On August 6, 2003, Arnold Schwarzenegger dramatically announced his decision to run for governor of California. Two months later he won the very high-profile and bizarre recall election. We should soon enough begin to see the true nature of this development and what it could mean for the future of the United States - the sinking Titanic. Tellingly, there was much that was 'ritualistic' about the election of Schwarzenegger:

• Arnold's Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, a story about the beginning of Armageddon, was released in 2003 before the recall election.

• One of Arnold's most popular films is Total Recall (1990), a futuristic story about Mars. In August '03, the month Arnold made his dramatic announcement, the Red Planet was at its closest point to Earth in recorded history. Consequently 2003 was the 'year of Mars'.

• Arnie starred in The Running Man (1987). Combined with Total Recall, it is almost as if his running in the California '(total) recall' election was an event long 'prophesied' by Hollywood.

• Only 8 days after Arnold announced his 'Running Man' status for the 'Total Recall' election there was as a historic 'total blackout' on the opposite coast of the US and Canada (Aug. 14). Incidentally the recall election had much to do with California's energy crisis involving blackouts; and there was a striking conceptual symmetry created by the proximity and locality of the two events. After all, 'Total Recall' meaning 'regaining awareness' is the very opposite of 'blackout', meaning 'losing awareness. Note also that the storyline of Total Recall involves controlling and manipulating energy/resources.

The ominous aura of a dark setup is intensified by the involvement of Sirius - the brightest star in the night sky - identified by ancient Egyptians with their goddess par excellence Isis, the wife-sister of Osiris (the god of the dead), with whom she had a son named Horus. August 6 (or so) happens to be the day of Sirius' heliacal rising (= dawn rising) as viewed from Giza/Cairo, the astronomical center of ancient Egypt. This is very meaningful. Here is my comment from August 20, '03:

As I noted on the day of the event, Schwarzenegger's dramatic election announcement on Aug. 6 was probably - consciously or subconsciously - meant to coincide with the heliacal rising of the star Sirius - an event that signaled for ancient Egyptians the beginning of the annual life-giving flood of the Nile (signifying the resurrection of Osiris...). Notice the conceptual parallel here: Sirius announcing the coming of the flood/Osirian resurrection and Arnie announcing his intention to become the governor of California. (The name 'Schwarzenegger' being very 'black' resonates with Osiris being the god of death/blackness.)

[Update: Actually, the date August 6th may be a little off here. I was relying on Robert Bauval's information on this but it seems it was not quite accurate. Or, it may just be that determining the heliacal rising date is just tricky which it is. It can have a range of dates or a 'window'. But even without this particular connection, the date is still highlighted by Paris, the 'Isis city', which is still, or even more, significant.]

Mythologically, the death of Osiris takes place concurrently with the conception/birth of his son Horus. In ancient Egypt, the distinction between Osiris and Horus was quite blurry as they were essentially two sides of the same coin. Horus was the reincarnated or resurrected Osiris - just as every ancient Egyptian king was perceived as Horus who upon death would become Osiris. The Sirius heliacal rising signaling the revitalization of Osiris (signified by the annual inundation of the Nile in midsummer) could therefore be viewed as the birth of Horus. And this leads to the next key point...

Adding up these and many other clues, the underlying symbolic message became quite clear to me - an Horus was born in August 2003... and his name was Arnold Schwarzenegger. The intense coherence of the Mars-Horus-election-'Total Recall' association was getting just too freakish to ignore. (See Endgame VI for more on Schwarzenegger.)

And the dark nature of this 'Horus' was suggested by numerous clues, including the following...

It is said that Paris esoterically derives its name from 'Par Isis' ('near Isis'). There is a lot of evidence to support this. As Robert Bauval writes in Secret Chamber (p.341):

Napoleon had acquired two nicknames, one being 'L'Aigle' (the Eagle) and the other being 'L'Etoile' (the Star). That 'his star' was Sirius, the star of Isis, is not only made obvious by the coat-of-arms which he chose for Paris but, in a more arcane manner, it seems to have been linked to Napoleon's most famous monument, the Arc de Triomphe, also known as the the Place de L'Etoile (the Place of the Star), located on the western side of the so-called Historical Axis of Paris, better known as the Champs-Elysees, [which is oriented twenty-six degrees north of west]... The star Sirius, as seen from the latitude of Paris, rises twenty-six degrees south of east.

And sure enough the 'Axis of Paris' (the Champs Elysees) was designed to align with the sunset on ~August 6.

This first of all confirms that the date is to be seen as a special day of Sirius' rising, and makes it clear that August 6 is a 'magical date' that is considered very important by past and modern 'esotericists' whose knowledge stems from ancient Egypt. Judging from the 'rise of Schwarzenegger' masterfully brought about on this date in 2003, we can infer that there is something big underway at this time. The encoded symbolism of the Osirian resurrection - or the birth of Horus - should therefore be treated seriously. Indeed, we just may be talking about something akin to the 'rise of Antichrist' here, if that gets your attention... Think Napoleon; think Hitler.

Napoleon is often thought to have been an 'antichristic' figure especially in the context of Nostradamus' prophecies. We often hear that he was 'Antichrist 1', Hitler was 'Antichrist 2', and the third has yet to come... Well, Terminator 3 was in theaters last year just before Schwarzenegger's rise in politics. So we wonder: Was 'Terminator 3' an allusion to 'Antichrist 3'? The answer we find here is amusing and ominous.

The following passage is from the Book of Revelation, apparently talking about an antichristic figure:

And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.

The two names given here, 'Abaddon' and 'Apollyon', both mean the same thing - 'Destroyer'... or even 'Terminator'! And Arnold is not only the Hollywood 'Terminator', he's also been Conan the Destroyer (1984)! The name 'Napoleon' has also been interpreted to mean none other than 'destroyer'... The parallel goes even further as we find that just as Napoleon had the nickname 'the Eagle', the name 'Arnold' means 'eagle rules'.

So, yes - the title 'Terminator 3' does scream 'Antichrist 3'... at least on a symbolic level.

What's more ominous, the chapter/verse number of the Revelation passage above from the New Testament happens to be... 9:11. We are about to see just how fitting this 'coincidental' reference is.

Let's take a look at some major events that took place on the 'Sirius-Paris-Arnie date' August 6 in the past, as this may give us more clues.

• The Japanese city of Hiroshima became the first victim of a nuclear attack in history on August 6, 1945. We detect Horus/Mars in its symbolism: Japan is the 'Land of the Rising Sun' and the rising sun is traditionally embodied by Horus, who is analogous to the Red Planet as already mentioned. (The Japanese national flag even prominently features a red disk.)

• August 6, 1996 was another major day involving Mars. On that date the issue of 'life on Mars' became a serious mainstream topic as breaking news reports suddenly told us that NASA had discovered evidence of past microbial life in a Martian meteorite. (NASA held a major press conference the next day.)

These are very telling in light of what happened in/around August 2003.

Slightly less direct, but equally telling is the 9/11 connection:

• The date September 11 in the Gregorian calendar used today almost always coincides with the New Year's Day for the Ethiopian and Coptic or Christian-Egyptian calendars. The ancient Egyptian New Year's Day ('1st of Thoth') was originally set to mark the heliacal rising of Sirius which today takes place around August 6 Gregorian (as viewed from Giza/Cairo). So it can easily be said that August 6 is September 11!

• As revealed in the recent public 9/11 Commission hearings (spring '04), the President of the United States was explicitly warned of an imminent al-Qaeda terrorist attack inside the US in a PDB (Presidential Daily Brief) memo dated August 6, '01. This was only a month before 9/11 and yet the White House inexplicably took no preventive actions. This was and still is one of the biggest controversies to come out of the official 9/11 investigation so far.

There is a connection between 9/11 and Mars to underscore the emerging nature of the date, Aug. 6.

First, the summer of 2001 was, like in 2003, marked by a Martian close encounter. It was during June, instead of August, that the Mars 'flyby' took place. Not as spectacular as that of 2003, but the Red Planet was a prominent light in the night sky. On June 13-14 (2001), Mars was at 'opposition' (i.e. 180 degrees away from the Sun) and it made its closest approach to Earth several days later on June 21.

Similarly, Jesus Christ's birthday is celebrated on Christmas in mid-December to mark the winter solstice. The summer and winter solstices represent two opposite calendrical/spatial points. This makes John the Baptist (Oak King) the anti-Jesus, or 'anti-Christ'. Hence Schwarzenegger 'The Oak', whose political rise on Aug. 6 was marked by the Sirius rising associated with midsummer, would also share the ominous epithet. And why not, he's already the 'Terminator'... after all.

Of course, the impact of the 'rise of Schwarzenegger' is developing slowly at this time and thus not yet as flashy as 9/11. Indeed, the biggest event of 2003 was actually the Iraq war that began earlier in spring. The war was even a direct consequence of 9/11... So the question arises: Why wasn't that event addressed by the Martian-Sirian code?

Turns out, it was!

We talked about the alignment of Mars opposition (i.e. Sun-Earth-Mars) that takes place approximately every 2 years (26 months, 'synodic' cycle), but there are other ways of tracking Mars' orbital cycle. For instance, there is the 'sidereal' orbital cycle, based on which we can ask ourselves: 'When did Mars return to the same solar winter-solstice stargate spot where it was positioned on Sept. 11, 2001?' (See illustration above). The answer:

• Mars returned to the '9/11 position' at the intersection of the Milky Way and the ecliptic in March 2003 - that is, the very month the Iraq war started!

• The Iraq war began on March 20 (Iraqi time); the Red Planet's '9/11 return' came on March 7. Interestingly, the 13-day difference closely matches a half cycle of the Moon's sidereal orbit around the earth (~27 days) - meaning the Moon would be on the opposite side of the earth relative to the background stars in about 13 days. So we see the familiar notion of 'opposition' subtly embedded here. But there is a more compelling way of bridging March 7 and March 20. There is now a 13-day difference between the Julian calendar and the modern (and more accurate) Gregorian calendar - which means that March 20 Gregorian is March 7 Julian... Or, March 20 equals March 7!

• We also observe that there is exactly a 13-day difference between the historic Mar-Earth encounter of Aug. 27, '03 (closest distance on 8/27; opposition on 8/28) and the historic major power outage ('Total Blackout') that struck the east coast of the US (and Canada) on August 14 which is symbolically linked to the 'rise of Schwarzenegger' that came just days earlier.

Further supporting the Martian nature of the Iraq war is the timing of, again, its commencement. March 20 coincided with the spring equinox - when the Sun is at the crossing point of the ecliptic and the celestial equator. The Sun rises due east on the two equinoctial days of the year. This phenomenon is inseparable from the Great Sphinx at Giza, Egypt; and the Sphinx was - like Mars - considered a form of Horus.

• The Great Sphinx faces due east where the sun rises on the equinoxes. The significance of this is underscored by the fact that Horus is traditionally thought to embody the rising sun. And because of the traditional Sphinx-Mars association, equinoctial days such as March 20 in 2003 are 'Mars days'. The Iraq war could thus be said to have begun on a 'Mars day', in the month of March/Mars! And Mars has long been considered the planet/god of... war.

Given this apparent importance accorded to the spring equinox of 2003, we certainly cannot ignore the other 'Mars day' - the autumnal equinox (September 23). And there is indeed much to be learned there too.

In accordance with the preceding '2001 echo' theme, we see that what took place on September 23 ('Mars day'/autumn equinox) was a clear allusion to the popular film '2001: A Space Odyssey' (from 1968, by Stanley Kubrick, based on a novel by Arthur C. Clarke). Along with the film association even comes a strong reference to Mars, as NASA has a probe named 'Odyssey' that has been orbiting the Red Planet since 2001. (It was launched April 7, 2001, and reached Mars on October 24.)

The mystery that drives the story of '2001' is the black 'monolith', first discovered by man on the Moon. It prompts a space mission to Jupiter (an attempt to make 'first contact') which takes place - as clearly indicated in the film - 18 months later.

Remarkably, the start of the Iraq war came exactly 18 months after 9/11. And 9/11 was when two 'monoliths' called the World Trade Center towers were destroyed.

There is much to be said about the WTC towers having been the modern 'Tower of Babel' associated with the ancient city of Babylon. NYC plausibly being the new 'Babylon', the city's greatest towers could naturally be viewed as the 'Tower of Babel'. (The terms 'Babel' and 'Babylon' are practically interchangeable.)

In the final book of the Bible, Revelation (ch.17-18), we read about a 'great whore' called 'BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH' representing 'the great city Babylon' that falls in a dramatic fashion:

A character in the scriptures that would best fit the description is Mary Magdalene - an enigmatic female companion, or quite likely the lover/wife, of Jesus Christ. Although Mary Magdalene is never described as a prostitute in the New Testament, it has been the prevalent view that she was. Chances are, though, the Magdalene is to be considered a 'whore' only in the symbolic sense that she was a version of the ancient Egyptian goddess par excellence, Isis, the wife-sister of Osiris, who was both a 'virgin' and a 'whore' as well as a goddess of wisdom and magic. (Isis' companion Osiris was killed and later resurrected to nicely parallel the Magdalene's companion, Jesus.) Isis, in turn, was represented in the sky by the great star Sirius -- a star of utmost importance to the ancient Egyptians as its 'rebirth' (i.e. 'heliacal rising') in mid-summer had the function of marking the New Year and signaling the beginning of the life-giving annual flooding of the Nile, roughly coinciding with the summer solstice.

As already discussed, the date September 11 corresponds to the ancient Egyptian midsummer/New Year day marked by Sirius! What's more:

...the name 'Magdalene' (as Magdala) can mean 'tower' as in the Tower of Babel and the WTC twin towers. Reinforcing the connection even more, amazingly, is the groundbreaking date of the WTC twin towers being August 5, that is, the very date of [or overlapping] Sirius' heliacal rising/'rebirth' in our epoch!

Added together, it becomes quite clear that the WTC towers were the modern symbolic Tower of Babel/Babylon.

In Genesis, the very first book of the Bible (Old Testament), we find the following passages talking about the Tower... in chapter '11' of course:

And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel...  [Genesis 11:4-9]

Tellingly, like Revelation's 'Babylon' and the WTC towers, the Babel tower is destroyed. But the key here is the references to the people uniting as 'one' - because this brings our attention to the United Nations which has its headquarters in NYC. The UN is the place where all nations come together and try to work with each other. Hence the UN building in NYC, like the twin towers, would be yet another alter ego of the Tower of Babel.

Take a look at the UN building shown below. It's almost a perfect replica of the 'monolith' in '2001'!

So even though one version the Babel tower (i.e. WTC) was destroyed in 2001, another version, associated with the film '2001', is still standing in NYC-Babylon!

This brings us back to the issue of what happened on the autumn-equinox 'Mars day' of 2003. It turns out, the big event there on Sept. 23 was President Bush addressing the UN members in the 'monolith' building!

At the UN Assembly, Bush asked for international help on Iraq and in so doing made official the White House's decision to soften its neoconservative/'Pax Americana'-driven unilateral war policy. This was an important event because it signaled the beginning of the end for the neo-conservative hawks who, led by Vice President Cheney, pushed for the Iraq invasion (for oil and Israel).

What made the '2001' film-connection apparently encoded here more plausible was a certain event that immediately preceded the UN Assembly. On September 21, NASA deliberately crashed the Galileo spacecraft into Jupiter. As I wrote back in Sept. '03:

The symbolism of this NASA 'ritual' is very thick. For one thing, it relates not only to 2001: A Space Odyssey but also to its sequel '2010: The Year We Make Contact' (or 'Odyssey Two') in which Jupiter, with the help of the monolith, becomes a sun - called Lucifer. And in real life [the Galileo probe was actually carrying plutonium, causing some buzz about a possible nuclear reaction turning Jupiter into the second sun of the solar system.]

Indeed, there are signs that there may well have been a nuclear detonation on/in Jupiter caused by Galileo's fall.

We have already noted that the Sirius-rising date August 6, which is a 'version' of September 11, is historically associated with nukes since Hiroshima became the first city to experience a nuclear attack on August 6 (1945).

This is reinforced by Mary Magdalene (or the Virgin) - the biblical Isis-Sirius - also having a nuclear association. The name 'Mary' is said to denote 'bitter', which is also the meaning of the well-known biblical term 'Wormwood' - a star that falls to the earth in the end times. It's found in Revelation 8:10-11.

And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.

The worst nuclear disaster we've seen after Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the 1986 nuclear-reactor accident at a place called Chernobyl... The term 'Chernobyl' means none other than 'wormwood'!

So there is definitely a nuke theme in all this which may be relevant to what's coming in the near future... A nuclear detonation could be considered an event representing Isis-Mary giving birth to Horus/'Lucifer', as per the '2010' storyline.

The name 'Lucifer' means 'light-bringer' and was originally a reference to the Morning Star - Venus. Very fitting - because Mary Magdalene was traditionally associated with Venus! (Isis, Mary Magdalene, and Venus are all associated with love/sexuality.)

And through Venus, the 'time echo' scheme begins to move into the near future... the period right ahead of us.

In addition to being a 'year of Mars', 2003 was also the 'year of Mary Magdalene', thanks to the monstrous success of the novel The Da Vince Code which became a cultural phenomenon. By early 2002, actually, I had been fully anticipating this interest spike and the parallel development between Mars and Gnostic secrets (truth represented by Mary Magdalene, John the Baptist, etc.), as I proclaimed in Endgame III (Nov. '02):

I'm sure this is the first time that all the different subject matters, especially Cydonia [or Mars] and the underground Gnostic tradition, have been put together and viewed as aspects of the same 'game'. Strange stuff, yes, but this is where the 'game' is going, so people should get used to it.

The Da Vinci Code, which is largely based on Holy Blood, Holy Grail (nonfiction), talks a lot about a secret society named the Priory of Sion. This semi-mythical group historically based in France venerates Mary Magdalene (as well as John the Baptist), who is also called the 'Black Madonna', and claims to possess or guard (a la the Knights Templar) the messianic bloodline/secrets stemming from the union of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. (Tradition has it that Mary Magdalene, along with the 'seed' of Jesus, moved to southern France some time after the Crucifixion.)

It is known that the Priory of Sion is closely associated with the number '58' (See for instance The Templar Revelation, p.52.) This is probably related to the fact that the apparent orbital path of the 'Magdalene planet', Venus, produces a pentagonal form (i.e. '5') over a period of eight years. So with or without the Priory Sion, Venus-Magdalene is associated with the numbers 8 and particularly 5. (This association was also expressed on 9/11 as one of the planes hit the Pentagon, the five-sided building of the Defense Department.) This is significant because:

• The number '58' is prominently attached to the key Isis-Magdalene-Venus date, August 6, 2003 - the day of the 'rise of the Schwarzenegger'. It was the 58th anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bombing.

• The same number would pop up again when Bush visited the UN 'monolith'/Babel building, September 23, '03 - an event similarly associated with nukes via the attached Galileo/'2010' symbolism. The event happened to be the 'UN General Assembly 58th Session'.

• The 'signal' becomes unmistakable when it is added that the Sirian 'Axis of Paris' (Champs Elysees), pinpointing August 6 (the Hiroshima date) through its solar/Sirius alignment, has been noted to pinpoint one other day - May 8, or 5/8! (Technically the precise timing of the alignment might be slightly earlier than 5/8, but at least calendrically the pinpointed date would be May 8 in 2004.)

There is another 'Venus number' that is equally compelling as '58'. This is '225' - the orbital period of Venus in Earth-days. We find that:

• The fateful year 2001 was the 225th year since the birth of the United States (1776). Lady Liberty, a prominent US symbol, is a version of Isis/Mary the Magdalene/Virgin (thus also Venus).

• The historic US east-coast 'Total Blackout' on August 14, 2003 coming just days after the 'rise of Schwarzenegger' was precisely the 225th day of the year. The significance of the date is underscored by the fact that August 27, when Mars was at its closest point to Earth in 60,000 years, was the 'August 14' of the Julian calendar.

• Adding 225 days to the '2010 monolith' day of the 2003 autumnal equinox (Sept. 23) brings us to May 5, 2004. It does not exactly match the key Venus/Paris-axis date of 'May 8', but very close.

• Mel Gibson's controversial film released earlier this year, The Passion of the Christ, which like The Da Vinci Code became a cultural phenomenon, depicts the final 12 hours of Jesus' life - i.e. the period corresponding to the Osirian death/resurrection, or Isis-Mary receiving and perpetuating the seed of Christ-Horus. The film was released on February 25 - that is, 2/25 (225).

• The 225th day of 2004, August 13, is the exact day the Athens Olympic Games will begin! Historically the Olympics Games are held to honor the supreme Greco-Roman god Zeus/Jupiter. And as we saw Jupiter is to be associated with '2001'/'2010', 'monolith', 'Lucifer' (= Venus), and nuclear detonation. What's more, one of Schwarzenegger's nicknames happens to be 'The Olympian' (he won the 'Mr. Olympia' bodybuilding competition six times)...

Clearly the emerging picture here is that around May 8, 2004, along with August 13/the Olympics, is a symbolically momentous period that carries a lot of ominous themes such as 9/11, Iraq, Osirian resurrection, Schwarzenegger/Horus, 'Antichrist', nuclear, blackout, Lucifer, Isis-Magdalene, Mars, and such.

The final nail in the coffin, so to speak, comes from the position of Mars on/around May 8, 2004.

• Mars will be at one of the 'stargate' points where the Milky Way (galactic equator) and the ecliptic cross just as was the case on the days of 9/11 and the beginning of the Iraq war (3/20/03). Only this time Mars is to be at the other 'stargate' point, 180 degrees away from the '9/11' position. Indeed, it will be marking the summer-solstice point - none other than the 'Sirian point' calendrically associated with the key dates August 6, September 11, etc.! (Note: Mars comes to one of these 'stargate' points every 9 months.)

• On September 11, 2001, the above spot was marked by the Moon. This time, on May 7/8, the Moon is to be at the other 'stargate point' (winter-solstice point). In other words, an exact reversal of the 9/11-'stargate' configuration!

Venus doesn't miss a beat here either:

• The 'Isis-Magdalene planet' Venus is to be very close to Mars and the summer-solstice 'stargate' point. But while Mars is crossing the galactic equator, Venus will be crossing the galactic meridian, i.e. the 'longitude zero' of the galactic grid!

The notion of 'reversal' or 'opposition' embedded in the above celestial configuration is now a recurrent theme and hints at the nature of the events that may come in May...