Be True To Your Skull

"Some lay in dead men's skulls; and in those holes

Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept
As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems . . ."
-- Shakespeare, Richard III, I:iv:29-31

Gems and skulls. It's creepy enough if you're William Shakespeare, or some Mayan
priest encrusting the human headbone with jade and obsidian. How much creepier is
it when the gem is a skull, or vice versa? A lot of people seem to get good vibrations
from the crystal skulls which dot both museum collections and New Age seminars
around the globe. But it's more fun in games if the crystal skulls channel dangerous
power -- power to boil your blood and destroy whole nations. There's a reason,
after all, that the most famous crystal skull is called the Skull of Doom. Let's look,
then, and see if we can't see, as T.S. Eliot says, the skull beneath the skin.

"We took with us the sinister Skull of Doom of which much has been written. How it
came into my possession I have reason for not revealing."
-- F.A. Mitchell-Hedges, Danger My Ally

Which, of course, is why he told so many different versions of how it came into his
possession. According to Mitchell-Hedges (who was rumored to be, among other
things, a con man, a spy, a mercenary, and an archaeologist), his adopted daughter
Anna (or, in the extra cool version, a not-yet-dead Ambrose Bierce) found the Skull
in either 1924 or 1927 (his story changes) while they were excavating a Mayan (or
Phoenician, or Templar) site at Lubaantun, in Belize. (Unless he got it from Pancho
Villa.) The discovery of the Skull (and three months later, its jawbone -- unlike most
Crystal Skulls, the Skull of Doom has a movable jaw) induced religious mania and
glossolaliac fervor in the Mayan workers. Later, the Skull induced visions in
sensitives nearby, revealing secret knowledge, visions of the past, and dark
predictions of the future: psychic Carol Wilson has heard the Crystal Skull prophesy
(or threaten?) death and holocaust for Earth.

The Mitchell-Hedges Skull (a name that happy Crystal Skull acolytes give it, since
"Skull of Doom" is kind of a bummer) is not the only such artifact lurking about --
although its superb workmanship, clarity (most Crystal Skulls are made from cloudy
or colored quartz) and dramatic origin story makes it the king of skulls to this day.
(Or queen, actually -- at only 175 cubic inches and 11.7 pounds, it may be a
female skull.) New Age legend (now suddenly buttressed by Amerind shamans on
the skull circuit) speaks of a sort of "council" of 13 skulls, of varying size and
construction but all tied to the magical powers inherent in the breed.

Among the 13 are the British Museum and Paris Crystal Skulls, both brought out of
Mexico by unnamed soldiers of fortune. (The Paris Crystal Skull may have belonged
to the unfortunate Emperor Maximilian.) A Mayan priest brought two skulls to
America in 1979 and 1982: the Maya Crystal Skull and the Amethyst Skull. There's a
"Light of Christ" one cut for a crucifix in France, two more Amethyst Skulls (in Marin
County and San Jose, Mexico), a secret skull under the control of the Peruvian
government (or vice versa), and an 18-pound monster in Texas named "MAX" who
came from a Tibetan lamasery. Shui Ting Er, an amazonite skull from Mongolia, a
rose quartz Scythian mound skull, a "Jesuit" skull, and a rumored giant skull in Brazil
round out our Thirteen, although there are enough others to make up at least
another coven's worth.

"Bid at Sotheby's sale, lot 54, 15 x 43 up to 340 [pounds] (Fairfax). Brought in by

Burney. Sold subsequently by Mr. Burney to Mr. Mitchell-Hedges for 400 [pounds]."
-- note in British Museum of Sotheby's auction, 1944

All of which makes it kind of depressing to learn that Mitchell-Hedges bought his
skull at auction in 1944, and that its cousins in London and Paris, when tested in
1996, showed machine tool marks and stratiography similar to crystal from
southeastern Germany -- where a local quartz-carving glass works had been
turning out crystal skulls as novelty items since the 1860s or so. As with so many
ancient artifacts that we're told breathlessly "modern science can't reproduce,"
modern science pretty much can, although it doesn't normally bother. In fact, there's
quite a cottage industry in Crystal Skulls in Germany, as well as (inevitably, now) in
Mexico. A hobbyist skullcrafter in Denver threw one of his failures out, and it started
a cult when a New Ager found it in the road. The "ancient legend" of the council of
13 skulls is actually a vivid dream that Nick Nocerino (head of, my hand to God if I'm
lying, the Society of Crystal Skulls, International in New York) once had. Like so
many things, although few so interesting ones, much of this goes back to Edgar
Cayce's maunderings about crystal Atlantean power -- and just possibly to a 1944
Shadow Magazine adventure called "The Mystery of the Crystal Skull."

"Item, that in each province the Order had idols, namely heads, of which some had
three faces, and some one, and others had a human skull.
Item, that they adored these idols or that idol, and especially in their great chapters
and assemblies.
Item, that they venerated [them].
Item, that [they venerated them] as God.
Item, that [they venerated them] as their Savior . . .
Item, that they said that the head could save them.
Item, that [it could] make riches.
Item, that it gave them all the riches of the Order.
Item, that it made the trees flower.
Item, that [it made] the land germinate."
-- from the Articles of Accusations against the Templars, August 12, 1308

Which is why, as always, we flee from the harsh light of reality into the comforting
embrace of colorfully-embroidered lies. Such as the ones that the Inquisition told
about the Templars -- accused of worshiping a head known as Baphomet. Could
Baphomet have been the Crystal Skull, smuggled across the ocean with the Templar
Fleet to be secreted in Lubaantun? The skull crops up in neo-Templar Masonic
symbolism along with the crossbones (the Templar cross?), from whence it winds
up somehow on the black pirate flag. Were the Brothers of the Coast also Brothers
of the Temple? The Master Masonic oath, goes the ritual, "will make you brother to
pirates and corsairs." And, of course, brother to Presidents and some vast chunk of
the CIA, if you're in the Skull and Bones neo-Masonic fraternity at Yale as was
President Bush. On the interesting coincidence watch, one legend of the Bonesmen
is that they keep Pancho Villa's skull in their crypt -- the same Pancho Villa who
killed Ambrose Bierce -- or gave him the Skull of Doom to pass along to Mitchell-
Hedges.

"Herodotus (4:26) speaks of the practice in the obscure Issedones of gilding a head
and sacrificing to it. Cleomenes of Sparta is said to have preserved the head of
Archonides in honey and consulted it before undertaking an important task. Several
vases of the fourth century B.C. in Etruria depict scenes of persons interrogating
oracular heads. And the severed head of the rustic Carians which continues to
'speak' is mentioned derisively by Aristotle."
-- Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral
Mind

The legend of Templar head-worship has been quite clearly traced, by folklorists, to
the myth of Perseus and the head of the Gorgon. But many severed heads are
actually pretty keen stuff to have around. Not just the oracular Brazen Heads of
Vergil Magus, Pope Sylvester, Albertus Magnus, and Roger Bacon (unless they were
all the same head -- or Skull), either. Bran the Blessed's severed head did
everything for Britain that the Inquisition accused Baphomet of doing for the
Templars. The Celts (in pre-Templar country), of course, went nuts for heads -- not
only did they have Bran but also Lomna the Fool, the "fair god" Canainne, and
Fergal Mac Maile Duin, all of whom prophesied and granted magical lore after
decapitation. In the Mabinogion, Peredur sees the Grail as a severed head --
conspiracy theorists hint that the Templars worshiped John the Baptist and that's
why the venerated severed heads, even though they didn't. Mimir the Giant's head
gave runic knowledge to Odin -- which may be why Norse-descended types toast
one another with "Skoal" ("skull") when drinking deep of inspirational draughts.
Speaking of skull-drinking, Lord Byron had a goblet made from a human skull, and
speaking of poetry, Orpheus' severed head continued to sing and prophesy after
Maenads tore his body off. Are we detecting a pattern, yet?

To cultures as diverse as the Borneo Dayaks (who forcibly adopt the heads of their
enemies into the tribe) and the Jivaro of Ecuador, the severed head holds magic,
luck, and fertile power. As the very symbol of the dead head, skulls came in for their
own share of this mojo. Skulls partake of the power of the dead; they are conduits
for necromantic forces. Many old churches in England turn out to have skulls
carefully buried under the west (death-side) wall, one hopes after their owners were
suitably, and no doubt accidentally, dead. The powdered skull of an unburied
criminal made an excellent remedy for epilepsy and other illnesses of the head
(bringing echoes of Hamlet, pretending madness, talking to the skull of a Fool) --
Irish skulls were most prized. (The Irish also buried horse-skulls under various
sacred places, like breweries, for luck and power, although this gets us into the
hobby-horse and a whole different column idea.) Even as late as the 1930s, some
doctors were still defending phrenology, the concept that the shape of one's skull
predicted (or paralleled) one's character.

"The altars of violence and sacrifice: the temples of the Maya and Aztec magicians
[were] formed of trapezoids and sustained by the sacrificial blood of the chosen
ones, the truncated pyramids upon which hearts were cut from living victims and
held aloft and hot to Quetzalcoatl and Hapikern. The same temples made visible in
the striations of the Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull . . . And the tower in Lovecraft's
"Haunter of the Dark", wherein the shining trapezohedron beams its influence and
the Great Old Ones from the brine harken and send forth their earthly emissary."
-- -- Anton Szandor LaVey, "The Law of the Trapezoid"

So we know that, as the Ultimate Magic Skull, the Crystal Skull can predict the
future, tap into cthonic powers, drink blood, control minds, cast magic spells, and
reveal the Akashic Records. But what can its dangerous ilk do for your game? (To
start with, of course, read pp. 46-47 of GURPS Warehouse 23. If the second and
third paragraphs on page 46, especially, don't give you about 80 super ideas, you
need more than a crystal skull can give.) Mitchell-Hedges, or someone like him, is
born to be part of a GURPS Cliffhangers campaign, of course. Crystal doesn't rot, or
decay, or alter meaningfully at all over millennia of time -- the Crystal Skull can
show up in any historical-fantasy, horror, or occult campaign. Although GURPS
Aztecs pops to mind, the pirate connection can have interesting repercussions on
GURPS Swashbucklers -- stick the Mitchell-Hedges Skull in the next dead man's
chest and enjoy the novel sight of players fleeing the treasure. As Neil Gaiman
realized in Sandman, oracular heads and the GURPS Scarlet Pimpernel era go
together like baguettes and Brie. Regardless of where or when you put it, the Skull
of Doom can make a great McGuffin, a powerful artifact, or even the villain! Heads,
you win.

Past Columns

Article publication date: June 11, 1999

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