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"... Jones’s guest on his show the morning of the shooting had been, as chance would have it, Donald Trump. Jones had praised Trump, claiming that ninety per cent of his listeners were Trump supporters, and Trump had returned the favor, saying, 'Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down.' "

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Alex Jones

"Last week, when Donald Trump tapped the chairman of Breitbart Media to lead his campaign, he wasn't simply turning to a trusted ally and veteran propagandist. By bringing on Stephen Bannon, Trump was signaling a wholehearted embrace of the 'alt-right,' a once-motley assemblage of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, ethno-nationalistic provocateurs who have coalesced behind Trump and curried the GOP nominee's favor on social media. In short, Trump has embraced the core readership of Breitbart News.

" 'We're the platform for the alt-right,' Bannon told me proudly when I interviewed him at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in July. Though disavowed by every other major conservative news outlet, the alt-right has been Bannon's target audience ever since he took over Breitbart News from its late founder, Andrew Breitbart, four years ago. Under Bannon's leadership, the site has plunged into the fever swamps of conservatism, cheering white nationalist groups as an 'eclectic mix of renegades,' accusing President Barack Obama of importing 'more hating Muslims,' and waging an incessant war against the purveyors of 'political correctness.' "

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Stephen Bannon

"During the 1990s, there was an effort by Laurance Rockefeller (of the Rockefeller Rockefellers) to encourage the United States government to release any classified information it had about extraterrestrials, alien spacecraft and UFOs. The effort, referred to as the Rockefeller Initiative by UFO truthers, included meetings between Rockefeller and senior Clinton administration staff. In August of 1995, the Clintons stayed at Rockefeller's ranch in Wyoming, and Hillary was photographed with him while holding a book titled, 'Are We Alone? Philosophical Implications of the Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life.' (A large number of documents pertaining to Rockefeller's advocacy on this issue were released under the Freedom of Information Act several years ago.)

"The subject was not an uncommon one for the White House at the time. That Christmas, Bill Clinton gave a speech in Belfast, in which he described letters he'd gotten from schoolchildren. He thanked a 13-year-old named Ryan for his letter and did his best to answer Ryan's question. 'No,' Clinton said, 'as far as I know, an alien spacecraft did not crash in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. And Ryan, if the United States Air Force did recover alien bodies, they didn't tell me about it, either, and I want to know.' "

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Laurance Rockefeller, one of the principal sugar daddies of Ufology

"Podesta, who was Bill Clinton’s White House chief of staff, for years has called on the U.S. government to declassify UFO files. In a 2002 speech at the National Press Club in Washington, he said, 'I think it’s time to open the books on questions that have remained in the dark on the question of government investigations of UFOs. 

" 'It’s time to find out what the truth really is that’s out there,' Podesta said. 'We ought to do it because it’s right. We ought to do it because the American people, quite frankly, can handle the truth. And we ought to do it because it’s the law.'

"After spending a year as President Barack Obama’s senior adviser, Podesta tweeted on Feb. 13, 2015, that his biggest regret was 'not securing the disclosure of the UFO files.' "

 " 'I’ve talked to Hillary about that,' Podesta told KLAS-TV Politics NOW co-host Steve Sebelius during a campaign stop in Las Vegas. 'There are still classified files that could be declassified.'

"He continued: 'I think I’ve convinced her that we need an effort to kind of go look at that and declassify as much as we can, so that people have their legitimate questions answered. More attention and more discussion about unexplained aerial phenomena can happen without people — who are in public life, who are serious about this — being ridiculed.' 

"Podesta made it clear that 'the UFO question has been discussed' with Clinton, KLAS reporter George Knapp reveals in the above video (which includes statements from this reporter). The station broadcast the interview on Tuesday.

"Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, made headlines in January when she told the Conway Daily Sun newspaper in New Hampshire that she would 'get to the bottom of' the mystery behind unexplained aerial objects."

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John Podesta

"Tom DeLonge, former lead vocalist for Blink-182, recently came forward to publicly announce that he is receiving covert support from senior officials in the U.S. military industrial complex to reveal the truth about UFOs to the world’s youth. DeLonge says that he has assembled a team of ten advisors who have leadership positions in various U.S. military services, corporations and government bodies, who are giving him information about the 'deep black world of highly compartmentalized advanced technology projects.

"During his musical career with Blink-182 (1992 – 2015) and Angels & Airwaves, DeLonge has produced hit albums whose total sales number nearly 30 million. His Twitter page, which currently features a Nazi UFO, has over 650,000 followers.  It is DeLonge’s broad appeal to the Millennial generation that allowed him to successfully pitch his transmedia proposal for cooperation with leaders of 'deep black' projects related to UFOs and antigravity technologies.

"On March 27, DeLonge appeared on Coast to Coast Radio where he first publicly disclosed his involvement in the initiative. This was followed by the April 5 release of Sekret Machines, a fiction based on fact book co-authored with A.J. Hartley. A non-fiction book describing the technologies and historical events is scheduled to be released soon. In all, DeLonge plans to release three fiction and three non-fiction books which will reveal all in his 'full disclosure' initiative.

"In his radio interview and book, De Longe described how the extraordinary cooperation between U.S. military, corporate and government officials, and himself began in early 2015. This opportunity emerged by chance after DeLonge was approached and agreed to speak at a corporate event honoring the head of a major aerospace company, where he made it a condition that he could privately talk with this industry leader for five minutes afterwards, which was agreed upon. 

"DeLonge made a pitch for the corporate official to help in an initiative to disclose to the world’s youth the truth about classified UFO technology projects. Citing the readily available version of the history of UFOs, DeLonge said that many conspiracy websites had unfairly demonized the U.S. military industrial complex. In his view, the pioneering 'secret machines' being secretly developed were ground breaking, and those involved in developing antigravity and other advanced technologies were unsung American heroes. Their stories and contributions, according to DeLonge, needed to be told, so as to restore public confidence in government after 'full disclosure'."

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"DeLonge has staked his professional reputation and career in coming forward to reveal his participation in the officially backed UFO disclosure initiative. So far, he has said he can’t name the officials, even though it has emerged that John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager was interviewed for a follow-up video, which will be released as part of his UFO disclosure initiative.

"Podesta has held very senior positions with the Democratic Party, including Chief of Staff for the Clinton White House. Podesta is on the record with multiple attempts made during the Obama, Bush and Clinton administrations to promote UFO disclosure.

"However, Podesta is notoriously out of reach to most UFO researchers who have repeatedly tried to interview him over the years, aside from a select few who have the necessary gravitas meriting his cooperation. Now DeLonge has been added to that select list, making plausible his key claim of having received official blessing for UFO 'full disclosure'. 

"It is therefore significant that at the same time that DeLonge has come forward with his claims, Hillary Clinton has publicly stated that she will look seriously into the UFO issue, and that in doing so she is fulfilling a pledge made to Podesta. 

"Clinton and Podesta’s efforts in promoting UFO disclosure go back to the first Clinton administration (1993-2001), suggesting that DeLonge’s efforts, if successful, will make Clinton and Podesta heroes in the eyes of the youth. That will certainly help her Presidential campaign, which, to date, has not inspired the youth vote."

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Tom DeLonge

Trump appears to have had longstanding ties to the old American Security Council (ASC) network. The ASC was the premier lobby group for the military-industrial complex throughout the Cold War, receiving ample backing from many of the nation's largest defense contractors. But this was only part of the story, the one that was revealed to the public. The other function of the ASC was to serve as a vast private intelligence network and as such was heavily staffed by "former" FBI, CIA and military intelligence officers. The ASC crops up in numerous deep state outrages, including the Kennedy assassination, state-sanctioned drug trafficking, blacklisting and so on. Much more information on the ASC can be found here.

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"Indeed, throughout the 1980s, Spence collected the rich, powerful and influential with the dexterity of a coin collector amassing rare coins. His parties and seminars boasted journalists Eric Sevareid, Ted Koppel, and William Safire. High-powered politicians--including Senators John Glenn of Ohio and Frank Murkowski of Alaska--attended. Former Ambassadors Robert Neumann, Elliot Richardson and James Lilly also came. John Mitchell, the disgraced former Attorney General under Richard Nixon, was a close friend of Spence and a frequent party fixture. Spence's soirees also attracted high-ranking military and intelligence officers. In fact, CIA Director William Casey seemed to be particularly fond of Spence and his high-flying get-togethers. Spence once threw a glitzy birthday bash for his friend and right-wing closet homosexual Roy Cohn, and his friend William Casey was one of the guests of honor..."

(The Franklin Scandal, Nick Bryant, pg. 296) 

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Roy Cohn

"When asked this week about how he would approach foreign policy, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told MSNBC, 'I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain, and I’ve said a lot of things.' He also announced his lineup of little-known foreign policy advisers, including Joseph Schmitz, a former Pentagon inspector general with ties to the Center for Security Policy, who was forced out of his job amid accusations that he protected high-level officials in the George W. Bush administration who were suspected of wrongdoing. We get reaction from The Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill, who notes Schmitz is a radical Christian supremacist with an 'insane worldview' who was a former executive with Blackwater."

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Joseph Schmitz

"Yeah, Joseph Schmitz was the Pentagon inspector general under Donald Rumsfeld, and he didn’t really inspect much of anything. He was a big cheerleader, actually, for many of the most kind of excessive policies of Rumsfeld and the Pentagon in the post-9/11 world. A

nd when Schmitz left the DOD, he became an executive at Blackwater. And Joseph Schmitz is a—you know, is a radical Christian supremacist. He is a member of the Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta and really is sort of a—you know, has a neo-crusader worldview. And I’m choosing those words carefully. I mean, that’s—he is definitely a radical Christian supremacist."

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the Maltese cross widely used by the Knights of Malta

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Schlaffy's funeral

"The two political operatives chosen earlier this month to lead Donald Trump’s presidential campaign after two former managers departed have been members of the secretive Council for National Policy (CNP), Hatewatch has learned.

"Longtime Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway and Stephen Bannon, executive chairman of the far-right Breitbart News operation, were named on Aug. 17 as, respectively, the Trump campaign’s manager and its chief executive officer. The appointment of Bannon was by far the more controversial choice, given his role at a 'news' outlet known for bashing immigrants, Muslims, women and others.

 "The CNP is an intensely secretive and shadowy group of what The New York Times once described as 'the most powerful conservatives in the country.' It is so tight-lipped that it tells people not to admit their membership or even name the group. Revealing when or where the group meets, or what it discusses, is also forbidden. The organization, which can only be joined by invitation and at a cost of thousands of dollars, strives mightily to keep its membership rolls secret."

That Hillary has similar ties to "Liberal Establishment" luminaries such as the Council on Foreign Relations has been endless trumpeted by the conspiratorial right for years now. These claims are thus hardly worth discussing. What is interesting for our purposes here is the seeming divide emerging among different factions of Hillary supporters. On the one hand we have the neo-cons, whom Hillary has grown especially close to over the past decade or so.

It would appear that they now have bold plans for Clinton's presidency. Off Guardian reports:

"Here we go again. Earlier this year, some were surprised to see Project For The New American Century (PNAC) co-founder and longtime DC fixture Robert Kagan endorse former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for president.

"They shouldn’t have been. As is now clear from a policy paper [PDF] published last month, the neoconservatives are going all-in on Hillary Clinton being the best vessel for American power in the years ahead.

"The paper, titled “Expanding American Power,” was published by the Center for a New American Security, a Democratic Party-friendly think tank co-founded and led by former Undersecretary of Defense Michèle Flournoy. Flournoy served in the Obama Administration under Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and is widely considered to be the frontrunner for the next secretary of defense, should Hillary Clinton become president.

 "The introduction to Expanding American Power is written by the aforementioned Robert Kagan and former Clinton Administration State Department official James Rubin. The paper itself was prepared in consultation with various defense and national security intellectuals over the course of six dinners. Among the officials includes those who signed on to PNAC letters calling for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, such as Elliot Abrams, Robert Zoellick, Craig Kennedy, Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross, and Flournoy herself, who signed on to a PNAC letter in 2005 calling for more ground troops in Iraq.

"The substance of the document is about what one would expect from an iteration of PNAC. The paper cites a highly revisionist history of post-World War II American policymaking, complete with a celebration of America’s selfless motives for every action. Left out is any mention of overthrowing democratically elected and popular governments for US business, or the subsequent blowback for such actions in Latin America, the Middle East, and elsewhere.

"For the neocons and liberal interventionists at the Center for a New American Security, the United States has always acted for the benefit of all."

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In addition to the PNAC supporters, Hillary appears to have enlisted Mr. Neocon himself, Paul Wolfowitz.  All of this raises the distinct possibility that a Hillary presidency would be like Bush II on steroids as the target this time around appears to be Russia rather than another over matched Islamic nation.

Not everyone is on board with escalating tensions with Russia, however. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser and a close alley of the Rockefeller faction (he was a co-founder of the Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller) recently make some striking comments concerning a new global realignment for The American Interest. Z-big wrote:

"A constructive U.S. policy must be patiently guided by a long-range vision. It must seek outcomes that promote the gradual realization in Russia (probably post-Putin) that its only place as an influential world power is ultimately within Europe. China’s increasing role in the Middle East should reflect the reciprocal American and Chinese realization that a growing U.S.-PRC partnership in coping with the Middle Eastern crisis is an historically significant test of their ability to shape and enhance together wider global stability.

 "The alternative to a constructive vision, and especially the quest for a one-sided militarily and ideologically imposed outcome, can only result in prolonged and self-destructive futility. For America, that could entail enduring conflict, fatigue, and conceivably even a demoralizing withdrawal to its pre-20th century isolationism. For Russia, it could mean major defeat, increasing the likelihood of subordination in some fashion to Chinese predominance. For China, it could portend war not only with the United States but also, perhaps separately, with either Japan or India or with both. And, in any case, a prolonged phase of sustained ethnic, quasi-religious wars pursued through the Middle East with self-righteous fanaticism would generate escalating bloodshed within and outside the region, and growing cruelty everywhere.

"The fact is that there has never been a truly 'dominant' global power until the emergence of America on the world scene. Imperial Great Britain came close to becoming one, but World War I and later World War II not only bankrupted it but also prompted the emergence of rival regional powers. The decisive new global reality was the appearance on the world scene of America as simultaneously the richest and militarily the most powerful player. During the latter part of the 20th century no other power even came close.

"That era is now ending. While no state is likely in the near future to match America’s economic-financial superiority, new weapons systems could suddenly endow some countries with the means to commit suicide in a joint tit-for-tat embrace with the United States, or even to prevail. Without going into speculative detail, the sudden acquisition by some state of the capacity to render America militarily inferior would spell the end of America’s global role. The result would most probably be global chaos. And that is why it behooves the United States to fashion a policy in which at least one of the two potentially threatening states becomes a partner in the quest for regional and then wider global stability, and thus in containing the least predictable but potentially the most likely rival to overreach. Currently, the more likely to overreach is Russia, but in the longer run it could be China."

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Zbigniew Brzezinski

In other words, Z-big appears to be abandoning of American unipolarism (of which he was a longstanding backer of) in favor of a return to Britain's "Balance of Power" politics that served the Empire so well for nearly a century. China and Russia are now to become formal partners, with the US alternatively backing either up to the point that they do not become a serious threat to US interests. It is especially imperative that Russia be brought into the European camp. This would ensure that the Trans-Atlantic economy would remain the dominate sector of business in the twenty-first century. If Russia and China are to forge a closer relationship, however, the center of the international economic order will shift to Eurasia and leave the United States outside looking in.

Clearly, this seems to indicate a conflict of interest between different factions of Hillary backers, with the neocons still clinging to unipolarism while the Rockefellers appear to have resolved themselves to a kind of neo-detente with a strong British Empire influence. It is difficult to say how compatible these approaches are and in fact these discrepancies may be driving the rather bizarre approach the Democrats are taking to this election.

A Conspiracy Theory

Trump's erratic behavior has led some Republicans and other American conservatives to question whether he's deliberately tanking the election to get Hillary elected. But to this researcher's mind, it is the behavior of the Democrats that seems especially suspect. 

The decision to nominate Hillary in the first place is rather baffling. In many ways she is every bit as polarizing a figure as Trump, a fact that was laid bare during his first bid for the presidency. And contrary to the narrative of the mainstream media, it is not just inbred conservatives that despise Hillary, but increasingly the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. 

The conventional narrative is that the DNC had no choice but to nominate Hillary, so as to hold off "outsider" Bernie Sanders from getting the nomination. But given the way Bernie has prostituted himself after losing the nomination, it seems rather implausible that the Democratic power brokers would have found a Bernie Sanders nomination especially offensive. In point of fact, it would have all but ensured the DNC would emerge victorious as few dispute that Sanders would crush Trump in a general election.

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Bernie Sanders

Instead, they opted to go with one of the most corrupt politicians of her era, a woman's whose closet is overflowing with skeletons and whom the base is lukewarm at best concerning. Adding to this quagmire are Clinton's inexplicable "deplorables" comments, which may rally the right in much the same way Mitt Romney's "47 percent" gaffe did to the left during the 2012 election cycle.   

And her recent near-fainting spell in New York during a 9/11 memorial have made her health a serious concern to the general public after months of dark rumblings among the alt right. While this researcher is highly dubious of these allegations, that way the Clinton campaign have handled these charges is curious at best and likely has given credence to some of the more incredible speculations being bantered about in the alternative media.

Trump's erratic behavior, outrageous comments and inability to come anywhere near Clinton in fundraising should have all but ensured that Hillary will defeat him by a wide margin. But with less than two months until the election, it is Clinton who appears to be on the ropes while controversies continue to unfold around her. The word "unelectable" now seems more apt for the former First Lady than the current reality TV star.

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Are the elites backing Clinton truly this blind or was the agenda a Trump presidency all along? The question deserves serious consideration as Hillary is possibly the only challenger Trump has a real chance of beating in a general election. Indeed, Bernie Sanders would have likely crushed Trump in a general election while there have long been indications that Hillary would have an uphill struggle. Various Establishments would have us believe that a Trump presidency will be the end of the world and yet they nominate the one candidate who would have a tremendous struggle to defeat him.

Something here does not add up. Are elements of either the neocons or the Rockefeller clique collaborating with the Le Cerlce/CNP Fascist International to bring Trump to power? And if so, why? To de-escalate tensions with Russia? To preserve American military power? Or to have more of the clinched fist and less of the velvet glove in US domestic policy?

All of these reasons are compelling in one way or another, but something tells me there is something else that is not yet evident. Certainly a Trump presidency would be a game changer on any number of levels, but especially in terms of how elections will be waged in the future. This rise of the alt media in the 2016 contest and the results it has achieved on a very limited budget are not going unnoticed by major power brokers. Astroturfing may become the new norm rather than the media blitzkriegs of years past. Certainly it does not seem to have been especially effective for Hillary.

And with that I shall wrap things up for now. Until next time dear readers.

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David Bowie (left) and Prince (right)

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the original "Memphis Sam," Sam Phillips

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" 'Okay, basically, I was the one who brought her to the band,' recounts Meltzer. 'She was my friend. In the summer of 1970, my dentist was around the corner from the bookstore where she worked, Scribner's Books on 5th Avenue in the 40s. And I stopped in there and we became great friends. And somewhere down the line I brought her to the band. Pearlman wanted to fuck her and that was his interest. And I don't know if he did or didn't, but once it was clear that she was with Allen, it got to be that there was a lot of tension between Pearlman and Allen. Allen was very anti-Semitic without any irony whatsoever. You know, fuck the Jews, all that kind of stuff. And so there was a lot of anti-Pearlman wrath from both of them. I lived with this woman Ronnie and we would hang out with Allen and Patti a lot, through the mid 70s. And essentially what made the relationship viable was we didn't mind his anti-Semitism. But the point is that Allen thought the faux-Nazi stuff was a joke. I mean, everybody took it as a joke.' "

(Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pgs. 39-40)

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Patti Smith (left) and Allen Lanier (right)

"... But having said that, 'Godzilla' is a really heavy song, and in fact one of the reasons I wound up producing The Clash is they loved 'Godzilla' and 'The Reaper.' All of the bullshit about me being forced down their throats as a sellout to tailor them to American market is nothing to do with anything. None of that's true. And they liked those records, and they also liked The Dictators, and that's when I wound up... they called up Patti Smith, and she said, 'He's awesome' and they liked them, so let's go..."

(Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pgs. 86-87)

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"It was Pearlman's version of The Clash- an auditory encapsulation of the Dadaism, dystopian sci-fi and delusional radical politics that animated the band- that remained my definitive Clash.

"Pearlman understood the antecedents behind their music --as well as the work of authors like Anthony Burgess and JG Ballard-- far better than the band did themselves, who in fact never again seemed able to get their sound on record after Rope... 

"Indeed, it was Pearlman's makeover that redefined The Clash and it was his sound that they'd put out onstage (literally- he replaced the band's rag 'n bone punk gear with all new equipment and taught them how to use it) until the bitter end, even if they could never get it together in the studio...

"It was Pearlman's vision of The Clash that I saw in concert on the London Calling tour, not the Stonesy simulacrum you hear on that album (my ears rang for a week). It was Pearlman's Clash (effects-drenched flamethrower guitars, gate-reverbed drums, everything played at peak intensity) that blew my brains out in 1983 with the Casbah Club live set (and all the cowbell you could ever ask for)."

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Sandy Pearlman (the only one not wearing black) and The Clash

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" 'The problem was that we had the same manager,' continued Ronnie. 'I believe that he, because he began that band and was there from the inception, and in fact, the band was really patterned after Black Sabbath --therefore Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath, whatever --and I think his allegiance was much more to them than it was to us. That annoyed us of course, as it should. It reached a culmination point in Madison Square Garden, on that show that has been documented, I guess, because the Black and Blue tour was done there, and it became a full-length feature film of some kind, and they were given everything and we were given nothing. They had their pyro, everything; we had nothing, not a thing. And I think that really defined what the problem was. "Hey, you're our manager too. Shouldn't we be using those kinds of specifications?" Within the film itself, there was a video that they had done that was part of that, and ours was only the presentation at Madison Square Garden. So I think that was a lot of the problem.' "

(Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pg. 135)

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Ronnie James Dio with Black Sabbath flashing famous "the sign of the horns," a gesture first linked to heavy metal allegedly by Dio during his time with Sabbath

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"On the cusp of scoring a major-label deal, the band auditioned for high-profile producers Murray Krugman and Sandy Pearlman at Columbia Records in September 1975. Hopes faded after vocalist/songwriter Bobby Liebling confronted Krugman about his performance, demanding that it be re-recorded. Krugman dismissed the request, but the singer persisted. He then took a bandmate aside into the vocal booth and assailed Krugman's character. Alas, the microphone was still on. Krugman heard every word. He left..."

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"As Sandy is wont to do, another connection has taken place: 'I also, as it turns out, not knowing it until I read some biography of Lovecraft, grew up in Lovecraft country, Arkham and Dunwich. I grew up in one of the towns that actually was Arkham and Dunwich in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts. I think it was Arkham I grew up in (laughs). I didn't know that at the time. My family had a lot of property up there. They had 200 acres on the Connecticut River, which Lovecraft called the Miskatonic River. I would walk around there, like at night, and it always seemed kind of strange to me; this place seemed weird. I read Sprague DeCamp's biography of Lovecraft and realised, well, it felt weird for a reason...' "

(Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pg. 21)

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"Back on a creative track, one would have to say that the most profound catalyst for the building of the BOC beast was an internal virus, namely Pearlman himself, as stated, a close college friend whose mind was on fire with the intellectual, creative, and fascist possibilities inherent in this new, leaden, serious form of rock 'n' roll called heavy metal. Bolle Gregmar... keeper of the Museum Of the Cult in Hollywood, is a good friend of Sandy's.

" 'He's a really well-read person. But also according to Albert [Bouchard, BOC's longtime drummer --Recluse] he's like a Jewish wannabe Nazi, so that's kind of strange too. He's really totally into occult ways of doing things. Which makes me think he's a Jewish pagan. The combination does not exist. But in his mind he's very fascinated by the old druids and all that stuff. But he wants to put it in the context of the future rather than going backwards. So he thinks about the whole thing with the world wars and stuff as something in the future. that, well, we've lived through two of them right now, and we're expecting a third one. But that third one's not going to be a war, it's just going to be a confrontation between minds. This is all perpetrated by his reading H.P. Lovecraft and Richard Chambers' The King in Yellow from 1895 and other books that he's been reading about the righteousness of believing what you read.'

"Joe, when asked what reading shaped Sandy's thinking, offers the following: 'You know, everything that you've heard is probably what I've heard, probably through the same sources, places like the internet. I get out there and say, "Oh, this where that came from!" He would never tell us what his sources were. Never! He would just say, "Oh, it's just something I thought up." Now everybody is sort of like figuring the puzzle out. He's a pretty crafty guy. He knew his place. He had to protect his sources because else would go and rip him off (laughs). All I knew of Sandy was that he was one of those brilliant merit scholars, who had too much time on his hands, and read too many books. You know, even when we were making an album, Sandy would be reading these very difficult, technical books on warfare (laugh). We're making an album, he's reading books on warfare (laughs).'

"Sandy sheds some illumination on the psychological make-up of the band and himself. 'Things that shaped the whole philosophy of the band was first of all, the entire young scientist atmosphere of the early 1970s. I had thought I was going to be doing that. I wound up not doing it, but I still had this entire young scientist mindset. So there was the entire sort of can-do science fair attitude. Then whatever was the current, hot, leading edge research of the time of the early '70s was really important. On top of that you can overlay a tremendous amount of reading in original alchemical source texts. Then you can add on top of that an entire education in the history of ideas, a degree in philosophy and sociology. And then you can add on top of that a life-long fascination with H.P. Lovecraft and other writers of that ilk, although I don't think there's anybody nearly close to Lovecraft. So those are probably the main sources. I can remember pretty closely where all the things from Worship of the Telescope (a two CD compilation out at the time of my first interview with Sandy) came from. They came from the various pits that I've just referenced for you.'

"Such a philosophy, presumably, could only be set to the musical form and formula known as heavy metal...

" 'Yes, well, it's the vocabulary with which to communicate with a very large audience,' explains Professor Pearlman. 'A lot of the songs were by me --and they had very specific intentions. And even if the guys in the band don't want to talk about the intentions --which some of them are very reluctant to talk about --heavy metal was the best vocab with which to communicate the intentions of these songs. Most of the songs, or many of the songs, or at least a plurality, I guess, through Agents of Fortune, up until then, half the songs or more were written by me, and I was the producer, and this vocabulary was a great musical vocab with which to project and communicate the intentions of the lyrics.' "

(Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pgs. 17-19) 

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Pearlman was name droppingThe King in Yellow decades before True Detective made it a pop culture staple again

 "... Helen Wheels, future writer for the band, was Albert's girlfriend, and designer of the band's costumes at the time. She feels that the Nazi image thing was an amalgamation of many similar cues: 'It was things like the leather costumes, and those big flags Sandy designed. There were big Blue Oyster Cult logo flags on, I guess, the band's first tour. There were two huge ones, one on each side. I guess they were the Cult logo, but they were red and black. It just looked a little... and by '75 they had "ME 262" and that kind of material... I never thought much of it. To me, "ME 262" and those flags was the extent of it. And they were one of the first bands to be wearing black leather and studs.'

"Allen [Lainer, longtime BOC keyboardist and some time rhythm guitarist --Recluse], during the launch of Spectres, looked back on the controversy with Tony Parsons from NME, saying that the Nazi imagery was, 'a metaphor for negative imagery. Rock 'n' roll lives off of false imagery. We've dropped all that simply because it wasn't amusing anymore. It was just an in-joke that had run its course. I'm a very conservative person when it comes to rock 'n' roll.' "

(Agents of Fortune, Sandy Pearlman, pg. 45)

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BOC playing before one of Pearlman's notorious flags

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what the flag allegedly looked like in color

"As the saga goes, Imaginos begat life was a pile of poetic mumblings from one Sandy Pearlman, a collection of necessarily disconnected dribs and drabs that would be tinkered with many times since the mid-'60s, something Sandy called The Soft Doctrines of Imaginos. But as the '70s wore on, and when the muse attacked, Sandy would be there to receive piercings, transforming amorphous Imaginos thought into short, focused, commercially digestible peerings into the storyline, these exercises resulting in such integral Imaginos movements as 'Transmaniacon MC', 'Before the Kiss, a Redcap', 'Cities on Flame', 'Worship of the Telescope', 'Subhuman', 'Flaming Telepaths', 'Astronomy', ''Shadow of California', and 'When the War Comes'.

"In the true nature of enigma, other Cult compositions could also fit the Imaginos concept quite comfortably, especially (and most logically) second-tier Pearlman compositions like '7 Screaming Diz Busters', 'Redeemed', 'Dominance and Submission', 'ME 262', 'R.U. Ready 2 Rock' and 'Heavy Metal: The Black and the Silver.' But given the astonishing bandwidth of the story that includes time-travel, earthly evil, organic transformation and alien domination, the petty logic of story ownership can become wondrously suspended, allowing other lyricists to contribute to the river of time and space that is Imaginos. Thus 'Wings Wetted Down', 'Golden Age of Leather', 'The Vigil', 'Lips in the Hills', 'Veteran of the Psychic Wars' and 'Take Me Away' all could be seen as connecting the dots of Imaginos thought."

(Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pg. 183)

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"THE BACKGROUND: 'Out beyond the Europe's rim the Spaniards met the Indians.' This, then, is the original encounter, the deep background of the Imaginos saga, the table upon which the whole myth unfolds. To the Spaniards, agents of a Catholic Sovereign, the New World was no place of grace. To the Spaniards, the first Europeans to find a New World, what they found was not good. It was anti-genesis, anti-Eden, seat of evil, pit of darkness. All the shinning silver of Mexico and all its bright, bright gold, herein became no luminous mirror of delight, but, rather, a mirror of blackness. The priests in the expeditions could imagine no place worse than this place, albeit new, visibly in the thrall of invisible spirits. All the shinning silver of Mexico and all its bright, bright gold, becomes, when striven for beyond all limit, that which is beyond limit. 

"On the luminous surface of a noble metal, corruptible by no agent of this world, the Spaniards could read no reason to turn back now. Even then, it had become to late. In the mirror of blackness, where no light can shine and no image collects, the Spaniards discovered for themselves an image of the self without limit: the invention of all new things, the invention of genocide; all things are permitted. For hundreds of years, all the gold in the world came from the New World. Melted and re-melted, incorruptible, but soft, its luminosity circulated throughout Europe: the seduction of the Old World by the New World --innocence corrupts experience. The destruction of Spanish power was accomplished by the England of Elizabeth. Her occult adviser a Dr. John Dee. He spoke, he said, with invisible spirits and in his possession was a magic mirror of black volcanic glass, obsidian. It was fashioned in Mexico."

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Hassan-i Sabbah

"... Indeed, one of the famous shew stones of the Elizabethan magician and spy, John Dee, was of Aztec obsidian brought back from the New World by Spanish conquistadors. The Aztecs used the obsidian shew stone in an identical fashion to that used by Dee (and, alter, Joseph Smith), as a kind of crystal ball. To the Aztecs, the obsidian mirror was sacred to the god Tezcatlipoca, the 'god of the smoking mirror,' who would reveal to them the will of heaven. Tezcatlipoca was identified with the constellation Ursa Major, thus tying together astronomy with religion and divination in a pattern familiar to all students of ancient civilizations. The astronomical alignments of many of the Adena mound sites is further evidence of this persistent occult theorem. Joseph Smith, of course, used shew stones in much the same way as the Aztecs and John Dee. Indeed, John Dee himself was a scientific advisor to English expeditions to the New World, and a close friend of Sir Walter Raleigh, them man who introduced tobacco and many other curiosities to England from the New World. Elizabethan magician and spy, Dee also became convinced that a Welsh prince had 'discovered' America centuries before Columbus."

(Sinister Forces Book I. Peter Levenda, pgs. 53-54)

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John Dee

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H.P. Lovecraft

"Pearlman had hoped to adapt the Imaginos story into a Blue Oyster Cult album as far back as 1972, at which time he and Albert Bouchard (and, to a lesser extent, other BOC members) had begun to write songs around the narrative. But the band's increasing resistance to recording Pearlman's lyrics --as he puts its, 'They had realized the potential delight of publishing income, and were no longer interested in being the mouthpiece for my musings on the backstory of the creation of the universe' --put the project on hold, although individual Imaginos songs appeared on early BOC albums."

(Imaginos CD booklet, Scott Schinder)

"I asked Joe [Bouchard, longtime BOC bassist --Recluse] about one of the more enduring mysteries with respect to the band, the name 'Blue Oyster Cult.' 'The true story is that Sandy wrote a poem (The Secret Doctrines of The Imaginos) that was part of the Imaginos song cycle. I guess he wrote it back when he was going to graduate school, Brown University. He had dreamt up this whole Imaginos thing, and that was one of the songs. So it;s nothing to do with the anagram story.' "

(Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pg. 15)

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"Remember that this trio at Brown University in Providence Rhode Island during the late 1930's and the early 1940's, E. Howard Hunt, George Lincoln Rockwell, and Vonsiatsky, as either degree seeking students or in the case of 'Annie' Vonsiatsky, as a special student taking English for non-native speakers of the language. The Vonsiatsky legend lives on at Brown where he used to go in the late 1930's driving his Pierce Arrow convertible down the Putman Pike, dressed in Nazi regalia to attend Ivy League football games..."

(JFK -The Final Solution, John Bevilaqua)

But before getting to the sounds contained within the record, a word should be said about the debut album's striking cover art work. The great Julian Cope has referred to it as "mysterious monochrome sacred geometry." It is highly debatable if the cover was deliberately trying to evoke sacred geometry, but it certainly appears to hint at something truly sinister --perhaps some type of Panopticon on a prison planet overseen by ancient alien gods enthralled by a religion older than time itself.

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"Who better to graphically depict such a curious record than clearly bonkers school chum Bill Gawlik? Sandy retells the story of the enigmatic draftsman: 'Gawlik had gone to the Rhode Island School of Design, and he had left there and transferred to Stony Brook. He was living in the dorms, and I had ran into to him, quite literally, on the day when he was unfurling the huge scroll on which he had all of his architectural designs. He was sort of like Albert Spencer of H Quad at Stony Brook. You know, Speer was commissioned by Hitler to design all of future Europe. Bill Gawlik was designing all of future America, although he was not being commissioned by Hitler or anyone else. So a lot of the cover art really is on those original scrolls, which were so long that they would go the entire length of the building. It was like 4:00 in the morning when we were unfurling these things, and anybody who was up and moving around at 4:00 in the morning didn't seem to mind (laughs). Anyway, that's where I first ran into the stuff.'

" 'He was sort of eccentric to say the least,' continues Sandy. 'He lived alone in a little garret when he got out of Stony Brook on 14th Street above a children's clothing store that catered to Hispanics. His neighbor across the hall, I believe, was Wayne County, or one or another of those Warholoids or something like that, some person who was famous at The Factory not for 15 minutes, maybe for years. He was a cab driver; that's how he paid his bills when he left Stony Brooks. When Taxi Driver came out, I really thought Scorsese must have ridden around with Bill Gawlik, you know, talked to him and got the idea for the film from him! So all of these things came out of his stint at Rhode Island School of Design. He was probably there when the Talking Heads were there. It was about the same time. Now you should understand, since there's no such thing as coincidence, the Rhode Island School of Design is located at the historic district of Providence, Rhode Island. Just down the hill from what they call the RISD hill, where the school is, is the intersection of Benefit and Angell Street where Lovecraft lived. So you can sort of roll down the hill, or sled down on a snowy day, and you would arrive at H.P. Lovecraft central. I don't know if he knew this. I was talking to some people from Providence the other day, and we were talking about all that. But yeah, there's something there.' "

(Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pgs. 20-21)

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The Lovecraft connection again --as was noted in the first installment, Pearlman spent part of his youth in "Lovecraft Country." There are no indications that Gawlik had an interest in the occult, but his brief tenure in the BOC orbit was a curious one, to say the least. Certainly it seems that the development of the band's iconic logo was something of a mystical experience for Gawlik. But before getting to that, here's a bit more background on the logo:

"Another important Gawlik contribution to saga Of the Cult is the mesmerizing, all-pervading logo, the cross with dot and hook, the inverted question mark, symbol of Saturn, the sign of Chronos or Kronos (Greek) or Cronus (in Webster's)... who really knows for sure? It apparently appeared on Gawlik's architecture school Master's thesis.

" 'That was a gift,' says Buck [Dharma, BOC vocalist/guitarist --Recluse]. 'I think the graphic of the first album cover pretty much sprung whole from Gawlik's mind. As for the logo, that was a great gift. We can't take credit for creating it. It was Gawlik's thing. That came fully realised into our lap.' Bolle assigns credit to Allen Lanier for the two dots, or 'umlauts' above the 'O' in Oyster, to add mystery, a flair of the European, or the 'Ger-magic,' as Lenny Kaye's liner note to the reissue of the debut album attest.

"But mystery surrounds the exact origins of the band's distinct logo. 'This is another sort of Sandy Pearlman-ism,' says Bolle. 'He would make up a lot of long stories to build up the image. So I thought he was just making this up, that was an ancient alchemistic symbol for heavy metal. I thought, that would be perfect; how appropriate, it's got to be a made-up story. So about ten years later, after all the albums came out, somebody had this book of symbols, and there's this symbol for white lead that looks very similar to this symbol, except it's got a sharper point on the hook. So it's actually there and it's true. So some of the other connotations are a bit more dubious, like Saturn or Kronos or Chaos or energy. But anything that would fit into that bag would be good. But the actual symbol was done by Gawlik, who was a friend of Sandy's at school. So who knows what they talked about back in the dorm?...'

"Joe recalls specifically the invention of the band's iconoclastic logo as a mystical experience, at least for its shadowy creator... 'He spent a lot of time on it, several weeks, and he had pasted it on the wall in our living room. He would stare at it for hours and hours, and he was so concerned about getting the curve of the logo just right. I remember him debating how that should go for a long time. I wasn't really in on when he was doing the album, but I remember him actually working on the album cover in our living room for weeks on end. It seemed like he was really obsessed with getting the logo just right...' "

(Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pgs. 22-23) 

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Certainly it seems the creation of the Cult and their first album almost has the feel of a working with its occult allusions and art work and symbol that appears to have been quasi-channeled. The music inside nearly manages to match the high strangeness surrounding the album. Lyrically, the album hints at an underbelly consisting of secret societies, demonic biker gangs, the occult meeting the technocratic and the sinister potential of rock 'n' roll.

Blue Oyster Cult: A Side

Things kick off with the classic "Transmaniacon MC." "MC" is a commonly used abbreviation for "motorcycle club" that is commonly used by "one-percenters." "Transmaniacon" appears to be a combination of three words --"trans", "maniac" and "con." "Trans" is typically short for "transition" while maniac needs no explanation. "Con" can be an abbreviation for a host of words --"confidence," "conservative," "conference," "convict," and so on. Con can also be used to describe a swindle, and is linked to the expression "confidence man" (usually shortened to "con man"). Given that the song is about a secret society at the heart of a motorcycle gang, I suspect conference or possibly convict is likely what con is standing in for. Thus, we have something like transitioning maniac conference, a rather apt description for the counterculture by 1969.

It is also likely that Pearlman intended "Transmaniacon" to be a play on "transmutation," a word with much significance in alchemy.

"In many places, and especially in the Far East, gold was believed to be the offspring of Earth. The ancient ideogram, kin, suggests Earth-born nuggets. Gold was held to be either the product, after long gestation, of an embryo or else the result of the perfecting of base metals. It was the child of Nature's desires. Alchemy was restricted to completing or accelerating the natural process of transmutation: it did not originate fresh matter. Naturally the aim of true alchemists was not to obtain precious metal for, although Nagarjuna maintained that clay might be transmuted into gold, Sri Ramakrishna was well aware that gold and clay are one and the same. The Chinese symbolic colour for gold is white, not yellow, the latter corresponding with Earth. Transmutation is a form of redemption. Changing lead into gold, Angelus Silesius would say, is transforming man into God through God. Such were the mystical objectives of spiritual alchemy."

(Dictionary of Symbols, Jean Chevalier & Alain Gheerbrant, pg. 440)

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As was noted above, gold plays a key role in the Imaginos cycle, both the physical variety discovered in the New World and the spiritual variety hinted at in Imaginos' journey. This may have been a deliberate hint on Pearlman's part for what was for many the first song they heard by BOC. Transmutation's association with redemption is also interesting in light of the final track on the self-titled debut being named "Redeemed" and featuring ample occult references. Thus, the album seemingly comes full circle like an ouroboros. But back to "Transmaniacon MC."

Of it, the great Julian Cope raves:

"Clothed in a hand-finished cover of mysterious monochrome sacred geometry, the first album BLUE OYSTER CULT opens with a whooping on-the-hoof battle cry which, from bar one, sets out the band’s vindictive vagabond stall most eloquently. ‘Transmaniacon MC’ is an itinerant and un-righteous inverted 13th Floor Elevators hotrod howl, as though the commentary of lyricist Tommy Hall had been achieved whilst still in his pre-psychedelicized White Supremacist state. Indeed, the Pearlman lyric technique is veritably the Anti-Tommy, being executed with the same violent lashings of pedantry and excessive elocution that Malcolm McDowell would dish out a coupla years later in the movie version of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Herein, they really nailed Sandy Pearlman’s vision of mystery, myth and darkness. Take a gander at these malevolent openers:

" 'With Satan's hog no pig at all, and the weather getting dry,                                                      We're heading south from Altamont in a cold-blooded travelled trance,                                              So clear the road my bully boys and let some thunder pass,                                                      We're pain, we're steel, a plot of knives, We're Transmaniacon MC.' 

"The exquisite interplay between each of the guitarists creates a kind of high-amped road poetry, in which each bike takes it in turn to set the pace, gears shifting and rhythms increasing, some falling back as others engage the throttle.

" 'And surely we did offer up behind that stage at dawn                                                                    Beers and barracuda, reds and monocaine                                                                                  Pure nectar of antipathy behind that stage at dawn                                                                            To those who would resign their souls                                                                                              To Transmaniacon MC.

 " 'Cry the cable, cry the word, unknown terror's here                                                                        And won't you try this tasty snack, behind the scenes or but the back                                        Which was the stage at Altamont, my humble boys of listless power:                                        We're pain, we're steel, a plot of knives,                                                                                        We're Transmaniacon MC.'

"If anyone ever found a better description for an errant motorcycle club than that penultimate line (“We’re pain, we’re steel, a plot of knives”), then clue me druids, ‘cause for me they nailed that fucker shut..."

Indeed. And truly, this is as fine a statement of purpose as any lead off track on a debut album out there. With its menacing, post-psychedelic, proto-metal groove and conspiratorial lyrics hinting at sinister forces behind one of the pivotal events of the 1960s (more on that later), BOC laid the foundation for their classic "Black & White" trinity. It was a fine opening salvo, the significance of which Pearlman was well aware of:

"The inaugural track of the band's first record was set to the tone of Blue Oyster Cult's terrain for many years to come, 'Transmaniacon MC' supercharged with many of the themes to which the band would return gyre-like over time. It was a good song,' says Sandy. 'It was certainly highly distilled. But that had originally been written for a kind of book I was writing called The History of Los Angeles, which was going to be a history of Los Angeles music, which got partially published in one of the Jonathan Eisen anthologies. I had created a paranoid explanation for a conspiracy theory, or a proto-conspiracy theory explanation for the events at Altamont. This was to be like the drinking song, or club song, or whatever, the Mickey Mouse song of the people who were really responsible for Altamont, who were indeed the Transmaniacon MC, the club at the secret core at the heart of the Angels. So there's that, that's their life.' 

"Altamont was of course, the true-life rock festival which is forever etched in time as the evil underbelly of Woodstock. Headlined by the Rolling Stones, things turned ugly when a concertgoer was beaten and knifed to death in the crowded section right in front of Mick and the boys, by one of the Hells Angels, the legendary motorcycle club who were hired by the Stones as security for the gig. It is said that a bounty still exists on Mick's head for distancing himself from the Angels and indeed any responsibility for the killing after the incident. It is also alleged that a few attempted hits have been made on Jagger. So Sandy's lyric dug beneath the incident (which was basically a spontaneous, mob-psychographic brawl turned serious), positing that some sort of planning had taken place by a secret inner sanctum of the club, as some sort of conspiracy to kill rock 'n' roll, or conversely strengthen it through the cachet of evil. The band's musical soundtrack reinforced the story splendidly, mixing a sort of smothered, paranoid, skirmished sort of rhythm with the darker sounds of '60s icons like Jefferson Airplane and The Doors. Also worming its way through the track is the palpable 'secret agent man' sort of vibe, adding to the intrigue of Sandy's tell. Sympathy for the devil, indeed."

(Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pg. 25)

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Altamont

As hinted at above, Altamont is typically seen as the death keel of the 1960s counterculture. It was already deeply mired in a more nightmarish atmosphere, but Altamont made it clear the Summer of Love was long gone. Despite Popoff's insistence of Altamont being spontaneous, there is a highly ritualistic presentation to it, as I noted before here.

That this song apparently has its origins in a history of LA' s music scene Pearlman was writing is most interesting as well. The late, great David McGowan persisted that the LA rock scene, centered around Laurel Canyon, had been pure Astroturfing sponsored by the US intelligence community. Was Pearlman trying to hint at something even more insidious with this track?

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After "Transmaniacon MC," the album stumbles. In fact, its only real weak track is the second song, "I'm On the Lamb, But I Ain't No Sheep." This song would later appear on BOC's sophomore outing, Tyranny and Mutations, as the classic "The Red and Black." Thus, I shall say more on this bizarre tale of Canadian Mounties and sadomasochism in a future installment.

Things get back on track with guitarist Buck Dharma's somber "Then Came the Last Days of May," a tale of a drug deal gone wrong based upon the misfortunes that befell three students that had attended Stony Brook University (Sandy Pearlman's alumni mater). From there we go onto "Stairway to the Stars" with lyrics from Pearlman's former colleague at Crawdaddy, Richard Meltzer. Another fine example of the group's driving biker boogie, "Stars..." does not have any overtly esoteric references, largely focusing on the interaction of a pampered rock star with his fans. The title is curious, however. Ziggurats and other megaliths in the ancient world were often aligned to the stars. Priests often walked literal stairways to the stars to perform their rituals. Here a rock band on stage stands in for the apex of the ziggurat. While this is likely a coincidence, the track nonetheless fits the mystical universe Pearlman and company weave on the first album.

Things really get serious with track five, "Before the Kiss, A Redcap," which would have closed out the original A side on vinyl. "Before the Kiss, A Redcap" was a landmark BOC song on many levels. It was one of their earliest "min-epics," songs with multiple parts that are held at reasonable song lengths (as opposed to many multi-part songs from this era that may have dragged on for over seven minutes). It also marked the first appearance of the character of "Susie," who would appear in at least three other songs over the years --"Dominance and Submission" and "Astronomy" from Secret Treaties ("Astronomy was also re-recorded for Imaginos) and "The Marshall Plan" from Cultosaurus Erectus. "Astronomy" was directly adapted from the Soft Doctrines poems while "Before the Kiss, A Redcap" and "Dominance and Submission" were very much inspired by it as well. Thus, Susie appears to have important to the Imaginos cycle. Of Susie, I previously wrote:

"Dominance and Submission" features the character of 'Susie' prominently. Susie is a major enigma to BoC fans. She is referenced in several songs, but her significance has never been explained. She was a creation of Pearlman, who claimed that she was former girlfriend and later referred to her as "some mean bitch."

Her first appearance was in the song "Before the Kiss a Redcap," which appeared on BoC's self-titled debut. The lyrics to this song were supposedly inspired by real events that occurred at a biker bar called Conry's in Long Island where BoC was the house band for a time (the title apparently comes from an incident at Conry's when a biker stuck out his tongue, featuring a barbiturate at the tip, and asked Pearlman if he wanted a kiss). Susie also appears in another song on Secret Treaties, the breathtaking album closer "Astronomy." "Astronomy" was one of the poems from Pearlman's The Secret Doctrines of Imaginos, of which I've written more on in the prior installment in this series.

Whether Susie is actually meant to represent a real person is impossible to tell. The name Susie does have a strange link to Crowleyian sex magic, however. Susie is another variation on Susan, a name that apparently has its origins in the Middle Egyptian word "ssn," meaning lotus flower. Crowley and his disciples regularly used the lotus as a symbol for the vagina.

"The flower-strewn yoni of the woman participating in the mystical worship of the Chakras is symbolized by the lotus of 8. 16. 32 or 64 petals (the number of petals indicates the nature of the rite performed), and is emblematic of the First Flow-er or Ritu... 

"The symbolic correspondences are as follows:

"Rtu=Blood (red, black)=Rite=the first Rite performed when a girl attains puberty and becomes the Flow-er. The Flower=Lotus=Yoni=the Cremation Ground where desire is finally extinguished, i.e. satisfied. Satisfied because, as Crowley observes: 'a perfect organism should leave no lust; if one wants to go on, it simply shows that one has failed to collect every element of the personality, and discharge it utterly in a single explosion.' The Cremation Ground is to be compared with the Cup of Babalon, the Red or Scarlet Woman into which the Adept expresses the last drop of his blood."

(The Magical Revival, Kenneth Grant, pgs. 143)

Some may object to Susie being a metaphor for the tantric possibilities of the vagina, but the character of Susie has typically shown up in songs describing bizarre sexual acts. I already gave an example from "Before the Kiss a Redcap." The song "Astronomy" has been interpreted by some fans to account for this character's first lesbian experience. The song "Dominance and Submission" itself has strong undercurrents of gay S & M, as shall be addressed a bit later.

In this context, Susie could also be a stand in for Crowley's Scarlet Woman. The Scarlet Woman or Babalon was itself frequently used a metaphor for both the mystical uses of the vagina as well as the practice of sacred prostitution. In the ancient world temple prostitute were said to be able to induce altered states and consciousness with their arts.

"The hieros gamos was the ultimate expression of what is termed 'temple prostitution', where a man visited a priestess in order to receive gnosis --to experience the divine for himself through the act of lovemaking... Moreover, this temple servant is, unlike the secular prostitute, acknowledged to be in control of both the situation and the man who visits her, and both of them receive benefits in terms of physical, spiritual and magical empowerment. The body of the priestess had become... literally and metaphorically a gateway to the gods." 

(The Templar Revelation, Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince, pg. 257) 

Finally, Susie (at least in this song) could also be seen as a metaphor for the vibrant rock scene that was currently unfolding across the United States, hence "Each night the covers were unfolded." I tend to lean more toward this explanation, for reasons that shall be explained in a bit... 

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Sandy Pearlman never explained why Susie was "some mean bitch" or why she appeared in several of his songs

I wrote those paragraphs over four years ago now. Unfortunately, I have no additional information to provide concerning Susie at this point. Despite seemingly having some significance to the Imaginos song cycle, no one with the band, least of Pearlman has yet to offer a truly compelling explanation of her.

But back to "Before the Kiss..." Lyrically, this track sticks to Pearlman's fetish for bikers and secret societies.

"The album's next track was one of those slightly Sabbath send-ups, containing much of Albert's stated jazziness, but fraught with doom tones, not to mention the sinister clown music break that adds splendidly to the record's enigma. Lyrically, Sandy taps into a rich amalgam of personal interests, weaving a tale with links to the other tunes from all eras of the BOC catalogue, a strong sense of magic, bikers and intrigue pervading the scene.

" ' "Before the Kiss" is another of your pre-classic conspiracy theory takes on the way things work,' pontificates Pearlman. 'I posited that there was a secret organization called The Motif of the Rose, sort of like those French or Belgian fascist organizations, something right wing. So they sort of ran this place, this bar on Long Island called Conry's Bar, where Blue Oyster Cult actually used to play all the time. They would induct people into their cult by transferring a drug from the tip of their tongues extending and retracting and the redcap before the kiss. So the drug was the redcap. They delivered this pill, and then you're made humanoid.' Curiously, Eric [Bloom, BOC's frontman ---Recluse] has stated something resembling this story actually happened, to Sandy himself, in the Corny's Bar washroom, at the hands --or tongue --of a burly biker. Also of note: the line about the gin glowing in the dark refers to another incident where a scuffle broke out in Conry's, and a gin and tonic was spilled onto Sandy's table, where it proceeded to glow in the dark.

"Albert [Bouchard, BOC's drummer --Recluse] has said that there were in fact a Conry's East and Conry's West, both having closed down some 20 years ago. Blue Oyster Cult were the house band at Conry's West for several months in 1969-'70, and had played Conry's East on New Year's Eve, 1970-'71, playing an 'Auld Lange Syne'/'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida' medley at midnight."

(Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pgs. 27-28)

There's a lot to take in here. For one, the locations of the Conry's bars is ripe with some compelling twilight language. Previously, of it I had written:

... BoC was famously the house band for a biker bar named Conry's, located along the Hempstead Turnpike, a road that stretches all the way from Queens Village to the Suffolk County town of Babylon. Historically, the major motorcycle club along the East Coast was an outfit known as the Pagans (though they've apparently lost some territory to the Hell's Angels in the North East in recent years). The Pagans were long considered one of the 'Big 4' among motorcycle clubs, along with the Angels, the Bandidos and the Outlaws. The Pagans have apparently always had a heavy presence in Long Island. According to this website, the Pagans have generally kept their headquarters in Long Island, alternating between Suffolk and Nassau counties.

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Another early version of BOC was the Stalk-Forrest Group

Apparently both Conry's were located on either ends of the Hempstead Turnpike, leading from Queens to Babylon. Throw in the possible presence of the Pagans MC and one is left with some rather occulted naming, It is interesting to note that Bobby Liebling, the frontman for Pentagram (whom Pearlman nearly signed in 1975, as noted in the prior installment), alleged that his first band had started out playing as the house band for the Pagans in the mid-1960s. Liebling would have been eleven at the time of these events and is known to embellish things greatly, so the credibility of this claim is highly suspect. But moving along.

Pearlman paints an image of Long Island awash in sinister secret societies masquerading as agents of the counterculture is hardly without merit. The great Christopher Knowles has recently done a superb job of outlining the rumblings of cult active in and around New York City during this era and beyond. This included one especially notorious cult that has long fascinated conspiracy theorists, as I noted before here and which will be dealt with further in a future installment.

Pearlman's comments about the cult depicted in "Before the Kiss...", the "Motif of the Rose," and his likening it to "those French or Belgian fascist organizations" is quite striking as well. This blog has already dealt with the fascist underground in Belgium as well as its links to the highly secretive Le Cercle clique, a group with origins in French synarchist secret societies. Many of these groups were part of what is commonly referred to as Operation Gladio, a highly secretive US-NATO project that has long been linked to far right terrorism. Was Pearlman hinting at its US counterpart with this fascist cult within a motorcycle gang on the fringes of the increasingly violent counterculture?

And with that I shall wrap things up for now. With the next installment I'll knock out the self-titled's B side and head on to the rest of the Black and White trilogy. Stay tuned dear reader.

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"In any event, the track is a heck of a heavy highlight live, with its many climatic moments, warm boogie chorus and end-jam potential. This version is of course as subdued, muddy, grey and psychedelic as the rest of the record. Look elsewhere for explosions. Lyrically, the song borrows most overtly from MC5's "Motor City's Burning", while also fitting quite snugly into Pearlman's whole idea of rock 'n' roll as a potentially fascist, evil, political, corrupting force, the song imagining a war between three thousand guitars polarized into camps of Marshalls and Fenders. This track also arcs the orbit of Sandy's whole History of Los Angeles motif, even possessing hints of Imaginos, biker themes and of course conspiracy..."

(Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pg. 29)

"All these folks gathered nearly simultaneously along the narrow, winding roads of Laurel Canyon. They came from across the country --although the Washington, DC area was noticeably over-represented --as well as from Canada and England, and, in at least one case, all the way from Nazi Germany. They came even though, at the time, there was no music industry in Los Angeles. They came even though, at the time, there was no live music scene to speak of. They came though, in retrospect, there was no discernible reason for them to do so.

"It would, of course, make sense these days for an aspiring musician to venture out to Los Angeles. But in those days, the centers of the music universe were Nashville, Memphis and New York. It wasn't the industry that drew the Laurel Canyon crowd, you see, but rather the Laurel Canyon crowd that transformed Los Angeles into the epicenter of the music industry. To what then do we attribute this unprecedented gathering of future musical superstars in the hills above Los Angeles? What was it that inspired them all to head out west? Perhaps Neil Young said it best when he told an interviewer that he couldn't really say why he headed out to LA circa 1966; he and others 'were just going like Lemmings.' "

(Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon, David McGowan, pgs. 20-21)

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Joni Mitchell, David Crosby and Eric Clapton hanging out in LA'S famed Laurel Canyons during the 1960s

"Posited Sandy Pearlman, speaking with NME in 1974, 'The function of art in general and the reason these records are the way they are and say the things specifically is that you should provide people with transcendental models, so they'll find themselves reaching out to realms of imagination they wouldn't have ever dreamed of, and maybe some of that can seep over into the conduct of their lives. It may be calls for violence, or it may be calls for other transcendental exercises, and that's what it's all about. In "Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll" for example, I tried to write a sleazy epic, using tawdry language that would express unfocused teenage anarchistic antiauthoritarian rebellion. It's a real teenage anarchistic epic anthem. I think I succeeded lyrically, and the music the group wrote definitely succeeded.' "

(Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pgs. 29-30) 

"Pearlman prepared for Give Em Enough Rope by following The Clash around on tour in the UK in 1978 and set about recreating the effect the band had onstage. Joe Strummer repeatedly made reference to a mystical phenomenon (described variously as 'the burn or 'the X-Factor') in which a spiritual force seemed to take hold amongst the band and within the audience. This is familiar to musicians in general but it's something that Pearlman worked very hard to capture in the studio..."

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Sandy Pearlman (the one not wearing black) with The Clash

" 'Well, that song incorporates every single one of the alchemical themes,' reflects Pearlman. 'Silverfish Imperetrix is this alchemical creature of sort of like the salamander. There are these signature concepts and creatures in alchemy, embodiments of certain alchemical principals, for example the principal of transformation, which is embodied in several of these alchemical creatures, one being a salamander, which reduces everything to ash. Jung adopted this kind of analytical grid. He thought everything had to be reduced to negrito, the black state, the burnt-out state, to an ash, before it could flourish again in a new and improved, enhanced, more evolved partaking of a higher archival state or form. So Silverfish Imperetrix is a kind of alchemical creature that I thought up, as an embodiment of an alchemical format, or alchemical and transformational principles. So once you have received the wisdom of the Imperial Silverfish, your vision then is pretty much perfect, and you can see through the lives, not only the lives of appearance, but also through the lives of social structure and political formatting. So you can see through the lives of doctors and their wives. It becomes clear once you know exactly what it's about.' 

".... 'The thing about "Workshop of the Telescopes," it's really what I call a gothic technology song. We understand that better now than we used to, because we've had 75 generations of technology in the last 20 years (laughs). So a lot of stuff that really isn't all that old looks gothic now. So it really was a song about gothic technology, the old plumbing and hardware kind of thing, which comes at the dawn of the age of IC, which had been invented, but nobody knew about it at the time, i.e. in '72 and '73. So it has kind of Frankenstein's laboratory techno-gothic take on how things would be transformed, and what the transformative mechanism would be. It would be brought by a technology and it would be physically intensive technology as opposed to the far west physically intense technology that we see today.' "

(Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pgs. 30-31)

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"Workshop of the Telescope" was chosen as the title of BOC's most ambitious greatest hits collection

"In Classical antiquity, this amphibian, a close relative of the newt, was believed to be able to live in fire without being burned up. It was identified with fire, of which it was the living manifestation...

"Alchemists regard the salamander as 'the symbol of the Red Stone... and call their incombustible sulphur by its name. The salamander, which feeds on fire, and the phoenix, which is reborn from its own ashes, are the two most common symbols of sulphur.' "

"Dictionary of Symbols, Jean Chevalier & Alain Gheerbrant, pgs. 821-822)

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alchemical depiction of a salamander

"In Hermeticism, while mere chemists regard Saturn as lead, to philosophers Saturn was the colour black, the colour of matter after solution and putrefaction, or else of common copper, first of metals, or of Ramon Llull's azoic vitriol, which separates metals... All these are images of the office of divider, which is both an end and a beginning, the halting of one cycle and the beginning of a fresh one, the stress being laid more strongly upon the break in or slowing of development." 

(Dictionary of Symbols, Jean Chevalier & Alain Gheerbrant, pg. 829)

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Saturn

"Closing the record was a sinister, but deceptively light-hearted and small-ish tale called 'Redeemed.' Musically it's a rare sort of acoustic southern rock for this staunchly northern band. Great lyric too, but it's willfully obtuse. Buck offers a glimpse into the tune's origins. ' "Redeemed" might have been or might not have been part of Sandy's Imaginos song cycle. And when we did it, I think we were thinking about the way The Grateful Dead would do stuff around the "Uncle John's Band" era. Certainly as an album closer, it seemed like a really appropriate thing.' "

(Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pg. 31) 

Tyranny featured another striking cover from Sandy Pearlman's old school chum, Bill Gawlik. This one implicitly hinted at the subversive powers of rock 'n' roll with its black and white image depicting a megalithic structure (possibly the one from the debut cover) with BOC's famed symbol above it surrounded by alternating black and white circles that appear to indicate a broadcast. It is as if the alien gods were channeling their sinister forces through a sacred megalith via the emerging medium of heavy metal, or something along those lines. As outlandish as this may sound, it is hardly beyond the realm of possibility. Gawlik's covers were clearly inspired on some level by sacred geometry and megaliths, especially ziggurats and pyramids. There is compelling evidence that the ancients had far more ambitious designs for these structures than the planting of crops.

"As may be expected of cultures that placed a tremendous value on the astronomical orientation of their sacred structures, the notion of time and periodicity was inextricably linked to notions of sacred space, and both were essential to their religions. Early on, the ancients demonstrated a sure knowledge of the solstices and equinoxes. The pre-literate culture that created Stonehenge was able to arrange the massive stone circle in such a way that it could calculate the solstice sunrise. This was important to a civilization that depended on agriculture, for they could compute the seasons of planting and harvesting according to the length of the solar year, although we do not know for sure if that was the use to which Stonehenge was put. Admittedly, we can think of no other use unless the calendar was important for other reasons, such as for some unknown ritual calculations.

"In the case of the Great Pyramid at Gizeh, however, the precise astronomical and geophysical design and placement of the structure cannot have had anything to do with seasons of planting and harvesting, which were determined by the inundations of the Nile. There was obviously something much more profound taking place in the minds of the Pyramid architects, something that was also responsible for the spate of pyramid-manufacture throughout the world at roughly the same time, as discussed by Dr. Robert M. Schoch of Boston University in Voyages of the Pyramid Builders: The True Origins of the Pyramids from Lost Egypt to Ancient America, and by anthropologist William E. Romain in Mysteries of the Hopewell: Astronomers, Geometers, and Magicians of the Eastern Woodlands. 

"The astronomical alignments of these monuments and the prevalence of tombs in ore near them indicates an association of sacred spaces with the 'travels' of the dead into the heavens, what Romain calls the 'azimuths of the underworld.' Romain identifies three different types of sacred geometry in use by the Hopewell peoples: the square, the circle, and the octagon. The square he believes was used by the builders of the mounds to indicate the heavens, the circle for the earth, and the octagon for the phases of the moon. While there is not enough space to go into all of Romain's calculations and other evidence, it is enough to say that he provides a compelling argument for the orientation of the various Hopewell mounds as a means of facilitating the transport of souls of the dead to the Afterlife, which, in this case as in the case of ancient China, ancient Egypt, etc., meant outer space. In other words, the Hopewell mounds (and, perhaps the Adena mounds as well) were a type of machine, a technology for extraterrestrial travel. And the travel could go both ways."

(Sinister Forces Book III, Peter Levenda, pgs. 419-420) 

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a reconstruction of the Great Ziggurat at Ur

The megalith on the cover of Tyranny clearly is meant to invoke a pyramid or ziggurat while the BOC symbol hovers over the top of this structure in the location rituals would typically be performed. It does not then seem a stretch to suggest that some type of channeling is implied by the cover, and given BOC's penchant for aliens as well, it could well have been intended to invoke such communications. Circles, which as noted above are regular used in sacred geometry, are present throughout the cover, as are squares. The black and white checkered floor at the bottom of the cover is a nice touch as well. Masonic lodges and temples of course frequently feature black and white checkered floors.

Gawlik is credited with naming this album as well, apparently being fond of the expression "Tyranny and mutation." This landmark album cover was part of the same lengthy "scroll" that the debut album cover also appeared on. Gawlik, who spent some time in Lovecraft country (noted in part two) really seems to have been in zone during the early 1970s. His imagery was perfect for the vision his friend Pearlman was trying to convey with the Black and White trilogy.

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Despite billing themselves as America's Black Sabbath from early on, BOC in truth did not become a full fledged heavy metal band until their sophomore outing, 1973' Tyranny and Mutation. While there were still occasion traces of Soft White Underbelly's psychedelia, Mutations gleefully embraced the demonic biker boogie hinted at by some of the self-titled's more up tempo numbers (i.e. "Transmaniacon MC," "Before the Kiss, a Redcap" and "Cities on Flame With Rock 'N' Roll") whole heartedly. This was the hardest and heaviest BOC would ever rock

Tyranny and Mutation: The Red and the Black

This new look is unveiled in spectacular fashion with opener "The Red and the Black," easily the most frenzied piece the group ever recorded. "The Red and the Black" was famously a reworking of "I'm on the Lamb But I Ain't No Sheep," from the previous year's self-titled debut. But while the original version was very bluesy, vaguely psychedelic number with multiple parts, "The Red and the Black" is reworked into hard hitting rocker designed to strike the audience like a punch to the chin.

The lyrics were the work of Pearlman and his frequent collaborator, drummer Albert Bouchard. Bouchard apparently got the idea for the song from a dream he had of fleeing theUunited States for Canada to avoid Vietnam. With Pearlman's helped, he crafted a series of lyrics nominally about a fugitive trying to escape Canada's famed Royal Mounties. The song also incorporates images of sexual sadomasochism ("I've got a whip in my hand, baby!") into the imagery it invokes.

While superficially a rather "light" composition, as far as the lyrics are concerned, the significance the band attached to the track has led more than a few fans to wander if there was more to it over the years. Some interesting theories have been put forward:

"It is of note that the new title 'Red & The Black' borrows from a line in the original lyric, but it is also the name of a Stendhal novel, although the connection to the novel from the lyric is pretty much non-existent, none of the band members ever admitting to the influence of the book on the song. The words were also used to demarcate the sides of the original vinyl, side one being 'the black' and side two being 'the red.' Facetiously, I'd have added that while side two's tunes struggled to push the band into the red, side one's songs over the years, have helped keep them in the black! Sandy has also said that red symbolizes Quaaludes and black symbolizes methedrine."

(Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pg. 36)

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The title of Stendhal's The Red and the Black is generally believed to refer to the black of priest's robes and either the red of military uniforms or the red of Republican France. Stendhal's work is a psychological novel set in France during the Bourbon Restoration. The protagonist, a low born individual who initially seeks status via the Church, ends up in a right wing conspiracy in the days leading up to the Revolution. This work would certainly appear to appeal to Pearlman's sensibilities, bu there is no evidence he had ever read it.

The drug references for the red and black are hardly surprising either and surely would have factored into the title. Certainly it would have given them a boast amongst the bikers they most appealed too. But there may well have been a more esoteric purpose as well. One such possibility resides in alchemy. As noted above, the so-called Great Work had four stages. The first was the nigredo and the last the rubedo, the former being associated with black, the latter with red. As was noted above, the A-side to Tyranny was known as the black, while the B was the red. It could then be seen as a reference to the Great Work carried out over the album.

Another such explanation lies with the magickal system of Michael Bertiaux. Bertiaux's system, which can be roughly described as "esoteric vodoun," is vast, encompassing several other rich esoteric traditions. Here's a bit of background on Bertiaux:

"Bertiaux had spent some time in Haiti before embracing his own particular occult path, and became a member of a society --the Ordo Templi Orientis or OTOA --allegedly created by a mysterious and possibly non-existent Haitian occultist Lucien-Francois Jean-Maine (1869?-1960) of whom there is very little hard information. The OTOA was evidently a mixture of quasi-Masonic ritual and initiation and traditional Vodun, forming a bridge between European-style ceremonial magic traditions and the Afro-Caribbean Vodun cultus. Jean-Maine was allegedly the inheritor of an ancient Haitian occult lineage that numbers among its lineage-holders the venerable Ordre des Elus-Cohen which had a branch in Leogane, Haiti. This not the place to go into the history of Elus Cohen (or 'Elected Priests'), so suffice it to say that it was a branch of the eighteenth century Martinist order and the branch most closely connected with ritual magic. Martinism began as a Masonic-type society in pre-revolutionary France but its founder --Martinez de Pasqually --died in Haiti in 1774. Haiti at the time was a French colony. Hence the suggested French Masonic-Haitian Vodun connection.

"Bertiaux worked and expanded upon the system he inherited and brought it into line with Thelema by 1972. His Vodoun Gnostic Workbook became quite well-known for is imaginative combination of Western esotericism, Afro-Caribbean concepts and terminology, and sex magic..."

(The Dark Lord, Peter Levenda, pg. 130)

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Michael Bertiaux

One curious feature of Bertiaux's system are what he refers to as red and black "rays."

" 'The Red and the Black Temple Workings are the function and structure of the Osiris-Ra Cultus of Legbha. The power of the Sun is diffused by means of the Red-Sun, or the creative power of evolutionary nature and the Black-Sun, or the occult powers immanent in the natural order. In order to develop the special magickal potencies of these two suns, it was necessary at one time to intuit the Solar Power in such an absolute way, that the hierophants of the Gnosis became one with the Red and Black Rays. In this very special act of intuition, all of the logics and metaphysics and all of the centers of the gnosis were experienced in terms of of their creative fundamentals. This act of cosmic intuition is one of the secrets given by the Gnosis to all of its hierophants and is to be understood as having been handed down from the priestly order of existence, which was in power on the planets prior to the settlement and civilization of the Earth. This powerful secret is symbolized by the ritualistic mysteries of Osirian bodywork, and by means of this work, it is possible to enter into the mysteries through these symbols, because symbols are always doors. The awakening of this power in the magickal bodies of the Afro-Zothyrian gnostics was always viewed as the supreme form of sacramental and theurgical initiation...'

"The Black and Red Rays have their basis of power in what must be understood as the lattice or conjunction of the Afro-Atlantean and Afro-Zothyrian Rays. This means that while these mysteries (for the Rays are mysteries as well as energies) are given as parts of the esoteric symbolism of the African cultures, carefully hidden away by centuries of Osirian culture, they must be electrified by occult contact with the higher levels and the lower levels of consciousness. Therefore, it was the mission of the neo-pythagorean gnostics to connect these powers with the Atlantean components of the unconscious mind as well as with the Zothyrian components of the superconscious mind..."

(The Voudon Gnostic Workbook, Michael Bertiaux, pg. 168)

The "Osirian bodywork" mentioned above is symbolic of the body of the initiate. Thus, these Red and Black "rays" can be reached via his physical body, likely through tantra, yoga or some other such practice. From here they could channel the Solar energy of the red and black suns.

While it may seem a real stretch to link BOC's "The Red and the Black" to Bertiaux, the connection is far more possible than it may initially seem. For one, both Pearlman and Bertiaux were uber Lovecraft fans, Bertiaux being one of the first magicians to seriously study the occult implications of Lovecraft's work, along with his close associate Kenneth Grant. As was noted in the first installment, Pearlman cited Lovecraft as a major influence on his latter occult interests.

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H.P. Lovecraft

Vodun plays a significant role in the Imaginos cycle as well. Haiti specifically is given much significance in the story line unfolded on the Imaginos album. Like Bertiaux's Voudon Gnostic Workbook, Imaginos was released in 1988. Many of the lyrics, however, we written much earlier, likely around 1967. Bertiaux was still developing his system by that point, but by the early 1970s he appears to have been active in New York. While California is credited with much of the occult revival than unfolded during the 1960s, New York had quite a vibrant scene as well. Of it, I previously wrote:

Pearlman, along with the rest of BoC, famously hailed from Long Island. Long Island was actually the birthplace of the modern Wicca movement in America, at least officially. It occurred in 1969 when two followers of the legendary warlock Gerald Gardner would establish a coven there.

 "...Raymond and Rowen Buckland, an English couple who emigrated to the suburbia of Long Island, New York, and brought the craft with them... To celebrate the move, the couple invited journalists from the Long Island Press and Newsday to witness a genuine Halloween Witches Sabbath. Dressed in black robes trimmed with gold, the couple led the reporters to their basement, fitted out with velvet drapes, candles and the inevitable pentagram. Then, stripping out of their robes, the Bucklands invoked the spirit of the autumnal equinox sky-clad."

(Turn Off Your Mind, Gary Lachman, pgs. 243-244) 

As the 1970s made the scene Long Island, specifically Brooklyn, would become one of the major hubs of New York City's budding occult scene. Much of this would initially be based around Herman Slater's Warlock Shoppe, a place that has gained some notoriety over the years. Rogue historian Peter Levenda (who has been accused of being the author of the notorious Simon Necronomicon; this accusation has also been made at Pearlman) actually knew Slater and the Warlock Shoppe from the early days:

"...I was friendly with Herman Slater, the proprietor of the store, and had known him since the days when he ran the Warlock Shoppe in Brooklyn Heights where I lived. As the fame and notoriety of his establishment grew --being covered extensively in the overseas press as well as by local newspapers and television shows --he began to attract an equally notorious clientele. The Process would hang out at the Warlock Shop, as well as the odd Satanist and witches of various denominations. The Shop is alluded to several times in Maury Terry's The Ultimate Evil as a hangout for people who knew more about the Son of Sam murders than they were telling."

(Sinister Forces Book II, Peter Levenda, pg. 253) 

The Simon Necronomicon famously had its origins with the Warlock Shoppe, with Peter Levenda (who was a customer of Slater's) involved in some capacity long disputed. This was not the only major modern grimoire to have links to the Warlock Shoppe, however. The Voudon Gnostic Workbook had originally been published by Warlock Shoppe owner Herman Slater's publishing company (dubbed the Magickal Childe, the original name of the Warlock Shoppe) in 1988. And there are indications that Bertiaux had been active in New York by the early 1970s in these circles as well.

Thus, Bertiaux was potentially in Pearlman's orbit by the time BOC set out to record Tyranny and Mutation. There are indications that Pearlman himself was a part of the Warlock Shoppe scene, but this researcher has yet to have found definitive confirmation that Pearlman frequented the Warlock Shoppe. Typically this revolves around Pearlman's alleged authorship of the Simon Necronomicon, a notion that he apparently denied. More compelling, however, is the possibility that Pearlman discovered the infamous Process Church of the Final Judgment through the Warlock Shoppe. This possibility shall be addressed at greater length in the next installment. But back to the matter at hand.

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the Simon Necronomicon

While it may be a long shot that BOC's "The Red and the Black" was intended as a reference to Bertiaux's gnostic vodun system, the possibility does exist. Both Pearlman and Bertiaux appear to have had ties to the New York occult scene by the early 1970s, both men had a keen interest in Lovecraft, and both men adopted an interest in vodun at some point as well. Indeed, Bertiaux's system may have had an enormous influence on the story line of the Imaginos, as shall be addressed in a future installment.

Tyranny and Mutation: The Rest of Side A

After Tyranny's rip-roaring opener wraps up, the group lurches into the sleazy, vaguely bluesy "OD'd On Life Itself." This track features more Pearlman lyrics, these far more esoteric than those in "The Red and the Black." The song seems to vaguely revolve around the process of initiation. This most evident in the second verse, which proclaims:

Writings appear on the wall

The curtains part and landscape fall

  There, the writing's done, in blood

Like a mummy's inscription and a bat-wing tongue

Well then the mouth of the cave will open up wide

Wide as the world that's mine, it's mine, it's still mine

Caves are closely associated with initiation rituals the world over.

"As the archetype of the maternal womb, caverns feature in myths of origin, rebirth and initiation from many cultures. Under the heading 'cavern' are included 'cave' and 'grotto', although they are not precisely synonymous. It implies a place, roofed with rock or earth, at any depth in earth or mountainside, more or less dark, often lying at the end of a long passageway, and without direct daylight. Lairs of robbers or wild animals are excluded, since their significance is no more than a corruption of the symbol...

"At the start of many initiation rites, the candidate enters a cave or pit. This is 'the return to the womb', as defined by Mircea Eliade, in material form. This was especially true of the Eleusinian rites..., in which symbolic logic  was strictly translated into action. Candidates were placed, bound, in the cave from which they had to escape to reach the light of day. Prior to this, in the religious ceremonies of Zoroaster, a cave represented the world..."

(Dictionary of Symbols, Jean Gheerbrant & Alain Gheerbrant, pg. 167)

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A cave as a symbol of the world was clearly alluded to by Pearlman in the final couplet of the second verse. The prior stanzas allude to this initiation involving rituals, possibly to channel a nonhuman intelligence. The second half of the third verse ("This wedding by heaven was made up in hell/With the victim as bride and life, life itself") implies that this ritual may have involved some form of a sacred marriage. The candidate begins this ritual, struggles with a daemon or something along those lines and emerges from the proverbial cave with a fresh sense of invigoration (hinted at by words spoken behind the chorus that go: "OD'd on life itself/the power of powers/And once luminous spell" ).

From there things segue way into bassist Joe Bouchard's "Hot Rails to Hell." A fan favorite, this menacing number alludes to both night time rides of New York City's subway lines as well as the murder of early BOC booking agent Phil King ("Stoned out looks from the crowd, the king will not know/On the wall it was said/The flash of his cards was sprayed with red"), allegedly over gambling debts. While another strong track on Tyranny's classic A side, this non-Pearlman number is not especially esoteric.

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the single version of "Hot Rails to Hell"

Side A's closer, "7 Screaming Diz-Buster" more than makes up for this. This was another hard hitting track with multiple sections that can be described as proto-thrash. A fan favorite, the bizarre and sinister lyrics have long puzzled listeners. The band themselves have only offered a few tantalizing hints:

"Albert has revealed that 'diz' refers to the cleft of the penis, and the 'duster's dust' refers to sperm. But the concept of diz-buster is left ambiguous. The definition of of 'something that can make one ejaculate' most plausibly applies to a reading that these seven diz-busters are evil, paranormal sex sirens, women beings without a conscious, the number seven bringing in a biblical element to the lyric as well. But this track could also be one of Sandy's biker songs, diz-buster referring to the result of a long, vibrating Harley ride (and then, mamas and old ladies joke about the orgasmic qualities of a good ride). Indeed, many lines in the song could have one believe that the diz-buster is a bike (there is a mention of cast iron, the mirror's face, rigid arms, routes, all suggesting this interpretation), especially in light of the fact that females, female pronouns, or sexual ideas are never mentioned in the song."

(Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pgs. 38-39)

It would be rather inaccurate to state that sexual ideas are not present in the song. And while the language does seem to deliberately employ biker images at times, this researcher believes this was done to cloud Pearlman's real meaning.

The great Julian Cope offered up a compelling interpretation of the track:

"... Side One closes with the Cult’s classic '7 Screaming Dizbusters', whose soundtrack I’ve omitted here because it straddles that weird jazz that both Zappa and Todd had a habit of shoehorning into their songs, and which The Tubes and their ilk later appropriated however inappropriate. Despite its absence here, the song is indeed a real wonder, a 7-minute long leviathan and full-on rumbustuous tale of seven itinerant horse-borne paladins and their relationship with Lucifer, or Lugh, in his pre-Christian role as the horned God of the Hunt." 

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Lugh

This researcher has a different take. It is likely that this song was a part of, or inspired by, the Imaginos cycle. In the Imaginos album the Loa, spirits in the Vodun tradition, play a key role. In the album, seven specific ones are dubbed the Les Invisibles and are behind many of the intrigues that unfold over the course of the album. There are of course dozens of Loa and no type of ruling council within the tradition. It is likely Pearlman confused the tradition of the Seven African Powers, sometimes described as Orishas in Santeria, with the Loa of Vodun.

Another linkage to the Imaginos cycle are the lines: "They learned from men who'd just refrain/From glancing at a mirror's face." As was noted in the second installment, obsidian mirrors play a key role in the cycle. Historically they were used for divination purposes by a host of sources, including the Aztecs, Dr. John Dee and Joseph Smith.

Roses are mentioned in the song as well. The rose is a common alchemical symbol:

"Whether white or red, roses were the favorite flowers of alchemists, who often entitled their treatises The Rosary of the Philosophers. White roses 'like lilies, were linked to the white stone, the objective of the first stage of the Work, while the red rose was associated with the red stone, the objective of the second stage. Most of these roses have seven petals, each petal relating either to a metal or to an operation in the Work...' A blue rose was to become the symbol of the impossible."

(Dictionary of Symbols, Jean Chevalier & Alain Gheerbrant, pg. 815)

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an alchemical rose

The common use of seven-petaled roses by the alchemist is of course highly compelling in the context of this song. Pearlman also makes reference to a "secret cave." As was noted above, the cave is a common symbol of initiation.

While this researcher believed that sex magick was a possible explanation for "OD'd On Life Itself," this clearly seems to be the purpose of "7 Screaming Diz-Busters." Both the penis (diz) and semen ("duster's dust") are referenced while Diz-Buster clearly seems to be describing an orgasm. The references to alchemy further reinforce this, as many modern scholars have speculated that the hidden secret of alchemy was in fact sex magick, techniques of which were stealthily hidden in their texts. The presence of the number seven is likely a reference to the Loa of the Imaginos cycle, indicating the deities being evoked. And of course the refrain of "Lucifer, the light" is a time honored celebration of hidden knowledge.

Tyranny and Mutation: Closer

For our purposes here, there is not much of interest of side B. While still strong, the songs on this side largely avoid esoteric themes. Opener "Baby Ice Dog" featured the first lyrics the band ever recorded by punk poetess Patti Smith while the Bouchard brothers' moody "Wings Wetted Down" features more of Joe's nightmare psychedelia. Richard Metzer, Pearlman's old colleague from Crawdaddy, contributes the much maligned "Teen Archer." A kind of preview of the arena abomination that would became staples in the late 1970s, the song is driven by a catchy riff that makes for good cock rock fun (pending one doesn't get nightmare visions of Spectres). 

Pearlman finally returns to the fold with closer "Mistress of the Salmon Salt" and it unsurprisingly features a compelling set of esoteric lyrics. Drummer Albert Bouchard took a more conventional view, however, and believes the song is about a woman who disposes of dead bodies: " 'They lyrics are really bizarre, you know, the famous story of the person that kills people, or actually I don't think she kills people, but she performs a service. She would bury the murdered dead, and use them as fertilizer for her plants' " (Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pgs. 40-41).

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The last verse of "...Salmon Salt" lends credence to Bouchard's theory, with its references to juke joints and the Coast Guard. And this could also explain the description of the song's female lead as "Quicklime Girl." Quicklime is an actually substance that is extremely flammable when combined with water. It could theoretically be used to dissolve bodies. Curiously, it was known to ancient world and was used as a weapon by the Romans and the Chinese. Some have even speculated that it was a component of Greek fire.

The first three verses, however, hint at a more esoteric significance to the song:

In the garden district

Where the plants grow strong and tall

Behind the bush there lurks a girl

Who makes them strong and tall...

In the fall when plants return

By harvest time she knows the score

Ripe and ready to the eye

Yet rotten somehow to the core...

A harvest of life, a harvest of death

One body of life, one body of death

And when you've gone and choked to death

With laughter and a little step

I'll prepare the quicklime friend

For your ripe and ready grave

For your ripe and ready grave

The lyrics seem to evoke the ancient custom of human sacrifice to enhance the fertility of crops. The Huffington Post provides two compelling example of this custom:

"India has long practiced sacrificial obeisance to Mother Earth. As late as the 19th century, the Kandhs of Bengal sacrificed a person for the Earth Goddess, Tari Pennu, in order to ensure healthy crops and immunity from disease. Blood was especially important in the cultivation of turmeric, which needed it to develop its rich, red color. The Uraons of Chota Nagpur offered human sacrifices to Anna Kuari, who blesses the harvest. And the Lhota Naga of Brahmapootra severed the heads, hands and feet of their victims and planted them in the fields for fertilizer.

"Aztec hymns tell us that Tonacacihuatl, Our Lady of Substance, was once the Goddess of the Hunt, Blood and Night, but as the people grew to depend more on agriculture, She evolved into the Earth Goddess. The son of Her fertility was the corn, which was depicted as being identical with the obsidian knife which was Her symbol. These were the phallic representations of Xipe, the young god identified with the corn and the sunlight, both of which grew up and increased to maturity from the depths of the dark earth. 

"Here, too, fertility, death and sacrifice are connected. The husking of the corn is perceived as the same act as the tearing out of a sacrificial victim’s heart, both accomplished with the obsidian blade. At the celebration of the broom harvest of the Earth Mother, first an older woman, and then a young girl were beheaded and their blood spread on fruit, seeds and grain to guarantee abundance."

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As for the lady's mantle of "Mistress of the Salmon Salt," salmon has very interesting symbolism in Celtic mythology:

"... The salmon is of the same essential nature as the boar, in that both are creatures of sacred wisdom. Wells of knowledge recur in Irish literature overhung by hazel-or-rowan-bushes and in them live the salmon of knowledge who feed on the scarlet berries or the nuts dropping into the water. Whoever eats the flesh of these fish acquires second-sight and knowledge of all things. This is what happened to Finn as a boy. He was the pupil of a bard or file and was busy one day grilling a salmon for his master. As he turned the fish on a spit he burned his finger and sucked it. He instantly became omniscient and was given a prophetic tooth. Thereafter he had only put his thumb on his wisdom tooth and chew it to become gifted with second-sight. Salmon, again, was the food of Eithne, the allegorical figure of Ireland, after her conversion to Christianity. With the boar and the wren, the salmon was a particularly druidic creature and one of the symbols of wisdom and spiritual nourishment..."

(Dictionary of Symbols, Jean Chevalier & Alain Gheerbrant, pg. 823)

Cannibalism could then be implied if the "salmon salt" is the flesh of the Quicklime Girl's consorts, which she may partly consume to gain wisdom. On the whole, however, this researcher suspects this song revolves around some type of modern cult performing ancient fertility rites. The reference to a juke joint in the final verse could even put the song in the same universe as "Before the Kiss, a Recap." Is this possibly a reference to Conry's and Pearlman's "Motif of the Rose" secret society (addressed in part two)?

And with that I shall wrap things up for now. In the next installment we'll address the landmark Secret Treaties album. Stay tuned.

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• On January 29 the Chronicle received the last known letter from the Zodiac killer (and the first the newspaper had received in three years) in which he described The Exorcist as "the best saterical comidy that I have ever seen."
• Heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped in February of that year by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). In the ensuing months she would actively aid the SLA and appear in a series of startling recordings on their behalf while demonstrating signs of brainwashing.
• April 5 witnesses the publication of horror superstar Stephen King's first novel, Carrie
• May Day 1974 witnessed simutaneous pre-dawn raids in San Francisco that allegedly rounded up the perpetrators of the "Zebra killings," a series of racially motivated killings in the Bay area that began in 1973 and ended in 1974, leaving 15 people dead. Much more information on the Zebra killers can be found on this early (and somewhat flawed) series
• On May 17, 1974, the SLA would engaged in massive shootout with the LAPD and other California law enforcement agencies in what would be the first major use of a SWAT team (and thus the onset of the militarization of America's police forces). The SLA's leader, Donald DeFreeze, was killed during the shootout along with five other SLA members; DeFreeze had previously been a patient at the California Medical Facility at Vacaville, an institution compellingly linked to CIA behavioral modification experiments
• Occultist and philosopher Julius Evola, who inspired so much of Italy's neo-fascist Renaissance, dies on June 11
• On June 28 Vannevar Bush, the legendary American scientist who administered the Office of Scientific Research and Development (which oversaw the Manhattan Project, among other things) during World War II, shed his mortal coil. Bush has long been linked to the UFO question with many Ufologist linking him to the highly dubious Majestic 12. As noted before here, there is compelling evidence linking Bush to real UFO study groups and other black projects
• Argentinean strongman Juan Peron, who had enabled so many "former" Nazis to flee via the "rat lines" using his nation, died on July 1
• On July 15, news anchor Christine Chubbuck commits suicide during a live broadcast on WXLT in Sarasota, Florida. Reportedly, this was the first on air suicide. In some accounts, Chubbuck's death is held to have inspired Paddy Chayefsky's syncro-mystical masterpiece Network (addressed before here and here) while in others it is claimed Chaeyefsky had already started work on the script and Chubbuck's death was an eerie "coincidence."
• Italy was rocked on August 4 by the Italicus Express train bombing that left 12 dead and over a hundred dead. This attack was carried out by neo-fascist groups long linked to Operation Gladio. More on information on these groups and Gladio can be found here
• US President Richard Nixon resigns on August 8 as part of the Watergate scandal, the deep intrigues of which I chronicled before here, here and here
• On November Ronald DeFeo Jr murders his entire family with a shotgun in Amityville (a village in the town of Babylon, New York "coincidentially") on Long Island, still home base for Blue Oyster Cult during this time. DeFeo's killing spree would inspire the Amityville Horror series, as well as what were almost surely fraudulent claims of hauntings at the murder scene by infamous paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren
• the Arecibo message is beamed out from a radio telescope in Puerto Rico on November 16. This message was intended to give extraterrestrial civilizations information about Earth
• Andrija Puharich's Uri is published at some point in 1974. While nominally a biographer of Israeli stage magician Uri Geller, this work presented the first public revelation of The Nine, alleged extraterrestrial intelligences that appear to have long fascinated the deep state. Much more information on this bizarre topic can be found here and here
• Jonestown established at some point in 1974
• the fantasy tabletop game Dungeons and Dragons, long linked to controversy, is first released in the United States at some point during this year

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early D & D books

So yes, there was a lot of strangeness and intrigues abound --presidencies were toppling, cults and revolutionary outfits were growing increasingly violent, Nazism's robust resurgence was more evident and psi and UFOs were seemingly on everyone's mind. And into this fray emerged BOC's Secret Treaties. If there was a more perfect soundtrack to this turbulent era, I know not what it would have been. 

"The record's Ron Lesser cover art depicted the band posing in front of an ME 262, a World War II fighter yet, pilot's seat filled with the figure of Death. Eric [Bloom, BOC frontman and guitarist --Recluse] dramatically caped, holding the reigns of four German shepherds, which, on the back sleeve are shown mysteriously (ritualistically?) slaughtered. The band is gone and the plane seems to be in motion, although this not clear. Another quirk of the cover art is the shadowy background scene, which appears to depict Mexican farmers, or perhaps images from another time, something like time warpage circa Imaginos. 

"The inner sleeve contained two slight variations of the outer front and back. The band shot is distinguished by a clearer background of an older city scene, something akin to Washington, D.C. The 'slaughtered dogs' shot depicts the jet parked on what looks like a desolate and dusty, urban Mexican street. Albert [Bouchard, BOC drummer --Recluse], on the credit for the concept says, 'Secret Treaties was created by the Columbia Records art department, because they really wanted to get involved. We wanted to keep control of the artwork, but after the first two records, which they thought were really great, they wanted a shot at it. So we let them do it and we didn't like it. The original cover was what was on the inner sleeve. They thought it was too graphic and so did we, so we ended up with this other thing that they did. They did two versions, the inside and the outside. How it ended up was that Sandy's idea was the front cover and Murray [Krugman, BOC's other early manager/producer --Recluse]'s idea was the back cover, with the dogs being slaughtered. But all in all, Secret Treaties was mostly Sandy's idea.' Another complication is the European release of the record sported red lettering; while stateside the text was green.

"The inner sleeve adds this cryptic note. 'Rossignol's curious, albeit simply titled book, the Origins of a World War, spoke in terms of secret treaties, drawn up between the Ambassadors from Plutonia and Desdinova the foreign minister. These treaties founded a secret science from the stars. Astronomy. The career of evil.' As is well-documented, the book does not exist. But the notation ties nicely the band's (most notably Pearlman's) recurring theme of conspirators (be they Rosicrucians, Illuminati, Masons, Gnostics, Hermetics, or secret divisions of the CIA, FBI and Yale!) causing wars and other human upheaval (i.e. Altamont), in addition to the link with beings from other planets and possibly other times."

(Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pgs. 42-43) 

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the Processians in one variation of their capes --unfortunately no color images of them appear to be available online

"For some reason, there have been reports of sacrifices of large numbers of dogs, mostly German shepherds, throughout the United States in the past thirty-odd years, but notably in areas where we discover confirmed cult activity. This was true in Berkowitz' Yonkers neighborhood as it was in Walden, New York, where a 'total of eighty-five skinned German shepherds and Dobermans were found' in a single year 'between October 1976 and October 1977.' The day of Berkowitz' arrest in Yonkers, the bodies of three slain German shepherds were found in an aqueduct behind his apartment. Two had been strangled with chains; the third had been shot in the head.

"Two days before his arrest, someone phoned an animal shelter using his name and address, inquiring about adopting a German shepherd that had been advertised in a local paper. A few hours later someone else called from the same street in Yonkers, also inquiring about the dog. The caller said he was 'fixing some cars' on Pine Street; an allusion that Terry believes actually refers to the Carr family who figure some prominently in his case. As it turned out, two men did visit the shelter, including one who resembled Berkowitz, but according to Berkowitz himself it was not he, although he acknowledges that someone may have been impersonating him on the phone.

"Why? This was before his arrest and identification in the press as the Son of Sam...

"around the time of the Sam killings, the author heard convincing rumors of the abuse and slaughter of dogs in a warehouse near Brooklyn Heights, within walking distance of the Warlock Shoppe, before Berkowitz was arrested and the connection with dogs was made.

"Terry connects the German shepherd sacrifices with the Process, due to their fondness for the animals. Members of the Process in those halcyon days of the 1960s were to be seen around San Francisco dressed in black and leading German shepherds on the leash. The 'Fear' issue of the process magazine featured a photo spread of twenty German shepherds in a menacing pose. It doesn't automatically follow, however, that the Process would sacrifice the animals.

"Another symbolic association that should be mentioned is the fact that Hitler favored German shepherds above all other animals. That there might be a Nazi or neo-Nazi element ot the Son of Sam cult should not be ignored, especially as mass murderer Fred Cowan --one of the 'Sons' according to Berkowitz --was a neo-Nazi. Further, the Process symbol was a stylized swastika: what some members referred to as 'four P's'; these 'four P's' later contributed to the name of a Process splinter group called 'Four P' after the same symbol. It was this group that remained behind in California after most of the regular Process decamped and went to New York City following the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Four P --and its reputed leader, the Grand Chingon --has been implicated in a number of vile acts, including animal and human sacrifice in northern and southern California. Convicted serial killer and cannibal Stanley Baker claimed to belong to this cult, and Manson Family members were known to refer to Charles Manson as the Grand Chingon. even though the organization was supposedly so secret that its very existence was unknown to all but a few."

(Sinister Forces Book III, Peter Levenda, pgs. 197-198)

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the color versions of the Secret Treaties artwork show Bloom with the cape and dogs in more detail (top) as well as the dead German shepherds (bottom)

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Ed Sanders circa 1968

If this was not enough, there is also compelling indications that there were more allusions to the Process with the cover of On Your Feet or On Your Knees, a live album that came out the year after Secret Treaties was released. This was the first BOC album to feature a cover in color, but it proved to be no less striking than those from the "Black and White" era. In this instance, a limo sporting a Templar-like flag with the BOC logo on it is shown parked in front of a curious church. A comment left on a previous post I had written about BOC indicated that this church had been used by the Process some time around the early 1970s.

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I had been weary of this claim when I had first read it, but after researching the matter I believe that there may be merit to it. The church used on the On Your Feet... cover is St. Paul's Chapel, a part of St. John's Episcopal Parish in the South Salem era of New York state. In 1987 investigative reporter Maury Terry published a deeply flawed work called The Ultimate Evil. This book was based upon Terry's research into the Son of Sam killings and the possibility that some type of cult was behind them. While some of Terry's conclusions are suspect, his raw data is compelling.

Towards the end of The Ultimate Evil, Terry notes that a cult alleged to have been a Process splinter was reputed to have been using a church in the Salem area for black rites during the mid-1970s.

"Another abandoned church offered yet one more meeting site. This edifice was said to have been an 'eastern headquarters' for the group. The informants said it was privately owned (perhaps partially converted) and was located in the vicinity of the northeastern corner of Westchester County, somewhere near (and possibly over) the adjoining Putnam County and Connecticut borders. Vinny couldn't pinpoint the exact location but, quoting Berkowitz, he mentioned 'Salem' and 'Brewster.' 

"North and South Salem, with their historic witchcraft names, were in Westchester, and the village of Brewster lay a few miles north in Putnam County. The area was largely rural, with homes, estates and some farms and stables hidden from the few main roads by thickets of trees. It was a perfect cult site, and a difficult, extensive setting in which to try to locate the old church.

"Vinny said the church's interior (in 1976-77) was adorned with a silver pentagram on one wall; and silver-wire inlays, some in the form of the German SS lightning bolts --a symbol of the cult --appeared on the ends of some pews."

(The Ultimate Evil, Maury Terry, pg. 412)

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Even more compelling are Terry's allegations that members of the Process were active in this area during the mid-1970s.

"And the Process itself was even located in that area. In the mid-seventies members of the cult occupied a house off Salem Road in Pound Ridge, a rural community several miles south of North Salem. It was as if the players and environment from the Los Angeles scene of 1968-69 had been magically transported to the specific area Berkowitz and the prison informants referred to."

(The Ultimate Evil, Maury Terry, pg. 419)

The On Your Feet or On Your Knees church is actually located in Lewisboro, near South Salem. And the above-mentioned rural village of Pound Ridge is located right next to Lewisboro, with less than five miles separating the two. In other words, this Process encampment couldn't have been located more than a few miles from the On Your Feet... church.

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In Agents of Fortune, the only full length account of Blue Oyster Cult, Martin Popoff sites BOC drummer Albert Bouchard as crediting Pearlman with finding the church used on the cover of On Your Feet or On Your Knees. Thus, Pearlman selected a church located mere miles from a Process Church hub in area in which Maury Terry's informants alleged that a splinter of the cult was using a church for ritual purposes.

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the church more recently

Dismissing this as a mere coincidence would be quite a stretch indeed, especially when taken in conjunction with ample Process allusions on the cover of Secret Treaties. But I digress.

Secret Treaties: A Side

With the cover art and my musings concerning the Process finished, let us now turn our attention to the actual music on Secret Treaties. Opener "A Career of Evil" was another BOC song with lyrics from punk poetess Patti Smith, who at the time was dating BOC keyboardist and sometimes guitarist Allen Lanier. Coming off like something of a demented Doors song, this track has at times be linked to the Imaginos cycle, but this seems to derive primarily from the sinister sentiments expressed throughout the track. It was released as the album's first single, but in edited form with the line "Do it to your daughter on a dirt road" being changed.

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There is no question that the next track, "Subhuman," is a part of the Imaginos cycle. This another number with a clear Doors influence, this time something in vein of "Riders on the Storm" with a little Dust-style riffing to bring the metal. But it's ties to the Imaginos cycle ensure that its even more sinister and foreboding than anything Morrison and co ever released. In fact, this is the first time the Imaginos figure appears on a BOC song, though he is not mentioned by name in the track. Here are some more details:

"Track two 'Subhuman,' a tune that would be revived 14 years later on Imaginos as signature track 'Blue Oyster Cult,' rightly so as it seems to encapsulate Sandy's complex concept of the band, the character Imaginos, and the intertwining of the two. A type of literal translation of the band's name occurs, similar to graphic artist Greg Scott's approach to the Fire of Unknown Origins artwork, with talk of oyster boys, the sea and the 'blue sky bag.' Overtones of Lovecraft's Cthulhu or 'old ones' can also be spotted in terms of death-like creatures who inhabit the seas. In any event, the occurrences in this lyric seem to mark a traumatic, transformational moment for Imaginos, a character who could change form and traverse time...."

(Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pg. 43)

Yes, this is possibly the song from which Blue Oyster Cult derived its name. In this track Imaginos, a sailor, is betrayed by his shipmates ("Left to die by two good friend") and abandoned as his ship puts to sea. As he lays dying near the sea some rather curious creatures appear to him (the "oyster boys") who offer to save his life if he'll join them. Imaginos accepts ("Just one deal is what we made") but is in for a surprise. Much more shall be said of this track and its themes when I address the even more esoteric "Blue Oyster Cult" that appears on Imaginos.

"Subhuman" is followed up by another track likely a part of, or closely related too, the Imaginos cycle called "Dominance and Submission." This song also features the curious character of Suzie, whom also appeared in "Before the Kiss, a Redcap" (noted before here) and several other BOC songs. This song revolves around the subversive power of rock 'n' roll and the sinister forces that sought to control it. I've already written an entire blog on this song before, which I found to be thematically closely related to Don McLean's classic "American Pie," and as such will not address this song here for the sake of brevity. But this is a very deep track and the reader is encouraged to take in the prior article.

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Side A closes out with the Nazi-revering "ME 262." This song revolves around the Messerschmitt Me 262, the world's first operational jet-powered fighter aircraft. The ME 262 was to be a kind of super weapon for the Nazis in the closing days of the war, but it was not used to its full potential. The gleeful boogie classic name checks Hitler and Goring and tells of an air battle from Germany's perspective. The main character in the song is a Captain Von Ondine. This is interesting as "Ondine" is close to "undine," a kind of water elemental being similar to a mermaid. As was noted in part three, an undine was also mentioned on "Workshop of Telescopes" off of the self-titled debut.

This track helped further contribute to the group flirtation with Nazism. As was noted in the first installment, despite several Jews being involved with the band and in their orbit (including Pearlman), the group had subtly embraced Nazi imagery from the early 1970s. Pearlman was very much the architect of this and only added fuel to the fire when "ME 262"  was released as a single. Controversy ensued and the band retreated form this imagery as Pearlman's influenced waned. But back to the matter at hand.

Secret Treaties: Side B

Side B begins with "Cagey Cretins," the first of two Richard Meltzer lyrical contributions to Secret Treaties. As was noted in part one, Meltzer was had worked with Pearlman as a rock critic for Crawdaddy in the mid-1960s. He played a key role in the early years of the band and would contribute lyrics to the group for years.

"Cagey Cretins" is probably the closet thing Treaties has to a throwaway track. The lyrics effectively revolve around Meltzer's boredom from his time spent staying at his girlfriend's house in Shirley, New York, in the middle of Long Island. The demented Doors nature of the song and some amusing lyrics ("Being chased around by the neighbor's cat/ Well it's so lonely in the state of Maine!") somewhat redeem the song and the general strangeness of the track is in keeping with the rest of the album.

Next up is Meltzer's second composition, and a much better one, known as "Harvester of Eyes." This song was apparently inspired by a confirmation hearing for LBJ crony Abe Fortas to the Supreme Court that Meltzer watched. At one point during the hearing the medical condition ocular tuberculosis (tuberculosis of the eye) was mentioned and this served as the inspiration for "Harvester." What emerges is effectively a narrative that the great Julian Cope believed could describe Death (who appeared on the Secret Treaties album cover) as a strung out junkie:

"... On a higher plain of existence, however, is the superbly titled 'Harvester of Eyes', Meltzer’s massive ode to the Grim Reaper as a hopeless drug addict. Suffused with imagery that appears to be an Odinist take on Alice’s epic 'Halo of Flies', this tight-assed caffeine blues straddles that bizarre mid-70s hinterland between Joe Walsh’s delightfully clodhopping 'Rocky Mountain Way' and the post-Todd meltdown of The Tubes’ 'White Punks On Dope'. It’s one of Eric Bloom’s finest vocal performances and one which he obviously relished, recounting how the Reaper - so ‘high on eyes’ - needs ‘all the peepers’ he can harvest not only as evidence that the donor of those eyes is truly dead, but also to satisfy his hopeless druglust or ‘ocular TB’ as Meltzer terms it. Nailed it this time, motherfucker!"

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While this song was never intended to be a part of the Imaginos cycle, it has been linked to it over the years. It is easy to see why as Meltzer's depiction of a sinister entity is in keeping with the wonders of the invisible world that appear throughout Imaginos.

Pearlman returns to the fold with the next track, the Cult classic "Flaming Telepaths." Drummer Albert Bouchard contributed some of the lyrics to this track, but it is clearly Pearlman's vision. Of it, he noted:

" 'On the new album there's the song called "Flaming Telepaths",' explained Sandy, in conversation with NME's Don Nooger circa spring of '74, 'which deals with the same sort of theme (as "Cities on Flame") but in a scientific way. It's about an attempt to create a mutation, to mutate consciousness. The first lines are, "I will have opened my veins too many times, poison's in my mind, poison's in my bloodstream, poison's in my pride," and that's they key line, "poison's in my pride." It's about this scientist who attempts to mutate consciousness and he just can't do it; he's failed too many times. But the scientist has this poisonous pride and he's got to keep on trying, beating his head against this barrier. And just because he's doing it, that's good enough. It's a very, very noble song...' "

(Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pgs. 47-48)

What's most curious about this song as how it alludes to the militarization of psi that was this currently being undertaken by the deep state. Stanford Research Institute's famed remote viewing experiments, funded by the CIA and military, had just kicked off in 1972. By 1978 Project Grill Flame, the military's first formal effort to weaponize psi, was launched and would remain active for almost 20 years despite persistent claims that the research was baseless.

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Was Pearlman telling tales out of school, as Chris Knowles is fond of saying? Certainly the scientist described in "Flaming Telepaths" could be an effective stand in for Andrija Puharich. Puharich, a man with ample interest in esoterica. played a major role in the first psi experiments undertaken by the deep state in the 1950s (as noted before here). His Uri was released in 1974 superficially to legitimize the psi phenomenon to the general public (though as noted above, it is mostly remembered in this day and age for revealing The Nine) and in the years leading up to this he had become something of a minor celebrity in certain sectors of the counterculture. Given Pearlman's fascination with science, mysticism and their merger, Puharich have likely interested Memphis Sam greatly. I have no evidence of any formal contact between the two men, but certainly "Flaming Telepaths" is an apt account of Puharich's work with the deep state. But moving along.

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Puharich

"Flaming Telepaths" bleeds directly into closer "Astronomy," possibly the greatest song that band ever came up with. A long time fan favorite, "Astronomy" was a key piece of the Imaginos cycle and a new version of the song appeared on the 1988 Imaginos album. But nothing can top the original 1974 version, which was co-written by the Bouchard brothers (drummer Albert and bassist Joe) using lyrics (that were slightly rearranged) from Pearlman.

"Astronomy" is another track featuring the character of Suzie, along with Imaginos. The meaning to this track is rather obscure, but a key clue comes from the repeated references to the "four winds." The four winds are of course rich with symbolism.

"On the other hand wind is synonymous with breath and consequently with the Spirit, a heaven-sent spiritual influx. This why both the Book Psalms and the Koran equate winds with angels as God's messengers. Wind even gives its name to the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God moving across the face of the primordial waters is called Ruah, 'Wind', and it was a wind which brought the Apostles the tongues of fire of the Holy Spirit. In Hindu symbolism, the wind, personified as the god (Vayu) is cosmic breath and the Word. It rules the 'subtle' world which lies between Heaven and Earth, the space which was filled by what the Chinese termed a breath, k'i. Vayu imbues, shatters and cleanses, and is related to the points of the compass, which were generally speaking termed 'winds.' Hence Classical antiquity talked of the four winds and the Athenians built the eight-sided Tower of the Winds.

"The Four Winds, furthermore, were related to the seasons, the elements and the 'humours' in a pattern subject to slight variation..."

(Dictionary of Symbols, Jean Chevalier & Alain Gheerbrant, pgs. 1110-1111)

Native American symbolism for the four winds seems especially relevant in this case as indigenous mysticism seems to have heavily influenced the Imaginos cycle, as shall be explored in the next installment. For our purposes here, it is interesting to note that Native Americans frequently associated the four winds with square, and frequently used this design in their sacred places.

"Links across time in the symbolic meanings of the square are also found on a smaller scale. For example, shell gorgets recovered from Mississippian sites are found to have cross as well as bent-arm cross designs carved into their surfaces. According to historic Indian accounts... these designs were meant to symbolize the four cardinal directions, the four world quarters, and the four winds...

"Mississippian designs like the Spiro gorget look very similar to some of the designs found in earlier Hopewell contexts, especially those which incorporate cross and bent-arm cross features... Moreover, a clear geometric relationship can be demonstrated between the cross, the square, and the bent-arm cross... Given this relationship, as well as the close proximity in both time and space between the Hopewell and Mississippian cultures --including the southern Ohio-based, Mississippian-influenced Fort Ancient peoples --my thought is that the symbolic meanings of the cross, the square, and the bent-arm cross were the same for historic Indians of the Southeast, the prehistoric Mississippians, and the Hopewell: namely, symbols of the sky, the world quarters, the four cardinal directions, and the four winds.

"To summarize this section in another way, we know from ethnographic accounts that many historic southeastern Indian people laid out their ceremonial grounds in the shape of a square and that these square grounds were thought of as symbolic microcosms of the universe. Moreover, these square ceremonial grounds were oriented to sky phenomena, including cardinal directions."

(Mysteries of the Hopewell, William F. Romain, pgs. 176-180)

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a depiction of the four winds in the Seven Nation's symbolism

The four winds then are closely associated with both the sky and the heavens. In the case of "Astronomy," both are rather fitting. I digressed above on Native American sacred space oriented towards this "sky phenomenon" to help explain the reference to the "four winds bar." This reference appears in the second. third and fourth verses of the song:

Come Susy dear, let's take a walk

Just out there upon the beach

I know you'll soon be married

And you want to know where the winds come from

Well its never said at all

On the map that Carrie reads

Behind the clock back there you know

At the four winds bar

Four winds at the four winds bar

Two doors locked and the windows barred

One door let to take you in

The other one just mirrors it

Hey, hey, yeah! Hey, hey

In hellish glare and inference

The other one's a duplicate

The queenly flux, the eternal light

Or the light that never warms

Yes the light, that never, never warms

Yes the light, that never, never warms

Never warms, never warms

The clock strikes twelve and moon drops burst

Out at you from their hiding place

Miss Carrie nurse and Susie dear

Would find themselves at the four winds bar

It's the nexus of the crisis

The origin of storms

Just the place to hopelessly

Encounter time and then came me

As noted above, the Joe Bouchard some what altered the original Pearlman poem. The opening verse, which is a variation on the fourth ("The clock strikes twelve...") originally was the third verse and thus would have come after the "never warms" bit. Thus, Susie and "Carrie nurse" would have been the focus at the onset of the song.

Some fans have interpreted this song to be about Susie having a lesbian experience, presumably with Carrie. There may be some merit to this. I believe the "four winds bar" designates some kind of sacred space where Susie ventures to for a certain kind of marriage --a sacred marriage. Carrie is there to initiate Susie. In the process two gateways are opened ("Two doors locked and windows barred/One door let to take you in//The other one just mirrors it"). One of these gateways is a kind of shadow world ("In hellish glare and inference/The other one's a duplicate") from which entities emerge ("The clock strikes twelve and moon drops burst/Out at you from their hiding place"). But it is one particular being that most interests us and who is mentioned in the final verse:

Call me Desdenova, eternal light

These gravely digs of mine

Will surely prove a sight

And don't forget my dog, fixed and consequent

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This marks the first time Imaginos (who was given the name Desdenova by the Blue Oyster Cult) is directly mentioned in a BOC song. I believe the preceding verses dealt with the efforts of two women, Carrie nurse and Susie dear, to summon Desdenova in some type of ritual, potentially tantric in nature. And indeed they succeeded, enabling him to enter their world.

The final line of this verse ("And don't forget my dog...") is interesting as well. Some fans have interpreted it to be a reference to the Dog star Sirius. In ancient times it was often used for navigational purposes because it appeared to be at the same point in the sky ("fixed and consequent) and the Imaginos/Desdenova character worked as a sailor for a time. As noted above and shall be addressed in much greater detail in the next installment, he was also said to have originated from another planet. And indeed there are theories that extraterrestrial intellgiences originating from Sirius visited the Earth in ancient times. 

The basis of many of these theories originate with Robert Temple's The Sirius Mystery. A Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, Temple's presents a compelling account of the detailed knowledge of Sirius that the Dogon tribe of Africa has possessed for hundreds of years despite science only being able to confirm much of this information in the last century. The Dogon claimed that their knowledge of Sirius was brought to them from beings from or near this star centuries ago.

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Temple believed that other traditions also possessed accounts of these beings from Sirius and that it had been closely guarded by various secret orders for centuries:

"Temple believes the Contact (which he tends to portray as physical, involving actual space-ships) occurred in Sumeria around 4500 B.C. The knowledge thus gained, he argues (and this is the major theme of his book), was passed on via various secret societies of initiates in the Near East, Egypt, Greece and so on, at least until the time of the 5th century (A.D.) neo-Platonist Proclus. Thereafter, Temple loses track of it, and suggests that it petered out, although he mentions that offshoots of it appeared in 'such bizarre and fascinating figures as Giordano Bruno, Marsilio Ficino, John Dee and even Sir Philip Sidney and the Earl of Leicester --not to mention the troubadors of Provence, Dante in Italy, and the massacred tens of thousands of Albigensians in France, the Knights Templar and an infinite range of hopeless causes over two and a half millennia....' "

(Cosmic Trigger Volume I, Robert Anton Wilson, pg.s. 186-187)

Clearly Temple's premise bears more than a passing resemblance to Pearlman's Imaginos cycle. But even more curious is the fact that The Sirius Mystery was not published until 1976, a good two years after Secret Treaties had been released. And if "Astronomy" had been a part of the original Soft Doctrines... poems, then Pearlman may have come up with this concept nearly a decade before Temple's work was published. Was this merely a coincidence, or was someone (or something...) feeding Pealrman this information?

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the Dog star

On the topic of telling tales out of school, it's also interesting to note that parallels to Secret Treatie's final two tracks and the above-mentioned sage of Andrija Puharich and The Nine. "Flaming Telepaths" mirrored Puharich's involvement with the deep state to weaponize psi while "Astronomy" deals with the contacting of nonhuman, allegedly extraterrestrial intellgiences through occult means. In "Astronomy" this is accomplished through some type of ritual, while Puharich relied upon hypnotism and mediumship.

It is curious how these two tracks run into one another, with "... Telepaths" being literally cut off in the middle of its "And the joke's on you" refrain to make room for "Astronomy"'s opening keys. Clearly these two tracks are linked and the strange saga of The Nine makes for one of them sot compelling connections this researcher has uncovered. More information on this strange tale can be found here and here.

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Before wrapping up, I would like to return again to the fictitious quote concerning the equally fictitious Origins of a World War on the album's inner sleeve: "Rossignol's curious, albeit simply titled book, the Origins of a World War, spoke in terms of secret treaties, drawn up between the Ambassadors from Plutonia and Desdinova the foreign minister. These treaties founded a secret science from the stars. Astronomy. The career of evil."

Taken in the context of what we've explored in this installment, it seems clear this quote is indicating that Secret Treaties is a kind of concept album. It references both the opening and closing tracks while indicating the "secret science" of astronomy has a rather sinister purpose (a career of evil). The opener "Career of Evil" seems to outline vaguely this sinister purpose while track two, "Subhuman," presents the listener with Imaginos/Desdinova's human death and his realization that he is from the stars. The album then ends with the summoning of this reborn, incorporeal version of Imaginos ("Call me Desdinova, eternal light").

In between the listener is presented with accounts of the subversion of popular culture and mass movements ("Dominance and Submission"), re-emerging Nazism ("ME 262") and the weaponization of consciousness itself ("Flaming Telepaths"). The cover art, with its thinly veiled allusions to the Process Church of the Final Judgment, points to the sinister secret societies addressed in prior albums (noted here). I suspect this is the meaning of the "These gravely digs of mine/Will surely prove a sight" bit in the final verse.

On the whole Secret Treaties presents a chilling picture, one of which with much basis in reality circa 1974. Certainly the whole album has the air of Pearlman telling tales out of school. As such, it should come as little surprise that this marked the last time Pearlman would have creative control of a BOC album until 1988's Imaginos, when BOC was beyond irrelevant. The band opted to go in a more commercial direction for which they were critically acclaimed for while Pearlman was largely kicked the curb (at least until their former patrons began to turning on them towards then end of the 1970s). More on this in the next installment as well as Imaginos itself. Stay tuned dear reader.

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"So ladies, fish and gentleman

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"Agents of Fortune is a startlingly excellent album, startling because one does not expect Blue Oyster Cult to sound like this: loud but calm, manic but confident, melodic but rocking. Every song on the first side is commercially accessible without compromising the band's malevolent stance. One area of clear improvement is in the matter of lyrics; for the first time, there is less emphasis on absurd, cyrpto-intellectual ramblings and more of a coherent attack on a variety of subjects. The former had become simply tiresome; the latter opens up whole new areas for Cult investigation. By dropping the S & M angle and by inserting slivers of genuine rock 'n' roll like 'True Confessions,' their best song ever, the Cult is easing into maturity with integrity. Agents of Fortune's comparative slickness even serves to enhance their dark image: the ominous villainy conveyed by Buck Dharma's agile guitar lines on 'Tenderloin' is far more effective than his heretofore standard thudding madness." 

(review by Ken Tucker; taken from Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pg. 77)

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"Eric [Bloom, BOC frontman --Recluse] provides the missing pieces: ' Well, I'll give you the reader's digest version. When Albert was fired in '81, there was a lot of material he had presented to the band that was written with Sandy Pearlman, that was part of the Imaginos epic. A few of the Imaginos songs... Sandy wrote Imaginos in the '60s, the lyrics, and they were always floating around. There's this whole bunch of lyrics about Imaginos. 'Astronomy' was one of them; 'Subhuman' was one of them. So those two came out of Imaginos and made it onto BOC records.' 

" 'Now over the years Albert kept writing one or two Imaginos tunes and no one else in the band wanted to use them,' continues Eric. 'So when Albert was fired, Sandy approached... we had a demo of "In the Presence of Another World," which I sang. Using that demo, Sandy persuaded CBS to put out Imaginos as a project for him and Albert, because Sandy wrote Imaginos and it was very, very important to Sandy that Imaginos see the light of day. It was his, you know, masterpiece. So Albert and Sandy got to work with this huge advance from CBS. They worked on it and worked on it, using all these different musicians and different singers and different players and it went on and on and on for years. It was like a Meat Loaf record (laughs). It got to the point where --it was a double record by the way --where they finished it. I'd say '81 'til about '84, about three years after they started, they called it done. CBS heard it and hated it. Mostly the vocals, which Albert sang lead. So they shelved it and refused to release it, so it sat. So Sandy, being our manager, and together with his partner Steve Schenck, approached CBS saying, 'Give us some more money and we'll have Eric and Donald come in and sing it.' CBS bit on that, so Donald came in to play some guitar on it, and I went in and sang on it, and they reduced it to one album, and put it out. That's the story.' "

(Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pgs. 186-187)

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Albert Bouchard

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guitar god Joe Satriani

"So what might have Imaginos become graphically? 'Well, the front cover was Imaginos himself, a very kind of apocalyptic image of him, standing in front of a stormy sky with the ship and the pyramid in in the background, holding a mirror out towards you. His Doberman pinscher, which appeared in various versions of my other artwork, was in front of him. That was a very intense and spooky kind of image. The back cover was basically all the same elements rearranged. It was Imaginos as a young boy, and he's standing waist-deep in the water with a model boat, and the dog is behind him in a constellation. So there's this drawing of the dog, where the constellation Sirius is coming through him. So it was basically all the elements; there was a kind of farmhouse, in place of the pyramid. So each of the elements of the front cover were translated in the back cover in different places and in different ways.' "

(Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pg. 189)

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Sirius, the Dog star

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There has been much dispute as to what the actual order should be, but here are the two most compelling accounts, one derived from the linear notes in Imaginos, and the other from the theories of Albert Bouchard concerning the order:

"The correct order therefore becomes: 'Les Invisibles', 'Imaginos', Del Rio's Song', 'Blue Oyster Cult', 'I Am the One You Warned Me Of', 'The Siege and Investiture of Baron Von Frankenstein's Castle at Weisseria', 'In the Presence of Another World', 'Astronomy' and finally 'Magna of Illusion'. It is interesting to note that Albert's perceived correct order begins with the same four placings as above, then offering 'Astronomy', 'I Am the One You Warned Me Of', 'In the Presence of Another World' (with the added note that these two could be reversed), 'Siege', and then back to the same closer with 'Magna of Illusion.' In any event, it is agreed by almost all that the actual running order is greatly flawed, obscuring understanding, or as I say, perhaps forcing the listener to understand the tale's structure on a philosophically tougher level."

(Agents of Fortune, Martin Popoff, pgs. 190-191)

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"The Heavens are seven in number and so, according to Dante, are the planetary spheres, and these the Cathars made to correspond to the seven Liberal arts... the Seven Heavens should also be identified with the seven notches in the Siberian axial tree, with the seven colours of the Buddha's staircase, the seven metals of the ladder in Mithraic mysteries and the even rungs of the ladder of the Kadosh in Scottish Freemasonry, since seven is the number of the ascending order of spiritual levels which allow the individual to pass from Earth to Heaven."

(Dictionary of Symbols, Jean Chevalier & Alain Gheerbrant, pg. 861) 

Ursa Major is another constellation that is ripe with occult, esoteric and extraterrestrial associations. As was noted in the second installment, the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca, whom obsidian mirrors and prophecy were closely associated with, was identified with the constellation Ursa Major. Various other indigenous peoples incorporated Ursa Major into their belief systems as well. Both the Adena and Hopewell built mounds aligned to the constellation, most notably the Great Serpent Mound.

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Tezcatlipoca

Ursa Major was also important in various Egyptian traditions and was even linked to Sirius, the Dog star. Consider, for instance, this section of Utterance 302 from the Pyramid Texts that Christopher Knowles of The Secret Sun kindly reproduced:

"The sky is clear, Sothis (Sirius) lives, I am a living one, the son of Sothis (Sirius), and the two Enneads have cleansed themselves for me in Ursa Major, the Imperishable. My house in the sky will not perish, my throne on earth will not be destroyed, for men hide, the gods fly away. Sothis has caused me to fly up to the sky in the company of my Brethren…"

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members of the Dogon in ceremonial gear

Interestingly, Don Pedro de Alvarado was one of the most notorious Spanish Conquistadors, a man widely responsible for numerous genocides. This is no doubt a further allusion to the arrival of Spain in the New World. Samedi and Petre are references to Loa, the spirits of Vodun. As was noted in third installment, Pearlman seems to have incorporated some Vodun mythos into Imaginos, or at least the "esoteric voudon" variety of Michael Bertiaux. And of course Pearlman had a longstanding interest in alchemy, as has been noted in this series throughout.

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Baron Samedi, one of the Loa mentioned in "Les Invisibles"

The final verse uses some interesting imagery as well:

The court of Eve

Beneath the Polar mountain

Rose cross and crosser there

Symbols of the swan

Aerial races

In rotation over the magical casement

Visions of a parallel world

The first two lines clearly seem to be a reference to the Hollow Earth theories that hold that some advanced civilization, typically led by some type of "Ascended Master," exist beneath the surface of the Earth in fabulous cities. It has long been disputed, however, whether these regions were physical or metaphysical. For much of the twentieth century and beyond this ideology was especially popular in Esoteric Nazism.

The third line is obviously a reference to the Rosicrucians (or the Rose Cross) while the swan possess symbolism in keeping with the Imaginos saga: "From Ancient Greece to Siberia, via Asia Minor, as well as among Slav and Germanic peoples, a great mass of myth, tradition and poetry has gathered in praise of the swan, the spotless bird whose whiteness... strength and grace have made it a living manifestation of light itself" (Dictionary of Symbols, Chevalier & Gheerbrant, pg. 953). As was noted in the fourth installment, Imaginos' true name appears to be Desdenova. Supposedly this translates to "eternal light." A swan, then, would be an apt symbol.

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a Rosicrucian depiction of a swan

The final three lines are a bit vague. It is difficult to say whether a magical ritual is being performed "Beneath the polar mountain" with a "parallel world" being observed, or if the kingdom beneath the mountain is the parallel world. This researcher leans towards the latter, but it is rather ambiguous.

Rebirth

The next track in the order I'm using (noted above) up is "Imaginos." As the title implies, this track introduces the listener to the Imaginos character in earnest. It makes clear that he possess supernatural powers from an early age ("Imaginos/Approached the sun/In August in New Hampshire/Singing songs/Nobody knew/And stories left undone"). It is even implied that he has the power to change forms, taking on the shape of a bird and even a fish. Imaginos was also a sailor that traveled across much of North America and there are allusions to this wanderlust as well ("The last exit to Texas").

The next track, "Del Rio's Song," continues the narrative of Imagino's travels. "Del Rio" means "of or from the river." This could be a reference to Imaginos' extraterrestrial nature (it is implied that the race Imaginos descends from are water breathers) as well as his travels by ship. There are also further allusions to Native American rituals involving dance ("A true ghost dance/Rehearsal ground"). One is left with the impression of Imaginos as a young man searching the continent for something that he has no concept of ("My destination is secret/And the doctrine is soft") but which he feels a burning desire to search for.

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a depiction of a Sioux "Ghost Dance"

"Blue Oyster Cult" would be the next up in the cycle. The song that may have been the band's namesake was already recorded previously, under the name "Subhuman" for 1974's landmark release Secret Treaties (noted briefly in the fourth installment). In addition to being renamed, the Imaginos version also adds and rearranges lyrics, giving it an even more esoteric bent. At the onset of this track Imaginos is initially betrayed by his shipmates ("Left to die by two good friends/Abandoned me and put to sea") in Mexico. As he lays dying on a shore, he appears to have a vision of his true origin:

Recall the dream of Luxor

How fluids will arrive

As if by call or schedule

Resume through the morning tide

Where entry is by seaweed gate

And plan the plan of dreams

To lose oneself in reverb

In all this and all that seems

Luxor is the modern name for the Ancient Egyptian city of Thebes, an important cult center. And one of the chief religious centers in Thebes was the Luxor Temple. The temple was apparently dedicated to the rejuvenation of kingship and was where many of the Pharaohs were crowned. In some accounts Alexander is said to have been crowned here as well, but many believe Memphis was the actual site of his coronation. The use of Luxor here is rather apt --Imaginos is not receiving kingship, but he is remembering his godhood.

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the Luxor Temple complex

Imaginos is apparently reminded of his origins by the "Oyster Boys." Whether these are the same entities as the Les Invisibles, or something different, is left rather ambiguous. Nonetheless, Imaginos ends up joining them in the so-called "Blue Oyster Cult" in exchange for saving his life. This researcher suspects that the Blue Oyster Cult is comprised of Earth-bound entities that worship these extraterrestrials whom Imaginos is descendant from, but this is pure speculation on my part. 

References to mercury and green and gold abound in the final two verses of the track. Mercury was thought of as the First Matter by the Alchemists and was a key component in transmuting base metals, such as lead, into gold. The alchemcial transmutation of lead into gold was symbolic of the transformation of man into a god, or at least some type of enlightened being. The color green was also linked to gold by alchemist, especially in relation to the "Green Lion," whose blood was said to constitute "philosopher's gold."

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the "Green Lion" of alchemy

Clearly then this track revolves around rebirth and transmutation. Imaginos rediscovers his stellar origins and in the process transforms into a kind of god. Lead into gold indeed.

"I Am the One You Warned Me Of" deals with Imaginos' realization of his stellar origins. Here he also reclaims his proper name, Desdenova, for the first time. As the tile indicates, Imaginos/Desdenova's purpose on Earth is a rather sinister one. This perception is further reinforced by the next track in the cycle, "The Siege And Investiture Of Baron Von Frankenstein's Castle At Weisseria."

"The Siege" is one of the most difficult tracks to interpret. On the whole, this song seems to revolve around Pearlman's interest in science and the parallels cutting edge research had to alchemy (noted in part one). The song speaks of "starry wisdom" providing a cure "from the glare of stars." And the cure? "A drug by the name of World Without End."

This seems to be a subtle reference to the discovery of the New World and the phenomenal advance of technology in the twentieth century. The former lead to a realization that the world was far more vast than many of the ancients had imagined while the latter opened the frontiers of new horizons such as space exploration. A world without end indeed.

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In this context then the repeated references to Frankenstein ("Imagine he was me and I was called Frankenstein") gain some traction. Victor Frankenstein is the archetypal scientist trying to play god and who is ultimately destroyed by his hubris. This may be an allusion to the evil Imaginos is destined to bring into the world. There is an insinuation that this technology run amok is of a non-terrestrial source, hence the "starry wisdom" bit. Christopher Knowles of The Secret Sun has written recently on the potential that much of the post-WWII technology had such an origin and that it represented a kind of Trojan Horse.

The Mirror

The next track, "In the Presence of Another World," continues in this vein. Here Imaginos is in the midst of performing a ritual to see the parallel world spoken of in "Les Invisibles." This seems evident from the line "Your master... he walks the world entrail diviner." The vision being received is rather nightmarish:

In the promise of another world

A dreadful knowledge comes

How even space can modulate

And earthly things be done

Your master, he's a monster!

He will come on a bridge of paper

Inscribed with a hundred names of God

But he can count one more

The curse of life eternal

Written of the door

Later on Pearlman goes full on astro-gnosticism:

Your master is a monster

And gentlemanly too

He'll make us some new germ

With pieces of the perfect black

The Alpha and Omega

The double peaks of Mars

The maze of his infinity

The buried city

In the stars

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The bit about "pieces of perfect black" is a reference to an obsidian mirror that Imaginos discovered during his time in Mexico. More details on this event were provided in the original Imaginos linear notes:

"Born a farm boy in a place that might as well be nowhere, but, heir to the mastery of faces and names, his trial by drama will take him far indeed: 'Out beyond the Europe's rim,' and further by far, beyond the sphere of light, into a place where darkness is omnipotent and never far from hungry. In Mayaland in the Yucatan he will discover an unheard of temple or pyramid. At the core of the pyramid, with only one way in and no way out, is a chamber of jade, curiously sculpted with impossible angles, itself surrounding something hardly there, a new germ, made from 'pieces of the perfect black.' When thrust in vivo into Europe's all too fertile soil, this new germ will --having grown more powerful and mature, having in fact become an organism--beam riddling voices direct to the brains of the (European) multitudes. The voices call in hunger for absolute darkness and absolute light. They are ready. We are ready. It is ready."

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This obsidian mirror, used for divination, was already mentioned in part two. Obsidian has a long history of divination --it was used by indigenous peoples such as the Aztecs and the Hopewell as well as ceremonial magicians such as John Dee and even Joseph Smith. It is known as the "Magna of Illusion" in the Imaginos cycle and is kind of cursed technology that leads to both World Wars. Imagnios discovered this mirror towards the end of his life, as the song "Magna of Illusion" makes clear. I suspect this track then chronicles the actual discovery and the vision Imaginos received from the mirror before he brought it back to Europe. The final verse of this track, noted above, implies that this mirror was of a stellar origin.

The next track up in the order being used by this researcher is "Astronomy." I already dealt with "Astronomy" at length in the previous installment and as it is lyrically unchanged from the Secret Treaties version, I see no need to address it here in depth. Suffice to say, this track appears to take place after Imaginos' physical death. I speculated that a magical ritual is performed in the track in which he is summoned in his "Desdinova" persona. This might mark the onset of the First World War which the obsidian mirror was supposedly the driving force behind.

The final track, the above-mentioned "Magna of Illusion," is essentially a recap of some of the events described in the prior two tracks while providing some details. Here we find Imaginos as an old sea captain living in Cornwall, England "Where witches went mad more than once." Beyond witches, Cornwall was quite a rich mythological tradition.

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the tale of Jack the Giant Killer likely originates from Cornwall

According to "Magna," he set out in 1892 for Mexico in a ship called Plutonia. Interestingly, Plutonia was mentioned in the Secret Treaties cover art in the fictitious quote that goes: "Rossignol's curious, albeit simply titled book, the Origins of a World War, spoke of secret treaties, drawn up between the Ambassadors from Plutonia and Desdinova the foreign minister." Plutonia may potentially be the name of Desdinova's actual home and it is employed in the case of Imaginos' ship as a tribute.

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As the song progresses the listener leans that Imaginos gives the mirror to his granddaughter for her birthday. The child also lives in Cornwall, thus bringing it to Europe where it begins the process of driving the Continent towards a World War, as noted above. This researcher believes that Imaginos' daughter may have been the infamous "Susie" who appears in "Astronomy" and several other Imaginos-connected BOC tracks and previously addressed in the second and fourth installments. This would certainly help explain why she seems to appear in so many BOC mythos tracks.

Susie, along with "Carrie nurse," appear to have been engaged in some type of ritual (possibly tantric nature) to summon Desdinova in "Astronomy." As I noted previously, this may have occurred at the onset of the First World War. I suspect that "Magna of Illusion" was written later to give some structure to the rather ambiguous "In the Presence of Another World" and "Astronomy," both of which date from at least the 1970s (Imaginos was the first time "Presence" had been recorded, but it was demoed in 1977).

Conclusions

Originally Pearlman and Bouchard had planned on doing Imaginos as a trilogy of double albums. According to Bouchard, the second would have revolved around World War II while the third would have been known as The Mutant Reformation --which presumably would have focused more on the astro-gnostic aspects of the story line. Unfortunately we will never now as Imaginos was an absolute disaster. Pearlman would only produce one more album in his life after Imaginos.

Pearlman was clearly one of the most esoteric-oriented figures of his day in the music industry. As I hope this series has shown beyond a doubt, he clearly had a vast knowledge of occult and arcane subjects. The Black and White albums even appear to hint as some of the dark dealings in the American deep state during that era. Pearlman was likely not only a highly intelligent man, but one with connections. His work provides a one of a kind insight into the murky netherworld where the occult and political intrigues have forged a curious union.

For this reason it should come as little surprise that he has been a long maligned figure. In his heyday during the 1970s the music press loved to bash his influence on the acts he worked with, be it BOC or The Clash. Largely forgotten throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he was reduced to a misnamed caricature on a Saturday Night Live sketch in 2000. And so it goes for one of the most visionary minds to ever participate in the fertile and shamanistic grounds of rock 'n' roll. Could it be any other way?

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R.I.P.

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"And so it was the day of the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, a day that Hitler commemorated forever after with speeches and festivities, and sanctified with the creation of the Blood Order: a society of those men who marched with him on that fateful day, and symbolized by the Nazi flag that they carried and with which all other Nazi flags were 'blessed' by being touched with it in impressive ceremonials presided over by Hitler himself. It was the day of a failed assassination attempt in 1939 on Hitler's life at a meeting commemorating the Putsch... And it was also the day of Kristallnacht, when roving Nazi gangs went on a rampage in 1938, smashing shop windows and destroying Jewish homes, businesses, and temples. If anyone in Hitler's Germany believed in numerology, they would have spent considerable time in analyzing this most pregnant of dates for the Third Reich." 

(Unholy Alliance, Peter Levenda, pg. 142)

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an image of the failed Beer Hall Putsch

• Rudolf von Sebottendorf, founder of the Thule Society, was born in what is now modern day Saxony on November 9, 1875; many Thulists of course aided in the rise of the Nazi Party
• Mary Jane Kelly, the final victim of Jack the Ripper, was murdered on November 9, 1888; there are numerous theories that the Ripper killings were ritualistic
• 11/9/1918 would mark the end of the monarchy in the German state, leading to the doomed Weimer Republic
• Benito Mussolini founded the Partito Nazionale Fascista (PNF), the fascist political party that would go on to rule Italy from 1922 till 1943, on November 9, 1921
• the final attack of the "Brabant killers," a Belgium gang linked to 28 murders in the 1980s, was committed on 11/9/1985 at a Delhaize supermarket, leaving eight people dead; the Brabant killers have been widely linked to Belgium's infamous fascist underground, as noted before here
• 11/9/1989 witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall, an event that led to the reunification of Germany, and effectively marked the defeat of the Soviet Union in the Cold War struggle

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the flag of the November 9th Society

Regardless, Trump now hopes to be presiding over a similar "upset" as Brexit on the morning of November 9. But there may well be even more strange and terrible things unfolding on that day. One such scenario is the beginning of a protracted legal battle over the outcome of the vote. Another, if Trump manages to defeat Hillary, is the possibility that foreign policy elites, who increasingly seem hellbent on a war with Russia, may do something rash to ensure such an outcome. Thus, while 11/9/89 witnessed the end of Cold War 1.0, 11/9/16 could witness the moment that Cold War 2.0 turns hot.

Even if Hillary wins by a landslide, domestic civil unrest could be an immediate response from the Right. The Oath Keepers already predicted a civil war back in April of this year if Hillary was elected. October 28, 2016, eleven days before Election Day, witnessed the acquittal of Ammon and Ryan Bundy and their followers for their role in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge standoff. The Bundys are of course darlings of the "patriot movement" after their role in the Bundy standoff orchestrated by the Bundy brothers' father, Cliven.

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the recently acquitted

This recent acquittal against the allegedly all powerful federal government will no doubt embolden the patriot movement in much the same way the results of the 1988 Fort Smith Sedition trial did to the movement several decades ago. In the latter case, this ensured that many patriotic Americans such as long time FBI informant and multiple murderer Frazier Glenn Miller (one of the government's star witnesses in the case no less) escaped the clutches of ZOG and were able to continue their noble mission among the general public. The Bundy acquittal may ensure that similar "talent" will be on the streets in the aftermath of Election Day.

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Frazier Glenn Miller during his younger days

And in fairness, a Donald Trump victory --contested or otherwise --would likely spur similar unrest. There are already indications that the Black Lives Matter movement, which has received ample funding from Hillary-backer George Soros and his CIA-connected (more information here) Open Society Foundations, is being manipulated towards similar ends. Militant identity politics increasingly appears to be one of the end games of this election cycle.

It would seem that regardless of whether Hillary or Trump pull it out chaos is inevitable and such a curious date looming over the conclusion of this psychodrama is not a good omen. By weary dear readers.

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one big, happy family...

Appendix: Enter the Weiner

Just as I was readying this post for publication another interesting development in this strange and terrible election cycle unfolded: The FBI announced they were reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email leaks. These events were spurred by the discovery of addition emails on a "non related" case. And the case? The investigation of disgraced Congressman Anthony Weiner's latest sexting scandal. At present Mr. Weiner stands accused of sending illicit texts to a fifteen year-old girl.

Weiner is also the estranged husband of Huma Abedin, a long time Hillary aid currently serving as vice chairwoman of Hillary's 2016 campaign. The computer on which these latest emails were discovered on was owned by both Weiner and Abedin. 

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Anthony and Huma

Just how much of an effect these revelations will have on the race is debatable, but even the mainstream media is grudgingly acknowledging that these latest developments could be a real blow to Clinton's bid for the presidency with only eleven days till the election. The public may have a short memory, but a week and a half may not be long enough for this latest scandal to die down. Coupled with the ongoing Wikileaks revelations that remain a thorn in Clinton's side, the public will likely receive daily reminders for the next week and a half of all the reasons why they despise Hillary. 

As I've noted before here, Trump appears to have power deep state backers of his own and they may well have just made their move. Early reports indicate that the Clinton camp was blindsided by these allegations. It seems inexplicable that the FBI would reopen this can of worms eleven days before the election unless they were feeling some powerful pressure. This has all the makings of a textbook October Surprise.

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John Podesta

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Andrija Puharich

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General Stanley McChrystal

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Betsy prince DeVos

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Joseph Schmitz

"Although the CIA would take much of the credit and criticism for the US drone program in Pakistan, it was not the only player. JSOC had its own intelligence operations inside Pakistan and, at times, conducted its own drone strikes. At the center of both the JSOC and CIA targeted-killing programs were members of an elite division of Blackwater, who assisted in planning the assassinations of suspected Taliban and al Qaeda operatives, 'snatch and grabs' of high-value targets and other sensitive actions inside Pakistan. Some elite Blackwater SELECT personnel worked for the CIA at 'hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the company's contractors assemble and load Hellfire missiles and 500-pound laser-guided bombs on remotely piloted Predator aircraft.

"Blackwater operatives also worked for JSOC on a parallel program that was run out of Bagram Air Base in neighboring Afghanistan. US military intelligence and company sources told me that some Blackwater personnel were given rolling security clearances above their approved level. Using Alternative Compartmentalized Control Measures (ACCMs), the Blackwater personnel were granted entry to a Special Access Program. 'With an ACCM, the security manager can grant access to you to be exposed to and operate within compartmentalized programs far above "secret" – even though you have no business doing so,' a US military intelligence source told me. It allowed Blackwater personnel who 'do not have the requisite security clearance or do not hold a security clearance whatsoever to participate in classified operations by virtue trust,' he added. 'Think of it as an ultra-exclusive level above top secret. That's exactly what it is: a circle of love.' As a result, Blackwater had access to 'all source' reports that were culled in part from JSOC units in the field. 'That's how a lot of things over the years have been conducted with contractors,' said the source. 'We have contractors that regularly see things that top policymakers don't unless they ask.'

"The military intelligence source said that the Blackwater-JSOC operation in Pakistan was referred to as 'Qatar cubed,' in reference to the US forward operating base in Qatar that served as the hub for the planning and implementation of the US invasion of Iraq. 'This is supposed to be the brave new world,' he told me. 'This is the Jamestown of the new millennium and it's meant to be a lily pad. You can jump off to Uzbekistan, you can jump back over the borders, you can jump sideways, you can jump Northwest. It's strategically located so that they can get their people wherever they have to be without having to wrangle with the military chain of command in Afghanistan, which is convoluted. They don't have to deal with that because they're operating under a classified mandate.'

"In addition to planning drone strikes and operations against suspected al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Pakistan for both JSOC and the CIA, the Blackwater teams also helped plan missions for JSOC inside Uzbekistan against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Blackwater did not actually carry out the operations, the military intelligence source told me, which were executed on the ground by JSOC forces. 'That piqued my curiosity and really worries me because I don't know if you notice but I was never told we are at war with Uzbekistan,' he said. 'So, did I miss something? Did Rumsfeld come back in the power?' When civilians are killed, 'People go, "Oh, it's the CIA doing crazy shit again unchecked." Well at least 50 percent of the time, that's JSOC [hitting] somebody they've identified through HUMINT or they've culled the intelligence themselves or it's been shared with them and they take that person out and that's how it works.'

"CIA operations were subject to congressional oversight, unlike the parallel JSOC ops. 'Targeted killings are not the most popular thing in town right now in the CIA knows that,' my source told me in 2009. 'Contractors and especially JSOC personnel working under classified mandate are not [overseen by Congress], so they just don't care. If there's one person they're going after and there's thirty-four [other] people in the building, thity-five people are going to die. That's the mentality.' He added, 'They're not accountable to anybody and they know that. It's an open secret, but what are you going to do, shut down JSOC?' "

(Dirty Wars, Jeremy Scahill, pgs. 251-252) 

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Erik Prince

"Boykin was a career military officer, one of the first Delta force commandos who rose through the ranks to become head of the top-secret Joint Special Operations Command. He had served in the Central Intelligence Agency, and during the war on terror, had been in charge of Army Special Forces before joining Rumsfeld's close-knit leadership team, where he was placed in charge of hunting 'high-value targets.' Boykin was one of the key U.S. officials in establishing what critics allege was death-squad-type activity in Iraq. Asked in a Congressional inquiry about the similarities between the U.S. Phoenix program in Vietnam and special operations in the war on terror, Boykin said: 'I think we're running that kind of program. We're going after these people. Killing or capturing these people is a legitimate mission for the department. I think we're doing what the Phoenix program was designed to do, without all the secrecy.' ... When Boykin came under fire for his anti-Muslim comments, Rumsfeld and other Pentagon brass vigorously defended him. 'Boykin was not removed or transferred. At that moment, he was at the heart of secret operation to "Gitmoize"... the Abu Ghraib prison,' wrote former Clinton senior adviser Sidney Blumenthal. 'He had flown to Guantánamo, where he met Major General Geoffrey Miller, in charge of Camp X-Ray. Boykin ordered Miller to fly to Iraq and extend X-Ray methods to the prison system there, on Rumsfeld's orders.' "

(Blackwater, Jeremy Scahill, pgs. 376-377)

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General William "Jerry" Boykin

"... Genera Petraeus signed a seven-page secret order authorizing small teams of US Special Operations Forces to conduct clandestine operations off the stated battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. It was marked 'limdis,' for limited distribution. Hard copies were given to about thirty people. Its original code name was 'Avocado.' The directive, known as a Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force (JUWTF) Executive Order, served as a permission slip of sorts for US military Special Operations teams to conduct clandestine actions without the president's direct approval for each operation. 'Unlike covert actions undertaken by the CIA, such clandestine activity does not require the president's approval or regular reports to Congress,' reported Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times, who was allowed to read the executive order...

"In addition to authorizing direct actions by Special Operations Forces, the Petraeus order also focused on intelligence gathering, including by American troops, foreign businesspeople, academics and others, aimed at identifying insurgents or terrorists and their locations. The order, which Petraeus drafted in coordination with Admiral Eric Olson, head of the US Special Operations Command, laid out a plan for clandestine operations 'that cannot or will not be accomplished' by regular US military forces or intelligence agencies... 

"Colonel Lang said that at the time the order was issued, JSOC's forces in Afghanistan believed they had already killed or captured their way through the high-value targets in Afghanistan, at a minimum forcing them into other countries. 'That's why it becomes very tempting to start going after people in other countries. Because you've got these highly skilled operators going after targets that are not really worthy of their skills,' he told me. 'The temptation for the leadership – the three-star [general] and above level – is to look for places to employ their lads in greener fields.' Lang, who is a former Green Beret, described the men from JSOC would fight Petraeus's small wars as 'sort of like Murder, Incorporated,' adding, 'Their business is killing al Qaeda personnel. That's their business. They're not in the business of converting anybody to our goals or anything like that.' "

(Dirty Wars, Jeremy Scahill, pgs. 282-283)

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General David Petraeus

 "On September 6, 2011, General David Petraeus was sworn in as the director the CIA. A decade after 9/11, the agency had been transformed as a result of its behind-the-scenes turf war with JSOC. And for some veteran intelligence officials, Obama's selection of Petraeus was an ominous symbol. 'The CIA has become more militarize, and is working very closely with JSOC, to the extent that they're even using CIA cover, which would have been unimaginable ten years ago,' former CIA case officer Phil Giraldi told me. 'A considerable part of the CIA budget is now no longer spying. It supporting paramilitaries who work closely with JSOC to kill terrorists, and to run the drone program.' The CIA, he added, 'is a killing machine now.'

"A State Department liaison who worked extensively with JSOC described Petraeus's vision for running the CIA as transforming the Agency into 'a mini-Special Operations Command that purports to be an intelligence agency.' For all the praise Petraeus won for his counterinsurgency strategy and the 'surge' in Iraq, the liaison told me, Petraeus's most significant contribution was as a 'political tool,' and enabler of those within the national security apparatus who wanted to see a continuation and expansion of covert global small wars. Pointing to the 'mystique that surrounds JSOC' and Admiral William McRaven, the liaison said, 'Petraeus was trying to implement that kind of command climate at the CIA.'

"Colonel Patrick Lang told me that once Petraeus arrived at Langley, he 'wanted to drag them in the covert action direction and to be a major player.' "

(Dirty Wars, Jeremy Scahill, pg. 498)

"Perhaps the most startling accusation in the book is that Petraeus' affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell was leaked by the members of his personal protection detail. 

"The authors say that senior intelligence officers working on the 7th floor of Central Intelligence headquarters in Langley, Virginia, used their political clout to ensure that the FBI investigated the former Army general's personal life.

"They then told Petraeus that they would publicly humiliate him if he didn't admit the affair and resign.

"'It was well known to Petraeus’s Personal Security Detachment (bodyguards) that he and Broadwell were having an affair. He wasn’t the only high-ranking Agency head or general engaged in extramarital relations, but when the 7th floor wanted Petraeus out, they cashed in their chips,' Webb and Murphy write. 

"The book continues: 'The reality of the situation is that high-ranking CIA officers had already discovered the affair by consulting with Petraeus’s PSD and then found a way to initiate an FBI investigation in order to create a string of evidence and an investigative trail that led to the information they already had—in other words, an official investigation that could be used to force Petraeus to resign.'

"Webb and Murphy said the CIA bureaucracy wanted Petraeus out of the CIA. Senior officials were furious over the way he had been running the agency since he was appointed in September 2011. 

"He was turning the agency's focus from intelligence gathering and analysis to paramilitary operations, including drone strikes.

"Additionally, he ran the CIA like a four-star general, instead of treating it like a political institution, the authors say. His management style made countless powerful enemies within the CIA."

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Paula Broadwell, Petraeus's mistress

"The program expanded in 1967 when the CIA, working with other agencies, established a centralized pacification bureaucracy, Civil Operations and Rural Development Support. Under this umbrella, the CIA drew all the scattered counterinsurgency operations --OPS police training, military intelligence, the CIO, and its own interrogation units – into CORDS and then used this labyrinthine bureaucracy as cover for a murderous covert operation called the Phoenix program. With limitless funding and unrestrained powers, Phoenix represented an application of the most advanced interrogation techniques to the task of destroying the Vietcong's revolutionary underground. From its overall strategy to its specific interrogation techniques, Phoenix was the culmination of the CIA's mind control project."

(A Question of Torture, Alfred McCoy, pgs. 63-64)

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Knowle Roohrer (Adam Baldwin), The X-Files' most notorious supersoldier (top) and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) from Stranger Things (bottom)

" 'A supersoldier,' said Glenn. 'A Jedi Warrior. He would know where all the lights are. He would know where all the power outlets are. Most people are poor observers. They haven't got a clue about what's really happening around them.

" 'What's a Jedi Warrior?' I asked 

" 'You're looking at one,' said Glenn. 

"In the mid-1980s, he told me, Special Forces undertook a secret initiative, codenamed Project Jedi, to create supersoldiers – soldiers with superpowers. One such power was the ability to walk into a room and instantly be aware of every detail; that was level one. 

" 'What was the level above that?' I asked 

" 'Level two,' he said. 'Intuition. Is there some way we can develop you so you make correct decisions? Somebody runs up to you and says, "There's a fork in the road. Do we turn left or do we turn right?" And you go' – Glenn snapped his fingers – ' "We go right!" ' "

(The Men Who Stare at Goats, Jon Ronson, pgs. 14-15)

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"In early 2004 I heard a rumor that Jim Channon had begun privately meeting with General Pete Shoemaker, the new Chief of Staff of the United States Army. 

"President Bush had appointed General Shoemaker to the post on August 4, 2003. His arrival message, to use the military vernacular for an acceptance speech, included the following sentences:

War is both a physical reality and a state of mind. War is ambiguous, uncertain and unfair. When we are at war, we must think and act differently. We must anticipate the ultimate reality check – combat. We must win both the war and the peace. We must be prepared to question everything. Our soldiers are warriors of character... Our azimuth to the future is good. 

"Azimuth? I looked it up. It is 'the direction of a celestial object.' News of General Schoomaker's meetings with Jim Channon did not come as a great surprise to me. (In addition to the linguistic clues, in fact, the timeline of General Schoomaker's career fit. He had been a commander of Special Forces at Fort Bragg between February 1978 and August 1981, and also in the latter half of 1983, during the periods when the Jedi Warriors and the goat starers were at their most active within his corner of the base. I can't believe he hadn't known about, or indeed sanctioned, their endeavors.)

"The rumor was that General Schoomaker was considering bringing Jim back from retirement to create, or contribute to, a new and secret think tank, designed to encourage the Army to take their minds further and further outside the mainstream... 

"Jim e-mailed to say that the General Schoomaker think-tank rumors were true. 'The idea had come about,' he explained, 'because Rumsfeld has now openly asked for creative input on the war on terrorism...mmmm.'...

"But Jim did offer some information about his input into George W. Bush's foreign policy: 

The Army has requested my services to teach the most highly selected Majors. The First Earth Battalion is the teaching exemplary choice. I have done that in the presence of General Pete Schoomaker... I am in contact with players who are or have recently been in Afghanistan and Iraq. I have sent in exit strategy plans based on Earth Battalion ideals. 

I talk weekly with a member of a stress control battalion in Iraq who carries the manual and uses it to inform his teammates of their potential service contribution. Remember, the battalion mythology operates like folklore. It is passed on in stories, not assignments or real world artifacts. The results are ubiquitous, infectious, but not archived well by definition. 

(The Men Who Stare at Goats, Jon Ronson, pgs. 159-162) 

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General Peter Schoomaker

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"Forty-five years later, a new president is planning to have his Pentagon run by a top official at one of the world’s largest defense contractors. President-elect Donald Trump announced Thursday that he will appoint retired General James Mattis as the U.S. Secretary of Defense. Not only would Mattis be the first general to hold the traditionally civilian position, he would move into the job directly from his position helping to run General Dynamics — a $30-billion colossus that heavily relies on Pentagon contracts overseen by the Defense Secretary.

"Mattis is currently listed as one of 13 independent directors of the company. Financial filings reviewed by International Business Times show that since taking the position in 2013, Mattis has been paid $594,369 by General Dynamics, and has amassed more than $900,000 worth of company stock. While on the General Dynamics board, Mattis testified before Congress, where he called caps on defense spending — known as the sequestration— a national security threat. 'No foe in the field can wreak such havoc on our security that mindless sequestration is achieving,' he said during the 2015 hearing...

"General Dynamics is not just any run-of-the-mill weapons manufacturer that a defense secretary might easily avoid in the job. It routinely ranks among the top five Pentagon contractors and reliably receives over $10 billion a year in deals. The company offers a full spectrum of services to the Pentagon, from information technology support to retrofitting armored combat vehicles. It is also the main exporter of tanks abroad to U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia and Egypt — deals that will rely upon approvals from the incoming Trump administration.

"As secretary of defense, Mattis could oversee lucrative new General Dynamics deals: The company has won a number of contracts to build the $100 billion replacement fleet for the Ohio class nuclear submarines. Disagreement over how many submarines will be built and how much each unit should cost has already generated major friction among lawmakers, the Pentagon and watchdogs."

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General James "Mad Dog" Mattis

"In addition to providing intelligence to large employers, the Council was also active in Cold War education aimed at the general public. Between 1955 in 1961, the ASC cosponsored an annual series of meanings called the National Military-Industrial Conferences, which brought Pentagon and National Security Council personnel together with executives from United Fruit, Standard Oil, Honeywell, U.S. Steel, Sears Roebuck and other corporations.

"At the 1958 National Military-Industrial Conference, the ASC launched the Institute for American Strategy for the purpose of inculcating elites and the public with anticommunist ideology. Administration of the Institute was granted to Frank Burnett, U.S. Army Colonel William Kintner, and other 'political warfare' advocates then stationed at the University of Pennsylvania's Foreign Policy Research Institute. Barnett was also researched director for the Institute's key corporate benefactor, the Richardson Foundation (the charitable arm of the Vick Chemical Company). In 1959 and 1960 the ostensibly private Institute for American Strategy held seminars for reserve officers at the National War College, under the auspices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense..."

(Roads to Dominion, Sara Diamond, pg. 47)

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MacArthur

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Ronald Reagan laying a wreath at a German military cemetery in Bitburg built after WWII and containing the remains of many fallen SS men

"Among the founders was General Robert E. Wood, Chairman of the Board of Sears, Roebuck chain. Wood had been an early backer of the New Deal; he broke with President Roosevelt over the Wagner National Labor Relations Act and the administration's drive towards war. Another major founder was William H. Regnery, a Chicago textile manufacturer and president of Western Shade Cloth Company. Initially, Wood and Regnery underwrote the AFC. Eight businessmen alone supplied over $100,000. These included Regnery, Harold L. Stuart, a Chicago investment banker; and H. Smith Richardson of Vick Chemical Company of New York."

(Roads to Dominion, Sara Diamond, pgs. 315-316, n25) 

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William Regnery I

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William Volker

"... The Volker Fund had helped Friedrich von Hayek, until then an obscure Austrian economist, become a national celebrity in America by subsidizing editions of his Road to Serfdom. First published in the United States by the University of Chicago Press, the book appeared in shortened versions produced by Reader's Digest and Look magazine, which illustrated Hayek's argument that any attempt at 'central planning' (including FDR-style government regulation of big business) would send society down a 'road to serfdom' --and mass murder along the lines of Hitler and Stalin --from which there was no return. Hayek's economic ideas were considerably more complex than the uses to which they were put, but as understood by the American public... they seemed to lend scientific imprimatur to the Manichean world view of the country's most rabid red hunters. A decade later, the Volker Fund would hire Rousas John Rushdoony, a theologian who was to the far right of fundamentalism what Hayek was to economic conservatism; it was Rushdoony who helped marry the two with extensive writings on theonomy, a jargony term for what Abram's descendants would come to call biblical capitalism."

(The Family, Jeff Sharlet, pgs. 190-191)