Friday, August 15, 2008

An Open Query on Religious Belief

According to the Holy Grail Church's page, "Ecclesia Apostolica Jesu Christi":

Good Friday 1973 and the founding of Ordo Sancti Graal on the summit of an English hill by twelve disciples laid the foundations for the restoration of the Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ in Great Britain. The Hampstead & Highgate Express newspaper recorded on 4 May 1973: “Wearing white robes and carrying a nine-foot-high wooden cross, he plans to set off from Hampstead Heath next week on a pilgrimage of peace. Walking all the way with Seán Manchester will be a group of twelve young supporters, who want to spread ‘the simple, spiritual ways of life originally taught by Christ’.”

Indeed, Sean Manchester's The Highgate Vampire: The Infernal World of the Undead Unearthed at London’s Famous Highgate Cemetery and Environs (London: British Occult Society, 1985) proclaims that "All proceeds from this book will be contributed to the Church of the Holy Grail".

So why do we have the following admittance from Manchester on page 12 of the same book?:

Although not pre-eminently religious, I have been left in no doubt by the course of events that evil is not just an abstract force and, most important of all, that such demonic molestation as I have encountered is no match for divine power once invoked. The set of symbols I work with are predominantly Christian, yet you will find in the text that I cast a circle, what some might call a Magic Circle. While I am not a witch in any sense of the word, I suppose as a secular person handling consecrated material as a protection against hostile psychic forces, I am practicing "white magic". The Circle once cast is a ritualised barrier, a consecrated sanctuary; like a church, a mosque or synagogue - like Avebury, Stonehenge and Glastonbury.

It should be noted that Manchester was later ordained by Illtyd Thomas, a

Primate of the Celtic Catholic Church, who, together with Michael Weston and James Henry Vermeulen, on 4 October 1991, consecrated Seán Manchester, Superior General for Ordo Sancti Graal, Primate/Bishop (with dignity of Archbishop) for Ecclesia Apostolica Jesu Christi (an autocephalous jurisdiction). (~"Ecclesia Apostolica Jesu Christi")

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