Astronomy is one of the oldest of natural sciences. To imply that the church is engaged in purely astrological, rather than astronomical, activities is ridiculous hyperbole.
The church is involved in all sorts of things; before i continue i just want to make the point that i've never read a Dan Brown book in my life
We are commonly told that the 'gothic' architectural style is named after the goths who were 'barbarians' who rampaged across the Roman empire but this tribe weren't exactly noted builders!
People who were noted builders were the Order of the Knights of the Temple of Solomon who built many of the finest gothic cathedrals in the world, which were a massive leap forward in architecture at the time.
The Templars recieved their 'rule' or constitution from the Roman Catholic Church.
The Templars employed sacred geometry in their architecture gained from esoteric knowledge.
The word 'gothic' was more likely to come from the Greek word 'goetik' meaning something magickal.
Many of the carvings within Templar cathedrals such as Chartres (built on a an old Druid pilgramage site and still part of a christian pilgramage route) contain images of demons from the Ars Goetia.
Of course if you said to an architectural historian that it is the goetik style, they would correct you and say that it is the 'gothic' style. If you pushed them on it they might even say something along the lines of ''but i have a PHD and many years studying this subject and i can assure you that it is the 'gothic' style!''
However they'd still be wrong, because they have bought the PR
Whilst I'm on the subject, Yale university, home of the Skull and Crossbones secret society has in its collections a very special book called: the Voynich Manuscript which contains a lot of esoteric knowledge in a script that no one has publically deciphered.
You might have seen the classic Sam Raimi Evil Dead films with the Necronomicon.....well forget that the Voynich manuscript is the real deal!
It was housed for a while in the Villa Mondragone in Italy which was a training establishment for the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) which were of course set up by the catholic church but developed a lot of autonomy, much like the Templars.
Adam Weishaupt who created the bavarian illuminati based them on the jesuits among other orders. When they were supressed by the authorities they embeded themselves in freemasonry and spread from there.
President George Washington of the united states of america, a well known Freemason who laid the foundation stone of the washington monument, an egyptian obelisk, wrote the following in a letter to German minister G.W.Snyder:
''It was not my intention to doubt that, the Doctrines of the Illuminati, and principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more truly satisfied of this fact than I am.''
So once again the Catholic church is implicated in various dealings kept secret from the public and of such importance as warrant the attention of the president of the USA.
Of course the reason most people think this sort of stuff is 'conspiracy theory' is because of the establishments fantastic Public Relations machine!
