Terry Melanson (August 5, 2012)

Anyone the least familiar with the Bohemian Grove has come across the claim that the 40-foot stone owl is a reference to Moloch, associated with child sacrifice in the Bible and rabbinic tradition. The owl, however – to the Bohemian club, as well – has traditionally symbolized wisdom. While there’s no ancient description of what a Moloch idol actually looked like, relatively modern representations have invariably depicted a bull-headed statue. Throughout history, in fact, not once was Moloch ever associated with an owl – until, that is, the age of the internet.

Classic Moloch illustration from the early 1700s (Johann Lund: Die alten jüdischen Heiligthümer ...)

I’d initially surmised that Alex Jones was the first person to put the Moloch spin on the owl. In 2000, as we know, he snuck into the Grove, videotaped the Cremation of Care ritual, and became an internet superstar – and rightly so. Numerous times in his film, Alex matter-of-factly states that the Bohemian owl represents Moloch.

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Jay’s Analysis

In Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, we are presented with a prescient, dystopian future based on Phillip K. Dick’s novella, “Do Android’s Dream of Electric Sheep?” We will see that this film is full of not only accurate predictions of the future’s general landscape, but is also suffused with occult imagery and deep symbolic themes, as well as raising crucial moral and social issues. As I will argue, the film operates on several levels: as the immediate story itself, the predictive future level with social critiques, the level of covert operations and mind control, and the deepest level, that of myths, archetypes, and alchemical occult initiatory transformation. All these levels must be integrated to grasp the full import of the film as Ridley Scott conveys it. The deepest level is what holds the other levels together in coherence and meaning.

As the film begins, the viewer is shown the 2020 landscape of Los Angeles, and then an eye viewing the landscape. The eye represents the viewer, and just as I explained in my analysis of Eyes Wide Shut, the viewing of the film itself will constitute an initiatory experience. The viewer is going to be shown the elite plan, yet the eyes of most will remain shut. For the masses, there is no ability to make deeper level connections and associations between ideas, symbols and archetypes. For the viewer who has eyes to see, they are seeing the future itself, as well as the worldview of the ruling class. In fact, Blade Runner ranks with Eyes Wide Shut as one of the most explicit revelations of the method of the ruling oligarchs. My interpretation of this is confirmed by the fact that the film doesn’t show us whose eye we see. In fact, the reflection in the eye shows the scene the viewer just saw of the L.A. cityscape.

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by Terry Melanson - April 27, 2012

Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith, by James H. Billington, is arguably the most valuable reference on revolutionaries ever written. (The softcover that I purchased in 2004 is in tatters from overuse and nearly impossible to handle; the situation is the same, I suspect, for many students and historians of the subject.) The body of the text is remarkable enough, however his extensive notes also feature a narrative full of minutia, and multiple citations ranging from a paragraph to a full page. I continually mine it for new leads, and constantly discover that many of the obscure older sources – once only housed in prestigious University and libraries – are now accessible on the internet.

An example that I’ve found lately is a 1910 article by Otto Karmin. Here’s the passage from Billington followed by citations (pp. 93, 537-8):

In the early days of the revolution, Masonry provided much of the key symbolism and ritual—beginning with the Masonic welcome under a “vault of swords” of the king at the Hotel de Ville three days after the fall of the Bastille.^[36] To be sure, most French Masons prior to the revolution had been “not revolutionaries, not even reformers, nor even discontent”;^[37] and, even during the revolution, Masonry as such remained politically polymorphous: “Each social element and each political tendency could ‘go masonic’ as it wished.”^[38] But Masonry provided a rich and relatively nontraditional foraging ground for new national symbols (coins, songs, banners, seals), new forms of address (tu, frère, vivat!), and new models for civic organizations, particularly outside Paris.^[39]

[…]

36. On the use of the voûte d’acier on Jul 17, see J. Palou, La Franc-maçonnerie, 1972, 187.

37. D. Mornet, Les Origines intellectuelles de la révolution française (1715–1787), 1954, 375; discussion 357–87; bibliography, 523–5; and outside of France, Billington, Icon, 712–4. A. Mellor, Les Mythes maçonniques, (1974) also minimizes Masonic influence, though vaguely acknowledging the influence of the occultist revival on the revolutionary movement.

38. Ligou, “Source,” 46, also 49.

39. This subject has never been comprehensively studied. For the best discussions in general terms, see O. Karmin, “L’Influence du symbolisme maçonnique sur le symbolisme révolutionnaire,” Revue Historique de la Révolution Française, 1910, I, 183–8 (particularly on numismatics); J. Brengues, “La Franc-maçonnerie et la fête révolutionnaire,” Humanisme, 1974, Jul–Aug, 31– 7; Palou, 181–215; R. Cotte, “De la Musique des loges maçonniques à celles des fêtes révolutionnaires,” Les Fêtes de la révolution, 1977, 565–74; and the more qualified assessment of Ligou, “Structures et symbolisme maçonniques sous la révolution,” Annales Historiques, 1969, Jul Sep, 511–23.

For the heavy reliance on Masonic structures in provincial civic rituals, see, for instance, F. Vermale, “La Franc maçonnerie savoisienne au début de la révolution et les dames de Bellegarde,” Annales Révolutionnaires, III, 1910, 375–94; and especially the monumental work for la Sarthe which lifts the level of research far above anything done for Paris: A. Bouton, Les Franc-maçons manceaux et la révolution française, 1741–1815, Le Mans, 1958. See also his successor volume Les Luttes ordentes des francs-maçons manceaux pour l’établissement de la république 1815–1914, Le Mans, 1966.

In the New World, where the links between Masonic and revolutionary organizations were particularly strong, rival revolutionary parties sometimes assumed the names of rival rites. In Mexico, for instance, escoceses (pro-English “centralists” from Scottish rite lodges) battled yorquinos (federalists from the rite of York introduced by the first U.S. ambassador, Joel Poinsett). See A. Bonner, “Mexican Pamphlets in the Bodleian Library,” The Bodleian Library Record, 1970, Apr, 207–8.

Leads a plenty.

It was the Karmin article, after finding it online, which compelled me to compile “Masonic Emblems on Coins and Medallions during the French Revolution.”

Basically, what he did was mine the data in a standard numismatic reference work and highlight the examples of Masonic influence – minus illustrations, hence the need for my own treatment. The evidence is clear and seems deliberate, although one isn’t quite sure whether the artists involved were actually Masons themselves.

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JACK CORAGGIO - March 24, 2012

WASHINGTON — At every corner, beneath you and above you and to all sides, the inscrutably familiar symbolism of the Freemason organization is hidden in plain sight. This historic home is like a dollar bill—if a dollar bill was priceless.

Think of that pyramid and unblinking illuminated eye on the back of a dollar; these kinds of symbols are methodically carved or built into the walls of a house that has been revitalized in Washington, and so are the squares and the suns that denote the historic and quietly influential fraternity.

These icons are found in the most cleverly apt places. A ceiling lamp hangs from a depiction of a glowing sun, suns are found in fireplace mantles, and, in fact, in any place the image could illuminate. Consider the circular window on the due solar west end of the home.

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Laws of Silence

The ancient Egyptians were not the only ones who created art for magical purposes

Jonathan Jones - 4 November 2010

Magic is halfway between science and religion. Hear me out, secularists, hear me out. Religion is concerned with a spiritual realm beyond the visible world. Science only accepts – for practical purposes and, if you are Richard Dawkins and others, for philosophical purposes, too – the existence of that visible world, and attempts to discover its nature and how it works. But magic is the desire to use invisible forces to change the visible world.

Works of art that we look at today in museums, as if they were solely intended for mute aesthetic contemplation, were often made for magical purposes. This is clearly true of the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, but it also applies to art made thousands of years later in Europe. In Renaissance Florence, portraits of traitors were often painted on walls in public places – after one conspiracy, no less an artist than Sandro Botticelli portrayed the conspirators on the Piazza della Signoria. These were not merely “wanted” posters. They were visual curses: paintings that set out to injure their victims, to invoke malevolent magic. In a similar way, when a Venetian Doge betrayed the Republic of Venice his portrait in the Doge’s Palace was blanked out. A modern regime might simply remove his picture: by preserving it over the centuries, as a blank space, Venice did something more potent and spooky.

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Here.

Paula Neely - 2010 04 03

With the help of enhanced imagery and an expert in Elizabethan script, archaeologists are beginning to unravel the meaning of mysterious text and images etched into a rare 400-year-old slate tablet discovered this past summer at Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in America.

Digitally enhanced images of the slate are helping to isolate inscriptions and illuminate fine details on the slate—the first with extensive inscriptions discovered at any early American colonial site, said William Kelso, director of research and interpretation at the 17th-century Historic Jamestowne site (Jamestown map).

The enhancements have helped researchers identify a 16th-century writing style used on the slate and discern new symbols, researchers announced last week. The characters may be from an obscure Algonquian Indian alphabet created by an English scientist to help explorers pronounce the language spoken by the Virginia Indians.

“Just like finding the Rosetta Stone led to a better understanding of the Egyptians, this tablet is beginning to add significantly to our understanding of the earliest years at Jamestown,” Kelso said. It conveys messages about literacy, art, symbols and signs personally communicated by the colonists who used it, he explained.

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There’s a growing field of scholarly study devoted to unravelling Masonic, esoteric symbolism in architecture. James Stevens Curl is perhaps the authority on the subject with such works as The Art and Architecture of Freemasonry and The Egyptian Revival. And more recently, the obsessive investigations of Frank Albo on the Manitoba Legislature building have informed a wide audience on the notion that Freemason-architects have constructed buildings that not only incorporate hermetic/occult symbolism, but intended as “a type of initiatory theatre.”

In a similar vein, comes an offering by Lance Factor, Professor of Philosophy at Knox College - Chapel in the Sky: Knox College’s Old Main and Its Masonic Architect. In an article at the Knox College website, we read that the book, “released this month by Northern Illinois University Press, explores how in 1856 Old Main’s architect, Charles Ulricson, secretly incorporated symbols from Freemasonry into the main campus building of a fervently anti-Masonic institution.”

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Claire Bates - 2010 01 12

Hundreds of geometric monuments unearthed deep in the Amazon may have been left behind by a previously unknown society, say scientists.

Archaeologists have found more than 200 earthworks shaped as perfect circles and squares, many connected by straight roads. They have dated one site to 1283AD but say others could be from as early as 200AD.

The earthen foundations were found in a region more than 150miles across, covering northern Bolivia and Brazil’s Amazonas state.

The first ones were uncovered in 1999, after large areas of pristine forest was cleared for cattle grazing.

Sculpted from the clay rich soils of Amazonia, the earthworks are made up of 30ft wide and 10ft deep ditches alongside 3ft high walls. The largest ring ditches founds so far are 1,000ft in diameter.

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A detailed post about modern day alchemists.

While Dan Brown looks for Masonic symbolism in Washington, DC, we journey through Masonic London, on a trail that takes in Isaac Newton and Jack the Ripper, St Paul’s Cathedral and Canary Wharf, conspiracy theories and occult forces…

David Hambling - November 2009

Dan Brown’s latest novel sends symbologist Robert Langdon on a new quest. Having previously tangled with the Priory of Sion and the Illuminati, this time he’s pursuing the Freemasons; and once again he must follow a treasure trail of clues hidden in the urban landscape. Dan Brown is notorious for his loose approach to historical fact, and accuracy takes second place to keeping the plot moving. His location is Washington, DC, a city with plenty of Masonic connections. But Brown might have done better to start at the roots of Freemasonry in the City of London.

The City of London, or Square Mile, is history and mythology made concrete, going right back to the celebrated London Stone itself. [1] Settlement here dates to pre-Roman times, but the biggest influence on the City as we know it today was the rebuilding project that took place after the Great Fire of 1666. This gave London much of its present form and introduced many of its greatest monuments. Unlike the previous random sprawl, which had grown up organically over centuries, the rebuilding was carried out according to a deliberate master plan. Some claim that it was simply an attempt to build on more orderly and ‘rational’ lines, but if we peel back the surface the esoteric, Masonic and even magical aspects of the City are revealed.

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What do Dan Brown’s book The Lost Symbol and the Manitoba legislature have in common? Reg Sherren meets a Winnipeg man who may have the answer.

John Allemang - October 23, 2009

For the ancient Greeks, fire was a potent symbol of purity.

In the modern world, where antique pagan symbols generally don’t have much staying power, the flame still has the ability to purify: Witness the Olympic torch relay, now making its patient, painstaking way from the ruined temples of ancient Greece to the stunning Winter Games facilities of Vancouver 2010.

The torch relay represents the Olympics’ human side, the part that retains faith in the uncorrupted virtues global sport is meant to bring together every two years.

Through the hand-to-hand transmission of the eternal flame between both ordinary and extraordinary people, Games organizers ask us to see peace and friendship, hope and understanding, personal contact with the Olympic movement’s universal values and an unbroken continuity with the sporting purity of the ancient Greeks.

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Vigilant Reports - May 19th, 2009

During the 20th century, urban environments got taken over by corporate logos. Studies have reported that an average person is exposed to about a thousand logos a day. Few people however ponder on the symbolic meaning of these marketing tools and their occult origins. This article analyzes the esoteric origin of some well known corporate logos.

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