The Mad Monk and The Putrid Prophet

No, we are not talking about the 1993 Hong Kong comedy film here,
but Grigori Rasputin as we compare him to Herbert W. Armstrong.
Before we start out on this journey, let’s read something that I found of interest….

Before Rasputin died, he purportedly wrote a letter predicting both his own death and the fall of the Romanov dynasty.

I feel that I shall leave life before January 1st. I wish to make known to the Russian people, to Papa [Tsar Nicholas], to the Russian Mother [Tsarina Alexandra] and to the Children […] if it was your relations who have wrought my death, then none of your children will remain alive for more than two years. And if they do, they will beg for death as they will see the defeat of Russia, see the Antichrist coming, plague, poverty, destroyed churches, and desecrated sanctuaries where everyone is dead. The Russian Tsar, you will be killed by the Russian people… More Here

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1) Rasputin was not mad. Herbert must have been, if he believed only one percent of what he preached about, himself.

2) Rasputin was never a monk, and never claimed to be. Herbert certainly never acted like a monk.

3) Rasputin only made a few prophecies in his career, but they all came true. Herbert made literally hundreds and every one of them was false. (All this documented in our sister presentation on Ed ‘s site: “Herbie: The False Prophet”)

4) Rasputin was wildly promiscuous, but never raped anyone. Herbert raped his own daughter.

5) Rasputin, only had sex with consenting adult ladies. Herbert, for 10 years, and by his admission according to numerous witnesses and her own later testimony, committed incest with his own daughter Dorothy.

6) Rasputin, never bathed, always stank, had greasy hair and his beard was filled with food stains, but women found him irresistible. Herbert, was exceptionally vain about his personal appearance and spent scores of thousands of dollars tithed by his duped followers on his own suits, but women all his life found him loathsome.

7) Rasputin’s wife knew all about his infidelities but took them in her stride and repeatedly boasted, “My husband is too much man for any one woman.” Herbert’s first wife Loma appears to have been too stupid to ever have realized that her husband was committing incest with their daughter.

8) Rasputin loved his wife and only spoke about her in the most glowing terms. Herbert repeatedly claimed according to numerous witnesses that his first wife Loma was frigid in bed and claimed this as an excuse for carrying out incest with their daughter.

9) Rasputin literally did return from the dead – twice. In 1916 he was murdered by Russian aristocrats led by Prince Yusupov. First, they filled him with cyanide poison and then shot him repeatedly. Then, when they were discussing what to do with the body, it got up and started chasing them. Then, they repeatedly shot him and then clubbed him to death and threw his body into the ice-filled River Neva. But later forensic examination showed he was still alive and managed to get to the surface before finally succumbing. By contrast, every year on Jan. 16, the anniversary of herbert’s death, some of his truest believers would assemble every year by his graveside in the hope that THIS would be THE YEAR when all the skeptics would be confounded. So far, no such luck, but perhaps the Pasadena Star News, The Ambassador Report or some public-spirited citizens can be on hand next time to record the occasion.

10) Rasputin was proud of coming from peasant stock and loved the poor peasants of Russia. Herbert loathed the ordinary rural people who were the backbone of his support and privately repeatedly referred to them as drones. He often in his 1950s and 1960s sermons screamed at them that they were “hicks.”

11) Rasputin was suspected of being a member of the Khlysty sect, which taught that the more you sinned, the more you needed God’s forgiveness and the more you repented so the closer you ended up to God. Therefore it was better to sin a lot – and often – in the first place. An interesting theology. Herbert by contrast taught sin was evil but expanded the definition ludicrously to deny his followers everything from medical treatment by doctors, nurses and medicines to college education to touching single members of the opposite sex on dates. Needless to say, unlike Rasputin, he never practiced what he preached himself. And since he never showed the slightest sign of repenting of any of his own deeds to the day he died at the age of 94, he couldn’t even have qualified for membership in the Khlysty, let alone any kind of mainstream Christianity. Rasputin would have thrown him out as unclean and of too low a moral standard to associate with.

12) Rasputin never had any need for artificial sexual aids. (According to some eyewitnesses, he had a huge wart on his penis which drove his partners wild. I am not making this up, see the work by Figes, the acclaimed Cambridge University historian). Herbert, by his own admission and the observation of many witnesses, regularly used a “dildo”or artificial penis prosthetic to boost his performance.

13) Rasputin worked hard for a decade to ease the burdens of taxes and oppression on ordinary Russian peasants. Herbert crippled 100,000+ families or more with his endless greedy financial demands.

14) Rasputin worked hard to bring economic relief to some of the poorest most economically miserable people on earth under the great oppressive system of the Russian Empire. Herbert inflicted utterly needless hardship and destitution on scores of thousands of people in the most prosperous, most tolerant and most free society in the history of the world.

15) Rasputin correctly prophesied that the Russian Imperial family would retain power and be safe as long as he was alive and close to them. After Herbert met many world leaders such as President Pinochet of Chile, President Sadat of Egypt, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India, the Shah of Iran, President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines and the Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, they were either murdered or ignominiously deposed or both.

16) Rasputin gave his followers and friends immense wealth. Herbert impoverished his followers and supporters in order to amass immense wealth himself.

17) Rasputin saved the lives of probably hundreds of children, including the Tsarevich, the young heir to the throne of Russia, who had hemophilia. Herbert sentenced hundreds, possibly thousands of young children to needless deaths by convincing their parents it was evil and worthy of eternal damnation to go to doctors and use modern medicines, though he always used them himself.

18) Rasputin really did have extraordinary healing powers, which he believed came from God and which he never used for any personal gain whatsoever. Herbert had no such powers but claimed them through Jesus Christ for his church. There is no evidence of any miraculous healings whatsoever compared to Rasputin. Nevertheless, Herbert and his ministers had no hesitation ever in accusing Rasputin of being a tool of the devil while claiming they were doing God’s work, even while they were claiming healing powers and gifts they didn’t have and impoverishing their followers in the process. So, readers, who really WERE the servants of Satan? By their works, you can know them all right.

19) Rasputin was personally incorruptible. He gave money away as fast he was given it. Herbert’s greed made Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos look like Mother Teresa by comparison.

20) Rasputin could have had his pick of all the gold and jewel-encrusted Faberge eggs in the Imperial Winter’s palace, but was never interested in a single one of them. Herbert spent literal millions of dollars to buy for himself Faberge eggs and other useless, tastelessly gaudy and monstrously expensive “trinkets’ from Harrods store of London with the tithe money scores of thousands sacrificed and sweated to send him.

21) Rasputin never even bothered to buy any special property for himself. He lived modestly with his family in a rented apartment. Herbert lived in the lap of ludicrous luxury on the Ambassador College campus in Pasadena, Texas and England.

22) Rasputin traveled privately on public Russian trains without any bodyguards or particular fuss. Herbert insisted on having his own multi million dollar executive luxury private jets.

23) Rasputin was fearless in insulting and condemning the wealthy and the powerful nobility of Russia for not using their huge wealth to ease the sufferings of the poor. That was the main reason they hated him so much. Herbert cravenly flattered and licked the ass of the mighty and powerful he craved audience with and never dared to mention the very name of Jesus Christ to virtually all of them as repeated video and taped evidence and the testimony of scores of eyewitnesses confirms.

24) Rasputin’s daughter Maria loved him and wrote a book of memoirs in which she was convinced that all the allegations of drunken orgies must be lies because he was such a sweet, loving guy at home. Herbert’s daughter Dorothy testified in legal documents that he had repeatedly committed incest with her until she was bought off by literally millions of dollars. (In this respect, at least, she was her father’s daughter).

25) Rasputin in his teachings, whatever the Khlysty sect rumors, remained entirely loyal to and supportive of the Russian Orthodox Christian Church and its traditional teachings. Herbert was guilty of repeated heresy even against the obscure little Church of God Seventh Day offshoot he angled his way into the 1920s and 1930s, insisting their immediately adopt all the bizarre and crackpot “new truths” he was repeatedly coming up with.

26) Rasputin not only was never a monk, he never claimed to be any kind of priest or minister. His preferred title was “Starets” or “holy man.” Herbert let himself be proclaimed as apostle and prophet, and claimed virtually all the main figures in the Bible were just prototypes to prepare the way for him.

27) Although Rasputin had a genuine, extraordinary healing gift, he never withheld it from anyone who had sought regular medical health and never taught going to a doctor was wrong in any way. He never preached against getting regular medical attention in any way. In all of this, he was entirely consistent with the record of the Gospels and book of Acts about the teaching of Jesus and the Apostles, including Paul. Herbert, who had no healing gift at all, ranted, raved and filled his followers with terror about going to any doctor.

28) Rasputin never preached or taught any hatred, contempt or distrust for any other Christian church, sect or group. He never condemned a single soul to death or hell for believing some different Christian creed. Herbert insisted that all the Christians of every stripe who had every lived were doomed to be burned in the Lake of Fire unless they accepted his, Herbert’s authority unconditionally as, Herbert repeatedly claimed, that was the one and only way to reach Christ was through him. (If you think this is an exaggeration in any way, go and chase up copies of the Worldwide News articles of 1978 and 1979 by Herbert himself on “God’s Principles of Church Government.” They were even published with diagrams in which the only way to Christ is through Herbert as the one and only end-time apostle of the one true church. Ready to speak out on THAT, Joe Tkach (Little Joe) Jnr? Still waiting. Can’t hear you.)

29) Rasputin opposed racial discrimination and race hate against oppressed minorities such as Jews and Muslims. This was a courageous and unpopular position to take amid the racial hatreds of the Russian Empire at that time. Herbert never raised a word of protest against racial segregation but repeatedly denounced Dr. Martin Luther King and the entire non-violent Civil Rights movement. To the day he died, he banned any kind of interracial marriage in the Worldwide Church of God.

30) Rasputin never presumed to compare himself to Biblical figure in either the Old or New Testaments. He would have regarded it as blasphemous. Herbert, with his cheerleaders Herman Hoeh and Gerald Waterhouse (literally “House of Piss” or “Gerald Water-Closet” after all, “God CALLS people WHAT THEY ARE!!!!! Doesn’t He????) regularly, indeed monotonously, compared himself to Moses, Elijah, John the Baptist, Ezekiel, Malachi and many others, always to the discredit of the Biblical originals.

31) Rasputin liked to sleep with ladies, both married and single. But he never tried to break up any marriages. Herbert, with his diabolical teaching that all divorces were invalid and that all first marriages were binding on to death, was directly responsible for breaking up certainly hundreds and probably thousands of happy marriages.

32) Rasputin faced assassination attempts that were always by jealous lovers he had either dumped or scorned. In 1914 he was stabbed by a woman who was jealous because he had dropped her. Prince Yusupov’s motive for murdering Rasputin was jealousy at Rasputin’s refusal to have a homosexual affair with him. Rasputin may have been a sex-crazed slob, but he had surprisingly conventional, albeit enormous, sexual tastes. Prince Yusupov, who lived another half century, was a flamboyant cross-dressing transvestite. Herbert was in terror from at least 2 reported death threats. The first was when his son-in-law Vern, Dorothy’s husband, discovered he was still committing incest with her and threatened to shoot him. The second was when a grief-stricken father was talked out of shooting him by church officials after his two children had died through lack of medical attention because he followed herbert’s false teachings.

33) Rasputin correctly predicted his own death, saying he would be murdered by either peasants or imperial aristocrats related to the Tsar. Herbert blasphemously claimed he would live forever without death, being taken to the Place of Safety in Petra and being changed into a God Being when Jesus came back to earth.

34) Both Rasputin and Herbert celebrated the date of January 7 every year. Rasputin did so because it is the date of Christmas, the birthdate of Jesus, according to the traditional Eastern Orthodox Christian calendar which is almost two weeks behind the Gregorian calendar followed by both virtually all Protestant denominations and the Catholic Church in the West. Herbert screamed abuse at any celebration of Christmas, especially at the idea of any people giving gifts of love and affection to each other instead of to him to buy more monkey-gland sexual injections, artificial penis enhancers or Faberge jewel-encrusted eggs. He celebrated January 7 because he claimed historic dates in his life always came then. The old fool was too abysmally ignorant from Jan. 7, 1934, when he claimed his regular “World Tomorrow” radio broadcast began, to his death 52 years later, to ever realize the date he glorified was also the date of Christmas to 300 million Christians around the world.

35) Rasputin never tried to create his own church. Herbert insisted on founding his and then claimed every other Christian in the world who rejected his authority was doomed to be destroyed in hell fire.

36) Rasputin only hypnotized a handful of people including the Empress, or Tsarina, Alexandra. Herbert successfully hypnotized more than 100,000 people over 40 years to impoverish themselves and give him all their money.

37) Rasputin, a peasant by background, was a sensible shrewd farmer who gave simple worthwhile advice on how to work the land. Herbert who had never dirtied his hands with farming all his life and despised those who did in the 1960s preached hysterically against any use of nitrate fertilizer. Thousands of poor dupes who believed him and went cold turkey on their use of nitrates immediately ruined their land and were ruined for life.

38) Rasputin never asked for a penny from the ordinary Russian people. Herbert bled dry every ordinary American he could reach and dupe.

39) Rasputin dressed like a slob but was an imposing figure of a man, broad shouldered and over six feet tall with dark piercing eyes. Herbert who ranted all the time about wimps and real manhood was less than 5 feet 7 inches tall, weighed 250 pounds for decades at a time, had a breast-like wimpy chest and round shoulders.

40) Rasputin strongly argued that world war with Germany was avoidable and should be avoided. Had his advice been taken, Russia would have been saved from the catastrophes of World War I, the Russian Revolution, the Russian Civil War and the mass starvation and Great Terror exterminations under Josef Stalin. Herbert, falsely claimed world war with Germany was inevitable and that Britain and America would be totally destroyed in it.

41) Rasputin tried to spare the Russian people the horrors and terror of World War I. Herbert put the British and American people in terror of his totally false and fictitious predictions about World War III.

42) Rasputin said the revolution that imposed communism on Russia could and should be avoided. Herbert falsely claimed that communism would survive Britain and America and even survive beyond the Second Coming of Christ. (See his “Middle East in Prophecy” article and goofy interpretations of Ezekiel 38 and 39.).

43) Rasputin’s idea of a good time with his friends was to get drunk in bars.

Herbert’s idea of a good time was to talk about masturbation, gross sexual acts and bowel movements at dinner parties with teenage girl students at Ambassador College. (Interesting “true” values being recaptured there all right).

44) Rasputin took no money, titles, land or jewels from the absolute monarchs of the largest and oldest global empire in existence, even though they would have given him anything.

Herbert was relentlessly greedy for every title, honor, and fragment of fame or glory he could lay his lustful little claws on.

45) Rasputin never preached against the evils of education and he never claimed he was a “doctor”, teacher or “educator” either.

Herbert ruined the lives of hundreds of thousands by convincing them that all higher education was stupid, useless, futile and evil. But that didn’t stop him buying and bribing every “honorary” Ph.D. or other title for himself that he could. The Philippines was a particularly favorite source for such goodies when it was run by Ferdinand Marcos. He even rivaled Herbert in his greed and incompetence and impoverished even more people. No wonder Herbert adored him so much. In the 1970s, he wrote rapturous appreciations of Marcos’s greatness as cover stories in “The Plain Truth.”

46) Rasputin had an endless appetite for regular sex.

Herbert had a relentless appetite for perverted sex.

47) Rasputin never showed any symptoms of mental illness.

Herbert, by his own admission in his autobiography, showed all the classic symptoms of extreme manic depressive disease. He was also a sociopath, a documented compulsive liar and suffered acute, egomaniacal narcissistic disorders. And he was a lifelong sufferer from an extreme case of Jerusalem Syndrome the psychiatric disorder in which insecure, unstable individuals believe they are prominent figures in the Bible and that all of creation revolves around their activities and (mis)adventures.

48) Rasputin was loyal to his country’s rulers to the day he died.

Herbert was filled with treasonous venom, contempt and hate for most of his country’s rulers. He especially hated the three greatest presidents of this century: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

49) Rasputin was falsely accused of being a German sympathizer and spy during World War I.

Herbert in the 1970s tried to flatter and fawn over German politician Franz Josef Strauss precisely because he was convinced that Strauss would become a neoNazi dictator who would slaughter hundreds of millions of Americans and Britons with nuclear weapons. There can, therefore, be no doubt that Herbert would have licked Hitler’s ass personally if given the chance to do so.

50) Rasputin was a genuinely modest man.

In Herbert’s case, he didn’t know the meaning of the word, did he?

51) Rasputin’s death was followed by the terrible catastrophe he had warned against and tried to avert: the collapse of Imperial Russian Orthodox Christian civilization and the cruel, untimely deaths of scores of millions.

Herbert’s death was followed by the easing and lifting of many of the cruel and ludicrous burdens he had inflicted on his followers. The American domestic economy boomed; the United States recovered dramatically against Japanese and European competition; communism collapsed; Iraq was defeated; Israel defied the Palestinian intifada; the U.S. competitive advantage over Western Europe grew; and the Mets won their second World Series.