Thursday, February 18, 2010

Shekinah Rising: The Missile Defense Logo "Controversy"

By now you've seen the news stories over the controversy over the Missile Defense Agency logo. The issue seems to be over its alleged use of the crescent and star of Islam, which neocons see as some kind of symbolic surrender to Sharia law (or something to that effect).


I'm not sure any of them really believe it- it's an election year and the more they can divert the voters from America's grim economic future, the better. But there are deeper issues at work here... First- if you're talking symbolism, note that the crescent is inverted. This is a significant detail in symbolism (upside down crosses, anyone?), not that it matters to the shills. Here are a couple typical arguments, if you can call them that:
"Team Obama’s anti-anti-missile initiatives are not simply acts of unilateral disarmament of the sort to be expected from an Alinsky acolyte. They seem to fit an increasingly obvious and worrying pattern of official U.S. submission to Islam and the theo-political-legal program the latter’s authorities call Shariah." "I'm having trouble seeing past the crescent and star in the new logo," one critic posted on WashingtonTimes.com. "Is this our signal to the muslim world that we're not going to shoot down their missiles?"
It's funny, these are the people last week who were complaining Obama was killing too many terrorists (to call American politics a clownshow is to insult honest, hardworking circus performers). I would think Muslims might see a US defense project incorporating the (inverted) crescent and star as a profanation and an implied threat. 

Is that why this ridiculous controversy was manufactured, to preempt more legitimate concerns?

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Whenever a controversy erupts in the media over symbols, it's always an intentional diversion disguising a deeper meaning. Let's take a closer look at the logo:

None of the media shills pointed out that the "star" is actually two crosses superimposed upon each other. Note those elongated bottom rays. Coincidence? Maybe, but maybe the whole thing is all a coincidence, then.

The effect resembles an X (or a Chi, if you prefer) laid over it, just as the Church of Scientology cross does. Why they use that symbol is another issue altogether. Some have speculated that Hubbard borrowed the logo from Crowley, who decorated the reverse of his Book of Thoth Tarot deck with the cross, which is derived from Constantine's chi-rho cross (why it is is another issue altogether).

But the cross, the globe and the crescent bring us to another Tarot deck- that of Crowley's arch-nemesis A.E. Waite. This is the High Priestess, who Waite describes thusly:

In a manner, she is also the Supernal Mother herself--that is to say, she is the bright reflection. It is in this sense of reflection that her truest and highest name in bolism is Shekinah--the co-habiting glory. 

- Waite, Pictorial Key to the Tarot

Sound familiar? Not a few researchers noticed that Shock and Awe- the big buzzword used during the early days of the Iraq invasion- sounds not a little bit like "Shekinah." Waite also writes that "according to Kabalism (sic), there is a Shekinah both above and below."

"Above and below." You mean like in the desert and the sky?

William Henry wrote on the "Shock and Awe" issue in 2003:

Most Christians and Jews are unaware that this Divine Fire is a feminine component of the deity in biblical times. This feminine Glory of God is called “shakina” (Shock-in-ah).

Shakina is the Indian Shakti, translated as “Cosmic Energy.” The term is used in the Talmud and Midrash in place of Word (Memra, Life Force Energy, Christ).

The image of the Shekinah reaches back to the goddesses of Sumeria and later to As-Tara in Canaan.

She was first exiled from humanity as a result of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, which some scholars locate in various places in Iraq. She has shared the exile from the Garden (Iraq) with all of humanity. She is addressed as the ‘Mystical Eden’, the ‘holy apple garden’.

Some occultists and students of the Tarot interpret the High Priestess as an incarnation of Hathor as well. Hathor was associated with the sphere, the crescent (which corresponded with her horns) and was known as the "Lady of the Stars."

But like Shekinah, Hathor had a violent streak- she was also known as Sekhmet, a "bloodthirsty warrior" and "goddess of destruction":

(Hathor) was also a goddess of destruction in her role as the Eye of Ra - defender of the sun god. According to legend, people started to criticise Ra when he ruled as Pharaoh. Ra decided to send his "eye" against them (in the form of Sekhmet). She began to slaughter people by the hundred. When Ra relented and asked her to stop she refused as she was in a blood lust.

So, an entirely different picture is starting to emerge from these symbols than the one the medias- both the mainstream and the so-called "alternative"- would want to make you believe.

Think about it- which crescent and star do you think elements in the military would want to identify with- that of Islam or Sekhmet/Shekinah?

But the mystery deepens- some neocons have compared the logo to the Iranian Space Agency logo- take a long look at it...

...then look again at Hathor's headdress. How about that, eh?

Of course, we've been down this road before, with the election logos, right? Like the Iran S.A. logo, it leads me to believe that maybe the forces the media presents as adversaries are no such thing. But there's one fascinating connection here...

Between the MDA logo and the Stairway to Sirius. Note that the "earth" is a pure blue globe. Kind of like a water planet, no? 

Coincidence? Maybe. The world's full of coincidences these days, isn't it?