William Dudley Pelley, International Fascism, and the Sirius Tradition Part III

Welcome to the third installment in my examination of the notorious 1930s-era fascist William Dudley Pelley. Pelley is chiefly known in this day and age for founding the Silver Shirts, one of the most notorious fascist organizations in pre-World War II America, and his eventual imprisonment after being charged with sedition in 1942. During the first installment in this series I considered a bit of Pelley's background (with a special emphasis on his time spent in the East around the time frame of the World War I) as well as the founding, structure and goals of his Silver Shirts. In the second installment I broke down the allegations of Pelley being a Nazi collaborator as well as his extensive ties to both the pre- and post-WWII fascist underground.

In this installment I would like to begin considering in earnest one of the least examined aspects of Pelley's life: his dabblings in the occult. Many researchers treat the occult and metaphysical aspects of Pelley's life as a minor footnote in relation to his fascist activism when in fact the former consumed far more of his life than the latter. Pelley had already developed his own bizarre metaphysical system well before the founding of the Silver Shirts and he would continue to promote it to literally the end of his life. By contrast, Pelley effectively ceased publicly promoting fascism after being imprisoned in the 1940s (though he never ceased supporting the ideology). That being said, both obsessions were closely entwined in Pelley's mind throughout his life.

Pelley with the Silver Shirts

As there has been very little written about Pelley's metaphysical beliefs I will devote much of this article toward examining the origins of Pelley's occult doctrines and the groups that he came into contact with in the early years. With that in mind, let us begin examining the event that sent Pelley on his curious journey into the arcane. It occurred in 1928 while Pelley was living in a bungalow in Altadena, California. This was toward the tail end of Pelley's career as a Hollywood screenwriter (which was discussed in part one) when he was first beginning to discover his latent anti-Semitism and racialism. In point of fact, Pelley was literally in the midst of "studying" the question of race in his bungalow when he slipped into a mystical experience (seriously).

"On the night of his conversion experience, Pelley went to bed early and read ethnological tracts until dozing, only to be awakened early in the morning by an inner voice shrieking 'I'm dying.' He felt a physical sensation like a 'combination of heart attack and apoplexy.' This physical distress subsided as Pelley plunged 'down a mystic depth of cool blue space not unlike the bottomless sinking sensation that attends the taking of ether for anesthetics.'

"'Whirling madly' into the blue mist, Pelley closed his eyes and hoped for the quick end of the experience. Feeling hands holding him up, he opened his eyes and found himself lying naked on a marble slab in an environment reminiscent of a Maxfield Parrish painting, with two men in white uniforms attending to him. The two vaguely familiar helpers told Pelley not to be afraid and not to try to see everything in the first 'seven minutes.' They instructed him to bathe in a nearby reflecting pool, which caused Pelley to lose his self-consciousness over being naked.

"One man left, and the remaining white-clad individual, 'William,' explained to Pelley that he had gone 'over' while stationed at a military camp in 1917. William told Pelley that everyone has lived hundreds of times before, because earth is a classroom where souls learn and move up the spiritual hierarchy. This hierarchy accounts for human races, which are simply 'great classifications of humanity epitomizing gradations of spiritual development, starting with the black man and proceeding upward in the cycles to the white.' Having completed his first spiritual lesson, the blue mist appeared to return Pelley to the bungalow.

"Although Pelley awakened to conscious awareness of his earthly existence, he remained in contact with the spirit world, as William continued to speak to him clairaudiently. He instructed Pelley to relax and return to the 'Higher Reality.' This time the marble portico was full of people, and Pelley realized that he knew all of them and that they were all saintly individuals, with 'no misfits, no tense countenances, no sour leers, no preoccupied brusqueness, nor physical disfigurements.' After a brief chat with these folks Pelley, again enveloped by the blue mist, returned to his bedroom, but now possessing 'strange powers of perception' to assist him in completing a specific errand on the material plane.

"Shaken by the experience, Pelley determined to regain his sense of the material world by visiting his office the next morning. He related that his employees found him to appear like a different person who stood straighter and healthier and less wrinkled. The experience also eliminated his troubling insomnia and anxiety."

(William Dudley Pelley: A Life in Right-Wing Extremism and the Occult, Scott Beekman, pgs. 53-54)

Maxfield Parrish's Daybreak

At this point let me pause and note that Pelley had little experience concerning Spiritualism or the occult (although greater than he long admitted) when the events of May 28-29, 1928 transpired. Its also interesting to note the location of where Pelley's "seven minutes in eternity" occurred: Altadena, California. Altadena is located about fourteen miles from downtown Los Angeles and is directly north of the city of Pasadena.

As I'm sure many of my readers are aware, Pasadena was the long time home of Jack Parsons, the notorious rocket scientist and Crowley disciple who has long obsessed conspiracy culture. Parsons was barely a teenager when Pelley's mystical experience occurred, but he displayed an interest in the occult at a very young age. Pelley's experience would make him something of a minor celebrity in the late 1920s and early 1930s and Pelley's mystical teachings would continue to be propagated in the Los Angeles area by the Silver Shirts well into the 1930s. I've found nothing to indicate that Parsons was aware of Pelley, but given the closeness of Pelley's initial experience, it does not seem totally beyond the realm of possibility that Parsons was at least aware of Pelley on some level.

Jack Parsons

But back to the matter at hand. Pelley underwent a second experience not long after the first when he was in the midst of traveling cross country.

"Pelley decided that the 'fleshpots' of Hollywood could not help him understand his metaphysical experience, so he traveled to New York to meet with his friends there. While crossing New Mexico by train, he underwent a second experience. As he was reading Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay 'The Over-Soul,' a brilliant shaft of white light poured down on Pelley. A disembodied presence explained to Pelley that Jesus Christ was an 'actual Personage,' and that existing churches and ministers were not only wrong about Christ's teachings, but were leading millions of people astray. The presence instructed Pelley to continue to receive clairaudient messages by utilizing the 'hidden powers' within him, and to spread the correct understanding of Christ.

"In New York, Pelley met with his friend Mary Derieux, fiction editor for the American Magazine. Deeply immersed in spiritualism herself, Derieux excitedly joined Pelley in exploring his new powers. During the summer of 1928 they spent two weeks engaged an automatic writing.

"The beings from the other side instructed them that the Music of the Spheres (a concept swiped from Pythagorus) is the very center of the mystery of universal creation. Within this universe there is no force but love; hatred and evil are merely the absence of love. These beings also explained to Pelley and Derieux that they dwelled on the 'harmonious plane' (which is the next level above the earth) and communicated with certain earth-dwelling souls to promote love and harmony.

"A large portion of these messages focused specifically on the role of Pelley in spiritual history. The voices allegedly explained to Pelley that he would apprentice in tribulation, then achieve financial independence so he might be ready for freedom and service to higher beings. He had been chosen because art is the 'handmaiden of God,' and artists like himself are the true chosen priesthood."

(William Dudley Pelley: A Life in Right-Wing Extremism and the Occult, Scott Beekman, pg. 55)

In either late 1928 or early 1929 Pelley would write down his initial "seven minutes in eternity." It would go on to become his most successful piece of writing.

"Returning to New York, Pelley rented a room at the Commodore Hotel and, through a process he later called 'super radio,' wrote the narrative of his 'seven minutes in eternity' in less than two hours. Derieux presented the article to her boss, American Magazine editor Merle Crowell, who agreed to run the story and pay Pelley $1,500 for it. Appearing in the March 1929 issue of American, Pelley's tale of travel to other planes of reality generated a mass of mail both to the editor and to the writer. The American boasted a subscription list of over 2,200,000 people at the time, and Pelley's tale became one of the most widely read accounts of paranormal activity in American history.

"Stunned by the response to his article – the American's offices received thousands of letters concerning the 'seven minutes' – Pelley decided to move to New York in summer 1929. He rented part of a 53rd Street brownstone for himself... Pelley spent much of 1929 responding to his voluminous correspondence and participating in Manhattan séances and spiritualist meetings.

"During one of these meetings, Pelley made the acquaintance of the trance medium George Wehner. Something of a 'psychic to the stars,' Wehner carved out a very successful career for himself during the 1920s. Pelley attended séances in which Wehner served as amanuensis for such diverse celebrities as Joseph Conrad, film scenarist June Mathis, various prominent American Indians, and Robert Louis Stevenson.

"Pelley eventually began contacting many of these same people during his own sessions. He claimed that Robert Louis Stevenson provided him with an unused chapter and asserted that Joseph Conrad clairaudiently dictated an entire novel to him. Pelley published this work of fiction in summer 1929 as Golden Rubbish, allegedly to answer many of the questions readers raised in response to his American Magazine article."

(ibid, pgs. 57-58)

Pelley had become involved in the then thriving New York spiritualist movement even before his description of his "seven minutes in eternity" appeared in American Magazine in 1929. His most notably contact was with the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR). This association began due to the active involvement of Pelley's friend Mary Derieux in the Society.

"As chair of the publications committee of the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR), Derieux provided Pelley with entry into New York spiritualist circles. These contacts garnered Pelley's exposure to current theories and writings on psychical research and undoubtedly helped him develop his own ideas. Further, Pelley's account of visiting another plane made an immediate splash in the psychical community, as it placed him squarely within the debate over the most divisive spiritualist issue of the period – reincarnation.

"Established in 1884 by, among others, physicist William Barrett and psychologist William James, the ASPR staggered through a tumultuous early career. Unlike the older English Society for Psychical Research, the ASPR faced chronic underfunding and a lack of full-time psychical researchers. Owing to financial difficulties, the ASPR was absorbed by the English society in 1889, only to reappear as an independent organization in 1909, thanks primarily to the dynamic leadership of Columbia professor James Hervey Hyslop.

"Although Hyslop died in 1920, the Society reached the pinnacle of its public success in the ensuing decade, propelled by vigorous researchers such as Walter F. Prince and Lamarkian psychologist William McDougall. A spate of best-selling books, including Sir Oliver Lodge's Raymond and Baird T. Spaulding's five-volume Life and Teachings of the Masters of the Far East; successful speaking tours by Lodge, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and the playwright Maurice Maeterlinck; and the publicity surrounding annual international congresses help push psychical research into the headlines. In the early 1920s, even Thomas Edison became involved, spending part of his final years working on a spiritual communication machine.

"The seriousness with which psychical research was taken is illustrated most clearly by the establishment of the first university-affiliated psychical laboratory, at Duke University in 1928. Headed by J. B. Rhine, who originally moved to Duke to work with McDougall, the lab investigated scores of mediums and psychics. Rhine initially studied the question of life after death but, realizing the pitfalls of this line of inquiry, quickly restricted his focus to 'corporeal parapsychical'  material (mental or subjective phenomena, including spiritualism). Rhine, who worked at Duke until 1965, published a series of best-selling books and coined the terms 'parapsychology' and 'extra-sensory perception.'

"Despite growing public awareness of the Society, psychical researchers faced increasing schisms within the movement. Issues such as reincarnation and ectoplasmic evidence divided the ASPR into warring factions. When disputes arose over the validity of trance medium (and ectoplasmic material spewer) 'Margery,' local branches of the Society left to organize themselves into independent organizations.

"Although never a member of the ASPR, Pelley found a great deal of interest in the debates swirling within the society during the late 1920s. Needing to get his business affairs in order, however, he returned to California in summer 1928. Pelley and Mina began automatic-writing sessions almost as soon as he returned to the Pacific coast. During the sessions Pelley became increasingly convinced of his own spiritual importance. Pelley related that one of his California spirit contacts noted that, in numerous previous incarnations, he had been one of those 'people who kicked up more of a rumpus on the human stage than humanity especially liked at the time, and always in some proselytizing capacity that wrought alterations in the mode of humanity's living.' This developing sense of self-importance, coupled with the urging of Mary Derieux, led Pelley to publish the account of his conversion experience."

(ibid, pgs. 55-57)

By 1930, in the wake of the success of his American Magazine article recounting his "seven minutes in eternity", Pelley began publishing his own metaphysical-centric magazine. It was was called the New Liberator and purported to promote Christ's teachings (as defined by Pelley) and the "vast machinery, operating with infinitesimal precision and accounting for every event on our present plane of consciousness." These were bold objective to be sure, but the magazine experienced financial difficulties from the onset. Eventually he worked through these difficulties after he started receiving advertisement revenue from other metaphysical organizations.

"The issuance of the October New Liberator inaugurated a short period of stability, and Pelley published the magazine on a monthly basis for the rest of the year. Pelley reorganized the editorial staff during this period, and brought Olive E. Robbins on board as business manager. Robbins, in a move that greatly aided the magazine's continued existence, managed to increase advertising revenue. The advertisements, however, proved to be something of a double-edged sword. In no position to refuse advertising dollars from any source, Pelley accepted money from a variety of shady metaphysical organizations, including the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Cruces (AMORC) and Psychiana. Although the advertising revenue was desperately needed (and Pelley agreed with significant aspects of the teachings of these groups), affiliation with such organizations did nothing to promote the acceptance (or perceived validity) of Pelley's religious doctrine. 

"Established by New York advertising man H. Spencer Lewis, also known as Wishar Spenle Cerve, the AMORC represents one of several Rosicrucian groups active in the United States. All of these groups claim that their teachings are based upon writings ascribed to the mythical seventeenth century mystic Christian Rosenkreuz. Lewis, however, went on to persist that his organization's teachings actually dated from the reign of Thutmose III, circa 1500 B.C. In a sort of spiritual alchemy, the AMORC blends Christianity with Kabbalism and Hermetic theories, with the ultimate goal of transcending material form. Lewis skillfully mixed in Theosophical elements to separate his version of Rosicrucianism from his competitors (completing a circle begun with Theosophy founder Helena P. Blavatsky, who earlier swiped elements from European Rosicrucianism for her movement). During the 1930s Lewis oriented much of his teachings towards the spiritualist mecca of Mount Shasta. His 1931 volume Lemuria:The Lost Continent of the Pacific placed the Atlantis myth in the Pacific Ocean, with Mount Shasta as the continent's peak and current home of cavern-dwelling Lemurian survivors. Owing to its image as a mail-order religion, AMORC has never been respected within the esoteric religious community."

(William Dudley Pelley: A Life in Right-Wing Extremism and the Occult, Scott Beekman, pgs. 64-65) 

The AMORC is most well known in this day and age to conspiracy buffs for a certain alleged assassin who attended in single meeting of the order in either 1966 or 1968.

"On May 28, 1966, a young Palestinian immigrant fascinated with the occult had attended his first meeting of the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC) at the society's Akhnaton Lodge in Pasadena, and was the subject of an experiment in sensory perception, sitting blindfolded while attempting to identify objects by touch. AMORC was one of the many splinter groups that broke off from the SRIA in England; they had OTO and Golden Dawn connections, but created a distinctly American style of recruiting: direct-mail. Most people of a certain generation are familiar with those ads in all sorts of magazines with the tag 'What Secret Power Did These Men Possess?' and a P.O. box where one could send for information and began a correspondence course in mental telepathy, meditation and, eventually, magic.

"This interest continued for the next few years. In March 1968, the Palestinian was in Pasadena – where he lived with his mother, some blocks north of where Jack Parsons had lived in the 1940s and 1950s – attending a meeting of the Theosophical Society's Adyar Lodge...

"A few months later, he would be arrested for the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. The Palestinian, of course, was Sirhan Bishara Sirhan."

(Sinister Forces Book I, Peter Levenda, pgs. 297-298)

Early ads for the AMORC

Other accounts hold that it was May 28, 1968 that Sirhan Sirhan attended his first (and reportedly only) AMORC meeting. This date is most striking as May 28, 1928 was the day upon which Pelley claimed to have had his "seven minutes in eternity" experience. Thus, Sirhan Sirhan attended at AMORC meeting either 38 or 40 years to the day of Pelley's experience beginning. I have been able to determine whether Pelley ever attended meetings at the group's Pasadena lodge, but its hardly beyond the realm of possibility as Pelley lived in Altadena during the final years of his Hollywood days. As noted above, Altadena is directly north of Pasadena.

Sirhan Sirhan

If nothing else, the AMORC seems to have had a long lasting influence of Pelley in one way: How to raise funds via direct mail. Pelley's metaphysical work would be subsidized for much of his life through revenues generated from direct mail beginning in the early 1930s.

Before leaving the AMORC, its also worth noting an organization Levenda notes in the above quote: SRIA, which stands for Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. This outfit arguably has an even more colorful history than its AMORC offshoot.

"The SRIA was an occult lodge founded in the United States at the end of the nineteenth century as an outgrowth of the British lodge, the Societas Rosicruciana In Anglia (also known as SRIA). The British SRIA was the breeding ground of the Golden Dawn, which itself was the breeding ground of Aleister Crowley. Without going into too much detail about the creation and history of these orders, which is certain to bore and confuse the reader, let us summarize by saying that the head of the American SRIA was, for quite some time, one George Winslow Plummer, a devoted occultist and Hermeticist who edited a magazine of all things alchemical and Rosicrucian called Mercury. Plummer was also interested in Christian mysticism, and aligned himself with several renegade Christian churches, including something called the Holy Orthodox Church. He was also a member of Aleister Crowley's OTO, and thus fits the mold of occultists everywhere: the inveterate joiner and accumulator of dignitaries. Plummer died in 1944, and was succeeded in the SRIA by his widow, the ethereal Mother Serena, who played the organ at the church's headquarters at 321 West 101st Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan when the author knew her. Mother Serena later married Theodotus Stanislaus de Witow (1890-1969), who then became the Patriarch of the Holy Orthodox Church, as well as the head of the SRIA until his death in 1969."

(ibid, pg. 278)

George Winslow Plummer (left), founder of the American branch of the SRIA

The SRIA opens up a series of curious synchronicities. Another member of SRIA was Francis Israel Regardie, a prominent occultist and author who was both a member of a successor organization to the Golden Dawn as well as Aleister Crowley's personal assistant for some years. Regardie was initiated into the SRIA in Washington D.C. in 1926, according to Levenda.

Regardie

Then, in 1964, the above-mentioned Patriarch Theodotus Stanislaus de Witow would consecrate a man named Walter (Vladimir) Propheta a bishop of the American Orthodox Church. Shortly thereafter Bishop Propheta would incorporate this church as the American Orthodox Catholic Church (AOCC). The AOCC was a curious domination that was along alleged to have had ties to the US intelligence community as well as the assassination of JFK (both Jack S. Martin and David Ferrie were bishops of the AOCC). Much more information on the AOCC and its ties to the JFK assassination can be found here.

Propheta

The AOCC also had some type of connection to the Sovereign Order of Saint John (SOSJ), a secret society than claimed descent from the Medieval Knights Hospitallers via the Russian line of succession. The SOSJ has existed since at least the 1930s, but during its heyday in the 1960s it counted numerous "former" high ranking military officers and a few CIA assets as members. The SOSJ has also been linked to the Kennedy assassination. More information on the Order can be found here and here.

Thus, Pelley was involved in the AMORC, an organization that gained infamy through its brief affiliation with Sirhan Sirhan in 1966/68. But beyond this, the AMORC had ties to the SRIA during the time period Peley was involved with the former. The SRIA featured members linked to both Aleister Crowley and the Golden Dawn and eventually became involved in the bizarre netherworld of fringe Christian churches and military orders claiming Medieval descent. What's more, Pelley was reportedly a close associate of a reputed member of the SOSJ during the 1930s, as was noted in the second installment of this series. Thus, this web of strange connections comes full circle.

Another famous occult organization Pelley became involved with on some level was the Theosophical Society. At a minimum the Society had an influence on his own theology.

"... Although Pelley steadfastly refused to admit that his teachings came from any source other than clairudient messages, he did admit his familiarity with Theosophical writings. While decrying their relegated status of Christ, Pelley noted that 'the Theosophists are nearest to the true facts about the forces operating behind life of any of the so-called theological creeds or sects.'

"Established by Russian émigré Helena P.Blavatsky (HPB), and Henry S. Olcott in 1875, Theosophy became the most successful occult system in American history. Blavatsky's bombastic writings attracted thousands of followers in America, India, and Europe. Like Pelley she claimed that her writings came to her through messages received from Ascended Masters. Blavatsky's system was a syncretic blending of Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, spiritualism, Egyptian Hermeticism, Kabbalism, and occultism. Theosophy is generally Buddhist and Hindu in doctrine and Christian in morality. Her cosmology outlined the development of seven root-races of humanity, each with seven subroots. These human forms (d)evolved from a purely spiritual form to a material one, with the ultimate, emanationist end of returning to immaterialism. Like Pelley, Theosophy promoted evolution, karma, reincarnation, and after-death states.

"Pelley's debt to Theosophy cannot be underestimated, yet he frequently decried Blavatsky's contention that Jesus represented simply one of many equally important Ascended Masters. Although at least two Theosophical splinter groups developed a Christocentric cosmology not unlike Pelley's system, Pelley never mentioned either Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophical Society or the Arcane School of Alice Bailey in his writings. Given Pelley's voluminous appetite for metaphysical books (and the esoteric circles he moved in), it seems highly unlikely that he did not possess at least a rudimentary knowledge of these groups, particularly Bailey's group, which (like the Theosophists) was active in Los Angeles during the 1920s. Pelley's silence regarding these groups may have been an attempt to separate his movement from two theologies so similar to his own beliefs (and potentially capable of siphoning off Liberation followers).

"Pelley, like many other esoteric writers of the period, also borrowed the notion of ancient, advanced civilizations from the Theosophists (and buttressed these beliefs with evidence from the works of Isaac Newton Vail). He persisted that global cataclysms resulted in the destruction of highly developed societies in Atlantis and Lemuria. According to Theosophical teachings, Lemuria housed the third root-race (the first race to possess physical bodies, reproduce sexually, and bear responsibility for good and evil), while the fourth root-race, the last remnant of whom perished a few thousand years ago, called Atlantis home. The Atlantians are especially significant to Theosophists because they were the alleged composers of the 'Stanzas of Dyzan,' the book of knowledge upon which all world religions were based."

(William Dudley Pelley: A Life in Right-Wing Extremism and the Occult, Scott Beekman, pgs. 74-76)

It's interesting to note that the above-mentioned Rudolf Steiner was also a member of the eventually Crowley-dominated OTO. And of course the blogosphere is awash with countless conspiracy theories concerning Alice Bailey, a long time bugaboo of the conspiratorial right. But back to Pelley.

Pyramidism would also be heavily incorporated into his theology.

"For Pelley tangible proof of the existence of these ancient civilizations can be found by studying the timeline preserved in the Great Pyramid of Giza. Pyramidists believe the passageway from the pyramid's entrance to the king's chamber is a prophetic account of the history of humanity. They discern the course of human history by dividing this time line into 'pyramid' inches. The 'pyramid' inch, slightly larger than the English inch, as one five-hundred-millionth of the Earth's axis. Using this measurement, the pyramidists determined that the time line runs from 2624 B.C. to A.D. 2001. For most of its course the time line is one inch per year, but, at the year 1909, it becomes one inch per month, thereby giving even more specific prophetic messages. Although pyramidism reaches back into the nineteenth century, Pelley developed his ideas on the matter from David Davidson, pyramidism's leading twentieth-century proponent. Pelley's views on the Great Pyramid were taken almost verbatim from Davidson's writings.

"Pelley's support for Davidson's theories derived in part from the pyramidist's claim that May 29, 1928, represented a significant date in human history. This, of course, was the night of Pelley's 'seven minutes in eternity.' Following this lead, Pelley promoted the idea that this date began the 'Time of Tribulation,' which would end on September 16, 1936. Pelley placed great significance upon these dates, as well as several other 'pyramid dates,' such as January 31, 1933 (the day Hitler took power), August 20, 1953 (the potential end of the Piscean Age), and September 17, 2001. Pelley believed the 2001 date denoted the Second Coming of Christ or, as Davidson declared, 'the final cleansing of the whole world for the full extension of the Kingdom of Heaven to all the earth.'"

(ibid, pgs. 76)

Before wrapping things up I would like to briefly consider one final group Pelley became involved with during the early days: the Mighty I AM movement.

"Established by former Chicago fortune-teller Guy Ballard and his wife, Edna, the Mighty I AM (the 'inner reality of the divine') achieved startling success during the 1930s. The Ballards' cult melded Christian Science, Unity, Rosicrucianism, and Pelley's teachings (which they borrowed freely) with Theosophy. While I AM represented the most popular diffusion of Theosophy ever attained in this country, one scholar has quite accurately persisted that the Ballards 'reduced the resulting mishmash to the mental level of the comic-books.' The cult began in 193o when Guy Ballard allegedly met the legendary Comte de Saint Germain on Mount Shasta. Ballard swiped most of Helena Blavatsky's religious system, placing Saint Germain and Jesus Christ at the top of a pantheon of Ascended Masters. While Guy Ballard developed ideas from Theosophy (and a few meetings with Psychiana's Frank. B Robinson), Edna Ballard began holding esoteric classes based on material she lifted from Pelley's League for the Liberation writings. The group peaked in the mid-1930s. At the height of its success their meetings attracted more than six thousand devoted followers. Guy Ballard's death in 1939 and a series of fraud trials against Edna, beginning the next year, spelled the end of their prominence. The I AM Foundation continues to this day, but only with a shadow of its former grandeur.

"Although the Ballards claimed that their teachings came directly from Saint Germain, they did reveal a debt to Pelley. Their writings included references to 'Christian Democracy,' citations of No More Hunger, and a decidedly Pelley-like, anti-New Deal, conservative political perspective. Part of the Ballards' appeal was the nationalistic overtones of I AM doctrine. They argued that the Masters lived in the United States (primarily in the far West), that humanity began in America, and that this country would be the vessel of spiritual light. The Ballard essentially filled the void (with admittedly much greater success) left by Pelley when he formed the Silver Shirts. Their doctrines were almost interchangeable, and the Ballards promoted a pro-American, conservative agenda very similar to Pelley's pre-anti-Semitic position. It was not surprising, then, that Pelley spiritualist followers deserted him for the I AM organization.

"As a tribute to Pelley, Guy Ballard, in his second book of I AM doctrine, even named a lesser Master 'Pelleur.' The Ballards' acknowledgment of influence, however, did not prevent them from raiding Pelley's membership for I AM converts. The Ballards attracted both rank-and-file League for the Liberation veterans and close Pelley associates. For example, Harry Seiber, the man who burned the Galahad Press's records in anticipation of the bankruptcy proceedings, left his post as Silver Shirt treasurer in the wake of Pelley's trail to become the associate director of the Saint Germain Activities."

(William Dudley Pelley: A Life in Right-Wing Extremism and the Occult, Scott Beekman, pgs. 110-111)

Guy and Edna Ballard

The Mighty I AM cult plays a crucial role in a latter part of this saga, so do keep them in mind. At this point I shall wrap things up for now. In the next installment I shall finish outlining Pelley's theology by the early 1930s, from which point it went through few variations for the rest of his life. From there I shall consider Pelley's role in the post-WWII New Age and Ufology scenes as well as the possible interest powerful figures in the American national security establishment took in his work at the onset of the Cold War. Stay tuned.

In the Madness of Initiation

Though he has little name recognition outside of horror circles filmmaker John Carpenter has left his mark on conspiracy culture, most notably via his cult classic They Live. The film stars 'profesional' wrestler Roddy Piper as an aimless drifter that stumbles upon a pair of sunglasses that reveals the world for what it really is. When wearing the glasses, Piper sees a black and white world enslaved by mass consumerism, Reaganomics and alien beings with heads like those of rotting corpses --In other words, our world with a zombie/alien race as a stand-in(?) for the Cryptocracy. Countless conspiracy gurus have gotten a lot of mileage out of They Live over the years and for good reason: Its probably the finest examination of 1980s America and the rise of the neo-cons ever released all the while playing out like a B-grade horror opus with a wicked sense of humor. Think Videodrome meets Lucio Fulci and you're on the right path.

Images from They Live

The more casual movie watcher is probably familiar with Carpenter from his more well known horror and sci-fi pictures, which include the original versions of Halloween and Assault on Precinct 13, the 1982 version of The Thing, Escape From New York, Starman, and Big Trouble in Little China. The astute watcher will note that Carpenter's work has been riddled with subversive elements and anti-authoritarian elements since at least the late 1970s. But it was in the late 80s that Carpenter's work seemingly became more overt in the themes he was exploring, peaking with They Live. Coincidentally (or not), his career began to take a permanent nose dive at this point as well. After creating many of his films from the ground up he would increasingly become a director-for-hire, helming several modestly budgeted flops like the Chevy Chase vehicle Memoirs of an Invisible Man and the ill-advised remake of Village of the Damned. Even projects Carpenter spearheaded seemed tame compared to his earlier work, such as Escape from L.A. Mercifully, Carpenter would drop one more film on his fan base riddled with subversion before he was totally neutered. Five years after the release of They Live Carpenter would unleash one of his finest, if least watched, films known as In the Mouth of Madness.

Carpenter

Carpenter has described Madness as the third part of his 'Apocolypse Trilogy,' the first part being The Thing, the second Prince of Darkness. 'Apocolypse' is surely a fitting description for this film. Regular readers of this blog may be familiar with Madness from the brief reference I made to it in part one of my series on legendary horror author/director Clive Barker and his grossly underrated film Lord of Illusions.

Illusions is an occult-ridden merger of supernatural horror and film noir, centering around a private detective investigating the death of a famous magician. I think of this film as a kind of 'gnostic detective noir,' a description I would also apply to this film as well as the few select others that have tread along similar paths. Some may object to me applying such a label to Madness as it is not overtly a noir film, nor does it feature a private detective as do other such films (e.g. Angel Heart, Cast A Deadly Spell, etc.)

That being said, the profession of the lead character, one John Trent (Sam Neill), is fraud investigator, a job with more than a few overlaps with a traditional private investigator. What's more, the Trent character is endowed with the same kind of world-weary cynicism of the classic private eye in addition to a plot line encompassing most of the first 40 or so minutes of the film that could have been taken from a classic detective novel. I can't help but feel that the film was originally meant as more of an overt noir/horror crossover, but was 'simplified' for mass appeal at some stage in the process.

Trent (Sam Neill) goes through quite a change during the course of Madness...

Trent is hired by an insurance outfit to investigate the disappearance of the world famous horror author, Sutter Cane (played by the great Jurgen Prochnow). This plays out in one of the film's most striking sequences, in which Trent and his employer are discussing the Cane case in a diner, seated by the window. As they are glancing down at some files a man in a trenchcoat brandishing an axe approaches the restaurant from the outside. Eventually he brings the axe down through the window, spraying glass all over Trent. He climbs onto the fraud investigator's table and asks Trent if he reads Sutter Cane before raising his axe to swing at Trent. Seconds later the axe man is killed by the police. Shortly thereafter Trent learns that the axe man was Cane's agent.

For our purposes, it is most interesting that this crucial scene (for it introduces Trent to the world of Cane) features an appearance of a checker floor board, which graces the diner. As regular readers of this blog know, checkered floor boards are very important to Freemasonry.

"In addition, the floor of the temple may be constructed or decorated in a checkerboard pattern of black and white squares, a motif that is found on many Masonic documents, tracing boards, and other illustrations. The checkerboard pattern has a long and illustrious pedigree, calling to mind instantly the game of chess and its origins as a sacred game between the forces of light and darkness. Today, it might be interpreted as a grid, a group of cells called a matrix -from the Latin mater for mother, from which we get the words matter, material, and even Demeter, the goddess of corn (which is also an important Masonic symbol). The prima materia is an alchemical term indicating the base material of the Philosopher's Stone. All of these meanings would be relevant to the Temple's design, since -as a replica of KST -the temple represents the universe, not the universe in a chaotic state but as an ordered cosmos, created and designed by the Great Architect."
(The Secret Temple, Peter Levenda, pg. 11)  

Despite such an auspicious beginning, Trent still elects to take the case and soon meets with Cane's publisher, played by Mr. NRA himself, Charlton Heston. After some nifty detective work in which Trent discovers that the specially-designed covers of Cane's books form a map of New Hampshire he, along with the obligatory female lead (Cane's editor, Linda Stiles, played by Julie Carmen), head off on a road trip to a town that's not supposed to exist. The town in question, Hobb's End, is a fictional New England village where the bulk of Cane's stories are set.

Avid readers may be picking up on more than a few nods to the legendary horror author Stephen King. Madness's writer is named Sutter Cane (an obvious play on King's name), while the bulk of his writing is set in a fictionalized New England town. Several of King's most well known novels take place in fictional New England towns, such as Castle Rock. Hell, Madness even features a kid with a deck of playing cards stuck in his bicycle wheels, a King staple.

King

While references and allusions to King's work are liberally sprinkled throughout Madness, it is another New England-based horror author whose work would serve as the principal basis for this film. As horror buffs may well have already guessed, that author is the legendary H.P. Lovecraft, a writer virtually unknown in his own era (1920s-1930s) whose work has had an enormous influence on a broad spectrum of fields.

"Lovecraft was writing in the 1920s, when most of his more famous stories were published. He was writing of a New England that, in his imagination, had ancient roots in unknown cultures; where Druidic circles and pagan chants would infest the countryside; where a kind of subterranean culture existed, parallel to the world of our own reality. He peppered his stories with references to works of archaeologists and anthropologists (some real, some fictitious), and connected the American Indian culture to the worship of strange, perhaps extraplanetary or extradimensional beings who viewed humans as little more than undercooked hors d'ouvres. His work has attracted a great deal of attention in the past 30 years or so... He has attracted serious, albeit fringe, attention from academics and historians of both literature and mysticism, and has even been graced with an anthology of his work prefaced by no less a literary light than Joyce Carol Oates. The blind Argentine author of many essays and stories on the macabre --Jorge Luis Borges --has written in the Lovecraftian mode in homage to the cranky Yankee master. In addition, there are several hardcore occult organizations in Europe and America that owe allegiance to the bizarre principals outlined in his works. They have taken their names and identities straight from his published works, with cults like Dagan and Cthulhu, and occultist emeritus Kenneth Grant has written extensively on the relation between the works of Lovecraft --an author of gothic horror fiction --and the rituals of modern ceremonial magic and communication with extraterrestrial intelligence.

"Part of the reason for Lovecraft's popularity among serious occultists is due to the fact that many of the ideas he put forward in his stories have found some basis in reality: in historical, archaeological, anthropological reality. While there is no evidence at this time for the existence of the beings of which he wrote --Cthulhu chief among them, but let's not forget Yog Sothot or Shub Niggurath -there is evidence that America was visited, and possibly inhabited for some time, by people who are not racially (or, at least culturally) identical to the Native American 'Indian' tribes that exist today."
(Sinister Forces Book One, Peter Levenda, pgs. 3-4)

Lovecraft

This is only scratching the surface. One of the most remarkable things occultists found about Lovecraft's writings was the incredible overlap they had with various belief systems (e.g. Aleister Crowley's) despite the fact that Lovecraft himself had read very few grimoires until the final years of his life. In fact, Lovecraft claimed much of the inspiration for his stories came from his dreams, in the form of horrifying night terrors. This has led to much speculation over the years that Lovecraft's writings were inspired by a nonhuman intelligence.

In the Mouth of Madness is overflowing with allusions to Lovecraft's works. The title itself is a reference to one of Lovecraft's few novellas, At the Mountain of Madness. Readers of Sutter Cane's fiction are driven literally mad in the film. Some readers of Lovecraft's legendary Necronomicon are said to be driven made by the tome in his stories. The name 'Pickman' is used for both a character and a hotel in Madness. Lovecraft named several of his most noted characters Pickman and occasionally wrote under the name. The entrance to both Madness's Hobb's End and the town of Dunwich from Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror are reached via a decrepit covered bridge. The demonic beings guiding Sutter Cane are referred to as the 'Old Ones' just as they are in Lovecraft's fiction (in Crowley's system they are called 'the Great Old Ones of the Night of Time'). What's more, the massive, slimy, tendril-laced appearance of Madness's monsters are taken directly from countless artists' representations of Lovecraft's pantheon. At several points when various characters are reading from Cane's books entire passages of Lovecraft's work are recited almost verbatim.

Possibly the most curious reference (albeit, a very vague one in deed) to Lovecraft is Madness's 'black church,' a massive Byzantine-esque cathedral (the real life Cathedral of Transfiguration was used for this location). It was while reading through Levenda's Sinister Forces Book One looking for references to Lovecraft that I stumbled upon this possible allusion:

"In an interesting side note to all of this, H.P. Lovecraft in his short story "The Horror at Red Hook" (1925) mentions a church in Brooklyn that had been turned into a dance hall. This church actually existed; to the author's best recollection it was on Amity Street, but that may be a confabulation. In any event, it was only a few blocks south of Atlantic Avenue; south, that is, of Brooklyn Heights, where Lovecraft lived for a short time during his equally short marriage. Briefly, in the 1970s, that church had been taken over by another Propheta's renegade churches, this one practicing a kind of Roman Ritual under an Eastern Orthodox aegis. The church was also --and at the same time --believed to be a place where satanic or occult ceremonies were performed. It was only a few blocks away from the infamous Warlock Shop, a location that figures prominently --though never by name --in Maury Terry's study of the Son of Sam cult, Ultimate Evil."
(pg. 288)

Madness's church

As far fetched as this connection may seem, Madness screenwriter is none other than famed producer Michael De Luca (Blade, the first Austin Powers film, American History X, Magnolia, The Social Network), a self-proclaimed sci-fi/horror/comic geek who originally hailed from Brooklyn and came of age in the 1970s there. Is it possible that De Luca, who became chief of production for New Line Cinema at the age of 27, heard the same reports that Levenda did and slyly worked them into Madness? Interestingly, De Luca's only other significant writing credit is on Freddy's Dead, the sixth and supposedly final Nightmare on Elm Street film (obviously reports of Freddy's demise were greatly premature). Regular readers of this blog will remember that I've already chronicled some the significant occult allusions in the Elm Street films here. In general, De Luca comes off as a fascinating character with a curious and swift rise to prominence. An interesting piece can be read on him here.

De Luca

As with any occult-centric film worth watching, the obligatory references to Sirius abound in Madness. As regular readers of this blog know, Sirius, the Dog Star, is highly important in the occult. I've chronicled its importance before here and here, among other places. The first notable reference to Sirius occurs at the same time as the black church is introduced. A group of possessed children are seen blindly following a dog about throughout the film. Later on, when a group of armed parents approach the church to retrieve their children, a pack of doberman are seemingly summoned by Cane (who has taken up residence in the black church) and chase off the mob. The dog is of course symbolic of Sirius, which makes the fact that a dog is leading the town's children about all the more curious.

"In the Arcane Tradition, the vast star, Sirius, symbolizes the sun behind the sun; i.e. the true father of our Universe. Sirius was the primordial star of all time, as the duplicator or renewer (of time cycles). He was known in Egypt as the Doubling One, a Creator or reflector of the Image. Sirius, or Set, was the original 'headless one' --the light of the lower region (the South) who was known (in Egypt) as An (the dog), hence Set-an (Satan), Lord of the infernal regions, the place of heat, later interpreted in a moral sense as 'hell.'"
(The Magical Revival, Kenneth Grant, pg. 226)

Another reference to Sirius appears in the location of Hobb's End, which is clearly shown to be located before a crossroads when Trent returns to the 'real' world. The crossroads have their own unique connection to the occult, which I've chronicled before here. They also have a connection to Sirius. It comes in the form of the Greco-Roman goddess Hecate, the more sinister from of the huntress, Artemis/Diana.

"In the later poets, Artemis is identified Hecate. She is 'the goddess with three forms,' Selene in the sky, Artemis on earth, Hecate in the lower world and in the world above when it is wrapped in darkness. Hecate was the Goddess of the Dark Side of the Moon, the black nights when the moon is hidden. She was associated with deeds of darkness, the Goddess of the Crossways, which were held to be ghostly places of evil magic."
(Mythology, Edith Hamilton, pg. 32)

As to her association with Sirius, Mr. Sirius himself, Robert K.G. Temple writes:

"The name of the Greek goddess Hekate (Hecate) literally means 'one hundred'. She was involved with the Argo tale and specifically identified by Robert Graves with Isis, and in other ways linked to Sirius as an 'underworld version.' Since both Sirius B and Sirius C may share a fifty-year orbit around Sirius A, we can possibly understand the 'twice-fifty years' as an esoteric reference to that."
(The Sirius Mystery, pg. 159)

Another curious piece of esoterica is the appearance of the number nine in association to Trent's breakdown. His hotel room at Pickman's is number nine as is his cell number at the asylum. The number nine is one of the more significant numbers in the occult, but has a negative association. Of it, Crowley writes in his book Gematria: "Most Evil, because of its stability... witchcraft, the false moon of the sorceress" (pg. 43). The thirty-third degree Freemason Manly P. Hall notes:

"The ennead--9--was the first square of an odd number (3x3). It was associated with failure and shortcoming because it fell short of the perfect number 10 by one. It was called the number of man, because of the nine months of his embryonic life. Among its keywords are ocean and horizon, because to the ancients these were boundless. The ennead is the limitless number there is nothing beyond it but the infinite 10. It was called the sphere of the air, because it surrounded the numbers as air surrounds the earth...

"The 9 was looked upon as evil, because it was an inverted 6. According to the Eleusinian Mysteries, it was the number of the spheres through which the consciousness passed on its way to birth. Because of its close resemblance to the spermstozoon, the 9 has been associated with germinal life."
(The Secret Teachings of All Ages, pg. )

The number nine was especially important to the religion of ancient Egypt, whose supreme pantheon of gods was referred to as the Ennead, or the Nine. This same pantheon of gods, now claiming to be an extraterrestrial intelligence, would allegedly pop up again in the 20th century and mingle in the affairs of the US Intelligence community and various old-money families, as I've outlined before here. In the case of Madness I would imagine the association the number nine has with germinal life is probably the most apt reason for its appearance.

the Ennead, or the Nine

Thus far we've chronicled allusions to Lovecraftian occult schools, Freemasonry, Sirius, and the Nine in Madness. However, the most illuminating aspect of the film has to do with its numerous discussions on the nature of reality. The film is essentially a chronicle of the Trent character's mental breakdown (the film opens with him being admitted to an asylum) as the reality he is accustomed to slowly deteriorates into a nightmare world derived from Cane's fiction. The Linda Stiles character first breaches this subject while discussing Cane's work as she and Trent head towards Hobb's End.

Stiles: Cane's work scares me.

Trent: What's to be scared about? It's not like it's real or anything.

Stiles: It's not real from your point of view and right now reality shares your point of view. What scares me about Cane's work is what might happen if reality shared his point of view.

Trent: Whoa. We're not talking about reality here. We're talking about fiction. It's different, you know.

Stiles: Reality is just what we tell each other it is. Sane and insane could easily switch places if the insane were to become the majority. You would find yourself locked in a padded cell wondering what happened to the world.  

As noted above, Stiles' words prove to be prophetic. At its very heart, the film is about the transformation of reality. The viewer is made aware of this subtly. In the opening moments of the film, shortly after Trent is admitted to the asylum, a psychologists alludes to a mass out break of insanity that official channels have been monitoring. Even before Trent leaves for Hobb's End the world seems to spiraling into chaos as it heads toward some terrible change. Hordes of rabid Cane fans raid book stores in anticipation of his latest novel. Police senselessly assault the homeless while random acts of violence are becoming common place everywhere.

Shortly after Trent returns from Hobb's End, the change is no longer psychological, but becoming psychical. Human beings are turning into the monsters Cane had previously written about. The viewer had already witnessed this change via Stiles, who does not make it back from Hobb's End with Trent. Rather, she morphs into a kind of human animal on four legs.

Stiles

Reality, and the manipulation thereof, strikes at the very heart of various occult rituals and orders. Candidates for such organization are put through a process known as 'initiation' which reprograms the way in which they view the world. The great counterculture philosopher Robert Anton Wilson remarks:

"...I have undergone a number of occult initiations and have become aware of the basic similarity of such rituals in all traditions. This is the pattern of death-rebirth which even today appears symbolically in the Roman Catholic Mass and the Masonic 'raising' ceremony. The Investigator is betraying no secret when we say that, in serious occult orders, such performances are not mere rituals but real ordeals. Insofar is possible within the law, the candidate is often brought to a state of terror similar to the emergency condition of the nervous system in near-death crises. What occurs then, and is experienced as rebirth, is a quantum jump in neurological awareness. In Leary's terminology, new circuits are formed and imprinted."
(The Cosmic Trigger Volume I, pg. 139)

In other words, the initiate's perception of reality has been changed. Thus, what we witness in Madness is a kind of mass initiation, but one of the left-hand path. The masses are initiated into a path of violence and barbarism that leaves them as nothing more than food for the Old Ones. How very Lovecraftian indeed.

In the Mouth of Madness presents us with a world that is morphing into something totally alien before our eyes. It is essentially the macrocosm to the microcosm of the personal initiation. The masses have embraced Cane's view of reality on a mass scale and it has materialized in all of its blood-stained glory. Over the years John Carpenter has generally been dismissed by many 'reputable' movie critic types as nothing but a hack horror director, but here he subtly and skillfully addresses themes that have been alluded to even in some fringe views of physics. Discussing the theories of quantum physicist David Bohm and neurosurgeon Karl Pribram researcher Michael Talbot writes:

"At this point we might ask, if consciousness can make such extraordinary alterations under special circumstances, what role does it play in the creation of our day-to-day reality? Opinions are extremely varied. In private conversations Bohm admits to believing that the universe is all 'thought' and reality exists only in what we think, but again he prefers not to speculate about miraculous occurrences. Pribram is similarly reticent to comment on specific events but does believe a number of different potential realities exists and consciousness has a certain  amount of latitude in choosing which one manifests. 'I don't believe anything goes,' he says, but there are a lot of worlds out there that we don't understand.'"
(The Holographic Universe, pg. 138)

The world In the Mouth of Madness inhabits proves to be a most unfriendly place indeed. Inevitably some will think I'm stretching things a bit by bringing physics in, but the second film in Carpenter's 'Apocolypse Trilogy,' The Prince of Darkness, revolved around a group of physicists confronting a curious version of the devil. And thus, Carpenter's 'Apocolypse Trilogy' comes to a fitting end. And so to does this post.

Dog Days Part II -The New World VI

So, what is it about Sirius that warrants monuments being built to it across the globe for centuries on end? Why does it pop up in some many arcane religious traditions? Why is the five-pointed star that symbolizes it appearing on our nation's flag and the badges of our cops?

The answer is quite a dozy. And naturally, it involves extraterrestrial contact. Robert Anton Wilson, writing on Temple's findings from The Sirius Mystery, states:

"Temple claimed that Earth had been visited by an advanced race from a planet in the system of the double star, Sirius, around 4500 B.C. Temple based this assertion on the fact that definite and specific knowledge of he Sirius system can be found in the mythology of the Babylonians, the Egyptians, and some surviving African tribes -knowledge which modern astronomy has only rediscovered with the fantastically delicate instruments of the last two decades."
(The Cosmic Trigger Volume I, pg. 9)

A depiction of Temple's 'Nommos', amphibious extraterrestrials

Wilson, citing both Temple's and his own research, goes on to trace this theory to the Sirius traditions appearing in various esoteric orders.

"Temple believes the Contact (which he tends to portray as physical, involving actual space-ships) occurred in Sumeria around 4500 B.C. The knowledge thus gained, he argues... was passed on via various secret societies of initiates in the Near East, Egypt, Greece and so on, at least until the time of the 5th century (A.D.) neo-Platonist Proclus. Thereafter, Temple loses track of it, and suggest that it appeared in 'such bizarre and fascinating figures as Giordano Bruno, Marsilio Ficino, John Dee and even Sir Philip Sidney and the Earl of Leicester -not to mention the troubadors of Provence, Dante in Italy, and the massacred tens of thousands of Albigensians in France, the Knights Templar and infinite range of hopeless causes over two and a half millennia...'

"...As we have already seen, Kenneth Grant traces the Crowley tradition back to 4500 B.C. in the Near East, and J.G. Bennett traces the Guurdjieff tradition back also to that time and that place. Neither Grant nor Bennett could have anticipated that Temple would demonstrate, with a great deal of archaeological evidence, that some sort of Contact with Sirius did occur at that time, at that place. Yet both of them assert secret teachings concerning Sirius were passed on by Crowley and Gurdjieff."
(ibid, pgs. 186-189)

Aleister Crowley

Temple even argues that these extraterrestrials left behind certain 'markers' for humanity to find as we evolved so that the knowledge these various esoteric orders handed down could finely be understood.

"But in considering the very origins of the elements of what we can call human civilization on this planet, we should now take fully into account the possibility that primitive Stone Age men were handed civilization on a platter by visiting extraterrestrial beings, who left traces behind them for us to decipher. These traces concerned detailed information about the system of the star Sirius which is only intelligible to a society as technologically advanced as ours today. Today was the time when we were meant to discover these coded facts, I feel sure. Today is the time we should prepare ourselves to face the inevitable reality that extraterrestrial civilizations exist, and are in all probability far more advanced in culture that we ourselves -not to mention in technology which would enable them to travel between the stars.."
(The Sirius Mystery, pg. 269)

Meanwhile the Old Ones are waiting patiently within our solar system for man to make that evolutionary leap too where we shall be worthy of further contact.

"All traditions seem agreed that they 'ascended to the heavens' and left the Earth. But there is no guarantee that they went back to Sirius. In fact, anyone capable of mastering the technology of suspended animation for an interstellar voyage would find it a simple matter to re-enter that state and then simply to stay put. So that the Nommos may very well still be somewhere in the solar system, either asleep or slowly bestirring themselves now that things are getting more interesting down here.

"Is there any clue in the traditions as to where any sleeping Nommos might be? There is in the Dogon tradition. For the Dogon differentiate very clearly between the fiery, roaring landing craft which they described as bringing the Nommos to Earth, and the new star which appeared in the sky while they were here which would seem to be a reference to their large base parked in orbit. This is called 'the star of the tenth moon...'

"...It didn't take me long to realize that the tenth main moon of Saturn is anomalous in the solar system, and is the only one which seems to have a smooth surface without craters or other lumps and bumps. Its name is Phoebe. It has a retrograde orbit around Saturn wildly different from all the other Saturnian moons, so that when our space probe photographed the moons of Saturn, Phoebe was the only significant one which was not close enough to give a good photo."
(ibid, pg. 32)

Phoebe

Saturn is of course hugely important in both the religions of Antiquity and alchemy, which also supposedly derived from Egypt.

"...the merry reign of Saturn, the god of sowing and husbandry, who lived on earth long ago as a righteous and beneficent king of Italy, drew the rude and scattered dwellers on the mountains together, taught them to till the ground, gave them laws, and ruled in peace. His reign was the fabled Golden Age: the earth brought forth abundantly: no sound of war or discord troubled the happy world: no baleful love of lucre worked like poison in the blood of the industrious and contented peasantry. Slavery and private property were alike unknown: all men had all things in common. At last the good god, the kindly king, vanished suddenly; but his memory was cherished to distant ages, shrines were reared in his honour, and many hills and high places in Italy bore his name. Yet the bright tradition of his reign was crossed by a dark shadow: his altars are said to have been stained with the blood of human victims for whom a more merciful age afterwards substituted effigies."
(The Golden Bough, James Frazer, pg. 630)

Another of the chief holidays in ancient Rome was the winter festival of Saturnalia, dedicated to the great ruler of the so-called 'Golden Age.' More on this festival can be found here. As to the Saturn's meaning in alchemy:

"In Hermeticism, while mere chemists regarded Saturn as lead, to philosophers Saturn was the colour black, the colour of matter after solution and putrefaction, or else of common copper, first of metals, or of Ramon Llull's azoic virtiol, which separates metals. All these things are images of the office of divider, which is both an end and a beginning, the halting of one cycle and the beginning of a fresh one, the stress being laid more strongly upon the break in or slowing of development."
(Dictionary of Symbols, Chevalier & Gheerbrant, pg. 829)

Anyway, back to Temple's theories concerning the Nommos. The only real problem, according to Temple, is the horrible bigotry we humans have shown toward the Nommos in regards to their appearance, dating back to first contact.

"For the creatures credited with founding civilization in the Middle East were frankly described by the Babylonians who revered them and built huge statues to them as being 'repulsive abominations.' If ever anything argued the authenticity of their account, it was this Babylonian tradition that the amphibians to whom they owed everything were disgusting, horrible, and loathsome to look upon. A more normal course for any invented tradition of the origins of civilization would have been to glorify the splendid gods or heroes who founded it. But instead we find specific descriptions of 'animals endowed with reason'... who made their awed and thankful beneficiaries want to be sick with revulsion. And what is more, the traditions admits this freely!

"The problem of revulsion is a difficult one. It seems to be partly a result of what we are taught when young. No doubt psychologists would have a great deal to say about it. But whatever origins it may have, it seems to be almost uncontrollable once a propensity to it has developed. If someone finds snakes or spiders repulsive, it would take a great deal of persuasion to get him to change his attitude, and hypnosis is generally required to overcome genuine phobia. As humans, we tend to dislike all slimy creatures, creepy-crawling creatures, creatures which ooze or slither or wriggle."
(The Sirius Mystery, pg. 278-279)

The readers is advised to be weary of Temple's theories for multiple reasons. An obvious one would be the 'visionary' that guided Mr. Temple to the Sirius mystery in the first place.

"(To show how convoluted this whole business is, I might mention that Arthur Young, founder of the Institute [for the Study of Consciousness], was the one who originally turned Robert Temple on to the idea of trying to find out how the Dogon tribe knew so much about the dark companion of Sirius..."
(The Cosmic Trigger Volume I, Robert Anton Wilson, pg. 242)

Young

Regular readers of this blog should remember the name of Arthur Young, one of the major financial patrons behind the collective that formed around inventor, Fortean researcher, and sometimes intelligence asset Andrija Puharich. Young himself also has bizarre links to the intelligence world, which go all the way up to the Kennedy assassination itself. More information on the whole Young/Puharich/'psychic mafia' collective can be found here, here, and here. This makes Mr. Temple's own claims of persecution by various intelligence agencies all the more comical. Observe:

"But the sad part of the aftermath of The Sirius Mystery was the extreme and virulent hostility towards me by certain security agencies, most notably the American ones...

"In my opinion, based on both instinct and information, it was the Soviet Union which was most active in suppressing serious study of both extraterrestrial intelligence and paranormal phenomena. It may seem ironical that although the American CIA persecuted me for so many years, I lay much blame for this with the Soviet Union, acting through their agents, the Aldrich Ames types."
(The Sirius Mystery, pgs. 7-8)

Well, so long as it was 'godless' communism that was actually behind the persecutions... BTW, is it just me, or do a striking number of UFO researcher seem to adopt battered wives syndrome when addressing their encounters with various American intelligence services?

Another major problem I have with Temple's theories is how closely they mirror the fiction of legendary science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke. Temple acknowledges a friendship with Mr. Clarke in The Sirius Mystery, yet never addresses how closely his theories correspond to some of Clarke's most celebrated works, all of which came out before Temple's research seemingly would have begun.

Temple's 'markers' theory, for instance, could have almost been wholly derived from the plot line of Clarke's short story, "The Sentinel", which was later adapted into the novel and film 2001: A Space Odyssey. In these works humanity is guided a by a series of monoliths left by an unseen alien race, which they first encounter at the Dawn of Man in Africa. A later one is discovered on the moon, which in turn is sending a radio transmission across the solar system. In the movie the final destination of this transmission was Jupiter, but in the novel it is one of the moons on Saturn.

Another of Clarke's novels, Childhood's End, present an alien species referred to as 'the Overlords' who intervene in Earth's affairs to save the human race from extinction. The Overlords refuse to reveal themselves to humanity in person for 50 years while humanity is being conditioned. The wait is later revealed as being due to the frankly hideous, and demonic appearance of the Overlords.

Probably the biggest issue I have with Temple, however, is his insistance upon the Nommos being a flesh and blood extraterrestrial species arriving in physical spacecrafts. As much as Temple ridicules other researchers for their unwillingness to accept the extraterrestrial hypothesis, he seems rather rigid in his own belief system.

Temple seems to put a great deal of stock in the descriptions the Babylonians gave of the Nommos, yet he seemingly ignores their classification of these beings. Consider this account he gives of the legendary Babylonian historian Berossus:

"Berossus, according to the close account of Apollodorus, calls the amphibians by the collective name of 'the Annedoti.' They are described as 'semi-daemons,' not as gods."
(The Sirius Mystery, pg. 277)

The daemon is a tricky being to get a handle on. Here is a brief description:

"According to another line of thought, daimons were the souls of the dead, protective or malign spirits which acted as intermediaries between the immortal gods and living, mortal men. Each person had his or her own genius, which acted as a secret adviser by way of sudden intuitions rather than by thought process. They were in some sense the person's inner source of inspiration."
(Dictionary of Symbols, Chevalier & Gheerbrant, pg. 284)

According to Manly P. Hall, these daemons were closely linked to elemental beings, nature spirits. He states:

"The Greeks gave the name daemon to some of these elementals, especially those of the higher order, and worshipped them."
(The Secret Teachings of All Ages, pg. 330)

Further cementing this link, Temple himself likens the Nommos to mermaids and speculates that they inspired these mythical creatures. The mermaid in turn was derived from beings known as undines, water elementals, and did not have the cute and fuzzy trappings of The Little Mermaid.

I have often toyed with the notion that the extraterrestrial mythology that has sprung in the 20th century may have a far more Earthly origin that relates to these types of beings in Classical mythology. Several noted researchers such as Jacques Vallee and John Keel have devised fine theories concerning these ties which arguably do a much better job of explaining the more outrageous aspects of Fortean encounters than the extraterrestrial theory. For more on this topic, check here.

Further, Temple completely disregards entheogens and how they may relate to his research. He makes this abundantly clear early in the 1998 edition of The Sirius Mystery:

"I certainly met a lot of interesting characters through the Sirius Mystery. But others I avoided. For instance, the late Timothy Leary was very keen for me to join him in California for some joint grooving on the subject of Sirius, after he got out of prison, but the idea of such a thing was so repellent to me that it still makes me shudder. There is nothing I hate quite so much as drugs and the drug-culture."
(pg. 5)

Yet the 'drug culture' cannot be totally avoided as the oracle centers of Antiquity were themselves meccas of the Classical drug culture. Even Temple acknowledges this while describing the trances priestesses of Delphi went into while supposedly contacting the god Apollo for visions of the future:

"...the mantic bowl into which the priestess... will gaze as she goes into trance. A female attendant stands with a jug of water to refill the bowl as it becomes necessary. The bowl was filled with a hot steaming liquid containing powerful decoctions of narcotic herbs such as henbane, thorn apple and black and white hellebore, which helped induce a prophetic frenzy in the self-hypnotized priestess. The terrible smell was explained away to the public as 'fumes from the rotting corpse of the monster Python', supposedly oozing up through a chasm under the temple (although modern excavators have proved that there was no chasm).
(ibid, pg. 172)

It seems plausible all the oracle centers Temple describes had similar rites associated with entheogens. Further, he links his Sirius theory with certain myths of Antiquity that have also been associated with entheogens. For instance, Temple notes that Sirius B has a fifty year orbital cycle and goes on to link this with the appearance of the number 50 in certain myths such as the Argonautica as well as the Sumerian tale of Gilgamesh, arguing that knowledge of the Sirius system was preserved in this fashion for several thousand years.

"...the fifty Argonauts who accompanied Jason. 'His teeth are the teeth of a dragon', we are told -reminiscent of Jason sowing the dragon's teeth. And Gilgamesh also puts his teeth to the ground... Each of his fifty heroic companions carries a specially felled tree for the journey -and the only reasonable purpose to go around carrying a tree seems to be that these trees were used as oars, especially as there is an association with a boat. This again is like the Argonauts. We thus have found a Near Eastern tale from which the tale of the Argonauts was derived two thousand years or so later by the Greeks."
(ibid, pg. 135)

The myths of Jason and the Golden Fleece has also has compelling linked to entheogens.

"In the case of Jason, the Golden Fleece was ultimately Amanita muscaria. In such a quest, the hero is a shaman whose identity... becomes consubstantial with the drug of his shamanism so that many of his characteristics have ethnobotanical referents and some of the events are not only his experience, but that of the entheogen itself, that is his analogue. Hence, Jason was trained as a shaman and displayed symbolic features such as his single, muddy foot, his non-birth, and his name as a drug man. Amongst those who sailed with him on the quest were the Dioskouroi and their cousins, the Moliones, whose identities also are ethnobotanical, as Pillar, St. Elmo's Fire, Cap, Lotus, and hermaphroditic Sphere. Similarly, the Fleece has metaphoric characteristics of the quested entheogen, such as the Golden Apple, the fleecy Hide, the Shield, the tiny Man, the Egg, the Serpent, the horned Bull, the Bird, and the Ball of Eros. To initiate him for his heroic ordeal of consubstantiality, Medea anoints him wit the herb of Prometheus, whose theft of Fire was ultimately that of Vision and the sacred plant. The theme of the Fleece persisted in alchemical occult knowledge, becoming ostensibly the parchment on which was written the secret formula of chrysopoeia, although it, too, recalls the ethnobotanical original."
(The Apples of Apollo, Ruck, Staples & Heinrich, pg. 87)

Ultimately Robert Anton Wilson proposes a much more compelling and broad minded theory for the Sirius Mystery than Temple himself:

"Temple's evidence... could be interpreted to indicate the arrival of people from Sirius who had come here in a physical space ship 4500 B.C. According to Temple, information about this had been passed on through various initiatory orders in the ancient Mediterranean and in Africa to the present time. But the evidence could also be interpreted to mean that methods of interstellar telepathy between the Earth and the Sirius system had been discovered back then and that many have been tuning in on that channel ever since."
(The Cosmic Trigger Volume I, pg. 10)

Wilson goes on to link things back to entheogens nicely, which I believe cannot be avoided when one tackles all the aspects of Classical civilization (the oracle centers, the Mystery schools, the god Apollo, Jason and the Argonauts, etc) that Temple attempts to associate with extraterrestrial contact. Wilson remarks:

"... the beginnings of religion (awareness of, or at least belief in, Higher Intelligences) is intimately linked with the fact that shamans -in Europe, in Asia, in the Americas, in Africa -have been dosing their nervous systems with metaprogramming drugs since at least 30,000 B.C.

"The pattern is the same, among our cave-dwelling ancestors and American Indians, at the Eleusinian feasts in Athens and among pre-Vedic Hindus, in tribes scattered from pole to pole and in the contemporary research summarized by Dr. Waltar Huston Clark in his Chemical Ecstasy:people take these metaprogramming substances and they soon assert contact with Higher Intelligences."
(ibid, pg. 147)

So much for Temple. One final point to which I would like to draw the reader's attention to before wrapping up is the bizarre connection Sirius has had with the mystical number 72 during major political turmoil over the past few centuries. But first, a brief description of the mystical aspects of 72. Wikipedia states:

"The Shemhamphorasch is a corruption of the Hebrew term Shem ha-Mephorash (שם המפורש), which was used in tannaitic times to refer to the Tetragrammaton. In early Kabbalah the term was used to designate sometimes a seventy-two Letter name for God, and sometimes a forty two Letter name. Rashi said Shem ha-Mephorash was used for a forty two letter name, but Maimonides thought Shem ha-Mephorash was used only for the four letter Tetragrammaton. ^[1]"

72 is significant in numerous other religious and esoteric system, but for now that will have to do. While skimming through David Ovason's The Secret Architecture of Our Nation's Capital for material on Sirius I happened to stumble upon this curious passage:

"...modern astronomical observations have established that, due to the precession of the equinoxes, the stars appear to edge forward in the zodiacal belt by one degree every 72 years.

"Sirius, which today we recognize as a binary, is set in 14 degrees of Cancer. This means that the following 72-year tabulation is reasonably accurate:

"In 1992 Sirius was in 13.59 Cancer
"In 1920 Sirius was in 12.59 Cancer
"In 1848 Sirius was in 11.59 Cancer
"In 1776 Sirius was in 10.59 Cancer
"In 1704 Sirius was in 09.59 Cancer"

(pgs. 137-138)

The years 1776, 1848, and 1920, in which Sirius apparently completed a full degree's movement through the zodiacal belt, witnessed the rise of major political movements. 1776 witnessed the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which laid the ground work for our experiment in democracy. It also bore witness to the founding of the Bavarian Illuminati on May 1st, 1776. Much speculation surrounds this organization which is well beyond the scope of this article to address. That being said, the Bavarian Illuminati had an undeniable, if little understood and much sensationalized, political influence on the emerging socialist movements in Europe, beginning with revolutionary France. Rhodes Scholar, CFR member and former head of the Library of Congress James Billington reliably chronicled these events in his invaluable and heavily sourced Fire in the Minds of Men.

Bavarian Illuminati

1848 was a particularly turbulent year, witnessing a wave of revolutions that broke out across Europe and beyond, in addition to the publication of The Communist Manifesto. Both of these events would obviously go on to have major impact on world events. 1920 featured the unveiling of Hitler's German Worker's Party's manifesto which will lay the genesis for Nazism and its rise in Europe.

1992 did not feature many major political events aside from the ceremonial signing of NAFTA, but the year was ushered in on the heels of the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 26th, 1991. In hindsight 1992 seems to stand as the beginning of what I like to think of as the 'Global Corporatism' era in which nation-states are slowly falling by the way side to multinationals. This era just featured another major victory recently when the United States lost its AAA credit rating from Standard and Poor's.

And it is here I leave you for now dear readers as the Dog Days burn on.