Mithras Rising and the New Praetorians

Eight years ago we looked at the incoming Obama Administration, which seemed determined to touch as many potent symbolic bases as possible, touring temples and pyramids, making a number of 17 minute speeches and drawing explicit parallels to King Tut.

It seemed as if there were a program in place to charge this new President with as much symbolic and semiotic power as possible. Those were heady days.

Unified Weird Theory: Why It Matters

When I wrote about the Unified Weird Theory, it wasn't based in some impulse to bring together a bunch of pseudo-sciences and quasi-superstitions under one tent.

Wyrd New Jersey: The Paranormal State

I don't go much for the paranormal. Not that I'm a disbeliever, necessarily - in fact, I expect we'll be seeing more and more weirdness manifesting as everything continues to spin apart. Whether this is all a function of neurology or interdimensional rifts or electromagnetic disturbances is hard to say, which is why I try not to spend too much time on the topic. 

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.

The Fire Festivals

"BUT THE SEASON at which these fire-festivals have been most generally held all over Europe is the summer solstice, that is Midsummer Eve (the twenty-third of June) or Midsummer day (the twenty-fourth of June)..."

 

Wyrd New Jersey: The Necropolis, or Ritual Done Right

The thing about New Jersey is that you never know what you might find hiding in plain sight. The place is so littered with arcane symbolism it's easy to take for granted. For instance, this cemetery in the rolling hills at the foot of the Skylands caught the attention of even a jaded symbol-junkie like myself. 

That strange obelisk sans capstone is particularly interesting in and of itself, given that it's oriented to the cardinal points. Even more so when placed in context with some of the other items around it.

 

Week in 17 Mini-Marathon (UPDATED)

Well, it's that time again- time to wrap up random news stories with significant mentions of 17s and try to discern any meaningful patterns within. Pretty quiet week overall, but then again my attention's been focused elsewhere.

Alien Dreaming: Transformers Gonna Transform

If you've been in a cave the past few weeks, you've probably missed the thousands of images of Megan Fox relentlessly posing at various premieres of the new Transformers movie.

 

Wyrd New Jersey: ET Phone Home

Andre at The Alien Project links to another UFO story in the Telegraph, this time claiming "ET tracked down on Google Street View" with the sub-headline "UFO experts were left baffled after claims that ET was finally tracked down on Google Street View."

BSG-UN-ISS-NJ-UFO

 

On Tuesday, that Day of All Days, cast and crew from Battlestar Galactica turned the United Nations in a high-rent version of Dragon*Con. True to form, Guinan herself moderated while wearing an extremely odd scarf decorated with what looks like alien skulls.

Seen from Space: Slouching Towards Disclosure?

Honestly, what are to make of The Times of London - arguably the most prestigious newspaper in the world - running a headline like this: "Aliens 'may be living among us' undetected by science." Which one of you said "conditioning process?"

Super Bowl XLWhatever Semiotics

Two stars, and vaguely familiar stripes...

Well, today's the day of the "Big Game." The Pittsburgh Steelers will face off against the Arizona Cardinals in Tampa. The game will be aired on NBC, the "Peacock Network."* I find it especially interesting that the game is on NBC this year, since last Sunday they aired the excruciating TV mini-series adaptation of Raymond Khoury's The Last Templar, which starred New Jersey's own Mira Sorvino (who won an Ausur® for Mighty Aphrodite).

Maybe this is part three of the story.

The Deep Semiotics of Flight 1549

As far as I can see, there's no reason not to take the USAir water-landing story at face value. This image is certainly laden with semiotic power, however. 

Transformers: Revenge of the Nephilim

I don't know much about The Transformers, but it seems the new film is going to head into familiar territory.

Seen From Space: Drip, Drip, Drip

I rented Mission to Mars and Red Planet tonight (I'm watching them again so you don't have to), and sure enough, here come more "revelations" from NAZCA NASA about our future home:

Secret Star Trek: Sisk-O-Bama and the Council of Nine

Following the smash success of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Paramount created a new spinoff series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The story took place on a space station abandoned by the Cardassians, who had occupied a planet known as Bajora. The planet was crucial since it guarded an interdimensional wormhole that allowed intergalactic travel. 

You can call it a Stargate if you like. Same difference.

 

Well, That Sucked

This is the Ren Fair I used to go to in Mass. There was no jousting or anything in NJ, but a f*ck of a lot of this...

Written in the Stars

After discussing the Kirby prophecies during my Esalen presentation, I was asked a lot of questions about Synchronicity and precognition.

Mithras is Alive and Well and Living in New Jersey

Daria Invictus recently blogged on a subject near and dear to my heart- the enigmatic Golden Boy, who has been passed like a torch from corporation to corporation. Daria explored the various connections to a host of pagan deities, but I had a nagging suspicion there was still another figure being celebrated in this composite icon; the Corporate Elite's favorite god, Mithras. We shouldn't be surprised at Mithras' showing up in corporate iconography - his followers were deadly serious, highly disciplined soliders and merchants. And what is the modern corporation if not the ultimate apotheosis of the "Business as War" paradigm? Mithraists worshipped in secret during the First Century, why not in the Twenty-First? Golden Boy was originally known as "The Genius of Electricity" when commissioned for Western Electric, then renamed "The Spirit of Communication" when sold to AT&T. His latest owner is the new AT&T, formerly known as Southern Bell. 

He currently resides on the AT&T campus in Bedminster, Nova Caesarea. You can see him while driving on Interstate 287 South (2+8+7=17). As Daria notes, he originally sat upon a pyramidical turret on the old AT&T building in Masonic Manhattan, giving us yet another depiction of the Heavenly Insemination. 

As you see in this ancient frieze of Mithras, Golden Boy is simply a modern take on the old sun god. The Snake of Time becomes an electrical cable and his staff becomes electrical bolts. The pose is almost exactly the same, only minor details differentiate the two icons. For instance, the globe Golden Boy stands on comes to us from another Mithraic icon...

...that of Aion, the enigmatic figure whom Jung identified as the Imageo Dei- image of the god within. As with so much Mithraic imagery, the meaning of the globe is unclear, but my own interpretation is that the Mithraists had intended to rule the world. It's open to debate whether they are succeeding in that ambition.

Whatever the intended message behind it, it's interesting to note that Golden Boy has been reintroduced in advertising for the new AT&T. Maybe it's simply because it's an amazing work of art with heavy-duty Syncromystic resonance. One thing's for sure- you can add this to the rapidly escalating use of Solar symbolism in corporate and church iconography.

Astronaut Theology: Let's Go to the Movies!

There's a very interesting triple-feature playing in the IMAX Dome Theatre, located at the Liberty Science Center, which is part of Liberty State Park.