Jason Voorhees, An Imagined History

Friday the 13th has become a date on our calendars that symbolizes dread and bad luck. Pre-80s, it was viewed simply as a day to check your superstitions. A lucky rabbit's foot was given a bit more attention on this day, cracks in sidewalks were avoided as were black cats, ladders and a host of other 'unlucky' things. We just didn't want to run the risk of adding Friday the 13th into the mix, just in case the superstitions were true.

Then on May 9th, 1980, on Friday the 13th naturally, the film that launched a million imitations and spawned the most enduring horror villain, hit the screens. The dreaded calendar day became more associated with the movie and as the franchise evolved, Jason Voorhees came to personify the day.

What most people don't know or remember is that in Friday the 13th got it's reputation because that was the date chosen by King Philip the IV of France to round up and exterminate the Knights Templars, wherever they could be found, the year was 1312. Depending on whose history you read, the general belief is that King Philip used the opportunity to accuse the Templars of heresy and abscond with their abundant wealth and in the process eliminate the great financial debt he had incurred with the Knights.

Working with King Phillip was Pope Clement who condemned the order and brought it to an end after two centures of service. In his declaration, he said,

In view of the suspicion, infamy, loud insinuations and other things which have been brought against the order and also the secret and clandestine reception of the brothers of this order; in view moreover of the serious scandal which has arisen from these things, which it did not seem could be stopped while the order remained in being, and the danger to faith and souls, and the many horrible things which have been done by very many of the brothers of this order, who have lapsed into sin of wicked apostasy, the crime of detestable idolatry and the execrable outrage of the sodomites, it is not without bitterness and sadness of heart that we abolish the aforesaid Order of the Temple .

It is difficult to understand the motives of the church completely because there was jealousy over the power and weath that the Templars had built up over the past two centuries. And there are stories of secret knowledge that they had obtained from relics that were rumoured to have been taken from King Solomon's Temple. Add the above mentioned quote which hints at the supposed depravity of the Templars which they practiced behind closed doors and there you have a way out of a situation where power can be regained--blame the Templars of being goat-ass kissers and heretics!

The Occult Nature of Hollywood

Now Jason Voorhees is a far cry from representing a Templar, but what strikes me is the nature of Hollywood and their penchant for injecting secret meanings, predictive programming and how they rewrite history to align with their own agenda. This is a much bigger conversation and my point here is really just about seeing the visual language presented to us with wider eyes and to comprehend their messages with a deeper understanding.

Maybe it's nothing, and it proably is nothing but, it doesn't mean that there aren't many other examples of under-handed messages that are being fed to us, so that's why I always think twice and wonder.

A Coincidence?

In writing this, I discovered an interesting thing, on May 8th, 1981, the movie The Burning was released. One year to the day after F13. This carbon copy film shares the same premise, kids at camp are killed and terrorized by a psycho. But the psycho in this film was burned and is now getting revenge. And how were most of the Templars killed? They were burned!

Some will call it a stretch of the imagination, but I see symbolism everywhere and it often has a much deeper meaning than we give it credit for. What do you think? What movies fall into this category of programming that you can think of? There are many!

See you next time, @tacostate

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