The Secret War Against the New Age: Introduction

To most people, the New Age is a joke. The picture you usually get in the media is that the New Age is a conglomeration of hucksters and charlatans peddling mystical claptrap to bored, eccentric housewives. Despite the popularity of figures associated with New Age - Oprah, Deepak Chopra, Tony Robbins - the movement isn't taken very seriously by most people.

Cocoon and the Villa of the Mysteries

Ron Howard's 1985 Cocoon followed hot on the heels of his 1984 commercial breakthrough as a director, Splash. That film told the story of a mermaid who takes human form and takes up with a bachelor played by Tom Hanks. The film ends with the couple swimming to Atlantis.

Atlantis Rising: Ritual Androgyny in the Strangest Places

Has it really been five months? I'm reposting this since I wanted to post part 3 and realized absolutely no one would remember what the hell I was talking about. I had planned to clear out the queue this summer, but it's been so hectic, symbol-wise. 

Dog Days: The Ground Zero Mosque

I made mention the other day of this shot from HuffPost pertaining to the "Ground Zero Mosque" debate surrounding Park51 or the Cordoba House or whatever it's being called this week.

 

Gods and Geeks in the Endless American Twilight

The interfaith website Patheos asked me to write a piece about the new gods of pop culture. I discuss the various memes relating to superheroes, Avatar, Twilight, Dragon*Con and much, much more. 

Children of the Flaming Wheel, Part 2: The Solar Phone

In the previous post, we looked at what reads like the minutes from an technoccult ritual in which young hippies contact alien artificial intelligences over the vast reaches of space using psychic projection. Jack Kirby seemed to like the idea so much that it included it in a contemporaneous story, starring none other than our old friend, Jimmy Olsen.

 

Appearances Can Deceive

So after all the shouting and controversy, could it be that the "Ground Zero Mosque" is a hoax? Nothing would surprise me these days, but you gotta love Huffpost's beauty shot of the Stairway to Sirius here, especially given the site's penchant for super-loaded symbolism.

Atlantis Rising, Part 4: Beyond the Stars

Cocoon was followed by the obligatory sequel in 1988, but the film went nowhere. Neither did this 1989 film written and directed by the author of the novel Cocoon was (loosely) based on, but it's a lot more interesting for our purposes here.

 

Secret Star Trek: A Really Bad 21st Century

One of the many alien "Gods" from Star Trek

 Summer is the time when my brain goes into standby mode. Actually, that's not true, it's actually the time when I delve back into a particular pop culture obsession and follow different themes in and out of paranormal lore and history.

Freudian Funnybooks: Two and a Half Men

I haven't done one of these in a while but it's been such a gloomy summer and we can all use some unintentional hilarity laced with sac-kickingly blatant phallic symbolism. I'm not going to comment on any of these, but feel free to write your own captions in the comments section. Or not. Hey- it's Sunday in August. Do whatever makes you happy. Or don't.

Click to enlarge. Or not.

"Children of the Flaming Wheel"

I could try to preface or frame this photocomic somehow, but there's no way I could make it any less strange and wacked out than it already is. 

Longtime Secret Sun readers know all about Jack Kirby and the absolute incongruity of his obsessions with the highest weirdness imaginable contrasted with his almost stultifying suburbanite life. I'd argue that the latter not only enabled but fueled the former.

Secret Star Trek: The Plumed Serpent

Some believe that 2012 will bring the return of Quetzalcoatl, whose name translates literally into "feathered serpent." And of course the crowns of Egypt were composed of a bird and a snake as well. 

Secret Sun Picture Parade: Aliens and Egypt, Again

Yahooccultismus strikes again. Quite a juicy semiotic mashup there, the UFO story, the Sun headlines, a Phoenix namedrop, the mer-man links and of course the dogs (as in the Dog Star). 

Really a subtle work of genius that most people will completely ignore. Secret Sun readers know better.

Wayne Herschel and the Secret Sun of Ra

 

 Longtime Secret Sun readers are familiar with my theory that the Sun we are seeing in a lot of this esoteric symbolism is not in fact ours (see "Astronaut Theology: Their Sun is Different" from April 2008) and now researcher Wayne Herschel has decoded some of the symbolism pertaining to Ra (god of the Green Sun) and produced these fascinating videos. 

The Dreaming Mind and the Invisible Hand

Tracy Twyman just posted part 2 of our conversation and this time the gloves are off. Just a quick bit of Sync Log-style background- I'd been thinking the morning we spoke that I needed to do some more podcasts in order to hone my chops, since it's been a while.