In 2002, Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix starred in a movie that was hyped as a blockbuster. The movie was named “Signs.” The commercials on television made it look like crop circles were the type of signs “Signs” was about. Having always been a believer in signs, and having enjoyed the movie “Sixth Sense,” (directed by the same director – M. Night Shyamalan), I went to a theater to see the movie.
In my mind, the movie sucked. To say it was a disappointment would be a huge understatement. Who knows? That movie might have been what led Mel Gibson to drink AND hate Jews. It lacked so much in originality; I felt I was watching a movie that someone had spliced together, with pieces of “Night of the Living Dead,” “War of the Worlds,” and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” sewn together as the ending. “Signs” should have been filmed in black and white; and it should have skipped sit down theaters altogether. Since most drive-in theaters are now out of business (and were in 2002), and since “Mystery Science Theater 3000” has been cancelled (it was ended in 1999), “Signs” should have only been marketed to local television stations, those few still running a “Friday Night Frights” show.
Still, as bad as that movie “Signs” was, and despite crop circles still falling into the “pranksters probably did it” category, I believe in signs. The problem that I see in the failure of “Signs” to have a “wow” impact (like “Sixth Sense”) is twofold.
First, Hollywood realizes most people do believe in signs, so they purposefully manipulate that belief system. Movie producers pay big money and hire big name directors to make movies that are designed to be misleading signs. They want a product that will consciously and subconsciously influence the movie-going audience to follow the suggestions of those manufactured signs. This has become a blatant objective of the film industry, which shows how long ago the medium of film fell into the hands of manipulators, turning every movie produced (including television shows) into some form of propaganda. This can be either good (most people readily agree) or bad (most people would shudder if they knew what evil they were idolizing).
Second, the reason so many people believe in signs is they are so commonplace. They show up everyday. If one is in-tune to one’s surroundings, then one can see the future is simply a reflection of what has happened before and what is happening now. It is difficult to make a movie about ordinary signs that people would be willing to pay to watch, simply because it would be as mundane (thus boring) as watching oneself doing the same old same old.
The attraction to a movie like “Signs” was the promotion of some Midwestern farmer having fields of corn all of a sudden, mysteriously found to have designs messing up the rows (does that destroy the crop?). This is something that has actually occurred in many places, over many years of time, and is still largely unexplained, other than people confessing to have pulled a prank in the darkness. Because such admissions of trickery cannot excuse all cases (particularly in cases where the complexity of the crop circle designs appears to be beyond local imagination levels), like Bigfoot, the issue of crop circles is unresolved.
People, like me, wanted to see the movie “Signs” present a plausible explanation, even if it was not a factual explanation. An explanation gives us something to go into the future with, as a sign that something explainable happened before, is still happening, and will happen again. An explanation lets everyone who believes in signs know if it is a good sign or a bad omen.
In reality, ordinary signs do not require movies be made about them. Movies are made about the unexplained. Signs like a statue of the Virgin Mary weeping a blood-like fluid are unexplained, attracting millions of faithful to make a “pilgrimage” to snap photos of the statue. An image of Jesus being found on a half-eaten grilled cheese sandwich (left under a sofa for some petrifying amount of time) is unexplained, with bidding on eBay bringing in a sizable reward from some believer willing to pay dearly for such a “relic.” Then, there are unexplained signs like the largest wildfire in New Mexico history happening within a short period of time from the greatest earthquake and tsunami in Japanese history, along with the highest flood levels of the Mississippi River in over 100 years. The list goes on and on, with all raising the eyebrows of biblical believers, who have learned that the end of the world will be preceded by significant signs. Those signs are what brings out the paying audience.
In late 2001, after September 11, I began to realize what The Prophecies of Nostradamus meant. While it would take me years to get to much deeper levels of understanding, my initial realization (one which has never wavered) is the end of the world has been prophesied and it will happen in our lifetimes (anyone under the age of seventy, with a healthy outlook). As soon as I made that startling discovery (one which was not wholly unknown before my awareness), the events of September 11, 2001 became a HUGE SIGN that was quite ominous. It was the first major attack of war on U.S. soil.
The release of “Signs” occurred on August 8, 2002, eleven months after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In reality, the movie was announced in May 2001, more than four months prior to those events. So, the movie benefited from a terrible event that was a global sign of unrest. From my position of awareness of Nostradamus, in August 2002, I wanted to see something from Hollywood scream out the need to see our own country’s blame and fault for the sign of 911. I wanted to see the crop circles be found to be from some altruistic aliens, ones who had long been watching over our planet. I wanted those aliens to be warning the world of America’s actions leading to terrible consequences (most complex) that would require some form of interaction by “higher powers.” (Instead, I got zombie aliens.)
The television biblical evangelists did not overlook the aspect of September 11 being a HUGE SIGN. I remember watching Hal Lindsey (he wrote a book entitled, “The Late, Great Planet Earth” [1970], which I saw, but never read). He was (and still is) on some religious network, going line by line in Daniel and The Revelation. He was pointing out all the matches of scripture to our modern world. After September 11, 2001, everything around us was a sign of impending doom and great danger.
This was soon followed by the History Channel going through a similar phase of focus related to 911, so much so that it could have changed its name to the Doomsday Channel. This was because it began broadcasting every possible SIGN scenario: “The Bible Code,” “Nostradamus: 500 Years Later,” “The Mayan Prophecy,” “The Lost Book of Nostradamus,” “Nostradamus 2012,” and so on, culminating in a week of “Armageddon” programming, with an entire regular series named after Nostradamus.
If one has not been too strung out on drugs over the last score of years (a score = 20), and if one was over the age of eight in 1999, then one might recall the “Y2K” phenomena. Leading up to the advent of the year 2000, there was near mass hysteria about no one’s computer working properly come the close of the “computer” millennium (1000-1999 – a real millennium is 1001 – 2000). Hollywood went to work way back then, producing a three-part “End of the World” series, which was hosted by David McCallum (Man from U.N.C.L.E. and the still running N.C.I.S. show). That series previewed all of the prophets of doom and gloom, circa 1998-1999, which have since become the mainstay for the History Channel’s programming producers, and other cable networks selling fear as entertainment.
This too is a SIGN. To have money hungry Hollywood go all out to produce this type of show says, “The world is on alert for important signs.” The moneygrubbers attract one to watch a show, knowing they will want to see if there will be any real message about a sign they see as important. Repeatedly, the viewer only finds out how the producers have hired a director who was ordered to make an ending that is utter crap, leading only to doubt and disbelief. They have proven their purpose is to make disappointment reign, because popular shows about “signs” is a “golden goose” that keeps viewers tuning in and thus watching commercials. It would be financial suicide to produce a show showing true reason to believe the end is near, and thus reason for all viewers to stand up and shout, “Let’s go do something now!” Thus, the repeated airing of tantalizing shows that end flat leaves the viewers desensitized to any real danger. It has the effect of a cobra placing a mouse in a trance before it strikes and kills the mouse.
Just this past week, a verdict was read in a Florida courtroom, which shocked Americans. It was a verdict of “not guilty,” when polls now showed 67% of those responding to the poll believed “guilty” was the just verdict. While that verdict is still being broadcast (it seems 24/7, and never-ceasing) on cable “news” channels as “unbelievable,” for the past month each of those channels had paid “talking heads” to prepare the viewers for that “not guilty” verdict. All of those pundits had the title “Criminal Defense Attorney” below their names. Every one of them knew the trick of American justice (and I do mean, “trick”) is to get one juror (one of twelve, or 8.3%) to doubt guilt. Not to determine innocence, but to doubt guilt proven by the evidence presented. Doubt is an amazing power; it is one cable television has long cast over SIGNS.
Doubt is the new tool that acts as binding chains. A new form of slavery binds every American, especially those not economically and financially independent (I estimate over 90% of the population). It does not matter that Americans doubt our government, or that Americans doubt our judicial system; because as long as Americans doubt themselves, no one will ever do anything to right that which has gone badly wrong.
In 1973, as a 19-year-old male, I fell for the advertising campaign selling cars. The Mercury Capri was promoted as, “The Sexy European car.” That was it. I had to have one; and I had a job, so I got one. It was my dream come true, although there were signs the car was not all it was advertised to be. I ignored those signs, and enjoyed a vinyl roof with a wind-open hole for sun to shine it, a V-6 engine, and a map light. Despite all shortcomings, I loved that car and had great pride in it. Then, a bad driving decision on my part had me wreck that car. I took out a breakaway light pole, and my car was badly broke.
The people who owned the rights to replace or repair my car (my insurance company), decided to have it fixed. This follows the adage, “If it is broke, fix it,” rather than the adage, “If it is totaled, replace it.” At that time, I was only 22, which is still wet behind the ears. The car was over 3 years old, although not completely paid off. Add to that, I was filled with doubt about how to have any other solution to that problem take place, other than do as I was told by insurance agents and car shop owners.
After I was forced to wait for months for the repairs to be completed (without a replacement car), I received a car that was nothing like it had been before it broke. To make the insult greater, the repair shop did not replace a broken suspension strut. They, with the support of the insurance company, told me the car was like that before it was wrecked. That certainly was not the case, but I doubted I could make them fix my broke car again. Because of that doubt, I drove a dangerous car for about a year, frightening every passenger who ever rode in that car with me.
I finally replaced the car of my dreams. I had no other choices at that time. Circumstances demanded I look at the SIGNS – car broke bad, drive dangerous, scare friends – and act to change my surrounding. A new care operated with good signs, which meant replacing the bad ones made my life easier to deal with.
Now I may have been a fool. If so, what I did then can never be thought of as how anyone else should act under similar circumstances. If I was a fool, then everyone else is much smarter than I am. In the reality of those times, I was not financially able to afford a new car. I was 24 then, unemployed, as a student going to school. I had owned the car of my dreams, but the dream turned into a nightmare. I knew I was a fool for giving up on going to school, but I needed a new car, and that meant finding a job to pay for a new car. I did that because the old car was broke, and I was not financially independent, able to just park the broke car in the yard and go get a new car. If I was a fool, no one else should ever do what I did; and for that reason, I should never suggest to anyone that model of replacing what is broke, due to bad signs, is the way to go.
Now if I am not that fool, my personal history may be a sign for everyone to follow. Everyone may have his or her own personal history that reflects something very similar. We might all be filled with doubt, and afraid to challenge those who force a crappy life upon us. We might see the wealth of large corporations, and the agencies that feed off them, as too powerful to ever question. Even when the result is so dangerous to our lives, through the SIGNS that whistle by our heads, we do not want to change the direction our lives have taken. We are so filled with the heavy chains of doubt around our necks that we find if difficult to see any way out of our messed up lives. We have no way to make the payments on a new way of life, so we just grumble and pray to God, “God, please send me a sign telling me what to do.”
Knowing that many people have seen many signs in their lives, where the signs spoke inside their heads, telling them to act a certain way. Doubts and worry have been the repeated response, where despite that inner voice we have all refused to act as the signs have indicated. However, let us imagine what one would do if a warning sign popped up in one’s health.
High blood pressure is called the “silent killer.” It is so called because it is not something those, whose bodies are stricken with this disease, can overtly sense. Still, there are physical symptoms (a medical term for “signs”), and a doctor can read a person’s blood pressure with a cuff and machine. The reading from such a machine becomes a “sign” of a problem, if the reading is outside the normal range of blood pressure. Imagine if one has a symptom and goes to the doctor, having tests conducted. Imagine the doctor says, “You have cancer.” What does one do then? Does one ignore the signs and warnings, or does one take action to replace (of fix) something that has broken within the body?
Again, the financial circumstance of the individual is what makes such life-changing decisions easier. When one is enslaved by economic woes, one can doubt if living with massive debt is better than dying from a broken system. The systems of the human body are reflections of the systems of the national body; and on the larger scale, the world body is a reflection of the health of national bodies. When doubt rules over the people, then the system is broken. This is then because the system has trained the people to be reluctant to change or replace the system.
We have a society so filled with doubt that we can no longer count on twelve people being chosen from a random pool (of poor people, those who could not get out of jury duty) who were free of doubt to begin with. We have more and more states doubting a concept that has been a fixture for millennia (marriage). As a result, states have changed the laws to match that doubt. We have the concepts of “Freedom of Religion” mutated into “freedom from the religious,” so the cornerstone of American Law (the Ten Commandments) has been attempted to be stripped away. This is because there is some minority of people who A.) Do not believe in religion (primarily atheists), or B.) Do not believe in the majority religion of the nation (primarily Jews and Muslims). One of those laws is (I am paraphrasing here), “Thou shalt not kill thy baby, not report it, then lie when caught.” All of this signals changes that are HUGE SIGNS that the End Times are upon us; but we are too filled with doubt to realize it.
I guess it is time to watch television shows that idolize Americans, rather than watch shows that tell us there is danger about that cannot be proven to be real. I guess it is time to give kudos to the History Channel for making us so limp from doubt that they can now move onto programming entitled “Modern Marvels.” We have been stripped of all our clothing of faith, and we stand naked trembling with doubt. Only the chains that enslave us to doubt drape around our necks for warmth. This has all come about because we are afraid to act on the SIGNS, because a fearful citizen is a compliant citizen.