Dawkins Sets up Kids Camp to Groom Atheists

How sad the author of the God Delusion will start messing with kids’ minds now, too. See announcement below. I have always felt that atheists are just one step away from becoming gnostics, if they could just get over the hump of their anger toward the Christian Church that they feel has so wronged them.  They look at the Catholic Church’s many mistakes over the centuries and either obsess or gloat over them all the while forgetting that the Roman Church is not Christianity. It’s a fine line between agnosticism and gnosticism, methinks. If only they understood that yes, their scepticism is healthy, but so is a luminous spiritual life. Howabout a little bit of both for these kids — and their parents?  Sheesh.
+Katia

————

DAWKINS SETS UP KIDS CAMP TO GROOM ATHEISTS

By Lois Rogers
The Sunday Times
June 28, 2009

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6591236.ece

Give Richard Dawkins a child for a week’s summer camp and he will try to give you an atheist for life.

The author of The God Delusion is helping to launch Britain’s first summer retreat for non-believers, where children will have lessons in evolution and sing along to John Lennon’s Imagine.

The five-day camp in Somerset (motto: “It’s beyond belief”) is for children aged eight to 17 and will rival traditional faith-based breaks run by the Scouts and church groups.

Budding atheists will be given lessons to arm themselves in the ways of rational scepticism. There will be sessions in moral philosophy and evolutionary biology along with more conventional pursuits such as trekking and tug-of-war. There will also be a £10 prize for the child who can disprove the existence of the mythical unicorn.

Instead of singing Kumbiya and other campfire favourites, they will sit around the embers belting out “Imagine there’s no heaven . . . and no religion too”.

Dawkins, who is subsidising the camp, said it was designed to “encourage children to think for themselves, sceptically and rationally”. All 24 places at the retreat, which runs from July 27-31, have been taken.

Afternoons will be filled with familiar camp activities such as canoeing and swimming but the mornings will be spent debunking phenomena such as crop circles and telepathy.

 

* * * * * * * *

I sent this to my gnostic Archbishop (the bishop who consecrated me) and he wrote back:

“Woe to you (Pharisees)!  Ye search the entire world for converts and make them twice the children of hell that ye are.”  Yeshua paraphrased.

Consecrated to the Episcopate

Thank you to all who have sent their congratulations and blessings on my consecration to the Episcopate (being made a bishop). It took place on Trinity Sunday, June 7, 2009, at the Chapel of Saint Sophia in New Jersey with family and friends in attendance. My eleven year old daughter even held the prayer book for the Archbishop. It was a wonderful thing, I am still “floating” so to speak, buoyed by the Holy Spirit.

Archbishop Christian Umberger, XP here crowns (aka “miters”) me with the miter near the end of the rite. The miter symbolizes the flames of the holy spirit, Divine Sophia, that descended and settled on the heads of the apostles at Pentecost. You can see my crosier and even my new bishop’s ring in the photo.  I wish you could see the detail of my bishop’s ring because it matches the Cathar stele monument symbol at Montsegur.

archbishopmiterskatiacropped19271

I took the ecclesiastical name +Sophia-Katarina.

Here we are outside the Chapel after the consecration

archbishopandbishop06072009

Archbishop Christian-Thomas (Umberger) and I along with others founded a semi-Gnostic Catharist early Christian style seminary for those wanting to pursue Holy Orders with Apostolic Succession.  Come study with us as a seminarian, or if you can’t, perhaps join in the discussions here at the Seminary forum.

Peace…!

+Sophia-Katarina

Today is Saint Sarah’s Feastday

 
Festival of 3 Marie's ProcessionMargaret Starbird wrote:

May 23 is when the little town of Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer begins to celebrate the festival of St. Sarah the Egyptian and the three Maries… (Mary Magdalene, Mary Jacobi and Mary Salomé) who allegedly arrived on the shore in “a boat with no oars” in c.AD 42…. apparently (according to French legend) bringing with them the Holy Grail and the “good news” of Christianity in their hearts (though it had yet to be written!)

The townspeople escort St. Sarah’s statue, dressed in seven layers of beautiful gowns created by tribes of Gypsy women, to the sea. Gypsy men on white horses carry the statue on a platform and stand in the waves while the crowd signs hymns and shouts “Vive Ste Sarah!”–

There are several suggestions as to why Sarah is black: she is “Egyptian” (i.e. born in Egypt), she is obscure (allegedly the maid-servant of the Maries, “just like Cinderella”) or, the one I consider most probably, she is a “hidden” offspring of the lineage of King David, whose heirs, “once white as milk, are now black as soot. They are not recognized in the streets” (Lamentations 4:7-8)… The bearers of that royal line are now political refugees in a foreign land…hoping to evade notice of the Romans who might seek to destroy them (as they did other relatives of Jesus in the first century). There is only one child on the boat in the French legends–and her name “Sarah” means “princess” in Hebrew.

Who do we say she is?

peace and light,
Margaret

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Professor Mary Ann Beavis posted in with this intriguing connection:

I say that she's Kali-Sarah, the christianized goddess of the Romany,
originally from India (hence, the veneration of the dark goddess Kali).
Mary Ann
* * * * * * * * * * * * *

I then asked Margaret what legend is it where we see the little princess Sarah in the boat with no oars.

Scroll down below St Sarah’s picture and read Margaret’s answer…

Sarah the black the Egyptian

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Hi, Katia,

Today, May 24, is Saint Sarah’s actual feast day.

The legends about St. Sarah stem from an long-standing oral tradition and have several variations. They were not available in any extant written form until after the Inquisition was securely entrenched in Southern France, so our chances of hearing the complete and unabridged story of St. Sarah are slim and none. Jacobus Voragine’s Golden Legend names “Marcelle” as the servant of Martha (Mary Magdalene’s sister), who travelled with the other refugees from Jerusalem in the boat with no oars. But at St. Maries de la Mer, this “serving girl” is called “St. Sarah”–based on legends apparently indigenous to the area. One late version of the story says that Sarah the Egyptian (also called Sarah the Black) was an gypsy queen who welcomed the refugees to France when they arrived, but since the gypsies themselves didn’t show up in Europe until the 14th century, that account can’t be the true version.

Wikipedia has a piece on St. Sarah here.

And here is the Golden Legend section on the topic.

and this blog entry called Celebrating with Saint Sarah has interesting info:

Marie's Arriving with Grail boat with no oars FranceHere’s my story (longer version is published in my “Goddess in the Gospels.” While my husband was the district engineer in Nashville, TN, we were invited to go out dinner with a group French mayors and their wives who were visiting. At the time, I was totally immersed in “Grail” research and found myself sitting next to a French woman who was the wife of one of the deputy mayors. I asked her about the early Christians on the shores of France and she lit up like a torch…. she had been to all the shrines of the Black Madonnas and to St. Maries de la Mer and knew all the “lore.” She told me about St. Sarah, and when I asked who she was, Madame Capolla told me that Sarah was “the little girl on the boat” with Mary Magdalene and Martha and Lazarus and the others who came from Jerusalem. When I got home I looked up “Sarah” in my concordance and discovered that it means “Princess.”

Madame C. later mailed me several pamphlets and booklets from the shrines and Stes Maries, including pictures of St. Sarah dressed in her beautiful organdy and brocade dresses (piled on top of one another). The parallels with Cinderella (another princess from a far away land who is alleged to be the servant of her relatives) are obvious, along with the quote I provided from Lamentations about the faces of the heirs of King David, “now black as soot.”—

I personally think this story was so dangerous in the Middle Ages that it was couched in symbolism and told as a myth or legend. The “fossil” left for evidence is the title “Sarah” (princess) given to the child/servant (whom Voragine names “Marcelle”–but then, Voragine was a Roman Catholic bishop, so perhaps he was providing deliberate misinformation in his Magdalene story (most of which reads like pure fiction anyhow!).

peace and light,
Margaret
“The Woman with the Alabaster Jar”
www.margaretstarbird.net

Mary posted:
>….My research has told me that The Mothers of Arles Festival is held on the 24th ( from Juno Covella and The White Goddess) or this
> festival is celebrated from May 24-28th (The Grandmother of Time, Z. Budapest). I am curious to know how the 23rd of May fits in?
> Did you get this date from another text or have you visited Arles to see it taking place today?

________________

I have been to Les Saintes-Maries-da-la-Mer for the festival of Saint
Sarah and the “Maries” —which begins on the evening of the 23rd of
May with music and street dancing. Gypsies and tourists flock to the
town to celebrate the “vigil” of the festival. The 24th (today) is the
actual feast of St. Sarah, whose statue is kept in the crypt of the
basilica. A local bishop says high Mass in the basilica (“Our Lady of
the Sea”) in her honor, and then Sarah’s statue, bedecked in fabulous
finery, is taken from the church and escorted to the sea. Tomorrow (25
May) is the feast of the “Maries.” Their replica of two women with
covered chalices standing in a blue boat is lowered from it’s position
above the altar and is escorted to the sea, similar to the Sarah
parade and ceremony on the 24th. I’m not sure how this folk festival
ties in with other ancient “Goddess” celebrations, but I wouldn’t be
surprised if it did! Syncretism of ancient goddesses of love and
fertility abounds in the region: Isis, Juno, Cybele, Venus, Diana et alia.

peace and well-being,
Margaret

Jehovah Unmasked, Audacious Heretic Females, etc.

Here’s the link to Jehovah Unmasked: The True Identity of the Bible-God Revealed.  Such an eye-opener: describes the Key of Gnosis that Jesus came to give us, solves the Problem of Evil, shows the role of women in the early church as priests and bishops, Magdalene as Yeshua’s spouse and teaching partner, Sophia in the Old Testament, is a primer on REAL gnosticism, not that world-loathing flesh-hating gnosticism you have read about.  

Jehovah Unmasked’s main premise is that the nasty, vengeful people-killing god in the Old Testament, “Jehovah” is not the loving God-the-Father Jesus came from. He is really Satan and/or the Demiurge especially when he sends “lying spirits of God to deceive the people” thru his prophets, and so forth.  Half the time the Old Testament god is really Satan or Ialdobaoth, not the benevolent non-violent God who is All-Mother Sophia’s other half. Jesus himself told us this world is ruled by the Prince of Darkness and remember that’s why Satan had the “authority” to test Jesus and try to break him down — because Jesus had come to Satan’s turf to try to rescue (“save”) us. More about the good god and bad god all confused with one another at the link above. (Yes, it IS dualism, but it’s a good read and I like it, so there).


A verse the author quotes about everything making sense when we realize which I like:
“I am now at Home, spiritually, though I remain a pilgrim and a stranger in this world.” (Hebrews 11:13)

The author points out the fact that so many Westerners leave Christianity for reconstructed pagan religions, Eastern religions like Buddhism, Zen or Meditation / Vedanta from India.  He says:  “There is no reason to jettison your culture and embrace foreign religions to find spiritual Reality.  Gnostic Christianity is the inward, esoteric, mystical spirituality that so many Westerners are seeking in Far Eastern religions.  You can find spiritual Reality in the midst of Christianity.”

Here is a short excerpt from the chapter entitled, GOD THE MOTHER

The Gnostic Christians took both God the Mother and God the Father into their hearts, and knew the fullness of Health or “Soteria,” and so should you. Translating “Soteria” as “salvation” usually obscures the real meaning, which is Health.  See Strong’s Greek Lexicon #4991.  “For the Jerusalem Above is free, and She is our Mother.”  Galations 4:26.  
….

Its quite plain these “church fathers” were full of themselves and … had real power and used it to suppress all feminine descriptions of the Divine as well as to suppress women in general.  … This quote from the so-called “father of the Latin Church,” Tertullian (155-230 A.D.), serves as an example:  “These heretical females! How uppity they are! Lacking any modesty they’re audacious enough to heal the sick, debate, catechize, exorcize and possibly even baptize!” (From “On Prescription Against Heretics“) 

There is a lot of info in this book like that and all so nicely presented, easy to read, I flew thru the book and I am a very busy woman. Hah. Jehovah Unmasked is only $15.24 at Amazon here and you can read inside the book.  The Table of Contents with its chapter titles is interesting in itself.   

…Just call me one of those audacious heretic females.  Sheesh.

Katia

Skull, Red Egg, Chakras and Magdalene

Scott Hutton over at the GoddessChristians forum last week posted these interesting observations about the red egg, skull and Magdalene.
I read – whether in his forum or one of his books I can’t say – a most fecund
sharing of Tau Malachi, to wit:

The red egg and the skull that are so often associated with the Magdalene?
Without interfering with the other attributes out there, he suggests: the red
egg points to the first chakra, where in most of us lies the sleeping kundalini
princess will awaken; the skull points one not to death but to the seventh
chakra, where dwells the Awakener. The mystic marriage of these two occurs, of
course, in the fourth chakra, the sacred bridal chamber where the two combine.

I merely share the jotting. I have little to say about it, except to note the
thinking on it leads one to some sublime perceptions indeed. As I’ve been
wearing the Magdalene mysteries medal for some weeks, I am often reminded of
these symbols. Synchronistically, to my immediate right at my computer keyboard
for several years has been a crystal skull (full of rainbows) and a blood red
egg shaped naga eye crystal from Thailand. For at least two years I’ve been
wondering what on earth they’re doing there, and why did it seem so in
appropriate to move them.

Early this week, reading Tau Malachi’s words, I understood.

I tell you, if we just give it half a chance, life can be grand.

All be well,

Scott

* * * * * * * * *
Katia here:  I have been contemplating this chakra connection to the symbols of the egg and skull. The Sacred Marriage and the Bridal Chamber sacrament of Gnosticism are so intriguing. The Gospel of Philip is a good place to see the Gnostic sacraments explained.  Explained is too strong a word… the sacraments are pointed to, hinted at, and in some cases symbolically explained in the Gospel of Philip.  The Bridal Chamber is the ultimate Sacrament in Gnosticism and I sure wish I fully understood it… <grin>  
I like the idea of the marriage of mind and body, head and heart.
The skull representing Awakening and the Awakener is very satisfying.  Not sure about the red egg and sexuality… gotta think about that one.  Hee hee.
Katia

New Book Unveils the Mystery of Divine Birth

cultofdivinebirthMargaret Starbird posted to our Goddesschristians forum about this brand new book (being released tomorrow according to Amazon):

Here’s the url for Marguerite Rigoglioso’s amazing study of the cult of Divine Birth:

http://cultofdivinebirth.com 

NEW BOOK UNVEILS THE MYSTERY OF DIVINE BIRTH

Palgrave Macmillan announces the release of the groundbreaking new book The Cult of Divine Birth in Ancient Greece by Marguerite Rigoglioso. 

Greek religion is filled with strange sexual artifacts–stories of mortal women’s couplings with gods, rituals like the basilinna’s “marriage” to Dionysus, beliefs in the impregnating power of snakes and deities, and more. In this provocative study, Marguerite Rigoglioso suggests these are remnants of an early Greek cult of divine birth, not unlike that of Egypt. Scouring myth, legend, and history from a female-oriented perspective, she argues that many in the highest echelons of Greek civilization believed non-ordinary conception was the only means possible of bringing forth true leaders, and that special virgin priestesshoods were dedicated to this practice. Her book adds a unique perspective to our understanding of antiquity, and has significant implications for the study of Christianity and other religions in which divine birth claims are central. 

The Cult of Divine Birth in Ancient Greece may be ordered on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Palgrave Macmillan. 

___________

pax,
Margaret

The day they/we & negativity killed our god

Be sure to follow along on our Easter Cycle page…
Templars especially should treat this day with solemnity, fasting if possible, the wearing of black, the keeping of silence as far as possible.  I like to stop and hold silence when the 9th hour comes along — 3 p.m.
Remember the god they killed today, he’s ours.   And remember how our egos kill our god-self every day, every hour when we let them take over our consciousness, rule our mind.
Because of this holiday, freedom is at hand, freedom from the “little death” as the scriptures say! (the many little deaths we suffer as we navigate thru this maze of life with this chattering in our head “killing off” our consciousness and direct uplink to the Divine).  
In Memory of Him (& the Higher us),
Katia

Growing Up Without the Goddess

I just posted this review on Amazon of Sandra Pope’s page-turner Growing Up Without the Goddess: A Journey through Sexual Abuse to the Sacred Embrace of Mary Magdalene
At last this story gets to be told

I was so engrossed in Growing Up Without the Goddess that at times I became detached from reality, as though I was in an alternate world — which, when I forced myself to put down the book, I realized I was — Sandra Pope’s world! Her story is BEYOND riveting; it is soul-bonding. 
This author, with her hypnotic, almost mythical writing style, peels back the layers of human nature and expresses it so profoundly that you just can’t stop reading. I literally couldn’t tear my eyes away from the page waiting for the next thing to happen. And this is a true story! Truth is more exhilarating than fiction. It reads like a combination of The Secret Life of Bees and Rich Man, Poor Man. 
It is healing to read this book. The author says it was healing to write it. You will enter her world and hold it in your heart. 
If you have your own embracing the Sacred Feminine story, you must read Growing Up Without the Goddess, find your voice, and write YOUR story. It needs to be told, needs to enter human consciousness in these significant times, just like this book…

If you are a daughter, or have daughters, or both, you MUST experience this book. By the way, as I wrote the second to the last line I was thinking of many of you who have Growing Up Without Goddess stories. Write your life people, join your stories to this growing movement started by brave and beautiful Sandra Pope.  I mean it, her book reads like a combination of Rich Man, Poor Man and The Secret Life of Bees.  I don’t read many stories or autobiographies, preferring non-story, non-fiction type of “documentary” books. But Growing Up Without Goddess…. wow, I gave up sleep for it, and the time flew… 3, 4, then 5 o’clock in the morning and still I was there.  Oh hey!, one of the surreal parts of Sandra’s book for me personally is when Joan Norton showed up in the story. How can this be?, asked my subconscious mind woozy on the power of the story.  Sandra’s tale is otherworldly, how can a “real” person like Joan whom I’ve met “in the flesh” be here, talking, holding her pen, using her kind penetrative eyes to look at our heroine.  It actually freaked me out in a “spiritual experience” kind of way. That’s how mythically, hypnotically, Sandra weaves her words. You gotta read it… you will never be the same. 
(And pssst, our GoddessChristians forum is mentioned at the very end. Just by being here, you are a pioneering member of the awakening to the Sacred Feminine movement!)

–Katia

Magdalene Sacred Feminine class forming Atlanta Unity Church

A new friend is hosting an exciting Divine Feminine class in the Atlanta metro area. It will meet in the Atlanta Unity Church starting April 7. Wish I lived nearby, it sounds so cool!

14 Steps to Awaken the Sacred Feminine

14 Steps to Awaken the Sacred Feminine: Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene…
Tuesday evenings for 14 weeks beginning April 7th from 7:30-9:00.

Atlanta Unity Church, 3597 Parkway Lane, Norcross, GA 30092.

Please join us for this weekly gathering based on the newly released book by Margaret Starbird and Joan Norton.

Come be immersed in the archetype of the sacred feminine known as “history’s most misunderstood woman.” Through reflection, meditation, and journaling you will experience the awakening of your inner sacred feminine in this expanding path of women’s spirituality.

$16/wk Space is limited; pre-registration requested.

Facilitated by D’Ann Baldwin
Contact D’Ann @;newearthfeminine@gmail.com  678-644-9698

Feminism, Gnosticism & Roman Church Teach Body is Bad. Also Montsegur, Ides of March, & More

Here is my 25 minute Sunday talk on everything from Montsegur Eve to the Ides of March, Cleopatra and Julius Caesar in a sacred marriage to our topic, How Gnosticism influenced Feminism and the Roman Church into believing the body and the material world — and therefore sex — are bad, corrupt, dirty. 

Click here to listen (27 minutes)

Come back to this page when you’re done listening and then play the video below for our closing hymn, Ave Maria No Morro sung by Andrea Bocelli, the blind tenor of Tuscany with beautiful art slides of Mother Mary, our Christian Goddess.

And here’s an ethereal sounding Ave Maria No Morro sung by Klaus Meine of the rock band, Scorpions. 

Thanks to Margaret Starbird , Joan Norton and Jennifer Reif for the material for this “sermon” which includes a brief guided meditation from Joan and Margaret’s brand new book, 14 Steps to Awaken the Sacred Feminine: Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene.