The Secret Sun

Alien Dreaming and the Widening Gyre: Sidebar

2009-11-28T00:01:00.002-05:00

Hilariously NSFW

I have a lot of LA and SoCal readers- I wonder how many of them are in the film industry. And I wonder if one of them is Clerks director Kevin Smith. I did happen to notice that he titled his Batman series The Widening Gyre, quite coincidentally considering the connections I was drawing in the Alien Dreaming and the Widening Gyre series between UFOs (which I know he's interested in), The X-Files (which he's a major fan of) and hallucinogenic drugs (which he's a major user of).

This series began in March and Smith announced his series in May (and it was first published in August). It could be a coincidence*- a synchronicity, rather. I've not read the Batman series, so I don't know if there's any more Secret Sun-type material in it. Maybe I should check it out. Additional sync: the cover there is by the great Bill Sienkiewicz, whom I know from the old Kubert School days. Bill redefined the psychedelic approach to mainstream comics in the 80s. His collaboration with Frank Miller- Elektra:Assassin - is highly recommended.

A n interview with Smith appeared on Harry Knowles' site last week where he talks about his disappointment with Zack & Miri Make a Porno, and his subsequent collapse into Mary Jane's warm, tingly embrace to soothe his wounded ego - and kick-start his creativity:

I started smoking weed like f**kin’ crazy after ZACK AND MIRI collapsed, and that really, kind of like, became a great filter. It didn’t filter out life; it just filtered out bullsh*t. It kind of opened up the third eye. I didn’t have that period in high school. I skipped it, I didn’t get stoned in high school, or I didn’t really have a college experience and sh*t like that. I was off making movies and whatnot.

"Opened the third eye"- interesting. Smith again:

But, honestly, I found I’ve been more…I mean, this is not news to anybody, I’m not telling you anything new…I’m far more creative now, you know. I’ve been writing this “Batman: The Widening Gyre” miniseries, and I’m stoned all the time when I’m writing it. And, I swear, I’ll write it, and then, it’s not so much blackout, but forget, so much so that the next morning, I go to read what I wrote, and it’s, like, I’m that f**kin’ little cobbler and elves came and f**kin' wrote it in the night, because I’m, like, "This is better than anything I’ve ever written before." I mean, like, I’ve done comics, but this is way better.

Hmm, elves or leprechauns? Again, I can't speak for the comic but I must say his podcast has gotten a lot funnier. I wonder if it will open his first and second eyes as well; his visual style has always been his primary weakness as a director. I just hope Smith's whip-cracking wife will keep him from going too overboard. There is such a thing as a weed casualty...

*I myself lifted the "widening gyre" line from Robert B. Parker, who lifted it from Yeats' The Second Coming. Bonus factoid: that poem is a pivotal plot point in the first episode of Millennium.

TVOD: V is for 'Vitamin Regimen'

2009-11-26T13:51:00.008-05:00

The latest episode of V did little to discourage my suspicion that the series is an allegory on Scientology.* The "vitamin shots" that the V were offering as well as the E-meter type diagnostic apparatus used to lure the "poor man's Tom Cruise" into their clutches are fascinating clues here. The paranoia and punishment of dissenters ties into the recent news stories on Tom Cruise's alleged violent threats against disobedient "managers" and the "Fifth Column" is eerily similar to Anonymous. The attempts to divide kids against their families (witness the storyline with Tyler and Lisa) is typical of most cults, and I can attest that Scientologist recruiters used that tactic on my friends and I when we wandered unknowingly into a "personality test" way back in 1983.

There is definitely a coordinated effort being waged worldwide against Scientology that includes governments, the media and private interests. Who the combatants are and what the battle is all about is unclear, but it's not just about some ditzy Hollywood cult. There are big players behind both sides, using the visible antagonists as surrogates. Of that I'm sure.

This is not my battle and I'm content to watch it all from the sidelines. But let me just say this- grassroots cults don't become widespread and powerful in a relatively-short periods of time. There are always players pulling strings behind the scenes, who know that belief is the most powerful weapon in the world.

* The first posting of this article was overly unambiguous, and contrary to this blog's own stated mandate of 'questions, not answers'. That happens sometimes- which is why I usually wait to post major articles. The thrust of the piece is the same, but the goal is to instigate discussion not end it. I'm always interested in hearing differing opinions.

Discovery, Document and Disclosure (UPDATED)

2009-11-26T00:01:00.008-05:00

Well, in light of recent discoveries how could we observe American Thanksgiving with anything but this clip from The People, giving us an alternate take on the origin of the holiday?

Or some faked UFO footage over a Thanksgiving Day parade, for that matter? Over the years of photography and film and now digital technology, the same rule applies to UFO footage- if it looks too good to be true it probably isn't. Prolonged detail and exposure is usually a good sign it's a fake. Why? Because it's very difficult to photograph fast-moving, distant objects with any degree of clarity.

Case in point- one day a couple years back I had come home from picking up the kids from school and as we got of the car three enormous red tailed hawks flew out of nowhere. They were literally ten feet above our heads. I'd never seen anything like it. I ran into the house, grabbed the camera, turned it on, took off the lens cap, ran outside again but the hawks were no longer circling in the yard- they'd flown off down the street. I tried to focus but the camera kept resetting (autofocus is your mortal enemy when photographing anything flying in the sky) and by the time I got a picture it was of three tiny dots, which looked considerably smaller onscreen than they had in real life.

OK, now that's of three birds. Multiply all of that times 10,000, when dealing with silver disks flying hundreds, if not thousands of feet over head, often traveling at thousands of miles an hour. It's a miracle anyone gets any photos of them at all. And yet, sites like Filer's Files put up UFO pics on a weekly basis from anonymous sources that are usually blurry and indistinct and most often at a goodly distance, but clearly not ordinary aircraft.

Don't forget that tomorrow is rumored to be Disclosure Day. I'll be addressing the "disclosure" issue in the near future. The preview snippet is this- there is no advantage to any government to disclose anything tangible about UFOs. Most of what we've seen in other countries is the release of various witness reports, often accompanied by dismissive, even mocking language. I'll explain why I don't believe in "disclosure" in greater detail in the post, but I very much doubt that any president would risk disrupting the most important shopping day of the year, especially in this economy.

We continue to see strange objects flying around up there, and there's no shortage of strangeness and chicanery when it comes to the ET issue. I'm just extremely skeptical that the government- especially the US gov't- would want to ever tell us the truth about it.

Bonus link: Buzz Aldrin writes a HuffPost column with the provocative title "In Search of a Real Spaceship."

UPDATE: Isn't this timely- Astronauts aboard the Atlantis are served Thanksgiving turkey dinner:

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Space shuttle Atlantis' astronauts thought they were going to give thanks with pantry leftovers Thursday as their mission drew to a close, but found turkey dinners awaiting them.

OWL UPDATE: My wife had an interesting encounter on the way home from picking up Thanksgiving dinner fixings last night- a young white owl flew out of nowhere, landed on the street and stopped traffic. Shame she didn't get a picture of it...

UPDATE: Wow, the news keeps getting spacier...

The space shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station are separately flying around the Earth until Friday, and they can be seen as a pair of bright lights in the sky at certain times over the next few days.

Weather permitting, the orbiting objects should be visible to the naked eye throughout the United States and Canada, according to SpaceWeather.com.

CERN- NOT a mere science project (UPDATES)

2009-11-25T11:52:00.001-05:00

The 17-mile Large Hadron Collider at CERN is back online. There are all sorts of theories about the project, never mind the incongruous statue of Kali* at its front door (so much for scientific atheism). It's very telling that it's located on a border as well- very powerful symbolism there.

I'm not exactly sure what they're up to there but the sheer scale of the project tells me that this is not merely a science project - this is a device- meant to achieve a tangible and non-theoretical goal. There is something meant to be accomplished here, something powerful and compelling enough to justify the expense- and the risk- of this project. This is the kind of money you see spent on spaceships and weapons- not theoretical niceties about subatomic particles and the Big Bang.

Science Xtra: (CNN) -- New HIV infections have fallen worldwide by 17 percent over the past eight years, a testament to prevention efforts, according to a U.N. report released Tuesday.

Science Xtra II: Andre at Alien Project links us to a very interesting article on CERN by Linda Moulton Howe.

Semi-Science Xtra: David Downey reports that the Iraqi National Museum is building a website. 15,000 pieces were stolen during the invasion and only 6,000 have been returned. Which ones are missing, hmm? I can't help but feel a connection to the main story here.

Science Xtra III: Grey points us to this fascinating link: “Something May Come Through” Large Hadron Collider “Portal”

“We’re hoping to see supersymmetry and extra dimensions,” said Bertolucci, who also postulates that, though the discovery would be ground-breaking, the event he warns of would be rather small, if noticeable. “Of course, after this tiny moment the door would again shut, bringing us back to our ‘normal’ four dimensional world … It would be a major leap in our vision of Nature, although of no practical use (for the time being, at least). And of course, no risk to the stability of our world.”

That's kind of what I'm guessing this is all about.

Science Xtra IV: Sr.Psicoplasma links us here: "A Black Hole Engine That Could Power Spaceships."

Science Xtra V: StrangeEye reiterates- "the Hindu god SHIVA as a deific religio-obfuscated representation of the chemical knowledge of HYDROGEN. Such as the 1008 names of SHIVA = Atomic Mass of HYDROGEN (1.008)"

17 President Xtra: "President Obama will vow to cut US carbon emissions by 17% by 2020, when he attends the climate summit in Copenhagen." - BBC

*Er, I meant Shiva- massive Freudian slip there.

Justice Pantheon of America

2009-11-24T10:00:00.002-05:00

Man, these animated DC films are coming fast and furious. And here were get some tasty interdimensional memes along with the ever-popular alternate-reality hero versions, something that Batman Beyond and Justice League have done better than the comics themselves. There's something much deeper at work here- certainly what will be an irreversible migration of superheroes from page to screen, the alternate reality meme as a metaphor for pop culture itself and the end of the solo superhero story. The superhero team- or pantheon, more accurately- has replaced the heroic myth of the outsider. The Green Lantern and Wonder Woman films were both pantheon-based as well, with the titular characters as firsts-among-equals. Cultural polytheism in real time.

I used to gravitate towards loner characters myself, even if very few of them operated totally alone. Conan had Bêlit and Red Sonja and assorted knaves by his side, Batman has his Bat-entourage, even Kamandi had his freakish sidekicks- a talking dog, a metal-skinned mutant, a gender-bent energy-being in human form. And I never liked Captain America as much without the Falcon as with.

There's no true solo comic book hero now- they're all tightly wound into an arcane pantheon of demigods who parade in and out of each other's titles regardless of whose name is on the cover. And now that process is leaving the esoteric brotherhood of lifelong initiates (some call them "fanboys") and spreading into the culture at large. The rise of the superhero team parallels the rise of organized fandom- the Legion of Super Heroes was simply a mirror held up to fandom, and it was the Justice League of America that kicked off the superhero boom of the early 60s.

At the same time it was bands like the Beach Boys and the Beatles that revived rock and roll, which had been predominantly focused on solo singers in the 50s. The power of the pantheon continues to this day- acts like Nine Inch Nails, the Cure, Daughtry and Smashing Pumpkins are bands in name only- they are the provenance of their leaders. But rock still eschews the monotheistic memes prevalent in pop and R&B and country in favor of the pantheon ideal.

SYNC LOG: Whitley Strieber has a front page article up on multiverses too.

Picture Parade: The Astral Annointing of Taylor Swift

2009-11-23T12:32:00.022-05:00

Taylor Swift and Michael Jackson were the big winners at tonight’s American Music Awards ceremony, with the former picking up five awards, including Artist of the Year, Favorite Female Artist in the pop/rock and country categories, and Favorite Adult-Contemporary Artist (the teen accepted her awards live via satellite from London) - Wall St. Journal

Endless Twilight in a Sleepwalking Nation

2009-11-23T00:33:00.007-05:00

Could the Twilight craze spark a Mormon "Great Awakening" in America?
Stay tuned...

ITEM: Twilight: New Moon sucks the box office dry with a record setting opening:

LOS ANGELES - The vampire romance "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" sucked up $140.7 million in its first three days and pulled in a total of $258.8 million worldwide, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Be prepared for a deluge of articles on the Mormon subtext of Twilight. One blogger hit the nail on the head, in my view:

What I find most interesting about the concept of eternal marriage in the Twilight series is that Meyers seems to have created this allegory for Mormon marriage unintentionally. Her assumptions about marriage and the after-life are likely so unconscious that this theology surfaces in her books clearly but nonchalantly. It doesn't make the book a Mormon novel any more than a Protestant writer pens Protestant books. All writers -- even the authors of the Gospels -- are informed by their contextual circumstances, so why should Meyers be any different.

ITEM: Which leads back to our discussion on Mormons and sci-fi. I've been thinking about it quite a bit the past few days, though my thoughts haven't really gelled yet on the topic. But it's uncanny how it seems to dovetail with the idea of all of these sci-fi memes as aspirational rather than devotional modes of religion. If the evolutionary psychologists are right and religion is simply a way to ensure procreation and attentive child-rearing, seeing families making their collective pilgrimages to cons (read: shrines) certainly speaks to popculture as a post-modern, polytheistic secular religion.

Cons like NYCC have children's days on Sunday, where kids under 12 get in free. And of course Twilight has brought armies of young girls into cons, infuriating the older male fans. Almost as if armies of Christian families had descended on formerly Gnostic or Neoplatonic shrines in the Roman era. It's fascinating how many of those aging male fans are objectivists or militant atheists and/or skeptics, and how many of them are unmarried and childless.

If demography is indeed destiny, then the Fanboy as we've known him may be entering his own twilight.

ITEM: The missus and I did watch The People - There is not only a explicit current of AstroGnosticism in the film, but also this concept of apotheosis which is at the core of Mormonism. That idea of never-ending evolution towards godhood may account for the high premium placed on the work ethic, literacy, physical fitness and sobriety in Mormonism, all of which have vanished almost entirely from Evangelical Christianity in America. Mormons apparently believe they are destined for much better things than lolling around the Elysian Fields. Different motivation.

It's not a must-see, but students of the ongoing AstroGnostic revelation might want to read up on it, at least.

ITEM: If Twilight is waving the flag for Mormon eternal family values, then Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity has found its ultimate avatar in Sarah Palin. Never before has one person encapsulated such a broad-based movement with such totality than the former Alaska governor embodies her brothers and sisters. She isn't one of them- she is all of them. Given the thrust of the Republican Party and the Evangelical movement, she's a shoo-in for the GOP nomination in 2012. Tina Fey is going to be a very busy woman in the years to come...

Atlantis Reaches ISiS and a Child is Born...

ITEM: While strange objects from space are turning night into day, the Atlantis Shuttle (flight STS-129) is working on the International Space Station. One of the astronauts-Marine Lt. Colonel Randolph Bresnik (born 9/11/67 in Fort Knox, KY)- became a new father during the mission. He and his wife adopted a Ukrainian child in 2006. Bresnik's wife hails from Pompton Plains, NJ, night across Interstate 287 from Wanaque Lake, site of a major UFO flap in 1966.

So many memes, so little time...

ITEM: Oh dear, was it the American Music Awards tonight? I see Rihanna was rocking the Leeloo look, and Adam Lambert brought a little of the old Jobriath vibe to prime time. I'm sure all of the social conservatives are beside themselves with glee. The Black Eyed Peas had an X-Force vibe happening and Pete Wentz had some strange Wehrmacht look going on. Funny when the outfits are the most interesting part of a music awards show.

All Eyes on Utah

2009-11-22T12:42:00.004-05:00

The big cosmic story this past week was the Utah meteor, which lit the sky up over several cities before crashing down somewhere in the Dugway Proving Ground. Which StrangeEye reminded us is also known as "Area 52," where all sorts of exotic military hardware is tested, including anti-satellite tech and other surface-to-space weaponry. Which brings us back to the old War-in-Space meme. Given its apparent target, was this a meteor or something else altogether? From The Daily Utah Chronicle.

Scientists have evidence that the massive meteor that turned the night sky into day for two seconds Wednesday night might have exploded in the atmosphere above the reputed Area 52—an extremely dangerous, mysterious patch of Utah desert.

Patrick Wiggins, NASA Ambassador to Utah and Robert Matson, senior scientist for Applied Science International, believe the cosmic rock blew up as it burned through the atmosphere above Tooele County, based on interpretations of recorded seismic activity information and the meteor’s perceived trajectory. The meteor pieces would’ve landed within a mile of where the meteor exploded -- but unfortunately, that means they would have landed in the Dugway Proving Ground—an area of the western Utah desert, bigger than Rhode Island, where the U.S. Army tests chemical, biological and radioactive warfare, an area that is rumored to be the new Area 51.

“It’s a restricted area,” Wiggins said. “I seriously doubt anyone can go out there.”

The U.S. Army tested thousands of bombs in the gigantic military reservation, according to the U.S. General Accounting Office. But the area is more colloquially known as Area 52 for all of the reported UFO sightings. Rumors circulate that the Dugway Proving Grounds is where the U.S. Government transferred all of the Area 51 alien research after public scrutiny drew too much attention.

Also read this: Dugway Beefs Up Security after Meteor Sighting

This is all very new to me, but given what little I've seen of Dugway, it would certainly seem a likely target in a... well, let's just say an exotic war.

TVOD: Sanctuary and the Godly Blitzkrieg

2009-11-21T14:46:00.000-05:00

It used to be that "Sci-Fi/Syfy Original Series" usually translated into Secret Sun-ese as "for the love of God, stay far away from your TV set." Over the years, that's slowly evolved into "what the hell, there's nothing else on."

Amanda Tapping starred in some Stargate things, which I didn't hold against her when checking out Sanctuary last night. The premise seems remarkably similar to the BBC's Torchwood series (which I still haven't done much on yet), but distinctly Canadian. I had no idea what was going on in the episode, but found it fairly easy to figure it all out, unlike some of these endless sci-fi serials. Not the best thing I've ever seen, but well-produced enough to keep my interest. Of course, the presence of Erica Cerra in last night's episode (not on Hulu yet) kept things interesting.

Cerra's next role is as Hera in the Percy Jackson film (see PJ-related Sync Log here). Which in turn merits its own Sync Log, since the missus and I originally planned to watch the old Clash of the Titans (Percy-Perseus, get it?) but opted for Sanctuary because she was working late. Synchronicity has a funny way of working around your schedule.

Speaking of which, there's the new Percy Jackson trailer, part of a godly blitzkrieg which will bring a new Clash, Thor and Hercules to the big screen. This is all part of the Digital Apotheosis- computer technology bringing the rich psychic tapestry of Mythology to life in ways not seen since the Mycenaean Age. It's going to be a lot of fun tracking what kind of aftershocks this will have in the culture at large, particularly as these stories become increasingly immersive with 3D and IMAX.

You kind of get the feeling that the gods are having the time of their lives these days, able to play out their eternal dramas across these giant movie screens without constantly being bothered by supplicants and petitioners whining for this miracle or that blessing, bla bla bla. But we can talk about all of that sometime in the near future.

UPDATE: Just to bring it all full circle, Reader Justin points us to an article linking the Twilight mythos to Etruscan mythology. Which I'm going to guess is unconscious. Bonus sync: the article is written by a Bija Knowles.

AstroGnostic: Trapped Here on this Alien World-UPDATED!!!

2009-11-20T11:33:00.003-05:00

NOTE: Scroll to bottom of post for important update.

Well, here we are- it's Twilight time again. The Gnostic vampire-superhero phenomenon is about to descend on multiplexes all across the planet, enrapturing tween girls in ways not seen since the glory days of N'Sync and the Backstreet Boys. And most significantly for our purposes, Twilight creator Stephanie Meyer is a Mormon- a member of the Church of Latter-Day Saints- and the Twilight books are widely seen as Mormon allegories.

Amie Charney (a Christian blogger) detailed the links, darkly warning that those dastardly Mormons "believe in deification – you can become a god or goddess through their various rituals and practices," preach a doctrine "called “eternal progression...where it is a core belief for even a god or goddess to learn (progress) for eternity," that Mormon is "all about the family" (horrors!) and worst of all, "a man and a woman make covenants to God and to each other and are sealed as husband and wife for time and all eternity."

Wait- I'm missing the exact problem here.

What may really be bugging Ms. Charney is that Utah- Mormon ground zero- is an oasis of health and wealth in an increasingly sick and poor America. Utah is the second healthiest state in the nation, and the entire Bible Belt dominates the bottom of the list. The Bible Belt states also lead the country in poverty, murder, teenaged pregnancy, and divorce, among innumerable other ills.†

Someone once said, "By their fruits shall ye know them." Hmmm, that ring a bell with anyone? Not to pick on my Bible Belt cousins, but simply a suggestion to the Amie Charney's of the world that perhaps those Mormons aren't quite as dastardly as their foes would have us believe.

Mormonism also has its fair share of academic admirers, including esteemed Yale professor Harold Bloom, who considers it a bonafide American Gnosticism.* Speaking of which, there was an excellent article in the old Gnosis magazine that details Joseph Smith's Hermetic influences as well. And for better or worse (depending on your political affiliation), the most influential political personality in America right now is himself a Mormon.

All of that is all fine and good (if not confusing), but outside the Secret Sun mandate. No, what fascinates me is that Mormonism has produced more than its fair share of authors, particularly of the sci-fi/fantasy genre. Not surprising for a religion that many people accuse of being science fiction. Meyer is at the top of the list, followed by Orson Scott Card, Battlestar Galactica creator Glen A. Larson, and animator Don Bluth and many, many others. Sci-fi seems to be a particular passion of Mormons.

One of those Mormon authors is Zenna Henderson, who wrote explicitly AstroGnostic fiction in her "People" series of novels, which many see as Mormon allegory as well. In the stories, the People are aliens who leave their dying homeworld and escape to Earth. They try to integrate with the local population but receive the usual Earthling response given to higher beings- they were slaughtered. Fleeing, the People settle in a remote corner of the Southwest where they suppress their superior abilities and their memories of their homeworld.

Reader Morgan turned me on to all of this. I had never heard of Henderson or the People before. But I'm certain that Alexander Key did, since the whole story reminds me of the Witch Mountain stories. And I'm willing to bet that Battlestar Galactica is filled with parallels itself. It turns out that the People stories do have quite a following:

One interesting aspect about the People stories is the strong degree to which very different groups of people identify with it: Christians (including such different camps as Evangelicals, Catholics and Latter-day Saints), GLBT, Wiccans, and Jews have all recommended Henderson's People stories. The stories, with their exclusivity and isolation from the broader culture combined with extreme inclusivity and compassion for one's own tribe, have struck a chord with many people who feel pulled by two different worlds.

The People was made into a TV movie in 1972. The first thing I did as soon as Morgan mentioned it was look it up on YouTube and the second thing I did was order a VHS copy of it online. Next con I attend I'll be picking up the DVD if it's been bootlegged. The scene above tells the People's AstroGnostic creation myth in pictures, reminiscent again of Witch Mountain, but also of The Man Who Fell to Earth, another AstroGnostic classic. An outside schoolteacher (played by Kim Darby, who we'll get to in a moment) forces the children to recover their memories of their alien world, like the Gnostic Sophia herself.

Of course, Darby must then show up in the Ten Thirteen Universe, which she does quite dutifully as Kathy Lee Tencate, the Gnostic martyr who plays the role of Hecate (coming from the Greek root word for "a hundred") in the X-Files Eleusinian drama. Tencate teaches Mulder about the "walk-ins"- the core spiritual aspect of the Mythology- who protect endangered children by transforming their spirits into starlight (speaking of light- check out some of the other clips on YouTube- I love the way the Sun is shot in films from that era).

As if the awesome scale hadn't fully tipped over, none other than AAT enthusiast Bill Shatner shows up in The People. So now we've linked the walk-ins and the Nine and the Anunaki and all the rest of it into the mix. Which brings us back to the whole modern matrix of high weirdness running rampant in our culture and politics. Here we must wade through the increasingly murky waters of the Conspiracy Memestream, where you can find gold nuggets of truth as easily as catch a dose of mental malaria. Caution is advised...

That being said, I sincerely hope that every Secret Sun reader get a chance to read William Bramley's The Gods of Eden. Not that I necessarily endorse all of Bramley's opinions (the late Jim Keith argued pretty convincingly that the book is a Scientology text in disguise), but because it has a fascinating spin on world history and has been hugely influential, certainly in conspiranoia circles (Bill Cooper and David Icke are obvious admirers and Jim Marrs' Rule by Secrecy is a virtual rewrite of it). But it was Bramley's spin on the Joseph Smith revelation narrative that captured my attention. Bramley argues that it was exactly the kind of extraterrestrial intervention we discussed in the recent Dave Davies post:

Some critics dispute the accuracy of Joseph Smith’s stories, pointing out that Smith did not record his first vision on paper until nineteen years after it had happened. Under the circumstances at the time, this delay is understandable when we consider Joseph’s youth and minimal education. To the degree Smith’s accounts are accurate, they are worth looking at. Did he have a true religious vision as his followers believe, or was he, as others suggest, a victim of UFO tampering?

... Joseph appears to have been looking at a recorded image projected through the window into his room. The clue to this lies in Joseph’s words that Moroni had repeated the second message “without the least variation.” This suggests a recorded message...When Moroni returned for a third time that same night, Smith, “heard him rehearse or repeat over again . .. the same things—as before....” (Joseph Smith 2:48-49).

Other Mormon writings also tend to support the likelihood that Joseph Smith had had a UFO encounter. The Mormon doctrines revealed by Smith state that there are many inhabited planets in the universe. This was quite a daring idea for an uneducated man of the nineteenth century. Smith added that God inhabits a human flesh-and-bones body (see, e.g., Doctrines and Covenants 130:22) and that God lives near a star called Kolob (see Abraham 3:1-3). In other words, God is a humanlike extraterrestrial living on another planet.

The dates extrapolated from the Book of Mormon for the arrival of the Palestinians to America are especially interesting because they coincide with the dates that historians have assigned to the emergence of the ancient civilizations of Mexico and Central America.

Now, again- massive caveats here. But there is this fascinating history of these kinds of encounters, just as flying saucer sightings have been recorded since writing began. And Bramley hits on a very important point- how this pyramid building craze died down in the eastern hemisphere only to reappear in the western one not long after. This brings us to the Graham Hancock/Robert Bauval milieu as well. All grist for a future mill.

In essence, though, Mormonism is telling the same basic story all the major religions are. Gods and angels in space, direct intervention in human affairs in antiquity, wrath, return, etc. The Gnostics did too- in a way- but throughout history Gnostics were slaughtered for the belief that mankind is not native to this world and was trapped here through an arcane series of cosmic machinations. That this world is a prison ruled by an insane "blind idiot god" and a mysterious race of demigods called the Archons (or Cylons, or Igigi, if you prefer) keep us trapped here.

Ancient Gnostics didn't quite understand the mechanics of it all (their literature is extremely confusing, at least to me), they only knew they wanted to get the hell out. For my money, Gnosticism doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense until you plug Intervention Theory into the equation. Then it all falls into place like a million puzzle pieces right before your eyes. In this light, Gnosticism isn't so much a creed than a methodology- and the details of the cosmology change as new knowledge is attained.

UPDATE: Well, I got hit by sync after synch after posting this article (which is usually a sign that there's blood in the semiotic waters). But the most stunning one was turning the page on a book I had on my nightstand titled The Gnostics by Jacques La Carriere and being smacked in the face with this:

The fundamental difference that separates the Gnostics from their contemporaries is that, for them, their native `soil' is not the earth, but that lost heaven which they keep vividly alive in their memories: they are the autochthons of another world.

Hence their feeling of having fallen onto our earth like inhabitants from a distant planet, of having strayed into the wrong galaxy, and their longing to regain their true cosmic homeland, the luminous hyper-world that shimmers beyond the great nocturnal barrier. Their uprooting is not merely geographical but planetary. And to treat them as aliens in the political or civic sense - which is what happened - could be nothing but an absurd misunderstanding, like giving a Martian a temporary residence visa.

For the Gnostics, all men were in the same condition, although they were the only ones who knew it, and the human community as a whole is implicated in this universal exile, this galactic diversion that has caused us to be dumped on the mud of planet earth.

The Gnostics must have felt this exile even more acutely in that they themselves constituted marginal communities, strangers or ‘foreigners' in the narrow sense of the term, in the heart of a whole humanity of foreigners. ...Here there was an historical humus which justified the Gnostic feeling of exile, of being a planetary foreigner: `I am in the world but not of the world' is the most basic Gnostic formula.

So the problem is simple, and one begins to understand how the Gnostics saw it: man, then, is a lifelong exile on a planet which is a prison for all mankind; he lives in a body which is a prison for the soul; he is the autochthon of a lost and invisible world.

Damn. Now, as I was saying- plug Ancient Astronaut Theory into the Gnostic philosophy and tell me if it makes a little more sense to you. What put of all these ideas in their heads in the first place is another matter, but it's not as if we don't have liturgies from other ancient traditions showing us encounters with strange godmen in flying disks, right?

Sure, it could all be a mythology. In fact, let's just say that it is for now. But boy, it sure is fascinating to see echoes of it (at the very least) emanating from what is a rock-ribbed, diehard conservative institution. Or how popular these themes of superior beings stranded in a primitive or hostile world are when packaged as entertainment. Like, oh, say, Twilight. Certainly somewhat less so is Titan AE, or Battlestar Galactica or Enders's Game, but fascinating nonetheless.

BONUS FACTOID: Joseph Smith was born in Sharon, VT, obviously settled from folks from my hometown since there's a Randolph and a Braintree right up Interstate 89.

†According to a recent survey, the Bible Belt is a mirror image of the Muslim world, when it comes to religious conviction (and paranoia, certainly).

*Bloom writes: "The God of Joseph Smith is a daring revival of the God of some of the Kabbalists and Gnostics, prophetic sages who, like Smith himself, asserted that they had returned to the true religion....Mormonism is a purely American Gnosis, for which Joseph Smith was and is a far more crucial figure than Jesus could be. Smith is not just 'a' prophet, another prophet, but he is the essential prophet of these latter days, leading into the end time, whenever it comes."

Stairway to Sirius: Shambhala Discovered?

2009-11-18T16:51:00.004-05:00

This is pretty dramatic- NatGeo has a special on the discovery of what may be the legendary Shambhala, aka Shangri-La.

The unusual treasures have led Coburn and his team to suggest that the Mustang caves could be linked to "hidden valleys" thought to represent the Buddhist spiritual paradise known as Shambhala.
"Shambhala is also believed by many scholars to have a geographical parallel that may exist in several or many Himalayan valleys," Coburn said.
"These hidden valleys were created at times of strife and when Buddhist practice and principals were threatened," Coburn said. "The valleys contained so-called hidden treasure texts."

All of which reminds me of my old favorite Three Dog Night song, just to show how symbol-soaked the early 70s were, pop-culturally speaking. Then of course there is the Sirius connection to all of this, seeing that Alice Bailey associated Shambhala (or Shamballa, as she calls it) with Sirius:

Shamballa receives energy from various solar and extra-solar Entities or centres of emphatic and energetic life; i.e., from Venus, from the Central Spiritual Sun, from the current conditioning constellation through which our sun may be passing, from the Great Bear and other cosmic centres. Sirius, so important a factor in the spiritual life of the planet, brings its energies to bear direct upon the Hierarchy, and energy from Sirius does not normally enter our planetary life via Shamballa.

Shamballa is the head centre, speaking symbolically, of our planetary Life, focussing will, love and intelligence in one great and fundamental Intention and holding that focussed point throughout the entire life cycle of a planet. This great Intention embodies current purpose and expresses itself through the medium of the Plan.

For my money, anything that comes of the Bailey/Theosophic axis is by definition apocryphal, but others may not agree with me. And it's interesting that this expedition is from 2008, the Year of Sirius.

Astronaut Theology: Kinky

2009-11-18T00:01:00.006-05:00

Kinks guitarist Dave Davies isn't just the pioneer of the power-chord riff, he's also an experiencer. His 1994 autobiography Kink tells the story of how Davies believes he was contacted telepathically by alien intelligences:

All of a sudden I began hearing these strange voices talking to me, in clear and unmistakable tones. Their voices were authoritative but warm and strangely comforting, which lessened my initial alarm. This was unlike anything I had experienced before. They felt as if they were a little distance above my head; that's how I perceived it at the time. For all I knew they could have been operating from thousands of miles away. I couldn't see them but I could hear them and, more importantly, I could feel them and smell them. There were five distinct intelligences and each one gave off his or its own particular odour.

The intelligences did not tell me who they were, but two of them said they had always been my spirit guides, and two others were entities that were not of this earth but were involved in missions here as watchers and nurturers of our race. The other intelligence was the projected consciousness of a man living in a physical body on earth. They communicated many things to me, most of which I have only just begun to assimilate now.

You can read more at his site on the Spiritual Planet. He also has articles by/about people like Israel Regardie, Philip K Dick and George King. Davies also runs a message board for people of a similar mystical bent. I must say I'm agnostic on it all but it's fascinating to me how many pioneering artists (and non-artists) have claimed to have strange and powerful metaphysical experiences. It could all be a by-product/malfunction of the creative mind or it could be that there are forces at work using these type of pioneering types to push the culture along. I'm open to both arguments.

Bonus 60s nostalgia-blast- The Byrds' abductee-wannabe anthem "Hey, Mr. Spaceman."

Tuesday Newsday: 17th Edition (UPDATES)

2009-11-17T00:01:00.003-05:00

ITEM: We've lost the great Edward Woodward, best known as The Equalizer, but rendered immortal for his role in The Wicker Man. Check out a memorial by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz). UPDATE: Loren Coleman has a nice obit as well.

ITEM: Don't forget the Leonid meteor showers, peaking in the early morning hours on Tuesday. The Leonids were a plot point on an episode of the short-lived Point Pleasant TV show, starring the radiant Eloah-Isis-Beth Harnois.

Jake Kotze's latest videos have some boggling Kirsten Dunst syncs, herself born in Point Pleasant. Harnois' next role is in Mars Needs Moms, based on the Berke Breathed children's book. Co-starring is Joan Cusack, sister of the Superstar.

UPDATE: The worldwide anti-Scientology campaign hits Australia now:

CLAIMS of Scientologists forcing members to have abortions and imprisoning and torturing others have been tabled during a speech by a federal MP.

Interesting.

John Cusack, Superstar: 2012 and the Solar Revelation

2009-11-16T00:01:00.009-05:00

The next post-Apocalyptic epic for those burnt out on the 2012 trailer

Seeing that Nineties were the Sixties in reverse, it's strange how much the Naughties feel like the Seventies. We have a deep recession, an President more interested in platitudes than policy, a mass culture obsessed with sports and celebrity and a fashion culture fixated on decadence and 'transgression'. American politics is still fixated on the same old social wedge issues. There's even a new wave of UFO sightings and alien-based films. But it all feels so contrived and ritualized this time around. And we don't have the Cold War as a backdrop anymore, so the new wave of disaster/Apocalypse movies has to resort to natural disaster rather than nuclear holocaust, which doesn't really pack the same thematic punch. It's that much more tragic when we destroy ourselves.

The missus and I were set to see 2012 on Sunday until we realized it was two and half hours long, and grocery-shopping and dinner-making and kid-bathing were more important. I'm not sure I won't simply wait for the DVD- I feel like I've seen the movie already. I'm sure there will be all sorts of juicy syncs to mull over- never mind the presence of John Cusack, Superstar and Amanda 'Nephthys' Peet. But I've never seen a Roland Emmerich movie on the big screen, and any possible synchitude already feels a little too contrived.

Emmerich is certainly fascinated with esoteric themes, though- Stargates, UFOs, alt.history- which is kind of disturbing when you couple that with his fascination with genocide and global destruction. But do I think he has access to any inside knowledge or that his films are part of some insider agenda? It's certainly possible, but I've never seen anything in any of his films that you couldn't read in the 'Speculation' section of your local Barnes & Noble or Borders (Daniel Pinchbeck and Lawrence Joseph are featured in some of the promo vids) or hear about on Coast-to-Coast AM. And Emmerich's politics are generally populist (there's a subplot in 2012 about a conspiracy to send the rich and powerful off-world in a fleet of arks). Typically for Hollywood, he immerses himself in esoterica but mocks people who do the same- Woody Harrelson plays the kooky 'conspiracy theorist' this time around.

Strangely enough, 2012 has the same solar flame theme we saw in Knowing. And this time we saw the old prefab "controversy" routine when Catholic League poobah Bill Donahue got himself some airtime protesting the destruction of Christian landmarks while keeping Islamic ones offscreen. But Emmerich's riposte- that he avoided doing so to avoid getting himself killed- didn't do Muslims any favors, particularly in the wake of Fort Hood. But is there another message being conveyed here?

Knowles' Law has it that whenever a controversy over symbolism erupts in the media it's usually disguising another hidden message altogether. Secret Sun readers have seen how ancient sun-worship symbolism is alive and well in Hollywood, hiding in plain sight. And we've seen Solar symbolism in Christian churches as well. I can only speculate on what it all means, but having the effects of a solar flare destroying the Vatican is certainly fascinating in that context. I'm tempted to chalk it up to the Collective Unconscious, but the prefab controversy makes me wonder.

I've come to consider Solarism a completely different category from paganism or any of the other ancient religions. It's technically henotheistic, but essentially monotheistic. And the ancient Solar cults were generally pretty a pretty serious bunch- phallic, ascetic, militaristic, highly disciplined (and weird, as we saw in the Mithraic Liturgy). It's possible some of them could've survived all of these years underground, but it's more likely that the Solar Mysteries were revived by Type A males more recently, maybe within established fraternities.

Taylor Swift kisses her ~~Solar obelisk~~ Country Music Award

And since ancient Solarism cut across ethnic and national boundaries- the Romans learned Mithraism from pirates from modern-day Turkey- it's something that could gather aggressive male initiates from any faith. Sure it sounds crazy, but what good is an Internet if you can't wildly speculate on it? And all of that Solar symbolism out there isn't creating itself.

Anyhow, if I do break down and see 2012 I will post a review. In the meantime, feel free to post your own.

BONUS FACTOID: The working title of 2012 was Farewell, Atlantis. The Space Shuttle Atlantis is set for takeoff today.

Secret Sunday Mini-Picture Parade

2009-11-15T14:36:00.004-05:00

I admit I'm not a big Country music fan, but what does the chevron have to do with its top awards ceremony?

What the...? This lovely image greeted me when I clicked on Salon this morning. What agenda is at work here I have no earthly idea. Personally, I'm more interested in Amazonian head-expanders...

Speaking of Graham Hancock, Yahooccultism strikes again with the power of proximity. In this case coupling Atlantis with 'Enke '.

Remember Tony Alamo

2009-11-14T15:44:00.000-05:00

One of my first exposures to conspiracy theory were the leaflets handed out by Tony Alamo's (born Bernie Lazar Hoffman) minions back in the 80s. I had seen similar material here and there drifting into my old church- apocalyptic conspiracy stuff from people like Hal Lindsey that would show up in bundles of tracts from time to time.

There was another episode where a strange friend of my grandmother had given my father a stack of Spotlights, darkly warning him that "the news was managed." It was pretty rough stuff, but it gave me an interesting look at pre-internet conspiracy culture, which was predominantly the province of Fundamentalists and Neo-Nazis.

But it must be said that the incessantly apocalyptic tone of the Lindsey-type material appealed to my religious indoctrination- the idea that all of history is this linear progression- this narrative- moving towards a specific event (I'm just surprised the world is still here- I think I've survived about 30 predicted Armageddons). I didn't know then that the Gnostics were the original conspiracy theorists- and the original Apocalyptics. For reasons too complex to go into now the two are are closely intertwined.

An Alamo jacket- kind of chilling in hindsight.

But Alamo's material was by far the most intense. One headline screamed "Did you know that Ronald Reagan and the Pope are a couple of Antichrist devils who are selling America down the drain?" all in capital letters. It was all the usual stuff- Communists, Liberals, the Pope, the New World Order, Satan's hordes- but done in such an extreme, over-the-top style that it was just that much more attention-grabbing than the LaRouche or Moonie stuff you came across. Those blasts of wall-to-wall text- the universal signature of the perturbed true believer- told the story. I later discovered that his cult also made pimped-out denim jackets that were in vogue for a while back in the 80s.

As some of you have read Alamo has been arrested and sentenced to 175 years in prison. It's the usual story- the charismatic cult leader sexually abusing his flock, a story that's become so commonplace as to be almost expected. Cults and sects and other authoritarian religious groups are breeding grounds for sexual abuse. The latest scandal is in Orthodox Jewish sects, which I'm sure will be blamed on the degenerate culture outside the compound walls. That's the usual excuse.

Anyhow, given the 17 meme and the 175 years in prison, I was fascinated that Alamo was arrested in Flagstaff, AZ, which sits smack dab atop Interstate 17. And what's 17 without a 33? Read on...

TEXARKANA, Ark. — Evangelist Tony Alamo used his stature as a self-proclaimed prophet to force underage girls into sham marriages with him, controlling his followers with their fears of eternal suffering.

But the judge who sentenced Alamo on Friday to 175 years in prison for child sexual abuse warned of another kind of justice awaiting the aging evangelist.

FBI agents and Arkansas State Police troopers raided Alamo's compound in nearby Fouke in September 2008. The FBI arrested Alamo five days later in Flagstaff, Ariz., charging him with violating the Mann Act, a century-old morality law originally aimed at stopping women from being sold into prostitution.

Five women, age 17 to 33, testified in July that Alamo "married" them in private ceremonies while they were minors, sometimes giving them rings. Each detailed trips beyond Arkansas' borders for Alamo's sexual gratification.

For his part, Alamo insists the girls are bewitched, another time-honored dodge. Note the date.

PRESS RELEASE
From Tony Alamo
July 17, 2009
Regarding Government-Vatican Persecution vs. Tony Alamo

It is a violation of the US Constitution for the government to attack any religion, especially Christianity!! My trial is government vs. the Bible. The five young women who are falsely testifying against me have all been convinced to do so by the FBI.

The FBI paid all of their tuition to go to a place called Wellspring, which is a deprogramming center. Deprogramming is a nice word for hypnosis, brainwashing, mind-control, voodoo, black magic. Their testimony is not to be believed because it is not true, and they are not in their right mind. They are under a hateful spell of witchcraft.

Sure enough, a few months back I took the family out to eat and when we came back to the car, there was a blast from the past waiting for me- a mini-bundle of old-school Alamo text-rants protesting his innocence (note the long-dead Susan Alamo gets a byline). I'm sure he's as guilty as sin. Despite what some might say, I'm also 100% certain that he was completely sincere in his beliefs as well. It's hard to fake that kind of gonzoid intensity for that long.

Alamo's sweatshop practices earned him a lot of criticism, but abusive cult sweatshops are as American as Plymouth Plantation. And there's plenty of justification in the holy books for polygamy and child brides and all sorts of practices you can find your ass in jail for these days- certainly in the Old Testament. The religious are forever disassociating themselves from the crimes of their brethren, even though what are now seen as crimes were once seen as doing God's work.

Here's a site maintained by Alamo cult survivors if you want to read more. And here's a fascinating Atlantic article telling the untold story of the current economic disaster we're in- the role of Prosperity Gospel preachers in pushing people towards mortgages they couldn't afford. Of course, the Bush Administration played a huge role in it, thinking they could turn all of those new homeowners into GOP voters. The Atlantic headline is a bit misleading- I have a friend who's part of the 'back-to-Judaism' movement in Fundamentalist Christianity who told me with utter confidence that "Prosperity Gospel is from the pits of Hell."

Sigh- all of these "One True Faiths." I can't keep track of them all anymore.

UPDATE: On the 17 meme theme, Joe Bloggs sends us to a link on this bizarre story:

An Iberworld Airbus A330-300 on behalf of Air Comet, registration EC-IJH performing flight A7-301 from Madrid Barajas,SP (Spain) to Santa Cruz (Bolivia) with about 170 passengers, did not land in Santa Cruz in Bolivia, but in Santa Cruz,CI (Spain), also known as Tenerife Norte or Tenerife Los Rodeos Airport.

The airplane departed Tenerife again after about 17 hours on the ground.

UPDATE: Quark Observer sends us a link to a video documentary on Wayne Bent, another apocalyptic preacher who had his way with minors in his cult.

Remember the LCROSS mission?

2009-11-13T13:27:00.005-05:00

Well, the LCROSS mission was a smash success- today's headlines tell me so:

Nasa's experiment last month to find water on the Moon was a major success, US scientists have announced.

Scientists who have studied the data now say instruments trained on the impact plume saw copious quantities of water vapour.

Anthony Colaprete, chief scientist for LCROSS at Nasa's Ames Research Center in California, said a large debris plume rose at least one or two kilometres in altitude. It stayed just below the crater rim, which may have prevented astronomers from observing it from Earth.

OK, fair enough- but how did it prevent the orbital camera from observing it? Even stranger is that ~~NAZCA~~ NASA has released a number of computerized illustrations displaying a plume that their equipment failed to record. Yes, just like the CGI illustrations 'proving' the Face on Mars is natural. This is an example of the power of imagery bypassing cognition- most people will see the various illustrations and accept them as actual photographs.

I don't know what this mission was really all about, but the lengths they're going to rewrite its history tells me it's probably something extremely delicate. I'll refer you folks over to Mr. Hoagland for a dissenting view. Take what you can from it.

Remember that Dark Knight movie?

2009-11-13T00:01:00.010-05:00

Let's change the subject - that warning from the board mods is a joke.
Click to enlarge.

Hey, remember that movie The Dark Knight? You know the movie that everyone saw but no one seems able to recall? The one whose IMDB board is filled with chatter having to do with everything but the movie? Is it because generally liberal-leaning superhero and comics fans are silently embarrassed about falling for what is essentially a neo-conservative propaganda film? It isn't just iMDb- no one on any of the comics or movie sites I checked seems to talk about what is one of the highest-grossing movies of all-time, one that came out less than 18 months ago. Very strange. Usually, these kinds of blockbusters continue to resonate for a while after their original run, but not this film.

Why is that?

Is it possible the poor reception that greeted Watchmen (which is cosmically superior to TDK, IMO) is a hangover from critics and fans uncomfortable with having championed a film that celebrated torture, vigilantism, broad-spectrum surveillance and jack-booted stormtroopers marching in the streets? That depicted terrorism as simple nihilism, and cross-dressing, sexually-ambiguous nihilism at that?

It's nothing I haven't seen in a million comic book stories, but I'm fascinated how situational some people's capacity for political outrage can be. It's especially ironic given how much Christian Bale resembles a young Bush cousin.

In hindsight, the whole 2008 Batmania phenomenon feels strange, even surreal. It didn't feel like 9/11, which the film was clearly trying to exploit. And for this old-school fan, it certainly didn't feel like Batman either. The Batman I read in the 70s and 80s was more like that in the classic Batman: The Animated Series. As played by Patrick Bateman, he's a prep school void.

I've never been hypnotized, but to think back on the whole Dark Knight phenomenon almost feels like some hypnotic spell, or even some bummer trip, like PCP or something. Like all of the color and vibrancy was sucked out of the world, both onscreen and off. But then again, I'm a huge Batman Beyond fan, so maybe I'm not the right person to ask.

The funny thing is I'm usually very forgiving of comic book movies. Hell- I even liked The Shadow. Though it may be because I saw it on a hot summer afternoon in an old-fashioned theatre that was air-conditioned to perfection. The Shadow is a criminally underused character, one who Bob Kane stole from lock, stock and two smoking .45 barrels to create Batman.

There is a new Shadow film in development- one I hope they don't screw up. I think the character has vast, untapped potential, particularly given his psychic powers and Blavatskian backstory. I know Jake Kotze keyed into the Shadow film as well, so maybe I'm not completely insane.

One film I'm not in a hurry to see in Inception, Nolan's new Matrix-like film. As with Dark Knight, I'm sure Inception will be a brilliantly-crafted piece of filmmaking, but something very cold and hard has crept into Nolan's work- or maybe I'm simply noticing what's been there all along. But it certainly doesn't entertain me.

Digital Apotheosis: Clash of the Titans teaser

2009-11-11T15:32:00.005-05:00

Oh, HELL yeah. Cheers to Matt at X-Files Lexicon to alerting me to this. Funny how it takes futuristic technology to bring ancient mythology to life. Or modern mythology for that matter- that Legendary Pictures logo got me to thinking it may be time to give Watchmen another spin.

I'm there if this plays at IMAX.

SYNC LOG: I came across this insanity right after posting the vid. The mind boggles.

MemeWatch: The Last Days of Selfosophy?

2009-11-11T00:01:00.009-05:00

ITEM: There seems to be a flood of damaging material about Scientology appearing in the press, after years of the media adopting a hands-off policy. The St. Petersburg Times is going after the CoS hammer-and-tongs in a massive series called 'The Truth Rundown.' And this latest story threatens not only to damage the church, but could also sink Tom Cruise's career:

On the day before the actor’s visit a couple of years ago, the compound’s managers took part in “the Tom Cruise arrival preparation drill,” which required “orchestrating every action they perform … in the presence of Cruise,” Rathbun recently wrote Fields.

But Miscavige wasn’t happy when he addressed 80 to 100 managers at a prisonlike facility, known as “The Hole,” where three insubordinate officials — Marc Yager, Guillaume Leserve and Ray Mithoff — were “incarcerated,” according to Rathbun.

“Miscavige berated [the managers] for being far too light in their demands for confessions” from the three, Rathbun alleges in his letter, “because they refused to beat [them] ... to pulps. Miscavige said that Tom … had vowed to come to the Hole and personally ‘beat the living [bleep]’ out of Yager, Leserve and Mithoff if the managers failed to do so themselves.

Check out these papparrazi pics of Cruise and Katie Holmes- the body language is very telling. Also check out Gary Lachman's article linking the Process Church with Scientology, and Blown for Good, a brand new book detailing a defector's escape from the church. Check out the always-excellent Religion News Blog for more.

This is undoubtedly an orchestrated campaign, worldwide in scope. I wonder what triggered it.

ITEM: John Muhammad executed at 9:11 PM. You think someone in the Virginia prison system has a sick sense of humor?

ITEM: As with nearly all of the critics, Budd Hopkins is not a fan of The Fourth Kind, though certainly for different reasons. Budd slams the movie for its hysterical treatment of abduction phenomena, the egregious AAT elements tossed in and, well, pretty much everything else but the cinematography.

Underlying all of this fictional, never before reported malarky, the film’s pseudo-documentary style strains to convince us that everything depicted is “supported by actual case material.” Well, after thirty-three years of working with hundreds upon hundreds people reporting UFO abduction experiences, I can say, first, that in no case has anyone ever reported the permanent disappearance of a friend, a family member or anyone even vaguely connected with my huge pool of subjects.

Check it out. Definitely worth a read.

ITEM: Boy, they don't let up, do they?

VATICAN CITY – E.T. phone Rome. Four hundred years after it locked up Galileo for challenging the view that the Earth was the center of the universe, the Vatican has called in experts to study the possibility of extraterrestrial alien life and its implication for the Catholic Church.

Anyone get the feeling they know something we don't?

TVOD UPDATE: It looks as if Eastwick has been canceled and Flash Forward is in danger of following suit. Can't say I'm surprised, and regular readers probably aren't either.

ITEM: 17-Templar-Babylon mashup front page news on The NY Times.

One Step Beyonce (UPDATED)

2009-11-10T23:20:00.000-05:00

Andre at Alien Project sent me this picture of Beyonce chilling out with Zahi Hawass in Giza at sunset. Zahi must have been in heaven, especially since Beyonce was nice enough to dress as Isis for him. Beyonce played at a Red Sea resort on Friday 11/6 (=17), over the objections of Islamicist groups, who branded it a "sex party" and called Beyonce a "Satanist." You'd think they'd have more important things to worry about these days.

Beyonce is married to Jay-Z, who's been toying around with 'Illuminati' imagery. Which shouldn't surprise anyone- these stars live like pashas, why wouldn't they see themselves as one of the "Enlightened?" It's yet another case of propaganda blowback- when you create this image of all-powerful, all-knowing 'Illuminists' who have all the money and all of the fun, why would some narcissistic pop star not want to sign up for that?

It's just like how Fundamentalist anti-metal hysteria in the 70s was the primary inspiration for bands like Venom and Slayer in the 80s. All of the ridiculous propaganda about innocuous party rockers like Van Halen and AC/DC made Satanism infinitely more alluring than the cranky old rock 'n' roll hater Anton LaVey ever could. By the same token, I'm willing to bet Jay-Z and whoever else wasn't exposed to that material by checking Morals & Dogma out of the local library- it was almost certainly through conspiracy literature.

As to some of the 'transgressive' or 'occult' imagery you see in some of these music videos these days, to be perfectly honest it's all so repellent that it's difficult for me to pay any attention at all. I don't need to look for any hidden subtext with Lady GaGa- she already lost me with the text. It's as if the Marilyn Manson aesthetic* has taken over mainstream pop, which has inspired the original model to unleash some truly offensive imagery in his latest clip, just to stay ahead of the curve.

But in the end, what these people want most is your attention. Positive or negative, they don't care either way - in fact, negative publicity sells better these days. I'm tempted to predict a backlash, but we may be too far gone for that. But changing the channel is a good place to start.

UPDATE: Oh, how incredibly timely- Lady GaGa's new video was released tonight. I couldn't make it through the whole thing. I literally started to feel nauseous. Definitely a case of Marilyn Manson syndrome- the contrived provocations acting as talent substitute. That whole milieu becomes more and more diseased with the passage of time. Dehumanizing.

*None of it is nearly as shocking today as it was when bands like Throbbing Gristle and SPK were doing the transgressive thing thirty years ago. Manson was simply doing the Hot Topic version.

AstroGnostic: You're a Nine

2009-11-09T02:09:00.002-05:00

SPOILER ALERT- this post contains spoilers

I'm one of those weirdos who likes to listen to director's commentaries on DVDs. I've listened to all of the X-Files commentaries, which usually seem to be focused on the technical aspects of production and not so much the stories, which can be a bit frustrating. Chris Carter's commentaries are mainly devoted to thanking and citing all of the people who worked on the show, which is probably great for them, but not so interesting for X-egetes.

But the commentary track for 'Improbable' is something else entirely. On it, Carter goes into great detail about understanding the nature of God through the use of numerology, Synchronicity, probability, pattern recognition, theoretical physics and the like. He speaks on those topics with fluidity and ease, showing that he's spent a lot of time working it all out. The episode and the commentary are equally interesting - and useful- in and of themselves. I also strongly suspect that both Kevin Smith and David Lynch were influenced by some of Carter's surreal production numbers for their own in Clerks II and Inland Empire, respectively.

The conceit of 'Improbable' is that God (played by none other than Burt Reynolds) is not a passive cosmic bystander, he's constantly throwing clues at us for us to decipher. The only problem is that most people don't bother to try. Rather than the whole 'drama' metaphor you might see in some traditions, the theme in 'Improbable' is the game. Which leads to this fascinating exchange:

SCULLY: Look, Agent Reyes, you can't reduce all of life, all creation, every piece of ... of art, architecture, music, literature... into a game of win or lose.

REYES: Why not? Maybe the winners are those who play the game better. Those who see the patterns and the connections, like we're doing right now.

It's interesting that nine is the magic number in the episode, and that DNA Ka-Hathor-Ein Scully is herself a numerological "nine." Given DNA Scully's identity as the Alien Isis, there is also the Nine symbolism of Star Trek: The Next Generation (and more importantly, our President). The link between the two? One Neal McDonough, who played Agent Comer in The X-Files and Lt. Hawk in Star Trek: First Contact, as well as a Bill Gates-like character in Robin Cook's Invasion.

If all that weren't enough, he also played the Tin Man in Syfy's post-modern spin on The Wizard of Oz and also appeared in Minority Report. Quite a resonant fellow, our Mr. McDonough. He also figures into my own bizarre synchronicity/prophetic dream pertaining to the ninth episode in that ninth XF season.

But the Nine/ Reynolds link brought me back to another Reynolds "playing God" (which David Duchovny did as well with Angelina 'Nephthys' Jolie), and that's Ryan Reynolds in The Nines, an AstroGnostic classic. Like 'Improbable', The Nines deals with Synchronicity in the context of number mysticism, and also presents a scenario in which symbolism and coincidence allow a trapped divine being to escape his meat-prison. In this context, Synchronicity is a tool of liberation.

Ryan Reynolds' character in The Nines is different than Burt's in 'Improbable'- at first blush, Ryan seems a kind of Neo or John Murdock*. But he doesn't want to rearrange the furniture in Babylon, he wants to get the hell out (similar to how Scully and Reyes are trapped in the basement in 'Improbable', a blindingly-obvious metaphor if ever there was one).

In this Ryan is more like the prince from The Hymn of the Pearl, my favorite Gnostic text of all:

I forget that I was a son of kings, and I served their king;

and I forgot the pearl, for which my parents had sent me,

and because of the burden of their oppressions I lay in a deep sleep.

But all this things that befell me
my parents perceived, and were grieved for me

* Note that Christopher Nolan's Memento shows us a mirror image of Neo et al- Leo doesn't want to remember or know the truth. He prefers the self-serving lie. I used to think this was a critique, but in light of The Dark Knight I'm not so sure anymore.

17/33, part 1,733 (UPDATE)

2009-11-08T15:01:00.001-05:00

This video is a parody of The Number 23, made a few months before the Secret Sun got up and running. This kid didn't realize what he'd unconsciously stumbled upon. Maybe he should make a new version with the thousands of 17 syncs we've looked at over the past two years.

And as we like to say around here, what's 17 without a 33? This video doesn't do justice to the song, which as far as I can tell has nothing to do with the number 33, but really hits on the creepy Wicker Man folk vibe. Any Sixties-Psych fans might want to check out Jan & Lorraine's music- fascinating artifact of the time.

It blows my mind how much incredible music there was in the late 60s, made by bands I never heard of. One of those moments when the door to the Other Side opened- luckily the technology was there to catch it. I was there when the door opened again in the early 80s, and I'm still discovering amazing music I had only a vague sense of.

This is the first post with the new "Psychedelia" label- I'll be updating older posts throughout the day. The Psychedelic ideal is at the very heart of this blog, so I guess I'd seen the label as redundant before.

UPDATE: That 33 song rang a bell- here's Jefferson Airplane performing "Lather" on the old Smothers Brothers Show, which drops the double threes, too.

Secret Sun Weekend Edition- 11/7/09

2009-11-07T00:01:00.011-05:00

Well, the big story this week is the massacre in Texas. After reading up on the story, I don't have that much to say about that hasn't been said elsewhere, other than it's a terrible thing and I feel for the families. I have a feeling that there are going to be some other shoes dropping, but this is what happens- wars have a habit of coming home.

You can check out Loren Coleman and Kozmikon or the Synhromystics list for the latest. I don't have anything to add to the Orlando incident either. I try not to bring too much of that energy to to this blog- it's not the venue for it. However, one strange coincidence is a story hit the wires on Thursday (Guy Fawkes Day, if you didn't hear) claiming that the infamous photo of Lee Harvey Oswald and the sniper rifle has been declared 'genuine'. Take it for what it's worth.

Two movies open today that we've looked at in the past; The Fourth Kind and The Men Who Stare at Goats. T4k is getting murdered by the critics, which doesn't mean anything, but I'll probably wait for the DVD. Goats is getting OK reviews but I'll wait to rent that too. Interesting conjunction with the Fort Hood situation, in a way.

But something just hit, pertaining to our discussion on Michael Clayton from a while back- I had pointed out that the assassins' hair nets had reminded me of Mithras' liberty cap (also a kind of psychedelic mushroom, btw), but I just realized that one is holding his finger to Arthur's throat, almost like knife blade, and the other with the deadly syringe is between Arthur's legs...

...which both parallel the Tauroctony with the throat being cut and the scorpion lodged between the bull's legs. Given the bizarre nature of the Mithraic liturgy, I've started to wonder if the bull's blood symbolizes a potion made from mushrooms, similar to what is mentioned in the liturgy itself. Interesting how many of these tripped-out gods like Osiris and Dionysus and even Hecate are identified with the bull.

We started the week looking at Norse mythology and the next day, a Heathen-American was elected to the New York City Council, which seems to be an historical first. Strange stirrings are loose in the land, certainly.

Jack Kirby was obsessed with Norse mythology, so much so that he created his own spin on it, with The Fourth World. He was also very close with Frank Zappa, as you can read all about here.

Fringe took a beating in the ratings last night, which most observers are chalking up to the after-effect of the World Series. But I had mentioned the Battlestar Galactica ratings in the discussion on V and never-ending serialization, and if you click on the image you can see BSG's ratings history, which is a history of relentless decline. I've watched some eps of the series and enjoyed them, but did find the serial format extremely overwhelming. I'm sure a lot of people agreed with me.

A little easier to handle was Green Lantern: First Flight. An amazing film, even if you aren't familiar with the character's Byzantine backstory. The animation is incredible, and the story is surprisingly hefty with subtext. I've always seen the Guardians as a sci-fi spin on Alice Bailey's Great White Lodge of Sirius, and if you're thinking of checking out the film, read up on Bailey's theories- which I strongly suspect Green Lantern re-creator John Broome may well have.

Finally, Richard Hoagland has a new article up on the LCROSS mission. Money quote:

LCROSS' secret lunar mission turns out to be, in fact, designed -- from the beginning -- as nothing less than "an official, clandestine, NASA multi-sensor search for ... and scientific characterization of ... artificial ruins on the Moon"

Jung-Mania hits Manhattan (UPDATE)

2009-11-05T00:01:00.005-05:00

Hmm. Well, The Red Book is the big story in publishing this season, which on one hand is exciting because it seems such an opportune time for it to be revealed, and unbelievably depressing since it sets us up for yet another round of the commodification of Jung. The Brits seem to get it right, discussing the book in a sober, respectful tone:

As World War I raged through Europe, Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung embarked on a somewhat psychedelic journey of self-exploration. During long periods of "self-experimentation" he met heroes and goddesses, wise men and serpents, battled his demons and re-discovered his faith in God.

"My entire life consisted in elaborating what had burst forth from the unconscious," Jung said of this experience later in life. He documented his imaginary journey, illustrating the most powerful revelations by hand, in a leather bound tome he named the Liber Novus, or new book, but which came to be known as the Red Book - BBC

OK, but here's where the trouble starts:

..this week, as publisher W.W. Norton agreed to release its first ever full-length version, New York's Rubin Museum of Art announced it will display it on exhibit, the Associated Press reported.

And in honor of its unveiling, the museum is launching a Red Book dialogue series, pairing each personality with a psychoanalyst to interpret the work. Sessions featuring Sarah Silverman and David Byrne have already sold out, though $25 tickets can still be purchased to see Billy Corgan, writer Alice Walker and philosopher Cornel West. Even Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is slated to grapple with the Red Book, though on a date still yet to be determined.- Paste

I'm sorry, what do any of these people have to do with Carl Jung? Here's Business Week's take on one of the big shows:

After spending an evening listening to Robin Chase, co-founder of Zipcar and current CEO of GoLoco, dissect one of Carl Jung’s paintings at the Rubin Museum of Art last week, I’m convinced that obsession is the core of the entrepreneurial spirit. The Rubin has invited numerous artists, intellectuals, and executives to sit on stage with a Jungian analyst and respond to a painting from Jung’s legendary Red Book diary, which famously chronicles the psychologist’s descent into madness. - Business Week

Entrepreneurial spirit? I'm missing something. But this "descent into madness" - is that the emerging narrative here? Here's the New York Times illuminating take on Silverman's appearance:

In 1914, after falling out of favor with Freud, C.J. Jung lost his mind. Some scholars say he lost it by design, cultivating a psychic crisis to plumb the depths of his unconscious. The “Red Book,” an illustrated manual of the Swiss shrink’s inner world, is the product of all that plumbing.

The leather-bound volume was considered so bizarre — and dangerous — that Jung’s heirs kept it under lock and key until 2007. Now, W.W. Norton is set to publish an English translation, and the Rubin Museum, in New York, has Jung’s original manuscript on display. Amid all this psychic danger, in walks Sarah Silverman.
She began tentatively. “It looks like a very contained world. Snakes. Turtles. Really nice tiles. Um, fire and water,” she said. “Am I doing this right? There’s no wrong, right?”

...Silverman glanced again at the image. What else could she see?

“My father’s penis.” Her smirk was resplendent. “Kidding!”

Sigh. Well, all I can say is that as annoyed as I got with the mainstreaming of Jung in the 90s, the way the American media is treating all of this reminds me of some Saturday Night Live skit where Galileo or Issac Newton appears on Wheel of Fortune. The disconnect is pretty much the same. Jung doesn't belong in today's mainstream media. And certainly not in politics:

Pelosi has a sense of humor and an intellectual curiosity often obscured in partisan standoffs. She can't wait to get her hands on "The Red Book," the inner musings and torments of the late Carl Jung, and she diverts herself by reading cookbooks that her husband, businessman Paul Pelosi, says she never uses.- SFGate

This is a bit more to my liking:

The Flaming Lips have recorded my generation’s Dark Side of the Moon. Listening to Embryonic—the Oklahoma band’s 12th album—is like watching a movie: a strange, majestic, hypnagogic movie. Or are you watching a dream? Or are you experiencing the collective unconscious of eternity? Or taking a stroll through the dark corners of Wayne Coyne’s mind? Is it a coincidence Embryonic is being released one week before Carl Jung’s The Red Book, the 100-year old manuscript which will be a guided tour of Jung’s descent into madness and hallucination? No. The connections are manifest. The hallucinations are real. If you and I dream it, then it will be so. So buy Embryonic, turn out the lights, silence the phone, feed the dog, and drug the wife. Lie down in dark comfort.

This is very timely, since I've been thinking a lot of the cost of trying to cling to the superficiality of youth when middle age has its own rewards:

Psychoanalyst Carl Jung was the first to divide life into transitional phases. In his 1935 book, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Jung argued that if the first half of life is devoted to forming the ego and establishing oneself in the world, the second is focused on a search for meaning in all that effort. For Jung, middle age didn’t hold negative connotations.

Jung felt that if people treated the natural loss of physical prowess as a signal that it was time to develop new dimensions, then this transitional period could become truly transformational. But if the loss of youth was met with denial, fear or negativity, then decay and possibly breakdown was in store.

My wife and I had a discussion about this after a convention recently where we saw one too many middle-aged heavy metal heads trying to pass off as teenagers. Nothing looks so old than a middle-aged person trying to look like a teenager. Accepting the passage of time doesn't have to mean sitting down to die in a rocking chair. On the contrary.

This was brought to mind when I saw Ian Hunter back onstage rocking with Mott the Hoople, even though he's a mind-boggling 70 years old. I think the idea that rock 'n' roll is about youth is shallow, and ignores the ancient shamanic tradition that the best rock draws upon. It brought to mind martial arts masters and how their practice changes with the passage of time. The body will break down and beauty will decay. But soul is eternal.

But I'm confident the hype will blow over soon and the reader can then delve into Jung's psychedelic (in the truest sense) visions unmolested by the media and their ever-reductive impositions on complex ideas. I'll let the man have the last word...

"The knowledge of the heart is in no book, and is not found in the mouth of any teacher, but grows out of you like the green seed from the dark earth...But how can I attain the knowledge of the heart? You can attain this knowledge only by living your life to the full..." Carl Jung

UPDATE: Well, here's an unfortunate sync with the "head shrinker goes crazy" meme we discussed earlier: an Army psychiatrist goes on shooting rampage, killing 12 and wounding 31.

SYNCH LOG UPDATE: Monday, I delved into my childhood experience in a heathen school play, and lo and behold this Village Voice report which reads: Holy Tyr! Queens voters made American history tonight, when they chose Dan Halloran as the nation's first openly heathen elected official.