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18 Oct 09
The Real Story of Nazi Egyptology | Heritage Key
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The Real Story of Nazi Egyptology
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Submitted by owenjarus on Tue, 09/01/2009 - 12:52
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Thomas Schneider is exploring a subject that has never been studied before.
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The University of British Columbia professor is examining the history of German Egyptology during the Nazi era. The period that lasted from when Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933 - until he committed suicide in his bunker in 1945.
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The research is a work in progress and Professor Schneider continues to receive new archival documents and information. He plans to turn his work into a book length manuscript.
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While popular fiction, such as the Indiana Jones trilogy, depicts action packed films about this topic, the real story is far more complex.
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Professor Schneider generously took the time to talk about his research with me. He also provided me with detailed written notes, that outline his research, to help me write this story.
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Hitler Comes to Power
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In January 1933, Adolf Hitler, head of the far-right National Socialist (Nazi) party, was sworn in as Chancellor.
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Over the next few years he and the Nazi party would gain control over Germany’s institutions and levers of power, allowing Hitler to govern as a de-facto tyrant.
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One of those institutions was the universities which, before the rise of the Nazis, had enjoyed a level of autonomy.
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A tradition established in the 19th century saw the state as a “benevolent patron” for academic life. With Hitler in power, that quickly changed.
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Professor Thomas Schneider. Published on University of British Columbia website -
Add Sticky Note“Since its inception, National Socialism strove for implementing a new system of education in agreement with its doctrine across the country's institutions of learning,” Professor Schneider wrote.
- Sounds very current in modern day USA - on 2009-10-18
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“This policy was meant to be applied in a particularly stringent way to the institutions of higher learning which were seen as the potential spearheads of the new nation but also feared for their intellectual independence and power.”
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Before Hitler’s rise to power Germany was a respected centre of Egyptology. The foreign affairs ministry financed an archaeological institute in Cairo that was used as a base to conduct scientific research.
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The country’s scholars had made important contributions. To name a few examples, Adolf Erman helped unravel the grammar of Egyptian writing.Ludwig Borchardt uncovered the bust of Nefertiti and Heinrich Schäfer broke new ground in the understanding of Egyptian art.
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Professor Schneider pointed out that, in this pre-Nazi era, many American Egyptologists received their training in Germany, including James Henry Breasted (who, ironically, some regard as an inspiration for the Indiana Jones character).
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A Changing Situation
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Professor Schneider urged me to get an important point out in this story:
You need to “warn the public against believing the discipline during the Nazi period was uniform,” he said.
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“You’re dealing with a number of individuals, a number of professors,” he said, adding that the situation also changed depending on the year and the institution.
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Photo from wikimedia, in public domain. Before the rise of the Nazis, Egypt was a respected centre of Egyptology. James Henry Breasted, pictured here, got his PhD from the University of Berlin. -
As I listened to the professor, and read his notes, I came to understand his viewpoint. The people involved in Egyptology, during this time, reacted to Nazism and its belief in the supremacy of an “Aryan race,” quite differently.
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There is only a small cast of characters involved. Egyptology, in Nazi Germany, was a relatively small discipline. In 1945 there were only six chairs dedicated to the subject in the Reich with further positions as junior professors or museum staff. “The people they knew each other,” said Schneider.
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Egyptology Challenged
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In 1935, Helmut Berve, a professor of ancient history at the University of Leipzig and a dedicated Nazi, questioned Egyptology’s right to exist as a discipline.
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He wrote:
The study of the Ancient Near East as far as it relates to peoples of a foreign race, of a nature alien to us and thus impossible to comprehend fully in its peculiarity, is doomed to resignation as soon as the problems exceed what can be established rationally.
Therefore, it fails with regard to the new claim of values and losses its right to exist (...). Where the threshold of deeper questioning has been tred upon – as in Egyptology –, serious decisions have now to be taken.
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Photo in public domain. Source United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. May 10, 1933, SA members and university students march in a torchlight procession around the bonfire of "un-German" books on the Opernplatz. In this environment Egyptology's right to exist was questioned. -
He expected that.
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Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Germany will automatically focus on the peoples akin to us in terms of race and mind; Egyptology and Assyriology will recede into the background.
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Schneider writes, “Berve pleaded for a national history both committed to and committing German nationhood ('volksverbunden und volksverbindlich') and tied the possibility of historical understanding to race ideology.”
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Pharaoh as Fuhrer
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Walther Wolf was an Egyptologist at Leipzig who had pro-Nazi leanings.
He is known for lecturing while wearing a SA uniform.
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The SA was a pro-Nazi organization that sprang up in the 1920’s. They were the main force in Hitler’s unsuccessful coup attempt in 1923.
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In 1937 Wolf authored a defence of Egyptology as a discipline “Wesen und Wert der Ägyptologie.”
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Professor Schneider writes that Wolf’s defence, “unveils the distinct will to align his discipline with the doctrinal requirements of the new ideology. It postulates for Ancient Egypt a predominant significance of the racial collective ("Volksgemeinschaft") which Wolf believes to have been essential for the shaping of Egyptian culture (kulturprägend) and which he said was owed to "soil and blood" (Boden und Blut).”
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Adding, “Wolf construes pharaoh as the realizer of forces lying dormant in the national collective and waiting to be set free.”
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If these ideas sound familiar, they should, this leadership model for pharaoh is very similar to that which Hitler used for himself.
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Wolf viewed Akhenaten to be a poor pharaoh because he 'Did not uncover ideas that were lying dormant in the depth of their Volkstum, and fight for their full potential of development.'
“This is clearly worded on the template of the role assigned to Hitler,” wrote Schneider.
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The Anti-Nazi League
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As Wolf attempted to twist Ancient Egypt into something the Nazis could agree with, a prominent Egyptologist stood up against this. Alexander Scharff held an Egyptology chair at the University of Munich. He was strongly anti-Nazi and in 1938 authored a piece that dismissed Wolf’s attempt to see Egyptology through the lens of Nazism.
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Said Scharff of Wolf’s work:
In it the attempt is made to understand the Egyptian culture from a new angle of view which is apparently rooted in National Socialistic ideology (...). Such slogans of today which may have a predominant significance in other areas, are of little use with regard to Ancient Egypt.
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There is no question of "race" being a factor in the formation of Ancient Egypt (...). It seems to me that a political event, and be it of the scale of the German revolution of 1933, cannot at this moment transform our understanding of a past civilization to the extent the author would like to make us believe with his treatise which to all appearances is meant to be programmatic. Academic arguing has always proceeded with measured steps, without being tied to particular dates.
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Professor Schneider told me that despite Scharff’s anti-Nazi leanings he managed to keep his job until the end of the war.
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George Steindorff was a prominent Egyptology Professor at Leipzig. He was also Jewish. He edited the journal Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache and was in charge of other editorial projects.
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In a 1935 letter to Adolf Erman, he lamented what was happening in Germany. He wrote-
The Nuremberg legislation has completely paralyzed us and cut our thread of life, it has annihilated our zest of life and my zest of work (...). I was always proud to be able to say "civis Germanus sum", and cannot bear it to be locked up in a ghetto.
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We are likely to spend the few years that fate grants us with wandering all over the world, deprived of our homeland. In the place where I worked honestly for more than 40 years and where I was conferred all honours, I don't want to and cannot stay any longer.
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Facing a Concentration Camp
Photo in public domain. Source United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Goebbels speaks at a book burning in May 1933. His propaganda ministry would force George Steindorff out of his job and eventually, out of Germany. -
No power of the world will (make) me take my pride; I don't want to be pitied, rather I pity the other. But there is one thing I have learnt in these days (...): to hate.
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Professor Schneider said that it appears as if the Ministry of Propaganda found it intolerable that a Jew have these editorial responsibilities and pressured Steindorff heavily to quit.
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“There was a directive from Berlin that Steindorff could no longer be the protagonist of those publishing projects in Germany, those should go to a Nazi official.”
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Steindorff was forced to quit the journal in 1937 and in 1939 left for the United States.
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Walther Wolf, the SA uniform wearing Egyptologist mentioned earlier, was his replacement. Schneider believes it’s probable that Joseph Goebbels himself made the decision to force Steindorff out.
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Steindorff wrote in 1945, after he was safely in the United States that,
During my darkest days at Leipzig, some weeks after the pogrom of November, 1938, he came to our house in Leipzig and invited me and my wife to go with him and find asylum in his house at Bonn, though to give us sanctuary might well have resulted in his confinement in a concentration camp.
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In 1938 Steindorff was in a desperate situation and was saved by an Egyptology colleague Dr. Hans Bonnet.
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A Base in Egypt
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When the Nazis took over Germany they inherited the Cairo office of the German Archaeological Institute.
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In other countries a special SS unit, the Ahnenerbe, was used to conduct archaeological research. Professor Schneider explained to me that the SS left Egypt alone and archaeological work was done by the institute`s Cairo office.
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The Cairo office operated until the war started in 1939. During that time Professor Schneider believes that the Nazis used it as a base to advance their interests in the Middle East.
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It was “a local outpost that could be instrumentalized for the government,” he told me. Germany had a number of interests in the area, including talking to Arab leaders who opposed Jewish settlement in Israel.
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The head of the institute, after the Nazis came to power, was Hermann Junker. He was an established Egyptologist. During the time of Nazi rule he conducted digs in the Cairo-Memphis area and Nubia. But, he spent the bulk of his energy excavating at the Great Pyramids at Giza.
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He was, “deeply involved in national socialism and a member of the NSDAP and other Nazi organizations during the war,” said Schneider.
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I asked Professor Schneider whether the Nazis got involved in his fieldwork, directing him to excavate at the Great Pyramids or telling him to look for certain artefacts.
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Schneider said that he has found no evidence of that kind of control. He believes that, when it came to excavations, Hitler’s government let Junker pursue his own agenda.
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The details on what the institute was being used for are still being researched. But there is evidence that is was used for more than archaeology.
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In June 1945 George Steindorff, now living in the United States, wrote a letter to John Wilson, a professor at the Oriental Institute in Chicago. In the letter he discussed the involvement of different German Egyptologists with Nazism.
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He wrote about Junker that,
It is very difficult to describe the character of this man because he has none. I have heard that it was rumored in England that Junker acted as a spy in Egypt. I do not believe it. He was too clever to compromise himself by such activity. He played safe.
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However, he used his position and the State Institute to promote Nazi propaganda. The Institute was always available for Nazi meetings, Junker's house was always open to Nazi guests, chiefly Austrian. Every Nazi found a cordial reception in the German Institute in Cairo. I appreciate Junker as a scholar of the first order. More than that, I am sorry I cannot say. At best, his actions and opinions have always been ambiguous.
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The Göttingen Manifesto
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Hermann Kees was a professor of Egyptology at the University of Göttingen.
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According to Schneider’s research he was president of an extreme right-wing group Deutschnationale Volkspartei and played an indirect role in driving Albert Einstein out of Germany.
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He was, “instrumental in the expulsion of Jewish faculty in 1934, after the laws for the restitution of the Civil Order were put into force,” Schneider wrote.
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In 1934, after the death of German president Paul von Hindenberg, Hitler implemented a series of laws that barred Jews, and people opposed to Nazism, from serving in government positions.
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Albert Einstein (then based in Berlin) and his colleage at Göttingen, Nobel Laureate James Frankh, both resigned in protest. They were hoping that other professors would resign in solidarity.
That didn’t happen.
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Fourty-two professors at Göttingen published a manifesto condemning Frankh's resignation and calling for a faster implementation of the "necessary measures of purging."
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“This happened fast,” wrote Schneider. “One day after the publication of the manifesto, the first six Jewish professors were relieved of their duties. The man who initiated the manifesto and the expulsion of Jewish faculty was Hermann Kees.”
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Einstein’s and Frankh's hope had failed at Göttingen.
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Kees certainly didn’t hide his far-right views. On Akhenaten he wrote,
One is certainly wrong to portray Amenophis IV as a gushing idealist who wished to turn the world's quarrels to eternal peace by the gracious sermon of human reconciliation and who therefore declined any warfare abroad.
To be a great reformer, he lacked the creative force to anticipate, in the way of a seer, issues that were fermenting and wanted to take shape, and to shape them, and not the least did his personality lack authoritative charisma, carrying the stigma of repulsive ugliness.
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He himself possessed too many traits that were contrary to the Ancient Egyptian ideal of a master race; he was licentious, effusive, led by emotions, morally debauched and obstinate.
Courtesy German Federal Archive and wikimedia. Photo of a model of "Germania" Hitler's revamped Berlin. It would have included a museum where Nefertiti's bust was close to Hitler's. -
Hitler’s Own Views
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Hitler’s own personal views on Egyptology remain something of a mystery. Professor Schneider said that more archival research needs to be done to determine this
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He does appear to have had an interest in Egyptian Art.
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Professor Schneider sent me an intriguing photo, dating to February 1939. It shows the opening of an Ancient Egyptian Art exhibition in Berlin. Sitting on the front row is Hitler himself.
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Unfortunately I cannot post this photo on the web since the copyright is still valid and is held by a photography firm.
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Schneider points out that Hitler was particularly interested in the bust of Nefertiti and vetoed its return to Cairo.
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Hitler was planning to build a new museum in “Germania,” (his name for what would have been the transformed city of Berlin). According to Professor Schneider’s research the bust of Nefertiti would have been close to that of Hitler himself.
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A Turning Point in Egyptology
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It’s difficult to gauge the full impact that the events of 1933-1945 had on German Egyptology. But certainly the impact was negative.
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“This was, what I think, a decisive turning point in the international history of Egyptology,” Said Professor Schneider.
“Germany lost its status and it has to struggle for many decades after the war until it again became recognized and appreciated (in) the discipline,” he said adding, “Germany had basically sacrificed, through the NS regime, its academic standing.”
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The loss of people such as Steindorff, hindered the country’s knowledge base.
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“They came not only from Egyptology but dozens of other disciplines, they established their fields of knowledge abroad, above all in the United States, and had they been given a perspective in a Germany without National Socialism they possibly would have stayed there.
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And many important strands of thinking or pools would have developed in Germany that now developed in the States,” said Professor Schneider.
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“(The) people who stayed in Germany, or younger generations, as a direct consequence were different people than those who would have lived and had a career in (a) Germany without the Nazis,” he said.
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“It is difficult to say how the discipline would look today without National Socialism but we can very certainly say that Germany would have a different standing today.”
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The German Archaeological Institute in Cairo did eventually reopen after the way and today Germany is again a centre of Egyptological research.
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Herman Kees and Walther Wolf were both removed from their positions after the war. Although in 1963 Wolf did get a professorship at the University of Münster. Kees notes were confiscated as part of de-nazification efforts something which hindered his writing efforts.
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Years after the war Hermann Junker, while writing his memoirs, would choose to not write about the time of Nazi rule. Only saying that, “this was a dark time.”
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Owen JarusOwen Jarus is a freelance writer based in Toronto ,Canada. He has written articles on archaeology for a variety of media outlets including The Canadian Press newswire (CP), U of T Magazine, The Mississauga News and The Guelph Mercury. Education: BA from the University of Toronto in History, Geography and Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations. BJourn in Journalism from Ryerson University.
Last three pieces by this author: The Egyptian Pharoah Who Helped Win a Nobel Prize, 2,000 year old, Ten Commandments scroll image now on Heritage Key, Interview: Jean-Francois Millaire on Exploring Gallinazo Group
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14 Oct 09
YouTube - Abba - I Have A Dream
www.youtube.com/watch - Preview
ABBA music entertainment songs instrumental prose poetry art books artists groups
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Abba - I Have A Dream
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Abba - I Have A Dream
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03 Oct 09
The dogu have something to tell us | The Japan Times Online
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dogu jomon-culture japan venus figurines far-east asia neolithic the-dogu art london-museum exhibition culture civilization
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Friday, Oct. 2, 2009
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The dogu have something to tell us
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Neither human nor animal, Japan's Jomon sculptures are a mystery to be enjoyed
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By VICTORIA JAMESSpecial to The Japan Times
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LONDON — They are, according to their kanji, part earth and part spirit, somewhere between animal and human. They are dogu,
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the most remarkable products of Japan's Jomon Period, a Neolithic era before the advent of rice cultivation, when the Japanese archipelago supported higher population densities than any other pre-agricultural society in the world.
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The dogu are humanoid forms shaped in clay, large and small, richly decorated or homely and unadorned.
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Some 18,000 of them have been unearthed to date, in Jomon-period settlements stretching from Kyushu, north through Tohoku to Hokkaido.
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The oldest are nearly 10,000 years old, the youngest a mere 2,300. Yet despite their advanced age, they're on the move.
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Sixty-seven dogu, loaned from collections across Japan, have taken up temporary residence in the British Museum, London, for a new exhibition: "The Power of Dogu."
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In December, they return home for three months' display at Tokyo National Museum.
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The dogu are oddly hypnotic, a parade of the beautiful, brutal and uncanny: a cat-faced dogu, designed without legs; a dogu with an outsize heart-shaped face; a sturdy dogu wearing an enigmatic triangular mask, and perhaps most famous of all, a "goggle-eyed" dogu from Kamegaoka covered in stippled and corded markings.
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Tanabatake "Venus": A big-bottomed dogu from Nagano Prefecture, 2500-1500 B.C.
CHINO CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION -
There are dogu with horns, with flat heads, bow-legs, dogu wearing bodices, knee-pads, dogu holding pots.
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Some dogu invite immediate empathy, like the fragmentary figure of a mother cradling a baby; others, like the lofty standing dogu, nearly half a meter tall, appear hieratic and inscrutable.
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It seems hard to believe they could all represent a common phenomenon, one to which Meiji Era archaeologists in 1882 first gave the name "dogu."
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"The rich diversity of the dogu tradition is one of the themes we wanted to present in the exhibition," explains curator Dr. Simon Kaner, an archaeologist of the Sainsbury Institute who specializes in the prehistory of Japan.
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"The Japanese archipelago during the Jomon period was occupied by a large number of different groups of people, or different societies — we should talk not of Jomon culture but Jomon cultures, Jomon peoples and not Jomon people.
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They probably spoke a number of different dialects and expressed themselves through a huge range of pottery styles — over 400 local styles have been recognized to date."
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Indeed, the dogu are both an intensely local form of expression, and also manifest a shared urge by Neolithic peoples around the world to represent the human form in clay.
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Humanoid figures of a comparable age have been found as far afield as Mexico, Turkey, Ecuador, Romania and Egypt.
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Curiously, Japan's nearest neighbors do not appear to have had an equivalent tradition.
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"There are very few ceramic figures from the Korean Peninsula," says Kaner. "And in China the human form was represented by painting on pots, or by very different forms, like the 'temple' or 'shrine' from Niuheliang, which has life-size unbaked clay figures around the walls."
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So what did the dogu mean to their Jomon makers?
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The British Museum exhibition is part of an ongoing debate in the field of Neolithic studies as to the nature and purpose of early sculptural representation of the human form.
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The 1960s saw a proliferation of theories around so-called "mother goddess" figures, often nicknamed "Venus." (Indeed, pride of place in the current exhibition goes to a big-bottomed dogu known as the Tanabatake "Venus" — a label Kaner agrees is "not very helpful.")
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Dogu aesthetics: A hollow clay figure, 1500-1000 B.C., from Chobonaino, Hokkaido.
© OGAWA TADAHIRO / HAKODATE CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION -
The "Venus" theory has declined in popularity in recent years, while scientists working on a hoard of 2,000 figures found at Catalhoyuk in Turkey announced earlier this month a new hypothesis that the artifacts were not ritual objects, but simply toys.
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Many were, like the Catalhoyuk figurines, "everyday" objects — the majority have been found broken, some in heaps. If they were toys, what does that imply about the status of children, or the very idea of childhood, in Jomon cultures?
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The function of dogu remains mysterious
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Some dogu were, certainly, given special treatment — placed alongside burials or "enshrined" in pits.
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Kaner thinks "there is scope for both 'everyday' figures and objects of veneration within the dogu tradition."
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Whatever their ritual or workaday function, the dogu are also, irresistibly, art. Their whimsical forms enchant, and their craftsmanship — some dogu are large and hollow, many are perfectly balanced and freestanding — is undoubted.
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An essay in the handsome catalog makes a case for the dogu as art, and for the current exhibition as a "turning point" in the wider recognition of that artistry.
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Their first champion in this regard, however, was the avant-garde artist Taro Okamoto, whose "The Myth of Tomorrow" was unveiled in Shibuya Station last year.
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Okamoto's work, both painting and sculpture, was profoundly influenced by his affinity with Jomon design.
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He wrote of one encounter with a piece of Jomon pottery: "My blood boiled to a tremendous heat and then burst into flames."
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On another occasion, he reflected: "The violent existence of Jomon ceramics manifests itself in a pulse of energy that can never be grasped by normal aesthetics and intellectual control."
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Another Jomon enthusiast was Nobel prize-winning author Yasunari Kawabata, who had a dogu on his desk. It is a lugubrious figure with a heart-shaped face, and Kawabata described in an essay how "it is sitting here in front of my writing paper and speaking to me."
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Dogu still speak — albeit through rather different media today. They feature in the "Understanding Japanese History" comic-book series narrated by cult robocat Doraemon, whose human sidekick Nobita remarks that they "look like aliens."
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In the PlayStation game "Dokioki," the dogu are indeed aliens. Shinji Nishikawa's "Dogu Famir," a seven-volume comic series, features a family of figurines trying to fit into everyday life — shopping, attending school and protecting the usual assortment of scantily-clad manga heroines from an evil, UFO-controlled dogu.
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09 Sep 08
More 9/11 Strangeness - Scorpions & Other Synchronicities
www.rense.com/911sc.htm - Preview
michael-goodspeed thunderbolts.com 9_11 coincidence synchronicities books film psychic tragedy scorpions ben-laden government matrix 2001 art twin-towers wtc
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More 9/11 Strangeness -
Scorpions & Other Synchronicities -
By Michael Goodspeed
Thunderbolts.info
9-9-8 - 57 more annotations...
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Author's note: This article has no copyright. It is intended
for duplication and re-distribution, so long as no alterations are made
to the contents herein, including the author's byline, all images, and
cited URLs. -
Less than 2 weeks ago, I posted a video on YouTube entitled,
"911 'Coincidences' or Synchronicities?" (Link at the bottom
of this piece). -
This presentation enumerated around a dozen prescient pop
culture connections to the tragic events of September 11, 2001. -
I don't
believe that any of these connections can reasonably be described as a
"stretch" or "wishful thinking" (although of course
not everyone will agree on their ultimate significance.) -
A brief overview
now might be helpful: -
In the 1999 film The Matrix, the expiration date of the
passport of Keanu Reeve's character Neo is September 11, 2001. -
In the 1998 film Enemy of the State, Jon Voight's character
-- a malicious NSA official intent on pushing legislation that will make
it easier to spy on Americans -- was born on September 11th. -
In the 2001 pilot of the TV program The Lone Gunmen,
the story centers on a Pentagon plot to fly a plane into the WTC for the
purpose of triggering a war. -
In the opening sequence of the 1998 film The Big Lebowski,
Jeff Bridges' character writes a check dated September 11. We then hear
George Bush Sr.'s voice discussing the ensuing (1991) invasion of Iraq,
and his famous line of "This aggression will not stand" -- a
recurring line in the film. -
In the opening scene of the 2000 film Traffic, a drug
truck is apprehended, and on close inspection we see that all of the drug
boxes are stamped with the number 911. -
Next to each number is the symbol
of a scorpion. This particular symbol has always struck me as curious,
and in a moment I shall try to explore its significance further. -
In 2001, the rap group The Coup created an album cover
featuring its members detonating the World Trade Center south towers. They
later released their album with a different cover. -
In the 1982 Richard Bachman (Stephen King) book The Running
Man, the story concluded with the protagonist hijacking a plane and flying
it into the tallest building in downtown NY. -
And beyond the popular culture, on the first anniversary
of September 11th, the winning numbers in the evening NY lotto were 911
(5,632 people chose the winning sequence, and each won a paltry $500). -
These are only a few of the more striking 9/11 pop culture
"coincidences" that predated September 11, 2001. -
I've not come
close to including all the instances that have been documented on countless
dozens of websites. These also include the 2000 film The Patriot -- Mel
Gibson's character weighs a chair he's constructed, and announces "Nine
pounds, eleven ounces. That's perfect." He then sits on the chair,
and it collapses under his weight. -
A Google search of the words - 9/11 coincidences in comics
(unquoted) - reveals over 76,000 hits. -
A video presentation on some of
these connections (link at bottom of paragraph) features some interesting
items, including an image from the Marvel Two in One #100 from June 1983. -
(Note: I have not seen this before, and do not personally own any comics,
so I cannot verify its authenticity. I'm presenting it here as an item
of potential interest). -
- According to descriptions of this issue, the Thing
is captured by the Red Skull, who has set up headquarters in a bombed out
WTC. Notice the chilling images and captions below:
- According to descriptions of this issue, the Thing
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Video: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ASuwLWUzeR4&watch_response
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Let's look a bit closer now at the aforementioned "coincidences"
in the 2000 film "Traffic." What is the significance, if any,
of the scorpion image next to each 911 symbol? -
As I mentioned in my YouTube
video, in 2007, author David Hagberg published a novel entitled "Allah's
Scorpion" -- the code name of a massive terrorist plot by al-Quaida
in the book. -
I limited myself to this particular reference in part due
to time limitations, but also because I wanted to explore the scorpion
motif a bit more before presenting anything publicly. -
- Remember that this symbol was placed next to the numbers
911 a full year prior to September 11th, 2001. -
A Google search of the words
(unquoted) - scorpion taliban bin laden afghanistan - reveals over 400,000
hits. Indeed, the term scorpion seems to be used almost casually in reference
to both Bin Laden and Afghanistan -
(not terribly surprising since scorpions
are common to middle eastern regions). -
In addition to the Hagberg novel,
in 2007 the David Macdonald book was published entitled "Drugs in
Afghanistan: Opium, Outlaws and Scorpion Tales." -
More than one post-911 military operation has included
the term "Scorpion." -
- The following excerpt comes from the website
of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe:
- After more than eight months of training, 86 "Scorpion"
members of the 603rd Air Control Squadron deployed Jan. 9 to Kandahar Air
Base, Afghanistan....
- "For our deployment preparation, we had Scorpion
Strike in October, which was set up and tailored to look as close to a
real deployment as possible," said Lt. Col. Troy Jackson, 603rd ACS
commander.
- The following excerpt comes from the website
-
In 2003, there was a major U.S. operation in Iraq called
"Operation Desert Scorpion." This was also the name of an unperformed
military operation in response to the UN/Iraq crisis of 1998. -
Operation Desert Scorpion is also the name of an online
gaming file in which players seek to capture Osama bin Laden. -
- A fictional
briefing in the game reads:
- General,
- Intelligence reports believe we have cornered Osama Bin
Laden and his Generals (P3) in a remote region of southwestern Pakistan.
We have strict orders that Bin Laden and his Generals should be captured
alive, the rest of his forces should be eliminated with deadly force. - A fictional
-
A search of the <http://defenselink.mil>defenselink.mil
site for the term "scorpion" reveals 82 hits. The very first
is entitled "Afghan National Police Training..." It discusses
the training of Afghan police officers at "Forward Operating Base
Scorpion." -
These are just some cursory results I've stumbled across
after performing some rudimentary Google searches -- and I'm still interested
to know what a more in-depth search might discover. -
(Might scorpion have
been a codename for bin Laden or other al-Quaida officials within intelligence
circles prior to or after 9/11?) -
Perhaps one could argue that the scorpion
motif in "Traffic" is not terribly anomalous, since the scorpion
has long been a symbol of danger or evil. But the appearance of the symbol
directly alongside the 911 numbers becomes even more powerful when one
considers the striking PATTERN of pop culture "coincidences"
prior to September 11th. -
Since I personally have no conceptual reservations when
it comes to human precognition and other extrasensory abilities -- that
is to say, I don't dismiss evidence of these phenomena on an a priori basis
simply because institutional science has yet to recognize their reality
-- I want now to dig deeper and try to find the meaning in these "coincidences,"
if any exists. -
Some Internet authors speculate that the 9/11 perpetrators
may have "leaked" their plans to key media players -- hence all
the anomalous pop culture "coincidences" -- but I simply can't
agree with that assessment. -
Does anyone really believe that all of the
writers, musicians, artists, and Hollywood producers and directors cited
above somehow became privy to a forthcoming terrorist attack (including
the precise date on which it would occur), and rather than explicitly alerting
the public to the danger, chose instead to insert subtle or not so subtle
warnings of the attack into their art? -
It's startling to me that some purported
"alternative media" websites express contempt for so-called "paranormal"
investigations, while promoting the belief that conspiracy is the most
powerful, overarching force in the Universe. -
With that said, I think it's certainly worth noting that
a common thread seems to run through all of the movies, books, TV shows,
and pop music mentioned above, and it has nothing to do with terrorists
and Islamic Jihad. -
If one were to ask me which pre9/11 movies featured
the most dire warnings of impending Government intrusion in citizens' lives
(an obviously widespread concern in light of our Government's declared
"War on Terror"), I would not have hesitated to say, "The
Matrix" and "Enemy of the State." -
I suspect anyone who has
seen these movies would agree, and both of these films feature particularly
striking 9/11 "coincidences." -
Likewise, the Lone Gunmen episode
in which the Pentagon plans to fly an airplane into the WTC for the purpose
of triggering a war. If these "coincidences" were telling us
anything, it was, "Things are not what they appear. Don't believe
everything you're told." -
Here is a reasonable challenge for the skeptical-minded.
If you think that the types of "coincidences" cited above can
be randomly pulled from movies, books, or other mediums, try focusing a
search on a specific date and number sequence -- say (from the top of my
head)...October 6th (or 10/6, or 106). I wonder how many movies in the
coming years will feature explicit references to October 6, or 106, and
more importantly, how many will feature obvious connections to any historical
events that have happened or will happen on October 6? -
The odds of any
three digit number coming up 106 are 1 in 1000. -
The odds of a random date
for any particular year appearing as October 6th are 1 in 365. (Remember
also that The Matrix film featured a reference not only to September 11th,
but the precise year in which 9/11 happened -- 2001). -
It's not my position to assert what the ultimate meaning
is in all of this, except to warn of the inherent dangers in DENYING that
any meaning exists. -
I've no patience with cynical individuals who dismiss
evidence for psychic phenomena, for no clear reason other than they think
it's "silly." -
If real, a collective human consciousness is enormously
important to the future of our species. But for new clarity to be gained,
scientific researchers must not live in fear of ridicule and professional
ruination -- the pathetic outcome for many brave investigators into the
psychic frontier. -
Stephen King writes, "...stories are found things,
like fossils in the ground....Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered
preexisting world. The writer's job is to use the tools to get as much
of each one out of the ground intact as possible." -
Perhaps many of
our culture's best writers, artists, and filmmakers were doing their best,
at least unconsciously, to uncover a treasure of extraordinary significance. -
The most haunting aspect of the 9/11 "coincidences" is that the
collective human consciousness seemed to issue a frantic warning, like
a wailing siren or tolling bell. The question is, can we ever achieve the
psychic maturity to recognize such warnings in advance? -
This was the challenge
offered to the human race by one Colonel Dolan M. McKelvy, author of the
1988 USAF report, "Psychic Warfare: Exploring the Mind Frontier." -
- McKelvy writes:
- "Man's greatest potential remains a prisoner of
man. Vast untapped mental capabilities create an entirely new battlefield
dimension which, if ignored, pose a threat to self and country more serious
than nuclear weapons. This threat starts from within. Our fears and cynical
attitudes towards psychic capabilities make us our own worst enemies....Exploring
the mind frontier is essential and the key to successful exploration is
a greater psychic awareness. The mind is rich in unfathomed resources ripe
for exploration, a limitless source of treasures for advancing all mankind,
and a serious threat to those who ignore its potential. We must overcome
our psych inhibitions, stop denying the existence of paranormal events,
and start trying instead to understand the nature of these phenomena. We
must shed the super secret cloaks and educate our leaders at all levels
on the real psi military potentials and threats so we can adequately focus
and prioritize national resources." - McKelvy writes:
-
- My 911 YouTube video may be viewed here:
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI6P6G6QnrA
- My 911 YouTube video may be viewed here:
-
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