[the dark one] alive, kicking and sentient [1]

Sonus is correct, within his field of expertise: The transmitter of light (the light bearer) was the Rose of Sharon, the carrier of the “Rosi Crucis”. “Rosi” represented the “Ritu” (the redness of truth) and “Crucis” related to a cup, as in “crucible”. This was equivalent to the “Sacred Vessel of Light in Kabbalah”, and is why the mystical technology of the Zohar has been linked to the “Holy Grail”. Spot on. He is also spot on with references to the puritans: The Puritan faction in England was damaging to cultural pursuits in many ways, but most effectively and permanently by way of its own literary culture. Therefore, from 1667, Lucifer became an alternative name for Satan, while the “Lux-fer” associations with Venus, light bearer and Goddess of Love, were forgotten by way of religious clerical indoctrination and control. Significantly, three hundred years later the puritan view is still being regurgitated by hard line religious extremists, pursuing a modern day witch hunt, based on an entirely deliberate mistranslation. Yes, that’s so – no arguments there. The single greatest source of damage to the faith, apart from Jehovah’s Witnesses. However, where Sonus is ill at ease is in his theology and in his failure to reveal the whole nature of the ‘dark figure’ in his/her various manifestations, something I do further down in the article. For example, he states: In the new Testament, only one reference introduces a devil character. Other Satanic entries are symbolic, eg, at the Last Supper it is stated “Then entered satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve”. Actually, there are many, many references, for example, 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4: Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. Sonus makes another little blooper: Jesus was therefore declared to be a God, 325 years later, by the Roman Emperor, and the result of these deliberations is the Nicean or Nicene Creed, so called after the location of the council, that is recited to this day in most Anglican, and Catholic churches. Now to be fair, Sonus does not actually state that there was no declaration of divinity before that year but it certainly comes across that way and it is patently wrong. This was dealt with in the Pre-Nicene section of THIS ARTICLE posted last Sunday, which shows that, in fact, Jesus was hailed as divine from a very early time. The biblical Satan had no physical description, and early artwork portrayed him no differently than any other angel. In the year 591 AD, Pope Gregory 1 Oh really? The dark figure has so many manifestations so yes, it’s agreed it’s hard to ascribe a form, as he does not have just the one form. This is where the shape shifting comes in. However, he is defined in scripture in quite a few places. Here’s one: Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the rod of him that smote thee is broken: for out of the serpent's root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent. . . Howl, O gate; cry, O city; thou, whole Palestina, art dissolved: for there shall come from the north a smoke, and none shall be alone in his appointed times. Isaiah 14:29,31 There you go. Here’s another one: Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days. . . Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward. I have waited for thy salvation, O LORD." Genesis 49:1,16-18 This is not meant to be a ‘get stuck into Sonus session’ however, but a ‘get stuck into Satan session’, so let’s get started. The Ancient Satan What becomes apparent, the more you study and research, is how the manifestations and the motifs have such similarities throughout history, whether on the plains with Moloch, in the French revolution or in Darfur. ‘Let me introduce myself,’ sang Jerry Hall’s partner and even Sonus’s article portrays the dark one, at worst, as Old Nick, forgetting about the pain, misery, death, dependency and alienation which attend his every move. It’s always destructive whilst maintaining it’s constructive and thus the little people are crushed beneath the juggernaut, to culturally mix metaphors. Annunaki and Nephilim In the Sumerian Scriptures, which go back at least 6000 years, the stone tablets tell us about the Anunnaki "they who from heaven came". According to researchers like Zachariah Sitchin, the Anunnaki were the Gods mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible, aliens who came from another planet and created humankind as a slave race to serve them. The Sumerian Scriptures tell us about Anu, who was the king of the Anunnaki, and Ea (or Enki), who is the serpent. He is told to be the one who gave the knowledge to man in the Garden of Eden, and created the first secret society, the above mentioned " Brotherhood of the Snake". The Anunnaki are said to have come here to exploit the resources of the Earth; especially gold, as this was something they were lacking on their planet, and they urgently needed it as an important ingredient in their atmosphere. Thus Ea, who was a brilliant scientist, created homo sapiens as a hybrid between a primitive earth life-form and the alien race. The Christian viewpoint is that the Anunnaki in fact were the Giants that walked the Earth, which the Bible is talking about. Those Giants were the Nephilim, who rebelled against God and were cast down to Earth from Heaven, together with their master. Christians explain shape shifting by saying that the aliens in fact are demons and the Nephilim. And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. There were giants in the earth in those days (prior to Genesis 1:2); and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men, which were of old (before man), men of renown. Gen 6: 1-3 I don’t see any reason to doubt this, as all scriptures, both dark and light, appear to converge in this area, though the interpretations of texts differ and the real interpretation is concealed [arcane]. Also, if you can accept the early parts of the Torah, some very weird things seemed to go on, at least until the flood. Things then became a bit more orthodox in the New Testament. It does explain though why the powers that be today are the powers that be and the ancient families are the ancient rulers. Michael Palin once said, ‘Well I didn’t vote for you,’ and Graham Chapman replied, ‘You don’t vote for Kings.’ No you don’t, you get made, according to the Sequenenry Tao II tradition. These horses’ backsides are still with us and the higher up the food chain you go, [in the UK, that means London and Scotland, in some high-paid position], the more likely it is that you’ll brush up against one of these. You can always tell them – they’re the ones who’ve sold their souls for advancement at lower levels or else they themselves are the Old Ones. The lion and the bees Jacob's prophecy in Genesis 49:10-12 is foretelling why Satan will choose to insert his seed into the tribe of Judah before the last days. Jesus is referred to in the Bible as the Lion of Judah and this fact is the key to knowing which tribe the Antichrist will rise from because in Judges 14:1-9 Samson kills a young lion by the vineyards of Timnath. He returns to the carcass of the lion: and, behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass. The bees are important because they symbolize the devils of Egypt, which by the time of the end will have taken up residence in the body of the Lion of Judah, or the covenant that was established and left behind by Jesus. The corruption motif. Osirus was, in all probability, the serpent at the garden of Eden, who said unto the woman, You shall not surely die: For God knows that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, Genesis 3:4-5. This is what was taught to the Pharaohs of Egypt in the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid. This is also why Napoleon stumbled out of the chamber disoriented (see Divided By One) during his visit to the Great Pyramid, and it is also why he adapted the beehive as one of his symbols. Disobedience After leaving Egypt and arriving at the foot of the mountain of God in Saudi Arabia, Moses was called upon to receive the Ten Commandments. The second law given to him was this. You shall not make unto you any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven, Exodus 20:4. The layout of the pyramids on the Giza Plateau is exactly that, a likeness of something in heaven. Then in Exodus 20:25-26 God tells Moses, And if you will make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone: for if you lift up your tool upon it, you have polluted it. Neither shall you go up by steps unto my altar, that your nakedness be not discovered thereon. If the Great Pyramid of Egypt is nothing else, it is a giant stairway to heaven made completely of hewn stone. More important than that though, is that your nakedness be not discovered thereon, because the word nakedness leads us right back to Genesis chapter three where Adam and Eve were found in the garden of Eden knowing for the first time that they were naked. Dan The association of Dan with Satan is more than fanciful. For example: Nor is the omission of Dan in I Chron. iv. et seq. unintentional. . . Dan became the very type of evildoing. He was placed in the north (Num.ii.25), this being the region of darkness and evil (Jer. i.14) because of his idolatry which wrapped the world in darkness (Num.ii.)." [Singer, The Jewish Encyclopedia, ("Dan"), p. 423] 'We shall hear the voice of his swift horses from Dan; the whole earth shall be moved by the voice of the neighing of his galloping horses: he shall also come and devour the earth, and the fulness thereof, the city also, and they that dwell therein.' This, too, is the reason that this tribe is not reckoned in the Apocalypse along with those which are saved." [Irenaeus, "Against Heresies," Vol. I of Ante-Nicean Fathers, p. 559] Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers … nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all. Daniel 11:37 Persistent motif. "[T]he whole time of your faith will not profit you unless you are made complete in the last time. For in the last days false prophets and corrupters shall be multiplied, and sheep shall be turned into wolves . . . and then shall the deceiver of the world appear, pretending to be the Son of God, and [he] shall do signs and wonders, and the earth shall be delivered into his hands" (Didache 16:3-4 [A.D. 70]). For the deceiver seeks to liken himself in all things to the Son of God. Christ is a lion, so Antichrist is also a lion. Christ is a king, so Antichrist is also a king. The Savior was manifested as a lamb, so he too in like manner will appear as a lamb without; within he is a wolf. The Savior came into the world in the circumcision [i.e., the Jewish race], and he will come in the same manner. . . . The Savior raised up and showed his holy flesh like a temple, and he will raise a temple of stone in Jerusalem" (The Antichrist 6 [A.D. 200]). "[W]e find it written regarding Antichrist . . . ‘Dan is a lion’s whelp, and he shall leap from Bashan’ [Deut. 33:22]. But that no one may err by supposing that this is said of the Savior, let him attend carefully to the matter. Dan, he says, is a lion’s whelp. And in naming the tribe of Dan, he declared clearly the tribe from which Antichrist is destined to spring. For as Christ springs from the tribe of Judah, so Antichrist is to spring from the tribe of Dan. And that the case stands thus, we see also from the words of Jacob: ‘Let Dan be a serpent, lying upon the ground, biting the horse’s heel’ [Gen. 49:17]. The events of the transition (Judges 18) and subsequent choices resulted in the tribe of Dan’s becoming the most idolatrous of all the tribes. Idolatrous worship practices were established in Dan during the priesthood of Moses’ grandson, Jonathan, and were continued by his descendants (Judg 18:30). The city finally became a national center of idolatry under Jeroboam I (1 Kgs 12:29-33). Being "the rearward of all the camps" (Num. x. 25), Dan fell a victim to "the fire that devoured the uttermost part of the camp because of the idol which provoked the anger of the Lord" (Targ. Yer. to Num. xi. 1, Hebr.). It was also Dan's idolatry which induced Balaam to order altar and sacrifices for the defeat of Israel (Targ. Yer. to Num. xxii. 41, xxiii. 1). Dan's idolatry restrained Abraham in his march against the Babylonian kings (Gen. xiv. 15; Gen. R. xliii.) and appalled Moses in his vision of the future (Targ. Yer. to Deut. xxxiv. 1; Sifre, Debarim, 357). The children of Dan taught their sons the idolatrous Amorite practises contained in the books hidden under Mount Abarim (Gaster, "Chronicles of Jerahmeel," 1899, p. 167). The reference to the name "Daniel" and to the cuneiform name of a king, "Ashur-dan," in support of the critical view has not been regarded by conservative scholars as sufficient to prove the contention in issue. Still, the analogy with other names, both tribal (Gad) and personal, is strongly in favor of the views advanced by Kuenen and his successors. "Daniel," in all probability, means "Dan is El" (compare "Eliyahu") and not "God is my judge"; and "Ashur-dan" is also a combination of two names of deities. Several references to the activities of the tribe of Dan in the early period of the monarchy are found in the Books of Chronicles. Thus, 28,600 armed men of the tribe are represented as taking part in the election of David in Hebron (I Par., xii, 35), and among the skilled artists sent by Hiram of Tyre to Solomon was the metal-worker Hiram, whose mother was of the tribe of Dan (II Par., ii, 13 sq.). Danes from the Israelite Tribe of Dan invaded Denmark at about the same time as the Naphtali moved in large numbers into Norway. The Tribe of Dan was represented by a snake or by a lion. Other accepted symbols of Dan were a pair of scales, an eagle, and a dragon. Many members of Dan settled in Denmark, in Ireland, in Wales, England, and the U.S.A. where 40-50 million people have Irish ancestry. The symbol of a snake was once worshipped in Ireland; a lion represents Denmark and England, Wales has a dragon on its flag, and the U.S.A. has an eagle. The "Bloodline of the Holy Grail," written by Sir Laurence Gardner, Chief Royal Genealogist to the Scottish House of Stewart, refers to a real and historic King Arthur having the same Bloodline of the Messiah, the ancient Bloodline of Israel's King David. To the Jewish mind, having the Bloodline of their ancient King David is also equated to being one considered to be their Messiah, for whom they are still waiting. Two Royal Families in Great Britain claim and have claimed of them to be descendants of Israel. These are the current House of Windsor and the House of Stewart. Both these have what is called the Holy Bloodline of Judah [from which ancient Judaism states their Messiah MUST herald from]. King Arthur died from a "mortal wound to the head", having his skull crushed in battle from a sword, at the Battle of Camlann between 516-550 AD. It then becomes another note of intriguing interest that both the Biblical Beast and the legendary Arthur both "are mortally wounded", then seemingly recover. Both are said to return, leading the world to a Millennial peace. Merovingians The Pont de l'Alma site in Paris is ancient and dates back to the Merovingian kings and before. In pre-Christian times, the Pont de l'Alma was an underground chamber and was used as a pagan sacrificial site. In Middle English, "soul" has, as its etymology, "descended from the sea." In French – de la Mere. "Pont" has as a Latin root "pontifex", meaning a Roman high priest. "Alma" also is Spanish for "Soul or spirit". One translation of Pont del' Alma would be "Bridge of the Soul." It was believed that those who died at the sacrificial site became saintly and went directly to heaven. Freemasonry and those naughty Templars "Thirty-third degree Freemason Albert Pike (1809-1891), the man destined to develop the Luciferian Doctrine for the Masonic hierarchy, could not accept that Lucifer and Satan were the same personality. While teaching his beliefs to a select few in the Supreme Council, Pike became the most powerful Mason in the world. Although an obscure general in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War, he was hardly inconspicuous in Freemasonry. From 1859 until his death in 1891, Pike occupied simultaneously the positions of Grand Master of the Central Directory at Washington, D.C., Grand Commander of the Supreme Council at Charleston, S.C., and Sovereign Pontiff of Universal Freemasonry. He was an honorary member of almost every Supreme Council in the world, personally receiving 130 Masonic degrees. Pike also was one of the most physically and morally repulsive individuals in American history. Weighing well over three hundred pounds, his sexual proclivity was to sit naked astride a phallic throne in the woods, accompanied by a gang of prostitutes. To these orgies he would bring one or more wagon loads of food and liquor, most of which he would consume over a period of two days until he passed into a stupor. In his adopted state of Arkansas, portraits of his later years show him wearing a symbol of the Baphomet around his neck." [Scarlet and the Beast, John Daniel, vol 1] "You must conceal all the crimes of your brother Masons... and should you be summoned as a witness against a brother Mason be always sure to shield him... It may be perjury to do this, it is true, but you’re keeping your obligations." [Ronayne, "Handbook of Masonry" p. 183 ] "We shall unleash the Nihilists and atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm which, in all its horror, will show clearly to the nations the effect of absolute atheism, origin of savagery and of the most bloody turmoil. Then everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the world minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate those destroyers of civilization, and the multitude, disillusioned with Christianity, whose deistic spirit will from that moment be without a compass (direction), anxious for an ideal, but without knowing where to render its adoration, will receive the pure light through the universal manifestation of the pure doctrine of Lucifer, brought finally out in the public view, a manifestation which will result from the general reactionary movement which will follow the destruction of Christianity and atheism, both conquered and exterminated at the same time." [Albert Pike, on a plan for world conquest, written in a letter to Mazzini dated August 15, 1871.] No doubt at all that he exists as a sentient being, is there? At least not in Their eyes. Of course, you yourself, dear reader, may have more wisdom than all the ancients combined and insist that there is no sentient Lucifer. With your level of worldly wisdom and the depth of your scholarship, should we be worshipping you instead? 'There exists in the world today, and has existed for thousands of years, a body of enlightened humans united in what might be termed an Order of the Quest. It is composed of those whose intellectual and spiritual perceptions have revealed to them that civilization has a secret destiny. The outcome of this 'secret destiny' is a World Order ruled by a King with supernatural powers. This King was descended of a divine race; that is, he belonged to the Order of the Illumined for those who come to a state of wisdom then belonged to a family of heroes - perfected human beings.' [Manly P. Hall 33° Mason, The Secret Destiny of America] And so on and so on and so on. Yo, satana. Why no woman should join the Eastern Star - excerpts from Masonry, Beyond the Light by William Schnoebelen. This is the account of a former Rainbow girl. This is the problem with the OES. The people who put the order together back in the 19th century relied upon the familiarity with Matthew 2:2 as a common "Christmas verse." However, in light of the satanic symbolism involved in the OES, we need to look for another layer of meaning applied to that verse of scripture. The A.V. 1611 text does not say "eastern star." It says "star in the east." The phrase "Eastern Star" has a specialized meaning in occultism. It refers to the star, Sirius, which is the most significant star in Satanism! It is sacred to the god, Set. Remember Set as the evil Egyptian god who killed Osiris? Set is probably the oldest form of Satan! The Eastern Star is the star of Set. However, deadly word games are being played here. Though most women involved in the OES doubtless assume they are worshiping Jesus as they kneel around a huge satanic pentagram, it is obvious that the "his" actually refers to Set's star, not Jesus' star. In Albert Pike's commentary on this degree, we find the usual duplicity found elsewhere in the Lodge. He explains: "To find in the BLAZING STAR of five points an allusion to Divine Providence is fanciful; and to make it commemorative of the Star that is said to have guided the Magi, is to give it a meaning comparatively modern. Originally, it represented Sirius, or the Dog-star, the forerunner of the inundation of the Nile…" Pike readily casts aside the bland lie of the degree and confirms that the blazing star is neither Divine Providence, nor is it Jesus' "star in the east." It is an Egyptian idol, the symbol of Sirius! The Eastern Star was aware that other girls were having sex too and some even got pregnant, but those girls secretly got abortions. Those girls were allowed to keep their chair as long as the community was not aware of their sin. Of course the doctors who performed the abortions were Masons. JH – by the way, don’t even start on Ishtar and the statues of liberty. Templars There is also evidence that the Templar fleet travelled to North America in 1398 (almost 100 years before Columbus) with the Sinclairs, and settled there at least temporarily. Connections are made between the tower ruins along the eastern coast of the United States, objects discovered in the Oak Island "Money Pit", and the Templar Order. The Sinclairs (or Saint-Clairs) castle near Edinburgh, was situated next to Rosslyn chapel, which was constructed by the Sinclairs according to the floorplan of Solomon's original temple. Engraved in the masonry around the chapel are maize and aloe plants, which grew only in North America. JH – you probably know all about Rosslyn, so I shan’t go on with it. The Mason’s Tale The parallel story is this: Egypt was divided at this time with a dynasty of Hyksos kings in the Northern Kingdom and a legitimate pharaonic dynasty in the Southern Kingdom. Seqenenry Tao II appears to have been murdered by two spies dispatched on an espionage mission from the north to extract the occult secrets pertaining to the king-making rituals from the Theban ruler in the south. The Hyksos ruler, Apophis, apparently wished to establish a legitimate pharaonic dynasty in the north by stealing the king-making rites from the south. The name "Hyksos" means "Shepherd Kings" and refers to the Semitic peoples who settled in Egypt during a period of famine and whose numbers swelled to a point where they outstripped the indigenous population of the north and eventually seized control. Joseph was a contemporary of Seqenenry Tao II and served under the Hyksos king, Apophis, as vizier. When his brothers Levi and Simeon came to Egypt to request wheat on behalf of famine-struck Canaan, Joseph displayed natural reluctance, since his brothers had once tried to take his life. Intent on avenging their dark deed, Joseph devised a punishment. In exchange for their lives, the brothers would have to undertake a dangerous espionage mission on behalf of the king. Their job was to steal the secrets pertaining to the ritual of making kings from the legitimate pharaoh of the South Kingdom. Agreeing to Joseph's proposal, the brothers were dispatched to the south to extract the required secrets from the pharaoh of the south. With the complicity of a young Theban priest of the south, they confronted the pharaoh in the Temple of Amon-Re and demanded that he reveal the nature of these arcane practices. When he refused, the three spies administered the three fatal blows symbolically reenacted in the 3rd Degree of Freemasonry. The three assassins are referred to in Masonic lore as Jubelo, Jubela, and Jubelum and are known collectively as the three "Juwes". Jubelo has been identified as the treacherous young priest who conspired with the assassins, while Jubela and Jubelum are believed to be Joseph's brothers Levi and Simeon. It is clear from this account that Joseph, his brothers and the Hyksos ruler of the North were all complicit in the murder of Sequenenry Tao II or Hiram Abif, the 'Lost King'. The reason he is referred to as the 'Lost King' is because, with his death, the arcane king-making rituals of ancient Egypt were lost forever. The Rosy Cross 1st century AD. It was at this time that Ormus was converted to the Gnostic view of Christianity by Mark, a disciple of Jesus. It was Ormus who founded a secret society, which united esoteric Christianity with the teachings of the pagan mystery schools. He adopted the symbol of a cross, surmounted by a rose, to symbolize the specifically pagan brand of Christianity he embraced. Some researchers maintain that the original Order of the Rosy Cross dates to Pharaoh Thothmes III, who reigned in the 15th century BC. The pharaoh allegedly formed a secret brotherhood composed of the most learned priests, scribes, and philosophers of his day. There seems to be some basis for this account, since the modern Order still employs the personal seal of Thothmes as one of its symbols in both private and public documents. Some of the Grand Masters who have presided over the Order include: Raymond VI, the Count of Toulouse; Dante, the writer, poet, and philosopher; Cornelius Agrippa, the German magician, who wrote about the Templars; Paracelsus, the alchemist and founder of chemistry and modern medicine; Dr. John Dee, the Elizabethan astrologer and cabalist; Giordana Bruno, the Hermetic philosopher who was burnt at the stake during the Inquisition; Sir Francis Bacon, politician, writer, philosopher, and the true author of the Shakespeare plays according to Freemasonry; Spinoza, the famed philosopher; Robert Boyle, the English scientist responsible for founding the Royal Society, based on Bacon's concept of the Invisible College; Sir Christopher Wren, the sacred geometry adept responsible for building many of London's most prized architectural marvels, including St. Paul's Cathedral; Benjamin Franklin, writer, philosopher and Renaissance man extraordinaire; Comte Cagliostro, the occultist founder of Egyptian Freemasonry, and Thomas Jefferson, the U.S. president. Claude Debussy, a past Grand Master of the Priory of Sion, has also been listed as one of the Rosicrucian Order's Grand Masters. Do you remember that hotch-potch film, The Da Vinci Code, with Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou? Do you recall where, as a child, she accidentally saw a ritual where a woman was being bestialized by a coven in the middle of a downstairs room? At the end of the film, those people took her back and they were meant to be the heroes of the film! As a little joke, Audrey Poupou steps on water and with a little giggle, says, ‘No,’ meaning that walking on water is a myth and therefore she’s a non-believer. By the way, did you observe any actual love displayed throughout that film? What was the author’s name again – Dan, wasn’t it? Magik "It is generally agreed that the biggest single influence in the modern expansion of ritual magic, and the occult explosion in general, in the Western world, was the Golden Dawn. This magical fraternity, founded by Freemasons at the end of the 19th century, developed a complex ritual system with ten degrees of initiation relating to the Cabalistic Sephiroth." [Janet and Stewart Farrar, The Life and Times of A Modern Witch, Phoenix Publishing Company, p. 121.] The phoenix, by the way, is quite a significant symbol in satanism. The notion that the magik and the pagan do not have associations with the dark side is so laughable that only the uninitiated would suggest such a thing. My pagan friend used to tell me about the white and the dark, about incantations and hexes [I had eleven of them on me at one point, all bar two from women]. I had a long association with an adept named Cypra and she taught me much about the juxtaposition of the universe, so I don’t come from a lifelong Christian tradition but from the other side; though my initial commitment was early, the illumination came well into my adult life, after I’d already done a lot of damage.