Continued from: A Different Da Vinci Code

mizheloise:

Been checking out A Different da Vinci Code from the DaVinci Code Reader's Guide as background for a project. I think I see at least some of what Professor Nemo says is hidden in plain sight. He says to look for signs of Jesus-John conflict if DaVinci was actually a Johannite Gnostic. If so, DaVinci would have been promoting the cult of John the Baptist instead of pushing the Mary Magdalen connection as claimed in the DaVinci Code.

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Well...baby Jesus seems to be giving baby John a familiar arm over arm gesture of disrespect but adapted amazingly to blend in with the design. I know that this gesture is well known in Italy, and like the figa on the symbols page, represents the inserted penis. But here's the strange part. The closer I look, the more baby Jesus' outstretched arm actually looks like the penis it's supposed to represent by the gesture. Do you know if this arm over arm symbol has a name? Anyone else see what I see?

I noticed that as well - you're referring to a very popular gesture called the Italian arm salute or gesto dell'ombrello. Being so overstated, it probably goes back a long way in cultural history. The typical version has one arm extended with a fist, and the other over the elbow as if hanging an umbrella handle on it.

Variations include arm over wrist, and even over the shoulder to suggest the really big insult. It is frequently accompanied by a ubiquitous Italian epithet recently in the news since it was uttered in church by Justice Antonin Scalia, referring to his honor's detractors.

The work of art by Leonardo da Vinci which is featured in the article is also known as the Burlington House Cartoon. It was drawn by Leonardo right after he completed the Last Supper and has long been considered puzzling and controversial by art historians. As we have all learned, it's hard to figure out the mind of Leonardo, and he did create various sketches which included sexual anatomy.

I tried to get some more feedback from Professor Nemo, but all he would add was..."As Leonardo might have said, 'Chi cerca trova' or seek and you shall find. Leonardo never stopped seeking and neither should we."

Way awesome MizH! After 500 years Mr. Leo gets the last say and last laugh from beyond…might be smiling right now and wondering how either side…money mad print mongers or pompous prelates, will ever manage to DECODE THIS!

BTW anyone notice that the androgyne known as Baphomet/Sophia, and associated with the Templars is typically depicted by occultists as giving the full "John Gesture" with one arm up and one down ("As above, so below" according to Prof. Nemo).

WHY???...Denoting prophesy? Looking for Jesus? Empty Cross? Can't mean any of that here…guess again art experts!..or ask a Hermeticist to explain this totally occult gesture. And how could you all have missed it from the up-pointing Mercury/Hermes himself?

And then there's those "Holy Saints John of Jerusalem" so revered in Masonry. I dug a little and found that in the Johannite cult, John the Disciple, yes…the sleepy effeminate John of Renaissance art may represent the feminine aspect of a masculine John the Baptist who completes what the Beloved Apostle began. For possibly gay and definitely X-RATED Leonardo, working in a city (Florence) synonymous with sodomy and enchanted with Hermeticism and Alchemy, these female-male aspects of John might come together most conveniently in the symbol of the androgyne Hermes/Sophia who actually may represent both Holy Saints John at Leonardo's Last Supper. Mr. Leo's very Bacchic John the Baptist (Angel in the Flesh with strategic obfuscation) seems to tell the same story…Hermetic Androgynes rule in Mr. Leo's world and may even have a thing or two to tell the guys down at the Lodge.

Many of us need to check out all the artwork again. Something religious is obviously going on here, and it isn't just "Saint Leonardo" preaching the Gospel with an Italian arm salute thrown in to make his hometown buddies smile.

Alternative Religions:

The Bacchic JTB wasn't limited to just Leo, either, although art historians seem to go out of their way to impress upon us that it was a result of overpainting and not 'intent.' But I've seen one after another with the same attributes, including several renaissance-era versions with reclining, hermaphrodite Johns wrapped in Ivy. I can only guess at what the artists meant by them (JTB/Bacchus as spiritual tradition, and JTA as revelation?), but the Masonic Johns do make an interesting connection.

Durer , for example, throws hints about solar imagery in his paintings, with eclipses and solar calendar-crosses, which are another hint to the esoteric meaning of the Johns. Botticelli's paints 'truth' as a hermaphrodite, just like his "Venus."

In a sense, it's all very 'obvious,' but it will never be definitively settled in the public mind because everyone wants miracles, treasure, scandal. The best mysteries defy all attempts at rational or mechanical explanation, because they require a deeper understanding.

It's the symbols that have always been important, from scripture on to Leonardo's philosophy in paint...but the public mind abhors an unanswered question, so that which offers the most emotional satisfaction tends to win. Catholic feminists, for example, look at for hints that Mary Magdalen was the bride of the savior, to elevate the role of women in the religion, but the real mystery of the bridegroom is overlooked; it has no simple, psychologically comforting answer. (Not to pick on the catholic gals, there are also the sacred-bloodline, and all those folks with their stone grails, etc. ad nauseum)

mizheloise:

Thanks to all for your info and comments. I've heard that plenty of other x-rated material by this artist has been lost or purposely destroyed, and some clumsy prude even tried to erase the bizkit off the "Angel in the Flesh." I agree that Leonardo da Vinci was obviously not the pious plaster saint we've been treated to by the Church and the clueless "experts." If he were around today he'd probably be drawing hemisected sketches of the Popcorn Trick. But I'm actually more interested in the bigger picture from all this, and I've been finding out all kinds of new stuff since I started this Forum topic.

The Da Vinci Code got everyone thinking, no wonder this incredible man of mystery still rocks our world. But I just saw a new TV special exploring Sir Isaac Newton's fascination with Alchemy. Wow! Perhaps help is on the way, and we will finally be able to see our old world with new eyes instead of ignoring what had to be hidden from fear of persecution. I wonder too if those guys mentioned in the comment about the Masonic Lodge know that Hermes is the same name as Hiram? That outrageously sexy alchemical androgyne does seem to connect to everything, and even makes me wonder if those male and female aspects of the two Saints John aren't the secret identity of the two riders on Beauseant, the Templar's piebald horse. What a perfect battle flag, a secret Baphomet (denoting an even more deeply hidden Sophia); one that they might be honored and inspired to follow if they really were Johannite warriors riding on to glory and death.

Here's another curious thought about the Hermetic/Atlantean connection: Thirty five hundred years ago Santorini blew up ending the remarkable Minoan (Atlantean?) civilization with its surprising technology. Might the same tsunami and ash which entombed an island as far away as Crete, have also vacated important coastal real estate on mainland Greece as well? Might the now super occult mythic kingdom of Arcadia (Peloponnesus) have subsequently been dominated by newly empowered non-Minoan "Sea peoples" (Phoenicians blended with Danites?) with stories of a fabulous lost kingdom to tell. This general area including Sparta was later reclaimed as their ancestral possession by the "descendants of Herakles" in the Dorian Invasion. A hero of superhuman strength, Herakles (known as Hercules in Rome and in Tinseltown) greatly resembled Samson from the Tribe of Dan in personality and character, and also tended to do everything in a very big way. Heracles impregnated fifty royal maidens, possibly in a single night…kind of a Princesses Gone Wild thing!…Sounds as lustfully extravagant to me as Samson's hapless obsession with Delilah. Even more curious, might this legend also represent a more down to earth alternative for the spot where the "Sons of God beheld the daughters of men," setting the stage for the miracle that was ancient Greece? Both Samson and Herakles killed a lion with their bare hands, and both were temporarily deprived of their hair during their adventuresome lives. Just coincidence…or variations on a theme?

If anyone needs to talk about this or other ideas from the Different DVC, they might want to start a new topic. There's obviously much more to learn about this incredible stream of hidden culture that connects so much of history, science, art, and spirituality with those fascinating tales of a lost world. Hermeticism was a new hope of intellectual freedom for Renaissance artists. Sir Isaac Newton and many other notable thinkers also explored all the same possibilities as Leonardo da Vinci...and there are endless possibilities involving symbols and meanings throughout this tradition, as I'm beginning to find out. Appreciate your Forum help.

Ponderlust :

Following on the recent Forum discussion of Leonardo's mischievous ("x-rated") use of visual representations, I think we can easily see another sly Hermetic message hidden in plain sight in the Louvre's version of his Virgin of the Rocks. The article tells us that these coded messages can be something of a sneering joke, and this one certainly seems to be just that. Here, the Virgin Mary is giving us the identical "As Below" gesture that we see Aristotle using in Raphael's School of Athens. And it's right over the head of the infant Jesus!

At the same instant, we see an unmistakably androgyne representation of the Archangel Uriel, quite archly glancing backward at us. Art historians love to tell us effeminacy was all the rage, but their silence is deafening as to why this is so. If the answer for Leonardo includes Hermeticism, this figure is clearly the all-important Hermetic Angel stand-in, the character who usually delivers the message. True to form, Uriel is giving us the "As Above" pointing finger sign. The joke here is that the finger is pointing right at the infant John the Baptist!

These two hand gestures form a compositional juxtaposition that immediately draws our eyes. If Leonardo just happened to also be a Johannite believer who used and adapted this Hermetic iconography, the message would be inescapable that John the Baptist is above or greater than Jesus (As above: So below). If, in addition, the alchemical Androgyne happens to introduce some aspect of Mary Magdalene as it may in the Last Supper, perhaps we need to check out the Johannite viewpoint on who or what she represented in this unusual, important, and decidedly patriarchal movement that apparently influenced so many others. Perhaps the Different da Vinci Code suggests a different Mary Magdalene as well.

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Related Resources:

• The Da Vinci Code
• Hermeticism, Alchemy, and Rosicrucianism
• The Emerald Tablet
• Hermes Trismegistos