Studies in Political Philosophy

The Sabbath and Satanism

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Political Studies

Lesson: The Sabbath and Satanism

Genre: Speech

Track: 11

Dictation Name: RR124F11

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we thank thee that we can come to thee in the confidence that thou are our God, ready to minister to our every need. Give us grace to see ourselves as thou wouldst have us see ourselves. Give us grace to submit, day by day, to thy ministration, to thy disciplines, to thy love, to grow in terms of thy most holy word, and to be used of thee in all our endeavors. In Jesus name. Amen.

Our scripture lesson today is Ezekiel 20:5-20. “And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; In the day when I chose Israel, and lifted up mine hand unto the seed of the house of Jacob, and made myself known unto them in the land of Egypt, when I lifted up mine hand unto them, saying, I am the Lord your God; in the day that I lifted up mine hand unto them, to bring them forth of the land of Egypt into a land that I had espied for them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands: then said I unto them, Cast ye away every man the abominations of his eyes, and defile not yourselves with the idols of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. But they rebelled against me, and would not hearken unto me: they did not every man cast away the abominations of their eyes, neither did they forsake the idols of Egypt: then I said, I will pour out my fury upon them, to accomplish my anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt. But I wrought for my name's sake, that it should not be polluted before the heathen, among whom they were, in whose sight I made myself known unto them, in bringing them forth out of the land of Egypt. Wherefore I caused them to go forth out of the land of Egypt, and brought them into the wilderness. And I gave them my statutes, and shewed them my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them.

Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them. But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness: they walked not in my statutes, and they despised my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; and my Sabbaths they greatly polluted: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them in the wilderness, to consume them. But I wrought for my name's sake, that it should not be polluted before the heathen, in whose sight I brought them out. Yet also I lifted up my hand unto them in the wilderness, that I would not bring them into the land which I had given them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands; because they despised my judgments, and walked not in my statutes, but polluted my Sabbaths: for their heart went after their idols. Nevertheless mine eye spared them from destroying them, neither did I make an end of them in the wilderness. But I said unto their children in the wilderness, Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their idols: I am the Lord your God; walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; and hallow my Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God.”

Our subject today is The Sabbath and Satanism. The twentieth chapter of Ezekiel is a curious one at first glance, because we see there a very thorough indictment of the people of Israel for two things which are closely linked together. One, that they are still guilty of the abominations of Egypt, and second, they are polluting God’s Sabbath.

Now we know that at this time, Israel was clearly guilty, or Judah, the southern kingdom, of a great many fearful offenses. Why then did God single out these two things? The first, going back close to a thousand years in their history, and declaring that they were continuing, they were perpetrating still all the abominations that they had learned in Egypt, and second, singling out the pollution of the Sabbath, rather than many, many other far more serious offenses of the day. Why were these two so significant to God?

To understand the significance of the correlation of these two and why Ezekiel in this chapter makes this indictment, it is important for us to analyze Egyptian religion and biblical faith. The Egyptian religion, like all non-biblical religions, was nature worship in essence. The forces of nature were personified. Nature and the power inherent in nature was worshipped. Thus, it was that in an Egyptian temple, almost any object could be on the altar. It could be an onion, or a beetle, or an image of a crocodile, or of a bird, or of a man. Any object could be the focal point of worship, because any object equally represented the deity, the divinity, the godhood which was present in all of nature, so that at any and every point, you were touching God. You were dealing with God. This, of course, is pantheism of a sort. It is certain that all nature, all being, had one continuous being which was divine.

Now, of course, biblical faith stands in radical contradiction to all this and says there is the divine being of God, and then the whole universe of created beings, and that man can never speak of having any element of deity or divinity in himself, nor do any creatures in heaven or on earth have any element of divinity. We are creatures. God alone is God. Thus, biblical faith has this discontinuity of being.

Now the Sabbath was introduced by God at the time of the deliverance of Israel from Egypt. There had been no Sabbath prior to that passage, and Ezekiel tells them God gave them his Sabbath to indicate his deliverance, as well as to set forth {?}, the way where in they should walk. The Sabbath signified that man was to cease from his labors because it was not his work that saved him, but the work of God, and so on the Sabbath, on the Lord’s Day, men do not work because they witness thereby, “It is not what I do that is going to save me, but what God has done,” and second, the Sabbath is that day when we draw nourishment and strength from God to go forth and to manifest that salvation, to apply that victory which God has already won for us.

Thus, the Sabbath is a separation and then it is a separation that it may be an application of the victory, and of the deliverance, but one of the characteristics of Israel from the time it was saved was that while they believed in God and knew indeed that he would save them, knew that he had performed some tremendous and mighty works of deliverance, they believed even more in nature, and their perspective was basically this: We are surrounded, day after day, by a world of nature and of men, a very powerful world of nature and a world of very powerful natural forces. Indeed there is a God, but he’s way off yonder, and occasionally he comes down and does things as he did to our forefather, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and as he did for us when he delivered us from Egypt, but most of the time he leaves us alone, and the power we have to reckon with is the power of nature and of men. So that while they believed in God’s reality and power, they believed even more truly in nature’s reality and power, and this was a significant fact, because it meant that they were going to move in terms of a greater power and for them, the greater power was nature. It was the more constant power. It was the power they had to deal with every day, and indeed this attitude characterizes many so-called Christians. “Oh yes, God is God and I believe the stories of the Bible, but they’re very remote to me, and I have to live in a real world, and when I have to reckon with is that real world of nature and of men, and God isn’t going to step in and do anything about it, so I have to move in terms of these people and this world.” This whole world would have collapsed into nothingness at the word of God. It was wrought out of nothing by his word and it would disappear instantaneously into nothingness if God thus spoke the word, and he is the only reality.

The perspective of these Hebrews thus was in effect, a kind of Satanism, because it was not the power God they worshiped, but the powers in an evil, fallen world. There is a religion of Satanism, in which you will find something in some encyclopedias, the religion of the Yezibis. The Yezibis are found predominantly in the Middle East. They have had an influence on many, many groups that are prevalent in Europe and America, but these people are not too widely known because they keep strictly to themselves, and certain parts of the Middle East, within various countries, will be Yezibis territory, so that even on the maps, although there will be villages and cities in that area, nothing will appear. It is unknown territory. Outsiders do not go in there. Very few people, as a result, have had any dealing with Yezibis. The Yezibis do not doubt that there is a God. They do not doubt that God is good, and holding grudges, but their attitude is that because God is good, he is therefore harmless. That goodness, righteousness, is of necessity impotence, and therefore, the essence of realistic living is to worship Satan whether you like him or not, and so they built underground sanctuaries usually in order to worship Satan because you have to make terms with the real power of the universe, and the more man becomes good, the more he joins God in being powerless and impotent. This is Satanism, and isn’t there a great deal of Satanism around us? A belief in the impotence of righteousness?

Satanism is very prevalent today. It does have its cults, and occultism is shot through with Satanism. Communism certainly is a form of Satanism, but unfortunately, we find Satanism very, very widespread among many people who call themselves conservatives and who call themselves Christians. Why? Regularly, I find people coming to me and telling me, “How is it that you don’t warn people about this or that conspiracy and rarely speak of them, or do not speak of them at all? And shouldn’t you speak about the Illuminati, or about the ADL, or about this, that, and the other group?” and they’re ready to tell me all the things that I should say about these groups and a great many others, and they’re ready to pass on to me all kinds of literature, most of which I have seen many, many times about how powerful these people are, and how they have, through the centuries, controlled from behind, history, and are controlling history today, and are going to control it tomorrow, and my answer is that they’re in danger of worshiping Satan, because they are saying that history is in the hands of Satan, is governed by evil, and even as they try to alert people to it, they are {?} in effect worshiping it, as the real force, the real power in history, and according to the word of God, the very wrath of man shall praise him. All the evil, all the raging, the conspiring of the wicked is totally governed by the absolute power of God, and goes not a step beyond his foreordination. It is totally in his hands.

The Council of Jerusalem declared in Acts 15:18, “Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.” It is blasphemy therefore, to say of these conspiracies, which are real, most of them, that they are controlling past, present, and future, and this is what Israel is doing. This was the abomination of Egypt, for the Egyptians believed that the natural forces, and the human forces of this world governed history, and God gave them the Sabbath that they might come apart for a time, weekly, for one purpose, to rejoice in the salvation that God had given them, to know that history was in the hands of God who destroyed Egypt with all its pretensions, and will destroy every evil power which erects itself in defiance of God, and so the purpose of the Sabbath is a reminder that God is our creator, our sustainer, our redeemed, and our judge.

So we gather together to rest in his victory, to sing songs of praises when we are in formal worship, and the theme of all hymns of the church is victory, is it not? Go through the verses, for example, one of the most popular, if not the most popular, is Onward Christian Soldiers. Every verse sings out of victory, as does all of scripture, and it is in terms of this that we are to move, not in terms of the power of darkness, and so the purpose of the Sabbath is to gather together, to study his word, to give thanks unto him for his victory, for his so-great salvation, and then to go out and day by day, throughout every week, to apply that victory to every area of life. The Sabbath, therefore, was given to man as an antidote to Satanism, to declare to us weekly that all power and dominion belongs to God, and that we are to rest in his victory, for this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

Therefore, each Sabbath should be a time of rest and refreshing unto our souls and to our bodies, not merely a physical rest, but incidental, as primarily a spiritual rest. Rest in terms of his victory. Therefore, rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we thank thee that thou hath called us unto victory, and that as we gather around thy word, the word that thou dost speak to us is the word of victory, and the summons to us is, day by day, throughout every week, to go forth and to apply unto all of life thy victory. Make us resolute and bold, our Father, in terms of this, our calling, that the keynote of thy faith and of our lives may be neither tribulation nor defeat, but victory in and through the so-great salvation of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In his name we pray. Amen.

Before we have our first question, I’d like to call attention to one item in the text which is repeated two or three times, when God speaks of Canaan as the land flowing with milk and honey which is the glory of all lands. This sounds strange to us because we’ve all seen pictures of Palestine and it doesn’t look like that kind of a glorious land. Dry, barren hills, an eroded country. It doesn’t look too good, and it isn’t, because it isn’t the land that God gave to Israel, because God declares through the prophets, including Ezekiel, that the land would be cursed if they continued in their faithlessness, as they did after the captivity, and so that land, which was once a particularly rich land, wooded, with a tremendous amount of wildlife, lush vegetation and wildflowers, streams that flowed continually, is now an almost tree-less, dry, barren area. It’s hard for us, indeed, to realize that once all of Arabia was forest land, and today, there isn’t even sand there. It’s eroded down to the bare rock, much of it, and it is because it has experienced the curse of God, and Babylon, of course, is the same. Babylon was the city set in many waters. Today it’s dry, barren, desert area. Yes?

[Audience] When you were talking about the {?} miracle {?} England, that was really rooted in Satan{?} I don’t know {?} black magic or whatever {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, in England there is, quite openly, an association of witches, and they have written about their faith, and it is definitely a worship of evil. There is a great deal of that. There are black masses performed regularly in churches desecrated to that purpose, and this is spreading very rapidly in this country. The church life in England, of course, is virtually dead. The Church of England today has very few people attending. Ten and fifteen years ago, most of them came to have their children baptized, but even that is dropping off. I was interested recently to read, I believe it was in Harpers for a couple months, ago, an article on the church at Warwich, by an Episcopal rector who was the rector of that church. Now the bishop of Warwich is John Robinson, who wrote Honest to God, who believes in the death of God type of theology and the new morality, and it’s significant that this church was virtually deserted, quite a sizable building. They put in quite a few thousand into renovating it. They made one part of it an espresso bar, and so on, in order to make it a community center, and they gathered together a sizable team of rectors to cover the entire area, a sizable community. Now, they’ve had just barely fifty who come to that huge sanctuary, and it’s because there’s nothing there, and this is true throughout England, and these Satanist groups actually have a far greater hold on the people than the Christian faith does. It is only in background a Christian country. It isn’t in reality, and this is happening throughout Western Europe. It’s going to happen here very rapidly because, as this new theology is taking over and the churches in this country, there is a very rapid drop in the attendance at your mainline churches. Since 1960, the drop has been increasing at a marked degree. It will continue to accelerate because they have nothing to offer and it’s coming home to people, and they are beginning to realize, too, they have nothing as a result of all their years of church-going, and they’re not sure they want anything. Yes?

[Audience] I think your lesson today answered my question on this one. It’s called getting the feel of body awareness. {?} April 25, 1956. It had to do with non-verbal sensitivity {?}. The only thing is now, this body awareness {?} tied in with nature {?}. This is {?}.

[Rushdoony] Yes. All kinds of research are being conducted now, supposedly to apprehend the hidden powers in nature, and to develop your hidden secret powers, and they bring people closer and closer to outright Satanism in this sort of thing.

[Audience] Is there a {?} with LSD when {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, now we can explain it by using an analogy. When we speak of grace we are speaking of power from above, but the conclusion that these people are coming to is yes, but why not power from within. This is where real power is, and so they are denying the word of God, the source of power, from above, God, the triune God, and they are going to explore the sources of power from below, and they are restoring magic. They are restoring every kind of occultist and demonic cult. They are actually talking in terms of cannibalism. Now, this was in something one of you handed me recently from the L.A. Times about a group of researchers here in Southern California, I don’t remember which university, Cal Tech or UCLA, or USC, who were conducting experiments with worms, and they were training worms to go through certain problems, and then they were taking the worms that had learned these lessons and grinding them up and feeding them to the other worms, and they claimed that they learned something, in other words, they absorbed the memory of these worms they ate, and of course, they were jumping to conclusions because their evidence, I am told, actually didn’t prove anything. So, what they expressed was wishful thinking, but do you realize what that means? That the cannibals are right. If you want to get power, eat somebody who is a powerful man and you get his strength as well as yours, but the fact that a group of scientists would seriously spend thousands of dollars in such research indicates the demonic aspect of their thinking.

[Audience] That I think was more {?} that what was begun in {?} I believe by {?} and carried on later at the Stanford Research Institute up north.

[Rushdoony] Oh, then it was not Southern California’s response{?}

[Audience] I’d like to make one brief comment on the Wicans, they invaded Los Angeles. I was {?} with a {?} a couple weeks ago, and he was telling me there are 250 Wicans in Santa Monica, and they divided themselves up into coves, I think it’s called coves.

[Rushdoony] Yes, coves or covens.

[Audience] Yeah, well coves in Los Angeles, and they perform their sorcery in the Santa Monica Mountains, one of those canyons up there.

[laughter]

[Rushdoony] Well, perhaps the Encyclopedia Britannica has in mind with this experiment that the Britannica would be good eating. Yes?

[Audience] Talking about the Sabbath, {?} Sabbath today, I was under the impression, of course, you didn’t call it the Sabbath in Genesis, when he created, on the seventh day, he rested. I thought that was the Sabbath.

[Rushdoony] It was the creation Sabbath, you’re right, but as far as men were concerned, the Sabbath was not instituted until the Passover. So there’s no mention until you come to the Passover . . .

[Audience] But the word “Sabbath,” yes, but I felt, my mother always taught me it was in Genesis.

[Rushdoony] Yes, Genesis 1. Yes, in Genesis 1 you have the seventh day, when creation was ended and God rested, but as far as being instituted as a separate day of worship for men, you do not get it and it doesn’t appear in the Bible until the first Passover in Egypt, and God says in this passage through Ezekiel that he gave them his Sabbath at that time, but the institution of the Sabbath was with the first Passover. This was their day of salvation, and that’s why our Sabbath is not Saturday, because our day of redemption is not the Passover at Egypt, as it was with Israel. Our day of salvation is the Day of Resurrection, so that the first day of the week is our Sabbath.

[Audience] Well, in the beginning, God {?} Genesis, I said there’s something {?} over again {?} a lot more now, but I think {?} was what took place were just the meaning up to the flood, {?} they were destroyed, because the world {?} people.

[Rushdoony] Yes, the world before the flood, of course, was a world of far superior conditions materially and physically, when men lived to be 800, 900, almost 1,000 years old, and having this longevity, they were taking advantage of the fact that the Day of Reckoning, of death, was long ways off, and they were living in an utter heedlessness of God, and so God destroyed that world and we have a more limited lifespan.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, and of course, evil, all the same, reasserted itself because man was fallen, and is fallen, but God began his plan of salvation, and through his chosen line, the line of Abraham, instituted this program. Yes?

[Audience] We had a discussion the other evening, and in Genesis, prior to the creation of Adam and Eve, and they had two sons, and then the world was populated, and that these left to your{?} imagination or credibility, however you want to put it{?} . Would you explain that?

[Rushdoony] Yes, because the scripture only mentions those who are of significance to the narrative rather than of all births. You have to realize that they had many, many children. After all, living as they did for nine hundred or more years, as Adam and Eve did, and having a different type of life condition, the number of children they had was quite numerous. As a result, when Cain and Abel were well along in years and farming, and so on, and running their stock, there were other children, a great many of them, in the area, children of Adam and Eve, but they’re not of any significance to the narrative, so they’re not mentioned, except for Seth, who is mentioned because the line of the faithful, from Seth to Christ, is his lot and therefore, he is important.

[Audience] Is that where you got the line, from {?} sisters?

[Rushdoony] Yes, from their sisters. These were other daughters of Adam and Eve that these men took as wives, and genetically, it was alright at that time because there was no problem with inbreeding genetically, because you see, since all the potentialities of the human race were present in Adam and Even, the gene potential of each of them was such that their children were scarcely related. You see, our gene potential, our heredity, is a more concentrated one, but theirs had all the potentialities of all race, and so for a time, there was no law against such marriages, and then, of course, it was instituted.

[Audience] Seth is an Egyptian name for one of the gods. Is there a connection to that?

[Rushdoony] Yes. Seth and Shem are related names, and this was the line promised, and the Egyptians made it to stand for the Devil, because they rejected the faith that was involved in the line of Seth and Shem. Yes?

[Audience] Would you comment on the giving up the ghost, such as Christ on the cross, in Luke’s account of the death of Judas Iscariot {?} gave up the ghost?

[Rushdoony] Yes, well, that is an expression, an idiom in the Greek, for dying and for the separation of body and soul, so that, according to biblical faith, when we die, there is the separation of body and soul, and the soul goes to heaven, or to hell as the case may be, and this is what is referred to as “giving up the ghost.” Then, of course, at the end of the world, we put on a resurrection body. Now, in the interim, between the time of death and the new creation, we are spoken of as “resting in the Lord.” In other words, it’s not a time of action, but with the new creation, and the resurrection body, the scripture says, “And his servants shall serve him,” but in a glorious universe in which there is no curse. So that we resume activity, but activity without any curse, or any burden to it.

[Audience] I was under the impression that your soul should actually die when the body is still alive. {?} death could occur.

[Rushdoony] I don’t quite get the point. Could you repeat that?

[Audience] In other words, a person could lose his soul while still alive.

[Rushdoony] Oh yes, the sense in which that is said, and you’re right, is spiritual. In other words, he can be spiritually dead, he can be spiritually lost as far as God is concerned, but as far as the physical death is concerned, it doesn’t refer to that. In other words, the termination of existence is not what is meant by that, but the termination of any relationship to God, or being dead in relationship to God, is a better way of putting it. Does that clarify it or does it make it more confused?

[Audience] The only part that confuses me is you have a dead soul {?} , and does the soul remain latent until physical death, {?} you give up the ghost, or would that precede the physical death?

[Rushdoony] He is alive as a soul, but he is dead in relationship to God, so it’s not a literal death but a figurative death. In other words, let’s put it this way, you’re dead to Johnson. He can’t talk either. There is no meaningful relationship between you and Johnson, so you can say, in a sense, you’re dead to him. Certainly I am dead to Johnson. He was in the same hotel as me this week, in Houston, Texas, and a little too close. Now, in this sense, when we speak of dead souls, we’re speaking of them being dead to God, and every sinner is, in some sense, spiritually dead. He is a dead soul, and he is brought to life by Jesus Christ, but he is very much alive as he deals with the world of sin, and as he deals with Satan. He is alive in that area. Does that help? Yes?

[Audience] Did you read the article in U.S. News & World Report on Billy Graham on the {?}

[Rushdoony] No, I didn’t.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] I was very much dismayed since you mention Billy Graham, to talk to one man who went to the presidential breakfast where Billy Graham spoke, and Johnson and the assembled congressmen and senators, and he had two verses as his {?}. “I come not to bring peace but a sword,” and “I have come to cast fire upon the earth would that it be kindled,” and this minister said he’s still not gotten over the shock of that meeting, because this fire which Jesus came to cast upon the earth and this sword to divide men was the civil rights movement. If that isn’t a perversion of scripture, I’ve never heard of one.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] They’re in {?} I can’t, just at this moment, but I can locate them easily. Any other questions?

[Audience] Along the line of the {?} Canaan and what have you, {?} really {?}

[Rushdoony] I couldn’t say, although I would say this. I don’t know to what extent it is still fertile. It has undoubtedly gone down hill. However, the whole Nile Valley and adjacent areas are one of the two most fertile areas of the world. The San Joaquin Valley and the Nile Valley, these are the prize areas, agriculturally, in the world, and it’s significant, the difference and the life around the two, and the wealth that this produced, and the poverty you’d see there. However, Egypt, as a whole, has gone downhill from ancient times, and it’s no longer the land it once was. In fact, the whole of North Africa has. We do know, definitely, that North Africa, at the time of Abraham, was a very heavily populated areas, the Sahara, I mean, not just the coastal places, and the mountains were well-forested, and it was an area of orchards and vineyards, and there are a few books that you can get in libraries that have explored some of these areas and called attention to the traces of the civilizations that once existed there, but they destroyed the area. They stripped the mountains of trees, overgrazed the countryside, and eroded the land and it turned into drifting sand and bare rock. It’s a staggering thing, but even as late as Roman era, we know of course, that Carthage was a powerful empire based in that area, and there were areas that were still very rich and fertile. It was still fairly rich in some limited areas at the time of the movement of the Scandinavian and Germanic tribes into North Africa, and they moved there because it was so desirable, and they helped further the trend because they just took over the grazing habits and ways, and abuse of the land that the people they conquered had, and some of them are squalling there now, much poorer than their ancestors who conquered the land and far more stupid. Their ancestors at least were able people. The Ber Ber tribes are descendants among others, on some of these northern European peoples. That whole area is just devastated now, and the interesting thing is there are many, many parts of Western USA that don’t get any more rainfall than the Sahara does. Some parts of the Sahara will get up to ten inches of rain, and look at its condition. It’s been destroyed.

[Audience] Do you give much credence to the Roman history of {?} soils [?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. They did deliberately. This was a Roman policy. They did it to Jerusalem, too, but there were other policies that led to the destruction. One of the things that destroys land is the destruction of private property, and private property of a small family-size basis, where people use the soil with respect, and they have gained the soil through hard work, not because it’s been handed them, because Mexico’s destroyed vast areas of agricultural land by giving the land to the peasants that broke up the rich estates in the twenties. Five hundred families of the old Spaniards owned a good deal of the farm land of Mexico, and it was beautiful farm land then. Now, it’s been divided and five hundred acres is the largest holding and most of them are of a very few acres. They’ve increased their production. They’ve done it by steadily destroying the soil. They’ve stripped the mountainsides in many areas, and in not too many years, they’re going to face a tremendous crisis because of the devastation their policy has robbed{?}. They gave the land to small owners who had never earned it, didn’t have the capacity to maintain it, and this is the kind of thing that has destroyed the earth over and over again, where you have a destruction of the family-owned, religiously-oriented private property. Over and over again, this has been the case, and it’s certainly true now. We hear a great deal about soil conservation and reforestation, but the worst areas, by and large, in the country today are in the national forests. Your best forests in the West are Weyerhaeuser forests. They’re not the national forests, and the State of Maine, which is virtually all privately owned forest land, there is more acreage in forest there now than when the white man first landed, and it’s better forests. The trees are in better condition, and that’s one reason why the federal government is trying to take over a great deal of Maine and make it national forests, because it’s an offense to them that stands there. Once it becomes a national forest, if you’re a powerful politician, you can run thousands of head of cattle on that land all year round without owning an acre of land your own, if you know how to pull the right strings. You can get all kinds, not only grazing rights, but cutting rights, if you can pull the right {?}, and this destroys the land. In private ownership, it’s maintained. Yes?

[Audience] In the relating of this subject {?}, India has well, we’d consider an non-Christian attitude, and however, I do not remember any particular desert. They do have floods, but the people own, except for the Maharaja, apparently the people maintain the land {?} keep it alive {?} generation.

[Rushdoony] Very good point. India is an exception to what I have said, but it, in a sense, proves the point because here you have the reverse. Because they believe in reincarnation and they believe in killing nothing because you might be killing your cousin, or your mother, your grandmother, they therefore, allow the wild animals to take over their farms and destroy them, and they will move out when the man-eating tigers move into an area. As a result, the jungle reclaims a great deal of agricultural land regularly, and this is a major problem. Some areas have been eroded in India that were held by non-Hindus, that is, people who were say, Muslims or held some other faith. But where you have the Hindu faith, instead of developing the land, they allow nature to drive them out, and they end up in the same position, more or less. They starve.

[Audience] The Maharaja does not {?} too much agricultural {?}

[Rushdoony] No, they simply tax the tenants and get their income that way. Of course, they are virtually finished now. India has taken over, to all practical intent, their lands and gives them a kind of a pension. When they die off, that’s it.

[Audience] {?} inventory of cattle in the United States runs around 195 million. India has close to 300 million head of cows, {?} also, and the amount of grain that it takes to feed these {?} land is tremendous.

[Rushdoony] And then there’s another point. We are shipping a fantastic amount of wheat to India to keep them alive, wheat and rice, various grains, but do you know that the rats of India are eating annual far more grain than we ship over? But they don’t kill their animals. That’s the insanity of the situation.

[Audience] {?} same way, I thought {?}

[Rushdoony] No, they will not kill any living thing. In reincarnation, you see, you reincarnate upward or downward in terms of the way you live so that you can go down, down, down if you live a bad life, and then you progress up, up, up. Then, for example, if you’re a poor man in this reincarnation and you live very, very devoutly, you will be a somewhat richer man and maybe you’ll get to be a Maharaja, but the way most of the Maharajas have behaved, they probably get reincarnated as rats, but finally you reach oblivion, and Mahatma Gandhi felt, because he had been he believed, so very, very, holy that this was going to be the last reincarnation for him and he was going to be delivered into nirvana, totally death. That was his hope. Well, I think we know where he is. With that we are dismissed.

Oh, there’s an announcement here. On KNX radio, 8 p.m. Tuesday, Dr. Grandhol{?} Knight M.D., Santa Monica, will debate a dentist on fluoridation, and since this is coming up in the Los Angeles area, we should be concerned with the matter as well as expressing our opinions. {63:01}

End of tape