The Fall of Twenty Twelve: Epiphany

The Gates of Dawn

The horrific events of the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut offer another glimpse of the strange phenomenon of synchronicity, and with this glimpse comes possible understanding of the entire Fall of Twenty Twelve.

The nominal connection of Sandy Hook with Hurricane Sandy is immediately obvious. An Oct. 29th article from the Weather Channel makes an exact hit:

Sandy's Hook: How Unusual Is This?

Several other syncs between the Sandy Hook shooting and the Dark Knight shooting in Aurora, Colorado have been pointed out by Loren Coleman in his fascinating Twilight Language blog.

One of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting was principal, Dawn Hochsprung. Aurora, of course, means dawn. December 14th, the day of the shooting, was the anniversary of another mass killing at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant on Dec. 14th, 1993. This shooting happened, unbelievably, in Aurora, Colorado.

An even more incredible sync, though, has been uncovered by web researchers in recent days. About an hour and 58 minutes into Dark Knight Rises a map of Gotham City is shown where the area Sandy Hook is marked -- the only legible name on the map (centre left). Police Commissioner Gordon places his hand directly on this point of the map.



This can be more clearly viewed in the official Gotham City map provided in the Dark Knight Rises viral package. Incredibly, Sandy Hook is marked as the place where arch-villain Bane would begin his campaign of terror in Gotham. There are four other points marked.



This blog has tracked several syncs from the Aurora shooting onward. It is worth listing some of these in order to attempt to envision a big picture of what might be going on. 

12 people died and 58 were wounded at the Aurora shooting. This sums to 70 and, as this blog explained in depth, the event took place during the 70-day London 2012 Olympic Torch Relay. 70 days is also the amount of time that the star Sirius spends in the Duat, the Egyptian underworld.

People caught in the theatre at Aurora were moved by police for questioning to the nearby Gateway High School. Prominently displayed at the high school is a sign announcing that Gateway is "the home of the Olympians."

In the preview for Skyfall, played right before the opening of Dark Knight Rises, the Shanghai skyline is shown with the Aurora building, its name lit brightly in red letters and framed centrally.

The August 5th mass shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin provides other syncs. A Sikh temple is called a gurdwara, which means "gateway to the Guru." The father of filmmaker Armardeep Kaleka, Satwant Singh Kaleka -- the temple's president, died as a hero in the attack. Armardeep Kaleka was at the time directing a documentary on disclosure called Sirius.

Loren Coleman also notes that the recent shooting on December 11th in Clackamas, Oregon, as in Aurora, also occurred at a shopping complex with a Century movie theatre.

 

These are just a few of the syncs interconnecting these tragic events. The attacks themselves are quite depressing and it was never the intention of this blog to focus on the negative. The sad fact is, though, that most of the world's attention, due to mass media, does converge most readily on tragedies.

Converge Cross Tip

There are different ways to analyze these syncs. Many people speculate that there is a grand conspiracy behind the events. There may indeed be conspiracies involved, but it is difficult to explain how and for what reason these synchronicities would be orchestrated.

The skeptics argue, and this is no surprise, that these are all just unrelated coincidences. To the challenge of why so many "coincidences" should be found in such events, they reply that similar "coincidences" can be found everywhere if we only look. This is an astonishing response.

Perhaps they are right. If so, however, this leads to an even more radical conclusion than even most sync-heads are prepared to make -- that the whole worldview of scientific materialism is insufficient to make sense of current reality.

The Aurora/Sandy Hook syncs are beginning to go viral. Many people still cling to the conspiratorial explanation but a rapidly growing number of people are becoming convinced that something much weirder is going on. Consensus reality is beginning to crack. Synchronicity is piling on top of synchronicity.



Just as five years ago thousands of people suddenly began to search for conspiracies everywhere now, as conspiracy theory has gone mainstream, more and more people are starting to see synchronicity in everything. Sandy Hook may represent a tipping point. Could this be what 2012 is about in the end?

Richard Tarnas, quoted in the last post, wrote that a new threshold is crossed when multiple, interconnected synchronicities converge suddenly. They begin to have "the effect of an overpowering epiphany of new meaning and purpose in the life of the individual."

A lattice of synchronicity is created, and life itself becomes an epiphany. Epiphany can be viewed, in this way, as a step beyond synchronicity. Epiphanies arise when one's experience has already been sync supercharged. This is certainly the case of James Joyce, whose life seems filled with overabundant, interlocking meaningful coincidences. 

The Wicked Chapel

Joyce's view of epiphany, therefore, provides another entry point to Twenty Twelve and its Fall. In Stephen Hero he most clearly lays out this idea of epiphany.



Stephen Daedalus is taking one of his long nightly walks through the streets of Dublin. He strolls down Eccles' Street, a street Joyce later makes famous as the address of Leopold Bloom, and hears a snatch of a couple's conversation.

He was passing through Eccles’ St. one evening, one misty evening, with all these thoughts dancing the dance of unrest in his brain when a trivial incident set him composing some ardent verses which he entitled a “Vilanelle of the Temptress.” A young lady was standing on the steps of one of those brown brick houses which seem the very incarnation of Irish paralysis. A young gentleman was leaning on the rusty railings of the area. Stephen as he passed on his quest heard the following fragment of colloquy out of which he received an impression keen enough to afflict his sensitiveness very severely.

The Young Lady-(drawling discreetly) … 0, yes … I was … at the … cha … pel …

The Young Gentleman- (inaudibly) … I … (again inaudibly) … I …

The Young Lady-(softly) … 0 … but you’re … ve … ry … wick … ed .

This juxtaposition of "chapel" and "wicked" expressed audibly is enough to provoke a "sudden spiritual manifestation" in Stephen's mind. This is how Joyce defines an epiphany.

This triviality made him think of collecting many such moments together in a book of epiphanies. By an epiphany he meant  a sudden spiritual manifestation, whether in the vulgarity of speech or of gesture or in a memorable phase of the mind itself. He believed that it was for the man of letters to record these epiphanies with extreme care, seeing that they themselves are the most delicate and evanescent of moments.

All of Joyce is contained in this bit of overheard talk -- it happens on Bloom's street, it reveals the missing element of the Portrait's aesthetic theory, it shows the structure of all the stories of Dubliners, and especially of "The Dead" which even takes place on the night of Epiphany. More significantly, though, the word "cha-pel" is an anagram of HCE and ALP. The word is even split into two 3-letter segments. The Wake is also here in its bewildering entirety.

Just as Dubliners is a series of epiphanies, and Ulysses is the epiphany of one day in Dublin, the  Wake is all of human history "epiphanized." Joyce develops his theory of aesthetics from Aquinas. According to this theory a thing is deemed beautiful if it possesses three qualities -- integrity, symmetry and clarity.

A beautiful thing is a whole in relation to other objects -- it stands out, it has an organized, symmetrical relation in its parts, and it unveils its "whatness" or its soul to us as we behold it. It reveals its radiance or clarity. This moment of revealing beauty is what Joyce means by epiphany.

Conspiracy theory weaves together various threads of political and social intrigue that are not generally accepted or contemplated by the consensus. Synchronistic analysis brings even more into the mix. Vast conspiracy clusters are tethered together through space and time by examining the "coincidences" common to each.

As these synchronicities build one of top of the other, creating vaster and deeper webs of meaning, receptivity and awareness are both enhanced. It is from this matrix of hyper-sensitivity that epiphany naturally emerges. At this point literally anything can become a "spiritual manifestation."

Joyce's definition of epiphany is very similar to the original meaning of psychedelic as "mind manifesting." Both epiphanies and psychedelics reveal meanings and connections between things that usually go unnoticed. Both, for a moment, break down the apparent barriers between mind and the objects of perception and conception. The mind and the world reflect each other in interpenetrating radiance.

Zero

The Fall of 2012 can also be examined as epiphany. An epiphany releases a moment from the bonds of time. It becomes eternal. For a brief instant we awake from the nightmare of history. This is really what Finnegans Wake is all about on a grand scale. It is what history is when it ceases to be history. It is what happens when history is opened up into eternity.



This is precisely what 2012 is -- the eternalization of history. Another term for this is the apocalypse and the Wake is a vision of the apocalypse.

An earlier post explained how Terence McKenna's idea of Timewave Zero, and of 2012 as zeropoint, was in large part inspired by Finnegans Wake. The Wake expresses in miniature everything that Alfred North Whitehead, McKenna's primary theoretical source, attempted to conceptualize as "concrescence." In short, all times, all places, all languages, all possibilities, all phases of every cycle are brought together at once. In McKenna's terms, this is the point of maximal novelty.

McKenna's biggest intellectual shortcoming, if we want to call it that, was his attempt to quantify the timewave. He tried to present what is really transformative poetry and vision in the sterile mantle of scientific and mathematical respectability. Predictably, he is now being ridiculed for offering nothing more than pseudoscience.

We can speculate, though, that this is the Bard McKenna's greatest practical joke on humanity. He promoted, almost created, a meme that the end of 2012 would be a time of total transformation. By prophesying this did he make it come true?

As the cycle comes to a close, the debunkoid hordes grow increasingly hoarse in their ridicule of all things 2012. Even the most fervent believers are beginning to suspect that they have been duped. Only the fanatics insist, as there are just hours left, that anything could happen. The masses, cynically noting that events are not aligning with the script of Emmerich's movie, have largely moved on to the next thing. The end of the world, "skeptics" scoff, has been postponed once again.

Ego Tripping

Most of the criticism of twenty-twelvism is as disposable as the vast bulk of books written on the subject. A few critiques stand out, though. The best of these comes from religious scholar, Martin Ball.

Ball outlines a whole slew of predictions for 2012. Among these are that humans will become inter-dimensional travelers, that we will realize our divine nature, that we will become "one," that we will join the "galactic community," that humans will develop "Christ Consciousness" and/or "free energy" and/or become "enlightened," etc. Maitreya and/or Christ and/or Quetzalcoatl will return, ancient prophecies will be fulfilled, "earth changes" will happen, governments and economies will collapse, Nibiru will appear, and on and on.

What is common to all of these predictions, according to Ball, aside from the fact that none are likely to take place on the 21st, is that they all involve either salvation or destruction from an externalized source. In contrast to the Buddha's teaching that enlightenment can only come by doing the hard work of eliminating our false sense of self, these predictions all involve an encounter with an outside "other." In short they, and 2012 in general, are dualistic rather than non-dualistic.

For Ball, this means that beliefs like this will never lead to enlightenment. In fact, they will only mire us deeper into illusion. These beliefs are pseudoscientific, contradictory, romantic and "decidedly egoic." Instead of allowing us to liberate ourselves from the reign of the ego, it is  precisely the ego that is reinforced and inflated by these beliefs.

There is much wisdom in this critique of 2012ism. Clearly many people have used such beliefs as excuses to not work on themselves. But is all of 2012 dualistic hokum as he suggests?



Ball has a special place in his critique for the work of Terence McKenna. He briefly outlines McKenna's idea of Timewave Zero, which Ball claims McKenna developed "during his sessions of psychedelic ego-tripping" and involves the idea that the "ingression of novelty" will build to a point of the "end of history" by the end of this week.

Ball claims that for McKenna this will involve humans developing the ability to "build UFOs out of translinguistic matter and fly off into the cosmos on Dec. 22nd, 2012." Ball quotes
McKenna that in regard to the Timewave, he (Terence) is either an "unsung Newton" or "completely nuts" and that there is very little "wiggle room" between the two.

Because of this Ball feels justified, almost obligated, to totally reject the whole of McKenna's ideas after the Winter Solstice if the translinguistic UFO fails to manifest. But is Ball being fair to McKenna and his ideas here? Is Ball accurately depicting what Terence actually thought would happen? To determine this it is helpful to examine the origins of McKenna's ideas about the Timewave and 2012.

Abyssal Thunder

Recently, Dennis McKenna was interviewed on the Joe Rogan podcast to promote his new book The Brotherhood Of The Screaming Abyss, about his life and adventures with his brother Terence. Dennis recounts the story of the brothers' original experiment in La Chorrera, Columbia in 1971, in which Dennis went into full-blown shamanic ecstasy and Terence made contact with the "Logos" -- the intelligence of the Mushroom itself. It was the Mushroom who taught the brothers how to conduct the experiment.

We developed this experiment, this idea, which had a whole lot of predictions that.... you would have a physical object that would be outside the body, but it would be you.... And it turns out that there are all sorts of precedents for this. I mean the idea of the alchemist's stone, the philosopher's stone, the time machine, the flying saucer, the alchemist's scrying mirror that you can look into and see the future. I mean this idea haunts the human imagination that there is a way you can externalize the imagination and still be it. And this thing that you would have, or whatever it was, would be responsive to your imagination, and it would be able to do literally whatever you imagine. [26 minutes into the interview]

It is clear from this story, and from the many accounts that Terence gave of the experiment, that it cannot simply be reduced to the attempt to create a trans-linguistic UFO. This is only one metaphor among many used to describe something that essentially defies description.



Dennis goes on to explain that when the experiment did not seem to achieve its objective, the Mushroom or Logos assured Terence that this goal would be accomplished in the future. The Mushroom further afforded Terence an insight into time by which he could calculate when this momentous event would take place.

This insight involved study into the hexagram sequences of the I Ching. Based on this cosmic tip Terence set out to find the end date. Dennis explains that the first date of transformation that Terence postulated was a series of four 64-day cycles after the experiment which happened to coincide with Terence's birthday. A series of two 64-day cycles prior to this was their mother's death and the fact that this insight was "given" at a point between her death and Terence's birthday appeared very auspicious.

When nothing happened in November of 1971, Terence looked for other end dates. He explains this process in his 1994 book, True Hallucinations:

Even though my twenty-fifth birthday came and went with very little shift toward the novel, either in my own life or in the world, I continued to propagate the cycles of the chart forward into the future. I felt that the idea of a hidden structure of time was correct but that this could not be argued for until the correct alignment between that structure and human history had been found and confirmed. I began looking for a date with special features related to the wave, a date that would be a good candidate for the emergence of a special event.

Here is a part of my story that I found most puzzling: After the seeming disconfirmation of the cycles by my birthday, I looked at other future dates on which the three-hundred-and-eighty-four day cycles would end if I continued to assume that the sixteenth of November, 1971, was the end of one such cycle. That meant that the next ending date of the three hundred and eighty-four day cycle would be the fourth of December, 1972. I consulted several astronomical tables, but the date seemed unpromising. The closing date of the next three hundred and eighty-four cycle was immediately more interesting, as it fell on the twenty-second day of December, 1973. 

 
Terence noted instantly that this date was the Winter Solstice, but he quickly found out that it had other significance as well. Around this date an annular eclipse of the sun moved across the Amazon basin and La Chorrera itself, and coinciding with this was the appearance of the Comet Kohoutek -- itself the focus of much end-of-the-world speculation in 1973.




We see with this, therefore, that McKenna had already seen the passing of several "end dates" before he ever even considered 2012. For Terence, 2012 has already happened multiple times.  Dennis praises his scientific approach in this. Terence was always willing and able to readjust his theory in order to fit with the available facts.

By 1975, the full Timewave began to gel and Terence postulated an end date of mid-November, 2012. An earlier post has explained how Terence was inspired by the Ten Thunders of Finnegans Wake to set the beginning of the 67-year cycle that is now ended at the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. It was only afterward that Terence synched his end date with the end of the Mayan calendar.

Nutshell Games

Finnegans Wake, plays a much bigger role in McKenna's thought than just this insight. As I noted in my previous post on the Wake, Joyce's book already presents in language what the McKenna brothers attempted to produce as substance in La Chorrera, and what Terence believed we all will soon experience in 2012. In essence, the Wake is 2012. It is the concrescence, the singularity, the omega point, history "epiphanized" --   "Allspace in a Not-shall."



In his excellent lecture on Finnegans Wake, McKenna explicitly makes this point. The Wake in 1939 reveals exactly what Dennis and Terence attempted to manifest in 1971. 

Maybe I didn’t make clear enough why that, to my mind, is an eschatological phenomena, this production of the philosopher’s stone, it’s because it’s about the union of spirit and matter, that’s what the Philosopher’s Stone is about. And writing a book which aspires to be the seed for a living world is about the union of spirit and matter as well, and the Christian scenario of redemption at the end of profane history is another scenario of transubstantiate union, union of spirit and matter. This seems to be in fact the over arching theme of Finnegans Wake and of the 20th Century.

Eschatology is the study of end times and in academic philosophy it is very taboo these days, although at a popular level it is of tremendous concern. Martin Ball shares this academic scorn for eschatology. It is precisely what he hates about 2012ism -- the belief that, for good or bad, the end of the world will somehow resolve everything. There is no need to do the hard work on ourselves. The end will happen whether we meditate all day or not.

This belief in the end externalizes our need to change ourselves. It makes an inner process an outer event. It is the worst kind of dualism. The problem with this critique, however valid in many aspects, is that it also posits a dualism between individual and collective processes of awakening.



Ball, speaking largely from the perspective of early Buddhism, views enlightenment or awakening as something that happens to the individual. It is not an inevitable, historical process. This, for Ball, is the big mistake of the the Abrahamic faiths. To think otherwise is to put a dualistic "faith" in something outside of one's self. The problem is that this is itself dualistic. Maybe history is also striving to awaken.

What both McKenna and the Wake and many others appear to be suggesting is that a collective awakening is very possible and perhaps it is inevitable. Carl Jung certainly thought so. For history to wake up, though, for it to transform itself into epiphany, into eternity, an altered perception of time is needed. Mircea Eliade in his classic, Cosmos and History, explains how the so-called primitive conception of time vastly differs from our modern sense of it:

... the life of archaic man (a life reduced to the repetition of archetypal acts, that is, to categories and not to events, to the unceasing rehearsal of the same primordial myths) although it takes place in time, does not bear the burden of time, does not record time's irreversibility; in other words, completely ignores what is especially characteristic and decisive in a consciousness of time. Like the mystic, like the religious man in general, the primitive lives in a continual present. (And it is in this sense that the religious man may be said to be a `primitive'; he repeats the gestures of another and, through this repetition, lives always in an atemporal present.) (p.86)

This "atemporal present" or "eternal now" is exactly what is expressed in Finnegans Wake. All points in time and space occur at once. Every instant of every cycle is present and congruent. We wake up from the nightmare of history by realizing it is all one colossal lucid dream. It dissolves upon the realization that it has always already been eternity. This is also the crux of what Terence meant by his "archaic revival" -- the revival of the archaic sense of time as an ever-recurring present.

 

Single Vision Double Vision

William Blake famously wrote:
 

To see a world in a grain of sand, 

And a heaven in a wild flower, 

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, 

And eternity in an hour.

This is exactly what McKenna, Joyce and Eliade are on about. Blake believed that the true artist and poet is a prophetic visionary who creates as if the world would end at any point. Blake knew of the philosopher and mystic Swedenborg's teaching of the Last Judgement, which Swedenborg insisted had already taken place on a spiritual level in 1757. Blake was impressed that this year was also the year of his birth, and he took from this doctrine the idea that the Last Judgement is always happening.

Nearly everyone is familiar with Blake's writing about the "doors of perception" being "cleansed" -- a bit of verse made famous by Aldous Huxley and Jim Morrison, but most are not aware that it contains a specific prophecy that points exactly to this time.

The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in fire at the end of six thousand years is true, as I have heard from Hell.

For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave his guard at tree of life, and when he does, the whole creation will be consumed, and appear infinite, and holy whereas it now appears finite & corrupt.

This will come to pass by an improvement of sensual enjoyment.

But first the notion that man has a body distinct from his soul, is to be expunged: this I shall do, by printing in the infernal method, by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the infinite which was hid.

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.

For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.

These lines from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell contain everything that this blog has ever tried to express. The "ancient tradition" which Blake mentions is that the world would last 6000 years from its creation which, following Bishop Ussher, took place in 4004 BC. The Wikipedia entry is helpful here:

Ussher's specific choice of starting year may have been influenced by the then-widely-held belief that the Earth's potential duration was 6,000 years (4,000 before the birth of Christ and 2,000 after), corresponding to the six days of Creation, on the grounds that "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Peter 3:8).

What Blake is saying is that in 6000 years after around 4000 BC, which takes us to the millennium in 2000 AD and pretty well now, very specific things will happen. The world will be consumed in fire, the Covering Cherub of Eden will be removed so that humanity will once again have access to the Tree of Life, the whole creation will appear as holy and infinite, our senses will be perfected, the soul and the body will be experienced as one, and the doors of our perception will open out into the infinite.



Doesn't this sound exactly like the predictions for the end of 2012? 

The thing about Blake, though, is that he is a poet. For Blake, poetry and metaphor are far more important than the literal and the historical. Poetry exists in eternity while history is bound by time. Patrick Harpur, in his The Philosopher's Secret Fire, begins with another Blake poem in order to criticize the modern obsession with literalism.

This life's dim windows of the soul
Distorts the heavens from pole to pole
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, not through, the eye.

These lines of Blake's pinpoint the fundamental shortcoming of the modern post-Cartesian consciousness: its literalism. To see with the eye alone is to see the world as if in single vision, as two-dimensional only, as literal. To see the world through the eye is to cultivate what Blake called "double vision," which perceives in greater depth, beyond the literal to the metaphorical. 

Single vision sees the sun as only the sun; double vision also sees it as a heavenly host. We need double vision to see daimons -- to see that they are real, but not literally so. Unfortunately we have become so literal-minded that the only reality we recognize is literal reality which, by definition, rules out daimons. 

Both the true believers of 2012 and the skeptics are being literal-minded, are lacking "double-vision." They both see with the eye and not through it. It is as ridiculous to believe that the Motherships will appear in the skies this Friday as it is to "debunk" this belief. But at least the true believers have imagination. The debunkers have an acute and tragic sclerosis of this faculty.



All of the transformative predictions that Ball cynically lists are completely fine if taken metaphorically. As with the McKenna brothers' experiment in La Chorrera, any number of things may take place but it is folly to take any one of these literally. They are real, but not literally so.

To possess "double-vision" is to eliminate the dichotomy between what exists and what doesn't exist. Everything imagined is very real. This, along with transcending the split between individual and collective, and time and eternity, is another aspect of non-dualism.

Mountains Are Mountains Holy is Holy

A higher spiral of non-duality, as my Zen teacher once taught me, is the non-duality between duality and non-duality. This is expressed in the philosophy of the Indian Mahayana Buddhist, Nagarjuna: nirvana is samsara. The cycle of life, of birth, death, and rebirth, is itself the state of highest awakening.

My teacher used to say: before awakening we see trees as trees and mountains as mountains. During the process of awakening we see trees as not trees, mountains as not mountains. But after becoming awakened, after achieving nirvana, we again see trees as trees and mountains as mountains.  



The perspective of non-duality can experience the non-dual in everything, even in the most dualistic of 2012 predictions.

Ball also published an essay in Reality Sandwich focusing entirely on Terence McKenna and his work. The gist of this essay is that Terence is only really exploring the contents of his own ego. Again, though, samsara being nirvana are we ever able to experience anything that is not our ego? Even the Buddha lived and died with the discomforts of physical existence and dualistic, language-based conversation with others.

A comment to this article suggests that even the "enlightened" Ball might not have fully transcended this fallen world of the ego:

Like many have pointed out: YOUR ARTICLE REEKS OF YOUR OWN EGO. Just listen to yourself: ...

Martin Ball has fully trancended his ego and is now offering his services to help others see the influence of thier own egos, beause Martin Ball is so incredibly awesome at seeing the effects of ego and separating them from "true" reality:

"Indeed, I routinely counsel people about their entheogenic experiences and help them sort out the illusions of ego from the reality of genuine being."....

And finally, we are invited to employ the "Entheological Paradigm," developed by Martin Ball, to see the obvious egoism of Terence McKenna. Let's read the description of this breakthrough paradigm, which will assure us that there is no trace of ego within this pure framework:

"Grand Unified Theory of Reality that accounts for the most sophisticated scientific discoveries, the most sublime mystical states of consciousness, and the true nature of all that lies in between. In short, it is a theory of everything! But it is much more than a theory: it is also a clear guide to personal liberation and self-transcendence. The Entheological Paradigm is a map of all of reality and your personal path to freedom, true responsibility, and ultimate human happiness. This is the system of knowledge and self-transformation that humanity has been waiting for but has never been able to clearly articulate or understand . . . until now"

Hmm . . .

We cannot judge Ball too harshly here. We are all similarly trapped and/or liberated. We can, however, use this as a means to counter his own judgement of Terence. For all his faults, at least Terence never claimed to have been enlightened.

Once Upon A Time

Ball's critique, though, is still quite valuable. In the conclusion to his essay on 2012, Ball writes that perhaps the real apocalypse, after the Solstice passes as just another day, will be that people will realize that it's all bullshit, take responsibility for their own thoughts and actions, and cease to form attachments to unproven beliefs and speculations.

If this is what happens this year it would be wonderful. Hopefully, Ball will also detach himself from his own bullshit -- or at least celebrate it as Terence did. What this may mean, though, is that we cease to take things literally. History can end if we want it. Perhaps 2012 is the moment in history when we all realize that history has always been an illusion -- that everything is always happening at once.

Eliade's study of cyclical views of time, like that of the Mayan calendar which does not really end but turns over, makes clear that at such turning points, like New Year's Day in an annual cycle, traditional people believed that they returned to what Eliade called in illo tempore -- that mythical time of "once upon a time"when the world was new and fresh and the gods walked with men.

 

"Primitive" people always live in the eternity of in illo tempore, ancient cultures returned to in illo tempore at the turning of cycles of time -- some of them vast, and modern people having a linear, progressive notion of time only reach in illo tempore at the end of time.

This is what 2012 is about. We moderns, acutely sensing the deep interlocking crises of our time, long for the return of eternity. We are bound by linear, literal, historical thinking and it is very difficult for us to envision a return to eternity without time coming to an end.

When time comes to an end we return to our roots, to what Jung and Deleuze called the rhizome. All points converge. Things once separated and neatly categorized begin to meld and shimmy together. Boundaries dissolve. We realize that the symbols and archetypes of our dreams begin to resonate with and acausally affect and be affected by those of both the dreams of nature and the nightmare of the consensus.

Chaos Reigns

The crafters of the consensus have a vested interest in perpetuating the nightmare and preventing our becoming awake. This is also what 2012 is about, and there are those who believe that this is what it is all about.



Ball's friend, Jan Irvin, is one of these. Irvin believes that 2012 is perhaps the biggest psyop ever unleashed. Its aim is to ensure that those who have mentally unchained themselves from the shackles of traditional religion will be unknowingly trapped in the nets of the cult of 2012.

Psychedelic use, without the necessary training in critical theory afforded by study of the classical Trivium, was promoted in order to melt away the last vestiges of traditional thought or customs.

Aldous Huxley was instrumental in this process, according to Irvin, as was Huxley's follower, Terence McKenna. The "archaic revival," mushroom use, advocacy of feminism and the destruction of the nuclear family, etc. were all used by McKenna to advance this Agenda.

Intentionally or not, in this Irvin has merely provided a new psychedelic overlay to old, right-wing paranoia about the "Aquarian conspiracy." This is conspiracy theory in its most complex and byzantine form. Irvin's thought is outlined during an interview on the Always Record podcast. In his own Gnostic Media podcast, Irvin and Martin Ball combine their critiques of McKenna and others.



One wonders what Ball thinks of Irvin's focus on conspiracy theory. Nothing is more dualistic than thinking that an elite other is out to oppress us. But is there anything to Irvin's theories? Is 2012 just one big psyop?

In a way, this is also the conclusion of this blog. The 108-year period between 1904 and 2012, the transition between the Aquarian and Piscean Ages, has apparently been manipulated throughout, presumably by the Golden Dawn, other similar and even more occult societies, and their successors. Their goal, following the Rosicrucian cycle, is to make explicit what was once in the shadows. After this year their Great Work will become public.

But what is this work? Is it the full implementation of the New World Order and one world government? Is it population reduction and mind control? Is it to herald the imminent reign of the Antichrist? Perhaps so.



Traditionalist philosopher, René Guénon, in his excellent book The Reign of Quantity, lays out how an occult group that Guénon calls the "counter-initiation" has plotted throughout history for precisely this goal. In their machinations they often use false prophecies and bogus dates to steer society in a favoured direction. Guénon writes:

...from time to time, on the strength of the ‘prophecies of the Great Pyramid' or of other predictions, and as a result of calculations of which the basis is never very clearly defined, it is announced that such and such an exact date will mark ‘the entry of humanity into a new era' or else ‘the coming of a spiritual renewal' ... ; several of these dates are already past, and it does not appear that anything very notable has happened; but what does all that sort of thing really signify? 

In fact, it is just another way of making use of predictions (additional, that is, to their use for increasing the disorder of our times by broadcasting seeds of trouble and disorganization), and perhaps not the least important, for it turns them into an instrument of direct suggestion, thus contributing to the effective determination of the course of certain future events; for instance, to take a simple and easily understood example, does anyone believe that the repeated announcement of a revolution in a particular country at a particular time will not assist those who have an interest in its breaking out at that time? 

Underlying the present situation is the fact that certain people want to create a ‘state of mind' favorable to the realization of ‘something' that is part of their plans; this ‘something' can no doubt be modified by the action of contrary influences, but they hope that their methods will serve to bring it about a little sooner or a little later. It remains to be shown more exactly to what this pseudo-spiritual' enterprise is leading, and it is necessary to say, without meaning to be in any way ‘pessimistic'... , that the outlook for the fairly near future is anything but reassuring.
(p. 310-311)

Is this, then, what 2012 is all about? An "instrument of direct suggestion"? A means of control? This has always got to be considered. I view Terence McKenna as being primarily a neo-Hermetic philosopher and poet in the direct lineage of the Renaissance mages and alchemists, Swedenborg, William Blake and James Joyce. But were all these men, wittingly of not, agents of the counter-initiation?

A Collidoscape

The study of 2012 on this blog began with conspiracy, linked even more together to arrive at synchronicity, wove together synchronicity with synchronicity and fashioned an intricate weaving of epiphany -- eventually "ephiphanizing" all of history, only to arrive back at a higher order conspiracy theory.

This conspiracy is the conspiracy of the Archons, of the jealous gods, who aim to prevent us from knowing what we already know. Like the medieval Brethren of the Free Spirit, we begin to realize that we are already redeemed, that all sins are forgiven, the we are in reality unbound by all earthly law. We are gods ourselves.

The conspiracy of the counter-initiation is to prevent this knowledge from returning. But I suspect, as on all levels of nature, that there is more than one conspiracy in play here. As Jung (who may or may not be a part of the conspiracy!) taught, Christ and Antichrist, and all of the Hero Twins of myth, return together at the end of the Age.

Perhaps even Guénon is still too dualistic. The process of liberation and enslavement is one ever-swirling, conflicting process. And my intuition tells me that McKenna, Blake, Joyce and others are on the side of the angels. Anyone who inspires and encourages the use of individual creativity and imagination must be trusted.

But, aside from this, we should use our "double vision." Conspiracy, synchronicity, epiphany and nothing at all are occurring in all of their contradictions and paradoxes at this same moment of time and eternity. We are just beginning to see through the narrow chinks of our cavern. 2012 is being born now and forever.

Happy Solstice!

The Fall of Twenty Twelve: Synchronicity

 

Conspiratorial analysis consists of making ties between things or people that are not usually made. The deeper and more extensive the conspiracy theory the more links are forged. By steadily increasing such connections conspiratorial analysis eventually mutates into a different species of analysis altogether: synchronistic or even "synchromystic" analysis.

Jung defined synchronicity as "meaningful coincidence." As meaning is determined subjectively, and meaning is generally created by connecting two or more once separated things, synchronicity involves subjectively noticing or realizing connections. Its relation to conspiracy theory should be obvious at this point.

The Evolution of Connection

A well-worn argument against conspiracy theory is that its advocates are making a big deal out of mere coincidence. This may or may not be true. Synchronistic analysis, in contrast, cannot be criticized in this way. One person's coincidence could very well be another's synchronicity. And as the acknowledgement of synchronicity tends to lead to more synchronicity (as more and more meaningful coincidences are made between things) the charge of "mere coincidence" becomes successively more irrelevant. 

As more elements are brought into the web, conspiracy naturally morphs into synchronicity. In this eleventh year after 9/11, and following yet another 9/11 event, regular conspiracy theorizing seems to have hit the limits of its analytical efficacy.

                                                             The consensus has broken down, the counter-consensus has broken down, and even the division between consensus and counter-consensus has been erased. All narratives have become unfixed, fluid, transitory. A future post will show how Robert Anton Wilson called this the spaghetti theory of conspiracy.

To go beyond conspiracy theorizing, to examine the year and this season through a sync lens, a far stranger vista will open out in front of us. And in this view the real secret of 2012 might emerge.

Kallisti

Benghazi is again the starting point here. A previous post pointed out that Benghazi was traditionally viewed as being the site of the mythical garden of the Hesperides. It was a Golden Apple taken from this garden and thrown into a wedding party by the goddess Eris or Discordia that directly led to the Trojan War. The Golden Apple itself made a spectacular appearance during the Closing Ceremony of the London Paralympics just two days before the Benghazi attacks.

The taking of the apple from the garden, leading to a catastrophic age-turning war, is another version of the Garden of Eden myth of the Fall. This blog has shown how the four ceremonies of London 2012 have also paralleled Dante's journey through the underworld and up the Mountain of Purgatory to the Earthly Paradise of Eden at its summit. The four-part super-ceremony was, in a sense, a reenactment of the age-old story of the Fall and Redemption. There is no surprise that such a ritual would take place on the world stage at the closing of the present age.

 

If the ceremonies of London 2012, and the rituals leading up to them, were in some way necessary the events of Benghazi begin to provide a reason for them. 2012 is curious. Everything before 9/11 of this year represents a ritual for everything during and following this date. It was inevitable that on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, also falling on a Tuesday  -- a day dedicated to Mars the god of war, something significant would happen. The day did not disappoint.

Goro Adachi has also pointed out the links with Hurricane Sandy and the Trojan War -- calling it the "Trojan Storm" and noting that the nor'easter that followed Sandy was dubbed Athena, another goddess directly involved in the contest over the Golden Apple.

 

Before examining the events of the storm itself, we should not miss the fact that other goddesses involved in the Trojan War story have also made appearances in 2012. Most obvious was Venus/Aphrodite on full gorgeous display during the Venus Transit of early June.

Less obvious was the arrival of the Chaos Goddess herself on January 13th (by sheer coincidence the anniversary of Joyce's death). This was the day when the cruise ship Costa Concordia capsized off the shore of Italy. Concordia overturned is surely Discordia, and the concord between the nations of Europe, with each of the ship's 13 decks named after a different country, has surely been tested this year.



Sync addicts will remember the Costa Concordia accident because it was eerily foreshadowed in the opening scene of the 2012 movie. In this scene the camera briefly but significantly focused on a toy cruise ship, greatly resembling the Concordia, being overturned in a puddle after hitting a rock. Two ships: one real and capsizing in the opening weeks of the year 2012, and one a toy capsizing in the opening scene of the movie 2012. Life imitating art?


Researchers quickly pointed out the similarities between this accident and the sinking of the Titanic 100 years before. It is interesting that it was the War of the Titans that brought an end to the mythical Golden Age, while it was the Trojan War that similarly brought the Heroic Age    
to a bloody close.

The destruction of both ships represent the start of an age-turning war. In history, the sinking of the Titanic was quickly followed by World War One. Will the sinking of the Concordia be followed by a similar conflagration?

A Storm Is Coming

A plan to build a replica of the Titanic was announced this year, and coincidentally it was a replica of another famous ship, the HMS Bounty, that was one of the first Northern victims of Sandy as she approached the East Coast. Strangely, one of the bodies of the crew discovered by the Coast Guard was the great-great-great-great-great granddaughter of Fletcher Christian.

 

It was sailing master Christian who led the mutiny against Captain Bligh of the original Bounty. Christian and the crew were lured on to mutiny by the paradisaical beauty of Tahiti and its enticing women. Shortly after the reports of the exotic mutiny reached Europe revolution broke out in France. Like the Concordia, does the sinking of the second Bounty also point towards a near future upheaval?


In addition to proper names, syncs often appear in current events in the form of numbers. Dates, casualties, statistics, positions, etc. can all be carriers of the Cosmic Giggle. In the case of Hurricane Sandy the most publicized number associated with the storm concerned the New York subway system.

 "The New York City subway system is 108 years old, but it has never faced a disaster as devastating as what we experienced last night," Joseph Lhota, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, said in a statement early on Tuesday.

Readers of this blog will instantly note the significance of the number 108. As explained in detail in earlier posts, there is a transitional cycle of 108 years from the dawning of the Age of Horus in 1904 to the full expression of its "daybreak" in 2012. That the subway system is 108 years old, like the Sirius-related One Times Square, and that it is in October of 2012 that it experienced its worst disaster is certainly sync-worthy. It seems like a strong sign that we are on the right track.



108 years is the degree and a half transitional period between the ages of Pisces and Aquarius (Horus). There are twenty 108 year divisions in a traditional 2160 year astrological age. As there are twelve such ages in the Great Year then 20x12x108 equals the 25,920 years of the full cycle.

Here, synchronistically, is a direct link between Twenty Twelve and 108. In addition to being the end of the 5125 year Long Count cycle of the Maya, and possible the end of the 2160 year age of Pisces, does 2012 also mark the start of a new Great Year?

That Sandy struck on a full moon just before Hallowe'en may indicate that the world is still under the magical sway of the Moon card in the Thoth deck. Perhaps we are in a strange zone when both the Moon and the Sun are in play. This is a time of the final clash of opposites before ultimate consummation.

 

Another amazing sync that blurs the line into conspiratorial analysis, is the fact that in 1997 a simulation drill for a fictional storm called Hurricane Sandy was conduced by the National Weather Service. The simulated hurricane also struck the NYC area. Like similar drills held before 9/11, 7/7, and even the Batman shooting in Aurora, the 1997 Sandy drill was too close to actual events to be dismissed as coincidence.

Paula Levy

Many synchronicities can also be found in the US election and the Petraeus affair, but all of these are hidden in the greater shadow of Benghazi. It truly is the key to understanding the Fall of 2012.

One example is the report that Paula Broadwell's passport was found in Rock Creek Park in Washington D.C. It's weird enough that someone would lose their passport jogging in a park, but weirder is that this particular park was where the body of Chandra Levy, a DC intern also involved in a high level sex scandal, was found in May of 2002. Levy had gone missing a year earlier, coinciding with allegations of an affair with US representative Gary Condit, and it was only the events of 9/11 that halted the media's obsession with the scandal.



Here, as is often the case, conspiracy blends seamlessly with synchronicity. Both the Broadwell and Levy affairs tangentially involve 9/11 events -- separated by a period of eleven years.

Gimel Your Loving

Just days after Petraeus' resignation the Israeli government launched Operation Pillar of Cloud against the Hamas administration of Gaza. "Pillar of Cloud" should ring huge alarm bells for the readers of this blog. What is this operation named after? 

By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.  -- Exodus 13:21-22

As we see in the above graphic, this pillar of fire by night and cloud by day is identical to the Shekhinah, the dwelling of the presence of God, which would appear between the two cherubim of the Ark of the Covenant, housed in the Tabernacle and later in the Temple of Jerusalem.

The Pillar of Cloud, therefore, is another representation of the middle pillar of the Temple or the middle pillar of the Tree of Life. It is the same 13th path represented by the High Priestess card of the Tarot, and ritually invoked by Madonna during the Superbowl ritual and throughout her MDNA tour.

To review from an earlier post:

MDNA in simple English numerology is 13+4+14+1, four numbers that sum to 32. 32 is the number of paths on the Tree of Life. MDNA describes a journey, across the Abyss, on the central pillar of the Tree of Life. It begins on the 13th path of the High Priestess, crosses the 4 at Da'at (beginning with the fourth letter Daleth or Delta -- the door), intersects the 14th path (14=N) between Binah and Chokmah, and finally reaches the Aleph at the crown of Kether. From here it is possible to merge into the Ain Soph -- the 33, or 32+1.

The M standards held high above Madonna on her throne make it clear that the ritual is about the of ascent the 13th path.

 

It's interesting that the MDNA performances were divided into four sections: Transgression, Prophecy, Masculine/Feminine, and Redemption. This perfectly syncs with the Fall and Redemption cycle, including both prophetic visions and the consummation of opposites, that has been explored in this blog -- especially in regard to the cycle expressed in the four-part Finnegans Wake, and the four ceremonies of the London 2012 mega-ritual.

By no mere whim Madonna began her tour in Tel Aviv. Previously she has called Israel "the center of world energy." Both MDNA and London 2012 were rituals concerned with our collective passage through the Abyss. Operation Pillar of Cloud, launched by the land of Zion, represents the active phase of this same occult working. At least the syncs, and our own feverish minds, would have us believe this.

The Grape Year

This blog, from its beginning, has been tracing various synchronistic manifestations occurring this year of years, 2012.

It has examined the fact that the key years of the four saints of Britain sum to 2012, that the 70-day Torch Relay syncs with the 70-day journey through the Duat, that the orbital period ratios of Earth and Venus perfectly sync with the interval ratio of the years of the three London Olympics, that Prince William turned 30 at the exact midpoint of the 70-day journey in the same year as the Queen celebrated her 60th year of rule, that the deeply symbolic Dark Knight and Sikh Temple shootings also occurred along this journey through the underworld -- each event also deeply enmeshed in its own set of striking synchronicities, and that 2012 itself is the culminating year of a 108-year Rosicrucian cycle starting in 1904.

Beyond this, according to this blog, all of these syncs correspond to resonant patterns in popular culture, religious traditions, personal synchronicity and references to the literature of Homer, Virgil, Dante, Milton, Shakespeare, Blake and Joyce, among others.

 

The connection of Joyce to 2012 seems especially relevant. Joyce's work went into the public domain this year. On Feb. 2nd of this year Ulysses became 90 years old while Joyce himself would have celebrated his 130th birthday. Together these numbers sum to 220, a number which would be highly significant to the author. Joyce was born on 2/2, his initials JAAJ sum to 22, he published Ulysses on his birthday in 1922, it is set on June 16th (6+16=22), 1904 when both Joyce and Stephen Daedalus were 22 years old, it begins with a 22 word sentence,and so on.

Joyce was born in 1882 which, like 2012, was the year of a return transit of Venus -- actually the last such transit before the present year. 1132, the most recurring number in Finnegans Wake, is equivalent to the year 2012 in the traditional Nepali Sambat calendar, which Joyce could have been aware of.



To my mind all of this is significant. It all seems to indicate a single narrative that has divided the year into two parts -- a ritual build-up before 9/11 and the "fruits" of these rituals, if you will, harvested at 9/11 in Benghazi and continuing to be gathered throughout the Fall and the turn to Winter.

Generalizing Gods

Operation Pillar of Cloud has ended for now, but it has directly led to Egyptian President Morsi's rise to prominence on the world stage and his subsequent assumption of dictatorial powers at home. The indefatigable researcher, Monk, discovered that the ceasefire that Morsi was instrumental in arranging went into effect at 21:00 local time on the 21st of Nov. just as Sirius was rising on the horizon at Gaza! As in the London Games, a clear Sirius alignment played a talismanic role in a major event of 2012.

The Gaza operation also seems to have had an effect on the overall strategic situation in Syria. These events in Syria, Egypt and elsewhere are rapidly developing even as I type this. "Chemical weapons" are in the headlines. The ride is not over yet.

Blake appears to confirm or at least resonate with these speculations in the apocalyptic fourth chapter to his epic, Jerusalem -- a key source throughout this blog and especially in regard to the "Zion" rituals of London 2012. In this, the very climax of the poem, the Covering Cherub, the terrifying guardian of Eden, reveals himself spread over the entire Earth as the Antichrist:

There Israel in bondage to his Generalizing Gods
Molech & Chemosh; & in his left breast is Philistea,
In Druid Temples over the whole Earth with Victim's Sacrifice,
From Gaza to Damascus, Tyre & Sidon, & the Gods
Of Javan thro' the Isles of Grecia & all Europe's Kings,
Where Hiddekel pursues his course among the rocks.

The Covering Cherub is identical with the Guardian of the Threshold who blocks the gate through the Abyss. The same imagery as the Pillar of Cloud is prophetically expressed in apparent reference to very current events.

New Order of Reality

But is there really a pattern? Do any of these "syncs" involving 2012, as well as the nearly endless torrent of all manner of predictions and premonitions, actually mean anything at all? Is noting synchronicity yet another exercise in delusion? This is very possible.

In seems to be true, though, that the apprehension of synchronicity does radically change our outlook on the world. It provides it with meaning and this meaning builds on itself. It is impossible to say if the meaning "really" exists or not. Perhaps the world only exists at all because we provide it with significance.

 
Richard Tarnas, in his 2006 book Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View , explores the way that our experience of synchronicity evolves into something that even transcends the phenomenon itself. It is worth quoting him in full here:

Today, a half century after Jung’s original formulation of the principle of synchronicity, with both the concept and the phenomenon now so widely recognized, one can discern a typical sequence and progression in the nature of synchronistic events and responses. The first stage is usually marked by the experience of various ambiguously suggestive coincidences and patternings that may seem somewhat remarkable, curious, or even vaguely uncanny, but can still be regarded as perhaps merely fortuitous or subjective, and are therefore usually ignored and forgotten. 

Eventually, there may occur one or more especially powerful synchronicities, unambiguous in their coincidental force and precision of patterning, that have a revelatory effect on the individual and mark a decisive threshold in his or her psychological and spiritual development. Not infrequently, synchronicities of this category occur in association with births, deaths, crises, and other major turning points in life. On occasion, there may take place a sudden convergence of many such synchronicities, intricately interconnected, occurring in close proximity or in rapid succession, and having the effect of an overpowering epiphany of new meaning and purpose in the life of the individual.

Over time, however, after this threshold has been crossed, a new attitude toward synchronicities often emerges as their frequency and character come to seem part of life’s pervasive intelligence and artistry—less a paradigm-shifting revelation of a new order of reality and more a continuing source of meaning and orientation with which to participate in life with greater sensitivity and intelligence. 

A disciplined alertness to significant pattern in the outer world as well as inner begins to develop as a essential aspect of living a more conscious life. The occurrence of synchronicities is seen as permitting a continuing dialogue with the unconscious and the larger whole of life while also calling forth an aesthetic and spiritual appreciation of life’s powers of symbolically resonant complex patterning. (pp. 55-56)

This "aesthetic and spiritual appreciation of life's powers of symbolically resonant complex patterning" takes us to an entirely new stage of understanding that Tarnas argues even Jung did not fully acknowledge.

Does this stage, which I think is eventually reached by any serious sync researcher, take us to a level beyond even what we usually call synchronicity? Is a further stratum of analysis, deeper than conspiracy, deeper than synchronicity, required to really grasp the whole significance of this year? Joyce's concept of "epiphany" may provide an answer to this question. To this I'll turn next.

The Fall of Twenty Twelve: Conspiracy

Neither Doom Nor Transcendence

From a previous blog entry:

Maybe all of these rituals of 2012, which for the London Games really stretched back to the Torch Relay in May and in a wider sense began with Madonna's Superbowl ritual coinciding with Imbolc, were to ensure the success of what would follow.

What followed the Closing Ceremony of the Paralympics, the final act of the four-part mass ritual of London 2012, by two days was the 9/11 attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. This attack, also marking the 11th year anniversary of the original 9/11 events, has clouded everything else that has unfolded this season.

The year 2012 has not been what people had expected. As of yet there has been neither great catastrophe nor collective transcendence. Neither the Doomers nor the New Agers have been satisfied. Compared to other recent years, most notably 2011, this year has been a "dud." Were all of the prophecies, predictions, augurs, portents, visions and fever dreams about 2012 simply bullshit?

Of course it is still too early to say. The bulk of these expressions of fear or hope have centred around December 21st. It could be that this date is when things really start to take off. Maybe 2013 and the years following will really manifest the spirit of 2012. We don't know yet.

We do know, though, that every system on Earth -- environmental, political, social, economic, geopolitical, technological, psychological, etc. -- is on a hair trigger. Almost everyone now has a sense that things are about to blow. If 2012 is not the year that things will climax then it is pretty damn close. By coincidence or otherwise the Maya seemed to have calculated fairly accurately, whatever their real intentions for doing so.

September Surprise

On 9/11 of this year, though, events ramped up once again. The Benghazi attack has set off a huge chain of events. It was becoming a major issue of the US election, with especially the conservative media questioning what the Obama administration really knew about the attack and what it covered up, and it was only the approach and devastation of Superstorm Sandy that derailed Romney's campaign and kept Benghazi out of the news.

The inevitable conspiracy theories followed from this. The most comprehensive yet over-the-top version of these was that Benghazi was a staged hostage-taking gone horribly wrong. This was to have been Obama's perfect "October Surprise" -- beginning in September yet timed to stretch out until just before the election.

The theory goes that the Obama administration, along with the CIA, plotted to have their former Libyan Islamic allies to storm the consulate and kidnap the ambassador, Chris Stevens. The tension and behind-the-scenes negotiations were to have continued throughout October, distracting all of the media's attention, and then at the last moment Obama would triumphantly announce Stevens' release as the result of a prisoner swap -- Stevens for the Blind Sheikh. This would automatically ensure Obama's reelection in a landslide.

For some reason, however, the militants experienced much more resistance than was agreed and were forced to kill the ambassador and other officials. This was the worst case scenario for the US administration and they went into full panic mode. If the true story got out it would reveal treason at the highest levels of government. They quickly fabricated a cover story -- the attacks were the result of the mob's outrage to Sam Becile's blasphemous anti-Muslim YouTube clip.

Obama's political enemies easily saw through this story. There was no way the government did not know that this was a highly coordinated and militant attack. In no sense could it be classified as being "spontaneous."

Throughout October, the opposition to the official story grew in direct proportion to Romney's advance in the polls. For a while it appeared that it would all end nastily for Obama but then, seemingly by chance, his luck changed. Hurricane Sandy struck the East Coast.

Superstorming

This is where the second part of the conspiracy theory begins. The sheer size of Sandy, the theorists argue, made it impossible for it to exist in the colder waters of the US Atlantic seaboard -- "global warming" be hanged -- without an external energy source. This massive energy surplus was supplied by HAARP and/or similar covert technologies of weather modification.



The government caused large parts of the northeastern states to be inundated, destroying lives, homes and businesses, in order to save Obama and, more charitably, the Office of the Presidency. Drastic measures were taken to prevent the mid-election chaos that would inevitably follow the revelation of the President's high treason.

Obama's response to Sandy was hailed in the media, people forgot all about Benghazi and Romney, and he was easily reelected. Even after the election, though, the speculation about Benghazi began to resurface and to grow. Many theories, most a lot more moderate and convincing than this one, were offered but the main claim was that the government was a lot more informed about the attack than it first let on.

Like many theories of this sort real evidence is lacking. The explanation, while comprehensive, produces as many questions as answers. Why would Obama attempt a risky adventure in Benghazi in order to win the election if he could have whipped up a superstorm in the first place?

And beyond this, are Romney and Obama really so different that the powerful backers of both would risk either of these events in order to get one elected over the other? The two having nearly identical policies, why would the financial elite give a damn who was elected?



Or, in a way that deeply challenges the assumptions of all believers in One Big Conspiracy, did each candidate have different elite cabals supporting them? Is there a war of ruling-class conspiracies? Many such questions remain.

Clearing House

Can we assume then, as is constantly stressed in the "liberal" media, that this is all the product of idle, moronic, conspiracy-mongering by disgruntled, Republican sore losers? Perhaps not. This is where 2012 slips deeply into the surreal and from which it his not yet emerged. Enter the Petraeus Affair.

By now the sordid details of the affair are so well known -- the seductive twins, the dummy email account, the shirtless agent, FBI v. CIA -- that there is no point diving further into the slime.

The fact is, though, that when Petraeus finally did testify to Congress on Benghazi he admitted what conservative pundits were saying all along -- the CIA and the government knew from the start that Benghazi was a terrorist attack and not a spontaneous reaction to a YouTube clip. Does make all of the other above conspiratorial claims true? No at all. In fact it points to something much stranger.



Petraeus was clearly taken down, but by who? The CIA old boys group of spies, who resented the general's further militarization of the Agency? The FBI, who have always been rivals of the CIA? The sexy Lebanese twins, who may or may not be agents of the Mossad? The Obama administration, who either disliked Petraeus' support of the Republicans or wanted to silence him from speaking about Benghazi? Or was it Petraeus himself, who nobly wanted to bring Benghazi back into the media spotlight? The speculative possibilities are endless.

In any case, it is clear that many in the top echelons of government knew about the general's tryst and were just waiting for the opportunity to blackmail him with it. Why then did it come out now?

The weirdness increases when we consider that Petraeus is not the only high-ranking military officer to take a hit in recent days. The scandal quickly ensnared General John Allen, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, and two more officers with apparent links to the Benghazi attack, General Ham and Admiral Gaouette, were also dismissed for "misconduct." Additionally at least two other commanding Naval officers were also relieved of duty.



Are all of these dismissals really related? What is going on? Does this, as some are suggesting, represent a kind of counter-coup against a faction in the military that plotted to overthrow the Obama administration? If so, this would indicate a much different conspiracy than that outlined above. Or, in an even more sinister theory, were these generals and captains replaced because they actively oppose the WW3 aims of the current US government?

Not Breathing Together

In any case, from the perspective of this blog, it is extremely interesting that conspiracy theorizing itself has bifurcated into multiple, often opposing, branches and perspectives. There seems to have been a time, perhaps in the years immediately following 9/11, when conspiracy theory was simple. There was the Official Story and there was its opposing alternative, the Conspiracy Theory.

Those in support of the status quo narrative, although they might be critical of it, upheld the Official Story, while those doubtful of this narrative, although there could be several versions of it, drifted towards acceptance of the Conspiracy Theory. While there may not have been consensus among conspiracy theorists as to the actual mechanics, details and even plotters of the conspiracy, there was general agreement about what the conspiracy was. The dichotomy between Official Story and Conspiracy Theory was pretty fixed and secure.



In recent years, though, these categories have begun to blur. The dichotomy, however actual, has become fluid. There are multiple, mutating official stories which no one is expected to believe and some of these are also conspiracy theories themselves. Oppositional conspiracy theories are presented by establishment political parties and mainstream media outlets. "Alternative" media is finding it more and more difficult to be truly alternative as the "lamestream" is becoming so conspiratorial.

Republican pundits spin out counter conspiracy theories to those of Democratic pundits. MSNBC has opposing theories to Fox News. Everyone denies being a conspiracy theorist while at the same time labeling all rivals with this smear. All has become conspiracy.

As in the Petraeus/Benghazi scandal, everybody is sure there is some sort of conspiracy -- either a "real" conspiracy, or a conspiracy to make it appear as if there is a conspiracy, or a conspiracy to paint political rivals as conspiracy theorists, etc. -- but nobody is sure what exactly it is.

If 9/11 happened today there could be no Official Story and the proliferation of competing conspiracy theories at all levels would make social consensus, or even cohesion, next to impossible.

So what brought about this miasma of mutually exclusive musings on whatever the hell is going on? Is there an even a greater conspiracy behind this? Or have even the citadels of power become deluged in the tidal wide of disinformation they helped to create? I suspect that this all is very symptomatic of what 2012 is all about.

But to return a bit to events on the ground: Petraeus resigned on Nov. 9, three days after the US election, and one day before that tensions between the Israelis and Palestinians began to build culminating to the assassination of Ahmed Jabari, and marking the start of Operation Pillar of Cloud, on Nov. 14.

Was Petraeus' resignation a signal to begin major operations in Gaza? In any case, it is possible to see the Gaza conflict as being just the latest act in a narrative that stretches back to the attack on Benghazi, which itself symbolically follows directly from the London 2012 mega-ritual.

Biting the Apple

Somehow, though, this narrative does not entirely satisfy. When we delve deeper into the details less and less seems to make sense. If this all was a conspiracy it is difficult to imagine who could possibly be behind it. It is just too huge. Some other element must be in play. Is this all just coincidence? Or do these coincidences themselves add up to something far beyond coincidence? Could the analysis of synchronicity be the means to understand the Fall of Twenty Twelve?


 

Three Dreams

There are three dreams:

1) The dream of Nature
2) The dream of the Consensus
3) The dream of Individuation

The first and third dreams will in the course of things flow together as one. The imagination of the individual and the world soul are in reality a single whole. Atman is Brahman in other words. The strange turns of nature are reflected in private dreamworlds. Likewise, nature is populated at every point by the bizarre denizens of the imaginative mind.

There are no limitations to the first and third dreams. They are characterized by groundlessness and limitless possibilities. Anything can be created or destroyed at every site. The gods have free play here.

 

The dream of the Consensus is the private dream of the Archons, their own individuation, which has not yet merged with the greater dream of Nature. It both separates itself from the greater dream and it actively prevents all other dreams of individuation. Its power arises from suppressing all other dreams.

It, however, only survives through the consensus. It is given energy by those who deny their own imaginative growth. Previously, each culture and tradition had their own unique consensus, what Robert Anton Wilson called a "reality tunnel." Now, though, one global, inter-cultural Consensus is being forged. This is the dominant planetary Spell.

Cascade

When a person begins to detach from the Spell, begins to create his own system as Blake advised, the path of individuation is marked with an accelerating occurrence of synchronicities.

 

These begin to build on one another, correspondences are found, and a non-system system starts to take shape. Symbols of dreams, individual experiences, chance encounters, self-significant phrases, etc. make up this ever more complex metaphoric network.

Something very strange appears to happen at this point. The magic of the consensus dream begins to reveal itself also. One's imagination is mirrored in nature and vice versa, as is to be expected, but the consensus dream begins to be laid bare as well.

Private symbols and synchronicities are seemingly the same as those symbolic devices used to perpetuate the consensus spectacle. These mantras and mandalas within the spell of the Archons become obvious, in a way that they are not for those who merely dream along with the consensus, but they are not rejected. Quite the contrary, these very symbols are identical with those of private contemplation and discovery.

Rootwork

One seems to be tapping into the dream source -- the single trunk on which the three dreams are divergent but attached branches. The Consensus adapts and evolves its spell by dipping into this creative well. There is ultimately only one type of magic and it is only later divided, as Crowley taught, into white, black and yellow. The effective and resonant forms and symbols are the same.

 

When we go inward and begin to devise our own system, we become surprised first that we can slowly see the magical building blocks of the Consensus. But the greater surprise comes when we notice that these occult devices of the spectacle are nearly identical to those that spontaneously arise in private revelations. The two magics start to overlap and become one.

Horns

Eventually these patterns of mutual synchronicity grow to anticipate one another. A paranoid thought arises: Are the dark sorcerers only ushering me into a second-order matrix? Is this merely a complex disinformation network specifically designed to entrap those few who have broken through? This is a possibility.

Another set of questions takes an inflationary perspective: Am I really the one who is creating all of this? Am I the master of the matrix? Is the eye on the pyramid really my own?

Both of these extremes are ego traps -- either submit to the Archons or become one of them. The third possibility is much stranger -- the wellhead of our own awakening and the consensus spell is the same spring. Individuation, and the synchronicities behind and through it, opens us up to the magical foundations of the Machine. The three dreams unite at this point. We cannot control this flow but neither are we dominated by it.

 

There is no second or n-order matrix except those which we create by paranoia or inflation, or by both alternately. No tricks are possible at the wellhead of imaginative acceptance. Magic can only harm and seduce a fixed structure. We must put our faith in the total possibility of our own imaginative intuition, and not fear that it appears to resonate with the sigils and symbols of the sorcerers. The source is common. The system will flow through you and you will flow through the system. We must take care not to "own" any of this. This is the path of recaptivity.

Wicklow

The system necessarily transforms itself in response to an individual's own awakening. In the same way we shift and adjust to the reactions of the spectacle. It attempts co-option, incorporation, subversion, seduction, suppression and destruction, but in doing this it leaves its own synchronistic trail in its wake.

The question of conscious and/or unconscious intention is a red herring. In dreams, intentionality is besides the point. The fact that they are happening is what is primary. The question of intention can only be contemplated in retrospect when the action has already moved on to something else. And a final answer is forever elusive. 

 

This is how the spell and spectacle of the dark consensus is opened up. It grooves with the elements of our own personal madness. If we literalize ourselves as victims or saviours then we have lost. If the poetry of own dream begins to resonate with that of the two other dreams then the world becomes changed.

Touch

Our own transformation, our own journey to the dream source becomes irresistible to the magic of the Spell: the dark wizards reach out to the Awakened One. They attempt to tempt and distract him. They try to force him off of his spot. He quietly touches the earth, the source of all imagination, and the challengers vanish. But they do not cease to exist. They also become the awakening.