PROLOGUE:

"Charles A.A. Dellschau’s Aporetic Archive" * by Thomas McEvilley

The Fate of Charles A.A. Dellschau’s (1830 - 1923) Work After His Death

For forty years Dellschau’s thousands of Plates moldered in the darkness of a closed attic, gathering dust. The only intrusion known to have taken place was when a male child of the Stelzig family became curious about the Dellschau books and rummaged through them. Sometime in the 1960s there was a fire elsewhere in the house, and a fire inspector said to clear the debris out of the attic. So, after four decades in the secret dark, gently wafting the aura of twenty years of solitary late-night concentration into the depths of shadowy and slightly sinister corners, over the pieces of sad furniture with sheets flung over them and gathering dust, Dellschau’s life-work was carried unceremoniously out into the light of day and literally left in a heap in the gutter. (It was born into the gutter, you might say.) So the first venue for Dellschau’s oeuvre was his bedroom; the second, an attic; the third, a heap in the gutter. From this point there is uncertainty, and two versions have emerged. First, that a furniture refinisher named Fred Washington, making his rounds to see what people had thrown out, found Dellschau’s stuff and took it to his shop in Houston, called the OK Trading Post. Another version adds another pair of hands and another transaction. The heap in the gutter, on this account, was taken to the dump by a garbage truck. In the junkyard a nameless picker found it and sold it to Fred Washington for $100.

In any case, the story is that once Washington had Dellschau’s things in his shop they spent some time under a stack of old carpets or, in another rendition, tarpaulins. Before long they were discovered by a browser who recognized them as artworks of some kind, and then the books began their wanderings through the artworld and its levels of society.

The find made under a pile of carpets in the OK Trading Post was talked about a bit and began to be split up and moved in various directions—mostly upward (through the classes). Four of the twelve books were acquired by the Menil Collection, in Houston, which had previously shown some interest in outsider art.9 Fred Washington sold the other eight books to a man named P.G. Navarro, who is an interesting figure in the story. Navarro was a practicing commercial artist in Houston who in his spare time had developed as a hobby an investigation of certain reported airship sightings.

These mysterious airship sightings occurred in the late 1890s first in Northern California (not far from Sonora), then throughout the United States but especially in the Southwest and Texas. The phenomenon was known in the press (not only in Texas) as the Great Texas Airship Mystery. Navarro was studying the airship mystery at the time Dellschau’s books were discovered in the OK Trading Post, and it occurred to him that the Dellschau material might somehow be a part of it. Perhaps at first Navarro didn’t know about the Sonora Aero Club and assumed that the Aero drawings referred to aeronautical events around the turn of the century.

You’ve got to admire this sensible guess, and as he started to carry it out it became even more admirable. Navarro filled several notebooks with his findings, and these pages are exquisite in conception and execution; his obsessive concentration on order and neatness was not so unlike Dellschau’s own. Dellschau’s aesthetic is more expressive—meaning somewhat looser and more gestural—whereas Navarro’s notebooks are “expressive” of rigid order—more or less a contradiction in terms.

Perhaps Navarro appreciated Dellschau’s books as artworks. In any case it is clear that for one reason or another—maybe aesthetic, maybe spiritual, maybe as a search for something he couldn’t exactly name—Navarro felt a strong attraction toward the Dellschau material. It almost seems he got into a folie à deux with the long-dead Dellschau; in his notebooks, Navarro redrew many of Dellschau’s pages, carefully and in detail. He worked many long evenings to decipher coded messages he found there in what looked vaguely like alphabetical symbols, as seen in Plate 1631 (at left), but from some other tradition. Navarro says Dellschau used a simple one-to-one substitution code and claims to have worked it out.10 He worked on this hobby for thirty years and became something of a philological scholar in the process. He is still alive now at age ninety-three, the age at which his ego-ideal Dellschau died. At some point Navarro sold four of the eight Dellschau books of drawings in his possession to the San Antonio Museum Association; two went to the San Antonio Museum of Art and the other two went to the Witte Museum, also in San Antonio, a museum devoted to South Texas culture. His remaining four books ultimately entered the art market and ended up in various hands.

DM = XØ

Present in many of the plates of the works of Charles Dellschau are character-like symbols that look as if they are based to a degree on letters of the Greek alphabet. It is not clear to what end these only semi-recognizable characters are used. A formula that is on many of the Plates looks almost like ¯ DM = XØ but not quite. The two letters on the right of the equation look more like chi and phi from the Greek alphabet than like X and O from the Latin alphabet. The formula ¯ DM = XØ has a horizontal dash entering the D around its middle, from the left, and a diagonal line from upper right to lower left through the O. And of course D and M are both in the Greek alphabet, too. Delta mu = chi phi? It may be Dellschau didn’t leave enough clues to figure it out. Maybe it has something to do with Peter Mennis, as on Plate 2003 (as described by P.G. Navarro in his “Books of Dellschau”) are the words: “Have you never heard of P. M.’s goose and heir offspring DM = XØ—Peter I haven foregot you!”

Navarro thought he had worked it out in Dellschau’s code so that DM = XØ translates into NYMZA. In his interpretation the five elements refer by code to a mysterious organization, perhaps operating from Germany, that was the sponsor or secret director behind the activities of the Sonora Aero Club. There is in addition one drawing (Plate 2550) that is signed, “a DM = XØ Club Debate Studia . . . Drawn by CAA Dellschau.” Studia is the term Dellschau used for a model or study or artist’s proof. So: this is the Study-Model that came out of a Sonora Aero Club debate.

But of couse Dellschau treated the right side of the equation as if it was the Latin letters X and O, and didn’t consider the problems about those letters mentioned above.

CODEX to unlock the cipher:

He translates the ciphers as (left side, top to bottom) P, O, N, M, L, K, I, H, A, B, C, D, E, F, G and (right side, top to bottom) Q, R, S, T, U, W, X, Y, Z, CH, SCH, with the O used for double letters and no representation for J or V. By using this code, he claims the passages on the left and right edges of the drawing read “Now talk about your dirigibels” and “O yes we didden know nothing say.” P.G. Navarro, e-mail to Stephen Romano, July 30, 2012.

Extracted from "Empire of the Wheel III: The Nameless Ones", by Walter Bosley

The Mysterious NYMZA In "Empire of the Wheel 1", we presented evidence that extremist members of the Spiritualist movement were the most likely suspects involved with the deaths we associate to The San Bernardino Working of 1915. In that book, it is revealed that the ancient goddess Hekate was central to the events surrounding deaths of four adults and three children. The circumstances appear to have shrouded the identities of those involved. In EOW2, we extrapolated on the facts and possibilities by pulling a seemingly innocuous thread which ultimately revealed that an historical figure was at the center of events and offered a possible explanation as to why. Looming even taller in the background was the specter of a nameless string-puller, the difference now being the unexpected presence of an organization steeped in shadow and mystery but finally offering at least an apparent name:NYMZA/ NJMZa.

EOW2 already provides a very logical translation of the acronym NYMZA/ NJMZa. Here we must go a level deeper for therein is the thread through all we’ve presented in this book. Charles Dellschau NYMZA has multiple meanings, much like a hieroglyph. There is NYMZA the mysterious organization behind the airship mystery, according to Dellschau. EOW2 attempts to translate this NYMZA according to Dellschau’s own description of it being an organization based in Germany and overseeing several airship builders in the United States, especially the Sonora Aero Club formed mostly of German immigrants. This NYMZA/ NJMZa is also associated with the Great Airship Mystery of 1896, by this time also allegedly involved with known Spiritualist/ Theosophist investors and other players. It is here we can link NYMZA/ NJMZa to occult interests and not just via the Spiritualist scene in America but because of the German occult associations of the time. However, in true occult spirit, the acronym is embedded with what may be the identity of the hand behind the secretive Germans overseeing the airship operations as outlined in EOW2. NYM-ZA: The Sesh Heri Analysis In Sesh Heri’s 2008 novel Metamorphosis, second book of the Wonder of the Worlds trilogy, Ed Morrell explains the NYMZA to Jack London and the narrator of the story: “That member of the (Sonora) Aero Club had figured it out. He was a professor of ancient languages. He had studied Latin and Greek all his life, and he had also studied ancient Egyptian, Sumerian and Mayan. This professor told me that NYMZA was a veryancient word that predated all known languages but that it had survived into ancient Egyptian, Greek and Latin in somewhat altered forms. For example: nomen in Latin and onyma in Greek are the words from where we derive our English word for name. But these Latin and Greek words were only derived from the older Egyptian nym which meant ‘who?’… “The word for ‘who?’ in Egyptian was related to several other words in that language that sounded the same…” “Homonyms,” Jack said. “That’s it,” Morrell said, “There were a number of words that were all pronounced something like nym, like the words for sleep, walk or stride, to do evil, wrongdoer, place of slaughter, slaughterhouse, execution, chamber, cellar… “They tell a story, a very ancient story. It’s all about the ancient gods who once ruled the Earth. They weren’t human; they were different kinds of creatures. They were amphibian. The Sumerians called these fish-men gods Annunaki – ‘Heavenly Ones Fallen To Earth’… The fish-men fought a war among their own kind and subdued the evil ones. What the fish-men did was confine the evil ones among them to a particular astral plane for all eternity… “That’s why all those nym words in Egyptian mean things like evil and slaughterhouse and cellar. The evil ones or wrongdoers, nymi, were put to sleep, nym, in a kind of cellar which could also be likened to a slaughterhouse, for although these evil beings continually walk or stride in that place of confinement, they exist in a kind of living death… “And should anyone ask about these evil beings who have been so confined in this living death, one can only reply who?, nym, for they are forgotten among the living… because their names have been taken away from them and this has cut them off from life…” “And that thing I encountered on the bottom of the ocean,” I asked, “You’re saying you think it was one of those old ones, one of those fish-gods, imprisoned on the astral plane long ago?”

“Yes,” Morrell said, “And not only that, but these things, the NYMZA, continually try to reach out to the minds of mankind and control us. Their ultimate aim is to escape from the astral plane and return here where they can once again rule according to all the evil that is in them. This NYMZA has been a manipulating force throughout the history of mankind on both Earth and Mars, and it was they who constantly interfered with mental communications going on between the Aero Club and some of the people on Mars… “They cannot build in the material world, but they can project their thoughts into this material realm through the minds of living things, especially the humans. Through such mental doors, the NYMZA hope to eventually escape their endless imprisonment. That machine on the ocean floor is designed to rend the fabric of space and open an astral portal so those things can escape…” NYM-ZA or NYM-SA means specifically, according to Heri, ‘Name That Has Been Removed’ and he makes the distinction that this is the result of a punitive action. The‘cutting’ of the name was a revoking of a ‘key’, the name symbolizing the more important ‘identity’ or, as Joseph Farrell might say, ‘individuation’. This identity key is what, according to Heri’s interpretation, allows a being to exist on our plane, i.e. our material plane as opposed to the astral plane to which the ‘NYM-ZA/ NYM-SA’ were banished. Heri adds that the desire for these beings to possess a key drives them to seek possession of the identity of others, for the specific identity does not matter to them so much as simply having the key to return to this material plane of existence. It is in this desire for the ‘key’ of identity/ individuation that we may also find the motive for the possession of living bodies by disembodied entities, i.e. ‘demons’.

Consider the story in The Bible wherein Jesus encounters the man possessed by multiple demons. When Jesus asks for a name, the voice replies, “My name is Legion”. This apparent name actually refers to a multitude of entities possessing the man. Notice not one specific name identifying any of them by their personal identities is given but instead what Jesus is given is a group name. Heri argues that ‘Legion’ is equivalent to NYMZA/ NYM-SA. Had any of these entities retained an ‘identity key’, they would not need a living body to enter this plane of existence. Heri uses both his understanding of the phonetic cabala and modern words traced to ancient lexicons. Confining his examples to English, German, Latin, Greek and ancient Egyptian, which can be demonstrated to be the sources for Greek and Latin terms. His source on the ancient Egyptian is Budge’s An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary (Murray, London, 1920) Pgs. 373-385. “-nym” is a suffix in English, i.e. patronym, pseudonym, etc. It refers to “name” as in the Greek onyma or “name”. Heri is convinced onyma came from the Egyptian word nem which meant “who?” Nem is a question concerning the specific identity of a person, the answer being their name. In ancient Egyptian, there were two words for “name”, being ren and ka. Nems means veil. Consider our context and remember this because we’ll bring it up a little later.

Ka is usually translated as “soul”, but Budge explicitly states that sometimes ka was used to mean “name”. This demonstrates to Heri a crucial link between the concept of the soul and the idea of a name. Heri argues that the Egyptian nem or “who?” entered the Greek language as onyma i.e. “name”. Now let’s bring the second syllable of NYMZA into the analysis. Heri believes the ancient Egyptian sa i.e. “cut” is the root of the “-ZA”. Thus nem-sa means “who? cut”. But then Heri points to nems, meaning to enlighten or illuminate in one usage yet “veil” in another. Heri thinks this hints at the “cutting off of illumination”. We shall return to this momentarily. Interestingly Heri points out that other nem related homonyms in ancient Egyptian mean “evil”, nehem “to deliver”, nehem-ra “to kill”, nemmta a type of fish. There are nem words relating to “lake”, “to bathe or swim”, “to sleep or slumber”, and “bedchamber”. This also extends to the Greek and Roman (Latin) nymphs, often associated with water; and the Greek nystagmos “drowsiness” derived from the ancient Egyptian nem in its aforementioned “sleep” association.

Now we go to the German nehmen “to take” which is also used to mean “to possess” or “to consume” as in “eat”. Heri is convinced that this can likely be traced back as well to the ancient Egyptian. He suggests nehmen might also be used to mean “to take someone” or possess someone. Returning to the second syllable of NYMZA once again, we have the German zahn “tooth” which relates to chewing or cutting, bringing it back to the ancient Egyptian sa. But Heri also points out the German zahllos “innumerable”, which hints at the aforementioned “legion”. Thus, according to Heri, do we have the following: NYM meaning “name” and ZA( SA) meaning “cut” NYM meaning the answer to “who?” and ZA relative to “innumerable” NYM-ZA meaning “without a name” or “nameless” Heri goes even farther to reveal the revelation that links his translation to our mystery:

a. Recall the nemmta or “type of fish” link to nem/-nym/ name? Remember the “lake” and “swim” associative definitions to nem?

b. Consider the “sleep” usage of the ancient Egyptian nem and its Greek derivative nystagmos “drowsiness”.

c. Now add the “possession” usage of the German nehmen which, if it is derived from the ancient Egyptian nem, provides yet more evidence for a NYM-ZA association. What does all this suggest to Heri? A nameless fish-like being sleeping under the water yet taking possession of something.

Does this sound familiar? It should.

Heri’s argues that his analysis reveals to him that the NYMZA are equivalent to Lovecraft’s Elder Gods from the stars whose priest-god Cthulhu sleeps at the bottom of the sea reaching out psychically to possess the minds of humans so as to appropriate their identities and capture the key necessary for the Elder Gods to enter our material plane.

That’s not all Sesh Heri has to offer as evidence. Heri argues that Nommo of the African Dogon tribe revealed the NYMZA presence on Earth.

Heri cites Robert K. G. Temple: “Nommo is the collective name for the great culture hero and founder of civilization who came from the Sirius system to set up society (civilization) on Earth.

Nommo – or, to be more precise, the Nommos – were amphibious creatures…” (Note 131) Nommo is a collective term, not a proper name. It does not mean any one particular personage, thus is essentially “nameless”. Nameless, amphibious or fish-like, gods from the stars. We won’t even go into what Jules Verne may have known, naming his legendary mystery man of the sea Captain Nemo… NYMZA: Their ‘name’ is ‘Legion’. They are numerous and ‘revoked of their identity key’ or ‘nameless’. Heri thinks this is their condemnation, but it may also be useful. If you lack an identity, you cannot be identified.

The Heri translation adds an unexpected element to the mystery. We have already provided an effective and valid German translation of NYMZA/ NJMZa in EOW2, so what are we to do with this new translation which also fits so disturbingly well? The answer is simple. Both may be right. Homonyms are the key. Words spelled the same yet having different meanings depending upon usage and context. Why not an acronym? Heri has already demonstrated a German association to the ancient Egyptian from which he derives his translation. We are dealing with Germans – specifically esoterically motivated Germans – all over this mystery. The implication is startling. NYMZA means NJMZa to the aero clubs yet it may also mean NYMZA ‘The Nameless Ones’ behind the nems. Oh, pardon us, we meant The Nameless Ones behind the veil, that definition of nems we told you we’d bring up again. Might the German NJMZa, as presented in EOW2, be the “veil” behind which hide the NYMZA aka The Nameless Ones?

Behind The Zodiac Killer and the ambush murders of Officers Christiansen and Teel are Nameless Ones. Behind the disappearance of April Pitzer and the murder of the McStay Family buried on a telluric current are Nameless Ones. Behind the murder of Harry Houdini and the Cthulhu Mythos are Nameless Ones. Behind all the mysterious shrines to Hekate and operational necromantic sites of the Inland Empire are Nameless Ones. Just as in EOW1 where we state that neither the reader nor we need to believe in the reality of these Nameless Ones, what matters is that the perpetrators of crimes in their honor believe in them, and to catch them, we must understand how they think. To catch them, we must identify them, in spite of their efforts to emulate their gods and remain without a face to put to their crimes. It is an ironic mirror image which these very real perpetrators anonymously commit atrocities in veneration of their gods who themselves are believed to remain entombed because they have been stripped of individual identities.

The nameless/ faceless punishment for one becomes the cloaking security for the other. Who are these Nameless Ones? Lovecraft would say they came from the stars aeons ago and remain on this planet to command their devotees in an objective of conquest. Now there’s an interesting possibility that may indeed have played a role in The San Bernardino Working after all. How? There has been one player in this melodrama that moved across the stage seemingly as a red herring. The circumstances suggested a greater hand in the events of 1915, yet the facts simply did not provide the necessary evidence to accuse this particular actor. Indeed, it appeared the truth stood in solid opposition to the natural assumption based upon the public persona of the individual – but now we know more. We must consider again the notorious Aleister Crowley.