Christopher Knowles, Are Occult Symbols Present in Science? |365|

My favorite podcasty things are Secret Sun and Skeptiko so this was a real treat for me! I read The Secret Sun every time there's a new post (as you should) and I'm in the closed facebook group where posters read and sync on things and respond accordingly (Alex, I think I invited you?) It's a neat phenomenon. It's like an art form. I just let it wash over me and see what pops up in my own life after it does. It's nice that it's a closed group so your relatives and acquaintances can be spared your true form.

I guess it's smart that the word synchromysticism wasn't used in reference to Chris as I guess it's gone out of favor(?), but as far as a word that kind of nails the whole -- finding patterns and tapping into your inner awe as you learn to see larger themes in a sort of systems and archetypes approach and sensing the fractal threads of repetition and connection in all things -- I've never found a better one. I think Chris sees more occult intentionality to it all than I do. I'm pretty sure the greatest time traveling AI in creation couldn't make the kind of patterns we're seeing here. (Or could it?)

Playlist of sync music videos
(People in a syncromystic sync forum posting images one after another that reminds them of an image and then I put it all to music and see what happens. Hey, we should do one on *this* forum...)

Playlist of other people's sync videos
(If you've never seen a sync video start with TIME:GOD. That's pretty accessible.)

Chris has all of the mythology down which really does give him an absolute archetype buffet to choose from. I have a book called The Body of Myth that I have never read and will probably never read. I should mail that to someone that would enjoy it. Sorry for the ADHD, I'm all over the place this morning. I guess that helps in a way.

I'd love to learn his methodology -- how does he research? Bits of red string on a wall? 30 browser windows open? Hand-jotting down notes or a word file? Folders computer or paper, based on theme or myth or on the project. I'm curious about how someone goes about this kind of research the hard way. It's much easier to just watch and play in it I must admit.
 
Which piece do you mean, David? I find Abramovic's work interesting, but I may have missed something. There's a history of challenging art associated with religion, Serrano's Piss Christ, with a crucifix suspended in urine, and Chris Ofili's The Holy Virgin Mary comprised of elephant dung, which may or may not be intended to offend. Even officially sanctioned Christian art can be extremely graphic, but often bows to more delicate sensibilities. When did you last see a naked and flailed Christ as a church icon?

Symbols carry considerable power, which is why some people are so anxious to subvert them.
Remember "Spirit Cooking":
https://steemit.com/pizzagate/@rebelskum/pizzagate-decoded-part-ii-what-is-spirit-cooking

I think this link used to lead to a lengthier, more explicit web page, but this is bad enough really.

David
 
This is a great primer on sacred geometry and symbolism:

One reason they might include sacred geometry and sacred number into everything is because... it is just really neat-o.
 
Occultism has many sub sets, Sacred Geomerty Divination, Channeling, Hypnosis, Magick, and many more. Its not a belief system it has no dogma.....
 
Remember "Spirit Cooking":
https://steemit.com/pizzagate/@rebelskum/pizzagate-decoded-part-ii-what-is-spirit-cooking

I think this link used to lead to a lengthier, more explicit web page, but this is bad enough really.

David
TBH David the link reads like a witch hunt. I have no idea what Pizzagate is, but from what I've read on comments here it's an attempt to link all high profile arts and media people into a diabolical conspiracy - correct me if I'm wrong.

It's undoubtedly true that artists as a whole (filmmakers, writers, painters) give themselves considerable license to "play" with symbolism, some of which is offensive. It's also the case that the material wealth heaped upon such individuals offers ample opportunity for them to believe they are in some way special, and gives genuinely disturbing influences a chance to apply leverage to them to maintain that self image. However that's a long way from a conscious conspiracy to include all creative people in explicitly diabolical activities.

There are sufficient temptations in personal wealth and fame to succumb to the dark side, without the necessity for a cohesive and directed movement aimed at that end. Since the reformation there has long been a suspicion of visual iconography in Anglophone countries, and a belief that figurative and symbolic representation is implicitly idolatrous. The link seems to discern "certain marks" of the guilty that is indistinguishable from the suspicions of Matthew Hopkins and the denouncements at Salem. It's all a bit protestant for my taste.

I think a lot of creatives are egotistical arseholes hell bent (sic) on getting their views across at any expense, and that is all the temptation needed to toy with deeply held beliefs. It's certainly true that celebrity contains highly abusive, manifestly evil elements within its numbers. Put those together and I still don't see the dots other people are joining.
 
Alex's questions (somewhat paraphrased) at the end of the podcast:

What do you make of Chris's basic premise, which is that there is the "occult" -- as in hidden and in esoteric symbology -- running through our culture (we see it in pop/mass media, even in government agencies -- NASA and its emblems, dollar bills, on buildings, and so on)?

Chris claims that sometimes it's so blatant it's impossible to deny. What do you think? Is it real, or is it exaggerated? Is it unimportant, or just plain crazy? If you think it's real, what do you think is behind the symbology? Who's using it and why?

Absolutely. I believe we are considered 'an initiate' just by walking in the streets of DC for example, or entering buildings, even without an expressly signed document. It's not just all over sports and Hollywood, it's all over architecture, city planning, references throughout literature before film was popular and I believe possibly encoded in the English language as well.

As for science, since it is based in alchemy originally, it seems 'reasonable' that it is expressed there as well, as NASA and CERN certainly make obvious.

I do think much of the 'mystery school' teachings are based in a sort of understanding of what science is now calling right/left brain functions. I think this is why they used drugs and ritual, and call alcohol 'spirits'. For me the spirit realm is the creative realm, which is why artists access it without realizing sometimes, maybe even oftentimes. This flows easily with mystical thought b/c there seems to be this easy flow between worlds, reality and fiction, which modern lore would surely try to tap into.

In so much of our altered states we are giving preference to 'right brain thinking/processing'. I can imagine what it might have been like in a culture where right-brain is given credence over left-brain and what sort of chaos that must have been like, but perhaps a beautiful sort of chaos! That led to death and extinction as they all skipped to the guillotine . . . :)

Here is a Tedtalk that expresses it very well I think.


Interesting topic and CK blog is definitely 'high weirdness'!
 
TBH David the link reads like a witch hunt. I have no idea what Pizzagate is, but from what I've read on comments here it's an attempt to link all high profile arts and media people into a diabolical conspiracy - correct me if I'm wrong.

.
Forget Pizzagate, that link contained an example of her 'art' - it used to contain far more. Do you think someone gazing at a (mock-up of) a partially decomposed corpse in an open coffin is art. Maybe I have lived a sheltered life, but I don't. If you need a little more persuasion, and your last meal is well digested, try this:


I don't think that is fun, or art, nor anything that I would want to go and see - still less eat dinner before or after this 'performance'.

David
 
I haven't listened yet, so probably shouldn't comment, but.... my personal experience with people in film/advertising/design/etc. is that they tend to be quite post-modern, ie. they see something they like, and they use it with very little consideration for context. Magpies, really.

I once did an interview with a director of symbolism laden music-videos and found this to be the case (she was very nice too).
 
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I don't think that is fun, or art, nor anything that I would want to go and see - still less eat dinner before or after this 'performance'.
What Abramovic seems to be doing is creating a sense of ritual for a post-ritualistic culture. She's using life force symbols, milk, blood, sperm, in what to me is a heavy handed way, but whether that represents demonic evil is for the viewer to say. It looks more like shockart, her later work is more considered. Most of her work looks like working through childhood trauma.

I find work like Joel Peter Witkin's more disturbing. He uses real corpses, including dead babies in photographs that are beautiful to look at. Then there's the Victorian fashion for post mortem photography, where the deceased is dressed in their best clothes and made to look alive, and medical photography which can also be artistically compelling. It's not the kind of thing I'd frame and keep in the house, but I think it's a leap to call it evil. I suppose it depends whether the artist is evil. Jimmy Saville was a purveyor of inoffensive bubble gum pop music. Maybe I have a higher threshold from long exposure to problematic art.
 
agreed! his blog is amazing... so much great stuff... with many solid links to his conclusions. one can pick and poke and some of his conclusions/connections/inferences, but bulk if it is really compelling.

Loved this episode and I always love reading Chris Knowles' Secret Sun blog. Really interesting stuff on the weaponizing of the occult and the Night of the Living Dead premiere in front of young children (?!). Also glad Chris clarified that much of the esoteric symbology being used/heaped upon modern culture is not really referencing "Satan" or "Lucifer," but actually refers back to a more ancient pagan/egyptian/celestial syncretic god form -- Jupiter/Amun Ra.

To partially answer your question: occult symbology is clearly running through our culture. It is everywhere now: films, music, half-time shows, awards shows, CERN, opening ceremonies for various scientific or other mass events, etc. Weird and disturbing -- but for what purpose? And why are government agencies, as Chris said, footing the bill for some of these bizarre presentations?

KindaGamey: could you explain further about what synchromysticism is?

Hurmanetar: So good to see you here again. Please post more -- I always love your contributions.

Alex: thanks for a really interesting interview. Hope you follow up with another one with Chris soon -- as indicated.
 
synchromysticism
  1. The drawing of connections in modern culture (movies, music lyrics, historical happenings and esoteric knowledge); and finding connections that could be coming from the "collective unconscious mind"; and finding connections between occult knowledge (i.e. esoteric fraternities, cults and secret rituals), politics and mass media.

The simplest way in is starting to pay attention to 11:11 on clocks... then 12:12 sometimes, 1:11... I see 108 all the time. Once you start paying attention to 'synchs' (e.g. I say 'dog with a hat' to a friend and then walk into CVS and there's a dog with a hat) you start seeing them everywhere and it's like if you pay attention to the universe it starts paying more attention to you. It can feel very personalized sometimes. You start to feel like everything is connected. A skeptic would say, "well, that's just apophenia," but it seems more than that. If a synch happens in the midst of a personal decision (you keep seeing butterfly imagery and have two paths in the woods to choose from and just then a butterfly flits on the right path -- take the right one!) you follow the synch. It doesn't always lead to something, but following a synch might prompt you to do something you normally wouldn't, which gives a synch more of an opportunity to happen. If I completely plan my day I'm not allowing synchs to emerge, I'm constricting probability patterns.


Apophenia
(/æpoʊˈfiːniə/) is the tendency to attribute meaning to perceived connections or patterns between seemingly unrelated things.[1] Confirmation bias is a variation of apophenia.

--
It can almost get to a religious level where you really feel like you're playing an interactive game with the universe. There's no way that a single (clock: 11:08) person can coordinate it all and it feels too personal for it to be a god doing it. It's like your own subconscious is outside of time and playing with you because sometimes it has a sense of humor -- YOUR sense of humor. Sometimes it's a phrase or something so obscure... and then you hear it later in the same day. And you may not have heard that thing since the 1980s and there it is twice in one day. I dunno. It's fun.
 
What Abramovic seems to be doing is creating a sense of ritual for a post-ritualistic culture. She's using life force symbols, milk, blood, sperm, in what to me is a heavy handed way, but whether that represents demonic evil is for the viewer to say. It looks more like shockart, her later work is more considered. Most of her work looks like working through childhood trauma.

I find work like Joel Peter Witkin's more disturbing. He uses real corpses, including dead babies in photographs that are beautiful to look at. Then there's the Victorian fashion for post mortem photography, where the deceased is dressed in their best clothes and made to look alive, and medical photography which can also be artistically compelling. It's not the kind of thing I'd frame and keep in the house, but I think it's a leap to call it evil. I suppose it depends whether the artist is evil. Jimmy Saville was a purveyor of inoffensive bubble gum pop music. Maybe I have a higher threshold from long exposure to problematic art.


They're called arm chair magicians
 
What Abramovic seems to be doing is creating a sense of ritual for a post-ritualistic culture. She's using life force symbols, milk, blood, sperm, in what to me is a heavy handed way, but whether that represents demonic evil is for the viewer to say. It looks more like shockart, her later work is more considered. Most of her work looks like working through childhood trauma.
Well what Christopher Knowles is arguing, is that there is a remarkable amount of satanic symbolism incorporated in Western life. Her 'art' is a remarkable and disturbing example, and the Pentagon seems to be another. Knowles further suggests that these symbols do have some malevolent power, even when used for 'fun'. This would mean that it might not be up to the viewer if evil leaks out. I found it hugely disturbing that an almost-president of the US was interested in that stuff.

David
 
you aren't related to Acharya S by any chance?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acharya_S

Oh, and this is the moment I found out she died. :(

p.s. If you'd like to play the sync game. See what happens:
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/synchromysticism-shall-we-play-a-game.4035/


No relation to Acharya -- my avatar/name is just paying homage to one of my favorite Game of Thrones characters! ;)

Thank you for all the info on the synchromystic stuff. I am working my way through some of your videos -- pretty mesmerizing.
 
Well what Christopher Knowles is arguing, is that there is a remarkable amount of satanic symbolism incorporated in Western life. Her 'art' is a remarkable and disturbing example, and the Pentagon seems to be another. Knowles further suggests that these symbols do have some malevolent power, even when used for 'fun'. This would mean that it might not be up to the viewer if evil leaks out. I found it hugely disturbing that an almost-president of the US was interested in that stuff.

David
The symbolism in the Abramovic video is of a generalised kind, almost cartoonish. Like they're intended to suggest something profound but are little more than squiggles. The loaded glyph idea is a predominantly US thing, although it has been explored psycho-geographically by British writers like Iain Sinclair and Peter Ackroyd in Lud Heat and Hawksmoor, and in fashion by designers such as Lacroix. Perceiving symbolism through chance alignments, curiosities and coincidences is a fascinating idea, but we have to exhaust mundane historical reasons before opting for esoteric ones.

The US emerged from a particular historical and social milieu which was absent of its own iconography, and keen to abandon the problematic symbolism of its antecedents. Navigating those symbols with modern eyes can lead to investing them with a potency they may or may not deserve.
 
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