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| Ernest Hepnar photo |
Brother Chuck?
Saint Chuckles at a Boxing Day event, made an excellent find and mentioned a British Columbia cultist from history...
WILSON, EDWARD ARTHUR (also known as Brother XII and The Brother, XII, and colloquially as Brother Twelve; on 23 March 1931 he legally changed his name to Amiel de Valdes), mystic and cult leader; b. 25 July 1878 in Birmingham, England, son of Thomas Wilson, a master craftsman, and Sarah Ellen Pearsall; m. 24 Dec. 1902 Margery Clark in Wellington, New Zealand, and they had a son and a daughter; d. 7 Nov. 1934 in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, or later. Brother XII was one of the most intriguing cult figures of the 20th century and has been described by Professor James A. Santucci as “sharing the brilliance of an L. Ron Hubbard, the destructiveness of a Jim Jones … and the hypnotic hold of a Rasputin.”
His group was a prototype of the new religious movements that would be founded by charismatic leaders in the second half of the century. Originally named Edward Arthur Wilson, he was raised in the Catholic Apostolic Church and was heavily influenced by its apocalyptic teachings. A natural mystic, he would claim to have been in touch from an early age with higher beings and subtle worlds. Apprenticed as a youth on a Royal Navy sailing ship, he travelled the seas as a mariner, navigator, and eventually captain. During his voyages he immersed himself in the study of metaphysics and world religions, especially the teachings of the Theosophical Society.
In 1907 he moved with his wife and children to British Columbia, where he held various jobs, including that of ship’s pilot. By his own account, in 1912 he passed through a “Ceremony of Dedication” during which he learned of his occult mission. He thereafter abandoned his family, who returned to their native New Zealand, and he resumed his wanderings and study, ostensibly to ready himself for the spiritual work to which he would later be called. While staying in the south of France in the autumn of 1924, impoverished and in ill health, Wilson heard the voice of an Egyptian deity telling him to prepare for his great task. This epiphany was followed by an intense period of automatic writing and inspirational contact with a higher being who identified himself as a “Master of Wisdom” in an occult brotherhood known as the Great White Lodge, believed by Theosophists to guide the evolution of humanity.
• Brother XII, based on this cited review and other online reviews, appears to have been a religious leader that trusted in occultism as opposed to the biblical God revealed in various Hebrew Bible and New Testament texts. Interesting how his religion and philosophy was apparently very much a product of his time.
• In contrast, divine, scriptural, revelation from the eternal, infinite God to humanity, has context for every human era and time, but is also in a sense, timeless, eternal, truth from a God that exists beyond human eras, but interacts in the time he created.
Getting burned
I have recently been granted access to an actual Windows 10 PC with a CD-Rom drive. 'Incredible' 'ancient' technology from the 1990's.
• Sadly, my SUV CD player does not play MP3s or MP4s and so I have been looking for a way to translate my CDs and You Tube files to CDR.
• I presently have nine new burned CDR albums via my MP3/MP4 collection which again, is based on my archived CD collection and You Tube downloads. These actually play on the SUV CD player.
• Music includes Stravinsky, Wagner, Brahms, Vivaldi, The Beatles, Rush, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Steve Hackett, Genesis, Allan Holdsworth, Bill Bruford.
• There are almost an equal amount of discs that did not burn (copy) properly via Real Player. With the first download of Real Player the software favoured 4x speed for burning for awhile then the program stopped working and the 'dead discs' piled up. I also tried some free burning programs that 'fried' my CDRs.
• I then downloaded Nero which successfully burned several discs, but I later discovered that they only play on a computer and not on the SUV CD player...sigh.
• I then downloaded a new version of Real Player and set the speed to 24x for burning, and most of my attempts at that speed have now worked.
• Based on my research and experience and discussing the issue with computer technicians, burning MP3s and MP4s to CDR is iffy, tricky business. Expect many 'man (woman) hours' of work.
