Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Spatting Theory




Do you hear what I hear? It's the sound of my comical voice on Star Theory again! Kyle invited me back to talk about Gremlins, in movies and elsewhere. Here is the Star Theory article for the show. And here is the podcast link. And here is the download link. (It's 13.7MB You might have to right-click and choose "save link as...")



I just got back from my hiatus so I didn't have time to write anything to accompany this podcast, but I think between Kyle's post, and my previous article on the subject, we've got it pretty well covered.

The idea that gremlins are both bad and good came up during the discussion, as well as the idea of gremlins being externalized inner demons. Coupled with this, scarredsoul called in to the show and poked fun at my slothy nature by questioning my opinion of the seven deadly sins. Just after the show I read something in The Song Of The Bird which I think goes well with my attitude on the subject:
A preacher put this question to a class of children: "If all the good people were white and all the bad people were black, what color would you be?"
Little Mary replied, "Reverend, I'd be streaky!"
And today I read something in Alan Watts' (not Alan Watt's) book The Book On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are which goes well with the above sentiment:
Thus for thousands of years human history has been a magnificently futile conflict, a wonderfully staged panorama of triumphs and tragedies based on the resolute taboo against admitting that black goes with white. As when Tweedledum and Tweedledee agreed to have a battle, the essential trick of the Game of Black-and-White is a most tacit conspiracy for the partners to conceal their unity, and to look as different as possible. It is like a stage fight so well acted that the audience is ready to believe it a real fight. Hidden behind their explicit differences is the implicit unity of what Vedanta calls the Self, the One-without-a-second, the what there is and the all there is which conceals itself in the form of you.


Well, that's all I have to say about that. Per tradition, the title of this blog post is an anagram of the name of the blog :) And the opening line of this post is my favorite part of Gremlins part 1; when the mom finds the cocoons and starts walking down stairs and the gremlins put on the Christmas record with the song lyrics, "do you hear what I hear?"

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Sex & Death

"Sex sells," and as the newspapers say, "if it bleeds, it leads." If "sex sells," then what exactly is it selling? Long ago in some distant foggy memory I had read or heard about the idea of anchoring ideas to specific emotional states, and how movies create and release tension through pictures and music/sound effects. So, I decided that sex was a pretty strong emotion, and payed attention to what it was being anchored to. Turns out the answer, more times than not, is death. Many, many times, a scene of death precedes, follows, or runs parallel to a scene of sex, flashing back and forth between the two scenes. Sex is selling us death. But is it a mythological subconscious archetype linking death to regeneration like winter leads into spring, or would that be too optimistic an appraisal of the magick being worked in the Holy Woods of Los Angeles?



Most sex and death scenes happen in "cop drama" type shows or bad movies, neither of which I own, so I made due with what I had which should be sufficient to support that I'm on to something here! I left out of this video a scene from 1996's Crash because it didn't fit so well. However, this film depicts characters who have linked sexual pleasure to the excitement and fear of car crashes, and to the mutilation of the human body, as well as the mechanization of a repaired body, held together by pins, stitches, and other medical apparatus. Is there an intended or unintended side-effect of this movie trope which, over time through repetition, causes people to feel violent when thinking of sex and feel turned on when thinking of violence? Something to keep our base instincts overstimulated and to leave little room for higher instincts to come into play. I was flipping through my dad's old copy of the Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange and on the inside of the cover he wrote: "Deprived by science of the capacity to make moral choices, Alex becomes a “clockwork orange,” something mechanical that appears organic."

Despite the possible programming usage of Sex & Death, it does represent a duality of types, since all things that are created through sexual or creative energy will dissolve away in a type of death at some point or another, as Osho and Joseph Campbell pointed out.

For the French, an orgasm is la petite mort, the little death. Wikipedia calls it a "spiritual release that comes with orgasm," presumably as a metaphor for the release of the spirit at death.

While traditionally left unnamed, the 13th tarot card of the Major Arcana featuring a Grim Reaper, or similar character, is named "La Mort," (Death) as seen in the popular Rider-Waite-Smith tarot. La Mort is an easy anagram of Mortal, which would indicate life, and thus a duality of life(sex/generation) and death hidden in the card. Also, L-a-M-o-r-t contains L-AMOR-t, and amor means love, as seen in the phrase Amor vincit omnia, "love conquers all" (even death?).

Here's some stuff I forgot to add when I published this post, just more random Sex & Death stuff:

"Ultimately, I have to come to terms with the fact that all my songs are either about sex or death. I'm increasingly distrustful of any songs that are not about one of those two subjects." - “JT” of JT & The Clouds

11 craziest sex related deaths in history.





Sunday, May 16, 2010

Zardoz

Here's a video by Paulo Samoes using clips from My Dinner With The Celtic Rebel - Part 4. It's just the parts of the podcast where we talked about Zardoz. My voice actually sounds better in this video I think... :D I'm actually fighting my lazy urges and working diligently on my next video - Sex & Death. So, look forward to that! Woooo! Meanwhile, enjoy this video from a fellow soul traveler!

ZARDOZ final version from paulo samoes on Vimeo.

Zardoz analogy by Celtic Rebel and Stygian Port.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Total Recall vs The Sixth Day

Here's an old video I made just for my own amusement. I was going to include it in a collaborative project but the other blogger and I decided to do something else. I've been gone for two weeks then have been busy since I've been back, so while I'm waiting for a few collaborations to pan out, I've decided to start working on two videos, one short one and one long one that may never get completed knowing me. :D PS: I made it for jewtube originally so it's a bit condensed and doesn't cover all the similarities, but they wouldn't allow embedding on it so I had to transfer it to Vimeo.


I could have gone into an old school synchromystic mode and pointed out how Adam's mirror has 9 and 11 on it, and that he makes thermite which may have been used in the towers on 9/11. He makes it at his snow/ski vacation store which is next to a pyramid shaped building ("pillarmid") surrounded by K2 ski/snowboard brand logos. But 'eh, that's so boring.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Tarot in Film

Here's a little video on tarot card symbolism in movies. Some movies directly reference Tarot cards and sometimes there's a scene which appears to be inspired by them. It's just one of those things I would have liked to see, but since no one else made a video like this I had to get off my lazy ass and do it. There's plenty of scenes I didn't get around to using or couldn't put in since many of my movies are in VHS format still.

Some scenes are a bit more subjective than others, but I think they fit well enough. ;) Even though I wasn't going for a synchromystic video this time, there's still a couple of synchronicities among these movies. Johnny Depp walks in on a "Hanged Man" in The Ninth Gate, only to be the "Hanged Man" in Pirates of the Caribbean. And Heath Ledger is hung by one leg in The Dark Knight and is the "Hanged Man" in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.



There are some other interesting connections to be made. In the original black and white Metropolis, the female robot takes on the form of a resistance leader in order to subvert her influence. She then becomes a sex object for the ruling elite. And in the scene where she is performing for them, she rides atop a beast with many heads like in Revelations, but also like in the final engraving from The Ninth Gate or Crowley's Thoth deck where Strength was turned into Lust and depicts a similar scene.



The mad scientist who makes the robot stands in front of her with the leader of the city in a mirror the The Devil card which has a figure surmounted with a pentagram with two other figures standing below and on either side. He also has a single gloved hand which is how some people interpret the colored hand of The Hermit tarot card from the Marseille's deck:

Thursday, April 15, 2010

The Stygian Port on Star Theory - Video

If you missed my two hour podcast with Kyle Hunt of Star Theory, well, you're in luck! Or not, depending...
I whittled it down to just under 45 minutes among 4 videos and spliced in some movie scenes we discuss as well as adding many pretty pictures. Kyle's audio gets garbled at times and I'm a low talker.. you've been warned!



Got a couple of podcasts lined up for a possible future, one already recorded with Alex which is often alluded to but never seen/heard, and maybe some videos coming up if my computer can hang with my plans!

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Death & Dairy



While grabbing scenes for another video I plan to make, I noticed there was an interesting synchronicity between the last three or so movies I had recently watched. There seemed to be a possibly intentional correlation being made between milk/dairy products and death. Sounds weird, I know. Well, I remembered/found a few more movies which seemed to back this up, so I put them together inter-spliced with some television interviews and commercials about milk/dairy in general. So check it out and then read my theories on it below:

Death & Dairy from ViolatoR on Vimeo.



I was too lazy to add music to the video, but if I had, it would have been by these guys:



Damn, most of this post got deleted when blogger failed to save it and I tried to post it. :/ Oh well. So, if you want to know more about why drinking dairy isn't a good tradition to mindlessly follow, see: notmilk.com



My thoughts are that milk is being connected to death in a sort of symbolic "land of milk and honey" type theme. Milk relates to babies/birth/rebirth in the afterlife, and honey was used in mummification in some places, as well as being used to preserve food. So milk and honey is birth and death, only here in these movies, death is carried out by mafia hit-men most of the time. Anyways I'm too hungry to keep typing, so enjoy this small post and video. ;)



Monday, March 1, 2010

The Holy Mountain - Rubedo

"If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you." - Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas



This is the last post in this series after, Nigredo, Albedo, and Cauda Pavonis. The name "Rubedo" refers to the last phase of the alchemical process when the Stone is finally achieved. You do not have to read the first three parts to enjoy this (well, I hope you enjoy it!), but you might want to go back and check them out if you haven't already, just to get a better picture of the whole movie. At the closing of the last scene, where the effigies are burned, Jodorowsky also burns his style of filming and returns to a simpler style he refers to as more real, and as reality. Though he's concentrating more on the style of the film, it also serves as foreshadowing of a return to reality for the characters who are leaving the illusionary world of money and power behind. The next scene has the group walking through beautiful green mountains, far removed from the factories we have seen these characters inhabit previously. The Prostitute and chimp are still following The Thief. There's some interesting tidbits in the commentary, so I'll be throwing a lot of that in this final part of this series of articles.

The first stop for the group of characters, who I have explained previously are each represented by the actor who closely resembles his or her character in real life, is a dwelling of an actual shaman playing himself on screen just as the actors. The location it's filmed in is the Tepoztlan area which is said to have been the Mexican Eden, where the gods lived; an analogue to The Holy Mountain they are journeying towards perhaps. Jodorowsky didn't direct the shamans, they just did as they pleased and he filmed it. This shaman does actual techniques he would do in real life such as "cupping" which I know is also used in acupuncture.

One of the group members is sickened by the smell of the old man, so The Alchemist breaks all his bones and says he'll like the shaman's smell when he gets done fixing him! "If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us." - Hermann Hesse. The guy who hates the Indian shaman really hates the knowledge that he is the same aging flesh-bag as the shaman and everyone else, and he hasn't yet come to terms with that. I hate stupid people because I know I was one of them and still am in other ways, I'm sure. So, I really hate that capacity in myself which could turn me into a zombie at any moment. Other people are mirrors for our selves. we gauge our appearance by the looks in their faces. Even animals can serve this purpose which I see everyday because my sister hates her dog which is exactly like her in every way; a doggie-mirror of all her anxieties. It's funny, but also sad that we can dispense so much negative emotion on others because we hate parts of ourselves. Of course, what you do to others, you do to yourself; thoughts have forms, emotions and words affect the world around us. The time in my life when I really, really, hated other people coincided with the time when I really hated myself.

Jodorowsky has been unusually lucky to come in contact with many Masters in his life, mostly female, and during the filming on the mountains, he just decided to go up and film at the top of a mountain saying "We'll find a master there," and he was right. He found female shaman waiting who said "I've come to help you." It would seem that some intelligence conspired to give authenticity to this movie, and it's too bad it was kept underground for so long, but now it's finally out there affecting the global consciousness.

Another shaman greets the group in real life on another mountain. "The flower knows. You don't need to ask it." (The flow-er knows) Here the group runs through a field of flowers to gather pollen on their bodies. They are getting close physical contact with nature, here, and at the last shaman who gave them a soup made of some plants. The pollen represents the hallucinogenic plant world, and it is gathered from the bodies, rolled into a ball, and placed into a cut on their bellies. Jodorowsky goes on the explain that the actors themselves stayed locked up in a house for two months with only 4 hours of sleep doing all kinds of exercises as well as hallucinogenic mushrooms. Needless to say, there must have been some profound psychological change in these actors at the time. I have heard of other cases of monks being locked in the dark until they can produce their own light, or sitting in the snow until they can produce their own heat, or spending weeks in the dark on special diets while their pineal gland is being stimulated to open their third eyes. A severe retreat from the world is sometimes necessary to erase the ingrained programming of the illusionary world. I recommend people do some traveling to other parts of the world, not because you're going to find something there you couldn't have at home (like going to India to find enlightenment which never works), but that by doing so you gain some perspective and can see that there's more to the world, more ways of thinking, living, and so on.

Anyways, the pollen causes them to "shapeshift" or transfer their consciousness into the surrounding animals, and to see the world through their senses. A dog(/god) walks by and they smell the flowers through it's nose. Then, they get up and walked in a chain holding hands and say "Together we form a dog in search of a sacred flower." Then they are laying down with their legs up, first together then spreading apart, and say: "Together we form a flower in search of a sacred water." Voice over: "This is the moment when the Word is made flesh." This scene is a synchromystic's dream these days, but I'll just say that together they do form a god/dog in search of a sacred flower. The on-line etymology dictionary says "sacred" may connect to words which mean to "bind, restrict, enclose, protect," which seems to fit. The sacred flower is the hidden flow-er, off limits to Man, that is The Godhead. The fountain-head of consciousness, or simply The Fountain.

They are a "god"(dog), I say, because that's all it takes to create one Рa large enough group of believers. I think it takes at least 10 people to be recognized as an official religion. There was a experiment in contacting a soul through a s̩ance which was successfully carried out and information was obtained which matched perfectly the history of this particular soul. The cosmic rub is that the soul was a fictional creation by the original team, given a name and back-story, and then contacted through the s̩ance. Over time they removed the original group members who knew the truth and replaced them with people who didn't until they had mostly or all new members of the group channeling a non-existent soul! I don't remember the details, except that it made me feel that this is the basis for religion and miracles. A group such as the 10 characters in The Holy Mountain, or the 10 people starting a religion, are collectively their own God, "This is the moment when the Word is made flesh." Yet, like all religions, they search for the sacred flower, or rather the hidden original Flow-er (to beat a synchromystic horse to death).

The group then sits with the shaman and he asks how many are in their group. A couple of them count the group of ten, but only come up with nine each time. The shaman directs them to look into a reflective bowl of water. Each looks and and says "Here's the missing one, they drowned!" They are now at a stage in their evolution where they have forgotten their self, and are open to find the true Self. This reminds me of the movie Bulletproof Monk, where the monk has to forget his own name. They go on a funeral march and bury the "missing person" (the self) in a hole and cover it with dirt.



This is continued at a Mayan pyramid where they have a death ceremony where they cover each other in dirt as if they were being buried. The Alchemist: "The grave receives you with love. Surrender yourself to the earth. Return what was loaned to you." He continues on giving up their past, including friends, lovers, family, desires, hates, etc. The actors are actually crying about their death at this point, Jodorowsky makes the point that they're not acting in this scene, but are really sad. He filmed the movie chronologically so that the actors would change along with the characters they play.

The Alchemist: "You have a grave, it is your first mother. The grave is the door to your rebirth. Now you will surrender the fateful animal you once called your body. Don't try to keep it. Remember, it was a loan."

When the goddess enters the Underworld, she has to give up an article of clothing, a possession, at each of the nine gates until she is naked. When we enter this world through the spectrum of colors, chakras, planets, etc, we get a piece of each, and this can be seen in your zodiac natal chart which shows where the planets were when you were born. People born under certain signs are statistically more likely to get certain diseases, disorders, or have certain health issues according to their sign. In Alchemy circles, it is believed that you receive certain cell salts for each sign/month of gestation, and everyone is lacking 2 or 3 salts when they are born because they obviously didn't gestate for an entire year. And by taking these salts you can fix certain health problems which a person born under your sign is more likely to have. (See this PDF file for more. Mine says, "light sensitivity," which is funny because I put on sunglasses colored over with black marker when I wake up because I hate the brightness!) So, there do seem to be certain qualities we each have from birth, and these are given back to the planets as we strip away our earthly identity on our way back to the source.

The Alchemist and The Planets and The Thief are all about to board a boat when The Thief is mobbed by a group of kids and attempts to feed them all with his bread (staying true to his earlier Jesus persona). The Alchemist laughs and shows The Thief a vision of what would happen if he performed this miracle. He sees the kids attack each other as they each try to hoard as many bread loaves for themselves.

"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women." - Homer Simpson.

In the movie The Invention of Lying, nobody in the world can tell a lie, except one man. He uses his gift in an attempt to help people (after using it for gain for himself), and he only makes things worse in the long run. If not worse, then at least not an improvement. A better example might be Bruce Almighty. The point is that a imperfect person, still acting from the self and not the Self, will only produce imperfect things or effects in the world. It reminds me of the Lancet-Percey stock-picking company advertisement in Pi which says "86% Accurate, only god is perfect." I feel the same way about the current trend towards a revolution against the current state of the world. The only true "Revolution" will be R/Our-evolution. If you can't fix things in your own life, how can you do it on a much larger scale?



On the boat, The Alchemist pulls geometric shapes away from his head and says, "Our thoughts have forms." And he points to The Thief and says, "You have a monster in your mind." The group pulls him in and out pops The Dwarf. But since he is the licentious devil on The Thief's shoulder, so to speak, only The Thief can see The Dwarf. He must toss him overboard and remove this tumor from his soul. The Alchemist: "Free yourself from the past." The chimp with The Prostitute is like the dwarf and The Thief, it's her own companion which she must someday get rid of. On the subject of thoughts having forms, some of you may have seen the movie What The Bleep Do We Know? or otherwise have heard of perfectly named Dr. Emoto and his "Messages From Water" research and book. Basically, our thoughts have an affect on water, and this is important when considering how much water is in each of us, and the world around us. See this article at Red Ice for more.

Prayer and the co-creation of reality, at The Dawn of Aquarius blog: (Thought + Emotion) + Action = Result
"Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. " - Mark 11:24

The group has finally made it to Lotus Island. Upon arrival they all cut their hair; perhaps because it represents all the days of their past, but also its a traditional form of cleansing. The are greeted by a jolly fellow drinking a massive glass of wine or champagne who welcomes them to Lotus Island with a basket of food. The basket actually reminds me of the scene in A Clockwork Orange where Alex de Large is in the hospital and he is given a basket of fruit with something inside which appears to say "EAT ME" like the food in Wonderland which Alice comes upon. There's the babe in the basket myths, but I'm thinking about Jesus and his "EAT ME, DRINK ME" advice to his disciples. Doing so grants eternal life, but as I've pointed out, it does the same thing for vampires and zombies. These are beings who want a material immortality because they don't want to leave something behind (like shopping malls for instance, which is seen in Dawn of the Dead).



We learn that he runs a bar on the island where everyone goes when they first get there which is called the Pantheon Bar. Next to the bar is a sculpture meant to represent "The Thinker" by Rodin. Jodorowsky says it represents the flaws of intellectualism.

"Your knowledge of many things does not grant you wisdom." - Heraclitus (ca. 540 - ca. 480 BC)

"On the path to discovery, the intellect has little to do. There is a leap in consciousness, call it intuition or whatever you like, and the solution comes to you, and you do not know how and why." - Albert Einstein

In I, Robot, Sonny the robot draws his dream of a large group of robots who he says are "slaves to logic." The logical must be mediated by the emotional, the two halves of a complete person. It's your internal Mr. Spock to your internal Captain Kirk. Or more pointedly, your internal antagonist versus your internal protagonist, which is what is being played out in most movies which follow this basic structure. This can be seen in Star Wars where your light and dark sides fight each-other, and in Austin Powers (part 3), Dr. Evil tells Austin Powers, "We're not so different, you and I." (Both characters being played by the same actor – *hint hint*) He joins with Austin Powers at the end. It's like Darth Vader with Luke. When Luke kills his internal Darth Vader in the cave on Degobah while training with Yoda, Yoda calls it a failure. Later, Luke stops short of killing Vader and by doing so causes Vader to join Luke. This is the victory, not just killing the dragon, but drinking it's blood, or transforming the poisonous "waters of life" in Dune into drinking water. Similarly, in the movie Daybreakers vampire blood is poisonous to vampires, but once it has been transformed by the sun it becomes a cure. You don't get rid of your internal Lead, you keep it and that is what you turn into Gold.

"Be careful, lest in casting out your demon you exorcise the best thing in you." - Frederich Nietzsche.

The Ego will violently oppose this however: "The attainment of enlightenment from ego’s point of view is extreme death." - Chogyam Trungpa

The Pantheon Bar gets it's name from the Pantheon temple which was a house for all the gods of ancient Rome. The source of knowledge of many things, "the Wikipedia," states that "the generic term pantheon may be applied to any building in which illustrious dead are honored or buried." The Pantheon Bar is a cemetery where a continuous celebration is always going on. The people at this party are all the previous people to journey to Lotus Island in search of The Holy Mountain. They all got this far, this close to their goal, but stopped at the level of material and temporal success. Maybe that's why it's the Pantheon Bar, as a "bar" blocks the path; it bars the passage. "Hitherto shall thou come, but no further." - Job 38:11

The second wonder to be noted in the Bodhisattva myth is its annihilation of the distinction between life and release-from-life – which is symbolized in the Bodhisattva's renunciation of Nirvana. Briefly, Nirvana means "the Extinguishing of the Threefold fire of Desire, Hostility, and Delusion." [In the] legend of the Temptation under the Bo Tree the antagonist of the Future Buddha was Kama-Mara, literally "Desire-Hostility," or "Love and Death," the magician of Delusion. He was a personification of the Threefold Fire and of the difficulties of the last test, a final threshold guardian to be passed by the universal hero on his supreme adventure to Nirvana. Having subdued within himself to the critical point of the ultimate ember the Threefold Fire, which is the moving power of the universe, the Saviour beheld reflected, as in a mirror all around him, the last projected fantasies of his primitive physical will to live like other human beings – the will to live according to the normal motives of desire and hostility, in a illusory ambient of phenomenal causes, ends, and means. He was assailed by the last fury of the disregarded flesh. And this was the moment on which all depended; for from one coal could arise again the whole conflagration. (The Hero With A Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell)
In The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, the first person through the "looking glass" mirror into the Doc's head eventually makes it to the base of a large mountain of giant steps and a voice from above beckons him to continue upwards to salvation. But, he is distracted by Mr. Nick's Lounge Bar, like the Pantheon Bar, which is where those not destined to summit the Holy Mountain will go to take it easy for a while and just enjoy the material world a bit more (at least one more spin on the wheel of birth-death-rebirth).

The group is led through some mausoleums by the owner of the Pantheon Bar who is hoping to convince them to stay and learn from some of the people there. They are street-corner preacher types who dish out their half-baked knowledge, which is lacking in wisdom. The first is a man in a star-spangled top-hat, inspired by Allen Ginsberg, who says the real Holy Mountain is in his words and poems, but the group sees his words to be shit and not honey like he claims. Jodorosky says that poetry like his can't preach enlightenment, though it could be a step on that path. And this is like the other people they meet here, each one representing a step many have us have probably reached on our personal journey.

Next, they move on to my favorite of these Pantheon Bar attendees, the Drug Master, or Drug Guru as I like to call him. Jodorowsky is poking fun at Tim Leary and that era's enlightenment through LSD ideas. He explains that the Artists journey is very long, and heavy drug use can shorten the time you have to learn. By "Artist" he means Alchemist, as it is the Royal Art, and alchemists are known for not only gold making, but life extension. At some point in the commentary, Jodorowsky tells of an Alchemical legend that there are alchemists walking the earth who are 30,000 years old.



The Drug Guru explains that "The cross was a mushroom, and the mushroom was also the Tree of Good and Evil. The Stone of the Alchemists was LSD. (He pops some pills at this point.) The Book of the Dead was a trip. And the Apocalypse describes a mescaline experience. In these flasks are all the Holy Mountains. And in this beautiful young man... is eternity."

What a great scene. Jodorowsky no doubt came upon the mushroom-as-source-of-biblical-symbolism theories during his obviously extensive research. I will admit there are some elegant alternatives to many origins of symbols, but that's all they are is symbols. The mushroom is like the Tree of Life symbol in the Kabbalah, it's a framework, a mnemonic device which was clothed in other symbols. The problem is getting stuck worshiping the finger and not what it points towards. I just asked for and received the 40th anniversary edition of The Sacred Mushroom and The Cross actually (thank you Satan/Santa). However, I'm only ready to read it because I'm past the stage where "all religions come from drugs" so I'm not going to be preaching like the Drug Guru (Anymore – I did spend some time explaining the religious sources of entheogens and astrotheology to my cousins a while back...). This is just one more stop on the way to true Gnosis, and it can be very tempting to stay at a level like this, which is exactly what is being represented by having the Drug Guru in the Pantheon Bar and not on his way to the Holy Mountain anymore.

The last person they talk to is actually a mountaineer, only he has mastered the ability to travel horizontally through the mountain rather than up it. He represents people who make great efforts, Jodorowsky says, but still fail to "climb the Holy Mountain." He's a burly guy who clearly possesses some rare talent, but that's obviously not getting him any closer to the summit of the mountain. The group leaves the Pantheon Bar after this with their host running after them explaining that he can give them trophies and awards and that by leaving they are throwing that all away. He says they "could have made history," but that's not what they want, to go down in some book as famous wise-guys; instead they continue on to anonymous enlightenment.

The group now continues towards The Holy Mountain and actually does some mountain climbing. The group continues through the snow and the hand of one of them becomes frozen because "he was never able to forget his body." He must sacrifice his fingers to go on.

They have mastered the difficult part of the mountain. Now their minds will decompose and suffer the vision of death. (I'm not sure if I wrote that or if I was quoting Jodorowsky, but whatever, it sounds cool.) I think at this point I'd have to warn against watching this movie while stoned... The Alchemist covers his face with a black veil and walks a tiger. The rest follow holding a chain and have visions of their worst nightmares, some of which are their greatest desires turned against them. One woman gets drowned in sperm from a giant "penis" which is depicted as cows having sex and a fist going into her mouth. One man sees a tree covered in dead roosters/cocks and a scary lady with a sword in the tree who cuts off his "Johnson" and hangs him there on the tree. One guy is covered in tarantulas (this would freak me out!). One is pummeled by gold coins. One guy faces a hermaphroditic old man and drinks from his "moobs" (man boobs) which have become cheetah heads spraying milk.

Angels and Demons can't cross over onto our plane. So, instead we get what I call half-breeds. The influence peddlers. They can only whisper in our ears. But a single word can give you courage, or turn your favorite pleasure into your worst nightmare. (Keanu Reeves in Constantine)
The Alchemist, The Planets and The Thief have finally reached the abode of The Immortals. They meditate for three hours before moving up. The Alchemist leaves and tells one of the group that he doesn't need a master anymore, and to decapitate him (The Alchemist). He does so, but The Alchemist tricks him and a lamb is decapitated instead, like in the story of Abraham and Issac.

Before moving on to the Immortals, The Alchemist tells The Thief to leave with The Prostitute who has gone through the same journey while trailing them up the mountain. "Unite yourself with this good woman who came here only because she loves you." The Alchemist gives The Thief his alchemical rooms and charges him with changing the world.



The return of The Thief is similar to many ancient myths decoded by Joseph Campbell in The Hero With A Thousand Faces. The hero may choose to return to his world with the "boon" (the grail, elixir or power he has gained through his journey) and apply it to his world. The Thief is now shown to be like Prometheus, who stole the fire of the gods and brought it down for all Men. The Thief made it to Lotus Island and scaled The Holy Mountain only to come back down and live among people again like The Buddha. Like the changed "waters of life" and the cure for vampirism mentioned earlier in this article, the transformed Thief can serve as a pointer to enlightenment for others.



Jodorowsky says, "There is a part of us that will never reach the Holy Mountain. We seek perfection but even the Buddha has a body. And Christ, despite being God, has a human body. The human body is mortal. We must accept that part of ourselves and set it free in the world. That part must go back to the world. The spiritual, enlightened being, must succeed in the world. He is not a victim and must learn to succeed in the world." He brings up an interesting point, that perfection is not possible in this physical reality, nor is it very desirable. When CD's came out, people hated them because records had that 'warmer sound' to them. When MP3's started getting better, they found that people preferred lower quality MP3's over the higher quality ones, because they sounded more natural. People can't stand pure white light of LED's so they have to add a little bit of red in them. My cousin told me that some movies on BlueRay high-definition DVD's are ruined by the crystal clearness because the makeup and costumes look obviously fake. Supposedly, a more symmetrical face is more attractive, but have you ever seen a fake face on one of those Japanese sex robots, or anywhere else? They look obviously fake and unnatural. Speaking of the Japanese, they pride themselves on their different features because traditionally they all pretty much look the same. Frighteningly crooked teeth and hairy moles are marks of beauty there; and clearly are not representative of perfection. So, I don't believe that anyone can be 100% perfect and immortal here in the physical universe. While alive, we will always have one foot in the material realm, like The Star tarot card which depicts a woman with one foot on land and one in water.



The Holy Mountain, as all holy mountains, is the place where the Heaven and Earth meet. It is the uniting of the two halves of the original creation.
According to another Aztec myth, before the creation of the world, there was only the sea and the Earth Monster, Cipactli, who took the form of a crocodile. Tezcatlipoca tempted Cipactli to the surface of the ocean using his foot as bait. The Earth Monster rose to the surface and devoured Tezcatlipoca's foot but during the struggle she lost her lower jaw and was left too weak to return underwater. Tezcatlipoca and the god Quetzalcoatl joined forces to capture her and created the earth from her carcass and formed the tribes of men from her back.
The (usually) male Sky God and the female Earth Matrix which were pushed apart by their children during the creation of the world meet at the Axis Munde, the World Pillar, World Tree, or The Holy Mountain. The earth's axis is where the point on the surface on top points to the North Star, and this is sometimes symbolized by a pillar. I've heard of people being able to peer through the veil by meditating and focusing on this spot in the heavens. The spin of the earth around this point may have caused the creation of the swastika shape (a symbol of luck, as well as creation/destruction depending on the spin) via the Little and Big Bear constellations which can be combined in their spinning to form the familiar shape. The serpent constellation Draco wraps around the pole star. The word cyclone from the Greek word kyklon refers to moving in a circular pattern, and is connected to the idea of the coil of a snake. The cyclone to Oz, the spiral STAiRcase to "where the rainbow ends" in Eyes Wide Shut, the spiral horn which opens the rainbow bridge in Erik The Viking, the game of "Twister" played by Bill & Ted against Death allowing passage back through the veil, and the spiraling computer display as Neo is being un-plugged from The Matrix; these and other examples may refer to the coil of the serpent constellation around the pole.

In Black Elk Speaks, the American Indian shaman Black Elk describes his vision of the Central Mountain of the world as being the local holy mountain. He of course explains that the real Central/Holy Mountain can be found everywhere and is not specific to any one land. It is the mountain that Noah's Ark came to rest on as well as the mountain where Moses received the commandments which were placed in the Ark of the Covenant. "The central mountain is everywhere, the hub of universe, the axis munde, where stillness (eternity) and movement (time) meet. The eternal aspect of temporal (temple) experience." (Joseph Campbell)



In my high school geology class, my teacher demonstrated the reason why we feel that here on earth we are at the center of the universe. He took an overhead projector and laid a clear plastic sheet on it with a bunch of dots representing galaxies in the universe, with one dot representing our Milky Way galaxy. He then overlaid another clear sheet with the same dots except that this sheet had been scaled up, expanded in all directions (like the universe), so that all the dots were a bit further from each other than before. Lining up the two "Milky Way" dots, we could see that all the other galaxies appeared to be moving away from our galaxy, which would put us at the center of the universe. He then lined up another set of dots representing another galaxy, and now from that perspective the universe also seemed to be expanding equally in all directions placing that galaxy at the center. So, from every perspective, you are at the center. You are always at the center.

"God is an infinite sphere, the center of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere."

So what is the true Holy Mountain? It is Where Earth & Sky Meet. It is you.

"As above, so below. As within, so without." - Hermes

"When you make the two one, and when you make the inner as the outer and the outer as the inner and the above as the below ... then shall you enter the Kingdom ... I am the Light that is above them all, I am the All, the All came forth from Me and the All attained to Me. Cleave a piece of wood, I am there; lift up the stone and you will find Me there." - Jesus

The stellar serpent resonates in the microcosm as the kundalini, said to be coiled in 3.5 turns, at the base of the human spinal column. The 33 vertebrae represent the 33-degrees of initiation, the 33 years of the Solar Hero Myth, the Perfect Third, the One Third of the Angels who rebelled, the One Third of the Trinity: the Divine Child who walks the Middle Path.

Moving up the spine are the 7 chakras; the rainbow bridge. They are traditionally 7 in number for the 7 colors of the rainbow, the 7 notes/tones, the 7 heavens and 7 "gates" on the head, the 7 bands of color on the ancient Great Pyramid, the 7 levels of the Etemenaki ziggurat which were colored for the 7 planets, and so on.
In 570s BC, Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon, seeking to restore the ziggurat, wrote of its ruinous state, "A former king built the Temple of the Seven Lights of the Earth, but he did not complete its head. Since a remote time, people had abandoned it, without order expressing their words. Since that time earthquakes and lightning had dispersed its sun-dried clay; the bricks of the casing had split, and the earth of the interior had been scattered in heaps."
At the top is the grey matter of the brain (matching the grey temple to the moon god which was to be on the top of the Etemenaki pyramid), split into 3 sections for the 3 Sephira on the top of the Tree of Life, the 3 veils of reality, the trident and pitchfork, the heavenly Trinity, and so on. The brain is a mirror of reality; as this world is a mirror of the Otherworld, where left is right and up is down. Vision is flipped upside-down by the brain after coming in through the lens. The left hemisphere controls the right side of the body, and right hemisphere controls the left side of the body. The duality meets in the center as the "phallic" pineal gland, for the pine-cone-topped staff of Osiris, which unites with the bi-lobed "vaginal" pituitary gland giving rise to an internal cosmic sex act.


Gematria


A scene from Ghostbusters: The Ghostbusters are on the top of a building built like a stepped pyramid with a temple on the top. A crystal pyramid has appeared and an ancient demigod Gozar is there.
Gozar: "Are you a god?"
Ray: "...No."
(Gozar hits them all with lightning from her finger tips like the Sith Lord Palpatine from Star Wars.)
Winston: "Ray, when someone asks you if you're a god, you say 'yes'!"

So basically what I'm saying here is that the kernel of all religions is completely internal. Heaven and God are the imaginative power of the brain, the creative spark, the link to the subtle unknown, and the part of you that knows there's something more than this reality. The Ego has become manifest as the devil. He is the dragon in the cave at the base of the mountain, hoarding wealth, power, and virgins, yet lacking the ability to correctly utilize these things.

"The greatest enemy will hide in the last place you would ever look." - Julius Caesar

"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled, was convincing the world that he didn't exist." - Usual Suspects

"Your friends are close, but your enemy is closer." - The Road to Suicide

As I stated in a recent interview on Star Theory, I see the devil as being the negative aspect of the internal "lead" of the alchemists. Aferrismoon pointed out in a previous article of mine where I was musing on the meaning of "dale" as not just a valley, but meaning a veil in fact, as it is in the case of "Sunnydale" which is the name of the town at the brink of hell in the "Buffy" mythos. He pointed out that "dale" is an anagram of "lead." The lead, or Ego, is Da Evil One, D-Evil, D-Veil, the Devil. The DEVIL LIVED VEIL'D. Your (S)inner (S)elf which becomes "Lucifer" the light bearer who snakes his way back up the Tree/Tower/Mountain/Spine to claim the Crown (chakra) of God. (Light Bear-er = Ursa Major/Minor?)



The alchemists say that "it takes a seed of gold to make gold." They believed that everything down to grains of sand had this potential within. "If you can't see God in everything, you can't see God in anything." I say it takes a seed of God to make God. Same thing really, but I hate how veiled everything is, though I guess it's necessary to force us to seek our own truth. In Secret Teachings of All Ages, Manly P. Hall ("manly phallus" as Aferrismoon once said), gives us these quotes: "A soul cannot develop and progress without an appropriate body, because it is the physical body that furnishes the material for its development." And, "A seed is useless and impotent unless it is put in its appropriate matrix." Well, there you have it folks! The matrix is the female womb, the soil of the earth, the cold darkness which causes morning dew to form, and the watery chaos from which the material was created, becoming the material matrix itself – and we are the seedling God.

I love hearing about the explanations for reality which the "machine elves" or non-physical entities encountered in the altered states of consciousness tell to the psychonauts who travel to their strange worlds. They are all so different yet somehow all true at the same time. One such story is that the human species (perhaps all life on earth?) is a massive organism placed here from higher dimensional reality for the purpose of evolution. The reason we're here is that only in the 3D matrix of linear time can something grow. Whatever the case may be, the microcosm is your own body which the seed of Go(l)d needs to grow within.


be your own anti-christ


If The Devil/Ego is still running the show when you reach the top of the mountain, or crown the tower, then it will become a negative force and become a tyrant. The goal of those who summit The Holy Mountain is to transform the Ego from Satan into Lucifer so that he can bring the flame of wisdom to light the top of the lighthouse.



In the anime Metropolis 2002, a human-like robot version of a man's daughter is created for the purpose of sitting in a throne at the top of The Ziggurat/Tower of Babel which is actually a secret military weapon. The robot-person represents the Ego, the Darth Vader, all intellect and no heart, etc. She is named Tima, a diminutive form of Tiamat of Sumerian mythology who was a sea serpent/dragon which represented the primordial sea/chaos. When she is integrated into the Throne and takes control of the Tower she is all robotic(Egoic) which of course leads to the towers destruction. She is redeemed however when for a brief moment she is reminded of her humanity which in this case represents divinity. (The created is found to contain a seed of the creator, the Tinman is found to have had a heart the whole time – typical in movies featuring robots such as A.I., I, Robot, Terminator Salvation, etc.)

All looked upon the throne, and heard and saw
Nothing but Jemshid, he alone was King,
Absorbing every thought; and in their praise
And adoration of that mortal man,
forgot the worship of the great Creator.
Then proudly he to his nobles spoke,
Intoxicated with their loud applause,
"I am unequaled, for to me the earth
Owes all its science, never did exist
A sovereignty like mine, beneficent
And glorious, driving from the populous land
Disease and want. Domestic joy and rest
Proceed from me, all that is good and great
Waits my behest; the universal voice
Declares the splendor of my government,
Beyond whatever human heart conceived,
And me the only monarch of the world."

-- Soon as these words had parted from his lips
Words impious, and insulting to high heaven,
His earthly grandeur faded – then all tongues
Grew clamorous and bold. The day of Jemshid
Passed into gloom, his brightness all obscured.
What said the Moralist? "When thou wert a king
Thy subjects were obedient, but whoever
Proudly neglects the worship of his God
Brings desolation on his house and home."

-- And when he marked the insolence of his people,
He knew the wrath of heaven had been provoked,
And terror overcame him.
(The Zoroastrian Persian legend of the Emperor of the Golden Age, Jemshid)
The above is from Joseph Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces. He indicates in his book that the son replaces the father/king who has become a tyrant, but that the son may one day also become a tyrant and he must know when to relinquish his throne to the next king. Like I've said previously, I don't feel that absolute perfection can exist in this material universe, so there will always be room for the pendulum to swing back to the dark side.

"Pattern: temple creation - desecration - destruction - new temple. It happens over and over again - we're always working on our next temple." Rhapsody In Two, Gosporn.



In Tony Bushby's The Secret In the Bible is a picture of a pre-1851 engraving of a pyramid, seated in Lake Moeris, having a flat peak with a large statue seated at the apex. He recounts a history that claims that the Benben stone (the original capstone to the Great Pyramid) was stolen and brought to Babylon in Mesopotamia, the second Babylon as Giza was originally called Babylon (hence the Pyramid may be the original Tower of Babel). After it was brought back to Egypt it was housed in a temple. The apex of the pyramid was then fitted with a large statue: historian F. Vansler (1673), "On top of the greatest pyramid there was anciently a statue or colosse. This appears because it is not sharp as the others, but plain; and there are yet to be seen great pits, which were to keep fast the colosse from falling." He then claims that the statue was of a Serpent god, based on this inscription: "a reptile had been fashioned in that place," who was associated with these dire words:
If you do not tell me what I have not heard and what I do not know, I will cause you to pass out of existence like a flame which has been extinguished.
These are good words to have at the back of your mind. Like Terence McKenna said, the Timewave Zero program was his only original idea, the rest was regurgitation of books he's read and the beliefs of others, which he may have put together in novel ways, but which were still available to everyone and not unique to him. What's your one original idea? It seems, and many have commented on such, that once a great idea springs into the collective consciousness, it then becomes available to everyone. Alphabetic languages sprung up in three separate locations in three separate styles at around the same time. And there's plenty of examples of inventions and discoveries which were independently pulled out of the void at around the same time by people who had no idea of each others research. As has been pointed out at this blog, often (more often than not, it seems) two or more synchromystic bloggers begin discussing very similar themes at similar times with no prior knowledge of each others work. Some have pondered if it's because we build upon each others ideas, reaching similar conclusions at around the same times. However, when all of a sudden a television show seems to be using information from our blogs, or other incidents occur where communication seems very unlikely, it seems to me that creative persons who tap into the same great storehouse of universal knowledge will often borrow the same muse and form similar ideas.

Per Michael Talbot's Holographic Universe, People who can see auras and chakras sometimes see Sanskrit letters inside the chakras, letters which historically have been associated with those chakras. Does this mean that those letters are part of some divine language? No, it does not. It means that those letters were arbitrarily (from our perspecitve) connected to those chakras, colors and sacred tones, and that the aeons of belief and devotion to those ideas has imprinted those letters on the very fabric of our holographic Matrixesque reality. Did our ancient ancestors realize (in a time of far less mind control, and electronically induced numbness) that the universe is truly malleable, that they can make the myths for others to follow? Are we simply living out the intelligently created hologram of our forefathers? Or did they not realize this, and believe that they were discovering truth while at the same time unknowingly crafting that very truth through their subconscious?

I was raised Catholic, and am a confirmed Catholic which means I've gone through my three day retreat (spent in a monastery living in a bare room like a monk), praying the rosary and whatever else I've repressed. Three days of death and resurrecting as a full fledged Catholic, and soon after, completely dropping the church because of a perceived lack of Mystery (a necessary step to where I am now, able to see the beauty and mystery in the Bible and other religions as well. Oh, the things they don't teach in Sunday school!). When I lived with my parents, I would attend mass less and less until I simply stopped going, but one of the last priests whose sermons I listened to was actually quite "hip" and "with it." He would sometimes mention discoveries in quantum mechanics and integrate them into his sermons (compare that with those Revivalist super-literal bible thumpers!). Probably the only sermon I remember from years of Catholic mass, and I think from one of the last times I went to church (not counting weddings, funerals, Easter and Christmas) was about Jesus and the effects of belief. He spoke of a passage in the Bible where Jesus refused to work miracles in a certain town. When pressed by his disciples at his lack of willingness to heal the people in that town, he explained that he could not heal them if he wanted, because of the lack of faith in his abilities as a prophet and healer, he could no work miracles there. At the time I took this to mean that Jesus' miracles were the effects of psychosomatic or placebo effects, but now I think that it points to the flexibility of reality. This is one reason I don't like "mainstream religions," they indicate that only special individuals such as saints and prophets can work miracles (though one must wonder at how they only become saints years after they die...), and we are left at their mercy for a miracle healing. But a Mystery-interpretation says that you are the Hero in the Myth (in this case Jesus) and you can work "miracles" as well.

"Verily, verily , I say unto you, He that believeth in me, the miracles that I do shall he do also; and greater miracles than these shall he do." - John, 14:12

We know now, through repeatable scientifically designed experiments (hypothesis, testing, recording, & repeating), that the observer, our consciousness, can affect the fabric of the universe in very real and tangible ways. We are the myth makers, the shaman, the high priests of our own religion. Those who practice ceremonial Magick use specific symbols, colors, and words according to what result it is that they are trying produce. But they will also admit that there is no power in a black candle, or a planetary sigil, or any such symbolism; it only serves to occupy the consciousness and activate the subconscious, playing on built-in associations and expectations. We can use these tried and true devices to our own ends, or for the more bold among us, we can develop completely new symbols and change the universe to one more suited to our liking.



On the subject of claiming the Crown(chakra) of Heaven at the peak/capstone of the "Holy Mountain," I see the process as being recursive in pattern. It seems to me that the "fractal soul grid/cage" which traps us in the Matrix may indeed be infinite where we are always at the center; where Heaven and Earth meet. No matter if we expanded to the size of stars, solar systems or galaxies, or shrunk down to the level of the mind, the cells, or the atoms; we will always find ourselves at the center of the infinite recursion of the fractal universe.


your higher Self is the capstone/cornerstone of the holy mountain


Back in the movie, The Holy Mountain: after The Thief and The Prostitute leave back down the mountain, The Planets continue to storm the abode of the Nine Immortals (thinking The Alchemist has left them on their own at this point.) Getting back to something I said previously, mythology is filled with examples of Sons taking the place of their Fathers.

"Know ye not that ye are gods, and sons of the most high?" - Psalms, 82:6

Here it is the new Nine Immortals replacing the old Nine Immortals. However, when they get to the table the Immortals are seated at, they find that the Immortals are just fake, they are dummies in robes, and The Alchemist is waiting there for them.



He invites The Planets to join him at the table. They sit down at the table, and The Alchemist explains, "I promised you the great secret and I will not disappoint you. Is this the end of our adventure? Nothing has an end. We came in search of the secret of immortality, to be like gods, and here we are mortals - more human than ever. If we have not obtained immortality, at least we have obtained reality. We began in a fairy tale and we came to life. But is this life reality? No, it is a thing. Zoom back camera! (The camera zooms back to reveal that we are watching a movie) We are images, dreams, photographs, we must not stay here! We shall break the illusion. This is Maya. Good bye to the holy mountain, real life awaits us." The group flips over the table of the Immortals displaying the 9-pointed enneagram symbol, because they are doing away with symbols at this point, going further back to the source. They leave and continue their journey moving beyond the sphere of earthly immortality, beyond the realm of messiahs, demigods, demiurges and gods, beyond all illusion.



I was quite happy about the ending of the movie, but Jodorowsky said that even the actors refused to talk to him after learning about it. They all wanted to see these people become immortal. It's natural I guess, after associating yourself with the character as an actor, or as the viewer, that you would crave a simple, clear-cut happy ending.

Jodorowsky may leave us with a hint though. The act of self-awareness by the characters in a movie is known as "breaking the fourth wall" (the movie/television screen), and can be seen acting on more than one level in the movie The Neverending Story. In this movie the character Atreyu is informed that the child Bastian has been reading his adventure the whole time Atreyu was experiencing it. In fact, he is further informed that the child Bastian is yet another character in a movie being watched by kids in an even higher level of reality. Similar to the idea of the recursive fractal, or the nested matrix, we are left to reflect if we are the subject of amusement for yet another layer of reality above us.

Bastian is the "earthling child" that Atreyu had to find, he is "the One" ... "who can save us all." Actually, at the end of the movie, the entire universe of Fantasia is reduced to a single grain of sand, then created out of that grain again by the creative power inherent in Bastian, he being a product and microcosm of his creator. The grain of sand is something which the alchemists would have considered to contain that seed of Gold/God/Universe. "To see the universe in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower."

The Celtic Rebel blog has quoted a Mystery drama in a recent post which comes from Manly P. Hall's The Secret Teachings of All Ages. It is about Adam/Humanity learning the truth about the Serpent. You can read The Celtic Rebel's concise quote of it in this post, or read the whole thing here, starting halfway down P.128 at "In this ritualistic drama..." There is a very similar Hindu story from Joseph Campbell's Hero With A Thousand Faces which I'm including below.

A moving tale is told of an ancient Hindu warrior-king named Muchukunda. He was born from his father's left side, the father having swallowed by mistake a fertility potion that the Brahmin's had prepared for his wife; and in keeping with the promising symbolism of this miracle, the motherless marvel, fruit of the male womb, grew to be such a king among kings that when the gods, at one period, were suffering defeat in their perpetual contest with the demons, they called upon him for help. He assisted them to a mighty victory, and they, in their divine pleasure, granted him the realization of his highest wish. But what should such a king, himself almost omnipotent, desire? What greatest boon of boons could be conceived of by such a master among men? King Muchukunda, so runs the story, was very tired after his battle: all he asked was that he might be granted a sleep without end, and that any person chancing to arouse him should be burned to a crisp by the first glance of his eye.

The boon was bestowed. In a cavern chamber, deep within the womb of a mountain, King Muchukunda retired to sleep, and there slumbered through the revolving aeon. Individuals, peoples, civilizations, world ages, came into being out of the void and dropped back into it again, while the old king, in his state of subconscious bliss, endured. Timeless as the Freudian unconscious beneath the dramatic time world of our fluctuating ego-experience, that old mountain man, the drinker of deep sleep, lived on and on.

His awakening came – but with a surprising turn that throws into new perspective the whole problem of the hero-circuit, as well as the mystery of a mighty king's request for sleep as the highest conceivable boon.

Vishnu, the Lord of the World, had become incarnate in the person of a beautiful youth named Krishna, who, having saved the land of India from a tyrannical race of demons, had assumed the throne. And he had been ruling in Utopian peace, when a horde of barbarians suddenly invaded from the northwest. Krishna the king went against them, but in keeping with his divine nature, won the victory playfully, by a simple ruse. Unarmed and garlanded with lotuses, he came out of his stronghold and tempted the enemy king to pursue and catch him, then dodged into a cave, When the barbarian followed, he discovered someone lying there in the chamber, asleep.

"Oh!" thought he. "So he has lured me here and now feigns to be a harmless sleeper."

He kicked the figure lying on the ground before him, and it stirred. It was King Muchukunda. The figure rose, and the eyes that had been closed for unnumbered cycles of creation, world history, and dissolution, opened slowly to the light. The first glance that went forth struck the enemy king, who burst into a torch of flame and was reduced immediately to a smoking heap of ash. Muchunkunda turned, and the second glance struck the garlanded, beautiful youth, whom the awakened old king straightaway recognized by his radiance as an incarnation of God. And Muchunkunda bowed before his Saviour with the following prayer:

"My Lord God! When I lived and wrought as a man, I lived and wrought – straying restlessly through many lives, birth after birth, I sought and suffered, nowhere knowing cease or rest. Distress I mistook for joy. Mirages appearing over the desert I mistook for refreshing waters. Delights I grasped, and what I obtained was misery. Kingly power and earthly possession, riches and might, friends and sons, wife and followers, everything that lures the senses: I wanted them all, because I believed that these would bring me beatitude. But the moment anything was mine it changed its nature, and became as a burning fire.

"Then I found my way into the company of the gods, and they welcomed me as a companion. But where, still, surcease? Where rest? The creatures of this world, gods included, all are tricked, my Lord God, by your playful ruses; that is why they continue in their futile round of birth, life agony, old age, and death. Between lives, they confront the lord of the dead and are forced to endure hells of every degree of pitiless pain. And it all comes from you!

"My Lord God, deluded by your playful ruses, I too was a prey of the world, wandering in a labyrinth of error, netted in the meshes of ego-consciousness. Now, therefore, I take refuge in your Presence – the boundless, the adorable – desiring only freedom from it all."

When Muchunkunda stepped from his cave, he saw that men, since his departure, had become reduced in stature. He was as a giant among them. And so he departed from them again, retreated to the highest mountains, and there dedicated himself to the ascetic practices that should finally release him from his last attachment to the forms of being.

Muchukunda, in other words, instead of returning, decided to retreat one degree still further from the world. And who shall say that his decision was altogether without reason?

After breaking the fourth-wall, or what we, living one level higher, might call the 5th Dimension, The Alchemist (really, Jodorowsky as himself) explains that this is Maya, an illusion, and liberation into the truth of "IT (ALL)" must be found past the boundaries of the Holy Mountain.

"There goes neither the eye, nor speech, nor the mind; we know It not; nor can we see how to teach one about It. Different It is from all that are known, and It is beyond the unknown as well." - Kena Upanishad

It is her,
and It is him.
It is us,
And It is them.
It is me,
and It is we.
... It is It!
And that, as they say, is that.


fade to white

Monday, February 22, 2010

Star Theory Podcast

I was on the Star Theory podcast Wednesday, click here to stream it, or click here to download it. It's 2 hours long.



If you haven't checked out my last Dinner With The Celtic Rebel podcast, I do recommend it. Alex thinks it's the best one yet! (If such a thing could be possible!? They're all so gooood.)

Monday, February 8, 2010

My Dinner With The Celtic Rebel - Part 4


twisting the night away


Before getting into the podcast, I'm happy to announce that Alex has is own weekly show now on the Oracle Broadcasting Network. First show is on next Sunday, Feb 14th, Valentine's Day, at 10pm Central (Click to see what the local time will be for you.)

The rumors weren't true, there's not much to read here 'cept the 'cast. So enjoy that and these pics of Zardoz :D


download link (~163 minutes!)












Friday, January 29, 2010

Synchronicity - Thy Ironic Sync

Here's a quick little video on synchronicities in movies:



One could argue that many of these are not accidental, but hey, they happened, the symbols are set into the universal web, and all things ultimately point to the same source. Chew over that for now while I work on my next posts/videos.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Blue Birds Fly

Hi guys :D I got a new computer running Ubuntu Linux (Karmic Koala) which doesn't have super great video editing software, but it's pretty good considering it's free and open source. Anyhoo, I made a quick video to get some practice using it, and it seems to have come out ok, so look forward to more videos in the future. (Donations are still welcome so I can buy more RAM! See the button at the bottom of the blog.) So, without further ado, here it is:

If you've been absent from the warm glow of my awesomeness for a bit, please check out my recent series of articles based around the movie The Holy Mountain: Nigredo, Albedo, Cauda Pavonis, with one still to be written. (I swear I'm thinking real hard about starting on it soon... really!)

Friday, January 1, 2010

The Holy Mountain - Cauda Pavonis


"The unexamined life is not worth living." - Socrates (470-399 BCE)



"All that we are is the result of what we have thought." - Buddha

"Know Thyself." - Oracle at Delphi


Continuing from the last post, Albedo (and Nigredo before that), we reach the intermediate stage of Xanthosis, or The Yellowing. Typically the stages are done in three's as there are three alchemical substances: salt, sulphur and mercury. However, I felt it necessary to break this down a bit more and introduce the hermetic allegory of the peacock's tail, otherwise known as Cauda Pavonis. This stage represents the quick color change which signals that the attainment of the Stone is near. A warning is given to alchemists not to believe their work is complete at this stage, however, and not to get too excited or distracted as that may disrupt the process and endanger the completion of the Stone.
Mercurius:
The remaining darkness unfolds like the multi-coloured petals of a metallic flower. Each jewel-like petal scintillates in a constellation of sapphires, opals, emeralds, amethysts, rubies, chalcedon, and onyx. The colors shift and merge, wink and dissipate, like an incarnation of Iris.



The colors irradiate from the centre like the rays of Sol contained within the circle of Luna. There are many eyes which yet form the iris of the single astral Eye. This we call the Cauda Pavonis. It watches me as I sit in front of it, pausing between one word and another. I see my own face, thoughtful, slightly skewed, as in a mirror image. The Eye sees into my heart and my heart goes out to it. I am no longer myself.
The Alchemist and The Thief enter a room with the design of the third-eye chakra on the floor, complete with Om/Aum symbol in the center. Also, there is an albino peacock walking around the room, a symbol of enlightenment according to Jodorowsky, hence the fitting title for this part of the series, The Peacocks Tail or cauda pavonis.



The replicas represent seven planets, but not the traditional seven, as The Alchemist is already the sun, and The Thief is shown in a deleted scene with the symbol of the moon, and in that same scene The Written Woman is shown with the symbol for mercury. Together these three characters may constitute the Three Essentials of Alchemy. The (seven) Planets continue from Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. The Planets are shown be be perversions and inversions of their traditional symbolism. Even the planetary symbol is sometimes inverted to show that this is literally the case with these characters.

The Alchemist:
“The fish thinks about his hunger, not about the fisherman. It is the master who seeks the disciple. You want to know the secret, but man cannot see nothing but himself. To accomplish the alchemical work you will have these companions. They are thieves like you, but on another level. They are the most powerful people on the planet. Industrialists and politicians."

The first Planet we are introduced to is Fon of the planet Venus. He is a man, contrary to the idea of venus, and his symbol is also an inversion of the traditional logo, though the color is a greenish-blue and is typical for the planet. The employees at his factory are all women, and he sometimes picks from them one to be his wife, one of many wives that is. He also only makes love to them during working hours.



A few of his wives appear to be quite young, and I'm reminded that his name “Fon” is similar to “a fawn,” or a satyr - the wildly sexual forest gods such as Pan. The movie shows he and his new wife making love and she pulls a handful of white hearts and pours them in her mouth and on her face. It's one of many times that Jodorowsky uses analogous elements in his film rather than showing the actual object/thing, but it also reminds me of how rice is traditionally thrown over a newlywed couple to signify fertility: the new wife of Fon is shown pregnant immediately after he chooses her. Additionally, these white “pearls of jizdom” are the base form of “pearls of wisdom.” Often great mystical truths are symbolized by sexual ideas, though they aren't meant to be taken literally: sex for pleasure is a distraction. A very fun distraction, I might add, but not the type of eternal bliss one on a journey to enlightenment is seeking. Buddha and others have been tempted with pleasures of the flesh. Speaking of analogies, I just learned via the commentary which I was finally able to get the subtitles working on, that Fon's new wife here is actually a transvestite, a man who became a woman, and thus combines the two halves in an alchemical rebis/hermaphrodite of sorts.

The difference between being immortal and immoral is the cross, or the letter t/T. Odin hung on the World Tree and received Wisdom, Jesus was crucified and went to the Otherworld and came back. Without the death to the physical, one is stuck in the pleasure focused state and doesn't find true bliss.

His father is the boss of the company but he is deaf, dumb and blind. When he makes a decision, he puts his hand between the legs of the mummy of his wife, and if she is dry the answer is “no.” Their business is beauty, but as this is an inversion of traditional venus, the beauty is only an illusion. They make a line of masks which are permanent beautiful faces. They even beautify dead bodies and animate them for lively funerals. They also make fake muscles for men to put on their bodies, as well as cod-pieces to increase the size of their bulge. As you can see, it's all egoic beauty, and does not change the person internally, where external beauty begins. It is said that people who are fairly enlightened tend to have magnetic attractiveness, not really how they look, but something which people pick up on and want to be around. So working on internal beauty will have an effect on the external, but working solely on the external only masks the internal ugliness. The rest of The Planets are also inversions of what they would typically stand for.



Next we come to Isla of Mars. Here we have a woman symbolizing mars, again an inversion, and again the typical mars logo is inverted as well. She sleeps in a black triangular room inside a black shielded bed (like the Batmobile actually) with 3 dogs and 2 other lesbian women. The two women are the ones The Alchemist is cleaning up in the opening scenes of the movie, which I mention in the beginning of the previous post in this series. Isla dresses as a man as well. The theme song for this part of the movie is called Sapphic Sleep which represents female homosexuality.



Isla makes weapons with the help of her many male secretaries workforce who dress in drag. They make bombers, bombs, ray guns, deadly bacteria, antimatter waves, carcinogenic gases, etc.



She even makes weapons for the young generation and it's sit-ins and marches (referring to the late sixties peace movement). Instead of putting flowers into gun barrels, Isla provides peace protesters with grenade necklaces, psychedelic shotguns, rock-n-roll weapons, and even mystical weapons for religious people.



Klen of Jupiter lives in an opulant mansion with his wife who doesn't love him and a kid who is only interested in getting his allowance. His son is shown in a deleted scene with a naked girl laying in bed with him, like father like son, as the father, Klen, also has a mistress we'll see in a minute. This deleted scene is pretty interesting however, as it depicts a chapel room in the house with a cross made of televisions (used by Marilyn Manson in a concert) and a picture of The Flash where Jesus should be. The cross made of cubic boxes is so freaking awesome... As we all know a cube unfolded is a cross, and a tesseract unfolded is a cubic cross (with another box in front and behind the middle one). Plus not only is it boxes, it's television sets, microcosms of the fake world or matrix we inhabit. It also reminds me of the boxy amplifiers which replace the body of a dead man in Nirvana's "Heart Shaped Box" video (see my: Heart Shaped Coffin post). I love this scene, too bad it was deleted because they were afraid the naked little girl would be off-putting to some. There are also more paintings by Jodorowsky (I'm guessing) in this room, all comic and sexual. And the image of The Flash is from a comic cover of a comic where Flash loses his memory and believes himself to be an 8-year old kid. The Flash: “They say I'm The Flash! If it only were true I could help them! Please make it come true God!” Rings of Pinocchio to me, but also something Jesus may have had to deal with being told he was the son of God as he was growing up. Not sure if it was planned this way, but Flash is related to Hermes/Thoth and therefore wisdom, so wisdom is being venerated, though here in an inverted world it is comic and fantasy.



Klen meets up with his young hippie mistress and they go to his factory where they make sexual art, most of which actually incorporates naked living people into the art. The best part of this guys factory is the giant robotic vagina 'love machine.' Yes, a giant mechanical vagina. The "seX-Box" needs to be stimulated with a large 'electronic wand' and brought to climax. The result of a successful attempt is a baby robot. Yup, that's life, going through the robotic motions which may result in procreation so that a new generation can again go through the motions, so on and so forth. Jodorowsky comments that this is a mixing of geometry and biology, machines with humans, and that the machine is becoming more human by giving birth. He muses that machines can help people evolve, and today that is happening with the use of binaural beats, bio-feedback and self-hypnosis technology which people can use to stimulate increased memory, better meditation, lucid dreaming, and out of body experiences.



Sel of Saturn caters to children. It's funny, because the god Saturn is known for eating his children! I didn't take too many pictures of her scenes, but Sel hangs out with dwarfs who dress as Santa. Although he doesn't mention it, Jodorowsky has connected Santa with Saturn/Satan. She dresses as a clown and plays with them, but once she gets to her factory it's all business. I think she switches places with the tall guy who follows her around, but it's hard to tell with all the makeup.



She runs a toy factory where she makes toy weapons to indoctrinate future generations into wanting to go to war against whoever the State wants to go to war with (in this case, it's Peru). They start them young by planning 15 years in advance and then making toys which subconsciously make the kids hate the future enemy. Her workforce, contrary to her target audience, is entirely made up of the elderly. Might as well use people close to death to promote death. Some of them even appear to be veterans of previous wars.



Berg of the aptly named Uranus is an effeminate mommas boy who lives with his frighteningly sexual mother
(warning: this scene of the movie may give you nightmares!). Jodorowsky explains that Uranus symbolized to him the dark and depraved side of humans. Jodorowsky wanted this movie to transform not only the audience but the people acting in it, so all the characters basically play themselves, and in this case the gay character Berg is actually a gay man; the same goes for the lesbian Isla of mars, and the millionaire Klen who was actually a millionaire, and so on.

The mother is played by a screwball who hung around the studios looking for work as an extra, but the most notable thing about her is that she has no belly button! Jodorowsky likens her to Eve, as Eve was born from Adam's rib and had no need for a belly button and umbilical cord. She doesn't like the only small window in their room and even says that it is too big and needs to be covered up; she wants to totally seal themselves off from the world (compare to the gay mamma's boy in Stephen Kings “It” is isn't allowed to go out in play very often). Anyways, he wears a lot of pentacles and has a shirt with a large “5” on it. I'm just letting you know the details in case someone else cares to interpret, some of these scenes are pretty damn bizarre! :)



These two work for the government as financial advisors. Their report to the government advises the killing of four million citizens in the next five years to boost the economy. The president then orders the opening of “gas-chambers, gas-schools, gas-universities, gas-libraries, gas-museums, gas-dance-halls, gas-whorehouses, etc.”

Axon of Neptune is a police chief. His symbol is inverted and can be seen during a large Naziesque ceremony. A new candidate who has apparently volunteered to work for Axon is splayed out on an altar with his genitals exposed. Axon rides up with a ridiculously giant machine gun and then gets out some scissors and cuts off the boys testicles (ouch!). Axon explains that 999 other “heroes” have made the same sacrifice to work for Axon, and this boys testicles complete Axon's sanctuary of 1,000 (pairs of) testicles.




I don't know about you, but the one thing my house is missing is a shrine room walled with castrated organs! The boy is given The Holy Book which is all about believing in Axon: “Axon is the truth, the power and the light.” His fascist programming guide, I guess.



Axon has a mohawk which is probably from the Roman/Fascist tradition and not the American Indian tradition (such as those worn by punks). Axon's troops clash with student protesters, but instead of of actually hurting each other, they splash paint on each other and mimic shooting, stabbing and decapitations. It's all external obvious special effects. It seems to be indicating a thin line between horror movies and real horror, or how war is televised and turned out as entertainment.



Finally we come to Lut of Pluto. And like Pluto to dog, he hangs out with Mickey Mouse, or rather a bunch of young boys dressed as Minnie Mouse. It's pretty clear he abuses children, and the Disney touch adds a bit of realism here. Lut is an architect, but his planet is named for the god of the Underworld, Pluto. (God of Underworld... The Architect...) Jodorosky says, "I think one of the greatest evils of contemporary society is architecture, because of its geometric, linear forms."



Lut built an apartment complex which was a total failure because he was building homes when all people need is shelter. All the tenants of this project are shown to be crippled, a comment on what living in a boxy environment does to living organisms which need natural surroundings. His next great idea is a community of suspended coffin shaped boxes for people to live in, because the tenant can eat at the factory and doesn't need a kitchen, and only needs a place to sleep in safety. Reminds me of the Japanese "sleeping tubes" people who work in the city use if they can't make it home that night. (They appear in the movie Fast And the Furious: Tokyo Drift, actually.)



Together these seven Planets with The Written Woman and The Alchemist represent the 9 symbols of the enneagram, though they are a perversion of what they are supposed to be. The Thief doesn't get counted because he is the person searching for enlightenment and the rest are anthropomorphic representations of his self. The Alchemist wears the enneagram (9-pointed star) and Alexander Jodorowsky mentions that each character represents a place on the enneagram in commentary for a deleted scene. I don't know much about this thingy, so here's the wiki quote you were waiting for:

The Enneagram of Personality is mostly taught and understood as a psychospiritual typology (a model of personality types) but is also presented in ways intended to discover and develop higher states of being, essence and enlightenment. Each Enneagram personality type expresses a distinctive and habitual pattern of thinking and emotions. The behavioral characteristics of the personality types are less distinctive. By recognizing their personality pattern a person may be able to use the Enneagram as an effective method for self-understanding and self-development.”
See wikipedia for the nine personality types. The symbol was used by spiritual teacher Gurdjieff who may have learned it from Sufis or Christian monks.



The octagon, highly prized in synchromystic circles for it's connections to star-gates and the center of the Milky Way, and to the Holy Grail, is sometimes referred to as an enneagram (meaning nine) and this is because often times the center of a symbol is a hidden extra point, so an octagon really has a ninth central point. As pointed out by me previously, the “stargate” from the movie Stargate has nine “chevrons,” though only seven are active, and there were nine trees planted around the edge of the fountain sculpture (water-door symbol) which used to sit at the center of the World Trade Center plaza (see this video by Labyrinth of the Psychonaut for more.)



Each Planet is connected to a point on the Enneagram symbol: 1 is Sel/Saturn, 2 is Axon/Neptune, 3 is The Written Woman/Mercury, 4 is Berg/Uranus, 5 is Lut/Pluto, 6 is Isla/Mars, 7 is Fon/Venus, 8 is Klen/Jupiter, and 9 is The Alchemist/Sun. Together they ultimately represent the parts of a person (The Thief), and a connection may be made to the City of the Nine Gates of Hindu mythology where the nine gates represent openings in the body, as well as the Nine Gates to the Kingdom of Shadows which is the fictional nine keys to open the Underworld/Otherworld from the movie The Ninth Gate, as well as the 9 days Odin hung on the world tree, the thrice-three (nine) gates of hell, and so on.


the nine levels of a 3D sri yantra


From Secrets Of The Ninja: "Between these [three centers of power] are nine "gates" up the spinal column that enable the Ninja to collect Qi in the Hara, cultivate it through the breathing techniques, and elevate it to the Mysterious Chamber of the Mind to achieve enlightenment."

In the other series of articles I started in January '09 with Heart Shaped Coffin I noted the interchangeability or rather connectivity of both seven and nine as being the number of layers, gates, domains, etc, and there are also systems which have nine major chakras as opposed to the more common seven. Really, there are thousands of chakras or plexuses that could potentially be mapped out, but seven or nine are the main ones running up the spinal column from the perineum to above the skull. If you're into mind-bending fractal based physics, check out Dan Winter's page on the number nine which resonates with this stuff.



The Great Work is done when the Seven again are One. That's my version of this quote: “It Is Finished When Seven Are One." It represents the idea of bringing the seven planets/metals/traits together into a perfect balance in a single vessel – you (the alchemist/fool/hero).

The group of seven Planets gets together at the Red Tower of The Alchemist. The Alchemist explains: "You have power and money, but you are mortal. You know you cannot escape death. but immortality can be obtained."



He continues speaking during a slide presentation of various holy mountains, "In old traditions they speak of holy mountains. The Meru mountain in India, Mount Kualua of the taoists, Himalaya, Mountain of The Philosophers, the Rosicrucian mountain, the Kabbalistic mountain. There are many holy mountains. The legend is always the same. Nine immortal men live on top of the mountain. From the highest peak they direct our world. They hold the secret to the conquest of death. They are more than forty-thousand years old.” “But they were once like ourselves. If others have succeeded in conquering death, why must we accept it? I know where the immortals live and how to obtain their secret.” He shows them ancient Rosicrucian manuscript which depicts the immortals and shows where they live: The Holy Mountain of Lotus Island.



The Alchemist continues, "We must unite our forces to assault The Holy Mountain and rob it's wise men of the secret of immortality. But to conquor the immortals, we too must become wise men. The elements of chemistry are many but finite. So too are the techniques of enlightenment. With the correct formula, any human being can become enlightened. The immmortals are a group. If we are to succeed, we must cease to be individuals and become a collective being."



The group now enters a yellow room shaped like an eye. The seven Planets and The Thief and The Written Woman and The Alchemist all take their seats around a circular table with a fire pit in the center. "Burn your money" says The Alchemist. They don't seem happy, but the promise of immortality out-weighs their attachment to money/material possessions/life. The Thief had earlier been indoctrinated to the world of money (being paid to take tourist pictures, and working on the animal circus), and now for him money is what makes the world go 'round, so he hides some money up his sleeves. The Alchemist notices: "Thief! If you don't want to die - kill your money!"


"There must be some kind of way out of here, said The Joker to The Theif"


Now the Alchemist says "We shall destroy the self image." Together they burn paper effigies of themselves. The Alchemist: "When the self concept thinks this is I and that is Mine he binds himself, and he forgets the Great Self." The Planets and the rest have become one unit now, but there is still some refining to take place as they journey to Lotus Island and up The Holy Mountain. The journey continues in the final post of this series later...



From The Belly Of The Whale: "As Marcus Aurelius writes, it is one of 'the noblest functions of reason to know whether it is time to walk out of the world or not.' Unknowing and uncertain, the philosopher walks."



Continue with the last post in this series here: The Holy Mountain - Rubedo.

Psychopomps

What are you saving up to be.. Jewish?