Dan Aykroyd seems to be pursuing a second career as a UFO researcher. Or at least a UFO expounder, as Unplugged on UFOs documentary stems from a series of interviews taken by David Sereda, whose own ruminations we looked at a week or so back. Interesting in light of the Sumerian and secret society mythology he wrote into Ghostbusters or the UFO/MIC connections in My Stepmother is an Alien, which Jake talked about here.
Fascinating guy- these little chats are well worth watching whatever your stance of UFO and ETs may be. Aykroyd seems devoid of idealism and Hollywood piety, always a good thing.
Secret Sunny tidbits- Aykroyd costarred in movies with both Mulder (2001's Evolution) and Scully (in House of Mirth). Also appearing in Evolution was Julianne Moore, of The Forgotten fame.
Aykroyd also put in one of his best performances ever as a manic-depressive hitman in Grosse Pointe Blank (which starred John Cusack) in which he recited Revelation 13.
In one of the earliest posts I did on this blog, I looked at the mission logo for the Constellation program, with its hidden 3/17. What I hadn't seen then was the patch, which is triangular, rather than the usual circle.
The shuttle program has introduced a number of different shapes for the logos/patches, though most seem to have stuck to some variation on the circle or oval or rectangle. This whole triangle thing is quite eye-catching, particularly given NASA's semiotic connections to Egyptian mythology, well documented by Hoagland and Bara, as well as on this blog.
All but one or two of the Apollo patches were circles, including the most famous of them all, Apollo 11. The iconic design has been reworked for a new project...
...that being the Altair lunar landing module. What caught my eye (no pun intended) here was the old "eye-in-triangle" motif, familiar from Masonic iconography. Here the Earth plays the part of the Eye. As far as I know this is a new variation, in that the Eye is usually meant to symbolize the Sun and/or the Moon.
The Orion spacecraft was unveiled on March 30, giving us a tidy reference to 33 and 17 (add the numerals 3302009). And yet there are 13 stars on the patch! This design is much like the Constellation, adding in the all-important stars of Orion's Belt, well familiar to fans of Robert Bauval. Funny how Hoagland used to speculate on NASA's original logo incorporating Orion and here it is now, out in the open. Just like everything else these days.
Dan Brown fans might be amused by the use of Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man icon in the EVA Systems patch (EVA is a life-support equipment program for astronauts). Again the triangle and another encoded 13 (possibly a Templar reference, given the Masonic influence in NASA). Note: The Vitruvian Man is also on the Italian Euro dollar coin, which is a whole other topic.
So NASA is using triangles instead of circles now. Big deal, right? However, the thing that got me thinking on all of this was when I was watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind and noticed the folks in the alien/human exchange program were wearing triangular mission patches, which also had that old eye-in-triangle riff on them. And CE3K got me thinking back on the possible origins of the eye-in-the-sky motif.
With all the high weirdness- and the high tech hardware- in the air these days, you can't help but wonder if this new triangular design motif might not have some deeper meaning, other than the usual Masonic connotations. We're getting hit with so much from so many directions that this might not seem all that significant, but given NASA's symbolic fixations, it could be an important clue nonetheless.
It certainly fits in with the tenor of these very strange times we find ourselves in.
Well, the two NJ "pranksters" are facing charges for disorderly conduct. I guess that's the price of manning the barricades of the Enlightenment. Well, that and the outlay for the supplies.
These guys claimed they did all of this themselves- four separate times- with balloons, helium tanks and road flares. Sounds like they spent a bit of money on this little experiment, don't you think? Those flares run about 10 dollars apiece, helium tank rental is what, 50 bucks or so? Those kinds of balloons are probably a couple bucks a pop.
Call me stubborn, but I didn't believe those lights were aliens then and I don't believe that those two "skeptics" were just a couple of lone pranksters now. As I wrote:
I'm not sure if these UFOs are balloons or ETs (my hunch is they're neither, and may be some new mil-tech) but I certainly love the semiotics of it all (Phoenix! Buto! Orion!) And that's all that really matters on The Secret Sun.
So what stinks about these "revelations?" Just this- no one is addressing the basic issue how balloons could travel in a 20 mile arc in less than 18 minutes. Except for one commenter on a skeptic blog:
posted 01/07/2009 11:01:47 AM healthyskeptic wrote:
Hi everyone. Before I tell my story, I just want to let everyone know I do not believe that extraterrestrial beings have ever visited this planet. With that said, I witnessed these lights on Monday night, and they were not flares. My friend and I were driving in Morris Plains, and these 5 bright red lights flew (at a fast rate of speed) over our car, then climbed into the sky. After hovering for a bit, they made quick descents, (hundreds of feet) then climbed quickly again. They were unison for the most part, but were not following any kind of wind pattern. I refuse to say it was extraterrestrial, but it was NOT flares. It will remain a UFO in my book.
UFO as in unidentified, not necessarily "alien." The reaction of the "skeptics" is helping to cement my longtime suspicion- that they are merely loudmouthed stalking horses and shills for the Cryptocracy, which is extremely well-represented in Central/North NJ.
Synchronicity is a funny old thing. I've been knee deep in research this past week for my next book, reading about Cybele and her mind-bogglingly crazy cult. On Friday I had to drag my tired, old, aching carcass into Masonic Manhattan for a documentary interview. The location for the shoot was up in the air, but finally I was called up to the Empire Hotel near Columbus Circle.
The last time I was up in that neck of the woods was last Beltane, which I wrote about here. But coming back from the interview I was stunned by this bizarre alignment- as you come down Broadway, the Trump International globe lines up with the Cybele shrine (also known as the Maine Monument). And in that same northwest orientation we see in the Stairway to Sirius- and the Atlantis Palm.
And as Thuthie wrote recently, this type of globe (modeled on an armillary sphere) is eerily similar to the Stargate in the movie version of Carl Sagan's novel Contact. And just to add even more Synchromystic incestuousness to it all, Loren Coleman had recently asked me about these globes (there is one theory that Baphomet was actually an armillary sphere).
Since I only saw the Cybele shrine from a distance last time, I moseyed over for a closer look. Quite a beautiful piece of neoclassical art. All sorts of gods- Poseidon, Osiris-Dionysus, etc.- are depicted, but right there on the masthead is none other than our old chum Harpocrates, who we recently looked at in relation to U2. Note that U2 are now indelibly inscribed into the Manhattan landscape.
Note how he is situated near the eagle's head, foreshadowing Horus-Apollo (look at another view here). Is that the message of the statue itself? Or could this juxtaposition be identifying Harpocrates with Ganymede, who ascended to heaven on the wings of Zeus and became the celestial water-bearer? (Note: if you haven't already, check out the Ganymede symbolism in The 40 Year-Old Virginhere).
This would makes sense in light of the water/nautical symbolism of the shrine. Is the Magna Mater -the Star of the Sea- steering the godship towards the Aquarian Age, as symbolized by the fountains that lie directly in her path?
The Trump globe is at top, Harpocrates points to the west on the Maine Monument at right and fountains and point-in-circle obelisk are at center.
I can't help but sense a deeper message- even an agenda- in this enigmatic piece of art and these strange alignments. Particularly given the profoundly significant piece of real estate it sits on. It certainly has nothing to do with the sinking of a battleship, which it was supposed to commemorate. It's interesting to note that the Circle was designed by a Bonesman, William Eno.
Get out your reading glasses- there's a gargantuan new post on solar and sun worship symbolism in The Chronicles of Narnia up now on The Solar Seminar. Some of you may have run across some of this information before, but I really wanted to dig into the Mithraic connections, since I have a lot of posts coming up on Helios Mithras in the near future.
Suffice it to say, the more I look at our friend(s) from Phrygia, the crazier it gets...
Barackobamun is in Europe, and the press is alight with prefab stories on "tension" between the US and its NATO allies. Which, of course, automatically means that everyone will be giving each other backrubs and handjobs all week. These stories are for the benefit of the rubes back home.
One of his stops will be in the resort town of Baden Baden, right off of the Autobahn. Just outside of Baden Baden (in fact it's right off the exit for the town) is the not-so-world famous Autobahnkirche, officially known as St. Christophorous.
Yeah, that's it. The pyramid. Because the first thing I think of when I hear the word "church" is a pyramid. But the design is the least strange thing about this house of worship.
The grounds are just as interesting. There are four obelisks, set to the cardinal points and "the Abraham Gate" at the entrance, all done in an architectural style I believe is called "Early Annunaki."
Boy, don't those columns just fill you up with the Holy Spirit? I like the big compass at the top of this one. There's a very interesting figure at the bottom- the church calls him Molech, but I prefer to call him "Optimus Subprime."
It's a giant with the head of an automobile. Someone call Michael Bay. And then call Erich Von Daniken.
The inside is just as interesting. This is the crypt- note the octagonal skylight. Lots more of those Babylon-looking reliefs everywhere as well. Not the least bit creepy.
Then there are some interesting stained glass windows that make the Denver Airport murals look like Norman Rockwell. Fascinating stuff.
Let's keep an eye on the news. It will be fascinating if Barackobamun goes to mass here.
The jingling of bells during the dance is meant to frighten evil spirits and the clashing of sticks represent the fight between good and evil. The dancer who weaves in and out of the team of dancers is known as the Fool and whilst his dance seems to be that of a random nature, in fact his is a very intricate dance and represents the naivety of man. A dancer who is dressed as an animal character shows mans reliance on nature. Handkerchiefs emphasise the hand movements during the dance.- Crop Fertility Rituals
The Kalends of April are sacred to Venus, as is the entire month, and this day has been called the Veneralia. Public games, ludi, would be held in honor of the deity. This day was also known as All Fools Day to the Romans, and they would spend the entire day celebrating with comic hilarity, doing things backwards, wearing women's clothes, dancing in the streets, and generally carrying on in the most in the most foolish and congenial manner. This is one of the few Roman holidays that has preserved some of its original character, under the modern name April Fools Day. In Egypt, this day was celebrated as the Birthday of the god Hathor.- (link)
The Anglo-Saxons called April Oster-monath or Eostur-monath, the period sacred to Eostre or Ostara, the pagan Saxon goddess of spring, from whose name is derived the modern Easter.- Wikipedia
It's probably no coincidence that April Fools' Day is celebrated at the same time that two other similar holidays are celebrated. In ancient Rome, the festival of Hilaria was thrown to celebrate the resurrection of the god Attis. Hilaria is probably the base word for hilarity and hilarious, which mean great merriment. Today, Hilaria is also known as Roman Laughing Day. -How Stuff Works
Perhaps the biggest change came from the initiated version of the Tarot that the original Golden Dawn (and its later offshoots) used. In that deck, the Fool is represented as a naked child of indeterminate sex, who is accompanied by a wolf on a leash, who is reaching up for a rose. In Golden Dawn, the Fool represents the god Harpocrates, the Egyptian god Horus as a young child. - Associated Content
"The four magic symbols, the sceptre, the cup, the sword and the pentacle. The fool always carries them, although he has long since forgotten what they mean. Nevertheless they belong to him, even though he does not know their use. The symbols have not lost their power, they retain it in themselves.- P D. Ouspensky
ITEM: For those of you who haven't seen The Forgotten, here's the trailer. Note that yet again we see aliens connected to memory and amnesia and identity.
ITEM: Spoiler alert: Here is the final scene from The Quiet Earth, for those of you that have seen both Knowing and this film. See if you pick up on the similarity.
There aren't many bigger comic book geeks in Hollywood than Nicolas Cage. After all, the guy has a tattoo of Ghost Rider on his arm. But when executives at Virgin Comics approached the actor about starting his own line of books, Cage shrugged. "I said I didn't have any ideas, but I told them my son might," Cage says.
So Cage and his 16-year-old son, Weston, brainstormed an idea that would become Voodoo Child, a six-issue illustrated series that hits shelves July 11 and marks one of the first launched by an A-list actor. Hollywood directors long have been fans of comic books. Those who have written Marvel and DC stories for years include Kevin Smith, Bryan Singer and Joss Whedon.
Voodoo Child is different because it's "more spiritual than, say, a Superman or a Batman," Cage says. "That's always been more effective because there's more believability to it." The stories will be rooted in some real-world scenarios.
Set in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, Voodoo Child tells the story of Gabriel Moore, a child murdered in the antebellum South by secessionist soldiers. Just before dying, the boy puts a voodoo curse on his soul, leaving him in a netherworld to cope with gang violence and abductions in the modern-day city. Weston says he had tinkered with the idea since seeing hurricane damage in New Orleans, where he and his father lived part time for years.
ITEM: I was struck by the synchronicity between the Plymouth Air crash in Knowing and the connection between National Treasure and Flight 1549. Here's the link for the post making those connections.
WARNING: THIS REVIEW IS NOTHING BUT WALL-TO-WALL SPOILERS!
Well, I saw Knowing today, and as I write there is an extremely violent thunderstorm going on outside. I hope the power doesn't go out, because it's certainly an appropriate backdrop to express my thoughts on the film.
I went into the film nursing a preconception, that this was some allegory of personal Gnostic revelation for John Koestler (a tribute to Arthur Koestler, author of The Roots of Coincidence), and that what I would be seeing would feed into this notion. I still see this film as highly symbolic and inherently Gnostic, but by no means pertaining to any individual's personal "awakening." I started to wonder if this is a metaphorical depiction of an ongoing - or oncoming - agenda, as it ties into so many strands of meaning I've been puzzling over for the past several years, and certainly since 9/11.
Though I was surprised by how much I liked it, Knowing is derivative as hell. There is a scene where the Whisper People (the alien angels) show young Caleb Koestler (played by Chandler Canterbury, who also plays the young Benjamin Button) a vision of the oncoming solar apocalypse and it's nearly a shot-for-shot tribute to the alien apocalypse in The X-Files episode, "The Sixth Extinction: Amor Fati. "
The ending of the film- where children are taken from Earth in order to seed a new world- reminded me of the alien Rapture in "Two Fathers/One Son," the mytharc episodes that preceded "The Sixth Extinction." Visually, the scene reminded me of the cult classic film, The Quiet Earth. The climax of the film recalls Deep Impact. And those of you who saw The Day the Earth Stood Still will pick up a lot of that vibe in Knowing, though it's a lot better than that preachy mess.
Reviewers have compared the Whisper People to the Strangers in Dark City, but they reminded me more of the Friendly Man in The Forgotten (a film that was originally set in Boston). Knowing takes a lot of its ominous mood from The Forgotten, which itself borrowed liberally from The X-Files. At the end of the film the Whisper People morph from mopey goths to looking very much like the robots at the end of AI (but also reminded me of the light beings that Tracy Twyman mentioned in our first crossover).
The plane crash scene is pretty tough to watch, and reminded me of two other Ten Thirteen milestones- "Tempus Fugit/Max" from the fourth season of The X-Files, and "The Innocents" from the third season of Millennium (which we looked at in the "Grill Flame") post.
(Real time note: Not only do I hear thunder, now I hear sirens)
I was also struck on a personal level, seeing that the entire film takes place in my old neck of the woods, that being 42º latitude 71º longitude, which we see repeatedly on GPS. I did notice that my old hometown of Braintree was lit up like a Christmas tree in the satellite photos during the opening credits (I wonder how much of that was being generated by the monstrous South Shore Plaza, the mall where the exteriors for Paul Blart: Mall Cop were shot).
The crash of the Plymouth Air jet seemed highly symbolic to me, since it was at Plymouth where corporatist Calvinism was imported into the New World (as were the Knowles family, incidentally). I've written about the strange, counter-intuitive syncs surrounding Plymouth and the Mayflower, and they certainly tied directly into this film.
Easter eggs are pretty redundant in a film like this, but I did catch a few:
The subway disaster at Lafayette St (an obvious 9/11 allegory) claimed the lives of 170 people, not 81 (that was the plane crash). Check out Loren Coleman's post on Lafayette and "the Fayette factor" for deep background.
And what's 17 without a 33? The last two disasters were predicted to claim 170 and 33 lives (although 33 wasn't quite accurate).
Koestler's wife Allison died in a hotel fire in Phoenix. That's the kind of obvious sync we see when they are put in a film intentionally.
Rose Byrne (Byrne=burn, more fire symbolism) is named Diana and dies in a car crash, as did her royal namesake, who was "England's Rose."
Diana's identification with the Moon draws back to themes explored in Dark City- the lunar, monotheistic traditions battling the Solar, fertility ones. Interesting to note that Diana was going to disobey the aliens and take the children elsewhere, therefore opposing the Solar/alien revelation.
Most of the action takes place in Lexington, where the American (read: Masonic) Revolution began. Lexington split off from Cambridge in 1713.
When we meet Koestler's father, he is standing next to a very strange sculpture of a roaring lion, that looks very much like Aion (Deus Leontocephalus) from Mithraic iconography. Given the symbolic thrust of the film I don't think this is accidental. Since we are looking at Synchronicity, it should be noted that Aion was of particular importance to Carl Jung.
At the end of the film we see the children on their new alien world, merrily skipping through fields of grain with their white rabbits (la la la, everyone on Earth is dead, la la la). Since we're coming up on Easter, it's worth noting that rabbits or hares are sacred to the Magna Mater, whether you call her Eostre or Ishtar or Astarte or Inanna or Isis. More ancient fertility symbolism in sci-fi, where it shouldn't belong.
As others have noted, Caleb and Abigail (name on loan from National Treasure) run towards the Tree of Life, which we've been looking at in connection to ancient depicitions of the DNA helix.That entire tableau seems entirely symbolic to me.
I couldn't help but remember that I had an ear infection when I had my leprechaun hallucination when I saw Caleb's hearing aid, which was a plot point in his own anomalous encounters.
Exhibit A in Bible UFO literature- the wheels of Ezekiel- show up. Again, this ties into the "Sixth Extinction" storyline in The X-Files, since the quote was a linchpin when the AAT storyline was picked up again in "Providence/Provenance."
So yet again, aliens at the multiplex. I was expecting this film to be an exploitative scare-a-thon, but the world destruction seemed entirely metaphorical to me. I've been puzzling over this strange nexus of Solar symbolism and alien revelation for quite some time now, and I'm still always stunned when I see it play out before my eyes on screen. Maybe more so than if I hadn't been aware of the history and importance of these memes.
Koestler crowned with Sol, while the Green Sun keeps its own counsel
Although it's been reduced to a staid cartoon by scholars and opposition propagandists, the Solar religion is extremely complex, extremely symbolic and incredibly weird. I've been struggling with a post on Mithraism (that I hope to have up soon) that will prove just how alien - in the truest sense of the word- the Solar religions are. Last spring I began to suspect that the Sun in question is not our friendly old Sol, but an alien sun that some people throughout history have believed is of particular importance to human existence.
The giveaway for the symbolic nature of the end of the world scenario was given away for me when Koestler (representing technocratic reductionist materialism) and his pastor father (representing corporate supernaturalism) embrace and then are consumed by the solar flare. It struck me that both our sciences and our religions would be absolutely devastated by alien contact, no matter how hard we may see the priests of these institutions back-peddling in the media lately. Not that they would be destroyed, but they would have to completely start from scratch, just as the biosphere would after the kind of inferno we see depicted in the film.
So what does that mean today, when alien themes dominate in Hollywood like never before, UFO sightings are at an all-time high, and the Vatican and NASA are trying to figure out how humankind would respond to alien contact? This film could be pure fiction (in fact, let's just assume that it is, even though we've seen recent scare stories about solar activity), but if there was any truth behind all of the omens and portents we are all looking at, Knowing is throwing gasoline on this smoldering fire.
But it's almost impossible for me to see this as a literal narrative, given the whimsical, soft-focus ending. Since solar symbolism and aliens seem to be so closely linked in movies, Knowing seems to tell us that large-scale contact would bring humanity to a standstill, and that only the very young would be able to fully adjust to the post-contact paradigm.
All well and good, but why not just make that a movie? Why cloak these themes in a disaster movie scenario? That's the sort of thing that arouses my suspicions. But so does nearly everything we are seeing nowadays. Aliens and disasters are standard fare for big budget movies. But there's something about the way we're seeing these themes play out lately that really makes me wonder.
Lots of audio-visual activity in the Synchrosphere this week....
Jake Kotze does his first video in I don't know how long. This video is not narrated in Jake's inimitable style, but features a song from British pop group All Saints. Here's the synopsis:
Synchromystic video unveiling the emerging human subtle body (see Alex Grey paintings for more details). The vivified and realized, aureola, halo and chakras of the Stars.
Always interesting stuff. Jake has a wonderful knack for catching the icons/triggers in our new ritualized pop culture.
Jake's partner-in-crime Steve Willner has started a new podcast called Balmy Weather, apparently a riposte to Aeolus' Stormy Weather. Steve is a very capable media wizard, so this is definitely worth keeping an eye on.
Speaking of Aeolus, he has his last post and podcast up, which I mentioned on the Satellite. I hope people are not concerned- this is a self-induced alchemical transcending, presaging a new birth after a time spent in the purifying waters of the Omniversal Mind. Neil Kramer of The Cleaver fame takes part in the ultimate Storm, and links to it on his own site.
Also, don't forget that Henrik conducted a live show with Michael Tsarion on the ancient Brotherhood network and the second part of the archived show is up now.
I've overbooked myself on a host of different projects (that will be announced in time here) but I may start an occasional podcast or videoblog in the Summer. I don't want the Secret Sun to get stale, so I may pursue something along those lines.
All you Synchromystics and Psychonauts out there, let me know what you're blogging on or reading lately in the comments sections. Don't forget to include hotlinks.
This is the long-overdue third part of the Hancock analysis. My apologies for the delay. You can read part one here and part two here if, like me, you totally forgot what the heck was going on in this series.
The original intent of the screenplay that Hancock is based on is that Hancock is Superman. Although the Jason Bateman character was originally named Horus, somewhere along the line he became Ray (Re, Ra). His character's son was a major character in the original screenplay but was not in the film, since the thrust of the script (no pun intended) became about Ray and Hancock's relationship.
Strangely, Hancock is clearly subservient to Ray, to the point of going to prison at his suggestion. This relationship may not make sense in a real-world context, but corresponds to the mythology, as we see in this interesting story:
When Ra reigned as king over Egypt he sailed up the Nile towards Nubia, because his enemies were plotting against him. At Edfu Horus entered the bark of the great god and hailed him as father. Ra greeted the hawk god and entreated him to slay the rebels of Nubia. Then Horus flew up to the sun as a great winged disk, and he was afterwards called "the great god, the lord of the sky". He perceived the enemies of Ra, and went against them as a winged disk. Their eyes were blinded by his brightness, and their ears were made deaf, and in the confusion they slew one another. Not a single conspirator remained alive.
I'm sure no one will be surprised that when I read "great winged disk," I think "flying saucer." And one can almost imagine some sort of sonic and laser weaponry inherent in this narrative. But this little coda to the story still cracks me up:
Ra afterwards visited the battlefield, and, when he saw the dead bodies of his foes, he said: "Life is pleasant."
This story has an interesting parallel in Hancock when the police summon Hancock from prison to take down a heavily armed gang of bank robbers. Ultimately this episode was orchestrated by Ray, who has a similar epiphany to Ra's when his plan to rehabilitate Hancock succeeds.
So this unlikely relationship between Hancock and Ray has its roots in the ancient literature, as does the tension between Hancock and Mary (read Isis-Meri), since Horus reportedly beheaded Isis when she took pity on Set.
Given the relationship to Superman (whose own god is Rao) it's should be noted that we also have a tantalizing Synchromystic link with President-elect Obama, a bonafide geek who has not been shy in identifying with Superman. I didn't catch any obvious alien subtext in Hancock, but he and Mary's longevity is certainly reminiscent of the immense lifespans of the Anunaki in the ancient literature.
HIDDEN HANDS?
So, yet another blizzard of weird correspondences to mull over. And a whole host of questions as to what we are actually looking at. Are these just easter eggs or still more evidence of the power of archetypes to tell their own story once set in motion? It could be a little of both.
There's little trace of any of this in the original Tonight, He Comes screenplay, and it's certainly not Vince Gilligan's style either. However, one thing I've learned is that screenwriting credits don't always mean much, and that there are often other hands on deck, often getting producer credit - or often, no credit at all.
Bat-George covers the bases in Batman and Robin (1997)
One of the producers on Hancock is Akiva Goldsman, who is no stranger to hidden messages and secret symbols, having written the screenplays for The Da Vinci Code and the upcoming Angels and Demons. In the Hancock DVD doc, Goldsman gets a lot more screen-time than Gilligan, and seems a lot more involved with the shaping of the narrative.
Goldsman is no stranger to superheroes either, having served as the credited screenwriter for the Schumacher-era Batman films, Batman Forever and Batman and Robin(the latter starred George Clooney, himself no stranger to sun god symbolism).
Who better to write this very interesting film?
POSTSCRIPT
Ancient space gods and all the rest of it makes me think of Scientology as well. And of course Will Smith is now BFF with Tom Cruise, High Priest of the Church of L-Ron. After wrapping Hancock, Smith even gave the crew gift cards for CoS "personality tests."
Pondering Cruise and the various scandals over some of the more prominent Scientologists reminds me of L Ron Hubbard and Jack Parsons, going off into the desert together in January of 1946 to do a little boundary crossing of their own, the so-called "Babalon Working." Both were members of the OTO at the time (though Hubbard later claimed he was actually spying on the group), though we have no clear record of what degrees Hubbard may have attained.
Hancock paints a giant red heart on the moon for Ray
Regular Secret Sun readers know that this occurred at the exact same time that the US Army was sending radar signals to the Moon from Fort Monmouth, New Jersey with Project Diana, the first known project to make contact with another celestial body (given Parsons and Hubbard's contacts with the MIC, it's possible they coordinated the Working with the radar test).
Interesting then to note thatHancock ends with the image of a giant red heart painted on the moon for Ray by Hancock.
Incidentally, both Parsons and L-Ron were closely associated with Aleister Crowley at the time of the Babalon Working, though I'm not sure how they themselves defined the Eye of Horus, or if that figured somehow into their summoning of the "Scarlet Woman."
How strange that these obscure rituals still reverberate to this day.
This is a very long and detailed video but offers some very interesting puzzle pieces for anyone digging into the UFO phenomena. David Sereda talks about the filmed encounters that NASA has had with anomalous objects and then proceeds to lay out his own theories on Stargates, time travel and alien contact. Lots of interesting questions raised and lots of interesting grist for your semiotic mill. I can't speak to the science, obviously, but Sereda certainly hits some very interesting bases in the overall mystery of extraterrestrial contact and its aftershocks.
Again, heavy stuff, often slow-going, but essential for UFOologists and other assorted psychonauts.
A misty shape, bearing a distinct similarity to the movie alien, was captured behind a bush next to a mysterious beam of light. The spooky snap was caught by Google image cameras in the town of Berkeley Heights in New Jersey. Some claim the image could be evidence of life in outer space while others point to a simple trick of the light.
The 'ET' alien was photographed on Diamond Hill Road, a semi-rural location about eight miles from Morristown Municipal Airport, New Jersey and 30 miles from the bright lights of New York City.
Malcolm Robinson, head of the Strange Phenomena Investigations, described the image as "the first of its kind". He said: "On close inspection the similarities with ET are obvious but it's hard to say with any certainty what exactly it is."
"Of added interest is the strange beam of light to the right, which I cannot explain either. "This picture is the first of it's kind, as far as I'm aware, in that its been captured on Google's new Street View technology.
The beam is nothing new to Secret Sun readers, since we've looked at the Heavenly Beam icon in several different posts. And strangely enough the E.T. film came up in Wednesday's post. But the Synchronicity here goes even deeper.
Diamond Hill Road is a very interesting spot for this image to be found because it connects to the entrance for the old Bell Labs compound in adjoining Murray Hill, where the transistor was somewhat mysteriously developed shortly after the Roswell incident in 1947. I know this road well since I used to pick my wife up there when she worked for Bell Labs (don't get excited, she was just a secretary), which became Lucent Technologies and is now Alcatel Lucent (Previously to working at BL/LT she worked at the old AT&T where the giant Mithras statue was located).
Much more recently, stories began surfacing about what the Army or Air Force supposedly did with the downed Alien Spacecraft in August, September and October of 1947. Nuclear Powered Engines and Advanced Communications and Computing devices, all of which were a hundred years beyond post-World War II technology, were taken from the Alien wreck and purportedly made their way to The Bell System's "Bell Laboratories", then located in Murray Hill, New Jersey -- it has been alleged. There, they were studied, dissected, microanalyzed and pieces tested. One piece was supposedly found to have unique potential, an Alien switching device composed of Silicon and Arsenic, arranged in a microscopic array much more complicated than even now have been assembled by Humankind, hundreds of years ahead.
The Alien device purportedly became the priority focus object of Bell Labs' and The US Department of Defense's analysis and scientific research. It was discovered by the researchers, that the unusual electronic Alien device could act as both a high speed electronic switch and as an Amplifier. They decided to call it the "Transfer Resistor", because it could be made to resist or accept power flow at much higher or lower currents than were applied to it, depending upon unique application of electron flows.
And all of this is hot on the heels of the UFO and earthquake activity in adjoining Morris County.
Three months ago, police in nearby Morris County, New Jersey, were alerted to a series of unidentified flying objects hovering over the area. Dozens of residents watched on in awe as five flickering red lights moved gently across the night's sky.
Local resident Paul Hurley, a pilot who works at Morristown Airport, said: "I've been in the aviation industry about 20 years, so I knew they weren't airplanes"
This is yet another post I've been working on for weeks. The connections kept multiplying and I finally had to bring it into focus. And to think it all started as Satellite news story on an upcoming low-budget film...
2009 is the Year of the Alien, innit? Well, at least in the movies. X-Files producer/director Bob Goodwin goes old-school with his tribute to classic BEM sci-fi with Alien Trespass. Goodwin enlists John "Anubis" Doggett (aka T1000, aka Robert Patrick ) and Eric McCormack (Will of Will & Grace fame) for the invasion, as well as the delightful Jenni Baird, who added a bit of smolder to the last season of The 44oo. I'm sure it's not intentional, but the subject matter and the time period make this a nice companion piece toKingdom of the Crystal Skull.
X-Files Lexicon has an amazing interview with Goodwin up now. In it Goodwin discusses his time producing the first five (and most essential) seasons of the show. Interviewer Matt Allair also lands an amazing scoop from Goodwin, who reveals that the primary inspiration for The X-Files distinctive look was the Italian wild man/artist Caravaggio:
My biggest role in the beginning was to get a concept based on what Chris had been talking about, and how we wanted to go forward, so we put together the people--the team that were able to do it--and to guide them as to what we wanted. I remember for the look of the show, which in those days was very unique for television, they didn't have shows that had so much dark and light.
One of my favorite artists, a guy named Caravaggio, who was probably one of the most innovative and creative artists ever. He came at a time in the late 16th Century, early 17th Century when most art was colorist or mannerist. He was the first to start using real dramatic source light...So I pulled a number of Caravaggio's, I got reproductions of them and mounted them all on a board, and that's kind of where we started. That was the reference of what we're going to go for, from there, the camera, the cinematographer John Bartley and other people were able to at least move forward with the concept.
Caravaggio was the Keith Moon of the Italian art world. He ran with some pretty interesting crowds, including the Velvet Mafia within the Vatican and the Knights of Malta. He also was accused of murder and had a knack for fisticuffs.
Derek Jarman, the late underground director, directed a kind of biopic on the artist in 1986 that introduced the one-woman Synchromystic factory Tilda Swinton (Orlando, Narnia, Benjamin Button, Michael Clayton) to the world. Amazingly it was also the debut of Sean Bean (Lord of the Rings, National Treasure). The artist is portrayed by Nigel Terry, who portrayed King Arthur in the classic 1981 film Excalibur (which is one of Joltin' Joe Linsner's all-time favorite films).
Pan among the padres, from Caravaggio
Swinton became Jarman's muse and would later write an essay on Jarman's second feature film, Jubilee, which had John Dee magically transport Queen Elizabeth forward in time to 1977, just in time for QEII's silver jubilee and the Punk Rock Revolution. Incidentally, this was the first feature film soundtrack for U2 producer Brian Eno who would also write the score (with fellow U2 producer Daniel Lanois) for a film on the Apollo moon landing.
I always pay special attention these "firsts." Jarman's first film work was in Ken Russell's religious phatasmagoria The Devils. Russell would later direct Altered States, based on Paddy Chayefsky's must-read book (even though Chayefsky was so upset with the finished product he asked to take his name off the credits). That film would be the first leading role for William Hurt (of Dark City fame) and Blair Brown, who plays a female version of the Smoking Man in Fringe. Speaking of film firsts, Altered States marked the first appearance of Drew Barrymore, who rose to fame in ET, The Extra-Terrestrial. Bob Balaban of Close Encounters fame is also a major player in the film.
The basic story is that a Harvard professor believes that genetic memory is stored in the DNA and with the use of powerful hallucinogens and isolation tanks he would be able to travel back in time. The subplot was that he was a religious visionary as a child and lost his faith when his father died, and was trying to reconnect to God ever since. These themes are not well-explored in the film as in the book, taking away the character's motivation.
Even if Chayefsky hated it, Altered States is still a must-see. It's fascinating to me that Chayefsky saw fit to write the book after Network, in which he laid bare the depressing reality of the new world order (which isn't really new, seeing that Network came out in 1976- note that it too drinks from Caravaggio's well). In fact, Altered States is the first and only novel Chayefsky ever wrote (which makes him the second most unlikely psychonaut, next to Jack Kirby). He spent two years researching DNA, psychedelics and schizophrenia in order to bring this book to life.
From my standpoint it was time well spent, since that book hit me like a freight train when I read it. I even tried an isolation tank, which was a disaster since I kept getting the damn salt water in my eyes. I still think about getting a tank- a good one- if I ever have a few thousand bucks burning a hole in my pocket. That's how hard that book hit me.
It's interesting to note that like some more recent apocalyptic fiction, Altered States took place in Boston and had a professor as its protagonist. You see echoes of this in the Revelations miniseries (which also starred Secret Sun siren Natacha McElhone), Knowing, and particularly, Fringe.
Fringe creator JJ Abrams (again, the man behind the new Star Trek) has cited States as an inspiration for Fringe, and the Walter Bishop character certainly seems like an older analog of Edward Jessup. And to bring it all full circle, all three of these Altered States analogs were also influenced by The X-Files, which itself was also deeply influenced by Altered States- and Network.
The X-Files delved into themes explored in Altered States in the apocalyptic "Sixth Extinction" storyline. In the first part, "Biogenesis," the alien virus in Mulder's bloodstream is activated by exposure to radiation embedding in the rubbing of an alien spacecraft (that incidentally is an encrypted magic square).
The rubbing was the property of a Dr. Sandoz (heh), highly appropriate since it ultimately activates the deepest recesses of Mulder's brain, making him psychic and immune to the coming viral apocalypse. The storyline also reintroduced the Navajo shaman Albert Hosteen, who had performed the Blessing Way ritual when Mulder was nearly killed in a boxcar filled with alien corpses (in an episode directed by Goodwin). Somewhere, Terrence McKenna is smiling.
I've written on this storyline several times, since not only does it involve shamanism, psychedelic experience and ancient astronauts, it also began the Isis-Osiris symbology that I cut my Synchromystic teeth on. It's also going to be reintroduced to the movie-going public this spring when the next Transformers movie comes out, featuring Indiana Jones, Jr.
It's all too much sometimes. These strands of meaning weave in and out of seemingly-unconnected phenomena and create their own meta-narratives, which in turn reveal deeper levels of meaning to those who bother to pay attention. And the strongest connections always seem to coalesce around the same memes- gods, aliens, and shamanic experience.
Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval don't espouse intervention theory, but to my mind cough up some pretty compelling evidence for it. A lot of the material in this video ties in with the recent Ancient Aliens doc but from a different angle. Either way, it's pretty astonishing once the facts are laid out.
My opinion may not count for much, but I think whoever built these sites did so that future generations would come to realize that only a people with very advanced mechanical tools and knowledge of the cosmos could pull this stuff off. And the increasingly shrill and desperate tone we are hearing from academics on these topics is proof enough that they are feeling the ground of certainty give way beneath their feet.
I truly believe we are on the verge of a complete revision of our ancient past. And these massive stone structures may hold the key to that. If so, it could go a long way in explaining why the iconography of architecture and stonemasonry have always been so compelling to the people within the power structure.
At this point, I think I could do an entire blog on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I've written about the film before (here and here) but there are so many layers of symbol and double-meaning, I don't feel like I've even scratched the surface. This post has been several weeks in the making - months really, it was supposed to be part of the WFC series.
It all started a while back when doing the Stairway to Sirius posts, and really got socked in the jaw by the whole angels descending a staircase imagery. I also found a variation on the Third Degree board that just struck me in a funny way. The standard board depicts a closed coffin...
...but this version depicted the coffin as open, and shows us the blazing five-pointed star of Sirius above it. But for some strange reason the image reminded me of this notorious scene from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull...
...where Indiana Jones escapes nuclear annihilation by hiding in a refrigerator that then is shot like a cannonball across the desert. Look at the rays emanating from Sirius from the tracing board- very similar to the blast of light from the mushroom cloud. And those evergreen branches you see on both sides of the fridge resemble the branches you see in Third Degree tracing boards (and at Masonic funerals). Looking at this image, it's hard not to see a man rising from his coffin, with some bizarre transmutation of base matter-type theme thrown in.
But what about the other tracing boards? We're starting at the Third Degree, is this yet another example of "reversal of time?" I looked at the Second Degree board. There are different variations on the board but you usually see a waterfall and a staircase.
Which instantly reminded me of the three waterfalls in Crystal Skull, which we see sometime after the atomic refrigerator scene. This too was one of the sequences in the film that put some people off for being too far-fetched.
So there's the waterfall, but what about the staircase? Or the pillars?
Here's another version of the staircase and waterfall. Note also that some Second Degree boards frame the staircase between Boaz and Jachin, the famous pillars of Solomon's Temple.
After Indy and his crew escape the waterfalls, they ascend a staircase towards an obelisk, which unlocks the door to the tomb of the gods (right after entering a chamber where the film's theology is explicitly spelled out, of course). Note the top of the stairway is framed by two columns, similar to the first Second Degree board we looked at. Interesting.
When the adventurers finally enter the tomb of the gods, we see yet more Masonic parallels. Cate Blanchett's character refers to the 13-piece variation on the Trinity, in that they are 13 figures who combine into one when revived. Very strange motif there (and we all know the importance of 13 in the Templar/Masonic tradition). Note also that the alien gods sit atop ziggurats. Stairs seem to be a very important motif in this film.
Cate also refers to them as a "hive mind," which recalls the Masonic beehive icon. These quotes from the 1724 tract, The Craft and Its Symbols, explain that particular symbol:
What Modern Masons call a Lodge was for the above Reasons by Antiquity call'd a HIVE of Free-Masons, and for the same Reasons when a Dissention happens in a Lodge the going off and forming another Lodge is to this Day call'd SWARMING.
The bee definitely is industrious. He works hard and tirelessly, not for himself, but for the swarm. He has a strength and knowledge of materials that cannot be duplicated. He works in complete cooperation, and without dissention, with his fellow bees.
Hmm, so there were two pretty interesting parallels to the tracing boards, some 13 action and the hive. Well, there are a lot of things going on in this movie- could this just be a coincidence? The way "Ox" (read: Serapis) carried around the skull caught my attention, as did the way the guardians of the tomb of the gods venerated it. Right there I'm thinking Templars and Baphomet. But then it got even better...
John the Baptist is a central figure in Freemasonry (the first Grand Lodge was established on the Feast of St John the Baptist in 1717), as well as other esoteric traditions. No less a luminary than Pope Pius IX called the Baptist "the Father of the Gnostics" and identified the Baptist as the messiah of the Templar and Masonic "heresies."
In the Bible, the villainess Salome had the Baptist killed against the wishes of King Herod. And since we are looking for reversal-of-time imagery here, it's fascinating to note that the villainess in Crystal Skullreturns the decapitated head of the 13th alien, symbolically reversing an historical trauma.
And even still, this reverse-Salome dies a horrible death for her trouble. Pretty potent stuff here, almost like the payback of a long-held grudge. Interesting how the whole Cold War motif and the crazy action sequences distract people's attention from this blatant symbolism.
So we all know what happens after that, the aliens reconstitute and their ship takes off for the dimensional rift. Now, I suppose Freemasons will see Hope and Faith and Virtue descending to this mortal realm from the spiritual planes, offering enlightenment and awakening and fine feelings and all of that jolly rot, but I still see aliens descending from the solar system of Sirius. I always like to use this version of the board, since it looks like an old 50s sci-fi pulp cover of aliens deplaning off a glowing spaceship.
Once the aliens get ready to split, Indy and his family then ascend a staircase away from them, which really drives home that reversal motif. Note also that water is closely identified with Sirius in the UFO lore.
Veneration of the Alien Osiris, crucified on the Solar Cross
The reversal motif seems to show up a lot in symbolic narratives, but in reversing the Masonic icon-cycle, the message seems to be that the esoteric systems themselves are just a faint echo of the original revelation, which Crystal Skull makes crystal clear was alien contact.
Pretty potent stuff for the multiplex, brought to you by the two most powerful creators in Hollywood. And presented in such an outlandish way as to not be taken seriously by the masses.
Hmm, kind of like the old stories about the Men-in-Black in that regard...
NOTE- I decided to finish this post (I have dozens of posts in one stage of completion at any given point in time) after watching the History Channel's Von Daniken smoochfest, Ancient Aliens. It struck me that as we learn more of all of the megalithic sites - the enormous size of the stones, the incredible construction methods, the celestial knowledge encoded in them- that perhaps these structures were created precisely that future generations would realize that they were indeed built with the aid of an extremely advanced technical culture. How interesting when we then make that connection between these structures and the basic iconography of Masonry, free or otherwise, in this film and so many others.
We went to see Race to Witch Mountain on Saturday and were all pleasantly surprised; it's actually a nice little sci-fi romp. I had considered checking out Knowing after reading that it too is alien-themed (isn't everything this year?), but realized the missus wouldn't enjoy the violence and I wouldn't enjoy the cosmology.
I've done quite a few Witch Mountain posts already and don't have all that much more to add, but I was quite struck that Junkyard the dog is a "major" character in the film. After looking at Obama and Sirius during and after the election, it was quite striking to see Dwayne "The Rock Obama" Johnson driving to a UFO convention with Junkyard in the front and Seth and Sara in the back. I couldn't help but think there's some greater meaning there, but won't really be able to tell until I watch it a few more times. Aside from Junkyard, I didn't see much Sirius symbolism in the film at all.
The UFO convention subplot reminded me a lot of my beloved Galaxy Quest, but also reminded me of Dragon*Con and my musings on conventions as the new pilgrimages. I did find it interesting that Hollywood loves to demean and ridicule people who take UFOs seriously (like Whitley Strieber in the film) at the same time they depict aliens as a self-evident reality.
Aside from Johnson, Watchmen and Threshold star Carla Gugino plays Dr. Alex Friedman, who is probably an androgynization of UFO stalwart Stanton Friedman. Note that both Carla and Alex are he/she names, and that Carla literally means "man-woman."
Given that the Roswell crash and the mass sightings over Washington happened in the month of July, it was a kick to see Ciaran Hinds - who was the best Julius Caesar in motion picture history, hands down - playing an MIB. However, I thought there was a bit of a missed opportunity with the character- I thought he should have also been an alien spy looking to sabotage the kids' mission. It's interesting that they changed "the bounty hunter" to "the assassin" since the first trailer. Maybe Chris Carter cried foul.
As to the kids, Alexander Ludwig looks exactly like my cousin Andrew, so my wife and I found that extremely distracting. Things like that can take me out of the story, strange as it may sound. But I must say Annasophia Robb is quite a convincing alien. I kept thinking of the Lily Cole discussion as I looked at her manga-huge eyes.
Robb already has an interesting filmography, having appeared in Witch Mountain, Jumper, Bridge to Terabithia and an odious-looking propaganda-piece called The Reaping, which features Hollywood's most destructive and pernicious cliche, the demonic or demon-possessed child.
The image from the DVD cover caught my eye, since it tied into the classic image of Lilith, whom we've been discussing quite a bit lately. But it also reminded me very much of ancient portrayals of Mithras, whose possible connection to aliens and UFOs is on the verge of becoming a fixation of mine. And of course you gotta love "Anna-Sophia" for hitting both the Inanna and Gnostic memes. Keep an eye on this actress...
Looking at the trailer for The Reaping I wondered how many gifted children the world has lost to religious paranoia. This is why our stories are so important. Going from psychopathic, perverted, misogynistic filth like The Exorcist to pro-child, pro-individuation, pro-evolutionary memes in Witch Mountain, Harry Potter and The X-Men is a very encouraging trend in our pop culture. Hopefully the emerging new myths will inspire us to nurture gifted or otherwise unusual children, rather than the abuse we still see in backward, superstitious parts of the world today.
On Tuesday, that Day of All Days, cast and crew from Battlestar Galactica turned the United Nations in a high-rent version of Dragon*Con. True to form, Guinan herself moderated while wearing an extremely odd scarf decorated with what looks like alien skulls.
All well and good, but not exactly Secret Sun, you might say? Oh, I'm not done yet. It turns out that Garret Resiman, one of the ISiS astronauts, appears as an extra in the BSG finale.
Reisman watched the original "Battlestar Galactica" series as a child and followed its recent rebirth, which retells the story of an immense space battleship as it protects a fleet of civilian spacecraft while fending off attacks from the robot Cylon enemy.
While he was in space, Reisman turned the lights down aboard the space station and tuned in to the new series via computer with the station's then-skipper, fellow NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, as Galactica's commander Bill Adama tried to keep his fleet together on the road to find Earth. The astronauts briefly spoke, while in space, with the show's producers Ron Moore and David Eick.
Interesting. But where was Reisman living when he was a child?
Science fiction, Reisman said, has a very real ability to inspire the public in real-life space exploration, though his passion was sparked by NASA's Apollo moon missions. Growing up in Parsippany, N.J, he watched Super 8 films of those missions until they wore out, then he spliced them back together and watched them again.
OK, let's hit the bases- Discovery is supposed to launch on Lincoln's birthday, is delayed until the Ides of March, when Caesar became Osiris. It then reaches ISiS on 3/17, accompanied by a strange, glowing orb. And what does ISiS do on the Equinox?
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Astronauts successfully unfurled the newly installed solar wings at the international space station Friday, a nerve-racking procedure that went exceedingly well and brought the orbiting outpost to full power.
The work was a highlight of shuttle Discovery's mission. Completed 220 miles above Earth, the new panels are the final pair of electricity-generating wings and should boost the amount of science research at the orbiting outpost.
Remember, we just had the Death of Osiris. Today is the Equinox, when the Sun begins to gain strength. Here is why Isis' wings are so important:
Isis is one of the only winged deities in Egyptian myth. She is sometimes representative of the wind, as in the legend of Osiris. One version of the legend tells of Isis using her wings to fill Osiris' mouth and nose with air. - touregypt.net
Ah yes, the newly born sun of Horus, conceived artificially by the Winged Isis. I swear, there are times when I wonder if NAZCA NASA isn't just a billion-dollar cargo cult...
As uncomfortable as it is for some of his fans and friends to admit, Jack Kirby was a true believer in AAT and intervention theory. The scope of his comics work from the early 70s to his retirement is unequivocal in this regard - the man was obsessed with gods from space.
So why is this important? Why do the beliefs of some old cartoonist who's been dead for 15 years matter now? Well, Kirby is one of the primary architects of popular culture today. Kirby's influence on comics is inarguable- as it is on superhero culture in general.
But so is his influence on Hollywood. James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas (particularly), Frank Miller, Quentin Tarantino and any other sci-fi mogul you can name today fed at Kirby's rich trough as kids. In fact, the quick cut/high intensity of action movies today comes directly from Kirby's Marvel work like The Fantastic Four. I see Kirby's influence all over video game design as well. You simply have to go back and look at pop culture before the Marvel Age and after, and the centrality of Kirby's imagination in the recreation of visual storytelling becomes clear as crystal.
And if Kirby is part of the essential DNA of pop culture, so then are his beliefs.You need look no further than Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull to see it- the entire tableau was simply a big budget replay of the first issue of The Eternals.
Remember- Spielberg and Lucas are the two of the most powerful men in Hollywood today, certainly from a creative standpoint. Even beyond the films they make themselves they have their fingers in countless pies through their production and technical interests.
More importantly, we have very strange indications of Jack Kirby's precognitive/psychic abilities, specifically in regards to events central to the Synchromystic worldview.
For instance:
• Depicting a Face on Mars 17 years before the Viking photos.
Given these synchronicities, I believe it's important to take his AAT obsession very seriously. We've looked at The Eternals, Devil Dinosaur, and2001: A Space Odyssey in so far as explicit depictions of AAT, but nearly all of Kirby's work from 1975 on dealt with aliens, UFOs, interdimensional travel, time travel, genetic engineering and space colonization and on and on. But it's Kirby's 1980 Bible portfolio that we'll be looking at today, which is 1000% Astro-Gnostic at its core.
Sorry for the lo-res- doubleclick to enlarge
The first plate depicts God in the standard Sistine Chapel mode, an old, bearded white guy emerging from primordial chaos, accompanied by a heavenly host. So far, so good right? But this celestial being is remote, celestial- more like the Monad of Gnostic mythology than the engaged creator of Judeo-Christian dogma.
What we see emanating from the chaos with him resemble the Aeons. They come from the same source, but are in fact on their own trajectory, away from the Monad.
Here the Monad sees Earth and humanity as a ball of sin. Lust, greed, hate and other expressions of the Ego, which are separate from the cosmic reality of the Monad. It is a fallen state, thecosmic abortion...
Which the Monad then turns his back on humanity to contemplate non-Euclidean geometry- the other-dimensional interests of cosmic divinity. Mankind then begs and curse the Monad. But who takes his place in the stewardship of our tiny, insignificant planet?
Today's modern UFO's and Alien Contacts being reported have a strong similarity to the Ancient descriptions of the "anunnaki" Android Beings. When we look at the descriptions of our modern "grey alien", we can clearly see that they do not look like us, or the anunnaki. Rather, they look like the ancient humanoid depictions of Figurines. The majority of Abduction cases usually have a similar story to them in that the Aliens abducting them will perform medical examination and sometimes experiments having to do with human reproduction.
Is it possible that the Greys were created by the anunnaki as "Watchers" to oversee their experiments here on earth?- xfacts.research
Phenomenon: The Lost Archives was one of those interesting shows we saw a lot of in the 90s on channels like TLC and Discovery. Hosted by Dean Stockwell, the series took on topics like HAARP, Jonestown, cold fusion and the Federal Reserve in a way we wouldn't see on commercial TV in the Bush years.
This episode is called "Genesis Revisited" and acts as a nice primer to Zechariah Sitchin's theories about Sumer, Nibiru and the Anunaki. Let me just clarify that I'm not a Sitchinite per se; while I find his work fascinating, I am not really sold on all of his conclusions. But I'm certain there are a lot of powerful individuals out there that are, which is why this entertaining distillation of Sitchin's AAT is worth a look.
Things are moving so quickly that I'm finding it difficult to fit it all on The Secret Sun. I started the Solar Satellite and gave it time to define itself, which it has done as a headline news site. But I also wanted another outlet for more in-depth articles and posts. A while back I had an email exchange with Tracy Twyman, continuing our previous discussion on the nature of the beings that our ancestors saw as gods or angels. I wanted to pick her brains on Gnostic creation myths, and Tracy really went to town laying out her supernaturalist perspective on the nature of these stories and these beings.
But Tracy gave me so much I didn't want to stick it on a daily post and let it disappear beneath the fold. So after some deliberation I created The Solar Seminar, a blog for more in-depth analysis of the issues we've been looking at here. So the Secret Sun will continue with symbolic and semiotic discussions, The Solar Satellite will keep an eye on the news and The Solar Seminar will carry heavier works and will be updated less often.
Me, I'll be fixing up the boiled dinner for the brood and hoping that nothing too heavy is rolled out today. I gotta admit I had some pretty disturbing dreams last night. Too bad I don't drink anymore...
General George Washington issued a proclamation during the Revolutionary War, declaring March 17, 1780 a holiday for the Continental Army, then stationed in Morristown, New Jersey, in honor of the many soldiers of Irish ancestry and those born in Ireland. It was reported that this was the first holiday granted the troops in two years.
UPDATE IV: Here is some tragic St Paddy's Day news- Natasha Richardson, wife of Liam Neeson and member of the Richardson/Redgrave acting dynasty has been declared brain dead after a skiing accident. Richardson first became known to American audiences in her portrayal of Patty Hearst, whose comrade-in-arms in the SLA Sara Jane Olson was released from prison today. UPDATE 16:58EST- Richardson not brain-dead, flown to new hospital. Hmm...
"It depends on who is looking."- Indrid Cold responding to question about his appearance, in the Mothman Prophecies film
I'm not much of a UFO expert, in fact I merely poke around the fringes of UFOlogy to feed into my symbolic studies. My main concern is determining whether the evidence is compelling enough to possibly inspire serious interest in the topic by certain individuals and groups. And I think I can answer that question with a qualified yes.
My wife keeps running into a guy in town who from her description reminds me of the strange MIBs that John Keel describes inThe Mothman Prophecies. I'm sure a lot of you have run into someone at least once in your life who doesn't seem to fit the expected parameters of an ordinary person, and perhaps left you with a very strange feeling that he or she was not quite human. The author of Raechel's Eyes (see above video) believed that she befriended one of these people. And if there are such creatures, my vote for possible human-alien hybrid goes to the supermodel Lily Cole.
Although hypnotically beautiful, there's also something kind of disturbing about her. She looks like an anime wetdream come to life. Etymologically, we also have a link to the owl-human hybrid-demon-goddess Lilith, who we discussed last week. Strangely appropriate in this instance.
It's worth noting that Lily is appearing in Sally Potter's new film Rage, which has garnered a degree of notoriety for casting Jude Law as a trannie. This would make perfect sense, seeing how gender-bending and alien theorizing seem so contiguous these days.
Note that she plays a character named "Valentina" in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and plays Alice in Marilyn Manson's upcoming film on Lewis Carroll. Pretty strong semiotics there, you ask me...
UPDATE: Well, if you thought Lily Cole was alien-looking, take a look at Gemma Ward...
I used to work in midtown Manhattan, and my friends and I used to lunch at Bryant Park. There was some big agency on 41st St, so I used to see models all of the time. I would see them down near Madison Square when I was working in the toy industry, too. When you see these girls up close, you are struck by their otherness, as well as their existential asexuality. I can only imagine what these girls we're talking about today look like in person...
Whatever you do, please dig into the comments section for some amazing information from Secret Sun readers...
I've been very busy with work, but I wanted to do an Oscar follow-up. Esoteric themes seem to multiplying in Hollywood at an astonishing rate, and the follow-up projects we see this year's winners involved in reflect this trend.
Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel is slated to star in M. Night Shayamalan's live-action adaptation of The Last Airbender, which is rife with mystical and occult themes (like nearly everything else on kids TV these days).
Sean Penn and Brad Pitt are slated for an upcoming film called The Tree of Life. It's Zechariah Sitchin's contention that the Tree of Life we see in ancient Mesopotamian art is actually a corrupted depiction of a DNA helix. Speaking of which, there's also the Tree of Life in the Kabbalah, but has little visual connection to DNA.
After The Reader, Kate Winslet starred with Leonardo Di Caprio in domestic melodrama Revolutionary Road. DeCaprio is reportedly attached to Christopher Nolan's mysterious project Inception, which is described as "a contemporary sci-fi actioner set within the architecture of the mind." Hmmm. Winslet is not attached currently to any announced projects, but after Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind she doesn't need to be.
Heath Ledger's next and last film is the occult extravaganza The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Robert Downey, Jr. (who actually deserved the award and would have won in a landslide had not Ledger died) has full slate of heroics ahead, playing Sherlock Homes as well as Iron Man in two different pictures.
Penelope Cruz will be in a CGI film with Nic Cage and will also portray a character named "Magdalena." For the semiotic hat-trick she'll be also be in a film called Nine.
Best Director Danny Boyle actually had two films premiere in 2008. One was Slumdog Millionaire, the other was Alien Love Triangle, which starred Kenneth Branagh, Courtney Cox and Heather ("Hathor") Graham. In the film Branagh plays a scientist whose wife is in fact a genderbending, green-skinned male alien (are there any other kind, really?). Originally made in 2002, don't be surprised if this re-emerges as a feature sometime in the future.
As discussed earlier Boyle's previous film was Sunshine, a 2001-analog in which the Sun is resurrected. Pretty hardcore in the symbolic realm, to be sure.
Benjamin Button director David Fincher had previously directed Zodiac, the poster for which made me wonder if there is in fact some kind of Stargate symbolism connected to the Golden Gate Bridge (besides this, I mean). His next project is a film tie-in to Heavy Metal. Enki Bilal's Immortel Ad Vitam might seem to make any further adaptation of Heavy Metal redundant. It certainly makes the depressing Heavy Metal cartoon from 1980 redundant. More on Immortel in the near future.
WALL-E director Andrew Stanton is attached to a planned film version of Edgar Rice Burrough's occult superhero John Carter of Mars, which was Jack Parsons' favorite pulp character.
Speaking of the Oscars, I had a "When Mythworlds Collide" moment watching How to Lose Friends and ALIENate People when I saw Simon Pegg, Megan Fox and Gillian Anderson sit down to dinner. Pegg is slated for the new Star Trek remake as Scottie, Fox will be in the afore-mentioned Transformers sequel, which reportedly borrows heavily from the ancient astronaut storyline in The X-Files.
In the film, Fox's character wins an Apollo, obviously modeled on the Oscars. What caught my eye is that Apollo is not modeled on any version of Apollo I've ever seen, but on AT&T's Golden Boy, himself an incarnation of Mithras. Fascinating choice if imagery there, which surely went over the heads of the handful of people who saw the film. But par for the course in this reality paradigm we find ourselves immersed in.
Speaking of which, you may be wondering where all this Mithras stuff is coming from. Well, we'll be looking into that very soon and I think it will tie everything together.
Back in May, we looked at the fascinating architecture around Columbus Circle in New York, particularly the Time Warner building and the so-called Maine Memorial, a breath-taking depiction of the ancient goddess Cybele, the Magner Mater of the Roman Mysteries.
Although contemporary critics were puzzled, the statue of Cybele symbolizes the female component of the Masonic superstructure (of which Freemasonry is just a very small part, remember) that was extremely active in Manhattan while the city was being built into a (temporary) world headquarters. Since the Masonic systems all ultimately derive from the warrior cult of Mithras, we should look for the Great Mother (whose cult Mithraic wives joined) where ever we see the footprints of the Invincible Sun, and Columbus Circle (ostensibly named for one of history's most enigmatic explorers, now linked to the Templars) is no exception.
Or here. CNN is owned by Time Warner, so this headline about intramural power struggles at NASA takes on added resonance with its prominent black statue of Cybele. If you've never been on the Columbia campus, you should Google Earth it, since it is a neat simulacrum of an ancient Roman metropolis. Note the convergence of symbolism here- Cybele, NAZCA, "watchdog"- get used to them, since they will be the lingua franca of our militarized Star Trek future.
Here's a fascinating convergence of symbolism from Yahoo News- a family living in a cave reminding us of the Mithraeums (which were ritual caves), a shooting spree in Samson, AL (Samson being a Hebrew hijacking of Hercules, who also lent parts of his identity to Mithras), a typically imperial Washington landmark, and what's this? Elle McPherson's dress being a top headline? How is that considered news?
Well, perhaps it's because Cybele's own dress was green. McPherson certainly got my attention in the 1994 film Sirens (which resonates Sirius) and if you saw that film you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Scholars now agree that the Purim story, in which Esther and Mordecai free the Jews from the tyrant Haman is in fact an appropriation of the Babylonian Winter Festival, in which Ishtar and Marduk free the earth from the grip of winter.
This picture is from a Purim celebration in Israel, where high school kids cross-dressed. This corresponds neatly with ancient priests of Cybele (often identified/combined with Ishtar), the Galloi, who were cross-dressing eunuchs. Note the 89 (17) and twin 5s, resonating the 5-pointed binary star of Sirius.
Strangely, TV host Jimmy Kimmel showed up in drag on The View on the first day of Purim to discuss his breakup with Sarah Silverman (Sarah derived from another Magner Mater, Saraswati, mother of the Vedas). This was shot on the Disney lot in Burbank, unsurprisingly.
Here's another remarkable image from the Mouse Factory, for the 3/9 episode of superhero drama Kyle XY. A girl being initiated into the Solar mysteries, as we all are these days? Speaking of the Solar mysteries, get an eyeful of this image...
Since literally trillions of dollars are spent (including hundreds of millions of your tax dollars) every year maintaining the Christian corporate enterprise, it's no surprise that new, more mystical forms of the faith are coming to the fore as the Evangelical subsidiaries begin to fail. One of these new projects is the Order of Christ Sophia, also known as the Centers of Light.
This group is in the news since they are trying to purchase a $1.6 million mansion in Quincy, MA (again, my old stomping grounds). How is this group, who hardly anyone has heard of, getting the money for this building? How does this group have other, similar buildings across the country?
Well, how do any of these groups find the money? Who was financing the 70s cults, or the 80s Religious Right groups, or the 90s megachurches, or any of these other religious groups that pop up out of nowhere with vast, well-appointed and pre-fabricated infrastructures?
Well, my childhood dream came true- Kamandi is finally animated. Of course, it's just for a few minutes in a weird episode of Batman: Brave and the Bold entitled "Dawn of the Deadman." I can't quite figure out the premise of the episode, but the winks are multitudinous. You have Boston Brand and Gentleman Ghost, time travel, walk-ins, astral projection, Doctor Canus and more (no Ben Boxer, alas). This is episode 1.7 and it aired 1/16.
What's more the voice actor for Kamandi is from my old stomping grounds, Quincy. In fact the very first thing I did when New England Comics (the fine folks who brought you The Tick) opened their first store in Quincy was complete my Kamandi kollection.
My first issue of Kamandi was #30, which came out 34 years ago this month. Quite an initiation into Earth AD; the story was entitled "UFO: The Wildest Ride Ever," and dealt with UFO abductions, stargates, genetic engineering, terrorism, and much more. Read more on this bizarre milestone of a funnybook here.
Although Kamandi was already sort of made into a cartoon with Thundarr the Barbarian, I think the time is ripe for the real thing. Those apocalyptic memes resonate in this time like no other since the mid 70s.
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."
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....
Ralph Buckley hit me with his latest and greatest video for "Wanna Be Initiated," and I'm passing it on to you. I think Ralph is a truly extraordinary talent, and has a keen knack for hitting you with tunes that you're sure you remember but weren't yet written.
This tune reminds me of the great, lost T.Rex track that wasn't found in time to be put on the Darjeeling Limited soundtrack. The video is hilarious, mysterious and oddly provocative, all at once. Check out Ralph's YouTube site for more musical madness.
Trust fund millionaire James G. Cummings, an American Nazi sympathizer from Maine who was slain by his wife Amber in December, allegedly had the radioactive components necessary to construct a "dirty bomb," a newly released threat analysis report states.
The man, allegedly furious over the election of President Obama, purchased depleted uranium over the Internet from an American company.
Of course the big news in the soul-crushing world of consensus reality is the expected guilty plea of Bernie Madoff. I've been watching this story with great puzzlement. Though the suffering of his victims is certainly real, there's a carnival aspect to the story, as if it is all part of some larger agenda. What his downfall and that of other super-criminals like Allen Stanford is doing is destroying people's confidence in the confidence scheme known as the financial industry.
I'm not sure I see this as a net negative. I've read a lot of diatribes against Madoff describing him as a sociopath. Well, duh. I used to ride the commuter train surrounded by sociopaths on their way to Wall St. every day. I studied these guys. And a lot of them were the same kinds of assholes and bullies I hated in high school.
I remember hearing two of these types working themselves up into an orgasmic frenzy the day the Gulf War started, talking about how excited "everyone on the Street" was by the carnage, and how they "didn't see a downside to it." I saw guys sit and read The Wall St. Journal while pregnant women stood. I heard desperate, douche-chilling attempts to converse on a simple human level with one another about anything but money. I'd watch these characters sneer and sigh as Latinos or blacks boarded the trains at Broad Street. Every day, mind you.
Greed is the great amnesiac. When the Dow goes up, no one remembers 1987 or the dotcom bust or Enron or all of the other great swindles perpetrated on innocent people's life savings by thugs in three thousand-dollar suits. But in this Great Upheaval we are living through it almost seems to me that someone has decided the jig is up. Hence we see all of these Wall St. superheroes set up as the fall guys for the crash. Jon Stewart has been especially brilliant in disemboweling that howling buffon, Jim "BooYa" Cramer.
But we won't have much say in what will replace all of that idiocy, either. Indeed, we've been fed these stories about the new Treasury Secretary's "incompetence," and of course now he is telling Charlie Rose that "Capitalism will be different." Oh, I'm sure it will. Quite different, indeed.
Looking at all of this, I can't help but wonder if Madoff was himself on the losing end of a sting. We're seeing that magic 17 show up (Madoff's office was on the 17th Floor of the Lipstick Building) but not in his favor. Whatever he had planned, he's become the great sacrificial goat (note that New York made him up as Heath Ledger's Joker there) of this ritual recreation of once-mighty American capitalism into a mere component of the Global Economic Singularity. Having seen some of the faces up of Wall St. up close, I won't cry if a few of them follow Madoff to Molech's embrace.
UPDATE: And right on cue, here's the other shoe dropping. The President of Earth, Barackobamun the First, calls for a global stimulus and HuffPost gives us the requisite sunrise symbology. See my posts on 2001: A Space Odyssey, Gus Grissom and HuffPost symbology to program your magic decoder ring. Kudos to reader Mark Trueblood for the scoop.
So much of the symbolism that I've studied over the years pertaining to this overarching esoteric tradition deals with reversal of time. Jim Marrs seemed to pick up on these meme when he wrote Rule By Secrecy in reverse chronological order. And we've seen highly symbolic film narratives told in reverse time like Christopher Nolan's Memento and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And sure enough, The Reader, for which Ka-Hathor Winslet won her Oscar/Ausur, is also told in a kind of reverse time as well.
Time as the Movements of the Gods, downgraded to saints in Elizabethan England
I was completely puzzled by this motif until I traced the secret society tradition back through all of its permuations and corruptions to the Shemsu Hor, the powerful Egyptian priests of Heliopolis. I've come to see the Shemsu Hor as a kind of cargo cult, trying to return their country to the golden age of the Zep Tepi, where the gods ruled on Earth. After all, restoring divine rule is the goal of most of the world's major religions as well, isn't it?
So naturally the multiple Academy Award nominations for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a fable about a man who ages backward, caught my attention. The film is based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald story and is directed by David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club), whose previous film was Zodiac, a film whose semiotic resonance cannot possibly be overstated.
I haven't yet seen this film, so all I can do is look at the trailer and the information about it on iMDb and Wikipedia. But for now, that's plenty. First, the trailer:
At 0:21 the clock moves from 10:12 backwards to 10:11. Had it moved forwards it would bring us to 10:13, which has ominous implications to the Templar tradition.
At 0:25 we see this child placed on a stairwell, suggesting his ascension. This is the mirror of the descending angelic beings we see in the Stairway to Sirius tracing board.
Next we see his unveiling by a black woman, which is the inverse of the veil worn by the Black Madonna of Esoteric Catholic tradition.
At 0:33 we see Benjamin's symbolic baptism by the Black Madonna, which ties into the water symbolism we see throughout the film.
At 0:51 we see Button now descend a stairway and encounter Tilda Swinton, whom we will be looking at in far greater depth in the future.
At 1:04 we meet Cate Blanchett's character and see another yet staircase behind her.
At 1:17 Benjamin and Blanchett's sexual union is symbolically prefigured by a figure diving into the water on a full moonlit night.
In the film, Button is born on 11/11, driving home the twinning motif we see in the title. This is significant in the context of the symbolism of reverse time in the Stairway to Sirius, since Sirius is a binary star system.
The cast here is highly resonant as well. You have Brad Pitt who was fawned over by the sycophants at the Oscar pre-show as the reigning Prince of Hollywood. Pitt's filmography is a semiotic gold mine, including films the previously mentioned Se7en and Fight Club.
Hollywood's breathtaking Faerie Queene
His primary co-star is Ka-Hathor-Ein Eloah-Isis Blanchett, the ethereal Elven Queen of Hollywood, who played Queen Eloah-Isis-Beth (the godmother of Empire, modern pop culture and Rosicrucianism) twice. Blanchett's Oscar win was for another Ka-Hathor-Ein and her Oscar nomination for the portrayal of Bob Dylan gives her the requisite androgynous bonus points. And Blanchett's role as psychic spy Irina Spalko in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull alone would be enough to put her at the top of every Synchromystics to-do list.
Nominated for supporting actress in Benjamin Button was Taraji P. Henson, born September 11, 1970 (17). Henson was amazing in Smokin' Aces, playing a butched-up contract killer whose lover was the luminous Alicia Keys (more gate/door symbolism and Wonderland resonator). Her character's husband in CCoBB is played by Mahershalalhashbaz Ali of The 4400.
Also playing Button's love interests in the film are Elle Fanning, who was so haunting in the must-see The Nines, and the aforementioned Tilda Swinton, who you'll probably get sick of hearing about in the near future around here.
But Pitt and Blanchett are the main attraction. But since we've been looking at the Oscars in the context of the Babylon Gate - meaning the portal through which man reconnects with the gods - is there any symbolism in this casting that points back to this motif?
Why, wouldn't you know it, indeed there is. You see, the last time we saw Pitt and Blanchett together was in this film....
Secret societies? Shape-shifting aliens? Post-humanism? Secret societies of shape-shifting post-human aliens? These memes might be news to the mainstream, but not to old school funnybook geeks like myself.
What was once the province of stoner weirdos or visionary madmen is now Saturday morning TV fodder. An argument could certainly be made that 'twas ever thus, though perhaps it's a question of context today. And volume.
Ben 10: Alien Force is the latest hit from the WB Animation folks about the children of a secret society of crime-fighters called the Plumbers (yes, just like Watergate) who have developed superpowers through various means- technology, mutation, alien DNA. You know the drill. This episode is chock-full of interesting esoteric symbolism even beyond the surface narrative of aliens and super-beings. And see if you can't detect a hint of, um, subtext in it as well.
Well, aside from the obvious Gnostic subtext, in which alien identity and potential is either forgotten or unknown. A very subversive idea in its time, and even today. One for which a lot of people have paid with their lives over the past 17 centuries, to be sure.
Certainly this series is borrowing a lot from the X-Men mythos, which we've also seen in Heroes and The 4400. That these memes are so popular now speaks to their resonance, and to the increasing desire to transcend our present evolutionary restraints. But it won't be quite so tidy when it leaves the mythic realm and plays itself out in consensus reality, that you can be sure of. Ben 10 was created by "Man of Action," which includes three comic book vets, one of whom is Joe Casey...
...who along with visionary madman Thomas Scioli created Gødland, a cozmo-psychedelick-get-yer-phreak-out-momma of a psilocybic Jack Kirby tribute. Here's the wiki synopsis (which almost sounds like a Synchromystic rant):
The main character of the series is astronaut Adam Archer. As the sole survivor of an ill-fated journey to Mars, Adam Archer meets the alien entities known as the Cosmic Fetus Collective, who transform him into a cosmic being and instruct him in the uses of his new powers. Archer is sent back to Earth as the first human to be touched by universal enlightenment.
Clearly high on its own supply, Gødland is less inspired by the Fourth World comics than by Kirby's completely whacked-out late 70s and early 80s books like The Eternals, 2001, andCaptain Victory* (which featured the "Fighting Fetus"). It's also packed wall-to-wall with bong-hit metaphysics and Scioli's limitless visual imagination (which his drawing skills can't always keep with).
But note how psychedelic experience, superpowers, future tech and alien intervention seem to be attracted to each other. That was the primary focus of Jack Kirby's work from about 1965 on. Timothy Leary claimed that it was the psychedelic movement that inspired the rise of the personal computer and the Internet and all of its attendant aftershocks. Graham Hancock argues today that psychedelic experience through the use of entheogens is the tripwire that brought about our own evolutionary development.
Apparently, Gødland is nearing the end of the line in comic form.Given Casey's Tinseltown mojo, you can be sure it will be coming to a movie or TV screen near you, probably via CGI. It's amazing how the power fantasies of lonely comics geeks are becoming mainstream entertainment. Combine that with the new discoveries pertaining to genetic memory and DNA, there's no telling where this all could go.
*Although it's sheer heresy in funnybook circles to say so, Kirby's early 80s work blew my brains out (surely aided by my bad habits at the time). It was the work of a man who was in constant communion with the deep sea denizens of the Collective Unconscious, a man who had nothing left to lose or to prove. His chops and his eyesight may have been shot and his inkers and production team clearly not up to par with Kirby's Marvel hands, but to me there is still something crucial and numinous in those krazy-ass komix.
If you're like me, you have been watching this worldwide economic meltdown with a sense of surreality. For some strange reason, this doesn't feel like one of the bust cycles, it feels like the prelude to a massive social engineering program. I mused on Stormy Weather that we could see a major shift to a space age version of the New Deal, and given the explosion in space tech, as well as the widening distribution of state of the art com-tech like 3G phones and fiber optic cable, I'm certainly starting to wonder. And lo and behold there is this recent New York Times headline: Job Losses Hint at Vast Remaking of Economy.
I still haven't adjusted to how the power structure in Washington for my entire adult life was systematically dismantled in the past four years (and reduced to a side show), and I certainly can't believe my eyes when I see all of the master-of-the-universe Wall St. tycoons set up as the fall guys for the crash. I'm starting to ponder the very real possibility that the entire Fortune 500 could be liquidated before this is all over.
And yet I don't see or feel the panic that one might expect in such a scenario. Obama and the new ruling elite in Washington seem to be quite blase and matter of fact about all of this carnage, as if they already know what is to be put in place.
Musing about space colonization as the basis of a new worldwide economy might be whacked out enough, but I'm also seriously starting to wonder if this may also be part of the D word- Disclosure. After all, you'd might want people to already feel displaced to lessen the shock to their daily routines. Crazy? Probably. But that's why I do this for free.
Modern Mythology, Alt-History and Pop-Cult Symbology from the author of the Eagle Award-winning Our Gods Wear Spandex: The Secret History of Comic Book Heroes, published by Red Wheel/Weiser and co-author of The Complete X-Files: Behind the Series, the Myths, and the Movies, published by Insight Editions.
"Without magic, this world is unbearable." - Hermann Hesse
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