Today's Topics:
dial-a-pope
Eastern Star
Holy Blood, Holy Grail and all that
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 92 09:48:25 EST
From: Michael Turyn <mturyn@psyche.mit.edu>
Message-Id: <9201241448.AA20659@psyche.mit.edu>
To: Subgenius@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Subject:
The Templars (under torture) claimed to worship a goat-headed idol named
Baphomet, and to indulge in `unnatural' acts with each other for `super-
natural' purposes---hence `the sin of the Templars' taking its place next
to `the sin of Onan' in English dysphemism.
In Spain, the propaganda against them must have reached such a peak that
when the producers of the `Blind Dead' zombie movies wanted a handy explanation
(no atomic radiation for them) for the evil blind zombies, they decided that
they were Templars who had been blinded before execution (as opposed to being
made stupid before compiling, like the software from INSERT-HATED-COMPANY-NAME).
Evidently, there was also some deal whereby these zombis get out of Hell free
once every few years to try 'n' sacrifice virgins 'n' stuff.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
``Why are there no devil-worshippers in Cambridge? There used to be, but
decided that they couldn 't stand the name `LuciferWorks' any more.''
---Nelson Ahrimandela.
------------------------------
Message-Id: <odU3CWS00VUc82gW8q@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1992 10:41:22 -0500 (EST)
From: David Greene <dg1v+@andrew.cmu.edu>
To: Subgenius@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: dial-a-pope
Y'all knew it was only a matter of time.
=====================================
(From DowJones without permission)
Subject: New 900-Number Phone Service Features Messages From The Pope
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1992 06:02:14 -0500 (EST)
By John A. Nichols
Global Telecom Ltd., a start-up in Ventura, Calif., this week began
offering a 900-number phone service and said it will donate part of the
revenue to the Vatican. Seekers of the holy word can dial 1-900-740-POPE
and hear, in English, a tape of Pope John Paul II giving his daily message.
The communique is transmitted to the service each day by Vatican Radio,
The Wall Street Journal reported.
"The voice the caller hears is really the pope," says Michael Fahringer,
a senior executive of Global Telecom. "It's not someone translating."
The pope's message lasts an average of two minutes, Fahringer says,
and callers pay $1.95 a minute. "Being optimistic, if, of the 55 million
(Roman) Catholics in the U.S., 1% call once a week, we can collect (more
than) $2 million a week," he says. "Of that, the Vatican would receive
$600,000 to $700,000."
American Telephone & Telegraph, the carrier for the service, will take
about a 40% cut. Global Telecom expects to take 25%, for equipment rental,
advertising "and to live on," Fahringer says. The Vatican will get at
least one-third of the revenue from the calls, he says. Ads for the service,
and a preamble on the phone line, will inform callers that their payments
will benefit the Vatican.
The big unknown is how much business the line will draw. "Unless a
great deal of money is spent" on promotion, 900-number lines "are generally
not successful," says Kenneth McEldowney, president of the Consumer Federation
of America.
Fahringer says the venture is counting on support from local parishes
and churches in spreading the word. But that may not materialize. "We
would not promote the line in our bulletin because it is just like a
commercial," says the Rev. Florian Gall of Our Lady of Lourdes Church
in Whitehouse Station, N.J.
The Vatican set up a similar line through the Italian phone company
two years ago, but the service, in which callers use international phone
lines, got off to a bad start and hasn't recovered. "The problem was,
the pope spoke in such broken English that callers were turned off,"
says McEldowney, who sampled it.
Fahringer says the pope has been working on his English since then.
Global Telecom also hopes to develop U.S. papal lines in languages in
which the pope is less fallible, including French, Italian, Spanish and
his native Polish.
------------------------------
Message-Id: <ao06439@pro-angmar.alfalfa.com>
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 92 01:22:41 EST
From: Steven Mesnick <steffan@pro-angmar.alfalfa.com>
To: Subgenius@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: Eastern Star
Take a good look at the Eastern Star symbol. There is no goat's head. There
*is* an inverted 5-pointed star. The points are different colors, and they
each have a different symbol on them (sword, crowns, scepters, broken
columns, sheaves of wheat, cups). In the center there is an altar and the
letters F.A.T.A.L. (which don't mean anything like what you're probably
thinking they mean. Heh, heh, heh....)
---
Internet: steffan@pro-angmar.alfalfa.com
steffan@world.std.com
UUCP: uunet!alfalfa!pro-angmar!steffan
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 92 09:54:51 -0500
From: Dave Shaw <shaw@MEDIA-LAB.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
Message-Id: <9201241454.AA25390@media-lab.mit.edu>
To: subgenius@media.mit.edu
Subject: Holy Blood, Holy Grail and all that
The book "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" (which I found at an airport
bookstand years ago -- it was the best time-killer I've ever found) is
by Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln. The central premise of the book is
dismissed in about two lines in "Foucault's Pendulum":"Some Brits who
think they have a line on the Rennes-le-Chateau mystery."
Baigent and Leigh (without Lincoln) also wrote two more follow ups:
"The Messianic Legacy," which provides further proof that the Priory
of Zion preserves the secret royal bloodline of Jesus; and "The Temple
and the Lodge," which is about the formation of Freemasonry in the UK.
IOt also contends that the British lost the Revolutionary War on
purpose because the whole thing was a Masonic plot. Great stuff.
------------------------------
End of Subgenius Digest
******************************
