It’s Halloween, time for spooky movies, and the new film Paranormal Activity 3 does a terrific job in delivering the spooktacular. If you haven’t followed the series, Paranormal Activity 3 is actually the first story installment of the trilogy giving us the foundation of its Paranormal predecessors.
I won’t give away the plot (big house, bumps in the night, and Ghost Hunter esque videography) but in the climax of the movie, the audience is treated to a glimpse of perhaps why the activity is so paranormal and a tease of things to come. Its a fun film and perfect for the season and with the end of the film, I can only say that there needs to be a pre-prequel to tell the story of the apparition/demon Toby and what really is going on at Grandmas house. But it was the end of the film that I found myself pulling it into the Masonic nexus of freemason symbols.
Neared its end, there came a scene that made me chuckle and find a thread to pull with a link to Freemasonry. In the films transition from a faux cinéma vérité into a DIY shaky camera aesthetic, a la Blair Witch Project, we catch a glimpse of the why the activity is so paranormal. This is the last 15 minutes of the film that Derrick Deane of Fandango.com says “.. will ‘Mess You Up For Life'” which is right about where we find the Masonic connection.
It’s obvious that the sinister Paranormal Activity is coming from somewhere. Its not so obvious from where. Its not the benign ghosts from the Disney Haunted Mansion, or the night vision sleuthing of Syfy’s Ghost Hunters. On the wall, in the manner of the Satanic Panic films from the 80’s, is the Luciferian leverage to make it really creepy.
If you go watch the film, pay attention to the unicorn.
In the blur between the faux cinéma vérité and shakey cam we, from the vantage of the hapless cinematographer and stepfather Dennis, find ourselves looking for the missing wife and step kids amidst a flurry of things that go bump in the night. There, on the all where the cute and cuddly unicorn once rested is a modified Magical Triangle of Solomon followed by a quick camera pan to the infamous Sigil of Baphomet on the opposite wall.
While, neither of the symbols are truly freemason symbols, the Magical Triangle comes out of a tradition of King Solomon, the wise king and one third Master Architect behind the construction of the great Temple constructed in his name to house the ark of the covenant.
Christian tradition holds the wise king was benign and kingly in status, but when you read deeper into the subtext of Judaism and Islam, as Lon Milo Duquette does in his book The Key to Solomon’s Key: Is This the Lost Symbol of Masonry?
, we discover a king, prophet, and wizard, on the level of the great eastern Magi. Duquette writes “…he [Solomon] could talk with animals, fly through the air on a magical carpet, and cause others to fly through the air to him.” One other thing Solomon is thought to of done was summon evil spirits. The Triangle comes out of a work called The Lesser Key of Solomon the King or Clavicula Solominis Regis, a work originally translated by MacGregor Mathers who, in occult circles, was a well known Golden Dawn mage and Masonic devotee in the rebirth of magical spiritualism.
As the symbol goes the triangle with the circle, Duquette refers to is as the Magical Triangle within which Solomon commanded evil spirits. As it was used in ritual practice, it was a place on within which the magician inscribed on the ground to hold the demons he summoned. While it looks good in the movie on a wall, the symbols when used to summon “evil spirits” it is to be made 2 feet from a Magical Circle on the ground in evocations.
The Sigil of Baphomet is a bit more abstract in the Masonic landscape. Coming out of the work of French Occultist Eliphas Lévi, the pentagram with a rams head is more a device to illustrate (represent) evil than serve as any summoning symbol. Often the illustration includes the words Samael and Lilith which are inscribed in the middle and come from the work La Clef de la magie noire
, by French Occultist Stanislas de Guaita. Guaita was a student of Levi’s work and elaborated in image to Levi’s conception. The Church of Satan website says of the symbol “…oriented in the opposite direction, the pentagrammatic Star is nothing more than a symbol of iniquity, perdition, blasphemy: its two points in the air become the horns of the foul Goat threatening Heaven, and whose head is framed with the stellar pentacle, with its low ears in the side branches, and its beard in disorder in the single lower point.”
Levi’s work, in time, became important in the occult world at the rise of spiritualism in the late 1800’s along side with tarot cards, Ouija boards, astrology, and séances. Evidence of Levi’s influence can be traced into the workings of the Golden Dawn which is in and of itself an extrapolation of Masonic degree work.
So, with those two images at the end of the film, from an occultist’s point of view, it’s easy to see the film maker’s idea of connecting the Paranormal Activity to some form of magical summoning from which the terror ensues. Without a doubt, the two symbols have been absorbed by the black magic community and fallen into the material culture of all things evil, with Paranormal Activity 3 becoming the latest instance. As viewers watch the film and begin to ask themselves the meaning of the two symbols, it makes me wonder if it will incite another decade of Satanic Panic as it did in the 80’s or if the sinister black magic of the cinema will be treated as just another work of cult fiction made to titillate the timid with the evils of witchcraft and black magic shrouded in the horror things that go bump in the night.
In Paranormal Activity 3, the grandmother was apart of an occult. I don’t understand what they did with the girls and why it was so important for a son to be born. Can you explain this to me? I remember them talking about it briefly in the 2nd movie, but I still don’t understand.
Thx for posting this, brother. Just watched the movie and immediately Googled the symbols. Being a 32nd, I was interested in the Masonic significance of them. Keep up the good work. Education is the light that overcomes the darkness of ignorance. Yes, to become a Mason, you must first believe in God. You must be a good person and free by birth. We are not a secret society (or you never would have heard of us). We are a society with secrets. Free Masons. Freedom Builders. To become one, ask one.
@Greg – So I’m supposed to think that Freemasonry is good and above suspicion merely because you tell me so? And don’t try to convince me with all of the community and humanitarian work the Freemasons supposedly do… that is a cop out. If Masonry is good, why not manifest all of the ‘secrets’ publicly.
@Charlie – “We are not a secret society. We are a society with secrets.” Wow. Could you educate me as to the difference between these two again? Most ‘secret societies’ are known to the world by now. They continue to be referred to as ‘secret societies’ because of the many secrets they hold, not because they are unheard of. That would negate the existence of any ‘secret society’. Anyone can say they ‘believe in God’ and that he/she is a ‘good person’.
Freemasonry will always be suspect. This will never change, so long as they refuse to manifest their many ‘secrets’ to the public. Also Charlie, since you take such pride in being a ’32nd’, why not go the distance and become one of the greatly esteemed ’33rd’? Once you do that, come back here and tell us all about how wonderful and benign the Freemasons are.
I could tell you cookies are good, but until you try one, how would you ever know? Good is impossible to define, what is good to you may be different to another, all you can do is evaluate It by what you can see. So, look at the work of Masonry, not at what detractors have said.
As to the secrets, most are already hidden in plain sight. The secret is in those who seek out it’s teachings.
Okay, I understood most of the movie but in the last part of it I don’t see why they killed Denis or why the grandmother took the girls upstairs. I can kinda see what they were doing when Christy told “Toby” she didn’t want to talk to him anymore, then later on she said, “Okay, I’ll do it.” Like it was a plan for them to kill Denis. But the first part when the girls were older then it went straight to them being little, it was a little confusing and I honestly think it was pointless to do so. I also don’t see why the had the movies in the sequence they had them.
I also looked up the signs on Google and found out the meanings and everything. I’m going to put up the signs through out my house and try to have some paranormal activity because it is real, but not to the extension of what the movies have. We have had some strange things happen but not anything close to in the movies. Maybe a cracked picture frame, something getting moved, or the door getting slammed, but nothing serious.
Anyway, the movie was good over all and hope there will be a fourth one (that makes sense). Thanks(:
@Braelyn
Don’t be stupid. It’s never a good idea to invite things into your house-especially if you’re unsure about what you’re doing. When you open portals to the other side anything can get in, and often it’s not something you want. And it can be really hard to get rid of them once they’re there. From the way you talk about it, it sounds like you don’t know very much about the occult, or about the practice of magic and rituals, and like you just want to do it because it’s “real” and you think it’s cool. Educate yourself first-do some research, then see how you feel about it.