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Draco Layer Four: The Anagogic or Mystical Sense

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Here be dragons. And doves. Human beings long for transcendence. Such longing is, for the world, always out of fashion because, of course, it is not a longing for the world, and the world knows it. We know what the world wants. The world—by which we mean Satan, the Lord of the World—wants above all our obedience, a jewel so precious that he will do anything to get it: lie, steal, murder, bear false witness, pretend to social standing, pretend to insider knowledge to get us to consent to his influence.  “God lied to you. You will not die.” And suddenly we are anxious about having other people dislike us, about losing prestige in our social circles, about other people being more popular or influential or successful, about other people having secret knowledge, about our own influence and fame. “You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” And with that temptation, our first parents fell. The irony is cosmic. There they were in the Garden, privy to conversation with God face-to-face, ...
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“Hail, Mary, full of grace, punch the devil in the face!”

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Once upon a time, there was a man named Theophilus who made a bargain with the devil. Thank God that Our Lady was able to help him! Do you want to know the full story? Listen here ! * The Prayer of Theophilus O miserable wretch that I am, what have I done and what have I wrought?...  Where shall I, unhappy sinner, go, who have denied my Christ and his holy mother ( Christum meum et sanctam eius genitricem ) and have made myself a servant of the devil ( seruum diaboli ) through a chirograph of wicked warrant ( per nefande cautionis chirographum )?  Who, do you think, will be able to pull it away from the hand of the devil, the destroyer, and help me?  Why was it necessary for me to become acquainted with that wicked Hebrew who should be burned?  (For this same Hebrew had been condemned a little while before by law and judge.) Why indeed? For thus are they honored, who forsaking God and the Lord, run to the devil....  Woe ...
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Fountain of Fate

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1) Evangelical Animals, The Book of Kells, Trinity College, Dublin, MS 58, fol. 27v 2) Baptistery, St. John Lateran, Rome 3) The Copernicus Planisphere, by Andreas Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica , plate 4 Act I, scene i  12 He stood beneath a dome of tow’ring height. The ceiling of the room was far away; a false sky met his gaze with twinkling lights, a belt of time in Zodiac array. Gold curtains fell like waterfalls, risqué and riverine they flowed around the vault. The veils were drawn across the grand archways and framed the ceiling made of dark cobalt. The neon lights flashed on and off like flaming salt. 13 A sea of bronze upheld by oxen pairs stood brimful with the waters of the skies. The waters poured out over stony stairs into a fountain filled with golden bribes. A sterling current rolled its liquid ice spewed by a dragon from the fountain’s hearth, while on its base were words deeply incised: “All fate’s a wager—boldly now cast forth! Dame Fortune favors those who go i...
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Joking Matters

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Milo is dangerous, everyone agrees. Well, not quite everyone. ( Me , for example.) Certainly journalist Jeremy Scahill thinks he is. Invited to appear with Milo on Real Time with Bill Maher , Scahill  refused , insisting, along with almost everyone else who has written about Milo except Tom Ciccotta and me that Milo incites violence. (He doesn't; the only person Milo has ever called for violence against is Dylann Roof, in the form of the death penalty ). In Scahill's words: "Yiannopoulos has shown he will use his appearances to publicly attack and shame specific ordinary people by name, a practice which could lead to violence or even death." Bill Maher would beg to differ . "You are so, let's say, helped, by the fact that liberals just always take the bait," he acknowledged in his interview with Milo last night. And then Maher cautioned his side: "Stop taking the bait, liberals! The fact that they all freaked out about this little, impish, Br...
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