Sometimes it's just a cigar (or something else)

Maybe it was the day we realized the Météo France logo was a kind of pyramid encircling the globe, or the day the pyramid on the neighboring DSNA building revealed itself to us. It's hard to remember exactly. But, here, waiting for an appointment on the Météo France campus, we spotted another little rascal tucked away under a shelter designed to protect exiled smokers from the elements.

It can be read as an obelisk, but because of its height (about one meter), it is the pyramid which is most obvious; it is further emphasized by the pattern of triangles at the bottom (a lucky seven of them) and of course one at the top to evoke the eye of illuminating knowledge and reason.

In such a mundane functional object it's almost easy to overlook the pyramid entirely. It becomes a subliminal trigger to remind us of the larger pattern of geometric forms, especially triangles and pyramids, which make up an important part of the symbolism of the French scientific establishment.

Of course, we could just dismiss this as a fancy ashtray. It is that. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar....

France as Hexagon

We have already seen how Napoleon's regime reorganized France according to Enlightenment principles in order to impose a more rational order upon nature. We have interpreted this as a great chessboard and have linked it to the destruction of traditional regions in order to facilitate trade and commerce through homogenization. It linked imperial, cultural and revolutionary ideals with science and measurement.

Being more or less agnostic in all our ventures, we began to doubt ourselves.

Then we came across this map on the Strange Maps blog, provided by Valéry Didelon.


"Squaring the circle is a proverbial way of describing something impossible. Jacques-Guillaume Thouret set himself an even more daunting task: squaring the hexagône – in French, that word is shorthand for describing the roughly six-sided shape of France."

"Thouret (1746-1794) was born into a bourgeois family in the French département of Calvados. Back then, in the Ancien Régime, there was no such territorial unit. The area was still part of the old province of Normandy. It was Thouret himself who instigated the change from provinces to the new system, still en vogue today."

"The French Revolution also entailed a revolution of measurements. The revolutionaries were obsessed with standardising, and replaced traditional, often regionally variable measurements with a universal metric system. Sometimes the changes proved to be a bridge too far: the revolutionary calendar was abolished after only a few years; and Thouret’s square départements – reminiscent of the rectangular methods of the Land Ordinance Survey [LoS!] in the US (see post #120) ... – never made it off the drawing board."


Now dig the official French explanation of the Hexagon.

"Centralisation is a feature of the organisation and management of France that goes back to the monarchy."

"Even the French Revolution did not dismantle this structure. Indeed it accentuated it."

"In the name of equality, provincial features were repressed, including regional languages."

"In 1792, the provinces were replaced by départements....This egalitarian treatment has been maintained, even after regions were created much later, and French people feel at least as much attachment to their département as to their province and its traditions."

"This concept of equality is combined with a strictly hierarchical management of the whole country. Each level has specific responsibilities within a hierarchy."

According the Wikipedia

"Like squares and equilateral triangles, regular hexagons fit together without any gaps to tile the plane (three hexagons meeting at every vertex), and so are useful for constructing tessellations. The cells of a beehive honeycomb are hexagonal for this reason and because the shape makes efficient use of space and building materials."

So as Thouret tessellated France, France itself becomes one more tile in the larger mosaic, towards and ever-expanding macrocosm. Think Risk, Imperialism and the acquisition of land. Think of Europe; the currency's in place, but the old regions will die hard.

France has a vision of itself and its place in the world at large aligned with Napoleon's imperial ambitions. This is inherent in it's omnipresent symbolism. It would seem, though, that absent any significant military and philosophical dominance, it would garner this influence via Science, Technology and Commerce. It allies itself mystically with geometry and mythically with its founding dynasty. The hexagon is the central unit of the bee's hive, and the bee was the symbol of the Merovingians. Napoleon had himself painted wearing ermine adorned with golden bees.

Napoleon.org has this to say:

"Symbol of immortality and resurrection, the bee was chosen so as to link the new dynasty to the very origins of France."

Another article asserts:

"Napoleon was initiated, passed and raised into an Army Philadelphe Lodge of the Ecossais Primitive Rite of Narbonne between 1795 and 1798. Considering Napoleon’s interest in things Egyptian, his reason for adoption of the bee symbol can only be a subject of supposition."

The article goes on to insist that his use of the bee had no link with Freemasonry, which uses the beehive as a symbol of discipline, order and industry.

We would posit that there is a link, but that this not be read as wild-eyed conspiracy theory. Our recent posts, however, can elucidate this better than yet another repetition.

The Battle of the Pyramids

Cold, dark tomb

Now this here pyramid can be found on the Place de L'Europe as a monument to specific battalions of war dead from WWI and WWII as well as Indonchine aka Viet-Nam. In our survey of pyramids in the Toulouse metropolitan area it is the first which serves an explicit funerary purpose.

The Place de L'Europe, like the Place Capitole at the literal heart of the city, is decorated with a large Occitan cross.

Now, we've always felt that whatever it was Jesus was teaching and whatever it was the early Christians thought he was on about, by the time Constantine gave a nod towards recognizing it some three plus centuries later Christianity had acquired a lot of the trappings of a mystery religion, or as some might have it, a death cult. Thus it's fitting that the pyramid and the cross should be so combined.

The Occitan cross in this plaza links Europe to Toulouse; one could argue that's the point. Local and continental become as one; this very Toulousain and regional symbol becomes associated with Europe as a whole. Wherever you go, there you are. It decorates the center of Toulouse and again in a place named after Europe. Symbolically Toulouse asserts a European prominence.

The Occitan cross is steeped in legend and of uncertain origin. Some assert that it's patterned on Celtic solar symbols; others that its twelve points represent the zodiac. Indeed, in the Occitan cross on Place Capitole, each point is decorated with an astrological sun sign. Others assert that it came back from the east with returning crusaders. (See La Croix Occitane by Raymond Ginouillac).

Napoleon and Egypt

Place de L'Europe is part of a larger complex of parks and office space, a school and a conference center called Compans-Caffarelli.

The first part of this name comes from Count Jean Dominique Compans. Compans joined the army as a volunteer upon the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789. He served as a General in the Napoleonic Wars and and rejoined Napoleon upon his return from exile during the perid known as the Hundred Days. He died in 1845 in Blagnac.

The Caffarelli comes from yet another noble family--Caffarelli du Falga. Three Caffarelli brother were Generals.

Youngest brother Marie-François Auguste (1766-1849), was loyal to Naopleon and among his service in Marengo and Austerlitz served with him in the Egyptian campaign. He became aide de camp to Napoleon in 1800, after having served the same function for General Dagobert de Fontenille starting in 1791. Dagobert was himself an early supporter of the Revolution, "rallying to the cause" alongside Louis-Philippe d'Orléans, a fellow noble and Gand Master of the Grand Orient of France.

Joseph (1760-1845) began his career as a naval officer but became an officer in the Army after the Revolution began. He too remained loyal to Napoleon during the Hundred Days.

Oldest brother Louis-Marie-Joseph-Maximilian (1756-1799) also accompanied Napoleon into Egypt (on a wooden leg, no less!) and later died from gangrene as a result of a bullet wound sustained during the assault on Acre. When he died Napoleon wrote:

"Our universal regrets accompany General Caffarelli to the grave; the army is losing one of its bravest leaders. Egypt one of its legislators, France one of its best citizens, and science, an illustrious scholar."

The Egyptian campaign, as we have mentioned in previous posts, helped set off a fashion in France for "oriental" and Egyptianate architecture which is probably why even after so much time the war memorial to the Caffarelli brigades is in the form of a pyramid.

What is also interesting about the Egyptian campaign is that it bore a veneer of scientific inquiry. There were apparently a large number of scientists attached to the invading armies. Some have interpreted this as a ploy to hide the real motives of the expedition, namely the extension of empire and the acquisition of land. But it is also true that Napoleon saw himself as a liberator and in service of the Enlightenment, a sort of light-bringer. In our ongoing thesis, this dedication to "illumination" through rational scientific inquiry is intertwined with revolutionary principles regarding government, especially as it relates to the repartition of territory. Indeed, Napoleon issued proclamations which portrayed him as a liberator from ancient tyrants the Mamluks. Fascination with geometry and measurement abounded.

Interesting for our discussion is that the beginning of the end for the Mamluks was at a battle Napoleon himself called "The Battle of the Pyramids" where his reputation for tactical brilliance was enhanced by his innovative use of massive infantry squares: moving tessellations for the literal control of space.

Naopoleon spurred his troops on with the cry: "Forward! Remember that from those monuments yonder forty centuries look down upon you."

History tells us the pyramids were barely visible in the horizon.

Boxing the Compass

The Pyramids, like great wily jackals hungry for time, just won't give up.

There's no need to go on repeating our take on their significance. Peruse any of our posts tagged "pyramids" and see what we're on about.

Light of Reason

In the picture on the right we have placed a pin upon the Météo France inverted pyramid fountain. Head northeast and you'll see a traffic circle decorated as a compass rose aligned perfectly north. Head in a northwesterly direction and you'll see a ray-shaped sidewalk whose point terminates in a green oval. We are finding that this "keyhole" or "eye atop the pyramid" design is itself becoming a common decorative motif wherever our pyramids are to be found.

What is interesting here is that the base of the triangle/ray you have the principal facade and entrance to the DSNA-DTI (Direction des Services de la Navigation Aérienne-Direction de la Technique et de l'Innovation), the French agency responsible for services relating to air traffic control, navigation, communication and monitoring. This includes training, software development, etc. The DTI is a cutting-edge research division.

For some reason they decided to pop a pyramid atop the entrance of this otherwise unadorned facade. From a side difficult to photograph, visible as it is only from a busy road, one can see it is a kind of three-sided pyramid. We find it weird that on their website, in their own photo of the facade taken from within the grounds, a tree obscures the pyramid. It's a bad angle.

And speaking of Météo France, we'd be remiss not to mention their logo, which, though not exactly a pyramid, is a triangle circling or set somewhere above the globe set against a square divided into light and dark halves. Perhaps an echo of the doctrine of opposites and the reconciliation thereof?

What is the red arrow point at? Where is it going? Squaring the circle or boxing the compass, the measurement's the thing.

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.