Written in the Book of Life

I cannot resist a good book. What about you? I did a brief look into the history of books and found an interesting article on Wikipedia—where else? I learned that wood was the first medium to take the guise of a book. The words biblos and liber first meant "fibre inside of a tree". In Chinese, the character that means book is an image of a tablet of bamboo.

So now I come to the words of Daniel 12:1-3—"But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the BOOK."

What book? Who wrote it? Who reads it? When was this book written and why?

Read about Moses arguing with the LORD about the inappreciative Israelites after their horrid golden calf idolatry (Exodus 32:31-33),

"So Moses went back to the LORD and said, "Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. But now, please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written."
The LORD replied to Moses, "Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book."

Moses understood that the LORD keeps a record of sins in His book.

King David speaks in similar terms as he prays to the LORD about his adversaries (Psalm 69:28),


"May they be blotted out of the book of life and not be listed with the righteous."

One of the frightening things I have learned about Nazi Germany was their ability to keep detailed records of the people they determined should be detained and murdered in their concentration camps. And how were they able to pull that off, especially since we're talking about millions and millions? They did it with the help of IBM. This has been carefully documented in Edwin Black's book, "IBM and the Holocaust." At the heart of Black's argument is that information technology—in the form of IBM's Hollerith punch-card machines—provided the Nazis with a unique and critical tool in their task of cataloguing and dispatching their millions of victims.


Thus they blotted millions and millions of Jewish people from the book of life by keeping records with the then newly developed technology of punch cards, precursor to today's computers. I can distinctly remember punch-card machines.


Using the same imagery, Daniel speaks about another kind of record keeping, the record the LORD keeps of all who put their faith in Him and in the forgiveness won for all mankind by the cross of Jesus Christ. As Jesus said to his excited disciples (Luke 10:18-20),


He replied, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."

The Myth of Ragnoroek, the Twilight of the Gods

Three or four times in the past couple days the online radio station I've been listening to has played Richard Wagner's Flight of the Valkyries. Even though the Nazis are out of power— but still around—the music they loved is still very much around and loved as well.

In that connection, the Nordic religion (Asatru, Heathenism or Germanic/Teutonic Paganism) many Nazis embraced, still teaches some kind of end-of-the-world as we know it, to be followed by a new world. I wrote about that in my October 17  entry this year. Here's what I said:

"They called it Ragnaroek, the twilight of the gods. The Germans called it Goetterdammerung, the damnation of the gods. The word was applied to the final days of Nazi German in 1944-45."

As I reflect upon that belief again against the background of Hebrews 9:24-28, a Bible passage I'm pondering this week, I'm forced to ask what Divinity was guiding the destiny of these gods and their inevitable destruction? How could these mighty gods— Freyr, Tyr, Thor and Odin—be killed, together with the previously slain heroes living in Valhalla? Who was the even greater Divine Being behind this judgment?

Now we may call these myths and, in the manner of postmodern man, dismiss them as but interesting stories. However, may I humbly suggest that these man-made stories reflect a perverted memory of the revelation of the LORD God, Ruler of all. Christians are accustomed to call this natural theology. Unbelievers call natural theology the knowledge of God acquired by reason, science and observation. They tell us that there is no need for God to reveal anything further. It can all be found in the universe He/She/They created.

If you choose not to believe in Divine revelation or in the need for it, I would be unable to convince you otherwise by my rational arguments. I will not even try. Rather, I will simply return to my question for today:

Where did the idea of the destruction of the gods come from? God's revelation recorded in the Bible tells us that the demons know there is a time of judgment approaching—and they're afraid. Consider the following Bible passages:

"What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy one of God" (Mark 1:24).

"And behold they cried out, "What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?"" (Matthew 8:29).

These demons knew who Jesus is—the Holy One of God, a title never used to describe an angel or a prophet in the Bible. They also knew about "the time." There is a future appointed time when the demons will face judgment and torment.

Jude writes, "And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day . . ." (Jude 1:6).

And in John's Revelation, "And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever" (Revelation 20:7-10).

The Nazis worshipped the Nordic gods, but in so doing they worshipped the rebel demons who are behind all such forms of religion. These demonic powers know of the destruction that awaits them. They will indeed stand before the Judge of men and gods. The myth of Ragnaroek reflects that knowledge. 

Here Comes The Bride And Richard Wagner

When I was training to be a pastor of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod back in the 1950s I heard my profs tell me that we should never permit the traditional wedding march, commonly known as "Here Comes The Bride," to be played in our churches. The reason given was that this was pagan music, taken from Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin and therefore entirely unfitting in a Christian worship service.



I obeyed this injunction during those formative years of my parish ministry. I certainly didn't want pagan music in my churches. Nevertheless, the young women who requested it never seemed to comprehend what I was getting at. Who was this guy Wagner anyway? And what or who was Lohengrin? What did opera have to do with a wedding in the first place? In other words, it was simply a well-known piece of music they had heard at all the weddings they ever attended. But, being obedient and willing to put up with the pastor's idiosyncrasies, they usually went along with it and chose one of the other Christian marches I suggested.


This whole idea of anti-Wagnerian views is related to the fact that my church body is rooted in the Lutheran emigration from Germany in the middle to late 19th century. During those years Wagner's music and his operas at Bayreuth were gaining in popularity. Bayreuth is a city in northern Bavaria,Germany, on the Red Main river in a valley between the Frankish Alb and the Fichtelgebirge. In the third quarter of the 19th century it became the home of Wagner's operas. 

Bayreuth Opera House

All pious Lutherans knew of Wagner's love for the Nordic gods and German-Aryanism, as well as his radical anti-semitism. How then could any true Lutheran allow any such vulgar, pagan, evil music to be played in a Lutheran church? We must choose Lutheran music like that composed by J.S. Bach. 


There are many sites that share details of Wagner's life. I won't comment on it other than to say that Adolph Hitler, born a few years after Wagner died, considered Wagner the "one legitimate predecessor to National Socialism." He loved Wagner's music and the Nazis played it over and over again at their rallies.


It is interesting to learn that the Lohengrin of Wagner's opera by that name was actually a Christian knight of the 10th century. The offensive music is from Act III where Elsa enters the cathedral. This music is called the Bridal Chorus. So what's so terrible about that? Obviously it has to do with Wagner himself. 


Another interesting side note is that Wagner never heard the first performance of his opera in Weimar, Germany on August 28, 1850. He had been involved in one of those many revolutions of the time in the patchwork of German states and fled to Switzerland.


The first performance of the opera was conducted by the great pianist Franz Liszt, who often played Wagner's music and supported and encouraged Wagner while he was in exile in Switzerland.


Another day I'll share more about Wagner's anti-semitism and one of his most vulgar tracts, The Jew in Music,

Richard Wagner, Hitler and Nazism

Wagner, Hitler and Nazism WW II Military History

In my new novel the flames of a great funeral pyre rise to engulf the body of the SS Officer as the sounds of Richard Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries pours from the loudspeakers.

It is indeed true that Richard Wagner and Wagnerian Opera were favorites of Adolph Hitler and many Nazis. As I dig back into the roots of Nazism, I'm going to explore the place that music and particularly Wagner's music played in the rise of the Nazis to power.

New Teachings and the Nazis

Yesterday I wrote about Madame H.P. Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine, with her revelations about the fabled kingdoms of Lemuria, Atlantis and Shambhala. It all reminds me of some Bible verses.

• And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, "What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him." Mark 1:27

• "And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean." Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new." Acts 17:19-21

We all are fascinated by new teachings, especially when they confirm convictions we already have. Lemuria, Atlantis and Shambhala are the stuff of science fiction and fantasy. Consider how they live on in our imaginations, in literature and in the media to the present moment. Here's but a few examples. Of course, don't believe everything you read, simply because I quote it. 

Stargate Atlantis - "Several million years ago, in a beautiful alien city in Antarctica, a man and a woman in silver clothing — two of the Ancients who created the Stargates — look out a window sadly as the city rises out of the encroaching ice and flies away to the stars, leaving behind only a small outpost.

"Present day: At the Ancients' abandoned outpost (discovered in the Stargate SG-1 episode "Lost City," Part 2), Dr. Elizabeth Weir, head of the Stargate Atlantis project, rides an elevator with Lt. Aiden Ford down a deep shaft bored in the ice. Reaching the research facility below, they find Dr. Rodney McKay and Dr. Carson Beckett arguing over the fact that Beckett is afraid to sit in the Ancient chair that controls the most powerful weapons known to humankind, etc." 

The Legend of Lemuria - "Mid-19th Century paleontologists coined the term "Lemuria" to describe a hypothetical continent, bridging the Indian Ocean, which would have explained the migration of lemurs from Madagascar to India. Lemuria was a continent which submerged and was no longer to be seen. By the late 19th Century occult theories had developed, mostly through the theosophists, that the people of this lost continent of Lemuria were highly advanced beings. The location of the folklore 'Lemuria' changed over time to include much of the Pacific Ocean."

And again concerning Lemuria or MU: "According to author James Churchward, MU was about 5,000 miles long and 3,000 miles wide, a beautiful tropical paradise like the Garden of Eden. He claims there were 64 million people who died in the sinking, and that it dated back over 50,000 years. The Pacific Islands are the remaining mountain peaks of the lost continent. Precise detailed maps of the lost continent of Mu and Atlantis were found on stone tablets from Pre-Inca Ica, Peru, by Dr. Javier Cabrera, engraved in stone and photographed by Robbert Charroux.

"United Nations diplomat Farida Iskoviet, assistant to United Nations President Adam Malik, came to Maui in 1972 and researched Lemurian ruins and history and concluded that they were real."


By the way, James Churchward was a British born occult writer who died in 1936. He claimed to have obtained his information from an Indian priest who taught him to read an ancient dead language spoken by only three people in India. I cannot discover anything about Farida Iskoviet—if he existed. Adam Malik of Indonesia, on the other hand, was UN President in 1970. 

And then there's the connection with Mount Shasta in northern California - Aurelia Louise Jones has some kind of newly channeled information she feels we all need to know. She writes, in part, 


"A while ago, I was asked to describe, as well as I could, some of the reasons the people of the Inner Earth, or the various civilizations living in the hundreds of underground cities have chosen to live in this manner, and still choose it to this day.


"Over twelve thousand years ago, when the continent of Lemuria sank beneath the waves of the Pacific Ocean, about 25,000 Lemurians, part of those who escaped and survived, went to live underground, underneath Mt. Shasta, to the city they named Telos. The project of building this underground city was started several centuries prior to the sinking of the continent. The Lemurians and the Atlanteans knew for a few thousands of years ahead that their continents were doomed to eventually sink, and they painfully prepared for it. Telos was prepared to save 200,000 people but only 25,000 actually made it on time to the underground city before the land sank underneath the waves."


Apparently there are some highly evolved Lemurians of the fourth and fifth dimension consciousness living in subterranean cities beneath Mt. Shasta. They have much to teach us idiotic surface dwellers.


There you have it—new information. And you don't believe a word of it, do you? Or do you? Well, the Nazis did back when they were getting their movement going in the early 1930s. 

Ride of the Valkyries

The funeral service for Sheri, my son-in-law's mother, is today. We will gather to thank our Lord for her life and to bid her farewell, as we commit her soul into the hands of our loving Lord. We rejoice that she and we will meet again on the Last Day when our Lord will raise up our bodies and grant us the gift of life in a renewed universe.

Not everyone in every place has such faith. As I wrote the third novel, having to do with the Nazis' belief that it was their destiny to restore the worship of the ancient Nordic gods, I had to do some research to discover how the Norsemen would say farewell to their departed warriors. I already knew the basics, because I've seen some movies of Vikings, like Kirk Douglas way back in 1958 in The Vikings. So I knew that they had some kind of ceremony about burning their dead warriors on a funeral pyre or, in the case of chieftains, putting them on their flaming ship and sending them out into the ocean heading into the west.

My problem was that my dead Nazi was in Minnesota, a long way from the ocean or even from Lake Superior. So I couldn't send him out on his ship. He didn't even have a ship. So I had to imagine a great funeral pyre and the ceremony that went with it.

Then there was this thing about the Valkyries. No, I'm not talking about the 2008 Tom Cruise movie. I'm speaking about those mythical creatures that came to carry the soul of the departed Viking to Valhalla where he would join his drinking buddies in glorious and eternal bliss in the great hall. How would one portray that belief?

Answer: Richard Wagner to the rescue. Hitler was a great Wagner fan and Wagner has a great opera by that title, the second of the four that comprise the Ring of the Nibelung. It is the source of the famous piece that opens the third act, the Ride of the Valkyries.

So I had the pieces I needed. Simply add Silver Shirt paramilitary soldiers marching and a strangely garbed Wiccan Priestess to the spectacle and you have a Viking funeral fit for any Nazi. Of course, you'll have to wait for the publication of the novel to read what happened. And you may have to wait a bit longer for the movie!