The Black Corridor

Note: We should begin by pointing out that William Shakespeare, the greatest of all English poets and playwrights, was born on April 23rd, 1564, or "St. George's Day," (at least, his birth is celebrated then, as his baptism was the 26th of April) and died on April 23rd, 1616. Neil Gaiman's excellent The Sandman comic, in the collection "The Wake," claims Shakespeare was born and died on April 23rd. But that is just an unconfirmed bit of hearsay.

Preface: April 17th, 2023:

It is interesting to note that CHARLES BAUDELAIRE, the dissolute, decadent Victorian French poet who championed Poe and drank himself to death, was born April 10th. He authored the infamous "Litanies of Satan." Of course, Arch-Satanist ANTON LAVEY was born April 11th. The singer TINY TIM, who was a friend to Satanist and avant-garde musician Boyd Rice, who was a protege of LaVey's and was pegged to head up the Church of Satan after LaVey's death, was born April 12th. ADAM PARFREY, the maverick publisher behind Feral House books, who published the books of Anton LaVey, was born, also, on April 12th. Nice.

A friend informs me we're due for a solar eclipse April 20th, Hitler's B-day. Har har. The "Black Sun." Apparently, G-d has a sense of humor, after all.

There was another in the seemingly neverending spate of mass casualty shooting incidents (we have about one a day now in the United States) just today, April 17th. It seems like the perfect time to talk about these troubling occurrences, as we walk out along the Black Corridor, here in this Evil Year of Our Lord, 2023.

Watch your step.

One last thing. It appears as if conspiracy theorist and New Agu "Guru" DAVID ICKE was born on April 29th, the cusp of Walpurgisnacht. This is interesting in that Icke, whose labyrinthine theories involve a worldwide conspiracy of interbreeding alien or extraterrestrial "bloodlines" that have been going since ancient Sumer and before ("Annunaki") and have controlled the world through a secret society network involving Illuminati or secret cabals, groups that control banking and finance, governments, education, media, high technology, you name it, feature prominent Satanic rituals. These rituals involve shape-shifting, blood-drinking reptilians from the "lower fourth dimension," who appear masked or disguised as royalty, celebrities, billionaires, politicians, financiers, and what have you. April 30th is, of course, the Satanic holiday.

Icke is often mocked and derided for his lectures and thirty years' worth of books and videos, teachings and articles about said conspiracy. What is not so funny is the cutting-edge science and philosophical speculation on the illusory or even holographic nature of "reality," which is postulated to be the world of "Maya" as the Hindus and Buddhist call it; illusion, in other words. But he lectures for hours on the speculative or theoretical quantum physics that back this contention, in a manner that is most startling, original, and bold. Much of it is stuff THIS author agrees with; or, at the very least, finds compelling, That such a speaker or thinker, who started out with NO Interest in the occult, but who was told by a psychic he would be given "spiritual riches" before ending up in Peru on a sort of vision quest, was born along the "Black Corridor," is significant. There is no accurate tallying of how many people Icke and his work have influenced, but the number is in the many, many, many thousands.

Special Note:

In writing this short book, it has come to our attention that three very significant events also fell along the historical timeline going into May Eve. Strictly speaking, they did not occur in mid-April. However, they are significant enough to merit.

The first is that, in traditional Mahayana Buddhism, the birthday of Buddha is celebrated April 8th. Note that eight is simply the infinity symbol righted upward, also reminiscent of the Ourobourous, the snake eating its own tail. In the sacred Tarot, the Eighth Trump card is "Strength," a woman wrestling a lion. The card's interpretation is, of course, self-evident.

Siddhartha Gautama, the "Buddha," found enlightenment, as the "Middle Way" between wordlinesss and extreme, yogic asceticism. His religion is one of the driving forces of human civilization, and predates Christianity.

The Channeling of the Liber Al vel Legis, the "Book of the Law," by infamous proto-Satanist Aleister Crowley, in Cairo, in 1904, occurred on April, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth; all numbers denoting power; Ten, in the Tarot deck, being the Wheel of Fortune; Nine, The Hermit; Eight, the card of Strength. And this seems, to this interpreter, as if it is a natural progression of dates and Tarot symbols, together, taken for the receipt of the Great and Masterful revelation.

Crowley, an experimenter on the outer limits of drugs and sexuality, became notorious for his debauched lifestyle in the early Twentieth century, as well as his synthesizing of various occult traditions. While in the Cairo Museum, he saw, in a glass case featuring an image of the god Horus, that the case itself was marked with the number "666"; His own bestial, Satanic appellation; His number as a sojourner Antichrist.

His wife, Rose Kelly, a light-trance medium, aided him in the "Cairo Working, "in which a shadowy presence standing behind him dictated him the three successive chapters of the book.

The "Law of Thelema" thus reads:

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."

"Thou hast no right, but to do thy will. Do that, and no other shall say nay."

And then:

"Love is the law, love under will."

Whatever the objective meaning of that last line, we find ourselves a little agreeing.

***

A few things further:

The Assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, was on April 4th (which can as 4/4, quite literally be written as 2 + 2 for the fourth month, or a double eleven, and a double eleven for the day itself, a power combination of numbers; twins; double pillars; towers; etc.) This was amilestone in American history, and set off a chain of events that lead to the largest series of civil disturbances and uprisings since the Civil War. Riots broke out in cities such as Baltimore, New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, etc. This was called the "Holy Week Uprising." The final death rate was six people, with seven hundred injured, over five thousand arrested, and twelve MILLION dollars worth of property damage.

Lastly, or, almost lastly, the United States entered the First World War on April 6th, 1917. The final death toll from that conflagration, the first "modern" war to utilize chemical warfare, pitched aerial battles, bombs dropped from above, etc. , was forty million.

PRESENTLY, we are undergoing the "Covid-19" crisis, a virulent pandemic that has gripped the entire world, caused 45,000 deaths now in just the U.S. alone (165,000 deaths worldwide, as of this writing), and has irrevocably altered the fabric of life, with "social distancing" now the watchword and "guidelines" all are expected to live by, a sort-of increasingly rigidly enforced self-quarantine wherein people are expected to stay in their homes unless necessary, go out with masks or facial coverings, not socialize, and maintain a distance of at least six feet. Business deemed "non-essential" are closed, and the resultant layoffs and economic turmoil have seen the most massive joblessness in modern times. The resultant economic Armageddon is expected to be catastrophic. Trump, the President of the United States, declared a "State of Emergency" on Friday the Thirteenth of March. He extended the Federal guidlines for shutdown and "Social distancing all through the "Black Corridor" of April, up until April 30th, May Eve. Walpurgisnacht.

The darkest stretch, in other words.

(End of Note)

Time is a damned thing. It circles back around on itself, like a snake eating its own tail. Sometimes, events that have transpired, long ago, seem to repeat themselves, as events realign themselves, and tragedy strikes the same spot, on the same date, maybe even at the same hour. A date in time, a day of the year, could draw to it the same mental vibrations that set certain events in motion, long ago.

We could keep returning, for instance, every April, to the "Black Corridor."

Recently, as I was watching BOTH my grandparents be laid to rest, only a few days after they had passed within seventy-two hours of each other, I realized that I had been in that particular cemetery before. It was about April 5th or 6th, 1994, and we were laying a student-teacher to rest. I came home that day and was listening to the "new" Pink Floyd album, The Division Bell. My mother called from the living room, "That guy from Nirvana shot himself!"

That was the same day that Kurt Cobain's body was found in one of his Seattle homes. THAT is how I know the date of that funeral. My grandparents' funeral was twenty-five years, almost TO THE DAY, that I had been in that cemetery before, in April of 1994. Apparently, I had stepped out into the "Black Corridor."

The "Black Corridor" is theoretically, the date between April 20th to April 30th; or Hitler's Birthday to Walpurgisnacht, the "High (un)Holy Day" of Satanists the world over. I think 4/20 is also the day when potheads are supposed to toke up... maybe in defiance of Hitler? (The very haunted Hotel Roberts, which once stood in Muncie, Indiana, was located at 420 High Street. So put that in your theoretical pipe and smoke it.)

However, for the sake of fudging it a bit, and demonstrating that April is, indeed, altogether a long, drawn-out, increasingly turbulent "black corridor" of time, one that draws to it the violent and revolutionary, we can go back to April first, "Fools' Day," and go from there. The following is a rough list of the major turbulent anniversaries spread out all around the dreadful month of April.

1. The "Shot Heard 'Round the World" (April 19, 1775)

This was at Concord, Massachusetts, when 700 British soldiers were sent out to find and destroy colonial supplies. The colonials, due to a network of informers lead by the "Sons of Liberty," were able to ferry their supplies elsewhere, and were pursued by the British to Lexington. No one is certain which side fired first, but it was the first shot of the Revolutionary War, a war that decided the fate of the future United States of America, the most powerful country the world has ever seen, and one that will, most likely, decide the eventual fate of humanity.

2. The Beginning of the American Civil War (April 12th, 1861)

It is quite beyond the scope of this little pamphlet to recount the various aspects leading up to and comprising the Civil War. Everyone already knows the dread, bloody conflict was a war between the States, ostensibly over slavery (but, Lincoln is reported to have stated that if he could rejoin the Union WITHOUT firing a single shot or freeing anyone, he would do so). Regardless, the bloodiest conflict ever perpetrated on American soil began April 12th, 1861, and did not end until Lee's surrender at Appomatox in 1865. Five million Blacks were "emancipated" by the victory of the North. Their long, hard road to equality still stretched forward. An estimated 750,000 men on both sides of the conflict were killed.

3. Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (April 14, 1865)

Honest Abe, who was president during the bloodiest conflict in American history, the Civil War, was both loved and adored by some, hated and vilified by others. Immediately ere the war's end, and the South's surrender, an actor, Mr. John Wilkes Booth, in conjunction with other conspirators operating out of Mrs. Surratt's Washington DC rooming house, shot and killed Mr. Lincoln, while he was attending the play Our American Cousins with his wife Thelma, at Ford's Theater in Washington D.C. I've been there, walked the same staircase as Booth, many, many years ago.

4. Birthday of Vladimir Lenin (April 27, 1870)

The Father of the Bolshevik Revolution, and the first Premier of the old Soviet Union, was born along the Black Corridor. The possible death toll of Lenin's regime was in the upper millions, but is probably unknowable. His revolutionary writings and cult of personality still inspire young revolutionaries and communists to this very day.

5. Birthday of Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889)

Undoubtedly the most universally hated and reviled individual of the last one hundred years, Adolf Hitler's name has become a byword for evil and is today considered a literal (if not somewhat over-employed) insult. The leader of the Nationalsocializtische Deutsche Arbeterpartei, the NSDAP, (or, as it is commonly referred to, the Nazi Party), as well as the author of its major philosophical tenets, Hitler presided over a totalitarian, fascist German government that practiced strict racial laws targeting Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and other groups considered "undesirable." He is credited by historians with starting World War II, the bloodiest and most barbaric conflict in human history. His government likewise presided over the ethnic cleansing, and mass genocide of European Jews and other ethnic minorities, as his armies invaded Russia to the East. They are credited with killing an estimated six million Jews. Adolf Hitler reportedly committed suicide in the bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, on April 30, 1945; in other words, he killed himself on Walpurgisnacht.

6. Birthday of Tristan Tzara, Father of Dadaism (April 28th, 1896)

Dadaism, the anti-establishment art movement that took Europe by storm, was a response to the world-shaking, cataclysmic barbarity and self-destructive brutality as exemplified by the First World War. Emphasizing nonsensical, ugliness, it presaged surrealism and postmodernity with a bitter, calculated, often deranged senselessness. But could anyone explain what Dadaism actually was? One man, Tristan Tzara, did just that in his Dada Manifesto of 1924. (Or did he?) At any rate, he is the revolutionary father of same and was born on April 28th, 1896.

7. Birthday of Robert Oppenheimer, Father of the Atom Bomb (April 22, 1904)

Like V.I. Lenin, with whom he shares the April 22 birthdate, Robert Oppenheimer was a revolutionary figure whose birth into this world heralded, quite possibly, the coming of the apocalypse. Finito. The End.

"I am become SHIVA, the destroyer of worlds!" quoth Oppenheimer, the director of the U.S. "Manhattan Project" (to develop the atom bomb before the Nazis did), from the Bhagavad Gita, somewhat incorrectly. This was at Trinity Test Range in 1945. Shortly before Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

8. Hiroshima Achieves City Status/Designated a City (April 1, 1889, April 1, 1980)

While we were researching Robert Oppenheimer, the "Father of the Atom Bomb," we came across the strange fact that the city of Hiroshima, the first of the two Japanese cities on which said bomb was eventually dropped, achieved city status (I'm assuming here achieved city status in a census) April 1, 1889. It was "designated a city on April 1, 1980. Hiroshima is one of the most famous cities in world history, for obvious reasons.

9. The Sinking of the Titanic (April 14-15, 1912)

Generally conceded as one of the worst maritime disasters in history, the sinking of HMS Titanic in 1912, in the icy waters of the North Atlantic, the ship having hit an iceberg while en route from Southampton to New York, has been celebrated on stage and screen for over one hundred years. It is simply one of the pivotal points in modern history.

A number of odd occurrences, many of a psychic nature, have become the legendary mythology surrounding the famous disaster. Most famously, perhaps, is a novel called Futility, which features a ship called the "Titan," said to be "unsinkable," and in which said fictional ship strikes an iceberg, and loses over a thousand passengers. And those aren't the only similarities between the fictional ship, and its real-life counterpart.

The novel was written by Morgan Robertson–in 1898.

Less famously, perhaps, social activist and crusading Spiritualist W.T, Stead was warned by a medium to "avoid booking passage on a ship." Out of curiosity, he did so anyway, and died on the Titanic.

The ship struck its fatal iceberg on April 14. By the morning of the 15, the "unsinkable" ship, all realized, was doomed. A class struggle played out, with the poor immigrants in steerage being left to die, while the wealthy took the lion's share of available space aboard the few lifeboats. However, it was largely to no avail: a thousand souls went to a cold, watery grave, drowning or dying of severe shock in the icy Atlantic waters. The resultant outrage lead to new legislation concerning maritime disasters, and the safety of passengers at sea.

10. The United States Enters World War 1 (April 6, 1917)

When Serbian assassin Gavrilo Princeps fired the fatal bullet that ended the life of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austria-Hungarian Empire, he set off a chain of events that culminated, in 1915, in the First World War, a "War to end all wars," as it was foolishly proclaimed. President Woodrow Wilson, vowing to maintain American neutrality, managed to keep America out of the European war for two years, despite the fact that American banks and industry were supplying the Allied powers such as Great Britain and France (who had aligned against the German Kaiser) with money and munitions. Alas, the fate of the world was sown (or at least, its beginnings) on April 7th, 1917, when America finally declared war on Germany, largely due to outrage over the sinking of the Lusitania, as well as the "Zimmerman Telegram," an intercepted document purporting a planned German alliance with Mexico against the United States.

World War 1 is referred to and generally conceded to be the "first modern war," insomuch as it was the first war to be fought by aerial bombardment, as well as the first use of chemical warfare agents such as mustard gas. The final death toll was a staggering forty million, with 116, 000 on the American side. As always, when "the Yanks" entered the war, it was the decisive turning point. The defeat of Germany, and the harsh reparations, gave rise to the deep enmity and sense of betrayal that later led to the rise of German fascism. In particular, it was the bitterness of one "Bohemian corporal" with a funny mustache and a burning vision of revenge that would help shape the future of Germany, Europe, and the entire human race. I'll leave you to guess to whom I'm referring.

11. The Shanghai Massacre (April 12-15, 1927)

From April 12th through the 15th of 1927, communists were purged from the ranks of the Kuomintang by the nationalist faction of General Chiang Kai-Shek, who took control as the head of the right-wing of the KMT, unsympathetic to the left-wing faction, which was beholden to the Comintern and agents of the Soviet Union.

Chiang declared martial law on the ninth and issued a secret order on the eleventh ordering the members of the paramilitary "Green Gang" to purge the KNT of all communist supporters. They did this rather too well (the backlash eventually led to the "Autumn Harvest Uprising," although the power of the CCCP was diminished until the Chinese Civil War). The 26th Army had previously disarmed the Workers' Militias, and a student protest was fired upon, killing three hundred. Green Gang members had already begun to attack the union district offices in Pudong and other places, and, by the 15th, many thousands had been killed or disappeared by the Nationalists. Estimates vary, but they are between five thousand and ten thousand. Women were particularly the target of Nationalist ire, and women with short hair and who had obviously not had their feet "bound" were killed, mutilated badly, and their bodies paraded through the streets with shaved heads.

The Chinese Communist Party took control of mainland China in 1947.

12. Raid on Little Bohemia (April 20-22, 1934)

Little Bohemia was a travel lodge in Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin, wherein infamous bank robbers John Dillinger and Lester "Babyface Nelson" Gillis were holed up with their gang: Homer Van Meter, Billy Frechette, Harry Pierpont, and assorted gun molls. On April 20 they checked in, and the owner, Emil Wanatka, had little idea who his notorious and deadly guests were.

It was during a card game that he was alerted to the fact that Dillinger and Nelson were both armed. Quickly surmising that his guests were wanted men, Wanatka informed his wife, who informed a further man, Harry Voss, when she went to town. By April 22, Melvin Purvis and the other G-Men hunting Dillinger had organized a scatterbrained, impromptu "raid" that degenerated into what could be described as a "comedy of errors," if it were not for the tragic loss of life of one innocent bystander, Eugene Boisneau, and the wounding of two additional men.

Dillinger and Nelson escaped, along with most of the rest of the gang (excepting Nelson's wife Helen and two women). Nelson, having taken hostages, including Emil Wanatka, killed officer Carter Baum, and wounded two other officers. The terminally unlucky Baum was later found to have been killed by Nelson, because he didn't realize the safety was on, on his gun.

The bungling raid by the FBI was accompanied by howls of protest, and calls for the resignation of both Hoover and Purvis.

13. The First LSD trip (April 19, 1943)

Known unofficially as "Bicycle day," it was April 19 of 1943 when Swiss scientist Albert Hofmann first ingested 25 mg. of a substance derived from ergot that he had experimented with before, and shelved. Initially making him feel good, the substance, lysergic acid diathylamide, better known as LSD or "acid," (one might well wonder why we don't refer to it instead as "LAD") caused him to trip out while he was innocently riding his bicycle home from the lab. The rest, as they say, is history.

14. Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (April 19-May 16, 1943)

The Jewish prisoners of the Warsaw Ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland, in a valiant and doomed effort to "choose the place of their own deaths," lead to one of the most famous acts of resistance to oppression and genocide in all of history: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Rather than be forcibly deported to Treblinka and Majdanek, as a quarter of a million ghetto Jews had been before, the remaining internees of the Warsaw Ghetto chose to fight back, using arms smuggled in by the left wing ZOB (Zionist Resistance Organization), and the right wing Jewish Combat Organization. According to Wikipedia, 16,000 Jews were killed, with 150 casualties on the Nazi side. This uprising was sparked, initially, by the plan to burn the ghetto down, block by block, instituted by SS-Brigadfuhrer Jurgen Stroop.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is one of the most famous events in modern Jewish history.

15. Assassination of Benito Mussolini and Claretta Petacci (April 28th, 1945)

Finito for Benito. With the end of the war looming down upon him, Benito Mussolini, the once proud fascist dictator of Italy, was reduced to being the figurehead of a German puppet government. With the Allies and the partisans both breathing down his neck, Mussolini fled Milan after the Allies broke through the last German defenses. He and his mistress Claretta Pettaci were eventually captured by partisans in the village of Dongo, near Lake Como in Lombardy. A man named Walter Audisio is said to have performed the executions of Mussolini and Pettaci the following day; though there has been much speculation and many conspiracy theriracy theories concerning this over the years.

Mussolini and Pettaci's bodies were taken back to Milan, laid out in a square for an angry crowd in the Piazzale Loreto, who spit on the corpses, dragged them through the streets, shot them full of holes, and hung them upside down from a girder. Whew!

Note: We originally had assumed Mussolini had been killed months previous to Hitler's suicide, and were surprised to note that it was only two days before. Hitler, obviously seeing the "writing on the wall" (in the Biblical sense), decided Mussolini's degrading display in death was NOT to be his own. Thus, he committed suicide in the Berlin Bunker with Mistress Eva Braun, on April 30th, 1945.

16. Suicide of Adolf Hitler (April 30, 1945)

Not that this is going to sadden most, but the most infamous and hated man in modern history committed suicide, along with his new wife (of about eight hours) Eva Braun, in the "bunker" beneath the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, on April 30, 1945, with the Russians only a few kilometers away; with bombs still dropping, and men fighting and dying, street-to-street, fifty feet above. It is said Hitler didn't want to be taken alive by enemy forces. It is likewise said that he killed himself on April 30 to give himself "back to the forces of darkness." April 30 is, of course, Walpurgisnacht, a high unholy holiday in Satanism.

(But you surely don't believe that, do you?)

17. Birthday of Anton Szandor LaVey/Founding of the Church of Satan (April 11, 1930/ April 30, 1966)

Anton LaVey, the famous black magician, author of the Satanic Bible, calliope player, and all-around lightning rod for the desires and fears of lesser mortals, was born April 11th (4-11, or literally: 11, 11, 11, 11–power combinations of numbers) of 1930, in a world radically different than the one he would grow, eventually, to cast black spells of contempt against. His greatest performance, apart from a truly touching rendition of "Honolulu Baby," was the creation of America's Church of Satan, as a place for alien elitists, iconoclasts, occult philosophers, and all-around good guys, badges notwithstanding. This was on the High Unholy Day of April 30–Walpurgisnacht; or, as Sydney Blackmer exclaimed in Rosemary's Baby, the "Year One!": 1966.

18. Fall of Saigon (April 30th, 1975)

The Vietnam War era marked one of the most turbulent periods of American history ever known, a time when young people began to openly question and then rebel against the staid conservative mores of their "straight" parents and peers. A huge aspect of this was opposition to seeing their friends and loved ones fight and die in the steaming jungles of war in a place few had ever heard of before. The end of that war came on April 30th, 1975, when the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong took Saigon, the capital of the Republic of South Vietnam, in a bloody debacle that added insult to injury as far as the defeat of American forces in Southeast Asia. A mass helicopter evacuation, the largest in world history, occurred with thousands of stranded Americans and Vietnamese collaborators being airlifted out (ground forces had left the country two years previously).

What followed was the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, a country reunified under communist rule. Saigon was eventually renamed in honor of Ho Chi Mihn.

19. Tiananmen Square Protests and Massacre (Begun April 14th, 1989, continuing through June 4)

I'll never forget watching the events of that day unfold on the news with my late grandfather, who sat in his easy chair watching an old tube TV with tears streaming down his face. On the screen, a young man was staring down a tank. "Now that takes courage. My God, that brave young man," he might have said, but I know he didn't because it was a moment beyond words. I watched him, he watched the screen, and as Ed Sanders once proclaimed, ALL WAS.

Student demonstrations in Beijing began on April 14th, over frustrations in the new economic climate, lack of jobs, public welfare, restriction of speech, etc. These young people poured into the Square by the thousands, giving birth to a pro-democracy movement that would expand to 400 cities until it was brutally crushed by the forces of oppression. Wikipedia reports that at the height of the protests, Tiananmen Square was occupied by ONE MILLION PEOPLE.

On MAy the Second, the hardliners within the Chinese Communist Regime had won over the cociliatory faction, declaring martial law and using the military to clear the square. The resultant death toll was deemed a "massacre" by Western media sources. The estimated death toll was anywhere from 300 including some soldiers, to over 1000. The martyrdom of these youths resonated throughout China and the world, where many donned black armbands to remain in solidarity with the ones who had given their lives for a dream of freedom.

May their souls never be forgotten.

20. L.A. Riots (April 29-May 4, 1992)

When four LAPD police officers were acquitted of the vicious beating of black motorist, Rodney King, in Los Angeles in 1992, despite widespread and shocking video footage, the resultant outrage (admittedly mixed with the opportunity for criminal gangs and thugs to loot) led to the worst racial rioting since the Watts riots decades earlier. Culminating in the small-scale war between Korean shop owners and black residents, who felt the Koreans had been discriminating against them, the LA Riots gave us the horrifying attack upon trucker, Reginald Denny, as well as one BILLION dollars of property damage, and the deaths of at least FIFTY people. In the aftermath, thousands were arrested, often turned in by their neighbors, who were angered by the damage to their community.

21. The Burning of the Branch Davidian Compound at Waco, Texas (April 19, 1993)

The Federal siege of a compound belonging to the Branch Davidians (an offshoot of the Seventh Day Adventists), carried out, specifically, by members of the ATF, US Military, as well as Texas Law Enforcement officials, was, without a doubt, one of the most egregious examples of government tyranny and murder in modern history. The Davidian's leader, the charismatic and somewhat Manson-like David Koresh, was wanted for, allegedly, stockpiling weapons. When the ATF came to raid the compound that February, an intense gun battle lead to the deaths of four ATF agents and six Davidians. What followed was a media circus, as the siege of the compound just outside of Waco, Texas culminated in the fiery apocalypse of the place burning to the ground on live TV, during the government's final assault.

In all, 76 of the Davidians were killed in the fire, many of them shot fleeing, including all of their children. Civil suits against Beast Babylon Moloch were later unsuccessful, as the government investigated itself and, unsurprisingly, found that it was totally innocent of all wrongdoing.

The media, for its part, showed its true colors, portraying Koresh as a pedophile, and the group itself as "white supremacists." Neither of which was ever substantiated (The group, far from being white nationalist, actually had black members, as later video recordings proved).

22. The Oklahoma City Bombing (April 19, 1995)

The bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19th, 1995, was a horrific act that sent shock waves through the nation and the world. 165 people were killed, and the national debate about domestic terror and extremism began decades before those issues would become routine for all. Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh, two men influenced by anti-government literature, such as The Turner Diaries (authored by the late Dr. William Pierce, who created the neo-Nazi organization the National Alliance), and increasing fear of creeping government tyranny and gun control, were convicted, along with accomplices Michael and Lori Fortier. McVeigh, who had driven the Ryder truck containing the fertilizer bomb that caused the destruction, was later executed. His final note quoted from the famous poem "Invictus" by Elmer Henley.

The Oklahoma City Bombing has been declared the deadliest act of domestic terrorism ever perpetrated on U.S. soil.

There is some debate, amounting to conspiracy theory, as to what role the government, or factions therein, actually played in the bombing; who knew what, when, and how much of that was going to occur. But all of that is hearsay.

23. The Columbine High School Massacre (April 20, 1999)

I remember the day that two seniors from Columbine, Colorado, Eric Harris and his presumed lover, Dylan Klebold, killed thirteen people at Columbine high school; twelve of their fellow students and one teacher. The two young men then committed suicide in the school library, which was caught on surveillance camera.

The attack, which was the deadliest school shooting in history up until that time, later heated up the debate on gun control, which is still raging, decades later, in the wake of many, many, many more such shootings.

Harris and Klebold were a part of a school clique called the "Trench Coat Mafia," because of their penchant for all affecting the same trench coat- wearing look, and for all being "dorks," or unpopular. Klebold and Harris were, apparently, inspired to kill from being bullied.

24. 2003 Invasion of Iraq (Official end of "Major Combat Operations" declared May 1st. Invasion and combat occurred all through the month of April.)

Arguably one of the greatest military blunders in American history, the unprovoked Invasion of Iraq by a coalition of U.S. and British forces beginning May 20th of 2003, and "ending" sometime in the middle of APRIL, with the city of Baghdad being captured after the six-day "Battle of Baghdad" on April 9th, was one of the defining disasters of the early Twentieth century, leading to a destabilized Middle East, the death of a million Iraquis, and an untold waste in American blood and treasure. President George W. Bush, the much-hated prevaricator whose regime falsely claimed the presence of "weapons of mass destruction" that were never found as being the basis for the invasion, became a global pariah. "Major combat operations" were declared ended on May 1st, May Day, Beltane.

25. Abu Ghraib Torture Scandal (April 30th, 2004)

Abu Ghraib prison was the place wherein Saddam Hussein tortured and executed his political dissidents. When American forces invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003 it served a similar function for us. When shocking and sickening images of abuse were leaked showing the sexual humiliation, torture, and abuse of inmates by U.S. coalition forces maintaining the prison, the entire world looked on in stunned awe at what it exposed about American practices and hypocrisy as regards observing international law and "human rights." Soldiers were seen giving "thumbs-up" salutes next to piles of nude men, and an indelible, iconic image of a hooded man standing on a crate, with wires hanging from each finger, became one of the most recognizable photos of the decade. Eleven soldiers were convicted but given fairly lenient sentences, with three others being cleared or never charged. The story of the abuse broke April 30th, Walpurgisnacht, in the pages of the New Yorker.

26. The Virginia Tech College Massacre (April 16, 2007)

April 19, 2007 saw the single deadliest school massacre, AND, what up until that time was the single deadliest lone gunman attack, in U.S. history: the massacre of the thirty-two students on the campus of Virginia Tech (Virginia Polytechnic and State University, in Blacksburg, Virginia), by psychopathic gunman Seung-Hei Cho, a South Korean immigrant and undergraduate of the school

Cho had been plagued by mental illness his entire life, but his lack of any court commitment allowed him to slip through the cracks in the system, and purchase firearms. The ensuing massacre was largely perpetrated at West Ambler Johnston Hall and Norris Hall. One professor, Liviu Librescu, was later hailed as a fallen hero for barring the door, and disallowing Cho entry; it was later pointed out by some that, as an Israeli, he may have responded in a more experienced manner when first hearing gunfire.

He was shot and killed, nonetheless.

The final death toll, of thirty-two killed and 29 wounded, would later be surpassed by deadlier attacks in Las Vegas and Orlando. Cho's motivation, mailed personally in the form of writings and videos to NBC News, seemed to revolve around class resentment and rejection by women.

27. The Boston Marathon Bombing (April 15, 2013)

I remember (just as I well as I remember so many of these historic April events) coming out of a doctor's appointment on April 15, 2013, and looking up at the news on television. A bomb had gone off in a building near the route of the Boston Marathon, wounding hundreds. At the time, there was no official death toll, and no suspects. The explosive devices used were made from pressure cookers commonly available. The trail leads back to two brothers–the Tsarnaev brothers, from Kyrgyzstan. Dzhokar and his older brother, Tamerlane.

The duo killed an MIT police officer, stole a car with a hostage, and engaged in a gun battle with police. Tamerlane was shot several times, later dying of those injuries, as well as injuries sustained from being run over by Dzhokar while fleeing in the stolen car. A manhunt for the younger Tsarnaev transpired on April 19, with Dzhokar being found hiding on a boat. He was shot by police, but survived.

Dzhokar later admitted that he and his brother were fueled by the propaganda of the Global Jihad, the hatred for the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and, also, that they were also planning on going to New York to bomb Times Square.

Dzhokar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death for his role in the terror attack. He was convicted on April 8, 2015. The final death toll for the bombing was 3, with 263 injured.

Walpurgisnacht, Beltane and May Day

“Walpurgis Night, when, according to the belief of millions of people, the devil was abroad–when the graves were opened and the dead came forth and walked. When all evil things of earth and air and water held revel. This very place the driver had specially shunned. This was the depopulated village of centuries ago. This was where the suicide lay; and this was the place where I was, alone–unmanned, shivering with cold in a shroud of snow with a wild storm gathering again upon me! It took all my philosophy, all the religion I had been taught, all my courage, not to collapse in a paroxysm of fright. –Bram Stoker, "Dracula's Guest”

The rituals of Walpurgisnacht, the German word for"Walpurgis Night," (also called "Hexenacht", or "Witches' Night") probably began in pagan Europe as a celebration of the return of Spring, when bonfires were lit to ward off predators, children trick-or-treated, and it was generally conceived, in the manner of the similar Samhain (or what is in modern times known as "Halloween") that the veil between this world and the next was at its most thin.

Coming half a year apart from Halloween, Walpurgisnacht takes its name from St. Walburga, a nun that came to Heidenheim Abey in Germany to Christianize the pagan Saxons. Her death, celebrated on May 1 (Beltane), gave the pagan holiday its Christian name. May 1 was celebrated as pagan New Year.

Those who have seen the dancing around the May Pole (a convenient, huge phallic representation) on May 1 are witnessing a survival of the ancient pagan ritual brought into modern times, the rebirth of the fertility god. Also, the cult horror film The Wicker Man (1973) has, as its plot, the survival of ancient European May Day rituals of the lighting of a bonfire; and, yes indeed, these ancient rituals often did involve human sacrifice.

Believers in Wicca celebrate May 1, as "Beltane," their May Day celebration. Followers of the Left Hand Path (i.e. Satanism, or black magic) though, hold Walpurgisnacht, the night before, as their high holiday.

Marxists and communists the world over, also, hold "May Day" as THEIR special holiday; or, more accurately, a day of protest, when various political factions of Reds hold marches in cities across the world. This began during the Haymarket riots in Chicago, in 1886.

Starting May 1, the riots (which began as marches) culminated in the deaths of eight policemen and a dozen workers, after just three days. Thus was May Day designated an "'international workers' day," in 1891. It was, and is, a day when workers are to agitate for better conditions, the rights of the proletariat, and an end to economic exploitation and war. Or so it is said.

One final note:

"Mayday, Mayday, Mayday!" is of course, the universal code word for "distress," used most especially by ships and airplanes. According to one online source, it is actually an anglicized corruption of the French word, maidez, meaning, "Help me!" (Which on the whole, is what we all really need, at any rate).

Happy April.

Author website

Addendum:

It seems that, in writing this article, we overlooked the horrific Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine. This was one of the worst nuclear meltdowns in all of history, causing untold damage, and could have potentially destroyed half of Europe if the danger hadn't been minimized by the heroic actions of a trio of brave souls. This Soviet-era reactor meltdown occurred April 26, 1986. It has been estimated to have, long-term, been responsible for tens of thousands of deaths due to radiation exposure.

Post-Script: April 2024

I'm going to keep this short and sweet. Words fail me, but not from despair, but from a sense of elation. I've been proven correct, my central thesis is determinately, manifestly, and demonstrably true. Presently, the world burns. This does not disturb me. I'd be more disturbed if human beings weren't ready to kill and destroy each other en masse. It would seem so out of character. What? Does the entire human race have a headache or something?

Currently, the Israelis are still bombing the hell out of Gaza, the densely populated and heavily blockaded strip of land wherein a huge population of women and children live amid the rubble, starvation, and destitution imposed upon them by the Israeli blockade. The current war against Hama, the (let's be clear here) terrorist organization that "governs" Gaza, is a reaction to the October 7th of last year attack by Hamas that left 1,200 Israelis dead. Since then, the Israelis have launched a relentless bombing campaign aimed at crippling Hamas; and, some would claim, ethnically cleansing Palestine.

Iran, which uses Hamas as a proxy against Israel, launched a salvo of drones and missiles at Israel, all but a few of which were shot down by Israel and allied forces, including the U.S., which has proffered vast amounts of military and financial support to Israel, despite world outcries. Meanwhile, war still rages in Ukraine between the Ukrainians and invading Russians; another proxy war between Russia and the U.S., some would claim.

Protests have erupted at major American universities, such as Columbia, New York University, Emory University, etc. Pro-Palestinian students, many of them Jewish progressives, have donned the Keffiyah and chanted the slogan "from the river to the sea," amid brutal police crackdowns and suspensions from their universities. It is a revolutionary movement sweeping the West and is happening in Germany, France, and England.

Meanwhile, Israel is preparing an invasion of the heavily refugee-populated Rafah, while alleged "mass graves" are being unearthed around Rafah hospital and other refugee encampments. Israel is being accused of blockading even American aid and using food as a weapon of war. Cries of "genocide" are growing more shrill, while the situation spirals out of control.

Welcome to the Kali-Yuga! Step right this way, please. We're headed to a very special location, on April 30th, Walpurgisnacht, 2024. We're traversing the Black Corridor.

To return to current affairs, the first criminal trial of a former president is underway, with Donald John Trump facing felony charges that he paid "hush money" to pornographic actress Stormy Daniels to keep her from revealing details of the affair during Trump's successful 2016 bid for the White House. Trump is the favored front-runner in a lackluster cadre of conservative and Right Wing presidential hopefuls, still enjoying teeming support from his fan base, and remaining the most polarizing figure in American presidential politics in recent memory. His charismatic swagger may not save him this time, though.

While that is occurring, the Supreme Court is considering Trump's claim that a sitting President is immune from criminal liability or prosecution.

This month has seen the culmination of several revolutionary events and uprisings, as you can well surmise.

Our original article, entitled "The Black Corridor," is a little booklet-length essay examining the various arcane and revolutionary happenings, births, deaths, massacres, wars, and uprisings, all of which happened in April, but, most specifically from April 20th, Hitler's birthday, to April 30th, his suicide, but, more importantly, Walpurgisnacht, the ancient, unholy high holiday of Satanists and black magicians, a time when, traditionally, witches flew to the Herz mountains in Germany, to the Brocken, where they would hold intercourse with the Devil and al of his kin, kissing his ass and reveling in the darkness and despair of the world. The next day, May Day, is Beltane, celebrating the coming of Summer, celebrated by Pagans and "white witches,' Wiccans. It is almost like a fence on which the practitioner can fall on one side or the other depending on the date. But that doesn't concern us here, as we are a simple diviner, not a spell-caster, magician, or witch in the strictest sense of the word. I'm a fortune teller, pure and simple.

The world rages on, and spins on to "random insect doom," as William S. Burroughs once put it. The gods quaff the lifeblood of puny man, so arrogant in his assumptions, so deluded in his existential crisis, his sense of moral righteousness fractionated, but held onto as tightly as a talisman while Shiva dances the Tandava Dance and the Final Hour beckons.

Welcome to the Age of Gloom. Welcome to the Kali-Yuga.

Have a nice day.