The Blog For Paranormal Happenings and News
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Masons and the Making of America
As millions of readers—not to mention anxious booksellers and publishers—await the launch of Dan Brown's latest novel on September 15th, public interest is riding high on the book's presumed theme: the hidden hand of Freemasonry behind American history. Americans love a good mystery and Freemasonry—with its penchant for occult symbols and once-secretive membership rolls that included presidents from George Washington to Franklin Roosevelt—has long provided one.But Freemasonry's real impact on America is richer and more significant than anything that entertainment or speculation would hold. As a radical thought movement that emerged from the Reformation, Freemasonry was the first widespread and well-connected organization to espouse religious toleration and liberty—principles that the fraternity helped spread through the American colonies.
It may seem anomalous for such liberal principles to arise from a clandestine brotherhood; but skullduggery was never Masonry's primary aim. In an age of religious conflict in 17th century Europe—when an individual caught running afoul of church strictures could suffer persecution or worse—Freemasons clung to secrecy less out of esoteric drama than political expedience. Freemasons believed in a search for religious truth as it existed in all civilizations, including those of a pre-Christian past, and they drew upon ancient and occult symbols, from pentagrams to luminescent eyeballs, as codes for ethical development and civic progress. Reactions from church authorities ranged from suspicion to hostility. European Masons had good reason to be discrete.
In a young America, Masonic ideals fully took flight—sometimes in unexpected ways. In Boston in 1775, Freemasonic officials who were part of a British garrison granted local freemen of color the right to affiliate as Masons under the banner of African Lodge No. 1. The African Lodge later became known as Prince Hall Masonry, so named for the order's founder, Prince Hall, a freed slave. Hall became the first African-American named a Grand Master. Despite the African Lodge's segregated status, Prince Hall Masonry was a bastion of abolitionism. Its leader affixed his name to some of the republic's earliest anti-slavery petitions in 1777 and 1778. As such, African Lodge No. 1 represented the first black-led abolitionist movement in American history.
Conspiracy theories are invading pop culture
What have Dan Brown and the Internet done?For years, conspiracy theories were regulated to underground newspapers, late-night television and Oliver Stone. Then, during the past 20 years, two things happened: The Internet became readily available to millions and Dan Brown wrote "The Da Vinci Code."
From a marketing standpoint, the book was brilliant. Brown took one of history's mysteries — did the Catholic Church hide the true story of Jesus? — and incorporated it into a book that is also full of puzzles for the reader to solve. Brilliant! Like any business, when a new concept is successful, others follow. Soon, we had a whole genre of fiction about secret societies.
Brown continues to lead the field, however, with his new book about the Freemasons, "The Lost Symbol," expected to sell millions of copies after its release this week.
Meanwhile, the Internet has given voice to those who previously might reach only the people in their medieval role-playing game group. People have jammed cyberspace with theories on Bigfoot, UFOs, 9/11, the Freemasons, the Bilderberg Group, Nazis and the occult, the Mayan calendar, the Bermuda Triangle, electromagnetism, Yeti, alien abductions, time travel, parallel dimensions, shadow governments, false flag terrorism, black helicopters, the Trilateral Commission, Roswell and the symbology on the cover of The Beatles' "Abbey Road."
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Occult Profiles: Anton Long, Grand Master: Order Of The Nine Angles
David Myatt: Mage For Our Times?
David Myatt has many names – the majority attributed to him by others, and some which he himself uses, or has used. Perhaps the name most associated, by others, with him is that of Anton Long, GrandMaster of the sinister Occult group The Order of Nine Angles (See Footnote 1). Another name, conferred on him some decades ago by some of his closest friends, is The Mage, and this name has now passed into more general usage among the worldwide sinister-kindred of the ONA in the form of either The Mad Mage (Footnote 2) or its American variant of Mad Mu Mu, a variant conferred upon him by two young women of the ONA nexion
As often in such matters, the Order of Nine Angles has its own definition of the term Mage, stating that it is one of the seven stages of their Seven Fold Sinister Way, associated with the stage, or esoteric grade, of Grand Master/Grand Mistress. That is, it refers to an individual who, by virtue of their practical experience, and knowledge of, the sinister (the Dark Side; the Left Hand Path) has achieved a great understanding and knowledge of themselves, and of esoteric matters in general, and who has acquired, and practised, certain esoteric (Occult) skills. These skills, according to the ONA, include those relating to the use of Aeonic Magick.
What is especially interesting is that the ONA associates the Mage (and to a lesser extent, the Master/Mistress of The Dark Arts) with skill in shapeshifting; by which they mean not the mythological ability of a living human being to somehow transform themselves into animals or even into an entirely different human body, but rather the practical ability to successfully assume various rôles, identities, or personae: to live, to be, to act out the life, undetected, of someone else, and all for the purpose of attaining self-knowledge and self-understanding, and for the doing of deeds of sinister Aeonic Magick ( Footnote 3).
This proficiency in the dark and esoteric art of shapeshifting – one of the qualities of a genuine Mage (according to the ONA and other sinister groups) – most certainly applies to the life of David Myatt himself, whose rôles, identities, and personae, have included hermit, monk, drifter, neo-nazi street thug, convict, poet, mystic, radical Islamist preaching Jihad, lothario, theoretician of terror, and sorcerer.
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The Order Of The Nine Angles: Their Manifesto
Whose gonna run this town, tonight? The short answer: we are, however long it takes to undermine by whatever means the societies of the mundanes and replace their rule of law, and their Police forces, with our law of personal honour and our tribal enforcers. That is the essence of our sinister strategy: to build a new, tribal-based, way of life in the cities, the towns, everywhere; to break down, to replace, what exists now; and to exult in this breaking down, this replacement; to enjoy the thrill of the chaos, the disorder, that we can and should and will cause. For by doing such sinister things we live life on a higher level than the mundanes; we evolve ourselves; we extend and surpass our limits and we most certainly surpass and discard and ignore the limits set by the mundanes and enshrined in their tyrannical laws.
Let us be quite clear (again); let us be understood (again): we are sinister, in real life. We are amoral. We are feral. We are not playing some sinister game or indulging in some esoteric rôle-play. We are, or aspire to be, outlaws, in real life. We can and will and should use any and every means – however such means are described by the “ethics” and the laws of the mundanes – in order to achieve our personal, sinister, aims, and our sinister Aeonic goals. Nothing of the world of the mundanes is forbidden to us; nothing of the world of the mundanes should restrict us.
In brief, we are new sinister species. A new type of human being. The type who scares the mundanes; the type of being that they fear and dread and who may give their children nightmares, or invoke within those youngsters the sinister desire to be of us, to be like us, to aspire to be like us. For it’s us, and them: us and the mundanes. Their world, or our new, sinister, world.
We desire, we need, real, practical, power: on the streets; in the towns, in the cities, in the villages, the areas, where we reside. We desire to rule, to control, our neighbourhoods, our locality; to establish there our new sinister tribal culture, and we will use whatever means we can and whatever means we desire and which are necessary to establish our feral tribes. We desire in such places to make a name for ourselves; to earn respect and be respected.
We have declared war on the mundanes, for they and all that they have are our resource; and all that supports them and their system – from their laws, their so-called Courts of Law, their Police forces, to their local and national governments – we loathe and detest and regard as our enemy. We are armed and dangerous; and if we are not already so armed and so dangerous, then that is what we aspire to be, and what we should and must be, for we regard it as our natural right as members of a sinister feral species to be so armed, and we would rather die, fighting and laughing and exulting, than submit or surrender to any mundane or to their so-called forces of “law and order”.
The politics of the mundanes – their whole system of governance, their ideologies, their religions, their Institutions – are irrelevant to us. Such things belong in the past; to the mundanes. Our way is the way of personal knowing; of earning, of keeping, personal respect; of personal loyalty to the members of our own local tribe.
Each of our sinister tribes is a law, a realm, unto itself. They set their own limits. They make their own rules; devise their own codes of behaviour. They have their own, individual, tribal aims. They all have their own means, their own ways, of making their mark; of acquiring what they need; of gaining respect and wealth. But they all – each and every one of them – are of us, part of us, by virtue of the fact we are family: a new, growing, thriving, spreading, species; an extended sinister family bound by loyalty to our own kind; bound by sharing the same sinister ethos, the same sinister and feral nature: the same desire to excel; to exult; to grow, to acquire by whatever means whatever we need to survive, to prosper, to live life as it should be lived. We are a family who knows our own kind; who knows who our enemies are, and who are our brothers and sisters.
Thus, we are the darkest, most sinister, sorcery of all; Presencing The Dark by our very lives.
Anton Long
Order of Nine Angles
120 Year of Fayen
Off Topic: Ben-Hur rides again as breathtaking Gladiator Fights Are Performed for Live audiences
Roman invasion: A scene from Ben-Hur Live at the O2 Arena Epic: The show runs for just five performances and is on until Saturday There is even a naval battle between two ships, 12 pirate boats and hundreds of soldiers.Ben-Hur Live has a cast of 400, including seven leading actors, five charioteers, 74 dancers and 66 Roman guards, who each night join a mass of animals on stage for the five-performance show.
Chariot race: The cast of 400 includes seven charioteers who have trained for months for their role
The producers claim the show has 'the speed of a musical, the depth of great theatre, the power of a rock concert and the visual opulence of a Hollywood blockbuster'.
Musician Stewart Copeland of The Police composed the soundtrack and narrates the show, which runs at the O2 until Saturday.
Ghost hunters flock to tiny village after dozens of locals are spooked by mysterious 'white lady'
Ghoulish encounters: Cars have been queuing at a road near Coalisland in Co Tyrone after dozens of sightings of a mysterious 'white lady' near the ruins of a remote farmhouse (file picture)
The numerous ghoulish encounters with a mysterious 'white lady' has prompted many to believe they had met a supernatural being.
For bemused locals, the only question on their minds, was: 'Who You Gonna Call?'
Well, Ghostbusters, of course.
Over the past six weeks there have been dozens of sightings of the apparition near the ruins of a remote farmhouse in near Coalisland in Co Tyrone.
Convinced that the sightings are true - rather than the result of one too many pints of Guinness - convoys of ghost hunters have flocked to the dip in the road where she was seen.
Up to 60 cars have been spotted parked on the side of the road at midnight, causing traffic jams in the usually desolate area.
Villagers who have spotted the ghost say it looks like an old woman with a sad expression.
However, none have so far been able to describe the features of her face in any detail.
The spot where the ghost was spotted could perhaps best be described as a 'ghost's paradise'.
The damp crumbling walls on the ruined house where the ghost was spotted still bear the scorch marks from a fire.
Broken doors now creak in the wind and tree branches scratch against the collapsed roof. The birds in the trees are strangely silent.
Ryan Bell, the son of the local landlord Raymond, claims he has seen the ghost more than 20 times.
'I was freaked out the first time I saw her, but now I'm getting used to it,' he said. 'It looks like an old small woman with a shining white cape.
'When you drive by the run-down house, the figure emerges from the trees and crosses the road in front of you before coming to a halt in the same place each time.
'It's definitely a creepy experience. You can only see the profile of her face but she appears sad.'
Paranormal experts are now heading to the area with thermal imaging cameras and high frequency voice recorders in the hope of verifying the sightings.
Warren Coates, of the Northern Ireland Paranormal Research Association, said he was aware of previous paranormal activity in the area.
'It related to a phantom female hitchhiker, who caused a stir five years ago,' he said. 'Drivers would see her on the side of the road with her thumb out. When they pulled up to offer her a lift, she would vanish.
'Sometimes she would walk across the road in front of cars. But when drivers swerved to avoid her, she disappeared. These sightings were about a mile away from the latest sightings.'
Mr Coates, who set up his paranormal organisation in 1991, believes the ghost might be a woman who has died in a car crash in the area.
Others, however, are more sceptical and believe the apparition is a hoax.
Desmond Donnelly, a Sinn Féin councillor, said: 'At one point, there was a line of up to 60 cars on the road with people trying to spot it.
'It wasn't just one night, it was going on for a week or so over the holidays. I'm not sure how it all started - I wouldn't be one for ghosts, but you know how this type of thing spreads.
'If you ask me, it's more likely to be a reflection of the moon on the river that flows through the area. Although the talk is that what was seen was in the shape of a person.'
Ireland is increasingly becoming the 'ghost capital of Europe', as holidaymakers from around the world visit in the hope of a supernatural experience.
The most memorable ghost of recent times was a cloaked figure photographed standing in a doorway at Hampton Court Palace in 2003.
Some believed it to be the restless spirit of the King Henry VIII's fifth wife Catherine Howard who was executed. Before the photograph emerged, she had reportedly been seen by several visitors - sometimes uttering terrible cries.
Sarah Ellen Roberts: The Bride of Dracula?
A woman who was reputedly executed as a Bride of Dracula and now haunts a Peruvian city has been revealed as a humble Lancashire weaver who met her death on holiday.Sarah Ellen Roberts has become a cult figure in Peru, where the story goes that her husband brought her after she was executed in 1913 as a murderer, a witch and a vampire.
She had apparently been seen biting the neck of a child and sucking its blood, and her merchant husband John witnessed her pouring blood over ice cream before eating it.
The legend: Sarah Ellen Roberts is believed in Peru to have been a bride of Dracula, like the one portrayed here by Elena Anaya in the 2004 movie Van Helsing
Though she was reputedly tried and executed in Blackburn, John Roberts is said to have travelled the world seeking a place to lay her to rest after the Church of England refused her burial on consecrated ground.
Only the town of Pisco in Peru would take her body, according to local playwright Racso Miro Quesada, who is adapting Sarah's story for the stage.
He said: 'Her husband John Roberts travelled the world trying to find a place to bury his wife.
'Because of the things she was accused of, there was no place on earth where she could rest.'
He added: 'No one wanted to have the remains of the person he loved. She ended up being accepted in the small fishing town Pisco.'
In an elaboration of the story, Sarah was one of 'three brides of Dracula' along with two sisters, Andrea and Erica, who were executed in Blackburn in the same way and were buried by John Roberts in Mexico and Hungary or Panama.
Ever since Sarah's interment, Pisco's inhabitants have been terrified she will return, having vowed to rise up again in vengeance in 80 years' time as she was forced into her lead-lined casket.
On the 80th anniversary of her death, June 9, 1993, all thoughts in Pisco - now Peru's main port with a population of more than 100,000 - turned to fears of the revenant vampire.
Pregnant women fled, fearful that her spirit might try to reincarnate itself in their child. Hundreds bought anti-vampire kits, complete with garlic and stakes, before descending on the tombstone to wait the resurrection.
When she failed to reappear, those who had been throwing holy water and praying said they had kept her at bay.
Then in August 2007 a massive earthquake struck Pisco, killing hundreds and demolishing swathes of the city.
In the cemetery, large numbers of coffins were uncovered by the tremor - but not Sarah's. A counter-myth seems to have sprung up in which, far from being a vampire, she is blessed.
Racso Miro Quesada said: 'It was the only grave that survived - something that reinforces the belief that Sarah is a powerful saint.'
Aside from the well-documented 2007 tragedy, British historians understandably smelt something fishy about the whole Sarah Roberts story. For a start, although the good citizens of Lancashire may have famously executed the so-called witches of Pendle in 1612, by 1913 they tended to consider that kind of thing rather passé.
Pisco's cemetery was devastated by 2007 quake, above - but Sarah Roberts' grave is said to have been mysteriously unscathed
Blackburn history expert Stephen Smith has dismissed the legend of Sarah as hocus pocus and says that, far from being the third Bride of Dracula, she was just an ordinary weaver from Burnley.
He said: 'The courts in Blackburn could not have tried Sarah and sentenced her to death for any crime, and even in those days the worst that could have happened to her for practising witchcraft would have been a prison sentence.'
Mr Smith's researches reveal that Sarah was born with the surname Gargett in 1872, and had just one sister who was called neither Andrea nor the equally un-Lancastrian Erica.
Sarah married John Roberts 20 years later. The 1901 census lists both husband and wife as weavers and says they had two sons.
In the same year, John's younger brother moved to Lima, Peru, to set up a cotton mill, and the couple later crossed the Atlantic at least once to visit.
It was during one trip that Sarah died.
Her grandchildren, who were completely unaware of the vampire legend until the well-publicised events of 1993, believe she probably met her end accidentally somewhere isolated.
Her husband would have been forced to carry her in a makeshift coffin to the nearest village - but the strange incident could have raised suspicions and spawned an enduring local myth.
Mr Smith suspects the legend owes most to spin by the Peruvian media in 1993, noting that tourism in the Pisco area had increased by more than 60 per cent since the Sarah legend took hold.
At one point the Mayor of Pisco even said he would like his town twinned with Blackburn - to which the Lancashire town’s own Mayor, Paul Browne, responded: 'This vampire lark will do our town no good at all. People around the world will think we are bloodsuckers.'
Roger Booth, Blackburn library's local history expert, said: 'Sarah has gone down in history but in reality she was just a cotton weaver.
'It is understandable people in Peru may have believed this tale in 1913 but it is hard to see how they are still thought she was going to emerge from the grave in 1993.'
Our Stone Age ancestors wore bright and garish clothes
They are normally pictured wearing drab furs and skins. But an astonishing new discovery suggests that our Stone Age ancestors had a taste for garish, colourful clothes.Archaeologists have uncovered an extraordinary haul of pink, turquoise and black fibres that were used to make thread more than 34,000 years ago.
The flax fibres, which were buried in a cave in the hills of the Republic of Georgia, were discovered by an international team of fossil hunters.
The flax would have been collected from the wild and spun, knotted and tied to make linen and thread, the researchers report today in the journal Science.
Cloth and thread would then have been used to make clothing, sew together pieces of leather and tie together bundles.
Prof Ofer Bar-Yose of Harvard University said: 'This was a critical invention for early humans. They might have used this fibre to create parts of clothing, ropes, or baskets - for items that were mainly used for domestic activities.
The flax, which would have been collected from the wild and not farmed, is believed to be more than 34,000 years old
'We know that this is wild flax that grew in the vicinity of the cave and was exploited intensively or extensively by modern humans.'
Conditions were harsh in the hillsides of Georgia more than 30,000 years ago. The world was still gripped in the last great Ice Age and clothing was essential to survive the freezing winters.
Hundreds of fibres - too small to see with the naked eye - were found in 27 samples of clay scraped out of the cave floor. The layers of soil around the fibres were dated to around 30,000 to 34,000 years ago using carbon dating techniques.
The fibres could have been used to sew hides together for clothing and shoes. They could have been used to make packs which could have allowed Stone Age people to go on long hunting expeditions.
Some of the fibres were twisted and were probably used to make ropes or strings. Others were dyed with natural colours from plants and roots - including pink and turquoise strands.
Young flax fibres dating back to around 21,000 years old were also discovered in the cave.
The scientists were not looking for fibres but were trying to study ancient tree pollen.
Previously the oldest known fibres came from the Czech Republic which were made around 28,000 years ago.
He added: 'We were looking to find when the cave was occupied, what was the nature of the occupation by those early hunter-gatherers, where did they go hunting and gathering food, what kind of stone tools they used, what types of bone and antler tools they made and how they used them, whether they made beads and pendants for body decoration, and so on.
'This was a wonderful surprise, to discover these ancient flax fibres at the end of this excavation project.'
The researchers also found remains of animal hair, skin beetles and moths.
Revealed: The Ghost fleet of the recession
The biggest and secretive gathering of ships in maritime history lies at anchor east of Singapore. Never before photographed, it is bigger than the U.S. and British navies combined but has no crew, no cargo and no destination - and is why your Christmas stocking may be on the light side this year The tropical waters that lap the jungle shores of southern Malaysia could not be described as a paradisical shimmering turquoise. They are more of a dark, soupy green. They also carry a suspicious smell. Not that this is of any concern to the lone Indian face that has just peeped anxiously down at me from the rusting deck of a towering container ship; he is more disturbed by the fact that I may be a pirate, which, right now, on top of everything else, is the last thing he needs. His appearance, in a peaked cap and uniform, seems rather odd; an o fficer without a crew. But there is something slightly odder about the vast distance between my jolly boat and his lofty position, which I can't immediately put my finger on.
Then I have it - his 750ft-long merchant vessel is standing absurdly high in the water. The low waves don't even bother the lowest mark on its Plimsoll line. It's the same with all the ships parked here, and there are a lot of them. Close to 500. An armada of freighters with no cargo, no crew, and without a destination between them.
Navigating a precarious course around the hull of this Panama-registered hulk, I reach its bow and notice something else extraordinary. It is tied side by side to a container ship of almost the same size. The mighty sister ship sits empty, high in the water again, with apparently only the sailor and a few lengths of rope for company.
Nearby, as we meander in searing midday heat and dripping humidity between the hulls of the silent armada, a young European offi cer peers at us from the bridge of an oil tanker owned by the world's biggest container shipping line, Maersk. We circle and ask to go on board, but are waved away by two Indian crewmen who appear to be the only other people on the ship.
'They are telling us to go away,' the boat driver explains. 'No one is supposed to be here. They are very frightened of pirates.'
Here, on a sleepy stretch of shoreline at the far end of Asia, is surely the biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history. Their numbers are equivalent to the entire British and American navies combined; their tonnage is far greater. Container ships, bulk carriers, oil tankers - all should be steaming fully laden between China, Britain, Europe and the US, stocking camera shops, PC Worlds and Argos depots ahead of the retail pandemonium of 2009. But their water has been stolen.
They are a powerful and tangible representation of the hurricanes that have been wrought by the global economic crisis; an iron curtain drawn along the coastline of the southern edge of Malaysia's rural Johor state, 50 miles east of Singapore harbour.
'We don't understand why they are here. There are so many ships but no one seems to be on board,' said local fisherman Ah Wat.
It is so far off the beaten track that nobody ever really comes close, which is why these ships are here. The world's ship owners and government economists would prefer you not to see this symbol of the depths of the plague still crippling the world's economies.
So they have been quietly retired to this equatorial backwater, to be maintained only by a handful of bored sailors. The skeleton crews are left alone to fend off the ever-present threats of piracy and collisions in the congested waters as the hulls gather rust and seaweed at what should be their busiest time of year.
Local fisherman Ah Wat, 42, who for more than 20 years has made a living fishing for prawns from his home in Sungai Rengit, says: 'Before, there was nothing out there - just sea. Then the big ships just suddenly came one day, and every day there are more of them.
'Some of them stay for a few weeks and then go away. But most of them just stay. You used to look Christmas from here straight over to Indonesia and see nothing but a few passing boats. Now you can no longer see the horizon.'
The size of the idle fleet becomes more palpable when the ships' lights are switched on after sunset. From the small fishing villages that dot the coastline, a seemingly endless blaze of light stretches from one end of the horizon to another. Standing in the darkness among the palm trees and bamboo huts, as calls to prayer ring out from mosques further inland, is a surreal and strangely disorientating experience. It makes you feel as if you are adrift on a dark sea, staring at a city of light.
Ah Wat says: 'We don't understand why they are here. There are so many ships but no one seems to be on board. When we sail past them in our fishing boats we never see anyone. They are like real ghost ships and some people are scared of them. They believe they may bring a curse with them and that there may be bad spirits on the ships.'
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