3-7-00
 
Reading these flyers, distributed in Chicago in 1999 and 2000, is a very dizzying experience. I think we all have an idea what numerology is and how it works; it’s quite another thing to see it practiced with such vigor.

The author of these flyers is unknown. Here is the author’s declaration, taken from 2/1/00, of the conspiracy he or she is purporting to uncover, which is about an “ancient order” that controls most of the important events that happen on earth: “The ANCIENT ORDER not only tells the future; they decide it. The ANCIENT ORDER decide what outcome they want. Then they use this (over 300 years old) Laser Ray system to control the public, who do not know.”

They were found by Marc Fischer inside free newspaper dispensers on the streets of downtown Chicago between March 1999 and March 2000. Here is Fischer’s account of finding the mysterious photocopies:
 

These photocopied flyers were found over the course of a year in downtown Chicago. The main purpose of each flyer is to bring to light the mysterious workings of a group called “The Ancient Order” - who this group is, when they will strike in the future, what they were responsible for in the past, and how they have left their mark throughout history. Neither I nor anyone I know ever saw the person that was behind these flyers. The flyers were often hard to find if you weren’t paying close attention or in the right place at the right time. Every flyer is a single sided 8 1/2” X 11” photocopy, though several are longer and feature two or more pages stapled together.

The flyers were only found inside free newspaper dispensers. Like newspapers, the flyers were always dated, and were folded so that the bold headlines could be read along the top. Only the most recent flyer was ever available; back issues did not recirculate. The flyers were frequently left in the same locations but distribution was erratic and unpredictable. Usually only one copy of the day’s report was available in a dispenser. The dispenser’s clear plastic display window was always used for maximum visibility, but extra copies were rarely left inside the boxes. I have never seen more than three copies of the same flyer and I doubt that many copies of each one exist. There was never a contact address on the flyers or a way to subscribe.

Almost exactly one year after I first saw an Ancient Order flyer, they seem to have stopped circulating completely. The last flyer I found, “The Ancient Order and the Pearl Harbor Prevision”, is dated 3-17-2000.

 
 
In addition to the ones selected here, you can see the entire set at Ubuweb, along with Fischer’s description. There are 40 “issues” spanning 47 pages. Most of the issues are a single-page long, with the longest covering six pages.

Let’s have a look at the technique of the author. This excerpt, which comes from 12-17-99, is chosen almost at random:
 

President Lincoln was assassinated on 4-14-1865, the 23,846th day of the 1800’s. 36,535 - 23,846 = 12,679. Lincoln was assassinated 12,679 days before theend of the 1800’s.

13,000 - 12,679 = 321. Notice how far 12,679 is from 13,000. The difference is 321, just like 3,2,1, a countdown. Now look at Lincoln’s name total:

A(1) B(2) R(18) A(1) H(8) A(1) M(13)=44
L(12) I(9) N(14) C(3) O(15) L(12) N(14)=79
44+79=123

President Lincoln’s name adds to exactly 123. And that was from the day he was born in 1809. He was assassinated 12,679 days before the end of the century and 12,679 is exactly 123 away from 13,000. 123 & 321 are the exact opposite of each other.

 
Lest anyone think I’m out to distort the author in some way by truncating the arguments contained in the flyers, I emphasize that this bit of prose is complete on its own terms. The significance of the number 13,000 is not explained, nor is the significance of the “countdown” number 123.

Some of the manipulations are not numeric but alphabetical in nature, like anagrams or noticing that three important presidents (Lincoln, Nixon, and Clinton) can be linked by the I-O pattern in their last names, stuff like that. The near-anagrams “Dorian” and “Gordian,” as in “Gordian Knot,” get quite a workout.

It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that the author was able to shoehorn any event at all into the numerological scheme of the Ancient Order. Here is a partial list of topics that (so the author claims) the Ancient Order caused or was involved in:
 

Adolf Hitler
the Los Alamos nuclear test sites
Voltaire
George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four
the assassination of John F. Kennedy
the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
the death of Lady Diana
the OJ Simpson case
the Branch Davidian showdown at Waco
the Oklahoma City bombing
Ellen Degeneres
the Dred Scott case
the Holocaust
the death of John F. Kennedy, Jr.
the Columbine killings
Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution
Oscar Wilde and The Picture of Dorian Gray
the Susan Smith murders
the impeachment of Bill Clinton
the death of Bruce Lee
the murders committed by John Wayne Gacy
the murders committed by Jeffrey Dahmer
the murders committed by Charles Manson and the Family
the murder of Gianni Versace
the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan
the Pearl Harbor attack
the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby
the March of Dimes
the assassination of Julius Caesar

 
In hindsight we can perhaps be grateful that the author apparently ceased production of these flyers before 9/11. If he or she lived to see it, we can only suppose that this defender of the peoples of the earth from the malign influence of the Ancient Order fairly went out of his or her mind.

Here are a few tasty examples of the Ancient Order flyers. Clicking on any of the pictures will spawn a much larger image.
 

4-9-99
 
More tweaked numerology after the jump…