America's magical foundations
The Pentagon building, across the Potomac River from Washington D.C. has a pleasing shape.
It was originally designed for a different plot of land and to maximise the use of the available area, but it would have obstructed the view of the city from Arlington National Cemetery and created traffic problems, so FDR shifted it to a different, slightly larger location nearby.
The extra room available meant that the irregular five-sided plan could be turned into a regular polygon, from this:
to this:
Mathematically, a six-sided shape would be more efficient - for the same perimeter, a hexagon contains an area nearly 5% bigger than a pentagon.
But if we want to get weird, the latter is at the heart of a devil’s trap, perhaps an appropriate connection for offices that organise the destruction of human beings (perfumed o’er by a name change in 1947-49 from ‘War Department’ to ‘Department of Defense’):
Fanciful, perhaps, but secret societies and arcane rituals are woven into American history. George Washington became a Master Mason in 1753 and on ‘September 18, 1793, acting as grand master pro tem, he presided at the Masonic ceremonial laying of the United States Capitol cornerstone.’ Other Presidents who were freemasons include FDR, Truman and Ford plus (to some extent) a few later ones.
Like the poor, the rich and powerful are aware that their fortunes are vulnerable to bad luck, so it is not surprising that they too will invite the aid of the supernatural. Albert Goldman’s biography of John Lennon details Yoko Ono’s extraordinary involvement with psychics, Japanese directional magic and a potent witch in Colombia who required from her a pact with the Devil, signed in the blood of an innocent pigeon.
US currency also carries hermetic connections. The all-seeing Eye of Providence, a symbol of God and used traditionally in Orthodox churches, appears on the dollar bill, indicating the influence of the Freemasons, who adopted it centuries ago as a reminder ‘of the watchfulness of the Great Architect.’ There, it sits atop the Great Pyramid of Khufu, commemorating the Founders’ fascination with the ancient mysteries of Egypt, where, Tom Paine speculated, the Order began.
The Masonic Lodges are of course mutual protection societies and trading floors for influence hidden from the public view. Similarly there is the 150-year-old Bohemian Club of Sonoma, California, where members of the elite can meet each other privately (to their relief), accordingly kicking off their annual shindig with a ceremony called the “Cremation of Care.” A photographer attempted to bust into this party in 2002 and Vanity Fair published their guide to Bohemian Grove seven years later.
Dismissing the flummery, we have something more serious: the eternal conspiracy of the higher-ups against the common people; a collusion that reaches across the pretence of a political divide, as Russell Brand’s really excellent new video explains, prompted by the recent reputational rehabilitation of ‘Dubya’ Bush:
… an image used in the above serves to illustrate the ‘all in it together’ theme:
Not, of course, that there’s anything new in that. A French poet was lamenting this 650 years ago:
‘… Thinking in my lonely room
How all men everywhere are governed
By cronies meeting in the tavern…’
- but America was supposed to be different:
- a ‘new order of the ages,’ free from monarchy, despotism, the class system, primogeniture …
If the country does not return at least some way towards its roots then there is a risk that the curtain hiding the Wizard of Oz may be ripped aside and his machinery of deceptions exposed, perhaps even demolished. It nearly happened in the 1930s, and FDR saved the nation that time.
Where is another FDR now?