After the meltdown mainly from Jehovah's Witnesses in the comment section on my last video for daring to say that the 2024 trailer for the upcoming convention "Declare the Good News" contains a strange object with occultic connections I decided to do a second video on the subject. Also a big thank you to those who pointed out that this is a sign language gesture for the phrase " I love you".I want you to know I'm only expressing my opinions and research on this channel and I think it is great to have a discussion here rather than having everyone agreeing with me in whatever I say.But I want you to know that my research comes from a good place and I'm always open to corrections or clarifications from the many knowledgeable members of this channel.
Now this is a followup to my original article about the 2024 Convention Trailer and the weird object that appears on set in the last scene of the trailer(play the scene) I did make the case that the object seems to be the well known "devil's horns" gesture that is connected to the occult. Now this is not the first time the Watchtower has used "strange" looking hands in its publications. Here is a reminder of a previous occasion:
This is from the "Revelation book it's Grant Climax" portraying Jesus as king and his anointed holding scepters of authority, see the weird looking hand in circles. Innocent mistake? I don't think so. There are other examples which I have come by over the years but that will be a subject for another article. Yes I will write an extensive article on subliminal images soon, as many have requested.
Now, as it was pointed out in the comment section by many this is not the "devil's horns" gesture but the well known American Sign Language sign for "I love you". It may well be, but here is why I think it isn't.
Here is on the left the common sign for "I Love you" and on the right the actual hand on the convention trailer :
As you can see the first is the sign for "I love you" and the second the best possible editing I could do on the hand on the stand, these are NOT the same. The thumb is not extended enough but is held close to the fingers. And I would like to thank " Mydogbooboo" who spotted that in the comment section.
She says:
Checked with 3 of my family members who are deaf. This isn't the sign for love. The thumb is not extended enough.Here is held close to the fingers. The sign fir love extended thrvthumb completely from the other fingers. Their immediate response was "rock n roll" Devil's horns.
Here is also another thing, ASL(=American Sign Language) is not a universally spoken language like English is. According to Wikipedia approximately 250,000 – 500,000 people of all ages throughout the US and Canada use this language to communicate as their native language. Albeit some on the signs like "I love you" might be more widely known but just because you and I know this sign that doesn't mean that 8 million Jehovah's Witnesses from all over the world watching this video will recognise this sign as the ASL sign for "I love you" in all likelihood an extremely small minority will do so whereas I'm sure most will associate this with the hand gesture that many rock bands have used over the years, like Black Sabbath, Dio and Coven.
As a commender for Italy said:
@linoruggero from Italy:
And in the south of Italy, the Witnesses are quite upset about this, especially in the Naples area.
Also there is another problem here, ASL although in use since the early 19th century didn't become a standard in the deaf community until the 1960's. What I'm trying to say here is that just because we use a hand gesture today to mean " I love you" that doesn't mean that this was always the case. Don't forget human beings used hand gestures since their appearance here on earth. What I'm trying say here really is that there is documented evidence that this gesture was used in the past to portray demons. Here is the demon Iblis from a 14th century illustrated book called Kitab al-Bulhan - "The Book of Wonders"doing the exact same hand sign with thumbs extended outwardly as the sign for "I love you" today. What more Iblis is another name for Satan, so what you are looking here is Satan doing this hand sign!
In Islamic tradition, Iblis is identified with ash-Shayṭān ("the Devil"), often followed by the epithet ar-Rajim (Arabic: ٱلرَّجِيْم, lit. 'the Accursed'). Shayṭān is usually applied to Iblis in order to denote his role as the tempter, while Iblīs is his proper name.
Here are some more comments that I found interesting:
@tim..t1175
If it was someone doing the gesture I would be sceptical, but who the he'll has an actual hand statue like that
Exactly, in all my years as a Jehovah's Witness I never came across anyone possessing such an object.Why now? Why in a trailer that will be seen by 8 million people?
My aim for this channel is to cover every aspect of the Jehovah’s Witnesses religion and not only the parts that fit my worldview and don't forget we the exjw community didn't start this fascination with superstition and occultic objects, it was the Watchtower that has made it part of the Witness psyche by promoting these kind of stories, and pictures in their publications for decades and therefore that gives me the licence to talk about it. So no I don't think I'm cheapening the channel by talking about Watchtower’s subliminal images. So i hope that helps and shed more clarification on the subject and in any case gives all of us the licence to question the Watchtower’s choice of set dressing.