The Revelation of the Method

With the exception of my introduction, coda and a few comments in the text itself, this post is a reprint of a post from Skilluminati Research, a blog that delves sensibly into conspiracies both real....and imagined. As the author puts it:

Skilluminati Research is devoted to unraveling the system of social control in the Western World. This is not motivated by fear, moral outrage or a desire to "expose the truth" -- I'm just curious about how The Machine works. Here, I study the past century of overlapping currents in economics, behavioral psychology, education policy, marketing and persuasion, media theory, classified technology, and the operations of intelligence agencies. We study the current landscape of computerized surveillance, decentralized warfare, asymmetric conflicts, disaster capitalism, and "Psychological Operations." 

I first referred to the Skilluminati's The Revelation of the Method in 2011 ("Their ashes were then ground up and dumped into the Seine, so as to leave no relics behind.") and had cause to refer to it once again in my last post, about the movie Frozen (Queens of the Ice Age).  The second time I cited it, I got the notion that I'd like to reprint the post in full, so I contacted Skilluminati and explained why.  This is an edited version of what I wrote [Bracketed small italics not included]:

I write a blog with a friend called Laws of Silence.  We write about all sorts of things.  I personally focus on folklore and history, folk saints, church architecture, etc., but occasionally we (my partner and I) venture into areas that might be labeled "conspiracy theory" and even "synchromysticism".  Usually we’re a bit ironic with these latter two.  I rarely venture into synchromystic territory without evoking apophenia, the Baader-Meinhoff Phenomenon, confirmation bias etc., so, I’m not a wild-eyed "true believer".

Like many people interested in synchromystic-style conspiracy theory, I came to the subject via Burroughs (the 23 enigma, specifically), the Principia Discordia, and especially R. A. Wilson [His Cosmic Trigger series--especially tome I--and Illuminatus! trilogy are must-reads for anyone interested in the topic].  There is also a healthy dose of Surrealism and Stimes Addisson in my approach.  King Kill-33 was something that blew my mind and, once read, the effect it had on me could not be undone. 

[King Kill-33 is by one James Shelby Downard, but it is more akin to Hoffman's work in Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare than Downard's awful The Carnivals of Life and Death; I want to say say "allegedly" because although Hoffman and Feral House publisher Adam Parfrey claim to have met the man, and although I have no reason to believe these men are lying, I still wonder if we're being hoaxed.  One of the two known photos of Downard seems like a fake and Adam Gorightly's disappointing biography turns up nothing new or concrete about the man.  Which is par for the course.  Dr. Richard B. Spence, used public records to prove that Downard did, in fact, exist and presents more verifiable information in one short article than Gorightly manages in one short book, largely cribbed from other sources and barely about Downard at all....  So, with Spence's lengthy-enough citation of public records, why do I still have doubts?] 

I am also pretty familiar with Michael Hoffman.  I find him extremely intelligent, and he writes well-researched work, but still, he comes across as a mad hatter.  I’m just not down with his extreme right program, especially his obsession with the evils presented by whom he calls “Judaics” and "sodomites"-- sometimes both for the same person.  My latest post is a jest about the film Frozen, which a couple of religious folks (a Mormon and an Evangelical) have decried as a kind of homosexual indoctrination tool.  I ran with the idea one night, a bit drunk, and popped out (perhaps "pooped out") an absurd text on the same theme.  Previous posts were about bell towers in the Southwest of France.  So you can see, my topics are varied. 

What I want to reproduce is your text on the Revelation of the Method.  I could simply review it and link to it, but when I initially contacted you I was all keen to reproduce it on my blog.  I can see why you might not want that.  I figured though, that whatever “regular” readers I might have would be more likely to read the entire thing if it were on my blog as opposed to something I linked to.  I’m actually not sure that's true and I don’t have that many readers anyway.  Perhaps 150 hits a day or so, according to the blogger stats.  I really like your post, the best thing I’ve read on the topic.  So many people evoke the “Revelation of the Method” without knowing exactly where it comes from!  I’ve argued with people about confirmation bias and synchronicity and they write me off as simply “not getting it, man."  My hope is that by re-printing your article, more people might read it and because quite frankly, you’ve expressed your critique better than I, all in one place, as opposed to scattered across several posts. 

It’s a great article, an antidote to the synchromystic/twilight language virus which, though valid in a poetic sense, seems over-wrought and played out as a truly useful tool for de-masking the goings on of a pre-supposed “cryptocracy”.  Hey, there are obviously power elites, but this psychodrama theory of Masonic/Rosicrucian/Jewish origin seems a bit….counterproductive? 

Skilluminati responded:

A delightfully unexpected angle.
I gladly grant permission to reproduce that in full.

So, with no further ado's or a go-go's, here's the beef. 

Originally posted on Skilluminati Research, 27 Nov, 2010
 

I've been in love with that phrase for years: The Revelation of the Method is not my own invention, but borrowed poetry from the world of conspiracy theory. Although it gets referred to as an actual Masonic concept, it's actually a very recent fabrication from a Catholic "Revisionist Historian" named Michael Hoffman. In his original formulation, the Revelation of the Method is an occult ritual, specifically a "Masonic psychodrama."

Used casually, the implication is always the same: when the Cryptocracy commits major crimes, they will broadcast their intentions in advance, through popular movies and television. Hoffman himself was iffy on the actual order of the process: "it's my contention that these are occult rituals and that like the Rosicrucian Manifestos of the early 17th century they are accompanied by anonymous statements of intent like the original Unabom manifesto, as well as scripts that precede the ritual." Later in the same interview, though, he deviates from his own script: "Look at the movie "The Matrix" in the wake of Columbine. Look at "The Wicker Man" movie in the same time frame as Son of Sam. The themes of the killings are in the movies." Whatever its actual merits, the end result of this theory is pattern recognition in the service of a pre-established conclusion. The Revelation of the Method is how the Illuminati, or the Vatican, or the CIA rub it in our faces.

Of course, Michael A. Hoffman II is also a man who devotes a large portion of his life to questioning the historical veracity of the Nazi Holocaust. He's a religious fundamentalist with weird hobbies, and much like myself, badly in need of an honest editor. I'm not discussing him because he's important or correct on much of anything: he is not. He just happens to be the first source using this particular phrase.

As you might expect, he equates Masonry with Judaism and both with pure pagan Evil, which makes for some eloquent and exquisitely researched nonsense. The evidence boils down to drawing connections between violent crimes and violent media, with no actual chain of causality or conspiratorial links involved. Common themes and overlapping symbols are taken as sufficient proof.
Although this approach is similar to the recent "Synchromysticism" movement [I would argue it's pretty much exactly the same, but that quibble is certainly open to debate. --Daurade], it's important to note that the more grounded minds in that field reject Hoffman outright. When Christopher Knowles from the (outstanding) project The Secret Sun addressed The Revelation of the Method, he was blunt enough to bear repeating:

"First of all, there is no such thing as "Revelation of the Method," it's a speculative concept coined by a extreme-right conspiracy theorist and has no basis in esoteric history or doctrine. Second, I have no interest in talking to people who automatically identify ancient mythological symbols with conspiracy or evil. I'm talking to open-minded people who are looking for a deeper narrative in all of this." -- source link

Christian and Conspiratainment commentators who take on the weighty topic of Hegelian Synthesis usually present it as something invented, an intellectual technology that was unleashed upon the world. Actually, Hegel was diagnosing a pre-existing condition of the human species. The endless iterations of Thesis and Anti-Thesis stretch back throughout the history of human culture. It is a binary trap that has always shaped us: East and West, victors and victims, war and peace. Us and them.  [Not quite sure I agree here, but for the parts of this post which I am interested in, it's not critically relevant.  Plus, I haven't read Hegel in 20+ years.  --Daurade ]

 

"History is a nightmare from which we are trying to awaken." It's a great quote, pure poetry, but I can't get with that particular Thesis, when I really think about it. Humans are incredibly adaptable creatures, our brains are robust sense-making machines, and that's how we quickly come to view these nightmares as normal. History is normal days just like this one. "Business as Usual" is exactly what we need to get involved with. You know, just like the Socialists did.

On the Conspiratainment front, as always, we find a new set of answers. In the Infowars archives, the "Revelation of the Method" is a college essay by Hillary Clinton about the work of political realist Saul Alinsky. Alinsky, much like George Soros, has recently achieved Bond Villian Status in the cosmology of popular Mormon/JBS theorist Glenn Beck. Alinsky is the author of "Rules for Radicals," an explicit guide to achieving and exercising power in the tradition of The Prince, The Arthashastra and The Art of War.

Alinsky is worth being afraid of. He is clearly far sharper than any of the conservative propagandists, because in recent years they've simply stolen his material verbatim and re-named it "Rules for Patriots." (Matt Kibbe, you are lazy as fuck.) Besides, no matter what Hillary Clinton thought about Alinsky in College, she got further illuminated during the 1990's orchestrating the push for Health Care reform. Hillary wasn't cynical enough yet, she couldn't process how easily the American electorate could be motivated to become activists against their own interests. Pretty soon, she was talking about "a vast Right wing conspiracy," too. It was documented in a 331 page portfolio of clippings and connections titled "The Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce."

It's catching. The most remarkable thing about Conspiracy apophenia, to an amoral free agent like myself, is that it's distinctly contagious. Once infected, we always tend toward greater certainty. This is not lost on Michael Hoffman himself, who proclaims: "Give me two hours with any group of average intelligence and I'll have them reading twilight language and decoding occult rituals for the rest of their lives." I see no reason to doubt him.

Of course, Hoffman himself is a Catholic, a willing subject of the single most successful occult conspiracy in the known history of mankind. The Catholics, it should be noted, are the exact reason why the Freemasons and the Perfectibilists were "secret societies" in the first place: because of vulgarians like Tertullian, Torquemada, or Michael Hoffman. Men who could look at Sacred geometry and basic science, the very language of nature, and see only Satanic evil. Men who would torture and murder for the glory of God's Love. [I think this is a bit harsh on Hoffman, whose rhetoric, though strident, if not seething, doesn't seem  advocate violence; I could be wrong, but I see Hoffman someone who would rather convince with words rather than torture. --Daurade] It's pathetic. And it's catching.

Then again...it doesn't exactly help that Saul Alinsky dedicated Rules for Radicals to Satan Himself: "Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history... the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom — Lucifer." You can imagine what the NWO fighters make of a quote like that, but to me, it doesn't read like Sympathy for the Devil...it's more like a sly curse. Perhaps Alinsky was winking at young idealists who are charging headfirst down a road paved with good intentions? Che and Lenin both come to mind, for essentially opposite reasons.

It's not like Socialism has a monopoly on horrifying unintended consequences. In fact, human history teaches something far bleaker: every formalized system of government we've created has been perfectly capable of facilitating mass murder, class warfare and repressive regimes. Conspiracy critics like Michael Hoffman allow themselves the luxury of a solution, an answer, a promised land. An honest study of reality allows for no such sentimentality, and recognizes that the only way out of Hell is through it. This is where we stand in the modern world, and no amount of symbolic connections and "Twilight Language" is going to change these naked facts of our condition. Finger-pointing is a cop out. It is not sufficient to merely expose or destroy the Freemasons: it also falls upon us to replace them.

[Full disclosure:  I am a Freemason, so I hope Skilluminati is merely rhetorically directing this to the "NWO fighters" as an example of what they should be working on if they are serious about their mission, not what people as a whole should be working towards! --Daurade]

We don't have to look far for real life examples of power elites committing crimes out in the open, and sneering at the general public every step of the way. It's technically known as the Banking industry and they have been stepping up their game dramatically over the past two decades. More audacious and socially destructive than any "occult ritual crime," the spectacular theft of American wealth by a privileged few has been conducted in plain sight, documented through sober PBS documentaries and bestselling books. These are crimes everybody knows about, yet nobody seems to have the power to stop them.

Why can't the Revelation of the Method be about the actual science of social control? Movies and mass murder is such a tiny, schizoid slice of the entire spectrum of control that shapes our waking lives. Fields like political science and sociology have mostly been philosophy and horseshit, but in recent years they've been able to get ahold of serious data -- sufficient "Big Picture" numbers to start recognizing patterns instead of merely creating theories. The kind of headlines that emerge are grimly predictable but undeniably important: "Low incomes make poor more conservative, study finds" or "UT Professor: Economic Inequality is Self-Reinforcing" or more cheerful material like "The Poverty Trap: Why the Poor Pay More."

"Lee had a great knack to visualize. His whole thing was wedges and magnets. What pulls people apart...and what attracts people? You find ways to bring people to you, and ways to divide the people who are against you. This was his bottom line practical theory." -- Richard McBride

I would like to create a Revelation of the Method that functions as real Political Science, something to replace a field which is currently neither Political nor Scientific. As it stands, it's history, with no science involved, and far too little discussion about actual politics -- the technical details of the ongoing Cold War known as Everybody vs. Everybody Else.

There will always be an eye in the pyramid. The human race is a global superorganism managed by a self-selected Elite, thousands of competing and conflicting conspiracies. The goal of Skilluminati Research is to encourage active engagement instead of opposition and resistance...or as Graham Summer observed: "If you live in a country run by committee, be on the committee." I'm not talking about "Democracy" so much as the whole corrupted and invisible System itself. Money, power, religion and war. We need to be engaging with it, because there is no question of working outside of it -- that's a rhetorical flourish, a concept that exists only on paper. Here in the flesh and blood, bombs and bullets, money and food Real World, the System is everywhere at once and consumes all that it touches.

The most dangerous thing about excuses is that they're technically true. There's not much difference between Democrats and Republicans, there's not many avenues to exercise our power safely, and there's way too many problems to deal with simultaneously, it's all true. There's not much hope for the forces of peace. It's also true that all human innovation happens in that tiny space between "not much" and "nothing" -- because we are powerful, and tiny differences will be enough to enact huge changes. Remember, you only ever need 51% of the vote...and best of all, actual voters are already a minority to begin with.

Mark Meckler, the datamining and direct sales guru who created the Tea Party Patriots, has a 40 year plan. Over the weekend of October 2nd, 2010, he got to give a sales pitch the Council for National Policy, asking for a head start on the $100 million dollars it will cost to save America. His "in" was Gary Aldrich, who now sits on the board of TPP. Meckler claims to have 20 million email addresses and he's clearly stated his goals: "Tea Party Patriots plans to convert sixty percent or more of the population to support our core values of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets."

I know: Braindead horseshit. This frat boy has a 40 year plan, though.

Do we?

  

* * * *

Coda:  Daurade here.  Like I said in my letter to Skilluminati, I find synchromysticism to be a poetic game of sorts.  When I play it--and I apologize because this sounds terribly pretentious--I tend to think of it as an exercise in mapping both symbols and my own mind.  There is something out there--a shared reality--but I feel like I'm also uncovering something inside me.  A synchromystic "analysis" has different nuances for each individual, as the connections we make are reflections of our own obsessions, the coincidences reflect our own perceptions and what is "important" reflects our own prejudices.  It can be fun and playful, and some synchromystics are quite good at the game.  Da Black Whole and Aferrismoon are clever wordsmiths, with outrageous puns, a wide range and a sense of humor.  I used to read them regularly.

If you want to play, a broad knowledge of pop culture and the the humanities is essential.  Familiarity with the Bible, Freemasonry, religion and the occult are likewise fairly important areas of knowledge.  Even though I regularly feel I've played out the exercise to its logical conclusion, I still come across essays like this one which remind me why I started doing it:  There's a lot of fun it it and our conclusions are not really the point.  What is ultimately interesting is the process.  Synchromysticism is not an accumulated body of knowledge, but a type of exegesis.

For a while, every time I went off on a synchromystic bender, I'd run across something by Loren Coleman on his blog Twilight Language and I thus felt compelled to contact him.  In this post he answers my question about what he's actually trying to do on his blog.  Why twilight language?  His gracious response marks hims as more of a Fortean than a "conspiracy theorist" and you might find more merit in his approach than in its results (again, looking at the process rather than the product).  His mindset doesn't seem to involve the strident political or social motivation as the "NWO fighters", so I'm not sure if he's a target of Skilluminati's critique of would-be revolutionaries fooling about with symbolic connections and "Twilight Language".  

Coleman's blog was once called The Copycat Effect, however, so at some point he caught the virus.  With nearly 3 million (!) hits on his blog, he, rather than Hoffman, may be the synchromystic virus' (SM-23?) index case.   

Another of Coleman's posts reveals that several years ago he corresponded with Hoffman and one William Grimstad about Downard.  (We also learn that "synchromysticism" was coined in 2006 by Jake Kotze).  In yet another post, Coleman quotes and identifies Grimstad's Weird America (written as "Jim Brandon" in 1978), as one of the urtexts of the synchromystic "movement".  (He refers to Downard, Hoffman and Grimstad as the founding "triad".  Good luck finding Brandon's book, btw, though if you can find one for a reasonable price, I'd love to hear from you).  Coleman must be a much more open-minded guy than I am, because nowhere does he flinch at Hoffman's religious fundamentalism and bigotry, Grimstad's Holocaust denial and neo-Nazi affiliations (5/6/22 Update:  Here I was in error; he does address and repudiate it.  Since writing this, he also wrote a post specifically addressing the subject), Downard's perplexing influential masochistic gibberish or the admittedly Discordian writer Adam Gorightly's uneven take on his subject.  I know this sounds like I'm smearing Coleman, but this is not the case.  He seems to be saying that this particular branch of esoteric study makes, or made, for strange bedfellows.

Exchanging ideas with Grimstad....all went hand in hand with being a Fortean in the 1960s-1970s, especially if an interest in assassinations and strange suicides fit into the mindset.

He also says:

Downard's modern influence on Forteana, assassination studies, occult symbolism decoding, twilight language research and synchromysticism is so deep that he must be acknowledged as the Godfather to many of the points of view that inhabit those arenas.

Coleman deftly, almost imperceptibly, sidesteps the question of Downard's existence, but he does leave the possibility of his "non-existence" open, which, given the nature of the synchromystic game, might qualify as a brilliant move.  It's certainly appropriate that the godfather of synchromysticism may only be the invention of a couple of obscure anti-Semitic writers with the perplexing complicity of a secular Jewish publisher (Parfrey).  I've always found it odd that Hoffman would allow his work to appear in an anthology of texts, Apocalypse Culture--that includes so much content Hoffman would almost certainly categorize as vile perversion--published by a house which has also published the writings of celebrity/Satanist Anton LaVey (a mythomaniac of impressive proportions).  Not only that, but the two seemed to have some sort of friendship; the Tridentine Catholic....and the card-carrying member of the Church of Satan.  Wouldn't that be a hoot, if the conspiracy theorist extraordinaire was himself a the product of a conspiracy?  A meta-conspiracy?  A joke making fun of the gullible?  A group alter-ego? 

A revelation if you will, of the method?  More, perhaps, like an accumulation of methods.  An artwork in a genre which has been shaped by the workings of the Internets and is turn informing a large share of its culture.  Burroughs, Wilson and Downard have been influencing the fringe for years and now seem to be moving towards the center.  Sad to say, I'm not entirely convinced that's a good thing.

"CULTure" by guest blogheur, Jon Frankel

While doing some research on Philip K. Dick’s Valis I was struck by the fan response to even mild criticisms of his work. These fan comments reminded me of comments I have read on the Internet Archive for Grateful Dead concerts. I am not a Deadhead, any more than I am a Dickhead, but I do like to listen to mid to late 60’s acid rock when I write. The Internet Archive has about every Grateful Dead concert ever recorded, which you can stream for free. Occasionally (very occasionally) someone will say a show is not that good, and the response can be asymmetrical, to put it mildly. Dick and the Dead are examples of Cult Art. The Cult Art fan believes in the work the way a Freudian believes in Freud or a Communist Party member believes in Marx. The Dead are hardly the only cult act in rock history. The Velvet Underground also owe their success to cult fans, but the influence of the Velvet Underground is vastly more important than that of the Dead. But you can’t blame either of them for their fans, any more than you can blame Philip K. Dick.

PKD is a fascinating case because of course he was a cult writer, who was widely recognized within his genre (and, eventually, outside of it), whose fans are conspiratorial, paranoid, and fanatical, just as he could be. He wrote about cultic phenomenon, conspiracies and paranoia. He elevated them to world, even cosmic systems. But he was impish. There is always a sly look in his burning eyes. And the books themselves can be laughably bad and still, somehow, charming, funny, and intelligent. The Dead too, with their dimestore mysticism, psychedelic iconography, improvisational music, and connection to the most cultish of all the Beats, Neal Cassidy, encouraged a tribal worship of all things Dead.

There is also a cult of cult art. People set out to be cult writers and musicians because cult obscurity and eccentricity are cool. But most of the great, true cult artists set out to be successful. I’m sure Samuel Fuller wanted to make successful movies, he was just too wayward to knuckle under. Jim Thompson and Charles Willeford would have taken unabashed, big time success in stride. Thompson was probably limited by personality (and lack of charm, and ability, beyond the precise, minimalistic delineation of psychopathic violence), but Willeford was a cheerful, successful man. The Burnt Orange Heresy is a great book that few people will ever read, and those who do will probably love it immoderately.

I think Jonathan Lethem is a writer who would love to have been a cult writer, and ended up the darling of The New York Times set. Darlings of The New York Times set don’t get to be cult writers. Sometimes a cult artist will hit the big time. Scorsese started out this way, and he, like Lethem, really loved the cult movies of his childhood, and seems, with Mean Streets, to have set out to make a cult movie. Many of his less commercial work fits the feel: After Hours, The King of Comedy, Kundun, The Last Temptation of Christ. And Willeford had his Hoke Mosley books, brilliant, off beat Florida police novels that were published in paperback and marketed as mainstream work and were quite successful. He got tired of that success at one point and produced the ultimate, self-destructive, cult writer kind of book: he has his cop hero kill his own daughter! His editor (or agent) refused to publish it and sent him away to write another Hoke Mosley novel, sans child murder.

Freud and Marx are examples of the cult in social science. Freudians are renowned for reducing all criticisms to resistance. Marxist have all kinds of ruses for negating anything that would question their political dogmas, including the tantalizing, disturbing concept of false consciousness. But if the ‘ists’ have fetishized their masters’ theories, there is of course a sound, wonderful tradition of Marxist scholarship and thinking, and Freud himself is a nutty, but fascinating, and persuasive author of a descriptive anatomy of what it feels like to be human, solidly in the tradition philosophical and wisdom literature. Yet Freudians and Communist Party members continue to BELIEVE in a way that say, Darwin and Einstein don’t require of physicists and evolutionary biologists. And the effect in the real world of both theories, to the extent that they are cults, has been terrible. Freudian thinking exacted a toll on everyone who was ground up in the psychoanalytic machine. And the disaster of Marxist thinking enshrined in state power might be greater than that of those other massive cults, Christianity and Islam. I know both have produced great civilizations and important ethical, intellectual traditions. Both also converted with the sword and fire, for which there can be no forgiveness. In the end I suppose the cults of Marxism, Christianity and Islam yielded to the larger, pan-human cult, that of the Cult of Violence.

Cult thinking is warm and comfortable. I have always flirted at its edges. For years I was a Jungian. Jung is considered more cultlike than Freud because he was never picked up by The New York Times crowd. I don’t find his theories or ideas to be any more crackpot than Freud’s, but I can see now that he was not as great a writer or thinker, despite a feeling that he is in some sense ‘more right’. I think the Velvet Underground is a great band, beyond all measure, while the Grateful Dead played really cool fast amphetamine and acid music from 1966-1969, and that’s it. But Lou Reed and John Cale are not Gods, nor is Jerry Garcia. Genius in whatever thing, when somewhat or completely neglected, easily becomes cult. And sometimes, like Freud and Marx, the cult erupts into the world.

I’m sure I am someone who set out to write cult literature and failed, as one has to do, when setting out to accomplish something that is out of your control. I have however noticed that there are people, few in number, who really LOVE Specimen Tank, unaccountably. With cult work you succeed by failing. Cult work is a little like the difference between being educated and trying to be smart. You can’t really try to be smart or funny, and often only are unintentionally so. You set out to be Alfred Hitchcock, and end up as Ed Wood. But this is also a function of personality. I’m doubt the Velvet Underground would ever have been an arena rock act the way Bowie was. With John Cale and Lou Reed there was always one too many geniuses in the room. The Cult in Art has two faces, one benign, attractive, and one that of the Lothario.

Jon is a poet and novelist based in Ithaca, NY.  His novels include Specimen Tank, GAHA: Babes of the Abyss, The Last Bender and The Man Who Can't Die.  Please visit his "blogh", Last Bender, for more information about his work and his always interesting musings on art, literature, history and cooking.

Specimen Tank  
is available on Amazon.

As one (of two!) reviewer puts it: "There's more truth in this book than anyone in the biotech industries would care to admit. Plus, it's funny as hell. If you don't like it, hand-deliver it to my house, and I'll buy it back from you."

2014: a query and a hope

Damn right.

The query

What do you regular readers want to see more of in 2014?  Any new subjects to visit or old posts to update and/or develop?

Personally, I'd like to do one more thing on the Knights of the Golden Circle (LoS label) after I've finished David's Keehn's book Knights of the Golden Circle: Secret Empire, Southern Secession, Civil War, which has already answered a lot of my speculations regarding their roots and activities.

After that, I want to get back to doing more things on French folklore, saints, Vierges Noires, odd little tales....a Gallic gallimaufry basically.  Also I still haven't started Stephen Curl's The Egyptian Revival: Ancient Egypt as the Inspiration for Design Motifs in the West.  I won't even link to this with my Amazon Associates code because it's a 40 or 50 dollar book and as such only worth it to a specialised reader.  Besides, if I get to it right after reading the Curl book, LoS fans should get a good review which ties in to the posts in which I've already mentioned the book or speak about specific examples of the Egyptian "revival".  I put this in finger-formed air quotation marks because this revival seems to be ongoing even today, although its heyday has certainly passed, the last big expression appearing to be the Art Deco period.  But then again, a few-hundred year old current is a flash in the pan compared to an empire that spanned millennia.

The request

I've personally asked pals and other other bloggers/writers to draw up a post for us on one of their favorite hobby horses.  So far some vague "maybes" and even some outright rejections.  One guy told me he writes nothing for free, for anybody.  Hey, I'm poor as a church mouse but I'll give you five or ten bucks, I told him, just for form.  No articles forthcoming.

We've only had one true guest writer and that is the very busy Dr. Kristen Jensen, DVM.  Her story about visiting the infamous Plum Island Animal Disease Center is hilarious and a glimpse into a world most of us will never get to see close up, with details that belie the image we might have in our heads about a Top Secret US research facility that looks into all manner of public health and military initiatives involving animals and the diseases that kill them....and us.

Oh, my mother wrote me a letter about her experiences during the Blitz that also made a great post and inadvertently perfect:  lots of little details, a straightforward style not designed to tug the heartstrings but do because it's not trying to.  Just the facts, ma'am.  She says something my which stuck with my wife:  "We were very poor, but we were happy."

All that to say:  guest bloggers are great.  I've interviewed sWineDriveR., and he's provided our banners and amusing images for a number of our posts:  Bush's head on a pike, anachronistic portraits of yours truly, Choco strips, excerpts from his films....  Actor Dimitri Diatchenko indulged us with an insider's look at "working class Hollywood":  real full-time actors, not stars, doing what they do as TV show guests, small parts in big films, bigger roles in the indies, video games, commercials, whatever it takes.  Poet Tod Perry and journalist Carl Leubsdorf have shared their memories and thoughts about Cornell University in the late-fifties, when Thomas Pynchon and Richard Fariña,were their colleagues.  It was researching Pynchon and Fariña that led to these interviews about the stimulating writing culture of that place and time and a less than mild-mannered protest cum small "riot" in 1958.  These guests and friends bring in new experiences and ideas, new tones and tenors.  A different voice, perspective, obsession:  left or right, we don't care as long as the general thrust of LoS is respected.  We're not a political agitators, nor journalist, nor academics, but we play at it sometimes

And we want you to come out and play too, Warriors.  Send us an idea, an interview, rough-hewn notes....or a finished gem.  We love to have contributors, but we want someone willing to take a thing from beginning to end

I'm tired of asking for this, but it is January, a new year, realm of Janus, god of gateways and transitions.  Won't you write something for us?  If you're a friend, a regular or a first time visitor, we'd like to hear a proposal, see a sample and give the green light.

We can't pay, but I'll send you a collage or some kind of little drawing by my very own hand.

Whaddaya say? 

Ouvrez donc les yeux! Reichstag 911, redux.

The following post originally appeared on a website operated by Daurade sometime after 9-11. It was intended to be ironic and in some versions the word "Satire?" was emblazoned on the page. Several websites linked to the page and some comments were made, but everyone seemed to take it at face value; that is to say a serious accusation that Bush is part of a Satanic and or alchemical cabal of some sort. A question mark was used because there were indubitably some weird symbols which appeared in researching the satire, and to be truthful, was intended to be taken humorously. In light of recent LoS posts, it seems appropriate to revisit this story, which seems to fall into the Bush as Gog theory The Gid has mentioned in a recent post. The original text is in red. Current commentary is in black. Gid's commentary is in yellow and Jon in blue.

White house photographers have a fondness for photographing political figures under rotundas or with symbols behind them which cast a kind of halo or nimbus around the head. This is such a shot. What's strange about it is the makings of a grin on W's lips and from the heavy posture and the shadows around the eyes it's as if he's shooting daggers. The halo is almost certainly a governmental seal of some sorts, perhaps even the seal of the POTUS. Which becomes more meaningful in light of what's to follow.  

They intentionally shoot Bush with a halo because these people really do believe they are God’s true anointed. They both cynically use the myth and believe in it. Like all secret societies pursuing earthly power, they engage in acts that are exactly opposite to the values they espouse. Lying, homosexuality, drug use, torture (not that being gay is inevitably any of these things; arguably these people aren’t gay at all, they are rapists), masks, secret meetings, hording of wealth, the use of symbols, are all indicative of a cabal and a reversal of values. Consider the Cathar leaders who felt they were liberated from God’s law and were free to violate it, or various forms of extreme tantrism that came to dominate courts in Java in the pre-Islamic period.

It is sometimes suggested that the Republican Party under Rove, Cheney, Norquist, Delay, Gingrich et al is a black-hooded homosexual cabal. Closeted gays are intentionally chosen because they can be blackmailed. But it is also possible that buggery is used as an initiation rite, as it is was purported to be for the Knights Templar, for pirates, for ancient Egyptians (cf the buggery episodes between Seth and Horus, where semen is hidden in lettuce and consumed, appearing in the intestinal track to fool the gods into thinking an act of buggery has occurred).

People will believe what they want to believe about the hand signal, at least consciously. But unconsciously matters are not so libertarian. The unconscious mind recognizes the primordial archetype of the horned hand and therein lies its transformative power in the process of human alchemy. When the sign of the horn is elevated to national prominence by "the most powerful man in the world," the unconscious mind groks that the reptilian tail is not far behind. Believe it or not, that's the "twilight language" message in this case; a message intended to go over the heads of the cattle on board the truck bound for the abattoir."

Michael A. Hoffman II, Plausible Denial: "Hornwinking" the Bush League January 21, 2005

Quite frankly, Hoffman comes across sometimes as a bona fide nut-case and a raging anti-Semite. But there is an eloquence of writing, and independent spirit and a penetration perception of contemporary culture which is startling.

Whether or not Bush is flashing devil horns or not is irrelevant; the fact remains that aside from people familiar with Italian hand gestures or the Texas Longhorns, the "Horns" will always be a heavy-metal devil sign, associated with Satanism. When our born-again and quite publicly croyant President flashes it, alarm bells are going to go off among our uncanny fundamentalist brothers and sisters: they're gonna see the Antichrist. Especially when they see such photos as these. 


Bush et al dare people to disbelieve them by openly lying and manipulating symbols clear in meaning to anyone with a brain. They demonstrate their power of intimidation by walking about naked asking us all to admire their beautiful clothes.

I think it would be mad to say that Bush is some sort of Messianic pretender. This photo says more about the photographer than Bush. But even so, none of that matters to the viewer, triggered with poetically resonant images. The President at the kairotic crux of the cruz, crowned by architecture parlante: "LORD" and an actual crown. Remember the Moonies? Remember the moon? The cross and crown motif can be found as a symbol of the Freemasonic Knights Templar, early Christian Science and early Jehovah's Witnesses. 

Others said you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide.

Bush as magician. Using a well-known magical gesture, Bush is indicating his allegiance to the Horned God. Notice his robes. Ostensibly they are those of an academic, but that is part of the arrogant humor of the Cabal; they stage their rituals publicly under the guise of regular events. No wonder he looks so smug.

He does look exceedingly smug. And he does resemble a magician. This is probably the most ironic barb towards the twilight language theory. The idea of a subliminal message staged in a public ritual. I don't even know the context of this photo. It's probably a graduation ceremony of Long dongs, er, horns. We could probably go on about Mithraism at this point, and be well within our rights. Fact is that this is such a pregnant image how could it not evoke such sinister claims? There is indeed a twilight message here, but if it's Bush, or some photographer's editor somewhere sending it, is to be debated. We tend to think of it as ourselves sending this message, Heisenberg-like as we observe from within the shadow of the valley of the Book of Revelation, agog and Gog-hungry, thoroughly Googled and definitely goggled, as in with blinders on. 


This example comes from a FEMA press conference in the wake of the Sept 11 attacks. (It is telling that Bush would display the symbols of his true office here, for FEMA has long been suspected as the real agency of domestic repression--under the guise of national emrgency--when it came time for the Cabal to seize control of the country). The horns are only the most flagrant Cabal joke in this photograph; the real story lies in the alchemical symbolism. The position of Bush's head in the FEMA seal, relative to the position of the presidential seal is a way of projecting the message: L'Etat, c'est moi. You could write a dissertation of the symbolism of this image.

As an artistic composition this cannot be beat. The reflecting circles, the motif of the eagle in the seal below and the wings above, the microphones. All the better as it appears that horns are coming from his head. He does appear to swoon but a photograph's quick-like mid-motion capture creates strange effects. "A Nation Prepared" reads the motto. But yeah, grok that circle and triangle, an alchemical symbol if there ever was one. The composition of the photo into light and dark halves, the repeating imagery vertically arranged is such a hermetic composition: As above, so below. Again, we're dealing more with a snarky photographer than a calculating President.

These photos would never have appeared if they didn’t want them to. But my concern is, after reviewing the photographic evidence so far, in support of an evident thesis, is that they are appropriating the Perpetual Art, the Most Ancient Arcanum, for their own perverted uses. Those who mess with the occult for evil purposes place both themselves and the world at great risk, but they inevitably fall, because the perennial heresy is before good and evil, and is an apprehension of the one and the many as an ongoing process of unfolding and return. Their division is one of divide and conquer. The Fall of Being into division is one of divide and create.

Notice the similarity of the presidential seal and the sigil of Baphomet. Concentric circles inscribed with words of power. Inside the circles an animal totem is circumscribed by a pentagram. In the Baphomet sigil, the pentagram is explicit. The President also displays it openly, but coded. In the presidential seal the pentagram is implied in the shape of the Eagle: its wings form the legs, its feet, the arms. Its tail forms the head. In this photograph the bottom triangle is made explicit in the angles of the microphones--which in the top circle is where the Eagle's tail would be if Bush's head weren't taking its place. The triangle finds a mirror image in the halo above Bush's head: as above, so below. The interplay between the FEMA seal and the Presidential seal reinforces this most basic of hermetic doctrines. Notice how Bush swoons as the Horned God enters his body to address the nation.

I stand by the comparison.

The flipside of the Dollar--Washington's sacred currency--reaffirms the hermetic motif of circles, triangles and stars. It is also quite clearly an expression of faith in the One. The interrelationship of symbols is a divine interplay between earthly might, spiritual authority and the implied solace of faith in their unity. Although it doesn't appear here (it appears above the Eagle on the obverse of the quarter), this is the real meaning of the national motto: "Out of many, One."

Okay, the idea of the motto is a bit-farfetched, "Out of many, one"; but I stick by "The interrelationship of symbols is a divine interplay between earthly might, spiritual authority and the implied solace of faith in their unity." 

Like father, like Son.

From the Inaugural of George Bush Sr., 1989. Three alchemical triangles soar over the phallic personification of George Washington, state Godling. The Washington Monument dominates the skyline of the city that bears his name. It is as if it is the phallus of the city. And now a second Bush has descended upon the city. The coming of the Sun.


Do a web search for the "Apotheosis of George Washington" and you will find several sculptures and paintings depicting the ascension of our first president; becoming one with or becoming--Mormon-like--God Himself. He is a Godling of sorts in the national mythology, replete with weird tree-cutting fables and coin-tossing stunts. The phallic aspect of the obelisk is a trope needing no further elucidation. The trinity of triangles is exceedingly resonant. Remember all that talk of pyramids and power? Doesn't is riff nicely with that weird FEMA seal? Let alone that of the Information Awareness Office....

Federal law ensures that the Washington Monument will always be the tallest building in the nation's capital.

"Welcome to Mrs. Bush, and my fellow astronauts."...Governor George W. Bush, Jr.

"[It's] time for the human race to enter the solar system."...Governor George W. Bush, Jr.

OK, I admit this is a bit of whimsy. But it does tie back into the idea that humanity is running out of space here on earth, so space out there in, urm, space, is the logical destination: The Stars My Destination. Also, they’re damn funny Bushisms. I say this without malice, but the man made me laugh so.

I would say it with malice! The man was malicious!

The quotes are whimsical, but the pilot aspect is not. Relating back to pyramid power, one can easily see that the aristocracy of old were cavalrymen. Today they are pilots.

A disembodied eye casts its gaze over the world, illuminating it."Knowledge is Power."

For anyone seeking to prove that the government is an Illuminist cover story, the IAO logo will be a clincher. Interesting that is embodies all the theses we’ve been going over in recent posts: the pyramid, the symbol of illumination, the link of knowledge and reason with progress and authority, the missionary ideal of bringing light to the world and then dominating it. In this case a domination through science, or, more specifically, technological prowess.

And just to really rub it in, DARPA named this program “Information Awareness Office” or I.A.O., which is a magic formula for Aleister Crowley and “as a gnostic godform … both a sun-god and mystery-god” (see Thelemapedia, “IOA”).

While the seal is surely supposed to represent the all-seeing eye casting light upon the world, consider some other creepy reads that we can layer onto the image. First, consider the eye as a projector. Pynchon’s phrase “Shall I project a world?” (from “The Crying of Lot 49”) has become synonymous with the enveloping layers of paranoia that wrap around us as we consider that such vast conspiracies may simply be constructs of our own mind, a projection of our own mad instance of meaning and structure upon a Newtonian world devoid of purpose.

This notion of projecting a world also invites a Gnostic interpretation of the image, with the eye over the unfinished pyramid suggesting an imperfect god, shown here in the act of creating a world. While it appears that this will be a world of light, note that as viewers, we can only see a glimmer of a lit world, for from our perspective, almost all that we see of Earth is cast in darkness, reinforcing the suggestion that this an incomplete god, caught in the act of trying to create life, but rending a world of shadows unable to see the True Light.

For a final alternate take on the image, consider the eye as the Sun, which, in addition to reinforcing the scientific and Egyptian mumbo-jumbo, means that this image shows the Earth orbiting the eye, which casts light on half the globe but leaves the rest of the Earth in shadow.


And of course this brings us back full circle to the IAO “as a gnostic godform … both a sun-god [shown here bathing the orbiting Earth in shadow and light] and mystery-god [shown here in its imperfection as it struggles to project a world].”

Is the point of all this just that Bush’s boys created a cool-looking symbol that they knew would trigger the paranoid radar just to f*ck with us? Or does this demonstrate Bush’s boys thumbing their noses, a demonstration of power, power so unmatched that They simply reveal themselves and speak their own true names?


Consider this infamous quote from an unnamed aide to Bush: “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” That’s a quote from the New York Times, by the way, and after hearing this—the way it so perfectly fits this image of the “all-seeing eye,” a godly form that fails to even see its own unfinished foundation as it projecting a world of darkness and shadow suspended in its own imperfect godly glare—after hearing this, you must stop to marvel. On LoS we have been attempting to tease out a methodology of revelation through crypto-analytical deconstruction (“CAD”); it is amazing, is it not, the “Information Awareness” that a CAD can provide?

Consider, finally, the pyramid as monument rising upward to the god and note that one of IAO’s projects was “Babylon.” My God! Who would dare to flout their hubris in the very face of the maker? Hmm, could it be … SATAN!?!

Babalon, aka "Babalon" is given lengthy treatment in the aforementioned Thelemapedia, where it is discussed as, among a myriad of things, "the Gateway to the City of Pyramids."  This is "s a step along the path of spiritual purification, and a resting place for those who have successfully shed their attachments to the mundane world."

What are we to make of this image? Is it saying, "The whole thing was orchestrated, look to the recordings," or is this another way the Cabal has of thumbing its nose at us? There it is: the towers are burning, the conductor is waving her batons--they form a triangle around her head--and above it all is a signature: "The Coup." According to the label, this image was conceived of months before Sept. 11.

The towers always inspired apocalyptic images. After 9-11 I went back to my book Specimen Tank, written in the 80’s. In it I describe it as a giant syringe and the narrator/protagonist, Wally, imagines it smashed to pieces in the future, a heap of glass that archaeologists must number in order to reassemble it. The first time I went to try to go to the top I chickened out, it was too terrifying. The second time I had dinner at Windows on the World.

Another weird personal event (and I think things like the 9-11 attacks constellate meanings, hence all of the conspiracy theories that also swirl around the assassinations of the sixties), has to do with a video tape of The Wizard of Oz. My father-in-law taped The Wizard of Oz off of broadcast television on the day of the first World Trade Center Bombing. In 2000 my 4 year old daughter was watching this tape and I was talking on the phone to my ex-wife. I came into the room where Z. was watching and stared at the t.v. Suddenly a news alert rolled across the bottom of the screen saying the towers had been bombed. “Holy shit,” I said to my wife, “They bombed the Twin Towers again!” We couldn’t believe they would do it twice and she got off the phone to call friends and family and tell them. Seconds later I realized that I was watching an old video tape and that it wasn’t the news at all. I called her back and we laughed about it, realizing that of course it was absurd that the Twin Towers would be attacked twice.

The Twin Towers were always an affront, aesthetically. They should never have been built and no one liked them, that is until the first bombing. They then became beloved and more familiar as the neighbourhood around them was gentrified and populated with affluent young New Yorkers.