Ashtar Command Book Blog : January 2026

Tuesday, January 27, 2026

Det falska Waterloo

Okej, det här var faktiskt intressant...

Britter blev lurade i souvenirbutiken: Det falska Waterloo

Overheard on the interwebs: "Neptune conjoins Saturn Feb 20. Something pivotal will happen to Russia, and the boundary between spirit and matter will be very thin. Neptune-Saturn conjunctions roughly every 35 years have been pivotal moments in Russia´s history."

Also, Neptune moves into Aries today, which is apparently very eerie and horrid. And perhaps rugous?

Monday, January 26, 2026

The Hand of Glory

Styx argues that there *is* real occultism in the Harry Potter series of books and films. Ironically, the evangelical Christians who condemned the franchise didn´t know anything about it, being more upset about the Hollywood pseudo-magic and the dark Halloween-style outfits...

I never read a single Harry Potter novel, and only saw two of the movies (I think) back in the days, so I have no idea what the Hand of Glory might be, or how Rowling referenced mermaids or the cockatrice. Still, the video is somewhat interesting, so here you go!

The dread Necronomicon

An old video c/o Styxhexenhammer666, in which he discusses the dread Necronomicon. Or rather Simon´s Necronomicon, which is apparently considered to be a deliberate prank. For the record, I never read it.

Styx points out that Simon´s work isn´t that different from other grimoires which occultists treat as "authentic", such as the Lesser Keys of Solomon or the Book of Abramelin the Mage. Both are Renaissance works but are supposedly based on much older sources. Which they may or may not be, the point being that they *work* (at least if you believe in the arcane arts of black magick). Styx never mentions the word, but I think it´s "egregore". The idea being that anything imbued with magical energy from a larger group of true believers "works" precisely for that reason. So why couldn´t the allegedely fake magical rituals described in Simon´s Necronomicon work, too?

Styx also says that he never seen any evidence that "Simon" was ironic when writing his work, and that it may contain real Sumerian lore, cuz why not? Personally, I wonder if there is a connection to the pseudo-Sumerian demon in "The Exorcist"! Why else make a connection to Sumeria rather than, say, Egypt or Atlantis? It must be a commercial ploy, at the very least.

Oh, and there´s a dread cat in the background in the YouTube video. Muh-hah-hah!

Waiting for springtime

I mean, do you blame me? Not that winter is bad, per se. As long as the sky is clear, at least!

Oh

Credit: Wonderlane

Trump threatens Canada with 100% tariffs if they sign a free trade agreement with China.

From Breitbart News: "In addition to the tariff threat, President Trump announced on Friday that he would withdraw an invitation to Carney to join the “Board of Peace,” a global coalition led by the United States intended to initially help with the reconstruction of Gaza following the war between the jihadist terrorist organization Hamas and Israel. The letter did not specify why Canada would no longer be invited; China also received an invitation to join and has not responded formally at press time."

Even Trump´s Pravda can´t hide it anymore. Their guy lost it.

The Swiss Reformation (part 2)

Now, I´m not an expert on Swiss history, so maybe this should be taken with a grain of salt or double-checked. But it kind of feels true, somehow...

What was the social base of Swiss Anabaptists? How were the Catholic cantons anti-Habsburg? Didn´t Zwingli and the city of Zürich fear that the Catholic cantons would ally with the Habsburgs?

These are exactly the right follow-up questions, because they expose how Swiss confessional politics cannot be read along simple “progressive vs reactionary” lines. I’ll take your three questions in order and then tie them together.

1. The social base of Swiss Anabaptism

Swiss Anabaptism (c. 1525 onward) arose inside the Reformed cities, but its social base was not urban elites.

A. Who became Anabaptist?

Predominantly:

Rural peasants in Zurich’s hinterland
Artisans and day laborers
Smallholders with limited political voice
Marginal urban workers

Geographically:

Zurich Oberland
Emmental (Bernese territory)
Parts of Thurgau and Aargau

Notably absent:

City councils
Major merchants
Guild leadership

This is crucial.

B. Why these groups?

Anabaptism appealed to people who felt:

The Reformation had been captured by magistrates
Moral reform was imposed from above
Infant baptism symbolized coercive social membership

Key Anabaptist commitments:

Adult baptism
Voluntary church
Separation from the world
Refusal of oaths and military service

These positions directly undermined civic authority.

So Anabaptism became:

a protest against both Catholic sacramentality and Reformed civic discipline.

C. Why Swiss Anabaptism stayed pacifist

Unlike later German radicals:

Swiss Anabaptists rejected rebellion
Refused violence
Accepted martyrdom

This reflects:

Swiss communal traditions
A theological rejection of coercion
Disillusionment after the Peasants’ War

They were socially disruptive without being revolutionary.

2. How the Catholic cantons were anti-Habsburg

This is one of the most misunderstood aspects of Swiss history.

A. Historical memory of Habsburg domination

The Forest Cantons’ founding myth:

Resistance to Habsburg bailiffs
Defense of local liberties
Legendary origins (Tell, etc.)

Historically:

Habsburgs had been overlords in Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden
Swiss victories (Morgarten, Sempach) defined identity

So anti-Habsburgism was core to Catholic Swiss identity.

B. Political Catholicism ≠ loyalty to the Emperor

The Catholic cantons:

Opposed papal political control
Opposed imperial centralization
Maintained fierce local autonomy

They were:

Catholic in religion
Republican in politics
Anti-imperial in practice

This is late medieval communal Catholicism, not Counter-Reformation absolutism.

C. Their foreign alliances were opportunistic

Catholic cantons accepted:

French pensions
Papal subsidies

But:

They avoided permanent subordination
They rejected Habsburg attempts to reassert authority
They played powers off against each other

This was defensive realism, not dynastic loyalty.

3. Yes—Zurich did fear a Catholic–Habsburg alliance

You’re absolutely right.

A. Zurich’s strategic nightmare

From Zurich’s perspective:

Catholic cantons surrounded Reformed cities
Habsburg territories lay nearby (Further Austria)
Catholic mercenary ties to foreign powers were dangerous

Zwingli feared:

Catholic cantons would invite Habsburg intervention
The Confederation would be split and reconquered

This fear was not irrational.

B. But it never fully materialized—why?

Because:

Catholic cantons valued autonomy over confessional solidarity
Habsburgs wanted control, not partnership
Foreign domination threatened mercenary independence

So:

Temporary coordination was possible
Long-term alliance was not

The Catholic cantons preferred confederal balance to Habsburg protection.

4. Why this made the Swiss situation uniquely unstable

You now have three distinct social-political logics:

Urban Reformed oligarchies
- Centralizing, disciplinary, moralizing
Rural Catholic communalism
- Ritual, customary, fiercely autonomous
Anabaptist separatism
- Voluntary, pacifist, anti-coercive

Each saw the others as existential threats:

Reformed elites feared Catholic foreign alliances
Catholics feared urban domination
Anabaptists rejected both as coercive

No side fit modern categories.

5. The deeper pattern (connecting to earlier themes)

This triangulation mirrors what we’ve been discussing all along:

Catholic cantons = medieval participatory republicanism
Reformed cities = covenantal-juridical republicanism
Anabaptists = anti-political ecclesiology

Anabaptism is not “left wing Protestantism”; it is post-political Christianity.

Bottom line

Swiss Anabaptists came from marginal rural and artisan strata
Catholic cantons were anti-Habsburg by identity and interest
Zurich did fear a Catholic–Habsburg alliance
That alliance failed because autonomy mattered more than confession
The Swiss Reformation fractured along three social bases, not two

If you want, we can next:

Compare Swiss Anabaptists with Mennonites in the Netherlands
Trace how Anabaptism survives by withdrawal
Or link this to modern debates about religion and coercion

The Swiss Reformation (part 1)

Is ChatGPT crypto-Catholic? More likely, it assumes *I* might be. Which is interesting in itself. The context is a long discussion I had with the AI about the social/class base of the Reformation, the difference between late medieval and early modern republicanism, and what have you. Here is ChatGPT´s take on the Reformation in Switzerland.

Can you tell me something about the social base of the Reformation and Catholicism respectively in the Swiss Confederation?

Yes. The Swiss case is unusually clear because confession tracked social structure more closely than ideology. In the Old Swiss Confederation, the Reformation split along urban vs rural, commercial vs agrarian, and elite-governed vs communal lines—more than along “theological conviction” in the abstract.

I’ll lay this out in a structured way.

1. The Swiss Confederation before the Reformation (baseline)

Before c. 1520, the Confederation was already deeply plural:

Urban cantons (Zurich, Bern, Basel)
- Wealthy
- Commercial
- Oligarchic councils
- Literate elites
Rural cantons (Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Zug, Glarus)
- Agrarian, pastoral
- Communal assemblies (Landsgemeinde)
- Strong customary religion
- Close ties to monasteries and pilgrimage networks

There was no centralized state, and no prince to impose uniformity.

This matters enormously.

2. Social base of the Swiss Reformation (Zwinglian / Reformed)

A. Urban elites as the backbone

The Reformation succeeded first and most decisively in:

Zurich (Zwingli)
Bern
Basel
Schaffhausen

Its social base was:

City councils
Merchant elites
Guild leadership
Educated clergy and humanists

Why these groups?

They resented ecclesiastical rents flowing out of the city
They wanted moral discipline over the urban poor
They benefited from church property secularization
They already governed oligarchically

The Reformation was adopted by councils, then imposed downward.

B. Reformation as civic reform

In Swiss cities, Reformation meant:

Moral regulation (discipline, poor relief)
Centralization of charity
Elimination of monasteries as parallel power centers
Clergy subordinated to magistrates

This fit perfectly with urban republican oligarchy.

The Reformation strengthened the city-state.

3. Social base of Swiss Catholicism

A. Rural communities and the Forest Cantons

Catholicism remained dominant in:

Uri
Schwyz
Unterwalden
Zug
Parts of Glarus

These were:

Smallholder farming and alpine pastoral societies
Politically egalitarian at the local level
Deeply embedded in ritual religion
Economically dependent on:
- Monasteries
- Pilgrimage
- Mercenary service blessed by the Church

Catholicism here was communal, embodied, and customary, not clerical in a narrow sense.

B. Suspicion of urban domination

Rural cantons saw the Reformation as:

An urban imposition
A threat to local autonomy
A destruction of traditional religious life

They associated Protestantism with:

City arrogance
Social discipline imposed from above
Economic exploitation

So Catholicism became a marker of communal resistance.

4. Mercenary service: an overlooked factor

One major fault line:

Rural Catholic cantons relied heavily on mercenary pensions
France and the papacy paid Catholic cantons
Reformers condemned mercenary service as immoral

Thus:

Reformation threatened rural livelihoods
Catholicism protected an existing economic model

This is a huge reason the Forest Cantons stayed Catholic.

5. Why this produced armed conflict (Kappel Wars)

The split was not abstract theology:

Protestant cities tried to pressure Catholic cantons economically
Catholic cantons defended traditional alliances
Both sides saw the other as threatening confederal balance

The Kappel Wars (1529, 1531) were:

Urban Reformed vs rural Catholic
Centralizing moral reform vs customary autonomy

Zwingli himself died on the battlefield.

6. Important complication: Catholicism ≠ reactionary monarchy

This often gets misunderstood.

Swiss Catholic cantons were:

Not absolutist
Not clerically dominated
Fiercely republican and anti-Habsburg

Their Catholicism was:

Anti-papal in politics
But pro-ritual in religion
Pro-local autonomy

This mirrors late medieval communal Catholicism, not Counter-Reformation authoritarianism.

7. Long-term result: confessional federalism

Switzerland eventually stabilized as:

A confederation of confessions
With local religious autonomy
No centralized enforcement

This preserved:

Catholic communalism in the countryside
Reformed civic discipline in cities

It’s one of the earliest durable examples of confessional pluralism.

8. Big picture comparison (compressed)

Dimension	Reformed Cantons	Catholic Cantons
Social base	Urban elites	Rural communities
Economy	Trade, crafts	Pastoralism, mercenary service
Politics	Oligarchic councils	Communal assemblies
Religion	Disciplined, word-centered	Ritual, customary
View of reform	Civic improvement	External threat

Bottom line

The Swiss Reformation followed social structure more than ideas
Protestantism aligned with urban republican oligarchy
Catholicism aligned with rural communal autonomy
Both were republican, but in very different registers
Confession became a proxy for who gets to rule whom

If you want, we can next:

Compare this to Germany or the Netherlands
Look at Anabaptists as a third social base
Or tie this directly into our earlier discussion of medieval vs modern republicanism

The real presence

"TULIP". Get it?

Did Calvin actually believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist? ChatGPT tries to sort out this question.

What did Calvin say about the real presence in the Eucharist? Did he believe that Christ was spiritually present?

Yes—Calvin affirmed a real presence, but not a local or corporeal one. He did believe that Christ is truly and really present, and he insisted that this presence is spiritual in a strong, objective sense, not merely symbolic or subjective.

The difficulty is that modern ears often hear “spiritual” as “not real.” Calvin meant the opposite.

1. What Calvin rejected (clearing the ground)

Calvin rejected two positions he thought equally mistaken:

A. Roman Catholic transubstantiation

Rejected a local, bodily presence of Christ in the elements
Opposed the idea that Christ’s body is physically on many altars
Insisted on the ascended body of Christ remaining in heaven

This is tied to his Christology: a true human body must be somewhere.

B. Zwinglian memorialism

Rejected the view that the Supper is only a mental reminder
Explicitly attacked “bare sign” interpretations
Insisted that something real is given, not merely signified

Calvin thought Zwinglians “rob the Supper of its power.”

2. Calvin’s positive doctrine: real spiritual presence

A. “Real” does not mean “corporeal”

For Calvin:

Christ is really present (vere et realiter)
But not locally or physically
The presence is by the Holy Spirit

The Spirit does not symbolize Christ; the Spirit unites believers to Christ.

“The flesh and blood of Christ are no less truly given to us in the Supper than the symbols are given to us by the hand of the minister.”
(Institutes, IV.17)

B. Union with Christ is the key category

Calvin’s Eucharistic theology is inseparable from his doctrine of union with Christ:

Believers are united to Christ by the Spirit
In the Supper, this union is strengthened and nourished
We truly partake of Christ himself, not merely benefits

This is why Calvin can say we “feed on Christ.”

3. “Spiritual presence” ≠ subjective presence

Calvin’s “spiritual presence” means:

Objective: Christ truly gives himself
Effective: the Supper accomplishes what it signifies
Extra nos: Christ remains outside us, yet is communicated to us

The Spirit acts as the bond (vinculum) between Christ in heaven and believers on earth.

So:

Presence is not created by faith
Faith is the means by which the presence is received

4. Comparison with other positions (quick map)

Position	Presence	Mode
Catholic	Real	Corporeal, substantial
Lutheran	Real	Sacramental union (“in, with, under”)
Calvin	Real	Spiritual, by the Spirit
Zwinglian	Symbolic	Memorial only

Calvin often thought Lutherans and Catholics erred in how Christ is present, not that he is present.

5. Why Calvin insisted on this middle position

A. Christology

Christ has a true human body
A body cannot be ubiquitous
Therefore Eucharistic presence cannot be local

B. Pneumatology

The Holy Spirit can unite across spatial distance
The Spirit elevates believers to Christ, not Christ dragged down

Calvin famously said:

“The Spirit truly unites things separated by space.”

6. Was Calvin closer to Catholicism or to Zwingli?

This surprises many people:

Calvin is much closer to Catholic realism than to Zwinglian symbolism
Yet he remains decisively non-Catholic on metaphysics and sacrifice
His view is often closer to the Greek patristic emphasis on mystery and participation

This is why later Reformed confessions sometimes flattened Calvin’s view.

7. Bottom line

Calvin affirmed real presence
He believed Christ is spiritually present, meaning truly present by the Spirit
This presence is objective, effective, and nourishing
Calvin rejected both transubstantiation and memorialism
His Eucharistic theology is participatory, not merely symbolic

If you want, I can:

Compare Calvin with Aquinas on presence
Show how later Reformed orthodoxy narrowed Calvin
Or explain why Barth reinterpreted Calvin’s Eucharistic realism

Oh no, Redeemed Zoomer was right

A tulip

Sometimes I "test" the AI. Like the other day. When I asked the question below.

Provocative question overheard on the internet: "Was Calvin a Calvinist?". Is there a difference between Calvin, Calvinism and Reformed Christianity?

Short answer: yes, there is a real difference, and the provocative question “Was Calvin a Calvinist?” is not just internet trolling—it points to a genuine historical and theological problem.

I’ll lay this out cleanly in three layers: Calvin, Calvinism, and Reformed Christianity.

1. Calvin ≠ Calvinism (strictly speaking)

John Calvin (1509–1564)

Calvin was:

A second-generation Reformer, not a system-builder in the later sense
Primarily a biblical exegete and pastor
Writing in response to concrete controversies, not constructing a closed dogmatic system

Key features of Calvin himself:

No “five points”
No TULIP
No rigid doctrine of double predestination as later formalized
Strong emphasis on union with Christ rather than decretal logic
Significant theological flexibility (e.g., on church polity, civil authority, even aspects of predestination)

Calvin cared less about speculative metaphysics and more about piety, discipline, and scriptural fidelity.

So in that sense, Calvin was not a “Calvinist”, if by Calvinist we mean later doctrinal packages.

2. Calvinism: a post-Calvin construction

What “Calvinism” usually means

“Calvinism” is largely:

A 17th-century systematization
Shaped by polemics (especially against Arminians and Catholics)
Defined retrospectively

Its classic crystallization:

Synod of Dort (1618–1619)
The Canons of Dort
Later summarized (much later!) as TULIP

This Calvinism emphasizes:

Decretal theology (God’s eternal decrees as first principle)
Sharp formulations of election and reprobation
Logical coherence over pastoral ambiguity

Many of these emphases are:

Present in seed in Calvin
But intensified, formalized, and sometimes hardened

Hence the historical joke:

Calvin would likely have found some “Calvinists” unsettling.

3. Reformed Christianity ≠ Calvinism

Reformed Christianity is broader than Calvinism

“Reformed” refers to a family of churches and traditions, not a single theology.

Reformed Christianity includes:

Swiss Reformed (Zwingli, Bullinger)
Genevan (Calvin)
Dutch Reformed
German Reformed
Scottish Presbyterian
Later developments (e.g., Barth, Torrance)

Shared Reformed commitments:

Scripture as supreme norm
Covenant theology (in diverse forms)
Emphasis on God’s sovereignty
Non-Lutheran Protestant sacramental theology

But within Reformed Christianity, you find:

Supralapsarian and infralapsarian views
High vs low sacramental realism
Different political theologies
Different attitudes to natural law and philosophy

Not all Reformed Christians are “Calvinists” in the strict Dortian sense.

4. Why the confusion persists

A. Calvin became a symbol

Opponents labeled the movement after him
Followers retroactively systematized him
“Calvin” became shorthand for an entire tradition

B. Polemical simplification

Catholics, Arminians, and later evangelicals needed a foil
TULIP is pedagogically useful but historically misleading

C. Modern identity politics

“Calvinist” today often signals:
- A certain spirituality
- A certain politics
- A certain internet tribe

Which has little to do with 16th-century Geneva.

5. A helpful analogy

Think of it this way:

Aristotle ≠ Aristotelianism
Aquinas ≠ Thomism
Marx ≠ Marxism

Likewise:

Calvin ≠ Calvinism
Calvinism ⊂ Reformed Christianity

Calvin is a source, not the system.

6. So—was Calvin a Calvinist?

Historically: no
Theologically: partially
Polemically: irrelevant

Calvin was a Reformed Christian theologian whose thought later became one of several organizing centers for a broader tradition.

Bottom line

Calvinism is not identical with Calvin
Reformed Christianity is broader than Calvinism
Asking “Was Calvin a Calvinist?” is a legitimate way to expose anachronism

If you’d like, I can:

Compare Calvin and Aquinas on predestination
Contrast Calvin and Bullinger
Or explain how Barth deliberately rejected Calvinism while remaining Reformed