Blade Runner: 30 Years of Synchromysticism - Part 2 (Aztec-Mayan Symbolism)

Blade Runner: 30 Years of Synchromysticism - Part 2 (Aztec-Mayan Symbolism)
by Loren Coleman ©2012

Set in November 2019, director Ridley Scott's Blade Runner celebrates its 30th anniversary on June 25, 2012. Director Scott's immediate previous film was Alien (1979) and his most recent film, of course, is Prometheus (2012). These two films share with Blade Runner a look at our future worlds impacted by genetic engineers. Scott's 1982 American science fiction film is based on a Philip K. Dick short story, and stars Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. For three decades, synchos (see definition at bottom) have found cinematic and real world coincidences, synchronicities, and linkages within this highly textured movie.

Ridley Scott has always maintained that Blade Runner is merely a piece of entertainment, nothing more, yet it is his "most complete and personal film." When Scott met Philip K. Dick during the post-production process, he specifically told Dick that he was not interested in "making an esoteric film."

Despite plans that did not include a journey to the "esoteric," Blade Runner's director seems to have not understood that synchronicity, as Carl Jung might observe, is something that Ridley Scott may have not seen coming his way. It just happens.

Synchronicity takes the coincidence of events in space and time as meaning something more than mere chance, namely, a peculiar interdependence of objective events among themselves as well as with the subjective (psychic) states of the observer or observers. 

~ Carl G. Jung

Over the weekend, I watched the anniversary showings of the original 1982 Blade Runner and the 2007 "Final Cut" of Blade Runner on the Encore cable channel (repeat screenings are scheduled). Considering that the movie was set in 2019, it was intriguing to see how unimaginative the film's producers were only three decades ago about telephones, pay telephones, computers, and such. Everything was shown as retaining their then-contemporary bulkiness. Some innovative science fiction thinking was released in the flying urban vehicles and fashion, most of which has not really happened, and through grand corporate architecture, which has. In general, the film does hold up well, and is filled with synchromystic connections. It is one of my personal favorites.

Aztec Sawfish Rostrum

In Blade Runner, this time, one seemingly small item did jump out at me (I'd never noticed it in previous viewings), as seemingly out-of-place but symbolic. It was found in the apartment of Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford). What I saw, momentarily, and identified quickly was a large-toothed sawfish (a type of ray, genus Pristis) rostrum (snout) mounted on Deckard's wall, below some glyphs.

I once noticed Fortean researcher, cryptozoologist and author Ivan T. Sanderson (1911-1973) had been pictured with a sawfish rostrum at his New Jersey's SITU headquarters. Above is Sanderson's conversation/living room area in his so-called "mansion house," with the sawfish rostrum, photos by Richard Grigonis.

When I saw one, decades ago, I obtained it. That sawfish rostrum is now displayed in the International Cryptozoology Museum today (seen in the middle of the midcentury installation, above).

What is a sawfish rostrum doing in Blade Runner? I did a little research, and quickly found a link that may explain its placement.

The most frequently found large animal artifacts interred beneath the center of the Aztec universe were sawfish rostra. Above is pictured a rostrum of the sawfish Pristis pectinata in Offering 58 of the Great Temple, photo courtesy of CNCA-INAH-MEX. Used as tools of sacrifice, these rostra symbolized the blood-spilling swords that fed Cipactli. The ruins of the Aztec Great Temple was discovered in 1978 beneath the central plaza of Mexico City. This pyramid was the center of the Aztec cosmic order and used to sustain the gods. Among the offerings were the sawfish rostra. Among the codices art, there were the stylized sawfish rosta (directly below).

The Aztec-designed sword was made in imitation of the sawfish's rostrum. Matthew T. McDavitt wrote in the Florida Museum of Natural History Ichthyology Department's Shark News (March 2002), on their significance:

In Aztec belief, the world had been founded on the premise of divine sacrifice. The gods had drained all their life-force into creation and no longer had the power to sustain themselves. In a kind of cosmic conservation of energy, the Aztecs believed that the sun could not rise, crops could not grow, and rain would not fall without the regular release of life energy back to their creators. To keep the gods alive, humans were obligated to feed them their blood and hearts, the most potent source of life energy. Although the Aztecs recognized hundreds of gods, these diverse deities were just manifestations of the primary forces of the universe such as sun and earth. The sun was a giver of life and a protector of the Aztec people. The earth however, was considerably more hostile....In reality, sawfish rostra appear commonly in the Aztec codices....In Aztec language, the sawfish rostrum was known as imacuauh "its sword"....Sawfish rostra are most often depicted as symbolic 'swords' in the shield / spear bundles which symbolize warfare in Aztec iconography. There is even a structural similarity between the Aztec glass-edged swords and the sawfishes' toothy appendage.

Tyrell Corporation Buildings/Aztec-Mayan Pyramids

In the Blade Runner, the twin towers of the Tyrell Corporation dominate the landscape. They are pyramids. 

Blade Runner

Aztec

Mayan

The pyramids appear to have been based specifically on Aztec-Mayan temple pyramids, on top of which were made human sacrifices (using sawfish rosta and rostra-modeled swords by the Aztecs). In general, Aztecs, which came after the Mayas, had the simpler top on their pyramids, as did the Tyrell/Blade Runner pyramids. The movie's structures are clearly not Egyptian (below) in nature.

Behind the scenes, we do know that one pyramid model was apparently used for the illusion of two.

The model of Tyrell's pyramid was 9 feet at the base and 2½ feet high. This was a ratio of 1:750. The model ultimately caught fire and melted.

You may have noticed a Tyrell pyramid in a three-part 2009 TV British miniseries, Red Dwarf: Back to Earth. On the right, a very Blade Runner-like pyramid, appears rising out of the landscape of London (visible with Big Ben and the House of Parliament).

One other thing about some Mesoamerican pyramids is worthy of noting. At the equinoxes, the shadow of a Great Feathered Serpent (e.g. Quetzalcoatl) appears on the side of the pyramids, as seen here on the Mayan Chichen-Itza. Snake symbolism, overtly (as in Zhora and her snake) and covertly, is part of Blade Runner.

Blade Runner Insight mentions the Mayan influences and beyond:

Blade Runner's...architecture reveals several different styles. The first few shots of the film show futuristic looking refineries, but then concentrate on a futuristic building that is a pastiche of Mayan architecture. The interiors of the Tyrell Corporation that are shown, however, are designed in an Establishment Gothic look. The police headquarters of the film was designed to echo the Art Deco look of the Chrysler Building, in New York City, and the Bradbury Building, in which the final chase scene of the film is set, is an architectural anomaly, built in 1883 by an architect heavily influenced by a utopian book he had read about the year 2000. Animoid Row, where Deckard goes to discover the origins of the snake scale, seems to resemble a Middle Eastern bazaar. Blade Runner’s presentation of Los Angeles in 2019 as a postmodern architectural entrepot accentuates the ahistorical nature of postmodernist art.

Deckard's Mayan Apartment 

Los Angeles' Ennis-Brown House was used in one drive up scene, and as the studio inspiration for shooting in Rick Deckard's apartment. The style used is called Mayan Revival, and the Mayan influence is undeniably strong in the employment of the glyphs throughout.

Deckard's apartment, drawn by set designer Charles William Breen and built on stage at Warner Brothers, was inspired by the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Ennis-Brown House. Breen actually had plaster casts taken from the textile blocks of the Wright-designed house and used them for the walls in the stage set. 

Governor's Palace at Uxmal

Wright designed the house in 1923, and built it in 1924. He based the relief ornamentation on its textile blocks, inspired by the symmetrical reliefs of Mayan buildings in Uxmal.

The Ennis-Brown House was in shambles before the 2007 restoration began.

Newly restored.

Bradbury Moments

Blade Runner in the Bradbury Building

The Bradbury Building is an architectural landmark in downtown Los Angeles, California. Built in 1893, the building was commissioned by LA mining millionaire Lewis L. Bradbury and designed by local draftsman George Wyman.

Wyman at first refused the offer, but then supposedly had a ghostly talk with his brother Mark Wyman (who had died six years previously), while using a planchette board with his wife. The ghost's message supposedly said "Mark Wyman / take the / Bradbury building / and you will be / successful" with the word "successful" written upside down. 

After the episode, Wyman took the job, and is now regarded as the architect of the Bradbury Building. Wyman's grandson, the science fiction publisher Forrest J. Ackerman, owned the original document containing the message until his death. Coincidentally, Ackerman was a close friend of science fiction author Ray Bradbury.

Wyman was especially influenced in constructing the building by the 1887 science fiction book Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy, which described a utopian society in 2000.

In Bellamy's book, the average commercial building was described as a "vast hall full of light, received not alone from the windows on all sides, but from the dome, the point of which was a hundred feet above ... The walls and ceiling were frescoed in mellow tints, calculated to soften without absorbing the light which flooded the interior." This description greatly influenced the Bradbury Building.

In 1979, William S. Burroughs wrote Blade Runner (a movie), the rights of which Ridley Scott bought for the title of his Blade Runner. In the novel/screenplay, Burroughs and then Scott in 1982 film, both of them use, as Todd Campbell writes,

The Bradbury Building (which serves as home to Toymaker/Replicant designer J.F. Sebastien), and eerily acts as a character in the film...directly across the street in downtown Los Angeles is the Million Dollar Theater which is also featured prominently in the film. And now, we take a detour down "The Street With No Name" or 5th and Main St. downtown Los Angeles to be precise...just around the corner from Blade Runner central we find the curious Rosslyn "Million Dollar" Hotel. Those of you up on your Templar lore will surely be tempted by the significance of Rosslyn (or Rose Line).

"Rose Line," of course, is "red line." 

Campbell shares various intriguing synchromystic links, and continues:

The Rosslyn (built in and owned by the Hart Brothers) was once the largest building in downtown L.A., and had a rather odd feature...it actually consisted of two buildings joined only by an underground tunnel which connected the two.

Adam Parfrey (coauthor of 2012's Ritual America), Bill Grimstad (author of 1978's Weird America) and I were recently talking about Blade Runner. They were reminded of the long ago plans of a LA subway system, and the bygone days of the old red line (humm, "Rosslyn") that was dismantled in 1961. Parfrey points out that the current subway downtown, called the Red Line (one of six color coded lines), is the "indirect descendant of the Pacific Electric Red Car."

In Blade Runner, the frequently used Bradbury Building, located at 3rd and S. Broadway, was a character, indeed, as was the 2nd Street tunnel that appears in the movie too.

One last Bradbury coincidence during this Blade Runner 30th anniversary month. The Red Planet author (The Martian Chronicles), Ray Bradbury, died on June 5, 2012. 

To read Part 1, click here.

Sources on linkages and symbolic connections in Blade Runner are to be found in the hundreds throughout the Internet, and specifically include, but are not limited to such good resources as Gary Willoughby's important article on Deckard's apartment, Blake Runner Insight, an essay at "Everything2," and Todd Campbell's two-parter (here and here).

Glossary ~

Synchromystic = from Late Latin synchronus, from Greek sunkhronos, from syn- + khronos time + Middle English mistik, from Latin mysticus of mysteries, from Greek mystikos, from mystēs initiate

Synchromysticism was first coined by Jake Kotze in August 2006, on his website-at-the-time, Brave New World Order. Kotze defined the concept as: "The art of realizing meaningful coincidence in the seemingly mundane with mystical or esoteric significance."

Synchromysticism is defined as the drawing of connections in modern culture (movies, music lyrics, historical happenings and esoteric knowledge); and finding connections that could be coming from the "collective unconscious mind"; and finding connections between occult knowledge (i.e. esoteric fraternities, cults and secret rituals), politics and mass media, according to Wiktionary.

The term synchros (short for synchromystic practitioners) was coined by Loren Coleman at the Twilight Language blog to capture the spirit of the researchers, chroniclers, and bloggers who employ active synchromystic analysis, in the tradition of James Shelby Downard and other twilight language intellectuals (as noted here).

Synchros examine the world through a variety of methodologies, including the following:

Onomastics or onomatology is the study of proper names of all kinds and the origins of names. The word is Greek: ὀνοματολογία [from ὄνομα (ónoma) "name"].

Toponymy or toponomastics, the study of place names, is one of the principal branches of onomastics.

Anthroponomastics or anthroponymy, a branch of onomastics, is the study of anthroponyms (anthropos, "man," + onuma, "name"), the names of human beings.

Etymology is the study of the history of words — when they entered a language, from what source, and how their form and meaning have changed over time. In languages with a long detailed history, etymology makes use of philology, the study of how words change from culture to culture over time. The word "etymology" itself comes from the Ancient Athens ἐτυμολογία (etumologia) < ἔτυμον (etumon), “‘true sense’” + -λογία (-logia), “‘study of’”, from λόγος (logos), "speech, oration, discourse, word."

In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order. ~ Carl G. Jung.

Blade Runner: 30 Years of Synchromysticism - Part 1 (Tyrell 2019 + Weyland 2023)

Blade Runner: 30 Years of Synchromysticism - Part 1 (Tyrell 2019 + Weyland 2023)
by Loren Coleman ©2012

Frankly, watching Ridley Scott's Blade Runner is recommended to Prometheus analysts who wish to understand the genetic engineering of both treatments, more so that re-viewing the Alien films. (Of course, what might be happening on 10.11.12 - October 11, 2012 or November 10, 2012 - from the Weyland Corporation, remains to be understood.)

The term replicants is used nowhere in Philip K. Dick's writing. The creatures in the source novel are called Androids or Andies. The movie abandoned these terms, fearing they would sound comical spoken on screen. Replicants came from screenwriter David Webb Peoples' daughter, Risa, who was studying microbiology and biochemistry. She introduced her father to the theory of replication - the process whereby cells are duplicated for cloning purposes. (Peoples' is also known for his screenplays on Unforgiven and Twelve Monkeys.)

Replicants are slaves, and this movie is about slavery. As William Kolb writes in Blade Runner Film Notes: "Nexus is a Latin word meaning ‘to bind’ and refers to the tie between members of a group, e.g. members of a series. The replicants who arrive on Earth are literally and metaphorically the Nexus-6."

Synchromystic Tidbits

Various random synchromystic tidbits that make Blade Runner all the more enjoyable to watch during this 30th year, include:

Philip K. Dick first came up with the idea for his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in 1962, when researching The Man in the High Castle which deals with the Nazis conquering the planet in the 1940s. Dick had been granted access to archived World War II Gestapo documents in the University of California at Berkley, and had come across diaries written by S.S. men stationed in Poland, which he found almost unreadable in their casual cruelty and lack of human empathy. One sentence in particular troubled him: "We are kept awake at night by the cries of starving children." Dick was so horrified by this sentence that he reasoned there was obviously something wrong with the man who wrote it. This led him to hypothesize that Nazism in general was a defective group mind, a mind so emotionally flawed that the word human could not be applied to them; their lack of empathy was so pronounced that Dick reasoned they couldn't be referred to as human beings, even though their outward appearance seemed to indicate that they were human. The novel sprang from this.

While the film is loosely based on Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the title comes from a book by Alan Nourse called The Bladerunner. William S. Burroughs wrote a screenplay based on the Nourse book and a novella entitled Blade Runner: A Movie. Ridley Scott bought the rights to the title but not the screenplay or the book. The Burroughs composition defines a blade runner as "a person who sells illegal surgical instruments."

In the strange Japanese advertisement shown on the side of a blimp, in which a Geisha-like woman is swallowing a pill, the loud speakers play a line from a Japanese Noh play, saying "Iri Hi Katamuku," literally "the setting sun sinks down." According to special photographics effects supervisor David Dryer the pills being swallowed are birth control pills.

Blade Runner Curse

Among the folklore that has built up around the film over the years is the infamous Blade Runner Curse, which is the belief that the film was a curse to the companies whose logos were displayed prominently as product placements. While they were market leaders at the time, many of them experienced disastrous setbacks over the next decade and hardly exist anymore. RCA, for example which at one time was the leading consumer electronics and communications conglomerate, was bought out by one time parent GE in 1985, and dismantled. Atari, which dominated the home video game market when the film came out, never recovered from the next year's downturn in the industry, and by the 1990s had ceased to exist as anything more than a brand. The Atari of today is an entirely different firm, using the former company's name. Cuisinart similarly went bankrupt in 1989, though it lives on under new ownership. The Bell System monopoly was broken up that same year, and all of the resulting Regional Bell operating companies have since changed their names and merged back with each other and other companies to form the new AT&T. Pan Am suffered the terrorist bombing/destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 and went bankrupt in 1991, after a decade of mounting losses. The Coca-Cola Company, although still tremendously popular, suffered losses during its failed introduction of New Coke in 1985.  

Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel)

The (Frankenstein's Monster) giant head in Prometheus alludes to the fact the aliens & humans are Frankensteins, genetic engineers. Eldon Tyrell filled that role in Blade Runner, and Peter Weyland in Prometheus. The humanoid alien giants are too.

Guy Pearce (Peter Weyland)

 

To read Part 2, click here.

Sources on linkages and symbolic connections in Blade Runner and Prometheus are to be found in the hundreds throughout the Internet, and specifically include various trivia authored by many contributors to IMDb and these movies' critics' websites. Additionally, Wikipedia has been used, when appropriate, for general information that is well-cited and generally known. Please do your own background original research, if you wish, to dig into any specific area discussed. For more insights on Prometheus, please see also here.

Glossary ~

Synchromystic = from Late Latin synchronus, from Greek sunkhronos, from syn- + khronos time + Middle English mistik, from Latin mysticus of mysteries, from Greek mystikos, from mystēs initiate

Synchromysticism was first coined by Jake Kotze in August 2006, on his website-at-the-time, Brave New World Order. Kotze defined the concept as: "The art of realizing meaningful coincidence in the seemingly mundane with mystical or esoteric significance."

Synchromysticism is defined as the drawing of connections in modern culture (movies, music lyrics, historical happenings and esoteric knowledge); and finding connections that could be coming from the "collective unconscious mind"; and finding connections between occult knowledge (i.e. esoteric fraternities, cults and secret rituals), politics and mass media, according to Wiktionary.

The term synchros (short for synchromystic practitioners) was coined by Loren Coleman at the Twilight Language blog to capture the spirit of the researchers, chroniclers, and bloggers who employ active synchromystic analysis, in the tradition of James Shelby Downard and other twilight language intellectuals (as noted here).

Synchros examine the world through a variety of methodologies, including the following:

Onomastics or onomatology is the study of proper names of all kinds and the origins of names. The word is Greek: ὀνοματολογία [from ὄνομα (ónoma) "name"].

Toponymy or toponomastics, the study of place names, is one of the principal branches of onomastics.

Anthroponomastics or anthroponymy, a branch of onomastics, is the study of anthroponyms (anthropos, "man," + onuma, "name"), the names of human beings.

Etymology is the study of the history of words — when they entered a language, from what source, and how their form and meaning have changed over time. In languages with a long detailed history, etymology makes use of philology, the study of how words change from culture to culture over time. The word "etymology" itself comes from the Ancient Athens ἐτυμολογία (etumologia) < ἔτυμον (etumon), “‘true sense’” + -λογία (-logia), “‘study of’”, from λόγος (logos), "speech, oration, discourse, word."

Prometheus and Cannibalism

Coincidences? Synchronicity? A Maryland man was charged with killing another man and eating his heart and portions of his brain. Maryland, Miami, and many, many more, as, literally, cannibals abound. Now, a new movie opens named after a character who had his liver eaten every day. Science fiction becomes reality? Reality becomes science fiction?

The newest "cannibal attack" has occurred in Louisiana, in, yes, Lafayette Parish. (Read more about the powerful name game at the "Fayette Factor.")

What is going on? What myths are being worked out in front of our eyes?

Prometheus (Greek: Προμηθεύς) is a Titan, culture hero, and trickster figure who in Greek mythology is credited with the creation of man from clay.  Prometheus stole fire from Zeus and gave it to the mortals, an act that enabled progress and civilization. He is known for his intelligence, and as a champion of mankind.

The punishment of Prometheus as a consequence of the theft is a major theme of his mythology, and is a popular subject of both ancient and modern art. Zeus, king of the Olympian gods, sentenced the Titan to eternal torment for his transgression. The immortal Prometheus was bound to a rock, where each day an eagle, the emblem of Zeus, was sent to feed on his liver, only to have it grow back to be eaten again the next day. In some stories, Prometheus is freed at last by the hero Heracles (Hercules).

Charlize Theron plays Meredith Vickers

Today, is the date for the June 8th opening in the USA of director Ridley Scott's and producer Tony Scott's Prometheus.

In a review of Prometheus published in The Times of India, Allen O'Brien, TNN, notes one actor above all others, and additionally adds a note tied to our theme here: 

The one standing tall is Noomi Rapace  (Elizabeth Shaw) who has her priorities -- religion versus science -- in place while she is out getting answers to phenomena unexplained. So what if she does not have the muscular frame and steely nerves of Alien's Riley (Remember Sigourney Weaver?); Elizabeth's willpower grows with every situation as she finally stands up to a cannibalistic alien force. Clap! Clap!

"Cannibalistic alien force"? Of course, the aliens aren't eating each other. They are eating humans. The term is being used incorrectly, but that's the way the word "cannibalistic" is employed sometimes.

David (Michael Fassbender) looks in on Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace)

Sources on linkages and symbolic connections in Blade Runner and Prometheus are to be found in the hundreds throughout the Internet, and specifically include various trivia authored by many contributors to IMDb and the two movies commentary websites. Additionally, Wikipedia has been used throughout, when appropriate, for information that is well-cited and generally known. Please do your own background original research, if you wish, to dig into any specific area of interest to you. 

For more insights on Prometheus, please see also my Twilight Language postings here and here.

Venus Transits Sol & Introduces Prometheus

A drawing of the 1631 eruption of Mt. Vesuvius 
by Glovan Batista Passaro.

The December 7, 1631 Transit of Venus was followed on December 16th by a violent, unexpected eruption of Mt. Vesuvius beginning around 6:00 am. Vesivius have been inactive for a great deal of time, probably since 1139. During the night of December 16-17, earthquakes occurred every 1-15 minutes. At about 11:00 am on the 17th, a large mass of ash, gas, and stones flowed down all sides of Vesuvius, causing the liquefaction of the mountain. Ten minutes later, a tsunami up to 6 to 15 feet of height hit the coast. By 6:00 pm on December 17th, the decline of activity began, lasting several days. The death toll was variously reported to be 3000 to 6000 deceased individuals in Pompeii and other locations.


A Transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and Earth, obscuring a small portion of the solar disk. During a transit, Venus can be seen from Earth as a small black disk moving across the face of the Sun. The duration of such transits is usually measured in hours (the transit of 2004 lasted six hours).

Crabtree watching the Transit of Venus A.D. 1639 

by Ford Madox Brown, a mural at Manchester Town Hall

The first known observation of a transit of Venus was made by Jeremiah Horrocks from his home at Carr House in Much Hoole, near Preston in England, on December 4, 1639 (November 24th under the Julian calendar then in use in England). His friend, William Crabtree, also observed this transit from Broughton, near Manchester. Horrocks and Crabtree were founding members of "Nos Keplari." Horrocks died mysteriously two years later, at the age of 22.

Charles Mason (1730-1786), astronomer, and Jeremiah Dixon, (1733-1779), surveyor and astronomer, are best known for giving their name to the Mason-Dixon line in the United States of America. But their biographies are interwoven with their viewing of two Transits of Venus in 1761 and 1769.

In 1760 the Royal Society chose Charles Mason to go to Sumatra to observe the 1761 transit of Venus, and, probably on Bird's recommendation, Mason suggested Dixon should go as his assistant. An encounter with a French frigate delayed their final sailing so that they could not reach Sumatra in time. They therefore landed at the Cape of Good Hope, where the transit was successfully observed on 6 June 1761….
Mason and Dixon eventually reached England early in 1762. In August 1763 Mason and Dixon signed an agreement with Thomas Penn and Frederick Calvert, seventh Baron Baltimore [qq.v.], hereditary proprietors of the provinces of Pennsylvania and Maryland, to go to North America to help local surveyors define the disputed boundary between the two provinces. Arriving in Philadelphia with their instruments in November, they began operations before Christmas 1763. When work for the proprietors on what was to become the famous Mason-Dixon line was complete late in 1766, they began on the Royal Society's behalf, at Dixon's suggestion, to measure a degree of the meridian on the Delmarva peninsula in Maryland and to make gravity measurements with a clock sent out by the Society, the same one that Maskelyne had had in St Helena and Dixon took to the Cape in 1761. They reported their task complete on 21 June 1768 and sailed for England on 11 September. Before leaving, they were both admitted as corresponding members of the American Society held in Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge.
In 1769 Dixon sailed to Norway with William Bayly in the Emerald to make observations of the transit of Venus on 3 June on the Royal Society's behalf. Dixon observed on Hammerfest Island, Bayly at North Cape, about sixty miles apart in case of cloudy weather. They reached England again on 30 July. Dixon returned to Durham, resuming his work as a surveyor. Among places he surveyed at this time were the park of Auckland Castle and Lanchester Common. He died [at age 55] unmarried in Cockfield, county Durham, 22 January 1779.
…
Mason was employed by the Royal Society during six months in 1769 on an astronomical mission at Cavan in Ireland. He observed the second transit of Venus on 3 June, partial solar eclipse of 4 June, the phenomona of Jupiter's satellites, and in August and September the famous comet which signalised the birth year of Napoleon Bonaparte....He returned to America, and died in Philadelphia in 1787. His journals were almost tossed, also found a certificate of admission into American Society of Philadelphia. Dixon was reportedly born in a coal mine, died [at 46] at Durham in 1777. ~ Oxford University Press Dictionary of National Biography

The above drawing was created, partially, in anticipation of the Transit of Venus of December 9, 1874. Bob Rickard, editor of Fortean Times, writes me: "This is an illustration from Harry Price's Poltergeist over England (1945) and is a satirical comment on the alleged teleportation of the medium Mrs. Guppy during a poltergeist haunting in London in 1871."

Transit of Venus, December 1882

Freemason John Philip Sousa's Transit of Venus was composed after the Transit of 1882 (pictured). See here for more synchromystic details related to Sousa.


After 1882, the next Transit of Venus was not until June 8, 2004. What notable events are associated with that Transit? Days before it occurred, on June 4th, Ronald Reagan, American actor, 40th President of the United States (b. 1911), and officially a Scottish Rite Mason, died. On June 8th, during the Transit, the 30th G8 summit took place on Sea Island, Georgia, USA.


One seemingly strange event was timed exactly for the 2004 Transit of Venus. The heart of the dauphin Louis-Charles, recognized by French royalists as Louis XVII of France, was entombed in the royal crypt of Saint-Denis Basilica outside Paris, 211 years after he perished in the French Revolution. DNA testing had verified the heart as belonging to the son of the guillotined King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. No French government officials or members of reigning royal families attended the service.



The Year 2004 is perhaps most remembered for one of the worst natural disasters in recorded history, when the strongest earthquake in 40 years hit the entire Indian Ocean region. The massive 9.3 magnitude earthquake, epicentered just off the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, generated enormous tsunami waves that crashed into the coastal areas of a number of nations including Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. The official death toll in the affected countries is recorded as 186,983, while more than 40,000 people are listed as still missing.

Strange Eye looks at the 17 dates of the previous sixteen Transits, plus the 2012 Transit of Venus.

For 2012, this Transit will be visible in its entirety from Hawaii, Alaska, Australia, the Pacific and eastern Asia, with the beginning of the Transit visible from North America and the end visible from Europe.

Secret Sun had a few visual observations about the forthcoming Transit of Venus, posted a month before the event, here. Etemenanki has his too, and Andrew Griffin, as well.


The Transit of Venus will be seen in the USA on June 5, 2012, from about 8 PM EDT until sunset. It will continue be visible during sunrise in the UK on June 6th. The Queen's Diamond Jubilee is on June 2-5, 2012, in the United Kingdom, as noted in "Queen's Diamond Jubilee omens." 

What will truly occur in 2012? 


What you perceive as happening in the wake of this year's Transit of Venus may not be as euphonious as you have heard in various peace-filled and transformational predictions. Well-known astrologer and former psychotherapist Philip Levine of Sirius Astrological Services shared with me his balanced insights about the upcoming Transit of Venus:

It seems like no big deal that Venus is doing this. One hundred five years is a very short time in the life of planets. And this Sun-Venus conjunction is squared by Mars, so all the harmony and money and love and other Venusian things that one might expect have a fairly loud dissenting voice being thrown into the mix, because Mars squares are about hostility, conflict, aggression, and competition. Such a time would seem to be challenging in terms of finding the best mix of these opposing principles.

Venus, Mars, the Sun...thoughts of a human from a company named Sirius? I can't think of a better guide to a more reasonable way to think about this event.

But what will be the most immediate phantasmagoric space-related imagery that directly follows the 2012 Transit of Venus? Indeed, it may be the June 8th opening in the USA of Ridley Scott's Prometheus, which introduces its new mythos for our beginning, graphically. 

Prometheus stole fire from Zeus and gave it to the mortals. What will this movie give to all of us? What will the Transit of Venus presage for tomorrow?

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"I do not know how to find out anything new without being offensive. To the ignorant, all things are pure: all knowledge is, or implies, the degradation of something. One who learns of metabolism, looks at a Venus, and realises she's partly rotten. However, she smiles at him, and he renews his ignorance. All things in the sky are pure to those who have no telescopes. But spots on the sun, and lumps on the planets -- and, being a person of learning, or, rather, erudition, myself, I've got to besmirch something, or nobody will believe I am -- and I replace the pure, blue sky with the wormy heavens...." 

~ Charles Fort, Lo!