The Three Little Horses of the Apocalypse (Part 2)

I received several emails about my previous post regarding the CIA’s involvement with children’s literature during the 1950s and 1960s, particularly in reference to “Three Little Horses” by Piet Worm. I had never heard of the book, but apparently it was a very popular children’s book during that era—which makes the story even more disturbing.

The book is still in print, and I recently obtained a copy of the book through Amazon, from which I scanned the illustrations you see here.

Based on the CIA’s memo, my initial assumption was that the book (subtitled “Blackie, Brownie, and Whitey”) was intended as an indoctrination tool in an era when racial politics were coming into the mainstream. Please understand that by no means do I think the book had the power to turn children into little Manchurian Candidates. But it was one of many, many pieces of propaganda produced by the security apparatus of that time.

Here are selected lines of dialog from and description of each of the three horses. You tell me if you see a theme here:

Then Whitey, who was always the cleverest of the three, cried out excitedly: “I know what we should do!” (pages 8-9)

“Don’t be so scared,” cried Whitey. (page 9)

They trotted around the field, and then they took turns jumping over the chair. One …... Whitey sailed over the chair with ease. Two …… Blackie sailed over, but not so easily. Three …… What happened then? Brownie kicked over the chair and knocked it over! (page 12)

“Oh let’s go down there!” cried Whitey. Blackie looked a little doubtful. (pages 27-28)

Then Peter taught them to walk on their hind legs, for now that they were princesses they must walk on two legs instead of four. Whitey and Blackie learned quickly, but Brownie was more awkward. “Let’s not go into the town after all,” Brownie said in despair. (page 35)

These racial overtones aren’t the only evidence of dark arts in the book. There are some indications the Dutch author of the book, whose pseudonym is “Piet Worm,” collaborated with the Nazis in Amsterdam during the Second World War.

And amazingly enough, “Piet Worm” is a Dutch anagram for “Primo Wet”—“First Law” in the English. As any student of secret societies will tell you, “First Law” is a motto used by the Masons to indicate they considered themselves the Elite, beholden to no government or institution on Earth.

A couple of other quick notes from my initial reading of “Three Little Horses.” I’m not trying to paint a grand conspiracy theory here, only to note that the book is filled with the black humor and inside jokes so common among the puppet masters.

In one scene, Peter (who is a stand-in for the author) hides inside a fruit tree with a hidden door, and then surprises the three little horses by speaking to them from the tree. That’s a Garden of Eden reference—the Creator “hiding” in the Tree of Life—and another indication of the Elite’s conception of itself as godly, above the world.

There's also a masquerade straight out of "Eyes Wide Shut," a discussion of horse meat being sold at a butcher shop, and a prison scene that--I don't know--seems a little jarring for the target demographic (see the illustration at the top of this entry).

And I’ll leave you with a final wink from the “author.” As "Piet" says, I do hope you like it.

Opposite the dedication page is a simple, unexplained illustration of a honeybee, yet no honeybees appear in the story's text or illustrations. For what it's worth, the honeybee has been the calling card of the Cathars and Weavers for almost 1,000 years.

Little Black Ops

Facing up to 55 years in prison, "D.C. Madam" Deborah Jeane Palfrey apparently killed herself today.

It's not the first suicide in this case. Brandy Britton died earlier this year, allegedly hanging herself two days before her trial was to begin. To say the least, it's curious. Even if convicted of the four prostitution counts she was facing, Britton would probably have faced no jail time.

And then there's this. In her final weeks, Britton claimed "they were tapping her phones and bugging her home."

So who's "they"? Let's just say I think you could have found them under "W" in Palfrey's little black book.

The Three Little Horses of the Apocalypse (Part 1)

If it’s forgotten, it doesn’t need to stay hidden. That’s the institutional philosophy of every secret society and police state. Leaders come and go, spooks appear and disappear, but the gears keep grinding.

While bloggers pursue the latest cloak-and-dagger whodunit--the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko--the vetted, researched, signed-sealed-and-delivered poisoning of American citizens by their government is shrugged off like the tissue-thin memory of a childhood bedtime story.

Speaking of bedtime stories, did your mother read you the one about race war? How about the one about accepting your place in bread line—even if it’s all the way in the back?

The CIA’s recent data dump of details from its operations in the 1950s and 1960s contained the startling (to me, anyway—but then again, I’m sensitive) revelation that the agency was involved in contracting and producing children’s literature during that era. According to one memo, the effort was started to “provide a counterbalance to the individuistic school of children’s publishing, including Dr. Seuss et al, now in fashion.” Individuistic [sic] in this case meaning something close to “free-thinking.”

Presumably, we’re not to be bothered by this because it happened 40 or 50 years ago, and there’s been some turnover at the Company.

Two of the books cited in the CIA release are “The Story of Zachary Zween” by Mabel Watts and “Three Little Horses” by Piet Worm. Naturally, you can find them on eBay if you’re interested in digging a little deeper.

The CIA’s penchant for black comedy is readily apparent in “Zachary Zween,” the tale of the unfortunately named schoolboy who is “angry at the alphabet” because he always comes last. Who comes first in this tale? Why, it’s Albert Ames. Ring a bell?

If so, it’s probably because you recall the name Aldrich Ames, the so-called “most damaging mole in CIA history,” who began working for the CIA in 1962 in a low-level job involving “education outreach.” (His status as a traitor, of course, is a whole other story.)

The CIA’s record release doesn’t confirm it, but there’s ample reason to believe Aldrich Ames dropped his name into one of his first projects as an Easter egg, or little inside joke.

Regardless, I leave you to consider the implicit message of a children’s book whose moral is “good things come last” (with Masonic flags flying in the background) and whose hero promises “no longer will I get upset, or angry at the alphabet.”

There's more bedtime reading to come in Part 2, where you'll meet the three little horses: Blackie, Brownie, and Whitey. Guess who gets the best lines.

Recipe for a Conspiracy

1) Measure out one recycled provocation--"Sonny Bono Was Murdered"--by "former FBI agent."

2) Mix with supermarket tabloid whose offices were targeted in 2001 anthrax attacks.

3) Trim details that former agent is chronic (and contract) conspiracist who's pushing 80 and retired from FBI nearly 30 years ago.

4) Sprinkle story in non-tabloid, non-U.S. press.

5) Bake for one news cycle until giant game of telephone called the Internet cooks up a better headline: "Hitmen 'clubbed' Sonny Bono to death, FBI claims."

6) Dig up Sonny's body. Test for anthrax.

7) Serves millions.

I'm Hungry

The Colonel is a mack daddy. The Colonel pimps white women and black women. He got started -- you didn't notice him 'til he brought out those big-chested white women with their tight t-shirts and their short pants. That's what a pimp does.

A Little Death

It's a new pack. Everything about it feels good. I twist the ribbon off, the motion of wrapping line around a lure, pull at the cellophane, then crack open the oyster.

I tear the foil away carefully, as if other hands folded it like origami. The round white heads look like a choir waiting for their cue. The first one out always resists. It gets squeezed a little.

I flick the lighter, seeing sparkles in the flame, hearing them, then listening to the flow of gas. The lighter is in my right hand, the cigarette in my left. It begins like this, then I switch.

A quarter drag gets the cigarette lit--each still a shock to the system--then a quick exhale and the full drag. If you don't smoke, think of it like a deep breath of air on a late December day, a gentle burn, a little death.

Bulls, Bears, and Panthers

Is 'bear market' the right name for this? Bears aren't so fast. I'd call it a panther market--you don't even have time to be scared.

Not much else to say about the Bear Stearns bailout that you won't read on a thousand other blogs. I'll just offer some boilerplate I found in my broker's prospectus.

(art from Strange Tales #135, August 1965, Jack Kirby)

Spring Training

It's that time of year. Pitchers and catchers report this week in Florida and Arizona. Players say the first week of spring training is the most difficult. It's not just the physical deterioration. It's that every team is reconstituted, even a world champion. New teammates, new coaches, sometimes a new manager.

For many generations, in the area around what is now called Tempe, the Hopis gathered at this time of year in one of their few ceremonies not presided over by the elders. It was grass roots, for lack of a better term.

It wasn't a spring ritual; spring was still six weeks away. It was an act of faith. In the face of a hibernating desert, the ritual was a recognition that winter would pass. It was an act of remembrance, looking backward instead of forward. Remembrance of those who had not made it through. The old, the young, the foolish who didn't respect the mountains.

The remembering must come now, at this time of year, because very soon, our job will be to grow again, live green and full. The Hopi ritual is spring training.

Project JFK (Part 1)

Was LBJ involved in Kennedy’s assassination? I’ll never really know, but I have some idea. Not an idea really--a feeling. This has nothing to do with logic, or “follow the money,” or reading the tea leaves of an instant in time where I have to distinguish between a wink and a blink.


It has to do with how moral guilt seeps out of us (even the most corruptible) like sewer gas. Because there’s never going to be something that spells it out like a PowerPoint slide. No signing statement that turns up in the National Archives, or diary entry excavated from a Presidential Library, or box of evidence released after 45 years by the City of Dallas.

To explain how I got to that “feeling,” I need to take a detour. Since we’re hunting a killer, let’s start with “Dragnet.” I won’t regurgitate the history of the show's creation as a radio, then television, procedural. It’s enough to say that an ambitious Jack Webb, let loose in post-war Los Angeles, latched onto the LAPD both as an psychological extension of his U.S. Air Force service, and as the blunt end of the wedge that would pry him into Hollywood.

And for much of the 50s and early 60s, in first-runs and in repeats, Dragnet painted a picture of the big city to middle America, one where the bad guys always got caught by the good guys--and the good guys were always in uniform.

As the 1960s rotted on the vine, I think a little moral guilt started seeping out of people like Jack Webb and LBJ, even if they weren't quite aware of it. More on that in Part 2.

The Resort at al-Oga Nsru'n

Is Dubai officially creepy yet? At some point, after yet another resort, skyscraper, and man-made island, it morphed from Vegas-by-the-Sea into the city from Logan’s Run.

You tell me which is which.

Red States, Blue States, Dream States (Part 1)

According to recent studies, sleep occurs in one of two ways, each of which is distinct and visible on EEG and other brain scans. I call these states “inner-directed” and “outer-directed” sleep, but these are my terms only. I will explain why I use them shortly.

Innies and Outies

Babies choose or learn a preferred, predominant way to sleep before they are one year old. This preferred method continues throughout life, but the preference isn’t set in stone. An inner-directed sleeper can become outer-directed for a night, and vice versa, depending on a range of factors (psychological changes, stress, or even diet).

Most sleepers are inner-directed. It’s the physical equivalent of idling a motor for eight hours, or setting a computer on sleep or hibernate. Brain activity during inner-directed sleep occurs in the same regions as it does during consciousness, although over a smaller area and with less fluctuation in intensity from minute to minute.

Outer-directed sleep is where things get interesting. In this case, brain activity is as intense as during consciousness, but focused almost exclusively in the emotional and pleasure centers. Outer-directed sleepers report feeling more rested when awaking, compared with inner-directed sleepers. They also have better recall of their dreams, which are more vivid than those reported by their counterparts.

Studies place the ratio of inner and outer-directed sleepers at approximately 750 to 1. Outer-directed sleepers are self-reportedly more empathetic and intuitive. Statistically, they are disproportionately represented in the arts and healing sciences.

Messages from the Dark Side

If there is a collective unconscious, as Jung proposed, it would manifest itself most readily in a state where the defenses and distractions of sensory stimulation and the ego are subordinated. This might include mystical states, drug-induced visions, and stress or trauma-related experiences.

However, the collective unconscious is available to most everyone through the dream state. I don’t suggest that every dream is laden with archetypes and links to the collective unconscious. But sometimes a dream is a window into something we feel as a clan, group, or society that we can’t quite put our finger on yet.

I believe those people who achieve outer-directed sleep (for wtap into the collective unconscious more readily. Anything available in the collective unconscious would reach these people more easily and more directly.

Given the statistic cited early, you might think that only one in 750 people could tap into the collective unconscious. That statistic, however, is compiled from sleep studies that examined only short stretches of sleep (no more than a few nights). I think it’s more accurate to say that outer-directed sleep is likely to occur once every 750 sleep-nights across a broad population.

That is, while some might never achieve outer-directed sleep (and a lucky few might experience it nightly), on average a person would awake feeling deeply rested and pondering a vivid, deeply felt dream approximately once every couple of years.

Does this sound like your experience? It sure sounds like mine.

Dreaming of 2008

The Iowa primary is two days away. If you recall the title of this post, you might be wondering what any of this has to do with the election. I’ll expand on that in Part 2.