Monday, May 31, 2010

Ronald Reagan Occultist and Sorcerer!

Heh. I knew that title would get you. Interesting story in the Washington Post. The part that interests me:

... This book, The Secret Destiny of America, caught the eye of the future president, then a middling Hollywood actor gravitating toward politics.

Hall’s concise volume described how America was the product of a “Great Plan” for religious liberty and self-governance, launched by a hidden order of ancient philosophers and secret societies. In one chapter, Hall described a rousing speech delivered by a mysterious “unknown speaker” before the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The “strange man,” wrote Hall, invisibly entered and exited the locked doors of the Philadelphia statehouse on July 4th, 1776, delivering an oration that bolstered the wavering spirits of the delegates. “God has given America to be free!” commanded the mysterious speaker, urging the men to overcome their fears of the noose, axe, or gibbet, and to seal destiny by signing the great document. Newly emboldened, the delegates rushed forward to add their names. They looked to thank the stranger only to discover that he had vanished from the locked room. Was this, Hall wondered, “one of the agents of the secret Order, guarding and directing the destiny of America?”

At a 1957 commencement address at his alma mater Eureka College, Reagan, then a corporate spokesman for GE, sought to inspire students with this leaf from occult history. “This is a land of destiny,” Reagan said, “and our forefathers found their way here by some Divine system of selective service gathered here to fulfill a mission to advance man a further step in his climb from the swamps.”

Reagan then retold (without naming a source) the tale of Hall’s unknown speaker. “When they turned to thank the speaker for his timely words,” Reagan concluded, “he couldn’t be found and to this day no one knows who he was or how he entered or left the guarded room.”

Reagan revived the story in 1981, when Parade magazine asked the president for a personal essay on what July 4th meant to him. Presidential aide Michael Deaver delivered the piece with a note saying, “This Fourth of July message is the president’s own words and written initially in the president’s hand,” on a yellow pad at Camp David. Reagan retold the legend of the unknown speaker – this time using language very close to Hall’s own: “When they turned to thank him for his timely oratory, he was not to be found, nor could any be found who knew who he was or how had come in or gone out through the locked and guarded doors.”

4 comments:

Tom Van Dyke said...

"Well, as I say, whether story or legend, the signing of the document that day in Independence Hall was miracle enough."---Ronald Reagan, 1974

http://www.originofnations.org/books,%20papers/quotes%20etc/Reagan_The%20Shining%20City%20Upon%20A%20Hill%20speech.htm

Why does every one of these things only tell half the damn story? I'm so sick of a media that can't even use google to check their own BS.

Phil Johnson said...

.
ha ha
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J. L. Bell said...

The tale of this mysterious orator goes back to a fiction writer named George Lippard in 1847. Reagan’s source, Manly P. Hall, quoted Lippard directly, but didn’t cite him or provide supporting evidence. Not that Reagan seemed to mind.

Ray Soller said...

According to Wikipedea:

George Lippard (April 10, 1822 – February 9, 1854) was a 19th-century American novelist, journalist, playwright, social activist, and labor organizer. Nearly forgotten today, he was one of the most widely-read authors in antebellum America. A friend of Edgar Allan Poe, Lippard advocated a socialist political philosophy and sought justice for the working class in his writings.

While Poe & Lippard were good friends, Rufus W. Griswold (aka Rev. Rumpus Grizzle) & Poe were openly antagonistic towards each other. This is the same Griswold, who would in the very year of Lippard's death, use a phantom eyewitness to describe Washington's first inauguration, where he wrote, "[George Washington] pronounced slowly and distinctly the words of the oath. The Bible was raised, and as the President bowed to kiss its sacred pages, he said audibly, "I swear," and added, with fervor, his eyes closed, that his whole soul might be absorbed in the supplication, "So help me God!"