PART TWENTY-EIGHT: Read It Before It Is [Further] Banned By The US Government

Editor's note: All notations will be cited when this series of articles have concluded. The information is based on research contained in Tom Horn's upcoming new book:

APOLLYON RISING 2012
The Lost Symbol Found And The Final Mystery Of The Great Seal Revealed
A Terrifying And Prophetic Cipher, Hidden From The World By The U.S. Government For Over 200 Years Is Here

This will be the longest entry to date in this series as I am on a deadline now to have my new book in print within 4 weeks and I will be travelling for much of that time. I want everybody to know that my research team over the last 24 months uncovered truly unprecedented and fabulously irrefutable evidence that early Freemasons and those working with them were aware of the Mesoamerican belief system and the calendar ending date 2012 and actually incorporated directly into the design of the Capitol City in Washington DC this prophetic belief. While I cannot reveal here the biggest secret, it will all be laid out in Apollyon Rising 2012 in about 4 weeks from now. I can offer a vague hint at some of what will be revealed:

* The true Lost Symbol and what it holds for the secret destiny of America.
* Secrets of the Capitol Dome.
* Secrets of the Washington Monument.
* Secrets between the Vatican and Washington DC.
* Forbidden knowledge between the year 2012, the Vatican, Washington DC, and the return of Osiris/Apollo.
* Unrecognized by the vast majority of peoples around the world is the greatest conspiracy of all time, in Washington DC and at the Vatican in an ancient, magical, talismanic diagram—the Lost Symbol—which waits its final use by the hidden, occult hand guiding the Secret Destiny of America toward the year 2012.
* To make sure they are prepared, the ritual for what is coming has been rehearsed in the Heredom by the Supreme Council over Washington DC with every passing US president starting with George Washington in anticipation of the deity's return in 2012.
* Certain US Founding fathers were aware of these prophecies and designed the Capitol City to serve as the home of these pagan gods on their return.
* This secret is also openly hidden in the most spectacular way in the US Capitol Dome, directly tying the US and Vatican to the Mesoamerican 2012 date.
* Catholic priests who tried to warn about what was coming died under mysterious circumstances.
* A 200 Year Old cipher encoded on the Great Seal of the United States points to the same prophecy concerning the return of the gods in the year 2012.
* Nearly 500 years ago the Maya prophesied about the Colonial date 1776 as the beginning of the last 13 katuns leading to apocalypse in 2012. When academic Richard N. Luxton interpreted The Book of Chumayel: The Counsel Book of the Yucatec Maya 1539–1638, he was astonished to find it was connected to the "Christian Last Judgment" and the date 2012.
* You may have seen recently where a couple modern "Mayan elders" have been getting themselves in the news by claiming the year 2012 will not lead to the end of the world. We too believe it might not be the “end of the world,” but certain officials believe it could be the “beginning of the end.” The same two modern Mayan elders are covering up how their prophecies diametrically contradict the prophecies of their forefathers including the Maya, Aztec, and numerous other ancient peoples who foresaw this time as portending destruction and "judgment from the gods."
* 200 Years ago Cherokee Indians prophesied likewise and set their calendar, like the Maya and Aztec, to end in the year 2012.
* Over 700 years ago Orthodox Jewish priests prophesied in the Zohar that their Messiah would arrive in the year 2012.
* The first degree Masonic Tracing Board contains the same prophecy toward the year 2012.
* Jesus Himself in Matthew 24 may have set the date for the apocalypse around the year 2012.
* This is a short sample of the HUNDREDS of new revelations - based on over 6000 pages of documents, 30 years of research by dozens of scholars, and travel to over half of the states in the union to meet with experts in fields of cryptography, occultism, theology, science and history - condensed for the first time along with dozens of charts and images into the 360 page book, Apollyon Rising 2012: The Lost Symbol Found and the Final Mystery of the Great Seal Revealed.

Now a couple points need clarification at the beginning of this long entry having to do with 1) date setting; and 2) extra-biblical sources for interpreting end-times prophecy. Setting dates in particular for eschatological affairs, such as the beginning of sorrows, the return of Christ, or the battle of Armageddon have been illustrated historically to be unwise, discrediting those who make such predictions concerning the exact timing of future events. In general, Christians should simply always be ready for the end of the age and the coming of Christ, because “ye know not what hour your Lord doth come” (Matthew 24:42). Jesus further told His followers that the exact date of His arrival would be known by “no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only” (Matthew 24:36). While the particular moment of His appearance thus remains a mystery, elsewhere Jesus explained that the “signs of the times” can be discerned (Matthew 16:3), and when His closest disciples asked Him frankly, “What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” He provided a long list of specific indicators that would herald His arrival. He then added that, “When ye shall see these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled” (Matthew 24:3; 33–34). Therefore, while most Christians agree they cannot know the exact “hour” of Christ’s coming or the end of the age, they can know the “season.”

Another issue that arises when interpreting end-time “signs” comes from the use of non-canonical sources. This could include the writings of famous seers such as Nostradamus, or in more recent history, those of Edgar Cayce or Jeane Dixon. The use of apocryphal or pseudepigraphal literature that was (or is) considered sacred can also be involved, such as the first book of Enoch, which some expositors believe should be included among sacred Scriptures. While most Bible scholars admit these texts can provide invaluable insights for helping students of history fill gaps between cultural and historical events related to first-century Judaism and the background of Christianity (for instance, The Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus), they believe these should not be elevated among divinely inspired or authoritative sources, especially if they contradict or supplant existing canonical teachings (the Bible).

Having stated the above, the obvious question then arises: Why would we proceed to discuss the year 2012, most publicly identified with the end of the Mayan Calendar Long Count and Precession Cycle? The answer is that we do so precisely because Apollyon Rising 2012 is intended to unveil not just what Bible scholars believe about the end times, but what occultists are convinced of and are dedicated to fulfilling. Furthermore, extra-biblical prophecies by those such as the Maya or the Cumaean Sibyl were sometimes astonishingly accurate. Occult power may have provided supernatural perception, as illustrated by Jannes and Jambres (2 Timothy 3:8), who withstood Moses in the Old Testament, and the Pythian priestess in the New Testament (Acts 16:16–17), who somehow knew that God had sent Paul. This fact is especially important at this juncture because while the first part of the “final mystery of the Great Seal” involves who is prophesied to rule the novus order seclorum, the second, more disturbing, aspect of the U.S. national cipher has to do with when this deity—and its nephilim army—are predicted to arrive.

From Christians to New Agers, skeptics to historians, the world is presently enthralled with the meaning of the year 2012. In general, the excitement (or dread, as the case may be) surrounds a variety of predictions made by ancient and modern sources concerning a portentous moment in time. Mankind is on course toward unprecedented global upheaval, according to these experts, when the earth and all life on it will undergo apocalyptica marked by the end of the “thirteenth baktun” of the Mesoamerican Mayan Long Count. The exact end date of this calendar is December 21, 2012, when during the winter solstice at 11:11 GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) the sun will align with the galactic center of the Milky Way galaxy, an event that occurs only every thirteen thousand years. The precession of the equinoxes will conclude a twenty-six-thousand-year cycle, bringing the astrological Age of Pisces to an end and introducing the beginning of Aquarius, when the next cycle begins and the sun rises out of the mouth of the Ouroboros (great serpent of the Milky Way). This is the sun rising in Sagittarius, the centaur with a bow—the symbol for Nimrod coming out from the mouth of Leviathan and the sun “god” rising again—Nimrod/Osiris/Apollo. The Mayans predicted this conjunction, interpreting it as a harbinger of the end of the world as we know it. While the Maya were not alone among ancient cultures in this regard—for instance, the Hindu Kali Yuga calendar started approximately during the Mayan Fifth Great Cycle and also predicts global earth changes around the year 2012—it is the Maya who are mostly credited with fixing the importance of this date. Researchers say cataclysmic events associated with this time frame have already started, including geologic upheaval, drought, famine, mass extinction, and a lack of sunspot activity to be followed by solar maximum in the year 2012.

Like the Aztec and Inca, the Maya believed earth seasons and celestial cycles were affected by otherworldly and prophetic significance. Mayan priests interpreted such activity and coupled it with the mathematics of their calendars, making predictions based on the terrestrial and celestial cycles.

So far, the only known Mayan inscription that elaborates on the specific significance behind the end of the thirteenth baktun—December 21, 2012—was discovered on Monument 6 at Tortuguero, in Tabasco, Mexico. Though defaced from area construction and previous looting of the archaeological location, scholars were able to partially translate the monument, finding that it refers to a year 2012 return of Bolon Yokte K’u, the underworld lord who represents the solar system and the nine support gods orbiting the Sun.

The inscription: Tzuhtz-(a)j-oom u(y)-uxlajuun pik (ta) Chan Ajaw ux(-te’) Uniiw. Uht-oom ? Y-em(al)?? Bolon Yookte’ K’uh ta ?

The interpretation: “The Thirteenth ‘Bak’tun” will be finished (on) Four Ajaw, the Third of Uniiw (K’ank’in). ? will occur. (It will be) the descent (??) of the Nine Support? God(s) to the ?.”

While New Agers admit the end of the Mayan calendar heralds the return of Bolon Yokte K’u to earth in 2012 (the date the Toltec prophesied the physical return of the serpent god Quetzalcoatl), they claim the potentially cataclysmic event will actually launch a new Golden Age of ascended consciousness.

Others are not so sure.

Michael D. Coe, whose 1966 work, The Maya, is credited with first bringing the momentous end date to the public’s attention, wrote in 2005:

There is a suggestion…that Armageddon would overtake the degenerate peoples of the world and all creation on the final day of the thirteenth [baktun]. Thus…our present universe…[would] be annihilated [in] 2012, when the Great Cycle of the Long Count reaches completion.

Time does not allow for a study of each of the numerous sources marking the year 2012 as the end of the age. (For instance: The Bible Code claim that the world will end on this date due to a collision with a meteor, asteroid, or comet; the return of Planet X creating a pole shift and causing the destruction of earth; The Orion Prophecy research by Patrick Geryl and Gino Ratinckx claiming 2012 apocalyptic prophecy is encoded in the Egyptian Sphinx, pyramids, and zodiacs of the Greco-Roman Dendera temple; or the theory repeated on the television program The X-Files, which speculates colonization of the earth by “aliens” in December 2012, an idea recently supported by Tibetan Monks). However, I briefly summarize below a few of the noteworthy predictive models involving the year 2012, to be followed next week by what we consider to be far more important and previously undisclosed information regarding this date.

2012 and the I-Ching

The ending date 2012 can also be found in one of China’s oldest classic texts, the Book of Changes, or I-Ching, an ancient symbol system that was used to divine “order” from random events. When the late philosopher and scientist Terrance McKenna, originator of “Timewave Zero” or “Novelty Theory,” and his brother, Dennis, began studying the I-Ching some years ago, they came across a series of unexpected patterns in the King Wen sequence ending with the year 2012. Using the sixty-four hexagrams of six levels of alternating horizontal bars and dots in the I-Ching, Terrance created a linear model that began thousands of years ago when the I-Ching was created, and continuing into the future. Using a computer program, he formulated a stock market-like graph that depicted a rising and falling line based on patterns from the I-Ching.

To his surprise, he discovered that the high and low parts of the graph corresponded with times in history when “novelty” or major world events transpired, including a spike around the time of September 11, 2001, and a coming spike for October 2010. But one date was unparalleled elsewhere on the graph. This is when the line simply ends, abruptly plunging off the graph into infinity—December 21, 2012. This finding is all the more astonishing given that McKenna’s research was published in 1973 independent of any knowledge of the ending date in the Mayan calendar.

2012 and the Web Bot Project

Of similar interest is the Web Bot Project, which was developed in the late 1990s for tracking and making stock market predictions. The technology crawls the Internet, much like a search engine does, searching for keywords and following “chatter” in order to tap into “the collective unconscious” of the global community for tipping points regarding past, current, and future buying patterns. In 2001, operators began noticing what looked like more than coincidences, and that the “bot” was taking on a mind of its own, accurately predicting more than just stock market predictions, including June of 2001 when the program predicted that a life-altering event would be felt worldwide and would take place within sixty to ninety days. On September 11, 2001, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center fell. The Web Bot also predicted the 2001 anthrax attack on Washington DC; the earthquake that produced the December 26, 2004, tsunami; Hurricane Katrina; and more. The Web Bot has now foretold global devastation for late December 2012.

2012 and Solar Maximum

In 2006, NASA published a report by Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research on what could be the most powerful solar storm since records began approximately four hundred years ago, scheduled to reach solar maximum in the year 2012. The geomagnetic storm that results during this time could itself become apocalyptic. In April 2009, Michael Hanlon speculated for London’s Daily Mail what this might mean, in an article entitled “Meltdown”:

The catastrophe, when it comes, will be beautiful at first. It is a balmy evening in late September 2012. Ever since the sun set, the dimming skies over London have been alive with fire.

Pillars of incandescent green writhe like gigantic serpents across the skies. Sheets of orange race across the horizon during the most spectacular display of the aurora borealis seen in southern England for 153 years.

And then, ninety seconds later, the lights start to go out. Not the lights in the sky—they will dazzle until dawn—but the lights on the ground.…

Within an hour, large parts of Britain are without power.

By midnight, every mobile network is down and the Internet is dying. Television—terrestrial and satellite—blinks off the air.

Radio is reduced to a burst of static.

By noon the following day, it is clear something terrible has happened and the civilized world has plunged into chaos.

A year later, Britain, most of Europe plus North America is in the grip of the deepest economic catastrophe in history.

By the end of 2013, one hundred thousand Europeans have died of starvation.

Hanlon goes on to detail the effects of 2012’s catastrophic solar storm, including food shortages, energy shortages, and rampant disease, concluding that “it would be wise to start stocking up on some candles.”

2012 and the Ancient Cherokee Rattlesnake Prophecies

The “Cherokee Rattlesnake Prophecies,” also known as the “Chickamaugan Prophecy” or the “Cherokee Star Constellation Prophecies,” are part of a series of apocalyptic prophecies made by members of the Cherokee tribe during 1811–1812. The prophecies are very similar to Mesoamerican belief, and are viewed by scholars as likely referring to the return of the feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl in the year 2012. Like the Maya, the Cherokee calendar ends mysteriously in the year 2012 when astronomical phenomena related to Jupiter, Venus, Orion, and Pleiades cause the “powers” of the star systems to “awaken.”

A portion of the “Rattlesnake Prophecy” reads:

At this time [2012] of the fingers striking Jupiter that Orion Star System will awaken. And the Pleiades and Orion will war once again as in old. Jupiter and Venus will awaken to its destiny of Time/Untime of cycles. Orion will war with Pleiades, Jupiter will war with Venus.…

In the year…2012 an alignment will take place both on the Cherokee calendar and in the heavens of the Rattlesnake Constellation.… It is the time of the double headed serpent stick. It is the time of the red of Orion and Jupiter against the white blue of Pleiades and Venus.…

In the year…2012 the Cherokee Rattlesnake Constellation will take on a different configuration. The snake itself will remain, however; upon the Rattlesnake shall be added upon its head feathers, its eyes will open and glow, wings spring forth as a winged rattlesnake. It shall have hands and arms and in its hands shall be a bowl. The bowl will hold blood. Upon its tail of seven rattles shall be the glowing and movement of Pleiades.

The Rattlesnake shall become a feathered rattlesnake or feathered serpent of Time/Untime [Quetzalcoatl?].

And upon the Rattlesnake is also the Milky Way. A crossing of the Milky Way shall be seen at these times [2012].

And the Cherokee calendar shall end in the year 2012…[with] the coming of the Pale One once again.

2012 and Prophecy from the Zohar on Messiah’s Return

Widely considered the most important work of Jewish Kabbalah, the Zohar is a collection of books written in medieval Aramaic over seven hundred years ago containing mystical commentary on the Pentateuch (five books of Moses, the Torah). In addition to interpreting Scripture, the “Vaera” section (volume 3, section 34) includes “The signs heralding Mashiach,” or “The coming of the Messiah.” The fascinating date for “his” appearance is set in the Zohar at late 2012. Given the rejection of Jesus by orthodox Jews as Messiah, this coming could herald the unveiling of Antichrist in 2012.

J. R. Church of Prophecy in the News called my office recently and led me through verses 476–483 of this part of the Zohar to point out what nobody, as far as I have been able to find, in the 2012 research community has written before—that the time of Jacob’s trouble (the Great Tribulation) will commence according to this ancient text in the year 2012 when the “kings of the earth” gather in Rome and are killed by meteoric stones from the sky.

Interestingly, among other scholars of the implications of the year 2012, a few have pointed to a prophecy by Malachy O’Morgair, or “St. Malachy” as he is known to Catholics, having to do with “the last pope.” The prophecy, taken from St. Malachy’s “Prophecy of the Popes,” is among a list of verses predicting each of the Roman Catholic popes from Pope Celestine II to the final pope, “Peter the Roman,” whose reign would end in the destruction of Rome. According to Malachy’s prophecy, the next pope (following Benedict XVI) is to be the final pontiff, Petrus Romanus, or “Peter the Roman.” He will assume authority during a time of great tribulation, and then “the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the terrible and fearsome Judge will judge his people.”

2012 and Matthew 24

Is it possible that Jesus marked the year 2012 as prophetic? When His disciples asked, “Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world [aion]?” (Matthew 24:3), Jesus answered, “as the Days of Noe [Noah] were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew 24:37).

The word aion in this text is not the general word for “time” (chronos) in Greek. Aion is the word the Greeks used to designate an actual cycle of the Milky Way alignments or the span of an age. David Flynn says of this: “The answer Jesus provided His apostles for ‘when’ the end of the aion would occur was specific. The astronomical signs in the heavens would be just as those during the days of Noah when Leviathan encircled the horizon in the dawn of the Summer solstice. There could have been no more accurate comparison made between our present time than the age of Noah….The present aion is coming to a close. Like the sunteleia before, there will be great upheaval and change.”

2012 and Christian Prophecy

The man who is known as the “Walking Bible” due to extensive memorization of Bible texts, Jack Van Impe, recently broadcast on his syndicated Jack Van Impe Presents a special show called “December 21, 2012: History’s Final Day?” in which he described various cultural and secular sources pointing to the year 2012 as being ominous. Some of the material he covered is listed above, such as the Mayan prophecy and the I-Ching. But Impe also shared how he had gone through three thousand headlines and found that everything the prognosticators were saying about the year 2012 reflected what the book of Revelation and the Old Testament prophets foretold for the end of time.

Another Christian researcher who believes the year 2012 could be important is Pastor Mark Biltz of El Shaddai Ministries. Based on his research into Jewish feasts and blood moon eclipses, Biltz found on NASA’s website evidence that a rare event called a “tetrad”—in which four consecutive total lunar eclipses or blood moons appear in a century—will coincide with Passover holy days in 2014–2015. According to Biltz, tetrads have historically appeared around special dates in Israel’s history such as during Passover and Succoth following Israel becoming a nation in 1948, and again in 1967–1968 following the Six-Day War when Israel recaptured Jerusalem. In 2014–2015, blood moons will occur the first day of the Hebrew year and again on the High Holy Day of Rosh Hashanah. If these are in fulfillment of the prophecies of Jesus in Matthew 24:29–30 and Joel 2:31 concerning “The sun [being] turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord,” they could indicate the imminent return of Christ hypothetically in 2015–2016. As noted in a previous entry, this would also mean the year 2012 could be the “midst of the week” when Antichrist breaks his covenant with Israel and Great Tribulation begins.

2012 and First Degree Tracing Board Shows the Way

When research began for Apollyon Rising 2012 and I became aware of the nearly five hundred-year-old Mayan prophecies connecting the “colonial count 1776” with the final thirteen katuns of their calendar ending in the year 2012 (and how academia viewed this as a mirror of the countdown to the “Christian Last Judgment”), I wondered if early American scholars—and specifically architects of Freemasonry involved in the design of Washington DC, the Great Seal of the United States, and other iconic artifacts important to the founding of this country—were aware of this Mesoamerican timeline. It seemed too much of a coincidence that the final thirteen katuns ending in 2012 would match the starting and ending date on the Great Seal by chance. My investigation into the matter resulted in numerous examples of the year 2012 related to America (and other places of the world), which I detail in my book. But due to the nature of this entry, I list here one final finding directly connected with Freemasons and the designers of the capital city in Washington DC that illustrate their knowledge of the ending date 2012.

This discovery came as a result of Dr. Robert Lomas of the University of Bradford in the UK openly posting on the school’s website an archive on Freemasonry that he had received from the Masons. The reason behind the decision to make this information available is unknown, but thankfully it included the tracing board of the 1st-degree Freemasons. When I discovered this page at the college, I was amazed that the galactic alignment scheduled to occur in 2012 is clearly depicted on the tracing board. Even more surprising, it is connected with the ladder that the enlightened Mason may use to reach the location of the Great Architect of the Universe in 2012—shown to be the seven-star Pleiades system of Apollo/Osiris! The tracing board is stunning in its symbolism, depicting nearly everything we have stated thus far concerning the god of Freemasonry, the myths associated with him, and the date on which he is prophesied to return.

When interpreting the symbolism of this tracing board, it is important to remain faithful to the information provided on the University’s website, which in turn is consistent with Scottish Rite Freemasonry. Specific language from the site, therefore, has been used in deciphering the tracing board’s meaning, including the following:

The Blazing Star, or glory in the centre, refers us to the Sun, which enlightens the earth, and by its benign influence dispenses its blessings to mankind in general. The Indented or Tessellated Border refers us to the Planets, which, in their various revolutions form a beautiful border or skirtwork round that grand luminary, the Sun.…

In all regular, well-formed, constituted Lodges, there is a point within a circle round which the Brethren cannot err. This circle is bounded between North and South by two grand parallel lines.… On the upper part of this circle rests the Volume of the Sacred Law, supporting Jacob's ladder, the top of which reaches to the heavens.

The three great pillars supporting a Freemason's Lodge are emblematic of those Divine attributes, and further represent Solomon King of Israel, Hiram, King of Tyre and Hiram Abiff.… Solomon King of Israel for his wisdom in building, completing, and dedicating the Temple at Jerusalem to God's service; Hiram King of Tyre [Lucifer of Ezekiel 28:11–19?] for his strength in supporting him with men and materials; and Hiram Abiff [Osiris, according to Freemasonry] for his curious and masterly workmanship in beautifying and adorning the same.

[The] Mason who is possessed of this virtue in its most ample sense may justly be deemed to have attained the summit of his profession; figuratively speaking, an ethereal mansion, veiled from mortal eyes by the starry firmament, emblematically depicted in our Lodges by seven Stars, which have an allusion to as many regularly made Masons; without which number no Lodge is perfect, neither can any candidate be legally initiated into the Order…

The Sun and Moon are messengers of His will.

Using the descriptions of the symbols provided by Masons, the first thing one notes at the bottom of the ladder is the point within the circle: the symbol of Ra, Osiris, and Isis joined in procreation, “bounded between North and South by two grand parallel lines.” The blazing star near the center of the board represents the Dog Star Sirius, which is related to Lucifer and the Osiris epic at length, according to Albert Pike in Morals and Dogma. He noted that the 1st-degree Masons who would use this tracing board would be ignorant of this connection; they would think the blazing star represents the “sun,” as they are instructed to believe according to guidelines on the university website.

But those adepts “initiated into the mysteries” understand it is Sirius—connected to Lucifer, Isis, Osiris, and the all-seeing eye of Osiris—as “his is the All-Seeing Eye in our Lodges,” according to Pike.

Concerning this deity, instructions on the University website to the 1st-degree Freemasons go on to explain that the sun and moon at the top of the board are “messengers” of the god. Understanding this, the solstice sun in the upper left corner does in fact tell us something very clearly about “time” and its relationship with the Isis/Osiris symbolism. The sun is depicted sitting in the “dark rift” of the Milky Way, while the moon on the right is joined by the seven stars of the Pleiades. Simply put, this is the arrangement that will happen when the Mayan Long Count calendar concludes and the winter solstice sun aligns with the the “dark rift,” a place the Maya described as being the “Road to the Underworld.” The tracing board thus conveys that at the moment this galactic alignment occurs, the dawn of a new age of Osiris will begin when the ladder to heaven joins the devout Mason with his Great Architect of the Universe on December 21, 2012.

PART TWENTY-SEVEN: Read It Before It Is [Further] Banned By The US Government

Editor's note: All notations will be cited when this series of articles have concluded. The information is based on research contained in Tom Horn's upcoming new book:

APOLLYON RISING 2012
The Lost Symbol Found And The Final Mystery Of The Great Seal Revealed
A Terrifying And Prophetic Cipher, Hidden From The World By The U.S. Government For Over 200 Years Is Here

Trestleboard Dates: The Start and Finish of the Great Work

We have seen over and over that the seal’s symbolism leaves no doubts as to the identity of the deity behind the all-seeing eye, or to the prophecy from the mottoes regarding the return of the deity known at various times in history as Apollo, Osiris, and Nimrod. This leaves the second issue that needs to be resolved from the Great Seal’s “trestleboard” as to the timing of the work: when it was started and when it is scheduled to be completed.

One key to the starting date of this mystical work is magnificently ciphered in the number 888, the sum of the letters in Greek for the name of Jesus (each Greek letter represents a number). This cipher also confirms the prophecies of Psalms 118 and Acts 4 concerning Jesus as the rejected capstone, because this same number—888—is also found in “the riddle” of the Sibylline Oracles, ascribed to the Cumaean Sibyl, which J. L. Lightfoot says was hoped by some early Christians to represent Jesus, but was clearly understood by pagans to be a prophecy of the return of Apollo. 888 was Olen’s number, the founder of Apollo’s oracle and his first prophet, and signified the “spiritual sun” represented in the glory surrounding the all-seeing eye of Apollo/Horus on the Great Seal, and the novus ordo seclorum or “new age” that his coming would herald. Gnostics and mystics among the occult hierarchy maintain this interpretation as the true meaning of the Apollonian Sibyl’s prophecy. The text in question comes from the Sibylline Oracles:

Then will come to men the Son of the Great God, coated flesh, similar to mortals on earth.… But I want to tell you the whole [of his] number: eight units [8], so much tens in addition [80], and eight hundreds [800, or 8+80+800=888], here are what to the friends of incredulity, to men, the Name will reveal; but you, in the spirit, thinks well of the immortal and very high Son of God, to the Christ.

So here we have two “messiahs” represented by the number 888—Jesus, the Christ of the Bible, and Apollo, the Sibyl’s messiah of the novus ordo seclorum. What is astonishing about this is that adding the number of these two messiahs together (888+888) equals the year 1776—the date chosen for the founding of the United States and reflected in the Roman numerals at the base of the uncapped pyramid on the Great Seal.

Adepts of the mystical order actually go to great lengths to show how this addition of 888+888=1776 is the “cardinal number” of the “great work” also known as the “eagle of eagles” reflected in the well-known Masonic symbol of the two-headed eagle or phoenix, which Masonic dictionaries define as historically representing the “merger” of two gods (in this instance, Jesus with Apollo).

Given everything else we have learned from the works of Freemasons like David Ovason and Manly P. Hall, this date, 1776, representing two messiahs—the rejection of one in favor of the other—is not likely a mistake. Thus, the trestleboard’s 1776 “beginning” date for the great work of the Craft truly marked the start in history of the secret doctrine of Freemasonic Illuminatus toward establishing a New Atlantis in anticipation of the return of their founder and deity, Apollo/Osiris/Nimrod.

To further verify this part of the cipher pointing to an “alternative capstone” or second messiah, the year 1776 at the base of the pyramid is understood by Masons worldwide to be the year 5776 Anno Lucis (“in the year of light”). This is because Masons of the ancient Craft add four thousand years to the common date, the number of years that conventional theology assumes creation began before Christ: thus, 4,000+1,776=5,776.

Why is this important? Because 5,776 is exactly how many inches high the Great Pyramid in Giza would be when completed with its capstone, a sacred fact to occultists. Completing the pyramid symbolically in this way is central to the rituals and mysticism of Freemasons and numerous Illuminated fraternities. This has been true throughout the ages, and is why this symbolism was encoded on the Great Seal and remains at the core of esoteric ambition today. The year 1776 thus represents 1) the trestleboard date on which the great work and secret destiny began; and 2) is a prophetic marker toward the descent of the eye of Apollo/Osiris/Nimrod upon the uncapped pyramid in accomplishment of the Great Work.

Yet if the year 1776 represents the starting date on the trestleboard toward the accomplishment “of which the United States Government was dedicated from the day of its inception,” as Manly P. Hall said, what date did the Master Masons envision that the work would be finished in order that Hiram Abiff (Osiris/Apollo/Nimrod) could return to inhabit his temple? This is found in the modern Jewish calendar as well as the Scottish Rite Freemasonry, who, unlike their other brethren, prefer adding 3,760 years to the common date. In order for this superior side of Masonry to arrive at the appropriate number for their finished pyramid and the completed work (the height of the pyramid with its capstone reaching upward of 5,776 inches), they have to add the future date, 2016, to the common era, or 3,760+2,016=5,776.

This is important for several reasons, not the least of which is that, if the culmination of the Illuminati enterprise is concluded in 2016, it is prophetically related to the infamous future year 2012—the end of the Mayan Long Count calendar. The year 2012 could therefore represent in Christian eschatology the beginning of Great Tribulation, with 2016 representing the “midst of the week” when Apollo (Antichrist) presents himself as God and enters the temple in Jerusalem.

Recurrence of 2012 and 2016: What is the Significance of These Dates?

As the reader will discover in my upcoming book Apollyon Rising 2012, the year-dates 2012 and 2016 appear on dozens of occasions in connection to the Masonic prophecy of the coming of Hiram/Osiris/Apollo. We will reveal how these years are encoded on the Great Seal of the United States and several other important Masonic ciphers, including the true Lost Symbol (this part of the book is going to shock people), the Capitol Dome in Washington DC, and the first degree Masonic trestleboard. But first let me offer several tidbits related to end-times scenarios that some readers may find interesting.

I mentioned above how the year 2012, being three and one-half years before the Masonic ending date 2016, could thus be viewed as the beginning of the Tribulation period. However, a more disturbing scenario that some believe could also fit with prophecy is that 2016 instead represents the end, not the middle, of the Great Tribulation period—which would mean the year 2012 would actually be the “midst of the week” and the reign of Antichrist would have started mid-2009. Though we see no solid evidence of this at this time, scholars believe the first three and one-half years of Antichrist’s kingdom holds relative calm anyway, even temporarily producing what at first appears to be answers for mankind’s greatest needs, and that during this time the Antichrist is not known for who he really is. Ordo ab Chao first creates chaos, then answers to earth’s problems begin to arrive just as the world is losing hope. Then, in the “middle of the week” things explode and people understand who they have put into position of unparalleled earthly authority.

Using this premise, there are several possible supportive facts for 2009 as the beginning of sorrows, including that the end of the Mayan calendar, December 21, 2012, is three and one-half days before Christmas that year. Consider that the book of Revelation, chapter 11, describes the two witnesses who prophesy for 1,260 days before Apollo kills them and they lie in the street of Jerusalem for three and one-half days. Note what it says happens:

And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves. And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwell on the earth. And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. (Revelation 11:9–11)

It is possible that the text above is describing the two witnesses being killed during the Christmas season, because people are making “merry” and sending gifts to one another around the world. As David Flynn emailed me, “What other international holiday besides Christmas results in people worldwide exchanging gifts (the lexicons literally say ‘presents’) to each other? The description of the two witnesses as ‘candle stands’ also connects them to Hanukkah, which occurs immediately before Christmas. This strongly suggests the two witnesses are killed sometime near, but before, December 25.”

This could mean the end of the Mayan calendar—December 21, 2012—is the very day the two witnesses are killed by Apollo, as this Mayan ending-date is three and one-half days before Christmas. This would also indicate that the middle of the Great Tribulation period is December 21, 2012.

On the other hand, people who believe in a pretribulation Rapture would point out that the “catching away” of the saints did not happen in 2009, and therefore the Masonic date 2016 might better represent the “midst of the week” (see Daniel 9:27; Revelation 11–13) when Apollo (Antichrist) presents himself as God and sets up the “abomination” in the temple in Jerusalem. Under this scenario, the year 2012 would represent the beginning of the Great Tribulation period, three and one-half years before mid-2016.

That the year 2012 marks the beginning of the Great Tribulation not only could fit with Bible prophecy, as it is in the “midst of the week”—three and one-half years into the Great Tribulation period—when Antichrist enthrones himself as God in the temple, this would also conform well with the Masonic and Great Seal prophecies forecasting the return of the Great Architect and Hiram Abiff (Apollo/Osiris/Nimrod), who enters the finished temple as god, in this case, mid-2016, which is three and one-half years following 2012.

In what could also be a related fact, June 21, 2016, is exactly three and one-half years after the Mayan ending-date of December 21, 2012, and June 21 marks the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere and the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere when a cusp line is created between Gemini and Cancer, signs that David Ovason referred to as having deep astrological significance to the founding and secret destiny of America.

It is also very important to recognize that, based on Daniel chapter 9 and related texts, scholars believe a period of not more than seventy years (a biblical generation) will elapse between the reformation of Israel as a nation and the return of Jesus Christ. When seventy years is added to 1948—the year Israel was formally recognized as an independent nation by the United Nations—it brings us through the year 2018. Does this mean that the year 2019—exactly seven years after 2012—would mark the year that Jesus Christ returns with the armies of heaven to establish His rule over earth? J. R. Church called me to stipulate:

If Christ referred to a seventy-year generation when He said, “This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled” (Matthew 24:34), then he could return at anytime before the seventy years is up. This is not meant to set a date, but to simply speculate on the concept that our Savior addressed.

This advice would seem more in line with the first scenario above, that the seven-year period of Tribulation began in 2009, though J. R. personally would certainly not set “dates.” Interestingly, Islamic scholars also view this time as prophetically important. The author of The Day of Wrath, Safar Ibn `Abd Al-Rahman Al-Hawali, writes at www.IslamicAwakening.com:

When Daniel specified the period between its distress and relief, between the era of anguish and the era of blessing, he put it as forty-five years! We have already seen that he specified the time of the establishment of the abomination of desolation as the year 1967, which is what in fact occurred. Therefore, the end—or the beginning of the end—will be 1967 + 45 = 2012.

The most remarkable connection between these dates is that the Maya themselves recognized a direct link between the number thirteen and the years 1776 and 2012 in cycles and illustrations in a way that academic Richard N. Luxton found to be similar to prophecies of the “Christian Last Judgment.” He translated and annotated The Book of Chumayel: The Counsel Book of the Yucatec Maya 1539–1638, and noted on katun 13 Ahau:

The dates that accompany the illustrations approximate real counts. Katun 13 Ahau ended in 1539 and began in the Colonial Count in 1776.… The traditional theme of agreement as the end of the eastern katun cycle in 13 Ahau is intermingled here with elements of the Christian Last Judgment. Whether this paradigm was also intended for the end of the Long Count in 2012 is open to question.

Religious ceremonies and prophecies accompanied Mayan katuns, and Luxton’s connection to the “Christian Last Judgment” and the thirteen katuns (a katun is approximately 19.7 years) between 1776 and 2012 is drawn from the prophecies of the Mayan prophet Chilam Balam. Written down in about the year 1595, the oracular Chilam Balam, or “jaguar” shaman, said the end of this period would witness the judgment of God in the form of social collapse, epidemics, plagues, and famine. The same period would see the coming of two great prophets, one after the other, according to the Mayan prophecy. Is this the False Prophet paving the way for the Antichrist?

It is no coincidence that the start and ending dates of the final thirteen katuns of the Mesoamerican Mayan Long Count calendar are reflected in the thirteen steps of the pyramid on the United States’ Great Seal. That the steps of the pyramid were intended to convey units of time has been an open secret for many years. Though he was not sure what to make of it himself, Paul Foster Case wrote many years ago that:

Since the date, 1776, is placed on the bottom course of the pyramid, and since the number thirteen has been so important in the symbolism of the seal, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the thirteen courses of the pyramid may represent thirteen time periods.

John Kehne made an even more intriguing observation, directly coupling the Great Seal’s trestleboard date, 1776, and the Mayan ending date 2012:

This Seal shows a thirteen-step pyramid with 1776 in Roman numerals.… [The year] 1776 was not only the year that the Declaration of Independence was signed, but was also a special year in the Mayan calendar. Just as the last katun in the Great Cycle is “katun 2012,” the first katun in the cycle of thirteen was “katun 1776.” In fact, the katun ended thirty-three days before the signing. So 1776 is the bottom level of the pyramid, where the date is actually inscribed—the top of the pyramid is therefore 2012.

As readers of my upcoming book will discover, early Freemasons and America’s founding fathers were very much aware of the significance of these dates—1776, 2012, and 2016 respectively—and while the thirteen steps of the unfinished pyramid on the Great Seal account for the timeframe 1776–2012 using the slightly less than twenty-year periods (19.7) of the katun, the Gregorian twenty-year cycle produces 1776–2016, both of which fit perfectly within the trestleboard dating on the U.S. Great Seal cipher and the first Masonic tracing board, as we will reveal.

PART TWENTY-SIX: Read It Before It Is Banned By The US Government

Editor's note: All notations will be cited when this series of articles have concluded. The information is based on research contained in Tom Horn's upcoming new book:

APOLLYON RISING 2012
The Lost Symbol Found And The Final Mystery Of The Great Seal Revealed
A Terrifying And Prophetic Cipher, Hidden From The World By The U.S. Government For Over 200 Years Is Here

Previously we summarized Hall’s comments about the “mass of occult and Masonic symbols” on the Great Seal, which he believed only students of archaic or esoteric symbolism would be able to accurately decipher. This included the obverse side of the Great Seal, where a bald eagle, which he illustrated was a shrewd mythical phoenix so important to Masonic mysticism, clutches a bundle of arrows in its left talon, while its right claw grips an olive branch. “But,” Hall then went on to say:

If this design on the obverse side of the seal is stamped with the signature of the Order of the Quest, the design on the reverse is even more definitely related to the old Mysteries.… Here is represented the great pyramid of Gizah, composed of thirteen rows of masonry, showing seventy-two stones. The pyramid is without a cap stone, and above its upper platform floats a triangle containing the all-seeing eye surrounded by rays of light.… The combination of the phoenix, the pyramid, and the all-seeing eye is more than chance or coincidence.… There is only one possible origin for these symbols, and that is the secret societies which came to this country 150 years before the Revolutionary War.… There can be no question that the great seal was directly inspired by these orders of the human Quest, and that it set forth the purpose for this nation as that purpose was seen and known to the Founding Fathers.

As Manly Hall did, thirty-third vice president of the United States and 32nd-Degree Mason Henry Wallace also viewed the unfinished pyramid with the all-seeing eye hovering above it on the Great Seal as central to the prophecy of a New World Order. Whenever the United States assumed its position as the capital of the world, he believed, the Grand Architect would return and metaphorically the all-seeing eye would be fitted atop the pyramid as the finished “apex stone.”

But Whose All-Seeing Eye Is This, Anyway?

While different versions of the eye of providence or all-seeing eye have appeared throughout time within various cultures, the origin of each can usually be understood within the context of its adjoined symbolism. In the case of the all-seeing eye on the Great Seal of the United States, the connection to the uncapped Egyptian pyramid and to the Osiris-Apollo-related mottoes positively determines the culture to which this specific “eye” refers, and the solar deity represented by it - Osiris/Horus/Apollo/Nimrod.

This is further illustrated by the “numerological values” of the arcane mottoes, which were carefully chosen for the Great Seal due to their connection to the pagan deity. So important was it that the Masonic numbers three (3) and thirteen (13) be reinforced with the multi-named “god” (the numbers three and thirteen are historically connected with the deities Apollo, Osiris, and Nimrod, and this is why, for instance, the American space mission Apollo 13 was named after the deity and had this number), that not only was the original amount of American states intentionally set at thirteen, but Freemason David Ovason, whom Robert Hieronimus (considered one of the the world’s foremost authorities on the Great Seal) calls “exceptionally well referenced,” confirms how a letter was “cut” from the Latin word saeclorum (the usual spelling) in order to create the word seclorum to contribute to three sets of thirteen on the reverse side of the Great Seal.

After acknowledging that the top motto, annuit coeptis, had the obligatory thirteen letters, Ovason pointed out how saeclorum was letter-cut to join the bottom motto, novus ordo seclorum, so that the phrase would end up being seventeen letters, which when added to the nine numerals in the Roman date would equal a total of twenty-six, or two sets of the number thirteen. Combined with the top motto, these three sets of thirteen were very important to establish, Ovason says, in order to reflect the trinity represented in the Great Seal “Eye of Providence, and in the nominal triangle from which the pyramid is constructed.”

Based purely on the Great Seal’s symbolism, the trinity these three sets of the number thirteen denote is authoritatively identified as Osiris, Horus, and Isis, the pagan versions of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, respectively. The use of the number thirteen in this way also connects the Great Seal to the mythological and astrological significance of the legend of Osiris as the dying and rising god. It was evidently so important to maintain this talisman-like value, thirteen, that other phases of the design and layout of Washington DC were coordinated accordingly, says Ovason. This includes the laying of the White House cornerstone on October 13, 1792, by Masons, and the Fourth of July signing of the Declaration of Independence thirteen days after summer solstice, so that the sun would be on Sirius. In Egyptian mythology, the sun represented Osiris while the star Sirius symbolized Isis, and thirteen was the number of pieces of Osiris that Isis was able to find after Seth, his evil brother, murdered and threw fourteen pieces of him into the Nile. Isis searched the riverbank until she recovered every piece, except for his genitals, which had been swallowed by a fish. Isis replaced the missing organ with an obelisk and magically impregnated herself with Horus. Therefore, in Masonic as well as in ancient Egyptian mythology, the number thirteen—used a total of thirteen times on the Great Seal, counting front and back—is the number that represents the return or resurrection of Osiris.

This mythology was so meaningful to the founding of the United States and the construction of its capital—including having the missing Osiris genitalia represented by the 6,666-inches-high Egyptian obelisk known as the Washington Monument—that nearly all of David Ovason’s five hundred-plus-page Secret Architecture of Our Nation’s Capital is dedicated to establishing the singular correlation between Washington DC and Virgo, the constellation of Isis, or what Ovason calls, “Isis, who was the chief of the feminine mystery deities and the prototype of the steller Virgo.”

This affiliation existed from the very day Freemasons gathered on April 15, 1791, beginning appropriately at 3:30 PM (reflecting the mystical value, thirty-three) because of the astrological position of Jupiter and Virgo, and what this would mean for the secret destiny of America:

At exactly 3:30 PM, Jupiter…began to rise over the horizon. It was in 23 degrees of Virgo.… By this means, the zodiacal power of Virgo, which was called in later Masonic circles “the Beautiful Virgin,” was able to stamp her benign influence on the building of the federal city.… A few of the many Freemasons present at this ceremony would have been only to well aware of the profound implications of what they were doing.… It is quite clear that the ceremonial placing of the stone related to more than merely the founding of the federal district: it was somehow linked to the future destiny of America itself.

By dedicating the United States through its astrological alignment to the constellation of Isis, the founders had dedicated the “destiny” of America to fulfilling the secret doctrine of Freemasonry, as also reflected in the Osiris/Apollo symbolism of the Great Seal, concerning subservience—now and upon his return as Antichrist—to Osiris/Apollo/Nimrod.

Interestingly, the same dedication to Osiris/Isis/Apollo exists in New York where the events of September 11, 2001, initiated the push toward the novus ordo seclorum. The Statue of Liberty in New York’s Harbor, which holds the Masonic “Torch of Enlightenment,” was presented in 1884 as a gift to American Masons by the French Grand Orient Temple Masons.

Designed by French Freemason and sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and built by another French Freemason, Gustave Eiffel, the statue was originally identified as “the goddess Isis” with the statue’s head formed to represent “the Greek Sun-god Apollo…as preserved on an ancient marble tablet (today in the Archaeological Museum of Corinth, Corinth, Greece)—Apollo was represented as a solar deity, dressed in a similar robe and having on its head a ‘radiate crown’ with the seven spiked rays of the Helios-Apollo’s sun rays.”

The legend of Osiris and Isis, the connection with Apollo, the magical number thirteen, and the history surrounding their mythos is often openly discussed in Masonic and brotherhood-friendly literature. For instance in Morals and Dogma, Albert Pike enumerated the esoteric significance of the Osiris epic at length, adding that lower-level Masons (Blue Masonry) are ignorant of its true meaning, which is only known to those who are “initiated into the Mysteries.” Pike also spoke of the star Sirius—connected to Isis and at length to Lucifer/Satan—as “still glittering” in the Masonic lodges as “the Blazing Star.” Elsewhere in Morals and Dogma, Pike reiterated that the “All-Seeing Eye…was the emblem of Osiris” and that the “Sun was termed by the Greeks the Eye of Jupiter, and the Eye of the World; and his is the All-Seeing Eye in our Lodges.”

Once people understand this illuminated Masonic connection to the “trinity” on America’s Great Seal, and what the prophetic symbolism, mottoes, and numerology imply, it becomes apparent why so much effort was put forward for so long by those who felt it was necessary to hide this extraordinary destiny. Ovason acknowledges this conspiracy of silence as well:

The motto at the top of the seal, Annuit Coeptis, is from Virgil…from the Aeneid.… This is a prayer to the god Jupiter.… We should observe that while the subject matter of the reverse of the seal is undoubtedly pagan—if symbolic of hermetic Egypt—the superior motto is itself a prayer to a pagan god. Could this be the reason why there has been so much reluctance to bring the reverse of the seal into the light of day? Whatever the nature of the god, the prayer directed in this way is a petition that the daring undertaking [the secret destiny of America as symbolized in “finishing” the pyramid] may be completed, and that the new age will find fulfillment.

Ovason, a Mason whose research earned praise from Fred Kleinknecht, Sovereign Grand Commander of the 33rd-Degree Supreme Council of Freemasons in Washington DC, is to be thanked for inadvertently revealing what the Illuminatus has secretly known for ages—that the Great Seal of the United States is a pagan prophecy and petition to a pagan god (the same entity the Bible identifies by name as the end-times Antichrist) to assist in the conclusion of the great work by his return. “When we have grasped the importance of these New Age expectations,” Ovason concludes, “we shall be in a better position to understand why the design for this reverse [side of the Great Seal] has remained so consistently hidden.”

The Unfinished Pyramid Beneath the All-Seeing Eye

Where the numerology and astrological signs related to the all-seeing eye add to why certain symbolism on the Great Seal was important to Freemasons, it is the unfinished pyramid upon the seal’s reverse side that Manly Hall called the “trestleboard” that set forth symbolically the “task to the accomplishment of which the United States Government was dedicated from the day of its inception.” This language, drawn directly from how trestleboards are used and what they represent in both operative and speculative Masonry, is revealing, as the trestleboard is the board upon which the Master Mason draws out the diagrams and geometric figures that are to be used as a blueprint for directing the workers in the construction of the task. In speculative Masonry, the trestleboard also takes on spiritual meaning, which reflects lessons from the Books of Nature and the will of the Great Architect of the Universe. In Masonic rituals, this means a spiritual plan has been put in place and that it is to be carried out on an individual, family, social, national, and international level. The plan includes the timing as to when the project should officially start, as well as generally when it is to be concluded. Thus, if the pyramid on the Great Seal is the trestleboard laying out the “task of which the United States Government was dedicated from the day of its inception,” it is the drawing board for the destiny of America and is branded by 1) the identity of the Great Architect to whom the work is dedicated; and 2) the date on which the work was started and is to be completed.

Concerning the first subject matter—the identity of the Great Architect—we have illustrated numerous times how the symbols and mottoes speak for themselves in communicating who this deity is. In the prologue of his book, The Lost Keys of Freemasonry, Manly Hall joins in this revelation by recounting the familiar story of Hiram Abiff, the Tyrian “First Grand Master” of the order of Masons and the chief builder who sets out to construct the temple of the Great Architect of the Universe, but is killed by three spectres. This story, impersonated every time an initiate reaches the level of Master Mason, is by admission of Freemasons a retelling of the death-epic of the god Osiris. In Lost Keys, Hall narrates how the Great Architect gives Hiram (Osiris) the trestleboard for the construction of the great temple, and when he is killed by three ruffians, the Great Architect bathes him in “a glory celestial,” as in the glory surrounding the all-seeing eye of Osisis above the pyramid on the Great Seal. The Great Architect follows this by charging those who would finish the building with the task of finding the body of Hiram (Osiris) and raising him from the dead. When this has been accomplished, the great work will conclude and the god will inhabit the temple:

Seek ye where the broken twig lies and the dead stick molds away, where the clouds float together and the stones rest by the hillside, for all these mark the grave of Hiram [Osiris] who has carried my Will with him to the tomb. This eternal quest is yours until ye have found your Builder, until the cup giveth up its secret, until the grave giveth up its ghosts. No more shall I speak until ye have found and raised my beloeved Son [Osiris], and have listened to the words of my Messenger and with Him as your guide have finished the temple which I shall then inhabit. Amen.

“So once again we are brought back to the Great Pyramid of Giza,” writes Peter Goodgame, “the first built and last remaining of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, which is the reputed resting place of Osiris. The Great Pyramid itself is but one structure within a major Necropolis that was designed according to the layout of the constellation Orion, the Great Hunter in the sky [Osiris/Gilgamesh/Nimrod]. As we have endeavored to show, Osiris is none other than the Biblical Nimrod, the ‘mighty hunter before the Lord.’”

The Encyclopedia of Freemasonry identifies the character Nimrod with this legend of the Brotherhood as well, in the Old Constitutions, where it distinguishes him as a founder of Masonry. “Thus in the York MS., No. 1, we read: ‘At ye making of ye toure of Babell there was a Masonrie first much esteemed of, and the King of Babilon yt called Nimrod was a Mason himself and loved well Masons.’”

Other authorities not only connect the Masonic founder Hiram Abiff with Osiris and Nimrod, but explain that Nimrod plus the building of the Tower of Babel—not the temple of Solomon—was the true origin of Masonic cosmology.

In Symbols of Freemasonry, translated from the French Les Symboles des Francs-Macons, Daniel Beresniak notes:

The date of the construction of King Solomon’s temple has not always been the key date in the Freemasons’ cosmology. This central role was once given to the Tower of Babel. The Regius manuscript, which predates Cooke [1410] by twenty years, cites King Nemrod, the builder of that famous tower, as “the first and most excellent master.” He it was, and not King Solomon, who gave the Masons their first “charge,” their rules of conduct and professional code.…

A Masonic text known as the Thistle manuscript, of 1756, says that Nemrod “created the Masons” and “gave them their signs and terms so that they could distinguish themselves from other people…it was the first time that the Masons were organised as a craft.”

Thus the appearance of the uncapped pyramid of Giza on the Great Seal of the United States echoes the ancient pagan as well as Masonic beliefs concerning the old mysteries, and the prophecy of the return of Osiris/Apollo/Nimrod. In Rosicrucian and Masonic Origins, Manly Hall, who had said in The Secret Teachings of All Ages that the Great Pyramid was “the tomb of Osiris,” explains that Preston, Gould, Mackey, Oliver, Pike, and nearly every other great historian of Freemasonry were aware of this connection between Freemasonry and the ancient mysteries and primitive ceremonials based on Osiris. “These eminent Masonic scholars have all recognized in the legend of Hiram Abiff an adaptation of the Osiris myth; nor do they deny that the major part of the symbolism of the craft is derived from the pagan institutions of antiquity when the gods were venerated in secret places with strange figures and appropriate rituals.”

But whereas Freemasons like Manly Hall considered the symbolism and myth related to the pyramid on the Great Seal and the history of Apollo/Osiris/Nimrod to be the working “trestleboard” laying out the secret destiny of America, New Age esotericists like Robert Hieronimus—one of the world’s foremost authorities on the reverse of the seal’s symbolism—view the circular design and symbolism on the Great Seal to be an “initiatory mandala.”

Mandalas, from the Hindu term for “circle,” are concentric diagrams, such as is familiar in Tantrism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, having ritual and spiritual use for “focusing” or trance- inducing aspirants and adepts who seek mystical oneness with the cosmos or deeper levels of the unconscious mind. Related to the design of the Great Seal, Hieronimus, as an occultist, views the geometric patterns as representing a type of mandala or microcosm embodying the cosmic or metaphysical divine powers at work in the secret destiny of America, including the god or universal forces represented in the diagram that herald a coming new age of gods and demigods.

Occultists often use mandalas based on the concept of a “protective circle” or variation, which they believe allow certain doorways into the supernatural to be opened or closed, and entities compelled accordingly, as in the magical five-pointed pentagram circle. This is similar to an initiatory mandala used in Hindu and Buddhist Tantrism, in which deities are represented by specific locations in the diagram. In Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, scholar Mircea Eliade explains the importance of this part of the mandala design:

At the periphery of the construction there are four cardinal doors, defended by terrifying images called “guardians of the doors.” Their role is twofold. On the one hand, the guardians defend consciousness from the disintegrating forces of the unconscious; on the other, they have an offensive mission—in order to lay hold upon the fluid and mysterious world of the unconscious, consciousness must carry the struggle into the enemy’s camp and hence assume the violent and terrible aspect appropriate to the forces to be combated. Indeed, even the divinities inside the mandala sometimes have a terrifying appearance; they are the gods whom man will encounter after death, in the state of bardo. The guardians of the doors and the terrible divinities emphasize the initiatory character of entrance into a mandala.… The typical initiatory ordeal is the “struggle with a monster”…both spiritual (against evil spirits and demons, forces of chaos) and material (against enemies)…who [attempt] to return “forms” to the amorphous state from which they originated.

What makes this interesting is that the arcane symbols and mottoes of the Great Seal represent—as admitted by Masonry’s greatest historians, mystics, and philosophers—gods that were known in ancient times alternatively as saviors or demons, creators, and destroyers; spirits that seek entry into the conscious and unconscious world. That such concepts would be related to the uncapped pyramid on the seal is fitting in that the Great Pyramid of Giza is not only thought of as the actual tomb-site of the deity, but as a symbol of Christ by some and of the Antichrist by others. These paradoxical conclusions arrive because of certain mysterious attributes related to the Great Pyramid.

In his wonderful book, The Great Pyramid: Prophecy in Stone, Dr. Noah Hutchings is able to show that the Great Pyramid, unlike the other inferior ones on the Giza Plateau whose walls are covered with Egyptian symbols, is devoid of such idolatrous symbolism and defies to this day what methods were employed to manufacture its unparalleled creation. Just how matchless is the Great Pyramid? Hutchings starts out by showing that it is:

• A building so large that all the locomotives in the world today could not pull its weight.
• A building so large that it could hold the cathedrals of Rome, Florence, and Milan and still have room for the Empire State Building, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and both houses of the British Parliament.
• A building made up of two and one-half million blocks of stone ranging from three to sixty tons each.
• A building that has not settled, has not shifted, has not budged even one-tenth of an inch in thousands of years—a feat that even modern engineering could not equal.

I’ve had the privilege of being on the Southwest Radio Ministries broadcast with Dr. Hutchings, and have told him on the air how the first edition of his book, Prophecy in Stone (in the 1970s), was an eye-opener for me. I was not aware back then of the intriguing tidbits of information concerning the Great Pyramid that seemed to parallel biblical prophecy—for instance, how some ancient writers referred to the Great Pyramid as “the Pillar of Enoch.” This was engaging to me because the so-called “King’s Chamber” in the Great Pyramid was found to have never been occupied, and Enoch “was not, for God took him” (Genesis 5:24). When the empty coffer in the King’s Chamber was measured, it was discovered that the interior dimensions are the same as the biblical Ark of the Covenant. Besides this, 144,000 polished limestone blocks originally covered the exterior of the Great Pyramid, which were sealed with an adhesive so strong that they would break anywhere but at the seal. This is the same number of the saints who, in the book of Revelation 7:3–8, are sealed with the seal of God.

Yet of all such fascinating findings Dr. Hutchings describes in The Great Pyramid: Prophecy In Stone, the sections in his book I found most interesting focus on the missing head cornerstone (apex stone, capstone) of the Great Pyramid, and the curious verses in Psalms 118:22 and Acts 4:11 pertaining to Jesus as the “stone” the builders rejected and that has become the “head cornerstone.” As Hutchings points out, the only kind of building in all the world that requires a head cornerstone is a pyramid. Because of this, Hutchings believes the “pillar” that Isaiah (Isaiah 19:19–20) said would stand as a “sign and for a witness unto the Lord” in the end times may be the Great Pyramid on the old border that separated lower and upper Egypt.

Conversely, a few years ago, another friend of mine named Patrick (Paddy) Heron wrote a book entitled Pyramid of the Apocalypse, in which he postulated that the Great Pyramid at Giza had been built by the nephilim, the offspring of Watchers. Besides associated legends, part of his reasoning had to do with the scale of the massive undertaking and the same biblical parallels—the one hundred forty-four thousand, the missing capstone, etc.—which Heron viewed as the Watchers trying to copy, plagiarize, mimic, or borrow from the fame of something known only to the angels, namely, the design of the New Jerusalem in heaven, whose height and width are the same, as in a pyramidal structure (as opposed to those who believe the New Jerusalem will be cube-shaped). Heron and researchers like him further warn that an antichrist who is somehow related to the Great Pyramid—as a resurrected Osiris/Apollo/Nimrod would be, though we could only offer at this point fantastic speculation how this deity, returned to flesh, would be outrightly connected to the Great Pyramid—could use these mysterious attributes of the Great Pyramid, which seem related to biblical prophecy, as a great deception to guide people away from the true Messiah. This theological premise is interesting, as everything about the coming of the False Christ will be an antithetical mirror of Jesus. For example, Jesus has seven stars in His right hand (Revelation 1:20), while the Antichrist Osiris/Apollo/Nimrod is represented by the seven-star Pleiades system. The Great Pyramid capstone is missing, representing temporary vacancy by Apollo according to the mottoes, whose coming will “cap” the pyramid, and yet as we have seen, Jesus is also called the head cornerstone.

Whoever turns out to be correct in the debate above, the design of the Great Seal of the United States makes it clear which side of the discussion America’s national cipher points to. There are no biblical verses on the Great Seal heralding the second coming of Jesus Christ. And, unlike the actual Great Pyramid in Giza, whose walls are devoid of idolatrous symbols, the Great Seal is made up entirely of mottoes and prayers to the pagan father of the deity Apollo, to fulfill the Cumaean Sibyl’s prophecy and to return to earthly rule the disembodied spirit of the deceased god Apollo/Osiris/Nimrod. Is this what is meant in Psalms 118 and Acts chapter 4 where Jesus is the capstone the builders refused? Was He rejected as the Messiah by “the builders”—a literal reference to “Masons”—because another is coming that will cap their pyramid? A second messiah?