Dr Robin Douglas

In recent times, there seems to have been growing interest in the ancient Greek mystical tradition known as Orphism. This interest is evident in the academic world, with the appearance of studies such as Daniel Malamis’ The Orphic Hymns.* It has broken through into popular culture, with the Netflix series KAOS featuring Orphic themes prominently. It is…

Posted on 21 June 2025 The Catholic historian Pierre de la Gorce paints a vivid picture of life in pre-revolutionary France in his Histoire religieuse de la Révolution française. The occasion that he imaginatively describes is the Fête-Dieu, also known as the festival of Corpus Christi (which took place on Thursday). The translation is my own,…

Originally posted on 15 June 2025, after the Israeli bombing of Iran. Now seems like a good time to post about the political movement known as Islamism, and the variant of it that currently remains in power in the Islamic Republic of Iran. * Islamism can be defined as a movement which aims to implement…

The quotation in the title comes from the historian Peter Laslett. It is brought up from time to time by historians of religion. Is it true? There is a certain core truth to it. If we could travel back in time to just about any period before the industrial revolution, we would be surprised at…

“Signor Mortara, I am sorry to inform you that you are the victim of a betrayal.” The officer felt uneasy, but he had his orders. “Your son Edgardo has been baptised, and I have been ordered to take him with me.” The date was Thursday 24 June 1858, and the place was the Italian city…

The Bible teaches unambiguously that there are many gods. I’m not making some kind of tenuous linguistic argument here based on dubious translations of obscure terms. It is blatant. There are a number of verses in the Bible in which polytheistic gods are referred to using precisely the same set of Hebrew terms that are…

This is the penultimate part of my republication of the writings of Colonel Charles Seymour, an important Irish esotericist of the twentieth century. November 1937 to April 1938 Part 1 Notwithstanding the scanty nature of the records that have escaped the iconoclastic zeal of past ages, in most of the Mystery systems it is still…

Hardly anyone even tries to look at the story of Fatima from a relatively dispassionate standpoint – the commentary tends to consist of either Catholic devotional writing or sceptical debunking. So I thought I’d try a different approach. The feast of Our Lady of Fatima is coming up on 13 May. Now is a good…

I’ve uploaded the text of two rites of passage intended for use by British socialists: a child’s naming ceremony and a wedding ceremony. We meet in this public manner in order to testify our conviction that every child born to our race, of whatever nation or colour, should be honoured as a new member of…

Originally posted on 27 April 2025. Also posted on my Substack. Since cardinals and conclaves are in the news at the moment…. How do you become a cardinal? Perhaps the most surprising thing is that, in principle, you don’t need to be a priest. Back in history, so-called ‘lay cardinals’ were sometimes appointed. In spite…