Cathars of the Languedoc, or the Albigensian heresy

February 22nd

thanks to a chance note by a reader.

how the 'religion of love' persecuted its own. do a google search on the Cathars of the Languedoc: this is how one christian sect was hounded to extinction, with crusades fought against them by the catholic church.

i think it is also known as the Albigensian heresy. raja rao speaks about this at length in his masterpiece 'the serpent and the rope'.

the funny thing is that the Cathars had relatively progressive ideas, and seemed to have been pretty decent people. but this never mattered to the church, which was only interested in its own prosperity and greed.

the analogies between the Cathars and the Tibetan Buddhists; and between the Cathars and Hindus are pretty strong. in both cases, there is a warlike church (the church of marx in the case of the tibetans and the might of western christianity, especially american evangelicals, in the case of hindus) intent on destroying them.