S.V.V. | We Reveal The Person Behind The Mysterious ARG And Explorer Ohm Wallets Interesting Marketing Connection
Sodalitas Vulturis Volantis (SVV), the Department of Convolution (DoC) and LAMB are websites that are part of a type of Alternate Reality Game (ARG) set in the esoteric world of symbols, numerology and cryptic puzzles. I say a type because to me it seems more like a recruiting tool for some kind of cult. These puzzles are loosely based on modern western religious groups, orders, sects and cults such as Kabbalah, Alister Crowley's Thelema, Hellenism, Hermes and other occultist practices.
Ive been following these puzzles over the last few months. Not because I'm into the occult but because I was interested in who was behind it all. I was quite impressed by it's depth and complexity, and by how convoluted it was. But was soon turned off by them when I discovered SVV's planned to crowdfund a website that included hidden porn pages without telling the people funding the site. Very soon after this was discovered they quickly pulled the campaign all together. You can read more about it here.
So after a little bit of research into oldwvlf lead me to a Bulletin Board System (BBS) website run by a group or organization called The Hermetic Library, and to a profile page by Matthew Charles Moran, with the username OLD WVLF.
REDACTED
Here OLD WVLF MM (Micheal Moran) posted some documents to the Hermetic Library in December 2016, one of the pages has the SVV logo on which the Hermetic Library posted a photo of to Flickr and other Hermetic Library based blogs.
Morans classical guitar music also turns up on a few Hermetic Library blogs as well - OddOrder - Hermetic Library Anthology Album Magick Music And Ritual 12
HERMETIC LIBRARY
If we take a look at the Hermetic Library's About Page it states:
The collection is, by and large, of a spiritual focus but not the areas of spirituality that you will generally see within the mainstream of American culture. The collection at the library houses materials related to hermeticism in a broad sense.
Hermeticism, also called Hermetism, is a religious, philosophical, and esoteric tradition based primarily upon writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus ("Thrice Great"). These writings have greatly influenced the Western esoteric tradition and were considered to be of great importance during both the Renaissance and the Reformation. The tradition claims descent from a prisca theologia, a doctrine that affirms the existence of a single, true theology that is present in all religions and that was given by God to man in antiquity.
The Librarian of this library is John Griogair Bell. Looking at the 1st post on the bbs.hrmtc website we see it was posted by John Griogair Bell the Librarian. It welcomes people and explains why he set the bulletin board up etc. Looking further into JohnGriogair Bell reveals a whole host of connected websites, including Rigarora, a tech type blog that describes itself as Adventures in Geekery and Nerdy Mishegoss and created by A Technologist Lost in the Wilderness and OddOrder which is a Geekery without Gravitas – Arts & Letters & Whatevers website.
It can't be said for certain if John Griogair Bell is directly connected to SVV but he seems familiar enough with Moran to want to promote his music. John G Bell also has the technical know how to put together a network of websites like SVV, LAMB and DoC if he was involved.
OHM WALLET
The recent addition of Ohm Wallet to the SVV has been an interesting move but there have been a couple of things that haven't sat right with me. In a recent post by @wordswithnick he his giving away free Ohm Coin, totaling 10,000, for joining up to Ohm Wallet. Nick is Nick Oefinger one of the people who handles Marketing for Ohm Coin. Again in this post by @jphenderson, another employee of Ohm Wallet, is rewarding people who sign up to Ohm Wallet with 500 or 1,000 coins totaling 10,000 Ohm. It's worth mentioning no where in @jphendersons post does he disclose he actually works for Ohm wallet.
Ohm Wallet Team Roles
8- TheWalrus/Jacob Henderson- Full stack development.
9- Nick Oefinger Marketing.
Although this is a perfectly normal marketing strategy it does seem to undermine the spirit of LAMB. LAMB is the link between Ohm Coin and the SVV. It's for people that are basically to busy, stupid or lazy to participate in SVV. On the LAMB website it clearly states that doing 1 act of kindness will net you a single Ohm coin.
A single Act will be rewarded with a single coin. There is a reason for this. We would like to start by giving One Million OHM. One Million Acts of Kindness.
As of today, according to CoinMarkets.com, 1 Ohm is currently worth 0.000005500 Bitcoin = $0.02. (Please correct me if my math is wrong.)
It seems as though they are happy to give out 1000s of Ohm to people (maybe their friends?) on Steemit yet only offer a single coin to people willing to do acts of kindness for LAMB.
In conclusion I feel the SVV is a recruitment tool for some kind of enlightenment cult and Ohm Wallet didn't really think their marketing strategy through properly. In the long run, if it does take off, I can only really see the owners of Ohm Wallet making any real money from this though. The purpose of this post is to share publicly available information and to let people that want to be part of SVV and the ohm reward scheme know who's actually involved and what they're connected to.
Flagged until personal information is removed. When it is removed I can be found ion steemit.chat.
Hello @Fortified.
Your lack of faith in humanity is preventing you from accepting the possibility that some entities exist for reasons outside of self-interest and profit.
It seems you have found the Full Name, Job Title, and Blog of an Applicant. It seems you have decided to divulge this personal information to the public for your own monetary gain.
Out of respect for his privacy, we request that you remove his personal information from your post.
Regarding our partnership with OHM, it can be seen as no more complicated than this: SVV has X amount of OHM. SVV would like to give out X amount of OHM.
Thank you,
Sodalitas Vulturis Volantis
Hello Matthew the applicant.
The information was already public. You just weren't careful enough with your opsec.
You are aware things can't be deleted from Steemit. This is why I post here. As for monetary gain if you have read any of my other posts investigating your pathetic game you will notice that none of them hit even a dollar. So I think we can safely say the reason for this post wasn't financial.
The reason for this post is simple, I despise all secret societies and groups. I think they all have insidious agendas and ideas that only serve themselves. I'll be honest with you I don't like your style or arrogance. It's typical secret society mentality. You come across as someone with a god complex who thinks they're superior to everyone else.
You lost all my respect when you laughably asked for $1,000,000 for your Azoic Oak crowd funding campaign that included porn without the knowledge of your donors. Then only shutting it down once you were called out for it. One of you (JGripp or Zachariah I believe) even had the balls to try and justify it on twitter by saying something along the lines of does flesh and gold offend you?. This contradicts an email you people sent to the person who called you out saying it was the mistake of a web developer you hired from Craigs list.
Don't get me wrong I appreciate esoteric knowledge I find it pretty interesting. But one thing i can't stand are secret societies. They are born to corrupt. There is no place for them in 2017.
Regarding your partnership with OHM: They are giving away 1000s of free ohms yet you are offering 1 ohm for 1 act of kindness. They are kind of undermining your LAMB project by doing this. Like I said to the Ohm guys in this comment section I have no problem with them or their coin apart from the fact they are associated to you.
I know you are new around here so I don't expect you to know everything but flagging posts just because you don't agree with them is frowned apon. If you want to be childish about it I could post all the posts I have written about your game to the bottom of every one of your posts so new comers get a chance to see all sides of the SVV.
So I suggest you man up, take it on the chin and move on.
Hello Matthew. I responsibly made an edit to the post as someone pointed out in another comment you do do an admirable job. Just be warmed I'm in your discords and follow your twitters so if you try and pull any more shit like you did with your go fund me campaign then I'll know about it and will write about it. I don't want to be a thorn in your side but after the Azoic Oak episode I can't help but think something shady is going on with you.
If you had dug just a little deeper you would have seen that I did say that I was a member of the Ohm development team in a post about Ohm wallet only a day or so before the giveaway. I offered that from my own holdings purely to spread awareness of the project as it is something that is close to my heart which is why I also volunteer my time to its development. Nick used my post as his guideline for his giveaway which is why they have the same picture as well as the same amount of Ohm given away. When I started the give away post Ohm was only worth about $.003 so a thousand didn't seem like much but it has been enjoying great success. Ohm and the SVV are completely separate entities. We have partnered together only as far as they have chosen to use our currency to reward people for acts of kindness because we have similar goals of changing the world through positive action.
I specifically referred to the post you were handing out Ohms from as I think you should have disclosed the fact you work for them in that post. Not everyone (like myself) read all your other posts. I have no problem with Ohm wallet. Like I said in my post the only thing I had an issue with was your marketing strategy. My comment about the only real winners being the owners of Ohm Wallet is a perfectly valid point and not an attack on you or anyone involved. You wouldn't be involved if you didn't think you would make a personal profit.
I wish you luck with Ohm Wallet but personally if I was you I'd find another way to promote your Ohms.
I have flagged this post due to the mentioning of personal details including job title and place of work of someone who you have no evidence of wrong doing. Remove this information and I will be happy to remove my flag.
I haven't actually accused anyone of anything. All I've done is give my personal opinion on the SVV and their connections.
But you have basically doxxed them... That's the problem I have. You are entitled to your own opinion and as far as I am concerned it's free publicity for Ohm so I have no problem with you talking about that but putting a substance abuse counselor's (a person helping people who really need it) job details out is really unnecessary.
How could I have conducted and explained my investigation fully if I didn't include that information. Its all public info at the end of the day. Any one could find it if they knew to search for WVLF. Basically if you want to be an anonymous public figure you have to expect people will eventually reveal your identity. Happens all the time on Twitter and YouTube.
What would you suggest changing if I was to edit the post but still wanted to maintain it's integrity?
SVV has used mysticism in its materials... as well as fictional languages, such as that made up for MYST and RIVEN and the associated series of puzzle-based games. In this, it is by no means unusual among ARGs.
RE: the giveaways. If the giveaways are for friends, said friends are pretty slow; there appears to be a spot or three left open.
Perhaps, instead of making up conspiracy theories ("I'm just presenting public information... aaand fabricating accusations of fraud") you could download the wallet, and benefit yourself.
I'd say something about casting your negativity aside, and embracing OHM's message, but you're already convinced there's a cult at work, so... :D
I am a little salty (you just accused me of being part of a conspiracy to defraud people) but honestly... you're just reading too far into things. I'm a volunteer who's posted 4 articles (including this one, in which the giveaways are mentioned: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1932356.0; we added a few more after getting on Steemit).
A limited pre-mine of 6% was conducted to fund giveaways and SVV, but the two are run by entirely separate groups of people. The majority of the coins remain to be minted.
There aren't any SVV team members in the OHM Wallet team Discord chat, which is the sole location of my "position" as Marketing Director. I believe it was previously labeled as "Word Geek," or something to that effect. I appreciate the quasi-Admin status, but I'm new to the team. I came on board because of the underlying message. I wanted to be involved in something whereby I can make a positive difference in peoples' lives. I remain convinced that I have found what I'm looking for, in that respect.
The only thing that sets Ohm and SVV apart from other organizations of their respective kinds is the underlying mission: to promote acts of kindness, remove the enduring negative association attached to any kind of financial transaction, and generally spread a little positive thinking, generosity, and compassion.
While we're on the subject of that message... LAMB, in which I participate myself, along with SVV (so much for getting all my OHM through free handouts; SVV does take a lot of time). If you put some effort into an act of kindness, and you describe your intent in some detail, you'll find yourself getting a lot more than 1 OHM (frequently 100+). Of course the stated amount is low; they don't want people spamming photos they pulled off the internet in returns for thousands of coins. That said, I don't know of anyone who's only gotten 1 OHM.
Like I mentioned to your college above I have no issue with Ohm wallet. I merely stated that the only people that are really going to make any money from it is the owners/investors. Which must be true otherwise you wouldn't be promoting it for free right now. I only hinted at friends(?) because if it was a scam a fake give-a-way where you appear to be giving away free Ohm when in reality you are giving it straight back to your friends or coworkers would be a great way to get people on board without actually wasting any Ohm. It's a classic scam you can observe in any downtown market in the world. This does not mean I was implying you were committing fraud. My only other criticism was your marketing plan. It didn't really incentivize people to go out and do an act of kindness. My issue here really is the clandestine, cult like, insidious nature of SVV. Personally I feel cults and secret societies, in part, are the reason the world is as fucked up as it is now. You can guarantee that anyone in a position of power is or has been a member of some type of secret society. They are all just wrong.
Out of interest how many Ohm coins are currently in circulation?
Word.