Mark Anthony Conditt ~ Why?

Why did the Austin bomber set off his bombs? It appears to be a question that will linger for days.

One clue may exist in the map, and various maps of the bombing in context have been created.

Source: Secret Sun

A man who police believe carried out a string of package bombings in Austin is dead, putting an end to a weekslong hunt to track down and stop the bomber who had the Texas capital and its residents on edge. 

Conditt at the FedEx counter.

Law enforcement officials, who identified the suspect as 23-year-old Mark Anthony Conditt, said they traced the white male to a hotel in the Austin suburb of Round Rock, about 20 miles north of the city. In a confrontation with the police, the suspect detonated a device and died, Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said. Shots were fired during the encounter with police.

Conditt, via Facebook.

Conditt detonated one final bomb in his car.

The Round Rock motel where Conditt was staying.

Mark Anthony Conditt

Mark Anthony Conditt Reportedly ID'd as Austin Bomber

Blew himself up after police chase early Wednesday morning.


Mason-Dixon

“I have this idea I haven't been putting out publicly...but screw it. The guy doesn't have time to watch FB with all he's doing. If you didn't catch, the 3rd one was meant for Erica Mason, across the street from the lady who's doorstep it was on (she was carrying it to her). 1st was House family, son of Rev. Dixon. 2nd and 3rd--Mason. "Mason-Dixon" as in line :-( and 4th was on a street that was hidden well enough from traffic to set it up...traffic from the feeder street, Republic of Texas Blvd. So...yeah.” ~ Debbie Russell (with comments)

Mark

Mark is a common male given name and is derived from old Latin "Mart-kos", which means "consecrated to the god Mars", and also may mean "God of war" or "to be warlike". Marcus was one of the three most common given names in Ancient Rome. See Roman given names.

Aries dates in astrology are March 21 to April 19. If your birthday falls in this date range, you have an Aries Sun sign. Although Aries horoscope birth dates can change depending on the year, these are typically the Ariescalendar dates. For about 30 days each year, the Sun travels through the part of the zodiac occupied by ...

Marcus Antonius (Latin: M·ANTONIVS·M·F·M·N; January 14, 83 BC – August 1, 30 BC), commonly known in English as Mark Antony or Marc Antony, was a Roman politician and general who played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic from an oligarchy into the autocratic Roman Empire.

Antony was a supporter of Julius Caesar, and served as one of his generals during the conquest of Gaul and the Civil War. Antony was appointed administrator of Italy while Caesar eliminated political opponents in Greece, North Africa, and Spain. After Caesar's death in 44 BC, Antony joined forces with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, another of Caesar's generals, and Octavian, Caesar's great-nephew and adopted son, forming a three-man dictatorship known to historians as the Second Triumvirate. The Triumvirs defeated Caesar's murderers, the Liberatores, at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC, and divided the government of the Republic between themselves. Antony was assigned Rome's eastern provinces, including the client kingdom of Egypt, then ruled by Cleopatra VII Philopator, and was given the command in Rome's war against Parthia.

Conditt

Condit(t) may be a topographical name for a dweller by a water channel, from the Old French word "conduit," Middle English "condit, cundit," which was originally an artificial channel or pipe for conveying water, and later was the term applied to a structure from which water was distributed, a fountain or pump. Source

Mark

Mars (mythology)

Not to be confused with the planet Mars.
Mars: Pater of the Roman people, Guardian of soldiers and farmers, God of War, Destruction and Masculinity

The Statue of Mars from the Forum of Nerva, 2nd century AD, based on an Augustan-era original that in turn used a Hellenistic Greek model of the 4th century BC, Capitoline Museums
Symbol The spear of Mars ♂ (Spear and shield iconography)
Personal information
Consort Nerio and others like Rhea Silvia, Venus, Bellona
Parents Jupiter and Juno
Siblings Vulcan, Minerva, Hercules, Bellona, Apollo, Diana, Bacchus, etc.
Greek equivalent Ares

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Mars (Latin: Mārs) was the god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He was second in importance only to Jupiter and he was the most prominent of the military gods in the religion of the Roman army. Most of his festivals were held in March, the month named for him (Latin Martius), and in October, which began the season for military campaigning and ended the season for farming.

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h/t SL, SM, CLK, SH

Dawn Song Drive: Austin Bomb Blast #4

Emergency crews in Austin, Texas, responded to a explosion Sunday night, March 18, 2018, which happened in the southwest part of the city. Austin Police said two men were transported to the hospital with serious injuries, but they are not expected to be life-threatening.

The explosion occurred in the 4800 block of Dawn Song Drive. (Dawn = Aurora.) First reported to be at 4721 Eagle Feather Drive (but that was incorrect).

Device may have been by the side of a road, set off by a trip wire. Victims appear to be on or pushing bikes.

One man is reported to have nails in his leg.

The latest blast occurred around 8:30 p.m. Sunday, March 18, 2018, in a suburban neighborhood known as Travis Country in southwest Austin — far from the previous three that were all in residential areas in the eastern part of the city — and investigators didn't immediately confirm what caused it. But Austin Police Chief Brian Manley repeated previously issued warnings for residents not to touch any unexpected packages left at their homes.

Two men in their 20s were hurt in the latest blast. Police said they were hospitalized with injuries that weren't life-threatening. They are said to be white, Caucasian, and thus, temporarily undermining the theory the previous three bombings were racially motivated.

Sunday, March 18, 2018, is the final day of the South By Southwest music festival, which draws hundreds of thousands to Austin every March. It is also the end of spring break for many area school districts, meaning families who were out of town in recent days are returning to a city increasingly on edge.

The explosions occurred far from the main South By Southwest activities, though a downtown concert by hip-hop band The Roots was canceled Saturday night after a bomb threat. Authorities later arrested a 26-year-old man, and the incident did not appear to be related to any previous explosions.

Bombings #1, #2, and #3

It was the fourth explosion to rock Austin in less than three weeks.

The first was a package bomb that exploded at a northeast Austin home on Haverford Drive, on March 2, 2018, killing a 39-year-old man. Two more package bombs then exploded farther south on March 12, killing a 17-year-old, wounding his mother and injuring a 75-year-old woman.

Police said all three of those were likely related and involved packages that had not been mailed or delivered by private carrier but left overnight on doorsteps. Austin police originally suggested they could have been hate crimes since all the victims were black or Hispanic, but now investigators aren't ruling out any possible motive.

Austin's earlier explosions were in the 4800 block of Oldfort Hill Drive and in the 6700 block of Galindo Street.

The Galindo incident happened hours after police responded to a previous package explosion at the 4800 block of Oldfort Hill Drive, killing a teenager and injuring a woman, police have said. LaVonne Mason, co-founder of the Austin Area Urban League, told the Post her grandson was the 17-year-old victim killed Monday morning.

A 17-year-old victim in a series of deadly package bombs delivered to homes in Austin, Texas, has been identified as Draylen Mason, while a law enforcement source revealed the same maker may have constructed the three devices.

Draylen Mason.

Described by Austin's police chief as an "outstanding young man who was going places with his life," Mason was killed Monday morning, March 12, 2018, when a package exploded in the kitchen of his Austin home as it was being opened. His mother is in stable condition.

Three package bombs exploded at homes in the Texas capital over 10 days -- one on March 2 and two on March 12 -- killing two people and injuring two others. Investigators have said they believe the attacks are related.

In all three bombings, residents found the cardboard packages outside their houses. Two exploded as they were being handled outside, police said.

But the package that exploded indoors yielded parts that could be reconstructed, a law enforcement source told CNN on condition of anonymity. The devices were essentially pipe bombs rigged to explode upon opening, the source said.

Anthony Stephan House, the Austin bomber's first victim

The stepfather of man who died in a package explosion in Austin earlier this month knew the grandfather of one of the victims in Monday’s first bombing, according to the Washington Post.

Fredie Dixon’s stepson, Anthony Stephan House, 39, died after a package exploded at his house on March 2, 2018. Dixon told the Post he is good friends with Norman Mason, the grandfather of the teenager who was killed in a package explosion around 6:45 a.m. March 12, 2018, in the 4800 block of Oldfort Hill Drive.

“This is a real mystery, and how all of this mystery comes together, I have no idea,” Dixon told the Post. Source.

A Name Game?

The names of Mason and House - and even Oldfort Hill, now Dawn Song are all highly symbolic.

One meaning of Galindo, which is in essence a personal name, is "foreigner or stranger."

Sibyl Hunter adds:

“The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone" (Psalm 118:22).
The image comes from the ancient quarries where highly-trained stoneMASONs carefully chose the stones used in construction. No stone was more important than the cornerstone because the integrity of the whole structure depended on the cornerstone containing exactly the right lines. If the cornerstone was not exactly right, the entire building would be out of line. For that reason, builders inspected many stones, rejecting each one until they found the one they wanted. Rejected stones might be used in other parts of the building, but they would never become the cornerstone or the capstone (the first and last stones put in place).
"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his HOUSE on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it." (Matt 7:24-27)

The Date?

On March 18, 1314, Jacques de Molay, the 23rd and final Grand Master of the Knights Templar, is burned at the stake.

Killing at Temple Mount

Attack from Dawn Star, March 18, 2018: Lawrence passed along this news.

An Israeli security guard was killed by an assailant armed with a knife on Sunday 18th March 2018, near the entrance to Lion's Gate in Jerusalem's Old City. He was initially seriously wounded, but later died. (Source.) 

The guard (Adiel Kolman, a married father of four) was from the West Bank settlement of 'Kochav Shachar'. The meaning in English is 'Dawn Star'. 'Shachar' means 'dawn' ('kochav' means 'star'). I sometimes see this place name sloppily misspelt/mispronounced in English as 'shahar' (including in that specific Jerusalem Post article, of all places. Usually the JPost gets it right), but it's 'shachar'. Sometimes 'kochav shachar' is translated as 'morning star', but it is literally 'dawn star'.

Lion's Gate in Jerusalem has its own mythic and political resonances of course. The entrance leads to the Via Dolorosa. The Wikipedia entry for Lion's Gate informs us: "Near the gate’s crest are four figures of leopards, often mistaken for lions, two on the left and two on the right. They were placed there by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent to celebrate the Ottoman defeat of the Mamluks in 1517."
Israeli paratroopers famously stormed through this gate during the Six-Day War of 1967 to conquer the Temple Mount (from Jordan), after which they unfurled the Israeli flag above the Old City.

Historian Moshe Sharon notes the similarity of the sculpted lions to similar pairs at Jisr Jindas and Qasr al-Basha in Gaza. All represent the same Sultan: Baybars. Sharon estimates that they all date to approximately 1273 C.E.

Phantom Clown: Macon + LaGrange

Correspondent Jim Brandon (The Rebirth of Pan) writes:

Well, we had a Fayette episode so how about something explicitly Masonic? Phantom clowns were reported in Macon, Georgia. 

I have written about this part of the name game often, as Macon is the French for Mason, and the use of that name is an overt Masonic naming of the landscape, just as much as Lafayette, Washington, and a number of other power names. I grew up in Macon County, Decatur, Illinois, so my decoding experience with "Macon" is firsthand.

After the organization of Bibb County in 1822, the city was chartered as the county seat in 1823 and officially named Macon. This was in honor of the North Carolina statesman Nathaniel Macon, because many of the early settlers in Georgia hailed from North Carolina. Macon was the 5th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, under President Thomas Jefferson.

Nathaniel Macon

Nathaniel Macon, a Freemason, was the son of Maj. Gideon Macon (1715–1761) and Priscilla Jones (1718 – March 1802). Nathaniel’s father’s parents were John Macon (December 17, 1695 – March 31, 1752) and Ann Hunt (1697 – February 15, 1725), both of Virginia. Nathaniel’s paternal great-grandparents were Col. Gideon Macon (c. 1648 – February 1701 or 1702) and Martha Woodward (1665–1723). Gideon and Martha Woodward Macon were also the great-grandparents of Martha Dandridge who married George Washington and became First Lady of the United States of America. Therefore, Nathaniel Macon was the second cousin of Martha Dandridge Washington.  In Masonic circles, Major John Mason held several offices in the grand lodge. Most, if not all, the Macon men in the ancestral line were all Masons down through the 20th century.

Freemasons use Mason names to name locations to honor other Masons, thus Macon, Georgia was named after Nathaniel Macon.

Brandon continues, regarding Macon, Georgia, with these insights:

The really interesting aspect is the geographic since Macon is just a few miles south of the 33-degree latitude line. But also – ta-dah! – abt 50 miles west on the line is Warm Springs and the Little White House where 33-degree Mason FDR use to go (all the way from DC by train no less) for rest cures. And even FDR died there in 1945 under strange circumstances, according to crime writer Emanuel Josephson.

The essence of the Phantom Clowns reported from Macon, Bibb County, Georgia are that several reports developed when four children at a bus stop or walking to school said they saw some clowns bothering them.

It happened on Tuesday morning, September 13, 2016, near Elkan Avenue. Three clowns were reported by Aisha Thompson, after her children ran home.

“If it’s a joke, it’s not funny. If you think this is something to play with, don’t. Take it serious,” said Thompson. "They're still shaken up. My oldest daughter, she's the big sister of all four of them, she's shaking in her jacket. When I was hugging her she was shaking and she's in the mentor's program, on the softball team, and JLC. She doesn't want to go to school and my children love school."

Thompson's youngest son, Marlon Patterson, said the clowns were wearing face paint and were shining lasers as they ran out of the woods and up and down the street.

"I was very scared, I started crying, I didn't know how we were gonna get home so we just tried to go to everybody we could to get a ride and one lady gave us one," said Patterson. 

Thompson said her children have also received friend requests on Facebook with clowns as their profile pictures.

"I don't know if it's something they're doing just to scare them or if it's something serious, but I would rather be safe than sorry," said Thompson.

“They saw a laser light. When we were having our discussion about this yesterday, it was mentioned that they would be in the woods shining one of those lasers to get the children’s attention, so they said they started to walk fast and as they approached the woods they came out and they took off running,” she continued.

Lt. Randy Gonzalez with the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office says, “We’d like to find out who they are because we don’t want them giving small children impressions that clowns are scary because we as adults growing up know that clowns to us were not scary.”

“Kids think they’re going to school is their job. They’re unable to perform their job correct, having fear,” said concerned mother Teria Davis.

Thompson says her younger child attends Southfield Elementary which is nearby the area. She adds she will have to take her kids to school on her own until this issue is resolved.

It was reported that the clowns came from bushes and abandoned houses near Elkan Avenue and Dapleton Drive.

Some of the kids who reported the clown sighting to authorities also reported that they received Facebook messages from people dressed as clowns saying "I will find you."

The Bibb County Sheriff's Office said this is the first report of clown sightings in the area, though Tuesday morning's witnesses told deputies that the sightings had been going on for the past few days in the "bottom side" of Bloomfield.

Sources, 1, 2.

Just in...also from Georgia and also Masonic.

Tom Mellett passes along a news story from LaGrange, Georgia about someone on Facebook threatening to become a creepy clown and abduct children - for Tuesday, September 13, 2016.

LaGrange Police are working to get warrants to track down the person threatening to dress like a clown and abduct children from specific schools.
Lt. Dale Strickland told 11Alive News someone started a Facebook Page (which has since been taken down) threatening to dress like a clown and drive a white van to Callaway Elementary, Franklin Forrest Elementary, Callaway Middle School, Troup High School, and Callaway High School and abduct children. Strickland says that threat is a clear violation of the law. The department is working to obtain warrants that will help them track down who posted the threats.
Stickland said there were no spottings of the creepy clown, but the police department was flooded with calls from concerned parents. The police department posted a message on Facebook: "This behavior is not cute or funny... if applicable, you may face charges."

LaGrange turns out to be a Masonic Name Game just as much as Macon. I made the discovery a few years ago that LaGrange is an associated hot name, due to the fact the name Chateau de LaGrange was the French home of the Marquis de Lafayette, evolved during the last thirty years of our writings and mutual exchange on the subject. The Fayette Factor strikes again.

Phantom Clown incident now have come from South Carolina, North Carolina, Ohio, and Georgia.

Name Game Killings Leave 5 Dead

The "Name Game" associated with shootings is not an amusement activity but an analytic view of situations in which we look for patterns, synchronistically.

In a violent incident occurring Friday, February 26, 2016, several names detailed in this Twilight Language blog, including Washington, Mason, and Bell, not to mention an individual name ~ Wayne ~ were brought to bear.

The murder-suicide event took place Friday, near the rural community of Belfair, Mason County, Washington State.

George Washington (1722-1799), a Freemason, whose membership is well-known and celebrated. The Masonic mapmakers have honored Washington by using his name throughout the landscape of America.

Authorities employed tear gas to flush out a suicidal man who had killed three family members and a neighbor. After he stepped outside his house, he used a gun to kill himself.

David Wayne Campbell, the killer, was 51.

Over 3½ hours, trained negotiators tried to persuade Campbell to surrender, but “it became evident that the suspect was not going to leave the residence voluntarily,” the sheriff’s office said. Deputies could see him pacing inside, often holding a handgun to his head. He pulled the trigger, soon after.

Authorities said they found four other bodies in a chicken coop on the remote, wooded property on Horseshoe Drive, near Belair.

The victims are Lana J. Carlson, 49; Quinn Carlson, 16; and Tory Carlson,18. David Wayne Campbell was married to Lana Carlson.

The Name Game in the names.

In Jim Brandon's 1983 book, The Rebirth of Pan: Hidden Faces of the American Earth Spirit, he writes, regarding the "name game":

I'm not talking here of such spooky tongue-twisters as H.P. Lovecraft's Yog-Sothoth or Arthur Machen's Ishakshar, but of quite ordinary names like Bell, Beall and variants, Crowley, Francis, Grafton, Grubb, Magee/McGee, Mason, McKinney, Montpelier, Parsons, Pike, Shelby, Vernon, Watson/Watt, Williams/Williamson. I have others on file, but these are the ones which I have accumulated the most instances.

In my 1983 Mysterious America, I wrote:

Cryptologic or coincidence? Jim Brandon should be credited with calling attention to the name Watts/Watkins/Watson, and its entanglement with inexplicable things. Some other names involved in mysterious events pinpointed by Brandon are Bell, Mason, Parsons, Pike, Vernon, and Warren. The influence of such names as Mason, Pike, Warren, and Lafayette, for example, issues, in some cryptopolitical and occult way, from their ties to the Masonic tradition.

Followers of the Dark Knight/Batman might think of "Bruce Wayne," but other associations come to mind when the name "Wayne" is heard.

Within the "weird news" field, it has been a well-known truism that if a criminal has a middle name of "Wayne," no one in the newsroom is surprised he is being charged with murder. The examples are multiple. The most famous case, of course, is John Wayne Gacy.

My colleague and correspondent Chuck Shepherd, has been a student of this "name game" for years. Here's what Chuck says about it, in an introduction to the topic:

The Classic Middle Name

It only occurred to me in the early 1990s that "Wayne" was a popular middle name among a few of the most heinous murderers of our time, e.g., the clown John Wayne Gacy (who killed almost three dozen boys and young men in the late 1970s and buried most of them beneath the floorboards of his Des Plaines, Ill., home) and Elmer Wayne Henley (sentenced to six consecutive life terms in 1974 in Houston for his role, with ringleader Dean Allen Corll, in the murders of 27 young men). I began to publish periodic lists in 1996, and soon readers made sure I never missed a one that made the news. Source, plus his impressively long list of names.

Some names carry more baggage than others.

Sandusky, Hellfire, and Lions

Jerry Sandusky was found guilty on 45 of 48 counts at 

the Centre County Court House in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania on June 22, 2012.

The Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal involves allegations made in 2011. The details of the incidents are horrific. Is a final act in sight? But, wait, was there a wider net that could have been thrown? I wrote earlier about whether there might be a large conspiracy here in "Does Sandusky Have Links To Hellfire Groups?" What reality is there to the hints of Sandusky scandal-linked suicides, which I discussed here?

Jerry Sandusky: "Jerry" = English, "holy spear warrior" + "Sandusky" = Wyandot Indian, "cold water."

The details of the case are well-known today, and concern charges against former Pennsylvania State University football assistant coach Jerry Sandusky and allegations of a university cover-up of those incidents. Sandusky, a longtime defensive coordinator under head coach Joe Paterno, retired in 1999 but retained access to Penn State's athletic facilities. A 2011 grand jury investigation reported that Mike McQueary, then a graduate assistant, told Paterno in 2002 that he had seen Sandusky performing a sex act on a 10-year-old boy in Penn State football's shower facilities. A holy spear in the cold water?

Paterno then reported the allegations to Penn State athletic director Tim Curley. In November 2011, Sandusky was arrested on 40 counts of molesting eight young boys over a 15-year period. By the time the trial started, the charges had reached over 50 counts.

Absolutely one of the best local Pennsylvania journalists to read (online and via Twitter) as the scandal and trial unfolded was Sara Ganim. The journalist best tracking this in the national media was Dan Wetzel. (Ah, just can't get too far from the Wetzel name game, I guess.)

In addition to the Sandusky-specific happenings, Curley and university Senior Vice President Gary Schultz resigned after being charged with failing to report the incident to police and lying to a grand jury regarding what they knew about the incident. Why the coverup? Is there a bigger picture that people are missing? Paterno and University President Graham Spanier were not charged, but both received criticism for their handling of the allegations. On November 9, Paterno announced he would retire at the end of the season, but hours later, he and Spanier were formally removed from their positions by the Penn State Board of Trustees. Paterno later died.

If you wish to read more of this history, see here, here, and here. If you wish to see how this scandal actually has now been dated back to, at least, 1995, see here. Regarding news that the victims were mostly young African-American males, for insights about that part of the story which has been ignored by the mainstrem media, see here. 

"The eyes are the window to the soul." ~ Ancient Proverb

Having worked as a psychiatric social worker, in the child protective and child welfare systems, I have been outraged by these events. Some of the testimony of the molested boys trying to be heard by adults who were supposed to have protected them has been the worst. Hopefully, good shall issue forth from these news stories in alerting people to how often such incidents do occur, and how we all need to protect our and other children from such predators.  

As I read of the scandal, the phrase "Nittany Lions" was used frequently. I wondered about the alleged origins of why the school picked this name for their mascot. The "Nittany Lions" are a modern urban legend that was reinforced via an article in the Philadephia Inquirer of January 24, 2006. The news item was about three new mountain lion cubs from South Dakota being placed at the Philadelphia Zoo. The story is only the most recent felid-linked source of the supposed alleged origin of “Nittany Lion” being due to the last puma killed on the mountain named Nittany (at the end of Nittany Valley). What do we really know about this tale?

  

 Is this the actual origin of the "Nittany Lion," 

the last mountain lion killed in Pennsylvania? 

First, why "Nittany"? “Nittany” was around before Penn State, but it certainly has been used by the school (and half of the local businesses within 20 miles) for years.

What is the etymology of the term? The origins of "Nittany" are a bit obscure, but most likely the word comes from a Native American term meaning, "single mountain." Since a number of Algonquian-speaking tribes inhabited central Pennsylvania, the term can’t be traced to one single group. The description applied to the mountain that separates what is today Penns Valley and Nittany Valley, with its western end overlooking the community of State College and Penn State's University Park campus. The first colonial settlers in the 1700s adopted this term, or a variation of it, in formally naming Nittany Mountain (see William Ames' famed photograph of this location, here). Thus by the time Penn State admitted its first students in 1859, the word "Nittany" was already in use.

Following the emergence of the Nittany Lion mascot in the early 1900s, Nittany gained even more public prominence. Today, the word helps to define a host of places, services, and other entities in the Nittany Valley.

   

 This is said to be the last Eastern cougar to have existed in Pennsylvania; it was killed in Pennsylvania in 1874 by Thomas Anson. The felid was formerly part of the collection of Henry Shoemaker. Photo: State Museum of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 2006.

The standard line routinely goes something like this: "The Nittany Lion is the mascot of the Pennsylvania State University in University Park, Pennsylvania, USA and its athletic teams. It refers to the mountain lions that once roamed near the school, and to Mount Nittany, a local landmark. There is also a fight song played during sporting events on campus entitled 'The Nittany Lion.'"

   

The Nittany Lion mascot pumps up the crowd 

at the 2005 football game versus Cincinnati at Beaver Stadium. 

The Masonic connection is there, however. Well, at least, technically, although it is all about the name, not the Freemasons.

According to PSU sources, the mascot was the creation of Penn State senior H. D. "Joe" Mason in 1907. While on a 1904 trip to Princeton University, Mason had been embarrassed that Penn State did not have a mascot. Mason did not let that deter him: he fabricated the Nittany Lion on the spot and proclaimed that it would easily defeat the Princeton Bengal tiger. The Lion's primary means of attack against the Tiger would be its strong right arm, capable of slaying any foes (this is now traditionally exemplified through one-armed push-ups after the team scores a touchdown). Upon returning to campus, he set about making his invention a reality. In 1907, Mason wrote in the student publication The Lemon:

Every college the world over of any consequence has a college emblem of some kind—all but The Pennsylvania State College . . .. Why not select for ours the king of beasts—the Lion!! Dignified, courageous, magnificent, the Lion allegorically represents all that our College Spirit should be, so why not 'the Nittany Mountain Lion'? Why cannot State have a kingly, all-conquering Lion as the eternal sentinel?

These words later inspired the fight song known as "The Nittany Lion", which begins "Every college has a legend...".

Mountain lions had roamed on nearby Mount Nittany until the 1880s. The origin of the name "Mount Nittany" is obscure, the most commonly accepted explanation being that it is derived of Native American words (loosely pronounced as "neet-a-nee") named after the cougars that roamed the mountain or "single mountain" - a protective barrier against the elements. The name was readily accepted without a vote of the student body. In 1907, the first tangible lion symbols appeared with the placing of two alabaster African lion statues, left over from the Pennsylvania exhibit at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, atop the columns at the main campus entrance on College and Allen streets. They were affectionately dubbed by the student body as "Pa" and "Ma." In the 1920s, a pair of stuffed mountain lions was placed in the Recreation Building to watch over athletic events. One of these original lions is now located in Pattee Library on the Penn State campus. About that same time, the tradition was established of having a student dressed in furry-lion outfits appear at football games.

   

The Lion Shrine 

Given by the Class of 1940, the Lion Shrine is by sculptor Heinz Warnecke from a thirteen-ton block of limestone. The sculpture was formally unveiled on October 24, 1942.

In 1904, Joe Mason appears to have based the invention of the "Nittany Lion" on the African lion, not the mountain lions of Pennsylvania, but then, the urban legend around Penn State's "Lions" has a huge publicity relations machine behind it, even today. It will be working overtime as the verdict in the Sandusky trial comes in...