Templar Globe

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I renewed their appeals for

Christian unity on Sunday during a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica.
Benedict led the ceremony alongside the leader of the world’s 250 million Orthodox Christians and expressed the “common hope of seeing the day of unity draw near.”

While acknowledging key differences, Benedict has made healing the 1,000-year-old rift with the Orthodox a priority of his papacy.

In his speech, Bartholomew said that dialogue between the two branches of Christianity is continuing, despite “numerous difficulties” and that he was praying for these obstacles to be overcome.

After centuries of moving apart, the two churches formally split in 1054 over several issues, including the primacy of the pope, devotional differences, and Latin demands for priestly celibacy as the Greek-influenced tradition permitted married clergy.

Relations remain tense over Orthodox charges of proselytizing and rival property claims in places such as Russia and eastern Europe. However, Benedict and Bartholomew have met several times in an effort to promote or to seek a reconciliation.

Benedict, the leader of the world’s 1 billion Roman Catholics, told the crowd that Christian unity is even more important in a world that is increasingly connected by technical means, but is unable to resolve its conflicts.

“In today’s world there are new instruments of unity which, however, also create new conflicts and give new strength to old ones,” he said.

“In the midst of this external unity, based on material goods, we have an even greater need for interior unity, which comes from the peace of God.”

The Mass marking the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul included readings from the Gospels in Latin and Greek by Catholic and Orthodox clerics. Benedict and Bartholomew also prayed together in Greek.

During the ceremony Benedict bestowed the pallium, or a woolen shawl, on 40 archbishops from around the world to symbolize their bond with the Vatican. One by one the archbishops, wearing crimson vestments, knelt before the pope to receive the shawl and the pontiff’s embrace.

After the Mass, Benedict and Bartholomew silently prayed together underneath the basilica at the tomb the faithful believe houses the remains of the apostle Peter.

Bill Dietrich, assistant professor of environmental studies at Western Washington University’s Huxley College of the Environment, shares “The Rosetta Key,” the sequel to “Napoleon’s Pyramids,” continuing the adventures of Ethan Gage, who’s now in the Holy Land in dogged pursuit of the magical “Book of Thoth” during Napoleon’s 1799 invasion of Israel that will climax at the epic siege of Acre.

Question: For those who may not have read “Napoleon’s Pyramids,” what should readers know about Ethan Gage, the hero of these two novels, in particular his (seeming) attitude that life is a gamble, one “plays the cards” and “takes the risks.” (I am also curious whether this is your attitude toward life?)

Answer: Ethan is my alter ego, not autobiographical! I don’t gamble, I’m a family man instead of a womanizer, a writer instead of a warrior, and judicious instead of impulsive. Ethan and I are alike, however, in a belief in destiny and opportunity; that while we’re responsible for our choices, our fate is not entirely in our own hands. Napoleon felt the same way.

Q: In this novel, there is much philosophizing and religious commentary/intrigue on “the philosopher’s stone,” the Rosetta Stone, the philosophy of truth, the nature of love, sacrifice and personal integrity. How do you blend the various voices and themes into a historical novel and still have Ethan relevant to today?

A: Ethan is deliberately modern in his outlook, so that readers can relate, and I’ve called Napoleon “the first modern man” because he was self-made, opportunistic, idealistic, optimistic, and yet also cynical, ruthless and narcissistic. These are characters I think today’s readers can relate to: they reflect our jumble of traits. “The Rosetta Key” weaves together the story of Napoleon’s 1799 invasion of the Holy Land, intriguing speculation about ancient mysteries and the Knights Templar that are not original with me, and fictional characters swept up in war and adventure.

Just as we feel somewhat helpless in the face of events like recession or 9/11, my heroes and heroines are ordinary mortals doing their best to prevail in a hostile, unpredictable world. This was the period of the Enlightenment and revolution, fledgling industry and science, and yet a mystical counter-reaction because people longed for religious mystery. It’s a rich period in which to speculate about life.

Q: What are some of the comparisons of the holy war in Napoleon’s time to today’s political situation?

A: Napoleon wanted to reform the Middle East. (Sound familiar?) The French Revolution had thrown out Christianity and yet he tried to portray himself friendly to the Koran. Muslims would have none of it, and resisted fiercely. Meanwhile, like today, you had cults, sects and philosophies that dabbled in philosophy and mysticism, like the (then-somewhat-secret) Freemasons, Jewish mystics, and others convinced there were ancient secrets to be rediscovered. Their golden age was the past, not the future. The Knights Templar, a Crusader sect, was rumored to have discovered fantastic treasures beneath Jerusalem.

Q: How did Napoleon change the way the world viewed Egypt, and if Ethan really existed, what impact would he have had?

A: The scientists who accompanied Napoleon started the science of Egyptology; up to that time almost nothing was known about the ancient world. French soldiers unearthed the Rosetta Stone, which was key to deciphering hieroglyphics. The conceit of my novel is that wayward Ethan plays a role in such events. A real American, jumping between armies, would probably have been executed many times over.

Q: What were some of your experiences as you traveled the Middle East doing research for this novel?

A: It’s unfortunate conflict dissuades tourism there, because the ruins are the most moving that I’ve seen. The depth of time is palpable. I was with an archeologist tour in Egypt that allowed us to squirm into some unusual places — at one we were literally crawling on our bellies into an old tomb — and the ruins of Petra in Jordan that play a role in “The Rosetta Key” are almost unbelievable: huge temple facades carved into towering rose sandstone cliffs.

I sweated a lot, but the closest I came to peril were the indefatigable souvenir sellers and the driving habits in Egypt! In Israel, a lone American mumbling about doing “research” did draw attention: security personnel examined every digital photo I had taken.

Q: Your female characters are really intriguing. How do they keep moving your plot forward? How do you “get to know” them?

A: I try to make my characters distinctive and fun, and sometimes humorous. My women tend to be smart and they keep Ethan grounded, a male-female partnership I’ve observed in real life. I try to make the women courageous partners, not witless ninnies screaming in a corner. Because my stories are thrillers dependent on plot, I have to keep tight rein on their actions, but their personalities emerge as the writing goes on. I end up liking them, even the villains.

Q: Any movie offers?

A: Interest, but no offers yet: these are expensive stories to film. My fiction has frequently been described as cinematic, but apparently the right people in Hollywood haven’t read those reviews.

Q: What’s the deal between Bill Dietrich the journalist, Bill Dietrich the professor, Bill Dietrich the novelist, and Bill Dietrich the family man?

A: It may seem an odd combination, but they’re all aspects of what is basically a curious, somewhat earnest personality. I’ve liked history and adventure since I was a child, I feel I can do the most for the environment through writing and teaching, and the stability I’ve gotten from wife and children has allowed me to do and try a lot of things. I get winded sometimes … but life is short!

in Trading Markets

Karla Mauerova, a member of the Grail Movement Cult in the Czech Republic, admitted in court this week that she partially skinned her sons and fed the raw flesh to relatives. The Grail Movement Cult is a religious sect that has been around since the 1940s, inspired by the book In the Light of Truth: The Grail Message, a work by Oskar Ernst Bernhardt, and published under the pseudonym, Abd-ru-shin. The Grail Movement Cult has approximately 20,000 members worldwide, but operates predominantly in Western Europe. The Grail Movement Cult’s members believe In the Light of Truth to be more important than the bible, but the book still extols the teachings of Jesus Christ. Her affiliation with the Grail Movement Cult may have nothing to do with the horrific child abuse and cannibalism that took place, but as with many cults, abhorrent group behavior often goes hand in hand with Cult living, and oftentimes sub-groups become a perversion of the original cult.

The relatives who consumed the flesh of the young boys, Ondrej and Jakub, were also members of this Grail Movement Cult. The boys were caged, and made to stand for days in their own urine. Karla Mauerova installed monitors so she could watch the confinement and the torture of her sons. Besides the skinning, allegations of sexual abuse surfaced in court as well.

The torture and abuse were discovered when a neighbor installed a monitor in his own home to monitor his newborn child. Rather than seeing the face of his infant however, the man was horrified to receive a feed featuring the imprisonment, torture and humiliation of Ondrej and Jakub. Authorities were contacted and Mauerova and the other members of the Grail Movement Cult were exposed.

Not only did the members of the Grail Movement Cult inflict torture upon the boys, but it is alleged they forced Ondrej and Jakub to mutilate themselves, giving the boys knives with which to cut themselves.

Mauerova claims that Barbora Skrlova, another member of the Grail Movement Cult, brainwashed her into confining and torturing her sons. Skrlova, 34 was found at the scene, in with the boys, and was at first assumed to be another victim, described as looking like a 13 year old girl. The mastermind behind the whole thing is believed to be a man known only as “Doctor”, the mysterious leader of the Grail Movement Cult. Nothing more is known about the man called Doctor at this time. Mauerova’s trial is still underway with no verdict yet delivered in the horrific case.

AC Press

Mira Sorvino plays the lead role in The Last Templar, a four-hour mini-series filmed in Montreal.

A rather mean-looking fellow comes striding out of the Lucky Luc Stables in St. Henri just north of the Lachine Canal, bumps into Mira Sorvino and roughly throws the Oscar-winning actress to the ground. The tough guy is Montreal actor Danny Blanco Hall and it’s all part of the action on the final day of filming in town on the $20 million mini-series The Last Templar.

Luckily for Sorvino, there’s a mat on the ground in the stable to help cushion her fall, but on one of the many takes, it looks like she was actually shaken up and director Paolo Barzman runs over to make sure his star is doing OK.

“It rattled my cage a little but I was fine,” Sorvino said in a chat a few minutes later. “I’ve done a lot of my stunts in this movie and it’s been fun. I’m kind of a daredevil. Throw me on a horse or have me do a fight scene and I want to do all of it myself. They have to pull me back because insurance doesn’t let you do the horseback riding. I can only get on the horse and ride in and out of shots very slowly, even though I used to have a horse when I was a kid. I said, ‘Wait, I can do all of this. I can gallop.’ But you can’t do it.”

In the scene, Tess Chaykin, the Manhattan archeologist played by Sorvino, arrives at a New York-area stable to meet one of four masked horsemen who had earlier stormed into the Metropolitan Museum and stolen one of the items at an exhibit of Vatican treasures. But the horseman is killed just before Chaykin arrives and the murderer, Plunkett, portrayed by Blanco, is the guy who man-handles her at the entrance to the stables.

The four-hour mini-series from local producer Muse Entertainment will air on Global and NBC sometime in early 2009. The local leg of shooting wrapped this past Tuesday with the scenes at Lucky Luc stables, but the cast and crew will be shooting in Morocco later this month.

Wednesday was a day-off for the Last Templar team, a brief pit-stop before scouting locations in Morocco, and a tired Barzman took a half-hour out of his down-day to talk about the production. He admitted he was a little worried for Sorvino during that scene at the stables Tuesday.

“Strangely enough, it’s sometimes these simple little things where you get hurt,” said the Cannes-born, Paris-raised, now-Montreal-based filmmaker. “It’s the simple things where you’re maybe not that cautious. But Mira is very physical. She goes for it.”

He talked of one of the bigger set pieces in the film, in which the masked horsemen, who are dressed as Templar Knights, flee the museum and gallop down the stairs outside the Met - a scene filmed on the steps of Mary Queen of the World on René Lévesque Blvd. Sorvino’s character steals a police horse and chases down the steps after the thieves, but the insurance company forbade Sorvino from getting on the horse for that sequence.

“That was a major choreography,” said Barzman, whose previous film, the Holocaust-themed, Quebec-set drama Emotional Arithmetic, recently played local cinemas.

The Last Templar is set in present-day Manhattan, Turkey and the Greek islands, but it also flashes back to 13th-century Europe to follow a young Templar Knight who disappears with a chest carrying a secret that - in a Da Vinci Code-like twist - is still wreaking havoc several centuries later.

The other lead actor in the mini-series is Scott Foley, best-known for the TV series Felicity and The Unit. He plays FBI agent Sean Reilly, who, like Sorvino’s Chaykin, is in hot pursuit of these horsemen.

Foley cautions against taking The Last Templar too seriously.

“Growing up, I really enjoyed Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile, with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, and that’s what resonates here, with the chemistry between the two of us,” said Foley. “This has its heavy moments with regards to religion and the belief in God, but for the most part it’s kind of a light romp. It’s fun - we’re going to solve a mystery, to find the hidden treasure.”

For Sorvino, this is her fourth project shot in Montreal, following the 1998 Marlon Brando oddity Free Money, the 2000 TV version of The Great Gatsby, and the harrowing 2005 mini-series Human Trafficking (another Muse production).

“I like shooting in Montreal,” said Sorvino. “I prefer Montreal to Toronto. Maybe it’s because of the French element.”

Sorvino is fluent in the language of Molière, having studied it throughout high school and also spent some time in France when she was dating French actor Olivier Martinez several years back.

Turns out she also prefers Montreal to Paris because she finds the francos here “nicer and more courteous than the French.”

It looks like the only local not making nice with Sorvino is the thug who keeps pushing her to the ground at the stables.

bkelly@thegazette.canwest.com

AN EARLY Victorian cobbled street more than 150 years old has been unearthed by archaeologists investigating the site of a 12th Century Knights Templar mill at the 2012 London Olympics park.

The cobbled thoroughfare is to be ‘lifted up’ and preserved, then used in the huge park now being laid out as a legacy for East London.

Archaeologists believe the street unearthed 20ft below ground may be part of the original Temple Mills lane that was demolished in 1854 before being covered by thousands of tonnes of rubble over the last century-and-a-half.

The archaeologist Kieron Tyler said: “Looking below the amazingly preserved Victorian remains reveals an older mill structure and the exact form of the crucial industries in the Lea Valley down the centuries.”

His team of archaeologists from the Museum of London are carefully digging up the cobblestones and stockpiling them to be laid down in the new Olympics park.

Then they begin digging deeper to search for evidence of the original Knights Templar mill, known as Temple Mills, which started the industrialisation of the Lea Valley.

Olympics authority chief David Higgins said: “Clearing the massive site has given us the unique opportunity to look back into East London’s past before the area is transformed.

“Bringing back to life this cobbled street will be an important way of telling the fascinating story of the development of East London.”

The authority invited the archaeologists to look for evidence of prehistoric remains, from pre-Roman right through to Viking, Medieval and relatively recent industrial and military activities on the site.

Previous archaeological finds include a prehistoric settlement and the skeletons of four of its inhabitants, Roman artefacts and a complete 19 century boat used for hunting wild fowl on the River Lea. Second World War gun emplacements have also been unearthed.

The archaeological investigations are part of the work to clean up nearly two square miles of land to make way for the 2012 Games, much of it contaminated by its industrial past.

HISTORY TO TEMPLE MILLS

THE Knights Templar built a water mill at Temple Mills between 1185 and 1278. A second mill was built on the opposite side of the mill stream in 1308.

The mills passed to the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem in Clerkenwell after the suppression of the Templars, then eventually back to the Crown after the Dissolution of the Catholic Church and leased to Clement Goldsmith in 1593.

A gunpowder mill and a leather mill were added in the 16th century, with another added in 1627 to grind corn. Other mills followed in the 1630s for working leather and gunpowder.

mike.brooke@archant.co.uk

JOUSTING is making a welcome return to Berkeley Castle this summer.

In July the castle will play host to the Berkeley Skirmish, a new two-day event, which it is hoped will go someway to replace the popular Joust.

Last summer the two-weekend Joust event, which was in its seventh year, had to be cancelled because of the heavy flooding that affected the region.

advertisementThe Joust used to attract more than 10,000 people to the area and its cancellation was devastating for Berkeley and the company Grail Presents that organised it, which faced financial ruin as a consequence.

However, Chris Bruce and his wife Karen Hill from Cheshire-based company Plantagenet Events Ltd, are hoping the new Berkeley Skirmish will help boost tourism.

Mr Bruce said: “We used to get involved with the Joust and we know how good it was. This is going to be smaller than the Joust because we are only just starting out, but we hope it will grow.

“Last year was devastating for everyone, not just the show, but for Berkeley and the entire region.

“What we want to do is support each other and hopefully re-establish an event that was so popular and such a boost for the area and it will give Gloucestershire something positive to advertise.

“We are only a small company, we do not have the financial resources the Joust had, but the response we are already getting from people within the medieval re-enactment world is incredible, everyone wants to come back to Berkeley.”

The Berkeley Skirmish will include living history, 70 traders, battle re-enactments, archery and some jousting.

Tim Davies, marketing director for the Berkeley Estate, said: “The advantage of this company is that they have been involved with Berkeley before so they know how it was done and what is available.

“Losing the Joust was a big blow, not just to us at the castle but to the local area. The fact that we can establish a similar event is very, very pleasing and we are looking forward to it.”

The Berkeley Skirmish will be held at Berkeley Castle on Saturday, July 26 and Sunday, July 27.

Plantagenet Events Ltd is in no way connected to Grail Presents, the company that ran the Joust.

By Liza-Jane Gillespie

For a certain kind of listener (i.e., me), the arrival of a new Indiana Jones movie is a chance to hear another retro score that evokes not only the traditions of Hollywood writing but also the work of full-color late Romantic composers such as Gustav Holst and Ottorino Respighi.

John Williams is one of the most successful Hollywood composers in cinematic history if his work is judged simply by sheer memorability. The huge marches that dominate the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies do exactly what good marches are supposed to do: Set up a triumphant (even when evil) tone, get a strong marching rhythm going, and most of all, implant a powerful tune in listeners’ heads.

This is not that easy to do. John Philip Sousa wrote more than 100 concert marches, but only about a couple dozen have the kind of great melodies that enable them to be heard frequently. In his work for the Lucas-Spielberg team, Williams has written at least two that many millions of people recognize instantly, and at the same time remember what they’re designed to evoke.

The same goes for Hedwig’s Theme, the central music of the Harry Potter films. Although two other composers have picked up scoring duties for the movies in the meantime, they still use Williams’ theme to remind viewers that they’re watching a Harry Potter adventure.

Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull has a modest score that is reminiscent of past work more than it is one that breaks new ground, which isn’t really a criticism — the film composer doesn’t have a lot of control over how much of the music he or she writes gets used in the final product. I liked a couple of Williams’ fresh inventions in Crystal Skull: a vigorous Russian dance that would make effective concert music, and — spoiler alert! — a blizzard of Janacek-style brasses that accompany the flying saucer as it ascends out of the Amazon basin.

But what I missed here was what I missed in the movie, though I enjoyed it a good deal and had a hard time resisting its manic energy. What was absent in the film was about 10 minutes of exposition and character development that would give the plot a hint of additional plausibility, even though it was totally implausible.

For instance, I wanted to enter just a bit more into the history of the conquistador-native conflict and the search for El Dorado, learn a little more about the Mayan world view, perhaps get some flashbacks from Professor Oxley and the Ray Winstone character, to make the picture rounder and richer. That way my suspended disbelief can coexist along the actual pages of history, and viewing the movie becomes more of an exercise of the imagination than a workout for my car-chase gland.

A case in point involves my favorite of the four Indiana Jones movies, The Last Crusade. This movie is able to draw on centuries of Christian tradition bred in the bone of Western civilization, but we learn a lot about Indiana and his father through the suggestions of the opening scene: the young Indiana has to speak ancient Greek to tell his father about his escape from the grave robbers.

And in another scene, Williams helps us all get into the figurative if not the literal depth of the events when Indiana is looking at the drawing of the knight suspended in air and he says something about the powerful pull of the quest for the Holy Grail. At this moment, we hear a distant low-brass chorale of semi-modal music — this is the Grail theme, and while it’s more 19th than 11th century, it’s beautiful and supremely effective.

That music returns when we encounter the 700-year-old knight guarding the Grail in the anterooms of the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, and for me it makes a most effective link, and adds a subtle richness to the film that makes its absurdities believable.

I would have liked to hear something like this in Crystal Skull: Ancient Mayan music, maybe; perhaps the music of 16th century Spain — something else to take us into the sonic world its deceased characters inhabited, something that would make the movie more of a journey into the legendary part of history that was there in The Last Crusade.

Music often acts as another character in a drama, and when it can draw on the traditions of the past to fill in the gaps of the script, it adds another layer of meaning and reference for the viewer. The music is more of an afterthought in Crystal Skull, but in Last Crusade, it’s essential. And that’s one of the crucial things that makes it a much better film, too.

by Greg Stepanich

Out-there researchers discuss the impending … something

The broadcast-quality lilt of Coast to Coast AM radio host George Noory wafted over a packed conference room at Beverly Garland’s Holiday Inn last Saturday night as he a moderated a panel of out-there researchers engaged in a radical examination of Hollywood’s covert use of occult symbolism and alien agendas — the same week that the Vatican’s chief astronomer told an interviewer that belief in alien life does not contradict belief in God. As Noory told the audience, “There’s definitely a sense of an impending … something.”

Noory is the successor to radio’s legendary Art Bell, who stoked a particular millennial Zeitgeist with his fireside chats on UFOs, the paranormal and all manner of conspiracy theories with his syndicated radio program, before passing the mike to Noory in 2002. Coast to Coast AM remains a cultural touchstone, and Noory — personable and mustachioed — continues to bring so-called fringe ideas front and center.

We’re at “an extraordinary crossroads, with the way life is unfolding,” commented panelist Whitley Strieber, whose most recent novel is based on the doomsday/consciousness-shifting 2012 mythos, and who believes he was “implanted” with a device by his “visitors.” He recalled a bit of the aliens’ verbiage: “We will come from within you.”

According to panelist/abduction therapist Yvonne Smith, 17 functional-growth characteristics in humans born between 1947 and 1987 have been accelerated by 60 to 80 percent. “It’s not environment, it’s not evolution,” she asserted.

A “mutation of society” is under way, and “the skeptic community is getting quieter and quieter,” remarked Dr. Roger Leir, a Valley-based podiatrist, who removes alleged alien implants.

Jordan Maxwell, an expert in occult symbolism and secret societies, likened Americans to Alec Guinness’ blindly megalomaniacal lieutenant colonel in The Bridge on the River Kwai once he realizes he’s been working for the enemy: “What have I done? There is no way out.”

“Jordan’s been looking down the barrel of the New World Order for nearly 50 years,” Noory said.

Maxwell, expounding upon the secret fraternal orders to which our government and religious leaders are bound, remarked, “The Da Vinci Code and National Treasure are teasers. The powers behind Hollywood are Knights Templars, showing you what they can do.”

“What does Hollywood know that we don’t?” asked panelist Jay Weidner, producer of the documentary 2012: The Odyssey. Was Eyes Wide Shut a representation of a sex cult for rich perverts, or a portrait of the Illuminati? Subversive director Stanley Kubrick died two hours after bringing a rough cut of the film to Warner Bros. “Like the Zapruder film, you can see what he was trying to say by what’s missing,” said Weidner, who believes Kubrick fled for England in the ’60s after experiencing events depicted in the film. (Scientologists Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, he said, were simply cast as part of “an inside joke.”)

In Rosemary’s Baby, John Cassavetes’ character eagerly permits the devil to impregnate his wife to ensure his Broadway stardom. “He’s the spitting image of Jack Parsons [black magician and co-founder of Pasadena's Jet Propulsion Laboratory],” claimed Mike Bara, co-author with Richard C. Hoagland of the recent best-seller Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA. “It’s the magical ritual known as the Babylon Working. Rosemary becomes the mother of the antichrist.”

A question came from the audience: “There’s so much to dissect from entertainment now — Iron Man, Battlestar Galactica, The Mist, Marvel’s Sons of the Serpent. There’s even a conspiracy theorist in Justice League of America.” The bearded young man echoed the sentiments of many assembled: “Why now?”

“They release little bits of truth, so that in the future they can say, ‘We said that years ago,’” Maxwell answered. “You’ve got to read between the lines.” Entertainment is used to indoctrinate or spread disinformation. Case in point: Universal’s recent optioning of the “period” action script The Knights Templar. “Each time you get a bigger sense of how the game is being played, you are less manipulated by it.” Maxwell asked the audience to verify his contentions — Rome is still in control, a powerful occult system has dominated consensus reality for thousands of years — by forcing us to pay attention to “their” symbols: words, flags, coats of arms. “Once you see [it] organized, it’s frightening.”

“The Gnostic belief is that we must have an apocalypse to bring about the golden age,” Weidner commented. “But is that apocalypse the death of all of us, or the death of consciousness as we know it?”

The Mayan calendar, which runs out at midnight on December 12, 2012, is expected to take us out, whether by mass extinction, interplanetary invasion or a total paradigm shift — a metaphysical bang or a cosmic whimper. With four years and counting, Maxwell advised, “always trust those who are looking for the truth.”

But what the bleep is it?

BY SKYLAIRE ALFVEGREN

________________________________________________________________

Note: the OSMTHU does not endorse said “conspiracy theories”, but our editors tought that the article was interesting and provocative enough to be brought to the attention of our readers.

“Thirteen at a table is unlucky only when the hostess has only twelve chops.”

– Groucho Marx

Today is Friday, June 13th, 2008.

Scared yet?

OK, so you might not be that frightened, but for those Okies who suffer from paraskavedekatriaphobia (yes, it’s a real word and it means fear of Friday the 13th) today is a day to stay in bed with your head under the covers.

And it’s been that way for a long, long time.

According to tradition, Friday the 13th is considered a day of bad luck in several countries, including England, France, Portugal, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Sweden and even the Philippines.

The reasons vary. Several Internet-based resources say the day and date became infamous following the arrest of Jaques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Knights Templar. On Friday, Oct. 13, 1307, de Molay and 60 of his senior knights were arrested, and subsequently tortured by bad guys working for King Philip IV of France.

Following the knights’ “confessions,” Philip the IV had them executed and, again according to legend, from that day on, Friday the 13th was considered by followers of the Templars as an evil and unlucky day — which made sense as long as Philip was the one calling the shots.

Other legends say Friday the 13th got its black mark after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Many Christians believe Christ was crucified on Friday, the 13th, and some theologians even hold that Adam and Eve munched a few forbidden apples years earlier on that same date .

Still others claims the Biblical Great Flood began on Friday the 13th.

Whatever the reason, millions of people fear the date.

In fact, according to the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, N.C., more than 67 million Americans are afraid of Friday the 13th.

“Some people are so paralyzed by fear that they avoid their normal routines,” the institute said. “They stop doing business, taking flights or even getting out of bed.”

The institute estimates that between $800 million and $900 million in revenue is lost each year because of the fear surrounding the date.

But not everyone is scared.

For Cleveland County Fairboard Marketing Director Sharon Harrell, Friday the 13th is her day to hit the casino.

“I love Friday the 13th,” she said. “That’s the day I go to Riverwind or some other casino. Everything good happens to me on Friday the 13th.”

And while Harrell admits to being “a little superstitious,” it’s more about barrel racing than dates.

“I’m a barrel racer,” she said. “And I have to have my watch in my left pocket and my hoofpick in the right pocket or I feel like something’s wrong. But as far as Friday the 13th goes, that’s always been a good luck day for me. Something good always happens.”

For Moore resident Deidre Ebrey, Friday the 13th has more to do with movies and less to do with luck.

Ebrey, Moore’s economic development director, said she associates the day with the movie by the same name. “When you’ve grown up around the date and the movie, you don’t think about superstition,” she said. “It’s more frightening than superstitious.”

Still, bad luck — whether it’s being killed by a maniacal ax-weilding zombie or just losing your credit card — is bad luck and, throughout history, a lot of bad things have happened on Friday the 13th.

For example:

· The 1889 Johnstown Flood.

· The 1929 stock market crash in the United States.

· The Black Friday bush fires in Victoria, Australia occurred on Friday, Jan. 13, 1939.

· The Uruguayan Rugby team crashed in the Andes mountain range on Friday, Oct. 13, 1972.

· Hurricane Charley made landfall near Port Charlotte, Florida on Friday, Aug. 13, 2004.

· The “Friday the 13th Storm” struck Buffalo, N.Y. on Friday, Oct. 13, 2006.

Then, there’s the connection with death.

In Britain, Friday was the conventional day for hangings and legend say the hangman’s gallows had 13 steps and the noose was wrapped 13 times.

In Norse mythology, the hero Balder was supposedly whacked at a banquet by the Norse god Loki on Friday. Balder had thrown a weekend party and invited 11 friends and — you guessed it — when Loki showed up the group grew to 13 and well, the rest was bad news.

Yet even while millions of residents fear the date, for one Norman man, Friday the 13th is just another day. For Father Edward Menasco, a priest at St. Jospeh’s Catholic Church, Friday the 13th is simply a day before Saturday, the 14th.

“No, I’m not superstitious,” Menasco said. “But I do think the myths surrounding the date came from the Knights Templar thing.”

And though Menasco believes people aren’t as superstitious as they used to be — as we get older, he says, “we become less superstitious — he does have some comfort for those who fear Friday the 13th.

“Just trust that God is protecting us,” he said.

And remember that Saturday, the 14th, will be here before you know it.

M. Scott Carter 366-3545 scarter@normantranscript.com

The 2,500-year-old item was acquired by a rag and bone man who handed it on to his grandson, John Webber, believing it was made of brass.

As a child Mr Webber took pot-shots at the 5.5ins tall cup with his catapult because the two similar female faces on it reminded him of his schoolteacher.

Over the years he either stored it under his bed or in his loft with other “odds and ends”.

It was only when Mr Webber, 70, from Taunton, Somerset, moved house last year he remembered it and had it analysed.

He was amazed when experts dated the cup back to the Achaemenid empire, making it older than the Holy Grail.

Some estimates suggested that the rare cup would fetch hundreds of thousands when it came under the hammer at Dukes Auctioneers of Dorchester, Dorset.

But once the buyer’s premium was added the cup was bought by an unnamed purchaser for a total of £65,725.

Nevertheless, Mr Webber, who was at the auction with his 20-year-old daughter Kate and son George, 17, said he was delighted with the price and was planning a celebratory meal.

He said: “I am very pleased the cup has sold. We as a family have already decided we are going to split the money between us because, at my age, there is not much I need. I imagine my grandfather would be very pleased with the fact the cup is going back to Somerset.”

in: Telegraph

Three 18th century musical scores discovered in a collection at Poland’s Jasna Gora monastery may be the work of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, experts say.

The musical scores identified as 18th century manuscript copies “correspond to the style” of the period and “their character allows us to suppose Mozart was their author,” musicologist Remigiusz Pospiech told Poland’s Polska daily.

The three scores are among 18 musical manuscripts attributed to the Austrian genius in the Jasna Gora monastery’s vast archive at Czestochowa, but do not figure in the Koechel catalogue of Mozart’s complete works.

A special commission has already started analysing the authenticity of 18 scores which are signed with the name of the Austrian composer, Polskie Radio says. The notes under examination were put on paper by 18th century copyists.

Polish specialists have already contacted experts in Vienna and Salzburg, Mozart’s birthplace in Austria, focused on music in the period between 1756 and 1791, according to Pospiech.

“If we are indeed dealing with a work of Mozart, it is rather his later period in Vienna,” he says, adding that “more study is required to confirm this hypothesis.”

Archives at the Jasna Gora monastery hold some 3,000 manuscripts of musical scores, collected over the centuries for the needs of its orchestra.

The Monastery of Jasna Góra in Czestochowa, Poland, is the third largest Catholic pilgrimage site in the world. Home to the beloved miraculous icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa, the monastery is also the national shrine of Poland and the centre of Polish Catholicism.

A luxurious ancient pagan tomb located in a necropolis under St Peter’s Basilica has been reopened to the public after a year of restoration.

Catholic News Service reports the Vatican has completed the restoration of the largest and most luxurious mausoleum in the vast necropolis under St. Peter’s Basilica.
The Mausoleum of the Valerii displays some of the most ornate decoration among the 22 family mausoleums in the ancient underground cemetery.

“We had wanted to restore it for a long time, but we didn’t have the money. Now we’re extremely happy” the funding came through and the year long restoration has been completed, said Maria Cristina Stella, an official at the Fabbrica di San Pietro, the office responsible for the basilica’s upkeep.

The $300,000 project was funded by the Rome based Foundation for Music and Sacred Art, the Italian branch of Mercedes-Benz, and other sponsors.

The Vatican necropolis includes the burial grounds where St Peter’s tomb has been venerated since early Christian times.

The Valerii mausoleum was built sometime after 160 by Gaius Valerius Herma - a wealthy, highly educated Roman slave who had bought his freedom. He built the site for his family and his freed slaves and their descendents.

Like many other pagan tombs in the necropolis, the sarcophagi were later “recycled” by Christians who buried their loved ones and added inscriptions referring to Christ.

The cemetery had been used until the fourth century when the emperor Constantine had workmen fill in the open-air necropolis with dirt in order to lay the foundation for building a basilica above St. Peter’s tomb. The airless, lightless atmosphere actually had helped preserve much of the artwork and statuary.

Restorers for the Valerii mausoleum used hand held lasers, tiny drills, scalpels, sponges and plain water to remove mineral salts, other encrustations and dirt, and they injected special glues to reinforce crumbling plaster walls.

They pieced together broken plaster or marble fragments back onto statuary tucked into niches lining the mausoleum walls.

The second century subterranean burial ground is two levels below the basilica floor, and St. Peter’s tomb is directly under the basilica’s main altar.

The cemetery was excavated for the first time in the 1930’s and 40’s, revealing a double row of mausoleums and niches decorated with paintings, stucco and mosaics, along with a section of simpler graves.

The Vatican has spent the past decade repairing and restoring the tombs, labyrinthine lanes and funerary artwork using state-of-the-art techniques, as well as setting up a complete conservation system that controls the climate of the necropolis.

The Holy See Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life has published a new instruction on authority and obedience for religious men and women.

The new instruction entitled, ‘The Service of Authority and Obedience’ examines the theme of religious obedience, “the root of which is seen in that search for God and for His will which is particular to believer,” according to a media release from the Congregation, Spero News reports.

“Christian and religious obedience does not, then, appear simply as the implementation of ecclesiastical or religious laws and rulings, but as the momentum of a journey in search of God which involves listening to His Word and becoming aware of His design of love - the fundamental experience of Christ Who, out of love, was obedient unto His death on the cross.”

“Authority in religious life,” the communiqué added, “must be understood in this light, in other words, as a way to help the community (or institute) to seek and achieve the will of God. Obedience, then, is not justified on the basis of religious authority, because everyone in a religious community (first and foremost the authorities themselves) are called to obedience. Authority places itself at the service on the community so that God’s will may be sought and achieved together.”

The instruction also considers “the delicate matter of ‘difficult obedience’, that in which what is requested of the religious is particularly hard to carry out, or in which the subject feels he sees ‘things which are better and more useful for his soul than those which the superior orders him to do’.”

The instruction seeks to recall that obedience in religious life can give rise to situations of suffering in which it is necessary to refer back to the Obedient One par excellence, Christ.

“It must, moreover, be borne in mind that authority too can be ‘difficult’, experiencing moments of discouragement and fatigue which can lead to resignation or inattention in exercising an appropriate guidance of the community.”

The document also offers a vast and coherent set of guidelines for the exercise of authority, such as inviting people to listen, favouring dialogue, sharing, co-responsibility, and the merciful treatment of the people entrusted to authority, the communiqué said.

in CathNews

Sydney University has bought Australia’s only copy of reproduction manuscripts of the 14th century trials of the Knights Templar that rehabilitated the order.

The University of Sydney has purchased a $10,000 reproduction of a document that rehabilitates the medieval Christian military order, the university press service reports.

The Knights, recognisable by the white robes with a red cross they wore over their chain mail, guarded pilgrims visiting the Holy Lands. In the early 14th-century. King Philip IV of France accused the knights of heresy and sodomy, and many of the order’s leaders were burnt at the stake.

“The crux of these trial documents is that Pope Clement V didn’t think the Templars were guilty of heresy,” says Neil Boness, Rare Book librarian at the University’s Fisher Library.

It is “very unusual” for the Vatican to release a reproduction of material from the Secret Archives such as this, known as the Processus Contra Templarios - Papal Inquiry into the Trial of the Templars, he added.

According to John Pryor, Associate Professor for Medieval Studies at Sydney, there was “significant pressure” exerted on the Pope by the King’s agents to find the order guilty.

“Several thousand of the order survived in Spain and elsewhere, but mainly they disappeared into society,” says Pryor. He hopes the documents will assist potential PhD students: “There is a huge scholarly interest in the trials.”

The order was popularised by Dan Brown’s book The Da Vinci Code, and has been the subject of all sorts of myths and legends over the years. The Knights have been linked to the modern-day Freemasons, and portrayed as guardians of the Holy Grail.

The key document in the reproduction is known as the Chinon Parchment and it shows that the Pope absolved the Knights of heresy charges. It was “misplaced” in the Vatican archives until it was discovered by a researcher in 2001.

The elaborate reproduction is bound in an ornate leather case, and includes scholarly notes and reproductions of the original parchments - mould stains and all - as well as the wax seals used by their inquisitors.

Only 799 copies were made: Pope Benedict was given the first copy, and the University owns copy number 300.

in CathNews

Naxos Records has pioneered the new frontier of media by using an old format – the compact disc. The label founded in 1987 by Klaus Heymann redefined the recording and marketing of classical music by providing the standard repertoire at a budget price. The label accomplishes this by using very fine but little known artists and orchestras avoiding the costly use of the named brands. This approach has the added advantage of enabling the label to also record the less-than-standard repertoire and thus offering a broader and more complete product.

In the past 20 years, the label has released an impressive repertoire on an equally impressive number of CDs. Naxos has further branched out into an internet subscription service, audio books, and educational products. While these offerings are notable, Naxos’ true genius is no better manifested than when blurring the lines between these products. The label’s release of the boxed set Time of the Templars is a case in point.

Ever since the publication and overwhelming reception of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code the reading public cannot get enough of all things Templar; Note the flood of Templar related fiction that followed The Da Vinci Code: Steve Berry’s The Templar Legacy, Raymond Khoury’s The Last Templar, and Jorge Molist’s The Ring: The Last Knight Templar’s Inheritance only to mention a few. Add those books dealing with the period of the 12th through the 14th Centuries and a detailed picture in words of medieval life emerges.

Naxos, with its extensive catalog of alte Musik or early music, is uniquely positioned to provide a soundtrack to this picture of words with Time of the Templars. This three-CD boxed set is divided into three areas of focus: “Music for a Knight,” highlighting both the secular and extra-ecclesiastic sacred music of the period, “Music of the Church,” concentrating on plainchant as practiced in monasteries, and “Music of the Mediterranean,” encompassing low country music and the music of Israel and Islam.

All of the music assembled here was previously released from several recordings by early music performers. What the Time of the Templars offers both music and listener is a fixed context in which to listen to this music. This writer listened to these selections while reading Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth (1989) and its recent published sequel, World Without End (2007). For Follett’s expansive survey of 13th and 14th Century England, Time of the Templars provided the perfect aural picture of the period, enhancing the stories.

“Music for a Knight” is a bit of a sampler of the music a Knight would have heard, whether he be at church, in the court, or on the road toward Palestine. Thus, the music is divided approximately equally between the sacred, the profane, and the entertaining. Presented here are several selections from the text “Carmina Burana” (made famous 800 years later by composer Carl Orff for his secular cantata of the same name). Hildegard von Bingen provides settings for several sacred texts, among them her beautiful “Kyrie Eleison” and “Alleluia, O Virga Mediatrix.”

Hildegard von Bingen’s music is not of the pedestrian church variety of the period. This is music of mystic ecstasy. If Heaven exists, Hildegard caught a glimpse before composing. Richard I “Coer de Lion” (Richard the Lionhearted) provides his “Ja nulls homs pris,” his only poem to survive with his music, written while he was imprisoned in Durnstein between 1192 and 1194. Polyphony is represented by the Notre Dame School composers Leonin and Perotin in the 4-part organum: “Notum fecit” and the 4-part conductus: “Vetus abit littera.”

“Music of the Church” is what even the novice historian would expect: Gregorian chant. This is a complete disc of a cappella monophony, elements of which can still be heard during the Responsorial Psalm of the Mass today. This is peaceful music well performed. No sounds can more quickly evoke the sights, scenes, smells, and sounds of the Middle Ages. “Music of the Mediterranean” exposes the listener to music from the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions. It is interesting to note how music equalizes cultures with an art that is truly universal.

Selections:

Disc 1

Walther von der Vogelweide: Palastinalied; Coeur de Lion Richard I: Ja nuls homs pris; Blondel de Nesle: A l’entrant d’este que li tens s’agence; Alfonso X (El Sabio): Cantiga No. 60, “Entre Av’e Eva;” Anonymous: Chominciamento di gioia: Saltarello No. 1; Anponymous: Carmina Burana: Clauso Cronos; Alfonso X (El Sabio): Cantiga No. 213, “Quen serve Santa Maria;” Anonymous: Carmina Burana: Axe Phebus aureo, Katerine collaudemus; Hildegard of Bingen: O pastor animarum;
Anonymous: Kyrie eleison, In Dulci Jubilo; Perotin: Viderunt omnes: Notum fecit; Hildegard of Bingen: Kyrie eleison; Vetus abit littera; Hildegard of Bingen: Alleluia, O virga mediatrix; Anonymous: Lamento di Tristano: La Rotta, A la nana, Guardame las vacas.

Disc 2

Anonymous: Introitus: Adorate Deum, Introitus: Da pacem, Introitus: Dominus illuminatio mea Introitus: Laetetur cor; Gradualia: Dirigatur Gradualia: Dirigatur; Gradualia: Domine, Dominus noster; Gradualia: Iacta cogitatum tuum Gradualia: Iacta cogitatum tuum; Gradualia: Laetatus; Versus Alleluiatici: Versus Alleluiatici: Deus, iudex iustus; Versus Alleluiatici: Deus, iudex iustus; Versus Alleluiatici: Laudate Deum; Versus Alleluiatici: Laudate Deum; Offertoria: De profundis; Offertoria: Domine, convertere; Offertoria: Iubilate Deo universa terra; Offertoria: Iustitiae Domini; Communiones: Circuibo; Communiones: Dicit Dominus: Implete hydrias; Communiones: Dominus firmamentum meum; Communiones: Qui manducat; Communiones: Psalm 33, “Gustate et videte.”

Disc 3

Carmina Burana: Bache, bene venies; Carmina Burana: Tempus transit gelidum; Carmina Burana: Tempus est iocundum; Dinaresade; Sei willekommen Herre Christ; Kod Bethlehema; Koleda na Bozic; Dudul; Kyrie eleison (Christian-Arabic Tradition, Lebanon) De la crudel morte de Cristo (Laudario di Cortona Ms. 91, Biblioteca Comunale di Cortona); Yunus Emre; Sallalahu ala Muhammed; Pesrev; Ey Derviccsler; Keh Moshe (Traditional Jewish, 12th century); Adam de la Halle; Le jeu de Robin et de Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion) (excerpts).

Review by: C. Michael Bailey