Tim, Saruman, and Brass (or Iron) Rats

 Yesterday I opened up my bottom dresser drawer and found my class ring from graduate school.

I went to a school called the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT for short, in Cambridge, MA.  If you have heard of that school, I should state right here before you think I am smarter than I am, that I went to the relatively dumb part of that school:  The MBA program, also known as the Sloan School (part of Course 15, in MIT speak)

MIT has a distinctive class ring known, affectionately, as the Brass Rat.  The animal in question is actually a beaver, but I guess kind of looks like a rat?  I am actually not sure how it came to be called a rat, honestly.

They are pretty noticeable rings, and its a way that many MIT alumni recognize each other by this big, rectangle shaped, fairly ugly (in my opinion) ring.  I don't wear mine, ever.  Sam Bankman-Fried, the newly minted felon who used to do crypto, made headlines with people trying to figure out ring he was wearing on his finger as he went to court one day (it was the Brass Rat - he was a 2014 alumni, I guess).  And Tony Stark, the fictional Iron Man from the Marvel movies, can be seen wearing his in the movies (I just found this out in looking up ring details online).

For graduate students like me, you actually don't get a Brass Rat, but rather a ring called the GradRat, which doesn't change design every year like the undergrad ring does.  Anyway, here is a picture of mine - it is a bit blurry, but was the best close-up I could get:

I actually ordered my ring in some kind of silver or stainless steel finish, making it look not very brass like (but perhaps Iron? Anybody also catch the Iron reference in Iron Man above?).

I originally thought of the ring for one original reason, which then morphed into a second reason as I looked at the image on my ring.

First, the tradition at MIT is that you wear your ring with the rat facing you, or sitting on you, as you attend school.   As the students put it, this is because while at school, the Rat or Beaver craps on you (you can replace the 'crap' with another word to get what was really said).  At graduation, there is a formal ceremony where the ring is rotated so that the rat now faces outward from you (along with corresponding skyline images on the side of the ring).  And the students now say that they get to go out and crap on the world (or, in an alternative saying, they get to crap on the Rat).

My original thinking was that this was similar to the Saruman case that I am currently dealing with in my writing, and these 'syncs'.  And I will now use these 'syncs' to further validate and show that my original thinking along these lines was more on target than I thought.  This gets to WJT's question on his blog, about what does it mean to have syncs validate the evil nature of the Being who is associated with (or is associating themselves with) these syncs?  I do not know.

I will actually get one thing out of the way that I only noticed as I started writing this post.  Do you notice what MIT spells if written backwards?  TIM.

I have already associated Tim (from William Tychonievich's dreams and writings) as Saruman.   A reader of past blog entries will note that I also associated the name and character of Walter White (an Anti-Hero type) with Saruman by spelling Saruman's 'true' name of Curumo backwards.  So, just as I turned Curumo backwards to find him in this Walter White character, I found him again by turning MIT backwards, and generating Tim.

As one other point on this 'backwards' theme, WJT has brought up this character named Mr. Mxyzptlk.  Besides being also associated with refrigerators (see the commentary in my Men in Black post), there is a backwards name theme with this character.  As in, if he is tricked into saying his name backwards, he has to stop creating mischief and depart.  It was actually WJT's mention of this character that gave me the idea to spell Curumo backwards, and see what we get.

OK, so MIT backwards gives us Tim.

Secondly, there is what the institution of MIT stands for, and what the 'rat' (beaver) was selected as the ring emblem in the first place.  MIT, per its name and reputation, is a school strongly associated with science, technology, engineering, and industry.  Does this sound like someone we know?  Sounds like Saruman to me (and Melkor and Sauron as well, honestly).  In fact, in language I am sure the original speaker did not mean, but yet holds significant meaning to the topic at hand, characteristics of Saruman were tied directly to the school itself:

After considering the kangaroo and the elephant for MIT’s mascot, Gardner says that the Institute Committee landed on the beaver, whose “habits are peculiarly our own. The beaver is noted for his engineering, mechanical skills, and industry. His habits are nocturnal. He does his best work in the dark.”

Quote from:   http://brassrat.mit.edu/2026/

You almost have to laugh at this.  The Beaver was associated with engineering and mechanical things, doing its best work in the dark (in secret, in one interpretation of that phrase).  These fit very well with the attributes of Saruman.

For reasons again unknown to me, the beaver came to be called a rat.  In my past posts, even before knowing who or what I was talking about, I have continually referred to rats - that they will be caught and exterminated.  I then in a later post named Saruman as the biggest Rat that we probably have anything to do with right now, and here is the institution I went to graduate school at tying both the school and the ring symbolism to this very Being.

It gets better, at least with my own specific class ring version.

On my ring bezel, it may be hard to tell, but the Rat is holding a scroll as all versions of the ring design do.  What is the scroll?  Well, I am sure it is meant to symbolize a diploma or knowledge, or something like this.  I think it might be better suited toward symbolizing writings or a book, probably stolen words or knowledge.  Perhaps even think of our strangely clad person reading from his Book of Keys in the Woodkid video.  In fact, at least one Brass Rat design (the 2022 design) has the scroll transforming into a key.  

More importantly, however, in front of the Rat on the lower left of the bezel is a tree stump, indicating that the Rat-Beaver has also cut down a tree, and behind him is a construction crane and other symbols of 'industry'.   One of Saruman's defining actions in the LOTR, of course, was his decision to cut down the trees in order to fuel the fires of his industry and war-making at Isengard.  So, here we have the Rat-Saruman, holding his stolen words and knowledge, sitting in front of a tree that he has just cut down and making all sorts of mischief.

As said by Treebeard in his dialogue with Pippin and Merry:

"I think that I now understand what he [Saruman] is up to.  He is plotting to become a Power.  He has a mind of metal and wheels; and he does not care for growing things, except as far as they serve him for the moment.  And now it is clear that he is a black traitor...

"...some time ago I began to wonder how Orcs dared to pass through my woods so freely," he went on.  "Only lately did I guess that Saruman was to blame, and that long ago he had been spying out all the ways, and discovering my secrets.  He and his foul folk are making havoc now.  Down on the borders they are felling trees - good trees.  Some of the trees they just cut down and leave to rot - orc-mischief that; but most are hewn up and carried off to feed the fires of Orthanc.  There is always a smoke rising from Isengard these days.

Curse him, root and branch! . . . "

In fact, also tying to the notion of stolen secrets and knowledge, just previous to this quote above, Treebeard admits that he had been tricked by Saruman into telling him many things:

"He was polite in those days, always asking my leave (at least when he met me); and always eager to listen.  I told him many things that he would never have found out by himself; but he never repaid me in like kind.  I cannot remember that he ever told me anything.  And he got more and more like that. . . "

A commentator named Wandering Gondola left a comment on my "Anti-Hero" post where I equate Tim-Saruman as being an Anti-Hero (it might be best to understand my perspective of 'anti' as meaning 'against or opposed to', as in 'Anti-Christ' for in this case, as I will build on a just a little at the end of the post).  In part of the comment she says this:

If "Tim" really equates to a current-day Saruman, would he have "appeared" so straight-forwardly to lay out what's going on, however convoluted? I'm not convinced Tim is an evil being.

Perhaps think on this from Treebeard's perspective.  Why did Saruman appear so polite and eager to listen to him?  Because he wanted something, and is willing to appear as anything for as long as he can in order to get it.  The fact the we ask questions in the way that WG asked it, pretending for unknown and imaginary reasons that Evil cannot present itself straight-forwardly and as Good, means we do not really understand Evil.  Of course it can, and to pretend there are rules that prevent it from doing so just puts your own mind in jeopardy, I think.

What to make of all of this?  I am more convinced than ever that Saruman's hand has more influence over our minds and hands than we would even want to consider - or, at least speaking for myself, that his presence remains something that I cannot fully escape from.  I am in his service, in a very real way.  The rat that spiritually sits on my hand and mind is currently taking a dump on me.

My only saving grace, or thought, is to think about how much I wish this were not the case.  It is this thought that, strangely, has me not too concerned.  We have been promised healing from our current state of affairs, and I believe that many Good Beings have entered into this theater of action knowing full well that part of doing so meant entering into the service or operating under the influence of the current ruler of this world:  Satan-Saruman himself.

So long as I look at my current sad state of affairs and servitude to a Being I would rather not have anything to do with as something like shame and disgust, then I think there is hope for me.

On the other hand, I would be extremely worried if, once I noticed the true nature of my situation, I found that I enjoyed this, whether I named 'it' Saruman or not.  Or, if not enjoyed it, turned a blind eye to the very possibility that this was so and pretended not to see.   This would be a problem, I think.

Bringing this back to the Brass Rat, my hope is that although the Rat might be turned toward me as it rests on my hand and mind, that one day I get to 'graduate' and flip that ring around - or better yet, throw it completely into the fires of Mt. Doom.

One other point:

I left Treebeard's cursing of Saruman in the quote earlier in this post for another reason.  Saruman is the Anti-Hero (Anti-Christ), and as mentioned, I believe it was he now, rather than Brigham-Omar as I first thought, who stood in front of God and wanted his honor in place of the one that God chose instead.  Thus, it is Saruman who is now directly opposed to the Being that he desires to be or at least to have the place of.  I have named this Being, in previous writings, as Faramir-Abinadi, and have associated him with other names such as the Son of Righteousness (see this post for example, which conveniently has to do with the music video Iron)

In 3 Nephi 25, Jesus gives the people at Bountiful words from Malachi.  In those opening words, if we use Treebeard's cursing of Saruman, we actually have both of these Beings - the Anti-Christ and the one who will come bearing Christ's name - mentioned in opposition to each other... just as they have always been since before this world:

For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

But unto you that fear my name, shall the Son of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth and grow up as calves in the stall.

Saruman, and all of his followers, will burn - leaving neither root nor branch... a heavy punishment or cursing, indeed, as Treebeard said.   While others will finally be free from underneath that Rat, arising, going forth, and being made whole and restored to Good once again.