Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Stairway to Sirius: National Treasure

Please click to enlarge

As we saw, the Monolith Hotel brings a strange twist of Hollywood and Astronaut Theology to the Stairway to Sirius drama. However, 2001: A Space Odyssey isn't the only semiotically loaded film that has left a footprint on lower Manhattan. 

The Masonic recruitment film, National Treasure, reaches its climax just a few blocks from the World Financial Center at Trinity Episcopal Church. However, Trinity also has a chapel, St. Paul's, which sits right next to the Monolith Hotel.


Here Ben (Star-)Gates discovers the Knights Templar treasure, hidden by Colonial Masons beneath a crypt. We'll be going to great detail with this film in the future, which has deeper levels of meaning beneath the obvious Masonic narrative. But how fascinating to see this "treasure" within a stone's throw of the Stairway and the Monolith. Note the statues of Sekhmet guarding the door. Many critics assailed the film as an Indiana Jones knockoff...


...which is ironic since Lucas and Spielberg stole the treasure room scene back for their AAT propaganda film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Note that Indy specifies early Egyptian, reminding us of Egypt's early Golden Age, when the gods ruled.

That Golden Age is explicitly addressed in the narrative with the Templar-like adoration of the severed head of one of the ancient "gods," a transdimensional astronaut who came to Earth and helped create civilization. 

Crystal Skull directly rebufffs the materialism of National Treasure by declaring that the true treasure is "knowledge"- the knowledge of the alien genesis of humanity and civilization.


But we see a hint of the same knowledge in Treasure, when Riley Poole and and Abigal Chase study the cyclopean, hidden architecture of lower Manhattan and make the only plausible conclusion. 

 Even more fascinating is the fact that the threesome in National Treasure corresponds to the protagonists in the Jupiter sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Riley Poole links us to (Masonic) astronaut Frank Poole, Abigal's last name, "Chase," is a tradename referring to a "huntsman," which is roughly analogous to "Bowman," the other (Masonic) astronaut's last name. 

And Ben Gates reminds of the Stargate of the Monolith, or perhaps even the Starchild himself. Consider that when you see the chapel of the "National Treasure" church sitting side by side with the Monolith Hotel. 

Note also that the inferior Treasure sequel dealt with Mesoamerican artifacts as does Crystal Skull, and features Ed Harris, who played the 33rd Degree Scottish Rite Masonic astronaut John Glenn in The Right Stuff. 

And let me also say with absolute certainty that so much of what we are looking at is not always the result of conscious human intent: in fact I'm not sure if the truly powerful synchs ever are. As comforting as it is to believe in the Illuminati or whomever, the actual truth of what is happening around us is much more complicated -and much more deeply disturbing. 

 Sadly, I can report that with utter conviction.