Written by Andrew K. Arnett
Recently, during a 24 hour period, I experienced a number of notable synchronicities. This began immediately after I submitted an article to the editors at New Dawn magazine for publication. The article, titled Kubrick and the Sorcery of 9/11, deals with matters pertaining to predictive programming as it may be found in films by Stanley Kubrick including The Shining and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
It was a substantial think piece, clocking in at 3k words, and I figured I was done with the business, not once and for all but enough for me to grab a coffee and stroll along the waterfront for a breather. Not so fast. A thought popped into my head like a wasp into a sleeping bag. It regarded the axe seen in Danny Torrance’s vision of the murdered twins in the movie The Shining. This was the same axe used by Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) to kill Dick Hallorann (Scatman Crothers) and knock down the bathroom door to utter the iconic, “Here’s Johnny.”
After having made a symbolic connection between The Shining and the horrific attacks on 9/11 in my article, the axe jumped to the forefront of my consideration. I determined the instrument was not a random weapon after all. Suffice to say, there is not much that is “random” in a Kubrick multi-verse. The connection here regards the tool’s reference to 9/11, specifically to firemen. I had to verify this for myself and sure enough, it turns out this type of axe is the same one used by firemen—a unique and highly specialized axe, known as the pick-head axe, designed for forcible entry and rescue operations. This is distinguishable from standard wood-chopping axes as they use hardened materials and distinct geometries for emergency situations.
The role of firemen in the World Trade Center disaster cannot be overestimated as their courage was unquestioned and their sacrifices enormous—the FDNY lost 343 members on 9/11.
The next morning, after waking from some vaguely disturbing dreams, I opened the internet as one would do and there, on Google news, was an article announcing that Stanley Kubrick’s archive, including the axe used in The Shining, was going up for auction at Bonham’s in London after a brief display in Los Angeles and New York. Another item on the auction block was the 27-inch fiberglass “Star Baby” used in the finale of 2001:A Space Odyssey. According to the article, the axe is expected to fetch up to $66,000 and the Star Baby a whopping $1.1 million.
The timing of the event was enough to bowl me over but the numbers “66” and “11” made the hairs on my arms tingle with occult trepidation.
As luck would have it, I returned to New York just in time to visit Bonham’s midtown Manhattan display of the Kubrick archive, there for a one week showing. I diligently attended the exhibit and saw items up for auction include Kubrick’s director’s chair, personal chess board and the cloak used in the orgy scene in Eyes Wide Shut (my Halloween costume choice fulfilled but for want of a cool million).
Ceremonial magician and co-founder of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, William Wynn Westcott explored the occult attributes of numbers in his book, Numbers: Their Occult Powers and Mystic Virtue. He writes:
“Upon the Number Eleven. This seems to have been the type of number with a evil reputation among all peoples. The Kabbalists contrasted it with the perfection of the Decad, and just as the Sephirotic number is the form of all good things, so eleven is the essence of all that is sinful, harmful and imperfect; with the Ten Sephiroth they contrasted the Eleven Averse Sephiroth, symbols of destruction, violence, defeat, and death.”
Crowley in turn, adopted the exact occult view of the number as outlined by Westcott—that 11 was the demonic signature of the chaotic Qliphoth—and inverted it to signify the supreme number of Magick and the central figure in the mathematical formula of Thelema, his religion for the New Aeon.
In addition, Crowley added a “K” to the word “Magick” as “K” is the eleventh letter in the English alphabet. There are eleven words and eleven syllables in his motto “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” We as a planet have just entered into the Age of Aquarius, ruled by the sign Aquarius which is the eleventh sign of the zodiac.
In Magick In Theory and Practice, Crowley writes:
“Firstly”, 11 is the number of Magick in itself. It is therefore suitable to all types of operation. “Secondly”, it is the sacred number par excellence of the new Aeon. As it is written in the Book of the Law: “…11, as all their numbers who are of us.” “Thirdly”, it is the number of the letters of the word ABRAHADABRA, which is the word of the New Aeon.”
As I discuss in my New Dawn article, the Twin Towers themselves are physical representations of the number 11. They are two “ones” standing side by side. As well, each of the Towers are 110 stories tall. Now, it just so happens that The Shining is Kubrick’s eleventh film. It is, in effect, an homage to this numerical twin. Indeed, the image of the double is near and dear to Kubrick. Beginning with the Game Room scene, we are first introduced to the Grady Twins. The Twins are arguably the most iconic image in the Kubrick oeuvre, if not the entirety of the horror genre. Whether the Twins are ghosts, visions or something else, Danny Torrance perceives them with his psychic ability referred to as the “shining.”
Kubrick made a very deliberate choice to have identical twins in his movie, as Stephen King’s novel of the same name identifies the two girls as sisters who are six and eight years old. He even contradicts his own story, as earlier in the film, hotel manager Stuart Ullman explicitly states that the girls were “about eight and ten.”
Not only are they twins, they are standing next to each other in a rigid fashion and turn together as one. They are dressed exactly alike from head to toe. They are mirror images of each and so, you might say their “doubleness” is doubled. An instant after Danny sees them standing side by side, he sees them lying in a heap on the blood splattered floor. A fireman’s axe lies on the floor beside them. In Calcified Lies’ remarkable article “The Skeleton Key: 9/11 and the Millennium Monolith,” the Grady Twins are meant to symbolize the Twin Towers. The fact that the storyline has the Twins murdered by their own father, equates to the common assumption that 9/11 itself was an “inside job.”
I go deeper into this analysis in the new issue of New Dawn magazine.
Andrew K. Arnett is a writer for New Dawn Magazine and author of the novelThe Crowley Conspiracy published by Alien Buddha Press availableatAmazon. In his spare time he hunts ghosts with the Brooklyn Paranormal Society.
Find Andrew Arnett on X @AndrewArnett
