OCCULT VIEW

On August 23rd an earthquake struck the state of Virginia 100 miles away from Washington DC. The quake was felt across the east coast, but did little damage. However, the earthquake did crack the Washington Monument. A few days later on August 27 hurricane Irene struck the eastern coast of the United States, flooding the area with heavy rain.  I suggest a synchronicity occurred matching the damage to the monument with America’s current political state of affairs:  a nation split and damaged.

Hurricane Irene churns its way north

Nostradamus had a possible prediction concerning these events.  He had a prediction about a pillar split by earthquake and by flood.  Could this have been the Washington Monument?

Century 8, quatrain 29:

At the fourth pillar which they dedicate to Saturn

split by earthquake and by flood;

under Saturn’s building an urn is found

gold carried off by Caepio and then restored.

The first line describes a fourth pillar dedicated to Saturn. In astrology Saturn ruled over matters of law, government and civilization. The monument’s cornerstone was laid with a ceremony sponsored by the Freemasons on the 4th of July.  The Washington Monument could be this pillar dedicated to Saturn (law and governance).

The second line is “split by earthquake and by flood”. The Washington Monument was split, cracked by the August 23rd earthquake. It had to be closed indefinitely until repairs could be made. This line also mentions a flood. A few days later hurricane Irene arrived, flooding the area with rainwater.

The next two lines are an enigma.  They have yet to happen but seem to follow the events of the first two lines.  “Under Saturn’s building an urn is found.”  This is not the pillar of the first line, but I suggest a government (Saturn’s) building. What is this urn, and what is its significance?

The last line speaks of Caepio, a general and statesman during the Roman Empire. Historically, Caepio was said to have plundered a fortune in gold and silver from ancient temples, so I assume this line refers to him. The stolen silver was sent to the Roman Empire, but the gold vanished (supposedly stolen by Caepio). Caepio had a disastrous military campaign and suffered greatly for his folly, being punished by the Empire. What does this mean in the modern day? As a metaphor it could represent many things, from monetary policy to the fate of politicians. Assuming the quatrain refers to America in 2011, the third and fourth lines remain to be fulfilled.

Below is a segment from a documentary about the esoteric architecture of Washington DC. This section discusses Sirius & the Washington Monument:

Cracks in the Washington Monument

An earthquake struck Virginia on August 23, about 100 miles from Washington DC. The tremor was widely felt but did little damage. However, the quake did damage DC’s great obelisk, the Washington Monument. The monument has been closed to visitors indefinitely.

More Cracks in the Washington Monument

On the surface this event doesn’t seem significant. However, it has the feel of some dark portent. When an earthquake cracked the great monument, could it have been an omen for America’s future? America is now struggling with a dire economic situation and bitter political acrimony. Political gridlock threatens to bring America to its knees. The crack in the Washington Monument could symbolize the crack in American society. We have been split asunder.

Benjamin Franklin famously said at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Today’s politicians seem determined we hang separately.

In response to a little boy’s question about the age of the earth and evolution, Texas Governor Rick Perry responded, “That’s a theory that is out there — and it’s got some gaps in it. In Texas, we teach both creationism and evolution.”

Governor Perry is not alone in his skepticism of evolution. Polls suggest around 45% of Americans believe in biblical creationism: mankind came from Adam and Eve, the earth is 10,000 years old and Noah’s great flood caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Some suggest biblical creationism has gaps in it as well. I will demonstrate a gap in creationism and offer scientific evidence to fill that gap.

A gap in creationism: how did all the world’s animals get to Noah’s Ark? Since the Great Flood destroyed all life on earth, only those animals on Noah’s Ark survived. But how did unique animals from faraway places such as South America and Australia get to Noah’s Ark?

Consider the kangaroo and the koala bear which live only in Australia. How did they reach the Middle East, the location of the Ark? Mating pairs would have to swim across the Indian Ocean, without food, water or sleep until they reached South Asia.

Once they reached Asia, they would have to make the trek across the vast continent towards Noah’s Ark. Also consider that dinosaurs lived with mankind before the great flood. The koala bears would have to avoid being devoured by ravenous velociraptors and other carnivorous dinosaurs that rampaged the pre-diluvian world.

Let’s assume creatures like the Amazon River’s caimans managed to reach Noah’s Ark, surviving to repopulate the planet after the flood. A greater question is this: why did they return to their original habitat? Why didn’t they stick around Mount Ararat and repopulate this region first? One would imagine central Asia would contain every species of animal, while places like Australia would be devoid of animals. Remember, the flood happened only 5,000 years ago.

I have an answer for all these questions. Animals grew wings and flew there! This would solve the problem of animals crossing vast oceans. They grew wings especially for the trip. It also answers the riddle of how/why they returned to their original habitat. Afterwards they simply flew back home. Once all the animals returned from whence they came, their wings fell off.

You may ask…but where is the scientific evidence for any of this? It exists in the Australian platypus, the small beaver-like creature with the beak of a duck. When the platypus grew its wings, it also grew the duckbill by accident. When the platypus flew back to Australia after the flood, its wings fell off but the beak remained. The beaver-creature was inadvertently left with a duckbill, evidence of Noah’s flood.

I plan on writing the Texas State Board of Education asking them to include my Winged Platypus Theory in their biology curriculum. Our children need to know!

One-Eyed God Odin

Is there any secret, esoteric symbolism in our common playing cards?  Occult significance is known to be found in tarot cards.  Standard playing cards are a poor symbolic cousin compared to the tarot.  Yet, I believe there exists unrecognized symbolism hidden in plain sight in our everyday playing card.

Playing cards are used for games and gambling, where one interacts directly with chance (or fate).  Gambling with cards can be either a blessing or ruin lives.  They are used for amazing magic tricks, pretending supernatural powers.  In cartomancy they are sparks for the intuition and may even foretell the future.  And they are powerful symbolic representations for numerology.

There are commonly recognized correspondences with playing cards:

• 4 suits for the 4 seasons
• 52 cards for the weeks in the year
• 13 cards in each suit match the 13 lunar months
• 365 days in the years (add the pips)

The modern deck is based on the French design, or as we know it today the English deck.  These designs have pretty much stayed the same, following an original pattern, regardless of the maker.  The exact shape of the pip or the design of the face cards’ colorful wardrobe may differ, but the essential elements remain the same.  Card manufacturers simply follow a traditional design.  But is there any hidden meaning in these designs?

King Court Cards

I’ll offer one possibility.  Let us consider the king court cards.  Tradition holds the cards represent the following historic kings:

• King of Hearts is Charles
• King of Diamonds is Julius Caesar
• King of Clubs is Alexander the Great
• King of Spades is King David

The Kings of Spades and Clubs always hold a sword.  The King of Hearts has a curious pose, holding his sword behind his head.  He is also the only king without a mustache.  But the King of Diamonds differs significantly from the other three king cards.

The King of Diamonds is the only king card shown in profile.  In addition, the King of Diamonds does not carry a sword as the 3 other kings, but an axe.  Why these differences?  What is special about this card?

I have a theory.  The King of Diamonds does not represent Julius Caesar, but the Norse God Odin!

1.  The Rune Ing.

A diamond is the shape of a rune, the Elder Futhark’s 22nd rune “ingwaz” or ing.  The meaning of this rune is the Norse god Ingwaz, or Freyr.  As the 22nd rune, 2+2 equal the 4 sides of the diamond’s shape.  If the diamond actually does represent a rune, what other Norse symbolism is in the diamond cards?

2.  Odin the One-Eyed God

In Norse mythology, Odin discovered the runes by sacrificing one of his eyes in exchange for the wisdom of runes.  Thereafter he was the one-eyed god.  The King of Diamonds has one eye and is gazing at the diamond shaped rune.  His hand is raised towards the diamond rune, as if offering it to us.  His other eye is hidden from view, for if it was shown eyeless the meaning of the king as Odin would be obvious.

3.  The Spear Gungnir

The king cards all hold swords except for the Diamond King.  In Norse mythology, Odin’s weapon was not a sword but the spear Gungnir.  The King of Diamonds has an axe instead of a sword…a shaft of wood with a blade at the end, which could be a stylized version of Odin’s spear Gungnir.

Why have symbols of Odin offering the invention of runes to humanity? I suspect the designer used Norse mythology to make a specific point. The diamond is also a Masonic symbol used in scared geometry, and this symbolism really feels Masonic in nature.

Esoteric knowledge came at a cost, especially in the past. Historically those who did not follow the doctrines of church and state were severely persecuted. One could lose far more then an eye…it was truly dangerous. Heresy! The King of Diamonds as a pagan god offering runes means unsanctioned, unconventional or non-Christian concepts. Hence only one side of the king’s face is shown, his public side. The other side, maimed and eyeless, is the side seeking freedom of thought and freedom from authority.  And secretly offering it to those who seek the same.

Below is an interesting documentary about the mysteries of playing cards:

The movie Captain America is an entertaining and uplifting film. Actor Chris Evans did a great job portraying Steve Rogers both prior and after his transformation into Captain America. The Steve Rogers character starts out as a physically weak individual of small stature, but who has courage and compassion, the heart of a lion. In the movie he sought to join the military to serve his nation but was constantly rejected because of his physical weakness.

A scientist noticed his true nature and he was given the chance to serve by volunteering for an experiment to create a super solider. Steve Rogers was turned into Captain America, his body transformed into physical perfection. His body became a reflection of what he was within his soul and a mirror of his character. What he was within literally became flesh. Immaterial thought became manifest into the physical world.

This is occult message behind Captain America. The occult concerns itself with the manifestation of the immaterial (thought) into physical reality. And the occult is about using these processes for inner self-transformation. In the occult we contact our higher selves or higher powers to manifest our potential, and bring into reality what we desire. Captain America can be a metaphor for this power of belief and becoming what we believe in.

The occult concepts of inner transformation and manifesting reality can be used for either positive or negative results. In the movie the villain Red Skull symbolizes a negative transformation. The Red Skull was exposed to the same super solider serum that created Captain America. Yet, unlike Steve Rodgers, the Red Skull’s inner character was vile, and so he was transformed with a monstrous appearance. The Red Skull became a physical reflection of his own personality.

These occult themes are not intentional by the movie-makers. But when stories deal with mythic elements, they may cross paths with occult elements. Myths, legends, and the occult walk hand in hand.

One aspect of the movie that was supposed to involve the occult actually has nothing to do with it. The Red Skull character was in charge of the Nazi’s paranormal division. The character sought out an occult source of great power, the Cosmic Cube. The Skull called it the power of the “gods”. Even as a metaphor or symbol, nothing like this exists in true occult experience; it is just a fantasy element,

I suspect the movie’s villainy could have been made more realistic and dramatic if it had been inspired by the real life links between the Nazis and occultism. True or not, there are ideas the Nazi’s were inspired by contact with villainous secret societies, black magic, demonic entities or even extraterrestrial beings. But delving into the darkest corners of Nazi occultism would probably be out of place in a comic book movie. Better to have the villains using ray guns and cosmic cubes.

Below is a documentary about Nazi occultism:

One of the most common types of paranormal events is reputed to be the appearance of a crisis apparition.  The crisis apparition is said to be the spirit of the injured, dying, or recently dead who appear to the living shortly around the time of the crisis.  It seems there is a brief window of opportunity for a spirit to visit one final time before passing into the “other world”.

I had written before about how my father, as a young man newly engaged for marriage, saw an apparition of his mother-in-law in a hallway.  Later he discovered that his mother-in-law had died around the time of his vision, and he had no knowledge of this event.  Just a coincidence?  We may have dreams or imagine our loved ones often, and if this coincides with an accident or death, we’d easily imagine it a premonition or spiritual visitation.

Then again, it may not always be only coincidence.  I have a story of a crisis apparition from a friend of mine.  They have a family story they repeat often.  It takes place in the early 1970s.  At the time my friend was around twelve years old, and his family had gone on their annual summer vacation at Castle Rock Lake in Wisconsin.  His parents and siblings all went camping together.

One night while camping my friend’s mother awoke in great distress.  She had a vivid and startling dream of her own mother.  Grandma hadn’t gone camping with them; she was back at home in their two-flat apartment in Chicago.  My friend’s mother said something terrible had happened to grandma, and grandma visited her.  Mother wanted to leave and go back home immediately.  The family told her everything was fine; she just had a dream.

To humor mom, they sought out a phone to call home.  Back there were no cell phones.  They called but nobody answered.  Yet that really didn’t mean anything.  But mother insisted they leave camping early and return home now.  So they all packed up and left.  When they eventually got to their home, they discovered grandmother in her flat upstairs, dead in her bed.  My friend recalls, as a boy, how everyone was shocked at the death of grandma and didn’t understand how mother somehow knew.

In this situation, the vision/premonition prompted a change in behavior from the norm, and the premonition proved sadly accurate.

The crisis apparition seems to occur when there is a separation, as if the injured or dying wish to communicate with their loved ones.  This startling phenomenon does not seem to happen when loved ones are together, aware of the dying process and are gathered around.  Perhaps when a family is present the need to visit one last time is not felt necessary.

It is curious some people appear to be more sensitive to these things then most.  Perhaps many of us are mentally closed off to this stuff, and even if the deceased tried to appear we’d not realize their presence.  The crisis apparition may be quite common, except few are open enough to see.

Another theory holds this is in fact telepathic communication and not a visitation of a ghost.  It seems sometimes we can perceive if someone we have a connection with is in distress. It doesn’t have to be something truly traumatic.  How often has someone suddenly had a feeling of anxiety, only to discover later around the same time something stressful happened to a family member or a friend?

Again, it appears some people are sensitive to this, and others aren’t.  Can we train ourselves for sensitivity?  I’d say yes, if we wished it.  Opening our intuition is something we can all do, but many people can’t be bothered.  It is a choice.

I recently took some pictures in an old cemetery and found the statuary both beautiful and sad. I preferred the grave statuary to blocky tombstones.

A tombstone is a fitting symbol for death.  It is an impersonal, abstract representation of death.  The angular shape suggests annihilation and oblivion.  Gravestones are rock, and stone is similar to bone.  Stones could be called the bones of the earth.  Rock is an apt symbol for the skeleton.  Both rock and death are permanent.

Statues in cemeteries bring the illusion of life to stone.  A statue seems to say death is not oblivion.  Giving human form to stone hints we endure beyond death.  It is a more hopeful symbol then just a square block marking the deceased’s location.  Statuary suggests the immortality of the human personality.  Statues are an act of creativity that endures beyond death.  I prefer that symbolism!

In this cemetery I noticed statues of female angels, mourning women and children.  I did not see statues of adult male figures.  What could this mean?  I’d guess society thinks the female is considered more emotional then the male and is a better symbol for mourning.  Men are not supposed to cry, and a statue of a man mourning might be considered an uncomfortable symbol of weakness.  It is curious how culture influences even grave statuary.

Pareidolia is when we see images we recognize in random shapes that seemed to look familiar. For instance, we may see the image of faces or animals in clouds. We tend to make sense of random patterns when they fit something we recognize.

I reviewed a photograph I took over a decade ago (above). This was before I had a digital camera, and for this photo I used a film camera.  The photo was taken at an old pub, and I thought the mural on the wall was interesting so I took a picture. There was nobody in this area at the time. When I later developed the film, this picture had a curious smoky image in it.

Studying the picture something became apparent to me; there was a face in the center of the vapor. In the photo above I drew an outline over where the features seem to be so it will be more visible. What struck me was that the face’s features were fairly symmetrical. The face even seemed to have an expression on it with its closed eyes, as if drifting in a slumber, half conscious between the world of life and death. Tendrils of smoke emerged for this central image with their own strange shapes.

Is this a photo of a real ghost or merely pareidolia at work? Certainly possible. Yet, pareidolia usually involves a caricature, something vaguely resembling what we imagine. When showed this photo to others, their reaction was either they couldn’t detect the face or OMG.

I would return to this pub hoping to get another picture of whatever possibly haunted the place. I never got another one, but I did get orbs, which don’t mean much either but are still interesting. Below is a photo of an orb that hovered…drifting. I wonder if it the orb could be the same smoky ghost except from a distance?

There was a story about a dead “sea monster” beached in China.  The decaying carcass is likely a whale.  The story and photo is here:

Fishy business: Mysterious 55ft ‘sea monster’ washes up in China

Sightings of sea monsters are as old as sailing.  When an unrecognizable giant carcass is stranded on a beach, there is the natural impulse to imagine it is the remains of a sea monster.  The creations of legends are often the result of such misunderstandings.

Nostradamus has a prophecy about such a sea monster stranded on a beach:

Century 5, Quatrain 88
Through a frightful flood upon the sand,
A marine monster from other seas found:
Near the place will be made a refuge,
Holding Savona the slave of Turin.

His quatrain implies a storm or the tides carried a marine monster onto the sands.  Centuries ago this would seem odd, if the locals were not very familiar with whales.  His quatrain mentions Savona, a seaport in northern Italy.  This quatrain likely refers to a beached whale in the Mediterranean Sea, which likely happened in the past and will yet again in the future.  Yet Nostradamus also mentions it is from “other seas”.

Why bother to make a prediction about something like this?  I have a theory.  Genuine clairvoyance might use unusual events as an omen to foretell greater events soon to occur.  If something odd happens before a monumental event, the strange occurrence could be considered a signpost.  Since unusual events happen all the time, it comes down to the prophet picking the right notable event coinciding with a future event.

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, did it really happen?  It didn’t matter.  If a tree falls on someone’s house, the account might appear in the local newspaper if nowhere else.  If a falling tree/unusual event gets worldwide attention, it may reverberate in the collective consciousness.  It gets noticed.  These peculiar if unimportant instances may get picked up by a clairvoyant, assuming clairvoyance responds to the collection attention of millions or even billions of individuals.  The falling tree is unremarkable until it gets noticed by the masses.  If it is unnoticed, why bother using it in a prediction?

Nostradamus suggests something will happen when a sea monster is stranded on a beach.  That does not give us much to work with.  Unless the last two lines come in to play afterwards.  I don’t suggest this story of the decaying whale is necessarily part of this particular quatrain.  However, we should pay attention to any stories of beached sea monsters that gain wide attention.  We never know when any sea monster will be the Nostradamus sea monster.

JULY 19, 2011:  SEA MONSTER UPDATE!

Loch Ness monster-like beast filmed in Alaska

A video of a sea monster!  Could an actual sea monster have been caught on video?  If this video is not faked, then it looks like a geninue sea serpent.