CHRONOLOGY OF MAJOR MOVEMENTS
INTERFAITHISM, ZIONISM & PENTECOSTALISM
B.C.
B.C. - Whit Sunday [Pentecost] was also celebrated by the pagans.
"Whit Sunday was the Druids' Day of Apollo." [Owen 187]
"In Scotland, the Term Days were Candlemas (Feb 2), Whitsunday (May 15), Lammas (Aug 1) and Martinmas (Nov 11), until (CDWF) an Act of 1990 changed those dates to Feb/May/Aug/Nov 28th; it seems that in Scotland 'Whitsunday'!= 'Whit Sunday'." [Stockton]
"Whitsun was celebrated in the normal Pagan fashion with games, processions, horse races and feasting. The Whitsun games continued into the high medieval period as the tourneys familiar to all readers of the Arthurian romances, and in modern times in the north of England they survived as local carnivals..." [Pennick 124]
276 B.C. - Galatia settled by the Celts [Barraclough 84]
"The name Galatians was given to this Celtic people because they originally lived in Gaul before their migration to Asia Minor..." [Open Bible 1152]
"If...the Druids were a purely Celtic priesthood, the existence among the Galatian Celts of a council of 300 men who met in a place called 'Drunemeton', and judged crimes of murder, they mean that this was a council of Druids (Strabo, XII.v.i. [p. 567]). Nemeton means 'a sacred place' like that in which the Gaulish Druids sat as judges, whether dru is connected with the first term of dru-uidos or not. It should here be observed that Diogenes Laertius quotes a fragment of Aristotle in which the existence of Druids among the Galatians is asserted; and there is also a later reference to this by Clement of Alexandria, who may, however, be simply echoing this passage." [Hastings: Druids 86-7]
"The Keltic race, embracing the Gauls, old Britons, the Picts and Scots, the Welsh and Irish with their numerous emigrants in all the large cities of Great Britain and the United States, appear in history several hundred years before Christ, as the first light wave of the vast Aryan migration from the mysterious bowels of Asia, which swept to the borders of the extreme West. [ff. keltoivor Kevltai, Celtae, Galavtai, Galatae or Galati, Galli, Gael. Some derive it from celt, a cover, shelter; others from celu (Lat. celo) to conceal. Herodotus first mentions them, as dwelling in the extreme northwest of Europe... The Galatians in Asia Minor, to whom Paul addressed his epistle, were a branch of the Keltic race, which either separated from the main current of the westward migration, or, being obstructed by the ocean, retraced their steps, and turned eastward. Wieseler..tries to make them Germans, a view first hinted at by Luther. But the fickleness of the Galatian Christians is characteristic of the ancient Gauls and modern French.]" [Schaff]
49 - 100 A.D.
49. A.D. - Paul addresses Judaizing heresy of Celtic Galatians in Asia Minor.
"The term Galatia was used in an
ethnographic sense...[which] refers to the central part of Asia Minor where the
Celtic tribes eventually settled after their conflicts with the Romans
and Macedonians... Galatians was probably written in
Syrian Antioch in A.D. 49 just before Paul went to the Council of Jerusalem.
Paul wrote this epistle in response to a report that the Galatian churches were
suddenly taken over by the false teaching of certain Judaizers who professed
Jesus, yet sought to place gentile converts under the requirements of the Mosaic
Law (1:7; 4:17, 21; 5:2-12; 6:12;,13).
"Christ has freed the believer from bondage to the law (legalism) and to sin
(license) and has placed him in a position of liberty. The transforming cross
provides for the believers deliverance from the curse of sin, law, and self
(1:4; 2:20; 3:13; 4:5; 5:24; 6:14).
"This epistle shows that the believer is no longer under the law but is
saved by faith alone. It has been said that Judaism was the cradle of
Christianity, but also that it was very nearly its grave as well. God raised up
Paul as the Moses of the Christian church to deliver them from this bondage.
Galatians is the Christian's Declaration of Independence. The power of the Holy
Spirit enables the Christian to enjoy freedom within the law of love." [Open
Bible 1152]
60-64 A.D. – Paul addresses Gnostic heresies of Colossians in Asia Minor.
“Although the Colossians had not yet succumbed (2:1-5), an encroaching heresy was threatening the predominantly gentile (1:21;27;2:13) Colossian church. The nature of this heresy can only be deduced from Paul’s incidental references to it in his refutation in 2:8-23. It was apparently a religious system that combined elements from Greek speculation (2:4;8-10), Jewish legalism (2:11-17), and Oriental mysticism (2:20-23). It involved a low view of the body (2:20-23) and probably nature as a whole. Circumcision, dietary regulations, and ritual observances were included in this system, which utilized asceticism, worship of angels as intermediaries, and mystical experiences as an approach to the spiritual realm. Any attempt to fit Christ into such a system would undermine His person and redemptive work… The resounding theme in Colossians is the preeminence and sufficiency of Christ in all things. The believer is complete in Him alone and lacks nothing because ‘in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily’ (2:9); He has ‘all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge’ (2:3). There is no need for speculation, mystical visions, or ritualistic regulations as though faith in Christ were insufficient. Paul’s predominant purpose, then, is to refute a threatening heresy that is devaluing Christ. This false teaching is countered by a positive presentation of His true attributes and accomplishments. A proper view of Christ is that antidote for heresy… ‘For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power’ (2:9,10)." [Open Bible 1174-75]
100 - 325 A.D.
136-165 A.D. - Valentinus adopted Druidic / Pythagorean / Ophite doctrines that confused the serpent / Satan with Michael the Archangel, and Pan with the Holy Spirit.
"[Valentinus] taught at Rome from A.D. 136-165, after which he removed his school into the isle of Cyprus. The adversaries of the Gnostics accuse him above all of having stolen doctrines from Pythagoras and still more from Plato." [Doresse 26]
"Posidonius...stated that Abaris the Druid was one of the principal teachers of Pythagoras... It was Robert Graves...who described how Pythagoras, in his turn, influenced the Essenes. Thus Druidic knowledge, which may have derived, in part at least, from the teachings of Melchizedek, flowed back through the teaching of Abaris to Pythagoras and then to the Hebrew esoteric sect on the shores of the Dead Sea." [Wallace-Murphy 44]
"The Valentinians...maintain that the dispensational Jesus was the same who passed through Mary, upon whom that Savior from the more exalted [region] descended, who was also termed Pan, because he possessed the names...of all those who had produced him." [Roberts 440]
"The Valentinian school was an offshoot of the sect of the Ophites according to Irenaeus, I, xxx, 14..." [Doresse 26]
"According to the Ophites, the serpent bore two names, Michael and Samael, who appeared thus, 'fused into the positive and negative aspects of a single state of existence.'" [Stoyanov 78]
See 1881: New Age of Michael; The Rosicrucian Connection
156-172 A.D. - Montanists proclaim the Age of the Holy Spirit in Phrygia of Asia Minor.
“Phrygia was the center of the ecstatic cult of Cybele, and Montanus, according to one tradition, had been a priest of Cybele.” [Meyer 189]
"[Montanism] was a Christian lay movement in Asia Minor in the second and third centuries that proclaimed the age of the Holy Spirit had come as promised in John 15:26... According to Epiphanius, Montanus began preaching about 156, saying the Spirit had seized him. He often spoke as if he were the Holy Spirit, thus giving his pronouncements a divine sanction greater than that of established church authorities... Tertullian, its greatest convert, joined the movement shortly after A.D. 200." [Gentz 706]
"[Montanism] arose in Phrygia [c.172] under the leadership of a certain Montanus and two female prophets, Prisca and Maximillia, whose entranced utterances were deemed oracles of the Holy Spirit. They had an immediate expectation of Judgment Day, and they encouraged ecstatic prophesying and strict asceticism... [T]he movement...died [c.220] as a sect, except in isolated areas of Phrygia, where it continued to the 7th cent. But the puristic anti-intellectual movement had many descendants -- Novatian, the Donatists, the Cathari, and even Emanuel Swedenborg and Edward Irving." [Columbia: Montanism 1817]
325 A.D. - Novatians merge with the Donatists.
"After 325 the sect [of Novatian] was merged with that of Donatism." [Columbia: Novatians 1976]
700 - 1000 A.D.
700s A.D. - Irish monasteries adopt Druidic teachings.
"From the eighth century on, much Druidical lore was written down in Irish monasteries by monks who had also received their training at the hand of poets [bards] and men of letters and native schools." [Americana 422]
"Bards continued long in Ireland as the performers of spoken prose and verse." [Americana 422]
717 A.D. - Grail literature promotes mystical baptism of the Holy Spirit, the day of Pentecost and visions.
"One person saw the Grail twice, was able to
touch it and recall it later, and was even subsequently empowered to write down
his experiences with his own hand and pen. He tells us quite frankly at the
commencement that he has decided to remain anonymous...
"Our anonymous author writes prose in the Old French language of northern
France, addressing his account particularly to those who believe in the Trinity:
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit...
"' It was seven hundred seventeen years after the death of Christ,' says our
author, meaning it was 717, when he had this terrifying experience of the
Grail... It was coming up for Good Friday, after Vespers service, when the
author says he felt so sleepy he began to nod and doze... He saw before him the
most beautiful man there ever there was... And the man said it was an
experiencing of the Trinity he brought. And it was because the author had doubts
as to whether there were three persons or only one God and one Power... Then the
beautiful man bent down and blew in his face at which point our author's vision
became a hundred times stronger. ...And he felt empowered to speak in tongues
which was a great marvel... And the man said: Can you understand? Do you know
who I am? ...I am the Fountain of Wisdom...I am he to whom Nicodemus said,
'Master, we know who you are...I am the Perfect Master.' Then he took my
hand...and he presented me with a Book...the man wrote this Book... The author
heard the voice through thunder. The sky fell down. The earth groaned and
quaked. The brilliance grew more blinding. He really went blind. He staggered
and fell down." [Goodrich
3-5]
"Grace is the meaning of the Grail. It's first apparition therefore came in the city of Jerusalem itself, on the eve of Pentecost when baptism occurred as the Holy Ghost descended in fire on the Apostles. John the Baptist had predicted it. Thus, Pentecost remained King Arthur's holy day... The reward of [Grail] Questers is such an experience, an 'open sight' of God... Both Perceval and Galahad...wore red to symbolize the fires of baptism, those flames always seen by witnesses and participants after full Grail Procession." [Goodrich 333-4]
1000 - 1250 A.D.
1030-1244 A.D. - Cathars/Albigenses/Bogomils promote Spirit baptism through the laying on of hands, visions and prophesying.
"The two traditions -- one centering on the Baptist and the other on the Magdalene -- only really became discernible around the twelfth century, when, for example, the Cathars emerged in the Languedoc and the Templars rose to the pinnacle of their power." [Picknett 354]
"As early as the eleventh century in Europe diabolical possession took the form of epidemics of raving, jumping, dancing, and convulsion. In these epidemics women and children especially were afflicted. The Crusades and the Black Death were followed by similar epidemics in various parts of Europe. Visions and prophesying were a regular accompaniment of these epidemics among all peoples." [Cleveland 105]
“…two heresies in particular do show evidence of contact with the sources of the Secret Tradition. These are the heresy of the Cathars and that of the Free Spirit. The first time the name ‘Cathar’ was used was in 1030 of a community at Monteforte in Italy. But the church took deepest root in the Languedoc, where its doctrines had been spread by the Lombard heretic church called de Concoresso, which in its turn claimed to derive its faith from ‘Sclavonia’ and Bulgaria. There is certainly evidence to connect the Cathars with the Bulgarian heretics called Bogomils, because both professed versions of Gnosticism. The word ‘Cathar’ probably comes from the Greek ‘pure,’ and the Cathar doctrines show the sect to have been Gnostic of the ascetic type. They believed that the world had been created by an evil being---that there were a series of spheres of being between God and the material world-that procreation was evil because it introduced another spark of the divine into matter. These are familiar tenets. In the Languedoc the Cathars flourished, until in 1207 Pope Innocent III solicited help from the magnates of the North to crush the dangerous heresy. Strictly speaking it was not a heresy, but a rival religion; and as such it was ruthlessly wiped out. The chief Cathar stronghold of Montsegur fell in 1244; but for fifty years afterwards the discovery of persistent believers was to occupy those skilled in sniffing out subversion.” [Webb 207]
“The recovery of the Balkans during the Orthodox ‘Time of Troubles’ was bound…to leave Byzantium open to the increasing missionary activities of the new Balkan dualist movement, Bogomilism, which in the early eleventh century had already struck roots in the western Anatolian regions and particularly in the old heretical seedbed of Phrygia. The first testimony to the magnitude of Bogomil proselytism and expansion in western Anatolia is a long letter written about 1050 by the monk Euthymius…” [Stoyanov 136]
“Manicheism, with its hierarchy and missionary
system, had taken root in Europe and, with its chief seat in Bulgaria, had thus
found its way into Northern Italy and the southern part of France.
“Unquestionably Manicheans in their beliefs and teachings, the Cathares
(purifiers or pure) held the unadulterated tradition of Manes. Their hierarchy
was that established by their founder. In the 12th century, their supreme chief
was in Bulgaria having under him, bishops, priests, deacons and simple Perfects.
These composed the class of Perfects who were distinguished from the second
degree of Believers.
“As to the Albigenses, their name derived from Albi, a town of the
Languedoc, covered not one but many sects issued from Manicheism and Arianism,
and counted also many Jews or judaised Christians. Under this appellation of
Albigenses, historians, whether political or religious, have almost unanimously
included the Cathares." [Miller
163-4]
"Throughout the best part of this Millennium, no organization has misused the Grail Chalice symbolism to greater effect than the Christian Church establishment. From the earliest times, the Rosi-crucis (the Chalice and wine of the Grail sacrament) was a prerogative of the Albi gens - being emblematic of the Blood Royal in the womb of the Dragon Queen." [Gardner: Ring Lords]
“The Albigenses followed Manichean dualism in
its attempt to solve the problem of evil. They asserted the co-existence of two
ultimate principles, a good deity (the God of the New Testament) who created
Spirit and Light and a bad deity (the God of the Old Testament) who created
Matter and Darkness. Accordingly they condemned marriage and the procreation of
children as demoniac. Yet concubinage was tolerated…and desertion of husband or
wife was…praiseworthy. Like the Arians, the Albigenses claimed that Christ was
merely a created being, who never really took on a human body, and never
actually died on the cross… His redemption gave us only the example of a noble
life and a moral lesson of his virtue. It did not achieve an objective
remission of sin... The Albigenses distinguished between the 'perfect' and mere
believers. The former, a small minority, were held to the observances of the
ancient Cathari: the consolamentum or spirit baptism through the imposition of
hands, which gave the right to preach the new religion, the appareillamentum, or
public confession of sins and endura or starvation to death in order to be freed
from the flesh…While exact figures are not available, it is certain that more
than one thousand cities and towns in France were influenced by Albigensianism
at the close of the 12th century… Always the Cathari were denounced, not only
for doctrinal heresy, but as a menace to the family, state and human society...
“…Their only requirement was faith; for the rest they were allowed to do as
they pleased." [Collier’s
495-6]
1135-1202 – Joachim of Fiore receives revelation of "Age of the Holy Spirit "
“Joachim (c.1135-1202) began his religious
life as a Cistercian monk from Calabria, Italy. His fame as a prophet began to
spread after he had two visions that ‘gave him the gift of spiritual
intelligence enabling him to understand the inner meaning of history.’…
According to Joachim, history was unfolding in three epochs corresponding to
Christianity's Trinitarian concept of God.
“God the Father represented the first stage in time, wherein humanity lived
under the law as recorded in the Old Testament. The second historical age, that
of the Son, was a period of grace lasting forty-two generations of 30 years that
would end with the appearance of the Antichrist (1260)…. Finally, there would
come the third era of the Holy Spirit, which would be marked by increased
spiritual intelligence and a new religious order that would convert the world to
Christianity. Joachim discovered most of this during his first vision on one
particular Easter night when he was deep in meditation.
“After Joachim’s death in 1202, several new religious orders claimed to be
the group that he prophesied would convert the world. Obviously, the Church
could not continue to support Joachim’s teachings. His view of God was condemned
at the Lateran Council of 1215, and by 1259 all of his writings were labeled
heretical. Nevertheless, his prophetic system outlining three stages of
historical progression survived in various forms to influence, if only
indirectly, the thinking of several personalities including Adolf Hitler, his
Third Reich, like Joachim’s third epoch was supposed to have lasted forever.” [Abanes
176-7]
“Horrified though the unworldly mystic would have been to see it happen, it is unmistakably the Joachite phantasy of the three ages that reappeared in, for instance, the theories of historical evolution expounded by the German Idealist philosophers Lessing, Schelling, Fichte and to some extent Hegel; in Auguste Comte’s idea of history as an ascent from the theological throughout the metaphysical up to the scientific phase; and again in the Marxian dialectic of the three stages of primitive communism, class society and a final communism which is to be the realm of freedom and in which the state will have withered away.” [Cohn 109]
“[According to Joachim] Ushered in by monastics, the Age of the Spirit would bring the conversion of the Jews and Gentiles, union of the Greek and Roman churches, overthrow of Antichrist and inauguration of the Sabbath of God.” [Gentz 530]
1245-1250 - Druids establish Oxford University
"It is said that in 1245 a gathering [of Druids] was held with representatives from many parts and the objects of the Order were agreed. A grove or group was founded, the Mount Haemus Grove which still exists." [Cavendish 722]
"In 1781...the Ancient Order of Druids was set up in London by Henry Hurle, as an esoteric society patterned on Masonic lines. In 1833, a split between the mystics and those who wanted a friendly society led to the majority forming the United Ancient of Druids... The mystical side continued as the Albion Lodge of the Ancient Order of Druids of Oxford, claiming descent from the Mount Haemus Grove." [Pennick 211]
"Oxford University The oldest university in Britain, having its origins in informal groups of masters and students gathered in Oxford in the 12th-c... The closure of the University of Paris to Englishmen in 1167 accelerated Oxford's development into a universitas... University College 1249." [Cambridge 823-24]
1300 - 1500 A.D.
1374 - St. John's Day Revels include visions and prophecies.
"In the fourteenth century [1374] in the lower Rhine country the frenzy broke out in most violent form. The cures attempted only increased the disease; the afflicted danced for hours until they fell exhausted. 'Some declared that they felt as if bathed in blood, some saw visions, some prophesied.' These epidemics seem to have originated in the wild revels of St. John's days, an adaptation of heathen ceremonies and Christian form. About the same time in Italy an epidemic of dancing and jumping prevailed. It was supposed to originate in the bite of the tarantula for which the dancing was a cure. It has survived in the Italian tarantella." [Cleveland 105]
1400s - European Convents exhibit animal manifestations.
"Inmates of nunneries were especially subject to emotional epidemics. In the fifteenth century in Germany, one of the inmates of a nunnery was seized with a passion for biting her companions. The mania spread until most, if not all, of her fellow-nuns followed her example. The epidemic passed to other convents in Germany, Holland and across the Alps to Italy. In a French convent, one of the nuns began to mew like a cat, and severe measures were required to check the contagion which soon affected the other nuns." [Cleveland 105-6]
1500 A.D.
“Humanism, since the time of the Reformation, had released the greatest energies for ecumenical thought and action…” [Rouse 92]
1521 A.D. - Anabaptist Theomaniacs seize government of Munster; rule by means of ecstatic prophecies and manifestations.
"The Anabaptists were founded in 1521 by
Nicolas Storch, Mark Stubner and Thomas Muncer. Their Heresies were founded on
the following Lutheran maxim interpreted subversively: A Christian man is master
of everything and is subject to no one... Madden, in Phantasmata, describes
their religion in the following terms: ‘We find among them claims to intercourse
with God and angels-to the gift of prophecy - to the power of driving out evil
spirits - to the right of persecuting opponents - to visions, ecstasies,
trances, convulsive seizures attributed to supernatural influences - and all
these evidences of epidemic religious mania in countries which were Protestant.’
"At certain periods in its history, this sect wielded great power and Madden
further writes that in Westphalia ‘for a length of time, the entire senate was
composed of theomaniacs. As the republic was composed alone of fools and madmen,
it is incredible to what a length they carried their excesses in Munster: each
magistrate proposed for the rule of government the wild chimeras of his own
imagination, disguised under the imposing name of revelation. It was a sad
spectacle to hear the deliberations of a senate composed altogether of fanatics:
some being inspired in a perfectly contrary way to that suggested to others:
nevertheless, each one adhering to the dictates of his inspiration, because he
believed that a special revelation had been made to him. When such things, says
Cameil, take place in a country, where pseudo-prophets are tolerated who
disseminate terror, and run about the streets without any clothing, when the
multitude set these things down as super-human phenomena; when the inspired of
both sexes walk about thus in public places in the midst of their disciples and
apostles, the will of the Supreme Being is supposed to serve as a rule and
direction to all the extravagances that mortals fall into, and it is difficult
to say where will end the excesses of this religious delirium… The Anabaptists,
when they fell into the hands of their enemies, allowed their fingers, tongue,
nose and ears, to be cut off, nay, even suffered themselves to be drowned by
hundreds in torrents, rather than desist or depart for a moment from the orders
they imagined came from God."...
"The principle offshoots of the Anabaptist fanaticism in Germany, Holland,
and Switzerland, were the Adamites, the Apostolics, the Taciturn, the Perfect,
the Impeccable, the Liberated Brethren, the Sabbatarians, the Clancularians, the
Manifestarians, the Bewailers, the Rejoicers, the Indifferent, the Sanguinarians,
the Antimariens…” [Miller
171-3]
See: Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages
1650 - 1800 A.D.
1648-50 - Quakers experience ecstatic states.
“The first Friends called themselves ‘Children of the Light’ – a name used by the oldest Quaker community at Mansfield in 1648…” [Hastings 142]
“The Religious Society of Friends was founded by George Fox in England around 1650.” [Wattles]
“Early Quakerism especially was given over to the inducement of trances, violent shaking [hence the name ‘Quakers’], glossolalia, visions and mindless ecstasy.” [Dager, Renovare 13]
“The Religious Society of Friends, more commonly known as Quakers, began in the religious ferment of England in the 1600s. The basis of all Quaker beliefs is the presence of ‘that of God’ in everyone. Everyone has an ‘Inner Light’ for guidance. Though many choose to ignore it, it is always there to be reached. Though clearly Christian, the early Friends would quote the Koran when speaking with Turks because of the belief that other peoples who also had access to the Inner Light would understand better if spoken to in terms they understood. The Quaker response to those in positions of power who are not willing to listen, even to those who are brutal and insensitive, is a practice called ‘Speaking Truth to Power,’ which holds that everyone contains a spark that can be reached with prophetic voices. The Quaker method of worship involves the use of silence so that people can ‘center down’ and be attuned to the Inner Light. Friends sit together in a Meeting for Worship, and speaking occurs when someone is moved of the Spirit to speak. The silence that follows the message is part of the message, to give others a chance to contemplate the point just made. There is no minister -- or, more accurately, everybody is a minister. All are equally invited to contribute to the spiritual journey of the group.” [McNair]
1688-1772 - Emanuel Swedenborg experiences altered states of consciousness and embraces Hermetic philosophy.
"[Swedenborg's] self-assured optimism influenced transcendentalism, spiritualism, communitarianism, faith healing, mesmerism, perfectionism, and millenarianism. He believed in three orders of being: the natural world of mineral, vegetable, or animal 'ultimates,' the spiritual order, and the celestial realm. Everything on the natural level corresponds to something on higher levels. [Hermetic philosophy 'as above, so below'] Swedenborg argued that his interpretations of the spiritual meaning of Scripture constituted Christ's Second Coming or the New Jerusalem as prophesied in Revelation 21:2." [Gentz 110]
"...Emanuel Swedenborg['s]...Church
of the New Jerusalem extended its influence into Europe and --- most importantly from the
point of view of Spiritualists --- into the United States... Since 1736 Swedenborg had experienced mystical states: supernatural flash of light and
other manifestations assaulted his inner eye... [S]oon his relations with the
heavenly kingdoms grew more direct, and he held conversations with angels and
spirits...
"...Moreover, the doctrine propagated by the Church of the New Jerusalem
well fitted the contemporary mood of apocalypse. Swedenborg had taught that
there had already been two great judgments which had fallen on mankind; and both
had signalled the end of an established Church. Thus, the Flood had meant the
end of a hypothetical Most Ancient Church; and the Crucifixion that of the
Ancient Representative Church. Swedenborg had concluded that the Third Age, that
of the Christian Church, was due in its turn to be overthrown. This third
judgment had been prophesied by Christ and foretold in Revelations. It was in
this tradition that the Church of the New Jerusalem sought to inaugurate the New
Age." [Webb
22]
1700s - Huguenots experience ecstatic states.
"Two marked epidemics of similar character
occurred in France early in the eighteenth century: one at the tomb of Francois
in Paris, a Jansenist deacon buried in St. Medard cemetery, the other among the
Huguenots in the mountains of Cevennes. Such a pitch did the excitement reach in
St. Medard, upon the report of miracles worked at the tomb, that the authorities
were finally obliged to wall up the place; and even that did not stop the
excitement which continued for some time, stimulated by earth brought from the
tomb. The Huguenots who had fled to the Cevennes, under the continued
persecution of Louis XIV reached an ecstatic state. Some of the peasants were
seized with convulsions and began to prophesy. An epidemic followed. Men, and
children especially, caught the contagion, comparatively few women being
affected. Those affected fell to the ground and were convulsively exercised,
then rose to exhort those about them. So common did trembling become that they
were called the 'tremblers of Cevenes.'
"In Roman Catholic countries these seizures occurred often in convents, in
churches where young girls were brought for first communion, and at 'miracle
shrines.' In Protestant countries they accompanied great religious excitement.
Here they were attributed, not as among the Catholics to Satan, but to the
spirit of the Almighty." [Cleveland
106-7]
1713 - Old Catholic Church established by renegade Catholic bishops.
"...in the Roman Church it is held that a
bishop cannot be deprived of his episcopal powers even if he is excommunicated
for some major offense. It follows that he can still consecrate other bishops,
whose orders will be technically valid; hence that he can indeed start up his
private branches of the Church at will. The result has been the emergence of a
sort of 'Catholic Protestantism' in which schismatics can make nonsense of canon
law.
"In this way, when in 1713 the majority of the Dutch clergy refused to
acknowledge a papal bull condemning Jansenism and consequently left the Catholic
Church,, their orders remained valid. They formed the 'Old Catholic Church,' and
it was Gerard Gul, the Old Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht, who in 1908
consecrated Arnold Mathew...[whose] tiny church soon seceded from the Dutch Old
Catholics, and by the beginning of the First World War had become seriously
infected with
Theosophy." [Webb
130]
1735-40 - The Great Awakening of Jonathan Edwards manifests altered states.
"England, Scotland, and Ireland in the eighteenth century furnish examples of emotional epidemics in revival seasons. John Wesley records numerous instances of persons falling to the ground under preaching 'as if struck by lightning.' In Cambuslang parish, Lanarkshire, Scotland, in 1742, numbers were convicted of sin under the preaching of the minister, an admirer of Whitefield, and were thrown into the greatest agony about the state of their souls. Not only did they utter most piercing cries, but their bodies were violently agitated; they clapped their hands, beat their breasts, shook, trembled, fainted, were convulsed, and sometimes bled copiously at the nose. Again, in about 1774, swoons and convulsions similar to those in Kentucky became common in the parish of Northmaven among the Shetland Islands. Fifty or sixty would sometimes be carried struggling or roaring into the yard, and they would rise perfectly unconscious of what had happened. The Jumpers, a Methodist sect which originated in Cornwall, still has its adherents in Wales, and presents the closest similarity to the jerker of the revival of 1800.” [Cleveland 107-8]
"In Colonial days under the preaching of Whitefield, Edwards, and the Tennants, similar excitement had prevailed in America, in a less marked degree. Reports from the James River region, in 1783, speak of an extraordinary revival in which it was not unusual to have a large proportion of the congregation prostrated, some motionless, others convulsively screaming, shouting, and bounding about on the floor. A Baptist preacher who traveled over the Blue Ridge about that time, in a region under revival, relates that it was not uncommon to hear the people, when religiously exercised, bark like dogs. In Kentucky, in 1790 and 1792 there were meetings attended by the falling and confusion which characterized the later movement. In the revival of 1800 the striking feature was therefore not the exercises themselves, but the number of people who were affected by them. It is impossible to estimate the exact number who caught the contagion, but some idea can be gained when the size of the camp-meetings and the large area over which the revival spread are considered. It was no uncommon occurrence for several hundred to be affected at one time." [Cleveland 108-9]
"On the subject of phenomena in revivals, I came across 'The Memoirs of Charles G. Finney - The Complete Restored Text' (annotated critical edition by Rosell and Dupuis, published by Academic Zondervan, 1989). Finney's previously published Memoirs had been censored of any reference to incidents and events that were considered offensive or too unusual and did not fit the expectation of North American Christianity at the time. In working through his unabridged Memoirs I found incidents of 'Toronto' laughter and other but with a balance in his approach which appeared lacking in some parts of the Great Awakening of the previous century. He describes (in the restored text) how, at his conversion, the impact of the presence of the Holy Spirit on his church elder ('a very serious man') when Finney began to explain how God had met with him, elder Bond 'fell into a most spasmodic laugh ... it was impossible for him to keep from laughing ... It seemed to be a spasm that was irresistible.' (p.24). When the Great Awakening had infected Yale in 1741, the Dean, the Rev. Samuel Johnson, wrote:'...Many of the scholars have been possessed of it, and two of this year's candidates were denied their degrees for disorderly and restless endeavors to propagate it'. He describes the phenomena in the lives of people affected by the revival as - 'the most odd and unaccountable enthusiasm than perhaps obtained in any age or nation. ...even their bodies are frequently in a moment affected with the strangest convulsions and involuntary agitations and cramps, which also have sometimes happened to those who came as mere spectators ...' (letter October 3, 1741, to George Berkley, published in 'The Great Awakening at Yale College' by S.Nissenbaum)." [Thomas]
"From the walls and buttresses of
Oxford and Cambridge one can still hear the distant voices of bygone
eras--from those of Edwardian glory to something much further back. Thundering
like a turbine in the depths of an ocean vessel, and far grander than the famed
pomp and circumstance, are the deeper spiritual engines of these two great
universities. So many of names of the colleges themselves are a testament in
stone to the foundations of these Universities--Trinity College, Jesus
College, Emmanuel College, Christ's College, Corpus Christi College, Magdalen
College, Saint John's College. Does this not reveal their beginnings? And is it
any surprise that from this foundation revivals have come down the centuries,
not celebrating the transient glory of men but the decrees of God.
"When the Reformation and the Great Awakening exploded through Oxford and
Cambridge, history's giants appeared long enough to reset the course of
history. It was for Christ alone, his glory, that they battled for the truth and
captured their culture. This is the deeper foundation of Oxford and Cambridge, a
legacy that has been shrouded by modernism and postmodernism, but which is as
real as the names of the colleges themselves which loom into the sky in an
architectural statement pointing to God's glory and grandeur. [SCP]
1800-1900 A.D.
1800 - The Great Revival in the West involves ecstatic manifestations.
"The Great Revival in the West at the end of the eighteenth and during the early years of the nineteenth century is one of a series of religious movements which shook the religious life of the Colonies and the United States to its foundations. The first of this series was the so-called Great Awakening of 1740, which began about 1735 under the preaching of Jonathan Edwards. The end of that century witnessed the beginning of another great revival, the western phase of which, often spoken of as the Kentucky Revival, is treated in the following pages. Similar movements stirred the country about 1830 and again about 1850.” [Cleveland Preface v.]
"[Remarkable bodily exercises] played...a
prominent part in the revival [of the West]... Some of those affected were
frequently subject to the exercises as long as they lived... One of the
Presbyterian ministers wrote... 'The bodily exercise has assumed such a variety
of shapes as to render it a truly Herculean task to give an intelligent
statement of it to any person who has never seen it.' The most frequent forms
were falling to the ground, jerking, barking, and dancing...
"In the revival of 1800 falling became so common that it caused little or no
interruption to the service, save as it became necessary to remove those who
fell to a place of safety where they would not be trampled upon...The one who
fell would lie helpless...and at the same time experiencing visions so graphic
as to seem a reality. Others were convulsed and lay writhing and screaming...
During the trance no pain was felt. Even those who struck obstacles as they
fell, or pounced about on the floor sustained no injury... " [Cleveland
87-9]
"Sometime after the beginning of the Great Revival a new exercise appeared in eastern Tennessee which came to be familiarly known as 'the jerks.' 'The exercise commonly began in the head which would fly backward and forward, and from side to side with a quick jolt which the person would naturally labor to suppress but in vain, and the more any one labored to stay himself and be sober the more he staggered and the more rapidly his twitches increased. He must necessarily go as he was stimulated, whether with a violent dash on the ground and bounce from place to place like a foot-ball, or hop round with head, limbs and trunk, twitching and jolting in every direction, as if they must inevitably fly asunder... By this strange operation the human frame was commonly so transformed and disfigured, as to lose every trace of its natural appearance. Some times the head would be twitched right and left to a half round with such velocity that not a feature could be discovered, but the face appeared as much behind as before, and in the quick progressive jerk, it would seem as if the person was transmuted into some other species of creature.” [Cleveland 96-9]
"Closely connected with the jerks was an exercise called barking. Short guttural sounds similar to the barking of a dog often proceeded from those afflicted with jerking. A minister in lower Kentucky stated that 'it was common to hear people barking like a flock of spaniels on their way to meeting...There they would start up suddenly in a fit of barking, rush out, roam around, and in a short time come barking and foaming back. Down on all fours they sometime went, growling, snapping their teeth, and barking just like dogs. Voluntary dancing, another form of exercise, was encouraged as a means of warding off other disagreeable exercises. It appeared some years after the revival began among certain Presbyterians in Kentucky and Ohio who were called New Lights because they 'taught that the will of God was made manifest to each individual who honestly sought after it by an inward light, which shone in the heart.'" [Cleveland 101]
"Phenomena of the kind just described were by no means peculiar to the subjects of the Great Revival of 1800. History furnishes similar instances in all ages and among all peoples, varying slightly, it may be, in form, yet practically the same. Heathen deities have been honored and evil spirits placated by the same frenzies. Demoniacal possession, the witchcraft delusion, and the excitement attendant upon Protestant revivals in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century are all analogous." [Cleveland 104]
1807-1875 - Eugene Vintras teaches the Satanic Mass of Melchizedek/Holy Spirit/Michael.
"Gevingey gives some account of vestments and ceremony of the Vintrasian version of the Mass of Melchizedek..." [Reeves 192]
"Huysmans discussed whether Christ is only a copy of Melchizedek or whether Melchidezek is a type of Christ. The former view, Huysman notes, has led to the view of one sect that Melchizedek is in fact the Paraclete. The notion of an especial Mass of the Holy Spirit [is] popular among certain Norman peasants... see J.G. Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, 1911, v.1.231-3; H.T.F. Rhodes, The Satanic Mass: A Sociological and Criminological Survey, London, 1954, p.78-80." [Reeves 192, ff. 36]
"Fragments of the Prince Melchizedek Document found among the Dead Sea Scrolls indicate that Melchizedek and Michael [the Archangel] were one and the same." [Gardner 177]
[See 1881: New Age of Michael]
1821 - James Haldane Stewart promotes ecumenism and prayer for outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
"In 1821, [James Haldane Stewart] published Hints for a General Union of Christians for Prayer for the Outpouring of the Holy Spirit. ... Haldane Stewart went further than Jonathan Edwards in that he organized a regular union for prayer; he also laid greater stress on the bringing together Christians of various denominations. It was a memorable day when he assembled in his rectory in Liverpool to discuss his plans such leaders of the Churches as...Edward Irving, founder of the Catholic Apostolic Church, but at this time still among the Presbyterians..." [Rouse 346]
1828-1835 - Edward Irving promotes Pentecostal signs and wonders as heralds of the last days.
"Irving, minister of a Scotch Presbyterian chapel in London in the early 1820s, won a following for his charismatic preaching, sharp social criticism, and proclamations of Christ's imminent return. He elaborated his eschatological views in 1828 Edinburgh lecture series on John's Apocalypse. Excommunicated by the London Presbytery in 1830 for heresy [he taught that Jesus' earthly nature was sinful], Irving continued to preach until his death in 1834 -- winning further notoriety by encouraging glossalalia ('speaking in tongues') as one of the 'signs and wonders' foretold by Jesus as a harbinger of the last days." [Boyer 87]
"...in Christian England...there had been a brief outbreak of Millenarianism inspired by Edward Irving. But after the death of the notable preacher in 1834 the fire went out of his movement, and no more were heard the prophesyings and the speaking in tongues which had characterized it in its heyday. His followers drifted nearer and nearer the doctrines of High Anglicanism...The beginnings of the Tractarian or Oxford Movement are usually dated to...1833. The growth of ritualism and practices associated with the Roman Church gave rise to fears that the Oxford Movement was leading a large section of the Anglican Communion back into the arms of Rome...and numbers of the Anglo-Catholic faithful left the Anglican Church for Rome or the Irvingites..." [Webb 126-7]
1835-1901 - Irving founds Catholic Apostolic Church
"In 1835, Irving's followers organized the Catholic Apostolic Church, led by twelve apostles, of whom at least one was expected to be alive at the Second Coming. When the last of the original twelve died at an advanced age in 1901, the sect died out." [Boyer 87]
"It is noteworthy that the Irvingite movement, a precursor of Pentecostalism in England in the 1800s, named after its leader, Edward Irving, did appoint twelve apostles. In doing so, the movement was consistent. It is also worthy of note that, although it hesitates to call them apostles, Pentecostalism today is ascribing to its leaders powers that only apostles possess: a personal, absolute authority over the church, or fellowship; new revelations of His will for the church from God; extra-Biblical teachings which are binding upon the saints." [Engelsma]
"Irvingism...spread to the continent with divisive effects and ultimately absorbed many of those Bavarian Roman Catholic priests who had been affected by the Evangelical Awakening." [Rouse 317]
1836 - House of Rothschild buys land in Palestine.
"In 1836, [Zebi] Kalischer appealed to Mayer Amschel [who by now had changed his name to Rothschild] to buy out completely the land of Israel or at least Jerusalem and particularly the Temple area in order to 'bring about the miraculous redemption from below'." [Graham 63]
1837 - Concert of Prayer for outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
"In 1837, Haldane Stewart heard from a Mrs.
Sweet that an Invitation to United Prayer for the Outpouring of the Holy Spirit
had been published in America and that a Concert of Prayer had begun there.
"Although Haldane Stewart never identified himself to any extent with the
Evangelical Alliance, it always regarded his Union for Prayer as a primary cause
leading to its foundation." [Rouse
346]
1840 - The Damascus Affair begins Jewish emigration to Palestine.
"The year 1840 brought with it problems in Damascus. Father Thomas, a Capuchian of the Catholic faith, disappeared; it was reputed that he had been murdered by Jews for ritual purposes. French and Syrian authorities joined in and many Jewish adults and children were arrested and tortured; some were even killed. Rothschild and Montefiore and Cremieux got together, sought action, and this resulted in Jewish people going to work on Rothschild's projects in Palestine. It is said, in fact, that it was this Damascus affair which helped establish the groundwork for the Alliance Israelite Universelle founded by Rothschild twenty years later." [Graham 63-4]
1846 - Evangelical Alliance founding meeting in Freemason's Hall, London
"In 1843 a meeting in Scotland commemorating
the 200th anniversary of the Westminster Assembly issued a plea for closer
unity. The same year, Presbyterian William Patton of New York wrote to British
Congregationalist John Angell James, recommending an interchurch conference to
outline the truths on which churches agreed.(3)
A series of discussions and prayer gatherings led to a General Conference held
in London August 19 to September 2, 1846. Eight hundred leaders from fifty-two
'bodies of Christians' in eight nations decided to form a confederation under
the name 'The Evangelical Alliance.' The delegates agreed upon a doctrinal
statement of basic evangelical views. They pointed out that they were not
forming 'a new ecclesiastical organization' but expressing the spiritual unity
that already existed 'among all who, loving the Lord Jesus Christ, are bound to
love one another.' (ff.4. Minutes of the Proceedings of the Conference held at
Freemasons' Hall, London, 1846.)
"The remarkable fact is that the Statement of Faith drafted in 1846 has
weathered the theological debates of the intervening decades and continues as
the basis for the doctrinal statement of [the
World Evangelical Fellowship], the global organization that grew out of the
EA. For a century, in the absence of any formal international structure, this
statement and an annual Week of Prayer were the main visible connection between
national committees of the EA. Not surprisingly, Britain's EA was the major
player, with its international connections in the Commonwealth." [Fuller]
1865 - Founding of
Palestine Exploration Fund
"In 1865, under the patronage of Queen Victoria, all of the elite
institutions of Britain, including the Anglican Church, the Grand Lodge of
England, Oxford and Cambridge Universities, etc., gathered to fund a new
institution, the Palestine Exploration Fund, dedicated to the 'rediscovery' of
the Holy Land. The PEF's first Secretary Treasurer [was] freemason Walter Besant...
"The PEF was founded for three purposes:
1) 'With the avowed intention of gradually introducing the Jews, pure and
simple, who is eventually to occupy and govern this country...'
2) To survey every inch of the territory on both sides of the Jordan, for
British military-strategic purposes...
3) To give the gnostic British gamemasters an open-ended tool to reinterpret
the Bible, and thus to manipulate the minds of hundreds of millions of
Christians and Jews. As Besant, a raving gnostic and brother-in-law of Theosophy
cult leader Annie Besant, put it, 'The principal reason alleged for conducting
this inquiry was the illustration of the Bible which might be expected to
follow such an investigation.'... Said Besant, 'The work before the Committee of
the Fund, as regards Jerusalem, was, therefore, briefly this: We proposed
nothing less than the absolute identification of every sacred site.' Special
attention should be given to the Temple Mount and the issue of the Temple of
Solomon... Thus was founded the vast discipline of 'Biblical Archaeology.'
"Through the PEF, the British re-established the tradition of
cultural/religious manipulation in the 19th century. Besant was the PEF's
secretary from 1868 until 1886, the year when PEF head Sir Charles Warren and he
became, respectively, the first Grand Master, and the first Treasurer, of the
Quatuor Coronati lodge--which they established, in their own words, as an
'archaeology lodge,' the first ever in the history of freemasonry...
"The PEF/Quatuor Coronati cynical manipulation of religion continues both in
the plot to rebuild Solomon's Temple per se, and in the broader cultural war
against true Christianity, Judaism and Islam, of which that plot is a part.
Take, for instance, the widely publicized Holy Blood, Holy Grail series,
written by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln, and trumpeted by
the BBC, among others. The book claims that the British Royal Family and its
associated oligarchy is the continuation of a bloodline begun by the marriage of
Jesus Christ (who, according to this heresy, was never crucified) to Mary
Magdalene, a 'secret bloodline' which allegedly continued throughout the
Merovingian Dynasty in Europe and the crusading orders such as the Templars (who
derived their name from the headquarters in Solomon's Stagles underneath the
Temple Mount) and the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, around which are grouped
other initiates, such as the freemasons. The 'inspiration' for such trash is
hardly divine: The lead author, Michael Baigent, is a Corresponding Member of
the Quatuor Coronati lodge, and Brother Baigent thanks, for his assistance, the
Rev. Neville B. Cryer, one of Quatuor Coronati's most prominent members, and the
longtime head of the immensely influential British and Foreign Bible Society." [EIR
58-9]
1875 - Keswick Movement merges Holiness Movement with Fundamentalism.
"Commonly called the 'Victorious Christian
Life' or the 'Higher Christian Life' or simply the 'Keswick Movement', this
persuasion was the particular branch of the larger holiness movement that had
proven especially attractive to the Baptists, Congregationalists, and
Presbyterian Evangelicals...who laid the foundations for fundamentalism.
"This movement drew some of its ideas directly from the American holiness
movement, but its most immediate source was a British mutation of the American
holiness campaign called the 'Keswick Movement', named after a holiness
conference begun in 1875 in Keswick, England. Keswick teaching, like the broader
holiness movement emanating from American Methodism, emphasized that the key to
a more holy and effective Christian life was a postchristian experience in which
one yielded fully to God. In most holiness teaching this act of surrender and
consecration of will would result in a 'baptism of the Holy Ghost' and lead to
'entire sanctification,' or the eradication of one's propensity to sin. Keswick
modified this belief somewhat to make it more compatible with Reformed doctrines
of sanctification by stressing that what this fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit
brought was deeper communion with God, more power to do his will, and the act of
suppression -- but not the annihilation -- of the urge to sin...
"By the time of the fundamentalist-modernist controversies, Keswick holiness
teaching was thoroughly integrated into the fundamentalist network of Bible
schools, summer conferences, and faith missions. Although these beliefs had been
accepted and widely disseminated by D.L. Moody's associates in the late
nineteenth century, the movement's foremost twentieth-century promoter was
Charles G. Trumbull. He was converted to the doctrine in 1910, and in 1913
helped to found the 'America's Keswick' conference center in southern New
Jersey." [Carpenter
81]
"By searching the Scriptures carefully, Darby argued, Christians could see that the final dispensation was near.
However, no one should fall into the trap of setting a specific timetable since
the millennium could not occur until seven years after the undatable 'rapture'.
The doctrine encouraged Christians to live at their best since this secret
rapture could come at any time.
"Dwight L. Moody popularized Darby's dispensational premillennialism
through the annual Bible conferences he sponsored in Northfield, Massachusetts.
As the dean of American evangelists, he emphasized personal conversion above all
else and continued to embrace postmillennial advocates in a show of
ecumenical evangelism. His successors, however, were less successful at
bridging the gap. Increasingly, the premillennial Reformed evangelists,
alienated from denominational seminaries, established their own independent
Bible schools and institutes. By the 1920s they represented an important
component of American Fundamentalism.
"Among those following in Moody's wake were Reuben Archer Torrey,
first superintendent of the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago; Adoniram Judson
Gordon, founder of the Gordon Bible in Boston; and Albert Benjamin
Simpson, founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, headquartered in
Nyack, NY. These men continued Moody's evangelistic appeals but bolstered their
messages with a new 'higher life' theology. Originating from annual camp
meetings, camp meetings at Keswick, England -- which had in turn been prompted
by Moody's British campaign from 1873 to 1875 -- the higher life philosophy
championed an emphasis on the Holy Spirit within the life of the believer. Most
important was the concept that the Holy Spirit would provide a special anointing
which better prepared a convert for Christian service. Through what was often
loosely termed as 'Baptism of the Holy Spirit', Keswickian advocates understood
that Christians received an endowment of power which solidified their commitment
and emboldened their character. As the nineteenth century drew to a close,
R.A. Torrey predicted that this move of God's spirit marked the beginning of a
revival that would stretch literally around the globe.
"A.J. Gordon and A.B. Simpson were particularly important in stressing the
power of God to heal." [Goff
52-53]
1881 - New Age of Michael begins with Jews' return to Palestine.
"To those working within an esoteric tradition, it might have appeared a relatively easy thing to prepare for the new era of Michael which was to begin in 1881." [Ovason 376]
"The angel Michael was dedicated to the expansion of human consciousness, and freedom. Furthermore, it would be during the New Age of the Sun, which would begin in 1881, that the Jews would return to their homeland." [Ovason 30]
"Moreover, before 1881, the year of the first wave of European Jews migrating into Palestine, Arabs constituted 95% of the population and owned 98% of the land." [Thornton]
1881-1901 - Bible revised through international, ecumenical cooperation.
"It is ironic that someone whose native tongue was not English was invited to chair the committee whose main responsibility was a revision of the English Bible... It was one of [Philip Schaff's] most ecumenical efforts, bringing together many of the finest scholars from the leading Protestant denominations of Great Britain and the United States... Schaff was deeply committed to the project, for he was convinced an ecumenical revision would foster the bonds of interdenominational and international union." [Shriver 71-3]
See:
A Chronology of American and English Bible Revision
The Nineteenth Century Occult Revival
Apostles Club membership included principles of Balfour Declaration: Arthur Balfour and Lord Rothschild
"...[F.J.A. Hort] found time to attend the meetings of various [Cambridge] societies and in June [1851] joined the mysterious Company of the Apostles…He remained always a grateful and loyal member of the secret Club, which has now become famous for the number of distinguished men who have belonged to it. In his time the Club was in a manner reinvigorated, and he was mainly responsible for the wording of an oath which binds members to a conspiracy of silence. Mr. Vernon Lushington remembers that at the Apostles' meetings he considers Hort 'the most remarkable figure of our time,' and that he 'always spoke very seriously on these occasions.' That he considered his membership as a great responsibility is shown by the fact that, before consenting to join, he asked [Frederick Dennison] Maurice's advice." [Hort 1:170-1]
"[F.J.A. Hort] also regularly went to the meetings of a sort of senior 'Apostles' called the 'Eranus,' a club composed of elder men of various tastes and pursuits. At a meeting of the 'Eranus' held in Hort's rooms in 1877, Mr. A.J. Balfour read a paper on 'Contradiction in the Automatic Theory of Knowledge,' when there were present,...B.F. Westcott, J. B. Lightfoot, H. Sidgwick,...” [Hort 2:184]
"When Germany fell, not only did Rothschild agents draft the treaty, prepare the idea of the League of Nations, but Max Rothschild was one of 11 men who took control over Bavaria. Max Rothschild was a Freemason in Lodge No. 11, Munich, Germany. Victor Rothschild, who worked for J.P. Morgan & Co., and was an important part of MI5 (British Intelligence). Victor Rothschild was also a communist and member of the Apostles Club at Cambridge. Lord Rothschild was one of the original members of Rhodes' Round Table group which developed into the CFR. It was the Rothschilds who had financed Cecil Rhodes, beginning in Africa.” [Springmeier 155]
"[Anthony] Blunt made much play towards the end of 1932 about his efforts to have Rothschild and Burgess elected to the Apostles... On 12 November 1932 Burgess and Victor were both voted in." [Perry 44-45]
1883 – Age of Eugenics begins.
“For all the voluminously documented crimes of the Nazis, the fact is, leading British circles were the earliest proponents and developers of eugenics, a pseudo-science that these British influentials--including Charles Darwin’s cousin Sir Francis Galton and various sons of Darwin, members of the Huxley family, International Monetary Fund founder John Maynard Keynes, and others--concocted to promote the reduction in numbers, if not the eventual elimination, of categories of people whose existence was undesired by them. Such undesirables were, in the earliest years of the history of the Eugenics Education Society (the name of the group at the time of its founding in 1907), referred to dismissively as ‘the residuum’ and later as ‘the paupers’; in order to study them, the eugenics mob sponsored so-called ‘Pauper Pedigree Projects,’ to reinforce the notion of ‘social class biologically defined.’… It was Sir Francis Galton, the proponent of ‘hereditarianism,’ who declared in 1883 that the ‘Age of Eugenics’ had begun (the name of the Eugenics Society today is the Galton Institute). [Burdman]
See: Charter Schools, Character Education & the Eugenics Internationale
1884 - Jehovah's Witnesses predict end of world and confuse Jesus Christ with Michael the Archangel.
"In his Watchtower magazine and his book Millennial Dawn [1886], [Charles Taze] Russell emulated William Miller in expounding his own idiosyncratic historicist interpretation of Daniel in Revelation, including a predicted end of the world in 1914. The outbreak of war in that year gave a strong stimulus to 'Russelism'" [Boyer 92-3]
See: 1914: World War I
“Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe God came from heaven to earth, yet they cannot deny someone came down. So they shift the identity of the one who ascended to an archangel, Michael. Jesus is supposedly Michael because his name means ‘who is like God.’ ‘It proves Michael the archangel is no other than the only begotten son of God, now Jesus Christ. The very name Michael means who is like God and indicates Jehovah God is without like or equal.’ (New Heavens and New Earth pg.30-31). Jesus is actually the incarnation of Michael the Archangel and resumed the name when he ascended into heaven.” (Ibid. pg.30, Your will be done on earth, pg.316.)… ‘Michael the Archangel is no other than the only begotten son of God, now Jesus Christ. That Jehovah directly created only one thing, Michael the arch angel and that Michael created all other things’. (United in worship p.29)… ‘There is Scriptural evidence for concluding that Michael was the name of Jesus Christ before he left heaven and after his return.’” (WT 5/15/1969, p. 307)…‘Michael the great prince is none other than Jesus Christ himself Dan.12:1’” (WT 12/15/1984 p. 29) [Reason]
See: The Rosicrucian Connection: Part II
1888 - The occult societies teach that the new dispensation has begun.
"We accept as fact...that following the DRAMA IN THE HEAVENS the new Dispensation which had its actual beginning in 1888 will have reached its apex as has the old, and that a savior, a Great Leader -- one greater than any before -- will be, possibly already is, born." [Clymer 243]
1889 - Formation of Cecil Rhodes' Round Table
"The 'Rhodes secret society' was a group of imperial federalists, formed in the period after 1889 and using the economic resources of South Africa to extend and perpetuate the British Empire... During this period of almost sixty years [1889-1940], this society has been called by various names. During the first decade or so it was called 'the secret society of Cecil Rhodes' or 'the dream of Cecil Rhodes.' In the second and third decades of its existence it was known as Milner's Kindergarten' (1901-1910) and as 'the Round Table Group.' " [Quigley 4, 31]
See: The Rhodes-Milner Round Table
1893 - First World Parliament of Religions
"Largest, most successful, and attracting by far the most attention was the World Parliament of Religions, where Shinto priests discoursed to African bishops, Buddhist monks lectured at Cumberland Baptists; Theosophists, Confucians, and Christian Scientists 'found their hands clasped in one unbroken circle.' How unbroken this circle was remains to be seen; but the fiction was maintained for the public of 140,000 who attended the Parliament..." [Webb 53]
"Shortly before his death, Philip Schaff made a now famous address on 'The Reunion of Christendom' before the World Parliament of Religions, in...1893. In this address, Schaff urged a 'federal or confederate union' resembling the 'political confederation of Switzerland, the United States, and the modern German Empire. This federation would be a 'voluntary association of different Churches in their official capacity, each retaining its freedom and independence in the management of its internal affairs, but all recognizing one another as sisters with equal rights, and cooperating in general enterprises, such as the spread of the gospel at home and abroad, the defense of the faith against infidelity, the elevation of the poor and neglected classes of society, works of philanthropy and charity, and moral reform'. This farewell address of the aged ecumenical leader was thus prophetic of the Federal Council [of Churches] of the 20th century, and even more of its successor, National Council of Churches.” [Rouse 256]
"...In 1897, when Dr. Theodore Herzl conducted the first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switz., Zionism became the reality we see today. Later Zionism was taken over by Edmund Rothschild and indeed the House of Rothschild." [Graham 51]
1900 - 2000 A.D.
1901 - Catholic Apostolic Church dies out. Neo-Pentecostalism begins with Charles Parham and Agnes Ozman's experience. [See 1835: Catholic Apostolic Church]
"Charles Fox Parham, a Methodist minister in the Holiness Movement, had established the Bethel Bible College in Topeka, Kansas. While Parham was away from the school, on January 1, Agnes N. Ozman, one of the Bethel students, testified to experiencing the baptism of the Spirit, and she spoke in tongues. Parham and other students had similar experiences, and with a new zeal they began to evangelize in Missouri and Texas." [Gentz 797]
"Parham, the founder of Pentecostalism, was riddled with doctrinal heresies. He believed in annihilation of the unsaved and denied the Bible doctrine of eternal torment. He believed in the unscriptural doctrine of Anglo-Israelism. He taught that there were two separate creations, and that Adam and Eve were of a different race than people who allegedly lived outside of the Garden of Eden. The first race of men did not have souls, he claimed, and this race of unsouled people was destroyed in the flood. Parham believed that those who received the latter days spirit baptism and spoke in tongues would make up the bride of Christ and would have a special place of authority at Christ's return. He believed in a partial rapture composed of tongues speakers." [Cloud]
"According to Pentecostal lore, the movement
began when a woman spoke in tongues in the church of Charles Fox Parham in
Topeka, Kansas, in 1901. Reverend Parham spread the method until it blossomed in
the famous Azusa Street, Los Angeles, revival of 1906; from there, disciples
took it around the world.
"During the year preceeding the launch-time, Parham had caught fire with
British Israelism. He had been indoctrinated into the Empire's mystery cult by
emissaries of one Frank Sandford, who ran a cult center called Shiloh, near
Durham, Maine. Parham made a pilgrimage and studied under Sandford at Shiloh,
after which the two of them went on tour through Canada.
"Sandford had made the New England Toryism of his fancy Anglophile family
relations into a career, travelling back and forth to England, working to
inculcate Americans into the British Empire gospel.
"In those days, British Israelism was not shy. Its literature, such as The
Anglo-American Alliance in Prophecy, or The Promise to the Fathers, published by
Our Race Publishing Co., featured the masonic mummery of a pyramid topped by an
all-seeing eyeball. The Egyptian pyramids allegedly contained coded secrets for
understanding prophecy. The explicit message of the British Israel propaganda
was, Americans should give up their mistaken Revolution, and reunite with their
Anglo-Saxon racial brethren in the English fatherland. The movement's masonic
Anglomania was proudly displayed. Parham's biography, written by his daughter,
includes a photo of a mystery gavel, brought back from Palestine and donated by
Parham to his masonic lodge.
"With British Israelism as his theory of man's cosmic destiny, Parham began
teaching Americans how to die mentally, to speak in tongues, as a religious
exercise, allegedly re-creating the descent of the Holy Ghost upon Christ's
Apostles during the Jewish feast of Pentecost. He took this show on the road
from Topeka, and in Houston, Texas, a black preacher named William J. Seymour,
the son of a slave, became part of his audience. The catch was, that Parham,
being a crazed racist, would not permit Seymour inside the lecture hall; he had
to listen at the window, or in the hallway.
"Much is made of Seymour's spreading of the technique to a mostly black
congregation on Azusa Street in Los Angeles, and of the fascination and novelty
it held for visiting religious adventurers who took 'Pentecostalism' out to the
world. The movement was widely condemned by Christians as scandalous
exploitation, and its historical origins faded into the mist. Frank Sandford
spent ten years in jail for manslaughter, after many of his cult members died.
Charles Parham's religious vocation was destroyed when he was charged with
sodomizing a young male follower in Texas; Parham went on to a new career as a
stump speaker for the Ku Klux Klan." [Chaitkin]
1904-5 - Welsh Revival includes ecstatic manifestations, as recorded by Jesse-Penn Lewis.
"For some time now it has been on my mind to
try to put into language some of the things which it has been my painful
experience to witness, and to pass through, in connection with the workings of
Satan as an 'angel of light,' but everything seemed so complicated and
confused...
"From a book recently written, said to contain the very words of the Lord
Jesus, spoken THROUGH some of His children, and written down as spoken in the
first person, the following brief extract is taken, showing the extent of the
mediumistic control by deceiving spirits, which some are believed to be the work
of the Holy Spirit.*
"The Lord Jesus is supposed to have said:---
"'The manifestations of the Spirit, in some things, are very strange.
Sometimes He will twist the body this way, and that, and the meaning is dark to
you...If you had spoken in your own tongue, when the Spirit came in, it would
have graciously blessed you; but perhaps you might have thought it was yourself,
as many have. So the Spirit comes in and speaks in an unknown tongue to you,
that you might know that it was NOT YOURSELF SPEAKING...
"'Your hands He has often lifted up, and again He has raised your fingers in
various ways. Your eyes open and shut by the Spirit now, as they did not before.
Your very head has been shaken by the Spirit, and you have not known why He did
this. You have thought sometimes, it was just to show He was living there, and
that is true, but there is more in it than that, and He will show you as well as
He can, in a few words, what some of these things are...
"Some things in the manifestations are very peculiar to you. You have gone
on wondering about them. You have gone on wondering about them. Don't think it
strange that the Spirit works in you in many ways. His work is more than
two-fold work. It is manifold. This is puzzling many minds. They see the Spirit
shaking. They hear Him singing. They FEEL HIM LAUGHING, and they are sometimes
tried with His various twisting and jerkings, as though He would tear them to
pieces.
"Sometimes it seems He is imitating the animals in various sounds and
doings. This has been all a mystery to the saints. His work, I say, is manifold.
He seeks, in some, to show them that they are all one with each other, in the
whole creation... If He shows you, by making a noise as of some wild animal, and
that you are like that, you must not despise His way of working, for the Holy
Spirit knows why He does it. He makes these noises in the animals, can't He make
them in you?
"*This book is circulating amongst deeply devoted believers, and is held by
some as of equal value with the Bible." [Penn-Lewis
319]
"Notable among the 150 000 estimated converts of the [Welsh] Revival are George & Stephen Jeffrey's who later went on to found the Elim Movement, and David Powell Williams, the founder of the Apostolic Pentecostal church. It is also worth mentioning its effect on Rees Howells, intercessor and founder of the Bible College of Wales and David Lloyd George, who later became the British Prime Minister. The results of the Revival cannot be measured by the countless chapels that lie deserted on the Welsh hills today, but in the multitude of changed men and women who went on to effect the course of the twentieth century under the guidance of the Almighty." [Evans]
David Lloyd George [1863-1945] - Prime Minister of England from 1916-1922; Past Member of Committee of 300 [Coleman]; Key British negotiator at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 where he helped to found the Royal Institute of International Affairs [British counterpart of Council on Foreign Relations].
1905, November - Inter-church Conference on Federation
"It was Elias B. Sanford (1843-1932), a New England Congregationalist with a strong admixture of Methodism, who formulated the plans and held the preliminary meetings which resulted in the Federal Council [of Churches]... By November 1905 his ideas had so captured the American Protestant world that he was able to arrange for the great Inter-Church Conference on Federation in Carnegie Hall, New York City." [Rouse 256-7]
1906 - Azusa Revival launches American Pentecostalism; includes ecstatic manifestations.
"The rise of American Pentecostalism usually dated from a revival in Los Angeles in 1906 further stimulated premillennial beliefs, since Pentecostalists, like Edward Irving earlier, viewed their distinctive practices, especially glossalalia and divine healing, as signs of the last days. Wrote one leader in 1908, 'Jesus is coming soon' is the message the Holy Ghost speaking today through nearly everyone that receives the baptism with the Holy Ghost.'" [Boyer 93]
1908 - Federal Council of Churches founded by Rockefeller
"By 1908, the national assemblies of the constituent bodies [of the Inter-Church Conference on Federation] had adopted the Constitution, and the Federal Council [of Churches] came into being." [Rouse 257]
"The Federal Council of Churches of Christ in the America was used routinely by the Rockefellers to further their personal interests in church circles. Rockefeller donated to the Federal Council's Department of Church and Economic Life and promoted the concept of an international church. This is how ecumenism got its beginning as Rockefeller became its most important financier of liberal and ecumenical Protestantism." [Wardner 154]
1910 - Ecumenical Movement begins with the Edinburgh Missionary Conference.
"[John Raleigh Mott] was involved in convening the 1910 Edinburgh Missionary Conference. Out of this gathering an interdenominational committee was formed. This is now regarded as the beginning of the ecumenical movement." [Gentz 713]
"In October, 1910, the day before the general convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church met at Cincinnati, Bishop Brent...spoke of the Edinburgh Conference, of the need for unity there revealed, and of his own conviction that the time had come to examine differences frankly in a world conference on faith and order. Robert Gardiner, an influential layman, suggested that steps should be taken to secure some definite action by the Convention.... The Commission was duly appointed, and elected... Robert Gardiner Secretary. While it was Brent who conceived the idea of a world conference on faith and order, it was upon Gardiner that most of the work fell.... But it was to Gardiner that clergy and laity looked as their leader in this new enterprise; and not men of his own Church only -- within a very short time he had correspondents all over the world. How he came to know as much as he did about the Churches of the world, no one knew... Continentals spoke of him as 'the noblest figure that American Christianity has produced.'" [Rouse 407, 420]
1913 - American Keswick Conference Center in New Jersey
See: 1875 - Keswick Movement merges the Holiness Movement with Fundamentalism. [Carpenter 81]
"After World War I, John D. Rockefeller became involved in what was called the Interchurch World Movement. The idea was that 'another crusade was needed to bring the warring factions of Christianity together.' Rockefeller promoted universal ecumenism by stating in December 1917: 'Would that I had the power to bring to your minds the vision as it unfolds before me! I see all denominational emphasis set aside... I see the church molding the thought of the world as it has never done before, leading in all great movements as it should. I see it literally establishing the Kingdom of God on earth." [Wardner 154]
[See: Charles Taze Russell predicts end of world in 1914]
1914 - Assemblies of God founded
"The Assemblies of God Church [founded in 1914], the leading pentecostal denomination, is still in the 1990s a mighty fortress of premillennial belief." [Boyer 93]
1914 - Andrew Carnegie's Church Peace Union promotes Ecumenism
"In February 1914...Andrew Carnegie offered a gift of two million dollars for the peace work of the Churches, to be administered by a foundation, the Church Peace Union, especially created for the purpose and comprising representatives of the Protestant, Roman Catholic and Jewish bodies. The Secretary of the new foundation was one of the leaders of the Federal Council [of Churches] Dr. Frederick Lynch, a prominent figure in the ecumenical movement during the war years." [Rouse 513]
1915 - British-Israel Elim Foursquare Gospel Alliance founded by Welsh Revival convert, George Jeffrys
"[Aime Semple] McPherson affirmed the beliefs of an evangelistic association called the Elim Foursquare Gospel Alliance, founded by George Jeffrys in Ireland in 1915. She had worked with Jeffrys previously. The Elim Foursquare Gospel was headed by Jeffreys and his brother, two of England's greatest evangelists. The Gospel Alliance embraced the same central beliefs that Aimee upheld in her own Foursquare Church." [Lawrence]
"Another name which will always be high on the
honor roll of Pentecostal Evangelists and Churchmen of Britain is that of the
Late Principal George Jeffreys. He was the founder of the Elim Pentecostal
Movement of Britain, comparable to The Foursquare Pentecostal Church of America,
and subsequently the Bible Pattern Church Fellowship. No man in modern times, up
to the time of
Billy Graham, ever spoke to larger crowds than did this great evangelist. He
filled the greatest halls and auditoriums in Britain. Upon his death tributes
came from all over, especially among Pentecostal leaders, praising this man as
an outstanding evangelist and church man.
"What is of significance to Kingdom believers is that Jeffreys was a strong
and committed believer in our
Israel identity. He gave strong witness to this truth all through his
ministry. Students who attended the Bible College, which his church started,
were told the truth on the matter." [Restoration]
1916-18 - Liberal Catholic Church established and controlled by Theosophists
"Established in England in 1916 through a reorganization of the former Old Catholic Church, the new movement quickly spread to other countries and in 1918 adopted its distinctive name, The Liberal Catholic Church. Its episcopal succession is derived from the Old Catholic Church of Holland..." [Alban]
"In 1916, [Charles Leadbeater] accepted a Bishopric in the Liberal Catholic Church...in 1713 the majority of the Dutch clergy refused to acknowledge a papal bull condemning Jansenism and consequently left the Catholic Church,... They formed the 'Old Catholic Church,' and it was Gerard Gul, the Old Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht, who in 1908 consecrated Arnold Mathew... It was through Mathew that Leadbeater of the Theosophical Society obtained his Bishopric. For Mathew's tiny church soon seceded from the Dutch Old Catholics, and by the beginning of the First World War had become seriously infected the Theosophy. The responsibility for this state of affairs was that of James Wedgwood, who had in his youth been a devout Anglo-Catholic,...From 1911-13 he had acted as General Secretary of the Theosophical Society in England. But in the latter year the longing for the priesthood overcame him, and Mathew was persuaded to ordain him. By 1916 Wedgwood was a Bishop, and he set sail for Sydney... where he ordained Leadbeater. The control of the little church thenceforward rested securely in the hands of the Theosophist;..." [Webb 103,130]
1917, February 17 - England/Zionist Activities
"England had become the center of Zionist activities, and in February 1917, negotiations with the British Government officially convened. Meetings were between [Baron Edmond Day], Rothschild, Bentwich, Cohen-Gaster, Sacher, Right Honourable Herbert Samuel, Chaim Weizman, Nahum Sokolow, Sir Mark Sukes and M. George Picot." [Graham 68]
"It was England that gave Zionism the movement to revive a Jewish state, its first political nourishment. It was England that lobbied the league of nations for a mandate to govern the new colony of Palestine, England that appointed a Jew to oversee the mandate, England that tried to help the Zionists in the face of American indifference, England that condemned Hitler's racism." [Loftus 21]
"...The Foreign Office appointed a Jew, Sir Herbert Samuel as British High Commissioner of Palestine." [Loftus 33]
1917 - Balfour Declaration drafted by Lord Milner of the Rhodes' Round Table
"After 4 centuries of Ottoman rule...the land [of Palestine] was taken in 1917 by Britain, which in the Balfour Declaration of that year pledged to support a Jewish national homeland there, as foreseen by the Zionists." [World Almanac 788]
"'His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people...' Thus wrote the head of the British Foreign Office, Arthur James Balfour, a former Prime Minister and native Scot, on November 2, 1917. Abba Eban calls the Balfour Declaration, which opened the way for the creation of Israel, 'the authentic turning point in Jewish political history.'" [Bruce 178]
"This declaration, which is always known as the Balfour Declaration, should rather be called 'the Milner Declaration,' since Milner was the actual draftsman and was apparently, its chief supporter in the War Cabinet. This fact was not made public until 21 July 1936. At that time Ormsby-Gore, speaking for the government in Commons, said, 'The draft as originally put up by Lord Balfour was not the final draft approved by the War Cabinet. The particular draft assented to by the War Cabinet and afterwards by the Allied Governments and by the United States. . .and finally embodied in the Mandate, happens to have been drafted by Lord Milner. The actual final draft had to be issued in the name of the Foreign Secretary, but the actual draftsman was Lord Milner." [Quigley 169]
1919 - British Royal Institute of International Affairs [RIIA] founded at Paris Peace Conference by Milner Round Table Group
"...[The Milner Group] founded the British Empire periodical The Round Table in 1910, and this remains the mouthpiece of the Group; it has been the most powerful single influence in All Souls, Balliol, and New Colleges at Oxford for more than a generation; it has controlled The Times for more than fifty years. . .it publicized the idea of and the name 'British Commonwealth of Nations' in the period 1908-1918; it was the chief influence in Lloyd George's war administration in 1917-1919 and dominated the British delegation to the Peace Conference of 1919; it had a great deal to do with the League of Nations and of the system of mandates; it founded the Royal Institute of International Affairs in 1919 and still controls it; it was one of the chief influences on British policy toward Ireland, Palestine, and India in the period 1917-1945; it was a very important influence on the policy of appeasement of Germany during the years 1920-40; and it controlled and still controls, to a very considerable extent, the sources and the writing of the history of British and Imperial and foreign policy since the Boer War." [Quigley 5]
"The British Round Table group served at the conference as advisers to Prime Minister David Lloyd George. [The real behind- the-scene experts at the Paris conference included M. (Georges) Mandel (real name Jereboam Rothschild) (France), Phillip Sassoon (1888-1939) (England) and Bernard Baruch (U.S.).] Beer was named head of the Mandate Department of the League of Nations as soon as it was established. Beer was also one of the originators of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London and its American branch, The Council on Foreign Relations. Thomas W. Lamont, Isaiah Bowman, George Louis Beer and Whitney H. Shepardson approached Robert Cecil about planning a strategy for future joint ventures. They arranged for a party for fifty at the Hotel Majestic in Paris on May 30. 1919. At Paris the Royal Institute for International Affairs was created after WWI." [Samuelson]
1919-1920 - Rockefeller creates ecumenical missions societies
"A careful steward [John D. Jr.] Rockefeller sought efficiency and economy through consolidation of missionary endeavor and other aspects of Christian activity. He used his influence and his money to make Christian outreach cost-effective by initiating such breathtaking schemes to redeem a global society as the Inter-Church World Movement of 1919 through 1920 and the Layman's Foreign Missions Inquiry of 1930-32. In the end he ceased contributing to denominational projects, restricting his stewardship to consolidated efforts." [Eliade 296]
1920, August 12-20 - Geneva Preparatory Conference on Faith and Order
"The Commission of the Protestant Episcopal Church...decided to invite all cooperating Committees and Commissions to send three delegates each to Geneva 'to decide what subjects should be prepared for the World Conference [on Faith and Order]'. In response there