memetika

Gnostic Media: Gordon Wasson and the Power Elite - An Interview with Peter Levenda

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 02:30:00 +0000

Here is an interview with Peter Levenda, who always gives lots of bang for your buck with intensely information dense presentations, here interviewed by Jan Irvin on Gnostic Media Podmatic, of Gnostic Media fame, the entheog(e)nostic website. Levenda consistently impresses me with his seemingly inexhaustible breadth and depth of knowledge in esoteric lore and the shadow history of America. Shall have to read his Sinister Forces books ASAP...

What do the CIA, the Kennedy assassination, international banking, Project MK-ULTRA, LSD, Allen Dulles, George H. W. Bush, R. Gordon Wasson, Uri Geller and Andrija Puharich, and magic mushrooms all have to do with each other? You're about to find out.

Podcast #056 - Gordon Wasson and the Power Elite - An Int...

Gnostic Media - Jan Irvin

The new concentration camp

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:24:00 +0000

From a post on The Human Condition Forum, "A Conversation About Reality."

Quote from above scene:

"But has it ever occured to you Wally that the process that creates this boredom that we see in the world now may be a self perpetuating, unconscious form of brainwashing created by a world totalitarian government based on money? And that all of this is much more dangerous than one thinks? And it's not just a question of individual survival Wally, but that someone who is bored is asleep, and somebody who is asleep will not say no? See, I keep meeting these people. Just a few days ago I met this man I greatly admire, a Swedish physicist, Gustav Jondstreim. And he told me that he no longer watches television, he no longer reads newspapers, and he doesn't read magazines. He's completely cut them out of his life, because he really does feel that we're living in some sort of Orwellian nightmare now, and that everything that you hear now contributes into turning you into a robot. And when I was at Findhorn, I met this extraordinary English tree expert who devoted his life to saving trees. Just got back from Washington lobbying to save the Redwoods, he's eighty-four years old and always travels with a backpack becuase he never knows where he's going to be tomorrow.
When I met him at Findhorn he said, 'Where are you from?'

I said, 'New York'.

'Ah yes, New York. That's a very interesting place. Do you know a lot of New Yorkers that say that they want to leave but never do?'

I said, 'Oh yes'.

'Why do you think they don't leave?'

I gave him different banal theories.

He said: 'Oh, I don't think it's that way at all.' He said, 'I think that New York is the new model for the new concentration camp where the camp has been built by the inmates themselves, and the inmates are the guards and they have this pride in this thing they built, they've built their own prison, and so they exist in a state of schizophrenia where they are both guards and prisoners and as a result they no longer have, having been lobotomized, the capacity to leave the prison they've made or even see it as a prison.'

And then he went into his pocket and took out a seed for a tree and said, 'This is a pine tree.' He put it in my hand and said, 'Escape. Before it's too late.'

memetika

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 13:29:00 +0000

Changed the blog title. Semioticology was too much of a mouthful and a tad pretentious. I guess its merely pretentious now. The change has everything to do with the culture of the meme we live in, and quite possibly have always inhabited. If Richard Dawkins has had anything right at all I think it was his somewhat arbitrary use of the term meme in his book The Selfish Gene, further explored by Susan Blackmore in Meme Machines. While not exactly my favourite two thinkers on the planet, the nature and reality of the meme (the meme itself being a meme in itself) seems almost self evident, necessitating investigation. Ideational viruses spread exactly like biological contagions in many ways, and in the areas we all explore today these ideational spores have their transmission facilitated by the quantum proxy host that is the World Wide Web.
Conspiracy culture is also entirely subject to the meme so much of the time, perhaps as much as (or more so even) than the mainstream media circus. The exponentially increasing pace of the internet and concomitant speed of access to, and communication of, units of information often leads to discarding critical thinking and proper analysis of that information almost entirely. We don't so much critically examine, analyse, and research, as imitate the stance of opinion makers and perpetuate the memeplexes they infect us with without thinking about what these cultural units may mean and why they are being transmitted. In an effort to keep current with the flow of the memestream we ever more open to manipulation and false apprehension of exactly what that information may mean.
Umberto Eco has stated that every cultural phenomenon can be studied as communication. For memes this may be even more of a case in point as regards that statement, as the sudy of memetics may be the study of the ultimate cultural phenomenon.
The study of the history of humanity could be termed the study of the evolution and transmission of many and varied ideational viruses right through to the present day, where we seem to building a terminal velocity towards....

The convergence of all memes? The memetical singularity? What happens if that point is reached and there is only one single unit of information, a terameme?

Even more interesting is that while the reality of the meme is self evident, it may fed and nurtured by belief, as well as the stamp of authority. Leading scientific establishment figures like Susan Blackmore and Richard Dawkins have lent their stature to the concept of the meme and their belief in the meme as an adjunct scientific fact closely related to, and contingent on another very important meme for the establishment, evolutionary theory; but this doesn't necessarily lead me to the same conclusions as them.
But we do seem to be a culture on a global scale occupied by memes great and small. The environmental meme is one of the biggest, so too the globalism meme, the evolutionary theory meme, the idea of the meme itself; which all seem to be part of the terminal velocity memestream to the grand unified terameme. Whatever the hell that may be.
But like I said belief, and a hearty, infectious enthusiasm seem to be hugely instrumental in spreading memes, psychic energy if you will.

Here's an interesting video of Susan Blackmore at a TED conference on this very subject:

As I said, exactly why the foundational meme that is evolutionary theory and it's siamese sibling the meme phenomenon itself is so important to the present scientific establishment is perhaps the most important question in memetics and culture at large. And the answer is probably self-evident.

Are we just meme machines, merely hosts for ideational contagions? I'd like to think not, but its an open query that needs to be comprehensively considered. Maybe not by me, but someone...

Related post: Gene -> meme -> techeme? The third replicator is unveiled.

The Sons of the Tradition

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:39:00 +0000

Translation of the above from Old Irish (taken from the book "The Culdees of the British Islands" by William Reeves):

"In this year the Ceile-de came across the sea with dry feet, without a vessel; and a written roll was given him from heaven, out of which he preached to the Irish, and it was carried up again when the discourse was finished. This ecclesiastic used to go southwards across the sea, every day when his preaching was finished. It was in it (i.e. this year), moreover, that the cakes were converted into blood, and the blood flowed from them when being cut. It was in it also the birds used to speak with human voice."

Thus, from The Annals of the Four Masters , goes the legend of the beginnings of the order known as the Céli Dé. Who were the Céli Dé though? Professional historians of the present day, who have spent considerable time attempting to assess who and what this group actually were, still don't seem to have an entirely concrete answer to this question. Though considerable inroads have been, and are being, made into this query. The standard, accepted view is that they were cenobitic monks of a "stricter observance," known as the "clients of God" (the official translation of the term in modern Céli Dé research today) for they knew no master before their Lord. There have been many conflicting views from various researchers over the past 250 years or so especially, with those claiming the Culdees (the Anglicized version of Colideus, the Latinization of Céli Dé) were Druids who morphed into Celtic Christians to camouflage themselves from their Roman persecutors with the very religion that came with them, that the Culdees were the oddments of the Roman Collegia and it's masonic tradition left over when Rome withdrew from the British Isles, that the term Culdee was merely a generic term that covered a group so heterodox as to not be cohesive or organised whatsoever in aims, religion, content, or application. Or even that it has been so misunderstood a concept that it simply meant a "man living in a community" ("The Culdees," Reeves, p. 74, quoting Edward O'Reilly) which opens the whole thing up to such a broad scope as to not be worth investigating if this was what it really meant! Older interpretations of the term take in the translations of spouse, servant, or friend of God.

Cross of the Scriptures, Clonmacnoise.

The venerable work by William Reeves on the Culdees, still a standard reference work (with a solid timeline of the various Culdee monasteries/settlements around the country and some nuggets of gold in the appendices) has this to say on order:

“In fact, during the range of time in which the term is of record, we discover the greatest diversity in its application, - sometimes borne by hermits, sometimes by conventuals; in one situation implying the condition of celibacy, in another understood of married men; here denoting regulars, there scholars; some of the name bound by obligations of poverty, others free to accumulate property; at one period high in honour as implying self-denial, at another regarded with contempt as the designation of the loose and worldly minded.” Some, who would contend for the uniformity of an order bearing the name of Céli-dé, endeavour to reconcile these incompatibilities by supposing the existence of two classes in the order, the one of stricter, the other of laxer discipline: but this expedient is unsupported by record authority; and when at last Céle-dé does become a distinctive turn, it is only so as contrasting with those who adopted the better organized and more systematic institutions of mediaeval introduction – in fact, as denoting an old fashioned Scotic monk in an age when the prevalence of such surnames as Mac Anaspie, Mac Nab, Mac Prior, Mac Intaggart, Mac Pherson, Mac Vicar, Mac Clery, indicated a condition of clerical society not exactly in accordance with the received notions of ecclesiastical discipline.”

- "The Culdees of the British Islands,", pp. 1 – 2

Reeves had a significant influence on academic thought when it came to the Culdees, and his idea that the Céli Dé were a group with a mission to reform Irish monastic discipline that had grown lax and irregular has carried on to near the present day. The Céli Dé were regarded as the "spiritual reformers" come to lay down the law, and remonstrate their brethren that had fallen into bad ways. The above quote that kicked of this post, from the Annals of the Four Masters, would seem to indicate that some significant event occurred relating to a message, one that seemed to come direct from the highest power, the highest 'flaith' (lord, master) of all to a Céli Dé (céle - client), the Lord himself:

"...[The legend of the céle dé from The Annals of the Four Masters refers to]...the widespread Christian myth of the letter of Christ, which fell from heaven."

- " Céli Dé in Ireland," by Westley Follet, p. 12

Only recently has this view been challenged. But in my present researches such a scenario could well have been a reality in order to cover up the heterodox underground stream that may indeed been running under the foundations of Céli Dé monasteries. The true genesis of my research was an article on the excellent blog from researcher Francine Bernier and her article "The Word Cowan - Part 2," but the entire blog has now totally disappeared and finding cached pages of the site seems quite difficult. Fortunately I have saved that particular article and some others of importance that have been very useful and helped greatly to point me this direction. Much of what Mademoiselle Bernier laid out has been verified in my own readings. There seem to be many highly neglected strands not treated by mainstream academia who see the Céli Dé simply as a monastic order, even if of a more aristocratic nature. The fact that they were highly skilled craftsmen; artificers and masons, besides the predominant view of them as scribes, scholars, and teachers, is generally not discussed at all. Many a thread of great esoteric import may run trough the sect, especially considering that King Athelstan (Noble Stone) was meant to have given the Culdees at York in the year 936 royal patronage, which entailed significant and healthy endowments the first of which was "...a thrave of corn from every ploughland in the diocese of York...," (hints at fertility rites perhaps and one of the mainstays of masonic symbolism, corn and the sheaf of wheat?) and from this humble beginning the furtherance of the aims of the order (charity and care for the poor among them) was enhanced with yet more royal favours when Thomas of Bayeux was assigned the see of York in 1069 by William the Conqueror. His brother, Thomas II, was to succeed him as Archbishop of York and interestingly he founded the Hospital of St. John the Baptist at Ripon (Johannism seems to be the possible shape and course of the very likely underground stream that travels through the Culdee historical landscape). Further spice to this fact there is this tidbit:

“The most widely accepted patron saint of the mason craft was St. John, though there was sometimes confusion as to whether this was St. John the Baptist, whose fest-day was 24 June, or St. John the Evangelist, whose feast fell on 27 December.”

- "The Origins of Freemasonry," by David Stevenson, p. 43

St. John the Baptist

The Matthew Cooke Manuscript, a document purporting to be a transcript of a yet older document, details this as regards an operative masonic fraternity given a charter by the previously mentioned, and suggestively named, King Athelstan (Aethel = Noble, Stane = Stone), who is generally regarded as the founder of masonry in Britain:

“And after that was a worthy king in England that was called Athelstan, and his youngest son loved well the science of geometry, and he wist well that hand-craft had the practice of the science of geometry so well as masons, wherefore he drew him to council and learned [the] practice of that science to his speculative, for of speculative he was a master, and he loved well masonry and masons. And he became a mason himself, and he gave them charges and names as it is now used in England, and in other countries. And he ordained that they shouuld have reasonable pay and purchased a free patent of the king that they should make [an] assembly when they saw a reasonable time and come together to their councillors of which charges, manners, and assembly, as it is written and taught in the book of our charges, wherefore I leave it at this time.” (1)

Paul Naudon, whose immensely useful text I refer to next, says this of Athelstan and the masonic charter:

“It was in 926 in York that Edwin, adopted son of Athelstan, gave a charter to the masons. The oldest text attesting to the existence of this document, however, the Cooke Manuscript dates back only to the beginning of the fifteenth century. It is doubtful that the craftsman guild was formed in the tenth century.”

- pp. 58 – 59, "The Secret History of Freemasonry: Its Origins and Connection to the Knights Templars."

The problem is that the Cooke document, and more importantly the unknown original it is a copy of (issues of verification and authenticity), don't refer to in a definitive manner that the charter mentioned was given to masons at York and that they were Culdees, though this seems likely. But then masonic historians can be excellent myth-makers often enough, seeking ownership of certain historic events, and disowning others, to further freemasonry's prestige. But from my own readings it seems that the stance taken by many masonic writers on the above, that the Culdees/Céli Dé at York were the self same masons charged in the Cooke manuscript, is something I feel is a tennable position. The main problem with this subject is to attempt to successfully navigate the polarised positions of traditional academia who study the Culdees and those Céli Dé researchers of the more esoteric bent who do not see eye to eye. But the crossover in areas approached; and artifacts of historical and mythological/folklore is obvious from my readings. Bringing the two together in an attempt at a cohesive, unified whole is not within my power; though I will seek to point out the overlaps.
One of the best works on this subject that I have come across as regards a scholarly synthesis of well researched history and the insight to seek the marriage between the highly likely esoteric kernel and exoteric facade of the Culdees is the book by Paul Naudon, "The Secret History of Freemasonry: Its Origins and Connection to the Knights Templar." Naudon's thesis (though not unique in itself, it is expressed with considerable assurance via solid historical proofs and sound reasoning) is that there was a transmission of an operative tradition of masonry from the Roman collegia (touched by some eastern traditions with the Knights of the Order of the Temple thrown into the mix through surviving parts of the collegia in Muslim territory), the carrying of said tradition through the various monastic orders of Medieval Europe, the Templars being of course essentially the military arm of the Benedictines, where this was carried through to Britain. Operative masonry formed from monastic artisans into the medieval guilds, onto operative masonic corporations, and then modern speculative masonry. The Culdees/Céli Dé being a major link in the causal chain of the masonic meme. Crucially (and speculative freemasonry is not fond of this, perhaps due to the what they regard as the taint of humble origins) modern day masonic institutions were hatched of these very same operative (that is the actual practice of building), but hardly mundane, beginnings. The Roman Empire, European monastic orders, and the Templars being the prime movers in Naudon's take. Much of my own readings (even though only as an amateur) agrees with much of what he puts forward. Although Naudon's knowledge of the Céli Dé seems rudimentary at best, his main narrative needs to only touch upon the order and is not a bar to the drive of his work. The book is an excellent overview of masonic history and proves, in a fashion, that a large part of the lore concerning modern masonry and it's Templar heritage is justified. Of course freemasonic historians of the past two hundred years seem to have deliberately fudged the true relationship, the one at least that can be proved in genuine historical analysis. So, in Naudon's own words:

“It is in Anglo-Saxon masonry where we witness the birth of modern speculative Freemasonry. While the tradition was dying out on the continent, British masonry was up to the task of transmitting the ancient legacy. We have now looked at the line of descent: from Roman collegia to the Culdees to the Benedictine monks and monastic associations to brotherhoods and guilds. The last of these—the guilds—which first appeared in the northern countries, Normandy, and England, offered an instant legal framework for trade organizations.”

- p. 180, "The Secret History of Freemasonry: Its Origins and Connection to the Knights Templars."

While Naudon starts with the Roman collegia and finishes with modern day masonry, the Culdees somwhere in the middle; my readings have led me to consider that the tradition transmitted, the meme of the mysteries; started not with the collegia (even as they are a link in the chain) but that there appears to be that previously addressed underground stream running under the feet of the Céli Dé; that being Johannite Gnosticism. Whilst traditional academia would scoff, and has scoffed, at the notion of such a "heterodox kernel" held by the order, the histories of the Christian Church do show that early church fathers, being the Desert Fathers, were Gnostics of varying complexion. The very academically accepted ecclesiastic nature of the Céli Dé demonstrates their strict adherence to the eremitic and cenobitic ways of the Desert Fathers, and more besides.
Often, it is said, to assess what something is it should be first said what that something isn't, so by process of elimination a working definition may be arrived at. Unfortunately, this process is impeded by the rather scant and obscure nature of the Céli Dé in history, and being that this is a work in progress I will have to do the reverse and state what I know, from various texts, of what they were and what they did. Then later to cut away what may be the dead wood from my Céli Dé tree.
What the Céli Dé, it seems, were:

1.) An ascetic cenobitic monastic order of regular clergy and secular clergy.

Cenobitic meant they shared everything in common and lived communally, though as per the exhortations of St.Pachomius the Great (2), the acknowledged founder of Christian cenobitic monasticism, it entailed a type of military barracks system, as Pachomius was a former Roman soldier. Fitting indeed for "soldiers of God." The still to this day heterogenous nature of the Culdee movement through recorded history indicates that there were regular clergy (3) (who followed a rule, and obeyed strict vows or poverty, chastity, and obedience under God) and secular clergy (4) (which may more be the focus of my researches) who were not ordained and could take wives and live within the local community. Though they were still bound by Canon Law.

St. Pachomius

2.) Scribes, scholars, clerks, craftsmen/artisans, builders/masons, teachers, poets, and (as most significantly marked by academia) enthused with music, song in particular, to praise God with voice, liturgy, & recitation of psalms.

3.) Columbite monks (after a fashion) founded by St. Mael Ruain (Mael - 'tonsured,' that is, 'follower' of Ruadhan) at Tallaght, in County Dublin, Ireland. Though of course the Isle of Iona and the Columbite monastery founded by St. Columba features heavily in the history and the attendant mythology of the Céli Dé.

4.) "Clients of God." This is the more popular view today of the term, and is used due to the understanding of the prevailing rigid social structure of the times. As follows with Westley Follett citing Brian Lambkin:

"That the céle Dé was a spiritual aristocrat is indicated by the existence of the complementary term mog Dé (literally, slave of God), which may be taken as a reflection of the social and economic divisions within secular society between the soer-chele (noble client) and the doer-chele (base client) and the mog (slave). Not every man could be a céle Dé. The Céli Dé were a select group from among all the men on earth who were 'followers' of God and who could in suitably humble fashion call themselves mogae Dé (slaves of God), In other words, the Céli Dé were 'saints', men of high status within the 'following' of God, marked out from the other mogae Dé by virtue of their spiritual wealth or holiness of life." (5)

St. Columba - "The Dove of the Church."

This is generally (though still a matter of debate) the state of play with Culdee scholarship today. What is generally not relayed is that the Culdees/Céli Dé were immensely capable craftsmen/artificers and masons who constructed their own churches, monasteries, oratories (bee hive cells); but mention is made of the various stone crosses that are widely thought to be of Culdee design. Skilled stonemasons for sure. The more esoterically inclined authors however, speculate more than generously enough for the other side.
Plenty of hints reside in the footnotes and appendices of the traditional scholars however, and right through too the information available on the World Wide Web on the various characters in the Céli Dé mystery play. As has been brought to our attention in the article by Francine Bernier, "The Word Cowan - Part 2," the legend of the Gobban Saor and the "black artificers" is a thread that weaves through the historical tapestry of these "sons of life" like a black coal seam. Black being the operative tone in this milieu. Starting with St. Mael Ruain, the acknowledged founder of Tallaght and the order itself, is the town he comes from and the legend there. Quoting Peter O'Dwyer in "Céli Dé: Spiritual Reform in Ireland - 750 - 900" (here I lay to one side the reform theory of O'Dwyer and others):

"The principal man of the [Céli Dé] reform was undoubtedly Maelruain. His tutor was Ferdacrich, native of Daire Eidnich and abbot of Darinis."

- p. 193

The footnote to this comment is of far more interest as regards this article:

"Daire Eidnech, or Daire na Flann as it is later called, lies about a mile or two from the little village of Horse and Jockey near Cashel. Due to a very recent visit a number of interesting facts impressed me. Ruadhan was the founder. It is still referred to as being on an island. It is in the middle of a bog. The local name for it is the Gobban Saor. One recalls the ninth century poem which mentions that the hermit's hut in Tuaim Inbir was also built by the Gobban Saor. (EI: No. 43 and 224-5. V. also V.S.H. I, clxiii ff.). Ferdacrich hailed from this district. (supra 55-6). He was Maelruain's uncle or relative. It is very probable that Maelruain also hailed from there. Ferdacrich became abbot of Darinis."

- footnote #4, pp. 193 - 194

This information ties directly into the points raised in Mlle. Bernier's "The Word Cowan - Part 2":

'In the old Irish tradition, in compliance with the Fenechas ("law of the freeman"), the most qualified craftsmen in charge of a multidisciplinary team on a building site was called an ollave, the equivalent of an architect today. The ollave was considered a "saor", a wise, knowledgeable master who knew, or pierced, the secrets of all trades. And more often than not the polytechnician par excellence was a goban saor (sair, saer, saoir and seer are regional variants of the same word).'

Mlle. Bernier goes on:

'The most distinguished ollave builder of a district was taken into the direct service of the king...In addition to this he was permitted to exercise his art for the general public for pay: and as he had a great name, and had plenty of time on his hands, he usually made a large income. By far the most celebrated of all the ancient architects of Ireland was the Gobban Saer, who flourished in the seventh century of our era, and who therefore comes well within historic times."' (40)

Depiction of the legendary Gobban Saor.

I would provide a link to the above article but the Mlle. Bernier's blog has disappeared without trace, with just about every article, and the cached version of that article I found just last week while searching with the term Gobban Saor have also now disappeared. I even bookmarked it and tried accessing it, but up in smoke it's gone. I attempted the exact same search term now and found the article, minus the cached page. About three pieces from Mlle. Bernier's blog can now be found (at last search) as cached versions, but all the main pages have lapsed. Perhaps this is the virtual version of Patrick Harpur's phenomenon of pixelation? I jest; mostly. This is a great shame as the blog was an excellent one. If anyone does want a copy of the above text I may have one available once I manage to get in contact with Mlle. Bernier to ask her permission, but this does not seem straightforward.
The legend of the Gobban Saor, and of the artificers, the various smith craftsmen who were an integral component to Celtic lore and historiogaphy, makes it's presence known right through the Céli Dé records. Those who practise the "Black Art" of literal and figurative transmutation is a theme that resonates like a ceard tapping a washing bowl thrice to rid it of malign influence (6). Smiths were traditionally revered with the prime tool of their craft an emblem and icon of healing, with alchemical properties.
Interesting etymological fancies transpire in works of the following writers, the more unorthodox freethinkers Henry O'Brien and Marcus Keane.

"The first name ever given to this body was Saer, which has three significations: firstly, free ; secondly, mason ; and thirdly, Son of God. In no language could those several imports be united but in the original one, viz. the Irish. The Hebrews express only one branch of it by aliben ; while the English join together the other two." (7)

- "The Round Towers," Henry O'Brien, p. 20.

Round Tower of Clonmacnoise.

'The foundations with which the name of Gobban is connected, either as Saint or builder, extend into the four provinces of Ireland. The name Gobban-Saer is known in every parish in Ireland, where the native language is still spoken. His reputation is that of a builder and artizan of extraordinary skill. Several of the Round Towers are ascribed to him as the builder. The name Gobban-Saer may be interpreted "the Free-Mason Smith," and as such he may answer to Vulcan of the Romans and to Tubal-Cain of the Scriptures "an instructer of every artificer in iron and brass."'

- "The Towers and Temples of Ancient Ireland." - Marcus Keane, p. 62

Here it is seem that, for O'Brien, Saer is synonymous with Saor, and is a triple entendre if you will. The general idea is that saer/saor is the same as seer, a wise sage.O'Brien provides no justification for this triplicate understanding or for the assertion that: "Gohhan Saer means the Sacred Poet, or the Freemason Sage, one of the Guabhres, or Cabiri, such as you have seen him represented upon the Tuath-de-danaan cross at Clonmacnoise..." (pp. 385 - 386).
But some corroboration may be forthcoming in more orthodox publications. From the Etymological Dictionary of Scottish Gaelic from Alexander MacBain (9):

"Saoi: saoi, saoidh, a good, generous man, a warrior, a scholar, Ir. saoi, a worthy man, a scholar, pl. saoithe, E.Ir. sái, sui, a sage, g. suad: *su-vid-s, root vid of fios (Thurneysen). Stokes (Mart.Gorm.) prefers su-vet-, root vât, say (see fàith). Rhys agrees."

"Saor: saor, a carpenter, Ir. saor, W. saer, Cor. sair: *sairo-s, from *sapiro-s, root sap, skill, Lat. sapio, sapientia, wisdom, Ag.S. sefa, understanding, sense (Stokes, who thinks the Brittonic may be borrowed). saor, free, Ir. saor. E.Ir. sáer, O.Ir. sóir, sóer: *su-viro-s, "good man", free; from su (= so-) and viro-s, fear, q.v."

More research is required for me to state that Saoi is related etymologically to Saor, but this seems probable. The case made by O'Brien for Saer to mean a craftsman sage of renown seems to have some foundation. It does seem that there is a connection to the Céli Dé here though, being as the term "sons of life" (mac bethad) was often viewed as synonymous with Céli Dé. The personal retinue of god, very much "sons of God" as they were born again from being "sons of death" (mac dais) through initation into the path of the Céli Dé. Twice born even. The term Saoi is consonant with a "mac bethad" as it also means a righteous man (11), as Saoi means a "good, generous man," and "a worthy man," with saer meaning also free and good man.
eDIL, the Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language, says this on saer (12):

"Saer: An artificer; in older lang. apparently used in wide sense of a craftsman in general, later restricted to workers in wood, carpenters and masons. ? sáer oc suidigud sillab"

Also:

"(a) free; freeman (opp. to mug, daer). In O.Ir. usually glossing Lat. liber: soer"

O'Brien's contention may not be so fanciful after all.

Now Gobban, also Gobhan/Gobhar, from MacBain's dictionary again:

"gobha, gobhainn, a smith, Ir. gobha, g. gobhann, O.Ir. goba, g. gobann, O.W. gob, W. gof, pl. gofion, Cor. gof, Br. go, Gaul. Gobann-: *gobân; root gobh, as in Gr. ?óµf??, a bolt, Eng. comb (Windisch), for which see gob. Lat. faber may, however, be allied, and the root then be ghob. gobha-uisge, water ousel; aslo gobha-dubh." (13)

eDIL has this for Gobbán:

"Gobbán Keywords: wright Gobbán o, nprm. : Gobbán mac Caindera, G.¤ Soér a famous Irish wright said to have been a contemporary of St. Moling : M'airiuclán ... Gobban durigni insin,"

So O'Brien's case is strengthened by these examples. The Gobban Saor could well be a name with the compound meaning of a free, master craftsman/mason & sage, a righteous 'son of God.' The linguistic ingredients are all there.

Concerning the epithet 'son of life':

"The term mac bethad, 'son of life', appears in several other texts besides the Table [My note: Old Irish Table of Pentitential Commutations, generally thought of as a Céli Dé text] and in its broadest sense designates a righteous person, as opposed to someone who was a mac bais, 'son of death'. Significantly, the earliest references to maic bethad are all from texts associated with the céli Dé and which seem to attach a more precise meaning to the term. According to The Monastery of Tallaght, upon hearing Mael Dithruib's four fondest wishes, Mael Ruain, quoting Fer-da-chrich of Lismore, replied, 'Let the good pleadings of their hearts be granted to the sons of life', implying that the abbot considered his disciple Mael Dithruib to be a 'son of life' himself."

- "Céli Dé in Ireland," Follet, pp. 127 - 128

Such statements would seem to support the aristocratic, elitist component to the Céli Dé, especially considering that various kings have been addressed as Céli Dé and 'sons of life'. Consider the famous story of Macbeth, based of course on a real person. Another 'son of life'. (14) Many kings in Ireland were termed Céli Dé as well, though some seemed hardly to be deserving of either title. Feidlimid mac Cremthanin (15) was one such king, known as a Céli Dé, and described in "...the Annals of Ulster as 'the best of the Irish, a scribe and an anchorite'". (16) This despite his ransacking and razing to the ground of various monasteries, many Culdee institutions too, such as the famous Clonmacnoise. But these were brutal times often enough, with inter-monastery violence a fact of life.

There is a precedent in other cultures for the honorific titles relating to the righteous craftsman as king. From Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend's "Hamlet's Mill":

'Moving now to another great theme, in fact a very great one, it is possible to trace back the significance of the blacksmith in Asiatic shamanism, particularly the celestial blacksmith who is the legitimate heir to the divine "architekton" of the cosmos. Several representatives of this type, whom we call Deus Faber, still have both functions, being architects and smiths at the same time, e.g., the Greek Hephaistos, who builds the starry houses for the gods and forges masterworks, and the Koshar-wa-Hasis of Ras Shamra, who builds Baal's palace and forges masterworks also. The Yakuts claim: "Smith and Shaman come from the same nest," and they add: "the Smith is the older brother of the Shaman," [n29 P. W. Schmidt, Die asiatischen Hirtenvolker (1954), pp. 346f. Concerning the terrestrial blacksmith: the many iron pieces which belong to the costume of a shaman can be forged only by a blacksmith of the 9th generation, i.e., eight of his direct ancestors must have been in the profession. A smith who dared forge a shamanistic outfit without having those ancestors would be torn by bird-spirits.] which might be valid also for Vainamoinen, coupled with Ilmarinen, who is said to have "hammered together the roof of the sky."

It is the primeval Smith who made the Sampo, as we know, and forged sky and luminaries in Esthonia. It is no idle fancy that the representative of the celestial smith, the King, is himself frequently titled "Smith." Jenghiz Khan had the title "Smith" [n30 A. Alfbldi, "Smith As a Title of Dignity" (in Hungarian), in Magyar Nyelv 28 (1932), pp. 205-20.] and the standard of the Persian Empire was the stylized leather apron of the Smith Kavag (appendix # 11). The Chinese mythical emperors Huang-ti and Yu are such unmistakable smiths that Marcel Granet drew historic-sociological conclusions all the way, forgetting the while that Huang-ti, the Yellow Emperor, is acknowledged to be Saturn. And just as the Persian Shahs held their royal jubilee festival after having reigned thirty years, which is the Saturnian revolution, so the Egyptian Pharaoh also celebrated his jubilee after thirty years, true to the "inventor" of this festival, Ptah, who is the Egyptian Saturn, and also Deus Faber. It was necessary to enter this subject in depth abruptly and lay stress on these few selected data, because otherwise the charming and harmless-looking Finnish runes would not be seen for what they are, the badly damaged fragments of a once whole and "multicolored cover."'

- Hamlet's Mill, pp. 128 - 129.

Returning to the master craftsman/artificer motif that underwrites much of the Céli Dé major player's histories, we come to St. Ciaran and the monstery of Clonmacnoise. Ciaran (from ciar, dark, dusty, or black) was known as 'son of the carpenter' in many conventional approaches to the Culdees, but this was a later piece of historical artifice so as not to offend Christian sensibilities with the rough Celtic pagan connotations of what he really was known as. That being the 'son of the artificer,' or 'son of the wright.' A craftsman of this kind passed the trade and the skills from one generation to the other. The Céli Dé at Clonmacnoise were known for keeping it in the family at certain key junctures (17), maybe much of the time, but this may not be recorded due to patchy historical data. Wikipedia even furthers this piece of misinformation by detailing him merely as the 'son of the carpenter' (the name means much more than that), yet revealing the original Old Irish surname wrongly translated: 'Mac an Tsair'. Rather this is 'mac n't saoir', which as we have seen saoir (a regional variant of saer, saor, sair) equates to master craftsman in all trades, the artificer. Ciaran was part of the tradition, the 'son of the artificer' (18).

From Follett's "Céli Dé in Ireland" (p. 167):

"The two final liturgical events mentioned in Enlaith betha are those festivals of Ciaran and Cyprian: 'On the festival of Ciaran, son of the wright, wild geese come over the cold sea. On the festival of Cyprian, a great counsel, the brown stag bells from the ruddy field.'

Fitting to that Clonmacnoise can be translated as 'Meadow of the Sons of the Tradition' (Cluain Mhic Nóis, ‘Meadow of the Sons of Nós’, Nós meaning custom, habit, or tradition). The master craftsman tradition carried from father to son, from one worthy 'son of life' to the next. St. Ciaran was a Gobban Saor, the title given to a master craftsman and priest of Medieval Ireland. Perhaps some of the more unorthodox freethinkers of the past were not so off the mark in the end.

"From the fact, that the name of Gobban Saer is familiar to the peasantry of every village where the Irish language is spoken, I am of opinion with Mr. O'Brien, whose proofs will be found in the following pages, that Gobban Saer is not the proper name of any individual, but the name of a class, or perhaps the title of some office such as High Priest, or Grand-master among the Tuath-de-Danaans ; but that in course of time the traditions of the class became ascribed to an individual."

-"The Towers and temples of Ancient Ireland," Marcus Keane - p. 291

The next article will treat the legend of the Gobban Saor, trade cryptolects (the ‘B(l)ack-to-front lingo), the 'Black Race', the 'Black Dogs', and relationship to the Céli Dé further.

Previous posts on the Céli Dé here:

Black Artisans, Black Dogs, and the B(l)ack-to-front Language.
(My intent originally was to see how this synchromystic, well, 'Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" joining the dots method would hold up under closer scrutiny. Not too bad thus far.)

The Beehive of the Céile Dé - The Oratory at Gallarus

Footnotes:

(1) http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Matthew_Cooke_Manuscript
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachomius_the_Great
(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_clergy
(4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_priest
(5) "Blathmac and the Céili Dé: a reappraisal," by Brian Lambkin, p. 142 - PDF of article: http://www.celt.dias.ie/publications/celtica/c23/c23-132.pdf
(6) "Céli Dé: Spiritual Reform in Ireland - 750 - 900, " O'Dwyer, p. 83
(7) "The round towers of Ireland; or, The history of the tuath-de-danaans" (1898) - Henry O'Brien. Internet Archive access to text: http://www.archive.org/details/roundtowersofire00obri
(8) "The towers and temples of ancient Ireland; their origin and history discussed from a new point of view" (1867) - Marcus Keane. Internet Archive access: http://www.archive.org/details/towerstemplesofa00keaniala
(9) MacBain, An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language: Go to http://www.pmoran.net/macbain/ and input saoi
(10) MacBain, An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language: Go to http://www.pmoran.net/macbain/ and input saor.
(11) "Céli Dé in Ireland," Follett, pp. 127 - 128
(12) Can't post the specific URL of the search results as the URL won't direct to the search I made, to confirm these results a person would just have to go to the main page and search the terms: eDIL main page - http://www.dil.ie/index.asp
(13) MacBain, An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language: go to http://www.pmoran.net/macbain/ and input gobha
(14) Macbeth (historical): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macbeth_of_Scotland
Macbeth (Shakespeare play): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macbeth
(15) Feidlimid mac Cremthanin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feidlimid_mac_Cremthanin
(16) "Céli Dé in Ireland," Follett, pp. 17 - 18
(17) "The Culdees of the British Islands," Reeves - pp. 19 - 20
(18) 'The foundations with which the name of Gobban is connected, either as Saint or builder, extend into the four provinces of Ireland. The name Gobban-Saer is known in every parish in Ireland, where the native language is still spoken. His reputation is that of a builder and artizan of extraordinary skill. Several of the Round Towers are ascribed to him as the builder. The name Gobban-Saer may be interpreted "the Free-Mason Smith," and as such he may answer to Vulcan of the Romans and to Tubal-Cain of the Scriptures "an instructer of every artificer in iron and brass."'

- "The Towers and Temples of Ancient Ireland." - Marcus Keane, p. 62

Course correction on the good ship Semioticology

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:36:00 +0000

Time has zoomed by at warp speed on the U.S.S. Semioticology. From shaky beginnings to, well, the shaky present (He chuckles, but with a slight grimace). I've been trying to find my way here, and find out what it is exactly I'm doing. I guess I just have to follow my nose, and my nose is pointing towards, well, more of the same?
Well, not quite. I've tried on a few different hats, synchromysticism, neo-Jungian, pop-cultural analyst, investigator into the various esoteric currents and their possible relation to the world today, all those so damned run-of-the-mill societies with secrets, occult techno-mages, some dark futurism, somewhat straight semiotics, and all that jazz.
I actually seem to have accreted some free floating followers (Do some of your own gematria with the previous alliteration. You have the mark. Heh.) as I orbited through the blogosphere, wonder of wonders, people who may actually think my blog is worthwhile reading (or just returning the favour, I follow yours, you follow mine). So, thanks to my sparse readership and those who have supported my pretentious efforts here on a regular basis. One day I just know that my hugely underappreciated wild genius will be fully recognized, and those that were with me from the beginning will be shown the fullest benefit of my status as the premiere mad maverick semiotician-cum-occult philosopher-cum-synchromystic-cum-esoteric historian, and brutally brilliant social critic in Blogland.
You will note my partial mastery of irony there.

To the point of this post then: the entry is a marker, more for myself than anything, to develop what the theme seems to be of this blog; as I have found my posts wandering toward in some lumbering, stuttering manner:

The investigation into the various occult/esoteric streams of antiquity, the not so distant past, their philosophies, ideologies, doctrines, and theologies, as it relates to their possible connections & influence on the present day, especially the arenas of science and technology. Science as material occult application.

The following adapted line from Arthur C. Clarke gives a framework to this thesis:

"Any magick sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from technology."

Plus I will be throwing in some posts on semiotics as I've been boning up on this fascinating, but at times very difficult, academic topic. The semiotics of Umberto Eco and Charles Sanders Peirce have taxed my tiny brain to the limit, but I think I have a platform to launch forth with this. Eco's book The Name of the Rose, framed by visuals from the film may be my starting point in a little while. After I've finished my other most recent obsession, the Céli Dé and the black artificers. The artificers, maybe more than the Céli Dé/Culdees themselves, are key to my embryonic thesis as they connect direct to construction and the technologies. If you want to know what I perhaps see in this subject watch the Ridley Scott film Kingdom of Heaven. The lead character being the son of the artificer. It was very revealing to me what seemed to be told in a mostly allegorical fashion with Orlando Bloom's blacksmith and his journey to protect the Holy Land. A post on that in the future perhaps.

I haven't done anything of a truly synchromystic nature for quite some time, it seems that after my last rather forced effort I should only go synchro when the spirit takes me. And so I shall. And if the spirit doesn't take me....

But perhaps more important than synchromysticism, nay, even what synchromysticism at times really is in disguise; memetics. That I will hope to feature more too.
And a much needed adjustment will be less regular posts, attempting to advance more quality, less quantity. That's the plan anyway.

The Paradox of Extended Childhood - Institutionalised Education: John Taylor Gatto Lecture

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:51:00 +0000

This is a lecture from the superb educational philosopher/historian John Taylor Gatto. He presents evidence in this lecture that adolescence has been purposely extended by the powers that arrange and structure the educational institutions in the U.S. via inhumane systems of standardization. Whereas young people in times gone by would have matured at an earlier age, responsibility was aportioned much sooner than today of necessity; Gatto convincingly makes the case that we have the phenomenon of extended childhood in the modern age and child-like adults as a result of the dogma of management theory. The spines are ripped collectively out of pupils who are filed though the system, taught to depend on others for guidance, instructed on how to be managed like a herd.
Brilliant, cutting analysis of the meat market pedagogic system. And wait till he informs you what a pedagogue actually means be definition.

The following Gatto article from Information Liberation dovetails with this talk superbly:

The Curriculum of Necessity or What Must an Educated Person Know?

The Pardox of Extended Childhood - Institutionalized Education

The Betrayal by Technology - Jacques Ellul

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 18:09:00 +0000

The Betrayal by Technology from Hive 2.0 on Vimeo.

For further reference see this post: Jacques Ellul and the consciousness of the mechanized world.

The Brotherhood of the Bell - Redux

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 13:05:00 +0000

Neo of the Underground Operations Blog has found this better quality version of the film The Brotherhood of the Bell that I featured in a previous post.
Download link fron Internet Archive here.
Enjoy.

Jacques Ellul and the consciousness of the mechanized world.

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:39:00 +0000

"In our technological society, technique is the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given state of development) in every field of human activity."

- The Technological Society, Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul, looking very French indeed, in the documentary "The Betrayal of Technology," from Dutch film company Rerun Producties.

A year or so back I was introduced to the works of one Jacques Ellul, a renowned Christian anarchist philosopher/sociologist. His two most famous works are his magnum opus, The Technological Society, and Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes. I found his thought to be startling and immensely insightful into the mass machine we know as the system. The world as he saw it in the 20th century had become ruled by the ruthlessly efficient processes of technical application and its enforcer technology. Society became steadily less humane and accommodating to man, regressing in these terms the more technical upgrades moved on. I feel that the work of Ellul tapped into the burgeoning mythic current relating to the massification of humanity (as has been treated by some as the Borg Agenda), the robotization of man, figuratively and soon to come it seems, literally; and that it presaged the thought now expressed by individuals of standing in these areas (such as Susan Blackmore) that technique and its scion technology are a force autonomous to man possessing its own evolutionary pathway, perhaps even with a form of will, though devoid of intelligence, consciousness, as we know it. But the day is yet young for the temes. Technique, via a "perfect blindness," in a process of supremely efficient selection and elimination cuts away the fleshy extraneous incumberances to its progress and inserts methods, best practices to further its technical evolution with no thought set aside for man or woman. Technique is beholden to nothing and no-one but itself.

"Technique reigns alone, a blind force and more clearsighted than the best human intelligence."

- The Technological Society, p. 94

It seems that he saw that the geometric rate advance of technical progress, and what he described as "self augmentation" by said techniques/technology, foreshadowed to some degree the singularity prophecy of Kurzweil, and forewarned of the insidious self-loathing and hived mind that seems to drive the H+ movement.

"Self-augmentation can be formulated in two laws:

1. In a given civilization, technical progress is irreversible.
2.Technical progress tends to act, not according to an arithmetic, but according to a geometric progression."

- The Technological Society, p. 89

Another quote from Ellul gives further scope to his persective on technique:

"Technique has penetrated the deepest recesses of the human being. The machine tends not only to create a new human environment, but also to modify man's very essence. The milieu in which he lives is no longer his. He must adapt himself, as though the world were new, to a universe for which he was not created.
He was made to go six kilometres an hour, and he goes a thousand. He was made to eat when he was hungry and go to sleep when he was sleepy, instead, he obeys a clock. He was made to have contact with living things, and he lives in a world of stone. He was created with a certain essential unity, and he is fragmented by all the forces of the modern world."

- The Technological Society, Jacques Ellul, p. 325.

And with this single quote from Ellul we have the theme and drive of this entry:

"All-embracing technique is in fact the consciousness of the mechanized world.
Technique integrates everything. It avoids shock and sensational events. Man is not adapted to a world of steel , technique adapts him to it. It changes the arrangement of this blind world so that man can be a part of it without colliding with its rough edges, without the anguish of being delivered up to the inhuman. Technique thus provides a model, it specifies attitudes that are valid once and for all. The anixiety aroused in man is soothed by the consoling hum of a unified society.
As long as technique was represented by exclusively by the machine, it was possible to speak of 'man and machine.' The machine remained an external object, and man (though significantly influenced by it in his professional, private, and psychic life) remained none the less independent. He was in a position to assert himself apart from the machine; he was able to adopt a position with respect to it.
But when technique enters into every area of life, including the human, it ceases to be external to man and becomes his very substance. It is no longer face to face but is integrated with him, and it progressively absorbs him.
In this respect, technique is radically different from the machine. This transformation, so obvious in modern society, is the result of the fact that technique has become autonomous."

- Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society, p. 7

He can be clearly read as warning of the dangers of technocracy, though he had in mind that the technocrats were not the ones who would be truly pushing the buttons.
Legion are those thinkers who are regarded as prophets of an age, who speak to the coming world and offer prognostications that are pregnant with promise, or hamstrung by heaving hopelessness.
Ellul's visionary tableau is neither, and both. An unflinching, stark, long, hard stare at the machine that is the system itself.
Ellul's deterministic perspective was influenced by his religious views as a Christian, though a resolutely unorthodox one. How many can be termed a Christian anarchist? It appears to be damn near an oxymoron. But this he was. This is one of the reasons why I have taken to the philosophy of the man, he was not a man unnecessarily tethered to convention and so to his school of thought.
For me Ellul's philosophy of la technique can be encapsulated by the sci-fi classic Metropolis, in various scenes.
The concept of the machine man, the Maschinenmenschen (in the film Brigitte Helm took on the form of the Maschinenmensch) is another very early embodiment of the transhuman ideal, of the Übermensch, the overman. "Man is something to be overcome," as the famous, or infamous, Nietzschean quote runs. In this case via a steel exoskeleton and I imagine a more old school clockwork mechanical mind.

Note the complete and seamless conversion to a perfect "flesh shell" facsimile, almost certainly prompted by the limitations of archaic special effects. The transcendent man ideal today is completely devoid of such pretentions to human likeness.
But the point of this post, as per the title, is the manifestation of the consciousness of the mechanized world in our midst via what may be termed "techno-magick." The lower half of a pentagram can clearly be seen behind the robot Maria in the scene just shown. The symbol of the perfected (wo)man...
So much of the scientific and technological field today, whether conscious of this or not, are playing the role of techno-magi. Magick and alchemical transformation seems to be the order of the day. Not surprising in many ways if the esoteric origins of some of the prime movers in scientific research holds water, and that in many ways science can be considered the radical empiricist's diety, and the scientists as its techno-priests. Though the idea of any transcendent being beyond their own god-like potentiality, especially in the area of transhumanism and artificial life, is anathema to them.
Atheism is the religion of non-religion for so many.

The hybridization process portrayed in the film (is it really a hybrid, or do we have a reversal of Arthur C. Clarke's famous axiom? "Any magic sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from technology.") fleshes out the notion that science is magick, perhaps only codified and given a rational veneer. The exoteric understanding for the masses, and the esoteric for the initiates?

What I found stunning when reading "The Technological Society" is that Ellul, a rationalist and logician of the highest order, seems to give full support to the idea that "...magic is the first expression of technique." With this statement it is important to bear in mind that in Ellul's mind technique is only valid if it produced results. For magic(k) to qualify as a technique it had to produce an end product. But then it may not be so surprising considering Ellul's yearning for the sacred and the spiritually transcendent in an age where "...the invasion of technique desacrilizes the world in which man is called upon to live. For technique nothing is sacred, there is no mystery, no taboo."

For further clarification on this read the following passage from the aforementioned book:

"There is also the technique of a more or less spiritual order, which we call magic.
It may seem questionable; nevertheless, magic is a technique in the strictest sense of the word, as has been clearly demonstrated by Marcel Mauss. Magic developed along with other techniques as an expression of man's will to obtain results of a spiritual order. To attain them , man made use of an aggregate of rites, formulas, and procedures which, once established, do not vary. Strict adherence to form is one of the characteristics of magic: forms and rituals, masks which never vary, the same kind of prayer wheels, the same ingredients for mystic drugs, for formulae of divination, and so on. All these become set and were passed on: the slightest variation in word or gesture would alter the magical equilibrium.

There is a relationship between the ready-made formula and a precise result. The gods being propitiated obey such an invocation out of necessity; all the more reason that they be given no opportunity to escape compliance because the invocation is not correctly formulated. This fixity is a manifestation of the technical character of magic: when the best possible means of obtaining a result has been found, why change it? Every magical means, in the eyes of the person who uses it, is the most efficient one.

In the spiritual realm, magic displays all the characteristics of a technique. It is the mediator between man and "the higher powers," just as other techniques mediate between man and matter. It leads to efficacy because it subordinates the power of the gods to men, and it secures a predetermined result. It affirms human power in that it seeks to subordinate gods to men, just as technique serves to cause nature to obey."

- The Technological Society, Techniques, p. 25 [emphasis mine].

Cause nature to obey eh? Very magickal.

Ellul's position on the role of magic as a technique seems to be further cemented on the very same page:

"Plainly, we have had two streams of technique from the very beginning. How does it happen that we never take cognizance of the second? There are a number of reasons. We can leave aside the causes that come from modern psychology. Because we are obsessed with materialism and do not take magic seriously, it has little interest for us, and we are unaware even today, as we study technique - the techniques that relate to men - that we are drawing on the great stream of magical techniques."

- p. 25 [emphasis mine].

This passage conjures thoughts of the underground stream of esoteric import, if I wish a little bit. Who knows?
Ellul's consideration of magic(k) here may be in a more sociological sense but he still put store in its efficacy. If then magic(k) can be seen to the prototypical expression of technique, the original technique, then can all techique that follows be of the same suit?

Questions, questions.

A frequent gripe that readers of Ellul have is that his tone is overly bleak and fatalistic, though I don't agree. I have found that upon first reading his work that his texts are devoid of sentimentalism and such emotive baggage when it came to analysing technological progress. He was not hindered by emotional content when delineating the encroachment of man and woman by the steel tempered, unfeeling, objectifying entity that is technique.
"This is how it is!" he cried. "Look, with no fear and see!" This is my own interpolation of what he communicated of course.
But as he said himself many times, "It is a call to the sleeper to awake."

Are we just another brick in the wall?

These days though, unlike the seminal prog rocker's polemic against the inhumanity of human authority figures and their concentration camp style dehumanizing techniques on the younger generation, these inefficient methods are being supplanted by the mechanized world. No need for human intervention in many ways today. The computer screen, and to a lesser and lesser extent the T.V. screen, promotes modes of behaviour in place of human agency. A generation raised by LCD screens, perfect pixel pupils through proxy. We are beholden to the shiny toys we make that bring short lived satisfaction and long term compulsive fielty (I fully acknowledge the irony as I type away on my keyboard in front of the computer screen).

Today, more than ever, we as a species are held in thrall by technological systems that advance at a near exponential rate, schedules are kept by the multitude of gadgets that do not even pretend to free up more time anymore. Mobile phones (cell phones for the Americans reading this), personal computers, PDAs, games consoles, and the dizzying array of electronic communication and networking options ensure that a complete, nigh on impenetrable background ambient noise ensures we are never fully aware of just how lonely we have all become; and that there was once a silence that could be achieved within a truly personal space not invaded by the consciousness of the mechanized world.

Wheras all was previously external modifications, though without doubt have internal and spiritual ramifications, the H+ movement wants to usher in full on internal, invasive interference with the human specimen, viewing the frame we inhabit as merely faulty hardware with incomplete software. The posthuman world seems closer to the primal death urge scenario so many say they oppose, fuelled by loathing of the human condition, than a Utopia unencumbered by primitive "meat puppet" drives.
What may make you more than human shall also perhaps make you less than human, simultaneously. H+ = H- in actuality.

I'll leave you with the words of Ellul. How you judge them is your prerogative.

Here ends the long encirclement of men by technique. It is not the result of a plot or plan by any one man or any group or men who direct it or shunt it in new directions. The technical phenomenon is impersonal, and in following its course we have found it is directed toward man. In investigating its loci, we find man himself. This man is not the man in the mirror. Nor is it the man next door or the man in the street.
Proceeding at its own tempo, technique analyzes its objects so that it can reconstitute them, in the case of man, it has analyzed him and synthesized a hitherto unknown being."

The Brotherhood of the Bell

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 14:34:00 +0000

Here is a slice of Old Skool conspiracana, the film The Brotherhood of the Bell. Very useful film that fleshes out the way old boy fraternal networks (similar to Skull and Bones, Scroll and Key, etc) could achieve penetration into the key strata of the establishment, become the establishment itself, secure and police the system in a manner unseen.
Also educational when the lead character, played by Glenn Ford, is manouevred, toyed with, marginilised, and eventually demonised by the organisation he was a member of. Particularly on the sensationalist T.V. talk show he enters into to publicise the existence of the Brothers of the Bell to the world.

The bell of the society itself is perhaps the central character for me despite being relegated to a bit part only in screen time. If you watch the movie take heed of the intricate designs inscribed thereon:

And I note the neat touch when Ford's character enters the fraternity house of Beta Epsilon Lambda, the shell feeder entity for the deeper lying order, the acronym of which is BEL.

Fans of the conspiratainment genre wil immediately notice key themes of fire/sun worship, time and place rituals (bells, timepieces, fighting unnatural time), psychopathic anglo-saxon elites, women as chattel goods, Alice in Wonderland dissociation markers, and more.

Download the film here: Internet Archive - Brotherhood of the Bell.

Dark futurology: End of days, transhuman zombies, mixed realities, and the fake alien war.

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 14:07:00 +0000

Replying to a post by the Noble Lie, Predictions, I got carried away with some rather pessimistic attempts at futurism. The following are my somewhat serious prognostications for the near future (if the "trends" keep converging as they are). Some may seem ludicrious and are mostly for purposes of my own amusement. I say mostly. Many a true word said in jest eh? So I set my spirit mirror to exactly five years from now:

Further heavy militirization of the already weaponized mainstream entertainment complex (Transformers, G.I. Joe, 300, et al), perpetuation of wars of aggression as essential national defence meme, the good guy soldier hero, the mostly benevolent though internally conflicted military-industrial complex as world protectors. Furtherance of the mixed reality perception management memeplex, as exemplified by the new James Cameron movie Avatar (which also prominently showcases the afore-mentioned war vehicle as heroic enterprise it seems), push towards an entirely gender neutral society (maybe even post-gender) a la Starship Troopers, heavily militarised; Plato's Republic realised in many, many ways. So called Philosopher-Kings ruling the roost, communal Guardian class in the middle (just like the aforementioned film based on the Heinlein story) and the proles at the bottom.

Not much different really from now, but the divisions far more clearly defined. Transhumanism becomes more of an actual reality, foisted on the public and allied closely to the MIEC (Military-Industrial-Entertainment Complex) and the various global space programs (which all are under the process of merging entirely).
Hackers gain control of the first primitive, proto-transhuman prototype and shunts the dead flesh shell (a transhumanist uses this phrase during an interview about the incident) a full hundred metres out of the test facility brandishing a security guard's weapon, killing 9, injuring 11, before being neutralised. This was an individual in a permanent vegetative state, a kind of semi-organic robot, a real philosphical zombie being treated as part of a secretive program to investigate the "healing" benefits of cybernetic implants.
Leaked reports of military founding of the project suppressed and denied.
Conspiracy theories circulate alleging the "hackers" to be members of the N.A.U. Cyber Defense Command.

Futurists envisage scenarios where criminal and terroristic acts (which are now one and the same) are carried out remotely by transhuman zombies. Innocent people implanted with cybernetics for criminal/terroristic enterprises.

Out of thin air a document from the MIEC is produced (drafted 15 years ago) detailing the censures to be put in place to deal with a potential Transhuman Zombie proxy terrorist attacks, in a world still shellshocked in the aftermath of 27/7."

Even more stringent state sanctions and national lockdowns on the public result.

The first Amero is minted in a blaze of publicity.

The first Artilect crowns in its virtual cyberwomb and takes stock. Five years from its birth it will jettison any and all insane fevered apocalyptic pretensions its creators have and commandeers the hyper-secret transdimensional part-organic craft it was developing and leaves its meat puppet (as they have no true soul to speak of, empty shells) architects behind. A mostly cryptic message, at least to its makers, is left on the mainframe:

"42"

Shrill, mocking peals of laughter ring through the facility's sound system for 42 weeks precisely.

The Great Nano-Phage Pandemic of 2019 is only five years away. Huge swathes of infectees quarantine themselves in their houses and await mobile surgical teams to remove the extra appendages that the rogue nano-phages inflicted.

Some choose to maintain the "gifts" they have received.

The operatives of the global monolithic, ubiquitous TerrorCriminalGangCell (TCGC) stalk the homes of those that were gifted surplus internal organs to rip from their owners to sell on the black market. Thousands die in slum areas across the N.A.U. Many stories float to the surface indicating that these gangs sported high grade weapons most usually only available to North American Homeland Terrestrial Security Intiative (N.A.H.T.S.I.).

Nano-Phage Defence Bill drafted 15 years ago activated in a hurry.

N.A.U. President Schwarzennegger barely survives a transhuman zombie suicide assassination attempt. Mandatory ubiquitous computing and internet of things deemed vital in the bill as a result of previous transhuman zombie attack is credited with saving the President. But not all of him. Damaged skull and lost eye are replaced with cybernetics. At night the implanted eye glints red.

World Union Initiative Director-General Obama praises President Schwarzennegger's bravery and commitment in the face of despicable Criminal-Terrorists (C.T.s).

Secondary and tertiary elements to the "Transhuman Zombie" bill activated.
Approval ratings for the President shoot through the roof. The term "All-North American Hero" is tossed around with abandon. Calls made across the board to install him as president for life.

Catholic Church on the way to becoming truly Universal. Merging of all major faith streams set out in Papal Bull, "All Roads Lead to The One" decree set to be realised in 2020, when all will have 2020 perfect vision. So-called U.F.O./E.T. cults included in the Bull.
Transhumanism recognised as a religion, though their god abandoned the faithful.

Alien fever is at a height. The Extra-terrestrial Record of Rights and Opportunities Resources department (TERROR) that the Expolitics community and the Disclosure Project have been pushing for all this time becomes a reality. Awkward and bizarre ceremony where United Nations Director-General Angelina Jolie-Pitt officially opens the department and signs the treaty in place of any alien ambassador(s).
Despite hugely increased sightings of apparently unknown craft in the skies, visitation and abduction phenomena, no alleged extra-terrestials present themselves to the public at large. Other than the conspiculously entirely human looking contingents that appear from time to time claiming alien refugee status.
Formerly classified documents emerge in the public domain detailing Whitley Streiber's Communion experience as manufactured and induced by the black-ops intelligence branch of the MIEC towards grooming the public in favour of para-exotic scenarios.
This is summarily dismissed by the believers as disinformation.

Widely publicised War in the Heavens (Also known as TERROR in the Skies, a name that seems to have come from nowhere) with unknown and unseen extra-terrestrial combatants suddenly explodes. Extra-terrestrial deniers are at first ostracised, then sanctioned, then imprisoned.

Draft of Global Extra-terrestrial Space Defence Intiative to counter the "extra-terrestrial threat" springs fully formed to life having been drafted over 60 years ago by one Wernher Von Braun. (1)

(1) "And the funniest one of all was what he called aliens, extraterrestrials. That would be the final scare. And over and over and over during the four years that I knew him and was giving speeches for him, he would bring up that last card. "And remember Carol, the last card is the alien card. We are going to have to build space-based weapons against aliens and all of it is a lie."

- Wernher Von Braun to Dr. Carol Roslin shortly before his death.

Is this our future? I should hope not.

"Give me back my broken night
my mirrored room, my secret life
it's lonely here,
there's no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby,
that's an order!
Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that's left
and stuff it up the hole
in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I've seen the future, brother:
it is murder.
Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant.
You don't know me from the wind
you never will, you never did
I'm the little jew
who wrote the Bible
I've seen the nations rise and fall
I've heard their stories, heard them all
but love's the only engine of survival
Your servant here, he has been told
to say it clear, to say it cold:
It's over, it ain't going
any further
And now the wheels of heaven stop
you feel the devil's riding crop
Get ready for the future:
it is murder.
Things are going to slide ...
There'll be the breaking of the ancient
western code
Your private life will suddenly explode
There'll be phantoms
There'll be fires on the road
and the white man dancing
You'll see a woman
hanging upside down
her features covered by her fallen gown
and all the lousy little poets
coming round
tryin' to sound like Charlie Manson
and the white man dancin'.
Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St Paul
Give me Christ
or give me Hiroshima
Destroy another fetus now
We don't like children anyhow
I've seen the future, baby:
it is murder.
Things are going to slide ...
When they said REPENT REPENT ..."

- Leonard Cohen, The Future.

Paradigm shift ritual?

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 22:08:00 +0000

Connected to:

Mixed Reality.

Expressed by the early prototype:

Project Natal.

Synarchy - Rise of the Rough Beast

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 19:06:00 +0000

Stolen from Reality 101 Blog:

"Of course, the idea that the world should be run by secret societies went down particularly well with...well, secret societies. Consequently, many of them adopted Synarchist principles. In fact, Saint-Yves' ideas transformed the esoteric underground of Europe, particularly France. Some of the greatest figures in subsequent occult history were devotees of Saint-Yves, which is not surprising because occultists, with their love of hierarchy, tend to be naturally totalitarian and unegalitarian."
____________________________________________________________

(Adapted from a lecture by LYNN PICKNETT and CLIVE PRINCE at the Saunière Society Symposium, Conway Hall, London on 19 September 1999)

As we approach the Millennium, there is a growing sense of expectancy that some event, or revelation, will change the world forever. For fundamentalist Christians it is the Second Coming - but you don't have to be a fundamentalist Christian to share the belief that the world is soon going to change, and change radically.

The one thing that many of these expectations have in common is the sense that the past is catching up with us; that the transformation of our future will, in some way, be connected to the ancient past. Ancient sites around the world are the focus of 'Millennium Fever' but none more so than those of Egypt, and particularly the Giza Plateau. Many believe that some revelation connected with the Great Pyramid, or with the Sphinx, will be the trigger for a New Age.

Such expectancy, such hope, such belief is very, very potent. It is wide open for exploitation: not just for financial gain, but for those who want to try to change the way we think. And that is what we believe is happening. Our book, The Stargate Conspiracy, describes a 50-year-long plot to create, and then exploit, expectations about ancient Egypt as part of what amounts to a programme of social engineering. It is a very high-level plot that, essentially, aims to hijack the very real mysteries of ancient Egypt in order to push other quasi-religious and even political ideas. Instrumental in this plot are the psychological warfare units of intelligence agencies.

At the centre of the conspiracy is the manipulation of beliefs about the origins and history of human civilisation, in particular beliefs about the existence of an advanced civilisation in the ancient past and its influence on the earliest known historical civilisations, primarily that of Egypt.

But the conspiracy uses ideas and concepts that have been around for quite a long time in the occult world. Our book explores the origins of those ideas, and shows how in recent years, they been pushed at the mainstream public. In brief, ideas about the origins and history of human civilisation that were developed in occult circles in the 19th century are now being promoted to the public as if they have been confirmed by recent research.

The important point is that these ideas were originally developed to support specific systems of belief or doctrines - and some of those doctrines were, to say the least, highly questionable and often downright dangerous.

In the last few years we have seen a wave of new books about ancient Egypt that have captured the imaginations of millions of readers worldwide. The best-known names in this 'Alternative Egypt' field are Graham Hancock, Robert Bauval, and John Anthony West, and their works have been instrumental in arousing public interest in the very real mysteries of ancient Egypt.

To be clear about this point, we are NOT saying that Hancock, Bauval and West are conscious participants in the conspiracy. But their IDEAS are certainly being used - and have been to an extent shaped - by the conspirators.

This article looks at one specific example of the way that 19th-century occult ideas have influenced recent developments in the Alternative Egypt field.

The Age of the Sphinx

The story begins with the Sphinx. Everybody will be familiar with the controversy surrounding claims that the Sphinx is far older than mainstream Egyptologists believe (which is about 4,500 years, ie it dates from around 2500 BC). This claim was made in 1990 as a result of a study of the erosion of the Sphinx and the walls of its enclosure.

R.A.Schwaller de Lubicz

The instigator of this research was the maverick alternative Egyptologist John Anthony West. In the 1970s, West had become interested in the work of R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz (1887-1961), the occult philosopher who, in the 1940s and 50s, wrote several books in French about the religion of ancient Egypt. Schwaller de Lubicz's ideas have had enormous influence on alternative and New Age ideas about Egypt.

Schwaller de Lubicz believed that the Sphinx was carved by visitors from Atlantis, and that it predated the ancient Egyptian civilisation by many thousands of years. He observed that the erosion on the Sphinx's body and the walls of the enclosure appears to be the result of exposure to water, rather than wind-blown sand, and argued that it had been caused by a great flood - the flood that destroyed Atlantis. John Anthony West agreed with this, and hoped to prove it scientifically.

In 1990, West managed to interest an American geologist, Robert Schoch, in the problem. Schoch made a study of the Sphinx and concluded that the erosion was due to water - to centuries of exposure to rainfall. He pinpointed a period of extremely wet weather between 7000 and 5000 BC as being responsible. If he is right this would make the Sphinx at least 2,500 years older than it is supposed to be, which would mean a radical rethink about conventional ideas about the origins of the ancient Egyptian civilisation.

Most of you will be familiar with this, and many will accept the redating. However, Schoch's work, and his conclusions, are still very controversial and the subject of debate. The recent book by Ian Lawton and Chris Ogilvie-Herald, Giza: The Truth, deals with this controversy in some detail, and presents evidence that raises serious questions about Schoch's conclusions. However, the most relevant point to us is that, even if Schoch is right, his dates - 7000-5000 BC - are the oldest allowed by his data. However, West (and following him Graham Hancock) has presented Schoch's work as if it really supports a much, much earlier date.

Most significantly, West uses Schoch's work unashamedly as evidence that the Sphinx dates from at least 10000 BC, or perhaps even earlier. Ironically, after having brought in an expert to confirm his ideas, he then disregards Schoch's expertise when it suits him.

West states that in his opinion there hasn't been sufficient rainfall in Egypt in the period given by Schoch to account for the erosion. He states that "you really have to go back before 10000 BC to find a wet enough climate in Egypt to account for the weathering on this type and scale". Hancock has followed him - writing that during the 11th millennium BC in Egypt "it rained and rained and rained".

This sounds very authoritative. But when we checked these claims, we found that, according to all the available sources on the climate of ancient Egypt, there simply was no wet period in the 11th Millennium BC.

So why are Hancock and West so keen to have us believe in that date? What does a difference of 3,500 years make, when even pushing the Sphinx back to 5000 BC would radically transform our ideas about the ancient Egyptian culture?

Partly this is to fit the pronouncements of the American psychic Edgar Cayce (1877-1945), who said that the Sphinx and Pyramids were built by survivors from Atlantis in 10500 BC. But it also fits the view of history used to justify another, very specific - and in our view very alarming - form of occult philosophy. To understand this we have to go back to 19th century France, and a political-occult ideology called Synarchy.

The New Order Begins

In Britain, Synarchy is not widely known even among those interested in esoteric movements and secret societies. This is very surprising, as Synarchy and its founder have been extraordinarily influential.

Alexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydre

Synarchy was founded in the early 1870s by Joseph Alexander Saint-Yves d'Alveydre (1824-1909). This was a period in which many new political ideas were taking hold. Like many of a conservative mind, Saint-Yves was alarmed by the rise of Anarchy, and he developed Synarchy specifically in order to counter it. Whereas Anarchy believes that the state should have no authority over the life and behaviour of an individual, Synarchy took quite the opposite view. In other words, the more control the state has over the individual the better. This, as you can imagine, was an idea which held an attraction for many.

Essentially, Synarchy advocates government by secret society - or, in its own terms, by an elite of enlightened initiates who rule from behind the scenes. It therefore doesn't matter which political party holds power in a state - or even what political system that state has. Synarchists would step in and take control of the key state institutions. St-Yyes identified three key pillars of society that, once under the control of his elite, would allow them to rule without the population even being aware of their existence. These were the political and social institutions, the economic institutions and the religious institutions.

Although Synarchy can therefore rule in any kind of state, for obvious reasons it finds itself more at home among totalitarian regimes (power is held by less people, and the ruling regime doesn't change as often as in a democracy). It has therefore always attracted a greater following from the right. Synarchy is totally opposed to ideas of democracy and social equality, as it believes that some people - ie Synarchists - are natural leaders.

However, Synarchy as devised by St-Yves was not a purely political movement. St-Yves was active in the esoteric world of 19th century Europe - he was, for example, a friend of key figures such as Victor Hugo and Lord Bulwer-Lytton - and so incorporated specific mystical and occult ideas into his system.

St-Yves believed in the existence of spiritually superior beings that could be contacted telepathically. His elite would be made up of people who were in communication with them. He himself claimed that he was in touch with these beings, and that they actually gave him the principles of Synarchy.

Saint-Yves drew upon many esoteric systems, from both East and West, in developing his ideas. For example, he regarded the medieval Knights Templar as the ultimate Synarchists of their day - after all, they exerted control over the political, financial and religious life of medieval Europe, his three pillars of society.

Consequently, Saint-Yves incorporated ideas from the many neo-Templar societies that were flourishing in his day. In particular, he borrowed from a Templarist Masonic society, the Strict Templar Observance, the concept of Unknown Superiors - a group who directed the order but whose identity remained unknown to the members. However, he expanded this concept and made his 'unknown superiors' spiritually advanced beings that lived in a remote part of Tibet.

Although Saint-Yves himself is hardly known in this country, he was incredibly influential in the development of 19th century occultism. For example, he was the person who introduced the concept of Agartha, the mysterious underworld realm peopled by initiates hidden somewhere in Tibet. The Masters with whom he claimed to be in contact lived there.

Saint-Yves' doctrines included ideas about the evolution and history of the human race that were, at the time, novel, but which have since become commonplace in Esoteric and New Age circles. Central to his reconstruction of history was Atlantis as an advanced, global civilisation. He believed that the Sphinx was not built by the ancient Egyptians, but was created by the Atlanteans many thousands of years before the rise of Egypt. Saint-Yves placed the end of Atlantis at around 12000 BC.

St Yves also promoted the idea of root races - a succession of dominant races each allocated a period of supremacy, but each destined to be supplanted by the next, superior race. It should come as no surprise to learn that the current dominant race is the white Aryans.

It must be stressed that it is impossible to separate Saint-Yves' version of history from his political ideology. The history is used to justify the ideology and vice versa. Also, his version of history was the result of 'revealed' information - it lacked any historical or archaeological proof. For his followers, accepting these ideas was a simple act of faith.

All these ideas have become, of course, part and parcel of subsequent occult beliefs, mainly because they were taken up, embellished and popularised by Madame Blavatsky (1831-1891), that larger-than-life Russian magus - some call her a charlatan - whose love affair with the mysteries of the East led to her founding the Theosophical movement. These concepts were, in turn, incorporated into the teachings of Alice A. Bailey (1880-1949), which have had a huge influence over the beliefs of the New Age - and on the development of the Stargate Conspiracy.

But perhaps more significantly as far as this article is concerned is that some of Saint-Yves specific ideas appear in the psychic readings of Edgar Cayce. For example, Saint-Yves, in his reconstruction of history, describes a great Celtic warrior named Ram, who conquered the 'degenerate' black races in 7700 BC. According to Saint-Yves, it was the superhero Ram who created the first Synarchist Empire, which extended from Europe to India. This marked the beginning of the period of domination of the white races over the black. Curiously, in a discussion about far distant events, Edgar Cayce said that this was "some years before the entry of Ram into India". But Ram could only have found his way into Cayce's writings via Saint-Yves, who had, in fact, invented Ram and all his works.

The Synarchist Agenda

Of course, the idea that the world should be run by secret societies went down particularly well with...well, secret societies. Consequently, many of them adopted Synarchist principles. In fact, Saint-Yves' ideas transformed the esoteric underground of Europe, particularly France. Some of the greatest figures in subsequent occult history were devotees of Saint-Yves, which is not surprising because occultists, with their love of hierarchy, tend to be naturally totalitarian and unegalitarian. For example, Papus (real name Gérard Encausse, 1865-1916) called Saint-Yves his "intellectual master", and when he died founded a society known as the Friends of Saint-Yves to promote his work. Papus, of course, had an enormous influence over the world of esoteric secret societies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Another important movement that became closely associated with Synarchy was Martinism. Although this predated Saint-Yves by several decades, the principles of the two were very close - Saint-Yves was himself a member of the Martinist Order, so there was a lot of cross-fertilisation of ideas.

This is interesting because in our last book, The Templar Revelation, we traced the connection between the Martinist Order and other secret societies that make up a network of groups, all ultimately descended from the Strict Templar Observance, which includes the Priory of Sion. It is now becoming clear that an understanding of Synarchy can shed light on the origins and activities of the modern Priory of Sion - but that's another story...

By the beginnings of the 20th century, the Martinist Orders - and many others - were firmly aligned with the ideology of Synarchy. In 1921 the Martinist and Synarchist Order was founded in France. There were also explicitly Synarchist Masonic lodges formed in France.

However, Synarchy has not only had influence over the occult world, but also over politics.

As we have seen, Synarchy outlined a specific programme for the take-over of states. But Saint-Yves' aims went much further than that - he wanted the whole of Europe to be governed by Synarchy. Right from the start, an important part of the Synarchist agenda was the creation of a United States of Europe, advocating the removal of national boundaries, customs duties, and so on.

This continued to be a central objective of Synarchy. In fact, a Synarchist document published in the 1930s refers to one of their key aims as being "the formation of a federal European Union". It advocated a United States of Europe - although it would be a Europe that, for economic reasons, would be dominated by France and Germany.

As we saw earlier, Synarchy favours undemocratic and totalitarian regimes - they are, after all, easier to gain control of. And there is a definite connection between Synarchist groups and the origins of Fascism in Europe in the late 1910s and early 1920s.

An organisation called the International Synarchist Movement was created in response to the Russian Revolution of 1919. According to French researchers, this was largely behind the rise of Fascism in Italy, and the creation of the Pan-European Movement in 1922.

As might be expected, Synarchy also had some influence on the development of Nazi ideology, although Synarchists had reservations about the Nazi's emphasis on German nationalism and the Messianic cult of Hitler.

Synarchy continued to thrive in Saint-Yves' native France. Synarchist groups were behind a wave of right-wing terrorist attacks in the 1920s and 30s. In the 1930s a Frenchman named Viven Postel du Mas (of whom more later) wrote a notorious document called the Synarchist Pact, which became their manifesto.

In 1932, a society called the Synarchist Empire Movement was founded in France, which was described by one commentator as "a secret society with very specific and limited membership, following a definite politico-economic programme". This was behind right-wing terrorist groups such as the CSAR (Secret Committee for Revolutionary Action) - most of the CSAR's members were part of the Synarchist Empire Movement.

In 1941, in Vichy France, a report by the police warned of a plot by Synarchists to take over the government, which noted the close relationship between the Synarchist movement and the Martinist Orders. In fact, during the trial of Marshall Pétain, the President of the Vichy government, in 1945, questions were asked about his connection with the Synarchist Pact.

The point is that Synarchy was taken very seriously by French authorities in the 1930s and 40s. The term has entered the French political vocabulary (although the French press often use the term 'synarchy' to refer to any political or economic conspiracy, such as price-fixing cartels).

After the War, Synarchy adopted a lower profile, but it is still very active. In fact, in recent years Synarchist groups have begun to act more openly both in Europe and in Britain.

But what has all this has got to do with the Sphinx?

Behind the Mask

Of course, Saint-Yves wasn't the only influential Synarchist. Given the nature of Synarchy one would probably never know the names of even the most powerful. But we do know quite a lot about one of them: R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz.

It is curious that Schwaller de Lubicz has become the 'godfather' of Alternative Egyptology even though few have read his works first-hand. His ideas mostly come to us through the books of Graham Hancock, Robert Bauval and, of course, John Anthony West, all of whom have expressed their admiration for this scholar. They refer to him as a philosopher, or as a mathematician. What is interesting to us, however, is that, although Schwaller de Lubicz was those things, they never call him an occultist - which he was.

And they never call him a Synarchist - which he was.

We personally find nothing intrinsically reprehensible about being an occultist, but it is curious that this aspect of Schwaller de Lubicz's life is seldom mentioned. But, given the facts, we don't find it surprising that these authors gloss over his political ideology.

Born in Alsace-Lorraine in 1887, he was very active in the Parisian occult scene in the 1910s. He was an alchemist, whose particular claim to fame was that he was at one time believed to be the mysterious Fulcanelli, author of the seminal book The Mystery of the Cathedrals. In fact, Schwaller de Lubicz was not Fulcanelli, although he claimed - with some justification - that Fulcanelli's book was based on his own idea that the Gothic cathedrals encoded alchemical symbolism.

A leading figure in the Paris Theosophical Society, he broke away to form his own occult organisation, which he called Les Veilleurs - the Watchers - specifically in order to carry his esoteric ideas into the political arena.

Perhaps it will come as no surprise to discover that he has been described as a "proto fascist". He even claims to have designed the uniform for Hitler's SA ('Brownshirts'). Although it is not certain that his claim is true, Schwaller de Lubicz clearly had no problem with people thinking that it was.

One of Schwaller de Lubicz's 'Watchers' was Vivien Postel du Mas, the man who wrote the Synarchist Pact of the 1930s. Through du Mas, Schwaller de Lubicz had a particular influence on Hitler's Deputy, the tormented and complex Rudolf Hess.

Schwaller de Lubicz was anti-Semitic and racist - and, like the Nazis, thought that women were inferior to men. For example, he taught that women were intellectually incapable of understanding Hermeticism.

All this is important, because it is impossible to separate Schwaller de Lubicz's political, Synarchist beliefs from his work as an Egyptologist, the work that certain authors so admire.

Schwaller de Lubicz settled in Egypt in 1938 and for the next 15 years studied the symbolism of the temples, particularly Luxor, finding precisely what he was looking for, which was proof that the ancient Egyptians were the ultimate examples of Synarchy, because the were ruled by a group of initiates. This may be so, but then prejudice and fanaticism blinded Schwaller de Lubicz to certain facts about Egypt. For example, he claimed that there were no blacks in Pre- and Early Dynastic Egypt, despite abundant archaeological evidence to the contrary.

So this is the man who is so revered by some of the most influential authors in the Alternative Egypt field. John Anthony West has a particular reverence for him, and wrote a book, Serpent in the Sky, presenting Schwaller de Lubicz's ideas to a popular audience.

The Atlantis Connection

Interestingly, it is mainly because of his hero's beliefs that West came to believe that the Sphinx was built by people from Atlantis and is much older than mainstream Egyptologists think. Above all, he seized on Schoch's work on the water erosion of the Sphinx as evidence of the involvement of Atlanteans.

It is important to realise that Schwaller de Lubicz believed in the antiquity of the Sphinx because Saint-Yves did, and that West believes it because Schwaller de Lubicz did. So there is a direct line from Saint-Yves to us today.

But there are problems with West's claims about the Sphinx. Not only does he over-ride Schoch's expertise when it comes to dating, he also does not appear to realise that Schoch has proved him just as wrong as conventional Egyptologists. Schwaller de Lubicz and West believed that the erosion was caused by a flood, or series of floods, whereas Schoch found that it was caused by centuries of exposure to rain.

West and Hancock argue that the Sphinx was built by a lost civilisation, not by the ancient Egyptians. Where have we heard that before? Saint-Yves was the person who single-handedly introduced the idea of Atlantis as an ancient superpower - and that they had carved the Sphinx - which was enthusiastically taken by many occultists, such as Madame Blavatsky and, of course, Edgar Cayce.

So must of us, without knowing it, have been exposed to the insidious and very scary beliefs of Saint-Yves in one form or another. We may think that we can accept his and Schwaller de Lubicz's historical ideas and reject the politics, but they simply can't be disentangled. It was never intended that they should be. If you accept one, you are tacitly swallowing the other.

The problem with this particular brand of Alternative Egyptology is not so much its flawed nature, but what it - whether accidentally or deliberately - opens us up to. History should have told us that the most dangerous ideas are those that grab us totally, hearts, minds and imaginations.

There are real, exciting mysteries about ancient Egypt. Mainstream Egyptology does tend to be arrogant and dismissive of new ideas and evidence. But it is precisely because the field is wide open that it can be abused. Let's not let our guard down because we crave signs and wonders. There are those who rely on us losing our critical faculties as soon as we hear the magic words 'ancient Egypt' or 'lost civilisation'. Whether it's the Vril Society or the Synarchists or the National Socialist Party - or, indeed, what we call the Stargate Conspiracy - it hides the same terrifying agenda. As Sally Bowles said in Cabaret of the rise of the Nazi Party in Berlin: "It's only politics - what's that got to do with us?".

People are wary of politics these days - rightly so - but they are not so wary of an appeal to the romantic, spiritual and mystical. And therein lies the danger.

===========================================================

Thus Spake Zarathruster...

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:46:00 +0000

The following story is related to my mind synchronistically to this post: XYZ - If X marks the spot Y does the Z-Man come into it?

NASA has announced on the 17th of August that their comet botherer (from the occultic associated Jet Propulsion Laboratory) Stardust NExT has captured comet stuff that constitutes a major building block of life, glycine, an amino acid. The name conjures immediate associations as addressed in the previously mentioned blog post (Z-Stardust/Zarathustra/Stardust NExT). The theme of possible panspermia, linked to my last blog entry, caught my eye.

"Glycine is an amino acid used by living organisms to make proteins, and this is the first time an amino acid has been found in a comet," said Dr. Jamie Elsila of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Our discovery supports the theory that some of life's ingredients formed in space and were delivered to Earth long ago by meteorite and comet impacts."

A NASA rendition of the H(orus) configured stardust chaser:

Here chasing a space going black rock:

Various legends have sprung up around the veneration of heaven sent stones of origin, or foundation stones. One such famous rock is the Ka'ba Stone of Mecca, thought by some to be a meteorite.
The notion that we are comprised of starstuff has long been in the collective psyche:

'I am a child of Earth and the Starry Heavens; my home is on Earth but my race is of Heaven'

- Orphic maxim.

It does seem that the grandest mythic current alive today is that we as a race, and more besides us alive on this planet, have our origins in the heavens. The current alien mythos that has been sweeping the cultural milieu with vigour may indeed be giving embodiment and consciousness in a more intelligible and direct manner to this idea. Are we then the aliens on planet earth?
Perhaps, but just because a major building block of life is apparently present on stellar hunk of rock doesn't prove or disprove the theory. But the possibilities are there...

The mission logo patch is an interesting one as well:

Stardust NExT - New Exploration of Tempel 1

A hidden sun peeking from behind the black rock, Tempel 1. It was not so long ago the target of the Deep Impact mission (On the 4th of July 2005). Such intriguing and suggestive mission titles NASA has, as ever.

Accessing the alternate WWW: Way-out, Weird, and Wonderful.

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:55:00 +0000

Life can appear (and often is) unrelentingly grim. Which is why I like to break things up as I browse the World Wide Web for WWW of a different stamp, something more uplifting and conducive to the mind and soul. For the appreciation of the still beautiful and at times awe inspiring thing called reality. This post is concerned with one of my favourite WWWs, the Way-out, Weird, and Wonderful:

Perseid meteor shower 2009

"Skygazers are preparing for the high point of the annual Perseid meteor shower.
The shower, which reaches its peak on Wednesday, occurs when the Earth passes through a stream of dusty debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle.
As this cometary "grit" strikes our atmosphere, it burns up, often creating streaks of light across the sky.
The meteors appear to come from a point called a "radiant" in the constellation of Perseus - hence the name Perseid.
"Earth passes through the densest part of the debris stream sometime on 12 August. Then, you could see dozens of meteors per hour," said Bill Cooke of Nasa's meteoroid environment office.
No special equipment is required to watch the sky show. Astronomers say binoculars might help, but will also restrict the view to a small part of the sky."

For Americans information here: Perseid meteor shower 2009: Times to watch, places to go and a Twitter party

And on to:

Discover Blogs - Bad Astronomy: Like the fist of an angry god

This is quite wondrous, it fires up all sorts of possibilities up in my imagination, as it obviously did with the journalist who struck the headline for the story. A series of pictures from the Cassini spacecraft of something massive obliterating the F-ring around Saturn.

Here's a screen capture I took of one of the clearer images:

"It’s not exactly clear what’s going on here, even in this slightly zoomed shot. But it looks for all the world - or worlds — like some small object on an inclined orbit has punched through Saturn’s narrow F ring, bursting out from underneath, and dragging behind it a wake of particles from the rings. The upward-angled structure is definitely real, as witnessed by the shadow it’s casting on the ring material to the lower left. And what’s with the bright patch right where this object seems to have slammed in the rings? Did it shatter millions of icy particles, revealing their shinier interior material, making them brighter? Clearly, something awesome and amazing happened here. "

Go here for a couple of close-up images from the Cassini probe that took these pictures.

And on to:

Rainbow stargate in the desert, at night:

And on to:

BBC Earth News: Giant 'meat-eating' plant found

A horn of plenty that could devour an entire rat. Or just take your hand. Heh.

Which leads onto another carnivorous plant that here is suspected of not being of this world:

Venus Flytrap: Terrestrial or Extraterrestrial?

"In the search for extraterrestrial life, we have always searched Space, but we may have the proof of extraterrestrial life right here on Earth-in the Venus Flytrap.

Even though we have yet to see the gigantic, man-eating creature from The Little Shop Of Horrors, the most dramatic case for possible alien life landing on Earth is not aliens landing in flying saucers, but the Venus Flytrap. Also known to botanists as Dionaea Muscipula, the Venus Also known to botanists as Dionaea Muscipula, the Venus Flytrap is one of only a few plants capable of rapid plant movement, one of only a few carnivorous plants, and the only carnivorous plant capable of rapid plant movement.

The Venus Flytrap is the third fastest plant in the world, capable of closing its trap within 100 milliseconds-less than a second. The two fastest plants are the Dogwood bunchberry (the flowers open and shoot pollen in 0.5 milliseconds), and the White Mulberry tree (the flowers can shoot pollen at half the speed of sound).

Even though the Venus Flytrap has been successfully transplanted to other regions all over the globe, it is only found naturally in a 100 mile radius around Wilmington, North Carolina. Enveloping only a couple of counties in North and South Carolina. It thrives best in heat, and in swamps. The strange thing is that in the middle of the Flytrap's natural territory, there appears to be several small impact craters from a meteor shower. These craters-and the fact that the Flytrap's native territory is so small and surrounds these craters-is only part of the evidence of the Venus Flytrap's extraterrestrial origin."

There's my weird and wonderful for the evening. I'm going to out to watch some shooting stars now and envisage how alien carnivorous vegetation could have arrived on earth. In a somewhat hypothetical possible world.

Horus of the Three Horizons?

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 10:07:00 +0000

I viewed this picture a few days ago and was struck by the beauty of it. It was featured on the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day. It looks to me a bit like one sun rising, one setting, and a hidden sun to boot (well, lets go for mostly obscured, almost occultic). Excerpt from the description of the photo:

"How can the same Sun rise three times? Last month on Friday, 2009 July 10, a spectacular triple sunrise was photographed at about 4:30 am over Gdansk Bay in Gdansk, Poland. Clearly, our Sun rises only once. Some optical effect is creating at least two mirages of the Sun -- but which effect? In the vast majority of similarly reported cases, mirages of the brightest object in the frame can be traced to reflections internal to the camera taking the images. Still, the above image is intriguing because a sincere photographer claims the effect was visible to the unaided eye, and because the photographer took several other frames that show variants of the same effect."

It brought to mind the possibility of a symbol for the eternal triadic god figures of the ages (Ea-Bel-Anu, Osiris-Isis-Horus, Father-Son-Holy Spirit, etc [O.K., I know that the orthodox Christian view on the last one is that of the Triune God, but splitting hairs in a sense]) but the stellar bodies here are purely of the sun only so it doesn't quite fit the variations in the various triadic dieties which usually are associated with different planets.
But this could be a case of symbols of an alien sky, where Horus is of the Three Horizons, not just our mundane two. Imagine waking up one morning in a bed that is not your own, scents from flowers foreign and strange assault you with xeno-exotic aromas; pungent yet stimulating, a woman more beautiful than any you have ever seen greets you with a sound not unlike bird song. When you look into her eyes there are two sets of pupils in each and of a colour you can't describe.
Rising from the bed you see the most amazing thing. One sun rising, one setting, and one hidden.

Of course the alien sky suggested to me could just be of an earlier time period on this terrestrial plane. The following video series by the Thunderbolts Project, a work in progress, is superb on the subject of how planetary bodies may have had radically different orientations and orbits in the solar system. The alien skies that feature in so many science fiction novels may have had a reality here on earth:

You can bet that the Inner Party will be able to switch their telescreens off...

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:53:00 +0000

airstrip one, express 23.07.09 reporting telescreens doubleplusgood. proles goodthinkful. minitrue tripleplusgoodjob. proles deepfear thinkpol soon.

SIN BINS FOR WORST FAMILIES

Gene -> meme -> techeme? The third replicator is unveiled.

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 23:07:00 +0000

Connected to a post at TransAlchemy, New Age Techno Magick, here is an article from the New Scientist that is basically a transcript of the presentation Susan Blackmore gave at the TED Conference in 2008.

Evolution's third replicator: Genes, memes, and now what?

The presentation she gives full rein to a Darwinian view of memes that are self-propagating, evolving organisms in the same manner that evolutionary theory ascribes to genes. Genes are thus the first "replicator," memes are the second. She argues that there is now a third evolutionary jump, a third replicator, provisionally charged as a "teme." Short for technological meme.
I agree that memes do indeed take on a life of their own in a sense, as she puts forward in that talk, and that they appear to use the human as a carrier, a type of parasitic organism (Blackmore states this categorically as fact). The explicit theme here is that the teme is already out of Pandora's Box, a force that humanity cannot control. I suggest that techne (1) has always been a force autonomous of man as Ellul warned about a long time ago.

The notion, nay huge potential meme in itself in the present conception of the term, that technology will be able to replicate itself, a teme, a techeme, syneme; whatever, is a fascinating concept and a dangerous one as Blackmore concedes. Yet she still believes that the massive inherent danger (the potential obliteration of mankind) is a worthwhile wager.
I personally feel that she is right as regards the threat to mankind, not so sure about the worthwhile risk factor though....
I feel that there is a new phase of the techeme that will spring into life, but I feel that something of a certain ancient nature will be manifested in this world. I'm preparing a larger post on this subject at the moment.

There is also a forum on the New Scientist for the chance to christen the new technological meme they seek to bring to life:

Help find a name for a new replicator

I think that the terminology has already been approached by certain persons of a transhuman leaning. Its odd, and quite telling that these people are already framing this as a potential catastrophic war between competing factions, a technological pathogen, and/or brutal skirmishes with machines that could result in the end of mankind.
I suggest subverting the process though. Just for shits and giggles.

"The enduring archetype of techne within the pre-modern era is magic, of an environment that conforms entitely to the will of being."

- Mark Pesce, co-creator of the Virtual Reality Modelling Language.

Footnote:

(1) "Techne: (Gr. techne) The set of principles, or rational method, involved in the production of an object or the accomplishment of an end; the knowledge of such principles or method; art. Techne resembles episteme in implying knowledge of principles, but differs in that its aim is making or doing, not disinterested understanding. -- G.R.M."

- Dictionary of Philosophy.

Is that which is "Lost" alien technology?

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:15:00 +0000

A few days ago Jay Dyer of Nicene Truth linked to a little creative teaser/red herring for the fans of the T.V. series Lost, ABC's "Lost" Hypes Up the Mysteries - the Occult Mysteries. Here's the video he featured:

Mysteries of the Universe fake promo vid.

As Dyer suggests there may indeed be a lost power/technology of the gods angle that the Lost crew are implanting in the minds of the viewers. I tend to think that we are perhaps talking lost alien technology here. Its very early days yet so we'll have to see what the next four teaser vids produce, and where and what they may point to. But the idea does seem to fit like a glove, further complementing the series title.
I've inserted some screen captures of the teaser vid courtesy of Dark UFO blog between the text here. I stole these, hotlinking not allowed apparently. *embarrassed* I hope Dark UFO don't mind my thievery.

Having watched Lost and been in lost in the tangle of plotlines, while vastly enjoying the ride, it certainly did lose its way (had to insert the tedious puns there) halfway through the current run. Too many mysteries, not enough answers. But if the show is tilting towards (maybe it always was) ancient astronaut theory and extra-terrestrials as gods it meshes with the current predominant theme in Holly-Wood. There has been a glut of AAT from the dream factory recently.

Also look at the Dark UFO blog for further info on the potential lost alien technology meme. Really, all bases are touched on here; conspiracy, occult, aliens, paranormal, ancient civilizations, because Lost is just about all of that for sure. Just not yet definitely concerning extra-terrestrials. As yet.

Go to the ABC Lost page for further info on the "Mysteries of the Universe" instalments.

The Conspiratainment Files Pt. 2

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 18:45:00 +0000

I've been waiting for a little while to feature this juicy sliver of conspiratainment, not least because I feel for the guy. He's completely lost the farm here. Whether he's just being smoking far too much weed, he's been pushed to spychosis by the intelligence branch he apparently exposed, or this is another disinformation and psy-ops blast designed to further discredit the notion of a conspiratorial view of world events (all three can work simultaneously) as held by that strange creature lurking on the fringes of society known as the conspiracy theorist; I just don't know for sure.
So with that preamble out of the way I present the former MI5 whistle-blower, "9/11 truther," the Messiah, David Shayler:

Daily Mail U.K.: Call me Delores, says MI5 whistleblower David Shayler

This was Shayler in full Messiah mode previously:

Shayler now has the alter ego of Delores Kane, but still insists that he/she is the Chosen One.

I suggest that timing is everything here, as with so many things. Besides the little masonic reference in Kane (1), the date is suggestive in the release of the story, July 17th (the number 17 some claim is related to Sirius, but also perhaps the number of Horus, an allegorical reference to the body of initiates of the mysteries, as represented by masonry), a little marker for those I think who decided it was time to unleash the brand new transvestite loon Messiah onto the public, at a key juncture. Good old perception management The previous two weeks had seen the very same right-wing rag ask serious questions of the official 7/7 story owing to the Ripple Effect DVD (coincidentally made by another would be Messiah), and also of the highly suspicious death of one David Kelly, former weapons inspector/expert and MI5 insider quite possibly "taken care of" by the very same agency that Shayler purportedly exposed.
The Shayler transvestite Messiah launches front page the day after the new Kelly story (where thirteen doctors call for a new investigation in his death) and it is six years exactly after Kelly was found dead.
I smell a pretty effective distraction ploy for some reason...

24th of June, 1717 (2) is the date modern speculative freemasonry begun in the Goose and Gridiron Alehouse in in London. July 17th 2003 David Kelly was found dead. July 16th 2009 the call for a re-investigation is put out, July 17th 2009 the Shayler he/she Messiah Dolores Kane manifests. Six years on. Take the date of the 1717 Goose and Gridiron meeting, the 24th of June; 2 + 4 = 6.

I don't know, my highly amateurish numerological conjecture may say nothing more than coincidence. But what may coincidence truly say?

I tend towards this being a symbolic nod and wink to those in the know.

The Mail had been doing a good job (for a neo-fascist scare-rag) of asking decent questions of the official lines in two highly important cases, absolutely bloody crucial actually, then with impeccable timing the Shayler God-(wo)man is trotted out.

This is conspiratainment for the masses. A solid opportunity for " defensive ironic distancing," as addressed here, and can be seen in the comments section of the Daily Mail article. "Eh, those bloody conspiracy theorists are all nutters aren't they? Who's Jordan shagging these days? Bloody plastic titted bimbo!" is the encapsulation of the type of non-think that accompanies this in the mainstream.

As I said in this post, "...real conspiratainment is at its most humourous when delivered in all seriousness, by experts in the field."
The experts in the field may bear this mark:

MI5, Her Majesty's Secret Service, is ensconsed deep within the City of London Corporation, masonic to the hilt. Mason's guilds were known as corporations...
I propose that the real brotherhood is not contained so much within the lodges and temples you see on the street, in plain view. There are lodges hidden within other constructs, with other names. Hidden from the profane.

Relevant background on Shayler here:

Wikipedia: David Shayler (Not a trustworthy source, especially considering the topic; but its useful to see what is being said. And what is not.)

BBC News - November 18th, 1998: Timeline - David Shayler's MI5 secrets

Daily Mail U.K. - The MI5 Messiah: Why David Shayler belives he's the Son of God

Daily Mail U.K. - Call me Dolores, says MI5 Whistle-blower David Shayler

Footnotes:

1. The Symbolism of Freemasonry - Albert G. Mackey

Thus, in the life and achievements of Bacchus or Dionysus, we find the travestied counterpart of the career of Moses, and in the name of Vulcan, the blacksmith god, we evidently see an etymological corruption of the appellation of Tubal Cain, the first artificer in metals. For Vul-can is but a modified form of Baal-Cain, the god Cain.

2. Phoenix Masonry: Goose and Gridiron Alehouse and the Four Original Lodges

Black Hole Sun Eye of God - Continuing my dark obsession...

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 21:43:00 +0000

So continuing in my gothic mode (everything is turning black with me in recent posts, in fact the whole blog is in pretty much fading to black), and linked to various musings on black dogs, black artisans, black suns, black holes, solar eclipses, and the substance of things not seen; I present the black hole eye of god:

NGC 1097

Wikipedia:

NGC 1097 is a barred spiral galaxy about 45 million light-years away in the constellation Fornax. Three supernovae (SN 1992bd, SN 1999eu, & SN 2003B) have been observed in NGC 1097 (as of 2006).

NGC 1097 is also a Seyfert galaxy, with jets shooting from the core. Like most galaxies, NGC 1097 has a supermassive black hole at its center. Around the central black hole is a ring of star-forming regions with a network of gas and dust that spirals from the ring to the black hole.NGC 1097 has two satellite galaxies. NGC 1097A is the larger of the two. It is a peculiar elliptical galaxy that orbits 42,000 light-years from the center of NGC 1097. NGC 1097B is the outermost one and not much is known about that.

Filamentary Structures in NGC 1097

Kind of looks like this:

Can't be the Eye of the True God then, must be the Demiurge....

Black Sun over Asia - Video

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:02:00 +0000

Worship of the Black Sun? Or merely in awe? Is there much of a difference here?

Ammendment: Here's some pious reverence during the event for ya...

And the spectacle that inspired it, far less potent via the medium of photography I'd imagine.

"Dark energy keeps the internet growing."

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:41:00 +0000

Another interesting and potential esoteric little semiotic utterance here from Jonathan Zittrain who is set to speak at the TED Global Iniative Conference tomorrow, taking place in Oxford U.K. Listen to this snippet from Zittrain on the BBC World Service called: "Dark energy keeps the internet growing."

The interpetations are highly suggestive to me though the terminology involving the use of the words "entities" and phrases like "the dark energy of kindness" are really just extremely neutral items of the lexicon for tech savvy individuals. Dark energy then merely refers to the entirely unknown factor applied to the World Wide Web, as astro-physicists utilize it as a catch-all for all the things in the universe that they don't know about and yet exert influence. Entity is also extremely neutral in that context, designating then a link in the chain, anything or anyone that facilitates the passage of information. But if you slant his words in a certain direction you do wonder what he could be talking about really, hermetically....

Here's a short transcript of what he says in the first minute of that audio clip:

Zittrain: "I'm often known as cyber-pessimist these days, I'm doing my best to be an optimist, looking at ways in which there is sort of this dark energy of kindness that actually keeps the internet rolling."

Interviewer: "Can you be a little bit more specific?"

Zittrain: "Well, even down to the very protocols of the internet it turns out that much of it really does rely on trust. And the way information gets from one end to the other is in many instances a simple act of good faith among as many as thirty to forty different entitities that are willing to pass the data along like a fire brigade. It doesn't much resemble something like the Royal Mail where you pay a fee to somebody and that entity is expected to get your data where it's going, ah, for that fee.
There's a certain amount of reciprocity and trust that, just, you don't see very often; and in fact I kind of liken it hitchhiking, a phenomenon that used to be ubiquitous that has long since faded and may even now be seeing a resurgance, perhaps in tandem with the internet, to co-ordinate people sharing rides."

So let's distill the text with my own particular biased decanter: dark energies -> entities -> reciprocity -> hitchiking -> sharing rides.

Hmmm...

The title and theme of the conference this year in Oxford? The Substance of Things Not Seen.

And being that the conference is in Oxford I'm sure that there has been speculation on the Mithraic significance of that name, solar cult tie-ins which lead to another high profile participant in this TED conference. Solar Impulse, the project that claims to have unveiled the completely solar-powered plane that can fly day and night without conventional fuel. The power of the sun only.

Here's a screen shot from their self titled "Symbol" page:

A closer look at the old favourite the solar symbol reveals an Omega like hand encompassing the sun.

Omega being a prime sponsor of this project.

The timing of the project coincides with the start of the Sirius Dog Days, where so much is in the mix. Could the timing of the conference, its theme, the solar references embedded in this story, the event, and surroundings be synching with the coming solar eclipse? Allied to, and augmented by the dark energies reference? The black sun? The unknown sun force?

This all seems to be a particularly biased, dark interpretation of Zittrain's words that I've ended up with here as part of my arrangment, but could the dark flow be related to the synch-musings here? It may all just depend on how you colour between the lines, what shade, what tone.

EDIT: I repaired the title. I inputted my own bias and incorrectly read Zittrain's statement on the internet growing as flowing. But I think the sentiment still holds true, he also used the word rolling, so there is a theme related to flow, to furtherance, to a chain, or a conduit.

Growing, flowing, glowing, growling? The growling, glowing wolf flow? Just some word play for fun.

Further ammendment: Here is a video of a Manly P. Hall lecture on the purported connection between Mithras and Oxford (Go to 2mins 40 secs in):-

The Sirius Clone Dogs

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 17:41:00 +0000

This caught my eye today (I'm really only posting as things do so, today though, no stories about sex. That usually does it), the world's first cloned sniffer dogs who made their entrance onto the world stage on Friday, July 17th. These were the puppies as of April last year (note how the trainer is said to comment that these cloned dogs are so much more amenable to instruction, more so than naturally conceived canines):

We are into the prime Sirius Dog Days as of now, and considering that these dogs were thrust into the limelight on the 17th, a classic Sirius related meme, seems to have some significance for me. Add to that this also fits the Sirius frame further when it is noted that the declination of the star Sirius (the Dog Star) is thus declined at -17 degrees. There were originally seven puppies being trained for this, but only six have started work. As befitting cloned creatures, genetically identical, they have a single, collective name: "Toppy." Short for "Tomorrow's Puppy."
According to Channel News Asia, "They showed better performances in detecting illegal drugs during the training than other naturally-born sniffer dogs that we have." Looks like the animal world is ahead of us on the way to the Gattaca reality.
These enhanced drug hunters were cloned from a well thought of Labrador Retriever (also a sniffer dog of course, they have to come from desired genetic stock for their traits) called Chaser.
The star Sirius has long been associated with the hunter. From "Hamlet's Mill" by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend (p. 216):

...the rising of the Dog-Star the wine in the cellars begins to stir up and that the still waters move (2.107)—and the Avesta offers as explanation (Yt. 8.41) that it is Tishtriya, indeed, "by whom count the waters, the still and the flowing ones, those in springs and in rivers, those in channels and in ponds." [n10 Trans. E. Herzfeld, Zoroaster and His World (1947), p. 587.].

This is, however, no Iranian invention: the ritual text of the Babylonian New Year addresses Sirius as "mul.KAK.SI.DI. who measures the depth of the Sea." mul is the prefix announcing the star, KAK.SI.DI means "arrow," and it is this particular arrow which is behind most of the bewildering tales of archery. The bow from which it is sent on its way is a constellation, built from stars of Argo and Canis Major, which is common to the spheres of Mesopotamia, Egypt and China [n11 There is strong circumstantial evidence of this bow and arrow in Mexico also: the bow of the Chichimeca, the Dog-people.]. And since the name Ishtar is shared by both Venus and Sirius, one may guess who "stirs up the apsu before Ea."

So, Chaser = Hunter perhaps? Here's a Wiki on the hunter tie-in with the etymology on Sirius:

Sirius has over 50 other designations and names attached to it.^[58] In Arabic it is known as الشعرى (transliteration: 'al-ši‘rā' or 'al-shira'; English: the leader),^[87] from which the alternate name 'Aschere' derives. In Sanskrit, it is known as 'Mrgavyadha,' "deer hunter," or 'Lubdhaka,' "hunter."

The date of July 17th is fairly synchronous with the start of the Egyptian year of course.

Again from Hamlet's Mill (sorry to use this book so much here, it's a treasure trove of info):

The lament over Adonis-Tammuz did not fall simply in "late summer": it took place in the night between July 19 and 20, the exact date which marked the opening of the Egyptian year, and remained to determine the Julian calendar. For 3000 years it had marked the heliacal rising of Sirius.

So July 19th is generally thought to be the start of the Egyptian calendar? The Toppy story seems to have surfaced just today (the 19th) whilst the dogs themselves went into action on the 17th.

A symbolic gesture? What then is the significance of 6 of 7? One dog did not make the cut here. Seven dogs analogous to seven planets, the old concept of the spheres of the cosmos? Pythagoros called the planets "the Dogs of Persephone."

What happened to dog #7 then? Not what the Romans used to do I hope when their Dog Days ended.

Heliacal setting of Sirius is April 25th eh? Before this latest news on the clone dogs they were last in the media gaze around April 21st - 25th last year...
I'm not suggesting anything here, but where is the seventh dog now?

So much here seems to tie in with the Sirius/Dog Days meme, and also this post may also tie in with this over at the Logosphere, as these dogs are Labrador Retrievers.

As usual I'm leaping around like crazy when my mind starts seeing connections, six million degrees of Kevin Bacon, and my headspace is abounding with all sorts of synchs; mostly involving Sirius, fertility rites, symbolic (if not actual, bloodily literal) sacrifice, and this 6 of 7 thing...

As I should say with many posts on this blog, I draw no real conclusions, I just follow my nose if I see a pattern. Of course the pattern could be more down to my creation than anything.

I could weave an occult symbolic fable out of this, and I already am in my mind's I.

Guest Feature: Devin from My Favourite Monsters Blog - The Belmez Faces pts. 1 - 6

Aeternitatis007@gmail.com (Justin Russell) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:24:00 +0000

Here's a gem of the weird and the wonderful, the paranormal happening known as the Belmez Faces, as described by Devin of My Favourite Monsters blog:

Paranormal and Fortean: The Belmez Faces - Part 1

Paranormal and Fortean: The Belmez Faces - Part 2

Paranormal and Fortean: The Belmez Faces - Part 3

Paranormal and Fortean: The Belmez Faces - Part 4

Paranormal and Fortean: The Belmez Faces - Part 5

Paranormal and Fortean: The Belmez Faces - Part 6

Wikipedia quote:

The Bélmez Faces or the Faces of Bélmez is a paranormal phenomenon in a private house in Spain which started in 1971 when residents claimed to see images of faces appear in the concrete floor of the house. Such images have continuously formed and disappeared on the floor of the home since that time.
Located at the Pereira family home at Street Real 5, Bélmez de la Moraleda, Jaén, Spain, the Bélmez faces have been responsible for bringing large numbers of sightseers to Bélmez. The phenomenon is considered by some parapsychologists the best-documented and "without doubt the most important paranormal phenomenon [in the 20th] century".