Newspaper, April 22, the eclipse and the peck

In yesterday's post "Light shining through yellow flowers," I discuss the etymology of pupil. It comes from a Latin word meaning "small child," and the ocular sense comes from the fact that if you stare into another person's pupil, you can see a tiny person -- your own miniature reflection -- in it.

I was curious about that because I had just started reading Iris Murdoch's novel The Philosopher's Pupil. Although the juxtaposition with Iris should have been enough to make me think of the ocular sense of pupil, what actually made me think of it was the Galahad Eridanus videos I had recently watched, which include these lines about a solar eclipse:

Ascend, O moon
Into the sun
Eclipse's eye
Thy will be done.
Lo, Abraxas!
To thy pupil cometh sight,
For from thy shadow shineth light!

The idea of a "little man" in one's pupil put a song in my head: Pink Floyd's "The Gnome," which begins with these lines:

I want to tell you a story
'bout a little man, if I can

In my April 2021 post "Gadianton Canyon syncs," I had associated that song -- or rather a reference to it by Terence McKenna -- with a scene from the Tintin comic book Prisoners of the Sun, in which there's a speech bubble from Tintin full of dozens of stars and squiggles and other random symbols -- like comic-book "swearing," but unusually prolonged -- after which he says, "Hip-hip-hooray!" This had synched with McKenna talking about "visible language" and "a new way to say hooray."

I went to bed with "The Gnome" in my head, and I dreamed about poring over that Tintin speech bubble, trying to decipher the secret meaning of his "visible language."

In the morning, naturally, I had to look it up and see if there was in fact any secret meaning to be deciphered. I had forgotten the immediate context, which turns out to be highly synchronistically relevant:

Tintin speaks his "visible language" just after noting "an extraordinary coincidence" in a scrap of newspaper. What he has read, we later find out, is the date of an upcoming total solar eclipse in South America. He uses his foreknowledge of this eclipse to take advantage of the superstitions of the Inca and prevent them from sacrificing him to the sun.

Just yesterday, as related in the post "In which I read the news," I saw a scrap of newspaper blowing across the street and felt the urge to pick it up and read it. The paper was dated April 21, 2023, but what I found significant in it were references to two then-future dates: April 27 and April 22. Tintin also found a future date in his newspaper.

The two dates mentioned -- April 27 and April 22 -- were significant to me because they were anniversaries. I've been having lots of anniversary syncs lately. Then I remembered that the reason I'd been reading an old Tintin book back in 2021 was that someone had emailed me a scan from it -- and I'd received the email on what turned out to be the anniversary of its original publication. What date was that? I looked it up, checking my old post "St. George, stake for the sun, and inevitable 'miracles'":

I've just discovered that Le Temple du Soleil, from the English translation of which the above scan is taken, was originally published serially in Tintin magazine -- and the final installment was published on Thursday, April 22, 1948. I received the email with the scan in the early hours of Thursday, April 22, 2021, and posted it here later the same day. The panels in question are near the end (on page 59 of 62 in the English version), so I assume that they were part of the final installment and that I received and posted them on the anniversary of their original publication.

Here are the panels I was emailed:

The accompanying comment, connecting Tintin's eclipse with the birdemic and peck, was this:

I reckon we are seeing this exact same thing playing out. The eclipse corresponds to the "deadly birdemic", and Tintin's god-like powers correspond to the peck. Now that most people are pecked, all They need to do is reduce media coverage on the "cases" and make out as if the peck has saved the day. The bridemic will vanish (miraculously), and they will then write history according to their narrative, using it as artillery in the pro-peck propaganda war as an example of how effective GM pecking is. 

That's not quite how things ended up playing out, but the eclipse/peck connection is highly relevant.

After having visions of an eclipse, Galahad Eridanus looked up the date of the next solar eclipse and found that it would be December 14, 2020 -- in South America, like Tintin's.

The first birdemic peck to be administered to a member of the public, outside of clinical trials, was given to nurse Sandra Lindsay at Long Island Jewish Medical Center on December 14, 2020.

Note added (4:24 p.m.): Just after posting this, I checked /x/ and found this:

Prisoners of the Sun was originally titled Le Temple du Soleil. Demiurge comes from the same Gnostic vocabulary as Abraxas. I can't make out what is inscribed on the ceiling above the sun, but it begins with A and ends with S.