HWA, Hoeh and Co. used Hyslop's account of Nimrod and Semiramis to demonize certain widely held practices and beliefs in order to compel potential recruits to draw onto HWA into their cult.
They used Alexander Hyslop's The Two Babylons. It is an 1850s anti-Catholic polemic insisting that many practices of Catholicism actually came from ancient Babylon and originated with a cult originally honoring Nimrod and Semiramis. Hyslop used this idea to condemn the Catholic Church as part of a long tradition of mutual hostility dating back to the Reformation, if not earlier.
This idea turned out to be very useful for HWA and Co. Using Hyslop's idea they could say that not only is Christmas, Easter, St. Valentine's Day "pagan" (like the Roman alphabet this article is written in) but they were started by this enemy of God.
And by adding the charge of incest to Nimrod and Semiramis they throw in the thought of that which is most vile.
What a way to demonize such perfectly normal and widespread practices. What a way to repel people from events many hold special memories of. HWA did not just condemn them as pagan the same way Jehovah's Witnesses do, he was able to inject the thought of that which is most vile and claim they were produced by people who engaged in such things. What a way to horrify truth seeking people.
When I read that book I found it curious that the subtitle of it is "The Papal Worship Proved to be the Worship of Nimrod and His Wife", not his wife-mother, as HWA and Hoeh portrayed. As far as I know it was HWA and Hoeh who created that specific incest charge.
However I have read the following from xHWA: "Hislop in various pages of his book referred to Semiramis as being Nimrod’s wife, and again his daughter, and again his mother, and again that Nimrod had two mothers, and again nine mothers."
HWA and Co., while looking at this contradictory material, must have decided to adopt this mother-wife story in order to harmonize as much of this contradictory information as possible.
The real point of making potential recruits shun such common practices is to isolate them from the (evil) 'world' and therefore fall under the influence (and control) of HWA. This doctrine was part of HWA's cunning plan to alienate potential recruits from the rest of society and thus fall under the spell of HWA and do whatever they are told to do by WCG. This story was carefully adapted and deployed to enslave people into the abusively exploitative environment of WCG.
You know.... if I hadn't lived this, I wouldn't believe it. Not in a million years. It's too far out.
ReplyDeleteYet, it's true.
All of these things happened as you say. HWA really did those crazy, horrid things.
Truth really is stranger than fiction.
This what totalitarian societies do. Indoctrinate their masses, repulse them with propaganda about the other side which disallows them think about anyother alternatives. As a result, the masses become the willing slaves of the masters of tyranny. Today in Canada, we remember those who fought against such people and therefore, preserved our freedom. This I am grateful. I pray for the freedom of all in the XCG splinters and the end of tyranny in all their cults.
ReplyDeleteI understand what you are saying, but I don't believe there was this well planned a motive. While Hyslop could have been better, there are many much better and current sources of for the origins of everything from holydays to holidays and mythologies. The question is whether to care or not. Christian literalism does not come out well in these studies of origins to this day.
ReplyDeleteIt is easy to look back and envision a motive, but, to me, I just don't think any of it or most of it was all that well thougth out such as to divide and separate etc. I think most of it came from the desire to figure out to do with the Biblical injunctions themselves to "come out" "learn not the way of heathen", "be you separate" "my kindgdom is not of this world" etc. I could be mistaken