'Four Corners'

Mystical-American Hotspot

Introduction

On a list of “power places” in the United States (see HERE) – one that would take us from the ancient “earthen works” at Serpent Mound in Ohio, through the stainless-steel Gateway Arch in St. Louis, to the American “New Age” capital of Sedona, Arizona – we would certainly mention the Four Corners.

Every year, more than a quarter-million tourists travel U.S. Route 160 to visit the monument that is routinely, if blandly, described as “the only place [in the U.S.] where four states meet.”

Of course, the reference is to the supposed point of intersection among Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah.

Like many other national monuments, the early history of the Four-Corners’ marker is a fluid tale. However, it’s worth noting that next year (as of this writing) – 2025 – will likely be commemorated as the 150th anniversary of the erection of the “sandstone shaft” installed at the Four Corners by United States General Land Office surveyor Chandler Robbins in 1875.

This date – although it could be disputed as the “correct” one – was previously cited during the 125th anniversary back in 2000.^[1]

Once upon a time, the Four Corners area was explored as the possible site of the fabled “Seven Cities of Cíbola” – which we discussed in a recent, brief video (HERE).

“Indeed, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, leader of the second search for the Seven Cities, traveled very near the mythical Four Corners country… Here, Indians known as the Anasazi [more on which, shortly] had held sway for hundreds of years… until their mysterious disappearance in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.”^[2] For more, see the past presentation.

Coincidentally or not, the Four Corners area is “surrounded by lands [that are still] sacred to both the Navajo and Hopi [American-Indian] nations.”^[3] It’s associated with numerous, curious oddities – such as “severe storms” that hit “without warning” – due to a longstanding “weather-radar blind spot” and other anomalies.^[4] What’s all the fuss about?

(For the video version of this presentation, see:)

A Monumental Miscalculation?

First, however, we should probably tackle head-on the perennial allegation that the Four Corners marker doesn’t actually sit in the right place.

As disclosed in press reports some years back, (and as some intrepid Google-Map users have reported) the gist of this charge is that the four-state intersection was imprecisely surveyed. Interestingly, the worry comes in two forms, with some criticizing the monument makers for a major blunder and others merely cautioning about a more or less minor error.

Charge #1: It’s Way Off!

The former version goes something like this. The Four Corners’ monument is “off” by as much as two and half miles!

But before we sharpen the pencils on our compasses, or break out our yard sticks, we should keep the following in mind. According to online summaries of the monument’s history, (and defenses of its accuracy),^[5] in 1863 the U.S. Congress decreed^[6] that the divide between the Arizona and New Mexico Territories “should be coincident with the 32nd meridian of longitude west of the Washington (D.C.) Meridian.”^[7]

Washington, D.C. is located on the 77th meridian (or line of longitude). So, the starting point for this version of the complaint may be the belief that the location of Four Corners was supposed to have been along the 109-degree line of west longitude.^[8] But… it isn’t. At least, not exactly.

It’s at 109.04517°W. And this deviation translates to 2+ miles. That’s the argument. However…

The U.S. National Geodetic Survey (NGS) replies that this reasoning is based on an incorrect assumption. According to the NGS, the reference meridian was the one that would have “…bisect[ed] the dome of the old Naval Observatory,” namely, “77 degrees 3 minutes West.”^[9]

Therefore, the answer to the major-blunder folks is to point out that the boundary line should not be expected to be found at 109 degrees per se. But…

Charge #2: It’s Still Wrong!

Even this adjusted value leads to a modified complaint. The more modest objection is based on the fact that the relevant surveying – which was conducted between 1868 and 1875 – just wasn’t as pin-point accurate as what we can establish today, in the wake of satellites and PCs.

Here, the NGS admits that there’s something to the naysayers’ claims. For, even if the 19th-century surveyor (the previously named Chandler Robbins) was aiming at 109 degrees 3 minutes (or, to be more precise, 109 degrees 2 minutes 59.25 seconds), he still missed!

Once again, we can see this by turning to Wikipedia which shows – evidently accurately – that the present Four-Corners brass plate lies along 109 degrees 2 minutes 42.612 seconds West.

This difference – between 2 minutes 59.25 seconds and 2 minutes 42.612 seconds – is enough to put the actual monument around 1,800 feet to the east of where it was intended to be. (Or, in some reports, 1,807.14 feet.)

Still with us? What’s the big deal? There are two sides to the coin.

#1 It’s Not an Issue, Legally

Turning, again, to the NGS, one writer declares that although the present monument deviates from the exact coordinates Robbins was angling towards, nevertheless, the location has been accepted as-is by the states involved.

In other words, the surveying – as it was actually done by Robbins (and others of the period) – was adopted as the de jure boundary between the Arizona and New Mexico Territories and, eventually, the states of Colorado (1876), Utah (1896), New Mexico (1912), and Arizona (1912).

From a legal standpoint, then, the deviation is purely a theoretical, academic matter and only has historical interest.^[10] But, surely, if there’s a counterpoint, it would be something like this.

#2 Where’s the Mystical Mojo?

Insofar as the intended coordinates were calibrated with respect to the Washington, D.C. meridian, we might suspect that the monument’s planned location was selected with an eye toward what we might call “number magic.”

If this is tenable, then – extending our hypothesis, and setting aside the possibility of mundane boundary disputes – we might suspect that the real magnetism lies elsewhere.

Because, as the Warner Bros cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn once memorably exclaimed: “Figures don’t lie”! And that launches us headlong into an exploration that is presumably more abstract than anything you could photograph along Highway 160.

A Dose of Numerology

The mystical side of numbers and mathematics arguably goes back to Pythagoras, whom we profiled in a dedicated video and included in our list of the “top ten” esoterics of all time.

Plato was heavily influenced by this current, as is seen – for instance – in his cosmologically oriented dialog titled the Timæus.

In that work, Plato discussed various regular polyhedrons – now called “Platonic solids” – even going so far as to associate them with the four basic elements of Empedocles… plus the fabled “fifth element,” or quintessence, of course.

Some of this seems to have inspired the actor Terrence Howard, who recently promoted his wacky “Terryology” on the popular internet show The Joe Rogan Experience.^[11]

Historically, numerology also shows up in the Jewish Kabbalah, which includes several arcane alphanumeric manipulations that fly under the banner of Gematria and allied disciplines.^[12]

Much this bubbled up to the surface during the European Renaissance, when so-called “humanists” like Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Johannes Reuchlin married Pythagorean doctrines and Neoplatonism with a supposedly “Christianized” version of the Kabbalah.^[13]

For more on these figures, by the way, see “10 Mystery Men”:

If you’re still with me (and we surveyed some of this in past videos), this witches’ brew leads us to the alchemical laboratory of the Elizabethan “magus” – and mathematician – John Dee.

Among other wide-ranging interests (including astrology and, allegedly, communicating with angels or demons via a technique known as “scrying”), Dee – who at one time sat at the feet of map-innovator Gerardus Mercator – was involved in then-cutting-edge developments in cartography and navigation.

To make short shrift of a lot of abstruse doctrines, the driving force for Dee (and likeminded occultists) seems to have been the belief that carving up the world into numbers would facilitate both access and control of the globe. In other words, it was in the service of imperialism.

And we have concrete, historical examples of monuments being set up under astrological direction – quite possibly for magical reasons. For a single European illustration of this, we turn to Dee’s contemporary, the Dominican mathematician and astronomer Ignazio Danti.

Danti assisted Italian Renaissance architect Domenico Fontana when Catholic Pope Sixtus V commissioned the erection of four Egyptian obelisks, including the one still – and famously – located in St. Peter’s Square, in the heart of Vatican City. (For relevant background material, see Michael Hoffman’s The Occult Renaissance Church of Rome, 2017.)

Mind you, this was no mean feat in the 16th century. Hence, Danti’s calculations – whether astrological, geographic, geometric, or what have you – would have been crucial.

Back in America, one of, if not the crucial variables here is the claim that Washington, D.C. was purposely constructed along the 77th meridian. Offbeat videographer Christian J. Pinto pursued this line of inquiry for his 2006 documentary, Secret Mysteries of America’s Beginnings.^[14]

In that presentation, Pinto summarized the viewpoint of researcher Duncan Steel, who claimed that John Dee had devised a calendar system that depended upon or implicated the 77th meridian, which Steel christened “God’s Longitude.”

Recall: in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII had officially promulgated a replacement for the calendar that bore the name of Roman Emperor Julius Caesar with the one we still call the Gregorian.

Steele went so far as to claim that famed 16th-century Elizabethan explorer Sir Walter Raleigh figures into this equation. You may immediately recall Raleigh’s name in conjunction with the quest for the golden cities of CÍbola, which we recently surveyed in a dedicated video.^[15]

In 1585, Raleigh “sponsored” the founding of what is now known as the “Lost Colony” of Roanoke – which he intended to have been “the first English colony in America” – on an island which is part of present-day North Carolina.^[16]

One of the key players “was John White, who became Roanoke’s governor. In 1587, White sailed to England for supplies, leaving about 100 colonists,^[17] including his daughter and new granddaughter, Virginia Dare, first English child born in the New World. White returned in 1590 to find Roanoke Island deserted, the single word ‘CROATOAN’ carved on a tree. The colonists were never found.”^[18]

According to Duncan Steele, Raleigh’s true purpose was not to set up a self-sufficient, Jamestown-style beachhead. Rather, Roanoke was merely the landing-and-staging area for a scouting party whose mission was to plant the English flag along God’s Meridian. And this was located several miles inland.

Professedly Protestant Christians, the English fascination with the 77th line of longitude likely went beyond Dee’s astronomical calculations. After all, in the genealogy set forth by Saint Luke the Evangelist, there were “…seventy-seven generations…” from Adam to Jesus Christ.

As the great, 4th-5th-century “Church Doctor” Saint Augustine of Hippo pointed out, this is that same number is one way to symbolize perfect forgiveness – as seen in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter eighteen, verses twenty-one and twenty-two.

In the Old Testament Book of Genesis we read that Lamech invoked the number seventy-seven as a declaration of his all-consuming vengefulness. In fact, some authorities say that “[a]ll derivatives or multiples of seven carry with the the idea of wholeness.”^[19] Not just for Christians.

Thus, unsurprisingly, Muslims too seem to esteem the number seventy-seven – as seen, for example, in the authoritative traditions known as the Hadith where the Prophet Muhammad was said to have identified “77 Branches of Faith.”^[20]

Not to be outdone, infamous late-19th-to-20th-c. British occultist Edward Alexander “Aleister” Crowley released his declaration on the “Rights of Man” under the Latinized title Liber OZ, often translated as “Book 77.”

So, you could say that – in the imagination of Crowley and his many admirers – seventy-seven represents what other streams of “alt spirituality” (including esoteric Freemasonry) have termed the “Perfected Man.”

Perhaps there’s an echo of this in folklore regarding “the seventh son of a seventh son.”

That the potential numerical Palindrome also made an appearance in one of the darkest hours in the domestic United States is a fact that didn’t go unnoticed by author S. K. Bain (See The Most Dangerous Book in the World).

But… Whatever the explanation for its alleged appeal to our “Founding Fathers,”^[21] according to the aforementioned Pinto, such is the mystique of the 77th line of longitude that Washington, D.C. was founded (in part) to harness the power of this meridian.

If this seems far fetched, recall that there is still a park in Washington, D.C. called “Meridian Hill.” It’s initial, planned function was to serve as a marker for a proposed, domestic “prime meridian line …determined from the [U.S.] Capitol.”^[22]

Stay tuned for our planned exploration of the District of Columbia.

A tangent linguistic point comes to us by way of Catholic priest Fr. Gabriele Amorth, subject of the 2023 movie The Pope’s Exorcist, featuring actor Russell Crowe.

According to Amorth, writing originally in a 1990 autobiography^[23] which was translated into English nine years later as An Exorcist Tells His Story,^[24] the list of “heavyweight” demons includes one named “Meridian.”

Of course, meridian – the word – comes Latin, where it meant (roughly) “noon.”^[25]

With respect to the connexion to demonology, recall that Lucifer means “light bringer”^[26] and Satan “masquerades as angel of light” according to the New Testament’s Second Letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 14 in the Bible. Of course, at this point, we might bring in the extreme-weather peculiarities that plague Four Corners – teased in our intro.^[27]

After all, the Egyptian deity Set evidently presided over both deserts and storms. Not least among these phenomena is the fact that the Colorado Plateau (which, incidentally, “is within a ring of mountains of volcanic origin”) displays “very high concentrations of lightning activity.”^[28]

Recall, also, various radar anomalies which left residents open to blizzards in 1997 and 2013.

In 2015, one such mammoth snowstorm “…closed U.S. 491 from Cortez to Monticello, Utah… for 17 hours.”^[29] What’s that got to do with anything?

Oh! We haven’t mentioned that U.S. 491 used to be numbered Route 666 – which is odd, in the first place, since it was an even number for a north-south roadway.^[30]

The more conspicuous point is that Highway 666 was nicknamed the “Devil’s Highway.”^[31]

“In the Bible,” of course, “the Book of [Revelation] says 666 is the ‘number of the beast,’ usually interpreted as Satan or the Antichrist…”^[32]

For more on that personage, see “10 Nameless Bible Characters – and Their Secret Names!”

The route number was changed in 2003. As an Associated Press dispatch from that year declared: “It's the Apocalypse for ‘Devil’s Highway’: U.S. 666 Gets a Less-Fiendish Number.”^[33]

Although, before assuming that 491 is a harmless number, let’s turn to Wikipedia. A relevant article summarizes an obscure 1964 Swedish film titled 491, saying: “The film’s tagline is: ‘It is written that 490 times you can sin and be forgiven. This motion picture is about the 491st.’”^[34]

In speaking of God’s Meridian, we earlier alluded to the Gospel of Matthew. You’ll recall chapter eighteen verse twenty-two where Jesus sets the bar of forgiveness – not at “seven times, but seventy-seven times.”^[35] …In the phraseology of the New International Version of the Bible.

But… the King James translation renders the same passage: “Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.”

Not to put too fine a point on it, but 70 times 7 equals 490. Which could imply that 491 represents unforgiveness or is, in a word, every bit as antichrist as 666. Regardless, the foreign film was evidently banned in some Scandinavian countries and in the United Kingdom.^[36]

But… back in the good ol’ U.S. of A: A Devil’s Highway? Demonic and Divine “Meridians”? And why was the Arizona / New-Mexico boundary specified to be offset from the so-called “God’s Longitude” by 32 degrees? What gives?

We can’t say for sure! After all, we’re not members of Skull and Bones, Yale University’s super-secret fraternity that has populated the Federal government since the days of William Howard Taft all the way through George W. Bush.

For more on that, by the way, see “10 Occultist Spies.”

Additionally, we’re not invited to the pagan-infused ceremonials of the Bohemian Grove, in the redwood forests of Sonoma County, California,^[37] a little less than a two-hour’s drive from San Francisco along U.S. 101.

On which, see “10 Presidents Who Were Members of Secret Societies.”

But we can say the number thirty-two means more to occultists than designating the average number of teeth in an adult human mouth or the freezing point of water on the Fahrenheit scale.

Or even half the number of squares on a chess board – tho, if author David Talbot was onto something, this little “throw-away fact” might be more penetrating an insight than it may seem.^[38]

For instance, in the Jewish-mystical Kabbalah, there are “thirty-two paths of wisdom” associated with the diagram known as the “Tree of Life.” By official count, “32” is the sum of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet plus the ten divine sephirot.

Let us know in the comments section if you’d like to see us survey the general contours of Kabbalah (or, for that matter, of Freemasonry, Gnosticism, or Rosicrucianism), like we did Neoplatonism. (Note: We have already considered Kabbalah’s place in “Sex Magic.”)

In any case… This Kabbalistic use of the number may have informed Freemasonry, which counts the 32nd degree as the penultimate in the influential Scottish Rite. N.B. that “penultimate” means next-to-last and not “super ultimate”!^[39]

After all, Freemasonry is replete with Jewish-mystical symbolism, including its flagship “Compass and Square,” which is reminiscent of an incomplete “Star of David.”

Moreover, Freemasons are fascinated with the lore surrounding Solomon’s Temple and – indeed – have a veritable obsession with the prospect of seeing it “rebuilt.”^[40]

Finally, some repositories of Masonic ritualism declare two of the order’s ends to be “…the good of Masonry, generally, but the [good of the] Jewish nation in particular.”^[41] – A datum that it is well to recall as one scans headlines for recent news items originating from the Middle East.

Crucially for our story, Freemasonry (and similar fraternal orders) were on the rise during “Reconstruction” – an era we discussed at greater length in our “Election Fraud” video.

As we explored in “Presidents Who Were in Secret Societies,” it’s certainly true that Masonry temporarily declined following the disappearance and presumed murder of Captain William Morgan in 1826.

(For some of the SynchroMystical backdrop pertaining to 45^th / 47^th President Donald Trump, see our symbolic exploration of “January 6.”)

In fact, this episode resulted in the formation of one of the first influential “third parties” in American history, the Anti-Masonic Party. But the anti- and Pro-Masonic battle was eclipsed by the war between the North and South (the American Civil War). After that, the “Craft” (as it’s sometimes called) once again gained traction. In fact…

“By the beginning of the twentieth century, researchers say that as many as one-third of all Americans belonged to a secret society, and there were hundreds” of such organizations.^[42]

Significantly, the federal government was heavily populated with masons. You can get a sense of this merely by looking at presidential officeholders since the Civil War. Andrew Johnson, James Garfield, William McKinley, Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, the previously mentioned William Howard Taft, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (or “FDR”), Harry S. Truman, Lyndon Baines Johnson (that is, “LBJ”), and Gerald R. Ford are all said to have been card-carrying Masons.

Additionally, Ronald Reagan was made an honorary member of Scottish Rite Freemasonry, February 11th, 1988.

And William Jefferson Blythe, III – better known as William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton – belonged to the Order of DeMolay, which is a Masonic youth group named after the executed Grand Knight Templar, Jacques DeMolay.^[43]

Of course, we got into much more detail on these matters in our “Masonic Presidents” video.

But, our point is that the earliest history of the Four Corners Monument coincides with the heyday of American Freemasonry. From 1863, when Congress ordered the above-referenced territorial survey, to 1868, when what we now think of as the marker was initially set, through 1875, when surveyor Chandler Robbins went about his business, this was the age of Masonry.^[44]

It shouldn’t be at all surprising if Masonic numerology found its way into a Congressional decree. A contemporary example of this was House Resolution 33, from 2007, “Recognizing the thousands of Freemasons in every State …and honoring them for their many contributions ….”^[45] The number 33 – as already discussed – is patently Masonic.

…As was F.D.R.’s introduction of the All-Seeing Eye and related symbolism to the dollar bill.

For more on all these odds and ends, once again see “Presidents and Secret Societies” as well as “10 GOLD-MAKING Alchemists.”

Not only this, but Masons are undeniably fascinated with “sacred geometry” – or, the idea that specific mathematical proportions or relations have symbolic importance or even magical power.

In fact, one oft-mentioned, possible interpretation of the cryptic letter “G” – often surrounded by the Masonic compass-and-square – is that it signifies allegiance to this sort of Geometry.

Though, for an alternative perspective, see our several explorations of Gnosticism.

Don’t forget that Freemasons extol the virtues of a demigod figure they refer to as the “Great Architect of the Universe.”

It’s arguable that these Masonic preoccupations derive from or are motivated by the previously mentioned Jewish Gematria, as well as Hermetic maxims such as “As Above, So Below.”

Writers like David Ovason and James Wasserman have put considerable energy into arguing that the Founding Fathers were interested in laying out D.C. in accordance with these precepts.

Miscellaneous Anomalies

Even granting this Kabbalistic-Masonic numerology, you may still be saying to yourself: “Yeah, okay. But why the Four Corners?” Let’s gesture towards a few of the evidential bits and pieces.

Firstly, would you believe that, in ruins found in Yellow Jacket Canyon in southwestern Colorado – just north of the Four Corners along the 109th Meridian – were ancient plaster walls displaying what one apparently sober-minded archaeologist termed “masons’ signs”?^[46]

Admittedly, the prospect of early Amer-Indians dressing in Masonic regalia or greeting each other with secret handshakes seems vanishingly slim. Although… Freemasons themselves enjoy speculating along these lines.

One thinks, for example, of the ancient Egyptian obelisk standing in New York’s Central Park. One of two such monuments referred to, jointly, as “Cleopatra’s Needles” (the other currently located on the Victoria Embankment in London), it was hewn in Heliopolis (Cairo) during the reign of Pharaoh Thutmose III. Despite its antiquity, one writer – sympathetic to Masonry – wrote (in 1904) that “[t]e discovery of Masonic emblems in the foundation steps to the pedestal of the Egyptian obelisk …is accepted by many as strong evidence that Freemasonry existed at least a century before Christ.”^[47]

There’s also Rudyard Kipling’s classic novel The Man Who Would Be King, memorably brought to the silver screen by director John Huston and featuring actors Michael Caine, Sean Connery, and Christopher Plummer. The basic story revolves around “two British adventurers in …India who become kings of Kafiristan, a remote part of Afghanistan.”^[48]

Hopefully without giving too much away, let’s just say that, in the course of the narrative, Kipling – who was a Mason himself – at one point advances his plot by having his main characters “…discover that the [Kafiris] practiced a form of Masonic ritual…”.^[49] In other words, Kipling represents Masonry as ancient and widespread enough to be recognizable in parts of central Asia that (up to that time) had been virtually untouched by Europeans.

Returning to the American southwest, and (for the moment) setting fiction aside, the Four Corners area undeniably seems to exude Synchro-Mojo – well before, and apart from, the goings on in the 38th Congress.

For instance: “The Four Corners area … is the major U.S. hot spot for methane emissions.”^[50]

Recently, researchers from the Boulder, Colorado-based Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (better known by the acronym NASA), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) brought sophisticated equipment to bear on the issue. According to “…Christian Frankenberg, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, …a small region around the Four Corners …had the highest concentration of methane [gas] over background levels of any part of the United States.”^[51]

On top of this, the surrounding area – including the sprawling Colorado Plateau – is a major source of radioactive uranium, important (of course) to advance the nation’s nuclear ambitions.

Stay tuned for a planned Synchromystical tour of Los Alamos, New Mexico, home of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and site of the Manhattan Project, recently dramatized in Hollywood director Christopher Nolan’s 2023 film, Oppenheimer. The movie centers around pioneering nuclear physicist Julius Robert Oppenheimer, so-called “Father of the Atomic Bomb.”

And then there are tales of an evidently malign, 9-foot-tall, gray-haired monster. Its terrifying growls have disturbed more than one New-Mexico family’s sleep near the Four Corners. The case would be tempting to file under the heading “hallucinations” were it not for allegations of resultant property damage.

Photos circulate that allegedly display bite marks and deep, three-clawed scratches left in structures and vehicles in the path of the unknown creature some have nicknamed the “Night Stalker.” So, Cryptid aficionados (see HERE and HERE) will also find something of interest at the Four Corners.^[52]

Additionally, astute observers of news and politics – both nationally and internationally – will not be surprised that the now nearly ubiquitous Unidentified Flying Objects (or “UFO”) phenomenon is also represented at Four Corners… possibly, in a big way.

For example, according to career military man and so-called UFO “whistleblower” William “Bill” Holden: “[T]here were many crashes in the Four Corners [area].”^[53]

Unfortunately, the topic is both broader – and deeper – than we can tackle fully here. From necessary work at archives like Mutual UFO Network to the many contrarian theories of astronomer and computer scientist Jacques Vallée, our work will be cut out for us preparing worthwhile reportage to add to the panorama. However…

Readers can be certain that such further UFO explorations are every bit on the order of the day.

Nevertheless, despite the tangle of competing hypotheses and the veritable avalanche of eyewitness reports, we do wish to direct your attention to some of the quasi-mystical insights of the enigmatic TAL Levesque.

For, you see, the Fortean writer known as TAL Levesque,^[54] who regaled his readership with an oracular style reminiscent of other intuitives like Freemasonic philosopher Manly Palmer Hall and SynchroMystic Godfather James Shelby Downard, also suggested that there is a close connexion between the Four Corners and UFO activity of various sorts.

Levesque proposed that the Four Corners – with its own network of as-yet-unmapped caves honeycombing the interior of the Colorado Plateau – might be an access route to some subterranean power realm.

Levesque went on to cite self-professed UFO “contactee” George Hunt Williamson.^[55] Writing in 1961 under the pen name “Brother Philip,” Williamson’s The Secret of the Andes^[56] forecast a future flood submerging the continental U.S.A. Except, that is, various “mountain places on the East and West coasts” – including (of course!) the Four Corners.

Finally, there’s offbeat investigators Joan Price and Elizabeth A. Rauscher.

“In studying the local environmental fields of the Colorado Plateau region,” they alleged “…an abundance of negative air ions at many …Indian sacred places …, as well as unusually strong positive electrical currents in the ground. …One of their most fascinating finds is that, underlying the Four Corners region, there is a labyrinth of caverns which connect with the surface through caves and ‘blow holes.’ On a hot summer day, wind …[flows] out of these …vents at as much as twenty miles per hour, sometimes creating audible whistling noises. …At night, as surface temperatures drop, air rushes back into the ground, recharging …[these pneumatic] reservoirs.”^[57]

The process is sometimes dubbed the “breathing earth.”^[58]

But… did you catch the reference to “Indian Sacred Places”? And on that note, we introduce as our final chapter, highlights of a story that – in truth – is much closer to the beginning of things.

The Anasazi

Remembered as “makers of …multistoried cliff dwellings … in northwestern New Mexico,…”^[59] “[t]he Anasazi were” – by some accounting – the greatest builders among the peoples native to North America.^[60] They erected huge semicircular pueblos across the Four Corners area of the Southwest. The summit of their art was Pueblo Bonito …in New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon.

“This tenth-century complex stood five stories tall in parts, its 800 rooms occupying three acres. Its thick walls were made of irregular sandstone blocks with modular doorways connecting adjacent rooms and rows of log beams supporting the floors overhead.”^[61]

Arguably, these structures were “…monuments worthy of the Egyptian pharaohs…” With other ancient American civilizations (such as the Mohican, Olmec, and Toltec) the Anasazi buildings were paired with “urban public works on a par with the achievements of classical Rome, and [housed] …artifacts every bit the match of medieval European handicrafts. New World astronomers were no less accomplished, devising calendars that would have been the envy of Renaissance mathematicians. And the priests who spun out the Native American folklore made it every bit as rich and meaningful as the great fables of India.”^[62]

“In 1977, amateur archaeologist Anna Sofaer climbed 443 treacherous feet up a butte [Fajada] in New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon and discovered an ancient artifact of stunning importance: the Anasazi Sun Dagger. …The Sun Dagger, at first glance a haphazard assemblage of rocks and spiral petroglyphs, tracked the sun’s seasonal movements. …Built to mark solar time, the sophisticated stone device indicates a staggeringly high level of geometric and astronomical skill among the Anasazi people.”^[63]

For the purposes of this study, during which we’ve had several occasions to comment on the creation of calendars, there’s a further, remarkable fact.

“In capturing the midday sun as a means of timekeeping, the Anasazi Sun Dagger is unusual among ancient astronomical tools. Most other such devices, including England’s Stonehenge observatory, detect the solstices by sighting the sun’s position on the horizon at sunrise.”^[64]

In other words, the Anasazi placed special emphasis on the meridian sun. This is interesting, in light of our previous discussion.

Recall that word (a synonym for longitude), which is so central to the Four Corners Monument story. We floated the remote possibility that “Meridian” may be an alias for the Prince of Darkness, Lucifer or Satan himself, who is occasionally said to appear “more dazzling than the sun’s meridian ray”^[65] and whose Route 666 highway was a fixture of the area until 2003.

In any event, the name Anasazi is a loan word from the Navajo language of Athabascan. In that tongue, the word means “enemy ancestors” or “enemy old ones.” Were the Anasazi diabolical?

“[W]hat caused the collapse of the ancient empire of the Anasazi”? What triggered the apparent disappearance of that entire race? These questions constitute “the most perplexing mystery of [American] southwestern archaeology…”.^[66]

“During the thirteenth century, the Anasazi left their homeland, …[perhaps] fleeing some intruder or escaping from famine or drought.”^[67]

The previously mentioned TAL Levesque hypothesized a much more calamitous scenario. According to him, the Anasazi had been “violently destroyed in a vast catastrophe involving …levels of heat …atrribut[able] to thermonuclear explosions”.^[68]

For an excursus on “Cold Fusion,” see the companion video.

The seemingly outlandish claim is – perhaps – made slightly less implausible by the “Tunguska Event.” On June 30, 1908 – nearly forty years before “Oppie” and co. concluded the Manhattan Project with a mushroom cloud – an unexplained occurrence leveled nearly one-thousand square miles of forest along the Tunguska River in what was then Imperial Russia.

Sometimes called the “Siberian Fireball,”^[69] the incident has given rise to a number of proposed explanations – ranging from pedestrian, “scientific” accounts (like an “air-burst” meteor) to undiluted sci-fi (such as that the earth was attacked by aliens with “photon” blasters). Among the surmises is that the devastation was caused by some bona-fide nuclear device beyond the ken of quantum physicists.

It’s worth pointing out that, according to the shadowy early 20th-century alchemist known only as “Fulcanelli,” experts in the ancient, hermetic arts were capable of “transmuting” substances with incendiary effect – and quite apart from particle colliders or nuclear reactors.

This line of speculation received a “boost” (circa the 1980s), when intelligence sources (of unknown credibility) circulated reports of the dangerous “red mercury.” The story goes that this mystery materiel (out of “Red” – that is, Communist – U.S.S.R., no less) was the essential precursor to the kind of alchemical wizardry that could produce atomic-bomb-level effects.

We bumped up against some of this in our past video “Top 10 GOLD-MAKING Alchemists.”

Be that as it may, until the 1990s, many (even most) historians of the period attributed the Anasazi’s disappearance to the far more orthodox “Great Drought” of the 1200s.^[70]

But changing perspectives in climatology have altered that picture. It’s now believed that the relevant drought wasn’t severe enough to explain why the Anasazi – who had been quite well-adapted to desert life – suddenly and completely evacuated their elaborate settlements.

The Anasazi evidently started their departure before the drought even occurred.^[71] Moreover, “some [of their living] sites were [still] being constructed in …dry areas at …[its] peak …”!^[72] Current thinking hypothesizes “episodic settlement.”

The idea is that the Anasazi “…constructed dizzying cliff dwellings or huge settlements in the arid flatlands every few generations, then abandoned them as a snake might shed its skin. …[T]hey kept building communities and deserting them … [B]ut the names by which the Indians were known changed…”.^[73]

Thus, the Anasazi “are thought to have migrated southeastward to join other pueblo tribes.”^[74]

Today, the contemporary Hopi Indians are the “presumed descendants” of the Anasazi. They still have “…Mesas …near the center of the Four Corners Area on the Colorado Plateau …”^[75].

And that area really matters. According to Indian legend, the nearby Black Mesa of Arizona is the literal “heart” of “Mother Earth,” which the Hopi have a sacred charge from the “Great Spirit” to preserve and protect.^[76] In the words of a true believer: “[F]or centuries, the Hopi and other traditional …[Amer-Indians] have intuitively maintained a seasonal ceremonial cycle providing the conscious harmony that is the essential factor to all land and life…” on the planet.^[77]

During the early 20th century, numerous, curious “ruins” have been cataloged in the vicinity. To cite a single example, “…the confluence of the [previously named] Yellow Jacket and McElmo Canyons in Southwest Colorado and Southeast Utah” – just a click north of Four Corners^[78] – display “great numbers of pictographs” with many “interesting symbols.”^[79] Although the precise significance has been lost to time, these sprawling collections, described as “engraved figures of ancient date,” are undeniably striking.^[80]

These and other finds enroll the Four-Corners area on the list of American locales containing ostensibly inexplicable archaeological oddities. For example, just what is one to make of Gold Tablets bearing indecipherable characters? By standard historical accounting, these shouldn’t have been found in Utah. Yet, according to Barry Fell’s student and collector William “Bill” McGlone, that’s exactly where they were unearthed.

Even granting their genuineness, the jury’s still out on whether they’re of a piece with artifacts such as the Kensington Runestone or legends along the lines of the fabled “plates” Mormon founder Joseph Smith claims to have encountered on Cumorah Hill in Palmyra, New York.^[81]

Then there’s the fascinating Indian buildings and pueblos. Yellow Jacket Canyon, for instance, has a promontory with “…remarkable dwellings composed of slabs of stone set on edge.”^[82]

This prompted longtime Four-Corners resident, newspaper editor, and local politician Ian Thompson to ask (in his 1993 book, The Towers of Hovenweep^[83]): Why are such structures seemingly unique to this area?^[84] Were the choices merely matters of expedience, given the availability of building materials? Or is there another – possibly religious – dimension?

Without question, “[t]he spiritual life of the Anasazi centered on sunken, circular chambers called kivas, which symbolized the womb of Mother Earth – and thus, the spiritual origins of the people. In the kivas, the spirits of the earth were invited out to bless the people…”.^[85]

The mythical emergence of the Anasazi’s ancestors was commemorated as a small hole on the kiva floor known as a sipapu.

TAL Levesque made a lot of hay out of Indian traditions claiming emergence from the bowels of the earth. Fabled alchemy provides a point of contact by way of the ancient formula abbreviated “V.I.T.R.I.O.L.”^[86] This is frequently – if obscurely – translated: “Visit the Interior of the Earth; Through Purification, Thou Wilt Find the Hidden Stone.”

Levesque points out that the name La Nueva México (or, the “New Mexico”), refers both to a legendary warrior-priest (later deified) as well as to the alleged “Belly Button of the Moon” – a close cousin, by the way, of a designation applied to Jerusalem by partisans of Judæo-Masonry.

In any event, it’s evident that New Mexico isn’t called the “Land of Enchantment” for nothing.

Of course, a variant Indian tale has it that their ancient forebears retreated into (rather than came out of) the earth – presumably to escape some nameless surface-level calamity.

This is, by the way, a thread pulled on by the contemporary alchemical writers Jay Weidner and Vincent Bridges, in their 2003 Mysteries of The Great Cross of Hendaye: Alchemy and the End of Time.^[87] The duo discuss their theory that prehistoric humans fled cosmic radiation by entering secret caves in modern-day Peru. (And …that this history – along with directions to the escape route – is encoded in a stone cross found in the little town of Hendaye, in southwestern France. Cf. HERE.)

For his part, Levesque posits that the Four Corners – with its network of as-yet-unmapped caverns honeycombing the interior of the Colorado Plateau – might be yet another access point to some subterranean power realm.

At the least, we’re talking about potential, remarkable archaeological discoveries on the order of the sensational – and vehemently denied – Temple embedded in a cave complex in the walls of the Grand Canyon or the – verified – underground Turkish cities (such as Derinkuyu and Kaymakli), once supposedly uncovered as recently as 1963.

At the extremities, possibilities range as “far out” as anything retailed in the vast Hollow-Earth literature. Of course, this extends from Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s seminal 1871 novel, VRIL, which we discussed in our multi-part series on “‘Nazi’ Occultism,” through the 1881 treatise Oahspe (created in New Mexico, no less, by the self-professed clairvoyant dentist John Newbrough as a product of “automatic writing”).

But the Hollow Earth mythos spilled over onto various speculations about “Lost Continents” – like Atlantis and Lemuria – that emanated from such alleged adepts as Theosophical foundress Helena Petrovna “H. P.” Blavatsky and fiction pioneer Howard Phillip “H. P.” Lovecraft.

And don’t forget that celebrity “medium” and spiritualist Edgar Cayce Cayce suggested that the famed Great Sphinx of Egypt concealed its own ancient, underground gateway. This one led to a supposed “Hall of Records” left by Atlantean survivors.

Cayce’s retelling even implicated the fabulous Holy Grail, which we covered in a past video.

Closer to our time, a lot of this was popularized by the quirky Richard Sharpe Shaver (and his energetic and imaginative publisher Raymond A. “Ray” Palmer) who claimed (among other things) “…that the world was ruled by insane descendants of aliens …[living] in a Hollow Earth.”

These esoteric currents were rivetingly dramatized by famed American novelist and short-story writer Louis L’Amour in his 1987 science-fiction-western classic, The Haunted Mesa.^[88]

Set “amidst the ruins of the Anasazi,”^[89] The Haunted Mesa imagines the remnants of Indian religious rooms (or kivas) as literal portals into the Mayan underworld of Shibalba (Xibalba) – referred to in the narrative as an alternate plane of existence termed the “Third World.”

In L’Amour’s imagination, the Four Corners is pregnant with an almost mystical energy. And we surmise that this arises from – or grows out of – a history teeming with ancient Indian mysteries and overlaid with quasi-Masonic symbolism and numerology. It’s tempting to conclude that Four Corners is a “hot spot” for more than geothermal aberrations and methane gas.

As mentioned earlier, in a forthcoming video, we propose to further these investigations by exploring the parallel mythos surrounding another site in New Mexico. In that presentation, we intend to focus on Los Alamos National Laboratory – which became a literal, nuclear “hot spot” on July 16, 1945. We’ll raise the dark possibility that the Four Corners isn’t the only purported magical gateway to the netherworld. So… stay tuned!

For other presentations getting deeper into threads that could be spun off from some above-mentioned tangents, see:

“Nazi Occultists, Part 1 (Full Version)”

“Nazi Occultists, Part 1 (Short Version)”

“Nazi Occultists, Part 2 (Full Version)”

“Nazi Occultists, Part 2 (Short Version)”

“Ben Franklin: Satanist & Spy?”

“9/11: Symbols and Synchs”

Appendix

I do not find a specific (non-inferential) reference to “32 degrees west of Washington” with reference to any territorial creation apart from Colorado. Looking at Wikipedia’s article title “32nd meridian west from Washington,” we read: “On February 28, 1861, the Act Organizing the Territory of Colorado defined the western boundary of the new territory as the 32nd meridian of longitude west from Washington.^[90] The creation of the Colorado Territory moved the eastern boundary of the Territory of Utah west to this meridian. Two years later on February 24, 1863, the Act Organizing the Territory of Arizona defined the eastern boundary of the new territory as the 32nd meridian of longitude west from Washington. This in turn moved the western boundary of the Territory of New Mexico east to this meridian. These boundaries on the 32nd meridian of longitude west from Washington remained when Colorado became a state on August 1, 1876, Utah became a state on January 4, 1896, New Mexico became a state on January 6, 1912, and Arizona became a state on February 14, 1912. …”^[91]

Regarding the creation of the Colorado Territory, Congress said: “That all that part of the territory of the United States included within the following limits, viz: commencing on the thirty-seventh parallel of north latitude, where the twenty fifth meridian of longitude west from Washington crosses the same; thence north on said meridian to the forty-first parallel of north latitude; thence along and parallel west to the thirty-second meridian of longitude west from Washington; thence south on said meridian to the northern line of New Mexico; thence along the thirty-seventh parallel of north latitude to the place of beginning, be and the same is hereby erected into a temporary government by the name of the Territory of Colorado…”.^[92]

According to the Library of Congress, Arizona was organized as a separate territory “February 24, 1863.”^[93] On that date, the 37th U.S. Congress^[94] decreed “An Act to provide a temporary Government for the Territory of Arizona …”^[95] The Act specified: “That all that part of the present Territory of New Mexico situate west of a line running due south from the point where the southwest corner of the Territory of Colorado joins the northern boundary of the Territory of New Mexico to the southern boundary line of said Territory of New Mexico be, and the same is hereby erected into a temporary government by the name of the Territory of Arizona…”.^[96] The Congressional record for the New Mexico Territory refers to “thirty-two degrees of north latitude”, but not in reference to Washington (but Greenwich).^[97] Possibly, there’s some additional document that I haven’t located. If anyone has further details, I’ll happily receive them.

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[1] “Four Corners Celebrates Anniversary With Envelope,” Gazette (Colo. Sprgs.), Jul. 8, 2000, p. Metro12.

[2] Esther Ferington and Paul Mathless, Mysteries of the Unknown: The Mysterious World, Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1992, p. 80.

[3] Ferington and Paul Mathless, op. cit., p. 79.

[4] “...in an area that reaches from Alamosa [south]west to the Grand Canyon, and from Gallup, N.M., north to Moab, Utah.” According to “Weather Blind Spot Confuses Forecasters,” Associated Press via Gazette (Colo. Sprgs.), Jun. 5, 2016, p. A8. Cf. Jonathan Romeo, “Selected site has limited coverage and value, critics say,” Durango Herald, Apr. 3, 2021, <https://www.durangoherald.com/articles/370919-new-radar-project-put-on-hold-because-of-location-problems>; archived at <https://web.archive.org/web/20210403130717/https://www.durangoherald.com/articles/370919-new-radar-project-put-on-hold-because-of-location-problems>.

[5] William Stone, “Why the Four Corners Monument is in Exactly the Right Place,” National Geodetic Survey, May 15, 2009, <https://www.ngs.noaa.gov/INFO/fourcorners.shtml>.

[6] See “Appendix.” Also, Four Corners sits by the 37th° n. lat. – like Cairo, Ill. (One of the U.S.’s several Egyptian-named towns.)

[7] Stone, loc. cit.

[8] As an aside, there are other examples of monuments that (for one reason or another) were not placed where they were intended to be: for instance, the Washington Monument. Planners determined that its initial location was too marshy and unstable to safely support the weight of the structure. The placeholder was said to have been the original Jefferson Pier, which was supposedly – and “mistakenly” – removed during the 1870s by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. It was eventually replaced and can be viewed today standing near the Washington Monument.

[9] Stone, loc. cit. The old Naval Observatory is one of four spots that were variously used as “prime meridians” for the United States. The other three are the meridians passing: “through the Capitol; through the White House …[and] through the new Naval Observatory.” “Washington meridians,” Wikipedia, Jun. 25, 2024, < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_meridians>.

[10] There was the Supreme Court case “New Mexico vs. Colorado,” (267 U.S. 30) 1919, 1925.

[11] Howard credits John Keely, Walter Bowman Russell, Viktor Schauberger, and Nikola Tesla as inspirations. Like Howard, these individuals are – either wholly or partially – derided as “pseudoscientists” by Professorcrats. Keely, for example, was the claimed inventor of a “perpetual-motion” machine known as the “Keely Motor.” Incidentally, famed occultist “Madame” Helena Petrovna Blavatsky wrote about Keely in the first volume of “her” tome The Secret Doctrine (London: Theosophical Publ. Society, 1888; online at <https://sacred-texts.com/the/sd/sd1-3-10.htm>).

[12] The other associations are called “Notarikon” and “Temurah.”

[13] “Christian Kabbalah” is often (not always) spelled Cabala, differentiating it from its Jewish counterpart.

[14] Vol. 1, “The New Atlantis,” DVD, Antiquities Research Films. For more in the vicinity, see Robert Lomas, Turning the Solomon Key, Beverly, Mass.: Fair Winds Press, 2007; David Ovason, The Secret Architecture of Our Nation’s Capital, New York: Harper, 2002; Christian Pinto’s 2007 video Riddles in Stone, and James Wasserman, The Secrets of Masonic Washington, Rochester, Vt,: Destiny Books, 2008.

[15] See <

>.

[16] “Walter Raleigh (c.1552 - 1618),” BBC, n.d., <https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/raleigh_walter.shtml>. Raleigh met a bad end. Except for an episode where Raleigh married a court lady without “permission,” in general, Queen Elizabeth I had been his protector. When she died in 1603, King James I had Raleigh imprisoned in the synchromystically electric Tower of London. Although he was released – ostensibly to continue his search for El Dorado – Raleigh was ultimately beheaded (in 1618) on the pretext of having violated the terms of England’s peace treaty with Spain during one of his expeditions.

[17] Other estimates suggest the colony was composed of 120 people or more.

[18] Lee Gebhart and Walter Wagner, It’s Still a Mystery, New York: Scholastic Book Services, 1970, p. 35 — which I read as a child. The surname “White” is interesting – especially given the archaeological debates over whether the earliest American Indians were descended from Asiatics or Europeans. “Diffusionists” frequently suggest that, like the ostensibly ill-fated colonists, “Whites” (so to speak) navigated to the New World and promptly disappeared.

[19] Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant, The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols, John Buchanan-Brown, transl., London: Penguin, 1996, 867.

[20] Or, at any rate, “over 70.” See “77 Branches of Faith,” Islam.org, <https://www.islam.org.uk/hadith/77-branches-of-faith/>; citing Sahīh Bukhārī.

[21] Here’s another anecdote. “This otherwise unremarkable number took on enormous importance for Sweden during World War II. Seventy-seven, written sjuttiosju in Swedish, is extremely difficult to pronounce in that language, and it was the pronunciation – or mispronunciation – of it that helped guards at the border of neutral Sweden to distinguish between native Swedes and others from Germany or occupied Norway.” Jamie Buchan, “77,” Easy as Pi: The Countless Ways We Use Numbers Every Day, Pleasantville, N.Y. ; Montreal: Readers Digest Assoc., 2010, p. 30; online at <https://books.google.com/books?id=P93tAbdyf2MC&pg=PT18>.

[22] Ovason, op. cit., p. 154.

[23] Fr. Gabriele Amorth, Un esorcista racconta, Rome: Dehoniane.

[24] Transl. Nicoletta V. MacKenzie, San Francisco, Cal.: Ignatius Press, 1999.

[25] Specifically, it is usually designated “local noon,” in the sense of the time when the sun literally passed over your head – wherever you were.

[26] Douglas Harper, “Lucifer,” Online Etymology Dict., 2024, <https://www.etymonline.com/word/Lucifer>.

[27] An interesting “Lexi-Link” is that the namesake town of “Four Corners, Florida, an area just a few miles to the south and west of Orlando, was found to have the highest lightning strike density of anywhere in the entire U.S. …” in 2022. “These US Cities Are ‘Lightning Capitals,’ Report Says,” Rebecca Barry and Alix Martichoux, ABC4 (Salt Lake City, Utah), Jan. 9, 2023,

<https://www.abc4.com/news/national/these-us-cities-are-lightning-capitals-report-says/>; reposting Rebecca Barry, “Area Just Outside of Orlando Named Lightning Capital of the U.S.,” WFLA8 (Tampa, Fla.), Jan. 6, 2023, updated Jan. 8, 2023, <https://www.wfla.com/weather/area-just-outside-of-orlando-named-lightning-capital-of-the-u-s/>. Cf. Maureen McCann, “There’s a New Lightning Capital of the U.S., But it Remains in Central Florida,” Spectrum BayNews9 (Orlando, Fla.), Jan. 5, 2023, <https://baynews9.com/fl/tampa/weather/2023/01/04/four-corners-lightning-capital>. Coincidence?

[28] Joan Price, “Earth Vibrating,” The Ley Hunter, no. 84, p. 18.

[29] “Weather Blind Spot…,” loc. cit.

[30] Cf., e.g., “Interstate System,” U.S. Dept. of Transportation, Federal Highway Admin., Sept. 19, 2023, <https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/programadmin/interstate.cfm>: “Routes with odd numbers run north and south, while even numbered run east and west.”

[31] In other places, such as our video “Omicron,” (<

>), we connect Satan to the Egyptian god Set who, among other things, was the god of storms. See “Set (deity),” Wikipedia, Jun. 17, 2024, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_(deity)>.

[32] Via Gazette (Colo. Springs), Jun. 4, 2003, p. METRO5.

[33] Ibid.

[34] “491 (film),” Wikipedia, May 21, 2024, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/491_(film)>.

[35] <https://biblehub.com/niv/matthew/18.htm>.

[36] The Wiki article summarizes: “491 is a 1964 Swedish black-and-white drama film …about a group of youth criminals who are chosen to participate in a social experiment in which they are assigned to live together in an apartment while being supervised by two forgiving social workers.” Ibid.

[37] Along the Russian River, no less.

[38] Cf. The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, The CIA and The Rise of America’s Secret Government, HarperCollins, 2015.

[39] One wonders if the recipients of the honorary – and ultimate – 33rd degree are told that there is an eleventh, hidden sephirot position (Da’at) on the Kabbalistic Tree. We’re aware that Kabbalists may not “count” Da’at(h) as a sephira. But, when it is diagrammed, Da’at’s position on the Tree of Life is virtually indistinguishable from those of the “regular” ten sephirot.

[40] The mythology largely revolves around Hiram Abiff, the legendary “architect” of Solomon’s Temple. It’s worth noting that Freemasons and Jews often have different aspirations for a future Third Temple. The former would like a reconstruction according to Solomon’s original plan. The latter sometimes turn to the Old Testament’s (or “Jewish Bible’s”) Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, which references dimensions of a heretofore unbuilt structure beginning at chapter 40, verse 1 and continuing to chapter 42, verse 20.

[41] Malcolm C. Duncan, Duncan’s Masonic Ritual and Monitor, 3rd ed., New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1866, p. 249; archived at The Internet Archive, <https://ia601408.us.archive.org/2/items/DuncansMasonicRitualAndMonitorOfFreemasonryComplete18663rdEd/Duncan%27s%20Masonic%20Ritual%20and%20Monitor%20of%20Freemasonry%20complete%201866%203rd%20ed.pdf>.

[42] Craig Heimbichner & Adam Parfrey, Ritual America, Port Townsend, Wash.: Feral House, 2012, p. xviii.

[43] Interestingly, according to information on the webpage of the Florida-based Jackson Lodge No. 1, Abraham Lincoln “...appl[ied] for membership in Tyrian Lodge, Springfield, Ill. ...[S]hortly after his nomination for the presidency in 1860, he withdrew the application because he felt that his applying for membership …might be construed as a political ruse… He advised the lodge that he would resubmit his application again when he returned from the presidency. Lincoln never returned. On the death of the president, Tyrian Lodge adopted, on April 17, 1865, a resolution to say ‘that the decision of President Lincoln to postpone his application for the honors of Freemasonry, lest his motives are misconstrued, is the highest degree honorable to his memory.’” Don Goss, “Presidents That Were Brother Masons,” 2024, <https://jl1.org/lodge/index.php/presidents-that-were-brother-masons/>. No citations are given.

[44] Of course, numerous changes and maintenance projects have affected the appearance of the monument and its surroundings. Chandler placed his marker in 1875. This was repaired or replaced in 1899 by Hubert D. Page and James M. Lentz. In 1912, when Arizona and New Mexico officially became U.S. states, the monument was expanded. Additional tinkering occurred in 1931 by Everett H. Kimmell and in 1962 by joint effort of the Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Finally, refurbishment was conducted in 1992 and again in 2010.

[45] Introduced during the 110th Congress (2007-2008) by Ohio Representative – and banker – Paul Eugene Gillmor. Gillmor was found dead in an Arlington, Va. apartment on September 5, 2007. His strange death (from blunt-force trauma to the head) was ruled an accident – by a fall down a flight of stairs. According to John McCarthy, “Report: Congressman Likely Fell to Death,” Associated Press via Fox News, Sept. 7, 2007, <http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Sep07/0%2C4670%2COhioCongressman%2C00.html>; archived at the Wayback Machine, <https://web.archive.org/web/20070911114425/http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Sep07/0,4670,OhioCongressman,00.html>.

[46] Julian H. Steward, “Petroglyphs of California and Adjoining States,” University of Cal. Publications in Amer. Archaeology and Ethnology, vol. 24, no. 2, p. 154, <https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/82872>.

[47] William Giddings “W. G.” Sibley, The Story of Freemasonry, 3^rd ed., Gallipolis, Oh.: Lion’s Paw Club, 1913, p. 55; archived: <https://dn790008.ca.archive.org/0/items/The_Story_Of_Freemasonry_-_W_G_Sibley/The_Story_Of_Freemasonry_-_W_G_Sibley.pdf>.

[48] “The Man Who Would Be King,” Wikipedia, Jun. 16, 2024, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Would_Be_King>.

[49] Ibid.

[50] “Satellite Shows Hot Spot of Methane in U.S. Southwest,” Associated Press via Gazette (Colo. Springs), Oct. 10, 2014, p. A6. Word has it that the “methane …[is] likely” the result of human natural-gas operations. And, of course, since methane is reputedly a “potent, heat-trapping gas,” it’s often studied in reference to that contemporary bogeyman, “Global Warming.” Ibid.

[51] “Scientists Take Aim at Four Corners Methane Mystery,” NASA, Apr. 7, 2015, <http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/scientists-take-aim-at-four-corners-methane-mystery>.

[52] According to “paranormal” researcher David Weatherly: “A New Mexico family has reported that ‘something’ has been lurking around their home at night. …The family says they have experienced loud clawing sounds and growls in the middle of the night. Both the exterior of their house and truck have been damaged. Deep claw and chew marks” were allegedly left on the family’s truck and “[s]imilar muddy claw marks have been made to the house as well. …Eyewitnesses say what they saw reminded them of the creature from the horror movie ‘Jeepers Creepers.’ …It was …8 to 9 feet tall when standing …[and] covered in gray hair and had huge three-fingered hands. …[One] eyewitness also said he noticed what he thinks were wings on its back …”. David Weatherly, “Night Stalker Reports,” Two Crows Paranormal [weblog], Mar. 10, 2016, <http://twocrowsparanormal.blogspot.com/2016/03/night-stalker-reports.html>.

[53] Bill Holden, “Whistleblower Bill Holden Talks About His UFO and Alien Encounters During His Military Service,” Eyes On Cinema (YouTube Channel), interview, Kerry Cassidy and Bill Ryan, “‘Bill Holden: Air Force One and the Alien Connection,’ A video Interview With Bill Holden,” Project Camelot, Las Vegas, June 2007, ~39 min., <

>. Holden went on to say: “When was the first time that we supposedly found out about UFOs in the United States? …[1947.] …What was causing the crashes? …[T]here was more than one… And what …happened was, up in the northwest corner of New Mexico, …a huge radar dome …was put up. And it was basically to protect the Southwest Corridor and to be early warning [system]. Well, what happened was that every time that turned on, …as …the UFOs flew through it, they were all of a sudden thrown kittywampus …thrown out of control. …[T]hat was built in probably the mid-40s – ’44, ’45 – Pearl Harbor. Yeah, okay. Well …I understand that it is said that radar took down those UFOs. It did, okay.” Ibid.

[54] The name “TAL Levesque” – or, at any rate, part of it – is a pseudonym. Some sources suggest that the writer’s real name was Thomas Allen LeVesque, in which case “TAL” (usually written in all-caps) was an acronym for his given, middle, and surnames. Other sources, however, claim that “TAL’s” identity was actually Jason Bishop, III. In the latter case, the designator “TAL” may have been inspired by the chess professional nicknamed the “Magician From Riga[, Latvia],” Mikhail Tal or by the computer antagonist, “HAL,” from famed film director Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1968). For more on the symbolically important year 1968 — and it’s media-trumpeted ties to the 2024 election, see:

[55] Williamson had been influenced by William Dudley Pelley. Pelley was a highly intriguing character. Originally an award-winning short-story writer, he became politically engaged in the 1930s. Pelley’s opposition to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s (F.D.R.’s) “New Deal” galvanized into a right-leaning organization (the Silver Legion of America, a.k.a. The “Silver Shirts”) that was a curious blend of activism and occultism. In 1936, Pelley ran for president of the United States, under the auspices of his newly created Christian Party – in the same contest that pitted Democratic incumbent F.D.R. against Republican challenger Alfred “Alf” Landon. (Evidently, he only appeared on ballots in Washington State, where he had a small following.) Pelley’s more enduring legacy – as evidenced by spinoff groups such as the “I AM Movement” of Guy and Edna Ballard (which, in turn, launched Elizabeth Clare Prophet’s “New Age” Church Universal and Triumphant) owed to his Ascended-Master esotericism, a combination of Pyramidology, Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, and UFOlogy. Pelley was imprisoned for sedition and, ultimately, died in relative obscurity in the 1960s.

[56] London: Neville Spearman, 1961.

[57] James Swan, Sacred Places: How the Living Earth Seeks Our Friendship, Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions; Bear & Co, 1990, p. 153. Cf. Price, loc. cit.

[58] <https://www.nps.gov/wupa/learn/nature/geologicformations.htm>. Swan goes on to summarize Price and Rasucher, saying that they found “…the underground water table in the Four Corners area …rises and falls with the …Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles to the west.” Swan, loc. cit.

[59] Felicity Barringer, “Archaeologists Claim to Know What Became of the Anasazi Indians,” Gazette-Telegraph (Colorado Springs), 24^th day, unknown month, 1990, n.p.

[60] Questions of the origins of American Indians (Amer-Indians) and, indeed, of the nature of the ancient buildings attributed to them, are still quite open. On the former issue, the received view – that Amer-Indians were Asiatics that crossed Beringia – has recently been challenged by researchers suggesting a possible European origin. (See Colin Schultz, “The Very First Americans May Have Had European Roots: Some early Americans came not from Asia, it seems, but by way of Europe,” Smithsonian Magazine, Oct. 25, 2013, <https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-very-first-americans-may-have-had-european-roots-5517714/>.) On the topic of buildings, it’s worth recalling that the majority so-called “Isolationist” school – which posits that Amer-Indian structures are wholly “native-American novelties” – has long been challenged by “Diffusionists” (such as George Francis Carter and Howard Barraclough “Barry” Fell) who argue that the archaeological record evidences occasional (or even frequent) contact with “...the Norse, or Canaanites, or Phoenicians.” Mark K. Stengel, “Whose Race Is It Anyway?” The Atlantic, Jan. 2000, <https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/00jan/001stengel3.htm>.

[61] Robert A. Doyle and Janet Cave, eds., Mysteries of the Unknown: Mysterious Lands and Peoples, Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, p. 80.

[62] Doyle and Cave, op. cit., p. 115.

[63] Doyle and Cave, op. cit., p. 119.

[64] Doyle and Cave, op. cit., p. 119. Emphasis supplied.

[65] William Cowper, “Adam: A Sacred Drama,” act 1, scene 3; Henry Francis “H. F.” Cary, ed., The Poetical Works of William Cowper, London: William Smith, 1839, p. 216.

[66] George Johnson, “New Facts Reopen Anasazi Mystery,” Denver Post, Aug. 20, 1996, p. 1A.

[67] Doyle and Cave, op. cit., p. 80.

[68] Levesque, “The Hidden Secrets of the Southwest,” New Atlantean Journal, vol. 6, no. 3, Sept., 1978.

[69] Alan Landsburg, “Siberian Fireball,” In Search Of…, season 3, episode 7, aired Oct. 26, 1978. Cf.

[70] Johnson, loc. cit.

[71] Johnson, loc. cit.

[72] Barringer, loc. cit.

[73] Barringer, loc. cit.

[74] Doyle and Cave, op. cit., p. 80.

[75] Price, op. cit., p. 18.

[76] Price, op. cit., p. 20.

[77] Price, op. cit., p. 20.

[78] Sylvanus Griswold Morley and Alfred Vincent Kidder, “The Archaeology of McElmo Canyon, Colorado,” part I, in Paul A. F. Walter, ed., El Palacio: Journal of the Museum of New Mexico, Archaeological Society of New Mexico and the Santa Fe Society of the Archaeological Inst. of Amer., 1917, p. 41; archived online at <http://npshistory.com/publications/hove/ep-v4n4-1917.pdf>.

[79] Ibid.,

[80] Steward, op. cit., p. 154.

[81] Some sources say that its in Manchester, N.Y.

[82] Steward, op. cit., p. 154.

[83] Mesa Verde, Colo.: Mesa Verde Museum Assoc.

[84] “Hovenweep National Monument protects six prehistoric, Puebloan-era villages spread over a twenty-mile expanse of mesa tops and canyons along the Utah-Colorado border.” Back matter, ibid.

[85] Doyle and Cave, op. cit., p. 80.

[86] Visita Interiora Terræ Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem.

[87] Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions.

[88] New York: Bantam Books.

[89] “The Haunted Mesa,” Wikipedia, Nov. 13, 2023, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Haunted_Mesa>.

[90] Citing “An Act to provide a temporary Government for the Territory of Colorado,” 36th U.S. Congress. 1861-02-28. Archived as a PDF, at: <https://web.archive.org/web/20061202084358/http://www.colorado.gov/dpa/doit/archives/territory.pdf>; <http://www.colorado.gov/dpa/doit/archives/territory.pdf>.

[91] Wikipedia, Jan. 26, 2024, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32nd_meridian_west_from_Washington>. The “Wikipedists” could have cited the Library of Congress instead. See the record of 36th Congress, Session II, Chapter LIX, available at: <https://maint.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/36th-congress/session-2/c36s2ch59.pdf>.

[92] Ibid..

[93] See “Today in History - February 24,” Library of Congress, <https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/february-24/>.

[94] Session III, Chapter LVI, 1863.

[95] See citation, infra.

[96] See the Congressional record, pages 664-665, online at <https://maint.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/37th-congress/session-3/c37s3ch56.pdf>.

[97] See 31st Congress, Session 1, Chapter XLIX, September 9, 1850, <https://maint.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/31st-congress/c31.pdf>.