17/33, part 1,733 (UPDATE)

This video is a parody of The Number 23, made a few months before the Secret Sun got up and running. This kid didn't realize what he'd unconsciously stumbled upon. Maybe he should make a new version with the thousands of 17 syncs we've looked at over the past two years.

And as we like to say around here, what's 17 without a 33? This video doesn't do jstice to the song, which as far as I can tell has nothing to do with the number 33, but really hits on the creepy Wicker Man folk vibe. Any Sixties-Psych fans might want to check out Jan & Lorraine's music- fascinating artifact of the time.

It blows my mind how much incredible music there was in the late 60s, made by bands I never heard of. One of those moments when the door to the Other Side opened- luckily the technology was there to catch it. I was there when the door opened again in the early 80s, and I'm still discovering amazing music I had only a vague sense of.

This is the first post with the new "Psychedelia" label- I'll be updating older posts throughout the day. The Psychedelic ideal is at the very heart of this blog, so I guess I'd seen the label as redundant before.

UPDATE: That 33 song rang a bell- here's Jefferson Airplane performing "Lather" on the old Smothers Brothers Show, which drops the double threes, too.

Secret Sun Weekend Edition- 11/7/09

Well, the big story this week is the massacre in Texas. After reading up on the story, I don't have that much to say about that hasn't been said elsewhere, other than it's a terrible thing and I feel for the families. I have a feeling that there are going to be some other shoes dropping, but this is what happens- wars have a habit of coming home.

You can check out Loren Coleman and Kozmikon or the Synhromystics list for the latest. I don't have anything to add to the Orlando incident either. I try not to bring too much of that energy to to this blog- it's not the venue for it. However, one strange coincidence is a story hit the wires on Thursday (Guy Fawkes Day, if you didn't hear) claiming that the infamous photo of Lee Harvey Oswald and the sniper rifle has been declared 'genuine'. Take it for what it's worth.

Two movies open today that we've looked at in the past; The Fourth Kind and The Men Who Stare at Goats. T4k is getting murdered by the critics, which doesn't mean anything, but I'll probably wait for the DVD. Goats is getting OK reviews but I'll wait to rent that too. Interesting conjunction with the Fort Hood situation, in a way.

But something just hit, pertaining to our discussion on Michael Clayton from a while back- I had pointed out that the assassins' hair nets had reminded me of Mithras' liberty cap (also a kind of psychedelic mushroom, btw), but I just realized that one is holding his finger to Arthur's throat, almost like knife blade, and the other with the deadly syringe is between Arthur's legs...

...which both parallel the Tauroctony with the throat being cut and the scorpion lodged between the bull's legs. Given the bizarre nature of the Mithraic liturgy, I've started to wonder if the bull's blood symbolizes a potion made from mushrooms, similar to what is mentioned in the liturgy itself. Interesting how many of these tripped-out gods like Osiris and Dionysus and even Hecate are identified with the bull.

We started the week looking at Norse mythology and the next day, a Heathen-American was elected to the New York City Council, which seems to be an historical first. Strange stirrings are loose in the land, certainly.

Jack Kirby was obsessed with Norse mythology, so much so that he created his own spin on it, with The Fourth World. He was also very close with Frank Zappa, as you can read all about here.

Fringe took a beating in the ratings last night, which most observers are chalking up to the after-effect of the World Series. But I had mentioned the Battlestar Galactica ratings in the discussion on V and never-ending serialization, and if you click on the image you can see BSG's ratings history, which is a history of relentless decline. I've watched some eps of the series and enjoyed them, but did find the serial format extremely overwhelming. I'm sure a lot of people agreed with me.

A little easier to handle was Green Lantern: First Flight. An amazing film, even if you aren't familiar with the character's Byzantine backstory. The animation is incredible, and the story is surprisingly hefty with subtext. I've always seen the Guardians as a sci-fi spin on Alice Bailey's Great White Lodge of Sirius, and if you're thinking of checking out the film, read up on Bailey's theories- which I strongly suspect Green Lantern re-creator John Broome may well have.

Finally, Richard Hoagland has a new article up on the LCROSS mission. Money quote:

LCROSS' secret lunar mission turns out to be, in fact, designed -- from the beginning -- as nothing less than "an official, clandestine, NASA multi-sensor search for ... and scientific characterization of ... artificial ruins on the Moon"

Jung-Mania hits Manhattan (UPDATE)

Hmm. Well, The Red Book is the big story in publishing this season, which on one hand is exciting because it seems such an opportune time for it to be revealed, and unbelievably depressing since it sets us up for yet another round of the commodification of Jung. The Brits seem to get it right, discussing the book in a sober, respectful tone:

As World War I raged through Europe, Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung embarked on a somewhat psychedelic journey of self-exploration. During long periods of "self-experimentation" he met heroes and goddesses, wise men and serpents, battled his demons and re-discovered his faith in God.

"My entire life consisted in elaborating what had burst forth from the unconscious," Jung said of this experience later in life. He documented his imaginary journey, illustrating the most powerful revelations by hand, in a leather bound tome he named the Liber Novus, or new book, but which came to be known as the Red Book - BBC

OK, but here's where the trouble starts:

..this week, as publisher W.W. Norton agreed to release its first ever full-length version, New York's Rubin Museum of Art announced it will display it on exhibit, the Associated Press reported.

And in honor of its unveiling, the museum is launching a Red Book dialogue series, pairing each personality with a psychoanalyst to interpret the work. Sessions featuring Sarah Silverman and David Byrne have already sold out, though $25 tickets can still be purchased to see Billy Corgan, writer Alice Walker and philosopher Cornel West. Even Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is slated to grapple with the Red Book, though on a date still yet to be determined.- Paste

I'm sorry, what do any of these people have to do with Carl Jung? Here's Business Week's take on one of the big shows:

After spending an evening listening to Robin Chase, co-founder of Zipcar and current CEO of GoLoco, dissect one of Carl Jung’s paintings at the Rubin Museum of Art last week, I’m convinced that obsession is the core of the entrepreneurial spirit. The Rubin has invited numerous artists, intellectuals, and executives to sit on stage with a Jungian analyst and respond to a painting from Jung’s legendary Red Book diary, which famously chronicles the psychologist’s descent into madness. - Business Week

Entrepreneurial spirit? I'm missing something. But this "descent into madness" - is that the emerging narrative here? Here's the New York Times illuminating take on Silverman's appearance:

In 1914, after falling out of favor with Freud, C.J. Jung lost his mind. Some scholars say he lost it by design, cultivating a psychic crisis to plumb the depths of his unconscious. The “Red Book,” an illustrated manual of the Swiss shrink’s inner world, is the product of all that plumbing.

The leather-bound volume was considered so bizarre — and dangerous — that Jung’s heirs kept it under lock and key until 2007. Now, W.W. Norton is set to publish an English translation, and the Rubin Museum, in New York, has Jung’s original manuscript on display. Amid all this psychic danger, in walks Sarah Silverman.

She began tentatively. “It looks like a very contained world. Snakes. Turtles. Really nice tiles. Um, fire and water,” she said. “Am I doing this right? There’s no wrong, right?”

...Silverman glanced again at the image. What else could she see?

“My father’s penis.” Her smirk was resplendent. “Kidding!”

Sigh. Well, all I can say is that as annoyed as I got with the mainstreaming of Jung in the 90s, the way the American media is treating all of this reminds me of some Saturday Night Live skit where Galileo or Issac Newton appears on Wheel of Fortune. The disconnect is pretty much the same. Jung doesn't belong in today's mainstream media. And certainly not in politics:

Pelosi has a sense of humor and an intellectual curiosity often obscured in partisan standoffs. She can't wait to get her hands on "The Red Book," the inner musings and torments of the late Carl Jung, and she diverts herself by reading cookbooks that her husband, businessman Paul Pelosi, says she never uses.- SFGate

This is a bit more to my liking:

The Flaming Lips have recorded my generation’s Dark Side of the Moon. Listening to Embryonic—the Oklahoma band’s 12th album—is like watching a movie: a strange, majestic, hypnagogic movie. Or are you watching a dream? Or are you experiencing the collective unconscious of eternity? Or taking a stroll through the dark corners of Wayne Coyne’s mind? Is it a coincidence Embryonic is being released one week before Carl Jung’s The Red Book, the 100-year old manuscript which will be a guided tour of Jung’s descent into madness and hallucination? No. The connections are manifest. The hallucinations are real. If you and I dream it, then it will be so. So buy Embryonic, turn out the lights, silence the phone, feed the dog, and drug the wife. Lie down in dark comfort.

This is very timely, since I've been thinking a lot of the cost of trying to cling to the superficiality of youth when middle age has its own rewards:

Psychoanalyst Carl Jung was the first to divide life into transitional phases. In his 1935 book, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Jung argued that if the first half of life is devoted to forming the ego and establishing oneself in the world, the second is focused on a search for meaning in all that effort. For Jung, middle age didn’t hold negative connotations.

Jung felt that if people treated the natural loss of physical prowess as a signal that it was time to develop new dimensions, then this transitional period could become truly transformational. But if the loss of youth was met with denial, fear or negativity, then decay and possibly breakdown was in store.

My wife and I had a discussion about this after a convention recently where we saw one too many middle-aged heavy metal heads trying to pass off as teenagers. Nothing looks so old than a middle-aged person trying to look like a teenager. Accepting the passage of time doesn't have to mean sitting down to die in a rocking chair. On the contrary.

This was brought to mind when I saw Ian Hunter back onstage rocking with Mott the Hoople, even though he's a mind-boggling 70 years old. I think the idea that rock 'n' roll is about youth is shallow, and ignores the ancient shamanic tradition that the best rock draws upon. It brought to mind martial arts masters and how their practice changes with the passage of time. The body will break down and beauty will decay. But soul is eternal.

But I'm confident the hype will blow over soon and the reader can then delve into Jung's psychedelic (in the truest sense) visions unmolested by the media and their ever-reductive impositions on complex ideas. I'll let the man have the last word...

"The knowledge of the heart is in no book, and is not found in the mouth of any teacher, but grows out of you like the green seed from the dark earth...But how can I attain the knowledge of the heart? You can attain this knowledge only by living your life to the full..." Carl Jung

UPDATE: Well, here's an unfortunate sync with the "head shrinker goes crazy" meme we discussed earlier: an Army psychiatrist goes on shooting rampage, killing 12 and wounding 31.

SYNCH LOG UPDATE: Monday, I delved into my childhood experience in a heathen school play, and lo and behold this Village Voice report which reads: Holy Tyr! Queens voters made American history tonight, when they chose Dan Halloran as the nation's first openly heathen elected official.

TVOD: It's V Day (UPDATED with REVIEW 2330 EST)

UPDATE: Well, it's V day, finally. Don't hold me to this, but if I can finagle my son's laptop I may live-blog it. I know, I should have my own but I never leave the house. Looks like I'll be DVRing it, so scratch the liveblog. I'd rather soak it in and then fulminate anyhow.

Anyway- V. Yeah. It feels like we've seen the whole thing already, doesn't it? One thing that just struck me is how androgynous Morena Baccarin looks, something I wouldn't have thought possible. The whole thing seems a bit late too, since the big Alientertainment meme seems to be on the way out again.

UPDATE 2330 EST: So, what we have is a scenario where these beautiful New Age do-gooders come to Earth preaching enlightenment and universal brotherhood (as well as offering "universal healthcare", smack dab in the middle of the big brouhaha over Obamacare in the real world). Then we have these working class rebels who know the real story, that these are alien reptiles that have been living among us for years, slowly gaining power. But what they really want is to to destroy us. Luckily the plucky, tradtionalist Catholic priest will lead the valiant blue collar heroes to victory against those godless alien liberal terrorists (with their feminist Hispanic leader with her mannish hair-do) and their big fancy spaceships and parked in all those degenerate cities like New York and Paris.

Did Glenn Beck write this after staying up for a week chugging cough syrup and reading the complete works of David Icke? Honestly.

But I think I caught a whiff of something, subtext-wise, that might be lurking under the narrative here, that might have an interesting real life resonance. Did anyone else catch it? No, not Project BlueBeam or any of that...

Scott Wolf's least favorite description of himself is that he's the poor man's Tom Cruise. And here he is being used by the aliens to be their media frontman for their world takeover. The aliens with their welcome centers and their recruitment drives. I'm just waiting for them to offer personality tests. You with me?

V producer Scott Peters was co-creator of The 4400, which a lot of people thought incorporated themes from Scientology. But whether this was meant to be pro- or anti-Scientology was unclear. Personally, I think the parallels are a lot stronger in V (particularly the health care thing, the negative publicity riff and the V's going after critics), and more obviously negative. Certainly timely, given all of the negative publicity the CoS has been getting in the past couple of weeks. That just fascinates the hell out of me. Can't wait to see how it all unfolds.

There were little semiotic goodies, but the Independence Day shoutout coupled with the Morris Chestnut character getting an engagement ring for his sweetie couldn't help but remind me of Horus J. Hancock. Loved seeing the dreamy Vancouver lighting, two Firefly alumni and a 4400. As well as all of the beauty shots of the Empire State Building and the Stairway to Sirius.


But there's one big fat caveat here: I just sat down to watch Heroes tonight. I've missed it for the past few weeks, and realized I hadn't a clue what is going on. There's this disturbing trend in SFTV, where shows start out strong and then nosedive. Well, if there any TV execs reading this, let me suggest that the endless serial model has had its day. If you happen to miss one or two eps, you're lost (though I do plan on catching up with Heroes, certainly).

It shouldn't be a chore to follow a TV program, particularly when its based in escapist fantasy. The never-ending storyline is one of the things that killed comics back in the 90s, which is why the big publishers starting breaking the stories into smaller arcs. I'd very strongly recommend that to anyone in the TV biz, if they were ever desperate enough to ask me for advice.

In the meantime, I recommend you check out "UFOs as Vanguards of a Post-Biological Intelligence" by the late Mac Tonnies. Give it a read before V comes on- see what kind of juices start flowing with the two memestreams in open collision. Here's a taste:

The UFO/"alien" phenomenon described by Vallee, John Keel and even Whitley Strieber is alarmingly congruent with a "postbiological" hypothesis. We appear to be interacting with an exceptionally patient intelligence which, despite its advantages over terrestrial science, seems limited by a steadfast refusal to make itself widely known. (Whether this indicates a guiding morality or pragmatic necessity remains to be seen.) Contrary to mainstream expectations, our visitors have opted for a much more gradual form of contact, evidenced both by the often theatrical nature of the apparent vehicles in our skies and by the behavior of the presumed occupants (who seem to enjoy letting us assume they're predominantly human-like, governed by such familiar traits as curiosity and even sexuality).

I've been thinking along Tonnies' lines in a way, myself. Terrible shame we never got a chance to throw it down.

UPDATE: Whoa.

Reports circulating in the Kremlin today are saying that Russian Air Force Commanders have issued warnings to all of their aircraft to exercise “extreme caution” during flights “in and around” an area defined as Latitude 17 North [North Atlantic Ocean] Latitude 3 South [South Atlantic Ocean] to Latitude 8 North [Indian Ocean] Latitude 19 South [Indian Ocean] between the Longitudes of 46 West, 33 West, 46 East and 33 East, and which covers the greater part of the African Tectonic Plate.

The reason for this unprecedented warning, these reports state, are the rapid formations of “geomagnetic storms” emanating from the boundaries of the African Tectonic Plate that due to their intensity have caused the loss of two major passenger aircraft during the past month leaving nearly 300 men, women and children dead.

Sun Gods and Forever People

Do you ever get the feeling that you're playing a part in some incredibly elaborate staged drama, that all falls together like a too-clever detective novel? I've been finding out that all of my disparate interests aren't disparate at all, but in fact very tightly and intimately and profoundly connected. I just didn't realize it. I knew the keys to the puzzle all along, I just thought it had to be something else, something less obvious. But it isn't. And it's not the key that matters, it's what's behind the door.

When I was in sixth grade I acted in a school play based in Norse mythology called Death of the Sun God. However, I can't find any trace of the script for this play*, or even any mention that such a thing existed (can you imagine a school trying to put that play on today?). I know I didn't hallucinate it, because my mother has photos of the performance.

But the play was the story with Freya asking all of the plants and animals to pledge not to do harm to Balder, the Norse sun god. She asks everyone but me, Mistletoe. So I'm sitting around feeling marginalized and left out (which I did all the time in real life) and Loki hears my whining. He then takes a twig or two from me (it was actually plastic Christmas holly we had in the attic) and creates a dart that kills Balder. Then Freya beseeches me to retroactively pledge (sure, now she asks) and Balder rises from the dead and I think we all sang a song. One thing I remember is that my costume kicked ass on the others since my mom was in show biz.

This of course was perfect timing for me, because around the same time I got my young paws on the first Thor Treasury Edition with the Hercules-goes-to-Hell story line. I remember I got it when I was at home and sick (which, admittedly, I was all of the time). And I remember keying into that because Thor was sick in bed in the Hercules story as well. Only I wasn't in bed, I was on that fateful sofa whence the infamous Leprechaun hallucination came. Quite an eventful spot.

If you recognize this, you are officially cool

But I recently came to realize that the Hercules-goes-to-Hell story line in that comic was simply Stan and Jack's take on the Eleusinian mystery cycle- with Thor as Demeter and Hercules as Persephone and Pluto as Pluto. And then the synchronicity of playing Mistletoe the same time I read that Thor story blows my mind all the more, since it so happens that Mistletoe has psychedelic properties and that it was used to treat sick children after Chernobyl.

And back around the time that I was seriously investigating 'psychedelic properties' I was also completely besotted with those same Lee/Kirby Thors, which all got kicked loose with the worship-worthy Tales of Asgard remastering project a few months back.

But I really am starting to wonder about Kirby. Twenty years ago a friend tried to convince me that Jack Kirby took LSD in the Sixties and that's why his work got so cosmic and whacked out. Of course, I've gone all this time not believing my old chum, but little discoveries like that page from The Forever People really make wonder. You can click on the Jack Kirby tag at the bottom and start to wonder yourself.

The backstory was that Ragnarok and Gotterdamerung had finally gone down, and Thor and Odin and the old Aesir were replaced by interdimensional aliens of the "Fourth World" who traveled back and forth to our world in a stargate called the Boom Tube. The Forever People were the hippies of the Fourth World, and in that scene there a young kid tagging along with them wants check out the "cosmic cartridge" Serifan keeps in his hatband.

Well, my mental jury is still out, but maybe that's just longheld supposition. Kirby was an guy who drew comic books, which was seen as the opposite of a respectable profession for most of his life. All I know is that I no longer pay attention to the conventional wisdom (sic) when it comes to anything of importance, since 'conventional wisdom' is an oxymoron. Certainly, the insidious and duplicitous nature of the 'official version' of events† has been scratching at my door recently when it comes to another longstanding obsession of mine, but that's a story for another post. In the meantime, question the answers and make the uncomfortable connections. Spit in the eye of causality and its bastard children, because greater wisdom awaits you.

Just be sure to double and triple check your figures. The stalwart defenders of 'conventional wisdom' (sic) are always on the attack and they never have to show their math, do they?

In other words, make sure you don't overlook that mistletoe...

SYNC LOG UPDATE: Serafan, meet Seraphim. On Salon this morning.

SYNC LOG UPDATE II: Strangeye points to a similar looking script to Death of the Sun God, published by an firm named Eldridge, which happens to be the name of my old elementary school.

*I know there are some myth-heads out there, and folks around my age, so if you remember the play - or better yet, know where I can find a digitized copy of the script- I'd be forever in your debt.
† "Official version" always implies that money is changing hands somewhere.

Revel and Ritual in the Post-Prosperity Age (UPDATE)

In America, one of the lingering legacies of our Puritan roots is a simultaneous mistrust and economic exploitation of holidays and festivals. It really wasn't until the late 19th Century that holidays like Christmas and Halloween became popular- or even tolerated in some quarters. But there's still a strange sense of impropriety about it all, as if we should feel guilty about the act of celebration.

In addition, our holidays have become a minefield of commercial exploitation, which -surprise, surprise - only feeds into our alienation. Christmas has all but been destroyed by commercialism and sectarianism. It needs a major makeover and will probably get one if the economy continues to tank. Given the current political climate, it would probably need to be some kind of generic Winter Solstice festival, but that's where most of the familiar Christmas trappings- the cool ones, at least- originally come from anyhow.

At their roots all of our holidays are keyed into the rhythms of nature, which we have almost completely divorced ourselves from in our denatured existence. But there are signs of change. A lot of this is bleedover from the gay community, a lot of is coming from the neopagan and goth communities. You also have the equivalent of holidays-slash-pilgrimages with the convention circuit in different fan communities as well.

When you think about how we go through the workaday week, you realize it's these kind of holidays that give structure to our day to day life. It may be counterintuitive, but I don't see why Christmas and Easter (read: Ishtar) can't be celebrated by everybody, since they are in fact impossibly ancient holidays that were Christianized solely for political reasons.

I'm very encouraged by the Halloween revival and all of the Burning Man offshoots out there. The Super Bowl, Valentine's Day, Mardi Gras, St. Paddy's, Easter, Cinco De Mayo, Summer Solstice, Fourth of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve- hell, bring it on. Get together and dress up and celebrate and drink and screw and eat and laugh and puke. It may end up being the closest thing to a social glue we have.

Meanwhile, I'll just sit in my space capsule here and try to parse the meaning of it all. And one meaning I've parsed is that not only are these festivals increasingly independent of belief systems, they may actually be better off without them. The meaning is the act of the celebration itself. But again, at their core these festivals are based in those rhythms of nature that religious narratives were later imposed on.

The corporatization of our culture breeds alienation and isolation, and the result of that is paranoia. The cure for that debilitating disease is community, gathering, interaction, networking. And this new model of holiday gives these processes a compelling structure. The gay community has traditionally used festival and celebration as a way to deal with alienation and isolation, as have marginalized immigrant communities.

Now that we are all made to feel alien and expendable, it's only natural for this process to spread into the mainstream.

In their purest form, holidays give us an opportunity to reconnect with symbol and with ritual, which can't help but feed the Dreaming Mind. But only if these rituals are taken back from the pimps and ripoff artists who've been controlling them for the past hundred years.

UPDATE: This is interesting. Cheers to Astronut.

UPDATE: Please tell me this is a joke:

Earlier this week the Catholic Church in Spain also condemned the growing popularity of Halloween, saying it threatened to overshadow the Christian festival of All Saints' Day.

The Bishop of Siguenza-Guadalajara, Jose Sanchez, said there was a risk that Halloween could "replace Christian customs like devotion to saints and praying for the dead."

Uh, excuse me, your holiness but don't you have it the wrong way round?