“used by protesters all over the U.S.
(and perhaps the world?)”
General Strike!
Category Archives: Perceptual Diversity
The Tyranny of Entitlement
We read earlier about socialism for the rich, now lets read a bit on the idea of entitlement. One can often hear objections to socialism, re-appropriation of wealth, and entitlement when it comes to the poor and exploited, but what about when it comes to the rich?
. . . A perpetual-growth economy is not only insane (and impossible), it is also by its very essence abusive, by which I mean that it’s based on the same conceit as more personal forms of abuse. It is, in fact, the macroeconomic enshrinement of abusive behavior. The guiding principle of abusive behavior is that the abuser refuses to respect or abide by limits or boundaries put up by the victim. As Lundy Bancroft, former codirector of Emerge, the nation’s first therapeutic program for abusive men, writes, “Entitlement is the abuser’s belief that he has a special status and that it provides him with exclusive rights and privileges that do not apply to his partner. The attitudes that drive abuse can largely be summarized by this one word.”
The relevance of this word applies on the larger social scale. Of course humans are a special species to whom a wise and omnipotent God has granted the exclusive rights and privileges of dominion over this planet that is here for us to use. And of course even if you subscribe to the religion of Science instead of Christianity, humans possess special intelligence and abilities that grant us exclusive rights and privileges to work our will on the world that is still here for us to use. Growth economies are essentially unchecked and will push past any boundaries set up by anyone other than the perpetrators: certainly the fact that indigenous cultures already are living on this or that piece of ground has never stopped those in power from expanding their economy; nor is the death of the oceans stopping their exploitation; nor is the heating of the planet stopping the exploitation; nor is the grinding poverty of the dispossessed.
And the truth is, you cannot talk abusers out of their behavior. Perpetrators of domestic violence are among the most intractable of all who commit violence, so intractable, in fact, that in 2000 the United Kingdom removed funding for therapy sessions designed to treat men guilty of domestic violence (putting the money instead into shelters and other means of keeping women safe from their attackers). Lundy Bancroft also says this: “An abuser doesn’t change because he feels guilty or gets sober or finds God. He doesn’t change after seeing the fear in his children’s eyes or feeling them drift away from him. It doesn’t suddenly dawn on him that his partner deserves better treatment. Because of his self-focus, combined with the many rewards he gets from controlling you, an abuser changes only when he feels he has to, so the most important element in creating a context for change in an abuser is placing him in a situation where he has no other choice.”
How do we stop the abusers who perpetrate a perpetual-growth economy? Seeing oiled pelicans and burned sea turtles won’t move them to stop. Nor will hundred-degree days in Moscow. We can’t stop them by making them feel guilty. We can’t stop them by appealing to them to do the right thing. The only way to stop them is to make it so they have no other choice.
Read more . . .
And remember, “The only way to stop them is to make it so they have no other choice.”
the love police
Bellow is an excerpt from the love police website. I pulled the information from the About page, and posted one of their videos so you can get an idea of what they are about and what you may find there. Please do visit http://www.cveitch.org/wordpress/
About
Hello everyone.
This is a bio written by me so I will be honest and open. I am no different to all the other apes with over-clocked brains running around on the surface of this beautiful planet we call Earth. I have been very lucky in that I have had the opportunity to live in various cultures around the world, most notaby Brazil, Guinea (West Africa), Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Caribbean and of course the United Kingdom.
Growing up I had a very pleasant family life, with parents who nurtured me and provided me with unconditional love. Being someone who always had to change schools (Whenever my Dad got another job in the oil industry), I found myself having to think very quickly in terms of how to make new friends, seeing as I was always “the new kid” at school. This raised fantastic opportunities to make new friends and learn a lot about myself.
Anyway, enough about my distant past. Around the age of 17 I got very interested in the nature of things and of reality, and so I did a degree at Edinburgh University in Scotland with Philosophy as my major for the four years of attendance, with other subjects such as Anthropology, Criminology, Forensic Medicine (The autopsy was intense. I had to leave the room feeling unwell) and Sociology. Still something was always missing. There was some truth which I felt none of the lecturers or tutors were able to give me.
Upon graduation, I promised myself I would never wear a suit, nor would I work in an office. Fate threw me suited up into an office for seven years, and seven years exactly. This was my tour of duty in the illusory world of hierarchical control, greed, fear and systemic hypnosis. It’s fair to say I tried to push aside my yearning for more esoteric explanations of the reality I found myself in and distracted myself with womanising and drug taking at weekends, not to mention exotic holidays and fun hobbies. I was living a half-life, and no-one was more aware of this fact than I was. There were, of course, moments of stunning humanity in my time in “the office” working as a financial adviser and all round salesman for the corporate control grid. I met people who inspired me, people who helped propel me out of the locked way of thinking that a big corporation (in my case HBOS PLC) demands of the minds in attendance. But still I remained a slave, wearing my tie as I woke up before dawn to go and sell investments to unsuspecting people.
But fate had different ideas in store for little Charlie. The economic controlled demolition of the world monetary system had me out on the street by the 1st May 2009, jobless. Suddenly I was able to do what I wanted to do, and the destiny I was too scared to enact for myself was thrust upon me, a truly humbling experience – because without losing my job would I be where I am today, megaphone and camera in hand shining a light up the asshole of evil, seeing what it is made of? Who knows…
I bought a camera because I’d had a few experiences where I was spiritually inspired by people in the real world and I thought “If I can do the same for my fellow people, then I want to share with them the best way I know…”, and the spiritual videos were born. We can call them spiritual, we can call them humanistic, we can call them political, some may even call them comedy, though they are not always funny. What I have managed to always be in my work is honest, as dictated by my own beliefs that nothing should be hidden. If I make mistakes, I know that the people will forgive me, as I have to forgive myself. But I hope I can bring my own special method of waking people up to those who need it the most – those, who like I used to be, are trapped in the corporate matrix AND think it is real; those who believe working greedily in an office whilst children die like dogs in Africa is the pinnacle of human evolution. No, none of us think the world is the pinnacle of the way things could be, but we are too scared to change ourselves and the world. The many temptations of money, respect and authority are always with us…until now. You can almost taste the electricity in the air with people waking up and simply not being a part of the consumerist-mediocrity that we hold up. We can now speak to people about conspiracy theories, about spiritual matters, about the esoteric…and we are understood.
Even my father, a conservative-hawk who watches Sky News and has old fashioned views supporting the Empire, now sees that September 11th was not as explained. I wasn’t there, and most probably you, the reader, were not there in Manhattan that day, but like the Swine Flu scare, we have no reason to trust the lies of the governments when we can see with our own eyes a building demolished and blown to pyroclastic smithereens…
I search for the truth. It exists inside me somewhere, and the more work I do for the greater spiritual awakening of all, the more the universe/the source/the absolute cares for me and gently nudges me towards my true path. Again, I feel small than when I contemplate the Absolute Consciousness, but though I feel small, I never feel alone, I never feel unloved, I never feel misunderstood. This is what I want to share with you; the power of working towards losing ego and trusting that Everything is OK…if only we could make it so.
The work that myself and my friends do is purely to inspire you to look within yourself and realise that there is nothing to be scared of. Do not follow us, do not think of us as leaders, do not emulate us, for we are imperfect fools searching as much as you are. The work we do out on the streets is to bring the message of peace and unity to the people who need to hear it most. By holding our ground against the uniformed/costumed Police officers and security that try and tell us how to act, we show a microcosm of the big issues we all face. Think of your fears in a bullet-proof, flourescent jacket, holding a pair of handcuffs. Learn how to stand up for the inviolability of your own soul. I promise you brothers and sisters that there is nothing they can do to you once you realise you are a spirit having a temporary human experience; that you hold all of the secrets of the universe inside your heart, and that you will never die. YOU WILL NEVER DIE. You will live on forever and you are infinitely loved. I cannot tell you this, but you will feel this for yourself soon. This I promise. We all used to think like this, but many of us have forgotten. The glory of remembering is for us all to take.
In the meantime, I hope you to make you smile and help you in the same way my friends have helped me.
With so much love and affection which words cannot do justice to,
Charlie
Class War in the U.S.A.?!?!
The Real Avatar: Mine – Story of a Sacred Mountain
What will one tribe have to do to save everything they know?
UPDATE: Victory! The Dongria Kondh have stopped Vedanta from mining their sacred mountain. http://bit.ly/azK6eR
http://www.survivalinternational.org/…
Mine, narrated by Joanna Lumley, tells the story of the remote Dongria Kondh tribe’s struggle to protect Niyamgiri, the mountain they worship as a God. London-based mining company Vedanta Resources plans a vast open-pit bauxite mine in India’s Niyamgiri hills, and the Dongria Kondh know that means the destruction of their forests, their way of life, and their mountain God.
Music by Skin and Robot Club.
Chinlone
Yoga and Conflict
COMBO a collaborative animation by Blu and David Ellis
a collaborative animation by Blu and David Ellis
year 2009
http://www.blublu.org
http://www.davidellis.org
produced by studio cromie
http://www.studiocromie.org
music by Roberto Lange
http://www.robertolange.com
made at Fame festival 2009
http://www.famefestival.it
Love & Theft
And I’m still carrying the gift you gave,
It’s a part of me now, it’s been cherished and saved,
It’ll be with me unto the grave
And then unto eternity.”
(Bob Dylan)
Script, direction: Andreas Hykade
Design, animation: Andreas Hykade
Animation assistance: Angela Steffen
Art work: Natalia Eck
Compositing: Christof Hoffmann
Sound, Music: Heiko Maile
Funding: MFG and FFA
Production assistance: Simone Fischer
Production: Thomas Meyer-Hermann
Studio FILM BILDER 2010
The Red Book
Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence, and the Occult.
Check out this podcast from http://www.panopticonpodcast.com/2010/04/episode-4-aleister-crowley-british.html
Episode 4 – Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence, and the Occult with Dr. Richard Spence
On this episode we speak with Dr. Richard Spence, author of the fantastic book “Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence, and the Occult.” We get into all sorts of weirdness concerning the Beast and his connections to British Intelligence, from his days as a student at Cambridge and initiate of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, through Mussolini’s Italy, World War I and the mysterious goings on of Montauk, New York and many others. The conversation was very fun and intriguing and we thank Richard for taking the time to come on the show. Enjoy!
Sweep the dust, Push the dirt
Quick inklings staggering somewhere between the absolute and the relative from a practitioner in Buddhist Purgatory.
Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World
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Religion and Sustainability
by Cameron Burgess on Mar 9, 2010
via http://www.elephantjournal.com/2010/03/religion-%E2%89%A0-sustainability/
Your politics & religion are my concern.
Religion’s getting a bad rap these days – and with good reason. Between the Jihadi’s, the Israelis and the fundies on their compounds, the world is increasingly looking like something out of Dante’s Inferno (and yes, I did just have a crack at Israel – and no that doesn’t make me anti-Semitic; just as criticising the USA doesn’t make one ‘anti-American’).
Of course, the arguments are that the conflicts in Palestine, the Middle East and just about anywhere outside North America where the US military is stationed are purely political (or related to energy security).
Yet wherever you have Presidents, Kings, Sheiks, Prime Ministers and various other political leaders invoking their god(s), praying in Parliament or printing scripture on their currency, there is a case to be made for asserting that there is absolutely no separation between church and state.
And if that’s true, a rigorous analysis of the dominant religions and the part they play in shaping policy is essential for determining whether consumer sentiment or political activism really stands a chance of shifting us away from a path of almost certain self-destruction and onto a path of survival.
Many wiser and more erudite people than me have discussed this already, and the point of this post is not to seek to restate their positions, but to bring a particular focus to it in the hope of continuing to stimulate debate and enquiry.
Sam Harris in The End of Faith makes a compelling case for the dangers of faith-based religion, whilst The Ranting Gryphon makes a far more impassioned (and amusing to some) case through his two minute video on Global Warming. And then there’s Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher and a plethora of others asking similar and equally valid questions about whether religion has a future in humanity’s future – or if humanity even has a future as long as religion does.
In a recent post I commented:
It’s time for discussions about politics, religion and consumerism to take centre stage, for all of us to call into question the irrational and dangerous beliefs that have brought us to the precipice. It’s time to wage war on superstition and unsubstantiated belief and embrace reason.
Your lifestyle choice is my concern – your diet is my concern, your means of transportation is my concern, your politics are my concern, your religion is my concern.
We all know that thought precedes action. I often hear discussions about the ‘lack of thoughtful action’ when it comes to addressing global sustainability concerns – yet I’m pretty sure that it’s the quality of the thinking, and not its absence that is the primary problem.
We’re so busy hammering away at a culture of consumerism – and blaming that for the problems that beset us – that we’ve failed to recognise that each of the three largest monotheistic religious groups have spread their influence throughout politics, the courts, economics, science, philanthropy and education; due in no small part to our unwillingness to really discuss their place in our societies. Our imam’s, rabbi’s and priests are the original thought-police – not only telling us what we are permitted to believe, but threatening to ostracize us from our communities if we either fail to agree or, heaven forbid, exercise our own intelligence in contradiction to what they teach.
… and now they’re supported either covertly or explicitly by government policy, tax concessions and grants.
The time for religious tolerance is long past. And by saying this I’m not agitating for racial or cultural intolerance.
Religious tolerance seems to pretty much equate to “you leave me alone to believe what I want, and I’ll leave you alone to believe what you want”.
Yet when our beliefs, collectively, appear to represent a significant threat to our capacity to survive as a species, is this really a reasonable basis for continuing?
What it seems we need is an intolerance for foolishness. An intolerance for irrationality. An intolerance for the beliefs that have not only ‘brought us to the precipice’ but now threaten to tip us over the edge.
What I really want to know is, why, in our quest to save ourselves from self-induced extinction, is everything else up for discussion but God?
Religion and Sustainability
by Cameron Burgess on Mar 9, 2010
via http://www.elephantjournal.com/2010/03/religion-%E2%89%A0-sustainability/
Your politics & religion are my concern.
Religion’s getting a bad rap these days – and with good reason. Between the Jihadi’s, the Israelis and the fundies on their compounds, the world is increasingly looking like something out of Dante’s Inferno (and yes, I did just have a crack at Israel – and no that doesn’t make me anti-Semitic; just as criticising the USA doesn’t make one ‘anti-American’).
Of course, the arguments are that the conflicts in Palestine, the Middle East and just about anywhere outside North America where the US military is stationed are purely political (or related to energy security).
Yet wherever you have Presidents, Kings, Sheiks, Prime Ministers and various other political leaders invoking their god(s), praying in Parliament or printing scripture on their currency, there is a case to be made for asserting that there is absolutely no separation between church and state.
And if that’s true, a rigorous analysis of the dominant religions and the part they play in shaping policy is essential for determining whether consumer sentiment or political activism really stands a chance of shifting us away from a path of almost certain self-destruction and onto a path of survival.
Many wiser and more erudite people than me have discussed this already, and the point of this post is not to seek to restate their positions, but to bring a particular focus to it in the hope of continuing to stimulate debate and enquiry.
Sam Harris in The End of Faith makes a compelling case for the dangers of faith-based religion, whilst The Ranting Gryphon makes a far more impassioned (and amusing to some) case through his two minute video on Global Warming. And then there’s Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher and a plethora of others asking similar and equally valid questions about whether religion has a future in humanity’s future – or if humanity even has a future as long as religion does.
In a recent post I commented:
It’s time for discussions about politics, religion and consumerism to take centre stage, for all of us to call into question the irrational and dangerous beliefs that have brought us to the precipice. It’s time to wage war on superstition and unsubstantiated belief and embrace reason.
Your lifestyle choice is my concern – your diet is my concern, your means of transportation is my concern, your politics are my concern, your religion is my concern.
We all know that thought precedes action. I often hear discussions about the ‘lack of thoughtful action’ when it comes to addressing global sustainability concerns – yet I’m pretty sure that it’s the quality of the thinking, and not its absence that is the primary problem.
We’re so busy hammering away at a culture of consumerism – and blaming that for the problems that beset us – that we’ve failed to recognise that each of the three largest monotheistic religious groups have spread their influence throughout politics, the courts, economics, science, philanthropy and education; due in no small part to our unwillingness to really discuss their place in our societies. Our imam’s, rabbi’s and priests are the original thought-police – not only telling us what we are permitted to believe, but threatening to ostracize us from our communities if we either fail to agree or, heaven forbid, exercise our own intelligence in contradiction to what they teach.
… and now they’re supported either covertly or explicitly by government policy, tax concessions and grants.
The time for religious tolerance is long past. And by saying this I’m not agitating for racial or cultural intolerance.
Religious tolerance seems to pretty much equate to “you leave me alone to believe what I want, and I’ll leave you alone to believe what you want”.
Yet when our beliefs, collectively, appear to represent a significant threat to our capacity to survive as a species, is this really a reasonable basis for continuing?
What it seems we need is an intolerance for foolishness. An intolerance for irrationality. An intolerance for the beliefs that have not only ‘brought us to the precipice’ but now threaten to tip us over the edge.
What I really want to know is, why, in our quest to save ourselves from self-induced extinction, is everything else up for discussion but God?
θέλημα
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
θέλημα is a blog to collect the thoughts of The Beast 666 – known as Aleister Crowley, Frater Perdurabo, To Mega Therion, etc. – on various subjects.
The Beast was the prophet of the Law of Thelema, and initiated the Aeon of the Crowned & Conquering Child upon reception of The Book of the Law in 1904, era vulgaris.
Therefore, while the Beast is neither the Absolute Beginning nor the Absolute End to Thelema, His words are of utmost importance in understanding this Law of Liberty.
The very Comment of The Book of the Law states, “All questions of the Law are to be decided only by appeal to my writings, each for himself.”
We therefore offer these writings without any opinion or interpretation on our part.
Love is the law, love under will.
Peep & Gaze!
Scrying can variously be defined as a technique of divination or revelation, of producing visions, perhaps of the future, through prolonged gaze at an object.
Our League of the L:.O:.A:. encourages everyone to get out your peep stones and scry-a-little! David Whitmer, one of the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon explains: “I will now give you a description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing.” You can do this as well! Take a hat throw in you favorite peep stone and Gaze!
http://www.youtube.com/mormonmagick
Bornless Ritual
Bornless Ritual by Baby Bam Bam Bumkin.
The Bornless Ritual, also known as the Preliminary Invocation of the Goetiaor, and the Invocation of the Heart Girt with a Serpent.
“Thee I invoke, the Bornless one.
Thee, that didst create the Earth and the Heavens:
Thee, that didst create the Night and the day.
Thee, that didst create the darkness and the Light.
Thou art Osorronophris: Whom no man hath seen at any time.
Thou art Iabos:
Thou art Iapos:
Thou hast distinguished between the just and the Unjust.
Thou didst make the female and the Male.
Thou didst produce the Seed and the Fruit.
Thou didst form Men to love one another, and to hate one another.
I am _________ Thy Prophet, unto Whom Thou didst commit Thy Mysteries, the Ceremonies of _________:
Thou didst produce the moist and the dry, and that which nourisheth all created Life.
Hear Thou Me, for I am the Angel of Apophrasz Osorronophris: this is Thy True Name, handed down to the Prophets of _________.
Hear Me: Ar: Thiao: Reibet: Atheleberseth: A: Blatha: Abeu: Eben: Phi: Chitasoe: Ib: Thiao.
Hear Me, and make all Spirits subject unto Me: so that every Spirit of the Firmament and of the Ether: upon the Earth and under the Earth: on dry Land and in the Water: of Whirling Air, and of rushing Fire: and every Spell and Scourge of God may be obedient unto Me.
I invoke Thee, the Terrible and Invisible God: Who dwellest in the Void Place of the Spirit: Arogogorobrao: Sochou: Modorio: Phalarchao: Ooo: Ape, The Bornless One: Hear Me!
Hear Me: Roubriao: Mariodam: Balbnabaoth: Assalonai: Aphniao: I: Tholeth: Abrasax: Qeoou: Ischur, Mighty and Bornless One! Hear Me!
I invoke Thee: Ma: Barraio: Ioel: Kotha: Athorebalo: Abraoth: Hear Me!
Hear me! Aoth: Aboth: Basum: Isak: Sabaoth: Iao:
This is the Lord of the Gods:
This is the Lord of the Universe:
This is He Whom the Winds fear.
This is He, Who having made Voice by His Commandment, is Lord of All Things; King, Ruler, and Helper. Hear Me!
Hear Me: Ieou: Pur: Iou: Pur: Iaot: Iaeo: Ioou: Abrasax: Sabriam: Oo: Uu: Ede: Edu: Angelos tou theou: Lai: Gaia: Apa: Diachanna: Chorun.
I am He! the Bornless Spirit! having sight in the Feet: Strong, and the Immortal Fire!
I am He! the Truth!
I am He! Who hate that evil should be wrought in the World!
I am He, that lightningeth and thundereth.
I am He, from whom is the Shower of the Life of Earth:
I am He, whose mouth flameth:
I am He, the Begetter and Manifester unto the Light:
I am He, the Grace of the World:
“The Heart Girt with a Serpent” is My Name!
Come Thou forth, and follow Me: and make all Spirits subject unto Me so that every Spirit of the Firmament, and of the Ether: upon the Earth and under the Earth: on dry land, or in the Water: of whirling Air or of rushing Fire: and every Spell and Scourge of God, may be obedient unto me! Iao: Sabao: Such are the Words!
NYAHBINGHI
Myths & Logic Of Shaolin Monks
Myths & Logic Of Shaolin Monks Pt 1
Myths & Logic Of Shaolin Monks Pt 2
Myths & Logic Of Shaolin Monks Pt 3
Myths & Logic Of Shaolin Monks Pt 4
Myths & Logic Of Shaolin Monks Pt 5
Thoth
Haunting and enigmatic, S.K. Thoth built a reputation as one of America’s great street performers. Chronicling his life from childhood to the present, “Thoth” captures the spirit of an individual who has made personal freedom his occupation. Directed by Sarah Kernochan, the film won the 2002 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.
comic book heros and magick
Check out these excerpts from an interesting post on comic books, animism, magic, saints and super heroes, psychology, history, alchemy, and Catholicism, by Jules Evans @ The Politics of Well-Being
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[This is an edited version of the first chapter of a book I wrote but didn't get published, about how modern animation, and particularly superhero comics, have their origins in animist beliefs that were pushed out of the mainstream by first the Protestant Reformation and then the Scientific Revolution. These animist beliefs may have been suppressed and discredited, but they remain in the folk consciousness, and give rise to cultural phenomena like our love of superhero stories.]
. . . Superheroes are a flight from the rationalism of the modern world, from what Max Weber called the ‘Iron Cage’ of rationalism in Protestantism and the Spirit of Capitalism. Part of that rationalism, as Weber noted, was the bureaucratization of modern life: the welfare state, the NHS, the web of government agencies and regulations through which the modern individual must try to find their way. The superhero was born in the 1930s, during the New Deal, which was the greatest increase in the size and power of state bureaucracy yet seen in politics.
Superhero myths express a longing for a simpler kind of politics, for an earlier age, when the people felt a strong emotional bond to a charismatic warrior or prophet.
Weber defined the charismatic leader as akin to a superhero, in that the charismatic is “endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These as such are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as divine in origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a leader.” We remember that charis means gift in Greek, so it’s not so far from the Greek or animist belief that superheroism is granted as a gift by the Gods or the spirit world.
In a century of mass movements, mass production, mass employment – a century of the masses in other words – superhero myths celebrated acts of individual heroism. They hark back to tribal times when an individual could make a difference to the future of the tribe, could ‘save the day’. The heart of superhero myths, like other heroic narratives, is the trial by individual combat, the wrestle, the boxing match, the fighter-pilot dog-fight, the Western duel.
As Weber noted, the modern bureaucratic state asserts a monopoly on violence, while we long to escape from this cage, to indulge our pre-civilized desire to beat up, torture and kill our enemies. Comics give us an outlet for this bloodlust. They release the wild man from the iron cage. . .
. . . So superhero comics are imperialist, jingoistic, anti-democratic, anti-civilization and devoted to the worship of uninhibited violence and (in manga) frequently rape as well. They come from the same dark, tribal and irrationalist part of the psyche that led to fascism.
But we can’t say that comics created this part of our psyche. Perhaps they help us become more aware of it. Indeed, the present generation of comic book writers is very much aware of the amoral and even fascist strains in superhero myths, and they consciously explore them. The costume and character of Judge Dredd, for example, was consciously modelled on Franco-era Spain, although this, and the fascist tendencies of Dredd himself, did not seem to put readers off. “The more fascistic we made him, the wilder the readers went”, notes Dredd’s creator, Alan Grant.
Jamie Delano, creator of Hellblazer, has said that comics “are shining a light on the beast which crouches in the corners of our minds, giving us a chance to both recognize it and oppose it”. This is true of the most conscious hero myths – they make us aware that the demon the hero is fighting is actually a manifestation of his own psyche, a reflection of himself. This point is made in Martin Scorcese’s Taxi Driver, in the famous scene where Robert De Niro stands in front of a mirror and says ‘you talkin’ to me?’, practicing playing the heroic vigilante to his own reflection. The point Scorcese or writer Paul Schrader seem to be making is that this particular violent ‘hero’ is fighting his own shadow, his own demons, projected onto external figures.
We see a similar exploration of the hero myth in Sophocles’ Oedipus trilogy, which to my mind is the greatest hero myth we have in our culture. At the beginning of it, Oedipus the heroic slayer of the Sphinx and saviour of Thebes is trying to discover what evil lurks in the heart of Thebes. As the play carries on, Oedipus realizes that in fact he himself unconsciously committed the crimes he is investigating. He is the monster he is seeking, the shadow he is pursuing. When he discovers this awful and humbling truth, the chorus says:
“Some demon of the night,
Some destructive impulse in man, prowling
Silently around you, waiting its chance,
Has sprung with inhuman strength, howling
At your throat.”
And yet Oedipus’ true heroism is that he doesn’t project these demons onto others, and then blame them for his mistakes and suffering. He takes responsibility for them. He says: “I’m the one / Who must bear the guilt and the punishment / And the shame. And I must bear it alone.”
While the rest of us run from our demons or project them onto others who strike us as strange, alien or threatening, Oedipus has the moral courage and self-awareness to confront his demons, to endure their wrath, to endure the loss of everything he has. And yet this submission, this annihilation of his ego, leads to a transformation.
By the second play in the trilogy, Oedipus at Colonus, the demonic spirits that tormented him are placated, and become his helpers, granting him magical powers. He becomes a shaman-hero, in touch with the chthonic spirits, able to see the future and to read the signs of nature, and his body has magical powers to protect the city where he is buried. So the hero goes from being a demon-slayer to the integrator of the daemonic.
Why do we need such heroes? Civilization, as Freud told us, forces us to repress or hide the primitive aspects of our self – the violent, the sexually uninhibited, the wild.As we hide or repress these parts of us, they become demonic and hostile to our conscious selves. They attack our realities, trying to gain expression and release. Our selves become divided and at war, like Jekyll and Hyde.
At a simple level, comics, like dreams, provide an outlet for that which is forbidden by civilization. Manga, in Japanese, means “irresponsible pictures”. Comics take us to the forbidden underworld – that’s why so many superheroes live in caves, like the Batcave, and why comic book stores like Forbidden Planet in London are so often underground themselves.
The underworld is home to demons and monsters. But, if Jung is to be believed, it is also the source of our divinity, and home to powers and forces that we have forgotten, and to spirits that guide us on our journey. Joseph Campbell wrote: “the human kingdom, beneath the floor of the comparatively neat little dwelling we call our consciousness, goes down into unsuspected Aladdin caves…There not only jewels but also dangerous jinn abide: the inconvenient or resisted psychological powers that we have not thought or dared to integrate into our lives.”
Campbell suggests, rightly, that the highest hero myths provide us with a map for this journey. They “carry keys that open the whole realm of the desired and feared adventure of the discovery of the self”. And a crucial part of that discovery is the confrontation with our daemonic self, the parts of us we have hidden or left behind in the progress of civilization.
We must confront the Unconscious, recognize it, take responsibility for it and integrate it, if we are to continue on our journey to enlightenment. Campbell writes: “The hero…discovers and assimilates his opposite (his own unsuspected self) either by swallowing it or by being swallowed. One by one the resistances are broken. He must put aside his pride, virtue, beauty, and life, and bow or submit to the absolutely intolerable. Then he finds that he and his opposite are not of differing species, but one flesh.”. . .
. . . in Princess Mononoke, the world of humans has become out of balance with nature. The spirits of nature, no longer heeded or respected by humans, have become demonic, and try to attack and destroy human civilization. The nature spirits are led by a magical warrior-princess called Mononoke. The only person who doesn’t try to fight the spirits is Ashitaka, a warrior who has been wounded by a demonic boar. He sees that the nature spirits are just trying to restore the natural balance, and that they are necessary for the flourishing of life on the planet. He risks his life trying to intercede in the battle between civilization and the spirit world, and though the humans’ city is destroyed, a new and better civilization is born, one which will perhaps be more in harmony with the planet.
The superhero, in these films, is like the Romantic poet or the tragic hero. They are the heroic intermediaries between civilization and the spirit world of nature that humans have left behind. They are seized, possessed, by spirits, who drag them down to the underworld. The hero manages to overcome this challenge, this death of the ego, and to make peace with the spirits.
He or she then returns to civilization, as the ‘master of both worlds’, helping us to accept the daemonic parts of us that we feared, helping to re-connect us to the spirit world, bringing the conscious world into balance with the unconscious, and thus protecting the conscious world (or the City) from destruction at the hand of demonic or unconscious forces. And this re-connection to the spirit world is also a re-connection to the world of nature. As Coleridge put it, the poet (or hero) helps overcome “the enmity of nature” – that feeling that our civilized selves are fake, inauthentic, out of touch and even at war with our deeper nature.
This old belief in the possibility of an animist relationship with the spirits of nature has been rejected from the mainstream of Western liberal, rationalist and capitalist society. And yet we find it, like a diamond in a junk shop, in the cheaply-printed pages of superhero comics, through which is expressed the longing, as Michael Chabon puts it, “truly to escape, if only for one instant; to poke one’s head through the borders of this world, with its harsh physics, into the mysterious spirit world that lay beyond”.
So superhero comics can turn up a lot of nasty parts of the psyche – nationalism, tribalism, sexual violence, moral simplification, the demonization of enemies. They speak to a primitive part of the psyche, which often feels itself at threat from invisible forces that it does not understand and before which it feels helpless. At their most basic level, they can appeal simply to the longing for violence and domination which civilization forces us to repress.
But higher forms of the medium can do more than this. They can help us to recognize, accept and transform the darker parts of our psyche. They can make us feel re-connected to our selves and to nature. Our divinity, Jung suggested, lies waiting for us in the dark underground of our souls, if we have the courage to descend there.
The artist, in this model of art, is the real superhero. He or she has the courage to descend to the depths, like Orpheus descending to the underworld, in order to re-connect us to the spirit world, and thus to our divinity.
This belief in the artist as superhuman medium between the mundane and the spirit world goes back to the earliest human art, to the idea that the shaman drawing a picture of a buffalo on the side of a cave would somehow win the favour of nature spirits for the tribe’s next hunting expedition. Shamans, as we’ll see, are artists as much as they were priests or doctors. They go into trances, become hosts to spirits, and then sing, dance, declaim verse and paint pictures. . .
. . . When the Protestant Reformation and the ensuing scientific revolution pushed animist and magical beliefs to the sidelines, this belief in the magical power of art was also marginalized. The polite eighteenth century poet Alexander Pope might describe the spirit world in his poem, The Rape of the Lock, but his description is reduced to little more than an amusing literary device.
The Romantics, however, passionately resurrected this idea of the artist as spirit-vessel in their rebellion against the rational and mechanistic world-view of their era. The poet, in the works of Coleridge or Wordsworth, was a man possessed, seized by the spirits of nature and made to act as their conduit, their lightening conductor, in order to communicate their message to mankind. Or the artist was a sorcerer who created Golem-type animated figures, like Dr Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s Gothic fantasy.
The last gasp of this exalted view of the artist in European culture was probably in the 1920s, with modernist artists like Kandinsky or Duchamp, both of whom were influenced by alchemical or shamanic ideas, and with modernist writers like TS Eliot or Antonin Artaud. But the anti-democratic and often pro-fascist stance of some of the key figures in modernism helped to further discredit the view of the artist as some sort of exalted emissary from the spirit world.
As our idea of art has become less and less exalted over the last century, so our conception of the poet or writer has calmed down, until the writer is now, in the modern mind, simply a peevish and vain man trying, like the rest of us, to get paid and get laid.
But at the margins of culture, below the radar of mainstream literary culture, the comic book artist rebels against this mundane and commercial view of art, and reclaims the exalted conception of the artist as shaman. Thus Alan Moore, one of the most famous writers in comics today, said in a recent interview: “I think that artists have been sold down the river… I think that over the last couple of centuries, Art has been seen increasingly as merely entertainment, having no purpose other than to kill a couple of hours in the endless dreary continuum of our lives. And that’s not what Art’s about, as far as I’m concerned. Art is something which has got a much more vital function.”
Moore takes the view that European art, up until the last two centuries, was profoundly influenced by magic, and even in the last hundred years some of the best art was connected with occult beliefs. The artist communicates with the spirit world, and connects mundane society to that world. Comics, he suggests, are resurrecting this old tradition.
He is himself a practicing sorcerer, seeing himself as in the tradition of scholarly magi like John Dee and Girolamo Cardano. Like those figures, he believes he has been visited by spirits from other dimensions, including by a snake god called Glycon that he connects to the Greek snake-god Aesculapius. In this, again, he is connecting to an old tradition in European culture – Sophocles also believed he was visited by the god Aesculapius in the form of a snake.
Other comic artists are also practicing magi – Alejandro Jodorowsky, for example, who wrote the cult comic series The Incal, is also a practicing tarot magician and healer. And the idea of the artist as shaman or spirit-conjuror is very much alive within comic narratives. The father of the modern comic is considered to be the German artist Rudolph Topfer, whose works including a graphic re-telling of the myth of Dr Faustus, who sells his soul to the Devil in return for superhuman powers.
Another of Goethe’s stories of spirit conjuring, a poem called the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, was a main influence on Disney’s Fantasia, where the sorcerer Yensid (Disney backwards) has extraordinary powers to channel spirits into household objects and make them dance at his command.
We see the neo-Platonic idea of the artist as a being possessed by spirits in the first ever issue of Spiderman, in which we see the writer Stan Lee sitting at his desk in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, with superheroes leaping around his head and resting on his shoulders like spirit familiars. The comics writer Neil Gaiman has also repeatedly explored the idea of the artist as someone who channels or makes pacts with spirits from other dimensions, in his comic series The Sandman. And the tradition has its most recent addition in the figure of the artist Isaac Mendez, who goes into a trance and paints the future in NBC’s Heroes.
So there’s a strange situation where comics, supposedly the irresponsible child of the ‘serious’ arts, is actually arguing for a more dignified and exalted conception of the arts than exists in the cultural mainstream. The comic artist, at least in their own conception, has a crucial role to play in our society, in connecting us to the spirit world that we left behind some two and a half centuries ago after the Protestant Reformation. We may not literally or consciously believe in these animist beliefs anymore. But the success of comics and superhero myths in the last 70 years shows that, whatever we say publicly, these myths still resonate powerfully in the folk imagination.
Read the whole post @ http://www.politicsofwellbeing.com/2009/10/everything-is-full-of-gods.html
