The Scottish Rite?

By now I'm sure many of you have heard about the suicide of famed British producer and director Tony Scott during the early hours of August 19, 2012. Scott was the younger brother of the even more acclaimed filmmaker Ridley, but had carved out his own impressive niche in Hollywood. Tony Scott was the director of The Hunger, Top Gun, The Last Boy Scout, True Romance (a personal favorite of Recluse's), Crimson Tide, Enemy of the State, and Man on Fire, among many others. He had also worked extensively in commercials and had occasionally ventured into television shows (i.e. Numb3rs, which he co-produced with Ridley Scott). Of his suicide, the press has noted:

"Hollywood director Tony Scott has plunged to his death from a Los Angeles bridge after penning a suicide note - falling within feet of horrified tourists on a harbour boat cruise. 

"The 68-year-old, who directed films including Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop II and Enemy Of The State, leaped from the Vincent Thomas Bridge at around 12.30pm on Sunday. 

" 'He landed right next to our tour boat, and many of us saw the whole thing,' a witness, who had been on the cruise around the Los Angeles Harbour, told TMZ. 

"Just weeks before his death, Scott was pictured looking dishevelled and wide-eyed as he left a dinner in Beverly Hills on July 23... 

"The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office said an autopsy is planned and results could be expected as early as this afternoon.

"According to the Contra Costa Times, Scott climbed a fence on the south side of the bridge, which spans San Pedro and Terminal Island, at 12.30 p.m. on Sunday and leaped off 'without hesitation'.

Several people called 911 around 12.35pm to report that someone had jumped off the bridge, according to Los Angeles police Lt. Tim Nordquist. Police are interviewing witnesses.

"A dive team with Los Angeles Port Police pulled the body from the murky water around 3pm. It was taken to a dock in Wilmington and turned over to the county coroner's office.

"Investigators found a note in Scott's black Toyota Prius, which was parked on the bridge, according to the Los Angeles Times. It listed contact information for his wife.

"A suicide note was later found at his office but its contents were not revealed."

Director Tony Scott with his trademark red ballcap

The great and ever-prolific Loren Coleman has already posted a provocative piece on his blog questioning whether Scott's suicide was yet another case of the Killing of the Divine King. Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with this concept, a topic that I've addressed before on posts such as this. For those of your unaware I shall now engage in a brief rundown.

The concept of Killing the Divine King was first formalized by James Frazer in his legendary work The Golden Bough where he attempted to explain the gruesome rituals associated with the King of the Wood of Nemi during Roman times. More recently this concept was embraced by the great James Shelby Downard in an attempt to explain the ritualistic aspects of the Kennedy assassination. Downard's colleague and friend, William Grimstad, presented a skeptical account of Downard's theories in his synchro-mystic classic Weird America:

"Would you believe John F. Kennedy as a ceremonial king-who-must-die? I'm afraid there is a certain body of opinion, undoubtedly the farthest-out brain wave of assassinology yet, that maintains the killing was pulled off, not by the Russians, the Cubans, the CIA, or the Mafia, but by alchemists. As I understand the hypothesis, President Kennedy was for some reason chosen as The King (remember 'Camelot,' 'MacBird' and all that?) after the fashion of James G. Frazer and Mary Renault whose The King Must Die he had been given to read before his death."
(pg. 213-214)

Michael A. Hoffman, another researcher closely associated with Downard and Grimstad, had this to say of the sacrificial nature of Kennedy's death:

"The Killing of the King rite was accomplished at another Trinity site located approximately ten miles south of the 33rd degree of north parallel latitude between the Trinity River and the Triple Underpass at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. Dealey Plaza was the site of the first masonic temple in Dallas. In this spot, which had been known during the 19th century cowboy era as 'Bloody Elm Street,' the world leader who had become known as the 'King of Camelot,' President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was shot to death."(Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, pg. 83)

Is Scott's death yet another instance of these gruesome rites of antiquity? Initially I was rather skeptical of such a conclusion, but there are some strange aspects of this affair to consider. For one, there's Scott's not-so-subtle ties to the US Intelligence community. As I noted before here, one of Scott's most well known films, Top Gun, was essentially a collaboration between Hollywood and the DoD in which the Pentagon had final approval over the script. Top Gun was a major success for all involved, and led to a spike in military enlistments with its flag-waving jingoism.

Originally Scott's suicide was being blamed on inoperable brain cancer but his family quickly came out and debunked these claims. Thus, there is no clear motive for his suicide at this point, though there have been some interesting theories put forth. On his blog post concerning Scott, Loren Coleman ponders "Could Tony Scott, being a king of cinema mayhem, have been sacrificed (by his own hand through suicide) to bring balance back into the universe in the wake of what happened in Aurora? Was he thinking about what kind of society his movies had created?" Scott's suicide occurred almost a month exactly after the Aurora shooting, so that's certainly a possibility. What's more, Scott apparently began to act erratically on July 23, historically the beginning of the Dog Days of Summer. The Aurora shooting had several strange overlaps with the Dog Days and Sirius (the Dog Star, whose helical rising was the basis for the Dog Days celebration) which I've chronicled before here.

the Dog Days (top) and Tony Scott on July 23, 2012 (bottom)

However, I doubt it was just Aurora Scott was filling guilty about if such motivations are in fact what drove him to suicide. Scott's checkered past as a military propagandist who has glorified the American Empire surely weighed heavy upon his soul as well. Perhaps later films such as Enemy of the State were his attempts at atonement. Apparently, it didn't work as his suicide indicates. Oddly, Scott's suicide comes a month after the military, whose ranks he helped swell over the years, just experienced an all time high in suicides this past July. 

The military aspect of Scott's death is further re-enforced by the location of Scott's death. Scott jumped from the Vincent Thomas Bridge, which connects San Pedro on one side and Terminal Island on the others. Terminal Island, a place originally called 'Rattlesnake Island,' has a rather grim history. In the early 20th century it was home to several thousand first and second generation Japanese immigrants. After the outbreak of WWII, many of these Terminal Island residents were rounded up and put in internment camps. Their community on Terminal Island was razed and replaced with a training field for the Naval Reserve. A few years later the Long Beach Naval Shipyard would be established there and would remain a major hub for the Navy until being closed in 1997.

Terminal Island is also home a Federal Correctional Institute. It housed several high profile inmates such as Al Capone, Timothy Leary and a pre-Helter Skelter Charles Manson, who served two terms there, once in the late 1950s and the second just before he was released in 1967. The second time around was apparently highly beneficial to Manson.

"In June 1966, Manson was transferred from McNeil Island to Terminal Island in San Pedro, California. At this time, friends remember Charlie as fanatically dedicated to his music. One person who served time with Charlie --and became impressed with his musical abilities --was Phil Kaufman, then serving time on a federal marijuana rap. 

"In the Terminal Island prison yard, Kaufman encountered Charlie playing guitar one day, and afterwards gave Manson contacts with people involved in the Hollywood music scene. Toward the end of 1967, these contacts would allow Charlie entrance into Universal Studios to record some demos. Kaufman later went on to become a bit of living legend himself, road-managing some of the biggest names in rock and roll, such as The Rolling Stones, Joe Cocker, Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris and Frank Zappa, along the way earning the dubious title 'Road Mangler.' "
(The Shadow Over Santa Susana, Adam Gorightly, pg. 13)

Phil Kaufman is one of those curious counterculture figures who pop up around any number of weird events from that era. Famously, he was the roadie that stole Gram Parsons' body and burned it at Joshua Tree National Park in some kind of bizarre ritual. Manson, before famously begging officials to not release him from Terminal Island, also made some other curious contacts there.

"Manson had by this time perfected a sort of technique on the guitar, taught to him by Terminal Island inmate Al Karpis (the last surviving member of the Ma Baker gang), and had begun writing his own songs. Manson had also learned the basics of Scientology from another inmate, Lanier Ramer (or 'Raymer'). It was that combination --music and Scientology --that comprised the only education he had of the real world outside prison walls. But it was enough."
(Sinister Forces Book I, Peter Levenda, pgs. 203-204)

Indeed. Whether Manson factored at all into Tony Scott's decision to kill himself in the shadow of Terminal Island is impossible to say at this point, but Manson is the chief pop culture icon associated with the area.

Another curious aspect of the location of Scott's death, and possibly its most blatant link to the Killing of the Divine King, is the latitude line that runs along Terminal Island (and presumably the bridge Scott jumped from): the thirty-third parallel. The thirty-third parallel plays heavily into Downard, Grimstad and Hoffman's theories concerning the Killing of the Divine King, as noted above. The thirty-third parallel also appears near the first atomic bomb explosion at the Trinity Site in New Mexico.

"Other occult rituals for the Creation and Destruction of Primordial Matter were played out in the general area of the 33rd degree of north parallel latitude in Truth or Consequence, New Mexico, near the Trinity Site. 

"There are 33 segments in the human spinal column which, according to occult lore is the vehicle of the fiery ascent of the Kundalini serpent force which resides in the human body. 33 is the highest degree of Scottish Rite Freemasonry. Near the Trinity Site a derelict shack was symbolically dubbed 'McDonald House.' The Creation and Destruction of Primordial Matter occurred exactly on the Trinity Site, the 'Place of Fire,' with the explosion of the first atomic bomb, culminating untold thousands of years of alchemical speculation and practice.",
(Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, Michael A. Hoffman II, pg. 83)

Downard and Hoffman considered the explosion of the first atomic bomb at Trinity to be the first step in what they dubbed 'the Creation and Destruction of Primordial Matter.' The second stage was the Killing of the Divine King, which was accomplished with the Kennedy assassination. Both events happened on or near the thirty-third parallel. Numerous other strange and bloody events have also happened around the thirty-third, which I've chronicled here.

So, was director Tony Scott the latest victim of the thirty-third parallel, which some researchers have dubbed the death line? I've yet to see any concrete evidence emerge, but the synchronicity and twilight language of this event is most curious. The association of Scott with 33 is especially dubious. As noted above, 33 is the highest degree of Scottish Rite Freemasonry (which most Masonic conspiracy theories center around) and now Tony Scott has committed suicide along the thirty-third parallel.

How synchronicistic.

The Drone

The world is changing, as the media routinely reminds us. The world that we are currently living in is not the world that our parents grew up in. Technology is permanently changing the landscape and we're just going to have to accept it. Old fashioned notions, such as claims to privacy, will have to be rethought in the brave new world that we are now entering. 

These are common phrases one encounters when it comes to unmanned aerial vehicles, more commonly referred to as drones. Many Americans first became aware of them shortly after Barack Obama was elected president, when their use in Pakistan was greatly expanded. Since then policymakers have continuously raved to the press about them, via the anonymous source route, as there use is increasingly spanning the globe. Reuters UK reports:

"In the rugged mountains of western Pakistan, missiles launched by unmanned Predator or Reaper drones have become so commonplace that some U.S. officials liken them to modern-day 'cannon fire.' And they are no longer aimed solely at 'high-value' targets like Mehsud, according to U.S. counterterrorism and defence officials. 

"Under a secret directive first issued by former President George W. Bush and continued by Barack Obama, the CIA has broadly expanded the 'target set' for drone strikes. As a result, what is still officially classified as a covert campaign on Pakistan's side of the border with Afghanistan has in many ways morphed into a parallel conventional war, several experts say. 

"Killing wanted militants is simply 'easier' than capturing them, said an official, who like most interviewed for this story support the stepped-up program and asked not to be identified. Another official added: 'It is increasingly the preferred option...' 

"Back in Washington, the technology is considered such a success that the U.S. military has been positioning Reaper drones at a base in the Horn of Africa. 

"The aircraft can be used against militants in Yemen and Somalia, and even potentially against pirates who attack commercial ships traversing the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, officials said. 

" 'Everyone has fallen in love with them,' a former U.S. intelligence official said of the drone strikes."

Many citizens of Pakistan likely don't share the same enthusiasm for the drones as certain unnamed US intelligence officers. But you can't make an omelet with out breaking a few eggs, now can you? Drone strikes on militants --essentially technological assassinations --have been sold to the public on the basis that they present a safer and more 'moral' alternative to war. After all, isn't it better to kill a handful of terrorists in order to preserve the peace than invading an entire country? Or is the issue more complex?

Given the highly controversial and debated total of civilian deaths associated with drone strikes, the issue is clearly far more clouded than policymakers would have us believe. Washington claims that the vast majority of peoples killed during drone strikes were militants. Other accounts have alleged that nearly a third of all deaths in Pakistan associated with drones are civilians. New American Foundation notes:

"Our study shows that the 114 reported drone strikes in northwest Pakistan from 2004 to the present have killed between 830 and 1,210 individuals, of whom around 550 to 850 were described as militants in reliable press accounts, about two-thirds of the total on average. Thus, the true civilian fatality rate since 2004 according to our analysis is approximately 32 percent. Averaging the press reports in 2009 indicates that 502 people were killed, 382 of whom were described as militants, for an average civilian fatality rate of 24 percent."

Even more dire reports than this have been issued. The Brookings Institution presented an especially chilling ratio of civilian deaths:

"Critics correctly find many problems with this program, most of all the number of civilian casualties the strikes have incurred. Sourcing on civilian deaths is weak and the numbers are often exaggerated, but more than 600 civilians are likely to have died from the attacks. That number suggests that for every militant killed, 10 or so civilians also died."

Anywhere from a third to 90% of drone fatalities as civilians does not upheld the image of precision warfare the Obama administration has publicly embraced and which his staff has dubbed 'the scalpel' (as opposed to the 'hammer' of the Bush administration) approach. In deed, some very dangerous precedents are being set by the current administration's embrace of drones and assassinations. Esquire has described it as the 'Lethal Presidency':

"You are not only the first African-American president; you are the first who has made use of your power to target and kill individuals identified as a threat to the United States throughout your entire term. You are the first president to make the killing of targeted individuals the focus of our military operations, of our intelligence, of our national-security strategy, and, some argue, of our foreign policy. You have authorized kill teams comprised of both soldiers from Special Forces and civilians from the CIA, and you have coordinated their efforts through the Departments of Justice and State. You have gradually withdrawn from the nation building required by "counterinsurgency" and poured resources into the covert operations that form the basis of "counter-terrorism." More than any other president you have made the killing rather than the capture of individuals the option of first resort, and have killed them both from the sky, with drones, and on the ground, with "nighttime" raids not dissimilar to the one that killed Osama bin Laden. You have killed individuals in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya, and are making provisions to expand the presence of American Special Forces in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In Pakistan and other places where the United States has not committed troops, you are estimated to have killed at least two thousand by drone. You have formalized what is known as "the program," and at the height of its activity it was reported to be launching drone strikes in Pakistan every three days. Your lethality is expansive in both practice and principle; you are fighting terrorism with a policy of preemptive execution, and claiming not just the legal right to do so but the legal right to do so in secret. The American people, for the most part, have no idea who has been killed, and why; the American people — and for that matter, most of their representatives in Congress — have no idea what crimes those killed in their name are supposed to have committed, and have been told that they are not entitled to know."

The drone is rapidly giving the United States unprecedented abilities to wage wars. In the past the United State's military reached was somewhat limited by the number of dead American soldiers the public would tolerate before the cost was deemed to high. The Vietnam conflict largely came to an end after Americans grew tired of nightly images being broadcast from their TVs of soldiers coming home in body bags. The Bush administration attempted to counter this by limiting the media's access to the war, distorting the number causalities, and deploying thousands of 'private contractors' (whose deaths the administration had no obligation to report) in roles the US has traditionally reserved for the military. Even then, the road side bombings and such became to much for the America public and support for the Iraq invasion rapidly declined.

Obama has continued the widespread use of mercenaries in addition to increase use of the Special Forces and US Intelligence community, but it has the drone that has quietly redefined warfare. With the use of drones the United States is no longer burdened with the specter of dead soldiers to contend with. Clearly this has had a liberating effect on US foreign policies as the covert wars the US has waged against Pakistan and more recently Yemen have generated little to know serious protest domestically. Drone warfare has accomplished the unimaginable: It has placated liberal and conservative opponents alike. Liberals tolerate it as it promises a more 'human' type of warfare in which entire populations will no longer be subjected to the horrors of invasion while conservatives marvel at the cost effectiveness of it all. Mainstream America is just happy not to have their sons or daughters coming home in caskets to think to deeply on the matter.

With drones being such a resounding success abroad it was only a matter of time until they were deployed domestically. Russia Today reports:

"What do you know about drones? You know drones — those robotic, unmanned planes that fire missiles for the American military across Afghanistan, Pakistan and anywhere else the United States needs to get away with murder. 

"Well if you don’t know too much, don’t worry, that’ll change soon. The Federal Aviation Administration is looking into rules that will bring the controversial aircraft into the country, creating an United States airspace buzzing with tiny, robot planes to look over every inch of American soil — and maybe more. 

"An article published Tuesday in the Los Angeles Times reveals that new drone planes could be coming domestically quite soon, as both law enforcement and the agricultural sector are seeing benefits in keeping an arsenal of unmanned planes ready to patrol the skies. For farmers, drones could bring a new method of pumping pesticides into fields of crops from above; for the cops, the aircraft could conduct surveillance over suspected criminals (think police chopper but remote controlled). The Times reports that utility companies see a benefit in drones as well, giving them a new set of eyes to monitor oil, gas and water pipelines. 

"But with missile-equipped drones causing thousands of deaths overseas, the installation of a drone program stateside could be detrimental to America as the government all but deems the country fit as a warfront. 

" 'It's going to happen,' Dan Elwell, vice president of civil aviation at the Aerospace Industries Association, tells the Times. 'Now it's about figuring out how to safely assimilate the technology into national airspace.' 

"According to the Department of Homeland Security’s website, the government has already been using drones domestically for several years, but remains mostly mum on their missions, other than that they are regularly used for 'support of disaster relief efforts.' 

"In July, however, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael Kostelnik, currently with the US Customs and Border Protection UAV program, told a congressional subcommittee that a third drone was being added to an arsenal of two that already fly over Texas to patrol the US/Mexico Border."

The use of drones domestically will be sold to the public on the grounds that they will only be used for surveillance purposes and for tasks unnecessarily dangerous to human beings. But rest assured, the Pentagon has bold plans for the drone, and not just the aerial versions, as this 2009 DoD Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap report makes clear. Unmanned undersea vehicles and especially unmanned ground vehicles will also play a heavy role in domestic drone deployments as well. The report states:

"While UAS [unmanned aircraft systems] may fly in and around urban settings, and UUVs [unmanned undersea vehicles] and USVs [unmanned surface vehicles] may operate in and around ports and marinas, UGVs [unmanned ground vehicles] will be the predominant vehicles expected to conduct missions within buildings, tunnels, and through city streets. This requires that UGVs be able to operate in Global Positioning System (GPS)-denied areas, traverse stairs, deal with elevators, open doors, and possibly even open windows, desk and file drawers, and cupboards, etc. In addition to the challenge of navigating and traversing within buildings, UGVs will need to navigate within and through city streets that will be busy with traffic and pedestrians. Urban streets also mean UGVs will have to contend with curbs, trash, water drains, etc."  

The Pentagon is even eyeing that possibility that these ground based drones can be used for 'non-lethal through lethal crowd control' in addition to conventional military assaults. Does this mean that the police-state security of events such as the Summer Olympics will soon be managed by unmanned ground and air vehicles as much as it is by flesh and blood police officers? Could this even be taken a step further with drones replacing some of the day to day functions of police officers? Police have already begun using such devices as auxilaries, as I've noted before here. The Atlantic has a great breakdown of the brave new world of drone warfare the Pentagon envisions.

As shocking a these developments may be to some, the Cryptocracy has in fact been telegraphing its plans for drones and like technologies for years via twilight language and predictive programming. As early as the 1980s Hollywood has presented us with a vision of the future in which humanity was policed by drone-like technologies. Sometimes this was along dystopian lines such as the future presented in The Terminator films where humanity had been all but wiped out by a self aware AI controlling an army of robots and drones (called Hunter-Killers in the films). Robocop presented a more 'benevolent' vision in which corporate America seeks to replace flesh-and-blood police officers with cyborgs and land-based drones (the ED-209s).

Curiously, the Terminator and Robocop franchises were brought together in the form of a 1992 comic miniseries called RoboCop Versus The Terminator, which was soon followed by a tie-in video game of the same name. The main creative mind behind the comic series was none other than the legendary Frank Miller, who has recently found himself in the midst of controversy (again) over the similarities the Aurora shooting had to a panel included in his 1986 The Dark Knight Returns miniseries depicting a disturbed individual shooting up a movie theater. Miller actually wrote the screenplays for the second and third Robocop films, though he claims his scripts were heavily altered. In his RoboCop Versus The Terminator miniseries the Terminators and humanity vie for the support of the transhumanistic Robocop, who is humanity's only hope against Skynet.

The appearance of drone-like robots policing humanity would become even more common in cinema by the late 1990s. The hugely popular Matrix films featured drone-like enforcers called Sentinels that had the appearance of mechanical squids (strangely, the drone recently captured by Iran is called a Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel).  Minority Report featured 'spider robots' that bare similarities to the mini-drones that are now becoming en vogue. In the Stargate franchise drone weapons are used by an extraterrestrial race known as the Ancients who apparently were the inhabitants of the mythological city of Atlantis before departing Earth. If this wasn't enough of a hint, a Robocop remake is about to be released while another Terminator film is under discussion with Arnold returning.

Sentinels (top left and right) and the Robocop remake poster (bottom)

But enough predictive programming, let's move along to twilight language. That unmanned vehicles are being referred to as drones in the first place is seemingly a kind of occult mockery. The word drone has its origins in Old English and has always referred to a male honeybee. The bee itself is of course loaded with symbolism.

"The beehive is found in Masonry as a reminder that in diligence and labor for a common good true happiness and prosperity are found. The bee is a symbol of wisdom , for as this tiny insect collects pollen from the flowers, so men extract wisdom from the experiences of daily life."
(The Secret Teachings of All Ages, Manly P. Hall, pg. 271)

Many occult orders have viewed the beehive as the idea order of society. That being said, the drone has typically been an object of ridicule, if considered at all. In his opening remarks on the fifth degree of Scottish Rite Freemasonry, known as the Perfect Master, Albert Pike sniffs:

"Industry and honesty are the virtues peculiarly inculcated in this Degree. They are common and homely virtues, but not for that beneath our notice. As the bees do not love or respect the drones, so Masonry neither loves nor respects the idle and those who live by their wits, and least of all those parasitic acari that live upon themselves."
(Morals and Dogmas, pg. 98)

Drones have long been the embodiment of the social parasite, of those that live off of the work of others and are driven by nothing other than their basest instincts. Drones have no real function in a beehive other than to impregnate the queen. Once this task is accomplished they are driven from the hive by the industrious worker bees. It is rather curious then that the word drone would be applied to unmanned vehicles.

I suspect that this application is a kind of joke. Human armies have always been at risk of falling prey to idleness and their baser instincts, leaving their commanders high and dry. But the new, mechanical fighting force currently being developed will pose no such threat for the Cryptocracy, nor will it feature the moral impairments that human armies encounters from time to time: Drones have no qualms about killing unarmed women and children, for instance, as recent events in Yemen show. Mechanical drones will in fact become the ultimate police force against segments of the population that the Cryptocracy considers human drones.

Several recent articles on the domestic use of drones have made the implications of these devices increasingly clear via twilight language. Consider this little nugget buried in the middle of an article by The Guardian on the Holloman Air Force Base, a hub for drone warfare:

"Such critics may consider it apt that Holloman straddles the Jornada del Muerto – Journey of the Dead Man – the macabre Spanish name for the perilous, water-less shortcut through the wilderness once used by Billy the Kid. Situated on a high desert plain, the base bakes by day, shivers by night and witnesses spectacular lightning storms. It has evocative neighbours. To the east, Roswell, which the conspiratorially minded already associate with human-less aircraft; to the west, Truth or Consequences, a town named after a 1950s radio quiz show."

Even the most casual reader should raise an eyebrow in the presence of such a name game. Roswell is of course one of the major hubs of modern extraterrestrial lore, with large scale urban myths developing around an alleged UFO crash there in 1947. Those of you who have read the legendary King-Kill 33 essay by James Shelby Downard and the highly controversial revisionist historian Michael A. Hoffman II will be immediately struck by several of the other locations referenced above. Both the Jornada del Muerto and Truth or Consequence, New Mexico factor heavily into their theories surrounding the Creation and Destruction of Primordial Matter, supposedly the first of three alchemical works to bring about the total decay of matter. Of Jornada del Muerto, Hoffman writes:

"Fabled alchemy had at least three goals to accomplish before the total decay of matter, the total breakdown we are witnessing all around us today, was fulfilled. These are:

• The Creation and Destruction of Primordial Matter

• The Killing of the Divine King

• The Bringing of Prima Materia to Prima Terra...

"The Creation and Destruction of Primordial Matter was accomplished at the White Head ('Ancient of Days'), at White Sands, New Mexico, at the Trinity Site. The Trinity Site itself is located at the beginning of an ancient western road known in old Mexico as the Jornada del muerto (the Journey of Death)."
(Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, pg. 80)

the Trinity site

Downard and Hoffman have long linked Truth or Consequence, New Mexico to the first atomic bomb explosion, though they've never been clear on this link.

"There are occult links between masonic ceremonies held at the town of Truth or Consequence, New Mexico and the masonic ritual which attended the explosion of the first atomic bomb... 

"The gauntlet the cryptocracy threw down at our feet in the specially orchestrated chain of ritual criminal events and locations intimately connected to Truth or Consequence, New Mexico, was an 'open-air' ceremony in full public view of those who had eyes and the intuition to see it. This was the 'truth.' The supreme high-stakes gamblers of the masonic cryptocracy risked 'the consequence.' "
(ibid, pg. 55)

According to the official website for Truth or Consequence's Masonic lodge there was in fact some kind of large outdoor ceremony there to dedicate a new Masonic lodge in 1949 (the previous lodge, built in 1939, had burned down in a fire in 1947) but details are scarce. Hoffman seems to indicate that this ceremony took place either before, or roughly at the same time as, the first atomic bomb explosion, but clearly this is not possible. What significance the ceremony had, if any, remains a mystery.

Even stranger, the happenings in New Mexico are not the only associations drones have with the Downard-Hoffman 'Decay of Matter' theory. For another curious link we must shift our attention to my home state, sunny Florida. While Florida is chiefly known now for its beaches, babes and prescription drugs policymakers are eyeing a new source of revenue: turning the state into testing grounds for domestic drones. USA Today reports:

"From large to small, the number of such unmanned aircraft systems — popularly called "drones" — is expected to surge as the federal government works to open civilian airspace to them by 2015. Florida officials hope to position the state as a hub for this fast-growing industry by becoming a test site. 

" 'The skies over Florida will look dramatically different in the years to come,' Space Florida President Frank DiBello told a gathering of aerospace professionals this month. 

"The agency's board recently approved spending up to $1.4 million to try to win designation as one of six test ranges across the country that Congress has directed the Federal Aviation Administration to name by the end of the year. 

"The test sites hope to show that unmanned systems of all shapes and sizes — from wingspans of inches to more than 240 feet — can fly safely alongside piloted aircraft in different terrain and weather conditions... 

"At home, the Federal Aviation Administration has granted about 60 public entities permission to perform limited operations outside restricted airspace. Those include Customs and Border Protection, NASA and, in Florida, the Miami-Dade Police Department, sheriff's offices in Orange and Polk counties and the University of Florida."

Forbes reports that Cape Canaveral, home of the Kennedy Space Center (the site NASA has used to launch every human space flight since 1968), has already been turned into a drone base:

"Cape Canaveral is now a drone base. Since the space program is now on a death watch, it’s good to know they’ve found a way to repurpose this base. U.S. Customs and Border Protection flies drones on our northern, southern, and southeastern borders. The base previously used primarily to launch shuttles is now a drone practice spot and sends out a General Atomic Guardian drone to monitor the SE border and fly over the ocean to make drug busts."

a drone over Kennedy Space Center

Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center, of which I've written more on here, also play heavily into the Downard-Hoffman theory of the destruction of matter. As noted above, the third stage of this works consists of 'bringing of Prima Materia to Prima Terra.' Essentially this means bringing a piece of the moon to earth, which was the real reason for the creation of NASA in the Downard-Hoffman theory.

"The third objective of alchemy, the bringing of Prima Materia to Prima Terra was accomplished in the 1969 Apollo moon flights and the returning to earth of the moon rockets. Some of these rocks have been 'stolen' for use in occult rituals of no mean significance..."
(Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, Michael A. Hoffman II, pg. 90)

The location of where these space ships were launched, Cape Canaveral, was also highly important to this ritual. It also has ample ties to JFK, whose assassinations marked the second ritual the destruction of matter, the 'Killing of the Divine King' rite.

"The number 28 is one of the correspondences of Solomon in kabbalistic numerology; the Solomonic name assigned to 28 is 'Beale.' On the 28th degree of latitude in the state of Texas is the site of what was once the giant 'Kennedy ranch.' On the 28th degree is also Cape Canaveral from which the moon flight was launched --made possible not only by the President's various feats, but by his death as well, for the placing of Freemasons on the moon could occur only after the Killing of the King. The 28th degree of Templarism is the 'King of the Sun' degree."
(Secret and Suppressed, "Sorcery, Sex, Assassinations and the Science of Symbolism," James Shelby Downard, pg. 75)

And now, in the early 21st century, we see many of the locations Downard and Hoffman associated with the alchemical destruction of matter reappearing in association with the United States' drone program. At this point I suppose I should address the credibility of Downard and Hoffman's theories. It's no secret that Downard and especially Hoffman are rather unfashionable, to put it mildly, in the synchro-mystic field and related lines of thought. They are often lumped in with right-wing conspiracy theorist with radical Christian leanings (and possibly working as disinformation agents) such as A. Ralph Epperson, Texe Marrs and William Cooper, and not without reason. What's more, Downard and Hoffman's research isn't always without fault, as I displayed above in relation to Truth or Consequence, New Mexico.

William Cooper

But in this case I don't believe it's relevant whether Downard and Hoffman's theory of an alchemical destruction of matter is true or not. What does matter is that this theory has become relatively widespread in the group mind, beginning in 2000 with the release of shock rocker Marilyn Manson's Holy Wood album which lyrically incorporated various aspects of Downard and Hoffman's King-Kill 33 essay. Downard and Hoffman's theories would only become more widespread as the decade rolled along and Bush II's presidency became increasingly unpopular. By now Downard and Hoffman's theories have become viable aspects of popular culture. Thus, places like the Jornada del Muerto, Truth or Consequence and Cape Canaveral/Kennedy Space Center have very specific meanings in certain circles.

What's more, we also have two locations --Roswell and Kennedy Space Center --that are closely linked with modern UFO lore and thus loaded with even more conspiratorial associations. Researchers with radically different world views than Downard or Hoffman such as Richard C. Hoagland have developed their own occult-laden conspiracy theories concerning the Kennedy assassination, NASA, the Apollo moon flights and the Kennedy Space Center. This doesn't add legitimacy to Downard and Hoffman's theories, it just shows that these locations and names have gained power in the group mind.

And now they're being connected to the United States' budding drone warfare program. This, combined with decades of predictive programming in film and TV, should be a clear warning that the Cryptocracy has bold plans for drones in the coming years. We may even be at a pivotal moment that will pave the way for the rise of the drone. On the flip side of the coin, the association of the drone with Jornada del Muerto, Roswell, Truth or Consequence, and Cape Canaveral further steps up the paranoia that is gripping a certain (and ever growing) segment of the population. Drones are flaunted as a kind of end game, instilling both a sense of hopelessness and rage in the group mind simultaneously. Undoubtedly the Cryptocracy hopes the latter will descend into violence among the more disturbed and paranoid segments of the population who ideally will feel compelled to act before its to late. And that brings me to my next point.   

I chose to write this piece now in part because of the gun debate currently raging in the United States due to a rash of mass shootings in Aurora and the Sikh temple in Wisconsin, among others. Personally, I'm staunch believer in the right to own and possess firearms. That being said, it seems clear to me that the gun culture that has arisen in the United States over the past three decades has largely been created to give the American populace a false sense of security. 'Mainstream' conspiracy blogs are once again abuzz with the well-worn urban myth that UN Peacekeepers are poised to disarm the America populace. Meanwhile, followers of such notions take solace in their stockpiles of arms and the lessons they're going to give the blue berets once they touch down on America soil.

The absurdity of such notions should be especially obvious when one considers the prospects of drones and the clues the Cryptocracy has been dropping about them for years. Conventional firearms will be all but obsolete in a few years when a new generation of drones, designed with the lessons learned in combat zones in Pakistan, Yemen and other locations, begin hitting the streets domestically. The Cryptocracy will have a largely robotic army at their disposal, unhindered by the pesky streaks of morality that have traditionally restrained human combat forces.

With such weapons only years away, the Cryptocracy has no real fear of conventional firearms. Indeed, the paranoia America gun culture is increasingly descending into will only ensure a steady stream of 'lone wolf' killers to terrorize the masses. It is especially concerning that two of the most recent public shootings the media have been hyping, the one that occurred near the Texas A & M campus and the most recent at Saint John the Baptist Parish, LA, were directed at police officers. This only helps to further the perception that the police are incapable of dealing with such threats, thus necessitating a need for other militant solutions.

And this is the best possible scenario for the Cryptocracy, for it will make it all that much easier to convince the America people to accept the drone as part of every day life.