A Slight Detour
"In expressing the laws of the unity of endless diversity a symbol itself possesses an endless number of aspects from which it can be examined and it demands from the man approaching it the ability to see simultaneously from different points of view. Symbols which are transposed into the words of ordinary language become rigid - then, they grow dim and very easily become 'their own opposites' confining the meaning within the narrow dogmatic frames, without giving it even the very relative freedom of a logical examination of a subject. "Gurdjieff, speaking in 'In Search of the Miraculous' by P.D. Ouspensky
Don't be fooled by the sub heading, we are still dealing with Kubrick and EWS. It's just a slight detour before I go into the relationship between Kubrick and the Sumerian stele from the previous post.
This post was inspired by a radio interview of the author Robert Sullivan regarding his book, 'The Royal Arch of Enoch'. It struck me that Sullivan along with other Masonic writers such as Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas are following the symbolic path to lead to a conclusion that is then reinforced by circumstantial evidence.
I have no problem with this approach, it's what I'm doing here with the exception I don't believe there is a hard and fast answer. You're combining someone who is trying to convey a message, Kubrick, who also happens to be an artist. As Gurdjieff said, we must not become rigid and dogmatic as we transpose these symbols into ordinary language. And as I will post later, there is much evidence of Masonic symbolism in Kubrick's films.
But the point I wanted to cover is that there is a group, if you will, that takes symbols very, very seriously. Such that, as many consider mathematics a universal language, this group considers symbols to be that language. They believe symbols to be a means of communicating through time, across cultures and even species. Symbols are not just visual, they are ritual. They are acted out.
This nattily attired gentleman is the late James Shelby Downard, co-author of a brilliant essay entitled "King Kill 33". It became the inspiration for the Marilyn Manson song of the same name.
I do not espouse the political views or philosophies of Downard or his co-author Michael Hoffman II but that doesn't lessen the brilliance of this essay. I recommend obtaining a copy, unless you are lucky enough to have a 1st edition Apocalypse Culture, edited by Adam Parfrey. Subsequent editions did not have it.
Downard and Hoffman are proponents of the concept of 'Masonic Sorcery' and it's practice by Arch Criminals. I will do my best to summarize but there is sufficient information available on the web.
Basically, the authors describe a 1% of Masonry ("...most 'Freemasons' apparently have no idea of the evil that is part of Masonry...") who are in on the secret and that the key of Masonic Sorcery is the rulership of the collective mind (dreaming mind or unconscious mind) of humanity.
This 1% uses symbolic ritual (psychodramas, they call them) enacted out on the world stage to achieve their ends. The elite have already enacted two of their three alchemical rituals. The first was the destruction of the prima materia at a point close to the 33rd degree, Los Alamos, with the detonation of the 1st modern atomic bomb. The second was the Killing of the King with JFK. The 3rd is to 'Make Manifest all that is Hidden'.
To quote the Jim Brandon in 'Weird America' via Wikipedia,
"Would you believe John F. Kennedy as a ceremonial king-who-must-die? I'm afraid there is a certain body of opinion, undoubtedly the farthest-out brain wave of assassinology yet, that maintains the killing was pulled off, not by the Russians, the Cubans, the CIA, or the Mafia, but by alchemists. As I understand the hypothesis, President Kennedy was for some reason chosen as The King (remember "Camelot," "Macbird" and all that?) after the fashion of James G. Frazer and Mary Renault whose "The King Must Die" he had been given to read before his death.
This killing of the king in Dallas was related somehow to the touching off of the world's first atomic bomb at the Trinity Site in New Mexico 18 years earlier. Apparently the Bomb was the "destruction of primordial matter" stage of the grand alchemical working, but these conspiracy buffs aren't much more specific on details than were the early alchemists in their recipes. Anyway, Kennedy represented the next stage of the process - the "Death of the White King" - when he was immolated on a trinity site of his own. For, aren't Dealey Plaza and the ill-famed Triple Underpass on the bank of the old Trinity River?"
A large part of this process is the revelation of the method, to fulfill the 3rd Law of Alchemy to "make manifest all that is hidden". According to Downard, this is done to "...seal finally and for all time the eternal pagan psychodrama which works through every mass organization of man."
To this end, Kennedy (the representation of the king) was killed in Dallas (as close the 33rd degree latitude as possible) as a scapegoat to bring the 1% closer to their avowed goal of rebuilding Solomon's Temple on the 33rd degree. Essentially ritual and symbol are so much a part of this 1% that most of us who think linearly and literally can not comprehend their purpose.
You would have to read the entire essay, I'm not doing it justice and Downard and Hoffman believe what they are writing.
What does that have to do with Kubrick or EWS? I don't know... an elite group, committed to ritual and symbolism... hmm?
For Barry Lyndon, for the sake of the widow's son.