The Owls Are Not What They've Seen

During my Operation Trojan Horse re-read I kept seeing the year of my birth- 1966- recur throughout the text. 

Space is an Altar: They Can't Be Sirius...

 Oh sure, that's a normal news story

Well, it's an election year and you know what that means-- a veritable flood of covert Sirius symbolism. 

The Eternals: And All Challengers Will Be Destroyed

I've written a lot about some of the more apparent connections and prophecies made in Jack Kirby's comics, and in our last installment we looked at an issue of Black Cat Mystic that essentially contained the basic building blocks of Jack Kirby's AstroGnostic opus, The Eternals. 

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. 

Gods and Mermaids: The Secret Sun Goes Nationwide

Here's the 20/20 spot on Superheroes- that voiceover at the end is mine. And here are a few snippets from the article on the piece, written by the unbelievably cool Jon Meyersohn. 

2012 Olympics: London Mascots

Reader Brooke brought these to my attention- the new mascots for the London Olympics. And what a surprise- more aliens. These are faintly reminiscent of the Teletubbies, though the cyclops look is a bit disconcerting. The levitation bit is a nice touch, no?

For casual readers not familiar with the repeating alien motifs attached to the Olympic Games, here's a nice primer from the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles...

Stairway to Sirius, Revisited: Divine Interventionism

The basic story of I Am Legend is this - an Army microbiologist named Robert Neville is working to reverse a plague that wiped out most of the Earth's population, and left many of the plague's survivors in a feral, cannibalistic state, totally lacking in higher brain function.

 

Stairway to Sirius, Revisited: I Am (That I Am) Legend

"Hey honey, look at that 

crazy blue spiral in the sky!"

In the previous entry in this series I mentioned the strange synchronicities that coincided with Barackobamun's Nobel speech, as well as Will Smith's appearance at the Nobel festivities at a time when I was struggling through an analysis of his 2007 film, I Am Legend. 

TVOD: Sanctuary and the Godly Blitzkrieg

 

It used to be that "Sci-Fi/Syfy Original Series" usually translated into Secret Sun-ese as "for the love of God, stay far away from your TV set." Over the years, that's slowly evolved into "what the hell, there's nothing else on."

Sync Log: Wham-Bam, Thank You, Elam

Having recently discussed Hercules and shamanism and voyages to the underworld, I was flipping through one of my Essential Thor's, where I can upon this splash-page from one of the crucial comics of my early days. 

Hercules. Ancient Astronauts. Human Sacrifice. This is Happening.

 

Here's the pitch, cobbled together from a couple IMDB reviews...

An alien race from the moon lands in ancient Greece, terrorizing the nearby city of Samar, and taking the population’s children as human sacrifices...

Lee Perry: Rest in Dub

There was a time in my life when I lived Dub morning, noon and night. I'm talking the old school Dub mainly, but also a lot of the work that people like Adrian Sherwood and Jack Dangers were putting out there as well. 

Mindbomb: Sun Gods and Forever People

Do you ever get the feeling that you're playing a part in some incredibly elaborate staged drama, that all falls together like a too-clever detective novel? 

Steranko Saturday: Hercules

The old master has not lost his touch. I'll be picking this book up, that's for damn sure. I'm framing that puppy. Ask your local retailer about this title.

Golden Boy: Just Saying, is All

Here's a picture of Golden Boy when he stood vigil outside of AT&T's former world headquarters in Basking Ridge, NJ. The building is now owned by (former Baby Bell) Verizon, whose name is one of those corporate neologisms. In this case it seems to be a contraction of "true (veritas) horizon." Could horizon's true occult meaning be "Horus-Zone?"

It's an interesting question, given that Verizon's logo could be interpreted as containing a hidden 17. If you really wanted to get carried away, you might interpret it as Veritas, 17 (Horus) and On, the biblical name for Heliopolis (cult center of the Followers of Horus).

I may have mentioned this before, I strongly believe that the Mithras known to the Romans was no relation to Zoroastrian Mitra, but in actuality a culturally-appropriate adaptation of Horus himself. This is something I've researched in depth for my upcoming book on esoteric symbolism in science fiction film.

Suffice it to say that conservative Romans held a very dim view of Egypt, seeing it as corrupt and decadent. And they also thought the notion of animal heads on gods was offensive. But the Shemsu Hor obviously had a very strong interest in Rome, and it's my belief that the Mithras cult was created especially for those Romans whom they wanted to bring into the fold, namely those alpha males in business and the military. The Shemsu Hor's fingerprints are all over Mithraism, as we will look at in the future.

All of these figures - Horus, Mithras, Helios, Sol, Shamash, Ba'al, Hercules, etc etc etc - all represent the Sun as a symbol of phallic aggression, technology, hierarchy, and militarism, so any difference between them or their cults is academic, anyway.

Heru- Heros- Hera- Heracles

My friend David Dodd is currently pursuing his degree in Intellectual Property law, but was previously a Latin teacher at prestigious Newark Academy. Dave is also a serious student of the Classical world and as such is my go-to guy for deep history from that period. 

Hercules/Superman redux

Part one of the Superman/Hercules presentation is up on Comic Book Resources. I was hoping to hand this off and move on but that's the way it always goes. It's been fascinating watching some of the reaction on the message boards. 

It really reminds me of the old debates in the AOL religion section, particularly when it came to polarized topics like biblical inerrancy. It's all clarified things in my mind and helped solidify ideas I've been mulling over. Part two should be up today. 

Quote for the Day: But the coming Superman is of the type of the Masters: They are Masters of Compassion; not only Masters of Knowledge, but of love and knowledge together, which make Wisdom, and it is Wisdom which shall be the characteristic of "the Coming Race". - Annie Besant, 1917

The Spandex Files: Pantheopolis

It's a truism that superheroes are nothing new. Pulp superheroes like John Carter, the Shadow, Doc Savage and Tarzan predate Action #1, just as comic books like Ally Sloper's Half-Holiday long predate Famous Funnies. 

A True Homage

From The CBR Debate:

"Swipe" is a ambiguous word. There's some of the egregious swipes we saw in 90's on one hand and exactly what describe what you describe on the other.

To tell you the truth, I think of it as an homage in the deepest and most honest sense of the word. I think this was Siegel's way of paying tribute to the figure that inspired him most by paying tribute to what may have been the most inspiring image of that figure to him. I've showed the other images that tie into the Hercules legend on my blog and that was just a cursory overview of some of the themes he traded in.

Some of you guys may think I'm being this little snitch, trying to spoil everyone's appreciation of this icon like some revisionist biographer. Not at all- as with Spandex, I'm trying to deepen and broaden people's appreciation and understanding by showing the roots of this genre and how powerful and compelling these icons are to fans and creators.

THE CLARK KENT CONTROVERSY KONTINUES!

First of all, let's establish the meaning of the term "swipe." I'm looking at this from the point of view of a graphic artist. "Reference" or "inspiration" often means "knocking off" in the trade. You take an image and futz around with it - change things, move things around- until you come up with something new. The action lines and placement details in this piece seem out of the realm of coincidence.