Pan's Labyrinth

and the 9-11 Stargate Mega Ritual.

The direction of this article is heavily influenced by the work of Jake Kotze at The Brave New World Order and The Blob. If you are not already familiar with the "9-11 Mega Ritual," then please view some of Jake's videos here. (I advise starting with the older videos first) In his videos, Jake uses the ego-free, expanded consciousness method of reasearch called Synchromysticism. From The Cryptic Cosmology of Synchromysticism:

Jake Kotze in August of 2006 for an article posted on his website Brave New World Order, who defined it as: "The art of realizing meaningful coincidence in the seemingly mundane with mystical or esoteric significance."

"My idea about the significance of meaningful coincidences in movies with mystical connotation is not that it points towards real truths, but that they point towards possible realities that might emerge from the collective psyche into consensus reality."

Many threads of reality have been connected in Jake's work, all centered around the World Trade Center and 9-11. This is not a "conspiracy theory" about whodunit, it's an excercise in peeking behind the veil of Maya. This event was the most consciousness-impacting event in world history. At no time in history had there been so many conscious individuals, with so many ways to communicate and connect, during a mega event which shaped the future for every person on the planet. Previous mega-ritual or consciousness focusing events may have been the sinking of Atlantis, the fall of the Tower of Babel, the Great Flood, and the destruction of Solomons Temple. More recent events include the World Wars, the first detonation of an atomic bomb in a populated region, and the assassination of J.F.K. But at no time had there been such a connection, a meta-mind of people, than when the World Trade towers collapsed. If you suscribe to theories of the universe involving non-locality, such as the holographic model, then you can accept that such an event would have reverberations into the past as well as the future.

The Twin Towers of the World Trade complex, as well as surrounding architecture, are the nexus of Jakes synchromystic investigations. The towers themselves have been linked, synchromystically, to other man-made wonders such as: The Pillars of Hermes, Pillars of Hercules, Pillars of Solomon's Temple, the Pyramids of Egypt, and the Tower of Babel. The creation and eventual destruction of these wonders seems to be an inevitable part of a repeating cycle on our planet. The ruin of each results in a shift of global consciousness.

1984 ad for the World Trade Center

Jake Kotze:
[Manhattan] was the setting of the 911 Mega Ritual the most vivid planetary consciousness focusing catalyst of all time and the metaphorical opening of the collective Stargate of mankind.

The "stargate" theme comes up in synchromysticism as a metaphor for an evolution of consciousness. The Stargate does actually manifest as an array of physical objects, or sometimes as representations of portals appearing in various media such as comic books and movies. These could be "water doors" such as the Stargate from the film and television show of the same name, or other objects with spiral or concentric patterns, as well as targets and cross-hairs and 6 or 8-sided geometry (double cubes and 'cuboids,' octagons, hexagons (these videos should clarify the connection). Water is an important element in the Stargate theme such as in the movie Constantine where it is described as a "universal-conduit" and is used by the main character to travel to the underworld/hell.

Another important element in the 9-11 Stargate theme is the connection with Aleister Crowley and the god Pan. Crowley is the great initiator of the coming new age and has served as the source of inspiration for countless occult practicioners and even musicians. Has has spawned or heavily influenced many occult orders and secret societies. Crowley also designed his own Tarot card's called the Thoth tarot deck, along with an explanatory text called The Book of Thoth. Additionaly, crowley wrote the laws of his Ordo Templi Orientis society in the book Oz: Liber 77. Crowley also wrote a "Hymn to Pan." In the videos I linked to, you can see that Crowley's sigil "Oz:77" for the goat god Pan appears in a remake of the Wizard of Oz, called The Whiz, and it is found directly between the Twin Towers where the Sphere sculpture and fountain used to be located. This resonates with the events of 9-11 as the President was reading about a pet goat at the same time that the location of the now Pan resonating World Trade Center was being attacked.

The Sphere sculpture at the WTC complex.

The Pan-Oz:77 sigil in place of the Sphere

I believe that the ancient Labyrinth can also be seen as a Stargate, and can be connected to the 9-11 Stargate through the movie Pan's Labyrinth. Pan, the goat or faun, has already been linked to the WTC via Crowley's Oz:77 symbol which replaces the Sphere in The Whiz; as well as being the subject of the children's book which President Bush "fiddled with" while "Rome burned."

The Labyrinth is a winding, maze-like path, often resembling a spiral. Labyrinths are found in many ancient cultures, and almost always have spiritual significance. Nearly identical labrynth patterns are found in neolithic art, on native American petroglyphs, and even in ancient Vedic sites. Ancient Minoan labyrinths were associated with the cult of the mother Goddess, and were possibly used in intiatory rituals.

Labyrinth is a word of pre-Greek origin absorbed by classical Greek, and is apparently related to labrys, a word for the archaic iconic "double axe", with inthos connoting "place" (as in "Corinth"). The complex palace of Knossos in Crete is usually implicated, though the actual dancing-ground, depicted in frescoed patterns at Knossos, has not been found. Something was being shown to visitors as a labyrinth at Knossos in the 1st century AD.
Greek mythology did not recall, however, that in Crete there was a Lady who presided over the Labyrinth. A tablet inscribed in Linear B found at Knossos records a gift "to all the gods honey; to the mistress of the labyrinth honey." All the gods together receive as much honey as the Mistress of the Labyrinth alone. "She must have been a Creational Goddess."

The Palace of Knossos,
the possible inspiration for the Labyrinth

The Labrys double-axe is a feminine lunar symbol, the word comes from Labus, or lips. And maze is related to mas meaning "exhausting labor." The Labyrinth is a Mother Earth symbol to the Hopi indians. The square form represents a spiritual re-birth into the next world, symbolized by The Emergence. The circular labyrinth represents the universal plan of the Creator which man must follow on his Road of Life. The four points/bends represent the four cardinal directions embraced within the universal plan of life.

The Labyrinth of Crete was often depicted as circular as seen here in this picture and Cretan coin:

The above Cretan coin design is the very same ancient labyrinth design found all over the world. The same classic labyrinth design is found in the movie Pan's Labyrinth. The second picture below is of "the Faun" and "Ofelia." Ofelia plays the ever popular "virgin princess," which is very appropriate considering she is befriended by the ever horny god Pan in the form of a Faun. The same interaction between Pan and a young and therefor virgin princess can be seen in The Chronicles of Narnia where Mr. Tumlus befriends young Lucy. Pan is a notorious rapist, and most of his lady friends had to be turned into inanimate objects just to escape his advances. In Pan's Labyrinth, there exists a small version of the typical Labyrinth at the bottom of a spiral staircase in the center of a larger labyrinth or maze. In the center of the small circular and water-filled labyrinth is a stone pillar with a carving of the princess of the underworld holding a baby, with the Faun in the position of the apparent father of the child. The carving scares Ofelia, especially when the Faun tells her that she is the princess. The reason why I bring this up, or think it's worth mentioning, is that sex is an initiation for young girls into womanhood. It really begins a whole new life, while men usually have a separate initiatory ceremony before they are married. This only occurs today in more traditional societies, usually deep in the rainforest. While women today still wear viginal white to their wedding, it's usually not the case that they are still virgins. Reguardless, sex creates a profound change in the physiology and psychology of a child. Perhaps this is why so many sugar-loving lolitas are found both on initatory checkered-floors as well as sucking on spiral lollipops. (See these articles from The Blob: 1, 2, 3)

Here's some pic's of the Glastonbury Maze, which should help support the "fertility" theme, check out this site for more info.

Madonna - Like a virgin-whore,
sharing the name "Hard Candy" with recent lolita movie.

This idea was cemented recently when I saw the movie Dick on tv. It's a comedy about the Watergate coverup featuring Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams as the secret source "Deepthroat." At the end of the movie they lick circular lollipops with the word "DICK" on the front. It doesn't take much of an imagination there... Here is Kirsten Dunst in a Stargate resonating spiderweb:

Ofelia is supposed to be the reincarnation of the daughter of the king of the Underworld. As a sign, she has a crescent moon birthmark on her left shoulder, and the moon is an important part of the movie. Ofelia retreats to her fantasy books, and it is possible that the fantastical parts of the movie are really just Ofelia's imagination. At the end of the movie, Ofelia is killed, and as she lay dying she pictures herself appearing in a great hall (with ruby red shoes) where her dead mother, her brother, and the king of the Underworld - her real father, wait for her. She crosses a sprial patterned floor to take her place as princess of the underworld. Her seat is atop one of three pillars:

Ofelia in the Underworld

The Pillars have been connected with the Pyramids, as already mentioned, and the resulting "Pillarmid" is an interchangable motif. Most of the time only two pillars shown, representing the two pillars of Boaz and Jachin which were placed around the door the the Temple of Solomon. Manly P. Hall: "These two pillars respectively connote also the active and the passive expressions of Divine Energy, the Sun and the Moon, sulphur and salt, good and bad, light and darkness." The represent duality/opposites, but come together in a central third pillar. The Twin Towers are no longer standing, but soon they will be replaced with a single tower, combining the two into one, and having an octagonal base - the Freedom Tower.

Pillarmids

Above we can see that the Goddess is also associated with the Pillarmids, she holds a torch like the Statue of Liberty, lighting the way with knowledge. The pillarmid which Ofelia sits atop is the water pillar of Boaz connected to Capricorn, the sea-goat. The pillar is associated with the Hebrew letter mem which means water, and has a gematria value of 40, or of 600 when used as as final letter in a word. M-40 M-600. MM would be the millenial 2000 or 2K, another important synch with the 9-11 Stargate (see The Blob for clarification), but the two mem values also combine in gematria as 640. 64 is 8 times 8, 8 being the ever present octagonal-stargate and connected closely with Egyptian deity Thoth.

In an ironic twist, the Sphere sculpture at ground zero of an apparent islamic terrorist attack was intended by the architect to represent the Kaaba shrine in Mecca, the holiest place in Islam. The cubic Kaaba protects a Black Stone which fell to earth from heaven, and is supported internally by Three Pillars. Tradition holds that the black stone was originally white, but turned black from the sins of people. If you take look at the Sphere sculpture at the WTC, it looks to be a black-something with golden panels around it. It also appears to be rising out of the fountain, a excellent representation of the water-door or Stargate, and a possible representation of the Black Stone coming from heaven.

In his blog Willaim Henry, author of Revelation 2012, decodes the enigmatic architecture of the Bicentennial Capitol Mall of Nashville Tennesse. An interesting and relevant feature of the Mall layout is the World War II memorial featuring a Black sphere foating on a fountain.

Black globe from William Henry's blog.

The eerie WW II Memorial temple at the Mall features an 18,161-pound black granite globe spinning on 1/8 inch of water. With the Sun shining upon its black mirror-like surface it becomes a ‘Night Sun’ or a ‘Black Sun,’ the symbol for the innermost occult circle of the Nazis.

Note that the weight of the globe, 18161 is the reverse of the Golden or Divine Ratio, 1.618, a possible emphasis on the reverse or anti-sun and anti-life properties of this object. A large black stone altar even rests in the 'meditation room' at the United Nations.

The Sphere from the World Trade complex has already been linked to the water-door-stargate theme, but if you look closely, it has 9-sided geometry. In this birds-eye-view picture, we can see the 9 trees planted along it's circumferance. This seems slightly out of place as stargate resonators usually have 6 or 8 sided geometry:

There is however, an excellent stargate example which also has 9-sided geometry; the Stargate and water-door par-excellance from the movie Stargate:

While only 7 "chevrons" are used in the movie to dial another stargate, there is room for two more to be "locked in place." In the movie Stargate, it is explained that 6-points determine the exact location of an object in space (using the 6-sides of a cube), and a 7th point charts the course. Well, in order to travel in higher dimensions, it would be necessary to have additional points, and this may be why the hyperdimensional, consciousness expanding metephor, has more than 7 locks on it.

Octagonal geometry can also be equated with 9-point geometry such as in the ennegram. It has 8 points along the edge with a 9th point in the center. A cube has eight corners around a ninth central point. Using the picture below, we can relate all 8-point geometry to the 9-point ennead and the stargate from the movie Stargate.

Interestingly, I've already mention The Nine in my article New Religion Ch.7 where Andreja Puharich helped Uri Gellar channel the Grand Ennead, or 9 creation gods of Egypt, which told of a yet to occur mass landing of spaceships. Puharich has been connected to the 9-11 Stargate ritual by his theory that the priests of Egypt used sacred mushrooms in the Great Pyramid to realize another level of consciousness. If that's true, then the pyramid and now pillarmids have a long history of consciousness expanding stargate themes.

Take a look back at the birds-eye shot of the Sphere fountain. Around it is a spiral of pairs of benches which spiral inward towards the fountain, crossed with many lines radiating away from the center. Together these create a nice stargate theme centered on the already heavily stargate resonating fountain. The lines radiating from the center remind me of the circular grid with a holographic twist from Star Wars:

The Black and White and checkered theme also heavily informs the 9-11 Stargate Mega Ritual. Black and white images appear on the High Priestess and Chariot cards of the Tarot, as well as the checkered floor patter on Masonic tracing boards and main hall of Masonic lodges. The checkered pattern usually appears in movies with heavy synchromystic themes as checkered floor tiles or on checkered taxi cabs (checkered chariots).

Albert Pike stated in Morals and Dogma: "The Ancients adored the Sun under the form of a black stone, called Elagabalus, or Heliogabulua. The faithful are promised, in the Apocalypse, a white stone."

The "sixty-four dispersed stones" which form a "perfect cube" must be a crucial part of this mystery. There are sixty-four squares on a chessboard, and a perfect sixty-four-square chessboard is formed by the black and white tiles on the floor of the church at Rennes-le-Chateau, facing both the statue of the demon Asmodeus, and the statue of Saint Germain as if they were opposing players in a game of chess. 64 squares = 8x8
That there are sixty-four possibilities is fitting, since there are sixty-four six-part "codons", or "genetic words" in human DNA. There are also, notably, sixty-four hexagrams in the Chinese divination system known as I-Ching (which is often displayed as a octagon).

In traditional, non-holographic chess:

"The king, the most important piece, represents the Sun of this solar system... traveling only one step at a time, along both square and triangular lines, in any of eight directions. The king is virtually hidden from the action, yet the entire game revolves around it...The queen is the most powerful piece on the board, having unlimited movement in any of eight directions of manifestation... In another sense she is Regina Coeli, Queen of the Heavens, the widely traveling moon which always reflects the light of the Sun, the king."

The relationships between the pieces on the chessboard form "...lines of force composing an energy web", like the web of the spider goddess Arachne, whose eight legs can be likened to the eight directions on a chessboard, as well as the eight squares that are on each side of the chessboard’s outer ring. (Quoted from Le Serpent Rouge Interpreted, by Tracy Twyman)

I want to draw your attention to the unaired trailer for Spiderman which featured a helecopter caught in a web. Both items are heavy on the synchro-scale, the web being a stargate stand in, but also connected to the spiral labyrinth as I hope to show. This picture is from one of Jake Kotze's videos, the web is directly above the radial pattern around the Sphere sculpture and connects the two towers in the same way:

Below is pictured a depiction of the labyrinth with the hero Theseus battling the Minotaur. On the right is Ariadne who helped Theseus find his way out with a thread she provided. She was then abondoned by him on the island Dia/Naxos, the sacred "Island of the Goddess." (But that's ok, she eventually became the consort of Dionysus.)

In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth was an elaborate structure designed and built by the legendary artificer Daedalus for King Minos of Crete at Knossos. Its function was to hold the Minotaur, a creature that was half man and half bull and which was eventually killed by the Athenian hero Theseus. Daedalus had made the Labyrinth so cunningly that he himself could barely escape it after he built it. Theseus was aided by Ariadne, who provided him with a fateful thread, literally the "clew," or "clue," to wind his way back again.

According to one version of the legend, Minos attacked Athens after his son was killed there. The Athenians asked for terms, and were required to sacrifice seven young men and seven maidens every nine years to the Minotaur. One year, the sacrificial party included Theseus, a young man who volunteered to come and kill the Minotaur. Ariadne fell in love at the first sight of him, and helped him by giving him a sword and a ball of the red fleece thread she was spinning, so that he could find his way out of the Minotaur's labyrinth.

That the Cretan labyrinth had been a dancing-ground and was made for Ariadne rather than for Minos was remembered by Homer in Iliad xviii.590-593 where, in the pattern that Hephaestus inscribed on Achilles' shield, one incident pictured was a dancing-ground "like the one that Daedalus designed in the spacious town of Knossos for Ariadne of the lovely locks". Even the labyrinth dance was depicted on the shield, where "youths and marriageable maidens (young virgin/lolitas?) were dancing on it with their hands on one another's wrists... circling as smoothly on their accomplished feet as the wheel of a potter...and there they ran in lines to meet each other."

Before moving on, notice the top-down view of the labyrinth could also be a top-down view of a 13 story pyramid with a missing capstone.

At one level, the labyrinth symbolizes the female womb, only penetrable if one is pure and perfect. The male figure outside, representing the human seed, can penetrate the womb, fertilize the ovum, produce new life, which then emerges as a new birth or a reincarnated existence. Entry into the labyrinth gives new life... thus achieving reincarnation and eternal life.

Prehistoric labyrinths are believed to have served either as traps for malevolent spirits or as defined paths for ritual dances. During Medieval times the labyrinth symbolized a hard path to the God with a clearly defined center (God) and one entrance (birth). The new Cathedral labyrinth patterns were all laid out according to the same basic pattern twelve rings that enclose a meandering path which slowly leads to a center rosette. (12 around 1 theme) The labyrinth is located in the nave of the Cathedral. Aleister Crowley insisted that his student magicians construct their altars with two perfect cubes stacked atop one another, “symbolizing the Great Work... The height of the altar is equal to the height above the ground of the navel of the magician. The altar is connected with the Ark of the Covenant, Noah’s Ark, the nave (navis, a ship) of the Church, and many other symbols of antiquity.”

The thread of Ariadne and her practice of spinning thread is an ancient motif associated with weaving baskets and creating textiles and using a spinning wheel. The word spider comes from a word which means to spin as in to weave fibers. The Rockefeller Center in New York has a freaky giant spider sculpture:

Speaking of spiders, I was reminded of the Nazca lines while watching Indian Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull today, where one of the geoglyphs is a spider. The gigantic drawings are made by scraping away the rusty top layer of dirt and rock to expose the lighter colored soil underneath. Most designs seem to have an entrance and exit, making them uniquely shaped labyrinths, probably used as a form of worship much like the labyrinths in gothic cathedrals.

The most recognizable black spider in real life is the Black Widow. The Widow theme is quite important in Freemasonry (Widow's Son) and in movies where many many characters have a widowed mother. The Black Widow has on it's abdomen a Saturnian symbol of the Hourglass. Push the two triangular ends together and you get the saturnian symbol of the hexagram.

The Siddir in Danish society were witches who practiced the art of knot tying and loosening. These Siddir were directly related to the mythic Norns, the Mori or Fates who were said to be responsible for the fate of mankind by the patterns that they wove in the way that they tied and loosened the knots of the Web of Wyrd. The six pointed Gallic rune, similar to the Norse rune Haegl would originally have been eight spoked, like the Buddhist Wheel of Life or the Tarot’s Wheel of Fortune. In this guise it is the Web of Arachne, the Web of Fate and the plan view of the ribbons of the Maypole dance. The Goddesses of death and the underworld are again prominent here (in the transcendent sense, as with Persephone, but one also remembers Mithras and the World Bull or Minotaur of Theseus). The tomb of Marie de Blanchefort, which in its inscription reveals the coded words “Et in Arcadia Ego”, also has the figure of an octopus etched down at the bottom. The octopus is, according to Priory of Sion member Paul Le Cour, a solar symbol used in Atlantis. It also contains the same symbolism as Arachne, the spider goddess, in regards to the number eight and the chessboard. Arachne was a very skilled weaver who shamed herself in a contest and hung herself, then was later resurrected as a spider and her rope turned into a spiderweb. In Ancient Egypt, the spider was associated with the goddess Neith in her aspect as spinner and weaver of destiny, this link continuing later though the Babylonian Ishtar and Greek Athena. Fates Spinning yarn of fate on spinning wheel. Terrance McKenna (click for short video) notes how we say one is "weaving" a tale, or that there's a "web of lies." The language of weaving is used as a metephor for human cognitive activity. He calls hemp the LSD of the past, like when hash societies got together in Paris. This makes hemp and weaving a stargate resonator with other 'consciousness expanding' activities/events.

In the movie Labyrinth, David Bowie plays the Goblin King, "Jareth," whose castle is located in the Goblin City in the center of the labyrinth. He steals Jennifer Connelly's ("Sarah's") baby brother when she wishes him away, and he gives Sarah a time within which she could save her brother if she can successfully navigate the labyrinth. In one scene Jareth tries to distract Sarah with a magical dance which is now clearly associated with labyrinths. Also, the gate to the goblin city is guarded by a goblin weilding a large labrys or double-bladed axe. Sarah also frees a kind of hairy Minotaur-looking creature who was hung upside down in the labyrinth.

I think in this movie Bowie plays the part of Pan, the seducer of the virgin princess, and also the minotaur as Bowie seems to be the prisoner of the labyrinth as well. He is human, despite being the goblin king, and he kidnaps a human child who would presumably become his heir; another prisoner/king in the center of the labyrinth. And its no suprise a young girl is suckered into the labyrinth as it traditionally required virgin sacrifice to appease the beast in the center. Puppeteer Frank Oz also worked on the movie, as well as on Dark Crystal which was the basis for the world of Labyrinth. In Dark Crystal in a world with 3 suns, a crystal is broken resulting in the splitting of a race into 2 races, one good and one bad. Typical black vs. white, good vs. evil stuff. M.C. Esher's multidimensional Relativity makes an appearance as a poster in Sarah's room as well as a location in the Goblin King's castle.

As the name suggests, the Minotaur is a Bull-like creature, the result of intercourse between the wife of King Minos and a bull (Mino-Taurus). The island of Manhattan, ground zero for the 9-11 Stargate, actually has a giant bull located in the oldest park in the city:

The "Charging Bull" sculpture which faces up Broadway in NYC's financial district has become the unofficial symbol of Wall Street and may be the most photographed work of public art in the city. The 7,000 pound bronze sculpture by Arturo Di Modica began life as "guerrilla art".

Arturo Di Modica created the piece with no commission or permission and installed it in front of the New York Stock Exchange on December 15, 1989. The illegal sculpture was seized and imponded till public outcry encouraged the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation to re-install it in the Plaza at Bowling Green. The sculpture is said to provide good financial luck to both stock traiders and tourists who keep parts of the artwork well polished with constant rubbing.

Michael, in the comments, suggested a possible link between Minos-Taur and Minas-Tirith (from Lord of the Rings). Here's a picture of Minas Tirith looking quite labyrinth like from a birds eye view:

Another sculpture which is much more visible also relates to the labyrinth theme I think. Like Ariadne abondoned to an island, the Statue of Liberty stands alone on her island, holding a guiding light possibly related to the idea of Ariadne's thread which reveals the path through the labyrinth.

The statue is made of copper, a metal with an atomic weight of 64 (8 x 8). In alchemy, copper is related to the element Earth, and to conjunction, the marriage of opposites: the King and Queen, Sol and Luna, white and black. There's an interesting article at Red Ice Creations which mentions copper, here's an excerpt:

The word for 'snake' in Hebrew is 'nakhash', whose root has multiple definitions. ; As noted by Zecharia Sitchin in 'The Cosmic Code' (1998) , 'the term has not just the two meanings that we have already mentioned ('Serpent,' and 'knower of Secrets') but also a third one - 'He of Copper,' for the Hebrew word for copper, Nechoshet, stems from the same root. One of Enki's epithets in Sumerian, BUZUR, also has the double meaning 'He who knows/solves secrets' and 'He of the copper mines.' It is widely believed that Enki became known as Thoth in Ancient Egypt, and later as Hermes in Greece and Mercury in Rome

Not sure what it means... In one theory of the life of Jesus, his adopted father Joseph is a copper salseman, not a carptenter, and travels to Britain where there were rich copper mines. The serpent worshipping druids would have influenced Jesus at a young age. Anyways it's interesting that Enki/Thoth could be known as "He of the copper mines." Moses set up a brazen serpent (copper+zinc) which healed all who looked upon it.

"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." - John 3:14.

The Statue of Liberty has an odd base consisting of eleven corners. Combined with the stargate/spiderweb/circular labyrinth resonator and it's nine points, we get 9-11:

The Island of Manhattan has been linked to ancient Egypt, especially the area of the Sphinx and large Pyramids. It should then be no suprise that this same area was also host to a impressive labyrinth complex which was both above and below ground, and used in initiatory rituals and for religious purposes.

Pliny's Natural History mentions four ancient labyrinths: the Cretan labyrinth, an "Egyptian labyrinth", a "Lemnian labyrinth" and an "Italian labyrinth".

Pliny's "Egyptian labyrinth" -- Even more generally, "labyrinth" might be applied to any extremely complicated maze-like structure. Herodotus, in Book II of his Histories, describes as a "labyrinth" a building complex in Egypt, "near the place called the City of Crocodiles," that he considered to surpass the pyramids in its astonishing ambition:

It has twelve covered courts - six in a row facing north, six south - the gates of the one range exactly fronting the gates of the other. Inside, the building is of two stories and contains three thousand rooms, of which half are underground, and the other half directly above them. I was taken through the rooms in the upper storey, so what I shall say of them is from my own observation, but the underground ones I can speak of only from report, because the Egyptians in charge refused to let me see them, as they contain the tombs of the kings who built the labyrinth, and also the tombs of the sacred crocodiles. The upper rooms, on the contrary, I did actually see, and it is hard to believe that they are the work of men; the baffling and intricate passages from room to room and from court to court were an endless wonder to me, as we passed from a courtyard into rooms, from rooms into galleries, from galleries into more rooms and thence into yet more courtyards. The roof of every chamber, courtyard, and gallery is, like the walls, of stone. The walls are covered with carved figures, and each court is exquisitely built of white marble and surrounded by a colonnade. Near the corner where the labyrinth ends, there is a pyramid, two hundred and forty feet in height, with great carved figures of animals on it and an underground passage by which it can be entered. I was told very credibly that underground chambers and passages connected this pyramid with the pyramids at Memphis (Giza).

The Island of Manhattan and the World Trade Center continue to reaffirm their connections to Egypt, this time through the mystical labyrinth. The site for the Twin Towers is being redone with a single tower, dubbed the Freedom Tower, and two reflecting pools in place of the Twin Towers. These three spots form an inexact, but slightly reminiscent overhead view of the Pyramid layout:

The Medusa Touch - Part 4

Alright, well this is Part 4, the last part of the series, continued from Part 3. Up until now I've basically been concentrating on mythological figures who are similar to Medusa, and trying to convince you that the reason for the similarities is that they all represent a similar archytype, whether or not the Greeks were even aware of it when they were carving Medusa heads into the pediments of their temples. Solon, the Greek sage, went to Egypt to question the priests in Egypt about the past. One day, as Solon discussed the history of the first man known on earth and the last flood, a wise old priest replied to Solon:

Solon you Greeks are mentally like children Is there not an aged sage among you ? You all too young in spirit and have no ideas handed down from ancient traditions, no knowledge from ancient times. Many disasters have befallen humanity and many more will do so, the worst from water and fire, and the least by asteroids and meteorites, which spin around the sky and the earth.

Every time you (Greeks) or other nations start to write and gather together the first rudiments of civilization, the furies of the sky crash down on you. The only ones who escape are the illiterate and the ignorant. So you must relearn everything whilst forgetting your past completely!

Egypt had a fairly stable civilization for quite a while, and were still able to remember most of their past. As a result, they were aware of where their myths came from and what they originally meant. The Greeks, however, lived in a part of the world which was frequently overcome with war and cataclysm. Therefore the Greeks had no idea where their myths came from and focused on only the exoteric stories. As Medusaesque deities can be found around the world, I believe that they represent a real event, and later a more sublime symbol, recorded around the world as an anthropomorphized figure. There was almost certainly another more esoteric level of meaning attatched to whatever event this new figure now represented (which I touched on in Part 1). Then a third level of meaning, which was just the soap-opera acts of the gods, which is what the Greeks focused on.

So, if the Egyptians had the older religion compared to the Greeks, where is Medusa in Egypt? Well, probably split into several different deities, as their religion is older and more refined, with specialized gods and their specific aspects. The Greeks probably combined a few mythological figures into Medusa from memory. In Egypt, there's the snake headed goddess Kauket "who ruled over the darkness with her husband. Her name also meant darkness, as did her husband's name, but with a feminine ending." If the Egyptians weren't obsessed with duality, they may have combined Kek and Kauket into one he-she like Medusa and Tlaltecuhtli. She was called "the bringer of night." There may be some connection to Medusa from the Egyptan Mafdet, the "slayer of serpents." She is actually a feline goddess (as well as a mongoose) because cats, and leopards, killed snakes and scorpions. Her hair was braided to reflect the sectioned body of a scorpion, and the braids ended in scorpion tails. She also wore a headress of snakes. And incase that wasn't enough, there's even mention of her ripping out the hearts of wrong-doers. Now it may seem contradictory for me to try and connect a feline snake-killing goddess with Medusa if it wasn't for Medusa being represented with her own leopards in the Corfu Pediment.

There is the scorpion goddess, Serqet, who "could punish those with the poison of a scorpion or snake, causing breathlessness and death, or she could protect against the same venom. Yet just as she could kill, she was thought to give breath to the justified dead, helping them be reborn in the afterlife." This is similar to the blood taken from Medusa's left side which was a poison, and from the right side which could bring the dead back to life. And we have the cobra goddess Wadjet who took the form of a lioness. Moving on, there is the moon god (male) Khonsu, associated with knowledge and time; and as such often represented along with the ever present Thoth. Khonsu "appears in the well known 'Cannibal Hymn' (Utt. 173-4) as a bloodthirsty deity who assists the deceased king in catching and slaying those gods that the king 'feeds upon' in order to absorb their strength. Specifically, it refers to him as 'Khonsu who slew the lords, who strangles them for the King, and extracts for him what is in their bodies.' Though only mentioned once in the Pyramid Texts, he is also referred to in Spell 258 of the Coffin Texts, where he is 'Khonsu who lives on hearts'." Like Medusa with her wings, Khonsu, as a sky deity is sometimes shown with the head of a falcon, though differentiated from Horus by the crescent moon (similar to Kali) on his head. And finally there is Apep, the great serpent, the Destroyer; patron of evil and darkness. Apep is of course way more powerful than Medusa, but I still see a similarity as Apep attacks the sun boat of Ra, and when successful, the world would be plunged into total darkness - a solar eclipse.

I believe that Medusa represents the moon, but more specifically, the moon during an eclispe; along with whatever feelings that event must have aroused in early man, and the resulting spiritual symbolism encoded therein. I think that the way Mesusa or other figures were represented might give us some clues at to whether this is true or not. Going back to Aztec mythology, we have the moon goddess Coyolxauhqui (pictured above as a serpent). "She was a powerful magician and led her siblings in an attack on their mother, Coatlicue, because she became pregnant in a shameful way (by a ball of feathers). Coatlicue's fetus, Huitzilopochtli, sprang from her womb in full war armour and killed Coyolxauhqui, along with many of the brothers and sisters. He cut off her limbs, then tossed her head into the sky where it became the moon, so that his mother would be comforted in seeing her daughter in the sky every night." Medusa became pregnant in a shameful way (like Coatlicue)and was beheaded (like Coyolxauhqui). Coyolxauhqui lost her head which became the moon, and Medusa is basically just a head, which happens to be depicted in the same way as other solar/lunar deities. "A shield-shaped stone frieze reflecting this story was found at the base of the stairs on the Templo Mayor. In this frieze, Coyolxauhqui is shown spread out on her side, with her head, arms and legs chopped away from her body. ... Scholars also believe that the decapitation and destruction of Coyolxauhqui is reflected in the pattern of warrior ritual sacrifice. First, captive's hearts were cut out, then they were decapitated, their limbs chopped off, and finally their bodies were cast from the temple, to lie, perhaps, on the great Coyolxauhqui stone." Again we have the blood or heart sacrifice theme. Medusa was never appeased with bloody hearts, only decapitated, but as I've already stated, I think the mythology surrounding her may be incomplete due to the lack of historical knowledge by the Greeks.

Here is the stone frieze of Coyolxauhqui compared to the Corfu Pediment. Notice the limbs are in similar poses. I think that the "rotation" depicted by the arms and the legs represents a rotating disc in the sky, a wheel that is turning, similar to the swastica symbol as a symbol for the sun or the movement of the heavens.

The arms and legs appear to be rotating in opposite directions, possibly representing two different things (sun and moon?). Medusa and Coyolxauhqui are oddly reminicent of the female vampires of the Phillipines, those night-time bloodsuckers, the Visayan manananggal ("self-segmenters") who would detach their upper bodies and fly through the night looking for victims. Infact looking at the picture at the top of this page, it's hard not to see Medusa as a vampire, at least all her counterparts seem to have a blood lust. Perhaps there's some parallel with Lillith, the disgraced first wife of Adam, and original vampire/succubus? The Corfu Pediment is a depiction of Medusa already having been decapitated, while it might not look it, her children who sprang from her neck wound are seen with her - either an indication of her death, or a continuity error. There's the winged horse Pegasus (missing due to damage to the sculpture) and the boy Chrysaor "Golden Sword." Not wanting to get into the mythology of Medusa's offspring, but as a small sidetrack, perhaps the "golden sword" which sprang from Medusas severed head is the first ray of light which is seen when a solar eclipse is ending.

Keeping with the symbolism of the bent-limb, there is another more telling sculpture of Medusa (holding Pegasus), shown with 3 limbs bent in the same direction, and we can more clearly see her wings which remind us that she belongs up there.

The moon makes 12 and a third lunations, or lunar months, a year. It takes three years for the moon to make a complete number of lunations (37), and as a result the number three is associated with the moon. Also the "triple goddess" of the moon is a familiar theme, as the moon has three phases, the waxing, full and waning. Note that there were three Gorgons, and many times there are three witches in mythology (like the Graeae), and in books and movies. (The Graeae were known as the Stygian Witches, no wonder I like writing about their conterparts the Gorgons. The Graeae, like the Gorgons, had one eye and one tooth among them (thanks Adam*), and were the offspring of the "old man of the sea.") Notice in the pictures below, Medusa ringed with serpents, and the moon's cycle depicted as a serpent. Infact in the Medusa picture, the serpent splits the circle into two halves with Medusa's head in the center, possibly indicating a waxing, full, and waning motif.

Medusa can even be seen as the now extremely interesting Trinacria. The trinacria is an ancient symbol and name for Sicily; due apparently to the triangular shape of the island.

My art history teacher said that Medusa was depicted with bent limbs on the Corfu pediment because the artists couldn't fit her standing because she was too big. How this makes sense I don't know. If they wanted her to fit, they would have made her smaller. She is constantly depicted in the squatting-running fashion for a reason. Even if the artists were so inept as to not be able to fit her in the Corfu pediment, it doesn't explain why in other sculptures she remains in a bent-limb pose. No, there is some reason, possibly unknown even to the Greeks, that she had to be shown in that pose. The Aztec deities I've presented were also shown in bent-limb poses, but it was probably because of their connection to childbirth. Medusa, like the moon, is male and female. She is basically a head with a body later thought up for her to fill in the blanks of her mythology. Something about seeing her paralyzes people with fear - turns them to stone. People cannot look at her directly, as we are all told to avoid direct eye contact with an eclispe. But what of the serpents? Why always at least two snakes beside her head? Well, I think that they represent the serpent-path of the eclispe. The invisible path in the sky which swollows the sun every now and again (shown above as the lunation cycle), when Apep temporarily overcomes Ra's sun-boat. Medusa has a relationship with Poseiden as well, linking her to the chaotic waters out of which, in some versions, her children are born from her blood falling into the water.

Apep, "water snake-demon of chaos," was a demon of the underworld, in the form of a giant water snake. It was believed that he was created when Nit spat into the primeval waters of Nun. He was the enemy of the sun god, trying to stop him as he travelled on his barque through the underworld each night. He was so powerful that little could defeat him, and even then, he was back again the following evening to threaten Ra. He was a demon outside of ma'at, the opposite of order, a demon of darkness and chaos.

Apep was never worshiped, but the ancient Egyptians protected themselves against him - he was a threat not only against people and the gods, but against ma'at and creation itself. As a demon of the unknown and related to frightening events such as unexplained darkness (solar eclipses were interpreted as a victory of Apep over Ra as he swallowed the solar barque), rituals were followed to ensure he could do no harm. In this, he was linked to Set, who also had eclipses, thunderstorms and earthquakes attributed to him.

The eight pages of the Moon table of the Dresden Codex are a chain of numbers across the bottom line of each page translates into a time packet of lunar synodic intervals. There are clumpings of six lunar synodic months (178 days) followed by one set of five (148 days). Each bunch of five moons is followed by a picture. A close look at all of the pictures together gives very strong clues about what the Mayas would do, parcel out a chain of 405 full moons over more than three decades. The answer is that Mayan astronomers were attempting, apparently quite successfully, to predict eclipses. Some of these illustrations depict half-light, half-dark disks with lunar crescents opposing the kin glyph, symbol of the Sun ( kin means sun and day as well as time in the Mayan language). A serpent devouring the Sun and a dead lunar goddess hanging by her hair from a segmented serpent who represents the sky also appear in the pictorial portion of the table.

Stonehenge is quite the famous astronomical clock:

Every year on the first day of summer, the Sun rises at a point that is farther north than on any other day of the year. At the ruins of Stonehenge in England, this solstice sunrise appears on the horizon in direct alignment with the massive heel stone. This is the most outstanding feature of this ancient monument, built during the same era as the Great Pyramid of Egypt. There is little doubt that the builders of Stonehenge used it to mark this special day as the beginning of each year. By counting the number of days between these annual alignments, they could determine the length of the year. This could serve as a practical calendar to mark holidays and seasonal festivals and to ensure the timely planting and harvesting of crops.

But to predict eclipses, knowledge of two other cycles is required. One of these -- the length of the lunar month -- is easily determined. It is simply the number of days between one full Moon and the next. This cycle of 29-1/2 days is marked at Stonehenge by two rings of 29 and 30 holes, which together average 29-1/2. The other cycle, however, is of an altogether different character: it is a cycle of rotation of two invisible points in space (the two serpents always beside Medusa?). The evidence shows that the builders of Stonehenge probably discovered this cycle and could have used it to predict eclipses.

British antiquarian Dr. William Stukeley, who in 1740 was the first to note the summer solstice alignment at Stonehenge, advanced the notion that the monument was built by Druids to worship the serpent. He claimed that Stonehenge and similar stone circles had been serpent temples, which he called "Dracontia." Could this serpent symbolism be related to eclipses? Recall that the key to eclipses is the position of the lunar nodes. The length of time for the Moon to return to a node (about 27.2 days) astronomers call the draconic month. (Draco is the Latin word for "serpent" or "dragon.) Perhaps the mythical serpents of Stonehenge and the legendary dragon that eats the Sun are symbols of the same thing: the invisible presence in time and space that eclipses the Sun and the Moon.

This is, I believe, the first attribute which can be associated with Medusa - the frightening aspect of the moon during an eclipse. However once everyone was quite aware of the possibility of an eclipe it woud have become less worysome. It was then they higher ideas could be fitted to the already existing symbolism. To the Greeks, Medusa-Eclispe was probably just a boogyman bedtime story for all we know. Clearly the other figures with their blood lusts and connection to death would have been representations of the unkown, death, and nightime (relating to vampiric activity perhaps). And maybe it's because I've been reading about alchemy lately, but I think there is some important idea behind the power of Medusa to turn a person into Stone. First of all, this is quite reminicent of Lot's wife being turned into a pillar of Salt when she looked at Gods destruction of Soddom and Gommorrah.

Genesis 19:23
"The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar. (24) Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven; (25) And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. (26) But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt."

Luke 17:28-33
"Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; (29) But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. (30) Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. (31) In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back. (32) Remember Lot's wife. (33)Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it."

To look upon it would instantly change you into Stone or Salt, similar to Midas and his touch, as I've said in Part 1 of this series. I'm being reminded also of that old Batman episode (the series with Adam West), where one of the arch-villans (the Joker or Penguin?) invents a gun which vaporizes all the water in a persons body, reducing them to a small pile of salt. Interestingly this device is in the most recent Batman movie where the Scarecrow uses it to vaporize Gotham's waer supply to activate his hallucinogenic chemical.

The first phase of alchemy is called Nigredo, the Black Phase, and is represented as Philospher's Lead, a Black Dragon, or Black Crows. In Alchemy, Salt is the body, Sulfur the soul and Mercury the spirit. These three substances make up the Three Essential of all things. A substance is reduced to it's salt during the first process of alchemy - Calcination. Salt is represented by a cube, and this stage is depicted by a skull (as are many of the Medusaesqe deities revealed in the previous parts of this series). Salt is the beginning and end of alchemy. It represents the imperfect matter which is then dissolved and refined until it's essences are reconstituted in a more perfect form at the end. Salt is seen as the child of the alchemical marriage between the King (Sulfur) and Queen (Mercury), the Sun and the Moon.

Medusa represents an initial transformative power which if not controlled will leave us as a lifeless as a stone - a pillar of Salt without the firey soul of Sulfur, or animating spirit of Mercury. Perseus, the heroic slayer of Medusa was aided on his quest by Athena (Goddess of heroic endeavour), Hermes (Mercury), and Hades (Sulfur).