Some interesting guests were invited to this year's Coachella Festival: three giant statues called "The Messengers" stood at the gates and greeted celebrants as part of an "art installation." Which as you all know is simply a codeword for "active entrainment."
Of course, this needs to be seen in the context of the growing number of rather sinister giant statues we're seeing installed all over the place.
And given these particular ones are named "Messengers" - the literal translation of "angel" - I'd wager it's not actually all about creating "vibrant architectural beacons" or whatever else corporate doublespeak nonsense is constantly being slathered over these irreducibly-religious icons, but something else entirely.
The whole tableau also brings the Celestials of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to mind, wouldn't you say? In their original incarnation, the Celestials were energy beings encased in giant robot bodies, which was a bit of a thruline with their creator Jack Kirby.
Were I a betting man, my money would be on this being no coincidence.
As we might glean from the lunar, stellar and pyramid symbolism and All-Seeing Eye here. Note the symbols along the shoulder there?
Speaking of Jack Kirby, the Messengers also have a bit of a Hopi Kachina vibe, which Kirby was also heavily influenced by. And do note that Kirby seemed to have been anticipating the message that all these giant statues are conveying.
Namely, that the old gods are awaking from their slumber and are coming to rain destruction down on the human race and install an entirely new world order.
The other "art installations" weren't as explicit as the giant Watcher statues, but these two seem to encode serpent (or perhaps Seraphim) and Orb iconography. Both of which we've also seen quite a bit of, haven't we?
But as the Great Restoration (which some call the Great Reset) rages on, it's worth taking some time to look at what the purpose of festivals has always been.
RELIGIOUS ENTRAINMENT
The purpose of festivals has always been - and will always be - to reinforce religious entrainment. It's not always a theistic religion and it's not always a major or established religion, but it's always a religion all the same.
There's definitely a kind of cult indoctrination methodology to modern music festivals, particularly of the EDM/Rave variety. You're trapped in a compound, often deprived of sleep and/or food, you're subject to the extremes of weather and you're bombarded with noise that impacts directly on the limbic system and is accompanied by light shows that directly manipulate autonomic brain function.
Somewhere, Jim Jones weeps with envy.
The alpha-testing for all of this took place in hospitals and asylums in the 1950s and the beta-testing was done during the Acid Tests and the Fillmore West during the mid-1960s. It was revived during the 1980s in the UK to help pacify British youth - who were becoming increasingly prone to rioting and hooliganism - and has been burning hot and cold throughout the world ever since.
The original prototype for organized festivals dates back to Ancient Greece (at the very least) and also featured heavy consumption of drugs and alcohol and sensory overload via music and pyrotechnics.
Do note that Dionysus was often identified with Pluton in the ancient world, meaning the chthonic powers of death and the underworld. Which may be why the Dionysian impulse has a tendency to be pulled in the direction of darkness and degeneracy, which it most certainly did in Greece and later in Rome.
The now-notorious 2021 Astroworld Festival is only one example of things pursuing their natural courses. Travis Scott's vapid and mindless pop music doesn't seem like it would lend itself to the iconography of death and evil if you didn't understand the Dionysian archetypal current. But if you do, it all seems inevitable.
Astroworld became kind of a Boschian tableau in 2021, which the more mystically-inclined would likewise see as inevitable, given the kind of symbology the producers were invoking. Festivals have always had the potential for death and mayhem -- see Woodstock in 1999 and Roskilde the following year -- but given the iconography afoot, it may well get worse.
Do note that Burning Man -- which seems to be following the same Artistic-to-Archonic pattern that Bohemian Grove did a century ago -- also incorporated that same Boschian "devourer" symbolism that Astroworld employed.
Stage sets for EDM festivals have gotten increasingly elaborate and symbol-laden. Aside from the Big Brother in the center, the geometric design of this stage reminds me all too much of...
... Jason Aldean's flaming-hexagon stage set at Las Vegas' ill-fated Harvest Festival in 2017.
Stage sets have become simultaneously hellish and totalitarian at EDM shows, the dehumanizing music making the perfect soundtrack to the dehumanization of the festivals themselves.
This is all designed to depress, intimidate and ultimately pacify attendees, and as such, has been working a treat for the hidden hands behind all of it for decades now.
Which is why it's kind of funny to see that icon up there recalling that of the Flintstones' prehistoric Freemery. Well, at least to me. I'm easily amused.
Note this set design incorporates a similar portal design to the Astroworld stage. It also gives off a faintly solar vibe, as well as an All-Seeing Eye flavor.
Let's just say I wouldn't fall to the floor in shock if that turned out to be intentional.
This set gives off a chess kind of feel, in addition to the obvious Twinning and a vague hippocampus type of vibe. It also reminds me of Thulsa Doom's standard, apropos of nothing whatsoever.
These Defqon stages dispense with the pleasantries and symbologies and go straight for the demonic jugular. Those designs on the demon's wings on the bottom also give off a bit of a Square-and-Compass vibe. Also a Black Lodge vibe.
Seriously, what is the intention here? It's funny that the same Liber ALs who perceive nefarious intent in every imagined microagression have nothing to say about an alchemical brew of symbolism, noise, and mob mentality. Despite that it all has the potential of making a Nuremberg rally look like an ACLU luncheon.
Of course, it isn't funny at all: Liber ALs are all completely controlled in everything they do and say anymore.
Yep, we're a million miles away from the Acid Tests here. In technology and explicitness, I mean. The underlying intent is the same, it's just had 60 years to be perfected and purified.
It's kind of ironic: a critic once remarked that "the flowers of evil are in full bloom" after seeing the Velvet Underground in Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable. What would he say now?
It's kind of ironic: a critic once remarked that "the flowers of evil are in full bloom" after seeing the Velvet Underground in Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable. What would he say now?
These particular flowers are most definitely an invasive species.
A Twitter follower pointed me to Defqon and for good reason: aside from the more Medieval demonology, the designers went straight for the DMT demon look, with a bit of ayahuasca-culture seasoning. But they also threw in a couple more recognizable devils flanking the main stage as well, just so the less-culturally sophisticated ravers understand what they're all doing there.
The hellish and demonic dominate the landscape at this festival as well, with this giant flaming spider monster. Just think what kind of messaging is being broadcast into all those drugged-out brains.
I'm not sure what the occult significance of spiders would be in this context, but do note that David Bowie incorporated that same kind of symbolism on his 1987 Glass Spider tour and U2 later did so on their 360 Tour.
Also note that both of these tours took place in the nadir of Bowie and U2's respective cringe-beyond-cringe phases. Is there a deeper meaning to be gleaned there?
If so, what does it mean that Pennywise is revealed to be a manifestation of a giant space spider in Stephen King's It? This led to the scene where the kids escaped the spider's lair by... never mind. You know exactly what scene I'm talking about.
This Taiwanese set is a bit more modest but no less demonic than its European and Australian cousins. Seriously - who wants to see that shit when you're tripping balls?
Big Brother/Watcher symbolism is also prevalent at EDM festivals, which makes all too much sense given that raves are one of the crown jewels of the MKULTRA Imperium. This is a million lightyears away from "power to the people."
Tying back to the almost-certainly un-coincidental connection of the Messengers to the Celestials, compare the Big Brother heads at raves with this one from Prometheus. The Alien franchise has cribbed shamelessly from Jack Kirby comics as well, so the connection makes perfect sense.
This stage incorporates both Big Brother and DMT imagery/color schemata. Which like I said before, is entirely appropriate given who's pulling the strings, both in this realm and others.
The similarity to the alien temple in Dark City is probably not coincidental either. Same basic idea, when all is said and done.
Owl symbolism has always implied darkness, for obvious reasons. Combined with the butterflies and the Alex Grey-style mutilated faces, it all comes across as a different kind of dark.
It's worth noting that Bohemian Grove and its not-Molech owl set the pattern that Burning Man is following today. It started off a bunch of artsy weirdos doing mock rituals to being taken over by the ruling class, where they perform maybe not-so-mock rituals. Burning Man and the Fire Festivals started off as weirdo postpunk LARPs and were later colonized by EDM as well.
Other festivals incorporate butterfly and All-Seeing Watcher Eyes in their set designs. And why wouldn't they? No one going to these things would either know (or care) about what it all means, or what it all implies for the future. They'd probably write it all off as a bunch of AlexJones-type conspiracy mongering anyway.
The irony is that neither they - nor many conspiracy theorists - understand there's a long game being played here. The point isn't some instantaneous payoff, but a slow, patient and deliberate process of entrainment.
Let's be perfectly clear about this: very few of those subjected to this kind of entrainment will ever become psycho-killers or demonic vessels. But a plurality- if not a majority - will eventually become passive, indolent and depressive. I'm old enough to have seen it happen before.
Worse, those ravers will also be effectively pacified by the terror of seeming uncool - or grown up, more accurately - by disagreeing with a single one of the opinions or beliefs that are being pumped into the culture along with the entrainment and neurological manipulation.
With all that said, be aware that I'm going to be diving deeper into a certain symbolic thruline I keep seeing at Burning Man, so keep your eyes peeled for that.
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