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The Spear of Destiny - Where Is It Now?

Atch_

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Mar 4, 2003
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If the legend is true, the holder of the Spear of Destiny will rule the world. So where is it now? In the Oval Office?
 
You don't really think the Yanks gave back the real thing do you?
 
OK, even if it wasn't the actual Lance of Longinus, surely they would have made a copy and kept the 'original'. Just in case.
 
Pretend I've been on Mars for a while; what are you on about?
 
I thought that might be what you meant. Unless it's a genuine hasta or possibly a pilum, you've been had. Even then, there were millions of those...
 
What of "The Spear That Lugh Had"?

Predates Christ by donkey's years... It would be a bronze/golden leafbladed spear (basically a leafbladed sword with a long haft), weilded by the celtic god-hero Lugh, or Lew.

Some call it the Spear of the Sun... (Son?)

Anyway.

A pilum is for chucking (a javalin, I suppose) and the long metal point would deform on impact to a) make it difficult to remove, and b) prevent your opponents hurling them back.
 
Whether it was a pilum or a hasta would depend upon whether the soldier who poked him with it was a legionnary or a auxiliary. Seeing as how we are dealing wth eye witness testimony of people who swear blind that the man on the cross was the (blasphemous) son of the Jewish God, I don't trust them to know the difference.

'Those Romans all look the same to me, Peter...'
 
Ah...well. I've been reading some interesting things on just that very topic lately. Mostly as background to the whole Rennes -le-wotsit business.
 
Well unless said witnesses were really old then we can assume that they were lying.

I think that the Christians heard celticd myth and thought "I reckon we should have gear like that" so invented their own versions...

The Cauldron of Dagda became the Grail
The Spear of the Sun became the Spear of Destiny
The Stone of Soverinty got mixed up with the Grail and became the lapis exili (or whatever it's called)
The Sword of Nuadau, aka Caliburnis, resurfaced in a farcical aquatic ceremony in the hands of some Artor King person...
 
Emperor Zombie said:
go on....

Mostly just about Gnostics, their links to ancient Egypt and the Mandaean of Southern Iraq who are a very interesting bunch indeed. They worship John the Baptist as the greatest of their prophets and refer to Jesus as Christ the Betrayer.
 
Hmmm... Transpose "Farcical Aquatic Ceremony" with the "King from the Sea" who co-founded the Merogovian bloodline; biassociate King Arthur through the lens thus forged and suddenly Rennes-le-Chateau becomes Camelot!

Fascinating.
 
Inverurie Jones said:
Mostly just about Gnostics, their links to ancient Egypt and the Mandaean of Southern Iraq who are a very interesting bunch indeed. They worship John the Baptist as the greatest of their prophets and refer to Jesus as Christ the Betrayer.
Indeed, the severed head of John the Baptist, becomes the Templar's head Bamophet and the stolen head of Asathoth from within Rennes church.

The "King from the Sea" becomes (if we take the conclusion from "Holy Blood, Holy Grail") either the line of Jesus or John the Baptist themselves.

Suddenly we're looking at a tryptich of Arthur Mergovian, desendent of Solomon and the One True Christ; the Knights of the Round Temple either side of the Sword in the Stone in the Grail. "Where's the Spear?" you ask. Why not ask the one who stands before the Grail and asks us whom it serves, as he weilds a spear from which streams a constant flow of blood...
 
Article in yesterday's Sunday Times Magazine (sorry, don't have it to hand to quote from) - the 'Lance of Christ' aka 'Lance of Longinus' aka 'Spear of Destiny' is housed in a museum (in Austria or Germany, I think) and has recently been tested to determine it's age.

All will be revealed in a forthcoming BBC documentary.....

A clue: it's older than some think, but not as old as others would like
 
Here's the link to the Times article

It's very long: may require registering to access it. Begins:
Cover story: Judgment day: Is 'the spear that pierced Christ on the cross' genuine? Forensic scientists decide
This spear is said to have pierced Jesus on the cross, turned Hitler into the Antichrist, and inspired Picasso's greatest work. Now forensic science reveals the truth. Investigation by Richard Girling



For a meagre six hours, the management of Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum allows the lance of Longinus to be removed from its case. On its short journey to the Institute of Sciences and Technologies in Art, in nearby Schillerplatz, it is accompanied by two armed guards and a curator, Dr Franz Kirchweger, whose level of anxiety could not have been higher if he'd been looking down the barrel of a Luger. There are good reasons for all this. In a rare concession to science, the museum is allowing an English metallurgist to conduct some x-ray tests and take some biological swabs.

It is the swabbing that most inspires Dr Kirchweger's horror. Only when a hairdryer has been found, to burn off all traces of moisture left by the dampened cotton, does he allow the investigation to go ahead. Like a scenes-of-crime officer, the metallurgist dabs gently around the weapon's every nook and corner. Like a scenes-of-crime officer, he is looking for traces of blood. Rather less like any scenes-of-crime officer unaffected by drink or drugs, he has no thought for the due processes of law.

The blood he seeks is that of Jesus Christ.

To find the beginning of this story, we must turn to the gospel of St John. To bring it forward we must share the company of, among others, saints Longinus and Maurice, the emperors Constantine and Charlemagne, a clutch of scheming Dark Age kings, Napoleon, Richard Wagner, Pablo Picasso, Adolf Hitler and a waft of medieval warlords reincarnated as Nazis. After them will come General George 'blood-and-guts' Patton, a second-world-war US intelligence officer, an SS informer, Indiana Jones and a German U-boat captain heading for Antarctica.

It is a story that requires us to keep a tight hold on our credulity. Many of its protagonists are grail-seekers steeped in the occult, who want us to share their belief in magic. Some are imperial conmen. Others are cautious historians who believe the spear to be no older than the 8th century and see its journey to Vienna as little more than a process of hand-me-down through the Holy Roman and Hapsburg empires.

The legend has its root in St John's account of the crucifixion - specifically chapter 19, verses 31 to 36. To hasten the deaths of Jesus and the two crucified thieves, it was put to the Roman governor, Pilate, that their legs should be broken. This was done to the thieves but, when it came to Jesus, one of the Roman soldiers realised he was already dead. To prove it, he thrust his spear into Jesus's side and released a flow of blood and water (a phenomenon explained by the fact that blood after death separates into red cells and colourless plasma). Thus it happened that faith was kept in the Old Testament prediction that 'a bone of him [the Messiah] shall not be broken'.

Legend says that the soldier was a half-blind centurion called Longinus, who immediately fell to his knees and had his sight miraculously restored to him. Various accounts - some of them lurid and violent - exist of Longinus's subsequent life. Put simply, he seems to have retired from the army, become a monk, died under torture and become a saint. He does not convince everyone, however. Biblical accounts are inconsistent, and the Rev Sabine Baring Gould, in his magisterial Lives of the Saints, argued that the name derived from a Latinised misreading of the Greek word longche, meaning simply 'spear'. Be that as it may, various relics of the saint are scattered throughout Christendom, including a rival spear at St Peter's in the Vatican (for which no serious claim for authenticity is made), where there is also a fine statue of Longinus by Bernini.

A full history of the Spear is included.
 
BBC2 Tonight 13th June 2003

BBC2 Website 'Spear of Destiny' Programme Listing
The Spear Of Christ
Fri 13 Jun, 9:00 pm - 9:50 pm 50mins

It is said that whoever possesses the 'Spear of Destiny' holds the fate of the world in their hands. The Spear's status dates back to the beginning of Christendom when it was believed to have pierced the side of Jesus at his crucifixion. Subsequently, it became the obsession, and occasionally the possession, of kings and conquerors throughout the ages, from Kings Constantine and Charlemagne to Napoleon and Hitler.

For the first time in the history of the Spear, forensic scientists have been given access to the Spear and allowed to undertake a series of modern-day tests to verify the legends. With the help of historians and archaeologists this documentary special reveals the true story of this sacred artefact.
 
Fri 13 Jun, 9:00 pm - 9:50 pm
Doh. So, anyone see it? Anything surprising come to light?
Or is my cynical view that if it had, we wouldn't have had to wait for the program to hear about it correct?

Steve.
 
sjwk said:
Doh. So, anyone see it? Anything surprising come to light?
Or is my cynical view that if it had, we wouldn't have had to wait for the program to hear about it correct?
I saw it. Apparently, most probably, an early mediaeval fake, circa Emperor Charlemagne (800ad, or so).

Which is apparently why everybody else was watching that other ancient and venerated, relic, St Brucius Forsythius and his wonderous bonce rug.

There might have been a scrap of something really Holy hidden inside the nail, inside the spear, inside the silver sheath, inside the golden sheath.
 
I did resist the gospel acc. to St.Brucius and watched the prog. But they did leave that little loophole for the faithfull in that a piece of the original nail from the cross may have been hammered into the nail which was supposedto have come from the cross....
Amazing how much swords and spears feature in celtic mythology! And they are supposed to have invented rugby from kicking the heads of their adversaries around the battlefield. :D Though,as i understand it, the head was held in reverence by the celts as the seat of the soul.
 
Somehwere, there may have been a story of sorts but it was in the
footnotes. And telly doesn't do footnotes. :cross eye
 
James Whitehead said:
And telly doesn't do footnotes. :cross eye
My immediate thought here was "Oh yes it does!". Recently I saw a C4 docu about the Viking "Ivarr the Boneless": finding it interesting, I went to their website and found 4 or 5 detailed pages on the history and ideas covered in the prog.

So I naturally thought that the generally excellent BBC website would have info on the Spear of Christ. But after 10 minutes of fruitless searching, it appears not. (Info on upcoming progs, archived radio progs even, but apparently nothing on TV docu's after they're shown - if anyone can prove me wrong on this, I'd be most pleased!)

So Hurrah! for C4, and Boo! to the Beeb.


As for the the Spear of Christ, I video'd it, haven't yet watched it.
 
I saw both programmes- ths Spear of destiny had to be videoed so's Brucie could be watched in real time though...

the whole story of the Spear was fascinating, particularly the bit about St Maurice the black christian Legionary...

unfortunately, the spear seems to be a relic of Charlemagne's times, although that is antiquity enough in itself.

Another interesting part was the silver chest hanging up in Nurnburg with a picture of the spear painted on the underneath so's you knew what was in the box when you looked up.

By the way, the Ivarr story was also fascinating- I know some people with brittle bone disease, and would love that story to be true, but wishing doesn't make it so.
(and loved the bit about Ragnar, his dad, cast into the pit of snakes in York- that isn't mentioned on any of the tourist tours)
 
Re: Re: The Spear of Destiny - Where is it now?

Emperor Zombie said:
Isn't it on display in the Hapsburg's treasury at the Hofmuseum in Vienna?

damn I was hoping to say that!

I want to look realy clever. :(
 
According to THIS SITE the original Spear may have actually been a pruning hook! :D

Adam modified his pruning hook when he got the sack from the Garden of Eden, and he had to grow stuff to eat. (He made like... a 'Hoe of Destiny'... :p)
And then this got used by Cain when he got pissed off with Abel and did him in...



Dunno about the 'Hoe of Destiny, but if you come down to my potting shed I'll show you my sacred 'Hoe of Ecstacy'... :D
 
Doesn't the spear predate Christianity? And is there a Keltic/Celtic legend in there somewhere?

(pardon my ignorance...)
 
If you have possession of the spear of destiny, be vewy vewy careful.

The Spear’s Powers

The exact nature and extent of the Spear’s powers remain ambiguous. However, even those with no formal magical training have been able to use it to produce world-altering effects. Aside from the Sphere of Influence, Adolf Hitler used the Spear’s power to summon a flight of real, tangible valkyries and, in April 1945, nearly succeeded in unleashing the devastation of Gotterdamerung onto the Earth and bringing about the end of the world. Others with no mystical inclination have nearly succeeded in destroying the Spectre, one of the DC Universe’s most powerful magical entities, by simply using the Spear as a melee weapon. The Sphere of Influence itself was an extremely formidable spell, capable of automatically controlling the minds and wills of the most powerful metahumans and sorcerers at tremendous distances without even requiring the conscious volition of the Spear’s wielder. It should be noted, however, that the Sphere was created by Hitler in partnership with a Japanese occultist called the Dragon King and bolstered with the power of the Holy Grail. A feat of such magnitude may not be possible without the assistance of a more competent magic-user.

Evidence strongly suggests that the Spear cannot be destroyed, at least not by any conventional means. The Spear has three times survived being accelerated to the escape velocity of the Earth (each time it was thrown into space), and its recent disposal by the Sentinels of Magic indicated that even being thrown into the sun did not actually destroy it (although it does obviously make it more difficult to retrieve).
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/8303/spearan.gif
http://ourworld.cs.com/argentprime/spear.htm :roll: That's pretty huge.

[Emp edit: Yes it is - I've reduced the graphic to a link.]

spearbw.gif
 
Bump

Watched a doco on Hitler's association with the spear (the one currently in Austria). It was established over ten years ago that it is a ninth century relic. Science puts paid to the idea that this spear is an original artefact from the time of Jesus, yet the symbolism is still powerful. What of the other supposed Holy Lances, one in Rome, one in Poland and the other in Armenia? Copies of fakes? It all gets a bit ridiculous when you look into it. However, I'd love to see the Austrian spear, given its connection to historical events and figures. I'm still drawn to the legends. Anybody been to see the one in Austria?
 
I can't find the doco I cited above, but here's another older one that documents the scientific analysis of the materials ten years ago. The one I saw was made last year and went into the life of Longinus a bit.

 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Lance

Interesting titbit from the wiki. Buechner's a highly educated source, but also a military man. I don't know what that does to his testimony and opinions but I'd like to see that log some time.

Howard Buechner
Dr. Howard A. Buechner, M.D., professor of medicine at Tulane and then Louisiana State University, wrote two books on the spear.[19][20] Buechner was a retired colonel with the U.S. Army who served in World War II and had written a book about the Dachau massacre. He claims he was contacted by a former U-boat submariner, the pseudonymous “Capt. Wilhelm Bernhart”, who claimed the spear currently on display in Vienna is a fake. "Bernhart" said the real spear was sent by Hitler to Antarctica along with other Nazi treasures, under the command of Col. Maximilian Hartmann. In 1979 Hartmann allegedly recovered the treasures. Bernhart presented Buechner with the log from this expedition as well as pictures of the objects recovered, claiming that after the Spear of Destiny was recovered, it was hidden somewhere in Europe by a Nazi secret society. After contacting most of the members of the alleged expedition and others involved, including Hitler Youth Leader Artur Axmann, Buechner became convinced the claims were true.
 
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