THE GLOBAL LUCIFERIAN ZIONIST CABAL.

EL CABAL GLOBAL ZIONISTA LUCIFERIANO.

THE PLEYADIAN PYRAMIDS AND THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL CONSPIRACY.

LAS PIRAMIDES DE PLEIADES Y LA CONFABULACION MILITAR INDUSTRIAL..

THE ILLUMINOPOLY AND THE WORLD POPULATION MIND CONTROL.

EL" ILUMONOPOLIO" Y EL CONTROL MENTAL DE LA POBLACION MUNDIAL.

THE UNITED NATIONS , THE PHARMACEUTICALS AND THE ALIEN " GREY " CONNECTION.

LAS NACIONES UNIDAS , LAS FARMACEUTICAS Y LA CONECCION DE LOS GRISES.

THE ELITIST OLIGARCHY AND " FIAT " MONEY.

EL DINERO " FIAT " Y LA OLIGARQUIA ELITISTA.

THE MAIN STREAM MEDIA PROPAGANDA AND THE GUN CONTROL AGENDA IN AMERICA.

LA PROPAGANDA TELEVISIVA Y EL DESARME DE LA POBLACION AMERICANA.

MERCURY TAINTED VACCINES AND MERCURY TAINTED FOODS.

EL MERCURIO EN LA COMIDA Y LAS VACUNAS.

THE GOVERMENT PROGRAMS AND THE HEROIN TRAFFICING OF THE BILDERBERG CABAL.

LOS PROGRAMAS GUBERNAMENTALES Y EL TRAFICO DE HEROINA DE LOS BILDERBERGS.

CHEMTRAILS , H.A.A.R.P. AND THE DEATH OF BIRDS , FISH , ANIMALS AND HUMANS.

LOS "CHEMTRAILS ", H.A.A.R.P. Y LA MUERTE EN MASA DE PAJAROS, PEZES , ANIMALES Y SERES HUMANOS.

THE LUCIFERIAN ZIONIST BANKERS THEFT AND THE INDEBTED GLOBAL POPULATION.

LOS BANQUEROS ZIONISTAS LUCIFERIANOS ENDEUDAN Y ROBAN A LA POBLACION GLOBAL..

THE LUCIFERIAN ZIONISTS POLLUTED PLANET EARTH WITH RADIOACTIVITY.

LOS ZIONISTAS LUCIFERIANOS CONTAMINAN EL PLANETA TIERRA CON RADIOACTIVIDAD.

GENETIC CORN AND IT 'S DEADLY EFFECTS ON INTERNAL ORGANS AND HUMAN HEALTH.

EL MAIZ GENETICO Y SUS EFECTOS NOCIVOS PARA LOS ORGANOS INTERNOS HUMANOS Y LA SALUD HUMANA.

H.A.A.R.P. PARABOLIC ANTENNAES CAUSE ATMOSPHERIC MUTATIONS.

LAS ANTENAS PARABOLICAS DE H.A.A.R.P. CAUSAN MUTACIONES ATMOSFERICAS.

THE ' APOLLO 11" HOAX AND WHY WE HAVEN ' T RETURNRED TO THE MOON

LA MENTIRA DEL "APOLLO 11 " Y PORQUE NO REGRESAMOS A LA 'LUNA.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

The Occult Symbolism of the Los Angeles Central Library

The Occult Symbolism of the Los Angeles Central Library


Throughout the history of Western Civilization, libraries have been the repositories of nations’ accumulated knowledge and the epicenters of their culture. Central libraries, more than being big buildings containing books, are important landmarks designed with impressive architecture and filled with symbolic art. The Los Angeles Central Library is certainly no exception. An in-depth look at the art found at the Library is quite a revealing one: It describes the occult philosophy of those in power. We will look at the Central Library’s history and the hidden meaning of its architecture.

 Built in 1926, the Central Library is an important landmark of downtown Los Angeles. It is the central piece of one of the largest publicly funded library systems in the world, the Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL). Most touristic pamphlets describe the building’s design to be inspired by ancient Egyptian and Mediterranean Revival architecture. As we will see, this choice of design is not simply an aesthetic one, it rather recalls the teachings and the symbolism of the ancient mystery schools of Antiquity.  In fact, after decoding the library’s many esoteric features, we can safely say that the building is mainly inspired by Freemasonry, which is, in turn, heavily steeped in ancient Egyptian and Mediterranean mysteries.

 The Egyptian Room of a Masonic Lodge attest to the great importance of Egyptian mysteries in Masonic lore.
The Library’s tiled pyramid, two sphinxes, celestial mosaics and other details turn this public space into a true occult temple. Furthermore, the library is definitely built with an elitist state of mind. The true meaning of the art on display seems to be solely intended for initiates of secret societies and not the masses.  Before we examine the building’s most important features, let’s look at the background of its builders.

Elite Architect: Bertram Goodhue

Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, architect of numerous buildings of power.
The LA Central Library was designed by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, a prominent architect who was recognized and hired by America’s most powerful people. His works include governmental and military buildings, churches, libraries and the private houses of politicians.
One of the most recognized elite buildings designed by Goodhue is the headquarters of the Wolf’s Head Society – a secret society of Yale University. Along with the notorious Skull & Bones and Scroll & Key – the two other secret societies found at Yale - Wolf’s Head functions are quite similar to Freemasonry: It is a discreet yet major force influencing one of America’s most elite universities. It has held within its ranks members who went on to become prominent politicians, diplomats, lawyers and athletes.
The insignia of Yale’s Wolf Head Society.
Perhaps Goodhue’s most notable project is the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel of the University of Chicago. Commissioned by America’s most powerful tycoon, John D. Rockefeller, the ecumenical Chapel is used for various religious celebrations. Rockefeller stated that the Chapel was meant to be the campus’ “central and dominant feature”.
The Rockefeller Memorial Chapel.
The Chapel was designed in collaboration with Lee Lawrie, America’s foremost architectural sculptor. The duo worked on several other important projects such as Nebraska’s State Capitol and the Los Angeles Central Library, the subject of this article.
Sculpture of Bertram Goodhue holding the Rockefeller Chapel by the Rockefeller’s favourite sculptor, Lee Lawrie.
 

Elite Sculptor: Lee Lawrie

Lee Lawrie
Born in Germany in 1877, Lawrie came to the United States at the age of 5. After learning the craft from some of America’s leading artists,  Lawrie collaborated with Goodhue on several projects and became America’s leading sculptor. His unique style and his knowledge of occult symbolism, ancient mysteries and Masonic principles apparently made him the elite’s artist. Some of his high-profile commissions include: the allegorical relief panels of the United States Senate, the Louisiana State Capitol, the statue of George Washington at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C and the Harkness Tower of Yale University.
Lawrie’s statue of George Washington at the National Cathedral. Notice the Masonic Square and Compass behind him.
Lawrie’s most recognizable works are however displayed at the Rockefeller Center.
Lawrie’s Wisdom, above the main entrance of 5, Rockefeller Center, NY. The sculpture, depicts a gnostic demi-urge holding a Masonic compass.
As described in a previous Vigilant Citizen article entitled Sinister Sites: Rockefeller Center, the complex built by John D. Rockefeller is filled with symbolic art describing the elite’s Luciferian philosophy based on the acquisition of divine knowledge (more on this later). Another important piece conceived by Lawrie at the Rockefeller Center is the statue of Atlas.
Lee Lawrie’s Atlas at Rockefeller Center.
Atlas is used by the ruling class as a metaphor “for the people who produce the most in society”, and therefore “holding up the world” in a metaphorical sense. Not surprisingly, Atlas is associated with some of the most important works of fictions describing the point of view of the elite.
Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged: two classic works of fiction describing the vision of the world’s occult elite. Both work’s promotional material feature Atlas, a metaphor for the elite “upholding the world”.
Knowing that Goodhue and Lawrie produced symbolic architecture for America’s most prominent tycoons, politicians and institutions, would you be surprised if the Central Library contained the same?

The Central Library

Facade of the Los Angeles Central Library
The library was originally built in 1926 by Bertram Goodhue. According to the Library’s documentation, the architecture’s central theme revolved around “illumination through the light of learning”. Due to an arson fire in 1986, the building underwent extensive renovations and expansion – but the central theme was faithfully respected. The artwork’s spiritual and esoteric undertones make the entire complex a “temple of illumination”. It is replete with profound mystical symbolism, sacred geometry, proportions and allusions to important occult works. The Los Angeles Central Library and the Rockefeller Center are very similar in this regard – not surprising, as Lee Lawrie masterminded both complexes. As it is the case for the Rockefeller Center, the torch of Illumination, representing divine knowledge, is the most important symbol of the Library.

The Pyramid of Illumination

Pyramid of Illumination at the top of the Library
Throning at the top of the Library is probably the complex’ most distinctive feature: A tiled pyramid topped by a golden hand holding a torch. Other than being beautiful and decorative, the Library’s apex has a deep occult meaning, clearly inspired by Freemasonry.
First, in occult lore, the pyramid is considered to be the ultimate symbol of the Mysteries. It represents the transition from the material plane to the spiritual world. From the square-shaped base of the pyramid (representing the material world) rise, in mathematical perfection, four triangles (representing divinity). According to many occult researchers, the pyramids of Ancient Egypt were most likely used for the purposes of initiation, where candidates were led to the path of Illumination.
“The more the great Hierophants were at pains to conceal their absolute Science, the more they sought to add grandeur to and multiply its symbols. The huge pyramids, with their triangular sides of elevation and square bases, represented their Metaphysics, founded upon the knowledge of Nature.
- Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma
On each side of the pyramid is a sun symbol, the most visual ancient representation of deity.
“The adoration of the sun was one of the earliest and most natural forms of religious expression. Complex modern theologies are merely involvements and amplifications of this simple aboriginal belief. The primitive mind, recognizing the beneficent power of the solar orb, adored it as the proxy of the Supreme Deity.”
- Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages
Although the sun (or sunburst) is the most common occult symbol to represent the divine, it is however not directly worshiped as a god. It is a visual representation of the divinity. For this reason, the Central Library is replete with references to the sun.
In all the histories of the Gods and Heroes lay couched and hidden astronomical details and the history of the operations of visible Nature; and those in their turn were also symbols of higher and profounder truths. None but rude uncultivated intellects could long consider the Sun and Stars and the Powers of Nature as Divine, or as fit objects of Human Worship; and they will consider them so while the world lasts ; and ever remain ignorant of the great Spiritual Truths of which these are the hieroglyphics and expressions.
– Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma

The Luciferian Torch

Above the pyramid is golden hand holding a torch. There is a reason why this symbol is sitting above all others in the building:  It is a perfect representation of the building’s philosophy, Luciferianism.
The original torch is on display inside the Library. There, we can see more of the torch’s detail, including the serpent of knowledge intertwining its base.
In Latin, the word “Lucifer” means “light bearer”.  In occult symbolism, light and fire esoterically represent divine knowledge and enlightenment. A hand holding a lit torch therefore represents man’s ascent to divinity through the teachings of the Mysteries. The Gnostic interpretation of the story of the Genesis considers the snake (Lucifer) as a positive figure. It has given humans the intellectual faculties to reason and to ascend to divinity by their own means.
“Luciferianism represents the ultimate inversion of good and evil. The formula for this inversion is reflected by the narrative paradigm of the Gnostic Hypostasis myth. As opposed to the original Biblical version, the Gnostic account represents a “revaluation of the Hebraic story of the first man’s temptation, the desire of mere men to ‘be as gods’ by partaking of the tree of the ‘knowledge of good and evil.”
- Carl A. Raschke,The Interruption of Eternity: Modern Gnosticism and the Origins of the New Religious Consciousness
In occult teachings, Lucifer is not an existing being and is not equal to Satan. While Satan is esoterically associated with the descent to materiality, Lucifer represents the ascent to divinity using the cognitive powers of man. Through the acquisition of the knowledge of the Mysteries, an initiate has the:
“opportunity to erase the curse of mortality by direct encounter with the patron deity, or in many instances by actually undergoing an apotheosis, a transfiguration of human into divine”.
- Ibid.
Masonic authors such as Albert Pike and Albert G. Mackey have referred to the “luciferian path” and the “energies of Lucifer” to describe the “search for light”. The term “luciferian” is therefore used in the scholarly sense of “bringing enlightenment”. Masonic scholars often invoke Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods to bring to man, to describe this concept.  For this reason, Prometheus is the central figure of the Rockefeller Center.
Prometheus, the Hellenic equivalent of Lucifer, bringing divine knowledge to humanity at Rockefeller Center.
The references to Lucifer in this library do not stop here.

The Western Facade – Phosphor and Hesper

Western facade of the Library
Conceived by Lee Lawrie, the Western facade of the Library is another nod to the Mystery schools.  Two human figures are depicted with the names “Phosphor” and “Hesper” underneath them. This apparently minor detail is perhaps the most significant.
Phosphor (or phosphorus) is the Latin word for the planet Venus in the morning,  also referred to as the “Morning Star” or the “bringer of light”. Those terms are synonymous with Lucifer.
“Believing Venus to be two bodies, the Ancient Greeks called the morning star Φωσφόρος, Phosphoros(Latinized Phosphorus), the “Bringer of Light” or Ἐωσφόρος, Eosphoros (Latinized Eosphorus), the “Bringer of Dawn”. The evening star they called Hesperos (Latinized Hesperus) (Ἓσπερος, the “star of the evening”). By Hellenistic times, the ancient Hesperos would be translated into Latin as Vesper and Phosphoros as Lucifer (“Light Bearer”), a poetic term later used to refer to the fallen angel cast out of heaven.
- William Sherwood Fox, The Mythology of All Races: Greek and Roman
Hesper (or Vesperus) refers to Venus in the evening, the evening star.
“The disciples of Pythagoras also highly revered the planet Venus, because it was the only planet bright enough to cast a shadow. As the morning star, Venus is visible before sunrise, and as the evening star it shines forth immediately after sunset. Because of these qualities, a number of names have been given to it by the ancients. Being visible in the sky at sunset, it was called vesper, and as it arose before the sun, it was called the false light, the star of the morning, or Lucifer, which means the light-bearer”.
- Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages
So Phosphor and Hesper are two words signifying the same entity, Venus, a celestial body occultly associated with Lucifer, at different stages of evolution. The figure representing Phosphor holds the names of Eastern philosophers such as Moses, Zoroaster and Buddah, while Hesper holds the name of Western thinkers such as Socrates, Francis Bacon and Immanuel Kant. These historical figures have not been chosen at random: they all play important roles in the teachings of the Mystery Schools. In fact, Francis Bacon, René Descartes and Immanuel Kant are central figures of the revival of modern Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry in Western civilization.
At the top of the wall is the Latin saying “et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt”. This is a quote from the Roman poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of the Universe) written by Lucretius and can be translated to “And like runners they pass on the torch of life“. The “torch of life” can be equated to the occult Mysteries, the hidden knowledge passed down from generation to generation through secret societies. Between Phosphor and Hesper, we see a cavalier passing the “torch of life”, or occult knowledge, to the next generation and from the East to the West.
The western facade of the Library, which also serves as the main entrance, is therefore a very significant piece representing the enduring existence of mystery schools through luciferian philosophy. All of this, and we haven’t even stepped inside the building.

Illuminated Globe

9-Feet wide globe chandelier
Situated right under the pyramid on the top of the building, this globe chandelier is composed of cast bronze and, according to the Library’s documentation, weighs one ton. It was designed by Goodhue associates and modelled by Lee Lawrie.
The globe is surrounded by a ring containing the signs of the zodiac and is illuminated by 48 lights. The ring is attached to chains leading to the sunburst on the ceiling. As seen earlier, the sunburst is an ancient symbol representing divinity. This design is reminiscent of qabbalistic engravings representing the 72 names of God.
The seventy-two names of God from Kircher’s OEdipus Ægyptiacus. Like the library’s globe chandelier, this qabbalistic engraving bears the symbols of the planets and the signs of the zodiac.
Do the lights surrounding the globe represent the “circle of the illuminated”, the hidden rulers of the earth, who are connected to divinity through Gnosis? Do the 48 lights, mirroring the 48 sunrays, represent the hermetic axiom “As Above, so Below”?
“Despite statements to the contrary, Masonry is a religion seeking to unite God and man by elevating its initiates to that level of consciousness whereon they can behold with clarified vision the workings of the Great Architect of the Universe. From age to age the vision of a perfect civilization is preserved as the ideal for mankind. In the midst of that civilization shall stand a mighty university wherein both the sacred and secular sciences concerning the mysteries of life will be freely taught to all who will assume the philosophic life. Here creed and dogma will have no place; the superficial will be removed and only the essential be preserved. The world will be ruled by its most illumined minds, and each will occupy the position for which he is most admirably fitted. (…)
The perfect government of the earth must be patterned eventually after that divine government by which the universe is ordered.”
- Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages

The Statue of Civilization


In a remote alcove at the end of a checker board-patterned floor, the Statue of Civilization stands above a staircase flanked by two sphinxes. According to library documentation, the Lee Lawrie’s statue “symbolizes everything the library represents”. Her left hand holds a torch tipped with a flame and her right hand holds a book containing quotes which are, incidentally, quite important in Freemasonry:
“In the beginning was the word.” (Greek)
“Knowledge extends horizons.” (Latin)
“Nobility carries obligations.” (French)
“Wisdom is in the truth.” (German)
“Beauty is truth – truth beauty.” (English)
On the statue is a carved panel containing symbols of ancient and modern civilizations.
Panel on the Statue of Civilization’s robe
From bottom to top:
- Blank for unknown ages of man
- Pyramids of Egypt
- Ship for Phoenicia
- Winged Bull for Babylonia & Tablets for Judea
- Lion Gate of Palace of Ninos & Parthenon for Minoan and Grecian civilizations
- Wolf with Romulus and Remus for Rome
- Dragon for China
- Siva for India
- Notre Dame for Medieval Christian Europe
- Plumed Serpent Head for Maya
- Buffalo, Covered Wagon, and Liberty Bell for United States of America
Once again, these civilizations were chosen for their importance in Masonic history as they are known to have passed down occult mysteries. The blank space at the bottom most probably refers to Atlantis, the lost civilization, which, according to occult texts, was at the origin of Hermetism. The building representing Medieval Christian Europe, Notre Dame de Paris, was built by the Knight Templars, the order considered to be the ancestors of modern Freemasons.

The Sphinxes

One of the Sphinxes guarding the Statue of Civilization
In occult symbolism, sphinxes are the guardians of the Mysteries, protecting esoteric secrets from the eyes of the profane. The official website of the Library describes the sphinxes:
“In black unveined Belgian marble with bronze headdresses, the sphinxes symbolize the hidden mysteries of knowledge and guard the approach to the Statue of Civilization.”
- Source
Each sphinx carries a book containing quotes from Plutarch’s Morals (“On Isis and Osiris”)
Left Sphinx – “I am all that was and is and is to be and no man hath lifted up my veil.”
Right Sphinx – “Therefore the desire of Truth, especially of that which concerns the gods, is itself a yearning after Divinity.”
The first quote is incredibly significant in Masonic mysteries as Illumination is metaphorically equated to the “lifting of the veil of Isis”. For this reason, Freemasons dub themselves the “Widow’s Sons”, the widow being Isis, the goddess who lost her husband Osiris.
“Though few ever discovered her identity, she was Sophia, the Virgin of Wisdom, whom all the philosophers of the world have wooed. Isis represents the mystery of motherhood, which the ancients recognized as the most apparent proof of Nature’s omniscient wisdom and God’s overshadowing power. To the modern seeker she is the epitome of the Great Unknown, and only those who unveil her will be able to solve the mysteries of life, death, generation, and regeneration.”
- Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages
The second quote sums up the entire purpose of occult secret societies: to seek godliness through the knowledge of the Mysteries.
The symbolism of these sculptures is therefore extremely powerful and revealing: Civilization, the force behind nations, politics, culture, economics and citizenship  is guarded by the symbol of the Mysteries. The statue basically says: Secret societies have guided the evolution of civilization since ancient times and will continue to do so.

The Star of Ishtar

Eight pointed star at the LACL
Embedded in the floor, at a central point of the Library, is an eight pointed star, a symbol known as the star of Ishtar.
A version of the ancient Mesopotamian eight-pointed star symbol of the goddess Ishtar (Inana/Inanna), representing the planet Venus as morning or evening star.
Ishtar is the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility, love, war, and sexuality and is considered by the Babylonians to be “the divine personification of the planet Venus. The story of her descent into the underworld in search presumably for the sacred elixir which alone could restore Tammuz to life is the key to the ritual of her Mysteries. Perhaps for this reason, the symbol of the star of Ishtar is often found in the lower levels of occult buildings, such as the Manitoba Legislative building (full article on the subject here: Sinister Sites – The Manitoba Legislative Building). Does this symbol represent the underworld?
The star of Ishtar at the Manitoba Legislative Building

In Conclusion

To most people, the Los Angeles Public Library is nothing more than a functional building, which happens to be beautifully ornamented. When one understands the occult symbolism displayed around the complex, the Library turns into a temple of illumination, dedicated to occult mysteries and Masonic principles. It is a celebration of the accomplishments of the luciferian elite and of the prevailing of its occult philosophy. The fact that the library is dedicated to secret societies, despite the fact that the LAPL is publicly funded, tells volumes about the true nature of America’s power.
After reading this article, some might ask: “If seeking knowledge is a Luciferian trait, and if Lucifer is traditionally associated with evil, does it mean that seeking knowledge is wrong?”. Heck no. Seeking knowledge will never be wrong and being ignorant will never be right. Knowledge leads to wisdom and discernment while ignorance leads to confusion and bewilderment. Furthermore, it is only by fully understanding the forces at work in the world that one becomes in a position to truly accomplish good in society. Conversely, an ignorant person can easily be manipulated by deceivers to become their unknowing accomplices. No matter what term is used to describe the search of Truth, it will always be the noblest of deeds, regardless of one’s creed or religion. The faculties of learning and understanding are not the exclusivity of one group of people. They are gifts endowed to all humans and it is our duty to make the most of them. The most important thing to consider is this: Do you use knowledge to guide, inspire and enlighten or do you use it to control, manipulate and deceive? We have seen in previous articles how the elite uses their knowledge to manipulate the masses. What will you do with yours?

Mind Control Theories and Techniques used by Mass Media

Mind Control Theories and Techniques used by Mass Media

Mass media is the most powerful tool used by the ruling class to manipulate the masses. It shapes and molds opinions and attitudes and defines what is normal and acceptable. This article looks at the workings of mass media through the theories of its major thinkers, its power structure and the techniques it uses, in order to understand its true role in society.
Image source deesillustration.com
Most of the articles on this site discuss occult symbolism found in objects of popular culture. From these articles arise many legitimate questions relating to the purpose of those symbols and the motivations of those who place them there, but it is impossible for me to provide satisfactory answers to these questions without mentioning many other concepts and facts. I’ve therefore decided to write this article to supply the theoretical and methodological background of the analyzes presented on this site as well as introducing the main scholars of the field of mass communications. Some people read my articles and think I’m saying “Lady Gaga wants to control our minds”. That is not the case. She is simply a small part of the huge system that is the mass media.

Programming Through Mass Media

Mass media are media forms designed to reach the largest audience possible. They include television, movies, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, records, video games and the internet. Many studies have been conducted in the past century to measure the effects of mass media on the population in order to discover the best techniques to influence it. From those studies emerged the science of Communications, which is used in marketing, public relations and politics. Mass communication is a necessary tool to insure the functionality of a large democracy; it is also a necessary tool for a dictatorship. It all depends on its usage.
In the 1958 preface for A Brave New World, Aldous Huxley paints a rather grim portrait of society. He believes it is controlled by an “impersonal force”, a ruling elite, which manipulates the population using various methods.
“Impersonal forces over which we have almost no control seem to be pushing us all in the direction of the Brave New Worldian nightmare; and this impersonal pushing is being consciously accelerated by representatives of commercial and political organizations who have developed a number of new techniques for manipulating, in the interest of some minority, the thoughts and feelings of the masses.”
- Aldous Huxley, Preface to A Brave New World
His bleak outlook is not a simple hypothesis or a paranoid delusion. It is a documented fact, present in the world’s most important studies on mass media. Here are some of them:

Elite Thinkers

Walter Lippmann

Walter Lippmann, an American intellectual, writer and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner brought forth one of the first works concerning the usage of mass media in America. In Public Opinion (1922), Lippmann compared the masses to a “great beast” and a “bewildered herd” that needed to be guided by a governing class. He described the ruling elite as “a specialized class whose interests reach beyond the locality.” This class is composed of experts, specialists and bureaucrats. According to Lippmann, the experts, who often are referred to as “elites,” are to be a machinery of knowledge that circumvents the primary defect of democracy, the impossible ideal of the “omnicompetent citizen.” The trampling and roaring “bewildered herd” has its function: to be “the interested spectators of action,” i.e. not participants. Participation is the duty of “the responsible man”, which is not the regular citizen.
Mass media and propaganda are therefore tools that must be used by the elite to rule the public without physical coercion. One important concept presented by Lippmann is the “manufacture of consent”, which is, in short, the manipulation of public opinion to accept the elite’s agenda. It is Lippmann’s opinion that the general public is not qualified to reason and to decide on important issues. It is therefore important for the elite to decide ”for its own good” and then sell those decisions to the masses.
“That the manufacture of consent is capable of great refinements no one, I think, denies. The process by which public opinions arise is certainly no less intricate than it has appeared in these pages, and the opportunities for manipulation open to anyone who understands the process are plain enough. . . . as a result of psychological research, coupled with the modern means of communication, the practice of democracy has turned a corner. A revolution is taking place, infinitely more significant than any shifting of economic power. . . . Under the impact of propaganda, not necessarily in the sinister meaning of the word alone, the old constants of our thinking have become variables. It is no longer possible, for example, to believe in the original dogma of democracy; that the knowledge needed for the management of human affairs comes up spontaneously from the human heart. Where we act on that theory we expose ourselves to self-deception, and to forms of persuasion that we cannot verify. It has been demonstrated that we cannot rely upon intuition, conscience, or the accidents of casual opinion if we are to deal with the world beyond our reach.”
–Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion
It might be interesting to note that Lippmann is one of the founding fathers of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the most influential foreign policy think tank in the world. This fact should give you a small hint of the mind state of the elite concerning the usage of media.
“Political and economic power in the United States is concentrated in the hands of a “ruling elite” that controls most of U.S.-based multinational corporations, major communication media, the most influential foundations, major private universities and most public utilities. Founded in 1921, the Council of Foreign Relations is the key link between the large corporations and the federal government. It has been called a “school for statesmen” and “comes close to being an organ of what C. Wright Mills has called the Power Elite – a group of men, similar in interest and outlook shaping events from invulnerable positions behind the scenes. The creation of the United Nations was a Council project, as well as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.”
- Steve Jacobson, Mind Control in the United States
Some current members of the CFR include David Rockefeller, Dick Cheney, Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, mega-church pastor Rick Warren and the CEOs of major corporations such as CBS, Nike, Coca-Cola and Visa.

Carl Jung


Carl Jung is the founder of analytical psychology (also known an Jungian psychology), which emphasizes understanding the psyche by exploring dreams, art, mythology, religion, symbols and philosophy. The Swiss therapist is at the origin of many psychological concepts used today such as the Archetype, the Complex, the Persona, the Introvert/Extrovert and Synchronicity. He was highly influenced by the occult background of his family. Carl Gustav, his grandfather, was an avid Freemason (he was Grand Master) and Jung himself discovered that some of his ancestors were Rosicrucians. This might explain his great interest in Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology and symbolism. One of  his most important (and misunderstood) concept was the Collective Unconscious.
“My thesis, then, is as follows: In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.”
- Carl Jung, The Concept of the Collective Unconscious
The collective unconscious transpires through the existence of similar symbols and mythological figures in different civilizations. Archetypal symbols seem to be embedded in our collective subconscious, and, when exposed to them, we demonstrate natural attraction and fascination. Occult symbols can therefore exert a great impact on people, even if many individuals were never personally introduced to the symbol’s esoteric meaning. Mass media thinkers, such as Edward D. Bernays, found in this concept a great way to manipulate the public’s personal and collective unconscious.
1955 Time Magazine cover featuring Carl Jung. Looks a little like Avatar, doesn’t it?

Edward  Bernays

Edward Bernays is considered to be the “father of public relations” and used concepts discovered by his uncle Sigmund Freud to manipulate the public using the subconscious. He shared Walter Lippmann’s view of the general population by considering it irrational and subject to the “herd instinct”. In his opinion, the masses need to be manipulated by an invisible government to insure the survival of democracy.
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.
We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.

Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet.”
- Edward Bernays, Propaganda
Bernay’s trailblazing marketing campaigns profoundly changed the functioning of American society. He basically created “consumerism” by creating a culture wherein Americans bought for pleasure instead of buying for survival. For this reason, he was considered by Life Magazine to be in the Top 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century.

Harold Lasswell

In 1939-1940, the University of Chicago was the host of a series of secret seminars on communications. These think tanks were funded by the Rockefeller foundation and involved the most prominent researchers in the fields of communications and sociological studies. One of these scholars was Harold Lasswell, a leading American political scientist and communications theorist, specializing in the analysis of propaganda. He was also of the opinion that a democracy, a government ruled by the people, could not sustain itself without a specialized elite shaping and molding public opinion through propaganda.
In his Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, Lasswell explained that when elites lack the requisite force to compel obedience, social managers must turn to “a whole new technique of control, largely through propaganda.” He added the conventional justification: we must recognize the “ignorance and stupidity [of] … the masses and not succumb to democratic dogmatisms about men being the best judges of their own interests.”
Lasswell extensively studied the field of content analysis in order to understand the effectiveness of different types of propaganda.  In his essay Contents of Communication, Lasswell explained that, in order to understand the meaning of a message (i.e. a movie, a speech, a book, etc.), one should take into account the frequency with which certain symbols appear in the message, the direction in which the symbols try to persuade the audience’s opinion, and the intensity of the symbols used.
Lasswell was famous for his media analysis model based on:
Who (says) What (to) Whom (in) What Channel (with) What Effect
By this model, Lasswell indicates that in order to properly analyze a media product, one must look at who produced the product (the people who ordered its creation),  who was it aimed at (the target audience) and what were the desired effects of this product (to inform, to convince, to sell, etc.) on the audience.
Using a Rihanna video as an example, the analysis would be as follows: WHO PRODUCED: Vivendi Universal; WHAT: pop artist Rihanna; TO WHOM: consumers between the ages of 9 and 25; WHAT CHANNEL: music video; and WHAT EFFECT: selling the artist, her song, her image and her message.
The analyzes of videos and movies on The Vigilant Citizen place a great importance on the “who is behind” the messages communicated to the public. The term “Illuminati” is often used to describe this small elite group covertly ruling the masses. Although the term sounds quite caricatured and conspiratorial, it aptly describes the elite’s affinities with secret societies and occult knowledge. However, I personally detest using the term “conspiracy theory” to describe what is happening in the mass media. If all the facts concerning the elitist nature of the industry are readily available to the public, can it still be considered a  “conspiracy theory”?
There used to be a variety of viewpoints, ideas and opinions in popular culture. The consolidation of media corporations has, however, produced a standardization of the cultural industry. Ever wondered why all recent music sounds the same and all recent movies look the same? The following is part of the answer:

Media Ownership

As depicted in the graph above, the number of corporations owning the majority of U.S. media outlets went from 50 to 5 in less than 20 years. Here are the top corporations evolving around the world and the assets they own.
“A list of the properties controlled by AOL Time Warner takes ten typed pages listing 292 separate companies and subsidiaries. Of these, twenty-two are joint ventures with other major corporations involved in varying degrees with media operations. These partners include 3Com, eBay, Hewlett-Packard, Citigroup, Ticketmaster, American Express, Homestore, Sony, Viva, Bertelsmann, Polygram, and Amazon.com. Some of the more familiar fully owned properties of Time Warner include Book-of-the-Month Club; Little, Brown publishers; HBO, with its seven channels; CNN; seven specialized and foreign-language channels; Road Runner; Warner Brothers Studios; Weight Watchers; Popular Science; and fifty-two different record labels.”
- Ben Bagdikan, The New Media Monopoly
AOL Time Warner owns:
  • 64 magazines, including Time, Life, People, MAD Magazine and DC Comics
  • Warner Bros, New Line and Fine Line Features in cinema
  • More than 40 music labels including Warner Bros, Atlantic and Elektra
  • Many television networks such as WB Networks, HBO, Cinemax, TNT, Cartoon Network and CNN
  • Madonna, Sean Paul, The White Stripes
Viacom owns:
  • CBS, MTV, MTV2, UPN, VH1, Showtime, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, TNN, CMT and BET
  • Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon Movies, MTV Films
  • Blockbuster Videos
  • 1800 screens in theaters through Famous Players
“Disney ownership of a hockey team called The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim does not begin to describe the vastness of the kingdom. Hollywood is still its symbolic heart, with eight movie production studios and distributors: Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Miramax, Buena Vista Home Video, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Buena Vista International, Hollywood Pictures, and Caravan Pictures.
The Walt Disney Company controls eight book house imprints under Walt Disney Company Book Publishing and ABC Publishing Group; seventeen magazines; the ABC Television Network, with ten owned and operated stations of its own including in the five top markets; thirty radio stations, including all the major markets; eleven cable channels, including Disney, ESPN (jointly), A&E, and the History Channel; thirteen international broadcast channels stretching from Australia to Brazil; seven production and sports units around the world; and seventeen Internet sites, including the ABC group, ESPN.sportszone, NFL.com, NBAZ.com, and NASCAR.com. Its five music groups include the Buena Vista, Lyric Street, and Walt Disney labels, and live theater productions growing out of the movies The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and King David.”
- Ibid
The Walt Disney Company owns:
  • ABC, Disney Channel, ESPN, A&E, History Channel
  • Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, Miramax Film Corp., Dimension and Buena Vista International
  • Miley Cyrus/ Hannah Montana, Selena Gomez, Jonas Brothers
Vivendi Universal owns:
  • 27% of US music sales, labels include: Interscope, Geffen, A&M, Island, Def Jam, MCA, Mercury, Motown and Universal
  • Universal Studios, Studio Canal, Polygram Films, Canal +
  • Numerous internet and cell phone companies
  • Lady Gaga, The Black Eyed Peas, Lil Wayne, Rihanna, Mariah Carey, Jay-Z
Sony owns:
  • Columbia Pictures, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Classics
  • 15% of US Music sales, labels include Columbia, Epic, Sony, Arista, Jive and RCA Records
  • Beyonce, Shakira, Michael Jackson, Alicia Keys, Christina Aguilera
A limited number of actors in the cultural industry means a limited amount of viewpoints and ideas making their way to the general public. It also means that a single message can easily saturate all forms of media to generate consent (i.e. “there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq”).

Petroglyphs (also called rock engravings)


Petroglyphs



Petroglyphs (also called rock engravings) are pictogram and logogram images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, and abrading. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images. Petroglyphs are found world-wide, and are often associated with prehistoric peoples. The word comes from the Greek words pert meaning stone, and glyphic meaning to carve, and was originally coined in French as petroglyphe.
The term petroglyph should not be confused with pictograph, which is an image drawn or painted on a rock face. Both types of image belong to the wider and more general category of rock art. Petroforms, or patterns and shapes made by many large rocks and boulders over the ground, are natural formations vs. those created by human design. Inukshuks are also unique, and found only in the Arctic (except for reproductions and imitations built in more southerly latitudes).
Creation
Most Petroglyphs, Pictographs, Cave Paintings, and Geoglyphs tell the story of creation using the same iconographic motifs no matter where they are fund on the planet. From ancient times to modern times human appear to be encoded with the same archetypes to explain their journey here from beginning to end.
Petroglyphs are sometimes easily defined based on the culture, religious beliefs, mythologies, and legends of an ancient civilization placed on rock formations for their descendants. Many ancient petroglyphs are thought to represent some kind of ritual language often depicting with the same archetypal symbols. It is interesting that the same symbols are found in different parts of the planet created in timelines where the people could not have possibly interacted with each other. Some believe this could be mere coincidence, an indication that certain groups of people migrated widely from some initial common area, or indication of a common origin.
Some theories suggest that petroglyphs were made by shamans in an altered state of consciousness, perhaps induced by the use of natural hallucinogens. Many of the geometric patterns (known as form constants) which recur in petroglyphs and cave paintings have been shown to be "hard-wired" into the human brain; they frequently occur in visual disturbances and hallucinations brought on by drugs, migraine and other stimuli.
Present-day links between shamanism and rock-art amongst the San people of the Kalahari desert have been studied by the Rock Art Research Institute (RARI) of the University of the Witwatersrand. Though the San people's artworks are predominantly paintings, the beliefs behind them can perhaps be used as a basis for understanding other types of rock art, including petroglyphs.






Petroglyphs - Rock Art

Petroglyphs are images incised in rock, usually by prehistoric, especially Neolithic, peoples. They were an important form of pre-writing symbols, used in communication from approximately 10,000 B.C.E. to modern times, depending on culture and location.
The word comes from the Greek words petros meaning "stone" and glyphein meaning "to carve" (it was originally coined in French as petroglyphe).
The term 'petroglyph' should not be confused with pictograph, which is an image drawn or painted on a rock face, both of which contribute to the wider and more general category of rock art. Petroforms, or patterns and shapes made by many large rocks and boulders in rows over the ground, are also quite different.
The oldest petroglyphs are dated to approximately the Neolithic and late Upper Paleolithic boundary, about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Around 7,000 to 9,000 years ago, other writing systems such as pictographs and ideograms began to appear. Petroglyphs were still common though, and some less advanced societies continued using them much longer, even until contact with Western culture was made in the 20th century. Petroglyphs have been found in all parts of the globe except Antarctica with highest concentrations in parts of Africa, Scandinavia, Siberia, southwestern North America and Australia.
Ancient rock art's colors come from microbes   BBC - December 28, 2010
A particular type of ancient rock art in Western Australia maintains its vivid colors because it is alive, researchers have found. While some rock art fades in hundreds of years, the "Bradshaw art" remains colorful after at least 40,000 years. Jack Pettigrew of the University of Queensland in Australia has shown that the paintings have been colonized by colorful bacteria and fungi. These "biofilms" may explain previous difficulties in dating such rock art.












North America


At the Ancient Ruins in West Central Idaho along the Snake River, the story of beings that came from the Stars and a Galactic War was recorded according to Indian Legend well over 30,000 years ago. The petroglyphs depict the beings that came, their interaction with the inhabitants of the ancient city, and the war and destruction that ensued. We are shown their ships which are curiously triangular in shape. Similar to those that have been recently sighted over Colorado, Arizona and California. We are also shown the portal through which the interdimensional beings came.


The waging of war between the Star Beings is recorded in the petroglyph to the right. The Star Beings and their counterparts, the two horned priests, are wreaking havoc upon the inhabitants of the Ancient City (represented by the smaller beings who are fleeing.)


This petroglyph is located on a rock adjacent to the rock shown above. It depicts the two horned Priest. It should be noted that the dumbbell shaped apparatus held in his hand may represent an archtimeter. Reference to this can be found in Alice Bailey's writings, as well as in the hieroglyphs of Egypt. These tools are said to have wielded the power of life and death.


This being is very similar in appearance to Quetzalcoatl who is the Deity in the fabled city of Chichen Itza in Mexico, renowned for its Mayan Pyramids. He is often depicted at the controls of an ancient airship sometimes triangular in design.



Star Beings emerging from triangular shaped ships



Possible triangular craft with retroflares
Figure inside - Beings Below
Left of the ship 4 entities - Hopi Petroglyphs



Possible Star Beings - Portal or UFO






Yei
The Yei are supernatural Holy People who communicate between the Navaho and their gods. They are usually shown carrying pine boughs, yucca strips and rattles in healing ceremonies. Each petroglyph is hand crafted reflecting images and messages inspired by the Ancient Ones. Native stones are carefully selected for each petroglyph with no two alike.







Kokopelli







Kiva
Symbols from stone wall in the Village of the Great Kivas in New Mexico. Note the human, animal, snake and spiral figures were common to the area. Each petroglyph is hand crafted reflecting images and messages inspired by the Ancient Ones. Native stones are carefully selected for each petroglyph with no two alike.






 Buckhorn Wash








Mythology: Hopi Ant People, Snake People, Blue Kachina, Star Gods






Wild Horse Canyon
Two Males - Ascending Spirit - Two Females







Hawaii
One of the many examples of Hawaiian kiwi pohaku (petroglyphs - ancient rock carvings) found at Waikoloa. The Hawaiian petroglyphs contain many images of the human figure. It is possible that the images evolved in complexity from the simple angular figure to triangle figures and then to muscular figures. Notice the many angles in the petroglyph.






South America




 
  Petroglyphs in Panama







Brazil
A stick figure man with a giant phallus dubbed "the little horny man" by its discoverers is the oldest rock carving found yet in the Americas, researchers say. These findings might shed new light on when the New World was first settled, scientists added. The time frame during which humans first reached the Americas remains hotly debated. One key to settling this controversy would involve uncovering early examples of human artifacts, such as art.
Scientists discovered one ancient sample of such art in a cave named Lapa do Santo in central-eastern Brazil. The region is home to Luzia, the oldest human skeleton found to date in South America. Lapa do Santo is one of the largest rock shelters excavated yet in the region, a limestone cave covering an area of about 14,000 square feet (1,300 square meters). Here, researchers have found buried human remains, tools made of stone and bone, ash from hearths, and leftovers from meals of fruit and small game.
A stick figure man with a giant phallus dubbed "the little horny man" by its discoverers is the oldest rock carving found yet in the Americas, researchers say. These findings might shed new light on when the New World was first settled, scientists added. The time frame during which humans first reached the Americas remains hotly debated. One key to settling this controversy would involve uncovering early examples of human artifacts, such as art. Scientists discovered one ancient sample of such art in a cave named Lapa do Santo in central-eastern Brazil. The region is home to Luzia, the oldest human skeleton found to date in South America.



Paleontology - Phallus






Columbia
Snake Motif



The activity of painting or engraving rocks in Colombia may have begun before the formative period. The scarce references seem to refer to activities which occurred much sooner than just a few years before the appearance of Spanish conquistadors. The differences in rock art themes, the variety of zones, the diversity of picture forms and engravings, seem to indicate that there existed long periods of rock art activity from the Paleoindian to the classic Muisca times. More than 700 pictograph and petroglyph zones have been discovered. Some rural traditions and beliefs have developed from some of the rock art design.







Australia





Wondjina People
who look like Gray Aliens and Other Cave Paintings




Ancient Egypt Link with Australia






Cave Painting Depicts Extinct Marsupial Lion

Live Science - May 11, 2009





Unusual Rock Art Trove Found in Australia

National Geographic - October 22, 2008






Europe

Europe is laced with megalithic monuments, cave art, and
petroglyphs, some of which has not been discovered or recorded.






United Kingdom


Experts put date to UK rock art - 12,800 years

BBC - April 25, 2005







Gobustan


Stone Age petroglyphs Gobustan, Azerbaijan were not discovered by an archeological expedition. Their revelation came about quite by accident. In the 1930s, work was going on there in a stone quarry. The area is full of huge boulders and rock formations. One of the quarry workers noticed some unusual carvings on the rocks. The more the rocks were cut out, the more the paintings could be seen. (Before they had been hidden from view inside a huge pile of boulders.) Even more paintings were found inside what appeared to be man-made caves. Work at the quarry soon stopped so that the paintings could be examined more carefully.
In 1939, archeologist Isaak Jafarzade began the first archeological investigation of the petroglyphs at Gobustan. Between 1940 to 1965, teams identified and documented approximately 3,500 individual rock paintings on 750 rocks. The most ancient petroglyphs have been identified as belonging to the 12-8th century B.C. However, it is assumed that life existed here even earlier and that Gobustan was one of the cradles of civilization. This research was published in a book entitled "Gobustan" in 1978.






Pictograms - Pictographs




Pictographs are images painted on a rock face. Paints were generally made from pulverized minerals. Red, white, and black were the most common colors.
A pictogram or pictograph is a symbol representing an object or concept by illustration. Pictography is a form of writing whereby ideas are transmitted through drawing. It is the basis of cuneiform and hieroglyphs.
Early written symbols were based on pictograms, pictures which resemble what they signify, and ideograms, pictures which represent ideas; it is commonly believed that pictograms appeared before ideograms. They were used by various ancient cultures all over the world since around 9000 BC and began to develop into logographic writing systems around 5000 BC. Pictograms are still in use as the main medium of written communication in some non-literate cultures in Africa, The Americas, and Oceania, and are often used as simple symbols by most contemporary cultures.
The earliest uses of pictograms in Mesopotamia predated the famous Sumerian cuneiforms (oldest of which date to around 3400 BC). As far as around 9000 BC tokens marked with simple pictures began to be used to label basic farm produce, and around 6000 BC, with the rise of cities and spread of basic craftsmanship more complex pictographic tokens were devised to label manufactured goods. Eventually, the tokens were replaced by clay tablets, on which symbols were drawn with a blunt reed called a stylus. The impressions left by the stylus were wedge shaped, thus giving rise to the name cuneiform, wedge-writing.
Though written Chinese is often thought of consisting of pictograms, less than 1% of all characters ever created have their direct origins in pictograms. The letters of the Roman alphabet, however, do have their origins in pictograms. For example, the letter A represented the head of an ox, and if it is turned upside down, a bovine head with horns can be seen.
Pictograms remain in common use today, serving as signs or instructions. Because of their graphical nature and fairly realistic style, they are widely used to indicate public toilets, or places such as airports and train stations. However, even these symbols are highly culture-specific. For example, in some cultures men commonly wear dress-like clothing, so even restroom signage is not universal. Pictographic writing as a modernist poetic technique is credited to Ezra Pound though French surrealists accurately credit the Pacific Northwest American Indians of Alaska who introduced writing, via totem poles, to North America (Reed 2003,p.XIX).
A standard set of pictograms was defined in the international standard ISO 7001: Public Information Symbols. Another common set of pictograms are the laundry symbols used on clothing tags and chemical hazard labels.In countries or regions where two or more languages are used, the typical traffic sign is very often a symbol with no writing on it. This is the case for much of Europe and several parts of Canada. Many of these signs, however, offer an abstract symbol instead of a picture, and they cannot be considered true pictograms.






Cave Paintings






Cave or rock paintings are paintings painted on cave or rock walls and ceilings, usually dating to prehistoric times. Rock paintings are made since the Upper Paleolithic, 40,000 years ago. It is widely believed that the paintings are the work of respected elders or shamans.
When Europeans first encountered the Magdalenian paintings of the Altamira cave, Cantabria, Spain in 1879, they were considered to be hoaxes by academics. The new Darwinian thinking on evolution was interpreted as meaning that early humans could not have been sufficiently advanced to create art. Emile Cartailhac, one of the most respected prehistorians of the late nineteenth century believed they had been thought up by Creationists to support their ideas and ridicule Darwin's. Recent reappraisals and increasing numbers of discoveries have illustrated their authenticity and indicated the high levels of artistry of Upper Palaeolithic humans who used only basic tools. Cave paintings can also give valuable clues as to the culture and beliefs of that era.
The age of the paintings in many sites remains a contentious issue, since methods like radiocarbon dating can be easily misled by contaminated samples of older or newer material, and caves and rocky overhangs are typically littered with debris from many time periods. The choice of subject matter can indicate date such as the reindeer at the Spanish cave of Cueva de las Monedas which imply the art is from the last ice age. The oldest cave is that of Chauvet, and is 32,000 years old.
The most common themes in cave paintings are large wild animals, such as bison, horses, aurochs, and deer, and tracings of human hands as well as abstract patterns, called Macaroni by Breuil. Drawings of humans are rare and are usually schematic rather than the more naturalistic animal subjects. Cave art may have begun in the Aurignacian period (Hohle Fels, Germany), but reached its apogee in the late Magdalenian (Lascaux, France).
The paintings were drawn with red and yellow ochre, hematite, manganese oxide and charcoal. Sometimes the silhouette of the animal was incised in the rock first. Stone lamps provided some light. Abbe Breuil interpreted the paintings as being hunting magic, meant to increase the number of animals. As there are some clay sculptures that seem to have been the targets of spears, this may partly be true, but does not explain the pictures of beasts of prey such as the lion or the bear. An alternative and more modern theory, based on studies of more modern hunter-gatherer societies, is that the paintings were made by Cro-Magnon shaman.
The shaman would retreat into the darkness of the caves, enter into a trance state and then paint images of their visions, perhaps with some notion of drawing power out of the cave walls themselves. This goes some way towards explaining the remoteness of some of the paintings (which often occur in deep or small caves) and the variety of subject matter (from prey animals to predators and human hand-prints). However, as with all prehistory, it is impossible to be certain due to the relative lack of material evidence and the many pitfalls associated with trying to understand the prehistoric mindset with a modern mind.






 
  Caves at Lascaux, France
Lascaux is a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its cave paintings. The original caves, located near the village of Montignac. They contain some of the earliest known art, dating back to somewhere between 13,000 and 15,000 BCE, or as far back as 25,000 BCE.







Spain





Red dot becomes 'oldest cave art'   BBC - June 14, 2012

Watch the Video

The El Castillo Cave in Spain -- The refined dating shows these paintings to be far older than anyone thought. Red dots, hand stencils and animal figures represent the oldest examples yet found of cave art in Europe. The symbols on the walls at 11 Spanish locations, including the World Heritage sites of Altamira, El Castillo and Tito Bustillo have long been recognized for their antiquity. But researchers have now used refined dating techniques to get a more accurate determination of their ages. One motif - a faint red dot - is said to be more than 40,000 years old.

New dating method shows cave art is older: Did Neanderthals do it?   MSNBC - June 14, 2012

When archaeologists tried out a new technique to determine the age of Spain's most famous Paleolithic cave paintings, they were surprised to discover that the paintings were thousands of years older than previously thought - so old that it's conceivable they were painted by Neanderthals. The technique just might change the way we think about the paintings, and the way we think about our long-extinct, long-maligned Neanderthal cousins as well.



Hand stencils and the outlines of animals dominate "The Panel of Hands" in Spain's El Castillo cave. One of the stencils has been dated to earlier than 37,300 years ago, and a red disk goes back at least 40,800 years, making them the oldest cave paintings in Europe.


The "Corredor de los Puntos" lies within Spain's El Castillo cave. Red disks here have been dated to between 34,000 and 36,000 years ago, and elsewhere in the cave to 40,800 years ago, making them examples of Europe's earliest cave art.





Africa


Tassili n'Ajjer, Sahara Desert, North Africa
Sahara rock art is a significant area of archaeological study focusing on the precious treasures carved or painted on the natural rocks found in the central Sahara desert. There are over three thousand sites discovered that have information about Saharan rock art. From the Tibesti massif to the Ahaggar Mountains, the Sahara is an impressive open-air museum containing numerous archaeological sites.
Tassili n'Ajjer (meaning "Plateau of the Rivers") is noted for its prehistoric rock art and other ancient archaeological sites, dating from Neolithic times when the local climate was much moister, with savannah rather than desert. The art depicts herds of cattle, large wild animals including crocodiles, and human activities such as hunting and dancing. The art has strong stylistic links to the pre-Nguni Art of South Africa and the region, executed in caves by the San Peoples before the year 1200 BCE.
The range's exceptional density of rock art paintings-pictograms and engravings-petroglyphs, and the presence of many prehistoric vestiges, are remarkable testimonies to Neolithic prehistory. From 10,000 BCE to the first centuries CE, successive peoples left many archaeological remains, habitations, burial mounds and enclosures which have yielded abundant lithic and ceramic material. However, it is the rock art (engravings and paintings) that have made Tassili world famous as from 1933, the date of its discovery. 15,000 petroglyphs have been identified to date.


Some of the painting have bizarre depictions of what appear to be spacemen wearing suits, visors, and helmets. resembling modern day astronauts. This takes us to the west African tribe - the Dogon whose legends say they were guided to the area from another part of Africa that was drying up - by fish gods called the Nommo who came in huge ships from the sky.
Google Images







Earliest Oil Paintings Found in Famed Afghan Caves
National Geographic - February 7, 2008
Buddhist murals from Afghanistan's famed Bamiyan caves are the world's earliest known oil paintings, according to a new chemical analysis. (See photos of the paintings and the cliffs that housed them.) The finds, dated to around the 7th century A.D., predate the origins of similar sophisticated painting techniques in medieval Europe and the Mediterranean by more than a hundred years.







New light shed on South African cave art

BBC - February 7, 2004
A huge collection of rock paintings in South Africa is far older than previously thought, research has found. Archaeologists using the latest radio-carbon dating technology found that the Ukhahlamba-Drakensberg paintings are 3,000 years old. Earlier findings by researchers had indicated that the paintings by San hunters-gatherers were 1,000 years old. The latest research was carried out by the Britain's Newcastle University and Australian National University. There are more than 40,000 rock paintings at the site in South Africa.


Bushmen cave paintings Google Images







Hand Stencils Through Time
  National Geographic - June 26, 2009
Clusters of hand stencils dating back 2,500 years cover the walls of
Argentina's Cueva de las Manos -- Cave of the Hands in Patagonia.
Clusters of hand stencils dating back 2,500 years cover the walls of Argentina's Cueva de las Manos in Patagonia. Prehistoric handprints and stencils span all continents and began appearing on rock walls around the world at least 30,000 years ago.







Prehistoric European Cave Artists Were Female
 
National Geographic - June 26, 2009
Inside France's 25,000-year-old Pech Merle cave,
hand stencils surround the famed "Spotted Horses" mural.
Pech Merle Cave Paintings - Images






Geoglyphs


Google Earth 2012
A geoglyph is a drawing on the ground, or a large motif, (generally greater than 4 metres) or design produced on the ground, either by arranging clasts (stones, stone fragments, gravel or earth) to create a positive geoglyph (stone arrangement/alignment, petroform, earth mound) or by removing patinated clasts to expose unpatinated ground (negative geoglyph).
Some of the most famous geoglyphs are the Nazca Lines in Peru. Other areas with geoglyphs include Western Australia. Hill figures, turf mazes and the stone-lined labyrinths of Scandinavia, Iceland, Lappland and the former Soviet Union are types of geoglyph. The largest geoglyph is the Marree Man in South Australia.






Marree Man in South Australia






Nazca Lines of Peru






Atacama Giant of Chile






Uffington White Horse






Ancient Aircraft - Art and Design






UFOs and Extraterrestrials in Art History