DID SHE OR DIDN'T SHE? BEYONCE & THE ILLUMINATI

Beyonce has been in the news a lot lately. First, there was her lip-synching debacle during the presidential nomination and then the rumors about whether or not she flashed an Illuminati sign during the Super Bowl’s half time show. So, what’s all the hubbub about Beyonce and the Illuminati anyway?

For years, there have been rumors about the music industry and the occult. Some believe that most (if not all) successful musical artists have literally had to sell their souls in exchange for fame and fortune. Could there be any truth to such outrageous allegations? I suppose the first question we have to ask ourselves is whether or not we even believe in such a thing as the Illuminati. Do secret societies really exist with the ability to manipulate or control commerce and the media?

To hear Bob Dylan’s cryptic interview where he implies he’s sold his soul, click here.

One thing I can vouch for is humanity’s cliquish nature. Mankind has an innate desire to belong to something exclusive. We see this play out daily on grade school playgrounds as well as in the sororities and fraternities of university campuses. Many of these archetypes were well represented in the movie, “Mean Girls:”

1. The plastics
2. The jocks
3. The band geeks
4. The art freaks
5. The Goths.
6. The punk rockers

This list could go on. All of us who have survived high school, and those who are braving it now, know these affiliations well. Which groups did we interact with and what are the groups that we secretly hoped to participate in? I am unsure why we have this desire to belong to something larger than ourselves, but as we age, the exclusivity of our cliquishness becomes more and more sophisticated. These aspects are easily displayed in the hazing of fraternities and the secrecy of the Freemasons (which Dan Brown reveals in his last novel, “The Lost Symbol.”)

THE BILDERBERG GROUP, THE COMMITTEE OF 300 & THE ILLUMINATI...
So, do wealthy and influential people band together to brainstorm on ways to stay wealthy and influential? If we chose to, couldn’t we just call this by one of its names: corporate strategy, where CEO’s and high paid executives sit in boardrooms trying to determine the best way to stay on top? Not only is this a common practice, corporations contractually bind their employees to maintain secrecy about what goes on in the boardrooms. But is this where it stops? Is there another level of exclusivity beyond the corporate boardroom? We know the Freemasons exist. We know the Bilderberg Group exists. Are the Illuminati and the Committee of 300 that farfetched?

What I find interesting are the media’s attempts to rebuff that Beyonce flashed the Illuminati's not-so-secret symbol during the Super Bowl. The argument was that she would never display a secret sign in a public venue, that the gesture she made was simply one of Jay Z’s antics for his record company, Roc-A-Fella Records. I find this is flawed logic, especially since there has been talk of Jay Z’s affiliation with the Illuminati even before he married Beyonce.

As rumor would have it, Jay Z is the one who brought Beyonce into the fold. As rumor would also have it, the Rockefeller name has for years been associated with the Illuminati. Is it simply coincidence or brazen behavior that Jay Z chose to name his company Roc-A-fella and that he often uses the Illuminati symbol as part of his shtick?

Here is the Illuminati symbol, which you can find on the back of every dollar bill. It is a simple triangle with the all-seeing eye in the center of it.

If Beyonce did choose to flash this symbol during the Super Bowl half-time show, could there be a more efficient way to do it than the way she gestures above? I’ll let you do the math.

I’m not here to prove anything to you, but I do hope you open your eyes to see the world, not as we’d like it to be, but rather to see it as clearly as it is.

I WROTE A BOOK!
TO LEARN MORE OR TO READ AN EXCERPT
of my sci-fi/fantasy/adventure, “The Unveiling: 1.0,” please visit TheUnveilingSeries.com.

Commercially Yours

In light of the Super Bowl and its legendary commercials, I figured today’s topic was timely. Now that I have Netflix, I have grown accustomed to commercial free viewing when I watch series television. While I don’t have a DVR, I still find myself trying to pause live TV, a habit I developed from watching Netflix and DVD’s.

I must admit I was a little perplexed when I stumbled across Alexandra Wentworth’s comedy series “Head Case.” The first episode I watched was 11 minutes long. The length perplexed me since TV shows are formatted to be a half hour, an hour, or a movie length of 2 hours. When you watch an hour-long drama without commercials, they tend to be between 40 and 42 minutes long. This means an hour-long TV show will have anywhere from 18 to 20 minutes of commercials. This is one-third of the viewing time spent watching commercials. If this formula were used for a half-hour show, you would expect there to be roughly 10 minutes of commercial viewing and 20 minutes of the actual show. Once again, the 11-minute length of Head Case confused me. If this was a true time frame, it meant two-thirds of the viewing time was dedicated to commercials while only a third of the time slot was dedicated to the actual show. Huh?

As it turns out, “Head Case” was developed for the Starz cable network. From what I can gather, Starz doesn’t have commercials, which explains the 11-minute format. With that said, I still wonder how the show will be syndicated. Perhaps, they will double up on episodes, although some of the later episodes actually did approach roughly 20-minutes. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how that plays out.

Noticing these discrepancies brought a larger question to mind. Is it the intention of the television networks that we watch their shows or the commercials that are interspersed between them? Back when my mom was alive and we were both in California, I would visit each Saturday. I still remember her muting the television during commercial breaks because in her words, “The commercials drive me crazy”.

In the past year, I confess I have begun to do the same thing, muting the television each time commercials appear. I am often fascinated by the synchronicity of the networks. More often than not, if you change the channel during a commercial, you land on another commercial. How do they manage to do this so consistently? Truthfully, I know the answer to this question. For the most part, TV shows are similarly structured into six acts. As such, the commercials will tend to occur simultaneously across all of the networks.

Most of us find this aspect of television annoying, which is why the DVR’s arrival has been a particular challenge to advertisers and networks. When we record our shows, we can easily zip through commercial breaks. Advertisers deplore this idea. In the old days, we would run to the bathroom or get snacks during commercials. This is the reason the volume blares much higher at these times. You can still hear the name of the product or catchy lyrics that you will hopefully remember while you are in the grocery store or shopping for some other product.

I still recall how absurd I thought “The Running Man” was with Arnold Schwarzenegger. While it was released in the late 80’s, it was a portrait of a futuristic world overrun by edgy, life threatening game shows and corporate advertisers. At the time, I thought it a far-fetched concept but in many ways it has come to fruition. Shows like Fear Factor, The Amazing Race and Survivor flood the airwaves with a slue of commercials and infomercials, brainwashing us to consume. Today, I write only to reflect. Is it the commercials or the shows being sold to us? Do we go out and consume what we want, what we need, or the things advertisers tell us we need? Hm.... Happy Super Bowl everybody!

I HAVE WRITTEN A BOOK! TO LEARN MORE OR TO READ AN EXCERPT
of my sci-fi/fantasy/adventure novel, “The Unveiling: 1.0,” please visit TheUnveilingSeries.com.

Extroverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving…

Last week I attended a career exploration seminar. The workshop required us all to take a test, which asked a series of preference questions. Things like “When you attend a party, do you prefer to mingle around the room or to stay in a small group of close friends?”

The test is devised to profile your personality preferences. Those preferences are then used to predict what kinds of jobs you are best suited for. For example, if you are an extremely extroverted person, it is assumed you will prefer jobs around people vs. sitting at a computer alone. Some of the categories described in the profiles are as follows:

1 Extroverted (E) or Introverted (I)
2 Sensing (S) or Intuitive (N)
3 Thinking (T) or Feeling (F)
4 Judging (J) or Perceiving (P)

To clarify some of the above categories, “sensing” people see the world through their senses and can describe things in particular detail exactly as they observed them. “Intuitive” people see the world in the bigger picture describing things as they related to them emotionally. For example, a sensing person would describe a mugger in detail while an intuitive person might describe them as “scary.”

Judging people are regimented and structured while perceiving people are spontaneous and carefree.

The course leader asked us to guess the results of our assessment. I found that easy and assumed my results would be introverted, intuitive, thinking and judging or INTJ. To my shock, my results came back as ENFP!!! The results are also given in degrees. Mine said I was clearly an extrovert. What?! I was somewhat floored as I sat contemplating these results. Could I possibly be an extrovert? Yes, it’s true, I enjoy the company of friends and family, but alone time doesn’t bother me in the least. In fact, I need alone time in order to remain centered. After I left this class, I ran my results by a few people who know me. Each of them said I seem very comfortable in social situations and meeting new people. Does that make me an extrovert? Perhaps it does, but I’m still working it out.

While I find the premise of the preference test fascinating, I have to admit it is not as fine-tuned as it could be. The questions were all multiple choice and several of them didn’t provide answers that accurately described me. I was left to pick an answer that best approximated my feelings even if it wasn’t an accurate reflection of my actual preferences.

The most interesting result of the assessment was that it got us to consider the truth about ourselves. If I am truly an extrovert, getting comfortable in this role will be important for my growth as a person. One of the other participants tested as a “feeling” person whereas he thought he would fall into the “thinking” category. As it turned out, he associated “feeling” with wimpiness. Without knowing him well, and from what I observed, I would definitely categorize him as feeling. And this isn’t to say I thought he was wimpy, but the feeling role may be one he needs to get comfortable with. Reality is always a much better understanding of the world than delusion. In a peculiar way, the seminar was like a mini therapy session for everyone who didn’t test the way they had anticipated. And any time we can walk away from an experience knowing ourselves a little better than we did before… well, then that’s a good day!

I HAVE WRITTEN A BOOK! TO LEARN MORE OR TO READ AN EXCERPT
of my sci-fi/fantasy/adventure novel, “The Unveiling: 1.0,” please visit TheUnveilingSeries.com.