[Onkel Neal]

Good summary from the Los Angeles Times

Searching for the truth behind the Web's Watergate -- home schooled, confused 16-year-old with video camera or pawn in an Internet hoax? For complete background, click here.

A quick update today after a furious few days of activity. While much of the nation spent its weekend by the barbeque or romping at the beach, for the lonelygirl15 research community there is no rest and no fun and certainly there are no holidays. For the thousands combing over Abercrombie catalogues and webcam lighting angles, there is only an endless twilight struggle for truth -- a hunt that can only end in truth or complete exhaustion and nervous collapse. There can be no middle ground.

The latest, in a nutshell:

On Sunday night, LG15 posted a new video which has set the community reeling. Throughout the series, the home-schooled LG15 has made oblique references about her religion, saying that it forbids her to do certain things and fighting with Daniel when he mocked her beliefs. Early watchers assumed she was a fundamentalist Christian. However, in one video, a brief close-up off a photograph on her wall, hung above a none-too-subtle candelabra, reveals it to an image of noted occultist, black magic dabbler, Aleister Crowley.

In the latest video, the religious undercurrent of the LG15 cycle suddenly cascades tsunami-like over all other themes. Titled , the tape opens with Bree explaining she doesn't talk much about her religion because "I take them very seriously and I think that if I were to tell you about them, that some of you would be very disrespectful."

She continues to explain that she has been chosen to participate in a ceremony, that is "a really big deal in my religion. They only have them once in a long while and its very very difficult to attend ... It's a big honor and its going to take a lot of preparation." She explains that the preparation requires memorization, special exercises and a diet that she is "definitely not looking forward to." Throughout the video, the photograph of Crowley looms ominously and prominently over her shoulder.

Within moments of the video's appearance, the LG discussion boards erupted in hoots of derision, saying this proved the series was the lead in to the "Blair Witch" like promotional campaign for an upcoming horror film, a campaign that will begin in earnest, many said, when LG15 is kidnapped, sacrificed in a volcano or transformed into a pig at the coming ceremony. As of this writing, the researchers are poring over the various rituals of Crowley's Thelemac religion for a hint of what LG has in store.

Related to this thread, a strand of research from the previous video suddenly emerged, speeding the locomotive towards its occultist conclusions. For a simple tape of two kids making cookies on the floor, the "Bree the Cookie Monster" video has proven a bottomless well of research angles and discussion points. In the cookie baking tape, Daniel and Bree try out different cookie recipes and her sidekick, the purple monkey puppet grades them by holding up numbered cards to the camera. The first one the puppet rewards with a "10." The second he gives a "12," earning him a scolding from LG. The third he scores an "06."

The two digit format raised the eyebrows of some researchers who asked, why 06 and not just 6? Could the three numbers, 10-12-06 refer to a date? The matter seemed settled when on the LG boards, poster Slacker pointed out that "Aleister Crowley was born on October 12, 1875..." Could it be that the ritual LG is preparing for will take place five weeks hence on Crowley's birthday? Could it be that a new phase of some giant promotional marketing campaign will launch on that date?

But as ever in LG-land, nothing is as simple as it seems. In a private conversation with TolD, a researcher pointed out that Slacker, the poster with the breakthrough clue had never said a word before he dropped that bombshell after which he promptly retreated into the ether. Could Slacker have been part of the conspiracy, sending the researchers chasing in an intended direction?