Friday, March 13, 2009

Mithras Rising: U2 and the Cross of Light

Bernie Madoff's new neighborhood, 
as seen from space. Spot the Solar symbols!

Tonight Bernie Madoff spends the night in the Metropolitan Correctional Center (zip code 10007), awaiting sentencing on June 16. It was reportedly a cathartic experience for many of his victims, and the New York Times report had it that...

 

Maybe it was cathartic for Wall St as well, seeing that the Tao Dow closed up...

 

There will a US Senate hearing on reimbursing his victims on March 17. I've read he might cost the IRS $17 Billion, but I also read he only embezzled $17 Billion, not 50. It's very confusing.

  What's not confusing is that Madoff did his dirty deeds on the 17th floor of the Lipstick Building, on 53rd St. Of course, 53rd St was in the news for another reason recently, since a block of it was recently rechristened U2 Way.


We looked at some of the strange synchs surrounding U2 (or "Utu") here and here but there's another one that caught my eye. It was from a bit on Letterman, where Dave had the boys shovel the snow off of "U2 Way."

 
Here we see Adam Clayton crowned not only with the Sun, but with the Cross of Light as well.

 

Those of you who've seen Zeitgeist might recognize the Cross of Light, but for those of you who haven't here's a short primer on this ancient Solar icon:
The doctrine of salvation by crucifixion had, like many of the ancient forms of religious faith, an astronomical origin. The sun is hung on a cross or crucified when it passes through the equinoxes. People in northern climates were saved by the sun’s crucifixion when it crossed over the equatorial line into the season of spring, at the vernal equinox at Easter, and thereby gave out a saving heat and light to the world and stimulated the generative organs of animal and vegetable life. The sun that is crucified is the dark winter sun, lacking the warmth and brightness of the summer. It is resurrected as, or supplanted by, its twin, the bright warm fertilizing summer sun that continues on to ascend into heaven.- Askwhy.co.uk

Last year we looked at a remarkable use of the Cross of Light in the film Across the Universe, a tribute to the Beatles. The cross was used in a performance of "Happiness is a Warm Gun" which featured multiple Salma Hayeks (there were 5 in the film but there were originally supposed to be 12). And who was one of the stars of that film? 

Why, none other than Paul Hewson, aka Bono Vox, singer of U2. 

  The Cross of Light was sacred to the Mithas cults, who were supplanted by a new religion that also was inspired by a cross of light, in this case Emperor Constantine's dream of an illuminated Chi-Rho icon. Constantine's vision was by no means unique- there have been sightings of crosses of light in the skies over California, which have been classified as UFOs. I wonder if they came from "across the universe?" 

 But getting back to that shot of Adam Clayton and the cross of light; "Adam Clayton" is a fascinating name given that Adam was made of clay in the Biblical rewriting of the Sumerian myths. Clay has an interesting Masonic resonance as well. 

But the reason I was so struck by that image (which most people would think was just more U2 media white noise) is that I've been working on the dense and rich symbolism in the film Michael Clayton, starring Chris K himself, George Clooney.


This is one of those films that flew beneath my radar (like Solaris itself, actually) but I've come to see as incredibly profound and quite possibly prophetic. We'll be looking at it soon and I promise you will not be disappointed. 

 UPDATE: Sensei has some deep background on Mithras here. Much more to come on this emerging old/new archetype....