The "Sixteen" Chapel

Sistine sounds almost the same as sixteen in English, and in fact the original name of the Sistine Chapel was Sacellum Sixtinum, named after Pope Sixtus IV (sort of the Fifth Third Bank of the papacy).

My October 19 post "Syncfest: Drowned boy, aliens, ceiling lights, finger of God, Michelangelo, Brother of Jared, Moria, and more" dealt with Michelangelo, and specifically with his painting The Creation of Adam, which is on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel -- and even more specifically with the finger of God as depicted in that painting. I connected that with what I was reading in the Book of Mormon at the time: the finger of God touching the sixteen small stones of the Brother of Jared. I didn't notice the sixteen-Sistine link at the time.

I haven't been keeping up with other people's blogs very well lately, so shortly after posting about the Sistine Chapel, I did some catching up. I read an October 17 post by Francis Berger, "The Kingdom of Christ Without Caesar; Or, the Ultimate Religious Reality of Inward Christianity," with thoughts inspired by his recent trip to Rome. He discusses his reason for visiting the Vatican while there:

So, what was my motivation? Difficult to say. My visit was inspired mostly by my eleven-year-old son’s desire to see the Sistine Chapel, a desire I shared even though I struggled to pinpoint the source of my interest. Was it all about seeing a magnificent work of art, or was there more to it than that?

Frank's post, as the title suggests, turned to the necessity of direct of "inward" Christianity, unmediated by a Church or anyone else. I left a comment saying, "The most famous painting in Sistine Chapel itself -- a naked man being touched directly by God -- sort of fits your point here."

After browsing a few more blogs, I turned to the Babylon Bee, which I had also not checked recently. There, dated October 19 -- the same day I myself posted about the Sistine Chapel -- was this:

In my comment on Frank's blog, I had noted how The Creation of Adam could be seen as a symbol of direct contact with God, unmediated by the Church. The Babylon Bee, which has a Protestant bent, made the same connection:

The Pope then superglued himself in between the hands of Adam and God in the central depiction of Michelangelo's Creation of Adam. "This is symbolic, my children!" Pope Francis shouted while waiting for the glue to dry. "I am placing myself between God and man because — oh, this glue is irritating my skin. I wasn't expecting that."

Furthermore, this is Pope Francis, and I had just read about the Sistine Chapel on Francis Berger's blog. Pope Sixtus IV, for that matter, was a Franciscan, and his birth name was Francesco.

In my "Syncfest" post, I recount how, just after reading about the sixteen small stones touched by the finger of God, causing them to light up, I had found seven (1 + 6) small stones sitting on my desk, left there by my wife. I later found out that she was planning on using them for magical purposes.

My last post, "17 years ago our eyes were opened," features a video I happened to watch yesterday after following a trail of links starting on /x/. Just now I checked the About page for the channel.

"I don't know what you did to get here, but keep doing it. It's working." Obviously that means I need to keep browsing /x/. Okay, I can do that.

It's a little bowl of crystals -- seven distinct stones are clearly visible -- with the caption "why do women think these have magic powers." One of the comments in the thread was "You can rub them together and they light up."

On a hunch, I did a ctrl-F on the thread for Francis to see if that would turn up, too. It did, exactly once, in a post that also included the word Mormon:

Francis Barrett was an occultist. The standard biography of him was written by Francis X. King. Barrett's magnum opus, The Magus, includes a chapter "On the Wonderful Virtues of Some Kind of Precious Stones."

Note added:

That Michelangelo painting keeps showing up in the unlikeliest contexts. This was in the sidebar on YouTube today, for example:

If you wanted to illustrate the corrupting effect of money on religion, is Michelangelo's Creation of Adam the first thing you'd think of? I'm not even sure if it's supposed to represent prosperity theology (God giving money to people) or fleecing the flock (people giving money "to God" via his supposed representatives). Just a very odd choice of illustrations. Also an odd recommendation on YouTube's part, since it's not the sort of video I've ever watched. My best guess is that it was suggested because I recently watched all the Galahad Eridanus videos, including one called "Money & Magic."

Also, how is it that I noted the plethora of Francises in this post -- Francis Berger, Pope Francis, the Franciscan friar Francesco della Rovere (later Pope Sixtus IV), and Francis Barrett -- without making the obvious connection to my recent Freeman syncs?