Black Spot - "origins"

The Black Spot is a literary device invented by Robert Louis Stevenson for his novel "Treasure Island." In the book, pirates are presented with a "black spot" to officially pronounce a verdict of guilt or judgment. It consists of a circular piece of paper or card, with one side blackened while the other side bears a message and placed in the hand of the accused. It was a source of much fear because it meant the pirate was to be deposed as leader, by force if necessary... or else killed outright.

The origin of Stevenson's Black Spot might be in the historical tradition of Caribbean pirates of showing an Ace of Spades to a person condemned as traitor or informer. The card was putting the person dangerously "on the spot", as the ace bears a single pip.

In 2004, Adbusters began selling vegan, indy shoes. The name and logo are "open-source"; in other words, unencumbered by private trademarks. Attached to each pair was a leaflet – "Rethink the Cool" inviting wearers to join a movement, and two spots – one for drawing their own logos and another on the toe for "kicking corporate ass."

Now on the sixth anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, Adbusters is throwing a billion person soirée, to celebrate… and you’re invited! Follow the black spot for more info...

Black Spot

Net-Based Power Bloc

Corporatocracy prefers Civil War to Social Revolution

Corporatocracy is a recent term used to refer to an economic and political system controlled by corporations or corporate interests. It is most often used today as a term to describe the current economic situation in a particular country, especially the United States. This is different from corporatism, which is the organization of society into groups with common interests. Corporatocracy as a term is often used by observers across the political spectrum.

- Wikipedia

In a recent post on the wonderful and illuminating weblog: Groupname for Grapejuice, the great social commentator and Joycean scholar, known obliquely as: Znore, outlined with brilliant clarity, the critical difference between a sub-cultural phenomenon, such as the so-called: Alt-Right… and a true, bona fide, honest-to-god counter-cultural revolution. The following excerpts are from an essay titled: Broke & Woke, wherein Znore has artfully articulated our evolving zeitgeist. Please enjoy…

The alt-right argument is essentially that the counterculture of the 1960s, which was in every respect liberal, has (since when exactly?) become the dominant culture. It is now conservatives and people on the right in general who are the cultural revolutionaries.

The dominant culture, the argument goes, has become so liberal, so politically correct, so intolerant of traditional values, so globalized, that it is only the right that offers any sort of genuine alternative. It is now the right… and more accurately the hardcore far right… that is truly different, that is edgy, that is new, that is hip. Everything else is awash in and captured by identity politics; paradoxically puritanical and utterly degenerate, riddled rotten with hypocrisy.

But while there is some legitimacy in its critique of the dominant “liberal” culture, and this needs to be examined closely, it is entirely inaccurate to call the alt-right a counterculture. The alt-right argument goes very wrong, and misleadingly so, with its first premise. This, intentionally or not, consists of a mistaken view of the original 1960s counterculture.

An authentic counterculture (regardless of inevitable Agency infiltration and misdirection within it) did emerge in the 1960s; and it can be called authentic not because it was liberal, but because it was anti-war, anti-corporate, anti-imperialist, anti-police state and opposed to anything that would seek to place bounds on the limits of consciousness. And in fact it was largely directed against an Establishment that fashioned itself as being liberal.

When the system (read: corporatocracy) enters into a period of crisis, as it did in the 1930s, as it did in the 1960s, and as it has been in since 2008, it chooses from a handful of available strategies. If the crisis is primarily economic, like it was in the 1930s, it seeks either to cut off slack (namely reforms won the people in previous struggles) by implementing austerity programs or, if the movement against it becomes too powerful, by preempting revolution with the introduction of “reforms” and “benefits.”

And likewise, if the crisis is primarily cultural, like it was in the 1960s, it seeks to co-opt and direct any authentically revolutionary elements to consumerism and empty platitudes. And when the crisis, as it has been since at least 2008, is in nearly equal measure economic and cultural it deploys all of the above. And in all cases it does what it is the very best at: dividing and conquering.

Since 2008, or perhaps 2001 yet stemming back for decades, the internationally-coordinated response from the global 0.001% has been a combination of austerity, fear, hyper-consumerism and constant distraction.

The articulated goal worldwide is the “Chinese model” ie: police-state capitalism with constant intervention in the markets by the central government, which in turn justifies its repressive actions through the use of nationalist propaganda. It is basically a historical truism that when a state goes into crisis that it seeks by propaganda to direct the anger of its people outward in order to deflect anger away from itself. But if a viable outside enemy is unavailable, it far prefers civil war to social revolution.

The original article from whence these excerpts came is a must-read for those discerning readers who seek social clarity and political perspective in these troubled times. The original article must be read in its entirety. Follow the link to read the unabridged post…

Broke & Woke

Contact in the Desert 2017 - A Cultural Ethnography - Pt 2 "Fear & Loathing"

Joshua Tree, California is approximately 875 miles due West of Roswell, New Mexico. It is 300 miles due South of the highly classified Air Force facility, infamously known as: Area 51. The alleged events and subsequent notoriety of these two sites have almost single-handedly formed and informed modern American UFOlogy. The chronicled lore of these two sites were foundational... their broad acceptance in modern Pop culture were what made an event like Contact in the Desert 2017 possible.

Joshua Tree is also 175 due miles South of Las Vegas, Nevada. Not long ago, the infamy of “Sin City” was added to, by a very different chronicle of a wild, psychedelic, drug-fueled nature. This chronicle of High Weirdness was titled: “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream” written by the founder of Gonzo Journalism, Hunter S Thompson.

Are the events surrounding Contact in the Desert 2017, in some way synchronously linked to the events chronicled in “Fear & Loathing?” We shall see, dear reader… we shall see. Consider this…

As you recall from part one of this Ethnography… in the late spring of 2017 my attorney and personal Guru, the charismatic Agent 87 & I traveled to the outskirts of Joshua Tree National Forest, and set up a tekgnostic outpost/vending booth… booth #23… at the fifth annual Contact in the Desert. Over the course of the event, we met and networked with an amazing assortment of conference attendees. We conversed with crypto currency aficionados, new-age media marketers, cosmically connected world travelers, Bay Area rave-scene kingpins and old-school zine publishers.

The divergent thought streams present at Contact 2017, soon coalesced into an EPIC weekend of exploration of Consciousness. Although we were warmly received by most of the event-goers, we fielded some rather strange and discombobulated lines of questioning, from a few. Apparently, and to some, the idea of Tek-Gnostics was indeed quite unsettling. Over the weekend, a pattern emerged in the odd reactions of these few.

The Tek-Gnostics “branding” at Contact 2017 included our logo... the Orphic Egg, superimposed over a psychedelic moon, with a surrounding tek infused, indigo aura. The overt symbolism of this design indicates a blend of contemporary information technology with the ancient mysteries. Accompanying our logo was the legend:

“Intelligence Engineering - Psychonautics - Consciousness Hacking.”

It soon became clear that there were some at Contact 2017 who had concerns, even feared… that “intelligence engineering” was somehow akin to mind control. Perhaps the connotation was of social engineering, NLP, eugenics or some such concern. This echoed a native, dark undercurrent of fear and suspicion within the broader UFO community. This fear (& loathing) takes the form of a variety of tales of conspiracy: Operation Paperclip, Mk-Ultra, Chem-trails, Black Ops (& men in black), the governmental cover-up of the existence of extra-terrestrials, breakaway civilizations… etc.

Now a very compelling, inspirational motivation within the UFO community is what is known as “Disclosure.” This description is from the Wikipedia group-mind: “In the early 2000s, the concept of “disclosure” became increasingly popular in the UFO conspiracy community: that the government had suppressed information on alien contact and full disclosure was needed, and was pursued by activist lobbying groups.” Steven M. Greer, one of the presenters at Contact 2017 has championed this thought-stream since 1993, when he founded the Disclosure Project.

I am not a huge fan of disclosure, as it implies mediation, if not subjugation of the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligences, to governmental agencies. I am not saying that government entities don’t “know things” …rather, I intuit that the demand of a citizenry upon any government for disclosure implies compliance to an authority (and assumed competency) that governments simply do not possess. Beyond the unsavory implication of conspiracy, it is not clear that any governmental body would possess the expertise and wisdom to be an intermediary to extra-terrestrial entities.  

Universe is a strange & wondrous place... and extra-terrestrial contact likely involves forays into extra-dimensional and/or psychedelic realms. Arguably, past government involvement in psychedelia demonstrates a lack of discerning expertise in this field (more on the extra-dimensional and/or psychedelic aspects, in a future installment of this Ethnography).

So there was this small contingent of event-goers who were unsettled by Tek-Gnostics. Those from this contingent who perused our book offering: The Tek-Gnostics Heresies also took issue with the notion of Technological Singularity, mentioned on the back cover. Here was a related, fear-driven undercurrent, illuminating our collective angst over an uncertain future. This angst was brilliantly represented in the TV series: the X-files “Fight the Future” myth-arc.

In part one of this series, we touched upon the New Age flavor of Contact 2017. Within the community was a robust Ascension Movement representation. After interacting with event-goers and attending such presentations as Laura Eisenhower’s “The Necessity of these Times” a clear conspiratorial distrust of the Technological Singularity and the rise of Artificial Intelligence was evident. With the ascension movement, came the conspiracy of human ascension vs AI assimilation.

Simply put, the concept suggests that the worldly powers that be… the worldly Archons and their globalist minions… are in their last gasps of power. They desperately cling to their remaining influence, as the new paradigm ascends. Within the ascension movement scenario, singularity, AI, and transhumanism are considered a ploy or trap to lure humanity. Any embrace of a man/machine merger would be a Borg-like assimilation, controlled by the globalist Archons.

The ascension movement opposes such, in favor on an organic rise in consciousness and vibration, where humanity enjoys a renaissance of spirit, in alliance with the rise of the Great Mother… the Gaian energies that are poised to supplant the failing, patriarchal paradigm. Any embrace of Archonic technologies, while alluring to some, prolong the Archon’s hold on power.

With the ultimate triumph of Gaian energies and the new paradigm, comes the resultant Breakaway Civilization conspiracy. This conspiratorial mythology is rooted in the actions of Post WWII Nazis, fleeing Europe and taking their secret technologies with them. The Nazi Rat-lines trail to South America and Antarctica, where secret Nazi bases facilitate the scientific development of off-world capabilities. Other developed countries, such as the US, Great Britain and China, following the Nazi lead, develop their own secret space programs.

Thus the theory goes… there have developed, separately or in tandem, a whole off-the-books civilization secretly propagated by the powers that be, poised to break away from planet Earth.

You see men sailing on their ego trips

Blast off on their spaceships

Million miles from reality

No care for you, no care for me

-from “So Much Trouble In The World” by Bob Marley

As the New Earth blossoms, those rascally Archons and their minions need a place to go. Secret bases on the dark side of the Moon or on Mars, or somewhere… anywhere off-world, appear to be their option of choice. Opposite a New Earth vision, this scenario carries with it an expected environmental depletion and/or catastrophe. Such is the dark vision of Archonology.

Such conspiratorial angst… be it over Disclosure, Artificial Intelligence or Breakaway Civilizations, are understandable fears in a world where, what was once considered the wildest of conspiracy theories of the 20th century, proved to be all-too-true in the 21st century. What was once science fiction of the last century has become dystopian fact, in our Brave Noö World.

Did we find a definitive link between Hunter S Thompson's book and Contact 2017? Well... not exactly. However, the dark fear mongering, the negative Fear & Loathing mind-set need not prevail.

It up to each of us to develop our own mythologies, moving forward. As we have indicated before, we need to keep all our options open. We choose the cup half full. Technologies, like philosophies, are tools… artifacts of innovation. Moving into an uncertain future where AI will apparently play a major role, the human ambition must be to provide a stewardship for Earth and a stewardship of AI. This is the Intelligence Amplified path. This is the preferred mythology of Tek-Gnostics.

We also foresee and support the rise of Gaia. We choose a mythology of Human/Planet partnership. We include our energies in and toward a New Earth Paradigm. After all, I don’t know about you, but I don’t have or want a ticket aboard any break-away spaceship. I am happy to lend a hand right here aboard Spaceship Earth.

In our next installment of Contact in the Desert 2017 - A Cultural Ethnography, we will proceed further down the proverbial rabbit hole, in search of the fascinating community and mythology surrounding modern UFOlogy. Don't touch that dial, intrepid reader!

Part One   ~   Contact Aftermath   ~   Contact Travel Plans 

The 10 Dogmas

Conspiracy Culture International Special Edition: American Neo Nazi

Dateline: August 11, 2017 - Charlottesville, Virginia 

"Late Friday night, several hundred torch-bearing men and women marched on the main quadrangle of the University of Virginia’s grounds, shouting, “You will not replace us,” and “Jew will not replace us.” They walked around the Rotunda, the university’s signature building, and to a statue of Thomas Jefferson, where a group of counter-protesters were gathered, and a brawl ensued. At least one person was led away in handcuffs by the police."

- by Hawes Spencer & Sheryl Gay Stolberg - NYT

A significant percentage of the voting population (who bothered to turn out) in these United States, saw fit to elect Donald J Trump as president, back in the fall of 2016. Against all odds, his thinly veiled Fascist message resonated with enough voters. His election has since been a controversial one. A significant percentage of those who voted for Trump can be fairly typified as what the pop press calls: “Trump’s Base.”

The pop press has also typified this Base as “the Alt Right.” They further suggest that Alt Right is another word for “white supremacist.” Those who recently gathered under the American Fascist Movement’s campaign billed as: “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville were clearly just that… White Nationalists, Ku Klux Klansmen, Anti Semites… a broad assortment of your basic Neo-Nazi scum bags.

August 12, 2017 - Charlottesville, Virginia

"A car rammed into a crowd of protesters and a state police helicopter crashed into the woods Saturday as tension boiled over at a white supremacist rally. The violent day left three dead, dozens injured and this usually quiet college town a bloodied symbol of the nation's roiling racial and political divisions.

The chaos erupted around what is believed to be the largest group of white nationalists to come together in a decade — including neo-Nazis, skinheads, members of the Ku Klux Klan — who descended on the city to "take America back" by rallying against plans to remove a Confederate statue. Hundreds came to protest against the racism. There were street brawls and violent clashes; the governor declared a state of emergency, police in riot gear ordered people out and helicopters circled overhead."

- Sarah Rankin – AP

"This represents a turning point for the people of this country. We are determined to take our country back. We’re going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That’s what we believed in. That’s why we voted for Donald Trump. Because he said we’re going to take our country back, and that’s what we’re going to do."

- David Duke

What has become clear in the aftermath of this horrific event, especially in light of Trump’s Stunningly Milquetoast response to the Charlottesville violence, is that Trump has no intention of calling out the fast-organizing white supremacist movement in the United States. Although the Alt Right is not the exclusive population of Trump’s Base… they are a significant sector.

At this point, pop liberal opinion would point out that although Trump condemned violence “on many sides” …he did not come out with an immediate clear, decisive statement disavowing the white supremacist movement. Trump’s disinclination to “name the darkness” speaks for itself. Once he chose not to identify fascism, subsequent statements were inconsequential. He had his chance and he missed it.

Pop liberal opinion would then suggest that Trump does not want to upset his Base. This assessment stops short of what well may be going on in Trump’s strategic calculations. The age-old sentiment: “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it” comes to mind. In light of Trump’s reaction, and past atrocities, what horrific suspicion also comes to mind is this… Trump has plans for his most fanatical following.

Those who rallied around the “Unite the Right” flag in Charlottesville were well organized. Despite any Nationalist ideological variations, they all appeared to be exceedingly loyal to Trump. Given the apparent level of organization, similar numbers could assemble anywhere in America, at the slightest dog-whistle/tweet, coming from Trump’s twitter account. Such a well-organized group of fanatics such as those in Charlottesville could arguably be likened to, if not utilized as, Shock Troops… prepared to do their leader’s bidding. These Neo Nazi shock troops could be mobilized at a moments notice.

The following is from Wikipedia: "The Schutzstaffel (SS; literally "Protection Squadron") was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II. It began with a small guard unit known as the Saal-Schutz (Hall-Protection) made up of NSDAP volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich."

The similarities between the 1930’s era Saal-Schutz and those who gather at Trump rallies dutifully wearing “Make America White Great Again” hats, chanting (both pre and post election) “lock her up” …are to-the-bone chilling. Hitler’s shock troops, the SS, began as security guards at his early political rallies. Similarities between the SS and "unite the right" foot soldiers are obvious. In this day and age, it would not take much for an unscrupulous politician to take advantage of such devotion. Stranger, fouler and darker things have happened.

Absurd, you say… Trump would never go that extreme, would never resort to that level of violence to achieve his ends, would he?

If this scenario is not alarmist enough for you, dear reader… let us delve a little deeper into the esoterica surrounding Nazism. During the media coverage of the clash between “Unite the Right” thugs and “Anti-Hate” protesters… there appeared in the footage, an Alt-right-guy waving a large battle flag, emblazoned with the Schwarze Sonne or Black Sun symbol. 

From Wikipedia: 

"The term Black Sun (German Schwarze Sonne), also referred to as the Sonnenrad (German for "Sun Wheel"), is a symbol of esoteric and occult significance. Its ancient design is also found on a sun wheel mosaic incorporated into a floor of Wewelsburg Castle during the Nazi era. 

    

Allegedly, the (Black Sun) design was drawn for Heinrich Himmler from an "old Aryan emblem", and was meant to mimic the Round table of Arthurian legend with each spoke of the sun wheel representing one "knight" or Officer of the "inner" SS. The symbol of the Black Sun is purported to unite the three most important symbols of Nazi ideology - the sun wheel, the swastika and the stylized victory rune, and that it is symbolic in its form representing the twelve SS Knights of The Order of the Death's Head and their three retainers." 

Erich Halik was the first to link the esoteric SS with the Black Sun roundel insignia carried by German aircraft in the polar region at the close of World War II. The former SS member Wilhelm Landig of the Vienna Lodge (for a critical analysis, see VISUP’s series:  A Sun That Never Sets: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Landig Group) coined the idea of the Black Sun, a substitute swastika and mystical source of energy capable of regenerating the Aryan race." 

Speculation abounds within the world wide web, that ties the Black Sun to... not only Neo-Nazism but the esoteric Thule Society, Nazi secret weapons & UFO mythology, Secret Nazi bases in Antarctica, extra-terrestrial and ancient astronaut theory… the speculative list goes on & on. Research on such topics will provide hours of fascinating, if not disturbing reading.   

The appearance of the Black Sun flag at Charlottesville triggers deeper, esoteric thought streams. In synchromystic fashion, these symbols… appearing briefly as they do within pop media… may be viewed as more than coincidence. They become synchronistic flashes of prognosticating insight. They become indicators that point to the dark side of the High Weirdness that permeates modern culture… the culture of the fringe. In earlier posts, we identified this broader, Noö Culture as: Conspiracy Culture International.

We are experiencing massive cultural changes. These changes, rightly considered as zeitgeist, have been imposed upon us and are indicative of a global transformation that is greater than we yet realize. One symptom of this transformation is the abrupt disappearance of a stabilizing middle ground in cultural and political opinion. This coincides with the disappearance of 20th century jobs as the world retools, and the resulting disappearance of a middle-class existence.

The scope and speed of global transformation goes beyond anything we have experienced. The ascent of the fringe, the rise of Conspiracy Culture International is also a symptom that hastens Culture Wars as dark forces of the old paradigm, in their last death throws, attempt to cling to power.

The fringe’s Alt Right underground is a dangerous and scary element of the fringe as it exploits our current cultural disorientation. Neo-Nazism embraces the fringe’s Alt Right, as it gives permission and cover for knee-jerk fascism and violence. However, Conspiracy Culture International is far more diverse than the Alt Right. Conspiracy Culture International is a massive, multi-ethnic, globally intact phenomenon. People of all walks of life recognize and are experiencing this paradigm shift and are “wising up” to the changes going down.

The good news is… we don’t need to accept the Alt Right’s ideology. This old world is changing fast. We can choose to be part of a conducive, tolerant, compassionate paradigm… one of creativity and inclusiveness. We create our future… it need not be dominated by ideological fear. As the great American social critic, Morris Berman said: "An idea is something you have; an ideology is something that has you."

Don't "be had" by fear-based ideology... recognize the dark, but choose the light. Shine forth, dear fellow psychonauts… shine forth!