Dr Robin Douglas

Link: cherryhillseminary-org.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

I'm delighted to be doing this podcast, together with Sasha Chaitow, for @chseminary.bsky.social next Saturday. The subject will be the use of ancient Greek sources in modern pagan religious traditions.

@robincdouglas.bsky.social has a book coming in our Equinox series on pre-Gardnerian British Pagan revivals, while Sasha is working mostly on Byzantine-era esotericism right now. Worth hearing! More details and Zoom link in comments.

Lenten fasting in the nineteenth century This is the pastoral address that was sent by John MacHale, the Catholic Archbishop of Tuam, to his clergy in Lent 1835. DEAR AND BELOVED BRETHREN. — We are about to enter into that holy season whi…

1835 - The Archbishop of Tuam writes to his priests on the subject of Lenten fasting.

A fascinating window into Lenten observances in pre-famine Ireland.

robindouglas.org/2025/09/08/l...

I'm guessing King David.

...showing them, by the example of the royal penitent, that no state can plead exemption from satisfying the divine justice"

The whole piece is worth reading. No such document would ever be issued today.

/End

But don't be too quick, says the Archbishop, to give exemptions to the rich:

"On the wealthy, who are in the habit of asking a dispensation from the rigorous law of fasting, you will impress that they, too, may have sins to expiate...

....To them the church allows the full measure of their usual meals, to enable them to sustain the fatigue of their daily labour."

The poor had such harsh lives that they were exempted:

"On the poor, whose lives are a continued series of the most rigorous privations, you will impress the necessity of abstaining from sin, and you will not fail to adjure them not to forfeit the merit of their state by habits of crime....

....The use of flesh meat is prohibited during the entire of the Lent — the use of eggs is not permitted on Fridays, or during the first and last weeks of this penitential time. On Ash Wednesday and Spy Wednesday and Good Friday, even milk and butter are not allowed to the faithful."

The requirements of Lent were relatively rigorous:

"one meal only, with a slender collation, is allowed to those who are not engaged in hard labour, or who are not comprehended in those classes, who, by reason of age or other infirmities, are exempted from fasting....

Lenten fasting in the nineteenth century This is the pastoral address that was sent by John MacHale, the Catholic Archbishop of Tuam, to his clergy in Lent 1835. DEAR AND BELOVED BRETHREN. — We are about to enter into that holy season whi…

1835 - The Archbishop of Tuam writes to his priests on the subject of Lenten fasting.

A fascinating window into Lenten observances in pre-famine Ireland.

robindouglas.org/2025/09/08/l...

Thank you!

@robincdouglas.bsky.social @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social hey, look! You made the top ten last month!

"A n---o with his taboos is more credible to me than the man who believes seriously in transubstantiation" - A. Hitler

There have been rumours in more recent years of requiems being said for Hitler in ultra-traditionalist Catholic circles.

Announcement of a Requiem Mass for Hitler and Mussolini from Franco's Spain.

I've been using AI to trace shared patterns in wording (ngrams) in esoteric texts from the Renaissance to the early part of the 20th century.

This gives the following map of relationships between key texts and authors.

It is not always appreciated how deeply implicated the Islamic Republic of Iran is in antisemitic conspiracy theories.

It should be emphasised that these ideas are not believed because of some inherent weakness of Iranians or of Shia Islam - they were imported from Christian European antisemites in the early twentieth century.

Still, they're not very good, are they?

....Instead, they are infused with a narrative that Israel and 'world Jewry' seek to keep Muslims scientifically backward, while manipulating global institutions to prevent Iran’s rise."

Source: isgap.org/flashpoint/a...

"Technical debates about centrifuge cascades or enrichment levels are not simply presented as questions of national sovereignty or development.....

Antisemitic myths have formed part of the discourse around the neuralgic nuclear issue. Jews have been identified as the hidden force behind American policy and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

These ideas persisted in recent years. Ayatollah Khamanei suggested that Covid was created by the USA. He also thought that "demons" were helping the enemies of Iran – a reference to theories that the Mossad work with supernatural entities and that Jews more generally use magic to control the world.

Myths about Jews and Zionists controlling the USA continued to circulate in the 21st century.

The Islamic Republic supported Holocaust deniers and 9/11 conspiracists - and, more bafflingly, blamed the 2010 Haiti earthquake and the cold winter in Europe that year on the "US–Zionist regime".

A burst of paranoia about Zionist control of America came in 1995 when Bill Clinton, probably ill-advisedly, announced of a near-total ban on trade with Iran from the podium of the World Jewish Congress.

In the period after the Islamic Revolution, in the 1980s and 90s, paranoia about "Zionist domination" took on new life, coupled with an interest in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Various editions of the Protocols were published under the patronage of the state.

These theories pre-date the Islamic Republic. It used to be believed in some quarters that the last Shah of the house of Pahlavi was a Jewish agent ("Papa Levi").

The Shah himself liked his conspiracies. He ended up believing that Israel (and the USA, the USSR and the UK) had put Khomeini in.

It is not always appreciated how deeply implicated the Islamic Republic of Iran is in antisemitic conspiracy theories.

From a knowledge lecture - not from the grade rituals, which is what the chart is seeking to track.

You're right, though, I should have expressed myself more accurately. No line on the chart doesn't literally mean "no" textual overlap. It's seeking to track relatively major relationships.