Nexus - 0606 - New Times Magazine-pages

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lore as Adrian's great-great-grandfather, Richard Wagner. His the witch-hunts began. renowned 16-hour, four-part Nibelungen Ring Cycle— The Prior to that, the Roman Inquisition had been more concerned Rhinegold, The Valkyrie, Siegfried and Gétterdimmerung with heterodox Christians: those heretics who were Christians of (Twilight of the Gods)—was largely drawn from Burgundian folk- one sort or another (Arians, Nestorians, Nazarenes, or whatever), lore, but derived ultimately from the very old Norse mythology of | but were not members of the Roman Church, and whose culture the Volsunga Saga. revolved, to some extent, around traditions of magic and alchemy The Ring's ultimately key character is the warrior Siegfried that were outside Church control. But, here were the Jews putting who, while under the spell of a potion, betrays the woman he forward their own versions of the old lore—particularly those loves—a goddess-turned-mortal called Brunhilde, who then mas- Jews in the Narbonne region of the Spanish Marches, where the terminds his death. Subsequently, however, she realises her error House of David had once been given privileged rights of princely and throws herself upon Siegfried's funeral pyre to be with him in independence by Emperor Charlemagne. eternity. The magical Ring that Siegfried gave to Brunhilde is It was recognised, therefore, that the net should be cast over a retrieved from the ashes by the Rhinemaidens, the rightful Water _ wider arena, so as to take account of those of completely different Guardians of the Gold. And, by virtue of this, along with persuasions. It was no longer a matter of the Church simply Brunhilde's self-sacrifice, a hitherto curse (placed upon the Ring endeavouring to clean up the Christian house. What of the Jews? by Alberic the Nibelung, Dwarf Lord of the Underworld) is lifted. What of the Muslims? What of the pagans in general? The Ring had originally been stolen from the Rhinemaidens by And so, from the late 15th century, the Inquisition began a thor- the Nibelung, who lost it to Brunhilde's father, ough process of "ethnic cleansing". No one the sky-god Wotan. Then Siegfried won it by who was other than a full-blooded and obvi- killing a dragon. But, upon the final cleansing ous Catholic was safe. But, there had to be of the Ring by the Rhinemaidens, Wotan per- some new form of fication to pull all the ishes, together with his dream kingdom of In terms of the prey into the ever-expanding net. The Grand Valhalla. With the Ring now back in its right- . Inquisitor at the time was the brutal Tomas de ful hands, the world is redeemed and the Cycle straightforward Torquemada, Senior Confessor to Ferdinand II is comp. ete. nth ditional Ring | Messianic line of and Queen Isabella or Spain. oe his direc: nd so, once again the traditional Ring lore . . tion, the answer was found and, very soon, the is apparent, just as in Tolkien and the Grail sto- King David and Jesus, friars had set their sights upon "the most dia- ries, for the Ring is finally seen to destroy those the most powerful of bolical heathens who ever conspired to over- who hold it without the right of affinity. The throw the Roman Church". golden Ring itself (forged from the enchanted the Ring Lords was In 1484, two Dominicans, Heinrich Kramer flat-stone of the Rhinegold) had the power to i and James Sprenger, published a book called afford its master the lordship of all the King Solomon, The Hammer of Witches. This evil but world, but only at the cost of forsaking who, In the Hebrew imaginative work gave full details of love and selling his soul to the Ring's awe- Talmud, was said to what was perceived to be the hideous some power. . . new threat posed by all the practitioners be the mightiest of satanic magic. The book was so per- n terms of the straightforward ici suasive that, two years later, Pope [Fests line of King David and Wel EL of Innocent VIII issued an official Bull to Jesus, the most powerful of the Ring the age. authorise the suppression of this blasphe- Lords was King Solomon, who, in the mous sect. Up to that point, the cult Hebrew Talmud, was said to be the mighti- known as Witchcraft (to the extent that it est magician of the age. His great wisdom existed at all) had not really constituted a and considered judgement as a sorcerer- threat to anyone. It rested mainly in the king were directly attributed to his owner- continuation of pagan ritual and fertility ship of an enchanted ring, and the legend rites by the peasant classes. In real terms, of King Solomon's Ring was clearly a major inspiration for it was little more than the vestige of a primaeval belief in the Tolkien. divine power of natural forces, focused above all on Pan, the mis- In the same manner as Solomon, Tolkien's Ring Lord, Sauron, chievous Arcadian god of the shepherds. used his One Ring to command all the demons of the Earth. Pan was traditionally portrayed with the legs, ears and horns of Solomon used the demons to build a Temple of Jerusalem, whilst —_a goat, but the creative Dominicans had other ideas about the Sauron used them to build the Tower of Mordor. The rings were _ pipe-playing Horned One, and they blackened his image so that also similar (as is usual in the tradition), in that each had the he was seen to correspond to the Devil himself. However, since power to corrupt and destroy its master. Solomon's Ring achieves the Inquisitors were all men, it was determined that witchcraft his downfall through the agency of the demon Asmodaeus, where- must be a form of depravity linked to the insatiable wantonness of as Sauron is, in effect, his own destructive demon. women! Along with the rings, there are also story similarities concern- The problem was that nobody really knew who these presumed ing the possession of light-radiating jewels, with Solomon's being witches were, and so a series of ludicrously tragic trials and tests the Schamir and the Elf King Thingol's being the Silmaril—each __ was devised to root them out. In the midst of all of this, the harsh of which is said to be an heirloom of the respective King's race. Puritan sect became politically allied to the Roman strategy, By virtue of such Jewish writings, the Dominican wrath of the implementing its own witch-hunts in England and, later, in Spanish Inquisition (from about 1480) was largely directed America. Over a period of some 250 years, more than a million against the Jews, especially those connected with Kabbalistic innocent men, women and children were murdered by the delegat- studies, and it was really as a direct result of this persecution that ed authority of the witch-finders. straightforward ; Messianic line of NEXUS - 47 In terms of the OCTOBER — NOVEMBER 1999