Being of Swedish and Norman lineage, and being one generation removed from the Quaker on one side and Lutheran on the other, I felt this volume deserved strong attention. The time of its writing, before either of the world wars, also deserves some contemplation. The perpetrator of that second infamous war could well be the reincarnation of Lucero, or Deza, or any of the Pontiffs or sovereigns of this long reign of terror. What is it that is said of the lessons of history - is mankind condemned to repeat that which is chooses to ignore? Or were these several hundred years of burnings, tortures, wholesale thefts and razing mere inspiration for likewise minded 'men' to emulate in coming centuries?
A great deal can be said for the impulse of greed, and it strikes wonder to the heart how easily a tribe of wealthy and industrious individuals can be targeted time and again by the mere pinning of words. I am continuously amazed at the great deliberation and time spent on discussion lists over the evils of the leaders of the Second World War.
Taking these dissections of such a small swift period of recent history in a much broader overview, one is tempted to view each and every one of us as guilty of exactly the same crime as the one we demonize…we have surely forgotten history.
       This volume treats the Inquisition from its menacing beginnings through to its final demise, a demise not brought about by the conscience and humanity of the sovereigns which owned it, who proudly claimed it as birthright, but by the relative lack of plunder left to them. It simply ceased to be worth the effort. The Church and Crowns of various nations now owned anything of value to be had within the borders of the Vatican's influence. It wore itself out.
Let no one speak of well-intentioned faithful zealots in any of this, history and records of the Vatican and the royal courts will prove only a few scattered aberrations to such vice. This was theft in the name of a 'faith'. The thread of this theft, the example it held out in years following, shone brightly in the prosecutions and expulsions of those of faiths deemed contrary to the chosen paradigm, and this in lands which were formally depopulated and tortured themselves. Did only the daemons survive in these places? It is highly probable. The Quakers, the Anabaptists, the Moors, the Heathens, (the list is impossible to enumerate, as many of those killed off or driven to destruction we will never even know existed), were run out of their homelands at the very kindest, slaughtered wholesale most commonly. Then comes that thread to shine again running through the slave trade from Africa to the new colonies…
I am putting this before everyone for their contemplation, and urge reading the entire volume. This is history, compiled in 1907, well before the recent past holocausts we so well know. This history is definitely a reflection of what came before it - the destruction of our own faith, (and its contemporary tribal religions), was first blood of the church, practice for what this volume outlines. As this writing reflects, the church was wont to steal what it could use, melt down what it disliked to coin for its own greed, and burn to the ground what it deemed useless.
We apologize for our ancestors sometimes, that they did not keep true shrines or well-thought holy offices, to their Elder Kin or their ancestors, that they did not record their works or ways, that they did not think in subtle or lofty flights of contemplation on the soul or the destinies of mankind. I ask you, after the patterns of the conquering faith to raze what it cannot convert to profit, to burn what it deems of the devil, to obliterate whole tribes to ashes without a trace, warranting not even a check mark in the Vatican's moldy stacks - prove it. I ask you, prove it.

        What we feel inside today was felt by those who gifted us this rich jewel of a world at the outset, our Elder Kin. What we contemplate and what strikes our heart with ringing shining truth is the one thread that has remained of the heilig, the holy, we were endowed with at the beginning. Before this great conflagration of confusion was thrust upon our hearts and souls, all of the '-ologies' of modes of thought, we were more than capable of discerning every bit of the holy, 'that which makes whole'. If anything, and I insist upon this point, our capacity to know and see the finest and most subtle, to embrace the beauty and power of this diverse weave of worlds, to grasp Inspiration, Odhr, in the lofty flights that reach beyond reason to simple unclothed Knowing, has been obliterated through the wearing of imposed confusion and dissolution on our kin. Once again, I ask those who would beg to differ from lack of evidence, prove it. Prove it.

Ari Odhinssen