noir – dark arts criticism

I haven’t got time to do a real report on this important subject in conspiracy theory but I’ve been away from the desk for too long. So I will synthesize some facts. The short idea is that Catherine the Great seems to have been considered an ‘enlightened despot’ by figures like Thomas Jefferson and Voltaire, but the apparent strategic aim was not necessarily the betterment of mankind, but rather the diminishing of the power of Russia’s 18th century rivals, Britain and France. While Catherine ‘talked a good game’ on democracy and abolition, the evidence is that under her, the serfs of Russia fared much more poorly. In a similar sense, it can objectively be seen that the Bolshevik Revolution and emergence of the Soviet state did not serve man any better either. (Additional background of pertinence can be found here.)

• The Jesuit priest Abbe Barruel controversially claimed the Bavarian Illuminati (Les Illuminés de Bavière) were the conspirators behind the French Revolution in his book ‘Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism‘. The Bavarian Illuminati were essentially a sect which seems to have penetrated / sprung up within other Masonic movements. 
• In his book, Barruel claimed that Empress Catherine the Great of Russia (Catherine II) was a conspirator in the French Revolution in association with Voltaire who she had significant correspondence with. (It seems a sect of ‘Russian Voltairians‘ sprung up encouraged by Catherine and set out “to elaborate a new morality based on reason but not on Christian ethics“, and foster a “religion of reason“. This became the basis for the first Russian secret lodges formed in the 1770s.)
• Later, additional likely anti-Semitic forgeries circulated in Russia which seemed to attempt to shift blame for the revolution in France to Jews and Freemasons (see ‘Simonini Letter‘). This may have pertinence to the evolution of generally Tsarist anti-Semitic conspiracy.
• Catherine the Great associated with the Roman goddess of strategic warfare, wisdom, and the arts: Minerva. Minerva was associated with owl symbolism. Initiates in the ‘Bavarian Illuminati’ used the rank of ‘Minervals’ and owl symbology in association with Minerva.

It’s been obvious that Russia plays both sides in our political chaos. Two independent reports presented by the Senate Intelligence Committee all but confirm it. Hamilton 68 highlighted it. Based on qualitative interpretations of Russian propaganda headlines, in February 2016 I pointed out Russian support for Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in a comment in a Forbes article — and after acknowledging he had not had the idea before and asking if it was my work — within days the author wrote an article about Russian support for Bernie and Trump in 2016 (with no attribution to my ‘Mitchell Indiana Hedges‘ pseudonym).

But seriously — just look to the Nazis and anti-fascists — or the schismatic Orthodox Church even. Russia drives wedges and plays both sides — it is what/who Russia is. Not really controversial. The longer we ignore the obvious, the bigger fools we are. President Trump was right when he urged calm in both sides during the Charlottesville protests, no matter what you think of him. (Of course he got attacked the one time he wasn’t divisive.)

Also not controversial is the idea that conspiracy theories encapsulate a ‘paranoid style’ in politics. One needn’t look very far into the scholarly literature on metanarrative/master narrative to find there is a good body of work touching on Freudian/Kleinian psychoanalytical concepts as they relate to ‘paranoid-schizoid’ processes as part of personality development and how these normal psychological processes in humans can be related to conspiracy theories. (I admit, I don’t know a ton about this but the material in the link seems very solid and consistent with my existing research — even including an unsought Nostradamus reference.)

So often we hear about culture war, cyberwar, or ‘infowar’ as they relate to Russian active measures and conspiracy theories — but none of these terms describe the ‘two sidedness’, ‘divisiveness’, and ‘psychological paranoia’ which is inherent to the Russian version of these concepts at least and the higher order strategy they apparently serve.  I’d like to propose a term to conceptualize what we deal with and sort of merge the ideas of psychological warfare, ‘infowar’, and culture war into one concept: ‘schizowar(fare)‘.

It is hard to look at the news today without finding some reference to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as ‘MBS’.  Of course it seems normal these days to think of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as ‘KSM’; or to know Osama bin Laden as ‘OBL’ . (When I contributed to this analysis on MH 370 in March 2014, I wanted to refer to Zaharie Ahmad Shah as ‘ZAS’, but my collaborator discouraged it — perhaps sensing the loaded connotation that such a three letter name initialization of a Muslim associated with terror intentionally carried.)  It is clear that this ‘initialization’ is almost a form of labeling associated with fears about radical Islamic terrorism today.

Knowing that the case of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder seems to be connected 1.) to Saudi geopolitical struggles with Turkey, in 2.) the context of the Syrian Civil War, which is 3.) a proxy struggle that is propped up by diplomatic and military assistance from Russia and Iran; and that 4.) pro-Russian conspiracists who were connected to the most viral 9/11 conspiracies (which are anti-Saudi at core focusing on Osama bin Laden and Bush family connections to Saudi Arabia)  as well as ‘Syrian false flag’ chemical weapons narratives (in the Syrian Civil War period)  — are now using ‘MBS’ as a core of their 2001-like claims; I figured I should check it out.

“AT LAST the Beast of Riyadh, the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (AKA MBS) is getting unwanted American and worldwide attention for what he is really like, the young and ruthless power behind the throne of his stroke-ridden father, King Salman. Starting last year I began writing about MBS as a new and perhaps the most formidable candidate for Nostradamus’ Antichrist I’ve ever encountered since being on the trail for candidates since 1983… MBS is an evil beast but he’s your beast, Mr. and Mrs. America.” – John Hogue, Hogueprophecy.com

It seemed almost blindingly obvious to me that John Hogue referring to MBS as a codeword for Nostradamus’ ‘third antichrist’ ‘Mabus’ was a renewed instance of the same kind of strategy which had been used to make Osama bin Laden to look like such a ‘third antichrist’ following the 9/11 (2001) attacks. (Hogue had the top selling book of the 9/11 timeframe and the subject was Nostradamus — he’d predicted Osama Bin Laden as Nostradamus’ ‘third antichrist’ since June 2001.)

Having had some experience with Google Trends to do quantitative analyses of keywords; as well as Google Search itself to assist in quantifying the volume of a topic on a given site as well as qualitatively analyze results, I decided to see if I could find where ‘MBS’ comes from. 

Continue reading “Seems Russia wants us to know Mohammed bin Salman as MBS”

For the purposes of this quick post, it is helpful that there is an African fable about a Shark and a Monkey; who are both liars and the moral of the story is you should trust neither one. (I have no problem with Debbie Wasserman Schultz, but the fable also relates to a ‘Washerman’s Donkey’ who is analogized as a fool which is a helpful analogy for a process seeking a nominee for the Democratic Party, and Tulsi Gabbard’s role within it.) Perhaps Michael Avenatti (our proverbial Monkey) has passed the torch of incendiary pro-Russian political strategy candidate to Tulsi Gabbard (our proverbial Hawaiian Shark). I hope so, she looks like a pretty easy target to destroy. 

I’m trying stay on top of the story that Gabbard has announced her likely foray into the 2020 field for the US Democratic Party presidential nominee. As such, I will also just quickly list the things which give me pause to date (that I am aware of) about her. 

Continue reading “The Shark and the Monkey: Hello Gabbard, Goodbye Avenatti, who will be the Wasserman(Schultz)’s Donkey?”

Today I am writing some terrible poetry inspired by the Illuminati, Karl Marx, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. 

‘Digital Conspiracy’ (Dedicated to James Randi)

Trapped in a web all alone
But we can roam in this cell - 
Compact disc earth: the tapped phone
Eternal contract from hell!

It's a secret well-prattled, 
So no-one cares when you tell;
Man's soul was collateral --
Dark times; and brighter screens sell 

Satan's Prometheus guise; 
Viral worms, software apples;
'Spartacus will equalize!' 
Yes: he made us his cattle.

(This represents a really rough draft which attempts to get at some of the ideals which underlie socialist radicalism through an examination of the parallels of historical literary figures: Prometheus, Spartacus, and various conceptions of the devil – especially those developed in Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ and Goethe’s ‘Faust I’ and ‘Faust II’. It might come across as a bit of a sequel to my prior paper on Marxist ideas in Dracula and their effect on modern conspiracism.)

‘Prometheus is the foremost saint and martyr in the philosopher’s calendar.’ – Karl Marx, Berlin March 1841

‘Spartacus is revealed as the most splendid fellow in the whole of ancient history. Great general (no Garibaldi), noble character, real representative of the ancient proletariat.’ – Karl Marx, Letter to Friedrich Engels 27 February 1861

Introduction

It has been said that “Prometheus plus Spartacus equals the starting point of Marxism” (Draper, 1971). Such a view however ignores the importance of what might be considered ‘Hegelian Satanism’. Despite sometimes being equated with Jesus, the idea of Prometheus as a hero to revolutionaries was deeply informed by prior ideas about Satan as the ‘hero’ of John Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ — and indeed also it has been said that “the merging of Prometheus and Satan was one of the crucial symbolic transformations” as it related to revolutionary thinking (Boss, 1991, p. 157).

Karl Marx (1818-1883) is also seen to have a deep attachment to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s (1749-1832) ‘Faust’ plays/poems. The Goethe story – though distinct in its portrayal of the devil Mephistopheles — was likely influenced by a Miltonian view of Satan, and Goethe praised Milton’s conception even before he wrote his Faust part I.

Marx’ fixation on both the ‘benevolent’ Lucifer-Prometheus (that is, the lightbringer and fire-giver) archetype and the darker/sinister Faustian Mephistopheles (‘deciever-enslaver’) archetype who exchanges short term worldly power for eternal damnation in hell — may be the origins of a ‘Hegelian dialectic’ in Satanism. However, Marx may have been an innovator in simultaneously praising ‘both sides’ of Satan, he was far from the first ‘literary radical’ to idolize these figures in a revolutionary sense.

Marx’ hero Spartacus is symbolically similar figure as the ‘human Prometheus or Lucifer’ who, unlike the fallen angel or Titan instead rises up from his chains against authority for the proletariat but is eventually destroyed by his master (rather than resultantly shackled for his transgression). In addition, a classical interpretation of Spartacus by Plutarch claimed that prophetic signs declared that Spartacus “would have a great and terrible power which would end in misfortune“. In this sense, the idealized historical character of Spartacus – who leads his uprising against the Roman authority despite its foretold catastrophe – may be seen as a ‘synthesis’ of Lucifer-Prometheus (thesis) and Faustian Mephistopheles (antithesis) ‘Satanic hero’ archetypes which were popular among radical writers of the Romantic era. 

Continue reading “Hegelian Satan: Spartacus and Luciferian Prometheus as Revolutionary-Abolitionist Archetypes”