Twilight Language (Part 1)

Towards an Analysis

“The secret impresses no one. The trick you use it for is everything.”
~ Alfred Borden, The Prestige

Introduction

I have been intrigued – or, put frankly, utterly captivated – by the concept of “Twilight Language” ever since first running across it. My enthusiasm has only been matched by my frustration in trying to understand, well… just what the hell is supposed to be going on with it!

One might fairly say that the concept itself has haunted me. Maybe this is its primary function.

The first time I encountered the idea of “Twilight Language” was in the 2001 edition of the brilliant Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare,^[1] by Michael Hoffman.

Cryptozoologist and sync hunter Loren Coleman picked the theme up in his 2004 book The Copycat Effect^[2] and on his “Twilight Language” weblog.^[3] It has been echoed – and expanded – S. Kent Bain in his important The Most Dangerous Book in the World.^[4] Key foundational facts were disclosed in the re-release of the now-classic audio recording Sirius Rising, featuring synchromystic guru James Shelby Downard and Fortean extraordinaire Jim Brandon. More recently, Michael Hoffman revisited Twilight Language by dedicating an entire study to it.

But what in the world are they talking about? What the heck is “Twilight Language”?

In beginning an investigation into “Twilight Language” it is natural to simply type the phrase through one’s favorite “search engine” and see what comes up. In doing so, you’re bound to encounter information that seems to make the confusion worse.

Wikipedia entry blandly asserts: “Twilight language may refer to: A conspiracy theory proposed by James Shelby Downard and embraced by Michael A. Hoffman II[;] …a polysemic language and communication system associated with Tantric traditions.”^[5]

In The Copycat Effect, Coleman explored what might fairly be termed “crypto-anthropology.”^[6]

In the chapter titled “The Magnetism of Milieu and Moment,” Coleman wrote: “‘Twilight language’ concerns, from psychology, the hidden significance of locations, dates, and other signs; from religious studies, the hidden symbolism that lies in the texture …incidents; …from criminology, …profiling insights …reveal[ing] the ritualistic nature of certain crimes and violent incidents.”^[7]

These tantalizing, yet minimalistic, statements raise at least one question. Does the phrase “Twilight Language” designate a single phenomenon or a cluster of phenomena? Coleman’s definition, while good (in fact, while better than many others on offer), is somewhat ostensive^[8] and tends to conflate (without comment or justification) several distinguishable areas of inquiry.

For instance, the previously mentioned synchromystic-godfather, James Shelby Downard, called the study of curious places and their names mystical toponymy.^[9] Under this category, Downard referenced such things as the various phenomena occurring on, or in proximity to, the thirty-third degree of parallel latitude, from the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the detonation of the first atomic bomb at the Trinity Site, along the Jornada del Muerto.^[10]

“Religious studies” covers a lot. “Signs and symbols” are the peculiar subject matter of the field known as semiotics. Linguists study the psychological processes underlying language-use in psycholinguistics. And criminology and “criminal profiling,” while arguably related, are – prima facie – distinct areas of inquiry.

Maybe criminal profiling, mystical toponymy, psycholinguistics, religious studies, and semiotics really do all have something in common – or converge. But what is it? And how?^[11]

What’s the relationship supposed to be between dates, locations, psychological profiles, and symbols? An obvious, and superficial, reply is that all of these (and more besides) can be expressed using names or words. Michael Hoffman occasionally subsumes mystical toponymy under the heading onomatology, or the “study of names.” But is there something more?

Is Twilight Language a real language? If so, in what sense?

What Is ‘Language’?

Language is a hallmark of human experience.^[12] Google tells us that “language” is “the principal method of human communication…”.^[13] The standard explanation for this is, of course, evolution.

But, listen to what famed Massachusetts Institute of Technology linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky once observed. “[W]hile it's true, in a very vague sense, to say …that the systems that we now have have developed through evolution, through natural selection, it’s important to recognize how little we are saying when we say that.^[14] …[I]t is …not necessarily the case that every particular …trait we have is the result of specific selection. That is, that we were selected for having that trait. …[H]uman language …[is] obviously functional. But it’s a long leap to claim that the specific structures of language are themselves the result of specific selection. And it’s a leap that I don't think is particularly plausible.”^[15]

No religious fanatic, Chomsky nevertheless underscores the fact – as Microsoft’s Copilot AI put it: “that the origin of human language is one of the great mysteries of …evolution.”

“[H]uman language appears to be a unique phenomenon…” and – despite decades of creative and hopeful experimentation – possibly “without significant analogue in the animal world.”^[16]

This is to say that language gives humanity a privileged rung on the existential totem pole.

But we shouldn’t forget that, in mythology and religion, this power is shared by various angels, demigods, demons, and gods. Indeed, according to some accounts, the capacity was given to us by someone – or something – higher up.

Promethean Gift

One example of this comes to us by way of the 5th-c. B.C. ancient-Greek poem Prometheus Bound,^[17] which is attributed to the “Father of Tragedy,” Aeschylus. In this retelling of an earlier story, the titan Prometheus rebels against the high-god, Zeus, and champions humankind by gifting us “…fire and intelligence” – including “language, number, and ‘all of the arts’ …everything from agriculture and medicine to prophecy and hope.”^[18]

Recall that Prometheus is said to have been instructed by one of 16th-17th-c. English thinker Sir Francis Bacon’s muses: namely, Athena, the goddess of wisdom. Prometheus then passed this inherited, divine knowledge along to humankind.

“…[I]n rabbinic lore, [Aftiel is] the angel of twilight.”^[19]

In the ancient Jewish Enochian literature,^[20] we read about a mysterious group of angels called the “Watchers.”^[21] They were supposedly “sent from heaven to instruct the children of men”.^[22] One of them (Penemue) “instructed mankind in writing” – which, according to the Book of Enoch, was, in God’s plan, supposed to be beyond our ken.^[23]

But whatever the origin of human language, since our acquisition of it, we have put it to use in remarkably diverse ways – including a dual pursuit of knowledge and control. The biblical commentary on this is, I trust, familiar.

According to the Book of Genesis, God created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, where they were “…free to eat from any tree…” other than “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for [if they] eat from [that, they are doomed to] die.’”^[24]

But the “serpent” tempted our primordial parents claiming that, contrary to what God had said, instead of dying, their “…eyes will be opened, and [they would] be like God…”.^[25]

It’s this behavior that made the serpent – frequently identified with Lucifer – a Gnostic hero in sects such as the Ophites, which revered it as the bestower and embodiment of divine wisdom.

Of course, in the Genesaic narrative, Adam and Eve do end up eating the forbidden fruit. The dual outcome seems to have been a loss of their initial innocence and the acquisition of the knowledge of good and evil, but arguably this comes at the price of banishment from the Garden, separation from God, and their eventual, physical death.

And it’s important for our purposes that Prometheus and Lucifer are often identified. One writer even refers to “[t]he Lucifer-Prometheus myth” as if it were clearly one story.^[26]

Fast forward to the 20th century. British occultist Edward Alexander “Aleister” Crowley explicitly connected language and volition within the framework of his religion of “Thelema,” which took a page out of the playbook of the 16th-c. satirist François Rabelais.

The motto of the latter’s Abbey of Thélème, “Do what you want” (Fay ce que voudras) was also adopted by Sir Francis Dashwood in his revival of Philip Wharton’s “Hellfire Club.”

In any case, for the self-proclaimed “Great Beast, 666” – Crowley – “magick” (sic) is “the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will”^[27] – often via “barbarous names” or other verbal “spells.”

Crucially, however, the usual idea is that not just any words will do. The common conception is that there are certain words that have power, while others do not. One question is: Are these “magic words” created or discovered?

Indeed, if Jewish-Kabbalistic legends concerning a certain “Angel Raziel” are to be believed, another option is that this magical language has been revealed to certain individuals – whether beneficently or maliciously.^[28]

Creation

Presumably, a subset of this magical lexicon are the so-called “words of power,” which can be traced back to ancient Egypt. 19^th-20^th-c. British Orientalist Sir E. A. Wallis Budge wrote about these words – the various “the formulæ found upon amulets… [t]he earliest name for …[which was] hekau… or ‘words of power’…”.^[29]

These words were “…so necessary for [proper burial of] the deceased…, that in the XVIth century B.C., and probably more than a thousand years earlier, a special section was inserted in the Book of the Dead…” dealing with procedures for acquiring them.^[30]

The 5th-c.-B.C. Greek historian Herodotus tells an interesting story about a 7th-c.-B.C. pharaoh named Psamtik I, and otherwise known as “Psammetichus.” According to Herodotus, Psamtik I conducted an early form of what we might today call a “deprivation experiment.”

“…[T]he Egyptians, before the time when Psammetichos 1 became king …, suppose[d] that they …[were] first of all men; but …Psammetichos …desired to know …[who] had come …first …Now Psammetichos, when he was not able by inquiry to find …any means of knowing who had come into being first of all men, contrived a device of the following kind:—Taking two new-born children belonging to persons of the common sort he gave them to a shepherd to bring up at the place where his flocks were, …charging him …that no man should utter any word in their presence, …[but that] he should bring …them …milk …[and] do for them whatever else was needed. …Psammetichos …wish[ed] to hear what word the children would …[say] first, after they had ceased from wailings without sense. …[A]fter …two years …, both …children …uttered the word bekos, …the [Phrygian] …name for bread. …[So Psammetichos concluded] …that the Phrygians were a more ancient people than …[the Egyptians].”^[31]

In the Jewish and Christian tradition, the world was spoken into being out of nothing^[32] by God’s words.^[33] This is sometimes called “creation by fiat,” where fiat is Latin for “let there be.”

For instance, Genesis chapter 1, verse 3 reads: Fiat lux – “let there be light.” The Biblical God thus seemed to channel his creative power through words.

This notion has been incorporated into diverse movements – often intermingled indiscriminately with miscellaneous esoterica and popular psychology – from sales training and self-help pulp to undiluted occultism and so-called “Christian Word of Faith” theology.

We shouldn’t forget that for early “Christian Cabalists” during the Renaissance – people like Johannes Reuchlin – the name “Jesus” was a potent magic word.

By the time we get to Genesis, chapter 2, we have God bringing “wild animals and …birds …to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.”^[34]

Especially in the Middle Ages, these facts motivated a search for so-called “Adamic,” or the language that – some held – Adam had literally spoken in the Garden of Eden.

“Like Psammetichus in Herodotus, …[the 13th-c. Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II] made linguistic experiments on …hapless infants, ‘bidding foster-mothers and nurses to suckle and bathe and wash the children, but in no wise to prattle or speak with them; for he would have learnt whether they would speak the Hebrew language (which [was believed to have] been the first), or Greek, or Latin, or Arabic, or perchance the tongue of their parents of whom they had been born. But he laboured in vain, for the children could not live without clappings of the hands, and gestures, and gladness of countenance, and blandishments.’”^[35]

Frederick II, who was condemned by the Catholic Church’s 13th “ecumenical council” (the First Council of Lyon), was a patron of Scottish-born alchemist and astrologer Michael Scot.^[36]

For more on that arcane discipline, see our past video “Top 10 Gold-Making Alchemists.” At the end of that presentation, we got into the possibility that “central-banking” operations such as the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve, represent the fulfillment of ancient hopes of wealth multiplication recast (appropriately enough for our purposes) as the creation of “fiat currency.”

Michael Hoffman, in footnote #2 to his Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, tells us that: “In the secret societies, ‘Twilight Language,’ was advertised as the ‘Adamic language’,”^[37] and cites the Renaissance-era French “Christian Cabalist,” Guillaume Postel.^[38]

‘Sub-Creation’

Adult-fantasy-literature pioneer John Ronald Reuel “J. R. R.” Tolkien, author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, thought of humans as inveterate “sub-creators.” As a Catholic, Tolkien was committed to the idea that humans were created in what Genesis chapter 1, verse 27 calls the “image of God.”^[39] According to Tolkien’s conception of “sub-creation,” humans participate in God’s creation by fashioning novel things from existing materials or reshaping bits of the world.

We could do this by building houses and cities, inventing machines, making cookies or greeting cards, or – indeed, as Tolkien modeled – by constructing fictional worlds out of our imaginations.

Catholic apologist and author Peter John Kreeft put it this way. “Things constitute a world only by the creative word of the author. Whether it’s a fictional world, or whether it’s the real world. God speaks and only then does the world come into being. So, words have a magical power – a power not just to communicate, intellectually; not just to suggest, emotionally; but power which can produce physical effects.”^[40]

“Physical effects”? Hmm.

Kreeft rhetorically asks: “Are there magic words? I think we all know that there are. There are operative words. There are words that effect what they signify. I’ll give you two that everybody knows are …[powerful]^[41] words: ‘I love you’ and ‘I hate you.’”^[42]

Kreeft goes on to say that, among “the most powerful of these” words of power, “are …proper names – the names of persons, or places.”

Unsurprisingly, Kreeft’s illustration hearkens back to his probable source (or inspiration) for these ideas: Tolkien. Kreeft says: “When the Black Rider bangs on Fatty Bolger’s door in Lord of the Rings, saying ‘Open in the name of Mordor!’ All the authority and power and terror of Mordor are really present there.”^[43]

Peter Kreeft mentions “operative words.” Oxford University-based philosopher John Langshaw “J. L.” Austin designated a similar class of words performatives.^[44]

For instance, think of the words “‘I do’ …as uttered in the course of a marriage ceremony. …[Or] ‘I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth’ – as uttered when smashing the bottle against the stem. [Or] …‘I …bequeath my watch to my brother’ – as occurring in a will. …[Or] ‘I bet you ….it will rain tomorrow.’”^[45]

Austin observed that, “[i]n these examples it seems clear that to utter the sentence (in …the appropriate circumstances) is not to describe …doing [something] …: it is to do it. …[Calling these] sentence[s] …performative[s] …indicates that …the utterance …[isn’t] just saying something[;] …[it’s actually] performing …an action …”.^[46]

Could it be that there’s an analog to the notion that Ideas Have Consequences,^[47] as American scholar Richard Malcolm Weaver, Jr. put it, in his 1948 book by the same name? Evidently, some words have consequences as well.

The Twilight Zone

“…[T]he twilight I longed for has become a horror to me.” — Isaiah 21:4b

“You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension – a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You’ve just crossed over into the Twilight Zone.”

“Well, all right,” you might say. “But why twilight?”

In everyday use, twilight designates “the soft, diffused light from the sky when the sun is below the horizon, either from daybreak to sunrise or, more commonly, from sunset to nightfall.”^[48]

Still, as Samuel “Dictionary” Johnson pointed out, “twilight” – even in the ho-hum sense – has the connotation of something “[n]ot clearly or brightly illuminated; obscure; deeply shaded. …[It’s t]he dubious or faint light before sunrise, and after sunset…”.^[49] It’s an “obscure light.”^[50]

But, “twilight” also has visionary (or even creepy) connotations. A contemporary “Druid” writes: “Twilight is particularly liminal; the peculiar half-light can cause our imagination to soar from the confines of normality and challenge us to question what we sense or perceive. It is neither day nor night but somewhere in between; the eyes strain against the coming darkness.”^[51]

Twilight is a period of transition between day and night. “It expresses the end of one cycle and, consequently, readiness for the start of a new one.”^[52] Thus, twilight – and other crepuscular periods such as dawn and dusk – is literally a threshold or “liminal space” between periods of light and dark.^[53] As such, it’s “not beholden or accountable to either side.”^[54] Ritualistically…

Caption: “Dark shadows are an ever-present part of Saturn’s already twilit world…”.^[55]

“Liminality (from the Latin limen, or threshold) is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle state of rituals, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the ritual …[is complete]. During a ritual’s liminal stage, participants ‘stand at the threshold’ between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way, which the ritual establishes.”^[56]

A twilight area thus signifies a ceremonial “no-man’s land.” It’s a place where things could go either way, as it were, just as – standing in a doorway – you might be headed in or out.

Liminality is a transitional stage or state. Some anthropologists have long recognized initiation ceremonies as having three parts: Separation from an old self and incorporation into a new group, with the all-important liminal threshold in between.^[57]

Closely related is the alchemical-Aristotelian concept of “first matter,” “prime matter,” or – in Latin – prima materia. Traditionally, alchemists held that “[t]he First Matter is the source of all things, …present everywhere and in all things.”^[58]

In this way, “prime matter” is a sort of esoteric “stem cell.” In biology and medicine, of course, stem cells are cells with the potential to develop into many types of specialized cells in the body, through a process called “differentiation.”

Similarly, in Aristotle’s metaphysics, the first matter underlies all actual, individualized matter.^[59] So, what makes a thing this tree or that dog? Both things are material. Aristotle’s answer is that the difference lies in the thing’s form. Every physical thing is a combination of matter and form.^[60]

For Aristotle, Matter is always determinate; it always has properties. To say that a tree is tree-matter and a dog is dog-matter is to say that trees and dogs have different properties, when contrasted with each other, but similar properties when compared to other things of the same kind. And tree-matter gets its “tree-properties” from a particular “Form”: let’s call it tree-ness. Dog-matter is formed with dog-ness.

Everything that actually exists is formed-matter; matter doesn’t exist unformed. Material things have inherent – and metaphysically necessary – “essences” or “natures” that make them what they are. So, can we not ask: What were dogs and trees before they were formed?

This is where the “first matter” comes in. First or prime matter is indeterminate, property-less, underlying, and unformed.^[61] It comes before actual matter. It’s potential matter.^[62] When “first matter” combines with or is shaped by a form, it becomes an individual tree or dog or whatever.

Here’s the kicker. According to Hauck: “To find the First Matter, you must search in the twilight area between manifested and unmanifested reality. Scholars call the kind of space in which the First Matter appears a liminal location, which means anything at the edge, crossroads, or threshold where normal boundaries fade away.”^[63] Did you catch that?

This formless, “first matter” is in liminal space – the twilight zone! Do Twilight Language code words turn our brains into some moldable mental equivalent of the prima material? Could be.

Now, for an alchemist like Hauck, it seems that the ability to locate and transform (or transmute) this first matter lies with the fabled “Philosopher’s Stone.”

He writes: “The power of the Philosopher’s Stone to transform anything lies in its connection to all realms, light and dark. Like the First Matter, it exists suspended in the twilight world between energy and matter. The Philosopher’s Stone heals all rifts and unites all opposites.”^[64]

These “opposites” and “rifts” are akin to the spaces on either side of a doorway. What “unites” them, in the operative sense, is the doorway itself – which is the liminal or transitional area.

Does that clear things up? No? Perhaps that is no accident. Twilight obscures our vision.

“It is harder to see while driving at dusk than at night, even though there is more light…”.^[65]

¿Hablas el Lenguaje Crepuscular?

Imagine a foreign-born visitor to an English-speaking country. A native speaker may ask her: “Do you speak English?” Think for a moment about the layers of complexity involved here.

One question is: Can the traveler recognize the native’s question as an instance of English?

Another is: Does the traveler understand the meaning of the question?

A further question would be: Can she reply – appropriately and intelligibly – in English?

If I understand correctly, both Russian and Ukrainian are widely spoken in Ukraine. But I don’t speak a lick of either. If I ended up there, for some reason, I wouldn’t be able to tell (reliably) which language was being spoken at any given moment.

If I knew that I was in Ukraine, I might at least be able to guess that I was hearing one or the other language. But if – again, for whatever reason – I didn’t know where I was, I may not even be able to guess that. For all I knew, I could be in Belarus, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, or Serbia.

If “Twilight Language” is a language, properly so-called, then is it possible to “speak” it? To “translate” it? How ’bout just to recognize it?!^[66]

Indeed, if it is anything, James Shelby Downard and Michael Hoffman’s interpretation of John F. Kennedy’s assassination seems to be one sustained exercise in “reading” Twilight Language.

Insofar as they have succeeded in recognizing something – and, I would not be writing this if I believed that they hadn’t! (and to the extent that we’re prepared to call this “something” Twilight Language) – then Downard and Hoffman successfully read a Twilight-Language “text.”

Many others have followed suit. As previously mentioned, Loren Coleman has dedicated an entire weblog, and thousands of posts, to trying to read Twilight Language. Numerous others have done similarly – if on a smaller scale.

Preliminary Assumptions

Number one, assume that, in normal situations, Twilight-Language “users” will prefer to have their methods remain hidden.^[67] Call this the “occult assumption.” But, there is an important caveat.

Hoffman has asserted that if a person is in a “hypnotic state”; and if, while in that state, said person is told (for example by the hypnotist) that they are hypnotized; then the “depth” of the hypnosis will increase (as counterintuitive as this may seem).

Therefore, it may be, as I think Hoffman indeed holds, that this “revelation of the method” procedure is a technique for deepening hypnotic trance. But how should we take all this?

Mechanically or, perhaps, deterministically, we might understand this effect to be an inevitability. On this understanding, and to the degree that the technique is performed correctly and at the correct time, it will not fail. Here, the power of the hypnotist lies precisely in his or her technical proficiency – or, if you will, the hypnotist forces his or her will on the subject.

This is hypnotist-as-psychic-r@pist. Here, we’re in the province of Donald Ewen Cameron, the Central Intelligence Agency “head shrinker” who conducted the infamous MKUltra, mind-control “Montreal experiments” (Subproject 68) out of McGill University in Quebec, Canada.

But think of what the “doctor” needed. He evidently needed the security and seclusion of the Allan Memorial Institute. He needed mind-altering drugs, such as (reportedly) curare and LSD. He needed apparatus, like electroshock machines, tape recorders, and a staff of accomplices.

Alternatively, we could think of all this as a gambit – which is, by the way, what Hoffman seems to suppose. To put it artfully, at each fork in the road the will is presented with the same choice: Obey or not? As the “Architect” puts it in The Matrix Reloaded: “…[The Oracle] stumbled upon a solution whereby nearly 99% of all test subjects accepted the [Matrix] program, as long as they were given a choice, even if they were only aware of the choice at a near unconscious level.”

In this way of looking at it, the technique may fail at any time. Whatever power the hypnotist possesses is not taken by the hypnotist; it’s freely given by the subject.

Second, assume that users treat Twilight Language as something, well… almost “holy.” I’m using “holy” in a minimal sense of something “set apart,” causing feelings of awe, mystery, or power.^[68]

We conjecture, therefore, that Twilight Language attempts to induce “religious” experiences – or something very like them.

Third, assume that practitioners are introduced to Twilight Language via some sort of training that verges on initiation. In any case, it must be a well-guarded secret that its experts would be loath to allow “profane” (uninitiated) persons to see or master. Call this the “superiority assumption.”

Symbol-Winnowing Fork?

Some people would deny any possibility of the existence of Twilight Language. Others seem to find evidence of it everywhere.

Michael Hoffman cautions: “The two extremes which distort are total denial of Twilight Language on the one hand, and a total immersion in trivial aspects of a case that end up muddying key elements, like pattern detection.” Hoffman calls for some sort of “filtering process.”^[69]

What sort of “filter”? And how do we implement it?

Referencing the “‘psychic driving’ …[of] the CIA’s Dr. Ewen Cameron,” mentioned above, Hoffman wrote the following. “The public have been trained …to go down on its knees …by two principle methods: [1] direct ‘speaking’ archetypal messages of pure terror …encoded in massively publicized ‘lone nut’ mass murders, and [2] the sinister flattery heaped upon them by their masters in the cult of civilization and progress.”^[70]

Part of what Hoffman seems to have in mind, when recommending a filtering process, is a conscious and objective assessment of what we might call the “media profile” of events.

As a first pass, we might say: The greater an event’s profile, the more likely it is to constitute a Twilight-Language “ritual.” Supposing that an event’s media profile will be roughly proportional to its (real or imagined) “titillation-factor,” then events that are particularly sexy or violent will tend to have larger media profiles.^[71] In these cases, plainly, we would be justified in looking closely.

For example, about the infamous “Unabomber” case (more on which in a moment) Hoffman wrote: “[T]he N.Y. Times and Washington Post, which reject dozens of terrorist demands, especially from Arabs, for the publication of sundry manifests, nevertheless published the ‘Unabom’ manifesto …of Sept. 19, 1995…”.^[72]

The publication of the “manifesto,” along with various “code-words” connected to the case, signaled that someone – the stage-managers, perhaps – didn’t want us to miss these things.

Many “serial murder” cases display this feature. Take the so-called “Zodiac.” This case involved, among other things, the publication (by the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, and Vallejo Times-Herald) of various letters – and four accompanying “ciphers.”

“The alchemical Son of Sam statements were also published by the N.Y. Daily News.”^[73]

Hoffman’s alertness was partially triggered by his knowledge of history. “The publication of anonymous occult manifests is as old as the ‘chemical wedding’ tracts of the Rosicrucians.”^[74]

More recent examples can be readily multiplied. However, each of them should be considered speculative until some meticulous investigative legwork is done. For example, when an author like S. K. Bain proposes “9/11 as Mass Ritual,” and provides a sustained argument to that effect (as he did in The Most Dangerous Book in the World, 2012), we ought to take notice.

It is reasonable to look for conjunctions of rich symbol-complexes or symbol patterns, violent or pornographic displays, and media circuses.^[75] Think of these suggestions as a heuristic that may help us quickly get an intuitive fix on whether a particular event is worth the time to investigate.

Language : Twilight Language :: Art : Art of Persuasion

Think of what we mean when we talk about the “art of persuasion” or “persuasive language.”

I take it that the “art of persuasion” is not (at least, not usually) designating a separate “art” from drawing, painting, sculpting, and the like. It’s rather a way of using art persuasively.

Similarly, “persuasive language” isn’t a “language” the way English is a language. It doesn’t usually have a vocabulary that is altogether different or distinct from the specimens of English already locatable in Webster’s Dictionary.

The “art of persuasion” and “persuasive language” are just ways of using Standard-American English. In the case of Madison-Avenue advertising, the purpose may be well-defined (in terms of product sales). The process of achieving the sought-after result might be meticulously planned and executed. And John Q. Public may or may not be aware of the persuasion.

Maybe “Twilight Language” is not a full language, strictly speaking.^[76] It might be something like a way of using a natural language. Or maybe it’s a sort of cipher system or code, with its vocabulary being parasitic on, or a subset of, what linguists call Standard American English.

In his video presentation, The Occult Philosophy Behind Mind Control, Hoffman commented that: “[M]odern man …is a mind-bombed patsy who gets his marching orders from ‘Twilight Language’ key words sprinkled throughout ‘his’ news and current events.”^[77] Hoffman continued:

“Even as [the modern man] dances to the tune of the elite managers of human behavior, he scoffs with great derision at the idea of the existence and operation of a technology of mass mind control emanating from the media and government. Modern man is the ideal hypnotic subject: puffed up on the idea that he is the crown of creation, he vehemently denies the power of the hypnotist’s control over him, even as his head bobs up and down on a string.”^[78]

On this understanding, Twilight Language is (at least partially) language used for the purpose of controlling people’s thoughts.

Embedded Commands

One example of the kind of “thought control” we have in mind might be the use of so-called “embedded commands.” These are often part of an approach to psychological manipulation that goes by the somewhat ponderous label of “Neuro-Linguistic Programming,” or NLP.

One purported authority writes: “Embedded commands are patterns of language that bypass conscious reasoning and speak directly to the subconscious mind.”^[79] The starting point is simply a distinction between a “conscious” mind and an “unconscious” one.

To “embed” a command is to “…[transmit] it to the unconscious mind in a way that is acceptable to the conscious mind. People do not like to be told what to do. Embedded commands are like sugar coating on medicine. Like the rhetorical question, the embedded command tells the listener how to think, in an indirect and subtle way.”^[80]

While this may sound like fringe or niche psychology, It may (or may not) surprise you to learn that the claims made for “embedded commands” are taken seriously in a few high places – such as the American Bar Association, which gives a sketch of how this is supposed to work.

“The technique of embedd[ing] commands involves prefacing the command with a tentative or permissive phrase. In a case involving breach of contract and alleged wrongful termination, you want the jurors to conclude that the defendant had just cause to terminate the plaintiff because the plaintiff was an ineffective manager. You might say, ‘I wonder how many people would employ someone in a management capacity who would arrive one hour late every single day?’ The permissive preface ‘I wonder’ is an embedded command. Essentially, you are telling the jury that your client was right to discharge the plaintiff: the plaintiff was always late for work. Rather than simply stating that fact, the embedded command includes a permissive statement that is compatible with a listener’s experiences and range of ideas.”^[81]

If I understand correctly, almost any command (that is, nearly any imperative English word or phrase) can be “embedded.” At this level, NLP seems to be a system of linguistic camouflage.

There doesn’t need to be a set of NLP “power words,” just ways of disguising imperatives.

Philosophy of Twilight Language

Freemasons invoke the idea of a “lost word,” allegedly forgotten during the construction of King Solomon’s Temple. Candidate or surrogate “lodge passwords,” such as Mahabone,^[82] are used ritually. Supposed, “secret” divine names, like Jahbulon, figure in Masonic degree ceremonies.

Michael Hoffman has mentioned the “strange lodge character Dr. Syntax.” A collaborative effort on the parts of 18th-19th-century writer William Combe and caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson, “Doctor Syntax” was evidently a popular character during England’s Georgian Era (1714-1837).

The purpose of the character – who in one illustration (Dr. Syntax at Free Mason’s Hall, 1820) had a banquet with various “brothers” of the “Craft” – is quite difficult to say with any precision. However, he seems to have worked to undermine then-current societal norms.

It’s of passing interest that Combe’s Wikipedia entry^[83] states that “[h]is early life was that of an adventurer,” which is provocative in light of the fact that his contemporaries Giacomo Casanova, Count Alessandro di Cagliostro (born Giuseppe Balsamo), and the Comte de Saint Germain are all routinely described similarly. (Not definitive, surely. But… curious.)

Methodology

Is “Twilight Language” similar to NLP's “embedded commands”? Are they one and the same? Is it a method, rather than a distinct language, like English, French, German, or Mandarin Chinese?

First, let’s pursue (provisionally, anyway) a “methodological interpretation” of Twilight Language. What, if anything, can be concluded? Can we sketch a rough Twilight-Language taxonomy?^[84]

Then I will switch gears and assume that Twilight Language does have a specialized vocabulary. On this alternate assumption, I will try to name a few “lexemes” for some of what plausibly falls under the heading of “Twilight Language.” For example, below I will propose that at least some of what (fairly) counts as “Twilight Language” is usefully construed as a species of embedded commands or “triggers.” Under this subheading, I will advance a candidate command word.^[85]

Aristotle’s Four Causes

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle sketched an account of causation in terms of a fourfold taxonomy. I promise, I’ll explain later why I think that this is important. Bear with me.

“The first thing we may want to know about something is (1) the material cause or its matter. For example, Aristotle says a hunk of bronze is the material cause of a statue.

“…Next, we need to know (2) the efficient cause. This is the origin of the process that produced the article in question. In the case of the statue, this would be the sculptor and his tools [which are sometimes designated instrumental causes]. …

“To explain something [fully], we also need to know its (3) formal cause. This is the essence of the item, the form being actualized in its matter, that makes it the sort of thing it is. Thus, when the sculptor begins his work, he has the form in mind as he works with the bronze.

“…[But, f]or Aristotle, the most important aspect of something was (4) the final cause. This is the end or purpose or function it is to fulfill. For an artificial object such as a statue, its purpose may be to depict the likeness of someone.”^[86]

It is interesting to ask whether Aristotle’s account has anything to say to us, here. Let me give two reasons to consider it to be relevant.

First, consider what Wallis Budge says about Egyptian amulets. “Amulets are of two kinds: (1) those which are inscribed with magical formulæ, and (2) those which are not.”^[87] Budge adds:

“In the earliest times[,] formulæ or prayers were recited over the amulets that were worn by the living or placed on the dead by priests or men set apart to perform religious services by the community; but it was not in the power of every man to employ them, and at a comparatively early date words of magical power and prayers were cut upon the amulets, which thus became possessed of a twofold power, that is to say, the power which was thought to be inherent in the substance of which the amulet was made, and that which lay in the words inscribed upon it.”^[88]

On the one hand, there is the material stuff, or “substance of which the amulet was made,” and, on the other hand, there are the formulæ, that is, “the words inscribed upon it.”

“Formula,” designates “words used in a ceremony or ritual.”^[89] But the word’s etymology is instructive. It’s “literally [a] ‘small form,’ [from the] diminutive of forma [meaning] ‘form’ …”.^[90]

If you didn’t skip our earlier discussion of the alchemical prima materia, you’ll recall that – according to Aristotle – to get a material thing you combine “first matter” with a form.

To get a feel for what I’m thinking about, consider Catholic writer Peter Kreeft’s illustration of Christian baptism.^[91] For the moment, set aside whatever religious perspective you bring to the table (or, as it were, that you leave at the front door). Just think about how a baptism could be analyzed using Aristotle’s various causal levels.

Materially, a baptism may include or involve various physical things (like oil and water – and the catechumen). And it doubtless occurs at (or in) certain physical locations (e.g., churches).

We also typically observe the use of well-defined formulæ – which we’re taking to be our formal cause. These formulæ mark the occasion as an instance of a genuine baptism – as opposed to, say, a dip in the pool, a theatrical production, or a water-fight.

The formula is pronounced by a priest who (depending upon one’s view), either acts as the efficient cause, or as an instrumental cause (through which God effects the baptism).

The final cause, the reason for the entire ceremony, is to make him or her a member of a church, remove “Original Sin,” or whatever.

What makes a baptismal ceremony a distinctly religious affair? It’s not the water, words, or people involved – on their own. It’s all of them together. What makes for an authentic Egyptian magical amulet? It’s not – by themselves – the gold (or whatever) that it’s made of or the words inscribed on it. It’s both together.

James Shelby Downard’s view,^[92] clarified and expanded by Michael Hoffman,^[93] was that the 35^th President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was not just assassinated, but was sacrificed in a modern representation of an ancient, pagan-inspired, killing-of-the-king ritual.

Many investigators have purported to review the material evidence in the case. But, “…Dealey Plaza …[was arguably] an outdoor Masonic temple…”.^[94] There’s a formal cause in play: namely, those factors that make this a Masonic ritual sacrifice as opposed to a mere political murder by a “lone-nut” gunman.

It’s at this explanatory level that the proper names (of people and places) and “Twilight Language” figure so crucially. It’s like these words act, in some symbolic way, as mystical performatives.

The true efficient cause would be the orchestrator(s) of the conspiracy. You can feel free to nominate your favorite co-conspirators as instrumental causes.

As for the final cause, here’s how Hoffman and Downard put it. “[T] ultimate purpose …was not political or economic but sorcerous: for the control of the dreaming mind and the marshalling of its forces is the omnipotent force in this entire scenario of lies, cruelty and degradation.”^[95]

Aristotle’s four causes are the handle by which we can get a grip on Twilight-Language events.

A second reason follows closely upon the heels of the first. For it may seem to some as if the idea of “Twilight Language” is just too bizarre for the 21^st century. We’re too “scientific.” Right?

Never mind that Aleister Crowley and his disciples seemed to correlate – if not identify – his “magick” (sic) with “science.” In Crowley’s book, Magick in Theory and Practice, we read: “In one sense Magick may be defined as the name given to Science by the vulgar.”^[96]

Still, it is apparent that contemporary scientists – or at least their loud, atheistic spokespersons^[97] – often assume (or, if they’re arrogant, insist upon), naturalism.^[98] They have removed all talk of “formal” and “final” causes from the Aristotelian schema mentioned above.

The material and efficient “causes or modes of explanation seem roughly consistent with …[this] modern scientific view of the world. …[Many people] tend to think of nature as being made up of material objects being acted on by a set of [impersonal, physical] forces.”^[99]

Why do many of our contemporaries ignore, miss, or otherwise refuse to acknowledge Twilight Language phenomena? One satisfying answer might be that they’re beholden to contemporary, atheistic science – or “Scientism” – which excludes, as meaningless, final and formal causes.

Downard and Hoffman observed: “The eternal pagan psychodrama is escalated under these ‘modern’ conditions precisely because sorcery is not what 20th century man can accept as real. Thus the ‘Killing of the King’ rite of November, 1963 is alternately diagnosed as a conflict between ‘anti-Castro reactionaries and the forces of liberalism,’ big business and the big bankers, this-or-that wing of the intelligence community and so on. Needless to say, each of these groups has a place in the symbolism having to do with the Kennedy assassination.”^[100]

This is simply the point that “modern man” looks exclusively to efficient and material causes.

Naturalistic science gives rise to naturalistic theorizing. What matters is the concrete: autopsies and ballistics. We examine physical evidence, and propose chains of efficient causes.

The possibility that we’re up against “sorcery” is ruled out of court. But, if that is what we’re up against, then we ignore final and formal factors only at our peril.

No Catholic would accept, as an accurate or full account of the baptismal rite, an explanation merely listing what physically occurs among the bodies involved. This, concerned only with efficient and material ingredients, would leave out essential components of the ritual – literally.

To Aristotle, the “form” of something was none other than that thing’s essence or nature.

To leave out the form in the explanans is to misidentify or misrepresent the explanandum. And neglect of the final cause is either a failure to grasp something’s purpose, or it is an assertion that there is no purpose to grasp.

For Aristotle, however, only if one attends sufficiently to all “four kinds of …question has …[one] fully understood” the object of one’s analysis.^[101]

For anyone who is skeptical of the dry-as-dust dogmas of physicalism, Downard and Hoffman declare: “Never allow anyone the luxury of assuming that because the dead and deadening scenery of the American city-of-dreadful-night is so utterly devoid of mystery, so thoroughly flat-footed, sterile and infantile, so burdened with the illusory gloss of ‘baseball-hot dogs-apple-pie-and-Chevrolet’ that it is somehow outside the psycho-sexual domain.”^[102]

In fact, we may go one step further. It is conceivable that the Twilight-Language enterprise is at least partly aimed at the spreading of the precepts of naturalism. Is this incompatible with the “sorcerous” currents that we have been surveying? Perhaps not. As Fortean investigator Jim Brandon noted on his seminal Sirius Rising recordings, Crowley was fond of this little rhyme.

“We place no reliance on virgin or pigeon. Our method is science; our aim is religion.”^[103]

As a method, Twilight language is partly about transformation. Of course, this immediately brings back alchemy, the hermetic art and science of transformation.

“In myth, all those epic deeds which usher in a cosmic, social or moral revolution take place during a journey to the west – Perseus on his way to kill the Gorgon, Herakles (Hercules) killing the dragon in the garden of the Hesperides, Apollo setting out for the land of the Hyperboreans and so on. …[Twilight] is closely linked to the west, the direction in which the Sun sinks, vanishes and dies. …The westward journey is a journey into the future, but a journey through transforming darkness. Beyond the night will be the hoped-for dawn.”^[104]

Buddhist Connexion?

There is another aspect of this (hypothetical) “twilight methodology.” As the Wikipedia “stub” indicated, “Twilight Language” is also some sort of an Eastern, Buddhist-Tantric concept.

Loren Coleman has touched on this connection. “Others have been this way before. Buddhism’s tantras are thousands of years old and yet [have] never [been] publicly revealed… Gradually it became necessary to write the secrets down so they would not be completely lost. But when they were written, they were written in a ‘Twilight Language,’ that is, in allegory, symbolism, code, so they could not be …misused by unworthy seekers.”^[105]

Evidently, the theme, here, is concealment.

“Buddhist tantric literature is written in a highly oblique and obscure literary form known as ‘Twilight Language’ (sandhya bhasha), designed to conceal its contents from non-practitioners… Such symbology [as is employed in sandhya bhasha] is incomprehensible without the key provided by the oral commentary of a tantric master.”^[106]

Since it is not immediately obvious that Western “managers of human behavior” avail themselves of the tactics of Tantra (though, they might), one might suspect that insofar as “Twilight Language” refers to definite concepts at all, it is reasonable to think that it must be (at least weakly) ambiguous in some respect.^[107]

However, rather than these two concepts being entirely distinct, Hoffman himself links Twilight Language with (particular strands in) Tantra.^[108]

In his book Judaism Discovered, Hoffman wrote that Rabbinic “sacred writings” display a “predilection for inserting decoy texts.”^[109]

Hoffman indicates that, “among the Hindus and Buddhists[,] …[t]here is a precedent [for this Rabbinic practice] for coding sacred texts for purposes of concealing their true doctrine from the non-initiate.”^[110]

Perhaps, as in Freemasonry and secret societies generally, upper-level esoteric meaning is concealed even from low-level initiates.

In fact (and probably not coincidentally), among various “Tantra-influenced groups,” this is the entire point of the sandhya bhasha: to “maintain secrecy from outsiders.”^[111]

It is especially noteworthy that, “[d]uring …public occasions,” practitioners of the relevant variety of Tantra “never discuss rituals as such, but [only] allude to them in their ‘Twilight Language.’”^[112]

“Scholars call this ‘intentional’ or ‘twilight’ language (sandhya bhasha). It is intentional in that it helps religious actors maintain distance from noninitiate ordinary people; and it is ‘twilight’ in that it preserves secrecy about their practices. Sandhya in fact literally means ‘twilight’ and refers to the liminal phase between light and dark when forms are discernible, but specificities lost.”^[113]

Although some dispute the point, tantric Twilight Language is bound up with innuendo and wordplay – often of a specifically sexual nature. “[M]any scholars …[are] uneasy with [Tantra’s] intentionally blunt language (Sandhya-bhasha) and overtly erotic symbolism.”^[114]

“[A]rt historian Devangana Desai, who has been working extensively on erotic sculptures and religious iconography of India…attempts to explain the imagery of …Khajuraho [Indian Temple] erotica in the context of certain esoteric Tantric cults.

“Citing the use of double entendre in much of Tantra through the elaborate use of Sandhya Bhasha (the Twilight Language), she claims that the erotic figures actually hide within them the forms of certain yantras, or Tantric diagrams.

“‘They even used images as puns…’. The idea was to convey the secret message to the initiated while delighting and enticing the lay viewer to venture further in the spiritual field. Taking the theme of [this epistemic] dualism further she observes that most of the erotic panels are to be found in the area between two important parts of the temple, the mahamandapa and the garbhagriha – the sandhi (juncture where dualities meet) zone.”^[115]

The maintenance of secrecy in virtue of allusions, puns, and the like, to a feature of Hermetic-Masonic ritual emphasized by Hoffman. “The alchemical principle of the Revelation of the Method has as its chief component, a clown-like, grinning mockery of the victim(s) as a show of power and macabre arrogance.”^[116]

Of course, Freemasonry rests upon, and derives from, the Jewish Kabbalah. “The mystical philosophy or theosophy of the Jews is called the Cabala. …[I]t is intimately connected with the symbolic science of Freemasonry… [T]he Cabala may be defined to be a system of philosophy which embraces certain mystical interpretations of Scripture, and metaphysical and spiritual beings. In these interpretations and speculations, according to the Jewish doctors, were enveloped the most profound truths of religion, which, to be comprehended by finite beings, are obliged to be revealed through the medium of symbols and allegories.

“Buxtorf (Lexicon of the Talmud) defines the Cabala to be a secret science, which treats in a mystical and enigmatical manner of things divine, angelical, theological, celestial, and metaphysical; the subjects being enveloped in striking symbols and secret modes of teaching. Much use is made of it in the advanced degrees, and entire Rites have been constructed on its principles.”^[117]

Given these admissions regarding this “secret science” that makes use of “symbols and allegories,” it is hardly surprising that Hoffman also associates Twilight Language with the Kabbalah – specifically, the practices called gematria.^[118]

Hoffman explicated this connection by way of discussing 16^th-century Elizabethan-era “magicians” Edward Kelley and John Dee. In an episode reminiscent of the sandhya-bhasa business, Kelley and Dee claimed to have been taught – by “angels,” no less – a system of ciphers and glyphs that they referred to as “Enochian” (an “Angelic language”).

In Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare Hoffman wrote:

“The path to unlocking [the ‘Enochian’ system obtained by Dr. Dee] was centered in Twilight Language, a once nearly universal subliminal communication system used in Egypt, Babylon, the Indian subcontinent and among the Aztecs, consisting of a combination of numbers, archetypal words and symbols, which in our time are sometimes embedded in modern advertising and in certain modern films and music.

“In Oriental Tantra, the mantra …is sonically calculated to induce a particular action. It forms part of the original Sanskrit concept of sandhyabhasa (‘Twilight Language’).

“According to the oldest of the Kabbalistic texts, it is by this cryptic language that the means for the creation of artificial life can be discerned: ‘…This technique…is the one that is used when making a Golem.’

“Another branch of Twilight Language is called the secret language of the double, i.e. ‘intentional language’…, defined as the intention to imply or suggest something contradictory to what is being expressed verbatim. …”^[119]

Elsewhere, Hoffman spoke about Twilight Language in the context of the peculiar (and seemingly modern) phenomenon of “serial murder.”

“There is a dark poetry to ritual murder, to Twilight Language,[footnote #2] to the fantastic convergences to known as coincidence. Most ‘conspiracy researchers’ miss these. The best investigator – of the occult or of almost anything else – has a child-like sense of curiosity and wonder about seemingly mundane things.”^[120] It’s young Alice who gets into Wonderland.

In David Fincher’s 2007 film, Zodiac (Paramount), featuring Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Ruffalo, cartoonist Robert Graysmith (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) is portrayed analogously. There is a running joke about Graysmith – based on the real-life person by the same name who spent decades investigating the Zodiac case – having been “a boy scout.”^[121]

Prior to the Enlightenment, language had not been subjected to anything like what we would now call “scientific analysis.” “Like the order of the world, language’s origin had generally been assumed to be divine.”^[122]

It seems that “Twilight Language” is multifaceted – like a diamond. And yet, a diamond is a single object. If it’s well cut, then its main facet acts as a unifying principle for, and directs light toward, the others.^[123] How many facets does Twilight Language have? Which one unifies?

Minimally, Twilight Language seems to involve both words and symbols.^[124] Hoffman said that Twilight Language is like “dark poetry” – sorcerer as playwright.

“Ultimately a story is being told and ‘charmed’ conjunctions and interstices are formed… partly from invocation and partly from ‘surfing’ a magnetic attraction that seems to organize anomalies around certain ‘words of power’ and potent symbols.”^[125]

Twilight Vocabulary

On methodological assumptions, we could stop^[126] here. But what about the possibility that Twilight Language has its own vocabulary? That would open up additional vistas of exploration.

Firstly, some Twilight Language seems able to “mark” (so to speak) a place in memory (whether individual memory or, possibly, “collective memory”) for later retrieval. It may or may not be that both the marking (as well as what is marked) is available for conscious inspection or reflection. So, it could be that there is room enough here for two subsorts.

A conscious “marker” might function something like a mnemonic, while a non-conscious one (whether sub-, un-, or super-conscious) might be a bit like behavioral psychology’s “operant conditioning” (reinforcements/punishments) or, perhaps, like a so-called “anchor” (as that concept is allegedly employed in neuro-linguistic programming).

It seems to me that the Twilight Language “vocabulary” need not be strictly lexical (or “verbal,” if you like) but might be broad enough to include visual symbols, physical gestures, and indeed may well address any of the traditional “five senses” (visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory) – separately or together.^[127]

Psychologists use the term “flashbulb memory” to designate “[r]ecollections of unexpected and emotional events…”.^[128]

“Millions of Americans have vivid remembrances of decades-old traumatic events, including John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the Challenger space shuttle explosion and, more recently, the 9/11 attacks. Known as ‘flashbulb memories,’ these detailed recollections can be as clear as something that happened yesterday, right down to the dialogue, the weather and even what people were wearing when they heard the news.

“‘What makes these events so memorable is the unusual intersection of the personal and the public, so that what becomes salient for you is actually learning about the event, in addition to the facts of it,’ says cognitive psychologist William Hirst, PhD, a flashbulb memory researcher at the New School for Social Research.

“The idea of flashbulb memory was first proposed in 1977 by psychologists Roger Brown, PhD, and James Kulik, PhD, who posited that these memories are so emotionally important to us that they’re laid down as vividly, completely and accurately as a photograph. But that idea remains hotly debated today. And each new public tragedy provides fodder for more research.

“‘Every time there’s a public trauma, psychologists run out in the street and capture people’s memories of what happened,’ says Hirst. ‘They did it with the Challenger explosion. They did it with the death of Princess Diana… And we did it with 9/11.’

“Hirst, along with 15 other investigators across the country, runs the largest study of 9/11 memories. At least three smaller studies have also been published by memory researchers who, amidst their own shock and horror at the destruction of 9/11, knew that it presented a special research opportunity that other flashbulb situations hadn’t: The attacks hit multiple communities and directly touched millions of Americans—forcing them to leave work early or race to retrieve their children from school. The media coverage was unending and there was a collective realization that life in America was forever changed.

“Now, 10 years later, the research findings are revealing a story that, like memory itself, is not exactly clear. Some of the 9/11 studies indicate that we forget or falsely remember much more than we realize; we get facts wrong, for example, or misremember our emotional reactions.

“But some psychologists say more research is needed because these studies haven't done enough to consider the memory-making role of emotion or to distinguish flashbulb memories from regular memories. Certainly people believe they’re more accurate and recall them more vividly. And there is mounting evidence that the closer we are physically and mentally to the event, the more we get it right, and the more we can recount every sight, sound and smell we experienced.”^[129]

Psychologists still debate, and investigate, the accuracy (or veridicality) of “flashbulb memories.” But “…for many Americans—whether recalled accurately or not—are the horrific events of 9/11. …[T]hose who saw it firsthand can recall it like it was yesterday, the images forever seared into their memories.”^[130]

Assuming that what we’re watching is not flummery, I wonder: If Derren Brown can do this on a shoestring budget, then what can Madison Avenue do? What can Hollywood do? What can the CIA and Pentagon do?

In an article titled “The Mirror World of Columbine,” Hoffman wrote that, in relation to the April 20, 1999 mass shooting at Colorado’s Columbine High School, although he found “ …no evidence of a direct CIA or MK-Ultra tie[,] …[m]ost MKUltra programming cues are now in our mass media culture itself.”^[131]

Citing the 1998 movie Blade as well as The Matrix, which was released in theaters the previous month, Hoffman noted that actors Wesley Snipes and Keanu Reeves were both shown killing people while wearing trench coats. The Columbine shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, “wore black trench coats on the day of the massacre”;^[132] media reports often associated the pair – perhaps inaccurately – with a group of school outcasts called the “Trench Coat Mafia.”^[133]

“In the movie ‘The Matrix’ Reeves is dressed in a black Trench Coat while firing two automatic pistols and engaged in an assault on a SWAT Team, reminiscent of the Colorado schoolyard shootings. His partner carries a duffel bag with bombs in it, again a striking similarity with the Columbine High School tragedy in Colorado. ‘The Matrix’ mimics violent video games. It programs kids by simulating an LSD trip while brutalizing them with violent imagery. The movie links mass murder of policemen to a notion of freedom-fighting. Take your kid to see this film and he is programmed. Period. He will have his MKUltra marching orders.”^[134]

Hoffman thus remarked that “[t]he Trench Coat Mafia killers were made in Hollywood…”.^[135]

Note that Hoffman explicitly associated “MKUltra”-style “marching orders” with Hollywood films.

Googling will easily verify that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), has an Entertainment Industry Liaison Office under the auspices of the long-standing Office of Public Affairs.

“Ever since its inception in 1947, the CIA has been covertly working with Hollywood. But it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that the agency formally hired an entertainment industry liaison and began openly courting favorable treatment in films and television. During the [Bill] Clinton presidency, the CIA took its Hollywood strategy to a new level—trying to take more control of its own mythmaking. In 1996, the CIA hired one of its veteran clandestine officers, Chase Brandon, to work directly with Hollywood studios and production companies to upgrade its image.”^[136]

The “mid-1990s”? 1996? Hm. That puts a different complexion on the controversial notion of “predictive programming,” wouldn’t you say?^[137] It’s been a real head-scratcher as to how The Simpsons included a visual reference to 9/11 in its “…World Trade Center episode, [‘The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson’]...”. In the words of long-time “showrunner” and Harvard alum Alfred Ernest “Al” Jean III: “[T]here was a brochure reading $9 a day with an ‘11’ styled up like the towers. That was in ’96, which was crazy, like this insane coincidence.”^[138]

Of course, a similarly “uncanny” 9/11 “sync” shows up in the previously named The Matrix. As more than one person – including a perceptive “Reddit” user – has noticed: Keanu Reeves’s character’s “Neo’s passport in ‘The Matrix’ (1999) expired on Sep. 11, 2001.”^[139]

Those are just the tip of the iceberg. Predictive programming has arguably been a precursor to other events too numerous to list here. Officially, the CIA’s Hollywood liaison simply offers advice, “script approval,” and other sorts of run-of-the-mill technical assistance to filmmakers.

So, don’t worry about it. When the United Press International news agency reported in 2006 that the “U.S. Home Audience” was the admitted target of United States military propaganda, we’re sure they must have been talking about something entirely unrelated.^[140]

Still, “the CIA has long had a special relationship with the entertainment industry, devoting considerable attention to fostering relationships with Hollywood movies and shakers – studio executives, producers, directors, and big-name actors.”^[141]

Numerous actors have portrayed CIA personnel for films or on television – including, per CBS News’s list, Ben Affleck, Jessica Chastain, Claire Danes, and John Krasinski.^[142]

Rôle preparation is frequently said to involve the actor visiting the agency’s Langley, Virginia headquarters for briefing or unspecified “research.”^[143]

Ben Affleck, in particular, raised eyebrows during a 2012 interview in which he alleged: “Probably, Hollywood is full of CIA agents…” and, when asked if he was one himself, said: “I am, yes.”^[144] Unsurprisingly, people debate whether he was joking or not.

But, what was apparently not a joke was the promotional work of Affleck’s then-wife. In 2004, the CIA featured actress Jennifer Garner in a college-recruitment video.^[145]

In the vicinity is the collaboration of former CIA director William Colby with the videogame manufacturer Activision Blizzard. The official line seems to be that Colby was providing color commentary to improve the realism of Activision’s 1996 game “Spycraft: The Great Game.” What else would Colby have been doing? You’re not one of those “conspiracy kooks,” are you?

As probable career Dupont-family asset Joseph R. “Joe” Biden, Jr. was fond of screaming: “Come on, man!”

What psychological cues are audiences unwittingly exposing themselves to by sitting in theaters – or home theaters? Do we say more than we realize yammering about our favorite “programs” over the water cooler – or on Facetime?

Aldous Huxley spoke about a psychological “revolution” by which people are made to love their servitude. (For the details, see further on.) Do you love your programming?

‘Wicker’-pedia

“For look, the wicked bend their bows; they set their arrows against the strings to shoot from the shadows at the upright in heart.” – Psalm 11:2^[146]

Do we have examples – or at least candidates – of “Twilight Language” words? Some say: “Yes.”

One of Michael Hoffman’s picks, oft-cited, is: “wicker.”^[147]

“A popular 1973 film entitled The Wicker Man,^[148] is set on a Scottish island where a policeman investigates an occult group involved in pagan ritual sacrifice to …[a wicker] … In April of 1977, during the height of the [Son of] Sam murders, ‘by coincidence,’ The Wicker Man movie was rerun at a Manhattan theater.^[149]

“The word ‘wicker’ has many denotations and connotations, one of which is ‘to bend,’ as in the ‘bending’ of reality.^[150] It is also connected to witchcraft through its derivative, wicca.”^[151]

Sherwood Kent amplifies and quotes Hoffman. Question: “How is reality bent?”^[152] Answer: “…By …placing …ritual props in ceremonial places. These places exist both in the mind and in physical space. …[W]ith the props of time and space[,] what happens ritually in a series of significant places can ‘bend’ reality.”^[153]

On page 214 of Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, under the subheading “Something Wicker This Way Comes,” Hoffman gives this additional summary of references, beyond that of “The Wicker Man …a film…” previously mentioned.^[154]

Of course, Warner Bros. remade The Wicker Man in 2006, featuring actress Ellen Burstyn and actor Nicolas Kim Coppola, better known as Nick Cage.^[155]

The name “Wicked King Wicker [was used as a nickname for the ‘Son of Sam’ killer, in a letter received by New York Daily News columnist James Earle “Jimmy” Breslin, May 30, 1977] …^[156]

“[H. C.] Wickle [was supposedly an alias of the alleged ‘Unabomber’ and joint CIA-Harvard University LSD guinea pig] Theodore John “Ted” Kaczynski.^[157]

Here are a few more.^[158]

After the collapse of Germany during World War Two, U.S. Brigadier General Cornelius Wendell Wickersham was a major planner of the “Allied” occupation and chaired the “U.S. Group to the Control Council for Germany” (who also may have cooperated with the Central Intelligence Agency in setting up Reinhard Gehlen with his “Gehlen Organization” of spies).

After President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, November 22, 1963, the New York Times’s lead story, the following day, was penned by journalist Thomas Grey “Tom” Wicker.

It’s difficult to find an Establishment “insider” with more curious connexions than John Jay “J.” McCloy: adviser to Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, James E. “Jimmy” Carter, and Ronald W. Reagan; alleged adviser to Benito Mussolini; assistant secretary of war (under Henry Lewis Stimson) who forcibly relocated Japanese Americans to internment camps during World War II; attorney for the “Seven Sisters” companies making up “Big Oil”; chairman of the Atlantic Institute, Chase Manhattan Bank, the Council on Foreign Relations, and Ford Foundation; “commissioner” of the Allied High Commission occupying Germany starting in 1949; friend and associate of W. Averell Harriman, Robert A. Lovett, Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and mega-bankers Eric Moritz Warburg (of M. M. Warburg & Co., E. M. Warburg & Co., and Warburg Pincus) and James Paul Warburg (propagandist for William Joseph “Wild Bill” Donovan in the Office of War Information and, with Sears, Roebuck & Co.-heir Philip Stern, co-founder of the Institute for Policy Studies which created the “New Left” movement); member of the “Draper Committee” (of Gen. William Henry Draper, Jr.) and member of the JFK-assassination cover-up operation known as the Warren Commission; president of the World Bank; planner of the building of the Pentagon; “reviewer” of “sentencing” from the Nuremberg Military Tribunals (“Nuremberg trials”); and trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation. Wait, what were we talking about? Oh, yes… McCloy got an early start at the law firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft – which was partially spun out of the orbit of Skull-and-Bonesman (and 27th U.S. president and 10th supreme court chief) William Howard Taft (Henry Waters Taft was W. H. Taft’s brother and George Woodward Wickersham was W. H. Taft’s attorney general – John Lambert Cadwalader had been secretary of state under “Radical Republicans” Ulysses S. Grant and Rutherford B. Hayes and his family was interconnected with the Biddles, including Second Bank head Nicholas Biddle and Nuremberg “judge” Francis Beverley Biddle who later tried to use Woodrow Wilson’s Espionage Act of 1917 to silence Father Charles Edward Coughlin).

A late Indiana University economist who wrote at least six major academic treatments focused on the Federal Reserve banking system was named Elmus Wicker.

In L. Frank Baum’s The Lost Princess of Oz, one chapter – referring to one of its fictional locations – is called “In the Wicker Castle.”^[159]

Just last year (as of this writing), Universal Pictures released its “reimagining” of the Land of Oz, under the movie title Wicked. A prominent part of the advertising involved a “mistake” whereby “Barbie producer Mattel …accidentally linked a porn site on Wicked doll packaging.”^[160]

During the so-called “Era of Manifestations,” within the group of Protestant millennialists known as the “Shakers,” important “gift drawings” were produced by one Joseph Wicker. Under the direction of his “Holy Angel,” Wicker populated the background of at least one of his works with “[w]ords written in an unknown mystical language.”^[161]

Investigating the Boston Marathon Bombing, Sherwood Kent noted “an eerie parallel to the anthrax letters sent following 9/11,” in which “news outlets reported that letters containing the poison ricin had been mailed to President Obama, U.S. Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) and a local judge in Tupelo, Mississippi.”^[162]

The Matrix actor Keanu Reeves now portrays a prolific, retired professional hitman who has – over the course of four movies – killed over 400 people on screen under the name John Wick.

Jim Brandon, author of the Fortean classics Weird America and Rebirth of Pan, also muses about the odd-sounding, and well-nigh ubiquitous online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, that its stem may derive from the same twilight “root.” Whatever the etymological facts, it is arguable that the pervasive “Wiki-” prefix keeps the /wick/ phoneme bubbling around in our psychic cauldrons.^[163]

Given all these occurrences, especially in light of its explicitly religious associations (with Druidic human sacrifice and Ordo-Templis-Orientis member Gerald Gardner’s invention, Wicca), maybe wick, wik, wiki, etc., do indeed have solid claims to be bona-fide Twilight Language power words.

But are all Twilight Language specimens of this sort? Plausibly not.

‘Marching Orders’

Some Twilight Language seems designed to issue express commands or, in Hoffman’s idiom, “marching orders.”^[164] Call this sort of Twilight Language “command language.”^[165] Here, our previously hypothesized “superiority assumption” comes charging back in.

Echoing Aristotle’s Politics, “[i]n [his treatise] Beyond Good and Evil [19^th-century German philosopher Friedrich] Nietzsche detect[ed] two types of morality mixed not only in higher civilization but also in the psychology of the individual. Master-morality values power, nobility, and independence: it stands ‘beyond good and evil.’ Slave-morality values sympathy, kindness, and humility and is regarded by Nietzsche as ‘herd morality.’ The history of society, Nietzsche believes, is the conflict between these two outlooks: the herd attempts to impose its values universally but the noble master transcends their ‘mediocrity.’”^[166]

Clearly, masters issue commands to their slaves. However, it seems no small part of the “trick” that most people do not think of themselves as “slaves.”

This was a major theme in Brave New World, as well as the crux of a speech delivered by famed novelist Aldous Huxley at the University of California – Berkeley, in the 1960s.^[167]

“Today we are faced, I think, with the approach of what may be called the ‘ultimate revolution,’ the ‘final revolution,’ where man can act directly on the mind / body of his fellows. …[D]irect action on human minds / bodies has been going on since the beginning of time. But this has generally been of a violent nature.

“The techniques of terrorism have been …acquired by a process of trial and error – finding out what the best ways of using torture, imprisonment, constraints of various kinds.

“But …[Klemens von] Metternich said many years ago, you can do everything with bayonets except sit on them. …If you are going to control any population for any length of time, you must have some measure of consent. It’s exceedingly difficult to see how pure terrorism can function indefinitely. It can function for a fairly long time, but I think sooner or later you have to bring in an element of persuasion – an element of getting people to consent to what is happening to them.

“Well …the nature of the ultimate revolution with which we are now faced is precisely this: …we are …developing …techniques which will enable the controlling oligarchy, who have always existed and presumably always will exist, …to get people actually to love their servitude. …

“This is… the ultimate in malevolent revolutions… [a]nd …is a problem …about which I wrote thirty years ago, a fable, Brave New World … [It] is essentially the account of a society making use of all the devices …available, …to standardize the population …to create …mass-produced …human beings, arranged in some kind of a scientific caste system.

“And since then …I have noticed with increasing dismay that a number of the predictions …I made …thirty years ago, have come true or seem in process of coming true. …

“[T]here seems to be a general movement in the direction of this kind of ultimate revolution, …this method of control by which people can be made to enjoy a state of affairs which, by any decent standard, they ought not to enjoy. …[T]he enjoyment of servitude.”^[168]

Presumably, our self-anointed “masters” don’t wish to be known (as such), but to remain hidden – as we noted already when we set out our “occult assumption.”

Getting a Rise out of You

One command-word that may fit the bill, or so it seems to me, is the word rise.

The word, used in notable instances as an imperative, has several, interrelated definitions that may signal its possible interest to Twilight-Language “users.”

Obviously, a primary meaning is to stand up; or more technically, to “assume an upright position” after having previously been “lying, sitting, or kneeling.”^[169]

Catholics and “high-church” Protestants will no doubt think of various church services. Then again, it’s perhaps more obviously a command when a bailiff intones “all rise!” as the presiding Judge enters a courtroom.

Thus, we were intrigued by the fact that, when the “Dark-Knight shooting” occurred in 2012 in Aurora, Colorado, the word “rise” seemed to have been a conspicuous part of the backdrop.

Blame for the sickening crimes – twelve people were murdered and around 70 were injured, some grievously – was laid at the door of one James Eagen Holmes.

On the claim that, at the time of the Aurora / Dark-Knight shooting, “Robert Holmes, James Holmes’ father, was …to testify before a senate panel on the LIBOR scandal,” see reporter Jon Rappoport.^[170] (You may recall that the “LIBOR scandal” happened when über-connected banks, such as Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Union Bank of Switzerland, fudged a vital interest rate – known as the “London Interbank Offer Rate,” or “LIBOR” – to hide losses and line investors’ pockets.)

Back to the younger Holmes – whose surname is of interest on its own. The shootings occurred at a “Century 16” movie theater, part of a chain owned by Lee Roy Mitchell’s Cinemark, during a midnight showing of film director Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises.

Sidebar: There are notable exceptions, but James Eagen Holmes is one in a long list of three-name “serial killers” and assassins that extend from John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, and James Earl Ray to Mark David Chapman, Henry Lee Lucas, John Wayne Gacy, and Jared Lee Loughner.

I am not so much interested in whether this idea is literally true. Arguably, it isn’t. Sirhan Sirhan, for example, is widely known only by two names.^[171] What interests me is the fact that there is a “meme” floating around that keeps the idea alive.

One clear statement comes to us by way of Richard Donner’s 1997 movie Conspiracy Theory, featuring Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts, and Patrick Stewart, which contains the following exchange between Gibson’s character (Jerry) and Roberts’s (Alice).

“Jerry: David Berkowitz, Ted Bundy, Richard Speck…

“Alice: What about them?

“Jerry: Serial killers. Serial killers only have two names. You ever notice that? But lone gunmen assassins, they always have three names. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, Mark David Chapman…

“Alice: John Hinckley. He shot Reagan. He only has two names.

“Jerry: Yeah, but he only just shot Reagan. Reagan didn’t die. If Reagan had died, I’m pretty sure we probably would all know what John Hinckley’s middle name was.”^[172]

This particular notion – or some variant of it – has become prominent enough for a Slate columnist to rhapsodize about it.^[173]

An understandable reaction might be to think: Many Americans have “three names”: a given name, a middle name, and a surname. But is there something more “Twilight-Language-ish” lurking about?

We might first note that there has been some publicity around what we might call a “Don’t say that name!” campaign. In the Washington Examiner article “New Media Trend: Don’t Name the Killer,” dated June 14, 2016, we read: “CNN’s Anderson Cooper refused on Monday to say the name of the man [Omar Mateen] who shot and killed 49 people this weekend [Jun. 12, 2016] at a gay nightclub [‘Pulse’] in Orlando, Fla., continuing an increasingly popular policy of denying mass shooters the attention and infamy they are assumed to crave. ‘We begin tonight with their names, the names of the 48 out of 49 people who have so far been identified, victims of the deadliest mass shooting in American history,’ Cooper, who is openly gay, began …[his news show]. ‘There’s one name I want to tell you that you will not hear during this broadcast tonight, one picture of a person you won’t see,’ he added. ‘We will not say the gunman’s name or show his photograph.’”^[174]

A Los Angeles Times piece echoed this sentiment: “Don’t Print the Orlando Killer’s Name or Show His Picture, Readers Say.”^[175] Concerning an earlier (Oct. 1, 2015) shooting at Umpqua Community College, by Chris Harper Mercer, a Washington Post article was headlined: “Essay: Refusing to Say a Killer’s Name Is No More Than Symbolic Empowerment.”^[176]

One professor, writing on “Jewish Onomastics,” comments: “The rabbis teach us (Midrash Eicha Rabba 1:3) that every person has three names: the name his parents gave him, the name by which others call him and the name he creates for himself.”^[177]

It’s worth noting that, for many ancient peoples, names were receptacles of power. Learning a name meant gaining power over a person – or other entity. This has been depicted in Hollywood movies about demonic possession. Prominent examples are The Exorcist and The Rite.^[178]

Incidentally, we got into another interesting name – “Blair” – in a recent, dedicated video.

Traditionally, rulers would often hide their “true” names from their subjects. Indeed, if reports are to be credited about shadowy groups – like the Bilderbergs, the Committee of 300, the Club of Rome, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the Council on Foreign Relations, et al. – really running the world, then this practice appears to have persisted into modern times.

Wikipedia’s entry on the fictional imp Rumpelstiltskin reads, in part: “The value and power of using personal names and titles is well established in psychology, management, teaching and trial law. It is often referred to as the ‘Rumpelstiltskin principle.’ It derives from a very ancient belief that to give or know the true name of a being is to have power over it.”^[179]

According to one stream of Jewish folk tradition: “The essential character of things and of men resides in their names. Therefore to know a name is to be privy to the secret of its owner’s being, and master of his fate. The members of many primitive tribes have two names, one for public use, the other jealously concealed, known only to the man who bears it. Even the immediate members of the family [may] never learn what it is; if an enemy should discover it, its bearer’s life is forfeit.

“In highest antiquity peoples, the occult power that inheres in the name is recognized, and the name itself is known to be a mighty and awesome force in the hands of the magician.

“To know the name of a man is to exercise power over him alone; [whereas,] to know the name of a higher, supernatural being is to dominate the entire province over which that being presides. The more such names a magician has garnered, the greater the number of spirits that are subject to his call and command. This simple theory is at the bottom of the magic which operates through the mystical names and words that are believed to control the forces which in turn control our world.”^[180]

Caption: Alleged Aurora shooter, James Holmes, supposedly posted this (Photo-shopped) image of himself to a dating website.

Another meaning of “rise” is “to become erect and stiff,”^[181] which has obvious sexual overtones. It may be relevant to note that at least one erotically tinged image of Holmes (above) was circulated in the aftermath of the mass shooting. The entire event seems to have been teeming with Twilight-Language significance.

As previously discussed, “twilight” designates the low-light periods of dawn and dusk. As Loren Coleman has pointed out repeatedly, aurora means “dawn.”

In line with this theme, of course, “rise” can also refer to the period during which the sun makes its first appearance along the horizon: namely, sunrise.^[182]

Dawn is, traditionally, the time when most people rise, that is, “get up from bed, especially to begin the day after a night’s sleep.”^[183]

Or again, rise can mean “to get up after falling or being thrown down” and even “to become active in opposition or resistance; revolt or rebel.”^[184]

Furthermore, according to the Holy Bible, there will come a time when: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom …[and t]here will be famines and earthquakes in various places.”^[185] However, remember that “…your Father in heaven …causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”^[186]

The word clearly has a biblical-religious connotation as well, for rise can mean “rise from the dead.”^[187] And the past-tense form (what is it, again?) opens a whole new can of worms. The Greek word for “resurrection,” anastasis, literally means “rise up” (stasis = stand; ana = up).^[188] Hearkening back to another meaning, sketched above, Ephesians 5:14 says: “This is why it is said: ‘Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you’.”^[189]

What’s the Friggin Answer?^[190]

Didn’t we say, somewhere, we were actually going to (try to) answer the “what’s-going-on?” question? So…?!? Believe it or not, I really do think there may be an answer. But…

And you’re probably gonna hate me for saying this… I think it will depend on your philosophical temperament, so to speak. We all have broader and deeper assumptions, commitments, or (at least) intuitions that influence how we will analyze – and ultimately answer – the question.^[191]

Since it was framed by Plato and his famed student, Aristotle, one of the perennial questions in metaphysics – that is, the academic discipline that focuses on questions such as “what exists?” and “what is being?” – has been: “are there real ‘universals’?”

To put it differently, are there really such things as ‘properties’ and ‘relations’? For example…

It seems pretty “obvious” (pre-reflectively, anyway) that there are such things as red apples, red roses, red notebook covers, and so on. However, some people are prepared to go beyond this commitment to (what are called) physical particulars.

Some people seem to want to say something like this. There is “something” that red apples and red roses and red notebook covers all have in common – namely, redness. But, if there “is” some “thing” as redness, then – somewhere out there – redness exists. Ya with me?

We got into some relevant info, in our videos on “Neoplatonism” and “Christian Platonism.” Since both together would take you a couple hours to watch, I’ll try to locate some time stamps and put them into a footnote. (If I forget, feel free to email me: thesynchromystic@gmail.com.)

The 5^th-6^th-century Roman statesman and philosopher Boëthius asked some questions about supposed entities like redness. Here are four of the main ones.^[192]

1. Do genera and species really exist in the world, or are there merely mental constructs?

This categorical terminology may be familiar from Biology 101. A “genus” is a broad category, while a “species” is a subcategory under a genus. For example, “animal” is broad; while “dog” and “human” are narrower subcategories. I exist. My dog, Fido, exists.^[193] The question is: Do general words like “animal” and “human” name really existing “universals,” or just concepts.

2. If they are realities, are they material or immaterial entities?
3. Do they exist apart from particulars (like apples and roses), or within them?
4. Can you think about universal concepts without thinking about particulars?

Your answers to these questions define your metaphysical posture about “universals.” Let’s try to get into this more via an example. Think again about “redness.”

If you think that there really is – and you have to say the word “is” with a suitably deep intonation in order to grasp its metaphysical implications – such a thing as “redness,” then you would be a realist (or some sort) about universals.

If you think that “redness” is a genuinely universal concept, but that it lacks any counterpart in extra-mental reality, then you’re a conceptualist.

And if you think that “redness” is nothing but a word, then you’re a nominalist.^[194]

Let’s consider these possibilities in greater detail.

Very roughly, there are two main sorts of realist.

On the one hand, you have your “Platonic realist” (sometimes disparaged as an “exaggerated” or “extreme” realist) or “Transcendental realist.” This person thinks universals do exist in the world (question #1) immaterially (q. #2). And they exist apart from particulars (q. #3), in some transcendent realm. After all, they’re not exactly residents of the world of our five senses!

This strange “realm” is sometimes termed “Platonic heaven.”^[195]

In this view, known as “Platonism,” redness exists – even more serenely than any apple or rose.

Redness – and other properties – is a sort of “Platonic Form” or “Platonic Idea.” (And notice that “Idea” is spelled with a capital letter to distinguish it from the stuff that’s merely in “our heads.”)

To a Platonist, particular red things – like apples, roses, and notebooks – are red in virtue of “sharing in” some really existing separate “thing” called the Form of Redness.^[196]

On the other hand, critics – including Plato’s illustrious student, Aristotle – have thought that this Platonic, “transcendent realism” is a bit, well, spooky.^[197]

Aristotelian realism (or “moderate realism”) is an alternative view that basically says, “Yes, universals really exist in nature (question #1), but they exist within particulars (q. #3) in this physical ‘realm.’” So there really is redness, but it does not exist “separately” from red things. Redness exists because there are red things.

To an Aristotelian, red things really do have redness in common – redness is a genuine universal. A “universal” is something that can be predicated (or said of) many things.

But some philosophers worry that without Platonic Forms, so-called “universals” that allegedly lie “within” concrete particulars, cannot actually be “universal” – that is, one-over-many.

This leads some to reject any sort of “realist” answer. The “conceptualist view,”^[198] holds instead that redness only exists in our minds (question #1). But, it insists, although we do all have our own, individual thoughts, we do really share the same concepts – at least, when we’re thinking of the same things! Therefore, the conceptualist holds, these concepts are genuinely universal.

Or… are they? Other people think that concepts cannot truly be shared unless they have some fundamentally extramental existence. Otherwise, all we have are particular thoughts in particular minds. Why, in the absence of real universals to ground them, should we think that my concepts are literally one and the same as yours? – even though do usually assume that it’s possible to share concepts. Maybe we’re wrong. Or maybe concepts are grounded extra-mentally after all.

If you’ve had enough of all this, you’re not alone. 13^th-14^th-century Franciscan scholastic William of Ockham famously – or infamously – thought that all this was a bunch of hooey.^[199]

His repudiation of the whole business is now known as “nominalism.” To a nominalist like Ockham, there simply are no genuinely universal “things”; all things are particular. And there are no genuinely universal concepts, either.^[200] All concepts are particular, too.

What “Redness” is, is a word – a particular word. But it functions as an abbreviation that picks out (something like) “all particular red things.” Redness names a collection of things that all resemble each other. “Resemblance” is primitive – you can’t analyze it in terms of anything else.

But nominalism isn’t without its problems, too. A major one is that commonality, exact-similarity, and “sameness” seem to be real features of experience, if not of existence itself. The red apple and the red rose really do seem to have something – that is, some existing thing – in common.

Thus, a big problem with nominalism (regarding universals) is that it denies the real existence of shared properties. On what basis do we meaningfully categorize or classify things as being the “same” color, if (for example) a red apple and a red rose don’t really share the same redness?

To recap… The two main positions are often thought of as realism and nominalism.

A realist thinks that universals (like redness) have real existence – independently of our minds, as entities such as Platonic Ideas (big “I”), Platonic Forms, Aristotelian forms, etc.

A nominalist thinks that universals (per se) don’t exist; they’re just names for particular things or groups of particular things; they “exist” only insofar as any word exists.

Sometimes, conceptualism is thought of as occupying a middle ground between the two.

A conceptualist thinks that universals are ideas (little “i”) or concepts. Against the nominalist, conceptualists say that universals do exist. Against the realist, conceptualists say that universals only exist inside of our minds – not outside of them.^[201]

What’s Going on?

It depends. Here’s what I’m suggesting.

Answering the question “what is really going on with Twilight Language?” depends crucially upon (at least) two things. Firstly, it depends on there being something that answers to the description “Twilight Language.” To put it a different way, there has to be “Twilight Language.”

Hint: I wouldn’t be writing all this if I thought it didn’t! And, I presume, that you probably wouldn’t have read this far if you didn’t!

But, then, everything comes down to what we think existence is In this case.

So, secondly, we can only answer “what is going on?” on the basis of some view about what it is for “Twilight Language” to be anything. This is just the ancient “problem of universals” as applied to Twilight Language. And, I think, we basically have the same options. They are Platonic realism, Aristotelian realism, conceptualism, and nominalism.^[202]

So think about your favorite (alleged) example of Twilight Language.

It could be wicca, wick, wicked, wicker, or Wikipedia. It could be “rise.”

The Platonist’s Answer

If you are more of a Platonist, then you would probably think that these words both have and pick out some real, other-worldly property. There’s a real Twilight-Language Form out there. And words like “rise” and “wicker” exude it.

In the context of Twilight Language, Platonic interpretations tend to take on decidedly magical or mystical complexions, depending on how they’re developed. In our study of Neoplatonism, we wrote: “Generally speaking, Neoplatonism presents a picture of a world in which true reality is hidden behind (or above) the mundane realm of appearances. In this way, the worldview underwrites practical magic. For consider that, on Neoplatonic assumptions – several of which are echoed in Eastern thought – ‘...every event in the visible world is the effect of an image, that is, of an idea in the unseen world. ...[E]verything that happens on earth is only a reproduction, as it were, of an event in a world beyond our sense perception... [S]ages ...have access to these ideas ...and are ...able to intervene decisively in events in the world.’”

Here’s one picture. I don’t say that it’s the only one. But it’s one way that you could go if you’re a Platonist about Twilight Language.

You might think: Everything “shares in” one or more Platonic Form. So, the way to alter things in this world is to control the relevant Form(s). And the way to control a Form, is by using “words of power” that associate with, represent, or tap into it. These are the so-called Twilight Language.

The reason God could speak the world into existence is that the right words have intrinsic creative power. The reason Adam named each animal whatever he named them is that the words he used literally identified or named each one’s true “essence” or Form. The reason why we shouldn’t name mass murderers, “serial killers,” or terrorists is because there’s a connexion between their evil deeds and infamy, their essences, and their names. Etc.

Precisely how all this “cashes out” depends on whether your Platonism is cross-pollinated with Christianity, Islam, or Judaism; whether it tends toward Gnostic dualism or Neoplatonism; etc.

We have devoted several previous presentations to these themes.

The Aristotelian’s Answer

If you’re more of Aristotelian, you’ll probably think that some of the above story isn’t quite right.

True, you’re still a realist. So, you might agree with the Platonist that a form or property of Twilight-Language-ness really does exist. But, as an Aristotelian, you’ll think that it’s not outside of our perceptible world. There’s no “Platonic heaven” populated with Platonic Forms.

Whatever forms there are, inhere inside of or within particular places, words, or symbols.

The Catholic “Doctor” St. Thomas Aquinas took an Aristotelian approach in his theology.

Here’s a rough sketch. Everything is a combination of matter and form. Matter is the underlying substance and what makes a thing an individual: This apple, as opposed to that one.^[203] Form is an organizing essence or nature and it makes a thing what it is: An apple, instead of a rose.^[204]

Essence is communicated by a thing’s true definition. When we say that a human being is a “rational animal,” we’re not just describing ourselves with words.^[205] We’re identifying our nature as a combination of animal-matter and rational-form.^[206] Correct words get to the heart of reality.

Additionally, our world is “fallen” or otherwise afflicted with disorder.^[207] Some essences lack what they ought to have (e.g., access to God’s “grace”). Moreover, many actions display a tendency towards evil that betrays a corruption of human nature inherited from Adam and Eve and which resulted from our first parents’ disregard for the demands of original justice.

However, there are spiritual tools – such as the “sacraments” – which can affect reality at the level of form. For example, Christian baptism confers an “indelible mark” on the human soul which removes the “stain of original sin,” makes a person a member of the “Body of Christ” (i.e., the Church), and reopens channels of divine grace. This is accomplished via ceremonies that involve well-defined formulæ that must be pronounced in order to bring about their results.

If you apply a sort of Aristotelian-Thomistic realism to Twilight Language, you might end up with something that looks like a shadow-side of the Christian sacraments.^[208]

There are, we might suppose, words which may add “stains” or otherwise alter our characters. Words which change or draw on our inherent essences or natures constitute Twilight Language.

Whether you invoke angelic / demonic agency, the classical elements, the four “humors,” or other explanatory “extras” may depend on if you lean more toward historic Aristotelianism, alchemy, Thomism, or any of their wide assortment of offshoots and interpretive schools.

The Conceptualist’s Answer

For a person of a more conceptualist persuasion, there’d be no “Twilight Language” outside of our minds. Therefore, the interesting avenues for exploration aren’t any sort of real “forms.”

Rather, you’d focus on the concept itself. After all, the concepts are the only games in town.

The concepts in play are plausibly “universal” – at least, they’re intersubjective. Thus, they may function as common objects of thought (conscious or unconscious) – for every cognizer.

Importantly, in many versions of conceptualism, concepts are not arbitrary. Rather, they embody or reflect real relationships between our minds and the external world of concrete particulars.^[209]

Of course, neither Platonists nor Aristotelians need to deny that there are genuinely universal concepts. But for them, as we have seen, the concepts rest upon, and are perhaps derived from, the underlying facts of ontology. It’s natural to suspect, then, that realists would be more interested in their postulated extra-mental realities than upon the concepts per se.

So, we might predict that conceptualists would tend to approach Twilight Language more from the standpoints of epistemology or psychology, rather than metaphysics.

In general, conceptualists understand “universals” to be mental concepts arising from, or out of, our experience (of particulars). As a first approach, we presume that “Twilight Language” would refer to those concepts that arise out of specifically religious experience.

We might go so far as to suppose that Twilight Language may be capable of enhancing (or even implanting) experiential knowledge in the minds of percipients. Perhaps words like “wicker” and “rise” conjure reality-bending images or subtly instill a felt need to follow courtroom protocols.

These would be handy additions to the repertoires of would-be rulers and opinion-shapers.

The Nominalist’s Answer

For the nominalist, there are no essences, natures, or universals. Particulars are all that exist. Particulars include persons, places, and things – which, of course, we identify with nouns.^[210]

Nouns also refer to ideas. But, according to nominalism, these ideas are particular as well. This contrasts with conceptualism, remember, on which ideas just are (mind-dependent) universals.

Recall, also, that conceptualism’s ideas (concepts) are neither arbitrary nor invented. They reflect similarities that actually exist among particulars in the world.^[211]

On the other hand, nominalists hold that names and other words are entirely arbitrary. There’s no deep reason why we use the word “red” to pick out a certain color of visible light that has an average wavelength of 685 nanometers.^[212] There’s not even a deep reason why the ancient Hebrew word adom should do so. If a nominalist had heard the Biblical Adam naming animals in the garden, he might have quoted Jeff Bridges’s character in the Coen brothers’ 1998 movie, The Big Lebowski: “Well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.”

After all, in this view, there’s no connexion between words and essences – because the latter don’t exist. And, of course, words themselves are particulars: particular combinations of written letters or uttered sounds.^[213]

If you take a nominalist position about Twilight Language, you’d likely approach your subject exclusively through the lenses of the so-called “soft sciences”: e.g., criminology, psychology, sociology, or religious studies – not theology… and certainly not magic or mysticism.

Conceptualists and realists might get into these scientific approaches as well! So, you can’t just say: “if so-and-so studies Twilight Language as a scientist, then so-and-so’s a nominalist.” But, to the nominalist, you can’t get to the bottom of reality by pondering “universals” – there aren’t any! Rather, to the nominalist, you can only make progress on a question (any question) by an exhaustive examination of the pertinent particulars.^[214]

Why should words like “wicker” or “rise” be so interesting? Maybe it has to do with some facts about the way our brains work that has yet to be discovered. Maybe they hearken back to our evolutionary history, in a particularized version of Carl Jung’s “collective unconscious.” Maybe they’re basically like the “embedded commands” that we reviewed earlier. Who knows?

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Which of the approaches to Twilight Language is the most plausible? Well… What do you think? The comments section will be wide open. I feel like if you’ve actually read this far, you’ve earned the right to type something at me! Or, if you prefer, email me at: thesynchromystic@gmail.com.

As to what I think if the best or truest approach… I’m gonna kick that can down the road. So, lemme know if you’re interested in a Part 2, and that’s one of the things I’ll tackle.

Appendices

Appendix A: Philosophical Naturalism

In its weaker manifestation, philosophical naturalism may be treated (or enforced) as a method. This idea — called “methodological naturalism” — is that scientists can believe whatever they wish in their home lives. But, in their laboratories, they “must” work as-if naturalism is true.

In a much stronger variant, atheistic apologists demand that practitioners and theoreticians adhere to or endorse “metaphysical naturalism,” that is, the thesis that, as Carl Sagan put it: “The Cosmos is all that is, or was, or ever will be.”^[215] Or, to quote from actor Hugh Jackman’s character Robert Angier (addressing Christian Bale’s Alfred Borden) in The Prestige: “The audience knows the truth: the world is simple. It’s miserable, solid all the way through.”^[216]

Against these views, theistic-friendly thinkers have noted that science rests upon philosophical assumptions that evidently cannot be substantiated empirically – even in theory.

For example, scientists assume (but cannot “prove”) that there is a mind-independent, external world. They assume (but cannot “prove”) that the world is comprehensible or understandable.

These assumptions, and more besides, are arguably justifiable only by appeal to something like theistic (e.g., Christian) metaphysics.^[217] Neither can be “proven” by or within science itself.

Hence, the argument goes, “naturalistic science” cuts off the branch on which it is sitting.

Moreover, it is simply a historical fact that science developed out of theistic natural philosophy. Tracing the breakdown of this connexion lies beyond our present scope.

Of course, if you “bake” atheism into a definition of “science,” then you can generate tension – e.g., if you say (something like): “science just is a commitment to philosophical naturalism.”

Likewise, if you define “religion” in terms of fideism, irrationality, or superstition; and “science” in terms of argument, evidence, and rationality; then, again, “science” and “religion” will appear to be in opposition. But why define them this way? We see no compelling reason.

Many influential scientists (20th-c. Belgian cosmologist and Catholic priest Fr. Georges Lemaître, 19th-c. Austrian geneticist and friar Gregor Mendel, and 17th-18th-c. English polymath Sir Isaac Newton) were faithful and professing theists, of one stripe or other.

And, in numerous cases, scientists' religious beliefs guided their research programs.

For example, 18th-c. Swedish biologist and pioneering taxonomist Carolus Linnaeus was motivated by his belief in a God-given natural order to undertake a project of classification of earth’s life forms. “[Linnaeus’s] religious beliefs led him to natural theology, a school of thought dating back to Biblical times but especially flourishing around 1700: since God has created the world, it is possible to understand God's wisdom by studying His creation.”^[218]

Appendix B: Ambiguity vs. Polysemy

To say that Twilight Language is multifaceted, and that the label “Twilight Language” itself is perhaps (weakly) polysemous, is not necessarily tantamount to saying that the phrase is lexically ambiguous in a strong sense or that it is wholly resistant to analysis.

When dealing with a truly lexically ambiguous word, it’s plausible to think that you are, in fact, actually dealing with two words – albeit ones that share the same spelling and pronunciation.

A classic illustration of this is the word “bank.” It may mean “a financial institution” or “the muddy boundaries of a river.”

It is at least as reasonable to say that what we have are two different words – accidentally and incidentally identical in morphologically and phonologically – as to say that we have one word with “two different meanings.”

One plausible test for this is translation. When translating an ambiguous word into another language, one will often readily discover that two target words will be required, one for each distinct definition.

Polysemy is notably different. In a polysemous word, although several definitions may be provided – displaying nuances – they all share fundamental similarities.

Consider, for instance, the word “foot.” We may speak of the “foot” of a human body – that is, “the appendage that is attached to the leg at the ankle.” Or we may speak of the “foot” of a mountain – or, “the zone of marked transition between the rise of a mountain face and the land upon which the mountain rests.” In both instances – with bodies and mountains – “foot” means (roughly) “the bottom-most part.” So, the word seems to be polysemous rather than ambiguous.

Although various, discreet meanings may be identifiable, nevertheless, they arguably bear “family resemblances” to each other (à la philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein).

The general idea is intuitive. For ten persons in the same family – that is, blood relatives – any two of the ten, sampled randomly, may share certain features (say, eye color or ear shape), but not others (for instance, hair color).

Wittgenstein’s own example was a “game.” Try to think of a definition of “game” that covers every instance of activities we intuitively designate by that word. E.g., “something played on a board” works for checkers and chess, but it’s not so good for describing baseball or soccer. And “something played in a field with a ball” would exclude poker or hide and seek. And so on.

Various “games” bear family resemblances, even though there’s no single identifiable genus or species that captures them all. (Incidentally, a realist could say that this is because “games” are artifacts rather than natural kinds. Natural kinds are strictly definable.)

Appendix C: Twilight Language Parts of Speech?

It seems to be between clear and undeniable that Twilight Language has a complex set of relationships with commonplace natural languages, such as Standard American English (SAE).

If “wicker” and “rise” are bona fide examples of Twilight Language, should we understand that Twilight Language is parasitic on SAE? Or are we better served by excavating the languages that contained the etymological roots of these words?

Are there innate subsorts of “Twilight Language”? Possibly. (However, we certainly do not wish to declare, a priori, that any subsorts would be mutually exclusive.)

Even if not, it may also be advisable to try to carve out our own distinctions in order to divide (what would otherwise appear to be) a cumbersome analysis into more manageable segments.

It is further possible – even likely – that Twilight Language has more than one – plausibly overlapping – functions. A case could be made that these “functions” might be better understood as something akin to Twilight Language’s “parts of speech.” If so, do these track along with the parts of speech of the language from which they derive?

Another idea in the vicinity is “grammatical mood.” Does Twilight Language have that feature?

A fair amount of (what we might reasonably consider to be) Twilight Language “speech” is delivered in – what would, if there were contrasting moods – be termed the “imperative.”

We’re thinking, again, of our earlier discussion of neuro-linguistic programming’s embedded commands as well as about J. L. Austin’s comments regarding performatives. Austin wrote that “[t]he term ‘performative’ will be used in a variety of cognate ways and constructions, much as the term ‘imperative’ is.^[219]”

Generally, it seems safe to assume that the power of Twilight Language lies outside of the more run-of-the-mill linguistic tasks like forming declarative sentences. Maybe this should tell us that Twilight Language doesn’t have instances of all four of (what are usually called) the basic “moods” (indicative, imperative, optative, and subjunctive).

A further assumption is that Twilight Language is not anyone’s “primary language.” Instead, users of some other language (like SAE) might turn to Twilight Language only in certain circumstances and for disreputable or otherwise extraordinary purposes.

Chiefly, these purposes could might be something like performing sub rosa tasks like attempting to “program” people. Hence, if “ordinary” purposes – or purposes that relate to addressing people consciously – could be satisfactorily accomplished with natural languages (like SAE, German, French, Chinese, and the like), then they will be accomplished with natural languages.

Appendix D: Evolutionary Thinking

Evolutionary thought wasn’t original to Charles Darwin, of course.

The early, 4th-5th-century church father St. Augustine of Hippo, the focus of our video “Christian Platonism,” held that God had sown within matter various “rational seeds” (rationes seminales), which were built-in blueprints for created things guiding their then still-future development.

While not an explicit “evolutionary theory” in the contemporary sense, Augustine’s view tends to show that Christianity has room for the idea that creatures adapt or transform over time. It also argues against the notion that “intelligent-design” and “theistic evolutionary” theories represent an ideological retreat on the part of religious believers or capitulation to the dictates of “science.”

It’s worth recalling that Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, a deist whose own evolutionary views preceded Darwin’s, still professed as late as 1809 to believe God was the “sublime author of nature.”^[220]

In Lamarck’s Theory, known as “Lamarckism,” organisms evolved by passing to their offspring traits that the parents acquired during their lifetimes. By contrast, Darwin eventually supposed that evolution was driven by an offspring’s display of advantageous variations arising randomly.

Charles Darwin introduced what soon became known as “Darwinism” in his 1859 book, On the Origin of Species.^[221] This was followed by numerous other volumes, including The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex.^[222] In these works, Darwin advanced several ideas, the most important pair of which, summarized as “descent with modification,” were: (1) the thesis of “common descent” (widely accepted), and (2) the idea of “natural selection” (widely criticized).

Emphasis has been placed upon various conflicts with religious beliefs, including – from some Christians – Darwinism’s perceived incompatibility with a “literalist” reading of the Bible’s story of creation (e.g., in the Old Testament’s Book of Genesis).^[223] But, as we mentioned in our video “10 Nazi Occultists, Part 1,” Helena Petrovna “H. P.” Blavatsky was among the critics of Darwin who were not motivated by Christian beliefs. She objected that Darwinism ignored questions of the evolution of spirit – questions which her Theosophical Society subsequently took up.

Darwinism was also taken to task by some scientists for its lack of specificity with regard to questions of trait inheritance. This led (ca. 1930) to a marriage of Darwinian common descent with the ideas of heredity and inheritance proposed by Gregor Mendel, creating the Modern Synthesis (colloquially called “Neo-Darwinism”), and applied to the field of population genetics.

A long-standing narrow focus upon DNA and genes has recently been challenged by emerging discoveries within developmental biology, embryology, and epigenetics. Thus, “Neo-Darwinism” has to a degree been replaced by (what proponents call) an “Extended Evolutionary Synthesis.”

“Evolution” is one of those ideas (“relativity” is another) that permeates culture. People now routinely speak of “evolving” in their personal lives or in their thinking. Healthy relationships are those that “evolve.” Successful businesses “evolve.” And on and on.

And numerous disciplines – including anthropology, economics, history, and linguistics – have latched onto “evolutionary models,” recasting their subjects in the language of “evolution.”

The alleged evolution of religion is one example. The work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich “G. W. F.” Hegel is noteworthy. Though, in fact, Hegel lived, taught, wrote, and died before Charles Darwin published the books that made him famous.

Hegel divided religious development into three stages: animism, polytheism, and Christianity. His tripartite schema was accepted by the “left-Hegelian,” and Communist theorist, Karl Marx.^[224]

Many other early theories were dominated by “stage” thinking.

19th-c. British biologist, philosopher, and sociologist Herbert Spencer, coiner of the oft-quoted phrase “survival of the fittest,”^[225] argued that later religion developed out of ancestor-and-hero worship, ghost stories, and primitive rituals of magic.^[226]

Spencer’s contemporary, banker and ethnographer Sir John Lubbock advanced a six-stage view, according to which humans supposedly moved from atheism to fetishism, totemism, shamanism, and anthropomorphism to – finally – “ethical monotheism.”^[227]

Similar systems were articulated by anthropologists Edward Burnett Tylor^[228] and Sir James George Frazer,^[229] the latter giving “a clear three-stage model of human intellectual development from magic, to religion, to science.”^[230]

Here, Frazer seems obviously to have been following early 19th-century sociologist Auguste Comte, who posited the “Law of Three Stages” which saw humans moving from theology (or the “fictitious”), to metaphysics (the “abstract”), and finally to “positivism” (or the “scientific”).^[231]

Incidentally, Frazer’s description of recurring “killing of the divine king” rituals influenced James Shelby Downard and Michael Hoffman in their Fortean classic King Kill 33.

Although the majority of anthropologists depicted monotheism as a late development, the outlier was 19th-20th-century Austrian-German Jesuit priest and ethnologist Fr. Wilhelm Schmidt. Schmidt proposed the theory of “primitive monotheism,” and argued that the earliest human religions were actually devotions to a single, supreme being, and devolved into polytheism.^[232] “Magic was therefore …[an even more] degenerate form of religion.”^[233]

Hoffman also seems to pursue this line in his presentation on the archaeological findings at the Neolithic-era site Göbekli Tepe, once part of Mesopotamia (now in southeast Turkey).^[234]

“…[I]nfluenced by Frazerian theory, …Franco-German folklorist Arnold van Gennep (1873-1957) fixed upon the symbolism of rites of passage across cultures and time as a gateway to exploring relationships between magic and religion. In his 1908 book, Rites of Passage, he concluded that religion and magic co-existed, defining magic as ritual action, the techniques of religion. …Ritual was built around ‘life crises’ or social thresholds, the transition from one social status to another. …[V]an Gennep …coined the …term ‘liminality’ to describe these sacred thresholds…”.^[235]

Interestingly, philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein evidently read Frazer’s Golden Bough. It seems partly to have shaped the former’s later thinking – as outlined in the posthumously published Philosophical Investigations (1953) – that humans engage in various “language-games.”

In a manuscript titled “Remarks to Frazer’s Golden Bough,” Wittgenstein wrote:

“I think now that the right thing would be to begin my book with remarks about metaphysics as a kind of magic. But in doing this I must neither speak in defence of magic nor ridicule it. What it is that is deep about magic would be kept. – In this context, in fact, keeping magic out has itself the character of magic. For when I began in my earlier book to talk about the “world” (and not about this tree or table), was I trying to do anything except conjure up something of a higher order by my words?”^[236]

Nevertheless, these early proponents of stage views often predicated their suggestions on the idea that “religion” was a sophisticated late-evolutionary development, to be contrasted against primitive animism, magic, spiritualism, superstition, totemism, etc.

This notion sustained criticism from people such as 19th-20th-century Scottish folklorist, literary critic, and later president of the Society for Psychical Research, Andrew Lang.^[237]

One contemporary commentator opines: “Eventually, stage thinking fell into disrepute as being an ethnocentric, if not racist, view, postulating (Protestant) Christianity or Science as the ‘end result’ of an evolving civilisatory [sic] process.

“It was replaced by other theories focusing on the social function, rather than the origin, of religious phenomena or perspectives rejecting explanatory endeavours altogether, refusing to ‘reduce’ those phenomena to social or psychological causes. Religion should, according to this latter view, be studied as a phenomenon sui generis. The goal of the researcher was to describe and interpret religious phenomena, rather than to explain them.”^[238]

A major critic of the period was sociologist Émile Durkheim. “In ...Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912) and other works, he rejected the idea that religion was defined exclusively in terms of gods and spirit entities, thereby undermining Tylor’s and Frazer’s definitions… Durkheim saw religion as ‘a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things’.”^[239]

Durkheim’s main distinction was between “sacred” and “profane.”^[240] This became the bedrock on which both Rudolf Otto and Mircea Eliade would build – each developing their own distinct approach to the study of religion.

(I might add Amazon affiliate links within the text or notes. Purchases you make may result in commissions to us, which assists our research and writing and is most appreciated. Thank you for your support!)

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^[1] Coeur d’Alene, Idaho: Independent History and Research, 1989, 1995 and 2001.

^[2] New York and London: Paraview Pocket Books; Simon & Schuster, 2004.

^[3] Now the banner is being carried by a host of others, including one of my old correspondents, the “blogger” calling himself “Recluse,” at VISUP. See “Twilight Language,” VISUP [weblog], Oct. 26, 2010, <http://visupview.blogspot.com/2010/10/Twilight-Language.html>.

^[4] S. K. Bain, The Most Dangerous Book in the World: 9/11 as Mass Ritual, Chicago: Trine Day, 2012. Cf. the work of Bain’s alterego, “Sherwood Kent,” in the disturbing and provocative follow-up, Most Dangerous: A True Story, Walterville, Ore: Trine Day, 2015.

^[5] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_language>.

^[6] As noted, Coleman is also an important figure in the discipline known as crypto-zoology. Among other titles, see his Cryptozoology A to Z, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999.

^[7] Loren Coleman, The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow’s Headlines, Paraview Pocket Books; Simon & Schuster, 2004, p. 237.

^[8] An “ostensive definition,” gestures towards examples (e.g., as opposed to identifying a thing’s genus).

^[9] Downard gave many examples. Take the assassination of John F. Kennedy. According to Downard, “one can chart a trail of symbolism associated with the 32nd degree by means of the Mason Road, Mason No El Bar, Tres Hermanas (Three Sisters), Shakespeare, Macbeth, MacBord, Johnson Mountain, Kennedy Mountain, Ruby Road and so on,” James Shelby Downard, “Sorcery, Sex, Assassination and the Science of Symbolism,” Jim Keith, ed., Secret and Suppressed: Banned Ideas & Hidden History, Venice, Cal.: Feral House, 1993, p. 73, <https://books.google.com/books?id=S1djCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT71>. See also Alfred Watkins, The Old Straight Track, London: Methuen, 1925; John Michell, The Flying Saucer Vision: The Holy Grail Restored, London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1967; John Michell, The View Over Atlantis, [U.K.]: Sago Press, 1969; and Richard Leviton and Robert Coons, “Ley Lines and the Meaning of Adam,” n.d., <http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/antigravityworldgrid/ciencia_antigravityworldgrid06.htm>. Etc.

^[10] Downard and Hoffman translated this latter phrase as the “Journey of Death” and Downard related it to the “long journey of the alchemist.” Google prefers “Journey of the Dead Man,” and Wikipedia relates it to Día de Muertos (the “Day of the Dead”).

^[11] Is the suggestion supposed to be that “Twilight Language” is somehow a higher genus, with these various species of study falling underneath it? Why should we think that? On the other hand, are we supposed to understand that “Twilight Language,” whatever it is, somehow straddles these academic fences, as it were? This Twilight-Language-as-interdisciplinary-research may have much to recommend it. I still wonder, however, what is it that these various disciplines unite – or can be brought together – to try to understand? What is the subject matter, as it were?

^[12] “Language” is a broad concept. It may involve any intentional communications or words used in a structured and conventional way, whether conveyed by speech, writing, or gesture – like… covering up one eye in a conspicuous way, or hiding one’s right hand for photo opportunities.

^[13] “Define language,” search query, Google, Mar., 2025.

^[14] “Evolution” itself is a multifaceted concept. See Appendix D: Evolutionary Thinking.

^[15] Noam Chomsky, “The Ideas of Chomsky – Bryan Magee & Noam Chomsky (1977),” interview, Philosophy Overdose (YouTube channel), posted Apr. 3, 2022, <

>.

^[16] Noam Chomsky, Language and Mind, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2006, p. 59, <https://books.google.com/books?id=HMtLMhwCXDoC&pg=PA59>.

^[17] Possibly pseudepigraphal, Promētheus Desmōtēs, circa 6th or 5th c. B.C.

^[18] Christine J. Thomas, “Plato’s Prometheanism,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, no. 31, Winter, 2006, p. 205, <https://books.google.com/books?id=Q-I6ac3C59UC&pg=PA205>. Thomas notes that in Hesiod’s earlier version of the story, “the only gift Prometheus offers to humankind is fire, and it is not evident that the gift is overall beneficial (bringing with it Pandora and human suffering). Hesiod’s Prometheus may strike some as more reckless than heroic,” ibid.

^[19] Gustav Davidson, A Dictionary of Angels: Including the Fallen Angels, New York: Free Press; Simon & Schuster, 1967, p. 10; citing Moïse Schwab, Vocabulaire de l’Angélologie, Paris: Klincksieck, 1897.

^[20] The Book of Enoch (also titled First Enoch or 1 Enoch) was probably written around the 3rd-c. B.C. and it exists in Ethiopic (also called Ge’ez), although it may have been composed in Aramaic or Hebrew. For this reason, it’s called the “Ethiopian Book of Enoch.” The Second Book of Enoch (or 2 Enoch) is much later – circa A.D. 1st c. This text is only preserved in a form of Slavonic (called “Church Slavonic” or “Old Slavonic”) – and is believed to be a translation from a Greek original. There is also a Third Book of Enoch (3 Enoch), written in Hebrew and dating from around the late-3rd c. A.D. All three books are generally apocalyptic. Third Enoch – and, sometimes, Second Enoch – is classified as Hekhaloth literature, which gets into angelology. And it may fit within the larger category of pre-Kabbalistic Merkabah mysticism.

^[21] Or Grigori.

^[22] Davidson, op. cit., p. 349.

^[23] Ibid.; citing First Enoch, chapt. 7, verse 8. The term “Watchers” (or “Watchful Ones”) evidently also shows up in the Old Testament Book of Daniel (esp. chapt. 4, verse 13, 17, and 23) and the extra-biblical Book of Jubilees (e.g., chapt. 4, verses 15 and 21-24; chapt. 5, verse 1; and chapt. 8, passim.). The concept is sometimes further connected to the “sons of God” in the Book of Genesis, chapter 6, who “cohabited with the daughters of men”.

^[24] Genesis, chapt. 2, verses 15-17, New International Version (hereinafter, “NIV”).

^[25] Genesis chapt. 3, verses 6-7, NIV.

^[26] Raphael Jehudah Zwi Werblowsky, Lucifer and Prometheus: A Study of Milton’s Satan, London: Routledge, 2001 [orig. London: Kegan Paul, 1952], p. 81, <https://books.google.com/books?id=MsR909HjyGkC&pg=PA81>. Albeit, in the author’s words, a story “capable of different developments. The one may consist in a deliberate choice of Satan (Blake, Byron) either through accepting his vitality whilst ignoring the significance of his evil, or by going to the length of accepting even evil itself as a mark of vitality and for its [own] sake (Nietzsche). Another possibility is to substitute Prometheus for Satan, i.e., to find a symbolic expression for human existence which does not involve the full horror and demony of the traditional Christian devil (Shelley). The third possibility would be to follow the first group in their identification of the Satanic and the Promethean, but to draw the opposite conclusion: to condemn both, and implicitly all human achievement,” ibid. See also Christopher Knowles, “A Future History of Light: The Fall, Unveiled,” Secret Sun [weblog], Jun 19, 2016, <http://secretsun.blogspot.com/2016/06/a-future-history-of-light-fall-unveiled.html>.

^[27] Aleister Crowley, with Mary Desti and Leila Waddell, Magick: Liber Aba, reprint, ed., Hymenaeus Beta, ed., York Beach, Maine: Red Wheel; Weiser Books, 1997, p. 126, <https://books.google.com/books?id=o2KUQHX9yZcC&pg=PA126>.

^[28] And are these powers in the service of human ambitions or needs, angelic ones?

^[29] Wallis Budge, Egyptian Magic, reprint ed., New York: Citadel Press; Kensington Publ., pp. 21, 27, <https://books.google.com/books?id=cIVSAIv2HSsC>.

^[30] Budge, loc. cit.

^[31] Herodotus, Histories, book 2, section 2; online as Herodotus, The History of Herodotus: In Two Volumes, George Campbell “G. C.” Macaulay, transl., vol 1; archived at Project Gutenberg, <https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2707/2707-h/2707-h.htm#link22H_4_0001>.

^[32] Creatio ex nihilo.

^[33] Putting his finger on this theme, one commenter to a previous weblog post asked: “what’s not the ‘word of God’?” “Apsterian,” comment, <http://bellofchurch.blogspot.com/2016/11/is-having-8000-manuscripts-supposed-to.html?showComment=1479535360781#c6930741350855596462>. Maybe he had in mind the biblical datum that everything in the universe sprang into existence only – and precisely – when God proclaimed “let there be…”.

^[34] Verse 19; NIV.

^[35] Salimbene of Parma (Salimbene di Adam), Cronica (“The Chronicle of Salimbene”), George Gordon “G. G.” Coulton, transl.; online at Fordham Univ., “Medieval Sourcebook: Salimbene: On Frederick II, 13th Century,” <https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/salimbene1.asp>.

^[36] A.k.a. Michael Scotus. Scot had also reportedly been championed by Pope Honorius III, who had recommended the former for advancement as an archbishop. By the way, Honorius III is also sometimes (and possibly spuriously) identified as the author of the notorious Grimoire of Pope Honorius.

^[37] Michael A. Hoffman II, Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, Coeur d’Alene, Id.: Independent History & Research, 2001, p. 7, n. 2.

^[38] Guillaume Postel, De originibus seu de hebraicæ lingua (“Of or Concerning the Origins of the Hebrew Language”), 1538. Hoffman gave the publication date as “1553,” which presumably cites a later edition. Hoffman continues: “…Cf. for example, the passages pertaining to the testimony about Enoch by the Ethiopian priest (a Prester John archetype)...”, Hoffman, op. cit., p. 7.

^[39] Imago Dei.

^[40] Peter Kreeft, “Language of Beauty,” excerpt, posted May 27, 2014, <https://www.youtu.be/l2sAneNdHz4>. Cf. Peter Kreeft, “Language of Beauty,” transcribed from “Language of Beauty,” speech, Trinity Forum Academy, Jun. 6, 2005, Catholic Culture, 2012, <https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=9845> and Peter Kreeft, The Philosophy of Tolkien: The Worldview Behind The Lord of the Rings, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005.

^[41] Kreeft actually says “sacramental words”. But, I think the more generally understandable way of putting the same point is that he’s talking about “power words.”

^[42] Kreeft here gives two examples peculiar to Christianity. “‘I baptize thee’ and ‘this is my body.’ These are not labels. They’re spiritual weapons. They’re arrows that pierce through flesh and into hearts. …What’s in a name? In the name of Jesus, devils are exorcised from souls. Hell was defeated. Heaven’s gate was opened. What’s in a name? Moses asked God that question at the Burning Bush. And God answered: ‘I am.’” Ibid.

^[43] Ibid.

^[44] Austin followed the later work (Philosophical Investigations, published posthumously in 1953) of the Cambridge University-connected savant, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Until his untimely death at age 48 in 1960, Austin was a leading light in so-called Ordinary Language Philosophy which was also associated with Gilbert Ryle, Peter Strawson, and – later – Austin’s student John Searle.

^[45] J.L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words: The William James Lectures Delivered at Harvard University in 1955, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975, p. 5; <https://books.google.com/books?id=XnRkQSTUpmgC>.

^[46] Austin, op. cit. pp. 6-7.

^[47] Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1948.

^[48] “Twilight,” Random House Dictionary, New York: Random House, 2016, online at Dictionary.com, <http://www.dictionary.com/browse/twilight>. The “[e]xact connotation of twi- in this word is unclear, but it appears to refer to ‘half’ light, rather than the fact that twilight occurs twice a day. Compare also Sanskrit samdhya ‘twilight,’ literally ‘a holding together, junction,’ Middle High German zwischerliecht, literally ‘tweenlight’,” Douglas Harper, “Twilight,” Online Etymology Dictionary, 2016, <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=twilight>.

^[49] Samuel Johnson, “Twilight,” A Dictionary of the English Language, 1773; online at <https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/search.php?term=twilight>.

^[50] Ibid.

^[51] Kristoffer Hughes, From the Cauldron Born: Exploring the Magic of Welsh Legend & Lore, Woodbury, Minn.: Llewellyn Worldwide, 2012, p. 117, <https://books.google.com/books?id=y5t5vjSlxcUC&pg=PA117>. Hughes goes on: “Hormones that induce sleep are released into the bloodstream, causing us to yawn and feel lethargic and sleepy. The primary human hormone that is directly affected by the liminality of twilight is melatonin. This hormone is released by the pineal gland into the bloodstream; it is an endocrine hormone that is inhibited by light but permitted by the arrival of darkness. A process known as DLMO (dim light melatonin onset) informs the body that the brain requires rest; this is dictated entirely by the approaching darkness of twilight. This liminal hormone affects every living creature on the planet and does so during liminal times. Melatonin is commonly referred to as the hormone of darkness,” ibid.

^[52] “Twilight,” Jean Chavalier and Alain Gheerbrant, Penguin Dictionary of Symbols, John Buchanan-Brown, transl., London: Penguin, 1996, p. 1047.

^[53] “The blue hour comes from the French expression l’heure bleue, which refers to the period of twilight each morning and evening where there is neither full daylight nor complete darkness. The time is considered special because of the quality of the light at this time of day,” “Blue Hour,” Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_hour>. “Morgen” (definition) “morning (the part of the day after midnight and before midday).” This is an phonemical close-cousin of the power-name Morgan, which, of course, ties into – or underlies – the “Fayette Factor” in virtue of its connection with the Arthurian sorceress Morgan Le Fay. “Stay tuned” to our Substack and YouTube channel for more on both of those. By the way, words like “dawn” and “aurora” have been extremely active over the last decade or so. See, e.g., Loren Coleman, “Red Dawn,” Twilight Language [weblog], Jul. 22, 2012, <http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2012/07/red-dawn.html> and Matthew Bell, “Century 16 and the Dawn (Aurora) of Crowleyanity,” Bell Curve [weblog] Sept. 25, 2012, <http://curveofbell.blogspot.com/2012/09/century-16-and-dawn-aurora-of.html>.

^[54] Tejumola Olaniyan, “Derek Walcott: Liminal Spaces / Substantive Histories,” Belinda Edmondson, ed., Caribbean Romances: The Politics of Regional Representation, Charlottesville and London: Univ. of Virginia Press, 1999, p. 199, <https://books.google.com/books?id=MxpIIwPyc-sC&pg=PA199>.

^[55] Dennis William Hauck, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Alchemy: The Magic and Mystery of the Ancient Craft Revealed for Today, New York: Alpha Books; Penguin, 2008, p. 118 and Image PIA09870, “Twilight Realm,” National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Apr. 1, 2008, <http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/imagedetails/index.cfm?imageId=3024>.

^[56] Melina Ashley Meyer DeMott, “Breaking the Silence: Expressive Arts as Testimony,” Gwynyth Overland, Eugene Guribye, and Birgit Lie, eds., Nordic Work with Traumatised Refugees: Do We Really Care, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publ., 2014, p. 194, <https://books.google.com/books?id=zCNQBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA194>.

^[57] “[Arnold] Van Gennep …coined the term ‘liminality’…,” ibid. On these points, see Arnold van Gennep, Les rites de passage (“The Rites of Passage”), Paris: Émile Nourry, 1909; Monika B. Vizedom and Gabrielle L. Caffee, transl., Rites of Passage, Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1960. For some historical context, see Appendix D: Evolutionary Thinking.

^[58] Hauck, Alchemy: Complete Idiot’s Guide, p. 76.

^[59] Likewise, for St. Thomas Aquinas, “first matter” is shapeless, underlying potential that God forms into individual, material things.

^[60] In Aristotelian lingo, this is called “hylomorphism,” from two Greek words – hyle and morphe, meaning “matter” and “form,” respectively.

^[61] It’s not a “substance,” per se. Substances are property-bearers and “first matter” has no properties. It’s more of a substratum.

^[62] Form is the “actualizing principle.” Form gives matter its individuality and specific characteristics.

^[63] Hauck, Alchemy: Complete Idiot’s Guide, p. 76.

^[64] Hauck, Alchemy: Complete Idiot’s Guide, p. 106.

^[65] “Eyes use two sets of light-sensitive cells-one set for the day, called ‘cones,’ the other for the darkness, called ‘rods.’ When one set shifts to the other at dusk-when everything is cast in a shadow-neither is working at full strength.” “Shadow Sight: It is harder to see while driving at dusk…,” Chicago Tribune, May 19, 1992, <http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1992-05-19/news/9202150048_1_mammograms-couch-potatoes-walking>. On the other hand, “In photography, the golden hour (sometimes known as magic hour, especially in cinematography) is the first and last hour of sunlight during the day, when a specific photographic effect is achieved due to the quality of the light,” according to Wikipedia, anyway, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_hour_%28photography%29>. Cf. <http://www.b-roll.net/goldenhour/generate.php>. One wonders whether this “shadow sight” occurs during “psychic driving,” as well. We refer, of course, to the horrific procedure performed on unwitting human guinea pigs by the CIA-connected “Dr.” Donald Ewen Cameron, under the auspices of Project MKUltra. Hold that thought.

^[66] I am deliberately avoiding the words “read” and “sentences” even though they were amongst the first words to occur to me. It seems to me that “reading,” strictly so-called, in the case of the acquisition and mastery of English, is a more advanced capability than rudimentary speech. A young child, for instance, is often able to recognize words before speaking them. And, again, a child is seemingly able to speak a language prior to reading it. And I am hoping only to make modest progress with Twilight Language.

^[67] We stress that what follows are merely suggested categories. But another one could be: assume that people do not habitually resort to complicated instruments when simple tools will suffice. We might call this the “simplicity assumption.” Admittedly, assessing the extent to which the “simplicity” assumption is observed requires possessing more information than is presently available. We would, for example, need to be privy to purposes and methods. Then we could assess (or at least, one might hope, make judgments about) the relative complexity of accomplishing the stated purposes via “Twilight Language methods” and compare this against the relative complexity of accomplishing the same purposes via more mundane – natural language – methods. And this “relative complexity” is an “unknown” in this equation. Noam Chomsky has repeatedly discussed a state’s use of physically coercive means (e.g., the club) contrasted with mental coercion (i.e., propaganda), which latter becomes increasingly vital the freer a society becomes, physically.

^[68] Something like the senses mentioned by people like Rudolf Otto (who outlined the idea of the “numinous” experience in Das Heilige, or “The Idea of the Holy,” Breslau, German Empire [now Wrocław, Poland]: Trewendt und Granier, 1917). “Instead of studying the ideas of God and religion, Otto undertook to analyze the modalities of the religious experience. …Passing over the rational and speculative side of religion, he concentrated chiefly on its irrational aspect. For Otto had read [Protestant reformer Martin] Luther and had understood what the ‘Living God’ meant to a believer. It was not the God of the philosophers – of Erasmus, for example; it was not an idea, an abstract notion, a mere moral allegory. It was a terrible power, manifested in the divine wrath. In [his 1917 book] Das Heilige [‘The Sacred,’ Breslau: Trewendt und Granier] Otto sets himself to discover the characteristics of this frightening and irrational experience. He finds the feeling of terror before the sacred, before the awe-inspiring mystery (mysterium tremendum), the majesty (majestas) that emanates an overwhelming superiority of power; he finds religious fear before the fascinating mystery (mysterium fascinans) in which perfect fullness of being flowers. Otto characterizes all these experiences as numinous (from Latin numen, god), for they are induced by the revelation of an aspect of divine power. The numinous presents itself as something ‘wholly other’ (ganz andere), something basically and totally different.” Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, reprint ed., Willard R. Trask, transl., Orlando, Fla,: Harvest; Harcourt, 1987, pp. 9-10. See Appendix D: Evolutionary Thinking.

^[69] “There is going to be difficulty among the masses and even conspiracy students and investigators concerning the language which speaks in ways that are non-linear to most minds. Twilight language is a form of communication that eludes most people’s conscious perception (though it is of course perceived by the subconscious). Ultimately a story is being told and “charmed” conjunctions and interstices are formed, in my view, partly from invocation and partly from “surfing” a magnetic attraction that seems to organize anomalies around certain “words of power” and potent symbols. That there is incredulity in the face of this is the least surprising dimension of the phenomenon. The two extremes which distort are total denial of Twilight Language on the one hand, and a total immersion in trivial aspects of a case that end up muddying key elements, like pattern detection. We ourselves can generate the phenomena and start seeing coincidences everywhere. I think there has to be a filtering process and we have to be mindful of how our perception itself becomes part of the process of invocation, such as Loren driving behind the truck with the Aurora license plate,” Michael Hoffman, comment, Loren Coleman, “Understanding Aurora as a Synchromystic Fortean,” Twilight Language (weblog), Aug. 3, 2012, <http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2012/08/understanding-aurora.html?showComment=1344007829593#c7030619639475828973>.

^[70] Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, op. cit., p. 19.

^[71] Later, I will mention “flashbulb events” – that is, events that are sufficiently traumatic to impress themselves (perhaps indelibly) on our minds.

^[72] Hoffman, Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, op. cit., p. 175.

^[73] Ibid.

^[74] Ibid.

^[75] This is not to say that events falling outside of this (rough and somewhat vague) pattern cannot possibly count as bona fide instances of Twilight Language. But events not obviously fitting our blueprint require strong reasons in their favor to be taken seriously by a wide audience as Twilight-Language candidates.

^[76] To put it differently, it may not be a language if, by “language,” we mean one of the sort that linguists term “natural language” – where various natural languages (Chinese, English, Farsi, German, Russian, etc.) have distinct grammars, syntax, vocabularies, and so on. I say this even though I will subsequently (if loosely) contrast “Twilight Language” with “natural language” in exactly these terms.

^[77] Michael A. Hoffman II, The Occult Philosophy Behind Mind Control, speech, Anaheim, Cal., 1987; VHS, Independent History and Research, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, 2002.

^[78] Ibid.

^[79] Neil Shah, Introducing Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP): A Practical Guide, London: Icon Books, 2011, ebook, <https://books.google.com/books?id=y4hkfR_w6-8C>.

^[80] Ronald J. Waicukauski, Paul Mark Sandler and JoAnne A. Epps, The 12 Secrets of Persuasive Argument, Chicago: American Bar Association, 2009, pp. 204-205; archived online at <https://books.google.com/books?id=E4OQS9fCnFAC&pg=PA204>.

^[81] Waicukauski, Paul Mark Sandler and JoAnne A. Epps, loc. cit.

^[82] At the time of writing, Elon Musk’s Grok AI also gave “Macbenah” as a Masonic word.

^[83] “William Combe,” Wikipedia, Oct. 4, 2024, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Combe>.

^[84] It is important to emphasize the highly speculative nature of this endeavor. However, we think that the speculative (even spooky) nature of the topic is insufficient reason to forbear from investigation.

^[85] Conclusions are conjectural. Therefore, we hold them tentatively.

^[86] William F. Lawhead, The Voyage of Discovery: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy, Belmont, Cal.: Wadsworth; Thomson, 2002, p. 78.

^[87] Budge, op. cit., pp. 26-27.

^[88] Ibid. Italics added.

^[89] Douglas Harper, “Formula,” Online Etymology Dictionary, 2016, <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=formula>.

^[90] “[F]rom the “1630s …(earlier as a Latin word in English), from Latin formula ‘form, draft, contract, regulation;’ in law, ‘a rule, method;’ …Modern sense is colored by Carlyle's use (1837) of the word in a sense of ‘rule slavishly followed without understanding’ [OED]. From 1706 as ‘a prescription, a recipe;’ mathematical use is from 1796; chemistry sense is from 1842. …” Harper, loc. cit.

^[91] Of course, baptism is not a concrete “object,” like a statue. It is not itself (obviously) “material.” More plausibly, it is an event, or perhaps a complex (and partially abstract) object.

^[92] See James Shelby Downard and Michael A. Hoffman II, King Kill 33, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, Independent History & Research, 1998.

^[93] See, e.g., “King-Kill/33 Fifty Years Later: Symbolism, Psychological Warfare and Revelations in the John F. Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy,” Revisionist History, no. 69, Oct.-Nov., 2013, passim. And more recently expounded upon by Sherwood Kent, op. cit., pp. 71ff.

^[94] Kent, op. cit., p. 78.

^[95] Downard and Hoffman, King Kill 33, op. cit., p. 18.

^[96] Crowley, Desti and Waddell, op. cit., p. 126.

^[97] Preëminently, the so-called “New Atheists” include(d): British Professor C. Richard Dawkins, but also the late, British-born journalist Christopher Eric Hitchens, along with American biologists Jerry Allen Coyne and Paul Zachary “P. Z.” Myers, American neuroscientist Samuel Benjamin “Sam” Harris, and American philosopher Daniel C. Dennett.

^[98] See Appendix A: Philosophical Naturalism.

^[99] Lawhead, op. cit., p. 78.

^[100] Downard and Hoffman, op. cit., pp. 17-18.

^[101] Lawhead, op. cit., p. 78.

^[102] Downard and Hoffman, op. cit., p. 17.

^[103] Crowley; quoted by Jim Brandon, “Sirius Rising,” interview with James Shelby Downard, with commentary, audio recording, ca. 1976. Michael Hoffman has written: “‘I think we are farmed,’ Charles Fort said of humanity. It was Fort who also suggested that man deliberately invented the dogma of materialism in order to shield himself from the evidence of what was being done to him by means of psycho-spiritual warfare methods hyped by ‘coincidence,’ symbolism and ritual,” Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, op. cit., p. 68. This is also cited by S. Kent Bain, Most Dangerous Book in the World, op. cit., <https://books.google.com/books?id=TggCBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT148>.

^[104] Chevalier and Gheerbrant, op. cit., p. 1047. When I wrote – and briefly published – the original version of this study, in December 2016, the Los Angeles Times had an article about a “rave” gone wrong. The title read: “Officials Fear Up to 40 Dead in Fire During Concert at Oakland Warehouse.” According to the text: “Authorities said they would work through the night to recover more victims of a deadly fire that raced through a converted warehouse crowded with people attending a Friday night concert in Oakland. …There is no known cause of the fire. While arson is not suspected, Kelly said investigators are on scene and nothing has been ruled out. Officials said the warehouse isn’t currently considered a crime scene.” Russ Mitchell, Peter H. King, Liam Dillon, Tracey Lien and Paige St. John, L. A. Times, Dec. 3, 2016, <http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-oakland-fire-nine-dead-warehouse-20161203-story.html>. What I noted at the time was that a few elements of the tragedy took on a synchromystic veneer in light of my present endeavor. “Officials are bringing in cranes, bulldozers and excavating equipment to access the west side of the building. Cadaver dogs may also be used. …The building was the site of a concert Friday night called the Golden Donna 100% Silk 2016 West Coast Tour, according to a concert Facebook page.” Ibid.

^[105] Coleman, The Copycat Effect, op. cit., p. 237.

^[106] John Peacock, “Tantric Writings,” Kevin Trainor, ed., Buddhism: The Illustrated Guide, Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2004 p. 208, <https://books.google.com/books?id=_PrloTKuAjwC&pg=PA208>.

^[107] See infra.

^[108] At least, in one interpretation of Hoffman, it seems like he links the two.

^[109] Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, 2008, p. 361.

^[110] Ibid.

^[111] Sukanya Sarbadhikary , “Bodying Gupta-Vrindavan: Experiencing the Self and Emotions in the Corporeal Space,” Place of Devotion: Siting and Experiencing Divinity in Bengal-Vaishnavism, Berkeley, Cal.: Univ. of California Press, 2015, p. 124, <http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1ffjn1f.8>.

^[112] Ibid., p. 126.

^[113] Ibid. On the idea of “specifics” being “lost,” consider the words of Sherwood Kent, commenting on the investigator S. Kent Bain. “Kent knew that there were a million questions that might never be fully answered, but he also knew not to get too caught up in the details – that is precisely what is supposed to happen, and is an intentional part of the overall strategy to prevent the truth from ever seeing the light of day,” Sherwood Kent, Most Dangerous, Walterville, Ore.: Trine Day, 2015, p. 45.

^[114] David Jones, “Beyond Tantra,” New Dawn, Jul. 21, 2013, <http://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/beyond-tantra>.

^[115] S. Kalidas, “Khajuraho: Beyond the Erotic,” India Today, Mar. 10, 1999, “Heritage” section, p. 66.

^[116] Michael A. Hoffman II, Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, Dresden, N.Y.: Wiswell Ruffin House, 1992, p. 89.

^[117] Albert G. Mackey, “Cabala,” Robert I. Clegg and H. L. Haywood, eds., Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, 7th printing, vol. 1, Chicago: Masonic History Co., 1956, pp. 168 and 388.

^[118] Mackey, “Gematria,” Clegg and Haywood, eds., op. cit., p. 388. “Gematria[:] …Means in Hebrew to reckon by letters as well as numbers, a cabalistic method of interpreting the Scriptures by interchanging words whose letters have the same numerical value when added… The word [Gematria], which is evidently a rabbinical corruption of the Greek geometria, is defined by Buxtorf to be ‘a species of the Cabala which collects the same sense of different words from their equal numerical value.’ The Hebrews, like other ancient nations, having no figures in their language, made use of the letters of their alphabet instead of numbers, each having a numerical value. Gematria, is therefore, a mode of contemplating words according to the numerical value of their letters.” Ibid.

^[119] Michael A. Hoffman II, Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho: Independent History & Research, 2001, pp. 207-8.

^[120] Hoffman, Secret Societies…, op. cit., 2001, p. 7.

^[121] “Graysmith was a new editorial cartoonist working at the San Francisco Chronicle when the first Zodiac letter arrived at the paper in Aug. 1, 1969, and Graysmith just happened to be in the meeting when the envelope was handed to the editor,” William Booth, “A Killer Obsession,” Washington Post, Mar. 1, 2007, <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/28/AR2007022801979.html>. Interestingly, the author of The Most Dangerous Book in the World: 9/11 as Mass Ritual, “S.K. Bain[,] is the former art director of the Weekly Standard magazine, where he worked with William Kristol, Fred Barnes, David Brooks, Tucker Carlson and others for over five years. …In the mid-nineties, Bain was art director for the Oxford American magazine when it was published by John Grisham and located in Oxford, MS,” <http://themostdangerousbookintheworld.com/index.php/blogging/itemlist/user/63-skbain>.

^[122] Andrew Bowie, German Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, p. 21.

^[123] Also like diamonds, the Twilight-Language “trade” seems tightly controlled. Maybe it’s also over-priced.

^[124] See Appendix B: Ambiguity vs. Polysemy.

^[125] Hoffman, comment, loc. cit. See Appendix C: Twilight Language Parts of Speech?

^[126] Or… be stopped? As God said to the ocean: “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further,” Job 38:11, KJV.

^[127] One might be able to show that two of three assumptions (occult and superiority) are plausibly respected, while the question of whether the third (simplicity) is respected or not is merely unknown (but in any case certainly not clearly violated).

^[128] Eugene Winograd and Ulric Neisser, Affect and Accuracy in Recall: Studies of ‘Flashbulb’ Memories, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2006, back matter.

^[129] Bridget Murray Law, “Seared in our Memories,” Monitor on Psychology [Amer. Psychological Assoc.], vol. 42, no. 8, Sept. 2011, p. 60, <https://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/09/memories.aspx>.

^[130] Ibid.

^[131] Michael Hoffman, “The Mirror World of Columbine,” Revisionist History [website], 1999, <http://www.revisionisthistory.org/columbine.html>.

^[132] “Columbine High School Massacre,” Wikipedia, Apr. 1, 2025, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre>.

^[133] See Stephanie Chen, “Debunking the myths of Columbine, 10 years later,” CNN, Apr. 20, 2009, <https://edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/04/20/columbine.myths/>.

^[134] Hoffman, “The Mirror World of Columbine,” loc. cit.

^[135] Hoffman, “The Mirror World of Columbine,” loc. Cit. Hoffman continued: “…Americans have butchered 37 [now 63 – Ed.] million unborn babies on the altar of convenience, in abortions. …America has become a pathological culture of violence against the innocent while a jaded populace of movie-goers and TV spectators are mesmerized by ever more deadening hyper-violence on the screen.” When I wrote the original version of this piece, in 2016, the abortion count was around 58 million. See Steven Ertelt, “58,586,256 Abortions in America Since Roe v. Wade in 1973,” Life News, Jan. 14, 2016, <http://www.lifenews.com/2016/01/14/58586256-abortions-in-america-since-roe-v-wade-in-1973/>. Now, it’s reportedly upwards of 63 million – and that was in 2022. See Kyle Morris and Sam Dorman, “Over 63 Million Abortions Have Occurred in the U.S. Since Roe v. Wade Decision in 1973,” Fox News, May 4, 2022, <https://www.foxnews.com/politics/abortions-since-roe-v-wade>.

^[136] Nicholas Schou, “How the CIA Hoodwinked Hollywood,” The Atlantic, Jul. 14, 2016, <https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/07/operation-tinseltown-how-the-cia-manipulates-hollywood/491138/>. The Atlantic is owned by Apple computer co-founder Steve Jobs’s widow, Laurene Powell Jobs via her activist “Emerson Collective,” named after transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson.

^[137] By “predictive programming,” we mean an alleged “brainwashing,” “conditioning,” “mind-control,” propaganda, or psychological-warfare technique through which “the public becomes more accepting of … [planned false-flag events, technological innovations, social changes, etc.] than they would be otherwise. “List of Conspiracy Theories: Predictive Programming,” Wikipedia, Apr. 3, 2025, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conspiracy_theories#Predictive_programming>.

^[138] James McMahon, “‘The Simpsons’ Showrunner on Uncanny Predictions: ‘9/11 Was Bizarre,’” NME, Nov. 16, 2021, <https://www.nme.com/news/tv/the-simpsons-al-jean-predictions-911-3096871>.

^[139] Snopes rates the claim as “True” – Whew! That’s a huge relief. Alex Kasprak, “In the 1999 Film ‘The Matrix,’ Did Neo’s Passport Expire on Sept. 11, 2001?” Snopes.com, Apr. 17, 2024,

<https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/neo-passport-matrix-9-11/>.

^[140] Wire Report, “U.S. military stoking xenophobia in Iraq,” UPI, UPI NewsTrack TopNews, Apr. 10, 2006.

^[141] John Rizzo, Company Man: Thirty Years of Controversy and Crisis in the CIA, New York: Scribner; Simon & Schuster, 2014, p. 63. Tricia Jenkins states that “the CIA hired Chase Brandon as its first entertainment liaison in 1996,” in case you were wondering. See Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood: How the Agency Shapes Film and Television, Austin, Tx.: Univ. of Texas Press, 2012, p. 11.

^[142] Olivia Gazis, “CIA’s Instagram Is Following 11 Accounts – Nearly All of Them Belong to Hollywood Stars,” CBS News, Jun. 27, 2019, <https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cias-instagram-is-following-11-accounts-nearly-all-of-them-are-hollywood-stars/>.

^[143] “Danes spent a day with an officer at Langley, the CIA's headquarters in Virginia, and that seems to have fortified her patriotism… ‘They were very earnest in their devotion to the United States of America. I was very touched by that.’ And then she switches from serious citizen to excited kid as she starts talking about what the real-life CIA agents do. ‘I was just struck by the fact that these spies do really spy-y things! They'll get into a car crash with somebody – they’ll literally bump into somebody to initiate and then cultivate a relationship. I mean, in some ways – this seems a little presumptuous and it’s not entirely accurate – but actors and CIA agents are [both] migratory and assume different roles. It’s very hard to maintain relationships when you are having to conceal so much. They often marry each other – kind of like actors. I mean, who else is gonna get it?” Hermione Hoby, “Claire Danes – Interview,” The Guardian (U.K.),Sept. 29, 2012, <https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2012/sep/30/claire-danes-interview-homeland>. Krasinski stated: “We should be saying thank you every single day” to the CIA. “John Krasinski Talks About His Trip To The CIA,” Daily Motion, Sept. 1, 2018, <https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6szits>. Cf. Lily Rothman, “Jessica Chastain: The Oscar-Nominated Star Talks About Playing the ‘Girl’ Who Got bin Laden,” Time, Jan. 11, 2013, <https://entertainment.time.com/2013/01/11/jessica-chastain-the-oscar-nominated-star-talks-about-playing-the-girl-who-got-bin-laden/>.

^[144] Catherine Shoard and Henry Barnes, “Ben Affleck on Argo: 'Probably Hollywood Is Full of CIA Agents …’ – Video,” The Guardian (U.K.), Nov. 7, 2012, <https://www.theguardian.com/film/video/2012/nov/07/ben-affleck-argo-video-interview>.

^[145] “Jennifer Garner Recruitment Video,” What’s New at CIA? No. 1281, Mar. 10, 2004, <https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0001243418.pdf>.

^[146] New International Version.

^[147] “Wicker” (definition) “pliable twigs, typically of willow, plaited or woven to make items such as furniture and baskets: [as modifier]: a wicker chair[.] Origin: Middle English: of Scandinavian origin; compare with Swedish viker ‘willow’; related to vika ‘to bend.’” “Wicker,” Oxford English Dictionary, <http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/wicker>. For any candidate word, bear in mind that the analysis arguably applies to cognates, as well as to the form expressly mentioned.

^[148] British Lion Films; Warner Bros., 1973.

^[149] Hoffman runs through several other references from books and movies. “‘Stonehinge Villas – the spelling grated on Starling every time she looked at it. Probably the apartments were full of white wicker and peach shag.’ [Excerpted from] Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs[.] ‘I turned away from the Witch of Wellesley’s ticker …After a bit of poking around, I found an ether-saturated rag in a woven wicker wastebasket in the foyer. I left it there for the homicide boys to play with.’ [Excerpted from] William Hjortsberg, Falling Angel[.] Cereal killer vs. the F.B.I. The killer murders Jane Doe (Ellie Buckner) in her ‘Wicker Park apartment.’ [Quoted from] The Watcher (Hollywood movie, 2000).” Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, op. cit., p. 214.

^[150] “‘Wick (Old Teutonic). 1. To bend. Wick (Old English). 1 wicca, wizard (of which the feminine is wicce, witch).’ The Oxford English Dictionary[.]” Hoffman, Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, op. cit., p. 214.

^[151] Hoffman, Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, op. cit., p. 63.

^[152] Kent, Most Dangerous, op. cit., p. .

^[153] Kent, Most Dangerous, op. cit., p. .

^[154] Hoffman, Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, op. cit., p. 214.

^[155] There have also been movies titled Wicker Park (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 2004) and The Wicker Tree (British Lion, 2011).

^[156] Hoffman elsewhere cites See Maury Terry, The Ultimate Evil: An Investigation Into a Dangerous Satanic Cult, New York: Bantam Books, 1989, p. 60, <https://books.google.com/books?id=4U4dQ3xMKeIC>.

^[157] Hoffman, Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, op. cit., p. 214; cf. Bryan Pietsch, “Before He Was the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski Was a Mind-Control Test Subject,” Washington Post, Jun. 11, 2023, <https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/06/11/unabomber-ted-kaczynski-harvard-experiment/>. “Apart from the speculative portrait, leads in the case amount to the mysterious names ‘Nathan R.’ and ‘H. C. Wickle.’ The first is from the imprint of a handwritten note found on the paper used in a letter apparently sent by Unabom – it bore the initials ‘F. C.’ – to the New York Times last year, in which he promised ‘information’ about his ‘goals’ at a future date. On examination, the paper showed the shadow of a message: ‘Call Nathan R., Weds, 7pm.’ Appeals for Americans of this name to come forward have so far produced no clues. ‘H. C. Wickle’ was the return mailing name printed on the package that murdered Thomas Mosser. The addressee was identified as belonging to the Department of Economics at San Francisco State University. However, records show that no one with that name has studied or taught at that school. Last week, the FBI interviewed San Francisco residents with the surname Wickle, but no leads resulted,” Mark Lawson, “‘Unabom’: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Independent (British), Dec. 21, 1994, <http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/unabom-portrait-of-a-serial-killer-1390443.html>.

^[158] Hoffman also listed “Warwick …Invoking Catastrophe.” Ibid. In considering the occult ramifications of the “Unabom” ritual, Hoffman advised readers “to consult the praxis behind those portions not classified as secret, of the burgeoning scientific literature on the mathematical modeling theory that purports to predict catastrophes, especially as found in the catastrophe theory of Warwick University’s Christopher Zeeman.” Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, op. cit., p. 178. Another thoroughly religiously-tinged candidate word of power, and one also expressly mentioned by Hoffman, is the word scapegoat. “In the lexicon of the Twilight Language there is a word for Ted Kaczynski. That word jumps off any topographic map of the Lincoln, Montana region and is displayed in lights in downtown Lincoln, Kaczynski’s adopted hometown. This word for Kaczynski—which the Truth or Consequences principle has placed in front of the Group Mind like a billboard on Broadway—is linked to the incontrovertible record of catastrophes which attended some ‘Unabomb’ disasters, which also occurred on the day of his capture and in the aftermath of his arraignment. Kaczynski’s surrender to his captors on April 3, 1996 occurred in the geodetic realm at the nodal point of The Scapegoat, at Lincoln, Montana, home of the 80,697-acre Scapegoat Wilderness, the Scapegoat Eatery and a human scapegoat, an Atlas whose ‘shrug’ continues to reverberate in the consciousness of the Group Mind of America mystica.” Hoffman, Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, op. cit., p. 185.

^[159] L. Frank Baum, The Lost Princess of Oz, reprint ed., Mineola, N.Y.: Courier; Dover, 1999 [orig. Chicago: Reilly & Britton, 1917], chapt. 22, <https://books.google.com/books?id=8XSPAQAAQBAJ>.

^[160] Jess Weatherbed, “Mattel Accidentally Linked a Porn Site on Wicked Doll Packaging,” The Verge, Nov. 11, 2024, <https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/11/24293395/mattel-wicked-doll-porn-website-url-misprint-error>.

^[161] “A Gallery of Spiritual Visions,” Sarah Schneidman, Janet Cave, and Robert A. Doyle, eds., Mysteries of the Unknown: Utopian Visions, Richmond, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1990, p. 73.

^[162] Kent, Most Dangerous, op. cit., p. 23. Boldface added.

^[163] Jim Brandon, Weird America: A Guide to Places of Mystery in the United States, New York: Dutton, 1978 and Jim Brandon, The Rebirth of Pan: Hidden Faces of the American Earth Spirit, Dunlap, Ill.: Firebird Press, 1983.

^[164] At least, some of it seems capable of effecting results that are behaviorally indistinguishable from behavior that result from obedience to commands.

^[165] There could be other categories as well. Some Twilight Language might be thought to “connect” or, in Hoffman’s idiom, generate “‘charmed’ conjunctions and interstices” – say between the present and some other time (whether past or future). Natural languages have their conjunctions (e.g., in Standard American English, “and,” “but,” and so on) and logical languages have their operators (e.g., “and,” “if…, then…”, etc.). Twilight language, then, could be expected to have some place for logical or conceptual “linking” lexemes (or symbols, what have you).

^[166] Lee C. Archie, “‘Slave and Master Morality’ by Friedrich Nietzsche,” Lander Univ., Greenwood, S.C., n.d., <http://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/articles/nietzsche-a.pdf>; citing Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Helen Zimmern, transl., New York: Boni and Liveright, 1909-1913, pp. 257-261.

^[167] This was also noticed by Sherwood Kent, op. cit., pp. 91-92.

^[168] Aldous Huxley, “The Ultimate Revolution,” speech, Univ. of Cal. – Berkeley, 1962, online at <

>, esp. 0:03:08ff; excerpt online at <

>. Cf. <https://antioligarch.wordpress.com/aldous-huxley-the-ultimate-revolution-mar-20-1962-berkeley/> & <https://antioligarch.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/aldous-huxley-the-ultimate-revolution-mar-20-1962-berkeley.pdf>.

^[169] “Rise,” def. 1, Random House Dictionary, New York: Random House, 2016, <http://www.dictionary.com/browse/rise>.

^[170] “Fact or Fiction: Holmes Father to Testify on Libor…,” Jon Rappoport’s Blog, Aug. 4, 2012, <https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2012/08/04/fact-or-fiction-holmes-father-to-testify-james-holmes-photos-dont-match/>.

^[171] Sirhan’s Wikipedia article states that he was born Sirḥān Bishāra Sirḥān. Perhaps somebody missed the boat on him.

^[172] “Conspiracy Theory (1997): Quotes,” Internet Movie Database (IMDb), <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118883/quotes>.

^[173] See Brian Palmer, “Why Do So Many Assassins Have Three Names? The Suspected Gunman in Arizona Is Jared Lee Loughner, of Course,” Slate, Jan. 9, 2011, <http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2011/01/why_do_so_many_assassins_have_three_names.html>.

^[174] T. Becket Adams, <http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/new-media-trend-dont-name-the-killer/article/2593920>.

^[175] Paul Thornton, Jun 18, 2016, <http://www.latimes.com/opinion/readersreact/la-ol-le-orlando-killer-name-picture-20160617-snap-story.html>.

^[176] Philip Kennicott, Oct. 2, 2015, <https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/essay-refusing-to-say-a-killers-name-is-no-more-than-symbolic-empowerment/2015/10/02/2cd2cf7c-6923-11e5-9ef3-fde182507eac_story.html>.

^[177] Aaron Demsky, “First Names – From Isaac to Zahi: Jewish First Names Through the Ages,” Jewish Heritage Online Magazine, <http://jhom.com/topics/firsts/names.html>.

^[178] Both Warner Bros., 1973 and 2011, respectively.

^[179] “Rumpelstiltskin,” Wikipedia, Apr. 3, 2025, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumpelstiltskin>.

^[180] Joshua Trachtenberg, Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion, Philadelphia: Univ. of Penn. Press, 2004 [orig. New York: Behrman’s Jewish Book House, 1939], pp. 79-80, <https://books.google.com/books?id=Fsrd_nQ-RTQC&pg=PA79>.

^[181] Ibid., def. 3.

^[182] Rise, (v.) “[m]eaning ‘come into existence, originate; result (from)’ is mid-13c. From early 14c. as ‘rebel, revolt;’ also ‘occur, happen, come to pass; take place’,” and (n.) “[m]eaning ‘spring, source, origin, beginning’ is from 1620s. Phrase to get a rise out of (someone) (1829) is a metaphor from angling (1650s),” Douglas Harper, “Rise,” Online Etymology Dictionary, 2016, <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=rise>. A sidebar: “Both Nippon and Nihon literally mean ‘the sun’s origin,’ that is, where the sun originates, …and are often translated as the Land of the Rising Sun… The Japanese name for Japan, …can be pronounced either /Nihon/ or /Nippon/. …[N]ichi …means ‘sun’ or ‘day’; …[h]on means ‘base’ or ‘root.’ The compound means ‘base of the sun’ or ‘sunrise’ (from a Chinese point of view, the sun rises from Japan); it is of course a source for the popular Western description of Japan as the ‘Land of the Rising Sun’,” “Names of Japan,” Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Japan>. And, perhaps it’s of no consequence that the attacks of September 11, 2001 involved the destruction of twin high-rise buildings. “…(n) high-rise, tower block (tower consisting of a multistoried building of offices or apartments) ‘tower block’ is the British term for ‘high-rise’ …(adj) high-rise (used of buildings of many stories equipped with elevators; tall) ‘avenues lined with high-rise apartment buildings’,” “High Rise,” Word Net, Princeton Univ., <http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=high-rise>. A Wall Street Journal article on Sept. 11, 2012 displayed the headline: “9/11 Museum Will Rise,” Ted Mann, <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444100404577644290597001100.html>. Or again, and invoking a sort of phoenix motif that is a mainstay of hermetic-masonic symbolism, a Gawker piece from the same year (2012) is headlined “Watch One World Trade Center Rise from the Ashes in Earth Cam’s 9/11 Commemorative Time-Lapse,” Neetzan Zimmerman, <http://gawker.com/5942176/watch-one-world-trade-center-rise-from-the-ashes-in-earth-cams-911-commemorative-time+lapse>.

^[183] [145] Ibid., def. 2. Our word rise comes from the “Old English risan ‘to rise, rise from sleep, get out of bed; stand up, rise to one’s feet; get up from table; rise together; be fit, be proper’ (usually arisan…), from Proto-Germanic us-risanan ‘to go up’ (source also of Old Norse risa, Old Saxon risan, Gothic urreisan ‘to rise,’ Old High German risan ‘to rise, flow,’ German reisen ‘to travel,’ originally ‘to rise for a journey’). From c. 1200 as ‘move from a lower to a higher position, move upward; increase in number or amount; rise in fortune, prosper; become prominent…”. Harper, “Rise,” loc. cit.

^[184] “Rise,” Random House Dictionary, op. cit., defs. 4 & 5. See also Loren Coleman’s numerous posts pursuing this angle – particularly as it pertains to the “Red-Dawn” meme. Also see Recluse’s insightful – not inciteful – “The Soldier of the Apocalypse,” updated, VISUPView [weblog], Aug. 13, 2012, <http://visupview.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-soldier-of-apocalpyse.html>.

^[185] Matthew 24:7, New International Version.

^[186] Matthew 5:45, New International Version.

^[187] Harper, “Rise,” loc. cit. “The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day…,” Luke 24:46, New International Version.

^[188] See Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., W. F. Arndt, F.W. Gingrich, and Frederick William Danker, eds., Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2000, p. 71.

^[189] New International Version.

^[190] In several places, Michael Hoffman also mentions the idea of the “group mind” or “hive mind.” This has interesting points of contact with Carl Jung’s ideas of the “collective unconscious” and the “collective conscious.” As intriguing as this line of inquiry is, I simply can’t take it up, presently. Do you want part 2?

^[191] I’m saying “the” question, as if there were only one. But, of course, there are countless questions. An equally compelling one might be: “What do the planners or stage managers believe is going on?” And that could be quite different from what is actually going on.

^[192] As summarized by the late Professor Arthur Holmes, “A History of Philosophy | 23 Problem of Universals,” YouTube, uploaded Apr. 15, 2016, <

>. “…Boethius makes it quite clear what sort of entity a universal would have to be. A universal has to be common to several particulars[:] in its entirety, and not only in part[;] simultaneously, and not in a temporal succession, and[;] it should constitute the substance of its particulars,” Gyula Klima, “The Medieval Problem of Universals,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter 2016 ed., Edward N. Zalta, ed., <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/universals-medieval/>.

^[193] Fido and I are particular individuals in the natural world. Unless we’re discussing nihilism, the existence of particulars is just assumed. The question is: Do only specific, particular – concrete – animals and humans exist in reality, or are there also really existing – abstract – universals?

^[194] There are variations within each of these “-isms.” One bundle of views, often classified as species of nominalism, is called “Trope Theory.” According to this, properties – like “being red” – are understood to be “tropes.” So a red apple and a red rose both have their own, individual redness-tropes. The commonality of a particular red apple and a particular red rose is then explained by appealing to a supposed “primitive,” inherent resemblance between the two tropes.

^[195] Or, in the vocabulary of 19th-20th-century German logician, mathematician, and philosopher F. L. Gottlob Frege, the “third realm.”

^[196] What I’m calling “sharing in” is, usually, assigned fancier terminology such as “exemplification,” “instantiation,” or “participation.”

^[197] Critics have other reasons, as well. For example, some people object that the idea of explaining property-agreement by appealing to transcendent “Forms” launches the Platonist on a vicious, infinite regress. If we appeal to a “Form of Redness” to explain the fact that a red apple and a red rose have redness in common, then why don’t we appeal to another Form, call it “Redness2,” to explain the fact that the red apple and the Form of Redness have redness in common? This, or something similar to it, is sometimes called the “Third Man” argument.

^[198] Which is, historically, credited to Peter Abélard (at least on one interpretation of his thought).

^[199] There are a number of caveats. Here are three. First, Ockham’s views shifted over time. Second, Nominalism is frequently said to have been first articulated in the 11th-12th centuries by the Frenchman Roscelin of Compiègne. Roscelin may have been schooled on this idea by a “Magister Johannes,” whose true identity – if he existed – is otherwise unknown. For other momentous “Mystery Men,” see our video “10 Secret Adepts.” Since many Catholic doctrines (such as Original Sin and the Trinity) were, at that time, formulated in terms of realism, Roscelin’s nominalism smacked of heresy and he was impelled to “recant.” However, nominalism was revived by Ockham (sometimes spelled Occam). Third, there’s also a logical position, called “terminism,” lurking in the background. Since nominalists like Ockham believed that that terms picked out particulars rather than universals, their analysis of syllogisms was influenced by their metaphysics. Fixing a term’s “extension” (the list of things a term picks out, or the list of things that it can be predicated of) became paramount.

^[200] Here’s a technical point. “The word ‘Nominalism’, as used by contemporary philosophers in the Anglo-American tradition, is ambiguous. In one sense, its most traditional sense deriving from the Middle Ages, it implies the rejection of universals. In another, more modern but equally entrenched sense, it implies the rejection of abstract objects. To say that these are distinct senses of the word presupposes that universal and abstract objects do not mean the same thing. And in fact they do not. For although different philosophers mean different things by universal, and likewise by abstract object, according to widespread usage a universal is something that can be instantiated by different entities and an abstract object is something that is neither spatial nor temporal. Thus there are (at least) two kinds of Nominalism, one that maintains that there are no universals and one that maintains that there are no abstract objects. Realism about universals is the doctrine that there are universals, and Platonism is the doctrine that there are abstract objects. But Nominalism is not simply the rejection of universals or abstract objects. For if that were the case, a nihilist, someone who believed that there are no entities at all, would count as a nominalist. Similarly, someone who rejected universals or abstract objects but were agnostic about the existence of particulars or concrete objects would count as a nominalist. Given how the term ‘Nominalism’ is used in contemporary philosophy, such philosophers would not be nominalists. The word ‘Nominalism’ carries an implication that the corresponding doctrine asserts that everything is particular or concrete, and that this is not vacuously true. Thus one kind of Nominalism asserts that there are particular objects and that everything is particular, and the other asserts that there are concrete objects and that everything is concrete. …[T]he two forms of nominalism are independent,” Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra, “Nominalism in Metaphysics,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter 2016 ed., Edward N. Zalta, ed., <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/nominalism-metaphysics/>.

^[201] Plenty of questions remain. E.g.: Are the conceptualist’s ideas supposed to be the same in everyone’s minds? Many conceptualists would say: Not necessarily. It’s obviously important that my concept of redness and yours have a high degree of similarity. But – assuming that similarity exists and that our concepts aren’t mere conventions or inventions – what accounts for, or “grounds,” that similarity? If you say nothing grounds it, you start to look more like a nominalist; if you think some really existing thing in the world has to ground it, you start to drift back toward realism!

^[202] If “charm” is a real concept or property, then it might be possessed or precipitated only by certain words. I take it that this is something that Hoffman assumes, although he does not seem to put it in precisely this way. On the other hand, if “charm” is neither a real concept nor a real property, then it might be that any word could be a Twilight-Language word, if only it were to be imbued, by the right people at the proper time, with (nominalistic) “charm.” I take it that these, and many others, remain open questions and represent possible avenues for future investigation.

^[203] Matter is the “principle of individuation.”

^[204] Form is the “principle of whatness,” or quidditas. In some contexts, “essence” or “nature” is also called “character.” By some accounts, “character” or “nature” is what something is (a.k.a., essential properties); while “attributes” or “qualities” are what a thing has (accidental properties).

^[205] It’s not just a “nominal definition.”

^[206] It’s a real definition.

^[207] This is the Augustinian “principle of privation.” See our video “Christian Platonism” on St. Augustine.

^[208] Or, how the Kelipot are depicted as the shadow-side of the Sephirot in certain streams of Kabbalah.

^[209] This was true for Abelard’s conceptualism. It’s also true for modern versions, such as David Wiggins’s “conceptual realism,” for which the structure of reality constrains and determines our mental framework.

^[210] “Nominalism” comes from the Latin nomen, meaning “name.” “Noun” derives from the same root.

^[211] Sometimes, this is known as having a “foundation in the thing” (fundamentum in re).

^[212] According to Google, red light can measure anywhere between 620 to 750 nm.

^[213] Ditto for symbols (whether various gestures or drawings or whatever).

^[214] Continental philosophy (in “structuralism,” “post-structuralism,” “deconstructionism,” and the like) and other fields (like media theory and semiotics), have taken on issues in the vicinity. I cannot hope to cover these here, but the interested reader should be aware of their existence. Further names for investigation would include: in media theory: Marshall McLuhan; in semiotics: Umberto Eco, Charles Sanders Peirce, Ferdinand de Saussure; in structuralism: Claude Lévi-Strauss and Jacques Lacan; in post-structuralism: Jean Baudrillard and Michel Foucault; in deconstructionism: Jacques Derrida.

^[215] See Carl Sagan, posted by Robin Verhagen-Guest, “The Cosmos Is All That Is,” YouTube, May 29, 2013, <

>.

^[216] “The Prestige: Quotes,” IMDb, <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482571/quotes/>.

^[217] E.g., that “in the beginning, God created heaven and earth,” and — like René Descartes believed — God wouldn’t deceive us.

^[218] “Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778),” Univ. of Cal. – Berkeley, <http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/linnaeus.html>.

^[219] Austin, How to Do Things With Words, op. cit., p. 6.

^[220] “Zoological Philosophy” (Philosophie Zoologique), Paris: Dentu, 1809.

^[221] London: John Murray.

^[222] London: J. Murray, 1871.

^[223] St. Augustine interpreted the biblical narratives as figurative or literary accounts, rather than as evidence that God created the world in a literal six-day process. Augustine thought that God’s creative action was instantaneous, a view demanded by Augustine’s belief that God is timeless.

^[224] Though, of course, Marx disparaged religion as the “opium of the people” (das Opium des Volkes). Cf. <https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm>.

^[225] Principles of Biology, London: Williams and Norgate, 1864.

^[226] The Principles of Sociology, London: Williams and Norgate, 1877.

^[227] The Origin of Civilisation and the Primitive Condition of Man, London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1870.

^[228] Primitive Culture, 2 vols., London: J. Murray, 1871.

^[229] The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion, 2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1890.

^[230] According to the commentary of Own Davies, Magic: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2012, p. 16.

^[231] “The Course in Positive Philosophy” (Cours de philosophie positive), Paris: Bachelier, 1830-1842.

^[232] See Schmidt’s multi-volume “The Origin of the Idea of God: A Historical-Critical and Positive Study” (Der Ursprung der Gottesidee, eine historisch-kritische und positive Studie), Münster: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1912.

^[233] Davies, op. cit., p. 19.

^[234] Hoffman once offered a DVD video of his lecture. But I couldn’t find a link.

^[235] Davies, op. cit., p. 19.

^[236] Wittgenstein, Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough, Rush Rhees, ed., A. C. Miles, transl., Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1979, pp. II–III.

^[237] Magic and Religion, Longmans, Green & Co., London, 1901.

^[238] Patrik Lindenfors and Jonas Svensson, “Evolutionary Explanations for Religion: An Interdisciplinary Critical Review,” Research Ideas and Outcomes, vol. 7, Apr. 20, 2012, <https://riojournal.com/article/66132/element/4/6836239//>.

^[239] Davies, op. cit., p. 17.

^[240] Ibid.