The Reality of Reality

Regular readers of this blog know that I am quite fascinated by the nature of reality. I have in fact argued that the true essence of magic is reality, the manipulation of which constituting a magical working. Much more on this topic can be found here. Of course, many will scoff at the notion that reality is malleable thing, as though it can be shaped like a piece of metal. But at the end of the day, reality is only what we tell one and other that it is. This was a concept not lost on the CIA as they boldly embarked upon a kind of 'world view' warfare against the Soviet Union in the wake of WWII.

"All of these techniques -hallucinogenic drugs, hypnosis, acts of terrorism, disinformation -share an ontological purpose: to manipulate perceptions, to recreate reality. As we noted above, the German word for psychological warfare translates as 'worldview warfare': a battle of perceptions, of consensus realities... As the men of the OSS, CIA, and military intelligence developed from the armchair scholars and academics that most of them were before the war years into soldiers fighting the Cold War on fronts all over the world, they became -in a very real sense -magicians. As we will see, the CIA mind control projects themselves represented an assault on consciousness and reality that has not been seen in history since the age of the philosopher-kings and their court alchemists."
(Sinister Forces -Book One: The Nine, Peter Levenda, pg. 144)

As the years advanced, this 'worldview warfare' has spread to every aspect of society long after the Soviet Union was cast into the dust bin of history. Case in point, the 'War on Terror.' We tell one and other that terrorism constitutes the greatest threat to modern society in the world today, and that at any given any one of us could find ourselves under siege. This was the meme that was getting a lot of play on February 17th, anyway, when it was announced that the FBI had foiled yet another terror plot, this one revolving around an attempted bombing of the Capital. This was the headline that I saw scrolling across MSNBC when I awoke that morning, anyway, and that is the reality to countless Americans. But when one actually considers the specifics of this terror plot, its much harder to tell who the real terrorist is: the Moroccan man arrested for the plot, or the F.B.I., who engineered it. MSNBC 'reports':

"Within the last week, authorities say, Amine El Khalifi's plan to wreak havoc was proceeding as hoped: An al-Qaida associate handed him an automatic weapon to kill security officers inside the U.S. Capitol. A bomb-laden vest would detonate the building. He would die as a martyr. 

"But there was a problem: The explosives were inert, the gun inoperable and the supposed al-Qaida member was actually an undercover officer, according to court documents. 

"El Khalifi was arrested Friday in a parking garage on his way to carry out an attack the FBI says he kicked around for months, even detonating a practice bomb in a quarry, all with varied targets in mind. 

"An FBI affidavit traces the evolution of the plot from a vague plan to prepare for the 'war on Muslims' to more clearly articulated visions of attacking a restaurant and synagogue to, finally, a goal of obliterating the seat of American government. The document alleges a weeks-long flurry of final activity by El Khalifi, monitored by the FBI and coordinated through an undercover agent, to scope out the building, train in explosives and arm himself for a suicide attack."

Mr. Khalifi

Springing this plot on the 17th was an especially nice touch. Regular readers of this blog know that the number 17 is extremely important in the occult. It has special significance in Islamic strands.

"In Islamic tradition, seventeen is the number of the liturgical gestures (rak'a) employed in the five daily prayers and it is also the number of words used in the call to prayer. In Muslim folklore, the symbolic number seventeen constantly recurs, especially in legends, 'more particularly the seventeen pieces of advice whispered into the king's ear during his coronation and the seventeen components of the standard...' 

"In Shi'ism, above all, and through its influence in the religious epic poetry of the Anatolian Turks,

a quasi-magical importance attaches to the number seventeen... Shi'ite mystics from a very early period held the number seventeen in veneration, a veneration stemming from far earlier Pythagorean speculations based upon the Greek alphabet... Seventeen was the number of those who were to be brought to life again, each of these individuals being bound to be given one of the letters of the alphabet from which the supreme name of God was composed."

 (Dictionary of Symbols, Jean Chevalier & Alain Gheerbrant, pg. 866) 

Perhaps the date then helped convince Mr. Khalifi that his resurrection was imminent, though I daresay he didn't come up with such an apt dating on his own. Sadly, this is hardly the only suspect aspect of Mr. Khalifi's 'terror plot.' Despite their best efforts, MSNBC can't cover up what a pathetic figure Mr. Khalifi truly is. Continuing from the MSNBC article:

"...Authorities have released only basic biographical details about El Khalifi and haven't described how they believe he became intent on destruction. He was born in Morocco and came to the United States in 1999, when he was 16, overstaying his visitor visa and remaining in the country illegally, court papers say. He is unemployed and is not believed to be associated with al-Qaida..." 

"The investigation that led to El Khalifi's arrest started last January on a confidential informant's tip to the FBI. The informant described a meeting inside an Arlington apartment, where a person who produced an AK-47, two revolvers and ammunition said the war on terror equated with a 'war on Muslims' and urged the group to prepare for battle. El Khalifi, the FBI learned, expressed agreement. 

"The FBI doesn't believe he was conspiring with anyone else, and court documents in El Khalifi's case don't give further details about the meeting in the Arlington apartment and the other people who were there. Police are investigating others with whom El Khalifi associated, but not because they believe the associates were part of a terror conspiracy, a counterterrorism official has told The Associated Press. 

"By December, authorities say the sting operation and El Khalifi's own plans were taking shape. 

"That month, he traveled to Baltimore with a man he knew as Hussien to meet a person who was introduced to him as an al-Qaida associate, authorities say. He told the man, Yusuf, that he planned to blow up a building just outside Washington in Alexandria, Va., that contained military offices. Handling the man's AK-47, he spoke of wanting to 'use a gun and kill people face to face,' according to the complaint. 

"Unbeknownst to El Khalifi, the man who called himself Yusuf was an undercover law enforcement officer. Hussien was an operative working undercover with investigators."

As one reads further into the saga of Mr. Khalifi, it becomes apparent that he was practically the only one involved in this 'terror plot' that wasn't linked to the F.B.I. or some other branch of US law enforcement. Essentially the F.B.I. found an unhinged Muslim immigrant, began indoctrinating him with radical Islamic beliefs, then suggested he begin plotting his own terror attack, which they were more than happy to provide him with the tools to do so.

This is of course a notion totally foreign to the average America who, thanks to hours upon hours of propaganda from film and TV, believes that the F.B.I. is an infallible organization, comprised of squeaky-clean agents working tirelessly toward their safety. But what other conclusions can one draw from the F.B.I.'s actions taken toward Mr. Khalifi? If Mr. Khalifi was truly a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off, then why not simply deport him to his native country and bar his reentry into the US? The man had only been living in the US illegally for over a decade, after all. Why wait an entire year for some kind of Byzantine entrapment ploy to unfold if Mr. Khalifi was such a threat to the average American?

What's more, this isn't exactly the first time the F.B.I. has been caught fanning the flames of Islamic terrorism. In actuality, many of their most celebrated terror busts over the past few years have followed a pattern similar to Mr. Khalifi's 'terror plot.' Consider a 2009 'terror plot' originating from the Bronx that has just recently gone to trial:

"Special Agent Robert Fuller hoisted a six-foot-long heat-seeking Stinger missile launcher onto his right shoulder, gazed through the eye piece and aimed the gun towards the back of the federal courtroom in lower Manhattan. 

"No one flinched. If anything, the jurors leaned in for a better look. 

"That’s because the military weapon resting on Fuller’s shoulder was fake — rendered inert by lab technicians in an FBI lab in Quantico, VA, and designed solely to fool four Newburgh men into thinking they were a step closer to shooting down military planes at Stewart International Airport last May. 

"Fuller said he paid a confidential informant about a $100,000 to help catch the men plotting to blow up Bronx synagogues and military planes last year. But defense lawyers say the FBI agent came up with the whole plot in the first place. 

"As the prosecution's first witness, Fuller told the court how he told that confidential informant, Shaheed Hussain, to visit a Newburgh mosque to find radical Muslims. Hussain frequented the Masjid Al-Ikhlas mosque in Newburgh, NY at least 12 times, and met defendant James Cromitie in June 2009. Fuller instructed Hussain to tell Cromitie he was an import-export businessman and a representative of Jaish-e-Mohammed, a Pakistani terrorist organization. 

"Fuller testified on Wednesday that he coached Hussain to be 'passive' and 'ask open-ended questions' as he got to know Cromitie. But defense lawyers attempted to show on cross-examination that Hussain went much further than that and suggested that Fuller scripted out the crimes he wanted the defendants to commit.

"Over 11 months, Fuller testified, he supplied the four defendants — Cromitie, Onta Williams, David Williams and Laguerre Payen — with cars, cellphones, a handgun, digital cameras, three inert IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and two inert heat-seeking Stinger missiles. He located storage spaces for the weapons and held on to the storage key. Fuller also provided money to help the defendants — who were struggling with unemployment and have criminal records — with groceries, rent and cell phone bills. 

"That was the key, said Alicia McWilliams, the aunt of defendant David Williams. 'When you have ex-offenders coming home, and people don't have jobs, money plays a factor in our community,' said McWilliams, speaking with WNYC outside the courtroom. 'And the government should be ashamed.' 

"The defendants were allegedly promised thousands of dollars more and even a BMW if they went along with the plan. 

"Thirty five meetings between Hussain and the defendants were recorded by the FBI, and the contents of those audio and video recordings have still not been played in court. When defense lawyer Mark Gombiner tried to have one 57-minute video played of an October 2008 meeting between Hussain and Cromitie, prosecutors objected vehemently, arguing that playing the video on the second day of the trial would disrupt the order of the whole proceeding.  

"Gombiner argued that the video will show Hussain pressured Cromitie from the start to wage jihad according to the government's well-scripted play — and that prosecutors shouldn't be trying to get defense lawyers to play along as well."

An artist depiction of Special Agent Fuller testifying

Keep in mind the bolded part about all the defendants in this case being ex-cons, as I shall return to it a bit later. Otherwise, there's not much to comment on here. Once again we see a well-funded F.B.I. informer posing as a member of an international terror ring and seeking out angry, disillusioned, and alienated individuals, the type of which is most susceptible to violent indoctrination, and preceding to fund and arm said individuals. In addition to a headline-grabbing arrest, the F.B.I. is able to further validate the right-wing belief that all Muslims are budding terrorists that simply need a good nudge to take up the jihad with these kind of PSYOPs.

But why should the ring-wing have all the fun?

In recent months the F.B.I. has been seeking out a brand of terrorist that is much more acceptable to the left-wing, namely individuals that full under such labels as 'sovereign citizen', 'white seperatist', 'Christian Identity movement', and the like. In fact, the F.B.I. was banging the drum of this menace about ten or so days before foiling Mr. Khalifi's 'terror plot.' RAW Story reports:

"The FBI has said it is monitoring a growing extremist threat from 'sovereign citizen' movements, and is targeting their activities to prevent a repeat of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. 

Followers of 'sovereign citizen' ideologies reject all government authority, refusing to pay taxes, not recognizing US currency, and sometimes engaging in acts of violence, FBI officials told reporters on Monday. 

“'They could be lone wolves, too,' said Stuart McArthur, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counter-terrorism division, who said it was the agency’s mission to 'deter and detect' potential acts of 'catastrophic violence...' 

"The FBI said the 'sovereign citizen' militants are distinguishable from other ultra-right extremists by their use of homemade license plates, documents and diplomatic credentials, as well as the terminology they use. 

“'The ideology itself promotes violence and encourages violence,' said special agent Casey Carty, who said the FBI had a duty to be proactive in dealing with the potential threat. 

"The number of convictions in 'sovereign citizen' cases rose from 10 in 2009 to 18 in 2010 and another 18 last year."

Sovereign citizen license plates, one of the high crimes the movement is accused of

Ten convictions to 18? Oh, the horror!

But this is nothing compared to the face domestic terrorism was sporting this past November. On November 1st exactly, the American public was given a glimpse of this latest threat. It was most curious to say the least, especially when one considers the date of the event. November 1st, All Saints Day, has a fascinating legacy in European paganism.

"Perhaps we may go a step further and explain in like manner the origin of the feast of All Saints on the first of November. For the analogy of similar customs elsewhere would lead us to suppose that the old Celtic festival of thew dead was held on the Celtic New Year's Day, that is, on the first, not the second, of November. May not then the institute of the feast of All Saints on that day have been the first attempt of the Church to give a colour of Christianity to the ancient heathen rite by substituting the saints for the souls of the dead as the true object of worship? The facts of history seem to countenance this hypothesis. For the feast of All Saints was instituted in France and Germany by order of Emperor Lewis the Pious in 835 AD, that is, about a hundred and sixty years before the introduction of the feast of All Souls. The innovation was made by the advice of the pope, Gregory IV, whose motive may well have been that of suppressing the old pagan custom which was still notoriously practiced in France and Germany. The idea, however, was not a novel one, for the testimony of Bede proves that in Britain, another Celtic country, the feast of All Saints on the first of November was already celebrated in the eighth century. We may conjecture that this attempt to divert the devotion of the faithful from the souls of the dead to the saints proved a failure, and that finally the Church reluctantly decided to sanction the popular superstition by frankly admitting a feast of All Souls on the calender. But it could not assign the new, or rather the old, festival to the old day, the first of November, since that was already occupied by the feast of All Saints. Accordingly it placed the mass of the dead on the next day, the second of November. On this theory the feasts of All Saints and of All Souls mark two successive efforts of the Catholic Church to eradicate an old heathen festival of the dead."
(The Golden Bough, James Frazer, pg. 385)

All Saints Day, a hold over from pagan times of the Celtic New Year?

If nothing else, 'festival of the dead' is an apt description of the alleged domestic terrorists the F.B.I. unearthed for the feast. MSNBC reports:

"Four Georgia men in their 60s and 70s were arrested Tuesday, accused of being members of a right-wing militia group that plotted to attack federal office buildings and to disperse a deadly biological poison in Atlanta. 

"Their alleged plot was revealed to the FBI by a confidential informant last spring, and members of the group have been meeting since May with someone they thought was a black-market weapons dealer but who turned out to be an undercover federal agent, according to court documents. 

"No attacks were ever attempted. Federal officials say the men were disrupted before they could act on the plot.

"The documents say the men, Frederick Thomas, 73, of Cleveland, Ga.; Dan Roberts, 67, Ray Adams, 65, and Samuel Crump, 68, all of Toccoa, called themselves 'the covert group' and began in March to talk about staging attacks against federal targets including the IRS.

"A confidential informant secretly recorded some of the meetings for the FBI."

Terrified yet?

The media assures us that the senior brigade was a great threat to national security due to their backgrounds. Continuing with MSNBC:

"They allegedly obtained a silencer from the undercover agent and plotted to buy explosives. Crump claimed he could produce ricin, a deadly biological agent, and talked about dispersing it from a car driving on an interstate highway, according to court documents... 

"According to federal investigators, Crump had worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta in the past doing 'maintenance-type services' for a contractor, and Adams used to work for a U.S. Department of Agriculture agency called the Agricultural Research Service as a lab technician."

Yes dear reader, being a lab technician for the Department of Agriculture, or a glorified janitor for the CDC, apparently puts one in a unique position to create biological weapons. Thus, we as Americans must no longer live in terror simply of disenfranchised Muslims, but also of old, decrepit white people as well. The F.B.I. and its highly paid informants are no doubt hard at work recruiting the next right wing extremist and helping them plot their very own terror strike in the name of national security. Frankly, I'm surprised its taken this long for the militia meme to reenter pop culture considering how much mileage the Clinton administration got out of it. I suppose I should be thankful that this generation's Oklahoma City bombing hasn't occurred yet, anyway.

If recruiting unstable individuals and helping them mastermind various terror plots wasn't enough to ensure the War on Terror will groove right along, rest assured the F.B.I. is receiving ample help from local law enforcement to ensure that the well of recruits will not soon run dry. Consider this little nugget:

"Last year in three high schools in Florida, several undercover police officers posed as students. The undercover cops went to classes, became Facebook friends and flirted with the other students. One 18-year-old honor student named Justin fell in love with an attractive 25-year-old undercover cop after spending weeks sharing stories about their lives, texting and flirting with each other. 

"One day she asked Justin if he smoked pot. Even though he didn't smoke marijuana, the love-struck teen promised to help find some for her. Every couple of days she would text him asking if he had the marijuana. Finally, Justin was able to get it to her. She tried to give him $25 for the marijuana and he said he didn't want the money -- he got it for her as a present. 

"A short while later, the police did a big sweep and arrest 31 students -- including Justin. Almost all were charged with selling a small amount of marijuana to the undercover cops. Now Justin has a felony hanging over his head."

Justin's situation is even more dire than this article indicates. If he's convicted of a drug charge he won't be eligible for federally subsidized financial aid. Thus, his opportunities will be even more limited when he gets out of prison. Which will make it even more likely that he'll continue with a life of crime. And that will make him an especially appealing target to those highly paid F.B.I. informants, especially the ones that specialize in anti-government movements. Thus, not only is the American justice system turning a basically decent kid into a criminal, but its also putting him at risk of 'radicalization' (which American law enforcement officers are an ever growing part of). We already saw something similar to this play out in the Bronx 'terror plot' discussed above. And if the numbers are any indication, a rather large percentage of young Americans will know the ends and outs of the American legal system in the coming years. MSNBC notes:

 "Close to one in three teens and young adults get arrested by age 23, suggests a new study that finds more of them are being booked now than in the 1960s.

"Those arrests are for everything from underage drinking and petty theft to violent crime, researchers said. They added that the increase might not necessarily reflect more criminal behavior in youth, but rather a police force that's more apt to arrest young people than in the past."

Despite the fact that violent crime constitutes a low percentage of the total crimes the study researchers felt these arrests were essential to spot early warning signs of 'criminal behavior' in adolescents. Continuing from the same article:

"Though violent crimes might be on the rarer end of the spectrum of offenses, the study's lead author pointed to the importance of catching the early warning signs of criminal behavior in adolescents and young adults, saying that pediatricians and parents can both play a role in turning those youngsters around."

As an afterthought, these same researchers note that this may have a long-term effect on the prospects of the offending individuals.

"Arrests in adolescents are especially worrisome, he told Reuters Health, because many repeat offenders start their 'criminal career' at a young age...

"He pointed out that young people who have an arrest on their record might have more trouble getting jobs in the future. It's one thing if that's because they were involved in a violent crime, he continued, but another if their offence was non-violent, like drinking underage or smoking marijuana."

The numbers indicate that America is over run with hordes of marauding youth, yet violent crime has dropped to a 40 year low, according to the New York Times:

"The number of violent crimes in the United States dropped significantly last year, to what appeared to be the lowest rate in nearly 40 years, a development that was considered puzzling partly because it ran counter to the prevailing expectation that crime would increase during a recession.

"In all regions, the country appears to be safer. The odds of being murdered or robbed are now less than half of what they were in the early 1990s, when violent crime peaked in the United States. Small towns, especially, are seeing far fewer murders: In cities with populations under 10,000, the number plunged by more than 25 percent last year." 

I now return to the notion that I put forth in the opening paragraph about reality being subjective. The reality that mainstream media and authority figures wish the average America to believe in is that they live in a society breaking apart at the seams, where the scourge of drugs and terrorism are ever present, in which anyone, young or old, white or otherwise, could be a threat at any given time. But what are we to make of these threats? Could the destitute, often poorly educated Muslims the F.B.I. and like organizations parade before the American public in the latest terror plot have ever even conceived of such actions without the urging of federal authorities? Likewise for the geezers of the Georgia 'militia' and Justin, a lovesick 18 year old with less than a few grams of grass for sale. And what are we to make of a 40 year low in violent crime when indications, such as nearly one out of every three Americans under the age of 23 having a criminal record, point to crime being out of control. Is this truly reality?

Because it sure seems to me that the F.B.I., with its informant-laced terror cells, its money, and its state-of-the-art weapons, are a far greater threat than the rogue's gallery examined during the course of this article. But we all know that that can't be reality, just like all those fantasies about false flag terror attacks behind the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11. That simply can't be reality. TV says so, as my dad would say.

And that, dear readers, is magic at its finest.