Twilight Effects

Death or Beauty?

 

As far as I can determine, synchromysticism is a term invented by blogger Jake Kotze in 2006:  "....synchromystic (my new word for meaningful coincidence with mystical connotation....)"  

The movement is rooted in the work of Jim Brandon, Michael Hoffman II, James Shelby Downard, and, to a certain degree, Robert Anton Wilson.  

One of the most widely-read examples of synchromysticism is King-Kill 33 (first published in 1988), a collaboration between Hoffman and Downard about the mother of all conspiracy theories....the assassination of JFK.  Marilyn Manson even wrote a song with the same title.  Dan Brown's Robert Langdon books (i.e. the Da Vinci Code) are arguably based in synchromysticism.

One of the principal concepts in synchromysticism is twilight language.  Twilight language:  "clues" left by conspirators in a larger process called the Revelation of the Method, which I'll discuss later.  

A few years ago there were only a few synchromystic blogs, but now they've proliferated.  Even writers who were writing along similar lines before 2006 have adopted the mantle, and there is a thriving online community which exchanges its findings.  One of these writers is L.C.  (I've thinly disguised the name to avoid having it pop up in web searches, because L.C. is not really the focus of this post, but a point of departure and a thread around which to organize my observations).

 

L.C. is a social worker, writer, and museum curator.  Among other topics, he's written about Cryptozoology and Fortean phenomena, and more recently, "twilight language," e.g. mystical toponymy, numerical symbolism, and the hidden meanings of names.  Forteana is a precursor of twilight language.  Indeed, many of the movement's first practitioners wrote for Fortean Times at some point.

At some point L.C. added synchromysticism to his Fortean explorations.  Wikipedia defines the term as "the practice o nof attributing mystical or esoteric significance to mundane coincidences."  Kotze's "meaningful coincidence."

I think it's a good definition; confirmation bias, frequency illusion, and apophenia presented as something with deeper meaning beyond the mind's need to order and organize sensory input and data.  "The Truth is out There."  More like in There.

Synchronicity + Mysticism.  What could go wrong?

To be frank, synchromysticism has always confused me, at times irked me.  After years of following the milieu, and dabbling in it, I've become disillusioned with it.  I think it's a dead end.

 

One of L.C's areas of study are mass-shootings, a topic he sadly has occasion to address frequently.  He wrote a book on the subject titled The Copycat Effect.  L.C. has

"....a master's degree in psychiatric social work and was a consultant for the Maine Youth Suicide Program for nearly a decade. He authored several manuals and trained over 40,000 professionals and paraprofessionals statewide....He has been called on for statements in the aftermath of school shootings and how best to respond to the problem, mostly by the Canadian media."

L.C. has legitimate expertise in the subject and an impressive C.V. can be found on his blog.  The blog, which used to be called The Copycat Effect but is now Twilight Language, however, is not the kind of stuff anyone in the court system or mainstream media would solicit.

 

When he writes about mass-shootings on Twilight Language, he looks at the names of the people involved, toponymy, numerical symbolism, whatever coincidences he finds; he sometimes simply lists facts and recurring images.  By grouping all this stuff together, patterns are created by accumulation, patterns implied to mean something beyond the brain imposing order on the phenomenal world (e.g. "perception as an organizing process").

 

Back in 2012, I queried him about a post on the Aurora, Colorado mass-shooting.  He included my comment and response in a follow-up post.  Here's my comment and excerpts from his thoughtful and courteous response:

Recently, in comments at Twilight Language, a person using the name Daurade, sent this along: 

Mr. C., I have read enough of your posts to believe the Copycat Effect is totally plausible, very difficult to refute. But I'm not sure why you go into coincidences so much. Name symbolism, ladies in red showing up at the Olympics etc.

I do this kind of thing as a poetic exercise. [A few writers] believe these are indications that a "cryptocracy" is staging events for their own nefarious agenda. I suppose I could agree that these synchronicities are in the air and thus play into the copycat effect. 

To be honest, I'm not sure what your getting at when you talk about the meaning of names and show things such as "Aurora" on a building in a trailer. Are you suggesting a conspiracy or what exactly? Not being facetious or snarky, just a bit befuddled.

His (edited) answer (full response here):

....I'm a Fortean....Charles Fort once wrote of a world sense I share, "My liveliest interest is not so much in things, as in relations of things. I have spent much time thinking about the alleged pseudo-relations that are called coincidences. What if some of them should not be coincidence?

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I have enough room in my cosmos to allow research, thoughts, and written material on synchromysticism, coincidences, no coincidences, name games, Fortean interventions, and the human factor of the copycat effect....When I wrote The Copycat Effect (2004), I felt an obvious fact - human behavior contagion is a factor in mass violence events - was being ignored. The symbols and signs within these situations, the patterns and plots of these incidents, are mysteries that continue to be worth my time....

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If I'm investigating a shooting, the movie playing at the time, the location, copycats, and various names' meanings, why should I exclude "coincidences" that make no sense, at the time....There is no way I sense this [the Aurora shooting] was planned on a human level to foreshadow the significance of Aurora in a future event. Such tidbits seem to go beyond coincidence, over and over again, in terms of some of these discoveries.

He doesn't claim that his approach reveals planned events, but does say that the "tidbits seem to go beyond coincidence."  That perturbs me.  One reason is not his intent, but that his approach is not always clear to his readers.  His posts imply intentionality, even if unintentionally.  Ha-ha.  I'd argue that the blog implies what lies "beyond coincidence" is conspiracy.

Hoffman

 

My inkling could be due to the name of the blog.  "Twilight language" is not L.C.'s coinage.  I'm not sure if it was James Shelby Downard or Michael Hoffman II who coined it, but Hoffman has used it for years. In fact, it's the name of his most recent book (2021).  Hoffman also coined  "the Revelation of the Method."  I reproduced an excellent post from Skilluminati (with his blessing) about this subject in 2014. 

 

Twilight language is the key to decrypting the Revelation of the Method (ROTM).  ROTM is allegedly used by the "cryptocracy" (deep state) to plant clues in staged events that the public consciously or unconsciously picks up on.  The goal is to make the public know that the cryptocracy knows the public knows about their shenanigans.  The public will thus be made to feel impotent and demoralized; despite knowing mass-shootings, etc. are being staged, and that so much of what occurs are "false flag operations," they can't do anything about, the masses will feel powerless and resigned to being controlled.  

As Skilluminati puts it, they "rub our noses in it."  It's a bit convoluted.

As L.C. states in his response to my queries, he is not promoting conspiracy theory.  But why use a name of a methodology that is a inseparable from a conspiracy theory many of his readers are aware of?  Especially as it's the exact methodology L.C. uses

L.C. credits Hoffman for inventing the term, also noting the latter's Holocaust denial.  (Hoffman doesn't actually deny the Holocaust; he's explicitly said otherwise, but more on that later).  Hoffman, in addition to his own twilight language work, is known for his antisemitic writings.  Which may be why L.C. seems reluctant to amplify the origin of his blog's name.  But again, many of his readers know it.

 

One of the foundational texts of synchromysticism

 

In 2021, L.C. was taken to task by Hayley Stevens and Blake Smith for citing the work of Fortean writer Jim Brandon, aka William Grimstad, without mentioning that Grimstad is also a Neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier.  As Brandon, he's written two influential books about Fortean phenomena.  As Grimstad, he writes books against Zionism, Jews and the veracity of the Holocaust.  

 

Grimstad and Hoffman.  Po-tay-toe / Po-tah-toe?  Probably.  Like many things, there are degrees.  In the end, a bigot is still a bigot, but it would simply be inaccurate to paint the two men in exactly the same light.

There's another weird tale to tell about Grimstad.  In the early 70's, Grimstad was the managing editor of White Power, a publication of the American Nazi Party (now called the National Socialist White People's Party).  In 1978, about the time he was writing his Fortean books as Jim Brandon, he received $20,000 after he published his book Antizion.  He says a check just came in the mail, unsolicited.  At first he thought it was from the Saudi government, but later came to think it was actually sent by the ADL as a way to discredit the Saudis.  Grimstad had registered as an agent of the Saudi government, but the Saudis denied this was true, and apparently his "registration statement was vague and lacked copies of a contract or letter from the Saudis requesting Grimstad's services." (NYT)  He later retracted his declaration.  Very odd stuff.

Hoffman isn't a Nazi.  He is a Traditionalist Catholic, that is to say, a Catholic who rejects the liberalizing doctrines which came out of The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).  One of the more controversial results of "Vatican II" was the document Nostra aetate, in which the Church officially stopped blaming the Jews for Jesus's Crucifixion, placing blame squarely on the shoulders of Rome.  The pre-Vatican II doctrine has been blamed for centuries of antisemitism, and, judging from the angry reactions to the new doctrine, that seems to be very much true.

Hoffman, like Grimstad, has his own "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" relationship with Muslims.  He was a speaker at the Nation of Islam's "Saviours' Day" [sic] celebration in February, 2019.  Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan has long been criticized for antisemitic statements, and it is on the topic of the Talmud that Hoffman was invited to speak.  A strange sight.  A middle-aged, white, Traditionalist Catholic who lives in Idaho, addressing the Nation of Islam about how he and the Nation are the "best friends" of the Jewish people.  Strange times.  If you're interested, here's Hoffman's speech, along with a subsequent panel discussion: 

 

     

 

But I digress.  As a result of the criticism regarding Grimstad, L.C. wrote a riposte and denied being sympathetic to Grimstad's views.  I believe him.  I also don't see a problem with citing Grimstad and not mentioning his antisemitism every time.  L.C. is clearly not an antisemite.  I have no idea about his political beliefs, but my sense is that they don't skew towards either the radical or the right wing.  

I really want to emphasize that I don't think L.C. is "wrong" for being interested in the Fortean work of Grimstad and Hoffman.  One can admire the poetry of, say, Ezra Pound, and Marinetti, and not be a fascist sympathizer.  Just as one can admire the work of the Surrealists and not be a Marxist.

I myself really want to read Brandon's Fortean books.  I have wanted to do so since long before I learned the man was also a Nazi named Grimstad.  Learning this didn't change my mind.  I don't see a problem with that, especially because the books are out of print, and buying them wouldn't put money in his wallet.  They are also some of the founding texts of synchromysticism.  As a person with an interest in history, I may one day read Mein Kampf.  Or not.  As a person with an interest in the far right, I skimmed through The Turner Diaries.

  

When you study fringe politics, conspiracy theory, and fascism, "neo" or otherwise, you have to read the primary sources.  Was L.C. wrong to refer to Jim Brandon without adding a caveat each time that Brandon, as Grimstad, wrote some pretty vile stuff?  I would say no.  I searched L.C.'s blog for "Grimstad," "Brandon" and "Hoffman."  He has regularly called them out for their antisemitism.  I don't think his critics are being fair to L.C.

In his rebuttal to Hayley, L.C. credits Grimstad for his Fortean contributions while categorically repudiating the latter's antisemitism.  What he doesn't mention in his rebuttal is that there's a similar issue going on with Michael Hoffman, even though he has identified Hoffman in other posts as a Holocaust denier and uses his terminology for the name of his blog.

What really puzzled me about his response to his critics is its denouement.  In the end, L.C. lays claim to an idea that Grimstad articulated in 1978, yet says because he built upon it, and Grimstad never returned to it, he (L.C.) was claiming "ownership" of the idea for himself. Grimstad's email reply is mocking, smug, and well, in essence correct.

To quote L.C.:

Forteans first became aware of William Grimstad after his appearance in the Spring 1978 issue of Fortean Times magazine. Grimstad wrote an essay on his findings, entitled “Fateful Fayette,” in that issue.  

As one commentary said years later, "Since then, the subject has been expanded upon and expounded upon by many other researchers, most notably by author L.C. C. suggested that Lafayette visited certain places in America for symbolic and spooky reasons."

L.C. concludes:

So let me try this. Henceforth, since I have built, researched, banked, and booked almost 40 years of effort and thought into the "Fayette Factor" and the "Name Game" via my "Twilight Language" writings, I will take on the full ownership of this "Fayette" concept. It is not a secret, it is not an idea hidden, but it is mine. "Jim Brandon" and "Bill Grimstad" gave it up by being Holocaust denier(s) and not coming forth with apologies, new editions, or reprints of The Rebirth of Pan.

This is L.C. in 2021 taking ownership of Brandon's ideas, first expressed in 1978.  Because Brandon never re-printed The Rebirth of Pan, a book in which the "Fayette" ideas weren't even originally expressed?  Because Brandon is a Holocaust denier?  Holocaust denial is vile shit, but what does it have to do with not re-printing a book totally unrelated to it?  L.C.:  "It is mine."  Hey, what?  I don't get it.  If the idea is not Grimstad/Brandon's, it doesn't "belong" to anybody, or perhaps it's more accurate to say it belongs to everybody.

Hoffman may be a bigot, but his posts evidence extensive research, developed thoughts, and ideas; some of these ideas are objectionable, but they're eloquently expressed. L.C.'s blog posts present factoids, sometimes without elaboration, and stop at the moment one is expecting some kind of conclusion or analysis.

 

Absent any analysis or conclusion, conspiracy theories bloom.  One only needs to read the comments to see the flowering.  Without an "ergo," we get all manner of loopy conclusions.

And I'm just another yahoo with an opinion. 

I've pondered posting this for a while and haven't done it, because I don't want to belittle L.C.; that is not my intent here.  I respect him.  This post is really more about synchromystic thinking as a whole rather than one man and his blog.

Because conspiratorial thinking has become mainstreamed during recent years, and watching the spectacle of elected officials promoting QAnon as if it were something real, of seeing the fruit of that mindset in the form of a mob storming the US Capitol, and listening to people deciding to use bleach, horse pills, and light bulbs to treat a disease for which we have vaccines....To see a guy in Buffalo kill ten people because of a conspiracy theory pushed by a mainstream media figure, Tucker Carlson, I feel a greater urge to try to say my piece against conspiracy theories with shaky foundations. 

 

It boils down to this.  I've come to believe the synchromystic approach has become a facile dead-end that may be unhealthy.  Unhealthy when it becomes consensus reality among large segments of the agora; it's not twilight language itself, but the conspiracy theory of which it's part and parcel.  

I know it's not L.C.'s intent, but when you read the comments on his posts, there's lots of talk of psy-ops, false flags, and crisis actors.  I may just be over-reacting emotionally to recent mass-shootings.  Maybe I'm just a PMRC schoolmarm wagging a finger at Dungeons & Dragons and Mötley Crüe.  But crying "false flag" when a terrorist shoots up a school is not helpful.

"Crisis actors" are a staple trope for people who believe that mass-shootings are elaborate deep-state (cryptocracy) psy-ops (Revelation of the Method), and not carried out by lone, troubled people.  How can we resolve the problem when people think complicated conspiracies explain the actions of mentally-ill people who have bought into the very same conspiracy theories?  And the false-flag concept is not limited to the fringes.  It has become dangerously close the the center of the mainstream.  

 

We're all living in a fiction without an author, a fiction for which some people are ready to kill.

 

A man shot up a pizzeria in D.C. because he believed there were sex slaves in its basement.  But there were no sex slaves.  There wasn't even a basement.  How many have since been murdered by right-wing "warriors" trying to save the white race from being replaced by deep-state "elites?"

I need to reemphasize that my "critique" here is not really about L.C., but synchromysticism.  

And again, the unease I have with his blog arises from the comments by the readers.  That said, these comments are there because of the empty spaces L.C. leaves around the skeletal presentation of coincidences in the posts, coincidences which are not remarkable at all.  L.C. makes little attempt after these comments to disabuse his readers of their wildest conclusions.

 

Mass-shooting minutiae are not twilight language; they aren't the Revelation of Method, but the revelation of chaos.  Of an inadequate public mental-healthcare system.  Of a gun culture so out of proportion that disturbed individuals can walk into a shop and buy firearms more easily than they can buy a six-pack. The revelation of an unhealthy, materialistic culture obsessed with celebrity.  The revelation of a culture whose films and video games celebrate violence and shooting as many people as a way to resolve problems.  The revelation of a nation built on slavery and genocide.  The revelation of a nation at war for almost my entire life.  

Mass-shootings are not psychodramas staged by a cryptocracy.

Twilight language is the foundation of the Revelation of the Method, and legitimizing one legitimizes the other.  If you call your blog Twilight Language, you endorse the Revelation of the Method.  

Robert Anton Wilson used methods similar to twilight language.  But it took him at least three dense books (the Cosmic Trigger trilogy) of analytical, ironic, and multidisciplinary essays to wrestle with it.  Objective, subjective, mystic, scientific.  He doesn't dismiss mysticism or synchronicity, but he doesn't just write stuff down without questioning the degree to which his mind may be creating the coincidences he perceives.

Ordo Ab Chao.  Order from Chaos.  Synchromysticism puts a hand on the tiller, and having a pilot, even a nefarious one, is better than a rudderless ship.  Because if there is a rudder, a new hand, a "good" hand, can take hold of it.  Meaning is a reassuring lifeboat to jump into when the terrifying irrationality of the oceanic depths comes to the surface.  

The accumulation of coincidence into "meaningful" patterns is often the compulsive process of the paranoid mind.  Or the artist.  Dalí:  "The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad."  

 

Twilight language can be a brilliant starting point.  Without the work, or the art, it doesn't go anywhere.  Twilight language and The Revelation of the Method are not the exegesis of political and sociological issues, not "conclusions," but brainstorming techniques, spitballing, word play.  And once the games are over, the real work can begin.

 

It occurs to me I may be totally wrong.  A cloud of information could lead to a lightning strike:  "Eureka!"

I'm open to the possibility that twilight language is a useful way of putting it all out there and seeing what comes of it.  I'm also aware that shootings inspired by conspiracy theories, QAnon, anti-vaxxers, and rampant political know-nothingness may have soured me on what is ultimately a harmless endeavor.  But I can't shake the feeling that this it's somehow, well, not exactly harmful, but not exactly harmless, either.    

 

In the absence of some hard-hitting conclusion, I'll just end it here and let the chips fall where they may....It occurs to me I should just lighten up.  But turning to the news and seeing yet another mass-shooting, it's hard to simply ignore what people are saying it about it. 

 

One thing I'm sure of is that a solution doesn't lie with ruminating on the name of Heath Ledger's dog....

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Please see my tentative bibliography of titles directly-related to Synchromysticism or titles I find useful for understanding Twilight Language.

I linked to it in my post, but Skilluminati's take on the Revelation of the Method is an excellent analysis:

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.

I'd forgotten about it, but in a coda to that second post I discussed L.C., Hoffman, and Grimstad quite a bit.  I don't have it in for L.C., I just have occasion to read his posts frequently as they pop up in my search results, and it's a logical point of entry to discuss the lineage of synchromysticism and it's Fortean roots.

Somewhere in this prolix mess there's a decent post....

Tentative bibliography of synchromystic and related titles....

This is a woefully incomplete list of titles I've read (except for one), that have informed my vision of what may be called "synchromysticism".  Only one book actually uses the term and deals with the genre directly, but all of them I think are useful "primary sources".  That said, they probably aren't the best choices to start with if you want to know what self-identified synchromystics have read and written; the list may be of most use to those who have already read some of those books and are looking for precursors or related works that may not have occurred to them to read.  Please feel free to add titles you've read in the comments section, bearing in mind I make no pretense of this list being either comprehensive or the most pertinent selection.  You can find many blogs and websites which identify themselves or are generally regarded as having a synchromystic approach to history and current events.  Like I said, this is only a list of books I've read; there are certainly other books out there that may be obvious but I can't vouch for them.  Dates refer to the first publication, not necessarily the edition I read, nor the date the book was actually written.

Plastic Tub, a Wiki project I contributed to predates my knowledge of synchromysticism but shares a lot of features with it.

• Brandon, Jim.  Weird America.  1978.  (The only book on this list I haven't read, but I recommend it on the basis of its connection to Downard, Hoffman and Coleman and its status as a precursor and a "classic" of the genre).
• Breton, Andre.  Surrealist Manifesto.  1924.
• Breton, Andre.  Nadja.  1928. 
• Burroughs, William S.  The Adding Machine.  1985.
• Coverly, Merlin.  Psychogeography.  2010.
• Debord, Guy.  Theory of the Dérive.  First published in French in 1956.  In English?
• de Sède, Gerard.  The Accursed Treasure of Rennes le Chateau.  First published in French in 1958.  In English, 2001.
• Downard, James Shelby and Hoffman, Michael.  King-Kill 33.  Published by Adam Parfrey in Apocalypse Culture in 1988, but Hoffman prefaces his online version by saying the book had been out of print since 1987.  He sells a longer version on his website.  Loren Coleman says the text circulated "for years" prior to being published by Parfrey and was written "sometime before 1978."
• Downard. "The Call to Chaos".  Apocalypse Culture, 2nd ed.  1990.
• Downard. "America, The Possessed Corpse".  Apocalypse Culture II.  2000.
• Downard.  Carnivals of Life and Death. (The only book-length work by the generally-acknowledged Godfather of the genre).  2006.    
• Eco, Umberto.  Foucault's Pendulum.  First published in Italian in 1988.  In English, 1989.
• Fort, Charles.  The Book of the Damned.  1919.
• Gorightly, Adam.  James Shelby Downard's Mystical War.  2008
• Guffey, Robert.  Cryptoscatology: Conspiracy Theory as Art Form.  2012.
• Hoffman, Michael.  Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare.  2001.
• The Holy Bible.
• Jung, Carl.  Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle.  1960.
• Mackey, Albert G.  An Encyclopedia of Freemasonry.  1873.
• Malaclypse the Younger.  Principia Discordia.  1965.
• Parfrey, Adam, Riding the Downardian Nightmare.  Cult Rapture. 
• Pynchon, Thomas.  Gravity's Rainbow.  1973.
• Spence, Richard.  "Searching for James Shelby Downard".  2012.
• Waite, Arthur E.  A New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry.  1921.  
• Wilson, Robert Anton and Shea, Robert.  Illuminatus! trilogy.
• Wilson, Robert Anton.  Cosmic Trigger, vols. I, II and III.  1977; 1991; 1995.

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.