The JFK assassination coffee commercial, and lunar eclipses

In a comment posted on November 6, Debbie linked a video of a CBS news bulletin announcing the shooting of John F. Kennedy, followed by a coffee commercial.

Yesterday, I posted about how Google only returns a few hundred results for any search, even though it claims to have millions. In connection with that, I ended up watching a video called "Where Did the Rest of the Internet Go?" from a channel called Truthstream Media, by Aaron and Melissa Dykes.

This led me to check out other things on their channel, and today I began watching their 3-hour documentary "The Minds of Men."

Starting at the 2:10 mark, it plays the end of the CBS bulletin about the JFK assassination and the beginning of the coffee commercial following.

The JFK/coffee clip came in the middle of footage of someone typing a letter dated June 25, 1964. I had a nagging feeling that June 25, or the number 625, had some synchronistic relevance, but so far I can't figure out what it might be. Searching my own blog for that number turns up only my mathematical posts (on beta diversity and figurate numbers), where it appears as just another number.

Now, having typed that, suddenly I know: June 25, 1964, was the date of a total lunar eclipse, or "blood moon." For my November 9 post "Once in a red moon," I had counted all the total lunar eclipses since June 1946, and while I can't consciously remember any of the eclipse dates I looked at, I suddenly feel absolutely certain that there was an eclipse on June 25, 1964. Well, let's check.

Well, how about that? It was a lunar eclipse, but a partial one -- so it wasn't on the list I looked at, which only listed total lunar eclipses. So how did I know about it?

But now I realize that I typed in the wrong year: 1945. and I know why: Earlier in the video, at the 0:29 mark, the year 1945 is displayed, as the date of the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco. I accidentally got the two dates mixed up. How weird that it still ended up being the date of a lunar eclipse!

So I put in the correct date, and -- lightning proceeds to strike twice in the same place:

I have no explanation for this. What are the chances that I would spontaneously remember the exact date of a lunar eclipse in 1964, then mistype the date into Google and have the mistyped date also be the date of a lunar eclipse?

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Incidentally, why did the number 1945 stick in my mind enough to make me google the wrong date? Because I had just listened to the Jay-Z track "Encore," where he says, "When I come back like Jordan, wearin' the 4-5, it ain't to play games witchoo"; elsewhere on the same track he raps "I came, I saw, I conquered," and just as I listened to that line a girl walked past wearing a black T-shirt with "Veni Vidi Vici" in white letters." Of course, 45 is also the number of Trump, who was born on a Blood Moon.

Actually, it wasn't the original "Encore"; it was the mashed-up-with-Linkin-Park version. When I'm in a certain frame of mind, I really dig this stuff.

I don't know who thought these two songs would go well together -- Chester's all "I'm at the end of my rope and can't take much more of this," and Jay be like "Can I get a encore? Do ya want more?" -- but it sort of works. Kind of a Veteran Cosmic Rocker vibe.

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Note added: I just noticed that I happened to post this in the early hours of November 22 -- the anniversary of JFK's murder.

Michael the glove puppet and X the Owl

Back on August 17, Bruce Charlton posted an episode from the old children's TV show Pipkins (which I had never heard of), in which Hartley Hare buys a glove puppet named Michael and uses it to "be naughty" -- bonking someone on the head, stealing food, etc. -- always saying, "It wasn't me! It was Michael!" 

I didn’t actually watch the video until a couple of days ago. The name Michael caught my attention, of course, given the recent syncs related to an archangel by that name, but I couldn't see any connection between an angel and a glove puppet used by a hare as an excuse for "being naughty." Then I went back on YouTube to watch it again, searching for the video instead of clicking Bruce's link. I got a different video -- identical to Bruce's, except that it begins with Hartley announcing, "This episode is called 'The Glove Puppet.' He's called Michael after our director" -- meaning Michael Jeans, the creator of the show.

So in a way it really was Michael doing all those naughty things! Michael the puppet is controlled by Hartley Hare, who is himself a puppet controlled by Nigel Plaskitt, who is an actor saying and doing as directed by -- Michael!

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After writing the above, I took a break to do some simple housework and put some music on. It only took a few minutes, so I only listened to one song:

I think of this as basically Linkin Park (plus Mike Shinoda, who is also Linkin Park) -- but the instrumentals and some of the background vocals are from Train, a group I know only for that awful song that sounds like Dobie Gray minus the soul. I looked up the Train song used in the above video. It's crap, too -- as usual, Kill_mR_DJ redeems it -- but the name caught my attention: "Angel in Blue Jeans." Fancy running into a song called that just after discovering that Pipkins was created and directed by someone called Michael Jeans!

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The general appearance of Michael the glove puppet, particularly his very large nose, made me think of another such puppet: Lady Elaine Fairchild from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

Michael (left) and Lady Elaine

I hadn't thought about Mister Rogers' Neighborhood in ages, and looking up images of Lady Elaine led me to a character I had completely forgotten about: X the Owl, the blue owl who lives in a tree, says "How in the world are ya?" and takes correspondence courses from O.C.S.

This got my attention not because of the general owl theme in recent syncs, but because I have specifically connected Mr. Owl (from the palindrome) with Michael the Archangel. I first made this connection in "The Locust Grove crop circle," the original link being the word who. Owls say "who," and the name Michael means "Who is like God?"

This morning (August 24) I received an email from Debbie with the subject line "Strange Owl Synchronicity." She had stopped at a gas station near Cincinnati (and therefore not far from Locust Grove) and found that someone had drawn an owl on a brick wall at one of the pumps.

Just above this owl, on the white material at the top of the wall, someone had written "WHO?" -- with an X inscribed in the O.

If memory serves, this is only the second time in my life anyone has emailed me a photo of graffiti. The first time was three days previous, on August 21, when an anonymous correspondent sent me this:

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Note added: How did I miss this little sync wink in the Pipkins video?

It's not just that there's a green door; there's a moment when there's nothing but a green door on the screen.

I loved my banner 40 times better than my sword.

Joan's banner and sword

Regular readers will know I have been experiencing a fairly constant stream of synchronicities relating to Joan of Arc.

Many of the early syncs focused on her banner:

• The first rainbow flag: Joan's banner discussed in detail
• In the cards: Illustrations in a Guardian article unwittingly allude to Joan's banner.
• That flag again! I run into Joan's banner by chance.
• Joan and the ark: Old Testament "arks" are associated with Joan's banner.

Later, the emphasis shifted to her sword, and this sword was associated with Donald Trump:

• In hoc signo vinces? Joan's sword as an answer to the question "What's going on in Washington?"
• Darkest hour: The dream-phrase épée d'Arc is associated with a Babylon Bee article in which Trump has "the Darksaber."
• Small hands, you say? Much is made of Joan's sword being held by someone with small hands, a stereotypical attribute of Trump.
• Trump with a sword again: The sync fairies lead me to a random op-ed in which the author randomly says "for some reason I picture Trump carrying a sword."

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St. Michael

On February 8, I received an email from a regular correspondent, subject line "The Archangel Michael," soliciting thoughts on "whether Michael means anything special (perhaps vital?) for modern Christians, here-and-now."

I replied that I had no particular beliefs or feelings about that specific archangel, but that a Latin prayer to St. Michael, recommended to me by another online friend, had once proved effective in a specific unusual situation I found myself in back in the summer of 2019.

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Hundred years' wars

This morning, yet another online friend, knowing and sharing my particular interest in Joan of Arc, sent me a link to a January 3 sermon by an anonymous Catholic priest on Regina Prophetarum, called "Ending the Hundred Years War Using Saint Joan's Holy Banner of War" (mp3). After a Hail Mary and some other preliminaries, it begins thus:

Saint Joan of Arc led her army to some of the greatest military victories in the history of the world. To make these victories possible, she was instructed by Heaven to make a banner with the holy names of Jesus and Mary painted upon it. She herself held this banner and led the way to victory, saying later, "I loved my banner 40 times better than my sword."

Joan struck the decisive blow in the Hundred Years' War with England, and the priest then refers to "a new Hundred Years' War . . . declared by the Devil himself in the hearing of Pope Leo XIII." In this war, "we have the names of Jesus and Mary, the holy names, but they need to be brought back and placed on the standard of war." The priest later says, "We need another Joan to lead the way. Come back, dear Joan! We need you again, to put a death blow to this new Hundred Years' War."

Joan has come back. I am not her only witness.

Not being familiar with this "new Hundred Years' War" declared by the Devil, I looked it up and found an article called "Leo XIII & the one hundred years."

It is said that after he had celebrated Mass in the presence of some Cardinals and members of the Vatican staff on October 13th, 1884, Pope Leo experienced a vision of the future concerning the Church in which the power of Satan would be unleashed for a period of 100 years.  He was so shaken by the spectre of the destruction of moral and spiritual values both inside and outside the Church that he composed a prayer to St Michael the Archangel which he ordered to be said at the end of each Mass throughout the Catholic Church.  This is the prayer--

St Michael the Archangel defend us in the day of battle.  Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.  May God restrain him, we humbly pray, and do thou, the prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the other evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls.  Amen.

This got my attention because I immediately recognized it as an English translation of the Latin prayer to St. Michael that had just been brought back to my memory by a random email query.

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Many suns

Here is another extract from the sermon on Joan's banner.

In her great work The Mystical City of God, Venerable Mother Mary of Ágreda speaks of when the time had come to name the Holy Child on the octave day of Christmas. She writes, "When the great mistress of heaven -- Our Lady -- and St Joseph conversed with each other about the holy name of Jesus, innumerable angels descended in human form from on high, clothed in shining white garments . . . and emitted a greater splendor than many suns.

I had been listening to this sermon alone in my car. When I arrived home, I found that my wife had put some music on. She's been on a Chester Bennington kick lately, and I was greeted by the Linkin Park song "The Catalyst."

God save us, every one.
Will we burn inside the fires of a thousand suns?
For the sins of our hand,
The sins of our tongue,
The sins of our father,
The sins of our young? -- No!

I recognized "a thousand suns" as an allusion to the Bhagavad Gita -- the lines made famous by Oppenheimer when he quoted them with reference to the atomic bomb: "If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once in the sky, that would be the splendor of the Mighty One."

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Bigger than Trump

Near the end of the sermon I listened to, the priest says that, while he certainly hopes Trump will be restored to the presidency, we need to realize that our problems will not be solved by having a crooked election set right, that we must set our sights higher.

I have associated Trump with Joan's sword. But Joan loved her banner -- bearing angels and the holy names of Jesus and Mary -- 40 times better than her sword.

I have associated Trump with the Sun. But the angels associated with the holy names of Jesus and Mary emitted a greater splendor than many Suns.

I feel that a very coherent message has, in the language of synchronicity, been communicated to me.