Industrialism: Losing More Than We Have Gained?

It is a question we need to ask as scenes like this in the South, and elsewhere in the world, are becoming more and more rare.

Brunswick, Ga., April 18, 1875.                         

My dear Mrs. Peacock: Such a three days' dolce far niente as I'm 

having! With a plenty of love, — wife's, bairns', and brother's, — and no 

end of trees and vines, what more should a work-battered man desire, in 

this divine atmosphere which seems like a great sigh of pleasure from 

some immense Lotos in the vague South? The little house, by one of whose 

windows I am writing, stands in one corner of an open square which is 

surrounded by an unbroken forest of oaks, of all manner of clambering 

and twining things, and of pines, — not the dark, gloomy pines of the 

Pennsylvania mountains, but tall masses of vivid emerald all in a glitter 

with the more brilliant green of the young buds and cones; the sun is 

shining with a hazy and absent-minded face, as if he were thinking of some 

quite other star than this poor earth; occasionally a little wind comes 

along, not warm, but unspeakably bland, bringing strange scents rather of 

leaves than of flowers; the mocking-birds are all singing, but singing sotto 

voce, and a distant cock crows as if he didn't mean to crow, but only to 

yawn luxuriously; an old mauma over in the neighborhood is singing, as 

she sets about washing in her deliberate way, something like this: — 

[See https://archive.org/stream/cu31924014393908#page/n33/mode/2up, p. 

13, for Mr Lanier’s music bars, which we were not able to include here--

W.G.]

persistently rejecting all the semitones of the D minor in which she is 

singing (as I have observed all the barbaric music does, as far as it can), 

and substituting the stronger C♮ for the C#; and now my little four-year-

old comes in from feeding the pony and the goat, and writhes into my lap, 

and inquires with great interest, "Papa, can you whistle backwards?" by 

which I find, after a puzzled inquiry, that he means to ask if I can whistle 

by drawing my breath in, instead of forcing it out, — an art in which he 

proceeds to instruct me with a great show of superiority: and now he 

leaves, and the whole world is still again, except the bird's lazy song and 

old mauma's monotonous crooning. 

 . . . 

Source: Letters of Sidney Lanier, https://archive.org/stream/cu31924014393908/cu31924014393908_djvu.txt, opened 7 Feb. 2017

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð!

Anathema to the Union!

On the Outside Looking in: Corporations and the Southern Tradition æfter the War

One of the unchanging aspects of the Southern tradition has been Dixie’s mistrust of corporations.  As the Trump era of economic development, which relies heavily on big corporations ‘creating jobs’ for Americans, gets underway, it is important to be reminded of this.  We will be posting a few ensamples from the body of Southern literature to that end. 

The folly at the root of this foolish economy began with the idea that a corporation should be regarded, legally, as “a person.”  But the limitless destructiveness of this economy comes about precisely because a corporation is not a person.  A corporation, essentially, is a pile of money to which a number of persons have sold their moral allegiance.  As such, unlike a person, a corporation does not age.  It does not arrive, as most persons finally do, at a realization of the shortness and smallness of human lives; it does not come to see the future as the lifetimes of the children and grandchildren of anybody in particular.  It can experience no personal hope or remorse, no change of heart.  It cannot humble itself.  It goes about its business as if it were immortal, with the single purpose of becoming a bigger pile of money.  The stockholders essentially are usurers, people who “let their money work for them,” expecting high pay in return for causing others to work for low pay.  The World Trade Organization enlarges the old idea of the corporation-as-person by giving the global corporate economy the status of a super government with the power to overrule nations.

I don’t mean to say, of course, that all corporate executives and stockholders are bad people.  I am only saying that all of them are very seriously implicated in a bad economy.--Wendell Berry, ‘The Idea of a Local Economy’, 2001, in The Art of the Commonplace, Berkeley, Ca., Counterpoint, 2002, pgs. 255-6.

For more readings from the after-War period, see here (from 1866)

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/review/two-aristocracies/

or several essays from Who Owns America? (1936)

https://www.amazon.com/Who-Owns-America-Declaration-Independence/dp/1882926374

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð!

Anathema to the Union!

On the Outside Looking in: Corporations and the Southern Tradition before the War

One of the unchanging aspects of the Southern tradition has been Dixie’s mistrust of corporations.  As the Trump era of economic development, which relies heavily on big corporations ‘creating jobs’ for Americans, gets underway, it is important to be reminded of this.  We will be posting a few ensamples from the body of Southern literature to that end. 

More than anything, however, the railroads drew the fire of evangelicals.  They regularly condemned stockholders and managers of railroad companies for permitting cars to run on Sunday.  Companies, the editor of the Southern Presbyterian declared, were no more exempt from the law of God than individuals.  Investors and company officials who allowed cars to run on Sunday were setting the influence of their companies “against that righteousness which exalts a nation,” and were fathering “that sin which is the reproach and ruin of any people.”  The editor observed that while many of the stockholders would scorn to labor on Sunday on their plantations or in their stores or shops, in “their corporate capacity” they did “that which is a far more public, and consequently vastly more flagrant violation of [the] sacred day.”  The editor of the Southern Christian Advocate agreed as to the “demoralizing tendencies” of railroads and other corporations.  He termed them “bodies without souls” and declared that “railroads and steamboats (conducted as they are,) do more to corrupt the morals of the people, than could be done by all the deists, blacklegs and drunkards in the country, working by individual means. . . . If corporations, and the body politic, may perpetrate, by wholesale, the most shocking immoralities in the face of the sun, what shall restrain individuals from following their example?”  If something were not done to prevent such  “crying abuses,” it would not be long before “men will come to consider religion and good morals as things of the of the gone-by time, drivelings of the nursery, idle superstitions, pitiful prejudices—things unfit for the age of improvement, the epoch of steam, the glorious reign of the gold-headed god.”  In the editor’s mind at least, the demoralizing influence of the railroads raised questions about the wisdom of multiplying the number of corporations and extending internal improvements.  “It is melancholy in the extreme,” he wrote, “to think that we cannot advance in our schemes of profit and convenience, without retrograding as respects good morals.”--Anne C. Loveland, Southern Evangelicals and the Social Order, 1800-1860, Baton Rouge, La., LSU Press, 1980, p. 176.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð!

Anathema to the Union!

Escaping Corporatism

From local economic development bodies to President Trump, many folks have bought into the idea that the new Holy Trinity of science, technology, and industry (to use Wendell Berry’s words), especially as embodied in large corporations, is the key to obtaining a good life for a community.  But this is not so, for a number of reasons.  Let us look at a few.

First, the large corporate model excels in specialization, so that each worker has only a few tasks to repeat throughout the day.  This is harmful to the body and the mind:  the body, as it stands or sits most of the day in the same position; the mind, as it generally remains idle, thinking little, deciding little.

Second, and related to the first in some ways, it is stressful.  There are reasons why the population of the States is so heavily medicated, and this economic system is one of them.  From rush hour traffic, to the uncertainty of one’s employment, to the never-ending competition with other companies and even with one’s own co-workers, mankind following this way of life is bombarded with tension on such a regular basis that he is falling to pieces before our eyes.

Third, it is ugly.  Concrete and metal rectangles all across the landscape do not reflect the beauty that flows from God the All-Holy Trinity (the True Holy Trinity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost) and cannot lead us to Him, Who is our life.

Fourth, large corporations generally uphold causes that are contrary to Christianity.  For instance, all the corporate ‘anchors’ that cities are so eager to attract nowadays, like Best Buy, State Farm, IBM, Ford Motor Co. - even companies that have a Bible Belt heritage like Wal-Mart and CenturyLink - received a perfect or very high score from the pro-lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender (LGBT) Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index in 2017 for their support of the LGBT lifestyle, as reflected in their policies regarding benefits, training, hiring, and so on (The Index may be read here:  http://www.hrc.org/campaigns/corporate-equality-index). 

Fifth, their ruthless pursuit of profits leads to an obsession with efficiency, which in its turn leads to a dehumanization of the worker (his being treated like a machine) and his eventual replacement with robots, A. I., etc.

It is not necessary to live this way.  There have been many eloquent defenders of a “third way” between corporate capitalism and communism (which are two sides of the same Godless, materialist coin):  the English Distributists like Chesterton and Belloc, the Southern Agrarians like Andrew Lytle, Richard Weaver, and the aforementioned Wendell Berry, and other voices like Allan Carlson, Rev William Barnes of Dorset, and Wilhelm Roepke.  What they advocate is a return to the wide distribution of productive property amongst the people: land, tools, machines, small shops, etc., which would secure a livelihood to them in a manner much more humanely than Big Government and Big Business (again, two wings of the same bird) can provide.

But it is necessary not simply to put the property in their hands, but to make sure it does not easily leave them.  If it can be easily alienated from them, then the corporate system will be revived without much effort.  Some sort of legal protection is needed.  A good ensample that could serve as a blueprint of sorts is found in Leviticus chapter 25, where land could be lost or sold if one fell into debt and so on, but it would return to the owner every fiftieth year, the Year of Jubilee:

‘And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family’ (v. 10, KJV).

Giant corporatism is not the way to the good life.  We have tried to sketch a few features of both above, but the last word on this matter needs to go to Father Seraphim Rose of blessed memory who described what he called the “Old Order” in the little book Nihilism.  His description will make for a fine guidepost as we try to get there:

‘The Old Order was the soil, nourished by Christian Truth, in which men had their roots. Its laws and institutions, and even its customs, were founded in that Truth and dedicated to teaching it; its buildings were erected to the glory of God and were a visible sign of His Order upon earth; even the generally "primitive" (but natural) living conditions served (unintentionally, of course) as a reminder of man's humble place here, of his dependence upon God for even the few earthly blessings he possessed, and of his true home which lies beyond this "vale of tears," in the Kingdom of Heaven. Effective war against God and His Truth requires the destruction of every element of this Old Order . . .’ (St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2009, p. 75, copied from http://oodegr.co/english/filosofia/nihilism_root_modern_age.htm#IV., opened 23 Jan. 2017).

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð!

Anathema to the Union!

Your National Exceptionalism, or Mine?

It has begun.  The flood of tradition-obliterating ‘American exceptionalism’ is raging all across the [u]nited States.  Pres Trump’s proclamation of 20 Jan. 2017 as National Day of Patriotic Devotion has set the tone:

A new national pride stirs the American soul and inspires the American heart. We are one people, united by a common destiny and a shared purpose.

Freedom is the birthright of all Americans, and to preserve that freedom we must maintain faith in our sacred values and heritage.

Our Constitution is written on parchment, but it lives in the hearts of the American people. There is no freedom where the people do not believe in it; no law where the people do not follow it; and no peace where the people do not pray for it.

There are no greater people than the American citizenry, and as long as we believe in ourselves, and our country, there is nothing we cannot accomplish.

 . . .

Source:  https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/01/24/2017-01798/national-day-of-patriotic-devotion, opened 27 Jan. 2017

Typical of this sort of arrogant neo-Puritanism, nothing is now safe from the lust to ‘make America great again’ - to ‘create jobs’ and ‘achieve American energy independence’, etc. - not even a lake on Native American tribal lands or the farm fields of Nebraska, when unnecessary oil pipelines or other ‘infrastructure improvements’ must be built to enrich the transnational corporations Trump says he opposes:

https://www.rt.com/usa/374969-keystone-dakota-access-pipeline-reactions/

One is justified in wondering what would happen if a large oil shale deposit were found beneath Gen Stonewall Jackson’s grave or underneath some other Confederate graveyard or monument; or even a non-Confederate historic site, like Washington’s home on Mt Vernon.  The invocation of eminent domain would probably not be slow in coming.  But would even something akin to this be enough to cause Southerners to wake up from their pro-American stooper?

What is America, after all?  ‘An idea’, her supporters will say.  And we quite agree.  And this is the essence of it, as stated by neo-con Michael Ledeen:

‘Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace … We must destroy them to advance our historic mission.’

Source:  Jonas E. Alexis, http://www.events.orthodoxengland.org.uk/vladimir-putin-the-new-world-order-worships-satan/, opened 29 Nov. 2015

Thankfully, there is another who claims for herself an ‘historic mission’, Holy Russia, and her ideals are quite the opposite of tradition-destroying America:

 . . .

Where is the subsidence? Where is the restriction? Are not Russians opened for the four winds? Are not they crucified in space, bleeding, suffering for others, taking on the burden and severity of the strange and terrible history of the world? Are not Russians universal? Do they not embody the whole grieving, suffering, outrageous, magnificent reality of the world? Is not the river their veins? And the hills – their bones? The mountains – their shoulders? The sun and the moon – their eyes? And the winds of the earth – their breathing? Are Russian people the only nation and that is all? No, it is not all, it is much, much more... They are the great Russians, more than just a Russian, more than just 'they'... They are happy and sad, they cross themselves, and bring to the priest a cherub baby, right to the bowl, directly to God, and God does not deny veneration and does not chase away a scared man, crooked man, miserable, crying man, a woman in a black shawl, who lost her daughter, or a beardless youth who find his love, confused man, who suddenly came in, and the habitually dressed servant – God unites all Russians, and Russians, in their turn, unite everyone, closely and appeasably, gently and persistently, and all other nations disappear in Russians and do not recognize themselves in a moment: there is no one, only Russians, and only the sun dancing over them, our Russian sun...

Dancing ... The Great Days are the Russian Days, the Bright Week is the Russian Week.

Delightful people, first and last, confused and precise, following a secret dream in the distant mountains, hiding in dark holes of the earth, unclear to anyone or anything, carefully looking for the unnamed and imperceptible, dying, faithful people, “in tombs” and rising again, again and again, always extending deep to underground paths and flying in clear cool red morning sky like a white dove ...

On Russian Easter, the nature of the world resurrects our nature, mother-desert, luxurious, like a lady, like a virgin, like a universally acute painful comfort. Suffer with us, die with us, kill with us, sing with us, come with us, disappear with us, unite with us, fast with us, cast down with us, vanish with us, love with us, hate with us, to rise with us again, to enter the Russian Easter, the Great Easter of Christ.

The fact that the Russians are the great people is an axiom, it cannot be proven, as it does not require it. This true greatness does not humiliate others, it does not make them smaller. As the resurrection does not kill, does not trample them, but saves them. The real greatness magnifies everything that it touches. There is no hatred, there is only delight, only happiness, joy and love. This is the dancing greatness.

 . . .

Source:  Alexander Dugin, http://4pt.su/en/content/russian-easter, opened 27 Jan. 2017

 . . . So also today ROCOR continues to proclaim outside Russia what the best of the rest of the Church proclaims inside Russia – the ideals of Holy Rus. What are these?

These ideals are Trinitarian, reflecting on earth the heavenly reality of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. These Christian ideals can be expressed as: Faith, Throne and People, that is, the Orthodox Faith, the Christian Emperor, the Faithful. All three go together. If any one element is compromised, then all three are compromised. Thus, if we reject the Orthodox Faith, we do not build the Christian Empire among the People, as has happened in the Western world. If we reject the Incarnation of the Christian Empire, we fail to reflect the Faith in the Father and fail to preach the values of the Holy Spirit among the People, as has happened in disincarnate Parisian philosophy. And if the People lose the Orthodox Faith, there will be no Empire, as happened in 1917.

Just as we cannot have the Father without the Son and the Holy Spirit, so we confess all three of these ideals of Holy Rus together. This means that we are called on to proclaim the uncorrupted Orthodox Faith of the Church (the Father), the restoration of the Incarnate Christian Empire and Emperor (the Son) and that we call all the peoples of the world to join us (the Holy Spirit), as St Seraphim of Sarov prophesied nearly 200 years ago. These are the Trinitarian Orthodox Civilizational values of the Returning Christian Empire which is coming soon. Thus, we clergy and people of ROCOR are the free and conscious servants of the Faith and People of the Tsar-Martyr, called on to reverse the treason of 1917 and its disastrous worldwide consequences.

Source:  Fr Andrew Phillips, http://www.events.orthodoxengland.org.uk/2017-on-the-spiritual-significance-of-the-church-outside-russia/, opened 27 Jan. 2017

It is not for nothing that Holy Elder Paisios of Mount Athos (+1994) said of America and Western Europe,

I always say to young people who are going abroad to study, “Go if you want to, but be careful not to lose your faith; take only their expertise.  And most importantly, don’t forget to come home, to our Homeland.  Greece is waiting for you.  You owe her your help.  Stay close to the Greek people.  . . .  Be very careful not to let your hearts grow cold.  The Europeans are cold people.  And the United States is only for becoming wealthy in material goods and becoming spiritually bankrupt” (Spiritual Counsels, Volume I, 2011, p. 338).

What a mighty rebuke to Southerners!  Have we remembered our Homeland - Dixie?  Have we given her any help?  Have we stayed close to the Southern people?

May God forgive us, we have not done any of these things.  We have gone a-whoring after Babylon America’s material goods and become spiritually bankrupt. 

But with alluring visions of even greater material abundance before us, will Dixie be able to repent?

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð!

Anathema to the Union!

The Meaning of Super Mario Bros. - Part 2nd

Hammer

The hammer has also been a recurring symbol from Mario’s Donkey Kong days until now.

(From http://themushroomkingdom.net/media/dk-gba/ss, opened 24 Jan. 2017)

(From http://themushroomkingdom.net/media/pmcs/ss, opened 24 Jan. 2017)

Here are some thoughts on its significance:

The hammer is essentially a masculine force, and when striking or crushing it represents justice and revenge. The hammer is not only a tool; it represents might. When paired with an anvil, represents ANDROGYNE, and with that often fertility and creation. The hammer is the thought while the anvil is the brain.

It is used often by the gods; it is Thor's most valued (but often lost) possession. They use it for destruction, protection and fertilization, but it also symbolizes immortality. Destiny is linked with the hammer too, as well as violence and manual labor.

"The two-headed hammer is an ambivalent symbol of the mountain of Mars and of sacrificial Inversion" (Cirlot, 137).

Source:  http://umich.edu/~umfandsf/symbolismproject/symbolism.html/H/hammer.html, opened 24 Jan. 2017

Transhumanism/Chimeras

A carrot or a super leaf will transform Mario into a half-rabbit/half-man or into a half-raccoon/half-man, respectively.  For the Globalist Elite who are intent on convincing everyone that gene-mixing of different species of plants, animals, fungi, etc. is perfectly safe, this seems like a convenient way to gently brainwash youngsters whose heads are ever in the pixelated clouds of the Mushroom Kingdom that there is nothing wrong with such things.

(From https://www.gamefaqs.com/nes/525245-super-mario-bros-3/images/128422, opened 24 Jan. 2017)

Renaissance

The names Mario and Luigi are reminiscent of Italy, whose culture is still very much associated with the rise of the Renaissance.  And the Renaissance was not just a revival of classical literature, painting, and so forth, but the revival of dark arts like alchemy.

During the Renaissance, Hermetic and Platonic foundations were restored to European alchemy. The dawn of medical, pharmaceutical, occult, and entrepreneurial branches of alchemy followed.

In the late 15th century, Marsilo Ficino translated the Corpus Hermeticum and the works of Plato into Latin. These were previously unavailable to Europeans who for the first time had a full picture of the alchemical theory that Bacon had declared absent. Renaissance Humanism and Renaissance Neoplatonism guided alchemists away from physics to refocus on mankind as the alchemical vessel.

Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy#Renaissance_and_early_modern_Europe, opened 24 Jan. 2017

Curiously enough, in the instruction booklet for Super Mario Bros. for the NES, we find this:

One day the kingdom of the peaceful mushroom people was invaded by the Koopa, a tribe of turtles famous for their black magic. The quiet, peace-loving Mushroom People were turned into mere stones, bricks and even field horse-hair plants, and the Mushroom Kingdom fell into ruin.  [Italics added--W.G.]

Source:  http://legendsoflocalization.com/super-mario-bros/manuals/, opened 24 Jan. 2017

The games are fun to play, we will admit it.  But no one should be naïve enough to think there is not, at least on some level, something more going on here than simply an entertaining round of run and jump.

--

Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð!

Anathema to the Union!

The Meaning of Super Mario Bros.

Jay Dyer does a great job of looking at the meaning of the symbols and themes in Hollywood movies at jaysanalysis.com, and the more we thought about it, the more it seemed like that sort of thing could be applied to another pop culture medium:  video games.  It may seem frivolous to look at these kinds of things, but they have become so widespread in society (e.g., http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/12/10/247521444/do-americans-spend-more-on-video-games-or-movies) that they are now a major tool to condition the masses, to re-engineer them according to the wishes of the Elite.  Some knowledge of them seems necessary now.

So, first up, some of the major recurring symbols and themes from the Super Mario Bros. series, considering its continued popularity and longevity:  Another entry has just been released (Super Mario Run) and another will be released with the new Nintendo Switch (Super Mario Odyssey) later this year.

Super Mushroom

Perhaps the most recognizable symbol is the super mushroom (the mushroom theme runs deeply throughout the series:  the Princess’s name is Toadstool, her servants are called ‘Toad’ and have mushroom hats, mushroom platforms abound, etc.):

(From https://www.gamefaqs.com/nes/525243-super-mario-bros/images/211, opened 19 Jan. 2017)

(From https://www.gamefaqs.com/nes/525243-super-mario-bros/images, opened 19 Jan. 2017)

(From https://www.gamefaqs.com/nes/525243-super-mario-bros/images/217, opened 20 Jan. 2017)

And here we run into the first connection with darker forces, for this mushroom is strikingly similar to Amanita muscaria,

(From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_muscaria, opened 19 Jan. 2017)

amongst whose ‘psychodelic effects’ are ‘[p]erceptual phenomena such as macropsia and micropsia’ (Ibid.), which affects the sight of the user such that he feels he is either larger or smaller in relation to surrounding objects (see e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macropsia, 19 Jan. 2017).  This is a good description of what happens to the Mario character, as he grows when he gets a super mushroom and shrinks without one.

It is important to note as well, ‘The professor also reported that the Lithuanians used to export A. muscaria to the Lapps in the Far North for use in shamanic rituals’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_muscaria, opened 19 Jan. 2017). 

All of this comes together as follows:

That scene transpires in a building with a checkered floor like a masonic lodge, only Neo’s “initiation” includes a drug trip (hence the pill) that “awakens” him from the matrix.  In fact, Neo’s experience is remarkably similar to an LSD trip.  At this point the film draws once again on far eastern and shamanic traditions, where the hallucinogenic experience awakens the shaman from the unreality of the dream world of his normal existence.  The “real world” is often there portrayed as the dream of the god(s), and the shaman’s initiatory revelation of the “other world,” or spirit realm is believed to be more real.  . . .

Source:  Jay Dyer, https://jaysanalysis.com/2014/01/20/the-matrix-1999-esoteric-analysis/, opened 3 Dec. 2016

Fire Flower

Mario’s ability to use fire by way of a fire flower is also another long-standing part of the series.  This recalls the myth of Prometheus, who defied the gods and stole fire from them and gave it to men for their use.  So here, beneath the surface, are themes of rebellion against God, the improvement of man according to his own ways apart from God, and the honoring of technology:

Prometheus' association with fire is the key to his religious significance^[38] and to the alignment with Athena and Hephaestus that was specific to Athens and its "unique degree of cultic emphasis" on honoring technology.^[44]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus#Athenian_religious_dedication_and_observance, opened 20 Jan. 2017

(From http://www.superluigibros.com/super-mario-bros-nes, opened 20 Jan. 2017)

Star Man

Mario becomes invincible for a short time when he gets a star man, which, as far as we know, is always represented in the games as a five-pointed figure.  This is a very disturbing symbol: 

“ . . . the blazing star of five points . . . represented Sirius . . .” 

Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma

Sirius is emblematic of hidden power and secret allegiance to an invisible empire . . . (Michael Hoffman II, Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, 2001, p. 30).

And Sirius is another name for the devil (Ibid., note 15).  In other words, the five-pointed star is a symbol of the devil himself.  Knowing this, one might well ask why this symbol is so widespread in American culture - from the Dallas Cowboys to the [u.] S. Army:

http://www.dallascowboys.com/

https://www.army.mil/

Related to this theme of stars and invincibility is this statement of Arthur Clarke’s about a scene near the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey:

Arthur Clarke called the huge space baby at the end “Star Child.” The meaning is that man has come full circle, and now creates his own universe – he is now God. Existence is a never-ending succession of man’s ascent to godhood and then as a god-child, he creates a new universe and progresses and grows with it, in a blasphemous reversal of Genesis 1, where the seas are separated from the land, etc.  . . .

Source:  Jay Dyer, https://jaysanalysis.com/2010/06/11/2001-a-space-odyssey-esoteric-analysis/, opened 9 Dec. 2016

There is a little left still to cover, but we will stop here for now and finish up another time.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð!

Anathema to the Union!