Downard Redux
Up on the Binnall of America site is a recent interview focusing on my latest book, James Shelby Downard’s Mystical War. In response, Chris Knowles over at his Solar Satellite blog suggests that Downard was a paranoid schiz who was perhaps institutionalized and subjected to Jungian analysis, thus the “creation” of his theories. In other words, Jungian synchronicities formed a vast Masonic conspiratorial world view in Downard’s seemingly mad mind. However, it should be noted, I’ve come across no evidence whatsoever suggesting that Downard ever visited a loony bin. (Other than this one we all live in!)
One area discussed in the Binnall interview was the issue of Downard’s actual existence, and how I came to the conclusion that it certainly appears he was an actual living, breathing entity, as opposed to the popular theory that “James Shelby Downard” was a literary hoax. In this regard, after hearing said interview, an email correspondent sent me the following link, attesting to the Downard Family tree branching out to JSD’s probable birthplace in Ardmore, Oklahoma.
A Virgin Rape?
According to Downard, a sex magic ritual occurred at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, CA on September 3, 1921 when movie star Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle allegedly raped actress Virginia Rappe. As part of a purported licentious rite, Arbuckle used a wine bottle, producing the “must” of the elephant and fulfilling his role as the “Chubby Behemoth”, which relates to the legend of Beelzebub. Such dark undertakings are designed to imprint the dreaming group-mind with subliminal imagery, or what Downard’s protégé Michael Hoffman terms “twilight language.” Virginia Rappe = “virgin rape”, signifying an important alchemical rite.
In the mid 1970’s, then President Gerald Ford was the target of an assassination attempt in front of the very same St. Francis Hotel where Fatty Arbuckle got his “Chubby”, located opposite of Mason Street in the city of St. Francis — San Francisco. Members of the Freemasonic “Hell Fire Club” of the 1800’s performed many a sex orgy involving the likes of Freemason Benjamin Franklin in ruined abbeys and caves located throughout the English countryside. This group referred to themselves the “Friars of St. Francis.”
It should then come as no surprise — according to my aforementioned email correspondent — that the town of Ardmore, OK is located right by the ARBUCKLE mountains and was also the birthplace of John Hinckley Jr. This Hinkley connection did indeed check out when afterwards I performed a google search…that is if you believe everything the internet tells you…
Adam Gorightly's Untamed Dimensions 
Downard is still only barely undetood by the “synchro experts”
as for Knowles charge of paranoid schizophrenia, that’s called “projection,” something one might imagine such an aficionado of depth psychology would be aware
you’re on target re the St. Francis and also Masonic Avenue
S.F. has a very active “masonic layout” of both architecture (buildings) and grids, including streets etc
i’ve written at aome length on the occult layout of S.F., having lived and worked there for many years — golden gate park, the panhandle, masonic ave, divisadero, “mount parnassus” — one could easily do a whole book merely on this single (but occultly crucial) city
ray
Ray, I would indeed be interested in reading some of the stuff you’ve written on San Fran’s occult layout.
hi Adam, here’s the URL
http://littledynamo.blogspot.com/search?q=inside+the+invisible+circus
scroll down to the april 25, 2006 post called Inside the Invisible Circus
other pieces address other Bay Area “occult phenomena” including zodiac and the napa valley, bill graham’s helicopter crash, and a buncha other nasty stuff i’m trying to foget
:O)
interesting that you ask about the SF piece as Sara Jane Olson’s set for release next week
cheers, ray
Downard’s apparently autobiographical work “The Carnivals of Life and Death” just screamed mental illness to me I’m afraid. And I’m speaking from experience here.
The assessment of paranoid schizophrenia seems to be spot on. I mean, what did he tell Adam Parfrey in the intro to the book? About his sister who lived with him?
“She’s not my sister, she thinks she is, but she’s not.” Classic manifestation of paranoid schizophrenia. And the rest of the book too. How many people was he meant to have killed?
Of course my conclusion that Downard was mentally ill does not necessarily mean that something of a highly sinister nature didn’t happen to him (ritual sexual abuse) and caused it, but sometimes madness is just madness. People just become ill.
But I don’t really agree with Knowles’ idea that he was subjected to “Jungian psychoanalysis” whilst institutionalised and this was the cause of his psychosis. You don’t necessarily have to psychoanalyzed or institutionalized to be insane.
But I’d be very interested to know if he ever was held by the state “for his own good.” You say that there is no evidence of this, but so much of his life seems to be difficult to uncover.
Still, it’s all academic in a sense. We are all abused by the system, victims of trauma-based mind control via the system, it’s trigger mechanisms such as the mass media, fighting our own personal psychic war against TPTB, hunted down by it’s representatives.
Hi
I wonder if it matters if JSD existed or not , his work stands for what it does, not what it ‘is’.
He/They provide a framework for a different approach to research that seems to apply to the enormous amount of info that a great many people can now process.
How the hell can u research anything nowadays inthe quiet measured rational way possible with the fairly exclusive book-writers guild.
Does anyone ‘believe’ JSD. I don’t [ though I don’t disbelieve ], his mind is in the book, not hiding behind the aforementioned ‘measured’ writing.
Chris Knowles – I wonder if his self-confessed fave prog the X-Files being slagged off by JSD doesn’t smart a tad.
The ‘mental illness’ of Carnivals of Life and Death [ mental illness, sure , possibly for a child going though an intensely odd and mistrustful life – sure, fuckin’ mad as hell. His father slipped off anytime things got heavy, and his Ma ‘used’ him.
Any number of things could be considered mental illness – watching Fox, buying stocks and shares, voting, Creationisn, Evolution etc etc.
Haven’t read your book but don’t know if u know Downards birthday twin – William J . Casey – both born on March 13, 1913 [ same year as the Fed]
cheers
I wonder if it matters if JSD existed or not , his work stands for what it does, not what it ‘is’.
_________
exactly AF — i can’t possibly “know” who JSD “was” and so it’s absurd to fire off judgments concerning his sanity, esp in a surrounding global culture that itself is patently sick in heart and mind
what i can evaluate is his extant work, KK33, which i find a rare expression of sanity and reality amidst a medea glut of pretension and self-serving/enriching propaganda
so Justin Russell’s evaluation of the true psychic state of someone he’s never met carries about as much credence as a Press Conference by the Russell Trust :O)
John Kerry and Poppy Bush told me that JSD is a phake!! LOL
particularly in the modern world, individuals can be manipulated and manouvered into almost any position the PTB wish — but their work can’t, it’s either relevant at unlocking the world, or it isn’t
ray
ray quote:
“so Justin Russell’s evaluation of the true psychic state of someone he’s never met carries about as much credence as a Press Conference by the Russell Trust :O)
John Kerry and Poppy Bush told me that JSD is a phake!! LOL”
I never said he was a “phake.” I said I thought that his writings in his memoirs, and from other people’s research into his life, seems to show that he was a paranoid schizophrenic. I’ve had personal experience in and around people with psychiatric disorders of many kinds and his outpourings in that book just say that to me.
Disagree as you will, but my thoughts on the matter stand. Sorry if I seem to be attacking your sacred cow here.
BTW, if a person, as you said yourself, can be manoeuvred into almost any position by TPTB then so to may their work be influenced.
But don’t get me wrong, I’m not dismissing Downard’s work out of hand, I see many troubling things about the guy but that doesn’t essentially invalidate someone’s research. I just have very severe doubts about it.
But I have no wish to get into a potential flame war on Adam’s comment’s page, so I’ll leave it at that.
Justin,
Hard to say for sure on the paranoid schiz assertion, one way or the other. For all we know Downard might have been yanking our collective chains with his memoir; or Downard might have been abused as a wee lad leading to subsequent paranoia; or Carnivals of Life and Death are an allegorical tale; or it all might be true; or Downard is actually a literary hoax/creation of a handful of writers. Or other possibilities. But whether he was off his rocker or not, JSD definitely struck a chord with his worldview that has influenced so many…
Aferrismoon: As for the Wlliam Casey birthdate, that is duly noted in my book.
Justin, also, I’m not sure what other researchers you are referring to who have looked into Downard’s life. Neither Hoffman nor Grimstad considered Downard crazy. I don’t think Parfrey ever went on record saying that, either. Even Bob Wilson thought there was something to Downard’s vision, however paranoid it might have seemed. But I really don’t know of any other researchers, besides myself and the aforementioned, who have looked extensively into his life and came to this conclusion. However, if I have overlooked anyone, let me know…
Adam,
I should have been clearer. When I meant other people’s research into his life I meant primarily yours. I’ve heard a couple of your interviews with Vyzygoth on the subject of Downard.
It is of course my interpretation only of what has been presented, and the work I’ve read of Downard.
I realise that Hoffman and yourself have never stated that Downard was ill. Though Parfrey seems to have been sitting on the fence, at least as evidenced in the foreword to the Carnivals of Life and Death.
But Downard is a fascinating character and I’ll be most probably getting your new book on him in the near future. But it is a crazy world that produces people who survive by perhaps being even crazier than their enivironmenr. I know as this seems to have been what I have done…;-)
Anyway, peace. Just stating my opinion, woefully ignorant as it may be.
Justin, thanks for weighing in. Downard is/was a complex character who we will probably continue to unravel for many years to come.
Mr. Russell said: “Sorry if I seem to be attacking your sacred cow here.”
yuo asserted that a man you’ve never met is a paranoid schizo, based on virtually no evidence except your opinion of scant writings
i asserted that KK33 is a sane document — naturalistic rather than paranoid
hardly see how this constitutes a sacred cow
__________–
“BTW, if a person, as you said yourself, can be manoeuvred into almost any position by TPTB then so to may their work be influenced.”
they’re ALL influenced, it’s only a question of by whom
what’s before the two of us — not having known JSD — is only his work, and that’s all we have to judge on the merits, no matter who influenced him
i say KK33 is sanity; you say JSD is paranoid schizo
_____________
“But I have no wish to get into a potential flame war on Adam’s comment’s page, so I’ll leave it at that.”
when someone disagrees with you, that’s a looming flame war? and the discussion is terminated? with subtle appeal to the siteowner?
Far be it from me to put a damper on any flame wars! 🙂
@Ray-
No subtle appeal to the site owner at all. It was a matter of showing some courtesy. I’ve seen people’s blog comments page descend into ego battles previously, and this latest response shows that you are chomping at the bit for a battle, feeling very strongly about the subject matter. I, however, have no interest in a further discussion whatsoever.
I’ve expressed my opinion. You disagree strongly. Worse things than this happen every day.
Good luck in your researches.
Without sparking inflammatory I ‘see’ Carnivals of Life and Death not unlike the present run of progs from the Law and Order stables, Bones, Numbers , CSI, which seem to bear out JSDs form of expression , Crafted ritual offings, symbols in the set, strange references, e.g: Edward Griffin in a Law and Order episode recently , as a suspect for murder.
Downard’s work then comes out in those that have read and applied its ‘rules’ to their medium. For me their seems a deal of this in the ‘cop’ progs, it acts almost as the ‘art’ of the series. His writings have made concrete what once were ethereal, magickal beliefs and practices, often the role of Science.
The mapping of the irrational may begin in earnest
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Downard Redux | Illuminati Conspiracy Archive Blog said this on March 19, 2009 at 9:41 pm |
Thinking about this over a bit of time has given me a possible new perspective on Downard, further to the “psychosis” I see in his writings, primarily The Carnivals of Life and Death. Psychosis, mental illness, and paranoid schizophrenia are real things, but they are just words, labels intended to put a certain slant on phenomena that has been around for a long time. To demonise and sideline the experiences and messages that the so-called “afflicted” endure.
I still believe that some kind of psychic injury was invoked by severe trauma in JSH (we know the stories from Downard himself), but let’s just throw this out there:
Schizophrenia = shamanic state of mind.
Maybe, well let’s say a big maybe, while Downard’s descent into the dank underbelly of the American Dream/Nightmare may have resulted in a specific subjective view of various key events as high occultic ritual psychodramas, perpetrated by shadowy concerns, he could have been tuning into the psychic wavelength of the spirit of the age. The linking of schizophrenia to shamanism and mystic altered states of mind has been looked into quite a bit.
Whatever anyone thinks about his conclusions. The more I consider the viewpoints on JSH, of Chris Knowles’ take and my own that emerged prior to his blog pronouncement, and the adherents to Downard’s KK33 theories, the more it seems that they are merely subjective perspectives coloured by certain prejudices. To me he was mentally ill, yes, but that is just a word. He may well have been slotted into the virtual zeitgeist mainframe of the collective unconsciousness that so many in the synchromystic community zone in on.
Every one of them has a different take on what is going on in the world, to a degree. Some more than others. The thing is Downard may have been the prototype for so much of the synch semiotics that are going on today.
As I wrote before here Downard was almost certainly fighting his own personal psychic war against TPTB, he was a victim as we all are; but he may indeed have been plugged into the same juice that his critics today are.
He was a conspiro-synchromystic. It’s just a matter of how you colour it. He saw the hand of occult conspiracy. The synchers see the hand of god when plugged into the collective unconsciousness.
I see a bit of both now. Nothing is ever really black and white.
I’m with ya.
Hello. Landed here as I am desperately seeking a copy of this book to no avail! If anyone has any links, much appreciated. A new print run of this book is certainly due, and the zeitgeist is ripe.