The New Age Magazine and Occult Explanations of the Great Seal

• Secret Societies / Symbolism
• 17 Mar, 2014
• http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/2014/03/17/the-new-age-magazine-and-occult-explanations-of-the-great-seal/

by Terry Melanson ©, Dec. 3rd, 2005
I‘ve recently acquired sixty issues of The New Age Magazine, spanning the years 1968-73. The New Age Magazine was “the official organ of the Supreme Council 33°, Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry Southern Jurisdiction.” The magazine was inaugurated in 1904 and still continues today. In 1990, however, the title of the publication was changed to the Scottish Rite Journal—probably in an effort to distance themselves from being identified with the New Age Movement. In any case, the original name for the magazine alludes to those same esoteric yearnings of the socialist utopians and occult theosophists at the turn of the 20th century. They believed that the world was on the cusp of a New Age of enlightenment. The Age of Aquarius was about to begin; occultists had generally agreed that a shift in consciousness was imminent, and the transformation of society—based upon a masonic ideal—would soon be realized. It is thus appropriate that Grand Commander George Moore, in 1904, named the magazine after the “rite of perfection” conferred on those who partake in the ritual of the 18th degree, the Rose Croix. Candidates who pass through this degree symbolically ascend the mystic ladder from darkness to glory and perfection. The Rose Croix degree, in turn, refers to the 17th Century mystic secret society of adepts, the Rosicrucians, who themselves called for a new age. They practiced the transformation of self through an amalgam of rituals involving hermeticism, gnosticism, alchemy and the kabbalah.
The February 1971 edition of The New Age Magazine has an article about the Great Seal of America, pp. 51-5. Simply titled “The Great Seal of the United States,” Elmer W. Claypool, 32°, gives his own opinion of the symbolic meaning of the seal and then quotes from a 33rd degree mason who elucidates a more esoteric viewpoint. I will include the whole piece and make a few comments afterwards (illustrations are mine):

Familiarity has a blinding effect sometimes, and if we see something often enough, we don’t see it at all. We overlook it; take it for granted. For instance, when was the last time that you looked at the symbols on a one-dollar bill and thought of what they stand for? On the back of the dollar bill you will notice two symbolic circles; one circle has an eagle, and the other has an uncompleted pyramid. Now, these two circles constitute the front and the back of the Great Seal of the United States. The familiar American eagle is the face of the Great Seal. The unfinished pyramid is the unfamiliar back of the Great Seal, often referred to as the “Lesser Seal.”
These two symbols and the numerical symbol of thirteen which is an integral part of both the eagle and the pyramid are very meaningful and beautiful. This number, thirteen, has played an important part in our great history. There were, of course, the Original Thirteen States and the signatures rep resenting the Thirteen Original States affixed to that great document, the Declaration of Independence. There are also the thirteen stripes on the American flag with thirteen stars on the Bennington Rag; the circle of thirteen stars on the Betsy Ross flag; and the thirteen letters on the motto of the Rattlesnake flag: “Don’t Tread On Me!” Later on, there were the thirteen stars in the Confederate flag.
If you look closely at the front side of the Great Seal, the side with the eagle, you will notice that there are thirteen stars surrounded by clouds in the crest above the head of the eagle. This is called the glory or constellation. On the breast of the eagle there are thirteen stripes on the shield, also known as the escutcheon; thirteen arrows in the eagle’s left claw, known as the sinister side; thirteen fruit and thirteen leaves in the olive branch in the eagle’s right claw, or dexter side; and, finally, there are thirteen letters in the Latin motto inscribed on the banner held in the eagle’s beak: E Pluribus Unum which means “One Out of Many.” The eagle itself, of course, represents the United States.
The wings of the eagle are not like the straight out and expanded wings of heraldry, but rather displayed upward as a rising eagle with a slight upturned head, denoting a rising and upcoming Nation. The escutcheon or shield, which is borne on the breast of the eagle without any means of support, denotes that the United States ought to rely on its own virtue and be self-supporting.
The shield is composed of a horizontal blue bar, known as a chief. The vertical bars or stripes, six red and seven white, represent the several States all joined together in one solid, compact entity supporting the blue bar of chief which unites the whole and represents Congress. The E Pluribus Unum motto alludes to this union. The vertical stripes are kept closely united by the chief. The chief depends on the union of the stripes and the strength from it for support just as the United States depends on the union of the States in and through Congress.
The colors of the shield also have an emblematic significance. The white signifies purity and innocence; red means hardiness and valor; and blue, the color of the chief, signifies vigilance, perseverance, and justice.
The olive branch and the arrows denote the power of peace and war, which is exclusively vested in Congress. If peace is not possible, the arrows represent our determination to defend our way of life. The constellation of the stars, or the glory above the eagle’s head denotes a new state taking its place and rank among other sovereign powers.
Now let us take a look at the design on the reverse side of the Great Seal, the side with the pyramid. The pyramid is there because the pyramid is one of the strongest structures known to man, and it represents the democratic way, the strongest governmental structure. The pyramid has thirteen steps or thirteen layers of stone. The pyramid is left unfinished because there always is work to be done in a free world. In the zenith of the pyramid is the familiar All-Seeing Eye of Deity, in a triangle surrounded by a glory which stands for the fact that America stands under the All-Seeing Eye of divine protection. The motto above the pyramid, Annuit Coeptis, means: “He has prospered our undertaking.” There are thirteen letters in this motto. The date carved on the base of the pyramid in Roman numerals, MDCCLXXVI, is the year of the Declaration of Independence, 1776. Underneath the pyramid is another motto, Novus Ordo Seclorum, meaning “The New Order of the Age.” It signifies the beginning of the new American era, which was born on that grand and glorious date of July 4, 1776.
Another interpretation of the Great Seal, Masonic in nature, taken from Masonry in Texas, Background, History and Influence to 1846 by James D. Carter, 33°, G.’.C.’., is as follows:
“Among those who helped design the Great Seal of the United States the following are known to have been Masons: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, William Churchill Houston, and William Barton. Whether they drew heavily upon Freemasonry in this work it is impossible to assert but when an informed Mason examines the Great Seal here is what he sees: On the obverse is an eagle whose dexter wing has thirty-two feathers, the number of ordinary degrees in Scottish Rite Freemasonry. The sinister wing has thirty-three feathers, the additional feather corresponding to the Thirty-third Degree of the same Rite conferred for outstanding Masonic service. The tail feathers number nine, the number of degrees in the Chapter, Council and Commandery of the York Rite of Freemasonry. Scottish Rite Masonry had its origin in France; the York Rite is sometimes called the American Rite; the eagle thus clothed represents the union of French and American Masons in the struggle for Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. The total number of feathers in the two wings is sixty-five which, by gematria, is the value of the Hebrew phrase yam yawchod
(together in unity). This phrase appears in Psalm 133 as follows: ‘Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity,’ and is used in the ritual of the first degree of Freemasonry. The glory above the eagle’s head is divided into twenty-four equal parts and reminds the observer of the Mason’s gauge which is also divided into twenty-four equal parts and is emblematic of the service he is obligated to perform. The five pointed stars remind him of the Masonic Blazing Star and the five points of fellowship. The arrangement of the stars in the constellation to form overlapping equilateral triangles and the Star of David calls to the Mason’s mind King David’s dream of building a Temple, to his God, the Companions who rebuilt a desecrated Temple, and the finding of the Word that was lost. The gold, silver, and azure colors represent the sun, moon, and Worshipful Master, the first that rules the day, the second, the night, and the third, the lodge. While silver, connected with the letter Gimel or G and being surrounded on an azure ground by a golden glory, reminds the Mason of the letter G, a most conspicuous furnishing of a proper lodge room. The shield on the eagle’s breast affirms by its colors, valor (red), purity (white), and justice (blue), and reminds the Mason of the cardinal virtues. The value of these colors, by gematria, is 103, the value of the phrase ehben ha-Adam (the stone of Adam) and suggests the perfect ashlar, or squared stone, of Freemasonry. One hundred and three is also the value of the noun bonaim, a Rabbinical word signifying ‘builders, Masons.’ Thus the national colors spell out, by gematria, the name of the fraternity. The scroll in the eagle’s beak, bearing the words E Pluribus Unum (of many one) reminds him also of the unity which has made brothers of many.
“On the reserve, is the All-Seeing Eye within a triangle surrounded by a golden glory. Besides the obvious Masonic significance of this design, it has a cabalistic value of seventy plus three plus two hundred, equaling two hundred and seventy-three which is the value of the phrase ehben mosu habonim (the stone which the builders refused) familiar to all Royal Arch Masons. It is also the value of the Hebrew proper noun Hiram Abiff, the architect of Solomon’s Temple and the principal character of the legend used in the Master Mason degree. The triangle is isosceles, formed by two right triangles having sides of five, twelve, and thirteen units in length, illustrating the 47th Problem of Euclid. The triangle also represents the capstone of the unfinished pyramid and reminds the Mason of the immortality of the soul and that in eternity he will complete the capstone of his earthly labors according to the designs on the trestle-board of the Supreme Architect of the Universe. The unfinished pyramid cannot fail to remind him of the unfinished condition of the Temple when tragedy struck down its Master architect.
“The blaze of glory found on either side of the Great Seal cannot fail to remind the Mason of the Great Light in Masonry which is the rule and guide to faith and practice and without which no Masonic lodge can exist. It reminds him that only more light can dispel the pall of ignorance in which he stumbles until he enters the Celestial Lodge where all light is given.”
The Great Seal was established by a resolution of the Continental Congress on June 20, 1782; and, without any essential change in design, it has been in continuous use up to the present day.
The first document to which it is known to have been affixed was one dated September 16, 1782, granting full authority to General George Washington to arrange with the British for an exchange of prisoners of war.
Although the Great Seal had been in service since the year of 1782, it was not official until seven years later when on September 15, 1789, Congress passed a law declaring it to be the official seal of the United States. In the same year the Secretary of State appointed the custodian of the dies and press of the Great Seal. The custodian keeps the seal under lock and key when it is not in official use.
In the complex and beautiful symbolism of the Great Seal we see the strength and purpose of the United States carefully inscribed. We must not be blinded by familiarity, and, thereby, allow the lesson of the Great Seal to escape. As we see the mission and meaning of Masonry clearly embodied in Masonic symbols, so we can see the high destiny of America in the Great Seal of the United States.

The most revealing part is the explanation by the higher ranking mason, James D. Carter. Regarding the symbolism Carter emphasizes an occult interpretation, and writes that it will be evident to the “informed Mason.” First, he says that the number of feathers on the two wings and tail allude to the union between American and French Freemasonry, the common struggle for “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.” Indeed, this phrase had originated within the French lodges even before the French Revolution. It is a contradiction in terms, however. One cannot have complete equality without giving up certain liberties, and vice versa:

“Communism, which is the application of the principle of absolute Equality, regards humanity only in the mass, and would cut all men down to one dead level; Anarchy, which proclaims complete Liberty, would leave every man free to live as he pleases, to do as he will with his own, to rob or to murder. The former is rigid bureaucracy; the latter, Individualism run mad”

– Nesta Webster, World Revolution: The Plot against Civilization, 7th edition, 1994, p. 123.

In 1790, the words nationalism and communism were invented to “define the simpler, more sublime, seemingly less selfish ideals of fraternity and equality, respectively” (James H. Billington, Fire in the Minds of Men, p. 4). Social revolutionaries have been using these idealogical slogans ever since. It is important to realize that Liberty has been a battle cry since the sixteenth-century in Holland, then in seventeenth-century England and again in eighteenth-century America. The collectivist ideal—forming a revolutionary triad by including the masonic-inspired equality and fraternity—had only surfaced during the bloody revolutions in France.
As the Jacobin atrocities began, the cry of “Vive notre Roi d’Orleans” gave way to the masonic revolutionary slogan “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternity.” The tricolor national flag of France, in turn, was replaced by the red flag of socialism. The campaign against religion, the massacre of the priests, the storming of the Bastille; venerating the dead was moved from “open Christian graveyards into closed pagan pantheons”; more than three hundred thousand Frenchmen “from all over the country” marched “in procession through driving rain to hear a vast chorus commend the unified French nation to the Sun”; at the “Feast of Indivisibility” in August 1793, the predawn gathering in the Champs de Mars “watched the sun rise over the statue of Nature.” The Cathedral of Notre Dame was looted and converted into a Temple of Reason; Robespierre, the master of terror, subsequently declared a new state religion in 1794: The Cult of the Supreme Being. (See Billington, op, cit., Chapter 2: Locus of Legitimacy, pp. 24-53.) As the famous Scottish Rite Freemason Albert Pike, had said: “[Freemasonry] aided in bringing about the French Revolution.” Author Phillip D. Collins reiterates, “Indeed, the French Revolution represented the first full-scale attempt to tangibly enact the Masonic vision of a ‘scientific dictatorship.'”
Carter goes into the Kabbalah to give meaning behind the added values of sixty-five for the combined feathers on both of the eagle’s wings. This, he says, gives the equivalent of “together in unity,” signifying the first degree of Freemasonry. The meaning behind the 24 sections of the “Glory” above the eagle, and the colors used throughout the seal have masonic meaning if gematria and the Kabbalah are consulted.
The five-pointed stars and the combination of the thirteen stars forming a hexagram are also significant to Carter. He says that the “five pointed stars remind [the mason] of the Masonic Blazing Star and the five points of fellowship.” The five points of fellowship has many significant meanings. It teaches the story of the masonic legend of Hiram Abiff and the ritual rebirth of the candidate:

“Hiram’s grave lay in the lodge and contained secrets … the five points of fellowship embrace recalled the raising of the body from the grave. A central theme in many initiation ceremonies was ritual death and rebirth, the transition celebrated being regarded as of such fundamental importance that it involved the candidate’s death in one state and his birth into another. Putting these points together, it is likely that the seventeenth-century masonic ritual involved the candidate in some sort of ritual death, and subsequent raising from the dead or being born again into the world of masonry through being lifted from the grave in the five points of fellowship embrace.”

– David Stevenson, The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland’s Century, 1590-1710, pp.160-1

The five points of fellowship is mirrored in modern day Wicca as well:

“… both Masons and witches today refer to their cult as ‘the Craft.’ The Third Degree of the witches refers to ‘the Five Points of Fellowship,’ just as the Third Degree of Freemasonry does, though with a rather different meaning. In the third Degree initiation, the candidate is blindfolded, has a cable-tow placed about the neck and is admitted upon the point of a sharp instrument, in both Gardnerian witchcraft and Freemasonry.”

– Valiente, Doreen (1989). The Rebirth of Witchcraft, London: Robert Hale, pp. 55-56. (Source)

Raven Grimassi, in the Encyclopedia of Wicca & Witchcraft, finds similarity between the images, symbols and tools of Freemasonry with those of the ancient cult of Mithras; and another correlation between the masonic five points of fellowship and the Orphic statue of Mithras which was divided into “five segments by a serpent coiled around his feet, knees, chest, back and head” (p. 171). Mithras—it is well worth noting—was a god who had the power to end one cosmic cycle and begin a new one. The power to bring about a transformative renewal into a new age.
According to Robert Hieronimus, the world’s foremost authority on the Great Seal, the whole design is meant as a symbolic representation of America’s secret destiny. He received a doctorate from the Saybrook Institute in 1981 for his thesis, An Historic Analysis of the Reverse of the American Great Seal and Its Relationship to the Ideology of Humanistic Psychology. Dr. Hieronimus’ research has been used in “the speeches, literature, and libraries of the White House (1976, 1982), the State Department (1978), and the Department of Interior (1982). His Independence Hall speech on the Great Seal’s bicentennial was published in the Congressional Record (1983, 1984), and his research was shared in a personal meeting with the late Egyptian President Anwar El-Sadat.”
Hieronimus founded the Aquarian University of Maryland in 1969. It was the only State approved center for the study of occult subjects. Offering certificates in Religious Metaphysics, Occult Sciences and the Mystical Arts, Hieronimus had taught a tarot card course there. The AUM Esoteric Study Center included Savitria, a New Age commune. A PBS documentary was filmed about Hieronimus in 1971: “Artist of Savitria.”
As a psychedelic artist, Hieronimus painted the Woodstock Bus in 1968. It incorporates most of the major subject matter of his later artwork. Afterwards, he was commissioned to paint a series of murals which include themes about the Great Seal, Freemasonry and the founding fathers, the new age, a new world order and a plethora of occult, Egyptian symbolism.
On the Great Seal, the work of Dr. Hieronimus centers around Rosicrucian, secret society and Theosophical interpretations. In America, The Cradle of the 6th Root Race – Its Spiritual Heritage, Hieronimus explores the Great Seal from the point of view of the Ageless Wisdom Teachings. It includes many of the themes present in his later work, America’s Secret Destiny: Spiritual Vision and the Founding Of A Nation. America, to occultists like Hieronimus, represents the manifestation of a Divine Plan: a new continent, a new beginning—set aside to herald the dawning of a new race of “God-men.” This is the sort of vision Hieronimus communicates when he is received by government officials seeking an authoritative interpretation of the symbolism embodied in America’s Great Seal.
America’s central role in the manifestation of a New Order of the Ages is shared by many of the elite today. Jim Garrison is one of them. He’s the founder of the Gorbachev Foundation and the president of the State of the World Forum. In a February, 2004 interview for Lightworks magazine, Garrison spoke about the Baconian vision of America:

“… who was the first person in history in Europe to really understand the magnitude of what was going to happen in North America? There’ve been thousands of nations. There’ve been maybe 20 or 25 empires and there’s two that have emerged to the front rank of empire. That was Rome 2000 years ago and America today. The aggregation of power is so immense, that you’ve got to ask some deeper questions about how it happened here. Why did it happen here as opposed to Russia or China or Brazil? So I went back to the history books and asked the question, ‘Who was it? What was the original visionary imprint of what became the United States of America?’ It came actually from Francis Bacon, who was one of the great mystics of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. He wrote a book right before he died that was unpublished because he died very soon thereafter, called New Atlantis. He believed and asserted that the North American Indians were the survivors and descendants of the original Atlantean civilization, and he called to mind that Atlantis had risen to global power and then been destroyed because of its hubris. So whatever was going to be built in North America would be Atlantean in its basic archetypal pattern and destiny path, and at some point it was going to rise to the level global dominion. Then it would, like ancient Atlantis, have to make a choice between power for the sake of service and power for the sake of more power, and as it decided, the fate of the world would be determined.
It’s also worth remembering that the founding fathers of the United States, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, etc., were all Masons and Rosicrucians. They were all students of Bacon. They believed that what they were creating was the new Atlantis, the new Israel, the new Rome, the new Athens, and they consciously set forth to build a nation around light and power. Look on the back of a dollar bill and see the pyramid and the all-seeing Eye of Horus. It’s important for Americans to understand that we were born out of a mystical vision of human perfection that was basically Atlantean in its impulse. So the challenge today is to reconnect with the Wisdom Tradition that gave rise to Atlantis, that gave rise to the United States of America, and that is ultimately an esoteric pursuit. In order for us to survive the politics of Bush and the Neo-Conservatives we have to bring to the fore the wisdom of the founding fathers. That’s the connection with someone like Carolyn. She’s writing a book which I think will come out in 2005 on the sacred contract of America. It will be a sort of mystical history of the United States. What I’ve done in my book is to trace this Atlantean vision of Francis Bacon and tell the story of how Bacon influenced our founding fathers, and how we have a mystical vision as the origin of the American experiment. Carolyn and I are not only good friends going back some twenty years, but we’re similarly convinced that we have in our generation come to the fullness of time.”

This “New Atlantis” isn’t some sort of beneficial, utopian plan for the benefit of the common man. Jim Garrison subscribes to the proposals put forth by Gorbachev for the creation of a Global Brain Trust. It is a belief rooted in the Saint-Simonian vision of an authoritarian elite who are tasked with the scientific reorganization of society. The upper-class intellectuals alone have the knowledge and genes necessary to transform politics, human society and culture. The pyramid on the back of the dollar bill does not represent the “democratic way,” as Elmer W. Claypool would have us believe. The pyramid is a classic symbol for an authoritative, hierarchical system.

The Shadows Within: Humanity’s Dark Fascination With the Hollow Earth

The Shadows Within: Humanity’s Dark Fascination With the Hollow Earth

• http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/12/the-shadows-within-humanitys-dark-fascination-with-the-hollow-earth/
•  December 22, 2015
•  Micah Hanks

 

Few of the great fears held by humankind in our path to modernity would rival that of our long dread for the darkness. Fortunately, with the daily cycle of the Earth’s rotation, we are only bathed in that blackness for a few hours at a time. Hence, over the long course of its evolution, humanity has worked mostly by the waking hours, having learned to hide ourselves away as the light recedes, and take our rest during the hours where dangers of the dark become most prevalent.

However, there are places where the darkness may linger indefinitely. Despite the grottos and caves that have served as home to humans since time immemorial, straying too far into the cavernous depths takes us into a world unseen, and one which holds its court by an everlasting darkness. Perhaps it is this continual darkness of the cavernous realms below that helped foster such fascination with the idea of an underworld, and of dark subterranean places which never see the daylight we humans live for.

In a recent article I featured here at Mysterious Universe, I discussed a series of Scottish legends pertaining to cannibals that, with little doubt, seem to have had an impact on motifs which periodically appear in modern horror films. Specifically, these incorporate humans (or subhumans, at times) existing within caverns who subsist off of cannibalizing others; namely, this is apparent in Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes (1977), although similar themes appear in later films like Ravenous (1999) and The Descent (2005). 

The idea of cavernous realms beneath us has, of course, a much broader history than that which only modern films allow. Spiritual though the intended tone had been, Dante’s Inferno nonetheless features the poet Virgil leading the narrator on a quest into the underworld, in which Nine Circles of Hell are revealed to him. This is no doubt formed from a basis of traditions in which the spiritual notion of “Hell” is oriented below us, in juxtaposition against a heavenly world residing above, from which God and the angelic legions look down upon humanity from a graceful, spiritually-elevated state.

The notion of a Hollow Earth has remained a very important staple in science fiction works ever-after, ranging from the writings of Edgar Rice Burroughs and his 1914 offering At the Earth’s Core, and more famously, Jules Verne, who addressed the subject in his novel Journey to the Center of the Earth, spawning numerous screen adaptations and similar reworking in various media over the years. Even the American poet and author Edgar Allan Poe, in his only novel-length manuscript, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, addressed the Hollow Earth motif.

Throughout the late 1940s, American auto assembly worker Richard Sharp Shaver’s contributions to the magazine Amazing Stories (inspired in large part by his own delusional fantasies resulting from schizophrenia) captured the eye of Ray Palmer, who worked the narratives into a popular series of tales referred to as “The Shaver Mystery”, which told of warring races of ancient beings called the Teros and, on the more wicked side, the Deros, whose battles below ground often brought unsuspecting humans into the fray. Even today, such themes are found to reappear in stories like Jeff Long’s novel The Descent (which, curiously, and fine book though it is, seems to have no relation to the 2005 horror film of the same name).

However, along the way there have been those of a mind that the Hollow Earth and its riddles were more than merely the stuff of fantasy writing. Earlier legends which predate the writings of Verne, Burroughs, and even Dante tell of ancient mythic races which carried out their affairs from below ground, a theme which had been of central focus among the occult groups which became influential amidst the underpinnings of what led to formation of the Nazi party. Author and researcher Peter Levenda, in his exhaustive study of Nazi occult history, Unholy Alliance, tells of these earlier traditions which colored the later political ideas which formed around the Reich:

“[W]e find ourselves back in familiar ground with the ancient legend of Agartha—or Arktogäa—the subterranean kingdom of an alien race buried deep within the Himalayas or somewhere in the far North (at any rate, in the appropriately Nordic frozen wastes), another Aryan “Thule.” Years before H.G. Wells described a similar race of beings in his novel The Time Machine, the English author and Rosicrucian Bulwer-Lytton (1802-73) was writing of a subterranean master race in his celebrated novel, Vril. All of this is mentioned only to show that these concepts of secret master race and subterranean kingdoms are not peculiar to German or even Nordic legend and myth, and certainly not to Nazi ideology, but form part of a global tradition that may have some basis in reality; a basis that is now dimmed by the passage of too many millennia to place it clearly and authoritatively into a modern perspective. The völkisch theorists were merely drawing from a bank of myth and tradition familiar the world over, and sculpting from selected pieces a cosmological worldview that placed the German-speaking peoples at the top of a pyramid of power.”

Apart from the Nazi occult establishment’s fascination with such traditions, such beliefs have also entertained the minds of many intrepid explorers over the years, such as John Cleves Symmes Jr, who in 1818 made his own declaration that the Earth was hollow in a circular published during the aforementioned year. Of this odd treatise, in October 2015, Eric Grundhauser, writing for Atlas Obscura, featured a detailed article in celebration of “underground week” that addressed a number of the modern Hollow Earth motifs, which included Symmes’ Hollow Earth aspirations.

Grundhauser explains:

Symmes, a veteran of the War of 1812 and unsuccessful trader, soon became maybe the most famous and successful proponent of the Hollow Earth theory. His initial vision of the Earth’s interior was like a simplified version of Halley’s multi-layered model, with the exception that Symmes’ version included huge holes at the North and South poles which allowed access to the hidden world inside. These holes, his unique addition to Hollow Earth theory, would even come to be known as “Symmes Holes.”

Remarkably, similar notions about entrances to the Earth’s interior via its poles have arisen even more recently than Symmes’ theories, which date back to the early 19th century. With little doubt, those which followed had been informed by the previous myths, and recurring themes such as the “Symmes Holes” would later be reworked into the mythos surrounding Admiral Richard E. Byrd, based on such vague statements that Byrd allegedly made such as, “I’d like to see that land beyond the (North) Pole. That area beyond the Pole is the Center of the Great Unknown.”

R.W. Bernard, Ph.D, ascribed his own interpretation of Byrd’s statements in his book The Hollow Earth, in which he speculated that Byrd’s “area beyond the Pole” had, in fact, been the hollow interior of the Earth:

The only way that we can understand Byrd’s enigmatical statements is if we discard the traditional conception of the formation of the earth and entertain an entirely new one, according to which its Arctic and Antarctic extremities are not convex but concave, and that Byrd entered into the polar concavities when he went beyond the Poles. In other words, he did not travel across the Poles to the other side, but entered into the polar concavity or depression, which, as we shall see later in this book, opens to the hollow interior of the earth, the home of plant, animal and human life, enjoying a tropical climate. This is the “Great Unknown” to which Byrd had reference when he made this statement – and not the ice – and snow-bound area on the other side of the North Pole, extending to the upper reaches of Siberia.

There have long been conspiracy theories associated with Admiral Byrd, and his alleged concerns about Earth’s southernmost extremities: these range from claims that Byrd, like many in legends before him, had managed to discover a polar entrance to our planet’s inner domains, to the admittedly wacky idea of a secret Nazi base in Antarctica, from which the Reich’s secret battalion of flying saucers were being operated.

The truth, from a purely historical angle, is a bit simpler: Byrd had considered the South Pole to be an area of concern following the Second World War, due to its strategic importance in terms of location. Interviews he had given around that time, however, have been grossly misinterpreted to mean that he actually believed there had been a physical danger he encountered there during the failed Operation Highjump, (also known as The United States Navy Antarctic Developments Program) underway between 1946–1947. A number of hollow earth theorists nonetheless maintain that Byrd’s discoveries had involved either a post-war Nazi contingency at the South Pole, or perhaps legions of hollow-earthers swarming out of a massive Symmes’ Hole… or maybe even some bizarre amalgamation of the aforementioned.

Proliferation of the idea that our planet is hollow continues even to this day. As recently as 2012, the so-called North Pole Inner Earth Expedition was operating a website which sought to garner funding for a literal expedition in search of one of Symmes’ entrances to the inner earth. Blogger Sharon Hill of Doubtful News noted around that time that, “It’s OK to entertain the idea of legends. They are romantic and exciting and they tell us MOST about the people who recounted them. But when you are dealing with lives and money and huge efforts, to be irresponsible in presenting the justification… to the public is unethical and shady. It’s false advertising at the least, potential fraud at its worst.”

Mirroring Sharon’s sentiments, it’s hard not to find the idea of legends pertaining to a Hollow Earth” fascinating, and even enjoyable. However, in the modern era of scientific understanding in which we abide, it is strange to consider the persistent belief among many that there are literal caverns throughout the inner earth which might be populated by ancient, crypto-terrestrial races or groups. Second only, in truth, to the renewed interest we’ve seen among “flat earth” proponents lately, and the persistent refuse that self-ascribed “flat earth truthers” continue to offer, even in recent months.

On a humorous side note, I was recently told by Kyle Philson, one of the hosts of the Expanded Perspectives Podcast, that he recently sustained a (small) swarm of cancellations to their podcast’s subscription service, due to a recent remark he had made about flat earth theories being absurd… which they are. (For more on this, I do advise checking out my articles here and here, in which I give a breakdown of the silliness behind these theories, and why some have decided to try and rekindle the debate over the globular form of our planet).

Noting the odd beliefs that are often appended to such things as a “Hollow Earth” isn’t to say that much of the inner earth isn’t worthy of future study, of course. Innumerable caverns and caves which exist below parts of the United States, particularly states like Tennessee, are believed to be home to countless undocumented species, mostly ranging from crickets and centipedes, to various other small amphibians, as well as a host of different microscopic organisms… all of which are somewhat less tantalizing than alleged “lost” or “hidden” races of intelligent beings, the likes of which appear in the various hollow earth legends that have accumulated over the years.

With the literal existence of cavernous portions of the Earth below us yet to be explored and catalogued, it is perhaps with little surprise that we recognize the familiarity this idea of a “Hollow Earth” sees even in the present day. Whether or not it is justified in fact, our fascination with the idea of a world below, and one that is thus kept within the eternal cover of darkness, seems to have prevailed over the centuries, and remains largely unshaken even today.

THE TRANSHUMANISM SCRAPBOOK: RESEARCHERS WORKING ON UPLOADING PERSONAL ...   ~ hehe if "they" would just go UP 2 the N~Pole & geet an 'interview' wit the good Herr Dr.  (if "they" could geet 'his' fucking monster 2 STOP chas~in His ass 'round ) Lol  ..perhaps He/Herr Dr. ...could shed some light on the WHOLE ...thing ?  Hehe   oh Dr.   ?  gooooood Dr. ??  ....

Posted on December 22, 2015 by Joseph P. Farrell •http://gizadeathstar.com/2015/12/the-transhumanism-scrapbook-researchers-working-on-uploading-personal-memories-into-robots/

When my co-author Scott D deHart and I wrote Transhumanism: A Grimoire of Alchemical Agendas, one of the things we focused on was Percy Shelley's Frankenstein, and yes, I said Percy Shelley's, not Mary Shelley's, Frankenstein, for its our thesis (which Dr. deHart ably argued in his book on the authorship of the celebrated novel, Shelley Unbound) that Percy was indeed the secret author of the work. The work was as most know a novel of science run amok, promising great things, and creating more problems than it pretended to solve. We also argued in our book that the transhumanists were seeking the technologies that would allow humanity to "outflank mortality" as it were, one of them being the idea of storing all of a person's memories into a databse, to be uploaded elsewhere.
The dream - or nightmare - is fast becoming a reality as this article shared by Ms. S.H. indicates:
Researchers Working on Technology to Bring Dead Back to Life
As we also pointed out in our book, the transhumanist agenda relies upon four basic technologies called the GRIN technologies - genetics, robotics, information technology, and nanotechnology - in various combinations, and that indeed is what is being done here:

Humai, a technology company based in Los Angeles, says that it is working on a project known as “Atom & Eve” that would let human consciousness be transferred to an artificial body after their death.
Artificial intelligence, the most important and major discovery of science will be one of the most helpful things in the whole project. The Humai have already started working on human rebirth using artificial intelligence.
The three technologies collectively used by the tech giant company are “Nanotechnology, bionics & artificial intelligence”. The company is expecting the whole system to be ready in 3 decades and, of course, this type of work requires this much time.

And all this in turn to be accomplished by the cryogenic freezing of an individual's brain, for transplant into a new robotic body and "reactivation" when the time is right:

The tech company further says that the cloning technology of science will be able to restore the brain as it matures. Their vision on their website is “Humai is an AI company with a mission to reinvent the afterlife. We want to bring you back to life after you die.”
While talking to Australian Popular Science Bocanegra said that the brain of the dead will be frozen using cryonics technology and when their technology is fully developed and ready, they will embed the frozen bone back but into an artificial body which would be fully capable of living as the deceased used to.

As we pointed out in our book however, all this is based on the implicit assumption that the brain is the locus of the mind and personality, and that, indeed, the sum total of one's memories sums up to the person itself, a proposition which I personally find dubious, for built into this proposition is that when the body-brain dies, personhood itself dies with it. The notion is common to much science, but is somewhat of a novelty, and a very recent on at that, in the history of human thought, philosophy and religion. I suspect that eventually even if such technologies come online and prove superficially "successful," that soon people will discover that these "artifically-extended" personalities will lack something - perhaps inchoate and unformulable - and that this lack will indicate that not all of such an individual has been captured and extended. If that happens, the problems inherent with a purely materialistic basis for the understanding of mind, consciousness, or personhood will be exposed. What might be preserved by such means, in other words, is a similacrum of the person, a persona, not a person.
There's something else I've pointed out before, and that is the opposite danger: that such techniques might work in toto, causing the "virtually immortal" individual to grow tired and weary of life, a weariness that might manifest itself in increasingly sociopathic behaviors: what value has life if everyone is immortal, and can "cheat" death technologically? With such "virtual immortality" also comes the possibility of a vast expansion of human knowledge, an expansion that, coupled with possibly increasingly psychotic behaviors, could rip society apart in apocalyptic paroxysms. And should such a technology be open to all? The rich and powerful will surely be the first with access to it, and indeed I've raised the high octane speculative possibility that some aspects of it may already be in their grasp, given the longevity of some of them.  The rich and powerful have a kind of unique class disregard for humanity which they hide behind pseudo-philanthropic trusts and foundations. How does one prevent the technology from proliferating and falling into the wrong hands: do we want to see ISIS with it? Hitler? Stalin? Mao? Notably, when one looks at such transhumanist companies and their goals, one never finds any deep consideration - or any consideration, deep, shallow, or otherwise - of such moral and social issues.  And the necessity of debate and discussion is every bit as necessary and important here as it is with other issues - cloning, genetic modifications, and so on - if not much more so.