Glyphs And Griffins

The other day I was reading an article which demonised the prime minister , when I thought about how every age seemed to depict its worries / demons in images which would make sense in the wider cultural context - visions of flying dragons or images in clouds with ominous portents (or just Jesus in a slice of toast).
Of course in days of old (or so I'm told), we had the seers, shamen and wise women who made much of signs and symbols, often scrying tea-leaves or animal entrails or just smoke.
So, as we come forward through the dark ages into the light of science and rationalisation, how do we see our cultural fears and demons ?

No longer do we have eyewitness accounts of fish and frogs raining from the sky...
Another sign in the heavens was the sighting of comets, whose fiery splendour presaged war, pestilence, earthquakes...

...but we are no longer seeing things in the sky...

Alleged U.F.O. 1952

In the post-WWII era UFOs became a thing, particularly in the Cold War era U.S.A., where their alleged alien crews (as depicted in film ) were ciphers for the ever - present communist threat .
However true or not the reports of aliens and crash-landings were, they gave a modern form to ancient fears.

In the U.K., we have frequent reports of exotic animals in the wild , such as pumas and ominous phantoms like 'black shuck' in urban places.
Unusual creatures are often sighted.
Sometimes they are just throw-backs, remnants of a simpler time when strange creatures roamed the world...
 ...we had a surge of Loch Ness Monster reports which went global in the 1930s with the publication of a (later disproved) photograph .

The 'surgeons photograph' 1934

There were also tales and sightings of the Yeti / Sasquatch which came to the fore in the nineteen-seventies.
It is perhaps relevant, however that the most popular sasquatch film ( Patterson / Gimlin ) was probably of a guy in a suit.

Alleged Sasquatch 1967

Again, the truth of the reports is not as important as the reports themselves.

Later in the last century, the emergence of crop circle spirals on an annual basis seemed to indicate a growth in Earth- consciousness ( whatever that is ) , or messages from extraterrestrials.
This, however, falls into the dangerous realms of tin - foil helmet  territory.

But then why should it ?
Are we just so sophisticated that we are instantly dismissive of signs and symbols ?

'Hidden in plain sight' is a latter day saying.

Perhaps with increasing literacy (don't forget, centuries ago , only monks could read or write ), the use of symbols to convey messages gradually fell into decline.
 Perhaps , alongside the 'old wives tales' or superstitions, they became embarassing relics of a primitive past.


Saying this, we still have symbols in everyday life , although they are for practical purposes.


We are now in an age of almost entirely visual cues, given the global reach of products which often have to rise above the inconvenience of language -

Symbols are increasingly everywhere, giving us the immediacy of understanding that we crave

But they are almost purely practical, existing in an instructional sense.
So how do we see our demons now - and who or what are they ?

One of the most obvious and recognizable demons of the last century...

image by Noma Bar

Our modern demons seem to increasingly lurk in our peripheral vision.
Shadows that we rarely encounter personally.

Faceless immigrants, masked terrorists, anonymous hackers in cyberspace.
But there are other, perhaps less visible but no less real, demons.
And these beasties are often created by us !

Global Recession.
Climate Change.
Mass Extinction.
War.


We're overdue a switcheroo on the magnetic poles, too.*
So that could be fun...

What I'm saying is, the signs are all around us

Are we seeing the signs around us?


Oh...and I mentioned griffins in the title of this rant.

Sorry, I fibbed.

They don't exist.

* current scientific thinking says we're more than 500, 000 years overdue for a reversal of poles.