speaks, in fact, of Mary Magdalene - the female womb that carried Jesus’ royal bloodline.

A Father too?

The greatest cover-up in human history: Not only was Jesus Christ married, but He was a father. My dear, Mary Magdalene was the Holy Vessel. She was the chalice that bore the royal bloodline of Jesus Christ. She was the womb that bore the lineage, and the vine from which the sacred fruit sprang forth!

The royal bloodline of Jesus Christ is the source of the most enduring legend of all time - the Holy Grail. Magdalene’s story has been shouted from the rooftops for centuries in all kinds of metaphors and languages. Her story is everywhere once you open your eyes.

The word Sangreal derives from San Greal - or Holy Grail. But in its most ancient form, the word Sangreal was divided in a different spot.

Sang Real literally meant Royal Blood.

Sangreal… Sang Real… San Greal… Royal Blood… Holy Grail.

It was all intertwined.

The Holy Grail is Mary Magdalene… the mother of the royal bloodline of Jesus Christ.

Leonardo da Vinci is not the only one who has been trying to tell the world the truth about the Holy Grail. The royal bloodline of Jesus Christ has been chronicled in exhaustive detail by scores of historians.

See some titles:

THE TEMPLAR REVELATION:

Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ

THE WOMAN WITH THE ALABASTER JAR:

Mary Magdalene and the Holy Grail

THE GODDESS IN THE GOSPELS

Reclaiming the Sacred Feminine

This is perhaps the most famous tome:

HOLY BLOOD, HOLY GRAIL

The Acclaimed International Bestseller 

This caused quite a stir back in the nineteen eighties. To my taste, the authors made some dubious leaps of faith in their analysis, but their fundamental premise is sound, and to their credit, they finally brought the idea of Christ’s bloodline into the mainstream.

The Church’s reaction to the book was outrage, of course. But that was to be expected. After all, this was a secret the Vatican had tried to bury in the fourth century. That’s part of what the Crusades were about. Gathering and destroying information.

Surviving bloodline

The threat Mary Magdalene posed to the men of the early Church was potentially ruinous. Not only was she the woman to whom Jesus had assigned the task of founding the Church, but she also had physical proof that the Church’s newly proclaimed deity had spawned a mortal bloodline. The Church, in order to defend itself against the Magdalene’s power, perpetuated her image as a whore and buried evidence of Christ’s marriage to her, thereby defusing any potential claims that Christ had a surviving bloodline and was a mortal prophet.

[The Series continues]

Da Vinci Code on Sacred Feminine - VIII - The Last Supper & The Holy Grail

The Last Supper is Da Vinci’s legendary painting. It portrays Jesus and His disciples at the moment that Jesus announced one of them would betray Him.

The Last Supper is one of the most astonishing tributes to the sacred feminine you will ever see.

Where is the Holy Grail?

The legend says that after dinner, Jesus took the cup of wine, sharing it with His disciples. One cup, the chalice… the Cup of Christ… the Holy Grail… Jesus passed a single chalice of wine, just as modern Christians do at communion.

Let us see the painting again.

Jesus is sitting in the centre. He and His disciples are breaking and eating bread and drinking wine. Everyone at the table had a glass of wine, including Christ. Thirteen cups. Moreover, the cups were tiny, stemless, and made of glass. There was no chalice in the painting. No Holy Grail.

Both the Bible and our standard Grail legend celebrate this moment as the definitive arrival of the Holy Grail. Oddly, Da Vinci appears to have forgotten to paint the Cup of Christ.

What anomalies Da Vinci included here that most scholars either do not see or simply choose to ignore. This fresco, in fact, is the entire key to the Holy Grail mystery. Da Vinci lays it all out in the open in The Last Supper: the Holy Grail is not a thing. It is, in fact… a person.

Thirteen Men?

The Last Supper is a painting of thirteen men. Is it? Take a closer look at the picture.

Scan the thirteen figures - Jesus Christ in the middle, six disciples on His left, and six on His right.

How about the one seated in the place of honor, at the right hand of the Lord?

The individual had flowing red hair, delicate folded hands, and the hint of a bosom. It was, without a doubt… female.

That’s a woman!

Believe me, it’s no mistake. Leonardo was skilled at painting the difference between the sexes.

The Last Supper is supposed to be thirteen men. Who is this woman?

Who is this woman?

Everyone misses it. Our preconceived notions of this scene are so powerful that our mind blocks out the incongruity and overrides our eyes.

It’s known as skitoma - the brain does it sometimes with powerful symbols.

Another reason you might have missed the woman is that many of the photographs in art books were taken before 1954, when the details were still hidden beneath layers of grime and several restorative repainting done by clumsy hands in the eighteenth century. Now, at last, the fresco has been cleaned down to Da Vinci’s original layer of paint.

The woman to Jesus’ right was young and pious-looking, with a demure face, beautiful red hair, and hands folded quietly. This is the woman who single-handedly could crumble the Church?

Who is she?

That, my dear, is Mary Magdalene. (More about her in the next issue)

Symbols of male and female

Are you familiar with the modern icons for male and female? These are not the original symbols for male and female. Many people incorrectly assume the male symbol is derived from a shield and spear, while the female symbol represents a mirror reflecting beauty. In fact, the symbols originated as ancient astronomical symbols for the planet-god Mars and planet-goddess Venus. The original symbols are far simpler.

This icon is formally known as the blade, and it represents aggression and manhood. In fact, this exact phallus symbol is still used today on modern military uniforms to denote rank. The more penises you have, the higher your rank. Boys will be boys.

Moving on, the female symbol, as you might imagine, is the exact opposite. This is called the chalice. The chalice resembles a cup or vessel, and more important, it resembles the shape of a woman’s womb. This symbol communicates femininity, womanhood, and fertility.

Real meaning of Holy Grail

Legend tells us the Holy Grail is a chalice - a cup. But the Grail’s description as a chalice is actually an allegory to protect the true nature of the Holy Grail. That is to say, the legend uses the chalice as a metaphor for something far more important.

The Grail is literally the ancient symbol for womanhood, and the Holy Grail represents the sacred feminine and the goddess, which of course has now been lost, virtually eliminated by the Church. The power of the female and her ability to produce life was once very sacred, but it posed a threat to the rise of the predominantly male Church, and so the sacred feminine was demonized and called unclean. It was man, not God, who created the concept of ‘original sin,’ whereby Eve tasted of the apple and caused the downfall of the human race. Woman, once the sacred giver of life, was now the enemy.

Man the creator?

This concept of woman as life-bringer was the foundation of ancient religion. Childbirth was mystical and powerful. Sadly, Christian philosophy decided to embezzle the female’s creative power by ignoring biological truth and making man the Creator. Genesis tells us that Eve was created from Adam’s rib. Woman became an offshoot of man. And a sinful one at that. Genesis was the beginning of the end for the goddess.

Lost Goddess

The Grail is symbolic of the lost goddess. When Christianity came along, the old pagan religions did not die easily. Legends of chivalric quests for the lost Grail were in fact stories of forbidden quests to find the lost sacred feminine. Knights who claimed to be “searching for the chalice” were speaking in code as a way to protect themselves from a Church that had subjugated women, banished the Goddess, burned nonbelievers, and forbidden the pagan reverence for the sacred feminine.

Holy Grail was a person. And not just any person. A woman who carried with her a secret so powerful that, if revealed, it threatened to devastate the very foundation of Christianity!

[The Series continues]

Da Vinci Code on Sacred Feminine - VII - Adoration of the Magi

Da Vinci’s famed Adoration of the Magi was hiding a dark secret beneath its layers of paint. Italian art diagnosticien Maurizio Seracini had unveiled the unsettling truth, which the New York Times Magazine carried prominently in a story titled “The Leonardo Cover-Up.”

Seracini had revealed beyond any doubt that while the Adoration’s gray-green sketched under drawing was indeed Da Vinci’s work, the painting itself was not. The truth was that some anonymous painter had filled in Da Vinci’s sketch like a paint-by-numbers years after Da Vinci’s death. Far more troubling, however, was what lay beneath the impostor’s paint. Photographs taken with infrared reflectography and X ray suggested that this rogue painter, while filling in Da Vinci’s sketched study, had made suspicious departures from the under drawing… as if to subvert Da Vinci’s true intention. Whatever the true nature of the under drawing, it had yet to be made public. Even so, embarrassed officials at Florence‘s Uffizi Gallery immediately banished the painting to a warehouse across the street. Visitors at the gallery’s Leonardo Room now found a misleading and unapologetic plaque where the Adoration once hung.

THIS WORK IS UNDERGOING

DIAGNOSTIC TESTS IN PREPARATION

FOR RESTORATION.

Leonardo da Vinci remained a great enigma. His artwork seemed bursting to tell a secret, and yet whatever it was remained hidden, perhaps beneath a layer of paint, perhaps enciphered in plain view, or perhaps nowhere at all. Maybe Da Vinci’s plethora of tantalizing clues was nothing but an empty promise left behind to frustrate the curious and bring a smirk to the face of his knowing Mona Lisa.

[The series continues]

Da Vinci Code on Sacred Feminine - VI The Vitruvian Man

Considered the most anatomically correct drawing of its day, Da Vinci’s The Vitruvian Man had become a modern-day icon of culture, appearing on posters, mouse pads, and T-shirts around the world. The celebrated sketch consisted of a perfect circle in which was inscribed a nude male… his arms and legs outstretched in a naked spread eagle.

A feminine symbol of protection, the circle around the naked man’s body completed Da Vinci’s intended message male and female harmony.

[The series continues]

Da Vinci Code on Sacred Feminine - V Madonna of the Rocks

Da Vinci’s original commission for Madonna of the Rocks had come from an organization known as the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, which needed a painting for the centrepiece of an altar triptych in their church of San Francesco in Milan. The nuns gave Leonardo specific dimensions, and the desired theme for the painting the Virgin Mary, baby John the Baptist, Uriel, and Baby Jesus sheltering in a cave. Although Da Vinci did as they requested, when he delivered the work, the group reacted with horror. He had filled the painting with explosive and disturbing details.

The painting showed a blue-robed Virgin Mary sitting with her arm around an infant child, presumably Baby Jesus. Opposite Mary sat Uriel, also with an infant, presumably baby John the Baptist. Oddly, though, rather than the usual Jesus-blessing-John scenario, it was baby John who was blessing Jesus… and Jesus was submitting to his authority! More troubling still, Mary was holding one hand high above the head of infant John and making a decidedly threatening gesture her fingers looking like eagle’s talons, gripping an invisible head. Finally, the most obvious and frightening image: Just below Mary’s curled fingers, Uriel was making a cutting gesture with his hand as if slicing the neck of the invisible head gripped by Mary’s claw-like hand.

Da Vinci eventually mollified the confraternity by painting them a second, “watered-down” version of Madonna of the Rocks in which everyone was arranged in a more orthodox manner. The second version now hung in London‘s National Gallery under the name Virgin of the Rocks, although many still preferred the Louvre’s more intriguing original.

[The series continues]

Da Vinci Code on Sacred Feminine - IV Mona Lisa

The Painting: 

Despite her monumental reputation, the Mona Lisa is a mere thirty-one inches by twenty-one inches smaller even than the posters of her sold in the gift shops. Painted on a poplar wood panel, her ethereal, mist-filled atmosphere is attributed to Da Vinci’s mastery of the sfumato style, in which forms appear to evaporate into one another.

Since taking up residence in the Louvre, the Mona Lisa or La Jaconde as they call her in France had been stolen twice, most recently in 1911, when she disappeared from the Louvre’s “satte imp n trable” Le Salon Carre. Parisians wept in the streets and wrote newspaper articles begging the thieves for the painting’s return. Two years later, the Mona Lisa was discovered hidden in the false bottom of a trunk in a Florence hotel room.

Fame:

The Mona Lisa’s status as the most famous piece of art in the world has nothing to do with her enigmatic smile. Nor was it due to the mysterious interpretations attributed her by many art historians and conspiracy buffs. Quite simply, the Mona Lisa was famous because Leonardo da Vinci claimed she was his finest accomplishment. He carried the painting with him whenever he travelled and, if asked why, would reply that he found it hard to part with his most sublime ex-pression of female beauty.

Da Vinci's Reverence:

Even so, many art historians suspected Da Vinci’s reverence for the Mona Lisa had nothing to do with its artistic mastery. In actuality, the painting was a surprisingly ordinary sfumato portrait. Da Vinci’s veneration for this work, many claimed, stemmed from something far deeper: a hidden message in the layers of paint. The Mona Lisa was, in fact, one of the world’s most documented inside jokes. The painting’s well-documented collage of double entendres and playful allusions had been revealed in most art history tomes, and yet, incredibly, the public at large still considered her smile a great mystery.

The Mystery:

You may notice “that the background behind her face is uneven. Da Vinci painted the horizon line on the left significantly lower than the right. Da Vinci didn’t do that too often. Actually, this is a little trick Da Vinci played. By lowering the countryside on the left, Da Vinci made Mona Lisa look much larger from the left side than from the right side; a little Da Vinci inside joke. Historically, the concepts of male and female have assigned sides left is female, and right is male. Because Da Vinci was a big fan of feminine principles, he made Mona Lisa look more majestic from the left than the right.

Androgynous?

Da Vinci was a homosexual. Actually, Da Vinci was in tune with the balance between male and female. He believed that a human soul could not be enlightened unless it had both male and female elements.

Da Vinci was a prankster, and computerized analysis of the Mona Lisa and Da Vinci’s self-portraits confirm some startling points of congruency in their faces. Whatever Da Vinci was up to, his Mona Lisa is neither male nor female. It carries a subtle message of androgyny. It is a fusing of both.

What is in a name?

Actually Da Vinci left a big clue that the painting was supposed to be androgynous. Has anyone here ever heard of an Egyptian god named Amon? Amon is indeed represented as a man with a ram’s head, and his promiscuity and curved horns are related to our modern sexual slang ‘horny.’ And do you know who Amon’s counterpart was? The Egyptian goddess of fertility?” It was Isis. So we have the male god, Amon. And the female goddess, Isis, whose ancient pictogram was once called L’ISA.

AMON L’ISA

Not only does the face of Mona Lisa look androgynous, but her name is an anagram of the divine union of male and female. And that, my friends, is Da Vinci’s little secret, and the reason for Mona Lisa’s knowing smile.

[The series continues]

Da Vinci Code on Sacred Feminine - III - Status of Women "from Sacred to Scared"

The dangers of freethinking women!

The history of horrific cleansing: 5 million of them!

Have they succeeded?

Nobody could deny the enormous good the modern Church did in today’s troubled world, and yet the Church had a deceitful and violent history. Their brutal crusade to “re-educate” the pagan and feminine-worshipping religions spanned three centuries, employing methods as inspired as they were horrific.

The Catholic Inquisition published the book that arguably could be called the most blood-soaked publication in human history. Malleus Maleficarum or The Witches’ Hammer indoctrinated the world to “the dangers of freethinking women” and instructed the clergy how to locate, torture, and destroy them. Those deemed “witches” by the Church included all female scholars, priestesses, gypsies, mystics, nature lovers, herb gatherers, and any women “suspiciously attuned to the natural world.” Midwives also were killed for their heretical practice of using medical knowledge to ease the pain of childbirth a suffering, the Church claimed, that was God’s rightful punishment for Eve’s partaking of the Apple of Knowledge, thus giving birth to the idea of Original Sin. During three hundred years of witch hunts, the Church burned at the stake an astounding five million women.

The propaganda and bloodshed had worked.

Today’s world was living proof. 

Women, once celebrated as an essential half of spiritual enlightenment, had been banished from the temples of the world. There were no female Orthodox rabbis, Catholic priests, nor Islamic clerics. The once hallowed act of Hieros Gamos the natural sexual union between man and woman through which each became spiritually whole had been recast as a shameful act. Holy men who had once required sexual union with their female counterparts to commune with God now feared their natural sexual urges as the work of the devil, collaborating with his favourite accomplice… woman.

Not even the feminine association with the left-hand side could escape the Church’s defamation. In France and Italy, the words for “left” gauche and sinistra came to have deeply negative overtones, while their right-hand counterparts rang of righteousness, dexterity, and correctness. To this day, radical thought was considered left wing, irrational thought was left brain, and anything evil, sinister.

The days of the goddess were over. The pendulum had swung. Mother Earth had become a man’s world, and the gods of destruction and war were taking their toll. The male ego had spent two millennia running unchecked by its female counterpart. The Priory of Sion believed that it was this obliteration of the sacred feminine in modern life that had caused what the Hopi Native Americans called koyanisquatsi ”life out of balance” an unstable situation marked by testosterone-fuelled wars, a plethora of misogynistic societies, and a growing disrespect for Mother Earth.

[The Series continues]

Da Vinci Code on Sacred Feminine - II The Pentacle

The Pentacle: 

It is one of the oldest symbols on earth, used over four thousand years before Christ.

Symbols carry different meanings in different settings. Primarily, the pentacle is a pagan religious symbol.

Who are Pagans?

Nowadays, the term pagan had become almost synonymous with devil worship a gross misconception.

The word’s roots actually reached back to the Latin paganus, meaning country-dwellers. “Pagans” were literally unindoctrinated country-folk who clung to the old, rural religions of Nature worship. In fact, so strong was the Church’s fear of those who lived in the rural villes that the once innocuous word for “villager” villain came to mean a wicked soul.

What is Pentacle then?  

The pentacle is a pre-Christian symbol that relates to Nature worship. The ancients envisioned their world in two halves - masculine and feminine. Their gods and goddesses worked to keep a balance of power. Yin and yang. When male and female were balanced, there was harmony in the world. When they were unbalanced, there was chaos.

This pentacle is representative of the female half of all things a concept religious historians call the ‘sacred feminine’ or the ‘divine goddess.’ 

The pentacle symbolizes Venus the goddess of female sexual love and beauty. Early religion was based on the divine order of Nature. The goddess Venus and the planet Venus were one and the same. The goddess had a place in the night time sky and was known by many names Venus, the Eastern Star, Ishtar, Astarte all of them powerful female concepts with ties to Nature and Mother Earth. 

Pentacle’s most astonishing property is the graphic origin of its ties to Venus. The planet Venus traced a perfect pentacle across the ecliptic sky every four years. So astonished were the ancients to observe this phenomenon, that Venus and her pentacle became symbols of perfection, beauty, and the cyclic qualities of sexual love. As a tribute to the magic of Venus, the Greeks used her four-year cycle to organize their Olympiads. Nowadays, few people realized that the four-year schedule of modern Olympic Games still followed the cycles of Venus. Even fewer people knew that the five-pointed star had almost become the official Olympic seal but was modified at the last moment its five points exchanged for five intersecting rings to better reflect the games’ spirit of inclusion and harmony. 

Thank you, Hollywood:

The five-pointed star was now a virtual cliche in Satanic serial killer movies, usually scrawled on the wall of some Satanist’s apartment along with other alleged demonic symbology. Despite what you see in the movies, the pentacle’s demonic interpretation is historically inaccurate. The original feminine meaning is correct, but the symbolism of the pentacle has been distorted over the millennia. In this case, through bloodshed. 

Role of the Church: 

Symbols are very resilient, but the pentacle was altered by the early Roman Catholic Church. As part of the Vatican‘s campaign to eradicate pagan religions and convert the masses to Christianity, the Church launched a smear campaign against the pagan gods and goddesses, recasting their divine symbols as evil. 

This is very common in times of turmoil. A newly emerging power will take over the existing symbols and degrade them over time in an attempt to erase their meaning. In the battle between the pagan symbols and Christian symbols, the pagans lost; Poseidon’s trident became the devil’s pitchfork, the wise crone’s pointed hat became the symbol of a witch, and Venus’s pentacle became a sign of the devil. 

Latest perversion: 

Unfortunately, the United States military has also perverted the pentacle; it’s now our foremost symbol of war. We paint it on all our fighter jets and hang it on the shoulders of all our generals.” So much for the goddess of love and beauty. 

[The Series continues...]

Da Vinci Code on Sacred Feminine - I (The Facts)

Women in Dan Brown's life:

The Da Vinci Code has drawn very heavily on the sacred feminine. So it is interesting to take this little peek into the life of author Dan Brown. The author, in his acknowledgements before the novel, mentions the contribution of his mother and his wife, in this order. He terms his mother as his 'role model', and his wife as "the most astonishingly talented woman he had ever known", along with many other adjectives. In fact, he has dedicated this book to his wife Blythe Brown. 

Facts (presented at the beginning of the novel):

The Priory of Sion – a European secret society founded in 1099 – is a real organization. In 1975 Paris‘s Biblioth que Nationale discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Leonardo da Vinci.

The Vatican prelature known as Opus Dei is a deeply devout Catholic sect that has been the topic of recent controversy due to reports of brainwashing, coercion, and a dangerous practice known as “corporal mortification.” Opus Dei has just completed construction of a $47 million World Headquarters at 243 Lexington Avenue in New York City.

All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.

About state of women at Opus Dei:

Their views on women were medieval at best. Female luminaries were forced to clean the men’s residence halls for no pay while the men were at mass; women slept on hardwood floors, while the men had straw mats; and women were forced to endure additional requirements of corporal mortification… all as added penance for original sin. It seemed Eve’s bite from the apple of knowledge was a debt women were doomed to pay for eternity. Sadly, while most of the Catholic Church was gradually moving in the right direction with respect to women’s rights, Opus Dei threatened to reverse the progress. 

[The series continues... ]

Decoding Da Vinci Code (Introduction)

Dan Brown: 

Dan Brown is the author of numerous bestselling novels, including the bestseller, The Da Vinci Code. Dan Brown has been named one of the World’s 100 Most Influential People by TIME Magazine. His novels have been translated and published in more than 40 languages around the world.

The son of a Presidential Award winning math professor and of a professional sacred musician, Dan Brown grew up surrounded by the paradoxical philosophies of science and religion. He was an English teacher at Phillips Exeter Academy, before turning his efforts fully to writing. In 1996, his interest in code-breaking and covert government agencies led him to write his first novel, Digital Fortress, which quickly became national best seller. His other famous novel is Angels & Demons – a science vs. religion thriller.

The Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code has been New York Times bestseller # 1, and one of the best selling novels of all time. The novel The Da Vinci Code raised a storm because it commented and shook the foundation and fundamental beliefs of the Catholic Church and popular religion.

The novel was adapted for a film by Columbia Pictures, which became controversial as orthodox population protested against it across the world.

-Blog Series- 

The novel reveals many hidden codes, across the world, which when interpreted properly, will tell secrets. These secrets were not acceptable by the popular governments and the prevailing societies. In this series of blog articles, this blog is trying to uncover some of these secrets, for the benefit of all. If you have not read this novel, these posts will open a new world in front of you; and if you have already, you may debate better than others. In any case, you should read the series. All texts are from the novel, only classification and arrangements are done by yours in peace.

US in Iran?

I find this laughable. Perhaps some people don't believe in credibility. US to attack Iran within next 6 months? Unlikely, after seeing their burnt hands in Iraq. I shall get back to confirm on 23rd February, 2008.

US ready to strike Iran: Former CIA man

WASHINGTON: The US could deliver a military strike against Iran within the next six months, a former CIA officer told Fox News. In an interview on Tuesday, the US TV channel asked Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, whether the US was preparing for military action against Iran, citing Baer's column for Time Magazine on August 18, where he suggested that Washington officials expect an attack within the next six months. I've taken an informal poll inside the government, Baer told Fox. The feeling is we will hit the Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC). He said the George W Bush administration is convinced that the Iranians are interfering in Iraq and the rest of the Gulf, but what his sources anticipate is not exactly a war. We won't see American troops cross the border, said Baer. If this is going to happen, it is going to happen very quickly and it is going to surprise a lot of people. There were recent reports that Washington would put Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard the largest branch of Iran's military, separate from the rest of the army on the terrorism list. Baer said the US military suspects that the Revolutionary Guard is the main supplier of sophisticated improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to insurgents killing coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also said there is a belief among neo-conservative elements in the Bush administration that the Revolutionary Guard is an obstacle to democratic and a friendly Iran.

Ref: ET, 23 August 2007

China as I know

Here are some real life stories that I heard from my friends and colleagues who have first hand experiences with China: 

1. Managers know all:

In Indian factories, we often take feedback from our fellow workers. Managers regard the experiential knowledge of the shop-floor workers. But in China, the manager is expected to know all.

One person from India was deputed to China, and when he tried the same approach there, it was a disaster. When he asked something from the workers, they thought that he didn't know! His image suffered a lot. After some time, he came to know the realities.

In India, even a rag picker will give you tips on your car, or a worker will know much more than a manager on the technicalities. But it is different in China.

2. Look-alikes: 

Chinese are very good in replicating. One of our technical experts saw a bizarre practice. For industrial fans, there are inbuilt vein anemometers installed in the fans so that they can send the feedback to the CCR. That looks like a vein on the periphery of the face of the fan. In China, there is very less automation in the cement plants. The fans are locally manufactured. The manufacturer fabricates a vein like arrangement on the faces of the fans, so as to look like that from international companies! They don't know or don't need the feedback of gas velocity, but they want their fans to look like the international fans. Therefore, they fabricate a similar structure in industrial fans! Nothing can be funnier than this!

3. No English:

Some of my friends were taking training in a Chinese cement plant. This local plant was taken over by our (MNC) company. The language problem was so chronic there that they suffered a lot. Forget the workers and technicians, even the engineers and managers were not able to either speak or understand in English. All plant manuals were in their local language.

4. Anything that moves:

Chinese eat a lot of creatures. You can spend your entire life if you start listing them. In general, we can say that Chinese eat anything that moves! Nothing can be creepier than this.

A MOTHER’S LOVE

Here is a poem, borrowed for this occasion:

A MOTHER’S LOVE

A Mother’s love is something

that no on can explain,

It is made of deep devotion

and of sacrifice and pain,

It is endless and unselfish

and enduring come what may

For nothing can destroy it

or take that love away . . .

It is patient and forgiving

when all others are forsaking,

And it never fails or falters

even though the heart is breaking . . .

It believes beyond believing

when the world around condemns,

And it glows with all the beauty

of the rarest, brightest gems . . .

It is far beyond defining,

it defies all explanation,

And it still remains a secret

like the mysteries of creation . . .

A many splendoured miracle

man cannot understand

And another wondrous evidence

of God’s tender guiding hand.

~Helen Steiner Rice~

Once she asked us, what would be our ultimate desires in our lives? What if we have earned crores of money? This was when the eldest of us was about 15. All three of us talked about the material wishes and all. Then she told us about her dream: All she wanted was to set up a big educational institute, which adopts poor girl children from their childhood, supports them, and takes care of them, till they pass out as graduates, get jobs and become independent. So noble; even at that time we were touched to hear that.