Dr Robin Douglas
@robincdouglas
Historian of religions, paganism and esotericism. Website: Posting in a personal capacity.
A piece of history - my grandmother (aged 3) in the May Day parade in Bootle in 1912.
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Bin Laden had a personal copy of the esoteric classic Manly P. Hall's Secret Teachings of All Ages. (Probably because of his interest in conspiracies.)
Palm Sunday in Jerusalem during Ottoman times (1906). Muslim guards salute the Franciscan and Assumptionist fathers.
New short course coming up from Cherry Hill Seminary! @chseminary.bsky.social "Pathways to Ancestral Wisdom", on Sundays in April with Dr Sáde Gryffin
- Islam is not oppressive to women Both writers make this point. Headley says that "[t]he true Muslim regards his women folk as sacred, and he spares no pains to make them happy and comfortable." Nevertheless, the old boy did have traditional views on gender, as expressed in this passage: /15
He compares the "love and toleration" shown by Muslim missionaries with the "compulsion and condemnation" seen among their Christian counterparts. He quotes examples of Christians being rude about Islam, and includes a memorable passage of satire on Christian sectarianism: /13
This is William Douglas (1829-1905), the first of my ancestors of whom we have any pictures He was an Irishman who joined the British imperial forces Here he is as a young soldier and as an old man The images are colourised by AI (I know some people like this and some don't)
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.
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.
I think that the American Secretary of State has just declared publicly that God inspired the Rolling Stones.
When he retired, he created his own echo chamber and seems to have gone through a process of spiralling self-radicalisation. Like a boomer uncle on Facebook. He ended up saying that SSPX laypeople shouldn't even have a drink with FSSP people. Protestant sectarianism.
London, 1816 - an absolutely bizarre "Operatic Ballet" based on the story of the Bounty mutineers and Pitcairn Island.
US army chaplains are insufficiently redpilled. I assume "tossing" must mean something different in American.
Éliphas Lévi's esoteric interpretation of the image of the Virgin Mary known as the Miraculous Medal. "its figures are so perfectly kabalistic that it is truly a marvellous double Pantacle. /1
From Wiltshire Police's investigation into Sir Edward Heath and the (probably false) claims that he was an abuser.... The following statement about the allegedly asexual bachelor stands out. Who was it referring to?
The royal family should share their theological speculations with us more often.
Limerick, Ireland, 1838 - Report of the reception of a nun Interesting points: 1. The journalist emphasises how hot she is 2. She was a convert of 3 years 3. She hadn't yet been confirmed - this was done at the reception ceremony
An outfit called the Protestant Alliance had a major sense of humour failure and argued that the King had forfeit the crown.
Music by Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Chopin and Handel was performed.
Astonishingly for a Protestant monarch, the King was given a place in the sanctuary. So was the Queen - a privilege that even Catholic women were rarely afforded. A priest helped them to follow the liturgy. "The Queen... seemed much affected."
Edward wore the uniform of a Portuguese colonel. He was received at the church by Cardinal Bourne and prominent Catholic laymen.
1803 - an advert for some new music by someone called "Louis Van Beethoven". It takes second place behind music by the now-forgotten Ignaz Pleyel.
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on the lingering clerical culture in rural 1920s Italy, which contrasted with that in France.