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Dear all,

I'm going to start a new project on the films of Alan Clarke. It will be a blog at first [http://belovedenemies.blogspot.co.uk/] and then, who knows? His films have been obsessing me for a while, and there is very little out there about him or his work. So I thought I might as well write the texts I wanted to read etc.

As it goes on any feedback would be welcome. 

Fascinating Horizon documentary on Mondragon from 1980. Not so much for Mondragon itself ( still looming large in the anti-capitalist imaginary 35 years later) as the tone, tenor and underlying assumptions of the piece.


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A FIGGING FOR HOCKNEY TEACHES THIS BDSM FREAK THE VALUE OF THINKING WITH HIS DICK!
At the start of their second year Kitaj was doing very well at the Republican College of Art. Hockney wanted to see whether he could make a better fist of the new term at the RCA than he had of the last. He began with a much better chance of doing so, for he was thoroughly humbled. The discovery that he was not altogether such a hero as he had fancied himself, had dawned upon him very distinctly by the end of his first year as the full depths of his masochism had been revealed; and the events of the long vacation had confirmed the impression, and pretty well taken all the conceit out of him for the time being. The impotency of his own will, even when he was bent on doing the right thing, his want of insight and foresight in whatever matter he took in hand, the unruliness of his temper and passions just at the moments when it behooved him to have them most thoroughly in check and under control, were a set of agreeable facts which had been driven well home to him. The results, being even such as we have seen, he did not much repine at, for he felt he had deserved them; and there was a sort of grim satisfaction, dreary as the prospect was, in facing them, and taking his punishment like a man. Or at least like a girl since he most enjoyed bondage scenes in which he was made to put on dresses and act like a member of the 'weaker' sex.
Kitaj was so fully occupied with painting and a muscle-building regime that he'd taken up, that Hockney had scruples about demanding much of his spare time in the evenings. Nevertheless, the two men still wanted to enjoy some kinky sex together, and were able to do so both at the RCA and in their rooms. On the first day of term Hockney checked out the new first year students and had even sucked one of them off in the men's toilet at lunchtime. He hoped Kitaj would hear about this and would punish him severely for it. And that was precisely what happened towards the end of that first day back at college.
Hockney stood in the corner of a lecture room, his hands firmly planted on the top of his head, muttering at the injustice of it all. He knew that Kitaj was strict, but he was in his early twenties for fucks sake, a post-graduate art student, and he had been standing with a view of nothing but peeling paintwork for the last forty-five minutes. Hockney heard Kitaj step back into the room and the blinds of the lecture hall fell, leaving only the glow of the lights.
"Boy, what did you think you were doing?" Kitaj's voice was harsher than before, Hockney could tell this time he was in for it.
The sub's response came out as a mutter: "Nothing, it was just a bit of fun..."
"Just what? A Joke? I'm sure that fresher's orgasm wasn't a sarcastic orgasm, was it?"
"No," Hockney was sulking by this time. He was being spoken to like a child, it had just been guys messing around in the john, a quick blow job, and now he was taking a heavy wrap for it.
"No sir, is how you shall address me Hockney! I see it is not just your submissive peers you treat with such disrespect but even your master. Come over to the lecture desk."
Hockney walked over to the most imposing piece of furniture in the room as Kitaj instructed. He lowered his arms from his head and gave them a little rub to improve their numbed circulation.
"They tried punishing you with lines when you were at school I presume?" Kitaj snapped.
Hockney rummaged in his bag with one hand, thinking how cruel it was that his position in the corner had made his arms ache before the hours of endless, repetitive writing.
"And writing lines didn't make an impact on you I see" Kitaj continued as he sat down in a chair behind the lecture desk, "So instead of getting you to write out 'I must not suck fresher cock' a thousand times, I want you to bend over this desk, and we will see if I can't beat some discipline into you."
Hockney jerked his head up to look at Kitaj, and was shocked to see he was done up like a tranny. Kitaj was wearing make-up and a low cut dress, not to mention a sick stern kind of smile that made it clear that he was on some strict school-mistress trip. He even had on long false nails that had been painted with purple varnish! Kitaj hadn't looked anything like this when he'd left the room. It was sick, in anyone else the way Kitaj was done up would have looked like forced feminisation, but the dom was able to carry it off and retain his aura of authority and masculinity. Still being beaten by a top wearing a dress was a new level of humiliation for Hockney.
Hockney took his time bending over the desk, taking in Kitaj's female scent - a perfume he was unable to name - as he leant towards him. Kitaj stood and walked round the desk and out of Hockney's line of sight. The apprehension the sub felt was nearly unbearable and although it could only have been a few seconds it felt like minutes had passed before Kitaj spoke.
"Hockney, earlier today you seemed to think it amusing to suck some boy's cock without my permission." This was clearly a statement, not a question, so Hockney kept his mouth shut. "I think it is fair that you shall drop your trousers for your caning"
Before Hockney had time to refuse to comply, Kitaj pinned the sub to the desk with one hand. Hockney felt Kitaj's body against his own and a strange sense of arousal came over him as he once again took in his master's feminine scent. Hockney was thinking he shouldn't be turned on by this, a master who has dressed himself up in a frock, plastered make-up over his face and drenched himself in cheap perfume. It was a new low in Hockney's sexual fetishism.
Kitaj practically assaulted Hockney. The sub felt one hand undoing his belt, removing it and then Kitaj used a length of rope to tie Hockney's hands to a hook on the other side of the desk, stretching him across the wood and pressing his cock against it. Hockney clenched his legs together determined that Kitaj would not remove his trousers, but Kitaj's strength was astounding, probably the result of all the weight training he'd been doing. Hockney's overpants were at his ankles, and Kitaj ordered him to step out of them, his smalls did little to preserve his dignity. Hockney snapped his legs back together, determined that Kitaj wouldn't see through to his cock, which was, much to his great pleasure, rock hard. The reason Hockney had a stiffy was because he was completely vulnerable. He clenched his butt cheeks tight together in anticipation of the cane.
"Boy, I am going to give you eight strokes for your cock sucking antics. You are to count them and if you miss one I will start again. If you try to avoid your punishment by squirming, I will start again. Don't give me a reason to make this worse boy."
Hockney heard the cane before he felt it. A swoosh through the air then a thwack as it landed on his clenched buttocks. The pain took a few seconds to register in his brain, being felt as a tingle before it became a sting, and by the time the sub fully appreciated this agony it was every bit as bad as he was expecting. Hockney clenched his gluteus muscles to help him control himself and stay still. "One, sir," then "two sir," almost immediately after.
Hockney wasn't ready for the second stroke, he tensed up just as the cane hit, and Kitaj saw that all of Hockney's gluts had contracted. As both Hockney and Kitaj knew the gluteal muscles are a group of four muscles. Three of these muscles make up the buttocks: the gluteus maximus muscle, gluteus medius muscle and gluteus minimus muscle. The fourth and smallest of the muscles is the tensor fasciae latae muscle, which is located anterior and lateral to the rest. Without Hockney even thinking about it all of his gluts had tensed. Indeed even Hockney's hamstrings had contracted.
"Hockney, why are you clenching your buttocks like that? Does the caning hurt too much or are you daydreaming that you are performing squats with a heavy barbell across your shoulders?"
The sub wasn't fooled by the mock sympathy in Kitaj's voice and didn't answer.
"Do you know, boy, what they did to naughty boys who clenched their buttocks during a canning in the ancient world?"
"No sir."
"Let us have a little history lesson then…"
Hockney felt Kitaj getting up close and personal with him, and then pulling down his skidmarked knickers. Hockney tried to struggle against Kitaj but it was useless, the top already knew Hockney didn't have the best hygiene habits in the world, and was often reduced to boiling his shit and piss stained underpants in a pan to get them clean. When he did this, Hockney always feared a knock on the door from his landlady Mrs Longbottom. She would scream at him and yell that she ran a Christian house in which no man was allowed to boil his underpants on a hot plate since the smell was an affront to the dignity of upright and moral women of all classes.
Just as he tried to hide his underpant boiling activities from Mrs Longbottom, Hockney hoped to hide the fact that he now had a raging hard on from Kitaj.  The top's false nails scraped against Hockney's cock as Kitaj pulled the sub's skidmarkded underwear down. But the dom didn't mention the state of extreme sexual arousal the slave just happened to be in.
Hockney wobbled as Kitaj pulled one of his ankles towards the leg of the desk and tied them securely together - the operation was then repeated on the other side. Hockney was trussed up like a turkey at Christmas and hoping he'd end up just as well stuffed. The bottom was unable to move his arms or his legs, but he could still clench his butt cheeks together. He heard the clink of Kitaj's high heels on the floor and the door opening, but not shutting. He was tied to a desk, naked from the waist down with the door open whilst Kitaj went out for what Hockney wrongly imagined to be a wank in the john.
Hockney had no idea how much time passed before Kitaj returned with what looked like a carved vegetable that had been shaped into a buttplug in his hand. Kitaj stood behind the sub and fondled his butt cheeks, spreading them apart.
"Relax, it will be worse if you don't."
Worse? Hockney wondered what the hell Kitaj was going to do with him. With one hand holding Hockney's arse cheeks apart, the top slipped something cold and wet into the sub's anus. Why was Kitaj doing that Hockney wondered? Then his bum started tingling, and the sub tried to clench his rim of dark pleasures tight to stop Kitaj pushing the unknown thing in any further. Despite Hockney's pitiful attempt to struggle against it, the strangely carved vegetable kept going in deeper and deeper. And while this was happening the tingling had progressed into a burning.
"This Hockney is called figging, the tighter you clench, the more it hurts and burns."
"What is it sir?"
"Ginger, four inches of it, freshly cut and shaped for your naughty little bumhole…"
Hockney winced as Kitaj stepped back to retrieve his cane, The sub had no choice now but to relax because the more he tightened his gluts and pelvic core the more the ginger burned him. He wondered how much the caning would hurt? Determined to stay relaxed, Hockney awaited the third stroke of his punishment. And it came. Harder than the last two on his now bare and figged bottom.
"Ahh shit, fuck, oahh, th-three sir." Hockney had been relaxed for the stroke, but then clenched on the ginger once he felt the pain of it, getting the worst of all worlds. And yet through it all his cock was throbbing, desperate for some attention. For a moment sexual desire took over from the agony.
"That was not three, boy, we had to start again, and your appalling language has done little to help you, counting is clearly too difficult for your hormone crazed brain to handle - that's right, I have seen how hard your little dick has got from me punishing you. Let's try it again, five more strokes."
Kitaj walked around to the desk, and shoved Hockney's filthy skidmarked drawers into the sub's gob. The smalls were wet with piss and shit and tasted dirty in Hockney's mouth, Before Hockney could consider using his tongue to push the underwear out of his north and south, they were taped firmly in place and he was instructed to remain silent.
The next three strokes came in quick succession, one after the other on the delicate fold between the leg and the cheek. That is to say he was being whacked on the gluteal sulcus, also known as the gluteal fold, the horizontal gluteal crease, or the fold of the buttocks. It is an area on the body of humans and great apes described by a horizontal crease formed by the inferior aspect of the buttocks and the posterior upper thigh. The gluteal sulcus is formed by the posterior horizontal skin crease of the hip joint and overlying fat, and is not formed by the lower border of gluteus maximus, which crosses the fold obliquely. It is one of the major defining features of the buttocks in both great apes and humans.
But Hockney was not giving much thought to anatomy. The sting of the cane mixed with the burn of the ginger, leaving him in a state of sexual agony. His anticipation of the next stroke forced his buttocks to clench hard around the ginger, intensifying the burning sensation and immediately making him relax in an attempt to dull the pain. Kitaj waited for that moment before he struck. This stroke came firmer than the previous three and was immediately followed by another swift blow.
As the sixth stroke came, Hockney's body thrust forward by the three millimetres available to it. The sub's knob, trapped between his body and the desk, rubbed pleasurably against the tough oak. Hockney let out a low moan despite the shit-smeared gag in his mouth. This cry articulated both pain and sexual arousal. Kitaj heard it and let out a disapproving chuckle. Hockney, meanwhile, thrust his cock against the desk in an attempt to gain some release from that hard and sexy surface.
As the seventh stroke smashed into Hockney's reddened backside, it greatly added to his sense of extreme sexual arousal, and all pain was washed away by the genetic urges coursing through his core. Hockney awaited stroke eight. The sub was unable to see his master, but he felt his hand, cold against his burning bumhole, making its way towards the ginger plug. And then the pain intensified. Kitaj was fucking Hockney's arse with the ginger, renewing the sensations that had begun to subside.
Then it finally came! The eighth and last stroke of the cane. It was, in fact, the eleventh stroke - and Hockney's arse burnt and stung like it had been attacked by a swarm of angry bees who believed their queen to be imprisoned in the sub's guts. The bottom's cock was hard and pressed against the art school desk.
Then Kitaj spoke. "Well done, boy. You dealt with that well in the end. Was it really worth making all that fuss over?"
Hockney tried to speak, but through the shitty gag his words came out as an incomprehensible murmur. He wasn't going to argue. His love muscle was too hard and his bulk ached for release too much for him to do anything. He simply found himself grateful for the restraints. They kept him from falling to the floor.
"However, I am disappointed at this." As he spoke Kitaj reached underneath Hockney and cruelly prodded his throbbing member. "It seems I have done little to teach you in the long term about the consequences of unauthorised cock sucking. It seems that no matter what I do you are only able to think with your dick..."
After the figging Hockney was convinced that thinking with his dick wasn't such a bad idea - since it opened up so many orgasmic possibilities. He even made a student painting on the theme entitled "Be A Man, Think With Your Dick" but unfortunately it has been lost to posterity.

watched a bunch of Robert Altman films, most of them I think were on the boxset to pad it out really, but damned if this doesn't stick with me the most:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1ESzFocBj4

One of the best musical performances I can think of in as unlikely a vehicle as a Robert Altman teen comedy. Unsure of how the band and Altman became entangled but I'm not sure I want to really. #

Simon, via his own bloggige, bringing this article to attention, re '80s revivalisms as demo-trageting marketing trend. Which reminds me of why this is the one "decades blog" that I was always hard-pressed to ever contribute to.

 According to the marketing logic cited in the NYer article,  I should be winsomely nostalgic for the 1980s. It's the decade in which I went to high school, entered adulthood, finally got out of the shithole town I'd grown up in by eventually going off to college, & etc etc. Yet it's probably the one decade I feel the least the nostalgic about. Why? Because it was a totally shit decade. Because of the politics; because of the economics; because of all the shit music and shit fashion, all of which was inescapably hegemonic at the time due to the way media and culture worked in those days.

 All of which is why, quite frankly, I'm quite fine with seeing the decade being associated -- by way of the cited marketing campaigns -- the last place that most people would ever go to shop for electronics, a lowest-tier fast food chain, and a video game that is unanimously considered the worst in history. Seems only fitting.

I am barely awake. I know I risk the titters of the enlightened for saying such a thing. "Ah, he is slumbering in the otter darkness." Or perhaps I mean outer darkness. But the typo is felicitous, even fateful, for when I go haring off to Google Images to find an appropriate Otter, where do I find this one but on a site called The Interpretation of Dreams. This was not intentional, I assure you, but does serve to underscore the ubiquity of what I set out - after such a long hiatus - to discuss today. The page where I found this furry water sprite says:

If in a dream you see, how otters peacefully dive and lap in transparent water, in reality to you the happiness and good luck are prepared. For bachelors such dream promises successful marriage. 

The page is festooned with astrological sun signs and other assorted paraphernalia of the psychic prediction business. To me, the happiness and good luck are prepared indeed, because what I was meaning to discuss was precisely this sort of magical thinking. However, the Otter was merely a gift from Source, as Marianne Williamson might say. I wasn't really shooting for such low-hanging fruit as broken-English dreambooks.

What does this do? bear with me: just messing with the HTML. this post is a work in progress, as I'm having to relearn my own Blogger template! But let's see what happens if I drop this graphic in...

"Within the system of debt, the individualization of Welfare State policies is no longer solely disci­plinary, since it entails a detailed analysis of the ability to "repay," which is repeatedly assessed on an individual basis. It always implies a "moral" evaluation of the individual's actions and modes of life. Repayment will be made not in money but through the debtor's constant efforts to maximize his employability, to take a proactive role in his integration into the work or social environment, to be available and flexible on the job market. Debt repayment is part of a standardization of behavior that requires conformity to the life norms dictated by the institution. This "subjec­tive" relation between the public sector worker and the public assistance recipient, rather than moving beyond fetishism by reestablishing the "relation of man to man" spoken of by Marx, reveals itself instead as the source and height of the cynicism and hypocrisy of our "financialized" society. Continuous cynicism and hypocrisy not only in relations between bankers and customers, but also in relations between the State and the users of social services. In the same way as credit turns trust into distrust, the Welfare State suspects all users, and especially the poorest, of being cheats, of living at society's expense by taking advantage of public assistance instead of working. Under the conditions of ubiquitous distrust created by neoliberal policies, hypocrisy and cynicism now form the content of social relations."
Maurizio Lazzarato, The Making of Indebted Man

Last week Lighthouse hosted the future stars of digital culture, from coders and programmers, to animators and designers for a coding summer camp. The Young Rewired State participants, aged 11-18, spent four days devising and developing their projects fuelled on pizza and Pepsi. They then journeyed up to Birmingham's Custard Factory where they presented their creations along with their peers to a panel of judges at the Festival of Code.

The endlessly patient Emma O'Sullivan from sponsor Cogapp and Edd Parris from co-sponsor NixonMcInnes, who volunteered their time to organise and support the enthusiastic participants, led the group. Throughout the week the group were visited by a number of mentors who coached the young people on all manner of useful skills, from presenting to programming, prioritising to team-working. The mentors included a number of Lighthouse friends, including Seb Lee-Delisle, (who is kicking off the 2012 Brighton Digital Festival with his PixelPyros digital firework display) and Tobias Quinn, one of the Good For Nothing alumni.

At the end of day four I was invited downstairs to find out what they had been up to all week and to watch the youngsters introduce their final projects, which they would be presenting to the judges at the weekend. As I joined them they were frantically trying to finish their work, each selectively not hearing the calls to stop and begging for just a little more time.

When they finally settled down to share their work with the rest of the group and mentors, I can honestly say they left me slack-jawed and speechless! I knew these guys and girls had some special skills with computers but I was amazed at their level of social consciousness (much higher than many adults), their ability to create, translate their ideas and then present them so coherently. They built their own websites, games and one group even built their own programming language.

At the Festival of Code presentation weekend two of the Brighton teams were prize category finalists and one team impressed the judges so much they invented a new prize category; "Should Exist" for the group who created user-generated app called Way to Go, for people who have walking disabilities, which allows them to find and rate the accessibility of public places.

Read day by day blogs from Edd here and Emma's over-all review of the event here.

The Young Rewired State was so inspiring; it demonstrated that hacking was possible, no matter how old (or young) you are, no matter what your background or level of education. It made me want to learn to code! Let's hope they come back next year.

View pictures of the event on Flickr

As part of Brighton Digital Festival, Lighthouse presented a one-day conference looking at how artists, designers and filmmakers are using digital technology to improve reality.

Improving Reality featured some of the biggest names in digital art, such as Prix Ars Electronica winner, Julian Oliver, Blast Theory and Matt Hanson, as well as some stellar guests from the worlds of technology film and education including the BFI’s director of Digital, Paula Le Dieu, gaming gurus Adrian Hon and Alice Taylor, and designer and developer, Aral Balkan. The presentations covered a wide range of projects including interactive artworks, locative cinema experiences, mobile games, design-fictions, storytelling platforms, digital toys and distributed documentaries.

Session 1 – Reality Hacking
How artists and designers are shifting perceptions of place and time, by overlaying increasingly complex and imaginative layers onto our lived environment, through the use of augmented reality, 3D printing and other technologies. Speakers:

Julian Oliver – artist, critical engineer & winner of this year’s Prix Ars Electronica

Aral Balkan – user experience designer & curator of the Update conference
Jose Luis de Vicente - curator, writer and cultural researcher

Session 2 – Beyond Cinema
How filmmakers and artists are shifting our ideas about what cinema can be, adding cinematic drama to reality and reinterpreting creative processes and traditional business models. Speakers:

Matt Hanson – filmmaker, writer & creator of A Swarm of Angels

Lizzie Gillett – producer of the hit documentary film, Age of Stupid

Matt Adams – co-founder of Blast Theory, makers of the locative cinema experience, A Machine to See With

Jamie King - filmmaker, director of the acclaimed Steal This Film and co-founder of VO.DO

Session 3 – Gaming for Good
How artists and designers using games and play to morph and shift social and cultural reality. Speakers:

Tassos Stevens – co-founder of Agency of Coney, artist and maker of games like Papa Sangre & Nightmare High

Adrian Hon – next-generation storyteller and co-founder of Six to Start

Time’s Up – artists and makers of playful interactive experiences, including Stored in A Bank Vault

Alice Taylor – blogger, gaming guru and founder of MakieLab

Improving Reality was part of Brighton Digital Festival – a month-long celebration of digital culture, made up of events, exhibitions, performances, workshops, conferences and meet-ups that took place in venues and outdoor spaces across the city throughout September – http://brightondigitalfestival.co.uk/
It is part of PARN (Physical and Alternate Reality Narratives) - a pan-European project, developed by FoAM, Lighthouse, Blast Theory and Time's Up.

Supported by Arts Council England, the EU Culture Programme and Screen South.

Over the past three years, our MA in Digital Media Arts has adopted an interdisciplinary approach to digital media arts that enables students to utilise and develop their existing skills in an environment that encourages both innovation and high quality production. Taught both here at Lighthouse, and at the University of Brighton's Grand Parade campus, the MA provides excellent training for artists and arts professionals wishing to seek a career in the creative industries. It includes expert education in the subject areas of interaction design, programming, digital film, installation, public art and interactive art.

Live project work is encouraged so that students gain direct experience and develop valuable links in the digital media industries and wider cultural industries. Students are encouraged to attend Lighthouse's year-round programme of events and exhibitions, to develop a broad appreciation of digital art and culture. Students tend to become part of the wider social fabric of Lighthouse, and often become involved in our programmes and activities.

To find out more visit the University of Brighton's MA webpage

To apply for the MA, download an application form

The course is accredited by and run in partnership with the University of Brighton.

Entry Requirements: Relevant honours degree or recognised equivalent qualification and minimum one-year arts or design practice outside full-time education. Non-graduates with appropriate experience are also considered. Mature practitioners who have been out of education for a while are particularly welcome.

Attendance pattern: Full-time: 1 year / Part-time: 2 years

Location: Grand Parade Campus, University of Brighton and Lighthouse

Start Month: September 2013

Its been a whirlwind of a time here in Brighton as lovers of all things technological came together to celebrate digital culture throughout the month of September. Brighton, already well known for its digital and new media companies, did not disappoint, welcoming over 11000 visitors to over 60 events happening throughout the city.
The festival kicked off on 1 September with the launch of A Machine to See With by Blast Theory. As the month went on the festival showcased a diverse range of exhibitions, screenings, conferences, workshops and events.
The public's awareness of the festival was raised by digital and creative communications consultancy Fugu PR who worked closely with our partners, including the Brighton Dome and Arts Council England. Many leading digital commentators and journalists attended the festival and coverage of the festival featured on ITV and BBC Click, as well as in print via The Guardian, The Argus and many other newspapers.

BBC Click: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00k404s
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/digitalp
BBC Radio Sussex: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00k5s4z
ITV Meridian:
http://www.itv.com/meridian-west/secret-agents-needed53391/
http://www.itv.com/meridian-east/digital-goldie72888/
http://www.itv.com/meridian-west/fullprogramme

The high visitor turn-out and rave reviews of festival events, are a real testament to the community that organised the festival. It was indeed a grassroots effort. I think its safe to say that the organizers and the everyone involved in the Brighton Digital Festival can give themselves a pat on the back for a job well done.

Stored in a Bank Vault is a dynamic installation, which forms part of the Brighton Digital Festival. It provides a unique opportunity for the viewers to explore the secret hideout of a group of Bank Robbers and attempt to deduce their activities. It is now entering its final week of exhibition after opening on the 23rd of September.

During the preview of the exhibition, I had the unique opportunity of working as a tour guide, taking people from Lighthouse to Grey Area, where the installation is taking place. It was clear on the tour that people were excited about seeing the Project but had no idea what to expect. Some thought it was going to be an exhibition with paintings of Bank heists while others deduced that it would be a look into a Bank Robbers hideout. When we got there though everyone was quite surprised at the level of detail that went into the creation of the space and the amount of research that it must have required to pull it off, it seemed like Time's Up left nothing to chance and this made the experience all the more special.

Upon getting to Grey Area, I was amazed to see how enthusiastic people were about rummaging through the material in the space, all caution thrown to the winds as everyone put their thinking caps on and got to work deciphering the clues around them. This of course led to some interesting theories about what the robbers were up to, from exotic artifact smugglers to gold thieves. I personally am yet to come up with a concrete theory but I know it probably has something to do with a Bank?…

http://www.lighthouse.org.uk/programme/times-up-stored-in-a-bank-vault

You can find more information on their work at: http://www.timesup.org/overview/works

Today we are launching our new online game made for young people. Lives at War animates the dramatic history of Brighton during World War II, bringing the past vividly to life.

To mark the launch, the BBC are at Lighthouse interviewing some of the inspiring older people, whose stories and memories made the game into the rich narrative experience that it is. They’re also talking to the students from Longhill School who helped create the game, together with our collaborators, Corporation Pop

The immersive online game is set in Brighton in the 1940s. The virtual world uses game mechanics to draw players in to the lives and experiences of air‐raid survivors. Each player chooses an avatar through which to explore the world. Much of the content of the game was developed with a group of school children from Longhill, working with older people from Brighton who remember the war. Together they have visited museums, galleries and archives, participated in creative workshops, and investigated artifacts and archive films from Screen Archive South East.

Lives at War is built using the game engine, Unity3D, a powerful tool for creating video game environments, architectural visualizations, and interactive media installations. Using Unity3D enabled the developers to give the game stunning visual depth and excellent interactive features.

We’ve been working on this for well over a year, as part of our Past Present project, supported by Digital Film Archive Fund and the Heritage Lottery Fund. Whilst primarily designed as a teaching tool to help secondary school children learn about life on the Home Front during World War II, the game will have appeal to anyone curious, and we hope you’ll check it out.

We are tremendously grateful to Jamie Wyld from our team, who directed the project, Juliette Buss, who coordinated the project and made the amazing resource pack for teachers and filmmaker, Annis Joslin who worked with the students right the way through.

We hope you an make it along to the launch tonight.
But if you can’t, please do tune into the 6 o’clock news on BBC One this evening.

And have a play of the game and let us know what you think!
Play the game

Brighton Digital Festival launched on Thursday 1 September, and has, thus far, proved to be a resounding success.

At Phoenix Brighton gallery on Thursday evening, at the Private View of Solar Systems, stirring speeches by festival steering group member, Aral Balkan, Brighton & Hove City Councillor Geoffrey Bowden, and Arts Council regional director, Sally Abbott, emphasised how significant it is for Brighton to have a festival that raises the profile of its vibrant digital community.

The artistic programme kicked things off in fine style. Blast Theory‘s A Machine to See With wowed its first set of ’players’ who took on the lead role in a heist film, played out on the streets of Brighton. *Semiconductor*’s remarkable exhibition, Solar Systems is a homage to our nearest star – the Sun – and it dazzled those who came to the private views on Thursday and Friday. And Katy Connor’s Pure Flow installation at Permanent Gallery impressed and intrigued everyone from local passers-by to the BBC World Service.

On Friday, the first of Brighton Digital Festival’s six major conferences – dConstruct 2011 – packed out Brighton Dome. The conference had sold out months before, with it’s 800 tickets being snapped up in an incredible seven hours.
Over the course of the day, some the world’s major thought-leaders in digital design surprised and delighted a full house.

My highlights included Craig Mod’s wonderfully surreal tale of the origin of the book; Kars Alfrink’s thought-provoking account of the social disconnection which is rife in so many cities in Europe; Matthew Sheret’s charming account of timelord technology; and Kevin Slavin’s barnstorming reprisal of his MoMo Amsterdam lecture, Reality is Plenty, Thanks – an erudite critique of the new wave of augmented reality applications.

On Saturday Brighton’s first Mini Maker Faire opened it’s doors at Brighton Dome, and almost immediately was full of visitors of all ages. The faire showcased the ingenious and mind-boggling creations of over 40 makers, hackers and crafters from around the country. RepRap 3D printers, sat next to reel-to-reel tape loops; giant pantograph machines operated alongside BBC Micro computers; people played games of gingerbread chess, whilst Daleks held up traffic outside. Six-year olds learned to programme in BASIC and kids helped make 3D computer games. There were remote control submarines, a machine that made music from water, and live aquatic monsters you take could home as pets.

Mini Maker Faire attracted an incredible 5473 visitors over the day, showing just how vibrant the maker scene is, and how valuable it is to have a space where hackers, crafters and artists can meet.

On Sunday, the second conference of the festival got underway with a special banquet at Brighton’s iconic Royal Pavilion. Update 2011 – curated by Aral Balkan – focused on user experience design for mobile platforms. On Monday, in front of nearly 500 attendees at Brighton Dome, Update hosted talks on user experience design by leading lights Matt Gemmell and Sarah Parmentier, a passionate defence of open standards and the web by Jeremy Keith of Clearleft, a conversation with co-founder of Apple, Ronald Wayne, and an entertaining piece of live-coding by local developer and artist, Seb Lee-Delisle.

The team from BBC’s Click show – Bill Thompson, Colin Grant and Gareth Mitchell – were on hand to see it all, and a special edition of Click devoted to Brighton Digital Festival will be out later in September.

The festival is only it’s 9th day, and is already exceeding the expectations of the grassroots community that organised it. With over 60 conferences, exhibitions, performances, screenings, workshops, meet-ups and events throughout the month, there’s still plenty more to come.

For more see:

Brighton Digital Festival
A Machine to See With by Blast Theory
Solar Systems by Semiconductor
dConstruct 2011
Brighton Mini Maker Faire
Update 2011

To mark a quarter of a century, we invited staff and board members, past and present, and a few of our friends and colleagues to celebrate with us.

It was an opportunity for us to look back on what we’ve done over the past quarter century – and we were very fortunate to have Jane Finnis, a past director of Lighthouse, with us, to help us do that. But also just as importantly, we looked ahead to the immediate future.

Our party was on the eve of the launch of Brighton Digital Festival, a month long celebration of digital culture, put together by Brighton’s vibrant digital community. The festival has been bootstrapped by an amazing group of designers, developers, artists and tech companies, including our friends, Clearleft, and we were pleased to welcome their dConstruct 2011 crew to our event.

We previewed some of the projects that Lighthouse is presenting at the festival: A Machine to See With by Brighton’s digital heroes, Blast Theory, which you can experience using your mobile phone on the streets of Brighton over the next three weeks. And Black Rain by Semiconductor, which is showing in our stunning new exhibition we’ve curated at Phoenix Brighton, called Solar Systems

We also hosted live AV sets using Processing & PD, by Bartosz Dylewski and Barry Prendergast.

And of course no 25th birthday would be complete without a makeover! So we unveiled our new look and feel, plus our new website. We love the work that our designers, dandelion & burdock, have done for us, and were pleased to have them with us.

So all and all, a good way to mark 25 years of working at the interstices between art and technology.

It’s our 25th Birthday today. And to mark the occasion, we felt it was time to refresh our identity. So, we are proud to reveal a new visual identity and a new website.

Created by design consultancy dandelion & burdock, our new identity is fresh and energised. Our new logo includes a subtle suggestion of moving lights - something that resonates perfectly with our work, and with our organisation's name.

It’s been an exciting year for Lighthouse. We've welcomed a dynamic new director with a strong vision for our future, and unveiled a bold new programme. Our new visual identity puts us in good stead to navigate the bright future ahead.

Our new website is simple, easy to navigate and rich with images and information about our programmes, and is designed to help us better connect with our audiences. We'll use our new blog to share behind-the-scenes reports, news flashes, event updates and musings from our dedicated team.

Lighthouse's rebrand is the result of a long period of reflection, research and hard work. We'd like to thank our incredible communications consultant, Janette Scott, and dandelion & burdock for working with us.

To see more of their work please visit: http://www.dandelion-burdock.com/

Claire Hooper is one of 10 artists to be shortlisted for the highly regarded Jarman Award. Set up to celebrate artists who follow in the spirit of Derek Jarman, the Award acknowledges artists for taking risks, experimentation and inventiveness with the medium of film.

Earlier this year, Hooper was successfully selected from almost 70 applicants for the commission Sea-change, a three-month long residency at the Picture This Atelier in Bristol, where Hooper will shoot her latest film. This new work, provisionally titled Eris, will feature in a solo exhibition at Picture This’ Atelier space in early 2012. In addition, the work will be premiered in collaboration with Lighthouse at a venue in the South East.

Hooper's work has been shown widely internationally, including recent and upcoming shows at Lothringer 13, Munich; MUMOK, Vienna; Sketch, London; IT Park Taipei; Kunstwerke, Berlin, and various Serpentine gallery events. She is represented by Hollybush Gardens London and her work is distributed by Lux. She was the 2010 winner of the Baloise Art Prize at Statements, Art Basel.

To read more about Claire Hooper and Jarman Award 2011, please visit http://flamin.filmlondon.org.uk

Lighthouse are delighted to be working with Brighton's digital community on the 2011 Brighton Digital Festival. The festival features over 60 exhibitions, performances, meet-ups, workshops and outdoor events that meld Brighton's big-ticket digital conferences into a month of the fabulous, the futuristic and the unfathomable. Expect to see, hear and experience local and international artists - including Blast Theory, Semiconductor, Ben Fry, Joshua Davis, and Random Dance - and thinkers, doers and storytellers like Kevin Slavin, Robin Ince and Remy Sharp. The festival is a grassroots and community-run by a diverse range of people, including tech companies, arts organisations, designers, developers and people passionate about digital culture. It is coordinated by Lighthouse with support from Arts Council England.

Lighthouse are pleased to be leading on several programmes at the festival. Kicking it off is the English premiere of Blast Theory's A Machine to See With, a fast-paced locative cinema experience, which lets you star in your own heist movie on the streets of Brighton. Blending secret missions and high adrenalin, you will be in an interactive movie playing the lead role in bank robbery. Later on in September, we explore a different side of the anatomy of a heist, with the enigmatic installation, Stored in a Bank Vault by Time's Up, which gives us a tantalizing glimpse into the lair of bank robbers. Visitors enter a dark cellar; plans are laid out, a story unfolds, and it soon appears that the robbers may still be in the next room …

Lighthouse are proud to present a major new exhibition by internationally renowned digital artists and filmmakers Semiconductor. Their beautiful Solar Systems exhibition at Phoenix Gallery, brings together three installations that use different technologies - photography, satellites, and CGI - to explore the relationship between the Sun and the Earth.

Lighthouse is also presenting an education programme which inspires young people to use digital technology in new ways. One of the highlights is the launch of Lives at War, an exciting new online game made for young people. Bringing history vividly to life, this game puts players in the centre of a story unfolding on the streets of Brighton during World War II.

Brighton Digital Festival features no less than 6 major conferences, exploring different aspects of digital culture. Our own one-day conference is Improving Reality, an inspiring day of talks that explore how of how artists and designers are shifting our perceptions of the world, not only using technology to augment reality but to actually improve it! Major names in digital art including Julian Oliver and Agency of Coney, join filmmakers Jamie King and Matt Hanson, and digital opinion-formers Adrian Hon and Alice Taylor. Not to be missed.

Rounding the month off is Data is Nature, an eye-popping array of audio-visual performances showing us where digital technology meets nature. Bringing Brighton Digital Festival to a close, this night of audio-visual delights and surprises includes stunning performances by audiovisual artist, Quayola, renowned musician Mira Calix, and rising star, Paul Prudence.

Brighton Digital Festival has a so much to offer, whether you're a digital culture-vulture or not, there's something for everyone. See you there!

To see the festival’s full line-up, please visit www.brightondigitalfestival.co.uk

One of the (many) strengths of the Guiding Lights mentoring programme is the network it has created among participants (both mentees and mentors), industry friends, sponsors, peers and partners.

The strength and vibrancy of this network was evident on Thursday evening, in the bustling Benugos bar at the BFI Southbank, where current and previous Guiding Lights mentees gathered to catch up, talk film, and get a little merry.

It was a fantastic turnout, with participants present from across all four years of the scheme and 100% attendance from the twelve newest mentees - particularly impressive given that six of them had travelled from Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Liverpool!

With Lighthouse’s Head of Film, Emily Kyriakides and Guiding Lights Coordinator, Becca Ellson making introductions, and many of those present already familiar with each other, the room was soon alive with film industry chatter. In fact, people seemed to be getting on so well, it won't be long till we see more inter-mentee collaborations.

In 2009-10, Lighthouse and BBC Film Network commissioned and produced four short films. Showcasing the talents of four exciting filmmaking teams, the films cover a range of styles and genres from drama to animation, and feature familiar faces such as John Henshaw, Celia Imrie, Jodie Whittaker and Jim Carter.

In 2011, two of the shorts were nominated for major film industry awards, the Academy Awards and the BAFTAs. All of the films have been well received on the international film festival circuit with official selections at Edinburgh International Film Festival, Palm Springs International ShortFest, Soho Rushes and LA Shorts Film Festival amongst many others.

WISH 143 (UK – 2009 – 22 mins)
Writer: Tom Bidwell
Director: Ian Barnes
Producer: Samantha Waite
Cast: Jim Carter, Jodie Whittaker, Annette Badland, Sam Holland

A fifteen-year-old boy with only months to live is granted one wish from the Dreamscape Charity. But David doesn’t want to go to Disneyland or meet Gary Neville; all he wants is an hour alone with a naked woman.

TURNING (UK – 2009 – 10 mins)
Writer/Directors: Karni & Saul
Producers: Kat Armour-Brown, Alison Sterling
Cast: Patrick Gibbs, Audrey Holt, Maureen Wild, Carol Kirkland

On his sixth birthday, Robert receives three beautiful broken old birds in his mother’s sitting room. A memory of an afternoon with tea and cake, lace pink slips and a tale of an emperor with no skin. Co-funded by Stink.

MUNRO (UK – 2009 – 16 mins)
Writer/Director: Michael Keillor
Producers: Daniel Healy, David Reilly, Pete Thornton
Cast: David Hayman, Jamie Michie

Enduring an ill-judged camping trip into the wild Scottish Highlands, father and son Bill and Robbie have to face up to the difficult secrets they’ve kept from each other. Starring David Hayman and Jamie Michie. Co-funded by Scottish Screen.

CONVERSATION PIECE (UK – 2009 – 5 mins)
Writer/Director: Joe Tunmer
Producer: Enrico Tessarin
Cast: Celia Imrie, John Henshaw

One sleepy Sunday morning, Jean notices a chip on a treasured vase. Employing a variety of tactics, she attempts to get to the bottom of the situation. Celia Imrie and John Henshaw star in this unique musical-of-sorts set to the music of jazz cornetist Rex Stewart.

Lighthouse welcomed Matt Locke, a leading figure within the UK’s digital media landscape, as the speaker for our October Monthly talk, which took place during Brighton Photo Biennial 2010. As well as being on the board of the Brighton Photo Biennial, and having a passion for photography, Matt Locke is better known for his influential and innovative work at Channel 4 and the BBC.

At Lighthouse, Matt spoke about new forms of narrative and social media.

Matt is Acting Head of Crossplatform at Channel 4, responsible for building engaging online projects around some of the channel’s key programmes. Before this, he was Commissioning Editor for Channel 4 Education, working with the Education team to commission online projects that deliver informal learning in innovative and exciting ways to teenage audiences. Their projects have won numerous awards, including a BAFTA, BIMA and Flash Forward award for Bow Street Runner, an EMMY for Battlefront and two SXSW awards for Smokescreen and 1066.

In 2010, Matt set up “The Story”, a one-day conference about stories and story-telling across different media, which attracted leading speakers from within the technology, theatre and media sectors. The curator of Brighton Photo Biennial 2010, Martin Parr, is a speaker at the next edition of the conference in February 2011. Before Channel 4, Matt was Head of Innovation for BBC New Media & Technology, responsible for developing and running research programmes within the BBC and with external partners, including developing academic and industry partnerships, and open innovation initiatives. Prior to joining the BBC, Locke worked as a curator, specialising in the social adoption of technology. He commissioned several important artworks, such as Tim Etchells’s seminal SMS work, ‘Surrender Control’ (2000). Matt also writes regularly about the cultural impact of digital technology at his own site Test, and contributes to publications and conferences on a wide range of topics related to digital media.

Lighthouse’s Monthly Talks are held on the first Thursday of each month, and feature key national and international figures within digital culture and film. The talks give audiences an opportunity to engage with some of the most vibrant figures within both the digital media and film sectors.

View photos from the talk on our flickr page

Enabled by Screen South and the RIFE lottery funding programme.

Laboratory Life was a unique, interactive art-science laboratory, open to the public. Conceived and led by artist Andy Gracie, a group of international artists and scientists from the UK, Spain and the US worked with young doctors, scientists and emerging artists, to create a series of projects exploring the cutting edge of medical technology in a living laboratory at Lighthouse. These projects were showcased in an exhibition at Brighton Science Festival.
What makes this project unique was its open nature. Most laboratories are closed to the public, and we have little idea of what goes on inside them. But Laboratory Life adopted a radically open structure, inviting the public to come and visit the laboratory, meet the artists and scientists as they were working, and discuss what they were doing.
Visitors met artists Andy Gracie, Adam Zaretsky, Kira O’Reilly, Bruce Gilchrist, and Anna Dumitriu, who were working with sixteen exceptional doctors, scientists and artists, Sarah Roberts, Brian Degger, Melissa Grant, Kate Genevieve, Simona Casonato, David Louwrier, Daksha Patel, Kuiashen Auson, Janine Fenton, Meredith Walsh, Valerie Furnham, Columba Quigley, Genevieve Maxwell, Zack Denfield, Helen Bullard and Simon Hall. Scientists, John Paul (Health Protection Agency), Helen Smith (Brighton & Sussex Medical School), and Tom Shakespeare (World Health Organisation) provided expert advice.
The artists and scientists created five art-science projects which formed the basis of a fascinating exhibition at Lighthouse, featuring DNA tattooing, astrobiology, microbiological textiles and much more which was open to the public 2-6 March 2011.
On 3 March, Andy Gracie, Kira O'Reilly and Anna Dumitriu spoke about their experiences of taking part in the Lab, and will discuss the process of making work using biomedical technology.
On 5 March, Lighthouse hosted a public forum, where the public can debate the role of new technology in medicine.

To find out more about what they got up to, check out the participants’ blog: http://lablife.posterous.com/

The Projects

Public Misunderstanding of Science
Led by Bruce Gilchrist.
Collaborators: Kate Genevieve, Simona Casonato, David Louwrier, Daksha Patel
This group of artists and scientists spent several days testing the public's understanding of science. Visitors to their laboratory were invited to draw and illustrate their understandings of scientific information and protocol, while listening to scientific discourse on synthetic biology.
Their exhibition of work-in-progress is an animated film, which features the drawings sound-tracked with the original discourse and field recordings made on-site at a medical laboratory.

Infective Textiles
Led by Anna Dumitriu
Collaborators: Rosie Sedgwick, Sarah Roberts, Brian Degger, Melissa Grant
This group of artists, doctors and scientists worked on the development of a textile-based artwork that takes the form of a Regency-style dress stained with bacterial pigments and patterned by antibiotics.
Their exhibition features the Regency style dress, which has now been pasteurized so that the bacteria are no longer living, video documentation of their project, framed works (which show slides of cultured bacteria and moulds, Gram's stain paintings embroidered with antibiotic threads and drawings made by visitors to the lab) and a table of items used in their lab.

The Quest for Drosophila Titanus
Led by Andy Gracie
Collaborators: Kuaishen Auson, Janine Fenton, Meredith Walsh
This group of scientists and artists were engaged in an astrobiological experiment using various phenotypes of Drosophila melanogaster (the fruit fly), one of the most important organisms used in developmental biology and genetics.
Their exhibition of work-in-progress includes the experimental chamber, video documentation of the experiments, a printed manual which describes the experimental process, the breeding colony and the memorial to failed individuals.

Tattoo Traits
Led by Adam Zaretsky
Collaborators: Zack Denfield, Helen Bullard, Simon Hall
This group of artists and doctors examined the feasibility of a new notion - "DNA Tattooing". They explored the ethical, legal, and health issues that might be raised by such a process. Their work involved the creation of a “new media” which they have referred to as Shecan, and the extraction of hybrid DNA from this media. They then adapted a tattoo gun, with the intention of tattooing a novel sequence of hybrid DNA into the nucleus of a living cell, something which is statistically improbable, but conceptually possible.

The Garden Shed Lab
Led by Kira O’Reilly
Collaborators: Valerie Furnham, Columba Quigley, Genevieve Maxwell
This group of artists and scientists created a space for exploring the relationship between biotechnologies and domestic everyday experiences, such as cooking, tinkering, composting, and gardening.
Their exhibition of work-in-progress features their garden shed, containing their home-made sterile hood and incubator, their laboratory equipment and photographs and video they made whilst on site.

Dates:
Open Laboratory: 20 – 28 February 2011
Exhibition preview: 01 March 2011, 6-9pm
Exhibition: 02 – 07 March 2011, 11am-6pm
Talk by Lead Artists: 03 March 2011, 7pm
Open Forum: 05 March 2011, 2pm

Venue: Lighthouse, 28 Kensington St, Brighton BN1 4AJ

Laboratory Life was organised by Lighthouse and The Arts Catalyst
Support from the Wellcome Trust
It was conceived by artist Andy Gracie, based on the Interactivos? model developed by the Media Lab Prado in Madrid.
Part of Brighton Science Festival.

All five projects will be presented this November as part of the Microwave Festival.

To celebrate and contextualise her exhibition at Brighton Festival 2011 Australian artist Lynette Wallworth gave a gallery talk at the University of Brighton galleries.

Lynette Wallworth’s artistic practice spans digital media, video installation, photography and film. Her work has been presented at the Auckland Triennial, Melbourne International Arts Festival and the Sydney festival as well as being exhibited internationally from Arnolfini, The Young Vic and Festival d’Aix en Provence in Europe to New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in the United States.
Wallworth’s responsive environments lead visitors to transcend their everyday selves and to connect with universal themes that include and describe their own existence. Always experimenting with the newest digital technologies, Wallworth’s ability to build a sense of community and compassion with these tools is startling. Beauty, revelation and wonder are celebrated in her works, fusing mind and body through the fundamental means of the haptic and the optic, light and touch.
Lynette describes her intention as "bringing together technological advances and ancient understandings, new media and old practices, electronics and the electricity of human touch."

Date: Sunday 8 May 2011

Time: 3.30pm

Venue: University of Brighton Gallery, 58-67 Grand Parade, Brighton

Presented at the University of Brighton galleries in partnership with Brighton Festival.
Supported by Arts Council England

Suspending Disbelief brought together works of contemporary art and design which exist in the interstices between the real and the fictional. The artists who participated in the exhibition materialise speculative ideas, near-futures, or illusory realities, in a series of verisimilar devices, sculptures, interactive objects, photographic scenarios and installations which challenge our perception of what is plausible. All the works shown in Suspending Disbelief were being shown in Brighton for the first time.

The exhibition was part of Brighton’s major digital design conference, dConstruct, which each year brings leading names in design and user interaction to the UK. It is organised by the design agency, Clearleft and takes place at Brighton Dome on 3 September 2010, featuring speakers such as Brendan Dawes (magneticNorth) and David McCandless (Information is Beautiful).

The exhibition extends the notion of design thinking into the physical realm, taking place across two sites: At Lighthouse, the work of Caleb Larsen, Julian Oliver and Andrew Friend were on display from 28 August – 5 September. At Brighton Dome, Becca Gill & Jay Kerry showed their work for the audiences of dConstruct on 3 September, accompanied by a film documenting the other works in the exhibition, made by Toby Amies.

The works in Suspending Disbelief go beyond being mere puzzles: they were reality hacks, conceptual conundrums and physicalised thought-experiments which call into question everyday logic and its interaction rules and rituals. They included a physical sculpture made by American artist, Caleb Larsen, that is perpetually attempting to auction itself on eBay; a series of uncannily real yet seemingly impossible devices created by London-based designer, Andrew Friend; a 3D spatial memory game made by Berlin-based artist Julian Oliver, that takes the form of a digital Echeresque-world; and an installation by Bristol artists, Becca Gill & Jay Kerry where the trickery and illusion of 19th century magic is materialised through pervasive media.

Suspending Disbelief was a pilot project, developed in partnership with Arts Council England and Clearleft, which looks at the relationship between art and digital creative industries. In 2011, we will extend this pilot by delivering Brighton Digital Festival, which further explores digital culture and the interplay between, artists, audiences and makers, and designers.

Dates:
Lighthouse: 28 August – 5 September 2010, Brighton Dome: 3 September 2010.

Times: 11am – 6pm

Venue: Lighthouse, 28 Kensington St, Brighton BN14AJ

Supported by Arts Council England and Clearleft

Lighthouse were pleased to present two major installations by Australian artist, Lynette Wallworth in partnership with the Brighton Festival 2011 and the University of Brighton.
Damavand Mountain is an elegant work made from footage obtained by Wallworth during a residency in a small Iranian mountain village, Poloor, north-east of Tehran. A series of images track the cycle of a short lived poppy flower, a woman and a snow covered mountain. The movements of the flowers petals, the woman's chador and the clouds suggest the impact of invisible forces that shape them daily. Their adjustments to the changing environment evoke a sense of endurance in human nature and nature itself. Through this series of visual metaphors Damavand Mountain presents a poetic and unobtrusive exploration of the global and governmental forces that shape the lives of those in Iran and around the world.
The work is exhibited alongside the immersive installation, Evolution of Fearlessness.

Dates: 7 May 2011 – 9 June 2011

Venue: University of Brighton Gallery, 58-67 Grand Parade, Brighton

Presented at the University of Brighton galleries in partnership with Brighton Festival.
Curated by Lighthouse.
Produced by Forma.
Commissioned by New Crowned Hope.
Supported by Arts Council England

Lighthouse were delighted to be part of Brighton Festival 2011. We partnered on the presentation of two major exhibitions by contemporary artists, Kutluğ Ataman and Lynette Wallworth.
Animating the atmospheric disused space of the Old Municipal Market, Ataman's exhibition brought together two works which use the theme of water to meditate on political change. The centrepiece is the world premiere of Mayhem. In this new multi-screen film installation, commissioned by Brighton Festival, water is used to subtly symbolise the transformational energy of revolution. It is presented with Su, a video installation shown in the UK for the first time.
The Guest Director of Brighton Festival 2011 is Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace laureate. Inspired by her, the festival celebrates themes of freedom of expression, liberty, and the power of the individual voice in society. These works by Ataman strongly resonate with these themes, at a time where revolutionary change is sweeping through Ataman's own region. Ataman passionately believes in the need for democracy and freedom of expression in his native Turkey, and in the wider region.



In Mayhem, Ataman transports us to another Mesopotamia - "la Mesopotamia" in Argentina, itself located between the Paraná and Uruguay rivers. Here, in what Ataman describes as an “alternative promised land”, we are confronted by the spectacular and chaotic energy of the Iguazu Falls. In what he refers to as a direct response to the uprisings taking place in his own region, Ataman casts water as both a cleansing and destructive force. Just as water shapes and transforms nature, the Arab Spring is sweeping aside old structures and allowing new ones to evolve.
Su takes its name from the Turkish word for water. It was filmed over a year, and illustrates the different moods of the Bosphorus strait, the narrow strip of water that separates Europe from Asia. Formed of two split-screen installations, each a mirror image of the other, Su calls to mind the fluid, constantly changing nature of geographical boundaries. As visitors enter, they are met with one of the key phrases of Islam – “There is no God but Allah” – written in cuneiform script, superimposed onto the shifting waters. In one screen the text is reversed, as it is in some mosques in Turkey. 
In Su, two realms often thought of as separate and opposite are united.
Ataman intends to complete filming for Mesopotamian Dramaturgies in Syria, and was only recently prevented from doing so by the current political instability there.
Kutluğ Ataman is a filmmaker and contemporary artist. His work has been shown internationally at major forums such as Documenta, and the Venice Biennale, and at notable exhibitions at the Serpentine, Istanbul Modern Art Museum and many other galleries. His work is in international collections, including those of MoMA and Tate Modern. He is a recipient of the highly prestigious Carnegie Prize and has been nominated for the Turner Prize.
Kutlug Ataman is represented worldwide by Thomas Dane Gallery.
Press: 

BBC World Service The Strand: http://is.gd/thestrand
BBC Radio 4 Start The Week: http://is.gd/starttheweek
BBC Radio 4 Front Row: http://t.co/CeIQjXc
The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/may/07/this-weeks-new-exhibitions
Culture 24: http://www.culture24.org.uk/art/sculpture+%26+installation/art355655
http://www.culture24.org.uk/art/photography+%26+film/art356409

Dates: 7 May – 29 May 2011

Times: 5:00pm-9:00pm, Monday to Friday & 12:00pm-7:00pm, Saturdays and Sundays

Venue: The Old Municipal Market, Circus Street, Brighton, BN2 9QF

Mayhem was commissioned by Brighton Festival and Vehbi Koc Foundation, Turkey.

Su was commissioned by Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts.


With thanks to Arts Council England, Brighton & Hove City Council, University of Brighton and Thomas Dane Gallery.
Presented in association with Lighthouse.

Solar Systems is Semiconductor's first major exhibition in the south east for four years. Drawing together three recent installations that explore our relationship with the Sun, Solar Systems is curated by Lighthouse in partnership with Phoenix Brighton for Brighton Digital Festival.

Heliocentric is a stunning single channel digital video installation made from time-lapse photography and astronomical tracking of the Sun’s trajectory across a series of landscapes.

The highly acclaimed Black Rain uses images collected by the solar satellite STEREO, which studies the solar wind and the Sun’s coronal mass ejections, as they head towards Earth.

The rarely seen Out of the Light is a time-based sculpture which shows how celestial events, such as a solar eclipse or the transit of Venus, can reveal themselves through the play of light and shadow.

These works are emblematic of the artists' ongoing investigation of the natural world, which has resulted in major works on astronomy (Brilliant Noise, 2006), and geology (Worlds in the Making, 2011). Their unique approach has won them fellowships and residencies in significant scientific locations such as NASA's Space Sciences Lab, the Galapagos Islands and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Their work is part of several international public collections and has been exhibited globally including Venice Biennale, The Royal Academy, Hirshhorn Museum, BBC, ICA and the Exploratorium.
See their work at: www.semiconductorfilms.com

Dates: 3 September - 15 October 2011

Times: Wednesday – Sunday 11am – 5pm

Preview: Friday 2 September 5 – 7pm

Venue: Phoenix Gallery, 10-14 Waterloo Place, Brighton, BN2 9NB: http://www.phoenixarts.org/

Meet The Artists: Thursday 8 September 7pm, Semiconductor talk about their work in this free artist talk at Phoenix Gallery.

Part of Brighton Digital Festival
http://brightondigitalfestival.co.uk/

Supported by Arts Council England

Best meta-intro?







#

As well as musical, there are also spoken (and sampled) intros broadening the spectrum of really great intros, of which this must be one of the best.

A few weeks ago my girlfriend and I went to Cornwall for a late summer holiday in a caravan park, the kind where there is a round of bingo every night and an Adele tribute act as a "special treat" on a Friday.

It being September, the weather was ambivalent, to put it mildly. One day we found ourselves in Newquay in the middle of a rainstorm. Sheltering in the local Poundland, I came across a rack of CDs priced at a quid each, nearly all of which seemed to be from around 1996-'98. Aha! I thought. Here's my chance to turn this veritable cliche of a miserable British holiday into something truly lugubrious.

When the rain cleared (briefly, as it turned out) we walked back to the campsite with a fiver's-worth of terrible late-nineties music in a thin red-and-white stripey bag, and the way was prepared for an afternoon of painfully frustrated in-caravan boom-box listening that went some way towards curing my nineties nostalgia itch once and for all.

A couple of years back, we surveyed the years 1999-2002 on this blog and judged it to have been some kind of peak for something or other. Whether or not this is the case, my Cornwall koshmar made me think that the preceding period was unquestonably a great cultural nadir of incomparable shitness. Indeed, in comparison with '96-'98, the later "noughties nightmare" we have discussed elsewhere seems like a time of heady artistic flowering redolent of the high years of the Florentine Renaissance.

Yes friends, these may have been the years of Mogwai, Beta Band, Timbaland, Underworld, Stereolab, and all manner of diverse EDM artistry, but this was also the heyday of bands like Ultrasound and Dawn of the Replicants.

NEVER FORGET.

Those Poundland purchases were as follows ...


Arnold, Hillside (1998)




Creation Records folded the year after this came out.


Marion, This World and Body (1996)


Somehow, this manages to combine the worst features of Suede, Oasis, and, err, Mansun, which is no mean feat.


The Unbelievable Truth, Almost Here (1998)


Wow. To think I was once envious of my bezzie pal Graeme for owning this.


Delakota, One Love (1998)


Wait, this is actually really good.


Tricky, Pre-Millenium Tension (1996)


And this is clearly awesome. What was I trying to argue again?

The oldest kind of branding the nation knows, to paraphrase.



Britannia reaching towards reclaiming a genre that was ditched a hundred years ago, only that Military Wives tune despite marking a sea-change (when else could it have reached Christmas No 1?) is a bit of an outlier. In the British experience at least after the First World War, war songs came pre-packaged with melancholy and a different sort of sentimentality: that British society of boundless optimism and great-game playing was to a degree 'destroyed' as Paul Fussell has it here.

Of course since the Second World War there hasn't been a war of enough magnitude to require uplifting songs, and this seems to have stuck for a time: unlike in the US everyone from country singers to rappers didn't immediately make their contributions. Post-2008 this gradual re-branding of the nation with it's base components has accelerated faster than it would have done otherwise: it is two of the oldest British (English) institutions that have found themselves doing the most well, Army and Church. One has found itself become a beloved public institution able to dodge most of the criticism in-coming by appropriating emotion and anti-war critique along with the usual dogma; the other has found itself in it's 19th century role as most-often heard critic of the ills of the poor, a role that Robert Tressell and Joe Hill skewered around the same time.

The audio of the patriotic hymn comes accompanied with a pre-packaged "sort of controlled despair" that is as much a selling point as John Bull-ism. A youtube subgenre however exists consisting of jocular squaddies larking to pop tunes in the desert, gritty in-action footage, and video montages set to either ethereal melancholia or blood-thirsty dirge depending on temperament.

What happened this week is unremarkable in the history of the British army. The audio recording however is, something feeling very odd about both the awareness and performativity of what's being done, and the indifference to which it was treated by those who years before would have had at least something to say.

Something which seems to rapidly becoming lost in the recurring arguments for and against Dawkins and rational/scientific rationalism is that this is probably an evolutionary adaptation of what has come before (indeed check our William Shockley, who went from crucial scientific innovation, to popular speaking, to racism: some fairly strong parallels there). The living legacy of scientific racism has never truly been discarded or buried, either in practiceor in thinking:


Here Charles Murray, one of the most influential standard-bearers of the Right's campaigns against the post-1960s developments in regards to race and the family, echoes more or less everything the Left has said about 'The White Working Class Community.' Our current elites are too distant and too disconnected to understand 'our decline', and the rest of the populace is too lost without guidance, solved in Murray's view by having the wealthy elite re-instruct us in the grand old ways of the pre-60s. What Murray and the left believe in unison is that the decline of the white working class is a problem of genetics and the passage of time. In 1984 Murray's Losing Ground would advocate reconstruction of welfare in the US; in 1996 the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Actattacked those groups Murray and his ilk felt were the cause of the country's decline: mothers and African Americans. Murray has experience in managing what he might call unruly populations: for a time Murray worked in Thailand on behalf of the US government carrying out counterinsurgency studies.
One of Murray's coups and a once ubiquitous for a time in US discussions was the publishing with Richard Herrnstein of The Bell Curve in 1994. Bravely the authors declared they could not ignore the wealth of IQ data which they had accumulated suggesting that America must face the facts: compared to whites, black people were possibly genetically less intelligent. Never-mind the distorted route by which intelligence testing came to find itself perfectly situated at he heart of American scientific racism, how it at the very best should be considered pseudo-scientific, or how it has been one of the most valuable footsoldiers in maintaining hierarchies. The genetic inheritance of intelligence is an area well-worth sniffing around because you never know who'll turn up. Putting their names to 1994's Wall Street Journal article "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" endorsing the views of the Bell Curve were respected intelligence researchers such as Raymond B. Cattell, Thomas J. Bouchard, Hans B. Eysenck, and Robert Plomin: these are not obscure backroom people but (Cattell and Eysenck especially) you will have encountered their ideas in some works training or seminar. Steven Pinker, to whom the world has already been pacified by liberal capitalism with the exception of some unruly outposts, approved this missive.
A figure who hasn't enjoyed a resurgence in popularity along with science pron nerd favourite Carl Sagan but is from the same era is the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould. Gould wasn't a prolific skeptic-buster, eager to throw himself into the industry that developed in the wake of Sagan and now has its avatars in Dawkins and co. In some of his last work Gould seemed to find a much better course in the friction between science and religion than his contemporaries preach. What Gould did in books such as The Mismeasure of Man was apply skepticism to ruling doctrines within science and psychology, and came away with what added up to the collusion and deception on a mass scale by eugenicists to forge the data to support their theories. Gould faced criticism for being ideologically driven in the face of the blistering destruction he delivered to the academic racists; usually, when the ideological biases of something are brought up (as Gould himself honestly does in the work) it is to distract from the fact that the entire body surrounding it is being driven by an opposing ideology.

These people are thanking Kat Herding for following them on Twitter. Little do they know that I am "Kat Herding" and that I've added them, along with about 100 others, to my new Twitter list: Crackpotz.

Naturally, this requires further explication -- as does my absence here since May 22, but we'll get to that.

Twitter just recently implemented these lists, and it took me a day or two to figure out what they were for and how they worked. Then the penny dropped. Oh! I immediately flashed on the Mystic B Rogues Gallery I put together back in January. With a Twitter list, I could update that, expand on it, plus make it more interactive and, you know, modern. For instance, let's listen in on what some of these jokers are saying right this very minute!

Deepak Chopra: You were born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life?

Marianne Williamson: Expect less from other people; expect more from universal supply.

Wayne Dyer: An infinity of forests lie dormant within the dreams of one acorn.

Jean Houston: Are the UFO's full of ET's at a galactic sporting event, on the edge of their seats betting on whether we will make it or not?

James Arthur Ray: I am spending the weekend in prayer and meditation for all involved in this difficult time...

As you can see, metaphor is big with these folks. That is, unless they actually think people fly and acorns dream. Or that "this difficult time" is an appropriate euphemism to use in reference to three people you just killed. However, given their many other strange beliefs -- such as, oh let's see... "universal supply" and "UFO's full of ET's" -- I suppose dreaming acorns are entirely possible. In fact, all these people are all about "the possible."

At this point I should probably recap why I started writing Mystic Bourgeoisie. Stop me if you've heard this before. My inspiration, if you could call it that, was the painful death of an important relationship. She always protested that she was not New Age. You've heard that one before, for sure. "Who me? Oh, I'm not New Age!" We've all heard it. Only terminal cases ever admit to the proclivity. Maybe the last gasp of those people who recently died in James Arthur Ray's Sedona sweat lodge was "Oh fuck, I guess I am New Age!" But of course, we'll never know if, even then, the denial was finally overcome. When you get right down to it, nobody wants to be seen as New Age because nobody wants to be seen as irreparably stupid.

Long story short, I took her at her word. Until after it was over, anyway, and I started asking myself what had happened, what had gone so terribly, irreparably wrong. "I'm spiritual but not religious," she once told me, and I was actually impressed. It sounded so smart. At the time. In the context. It's embarrassing to admit what a chump I was. But I was. A tool. A fool. An unwitting enabler of this grandiose self-absorbed bullshit. It wasn't until I encountered the book, Spiritual, but not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America, that I -- suddenly, thunderstruck -- understood it was a context-free cultural meme, a buzzword, a badge of membership in some amorphous faux-community held together only by the vague belief of its members that they are "not New Age."

So I started Mystic Bourgeoisie to explore what else might be hidden under the hood of nicey-nice sentiments and trendy affirmations of the type that are common as dirt here in Boulder, Colorado. Of course, I quickly came to realize that Boulder and Sedona and Big Sur had long ago lost whatever lock they once may have had on the market for mystically rationalized narcissistic personality disorders. Such spiritual-but-not-religious not-really-New-Age notions and nostrums had been packaged, marketed and widely exported, such that -- thanks to middleware mediums such as Hay House, The Secret, and The Oprah Winfrey Show --- they now constitute many of the unexamined "core values" of middle-class, middle-of-the-road America: a.k.a. the Mystic Bourgeoisie.

But of course, it didn't stop there. The phenomenon has gone gibberingly, grandiosely global -- and "established religions" have hardly been immune. Take Hinduism. Please.

Some of you will recognize many of my Crackpotz. Others will recognize only a handful. But I'm betting damn few will be familiar with these denizens of the Hindu Right. That's right: as in what some would call spiritually fascist. In no particular order...

Hindutva on Twitter on Wikipedia site Sangh Parivar on Twitter on Wikipedia site BJP on Twitter on Wikipedia site Narendra Modi on Twitter on Wikipedia site Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on Twitter on Wikipedia site

And this brings us back to why Mystic B has been virtually moribund since last Spring. The history of Hindutva and related right-wing racialism goes back two centuries, connecting German Romanticism, American Transcendentalism, Indian Nationalist terrorism, Esalen Institute, Transpersonal Psychology, and Ken Wilber's Integral-Everything-on-a-Stick. When I began to explore these connections and cross-pollinations, I had no idea what I was wading into. The links are deep, real, and ultimately mind-blowing. However, trying to unpack how this whole morass evolved -- not to mention how it has shaped the contemporary self-delusions of the Spiritual-But-Not-Religious set -- proved more of a challenge than I was prepared to deal with. It was daunting. I am daunted still.

But I have gritted my teeth, girded my loins, and decided to press on: ever deeper into the heart of darkness.

For "personal reasons." Sure, why not?
Deepak Chopra

Marianne Williamson

Wayne Dyer

Jean Houston

James A. Ray

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Sangh Parivar

Hindutva

Narendra Modi

(an example of Gurjarat "defamation")

Somewhere (in my garage, I think), I have a copy of Mary Douglas's Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. I need to look at it again. Maybe this time I could understand what she was on about, my previous efforts in that direction having always ended with me going, "Why did I buy this damn book, anyway?" Today I know: because God wanted me to read it.

I also know I shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, but if I could afford it, I'd buy this other Mary Douglas volume strictly on the strength of the following graphic. From what little I can glean, I guess the idea is that one big class of things people find risky, what they really fear, are various kinds of pollution and environmental toxins. Which is to say impurities. But that the purity that's being guarded (if not truly protected) by such fears might be something deeper. Hidden. Masked, you could say.

For instance, in the Wikipedia entry for Purification Rundown, we read...

[L. Ron] Hubbard put forward his ideas about Niacin in a book called All About Radiation. He claimed to have discovered that large doses of vitamins could both alleviate and prevent radiation sickness. He marketed this anti-radiation mixture in the form of a tablet, calling it "Dianazene." 21,000 such tablets were seized and destroyed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1958.

There's also Moral Purity and Persecution in History by Barrington Moore Jr., and it looks as if he has some insightful (inciteful? I always forget) things to say about purity. However, the reviews seem to indicate that he blames monotheistic religions for too much. Me, I think it's a crime to leave out The Mystic East in a work of this type. I mean, can you spell P-U-J-A? Not to mention, more generally, purification rites.

Ritual purification is a feature of many religions. The aim of these rituals is to remove specifically defined uncleanliness prior to a particular type of activity, and especially prior to the worship of a deity. This ritual uncleanliness is not however identical with ordinary physical impurity, such as dirt stains; nevertheless, all body fluids are generally considered ritually unclean, and some religions have special treatment of semen and menses, which are viewed as particularly unclean.

America has a deep Puritan heritage, but few have Clue One what that means. I don't. Despite any number of books by Perry Miller and Sacvan Berkovitch lying about the place. I'm not sure, but I think it might have something to do with the odd fraction in this...

It might also have something to do with The White American: Racial Purity is America's Security, an "official publication" of the National White Americans Party in Birmingham, Alabama (where the skies are so blue).

However, by far the greatest invocation of purity involves the spiritual risks and dangers of sex (Lord, I'm coming home to you). For one example among thousands, see And the Bride Wore White: Seven Secrets to Sexual Purity.

OK, now we're getting somewhere. Hmmm, let's see. What else have we got in this vein? How about...

Oh wait... How did that last one get in there? Sorry, I don't know what I was thinking. But while we're at it, let's dip in and see what's up with this unwelcome intruder. Here the author is discussing Lester F. Ward (1841 - 1913), who, as Wikipedia helpfully informs us, was no less than the first president of the American Sociological Association. Just imagine! The author notes Ward's view that...

White racial purity was an impossibility; miscegenation a social inevitability. Yet Ward wrote in support of whites' double standard with regard to miscegenation, condoning sexual intercourse between white men and black women as advantageous to blacks, while castigating and forbidding sexual intercourse between black men and white women. For the purposes of evolutionary progress, according to Ward, sexual intercourse need only occur between men of the conquering race (white men) and women of the conquered race (black women).

Ain't science wonderful?

And of course there are all sorts of books like Better for All the World: The Secret History of Forced Sterilization and America's Quest for Racial Purity.

Yeah well, I suppose this must all seem totally arbitrary, huh? But here's how I got to those books and links (up to but not including Angelfood McSpade). Pay close attention here, OK? First, here's an equally white cover, wherein we return from simple and possibly ideology-free interior decorating to something more spiritualized. Note, for instance, the carefully chosen title term "sanctuary."

Your Home As a Sanctuary

Then note that Josephine Collins, who wrote the above, also wrote

And lest you still doubt the deep spiritual purity dimension of detoxification, try The Tao of Detox: The Natural Way to Purify Your Body for Health and Longevity

Get rid of the the dirt, the pollution, the poisons, the toxins, the horrid and unforgivable blackness of racial and sexual sin! Another popular term for this sort of detox is "cleansing," as in...

Of course, it would be utterly wrongheaded to associate this sort of cleansing -- ridding the pristine Godly self of invisible sub-molecular dangers and unspeakably spiritual quantum risks -- with the completely unrelated idea of ethnic cleansing.

Yes, it would be wholly irresponsible to suggest such a relationship. Even despite books like Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide (Columbia University Press, 2009)...

...from which, boys being boys and all, let's crib a couple quotes anyway. Just for the hell of it.

p. 33:

This search for 'oneness' also very often goes along with a headlong quest for 'purity'. This is another theme of the imaginaire that 'toughens' the identitarian process and impels it more inexorably toward an episode of mass violence. To define oneself as 'pure' in fact implies categorizing some 'other' as impure. The accusation of impurity constitutes a universal accusation against the population one is going to massacre. Purity already implies a requirement of cleanliness as opposed to another catalogued as 'dirty', perceived as rubbish. Purity also contains an appeal to the sacred: the need for purification falls within the province of religion, and constitutes a powerful springboard for unleashing a purgative violence. These clichés -- pure-impure, cleanliness-dirtiness, whiteness-blackness -- seem terribly crude to us. Their binary structures mirror however the elementary functioning of the human psyche in times of crisis.

p. 56:

In the 1920s [Alfred] Rosenberg became a kind of guardian of the general doctrine (Weltanschauung) of National-Socialism, propagating through his writings profound personal convictions about the reality of a Judeo-Masonic world conspiracy. His masterwork, The Myth of the Twentieth Century [: An Evaluation of the Spiritual-Intellectual Confrontations of Our Age], published in 1930 (thus three years before Hitler came to power), was to become the second Nazi 'bible' after Mein Kampf. This book, which had taken him years to prepare, is deeply inspired by the racist theories of the Count of Gobineau and Houston Chamberlain. The myths of Rosenberg are based above all else on the mystique of the purity of Aryan blood which, under the sign of the Swastika, sparked off a worldwide spiritual revolution: that of 'the awakening of the Aryan soul'.

And so in closing let me say: Axe not for whom de tocsin toll. It Tolle for thee, Eckhart.

Yo G, now we Donne.

there must be some way out of here
said the joker to the thief.
there's too much confusion
I cant get no relief.

dylan ~ all along the watchtower

From the Pseudologia fantastica entry on Wikipedia:

Pseudologia fantastica, mythomania, or pathological lying, is one of several terms applied by psychiatrists to the behaviour of habitual or compulsive lying. It was first described in the medical literature in 1891.

I ended the last one (Liar Liar 3: The Myth of Myth) by saying: "Lying turns out to be a central theme and major mode for the Mystic Bourgeoisie, even if they call it their 'Mythic Journey,' which is where we'll pick it up next time." Those of you who actually click on the links, know that that one went to Your Mythic Journey: Finding Meaning in Your Life Through Writing and Storytelling by Sam Keen. Ring a fire in your belly? No? Well, there's Sam on the right, looking for all the world like Quasimodo, the old bell-ringer himself. Say hello to the folks, Sam, you old fraud. Are you ready for your close-up?

OK, let's start with this clip from the intro to your interview at EnlightenNext (formerly What Is Enlightenment? magazine) Issue #16, Fall-Winter 1999; issue theme: "How Free Do We Really Want to Be?"

...[Keen] has authored over a dozen books and has for years been a prominent figure in the American human potential movement. It was through his experiences leading workshops at Esalen Institute, as a contributing editor for Psychology Today, and as cofounder of a men's group called SPERM (Society for the Protection and Encouragement of Righteous Manhood) that he began to formulate many of the ideas that would fill the pages of his books.

Which explains why those pages tend to stick together.

In the middle of an interview that is so cranky and boring at the same time that your ears might start to bleed, Keen says something that sounds as if it might actually be true.

So much of my approach is the effort to go beyond mythology to autobiography, to take my own story and the uniqueness of my own situation, my own gifts and my own wounds, with a kind of ultimate seriousness.

Interesting that he distances himself from both gender issues ("get over it") and Jung ("I don't like Jungianism -- just like I detest the idea of archetypes."). He made a bundle on the former, and invokes Jung -- as does his mentor Campbell -- whenever he finds it convenient, which is often. For instance, on Keen's current website, in a directory inexplicably titled...

fontsize13bseminarsandlecturesbfontp

...in the section on "Your Life, Your Story: Composing an Autobiography," right after where he says that human beings are "biomythic animals," there's this...

Carl Jung once said that the most important question anyone can ask is: What myth am I living? In the degree that we remember and retell our stories and create new ones we become the authors, the author/ities, of our own lives.

Too right. You probably didn't know this about me, but I have totally reinvented myself as the Sugar Plum Fairy.

The photo of Keen, above, comes from Yoga Journal November-December issue, 1994, pp. 114-116. (btw, monster kudos to Google for putting magazine archives online!) The article is titled "What My Book Is Not About," the book in question being Hymns to an Unknown God: Awakening The Spirit In Everyday Life. This appears opposite a cheesy ad for two Deepak Chopra books: Restful Sleep and Perfect Weight. Evidently, things the book is not about include angels, UFOs, miracles, out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, self-esteem, and "prophesy" [sic].

It is not even about what my dear friend Joseph Campbell talks about in Hero's Journey, where he writes that we go into the forest where it is the darkest, and each goes alone, since It would be a shame to go in a group.

A shame, yes how true. But note that Keen has cleverly touched on all the magic hot buttons that readers of Yoga Journal in 1994 -- and perhaps even more so today -- are most likely to care about.

After devoting at least half the article to such disclaimers, Keen then says, well OK, he can tell us a little about what the book is about. "The book is in some ways about forming a spiritual bullshit detector," he writes. But only in some ways, right, Sam? Because if your intended audience had working bullshit detectors, they'd never read your crap in the first place. So: moderation in all things. A little detecting, a little bullshit. A little detecting, a little more bullshit. Rinse and repeat.

Publishers Weekly says of Hymns to an Unknown God...

Defining the quest to unlock spirituality as "the reverse of the religious pilgrimage," bestselling author Sam Keen (Fire in the Belly) nonetheless sets out immediately to blend Eastern and Western religious traditions with philosophy, psychology and autobiography. The result is a New Age-ish "now-and-then spiritual journey" whose indirect path may result in confusion for questers seeking less amorphous guidance.

But Publishers Weekly clearly doesn't get it. On your mythic journey, indirection is the path; amorphous confusion the shining goal.

In the opening bars of Your Mythic Journey, we learn two salient facts. First (p. iii), the book was published by Jeremy P. Tarcher, who was responsible for more New Age books than Jesus Christ, Buddha and Lao Tzu, combined. (btw, Tarcher was married to Shari Lewis, so it's possible that the ontological devolution we've been exploring here, lo these many years now, was a plot hatched by Lambchop. After all, ask yourself: is this the real life or is this just fantasy?)

Second (p. iv), it is dedicated to Joseph Campbell, whose name will appear again and again in such books. Such books being those about how to make the lesser argument appear the greater. The lesser being the random-ass concatenation of cruel jokes and unconscionable misjudgments that constitute your personal history. The greater being the same set of raw materials magically reformulated into the shining saga of a hero or goddess able to leap tall buildings at a single bound, patch up the crack in the Liberty Bell, or fearlessly lead a locust-horde of God-fearing White People Westward. You go, girl!

John Gast's 1872 painting, American Progress, is but one reminder that America is no stranger to heroes and heroines, gods and goddesses got up to serve the interests of the prevailing ideological drift. A bit further back, we have the glee of Henry David Thoreau that his family took its name from that of a Norse god.

But back to Sam & Joe. Note that Keen's Your Mythic Journey (1973) came out barely a year after Campbell's Myths We Live By (1972). Much later, Jean Houston -- another Campbell protege -- wrote A Mythic Life: Learning to Live Our Greater Story, with a foreword by Mary Catherine Bateson, author of Composing a Life. Houston also wrote an introduction to The Mythic Path: Discovering the Guiding Stories of Your Past, Creating a Vision for Your Future by David Feinstein and Stanley Krippner (Tarcher/Putnam, 1997). That book begins with "An Invitation: Renew the Dream That Quickens Your Spirit" (p. 3)...

Your personal mythology is the loom on which you weave the raw materials of daily experience into a coherent story. You live your life from within this mythology, drawing to yourself the characters and creating the scenes that correspond with its guiding theme.

---

There is no end of references to the power of mythic hogwash. But as this is the fourth installment of the "Liar Liar" series, perhaps at this point I should back up and talk about why all this is important. Why I think it's important.

In my previous post (Liar Liar 3: The Myth of Myth), I suggested that the powerful attraction of Jung -- Eliade depended on him, as did Campbell and so many others since -- is based not just on his notions about archetypes and the collective unconscious, but on something much more seductive that those two constructs enable: "individuation."

By individuation, Jung meant the creation of a real Self (he usually capitalized it) balanced between individual subjectivity -- the waking personal conscious -- and the Collective Unconscious (he capitalized that too) -- a transpersonal layer of racially acquired experience. (Yes, the reference to race is problematic -- as has been Jung's entire theory, for the same reason.)

Henry David Thoreau, who was wrong about so many things, was right when he said most people lead lives of quiet desperation. At least some of the time. I have felt that way. You have felt that way. Let us not talk falsely now. And the desperation is to get out of the terrible suffocation of being imprisoned within a miniscule inarticulate repetitive and hugely boring subjectivity. There must be some way out of here.

By the way, dropping allusions to Dylan here is more germane than you might guess. His song, "All Along the Watchtower," is based on one of the most obscure prophets of the Old Testament...

• I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved.

• And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.

Habakkuk, 2:1-2, King James Version

In brief, word on the street was that some ill-intentioned horde of barbarians was bearing down on some minor king's minor kingdom in some long forgotten desert where more recent barbarities are now making headlines. So this king asked God what to do. Should I stay or should I go sorta thing. And God, in His ineffable effing way, said hang loose, King, I'll get back to you. Put sentries on your watchtowers and I'll send you a sign.

Except He never did.

For this reason, Sunday sermons based on the book of Habakkuk tend to get rather convoluted rather quickly. Two riders were approaching. Or they weren't. Or... well, let's kick around what God might have been thinking.

A favorite human pastime.

Which brings us back to Jung. And to the larger context within which Jung, by his own occasional admission, was embedded: gnosticism. Let's leave aside for the moment the fact that some scholars in the field of Religious Studies have suggested that gnosticism is such a vague and historically slippery concept that it has no real meaning at all. See for instance, Rethinking "Gnosticism": An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category (Princeton University Press, 1996). As a class, the Mystic Bourgeoisie has constructed itself of just such nebulous and ultimately meaningless categories. So what else is new?

The gnostic category Jung gave us was the capital-S Self, and a method by which it could "shop" itself together, i.e., individuation. Think a sort of spiritual Photoshopping. Think rag and bone shop of the heart.

The shop window is the collective unconscious, another questionable category, but let's let that one slide too. Think Macy's windows at Christmastime in New York, the lights, the snow, the tinkling sublunary music of the spheres. Everyone in love, everything sorta magical. Sorta mythic.

Kinda like a drug. Like ecstasy maybe. Like whatever drives away quiet desperation. Take only as directed.

And here are the directions. Stroll up and down looking at the pretty archetypes in the shop windows. The Empress, the Goddess, the Good Witch of the East, the oracle@delphi. But of course, not all are so pretty. There's the Warrior, the King, the Sorcerer, the Magician. Those are for the boys. And don't worry, if you're lesbian, there's Sappho, if you're gay, there's Pan. And so on. Point being: something for everyone and not half boring! Not in the least desperate. In fact, when you get right down to it, really rather Sacred.

And who wouldn't want to trade in their ho-hum subjectivity for a gung-ho archetypicality or two?

Actually, Jung himself warned about this. He warned of psychic inflation, infection, of "invasion" from the unconscious. Sounds dire, doesn't it? Like "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers," like "The Day the Earth Stood Still." Aba Gort. Klaatu barada nikto!

Jung wasn't kidding, though. He had first-hand experience of such invasions and possessions. Serious business. No laughing matter.

But note also how close such warnings sound to those of the side-show barker. Ladies and Gentlemen, don't get too close! This Beast from the Dark Jungles of Africa will shock you. It will challenge your most cherished beliefs! Don't come inside unless you are sound of body and pure of heart! Only for the brave, courageous and bold!

Such "warnings" sell a lot of tickets.

So you step right up and buy yours for the Gnostic Individuation ride. Show your girl you're no chicken, dammit. Show that guy you're no dum-dum!

I weep for you.

Because yes, life is boring a lot of the time. Not as exciting as you thought it'd be. The wife, the kids. The husband, the job. Is that all there is? Midway on life's journey, your desperation boils over, and no Virgil in sight. Because Stoneman's cavalry came and tore up the tracks again. Yeah, that's it, that's probably why.

Virgil Kane is the name
and I served on the Danville train...

The Band ~ The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

Or wait. Corn in the fields... Maybe Virgil reincarnated as Carlos Castaneda or Don Miguel Ruiz or Sri Aurobindo or Ram Dass or Deepak Chopra. Listen to the rice as the wind blows 'cross the water... One-a those foreigners with the funny names. One-a them vaguely Oriental types. King Harvest will surely come!

You're individuating now, baby! See? All you needed was a little help, a little expert direction. A Guide, a Guru, a Master.

Step right up.

Stroll by the window displays. Pick yourself a cool archetype, a knowing goddess, a fearless champion. And rework the story of your life so it works out that that's really you. The real you. The realer than real you. Your True Self.

Ta-da!

You're on your mythic journey now, just like Sam Keen promised. You got your mythic image, just like Joe Campbell said. You're a Hero, a Heroine.

Or maybe you're on a particularly addictive form of heroin. Maybe you're shitting yourself blind.

Mystic Bourgeoisie is a history of professional liars, side-show barkers who, for hundreds of years, have promised to help you find a more mythical, mystical story for your life. A deeper meaning. A higher purpose. A better soundtrack.

Scarecrow and a yellow moon
and pretty soon a carnival on the edge of town.
King Harvest has surely come.

The Band ~ King Harvest

Although I'm starting this one with Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future, my aim here is not (overtly) political. To paraphrase Elvis Costello, my aim is truth. But nota bene: I do not mean any sort of philosophical or metaphysical capital-T Truth, but rather the plain vanilla garden variety opposite of myth.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of Carl Jung, Mircea Eliade, Joseph Campbell, and their now innumerable wannabe emulators, the general half-educated public tends to have quite an inflated view of capital-M Myth these days. However, it is worth recalling that the word can also refer to something that just flat-out ain't so.

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary includes these bits in its definition of myth:

• an unfounded or false notion
• a person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, includes these alternative semantics:

• a fiction or half-truth, especially one that forms part of an ideology
• a fictitious story, person, or thing

Author Will Bunch shows how the "Reagan Myth" -- created posthumously by GOP spin doctors -- fits these negative senses of the word. But long before he went all POTUS on us, Ronnie was already a built-from-a-kit product of "modern" -- really, then only barely nascent -- public relations and advertising. Clearly, such myth makers have a long and hoary (so to speak) history in both political and commercial arenas.

When an individual plays a part he implicitly requests his observers to take seriously the impression that is fostered before them. They are asked to believe that the character they see actually possesses the attributes he appears to possess, that the task he performs will have the consequences that are implicitly claimed for it, and that, in general, matters are what they appear to be.

~ Erving Goffman, p. 17
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life

Goffman published The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life in 1959. Fifty years later, this brilliant piece of sociological R&D has it's own Wikipedia entry. But no one really reads it. Too old fashioned.

No worries, though: there's a brand new book on self presentation, published just last year. In this updated case, the presentations are in PowerPoint. And of course, the whole discussion has been "spiritualized." For instance, on page 145 of Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery, we are told that...

It also doesn't hurt to have the Helvetica Neue UltraLight font in your bag of tricks. Plus a copy of the DSM-IV-TR, which includes this diagnostic criterion for Narcissistic Personality Disorder...

As only hinted in Liar Liar 2, we are back in the world of self as brand manipulation, of identity as infinitely moveable advertising feast. That is to say, back in the special, high-status, high-quality, sophisticated, important and above all spiritual realm of capital-M Myth. And we should therefore not be in the least surprised at this juncture to re-encounter kindly old Father Jung, replete with his archetypes and the collective unconscious, ready to assist with contemporary branding initiatives.

For exhibit A in this regard, try The Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes by Margaret Mark and Carol S. Pearson. The latter also wrote The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By and Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World.

But let's break out of our branding focus for a moment and go back to the Ur-Spring of all these notions. The following is from Abstract #000226 of Jung's paper on "Archetypes of the collective unconscious." The paper itself appears in The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious - Collected Works of C.G. Jung Volume 9, Part 1 (p. 3-41). The abstract begins...

The concept of archetypes as the mode of expression of the collective unconscious is discussed. In addition to the purely personal unconscious hypothesized by Freud, a deeper unconscious level is felt to exist. This deeper level manifests itself in universal archaic images expressed in dreams, religious beliefs, myths, and fairytales. The archetypes, as unfiltered psychic experience, appear sometimes in their most primitive and naive forms (in dreams), sometimes in a considerably more complex form due to the operation of conscious elaboration (in myths).

Note a couple of things here. First, "hypothesized by Freud." Hold that thought. Second, re Jung, "a deeper unconscious level is felt to exist." Note the passive voice. Note especially that this is felt as a feeling, an inkling, perhaps a belief -- or a hunch, a conjecture, a shot in the dark. Perhaps Jung simply took a wild ass guess. Finally, note well, highlight, underline, and set off in neon spots the bit about...

conscious elaboration (in myths)

Up until around the time of Jung's death in 1961, Freud had won the depth psychology sweeps hands-down. Psychoanalysis had beat out Analytical Psychology by any and every measure that could be applied to determine things like cultural popularity, number of clients and gross take.

However, with the advent of psychedelic drugs in the 1960s -- thanks largely to their importation and wide distribution by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (but that's another story) -- the inherent spookiness of Jung's crypto-occultism was a better fit with the return of a hallucinatory Zeitgeist. That the '60s were in fact a return to the cultural milieu of fin-de-siecle northern Europe is a major premise of this blog (soon to be a Major Motion Picture) -- and thus a return to Jung's roots, as partially unpacked in Spiritualism and the Foundations of C.G. Jung's Psychology (Amazon). Later, the women's movement (with substantial help from Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson) debunked Freud's "seduction theory," thus tilting the scales still further, if by default, in favor the Jungian persuasion.

We're getting a bit far afield with this detour, but it's worth noting that in the often dramatic cultural competition between Freud and Jung, the latter -- amazingly, hare-and-tortoise-wise -- won! While neither man's theory of the mind has ever been scientifically proven, Jung's ideas are certainly more "far out," trending toward the arcane, the inexplicably mysterious, even the occult.

It is one of the supreme ironies of the century just past -- which kicked off in 1900 with the publication of Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams -- that psychoanalysis is today almost universally considered passe, while nearly anything invoking Jung is taken by many as absolute gospel. Try telling a woman she is suffering from penis envy, and she'll slap your face and walk away. Rightly so. But mention archetypes, alchemy, Gnosticism, or "synchronicity," and chances are good she'll hang on your every word for the entire evening. What's wrong with this picture?

That's the question Mystic Bourgeoisie returns to again and again. In the present case, what's wrong is what's right. For many, the powerful attraction of Jung is that his numinous musings enable a mythic reconfiguration of the Self -- the favorite subject, bar none, of the Mystically Beatified. This is what Jung called "individuation." The Wikipedia discussion of this topic points to a hopelessly confused ("Individuation is the process of integrating the conscious with the unconscious, for the purpose of self-actualization." BZZZZT! WRONG!), but entirely typical source on a site called soultherapynow.com...

Individuation is a philosophical, spiritual and mystical experience (Jung, 1989b, p. 294). It is the goal of our psychological development and in metaphysical terms amounts to God's incarnation (Jung, p. 157). Individuation is the central concept and purpose of Jung's Analytical Psychology (Jung, 1989a, p. 209)...

References
• Jung, C. G. (1962). Symbols of Transformation: An analysis of the prelude to a case of schizophrenia (Vol. 2, R.F.C. Hull, Trans.). New York: Harper & Brothers.
• Jung, C. G. (1989a). Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Rev. ed., C. Winston & R. Winston, Trans.) (A. Jaffe, Ed.). New York: Random House, Inc.
• Jung, C. G. (1989b). Psychology and Religion: West and East (2nd ed., R.F.C. Hull, Trans.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

I have no serious doubts as to whether Jung said those things, in a general sort of way, or even verbatim -- though it's impossible to know from the clip and the references. For instance, Google finds "Individuation is a philosophical, spiritual and mystical experience" only on that soultherapynow.com site. And what "(Jung, p. 157)" might conceivably refer to is left as an exercise for the reader. But this sort of thing gets uncritically passed around the net, and does reflect the popular grasp of all things Jungian, i.e., "our psychological development" = "God's incarnation." w00t!

I shall restrain myself from even mentioning Individuation and Narcissism: The Psychology of Self in Jung and Kohut, an excursus into deeply ignorant ideas about "healthy narcissism," of which we know there is no such fucking thing. When I hear the names Jung and Kohut together, I reach for both my revolvers.

At one extreme, one finds that the performer can be fully taken in by his own act; he can be sincerely convinced that the impression of reality which he stages is the real reality. When his audience is also convinced in this way about the show he puts on -- and this seems to be the typical case -- then for the moment at least, only the sociologist or the socially disgruntled will have any doubts about the 'realness' of what is presented.

~ Erving Goffman, p. 17
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life

Emphasis mine, of course, as I count myself firmly ensconced among "the socially disgruntled," and with -- as I keep trying to demonstrate here -- damn good reason!

With that in mind, let's turn back to brands. Specifically, to brands and archetypes. More specifically still to Building Brands and Believers: How to Connect with Consumers Using Archetypes (Wiley, 2003), the cover of which is graced with the Signs of the Zodiac -- which I suppose are being offered as brand serving suggestions. Rather than rant at you further at this point, let's just look at a bit of the Table of Contents, shall we?

SECTION II  The Mythic Connection
Chapter  5. Archetypes: The Source Code
Chapter  6. Making Modern Mythology

SECTION III Mythic Profiles
Chapter  7. Mythic Profile: The Ultimate Strength
Chapter  8. Mythic Profile: The Siren
Chapter  9. Mythic Profile: The Hero
Chapter 10. Mythic Profile: The Anti-Hero
Chapter 11. Mythic Profile: The Creator
Chapter 12. Mythic Profile: The Change Master
Chapter 13. Mythic Profile: The Powerbroker
Chapter 14. Mythic Profile: The Wise Old Man
Chapter 15. Mythic Profile: The Loyalist
Chapter 16. Mythic Profile: The Mother of Goodness
Chapter 17. Mythic Profile: The Little Trickster
Chapter 18. Mythic Profile: The Enigma
Chapter 19. Mythic Figures in Combination and in
            Local Cultures

SECTION IV  Harnessing Archetypes
Chapter 20. Managing the Intangible
Chapter 21. Improving Consumer Connections

Now, from the sound of that, combined with the cluelessly lurid cover art, you might be forgiven for thinking the author to be yet another New Age no-brainer on bad drugs. However, while I frame no hypothesis as to his actual IQ, get a load of this official "About the Author" clip...

Kent Wertime is a veteran of the international advertising and communications industry. His career to date has included executive positions in New York, Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Singapore. Kent has worked with dozens of blue-chip multinational clients, covering a wide range of product categories. He is also an experienced writer and lecturer whose articles and professional commentary appear frequently in the Asian press, including the Asian Wall Street Journal, Media, CNN, and CNBC. Currently, Kent is the CEO of OgilvyInteractive Asia, the Interactive division of the Ogilvy & Mather Group.

If you don't find that at least vaguely horrifying, try this blurb from no less a light than Philip Kotler, S.C. Johnson Distinguished Professor of International Marketing, Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University...

Kent Wertime successfully argues that while products are becoming more alike, brands can avoid "commoditization" by drawing on the rich language of archetypes to tap into more unconscious and emotional levels that influence consumer perception and preference.

We are now fully through the looking glass. That wasn't very painful, now was it? Unless you object to Global Economy by Ouija Board. Unless you thought rationality was still intact among the much vaunted spoils of some fondly imagined Age of Enlightenment 1.0. Unless you thought "New Age" was merely something involving tinfoil hats and crystal gazing in Sedona, AZ.

But oh, it gets so much richer! In How Brands Become Icons: The Principles of Cultural Branding (Harvard Business School Press, 2004), author Douglas B. Holt -- the L'Oreal Chair of Marketing at Oxford University, so he should know! -- "shows how iconic brands create 'identity myths' that, through powerful symbolism, soothe collective anxieties resulting from acute social change."

Don't you feel soothed already, just reading that? Can you handle a little more? This is from p. 39...

Targeting myth markets can be a complicated task, for they don't stand still. In fact, myth markets are routinely destabilized by cultural disruptions: Symbolic earthquakes pulse through society, shattering the value of existing myth markets and spurring the creation of new ones. Iconic brands not only target the most appropriate myth market; they are also sensitive to cultural disruptions, shifting their target when opportunity strikes. Successful iconic brands leap nimbly across cultural disruptions by deciphering the new myth markets created by the disruption and homing in on a new target.

Sounds pretty freakin impressive, no? Until you read the next sentence: "One especially agile iconic brand has been Mountain Dew."

In the preface, Holt tells a story about an ad for Diet Coke that used the Cheap Trick song, I Want You To Want Me. He describes the voiceover by Renée Zellweger about some loser flossing his teeth in the apartment across the alleyway or some such bullshit. The details are supremely unimportant, trust me. Then the author tells us...

this ad touched me because Diet Coke had grabbed familiar cultural source material and used it to tell a story about manhood, a story I wanted to believe in. The story tells us that guys caught up in frivolous pop music, guys so immersed in their music that they find spiritual moments in the most mundane of tasks, are endearing, even cool in a way.

That was when the projectile vomiting set in.

When the individual has no belief in his own act and no ultimate concern with the beliefs of his audience, we may call him cynical, reserving the term 'sincere' for individuals who believe in the impression fostered by their own performance. It should be understood that the cynic, with all his professional disinvolvement, may obtain unprofessional pleasures from his masquerade, experiencing a kind of gleeful spiritual aggression from the fact that he can toy at will with something his audience must take seriously.

~ Erving Goffman, p. 18
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life

This was going to be a lot longer, but it's too long already. So I guess there'll be a Liar Liar 4, and maybe even a Liar Liar 5. Lying turns out to be a central theme and major mode for the Mystic Bourgeoisie, even if they call it their "Mythic Journey," which is where we'll pick it up next time.

For now, let me leave you with this from the Conclusion (p. 201) of The Culting of Brands: Turn Your Customers into True Believers...

We live in a spiritual economy. There is a
marketplace for worldviews and communities as
well as goods and services. There are both
consumers and producers of belief systems and
community. And the laws of supply and demand
apply as much in the spiritual exchange as
they do in the economic. Where the economic
and spiritual marketplaces differ, however,
is that in the former, demand can rise and
fall. In the spiritual marketplace demand is
pretty constant. There is always a need to
belong and make meaning. They are the
essentials of the human condition after all.

Yeah, after all.

Lifting from Enchanté, my post of 29 August 2005, wherein I quoted from Philip Cushman's Constructing the Self, Constructing America: A Cultural History of Psychotherapy...

In a later chapter called "Self-Liberation Through Consumerism" -- the section is titled "Heinz Kohut and the Valorization of Narcissism: The Self Takes Center Stage" -- Cushman talks about Kohut's "self psychology" and theory of narcissism, writing (p. 270) that Kohut confused appearance for essence, that is, taking culturally conditioned psychological dynamics for universal human truths. He says that Kohut

...saw the whole mid- to late twentieth-century clearing -- the appearance of emptiness, confusion, isolation, the commodification of human life -- and called it essence. By doing so he reified the given, gave it a scientific justification, and encouraged its continuation. Ultimately, this is the source of his limitation, and ours as well.

And there's this a page later...

......self structure is both built (through psychologically taking in and metabolizing the parent's qualities) and liberated (through the unfolding plan of the nuclear self). The consumer language in [Kohut's] formulation should be obvious. The two characteristic elements of twentieth-century American consumerism -- individual salvation through the consuming of commodities and the liberation of the enchanted interior -- are clearly evident.

Relationships Are Tools

Other people are viewed as objects or tools in the quest for distinction, and the narcissistic patient expends a great deal of mental energy comparing him- or herself and judging the worth of others. If others have the potential to advance the narcissist in some way, they will be idealized and pursued. If others are perceived as ordinary or inferior, they will he dismissed, or perhaps exploited for some gain, then discarded.

Cognitive Therapy of Personality Disorders
Aaron Beck et al, 2nd edition, p. 250

The Brand YU Life - Chapter 6: Be Authentic

“I love the babes, don't get me wrong.
Hey, that's why I wrote this song!”

dire straits ~ heavy fuel You know what I'm thinking? No, of course not. That's why I write this stuff. To tell you. And what I'm thinking right now, as I track down references to C. Wright Mills and Ralph Waldo Emerson (more about them later on), only to find myself, via Google, thinking about the same stuff six years ago... what I'm thinking now is that maybe it's time for certain parts of Entropy Gradient Reversals to come together with certain parts of Mystic Bourgeoisie. Since we've lately been getting so personal and all. I mean, it's all coming from the same source, my attempts at diversionary prestidigitation notwithstanding.

So here. This is cryptic as hell, hell being perhaps merely a form of cryptomnesia. And more on that later, too. In the meantime...

   Sunday, April 13, 2003
   Border Patrol
   
   coyote moon, half high, half full,
   girl on the radio singing no one
   could ever compare to you. middle
   of the night, I'm out of cigarettes.
   all day reading Alice Miller. not
   reading really. what I do. tracking
   something down.
   
   two days ago I bought this first 
   edition. not that I collect the 
   things. not for their dates of 
   publication anyway. I got a coffee
   and walked back to where I'd read
   those first few pages a year and 
   change ago.
   
   and funny thing, it was a different
   book. Prisoners of Childhood it was
   called in 1981 when this all started,
   just now noticing. that fits. nothing
   else does. not really. not well. the
   receipt I found in the other one says
   01-27-02. sitting in this same spot
   that day outside of starbucks on the
   mall I said oh my god, this is me.
   well of course it was. and everyone
   else. what marketing genius. 
   
   back then I'd been thinking about
   C. Wright Mills. about voice. about
   anything but the moon. thinking that
   he'd said the sociological imagination
   flowered where biography intersected 
   history. 
   
   but in the Drama of the Gifted Child,
   Alice Miller says in those first few
   pages, first paragraph in fact, that
   biography is all that counts, and not
   all that abstract intellectual stuff.
   it's all we have, she says, to protect
   us from mental illness. I'm quoting.
   for the personal history of our
   childhood defines, for each of us,
   she says, our own truth. your truth
   my truth his truth her truth.
   
   and this truth, though different for
   each, so different that it takes a
   boatload of empathy to get it, is that
   each of us was abused raped sodomized
   beaten. left for dead. but nobody wants
   to hear about your truth because of
   this secret conspiracy of nasty old-boy
   psychoanalysts to hush it all up, like
   Freud with his drives and instincts.
   Eros was bad enough, but how about
   Thanatos, she says. and now how do you 
   like your blue eyed boy, Mr. Death?
   
   but here's the weird thing. in the 
   first edition, she says I'm not going
   to talk a lot about narcissism. then
   does. at length. by that name. on and
   on. however, by the new improved second
   edition, the word doesn't appear at 
   all except in a brief retelling of
   the story of Narcissus and Echo, which
   just sort of sits there, disconnected.
   split off and out of place. 
   
   she doesn't like Melanie Klein or
   Kernberg she says, with their over harsh
   views about darkness and pathology. she
   does like Kohut, though, who deep sixed
   all that nonsense about drives and said
   no, instead it was all the self, evolving
   naturally, coming to its own realization.
   it's own truth, you could say.
   
   but tell me something Alice, honey, where
   does all that abusive aggression come from
   then? when the true self blooms in the 
   gentle listening of someone as enlightened
   as yourself (no other authors are cited),
   is it all just perfect niceness after that?
   and nobody anymore wants a piece of your
   action? 
   
   and tell me another thing before you go.
   what happened to all those references to
   narcissism, leaving us with our little
   personal stories but no common history,
   no imagination, except for an undriven
   darkness that, in truth, does not exist?
   and why no mention of solipsism, leaving
   me with your truth, the revised expanded
   second edition, and me with this coyote
   moon, half high, half empty. girl on the 
   radio, interrupted.
   
   10:22 AM | link |  

well no one told me about her
the way she lied...

zombies ~ she's not there

"Paradoxically, the reluctance to come to grips with
deception can stem from an exalted and
all-absorbing preoccupation with truth."

Sissela Bok ~ Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life

I once knew a woman, or thought I did, who told me the following story. We were in bed together at the time, which is to say, it was an intimate moment, not an oh-by-the-way sort of thing. The story was meant to convey something deeply meaningful, and she told it that way.

Once, she said, she was walking home at night, and a car pulled up alongside her. The driver offered her a ride, and naively, she got in. As soon as she did, all the locks clicked shut and she instantly knew he was planning to rape and quite possibly kill her. Panic washed over her. But then, just as suddenly, she was enveloped by a feeling of deep calm. Not knowing why she did it, she reached over and touched the man's arm. "Don't worry," she said. "I won't hurt you."

As soon as she said this the doors unlocked and the man roughly shoved her out. Then, without a single word, he drove away.

I was stunned by this story, deeply moved. What incredible insight, intuition. What courage. My amazing lover, what a woman! In a couple of my books, I wrote: "I'm a motherfucker, baby, your mind my sky, your eyes my fire." Click the link. Read between the lines. It wasn't a casual relationship.

But as George Harrison warned us, while his guitar gently wept, all things must pass. Yes, yes, how true. Yet, not being George Harrison, nor of his Hindoo-cum-faux-Boodist persuasion about The Impermanence and such as, things didn't pass all that smoothly.

Sometimes you look back on your life and wish you'd made different choices. For me, the road not taken entailed a sawed-off and a life stretch in Florence. Ah well, maybe George was right. What good is it now to cry over might-have-beens?

OK, so I passed on my one real opportunity for interpersonal mayhem. But that didn't mean I, you know, moved on. I am morally and philosophically opposed to moving on. This blog is living proof. This blog is all about asking what happened? What went wrong? This blog is about answering the sort of questions most people never think to pose, opting instead for a wistful and comforting sense of remorse and personal guilt. To quote from the final movement of Repo Man...

• Girlfriend: "Don't just go! What about our relationship?"
• Otto: "Huh?"
• Girlfriend: "What about our relationship?"
• Otto: "Fuck that!"
• Girlfriend: "You shit!"

That movie helped me a great deal at a difficult time.

Then time moved on of course, even if I did not, and one day in a local used bookstore I found an old paperback copy of Magical Child by Joseph Chilton Pearce. The first edition was published in 1977, three or four years before I first met the woman who told me the story recounted above. Keep in mind that she told me that story during our second go-round circa 2000-2002, and that I knew this was a book she'd read before our first tour, you might say, in 1981. Not only read, but studied carefully. And talked about. I have a good memory for lovers and books.

So I bought Magical Child and brought it back to my lair. During the worst months of the worst depression I've ever lived through (and there was some non-trivial question pending at the time as to whether I would), it sat unread in a stack on my coffee table, which was already spilling over with books like Severe Personality Disorders and the complete series of Essential Papers in Psychoanalysis. They say that, when you break up, you learn so much about yourself. Well fuckin-A, they got that right! Here's a picture of me during those dark days, doing my best to look sane and harmless...

One day, maybe six months later, I picked up that battered copy of Magical Child. Hmmm, I thought idly, I wonder. Now, I don't read in the usual linear way, and there was no way in hell I was going to slog through all of Joseph Chilton Pearce's honeyed prose, so soon, I was nearly done with the damn thing.

Then I hit the passage that begins on page 225. What with The Healing and all, it has taken me something like six years to get around to copying it out as Exhibit A in a case that was never tried. I hope you enjoy it even a fraction as much as I did at the time. Picture me sitting there for an hour afterwards with my mouth hanging open and a dumbstruck look on my face.

A remarkable woman in her early thirties, formerly an actress, now working for a doctorate in psychology, related the following incident at a seminar.

As she was approaching her apartment in New York City late one evening, a car suddenly pulled up, and she was yanked into the front seat between two young men, a knife point immediately jabbing at her throat, all in the wink of an eye. The two young men immediately began babbling at her, their speech sporadic and half incoherent, that they were taking her out to New Jersey and were going to rape and kill her. They demanded that she tell them how it felt to be getting ready to die. It dawned on her that they meant it, that they were in a state of high agitation and had all the earmarks of intense fear and anger. They shook physically, the knife point at her throat jogging little stabs.

After an initial panic, realization of the futility of her position and a calm acceptance of her death swept over her. She replied to their frenzied questions calmly and earnestly. Now that she had accepted her death, her focus clarified and shifted. She became increasingly intrigued over the young men's fear and almost total lack of physical control. An odd maternal concern over them began to dominate her thoughts. She asked them about themselves, although they only insisted, like broken records, that she tell them what it felt like to be getting ready to die. She told them that she was sorry she had to die because she was young but that she understood perfectly well what the rape-kidnap laws were and realized why they would have to kill her. But what, she asked them, were they so afraid of? Why were they shaking so?

It was a strange conversation as they drove the thirty-odd miles out into a desolate, deserted part of the Jersey tidewater region. The men grew exasperated, confused. and more belligerent, all but pleading that she tell them how it felt to be getting ready to die. She prodded them with gentle, spontaneous, and utterly sincere questions about themselves and about why, knowing they had to do as they must do, they were so afraid. She assured them that all was well, that they did not have to be concerned on her account.

They arrived at a place that seemed familiar to them and in the dim light pointed out to her several mounds they claimed to be previous victims. Demanding that she tell them how it felt to be the next, they stripped her and threw her to the ground, both now whimpering and making strange noises. Looking up at the boy mounted over her, she dimly sensed a contorted and broken face. Compassion filled her anew, and she put her hands up, cradled his cheeks in her palms, and said quietly, "It's all right. You don't have to be afraid."

At this, the young man collapsed into a heap, overcome with great, wracking sobs, shaking uncontrollably in the spasm of wild grief. The other man sat pounding the ground and shouting, "What is it? What is it? What's gone wrong?" Then he, too, burst into the same strange, grief-stricken sobs.

It was some time before they quieted enough that she could speak to them and say quietly, "Boys, we may as well go home." Without a word, only their continued sobbing, they drove her back to the city. At the first subway, she suggested they let her out, which they did. She told us she had $300 in her purse, but they had given no thought to money. On impulse, she asked them would they lend her the money for the subway, which they did. She turned her back to them, started down the steps, heard them drive away, put her money in the turnstile, walked through, and fainted dead away. When she was questioned by the policeman who revived her, she replied, "If I told you, you'd never believe me."

well let me tell you about the way she looked
the way she acted and the color of her hair
her voice was soft and cool
her eyes were clear and bright
but she's not there

she tricks me into thinking
I can't believe my eyes
I wait for her forever
but she never does arrive

cars ~ all mixed up

In May of last year, in a post called I Can Get It For You Wholesale, I begged you (yes you, The Valued Readers) to buy me what I was then calling The Library of World Bullshit. This is a series of books including...

• 50 Self-Help Classics (2003)
• 50 Success Classics (2004)
• 50 Spiritual Classics (2005)
• 50 Psychology Classics (2007)
• 50 Prosperity Classics (2008)

No sooner had I posted that than I got my wish! This is all fully documented in a post unaccountably titled 300: Prepare for Glory. These days, given the state of The Economy, I am begging for food, not books, but I did want to share the wealth by alerting you to a site I found while slumming the nether reaches of the web yesterday. Click the graphic below and be amazed!

One assumes that's a photo of author/editor Tom Butler-Bowdon, and not a male model, but no matter. Point is, if you click on it, you will be treated to many substantial excerpts from these valuable and informative books. In an interview with some unspecified interrogator, Butler-Bowdon says:

While Christians may view Goddess worship as the work of the devil, its adherents find in it a beautiful and complete expression of the sacred feminine power.

Not being a Christian myself, I don't view Goddesses worship as the "work of the devil" -- unless it is that infamous devil in the details. Let's explore some of those, shall we?

In aid of said exploration, I'm going to share a very cool pop-culture research trick with you here. And make no mistake, it's in popular culture that these ideas really take root and play out, not in the realm of academic scholarship. So here's the trick. If you go to Zinio.com, you'll see a search box at the top of the page. As Zinio sells electronically delivered magazine subscriptions, most people would reasonably think to enter the name of a magazine. But as Zinio apparently indexes the full text of all its 900+ magazines, you can search for anything. For instance, searching on "goddess" I found the following...

Prediction Magazine - Page 67 | Sep-05

...A home that is happy, welcoming and healthy is the goal of this goddess. Annette Gardner and Anne Nash of 21st Century Goddess work with goddess energy, offering themed parties and trips to sacred sites...

And you can even embed riffy graphical links to the full article in your blog, like so.

Prediction Magazine-Sep-05 So how cool is that? But the ultracool thing is, your query will even turn up stuff in the advertising -- the sine qua non of pop culture. My "goddess" query found, among many other hits, this...

Yoga Journal-Mar-09 Expanding on the ad at the top of the right page, we get...

And going to the Fertile Goddess site, we learn even more!

“Here at Fertile Goddess we believe in the
inspirational connection between real women and the
bountiful power and wisdom of ancient fertility
goddesses....

From her days studying archaeology, [founder] Stacia
[Wells] knew that in many ancient cultures, abundance
was synonymous with fertility.”

I have emphasized "archeology" above because it plays into the rest of our story, which will serve to explain the particular brand of archeology Ms. Wells most likely studied.

To get deeper into that story, let's start on the landing page for (my favorite) 50 Spiritual Classics. There you will find one book listed for which, sadly, no excerpt is provided. I refer to the The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess - Rituals, Invocations, Exercises, Magic by Starhawk (pictured right). The book was published in 1979, at what some vainly hoped was the height of the madness, and was hugely influential in certain quarters of the U.S. where witch burning is deprecated. If you've never heard of her, you have clearly not kept abreast of the zeitgeist, as Starhawk now has a blog, "On Faith," on a joint Newsweek / Washington Post site.

I sometimes tire of people asking if my beat here on Mystic Bourgeoisie is not trivially marginal to mainstream American culture, and thus the world's. If you should entertain such misgivings, click that Newsweek / Washington Post link where you can read in Starhawk's mini-bio about how she "travels internationally teaching magic, the tools of ritual, and the skills of activism," and posts stuff like this bit from Compassion Begins With Mother Earth...

Earth based spirituality covers such a wide spectrum of diverse religions and spiritual traditions, from indigenous traditions to modern NeoPagansim. We share no unified dogma, and no one person carries the authority to speak for all, certainly not me.

Yeah, but hey, Newsweek, The Washington Post... you've sure got a bully pulpit! Though, granted, it's not as if there aren't plenty of other speakers for "earth based spirituality." For instance, also published in 1979, there's Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America by Margot Adler.

That would be the same Margot Adler who once told me, personally -- in front of a sizable audience -- that I was her kinda guy. No lie. At the time, which was April of 2000, we were both speaking on a panel at the University of Colorado's 52nd annual Conference on World Affairs. So you see, I've come a long way too, baby.

However, witches, druids, goddess-worshippers, and other pagans -- whether in America or elsewhere -- are no longer saying nice things about me. Not if they've ever read this blog. But let's get back to Starhawk and her latest documentary, which is about the archeologist Marija Gimbutas -- about whom I wrote back in June, 2006, in Yogis, Shapersons and Goddesses (if you didn't catch it the first time around, don't miss The Da Vinci Code movie review).

In The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft (p. 357), Ronald Hutton writes of Gimbutas...

In 1974 she published a celebrated analysis of the figurines which had long been recognized as one of the most remarkable features of neolithic and Copper Age sites in south-eastern Europe. Following the collapse of general scholarly belief in a Great Goddess, she treated these as representations of individual deities and interpreted their symbolism -- elaborately and boldly -- according to a system which had been developed in its essentials by the Jungian psychologist Erich Neumann, whom she acknowledged and praised.

Jung, of course, as we might have suspected. But continuing...

It was only in the late 1970s that feminist theory replaced Jungian psychology as her major conceptual tool, and this may not be unrelated to the fact that she taught in the University of California, Los Angeles.

Your...

...at this juncture would not be inappropriate.

A much fuller description of the Gimbutas debate is provided by an article in Lingua Franca (April/May 1997) by Lawrence Osborne. It's called...

And not all the naysayers are men, by a long shot. Quoting from the above...

• Lotte Motz, an expert on Germanic mythology, argues that images of men and animals are just as prolific as goddess imagery in early European cultures.
• Lauren Talalay at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology in Ann Arbor, Michigan, claims that Gimbutas's work was as marred by gender bias as that of her Russian peers in the 1950s.
• For many scholars, the Pokrovka warrior women serve as the final nail in Gimbutas's coffin, putting her male-marauder theory permanently to rest. "We have this macho myth about the so-called Kurgan nomads, that they were hierarchical warmongers and so forth," says Claudia Chang, an archaeologist at Sweet Briar College, who works on Kurgan graves in central Asia. "But in fact, as these recent excavations are showing, their kinship system often favored women and enabled them to enter the military and social elite."

What you see in the video on the Belili Productions website is the first minute and a half of this more complete YouTube video, which is the first part of Starhawk's documentary about Marija Gimbutas, "Signs Out of Time."

Olympia Dukakis (narrator): "What does the dance mean to the dancers? How do we measure the beliefs that set those feet in motion?"

Good questions, to which we will eventually loop around again.

Meanwhile, the following are sequential statements from Part 7 of the Signs Out of Time - Marija Gimbutas video on YouTube.

• Lord Colin Renfrew: "She felt she had a direct line to these things. So she felt to some extent that she could understand it in an intuitive way. I'd almost say a feminine way, but that might be... I might be criticized by some of your more critical viewers. But she had a very holistic approach to things."
• James Harrod: "And that's why it was so creative. It was that cross-fertilization of ideas which enabled her to see things which other people hadn't seen."
• Olympia Dukakis: "But artists, ecologists, feminists, contemporary goddess worshippers, and social thinkers were deeply inspired by her work."
• Joan Marler: "When Marija began to publish her work on the symbolism of Old Europe it just happened to coincide with the second wave of feminism and the development of eco-feminism and sense of rediscovering the fact that we are connected with this Earth."
• Ernestine Elster: "There were feminists who found in Marija's ideas the scientist who they had hoped would support their ideas that once God was a woman. And so she was borne aloft by, really, a lively group of women -- and pr... men too. And she never looked back." [note: the "pr..." elision was probably "probably" -- doncha think?]
• Patricia Reis: "So the backlash against her I think was part of the backlash against feminism, because she got identified with feminism."

By the way, if you click on the names above, you'll find some... interesting background on these people.

The voiceover then refers to Gimbutas' home country: "Lithuania, where goddesses have never been forgotten." We'll come back to that shortly -- and with a vengeance.

But first note the interesting logic on display above: What many (including myself) believe to be a crackpot theory just happened to intersect with "second wave feminism" (there have been more waves than two, but we'll let that ride) and was accepted, adopted and championed by a whole herd of crackpots who were eagerly awaiting a crackpot with a Ph.D. in Archeology and a bunch of cracked pottery, who, and which, supported their own crackpot theories.

Continuing in an oddly (but intimately, you could say) related direction, Hugh Urban's Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic, and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism has an interesting table of contents. Here's a sample.

My emphasis. In case you wondered.

Urban also wrote Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics, and Power in the Study of Religion. Both books are published by the University of California Press, and Urban is Associate Professor of Religion and Comparative Studies at Ohio State University. Whether because of or in spite of these credentials, he seems to know what he's talking about, and his books are a needed counterbalance to the plethora of absolute malarkey about "Tantric Sex" that is being spewed around these days by the ignorant loonies of the Mystic Bourgeoisie. He writes in Tantra (p. 2)...

As we can see on the shelves of any bookstore, Tantra pervades Western pop culture, appearing in an endless array of books, videos, and slick web sites. Indeed the phrase "American Tantra" is now even a registered trademark, representing a whole line of books, videos, and "ceremonial sensual" merchandise.

There is much more in this vein at Urban's The Omnipotent Oom: Tantra and Its Impact on Modern Western Esotericism.

But wait! That's not all you'll get!

I searched Zinio again, this time for "Gimbutas," and found her mentioned in the 28 September 2007 issue of Science, which has been the official journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science since 1900. In other words, this is not Science Lite. The article, titled "Myths and Consequences" is a review of Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science by Stefan Arvidsson (on my Amazon wishlist, yo). The University of Chicago Press site provides a useful synopsis, including this bit...

Stefan Arvidsson traces the evolution of the Aryan idea through the nineteenth century -- from its roots in Bible-based classifications and William Jones's discovery of commonalities among Sanskrit, Latin, and Greek to its use by scholars in fields such as archaeology, anthropology, folklore, comparative religion, and history. Along the way, Arvidsson maps out the changing ways in which Aryans were imagined and relates such shifts to social, historical, and political processes. Considering the developments of the twentieth century, Arvidsson focuses on the adoption of Indo-European scholarship (or pseudoscholarship) by the Nazis and by Fascist Catholics.

While "Fascist Catholics" is certainly a show-stopper phrase, don't let it overshadow that reference to pseudoscholarship. Meanwhile, you can read the full review right here...

Science-Sep-28-07 The reviewer, Michael Witzel (Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard), notes that 19th-century linguists Max Müller and Hermann Hirt had argued against drawing connections between language and race. He then continues...

I found this interesting note on p. 293 of Aryan Idols...

Marler (1997) stresses Gimbutas's strong Lithuanian identity and the traumatic consequences that the Polish and later the Russian Bolshevik occupation of Lithuania had for her and her educated family, who seem to have held liberal and romantic-nationalist values. As for many Lithuanians during the interwar period, the German army instead seemed like defenders of the Lithuanian culture.

the cited reference is to
"The Circle Is Unbroken: A Brief Biography" by Joan Marler
in From the Realm of the Ancestors:
An Anthology in Honor of Marija Gimbutas

So what have we got here so far? Archeology, Feminism, Indo-European languages, Hindu Tantra, The Goddess, The Four Noble Truths, Hour-Long Orgasms, Perfect Great Enlightenment, Total Utter Bullshit... As The Cars once said: it's all mixed up.

But maybe, just maybe, we can still extract some shred of sense out of this bubbling cauldron of newts' eyes and fenny snakes.

Something about the opening bars of that Starhawk/Gimbutas video made me uncomfortable. Dancing peasants happily cavorting around bonfires always give me a creepy feeling. They conjure up images of the carefree Wandervogel circa 1900, about whom I've written elsewhere. (Click graphic for more.)

Point is, many of those kids, several decades after their youthful revels, were signing up with the Nazi Party.

So, on a hunch, I broke out of Starhawk's "Signs Out of Time" vid and googled "Lithuania Holocaust" -- without the quotes. And the first thing I found was a Wikipedia page called (predictably, but still I was floored) Holocaust in Lithuania. It says...

The Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Lithuania resulted in the near total destruction of Lithuanian Jews living in the Nazi-controlled Lithuanian territories... Out of approximately 208,000 to 210,000 Jews, an estimated 195,000 - 196,000 perished before the end of World War II (wider estimates are sometimes published)...

It has taken me several days to put this into the context that the balance of this post will attempt to present. This has already been long, I know, but I hope you'll bear with me to the bitter end. And it is bitter indeed.

In 1992, Christopher Browning published a book titled Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. The Publishers Weekly review said...

On June 13, 1942, the commanding officer of Reserve Police Battalion 101 received orders to round up the Jews in the Polish town of Josefow and shoot all but the able-bodied males. Major Wilhelm Trapp, who wept over the order, gave his troops the extraordinary option of "excusing themselves" from the task. Of the 500 in the unit only a dozen did so, and the rest slaughtered 1500 women, children and old people. ...these ordinary men, mostly middle-aged working-class people from Hamburg, shot to death some 38,000 Polish Jews and sent 45,000 others to the Treblinka gas chambers. ...this short work... reveals how average Germans became mass murderers.

Four years later, in 1996, Daniel Goldhagen ignited a firestorm with Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. Here's Publishers Weekly again...

Refuting the widespread notion that those who carried out the genocide of Jews were primarily SS men or Nazi party members, he demonstrates that the perpetrators -- those who staffed and oversaw the concentration camps, slave labor camps, genocidal army units, police battalions, ghettos, death marches -- were, for the most part, ordinary German men and women: merchants, civil servants, academics, farmers, students, managers, skilled and unskilled workers. Rejecting the conventional view that the killers were slavishly carrying out orders under coercion, Goldhagen, assistant professor of government at Harvard, uses hitherto untapped primary sources, including the testimonies of the perpetrators themselves, to show that they killed Jews willingly, approvingly, even zealously.

But it wasn't just the Germans who did this. That Wikipedia article on the Holocaust in Lithuania cites an article by Dina Porat -- The Holocaust in Lithuania: Some Unique Aspects -- which appears in The Final Solution: Origins and Implementation. Porat writes (p. 163)...

A declaration issued after the war by the Lithuanian Jews in the American zone in Germany regarding "the guilt of the Lithuanian people in the extermination of Lithuanian Jewry" concludes: "The small places in the Lithuanian provinces, without any exception, were erased by the Lithuanians." This declaration actually sums up the events detailed in Lithuanian Jewry, the volume on the Holocaust: the handful of survivors of 220 Shtetles and small towns describe how the Jews in those places were killed. Their descriptions, in which the Germans are hardly mentioned, make it quite clear that Lithuanians perpetrated most of the torture and killing, generally without any German officials on the spot. Recent research confirms Jewish sources to a large extent. The German historian Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm, in his research on the Einsatzgruppen, assumes that "possibly half or two-thirds" of Lithuanian Jews were killed by local units. It seems, then, that the part played by the Lithuanians was greater than the Germans could afford to admit in their reports to their headquarters.

And this is from the Neustadt-Saki chapter of Lithuanian Jewry, referred to by Porat in the previous quote...

...a group of Lithuanian "Activists," under the command of Germans who came from Shirvint, attacked the city. They ordered all Jewish males above the age of fourteen out to the streets. There armed Lithuanians were waiting and they took them under heavy guard to the District Council building. Council officials collected their papers, money and anything of value found on them.

In groups of fifty the Jews were taken to the Jewish cemetery. There, pits which were excavated by Soviet prisoners of war were ready. One hundred ninety-two of the prisoners were murdered by the Germans and the Lithuanian "Activists." They were shot at the edge of the pits.... The district governor and the council head were present at this mass execution. ...all those who participated were invited by the district governor and council head to a large banquet. The two thanked the Germans and the Lithuanians who participated in the mass slaughter for their efforts.

To make this even more real, try watching these YouTube videos:

• Holocaust Testimony: Murder of the Jews of Lithuania
  Dina Baitler, age seven, was brought to the forest of Ponary outside of the city of Vilna, Lithuania together with thousands of other Jews. From morning till night the Jews were lined up and shot into pits located in the forest.
• Holocaust Survivor Describes Escape from Cattle Car
  Born in 1930 in Kaunas, Lithuania, Kalman Perk was deported with his family to the Kovno ghetto in 1941. Hiding in a cellar in July 1944 to escape the impending liquidation of the ghetto, the family was forced to abandon their hiding place due to German-ignited fires in the ghetto. They were then loaded onto a cattle car and deported to the concentration camps.

Remember this? "Lithuania, where goddesses have never been forgotten."

So it wasn't just the Germans. And it wasn't just the men.

A book published just last Fall, Ordinary People as Mass Murderers: Perpetrators in Comparative Perspective, contains a chapter titled "Perpetrators of the Holocaust: A Historiography." Here's a clip...

The representation of female perpetrators and their defence strategy in various Nazi trials is a largely neglected topic but played an important part in the collective strategy of denying any guilt. Accused women exploited their gender status by arguing that they had been exploited and had acted in subordinate positions as helpless assistants in a regime that was led by men. Furthermore, analyses of "courtroom culture" and "media representation" of trials show that female perpetrators were stereotyped and demonised as complete deviations from femininity and exceptional "female brutes", e.g., Ilse Koch, "the witch from Buchenwald", Carmen Maria Mory, "the devil" of Ravensbrück, or Herta Oberheuser, "the sadist of Ravensbrück". This discourse disguised the participation of a large number of women in Nazi crimes, and served to avoid a critical self-reflection on the past. In short, the picture of "unnatural femininity" and dehumanised creatures with unbridled sexuality allowed society to construct a counter-model of itself as normal and innocent.

The following names (and links) are taken, fairly randomly, from the Wikipedia pages for Ravensbrück concentration camp and Female guards in Nazi concentration camps...

Hermine Braunsteiner, Emma Zimmer, Johanna Langefeld, Maria Mandel, Dorothea Binz, Greta Boesel, Elisabeth Marschall, Christel Jankowsky, Ilse Goeritz, Margot Dreschel, Kaethe Hoern, Irma Grese, Elisabeth Volkenrath, Herta Ehlert, Alice Orlowski, Jane Bernigau, Gerda Steinhoff, Hildegard Neumann, Ruth Closius, Juana Bormann, Ruth Hildner, Elfriede Lina Rinkel, Herta Bothe.

If you visit all those pages, as I did, you'll recognize some of the faces on the cover of this book...

So how did that Starhawk/Gimbutas intro go again?

What does the dance mean to the dancers? How do we measure the beliefs that set those feet in motion?

You tell me, babycakes.

we have all been here before...

• Positively Fourth Street*
• You've Come a Long Way, Baby
• Diachronicity: A Causal Disconnecting Principle
• A Rogues Gallery

* "Note that the book Seligman references - Charles Murray's Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950 - is an extended paean to Blind Boy Apollo and the All-White Astronauts of Western Civilization."

I'm just saying...

We begin today's little homily with a large, slightly modified graphic (a "derivative work" on several fronts, you could say) from the homepage of Joie de Vivre Hotels. That by way of introduction to its CEO, Chip Conley (pictured), and this extremely interesting thing he said...

The customer sees the product as an extension of themselves. Then you've created an identity refreshment. You've refreshed the identity of the customer because they feel that by using your product they're becoming more of that aspirational self.

He says this in a video recap of some of the exciting marketing events at LOHAS 12, a conference that took place last year right here in Boulder, Colorado. And hearing the guy say that, how could I not think once again of that seminal work of pop psychology, Narrative Therapy: The Social Construction of Preferred Realities? In fact, allow me to recycle a bit from a 2005 Mystic B post on that very subject...

So let me see if I've got the gist of this... If I'd prefer to be a fairy princess, say, instead of someone whose life has been derailed by a personality disorder arising from childhood trauma -- some combination of physical, emotional, sexual and/or psychological abuse -- then I could rework my "narrative" to where I was really born with a magic wand and a tiara? Or let's say I was spooked by all this postmodern confusion of optional selves and shifting histories. I could what? Morph myself into some arcane magus from the 15th century?

Cool!

I wrote about the market research outfit LOHAS in November 2005 in The Discreet Charm of the Mystic Bourgeoisie. The group says of itself...

LOHAS is an acronym for Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability, a market segment focused on health and fitness, the environment, personal development, sustainable living, and social justice.

But who are they really? On the LOHAS Means Business page, we learn a bit more...

Anthropologist and sociologist Paul Ray, Ph.D., executive vice president of American LIVES, a research firm in Oakland, Calif., in 1994 began a lengthy and complicated national study of American values. Ray's research reshaped theories about American culture and revealed an emerging cultural phenomenon called the "Cultural Creatives" -- a slice of the American population comprising 50 million persons or 26 percent of American adults.

Ah, so we're back to that again. One of these days I'll learn that I can save a lot of time by going to Wikipedia first. Had I done that a couple years ago, I might have gotten the connection between LOHAS and the "Cultural Creatives" meme a whole lot sooner (though who knows if it was even there then). The following is from the Wikipedia page for LOHAS...

Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS) is a demographic defining a particular market segment related to sustainable living, "green" ecological initiatives, and generally composed of a relatively upscale and well-educated population segment.... Author Paul H. Ray, who coined the term Cultural Creatives in his book by the same name, explains that "What you're seeing is a demand for products of equal quality that are also virtuous."[4][5] Included in the cultural creative demographic are consumers of "new age" goods and services.[6][1]

Those inline references go to...

• 1. Judith Rosen (May 27, 2002). Crossing the Boundaries: Regardless of its label, this increasingly mainstream category continues to broaden its subject base - Publishers Weekly
• 4. Amy Cortese (July 20, 2003). They Care About the World (and They Shop, Too) - New York Times
• 5. Laura Everage (October 1, 2002). Understanding the LOHAS Lifestyle - Gourmet Retailer Magazine
• 6. David Moore (June 17, 2002). Body & Soul, yoga w/o the yoyos - Media Life

A kid named Max Simon appears in the video Next-Gen LOHAS Leaders - Part 3. I kick myself for missing this pow-wow last June, as it took place not three miles from where I live. You really must catch Max's act, as it's impossible to do it justice with mere words. The logo from his site might give you a clue though...

Max, as it transpires, is the son of Deepak Chopra's sidekick, David Simon -- a man I have always thought the phrase "pencil-necked geek" might have been invented for.

like father like son

On the page where that exuberant picture came from, Max includes some laudatory blurbs, starting with...

"I believe Max is the perfect example of a leader for the next generation." Deepak Chopra M.D., the pioneer of mind-body medicine

But all was not entirely well in paradise it seems, reading between the lines of Max's somewhat embarrassing Un-edited thoughts post, which begins...

It's 6 am and I am in my hotel room at the Westin in Colorado after finishing my last Chopra Center course (in the foreseeable future). We (my father and I) decided that it would be better to have me stop teaching at their courses so that I could focus my full time and attention on selfcentered and so that it wouldn't distract from The Chopra Center's programs.

It would appear that the exuberance got a bit much even for the far-famed equanimity of Deepak Chopra. Ayurvedic healing is apparently no match for the terminal irritation that can be caused by self-centered enfants terribles.

Steve Case of AOL fame (pictured right) spoke at the LOHAS 10 conference in 2006. From his remarks there I learned about Lime ("healthy living with a twist™"), which I'd never run across until today. Don't miss their...

...where you can choose amongst:

• the spaceroom™
• the winterroom™
• the floralroom™
• the forestroom™
• the waterroom™
• the zenroom™

But if you go to any of them, turn down your speakers first. The zenroom almost blew me off my zafu! Actually, the various rooms are not trademarked. Yet. I added the ™ symbols in a spirit of preemptive branding. There is clearly big money behind Lime, and it seems to be nailing down everything in sight. Lime itself, for example, is not just plain vanilla Lime, but rather...

And Gaiam -- "Gaia" + "I am" -- is not simply Gaiam, but...

Unsurprisingly at this juncture, Gaiam's 2000 annual report informs us...

"Cultural Creatives," a term coined by sociologist Paul Ray in a demographic study on American values, refers to a distinct segment of the population who value personal development and wellness and who support the health of the planet. This group comprises 26% of the population or 50 million adult Americans according to Ray. Gaiam caters to these consumers by supporting "conscious commerce," a term we use to describe our customer's evolving practice of making purchasing decisions based on lifestyle and values.

Giam's Personal Growth section facilitates, for instance...

...in other words: selling shit. But hey, it's...

Continuing a trend we saw above with LOHAS, the following is from Gaiam's current Corporate Officers page.

Paul H. Ray - Director since October 1999. Mr. Ray is the Chief Executive Officer of Integral Partnerships LLC, a consulting firm specializing in Cultural Creative topics. From November 1986 until December 2000, he was Executive Vice President of American LIVES, Inc., a market research and opinion-polling firm. From 1981 to 1983, prior to joining American LIVES, Mr. Ray was Chief of Policy Research on Energy Conservation at the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources of the Government of Canada. From 1973 to 1981, Mr. Ray was Associate Professor of Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. He is the author of "The Integral Culture Survey," which first identified the Cultural Creatives subculture.

And the Integral Partnerships What's New page contains the following...

In association with Wisdom University and the Institute on Emerging Wisdom Culture, Dr. Paul H. Ray is conducting a major new study on America's Cultural Creatives. The findings of the study will be released in the Summer of 2008.

In addition to Paul "Cultural Creatives" Ray, the Wisdom University Faculty page includes the following luminaries and their associated "fields." This is a veritable Who's Who of the Mystic Bourgeoisie. I encourage you to explore their respective pages -- if you can stomach them.

• Oberto Airaudi: Damanhurian Studies (website)  
• Lauren Artress: Labyrinthian Mysteries (website)
• Alex Grey: Sacred Art (website #1; website #2)
• Stanislav Grof: Transpersonal Psychotherapy (website)
• Jean Houston: Social Artistry (website)
• Barbara Marx Hubbard: Conscious Evolution (website)
• Caroline Myss: Energy Medicine (website #1, website #2)
• Rupert Sheldrake: Holistic Science (website)
• Marion Woodman: Feminine Spirituality (website)

Let me end this on the same note I came in on, by quoting the words of wisdom delivered to that LOHAS confab last year by Joie de Vivre Hotels' CEO Chip Conley...

The customer sees the product as an extension of themselves. Then you've created an identity refreshment. You've refreshed the identity of the customer because they feel that by using your product they're becoming more of that aspirational self.

Yes, this is how Pod People procreate.

Well, refresh your identity with this: If you are buying any of the products or services hawked by these fucking LOHAS vampires, you are supporting some of the most twisted, irrational psychos currently inhabiting planet Earth. Or if you prefer, Gaia.

an important message from the Gaiam > Eco Home & Outdoor > Bedroom page

I used to think that every little thing I did was crazy
but now I think the karma cops are comin' after you.
aerosmith ~ full circle

I've given all I can but were still on the payroll.
radiohead ~ karma police

For a minute there, I lost myself. Several posts ago, in You've Come a Long Way, Baby, I wrote, "Hints in the sidebar: compare and contrast." The big hint was the second item -- here it's the first. The big hint was actually not so big. The big hint was actually pretty hidden, as it's next to impossible to read the title. So I'll tell you the title. It's The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World by Paul H. Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson.

But why is The Feminine Face of God also back again this time? Easy: because it too was co-authored by Sherry Ruth Anderson. I had to wait till Amazon sent me a cheap-ass copy before I could continue this thread. And I had to first post about Jean Shinoda Bolen, as I did last night, because she comes into the story too. In fact, she wrote the foreword to Sherry Ruth Anderson's book. There, for instance, Shinola Bolen says...

The feminine face of God is an aspect of divinity and an approach to the sacred that is not exclusively of women, but women will naturally lead the way because women's receptivity, commitment to relationships, and biological experience provide greater opportunities for this kind of revelation.

Right. But let me ask my women readers -- of whom there are many more than some might suspect, given that my subject matter often edges on territory that could invite speculation re possible misogyny; but that's only because so many chicks go in for this kind of bullshit. Let's try that again. Let me ask, just because you have an innie and I have an outtie, does that really make me less:

• receptive?
• committed to relationships?
• biologically experienced?

...whatever those things might actually mean, which isn't exactly crystal clear. But that's just something to think about. Just a MacGuffin on the way to looking at the kind of bullshit the boys go in for every bit as much as the girls. No Goddess necessary. Batteries not included.

So there I was seven or eight years ago, sitting on the floor in the back of Boulder Book Store -- where I hardly ever go anymore because of a) the parking, and b) the clientele -- looking at this book called The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World. Yes, the very one by Paul H. Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson. Keep these names in mind, as they will be important to our story as it unfolds. And oh baby, is it ever gonna unfold!

Also keep in mind that when lots of things come together unexpectedly, it's not necessarily synchronicity. It is just as possible -- in this case, far more possible -- that you have stepped into the magic circle jerk of mutual self-admiration.

It wasn't that the premise of the book didn't interest me. It did. But 50 million people? C'mon! I didn't think there were 50 million people in America who could read, much less create anything that might be called "culture." Of course, this was before blogging took off. Now there are 50 million bloggers, easy. They still can't read, but they can type.

This was in the days when I had tons of money -- from Cluetrain and (mostly) Gonzo Marketing -- and I would buy books on the merest whim. Nonetheless, I left The Cultural Creatives sitting on the shelf. There was something deeply bogus about the book, but I couldn't say what it was, couldn't put my finger on it.

Last week I ran into the book again in a local used bookstore. I picked it up and started casually flipping through it. And I was thunderstruck! All my obsessive research in the intervening years had finally prepared me to grasp the awful truth:

cultural creatives = mystic bourgeoisie

OMG! OMG! I didn't have the... (what can I call it? Receptivity? Biological experience?) to see what I was looking at back in 2001. But now it jumped out at me from nearly every page. Strap in and prepare for examples. Amazon's own review offers a decent precis for starters...

Cultural Creative is a term coined by Ray and Anderson to describe people whose values embrace a curiosity and concern for the world, its ecosystem, and its peoples; an awareness of and activism for peace and social justice; and an openness to self-actualization through spirituality, psychotherapy, and holistic practices.

That last bit is the kicker, of course. You can care all you want to about the ruination of the physical world and the slow starvation of billions of poor bastards under fascist regimes propped up by vampiric global capital and the CIA. But if you don't filter that concern through a finely cultivated miasma of ayhuasca tourism, Maslovian needs-meeting, esoteric shiatsu Reiki Qi Gong biodynamic bodywork, and archetypically Jungian evolutionary dream trance shaman goddess consciousness, then all bets are off: you suck.

Let's look at a couple blurbs.

There is no way to overestimate the contribution that Ray and Anderson have made to our understanding of the times in which we live. They have put their finger on the pulse of an entire generation. Just knowing who we are, having a name as it were, gives Cultural Creatives more power to affect the world.  

~ Marianne Williamson

That would be the same Marianne Williamson who introduced the world to A Course in Miracles in her book, A Return to Love. And those would be the Miracles described by Jesus-channeler Helen Schucman, who, at the end of her life "cursed, in the coarsest barroom language you could imagine, 'that book, that goddamn book'," and whose life-partner sidekick, William Thetford, was oh-btw concurrently doing research on "Personality Theory" funded via the CIA's then-secret MK-ULTRA mind control program. Weird, I know. But hey, I'm just saying.

Here's another one in run-on-sentence mode...

"Hallelujah! The Cultural Creatives brings us spectacular, inspiring good news: our long-desired sea change has occurred, each of us 'cultural creatives' is not alone, together we now amount to a critical mass sufficient to transform America!"        

~ John Vasconcellos

And that would be the same John Vasconcellos who as a California state senator was responsible for pushing through one of the biggest boondoggles in that state's much-boondoggled history, to wit, the disastrously failed (though worthless from the get-go) project to promote "Self-Esteem" in the classroom (hey teacher, leave those kids alone!), based in part, as he so embarrassingly divulges, on "my own painful personal struggle - despite repeated successes and achievements in my life - to develop my own self-esteem." In aid of which, he wrote: "It is time to plumb the reaches and mysteries of inner space." Excuse me, John, but what an asshole!

Am I suggesting guilt-by-association here? You bet I am. And let's lay on a little more! The Cultural Creatives was based on a multi-year marketing study by American Lives, Inc. Does the following chart look vaguely familiar? Like say, the same sort of slice-em-and-dice-em routine applied by every huckster target-marketing outfit that ever centered its cross-hairs on your Third Eye?

click graphic for full-size image on American LIVES site

If you go to that LIVES Analysis page, right under the graphic, you'll find this...

Paul H. Ray, Ph.D., Executive Vice-President of American LIVES, has extensively researched how the subcultures of values permeate all aspects of American life. In this research, he discovered the emergence of a new values subculture of Americans that he named the Cultural Creatives, which includes 1 out of every 4 American adults. This led to more research about the Cultural Creatives, a group that Dr. Ray identifies as being on the cutting edge of social change. They have a different set of values than the subcultures that have dominated America's past. They are interested in new kinds of products and services, and often respond to marketing and advertising in unexpected ways. They represent valuable new market opportunities if their needs can be met and addressed.

But this was not just any old market research study. Oh no. I here reproduce the end of the LIVES Analysis page verbatim, including the links and graphic...

The Institute of Noetic Sciences and the Fetzer Institute have both been key sponsors of research on the Cultural Creatives. The Integral Culture Survey: A Study of the Emergence of Transformational Values in America, a longer description of the American LIVES Typology and its historic context, is for sale by contacting the Institute of Noetic Sciences at 415.331.5650.

For a more exhaustive analysis, look for Dr. Ray's new book, The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World, by Harmony Books. He and his co-author, Sherry Anderson Ph.D, offer an evocative portrayal of the Cultural Creatives: who they are, how they are affecting society and culture, and why we should care. You can also visit Cultural Creatives for more information.

First off, The Fetzer Institute -- maaan, you learn something new every day -- was founded by one John Earl Fetzer, who, according to his official bio...

had an intense intellectual curiosity about the "unseen elements" of life. He studied various forms of meditation, prayer, philosophy, and positive thinking, and explored other ways of healing.... The interests that shaped John Fetzer's life can be seen as the seedbed for the questions that define the work of the Fetzer Institute: How can the secular and sacred elements of life be better integrated? How can the insights of science and the powers of technological innovation be utilized to explore the capacities of the mind and spirit? How can the wisdom and insight gained through inner exploration be used to better our individual and collective health? And how can the entrepreneurial spirit and financial resources gained from the American business sector be used in the service of creating a better world?

Well, isn't that special? Wikipedia adds: "Approximate endowment = $400,000,000 in 2006," and the Dalai Lama is featured on the site's front page -- so you know you're in good hands here. But wait, that's not all! In June, you can attend the "Nature and Mystical Experience" event.

In this workshop, we will deepen our mystical rapport with Earth through ceremony and mystical practice. We will immerse ourselves in the wind, rain, sun, and fields at GilChrist, making time for solitude and community.

In case you're getting confused, we're still talking about backers of the Cultural Creatives market research study. Right? Still with me? And the other backer is the biggie: the aforementioned Institute of Noetic Sciences. One of my favorites! IONS, as it is affectionately known to not-really-New-Agers everywhere, was founded by ex-astronaut Edgar Mitchell, who, while orbiting in his Apollo 14 capsule, "conducted private ESP experiments with his friends on Earth." Wikipedia, which is where that quote comes from, adds a footnote to Private Lunar ESP: An Interview with Edgar Mitchell. Well, OK!

Interviewer: Were you already interested in ESP?

Mitchell: Oh yes. I had a religious upbringing, and was always interested in science; the two seemed to have different answers, which bothered me. When the chance to go to the moon came up, it re-raised the questions about what kind of world we live in, because nobody had been outside the atmosphere. I had been reading the literature for several years and had become convinced. Science says it can't work but laboratory experiments show that it does.

No, Edgar, they don't. Not scientific laboratory experiments. And people even weirder than you have been trying for well over a century.

You can read more about all this in Mitchell's book, The Way of the Explorer: An Apollo Astronaut's Journey Through the Material and Mystical Worlds. But let's push on to some of the other focal interests of the Institute of Noetic Sciences. These include, as the site puts it, Three Principal Program Areas:

1. Extended Human Capacities
• Creativity
• Meditation
• Psi Studies
• Wisdom Capacities
• Subtle Energies
• States of Consciousness
• Death, Dying, and Beyond
2. Integral Health and Healing
• Biofields
• Distant Healing
• Global Medicine
• Integral Medicine
• Mind Body Medicine
• Extended Survival
• Placebo Expectancy Effects
3. Emerging Worldviews
• Integral Intelligence
• Science of Wisdom
• Gaia Theory
• Transformative Practices
• Cultivating Spiritual Awareness
• East/West/Indigenous Practices

Are we getting the drift, class? I hope you're starting to share my road-to-Damascus flash (so to speak) that

cultural creatives = mystic bourgeoisie

btw, Patricia Hopkins, Sherry Ruth Anderson's co-author in The Feminine Face of God (and remember: Sherry Ruth Anderson was Paul Hays' co-author [not to mention wife] on The Cultural Creatives; head ache yet?), also thanks The Institute of Noetic Sciences. It's a tight little group. But actually not so little. If you believe Hay and Anderson, the number is 50,000,000.

And that should be that, as this has already gone on far too long. But remember that mention of synchronicity back at the start of all this? Well, the reason for that was an Amazon recommendation I got this morning (hell, you know the kind of weird stuff I read) for a new book by Daniel Pinchbeck et al called Toward 2012: Perspectives on the Next Age. Being a big fan of 2012 (do not miss the trailer!), I poked around inside the book -- and found an article I simply had to read RIGHT NOW NO WAITING: "Transforming Repression of The Divine Feminine" by Wahkeena Sitka Tidepool Ripple. No lie. So I googled about and, mirabile dictu, found it on Reality Sandwich! I also found another article by Ms. Sitka Tidepool Ripple on Alternatives magazine. It's called Can Sex Work Be Shamanic? And since we've been chatting lately about Tantric Sex and whatnot here on Mystic B, I took a closer look. But what really caught my eye there was the site banner...

And you just know I did my best Keanu Reeves "Whoa, dude!" Because, are you kidding? "Cultural Creativity"? This just has to be related to the post I was, even then, thinking I had to post today (this is it). And naturally, but of course, I dig a little deeper and find The Cultural Creatives: We Are Everywhere - The "InnerView" with Paul Ray. They sure as shit are everywhere! But seeing as this was from the Summer 2001 issue, where have I been all my life? Surrounded by fucking Cultural Creatives -- a demographic to be proud of! -- and here I didn't even know it.

The Cultural Creatives was published in 2000. And oh look, it was also blurbed by the ubiquitous Jean Shinola Bolen...

When people identify themselves as cultural creatives through reading this book, the transformation of society will be accelerated. The book itself will be a force for change.

Well gosh, I guess so. Because whatever rough beast this is, it's not slouching. It's galloping, kids. It's got a nine-year lead. And something tells me it's not headed for Bethlehem.

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them.
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
~ tolkien

Confused by my title slug? Ever eager to help, Wikipedia comes to the rescue in its admirably complete entry on a particular brand of shoe polish -- specifically in the subsection titled You don't know shit from Shinola.

Shinola was immortalized in colloquial English by the phrase You don't (or he/she doesn't) know shit from Shinola which first became widely popular during World War II. Aside from being an amusing bit of alliteration, the phrase implies that the person being referred to is stupid or woefully ignorant. Shit and Shinola, while superficially similar in appearance, are entirely distinct in their function; only one is good for polishing shoes, and anyone who fails to distinguish one from the other must be ignorant or of low acuity.

Such ignorant low-acuity types should, for instance, never polish their footwear in the bathroom, lest they be overcome with confusion and wind up in the plight described in this tune by the Rolling Stones...

Come on, come on down Sweet Virginia,
Come on, honey child, I beg of you.
Come on, come on down, you got it in ya.
Got to scrape the shit right off your shoes.

(emphasis added)

Granted, this is perhaps an overlong introduction to the work, such as it is, of Jean SHINODA Bolen, but I thought it would get us more quickly into the spirit, the marrow and substance, the archetypal essence of her oeuvre. For make no mistake, Ms. Shinoda Bolen is, and I quote, "an internationally known Jungian analyst." Which means, as we have come to understand by this self-labeling, that she can make up any sort of fatuous nonsense and, by attributing it to some hypothetical and impossible to substantiate "collective unconscious" make it seem not only reasonable, but indeed, profound.

While she is best known for Goddesses in Everywoman: Powerful Archetypes in Women's Lives, I am more interested here in her longwindedly titled Ring of Power: Symbols and Themes, Love vs. Power in Wagner's Ring Cycle and in Us: A Jungian-Feminist Perspective. Actually, I ran across an older edition of this in a used bookstore last week and was amused to see that it was no less prolixly titled Ring of Power: The Abandoned Child, the Authoritarian Father, and the Disempowered Feminine: A Jungian Understanding of Wagner's Ring Cycle. Clearly, the publisher -- which puts out all manner of similar crap -- decided that love and power trump abandoned children and sexual politics in these latter days. So hard to keep up with what's hip.

That's the Arthur Rackham illustration that graces the cover of my edition. The publisher's synopsis says...

Bolen shows how Wagner's ever-popular Ring Cycle articulates universal experiences and deep-seated longings by offering a mythology of the dysfunctional family and the patriarchal society in which the quest for power distorts personalities and relationships. We respond to the Ring because we recognize ourselves and our relationships in the Cycle's stern father, disempowered mother, abandoned children, and brave truth-tellers. Bolen vividly relates the events of the four operas and spotlights characters in ways that evoke the reader's identifications, memories, and healing emotions.

Brave truth tellers: hold that thought.

What most of us know about Wagner (if I'm any example) comes from the Ride of the Valkyries being blasted from helicopter gunships in Apocalypse Now. Yet even I, in my woeful state of ignorant endarkenment, had heard there was something fishy about Wagner. Something about the Jews, wasn't it? Google google. Oh that's right! For the painless short form, you can read the Wikipedia entry about the maestro's racist rantery in Das Judenthum in der Musik.

And OK, I admit it, I know more about Wagner's antisemitism than I'm letting on, but only because I happened onto an insanely cheap copy of Twilight of the Wagners: The Unveiling of a Family's Legacy in a Barnes & Noble cutout bin several years ago, and for about a year it was sitting on the bookshelf in my downstairs bathroom, which is where a lot of my knowledge acquisition activities take place, and yes, I did idly page through it on occasion. While it appears that many Amazon reader/reviewers were put off by the book, the Publishers Weekly review does contain some highly pertinent information that goes beyond issues of writing style and ideological bias.

According to Greek myth, the sins of a father are visited upon his sons for three generations. Born in 1947, Gottfried Wagner is the third generation of operatic genius Richard Wagner's offspring, and it is clear in this prickly memoir that he does continue to carry the burden of his great-grandfather's infamous anti-Semitism. Though Wagner (1813-1883) died six years before Hitler was born, Gottfried demonstrates that the composer's virulent essays, which call for Jews to "redeem" themselves through "destruction," exercised a powerful influence on Hitler. More importantly, Gottfried shows that Wagner's descendants -- especially his daughter-in-law Winifred -- were ardent supporters and close friends of Hitler. Furthermore, Gottfried contends that his father, Wolfgang, now the director of the annual Wagner festival in Bayreuth, continues to obfuscate the family's and the festival's Nazi connections.

And it's not exactly as if the Wagner/Nazi connection is arcane, hidden, difficult to find information. A desultory search of Amazon brings up in a flash...

• Richard Wagner and the Anti-Semitic Imagination
• The Darker Side of Genius: Richard Wagner's Anti-Semitism
• The History of Anti-Semitism, Volume III: From Voltaire to Wagner

...the last of which is sitting on a bookshelf across the room from me, along with its three sister volumes (sisterhood is powerful).

Of all this, Jean Shinoda Bolen seems not only ignorant, not just "of low acuity," but positively deaf, dumb and blind. The only significant (being generous) mention she makes of the Hitler connection in her book on Wagner is this embarrassing bit of exculpatory twaddle.

As I became familiar with The Ring of the Niebelung, the psychiatrist in me became intrigued by my knowledge that Hitler was fascinated by the Ring cycle and identified with it in some way. I knew that he was a major patron, that he had insisted that SS officers attend, and required that schoolchildren be exposed to these operas; all of which had caused me to be biased against Wagner and the Ring. I had assumed that it extolled Nazi goals and reflected Hitler's dreams of triumph and was surprised that to the contrary, Valhalla and Wotan go up in flames in the last act of Twilight of the Gods, reflecting the fate of the Third Reich and Hitler's own end; his charred remains were found in a burnt-out bunker.

That last bit in case you hadn't read the comic book. The book's index includes entries for alchemy, anima, archetypes, codependency, courage, darkness, dragon, empathy, father god, feminine aspect, funeral pyre, grief, Hades, humiliation, integrity, intuition, Odin, magic horses, ravens... well, you get the idea. And of course lots about Joseph Campbell and C.G. Jung.

Not included are any references to Jews, antisemitism, fascism, or Nazis. The one substantive reference to Hitler I have quoted in full above. For someone writing an entire book about Wagner, this passing over in silence is not just a -- whoops! -- "oversight." It is clear and simple intellectual dishonesty.

And this sort of willful blindness is endemic in the Jungian community (with one significant exception that I know of), perhaps in part because too close an examination of Jung's own ideas along such lines would reveal his theories to be inherently racialist, if not, in places, outright racist. His stated views on "Negroes" and Jews in Civilization in Transition (The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 10) are hair-raising. Here's a relatively tame example...

Just as every Jew has a Christ complex, so every Negro has a white complex and every [white] American a Negro complex. As a rule the colored man would give anything to change his skin, and the white man hates to admit that he has been touched by the black. 

CW 10, par. 963

And why? Because the beauty of the White Aryan woman must not perish from the earth. That's why. Doesn't it sorta have that certain Ring of Power?

got to scrape the shit right off your shoes

---

Postscript: As I mentioned above, I bought my copy of Ring of Power in a used bookstore here in Boulder, and the previous owner's name was written on the flyleaf. I won't tell you who it was, but I found her easily on Google, in a very lovely PDF for a Colorado arts center. She (or perhaps it was someone else) left a note in the book, on a 3x5 card. Here, verbatim, is what it says:

YOU GOT WHAT
IT TAKES.

YOUR IDENTITY
COME FROM
THE SILENCE
& EXPERIENCE
ITS WHEN YOU
FEEL GOOD
& YOU FEEL GOOD
WHEN IN ALIGNMENT
WITH YOUR
INNER BEING.

Right. So say we all. God bless America.

Despite strong leanings toward multiculturalism, not all the Not-Really-New-Age crowd (most of whom, of course, are women, and totally New Age) are comfortable with non-Western alternative New Religions -- new to them anyway, such as Santeria, Voodoo, Hoodoo, Macumba, Abacua, Candomble, Palo Mayombe, Umbanda, shit like that. They tend to be uncomfortable with these other paths lest some pow'ful black man come be messin wit dey gris-gris bits.

Paulist Press to the rescue! "Celebrating 142 years of excellence in Catholic publishing," as the website informs us, Paulist offers solace to confused white Americans in search of safe inner weirdness with its Classics of Western Spirituality series.

Chosen with care from that series, what follows is my Top-Ten gallery of solid-platinum First-World Spiritualityism® -- you just can't go wrong with these perennial favorites.

But first, a few brief notes before you start clicking through and buying all these wonderful books for your own personal library, thus assuring me a continued source of intellectual stimulation and much needed protein.

1. In the first couple items below, note that "Anglo-Saxon" and "Celtic" are code words for White. In fact, "Western" in this context is a code word for White. Don't worry, you're in good hands here. I understand Your Needs.
2. Angels are always good. How could 74% of Americans be wrong?
3. Hildegard of Bingen is included because her name always cracks me up. Right up there with Princess Marie von Thurn and Taxis. Call it a personal thing.
4. Julian of Norwich was a chick. Who knew?
5. Mostly sunny with clouds of unknowing in the later afternoon.
6. Meister Eckhart appears twice in deference to his name having been highjacked by Holy Rollah Eckhart Tolle -- though that boy not be preachin in da hood any more than they be rollin Enya loops.
7. I wanted to add Emmanuelle II, but I guess Paulist Press was out of stock.
8. The last one is in honor of Madonna's deep spiritual yearnings.
9. Yes, I had a really fucked-up childhood thanks to the Roman Catholic Church. How did you guess?
10. One two three four five six seven... all good children go to Heaven.

Anglo-Saxon Spirituality

Celtic Spirituality

Angelic Spirituality

Hildegard of Bingen

Julian of Norwich

The Cloud 9 of Unknowing

Meister Eckhart 1

Meister Eckhart 2

Emanuel Swedenborg

Kabbalah

for a larger, suitable-for-framing version, click here.

If you think my title slug for this one is a tad weird (I hope you get Mastercard flashbacks), you can easily see where I got it by looking for those phrases, which stochastically emerge from the lower left-of-center portion of the above graphic like delicious found art. That would be, obviously, Aldous Huxley and -- not so obviously -- Richard Price.

The graphic itself was generated using Wordle, a cool little web app I've been having lots of fun with. I seeded it with a bunch of random grafs grabbed from this University of Chicago Press excerpt of Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion by Jeffrey J. Kripal. I was going to call this post "Mystical Queers on Dope," but thought it might give offense to Tupak Okra, who, incidentally, blurbs the book as "stunning." (We've had our differences over the years, but I've always thought him a snappy dresser.)

More seriously, my inclination to use such a scurrilous title slug was influenced to large degree by passages like the following (which you can go read in greater detail).

...[Gerald] Heard, like his fellow British expatriate and brother Vedantist, Christopher Isherwood, was quite clear about his homosexuality. In other words, two of the three British expatriates (Huxley, Heard, and Isherwood) were self-described homosexuals, even if they chose to express this sexual-spiritual orientation in very different ways. Isherwood wrote openly about his own active homosexuality, his (failed) attempts at celibacy, and his sexuality's defining effect on his devotional relationship to the tradition's founding saint, Sri Ramakrishna, who he suspected (correctly) was also homoerotic in both his spiritual and sexual orientations.

So Ramakrishna was gay, big deal. Perhaps a good deal bigger deal, however, was his apparent predilection for prepubescent boys, the correct term for which is pedophilia. The same author writes elsewhere (Kali's Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna, p. 163):

In other words, the visions and acts speak once again of Kali astride Siva, arousing his penis into an erect acknowledgment of her erotic dominance.

Well, OK. So far so good. For who amongst us, of whatever gender preference, has never wanted to give Kali a good sound fucking? But then...

Ramakrishna laughs as he plays with a paramahamsa boy's penis, worships the penises of young boys in a Tantric state, teases a pearl out of the erect phallus of Siva, and plays naked in a dream vision with a fourteen-year-old boy, whom he wants to kiss and embrace in his waking life. He has become the goddess. He is a scandal.

Bottom line, Kripal writes, "Ramakrishna's worship of the boys' penises was something he could not stop."

Evidently, some debate and hard feelings were engendered by all this. Oh dear. Jeffrey Kripal here defends himself at length against various charges.

Ah... well, I seem to have gotten rather off-track with this post somehow. Personally, I couldn't care less about any of the foregoing except inasmuch as it serves to further ground my fundamental premise, to wit: that all these people were total FREAKS and should be approached as one would a mad dog, which is to say, with all due caution and a working sense of humor as to life's not-so-little ironies.

---

For Extra Credit: The following pull-quote (so to speak) is from EnlightenNext magazine's recent Sex issue, specifically from the article titled Their Stroke of Insight. Are we seeing a trend developing here? If so, it's quite clever. While many people react negatively to spiritual cultists, who, in these thoroughly enlightened times would dare to diss a coven of numinous lovelies stroking each other off? As House says in a recent episode: "Another life saved by girl-on-girl action." Look for more such "Tantric" marketing coming soon to a future near you!

Gives a whole new meaning to this one. OM, Jeeves!

And there's a lot more to come on this score. The present post is just a placeholder so I won't forget to fill in the blanks. (I have to do these in small bites. Otherwise, I throw up in my mouth a little.) Hints in the sidebar: compare and contrast.

Not since the days of Plato and Buddha and Confucius some twenty-five hundred years ago, has there been such an uprising of spiritual yearning... The spiritual technologies at our disposal can be harvested from the whole world: Christian centering prayer, Buddhist mindfulness and visualization practices, African trance dancing, Tantra and sacred sexuality, Native American powwows and sweat lodges, shamanic spirit journeys, Asian martial arts, Jungian dreamwork, as well as, for some, the neomystical study of quantum realities. All of these rework the landscapes of the subliminal mind so that there are channels and riverbed in which a deeper spiritual consciousness can flow.

-Jean Houston, Jump Time

PLUS: This just in from my all-time favorite magazine subscription...

For our second issue under the name EnlightenNext, we take an in-depth look at the always provocative relationship between sex and spirituality. Surveying the latest trends in the field -- including the neo-tantric dharma of David Deida, the One Taste community's practice of "orgasmic meditation," and psychologist Jenny Wade's research into transcendent sexual experiences -- we deliver a thought-provoking exploration that you won't want to miss...

Note: This issue contains explicit language and content.

Oh really? Well, here's some more for ya... America, Fuck Yeah!