Confidential! The History and Symbology of the Sea Org Coat of Arms

@Wolfbane~ Last night I came across this very good, and also quite long, study that covers many of the subjects brought up here, not sure if its been put up already, and I am unsure who the author is, good writing though! It'd be nice if someone knows, it certainly ties together a load of stuff.


http://www.lightofthegreatfire.com/light of the great fire.htm

Just visually, I like the laurel wreaths. They are used everywhere, prior to this icon.

There is nothing esoteric whatsoever in made-up shit (which Hubbard has direct provable lineage from).

Also, Blavatsky and Theosophy, and even Anthroposophy talked of their own version of a "homo novis".

Sorry posted too soon:

The upright triagngle is a symbol of masculinity (yang)

The downward pointing triangle symbolizes the feminine (yin)

Contrast the scientology triangles with the western form of the yin-yang symbol: the mogen david or 'star of David' (also the earth hexagram, symbolizing both elements in balance to create matter).


IMO, it just reinforces the impression of him one gets from his 'confessions' of a wanna be he-man who can't get it up.

True dat. However, such sentiments predate theosophy by centuries, at least. Look at the hebrew scriptures that have the first born male children of gentiles being slaughtered, or that weird bit about choosing men for the army who drank from their hands and not directly from the stream.

Religions need a 'them', because otherwise 'us' would not be the chosen saved by belief, or avoiding shellfish, or what ever behaviours are selected to set one apart.

OK, here goes. I'm starting with the seagull symbol since I see that as the most significant portion of the Sea Org crest and as such I spent my entire afternoon digging into this piece of it.

Gulls in genres of mythology/new-age are fairly uncommon except for a couple of areas:

• Native American indian stuff where the most prevalence of emphasis on it exists.
• Greek bird divination, the Greeks were really the only ones who see didn't the gull as a dirty scavenger and put a totally positive spin on it as a symbol.
• Alchemy, and the "age of enlightenment" in the early 19th century that absorbed Alchemy into their beliefs where the segull was typically referred to under it's alternate name - the albatross (ding ding ding, figures Marty chose the albatross as his page header symbol being a died in the wool Sea Ogre)

What the Sea Org crest symbology says about the seagull on pg6 of PDF version:

Here's the generic mythology/new-age symbolism definition that comes up in several of my other offline references with my sauce notes added in brackets and emphasis added for the bits I found interesting. From: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/bird-symbolism-and-their-meanings.html

From the introduction on that same buzzle article re: bird symbols in general:

^^Emphasized bit should be qualified as "classic Greek mythology/mysticism" and not so much in the new age mystical spectrum.

But when you factor in Hubbard's fascination with ancient Greek mythology sources (Diana, Apollo, and some of his word etymologies) it is interesting to note that the Greek mythology spin is only reflected in a very MINOR way.

So they could have easily stuck with the Greek spin, retread the "freedom" theme and been right on target with other shit they already used. But no. They just had to get into the "white bird = spirit ascending" spin that is uncomfortably close to the white dove = holy ghost symbolism of Christianity.

(More on the symbolism related to seagulls from the other new age genres coming in my next post. This is just my basic starting point.)

Thanks for the link!

Anyone can mock up a coat of arms and ascribe their own meanings to 'em, if i'm not mistaken fancy-schmancy royalty ones have rules to follow. I googled 'Sea Org coat of arms' Images and it pulled up a vast variety of examples of various ones from all over the world throughout history, some are pretty cool, others not so much, some are just plain ugly. *shrugz*

If you are interested in this subject from a neutral, Humanistic world view, you might enjoy the works of Joseph Campbell and Jung.

Everybody always wants to jump on the ZOMG-Crowley angle, so Thelema would be the obvious choice. But in my studies, Hubbard was too damn careful to NOT go there. there is the vaguest derivative whiff here and there, but nothing to really hang a noose on.

And remember - Crowley, stole from Blavatsky first. When she died, he co-opted her claim to magickal fame by declaring himself her successor. Just like Nibs claimed Hubbard did with Crowley, except nobody could back up Nibs claim where as Crowley's co-opting of Blavatsky as her successor was known/promoted far and wide as the #1 way to legitimize him once he got kicked out / run off from Golden Dawn lodges.

that is true.

Been there, done that. Not a damn thing to be found in Jung's Red Book, nor in Campbell's Power of Myth & Myths of Light Eastern Metaphors books, related specifically to seagulls to be found. Like I noted, I started with what I seen as the most significant part and gave it the most attention.... in order to get a feel for where the heart of symbolism rip-off came from on this so it would save me time later on searching everything.

Of course. It was one of the original symbols of Apollo, who was later conflated with Helios to represent the sun. And he was the direct counterpoint of Artemis, tied to the moon and the feminine etc etc etc. The sun has almost always been taken as masculine, just like the moon has almost always been taken as feminine.

You might be giving him too much credit there. The albatross in literature was traditionally a sign of good luck and good news (that is, an ally)...until you wronged it and it fucked your shit up. I could see a prominent Indie taking that as symbolic of their own relationship to CoS Int.

Diana's a Roman goddess, not Greek. Hubbard couldn't even get that right.

True... Diana, Artemis - same difference. But the Diana version conveniently sounded like Dianetics.

http://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2010/05/27/abolish-the-ias/

OK continuing on with seagull symbolism - there are "animal totems" in Spiritualism that get divided into air, water, fire and earth. Traditionally, the seagull is unique in that it is one of the few/only bird totems that gets credited with being both earth & air.

Similarly, Native America mythology, Paganism and Wicca beliefs have the same woo but they usually call it "animal spirit guides" rather than totems.

So again, for ease of at-a-glance comparison sake here is what the Sea Org crest symbology says on the seagull:

This is the standard Animal Totem spin on seagulls that multiple sources spell out pretty much the same way as this link no matter where you find it. From http://www.starstuffs.com/animal_totems/dictionary_of_birds.html

Other notable stuff on Air (bird) Animal Totems in general. From: http://www.whats-your-sign.com/air-animal-totems.html

Native American Spirit Guides - the seagull meaning. From:http://www.drstandley.com/animalmedicine_seagull.shtml

The Albatross as Animal Spirit Guide - the Paganism/Wicca vein. From: http://miraclesnmagic.wordpress.com/animal-spirit-guides/

Backstory - what exactly is "spirit guides" and where does this new age spiel on what was originally Native American shaman beliefs come from? Blavatsky & her communicating with Ascended Master crap, which got dumbed down into Spiritualism in the broader sense once that genre of woo branched out beyond just mediums who spoke to the dead. From: http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/divination/p/Spirit_Guides.htm

YMMV, But it is creepy as hell Hubbard picked the seagull to represent the Sea Org if you ask me.

(More stuff on the rest of the symbolism correlations I could find in the crest coming tmo.)

http://megaritual.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/419/

Nice find on Ziff history. Thanks. "The End is Not Yet" short story, is one I have not seen. But I would very much like to have a look at that after this mention.

You may be giving Hubbard too much credit. He was popping pinks and greys and said "What am I going to use as a symbol for the sea org, it has to be just perfect...oh look a bird, hey, that's a Sea bird. A sea bird for the sea org, Perfect"

Not really. The Roman gods were often not direct clones of the Greek ones. Look at Mars, for instance. Ares was...not very popular to the Greeks. He represented many things they disapproved of. Yet to the Romans, Mars is the epitome of masculinity, the beacon of their entire civilization and the mythological parent of their founder.

As for Diana in particular, she was a Roman harvest and fertility goddess. Only much, much later did the Romans add aspects of Artemis to her. She was associated with plants and reproduction and food. Not hunting, and certainly not virginity. In fact, to the Romans she had a consort, which was very very much not the case with Artemis.

</more information than you actually needed to know>

And of course NONE of these had anything the fuck to do with boats.

No. It has no direct connection to this subject at all. IMO, it is just a more enlightened, humanistic and diverse world view. Those were two true intellectuals, who were great thinkers.
(an alternative, perhaps to this bullshit.)

As for the Albatross imagery, this is the best poem.
"Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner" I had to study this in school. LOL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rime_of_the_Ancient_Mariner

Understood. Which is why I ruled that stuff out first... but I wanted to make it clear ITT that there is no legit scholarly angle to the symbolism found on the crest. Just like Six proved there was no legit Heraldy angle.

So if it was indeed ripped-off from other woo, and personally I think it was, it was most definitely bullshit woo they stole from.

Look, I think we can agree that this made up.

<gosh, i cannot type today. sorry.>

Maybe they were Gooney Birds?

Gooney Bird TR drills:

For the love of Zeus, whatever you do, don't listen to this.
It's not a virus, it's worse than that. You can wipe a virus.

You will never wipe this song from your mind.

No amount of therapy, shock treatment, drugs or lobotomy
will ever erase this song from your mind. Do not listen.

Singalong, with feeling now...

We all live only to die

In our ships out in the sky

Warriors for a cause more than life

Duty, honor won in strife

We all live only to die

In our ships out in the sky

We are loyal, brave and true

There is nothing we dare not do

We all die only to live

Freedom, justice is ours to give

Stars and laurels for the bold

We come back. Galactic Patrol

So to the stars we go

Thru the space we know

For you

Stars and laurels for the bold

(We all live only to die)

We come back

(We all die only to live)

Galac Patrol

(In our ships out in the sky

In our ships out in the free sky)

In our ships out in the free sky

Galac Patra!

http://www.freezone.org/cbr/gpmsong.htm

I see tits!

I don't care. I'm still free.
You can't take the sky from me.

Browncoats!