CPT Spirits in the Sky - Marilyn Monroe - A Tribute and a Challenge - "a small girl in a big world trying to find someone to love."

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Marilyn Monroe born Norma Jeane Mortenson
June 1, 1926 – August 5, 1962

It has been 90 years since the most beautiful woman in the world was born, and 54 years since her life was cut short at much to early an age, just 36 years old.  Today she remains nearly as popular as when she was in her prime, and in nations like China she remains the number one Hollywood icon.  She was a breath of fresh air in a time the world needed to recover from World War II.

Candle in the Wind

Goodbye Norma JeanThough I never knew you at allYou had the grace to hold yourselfWhile those around you crawledThey crawled out of the woodworkAnd they whispered into your brainThey set you on the treadmillAnd they made you change your name
chorus:
And it seems to me you lived your lifeLike a candle in the windNever knowing who to cling toWhen the rain set inAnd I would have liked to have known youBut I was just a kidYour candle burned out long beforeYour legend ever did
Loneliness was toughThe toughest role you ever playedHollywood created a superstarAnd pain was the price you paidEven when you diedOh the press still hounded youAll the papers had to sayWas that Marilyn was found in the nude

 (repeat chorus)

Goodbye Norma JeanThough I never knew you at allYou had the grace to hold yourselfWhile those around you crawledGoodbye Norma JeanFrom the young man in the 22nd rowWho sees you as something more than sexualMore than just our Marilyn Monroe
(repeat chorus)

Music: Elton JohnLyrics: Bernie TaupinPiano and Vocals: Elton John

 

Who done it?  You Solve the Mysterious murder of Marilyn Monroe

You help solve the mystery of who killed the most famous Hollywood icon of the 20th Century.  When the world awakened on August 5, 1962, the most celebrated actress in Hollywood, Marilyn Monroe, was found dead in her home in California at the young age of 36.

It was the end of a tumultuous and meteoric rise from rags to riches for America's sweetheart and Hollywood icon whose name crossed paths with the rich, the powerful, the revered and the most sinister characters in the world.

The medical examiner quickly concluded she died of an overdose of prescription medicine but forensic evidence was insufficient to declare it a suicide so her death was labeled as "probable suicide".

The mishandling of the crime scene, the manipulation of evidence, the inconsistency or her actions prior to the death and the onslaught of media hype pushing the suicide theory by powerful forces triggered a firestorm of suspicion and doubt.

But a series of national and international events the next 15 months would bury her story in the avalanche of media coverage of the Cold War with the Soviets, the Kennedy administration war with the La Casa Nostra, the evolving Vietnam war and the Kennedy assassination.

  

For the past 52 years the American public has been brainwashed with stories of the addictions and depression of film legend Marilyn Monroe that led to her death by suicide.  She has been pictured as an insecure and fragile girl whose mother was sent to an insane asylum as Marilyn was bounced from foster home to foster home to orphanage.

In fact, according to Marilyn she was sent to ten total places, foster homes and the orphanage, before she married a merchant marine when she turned 16 to avoid being sent back to the orphanage.  Because of her shuffling between homes she attended 6 different elementary schools in seven years.

But the vast majority of her experiences were good, she got along well with other children and often created games for her friends to play.  It was during this period she developed her desire to be a star and began to create the persona she believed she needed to be successful.

Her first marriage lasted about 4 years, 1942-1946, although her husband was  away during most of World War II.  She was working in an armament factory toward the end of the war when she was discovered at an assembly line by a photographer searching for the next pin up queen for the soldiers.

By 1946 Norma Jean first began using the name Marilyn Monroe when her popularity as a pin up queen got the notice of movie studios.  Marilyn had already begun singing and dancing lessons and had developed exceptional fitness and diet routines on her own, routines that would result in her being known as the most beautiful woman in the world.

At first it was her voice that got recognized although she did not get along with the movie tyrant Darryl Zanuck, head of 20th Century Fox, her studio most of her short career.  Many of her early film roles were uncredited, even when performing songs, a way the studio could avoid paying performance fees to actors.

Marilyn seemed to know what was expected of Hollywood stars in the golden age of film and she gave the studio what it wanted.  She quickly grew from a $125.00 a week extra to singing and then acting roles as she became more popular but as did most studios at the time, she was treated as a commodity.

In 1952 and 1953 her film roles pushed her to the top of the list in popularity but her studio handlers still insisted she play the dumb blond in comedies and though her films made more money than those of Elizabeth Taylor, Monroe was paid $100,000 per film compared to Taylor at $1 million per film.

Our next installment will review the actions the supposedly dumb blond pulled that turned the movie industry upside down and eventually would force the studios to give her challenging dramatic roles like she wanted along with a salary equal to Elizabeth Taylor.

While she would be known as Marilyn Monroe from the late 1940's on she did not have her name legally changed from Norma Jean Mortensen to Marilyn Monroe until 1956.

As for the mystery of her death, by 1953 she was already acquainted with several people on the list of suspects or collaborators whose connections to others on the list in the immediate future would result in her becoming a serious threat to their careers and would endanger her life.

Probable Suspects, Collaborators and Contributors

Frank Costello, Joseph Kennedy partner and New York mobster

Sam Giancana, Chicago, Miami and Los Angeles mob boss

Joseph Kennedy, patriarch of Kennedy family

John F. Kennedy, former president

Robert Kennedy, former attorney general

Peter Lawford, Kennedy in law

Arthur Miller, former husband to Marilyn

Santo Trafficante, Jr., Florida mob boss

Ralph Greenson, Marilyn psychiatrist

Eunice Murray, Marilyn housekeeper

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Saviors of the 20th Century (a) - Hitler and Stalin - Table of Contents

The war of annihilation between the Nazis and Communists

A number of people have asked for more details on the contents of my book Saviors of the 20th Century now available worldwide on Amazon Kindle books.  The table of contents follows so you can grasp the full scope of the book from the origins of Communism to Nazism and the lives of Hitler and Stalin.

Of particular interest may be the relationship of Jews to both the Communist and Nazi movements as well as the mindset of Hitler and Stalin that led to 220 million deaths at their hands.

ISBN 0964599317

LCCN 2004095812

Available worldwide through Amazon Kindle books.

http://www.amazon.com/Saviors-20th-Century-Hitler-ebook/dp/B0040ZNU76/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1285077808&sr=1-1

Saviors of the 20th Century - Hitler and Stalin

Table of Contents

• Prologue

Why Saviors?
Where is Truth?
Maya - The Illusion of Earth
Those that Fear Prophecy lack Faith
Journey to the Past
Searching for Stalin’s Secrets
Adventures in Motherland
To the Russian Frontier
Beyond the Looking Glass

1. A Search for Truth

Introduction
Striking Similarities
Hard Facts Discovered
Strange Truths Revealed
The Fallacy of History
Warning Signs

2. A World in Turmoil

Revolutionary Fervor
Legacy of Revolutions
Legacy of Wars

3. Communist Evolution - Germany

Origin of the Term “Communist”
Hegel - German Socialist Philosopher
Early German Socialist Revolutionaries
Influential German Writers
German Marxist Communism
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)

4. Communist Evolution - Russia

Pre-revolution Anti-Tsarist Political Movements - Russia
Russian Jewish Revolutionaries
Mikhail Bakunin and the Anarchists
Sergi Nechayev - Bakunin Disciple
Anti-Semitism Prevails
Jewish Political Parties
Russia - Motherland of the Social Experiment
Lenin - The Soul of Communism
The Early Years
Socialist Organizer
Revolutionary Leader
Leon Trotsky (1879-1940)
Early Political Life
Revolutionary Leadership
Life and Death in Exile
Communist Party Timetable
Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP)
Bolsheviks and the 1905 Revolution
The Revolution of 1917
Jewish-Bolsheviks
Jewish Treatment by Soviets
Russian Jewish Money from America

5. Financing Wars and Revolution

Emergence of Jewish Moneylenders
The Jewish Banking Houses
The International Bankers
Bankers Role in American Civil War
Post Civil War -- American and African Monopolies
Financing the Communist Revolution
The Bolshevik Re-revolution

6. Josef Stalin – The Man of Steel

The Early Years
The Young Revolutionary
Lenin and Stalin
Russian Revolution of 1905
Lenin’s Counter-Revolution
Bolshevik Revival of 1911
February Revolution of 1917
October Revolution of 1917
The Civil War of 1918
Battle for Succession 1920
Illnesses Sweep the Leadership
Stalin Consolidates Control

7. Adolf Hitler – Messiah of the Third Reich

The Early Years
Hitler Loses Faith
A Bohemian in Vienna
Military Life and Honors
The German Marxist Revolution
Hitler’s Communist Subversive Bureau
Hitler and the Occult
Aleister Crowley - The Beast “666”
Other Occult Advisors
Himmler - High Priest of the SS
Hitler’s Miraculous Escapes
Hitler and the Jewish Bolsheviks
Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion
The Communist Manifesto
Jewish Declaration of War
The Rise of the Nazis
Hitler and His Doctors
Anti-Semitism Explodes
Poland - Armageddon of WWII
Dancing with the Devil

8. World War II (1939-1945)

Hitler Saves the English
The Devil’s Triangle
Himmler’s Death Squads
The Jewish Relocation Program
Tearing the Lid off Hell
Resistance Intensifies
The Final Solution
Concentration Camps - Labor and Death
Nazi Occupation of Eastern Europe
The Angel Among Demons
Hitler’s Reign Ends
Hitler’s Mysterious Death
Why Stalin Stole Hitler’s Body
Deaths in the European War

9. The “Other” Holocaust

Jewish Population Trends
Jewish Migration Patterns
Chart - Population Distribution
Chart - 20th Century Migration
The Nazi Holocaust
The Other Nazi Holocaust
The Soviet Holocaust
Bolshevik Extermination Leaders
Missing Population of the Soviet Union
Communist Genocide Program

10. Conclusion

The Devil’s Advocates
War asnd Revolution
Ancient German History
American Isolation
Hitler - The Great Dilemma
Ancient Jewish History
Stalin - Gravedigger of the Revolution
Lost Souls of the Atrocities
20th Century Paradox

Appendixes

1. Communist Manifesto
2. Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion
3. Selected Bibliography
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Saviors of the 20th Century (5) - Hitler and Stalin - Brings History to Life

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The war of annihilation between the Nazis and Communists

ISBN 0964599317
LCCN 2004095812

Available worldwide through Amazon Kindle books

http://www.amazon.com/Saviors-20th-Century-Hitler-ebook/dp/B0040ZNU76/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1285077808&sr=1-1

Finally a book that brings history to life in a way that captures your attention and shatters your perception of truth. Saviors of the 20th Century - Hitler and Stalin uses a layered history technique that should become the standard for any “objective” treatment of our past.

Through this technique the author, Jim Putnam, weaves the threads of hundreds of seemingly disparate and disconnected events and people into a breath-taking mosaic of astonishing truth.

Most people know what happened in the 20th century. Yet the author’s investigative reporting techniques help you discover why things happened, who was behind them, and what was hidden from the public.

From beginning to end you are bombarded with an avalanche of new information that peels back the veils of deception and leads to truths hidden from us for more than half a century. If you grew up like most people thinking history was boring and inconsequential this is a must read for history will never be boring again.

This is not a recitation of facts and figures about some long ago events that took place in some distant places. What happened in Hitler’s Nazi Empire and Stalin’s Communist Empire was directly connected to events in America and throughout the world.

In fact, before the Bolsheviks could steal Russia from the Provisional government that overthrew the Tsar in 1917 it would take millions of dollars flowing into Russia from American Communist sympathizers. When the Bolsheviks did take power, two thirds of the new Communist government leadership came from the East Side of New York.

Sometimes the passage of time can open the door to new information and better perspectives of what took place. Some events like World War II are so overwhelming, we are unable to step back and understand the relationship of that war to other things going on in the world. And typically the first books after an event, those purportedly documenting history, are written by those who are least objective with a cause to advocate.

Saviors makes no such mistakes. It is a refreshing, objective and comprehensive look at the inevitable war of annihilation between Hitler’s Nazis and Stalin’s Communists, what happened and how it happened. The world is the canvas for the picture Saviors paints and the colors run through continents and across time engulfing the entire world into the revolutionary fervor of the 19th century, leading to the destruction of the 20th century.

The popular X Files TV series had the theme “The Truth is Out There.” It certainly was, and the truth was discovered and exposed in the landmark work Saviors of the 20th Century - Hitler and Stalin. As a historical work it has opened the door to a new and objective look at the past. As a political and philosophical work, it makes sense of events and developments that made no sense before.

The author describes his hope for the impact of the book as “being like a pebble tossed into a still pond. A tiny pebble can send ripples across the pond to the farthest shores. If the ripples represent the threads of truth unveiled, then others will be awakened by the ripples and can pursue the truth further."

He was right about awakening the truth. But he was wrong about the pebble. Saviors was not a tiny pebble leading to truth but a giant boulder of granite. And it wasn’t a ripple that resulted when it hit the water but a tidal wave.
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Presidential Election -The Conventions are over - It is Time for the Main Event - Let the games Begin

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Today it is August 1, the political primary season is over, and the race to the finish has finally begun.  Where do we stand and what are the prospects?

First of all we need to step back and assess all the strange twists and turns we have already seen but before we do that we need to decompress from what is a primary season like no other.

When this began a little over a year ago who would have guessed the outcome?

The GOP, with a wealth of seemingly qualified candidates, winds up with a sole survivor who has never served in any elective office from dogcatcher on up.  Apparently, Barack Obama has broken the glass ceiling of running for office without experience.

In the Democratic corner, the entire Democratic Party apparatus, built to insure Hillary Clinton would be heir apparent to Obama in order to protect his legacy, pre-selected her as the candidate.  Yet it took millions of dollars for her just to beat an upstart socialist called Bernie Sanders who refused to be a Democrat until he ran for office, then immediately gave up his registration when he lost.

During the campaign, Trump rode the wave of discontent plaguing the nation for decades and forgot he was just the messenger for the disgruntled masses, and not the Messiah.  Consistently he was his own worst enemy letting his rather enormous ego dominate good judgment.

Hillary tried to make it a case of Trump being evil when the public believed the entire political establishment was evil, both Democrats and Republicans.

Meanwhile, the rest of the establishment had no clue they were the target along with the politicians.  Big business, big government, the news media, Wall Street, the special interest industry, health care manipulators, and unions opposed to teacher accountability, all were part of the same smorgasbord of card-carrying defenders of the status quo, or the dreaded establishment.

Look at what they missed.  While the favorable rating of politicians and congress was reaching new lows, the news media was far worse.  None of the traditional establishment has favorable ratings today because none has earned the respect of the public.

Polarization was certainly encouraged, if not advocated, by the Obama Administration and it led to a president handcuffed for eight long years.  As a result, most of his major campaign promises failed and once again, the politicians had lied to the public.

Voter mistrust and discontent have dominated and will continue to dominate the election.  At the same time, the strategies of the campaigns and the actions of the news media have exasperated the polarization.

The highest unfavorable ratings ever recorded plague both major party candidates.  Where does that leave America with just 98 days left before we choose a new leader.

At the same time a wary world audience watches in astonishment, wonder, puzzlement, and amazement as the Republic of America plods through a painful and soul searching campaign to pick the next leader of the free world.

Here are the facts as near as they can be determined at this point.

Well over 50% of the public do not trust either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.  Both have done nothing to dispel this feeling of mistrust, but actually have helped fuel it.  At the same time the news media bias has been so pronounced that virtually no one can be trusted to tell the truth.

The result is each candidate has about 40% of the vote, more or less a dead heat at this time.  Approximately half of each candidate's support comes from traditional Democrats or Republicans who toe the party line.  The other half come from people who hate or are terrified of the other candidate.

That is the tragedy of polarization.

The deciding vote for our next president will most likely be cast based on a "lesser of two evils," or "who is hated less" philosophy having nothing to do with party platforms, leadership ability, or who wants to serve all the people.

My predictions

Though it is far too early to prognosticate, I want to project what might happen if we can see through the fog bank to the conclusion of this most disturbing election campaign.

First, I do not believe the winner will come close to 50% of the vote.  Since almost half of the eligible voters are so disgusted with the system they will not even register to vote, that is not a good sign.

Voter turnout, however, is only measured by those who are registered to vote, thus ignoring the protest of half the voters.  This demonstrates that we live by a limited democracy at best, and indicates majority rule is not part of the American political process.

Of the registered voters, I believe the winner will win with 43-45% of the popular vote.  This is not as bad as you may think because Bill Clinton won election in 1992 with just 43% of the vote, while third party candidate Ross Perot received nearly 19%.

I expect a similar outcome for president.

As for the winner, so far Trump has not earned the respect of the public nor demonstrated characteristics of a calm and stabilizing force we need in a president.  Nor has he shown he has the ideas to fix the problems he has identified.

It seems as if he cannot accept the fact he is the messenger for the discontent of the people and not the messiah leading them.  The discontent has been growing for decades while Trump is new to the world of politics.  With his ego driven desire to comment on every reference to the name Trump in the media, he has shown no ability to govern with humility nor desire to help all the people with their problems/

Hillary shares a tendency to believe her own press at times projecting a feeling of entitlement to the position of president because of that is what the people owe her for a lifetime of public service.  However, her lifetime of service contains a lot of missteps, mistakes, and bad decisions.

I often wonder if she might be far ahead if she got off the woman's platform, abortion advocacy, and progressive sellout and just said I made mistakes but you know me, and we know nothing about what Donald would do as president.

For those of you too young or with a reality block on history, her husband Bill received 43% of the vote in 1992.  Then realized his only chance of being re-elected in 1996 was to run on the Republican principles and move to the center, which he did, winning with 49% of the vote in spite of many morality issues.

As of today, just one to three percent of the undecided voters will most likely select the winner.  They are about the only segment of the electorate more concerned with the good of the nation than punishing someone they have grown to hate.

It is a sad state of affairs when objective voters represent so few Americans.  Just ask yourself why you are really supporting the candidate of your choice.

If Hillary can just ignore her campaign advisors who keep trying to program her and lie low Trump will most likely defeat himself.  It will be far too close for comfort, but in the end, those who want change will not place it in the hands of someone they do not trust, and Trump has done little to earn the trust of the disenfranchised majority.

So I expect Hillary to win a nail biter  Do not be surprised, if the people do elect Hillary, that out of caution and prudence they also elect a Republican congress to make certain she has the same success with her progressive agenda as Barack Obama.  It is a check and balance the public has used often to keep the politicians in check.

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Joan of Arc, Maiden of Orlѐans, Savior of France - Desperately needed Today!

Louis Kossuth, a great Hungarian revolutionary hero and champion of liberty in the 19th century said this about Joan of Arc.

"Consider this unique and imposing distinction.  Since the writing of human history began, Joan of Arc is the only person, of either sex, who has ever held supreme command of the military forces of a nation at the age of seventeen."

Let me give you a brief overview of her life.

Most of us have heard the story of Joan of Arc, the French girl born January 6, 1412, who had visions and heard voices from St. Michael, St. Catherine of Alexandria, and St. Margaret of Antioch.  The voices started at age 13½, the summer of 1425.

By May 1428, she no longer doubted the source of the voices and their insistence she must help the king of France.  She was to lead the French army against the English and stop the English from conquering France.  When her voices told her to see the king's commander, she made the trip in June and faced disrespect by the rude and dissolute soldier.

On October 12, 1428, English troops surrounded the town of Orlѐans, and laid siege, a truly tragic turn of events.  As the ever more insistent voices demanded she see the king, she went again in January 1429 and got to the king on March 8.

Upon convincing the king of her sincerity and determination, Joan became supreme commander of the French army, and on April 30, Joan led the previously demoralized French army into Orlѐans.  By May 8, Joan had captured all the surrounding English forts and raised the siege.

On July 29, 1429, Charles VII, with Joan at his side, was crowned King in the city of Reims.

Joan continued her ferocious assault on the English and on May 24, 1430, an overwhelming Burgundian force, loyal to the English, captured Joan after the battle of Compiègne.

Sold to the English, Joan went to prison where her hands, feet, and neck where locked in chains, while being held for an Ecclesiastical court trial, where she was charged with witchcraft and heresy.

The trial started February 21, 1431, convicted Joan of being a heretic on May 29, 1431, and burnt her at the stake May 30, 1431.  She died at nineteen years of age.

Consider the brief career of one of the most beloved heroes in French history and successful military commanders in the history of warfare.  By age 13, Joan began hearing voices.  These voices convinced her to go to the king by age 17 with her plan to save France.

She spent one year, until age 18, leading her troops in driving the English from Northern provinces of France.  Once captured, she spent her final year as a prisoner of the English before her death at the stake, at just 19½ years old.

    

In the end, the king she installed and the country she saved had abandoned Joan, as had her beloved Roman Catholic Church.  Joan of Arc, God's warrior, and French martyr, disappeared and seemed forgotten.

So how did this convicted heretic become one of the most popular and least understood saints in the church?

That, my friends, is the rest of the story and what a story Joan has to tell.

To discover the truth about Joan of Arc we must journey through a story with all the elements of an Academy Award winning movie.  Her story was set against a backdrop of the previous millennium, when France earned recognition as "God's special country" for Roman Catholics, with her people dedicated to faith and the church.

Timeline - All Dates Anno Domini A.D. the year of our Lord

33        Death of Jesus

305      Death of Saint Catherine of Alexandria

306      Death of Saint Margaret of Antioch

324      Constantine calls the Council of Nicea

1291    Crusades end

1347    Black Death Plague hits Europe

1336    Hundred Years War between England, Scotland, and France begins

1412    Joan of Arc born in Domremy, Lorraine Province

1425    Joan first hears voices & saw visions

1428    June - Joan tries to reach French King

1428    October - English lay siege to Orlѐans

1429    March 8 - Joan finally meets French king

1429    April 30 - Joan, Supreme Commander of French army, enters Orlѐans

1429    May 8 - English abandon siege of Orlѐans

1429    July 29 - Charles VII, with Joan at his side, is crowned King in Reims

1430    May 24 - Joan is captured at Compiѐgne & sold to English

1431    February 21 - Joan's trial begins for witchcraft & heresy

1431    May 29 - Joan convicted of being heretic

1431    May 30 - Joan burnt at the stake

1455    King & Pope seek revision of her trial results

            Appellate Court reverses and annuls verdict

1776    Lorraine Province (Domremy) joins French Kingdom

1787    French Revolution begins

1793    Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette put to death

1803    Napoleon begins rehabilitating Joan's reputation 

1869    Bishop of Orlѐans requests investigation for beautification

1896    Mark Twain anomalously publishes Joan of Arc

1909    April 11 - Pope Pius X issues beatification decree

1920    Pope Benedict XV canonizes Joan a Saint

            

Early in the millennium, Europe had just completed the crusades (1095 until 1291).

During the one hundred years before Joan lived, from 1347-1352 the Black Death plague killed 20 million Europeans, (forty to fifty percent of the entire European population), and up to one hundred million people would die worldwide before it was through.

From 1336 to 1443, the Hundred Years War raged between France, England, and Scotland.  By the time Joan was born, France was nearly devastated, England was prepared to appoint the next king of France, the French had lost most of the populous Northern provinces, and the French army was a disgrace.

Such was the world as we enter the age of Joan in 1412.

How often do biographies of Saints talk about a childhood raised in an environment that finds a blending of ancient magic, mystery, and fairies with modern Christianity, at least modern in 1412?

Most people do not know that Joan, the patron saint of France, was not a native of France and did not live in France when told she must save France.

On several occasions, her voices shared prophecy with Joan, which she passed on to authorities at a time the Inquisition was suspicious of any metaphysical or mystical activities including seers and prophets.

The total disregard for law, morality, respect, and justice played out between the French, the English, the church, and Joan's accusers during the Ecclesiastical court trial and her death by burning at the stake, is among the most malicious, evil, and heinous acts in history.

During her one year as a prisoner of the English in Rouen, Joan received the most disgusting, degrading, humiliating, and demeaning treatment humanly possible from extreme mental to physical abuse.

No one of authority in the church or France made any effort to help Joan in her defense or attempt to ransom her.       

Why did it take the church 489 years, nearly one-half a century, to complete the canonization of St. Joan?

From the time Joan was born in 1412 until her canonization in 1920, there were 53 popes and 3 antipopes including two who ignored her direct appeal for help. 

Why did English writers and historians in the 17th century, and then Scottish writers in the 19th century become the first to champion her cause for sainthood?

Perhaps most unusual of all, why did beloved American storyteller Mark Twain write a most extraordinary and thoroughly documented biography about Joan of Arc, a book he considered his best work, which took Samuel Clemens 12 years to research and two more years to write?

Mark Twain's story, Joan of Arc, appeared in serial form in 1896 and book form in 1899, just a decade before Pope Pius X issued her beautification decree April 11, 1909, and two decades before her canonization in 1920 by Pope Benedict XV.

  

As you can see, I have a lot to cover to do justice to the reputation and stature of one of my favorite saints.

As Mark Twain noted, the details of the life of Joan of Arc form a biography, which is unique among the world's biographies in one respect: It is the only story of a human life, which comes to us under oath, the only one that comes to us from the witness stand.

The official records of the Great Trial of 1431, and of the Process of Rehabilitation of a quarter of a century later, remain preserved in the National Archives of France, and they furnish with remarkable fullness the facts of her life.

Joan was born in the village of Domremy, in the east of France.  It was part of the independent Duchy of Bar, itself part of Lorraine, the last province to join the French kingdom in 1776.  Joan was not even a citizen of France although Domremy was loyal to the French King Charles VII.   

Just outside the village lay an ancient and magical forest, and for over 500 years, the Fairies of the forest watched over the village children.  To honor their protectors, on summer days the children gathered in the forest around a magnificent beech tree, to sing and dance for hours together.

Here they made wreathes of flowers and placed them on the tree and in the spring beside the tree, to please the fairies that lived there.  For hundreds of years, the kids of Domremy were the Children of the Tree.  Joan was one of these children according to the court transcripts.

When she was 13, Joan began hearing voices she identified as Saint Michael, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, and Saint Margaret of Antioch.  Catherine and Margaret were among the Fourteen Holy Helpers, a group of ancient Catholic martyrs and saints called upon to help Europe overcome the Black Death Plague just 50 years earlier.

Ironically, both Saints were beautiful, humble, strong, and defiant and died teenage virgins, killed because they refused to marry prominent Roman officials.  Saint Margaret was 15 years old when she died in 306 AD and Saint Catherine was 18 in 305 AD when she died.  They shared many attributes with Joan.

On several occasions, her voices told her prophecies to pass on to others, in order to overcome roadblocks.  For example, she was able to convince the French commander to help her see the king with the help of her voices.  The second time she saw the commander, in February, she told him the French suffered a great defeat in the Battle of Herring, which proved to be true.

When she finally met the king, she went straight to the disguised monarch and bowed, stunning the room full of the king's court and the king.  When she told the king his secret that no one else knew, it convinced the skeptical king to let her proceed.  Her voices guided her through all the traps

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Joan prepared to take command of the army, and her voices told her to create a standard, bearing the words Jesus and Maria, with a picture of God the Father, and kneeling angels presenting a fleur-de-lis.

"I had a banner, the field of which was sown with lilies. On it the world was represented [the image of God holding the world] and two angels at the sides. It was of linen or white boucassin. There was written upon it, as it seems to me, these words: Jesus Maria, and it was fringed with silk."

                        Joan of Arc's description of her banner at her trial in Rouen

Joan of Arc carried a special banner (battle standard) made by a Scottish painter (Hauves Poulvoir) while she was at Tours preparing to lead the army of France.  Joan testified at her trial that she created her Banner by the command of God.  Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret gave her instructions about the design and told her to take it and bear it boldly.

The king offered her a sword to carry when leading the army but she begged to search for an ancient sword buried behind the alter in the chyapel of Ste-Catherine-de-Fierbois.

In the very spot her voices indicated, they found the sword.

Perhaps the most interesting fact connected with her voices at this early stage of her mission is a letter Sire de Rotslaer wrote from Lyons on April 22, 1429, delivered at Brussels and duly registered, as the manuscript to this day attests, before any of the events occurred.

The Maid, he reports, said

 "that she would save Orléans and would compel the English to raise the siege, that she herself in a battle before Orléans would be wounded by a shaft, but would not die of it, and that the King, in the course of the coming summer, would be crowned at Reims, together with other things which the King keeps secret." 

All came true.

The accuracy of the prophecies of Joan, her use of men's white armor to hide her beauty and protect her virginity, the strict discipline and morality she demanded of her army, and her fearless tendency to lead her troops into battle brandishing only her Banner, won over the king and the military.

Make no mistake, in a few short years our poor, illiterate village girl who knew nothing about commanding armies and could not even ride a horse, was Supreme Commander of the French army leading her worn out troops into battle on her magnificent stallion, against one of the world superpowers, England.

Calling upon faith stronger than most can ever imagine, she stopped a siege, drove the English into retreat, and brought to an inglorious end the Hundred Years War England fought against France and Scotland.  Her brilliant military strategy enabled France to beat the odds and in time drive the English out of France.   

When they captured Joan under mysterious circumstances, she already knew from her voices she would live for just one more year, and it would be the most difficult year of her life.  Her freedom was still possible through ransom or a prisoner exchange by the French or the church but no one tried, so her captures sold her to English supporters.

Politics, greed, deceit, fear, humiliation, all drove those in power to want her to go away, vanish from the history books.  There can be no doubt that the English feared their prisoner with a superstitious terror, and were ashamed of the dread which she inspired, so they were determined at all costs to take her life.

An Ecclesiastical court trial of Joan began in the English-held city of Rouen.  Her attitude was always fearless, and March 1 while being interrogated, Joan boldly announced that, "within seven years' space the English would have to forfeit a bigger prize than Orléans."  In fact,Paris was lost to Henry VI on November 12, 1437 — six years and eight months afterwards.

There is no time to explain the outrageous manipulation of the government, church, and rules of law as she was continually tortured, interrogated, and humiliated before the courts.  On March 17, 1431, Joan stood accused of 70 counts of witchcraft and being a heretic, the number of charges then reduced to 12.

Torture and techniques to break her spirit continued until May 9 when it was clear she would not break.  In the end, they dropped the witchcraft charges and convicted her of being a heretic, with the most prominent charge being she wore the clothes of a male.

Threatened and exhausted, at one point she signed a retraction witnesses said was just eight lines long, that took over a half hour to read, which included a provision if her life was spared she could never wear male clothes again.  The jailers and prosecutors then conspired to threaten to rape her and within a few days of her agreement, she returned to wearing male clothing to discourage rape.

On May 29, a court of thirty-seven judges decided unanimously that the Maid was a relapsed heretic, thus sentencing her to death at the stake, a sentence actually carried out the next day, May 30, 1431.

The morning of the execution Joan made her confession and received Communion.  Witnesses to her death said her demeanor at the stake was such as to move even her bitter enemies to tears.

She asked for a cross, which she embraced, and then held before her while she called continuously upon the name of Jesus, as the flames engulfed her.  After her death, soldiers took her heart, which failed to burn, and her ashes, and unceremoniously threw them into the Seine River to make sure no relics emerged.

Indeed, they almost succeeded in making her vanish for there was no protest, riots, or pilgrimages over Joan's conviction or burning at the stake.  The fact the English controlled

In yet another peculiar twist to the Joan story, her brothers embraced another young girl and for the next 20 years declared that Joan had escaped the fire and was alive.  As a result, her family continued to receive financial assistance from the province and the brothers made many appearances with the fake Joan receiving gifts and money.

About twenty-four years after her death, Charles VII, concerned that his monarchy was achieved thanks to a convicted heretic, and it might jeopardize hereditary claims to the throne in the future, sought a revision of her trial, the procès de réhabilitation.

This time the French monarchy and Pope were deeply involved as both wanted to correct a major failure to defend Joan during the first trial.  Now an appellate court constituted by the pope, after long inquiry and examination of witnesses, reversed and annulled the sentence pronounced by a local tribunal under Cauchon's presidency.

The illegality of the former proceedings was clear, and it speaks well for the sincerity of this new inquiry.  With the rejection of the original sentence, there was some degree of reproach upon both the King of France and the Church at large, seeing that so great an injustice existed for such a long time.

Still little came of the action in terms of Joan and her standing in the church and history books.  English writers beginning in the seventeenth century began writing favorably about the Maid and by the nineteenth century De Quincey, in particular, showed more respect for her than those in her own land.

As for France, the St. Joan of Arc Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico describes the political and secular issues in France during the ensuing years as follows.

The powers in charge during the French Revolution (1787 -1799) were very cruel to Joan of Arc's memory.  They canceled the May 8th procession that had been held at Orleans continuously since two years after Joan's death.  They also destroyed statues and crosses that were set up to honor Joan of Arc and they burned her relics, consisting of her hat that she gave to Charlotte, her standard and a sword that had belonged to her.

For the next ten years Joan's memory was relegated to the shadows of French life as on July 14, 1789, the Parisian crowd seized the Bastille, a symbol of royal tyranny.  On June 20–21, 1791, Louis XVI tried to flee the country, but was captured at Varennes, and brought back to Paris.

Believing they were betrayed by the king and the aristocrats, the Paris revolutionaries rose on August 10, 1792, occupied Tuileries Palace, where Louis XVI was living, and imprisoned the royal family in the Temple.  At the beginning of September, the Parisian crowd broke into the prisons and massacred the nobles and clergy held there.

Meanwhile, the National Convention was divided between the Girondins, who wanted to organize a bourgeois republic in France and to spread the Revolution over the whole of Europe, and the Montagnards (“Mountain Men”), who, with Robespierre, wanted to give the lower classes a greater share in political and economic power  

In spite of efforts by the Girondins to save him, judgment on Louis XVI was passed by the National Convention of revolutionaries, he was condemned to death for treason, and executed on January 21, 1793; the queen, Marie-Antoinette, was guillotined nine months later.

It was not until 1803, when Napoleon once more made it 'politically correct' to honor Joan of Arc, by giving his permission for the May 8th ceremonies at Orleans to be resumed.  Because Joan had fought the English, Napoleon made use of her to further his own campaign against them.  He made her an official symbol of French patriotism and a national heroine.

Therefore, her popularity among the people grew.  All during the first half of the nineteenth century France was struggling against England in one way or another and during this time many 'histories' were written about her.

It took Jules Quicherat, a French historian, five years from 1841-1845 to compile all the documents concerning Joan of Arc into five volumes.  Not only did he publish the complete texts of the trial of Condemnation and Nullification but he also gathered excerpts from chronicles, literary works, letters, public documents and the accounting ledgers from the city of Orleans into his scholarly work.

Single handedly Quicherat sparked a renaissance of interest in Joan of Arc among the scholars who in turn translated the Latin and Old French into modern French.  By doing this the general public could finally read for themselves Joan's own words and at last she became for them a real historical figure.

With this development, the whole spectrum of political ideologies began to claim her.  Joan became the champion for many causes from the atheistic anticlerical Freemasons, the Socialist Nationalists and Communists to the conservative Catholic Monarchists.  From the 1850's on France was shaken by a savage anticlerical movement.  Those who supported the Church decried the rapid spread of atheistic secular-humanism and the growing immorality of the nation and they used Joan of Arc as a symbol to reclaim these souls.

The Church was not blind to the upsurge in popularity that Joan of Arc had achieved and on May 8, 1869, Bishop Dupanloup of Orleans with the support of eleven other French Bishops petitioned Rome to begin the process of Canonization.  Bishop Dupanloup declared, "Not only Orleans and France but also the whole world venerate God's actions through Joan of Arc, the piety and enthusiasm of this young girl, her purity and selflessness with which she always carried out the will of God.

"We wish that Your Holiness would now honor and exalt her memory.  This would be a just tribute to Joan of Arc, who in freeing her country also saved it from the heresy which might have become a danger.  It would also constitute a title of honor to the French people."

  

Unfortunately, with the coming of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 and France's ensuing defeat, Bishop Dupanloup's request was put on hold.  During this war, France lost the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine to the Germans and the French politicians used Joan of Arc as a symbol for a crusade to regain these territories.

In 1893, the French people overwhelmingly elected a Socialist government into power.  Eight months later on January 27, 1894, Pope Leo XIII, in hopes of improving relations between the Vatican and the French government, extended an olive branch to them by officially beginning the process of Joan's Beatification.  In doing so he proclaimed the Maid to have been the venerable handmaiden of God.

As I mentioned earlier, Mark Twain's magnificent story, Joan of Arc, appeared in serial form in 1896 and book form in 1899, just a decade before Pope Pius X issued her beatification decree April 11, 1909, and two decades before her canonization in 1920 by Pope Benedict XV.  Her sainthood was again delayed, this time by the outbreak of World War I.

Today it has been 603 years since the birth of this French heroine, but only 95 years since her canonization as a saint.  We are just beginning to understand the amazing story of faith Joan lived and her place in history as a military genius, a visionary and prophet, a sanctified virgin, and a soldier of God.

Joan's story is far too vast to give justice to and far too meaningful to interpret in such a short presentation as this but I hope she understands, and I urge all of you to learn more about Jehanne la Pucelle, Joan the Maid, our beloved Jeanne d'Arc, Joan of Arc.

In his book, Mark Twain wrote the following closing paragraphs about Joan of Arc.  Since Mark is my favorite American author and humorist - satirist, and about the most unlikely person on Earth to write about a Saint, I take his observations very seriously.  This is what he said about Joan the Maid.

"We know what Joan of Arc was like, without asking -- merely by what she did.  The artist should paint her spirit -- then he could not fail to paint her body aright.  She would rise before us, then, a vision to win us, not repel: a lithe young slender figure, instinct with "the unbought grace of youth," dear and bonny and lovable, the face beautiful, and transfigured with the light of that lustrous intellect and the fires of that unquenchable spirit.

"Taking into account, as I have suggested before, all the circumstances -- her origin, youth, sex, illiteracy, early environment, and the obstructing conditions under which she exploited her high gifts and made her conquests in the field and before the courts that tried her for her life -- she is easily and by far the most extraordinary person the human race has ever produced."

Thank you for sharing a few moments with me, thank Joan of Arc, and dieu vous bénisse.

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