On occasion I’ve been asked about my pseudonym “ParacelsusAsia”. For those who don’t know, Paracelsus was an early 16th Century healer, hermeticist and alchemist, altogether an extraordinarily gifted human being. It was Paracelsus who first introduced healing through the use of chemicals and minerals to Europe, producing what appeared to the credulous as miraculous or diabolically inspired cures. He publicly ridiculed the medical establishment of the day, based as it was on the Greek and Roman millennia-and-a-half-year-old notions.
The world had to wait over 2,000 years, until the 1850’s before the Galenic theory of the four humours was finally rejected by the medical profession. So you see, if it takes a mere 50 years for doctors to agree to wash their hands before surgery or prescribe penicillin, or adopt any other practice that saves lives, the profession is, for them, acting with lightning speed. Born in 1493 in Switzerland to minor nobility his real name was Philip von Hohenheim. He adopted the risibly hermetic name Phillipus Theostratus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim.
More briefly, to annoy the church and authorities of learning he styled himself Paracelsus, meaning greater or more than Celsus. Paracelsus travelled long and extensively throughout Europe, Russia, Egypt and the Near East gleaning knowledge wherever he found it, be it Sufis, dervishes, witches, gypsies or sorcerers. In Russia, captured by the Tartars, instead of being enslaved he became a great favourite of the Khan, who honoured such a free spirit. Coupled with the initial learning from his father in mining, chemistry and medicine, Paracelsus rejected the gloomy nonsense of Gnosticism, delving deeply into hermetics, the occult and astrology, along with his major discipline, alchemy.
He scorned the sillier notions permeating these schools, which he saw as allegoric and metaphorical aids toward truth. The Philosopher’s Stone turning lead into gold was patent absurdity, alchemy was for healing and self-enquiry, he felt. Unsurprisingly for his times, Paracelsus was often called the “Luther of physicians”. He also had a reputation for arrogance, scruffy dressing and as a tavern roisterer. He died young aged 48, poisoned some said by agents of the medical profession of the day. That Paracelsus escaped trial for heresy and death at the stake is in itself a remarkable achievement. The queue of bishops yearning to have him burnt to a crisp were legion. The reason he survived as long as he did can be put down to his way with a number of German princes and princelings, constituting the secular power of the Holy Roman Empire. The old adage “put not thy faith in Princes” is wise counsel. However, if you can cure their gout and piss off the local ArchBish at the same time, it seems they will at least make sure you know when to ‘scarper.
That I use a pseudonym based on this truly remarkable person, let me make it very clear, is not because I attribute to myself any of the qualities of this altogether admirable man. I do not. Quite the reverse, I am an utter stranger to most, if not all of them. No, the purpose is to honour such qualities and the man. Not to mention the service rendered humanity through healing, the gadfly debunking outworn beliefs and the ability to challenge yet survive going up against vested interests and working the system to the common good. All attributes our modern world cries out for. It is above all else, his instinctive iconoclasm and humanity that I seek to honour. Zeiting the Geist.... Agitprop Lives!Speaking of iconoclasm I came across a really splendid example of it the other day. A friend of mine handed me a CD entitled “Zeitgeist, the Movie”, she’d downloaded from the net, telling me I must watch it, “it really shows us what’s going”. It’s not another mish mash of conspiracy theories, is it? I ask. My friend who’s a good progressive type just commanded with a meaningful look, “Just watch it and you’ll see”.
And it’s true, I did. And, you should watch it too. It’s a film by someone called Peter Joseph about Christianity, the attacks of 9/11, and the Federal Reserve Bank, as well as a number of conspiracy theories related to these topics. It was released free online via Google Video and BitTorrent in June 2007 and a re-mastered version was screened as a global premiere in November at the 4th Annual Artivist Film Festival in Hollywood, where it won the award for Best Feature Documentary. Since then the movie has been translated into 24 languages, including Arabic, Russian, Chinese and Japanese. The movie has already been downloaded by 10 million people and with millions more watching copies and upward of 100,000 hits on the movie’s website every day, it’s turning into a cultural phenomenon. The film is the latest bit of guerilla media to take the online universe by storm.
Clocking in at over two hours long it’s a weird and compelling concoction purporting to tell the real truth about Christianity and how its been used to control us, 9/11 and the cabal of international bankers. So disturbing and so vivid is the picture drawn it’s starting to cause real fear and anxiety in all sorts of ordinary law abiding folk in the US. You know, the ones in opinion polls who say that there’s something wrong with the country and where it’s headed but can’t really say quite what? “I couldn’t sleep at night after watching it”, is a common reaction. It seems to have touched a deep nerve in the national psyche. Zeitgeist intends to shock, and it succeeds. Says, Jay Kinney ex-Editor of the sadly missed “Gnosis” magazine,” it’s a powerful and fast-acting dose of agitprop. Like most propaganda, it doesn’t play fair with its audience. Watching it I felt like Malcolm McDowell in Clockwork Orange: eyes pried wide open watching a bombardment of quick-cut atrocity and war clips.”
For conspiracy buffs it’s pretty much standard fare. Notions that most religions were adapted from earlier forms of sun worship have been floating around since the late 1700’s. The movie quotes Tom Paine reducing Christianity to a kind of updated Sun worship may have got the godly in a terrible tizz back then, but its hardly news today. Numerous writers from Robert Graves to Joseph Campbell have amply shown the similarities and the huge debts Judaeo/Christianity owes to earlier dead gods. That religion is misused by people, not just the state, is surely a given. As for 9/11 being an inside job, that one’s done the rounds. The movie raises the various questions about the Pentagon crash and claims to show that a timed internal explosion was the only way the Twin Towers could have collapsed in on themselves in the way they did. That there are questions still unanswered about 9/11 is a very good point. It doesn’t warrant the conclusions this movie draw though, at least not yet... The nefarious International Banking meme has been doing the rounds since the mid-1800’s and has actually long been a mainstay of radical right wing circles, where it’s often coupled with theories of Jewish plans for world domination.
The pedigree of this film doesn’t allow it to go there, there’s no mention of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion for example, and villainous bankers mentioned are all WASPs. The concluding part of the movie explores the idea that powerful bankers through the Federal Reserve Bank are conspiring to take over the world by establishing World Government. They advance the cause and make yet more money by engineering wars, abrogating our laws and freedoms through fear of evil enemies, keeping us in thrall and in debt as consumer wage slaves, periodically destroying any wealth we may accrue by bringing down the financial system of the day. We are already watched night and day on CCTV and the future will finally arrive when all human beings will have a micro chip embedded in their bodies. But don’t worry, after all the mayhem, the movie finally concludes with quotes from Carl Sagan and Ram Das to the effect that once we wake up to what’s being done to us, LOVE will save the day. The reason this movie is of interest, and why you should watch it, is the emotional jolt it provides. God knows there are plenty of legitimate questions about 9/11, just as there are plenty of shady doings in international finance, not to mention weird aspects of religious history. And what’s coming down in the name of US National Security is truly worrying. Bundling it all together in this way maximizes the shock at the expense of truth, though. But that’s the point and what’s needed to shock us into what’s going on in the corridors of power. Sparing a thought to taking a hand in our own destinies, not using debt and removing oneself as far as possible from direct control by the state is something we should all to well to ponder.
However flawed this movie, and it is, the maker himself states “It is my hope that Viewers will not take what is said in the film as the truth….they should find it out for themselves”. Amen to that….
