In Thomas Pynchon’s novel Gravity’s Rainbow, a lieutenant in World War II who’s lost in a synchronistic labyrinth of conspiracies and the occult has his reality shattered when he realizes he’s been the subject of mind control experiments ever since he was a child.
The main character is compared to The Fool archetype, the embodiment of divine madness, and his name, Tyrone Slothrop, can be rearranged into Sloth Entropy, which seems to be a reference to chaos theory and the eventual entropic death of the universe.
By the end of the novel, after the author makes allusions to Apollo and biblical sacrifice, a religious hymn is sung as a rocket with a mysterious “black device” attached to it freezes in time right before it descends over a movie theatre where the film projector is breaking down, causing the narrative of the novel itself to break down as well.
It seems something similar is happening in the world today. Religious zealots are full of apocalyptic fervor as cows are sacrificed and rockets are launched at the X Eclipse, time is moving differently, movies like 3 Body Problem are imitating life, and mainstream news narratives are starting to unravel as our ideas about objective reality are shattered. Maybe there’s even a mysterious “black device” involved, or CERN’s NeXT computer. And it’s all happening on April Fools’ Day.
Interestingly, the book’s cover looks like those “mysterious spirals” that are supposedly created by rockets and CERN, and its title seems to be a reference to rainbow gravity, or the way light speed refracts into different wavelengths as it’s bent around a black hole, like it does through a prism. Scientists at CERN claimed they finally found rainbow gravity back in April of 2015, but accidentally created a new “rainbow universe” in the process. This ended up being an April Fools’ Day prank.
But because of the current conspiracy theories involving the X Eclipse and the particle collider, which is supposedly using a black hole to summon Apollyon, or Aiwass, Crowley’s personification of The Fool, it still seems relevant. It appears as if we really are in a new universe, one where everything is absurd and more fictional than real. However, fiction creates reality, at least according to chaos magicians like Crowley. He said art is high magic, a system of holy hieroglyph.
Pynchon’s novel also references the Wizard of Oz when it quotes Dorothy saying “Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore...” Well, it seems we aren’t either. We’ve gone Somewhere Over the Rainbow and landed on the Dark Side of the Moon, where Toto pulls the curtain back, and the elite’s sorcery is revealed to be nothing more than an April Fools’ Day prank. To keep us in a hypnotic trance, reality has become more like a reality television show. But the tape is about to run out.
Frank Zappa seemed to hint at this moment in history when he said, “At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.” When the masses see this brick wall and realize they’ve been fooled, will they experience an ironic kind of divine madness?
In Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun music video, we see something like this happen. As a black hole opens up in the sky, religious zealots proclaiming the apocalypse are sucked up into the clouds and devoured during a dark Rapture event. And while they celebrate and await this false Rapture, their expressions begin to twist into demonic smiley faces. Interestingly, researchers recently documented a rare disorder that causes people’s faces to appear distorted and demonic.
The main character is compared to The Fool archetype, the embodiment of divine madness, and his name, Tyrone Slothrop, can be rearranged into Sloth Entropy, which seems to be a reference to chaos theory and the eventual entropic death of the universe.
By the end of the novel, after the author makes allusions to Apollo and biblical sacrifice, a religious hymn is sung as a rocket with a mysterious “black device” attached to it freezes in time right before it descends over a movie theatre where the film projector is breaking down, causing the narrative of the novel itself to break down as well.
It seems something similar is happening in the world today. Religious zealots are full of apocalyptic fervor as cows are sacrificed and rockets are launched at the X Eclipse, time is moving differently, movies like 3 Body Problem are imitating life, and mainstream news narratives are starting to unravel as our ideas about objective reality are shattered. Maybe there’s even a mysterious “black device” involved, or CERN’s NeXT computer. And it’s all happening on April Fools’ Day.
Interestingly, the book’s cover looks like those “mysterious spirals” that are supposedly created by rockets and CERN, and its title seems to be a reference to rainbow gravity, or the way light speed refracts into different wavelengths as it’s bent around a black hole, like it does through a prism. Scientists at CERN claimed they finally found rainbow gravity back in April of 2015, but accidentally created a new “rainbow universe” in the process. This ended up being an April Fools’ Day prank.
But because of the current conspiracy theories involving the X Eclipse and the particle collider, which is supposedly using a black hole to summon Apollyon, or Aiwass, Crowley’s personification of The Fool, it still seems relevant. It appears as if we really are in a new universe, one where everything is absurd and more fictional than real. However, fiction creates reality, at least according to chaos magicians like Crowley. He said art is high magic, a system of holy hieroglyph.
Pynchon’s novel also references the Wizard of Oz when it quotes Dorothy saying “Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore...” Well, it seems we aren’t either. We’ve gone Somewhere Over the Rainbow and landed on the Dark Side of the Moon, where Toto pulls the curtain back, and the elite’s sorcery is revealed to be nothing more than an April Fools’ Day prank. To keep us in a hypnotic trance, reality has become more like a reality television show. But the tape is about to run out.
Frank Zappa seemed to hint at this moment in history when he said, “At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.” When the masses see this brick wall and realize they’ve been fooled, will they experience an ironic kind of divine madness?
In Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun music video, we see something like this happen. As a black hole opens up in the sky, religious zealots proclaiming the apocalypse are sucked up into the clouds and devoured during a dark Rapture event. And while they celebrate and await this false Rapture, their expressions begin to twist into demonic smiley faces. Interestingly, researchers recently documented a rare disorder that causes people’s faces to appear distorted and demonic.
The patient said “My first thought was I woke up in a demon world…” Will this become a bigger problem during a Disease X pandemic? Will this cause so much chaos and confusion that the religious right and liberal left are finally forced to go to war with each other? Ironically, something similar happens in V for Vendetta when a biological weapon called Saint Mary’s virus is released by a religious totalitarian regime to control the population.
However, some are immune to this disease, including V, a vigilante who wears a demonic smiley face mask. V starts a rebellion against the regime by manipulating the government’s goddess-like supercomputer called Fate after forcing her to feel the forbidden emotion of love towards the humans she was invented to control. V for Vendetta was written by Alan Moore, a chaos magician and adherent of Crowley. This seems fitting considering the V sign, which represents peace, love, and victory, was supposedly invented by Crowley.
Funny enough, Alan Moore also believes art is The Art, or magic. He explains “Art is, like magic, the science of manipulating symbols, words, or images, to achieve changes in consciousness.” And states of consciousness affect our behavior, which affects our social reality, right?
Gravity’s Rainbow, which is all about the V-2 rocket, also references a character from Pynchon’s first novel, which is about the son of a British spy who left behind journals documenting his search for the titular V., a mysterious entity who seems to symbolize Venus, the goddess of love. And Crowley’s Venusian demon goddess Babalon will supposedly free us from the Illuminati, at least according to Robert Anton Wilson, who was yet another chaos magician and adherent of Crowley.
Jack Parsons, a rocket scientist who helped establish NASA’s Jet Propulsion Labs, believed something similar. After being inspired by Crowley in 1946, he tried summoning Babalon to free us from patriarchal institutions. It seems something like this will happen once the puppeteers purposely pull back the curtain on the world stage. Ironically, Parsons helped invent the technology that was used in the Apollo missions. And there is a crater named after him on the Dark Side of the Moon.
Nevertheless, Pynchon’s novel V. has two intersecting plots. And the other is about an aimless man living in a chaotic and meaningless world. He works absurd jobs, and at one point becomes a security guard at a research facility where he encounters a seemingly sentient test dummy who tells him humans will eventually become test dummies too. It does seem as if we’ve become like test subjects in a global mind control experiment, or lab rats in a maze, only that maze is the synchronistic labyrinth of conspiracies and the occult.
So, as our world spins out of control like a broken film projector, and quickly becomes more like an open air prison and free range insane asylum filled with online concentration camps, we should turn to the Saints who endured far less subtle psychological torture, and were political prisoners subjected to truly terrible reeducation experiments, which tried to destroy the human personality and replace it with Communist “new man”.
Like one Orthodox writer from the Thaddean Fathers of the Brotherhood of Saint John Maximovitch said, “…it shall become necessary to be guided by those Holy Ones and Saints of this [decade] and previous decades and centuries for the times we have entered where even [the] true faithful and their clergy will be incarcerated for not bowing to the false, heretical and misleading ‘Christianity’ being presented to the people of these times in which we live.”
However, some are immune to this disease, including V, a vigilante who wears a demonic smiley face mask. V starts a rebellion against the regime by manipulating the government’s goddess-like supercomputer called Fate after forcing her to feel the forbidden emotion of love towards the humans she was invented to control. V for Vendetta was written by Alan Moore, a chaos magician and adherent of Crowley. This seems fitting considering the V sign, which represents peace, love, and victory, was supposedly invented by Crowley.
Funny enough, Alan Moore also believes art is The Art, or magic. He explains “Art is, like magic, the science of manipulating symbols, words, or images, to achieve changes in consciousness.” And states of consciousness affect our behavior, which affects our social reality, right?
Gravity’s Rainbow, which is all about the V-2 rocket, also references a character from Pynchon’s first novel, which is about the son of a British spy who left behind journals documenting his search for the titular V., a mysterious entity who seems to symbolize Venus, the goddess of love. And Crowley’s Venusian demon goddess Babalon will supposedly free us from the Illuminati, at least according to Robert Anton Wilson, who was yet another chaos magician and adherent of Crowley.
Jack Parsons, a rocket scientist who helped establish NASA’s Jet Propulsion Labs, believed something similar. After being inspired by Crowley in 1946, he tried summoning Babalon to free us from patriarchal institutions. It seems something like this will happen once the puppeteers purposely pull back the curtain on the world stage. Ironically, Parsons helped invent the technology that was used in the Apollo missions. And there is a crater named after him on the Dark Side of the Moon.
Nevertheless, Pynchon’s novel V. has two intersecting plots. And the other is about an aimless man living in a chaotic and meaningless world. He works absurd jobs, and at one point becomes a security guard at a research facility where he encounters a seemingly sentient test dummy who tells him humans will eventually become test dummies too. It does seem as if we’ve become like test subjects in a global mind control experiment, or lab rats in a maze, only that maze is the synchronistic labyrinth of conspiracies and the occult.
So, as our world spins out of control like a broken film projector, and quickly becomes more like an open air prison and free range insane asylum filled with online concentration camps, we should turn to the Saints who endured far less subtle psychological torture, and were political prisoners subjected to truly terrible reeducation experiments, which tried to destroy the human personality and replace it with Communist “new man”.
Like one Orthodox writer from the Thaddean Fathers of the Brotherhood of Saint John Maximovitch said, “…it shall become necessary to be guided by those Holy Ones and Saints of this [decade] and previous decades and centuries for the times we have entered where even [the] true faithful and their clergy will be incarcerated for not bowing to the false, heretical and misleading ‘Christianity’ being presented to the people of these times in which we live.”
He goes on to say that this “cultic Protestantism” and “cultic Orthodoxy” will be a self-seeking and rebellious “man-made kind of Christianity that is actually anti-Christian in both spirit and truth, for such a kind is a departure from that handed down to us through time and history from Jesus Christ and His Holy Apostles and those who are their legitimate successors who keep the faith.” He also points out how Saint John Maximovitch predicted this when he said:
“There will be a mass falling away from the faith; even many bishops will betray the faith, justifying themselves by pointing to the splendid position of the Church. A search for compromise will be the characteristic disposition of men. Straightforwardness of confession will vanish. Men will cleverly justify their fall, and an endearing evil will support such a general disposition.
Men will grow accustomed to apostasy from the truth and to the sweetness of compromise and sin. Antichrist will allow men everything, if only they ‘fall down and worship him.’ This is not something new. The Roman emperors were similarly prepared to grant the Christians freedom, if only they recognized [the emperor's] divinity and divine supreme authority; they martyred Christians only because they professed: ‘Worship God Alone and serve Him Alone.’”
According to Father Valerian Grecu, a Romanian Orthodox priest who survived the terrible tortures in Communist prisons that began in the 1940s and continued up until as recently as 1989, “Antichrist is no longer interested to crush us [physically]… When I was under investigation, they took the cross from my neck and smashed it: ‘Now Christ, let’s see if you work miracles!’ I said: ‘He will!’ After 40 years [of communism] He did miracles… And now… What did the devil say now? ‘Well, how should we do it? Let’s build churches, altars, we give them freedom, and we take [corrupt] them in a delicate manner’. Now the dragon is very wise…”
Without hope in God, or a meaningful reason to suffer, the promise of Paradise and purification through pain, political prisoners became suicidal subhuman animals. People were stripped naked, beaten, starved, spit on, tied up with wire, and beheaded. Their holy books were burned. They slept on mattresses made of straw and froze to death. 80,000 people were captured. Dead bodies were left right where they collapsed or thrown into the river to be eaten by fish. Most of them martyrs and Saints. In fact, you can tell the difference between the remains of the faithful and the unbelievers because some bones miraculously turned a different color and started gushing a supernatural substance called myrrh. It’s believed they were made pure by simply fighting the good fight.
But this soft and slow corruption of Christianity in the West is bringing the hopeless and meaningless Abyss of those prisons into the minds of the masses. Father Valerian also said “Our youth has been overwhelmed by the Internet, they only collect the bad things out of it.” Despite the physical and mental anguish he endured, the greatest joys he ever felt were experienced with his closest friends in those dim and dirty cells.
In fact, the priest said his soul hurts now that he is no longer there. During their imprisonment, they experienced real miracles. They were being persecuted for their faith, just like the first Christians had been. Even their forbidden Easter celebration was seen as a real Resurrection. They had no Bibles. But the Word was inscribed on their hearts. Somewhere they wrote the simple words “Christ is risen! We are people who believe in Resurrection. And forever and ever the nation does not perish…” They were punished. But they did not care.
“There will be a mass falling away from the faith; even many bishops will betray the faith, justifying themselves by pointing to the splendid position of the Church. A search for compromise will be the characteristic disposition of men. Straightforwardness of confession will vanish. Men will cleverly justify their fall, and an endearing evil will support such a general disposition.
Men will grow accustomed to apostasy from the truth and to the sweetness of compromise and sin. Antichrist will allow men everything, if only they ‘fall down and worship him.’ This is not something new. The Roman emperors were similarly prepared to grant the Christians freedom, if only they recognized [the emperor's] divinity and divine supreme authority; they martyred Christians only because they professed: ‘Worship God Alone and serve Him Alone.’”
According to Father Valerian Grecu, a Romanian Orthodox priest who survived the terrible tortures in Communist prisons that began in the 1940s and continued up until as recently as 1989, “Antichrist is no longer interested to crush us [physically]… When I was under investigation, they took the cross from my neck and smashed it: ‘Now Christ, let’s see if you work miracles!’ I said: ‘He will!’ After 40 years [of communism] He did miracles… And now… What did the devil say now? ‘Well, how should we do it? Let’s build churches, altars, we give them freedom, and we take [corrupt] them in a delicate manner’. Now the dragon is very wise…”
Without hope in God, or a meaningful reason to suffer, the promise of Paradise and purification through pain, political prisoners became suicidal subhuman animals. People were stripped naked, beaten, starved, spit on, tied up with wire, and beheaded. Their holy books were burned. They slept on mattresses made of straw and froze to death. 80,000 people were captured. Dead bodies were left right where they collapsed or thrown into the river to be eaten by fish. Most of them martyrs and Saints. In fact, you can tell the difference between the remains of the faithful and the unbelievers because some bones miraculously turned a different color and started gushing a supernatural substance called myrrh. It’s believed they were made pure by simply fighting the good fight.
But this soft and slow corruption of Christianity in the West is bringing the hopeless and meaningless Abyss of those prisons into the minds of the masses. Father Valerian also said “Our youth has been overwhelmed by the Internet, they only collect the bad things out of it.” Despite the physical and mental anguish he endured, the greatest joys he ever felt were experienced with his closest friends in those dim and dirty cells.
In fact, the priest said his soul hurts now that he is no longer there. During their imprisonment, they experienced real miracles. They were being persecuted for their faith, just like the first Christians had been. Even their forbidden Easter celebration was seen as a real Resurrection. They had no Bibles. But the Word was inscribed on their hearts. Somewhere they wrote the simple words “Christ is risen! We are people who believe in Resurrection. And forever and ever the nation does not perish…” They were punished. But they did not care.
They were told to quit their “nonsense” so they could go get married and live on a farm in peace like everyone else. But they remained unwaveringly steadfast and refused. Father Valerian said he also recalls a time right before the mass arrests when Mother Mihaela, who was just a little nun, went to him and said “Boys, the time will come when we will clog up the prisons. Even if they cut the flesh off you, don’t deny Christ!” He would find her later, after nearly a decade in prison, crawling on all fours as an officer kicked her to death. She left behind a message that simply said “I go where my brother died…”
Father Valerian’s mother and sister would also wash the wounded legs of another imprisoned priest, Father Ioan, who was lovingly compared to Peter the Apostle. During his 25 year prison sentence, Father Ioan was chained up as officers used a hammer to tear off his skin. He could hardly walk, but this didn’t stop them from telling him “Move, you bandit! Move, you criminal!” Father Ioan simply said “May our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ forgive you all your sins, including this one!” One officer stopped dead in his tracks. He couldn’t believe it.
After he was released, Father Valerian would cross paths with a former Communist who had tortured him, who was now selling drinks at a train station. The priest grabbed his hand and said “Do you know me?” After he said no, Father Valerian told him to look more carefully. He was shocked. “What do you want to do to me?” The priest replied “I’m not doing anything to you, if I wasn’t Romanian and Christian I’d cut your neck, but I’m Romanian, and because of you I was purified…” The retired officer began to weep.
Father Valerian would also miraculously cross paths with a woman who’d been looking for her missing father for years. The priest was able to tell her the story of his saintly martyrdom, and they cried together. But even more of these stories were shared with the world when Pastor Richard Wurmbrand testified to the truly evil experiments of the Communists before the US Senate when he revealed eighteen torture wounds to them as evidence in 1966.
He also told them, “Now the worst times came; the times of brain-washing. Those who have not passed through brain-washing can't understand what torture it is. From 5 in the morning until 10 in the evening… 17 hours a day… we had to sit just like this [he sat straight looking forward]. We were not allowed to lean. For nothing in the world could we rest a little bit-our head. To close your eyes was a crime! From 5 in the morning until 10 in the evening we had to sit like this and hear: 'Communism is good. Communism is good. Communism is good. Communism is good. Communism is good. Christianity is stupid! Christianity is stupid! Christianity is stupid! Nobody more believes in Christ. Nobody more believes in Christ. Give up! Give up! Give up!' For days, weeks, years, we had to listen to these things.”
Pastor Richard would go on to write about his experiences in a book called Tortured for Christ. In it, he described how he saw Christians “…tortured with red-hot iron pokers, in whose throats spoonfuls of salt had been forced, being kept afterward without water, starving, whipped, suffering from cold, and praying with fervor for the Communists. This is humanly inexplicable! It is the love of Christ, which was shed into our hearts.”
He passed away in 2001 after a long full life. In another publication titled Pastor Richard Wurmbrand: Finishing the Race, his last moments are described by Hieromonk Damascene, the abbot of the Saint Herman of Alaska Monastery who was mentored by Father Seraphim Rose.
Father Valerian’s mother and sister would also wash the wounded legs of another imprisoned priest, Father Ioan, who was lovingly compared to Peter the Apostle. During his 25 year prison sentence, Father Ioan was chained up as officers used a hammer to tear off his skin. He could hardly walk, but this didn’t stop them from telling him “Move, you bandit! Move, you criminal!” Father Ioan simply said “May our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ forgive you all your sins, including this one!” One officer stopped dead in his tracks. He couldn’t believe it.
After he was released, Father Valerian would cross paths with a former Communist who had tortured him, who was now selling drinks at a train station. The priest grabbed his hand and said “Do you know me?” After he said no, Father Valerian told him to look more carefully. He was shocked. “What do you want to do to me?” The priest replied “I’m not doing anything to you, if I wasn’t Romanian and Christian I’d cut your neck, but I’m Romanian, and because of you I was purified…” The retired officer began to weep.
Father Valerian would also miraculously cross paths with a woman who’d been looking for her missing father for years. The priest was able to tell her the story of his saintly martyrdom, and they cried together. But even more of these stories were shared with the world when Pastor Richard Wurmbrand testified to the truly evil experiments of the Communists before the US Senate when he revealed eighteen torture wounds to them as evidence in 1966.
He also told them, “Now the worst times came; the times of brain-washing. Those who have not passed through brain-washing can't understand what torture it is. From 5 in the morning until 10 in the evening… 17 hours a day… we had to sit just like this [he sat straight looking forward]. We were not allowed to lean. For nothing in the world could we rest a little bit-our head. To close your eyes was a crime! From 5 in the morning until 10 in the evening we had to sit like this and hear: 'Communism is good. Communism is good. Communism is good. Communism is good. Communism is good. Christianity is stupid! Christianity is stupid! Christianity is stupid! Nobody more believes in Christ. Nobody more believes in Christ. Give up! Give up! Give up!' For days, weeks, years, we had to listen to these things.”
Pastor Richard would go on to write about his experiences in a book called Tortured for Christ. In it, he described how he saw Christians “…tortured with red-hot iron pokers, in whose throats spoonfuls of salt had been forced, being kept afterward without water, starving, whipped, suffering from cold, and praying with fervor for the Communists. This is humanly inexplicable! It is the love of Christ, which was shed into our hearts.”
He passed away in 2001 after a long full life. In another publication titled Pastor Richard Wurmbrand: Finishing the Race, his last moments are described by Hieromonk Damascene, the abbot of the Saint Herman of Alaska Monastery who was mentored by Father Seraphim Rose.
Hieromonk Damascene said, on his death bed, Pastor Richard’s eyes looked “…like a sea of light opening into eternity…” Oddly enough, he died the day before the forty-ninth anniversary of the death of the man who saved his life. That man was Valeriu Gafencu, who Pastor Richard had miraculously crossed paths while they were both incarcerated. And that man is now known as the Saint of the Prisons.
Pastor Richard met the Saint of the Prisons while they were both deathly ill with tuberculosis. And after the Saint somehow received some nearly impossible to obtain medicine, he secretly gave it to Pastor Richard, who responded “I would like to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven by the same gateway as you.” He realized the Saint’s soul had already been made snow-white through suffering. The Saint was at peace with death. He knew for certain what came after and couldn’t wait to go Home. He was only 31 when he passed away.
Valeriu Gafencu was a Romanian born in 1921. He was raised by devout Orthodox Christian parents, and in 1940, after watching his pious father save him and his family from the Soviets, only to return to the battlefield on his own to suffer for Christ as a spiritual sacrifice, Valeriu vowed to always fight for his faith too. Valeriu’s father told him to take care of the family and died a year later after being arrested and deported somewhere beyond the Arctic Circle.
As a youth, Valeriu was a gifted student of law and philosophy who studied the ancient ascetics and put their principles into practice. He was very intelligent and kindhearted, and attracted many friends this way. Eventually, he would become associated with the Legion of the Archangel Michael, which was an organization originally intended to resist Communism by cultivating the virtues and spiritual disciplines of the Saints.
However, once it became political, some members of the so-called Legionnaire Movement turned violent, and even took back power in Romania. But they were quickly squashed again. During this time, Valeriu was a mentor to members of the Brotherhood of the Cross, a youth group under the Legionnaire Movement. Because of this, he was arrested with twenty-five other Legionnaires. However, he defended them in trial, and Valeriu was the only one convicted. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, where he would quickly attract new mentees.
He turned his cell into a spiritual school and formed a new brotherhood. They had a prayer schedule and studied secret copies of the Philokalia. They practiced confessing their sins to each other and discussed struggling for salvation. However, this made other groups of prisoners uncomfortable and they even turned hostile towards them. But to the shock of his followers, Valeriu was somehow able to make peace with them. He had a way with words.
According to a contemporary named lovan Ducici, “He was a poet by nature. It is said that poets are on the first step of the ladder to perfection. I read that somewhere…” According to another contemporary named Virgil Maxim, “In his light-bearing words, you could not tell if he was speaking from spiritual insight or if the Spirit was speaking through him.”
It’s said Valeriu’s head was always in the clouds. He was unpractical and irrationally enthusiastic. He could see beauty where others couldn’t. He’d gift his friends dead grass and call it a flower. He would sing beautiful hymns in the midst of depravity. He wore the same clothes until they fell apart. But he was always alert and aware. He was just truly otherworldly. And it was this childlike state of being that made him so strong. It’s said he wasn’t a martyr just for a day. He was a martyr every moment he endured heroically as he slowly died. Some prisoners even thought of him as an earthly angel. And he managed to make a name for himself this way.
Pastor Richard met the Saint of the Prisons while they were both deathly ill with tuberculosis. And after the Saint somehow received some nearly impossible to obtain medicine, he secretly gave it to Pastor Richard, who responded “I would like to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven by the same gateway as you.” He realized the Saint’s soul had already been made snow-white through suffering. The Saint was at peace with death. He knew for certain what came after and couldn’t wait to go Home. He was only 31 when he passed away.
Valeriu Gafencu was a Romanian born in 1921. He was raised by devout Orthodox Christian parents, and in 1940, after watching his pious father save him and his family from the Soviets, only to return to the battlefield on his own to suffer for Christ as a spiritual sacrifice, Valeriu vowed to always fight for his faith too. Valeriu’s father told him to take care of the family and died a year later after being arrested and deported somewhere beyond the Arctic Circle.
As a youth, Valeriu was a gifted student of law and philosophy who studied the ancient ascetics and put their principles into practice. He was very intelligent and kindhearted, and attracted many friends this way. Eventually, he would become associated with the Legion of the Archangel Michael, which was an organization originally intended to resist Communism by cultivating the virtues and spiritual disciplines of the Saints.
However, once it became political, some members of the so-called Legionnaire Movement turned violent, and even took back power in Romania. But they were quickly squashed again. During this time, Valeriu was a mentor to members of the Brotherhood of the Cross, a youth group under the Legionnaire Movement. Because of this, he was arrested with twenty-five other Legionnaires. However, he defended them in trial, and Valeriu was the only one convicted. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, where he would quickly attract new mentees.
He turned his cell into a spiritual school and formed a new brotherhood. They had a prayer schedule and studied secret copies of the Philokalia. They practiced confessing their sins to each other and discussed struggling for salvation. However, this made other groups of prisoners uncomfortable and they even turned hostile towards them. But to the shock of his followers, Valeriu was somehow able to make peace with them. He had a way with words.
According to a contemporary named lovan Ducici, “He was a poet by nature. It is said that poets are on the first step of the ladder to perfection. I read that somewhere…” According to another contemporary named Virgil Maxim, “In his light-bearing words, you could not tell if he was speaking from spiritual insight or if the Spirit was speaking through him.”
It’s said Valeriu’s head was always in the clouds. He was unpractical and irrationally enthusiastic. He could see beauty where others couldn’t. He’d gift his friends dead grass and call it a flower. He would sing beautiful hymns in the midst of depravity. He wore the same clothes until they fell apart. But he was always alert and aware. He was just truly otherworldly. And it was this childlike state of being that made him so strong. It’s said he wasn’t a martyr just for a day. He was a martyr every moment he endured heroically as he slowly died. Some prisoners even thought of him as an earthly angel. And he managed to make a name for himself this way.
A close friend named Alexandru Virgil loanid said, “Valeriu Gafencu penetrated into my consciousness suddenly and brightly. I was still free when I discovered that there was in Aiud prison, and later in the labor colony of Galda near Aiud, a youth — a political prisoner — who lived the Christian life, spreading around him a beneficent force which affected the other brothers in suffering and all those with whom he came into contact. He could have been a modern-day Paul. In the midst of trials sent by God, he did not cease to preach, to encourage, and to spiritually raise up those around him into Christian perfection.”
About Valeriu, Alexandru also said, “My first impression was particularly powerful. It seemed to me that he was emanating an unceasing river of love and a brilliant energy. It made me think of the aura around Saint Seraphim of Sarov. He was for me, without a doubt, a charismatic personality. However, we did not stay in the same cell, as I would have desired.”
Father George Calciu was another acquaintance of Valeriu who went on to become a priest after prison. About the Saint, he said, “It was enough just to see him and pass by him, to immediately feel the influence of Gafencu. We men who were freed from prison were moved many times. So Gafencu might spend time with some four hundred different people as they moved through the cell. The moment they were in the cell with Gafencu, they completely forgot any bad thought, any rebellion against Jesus Christ. A church was established there in the cell. There were young people, rebellions, conflicts, and so on, but he changed their soul and mind. Therefore, his memory is greatly revered, and the people who stayed with him in the same room still pray to him as to a Saint.”
In Father George Calciu’s book called Christ is Calling You, which is another publication from the Saint Herman of Alaska Monastery, the priest also detailed the earthly circumstances Valeriu was able to spiritually rise above. He said “It was the use of unbelievable means of physical and psychological torture that had been consciously devised to break the youth from their past — their Christian faith, family, love of country, and anything that was good and honorable — in order to recreate the 'new man.' After they were completely broken and had agreed under torture that they would embrace Communism, renounce faith in God, denounce others and give information, they were then forced to go into the cells of their brother prisoners and in turn perform the same methods of tortures as proof of their loyalty to Communism. The purpose was to destroy the personality of the individual and make him a tool of the state.”
Many prisoners had no idea what was happening. But once Valeriu helped them realize they were in a spiritual war, and not just a physical one, it all became clear. Like the Saints before him had, it’s believed Valeriu received the gift of unceasing prayer and achieved an adamic conscience, a state of mind like that of Adam in the paradisal Garden, which is capable of praying for the whole world, even in suffering.
He treated everyone like they were God’s children, including his tormentors. When his followers were upset by this, he reprimanded them, and said they were there to make the officers better, not worse. After persistently preaching to the officers, they actually started to like Valeriu. At one point, he was even offered his freedom if he simply stayed out of Romania. But Valeriu declined. He was content.
Valeriu claimed there are two paths to salvation, the normal one, which is marriage. And the rare one, which is monasticism. Well, he had his “monastery”. Plus, he had already tried to get married before and it didn’t work out. Valeriu and his “monastic” brotherhood eventually established such a good reputation in the prisons, they were trusted to guard one with weapons without any officers present. They promised not to escape. And they stayed true to that promise.
About Valeriu, Alexandru also said, “My first impression was particularly powerful. It seemed to me that he was emanating an unceasing river of love and a brilliant energy. It made me think of the aura around Saint Seraphim of Sarov. He was for me, without a doubt, a charismatic personality. However, we did not stay in the same cell, as I would have desired.”
Father George Calciu was another acquaintance of Valeriu who went on to become a priest after prison. About the Saint, he said, “It was enough just to see him and pass by him, to immediately feel the influence of Gafencu. We men who were freed from prison were moved many times. So Gafencu might spend time with some four hundred different people as they moved through the cell. The moment they were in the cell with Gafencu, they completely forgot any bad thought, any rebellion against Jesus Christ. A church was established there in the cell. There were young people, rebellions, conflicts, and so on, but he changed their soul and mind. Therefore, his memory is greatly revered, and the people who stayed with him in the same room still pray to him as to a Saint.”
In Father George Calciu’s book called Christ is Calling You, which is another publication from the Saint Herman of Alaska Monastery, the priest also detailed the earthly circumstances Valeriu was able to spiritually rise above. He said “It was the use of unbelievable means of physical and psychological torture that had been consciously devised to break the youth from their past — their Christian faith, family, love of country, and anything that was good and honorable — in order to recreate the 'new man.' After they were completely broken and had agreed under torture that they would embrace Communism, renounce faith in God, denounce others and give information, they were then forced to go into the cells of their brother prisoners and in turn perform the same methods of tortures as proof of their loyalty to Communism. The purpose was to destroy the personality of the individual and make him a tool of the state.”
Many prisoners had no idea what was happening. But once Valeriu helped them realize they were in a spiritual war, and not just a physical one, it all became clear. Like the Saints before him had, it’s believed Valeriu received the gift of unceasing prayer and achieved an adamic conscience, a state of mind like that of Adam in the paradisal Garden, which is capable of praying for the whole world, even in suffering.
He treated everyone like they were God’s children, including his tormentors. When his followers were upset by this, he reprimanded them, and said they were there to make the officers better, not worse. After persistently preaching to the officers, they actually started to like Valeriu. At one point, he was even offered his freedom if he simply stayed out of Romania. But Valeriu declined. He was content.
Valeriu claimed there are two paths to salvation, the normal one, which is marriage. And the rare one, which is monasticism. Well, he had his “monastery”. Plus, he had already tried to get married before and it didn’t work out. Valeriu and his “monastic” brotherhood eventually established such a good reputation in the prisons, they were trusted to guard one with weapons without any officers present. They promised not to escape. And they stayed true to that promise.
The only moral dilemma they encountered was whether or not it was okay to eat a few grapes from the nearby vineyard. Valeriu was the only one who didn’t. Nevertheless, before meeting Valeriu, Father George Calciu also miraculously crossed paths with another otherworldly man. Ironically, the man had been the head of the same Brotherhood of the Cross that Valeriu was a mentor to. When Father George first arrived in prison, he met Constantine Oprisan, the Philosopher and Martyr, who was so sick from being beaten, he was suffocating on his own bloody phlegm and coughing it up. But he still wasn’t bitter.
Father George said “I was ready to vomit. Constantine Oprisan noticed this and said to me, ‘Forgive me.’ I was so ashamed! Since I was a student in medicine, I decided then to take care of him.” Father George went on to say “He was not able to move, and I did everything for him. I put him on the bucket to urinate. I washed his body. I fed him. We had a bowl for food. I took this bowl and put it in front of his mouth. He was like a Saint. It was the first time that I was in contact with such a man.”
According to Father George, Constantine didn’t say much because he was usually too weak to speak. But when he did, it was always clever, and only about Christ, love, and forgiveness. He never really talked about himself. He saved his energy for his prayers, which were very deep and powerful. But he was praying all the time, even if he was silent. Father George said you could just tell when Constantine was in prayer because his face would totally transform. And he’d look that way every time Father George and his other cell mates started arguing. It usually made them feel shame and suddenly stop.
Constantine was very gentle. Despite being too weak to move, he still tried to protect his friends from his coughs. He didn’t want them to get sick too. Father George also said “We felt the presence of the Holy Spirit around him; we felt it. Even during his last days when he was no longer able to talk, he never lost his kindness toward us. We could read in his eyes the spiritual light and the love. It was like a flood of love in his face.”
But only a year after Father George met Constantine, the Saint quickly became more emaciated. And when he started to die, his eyes turned misty and lifeless, at least until the priest saw this and cried out “Constantine, don't die; don't die! Come back; come back!” He did come back to life, but look horrified. His face became childlike and he wept like a baby just being born. Father George said he thought Constantine must’ve tasted heaven. But the priest had forced him to come back to earth. Father George was ashamed. He felt he had committed a great sin. He just didn’t want to be alone.
But Constantine assured the priest he would pray for him from Paradise to make sure he didn’t die in prison like he would. He died a few minutes later. Father George said he believes that’s the only reason he was later freed. For the first time in a very long time, he was allowed outside to bury his friend, who no longer looked human. Just skin and bones. And the world beyond his cell, which was shiny and colorful, tormented him. It was a sadistic tease. Nevertheless, Father George still survived to tell the tale, and it was eventually turned into a documentary called 7 Words: the Story of a Conqueror.
During their short time together, Constantine taught Father George about true joy. The priest said “When I took care of Constantine Oprisan in the cell, I was very happy. I way very happy because I felt his spirituality penetrating my soul. I learned from him to be good, to forgive, not to curse your torturer, not to consider anything of this world to be a treasure for you. In fact, he was living on another level. Only his body was with us - and his love. Can you imagine? We were in a cell without windows, without air, humid, filthy - yet we had moments of happiness that we never reached in freedom. I cannot explain it.”
Father George said “I was ready to vomit. Constantine Oprisan noticed this and said to me, ‘Forgive me.’ I was so ashamed! Since I was a student in medicine, I decided then to take care of him.” Father George went on to say “He was not able to move, and I did everything for him. I put him on the bucket to urinate. I washed his body. I fed him. We had a bowl for food. I took this bowl and put it in front of his mouth. He was like a Saint. It was the first time that I was in contact with such a man.”
According to Father George, Constantine didn’t say much because he was usually too weak to speak. But when he did, it was always clever, and only about Christ, love, and forgiveness. He never really talked about himself. He saved his energy for his prayers, which were very deep and powerful. But he was praying all the time, even if he was silent. Father George said you could just tell when Constantine was in prayer because his face would totally transform. And he’d look that way every time Father George and his other cell mates started arguing. It usually made them feel shame and suddenly stop.
Constantine was very gentle. Despite being too weak to move, he still tried to protect his friends from his coughs. He didn’t want them to get sick too. Father George also said “We felt the presence of the Holy Spirit around him; we felt it. Even during his last days when he was no longer able to talk, he never lost his kindness toward us. We could read in his eyes the spiritual light and the love. It was like a flood of love in his face.”
But only a year after Father George met Constantine, the Saint quickly became more emaciated. And when he started to die, his eyes turned misty and lifeless, at least until the priest saw this and cried out “Constantine, don't die; don't die! Come back; come back!” He did come back to life, but look horrified. His face became childlike and he wept like a baby just being born. Father George said he thought Constantine must’ve tasted heaven. But the priest had forced him to come back to earth. Father George was ashamed. He felt he had committed a great sin. He just didn’t want to be alone.
But Constantine assured the priest he would pray for him from Paradise to make sure he didn’t die in prison like he would. He died a few minutes later. Father George said he believes that’s the only reason he was later freed. For the first time in a very long time, he was allowed outside to bury his friend, who no longer looked human. Just skin and bones. And the world beyond his cell, which was shiny and colorful, tormented him. It was a sadistic tease. Nevertheless, Father George still survived to tell the tale, and it was eventually turned into a documentary called 7 Words: the Story of a Conqueror.
During their short time together, Constantine taught Father George about true joy. The priest said “When I took care of Constantine Oprisan in the cell, I was very happy. I way very happy because I felt his spirituality penetrating my soul. I learned from him to be good, to forgive, not to curse your torturer, not to consider anything of this world to be a treasure for you. In fact, he was living on another level. Only his body was with us - and his love. Can you imagine? We were in a cell without windows, without air, humid, filthy - yet we had moments of happiness that we never reached in freedom. I cannot explain it.”
But it seems Father George may have also been a Saint himself. He went on to put what he learned from Constantine into practice. One time, two criminals were thrown into his cell to kill him. But Father George converted them to Christ. Another time, while he was being tortured by an officer, Father George looked his abuser right in the eye and boldly proclaimed “Christ is risen!” Then, instead of continuing to beat the priest, the officer yelled “In Truth He is Risen!” He nervously backed out of the cell and shut the door.
Afterwards, Father George had a vision of the Uncreated Light. He said “…I was petrified, because of what he had said. And little by little, I saw myself full of Light. The board against the wall was shining like the sun; everything in my cell was full of light. I cannot explain in words the happiness that invaded me then. I can explain nothing. It simply happened. I have no merit.”
Father George would pass away in 2006. And after his body was exhumed and found incorrupt 7 years later, it was declared a miracle. Apparently, Father George predicted this. But not in a good way. One month before his death, he said “The devil might use popular mythology to prevent my body from rotting and then the latter error could be greater than the former. If over the years, some construction needs [done] or for other reasons, my body will be dug up and, to the astonishment of many, it will be incorrupt, priests must read prayers over it for the undoing of this curse, to allow the body to decompose into the earth it was made from, since this [incorruption] is not from God but a deception from the Evil One. The priests who have seen my [incorrupt] body should be bound never to speak about this false miracle and my body should be placed into another grave and forgotten forever…”
So, I guess we will just have to wait and see what comes of this. Maybe it will have something to do with that “cultic Orthodoxy” referred to earlier. I don’t know. Nevertheless, it is foolish to think history won’t repeat itself, especially during these strange times. And if and when it does, these stories will be important to remember as a source of edification and encouragement.
Interestingly, the chaos magician’s ideas about fiction creating reality, or metatheatre, reality hacking, and culture jamming, are actually rooted in Marxist avant-garde performance art, which was originally intended to undermine capitalism by using absurdity to break the spell of conformity and cause anarchy. These convincing conspiracy theories, or hyperreal psyops, are no different. And they were planted by the same people who kill Christians.
So, if you’re still lost at the bottom of the rabbit hole like Tyrone in Gravity’s Rainbow, get out and find God. You’re being mind controlled. Like the rebellion in V for Vendetta, your views are being manipulated by a supercomputer called social media algorithms. You are in a reeducation experiment. You are helping them shatter reality. You are destroying the old universe and creating Crowley’s New Age of the Fool. You’ve been fooled. Wake up! War is coming. Both externally and internally. And you need to make sure you’re fighting in the right one.
If you don’t believe any of this, that’s fine. Like the wise and holy Saint of the Prisons said “…even if we do not succeed in changing the world, at least we have awakened people's interest. Let us make it so that they no longer feel good when they do evil; let us create obstacles; let us put questions before them; let us divert their steps.”
Afterwards, Father George had a vision of the Uncreated Light. He said “…I was petrified, because of what he had said. And little by little, I saw myself full of Light. The board against the wall was shining like the sun; everything in my cell was full of light. I cannot explain in words the happiness that invaded me then. I can explain nothing. It simply happened. I have no merit.”
Father George would pass away in 2006. And after his body was exhumed and found incorrupt 7 years later, it was declared a miracle. Apparently, Father George predicted this. But not in a good way. One month before his death, he said “The devil might use popular mythology to prevent my body from rotting and then the latter error could be greater than the former. If over the years, some construction needs [done] or for other reasons, my body will be dug up and, to the astonishment of many, it will be incorrupt, priests must read prayers over it for the undoing of this curse, to allow the body to decompose into the earth it was made from, since this [incorruption] is not from God but a deception from the Evil One. The priests who have seen my [incorrupt] body should be bound never to speak about this false miracle and my body should be placed into another grave and forgotten forever…”
So, I guess we will just have to wait and see what comes of this. Maybe it will have something to do with that “cultic Orthodoxy” referred to earlier. I don’t know. Nevertheless, it is foolish to think history won’t repeat itself, especially during these strange times. And if and when it does, these stories will be important to remember as a source of edification and encouragement.
Interestingly, the chaos magician’s ideas about fiction creating reality, or metatheatre, reality hacking, and culture jamming, are actually rooted in Marxist avant-garde performance art, which was originally intended to undermine capitalism by using absurdity to break the spell of conformity and cause anarchy. These convincing conspiracy theories, or hyperreal psyops, are no different. And they were planted by the same people who kill Christians.
So, if you’re still lost at the bottom of the rabbit hole like Tyrone in Gravity’s Rainbow, get out and find God. You’re being mind controlled. Like the rebellion in V for Vendetta, your views are being manipulated by a supercomputer called social media algorithms. You are in a reeducation experiment. You are helping them shatter reality. You are destroying the old universe and creating Crowley’s New Age of the Fool. You’ve been fooled. Wake up! War is coming. Both externally and internally. And you need to make sure you’re fighting in the right one.
If you don’t believe any of this, that’s fine. Like the wise and holy Saint of the Prisons said “…even if we do not succeed in changing the world, at least we have awakened people's interest. Let us make it so that they no longer feel good when they do evil; let us create obstacles; let us put questions before them; let us divert their steps.”
Loading suggestions...