The journey to creating Guidestones goes back 6 years for me.

I was drinking coffee with my friend Patricio Davilla complaining about the difficulties of trying to get any film project distributed in this country (a favourite activity of all independent filmmakers in Canada: caffeine and complaining) and he said to me “Why don’t you produce content for the internet? You can bypass the broadcasters and go directly to your audience”.

Now you need to remember this was six years ago. YouTube was roughly one year old, online video was not particularly sophisticated, and computers were… well, let’s just say they were slow-ish, smartphones were not that smart, and neither was most of the content… football in the groin.

As an independent filmmaker I was much more sophisticated than Dayillia’s suggestion; so naturally I strongly rejected the idea.

A bit of time passed and still nobody was picking up my features, or anything else for that matter, and a thought kept lingering as rejection persisted; the idea of creating content and being my own distributor.

I wanted to take control of my own destiny.

So, without admitting it to anyone, I let the concept occupy a large portion of my brain and thought it over and over… and over… If the content was serialized with cliffhangers, maybe there could be something there.

My father used to tell me about going to the movie theater and watching the old serials; he loved them and he kept coming back. Everybody did.

But seriously, that was all handle bar mustaches and archetypes. Is that really what I wanted to do? Spend my time figuring out unique ways to tie maidens in distress to railway tracks?

This is not what makes an honorable career in the film industry. (Yes I know… oxymoron)

I started to dabble. I wrote a proposal, I raised a little capital, and I tried my hand at a couple of short form content experiments called TRUE FICTION and TEN TO GO. Suddenly three years later, my dabbling had turned into a full-fledged obsession to become an on-line content producer.

Of course I want this job because it pays no money and exacts no respect from anybody…

This is a volunteer proposition that nobody wants or needs, with long hours and a lot of people politely pretending to listen to you, who are impatient to get back to making some real money in the real world.

Well, for some reason I slogged on, going to various interactive conferences across the country, pushing my concept of serialized content, supported by TRUE FICTION and TEN TO GO (both great ideas, and I believe, very well executed and entertaining).

However, in the end these properties were really just short versions of television shows. I tried to raise money to make more… I tried for a couple of years with little success.

By now it’s summer 2008 and two things are happening:

First, people keep asking me what my plan is to monetize the content…to which my answers are; through “sponsorship”, and “t-shirt sales” and the content is going to be “so good people will pay for it!”, yadda yadda yadda.

Second, we are quickly heading into the fall of 2008…when a certain World Economic Collapse occurs… Here I am knocking on doors looking for money for a high risk venture. Well timing is everything, because as I was getting (politely) laughed out of board rooms across the country and then suddenly I happened across a single meeting that would end up changing the course of my career…and I do believe now, my life.

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Some more fun production stills from our shoots in Georgia and at the Guidestones for our web series! Photos taken by Rob Barnett.

Dan Fox and Ace, the Toronto Blue Jays’ mascot.

Lead editor Thom Smalley.

Actress Supinder Wraich.

Lead actors Dan Fox and Supinder Wraich.

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We’ve discussed some of the implications of the writing on the Georgia Guidestones – the commandments of the stones – and their similarity to certain strands of thinking associated with the creation of a New World Order driven by those who have formed a secret society. We’ve also shown some of the recent vandalism that has occurred on the monument. These two points are clearly related insofar as the vandalism largely attributes these stones to be related to a New World Order driven by the ‘elite’. Much of this is not helped by the official documents that discuss the creation of the Guidestones and the deliberate secrecy of the R.C. Christian figure – secrecy being a primary complaint for individuals who believe governing forces – official or otherwise – mobilize secrecy to oppress the many. This line of thinking can range from extreme conspiracy theories to the observation of how banks and major corporations are not punished for behaviour considered to be illegal – a central point of the Occupy Wall Street protests.

To further look into this issue, here is a breakdown of the argument made for the Guidestones as an emblem of this supposed New World Order.

1. Radio Liberty draws attention to the astrological components of the structure as distinctly ‘occultist’ in the “worship the alignment and movement of heavenly bodies as part of their religious ceremonies” while they believe the reference on the stones to “‘seeking harmony with the infinite’ reflects the current effort to replace Judeo-Christian beliefs with a new spirituality.” Regardless of the new governing body and economic system implied here, Radio Liberty see the Christian ties of the Rosicrucians and the R.C. Christian moniker to be deliberately anti-Christian, though without solid evidence on this point. They warn, “[b]ehind those groups, however, are dark spiritual forces. Without understanding the nature of those dark forces it is impossible to understand the unfolding of world events.”

Vigilant Citizen also see this as a defining feature, though shift away from a particularly religious reading and instead the product of ‘secret knowledge’, noting that “[i]n a relatively ‘new’ nation such as the United States, monuments that are aligned with celestial bodies are often the work of secret societies, such as the Freemasons.” It is these societies that sought to amass knowledge otherwise unavailable to the general public, pursuing information developed through “Mystery schools of Ancient Egypt, Greece or the Druidic Celts”.

2. The economic shift that Radio Liberty predict is one they also associate with socialism. Specifically, they advise that whenever you come across “Sustainable Development” you should “substitute the term ‘socialism’ to be able to understand what is intended.” They draw a comparison between the Earth Charter that Mikhail Gorbachev and Maurice Strong worked on – specifically the topics of “control of reproduction, world governance, the importance of nature and the environment, and a new spirituality.” Certainly there are comparisons on these topics, but ultimately the theoretical basis of socialism is the complete opposite of a new world order system and especially different from a secret society of individuals controlling everything through secrecy, which can also be evidenced in capitalism. Instead, this may be a better charge towards iterations of governments throughout the world rather than particular political ideologies.

3. In fact, Vigilant Citizen do eschew politics and simply pay attention to the compulsion among the rich to be part of the New World Order, both in the sense of having control and through the logistics of which type of people could survive a large-scale natural disaster that would remove the amount of the population advised and/or predicted to occur by the Guidestones. They reference, perhaps cheekily, 2012: “If today’s world population is 6,7 billion, then that is a 92.54% surplus. To consider these figures is mind-boggling. But then, how many people survived in the movie 2012? Not many. Who were they? The earth’s wealthiest people. Is this predictive programming?” David Rockefeller has been specifically targeted, along with Ted Turner and Bill Gates, for references made to both internationalism and environmentalism, too points that seem to be impossible to be interested in without being connected to far more nefarious plots in some analysis of the schools of thought discussed on the Guidestones.

4. The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine criticized religious institutions and championed level-headed reason above passion and is implicitly cited by the Guidestones. Of interest to arguments that pit the Guidestones as the work of a secret society is the fact that Paine was part of the Rosicrucian Fraternity, with records showing a 1774 meeting comprised of Benjamin Franklin, George Clymer and Thomas Paine. The limit of three members has a corollary to the concept both of a secret society and a reduced population, which alights fire under those who stress America’s symbolic function as a land of the free with minimal government intervention – though this is problematically also an argument expressed by those who have strong feelings towards immigration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2kvIPVNp9o

5. Radio Liberty concludes their assessment on an interesting note, which at once plays to the concern with the Guidestones and also (unintentionally) points to the degree to which they have a visible impact on America: “The fact that most Americans have never heard of the Georgia Guidestones or their message to humanity reflects the degree of control that exists today over what the American people think. We ignore that message at our peril.” Vigilant Citizen notices the way in which some of these ‘lessons’ on the Guidestones may be beneficial, but the fear is their implementation outside of and to the detrement of the majority of the world’s population:

Many of the rules of the Guidestones do make sense for the preserving of Earth on a long-term basis. But between the idealistic words of the Guidestone’s authors and the actual way these policies would be applied on the masses – by power-hungry and greedy politicians – there is a world of difference. Reading between the lines, the Guidestones require from the masses the loss of many personal liberties and to submit to heightened governmental control on many social issues … not to mention the death of 92.5% of the population…and probably not those of the “elite”.

Photos from Alex Jones’ Prison Planet and illustrate vandalism first reported on December 11th, 2008.

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One of the most disquieting aspects of the Georgia Guidestones is the very first of the ‘commandments’: “Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.” The concept of population control is not exclusive to the Guidestones, especially insofar as drawing a correlation with a balance with nature, but the 500 million is 1/16th of the present population that would have to… die.

(Photo source)

Most commonly, this topic pertains to controlling future births, including debates about the use of contraceptives vis-a-vis Catholicism or government intervention, such as China’s one-child policy. But what option is there to reduce a population if it is seen as 7.5 billion people more than desired? And if so many people are to die, could it be a gradual process or would it necessarily have to be a single, sudden method? The commandments on the GA Guidestones are then advice not for those of us who currently see them, but those left after some cataclysmic event, since it is only once the population is below 500 million that anyone can ‘maintain’ the population of that size. Population levels were already approximately 4 billion in 1975 – over 5 years before the center cluster of the Guidestones were erected. The use of the word maintain clearly conveys that this message is not for those alive before a cataclysmic event.

(Photo source)

Van Smith offers an interesting link between cataclysmic events, astronomy and structures such as the Guidestones:

Supposedly, B.F. Coggins, an extremely wealthy and powerful granite and real estate magnate in Elberton, Georgia, has in his company’s possession a Rosicrucian document describing the Georgia Guidestones monument as some sort of portal. The document admits that the monument contains hidden messages, but that only the enlightened will understand them. Moreover, the monument was designed for an activation event that will indicate the immediate threat of a global catastrophe so horrific that humanity will come close to losing all hope. The document reassures the survivors that they are loved and will be cared for. The tenor is such to evoke the impression that intercession will occur either supernaturally or by space aliens.

I deeply doubt the veracity of these claims, but if there is any possibility that they are true, the “activation event” can only mean that Polaris, the North Star, will drift out of the sighting hole drilled into the Gnomen stone. When I was last at the Guidestones this fall, Polaris was barely visible within the sighting hole.

[…]

This benevolent account of the Georgia Guidestones also closely follows Hopi legends of a similar construction that their ancestors built in order to track polar alignment to warn of the coming Day of Purification, a very similar catastrophe used as fodder for 2012 hysteria.

However, there is no reputable scientific evidence supporting the notion of an impending 2012 cataclysm. On the other hand, there are good reasons to believe that the Georgia Guidestones is an arrogant advertisement for the demented plans of a deranged but powerful cult to overthrow national governments and install a totalitarian global government.

If anything, 2012 hysteria will be used as a smokescreen for manmade chaos leading up to that event.

Astronomy-based events, or natural disasters more broadly, is but one theory to describe so catastrophic a drop in population. However, there is reason to consider for whom population control benefits and, apart from a general interest in nature, who could assume they would be one of the 500 million to survive and also contribute to the event that reduces the population. Van Smith uses this as the basis for his assertion that R.C. Christian is Ted Turner.

(Photo source)

Smith highlights, among other evidence, Ted Turner’s interest in population control, which includes the following statement: “A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.”

To this end, Terry Melanson builds on this argument by adding Raymond Wiley’s observation that the monument’s language is reminiscent of “what I would define as late-1970s Ted Turner environmentalism. It’s got very much that kind of quality to it … and lots of mentions of nature, nature, nature.”

Melanson continues along this path, drawing connections with the Illuminati:

The edifice, its message and supposed author, bears the signature of a Rosicrucian, new age, elite environmental philanthropic ethos that reached its apogee in the 80s and early 90s – people like Ted Turner and Maurice Strong and the globalists in the Club of Rome and the Aspen Institute. Environmentalism, population control, impeding catastrophe, world government, allusions to esotericism or occult traditions – it is all there in the saga of the guidestones, just as it is with the new age elite-turned-globalist billionaires.

[…]

And traditionally, the “new world order” rhetoric of the elite has invariably been accompanied by the longing for some sort of “world government,” and disdain for patriotism and nationalism. It seems to have been coined in the 1860s by the founder of the Bahá’í Faith. According to Bahá’u’lláh, a genuine “New World Order” required the establishment of a World Government, World Parliament, World Code Of Law, World Tribunal, World Police Force, World Language, a permanent single currency, an international uniform tax, and unity of all the world’s religions under the umbrella of the Bahá’í Faith.

Yet, even with these theories in mind, we are still no closer in conceiving how the population will be so drastically reduced in size in order for this ‘new world order’ to exist. The topic, however, has no shortage of stabs in the dark made every day with regard to any number of natural disaster theories, biological contaminates, etc. We will look at some of these in future weeks.

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When deciphering the identity of R.C. Christian, the pseudonym of the ‘creator’ of the Georgia Guidestones, a popular consideration is that the name is an allusion to the Rosicrucian religious order. Related to Christianity, the Rosicrucians took the ‘Rosy Cross’ as their emblem, while the creator is named Christian Rosenkreuz – all possible configurations for the ‘R.C.’ in ‘R.C. Christian’. But what is Rosicrucianism and how might it relate to the Guidestones?

Rosicrucianism is the belief structure of a secret society (Rosicrucian Order) that was purportedly created by an alchemist named Christian Rosenkreuz in late medieval Germany. This society was signalled by the Rosy Cross, which is a cross with a white ross at its centre, which some believe predate Christianity. As a secret society thought to hold power, the Rosicrucians have been linked with both the Knights Templar before and the Freemasons after. They are an order of sages and alchemists of thought, amassing information key to their brand of enlightenment and eventually set to disseminate this to individuals clever enough to seek them out. This privileged information, however, would otherwise be concealed from the ‘average’ man, its secret understanding of the relationship between nature, the world and an astral spirituality could by its value not possibly be understood by all. Yet the order is also interested in the “Universal Reformation of Mankind”. How can these two conflicting points be reconciled – a secret society and an interested in reformation for mankind? Through drastic change that will be the event that sees this society come into visibility.

Rosicrucianism, as the cross symbolism potentially suggests, does not exist wholly apart from Christianity. Rather, it operates as a sect that is explicitly opposed to Catholicism and whose secret society and syncretic eye toward astrology and evolution certainly sets it apart from the beliefs of many modern day Christians. Two anonymous manifestos, not unlike the Georgia Guidestones pointing toward their author’s name as a pseudonym, were first published in Germany: Fama Fraternitatis RC (The Fame of the Brotherhood of RC) and Confessio Fraternitatis (The Confession of the Brotherhood of RC). Also like the Guidestones, these outline the interests of the society, but nonetheless maintain the secrecy of the Order. One key aspect that it is stated is the ultimate goal: “to prepare a new phase of the Christian religion to be used during the coming age now at hand, for as the world and man evolve so also must religion change”.

In the intervening time, many followers and interpreters of Rosicrucianism have developed, including the recent Rosicrucian Fellowship, which was formed as early 1909. One distinguishing aspect of the fellowship is its interest in altruism, which it contains in the harmony of the Rosicrucian spirit, which many tenets that have come to be associated with the Guidestones – population control, respect for nature – confirm. Their interpretation of Rosicrucianism also emphasizes twelve exalted Beings that are gathered around a rather important thirteenth Being: Christian Rosenkreuz. Rather than engaging in the astrologically intensive rebirth cycle that the Fellowship advises for its followers, these thirteen have the mission of preparing the entire whole world for the new Age. Rebirth and astrology are so closely linked, much in the way the Guidestones have specific holes to follow events in the sky. Furthermore, this is a connection between the natural, scientific world and a doctrine of how man is to live that is also conveyed through the Guidestones and their message.

The connection between the Guidestones and Rosicrucianism goes beyond the obvious allusion in the name R.C. Christian. I have mentioned some cursory comparisons – the doctrine overlapping with the messages on the Guidestones and the structure built to ‘monitor’ astrological events – but other researchers have made far more in-depth connections. Van Smith breaks down the statistics of the structure’s construction, noting that “the Gnomen Stone, the tall, thin central slab of the monument” has  proportions of 1:2:10, “which sum to be 13” – or R.C. Christian. His research also reveals that this number also signifies the “Hidden Hand” of the Rosicrucians as a whole.

Furthermore, Smith has heard rumour that B.F. Coggins, “an extremely wealthy and powerful granite and real estate magnate in Elberton, Georgia”, holds a Rosicrucian document describing the Georgia Guidestones “as some sort of portal.” It points to hidden messages in the monument “that only the enlightened will understand”. Finally, the document apparently suggests that the Guidestones were “designed for an activation event that will indicate the immediate threat of a global catastrophe so horrific that humanity will come close to losing all hope.” This event will be marked through the astronomical observation points and Smith hypothesizes that it will specifically occur when “Polaris, the North Star, will drift out of the sighting hole drilled into the Gnomen stone.” His reason to believe this is the gradual shift of the North Star out of clear sight through the hole. Rather than workmanship flaws or the slow settling of the monument into the ground, Smith believes this to be intentional, as an interview conducted with Wayne Mullenix, who sold R.C. Christian the land, revealed that “the foundation for the monument was spectacularly overbuilt, extending 20 feet in all directions away from the Georgia Guidestones and reaching all the way down to bedrock.” Misalignment, then, is not likely and a hole that is specifically stated as following the North Star, is now – coincidentally enough – starting to ‘lose’ the star. What chronological reason could there be for this?

In the popular Wired article, Randall Sullivan talks with Jay Weidner, a conspiracy theorist who the Rosicrucians have passed knowledge down for  generations about a solar cycle that “climaxes” every 13,000 years. This climax includes “outsize coronal mass ejections” that are believed to be disastrous for Earth. This conforms to the astronomical, natural and advisory interest of the Guidestones, but Weidner takes his analysis even further, believing that the Rosicrucians themselves are “orchestrating a ‘planetary chaos,'” and that a recent sign of this was the collapse of the US financial system, due to its subsequent affect on oil that will cause “mass riots, and ethnic wars worldwide”. He believes this culminates with December 21, 2012, where a process of population control will reach its highest destruction of man. For Weidner the Guidestones are not simply ways for which we should all live our lives, but more specifically “The Guidestones are there to instruct the survivors.”

Sullivan reported Weidner’s hypothesis to the only man who has met the R.C. Christian responsible for the Guidestones, banker Wyatt C. Martin. Upon hearing this grand plot, Martin shook his head, saying it’s “the sort of thing that makes me want to tell people everything I know.” Perhaps this is because Weidner has pursued a correct path beyond its conclusion into fantasy. Perhaps Weidner is wrong about all this. Perhaps, too, Martin simply does not realize the extent of R.C. Christian’s involvement, or rather the involvement of those he may represent.

Select images from Rosicrucian Library.

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The answer to the question “Who created the Georgia Guidestones?” – like many aspects of the monument – is both answered and not answered by the Guidestones themselves. “Author: R.C. Christian” is engraved on the structure and yet there is also included the qualification that the name is a pseudonym. What is known about R.C. Christian? Let’s start with the official story provided by the Elberton Granite Finishing Company’s 1981 booklet.

The official story offers a number of facts about the Christian figure. There are quotations supposedly from the man himself along with comments from Joe H. Fendley, Sr. and Wyatt C. Martin – the only two people who have met R.C. Christian, while Martin is the only person who knows for sure his identity due to his position as the intermediary who handled the financing. Christian apparently stated, “I only use that name because I am a follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ,” while the description of the group – unattributed as the belief of the author or information given by Christian and/or his group – assures they are “small group of perhaps half-a-dozen people who believe in God and country” and for whom Christian is merely the “visible spokesman”. Apart from his religious belief, Christian is described as having “served in World War II and described himself as ‘a patriotic American in every sense of the word.'” Obviously a man of great wealth, he also “appears to be a well traveled and intelligent man” whose travels in Europe “impressed [him] with the many monuments throughout the countries” that naturally includes Stonehenge. Not to be confused with being too highfalutin, we also learn his “great-grandmother was originally from Georgia” and “he said he once was a concrete worker”. If it hasn’t become apparent in my writing, this description could not possibly be any more carefully constructed – a balance that keeps the monument and the R.C. Christian as above board as possible with the local crowd, for whom the entire message may seem to be – and does become seen as – an-anti Christian, anti-American promotion of a New World Order. To some extent this can be understood as a valuable position for whomever created the monument and why the Christian pseudonym was taken, but also as much serving the interests of the Elberton Granite Finishing Company. It is otherwise irrelevant, whether the information is true or false.

Christian is described as elegantly dressed, grey-haired and approximately middle-aged. He delivered the monument’s specifications in meters and was not deterred by the high estimate for the cost of creating the Guidestones. When the monument was built, despite supposedly standing in for a small group of concerned citizens, he is given credit as the author of the ‘text’. Because this is a pseudonym, it does provoke the spectator to investigate the question of who created the structure, but it is also somewhat self-centred. This is confirmed by the creation of Common Sense Renewed, a book written over five years after the monument was erected and for which R.C. Christian is again the author. In the book he takes full responsibility as “the originator of the Georgia Guidestones and the sole author of its inscriptions.” In fact, one function of the monument was to “inspire” other enterprising individuals to build twelve further Guidestones, but this has yet to occur. It would seem this particular venture is the passion of but one person, or perhaps he is the only one seeking to advertise this belief.

In Randall Sullivan’s well-circulated article on the Georgia Guidestones for Wired, it is revealed that Christian kept in regular contact with Martin: regular letters and occasional meetings in Athens, GA. The last point of contact was close to the events of 9/11 and Martin assumes, based on age, that Christian might now be deceased. In their meetings, Christian never discussed the books and the well kept contact with the only person that knows his identity indicates a desire to perform the role of Christian to the only person for whom he could. They appear to be the actions of a man performing for himself.

However, there is still reason to believe there is some form of network behind him, specifically due to the message on the Guidestones and the writings in Common Sense Renewed. Van Smith, writing in 2010, offers a great run-down of the book, from which a few highlights presented here are sourced. The general thrust of the book, like the Guidestones, is to promote a “rational world order” that rules the globe by reason. Like many faiths, there is a belief that “each human being has a purpose,” but that it takes a single governing body to be blunt about which humans are more equal than others. This involves difficult positions on eugenics, controlling the amount of births, extreme Darwinism with regard to those who are ill or without money, voting restricted to those who earn more, etc. This is beyond the general concept of respecting nature when it comes to the question of population control, but rather a kind of individualism that comes from someone for whom success, health and privilege have always been known. Do these beliefs synch up with any of the concepts outlined in the official story? Christianity? American identity? Being a former concrete working member of the proletariat? Not particularly.

The message of these writings link up with the beliefs of Alice A. Bailey and her New Age movement, where Christ is worshipped along with other deities; the ‘Common Sense’ writings of Thomas Paine; and the secret truths of nature, man and social order associated with the Rosicrucians. Each of these offer a potential network that may represent the group for which Christian is the visible spokesman. The claim for sole ownership of the ideas in the book may simply be a smokescreen for when he later distributed his book to “several thousand political officials and shapers of public opinion throughout the world” – including all members of the United States Congress – in order to not seem like there is a specific organization’s programme at work, diluting the message.

All photographs from the Guidestones booklet produced by the Elberton Granite Finishing Company in 1981.

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What is the Georgia Guidestones? You may know of the granite structure as the “American Stonehenge”, located in Elbert County, Georgia, USA and carrying a message that has been interpreted as both a sensible warning against overpopulation, as well as the devious work of a secret society ushering in a secular, new world order. It was erected on March 22, 1980.

Before moving into interpretation, it’s worth considering just what exactly the Georgia Guidestones are – physically. The monument reaches 5.87 meters in height, made from six granite slabs that are 107,840 kg kg in weight. One slab stands in the centre of the structure, with four surrounding it in an astronomical alignment and a capstone positioned on top. The stones are engraved with one, ten-step message delivered in eight languages, while a less elaborate message in four ancient languages adorning the capstone at the top. At the centre of each tablet’s edge is a circle with a letter representing the compass direction it points towards. There is an informational stone tablet on the ground to the west of the structure. The modern languages used are Arabic, Chinese, English, Hebrew, Hindi, Russian, Spanish and Swahili, while the ancient language scripts are Babylonian, Classical Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and Sanskrit.

The message in the modern languages is presented in ten commandments and is as follows:

1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
2. Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.
3. Unite humanity with a living new language.
4. Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason.
5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
8. Balance personal rights with social duties.
9. Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.
10. Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.

The informational tablet is level with the ground and explains, to some degree, the Guidestones: their function (“Let these be guidestones to an Age of Reason”), the date it was created, who was responsible, facts about its physical features, the languages used on it, and even the astronomical features of the stones. The “channel through stone indicates celestial pole” (the north star), the “horizontal slot indicates the annual travel of sun” (solstices/equinoxes)  and the “sunbeam through capstone marks noontime throughout the year”.

The tablet tantalizingly references one mystery: the presence of a time capsule. There should be dates explaining when the time capsule was buried and when it should be retrieved and opened, but they are absent. Instead, it simple reads: “Time Capsule / Placed six feet below this spot / On [empty space] / To Be Opened on [empty space]”. If this seemingly relevant and even necessary component of the concept is, in fact, missing, then perhaps the power of the stones and those in question has been made out to be much more than is actually true. On the other hand, perhaps this points to creating a curiosity and activeness in those who see the Guidestones – to pursue points of interest beyond what they immediately see and to fill in the metaphorical gaps in the information presented to them.

Who created the structure? This is a difficult question that we will consider at a later date, but the structure itself is signed by R.C. Christian, who commissioned Elberton Granite Finishing Company to create the Guidestones in June of 1979. Joe H. Friendly, Sr. lead the team and even recorded the entire event in a booklet sold to the public, which does not hide its shared sentiment, the foreword ending with this statement: “This publication about these unique stones will serve to help all inhabitants of this planet reflect more earnestly — hopefully in a ‘reasonable‘ fashion — about these “guides” to mankind’s ultimate survival.”

The stone itself says R.C. Christian is a pseudonym – or ‘pseudonyn’ as it is misspelled on the stone – which like the missing information for the time capsule conveys to the viewer that they do not hold all the information… to question what they initially read. Furthermore, the tablet reads that the stone is ‘sponsored’ by a “small group of Americans who seek the Age of Reason”. Whether this means the group is deliberately limited, as in a secret society, or simply small in the sense that they feel it is a cause not reaching as many people as it should – and hence the erection of the Guidestones – is deliberately left vague.

One thing worth emphasizing is that the bottom centre of the informational tablet instructs the viewer that “Additional information [is] available at Elberton Granite Museum & Exhibit, College Avenue, Elberton, Georgia”, which raises questions to the degree of complicity that exists with those who fabricated the stones and the county itself. Could the function of these stones be so radical if so many disparate branches are happy with the stones, or is the allure of an ‘attraction’ so strong that county and Elberton Granite Finishing Company are willing to turn a blind eye to their function.

One implicit message, which seems to go without much mention, is that Elberton is the self-advertised ‘Granite Capital of the World’ where more monuments are produced than any other place in the world. Granite is, of course, a natural by-product, while the monuments and their messages are the product of man – usually to honour man, rather than nature. At the very least, the monument can be seen as a true intersection of man and nature, the message one that simply acknowledges this relationship and honours it.

All photos taken by Thom Smalley.

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Welcome to the official site and blog for the 3 O’Clock TV/iThentic web series, Guidestones. As we gear up for the launch of the series, I have been asked to use this blog as a means of giving some context for the Georgia Guidestones, a mysterious structure in Elbert County, Georgia, USA. However, the story of this series goes far deeper, as my preliminary interview with the director of the series, Jay Ferguson, has revealed to me. Below is a discussion of the rather unsettling reality behind this series.

Chris: Tell me how you first became interested in the Georgia Guidestones?

Jay: In May of 2009 I read Randall Sullivan’s article in Wired and was of course fascinated with the story. My background is both in fiction and documentary and I felt this would be a good mix of the two, but I had no idea where it would lead me. Having read the article, I decided to do a little snooping at various forums pertaining to conspiracies – you know, things that would not necessarily be easily placed into an article in a major publication.

C: That must have been difficult. I can’t imagine a community like that would easily be accepting of strangers.

J: Absolutely. I was just looking for more information on the Guidestones, which I wasn’t expecting much to be offered, but I think because I had a link to my previous work that explains what followed. A person who called herself Sandy – certainly not her real name – made contact with me and seemed to have interesting insights. We kept in touch loosely for a few months – I was naturally skeptical – but she kept coming back to me, asking me about my research, other work, etc. It was a bit strange.

C: I would guess so.

J: Suddenly she asked me to meet with her in person. We met in a local – very busy – coffee shop. She was a very together and strong woman, which I admit I wasn’t expecting. We chatted about my work, which she confirmed that she had found and seen. Something about having met in person maybe allowed her to finally tell me why she was so interested.

C: Is this where the series began?

J: Exactly. She started to tell me stories about how she came to Toronto as an exchange student to study journalism. I won’t give away too much of the story, but at some point she took interest in a death that she believed had been covered up. She and one of her classmates started investigating it on their spare time and slowly were wrapped up in a legitimate murder mystery. She told me of how they were partially led by information carefully left on the internet – some kind of ‘deepthroat’ figure – that helped pushed them along further and further.

C: How was she when all of this was happening.

J: She was very intense and serious, but careful. Both because of those around us in the coffee shop, but also because you could imagine her experiences have lead her to be suspicious, despite the understandable desire to have this story be told.

C: Did you immediately believe it?

J: You know what? I wasn’t expecting to, but I did. At least to a reasonable degree. But I left it for a bit as I was busy with a few other projects. Eventually I had time to do a little searching and I actually found some of the things she had told me about, some of the evidence they had found, and I was able to find it as well. It was just enough for me to invest in hiring a part time researcher for general information on the Guidestones, which was when we brought you on board.

C: Yes, my work was not as dangerous as Sandy’s exactly…

J: [laughs] Not at all, but we needed to get a scope for this story I was becoming more interested in pursuing. I would contact Sandy to clarify certain things and she would often fill in some important gaps, but she would only talk to me and we never met in the same place twice. You never met her and, importantly, not even I have learned her real name.

C: Did you ever want this to be a bona fide documentary?

J: The story was so captivating that I definitely wanted to do a documentary. Sandy would have nothing to do with it and most of the other principals were either dead or impossible to find. It didn’t look promising. I was sorry she would not go on record, which also required the story to be put aside for a while.

C: How did you settle upon a fictionalized web series format?

J: On the side I had been nurturing my company 3oclock.tv, which I started in order to create online content. Both fiction and documentary. One day after not talking to Sandy for a few weeks it suddenly dawned on me that I could fictionalize the story and make if very inexpensively and put it out on the internet.

C: Which would also fit in nicely with the role the internet played in the story itself.

J: It would be a perfect hybrid of the fiction and doc work I have been doing all along and allows me to kind of replicate the hunt that Sandy went on. We took Sandy’s story and tried to remain as true to the spirit of the thing, but of course took many creative liberties and changed all the names. I think that what we have created is as close as you can come to retelling an event while still keeping the principals involved safe and have it be an entertaining story – there’s a lot more downtime in real life.

C: And it’s turned out well?

J: We’re really excited over how it’s come out. Our tagline reads, “You are one click away form the truth.” I did not write that. That is from Sandy’s mouth to me. She told me it was the phrase that ran through her head at one point during the ordeal, when it occurred to her how important it was to find the information she had. Given everything that was happening, the knowledge that this information could reach the right people was what kept her sane.

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