Ritus Sulphurium: The Darkest Mass - Part I

World history changed in one night

During the second half of the Middle Ages, long after the Dark Ages supposedly were to have ended, something sinister came across the land. Political and religious upheaval, the inquisitions, witch hunts, the Burning Times. In March of 1314, as the Grand Master of the Knights Templar was literally burning to death, he was said to have cursed the Monarchy and Church. Jacques de Molay swore vengeance! Somehow after the Templars were finished with their business in Jerusalem, they returned, massively expanded their membership, and became an incredible maritime/business/banking empire; a veritable breakaway international state! Many powerful people, including the King himself, were soon up to their eyeballs in debt to them. The Church, in particular it's own banking empire, apparently felt threatened. It's as though they found some type of lost secrets from the ancient world during their travels in the near east. The secrets of money?

de Molay swearing vengeance

Some of the revolutionary coalition mentioned throughout this whole piece were probably guilty of a whole lot of things! There are always two sides to a story, even though it's not popular today to say so. For example, written history charges the pagan Vikings with engaging in endless violent raids on Christian monasteries, forgetting that the Christians had first deliberately blocked most of their trade routes. Lets try to set aside most of the speculation of who may have been justified in their actions, or not, for now. This story is to answer the question of why the world is the way that it is today. This is the ultimate tale of the abused becoming the abuser. This is about how a small coalition of thoroughly defeated groups of people coalesced to conquer the world. There have always been those who will say that it's this group or that group; saying that it's "them" or it all goes back to "this group." Often, over the course of history, most of these are just small temporary coteries designed to fulfill one particular goal, and then disbanded.  However, in the bigger picture, it was only a very tiny segment of each victimized concern which participated from the beginning, and form the ruling families of today.

Satanism: From imagination to reality

The brutal oppression, show trials, tortures, and executions of people based on their imaginary allegiance to Satan took place between the years 1450 and 1750. The vast majority of these people had no connection to any sort've pagan tradition at all. Probably exactly ZERO of them were actually "Satanists," at least in the beginning of this. Many of those charged were done so based on economic, political, or some personal reason if truth be known. Up to 50,000 people were executed during this time, and countless others tortured. This is aside from other religious persecutions, such as the Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834) or the destruction of the Cathars and other protestant sects. The emerging revolutionary coalition must have been made up of an almost boundless number of religious, political, or economic concerns.... or even just the families of innocent people who were murdered by the symbiotic state-church structure! It may have been an old lady merely collecting herbs for some type of simple folk medicine!

The high point of the witch trials occurred between 1580 and 1630. The torture was immense! I suppose that I don't really need to delve into all of that, except to ponder that this occurred over fifteen generations! If they had started in 1722, then they would just be ending now. There were private entrepreneurs and opportunists who got into the act. When a government promotes something stupid, there will never be a lack of willing participants! One such group was the Vehmic Court in Westphalia, who hunted down and executed pagans. They could have just operated as paid assassins! They could murder someone and just say that the person was a witch or Devil worshiper, and it would then be okay. Another example, in approximately the year 1473, German Domincan Churchman Heinrich Kramer was appointed as the official inquisitor by the Archbishop of Salzburg. Henricus Inquisitor, as he was known, was responsible for the Tyrol, Salzburg, Bohemia, and Moravia. In other words, he was a paid thug put in charge of stopping the rise of the imaginary Satanic sects in those areas. He was going to "find them" whether they existed or not. He was just one of the many leaders of the inquisition across Europe for centuries! In 1487 he authored 'Malleus Maleficarum' ("Hammer of Witches"), a guide to witchcraft and how to interrogate people in order to get a confession out of them. The methods were so extreme that even some authorities of the day condemned it.

Three centuries of torture

The Spanish Inquisition was part of the larger Catholic Inquisition (or known simply as "The Inquisition"), as was the Roman, Portuguese, and other Inquisitions. These inquisitions very much included Protestant sects! Cathars, Waldensians, Spiritual Franciscans, the Hussites, and the Beguines were terrorized by the inquisitors. Any institution which could be thought of as competition to the Catholic Church, and later other dominant Protestant sects, had the screw put to them. It wasn't just the death toll, 50,000 over three centuries, as there were battles in World War II where 100,000 soldiers died in a single day. It was the aura of fear that existed over that time period, a dark cloud that just wouldn't go away. As is human nature, the fear eventually turns to anger. When the vast majority of history's conquerors finally defeated the targeted population, such as with the Roman Empire, the next step was to allow them to partake in its system and bring them into the fold. These religious zealots did not offer that at all! They just kept putting the screw to them! Even a bully in school, who wants smaller students' lunch money, is at least satiated if they hand it over to him. They're backed into a corner, but they're at least allowed a chance to get out of that corner if they cooperate. However, as stated, there was no end to the violent oppression, and anyone could be a victim if they weren't careful.

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