johnthebaptist6

Salome returned to Herod�s court, and Herod � fearing to break his promise in front of his court and appear unmanly � reluctantly granted Salome�s request. Herod�s soldiers brought their swords to John�s prison cell. The result is nicely illustrated by Carlo Dolci in �Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist.�

Note the rich, gay attire of the Nymph in contrast to John�s severed head. Note also the vacant, abstracted look on Salome�s face, gazing perhaps at her dear loving mother. It�s a dutiful, vacuous expression, conveying that the Nymph is primarily unconscious in her service of the selfish, malicious aspects of the Powers. The command for John�s head came from the top, from the Crone, mediated through the Matron. Few men have witnessed the Crone at work, and fewer have survived to tell. She�s a kindly, frail old woman, barely able to shift about. Plays organ at church. Wouldn�t hurt a flea.

The girl was � and still is � an instrument of manipulation. There is nothing inherently evil in her sexuality. What is evil is perversion of that sexuality into a tool of power, vengeance, commerce and control. She is a prisoner of the Powers as much as John or Merlin, although to be sure, it is rarely female blood that gets spilled. She is the athame, the ritual blood-knife, of the Empowered Witch, wielded by her servant Set. Herod lacks the manhood to withstand her charms.

Thus an occult reversal, an insoluble labyrinth, an impossible trap, is laid down the ages, one that remains at the very core of the imprisonment of spirit in matter, of the sundering of heaven from earth, and of the war between the angels, and between the genders. The young girl, sexuality incarnate, is the lure by which the lions of masculinity, the Host, are entrapped in matter. They are the essence of the lumen naturae, the light imprisoned and lost in nature. One of Francisco Goya�s Caprichos paintings nails this on the head (whoops, sorry about that, John old buddy).