Blood Curdling First Official Portrait of King Charles III Upends The Internet

The unveiling of the first official portrait of King Charles III is unleashing a firestorm of debate on social media. And rightly so. This hideous caricature of the King is so loathsome it warrants a backlash and begs for some explanation.

Unveiled on Tuesday at Buckingham Palace, the painting is by British artist Jonathan Yeo. The canvas is eight-and-a-half by six-and-a-half feet in the frame and will reside in Draper Hall.

The intense red backdrop is supposed to reflect Charle's position in the Welsh Guards, where he was made Regimental Colonel in 1975. But let's be honest, it looks like he's submerged in a bloodbath. Or, as many have observed, it's a portrait of the King in hell.

These analogies, as fantastic as they are, may not be as random as one may think. In fact, the symbolism placed into the painting was quite deliberate.

For instance Yeo wanted to implant a "clue" specifically for the schoolchildren of the future referencing the current King of England.

Yeo asked the King, "When schoolchildren are looking at this in 200 years and they’re looking at the who’s who of the monarchs, what clues can you give them?"

Charles answered, "What about a butterfly landing on my shoulder?"

That's a curious choice. A clever pun in my opinion. Here we have the 'Monarch' butterfly landing on the Monarch himself. Ah the King is a poet after all. But wait, there is a practical explanation for this. Yeo explained how this clue referenced the King's "passion for nature and environment."

But there's even more. Yeo claims that the King “changed jobs halfway through the process” so the butterfly is a “symbol of metamorphosis." Thus, it “tells multiple stories”.

Multiple stories indeed.

Perhaps this is a good time to reference the fact that His Royal Majesty traces his lineage back to Romania's dark and bloody past. "The genealogy shows," King Charles said in a television interview, "that I am descended from Vlad the Impaler, you see. So I do have a stake in the country."

Vlad the Impaler, or Vlad Dracula aka Count Dracula, was Voivode of Wallachia (King of Romania/Transylvania) during the 15th century.

This is one and the same Dracula that inspired Bram Stoker's literary vampire.

Vald's moniker "the Impaler" was taken from his murder method of choice: impalement. During this procedure, a metal or wooden pole was jabbed through the body starting at the rectum (or vagina) and would slowly pierce through the body until exiting the victim's mouth.

It was a slow and cruel death with the victim taking hours or days to die, often in a public setting for the public to watch. Vlad was a prodigious impaler at that, slaughtering more than 23,000 with this cruel method. His total kills were upwards to 80,000.

But that was a long time ago and we are living in a modern and civilized age. Of course the King of England has no taste for such vulgarities. Nonetheless, the bloody red portrait on display at Draper Hall is stirring up the commoners, and references to a dubious heritage.

In the short span of time since the portraits unveiling, 48 hours as of this writing, numerous articles in mainstream media have been published attempting to make some sense of it all. An item posted on Twitter by occult enthusiast Visio Smaragdina @SmaragdinaVisio caught my eye.

The post, captioned, "The Red Tincture of the Alchemist," shows the King's portrait next to The Emperor from the Thoth tarot deck designed by Aleister Crowley. The portrait is similar to the tarot card first and foremost in its overbearing use of the color red. I pulled out my copy of Crowley's The Book of Thoth to see what else I could glean from this comparison.

For starters, the divination of the card predicts "War, conquest, victory, strife, ambition, originality, over-weening confidence and megalomania, quarrelsomeness, energy, vigor, stubbornness, impracticability, rashness, ill-temper."

The card is associated with the sign of Aries ruled by Mars. It is attributed to the Hebrew letter Tzaddi and the sound, TZ or TS is derived from the Sanskrit root denoting Tsar, Caesar, Senior, Senator, Seigneur, etc.

In this manner, the card appears to fit nicely with all the pomp and circumstance surrounding a king. As Crowley writes, the card "signifies that his energy has reached a successful issue, that his government has been established."

Some can see a goat or a ram's head in the official portrait of the King and there is in fact a number of such beasts in the tarot card. Here may be a key meaning to the card, as Crowley notes:

"The card represents a crowned male figure, with imperial vestments and regalia. He is seated upon the throne whose capitals are the heads of the Himalayan wild ram, since Aries means a Ram. At his feet, couchant, is the Lamb and Flag, to cdnfirm this attribution on the lower plane; for the ram, by nature, is a wild and courageous animal, lonely in lonely places, whereas when tamed and made to lie down in green pastures, nothing is left but the docile, cowardly, gregarious and succulent beast. This is the theory of government."

It shouldn't be a stretch to think that British royalty associate themselves with matters of the occult. In fact, one of the most renowned occultists of all times, John Dee, was an astronomer and advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, and was credited with coining the term 'British Empire.'

John Dee was also known for using a cipher called the Enochian language which he and his scryer Edward Kelly utilized for the purpose of communicating with ultraterrestrial beings.

As many have already observed, the King's portrait appears to be crammed with ultraterrestrials, demons, and extraterrestrial entities.

References:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/art/2024/05/15/king-charles-portrait/

King Charles hid a poignant symbol in new portrait ‘for schoolchildren’

The poignant detail was added at the King’s request when asked to think of future onlookers

The IndependentJordan Reynolds

King Charles’ Very Red Portrait Has Inspired Some Bloody Funny Jokes

“It’s a little on the nose to paint your portrait with the blood of all those you colonized.”

Yahoo EntertainmentElyse Wanshel

Artist behind King Charles III’s controversial portrait shares why he used the color red

Charles unveiled the portrait himself at Buckingham Palace.

ABC NewsABC News

People Are Comparing the King Charles Portrait to the Cursed ‘Ghostbusters’ Painting

More like Charles the Carpathian

Cracked.comJM McNab

The Real-Life Dracula Was Much Worse Than The Count Ever Was

Vlad Dracula sometimes impaled thousands of people at once during his reign over parts of present-day Romania in the 15th century.

All That's InterestingNatasha Ishak

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/137090/jewish/Tzadik.htm

The Emperor - Crowley Thoth Tarot

IV The Emperor previous next Pour water on thyself thus shalt thou be a Fountain to the Universe.Find thou thyself in every Star.Achieve thou…

Crowley Thoth Tarot

John Dee - Wikipedia

Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.Contributors to Wikimedia projects

Andrew K. Arnett is a writer and producer. He has been published in Paranoia Magazine, New Dawn, Nexus, Konbini and Alien Buddha Press. He lives in Brooklyn, NY and hunts ghosts with the Brooklyn Paranormal Society. Find him on Twitter: @AndrewArnett

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