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Book XVIII - The Assault of Materialism


© Copyright Peter Crawford 2017

King David
Archon Demiurge
It had long been the ambition of the rebellious Archon Demiurge to destroy the noble race created by the ineffable, ever-living Æons.
To begin with he encouraged his 'chosen people' to conduct genocidal war on all those weaker than themselves, and in this way they were able to take possession of the land of Canaan.
He then gave his people Kings (even although he always maintained that he was their sole sovereign monarch), and promised the 'kings' of his 'chosen people' all other kingdoms and empires of the earth for their successors.
Mount Seir 
But although his people were 'chosen', and guided by the Archon Demiurge, they were weak and ill-formed - they had no culture; no civilization - only the laws that the Archon Demiurge had bound them with when he made his coercive 'covenant' with them on Mount Seir - centuries before.
They could steal land and cities from their neighbors in the beginning, but when they took up the pretensions of kingship and empire they were soon beaten down by the surrounding powers, who still retained much of the strength that had been infused into them by the  ineffable, ever-living Æons. (the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and Romans).
The Holy of Holies
The lot of the so-called 'chosen people' then became defeat and captivity.
But the Archon Demiurge managed to keep his hold over them, and even when the Temple had bee laid waste, and the sacred Ark had disappeared into the mists of history, they still managed to build in new temple (once again in the style of their current conquerors - (the Hellenes) - but it had an empty Holy of Holies, and there was no presence of the שכינה - Shekinah to savor the squeals and bellowing of the sacrificed animals, or the smell of blood, or the scent of smoke arising from the burnt offerings.
And then the ultimate disaster - the destruction of Herod's temple by the Romans, and the Diaspora -  (διασπορά - תְּפוּצָה - 'scattering or dispersion').
Destruction of Herod's Temple
Following the 1st century Great Revolt and the 2nd century Simon Bar Kochba revolt, the destruction of Judaea exerted a decisive influence upon the Jewish people, both those in Israel and those who were dispersed throughout the world. One of the most significant changes was the shift of the center of religious authority from the Temple Priesthood to Rabbis.
But out of this disaster the  Archon Demiurge had created a new strategy.
From the ruins of Judaism he caused to arise a new 'religion' - a 'religion' that would captivate not only his 'chosen people'.
This 'religion' would also captivate the descendants of the noble race, as well as members of the lesser races created by widespread  'miscegenation'.
This religion was specifically designed to create a culture of submission and passivity - a religion of love and forgiveness - very different to the aggressive doctrines of the 'chosen people' - who were repeatedly encouraged to destroy the enemies of the Archon Demiurge (Yaweh).
And so the 'noble race' would become emasculated, and easy prey for the the 'chosen people' who were now everywhere in their midst.
The Archon Demiurge, however, once again, in his pride, had miscalculated.
The 'noble race' were not easily cowed by this 'religion of love', and seeing the people of the Demiurge infiltrating and corrupting their civilization they, like the Greeks and the Romans before them, (both members of the 'noble race'), struck back.
The so called Christians proved to be far from 'meek and mild' - and the so called 'chosen race' was unable to advance the strategies of the Archon Demiurge.
And so things remained for some considerable time - with the 'chosen people' living as best they could, as money lenders and traders, with no homeland and no culture - 'strangers in a strange land'.
During the Middle Ages the 'chosen people', at various times, were expelled from a number of European 'Christian' kingdoms, although they were, to some degree tolerated in the Muslim Ottoman realms - where the Archon Demiurge was already working on his other 'new' religion - Islam.
With the dawning of the Renaissance the intelligentsia, and upper classes of Christian societies, under the influence of the revival of the ancient wisdom of the ineffable, ever-living Æons, (whom they took to be the gods and goddesses of the ancient world (Egyptians, Greeks and Romans), gradually became only superficially Christian.
This, however, was no advantage to the 'chosen people'.
The early and Medieval Christians had branded the 'Chosen people' as 'Deicides' - because they were considered to have been responsible for killing Jesus (see  Matthew 27:24–25:) - and to the Christians, Jesus was not only a man, but also 'God'.
Jewish 'deicide' is a historic belief among Christians that Jewish people as a whole were responsible for the death of Jesus. The antisemitic slur "Christ-killer" was used by mobs to incite violence against Jews and contributed to many centuries of pogroms, the murder of Jews during the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, etc.
While this belief was never completely abandoned by the less well educated masses (particularly in backward states such as the Russian Empire), the intelligentsia, and upper classes were prepared to accept Jews, to a certain extent, particularly valuing them for their trading and financial skills, and throughout the Renaissance and Enlightenment 'court Jews' ('Hofjuden', as they were known in the Germanic states) became relatively commonplace.
This resulted in some Jews becoming socially mobile, and obtaining a relatively advanced education.
As time passed, Western Europe, under the continuing influence of the Enlightenment, embraced a degree of what we would now recognize as industrialization, and with the development of more complex societies, the more able members of the 'chosen people' found their academic abilities highly valued.
It was not long before many of the newly evolved 'professions' contained many members of this Jewish 'intelligentsia'.
This was particularly evident in the more advances states such as the German kingdoms and principalities, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
שטעטל‎ - Shtetl
© Copyright Peter Crawford 2017
Wappen des österreichischen Reiches
Such Jews had moved far away from the שטעטל - 'Shtetl' - ruled with an iron fist by the Torah, and the Rabbi - and had joined the skeptical and literate society of the great cities.
Shtetlekh (Yiddish: שטעטל‎ - shtetl (singular) - שטעטלעך, shtetlekh - (were small towns with large Jewish populations, which existed in Central and Eastern Europe.
Not all the Jews who moved from the villages and small towns became doctors, lawyers and schoolteachers, however. 
Many lived in restricted communities in great cities such as Warsaw, Budapest, Vienna and Berlin - but their influence was very limited.
Gustav Mahler
The Jews that mattered, however, infiltrated all aspects of central European culture - although some moved as far from the Shtetl as the United Kingdom (one became a British prime Minister - Disraeli).
There was still, however, the problem of 'religion'.
Europe was, in the 19th Century, nominally 'Christian' (whether Catholic or Protestant), and in order to scale the heights of the establishment - in the arts, politics or science, it became necessary for Jews to shed their religion.
And this many of them did - or if they did not actually 'shed' it, then they left it behind, and so from the time of Baruch Spinoza (1632–77), and his “agnostic morality”, came the belief of the human sense of morality through education and family life, not religious morality.
Sigmund Freud
Secular Jewish art and culture flourished between 1870 and the Second World War, with 18,000 titles in Yiddish, and thousands more in Hebrew and European languages, along with hundreds of plays and theatre productions, movies, and other art forms.
Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka
and Marcel Proust rank among the creators of these works, and this number includes  Sigmund Freud, Gustav Mahler, Marc Chagall, Henri Bergson, Heinrich Heine, Albert Einstein, Theodor Herzl, Louis Brandeis, Micha Josef Berdyczewski, Hayim Nahman Bialik, Karl Marx, Boris Pasternak, Bernie Sanders, Dave Rubin and Carl Sagan.

But not only did the religion of Judaism fall into decline  as time progressed - but also the 'Christian' religion
Also, on the periphery, many Muslims, living under the domination of Western imperial powers threw in their lot with Western culture, leaving behind what they saw as the outmoded faith and practice of Islam.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Most prominent and influential of the Muslims to embrace aspects of materialistic Western thought and culture was Ali Rıza oğlu Mustafa, later to be known as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
At this point the question may be posed as to what was actually happening.
It must be kept in mind that the Archon Demiurge - the mysterious and negative force that was moving in the shadows to manipulate the sentient beings on earth - was intent on destroying the influence of the ineffable Aeons, the servants of the ONE.
Any means was acceptable to the Demiurge to achieve this aim.
Religion, when men's minds had been simple, pliable and easy to bend to the Archon Demiurge's will was the most effective tool in the beginning - but the earth, by the nineteenth century, teemed with beings who appeared to have 'independent minds', and knowledge of their world.
They had become - to put it bluntly - educated !
So.... to mould them to the path, and the worship of the Demiurge, required a new 'faith'.
That 'faith' was the faith in materialism, positivism and science.
'Positivism' is a philosophical theory stating that certain (positive) knowledge is based on natural phenomena, and their properties and relations. Thus, information derived from sensory experience, interpreted through reason and logic, forms the exclusive source of all certain knowledge. 'Positivism' holds that valid knowledge ('certitude' or 'truth') is found only in this 'a posteriori' knowledge. 'Verified data' (positive facts) received from the senses are known as 'empirical evidence'; thus 'Positivism' is based on 'Empiricism'. 'Positivism' also holds that society, like the physical world, operates according to general laws. Introspective and intuitive knowledge is rejected, as are metaphysics. The modern sense of the approach was formulated in the early 19th century, and argued that, much as the physical world operates according to gravity and other absolute laws, so does society, and this view developed 'Positivism' into a secular 'Religion of Humanity'.
And to achieve this the 'Jewish' people were the easiest 'tool' to subvert.
Their 'faith' had been laid on them by the Demiurge, thousands of years before, as a legalistic, rigid and intellectual 'religion of the Book'.
The further step could therefore be achieved, to create an equally uncompromising, rigid belief in the supposed  reality of a 'materialistic science'.
Seeing the apparent benefits of technology, not only Jews, but many Gentiles abandoned their various faiths, and espoused 'materialism' as the 'way of the future'.
Lenin broods on the Future of the Proletariat
And now that technology (the technology of materialistic Positivism) could be used to further subvert traditional beliefs.
And that technology had dazzling 'benefits' - which made the promises of traditional beliefs - of 'pie in the sky after you die' - seem pathetic by comparison.
Materialism, particularly of a Marxist shade, saw the 'proletariat', (the vast majority, lumped together as 'workers'), as being 'exploited' by religion.
The  Demiurge cared little, however.
His 'religions' (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) had served, to some extent, their purpose, enslaving men for centuries - but now men could be enslaved by the glitter of material 'progress'.
Their 'pie in the sky' could then be 'buy now and pay later'
- a never ending, pointless pursuit of 'material' happiness.


Coronation of Tsar Nicholas II
Kaiser ilhelm II
And so the 'evil' plan was formed, to use technology to shatter religious faith, and much else besides.
While the European powers strutted on the stage of traditional pomp and ceremony, supposedly ruling newly formed states, (Italy and Germany), and ancient Empires, (Russia and Austria Hungary), and much in between, technology and 'rational' planning were creeping up on Europe, and much of the world, to release a storm the like of which no one could possibly imagine.
Some, however, as the conflict progressed, would see the carnage of the 'Great War' as a condemnation of 'materialism', and it's associated technology - and would turn, (perhaps reasonably), against the future promises of a 'materialist Eden' that was possibly on the horizon once the slaughter and destruction had apparently passed.
Industrialised Slaughter - 1914-1918
Industrialised Slaughter
It was these individuals - mostly in Europe who, horrified by the extent of the new and recent 'industrialised slaughter' then,  paradoxically, reacted by launching a new anti-materialistic revival.
The course of events occurring in the 'sentient worlds' is never a simple path in one direction - as the overarching 'otherworldly powers' - operating for both good or evil - are patently aware, and so those powers strove to control, in the case in question, the apparently contradictory responses to the events that occurred at the opening of the 20th Century.
And so, while 'materialism' blazed fourth as the possible new response to the events in the human psyche, as well as in the apparently physical 'reality' of the world, at the same time a profound resurgence of older, deeper interpretations of the 'reality of the world' once again emerged.
It should be understood, at this point, that the 'historical trends' repeat cyclically, but it is rarely the repeating of the same events, but occurs more in the form an ascending spiral, (analogous to the DNA spiral, or the spiral forms of galaxies), with similar events manifesting in new contexts, but with very similar underlying roots.




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