Christopher Knowles, Are Occult Symbols Present in Science? |365|

The symbolism in the Abramovic video is of a generalised kind, almost cartoonish. Like they're intended to suggest something profound but are little more than squiggles. The loaded glyph idea is a predominantly US thing, although it has been explored psycho-geographically by British writers like Iain Sinclair and Peter Ackroyd in Lud Heat and Hawksmoor, and in fashion by designers such as Lacroix. Perceiving symbolism through chance alignments, curiosities and coincidences is a fascinating idea, but we have to exhaust mundane historical reasons before opting for esoteric ones.

The US emerged from a particular historical and social milieu which was absent of its own iconography, and keen to abandon the problematic symbolism of its antecedents. Navigating those symbols with modern eyes can lead to investing them with a potency they may or may not deserve.
Reading that, I am genuinely unsure if you are being sarcastic. However, assuming you mean that, I think it illustrates exactly what Christopher Knowles is talking about. It is possible nowadays to produce necrophiliac porn, loaded with satanic symbols of various sorts, and call it art.

At the materialist level even, this helps to degrade people, and may push some over the edge into far worse.

However beyond materialism, we really don't know what we may be dealing with - do these symbols invoke something that is better not invoked? Certainly my very strong gut instinct is that the US people managed to stop someone with an interest in this, getting their finger on the button.

David
 
Any sarcasm is entirely accidental. The symbols that surround the performance artist remind me of Ronald Searle's in the St.Trinian's films, or those imaginary spells in Murnau's Nosteratu. Less satanic, more Early Learning Centre cradle toy pictures. Unless a self-identifying wizard can convince me of their meaning, they mostly resemble graffiti.

I'm not denying the potency of symbols, the cross and the broken cross, or swastika, condense a long history in simple marks. I even suspect Abramovich may fancy herself as a bit of a witch, Croatia has no shortage of the tradition, as I discovered when it was part of Yugoslavia in the early 80s. I do however think her main role is to push the conceptual boundaries of art through the liberal conventions of the white cube gallery. Discerning a demonic paper trail in that febrile atmosphere leads wherever you want to go. Discovering a perpetrator is another kettle of sheep's blood.

I've seen dead people in art (good and bad) from Caravaggio's "Beheading of Saint John the Baptist" to the bewigged Christ in rural Spanish churches, and their potency lies in the way they were executed (!) and the beliefs of the viewer. If I look at a dollar bill, which I don't very often, I mostly see the assumed gravitas of a society without a monarchy, pyramids and all seeing eyes as placeholders for a living icon promising to pay the bearer, etc. Government buildings occupy a similar figurative lexicon of monumental insistence, however shallow its visual roots. I don't know about the rest as I refuse to listen to or read podcasts where the overriding conclusion is I'll never get that half hour back again. If the resulting commentary suggests I've missed something I'm happy to give it a hearing.
 
Found another blogger who writes some interesting stuff about occult symbolism/occult themes in pop culture. Valerie D'Orazio. Was a writer/editor for Marvel Comics and MTV. She's got a bunch of interesting posts, but this one about women/girls being portrayed in various movies/shows as MK-Ultra slaves/victims stood out to me...seems to be a recurring disturbing theme right now - (e.g., Stranger Things).

https://butterflylanguage.com/2017/04/07/go-ask-alice-the-trouble-with-uncle-charlie/
 
Found another blogger who writes some interesting stuff about occult symbolism/occult themes in pop culture. Valerie D'Orazio. Was a writer/editor for Marvel Comics and MTV. She's got a bunch of interesting posts, but this one about women/girls being portrayed in various movies/shows as MK-Ultra slaves/victims stood out to me...seems to be a recurring disturbing theme right now - (e.g., Stranger Things).

https://butterflylanguage.com/2017/04/07/go-ask-alice-the-trouble-with-uncle-charlie/

I asked myself that question after watching a few episodes of season 2. There was a new character with 11s power and it was a female also.
 
I asked myself that question after watching a few episodes of season 2. There was a new character with 11s power and it was a female also.

It also reminded me of why TK is not widespread like some poster was saying before. Imagine a kid with TK powers. Reminds me of the scene in the gym where 11(the girl with TK) sees her friend talking to another girl. She gets angry and makes the girl wipe off her skateboard falling down.

Common sense....
 
Any sarcasm is entirely accidental. The symbols that surround the performance artist remind me of Ronald Searle's in the St.Trinian's films, or those imaginary spells in Murnau's Nosteratu. Less satanic, more Early Learning Centre cradle toy pictures. Unless a self-identifying wizard can convince me of their meaning, they mostly resemble graffiti.

I'm not denying the potency of symbols, the cross and the broken cross, or swastika, condense a long history in simple marks. I even suspect Abramovich may fancy herself as a bit of a witch, Croatia has no shortage of the tradition, as I discovered when it was part of Yugoslavia in the early 80s. I do however think her main role is to push the conceptual boundaries of art through the liberal conventions of the white cube gallery. Discerning a demonic paper trail in that febrile atmosphere leads wherever you want to go. Discovering a perpetrator is another kettle of sheep's blood.

I've seen dead people in art (good and bad) from Caravaggio's "Beheading of Saint John the Baptist" to the bewigged Christ in rural Spanish churches, and their potency lies in the way they were executed (!) and the beliefs of the viewer. If I look at a dollar bill, which I don't very often, I mostly see the assumed gravitas of a society without a monarchy, pyramids and all seeing eyes as placeholders for a living icon promising to pay the bearer, etc. Government buildings occupy a similar figurative lexicon of monumental insistence, however shallow its visual roots. I don't know about the rest as I refuse to listen to or read podcasts where the overriding conclusion is I'll never get that half hour back again. If the resulting commentary suggests I've missed something I'm happy to give it a hearing.
Well one reason that certain kinds of pornography are not permitted even in the name of art - e.g. the depiction of sexual acts involving children - is that these may end up encouraging others to commit such crimes or pay for material that indirectly causes such crimes to be committed.

By analogy, I strongly suspect that Abramovich's art might encourage others who become fascinated with death, to commit murder. When you learn that a woman who hoped to be in charge of the US nuclear arsenal, was interested in this kind of art, you really have to wonder. I think if all Americans had viewed that video and known that she was a favourite artist of Hillary, then Hillary's campaign would never have had a chance. Sometimes I think that 'ordinary' people can see things that more sophisticated people slide past.

David
 
Evidence from Stranger Things now equates to common sense and reality?

Evidence from Stranger things? Its common sense that stuff like TK would never be taught to children. Do you know how dangerous that would be? A child with extraordinary powers that would be a disaster. An example would be the movie Carrie, one doesn't need to look to movies for examples. You can compare a grown man going up in to a hotel lobby and slaughtering people with a gun or a church. Humans are an immature species and such powers are hidden on purpose.

And please stop being condescending, I see you as they say good day
 
Humans are an immature species and such powers are hidden on purpose
By such powers, you have inferred powers with destructive, violent capability.

Humans have a long, well documented history of not only cultivated such powers but proliferating them. Bone to stone to bronze to steel. Hand to thrown to bow. Bow to gun to nuclear weapons.

No, "humans" have never shown a capability to keep such powers hidden.
 
Well one reason that certain kinds of pornography are not permitted even in the name of art - e.g. the depiction of sexual acts involving children - is that these may end up encouraging others to commit such crimes or pay for material that indirectly causes such crimes to be committed.

By analogy, I strongly suspect that Abramovich's art might encourage others who become fascinated with death, to commit murder. When you learn that a woman who hoped to be in charge of the US nuclear arsenal, was interested in this kind of art, you really have to wonder. I think if all Americans had viewed that video and known that she was a favourite artist of Hillary, then Hillary's campaign would never have had a chance. Sometimes I think that 'ordinary' people can see things that more sophisticated people slide past.

David
On the other hand totalitarian regimes of left and right are noted for their ideas of what good art is, and their uncompromising attitude to anything that transgresses it. Personally I'd rather someone threw pig's blood at a wall, than the square jawed monumental figures of Nazi taste which lead to the gas chamber.

You have to remember Marina Abramovich is a performance artist, the same story-telling stuff the plays of Shakespeare are made from. Would you have all the deaths removed from his plays on the basis someone might imitate them? Puritanical zeal turned our churches from illuminated groves of colour hinting at the numinous, to the whitewashed, tastefully insipid tourist destinations they have become. Doom paintings were daubed over, saints had their eyes scratched out, rood screens were burned. That's where official taste leads. The art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon estimated that the reformation destroyed 95% of Britain's art. It replaced it with the white cube, inoffensive and tasteful as a Conran interior. Thank God for the offensive.

Symbols are potent only for the power invested in them. Otherwise we'd be conjuring demons every time we scribbled in a page margin. Spirit Cooking isn't representative of Abramovich's work as a whole. It isn't my cup of tea but that's irrelevant to whether it deserves a platform.
 
By such powers, you have inferred powers with destructive, violent capability.

Humans have a long, well documented history of not only cultivated such powers but proliferating them. Bone to stone to bronze to steel. Hand to thrown to bow. Bow to gun to nuclear weapons.

No, "humans" have never shown a capability to keep such powers hidden.

Totally different dynamics......one is "not real or proven" the other is used for "defense" and or "war" and is a result of imagination and science. TK is obscured and an ability that has to be practiced learned and honed for decades. Humans are like batteries too much energy out could result in death (TK) for comparable reasons why (11) nose bleeds after she uses the powers
 
On the other hand totalitarian regimes of left and right are noted for their ideas of what good art is, and their uncompromising attitude to anything that transgresses it. Personally I'd rather someone threw pig's blood at a wall, than the square jawed monumental figures of Nazi taste which lead to the gas chamber.
There are plenty of places in the world - now and in the past - where such 'art' would be forbidden, and which are/were not Nazi!
You have to remember Marina Abramovich is a performance artist, the same story-telling stuff the plays of Shakespeare are made from. Would you have all the deaths removed from his plays on the basis someone might imitate them? Puritanical zeal turned our churches from illuminated groves of colour hinting at the numinous, to the whitewashed, tastefully insipid tourist destinations they have become. Doom paintings were daubed over, saints had their eyes scratched out, rood screens were burned. That's where official taste leads. The art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon estimated that the reformation destroyed 95% of Britain's art. It replaced it with the white cube, inoffensive and tasteful as a Conran interior. Thank God for the offensive.
The problem is the slippery slope. The same problem exists in sexual pornography - do you ban anything to do with sex - even people kissing - or do you draw a line, or do you permit anything to be shown?

I think Abramovich's work - at least the Spirit Cooking is a form of necrophiliac pornography. Do you permit it and hope that nobody is pushed over the edge by such scenes, or do you ban it?

Also, do you set a different standard for art, as opposed to video games (say).
Symbols are potent only for the power invested in them. Otherwise we'd be conjuring demons every time we scribbled in a page margin. Spirit Cooking isn't representative of Abramovich's work as a whole. It isn't my cup of tea but that's irrelevant to whether it deserves a platform.
Well this is something that Christopher Knowles explicitly questions - perhaps you don't accept his argument that symbols may have a potency that does not just come from the minds of those who view them.

David
 
One version of the Gotthard Base Tunnel opening ceremony shows the invocation before the Prime Minister speaks. The invocation included a Catholic Priest who blessed the ceremony with holy water, an Imam, and a Rabbi. I will try to dig up the link and post it in a reply. I watched the ceremony at least 5 times and am absolutely fascinated by it. This was the most complete and knowledgeable explaination of the ceremony that I have encountered thus far. Thank you.
Edit.... Additionally, I am now shamed into moving past Bill Cooper for further research on the mysteries of Babylon. I blame Christopher Knowles for the several months of free time that just vanished.
 
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Well this is something that Christopher Knowles explicitly questions - perhaps you don't accept his argument that symbols may have a potency that does not just come from the minds of those who view them.
It's more complex than that. I've argued on this forum that symbols are the building blocks of reality, a kind of fundamental lexicon. But I don't limit the symbolic to glyphs and ciphers people are arguing here, I'm suggesting the whole of what we call the real is a referent to an underlying truth.

You can't accidentally conjure a demon with a squiggle, unless someone would like to give an example. The power of all art is to reach for an underlying truth, and great art often deals with uncomfortable truths. I went to an exhibition of Hitler's art a few years ago, and a more inoffensive set of watercolour paintings would be hard to imagine. There was fine craftsmanship of every kind, all at the service of the party, including elegant objects formed of human skin. All the barbarism was behind closed doors.

I fail to see how Abramovich's art is "necrophiliac pornography", when Caravaggio's "Judith Beheading Holofernes" is seen as an exemplar of high renaissance painting. As for pushing people over the edge, I'd suggest the evening news is more likely to do that than any symbol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit...le:Caravaggio_Judith_Beheading_Holofernes.jpg
 
It's more complex than that. I've argued on this forum that symbols are the building blocks of reality, a kind of fundamental lexicon. But I don't limit the symbolic to glyphs and ciphers people are arguing here, I'm suggesting the whole of what we call the real is a referent to an underlying truth.
Well, I agree with that - or at least I think it is a strong possibility. That was why I was arguing that some experiences - such as a kiss - can't meaningfully be reduced to lower level processes in the body. The kiss is a very powerful symbol for a basically non-material connection.
You can't accidentally conjure a demon with a squiggle, unless someone would like to give an example.
The point is, there isn't really an accident in her art.
The power of all art is to reach for an underlying truth, and great art often deals with uncomfortable truths. I went to an exhibition of Hitler's art a few years ago, and a more inoffensive set of watercolour paintings would be hard to imagine. There was fine craftsmanship of every kind, all at the service of the party, including elegant objects formed of human skin. All the barbarism was behind closed doors.
Well if Hitler was inspired by this art, doesn't that rather make my point?
I fail to see how Abramovich's art is "necrophiliac pornography", when Caravaggio's "Judith Beheading Holofernes" is seen as an exemplar of high renaissance painting. As for pushing people over the edge, I'd suggest the evening news is more likely to do that than any symbol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit...le:Caravaggio_Judith_Beheading_Holofernes.jpg
I think you could make a case that explicit art of that sort, is also necrophiliac porn.

I tend not to watch the the TV news, because it wastes so much time and is generally disturbing, but last time I did, my firm impression was that many scenes of war and disaster had worse things going on off camera.

Going back to your first point - which is really what interests me here - if symbols are the building blocks of reality, then should we really treat their use within art so casually?

David
 
The kiss is a very powerful symbol for a basically non-material connection
Yes, but kisses are a cultural symbol. Not every culture kisses, some have different displays of affection.
The point is, there isn't really an accident in her art.
No, it's a deliberate play with symbolism. She's sending up peoples' attachment to the symbolic. Whether that is a useful project for the artist is the question. Bodily fluids and tissue have long been an artistic medium, intentionally or by accident (Turin shroud and other relics). I suspect the idea ran its course for Abramovich and she moved on.
Well if Hitler was inspired by this art, doesn't that rather make my point?
Not really. Hitler's world was a highly sentimentalised one underpinned by the most appalling brutality. It's impossible to separate his vision of the world from his art, which came to fruition in beautiful lampshades covered in human vellum. The visually unproblematic meeting the structurally grotesque. The outward manifestations of art should not be confused with the mind creating it. Scary people make nice things and vice versa.
I think you could make a case that explicit art of that sort, is also necrophiliac porn.

I tend not to watch the the TV news, because it wastes so much time and is generally disturbing, but last time I did, my firm impression was that many scenes of war and disaster had worse things going on off camera.
I don't watch the news either, because its deeply hypocritical, and run to agendas of which we know little. It sternly covers conflict, but doesn't show the nature and outcome of that conflict. Sanitise reality through the inexplicit scenes of the censor and the coiffured inanities of the presenter, and you never have to deal with its grubby truths.
 
It's more complex than that. I've argued on this forum that symbols are the building blocks of reality, a kind of fundamental lexicon. But I don't limit the symbolic to glyphs and ciphers people are arguing here, I'm suggesting the whole of what we call the real is a referent to an underlying truth.

I'd absolutely agree to that.

You can't accidentally conjure a demon with a squiggle, unless someone would like to give an example.

Grant Morrison probably could. (if it doesn't automatically, advance to 11m 41s)

You'd probably need a hell of a lot of emotional energy directed at that squiggle tho...and a daily regimen of a pound of hash.

-- Also: -- I was going to talk about this in the psychedelics thread (as a 'safe' alternative), but I'll drop this here

I think one of the answers to taking this realm of symbols back is in lucid dreaming. Just talking about it might help us induce one. I'd love to have Stephen LaBerge on skeptiko, you guys would get along like pants on fire...


but if you can't get him there's this guy:


Hell get em both. Have a lucid dreaming month.

He starts off really boring, but if you want to jump around he talks about a woman that heals herself by imagining her boils dropping off or something and then they do. He talks about a guy that tries to control his dream (note: you can't. he makes very clear that you gain awareness but you don't gain full control -- I had a fully lucid dream once where I could jump really high like the hulk and see overtop the roofs in our cul-de-sac, but I could NOT fly), but these demonic evils would approach him and he'd keep getting away from him -- and it didn't work. When he realized they were aspects of himself he learned to integrate and thus heal them. He says once you've had enough lucid dreams you no longer 'fall for' the convincing detail of reality -- you become totally aware that your mind can generate just as much complexity in the dream state and more.

I really feel like this is somewhere we can start. Oh man, you know what got me started on all this which is kind of embarrassing? I still check in with David Wilcock sometimes and Dark Journalist + Bill Ryan (ex project camelot, project avalon) did this hit piece on Wilcock's buddy Corey Goode who talks about the secret space program. Well I found a girl who was defending Goode and even talked to his wife and as skeptical as I was about the whole thing I had to be kind of like... hmm... anyway, they're out to teach people how to enter these states (remote viewing + remote projecting -- projecting? yes, making stuff happen!)... it's really like hypnosis though if this sample is representative:


I have a 'buddy' Jeremy who does 'the experience' podcast on unknown country and he a) does believe in beings but disagrees that they are nuts and bolts aliens from another planet/dimension b) does NOT believe in hypnosis as a memory retrieval tool and broadcasts constantly that people should not break their own memory barriers (which makes me insane. i mean, you're going to dismiss the use of hypnosis as memory retrieval all because of that one time the AMA did a study about it and talked shit about in 1985 or whatever? and c) he thinks that the whole "we can manifest stuff" is nonsense and he likes to broadcast that too. ('The Secret' did a brilliant job in simultaneously hooking people AND turning off a huge amount of people... plus it was all focused on what your lower self wants (money) not what you NEED.) As dour as he is on skeptics, he's right in line with them there. You are a leaf in the wind, you have no control in this meaningless universe. He started a website called your undoing, i have no idea what he's preaching there, but his book urgency i never got through cause it started to make me feel sort of ill.

I think it's dangerous and irresponsible to encourage people to believe that they have no interconnection and control over the world around them. (Even if we didn't I'd be inclined to tell people we do!) If you want to raise your hand, you imagine your hand raising (in contrast, you don't imagine specific muscle groups firing! the symbolic takes precedence! the physical is a representation.) If you want to slow your heart, you imagine your heart slowing. If you want to travel somewhere in a lucid dream you imagine where you want to go. There are direct correlates to thought and matter. Not to mention the Dean Radin meta-study that I've tried to throw in Jeremy's face multiple times and he won't bite... on dice rolls we have, what is it, a 3% or .03% or 33% influence? I can't remember. Still, it's something. Do we have more influence when we do this in groups? Most likely.

I really think we need to start influencing the symbolic realms and transmuting this shit going on. Gravity is considered a weak force, lift a brick and you can defeat it easily, but hold that brick for a while and it will win in the end. Let's take back the world of symbols.
 
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He starts off really boring
No, I don't agree - part of what is remarkable about this account, is how it starts with a simple lab observation that can't really be disputed, and builds through more remarkable examples. To me, a continuum of phenomena like this is far more impressive. I mean, at what point does a sceptic want to say, "thus far, but no further!"?

I have only had one brief LD as a teenager, and I would love to have some more.

David
 
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