That Old Blood Track

In occultic rituals special emphasis is paid to numerology, onomatology (the study of names), and toponomy (the study of places). These disciplines are part of a broader field known as 'twilight language'.  Anthropologist and zoologist Loren Coleman describes it thusly: "'Twilight language' concerns, from psychology, the hidden significance of locations, dates, and other signs; from religious studies, the hidden symbolism that lies in the texture of the incidents; and, from criminology, the profiling insights that have revealed the ritualistic nature of certain crimes and violent incidents...

"... Buddhism's tantras are thousands of years old and yet never publically revealed, never written down. Gradually it became necessary to write the secrets down so they would not be completely lost. But when they were written, they were written in a 'twilight language', that is, in allegory, symbolism, code, so they could not be misinterpreted and misused by unworthy seekers." (The Copycat Effect, pg. 237)

The Buddhist tantras are but one example of this ancient twilight language that has been handed down to us through names, dates, locations, etc from time immortal. Some believe that these sacred numbers and geography even predated the existence of man all together and were merely discovered by humans after having evolved to the point that they could recognize repeating patterns engraved upon the Earth. One noted believer that aspects of this twilight language predated human beings, especially the numerical components, was the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung who incorporated a proto concept of twilight language into his theory of synchronicity:

"But it is equally possible that numbers were found or discovered. In that case they are not only  concepts but something more -autonomous entities which somehow contain more than just quantities. Unlike concepts, they are based not on any psychic condition but on the quality of being themselves, on a 'so-ness' that cannot be expressed by an intellectual concept. Under these conditions they might easily be endowed with qualities that have still to be discovered. I must confess that I incline to the view that numbers were as much found as invented, and that in consequence they possess a relatively autonomy analogous to that of archetypes. They would then have, in common with the later, the quality of being pre-existent to consciousness, and hence, on occasion, of conditioning it rather than being conditioned by it. The archetypes too, as a priori forms of representation, are as much found as invented: they are discovered inasmuch as one did not know of their unconscious autonomous existence, and invented inasmuch as their presence was inferred from analogous representational structures. Accordingly it would seem that natural numbers have an archetypal character. If this is so, then not only would certain numbers and combinations of numbers have a relation to and an effect on certain archetypes, but the reverse would also be true. The first case is equivalent to number magic, but the second is equivalent to inquiring whether numbers, in conjunction with combination of archetypes found  in astrology, would show a tendency to behave in a special way." (Synchronicity, pgs. 41-2).

Note: Jung's concept of archetypes, and the collective unconsciousness in general, is deeply relevant to twilight language, though we will not delve to deeply into his theories here. Briefly, the collective unconsciousness was "In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature... there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents." (The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, pg. 43). In other words, a universal consciousness exists in all human beings and is handed down genetically generation to generation. Within this consciousness there exists beings Jung refers to as archetypes, figures that have appeared over and over again in the world's major religions and myths. To this very day modern man is still haunted by them in his sleep. The five main archetypes include the Self, the Shadow, the Anima or Animus depending upon whether an individual is man or woman, and the Persona. Other noted archetypes include the Great Mother, the Father and Child, the Trickster or Devil, the Hero, the Wise Old Man, etc. Archetypes may also include motifs such as the Creation, the Apocalypse, and the Deluge, or Great Flood. Some believe that twilight language, the language of symbolism, is what is used by the Collective Unconsciousness to communicate to man in his unconsciousness, especially in dreams. But I digress.  

In theory as human beings appeared and evolved they noticed certain numerical formulas appearing over and over again in nature and that certain places (usually marked by a specific kind of name) generated a kind of unique energy, or magnetism. It was at these spots that they built the first temples, measured to the exact specifics of the sacred geometry they had observed in nature. From there it was determined the optimum time to perform magick rituals would be on numerically significant dates and magnetically significant locations. This magnetic energy occurred along paths or tracks that ran across the Earth and overlapping at various crossroads, which were the preferred locations of holy centers. In modern times this phenomenon was first recognized by an Englishman named Alfred Watkins in the early 20th century.

"Watkins marked out the churches and ancient sites on a 1-inch Ordnance Survey map... Often he found eight and nine and even more sites aligned across quite short stretches of country. Extended onto neighboring maps, the lines could sometimes be traced for many miles, often ending on a mountain peak or high hill.

"His suggestion was, that in the days when great forests and wilderness lay between scattered communities, travelers navigated by natural landmarks, sighting from mountain to mountain and taking the straightest routes across the country. Where one peak was invisible from another, stone pillars or mounds of earth were placed clearly marked against the skyline along the path. Cairns were raised on mountain slopes, and notches were cut into the ridge to guide the traveler below...

"A peculiar feature of the old alignments is that certain names appear with remarkable frequency along their routes. Names with Red, White and Black are common; so are Cold or Cole, Dod, Merry and Ley. The last gave Watkins the name of the lines, which he called leys. " (The New View Over Atlantis, John Michell, pgs. 23-4)

Watkins would go on to write a book on these 'ley lines' which he called The Old Straight Track. Watkins, a practical man to the end, chalked up these massive stretches of ancient road ways he discovered across Great Britain  as simple trade routes. However numerous traditions of the straight paths exist in cultures all over the world and attaching far more mystical significance to them:

"The earliest memories of the Aboriginal race are expressed in terms of their native country. Its natural features, hills, streams and rocks, were shaped by elemental beings of the Dream Time, an endless age which preceded our own, and which still continues to flow in a dimension normally beyond our perception. The creative gods once traversed the country along paths whose lines are still remembered; for a certain seasons of the year these become animated by a vital force which fertilizes the earth and gives new life to plants and animals. To ensure the seasonal return of this force the Aborigines perform certain rites. They carve tjuringas, arrangements of interlinked dots and circles exactly like those found on cup and ring stones in Europe. These lines and circles represent the sacred paths and centres of the Australian landscape, and those who travel the paths find their way by consulting the tjuringa's pattern. ..

"In several other parts of the world, lines linking holy centres are not only mythological paths down which the gods representing the various heavenly bodies pass at regular seasons, but have some further quality known only to native magicians. American Indians, particularly the Hopi of the Southwest, appear to use them as cables of mental communications. In China they are known as lung-mei, the paths of the dragon, and run between astronomical mounds and high mountains...

"...In several parts of Ireland he [J.D. Evans Wentz, in the early 20th century] heard about the fairy paths. These paths, sometimes visible as old roads, sometimes preserved only in local memory, were said to be the routes of seasonal processions. On certain days the fairies passed through the land, and anyone who stood in their way might be struck dead or taken off, never to return... Evans Wentz tells how he asked an Irish seer for an explanation of the fairy paths, and he was told that they were lines of some kind of magnetic current...

"The Chinese believed that lung-mei extended all over the world, and this belief is everywhere supported by the evidence of local tradition. In Australia and North America the dragon lines are creation paths, haunted by the gods and by the great primeval serpent, the ancestral guardian of all living things. In Ireland they are the roads of the fairies." (The New View Over Atlantis, John Michell, pgs. 36-38)

Fortean researcher and journalist John Keel, most famously known for his cult classic The Mothman Prophecies, made similar conclusions concerning the 'magical' properties of certain locations from his own investigations:

"The activities of these parahumans are largely confined to specific areas of this planet, where they appear and reappear century after century. 'The angels keep their ancient places,' poet Francis Thompson wrote. Thus there are many 'haunted' places all over the world, shunned by ancient man or made sacred by him. These are precise geographical locations, and anyone digging into the history and lore of such locations will find thousands of accounts of ghosts, demons, monsters, and flying saucers pinpointed within a few square miles and covering a thousand years or more of time. To UFO cultists such places are Windows: entry points for spaceships from some distant planet. Occultists teach that these are Gateways, weak spots in the earth's etheric envelope through which beings from other space-time continuums seep through into our reality.

"Sussex County in England is one Gateway, as are the Mississippi Valley, the Ohio Valley, and parts of our Western states, such as the area around Prescott, Arizona. There are litterally thousands of these weak spots all over our planet. Paranormal and supernatural activities in these areas seem to be controlled by complicated cyclic factors. Periodically, all hell breaks loose in all these places simultaneously, and then we have a flap, or wave, of UFO sightings, apparitions, poltergeists, sudden inexplicable disappearances of animals and human beings, mysterious fires, and even a form of mass madness." (Our Haunted Planet, pg. 81)

Interestingly, Keel was also favorably disposed toward Alfred Watkins work on leys, in no small part due to the name of the legendary cryptid, nationally known as the Mothman, that he would encounter in West Virginia in the late 60s. This entity told Keel It's name was Indrid Cold. Watkins found that the last name 'Cold', or some variation such as Cole, was commonly found amongst families living along ley lines.

           

Keel and John Michell also agree that what makes these places attractive to the Macrobes is their unique magnetic qualities.  As to this magnetic current, Michell states: "The practice of locating sacred centres in accordance with the flow of terrestrial magnetic current was not confined to prehistoric times, for it appears that every Christian church was similarly sited. The orientation of a church, even its dimensions and architectural plan, was determined by the lines of current, of which the strongest spring is frequently located directly beneath the tower. At this spot the celestial influences, attracted by the spire, combine with the terrestrial force to produce the fusion.

"It becomes apparent that the prehistoric leys and dragon paths of Britain are indeed lines of the earth current. And the most remarkable feature of the whole system is that the paths of underground streams or magnetic flow are not naturally straight; they spiral and undulate like surface rivers or currents of air; yet the currents that follow prehistoric alignments are as direct and regular below ground as are the leys on the surface. The magnetic centres lie in straight rows across the country with a precision that characterizes human construction rather than the work of nature.” (The New View Over Atlantis, pg. 93)

Keel echoes these sentiments, writing:  "One significant factor, which is hardly a secret to the occultists, is that the Window areas tend to be places where peculiar magnetic faults exist. Our haunted planet is covered with magnetic faults, and increasingly enough, many of them are grouped around the ancient mounds, temple sites, and spots where flying saucers are seen most frequently. Psychically oriented people living in these regions tend to have extraordinary experiences with elementals, angels, MIB, and spacemen...

"Back in the Middle Ages the Vatican pointedly ordered that new churches should be constructed on the sites of old temples whenever possible. The tradition of sacred places runs deep and seems to be largely based upon the continuous observations of paranormal manifestations. The entities who allegedly approached human beings in miraculous events frequently ordered a church or temple built on the spot...

"A magnetic survey of the United States was carried out by the government in the 1950s. Maps detailing magnetic variations in nearly every state can be obtained from the Office of Geological Survey in Washington. Comparisons of the concentrations of paranormal manifestations with these maps show unique clusters around the magnetic aberrations. Could it be that periodic sweeps of those rays from outer space set up some kind of physical or psychic  reactions in these fault areas? " (Our Haunted Planet, pg. 84)

Michell even goes so far as to suggest that some ancient megalithic sites were used to store the magnetic energy generated along these ley lines: "The caverns within artificial mounds could certainly have been used for the accumulation of energy and for this purpose they may have been designed. They would have been used in conjunction with standing stones, for the geological selection is similar in each case. Welsh circles often include a single foreign stone quartz, which is also a feature of Boscawen-un circle in Cornwall. It is hard to think why this should be, other than that they were chosen, like the foreign bluestones of Stonehenge, to attract a particular form of current." (The New View Over Atlantis, pg. 209)

As far out as this might sound the megaliths-as-power-plants idea has gained some currency. Master craftsman and engineer Christopher Dunn published an excellent explanation of the Great Pyramid at Giza in his book The Giza Power Plant adding some hard evidence to this theory. A professor of theology, Joseph P Farrell, also published a trilogy of books, commonly referred to as the 'Giza Death Star' trilogy, elaborating upon Dunn's work. Some even believe that the secret of Nikolas Tesla's mysterious magnetic batteries lied in their ability to draw upon the earth's natural magnetic currents.    

However, it's likely that these techniques for harnessing earth energy were handed down by the Macrobes, nonhuman entities commonly thought of as demons, 'evil aliens' and the like and which will be explored in much greater depth in a later essay. John Keel was noted for his skepticism regarding messages and rituals handed down by the Macrobes. He was also weary of their attraction to all different kinds of energy:

"Electromagnetic energy plays a key role in these manifestations. We are still learning about it. Our planet may be constantly interchanging energy with some outside force. This exchange of energy is an important part of occult belief. It occurs, we are told, on every level. Chinese philosophers of long ago contended that man was moon food (i.e., the energy of individual souls was drained off and absorbed by some extraterrestrial force that needed such energy to replenish itself). Later, theologians extended this to form the classic explanation that we were the subjects of a war between God and the devil... a war to win the souls of man and thereby control the planet. Thus, the demons and MIB who appeared in earlier times were supposed to have been after souls. They made lavish promises, according to the records, and offered fanciful philosophies and cosmologies, but as Swedenborg figured out, they always proved to be nothing but splendid liars." (Our Haunted Planet, pg. 85)

Despite his new age slant John Michell at lest addresses the dark side of these rituals to be performed  along and at intersects of the ley lines:  "The appearance of an organized spiritual technology, controlled by the priests, was attended in every country by a massive increase in human sacrifice. The Aztec massacres are notorious; the Druids in Ireland are said to have decimated the population. The innumerable sacrificial stones, carved with basins and channels for the flow of blood, and the traditional violent and bloody associations of so many ancient sites confirms what is recorded of the slaughter carried out by priests in the interests of necromancy.

           

"The practice of human sacrifice flourished in the ruins of the universal civilization. The secrets of spiritual invocation, once common property, had become exclusive to those appointed by the community to produce the seasonal renewal of fertility and interpret the will of God through the heavenly potents. The priests, thus established in a position of power, began, as do the members of all professions similarly placed, to extend their influence and activities and to make demands on the population for sacrificial offerings. It was recognized throughout the ancient world that the spirit at physical death re-enters the life essence from which it came and, unless released onto a higher plane of existence, merges with the terrestrial current, seeking the occasion of rebirth." (The New View Over Atlantis, pgs. 95-96)

           

Our own nation, these United States, have seen more than their fare share of ritual killings along the old straight track to be certain. For the rest of the present essay we will focus on a particularly nasty ley that runs along the 33rd degree North Latitude in the USA. I choice this one for both the character of the events that have occurred along it, and for the number's significance in occultic practices. In Robert Temple's book The Sirius Mystery he notes that many holy sites in the ancient Mideast and Mediterranean were located between nine bands of latitude, stretching from north 31 degrees to 39 degrees. Further, 33 is the highest number rank in the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, the final degree being a purely honorary one to boot.

Of course the best sources specifically for the 33rd degree north latitude and it's occult significance are the late James Shelby Downard and Michael Hoffman. Their King Kill 33 essay as well as Hoffman's book Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare are both highly recommended for a more in-depth look at the alchemical rites performed along this trek. Here I will briefly recount some of the significant events and other oddities that have occurred along this northern latitude and offer some closing thoughts.

-In 1670 Charleston, South Carolina was founded 15 miles from the 33d degree north latitude; it was the first port where African slaves were sold in the US and the founding site of Scottish Rite Freemasonry; In 1861 the first battle of the Civil War occurred at Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor and led to the bloodiest war in US history

-In 1945 the first atomic bomb was exploded at Trinity Test Site in White Sands, NM, just below the 33rd north latitude at the 32 degree, possibly so that bomb would be exploded at a crossroads that also included the ancient Jornada del Muerto trial; crossroads were a preferred location for occultic rites as the legend of bluesman Robert Johnson implies

  -In 1947 a UFO allegedly crashed at Roswell, NM, which is located exactly on the 33rd; from here the modern era of ufology was ushered in

 -In 1963 JFK was assassinated within the triangle shaped Dealey Plaza along Elm Street in Dallas, Texas, which is slightly south of the 33rd

-In 1968 RFK was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, slightly north of the 33rd

-Towns with death row prisons located along the 33rd: Florence, AZ; Parchman, Mississippi; Jackson, GA; Atlanta, GA (for women); Ridgeville, SC

-At least five key nuclear facilities are located along the 33rd across the USA; The states they appear in are: GA, CA, SC, TX, AZ; Two located on opposite sides of the country, one at Goose Creek, SC, the other at San Clemente, CA, are key spots for nuclear subs; bizarrely Los Alamos National Laboratory, responsible for much of the original nuclear research, is located in New Mexico a little north of the 33rd degree.

Nuclear energy and the occultic significance behind it will be examined in much greater depth in a later piece. For now I will state only that some schools of thought believe that the splitting of the atom was an alchemical work and that areas with any kind of nuclear related facilities tend to be lightening rods for Fortean events. That the 33rd degree North Latitude would be chosen for so many major nuclear works is very significant in my opinion. Besides nuclear energy, the American slavery movement, the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, and the modern UFO movement were largely born along the 33rd. All of these things had a profound effect on the course of American history, to say nothing of the national consciousness.

Death, the obligatory bloodletting, is of course also a major factor along the 33rd. Aside from the Kennedy assassinations and the death row facilities the specter of war also hangs heavily through this ley line. Slavery was of course a prime factor in eventually leading America into Civil War, which spurred a remarkable degree of bloodletting all across the nation in addition to major changes in the legal and political structure of the nation that are still barely understood by the population at large today. The atomic bomb was used to both end the Second World War, but also to ensure a half century long Cold War that dragged countless other countries into actual hot wars along the way. Of course the assassinations of both Kennedy brothers were key to prolonging the US involvement in the Viet Nam War. And then there's the specter of nuclear holocaust that has forever hung over the world since a false sun exploded over Trinity.   

We may tentatively conclude that, if in fact rituals were preformed along the 33rd degree North Latitude for advanced technology or worldly power, the payment that was asked in return for these services was extraordinarily high.