Month: December 2014

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The 10 types of magic

He doesn’t look very intimidating but Giordano Filippo Bruno was considered one of the most dangerous men of his time. Bruno developed techniques for memory enhancement that gave him one of the first known photographic memories. He became a Dominican monk while still a teenager, but was soon discovered reading Erasmus, whose heretical works were banned at the time.

Bruno developed some novel ideas. He believed the universe was infinite and the earth traveled around the sun. According to Bruno, the stars in the sky were really faraway suns with other worlds likely encircling them. He believed Jesus was an ordinary man. He believed in the existence of a spirit flowing through all things, as well as many other types of spirits. For Bruno, magic was the study of bonding or repelling, and he considered love the greatest bonding agent, just as hate was the greatest repelling force.

Bruno had to bounce around Europe constantly from one university to another, from one patron to another, as he was always running afoul of civil and religious authorities wherever he went. Eventually, he announced a plan to unify all religions to end war for religion. Right after that announcement, he was lured to Venice and burned at the stake in 1600, the same year that witnessed the birth of East India Company, the Bank of England, and the public emergence of Freemasonry.

Bruno is much overlooked and deserves a bigger place in history.

Ten Types of Magic by Giordano Bruno
First, the term ‘magician’ means a wise man; for example, the trismegistes among the Egyptians, the druids among the Gauls, the gymnosophists among the Indians, the cabalists among the Hebrews, the magi among the Persians (who were followers of Zoroaster), the sophists among the Greeks and the wise men among the Latins.

Second, ‘magician’ refers to someone who does wondrous things merely by manipulating active and passive powers, as occurs in chemistry, medicine and such fields; this is commonly called ‘natural magic’.

Third, magic involves circumstances such that the actions of nature or of a higher intelligence occur in such a way as to excite wonderment by their appearances; this type of magic is called ‘prestidigitation’.

Fourth, magic refers to what happens as a result of the powers of attraction and repulsion between things, for example, the pushes, motions and attractions due to magnets and such things, when all these actions are due not to active and passive qualities but rather to the spirit or soul existing in things. This is called ‘natural magic’ in the proper sense.

The fifth meaning includes, in addition to these powers, the use of words, chants, calculations of numbers and times, images, figures, symbols, characters, or letters. This is a form of magic which is intermediate between the natural and the preternatural or the supernatural, and is properly called ‘mathematical magic’, or even more accurately ‘occult philosophy’.

The sixth sense adds to this the exhortation or invocation of the intelligences and external or higher forces by means of prayers, dedications,incensings, sacrifices, resolutions and ceremonies directed to the gods, demons and heroes. Sometimes, this is done for the purpose of contacting a spirit itself to become its vessel and instrument in order to appear wise, although this wisdom can be easily removed, together with the spirit, by means of a drug. This is the magic of the hopeless, who become the vessels of evil demons, which they seek through their notorious art. On the other hand, this is sometimes done to command and control lower demons with the authority of higher demonic spirits, by honouring and entreating the latter while restricting the former with oaths and petitions. This is transnatural or metaphysical magic and is properly called ‘theurgy’.

Seventh, magic is the petition or invocation, not of the demons and heroes themselves, but through them, to call upon the souls of dead humans, in order to predict and know absent and future events, by taking their cadavers or parts thereof to some oracle. This type of magic, both in its subject matter and in its purpose, is called ‘necromancy’. If the body is not present, but the oracle is beseeched by invoking the spirit residing in its viscera with very active incantations, then this type of magic is properly called ‘Pythian’, for, if I may say so, this was the usual meaning of ‘inspired’ at the temple of the Pythian Apollo.

Eighth, sometimes incantations are associated with a person’s physical parts in any sense; garments, excrement, remnants, footprints and anything which is believed to have made some contact with the person. In that case, and if they are used to untie, fasten, or weaken, then this constitutes the type of magic called ‘wicked’, if it leads to evil. If it leads to good, it is to be counted among the medicines belonging to a certain method and type of medical practice. If it leads to final destruction and death, then it is called ‘poisonous magic’.
Ninth, all those who are able, for any reason, to predict distant and future events are said to be magicians. These are generally called ‘diviners’ because of their purpose. The primary groups of such magicians use either the four material principles, fire, air, water and earth, and they are thus called ‘pyromancers’, ‘hydromancers’, and ‘geomancers’, or they use the three objects of knowledge, the natural, mathematical and divine. There are also various other types of prophecy. For augerers, soothsayers and other such people make predictions from an inspection of natural or physical things. Geomancers make predictions in their own way by inspecting mathematical objects like numbers, letters and certain lines and figures,and also from the appearance, light and location of the planets and similar objects. Still others make predictions by using divine things, like sacred names, coincidental locations, brief calculations and persevering circumstances. In our day, these latter people are not called magicians, since, for us, the word ‘magic’ sounds bad and has an unworthy connotation. So this is not called magic but ‘prophecy’.

Finally, ‘magic’ and ‘magician’ have a pejorative connotation which has not been included or examined in the above meanings. In this sense, a magician is any foolish evil-doer who is endowed with the power of helping or harming someone by means of a communication with, or even a pact with, a foul devil. This meaning does not apply to wise men, or indeed to authors, although some of them have adopted the name ‘hooded magicians’, for example, the authors of the book De malleo maleficarum (The Witches’ Hammer). As a result, the name is used today by all writers of this type, as can be seen in the comments and beliefs of ignorant and foolish priests.

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Torture is nothing new

Don’t be surprised if some of the dudes released after 12 years of our torture experiments at Guantanamo Bay Prison end up fomenting some horrific future acts of terror because when you manifest violence, blow-back is inevitable.

But similar techniques were employed at the end of the Civil War, and employed to secure the cover-up of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, whose murder was engineered by the leaders of his own party, along with funding and support from a secret entity in New York.

Although dozens of people aided and abetted Booth (and over a thousand immediately arrested and incarcerated for a month) the unlucky six who would soon be put on trial for their lives received very special treatment different from all the others.

Instead of a prison cell, they were moved to iron-clad ships located far away from listening ears, so nothing could be spoken from a prison window. Heavy canvas and leather hoods (above), with padding over eye and ear sockets were chained permanently over their heads, and only removed during the trial when inside the court room. Their hands were locked in cuffs that prevented independent motion. They remained in isolation for weeks prior to the trial, and could not see or hear anything, and had only flap revealing a small hole for breathing and feeding, a flap that could be kept sealed.

Some of the six undoubtedly began losing their minds quickly wearing these hoods in 90 degree summer heat. All interrogations were kept secret, but it’s evident the interrogations were designed to shape later testimony favorable to the government’s case. The purpose of this extreme inhumane treatment was to guarantee no prisoner revealed sensitive information, while rendering them helpless to marshal a competent defense. The initial confession given by George Atzerodt was destroyed and not allowed into evidence, and would not be located for 117 years. But after a few weeks of wearing that hood, Dirty George may have begun believing he was supposed to assassinate Vice President Johnson that night. In fact, three assassinations were invented by Edwin Stanton to shield himself, as he was an alleged target of his own fictional assassination plot.

According to the Pentagon, after being waterboarded hundreds of times, a Pakistani militant confessed to being the true mastermind of 9/11, as if testimony taken from someone tortured for a decade constitutes proof of anything other then another massive inside job and cover-up in place. But if you follow these trails up the chain of command, you’ll locate the true perpetrators of Lincoln’s murder and 9/11. Because the people stage-managing the sham trial of the patsies are always the same ones who engineered the crime in the first place.

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Question about hippie bigotry

You talk about having experienced “hippie bigotry” at various moments in your career. How has it changed? Would you say that it’s gotten better or worse? Is its presence within the weed activist community (e.g. Cheryl Shuman) a new phenomenon?

Anyone who dresses and talks different from TV sitcoms will be subject to varying degrees of prejudice and persecution. Respect for hippie culture is probably at an all-time low, but this is a swinging-pendulum and love for non-violent communication skills will return. Meanwhile, the excesses from the first wave of hippie culture continue to be examined so as to avoid making the same mistakes twice. And there were a lot of mistakes, so this review process is important.

What role do you think stoner/hippie aesthetics play in the legalization movement, if any? I spoke to someone who made the argument that dressing differently from the mainstream—and obviously pro-marijuana—was important to activism because it spread a message. What’s your take?

People should dress however they want, but ceremonies have appropriate costumes that can enhance ritual and contribute to a sense of enchantment. You don’t wear a Brooks Brother’s suit to a Rainbow Gathering, and you don’t show up for a business meeting in a t-shirt, shorts and flip flops. When the Pot Illuminati meet for major ceremonies, we tend to dress up as if going to Sunday church and pay considerable attention to our accessories, although I prefer scarfs and ascots to ties. But we still manage to look different.

How has the aesthetic associated with weed culture changed the since the 60s/70s? I know this is a huge question—if there’s a book on this topic you want to point me to I’d be happy to check it out.

Nothing stays the same; everything is constantly evolving although the same dramas go round and around in cycles. The most noticeable fashion change may be the adoption of flat brim hats, something that began in hip hop and crossed over to stoner world. Hip hop has had the biggest impact in the last 20 years.

In 20 years, what do you think the aesthetics of weed will look like?

Everything goes in cycles, and old concepts will be celebrated and adapted for new generations, but it will happen in waves that are unpredictable. Pants will go baggie, then narrow, same with lapels and ties. How much of this is driven by the fashion industry and how much by street fashion I can’t say, but hip hop started in the streets.

Are there any historical moments where this debate over weed’s “image” came up in other contexts?

In the late 1970s, NORML killed the smoke-ins because they were seen as counter-productive. This is when the divide between the Grateful Dead culture and the “suits” first appeared, although it wasn’t hostile at first. After the rallies disappeared, it appeared to many hippie culture had disappeared, but it had really just gone underground.

In 1986, I made an effort to bring back the rallies, only as “hemp rallies” not “smoke-ins.” NORML saw the wisdom of this and supported this new hemp movement, but it was really me and Jack Herer and Debbie Goldsberry and Paul Stanford and Brian, and especially thanks to Doug McVay, who bridged the two coasts. High Times was the eight hundred pound gorilla in creating this new movement, and since I centered it on Jack Herer as our spokesman, he quickly transformed from “crazy Deadhead nobody listened to,” to Moses of Marjuana, a title he fully deserves.

But after Jack got really big, he began venting against High Times and NORML for ignoring him for years, and sadly he never really acknowledged my role in public until shortly before he died, when a filmmaker asked him how it all began and he said “Steve Hager.”

Everything changed at High Times after I arrived, and the magazine began exploring not just hippie culture, but post-modern shamanism and conspiracy theory, essential elements for true enlightenment. I’d encourage you to check out my most recent book, Killing Lincoln: The Real Story to get an understanding of deep politics because Lincoln was an inside job, but then so was JFK and so was 9/11.

Six global companies own 1,500 media outlets, and you can’t talk about inside jobs in the mass media or they’ll break your rice bowl and paint you crazy. Look what they did to Gary Webb for exposing CIA cocaine. Eventually this dam is going to break, however, and when it does, there’ll be massive loss of faith in our major institutions. But we can prepare our spiritual cultures by helping them evolve. My idea is to dump all the dogma, but keep the best rituals, myths and poetry intact, only mix them up into one universal stew. Do what you want, just don’t hurt anybody.

There is a tremendous sense of greed infesting the cannabis world presently, and this is something new, and our arena has become a breeding ground for scam artists of every stripe and variety. Meanwhile, the original activists remain united on our desire to see the cannabis industry maintain a higher level of business ethics than those typically found on Wall Street. We know cannabis carries a heightened sense of spirituality, and that’s something many cannabis carpet baggers may never comprehend.

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The real gift of the Magi

There’s a tremendous amount of disinfo in play regarding the Biblical story of the three Magi and how it relates to Horus, the Egyptian sky god, who incorporated the sun, moon and stars into one supreme supernatural entity long before the arrival of the Christian mythology.

The Jesus story began as the Judaic interpretation of Buddhism after Persia became a Greco-Buddhist empire bordering on Judea. Alexander the Great conquered Bactria, birthplace of Zoroastrianism and Buddhism, and embraced Buddhism along with most of his army. The Jesus movement was also a revival of some elements of Zoroastrianism, built on top of a Mithras myth, which is why three Zoroastrian priests attend the birth of Jesus. The Scythians likely had a role in introducing the concept of one god to replace the pagan pantheons. There was no Judaic sun god after their pantheon was replaced by unifying two storm gods into the one god. But sun gods dominated everywhere else in the world, which maybe is why Jesus appears inside Judaism as a solar deity, as evidence by his birth date and his 12 imaginary disciples, who represent the zodiac.

The first Buddhists in Bactria picked up on Mithra’s halo as method for personifying the sun with a human face. You can follow and date the migration of the halo east and west out of Bactria. At this time, almost everyone believed the earth was flat and at the center of the universe. Now we know better. But the ancient mythologies remain clouded by false beliefs.

On the winter solstice, the sun reaches its most southern point in the sky and strangely hovers for three three days in the exact same trajectory before veering back to the north, a voyage that will end on the summer solstice (which is also the day Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, becomes visible above the horizon).

The story of the Magi as handed down in the Bible has been tinkered with, but I can interpret the real story using common sense as my guide. According to the Bible, the Magi brought gold, frankincense and myrrh to celebrate the birth of the son. This seems unlikely, and I’d suggest the Zoroastrian priests from the East brought the three greatest medicines of their time, cannabis, frankincense and myrrh, the most fragrant terpene-rich plant oils, although opium seems like a possible replacement for myrrh. Someday the real medicinal value of these plants will re-emerge.

According to Plutarch, the Temple of Isis burned three different incenses, one at dawn, one at noon, and one at sunset. He identified these as: frankincense, myrrh and kyphi. Doesn’t it seem reasonable to assume these are the gifts brought by the Three Kings to celebrate the birth of the son? So not only do they switch kyphi with gold, but then they bury the identity of kyphi. I say kyphi is cannabis, and maybe even an early version of wax and/or shatter.

Rather than keep our major religions clouded by dogma and superstition, I prefer to help them evolve and grow into the new millennium. Cannabis played a major role in the development of Christianity and most other religions, but was strangely removed as a sacrament and replaced with alcohol along the way. This terrible injustice needs to be rectified. We can honor the rituals, ceremonies and myths of fundamentalist religion, while rejecting their dogmas and superstitions, and fixing their problems.

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The reason Booth shot Lincoln

Since I didn’t investigate this case until recently, I was surprised at how transparent the Lincoln assassination conspiracy has become over the years. Bill O’Reilly ignored every modern development to write a cover-up fantasy supporting the official story Booth was insane and the War Department had no idea what he was up to. In fact, Booth was surrounded by double agents, a list that included Louis Weichmann, James Donaldson and the beautiful Kate Brown, known as “The French Lady.”

The biggest issue with solving this case is the amount of noise and disinfo that’s been manufactured to hold back realization it was an inside job. There’s a cottage industry of researchers who will attack any suggestion Edwin Stanton was involved, even though the evidence against Stanton is overwhelming.

Periodically, new documents have been produced to bolster one side or another, yet few discuss how many of these are forgeries. Often, when a breakthrough takes place, the scoop is tied to a nasty piece of disinfo, a commonly used counterintelligence booby-trap for discrediting real information. I find this technique in play not just with Lincoln, but with JFK and 9/11.

I often found Roger Norton’s forum a valuable source of research material over the past few months, and there are obviously a number of dedicated researchers contributing to that site. However, I also noticed organized resistance to any inference of an inside job, and that makes me suspicious to say the least.

The single most important document to surface in the last fifty years is the original confession of George Atzerodt. At first, I assumed this to be a forgery like so many other documents involving the case, and I did not study it closely for many months. Today, I accept it as a real document, which means we have the Surratt Society to thank for its exposure, even though the current director is a cheerleader against the inside job theory.

I promise if you look deeply into this case, the cover-up will become obvious, and reading my book Killing Lincoln: The Real Story is a good place to start the adventure. My book is a concise over-view of overlooked details, all of which point to an inside job. Strange how no established press has exposed this information yet.

It’s sad to consider the entire hoodwink could have easily been blown sky-high when Steven Spielberg produced his Lincoln film recently, and you can find clues in that film. But Lincoln’s final hours were glossed over, including his request for additional security that night and his premonitions of the assassination. Both Lincoln and his wife were highly psychic, and the immense powers of the presidency may have lifted those powers even higher.

Since Thaddeus Stevens played a major role in the plot against Lincoln, it’s tragic Spielberg held Stevens up for adoration (while only hinting at his corruption). Stevens believed the ends justify the means, and seeking vengeance against the South was high on his to-do list. In the film, Mary Todd dresses Stevens down, not realizing the plot to assassinate her husband is already in full swing.

The reason John W. Booth accepted the hit was because he knew the “New York crowd” was going to have Lincoln killed and it was only a matter of time. And he also knew this crew had agents embedded deep inside the corridors of power in Washington, people who would aid the assassination. I don’t know what he was offered, or whether he took the hit to avenge the recent hanging of a Confederate spy he knew well, and I don’t know who actually pitched the deal to him, but there can be no doubt he was merely a pawn in their game, and must have realized this toward the end of his life.

Which is why every attempt by Booth to leave a statement about what really happened was destroyed, just like every attempt by Lee H. Oswald to leave a written statement with the FBI and Dallas police was destroyed. So open your eyes and do some research. And when you’re done, spread the news from every mountain top: Lincoln’s murder was an inside job.

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James Donaldson is a key to the Lincoln conspiracy

“While standing on Ruhlman’s and Lichau’s porch between 11 & 12 o’clock PM a young man name unknown, as I cannot remember names, about 5 feet 5 or 6 inches high thick set, long nose, sharp chin, wide cheek, small eye, I think grey, dark hair, and well dressed, color don’t remember, said called Michael O’Laughlen aside and said J. Wilkes Booth wish to see us both at Gaither’s Saloon on Avenue.”
—George Atzerodt original confession (destroyed and not uncovered for 117 years).

“James Donaldson, a low chunky man about 23 or 24 years of age, small-potted, dark complexion (not very) deep plain black suit; only saw him one time & this was Wednesday previous to the murder, he was having an interview with Booth and told him to meet him on Friday eve & he replied he would and left and went up Penn. Avenue towards the Treasury building. I was under the impression he came on with Booth.”
—Sam Arnold

In their initial confessions, both George Atzerodt and Sam Arnold came across as eager to convey any information regarding the assassination that might be helpful to the authorities. And even though they confessed knowledge of Booth’s kidnap plot, Atzerodt was not made aware of the Booth’s plan to assassinate Lincoln until a few hours before it happened. He did not believe it would happen, but when it did, he furiously walked in circles around Washington like a crazy man because he knew he was implicated. It’s safe to assume a key character on the primary list of suspects who must have been involved was James Donaldson, who should have been arrested and put on trial, along with Louis Weichmann.

So why wasn’t Donaldson even called to testify? Donaldson was a War Department clerk posted on the household staff of Secretary of State Seward. The attack on Seward took place on his watch, but he’d switched shifts suddenly that day with another clerk who was wounded during Powell’s attack. Both Donaldson and Weichmann were known to everyone inside Booth’s conspiracy as Confederate sympathizers, and the placement of Weichmann inside the Surratt boarding house was done to provide surveillance against Booth and Surratt. Weichmann became the key witness at the tribunal against Mary Surratt, while Donaldson (like Sanford Conover and Sarah Slater) dropped off the face of the earth.

We do know Donaldson arrived at Seward’s moments after Powell’s attack and according to an eyewitness: “In the middle of the room sat Donaldson, his face buried in his hands—crying aloud, like a child. I touched his shoulder & said—“Donaldson, you were not hurt?” “No Miss Fanny” he said—“I wasn’t here. If I had been here this wouldn’t have happened. If I had been here I’d have been a dead man. Oh, why wasn’t I here?”

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The Lincoln assassination honey trap

Sarah, whatcha been up to?
In the world of spooks, great attention should be paid to the 20-something super hotties because they make effective spies, and this did not start with Mata Hari. In my attempts to untangle the plot that assassinated President Abraham Lincoln, Sarah Slater joins Sanford Conover on the dias of most under investigated suspicious people inside the center of the true conspiracy.

Someday a book will appear that focuses only on Slater, and it will be long over-due, and perhaps some documents will also surface that will purport to explain what happened to her and her brothers, although odds are these documents will be forgeries and the book filled with misdirections and disinfo, if the past is any guide to the future. That’s just the way things work when investigating deep political events that threaten to shake the populace’s faith in their primary institutions, which is why Lincoln, JFK and 9/11 have such blatant propaganda protection shields in place.

A few months before Lincoln was killed, a newspaper ad appeared in a Southern newspaper offering to assassinate Lincoln, Seward and Johnson for $1 million, and a post office box given as the return address. Strangely, no investigation was ever conducted concerning funds or messages that may have been sent to that box, even though Secretary of State Seward received a copy of the ad and asked Stanton to look into it.

Let’s suppose $1 million was on the table, supplied by a cartel of wealthy individuals with a stake in Lincoln’s removal. And consider this is much closer to $100 million in today’s money. It would be more than enough to set-up anyone for life in a new identity on a new continent.

Slater went by the name Kate Brown or Kate Thompson and was first identified by George Atzerodt, who indicated Louis Weichmann had further details on her. The picture above may be Slater. Little is known as immediately after the assassination, she dropped off the face of the earth.

I plan to keep researching Sarah, and fold whatever turns up into my book on the Lincoln assassination because she and Conover may be the keys to unveiling the real plot. Both stand accused of being Confederate spies, but I find it much more likely they were double agents working for a corrupt entity in New York City that was getting inside tips from the War Department. Great fortunes were made during the Civil War, and no one made a bigger one than Jay Gould, who seemed to have inside information on the outcome of battles before anyone else on Wall Street. Did you know that the man in charge of the War Department telegraph lines rose to become head of Western Union thanks to his friendship with Gould? These links are worthy of more investigation as well.

Slater should have been easily located for the military tribunal, and some reported she was taken to meet Stanton, but the official record indicates she could never be found and zero information ever located concerning her real identity. This is an obvious lie, but could have been told on the grounds of protecting national security if Slater was a double agent.

I find it fascinating that both her brothers were Confederate soldiers accused of fomenting desertion among the troops, a very serious crime. Yet, they managed to slip away, and like their beautiful sister would disappear off the pages of history forever. If you’re going to set-up a new identity on a new continent, it sure helps to have some family along to keep you company.

I hope I locate a trail to wherever Slater landed, although I’m sure whatever trail exists has already been salted by the machine protecting the Radical Republican cabal that orchestrated Lincoln’s murder and then celebrated it secretly as a “godsend.” Because that machine does exist.

 

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Gatekeepers of the Lincoln assassination

Meet Edward Steers, Jr., one of the leading propagandists who wants to keep a lid on the Lincoln assassination by looking in all the wrong places. Steers is not an independent researcher and his subjectivity is splashed all over the pages of his rambling book, Blood on the Moon.

Steers notes that only three books on the assassination have been written by academics in the field, while all the others are written by armchair historians, many of whom  portray “Lincoln’s secretary of War, Edwin Stanton….as orchestrating the murder of his president.” According to him, “Such a theory is based on flawed and even fabricated evidence, all designed to titillate the reader and create a type of shock history that, although financially rewarding to the author, misleads.” Steers does not use evidence to support these conclusions, and refers to any attempt to investigate the Radicals as “silly.”

Steers has a close relationship with Roger Norton who runs the largest online Lincoln forum. He seems closely associated with the Surratt society as well, the volunteer organization that serves as a gatekeeper on assassination research. This crew doesn’t seem interested in breaking the case open, and lead debate of who was responsible in circles going nowhere. Steers’ books are filled with the most amazing prejudices and flights of fancy and he portrays any attempt to analyze the role of the Radical Republican cabal (who hated Lincoln with a purple passion) as meaningless. This is transparent propaganda at work.

I was absolutely floored by the hostile reception my book on the assassination received from the director of the Surratt society and of course Norton himself made no secret of his disgust for my theories and research.

What this crew does is run people around in circles debating the role of Mary Surratt and Dr. Samuel Mudd, both of whom were undoubtedly part of the Confederate underground in Maryland and assisted that underground whenever they could. But by focusing on these two characters (while also claiming that Jefferson Davis was also involved in the plot), they have tried to keep a lid on any real investigation. I don’t understand their motives, but I can assure you they’re not the least bit interested in investigating the cabal that really killed Lincoln, and will ridicule any attempts to do so.

In fact, the military tribunal that hanged Surratt and put Mudd in jail was not a legitimate trial, but a sham stuffed with fakes, forgeries and perjuries. It’s a fluke this was even discovered, and would not have been revealed if not for one honest Congressman named Andy Rogers, who was able to cross examine the key witnesses who testified at the tribunal at a later Congressional investigation, and many of them folded and confessed to receiving coaching and considerable money for their testimony from Sanford Conover. Why is this Congressional investigation virtually unknown by most Americans, who assume the original trial was legitimate?

When you have a trial so filled with manipulations and deceits, the first person that should be investigated is the one orchestrating the trial, because they are most likely involved. Yet, Steers takes the approach Stanton is above all reproach, and this is the attitude of most on Norton’s forum it seems, since so many immediately attacked me without bothering to read my book or consider my evidence.

We’re reaching a tipping point with this case and with the 150th anniversary almost upon us, I’m hoping the anniversary can help open some minds. Just like the JFK assassination was changed forever when the Zapruder film was finally shown on national television (convincing millions in an instant that Kennedy was shot from multiple directions), the release of The Conspirator by Robert Redford a few years ago opened my eyes to the hoodwinks employed by the tribunal to convict Jefferson Davis, Mary Surratt and Dr. Mudd.

But after that Congressional investigation revealed the truth, many American finally realized Surratt and Mudd had been railroaded by a kangaroo court, and even though they were Southern sympathizers, they had no hand in Lincoln’s assassination, which is why Andrew Johnson had Mudd released from prison, while admitting regrets over the hanging of Surratt.

Let freedom ring and the truth be told from every mountain top. Lincoln’s assassination was an inside job.

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The Lincoln assassination rabbit holes

Rabbit Hole #1: Jefferson Davis did it. Did you know Jefferson Davis was convicted of orchestrating Lincoln’s murder, with Mary Surratt and John W. Booth as his primary agents in that endeavor? That was the finding of the military tribunal that took 5,000 pages of testimony and then hanged four people the next day, indicating not a single officer on the tribunal bothered to read the transcript before rendering a decision. Even today, this theory is periodically trotted out and dusted off. Only problem is less than two years later, a Congressman named Rogers exposed the trial had been a sham and witnesses had been coached and paid for their false testimony. This inconvenient truth was brushed under the rug, but created enough of a public outcry that Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, who presided over the trial, went into a phase of “intense personal excitement” as he was worried he was becoming the fall-guy for the sham trial.

Rabbit Hole #2: Andrew Johnson did it. President Andrew Johnson was next in the patsy line. The Radicals began building a case against Johnson the moment he attempted to remove Edwin M. Stanton from his perch running the War Department, the military, the newspapers and the telegraph lines. Johnson survived the impeachment trial by one vote, despite the long list of dirty tricks, bribes and threats brought to play against him. Once the smoke cleared, Johnson knew the tribunal had been a complete sham and regretted allowing Mary Surratt to swing from the gallows and would soon pardon the convicted-but-not-hanged conspirators languishing in jail.

Rabbit Hole #3: The Pope was responsible. In order to shift suspicion off himself and the Radical Republicans who orchestrated the sham trial, Holt wrote a manifesto claiming the Catholics conspired to kill Lincoln based mostly on Mary Surratt being a Catholic, and Catholics at that time were a minority despised by many Protestants. Some really absurd evidence was brought to bear by Holt and this balloon did not fly with the public.

Rabbit Hole #4: The Rothschilds did it. This has become the standard canard for shielding the oligarchy that really runs the banking system. Because some powerful banking families of Jewish heritage happen to control a large percentage of the banking system does not mean they own all the money or even most of it, or that they are pulling evil strings on every event in history. I’d imagine Simon Wolf had a relationship with the Rothschilds, and did meet with Booth that day. However, it seems far more likely a New York element was closely involved, and not a London or European element. The key suspects beyond Booth and his inner circle should be the Radical Republicans working with Jay Gould and/or Fernando Wood as the “New York crowd.”

Rabbit Hole #5: Booth was insane and acting on his own. This is the meme that has come down through history, and ignores Booth’s command of spy craft and his devious methods for concealing operations. Sam Arnold, one of the primary conspirators in the kidnap plot remarked how closed-lipped Booth was on all matters and how Booth shared little information concerning the source of his funding, but Booth did buy a carriage, horses, four pistols, four knives, two rifles and a rowboat for the kidnapping scheme, indicating deep pockets were behind the plot.

The most suspicious thing about the trial, other than the perjuries committed, were the dozen conspirators who aided Booth that were never investigated or brought to testify. George Atzerodt ran down all the key players in his first confession, but that document was destroyed and never admitted into evidence. Why wasn’t the beautiful Kate Brown brought before the tribunal? She was reportedly taken to Stanton’s office and then disappeared forever. But then there were many others, and strong suspicion exists today these conspirators were hidden to protect their identities as double agents. Stanton undoubtedly had many doubles pretending to be loyal Confederate agents. This would have been standard procedure. And if so, the reason these doubles couldn’t be brought forth is because that would have indicated Stanton knew about the plot in advance, and had purposefully left Lincoln unguarded.

The day after Lincoln died, the Radicals met for a crucial strategy session and Thaddeus Stevens remarked on how the assassination had been “a godsend,” as Lincoln had been planning forgiveness for the South. That callous statement is an indication of the Radicals true feelings toward Lincoln, who had just returned from a visit to Richmond, where he’d walked the streets unguarded, and spoken freely with the inhabitants. If the Confederate secret service and Jefferson Davis had wanted Lincoln murdered in revenge for losing the war, he could have been cut down in the streets of  Richmond just a few days before his death in the heart of  Washington DC.

Of course the rabbit holes don’t stop there and every year some new piece of forged documentation will appear to send researchers on a goose egg hunt to nowhere, usually in support of one or more of the fake theories already listed. But it’s incredibly suspicious how so much evidence has emerged over the years to support the thesis of an inside job, and how none of that evidence seems to make it into the media or onto Wikipedia.

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I was ambushed by a Dogma Patrol

dunhamfixI’ve been studying spooks for thirty years, but never got around to the Civil War variety until late in life. After I viewed a Robert Redford film called The Conspirator on Netflix, I became a fanatic Lincoln assassination researcher for many months because that movie shredded the official story and made it clear Mary Surratt was railroaded by a kangaroo court in a failed attempt to close the assassination files forever.

It quickly became obvious the pro-war cabal of the Republican Party (as well as a mysterious unknown entity in New York City working with some double agents), fomented the evil deed and Booth merely a pawn in their game. This case is the most investigated murder in history, and most of the primary documents are available free online. The problem is not there is not enough evidence, but there’s too much evidence. And the haystack has been seeded with fake needles.

The Lincoln-Assassination Forum is a wonderful repository of information and includes a wealth of links and insightful commentary. However, I did notice a strong disposition against the inside job theories, so I knew my book was not likely to please those guarding the inner sanctum, but when I saw my book blurb appear and receive jabs from the dogma patrol, I registered and introduced myself, knowing I’d be crossing an open field under fire.

Here’s the problem with the dogma patrol: when those who hold the view of an inside job are immediately ganged up against, abused, ridiculed and treated worse than idiots….just for holding that view…..you’re not creating a healthy environment for real research. Those are the weapons of propagandists, not the legitimate tools of honest researchers.

The Lincoln case is not difficult to crack, and many books will appear soon enough to express my views. The JFK case was far more difficult and took thirty years, but that case is now fully cracked as well. And both were inside jobs, which only makes sense, and the proof is the way they’re so heavily guarded by a priesthood of insiders who refuse to allow a fair hearing of evidence. Anyone who supports an inside job will simply not be welcome at their websites, no matter what evidence they marshal. On the other hand, honest researchers just let the chips fall.

I had a fun time during the few days I was on the forum defending my reputation, while enduring all sorts of hippie bigotry. When asked why I hadn’t arrived earlier for guidance before publishing, I replied my evidence had been posted on my blog for months before the book came out. Of course, that just provoked another attack on the idea of anything worthwhile ever appearing on a blog, as if the perjured testimony from the official trial is more valid.

The trial only tells you what not to believe, and the most important evidence is anything the War Department tried to destroy that slipped through and survived.

Unfortunately, Robert Todd Lincoln seems to have played clean-up patrol, and may have even incarcerated his mother after she realized who killed her husband and wouldn’t stop talking about it.Wake up. Let freedom ring and justice prevail. No matter where the chips may fall.

If you want to chortle over my encounters with the dogma patrol, you can find the thread here:

http://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-2031.html