Month: June 2016

Figure 1 Entrance to the Cathedral part of the “Palace of the Popes” at Avignon. Note the Dove of Peace

sitting on top of  the chopped off head of the  statute of the Saint guarding the doorway entrance.

“Where do we come from ?… We come from above where we live with the Peace Dove.”

Praying with Saints

My Grandmother, Alma May Calohan was, and still is,  a Protestant Saint. Looking backward and forward in things, I believe I have been praying with her for several hundred years now. But, I did not start thinking about it until her funeral. It was then our Methodist Minister at Crawford St. Methodist Church in Vicksburg, Ms called her this.  Just after my Grandfather married her they were flooded out of home in the great Cairo, Ill. flood early last century. The Calohan family of that time got in a railroad freight car and rode to Chicago, Ill where my grandfather could work for the Illinois Central Railroad. Because there was not enough money for five of us, my mother’s twin sister was put in a different car that went to Atlanta, Ga. The family never thought they would see Annabelle again. Later, when grandmother had died and mother was in her seventies, we made contact through the rest of the Calohans in Virginia with Annabelle’s son who was also working for the Corps of Engineers. He sent mother a nearly identical looking picture of her sister, also now in her seventies of his mother, her sister. My mother almost fainted.  Later they had a very tough time during this U.S. Economic Great Depression period. A devout Protestant Christian [ her side the Stophlets were Mennonites from Germany and my Grandfather’s side, the Calohan’s had been kicked out of Ireland by the Catholics and lived in colonial Virginia at a water mill site with the Indians.]
*see footnote on Calohan’s versus Harrells.
  She and my grandfather raised and educated my uncle and his sister in Chicago in Christianity and solid work ethics. My uncle started off selling vacuum cleaners door to door, won an athletic scholarship to the U. of Chicago and ended up getting one of the jobs as an exploration geologist in Texas, Miss, Louisiana, in the 1930s.

She prayed for me constantly as I was growing up in Vicksburg, first without a father, then with a step-father. After, I got a half scholarship to Vanderbilt and decided to go to graduate school, grandmother, mother, and my step-father Henry McKnight drove all the way to Nashville, TN to attend my graduation. I had asked my honors program advisor to write me a recommendation to attend UC Berkeley Math Graduate.  I had made all A’s in my math class. But I hadn’t done as well as two or three of the other’s studying mathematics and logic with Dr. Jonsson who was a student at Berkeley of the famous logician Afred Tarski. I watched as Dr. Jonsson, shook hands and talked to Grandmother. I don’t know what she said but she must have impressed him as a very kind and good person. Because, after the conversation he came over to me and said in awe” I will get right on it, you won’t have any trouble getting in there.”

After I finished my doctorate I returned to 3006 Drummond St. for the last time before she died. She and I sat on the sofa together for an hour without saying anything. I thanked her for her prayers and asked her to keep them up. After, returned to Washington DC a wandering looking for a job ex college football player and Federal Trade Commission Civil Service Employee and I meet at a Protestant Church Bible Study. He looked like St. Francis, and also Abraham Lincoln. To this day I believe he was Jesus in the flesh sent by God to talk and prayer with me. His soul and spirit inside of other people, a lot of times the poor, follows me around whatever city I live in. A few years later, there was a segment on 60 minutes about Mother Teresa and the New Pope John Paul II invited people to send them letters at the Vatican. I did this and received kind replies from both of them which I cherish to this day. After praying with Mother Teresa a while, she sent me copy of the famous prayer of St. Francis to pray with her. I have posted it as the beginning prayer for this prayer blog. As I prayed more with Mother Teresa I noticed that she began to look more and more like my grandmother Alms May.Also, the now almost Saint John Paul II said he was praying for my calling. It was about them I started trying to figure what this calling was, I determined it was to start the YHWH School of Christianity and help Protestants, Catholics, Jews to study contemplative prayer together online. Some ten years later I was invited to the Gordon-Conwell Seminary reenactment play of some of the events in the life of my other grandmother, Maria Hale Gordon. As I sat in the audience looking at the women college professor playing her I am sure I saw the same person again as Mother Teresa and my grandmother.

I will only list one more instance of praying with my grandmother as a Saint. But, there are many more. On this trip in Aix-France I was thinking about the prayers Mother Teresa[and my grandmother] and I had prayed for many times.  A small slight poor beggar women who looked very much like Mother Teresa and my grandmother prostrated herself in front of me, saying nothing, begging for money, everyone else in the crowd passed her by, but I thought of her saying, “Whenever you have seen me in the poor you have seen Jesus.” and dropped some French money in her hands. She looked at me as if to say, “I remember young pray for you, do you remember and pray for me?”  I thought, why did this happen now years after her death.  The next day I picked up the French newspapers and saw the headlines, “The Vatican just had a prayer mass yesterday glorifying the soul of Mother Teresa as a Saint.”

*The Harrell’s are more mysterious, based on the fact that this was a common name given to people in orphanages in England in the15,16th centuries they were probably debtors, retired explorers, pirates, or criminals helped to leave Britain by the Episcopalians.

Our Prayer Group YHWH School of Christianity believes in praying to Saints, but not to statues of Saints

(that would violate one of the Ten Commandments, the obedience to which form the

foundation of our whole Christian Jewish Spiritual practice).
It is alright to pray, meditate, and worship seed sounds in the Bible and other Holy Scriptures as names of God, words and letters as explained in the Prayer Calendar last year. This is called Nada Yoga or Mantra Yoga. Meaning in sound is more important and better to worship than images or photographs or dolls because faith comes from hearing [understanding] and understanding from the Word from God and of God and from seeing the Oneness [God] in it…Romans chapter 10. What is Divine Oneness? How do we define the Number One Divinely? The Name of God tells us.  It is Peace, Nonduality or always being aware and at One with God and your Self….like a recursive function or definition[term for a mathematical function that generates itself out of itself]. The Jewish Name of YHWH is a recursive function which contains the concept of how we define and add meaning to terms and words.  This sets it apart form the Names of God of other religions. In the Book of Creation, the Sefirah Yeztirah, the Name God used to start the process is YAH YHWH. YAH YAHWEH ELOHIM, YAH YAHWEH ADONAI, YAH YHWH YHWH. The Name YAH is a part of the Name YHWH. So when you meditate on the Name God YAH YHWH you are using a mathematical recursive function to project the sound through thought, but not speech, out into all of us. If you prefer to meditate on Bible verses instead of mantras you can meditate on the two verses  “I AM the Eternal God and underneath are the everlasting arms.” Genesis. and “Be still and know that I AM God.’ Psalms. These two Bibles verses were given by God to his two archangels Gabriel and Michael in order to help him start the process Be careful with these meditations and mantras, they are very powerful.

 See also the Mandukya Upanishad for a slightly less precise explanation of this. The Upanishad’s explanation is less precise because it define itself [the Self] in terms of itself, and not God and its self.

God our Father created the world out of God [His Son]. This is not anything for God is not a nothing. But, inside of God is nothingness and He creates, even now, using it. [this might be a good addition or revision to Genesis 1Chapter]. Fot it says this later in the Bible in the 1st Chapter of the Book of John. God knows God and God [not Him or Herself] knows Our Divine Self [God]. But, seed mantras, or idols or stone statues should not be made to be placed in temples or church. For this would suggest to people that these names live in the idols or statues. We do not eat food, whether it is the Eucharist or Prasad, dedicated to these statues or images of saints, or idols. Our food is Faith in God, which does not come from these substances but from knowledge of Him, His Son, and Their Holy Spirit indwelling already in us.

“All material objects change. They can’t be God for He or She is something in them that doesn’t change. Things that change include your body, your hands. One way to test whether things are material objects is to ask whether they may be taken or given to another. Another way is to ask whether they are subject.”
Matter is an object, subjects are you and I and God. God created the world out of something, but not out of material objects. He created it out of the nothingness inside Him or Her Self. But, what is it that doesn’t change? It is the subject or the subject and the object. If you have only one subject and one object, when the object is taken or given the ownership of it has to change if was truly given to you and the other person is try’s to get it back and you don’t want this. But, if you have two subjects you and God or you and another person and one object, when the object is taken or given the ownership may not change if the other person accuses you of stealing it and sues you to get it back.

That is why we need God or some type of higher power to tell us “Do not steal” because otherwise there isn’t as good an ethical reason not to. Hindu’s have a prayer mantra concerning the difference between subject person and object . “I have no father, no mother, only you Self.” But, Christians and Jews have a father and a mother, God and the self,  Which say both Yes and No to us, or No and Yes, not only Yes or only No [as the either or choice which is the basis of some metaphysics].

We are not the world, the world is nothing. God made the world out of the nothing inside of himself. but he made us who are not nothing, out of something. Himself and Herself.

So to consider a material object your body or an image of your body or another’s body ‘s God, when it isn’t is clearly illusion and not good theology or worship of God.  Part of this paragraph’s teaching, the part in quotes, is taken from some stories on Track 16 of the “The Yogi Portraits of Swami Vishnudevanada, an audio book available from iTunes.

In order to get enlightened, Christians and Jews need a God that teaches them not to worship idols as well as one teaching them Patanjali. @AndrewWHarrell May 10 2016

The sounds live[ even as images and bodies don’t] inside of the people meditating or even [if they are a Name of God] worshiping them.

We do not pray to the Saints as if they are specific deities [see the discussion of Buddhist deities in last years trip to Japan blog where we assert that there is no such thing as a specific deity or deities], But as Jesus told us to

pray and talk to them, as a friend.

1. MoreOne reason for meditating on specific deities as a Yogic Christian is to emplace in certain chakras so we can know God as a multipicity of parts in His Holy Spirit Indwelling in us.  When we do that however we have one general Chakra, the heart or maha world chakra that collects all the Saints and angels together.   And, we need to also keep in mind that “If you can’t find God in the human heart, then you can’t find him anywhere.  But, if you can find him there you can find Him anywhere..” While doing this. We might become idolators, like the HIndus, worshiping so many Gods no one person can keep track of them a

 Jesus Christ, however, is also a Saint, but not a multiplicity of them. He is our One God, the Second Person in the Trinity and we worship and pray to Him because of it. If you can’t find Him first in your own human heart, you need not go to Church and look there. The most wonderful miracle, as Mohammed Ali has said, is to be found, by God and others in your own heart.

The Saints live in heaven with God, but they are not our One God in Heaven who

We pray to.

possibility of Saints seeming to inhabiting  these statues, even though we are not supposed to request it or

pray for it, and thus end up worshiping the importance of these miracles.

Passover thought for discussion: “If the only way to be a Jew was to have a Jewish mother,

Then it would be impossible to convert anyone..”

Congratulations to  our prayer partner of the 1980s and 1990s Mother Teresa in

Getting elected a Saint. We also noted new revelations about the hidden friendship with

A women fellow epistomological friend of

our prayer partner and now Saint Pope John Paul II. No problems.

The revelations on the History channel

program “Hunting Hilter” about how the Dominicans and Jesuits in Spain helped this

world class  apocalytic devil to escape capture by the Allies in Berlin and go by submarine to Argentina are more troubling.

What became of the billions of dollars in foreign bank accounts [more money international bank accounts than anyone else in the world

at that time] his assistant Martin Borman had control of.

According to the program, this is the most important military intelligence mystery of the last century that still needs to be solve.

 One clue is Northern Spain, where the Israeli’s found Skorenzy.

They got him to help them assasinate an ex Nazi helping the Egyptians to develop nuclear weapons.

 The Jesuit and Dominicans International bank accounts would have been ideal means for these Nazi’s to launder

the cash until they could take over the northern countries in South America. This is where we think Hilter last plane trip took him.

From here he could have invaded us, the US,  years later from the South. Their methods of torture and interrogation were taught to the South American drug lords

by Hitler’s man in the south of France, KlausBarbie. Barbie was supposedly helping us catch Che Guerva, and was operating in Columbia and Ecuador well into the 1960s , This was probably with Borman’s financial help,  And, Borman would have been able to call on Skorenzy for special operations help,

 Their political drug lord hencemen in these countries they have already in effect done an invasion on us, not by using tanks, but

 by shipping tons of cocaine and other criminal 

drug activities into the criminal drug markets in our big cities?  Maybe, the present Pope as the current head of the International Order of Jesuits knows something about this?

Maybe President Obama has already asked him? 

If it gets into this, I can’t wait to see the next series of programs on the History Channel.

Thanks to my late cousin Margaret Owens’ daughter Patty Hoenig, executor of Peggy’s estate for praying with me  and keeping in contact

with me during this difficult

time for the family while it sorts things out in the Calohan oil business inheritances for the future,

I told Patty I wanted her to pray for me that I be a good representative to others of God’s Holy Spirit here on eartha asked her what she wanted me to pray for

Her.  She said quickly, Peace [Peace of Mind I assume she meant]!

How do we know when we have achieved happiness on this earth through Peace of Mind that doesn’t go away?

I heard one good explanation on the TV piece of a reporter’s Sunday Monday trip to talk to the Buddhist Prince of Bhutan.

The reporter asked him, “How do you define happiness.” The Prince answered “ You know you have happiness [through having blessed everlasting Peace of Mind] when you are content with what life gives you,

Every day. I would add here….”And, are pretty sure [hopeful] as well as also certain [faithful] it is always going to be that way.”

Thanks to my friend Maj. Heiman Cohn US Army retired for having several lunches together with me and giving me his book, Our Wondelful Life,  of his service for all of us during World II,. It is discussed further below in the photo blog travel section on Marseilles.  His family had a large farm growing up in the area south of Port Gibson, and owned a old rural farm and grocery store that is still operating and was featured on a Jackson TV station as a good place to eat in the area. He still drives a car and still is an excellent marksman, which he learned growing up in rural Mississippi and Army training In ROTC at LSU in the early 1940s  and in serivce later during the war. The book has a picture of the pearl-handled 45 caliber pistol with photos of his wife and family on each side of the handle grip which he used during World War II and still keeps with him in the house while managing a group of local apartment rental units.

I have posted some thoughts about Dr. Stephen Hawking’s wonderful PBS Series “How to Think Like a Genius at the http://www.yhwhschofchrist.org/discussionboard/index.cgi web site.
Why are we here?  How did we get here? What are we (What is Life)? are some of the questions considered.

I hear, after some enquiry, that our cousin and long time prayer partner Jonathan Harrell had an exciting mlssionary trip to China with a group from

Gordon College and also Gordon Conwell Seminary. I think they, the seminary came along, although I wasn’t able to get a confimation from him or them about this.

They visited Peking and Shanghai having our Gordon College President D. Michael Lindsey’s book “View from the Top: An Inside Look at How People in Power See and Look at

The World” translated in Chinese and available from Amazon in print and on Kindle.

They explained it further and discussed it iver there with some of the many new Christians in China. This is a very hopeful sign. I remember talking to my Methodist Minister in Vicksburg, Stuart Smith about his visit

There in the 1970s and about how it was illegal and dangerous at that time to distribute Bibles there.

Figure 2  Looking west from the ancient Pont de Gard Roman bridge along the Durance River

Figure 3 Looking East

Figure 4 The ancient bridge itself. It has an aqueduct on top of it which was the main water supply

for some of the cities in the whole area of Provence.

This trip was taken with AHI University Alumni partcipants, many with different religious beliefs

Than me, some very much the same:

Ronda Boyd and Pete Marcellus an architect and doctor from Brandon Missouri

Alyce a Don Peifer a retired hospital administrator from East Hampton, New York, NY

Nancy Silver, a retired nurse who lives in Ashville, South Carolina

Ken and Elizabeth Jacobs, from Lancaster Pennsylvania  Ken is a very active legal advisor to corporations

Marcia Paladino from Medina Ohio, a piano teacher and psychiatrist from Kansas City

Doreen Richter from Washington, North Carolina a long time single engine plane pilot and wife

Pat Brooks a lawyer and elected country administrator and his wife Mary Ames, Iowa

Dave Koplar and Karine Seigel from the San Diego, California area  (Oceanside, CA)

Our Travel Director was charlotte Adolfsson, born in Sweden now living in Aix and also possibly Marseille,

France.

Figure 5 A mural entitled “Banquet of the Nations” painted by a prisoner  for the guards room at 1939-1942

brick building internment facility, the “Camp de Mille.”

The book, “Memory of the Camp des Milles, 1939-1942 with

Photographs by Yves Jeanmougin, text, b y Rovert Mencherin, Angelina Gausnn, Olivier Lalieu, Atelier Novembre produced by the group Metamorphoses, sold at

The bookstore there and containing photgraphs, paintings and letters written by some of those artists, intellectuals,

Political prisoners of many different peoples and races interned in the camp and produced while they were living there

is an important record of it that you should read.

1919 Versailles Treaty brings the First World War to an end.

1922 Benito Mussolinni gains control of the Italian government.

1929 Wall Street stock exchange crash

1933 Adolph Hitler Chancellor of the Reich, Berlin

1933 First Nazi concentration camp

1935 Nurembery laws on German identity

1938 Annexation of Austria by Germany

1938 Agreements endorsing the dismantling of Czechoslovakia

1938 Night of the Broke Glass, a pogrom against Jews

1939 Fall of the Spanish Republic

1939 Invasion of Poland by Germany

1939 France declares war on Germany

What pictures do you think we might find hanging on the Cathedral walls inside of the now abandoned

Palace of the Popes?

If I had to decorate it now, many hundreds of years later, I would put the above mural.

Figure 6 Exterior view across the  Rhone river (which flows down to the South from the  hydrographic center of Europe,

While the Rhine flowing to the North and the Baltic

near the Glacier 3000 peaks in Switerland that our prayer group

visited in August 2014 and which the Durance flows into the city of Avignon and of the Palace of the Popes.

Timeline and excerpts from the book “The Knights Templar, from Glory to Tragedy”.

The first crusade in which there was the taking of Jerusalem 1096-1099

Baldwin I King of Jerusalem and formation of the crusader states (1110-1118)

Hugh de Payn and the foundation of the order “Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon” 1114-1115

Clarevau abbey is founded by St. Bernard, who was the highest authority in  France at the time 1115

The Council of Troves 1129, presided over by the Popes legate Cardinal d’Albano  in which the Church gradually

tried to free itself from the control of temporal powers.

Robert de Creon succeeds Hugh de Payn as Grand Master of the Knights 1136

These two Templars became the most powerful feudal lords who reigned over the countryside and dukedoms

along with the Kingdom of France.

The order of the Temple grows in Europe in the Anglo-Norman Kingdom and in Spain.

In 1146 Louis VII entrusted the Royal treasure to the crusaders.

In 1147 Louis VII, the Pope Eugene III and the German Emperor Conrad chaired the first assembly of what

Later came to be known as the Knights Templar and the

Christian Army headed for the Balkans and the Holy Land for the second crusade.

In 1149 Robert de Craon died but the order grew in financial properity and spread. Within a few decades it

Was to become the leading landowner  in Europe and the “banker of the West.”

Its basic structure proceeded from a series of “commanderies” or castle headquarters. In Provence there

Were the commanderies of Richerenches [founded in 1136], Ruou [established in 1155], Sainte-Eulalu du Larzac [established in 1140]

, and Montaunes at the foot of the Pyrenees.

These castle headquarters supervised Pilgrim routes and were main throughfare. They, the Templars were also

Establi1146 shed in Marseilles, guarding the port.

From 1120-1291, as a result of the crusades, the Knights moved more to the East, building a series of Templar fortresses there.

There was the siege of Damascus in July of 1148, the siege of Ascalon in 1153, the campaign in Egypt 1163-1187

From 1189-1191 there was the third crusade.

The King of England hesitated to attack Jerusalem in 1192 and signed a three year truce with Saladin.

1204 “The Army of the Fourth Crusade en route to the Holy Land to liberate Jerusalem for Rome, instead sacked Constantinople, even though it was a Christian city. Within three days they managed to destry a centuries’ worth of the most precious art the civilized world has to offer.” Nancy Goldstone, op. cit. below.

From 1217-1221 the Knights Templar participated in the fifth crusade led by Jean de Brienne King of Jerusalem and

King Andrew II of Hungary. They wanted to cut Egypt off from Palestine, hoping to force the Sultan of Egypt to exchange Jerusalem

For Damietta a city where the crusader fleet landed in May 1218.

As we begin to discuss below the torture and interrogation of the Knights Templars in the South of France by Philip IV King of France, and Pope Clement V it should be noted that the “Teutonic Knights”, brother crusaders of the Knights Templar,

had a history, also authorized by Popes of the time, of torturing their captives during the Baltic crusades.

From 1228-1229 there was a sixth crusade led by the German Emperor Frederic II.

And, from 1248-1254 there was a seventh crusade. The King of France Louis IX decided to participate in this during the

Summer of 1245 at the council of Lyon. He spent four years of his time  from 1250 to 1254 in the Holy Land.

1261  “The Greeks manage to recapture Constantinople forcing the last Latin Emperor Baldwin II to flee. Baldwin strike a bargain with Queen Joanna’s great-great-grandfather Charles of Anjou in which the ousted crusader ceded the principality of Achaia, on the western coast of Byzantium, to Charles in exchange for Charles’ help in his regaining his empire.” Nancy Goldstone, op.cit. below.

Somehow there is this idea propagated that the split between the Eastern (more mystical) Christian Church and the Western Latin Christianity [a greater split than the Great Schism to occur later between Rome and Avignon] is due to subtle differences in doctrinal teaching that Jesus and his Apostles never were aware of and you only learn after studying theology for a long time through help from teachers.  How can you claim that your doctrine is for the purpose of unifying everyone in Christ when it was instituted through warfare.

“We praise Your Name, Adonai El Shaddai, from Age to Age, you remain the same, by the power of Your Name you remain the same.” Amy Grant

This belief in the use of warfare to obtain one’s goals and not just to protect and survive attack from others only can follow from a belief in the ancient philosophy that things happen according to the order of those who do not believe in God’s existence : the order of “might makes right” and that it does not happen in the Divine order of the other way: “righteousness and God makes might.” There is a good historical basis for there being a long list of unjust war crimes going back to this crusading period and the several hundreds years before the Renaissance period and continuing afterwards up to the present time notably by the Nazi’s in World War II (if you assume they were allied with the Jesuits and Dominicans in Spain, also harbouring this same flawed philosophy handed down to them by people later to be mentioned and some Muslims in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East also harboured them after there defeat in 1945. As mentioned above the Latin army en-route to Jerusalem during the 4^thcrusade sacked Constantinople using military force in order to capture it for the west. This certainly did not help the long term future of a our One Church of All Believer’s in God and Christ and the Divine Truth which can co-exist in and with us and Them.

In 1270 there was an eighth crusade led by Louis IX.

And, in 1271-72 another minor crusade led by Edward I of England.

From 1286-1314 there was a rivalry between the Popes and King Philip IV of France.

By 1291 the Templar Order had ceased to exist in the Holy Land.

By 1293 the Order had retreated to Cyprus where it elected Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Temple.

1294  Charles the Lame awards the principality of Achaia (containing the city of Durazzo on the western coast of Albania) to his son Philip, prince of Taranto.

Philip starts planning to retake the capitol of the Latin Empire.

In 1305 Clement V is elected Pope.

Then things got even worse, for the Templars. In 1307 de Molay was arrested  at the gates of the Templar house in Paris by Philip IV’s Chancellor William de Nogaret.

Philip entrusted the task of interrogating de Molay and his fellow prisoners to his confessor William of Paris.

Clement V in Paris suspended the powers of William and assured them the protection of

himself and the administrative curia of the Church. The Knights became pawns in a power struggle

Between the Pope and the King of France.

Two days later the first confessions took place, These authorized confessions became in effect, the interrogation of one

hundred and thirty eight Knights Templar imprisoned in the dungeons of Paris.

They were accused of such crimes as “repudiation of the Holy Cross [even spitting on it]”, worship of idols and black cats,

Those who did not

Want to confess were subjected to such horrific torture that 38 of them died.

In 1309 Clement and the Papal court moved to  Avignon.

In 1310 fifty four of the remaining Templars on trial for heresy were pronounced guiltly and burnt at the stake.

In 1311  Council, with over 100 bishops from all over Europe,   was assembled in Vienne, a city on the Rhone river, 30 kilometers south of Lyon, in Southern France,

 with the purpose of the abolition of the order.

Excerpts from the book: “The Popes of Avignon, a Century in Exile” by Edwin Mullins

And “The Lady Queen by Nancy Goldstone

Popes of the Avignon period:

Clement V (1305-1314)

“An accommodating man who maintains harmony around him by demonstrating a flexible spirit [if you are to believe the blurb on his herbal tea mixture from the Palace’s bookstore… but you might want to study

his life further from the excepts of the above book as quoted below]. If God’s Holy Spirit helps us resurrect his soul to be with us in the next millennium, maybe this time he will

be more pardoning, demonstrating “Clemence” than when he tortured and burned at the stake the well-meaning, believing Crusader Christians as mentioned below.

The dried up herbs used to make up his tea are Linden, Milessa, Verbena, Centless Chamomie.

His papal seal is red and gold yellow, with three eight-spiked gold crowns on its top [not the three six-pointed type which would represent Satan according Saint John

The author of the Book of Revelations] over two, one gold and one white crossed sets

Of keys to heaven on its shoulders, then two gold crosses of each side of the center of a red and yellow shield, with two, one white

And one gold wheels with a red thread passing through them below that.”

Those who like to collect and meditate on different arrangements of rosary beads might want to contemplate how, when you live an ethical life, assume a good

Asana or yogic meditation positure, slow your mind down with

Breathing,   withdraw your mind from sense experiences, see the oneness of the Mind of God [the Christ] in each of us and all of us, contemplate how it is glorified

And sacnctified with God’s help in all of our souls and spirits, this represents

God’s Holy Spirit dwelling inside of all believers.  

“Early in the thirteenth century Avignon became the victim of an accident of feudal loyalties, The city

was on the losiing side of a bloodthirsty ideological struggle. The surrounding area was ceded to the Counts of

Toulouse, supporters of the Cathars. who believed that the World was not created by God alone, but by God

And the devil., hence the only people free of the stain of Satan were those who renounced all plesures of the

Flesh, these people were known as the perfecti or perfect ones., this doctrine eventually came to be seen as

Representing itself a diabolical threat to the orthodox faith. In the year 1187 Jerusalem fell to Saladin. Tolerance became

Seen as a sign of weakness. And the orthodox faith became the raft to which Christian leaders clung. In the new mood

Of vigilance Po[e Innocent II sent an envoy to the count of Toulouse to persuade him to act against the heretics.

Instead the papal envoy was murdered and in 1209 an army led by the Cistercian abbot of Citeaux supported by

Barons from northern France descended on the area and plundered it.”

View from the famous cliffs overlooking the harbor of Casses, the harbor of Marseilles is past this bay’s protruding land to the West.

John XXII(1316-1334)

1317  Pope John XII issues a papal bull from Avignon excommunicating “The Spirituals” [Michael Cesena, William of Ockham other Francisian monk and others] for among other things

criticizing his right to enrich himself, be a heretic and overly enjoy life and prosperity without setting a good example as a representative of God’s Holy Spirit on Earth

in the way of Jesus Christ, while he lived here and is still living here.

 He also excommunicates his rival Holy Roman Emperor and his anti-pope an Italian Nicholas V for opposing him. After this a Cisterian monk Fournier starts a long traditional of so-called “Grand Inquisitions” of the Cathars, which he conducted meticiously out of the Bishop’s Palace in Pamiers, much more of which unfortunately happened later to the Church.

Benedict XII(1334-1342)

“This pope began the hulk of the fortress which was to became known as the “Palace of Popes”. Unfortunately, the present Vatican Pope and his heirarchy, and even the current White House President, still has to be guarded by a lot of security forces and many natural and man made walls around it. However, they are not as cruel to people trying to approach them to discuss things and help them as those guarding Pope Benedict XII were and as Jesus Christ never was and never will be. This, of course, allowed the Pope, to issue life affecting judgments to his subjects through a series of intermediaries. and sub-numariaries that looking back on it was of a so-called but false hierarchical order of divine procession of our Christian Jewish Holy Spirit superseding itself while claiming to be ruling Heaven and Earth.

His signature herbal, sold at the Palace gift ship, is a delicious blend of  Nana Mint and Licorice.

For your meditations on Him, His signature Papal seal is red and gold and yellow and white. Like the others there are three eight pointed crowns on its head. It shoulder and the left and right lower parts of its shield are the same crossed, alternating white and gold, TeTra-GrammaTon keys [like for instance the different realizations of four by four intertwined rhythms of many of the verses in the Psalms]. There are also the two red scarfs with gold crosses and white Tzitlits [this tradition of knotted threads goes back to the Jewish prayer shawls, which every Jew, not just the Pope [who by the way also needs to be a Jew] wears]. Below the overall white shield of Abraham with a red border there are again the red cords threaded through the white and gold four by four Orphanim [wheeled angels in Ezekiel’s Biblical vision when he saw the Holy Spirit of God dwelling in us high and lifted up].

Clement VI (1342-1352)

According to the book by Mullins*, Clement’s morals seems to be dubious.  It is clear he lived a life of conspicuous consumption and luxury. using a huge dining hall  hung from floor to ceilings with tapestries. Paintings of Giovanetti.  And, Petrarch, whose father was a friend of the same Dante mentioned elsewhere in this blog, seems to have accused him of incestuous sexual intercourse with Cecile, the beautiful Countess of Turrene, in the Stag Room next to his bedroom in the Palace. And, the members of the Pope’s court. Even the cardinals were included who ran the Sacred College charged with the election of the new Pope. And conducted its financial affairs in the Chamber (or Camera) from which they collected taxes from all of the Christian world.  On the lower level the architect Jean de Louvres created one of the supreme masterpieces o of Gothic architecture…the Great Audience Hall, designed to house the judicial body known as unfortunately run by the same immoral cardinals mentioned about and known as the Court of Apostolic Causes. Above was placed,  a chapel made up of seven vaulted bays lit by tall bay windows and an “Indulgence” window in a “loggia[a balcony connecting and overlooking two spaces]” where the Pope would give blessings from.

Despite later upholding the rights of Jews in Avignon, Clement seems earlier to have let Andrew, Duke of Calabria down. Son of King Charles I of Hungary and Elizabeth of Poland Andrew was brutally murdered by a group of conspirators who some say where working for Andrew’s wife the French Queen Joanna of Naples and also landlord of the Pope’s Palace in Avignon.

When a Church [of many] which is supposed to represent God, does something to people or a person that God wouldn’t do. Then they need to leave that Church. This is one of the primary reasons we have many different Christian Churchs today on earth and not just one as the Catholic’s claim. There is One Church in heaven, but a lot of people won’t find out about it until they get there, dishonest to God Popes and women who murder their husband included. To say you love someone is to say you know whom you are loving. And, if you don’t tell you partner what is happening that you know about [like someone else or you are going to murder them or do them wrong], that is not loving them.

This, in my opinion, is one of the major causes of there being so many different Churchs of our One God, and His One Son. If in fact Clement did unfairly judge Joanna, in the sense of making a decision that God would not have,  but that helped himself, while claiming to be representing God. Its just another instance of a long line of contradictions to the case for their being a doctrine of Papal infallibility in the Church, when the actual truth is much different. One argument that is made for keeping it is that the Pope is only considered to be infallible when he is sitting in the judgement throne. But, this case is one in which Clement very much was sitting in judgement over what was to become in the future for both Andrew and Joanna’s whole lives up to that point and also beyond. I remember Pope John Paul II saying one time: “The purpose of life is the glory of God inside of the individual person.” Declaring single-handedly  and without a jury, someone to be innocent of murder who is not certainly does not help them or any of the rest of us achieve that. Someone, helping Hitler to be outside of justice from the rest of those of us whom he has harmed doesn’t help either.  The argument that this was done for a greater good in order to collect money for the church does not deserve to be mentioned. Is it possible that this is why it so much effort at the highest level of those claiming to be infallible is required to keep it secret? If this turns out to be the case, with the sorry record of recent Popes in obeying God’s word not to hide the truth maybe we can finally use these revelations to get rid of forever this theologically criminal doctrine that keeps good people enslaved in the sins of those falsely letting others believe them to be doing good for them, being a Good Shepherd to the faithful, when they are not.

Alexander Dumas in his book Celebrated Crimes (of the centuries) Vol. 1 gives the best written (with however a few historical details wrong as explained by Ms Goldstine), in my opinion treatment of the history of Andrew’s murder.  He names his sources for the details of the account at the end of his book: “Glannone, Summonte, Villani, Rainaldo, Palmieri, Collenuccio, Spondate, Gataro, and especially the Latin chronicle of Domenico Gravies, a contemporary writer.

Joanna’s grandfather King Robert a much beloved King of Naples had left his Kingdom to her in 1343. Andrew’s mother, Elizabeth, tried unsuccessfully to bribe Clement to reverse the coronation of Joanna and had to go back to Hungary when this failed. But, when Joanna fell ill in 1344 Andrew had released and knighted the Pippini brothers convicted earlier for murder,,rape, treason,  while attempting to overthrow the government in favor of the Hungarian faction.  At that time the possessions of these nobles had been given to others in this faction. These same nobles in the other faction then become allies of Joanna, in order to, some say murder him with her help and direction. She had plenty of motives concerning the protection of the State of Naples against these people, the fact that Andrew was supposedly not good looking and not as intelligent as her. And, she had opportunity in that she was in the next room to his and knew when he would be vulnerable to being overtaken by force. The means were these upset nobles. Many others in the country were of the opinion that Andrew would not be able to rule the country as well as her, this would have encouraged her to go through with the plot even more.

In 1346 Pope Clement in Avignon, Provence, France, dispatched a bull addressed to Bertram de Baux (see our discussion AHI’s visit to the castle of Baux, Provence, France below) directing him to proceed with the utmost rigor against Andrew’s murderers. There was however a secret note sent with the bull, expressly enjoining upon the lord justiciary in Baux to by no means allow the queen or the princes of the blood to be implicated.

After the murder, all the wretches who had taken a hand and the planning in Andrew’s death came forward to demand their blood money: Filippa, the Catanian, and her son, Donna Cancia indulged her passion for debauchery and the Empress of Constantinople called upon her nice to marry her son Robert, Prince of Tarento (a duchy of their (Andrew’s and Joanna’s Kingdom) on the Adriatic coast). However, as Ms Goldstine points out, the first actual assailant, Andrew’s chamberlain Tommasco Mambriciio was handed over by the Queen for punishment within 48 hours

 In her favor Joanna was only 22 when the murder happened, and two years earlier the women who raised her Phillipa the Catanian and Sancia of Majorica, former Queen of Naples a spiritual Francisian had been tortured by a political opponent Hugo count of Avellino in the harbor in front of all the city upon a monstrous rack.  When he was murdered Andrew had already been ruled King by the Pope but the official inauguration ceremony had not occurred. Had it, it would have been much more difficult to have him gotten rid of.

The beautiful Joanna was tried in the Palace for the murder but acquitted by Clement. who had a habit of appreciating the company of beautiful women. After acquitting her as presiding judge he presented her, as an admirer, with that masterpiece of the jeweler’s art the “Golden Rose.” A week after the trial Joanna who had been cohabiting in the Palace with her cousin Robert of Taranto gave birth to a son. Pope Clement agreed to be the “Godfather”.  Paradoxically Robert is at this time in league with Charles Duke of Durazzo [the ducy of Durazzo supported the Hungarian faction in palace politics for reasons explained earlier in our timeline by Philip of Durazzo’s vow to regain the capital of Latin Christianity after the fall of Constantinople. The long delay into the investigation of the murder had weakened the queen’s position.  And, the Durazzo brothers moved among the  populace spreading rumors that Joanna had been prevented form bringing Andrew’s murderers to justice by her cronies.. The fact that the main factions demanding justice for Prince Andrew were the main blood descendents of those sworn hundreds of years later to retake for what later became Eastern Orthodoxy, the control of the Papacy from the Latin world could not have been lost on the Pope when he decided to absolve her. If it was and if his soul is in heaven now looking back on it, and considering how seemingly impossible to reconcile the split between Eastern and Western Christianity has become. He can not be satisfied with the decision he made now…

 A short time after being tried and absolved by the papal court, Joanna agreed to sell the deed to her city to the man who had absolved her of any crime. “It was one of the most poignant moments in the history of Avignon, and of the papacy in general.

In 1346 the Black Plague arrives from China, where it originated, to the Black sea area to the Crimea area traveling along the silk road. The Mongol Golden Horde uses trebuchets [see picture in this blog] that they might have obtained from the Crusaders, to hurl the plague carrying dead bodies over the siege walls in the battle.

In 1347 a vessel from a Genovese trading post of Caffa arrives at the Sicilian port of Messina.

In three months of the black plague of 1348 brought by the rats on the ship, 62,000 bodies are  buried in Avignon and surrounding areas.

In1350 Charles of Durazzo leads an army of 5000 Hungarians against Naples and Queen Joanna.
Before this invasion, Andrew’s brother the King of Hungary had written a letter to Joanna, explaining the cause oft the invasion”

“Your former disorderly life, ” he wrote, ” and your assumption of exclusive power; your neglect to avenge the death of your husband upon his murderers, your subsequent marriage, and the very fact of your seeking to excuse yourself, are sufficient proofs that you were a party to the foul deed.”

According to Dumas, “The avenging army appeared with the suddenness of lightning in the very heart of the realm, the queen assembled the noblemen who were most loyal to her and fled to Marseilles on a Provincal galley.”

Two further outbreaks occurred during the remaining 30 years of Avignon papacy in 1361 and again in 1368. Each time killing between 10 and 20 percent of the population.

“The Church, traditionally so obsessed with the world’s sins, now found itself tarred by its own brush.”

Groups of flagellants from Lutherian Germany appeared in the city and began to blame the Jews.

Among others charges leveled against the Jews, in addition to causing the Black Plague, were usury or the lending of money which was forbidden from Biblical reasoning at the time.

Clement anticipating this outbreak of anti-Semitic behavior issued two bulls asserting the innocence of the Jews and forbidding all victimization of them on pain of excommunication.

It is estimated that a community of two-hundred Jewish families took advantage of papal protection to settle permantly in the area at that time.

As if predicted by Andrew’s brother’s letter to her, Joanna was to take one husband after another when she became queen after his death:  Jayme of Aragon (who died in 1375), son of the King of Majorca, and Otho, of Brunswick of the imperial house of Saxony.

Much later, in 1382, after another successful Hungarian invasion of Naples, Joanna was brought to the place below the window of the castle where Andrew’s body was hung in a silk and gold rope by Bertrand of d’Artois and thrown out and left to rot on the streets earlier [as asserted by Dumas’ source Villani or dutifully buried by Joanna in the Chapel of St. Louis inside of the Church in Naples a day later as explained by Ms Goldstine), shown a rope of silk and gold, and executed  by them, “Let God’s justice be done” she said before dying ( according to what Dumas says from his sources, but not assassinated secretly within the confines of the castle Muro as Ms Goldstine says from her book and Mr. Welbore Clair St. Baddeley says from his)

His [Clement’s]  herb tea is a blend of Linden, Verbena, Melissa, Rose, Mallow,

His papal seal is red, blue, and gold with crossed goal and white keys, and gold crosses like Clement VI’s, but the shield has a white background, with a blue diagonal sash

Going from the right shoulder of the shield to its left hip, in addition there are six red pentagons each with a  single gold star or dot inside of them on the shield.

Footnote: Andrew Duke of Calabria’s shield [see wikepedia article] has the gold symbol of an octopus network search like pattern overlaid on a strip of white. The octopus pattern covers all the ways a knight can move from a starting position on the chess board. Perhaps he had studied the game of chess invented in the 6^th century in India and which in the 13^thcentury the pawns were given the option of converting to pieces on the board of higher value if they reached the last rank, the opponent’s first, on the board . To the right of the four way gold cross pattern with four additional four-fold crosses inside of it [the octopus pattern referred to earlier] there is a series of red and white bars on the right and a blue background with fifteen gold Fleur de Lis, stylized lilies on the left.[ they at the same time, being, religious, political, dynastic, artistic, emblematic, images and symbols].

Innocent VI (1352-1362)

“In 1356, the English King Edward III defeats the numerically superior force of the French King John II, at Poitours, after the French repeat the folly of Agincourt of riding headlong into storm of arrows of the English long-bowmen. Seven months later the exceedingly weathly cardinals and members of the Papal court at Avignon were under attack. A new ring of hastily organized defenses proved insufficient and the Pope was forced to negotiate with the invaders in order to save the city from destruction. The treaty of Bretagny in 1360 led to the most destructive period France had experienced since the invasion by Normans and others in the ninth century. It is recorded that in 1361 about 17,000 people and nine cardinals. To those who had survived the Black  Death thirteen years earlier it must have seemed like the city was under a curse.”

Urban V(1362-1370)  Bartolomeo Pregnani, was a former subject of Queen Joanna, No Avignon Pope was more widely respected than Urban.. 500 years after his death he was canonized as a Saint.. He had a horror of living in luxury and lived most of his life as a cloistered monk.  He had a generous and profound love of learning and supported 1400 students at his own expense. He founded a college and monastery and placed it in the hands of Benedictines of Cluny. But, he was a wall builder, he built a series of 53 watch towers as well as twelve larger square towers, each protected by massive gates and drawbridges to protect the Palace. Even today they are some of the most awesome fortifications to survive in all of France. Looking back on it, as a Saint living in Heaven and also with those who pray with him on earth nowadays, I would think Urban must now regret all this care and money spent to build walls [ when it could have been more wisely spent on educating his people and attending to other needs than military security] and to protect the Papacy in Avignon, when after eight years later his Church would have to leave Avignon for Rome and even after returning there in 1370 leave again for good, no longer to have any  Popes housed and protected there again. And, considering that nowadays, thank goodness, military power and large castle walls are no longer considered as important to protect the Papacy as it used to be. For, as the Gospels and the Psalms tell us, King David and Jesus Christ Himself, doesn’t trust in horses and chariots, and never has and never will need walls built this high to this extent.

  Queen Joanna and Pope Urban did not get along. The Pope said one day in a fit of anger, that he would send her to spin in a convent. Queen Joanna, in revenge openly favored the claim of the “anti-pope” Clement VII and offered him shelter in her own castle when he fled pursued by Urban’s troops.

In April 30 1367 the Papal caravan of vessels and people as a fleet set sail from the Port of Marseilles.

By October the Vatican Palace was advanced enough in its construction to be occupied.

In 1368 lavish feast and festivals were laid on to welcome the nobles, the King, and Queen Joanna of Naples there.

She was presented another “Golden Rose” like the one Pope Clement VI had given her when she was pardoned from any involvedment in the murder of Prince Andrew.

1370  Pope Urban and the Papal court return to Avignon, after Charles V of France declared the annexation of Aquitaine [formerly which belong to England for two centuries] and the second stage of the Hundred Years War began. Two months later he was dead. The Papal College now incorporated a theological college of some distinction, while the papal library had 2000 manuscripts., among them rare Hebrew books, translations of Arabic works on mathematics and astronomy, and a wide representation of ancient classical and newer philosophy and poetry books. It thus became a center of humanism and a precursor of Renaissance humanism which was to flourish later.

Gregory XI (1370-1378)

The population of Avignon is now 30,000.. The Carmelites, Augustinians, and Cordeliers were three of the four new religious orders with new monasteries within the newly built walls of the city. Even, if Popes shouldn’t need walls because they are Jesus, it is perhaps another question whether monasteries should have them.

Not too many people realize that if they have God’s Holy Spirit indwelling inside of their bodies

They have the four archangels high and lifted up inside of all of creation, even all of Europe and

how His River of Eternal Life flows, during the religious liturgies of Easter and Passover (Easter first this year)

down the hydropgraphic center of this creation in Europe from in Heaven from the South (Gabriel)

and North (Michael) to the lower metaphysical levels

Of Divine creation and realization inside of the earthly realms of the East (Ariel) and the West (Raphael).

March 27, 1378 Pope Gregory the last of the Avignon Popes dies in Rome.

Fearful that the Papacy pass back to  Urban VI in Avignon, the sixteen cardinals of the Vatican in Rome declare Urban’s election void and elect Robert of Geneva, an Italian, who took the name Clement VII, as the new Pope and the “Great Schism” in the Catholic Church develops. as many of the cardinals in Rome appointed by Urban support the election of him. Catherine of Siena along with Bridget of Sweden’s daughter who happened to be in Rome were considered  to be sent to Queen Joanna as embassaries by Urban. But, it does not happen.

Also, in order to threaten the faciton in Sicily that supported this Urban insults Ambassidor Spinelli of Sciliy at a banquet. Queen Joanna is 52 and at the peak of her powers considers this a threat to her rule and reacts against it sending 64,000 florins of tribute to Rome and by ruling favorably on the legallity of the election in Rome under her civil powers.

1398 Benedict XIII is an anti-pope in Avignon, But., the French King and Cardinals have withdrawn their allegiance to him and are conducting a military siege.

1403 After a lengthly military siege, Benedict XIII, the last of the anti-popes finally leaves seriously damaged Avignon to begin his long nomadic exile.

Gregory XI’s papal seal is red and gold yellow, with three eight-spiked gold crowns on its top [not the three six-pointed type which would represent Satan according Saint John

The author of the Book of Revelations] over two, one gold and one white crossed sets

Of keys to heaven on its shoulders, then two gold crosses of each side of the center of a red and white and blue shield with six red pentagrams with six gold stars in them[same colours as ‘Old Glory’ the US flag shield, with two, one white. A gold star in a papal seal usually represents the Virgin Mary…[There is one in the current Pope Francis’ seal along with a spikenard or grape-like plant which represents St. Joseph]

And one gold wheels with a red thread passing through them below that.”

His herbal tea is a healthy [not as sweet as you would expect]blend of peppermint, star anise, and angelica dried herbs.

Figure 7  A Trebuchet, part of the traditional technology of warfare of the Middle ages and the  Renaissance

Jesus Christ has never used walls, horses, chariots [tanks] and artillery war weapons, but the Crusaders needed them. And, also our US Army along with the French, Italian, British Armies needs them for sure.

Pope Francis has given a very good reply to Donald Trump’s argument for walls. Mr. Trump said that the Pope should not criticize his proposal to build more walls. On our southern border to protect it against criminals and rapists. The reason he gave is that the Pope himself has walls around the Vatican in Rome. But, Francis said, “Anyone [including myself] who builds more walls than bridges is not Christian. It is in the Gospels.”

Jesus Christ does not use walls. But, the US Army needs them sometimes for its own defense. The question is does a country need them? The Pope is saying that if we want to be Christian we should not build any more than we need for self-defense.

Some Orthodox Jewish Prayer books have in them ancient Jewish prayer books saying we should be proud that we are “wall-builders”. If the current Jewish nation has to build

Walls to defend itself from terrorists I don’t think we should be proud of it and pray for more of it.

“The trebuchet was invented in the middle ages. A siege weapon it was designed to hurl heavy stones to breach the

Walls of enemy fortresses. The rotating beam held a slong carrying the projectile at one end, and two stone laden crates as counterweights

At the other end. The beam was swung sharply by lowwing the counterweights, releasing the projectile. The device had to

Be loaded by means of a hoist.  Standing50 feet tall was by no means an uncommon height for a trebuchet.”

Renaissance Engineers by Paulo Galluzzi

For some drawings by Taccola, a Renaissance engineer who designed these see the reference listed.

Figure 8  Another transportable medieval assault weapon

The mathematics necessary to improve the aiming of artillery siege weapons like these was not developed until

later in the Renaissance by Albert Einstein’s and my hero Galileo Galilee when he improved the accuracy of how to

measure time with better clocks. The more accurate measurement of time allowed experiments and discoveries

Based on empirical scientific methods.  But, Galileo also discovered fundamental new understandings of Archimede’s ancient

physics theories and Aristotle’s philosophy and theology of how things move under applied forces.

In 1974 I was hired to help Col. Bernard’s brother, ‘Chuck’ develop smart weapons technology

for the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps 8” and 16” [using a common round if possible] Cannon Launched Guided Projectiles. (CLGP).

It was his idea that the laser four quadrant detector signals which guidance the pursuit guidance algorithm could be made to work

better by encasing the electronics inside of its warhead in plastic hardened to withstand the 6 Gs of launch

force they experienced coming out of the firing tubes.  I went up to the Army’s Ballistic Research Lab at

Aberdeen MD to study the warhead effectiveness programs and wrote a report on the number of rounds necessary

to take out [demolish] hardened bunkers. The report also explained how to design  Ground Located Laser Designator (GLLD) when agents operating behind enemy lines illuminated

The targets so the smart round could guide in on them.

A couple of years, later, when I was no longer working at Dahlgren, I saw on TV where the Navy had recomissioned

A large World War II battleship with these 18” guns on it and been able to lob these huge shells, which weighed as much as a small car,

Over the city and surprise enemy terrorist leaders in a bunker overlooking

Lebanon’s capitol city. Looking back on it I am glad I took the job there working for the US Army instead of

just continuing my more abstract mathematical interests at a less stressful research, teaching job at Blackburg, VA or NYU at Stony Brook

 that I was also offered.

Figure 9 Photo taken, overlooking the strategic valley and passes, from the top of the crusader castle that guards the approaches to the roads through the area lat La Boux France

Figure 10Archeological site of the ancient Greek city of Glanum, just up the road from crusader castle at La Baux

Toward 600 BC the Greeks founded the city of Marseilles, which they called Phocea and settled in this are along with the Celts,

Ligurians, the Gauls. They, the Greeks, brought rice and olive trees to France.

125 BC The Romans are asked by the people of Marseille to march against the Gauls, they destry the Gallic city of Entremont and

found Aix-en-Provence (Aque Sextiae0.

90-60BC the South of France is gradually Romanized.

52BC Julius Caeser defeats Vereingetorix at the battle of Alesia.

49 BC He takes Marseille and a long period of peace (6 centuries) and monument building ensues

27BC Augustus is the first Roman Emperor

1^st century AD Augustus is succeeded by Tiberius, Caligula, Cladius, and Nero

towards 270 AD The first barbaric invasions occur and the period of Pax Romana ends, Glanum is abandoned.

Provence has been French only since 1481, when King  Rene built up Aix.

Roman ruins [under these ruins are some remains from the Greek period of 2^nd century AD] of Glanum consisting of a forum [group of religious and administrative buildings], the ‘geminated temples[ of the same shape]’, the Curia where the decurions or town councillors met, a fountain, the bascilica, residental areas,

The temple was made with Corinthian capitals,  built by the Son in Law and minister of Augustus, the first Roman Emperor,

one of these was dedicated to Queem Valetudo a name meaning health in Latin, the Shrine and Nymphea or deep pond used for religious

rites, public baths or ‘thermae’ where the citizens met to relax to relax and take care of their bodies. The Romans passed in the thermae from one

of three rooms to another, the first room was very hot (caldarium), the second (tepid), and the third cold.

Perhaps there was a healing center of Asclepius somewhere in the city (see discussion of dream healing below)?

Figure 11  photo taken from an overlook at Rousillon, France. All the small towns in this region of the South of France are made up

Of buildings that are a harmonious melange of yellows, oranges, browns, siennas, umbers, pinks and reds. The ground underneath the villages containsan ochre deposit,

Which supplies the pigments for the paints and stains used on the houses.

What does this picture remind me of ? It seems significant. After some contemplative prayer and meditation I came up with the thought, The Novel, “The Good Earth” about American missionaries in China by Pearl S. Buck.

It is a good story. and a good book. My father lived in China in the 1930s. I believe he was publishing an English language newspaper and living off and on with missionaries. The son of a famous Baptist missionary himself he became, not an atheist, but an agnostic. My mother and he were both working for the OSS in the New York in 1948 when I was born in the Tudor City area there in September of that year. She was a secretary for Mr. Teborg  Eckhart, a former Vice President of Hungary and relocated  Hungarian refugee. He, my father, was doing investigations of diplomats out of the basement of the New York City library. After my mother found out he had been previously married in Hawaii and never got a divorce, not telling her about it before the marriage, she took me back, when I was one year old, to Vicksburg, to live with her to my grandparents, We all lived in a small house at the base of Mullvihill St. off of my grandfather’s Illinois Central 50 year railway retirement of 168 dollars a month and the little money she made publishing a Mississippi farm magazine.

My uncle William F. Calohan was also to learn about “The Good Earth”. He was one of the few geologists graduating from the U. of Chicago in the 1930s. Became a national level college tennis star and went to Texas to do some of the first geological soundings of oil deposits in the South.  Workig for British Pertroleum out of Houston, he followed the ridge line starting at Mint Springs in the Vicksburg National Military Park northward and discovered the Tinsely fields north of the Redwood and Vicksburg areas. Later, working on his own, he was also to discover some other oil and gas fields in South Texas.

Figure 12  Actual photograph of Mt. St. Victoria alongside one of Cezzane’s paintings of it. Photograph of the painting was taken from the overlook above his atelier working studio

What is sacred art? And, how can it be used as medicine.  According to the article “Art as medicine.”
in Light of Consciousness a Journal of Spiritual Awakening.   When meditating on sacred art we should concentrate our thought on the polarities of color blue and green, red and yellow, black and white and the sacred geometry [circles, triangles, squares, cubes] object in it.

Our AHI Provence, Art of Living, trip itenerary:

Sunday March 6

Walked from the Adagio Hotel in Aix France, to attend a lecture in a historical home in the University District. It was by Claude Blanc: History of Provence .

Traced the regions storied history from its habitation by the ligurians, Celts, and Greeks through its conquest by the Romans.

After the lecture went on a walking tour up the Cours Mirabeau [declared by some ‘the most handsome street in France’] of Aix and had lunch at ‘Bastide di Cours.’

Saw the first of many views of the celbrated Fontaine de la Rotonde, which dominates the western entrance to the avenue.

Monday March 7

Met in front of the King Rene statute on the Cours Mirabeau

Walked to the Alliance Francaise School for first morning’s class on the French language., admired the wrought iron work above the entrance to the Town Hall

And visited thye elaborate Cathedrale St. Saviour where the tomb of the city Saint resides.

Dinner together at the ‘Le Petit Bout’

Tuesday March 8

Attended language class

In the morning, enjoyed a guided visit of the musee Granet. Housed in a 17^th century priory, this musuem contains collections of paintings and drawing by Picasso, Renoir,

Rembrant and Cezzane, among others. And a walking tour of the art and architecture of Aix.

In the afternoon attended a lecture on French Cuisine, its history and ionfluence on Provencal cooking.

Wednesday March 9

In the morning, visited the open air vegetable market in the town center to buy fresh product for the French coooking class where we learned the fundamentals of French cooking and preparing a main dish.

In the evening attended a lecture on Van Gogh, Cezanne, Gaugin, by Pamela Morton. While Cezanne was protraying his native surrounding landscapes, Van Gogh was

Drawing scenes in St. Remy and Arles.

Dinner at ‘La Mado’.restaurant across from the city court house and square where the guillotine was used in town during the French revolution.

Thursday March 10

Attended language class

Lunch at the ‘La Brocherie resturant.

Friday March 11

Attended language class

Lunch at the ‘La Brocherie resturant.

In the afternoons, p took an art and architecture walking tour to discover the many fountains and their stories that grace the squares

Private mansions, courtyards, and streets of Aix-en-Provence. The Romans who built a city here because of its strategic location and thermal springs, called their city

Aquae Sextiae. A modern thermal spa stands upon the Roman ruins, and fountains are everywhere.

A list of shops we visiited:

 1) Facetta Boucherie- 53 rue Esperiat

2) Puricard Chocolate, 11 Cours Mirabeau

3) Bechard Boulangerie/Patisserie, a bread and pastry shop 12 Cours Mirabeau

4) Farinoman bread making 5 rue Mignet

5) Charcuterie Serge Blanco 1 rue Mignet

6) Marcarons de Caroline 12 rue Montaigny

7) La Brulerie (coffee ,tea,hot chocolate) at the Place Richelme

8) Premier Pression Provence 23 rue Bedarrides

9) Fromagerie Savelli, cheese shop 9 rue de Marsellais

Thanks to its chestnut wrapping, it’s a creamier color, than most white Provençal goat’s cheeses, sometimes even dark bronze.

Its taste is very distinctive: earthy, woody and just a little tannic.

Picodon:
Picodon is a well-known regional cheese made in the Roan river region that has links to both Banon and St Marcellin and dates back in written accounts to 1320. It is one of the oldest goat’s cheeses in this part of France and its name comes from the French verb to prick or sting, a traditional reference to its piquant flavour. Picodon was granted AOC status in 1983.

Saturday March 12

Took another walking tour through Aix discovering where the locals shop, visited some of the markets, sampled and tasted food items.

Sunday March 13

Visited the Luberon, a picturesque mountain region dotted with lush forests and vineyars. first walking through the small town of Lsle sur la Sorgue, the continued on to the pretty hilltop towns of Gordes,  Roussillion, followed by a wine tasting at a winery. Noticed that all the small towns in this region of the South of France are made up

Of buildings that are a harmonious melange of yellows, oranges, browns, siennas, umbers, pinks and reds. The ground underneath the villages containsan ochre deposit,

Which supplies the ;igments for the paints and stains used on the houses.

Figure 13In the winter of 1895 Cezanne rented a set of apartments where he could contemplate from nearby and below Mt. St. Victorie. This is the first of a series of paintings at the overlook of Mt. St. Victoire by Cezanne. Notice that Cezanne always liked to use the same few sets of two contrasting colors.. As mentioned elsewhere in the blog “We come from above, where we live with the Peace Dove [St.Mary]. But, we spend our lives trying to understand how to help God, help us climb back to the mountaintop from whence we came. In this photo there are contrasting colours of

Blue and ochre, red and green, white and black.  He painted the mountain with strokes flowing rom East to West,  maybe because it slopes that way. The colours are those of the ‘Good Earth’ which we have discussed in the blog above and the polarities of color are referred to in the article “Art as Medicine” referenced above. The objects of sacred geometry in this paint of a mountain are the triangle form of the mountain, the cylindrical form of the trees, the cube form of any house he put in the painting as he saw that, looking deeply at what was around him and contemplated and meditated and realized things about it.

Monday  March 14

Morning, French language lessons continued.

Afternoon, visited Cezannes well-preserved studio or atelier which he made walks up the hill to from his house in the city below. We then continued

Up the hill to take in the veiew of majestic Mont Sainte Victoire,  perhaps his favorite landscape subject, at an overlook of the whole city area below and

The mountain in the distance.  For a serious student of impressionistic art, these series of paintings should be compared with the 37 views of Mr. Fuji and

The Hakone-Izu National Park around by the famous Japanese artist Katsushita Hokusai who died in 1849 and may have well influenced Cezanne who lived somewhat

later[see the amateur theological and philosophical discussion of these in our November blog posting of an AHI trip to Tokyo, Kyoto, and other inland Japanese areas.

Tuesday March 15

Morning French language classs

Wednesday March 16

Journeyed to Arles, a town filled with extraordinary monuments and Roman ruins. The ancient amphitheater there testifies to Roman power and is still used to stage bullfights there.

Took a walking tour of the Old Town in the cold rain and mistral wind blowing down from Switzerland. We all caught nasty colds, even our guide Charlotta who wasn’t with us that day.

Thursday March 17

Morning French language classs.

Afternoon, Went to a local wine merchants store to discuss wine and cheese central elements of the French diet. Cheeses were paired with complimentary wines that enhance their flover profiles.

Friday March 18

Morning French language class

Saturday March 19

Rented a car and travelled with my friend Ken Jacobs to the crusader castle at La Baux and the nearby Roman Greek archeological site  Glanum.

Sunday March 20

The the morning our group drove in a small bus to Cassis,. A small harbor town with a beautiful overlook of the ocean area around Marseilles.

Then, we travelled to visit Marseille during Palm Sunday.  Ascended to the top of the hill driving between the cities three different marathon race runners carrying palm branches to enjoy panoramic vies of the city from the Notre Dame de la Ga4rde Cathedral the highest point of the city.

Afterwards, enjoyed the local flavor at a fine restaurant in the city.

Figure 14 Another two paintings with a different interpretative view of his impressions of the same mountain by Cezanne.. In Cezanne landscapes paintings he emphasizes the geometric

Shapes and colours, sphere, cylinder, cone, no lines are used only natural colourse, the trees are made up of different shades of green. In creating the

Paintings he put down (chose) the colours first, then the shapes…blue sky, blue mountain. The natural limestone is gray, but due to the light onit it is blue.

The white canvas is virgin, out of it the whites are speaking. 1/3 of the painting is the mountain, 2/3 the landscape around it.

Notice that there is crust on the upper part of the mountain. Cezanne wanted to ‘interogate’ the mountain by looking at it from all angles, all times of the day, all seasons. But, his, Cezanne’s, paintings are timeless, there is no season (no snow in the painting), no time of day. The trees also are all evergreen

Monday, March 21

Morning French language class

Tuesday,, March 22

Morning, French language class

Afternoon, final cooking class at the Atelier des Chefs where we prepared a tradional French menu

Fasting and Contemplative Prayer

A good book I discovered just this year over at the Rainbow Coop in Jackson, MS for longer fasts is “The Master Cleanser” Original Edition by Stanley Burroughs. He recommends eight glasses of water with one-half lemon in them and and two tablespoons of pure maple syrup every day…and nothing else until you lose the weight. One of the great advantages of this method to others if you are already stretching and jogging five days or week is you will find you have plenty of energy to continue this.  And, this helps the weight loss a lot.  Since you don’t feel the need to quit exercising and rest [usually while eating more] I found that it is easier to keep the weight that you have lost off and continue on with a slower paced diet routine afterwards.

Wednesday, March 23

Excursion to Avignon, to see the Durrance River and the Palace of the Popes, where it meets the Rhone and to the Pont du Gard  The immense structure  of

The Palace, is made up of two buildings, the austere Old Palace built by the sever Pope Benedoct XII and the ornate new Palace built by the lighthearted Pope

Clement VI. With their large court halls, eating halls, worship halls and vaulted ceilings they are both impreseive examples of Gothic architecture. The Pont du Gard, was built

By the Romans in 19BC as part ofa 30-mile canal to supply water to the town of Njmes. The enormous three-tiered aqueduct rises as uch as 160 feet above the valley and was used throughthe ninth century.

Thursday, March 24

Morning, French language class

Afternoon explore the iconic castles and abbeys of Provence, We toured the Renaissance castle of Lourmarin then visited the 12^thcentury Slyvancane Abbey, a former Cistercoam ,pnastery where I found a fascinating book

On sacred geometry constructions using ruler and compass, the golden section, as applied to  the architecture of building Gothic Churches.

Friday, March 25

Graduated from French language class

Figure 15 Two more views of the same mountain. Cezanne died looking at Mt. Victoire, which he wanted to look at for eternity. He believed that the meaning of a lived life comes from living it well. A life well-lived, trying to climb the mountain of understanding how we understand Truth inside of the World around can be  a source of happiness not only for us, but for God and those who have lived our lives with us. The  form and makeup of the mountain becomes, in his paintings a metaphor for human will trying to ascend back to the heavenly realms from whence it came.. Human beings have spiritual form [triangles, spheres, cubes, rectangles, cylinders] inside of our spirits and souls, and this form, its qualities and attributes affects how we  know and experience things and can understand God and ourselves.

Aix is a major center of cultural ife in Provence. It has about 80,000 University students who are studying mostly liberal arts, political science, fine arts, economics, philosophy.

The University education is free except for a small tuiton and the cost of the books.

Also, in France hospitals are free for French citizens. Taxes are very complicated, the amount depends a lot on different factors like

How many children you have, whether you are married. There is about 10 per cent unemployment in Marseille, 18 per cent among the North Africans.

The Panier district in Marseille is one of the hearts of the city, the resistance and a lot of Jews hide hide there in 1942 when France was occupied. 6000 people

Were deported in a raid after the French police helped the Nazis at that time.

Not too many people are aware that theie was a major Allied operation (called Operation Dragoon) launched up to the Marne Valley, using tanks shipped up

From Sicily and Italy to support the forces coming from the landings at the Normany beaches. My 97 year old Vicksburg friend Heiman Cohn was on General Eisenhower’s staff at the time and was sent my him Gen. Eisenhower down to Marseille to help get the vehicles moving from the port up to the North. After accomplishing this task he was able to visit his Jewish French family still livibng in France and was later promoted to Major for his  year of so of combat service by Gen. Eisenhower. He has written a short book about his experiences  called “Our Wondelful Life [mine and my wife’s]” fighting for us during World War II covering the period of the Allied forces landing in Africe, invasion of Sicily, landing on the Normandy beaches (where his logistics company hijacked and commandered a company of Nazi trucks to help with the movement of supplies into Paris), which he will give you a copy of if you ask him.

Monday, March 21

Morning, continued French language classes at the restaurant Jardin du’Amatour in Aix

Afternoon, took the local bus to the Camp de Mille, site. A frightening and sober record of what can happen to human beings when some

Of them decide to hurt others of themselves by unjustly imprisoning and cruelly treating them. The book, “Memory of the Camp des Milles, 1939-1942 with

Photographs by Yves Jeanmougin, text, by Rovert Mencherin, Angelina Gausnn, Olivier Lalieu, Atelier Novembre produced by the group Metamorphoses, sold at

The bookstore there is an important record of it that you should read.

Figure 16Another one of the 11 views of Mt. St. Victorie that Cezanne painted and which are posted in a 360 circle around the overlook site just up the hill from his studio.

Figure 17View from the hiking trail that leaves from the third
floor and back door of the Vis a Vis Hotel in Sestri Levante,  Italy

out into the “Bay of Silence” surrounding the city.

The boat trip across the Bay down to Portobello makes a nice day trip excursion from there.

I hope my visit there goes into my long-term core memory as an Island of  the Mind of Christ that I viisted inside of the long-term real history of us all .

It also made me think of the Self-Hypnosis and visualized healing tapes of the Gurgevich’s discussed last May in which you imagine yourself setting the

controls of your time machine and sailing

Into a Emile Coue healing spa on an island, somewhere in time (it could be that of the famous Greek healer  Aesclepious’s dream healing temple of

4^th century BC

or one of our ones of YHWH School of Christianity 2050)

“Allow yourself to take three deep breaths, count from five to four, to three, to two, to one, letting go of each exhalation, letting the counting and the breaths

 carry away any unwanted tension, allowing the vibrational energy of the sounds [added by Andrew …from perhaps a Yoga mantra or Christian Jewish prayer]

The pleasant wave like motion taking you deeper into the past, into history, and you arrive to a silence and the first sounds you begin to hear are the

Sounds of birds chirping in a lovely green garden walnut tree, fig tree area, and water from a natural stone foundation, bird bath, sundial,  and the warm sunlight begins to heal your past

And your future.  [added by Andrew…You breath deeply perhaps standing under a large green oak tree]. A woman in a long white dress comes to you and offers a sip of cool, clear water and gently pours the purifying water over your

head and shoulders. She then gives you a large cloth and you dry some of the water off. You notice the flat stones in the garden are inscribed

[they say, “When God is One His Truth is One…When God is Two His Truth is Two…When God is Three His Truth is You.. Every day in Every way you are getting

better and better..
And there is in the treatment room a sign in book of prayer healing and hypnotic suggestions in which your name is listed, but only if you sign it there yourself.

On your sheet in the book are two hypnotic suggestion:
on one side
“You are doing very well, just keep doing what you are doing.”
on the other side is the suggestion
” We are doing very well together , I am good if you are good.”

You enter one room inside of the healing area, it is the healing room of God’s Name which is referred to outside on the stones.
And, inside of the room on the wall, there is a questioning a picture frame on the wall.
“What is the concept of a concept”.
And, also on the wall there is a picture frame with a healing suggestion in it:
“We must give definition to the defined.”]  Added by Andrew

You enter the healing area inside of a door leading inside

the stone abaton reclining on a stone bench you are unaware of time passing until you hear the gentle sound of sandals shuffing across the ancient

decorated tile floor, you feel the gentle hand of Aesclepious on your shoulder [added by Andrew….you are ‘touched by an angel’] saying gently “I am taking something from you… you can sleep soundly

now. And when you awaken within the abaton [healing building made of stone] you are relaxed and a cup of water is on a small stone table for you. When your eyes reopen you are

now relaxed and refreshed and you have now left something behind you that you no longer need.”

The quoted suggestion on the wall in the healing room is from YHWH School of Christianity amateur theological healer Blaise Pascal.

And, thanks to Col Donald Marshall who got me started thinking about the deep and difficult to answer philosophical question “What is the Concept of a Concept” when I was an U.S. Army  Lt. working in the Pentagon and elsewhere for him in the 1970s.

Excerpts were taken from Trancework, Dream Healing time travel tape of Steven Gurevich , after several hypnotic prayer discussions with him. Thank you Dr. Gurevich for taking the time to pray with me.

Figure 18 Arriving by boat at the city of Portofino.

Figure 18View with the sky and the ocean seeming to become one while looking from a seaside hill resort out into ocean.

 “Lord God [YHWH Elohim, YHWH Adonai, YHWH YHWH], Thy Will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven”.

From what we are learning now about the near certainty of other

 planets like our own , it could have been taken many places in our Galaxy.

But, it happens to have been taken from the restaurant pool area overlook on the top floor of the Vis a Vis spa and

resort hotel in Sestri Levantri, Italy.