Tuesday, February 10, 2009

By Their Roots Shall Ye Know Them: Dialogue with Jake Kotze


Someone at this blog asked for my thoughts on JK’s latest post GR8 WaterG8, which I had just (an hour or so earlier) read and enjoyed. I also couldn’t help notice JK’s somewhat chiding reference to “Masonic sorcerers”—a term that first appeared, so far as I know, in the writings of James Shelby Downard, but which I imagine JK associates mainly with myself. Anyway, since the commenter also asked for my own perception of Jake’s post, I thought I’d look at it again and see what came up.

I will reproduce the entire post below, in block quotes, with my comments interwoven with JK’s. For those who want to read the post as it appears at the blog, the link is above.

In the first paragraph, Jake writes:

The transience of materiality and form unveiled. The eggshell cracks... 911. While watching "Frost/Nixon" (nice OX/OZ in there..) it become clear that the Watergate scandal follows the same pattern one finds in what I have called Mega Rituals. This term 'Mega Ritual' is a massively confusing title with much potential for misunderstanding. Minds with extreme variations of 'external conspiracy' have probably read a few things into the term not intended by this author.


After my last chat with JK (SW podcast # 22/22.5), I did some thinking about JK’s decision to emigrate from the waters of paranoid awareness, into his more happy-go-lucky jaunts down the yellow brick road of popular culture in search of the unified theory of cosmic awareness. In our first talk (SW podcast # 7), I had questioned JK’s departure from such realms as premature, arguing that an awareness of the darker, conspiratorial aspects of reality was a necessary bridge to the kind of unitive consciousness JK so eloquently advocates at his blog. My reason for arguing with JK on this was partially personal, a matter of predilection, but it also stemmed from an awareness that there were many intelligent and worthwhile folk out there, deep in the trenches of parapolitical research, who simply wouldn’t give JK’s version of reality the time of day and would consider it so much New Age drivel. This seemed a shame to me, since anyone who looks at JK’s work carefully will see it’s anything but that.

(JK is a visionary, rare enough in today’s world, but especially so in the field of alternate perceptions, a field one would naturally expect visionaries to be drawn to.)

Anyway, after our second chat, it occurred to me that perhaps the reason JK had decided not to use the lore of paranoid awareness as fodder for his galactic Weltanschauung was that he had received some negative feedback in the past, specifically for his description of 9/11 as a “mega-ritual.” In fact, it seems highly unlikely that JK wouldn’t have received some flak for daring to spin the “tragedy” as part of a “Stargate” global shift of consciousness from local to cosmic and beyond. I know from personal experience how touchy people can be about such matters. JK also mentioned (during his second chat with me) that he no longer felt in any personal danger now that he had moved away from researching actual, temporal conspiracies, into a field so “out there” that it was unlikely to threaten anyone, or to arouse hostility.

Based on this, I wondered if such personal discomfort wasn’t partly behind his decision to focus on what interested him most (no, I don’t mean Robin Tunney), and leave the nuts and bolts, in-the-trenches work to those of us more temperamentally disposed to it. If so, he is of course more than entitled to his decision; it’s only at the point which JK, perhaps without meaning to, has suggested that his position is a movement beyond that of conspiracy researchers, that I feel myself bristling slightly. Face it, JK has not left conspiracy research to enter into the realms of galactic awareness (which after all is non-local), but to fully immerse himself in pop culture, in other words, he has moved further from “reality”—such as it is—not deeper into it. JK’s argument is (as you’ll see) that there is no conspiracy because everything is the reflection of a single consciousness, and so there can be no “us and them.” This is fine, but my argument is that, nonetheless, the world continues to exist regardless of how evolved our understanding of it becomes, and that JK lives in the same world as the rest of us, however his visionary tendencies may allow him to remake it in his own image. To dismiss (for example ) satanic ritual abuse or Masonic Sorcery Theater (of which the 9/11 Mega Ritual is a perfect example) as no longer “relevant” from this unified consciousness perspective is contradictory - surely if JK can analyze Hollywood movies and Robin Tunney shows to map the movement of the divine through the material realm—as intersection points between archetypal and personal consciousness—then he could also do the same with global conspiracies—if he wanted to? The difference, of course, is that people take global conspiracies rather more seriously than they do pop culture, and they will get upset if you dare to suggest (for example) that the death of thousands of people is really just a metaphor for something else… People don’t like hearing that a global tragedy was really a mega ritual; they get angry. But tell them that Robin Tunney is a clue to galactic consciousness unfolding in the species, and they could care less. They are either already on your wavelength and will lap it up, or they will have stopped listening before you got to the end of your thesis. Safe ground indeed.

Back to JK’s post.

Certainly I have helped sow the seeds of confusion as my belief system has mutated rapidly during the writings at The Brave New World Order and The Blob.
My mind saw a giant conspiracy in the events of 911. Then my mind saw occult symbolism in the make-up of the event; Twin Towers as Jachin and Boaz, Pentagon as Pentagram, George W. Bush reading about Goats (Pan) as the event started...
The assumption was made that if conspiracy elements are associated to the event; building 7 collapsing, free fall of the Towers, no plane wreckage at Pentagon etc.., then the symbolic resonance emanating from the event stem from the same purposeful human conspiracy.

The truth is way cooler then that nasty work of business...


So here’s an example: anyone personally involved in researching the 9/11 conspiracy, etc (which does not include myself), is probably going to stop reading JK at this point. Reason: apparently what JK is saying is that he has rejected his former belief in favor of one he considers wider, deeper, and cooler. But surely there are many levels to truth, and finding a new, more complex or sophisticated level (less nuts and boltsy, and hence closer to the abstract, metaphoric core), does not invalidate the previous, lower level of truth but only provides a new context for it. JK is surely aware of this, but he chooses not to describe it thusly, for reasons of his own.


Luckily I decided to investigate pop culture references to the World Trade Center as I was extremely mystified and attracted by all the 911 resonating synchronicties to be found in media. I would at first attempt to fit the old model - giant 'all powerful' conspiracy orchestrating 911 with occult symbolism for nefarious reasons - into the synchronicities. It meant the human conspiracy elements connected to the Mega Rituals had to be part of the production of the synchronicties in the media.
Somebody or some thing involved with the making of "The Lone Gunmen", "Escape From New York", "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Stargate", "World Trade Center", "The Wiz", "Super Mario Bros." etc, was connected to a chain of influence that reached the orchestrators of 911.

This belief has to continually adapt, if it is to survive the pressure of the mysterious evidence of synchronicty, which keeps creeping closer to home and your self.


It’s here that JK’s approach veers dangerously (though also necessarily) close to solipsism, and even “schizophrenia.” I say necessarily, because the visionary or shamanic individual (which JK is) has no choice, in the end, but to acknowledge his or her role as the author of the narrative s/he is investigating. This is because, as JK describes, each of us is a holographic component within an intelligent system, and therefore we are not just part but the whole of that system. Ergo, any unfolding narrative, if traced far enough back to the source, will eventually lead us to the deepest most recondite area of our own being. As above so below: as without, so within. Does this invalidate the idea of an external conspiracy? Sure it does - it invalidates the idea of an external anything. (It also invalidates the idea of a Jake Kotze.)

The nature of the 'somebody' becomes very mercurial and mystical in order for it to continue to be responsible for 911 and its synchronicties. Indeed the 'somebody' responsible for the synchronicities has to become more and more powerful and more and more removed from the material realm. This unveils the truth if you pursue it to its most extreme and logical conclusion, it leaves you barking mad (attached to ideas) if you don't...


Barking mad. Yes. Emphasis on “barking”—a la Alex Jones, who has glimpsed the truth—that the intelligence behind the NWO, etc, etc, is indeed Godlike—omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent—because, yep, that’s right—it’s God! Only Jones (and so many other nuts and boltsers) still want to fight it! They can’t make the leap from the paranoid to the shamanic perspective, partly because they have been inured with a deep distrust of all mystical or magikal ideas by the “Illuminati” themselves, but mostly because they aren’t willing, or able, to relinquish their tentative hold on identity, reality, and, yes, sanity, to allow a wider perspective to flood and transform them. JK has no problem with this—he lets go with the best of them. But he may be in danger of losing the baby with the bath water. He may be too ready to make that leap—or rather, too eager. If so, he is going to encounter the pitfalls of premature enlightenment.

Most researchers who include sync patterns and media symbols in there work will eventually evolve there conspiracy theory to include very hard to define 'somebodies' like aliens or trans dimensional beings etc. If not that 'flexible' they might stick with 'practical and material' conspiracies like 'Masonic Sorcerers' working in conjunction with Hollywood and such. Some alternate back and forth, some include everything. A few brave souls admit they don't know what the hell is going on.


Note the (I trust unintentional?) little dig at myself there, a veiled suggestion that a propagator of “Masonic sorcerers” is less “flexible” even than a believer in “transdimensional beings,” never mind a galactic hashmuncher like JK. As for the “brave souls who admit they don’t know what the hell is going on”—presumably JK considers himself to be in this group, otherwise, why the endorsement? But his blog rarely suggests the deep uncertainty of the unconditionally surrendered. JK has a bevy of devoted fans and followers who do little but shower praise upon him for showing them the way. There seems to be very little by way of questioning or dialogues going on at his blog—presumably because most of the readers there think JK has (or maybe even IS) “the way.”

Any story ME/WE tell ourselves will turn out unsatisfactory. No revelation of history or set of future events will bring us peace.


I’m not sure who JK is trying to counsel with this sentence, or why. I suppose the many all-too-serious nuts-and-bolters who think that, if they can crack the riddle of the Illuminati, they will somehow become enlightened in the bargain? But there are other ways to use paranoid awareness that are far less coarse, and in fact are every bit as sophisticated as what JK is doing with his movies and logos. As anyone who follows this blog and the podcasts knows, the narratives I weave from conspiracy/occult/Ufo lore are intended to allow for a better understanding of my own psyche, and by extension, that of the species. There is nothing inflexible about taking historical events and using them to go deeper into the Imaginal realms from which these events emerged. In fact, it’s considerably trickier than doing the same using pop culture.

If I have any single criticism of JK’s work—and of most of the writers in this field—it is their lack of awareness of human psychology. This prevents their ideas from being grounded, from begin given a context that allows us to practically apply them in our day-to-day life. JK’s work would seem to encourage watching a lot of movies and reading corporate logos for hidden signs, and (more implicitly) taking lots of entheogens in order to get on the Synchromystic Stargate wavelength. Of course, JK and I are a whole generation apart, so this isn’t necessarily a criticism, so much as the acknowledgment of a difference, even a schism, in our approaches to the Mysteries. Since JK is a visionary, he is temperamentally disinclined to defer to his elders. I can dig that. I was the same way myself at his age. ; )


Only realizing who WE/ME are will heal the wound of separation from Self left by the formation of mind.
The mortality of the Father and Sun King vivified. The eggshell cracks... JFK

It does seem very likely, on the practical form level of reality, that the JFK event, like 911, was part of a orchestrated conspiracy. Either way these are not ultimate truths. Ultimate Truths relate to your real Identity and Nature, not the particulars of the shape and form of reality.
There is no harm in being interested in how JFK's assassination could be a massive government cover up and a Masonic Sun King ritual.


Nice of JK to allow us that.

Of course WE are free to ask questions, doubt official accounts and push the boundaries of how the influence structures of authority interact with world events.
This is exactly why The Blob is interested in conspiracy memes and occult narratives. It has brought me much joy to contemplate how much influence fraternal organizations have had on society, mind and consciousness.


JK’s acid test of research is whether it brings him joy or not. Hard to fault that, and I’d be a fool to try. But it puts me in a tricky position, doesn’t it. Because if I argue that I can find joy in researching satanic ritual abuse and all the rest, I am setting myself up for some very dubious looks. Yet whose capacity for joy is greater? One thing I can’t get much joy out of, however, is crappy TV shows. Life’s too short.

Some thoughts I like to play with, of the conspiracy variety..
What does it mean if Freemasons are the first humans to go to the Moon?
Why is there a Pyramid with All Seeing Eye on the back of the dollar bill and what is its significance...
How does the occult interact with Popular culture?
Why does Howard Hughes, Genghis and Kublai Khan consistently reappear in my sync web?
Why does the fringe seem to inform everything consensus is participating in?
Where is Akhenatons Mummy?

These are fascinating but not primary or ultimate questions.



JK has chosen some pretty frivolous examples of paranoid awareness here. He’s been careful not to include anything that entails real human suffering, such as the systematic ritualized abuse of thousands of young children across the globe, for example. I wonder why…? I also wonder what JK thinks are “primary or ultimate questions,” and why he thinks he has the inside goods on naming them for the rest of us?

If you don't 'know' (it can never ultimately be known) the answer to the who you are, your models for reality will always be incomplete.
Find out who you are first, then return to the 911, JFK and Watergate StarG8 Mega Rituals, if you still care at that point.
The ego and fallibility of the president clearly unveiled. The eggshell cracks... Watergate


Here’s the basic flaw in JK’s argument: how are we supposed to “find out who we are,” if not by using the evidence of the world we live in—the reflection of our total psyches, disowned shadow aspects and all—to do so? By watching movies, I suppose?

So what is a Stargate Mega Ritual?
We will make this a mind object, a concept. Hopefully the slippery nature of our WaterG8 will avoid US - The United States of Consciousness - making it too solid a concept. All concepts and metaphors are gross reductions of the infinite essence of any thing.

If all things are imagined as a Great Spiraling River or WaterG8, Mega Rituals would be huge whirlpools in its ever coiling flow. The flow itself is comprised of twirling mini nebula of thoughts, things and events. What allows there to be flow at all is the pull of consciousnesses, Being, No-Thing or the infinite. The entire river snakes down into the Great StarG8 of the Eschaton. The Eye/I/Self of God.
Inside the ever tightening helix of this WaterG8 are infinite whorls of varying complexity and size. These are things, events, thoughts and conscious consciousness like human beings. Notice how all the whirling entities in the Flow (Wolf backwards) are only temporarily stable and are always recycling themselves. Some whirlpools are tenacious and linger, some are very brief. All are made up of flow and are never comprised of the same material, constant flux recycles all forms.
Ever so often, in mysterious cycles and with increasing intensity, the flow Self organizes into unusually large spinning vortices. Mini StarG8's within the ultimate StarG8' eye/I of God, all non-locally connected as All centers in MOM's heart beat as ONE. All centers are the same center. All are indeed centers.. (keep it quite, that's the secret teaching..)
Through the calm eye/I/Self of these storms sufficiently surrendered facets of Being (such as consciously conscious human nervous systems (many of you reading these words)) can perceive the eternal essence they - the StarG8 eye/I and our own awareness - share. The black hole at the center of the StarG8 is recognized or mirrored in the void at the center of your Self.

All things that gravitate to the center of the spinning mandala are things that share resonance with the unnameable which creates the StarG8 Mega Ritual. In this fashion Masons, architecture, media and symbols, that echo the Core are found as part of the swirling matter surrounding the event (911, Watergate, JFK etc). Imagining a set of things - secret societies, governments, aliens.. (or whatever) - that circle the center cause the phenomena is error of limited perspective.
You will selective identify debris swirling around in the cloud wall, circling forever and ever until you realize all things can never be the Source Itself.
A StarG8 Mega Ritual, like all phenomena is spontaneous and arises out of the eternal NOW.

Seriously it's wild, You, the real You, is exactly what caused JFK, Watergate and 911!
You are the Consciousnesses, Being, No-Thing or Infinite that sits, beyond all flux, out of which ebbs and flows transient phenomena.

If I knew of a simpler way of saying this right NOW, I would.


Don’t worry JK, you did just fine. All the fight just went out of me. There’s nothing to argue with here. JK nailed it. For now.

America symbolizes one of the sturdiest mental structures in consensus reality.
A male dominated, ego centric and materialist government of disproportionate influence.
An inflexible hard lump (think Nixon) in the Great Spiraling WaterG8 must be eroded in order for flow to be joyous and smooth. The closer the form resonates with the formless, the longer it survives. America, like Starbucks, Monsanto, McDonald's and Oprah can survive, even thrive, if it harmonizes with the Self. Nothing that exists, ultimately, is ever out of harmony (shhh (don't tell!), that's the secret teaching..) with the totality.


Curious, isn’t it, how a galactic viewpoint can so easily lead to a disconnection from what IS?

The idea that somehow Starbucks and MacDonald’s could harmonize with “the Self” and still exist, in any form at all, suggests (to me) how deeply infiltrated JK’s psyche is by pop culture. At this point, having been wooed and wowed by JK’s poetic shamanic insights, the only thing I can say is: Jake, GET REAL! Wake up, kid. Camels don’t pass through the eyes of needles, and there’s a damn good reason why not.

If all is One, Mr. Kotze: try picking your teeth with a chainsaw. Then get back to me.

The Mega Rituals mentioned in this post; JFK, Watergate and 911, massively challenged and changed collective perception about the tenacious whorl called America. By implication and extension challenging the very foundation of consensus reality. What ever isn't in alignment with the Gr8 WaterG8 mentioned above will be swept away or swallowed by StarG8 Mega Rituals.


And let’s face it: that means everything. Oh, am I being a pessimist again? I have no doubt JK would say so—or perhaps that I lack the “flexibility” to imagine a world attuned to galactic consciousness in which fast food and chat shows still exist. If so, I’d counter that it has less to do with a lack of flexibility than with an awareness of just how much unprocessed psychic matter there is right now, in the collective unconscious of the species, and just how deeply entrenched in denial your average MacDonald’s-munching, Oprah-gazing human being really is. JK seems to think his Stargate paradigm is so transcendental, so beyond comprehension or logic or anything we can imagine, that it’s not necessary for us to even think about the mess we are in as a species, because, hey presto, it’s all an illusion anyway. Stargate (JK?) is here to save the day! Which sounds suspiciously like New Age-think to me. What JK isn’t taking into account is that the more profoundly the signal of truth ("resonating with Self" as JK calls it) becomes in the world, the stronger the resistance of untruth will grow, and consequently the more atrocities will be occurring in the world.

Put simply: things have to get a hell of a lot worse before they get better. This isn’t pessimism; it isn’t even conjecture. It’s energetic fact; no amount of galactic tap-dancing should distract us from it. Never mind what might be, Jake—let’s start from what IS.

I believe WE will all be massively surprised in the 'near future' by what structures survive as things align and which dissolve under the pressure of change.
In keeping with the spirit of this change The Blob NOW distances its mercurial form from the term Mega Ritual.


JK has a right to mutate, and even an imperative to do so. But is this just his way of playing it safe?

Its essence will remain in the blanket and flexible term StarG8.
Be Deep Well


Funny, but a deep well is the last image that comes to mind reading JK’s happy-galactic gospels. What I see is closer to a tree with enormous, fruit-bearing branches, but whose roots just don’t want to go where it’s dark and dirty.

That’s it. Let me just add that all the above is said with great affection for Mr. Kotze, a man—maddening as he is—who is almost impossible not to love.

25 comments:

zane said...

Personally think your (AK) commentary shows a lot of rub...I hope Jake feels the massage positively...he should, I think...

The underlying issue is something I deal with a lot too...which is kinda why I guess I've never become a full-blown Newager in the tip-toe thru the tulips variety...

One text that has helped/(s) me is from Laura Knight-Jadczyk in her book "The High Strangeness." A brief quote (again remembering that language is symbolic and subject to messy-ness):

"God creates the good and the evil, the ugly and the beautiful, the straight and the crooked, the moral and the immoral. Between these traits lie the manifold dangers of the path of the seeker of Truth. Many modern day 'teachers' and 'gurus' tell us 'Since there is only One Being which permeates all things, all we have to do is see everything as only light', and that will transmute the darkness, and we will 'create our own reality of light'. Such a statement ignores the fact that the statement 'God is One' describes a reality that is a higher level from which our own 'mixed being' manifests. The man who assumes that he can become like God at this level just by thinking it, ignores the facts of Being vs. Non-Being which outrays from 'God is One' at a level of existence that is clearly several levels above our own." (p. 406).

This idea is taken from the teachings of Ibn Arabi...you can also find a similar presentation in Jacob Boehme's works within the Christian tradition (self-identified)...see his "Signatura Rerum" for e.g.

Loving your enemies while not becoming like them is a good in-manifestation challenge...well...heck, I admire the dark magicians for a number of things...but I still try not to wear a suit and tie if I can help it...or eat at MacClowns...some of their shit sickens me...but I am dazzled at their horrific power of will and audacity...

Peace, Zane

Anonymous said...

Maybe it is wrong of me, but as interesting as JK's work is, it seems to me there is very little of substance there, very little I can really sink my teeth into. It all seems like a way to block out all that is dark and disturbing in our world and so JKs work seems to me brilliant but flighty. Give me weightiness any day. It seems to me that when we don't look at ritual abuse, to name one example, we actually encourage the abusers to do more of the same...evil prospers when "good" people do nothing. I cannot help but think that before we can become creatures of light, we need to look unflinchingly into our own darkness, both personally and as a species. The Nazis showed us a small part of our darkness...but how many people know that the Americans treated the German civilians and prisoners of war just as badly as the Nazis treated the Jews, Poles, Gypsies, "mentally ill", etc. How many people know that the "eugenics", racial hygiene movement got its start in America? What about Dresden? That was a Holocaust, too, yet how many think of it in those terms? And maybe Robin Tunney is some sort of Galactic muse on celluloid, but so what? What about the real world? Can't people see that the real world gets darker every day, and how can anyone be "joyous" in the face of it? How much darker does it need to get before the majority sit up and take notice? How much denial are we capable of? All I know is that at some point the egg will crack. At some point denial will no longer hold back the flood of darkness and then all hell will break loose. This is a psychological fact that cannot be avoided, or only avoided for so long, and are the "joyous" ones letting the "pessimistic" ones do all the work that our species needs to do...are they shirking their fair share of the burden, the way America lets the Nazis take the fall for the horrors of WWII? Jake seems like a brilliant and totally likable young man, and is a very good spokesman for his cause (optimism and joyousness), but in the end I just cannot endorse this view of reality, because I simply don't think it is real...it simply doen't jibe with WHAT IS.

Anonymous said...

Enjoy The Silence

FilmNoir23 said...

A very insightful and interesting examination. Much appreciated.

Thuth said...

Loren Colemen sent me to your post and much of what you say rings true.

Focusing on an Eternal Now - ala Eckhart Tolle - while absolutely true (we are all but faces of Brahma) denies the material reality our brains have been attuned through evolution to decode. It also denies the trillions upon trillions of layers of consciousness which inhabit it.

Thanks for post.

Thuth

The Secret Sun said...

I've been keeping my eye on some of these little fissures in the Synchrosphere, hoping they don't develop into schisms. All I can offer is the corny old cliche of the blind men and the elephant. We're all feeling around in the dark trying to solve a mystery that 99% of the world doesn't even know exists. Everyone is going to bring their own baggage and prejudices to the table. But for me, I don't see this as a zero-sum game. There's a space for every viewpoint. This ultimately boils down to the basic questions of human existence and our place in the universe. And the last time I checked the universe is pretty big.

Everything is happening, all the time, all at once. Maybe Jake's point- and in some ways I agree with him- is that a lot of people focus on the darkest aspects of this puzzle because the worst smells are the first thing you tend to notice when you walk into a room. I spent years looking at that stuff and there's a lot to be learned from it, but there are other parts of the puzzle that shouldn't be overlooked in pursuit of the sense-ational.

One thing about the solipsistic aspect of this kind of work- that is a very clear and present danger. I've seen some brilliant minds succumb to the Siren call of solipsism when delving into the mysteries and in some cases it shattered their psyches.

Jasun said...

Gosh - an impressive response to a heartfelt post. I agree with CK that opposing points of view don't need to lead to schisms, but to a higher form of synthesis. That is certainly my hope, and even my intent.

Agreement, when premature, is far less productive, and potentially more undermining also, than informed DISagreement.

As for bad smells - a fair analogy, and I do think JK is attempting to counteract what he perceives as a predilection for darkness. But if there's a bad smell in a room, there's a reason why it gets our attention - so we can hunt down the cause and get rid of it! Only then can we start to tune into the subtler aromas.

Jung pretty much sums up my POV here: "Today we need psychology for reasons that involve our very existence. We stand perplexed and stupefied before the phenomenon of Nazism and Bolshevism because we know nothing about man, or at any rate have only a lopsided and distorted picture of him. If we had self-knowledge, that would not be the case. We stand face to face with the terrible question of evil and do not even know what is before us, let alone what to pit against it. And even if we did know, we still could not understand 'how it could happen here.' With glorious naivete a statesman comes out with the proud declaration that he has no 'imagination for evil.' Quite right: we have no imagination for evil, but evil has us in its grip. Some do not want to know this, and others are identified with evil. That is the psychological situation in the world today: some call themselves Christian and imagine that they can trample so-called evil underfoot by merely willing to; others have succumbed to it and no longer see the good. Evil today has become a visible Great Power. One half of humanity battens and grows strong on a doctrine fabricated by human ratiocination; the other half sickens from the lack of a myth commensurate with the situation. The Christian nations have come to a sorry pass; their Christianity slumbers and has neglected to develop its myth further in the course of the centuries. Those who gave expression to the dark stirrings of growth in mythic ideas were refused a hearing; ... But people do not even know what I am referring to when I say this. They do not realize that a myth is dead if it no longer lives and grows."

The Secret Sun said...

The problem is that evil is often a point-of-view. The Nazis and the Communists didn't see themselves as evil, they saw themselves as world saviors. Which, of course, are the very people who commit the most appalling atrocities.

The other problem is that true evil doesn't know from bad publicity- any attention paid feeds into its narcissism, which is why serial killers would often save clippings of their press. I think this is universal- part of a black magic ritual is gauging its effect, which is why I don't like to blog about items in the news that have that whiff about them. I think the truly evil thrive on negative attention.

But at the same time I leave it up to other's discretion to do so themselves. I just advise thoughtfulness and caution.

lancifer said...

Personally I view JK and AK's work as complementary, I see no conflict or schism between the two. I think that by synthesizing both of their ideas then you arrive at something very powerful and profound.

I agree with every bit of JK's blog post and then again I agree with every bit of AK's commentary. Is that even possible or am I insane?? Sure JK's work is light and a little new agey and JK's work is somewhat dark, but I think they're both just different perspectives perceiving the same thing and arriving at the same destination.

I hope to see more conversation and dialog between my two favorite visionaries. Both of their work stands alone, but together they form a shining star.

Jasun said...

thanks Lance, and no, i don't think that makes you insane - tho maybe a tad impressionable!
(Note the 2nd JK instead of an AK in your post - freudian slip?)

CK (what's with all these Ks?!), it's a valid point, evil does thrive on hype. But there's a difference between pointing out dark aspects of our existence and screaming moral judgments at or about them. Jung wasn't doing this and neither am I. (Actually "evil" is a word i try to avoid using whenever possible, for this very reason). Sure "evil" is a POV but then so is everything. And tho it loves to get publicity for its dastardly nature, it also thrives on ignorance and denial: the devil's deepest wile was to convince us he did not exist, etc, etc. It's a seeming paradox that is reconciled I think by seeing how an awareness of "evil" (distortion) provides an opportunity to recognize and integrate our own disowned shadow - which the distorted reflection of "Great Evil" which is our culture and society clues us to.

It's only by using the distorted patterns as a means back to truth, by taking that dark matter of the psyche that has run amok in our world and transforming it, alchemically as lead into gold, that the idea of "evil" is redeemed and given the right context. This is very different from pretending that such distortion doesn't exist (i.e., by imagining that McDonald's - or satanic ritual abuse, or whatever - can somehow harmonize with the divine without being eradicated entirely!). Because if we don't allow the distortion ("evil") to be acknowledged as what it is (lead, and far from gold), we can't begin to work with it. Discrimination is key - and no doubt significant that "discrimination" is often regarded as an "evil" in our PC times!

What Jung is talking about I believe is that imagination is fired by an awareness of darkness, on the one hand (a fact well-known to any artist), while on the other, the power of the imagination is necessary to transform distorted patterns or narratives into elements (raw material, fertilizer) for the growth of new myths.

To my mind, JK, by rejecting aspects of our existence as "dark," is actually robbing himself of some of the most vital ingredients for the engendering of new myths to live by.

Without an imagination for evil, as Jung points out, we have no possibility of fully understanding the Shadow (Adversary), and hence attaining wholeness as a species. None whatsoever...

Awareness of the Shadow lets us know that the light is behind us, and that we have only to turn around and face - and follow - the Sun - to leave that darkness behind us forever.

The Secret Sun said...

Well, I'm with you all the way vis a vis light and shadow. All the sweetness and light is a denial of Shadow, which itself can lead to projection and often to atrocity, as we have seen so often with religious fundamentalism.

Don't get me wrong, Jake and I are on much, much different paths. But there is so much darkness and fear and paranoia about that I'm not offended if someone is trying to counteract it.

Jasun said...

nor am i. Only somewhat stirred up should they suggest that those of who DO work with darkness are somehow less "evolved" or "flexible" than they!

: D

Sounder said...

I take a broad minded view towards various systems of divination. Whether the Catholic Church, wicca syncromysticism or whatever; the personality and circumstances create a center that that person operates out of. The forms and filters are inherently limiting but you never know when the next Miester Eckhart may come along.

Jake Kotze said...

Very silly sync happening here...

I wanted to respond (even though I have nothing much to add) but because I was up late last night watching K-PAX with a friend I thought to myself:
"Man I'm too physically drained to muster the energy to do this task justice. Maybe I'll say something tomorrow after some needed rest."

Then I noticed the word verification:

bedrest

Lovely

Thanks for providing a playground for thoughtful dialogue AK

Goodnight..

Anadæ Quenyan Effro said...

Do I get to eb the thirteenth comment here? Cool. No triskaidekaphobe am I. I often wonder, Frater Aeolus Kephas, whether or (k)not(work) our Afrikaaner expatriot so referenced is such the lighthearted White Lighter because of having had been an out-of-control alcohol addict & later, sadly enough, an acid burn-out, whose wake up call necessitated hospitalisation. What say ye?

Other 'an 'an, I appreciate fully your observations here. Might I invite you to have a gander at my arboreal climbings?

http://sonic.net/~elves/

Founded largely upon the elfin "fictions" of authoress CJ Cherryh, the Eald of the Silver Elves comes from her Tree of Jewels & Swords template, or that of Life & Death, as the case may be.

You're familiar w/t Sephiroth & its anti-matter version, the Qlipoth.

Take it from there,
Anadæ Effro ( :-)}

Anonymous said...

you guys talk to much, whats the point of masonic sorcerers, sounds like some grand delusion to me.

go surfing man.

Jasun said...

you're welcome JK! Rest up.

Anadae: i am sure it's not insignificant, and a fair warning to those who might follow JK's footsteps rashly. Shamanic precipitation is a calling, not a joyride.

It's testimony to the resilience of JK's spirit that he has come through it with faculties and animus so intact. Thousands wouldn't.

Thuth said...

I very much like Chris' comment that we're exploring something that 99% of the population wouldn't acknowledge. We're the dark matter in the collective unconscious - but not the shadow.

That said, there's still room for many perspectives and many paths / thought tunnels in our ongoing discourse between these 'crazy' blogs.

I believe we are but whispers in the wind of Brahma, yet at the same believe we are all white and dark wizards, constantly empowering the symbols of our lives with meaning - whether we're aware of it or not.

Sometimes I experience the Eternal Now, sometimes I experience waves of symbols coming off public rituals set up by the Masonic Wizards. At times one side more, at other times, the other side more.

The beauty of the conversation is that we all play off each others ideas and are pushing each other forward in our own thoughts and down our own paths, which synch off one another.

Kudos to JK for lighting a fire in my head, giving me the first steps on my own path to Imaginationland - pointing out the yellow brick road if you will. And kudos for following your path.

Thanks to AK for so eloquently giving form to many half-thoughts that have been swirling in my head as of late (not necessarily about JK, but about the world in general - especially comments about Jung.)

Everyone I've read in the synch sphere has an Amazing perspective on reality. And that's the important thing, recognizing that as the thing that unites.

We'll probably all be sitting in a bar in Nirvana someday and laugh at how little each of us knows, but them be amazed at how much we actually know.

Thuth

Cosmic Ti69er said...

Ascension is clearly strong right now. :)

Jasun said...

hey, is that Pooh?

thinking about having a "little something"

now you're talking!

Anonymous said...

It seems like right now the majority would like to see "evil" as something outside of themselves and so be able to dis-own it. They cherish their naivety, which is willful, and like to think of themselves as "innocents" and so evil flourishes because it has a steady supply of "victims". What we need to do is just the opposite...we need to take the evil, the darkness, back into ourselves where it belongs. Only there can it be transformed into what it really is, pure gold, because it is what will make us whole. Anyone who has done this personally knows the process and knows what I am talking about. When a person does that, they become much stronger and their ego becomes flexible, they are no longer threatened by different ways of looking at reality...their reality doesn't shatter at the touch of truth the way someone's does who bases their life on denial. And of course this is a never-ending process, but it gets easier with practice. I agree that evil gets stronger with attention, but only if it is given attention as something "out there", to be gotten rid of. We cannot "get rid" of it...we can only own and transform it, to use it as the basis of wisdom, which is what is.

Anonymous said...

"This is as good a time as any to tell you that Nothing is What it Seems. -James Shelby Downard

AK, JK, & CK.

All the K's, i'm tempted to think it's like the Crowley spelling of magick, the k signifying Kteis, in greek, the female genital organs.

But magick in the true sense of sorcery instead of the showman trickster variety.

JK, Clive Barkers 1995 Lord of Illusions "Illusions are trickery. Magicians do it for real."

If we add Crowley's K onto the above, we can head into a triple KKK, or XXX rating on this post.

CK " I've been keeping my eye on some of these little fissures in the Synchrosphere, hoping they don't develop into schisms."

A war of magicians is maybe what this world needs right about now.

Robert Anton Wilson once joked, "Reality is the line where rival gangs of shamans fought to a standstill ...,

I think a little magickal combat is needed sometimes. After all if Winnipeg suddenly has an invasion of scarlet women, ufo's, demons, men in black we all know it's because of the people reading these blogs, and making a little mischief.

I read an interesting interview between Dr. John Mack and Whitley Strieber, and knowing JK had a 'grey' visitor at the foot of your bed.

Strieber and Mack are 'believers' in a 'real' manifestation in our reality. I'll pull the exchange here, it's based on Tibetan view of the world.

WS: Was the Dalai Lama aware of the nature of your work?

JM: Yeah, because we had met with him in 1992. He's had an interest in this all along and he sees this as an area that could mean something in terms of Western consciousness. For the Tibetan people or for Tibetan philosophy and religion, the universe is filled with beings of all kinds, some of whom can manifest in the material world, so this is not an extraordinary matter for them. But the fact that this is gaining attention in the West is an extraordinary matter, so that was particularly what has been interesting to him, and how this can open up Western thinking to appreciate a much different kind of universe.

WS: Well it certainly is extraordinary to me, because I have as you know had experiences with beings that could be both physical and not physical, and being from a Western background I was pretty surprised to discover that that actually was real.

JM: See the problem we have in our philosophy in the West is we have a very vastly oversimplified notion of reality. Either it's literally physical, just like everything around us that you can touch and feel and smell, or its in the realm of the imagination and then not materially real. But something that is in some senses not there physically, or comes from another dimension, or we don't know where, and then manifests in the physical world, we don't have any place for that in the philosophy that has grown up in the last several centuries in the West. But that's not true in Tibetan culture or in any of the philosophies and religions of the far east.

I like their 'view' of the world, but they are ignoring Western magick, and quabalah totally. The tibetan concept of 'first you change' the dream then you learn to 'change reality', lol i'm detecting a 'change' Obama current happening.

AK, i got annoyed with JK's interview a while back when he threw a shot at esoteric, occult researchers being too much into books, and clever about it. That's always been the 'sign' of an occultist, books, they own a great many books, it's about the pursuit of knowledge, and yes, sigh, i'll admit it -power. Like the serpent, the muse, and tree of life, -eden Serpent ssssssss'Ye shall not surely die for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
What do we eat though? Mario's magic mushrooms? Eve's Kteis? Adams apples? To each his own preference, i like eating Eve.

Magick is an art form, and art comes in many shapes and forms. It's also a lot safer to be viewed as an 'artist' whatever , writer, visual, music, spoken word, anything other than the black magician.
Danger comes with this work, no matter how anyone renounces their prior crimes, Masonic sorcerers do not forget, and they always payback, time travel being one of their 'new age' abilities.
313 a.m. Just a few thoughts.

Jasun said...

and highly stimulating as ever, TP. Look forward to your input at the forum (hint hint)

Anonymous said...

Wow AK, I asked for some thoughts on Kotze's post and you certainly didn't disappoint. Excellent post and much great feedback.
And I'll be damned if my EGO is not determined to take some small credit for all of this happening. For shame!
Really enjoying Lucid View also; quite a unique book.
Thanks.

Jasun said...

you can take the credit Jay - and the blame! take a bow, and join the forum!