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And now… Kittens.

Everyone likes kittens. More or less, anyway. So to apologise for my long absence, and to ease myself back into the hot-seat gently, here is a small selection of kitteny cuteness.

You’re welcome.

Sensible(-ish) blogging will resume here — at the latest — on Monday.

I’ve also re-started my entertaining* pollgame, The Great Game, with a new episode this evening. It’s an ongoing twice-weekly sci-fi/horror story where you choose what happens next at the end of every instalment, and I obediently go off and write about whichever path you’ve decided for me. I’m clearly a glutton for punishment. Anyway, you can find it here. Please do go have a look.

* it keeps me entertained, dammit!

Double rainbow all the way!

I asked for catfeine-free.

Stop trying to hit me, and hit me! ~ @lickitty

Oh no, not again.

Posted in animals.


Should be back soon.

Hi again folks.

So, I’m not dead. I don’t appear to be in any unusual risk of shuffling off the mortal coil, either. Which is nice. I stopped posting because I was laid flat with bronchitis, but it’s been arthritic pain that’s stopped me resuming over the last month. In other words, I’m OK, just ouchy. I’m scheduled to start the next level on the treatment pyramid within a couple of weeks, but I’m hoping to muster the determination to resume service here before then. Honest!

So thanks for sticking with me — and many, many thanks for your well-wishes and concern — and the Great Game and Ghostwoods will resume soon.

Fabulous.
The Foams!
It’s not Lupus.
Meanwhile, in Japan…

Posted in personal.


Sorry for the break in service.

I’m a sick bunny at the moment. Normal Ghostwoods service will resume as soon as I’m feeling less dreadful :/

A Sick Bunny

Posted in personal.


The Tree in Action: Visualisation

Visualisation is the art of training yourself to see images vividly in your mind’s eye. As such, it is one of the most important skills you can develop for future work with the tree, because it will make your meditations significantly clearer and more absorbing. It requires no preparation. Make sure you’re not going to be disturbed for five minutes and make yourself comfortable physically, sitting or lying down as you prefer. Close your eyes and take several slow, deep breaths. Concentrate on your mind’s eye, and imagine the number ‘2’. Picture it in your mind’s eye, in white, as if it was written in chalk on a blackboard. Just concentrate on it, and keep it in mind.

When you feel that you have a fairly firm mental hold on it, add another digit next to it. You can pick one at random, or select digits from a number that has meaning to you, like your telephone number. Remembering to keep the ‘2’ vivid, hold the second number next to it. When it is stabilised, add another number, and then another, and keep going until you can no longer hold the whole number simultaneously in your mind’s eye. At that point, start back from the first ‘2’, and try building back up.

During your first attempts, you may find that even the initial ‘2’ is wavering and difficult to keep hold of. That’s perfectly normal; visualisation is not something that many of us practice. Keep at it, and you’ll find that you quickly improve. When you can hold an entire ten-digit phone number steady for minutes at a time, expand your horizons a little. Imagine the surface of your mind’s eye really is a blackboard, complete with chalk dust and a wooden frame. Rub a number out and replace it with something else. Fill in the rest of the classroom that the blackboard is in. Finally populate it with attentive, polite, quiet little children.

If you can hold the image of an entire class – with individual children in specific places – and still retain the numbers you started with, then you’ve mastered visualisation. You can move on earlier though if you are impatient to give up visualisation training, but make sure you can at least envision the blackboard and the wall it is mounted on. This is likely to take several weeks.

You’ll find that visualisation is easier some days than others. Factors such as fatigue, when you last ate and even the moon’s phase may play a role. Look back over your notes and see what correspondences you can identify. As well as the critical benefits your meditations will receive from well-trained visualisatory ability, be aware that when you work with images in your mind’s eye, you are painting pictures with the very fabric of Yesod itself. It is the essence of everything that Yesod is.

Posted in kabbalah, magick.


Yesod, Foundation

Pure Intelligence: “God said: ‘Let us make man’”

The ninth sphere of the Tree of Life, Yesod (pronounced yeh-SODD) means ‘Foundation’, and it is the first sphere that Malkuth connects to, the place of interface between the state of just being and the wisdoms represented by the rest of the Tree. It is also known as Tzaddik, righteousness. Yesod is described as the ‘pure’ intelligence because it is the final product of the rest of the Tree, just prior to its ultimate embodiment into the chaos of the world through Malkuth.

To understand Yesod, it is necessary to look at its position on the Tree. It is often identified with the moon, and like the moon, it reflects the light of the sun/soul from its home in Sephira 6, Tiphareth, straight down to the earth/body in Malkuth. It is also connected to the Spheres of thought and feeling (Hod and Netzach, 7 and 8 respectively), but it lies below their level, close the unthinking instinct of Malkuth.

In other words, Yesod is the sphere of the unconscious. It integrates the past with the urgings and tendencies of the higher soul, and blends that material in with conscious thought and feeling, feeding the resultant material to the self. This is a realm of the imagination and the unconscious, of phantoms, dreams, legends and horrors. Self-awareness begins here, in the dim memories of past pains and glories, and the inherited needs of the soul.

The Cat in the Mirror

Yesod receives all of the urges and imaginings generated within Malkuth. It is a sphere of illusions and phantasms, as infinitely malleable as Malkuth is stubbornly inflexible. The past lives on here, in patterns cast by prior events and thoughts – not just individually, but collectively as well, for after all, we are all one. When you look into your mind’s eye and work with your imagination, you are manipulating the stuff of Yesod. When you dream, this is the sphere that you wander through. Yesod is a place of unbridled creativity, where anything can be brought into existence and given a chance to show itself. This is the realm of the psychic and the astral – a place of possibilities rather than truths.

Without the influence of Yesod, there would be no house for the influence of the past, no place for common understanding, no way for the light of the divine to touch the world. Formation takes place here; patterns filter down to Yesod from the rest of the Tree and are turned into blueprints by which Malkuth can bring them into manifestation. All that is and was lives on in Yesod’s reflections. This is the home of symbolism, hidden meanings and desires, and all manner of images and chimera.  It is the path by which the divine light of the soul is able to make itself manifest within the world, for if it shone directly onto Malkuth, that beauty of Tiphareth, the pure house of the soul, would sweep away our free will in a bright burst of divine love. Every soul yearns for completeness, for the return first to Tiphareth, and then up to Kether and unity with God. If that completion were enforced however, there would be no room for growth or understanding – it would be as if God had never Sundered himself in the first place.

So, by acting as a confused, misty mirror for the glories of the soul in Tiphareth – as well as the fires of the mind in Hod and the waves of emotion in Netzach – Yesod allows Malkuth, with all its imperfections, to remain in existence. Without it, the entire universe would be swept back up in the rapture that is Kether, oneness with God. Yesod is a dark, twisted mirror, but it has to be, because the light that it reflects is so intense.

Be aware though that like any other mirror, Yesod reflects both ways, and while it does distort the glory of the divine, it also purifies the physical. Illusions can not pass upwards out of Yesod. Further more, like a more conventional mirror, it brings the soul into the personality through the unconscious, but it can also show twisted aspects of the personality back to itself. Horrors and glories can be generated out of the twists in our own unconscious. Yesod is a dangerous sphere: a trap for illusions, both our own and others’, layered over the years. We need to learn to identify our own fantasies (both good and bad) before we can move through Yesod in safety. Many mystics have been trapped here by false wonders and terrors.

Are you able to tell the difference between a twisted reflection of your own fears and desires, and a true reflection of your divine will? Are you ready to look beyond the words and tricks of false prophets and see the beauty of God’s light? These are the challenges that you will need to rise to in order to master the many nodes of Yesod.

Yesod

In meditations, Yesod is normally visualised as a grassy hilltop clearing poking out of a vast forest of trees. The forest is full of hidden, distant activity. It is night, and the moon is overhead, its phase corresponding to the current physical one. The only colour is a dark indigo wash over the blacks, whites and greys of the scene – and even then, only when the moon is at least half full. Towards the centre of the clearing, a wide circle of stones surrounds a ring of pillars. Each stone is about a foot round, half white and half black. The pillars themselves come in pairs, one black and one white. At the top, exactly level with your face, each pair holds a round mirror. There are nine pairs, distributed evenly around the circle. As you stand at the centre and look into the mirrors, you see that each contains a different aspect of your personality; positively skewed, negatively skewed and undistorted versions of your childish ego, your restrictive, parental id, and your rational ‘true self’.

Yesod is variously associated with the colour indigo, mirrors, the sexual organs, lavender, violets, willow trees, incense, cats, vampires, the virtue of independence, burial mounds, employee rights and the moment of conception.

Posted in kabbalah, magick.


Conspiracies: Rasputin

The Russian royal family at the turn of the century was completely dominated by the charismatic power of a defrocked monk turned psychic healer and fortune-teller: Grigori Yefimovich, known as Rasputin. The former holy man possessed the power to maintain the health of the Czar’s son, Alexei, who was dangerously anaemic. The hold this gave him over the Russian royal family is well-documented, and Rasputin used his influence to great personal gain.

That the ‘Mad Monk’ greatly destabilised the Russian imperial government is a matter of historical fact. He used his influence to put his followers in positions of power and authority, demanded extortionate bribes in return for persuading the Czarina Alexandra, the Empress, to favour certain courtiers, business people or plans of action, and charged great sums for dispensing his ‘healing’ amongst the lesser nobility. He was already a national scandal by 1911, and by 1915 had become the Czarina’s chief advisor.

He also had a voracious sexual appetite, and would fequently demand sexual intercourse as part of the payment for his services – often insisting that he sleep with the teenage children of a supplicant, if such were available. He also had no end of groupies available, partly because of his power, and partly because of his 13-inch erection. In both cases, either sex was acceptable. His exploits outraged the general public, but the royal family were totally under his spell, and reports from the time suggest that his healing and his precognition were both entirely genuine. Letters from Alexandra to Rasputin also hint that he was having an affair with her too.

Finally, a cabal of Russian nobles decided his influence was corrupting the state, and he had to die. Led by Prince Feliks Yusupov, the cabal lured the healer to a private party hosted by Yusopov, where he was murdered, on December 30, 1916. It was too late to save the reputation of the royal family though, and shortly afterwards the revolution swept away the old order.

Grigori Yefimovich aka Rasputin

THE STRANGE PART

The tale of Rasputin’s death certainly lends credence to his healing powers. Arriving at the party, the holy man was given a banquet laced with enough cyanide to kill a dozen normal men by one of the conspirators, a medical doctor called Lazovert. When he failed to show any ill effects from this feast and became suspicious that Yusupov was not eating, the Prince panicked, and shot Rasputin at close range, as did a back-up member of the conspiracy, Grand Duke Pavlovich, the Czar’s nephew. Enraged but still seemingly mobile, Rasputin chased Yusupov out of the house and into the coutyard, where a gang of conspirators beat him to a bloody pulp with big iron chains. Dr. Lazovert examined the monk, and declared him still alive, so they wrapped him in the chains and dumped him in a hole cut into the ice of the River Neva.

THE USUAL SUSPECTS

Spiritual Avatar

Perhaps the most common theory is that Rasputin genuinely did possess the healing and precognitive powers that history has granted to him, including the ability to mesmerise women. He used these powers to gain his position of authority, and it was his sexual prowess that led to his being murdered. The powers were derived from the fact that Rasputin was in fact a spiritual avatar or genuine saint.

St Germain

Rasputin was in fact the immortal known to medieval Europe as the Count de St. Germain, smoothing the way for the Russian revolution so that history could follow its proper course. When he found himself stuck in the water and unable to tunnel out, Rasputin/St Germain decided that the best course of action was to feign death and lie low. He was dug out of the Neva by the conspirators, and hastily buried. From a shallow grave, he found it relatively easy to tunnel out. His enemies were certain he was dead, so he was free to make an unpursued escape. Rumour suggests that St Germain may now be in Los Angeles, having spent the 1980s in Eastern Europe bringing Communism to an end.

THE UNUSUAL SUSPECTS

Alien Invader

Rasputin’s unnatural vitality was not a result of psychic ability at all. The healer was actually an alien, a rogue member of a small exploration team who decided to indulge himself in a few years of orgiastic amusement. Because his physiology was different to ours, the assassination was almost ineffective. In the end, it was lack of exposure direct sunlight that killed him, not the temperature or lack of oxygen.

MOST CONVINCING EVIDENCE

Rasputin’s frozen corpse was finally retrieved several miles down-river from where it had been dumped. He had shaken loose of his chains somewhere up-stream, and had been trying to claw his way out of the ice from the inside when he had finally succumbed – after having been totally submerged in freezing water for at least six hours.

MOST MYSTERIOUS FACT

Perhaps the oddest feat of Rasputin’s survival is his capacity to consume such a huge dose of cyanide, medically administered. Equally as strange though is an artifact that surfaced in Paris in the 1960s – Rasputin’s mummified penis. One observer described it as ‘like a blackened banana, about a foot long’. There is no record of any of the conspirators castrating their victim, however.

SCEPTICALLY SPEAKING

It is just about possible that the poison was old and ineffective, that gunshots failed to hit any vital organs, that the beating was mostly surface damage, and even that the cold of the river Neva slowed tissue damage from oxygen starvation so much that Rasputin was able to revive for long enough to lock his fingers in the ice. Also, if he was so precognitive, why did he not foretell the danger of taking Yusupov up on his invitation?

Posted in mysteries, people.


Some advice on genre writing

Forgive me, I’m pushed for time today. Some last bits of writerly advice for specific fields from assorted masters…

Elmore Leonard on thrillers:

  1. Never open a book with weather.
  2. Avoid prologues.
  3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
  4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said”…he admonished gravely.
  5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
  6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
  7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
  8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
  9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
  10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

Ronald Knox on crime:

  1. The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow.
  2. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.
  3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.
  4. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end.
  5. No Chinaman must figure in the story.
  6. No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.
  7. The detective must not himself commit the crime.
  8. The detective must not light on any clues which are not instantly produced for the inspection of the reader.
  9. The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.
  10. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.

Andrew Motion on Poetry:

  1. Decide when in the day (or night) it best suits you to write, and organise your life accordingly.
  2. Think with your senses as well as your brain.
  3. Honour the miraculousness of the ordinary.
  4. Lock different characters/elements in a room and tell them to get on.
  5. Remember there is no such thing as nonsense.
  6. Bear in mind Wilde’s dictum that “only mediocrities develop”— and challenge it.
  7. Let your work stand before deciding whether or not to serve.
  8. Think big and stay particular.
  9. Write for tomorrow, not for today.
  10. Work hard.

Kurt Vonnegut on Sci-fi and black satire:

  1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
  2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
  3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
  4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
  5. Start as close to the end as possible.
  6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
  7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
  8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Posted in writing.


George Orwell on Writing

George Orwell was one of the 20th Century’s greatest observers — and critics — of English culture. His work is incisive, intelligent, passionate, and devoutly opposed to injustice and totalitarianism. He’s best remembered for his brutally frightening dystopian novel 1984, and his name has become a common term of criticism for draconic, repressive and manipulative social forces. He’d be deliciously pleased by that, I think.

As well as leaving us with a lot of important political and philosophical issues to think about, Orwell also provided some characteristically intelligent and well-though-out writerly advice.

George Orwell

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus:

  1. What am I trying to say?
  2. What words will express it?
  3. What image or idiom will make it clearer?
  4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

And he will probably ask himself two more:

  1. Could I put it more shortly?
  2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

One can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:

  1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
  2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
  3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
  4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
  5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Posted in writing.


Symbolic Freemasonry

The great majority of all Masonic activity falls under the broad category of what is known as Symbolic Freemasonry (or also as Blue Lodge – from the distinguishing aprons worn — or Craft Freemasonry). Symbolic Lodges are, simply, what most people think of when they think of a Masonic Lodge – a locally-organised group, presided over by the Worshipful Master and his officers, that initiates new members into Freemasonry and discusses local and internal matters. These are the Lodges that make up most of Freemasonry and, for many members, represent the scope of their Masonic interests.

There are only three true ranks within Freemasonry – Entered Apprentice (first degree), Fellowcraft (second degree), and Master Mason (third degree). Although all sorts of other teaching degrees exist, they carry no authority or ranked weight. The Worshipful Master of a Lodge is, of course, the head of that Lodge, and is due respect accordingly, but he is still a Master Mason, and any Master Mason may potentially reach that position. It is one of the Landmarks of Freemasonry that all Master Masons are equal, irrespective of any further teachings they may undergo.

A candidate starts Masonic life as a petitioner, outside the organisation entirely. Everyone’s first experience of Freemasonry is the ceremony in which they are initiated into the 1°, that of Entered Apprentice. This degree’s ritual (and the one after it) draw on imagery of life as a worker helping to build King Solomon’s Temple. It teaches the new Freemason that it is important to labour on building the temple of his good character, and to master his emotions in favour of his morality. Obedience to rules and regulations is stressed. After the ceremony has been completed, the new Entered Apprentice is allowed to take part in those parts of Lodge meetings which are not restricted to higher ranks – specifically, second and third degree initiation ceremonies, and Master-only business. It varies of course, but many Lodges consider that Entered Apprentices are not yet proven enough to be entitled to vote in some or all Lodge decisions. Additionally, in many Lodges it is expected that the newest member of the Lodge will selflessly volunteer to do any chores that the Lodge requires.

The apron of an Entered Apprentice

When the Lodge feels the member is ready and has proven genuinely interested and reliable, the second degree initiation ceremony will take place. This raises the Apprentice to the rank of 2°, Fellowcraft. As a symbolic skilled workman, the Fellowcraft is introduced to the tools by which he can understand the world and his place within it – the five senses, the orders of architecture, the principles of geometry, and the seven liberal arts and sciences.  Again the exact details vary from Lodge to Lodge, but generally a Fellowcraft will only have to leave the Lodge Room for third degree initiation ceremonies, will be entitled to vote on all Lodge matters, and should be fairly safe from having to run any errands. After a further time, which depends entirely on the Lodge’s discretion, the Fellowcraft will be initiated into the third degree, becoming a Master Mason.

The apron of a Fellowcraft

Once a member has attained the ‘supreme and exalted’ rank of 3° Master Mason, the highest rank attainable, the entire society is accessible. The degree draws upon the legend of the murder of Solomon’s chief architect in the construction of his Temple in Jerusalem, and teaches the candidate that he must not cheat, defraud or wrong his fellows, and that he must render aid and assistance where required. The Temple is incomplete, and its construction inside the self is the work of a lifetime. A Master Mason may serve as one of the Lodge’s officers; may visit any other (approved) Lodge, subject to invitation; may take full part in Lodges of Research and Instruction; and may seek deeper learning and instruction by joining one or more of the appendant teaching bodies. None of these things are actually required of any member of course – although all are encouraged – and none of them carry any extra ranking. There are plenty of steps to take from that of Master Mason, down a fair number of different paths, but they are all steps sideways.

The apron of a Master Mason

The apron of a Master Mason

In addition to progressing through the ranks of the Lodge’s Officers on the road to becoming Worshipful Master of that Lodge, a Master Mason is also free to join an appendant body or other related group. These are designed to allow the Master Mason to continue moral development and progression without in any way replacing the core Lodge work. There are several different options available – depending, of course, on the territory the Mason is active in. By far and away the most important of these appendant bodies are the Scottish Rite and the York Rite, roughly parallel systems that provide further scope for learning and development. Although both the York and Scots Rites award further degrees (with increasing numeric value), they both place great emphasis on the sideways nature of their work, agreeing absolutely that the 3rd is the highest-ranking degree any Mason can attain.

Images from the website for the Cumbria and Westmoreland Freemasons.

Posted in mysteries.


Montauk Point

There are many conspiracy theories which earn the tag TBTB – Too Bizarre To Believe – and Montauk is certainly one of those with a strong claim to this label. Labyrinthine, truly mind-boggling and with an incredible scope, the Montauk machinations and weirdness were first brought to light by the pioneering work of journalist Peter Moon and two people who had been involved in the strange goings on at Montauk — Preston Nichols and Alfred Bielek.

The conspiracy surrounds Camp Hero, an officially deserted Air Force Station at Montauk Point on Long Island, New York State. Camp Hero was a US Army base established before World War II. It later became the Montauk Air Force and was officially active until 1969. However, since but then new telephone lines and high capacity power have been installed whilst many witnesses have observed advanced military electronics equipment being tested in the area. Power usage for the derelict facility is measured with a gigawatt meter meaning it consumes enough power to run a small city.

Conspiriologists believe the subterranean levels of the base continue to house a centre for research and experimentation electromagnetic mind control operations and interdimensional and time manipulations. These experiments date back to 1943 and the infamous — and probably fictitious — ‘Philadelphia Experiment’, when Albert Einstein and Hungarian-born physicist Janus Eric Von Neumann worked on US Government experiments that ripped holes in  the fabric of reality whilst attempting to make a Navy vessel invisible to radar.

It is alleged that during the Philadelphia Experiment a battleship disappeared from sight and from our normal timeline. When it reappeared, the crew onboard had suffered devastating psychological damage and terrible physical repercussions as some sailors rematerialising in the hull of the ship or suffered third degree burns. After the war, Montauk and other associated bases and laboratories in the Long Island area continued  research into what sounds like the most outlandish science fiction. When a US Congressional investigation into these secret projects decided to shut them down in the 1960s, it was not just the base that was underground as Montauk continued to run without governmental approval, receiving its funding from mysterious sources.

THE STRANGE PART

In 1984, the officially empty Montauk Air Force Base was given to New York State for use as public park land. However, whilst the property is under the care of the New York State Parks System, no part of it has ever become a park. Significantly, the deeds transferring the base to New York State make it explicit that the US government still hold all rights to any and all property beneath the surface. Given that plans from the US Army Corps of Engineers provide evidence of the existence of at least four levels of subterranean facilities beneath Camp Hero, maybe there is something to the conspiracy buff’s claims of a massive underground research centre looking at the borders of established science.

THE USUAL SUSPECTS

National Security Council

Montauk is often alleged to be run by a cabal behind the National Security Council of the US. All of the members of the cabal are also thought to be members of the Grand Orient Lodge of Egyptian Freemasonry who are using the advances made through research carried out at Montauk to further their aim of global domination.

Aleister Crowley

Possibly the most important occultist of the century, self-styled ‘wickedest man in the world’ Crowley is known to have visited the Montauk area of Long Island shortly after the end of World War One in which he had been acting as an intelligence officer. Quite what his interest in Montauk was is open to speculation, but it is worth noting that his pupils included ground-breaking scientists such as Jack Parsons — the man behind NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratories and an associate of Janus Eric Von Neumann.

THE UNUSUAL SUSPECTS

Nazi Scientists

Nazi submarines were often spotted off of Montauk during the war and many Nazi scientists came to work for the American military after the conflict ended. Montauk has a had a large Aryan community since the 1930s and some conspiracy theorists believe that the experiments at Montauk were infiltrated and taken over by ex-Nazis bent on using the awesome power being studied for their own evil schemes.

Time Travellers

Given that many of the experiments at Montauk seem to involve the prospect of time travel, some feel it is fair to assume that the real force behind the conspiracy are time travellers from the future. Stranded in the past, they have taken over the experiments started by Einstein and Von Neumann in the hope they can build a machine to take them back home.

MOST CONVINCING EVIDENCE

For what is officially claimed to be merely a derelict military facility within a designated state park, there seems to be a lot of security around Camp Hero. Picnicking women and children have been accosted and threatened at gunpoint by unidentified military personnel for venturing into its vicinity. Other people wandering through the park near to the supposedly abandoned Air Force Station have been told they have violated top secret and restricted areas and could be arrested. Non-uniformed armed guards from

seemingly shadowy government and military agencies have a track record of performing some very unconstitutional activities in the area. If there is no conspiracy at Montauk why is this happening?

MOST MYSTERIOUS FACT

The land the Montauk Air Force Base is built on — and possibly under — should under the terms of American law belong to the Montauk tribe of Native Americans who were the original inhabitants of the area. Despite huge amounts of evidence to the contrary, the US Federal Court has declared the Montauk extinct to prevent the remainder of the tribe claiming the land.  It should be noted that the Montauk Indians record numerous strange legends concerning the area and can remember when the site of Camp Hero was actually home to an ancient and rather odd stone pyramid.

SCEPTICALLY SPEAKING

Whilst fascinating conjecture, there is little independent hard evidence to back up some of the wilder aspects of the Montauk conspiracy. It seems understandable that the US Government or dark forces within it might test ultra-advanced technology at a secret base, but when you have got places such as Area 51 at your disposal, there is not any logical need to operate out of base only 100 miles from New York City.

Posted in mysteries, myth.