The VALIS Hack

BYTE: Just to put four or five stories to rest, where did the name Apple Computer actually come from?

WOZNIAK: It came out of Steve Jobs’s head, and he’s a sort of private person, so I can’t say what led up to it. He came up with an inspiration. He was working from time to time in the orchards up in Oregon. I thought that it might be because there were apples in the orchard or maybe just its fructarian nature. Maybe the word just happened to occur to him. In any case, we both tried to come up with better names, but neither one of us could think of anything better after Apple was mentioned.

This is the first Apple logo: Newton's apple of inspiration. The story of Newton and his apple of inspiration was no doubt as manufactured as the story of how Apple Computer got its logo. The apple is that ancient fruit from the Tree of Knowledge - the knowledge of "self" - or ego. It may have been a mushroom or it may have been alien genetics or it may have been millions of years of natural evolution, but it sure as hell wasn't an actual apple. Be that as it may, the split with Id is all wrapped up into the symbol of the bitten apple.

Lucifer, the Morning Star, gives the gift of knowledge, his planet is Venus. Venus charts a pentagram in the sky with its route, the apple's seeds are arranged in a pentagram, or a 5 pointed star. A happy coincidence for the apple, the world's most notorious fruit.

I've been drinking a fermented cider beverage lately, called Newton's Folly...

 and we know that Newton's "folly" was alchemy. Computers are like alchemy?

I propose that yes, they are. They, and especially the internet, HTML and CSS, show the basic relationship between above and below - the Word/code and the 3D world/screen. All the world's a web page, and HTML/YHWH, is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega.

The Kobayashi Maru

In Star Trek 11, Captain Kirk's first notch in his belt of infamy was defeating the Kobayashi Maru - a computer created, no-win simulation that always results in death. Captain Kirk doesn't believe in no-win situations, and he hacks the computer in order to prove his point. As his new programming takes affect, he takes a big bite out of an apple.

Death is the no-win situation, and this was exactly the goal of the alchemist and Sir Isaac Newton - to defeat death - to defeat Adam's curse.

I've become fascinated by this analogy, that our perception of reality is the computer screen, while the code behind the screen is what makes it all happen. Building web sites and web pages, we use Adobe Dreamweaver, a rather exact metaphor for what is really going on.

In creating a website, you have to be rather exact, and even a misplaced comma will fuck it all up. This is much like the rituals of a magic spell, that must be rigidly adhered to. When you get it right, its the voila! moment, and you actually see it, on screen. WYSIWYG, or "what you see is what you get".

Saw this yellow truck a few days ago, while pondering...

We all know that a computer runs on code, and I would suggest that our own, inner computers, are no different. Our code is made up of symbols, that have the power to actually change our "screen", or what we call "reality". Just say the Word.

OK, maybe it's not quite that simple, but the idea is simple. Of course, the devil is in the details. The important thing is to consider the idea, and perhaps conduct personal experiments if the spirit moves you. This is one result of my own experimenting. Meager, but at least... something. I do feel the need for some practical magic, right about now.

Thomas Edison was famous for trying thousands of times before he finally got it right. Alchemy is much the same.

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

We are now in HTML 5:

Bite the Apple

Cliff's New York Adventure

Even though I'm a huge fan of Disney's The Rocketeer, I admit to never having read the book, until now. David Stevens created The Rocketeer, an adventure story set in a pulp-fiction style 1930s, about a down-on-his-luck pilot named Cliff Secord who finds a mysterious rocket pack - the Cirrus X-3.

We've noted the Grail signifier in the story, the "twin-towers" of the rocket pack, the divine feminine or 'anima' represented by his girlfriend Betty, modeled after 50's pin-up girl Betty Page. Cliff, being a daredevil type, is a cliff diver, or a Fool, the soul stepping off the precipice into egoic incarnation.

Cliff, like Captain America, is always fighting Nazis, or "not sees" as Jake Kotze calls them. The "Not Sees" who cannot see the walls of Plato's Cave - we are completely taken in by the illusion, cinema, chimera. Which brings me to Cliff's Big New York Adventure, where Cliff finally meets the Magician - face to face.

Throughout the series, Cliff is haunted by shadowy types who seem to always be one step ahead of him, and they are not necessarily antagonists in the classic sense, but more like mysterious strangers, or perhaps "men in black". It reminds me of Mark Twain's No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger... in earlier versions of the book he named the character Satan.

Stevens uses a "sharp dressed man" as the short hand for the Magician, or Satan, most often in a tux. The names may change but the character remains the same. We see Howard Hughes, Jonas, and Orsino all playing the same role, and even Cliff dons the tux from time to time.

Care for a light?

Alan Abbadessa-Green sent me this priceless pic of the Rocketeer as Prometheus as Rockefeller. We recall that Prometheus stole fire from the Gods, and Cliff certainly "stole" the rocket pack from whoever invented it.

In the final act, all is revealed. As a teenager, Cliff had worked the carny circuit, an assistant to "The Great Arsino". Every day he was in his usual spot, locked in a trunk under twelve feet of water, waiting for Orsino to spring him. Lothar would hold up his hour-glass, letting the crowd know how much time he had left. But Orsino (playing Harry Houdini, another double H) always got that trunk open. The crowd ate it up.

Until... one day Cliff was seduced by Lucy, and didn't make it to the performance. He lost his virginity, and that was the day that poor little Teena died, who had loved him so much she stood in for him so that he wouldn't lose his job. But her little lungs couldn't hold enough air.

And that night was the night that Lothar, or Saturn, the Grim Reaper, became his dread enemy. Like Lothar, we're just not buying it, anymore.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God ~Romans 3:23

Like Adam after biting the big apple, Cliff is cast out of the Garden, or the Carny. He wanders to and fro in confusion, but against all odds, he finds a rocket pack. And he carries that rocket pack in a sack wherever he goes. I will leave it to the initiates to discover what is inside the "back pack" of the Fool.



Watch your step.

The Two Towers

The Two Towers

I was chatting with Alan Green last night about the new London Bridge Shard, which I sense is the "twin" of the new One World Trade Center in Manhattan. The Shard was topped out in April 2012, the OWTC is scheduled for topping out in August. Both are "pillarmids" to use Jake Kotze's word - skyscrapers that evoke both pillars and pyramids in their symbolism. The Shard is Europe's tallest building, while OWTC, at a symbolic 1776 ft. including spire, will be the tallest building in the New World.

I see this as a "hands across the waters" thing, the twin towers destroyed in the 9/11 attacks rebuilt, one in the United Kingdom and the other in the United States.

Much has been made of the Statue of Liberty between the WTC towers, representing Isis/High Priestess (the Holy of Holies) between the two pillars of Jachin and Boaz. I consider the WTC to have represented the Masonic third temple of Solomon.

The Three Mary's

Isis is also called Stella Maris, or "Star of the Sea". There are many Catholic parishes in maritime locations called "Our Lady, Star of the Sea". The word Mary has its root in Mar - the sea. So we have these two new pillars standing quite literally on either side of Mary, AKA the Atlantic Ocean, or Atlantis.

A piece of the Emerald Tablet of Thoth/Hermes

In the 2006 film, Superman Returns, Lex Luthor uses one of the stolen Kryptonian crystals (or shards), which he has combined with Kryptonite, to grow a new continental landmass in the Northern Atlantic Ocean. The landmass threatens to destroy Metropolis, so Superman must descend into the depths, and then lift this new continent out of the ocean and hurls it into the heavens. We see him stepping into the role of Atlas, the titan who carries the world on his shoulders, who also happens to be the first born twin son of Poseidon, the king of Atlantis. We note he is powered by the sun, and Isis/Mary's fruit is the sun/son.

Alan reminded me of The Dark Crystal:

The Dark Crystal is a 1982 British-American fantasy film directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz. It dramatizes the story of Jen, an elflike 'Gelfling' to restore balance to his alien world by returning a lost shard to a powerful but broken gem.

Ahhh... the USA, a powerful but broken gem - the jewel in the crown, so to speak. Perhaps the former rebels are to be reunited with the Mothership... via a lost "shard".

When Aliens Attack

The National Geographic is at it again, pimping the alien invasion meme head on. You'd almost think it's the sci-fi channel. Lately we have Five Good Reasons to Believe in UFOs and also a poll:

Two-Thirds of Americans Think Barack Obama Is Better Suited to Handle an Alien Invasion Than Mitt Romney

Now, there is a big difference between aliens and UFOs in my opinion, but NG wants to lump them all together into a tidy package. To me, UFOs are Unidentified Flying Objects, while aliens from outer space are identified as "aliens from outer space". It's a subtle difference but an important one. I've had UFO dreams for many years, but I've always considered them to be messengers from "inner space" - my own take on a subconscious message. Much the same as earlier generations had messages from fairies, angels or gods, the vehicle of the message can take any form. Today, it's the UFO.

What I find disturbing is this obvious attempt to manipulate our "dream time", our UFO messages.

I had a curious UFO message on 6/16/12:

I was sitting in a room, a perfectly transparent, shiny ball came down out of the ceiling, about 24" in diameter. I realized it was a "UFO" experience, it felt familiar. The ball floated over to my head, at first I put my hands up to stop it, but then realized I just needed to relax and let it do its thing. My head was enveloped by the ball, and some small lights appeared on the surface for a split second, the SONY logo, and then the head of Karl Urban appeared and began speaking:

"Hi Mike, things are about to get very difficult for you. This new technology they are developing for the Olympic games, to allow close up experience of the action... All will lose their minds".

And it made me wonder. A sudden connection to the Id is a powerful, life-changing experience, open to many interpretations. When I had mine back in 2004 I thought it was literally God. Imagine if everyone on earth had that same experience, at the same time. What would happen?

And what if... the news was suddenly full of an alien invasion. How would you interpret what you had just experienced?

I'll tell you what I'd do - I'd freak out. Imagine the chaos of billions of people on the planet suddenly and forcibly brought into Contact with their own subconscious.

We are all looking forward to the London/New Troy/Zion Olympic games with a mixture of fascination and dread, and I see that Prospero is allegedly holding court in Danny Boyle's Olympic opening ceremony. Prospero, Shakespeare's magician from The Tempest, has inspired many a sci-fi take off, none more eloquent than Forbidden Planet, where the natives tap into a massive power source but are undone in a single day by their own monsters from the Id.

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NOTE: 616 is the now fashionable area code for the Beast, and I note that this post is no. 666 in my personal gosporn journal.

God Dam that Mad Dog

I've been thinking a lot about our strange signs in the sky, the strange rituals below. See Goro Adachi and Alan Green for more on all that. It's all about this enigmatic goddess standing in the river. She seems to be the key to the riddle.

I, ISIS, AM ALL THAT HAS BEEN, THAT IS OR SHALL BE,
NO MORTAL MAN HATH EVER ME UNVEILED.

Alan Green has been doing some excellent sync detective work at The Happy Creatures, and his latest post - Great Gig in the Sky Part 4 - blew me away because in  the 1988 X-Men Age of Apocalypse, Isis is being revealed as Apocalypse:

What makes this all the more intriguing is that the Statue of Liberty is well known to be a stand-in for Isis, but the Apocalypse character, back in a 1988 comic, revealed himself as Set, Osiris' brother and slayer!

The word "Apocalypse" means "lifting the veil" so putting Apocalypse in the place of Liberty/Isis is literally an "Isis Unveiled"! ~Alan Green

Something became very clear to me today, after pondering the death of porn star Erik Rhodes, who is resonating the Colossus of Rhodes - Helios - the inspiration for the Statue of Liberty.

Lettuce Pray

"According to Papyrus Chester-Beatty I, Set is depicted as trying to prove his dominance by seducing Horus and then having intercourse with him."

Set is Queer?

"However, Horus places his hand between his thighs and catches Set's semen, then subsequently throws it in the river, so that he may not be said to have been inseminated by Set. Horus then deliberately spreads his own semen on some lettuce, which was Set's favorite food."

Full stop. "Lettuce" is Egyptian symbolism for the phallus, due, not so much to the phallic shape, but from the milky white sap of the stalk. Set's "favorite food" IS semen. Is this story a little too gay?

He don't eat meat but he sure likes the bone.

"After Set had eaten the lettuce, they went to the gods to try to settle the argument over the rule of Egypt. The gods first listened to Set's claim of dominance over Horus, and call his semen forth, but it answered from the river, invalidating his claim. Then, the gods listened to Horus' claim of having dominated Set, and call his semen forth, and it answered from inside Set."

• Erik was a very angry young man, and Set was extremely angry with Horus - a "mad" dog.
• Set castrated his father, Erik chose to undertake an adult circumcision - which he said "was a mistake".
• Set cut Osiris into 14 parts, Erik died on the 14th.
• Set and Osiris are brothers, Erik had a twin brother.
• Set was made to submit to Horus, who is a falcon headed god, Erik worked for Falcon Studios.

He worked hard for the money, and let's remember who's money it really is:

Set is another name for Eros, or subconscious erotic desire, among other things we'd rather not deal with. When Isis is revealed, what we see is our own true self - our naked subconscious reflected back to us. Isis is a drag queen.

It's funny how gosporn has come full circle. When I began, my personal "mission statement" was that people needed to get in touch with - and make peace with - their inner Eros, I didn't know why, but it was "important". And it was a religious thing. We need to understand the religious myth around all of this... At first I thought it was a Christian issue, and now it goes all the way back to Egypt: this religion of de Nile.

That was in 2006. Now, we see the Pope calling homosexuality "insidious and dangerous" (he should know). We also see lunatic fundamentalists demanding to put gays in concentration camps, ironically gay prison is an enduring homoerotic fantasy.

Bradley Manning (homo=man)

Set/Eros is coming back. He's the angry Erik, Isis unveiled, the pissed-off homo, the lonely gay in solitary confinement, too fucking dangerous, we'd rather forget about him than deal with him.

I know a lot of people think that the repeal of DADT and gay marriage are signs that Set is being accepted, but this is merely another clever religious attempt to control a rather uncontrollable nature. Set dies when that ring of monogamy goes on.

Thing is, Set isn't all that smart. He's a personification of a part of the brain that almost shuts down cognitive ability - erotic desire. Horus has been outsmarting him for a long time. But what Set lacks in smarts - he makes up for in persistence.

This brave new Aeon of Horus, an alchemical wedding of global proportions, the pinnacle of Olympus reached, man become god, is officially being inaugurated with the London Olympics and some kind of stargate opening ritual that we can only guess at, but there is one big problem - Set is not on the guest list.

"I distinctly remember, Addison, crossing you off my guest list. What are you doing here?"

Dead or Alive?

I'm pretty sure we can expect Set to crash the party. Remember what happened the last time they got the stargate spinning up? Gate Crashers.

Torch Goes Out - UPDATE

Sad news today: Porn star Erik Rhodes had died. Via his twitter account:

Erik Rhodes has left us this morning at 5.30am his family and boyfriend Riccardo are in deep pain, please respect this sad moment

My heart goes out to his loved ones. He was only 30 years old, in an exclusive contract with Falcon Studios, and if anyone lived up to his stage name, it was Erik, truly a giant of a muscle man. He was from Long Island, NY.

The Colossus of Rhodes was a statue of the Greek Titan Helios, erected in the city of Rhodes on the Greek island of Rhodes by Chares of Lindos between 292 and 280 BC. It is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was constructed to celebrate Rhodes' victory over the ruler of Cyprus, Antigonus I Monophthalmus, whose son unsuccessfully besieged Rhodes in 305 BC. ~wiki

The giant stood 33m tall, lifted a torch in the air, and was crowned with the rays of the sun. Seems a bit familiar...

To you, o Sun, the people of Dorian Rhodes set up this bronze statue reaching to Olympus, when they had pacified the waves of war and crowned their city with the spoils taken from the enemy. Not only over the seas but also on land did they kindle the lovely torch of freedom and independence. For to the descendants of Herakles belongs dominion over sea and land.

UPDATE 6/21/12: Eric Rhodes obituary in the NYT.

“The gay porn audience often looks to a hulking macho fantasy, and he provided that,” said Michael Musto, the Village Voice gossip columnist who was friendly with Mr. Rhodes. “He was Thor, the Hulk and the rest of the ‘Avengers’ cast wrapped in a gay package. And the fashion connection and the fact that he had a brain elevated him from your everyday escort-slash-porn-god and gave him texture.”