John Lanagan - January 18th, 2011

“You can become a Reiki master in three weekends.” –Lisa Oz, wife of Dr. Mehmet Oz

Perhaps it is not surprising Dr. Mehmet Oz, a key teacher in Rick Warren’s 52 week health-and-wellness Daniel Plan, has been influenced by occultist Emanuel Swedenborg. Although Swedenborg rejected the biblical Christ, and communed with familiar spirits, some of Swedenborg’s admirers have been culturally significant figures. At this point in his career, Dr. Mehmet Oz certainly qualifies as such.

Those who have either appreciated or followed Swedenborg’s theology have included Helen Keller, Johnny Appleseed, Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Carl Jung, Henry James Sr., the poet Robert Frost, and Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Swedenborg, who died in the 1700s, has been called the father of modern day spiritualism. It is likely Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill Wilson’s bondage to the spirit world began with his introduction to Swedenborg’s teachings. Despite erroneous claims he was a Christian, Wilson’s spirituality was one of seances, familiar spirits, and the Ouija board. [1]

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N.B. Swedenborg has been idolized by esoteric adherents since the 18th century. Masons tried to incorporate his methods for communication with spirits (e.g. the Philalèthes, Swedenborgian Rite, and the Illuminés d’Avignon), while Swedenborgian “theosophy” influenced such figures as William Blake, Charles Baudelaire, Honoré de Balzac, the mystic “Illuminist” movement of the 19th century, as well as the Martinist and Rosicrucian traditions. Swedenborgian adherents have also been to be attracted to millenarianism as well as Sabbatianism, and the so-called New Thought movement is rife with his teachings.

Chris White combines tenaciousness with a rare clarity of thought. Whether or not you agree with his opinions, his stance, or his motives, White’s particular brand of criticism is timely, perhaps even necessary.

I’ve never been involved with the so-called “truth movement.” My own awakening to the machinations of the elite occurred in the early 1990s. Michael Tsarion, Jordan Maxwell and David Icke weren’t around back then (perhaps Maxwell was; toiling in obscurity somewhere). I was reading Gary Allen’s None Dare Call it Conspiracy and William T. Still’s New World Order: The Ancient Plan of Secret Societies, while listening to Wild Bill Cooper’s ‘Hour of the Time’ on a cheap short wave radio – before Waco, before the OKC bombing, and a decade before 9/11. However, at the same time I was also into Robert Anton Wilson, Michael Howard’s The Occult Conspiracy, John White’s theories of an imminent Pole Shift, Richard Noone’s Ice: the Ultimate Disaster, anything and everything on Nostradamus, John Anthony West’s Serpent in the Sky: The High Wisdom of Ancient Egypt and a plethora of “hidden history” proponents. I took these various authors with a grain of salt; cautiously sceptical, until further investigation.

It’s the latter milieu that resonates with the material David Icke is known for: a curious and confusing fence-straddling which acknowledges the conspiratorial hidden hand of history while at the same time somewhat admiring much of its core doctrine.

Obvious to point out is the fact that knowledge is inherently neither good nor evil. However, from the Christian stance of Chris White, there are certain teachings – and the practical application thereof – which are disconcerting to say the least. Instead of flirting with, even promoting the doctrine found within the (Blavatsky/Bailey) theosophical strain of western esotericism, White feels, rather – as do I – that it should be discredited or shown for what it is.

The word “debunk” is an unsettling word. And for the true critical thinker it has long since become unpalatable. It immediately brings to mind argumentative and dogmatic sceptics; the high-horsed, self-professed know-it-alls; the Michael Shermers and James Randis of the world. And besides: a debunking can be construed as a ridiculing. Perhaps another title for the documentary would have been recommended. (Ironically, Michael Barkun – the academic conspiracy theory debunker – fittingly described Icke as a “New Age Conspiracist.”)

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David Icke Debunked

Peter Joseph is naive, and has been swayed by one after another “teacher.” In the first Zeitgeist - a Hegelian concept coined by Johann Gottfried Herder of the Bavarian Illuminati - he was obviously enamored with ‘Acharya S’ and her occult Theosophical “secret tradition” interpretation of ancient history. In ‘Addendum,’ he has found a few new (solution-oriented) gurus of the same ilk.

The one-time New Age Theosophical Christ-Maitreya, J. Krishnamurti — thrust upon the occult, Utopian socialist underground at the beginning of the 20th century by Theosophy head, Fabian socialist Annie Besant and pederast-Freemason, C.W. Leadbeater — begins and ends the film. For something that purports to espouse “a modern, non-superstitious based understanding” of the world, well, let’s just say that it is hypocritical and deceitful not to even identify the theosophical current throughout both films, or the outright socialism of the latest. Though Peter Joseph hasn’t admitted his Theosophical debt, at 1:35:37 he tips his hand by the obscure mention of “intellectual materialism” - a term used by Blavatsky herself in Lucifer magazine (also, see here for another theosophic source) - and touts the “true divinity” of Man (1:48:25). New Ager aka “economic hitman”-Perkins has experienced the seething energies of Lucifer as well. At 1:43:07 he talks of the bliss of connectedness and our “God spirit,” while an “Illumined” man makes a gesture with his hands of a triangle in front of the sun.

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via NewsWithViews, by Constance Cumbey:

Madame Blavatsky, Colonel Olcott, and William L. Q. Judge organized their “Theosophical Society” in New York City in the Year of Our Lord 1875. The first of this trio was a Russian ex-patriate adventuress. The two gentlemen were American lawyers. Olcott was reportedly a Civil War hero who had played a leading role in the investigation of the Lincoln murders. The purpose of the society was supposedly to study comparative religions. The occult (hidden) purpose was much deeper. Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky revealed to her followers before what that purpose was: to prepare the world to receive a new expected “messiah” by the name of “Maitreya.” “Maitreya” was also the name the Buddhists gave to their expected reincarnation of Buddha.

Annie Besant, the ex-wife of an Anglican clergyman took Blavatsky’s charge very seriously. She led “The First Annual Congress of the Federation of European Sections of the Theosophical Society. It was held in Amsterdam from June 19th through 21st, 1904. I am fortunate to own an original edition of its published proceedings. “FEDERATION OF EUROPEAN SECTIONS OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY: TRANSACTIOSNS FIRST ANNUAL CONGRESS: AMSTERDAM 1906.” I have had the book which I purchased back in the 1980s for the even then outrageous price of $95.00. It was marked “rare.” It is an indispensable volume in my research library.