The Georgia Guidestones: A Monument to Memory and Forgetting

“Let these be guidestones to an Age of Reason.”

— inscription in ancient languages on the capstone of the Georgia Guidestones

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personal preface: beneath the stone, a strange hum

The Georgia Guidestones granite monument — *The Georgia Guidestones – Elberton, Georgia*

I grew up in Elbert County, Georgia. The Granite Capital of the World, or so we were told. Not far from where the Georgia Guidestones once rose like an oracle in the cow fields—quiet, impossible, and humming with something ancient.

In high school, we’d go out there at night, headlights bouncing through the gravel. We brought cheap alcohol and cigarettes, and always that strange teenage cocktail of curiosity and invincibility. We’d read the inscriptions trying to act like it was all just a joke. But it wasn’t. Not really.

There was always a presence at that place, and it wasn’t just the cows. It felt like the land itself was watching. I could never name it, and wouldn’t dare if I could, but I felt it in my bones for as long as I can remember: a kind of dark energy that clung to the red dirt of Elbert County like fog. It wasn’t evil exactly, but it was ancient. Unsettled. And maybe, in some way, prophetic.

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what were the georgia guidestones?

The Georgia Guidestones were erected in 1980 by a man using the pseudonym R.C. Christian, who claimed to represent “a small group of loyal Americans.” The monument was composed of four towering granite slabs, a center pillar, and a capstone, arranged to function as a celestial calendar and compass. It stood 19 feet tall and weighed over 237,000 pounds.

Close up view of The Georgia Guidestones inscriptions

Etched into the stone were 10 guidelines for humanity, written in eight languages: English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian.

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the inscriptions:

1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.

2. Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.

3. Unite humanity with a living new language.

4. Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason.

5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.

6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.

7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.

8. Balance personal rights with social duties.

9. Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.

10. Be not a cancer on the Earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.

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symbolism, suspicion, and the slow creep of conspiracy

From the beginning, the monument was a magnet for speculation.

Was it a Rosicrucian signal? A eugenics manifesto? A New World Order blueprint? A cryptic warning of what was to come?

Its astronomical alignments seemed almost Druidic. Its anonymous origin reeked of secret societies. And that first inscription—limiting the global population to 500 million—was enough to trigger every apocalyptic nerve in the American psyche.

“Maintain humanity under 500 million…”
— etched in stone on the Georgia Guidestones, and in the minds of millions.

For decades, it was written off as a curiosity. A roadside anomaly. A magnet for weirdos and whispers.

Until it wasn’t.

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destruction as ritual: the prophetess and the blast

On July 6, 2022, just before dawn, a thunderous explosion tore through one of the granite slabs of the Georgia Guidestones. Surveillance footage caught the moment. By sunset, the rest of the monument was gone—leveled “for safety reasons,” officials said. To this day, no one has been arrested. No suspect named. No motive confirmed.

But the monument, once a curiosity cloaked in cosmic riddle, had become something else entirely: a martyr.

Collapsed rubble of the Georgia Guidestones after the blast in July 2022 — *The rubble of the Georgia Guidestones after the blast in July 2022*

And in its rubble, something opened.

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered… History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
— George Orwell, 1984

It didn’t feel like simple vandalism. It felt like a ritual. A signal. A punctuation mark at the end of an era where mystery was still allowed to breathe. As if the blast didn’t just shatter stone—but shattered the illusion that secrets could still exist in the open.

And behind the blast, a voice.

In the months leading up to the explosion, one candidate in Georgia’s gubernatorial race had made the monument her personal crusade. Kandiss Taylor, a fringe Republican wrapped in flags, fire, and fringe theology, labeled the Guidestones “Satanic” and vowed to demolish them by executive order. She didn’t mock the conspiracy theories—she weaponized them.

So when the explosion happened, she didn’t condemn it. She celebrated.

“God is God all by Himself. He can do ANYTHING He wants to do. That includes striking down Satanic Guidestones,” she posted on Twitter.

Kandiss Taylor's Twitter post — *Kandiss Taylor’s post on Twitter celebrating the destruction of the Georgia Guidestones*

Conspiracy had become confirmation. Prophecy fulfilled. Whether she meant it literally or metaphorically didn’t seem to matter. Her words echoed louder than the explosion. Her campaign had already planted the idea—and something, someone, followed through.

By sundown, the granite was gone. Bulldozed into memory. The message was clear:

When a society can no longer tolerate mystery, it begins to destroy its monuments.

And when faith collides with politics, and prophecy is fed through the feedback loop of social media rage, what gets torn down isn’t just stone—but story, ambiguity, and memory itself.

The Guidestones didn’t just fall.

They were unwritten.

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why it matters now

We are living in the age of AI panopticons, political theater, algorithmic consciousness, and selective memory. Surveillance has replaced divination. Management has replaced meaning.

The Georgia Guidestones weren’t just stone tablets—they were a question.

A mirror.

A warning.

And now that they’re gone, we’re left to answer without them.

But what if the Georgia Guidestones weren’t a message to us, but to whoever comes next?

And what if the reason they were destroyed… is because we’ve already crossed the line they were meant to prevent? And someone, or something, doesn’t want us to rebuild what we lost?

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curious closing words

Sometimes I think about that field at night—how the wind felt different out there. How the stones glowed under a full moon. How something older than time seemed to vibrate beneath our feet.

They’re gone now.

But whatever called them into being?

It never left Elbert County.

And neither did what destroyed them.

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🎧 mood pairing:

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