Pythagoras was an ancient Greek philosopher, scientist, and dabbler in mathematics. Cornelius Agrippa was an alchemist and general speculator about many things. One of the things he gave us is…

…The Man in the Star. The symbols around the figure as astrological symbols. Stanislas de Guaita was a 19th century occultist, who provided significant variations on the symbol: 

The letters around the circle are the five letters of one version of the name of God found in the Old Testament…Jhowh…or Jehovah. In reality, the name is now believed to be YHWH, or Yahweh. Many students of the Bible are dumbfounded when they learn that the actual name of God in the Old Testament is not known for certain! And then:

The names Samael and Lilith appear inside the symbol. I have mentioned both names before. Samael originally appeared in the Jewish Talmud as an angel who was both good and evil. Lilith appears in Isaiah, and denotes a Screech Owl, but because of the context, Lilith was transformed into a female demon, as well as the first wife of Adam. The inverted pentagram with the goat’s head inside is technically a symbol of Baphomet. The Knights Templar, the violent Christian crusading order, who were later denounced as sorcerers, were said to have worshiped an idol named Baphomet. At the time that King Philip of France was persecuting the Templars because he wanted their money, there was much speculation as to what Baphomet was. My favorite suggestion is that it was the head of John the Baptist. Eliphas Levi Zahad, the nom de plume of …

…Alphonse Louis Constant, gave us the classic image of Baphomet:

This is Baphomet, not Satan. And the five-pointed star on his forehead is not inverted. The words…separate…and…join…appear on his arms. Now for something unbelievably fascinating. I will now show another being:

That is a romanticized, Roman-looking statue of George Washington. Now I will show a picture of a Most Bizarre Trio:

And so, I offer the Great Pazuzuian Conspiracy Theory to the world! Pazuzu kept himself alive and well throughout human history so that he could finally attain his greatest goal...starring in the Exorcist!

Looking at the Man in the Star occultic symbols, and the Starman of Rush, we see that they are interestingly similar, yet different. The key difference being the fact that with the Starman, the man is outside the star. But yet more! He is holding out his hands as though he is attempting to thwart the star’s attempt to drag him into it. Is that important? The Starman was explained by the band’s drummer:

All the naked man means is the astract man against the masses. The red star symbolizes any collectivist mentality.

That is rather similar to my description. And that means that despite the five-pointed star, and despite notable similarity with the Man in the Star presented by Agrippa and Stanilas, the symbol is abolustely not occultic. Was Neil Peart telling the truth…or was Michael Mills? The concept offered by Peart is consistent with lyrics from the band’s songs. This is the one that most comes to mind:

No, his mind is not for rent, to any god or government.

That is from the song Tom Sawyer. He too resists any collective mentality. And before you accuse Rush of being hostile to religion…well, I will you give you my interpretation of those lyrics; the key word is rent. Renting is temporary…and temporary allegiances don’t really mean much. Real allegiances are permanent. Mills doesn’t mention the middle painting. It is A Friend in Need by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge. And if you look at the two dogs in the middle, you’ll see that they are…cheating.:

Bad dog! Obviously, this is a comical image, and one that is so very Not Occultic and Not Satanic. It is the one at the front that Mills really doesn’t like:

According to Mills, is shows a man being burned at the steak. Actually, the person in the painting represents a real historical figure who was burned at the stake. That figure is one of the most famous of French medieval military leaders. And one particularly feared by the English army. His name was…Joan of Arc. It was unheard of that a woman would lead troops in battle, and she is said to have worn her hair cut short, and she dressed in male clothing. So if you looked at her, you might think that you were looking at a…man. It was actually the wearing of male clothing that justified, in the eyes of the English, after capturing her, burning her at the stake. So Mills made the same mistake because he made to effort to understand what he was looking at! And the best part of this, which couldn’t be more satisfying, is that the painting was said to be connected to the song…Witch Hunt! Hey, Mr. Mills!

They say there are strangers who threaten us
In our immigrants and infidels
They say there is strangeness too dangerous
In our theaters and bookstore shelves
That those who know what's best for us
Must rise and save us from ourselves
 

I don’t suppose that anything else needs to be said.

The comment about the origin of the name KISS is simply untrue. So…a brief digression. The band started with the name Wicked Lester. In 1972, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley split from the band. They brought Peter Criss in on drums, and Ace Frehley on lead guitar. Now, Peter Criss had been in a band named Chelsea:

Chelsea split, leaving a trio that went by the name Lips:
 

It was while Criss was in Chelsea that the song that would eventually become known as Beth was written…the song that essentially saved KISS from going the way of the Dodo. When the split in Wicked Lester took place, and Criss had joined Simmons and Stanley, a new name was needed. As a play on Criss’s band Lips…the name KISS was chosen:

And an interesting point of trivia is that the logo has to be presented differently in countries that still do not allow the Nazi SS-runes to be displayed. Now that’s not what the band intends by the last two letters of the name…that wouldn’t make any sense anyway. But:

Still, that might not….

Remove the rot! That sounds ominous, given certain sympathies. I quoted One of the Gang as far as her statement about Hitler goes. Hitler the Christian? The suggestion that was made, if you will recall, was that if the Guy With The Great Ideas was only a Christian, everything would have turned out fine. Is that so? Let's ask the Fuhrer:

And:

Remove the rot indeed! If only the Madman was a Christian!

Oh, by the way…

Merry Christmas!

Major people in music believe this? Name them! The largest Satanic force in the world? Hey…Steve and Jim! Do you know who the largest Satanic force in the world was?

And, no! There are no good people and no good ideas among them.

And Regan told us…no vulgar displays of power! Now the Devil has appeared in many strange forms on this website. But this is the first time that we meet…Satan the Private Eye! The Diabolical Detective Agency! There is an important point here. When Regan made her declaration…what was she actually saying? She was trying to give Karras a reason to believe that she was the Devil despite the fact that she whimpers about the priest undoing the straps that restrain her to the bed. I won’t simply break them like the Devil could if I were the Devil! But I’m not…but I want you to think I am! So, I’ll lie here strapped down to the bed to avoid a vulgar display of power because I am a sneak and a Private Eye! Then I will whine about it. The easiest way, contrary to what the Peters think, for Satan to get us is for him to suddenly appear before us with an army of Regan MacNeills and do as he will. For some reason, he never does that. So, we might ask the Peters…if Satan is so big and bad and wants our children so much…why does he spend his time muttering things backwards in Rock songs? Because he wouldn’t want to come out in the open….no, he does things sneakily! After all, to be a good detective, you must see but not be seen.
 

Ok, Steve…let me get this straight. A Satanic Rock Star gave up drugs to raise her child…isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t that changing your life for the better? But you’re not about that…you don’t care about that…you just want something to burn…sounds familiar.

Bridge Over Troubled Water? Really? Labels on facial tissue and peanut butter? Actually, here they are probably basing their nonsense on the nonsense work of Wilson Bryan Key, who wrote two books in the run up to the Satanic Rock Music Scare about hidden sexual innuendos in advertisements and brand name logos. And yes...he was a remarkably stable genius! As far as birth control goes, what’s better? High school girls using birth control…or high school girls getting abortions? It's amazing, but there is currently a movement in the U.S. right now that believes something very similar. They want to outlaw abortion, and restrict access to birth control. As if...young people will stop having sex because they don't have access to birth control. That's absurd....and they know it. If you really want to reduce the number of abortions, you have to address the reasons why those abortions take place. And those reasons are rather complicated. But these Anti-Sex Crusaders aren't interested in that! Outlaw, ban, burn, destroy...etc. Vulgar displays of power! Even with the availability of birth control today the unwanted pregnancies just go on and on. How much worse it could be! And once someone reaches the age of consent...and no...Alabama...it's not 14! Still, once they hit the legal age...you can't do anything about it. If you really want to reduce abortions, and weren't just trying to show God how self-righteous you were...excluding, of course, your multiple adulteries, you would hand out free birth control on every street corner.

Almost all songs by the Beatles? And I watched one of their seminar tapes…and I have say…the Peters brothers are odd fellows indeed! They bragged about finding this backwards message:

Ok. This is particularly embarrassing. They seemed so proud about finding this. This is from Empty Spaces…on Pink Floyd’s The Wall. And the band put this backwards message in the song specifically for religious idiots to find! Pink Floyd has made fools out of you…and it wasn’t hard. And guess what Steve…send your answer to…the Funny Farm!

Here’s the image shown when discussing Stairway to Heaven:

This image is from the album Houses of the Holy…way to go…you got the wrong album. How about this:

Right! The guys who made Come Sail Away. And this proves that the Devil is a sneaky detective. Peters tells us to go look up this name. Then he states that Styx is the name of the river you cross to get to Hell. Ok. Where did he get that from? The Bible? No. It’s from Greek mythology. “Hell” is the wrong word. The right word is…Hades. That is the abode of the deceased. A similar such place occurs in the Old Testament, where it is known as Sheol. The Witch of Endor, the inventor of the Whoppee Cushion, contacted the deceased prophet Samuel in...Sheol. To refer to Styx as the river to cross to get to Hell is totally deceptive. You knew that your audience would know nothing about Greek mythology. You knew that if you said…Hell…they would automatically, in their ignorance, think of the Christian concept of Hell. Hahahahaha-Hahahahaha! More stupidity:
 

This is Cheap Trick. The album is Heaven Tonight. And the best song the band ever made is on this album. It’s called…Surrender. Now…Peters does not find a backwards message on this album. He slows one of the songs down so much that all you hear is deep, guttural growling. But! If you look at the lyrics to Surrender, you’ll find something that the Peters won’t expect:

Mommy's all right
Daddy's all right
They just seem a little weird
Surrender, Surrender
But don't give yourself away

That is the chorus…think about the lyrics for a moment. And parents…that’s a whole lot better than the other options you can get from your kids. But what did the Peters Brothers find?

That, of course, isn’t there. But if it was…why are you complaining that a Rock band put a reference to the Lord’s Prayer in their song? You say that the Satanic stuff is put there to influence the mind of the listener towards evil. It then follows, that if they put something good in there…then you should have your kid listen to this song by Cheap Trick…over and over again. And then have them listen to Surrender…over and over again. They learn the Lord’s Prayer, and think that their parents alright! What more can you ask for?
 

Jagger’s T-shirt. And Peters points out the Nazi swastika…of course he does!

When you find it said within your religious leadership that the worst monster who ever lived had good ideas…you either renounce them…or become them…or in this case…become him. Here is the truth:

These two books NEVER go together.

My opinion on the Paul is Dead phenomenon is clear. But I still have to admit, that it is a lot of fun. How? Searching songs and album artwork for secret clues is like trying to find pieces in a puzzle. I myself found the secret message in the Rain video…Way out! And I found Ringo’s Blue Ghost. I was so excited, that I had to share it. It was good fun. That’s all it was. These two guys, and everybody who made these claims about the Beatles’ simply picked up on rumors about a rumor. And I find it strangely strange that the song containing the backwards message…Satan, he is God...is not provided. Satanists, literal Satanists, don’t believe that Satan is God. They believe in Satan and God, but have chosen to side with Satan. And these two made an interesting, Freudian statement:

Really?

I doubt that young Rock music fans went to a two hour seminar with these two guys to share their version of the “truth of the scriptures” with them. I’ll bet that their audiences were made up of Clerics, and Paranoid Evangelical Parents. And young Christian Youth Club members. They also mention drugs…and we can drop it there. Rock music has always had the element of drug use. But I have surprise! How many Evangelicals, at least in 1981, smoked? Nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs humankind has ever known. How many drank? Alcohol is the most destructive drug that humankind has ever known. The truth hurts. And this:

I don’t even know what to make of that.

There was also James “Gibby” Gilbert, a youth minister of the Church of Christ in Kaufman Texas.

Bing Bing Bong Bing Bong.....

Are you gonna start that again? Please! This is serious. Where was I? Oh, yes! Kaufman, Texas:

Really? The human mind, as I pointed out in other postings on this website, will always attempt to find order in chaos…purpose in randomness. This occurs visually and audibly. If you play music backwards, you will think you hear all kinds of things. If Gibby were right, then your mind is constantly reversing the vocals you hear in whatever kind of music you are listening to. If I am listening to song A, but not Song Number 9! The only way for my mind to perceive lyrics played backwards is to be reversing all of the lyrics, not just a few chosen words…turn me on dead man…which makes no sense. And the human mind can not magically pick up on backwards vocals, reverse them, and then be influenced by them. If I play an opera singer backwards, and I swear I hear…rocky candy tastes better on the moon…then I was hearing that before I took the physical step of actually dragging the needle of my record player backwards through the grooves, and so I would expect to have had issues related to sweets…on a lunar basis.

No, it doesn’t, and no it isn’t. Your mind can’t store everything…file cabinets reach a capacity point, and so does computer storage. And the subconscious mind is nothing like the conscious mind…ego vs. id. The subconscious mind is not logical…it is primitive. It is not taking things, unreversing them, and making sense out of them. It doesn’t work like that. And brain-washing requires more than just being bald…it is very difficult, if not impossible, to do.

Yet again, the basis for the nonsense is the Paul is Dead nonsense. Guys…Rain…only!

Bob Larson…who is he? Another TV evangelist, who also goes around performing exorcisms. This lady was on the same page of newspaper as Gibby:

And she said that Gibby must have been smoking catnip! Later, Gibby decided to hear them for himself:

Didn’t Gibby just say that he doesn’t play songs backwards? Didn’t he say that he just looks stuff up in Bob Larson’s book with the meandering, stupid title? You cannot pull the record backwards with your finger at the right speed. You need a reel-to-reel tape player, which can run the tape backwards at the same speed it turns forward. Hey parents…just go buy a reverse motor!

An argument from stupidity. It must be true because no one has denied it? Actually, the artists you Satanically accuse of this do deny it. Are there people travelling the country giving seminars that you’re wrong? Of course not…they won’t dignify you by wasting their time proving something that doesn’t have to be proven.

This is the first time I’ve ever seen accusations against Black Oak Arkansas. And by referring to Stairway to Heaven, Gilbert highlights the best argument there is against this: Every time you hear from these types of guys about what the backwards message in Stairway to Heaven is, each one seems to rattle off a different message! If playing songs backwards makes the message clear, then why can’t critics provide the same message? The one will be the sad one who makes me sad? I can only say one thing about that…bing bing bong bing…you know what that is…right?

Yet again with Revolution #9…and yet again…wrong. What exactly does it mean to be turned on by a dead man? Now! Gibby Gilbert identifies the song that says that Satan is God:

In all my decades of listening to Rock music, I not only hadn’t heard of this band…I never heard this song, and maybe that’s because the singer also plays…the washer-board. So I went to listen to the song…it has no lyrics. It has no vocals. It’s music and shouting. When I further looked into this, reference is made to a version on a live album, where the singer…who doesn’t sing in the song…mutters something into the microphone, which, when played backwards, isn’t the stupid thing said above. That makes no sense…at all. Gibby’s nonsense was carried throughout the country. And! He too began holding seminars! He called his…Satan’s Attack! He offered another, serious error:

That is wrong. Totally…wrong:

And:

AC= Alternating Current
DC= Direct Current

Why show a sewing machine? Because two founding members of the band, Malcolm and Angus Young, saw the symbol on their sister’s…sewing machine. The expression AC/DC did come to mean bisexual in the U.S. in the 1950s. The band is Australian. He also told another outright lie. This is the band’s logo:

The “S” is for Satan? Wrong…it’s not an S…

it’s a high voltage symbol.