Podcasts about pope alexander

Hugh Turley - Thomas Merton, his mission and his murderHugh Turley joined Ed Opperman to discuss Thomas Merton, one of the greatest scribes and men of peace of the 20th Century, largely unsung, whose writings from a Monastry during the sixties were more than incidental to the events of those times. Turley speaks of Merton, the man, his work and ultimately his murder in 1968.Merton was also responsible as inspiration at least for the seminal work on the book 'JFK and The Unspeakable. Why he died and why it matters'. Merton was instrumental in the cooling of high temperatures during the Cuban missile crisis, averting both the end of the world and a massive coup for the Military Industrial Complex.Not only did this mark out JFK for execution, but it also put a timer on his own life.In 1968, someone spoke regarding Thomas Merton as Henry II spoke regarding Thomas à Becket on Christmas Day, AD 1170, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" And, as in 1170 so in 1968, someone did rid the speaker "of this meddlesome priest." The difference in the two cases is that in 1170, Pope Alexander immediately started an investigation, determined who the murderers were—four knights, a bishop and Henry II— and excommunicated them. In 1968, however, the powers that be in the Church, the state and media fabricated a story on how Merton died, adopted it, and extensively and exclusively publicized it.In 1968, Thomas Merton was the last in the triad of murder of men of global eminence who were commanding and compelling voices on behalf of the wretched of the earth in the U.S. and beyond. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy were the other two. And as religious and secular realpolitik would have it, the murderers of all three were protected by government, corporate, and religious systematic deceit operations nearly as impenetrable to this day as they were in 1968.-Emmanuel Charles McCarthyWebsite : Thomas Merton FBI Coverup Website : Hugh Turley MagicianYoutube : Thomas MertonFrom October 2018.This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/1198501/advertisement

The Prince is a political treatise, written by Niccolò Machiavelli, first distributed in 1513. It's infamous for its apparent advice to political leaders to lie, murder, and manipulate. It's still a fascinating read today, and is thought-provoking when considering any context where the true motives of actions may not be what they seem. Here, in my own words, is a summary of Niccoló Machiavelli's, The Prince. Is The Prince advice, satire, or sabotage? Machiavelli wrote The Prince while in exile from Florence. Since he opens it with a letter to Lorenzo d'Medici it seems like Machiavelli was trying to get a political position with the Medici, by demonstrating his political knowledge. (The Medici had recently returned to power in Florence, after themselves being exiled fifteen years.) But, some scholars think The Prince is satire. Others think the advice within was a ploy, in that if it were followed, the actions would weaken the power of the Medici. “The ends [justified] the means,” in Renaissance Italy Though the phrase isn't in the book, The Prince is the origin of the saying, “the ends justify the means.” In other words, if you have an important goal, morality doesn't matter. It's also the inspiration for the name of the personality trait of “Machiavellianism”, which is characterized by manipulativeness, insensitivity, and an indifference to morality. Psychologists include Machiavellianism in the “dark triad” personality traits, along with narcissism and psychopathy. Sixteenth century Italy was the perfect environment for advice like that in The Prince to flourish. There was constant conflict amongst small governing bodies, including the most-notable city-states of Florence, Milan, Rome, Naples, and Venice. Additionally, there were frequent invasions by Spain, France, or the Holy Roman Empire. If the numerous examples Machiavelli cites in The Prince are any indication, if you didn't lie, murder, and manipulate, you wouldn't stay in power, and probably would be murdered yourself. You don't have to be Machiavellian to learn from The Prince As you listen to this advice, it's not hard to think of similar, less-violent situations in our everyday lives, as we build relationships and careers, or watch others vie for power. So what is some of this juicy advice that has made The Prince and Niccolò Machiavelli so infamous? I'll break down this summary into two sections, followed by some historical examples Machiavelli cites, peppered with some quotes. Those two sections are: Gaining power Retaining power (Note this isn't how Machiavelli organizes The Prince.) 1. Gaining power First how to gain power. Machiavelli points out that the people within a state are eager to change rulers. People naturally expect change to improve their lives, so, they're willing to join in armed resistance against the ruling power. This attitude extends from the people, to other states. If a powerful foreigner invades a country, the states within want to help overturn the rule of the most-powerful state. But you have to be careful. It's normal to want to acquire more land, but when you try to do it by any means possible, you end up making dumb mistakes. How this applies to other domains As you hear this, you may already have some parallels to other domains bouncing around in your head. How many times have you bought a product just slightly different from one you already had, because you believed the change would make your life better? Marketers take advantage of this. I've read one marketing book that advised to think of the product you're marketing as a “new opportunity.” Changing leadership is a “new opportunity,” that temporarily makes you optimistic, like how we feel when a New Year comes around. But often, the new product, the new ruler, or the New Year doesn't make your life better. We get stuck in a cycle of wanting change and striving for it, only to find we aren't better off than before, which drives our desire to change once again. This is why, to quote Machiavelli: There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. —Niccolò Machiavelli The Prince In other words, you might get short-term support in the change you're trying to introduce, but the support you once had will soon wane, and those who were doing well before will try to overthrow you. 2. Retaining power This brings us to the second section, about retaining power. Being able to retain power starts with choosing carefully where and how you gain power. This is why Machiavelli warns: He who has not first laid his foundations may be able with great ability to lay them afterwards, but they will be laid with trouble to the architect and danger to the building. —Niccolò Machiavelli The Prince Any new state is extremely fragile, unless the person who unexpectedly gained power over that state is highly-skilled. You can gain power by getting the help of the people, or other states, but whoever helped you will probably be disappointed in what they get from it, and will no longer want to help you. Be especially careful not to make your allies much more powerful, because then they'll become threats. Additionally, they'll distrust you, because in the process of helping them, they saw how cunning you are. So, if you're invading a place, you want to be on the good side of the natives. However, if they're used to being free, you'll have to destroy them, or they'll destroy you. As Machiavelli said: Men ought to either be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot. —Niccolò Machiavelli The Prince In other words, if they're dead, they can't get revenge. And: He who becomes master of a city accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it, may expect to be destroyed by it. —Niccolò Machiavelli The Prince If you want to retain power in a new state, you need to start a colony there. You don't have to spend a lot on the colony, because after you take the land and houses of people, they will be, “poor and scattered,” and can't hurt you. It's important to be in the place you're ruling, because otherwise you don't find out about things that go wrong until it's too late to fix them. Statecraft is a lot of work, because, as Machiavelli says: He who has relied least on fortune is established the strongest. —Niccolò Machiavelli The Prince How this applies to other domains Some of this advice may resonate with situations you've experienced. Some of it may be horrifying to you. Here's how it can apply to other domains. Imagine you're a CEO, and you've just acquired a new company. It's best to get it right the first time. If you make mistakes, you'll have a hard time leading the company. When a company acquires another, or a new leader comes into a company, you often see layoffs right away. This mirrors Machiavelli's related advice, which is: Injuries ought to be done all at one time, so that, being tasted less, they offend less; benefits ought to be given little by little, so that the flavor of them may last longer. —Niccolò Machiavelli The Prince If done according to Machiavelli's advice, after the brutal layoffs, there will be ice-cream socials, team-building exercises, and bonuses scattered over the coming months and years, hopefully without more massive layoffs. Whoever is in charge had better have close oversight to an office that's far away from headquarters, otherwise by the time you find out about problems, it's too late to fix them. How not to rule: King Louis XII A leader who Machiavelli uses as a warning for not ruling well is King Louis the XII, of France. The Venetians brought in King Louis, because they wanted to seize half the state of Lombardy. But they later realized, they had helped make Louis king of two-thirds of Italy. Louis was now well-positioned, but then his mistakes began. He helped Pope Alexander occupy the Romagna, divided the kingdom of Naples with the king of Spain, and turned around and tried to conquer Venice's territories. So, he weakened the minor power of Venice, losing their alliance, made a great power – the pope – even more powerful, and brought in a foreign power – Spain. He didn't settle in the land he had conquered, and didn't set up colonies. How to rule: Cesare Borgia Like Louis XII when the Venetians enlisted his help, Cesare Borgia came into power through fortune. Unlike Louis, he made what Machiavelli felt were wise decisions. Cesare was the son of Pope Alexander VI, who himself was cunning. He wanted to give Cesare a state to rule, but there weren't good options. For example, the Milanese or the Venetians would stop him, and anyone in Italy who might have helped knew better than to make the pope even more powerful. When the Venetians brought the French into Italy, Alexander didn't make a fuss, and even helped Louis out by dissolving his marriage. He provided some soldiers to help out in a military campaign in Romagna, and now his son, Cesare was the duke of Romagna. But Cesare wasn't thrilled with his military. The Orsini soldiers didn't seem psyched to take Bologna, and when he attacked Tuscany after taking over Urbino, Louis made him stop. So Cesare decided to figure out how to do things on his own. Cesare Borgia followed Machiavelli's advice (somewhat literally) Anywhere Cesare took power, he was sure to kill the nobles and their families. He weakened the Orsini and Colonna parties in Rome, by making them nobles and giving them a good salary. Then he brought in a Spaniard named Ramiro d'Orco (also known as Ramiro de Lorca) to govern the Romagna. The Romagna had been in disorder when Cesare took over, and d'Orco restored order, but through nasty means, using lots of torture, public executions, and fines. Once d'Orco had cleaned things up, Cesare – according to Machiavelli – didn't want to be associated with d'Orco's reign of terror. So, he had him publicly executed, and put his head on a stick in the town square. Machiavelli was an advisor to Cesare during this time, and felt that Cesare did almost everything right to make the best of the power he had gained through fortune, and lay a foundation that could withstand the inevitable death of his father, the pope. Machiavelli says: He told me that he had thought of everything that might occur at the death of his father, and had provided a remedy for all, except that he had never anticipated that, when the death did happen, he himself would be on the point to die. —Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince (on Cesare Borgia) When the pope did die – sooner than expected – Cesare himself was nearly dead from malaria. Though he won the favor of the next pope, Pius III died after only twenty-six days. Machiavelli felt Cesare's one mistake was then helping elect Pope Julius II, who had promised him favors in return. As Machiavelli says: He who believes that new benefits will cause great personages to forget old injuries is deceived. —Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince Cesare had slighted Julius in the past, and he wasn't going to forget that. Julius seized land from Cesare, and didn't support him. You can see a dramatization of the story of Pope Alexander and Cesare Borgia in Showtime's excellent-but-incomplete series, The Borgias. The Prince, today Machiavelli's advice – if it really is that – sounds brutal to modern ears, but it was a product of the reality of the time. Machiavelli was the only one brave enough – maybe desperate enough – to describe that reality. In many areas of life, business, and politics, the true effects of actions are often more complex than they appear on the surface. Sometimes this is an accident, many times it's deliberate. Why does a politician, a CEO, or a even a friend say what they say? I'm almost tempted to list The Prince on my best media books list, because the effect of a piece of media is always deeper than it appears on the surface. Political leaders in sixteenth-century Italy influenced perceptions through public events that could be described as media. You could say Cesare Borgia's public execution of Ramiro d'Orco was a pseudo-event. If so, Ryan Holiday's Trust Me, I'm Lying is like a modern day, The Prince: exposing the fundamentally-ugly reality of how a complex and brutal system that affects public perceptions works. Why Machiavelli's exile wasn't lonely Lest you have a low opinion of Niccolò Machiavelli from the content in The Prince, I want to leave you with something more endearing about him. When the Medici returned to power, they suspected Machiavelli of conspiring against them, so had him jailed and tortured – a decent reason to believe The Prince may have been satirical or, fittingly, a Machiavellian gambit to cause the Medici harm. Exiled to his farm estate, and stripped of his position as a political advisor, Machiavelli did his best to keep doing the work he loved, and retain a sense of dignity. In a letter to a friend, he described his daily ritual: When evening comes, I go back home, and go to my study. On the threshold, I take off my work clothes, covered in mud and filth, and I put on the clothes an ambassador would wear. Decently dressed, I enter the ancient courts of rulers who have long since died. There, I am warmly welcomed, and I feed on the only food I find nourishing and was born to savor. I am not ashamed to talk to them and ask them to explain their actions and they, out of kindness, answer me. Four hours go by without my feeling any anxiety. I forget every worry. I am no longer afraid of poverty or frightened of death. I live entirely through them. —Niccolò Machiavelli, Letter to Francesco Vettori There's your summary of Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince If you enjoyed this summary, I highly recommend you read Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince. There's also an excellent free online annotated version online, called The Annotated Prince. Thank you for having me on your podcasts! Thank you for having me on your podcasts. Thank you to David DeCelle for having me on The Model FA podcast. As always, you can find interviews of me on my interviews page. About Your Host, David Kadavy David Kadavy is author of Mind Management, Not Time Management, The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast, his Love Mondays newsletter, and self-publishing coaching David helps you make it as a creative. Follow David on: Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Subscribe to Love Your Work Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Stitcher YouTube RSS Email Support the show on Patreon Put your money where your mind is. Patreon lets you support independent creators like me. Support now on Patreon »       Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/the-prince-niccolo-machiavelli-summary/

In this episode, I talk with Joanne McCoy about her walk along the Camino de Santiago. I was unfamiliar with this pilgrimage until Joanne told me about her trip 5 years ago, and I am so glad she joined me on this episode to share this amazing adventure. The Camino de Santiago's ancient paths begin in various locations throughout Europe. Still, they all end in the city of Santiago in Spain. People have been walking to Santiago from the 10th century onwards as a way to earn grace and forgiveness for their sins. The number of pilgrims increased dramatically In 1492 when Pope Alexander the 6th declared the Camino de Santiago one of the three great pilgrimages of Europe-- along with Jerusalem and Rome. While the origins of the Camino were religious in nature, over the centuries, people's reasons for walking its various paths have changed a lot. When Joanne is not visiting America's National Parks, riding Amtrak's historic train routes, visiting MLB stadiums across the country, fulfilling her quest to step foot on all seven continents, and exploring the beaches of the world, you will find Joanne McCoy and her husband Jim in the company of their extended family (including 10 grand kids between the ages of 2 and 16) and many interesting friends. In addition to traveling, she loves to read, play word games, watch baseball, study Irish history, listen to live music and watch independent films.

So why is the food history of a community so important? And can Durham's food history be applied to other places? Who owns land, who can grow food and make a living doing so, and who has access to food, any food, least of all healthy food? The answers are deeply influenced by historical policies and practices. These in retrospect, clearly exacerbated, supported, and even created food related calamities, the dual burden communities face of both food insecurity and diet related chronic diseases, such as diabetes and obesity. Understanding these practices is important in creating change. And in understanding that conditions imposed on neighborhoods rather than personal failings of residents explain what we see today. This is a story about Durham, North Carolina. These days, Durham is famous as one of the South's foodiest towns and known for its award-winning chefs, thriving restaurant scene, and reverence for even the most humble foods served with down-home charm. But Durham, just like the rest of North Carolina, like other states and other countries, has discouraging any high rates of food insecurity. This is juxtaposed to high rates as well of obesity, diabetes, and other diet-related chronic diseases. It is helpful of course, to know how things are now, but a more complex and highly important question is how we got here. Enter history. What can be learned from a detailed historical analysis, in this case of Durham, and how relevant is this information to other places?   The Duke World Food Policy Center worked with historian, Melissa Norton to write a report titled, "Power and Benefit On The Plate The History of Food in Durham, North Carolina". This recording is an abridged version of that report and features documented historical quotes from the relevant periods in history as read by contemporary voices.   Let's go back to the beginning. Durham, North Carolina is the ancestral home of the Occaneechi, the Eno, the Adshusheer and the Shocco indigenous peoples. Before European colonizers came, land was not something that people owned. Instead land and its natural resources were shared so that everyone could benefit.   “To our people land was everything, identity, our connection to our ancestors, our pharmacy, the source of all that sustained us. Our lands, were where our responsibility to the world was enacted, sacred ground. It belonged to itself. It was a gift, not a commodity. It could never be bought or sold.”  Robin Kimmerer, Potawatomi Nation.   Durham's tribes and clans supported themselves through hunting, foraging and communal farming. They managed the habitat for fish, fowl and other wild animal populations. They used controlled fires to clear land, had complex farming irrigation systems and created a network of roads for trade and exchange. When European settler colonists came into North Carolina life for indigenous people changed dramatically. At first, they taught colonists how to forage and clear land, what to plant and how to care for crops. The colonists came to North Carolina believed that they had the spiritual, political and legal blessing of Pope Alexander the sixth through the doctrine of discovery. This decree labeled indigenous peoples as subhuman because they were not Christian and treated their land as available for the taking.   “The Indians are really better to us than we are to them. They always give us rituals at their quarters and take care we are armed against hunger and thirst. We do not do so by them, generally speaking, but let them walk by our doors hungry and do not often relieve them. We look upon them with scorn and disdain and think them little better than beasts in humane shape. Though if we're examined, we shall find that for all our religion and education, we possess more moralities and evil than these savages do not.” John Lawson, English settler colonist in North Carolina, 1709.   Settlers forced native people off ancestral homelands and took possession of the stolen land and its resources. As a result, many indigenous people left to join other tribes, some hid in order to remain in the area. And some were forced into assimilation programs or enslaved and shipped to the Caribbean.   Going back to the early colonial settlers, most were small scale farmers who grew corn, fruits and vegetables and commodities such as tobacco, wheat, and cotton for their own use or to barter. As farms grew from the 1500s through the 1800s, colonists brought West African people by force to use as free farm labor. West Africans brought seeds from their homelands and foods such as hibiscus, yams and sweet potatoes, watermelon and bananas and millet, okra and sorghum became a permanent part of the Southern food culture. Food was an essential connection to home, to community and resiliency. Indigenous and enslaved African people interacted and exchanged practical and cultural traditions.   “My name is Alex Woods. I was born in 1858. In slavery time I belonged to Jim Woods. My Missus name was Patty Woods. They treated us tolerable fair. Our food was well cooked. We were fed from the kitchen of the great house during the week. We cooked and ate at our home Saturday nights and Sundays. They allowed my father to hunt with a gun. He was a good hunter and brought a lot of game to the plantation. They cooked it at the great house and divided it up. My father killed deer and turkey. All had plenty of rabbits, possum, coons and squirrels.” Alex Woods   In 1854, the development of the North Carolina railroad transformed agricultural markets. The farming economy shifted from fruits, vegetables, and grains toward large scale cash crops, such as tobacco. The railroad stop in Durham became the center of the city. By the time the civil war began in 1861, nearly one out of three people in Durham county were enslaved. A quarter of the area's white farmers legally owned enslaved people. Cameron Plantation was the largest plantation in the state with 30,000 acres and 900 enslaved people.   To be self sufficient, create security and build wealth. People needed to own land. The federal government passed the homestead act of 1862 to create new land ownership opportunities. As a result in the west 246 million acres of native people's land were deeded to 1.5 million white families.   That same year, the federal government also passed the moral act. This established North Carolina State University in Raleigh as a land grant university to teach white students practical agricultural science, military science and engineering. 29 years later in 1891, North Carolina Agriculture and Technology University in Greensboro was established to serve black students, but the institutions were never funded equally.   In 1865, the civil war ended at Bennett Place in Durham with the largest surrender of Confederate troops. Reconstruction occurred in the subsequent years from 1865 to 1877. During this time, Durham struggled with its own political, social and economic challenges. One of which were the circumstances faced by formerly enslaved people who were freed with no land, no jobs, no money and no citizenship rights. Historians estimate that more than a million freed black people in the country became sick for malnutrition, disease and near starvation. And tens of thousands of people died.   Listen to the words of Martha Allen, a young black woman at the time.   “I was never hungry till we was free and the Yankees fed us. We didn't have nothing to eat, except heart attack and Midland meat. I never seen such meat. It was thin and tough with a thick skin. You could boil it all day and all night and it couldn't cook. I wouldn't eat it. I thought it was mule meat. Mules that done been shot on the battlefield then dried. I still believe it was mule meat. Them was bad days. I was hungry most of the time and had to keep fighting off them Yankee mans.” Martha Allen   In the years after the war, a few people had cash, but landowners still needed farm labor, poor farmers and families of all races struggled. Landowners began hiring farm labor through share cropping and tenant farm contracts.   “The Negros have as their compensation, a share of the crops that shall be raised one third part of the wheat, corn, cotton, tobacco, syrup, peas, sweet potatoes and pork. But the seed wheat is to be first passed back to the said Cameron, the hogs to be killed or pork shall be fattened out of the corn crop before division. The said Cameron is to have the other two thirds of said crops.” Cameron share cropping contract 1866.   Sharecroppers work plots of farmland, and then received a fraction of the crop yield for themselves as payment. For newly freed black people. Many of whom worked the same land, lived in the same housing and worked under the close supervision of the same overseers sharecropping felt like slavery under another name.   In 1868 and 1877 North Carolina passed the landlord tenant acts, which legalized the power imbalance between landowners and sharecropping farmers. For poor farmers there was simply no way to get ahead. And so-called black codes, laws enacted throughout the south in the 1860s and beyond denied black people the right to vote, to serve on juries or to testify in court against white people. With tenant farming, workers paid rent to landowners and kept all the proceeds from the crops.   “We lived all over the area because we were tenant farmers, very poor living on the land of the owner who was of course, white. We used his mules and he paid for the seed and the tobacco and the stuff that we planted. Of course, as I look back now, I know how they cheated us because we never had anything.” Theresa Cameron Lyons, 1868, on growing up in a black tenant farming family in Durham County.   North Carolina politics during this time was dominated by white supremacist ideology and by efforts to keep blacks from voting and from holding political office. In 1896, the US Supreme Court ruled that separate but equal treatment of blacks was legally permissible. This created the legal basis of racial apartheid known as Jim Crow. From 1896 to 1964 Jim Crow laws imposed racial segregation on nearly all aspects of life, including schools, transportation, and public facilities. These laws institutionalized economic, educational and social disadvantages for black and indigenous people, such court sanction exclusion combined with violence and intimidation from white people created severely hostile living conditions for North Carolina's black people. As a result, registered black voters in North Carolina plummeted from 126,000 in 1896 to only 6,100 in 1902.   As the year 1900 dawned, more than half of the US population were farmers or lived in rural communities. Durham County was still largely farmland, but there was incredible urban growth in the early decades of the 1900s. This too had an impact on Durham's food and the community.   Demand for tobacco and textile factory workers was growing in Durham. Although only white workers could work in the textile factories. Both black and white migrants found work in Durham's Liggett Myers and American tobacco factories. Black workers had the lowest pay, most backbreaking jobs in the factories and were paid less than the white workers.   Outside the factories black women had more job opportunities than black men, but as cooks and domestic servants. And they also held some administrative positions. As people traded farm life for the city, they had to adjust to a new way of life. This meant living off wages in the new cash economy and the crowded close quarters of urban living.   Textile mill owners in the East Durham Edgemont and West Durham areas built subsidized mill villages to provide housing for white workers close to the factories. Each mill village had its own churches, schools, recreation centers, and stores.   “Yeah, it was a complete store. They'd have very few wise work in the mills. They would have a man that went out in the morning, they'd call it taking orders. He'd go to all the houses and the woman of the house and tell him what she wanted. He'd bring it back in time to be cooked and served up for what they called dinner, which is of course lunch. And he'd go do the same thing in the afternoon. Have it back in time for a good supper.”  Zeb Stone, 1915, a white business owner from West Durham, North Carolina.   Many textile workers had grown up on farms and knew how to garden and raise chickens, pigs, or even cows in their yards. Families preserved extra garden produce and meals for the winter. Home canning became popular and increased during World War I and later in World War II, as food shortages meant rations for canned food. The federal government urged people to rely on produce grown in their own gardens called victory gardens and to share resources with neighbors.   Six predominantly black neighborhoods developed in Durham, along with black churches, schools and businesses, people form close relationships with each other. And even though the yards were often small, many black people also maintained gardens, kept chickens until the local government banned livestock in the city limits in the 1940s. Buying from black businesses meant investing in the whole black community. Community leaders preached how each dollar spent would flow in a wheel of progress throughout black Durham. Neighborhood grocers were owned by and for people who lived in black neighborhoods, here's what longtime Durham state representative Henry Mickey Michelle has to say about growing up in the Hayti area of Durham.   “We didn't have to go across the tracks to get anything done. We had our own savings and loans bank, our own insurance company, our own furniture store, our own tailors, barber shops, grocery stores, the whole nine yards.” Durham state representative Henry Mickey Michelle   Black and white farmers came to Durham's urban areas to sell fresh produce on street corners and created popup farm stands throughout the city. Many came to Hayti, Durham's largest black neighborhood and to the center of black commerce that was dubbed Black Wall Street. Durham established the first official farmer's market then called a curb market in 1911 to connect county farmers with urban consumers.   The federal government helped farmers stay informed of developments in agriculture, home economics, public policy, and the economy. The Smith Lever Act of 1914 launched cooperative extension services out of the land grant universities. In 1914 extension services for Durham County's white people began and services for black communities started in 1917, hoping to draw young people into farming.   Segregated schools in Durham offered agriculture training. Programs for the future farmers of America served white students and new farmers of America programs served black students.   By 1920 farmers comprised 50% of the population in Durham County outside the city core. Nearly half of these were tenant farmers. Arthur Brody, a black man who made his home in Durham had this to say about his family's experience.   “My granddaddy had 50 acres of land. They said he was working for this white family and the man took a liking to him. And back then land was cheap. And that man told him, Robert, what you ought to do is buy an acre of land every month. He gave him $12 a month. So he bought an acre of land a month, a dollar a month for a year. And he bought that farm with 52 acres of land in it. And he built his house out of logs. I remember that log house just as good I can.” Arthur Brody   Black families were beginning to acquire farmland. Although black owned farms were generally smaller and on less productive land than white owned farms. At its peak in 1920, 26% of farms nationally were owned by black farmers.   The shift to industrialized agriculture concentrated on just a few crops, created new pressures for farmers, especially small scale farmers who were already struggling with the depressed economy, depleted soil, outdated farming tools and the constant demand for cash crops, black and white farmers alike struggled with a lack of fair credit and chronic indebtedness. Here is what the Negro Credit Unions of North Carolina had to say about the farm credit system in 1920.   “Perhaps the greatest drawback to the average poor farmer, struggling for a foothold on the soil and trying to make a home for himself and family in the community is the lack of capital. If he buys fertilizer on time, borrows money or contracts to be carried over the cropping season, it is usually at such a ruinous rate of interest that few ever get out from under its painful influence. The man who owns a small farm as well as he who rents one has long been victimized by the credit system.” Negro Credit Unions of North Carolina brochure   In Durham, life still followed the seasonal cycles of farming. There were special times for communal rituals, such as berry picking, corn shucking and peach canning. Mary Mebane described growing up in a black farming community in Northern Durham County in this way.   “Berry picking was a ritual, a part of the rhythm of summer life. I went to bed excited. We didn't know whose berries they were. Nobody had heard about the idea of private property. Besides the berries wild, free for everybody. The grown people picked up high and the children picked low. We children ate them on the spot, putting purple stained fingers into our mouths, creating purple stained tongues while the grown people wiped sweat and dodged bumblebees.” Mary Mebane   Many black Durhamites joined in the great migration of black people to cities in the North and Western parts of the country. More than 6 million black people left the South between 1917 and 1970. Those who stayed found themselves caught between traditional farming culture and an increasingly modernized urban world and black farmers had the further burden of discrimination in federal farm lending programs, which hampered their ability to sustain, adapt and expand their farming.   In the 1930s, the country was grappling with a great depression and the dust bowl. The textile industry was hit hard by the reception and white textile factory workers struggled. Families survived on cheap fat back, flower beans and their own homegrown produce. Through bouts of unemployment or underemployment. Hunger was never far off. Durham's black working class occupied the bottom rung of the economic ladder even before the great depression. Poverty and food insecurity increased to such an extent that black Durhamites were six times more likely to develop pellagra than whites in 1930. Pellagra is a disease caused by niacin deficiency. It was the leading cause of death in the city after tuberculosis. Nurses counseled Durham's black residents to eat green vegetables and fresh milk, but they were told that economics not lack of knowledge led to poor eating habits.   As one black patient remarked: “We would like to do everything you say, but we just haven't got the money.”   During the great depression, the food situation became so desperate that the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and the Works Progress Administration and charities such as the Red Cross began distributing food relief. The supplies staved off hunger to some extent, but black and white residents were both complaining the food wasn't what they would normally eat. Here an unemployed white textile worker in East Durham described his family's struggle with the emergency relief rations during the great depression.   “I go around to the place that the WPA distributes commodities and the last time they gave me four packs of powdered skim milk, five pounds of country butter, three pounds of navy beans, 24 pounds of flour. That was grand flour to mix awful bread. I've tried every way I could think of to cook it. And it ain't been able to do anything with it yet. That stuff just ain't fitting for a dog to eat, but I have to use everything I get. One of the boys gets up early every morning and goes out and picks berries for breakfast. They with butter do make the flour eat a lot better. He wants to pick some for preserves, but we can highly get sugar for our needs right now. But there is something about us that keeps us hoping that in some way, the future will take care of itself.” Unemployed white textile worker in Durham during the Depression   Over time federal, state and local Durham aid efforts shifted toward training and getting people new jobs, but black men and women did not get the same opportunities as Durham's white residents. In 1933, the federal government passed the agriculture adjustment act later known as the farm bill. This legislation raised market prices and paid farmers to rest soils depleted from intensive farming. But this created new problems for small farmers already struggling to survive. Davis Harris reflects on the changes these policies caused in the black farming community of Northern Durham County.   “The federal government started paying farmers to put their soil in what they called the soil bank. At the time the US was producing more grain than they needed. So they asked farmers in order to preserve the land and soil, if they could just let the soil rest. And if you did that for 10 years, the people like me growing up who got public jobs, it was difficult to go back to the farm because you get accustomed to getting paid every month. And to go back to once a year was difficult, almost impossible. And then the farmer's equipment gets obsolete and the facilities get obsolete and there is no help. So I see that as a turning point because you've lost all your resources, your equipment, your facilities, and your workforce, and the farmers are 10 to 12 years older. So a lot of the farmers had to get public jobs so they can get enough credit to draw social security.” Davis Harris   Black land owners also contended with private property laws that put them at a very real disadvantage. Black families had little reason to trust institutions and were far less likely to have a will than white families. So when a property owner died without a legal will, their property passed to all their direct heirs as partial shares. A form of ownership transfer called heirs property. Over several generations property ownership became increasingly unclear as dozens or even hundreds of heirs could own a small share. Heirs were then more vulnerable to land speculators and developers through a legal process called partition action. Speculators would buy off the interest of a single heir. And just one heir, no matter how small their share, and this would force the sale of entire plot of land through the courts. Black farm ownership peaked between 1910 and 1920, and then dropped dramatically due to the changing farm economy, discrimination and coercive means. From 1910 to the 1930s, the total number of farms in Durham declined dramatically. But black farmers lost their land at more than twice the rate of white farmers.   Willie Roberts, a black Durham County mechanic and farmer was interviewed in the 1930s and had this to say about the tensions of the time: “We got some mean neighbors around here. They hate us 'cause we own, and we won't sell. They want to buy it for nothing. They don't like for colored people to own land. They got a white lady, Ms. Jones on the next farm to say that I attacked her. I hope to be struck down by Jesus if I said or did anything she could kick on, it's all prejudiced against a colored family that's trying to catch up with the whites. They hated my father because he owned land and my mother because she taught school and now they're trying to run us off, but we're going to stay on.”   In 1942, many young men were serving in world war II and black agricultural laborers were leaving farms as part of the great migration to Northern and Western states. So the federal government enacted the Bracero Program to address severe farm labor shortages. This allowed contract laborers from Mexico into the country to fill the labor gap. Where you live, determines where you buy food and what food is available. And Durham's black urban residents were grappling with Jim Crow laws and with segregation.   “In all licensed restaurants, public eating places and weenie shops where persons of the white and colored races are permitted to be served with and eat food and are allowed to congregate. There shall be provided separate rooms for the separate accommodation of each race. The partition between such rooms shall be constructed of wood, plaster or brick or like material, and shall reach from the floor to the ceiling…” The code of the city of Durham, North Carolina, 1947, C13 section 42.   Segregation and racial discrimination meant that opportunities for home ownership, loans, and neighborhood improvements favored white people, discriminatory policies and practices also impacted access to nutritious foods and to restaurants and resentment was building.   A black woman recalls her childhood experiences during this time: “When I was a child, the Durham Dairy was a weekly stop on Sunday evenings as part of our family drive, we would park, go into the counter and then return to the car with our ice cream. After my father finished his, we would drive around Durham while the rest of us finished our ice cream. I had no idea as a young child that the reason we took that ice cream to the car was because the Durham Dairy was segregated and being an African American family we were not allowed to eat our ice cream on the premises. I was shocked to learn as an adult how my parents had been so artful in sparing this ugly truth from me and my younger siblings.”   As early as the 1920s, Durham's white homeowners had to agree to racial covenants on their suburban home and land deeds, such covenants explicitly prevented black ownership and restricted black residents in homes, except for domestic servants. This practice was legal until 1948. The National Association of Real Estate Boards code of ethics at that time directed real estate agents to maintain segregation in the name of safeguarding, neighborhood stability and property values. The industry practice known as steering remained in effect until 1950.   “A realtor should never be instrumental in introducing in a neighborhood members of any race or nationality whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values in the neighborhood…” National Association of Real Estate Boards code of ethics   The great depression stimulated the country's new deal, social safety net legislation, including the social security act of 1935, which offered benefits and unemployment insurance. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 set a national minimum wage and the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 created the right for workers to organize. However, agricultural and domestic workers positions held predominantly by black people during the 1930s were specifically excluded from these programs, losing out on both fair pay and labor protections.   Historian Ira Katznelson wrote extensively about the impact of these policy decisions on the country's African Americans: “Southern legislators understood that their region's agrarian interests and racial arrangements were inextricably entwined. By excluding these persons from new deal legislation it remained possible to maintain racial inequality in Southern labor markets by dictating the terms and conditions of African American labor.”   The federal government also recognized home ownership as one of the best ways to stabilize the economy and expand the middle class. The homeowner's loan corporation, a government sponsored corporation created as part of the new deal developed city maps and color coded neighborhoods according to lending risks, these maps became the model for public and private lending from the 1930s on. In Durham and elsewhere, red lines were drawn around black, mixed race and the poorest white neighborhoods, the effects of redlining now close to a century old had profound effects that are still felt to this day. Over time these maps discourage investment in home ownership and also business development in these areas ringed in red and encouraged and supported these things in white neighborhoods.   By defining some areas as too risky for investment lending practices followed, poverty was exacerbated and concentrated and housing deserts, credit deserts and food deserts became a predictable consequence. Redlining maps also shaped lending practices for the GI Bill Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944. The GI Bill made mortgages available to World War II veterans with little or no down payment. And with very low interest rates. The aim was to create financial stability and the accumulation of generational wealth for those who would serve the country through home ownership. However, most homes were in suburban neighborhoods, primarily financed by the federal government. Between redlining lending practices and real estate covenants restricting black buyers, home ownership simply wasn't possible for the vast majority of the 1 million plus black World War II veterans. Between 1935 and 1968, less than 2% of federal home loans were for black people. The GI Bill also did not issue home loans on Indian reservations, which excluded many Native American veterans.   In the late 1950s, Durham received federal money for a local urban renewal program to clear slums and blighted areas through the Housing Act of 1949. The city chose to demolish a large section of the Hayti area, the city's largest and most prominent black neighborhood and home to most black owned businesses. This changed everything. City officials cited the poor physical conditions of Hayti as the reason for demolition. The land was then used to build North Carolina highway 147, a freeway connector.   Louis Austin editor of the Carolina Times wrote in 1965: "The so-called urban renewal program in Durham is not only the biggest farce ever concocted in the mind of moral man, but it is just another scheme to relieve Negroes of property."   Hayti's destruction included a significant part of the neighborhood's food infrastructure, such as grocery stores and restaurants. What was once a thriving and resilient food economy where wealth remained in the community became a food desert.   Nathaniel White, formerly a Hayti business owner in Durham had this to say about the destruction of the Hayti neighborhood: “Well, I think we got something like $32,000 for our business. As I look back on it now, if you're going to drive a freeway right through my building, the only fair thing to do is to replace that building. In other words, I ought to be able to move my equipment and everything into a building. If they do it like that, you will be able to stand the damage. Now, the highway department has a replacement clause in their building, but the urban renewal had what they call fair market value, and that won't replace it. And that's where the handicap comes. Just say, you give them $32,000 that probably would've bought the land or whatever, but it wouldn't put the building back and everything like that.”   In the 1950s, Durham built federally funded housing projects for low income families. But by the late 1960s, public housing in the city was almost exclusively for black people and clustered in existing black neighborhoods. This further reinforced patterns of residential segregation, Durham's lunch counters and restaurants became rallying points during the civil rights movements. North Carolina's first protest was at Durham's Royal ice cream restaurant in 1957.   Virginia Williams, a young black woman at the time was a member of the Royal Ice Cream Nine who staged the protest: “None of it made any sense, but that had been the way of life. And that's the way the older folk had accepted it. And so I guess I was one of them who thought, if not us, who, if not now, when. So the police officers came and they asked us to leave. I remember one of them asking me to leave and I asked for ice cream. And he said, if you were my daughter, I would spank you and make you leave. And then I said, if I was your daughter, I wouldn't be here sitting here being asked to leave.”   In 1962, more than 4,000 people protested at Howard Johnson's Ice Cream Grill in Durham. The struggle to desegregate eateries intensified in 1963, when protesters organized sit-ins at six downtown restaurants on the eve of municipal elections, hundreds of people were arrested and protestors surrounded the jail in solidarity. And in the weeks that followed more than 700 black and white Durhamites ran a full page ad in the Durham Herald newspaper. They pledged to support restaurants and other businesses that adopted equal treatment to all, without regard to race. The mounting public pressure resulted in mass desegregation of Durham Eateries by the end of 1962, ahead of the 1964 federal civil rights act that legally ended segregation.   Although civil rights wins brought about new political, economic and social opportunities for black people, desegregation didn't help black businesses. They suffered economically because black people began to explore new opportunities to shop outside their neighborhoods, but white people didn't patronize black owned businesses in turn.   In 1964, the federal government passed the Food Stamp Act as a means to safeguard people's health and wellbeing and provide a stable foundation for US agriculture. It was also intended to raise levels of nutrition among low income households. The food stamp program was implemented in Durham County in 1966. A decade later the program was in every county in the country.   From 1970 through the 1990s, urban renewal continued to disrupt and reshape Durham central city. As both white and middle class black residents left central Durham for suburban homes, banks and grocery stores disappeared. Textile and tobacco factory jobs were also leaving Durham for good. Thousands of workers became unemployed and the domino effect on home ownership, businesses and workplaces disrupted much of Durham's infrastructure and its community life.   From 1970 through the 1980s, the availability of home refrigerators and microwaves also changed how families stored and cooked their food. Durham already had higher numbers of working women than the national average. As a result, convenience foods, foods from restaurants, prepared meals at grocery stores and microwavable foods from the freezer were in demand.   Like many Americans, Durham residents had become increasingly disconnected from farming and food production, both physically and culturally. Food corporations now used marketing in the media to shape ideas about what to eat and why. The food system became dominated by increasing corporate consolidation and control. And by large scale industrial agriculture emphasizing monoculture. Corporations were fast gaining political and economic power and used their influence to affect trade regulations, tax rates, and wealth distribution.   In the 1980s, the federal government passed legislation that boosted free market capitalism, reduced social safety net spending and promoted volunteerism and charity as a way to reduce poverty and government welfare. These policies negatively impacted Durham's already historically disadvantaged populations. Nonprofit organizations began to emerge to deal with the growing issues of hunger and food insecurity and nonprofit food charity became an industry unto itself. More than 80% of pantries and soup kitchens in the US came into existence between 1980 and 2001.   The H-2A Guest Worker Program of 1986 allowed agricultural workers to hire seasonal foreign workers on special visas who were contracted to a particular farm, but workers did not have the same labor protections as US citizens.   That same year, the US launched the war on drugs to reduce drug abuse and crime. Low income communities were disproportionately targeted when Durham's housing authority paid off duty police officers to patrol high crime areas, particularly public housing developments. Hyper policing, drug criminalization, and logger sentencing for drug related offenses caused incarceration rates to rise steadily. Durham's jail and prison incarceration rates from 1978 to 2015 rose higher than anywhere else in North Carolina.   Here is an excerpt from an interview with Chuck Omega Manning, an activist and director of the city of Durham's welcome program. “Being totally honest, high incarceration rates for people of color is very detrimental to our health. Even in the Durham County Jail, you have a canteen that's run through a private company who only sell certain things like oodles of noodles that are not healthy. And then in prisons, you don't get to eat vegetables unless it's part of your dinner. And even then it's oftentimes still not healthy because of how it's cooked. But if you don't work in the kitchen, you don't get to decide, you just get it how it comes and you pray over it and eat it. But then over time, people get institutionalized in the system. And when they return home, they continue to eat the same way because they're used to it. And the financial piece only enhances that because you have individuals coming home, looking for employment, trying to do something different. And there are just so many barriers even with food stamps. So it almost feels like you're being punished twice. And it's very depressing.”   In the 1990s, Durham wanted more investment in the downtown area. Instead of the factory jobs of the past, the downtown area shifted to offer low paying service jobs and high paying jobs in research and technology. Wealthy newcomers were called urban pioneers and trailblazers and purchase properties in historically disinvested city areas.   Low wage workers today cannot afford new housing prices in Durham, in most cases, or to pay the increasing property taxes. Many people are losing their homes through when increases, evictions and foreclosures. Gentrification has also changed which food retailers exist in the local food environment. Sometimes this creates food mirages where high quality food is priced out of reach of longtime residents.   The North American Free Trade Agreement NAFTA of 1994 also changed Durham and North Carolina. Farmers from Mexico and Central America driven out of business by the trade agreement immigrated to places like North Carolina, looking for agricultural and construction jobs. Durham's Latino population grew from just over 2000 in people to 1990, to nearly 40,000 in 2014, one out of three Durham public school students was Latino in 2014. Today, 94% of migrant farm workers in North Carolina are native Spanish speakers.   In 1996, the federal government made changes to the nation's food assistance security net. It dramatically cut SNAP benefits, formerly known as food stamps and limited eligibility to receive benefits and the length of benefits. In Durham, SNAP benefit participation rate decreased by 14% between 1997 and 2001 despite a 2% increase in the poverty rate.   Durham's Latino Credit Union opened in 2000 at a time when three quarters of Latinos did not bank at all. Over the next 20 years, Latinos developed and operated restaurants, grocery stores and services across Durham. This provided the Latino population with culturally resident food, community gathering spaces and jobs.   Processed foods had become a central part of the American diet by the early two thousands. And the vast majority of food advertising promoted convenience foods, candies, and snacks, alcoholic beverages, soft drinks and desserts. In addition, companies did and still do target black and Hispanic consumers with marketing for the least nutritious products contributing to diet related health disparities, affecting communities of color.   During the great recession of 2007 to 2009, job losses, wage reductions and foreclosure crisis increased the number of people struggling to afford and access enough nutritious food. As a result, SNAP participation rose dramatically in Durham.   In 2008, the farm bill included language about food deserts for the first time. A food desert was defined as a census track with a substantial share of residents who live in low income areas and have low levels of access to a grocery store or to healthy affordable foods in a retail outlet. Today some scholars describe such places as areas of food apartheid. This recognizes the outcomes of past policy decisions that disinvested in disadvantaged populations and locations, the cumulative effects of living under food apartheid have profound impacts on the health, wellbeing, and life expectancy of people of color and the poor.   Here's an excerpt from an interview with Latonya Gilchrist, a Durham county community health worker: “I've suffered a lot in this body for a lot of people it's genetic, but I feel like, and this is my personal feeling based on what I've experienced and my whole family. It's the role of food deserts and the cost of food, not being able to have a community grocery store and what I'll say for Northeast Central Durham or the East Durham area where I grew up, we always had corner stores that sold everything we didn't need. And very little of what we did need. Back when I was a child growing up, potato chips cost 16 cents a bag, and you could get potato chips all day long and all night long, and people could get beer and wine in the neighborhood, but you couldn't find fruits and vegetables until my daddy started selling them on a truck. So diseases come about genetically, but it's increased or enhanced through living in poor poverty stricken neighborhoods.”   Durham foreclosure spiked during the great recession of 2008 and were disproportionately located in historically black neighborhoods. Owners in high poverty neighborhoods have been targeted for high cost subprime loans by lenders through a practice known as reverse redlining. As neighborhoods gentrify and longtime residents get displaced, there is an increasing spatial disconnect between services and amenities and those who utilize them and need them the most. Food, housing and retail gentrification are closely intertwined.   Here's an excerpt from an interview with Eliazar Posada, community engagement advocacy manager of El Centro in Durham: “Gentrification is affecting a lot of our community members and not just affecting the youth, but also the families, unless we can find ways to subsidize housing or find a way to make gentrification not so dramatic for some of our community members. The youth are not going to be staying in Durham if their parents can't stay.”   Durham's people of color and low income people overall have disproportionately high incidents of diabetes. In a 2016 survey in the Piedmont region, 16% of respondents with household incomes, less than $15,000 reported having diabetes compared to only 6% of residents with household incomes of more than $75,000. By 2017 black patients were 80% more likely than white patients to have diabetes in Durham.   In Durham County in 2019, the average hourly wage for food preparation and serving jobs was $10.83 cents an hour or $22,516 annually before taxes. Such wages are all been impossible to live on without government assistance. The fair market rent for a two bedroom housing unit in Durham in 2018 was $900 a month or about $10,800 a year.   Food inequality is a lack of consistent access to enough food for a healthy, active life is caused by poverty, the cost of housing and healthcare and unemployment and underemployment. It is also impacted by the interrelated forces of home and land ownership, political power, economic resources, structural racism, gender oppression, and labor rights. Durham's communities continue to build community solidarity and mutual aid as people lend money, time and other resources trying to make sure everyone can access adequate and healthy food.   In a remarkable feat of resilience the Occaneechi band of the Saponi Nation was awarded official recognition by North Carolina in 2002, following 20 years of organizing and sustained advocacy. They purchased a 250 acre plot of land just outside of Durham County and planted an orchard of fruit bearing trees for collective tribal use. This is the first land that the tribe has owned collectively in more than 250 years.   Durham's black farmer's market emerging from 2015 to 2019 is also a testament to community building through food. The market supports local black farmers and makes healthy eating attainable for individuals living in some of Durham's food apartheid areas. Market organizers are challenging social norms, classism and racism, and believe that healthy living should be possible for everyone.   So why is the food history of a community so important? And can Durham's food history be applied to other places? Who owns land, who can grow food and make a living doing so, and who has access to food, any food, least of all healthy food? The answers are deeply influenced by historical policies and practices. These in retrospect, clearly exacerbated, supported, and even created food related calamities, the dual burden communities face of both food insecurity and diet related chronic diseases, such as diabetes and obesity. Understanding these practices is important in creating change. And in understanding that conditions imposed on neighborhoods rather than personal failings of residents explain what we see today.   A few pieces of this history are specific to Durham, the role of tobacco and textiles, for instance, but most of the fundamental influences on the economic and food conditions are broad social attitudes and practices around race and poverty. And from federal, economic, agriculture and housing policies that have affected urban rural areas in every corner of the country, there is hope from local ingenuity to change food systems and from people in local, state and federal policy positions who are working to reverse inequality and to re-envision the role of food in supporting the physical and economic wellbeing of all people, learning from the past is really important in these efforts.

Pope Alexander VI, Rodrigo Borgia schemes to make his son Cesare the unrivaled master of Italy. Forming an alliance (and then unforming it before forming it again) with the French King Louis XII, Pope Alexander almost succeeds at making Cesare the duke of Naples and Romagna... almost. Sources: The Borgias: Power and Fortune The Borgias: The Hidden History The Borgias and Their Enemies Become a PATRON and support the show.  

INTRODUCTION:Elijah Ware is the host of the Zephyr Podcast and he is not only a Teacher and a Preacher of Metaphysics but a student of it as well. Elijah started teaching metaphysics at the age of 14 and has blossomed tremendously since then.  INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to):·      Metaphysical Perspectives On God, The Bible, Etc.·      Issues With Catholicism·      Why De'Vannon Is Banned From Bank Of America For LIFE!!!·      Should we pray to Angels?·      Angelic Appearances ·      Astral Projection·      A Message To Republicans And Conservatives·      How Nature Ties Into Metaphysics·      A Different View Of “Hell”·      Church Hypocrisy: Miscegenation Vs. Homosexuality·      Issues With Televangelists ·      The Innate Need For Community ·      Does The Bible Really Contain It All? CONNECT WITH ELIJAH:Website & Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1793952Email: WARE.ELIJAH@YAHOO.COM DE'VANNON'S RECOMMENDATIONS:·      Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)o  https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370o  TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs TRANSCRIPT:[00:00:00] You're listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to!!! And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right. At the end of the day, my name is De'Vannon and I'll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world. As we dig into topics that are too risqué for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what's really going on in your.There is nothing on the table and we've got a lot to talk about. So let's dive right into this episode.De'Vannon: Hello! Hello. Hello. All my beautiful peoples out there! I'm so happy to be bringing you this week's episode. Today, I'm talking with Elijah Ware. He is the host of the Zephyr podcast, and he is not only a teacher and a preacher of metaphysics y'all, but a student of it, as well this man started teaching metaphysics at the age of 14!!!And he has blossomed tremendously since then. On this here episode, we're going to be getting his metaphysical perspective on [00:01:00] God, the Bible and all of that. We gonna dish and spill our tea, on the issue that we have against Catholicism and the Catholic Chruch. I'm going to spill all the tea about why I got banned from bank of America for life hunty yes.I'm gonna tell you what had happened. We're going to talk about some angelic appearances. I have a message to Republicans and conservatives. And then of course, we'll talk about church hypocrisy because why not? I hope you all enjoy the episode.Elijah thank you so much for joining me on the sex drugs and Jesus podcast that they, how are you feeling today on a Friday morning? Elijah: I'm doing great De'Vannon and thank you so much. Thank you for having me really appreciate being here.How are you? De'Vannon: Oh I'm fan fucking tastic fan fucking tastic. Indeed. Wonderful. Elijah: That's the best kind of fantastic to be not really fantastic. Unless you got a few explicitives in there. De'Vannon: Of [00:02:00] course. That's what. I love swear words. There is a documentary on Netflix called the history of swear words that Nicholas cage orchestrates.And I think it's a phenomenal way to to dispel the myths, myths surrounding his, how bad and evil and treacherous, where words are supposed to be and come to learn how they're actually a good way to relieve stress. Wow. They Elijah: can be. I always say, I say, now I tell people now if you use them, you have to be, you have to be intelligent about how you use them.If you use them all the time, then people don't take you seriously when you are upset. So if you, if you drop them intelligently and systematically, when you are upset, people. The van is not playing right now. We better, we better leave him alone. If you, if you just, if you just dropping F bombs 24 7, like, I ain't upset about nothing.That's just him all the time. But when you do it, like every three months, [00:03:00] they're like, while he's not playing.De'Vannon: Yeah. That's, that's like the nice teacher, you know, whenever I was in grade school, that super nice teacher who never got upset until then until the cook class pushed, pushed it to the limit, then she finally left the dragon out and everyone was dead quiet. So, so they call you the preacher, the minister. I want to know.I want to know you're telling me your background and how you became a minister and a preacher and all that. Elijah: Well, I grew up in a school of metaphysics and metaphysics the word metaphysics. It sounds like you're going to college to learn physics. When people hear that word metaphysics, they often think that maybe you, you go to MIT or the California Institute of technology and you majoring there, but the word metaphysics, the word Netta and Latin just means beyond [00:04:00] and physics refers to the physical.So metaphysics simply means beyond the physical. I grew up along with my older brother Tony and a school of metaphysics. My, my my grandmother had seven children, four girls and three boys, and she, and my step-grandfather raised them all in metaphysics. And so when my mom graduated high school and eventually went on to meet my father.He also became a metaphysical student and they raised my brother and I as metaphysical students. And like I said, with my grandmother, having so many children and raising them all in metaphysics, I grew up with my cousins and all of them and being students of metaphysics. Many of them are not anymore.They kind of got away from it as they got older. But I was one of the few that kind of stayed with it. And so when I was about 14 I got more involved in the, what you would call, I guess, the ministry and my my local, they don't call them [00:05:00] deans. And in metaphysics, I mean, they don't call them preachers and metaphysics or pastors, they call the leader, the Dean of the school.And so my local Dean here in San Fernando, California asked me to start teach to start teaching Sunday school. And so I did, and from there. Recognized by other chapters of metaphysical schools around us. And it became, you know, kind of a young minister and what get invited to speak here and there and other states and in Canada.And when I was 17, I spoke in front of nearly 10,000 people at a metaphysical conference out in Nashville, Tennessee at the grand opera, grand Ole Opry hotel. And so from then on I just kind of continue to minister and preach. De'Vannon: So when you say you were in a school of metaphysics from young, so are you physically going to like a campus?Are you learning? This is something like knowledge being passed down [00:06:00] from the elders in your family. Where are you getting? Elijah: So there was a man named Henry, Henry Clifford Kenley. We call him Dr. Kenley and he started the school that I attended. In 1931, he was born in 1895 and he was what we call the founder of the school.And he began this school based upon an experience that he had that he said he had with the creator and he created charts to illustrate what it is. He said that he experienced and what he said that he saw. And from then on, he went about to raise up other metaphysical students and ministers that would help teach and preach.The universal knowledge that he said that he experienced just like you hadn't man, like Naval God R and Emanuel Swedenborg and Jacob bone and Manley P hall. Now these were white [00:07:00] men. So of course they were recognized and metaphysics, they are what they call luminaries in the metaphysical world.But Dr. Kenley being a black man saying that I also had this experience where he was made to understand what the meaning of, of, of existence was and what the meaning of, of creation was a black man at that time in the 1930s, didn't, you know, they wouldn't pay him much attention now, you know religion has always thought that if anybody was going to have the truth, they would be white and they would be male.De'Vannon: Okay. That's a very unique sort of a person to have. So do you feel like it was meant to be very, almost past the cross? Sure, Elijah: sure. Sure. Because Dr. Kenley started the school in Ohio and then my immediate predecessor, his, his [00:08:00] protege was, it was a man who went to school. And it's funny because I'll just call him Dr.H Dr. H he was going to medical school in the 1940s. He knew Dr. Kenley as a child and Dr. Kelly was his insurance man. And one day doctor Dr. Age mother, he was Dr. Kelly was collecting his premiums from his mother and she asked Dr. Kelly, did he know anything about the Bible, about the killing of.Sarcastically say, sure. I know a little bit about it. And so Dr. Harris, he kind of grew up that's Dr. Age, I guess you could say. And he left and went to medical school. He wanted to be a doctor. He wanted to help people at a time when there weren't a lot of black doctors, he graduated from a Harriet medical in the 1940s top of his class.He used to jokingly tell us how there was only two people ahead of him. And that was a two, two brothers, two twin brothers called the Buford brothers. And so. He [00:09:00] said that when Dr. Kenley asked a lot of them to come on out to California, because he wanted to continue to promote this knowledge and maybe even get it in film if he could, because at that time they were making the 10 commandments.And so about the Harris center, it's just odd that there were people in the, in the school that had been there longer than me here. I have a full blown medical practice. I'm a black doctor. What he said, I kept money in my pockets because a house visit only cost $5 at that time. It was kind of, you know, a bit to them, but that's nothing to us, but he said for all the people to come out there, it was out that I would come, but he ended up becoming the head of the school when Dr.Kenley transitioned out of the flesh. And he was my immediate predecessor and mentor. And yes, I, to answer your question, I absolutely do feel like our paths were meant to do cross. He was more of a father figure to me than my father and my stepfather. He, if there was any man in my [00:10:00] life that I wanted to model myself after it would have been him.De'Vannon: Well, I'm glad that you had that happen. That's, that's what I call it. Being in the right place at the right time. That's the sort of stuff that really redirects the trajectory that your life is on. You know, people, especially like in churches and stuff, say. You know, something's, life-changing, you know, far too much, it becomes cliche, but but in this particular instance, you know, having, you know, having somebody in your life, like this is something that, you know, had, had they not been there, then you probably wouldn't Elijah: be who you are today.Absolutely. Absolutely. The way my family came into the school is that my grandmother was best friends with a woman living in the projects and her and her husband were attending the school. Now my, my family was like, just regular Sunday, go lean Baptist people, my grandmother and my step-grandfather. And they meet this couple living in the [00:11:00] projects and Los Angeles in the 1960s, just like them.And they say, Hey, you know, we're going to this school and this man can leave. He's talking about the Bible in a way that we've never heard it before. Sam sounds, sounds kind of interesting. And, and, and, and he's explaining things that no other pastor has been able to explain to us. And no other minister has been able to explain.So my grandmother out of friendship with, with her friend without a friendship with Ms. Fay, she said, sure, we'll come. And the rest, as they say is here, Then from then my parents went on to raise me in it. So yes, I, I think that was divine mapping out in my life, you know, De'Vannon: can you, okay. So you mentioned like the Bible and metaphysics and you give me an example of something that these people are something that, you know, might be a common conundrum that people might be stuck on in, in, in the Bible, but you feel like metaphysics can explain better.Elijah: Sure. So, I mean, and let me say this and [00:12:00] that's the reason why I didn't S I don't want anybody to think. I'm trying to be vague by not mentioning the name of the school. I just don't speak for the school anymore. They have officials that speak on their behalf branched out to do my own podcasts and everything like that.So I don't want anybody to think I'm speaking on behalf of, of them, but if they wanted to know the name of the school, that would be fine or anything, but an example of, of something like I had an episode called is the Bible. And. One of the things I go into Davanon is this whole business in this state, and this, this has caused so much, this little parable over in Genesis about a man named Adam and a woman named he has caused so much confusion in the earth, plain.It is almost ridiculous because first of all, people think that it's a literal man named Adam, and it's a literal woman named E failing to realize that this is a parable and a parable is a, a story that has hidden meaning in it. It's not about [00:13:00] necessarily the story itself. It's about the meaning that you ex extract from the storm.So when we're talking about Adam and Eve, there are many things that it signifies in metaphysics, you will find just like perhaps in comedic knowledge, you will find that one thing may mean many things, but with Alvin E you can see how that in many ways, like for instance, The man Adam represents the physical body, the woman, he represents the mind of man.So this is why she is often blamed for the fall of the human race, because the body can't do anything, say what the mind tells it to do, but it doesn't have anything to do with a female or somebody that has an X, X chromosome. The woman is really representing the soul in the Bible. You will find that when the soul was spoken of, especially in Proverbs and in Psalms, it is often referred [00:14:00] to in the feminine sense.So when we're talking about Adam and Eve, people, Iran is lead. Think let's says in the Bible, let the woman be subject to the man. It says the woman, not the female. You see why these are energies and these are types and shadows. The apostle Paul spoke over in Romans the first chapter, and he said, you take natural things or visible things, being creatures of a lower level to understand the invisible things.So when we're looking at male a man and woman, you see we're looking at shadows of heavenly things. You see the reality. See, for instance, with the Catholic church, I was thinking about this this morning, you see the Pope is called the holy father. Now, although in the Bible over in Matthew, it says call no man upon the earth, your father, but you see now he would be the husband, man of the Catholic church, the Cardinals [00:15:00] and the rest of the princes of the church.Along with the parishioners, they will be his bride. Now they're not literally his product and he's not literally their. But in principle, he is their husband. That is why he is called holy father. When you can't have a father without some children and you can't have a children without the bride or the wander.So people have erroneously taking this to mean when Paul is speaking and a lot of his writings that he speaking of male and female, no, he is not. He is speaking of man and woman, and there is a difference between a man and a male. A male has an X, Y chromosome. A man is both male and female.De'Vannon: You know, there's all sorts of different ways to look at things. And that's why I love the diversity of both my podcast and yours, the Zephyr podcasts because, you know, Nobody really [00:16:00] gets to say that their way of looking at something is right or wrong, or, you know, you know, it's all different. It's about what works for you.Right. So I wanted to, in terms of like creation and stuff like that, it is always a curious thing. You know, I've never heard anybody talk about man and woman, the way that you do or refer to Eve referred to the whole creation story is more of a parable when it comes to man and woman, you know I've always wondered and I've heard it question before, you know, like how can the earth have come from just two people?You know, so. You know, physically Adam and Eve, and they had two sons, you know, who in the hell that came going, fuck you, you know, to have, you know, to have other, Elijah: yeah. That might be your first case of homosexuality. And even then, where did the kids come from? Right. De'Vannon: So either God made another woman somewhere, or Adam and Eve had more children than he [00:17:00] fucked his sister.And so that is the case. Then you really can't have a case against the insets if the whole world came from incest. So you've got lead people along with them. Fuck the shit out of their brothers and sisters, if they to do right. And I'm like, I saw the movie cruel intentions. Elijah: Yes. I saw it to see she was now.Now you have to be fair. She was his step sister. She wasn't actually his sister. De'Vannon: Well, all the things I'm just, I'm just glad the Lord be assembling. That looks like Ryan Philippe. OtherwiseElijah: she cannot be held liable for her actions. De'Vannon: And then now let's talk about the Catholic church, because I was thinking about the poop as I call him. You call him the poop. Elijah: They'll put, oh no, the poop is De'Vannon: I call him that, that fool you know, all right. And [00:18:00] know. And, and, and the foods that follow them. I can, I can say that because I was once a fool, blindly following preachers and stuff like that to Louisiana.Right. I'm from Louisiana Pentecostal, all of that foolishness. Elijah: Yeah, there's a, there's a strong Catholic strong hold down there. And so, but De'Vannon: the, the Pope, the poop didn't have any more power than what people give him. And so and the same thing with any of us, you know, any kind of leader or anything like that, if your people decide to pull a coup over throw you, there's really nothing you can do because there's more of them than you.But, and then you were talking about, you know, Catholic customs, like they call them father, you know, in the Bible does say not to call any man on earth, other they prayed a like dead people, you know, things as they call them, you know, and stuff like that. And I could've sworn that the angel said not afraid of them, you know, in a way that the Lord and what Elijah: they call my teacher used to call an angel.Knology when you worship it's the worshiping of angels. [00:19:00] And he said an angel, he said, you're really an angel. An angel is just a being that does not have flesh. And blood is no longer bound to the shackles of the flesh. He said, so you might as well worship you. If you're going to worship Michael or Gabriel Raphael, just beings and goes back to what I was sharing with somebody the other day, you see about the same thing about this business of man versus male or woman versus female.You see, you read about entities like Michael and Gabriel in the Bible. You see, and you say, well, well, what, what, what, isn't he a male? No, no, you'll see. Those are just names assigned to those energies or beings you see really. To be a Michael means to be a warrior, to be a Gabriel means to be a messenger.It really doesn't apply really to even one entity. There is no entity that sits on the right hand of the deity named Michael. There is no one entity that sits to the left name. Gabriel, you could be a [00:20:00] Michael, if you are a warrior for spiritual truth, if you are a defender sphere of truth, you could be a Gabriel.If you are a messenger of spiritual, spiritual truth, you see, but people have localized it and said, well that you know that Michael sits to the right. Don't see, that's all speaking. When you read over there and revelations, I was sharing this with somebody at the gym yesterday and I don't go around just talking to people.There's this, this young man just came up to me and asked me, and just, it was random. It was just really random. I'm like, why is he even that like new I look like, but he. He was asking me about this. And I was just telling him how that, you know people have gotten this so backwards. And I told him, my teacher used to say that people think that revelations is the hardest book in the Bible.He said, revelations is really the easiest book, because revelations is just a repeat of Genesis. Everything. Genesis is the physical aspect of it. And revelations is the spiritual aspect of it. [00:21:00] But you have these, these corporations, like for instance, when I was going into, in my last podcast well podcasts before, when I was answering questions, a young man wanted to know about going to church and he felt condemned he's in the military out there in Virginia.And he felt condemned because he couldn't make it to church. And I said to the young man, I said, it says in everybody's Bible, that God is not worth over in acts 17 chapter. You see Paul was over there and he was on Mars. And he said, I see that you guys are devoted to the worship of idols because as I was passing by y'all fools are so devoted that you even had a temple to the unknown god.In other words, they were so afraid of missing a guy that they built a temple and said, we gonna put this to the unknown God, whoever we might've missed you see? And then he goes on to say that Yaweh or the Lord who made the world. You see seeing that he is ruler, I'm having the nerve dwelling, not in [00:22:00] temples made with man's game, but you have billion dollar institutions like, and religion is a big business.It is a big business. It is a huge business. The Pope, the Pope, people think with the Sultan of Brunei or Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world. No, they are not. The Pope is the richest man in the world. And the holy seat is the richest country in the world. You see the bank that you call bank of America here in this country.You see, it used to be called the bank of Italy. You see owned and operated by the Catholic church. You see if you go back and do research on the bank on, on what we call bank of America, it used to be called the bank of Italy. And it was because. People erroneously think that black people, you know, we're the only ones that have not been liked in this country as well.Italians weren't like when they first got here either to the extent that they wouldn't even be allowed to have loans given to them. So the bank of Italy was created for them in this [00:23:00] country so that they could start to have the American dream because the white folks in this country that came from England and Ireland and other places didn't want nothing to do with them.And so that's why that bank was created. You see? But again, they create these mega churches, these palatial palaces, you see, and people are so impressed with the the pomp and circumstance in the pageants, patents, pageantry of St. Peter's cathedral, you'll see, and things like that. But yet it says in everybody's Bible that the creator does not dwell in temples made with man.But he does dwell in temples that are made by his hands. You see your body, you see, I saw says over there in Corinthians is the temple of universal spirit. You see, you don't have to go to Reverend black bottoms church on the corner, you see, or to St. Peter's, but a Basilica or any of those things you see, you can sit right in the shower, you see.Right, right, right, right. In your car, [00:24:00] wherever you are and worship the creator and spit. Cause he said, he's seeking such to worship him in spirit and in truth. De'Vannon: Well, I just want to say, fuck you to bank of America. Anyway I'm man, I'm banned for life from bank of America because when I was, but I was homeless, a guy who, I didn't know, I'd never met before he had from some business in Corpus Christi, Texas, and I was in Houston.And so I was like, whatever. And so I went to the bank to try to cast cash and I got arrested. The things you do when you're home, wasn't you ain't got shit to do. And so, and so that was a part of the of the whole deal in court. You know, I got probation, but you know, but I'm banned from all bank of America, properties and business and stuff for the rest of my Elijah: life.Fuck. That's not a punishment. That's a blessing, right. De'Vannon: Fuck them for being all unforgiving and shit. And I don't know what the da told them. Elijah: Well, that doesn't matter. Does it really matter? I mean, to ban somebody for life. [00:25:00] Seriously, no longer be allowed to store your money. We will not hold your money and charge you anymore.And De'Vannon: so punishment. And so and so, and so, and a whole, like not calling any other, either any of man father, I wanted to clarify that that goes beyond like, say like your dad or something like that. When, when people say father talking about God is a more holistic and fulfilling way that you're referencing him, you know, as being like your ultimate provider and everything like that, it goes further beyond just, Hey dad, what's up pop.It's not like that. So if you call your physical dad father in like a passive way like that, and God is not mad at you, but what, what Elijah and I are talking about. Is the pedestal and how they put like the father in the Catholic church, you know, like equal to God. Like you can't even pray and ask forgiveness for yourself.You got to go and confess to a human, [00:26:00] which is completely fucked up and has absolutely nothing to do with the purpose of Jesus Christ. So like what's the point of Jesus coming to stand in the place and be the last sacrifice. And he said, no, man can come to the father, but by Jesus or Elijah: all right, you shoot you out.You out here in these metaphysical streets. So De'Vannon: what do you though, what the fuck do you need the damn preach here for or? Elijah: Well, the sad part about it is, is that they have called Peter the farmer, the first Pope and the word and Peter at first of all, if you go over there and Matthew, I kept the exact scripture is not coming to me right now, but it's in the book of Matthew where it talks about Peter's mother-in-law so the only way I know you can get a mother-in-law's if you got.So if Peter is the first point. And now of course, if you know their history, Pope's used to get married. I mean, there used to be the series called the Borgias about Rodrigo Borgia and his, you talking about [00:27:00] ancestor. That was an incestuous family. If you had ever seen one look Lucrezia Borgia and her brother Chez IRA, they used to get it on.Like, it was just the bang to do. And Rodrigo Borgia known as Pope Alexander the sixth. I mean, that's where the God, that's where the whole godfather thing comes from. You see that's where that whole idea of the guy it came from Rodrigo Borgia and is a mob dug his children. It wouldn't be like, I don't mean to get political, but it would be like Donald Trump and his kids today.Trump would be Rodrigo Borgia. Junior would be Chaz array. The youngest one would be one and Ivanka would be Lucrezia Tiffany. She just don't even fit into the equation. De'Vannon: Ivanka would be Skeletor. Elijah: Oh, I'm not going to tell you what my mom calls her. I'm [00:28:00] not going to Jerry De'Vannon: skeleton twat or some shit Elijah: gooseneck, terrible, De'Vannon: wrong with a little bit of shade, just a little Elijah: out there.I don't know how many Trump supporters are listening to the band and, or, or my pocket. And I try not to get too political. I drive too because of the type of, of, of, of, of podcast. I have you have the Liberty to do that, but I try not to, to circumscribe anybody or anything like that. De'Vannon: So I want to get back on angels because angels are very, very special to me.And it's a very. Fine line that we tread in dealing with them because we're only supposed to pray to God in the name of Jesus period. And from my reading of the, of the spirituals, I only see two angel names given, which are Michael and Gabriel, and then there's other times. And there were like, people tried to get names out of angels and they refused to give them to them probably because the person would have turned around and [00:29:00] tried to worship them.And many times the angels have to remind people, you know, so worship God, whenever they go to try to worship them like that. And and I've had a few of them in times, you know, well, they've appeared to me like in human form. And I think that that happens with people. More often the Bible does say that we have entertained angels.It unawares from the times that I remember the first one that that happened me and my dad were like, Being just typical and late last people in the grocery store back in, I think like the eighties or something like that. So we were the last car to leave. You know, the workers in there probably cussing us out, like just to get that bus out so we can go home.And it was just me and him in the parking lot. Like a parking lot was empty. And then we looked up and there's this man just suddenly standing in my dad's a window. And I'll never forget the look in his eyes. He was dressed the homeless, but his eyes had like a, an electricity and a life to it that does not [00:30:00] bespeak homelessness.And I've been homeless before. And then you lose the light really, really out of your eyes and stuff like that. And there isn't much joy there, but he was talking to, to me and he was asking me for exactly a dollar and which is all I had in my wallet. And then the Lord always knows exactly how much money you have.And I was afraid to give it to him because back then I used to get my ass beat for like everything and nothing, because I was raised in an abusive household. And so. But the Lord came the test, my heart more than my physical actions. So Lord knew I would have, because I'm not a tight or stingy person.I love giving is one of my greatest joys in life. And, you know, we, I, you know, we hesitated and we looked down and to my surprise, my dad would have been okay with me giving him the dollar. I was frozen in fear. It's like I wanted to, but I didn't want to get hit. And so, and then just, just that quick, we looked up and the man was gone.It was like a whole big parking lot. He could not have walked away in a split second that [00:31:00] fast. And I've had other instances happen like that. And I like to be transparent about that so that people don't think that they're going crazy or second guess, or question how God has come to personally deal with them.Sometimes we meet people already know our names that we know them. Well, we never met before, you know, and stuff like that. Elijah: When jelly beans first of all, the flesh we don't, we call it the veil of the flesh. And my teacher used to say all the time, he said, Now you would know this, do that, and because you you're familiar with the scriptures, but he would talk about that tabernacle that the Israelites pitched out there in the wilderness of Sinai over there and, and, and and the law and how that tent, that tabernacle was like going to be the temple on which the creator, he said, I'll dwell among you because it's not time for me to dwell in you.He wasn't going to dwell in them until pinnacle. So he said, build me a tabernacle that tabernacle went on to become Solomon's temple, the the furniture inside of it. That shows how that we go from physical [00:32:00] bodies to universal bodies when we transcend see, because Solomon's temple will be more glorified version of the tabernacle, but in that tabernacle, you would have the bales.And there were three bales. And my teacher used to say, pay attention to those veils because. When you talk not to switch, but when you, we talk about Jacob's ladder, you see, and it had angels ascending and descending upon that ladder, that ladder really represents consciousness and each wrong represents a higher level of consciousness.That's why you have now in the Catholic church, they call it the celestial hierarchy. My teacher said, it's not a hierarchy, it's an order. And you have the 12 orders of universal beings on, up from angels all the way up to supernals and each rung plea is a being are beings that experience the universe at a higher vibration or a higher level of consciousness.And that's what this school [00:33:00] is that we are in. This is a kindergarten for angelic or universal or just entities. If the word angelic sounds too abstract for you or spirit sounds too abstract. Just say anything. Because, you know, a physical entities you see, and a spirit being is just an entity. That's not limited to flesh and blood, and they have the power to descend and ascend and make their presence known at a will.That's one of the perks of having seen when they would go to reach for the Messiah and the scriptures, and he would just disappear. You see, see the flesh is determined by consciousness, by vibrational consciousness. So if you're able to descend and vibration and make your presence known, you can ascend in vibration and disappear or take away the appearance of the physical form.That's when you get into Astro bodies and all of that, and people practicing. And my teacher, Dr. Kenley would [00:34:00] set tell us, he said, now because you have people and they still do it now, practice Astro projection. He said, now don't do that because you might not know how to get back into. He said, I can do it because I know how to get back in the body.There would be people, he would go back home to Ohio, to minister, to the folks that didn't come out with the 70 souls that came out with him and this route, the school grew tremendously from then, but there were people who stayed in Ohio and then eventually it went out to other places all over the United States, Canada, the Caribbean and all Germany and all other parts of the world.And that's the school today. But people would say that they seen Dr. Kenley minister before them up in the congregation. And there would be people in California say Dr. Gibson right here. Well, y'all ran my house. We had a service today this morning, Dr. Kelly sitting here having lunch with us. And there will be elders that witness to the fact, you know, he, we saw him here today and he would tell us, and then he would and, and, and [00:35:00] I used to wonder why he never taught us the law of attract.And one of my friends, who's an elder in the school. He said, she said that her husband asked Dr. Kenley, why won't you teach us the laws of the universe and the laws that now they call in Hollywood, a secret and all that. And he said that because of, I taught it to you guys, you would destroy each other.So he, he did, he would not teach us the law of manifestation. I only know about it now because of other metaphysical teachers, Dr. Harris would often kind of insinuate about it. He would often jokingly say, when you are awakened in consciousness, you have to be careful about what you think, but he would never go in and teach the people in the school, the law of manifestation and the law of of creation, De'Vannon: right.I'm going to put it in the show notes, but I want you to tell just verbally tell everybody what your email address is, because I know that they're going to have sure. [00:36:00] Elijah: If you have any questions or anything like that, or you just want to talk to me, my email address is where that's where as in whiskey, a w a R E dot or period at Elijah, I'm sorry.W a R E dot elijah@yahoo.com. So which, where dot elijah@yahoo.com and where it's spelled w a R E E L I J H. Yes. Yes. Yeah. De'Vannon: The, the astral projection is real mom. My mentor evangelists. Nelson, who was a great clairvoyant woman used to, to tell people that in church too, like be careful where you send your you'll sell a while too, because you don't know if it's coming back.Now. I first started going onto the Astro plane when I was like in middle school, but it's not like I went looking for it, but I'm a gifted dreamer. I've been dreaming since I was like four or five and my dreams come true. And I see things and [00:37:00] receive guidance in them from God, from God, or from people who have died and who are coming back to talk to me.God dream a lot, you know, every time I nod off I'll dream. And so Elijah: you never not have dreams does some, and I've had times when I'll go to sleep and I won't dream, but you always have dreams. De'Vannon: Yeah. Like I'm, I'm like, I'm a dreamer that that's, that that's one of my strongest gifts. Elijah: And that you must, that you probably have a strong imagination.De'Vannon: Yeah, it wasn't until I I went to school for hypnotherapy and spin stuff too. And I just in different classes, I've been in different experiences. I began to understand that not everybody has the capability to like close their eyes and visualize not everybody. I didn't know that. Elijah: Just so easy for you to do it.You, we don't, we figure that we, we always figure when we could do something that way everybody can do it, De'Vannon: but things of the mind like that, like I just, because I get, I don't know, build a house or garden, I wouldn't expect everybody to do that. But to be able to, to visualize yourself doing [00:38:00] something, I would not have thought something in the head like that would have been something that's what out of reach easily on people.So that was an eye opening. Elijah: I don't really go into astrology a lot. I'm familiar with it, but they say people that have more earth sign Mo moves that are in, in, in the earth. It's harder for them to imagine. You know, because they are so grounded, I guess if it would be like a Capricorn moon or a Turismo.And it's not that I don't believe there's any truth in astrology. What I, what, what metaphysics teaches us? Is that when you are spiritually awakened, you are no longer bound to the planets. You're no longer. It talks about over there and revelations that the woman was clothed in the sun with the moon under her feet.Now again, a woman that's not talking about it, didn't say the female. It said the woman, the woman is the soul. The soul has been probed in the sun. Now, what does that mean? That means the soul has awakened [00:39:00] back onto its universal identity or his identity as a son of God. And when the moon is under his feet, the moon represents.The moon sign and astrology. You got a sun sign, which is 12 Zodiacs. And then you've got a moon sign, which is 1208, the moon representing the emotions. So when the Mo that's, when, when you're clothed in the sun, that means you received that true identity. You know, we call you the van and you don't mind us calling you then, but you recognize that the van was just the role you played.And that the moon under your feet is that now your emotions I'm governed by the soul, you are in control of your emotions, your emotions don't control. So when it comes to astrology, you see, yes, as long as you are identifying yourself as the person that was born from your father and your mother, and you think that's who you are, and this is my name and this is what it's on my birth certificate.Yes. I believe that you can be controlled by those great [00:40:00] celestial bodies that we call the planets. You see, but when you have awakened back to your cosmic or universal identity, you see the moon is now under your feet and you are now closed and universal in the sun. You see, or. De'Vannon: Absolutely. And the book of revelation is probably my favorite though.It's most certainly my favorite book of the Bible. That, and then I love the book of Daniel too, because they kind of mirror each other. So on the, on the astral projection, I just wanted to clarify. Sure that, because this is another thing. I don't want people to think that they're crazy that they're alone because it's not a sort of thing that people just talk about a lot, which I wish there was more of, but so like if you're sleeping at night, cause I did not go trying to intentionally get myself on the astral plane, I don't have to, it just came to me like that and it just comes to me like that.So I just started sleeping and I started becoming aware of the fact that I was dreaming in the middle of my dreams. I don't consider those Astro dreams to be so [00:41:00] prophetic. It's almost like I'm somewhere else. And so just a natural instinct instincts I'm beginning to see, okay, let me see if I can manipulate the environment around me and control things and stuff like that.And that's kind of like the beginning of Astro studies, Astro projection and things like that. I've read where people try to go on there and maybe find other people and send healing energy and light to them and different things like that. And so, and so, so this happens anybody who may be listening, just know that no, you're not crazy.There's a whole thing Elijah: about,you know, the sad part about it. The Davanon is that we have been in these physical bodies for so long that we have begun to think that they are the reality of us and that what is beyond the flesh is the shadow. We even think of it as shadow world. No, this is the shadow. [00:42:00] As a matter of fact, in, in comedic knowledge, when you're dealing with what they call the Egyptians, a lot of people thought that when they talked about the underworld, they were talking about the world you go to, when you're no longer in a physical body, no, they thought saw this physical world as the underworld, because you had deity condescending into a lower state.So when you are talking about spiritual things, you see, now you may, in your current condition, you seeing, when I say you only talking about you, I'm talking about any listener, you may not be sensitive to those things you see, but just like you're wise enough to know that the earth didn't start the day you were born and that it won't stop the day you die.You see, don't be silly enough to think that because you haven't experienced something, it could not be true. You see, and that's, that's, that's kind of thing that irritates me with somebody. Well, well, well, well if I haven't experienced it, it's a [00:43:00] lot of things you haven't experienced. And then this is a, we got multi versus that's.What eternal life is all about going on to experience yourself. You see, I think it was higher on Butler, a great another metaphysical teacher that said heaven. It's just an eternal revelation of itself. You see? So don't ever think that'd be what I, I haven't experienced it. There was a time when you had an experience sex didn't mean nobody else knew what the emotion was like.De'Vannon: And that's a S a damn good emotion. If I do Elijah: say, and you know, you're going to act right. The van you going to act, right. Which means I'm De'Vannon: gone act out, you were talking about how short-sighted. It is to think that, you know, this physical form is like our highest self or like the, the end and you know, and there's nothing but shadow beyond this.I think about that whenever I see like politicians or people who have physical power in this earth doing treacherous things and [00:44:00] lying. Yes. I'm talking to them like they'll Elijah: never be any consequences for their behavior. Right. I'm talking De'Vannon: to Republicans, even locals straighten up and fly, right. People wish to enforce their way up on other people.So people who are anti-abortion anti LGBTQ I a plus alphabet mafia. Yes. We're coming fromI'm talking to you because when you die, Then none of this authority on this earth matters. So the people that you have to step on to get their throw out lie and say January 6th, wasn't an insurrection. Try to justify Donald Trump and with a straight face, and think you were going to go stand before the Lord and get into heaven, bitch.You fully. AndElijah: I'm not messing with De'Vannon: you. And it's short-sighted because you have a soul to account for and spiritual currency. You are not [00:45:00] building up. That's why the Bible says hardly scarcely will a rich man enter because you priorities or a skew angels and demons don't give a fuck about money because they understand what real power is.And they could give a damn list who has a seat of authority because the ultimate decision of everything comes from the Lord, no matter how treacherous it might seem to us. And so you mentioned earlier, you know, something about what a Republican be listening to this podcast. They are going through, maybe they have Elijah: received salvation, maybe even under De'Vannon: flap.One of them motherfuckers upside the head pretty hard on a Sunday morning to get some sense than there all the earth shirts in the old world. It all the missionaries might be able to help one of them hard-headed motherfuckers. But Elijah: you know, my, my teacher used to say and this is really what prompted me to be honest about my sexuality.He used to say all the time, he said, now, if you know something, [00:46:00] then you ought to know that y'all way, or God knows it even more so. And when you run it around and you're just to your point, putting on airs, trying to impress other shadows, you see you are really telling the creator to his face. I don't really give a damn about what you think I'm more concerned about.What the people I can physically see, I physically interact with and that I physically deal with on a daily basis are about I'll deal with you when I deal with you. I'll deal with you. When I see you failing to realize that he is their very self and he is your very awareness of being, you could fall down and hit your head and they bring you in to the emergency room and they say van, and you say, I don't know, man.You say, when they asked you, where are you from? I don't know. When were you born? I don't know. Are you married? I don't know how you got any children. I don't know. Are you conscious of being alive? Yes, I am. [00:47:00] You see, you can forget everything, but you will not forget your I am or your awareness. And that is y'all way or God you see, and you can not escape that.That's why he said, if you make your bed in hell or if you make your bed and, and, and, and. That are low vibrational or negative. That's hell he, wasn't talking about a place on the earth. You see? And that's another thing we, we misunderstand and I was talking about this in my podcast the other day, this whole business of having inhale.You see, first of all, I don't have a habit to put you in the van for the things you've done or hell to put you into the things you've done. And you, now you have one to put me in. You see, I have an overhead, but when we speak about heaven or hell, we have to understand that these are states of consciousness.You see just like the example I used the other day, you have what they call the orthological kingdom. And that's the bird king you see now out here in California, we have Eagles and other different kinds of beautiful birds. And out there in New York, you have other [00:48:00] birds and Eagles and things of that nature you see, but they all belong to the same kingdom, but the kingdom is not relegated to a physical place.It is a. Consciousness and the reason they are all a part of the ontological kingdom is because they have a commonality in their nature and the way they are made up psychologically and physically speaking, they are a part of the kingdom of the birds or the orthological key. When we speak of the kingdom of heaven.You see, I'm not saying that they're on C a boat or B or, or, or planes where entities dwell and exist. But when we're talking about heaven, you see those that are, you see share the same nature. Cause the word name means nature. You were talking about the angels refusing to give their names. They refuse to give their name, not because we couldn't pronounce it or that the, the actual spelling of the name [00:49:00] or the name, the word was sacred.They, if you asked me for my name, you're asking me for my nature and I cannot give you that you see if you are a carnal minded man, and all you dwell upon is earthly things. You can never know my name. My name is a mystery to you. You see, it's just like when we say there's power in the name of the Lord, you're saying there's power in the nature you see of the Lord.You see. So when we're talking about, about the kingdom of heaven, we're talking about all those who have the same name or the same nature you see, they are, there is a divine commonality between them and that's what makes you a member of the kingdom. You see, you have the plant kingdom. See, you've got plants out there in New York and we got plants here in California.You see, but they are all members of the plant kingdom. So when we're speaking about heaven, you see, you can be on this lower level, you see, or you can be a being that well and higher. See those are the [00:50:00] heavens, but that is not heaven. You see heaven is a state in which there is righteousness. Paul said over in Romans, the kingdom of heaven is not eating and drinking, but it is righteousness, peace and joy.You see, when it speaks about different things over there are revelations about gold and all that is all symbolic gold represents the endurance and the power in the kingdom or in the nature of all those who are alike and have the same commonality. We are brothers. We are bounded, no matter where we are, we are a part of the kingdom.De'Vannon: All I know is hell seems like, and that's very, I mean, thank you for offering to an alternate way of looking at heaven, but what else? All I know is that hell feels like, it feels like it would be someplace where God is not to, whether it's flying there, whether it's here, they are across the street or across the galaxy.It seemed like there ain't no Jesus there. And that's what would bother me about it. The most Elijah: sure. Because, [00:51:00] because just to go along with what you're saying, Paul said to you that are alienated in your minds, he didn't say to you that are alienated. See the truth is if the creator is net percent, there can't be any place where he is not, but there could be some place in you where he is not.You see what I'm saying? I'll give you a prime example. This just happened to me last night. I get home. I want to run to the store and get me something sweet. Cause there's nothing in the house sweet to eat because I chose not to buy anything. Sweet. Cause that's. But I really had a wave. I have a tremendous week too.So I said, I'm going to go get me something this week. And I started looking for my wallet and I can't find it. And I look on my dresser. I looked at my bed, I look in my gym bag. I don't see it. I go to the car. It is not there. I'm looking under the seats and everything. So I said, I must have left it where I picked up dinner.[00:52:00] I run getting jumped in the car, run back to the place where I picked up dinner. I asked them that they find a wallet. The ladies telling me no, nobody has turned in the wallet. I'm like, where can my wallet be? I look under the car again, come back home, look in the bedroom again. I don't see it. Look on another part of the house where I think I'm out of flooded.I go back to my gym bag and I said, well, excuse me, let me dump everything out. And when I dumped everything out, it was right. Now I asked you the question, was my wallet lost or was it just lost to me? Was it lost in my mind? See, there was a space in my mind where the wallet was not anymore. I thought the wallet was locked.It was with me all the time. It was right here in my house, but in my consciousness, it could have just as easily been where I had picked up dinner. It could have been, it could have fell out at the gym. It could have fell out at the grocery store. You got to fill out at the gas station. [00:53:00] It wouldn't have made a difference because consciously it was lost to me.You see? So when we're talking about hell, hell, where the devil is really a state in which we think that we are separate from the creator, my wallet was with me the whole time, but in my mind, and in my heart, it was lost. But not in reality. In other words, the relationship wasn't there. Normally my relationship with my wallet is I know exactly where.But because I didn't know where it was, the relationship had been launched. So what has to be restored is not connection or, or, or, or any true sense of, of, of salvation. Salvation is really the wiping away of the idea of being honest or down. That's just another thing. De'Vannon: His wallet was lost. Y'all but now it's fine.Now it's Elijah: found [00:54:00] hallelujah. De'Vannon: Hallelujah. So you mentioned your sexuality. How do you identify? Elijah: No, I hadn't really gone into it on my podcast and it wasn't because I was embarrassed or anything like that is because I didn't want people to. You know, if you, if they're coming to Zephyr, I don't want them to think that that is what the podcast is about.This is really not about me. It's about metaphysics, but in De'Vannon: actuality, sorry to cut you off. Have you talked about your sexuality pause after no. On a public broadcast anywhere? Is this your first time publicly talking about Elijah: it? This would be the first time. But that doesn't bother me at all. De'Vannon: We'll come on with the exclusive then come on.Elijah: And if it did, I would have asked you when you, when we did the pre-interview, when you were kind enough to ask me, is there anything that you would rather, I didn't talk about? You were nice enough to ask me [00:55:00] that and you know, as I told you, it's not a problem. I just didn't want people. If they're coming to Zephyr, I want to stay on, I want them to understand what Zephyr is about and it's about all of us.It's not me. I hate to be vague and say, oh, I don't identify as this. Or don't identify as that because I realize we're living in a world where carnal minded creatures have to term label you as something. It just, it just gives them acid indigestion. If they cannot label you as black male, straight gay or bisexual or anything like that.I have been attracted to women and I have been attracted to men. And personally I don't label myself. Any kind of way. But I recognize being a minister that that's going to be problematic for a lot of people, because there's going to be some people that said, dang, I was really enjoying you until, you know, and I already know that.And being that metaphysics is a part of religion and in the religious world, [00:56:00] unless you are heterosexual then no heaven for you then that's where, where I feel like it's important that I speak up and say something because I would be a hypocrite, knowing that I've been free from thinking you see that there are angels in heaven who identify as heterosexual.And if I don't identify that way, then I'm going to be in big trouble. It goes right back to our conversation about maleness and femaleness. You see, first of all, We have to stop thinking that God is a big man in the sky or a big male in the sky, excuse me. And of course he's white because anything good and righteous is white.And we have a very cartoonish idea about what the creator is. We think he dwells on the, of most rounds of the universe or at some other multi-verse and he sits up high and looks down low. And he's judging me based upon what I am physically speaking. But if [00:57:00] angels are neither male nor female.Then, and this goes all the way back to us having to recognize that these roles that we are playing now you're not going to be in heaven talking about, you know, yeah. I was married for 40 years and we have four kids, two boys, two girls, and I had six grandchildren. And all of that it says that the former shall not be remembered and neither should have come to mind.And this part of salvation somebody was asking me about it yesterday about the Buddhist religion. Cause I was talking about in Buddhism, they have Nirvana and really what Nirvana is all about is letting go of the self. And they say, when you let go of the self that's when you attain under heaven, because hell is really the self and heaven would be the letting go of the self and the Buddhist religion you see.And what, the reason why so many people, especially young black men. And I think it's problematic because what, what these male men do is they hide their sexuality. [00:58:00] And then they go and get into these marriages and the women can't figure out why, why can't I reach him? What's his problem? Why, why, why, why is it that no matter what we do, you know, it just because we have such a toxic definition of masculinity, especially for young black men in society, as general in general, but especially for young black men, because we have mistaken.How many women you screw how many children do you produce, whether your fathers do them or not? We think that that is being a man. Now that may be being a male, but that's not being a man. We don't identify being a man is in. Russ self-respect dignity. Are you a person of your word? Can I rely on you?You see are you a gentlemen? You see are you respectful? You see, are you on time? You see, or every time I go somewhere with you, you always stop my child. I'm running like that's not being a man or a woman. You see that's being a male or female. And again, I think [00:59:00] so much of, but just like we have gotten so caught up and been baptized and white, white supremacy.We have been falsely baptized in maleness. You see? And again, these, I know many men right now, you see that think they're, they're deceiving people, but they're not deceiving themselves. But I always go back to that thing. My mentor said, if you know, then you ought to know that the creator now you see, but they get in these and it makes it worse because that's why the marriage marriages don't want.Because you have created, you see what you think. And it always amazes me when I hear people say, well, I believe what the Bible says about homosexuality. You see what the Bible also speaks against miscegenation race mix, but you do that. Like it's going out of style with no problem. So if you going to hold to what the, and the, and it has scriptures in it, they say I've never been to their website, but they say that the Klu Klux Klan got about nine scriptures on their website, [01:00:00] speaking against Miscegenation you see?And in the Catholic church, there used to be a doctrine of miscegenation you see, but how many of, of, of, of, of these young black ones? I mean, it amazes me. They'll they'll they'll welcome, brother. Calvin, you see in his Latina, a new wife back home from the military and little Calvin Jr. With no problem.You see, and that very Bible that they got sitting on, their lot lap speaks against that. Just like it speaks against homosexuality. But yeah, they don't view that in the same light you see? And that goes back to, if you're going to keep the law, keep the whole law, don't just keep parts of the law. That's convenient for you.I remember one time I shared this with you and then I'll be quiet. My mother had asked me to ride to her doctor's appointment with her. Do you want me to go with him? No reason. I just want you to go. So we get there and they, they, what they call tree , you know, take her temperature and all that good stuff.And it's this Caucasian or young white [01:01:00] male. I'm saying young in his early forties, little skinny guy. You can tell you ran. It looked like he ran to work. He was so skinny. He said he loved to run and we got to talking and we're laughing and talking to me and my mom are kind of talkative people and would go to the grocery store, things like that.And I don't know how we got on this, but he said to my mother and I, and he said, you know what, my brother always. And we're like, we barely know you. So of course we don't know what your brother always says. He said, my brother always says, don't judge me because I don't see him the same way you do. And I said, I said, you know what?That's, that's, that's, that's quite accurate of your brother to say that because there are so many things in this Bible that are spoken against. If you interpret them, physically women being preachers and teachers, but don't get up and can't sleep at two 30 or three in the morning. You'll see Joyce Meyers and so many other women talking about the Bible and up minister.And before that congregation, but [01:02:00] again, you believe what the Bible says about everything you see, except for that. But when it comes to this whole business of homosexuality and see, first of all, you have to understand that Paul was speaking spiritually. You see, he was not speaking. Just like when he said, let the woman be quiet in the church, you see our solid, he was not speaking about somebody with an X, X chromosome.You see, he was speaking about the creator being the husband, man or the El Shaddai, the almighty provider you see of all that there is. And you and I, being a woman, we should be looking on to our husband for all our daily needs. Not a Pope, not a minister, not a preacher, not, not your physical spouse or your physical parents or anything like that.You must look to your husband for all things you've seen. Sorry. Am I talking going on too long? De'Vannon: There ain't nothing wrong with letting the Lord use you because, because of what you're doing is offering different [01:03:00] perspectives. And one main goal of my podcasts of anything, anything that I do is to encourage people, to look at things.Differently to be willing to take a second look at things to not be conceited, like people you know, who. Who thinks that whatever it is that they think they know is the only way that it should be looked at. And like, if they were to reconsider it, then maybe they have compromised their belief. You know, the thing is you're realizing that you're a human and that you don't know everything.And so you take people like Joyce Meyer, Joel Olsteen TD Jakes, whoever it is that goes on TV and condemns on the sexuality and yeah. Right. You know, it's all good when people get divorced. You know, for reasons other than infidelity, you know, there's all kinds of stuff that, you know, it's like the whole straight people in the church got together and said, all right, we're going to be okay with this, this, this, and this.Even though the Bible says we shouldn't, but it's cool that we're going to make a really big fucking deal out of the gay people. [01:04:00] And and that's fine. I can't fix stupid. You know, I can't, I can't change them motherfuckers, but I can help people who were being influenced by them, you know? And if you're going to be a hateful hole and ride out with what they're saying and you know, and hate on people within, fuck you.But there's people out there who are miserable, killing themselves, hurting themselves over what televangelists are saying are over what. Preachers are saying. And then sometimes preachers they'll say some bullshit. Like they don't preach a certain scripture, a certain topic. The way they used to, what they're saying is they were wrong in their interpretation of it the first day.But what you're not gonna hear them do is apologize for any damage that they may have caused because preachers don't say, they're sorry, you know, try to get one to apologize. They don't have the humility. And and so Elijah: I encourage so many things, the value. I mean, I was sharing with the person the other day.I said, you know the Bible fertility is a [01:05:00] big theme in the Bible. You see? But if a woman who is married now, marriage is all about procreation. If there's a woman in the congregation who can not physically bring forth children, now there are some congregations. But the average every day, congregation, those are more what people would look at as cult physically speaking.But the average one in the male church would say, all sister, you Johnson, our sister Smith. We're gonna pray that the Lord provides you with those blessed is your womb. And we're gonna pray that the seed of, for, to a patient just arises in you and you will be the next Optima you see? And, and, and, and, and we just want to pray a little bit.I, that never happened. Do you go to her husband, Keith and say this half, and she ain't going to do it. You looking for key feeling, is she just, ain't going to be the one, but fertility is a big theme in the Bible. That's what the, that's what this whole [01:06:00] thing is all about. Spiritual children. You only got physical children because the creator is witnessing to the fact that he ran it for a whole dynasty up in this unit.You see, but you don't tell a woman who's infertile, you know? Well, you know you're playing a very negative role and you're going to have to get.De'Vannon: Well, well, the Lord has created the wicked for the day of destruction and the hypocrites are in that same category. So there's going to be through silliness like that in the world. And like Jesus said, at some point in the Bible, but it's left them alone. And so, and so my encouragement to people is to get out from under the influence, you know, of places like that.If you're LGBTQ or you have any sort of alternative lifestyle, don't go a

Episode 116e: Bernini and the Popes with Loyd GrossmanDescription: Today continue our Summer of Scholars series. We are joined by Loyd Grossman, author of The Artist and the Eternal City – Bernini, Pope Alexander the VII and the Making of Rome to discuss the incredible story of how the Pope and the artist Bernini worked together recreate the city of Rome and ultimately give us the Rome and the Church we see today. Loyd Grossman, CBE is a scholar, journalist, presenter and musician. He will take us behind the ropes to better understand an incredible time period in the history of the Popes of Rome and Christian Church.How to Find An Elephant in Rome: Bernini, The Pope and the Making of the Eternal CityBy: Loyd Grossmanhttps://www.loyd-grossman.com/You can learn more about the History of Papacy and subscribe at all these great places:http://atozhistorypage.com/https://www.historyofthepapacypodcast.comemail: steve@atozhistorypage.comhttps://www.patreon.com/historyofthepapacyBeyond the Big Screen:Beyondthebigscreen.comThe History of the Papacy on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6DO2leym3kizBHW0ZWl-nAGet Your History of the Papacy Podcast Products Here: https://www.atozhistorypage.com/productsHelp out the show by ordering these books from Amazon!https://amzn.com/w/1MUPNYEU65NTFMusic Provided by:"Danse Macabre" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)"Virtutes Instrumenti" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)"Virtutes Vocis" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)"Funeral March for Brass" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)"String Impromptu Number 1" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Agnus Dei X - Bitter Suite Kevin MacLeaod (incomptech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Image Credits:By Ariely - Own work, CC BY 3.0, ttps://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4533576By Pam Brophy, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9124089

Title: The Artist and the Eternal City – Bernini, Pope Alexander the VII and the Making of Rome with Loyd GrossmanDescription: We are joined by Loyd Grossman, author of The Artist and the Eternal City – Bernini, Pope Alexander the VII and the Making of Rome to discuss the incredible story of how the Pope and the artist Bernini worked together recreate the city of Rome and ultimately give us the Rome and the Church we see today. Loyd Grossman, CBE is a scholar, journalist, presenter and musician. He will take us behind the ropes to better understand an incredible time period in the history of the Popes of Rome and Christian Church.You can learn more about Beyond the Big Screen and subscribe at all these great places:http://atozhistorypage.com/Click to Subscribe:https://www.spreaker.com/show/4926576/episodes/feedemail: steve@atozhistorypage.comwww.beyondthebigscreen.comhttps://www.patreon.com/historyofthepapacyOn Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/groups/atozhistorypagehttps://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfThePapacyPodcasthttps://twitter.com/atozhistoryLearn More About our Guest:Loyd Grossman author of https://www.loyd-grossman.com/The Pope and the Making of the Eternal CityMusic Provided by:"Crossing the Chasm" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Full Text of ReadingsFirst Sunday of Lent Lectionary: 23All podcast readings are produced by the USCCB and are from the Catholic Lectionary, based on the New American Bible and approved for use in the United States _______________________________________The Saint of the day is St. Peter DamianOn Feb. 21, Catholics honor Saint Peter Damian, a Benedictine monk who strove to purify the Church during the early years of its second millennium. In his Sept. 9, 2009 general audience on the saint, Pope Benedict XVI described him as "one of the most significant figures of the 11th century ... a lover of solitude and at the same time a fearless man of the Church, committed personally to the task of reform."Born during 1007 in the Italian city of Ravenna, Peter belonged to a large family but lost both his father and mother early in life. An older brother took the boy into his household, yet treated him poorly. But another of Peters brothers, a priest, took steps to provide for his education; and the priest's own name, Damian, became his younger brothers surname.Peter excelled in school while also taking up forms of asceticism, such as fasting, wearing a hair shirt, and spending long hours in prayer with an emphasis on reciting the Psalms. He offered hospitality to the poor as a means of serving Christ, and eventually resolved to embrace voluntary poverty himself through the Order of Saint Benedict. The monks he chose to join, in the hermitage of Fonte Avellana, lived out their devotion to the Cross of Christ through a rigorous rule of life. They lived mainly on bread and water, prayed all 150 Psalms daily, and practiced many physical mortifications. Peter embraced this way of life somewhat excessively at first, which led to a bout with insomnia.Deeply versed in the Bible and the writings of earlier theologians, Peter developed his own theological acumen and became a skilled preacher. The leaders of other monasteries sought his help to build up their monks in holiness, and in 1043 he took up a position of leadership as the prior of Fonte Avellana. Five other hermitages were established under his direction.Serious corruption plagued the Church during Peter's lifetime, including the sale of religious offices and immorality among many of the clergy. Through his writings and involvements in controversies of the day, the prior of Fonte Avellana called on members of the hierarchy and religious orders to live out their commitments and strive for holiness.In 1057, Pope Stephen IX became determined to make Peter Damian a bishop, a goal he accomplished only by demanding the monk's obedience under threat of excommunication. Consecrated as the Bishop of Ostia in November of that year, he also joined the College of Cardinals and wrote a letter encouraging its members to set an example for the whole Church.With Pope Stephen's death in 1058, and the election of his successor Nicholas II, Peter's involvement in Church controversies grew. He supported Pope Nicholas against a rival claimant to the papacy, and went to Milan as the Pope's representative when a crisis broke out over canonical and moral issues. There, he was forced to confront rioters who rejected papal authority.Peter, meanwhile, wished to withdraw from these controversies and return to the contemplative life. But Nicholas' death in 1061 caused another papal succession crisis, which the cardinal-bishop helped to resolve in favor of Alexander II. That Pope kept the Cardinal Bishop of Ostia occupied with a series of journeys and negotiations for the next six years. In 1067, Peter Damian was allowed to resign his episcopate and return to the monastery at Fonte Avellana. Two years later, however, Pope Alexander needed his help to prevent the German King Henry IV from divorcing his wife. Peter lived another two years in the monastery before making a pilgrimage to Monte Cassino, the birthplace of the Benedictine order. In 1072, Peter returned to his own birthplace of Ravenna, to reconcile the local church with the Pope. The monk's last illness came upon him during his return from this final task, and he died after a week at a Benedictine monastery in Faenza during February of that year. Never formally canonized, St. Peter Damian was celebrated as a saint after his death in many of the places associated with his life. In 1823, Pope Leo XII named him a Doctor of the Church and extended the observance of his feast day throughout the Western Church. Saint of the Day Copyright CNA, Catholic News Agency

In this episode the hosts unravel the lives and legacies of two religious rulers, Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia) and Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran. The hosts discuss Pope Alexander's corrupt election to the papacy, his nepotism, profiteering, expansion of the papal states and wild sex life. They also discuss Ayatollah's Khomeini's Iranian Islamic revolution, his toppling of the Shah, his war with Saddam Hussein, Fatwa against Salman Rushdie as well as the oppressive treatment of women and homosexuals in Iran. These two dictators battle it out in Round 12 of the knock-out tournament to determine the single greatest dictator of all time. One of these two dictators will be eliminated from the tournament and the other will remain in contention to be crowned history's biggest dictator.

Anthelm was born in 1107 in a castle near Chambery, in Savoy, France. He was ordained a priest and visited the Carthusian Charterhouse at Portes, where he entered the Order at the age of thirty. Two years later, in 1139, he was appointed abbot of Le Grande Chartreuse, which had been damaged. Anthelm made the monastery a worthy motherhouse of the Carthusians, constructing a defensive wall and an aqueduct. As minister-general, Anthelm also united the various charterhouses of the Order. Rules were standardized, and women were given the opportunity to enter the Carthusians in their own charterhouses. After a few years as a hermit, starting in 1152, Anthelm returned to Le Grande Chartreuse and defended Pope Alexander III against the antipope Victor IV. In 1163, the pope appointed him as bishop of Belley, France. Anthelm reformed the clergy and regulated affairs, going as far as to excommunicate a local noble, Count Humbert of Maurienne, who had taken one priest captive and murdered another priest trying to free him. When Humbert appealed to Rome and won a reversal, Anthelm left Belley in protest. Pope Alexander then sent Anthelm to England to mediate the dispute between Henry II and St. Thomas Becket. Anthelm was unable to undertake that journey. He returned to Belley to care for the poor and for the local lepers. On his deathbed, Anthelm received a penitent Count Humbert. Anthelm died on June 26, 1178. His feast has been celebrated by the Carthusians since 1607. His relics were enshrined in Belley. In liturgical art, Anthelm is depicted with a lamp lit by a divine hand. Subscribe to Daily Mental Prayer by Email Support and Donate Shop my Catholic Art --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/shalonecason1/message

Hello there, Sandi's got a few surprises in store for us today, so hang-on to your head, as you're likely to have your mind blown by revelations such as; Pope Alexander 6th sired somewhere between 7 and 10 children, Eve was Adam's SECOND wife - although is making a more obedient spouse from a spare rib just cheating? And the famous Egyption queen Cleopata, was in fact Cleopatra the seventh...perhaps ancient Egypt didn't have much imagination when it came to naming girls? More surprises from Sandi's bookshelves tomorrow, in the meantime remember ... We Will Get past This. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

St Athanasius Part ThreeOn the 7th day of the Coptic Month of Pashons we celebrate the life and struggles of the Patriarch St Athanasius the Apostolic. Part Three, Exiled but never ExitedA Greek historian testified about Athanasius saying: "Athanasius’s fluency in speech and his outspokenness in the council of Nicea brought over him all the hardships that he encountered in his life.” A prophecy of the suffering the young Athanasius would endure during his life. For light creates shadows. The greater the light, the more shadows it casts. The young Athanasius demonstrated such Divinely inspired eloquence that the devil made him his target for the reminder of his life.After the passing of Pope Alexander, the patriarch of Alexandria, whom Athanasius had served many years, there was a renowned unified calling to make Athanasius the new Patriarch of Alexandria. This beguiled the wicked followers of Arianism. They crafted false charges against the great saint, and convened their own council at Trye to levy these allegations against the new Pope. Most of the attendants were Arians, and against Athanasius.One of these charges alleged that Athanasius had killed a bishop sympathetic to the Arians. The Arians brought two arms of a dead person and claimed that they were the arms of Arsanius. Then Arsanius, who had shown himself to Athanasius prior to the council’s beginning, was brought in, and showed his arms to the council and declared his regrets. The Arians said that Athanasius was a sorcerer and he was able to make arms for him. They became violent against Arsanius who left the council and went to the Emperor.Despite all the charges being rebuked, the sneaky Arius brought all the false charges against Athanasius before the Emperor. Using the fake council as proof of the new Pope’s guilt. Athanasius was called to the Emperor, but many loyal to Arius prevented his appearing. The Emperor gave his order to exile Athanasius to France in February 5th., 335 A.D. where its bishop had met him with great honor.Arius died a horrible death and it was said: "God made Arius to die in a public washroom, where his bowels poured out of his body, and the people regarded his death as a punishment from the Divine Justice."When the Emperor heard about the death of Arius, he recognized the innocence of Athanasius, and recommended while he was on his death bed, in the year 337 A.D. that Athanasius be returned to Alexandria.But the remaining Arians did not stop. They assembled another fake council, where they excommunicated Athanasius. They appointed instead someone called Gregory, and they sent their decision to Pope Julius, ArchBishop of Rome. Pope Athanasius assembled a council in Alexandria in 340 A.D. where he protested against the Arians, then he wrote a letter to all the churches to declare his innocence.However, the Arians influenced new Emperor, as well as some weak church leaders, to recognize Gregory as the Pope of Alexandria. But Gregory and his fellow Arius demons, raped Alexandria of her wealth and purity. The people of Alexandria were horrified, and decided to resist, but the Arians attacked the churches.Pope Athanasius sought the help of all the churches in the world, left his Seat, and traveled to Rome. A council was assembled in Sardica, where they declared:a. The innocence of Pope Athanasius b. Confirmed the cannons of the Nicean Creed. c. They excommunicated the Arian bishops. d. Deposed Gregory from his office.Athanasius returned for the second time to his Chair, and the people received him with joy. Gregory the Theologian, the writer of the liturgy, described this reception saying: "The people came as the flood of the Nile," and he also pointed out to the palm branches, the carpets, and the many clapping of hands.The Arians did not like the return of Athanasius to Alexandria, and waited unwillingly until the death of new Emperor. The Arians again falsely accused Athanasius before Emperor Constantius, claiming Athanasius was collaborating with the enemy of the Emperor. Constantius exiled Athanasius yet again. The Arians appointed George of Cappadocia, bishop on Alexandria, but the Orthodox people refused to accept him and admonished him. He responded violently, taking over all the churches and its properties.After the death of Emperor Constantius, Julian his cousin became ruler. He wanted to rally the people of Alexandria so he returned Athanasius to his Seat. Athanasius assembled a council in 362 A.D., and provided conditions for the acceptance of the Arians that wish to return to the church. He also gave a special attention to the preaching among the pagans. This was not appreciated by Emperor Julian, who loved and supported the pagans. He therefore ordered the arrest of Athanasius.Those around the Pope were greatly saddened because of the tribulations that befell him again and again. Athanasius told them, that in times of persecution, he felt great inner peace and that God took care of him and embraced him with His grace more than any other time in his life. He also said: "The persecution of Emperor Julian is like a summer cloud that will go away." While they were in these conversation, the news came to them that Julian was killed in his war with the Persians, and that he was killed by St. Mercurius (Abu Sefain), and that he said just before his death: "You have overcome me, O You son of Mary.”Jovian became Emperor breifly, then Valens who was under the spell of the Arians. In 367 A.D. Valens ordered the exile of Athanasius. Athanasius was forced to leave Alexandria yet again, hid in the tomb of his father. Meanwhile, the Emperor killed 30 bishops who were pro-Athanasius. The Emperor saw the determination of the Coptic Church, and decided to lift the persecution, and return Athanasius to his Chair in 368 A.D.Although Athanasius reached the age of 72, he did not compromise in performing his duties. For his steadfastness and his firm stand for justice, the world described him by the saying: "Athanasius against the world.” He wrote several books about the false doctrine of Arius called, On the Incarnation, as well as many other subjects, including the faithful telling of the Life of St Anthony.Athanasius was the first Pope to wear the monastic tunic from the hand of St. Anthony. He made it the uniform for all bishops and patriarchs. He was the one who ordained St. Antonios a priest, and then Archpriest.

St Athansius Part OnePart OneOn the 7th day of the Coptic Month of Pashons we celebrate the life and struggles of the Patriarch St Athanasius the Apostolic. Part One, his Early Life.St Pope Julius of Alexandria wrote about the strong and blessed St Athanasius thus, “If precious metals, such as gold and silver, are tried in the fire, what can we say of so great a man, who has been through so many perils and afflictions?”Athanasius was born to pagan parents sometime between the year 295 - 298 A.D. When he was in school, there were Christian children acting the Christian rituals; some as priests, some as deacons and one of them as a bishop. Athanasius asked their permission to participate with them. “You are pagan,” they proclaimed, “and you are not allowed to mix with us." He responded, "I am from now on a Christian."They rejoiced with him, and made him a patriarch over them in the play. They enthroned him on a high place, and offered him honor and respect. The archbishop of Alexandria (also known as “pope” or “abba”) witnessed this re-enactment by the children, “The baptism of the catechumens!" He exclaimed, "but this looks to be real!"Quickly, he called a servant and told him to go down to the children and bring them to him. Summoned to appear before the authority, the children approached with some uneasiness, and intrepidation. The young Athanasius stepped to the front of the group."What were you doing down there on the shore?" asked the Patriarch.Athanasius’ clear eyes looked at him with interest, but without a vestige of fear. “We were playing," he said. "It was the baptism of the catechumens. I was the bishop, and they"—pointing to his companions, “ were the catechumens.""Are you a Christian?" asked Alexander."Yes," answered the boy proudly."And these?""Catechumens.""What did you do?""I poured the water on them and said the words.""What words?"The boy repeated the formula in perfect Greek."Did you pour the water as you said the words?""Yes."The Patriarch's face was troubled. "It is a dangerous game to play at," he said. "What would you say if I told you that you had really baptized them?"The boy looked at him in amazement."But I am not a bishop," he said.The Patriarch could not help smiling. “Although the bishop usually does baptize the catechumens," he said, "it is not necessary that it should be a bishop, not even necessary that it should be a priest."The boy-bishop looked grave, his companions frightened, the Patriarch thoughtful."What would you like to be?" The Archpriest asked of the young Athanasius."A priest," was the prompt answer."A bishop perhaps?" asked Alexander with a smile, "you think it is an easy and a glorious life?"The boy's eyes looked straight into the Patriarch's."The blessed Peter was a martyr," he answered."You need much learning to be a priest.""I love learning," said the boy.Alexander noted the broad, intelligent brow, the keen eyes and the clear-cut face before him. His heart went out to this frank and fearless lad who loved the martyrs. Later Pope Alexander wrote about Athanasius: "This child would be in a great position one day."When Athanasius' father died, his mother brought him to Pope Alexander, who taught them the principles of the Christian faith and baptized them. They gave their money to the poor, and stayed with the Pope, who taught Athanasius the church subjects, ordained him deacon and made him a personal secretary.

Thom Hartmann – The Hidden History of Guns and the Second AmendmentAired Tuesday, 2 July 2019, 5:00 PM EST / 2:00 PM PSTSlavery, the “Doctrine of Discovery” and America’s Gun CultureInterview with Thom Hartmann, Radio Host and Author of “The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment”“Those who fail to learn the lessons of history condemn THE REST OF US to repeat it.” — Swami BeyondanandaBack in the 1960s, black power activist H. Rap Brown famously proclaimed, “violence is as American as cherry pie.” This week’s guest on Wiki Politiki, Thom Hartmann, shows us how and why this is true, so true.At a time when the gun issue in the United States is front-and-center, and two competing narratives contradict each other, Thom Hartmann – a political “uncommontator” and contextualizer extraordinaire has sprayed the issue with “de-mystifier” in his latest book, “The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment”.Guns were part of our political legacy since the day Columbus landed, and since the first slaves were bought to the new world from Africa. As part of the “doctrine of discovery” (https://wikipolitiki.com/revealing-and-revoking-the-doctrine-of-discovery-from-domination-to-reverence/), the conquistadors were given carte blanche by Pope Alexander to kill, rape, exploit and plunder non-Christian people who were deemed less than human. In his second visit to Hispaniola, Columbus made 1,600 local villagers slaves at the point of a gun. In 1992, historian David Stannard estimated that some 100 million Native peoples had been killed through murder, disease and starvation since they had been “discovered”.Likewise, as Thom points out in great detail, guns were used – arming whites and disarming blacks – to guard against slave rebellions, and then after the Civil War, to take power away from blacks and restore white supremacy. In modern times, when Obama was elected in 2008, there was a run on ammunition, as the rumor spread that this black man was going to take away the white man’s guns.Join us for a lively conversation that unwraps and unravels America’s love affair with guns, and how we’ve become armed and dangerous – to ourselves, mostly. Thom also has some practical and uncommonly commonsensical solutions that bring clarity out of obfuscation.For those who don’t know Thom Hartmann, he is a lifelong learner and wise teacher, whose books range from fossil fuels (“The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight”) to Thomas Jefferson and the founders of America, to “attention deficit disorder”. He is a progressive national and internationally syndicated talk show host. Talkers magazine named him America’s most important progressive host and has named his show one of the top ten talk radio shows in the country every year for over a decade. A four-time recipient of the Project Censored Award, Hartmann is also a New York Times bestselling author of twenty-four books, translated into multiple languages.Our conversation will touch on many issues – including how to “overgrow” the influence of money in politics, and how best to frame the gun issue so that we the people can successfully “fire the first Big Shot” in 2020. Tune in this Tuesday, July 1st at 2 pm PT / 5 pm ET. http://omtimes.com/iom/shows/wiki-politiki-radio-show/One more thing… How YOU and WE Can Make a DifferenceHave you noticed that regardless of which of the two political parties you vote for, neither of them seem to be willing to confront Monsanto and agribusiness? Are you disgusted and frustrated by the stonewalling by the two-party duopoly? Are you ready to empower a truly effective “third-way” movement that can move the dial? Are you ready for … oxymoron alert … FUNCTIONAL POLITICS?If so, go here to find out more: https://wikipolitiki.com/functional-politics-an-idea-whose-time-has-come/Support Wiki Politiki — A Clear Voice In The “Bewilderness”If you LOVE what you hear, and appreciate the mission of Wiki Politiki, “put your money where your mouse is” … Join the “upwising” — join the conversation, and become a Wiki Politiki supporter: http://wikipolitiki.com/join-the-upwising/Make a contribution in any amount via PayPal (https://tinyurl.com/y8fe9dks)Go ahead, PATRONIZE me! Support Wiki Politiki monthly through Patreon!

The troubled reign of Pope Alexander, Apocalyptic texts, and the prelude to the 1st Coptic revolt. Announcing Joyful.gifts. The best way to do gifts! Visit Joyful gifts to start today! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/historyofthecopts/support

Start of the 8th Century, Pope Simon and Pope Alexander. Announcing Joyful.gifts. The best way to do gifts! Visit Joyful gifts to start today! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/historyofthecopts/support

Girolamo Savonarola was an inspiration to Martin Luther and an early martyr for the Protestant Reformation. He's also a controversial figure – more Old Testament prophet than humble friar. Our guest Samantha Morris (https://theborgiabull.com) discusses her book Girolamo Savonarola: The Renaissance Preacher and the history of the “mad preacher of Florence”. Think you could end a movement? Destroy some of the best art ever made? Nearly topple the Italian Renaissance? Of course not, but that's what one man tried to do at the end of the 1400's. He was a righteous man who fought against the evil of Pope Alexander the VI. But he we went too far—trying to make the world behave in a godly fashion instead of changing the hearts of Florence. In a time before the Bible was readily available in people's own languages, Girolamo Savonarola was put to death by the very superstition he tried to defeat. Truce is a listener-supported podcast. Leave us a comment on iTunes and be sure to visit us at www.trucepodcast.com. You can follow us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/trucepodcast) and Twitter (@trucepodcast). Our host is Chris Staron, author of Cradle Robber and writer/ director of the films Bringing up Bobby and Between the Walls.Artwork by @andrewjohnhuff.

Larry tells about Abraham Lincoln distracting a wino in New York City. Then Larry searches for the planet where all the drinks are free and all the women look like Julie Newmar! Hear about the political conventions on Milleronia (or lack thereof), The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and the poem "Summer" by Alexander Pope, not to be confused with Pope Alexander. http://LarryMillerShow.com Quote of the week: "I know dat guy." Producer Colonel Jeff Fox

Sammi Campbell of A Talking 'Cast?! and The Cast Next Door helps me remember my Pope Alexander. Our discussion of Michel Gondry's 2004 Oscar-winner strays into the travails of monogamy and online dating. I want letters from listeners! Subscribe to my newsletter (tinyletter.com/loosecanonpod) or email me at caroline@loosecanonpod.com

It is during the reign of Pope Alexander that young Martin Luther visits Rome. Complicated rules were designed on how the tithe was to be calculated. Consider that the word "farm" comes from the term used for the tract of land scheduled for tithe. The problem was that the potato was not taxable. For Spain, the conquest of America was an extension of the Crusades. Opposition to Luther was strongest in Spain. In 1540, Ignatius Loyola founded the Jesuits to counter the Reformation. In Europe, the Jesuits persecuted Protestants but in America they defended the Indians.

AFTERBUZZ TV – The Borgias edition, is a weekly “after show” for fans of Showtime's The Borgias. In this show, host Maria Kanellis breaks down the episode in which Paolo helps Lucrezia and Giulia escape Giovanni's estate, but the women wind up as captives of the advancing French army; at the Vatican, Pope Alexander worries [...] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

AFTERBUZZ TV – The Borgias edition, is a weekly “after show” for fans of Showtime's The Borgias. In this show, host Maria Kanellis breaks down the sex and diseased filled episode in which Pope Alexander tries to create a relationship between Rome and Naples to counter the alliance between Della Rovere and King Charles of [...] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the 7th and last episode in our series The Long Road to Reform.In Italy, the Renaissance was a time of both prosperity and upheaval.Moderns of the 21st C are so accustomed to thinking of Italy as one large unified nation it's difficult to conceive of it as it was throughout MOST of its history; a patchwork of various regions at odds with each other. During the Middle Ages and a good part of the Renaissance, Italy was composed of powerful city states like Florence and Venice who vied endlessly with each other. Exacerbating the turmoil, was the interference of France and Germany who influenced affairs to their advantage.It was within this mix of prosperity, intrigue, and emerging Renaissance ideals the papacy carried on during the last decades of the 15th Century.I need to insert a cautionary footnote at this point. As this is the last of our series laying out the history for WHY the Reformation occurred, we need to deal with something that may be a bit unsettling for some of our listeners; the string of popes who were, how shall I describe them? Less than holy, less than the men of God others were. Even many loyal Roman Catholics acknowledge the men who've ridden Peter's chair haven't always been of sterling reputation. Not a few have been a ragged blight on the Holy See. That there was a string of them in the 15th Century helped set the stage for the Reformation.And I hope this mini-series in CS has made it clear that Reform only became something OUTSIDE the Church when the decades old movement for it WITHIN the Church was forced to exit. Never forget Luther began a Roman monk and priest who was forced out.During his reign in the mid-15th C, Pope Eugene IV sought to decorate Rome with the new artistic styles of the early Renaissance. He recruited Fra Angelico and Donatello. This began a trend among the Popes to imbibe the ideas of the Renaissance, especially in regard to art. They sought to adorn the city with palaces, churches, and monuments worthy of its place as the capital of Christendom. Some of the popes moved to greatly enlarge the papal library.All this construction wasn't cheap, especially the construction of St. Peter's Basilica. So the popes came up with new ways to raise funds. A subject we'll come back to later.Not all Renaissance popes focused on the arts. Some were warlords who led military campaigns. Others took delight in playing the high-stakes game of political intrigue.Eugene IV was succeeded by Nicholas V, who spent his term from 1447 to 55 trying to gain political dominance over the Italian states. His goal was to turn Rome into the intellectual center of Europe. He recruited the best authors and artists. His personal library was said to be the best. But, being a scholar didn't preclude him being brutal. He ruthlessly pursued and executed any who opposed him. During his reign, Constantinople fell to the Turks. He called for a great Crusade to retake the City, but everyone knew he only wanted it to increase his own prestige, so they ignored him.His successor was Calixtus III, who served only 3 years. Calixtus was the first pope of the Spanish family of Borgia. Under the guise of standing against an invasion by the Turks, Calixtus embarked on a campaign to unite Italy by military conquest. Nepotism reach a new height during his reign. One of the many relatives Calixtus elevated was his grandson Rodrigo, whom he appointed as a cardinal. This Rodrigo would later become the infamous Alexander VI.The next pope was Pius II who served from 1458 to 64. Pius was the last of the Renaissance popes who took his office seriously. He tried to bring about the much-needed Reformation of the Church but his plan was stalled by powerful cardinals. Pius was a true scholar who began work on a vast Cosmography. Unable to complete the work before he died, it was instrumental in shaping the ideas of a certain Genoese ship's captain named Cristofor Columbo.Pius II was followed by Pope Paul II, an opportunist who, upon learning that his uncle, Eugene IV, had been made pope, decided a career as a churchman was more promising than his occupation as a tradesman. His main interest was collecting jewelry. His lust for luxury was proverbial, his concubines acknowledged by the papal court. Pope Paul wanted to recover the architectural glory of pagan Rome and devoted vast sums to the work. He died of internal bleeding, brought on by his debauchery.Sixtus IV served from 1471 to 84 and came to power by literally buying the papacy. Corruption and nepotism reached new heights. His sole goal was to enrich his family, one of whom would become Pope Julius II. Under Sixtus, the church became a family business, and all Italy was involved in a series of wars and conspiracies whose sole purpose was to enrich the pope's nephews. His favorite was Pietro who at the age of 26 he made a cardinal, the patriarch of Constantinople, and archbishop of Florence. Another nephew plotted the murder of one of the Medicis in Florence who was stabbed to death before the altar while saying mass. When the dead man's relatives took revenge by hanging the priest who murdered him, the pope excommunicated the entire city of Florence and declared war.Despite all these groteque shenanigans, history remembers Sixtus for something else entirely; the Sistine Chapel, which was named after him.Before his election in 1484, Innocent VIII made a solemn vow to quit the nepotism that had become endemic to the Papacy. But as soon as he was pope he declared, since papal power was supreme, he wasn't bound by the prior oath.What's the old phrase? “It's good to be King.” I guess we could also say, “It's great to be Pope.”Innocent VIII wasn't! Innocent that is. He was the first pope to acknowledge several of his illegitimate children, on whom he heaped honors and wealth. Under the management of his son, the sale of indulgences became a shameless business proposition. Pope Innocent ordered Christendom to be cleared of all witches. Hundreds of innocent women were executed.After Innocent's death, Rodrigo Borgia bought the cardinals' votes and became pope under the name of Alexander VI. He ruled from 1492 to 1503. Under Alexander, papal corruption reached its all-time zenith, or we should say, it's nadir.I hope Roman Catholic listeners don't hear this and assume I'm just Catholic bashing. It's Catholic scholars who chronicle all this. It's simply a sad chapter in Church History.Pope Alexander was a moral wretch who publicly committed all the capital sins, save for gluttony because of a persistent case of heartburn. The people of Rome, well-acquainted with Alexander's excesses, said of him, “Alexander is ready to sell the keys, the altars, and even Christ himself. But, he's within his rights, since he bought them.”Alexander had numerous affairs with the wives of the men of court. These women gave him several children he openly acknowledged. The most famous of these were the infamous pair, Cesare and Lucrezia. Italy was besmirched by blood because of his many plots and wars. His court was so corrupt many fabricated tales were hatched. Sad, since there was no need to embellish the list of sins attached to his reign, which for long after hurt the reputation of the papacy.Alexander VI died unexpectedly. The suspicion is that he mistakenly took a poison meant for another. His son Cesare had hoped to inherit the Holy See but was struck by the same ailment. So the cardinals elected Pius III, a reformer. He lasted 26 days before dying mysteriously. Can anyone say “Conspiracy?”This brought Julius II to the papal seat, a worthy successor to Alexander.When Popes are elected, they pick a name they want to take for their tenure as the head of the Church. The papal name gives us a hint how he sees his role; what he hopes to accomplish.Julius was only the second to take that name, which exists as a harbinger for what he aimed to do. Appointed a cardinal by his uncle Sixtus IV, Julius modeled himself more after Julius Caesar than any saint. Like many of the popes of that era, Julius was a patron of the arts.During his pontificate, Michelangelo finished the Sistine Chapel, and Raphael's frescoes decorated the Vatican.But this pope's favorite pastime was war.Visitors to the Vatican today are struck by the bright colors of the Swiss papal guard. The only way they could be called camouflage is if they were trying to hide in a Jason Pollock painting. It was Julius who reorganized the papal guard, dressing them in uniforms said to have been designed by none other than Michelangelo.We might expect a Pope to make a poor general, but he was in fact so successful in his military and diplomatic exploits, it was rumored he might finally achieve the unification of Italy. Of course, France and Germany opposed these plans, but Julius defeated them both in diplomacy and on the battlefield. He died in 1513, earning the epithet, Julius the Terrible by his contemporaries.He was succeeded by Giovanni, son of Lorenzo de Medici. Giovanni took the name of Leo X. Like his famous father, Leo was a patron of the arts. He failed to consolidate Julius' military and political gains and in 1516 was forced to sign an agreement with Francis I of France that gave the king enormous authority in church affairs.Leo's immersion in the world of the arts overshadowed his pastoral concerns. He was determined to complete St. Peter's in Rome. The financing of that project was the main purpose for the sale of indulgences that provoked the protests of a German monk named Martin Luther.In our next episode, since we've now come right up to the Reformation in Europe, we'll get caught up with our narrative of the Church in the East.Martin, John, and Philip – that is Luther, Calvin and Melanchthon are just chomping at the bit to jump in.