The mystery monument in Georgia of which we have written [see article]  possesses many interesting and even confounding aspects.

There is the fact that the granite structures in the rural northeast of the state are aligned with the sun and north star (serving as a clock, a compass, and a calendar, like mysterious monuments in places like Egypt and South America, along with Stonehenge).

There is the fact that a message for the future is etched on the stones in eight languages (along with several more on the capstone). Sanskrit. English. Hieroglyphics.

There is the fact that the monument, completed in 1980, and now under government custody, exhorts a post-apocalypse society to keep the world’s population under 500,000 and seek unity in a global structuring (including a single world language).

Perhaps most hauntingly, there is the plaque to the west engraved with the words, “Time capsule placed six feet below this spot on ______” (there is a blank space) and “To be opened on ______ (another blank space).

Who will fill in those blanks?

What disaster is prefigured in what are known as the Georgia Guidestones?

Mysterious indeed.

But nothing is more mysterious than who built them.

It is widely asserted that a small group was behind it, but no one in Elberton knows the identify of this group, which was represented by a stranger who waltzed into the small industrial town ninety miles from Atlanta during June of 1979 and asked a banker to serve as intermediary for a project to erect the five bizarre stones weighing 237,746 pounds and at the highest 19 feet: less in number but taller than the trilithons at Stonehenge.

The man called himself “R. C. Christian” (at another other point, “Robert C. Christian”) and openly admitted — even on the plaque above the time capsule — that this was a mere pseudonym. The stranger explained to Wyatt C. Martin, president of Granite City Bank, that he chose “Christian” because he was a Christian.

Martin — who is now elderly and living in south Georgia — knew Christian’s actual name (legally, that was unavoidable), but signed a confidentiality agreement “for perpetuity” and even kept the man’s name from his personal secretary, divulging it to no one. Not even Martin knew the group behind Christian, who flew in from various airports and wired money for the project from different banks to shield his identity.

Martin believes that “Christian” died around the time of 9/11, when Martin estimates he would have been in his eighties. That was when their correspondence, which had grown cordial, suddenly came to a halt. In fact, occasionally the two met at a restaurant in Augusta if “Christian” was flying through the Atlanta airport.

Martin showed a reporter for Wired Magazine a box of documents pertaining to the project but steadfastly refused to open it. In fact, the documents were supposed to have been destroyed after completion of the project. A well-dressed, articulate man who never blinked at costs, Christian told the banker his group had been planning the project the two decades. “He made it clear that he was very serious about secrecy,” said Martin. “All of Mr. Christian’s correspondence came from different cities around the country. He never sent anything from the same place twice.” Martin added that Christian “never would tell me a thing about the group he belonged to.”

“My name is not Christian,” he told Martin, as well as a granite company executive named James Fendley. “I only use that name because I am a follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ.” Christian was a visible spokesman “for a small group of perhaps half-a-dozen people who believe in God and country seeking to erect a monument to help in some way to improve this world and this world’s people,” said a booklet later released by the company. Christian described himself as a “patriotic American in every sense of the word.”

There are some facts that can be gleaned from the document. It states that Elberton was chosen because of its high-quality granite, the affordability of erecting a monument right there, the mild climate, and because a great-grandmother of Christian’s was a native of Georgia. Others have claimed that Elberton had been considered by some Indians to be the center of the world and conforms with occult “ley” lines (geographical tracks that link prehistoric monuments and some believe carry spiritual power).

“It is very probable that humankind now possesses the knowledge needed to establish an effective world government,” the group is quoted as saying in the booklet. “In some way that knowledge must be widely seeded in the consciousness of all mankind. Very soon the hearts of our human family must be touched and warmed so we will welcome a global rule of reason. We are entering a critical era. Population pressures will soon create political and economic crisis throughout the world. These will make more difficult and at the same time more needed the building of a rational world society. The approaching crisis may make mankind willing to accept a system of world law that will stress the responsibility of individual nations in managing internal affairs, and which will assist them in the peaceful management of external frictions.

“We, the sponsors of the Georgia Guidestones, are a small group of Americans who wish to focus attention on problems central to the present quandary of humanity. We have chosen to remain anonymous in order to avoid debate and contention which might confuse our meaning, and which might delay a considered review of our thoughts.

“The celestial alignments of the stones symbolize the need for humanity to be square with external principles which are manifest in our own nature, and the universe around us. We must live in harmony with the infinite.

“We profess no divine inspiration beyond that which can be found in all human minds.” [scroll for more]

It was lingo that many would label “New Age” — and stressed the libertarian zeal for “reason.” The “infinite,” it said — in distinctly non-Christian language — “envelopes all that exists, even struggle, conflict, and change, which may reflect turmoils in the very soul of God.” Controlling population was urgently needed, said the group — a precept that raises alarm with those who point to secret societies which have connections with scientific establishments promoting abortion, birth control, eugenics, and even euthanasia. It even promoted something that China established: single-child families (for at least a few generations). Nearly every country was now overpopulated, charged the mystery group, which asserted that humankind is now out of balance with nature — something even the Vatican maintains, though from an entirely different perspective.

As a result, said the group, we face an “approaching tempest.” As stated in the booklet issued by the granite company, Christian’s group also urged a “world language” while not necessarily eliminating national tongues, in this push for a new order.

Some have speculated that R. C. Christian plays on “Roman Catholic,” but more convincing are those who argue that there is a link between the name and an ancient occult school of thought called Rosicrucianism” — which some date back to the first century (others somewhat later, to the ancient Druids, who are also linked to Stonehenge).

In its modern form, Rosicrucianism may have been contrived as a secret philosophical society by a late medieval German named Christian Rosenkreuz.  (Note that the initial of that name, if reversed, would be “R. C”; he also was known, in fact, as “Frater C.R.C” and as Rosicrucianism’s “Christian Father”). The peak of the so-called “Rosicrucianism furor” was reached when two mysterious posters appeared on the walls of Paris in 1622 within a few days of each other.

Membership has included mathematicians, natural philosophers, alchemists, and astronomers. “During Rosenkreuz’s lifetime, the Order was said to consist of no more than eight members, each a doctor and a sworn bachelor,” notes an encyclopedia. “Each member undertook an oath to heal the sick without payment, to maintain a secret fellowship, and to find a replacement for himself before he died.”

Rosicrucianism, according to Wikipedia, “holds a doctrine or theology ‘built on esoteric truths of the ancient past’ which, ‘concealed from the average man, provide insight into nature, the physical universe and the spiritual realm. Between 1607 and 1616, two anonymous manifestos were published by this group and promoted a “universal reformation of mankind.” Linked by some of Lutheranism, it is though to have been highly influential in the formation of Freemasonry (at least as it emerged in Scotland). Note the similarities to the views expressed on the guidestones.

Some claim Rosicruciansm is in fact is the basis for Freemasonry and that only Rosicrucians know the meaning of secret masonic symbols. Rosicrucians also have been linked to an occult group known as the Golden Dawn. Their magazine was called “New Age.”

Ironically, a number of those who played a major role in construction of the Georgia monuments were Masons, including  a stonecutter who was also a 32-degree Scottish Rite member (belonging also to Savannah Valley Shrine Club); a sandblaster who had been a Mason when he lived in Alaska (along with professing to be a Methodist); and Fendley, the president of Elberton Granite Finishing, who was a York Rite and Scottish Rite Master Mason of the 32nd degree (as well as a member of Yaarab Shrine Temple in Atlanta). Freemasonry is often mixed in with Christianity by those who don’t understand the roots of the organization’s rituals, viewing it instead as a social organization (one that has done charitable work through in fact the Shriners).

It is striking, in the literature, to note the rather odd way the stones have been embraced by local politicians and chamber-of-commerce types and it is interesting if not necessarily significant that Fendley became mayor of Elberton. Also, the monuments are now in the official custody of the county, which has erected a security camera high on a pole across the road in this territory of farms, granite, and grazing cattle.

Could this whole thing have been a local project?

There is no evidence that anyone local was linked to “Christian.”

What disaster is foreseen?

No one knows. Plenty, however, fear that secret financial cabals are preparing for it.

Contention?

Local Christians have at times objected to the monument — this is heavily Baptist territory — and there has been graffiti denouncing Satan sprayed on the stones.

Those who fear secret societies and the push for world government base their concerns on the occult nature of that movement while other ears prick up at mention of population control and global societies. This, it is feared, could pave the way for a nefarious “anti-christ”-like leader.

[resources: Lying Wonders, Strangest Things]

[What the stones say:

“MAINTAIN HUMANITY UNDER 500,000,000 IN PERPETUAL BALANCE WITH NATURE

“GUIDE REPRODUCTION WISELY — IMPROVING FITNESS AND DIVERSITY

“RULE PASSION — FAITH — TRADITION — AND ALL THINGS WITH TEMPERED REASON

“PROTECT PEOPLE AND NATIONS WITH FAIR LAWS AND JUST COURTS. LET ALL NATIONS RULE INTERNALLY RESOLVING EXTERNAL DISPUTES IN A WORLD COURT. AVOID PETTY LAWS AND USELESS OFFICIALS.

“BALANCE PERSONAL RIGHTS WITH SOCIAL DUTIES

“PRIZE TRUTH — BEAUTY — LOVE — SEEKING HARMONY WITH THE INFINITE

“BE NOT A CANCER ON THE EARTH — LEAVE ROOM FOR NATURE — LEAVE ROOM FOR NATURE”]