Grateful Dead and Da Vinci Code Part 2

The 13 points of the Grateful Dead’s Owsley skull lightning bolt also has a few interpretations and stories, some ancient and some more modern.  In the Bible there were 13 people at the Last Supper if we include Jesus.  Some say the 13th seat is empty for Judas, because he was later to the supper due to informing the authorities about Jesus. 

In Arthurian lore the Round Table has 13 seats. The 13th seat being kept empty for Jesus or Judas, or Merlin or Percival, depending on who is telling the story.  This 13th seat is called the ‘Siege Perilous’.  The word ‘siege' in this context is from the French word ‘siège', which means ‘seat’ or ‘throne’.   The perilous part is to do with the Knights Templar and what is called the ‘Josephus Problem.’

“The problem is named after Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian living in the 1st century. According to Josephus' account of the siege of Yodfat, he and his soldiers were trapped in a cave by ‘enemy military’. They chose suicide over capture, and settled on a serial method of committing suicide by drawing lots.” “In computer science and mathematics, the Josephus problem (or Josephus permutation) is a theoretical problem related to a certain counting-out game. People are standing in a circle waiting to be executed. Counting begins at a specified point in the circle and proceeds around the circle in a specified direction. After a specified number of people are skipped, the next person is executed. The procedure is repeated with the remaining people, starting with the next person, going in the same direction and skipping the same number of people, until only one person remains, and is freed.”  Wikipedia

Friday October 13 1307 as the origin of Friday the 13th being unlucky is a tradition I learned as a child from my grandmother, which was decades before Dan Brown’s book.  It only takes one generation to forget.  Friday 13 1307 is the date that some of the Knights Templar were arrested while the majority escaped to Scotland, Spain, Portugal and the infamous ‘Lost Templar Fleet’ to parts unknown.  

There’s a legend somewhere that the Knights Templar used the Josephus Permutation to decide which knights would stay to be executed and which knights would escape. What is interesting about this legend is that it connects the Knights Templar with advanced mathematics, and advanced historical knowledge of people from the New Testament, like clues to a mystery. 

Something else connecting the Knights Templar with New Testament era people is that during their trials the Templars were accused of worshiping a skull.  The skull and bones motif is commonly associated with Masons and other secret societies, and even with Elizabethan era  pirates.  In fact some Templars, in later centuries, were privateers for hire to European royalty, most notably Queen Elizabeth I of England. In the 21st century 400 years later Queen Elizabeth II can still be seen wearing a diamond filled Templar cross.

The identity of the person who the skull is from and why the Templars revered it is the mystery.  The Knights Templar also revered Mary Magdalene who was said to have spent her last years in southern France, then Roman occupied Gaul, in retreat in a cave grieving over a skull.   The first ever priest of Christianity was a woman, who we know today as Saint Phoebe Damaris the Deaconess. 

Saint Phoebe was an incredibly wealthy princess who built the first ever Christian church in Corinth Greece and preached there.  Technically Saint Phoebe was the first ever Christian priests.  She is mentioned in the book of Corinthians in a letter by Paul as being a good servant to God.  But then Paul came to Corinth and didn’t like that a woman could be a more popular spiritual messenger than him, so he preached against women and turned the crowds against Phoebe.  

Phoebe ended up being executed by beheading, which was the customary form of execution for a high royal woman up until the banning of such executions nearly 2,000 years later.  The Knights Templar were Christian, but also worshipped the Sacred Feminine and accepted women as knights and as priests.  Saint Phoebe would have been the Templar’s equivalent of Saint Peter to modern Christians, next to Mary Magdalene.

Mary Magdalene was still alive when Saint Phoebe was alive and both were high royals and women preachers at the upper levels of the founding of a very small Christian movement.  There is no doubt that Phoebe and Mary Magdalene knew each other and being royals of the time were certainly related.  

Phoebe’s other name was Darmaris, which is another version of Tamar, the modern name of Sarah.  In Sangraal lore, Holy Grail Bloodline lore, Sarah is the name of the daughter of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. There we have the skull for Saint Phoebe and roses for Mary Magdalene and a secret history behind history.  “A picture tells a thousand words”… but a symbol tells epics. 

Every detail of a visual representation is open to symbolic interpretation and has been written as such throughout the ages. Owsley Stanley’s Grateful Dead skull sits within a circle as a halo and has a circle on its forehead.  The circle representing the sun and the Sun Kings of Egypt who worshiped the Sun as the representation and actual origins of the one single god concept.  The halo in practical reality is a logo of the Sun Kings for their descendants.   In this context the halo does not represent Biblical miracles, it represents a multi-generational family business. 

The skull and circles via the lightning bolt are visually denoted into mirrored halves with contrasting colors to each other.  Mirrors are another symbol relating to the Masons and the Holy Grail Legends. While it probably does have something to do with looking at yourself to make improvements it also means to look at information, history, people, and the world from different perspectives.  

While all of the above is positive and wonderful, other allegorical symbolism in Owsley’s skull and lightening bolt is something else and quite startling when you see it.  Knowingly or not the artists have created a story within a story of an evil mirror to a parallel universe.  The dark side of an evil parallel universe that actually happened.  If you have never heard of the Grateful Dead nor seen their logos it is this parallel evil universe symbol that you see first and wonder WTF. 

The skull has the appearance of a double lightning bold on its forehead. Both the skull and the double lightning bolt were symbols of the German Nazi Party, and their elite military arm, the SS, during World War II. The Nazi SS have had their skull misinterpreted to mean they are death squads, when in fact the skull to them meant quite the opposite. German military companies started using the death head long before World War I to indicate their valor and readiness to die, and their willingness to give no mercy, nor to ask for mercy.  

The skull symbolism meant they are equally willing to die in battle as they are to fight on the field. It meant they would willingly receive as good as they get and they had no fear of death for themselves. Not that the death they caused for others was a good thing.  To get the art history of the symbolism precise for the sake of correct historical record.  

Red White and Blue within circles is paraphrasing the symbol of the Tricolor from the French Revolution that executed many thousands of innocent men women and children, rich and poor, royal and working class, by beheading. The French was born out of corrupt politics and misguided liberalism that had gotten way out of hand where the liberals became the fascists.  We can see this happening again today with 21st century liberalism not allowing communication or collaboration with the conservatives and making demands that are counter intuitive.