Religion

​

The Phoenicians are an exceedingly clever people; they invented the alphabet, figured out how to navigate by the stars, and established international trade, first in Egypt, then across the whole Mediterranean. Early commerce required extraordinary feats of concerted action, and they learned this lesson well. Unfortunately they are also an unpleasant people, greedy, arrogant and domineering. Their religion consists of things that should not be printed, let alone practiced. 

Phoenician masks. Totally not creepy at all.

Freemason mythology centers on Hiram Abiff, based on Phoenician king Hiram I of Tyre, famed for his involvement in the building of Solomon’s temple. Among his hundreds of wives and concubines, Solomon took on Phoenician women and allowed their friends to build temples, with decidedly unsavory rites. This after God had appeared to him twice, so in his son’s reign Israel was split in two, Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Parenthetically, it is curious to note that Meggido (Armageddon) is halfway between Jerusalem in the south and Tyre in the north.

Later the prophet Elijah did battle with Phoenician priests of Baal (Beelzebub) and Israel’s king Ahab and his wife Jezebel, a Phoenician priestess of Baal. In Moby-Dick, Herman Melville portrays them as Captain Ahab, crazed in his determination to destroy God, the white whale. Melville likely knew about these people and their modern descendants, the Freemasons; his paternal grandfather Thomas Melvill participated in the Boston Tea Party, maternal grandfather Peter Gansevoort commanded the defense of Fort Stanwix, the primary stronghold of the Continental Army. 

Just a few steps from Herman’s birthplace, in New York City Hall Park, a copy of a Phoenician arch from the temple of Baal in Palmyra, Syria was erected recently, one can only surmise by Freemasons. They installed the same arch in Trafalgar Square, London and at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. These people are weird. Edgar Allan Poe, Melville’s only rival in American literature, also took an anti-Masonic stance in “The Cask of Amontillado,” which takes place during Carnival.

“Man, Carnival’s just not the same anymore.”

A Freemasonic website says of their famous ‘G’ symbol, variously said to represent God, geometry, or other things:

Gamma was derived from the Phoenician letter Gimel. The men of the Phoenician city of Gebal who were known as Gebalites (in Hebrew Gebalim) built temples around the Mediterranean Sea and beyond at Cadiz. Gebal also means a line or natural boundary, such as a mountain range. The name of this important ancient trading port may be derived from the line of mountains seen behind this city, when it is approached from the sea. It was known to the Greeks as Byblos [from whence -biblio or Bible].

The influx of Phoenician religious influence in Israel was shortly before the founding of the city of Carthage on the north African coast. Jewish historian Flavius Josephus says Carthage was founded by Jews, modern scholars say they were Phoenicians, probably both are right. Carthage became the dominant city of the Mediterranean, with a population of perhaps a million. As Roman territories merged on the Italian peninsula, they began to see Carthage’s possession of Sicily, so close to them, as a threat. This led to a series of wars called the Punic Wars, lasting from 264-146 BC.
​

Kick rocks, biatch

In the Second Punic War, Carthaginian general Hannibal famously crossed the Alps with his elephants, entering Italy from the north. Before reaching the Alps, the army of 80,000 first crossed what are now Spain and France, and in order to accomplish this logistical task another Hannibal suggested that the army should eat the people they met along the way. If you’ve seen The Silence of the Lambs, that’s the origin of the Hannibal Lecter character. Sigmund Freud, incidentally, saw himself as a sort of Hannibal, waging psychological warfare on western civilization; his nephew Edward Bernays is the founder of modern PR and propaganda. In 153 BC, Roman senator Cato the Elder was sent on an embassy to Carthage, and he decided they were so poisonous that upon his return he ended every speech, whatever the subect, with Carthago delenda est, “Carthage must be destroyed.” 

Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers) battling his manservant/antagonist Cato, A Shot in the Dark (1964)

Seven years later the Romans finally entered Carthage and the city was razed; their dogs were cut in half. 

“Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.” Dark Helmet, Spaceballs (1987)

Child sacrifice was practiced on a large scale at Carthage; this was dismissed by many scholars in the twentieth century, but the question is now settled. These rites are the subject of the Shakespeare poem The Phoenix and the Turtle. It was published in a little book called Love's Martyr (1601), whose title page alludes to Torquato Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered (1581), then an international sensation. The eponymous turtle is a turtledove; turtledoves were sacrificed at Jerusalem. 

Let the Priest in Surplice white,
That defunctive Music can,
Be the death-divining Swan,
Lest the Requiem lack his right.
…
Here the Anthem doth commence,
Love and Constancy is dead,
Phoenix and the Turtle fled,
In a mutual flame from hence.
...
Beauty, Truth, and Rarity,
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclosed, in cinders lie.
Death is now the Phoenix' nest,
And the Turtle's loyal breast,
To eternity doth rest.
...
Truth may seem, but cannot be,
Beauty brag, but 'tis not she,
Truth and Beauty buried be.
To this urn let those repair,
That are either true or fair,
For these dead Birds, sigh a prayer.
 
William Shake-speare.
​

Vicki Polin on the Synagogue of Satan, the Oprah Winfrey Show (1989)

​Phoenician writers on black magic include Iamblichus and Porphyry, popular with Freemasons. In his recent discussion of Shakespeare’s allusion to Pythagoras in Merchant of Venice, Todd Borlik notes

According to Porphyry, Pythagoras studied not only with the Chaldeans and Egyptians but also with the Hebrews. Iamblichus reports that Pythagoras, on his way to Egypt from Samos, made a long stopover in Phoenicia where he “conversed with the prophets who were the descendants of Moschus [Moses]” 

This is not the place to discuss the relationship between Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, but suffice to say they are similar, stylometrically speaking. Marlowe is best known for Doctor Faustus, about the legendary sorcerer; his Jew of Malta is seen as a progenitor of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, and Phoenicians played a prominent part in both locales. Marlowe had an astounding knowledge of Malta and its history, down to intricate details of its topography. In “‘Malta of Gold’: Marlowe, The Jew of Malta, and the Siege of 1565” (1997), Lisa Hopkins notes

Another Jew associated with the history of the Maltese islands would also have been a figure of considerable interest to Marlowe. Abraham Abulafia of Saragossa, born in 1240 and 'founder of the practical Cabbala', was exiled to Comino in around 1288, and composed one of his works there. There is ample evidence that members of Marlowe's circle were interested in the Cabbala: Giordano Bruno, who seems to be represented in Doctor Faustus and whose influence on Tamburlaine David Farley-Hills has recently pointed out, showed much interest in occult writing and wrote a work called Cabala del cavallo pegaseo; John Dee, who seems overwhelmingly likely to have had links with Marlowe, was 'a practical cabalist'. (Dee, too, seems a likely comparator for Faustus).

John Dee, the original 007, has many fans and apologists today, but if you want to read about the wife-swapping advice from the angels he summoned, it’s an amusing story. I would suggeset that any kind of stuff like that, whatever your intentions, is a bad idea. 

Yes, Freemasonry is Satanic
​

Mason claims to be Lucifer

800-Year-Old Satanic Vineyard Peyrassol

Templar; sculpture representing the nine original Templars

That's Mr. Clean with two Warner Brothers logos on either side. Underneath Mr. Clean it reads ars gratia artis, "art for art's sake," the motto of Metro-Goldwyn Mayer studios. Because, why not? Perfect for an 800-year-old vineyard in the south of France. At the bottom of the gate it reads lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate, “abandon all hope ye who enter here,” the inscription on the gate to hell in Dante’s Inferno.

​​That, I believe, is General Custer with a Confederate flag on his hat. Because, why not? Perfect for an 800-year-old vineyard in the south of France. Red Templar cross.

A different winery, Donum in Sonoma, California. This is one of the creepiest things I've ever seen. Done-um, eh? Glad to be a beer drinker. Back to France.

Here's some more creepy sculpture

Kindlisfresserbrunen, Bern, Switzerland (1546)

Gustav Vigeland, he also designed the Nobel Prize medal, named after the guy who invented dynamite.
​Now you know why Henry Kissinger has a Nobel Peace Prize.