Mithras Rising: Nova Caesarea

As I said before, I've been expecting something big to come out of New Jersey for several years now. And it makes sense that it's happening when and where it is for a number of reasons that I've been tracking for a long time now as well.

Trump is holding court in Bedminster, which is named after a British town of Roman origin. It's where his country club is located, right across the highway from the old AT&T building. That building will play a central role in this story.

Roman symbolism is on the ascendant, which makes sense when you look at the coterie of military, intelligence and military-intelligence bonecrackers that make up the bulk of Trump's entourage. So be keeping an eye out for it.

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

But why New Jersey, you may ask? Well, this is where the Name-Game comes in. The Jersey comes from the Channel Island, which is itself is a corruption of another name. Which name, do you ask?

The name Caesarea has been used as the Latin name for Jersey (also in its French version Césarée) since William Camden's Britannia, and is used in titles of associations and institutions today. The Latin name Caesarea was also applied to the colony of New Jersey as Nova Caesarea.

Ah, now it makes sense, no? New Jersey, New Caesar. Get it?

NJ's largest city is Newark, another interesting place name. It comes from another Roman British city but also comprises "New" and "Ark". 

As in a new covenant. 

Then there's Atlantic City, the famous gambling hub now fallen on rough times. But it doesn't take a etymologist to pull "Atlantis" out of there, does it?

Atlantic City also features this fascinating conjunction: Caesar's Palace cheek-by-jowl with Trump Plaza. I mean, do you need someone to spell it out for you? I don't think so- I'm betting you're a pretty smart cookie, otherwise you wouldn't even be here in the first place.

But you gotta wonder: how long has all this been in the works, exactly?

We've been slouching towards Caesarism for some time now in other ways as well. But before we proceed we need to define what exactly Caesarism is. I'm using the term as defined by Oswald Spengler over a century ago in his landmark work, The Decline of the West: 

By the term "Caesarism" I mean that kind of government which, irrespective of any constitutional formulation that it may have, is in its inward self a return to thorough formlessness. It does not matter that Augustus in Rome, and Huang Ti in China, Amasis in Egypt and Alp Arslan in Baghdad disguised their position under antique forms. the spirit of these forms was dead, and so all institutions, however carefully maintained, were thenceforth destitute of all meaning and weight. 

Real importance centered in the wholly personal power exercised by the Caesar...

Sounds oddly familiar.

We haven't heard a peep from the mainstream media about it but Barack Obama has overseen the greatest expansion of executive power this nation has seen in a very long time, perhaps since the Second World War.

Congress has been largely sidelined since Obama's re-election in 2012, when rule-by-executive-order became how business seemed to get done in Washington. And as Glenn Greenwald writes, that has set a discomfiting precedent for Trump's political opponents:

Glenn Greenwald: Trump will have vast powers. He can thank Democrats for them. 

Liberals are understandably panicked about what Donald Trump can carry out...Trump will command not only a massive nuclear arsenal and the most robust military in history, but also the ability to wage numerous wars in secret and without congressional authorization; a ubiquitous system of electronic surveillance that can reach most forms of human communication and activity; and countless methods for shielding himself from judicial accountability, congressional oversight and the rule of law — exactly what the Constitution was created to prevent. Trump assumes the presidency “at the peak of its imperial powers..."

Yet, beginning in his first month in office and continuing through today, Obama not only continued many of the most extreme executive-power policies he once condemned, but in many cases strengthened and extended them. 

His administration detained terrorism suspects without due process, proposed new frameworks to keep them locked up without trial, targeted thousands of individuals (including a U.S. citizen) for execution by drone, invoked secrecy doctrines to shield torture and eavesdropping programs from judicial review, and covertly expanded the nation’s mass electronic surveillance.

Why discomfiting? Because Democrats said absolutely nothing about any of this, except to label critics of these moves, "conspiracy theorists." Drunk on that sweet, sweet identity-politics wine, too many people in this country allowed themselves to be bamboozled while Obama continued- and indeed, accelerated-- Bush's imperial agenda.  

Well, guess what? The Praetorocracy aren't even waiting for Caesar to take his throne before removing Obama's velvet glove from the iron fist: 

A global conference of senior military and intelligence officials taking place in London this week reveals how governments increasingly view social media as “a new front in warfare” and a tool for the Armed Forces. 

The overriding theme of the event is the need to exploit social media as a source of intelligence on civilian populations and enemies; as well as a propaganda medium to influence public opinion. 

Participants in the conference—chaired by Steven Mehringer, Head of Communication Services at NATO—will include military and intelligence leaders from around the world, especially “social media experts from across the armed forces and defense industry.”

Terrific.

MEET THE NEW PRAETORIANS, SAME AS…

This is merely very old dogs learning new tricks. Or creating them, more accurately- military intelligence has been at the cutting edge of information technology for a very long time. Similarly,  the Praetorians were a formidable information gathering service in their day.

Speculatores and other members of the Praetorians would disguise themselves as ordinary citizens at gladiator contests, theatrical performances and protests to monitor and arrest anyone who criticized the emperor. They also kept tabs on suspected enemies of the state, and in some cases they even secretly executed those judged to be an imminent threat to the emperor or his policies.

The Praetorians were much like our own secret services in that they were also heavily involved in secret societies, in this case the bloody, drug-drenched Mithraic Mysteries. Pay close attention to this bit of history now:

Written sources and the archaeological testimonies give evidence that from Domitian on Rome always remained the most important centre of the Sol Invictus Mithras institution, which had become firmly entrenched at the very heart of the imperial administration, both in the palace and among the Praetorian Guard.

The followers of the cult of Mithras included the customs officers, who collected a tax on every kind of transport dispatched from Italy toward central Europe and vice versa; the imperial functionaries who controlled transport, the post, the administration of finance and mines; and last, the military troops of the garrisons scattered along the border.

Now, don't get sucked into the tendency to glamorize ancient pagans or see them all as righteous dudes and dudettes done dirt by Christians or whomever. The Druids really were bad news, for instance. They really did like to sacrifice people. A lot. The child sacrifices to Molech really did happen. Things were different back then.

You can't project our understanding of paganism 0n the past because the ancients wouldn't recognize it. Life was very different then.

If you're looking for a parallel for the Mithraists, for example, look at a group like Skull and Bones, that likes to get their freak on but wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire.

The Mithraists were badasses in the conventional understanding of the term, and hardasses to boot. Which is not to say they weren't freaky as hell, a lot freakier than you might imagine a bunch of Roman alpha males might get. But they were also dark. 

Really, really dark. 

They worshiped in caves and cellars cause they really liked the dark. They didn't baptize their converts with holy water, they baptized them with the blood of a freshly-killed bull, while the initiate stood naked in a specially-designed pit. While this went down, the rest of the cult tripped balls and screamed nonsense syllables and magical spells. While wearing animal masks. 

And probably nothing else.

The one surviving liturgy we have from this cult reads a hell of a lot like Duane Barry's worst nightmares.

Cybele

Since Mithraism was closed to women, its cultists' wives most often joined the cult of Cybele, the extraordinarily complex Phrygian goddess adopted into the Roman Pantheon after the Punic Wars. 

As we've seen, this event was extremely weird, as weird in its own way as Fatima, and conservative Romans continued to look askance at Cybele's screaming eunuch priests (who often initiated themselves into the cult in gory public rituals). But eunuch priests were probably a selling point for Mithraists as it probably ruled out any immaculate conceptions with their wives.

Well, that's all fucking fascinating, I hear you say, but what the hell does this have to do with Donald Trump?

Well, I mentioned that he's been holding court at Bedminster.

His country club is right across the highway from the old AT&T building where our old friend Golden Boy, aka the Genius of Electricity aka the Spirit of Communication was located before its move to the new AT&T headquarters in Dallas.*

And?

Well, ol' Goldie is nobody else but our old friend Mithras-Phanes, given a minor facelift for a 20th Century audience.

What's more AT&T is about to undo a 35 year-old mortal blow delivered to it by the Reagan Administration (which broke up the telecom's monopoly) with its pending acquisition of entertainment behemoth TimeWarner (formerly known as AOLTimeWarner). It's not quite the reconstruction of the old monopoly but it's bloody well close.

OK, you say, what the hell does this have to do with Mithras and Cybele? Well, I'm glad you asked.

TimeWarner headquarters sits on Columbus Circle (Columbus stemming from the word for dove, doves being sacred to Cybele). Also sitting on same circle is the USS Maine Memorial (which fed to the whole concept of "yellow journalism" back when it sank), which is topped by a goddess astride a chariot driven by seahorses.

But wasn't Cybele's chariot driven by lions? Sure, but probably not in her incarnation as a sea goddess. I don't think lions can swim.

OK, OK, I get it, you say. But do you really think Trump has a clue about any of this, you ask? 

Well, probably not. But who exactly do we believe is really steering the ship at this point? 

And if you're going to "make America great again", that's a tall order. Reconstructing iconic companies like AT&T (which nearly vanished after its breakup) might be high on your list.

But didn't Trump threaten to kill the merger?

Well, yes. But since when do we take anything any politician says on the campaign trail seriously? We're already seeing serious walk-back on that, in fact it's looking like the deal will go through.

And since we're looking at a new Praetorian Guard taking power, and since the Praetorians were at the core of the Mithraic secret societies, we need to remember how important symbol and ritual were/are. 

What could be more potent than a chemical marriage (merger) of Mithras (the actual friggin' corporate symbol of AT&T) and Cybele? Millionaires might not practice ceremonial magic, but I'm starting to think billionaires do. And probably a lot of millionaires too, actually. 

And the ones that don't, hire out.

The symbolism is really starting to pile up, isn't it? Believe me, I'm as surprised as you are.

Now, back to this Chris Christie thing. I've heard a number of different stories as to why he was booted as transition chief. But could there be a symbolic undercurrent to that as well? Let's see…

In 306, the Praetorians tried to play the role of kingmaker one last time when they installed the usurper Maxentius as the western emperor in Rome. Following a dizzying chain of civil wars and rival claims to the throne, Maxentius and his Praetorians were confronted by the Emperor Constantine at 312’s Battle of Milvian Bridge. While the Praetorians supposedly made a valiant last stand along the Tiber River, they were soundly defeated, and Maxentius was killed. 

Ah yes, the Milvian Bridge. Quite a trauma for the Mithraists and the Praetorians.

But I repeat myself. (Oddly enough, Trump's court in Bedminster sits atop the township of Bridgewater).

For those of you who might not remember, this is the "In this Sign, Shall You Conquer" battle, that led to the eventual adoption of Christianity as official Roman religion. But it had more immediate consequences for the Praetorians: 

Convinced the Praetorians could no longer be trusted, Constantine disbanded the unit once and for all, reassigned its members to the outskirts of the Empire, and oversaw the destruction of their barracks at the Castra Praetoria.

I'm sure the summary discharge of Chris Christie is purely coincidental.


UPDATE: OK, you want to see some retroactive "meme magic?" A sculptor named Charles Keck worked on the USS Maine National Monument, which is topped by Cybele.

TO BE CONTINUED