"Put Yourself in Their Shoes"

Andre over at the must-read Alien Project posted the trailer to The Battle for Terra, one of four big Hollywood movies this year in which we see humanity through the eyes of extraterrestrials. Or more accurately, children are presented with this tableau, since three out of four of these films are geared towards them.

I understand that conventional wisdom has it that we're all being prepared for some large-scale alien invasion hoax, but the psychology here is extremely interesting nonetheless. Human beings are the antagonists in these films, meaning children will clearly identify with the oppressed aliens.

These films are not generating a sense of fear ("the government will save you from the evil aliens") or a sense of worship towards aliens ("worship the aliens, they are our space brothers"), they are inspiring sympathy and compassion towards them. We are driven to identify with aliens and see them neither as a threat nor as divine.

This in no way fits the conventional psychological narrative presented by the ET-hoax theorists. It's beyond even what we saw in E.T. or Alien Nation, where the aliens remained distinctly other. These are the kinds of films you would make if you wanted children to sympathize with actual aliens. And to see it in four separate films certainly gets my agenda-decoding antennae up.

Reverse psychology? Well, I guess it's possible. But given the current climate there's no doubt in my mind such a gambit would sail straight over most people's heads. The fact is that the propaganda I've discerned is mind-numbingly literal and repetitive, as if those producing it are convinced their audiences are low-grade morons. Having worked in the media and in advertising I can tell you with utter confidence that that is the case.

U2: No Line on the Horus-Zone

u2 pose by an obelisk in the publicity photo for their new album

Well, ubiquitous Irish rockers U2 have a new album coming out (on 3/3) called No Line on the Horizon. It's shaping up to be a big year for U2- we heard their new single "Get On Your Boots" in an ad for the NFL(im) in the recent Templar Bowl and just before that we also saw them play at the Obama Inauguration on the first day of the month of Aquarius. How interesting that they are front and center in this semiotic chain reaction of a year.

I'm fascinated by the title because, like Michael Tsarion, I've always taken the word "horizon" to mean "Horus Zone." Horus is identified with the horizons in his Re-Horahkty incarnation, and it is also my strong belief that the Greek horae is derived from Horus.



And then there's this video. You know all that crazy sh*t I've been yapping about for a year and change now? There it all is. The stars, astronauts, the gods, the goddesses, androgyny, pyramids, militarism, and on and on and on. Again, 2009 is the Year of You Gotta Be Frickin' Kidding Me, and this video is no exception. Do these guys still claim to be Christians? Fascinating.

The last song on the album fascinates me as well. It's entitled "Cedars of Lebanon" synchs perfectly with the Masonic organization called The Tall Cedars of Lebanon. As Loren Coleman reminded us, the Cedars sponsor the Muscular Dystrophy telethons that Jerry Lewis was honored for at the Oscars on Sunday Night. The term "Cedars of Lebanon" comes from the Biblical passage concerning Hiram of Tyre and King Solomon that Freemasons incorporated into the myth of Hiram Abiff.

Following that line, U2 are Irish Protestants who attended the Mount Temple School in Dublin.* And Mount Temple recalls the Temple Mount, which served as the headquarters of the Knights Templar during the Crusades.

U2's school days were a bit shizophrenic- they fell in with a Charismatic prayer group called Shalom (led by a British missionary named Chris Rowe) and were mentored/inspired by a flamboyant transvestite named Gavin Friday, who later formed Goth legends, the Virgin Prunes.


And sure enough, Friday would call on Horus (Heru in the Egyptian) in this 1983 performance video to grant him "the secret longings of my heart." Would this have any effect on his best friend Bono, as did the Friday-tribute persona of MacPhisto? First, a history lesson...

Few people remember this today but U2 found themselves embroiled in controversy in the early days for using a naked boy named Peter Rowan on their record covers. Island Records forced the band to change the cover of their first album Boy in order to avoid controversy in the US. However, Rowan reappeared on the cover of their breakthrough LP War, although his torso was mostly cropped. One wonders though- the connection with Boy is self-evident, but what does this boy have to do with "War?"

Could there be another inspiration lurking behind this imagery, one not of a sexual nature? Call me crazy, but the "Boy" can't help but remind me of The Book of the Law, with its "crowned and conquering child." Crowley defined him as Ra-Hoor-Khuit, more commonly known as Harpocrates (Horus the Child). In light of Rowan's appearance on the cover of the War LP, it's instructive to note that Crowley quoted Horus as saying "Now let it be first understood that I am a god of War and of Vengeance."


Leaving aside Crowley's somewhat unique interpretation of the ancient myths, it should be remembered that Harpocrates was seen as the embodiment of the rising sun in the Egyptian mystery tradition. We've certainly seen the rising sun manifest itself repeatedly in the media lately, but there can't possibly be any explicit reference to Harpocrates in any U2 songs, can there? Sure, we have the boy and war, but that's taking things a step too far, surely.

Not really. U2 cut a track for their Unforgettable Fire LP called "The Three Sunrises," that began with this verse:

Spirit of the rising sun lift me up
Hold me there and never let me fall
Love me till I die, my heart won't wait
Soon I will be down in this love song

U2, The Three Sunrises

Now, I'm sure a lot of people would argue that this could be a reference to Jesus, but there's nothing in the lyrics to support that. Harpocrates was worshipped as the "spirit of the rising sun" exactly as the lyric reads. Coincidence? Maybe, but it's worth noting that The Unforgettable Fire had an interesting album cover- an ancient castle drenched in sunlight.

Well, fascinating stuff, but I didn't feel the need to pull the trigger on these Horus synchs until that whacked-out video crossed my screen. Maybe all that hobnobbing with Tony Blair and the gang at Davos is rubbing off on them.

Certainly a self-described group of Christians couldn't possibly have intended any of this consciously, but by the same token Crowley always claimed that Liber Al was a work of automatic writing.

And then again, there is MacPhisto...

UPDATE: Reader Tommy wins catch of the night with his observation that U2 corresponds to "Utu," the Sumerian sun god.

* Another MT alum was the Irish poet Christopher Nolan, not to be confused with the cinematic sorcerer of the same name.

Seen From Space: Busy Skies, Filled with Portent (MAJOR UPDATES)

The portent hue delivers messages of certain colors
I see into his eyes now, I understand the meaning
I reach up to the sky, to those unseen, the chosen few
I spread my will between the two
Big Ox laughing, portent hue, the same †

UPDATE 1131 EST: Top Story on CNN: Galaxy may be full of 'Earths,' alien life

As NASA prepares to hunt for Earth-like planets in our corner of the Milky Way galaxy, there's new buzz that "Star Trek's" vision of a universe full of life may not be that far-fetched.

Pointy-eared aliens traveling at light speed are staying firmly in science fiction, but scientists are offering fresh insights into the possible existence of inhabited worlds and intelligent civilizations in space.

There may be 100 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way, or one for every sun-type star in the galaxy, said Alan Boss, an astronomer with the Carnegie Institution and author of the new book "The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets."

This is not news. Why is that a headline today?

LOVE AT FIRST SPRITE

Well, there has been so much strange activity above our heads lately that the guardians of enlightenment feel the need to pull the old "natural explanation" non-explanations out of mothballs and feed them to credulous clock-punchers in the media.

The latest non-explanation are "sprites", balls of light formed in the upper atmosphere following electrical storms:

Mysterious UFO sightings may go hand in hand with a puzzling natural phenomenon known as sprites — flashes high in the atmosphere triggered by thunderstorms.

Researchers have detected the flashes between 35 and 80 miles (56-129 km) from the ground, far above the 7 to 10 miles (11-16 km) where usual lightning occurs. Sprites can take the form of fast-paced balls of electricity, although previous footage has suggested streaks or tendrils. - Yahoo

All well and good, but wait- here come the psychological control techniques. This time this extremely rare occurrence (the article cites a 20 year-old photograph of this phenomenon) can miraculously explain the tens of thousands of UFO reports every year:

The cause or function of the flashes remains murky, but Price suggested that they could explain some of the UFO reports which have cropped up over the years. That might provide some solace for UFO enthusiasts disappointed by human-caused hoaxes in the past.

Translation: "There there, disillusioned UFO nuts. Curl up with a photo of high-altitude electrical phenomena. You'll feel better, I promise."

If sprites "go hand in hand" with UFO sightings, where is the data showing a correspondence? Where are the photos of sprites taken in areas where UFOs have been reported? Which UFO reports have been proven conclusively to be sprites? Pilots and astronauts don't seem to confuse these things with aircraft, so how is this news?

The burden of proof is never on these people. These questions are never asked by these reporters, who simply put a veneer of objectivity on press releases from extremely unobjective parties. And then they whine that no one trusts the media anymore. The arrogance is stultifying.

There's a link to another article called "Top 10 Alien Encounters Debunked." I'm not sure who the audience is for this puffery, but it reads like a litany of the psychological control techniques that the Amazing One and his pedantic ilk have perfected over the years.

The piece throws in every trick in the book; from ridicule to dismissal to baseless assumption to guilt by association. I can't see the point of it, other than trying to keep wavering young acolytes on their knees at the altar of reductionism.

THE ORBITAL TAUROCTONY



Sadly, the heavens will be a little less crowded now that the Taurus rocket failed to reach orbit for the NASA Orbiting Carbon Observatory. A grave disappointment to all on this, the first day of the ancient Roman month Mercedonius.

It's strange, thinking about NASA and its Masonic origins, and Masonry and its Roman Mithraic origins got me to thinking about the death of another Taurus, the Tauroctony of Mithraism*:

Interesting coincidence there. But as we will soon see, Mithraism has a lot to do with astronauts, only not the modern variety.

Speaking of NASA, they just released an amazing photo of the Orion Nebula taken by the Hubble telescope the day after the Oscars (and the same day of the reopening of the Baghdad museum). Orion, eh? Fascinating. Check it out here.



Yes Virginia, there is a major space race going on, and of a scale never before seen despite whatever is happening in the economy. So much so that a new venture capital firm called "eSpace: The Center for Space Entrepreneurship" has been created to help aspiring inventors get their proposals ready for NASA. You can check out their site here.

Strangely enough, they're in Colorado (specifically 1722 Boxelder St, Louisville, CO 80027), the state which was the center of much excitement on the 17th.

The space race is heating up to such an extent that even North Korea is getting in on the act:

North Korea has announced that it is preparing to launch a rocket carrying a communications satellite. It did not give a date for the launch, but said it would mark a great step forward for the communist state.

SEXY SATURN, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?

Well, on Sunday we had the Ausurs Oscars, Monday we had the reopening of the Babylon Gate Iraq museum and Tuesday we had a rare alignment of Saturn's moons:

"On Feb. 24th, there's going to be a quadruple transit of Saturn's moons," says Keith Noll of the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute. "Titan, Mimas, Dione and Enceladus will pass directly in front of Saturn and we'll see their silhouettes crossing Saturn's cloudtops—all four at the same time."

Transits like these are rare. "They only happen every 14 to 15 years when the orbits of Saturn's moons are nearly edge-on to Earth," says Noll. In 1995-96, the last time the geometry was right, Hubble photographed two (Titan and Tethys) and three (Mimas, Enceladus, Dione) moons transiting Saturn. This will be the first time the great telescope captures four.

Remember that just last week a major program to explore the moons of Jupiter and Saturn was announced. Echoing the florid language in that announcement, Noll tells us that "Hard science can be beautiful."


Oh geez, that's awkward.

UPDATE: Italy: Air Force Head says UFOs possibly ET craft

Italians are increasingly asking the question as to what is going on in their skies. Last year more UFO sightings were recorded in Italy than any year prior and this is catching the attention of the media. The Vatican has recently warmed up to the idea of life on other planets which begs the question as to whether Rome knows more about the topic than they are giving away.

Now an Air Force chief is conceding that aliens might be behind UFO incidents. In the last few weeks a number of high profile media outlets ran stories on UFOs. ‘055 News ‘noted that the Italian Air Force has recorded 38 sightings of UFOs since 2001. In 2008 alone three sightings of interest were seen by the Air Force or picked up on their radars.

UPDATE: Masons on the Warpath: Astronaut-authored report says NASA needs new direction:

NASA's performance since the Apollo programme has been "lacklustre" and the agency needs "serious reform or significant organisational overhaul," Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin and colleagues say in a draft paper released on Monday.

The draft paper, posted to the National Space Society blog, outlines a plan to replace George W Bush's 2004 Vision for Space Exploration, which called for returning astronauts to the Moon by 2020, with a plan that focuses on sending astronauts first to new targets, such as asteroids.

UPDATE: Arizona Scientist: We Could All Be Martians

As long as we’re still pondering human origins, we may as well entertain the idea that our ancestor microbes came from Mars. And Jay Melosh, a planetary scientist from the University of Arizona in Tucson, is ready with a geologically plausible explanation.

Meteorites.

"Biological exchange between the planets of our solar system seem not only possible, but inevitable," because of meteorite exchanges between the planets, Melosh said. "Life could have originated on the planet Mars and then traveled to Earth."

Cheers to Tom Horn at Raiders for the phat links!

UPDATE: UFO Sightings Soar in Canada

Strange floating objects and eerie bright lights were among the record number of Unidentified Flying Objects that Canadians spotted in the sky in 2008, according to Winnipeg-based Ufology Research.

The volunteer group of a half-dozen researchers said Canadians made a total of 1,004 UFO sightings in 2008 — up more than 25 per cent from the previous year and the highest number in the 20 years Ufology has been keeping track.

"It's astonishing to me that we had such a dramatic increase," spokesman Chris Rutkowski said.

"It could be an indication that there's actually something up there seen in greater numbers than ever before, it could be that there are perhaps more military flights, it could be … that people are more able to access websites where they can report the UFOs."

Link via Red Ice.

The mighty ox has colors
More than oneself could conceive of
The great one has become a portent hue
A portent hue†

NOTES

† Caterwaul, "Big Ox Laughing" (re-released 2/17/09)

*The Tauroctony is now believed to be a symbol of the passing of the Age of Taurus to the Age of Aries somewhere around 1875 BC. This puts lie to the argument put forward by Christian apologists that Mithraism was some late-period Roman invention. There is also mention of the Tauroctony in the Pyramid Texts from around 3000 BC. More on that in the future.

Benjamin Button and the Babylon Gate, pt. I

Oh look, isn't this timely? The Iraqi National Museum has reopened, the day after the Oscars.

The Iraq Museum, which has stood at its present location since 1966, last year completed the renovation of its Islamic and Assyrian halls, thanks to a one-million-euro (1.1 million dollar) donation and technical help from Italy.

It is also displaying artefacts from the Sumerian and Babylonian eras, although only eight of its 26 halls have been opened in the initial phase. "Work in progress" signs stand outside the closed galleries.

The Babylon Gate at the Kodak Theatre - note Ashur, similar poses

More pictures from the grand reopening here. It seems there is a large-scale effort underway to rebuild Babylon (from the Akkadian Babilu, meaning "Gateway of the Gods.") This syncs quite well with the Atlantis Rising memes, as well as the re-emergence of Amun, as well as with last night's Oscar ceremony, which we will get to in a minute.

US soldiers outside the Ishtar Gate reconstruction in Iraq

But there's another the Iraq project with a very interesting name in the works, as reported by News Daily:

"The Future of Babylon" project launched last month seeks to "map the current conditions of Babylon and develop a master plan for its conservation, study and tourism," the WMF says.

Officials say preserving Babylon, a relic of a time and place that gave birth to such milestones of civilization as agriculture, writing, codified law and the wheel, is crucial.

"It's extremely important. When people say this (region) is the cradle of civilization, that's certainly true of Babylon," Lisa Ackerman, WMF vice-president, told Reuters in a telephone interview. "It's a culture that had a profound impact on what we think of as modern civilization."

Oh yes, it surely did. Here is a quick sketch of the significance of the Babylon Gate aka the Ishtar Gate, which itself is a symbol of restoration:

King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon dedicated the great Ishtar Gate to the goddess Ishtar. It was the main entrance into Babylon. King Nebuchadnezzar II performed elaborate building projects in Babylon around 604-562 BC. His goal was to beautify his capital. He restored the temple of Marduk, the chief god, and also built himself a magnificent palace with the famous Hanging Gardens, which was reported by the Greek historian Herodotus to have been one of the wonders of the world.- bible-history.com

So what we are seeing now is a restoration of a restoration of a restoration of a restoration. Just as Nebuchadnezzar restored the Gateway of the Gods, so too is Iraq restoring what was lost to them. (Remember that Iraq is presently the beneficiary of countless billions of US tax dollars as well).

The word "restoration" itself offers some clues. From dictionary.com, we have "restoration" defined as:

• to bring back into existence, use, or the like; reestablish: to restore order.

• to bring back to a former, original, or normal condition, as a building, statue, or painting.
  

• to put back to a former place, or to a former position, rank, etc.: to restore the king to his throne.

In essence, restoration means the reversal of the effects of time.

We saw the themes of restoration in Dark City, with John Murdoch ("Oannes Marduk"), who in effect restored the oceans (identified with Oannes) and the Sun (identified with Marduk) to the abducted humans of the prison planet who were being experimented upon by an alien race. Note that Marduk and Ishtar are the equivalents of Horus and Hathor in the Babylonian religion.

John Murdoch is both Osiris and Horus as he enters the gateway of the gods (which no human was permitted to go through) and meets Jennifer Connelly rising from the surf like Aphrodite. The aliens called her "Emma," but her new name is Anna.

You know, as in "Inanna."

So what does this have to do with anything, you might ask. Well, although Slumdog Millionaire got the lion's share of the awards Sunday night, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button did quite nicely for itself. The two make an interesting pair. Slumdog is about the use of technology to restore a relationship and find one's destiny. Benjamin Button is about the reversal of time.

The two themes are not unrelated here on The Secret Sun.

TO BE CONTINUED

(Slum)Dog Star, the Reborn Sun and the Scarlet Women (UPDATES)

Beam me up, Horus.

I'm getting a damn laptop. I had the brilliant idea to live-blog the Oscars even though my TV and my computer are in separate parts of the house. Well, even so it was a blast for all involved and I got some much-needed exercise. If you haven't already, please check the Oscar Blog at The Solar Satellite- there's a ton of information on hand from several guests and myself.

One of the breakthrough posts for this blog was the Oscar/Babylon Gate piece, and sure enough we saw the Gate in full view during the red carpet preshow. Or at least with certain people. We saw the Gate with Penelope Cruz, who went on to win Best Supporting Actress...

And also with Ka-Hathor-Te Winslet, who won for The Reader. Was this some kind of signal to us, or just a coincidence? I don't recall seeing it with other interviewees. Whatever.

I won't even try to piece together all of the little symbols and synchs into a coherent narrative, at least not yet. In truth, we're going to be seeing so much more of them as we proceed into this year, that chasing them all will become nearly impossible. Though I must say, hearing Steve Martin and Tina Fey bust out some astronaut theology was pretty interesting.

Speaking of astronaut theology, we recently looked at India and Hindu polytheism in relation to disclosure and AAT, and sure enough, the Ausurs reflected that in quite nicely.

The night belonged to Danny Boyle and Slumdog Millionaire (which stars the impossibly beautiful Freida Pinto). In the endless rising of Sirius, many in the Synchrosphere have noted that the film syncs quite nicely with the Dog Star, and our "mutt" President. Certainly the incredible success of the film is not unrelated to this emerging archetype. Note the point-in-circle pedestal motif we saw in Denver.


The triumph of Slumdog is not only fascinating for the Sirius meme. Danny Boyle directed a film in 2007 called Sunshine, in which a bunch of Calvin Klein underwear models astronauts travel through space in an attempt to reignite the Sun using a nuclear reactor. It's one of those films whose commercial potential seems questionable, but whose symbolic/ritual value is limitless.

And sure enough, he went from that little-seen movie to Slumdog Millionaire. Maybe, certain sun worshippers were grateful for this little resurrection. After Boyle won for Best Director we flashed to the Renaissance Hotel logo. Interesting.

Other memes stood out- there was a overabundance of women in red, reminding us of the "Lady in Red" from The Matrix and the Scarlet Woman from Revelations 17. Beyonce Knowles again played the Lady in Red in an excruciating medley of show tunes that had me wondering if this was the Oscars or the Tonys. At the end, Wolverine shouted out "musicals are back!" Please God, no.

We talked recently about the masculinization of women and sure enough we saw it in the big production number. Men in top hats, bow ties and canes were joined by women in top hats, bow ties and canes. The troupe was composed of perfomers from High School Musical and Mamma Mia!, and included the adorable Vanessa Hudgens and Mr. 17 himself, Zac Efron.

Of course, the descending goddess motif has been in the mix here lately with Rihanna and Leona Lewis, but with male dancers reminding of Freemasons with their top hats, the descending goddesses brought me back to the Stairway to Sirius icon. How's about you?

Finally, Mr. Horus J. Hancock hosted a bunch of presentations for SFX awards. Personally, I would have chosen him over Hugh JackDeMolayMan for host. He seemed a lot more natural and comfortable- and intelligible. Jackman's hyperventilating and Aussie brogue made him indecipherable at times. At other times, he disappeared into the background. Totally awesome at Wolverine, not so awesome at hosting- or singing.

Mr. Hancock wore a strange lapel pin of a cross crosslet, an obscure icon that most people have forgotten. Most people except me, since the crosslet is used in the Knowles family's coat of arms.


So aside from that little personal synch and Beyonce Knowles and Christopher Nolan, I was almost starting to wonder if Smith and the Oscar producers were screwing around to get back at me for the Babylon Gate thing and the Hancock stuff. But when you gaze into the Synch, the Synch often winks back at you.

Now, if you all will excuse me, I need a bit of rest.

UPDATE: Be sure to check out Loren Coleman's site for some more Oscar analysis, including the strange 007 synchs throughout the night.

UPDATE II: At around 2130 EST, we saw Ben Stiller and Natalie ("birth") Portman present. Stiller was riffing on Joaquin Phoenix's meltdown routine and it was another award for Slumdog. Right after this award, we had a MasterCard ad where a Boston Terrier sojourns across the country back to his family (see ads here). MasterCard's logo is a dual, conjoined sun. Strangey reminds us that Portman's next film is 17 Pictures of Isabel. ("Isis-Ba'al") So we have the Phoenix, the Dogstar, the dual sun, birth, Isis and 17 all in the space of a few minutes in the middle of the broadcast. Interesting.

UPDATE III: Speaking of 17, the add for Knowing came on at 2017 EST during the broadcast. And then there's this juxtaposition over at iMDB...

UPDATE IV: Did you catch the "green sun" motif in the new 17" Mac Notebook ad?

UPDATE 1641 EST: Will wonders never cease? The Iraq National Museum reopened today. More on that at midnight.

"Miss Mason for 2009"

Only Secret Sun readers could appreciate the full significance of this video clip. This is from Valentine's Day, which synchs quite nicely with the androgyny memes in Eternal Sunshine. Mason's green color scheme puts the icing on the cake.

Memestream: Sexy Shapeshifting Socialites (UPDATED 2023 EST)

Well, we've seen a lot of Martin Landau (John the Baptist, X-Files, Ed Wood) recently, and we've also seen an avalanche of space-based stories in the press. So, naturally, that got me thinking about Space: 1999, a British Star Trek knockoff which Landau starred in with fellow Mission: Impossible alum Barbara Bain.* Par for the course, Space: 1999 premiered in the US on October 17, 1975.

Here is a brief synopsis from the wiki:

The underlying storyline of Space: 1999 centered on the plight of the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha following a calamity on 13 September 1999. A huge nuclear waste dump on the far side of the Moon detonates in a massive thermonuclear explosion...(which) causes the Moon to be sent hurtling out of Earth's orbit and into deep space at colossal speed, stranding the 311 crew members, in effect becoming the "spaceship" on which the protagonists travel...

Of course if you take away two days and add two years to that date, the premise of Space:1999 takes on a much higher resonance.

Space:1999 was created Gerry Anderson and his wife Sylvia. We've looked Anderson in relation to The Thunderbirds, the disturbingly-surreal 60s puppetoon that not only foreshadowed 9/11, it also did the old Egypt/aliens routine as well. But Reader PJ also reminded us that Anderson also created The Terrahawks, which resonates one of the titles of the President Obam opus.

The credit sequence for the second season of Space:1999 also features the shape-shifting alien Maya, who appeared on the second season of the show. Of course, Maya is the Buddhist term for "illusion," but was also the name of King Tut's treasurer.

The three forms we see Maya take in the credits are of a dog (corresponding to Sirius), a hawk (corresponding to Horus), and a Tiger (corresponding to Sekhmet). †

Maya was played by Catherine Schell (aka Ka-Hathor-Ein Shell), who was born into the aristocracy of what was once Austria-Hungary, which was ruled by the Hapsburg-Lorraine Dynasty. Read this fascinating passage from her biography:

Born in Budapest, Hungary, her true name is Katherina Freiin Schell von Bauschlott, the scion of a once wealthy German patrician family. Her father, the Baron Paul Schell von Bauschlott, was a well-respected diplomat until the Nazis confiscated their estates during WWII, while her mother was Countess Katharina Maria Etelka Georgina Elisabeth Teleki de Szék. Her family was living in poverty until 1948 when they sought asylum in Vienna and Salzburg as the communist regime began to take hold in Hungary.

Like Heidi Klum, Schell is of German extraction. Like the Hearsts, she is of an aristocratic background.

Tying into the 007 syncs with Klum and the Hearsts, Schell was herself a Bond girl in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Space:1999 was filmed at Pinewood Studios in England, where the Bond movies were filmed (as well as a whole host of other Synchromystic delights).

Bela Lugosi, whom Martin Landau portrayed in Ed Wood, was himself born in Austria-Hungary.

Schell was born on the 17th of July (7/17/44) 17 and 44 add to 8, and 17 is the 7th prime number. She's also 1.70 meters tall.

Schell starred in a British mini-series called The Search for the Nile, which was narrarated by James Mason.


The flag of the Austo-Hungarian Empire featured both the double-cross of Lorraine, but also the double-headed eagle now used by the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (among others).

33rd Degree Scottish Rite Mason Manly P. Hall believed that the "double-headed eagle, or Phoenix, foreshadows the ultimate androgynous state of the human creature." So yet again we see the rebirth and androgyny memes that run all throughout all of this.

Maya even shape-shifted into a Reptilian!

In that light, note that Maya takes on both male and female forms. Although I've not seen this acknowledged, it seems possible that Goth goddess Siouxsie (who has taken on both male and female lovers) was influenced by Maya's distinctive look.


Bringing it all back to first principles, Siouxsie explored alien and cosmic themes with her former duo with Budgie, The Creatures (particularly on the Boomerang** album). The Creatures also released an album released an album called Anima Animus, based on the Jungian concept of unconscious androgyny (Tool did the same three years prior with AEnima, relased 9/17/96).

So what does all of this mean? Well, it gets to the core of what this blog is about. The Secret Sun is ultimately about the power of symbols and archetypes to break out of the world of Forms and form a latticework of connections in the world in which we live. These particular connections simply point to a microcosm of a greater state, which Jung and others call Numinosity, which essentially describes the psychic connection of the individual to the Transcendent.

I'll let Uncle Carl have the last word:

Archetypes, so far as we can observe and experience them at all, manifest themselves only through their ability to organize images and ideas, and this will always be an unconscious process which cannot be detected until afterward.

UPDATE

Well, no sooner did this lunar-themed post go up than did the DC police announce a suspect in the 2001 slaying of Congressional intern Chandra Levy, who had a relationship with US Rep Gary Condit of Ceres, CA. (kudos to Loren Coleman for the tip)

Ceres is the Roman name of Demeter, the goddess of agriculture whose daughter was taken to the Underworld.

Michelle Obama spoke recently before the Dept. of Agriculture, urging the spread of community gardens and offering a magnolia tree sprout to employees.

And wouldn't you just know it, there's a Magnolia FA&AM Lodge in Washington DC.

Chandra is the name of the Hindu moon goddess and also the name of the X-Ray telescope at Harvard University, Masonic stronghold and Barack Obama's alma mater.

Levy' last-known whereabouts on May 1, 2001 were Grove 17 in Rock Creek Park.

Exactly two years later, Bonesman Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln for the Mission Accomplished fiasco.

UPDATE 2005 EST: This is odd, Strangey points out that CNN is reporting that previous suspect Ingmar Guandique will be charged. Interesting name for an El Salvadoran, derived from Yngvi, a title for Freyr, the Norse equivalent of Osiris.

Furthermore, some believe that the Norse name for the gods (Aesir) is derived from Ausur, or Osiris.

The most famous Ingmar was Ingmar Bergman, who directed the 1960 film Jungfrukällan (Virgin Spring) about a father who brutally avenges the murder of his daughter in a forest. The murdered daughter was played by Birgitta Pettersson born 1/7/39.

Jungfrukällan was remade by Wes Craven as Last House on the Left (in which a girl is murdered on her 17th birthday), which itself is being remade and released on 3/13/09, the same day as Race to Witch Mountain.

NOTES

†The dog, the cat and the hawk are also represented in a popular votive statue that features Horus, Anubis and Sekhmet.

*Downard saw some significance in the name "Baine" in KingKill 33. See if you can figure it out.

** Boomerang was released 11/6/89 - 11+6 and 8+9 both equal 17. Anima Animus was released 2/15/99 2+15=17. The Creatures first album feast made it to number 17 in the UK album charts. The Creatures last single, "Godzilla," was released 10/13/03. 10+1+3+0+3=17.

Seen From Space: Following the Memestream (UPDATES!)

The Skylon flying vibrator Spaceplane

Abstract: Two Seen from Space posts in five days? Science fiction is the new reality...

Reaction Engines Ltd. is yet another of the constellation of corporations popping up seemingly out of nowhere and producing science fiction spacecraft. They've developed the Skylon (no, not Cylon) yet another of the new vehicles meant to shuttle people back and forth from orbit. Read this:

"The Holy Grail to transform the economics of getting into space is to use a truly reusable spaceplane capable of taking off from an airport and climbing directly into space, delivering its satellite payload and automatically returning safely to Earth,” said Alan Bond, Managing Director of Reaction Engines.

Fascinating language. These are heady days for the space industry, and the libidos seem to running wild. I use "libido" in the Jungian sense, but I can't help but look at all of this hardware with anything but a Freudian eye. (By the way, Reaction Engines also makes the SATAN engine).

Seventeen

Interesting conjunction of articles here from the Beeb science section. Sheesh, I thought there was a global depression on, and yet we are seeing billions spent on space programs of marginal benefit to ordinary people. What's the big rush?

The ESA is building a "space truck" to supply the ISiS, and we looked earlier at the massive Jupiter/Saturn programs going on. I can't ask it enough- why is this so compelling to our governments all of a sudden? It's too bad Arthur C. Clarke is no longer with us. Maybe he knew.

The visual connection to the Danton discovery is fascinating, tying into the memes of new discovery pertaining to water, which is driving the Jovian satellite program. And there's this little factoid, telling us that the Danton "was attacked by Germany's U-64 submarine at 1317 on 18 March, 1917." Hmmm...

But it's worth taking a second look at that gas giant article, since there is some unexpectedly florid language being thrown around. The very idea of visiting these lunar systems has clearly excited the libidos of some of these scientists as well:

On the subject of the Galilean satellites, Dr Blanc added: "They are fascinating. They are coupled; they are in resonance.

"While Ganymede is doing one turn around Jupiter, Europa is doing two turns; and Io is doing four orbits. And in this motion they keep eccentricity; they excite each other. And there is a lot of tidal interaction which heats the internal bodies of those satellites."

But the planetary scientist, who is a principal investigator on the Cassini-Huygens mission to the Saturnian system, added: "My heart belongs to Titan."

To Jung, libido was psychic energy. To Freud it was sexual energy. Six of one, half-dozen of the other. Libido is life. Life is energy, period. In this light, I recommend that everyone head over to The Stygian Port to read Violator's new magnum opus on the symbolism of sacred sexuality, "Opening the Stargate."

If we are hearing about all of these projects now, that means that they have been in development for a very long time. NASA reportedly operates on a $17 billion dollar budget (surprise, surprise) but I can't imagine that covers all of the hardware we are seeing going up.

Here's an interesting question for you to consider: what if our mammoth "defense" budgets haven't really all been spent on armaments but on what we are seeing unfold today? And who would know the difference?

UPDATE: Yahoo, of course.

UPDATE II: Talk about pushing a meme- Lynnertic points us to this story, showing the cosmic copulation of the Sun and Earth...

On Feb. 10 (JST), the lunar explorer "KAGUYA" successfully took an image of the moment when the Earth looked like a diamond ring by its onboard high definition camera. The moment came when a penumbral lunar eclipse occurred and the view of the Sun from the KAGUYA was mostly covered by the Earth, thus the earth looked like a diamond ring. This is the first time that this phenomenon was shot from the Moon.

UPDATE III: Speaking of "seen from space," StrangeEye caught this ad- I'm speechless:



Note that it opens on the ESB obelisk and then goes to its counterpart the Eiffel Tower. "Hugh Jackman" reminds me of Hugh De Payens and Jacques De Molay, the first and last Grand Masters of the Knights Templar.

Amazing. Great catches here, guys.

UPDATE IV: What was I just saying about androgyny? "George Mason University picks drag queen as homecoming queen."

Note: In the next post, we'll see how obscure details can tie together seemingly unrelated aspects of the Memestream.

Memestream Addendum: T & A-liens (UPDATES)

Continuing the magazine meme, I stumbled on a site that I'm not sure if I didn't hallucinate into existence, a la The Lathe of Heaven.

I'm probably a lot older than a lot of you guys, so bear with me if my 70s nostalgia bores you. But if you want to know where all the Secret Sun magic comes from, it comes from being a nearly-feral latchkey kid at a time when the local newsstand was like a Renaissance mystery school, filled with texts on UFOs, Astrology, witchcraft, conspiracy theory and lots and lots of sex. And that was just the comic books!

BadMags.com is a tribute to that era and though it's primarily porn-oriented, it's an awesome time capsule of a time when high weirdness was dripping into the mainstream via bottom-drawer sleaze magazines that bored kids hungry for kicks gobbled up like Fritos. A caveat though, BadMags.com is so NSFW it's not even funny.

So much so that I'll just put up some of the great Myron Fass alien mags. These might be the greatest magazine headlines in human history, my favorite being "Beware: Polyester Fabrics are driving you insane!" Bill Deagle is a piker compared to these old classics.

Now do you understand?

I've mentioned this before, but my local temple of initiation- where I got all my forbidden texts as well as my sugar fixes- was called "Valles' News."

Valles was pronounced "Valis."

UPDATE: What would I do without my readers? James Ratte and Jay A both point us to Yahoo's headlining of a Popular Mechanics story entitled "6 Top-Secret Aircraft that are Mistaken for UFOs".

Included are the RQ-3 Darkstar (Q is the 17th letter of the alphabet), the U2, the SR-71 Blackbird (17 reversed), P-791 (=17) which had its inaugural flight in Palmdale ("Phoenix Valley"), Calif., F-117A Nighthawk (Size: 107 ft long; 56-ft wingspan) and the B-2 Spirit (Size: 69 ft long; 172-ft wingspan).

So much traffic above our heads, and so much interesting symbolism floating around in our heads.

UPDATE II: Lynnertic found this interesting press release, dated February 17, 2009, stating "NASA MISSION TO SEEK WATER ICE ON MOON HEADS TO FLORIDA FOR LAUNCH":

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, known as LCROSS, is enroute from Northrop Grumman's facility in Redondo Beach, Calif., to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in preparation for a spring launch.

"LCROSS." Doubly fascinating.

UPDATE III: How the hell did I miss this? NASA's Phoenix lander may have captured the first images of liquid water on Mars - droplets that apparently splashed onto the spacecraft's leg during landing, according to some members of the Phoenix team.

UPDATE IV: StrangeEye reports on Michelle Obama and the Festival of Min.

Memestream: Secret Societies and Sexy Socialites

Can't we all be brothers?

USNews & World Report whips up some fresh Masonic recruitment propaganda under the dodge of a "Mysteries of History" collectors edition. Ostensibly, it's a look at secret societies throughout history, but the Freemasons get the lion's share of the page-count (and the front and back cover, as well).

With only the slightest veneer of objectivity, Secret Societies includes some very helpful primers for prospective Freemies, including a two-page spread explaining all of the symbols used in the tracing boards. There are also articles on some of the other branches of the Masonic network, including the Templars, Assassins, Rosicrucians, Illuminati, Opus Dei, Scientologists and Skull and Bones, but any controversies concerning the Freemies are glossed over and generally dismissed as the province of cranks. There are some articles on cults and the like, but most of what's covered is old hat in the extreme.

In short, Secret Societies is strictly Snoozeville, Sammy.

Less so is this cover of German GQ, featuring a naked (and obviously uncomfortable) Heidi Klum wearing a giant red Q as a crown. This repeats the motif from the poster for 17 Again, seeing that Q is the 17th letter of alphabet. Note the asterisk (Sirius) and red plus signs resonating Templar crosses.

Speaking of secrets, Heidi played Bond girl Ursula Andress in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, and was a Bond girl herself of sorts, doing voice work for a 007 video game.

Nice blue-and-gold color scheme

Thinking about secret societies and sexy socialites reminded me of Patty Hearst, the publishing heiress who was kidnapped by some absurd agent-provocateur operation/political cult called the Symbionese Liberation Army in the early 70s and morphed into the gun-totin' bank robber known as "Tania."

Even as a kid I got "Tania" mixed up with Madame Hydra, and not just because of the logos. The whole thing just gave off that vibe (maybe whoever was [allegedly] running the SLA op was a big Steranko fan). The Madame was a villian in Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD, Marvel's answer to the James Bond craze of the 60s. She was leader of HYDRA, one of Jack Kirby's many super-secret societies.

It's interesting to note that one of the banks the SLA knocked off was a Crocker branch, which ties us back to the recent Karen Carpenter/Klaatu extravaganza. Patty was also lucky enough to escape a siege that shut the SLA down for good:

The next day, May 17th, 1974, a two-hour gun battle between the SLA and the LA police ignited a fire that fatally trapped six "soldiers" in their cramped East 54th Street hideout. Nine thousand rounds were fired when 500 cops descended on the house, and the drama was televised, similar to the Waco fiasco in which the David Koresh cult would be killed two decades later.

Hearst was then "deprogrammed" and went back to being a socialite (she also breeds French Bulldogs) and is living happily ever after. Today, Patty's doe-eyed daughter Lydia has joined Heidi Klum in the supermodel universe. Which brings us to our next magazine cover...

In which Lydia appears as a blonde Bond girl on the cover of GQ with the chav Bond, Daniel Craig. 007 was also the codename of master occultist John Dee when in the service of the first Queen Elizabeth.

Like Heidi, Lydia has done her own nude cover, in which she's trussed up in some bizarre rhinestone-studded bondage apparatus. Anyone familiar with her mother's story will find this image bizarre (to say the least) seeing that she was reportedly bound and gagged for several days after her abduction by Cinque and the SLA. Note the "Cin" in cinema while "ema" is almost invisible. Interesting.

We all know that the fashion industry is sociopathic and misogynistic, but why would Lydia consent to such an image, in light of her mother's ordeal?

As F. Scott Fitzgerald put it, "The rich are different."

Postscript: Well, you gotta love Synchronicity. I was just poking around the New York Post website and what do I see but some game feature called "Scandalous Socialites" with a video of Lydia Hearst...

UPDATE: Since I wrote this before I saw the SpongeBob Masonic Fiesta, I'm happy to note what David reminded us of- that the Hydra logo is actually a Cephalopod.

UPDATE II: Speaking of the damned rites of Chthulu, here's this news item:

HARTFORD, Conn. — Geronimo's descendants have sued Skull and Bones _ the secret society at Yale University linked to presidents and other powerful figures _ claiming that its members stole the remains of the legendary Apache leader decades ago and have kept them ever since.