Occultism and Post-awakening Natures:
Romanticism and the Artist Prophet(s): So, in the last post, we discussed transcending the self with the imagination. And that if we deny the imagination in the central role of society, it’s then an attempt to deny the other. Within this denial also rests self-interest, which the creative process exemplifies. All awhile realising imagination and ethics is not romantic, in so much as a person with talent is not inherently romantic; they’re at most to have exceptional skills. It’s a way to distinguish healthy imagination from the heroic model. The preference for self-interest takes form in this denial to which a healthy ‘imagination’ is only reticent for a few superior people. Take this quote by Schopenhauer:
| The man who is endowed with imagination is able, as it were, to call up spirits, who at the right time reveal to him the truths which the naked reality of things exhibits only weakly, rarely, and then for the most part at the wrong time. Therefore, the man without imagination is related to him, as the mussel fastened to its rock… Schopenhauer, |
There are variations to this heroic model: there are fundamentalists that follow occult of personality. With it comes to certain missing truths and insights, and also missing context due to its simplistic framing. Or the belief that imagination is strongest only among the marginal or unstable people exemplified in pure-scientists and artists. And related to this is to view imagination as being fundamentally romantic. To view it this way tends to be marginal or even dangerous because to see the imagination as something wonderful or essential, but can only be attained among the few. Such as it is, this opens it up to those with no [or minimal] imagination or, reducing it or somewhat attempting to structure the imaginative.
Therefore, the Romantic Movement in the 19th century was a reaction to the dominance of rationality. On the other hand, this conception is best not perceived as its opposite but instead its tangent appeal. The romantic hero is akin to an adolescent child full of angst, weeping, perhaps suicidal. It was a reaction to what it opposed, and during that era, it was the early industrial landscape. The greater the romantic expression – the more it defines a rational ideal. And so, romanticism became a way to measure the imagination, but at the same time, imagination is full of uncontrolled emotion. Therefore, has a habit of falling back into or aligning themselves to those without imagination. They are those who are kindly controlling the imagination, they are the rock attached to those who have it. However, one must not associate artists and scientists with uncontrolled emotion due to ultimately being driven by uncertainty. Therefore, these emotions are oftentimes regulated by the need for corporatism or the romantic slur of leadership that morphs itself into dictatorships.
Being aware of these dichotomies is helpful because they can differentiate themselves among their abstract; the imagination is only attained by a few in as much as a belief that specialization implies privileged access to truth. The pure-scientist doesn’t get attention because truthful science is pedantic and time-consuming. You can’t attach a heroic model to something essentially monotonous. And this is why the heroic mechanism is glorified through scientism. While the artist a heroic model, in essence, is ‘the artist prophet,’ which is an elitist privilege, the artist-prophet is blessed and stands as a priest figure. Their imaginings are deemed mystical, almost religious. They can call up spirits and therefore reveal truths. In this assertion, the imagination belongs to the Oracle; the sage or the Sybil. They are the elite, although a marginal elite – the artist as a religious prophet.
The romantic danger only applies to how you see it – whether you’re more inclined to be romantic or tend to head towards cynicism. We are dependent on the artist-prophet, but we must not value the elitist privilege in so much as we ignore our own remarkability. The parallel is the same as being Christian without really knowing [or wanting to know] what the parables are about in the Bible. Imagining the other is denied. Or the imagination is withheld in any varied imaginable situation.
Cynical Danger: Or be it … they allow Christian-conspiracy-theory to do the imagining for them as they use etymology as a propaganda tool rather than for educational purposes. And there is also a need to implore false-to-fact abstractions of meaning in symbols and images. Conspiracy theorist Christians use etymology as a function through a process to build theories and propaganda. Their motivation is not relevant here, but the reason and foundation of truth for the ‘word’ is essential. However, will it change its modern meaning of the word? Do the word Satan and its meaning revert to its original context of opposition or the iconographic image of the red beast? Is it going to discern Satan from Lucifer? Is it going to denounce the biblical names of the 12 apostles back to their middle-eastern titles?
Christian-conspiracy-theorist’s consensus surrounding Gnosticism and esotericism have always been itemised through a fundamentalist lens, in which an Illuminati cabal is the culprit. Mystery cults were the rebels, the resistance, and the counter-culture to an autocratic state of that time. This cynical way of thinking started in an Evangelical/Conservative group that was overly vocal about their fundamentalist stance. Particularly with Jack T Chick, a protestant comic book artist whose name has become slang. Articulated as ‘Chick-Comics’ he used the comic-book format to outline his war on sin, Catholicism and rock music. He was very anti-Catholic.
This pattern of thinking spread throughout the evangelical groups and would therefore be absorbed in the fundamentalist catalogue of ideologies. And this pattern of thinking is approached by taking the symbol and reducing it to its historical contingency. Meaning any symbolic image back to its historical origin accompanied with visual analogies is enough to explain the symbolism. It’s too simplistic that has many factors outlining a lot of fallacies.
For example, a symbol found in the Orthodox Church [whatever that may be] will inevitably be linked back to the Catholic Church. And that very same symbol from the Catholic Church falls in line historically with images from ancient Egypt. Rightly so because it’s coming from the worship of solar-god deities, but because, similarly, it must therefore prove the Catholic Church is Satanic, Pagan and evil. In doing so, separating their symbol [that originated from the Catholic Church] from the Orthodox Church and announcing their version of Christianity as pure. They can identify symbolic analogies between cultures, but a fallacy is present when they decry the other as evil, which is beyond bias. That’s not to say the Catholic Church is without transgression. The most common misdeed is sexual abuse found systematically around the Churches.
Jack Kirby’s Face on Mars is a Face on Earth: Jack Kirby, a well-known comic book artist, is the opposite of Jack Chick. Chick is a clear fundamentalist that hides his materialism in ‘Prosperity Gospel’ with a coating of gas-lighting. And just like other fundamentalists that came before him, it’s all about setting up strawmen, scapegoats and with most cases, it’s a Masonic Cabal that’s part of a vast insidious conspiracy. It sounds more romantic than Christian white middle class denouncing modernism, secularism, and liberalism. To which they once favoured until global corporate interests no longer favoured their interests. Although the romantic side comes from many conspiracy-theorist and Chick was a traditionalist. However, this is about the imagination, which Chick had none given his Evangelical filter, which often regulates the intuition to common sense. In other words, intuition is made redundant, but Jack Kirby, however, was free from this ideological setback.
Jack Kirby, in many aspects, can be described as an artist prophet given the uniqueness of his storytelling and the imagery he portrayed on paper. And often it was prophetic, perhaps due to his uncanny ability to predict future events. This ability was made apparent during his stint in the war effort; this part of his life had a side effect, which caused post-traumatic-stress. To which he took psychedelic drugs as a treatment. Often such mind trips come with it; contact with alien beings. Possibly, explaining his psychic-alien contact obsession in his storytelling interlaced with ancient-alien-theory. And no one like him has come to pass afterwards.
Christian-conspiracy-theorists often are enamoured with meaningful coincidences or rather events made manifested in the media and arts before the event itself. For Jack Kirby, that manifestation was in his comic-book panels. Where real-life events would come into existence, to which he had already inscribed in comic imagery many years before. However, for conspiracy groups, this is, therefore, part of that same conspiratorial cabal. There is also a tangent claim where [Christian] truthers claim that this is part of an esoteric agenda, due to occultism and its history.
One would have to distinguish imaginative prophetic processes with orchestrated rituals and symbols for conspiracy agenda. The difference between secret symbols and images found in the United States one-dollar bill – to an aeroplane plunging itself towards two high rise buildings as depicted in the comic-book panels, for an entirely different narrative than a 9-11 event is apparent [or rather Kirby foretold]. However, it’s the symbolic coincidence that makes it intriguing. Never the less; Traditional-Christians are stuck in a linear causality examined in the notion that Arabs are responsible for the crash of 9-11 event. For truthers, that’s not the case, but as a thought experiment, what if it was real in a linear causality way rather than a simulated one. What would be the reaction? Both the simulated and linear disturb the order of things and both ways attack the principle of self. However, one is less serious than the other because it deploys employees for the simulated; distribution of labour.
If 9/11 were indeed real in a linear casualty way, it would be less fantastical because the image would not be as pronounced. And this is due to the laws of physics being predominately transfixed. Meaning buildings won’t fall, and only minor devastation exists. However, the opposite occurred, the simulated 9-11 hoax did happen. And there were some resemblances of that elaborate construct revealed both before and after the event. [Inscribed in the decoding and orchestration rituals of the media, anticipated in their presentation and their possible consequences. – Baudrillard, J]. Linear causality, however, would’ve had uncertainty and authenticity and become apparent. The media’s push for false idolatry and the propagation of the inflated image would be unplanned and so become legitimate. The simulated hoax itself is more alarming. [More dangerous as it always leaves open to supposition that, above and beyond its object, law and order themselves might be nothing but a simulation. – Baudrillard, J]
In my conspiracy theory and reason post, I described Kirby’s imaginative prophetic processes through the need to acknowledge that mortality and timelessness exist and that our dreams link us to the collective unconscious. There are many points of access to the unconscious, but the most common turn up in dreams. To which synchronicity plays a part, especially in articulating those dreams and insights for understanding? And because of this, it would also mean understanding variations of synchronicities found in art, stories, music, sounds, and myths. And also, the personage of their actions, courage, fear, and physical nature and relationship to the non-human. Kirby managed to use animism in an applied creative way to reach within the synchronistic whole to inject his awareness through comic book panels.
Injecting oneself to a place that doesn’t obey the laws of time and extracting imaginative moments of clarity and manifesting it on paper, and when those moments of clarity become synchronistic or lines up with the present. It becomes this ‘thing’ we call or understand as … ‘prophetic.’ It’s more genuine than a pre-plan hidden message orchestrated by a secret cult-state group in a conspiratorial plan. So, this is an intuitive act and the most practical of our human quality. Our imagination and intuition allow for the existence of a synchronistic timelessness whole. And to deny it sets you up for utilitarian mysticism and hero worship.
Although I believe there is a safe version of hero-worship, the kind that is not about unhealthy adoration but of inspiration and embodiment. I tend to accept a version of romanticism that is safe, aside from the awareness that romanticism sits at the shadow side of rational methodology. Here it tries to be open and inclusive to others, and is only thwarted by its own logic and becomes exclusive and closed off. The kind of effect that produces megalomania and totalitarianism. Although Coleridge [in 1808] in the height of the Romantic Movement argued that creative imagination was part of the ‘balance-loving nature of man’, a sentiment that was instantly consolidated ‘as a single unifying force within all creative acts.’ To which it would be ‘the one power of the imagination.’ There was some backlash amongst intellects because this was undoubtedly an attempt to reduce the imagination to be defined as one power. The imagination is more like the unnameable Dao. Of course, this is different from denying or resisting oneness or denying the Monad. This safe version of romanticism I’m claiming is the kind that the New Age promotes, and that is of love and trust.
Scientism acts as a filter for the heroic model in an attempt to grasp uncertainty. Therefore, akin to believing secularism will inevitably lead to enlightenment. Of course, it will lead into its opposite ‘materialism,’ it’s a romantic ideal hidden in reason. In light of the scientistic institute apparatus becoming undone; so, does most of its imaginative babblings. Which often parallel science-fiction storytelling – the distinctions, however, are in the authors – between the scientism’s hyper theories portrayed as facts vs. artist-prophets and their insights as entertainment.
Kirby finely moulded both or rather flawlessly mixed his obsession with a materialist/reductionist worldview along with his obsession with aliens, UFOs and ancient astronauts. However, our new-normal uphold a resistance to a satellized cosmology because other simulated constructs are obligated to play along with its simulation. The difference is really about the levels of fiction you’re willing to accept; NASA-astronauts and ancient-astronauts. Within a mythical base, ancient-astronaut can fit technological-Atlantean-brethren whom the indigenous people recognized as cargo-cult, which bears more truth because of its myth than NASA–astronauts simulating space in an underwater pool, for factual propaganda. Kirby also had an interest in paranormal phenomena, and after his death, people came to recognize he tended to predict future events in illustrative form.
Notably, his insight about a mysterious hidden planet between Mars and Jupiter, [in a Sitchin setting] this planet is Nibiru or Planet X, or [in a theosophical sense] Tiamat. However, Kirby had made this notion of a mystery planet two decades before Sitchin. Kirby’s allegorical Face on Mars [often inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs – ‘Warlord of Mars’ who himself was inspired by theosophy] depicts a team of astronauts landing on Mars and discover a large monument equal in size to a large building but aesthetically shaped like a Face. An astronaut finds his way inside through the eye and finds himself in a breathable atmosphere along with a civilised landscape that was home to giant humanoids. He then witnesses a briefing amongst the giants indicating a space-militant force coming from a hidden planet. To which the giant humanoids [Martians] decides to destroy it with a doomsday bomb. Resulting in the hidden planet [Tiamat] being destroyed, which later become known as the asteroid belt [our asteroid belt as it were] between Mars and Jupiter. The planet Mars would become barren and lifeless.
Regarding his depiction of giant heads: these stories from ‘The face on Mars’ and ‘the Great Stone Face’ explored in comic book imagery of giant stone heads. These comic-book depictions were inscribed decades before the so-called real satellized images of Cydonia’s face on Mars. During that time, people were amazed by this – although this was a time where most people believed in moon landings. And were enamoured by futurism, and space travel was just several years away. However, given the new-normal we know its fiction. Possibly, images relating to Cydonia are bogus and perhaps made by a NASA employee. In light of this, it doesn’t make Kirby less prophetic, it’s merely shifting semantics.
Kirby’s fascination with Giant heads signifies his fascination with historical mystery regarding ancient civilisations [and aliens]. Easter Island and its giant carved stone faces are reminiscent of this fascination. Let’s ask, what if a similar Face found itself in the hyperreal planet Mars. We know hyperreal-space is just an extension of Earth’s sacred centre along with its mysteries. Life’s creation and its drama are centred on the Centre as a gateway to the gods. This drama takes the play in the backdrop of the Pleroma [both lower and higher Pleroma], to which hyperreal-space is a symbol off.
Also, Easter Island itself would be the start and end of a circular topographical sacred site journey that spans most of the ancient sites on Earth. An alignment that is equal to the equator; all seems too evident to be just incidental. Just place these historic sacred sites of credible intrigue and place them among the backdrop hyperreal-space and other planets. [Given our hyperreal heliocentric model, the preciseness of this equation is left uncertain]. In my speculation: planets represent geometric morphing fluid states as a gateway to another bardo or dimension. And what these other planes of existence are like, I leave that to your imagination. It also marks a spot or a step further in a spiritual journey towards a higher spiritual hierarchy – to the Trinity to oneness [to God].
Michael Keefe.
[I’m going to continue with ‘occultism and post awakening natures’ especially regarding artist-prophets because there is a lot more artist who are prophets out there to discover. However, for now, it will have to continue later. I’m trying to finish this fundamentalism section, which is almost finish.]
