Friday, August 22, 2008

Of Messiahs and Monsters (2.3.11)

I was building up to this important point about Nazism, progress, transcendence, and mysticism, when Will appeared out of nowhere and stole my God of Thunder. (BTW, I haven't had time to check it out, but that site looks like a pretty interesting.) As he pointed out, "Nazism was, in a sense, a stab at progress, and a spiritual progress, to be sure. Doomed to failure, of course, because it, like communism, attempted to transcend collectively, an impossibility. I think we should make no mistake, though -- there is a meta-power in the collective that can be harnassed, channeled. Thus Nazism was a mysticism gone bad, and when mysticism goes bad, it becomes evil."

Precisely. In Hitler and His God, we have to get to page 568 before we read Aurobindo saying the same thing, only in the 1930s: "Hitler is a new type, an infra-rational mystic, representing the dark counterpart of what we are striving to arrive at: a supra-rational mysticism.... He is a mystic, only a mystic of the wrong kind! He goes into solitude for his messages and waits till they come."

This was true. As a psychologist, I find the description of Hitler's "voice" to be very different from any typical psychosis, in which the individual has no control over his delusions and hallucination. But in Hitler's case, he would court and call upon "the voice," in the same way that an artist might call upon his muse or I might call upon my household gnome. So who or what was the voice? Whatever it was, it gave him a kind of absolute conviction, plus the complete fearlessness and unwavering faith to carry out its promptings. Now, who does this remind us of? Yes, the Islamists follow that same pattern, with their insane faith in the transcendently evil. Clearly, it is no coincidence that Mein Kampf is a perennial bestseller in the Muslim world, or that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was an ally of Hitler, or that Jew hatred is central to both ideologies.

Just as the Divine leaves its traces in time, Satan always leaves his scent, so to speak. It reminds me of one of the final scenes of Batman Begins, where the Lieutenant hands Batman the Joker's calling card. For what is the Joker card? It is simultaneously nothing and anything. In fact, it can be anything you want it to be, from the highest of the high (the king) to the lowest of the low, or anything in between. It can even be another gender (the queen). As such, it abolishes all distinction and hierarchy, except that in a perverse way, the nothing-anything of the Joker is the "top," as he stands completely outside -- he transcends and upends -- any established or meaningful order.

Now, this is surely a kind of mysticism, but it is again a mysticism "from below" rather than above. It abolishes distinctions before they even have a chance to become distinct, which was again one of the central features of Nazism. You might say that there are only two distinctions, 1) the Volk, and 2) the Fuhrer -- who was truly a "nothing" and nobody who became the German "all." There was also the SA and the SS, but in both cases, their admittance into the hierarchy very much depended upon the degree to which they had subordinated their own will and identity to the Fuhrer principle. The SS in particular was a sort of esoteric mystic body; in fact, they modeled themselves after the Jesuits, only absolutely committed to Hitler instead of Christ.

In his comment, Will also noted that "Personal responsibility arises from genuine individualism and self-awareness -- meaning the attempt to overcome one's self-love, one's own lower instincts. When the emphasis is on a collective responsibility -- meaning making sure you recycle and pay respects to Gaia, etc. -- and personal responsibility is distinctly de-emphasized, then we're veering close to a mysticism gone bad."

We'll discuss the nature-worship of Nazism in a later post. But as Will implies, the nationalism of Germany was a parody of the patriotism of the United States, the latter of which must first involve defense of the sacred principle of the individual. But in the case of German nationalism, it was in defense of the innate superiority of the German people in the collective sense. Again, this was conceived in terms of a mystical essence that emanated from the Volk, and only through the individual in a derivative way. There was a "German genius" that was in the blood, not on "paper," as it is in the case of America's founding documents.

Therefore, in the case of Nazi Germany, they needed to eliminate "foreign blood" in the same way Americans must constantly battle against "lies," or more precisely, "the lie." Hitler had no scruples whatsoever in lying, murdering, or backstabbing in order to further his "higher" truth, which was the racial purity of the German spirit. In fact, in that context, no degree of barbarism was off limits. Everything followed logically -- or infralogically -- from his first principles, which were written in the blood.

Van Vrekhem makes the interesting point that it is no coincidence that the Protestant revolt began in Germany with Luther. I have no idea whether this is generally accepted by other scholars, but Van Vrekhem notes that Christianity always had an uneasy relationship with the German psyche, and was very much superimposed on a much more primitive pagan mythology that was never forgotten among the "volk." Therefore, when Luther came along to declare independence from the central church, he was merely exploiting collective psychic energies that were already very near the surface.

In fact, it can easily be seen how Luther was a kind of proto-Hitler, in particular, with his appalling anti-Semitism. (I'm not trying to compare him to Hitler, as I just don't know enough; but I wonder if someone like Jakob Boehme -- or Meister Eckhart before him -- was the "bright side" to Luther's "dark side" of the German psyche?) Van Vrekhem notes that Luther exploited the same divide "that had opposed the Roman civilization against the barbarian world of the Germanic tribes," and that Germans "had been ready for a long time to recapture the fortress stolen by Christianity." "German utopianism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries almost always meant a return to pre-Christian, pagan spirituality in some form."

Furthermore, it seems that the longing for a "strong man from above" was a continuous feature of the German psyche. As Van Vrekhem notes, "This need for an all-powerful master was an important feature in the psychological make-up of the Germans long before the strong man became the paragon of Fascism in many European nations. The Furher was longed and prayed for; he was expected before he took the shape of Adolf Hitler. It was not the least of of Hitler's intuitions that he knew exactly how to take on the part and act in a way to which the German masses subconsciously responded with religious fervor." Another observer wrote that "The cry for a leader arose from the searing wish for somebody who would provide meaning in a secularized time, which apparently burdened the individual with an excess of individual responsibility and made him feel lonely" (emphases mine).

I want to emphasize that I am not trying to invoke Godwin's law in demonstrating the parallels between this and the Obamessiah hysteria, but parallels there are (not in the ends, but in the deeper structure of the infrarational mysticism). As we continue this series, I will be very curious to analyze the language and imagery of Obama's acceptance speech at his Nuremburg-like mass-hypnosis rally at Invesco Field before 75,000 adoring "fans" (which is the proper term, since this whole creepy exercise is "infra-poltical" and emotional, devoid of intellectual substance).

I just did a quick google search, and found this typical story, which says that "In a little more than a week, 75,000 lucky ticket-holders will head for Invesco Field, ready to usher in a new era of photos for their Facebook pages.... And eventually, upon the entrance of the Great Half-White Hope, they will be reduced to one giant goosebump.... But it won't just be the arrival of Barack Obama that will send chills down their spines. Obama, no doubt, will enter the stadium to the tune of some inspiring piece of pop music. Whose song will it be?.... Which song will electrify the crowd next Thursday?"

I don't know, WWLD? That is, what would Leni Riefenstahl recommend? A little Wagner? Interestingly, there is no question whatsoever that she was a gifted artist. But look at the mesmerizing effect Hitler had upon her will -- and she is hardly alone in this regard. Van Vrekhem relates story after story of how strong men -- generals, diplomats, artists, and journalists -- were reduced to Jello in his presence. He clearly transmitted a kind of supernatural power to which many individuals attested. Is there an "artist" in Hollywood, or a celebrity journalist, who hasn't fallen under Obama's spell? Yes, a few, but only a few. .

Obama clearly has a similar kind of power, at least over the susceptible -- for example, his vaunted ability to make Chris Matthews' pasty thigh tingle. Obviously it can't be Obama's ideas, which are so banal, nor his accomplishments, which are nil. As was very much true of Hitler, Obama's words often make no literal sense on paper, and yet, he personally has this undeniably potent persuasive power. And he especially has this power over people who are not inoculated by genuine religion. In other words, he has a "religious effect" on the secularized mind. Deepak could be speaking of Hitler when he writes of how the Annointed One will bring about a "quantum leap" in human consciousness. How could anyone believe such utter sacred cow manure?

In Riefenstahl's case, she writes of how she read a single page of Mein Kampf and was hooked: "The book made a tremendous impression on me. I became a confirmed National Socialist after reading the first page. I felt a man who could write such a book would undoubtedly lead Germany. I felt very happy that such a man had come."

Michael Burleigh writes of how Germany went "going boldly into the future in search of an imaginary past." In so doing, they created a gilded mythology in which they were the ones the world was waiting for.

Sri Aurobindo stressed the crucial importance of the individual, always of a higher consciousness than the group or the mass, and the center or 'dynamo' of the cosmic forces in humanity.... The message of Sri Aurobindo lay precisely in the possibility and necessity of an upward transformation of the human being, the only way of real progress. --Georges Van Vrekhem

71 comments:

julie said...

"Sri Aurobindo stressed the crucial importance of the individual, always of a higher consciousness than the group or the mass, and the center or 'dynamo' of the cosmic forces in humanity"

It is precisely because Judeo-Christian and American values stress the importance of the individual (and therefore the sanctity of human life in general) that the mass of people who make up America are, as a whole, so ridiculously successful. Even in spite of ourselves.

If we ever get to the point where the individuals who wish to be absorbed into the masses greatly outnumber the individuals who are in but not of the masses (and going by the results of the last election we seem to be close to 50-50), we are well and truly, er, doomed. Liberal hysterics rant about Bush's concentration camps, and were convinced they'd all be "disappeared" for stating inconvenient truths. But I wonder how many Obamessianics it would take before people uttering that which must not be spoken started getting arrested for hate-speech, or otherwise find that life suddenly becomes inconvenient.

Fortunately, the masses of hypnotized youth aside, it appears as though people are starting to pull their heads out of their butts, at least a little bit. I think Obama has the will and charisma, but lacks the stamina and practical experience to keep it together until the election. He's all spark and no coal. For the moment, I think McCain has a good chance. But a lot can happen in three months...

julie said...

That website you linked at the beginning of the post is quite interesting, by the way. It inadvertently sheds some light on Nietzsche's philosophy as well as Hitler's mindset.

Gagdad Bob said...

Julie:

Yes, the section on nazi beliefs parallels a lot of the stuff in the Van Vrekhem book.

Anonymous said...

There is no fun like the fun of appearing ex nihilo!

For what it's worth, Germany and Japan are the only two major nations to have masculine archetypal identities - the Fatherland and Land of the Rising Sun. Both have rather harsh, gutteral-sounding languages.

On the dark flip side, there is "Mother Russia", which sure sounds to me like the very image of the archetypal Oppressive Mom.

BTW, there was some prominant Nazi philosopher, can't remember the name, who tried to appropriate Eckhart for the Nazi cause. Misunderstood E's perspective on detachment and the "God behind the God" stuff for some kind of steely-eyed Ubermenschen ideal.

Gagdad Bob said...

For example, with respect to Darwin, the site says:

"As Darwin's Theories were established, a number of European biologists and philosophers began to explore and expand the theory (as yet not proven) to applications to race, Eugenics and the social environment. Several other theorists and philosophers were promoting similar or related ideas: Nietzche gave foundation to the "Super-Man" concept, Existentialism flourished allowing a creation of of moral vacuum, and those exploring the fledgling twists on occultism almost always came back to the notion of an achieveable superior human race which would bring in a utopia. Darwin's theories gave 'scientific' rhetoric to metaphysical
discussions.

"At the University of Jena in Germany, the chair of Zoology, Haeckel would form a synthesis which would influence Biology, Eugenics, Racial Theory and the developing mysticism by incorporating Darwinian principles into the idea of a natural selection and adaptation of the best, brightest and most vigorous individual and race taking forefront. Galton also contributed to the study of those 'genetically' predisposed to be superior in his studies optimally-functioning persons. Indeed, the intelligence-testing movement came about with the study of individual differences with the idea of a superior and inferior type."

Anonymous said...

"I felt very happy that such a man had come."
Didn't Nancy Pelosi say something similar concerning God and Obama recently?
Then there's Madeline Halfbright, positioning herself for a position in his administration, who recently expressed that we need a "Man of the Twenty First Century" to lead the nation instead of a man fron the outdated past. And that it would be OUR choice whether or not to revive a Cold War with people who laugh at diplomacy and do what the wish anyway. As if there is something new under the Sun.
Duped morons.
Those Dems are chomping at the bit to get on with it, whatever IT is.

Anonymous said...

Obama has latent militaristic aspirations; he will find an excuse to give them free rein while paradoxically still seeming anti-war. It will be quite a hat trick.

I think he'll try to blame hawks in the senate for any new adventures; where he will make his first move is anyone's guess.

Get ready to be a member of a new empire. Its on its way.

NoMo said...

"Furthermore, it seems that the longing for a "strong man from above" was a continuous feature of the German psyche."

And, I would add, of certain other psyches as well - one in particular whose expectations were crushed...until their "strong man from above" proved himself to be a bit different from all the others.

Gagdad Bob said...

Anon:

Hmm, I very much doubt that. What distinguishes Obama is a kind of tyranny of the feminine -- like four years of PMS.

Anonymous said...

Our nation as a whole is psychologically primed for total war. It is the only thing that will bring us satisfaction.

This desire for expansion and conquest is bubbling just under the surface of our collective psyche. Americans have a subconscious feeling of entitlement to world mastery, based on the moral superiority of our founding Fathers.

Within yourself, if you look candidly, you will eventually see an image of the Globe overshadowed by a red, white, and blue banner.

Don't reject the image; it is part of our collective soul. Embrace it; call it into being.

Anonymous said...

It's just the whoracle making a new/old prediction.

Anonymous said...

I have no idea what Americans Anon is talking about. I've yet to meet a single one of my countrymen who has a "desire for expansion and conquest". In fact, I'd say one of the defining traits of Americans in general (if such a thing can ever be done, is that we're too lazy (or busy, take your pick) to go off empire building.

As for being primed for total war *snort* as if. I work the military. You'd think they, more than anyone would fit that but, no. Not really. Unlike past figures, they tend to say "I came. I saw. I went home."

mushroom said...

There was a "German genius" that was in the blood, not on "paper," as it is in the case of America's founding documents.

Wow. Just wow. In a thread on Dirty Harry's movie review site, someone asked if Americans should fear a military coup. A number of responses contained replies in the negative for the same reason -- military personnel take an oath to defend the Constitution. It's a whole different mind set. Soldiers put their lives on the line for an idea, the concept of individual liberty embodied in the founding documents.

Jim said...

Anon


I could use the gutter language of the left blogs but I won't . You Sir are wrong. The United States is not and has never been looking for an empire.

julie said...

Anonymous (10:06), reading your comments here is like wandering barefoot through a beautiful, grassy meadow - and stepping on a fat banana slug (I blame Robin for the imagery; the traumatic memories just came flooding back).

Utterly repulsive.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

I was building up to this important point about Nazism, progress, transcendence, and mysticism, when Will appeared out of nowhere and stole my God of Thunder. (BTW, I haven't had time to check it out, but that site looks like a pretty interesting.) As he pointed out, "Nazism was, in a sense, a stab at progress, and a spiritual progress, to be sure. Doomed to failure, of course, because it, like communism, attempted to transcend collectively, an impossibility. I think we should make no mistake, though -- there is a meta-power in the collective that can be harnassed, channeled. Thus Nazism was a mysticism gone bad, and when mysticism goes bad, it becomes evil."

Two things come to mind. 1. Sting's lyric from 'All This time':

Men go crazy in congregations /
They only get better one by one

And, C.S. Lewis from 'The Four Loves' wrote:

'When love becomes a god, it becomes a demon.'

(This means, of course, not perfect love, which God is, but our human conception of Love, which is intrinsically bound up with our fallen state.)

Warren said...

(My apologies in advance to any Lutherans in the audience.)

Bob: "It can easily be seen how Luther was a kind of proto-Hitler."

William Inge, Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, and authority on Plotinus and Christian mysticism, in 1944:

"If we wish to find a scapegoat on whose shoulders we may lay the miseries which Germany has brought upon the world... I am more and more convinced that the worst evil genius of that country is not Hitler or Bismarck or Frederick the Great, but Martin Luther."

Warren said...

"There was some prominant Nazi philosopher, can't remember the name, who tried to appropriate Eckhart for the Nazi cause."

Will,

That would be Heidegger, I think.

Warren said...

"This desire for expansion and conquest is bubbling just under the surface of [America's] collective psyche."

Another planet heard from.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Just as the Divine leaves its traces in time, Satan always leaves his scent, so to speak. It reminds me of one of the final scenes of Batman Begins, where the Lieutenant hands Batman the Joker's calling card. For what is the Joker card? It is simultaneously nothing and anything. In fact, it can be anything you want it to be, from the highest of the high (the king) to the lowest of the low, or anything in between. It can even be another gender (the queen). As such, it abolishes all distinction and hierarchy, except that in a perverse way, the nothing-anything of the Joker is the "top," as he stands completely outside -- he transcends and upends -- any established or meaningful order.

What is interesting is that the Joker stands in opposition to the Ace and can be indistinguishable from him. The ace is simultaneously lower than the two and higher than the King, but he is not 'anything'. So Batman is like an Ace; both lower than the criminals in that he lurks in the night as a vigilante, but is also a courageous hero and thus higher than even the king; but he isn't the King.

In some card games the Ace can only be bested by the two. Ha ha, in that game, the joker ought to be careful what card he seeks to represent himself as!

Er, continuing on...

Unknown said...

Warren:

So Martin Luther is bad because of what he nailed on the door? Why don't we just follow that all the way back and blame the Catholic Church for their corruption that led Luther to move for reformation. That seems to be what you are saying?

Gagdad Bob said...

Yes, it is easy to see how Ekchart could have been, and was, exploited to Nazi ends -- for example, with his doctrine of the "ground," which could easily be mistaken for some kind of pantheistic nature worship. Mainly, the Nazis were looking to invent a "de-Judaized" and authentically "Aryan Christianity."

And ironically, I believe it was none other than Nietszche who said something to the effect that madness in individuals was the exception, but in groups it was the rule. But he went mad anyway....

Anonymous said...

No need to take offense at the facts, Lance: "Luther's statements that Jews' homes should be destroyed, their synagogues burned, Talmuds confiscated, rabbis put to death if they continue teaching, money confiscated and liberty curtailed were revived and used in propaganda by the Nazis."

Luther felt Jews should be expelled from the country, their houses flattened, synagogues burnt. To him "the Jew was simply not human."

Luther wrote things such as, "What shall we Christians do with this depraved, damned people, the Jews?," and "next to the devil thou hast no enemy more cruel, more venomous and violent than a Jew." The point is, these vicious sentiments were implanted in the German psyche and never went away.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Yes, it is easy to see how Ekchart could have been, and was, exploited to Nazi ends -- for example, with his doctrine of the "ground,"

Musashi had a doctrine of 'the ground' as well. That is to say, the foundation of true strategy...

But my American mind must just not get this... thing, whatever it is.

Anonymous said...

Eckhart, on the other hand, adored Moses Maiomonides.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Who was more courageous than Judas Maccabees?

Anonymous said...

I blame Martin Luther for why most Jews are kneejerk Democrats. They're still afraid of the Protestants.

Anonymous said...

This desire for expansion and conquest is bubbling just under the surface of my leftist psyche.

Don't reject the image; it is part of soullessness of The Collective.

julie said...

River,
"But my American mind must just not get this... thing, whatever it is."

I was thinking almost the same thing, earlier. I can't even imagine what it would be like to grow up steeped in that kind of mythos - even though, really, it's been the default state of humanity since our furbears started drawing pictures. We have our American mythos, I know, but it's different. Nobody, past a certain age, believes in Superman, but most Americans believe in the higher ideals to which he pointed: "Truth, Justice and the American Way." Our heroes, both real and mythic, fight so that peace in liberty might be restored. In Germanic lore, if I understand it correctly, the fight is its own end, and it justifies the people. Truth and justice aren't important, rather it's the will (and primacy) of the Volk.

As to Martin Luther's Antisemitism, I suppose it offers a partial explanation as to how so many Christians (and even entire denominations) can be so opposed to Israel.

julie said...

(And Now, For Something Completely Different:
since it's Friday, I'm taking the liberty of interjecting something completely random, reminiscent of that Brak video Bob posted a while back. Mmm... Waffles...
Okay, back to serious discussion)

Anonymous said...

"Nobody, past a certain age, believes in Superman, but most Americans believe in the higher ideals to which he pointed: "Truth, Justice and the American Way." Our heroes, both real and mythic, fight so that peace in liberty might be restored."

Bruce Walker has a coonish piece today along these lines, which begins

"Take heart. Hope. Think for a moment about why the good guys will win the war against dishonesty, brutality, and power-mongering. The big picture is often hard to see, particularly when the stench of evil in our lives is so pungent, but evil loses eventually. Consider some of the practical reasons why it will lose again."

NoMo said...

I don't know, Julie, I kind of like TOAST!

(You started it.)

julie said...

Nomo - I love TOAST! I first heard it on the radio driving DH to work. Almost got into an accident, I was laughing so hard.

Thanks!

Warren said...

Lance,

Sorry about the ruffled feathers. I merely gave the quote from Dean Inge (a Protestant leader) to back up what Bob had said. For my own part, it's nothing personal - both my kids attended a Lutheran school for 6 years.

And you won't get me to defend the corruption (not to mention the antisemitism) in the medieval Catholic Church. There were real reasons why the Reformation happened - although, as is often the case, the "cure" turned out to be worse than the original disease.

Gagdad Bob said...

Yes, it seems to me that the Reformation was pretty much of an historical inevitability if ever there were one, in part due to the transition to what Aurobindo calls the "subjective age," which has both a bright and dark side (e.g., the possibility of truly integral religion vs. the new age, or deconstruction, or other descents into relativism). This is another topic we'll be getting into later.

Anonymous said...

River, to address your question from yesterday's post - yes, I certainly affirm that the Incarnation split history, actually assured a continuing history in that I doubt very much that human life on earth would have been allowed to continue had not the Incarnation taken place.

You and I might differ in this - I don't believe the Universal Shamans of olde were necessarily evil. In fact, I think they, many of them, had a legit divine commission. Yes, people in those daze were governed by a herd mentality, but they could hardly be otherwise. They required a Universal Shaman to instruct them in the basics, just as children require a certain basic level of instruction.

However, we are children no longer, or we shouldn't be. The contemporary longing for a Universal Shaman is regressive, out of time, out of date, out of it, period. In fact, I would go so far as to say that evil = a mvt, philosophy, ideal, etc., that is out of spiritual/historical date.

Further, I don't think Christ so much as led people to individualism (which would be a bit contradictory), but rather provided the spiritual substance, the Spirit, what have you, so that the individuated could more readily achieve escape velocity, if you know what I mean. Because . . . before the Incarnation escape velocity was near impossible to achieve, so unrepentant was humanity.

There was a ton of astral soot in the air, you might say, very hard to punch through, pre and post mortem.

Gagdad Bob said...

In my opinion, these are the greatest cowbell songs in rock history:

You Can't Do that, Beatles
Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White, Standells
Sweet Jane, Mott the Hoople
Time Has Come Today, Chambers Brothers
Born on the Bayou, Creedence

CrypticLife said...

Hello will, everyone else,

For what it's worth, Germany and Japan are the only two major nations to have masculine archetypal identities - the Fatherland and Land of the Rising Sun. Both have rather harsh, gutteral-sounding languages.

Not sure why you're saying "Land of the Rising Sun" is masculine. There is no gender in Japanese, and a rising sun has no obvious gender. I'm also surprised you'd omit Uncle Sam... and Korea represents themselves as a tiger (which could be feminine, but there are better arguments for calling it masculine than a sun).

Moreover, Japanese is not guttural. You've been watching too many samurai movies. "Harsh" is something of a matter of opinion, but there are plenty of the soft-voiced consonants in Japanese -- ji, hi, ha, fu -- and certainly some English phonemes are harsher.

You might want to look into other national personifications here.

robinstarfish said...

Obama's a Toast man himself.

robinstarfish said...

Guess who's coming to breakfast?

NoMo said...

I gotta call you out on that, Bob. How can anyone even discuss cowbell without mentioning the one and only Blue Oyster Cult?

Anonymous said...

Now that I'm in a ramblin' kinda mood . . . I hate to say this, but anonynous might be part-right in his/her assertion about a collective desire for "total war". His/her claim that it's all about American imperialism is risible and totally asinine, of course. However . . . anybody with the higher senses to sense can, I think, sense an undercurrent of anger, yea, of chaos that's in the zeitgeist. Just like in the 60's when people went around shouting "Love!" while really meaning "Hate!", this time around the anger is likewise glittered over with a metro-sexualized pacifism. (see Obama)

Of course, the extreme of a metro-sexualized pacifism must have similarly extreme Shadow side. The extreme of the former practically assures the manifestation of the latter.

Feels like a huge party is on the way, a party with clowns, fun for everybody, but then 'round bout midnight things get suddenly very violent, and the clowns start looking very spooky.

Anyway, all this is the result, I think, of a Quickening, which, depending on how well one has spiritually prepared for it, will either lead to madness or transcendence.

julie said...

Robin, that second one should be labeled "im in ur krallspays, eetin ur driwal! nom nom nom"

Cryptic, it's been a while. Have you met Ray?

Anonymous said...

Cryps - I'll cede the gutteral point to you, but as for the sun being masculine, yeah, of course, it's masculine, alway has been, always will, same as the moon will forever be a lady. Or maybe it's the sun in drag, I dunno, same difference.

I noticed that virtually all of the nations of that list were indeed of feminine identity, per my contention.

The "uncle sam" thing - I think that was coined for recruitment purposes during some past war or something. In any event, it's clearly not the major archetypal identity of the USA - you might even consider it as playing the animus to the overall feminine identity of the USA.

As for the tiger - well, cats, big and small/domestic tend to be androgynous, I think. They are of both masculine and feminine archetype, that's what's cool about 'em. Probably why the Egyptians viewed them as sacred - they are of both earth and sky, they bridge the gap between heaven and earth.

Van Harvey said...

Being that he compared my good buddy Aristotle to lice, ticks and vermin... Luther ain't my favorite guy. However. The idiocies of an individual can hardly pass beyond his life, let alone animate a movement, true he said and did some bad stuff, but his underlaying philosophy, Christianity, wouldn't support any serious development of that line.

I believe that Kant, Hegel and Marx (the joke is on those who denounce Marx and his ideas as 'jewish', he was nominaly Lutheran (before 'converting' to atheism), and an anti-semite as well) were also Lutheran... however it was their wackademic, anti-reality Philosophy, not their Religious one, which directly fed the corruption of Germany and made the Nazi's, and the Communists possible.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"Of course, the extreme of a metro-sexualized pacifism must have similarly extreme Shadow side. The extreme of the former practically assures the manifestation of the latter.

Feels like a huge party is on the way, a party with clowns, fun for everybody, but then 'round bout midnight things get suddenly very violent, and the clowns start looking very spooky.

Anyway, all this is the result, I think, of a Quickening, which, depending on how well one has spiritually prepared for it, will either lead to madness or transcendence."

Clowns to the Left of me,
Jokers on the right...
here I Am...

Welcome back Will!! I missed you!
I also missed your younique insights and gnosis of the mostest! :^)

I hope n' pray you are doing well.

Van Harvey said...

Julie said "I was thinking almost the same thing, earlier. I can't even imagine what it would be like to grow up steeped in that kind of mythos - even though, really, it's been the default state of humanity since our furbears started drawing pictures."

You know, when I was a kid, on up to maybe early teens, I was heavily into all stories King Arthur. Seemed to me that I really was 'proud' of the Scottish & English blood I had, and was really fascinated by any antique artifacts, or castles, ancient names... anything that would 'link' me back to those magical times, surely the more authentic, powerful, heroic of times.

I was fascinated by the old English language... then Celtic... then... then it began to dawn on me They all moved into England, invaded and wiped out the Picts, or some other tribe, so it couldn’t be that the land itself made the people special... and the Greeks and Romans were far 'older' than they... but... but... wait a minute - Vortigern was from the same time, but he was a bad guy... and it finally began to dawn on me that it wasn't anything in the blood or the land, or the words they used that made Arthur Heroic, wasn't even Excalibur (he'd be near worthless if the only thing that made him Great enough to expect to wield supreme executive power was 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at him, that’d be pitiful), it was the Idea of Camelot, of Justice, of Right over might.

And that uprooted and expelled any chance ‘volkish’ thoughts had for taking root in me, but so I can kind of get an inkling of how people get swept along that road... but not how they manage to stay on it past, say, 13 or so, which I suppose puts us back to that growing up Transformation.

Van Harvey said...

Hey Cryptlife! Can't wait to see you and Ray get together... should be amusing to see who can miss the point by a wider mark.

;-)

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

I'm thinkin' that the Joker, and his clowns or wannabe jokers are infused with the essence of the madness you speak about, Will.

We can see not only the obvious unhinged hatred they have for conservative classical liberals, but also how quickly they turn on each other.

There's an underlying anarchy to there idiotology, fed by envy, pride, jealousy, anger, etc., and many on the Left appear to be ready to explode in rage at any moment.

Would an Obama loss be the catalyst?
Or, even if Obama wins, that inner rage would still be there, yearning for blood and an evil desire for boundless and lawless freedom.

And even worse, a Spiritless freedom. Or, to be more accurate, an unholy spirit driven freedom.

In fact, it's already happening in many leftist hot spots to a lesser degree.

With their new missiah, win or lose, they are waiting for that "time" to unleash the rage that drives them.

A part of the quickening that will lead, IMO, to an uncivil war.
A war that began several decades ago. A cold war that is escalating.

Anyways, don't mean to be depressing, but we better check our oil, and watch each others backs.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Hey Van-
And Chivalry n' Honor! Those Noble stories really pump me up! Ha ha!

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"Just as the Divine leaves its traces in time, Satan always leaves his scent, so to speak. It reminds me of one of the final scenes of Batman Begins, where the Lieutenant hands Batman the Joker's calling card. For what is the Joker card? It is simultaneously nothing and anything. In fact, it can be anything you want it to be, from the highest of the high (the king) to the lowest of the low, or anything in between. It can even be another gender (the queen). As such, it abolishes all distinction and hierarchy, except that in a perverse way, the nothing-anything of the Joker is the "top," as he stands completely outside -- he transcends and upends -- any established or meaningful order."

Great post, Bob! Thanks!

Gagdad Bob said...

Liberalism's Pagan Problem:

"Obama’s strategy is based on exciting, in the electorate, the same hysterical and cultic enthusiasm that the Pope has rightly diagnosed as a sickness of modern secular culture.

"The belief that we can dispense with God because we possess the power to be God is, Whittaker Chambers said, 'man’s second oldest faith.' Its promise was whispered in the first days of the Creation under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: Ye shall be as gods.”

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Amen to that, Bob.
The Left and the anti-theist suckular right, such as Charles and many Lizards, have secularism in common, as well as the desire to be their own gods.

I believe that most of those anti-theist suckularists are only fiscally conservative for selfish reasons. They certainly aren't socially and morally conservative.

As you have said many times, Bob, without Absolute Truth, it's a slow descent into madness...or, at best, a form of static purgatory.
As much as I admire Ayn Rand, she couldn't get past that wall.

Van Harvey said...

Ben said "As you have said many times, Bob, without Absolute Truth, it's a slow descent into madness...or, at best, a form of static purgatory.
As much as I admire Ayn Rand, she couldn't get past that wall."

ehhh... slight quible, she fully believed in absolute Truth, and that it was indivisible and non-contradictory... but she dismissed the idea that there was anything beyond the human mind that was or could be conscious of it, let alone anything in anyway resembling a Deity.

A different wall, but a wall all the same.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Good point, Van, thanks! You put it much better than I. :^)

I think she went as far as one can go, without God.

Ironically, she saw God, in Absolutes, but she didn't recognize that those absolutes are of God.

I think Berlinski, whom Bob was talkin' about a few months ago, is in the same boat. Hopefully, he will eventially make that leap.

Gagdad Bob said...

It's too creepy to watch for more than a minute or so -- Barack as the American Prayer, as sung by a bunch of b-list celebs.

julie said...

Wow - not just bad (it sounds like they all took a big hit of valium before recording), but deeply creepy.

julie said...

Fighting Back for Barak

Susannah said...

Bob linked to it before I could! We're reading the same sites today.

The Pagan Problem was an excellent read.

Susannah said...

And the Obama worship paeans are beyond creepy. (shiver)

Van Harvey said...

Gagdad said "...too creepy..."

argh... deeply creepy, to say the least. Just as I was about to click the x, barry mani'mlow popped his face in, and then it became fascinating, like trying to figure out what kind of creature a piece of roadkill used to be.

Do they realize their rhapsodizing about a P O L I T I C I A N?

Of course, the scary part is that the answer to that is, No.

Anonymous said...

>> . . . like trying to figure out what kind of creature a piece of roadkill used to be<<

Heh, that's very good, Van. With your permission, I would like to use that someday, in some form or another, scap of lyric, poem, prayer, who knows?

And thanks, Ben. Dunno how long I'll be around this time because THERE IS STILL WORK TO BE DONE, it's unending, this upheaval of transplanting my soul and other goods to a new ambiance. But I'm here when I can be because this is the very finest of blogs/forums, it sparkles as it shines.

Susannah said...

So THAT's who that was! I thought he looked familiar!

Susannah said...

"Deepak could be speaking of Hitler when he writes of how the Annointed One will bring about a "quantum leap" in human consciousness."

I've never read him (for obvious reasons)...he really believes in a messiah-to-come? Ok, antichrist, anyone?

Joan of Argghh! said...

Against my better sense, I watched that creepy American Prayer video.

Brrr! Plus Barely-a-man-ilow looked like he only allowed them one take of about 1.5 seconds of him sorta moving his mouth. They used it three times.

(I hope that when all of those poor, homeless hollywood-types get to the top of the mountain, they'll remember, um... me.)

Still, Barry Manilow? Not sure what it accomplished except to make me believe in zombies.

Van Harvey said...

Will said "...With your permission, I would like to use that someday, in some form or another, scap of lyric, poem, prayer, who knows?..."

Will, I would be Honored.

NoMo said...

Amannequin Prayer. Hey, what's the big deal? Mannequins are people too. At least in this world.

robinstarfish said...

It's Obama bin Biden. Barack has his inverted Cheney.

walt said...

Sheesh!

I heard it here first!

Another scoop by our correspondent in Idy-ho!

Susannah said...

Biden???? Thank Obama for a ticket one can oppose wholeheartedly with a clear conscience.

I was watching the Obama hosannas yesterday, and my eldest daughter asked what was up. I explained it was a sort of "worship" song to Obama. She said, "But...shouldn't he refuse to accept it? Herod accepted praise due to God and look what happened to him." Hmmmm....

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Feels like a huge party is on the way, a party with clowns, fun for everybody, but then 'round bout midnight things get suddenly very violent, and the clowns start looking very spooky.

You mean like the movie, Cloverfield?

That parallel poked me in the eye. Movies and stories are reflections of goings-on of the human interior.

PS- An Orthodox teacher once said, "In the old testament world you really didn't have wars between people, you had wars between gods." (Partly explaining why we have such difficulty with the old testament...)

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