In Loving Memory – William James Loudon Clark, December 26 1922 – March 26 2003

Dad doing volunteer work for CESO in Europe

Goo Goo Gaga

Okay, so I’m a little bit behind the times. I just got around to watching a Lady Gaga video after seeing she’d hit the one billion mark with online viewers.

That’s pretty big. Hard to ignore that. So I went and had a look.

Well, I have to admit this kind of stuff is not for everyone. While watching I couldn’t help but think how all the holier-than-thou religious persons would be condemning it as “the work of Satan” (or something like that) if they ever took the time to watch it. And some might secretly love it but never admit it.

Myself, I found the masks interesting, calling up images of ’70s Bowie and Gladiator. As for the in your face sexy stuff, well, that doesn’t do much for me. Not because I find anything terribly wrong with it. If someone wants to crawl along the floor like a wild beast and make lots of money out of it, who cares?

On to the music…

Hmm, except for the tinkly harpsichord intro, not memorable. Reminds me of some Hindi dance music I heard echoing through the streets of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) back in the ’80s.

Is this going to be remembered as great stuff in 10 years? I doubt it highly.

Does anyone remember Donna Summer?

Donna Who..?

Review – A War to End All Wars (DVD)

Reality Films

This review also appears at Earthpages.org

Many find it hard to understand just how much The Great War of 1914 to 1918, now called World War I, disrupted the global order.

We all know it happened. But reel after reel of haunting World War II films shot from 1939 to 1945 have, to some extent, eclipsed it within the popular imagination.

A War to End All Wars helps to remedy that.

This World War I documentary blends raw emotion, historical and contemporary on scene footage with sepia recreations to produce something quite different from the usual Sunday afternoon TV war program.

No doubt, this film breaks the mould. It doesn’t dish out apparently neutral information — arguably a modern myth — or come off like a standard evening news special.

Instead, broadcaster Robin Thompson passionately presents his take on inglorious Allied commanders and their bungling, irresponsible battle strategies.

British Field Marshal and Viscount Edmund Allenby takes most of the heat. But this movie isn’t just about portraying some of the Allied commanders as incompetent, uncaring snobs. It also humanizes enlisted soldiers fighting on both sides of the conflict.

Enter Corporal Robert Beveridge, the ordinary but exceptional Scottish soldier who met his untimely death before the war’s end. Beveridge’s heroic story illustrates the great cost of war while highlighting the importance of remembrance.

After all, the Allied soldiers fought for the rights and freedoms enjoyed and demanded by many today.

Only a cold robot could watch this film and not feel some emotion.

In addition to its call for respect and remembrance, A War to End All Wars displays a nascent spirituality.

To this effect, Thompson says everything looks “somehow familiar” while walking near the French fields where so many men were killed.

Thompson doesn’t elaborate, which is probably just as well. Viewers are left to fill in the blanks according to their spiritual beliefs.

A Hindu, for instance, might say Thompson reincarnated after being killed in the war. Whereas a Christian might argue that Thompson didn’t reincarnate but has a spiritual connection with the soldiers and their tumultuous era.

We can leave it to the pundits to decide because nobody really knows. The important thing is to remember. And that’s what this film does.

–MC

Review – Beyond the Barbed Wire: An Artist’s View of The Holocaust (DVD)

Reality Films

This review also appears at Earthpages.org

When I first saw the title of Matt Webber’s film – Beyond the Barbed Wire: An Artist’s View of The Holocaust – I was a bit apprehensive. The holocaust is never an easy topic to deal with. And I’ve been under the weather with a cold, so my defenses are a bit lower than usual.

Yesterday I tried to watch Beyond the Barbed Wire but just the thought of going there was too much. So I chose to sleep off my cold as much as possible.

Feeling stronger today, however, I watched the film. And right from the start I realized that this was not some distorted or opportunistic movie about the holocaust.

I say “distorted” because some have written tracts that at first appear reasonable and then slide into dreadful harangues in which the Jewish people are blamed, subtly or overtly, for the Nazi atrocities of WW-II.

And by “opportunistic” I mean those depictions of the holocaust that seem more about promoting some person or maybe their latest book.

Again, after the first few minutes I quickly gained trust that Beyond the Barbed Wire was neither a distorted nor opportunistic rendering of the holocaust.

Instead, I found a sensitive and compelling film that tells the story of the Polish tailor, artist and holocaust survivor, Ben Altman.

Altman gives a first hand account that, although unavoidably upsetting and distressing, maintains a mature focus and perspective that makes it possible to listen without switching off or tuning out.

The narrative is augmented by several experts, to include a physicist, an art professor, and an art therapist.

Much discussion is given to the power of symbols, both good and bad. In so doing, names like C. G. Jung, Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault come up.

The Swiss psychiatrist Jung spoke at length about the positive and negative power of symbols, and connected the Nazis with an eruption of the Germanic Wotan archetype. The philosopher Nietzsche developed a concept of an “Overman” who joyously exerts his “will to power,” an idea that many argue was misappropriated by a deranged Adolf Hitler. And the French postmodern thinker Foucault forwarded a notion of “discourses of power” that remains influential in philosophy, political science and sociology.

The film includes a thought-provoking discussion on some differences between thinking and emotion as they relate to the body, and touches on the mystical doctrines associated with Kabbalah and Alchemy.

In addition, we learn about Hitler’s infamous “Degenerate Art” exhibit, which ironically was far more popular than the state approved arts exposition, showing just across the street.

And perhaps most important, Beyond the Barbed Wire underscores the idea that no matter how dreadful the circumstances may be, human beings are always free to choose their attitude.

Clear evidence of this inherent existential freedom is given in accounts of altruistic self-sacrifice among prisoners in the Nazi prison camps, and also through surviving artworks that some individuals were able to create while suffering confinement.

These artists, as the film suggests, were for a brief moment able to find some kind of creative value in the darkest of living nightmares. In effect, they reached beyond themselves and their disturbed tormentors through the act of creation.

Rather than succumbing to the disillusionment that evil tries to instill, Beyond the Barbed Wire attests to the fact that heroic self-mastery lives beyond even the worst machine-like madness that some people are capable of.

–MC

Hank Williams Sr. – Lonely Tombs – RARE!

Was watching Gunfight at the O.K. Corral last night on TCM and this video seems to fit today.

The film was so good that it inspired me to learn a bit about the Wild West on Wikipedia. Turns out that Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp were real people and friends. And the gunslinger “doc” was also a graduate of dental school!

Earp apparently wanted someone to make a movie about his life but nobody took up the offer while he was still living. He did, however, manage to get a book published… after his death.

Another “doc,” Doctor McCoy of Star Trek (actor DeForest Kelley), was in the film.

And if I remember right Kelley did an episode in Star Trek where he was at OK Corral one more time (or some kind of alien reproduction of it…).

Funny how myth and reality intertwine.

As for Hank Williams Sr., well nothing much has to be said about him. Anyone who knows anything will know that he’s one of the greats… one of the best composers and performers of all time.

Review – Robin Hood: The Truth Behind Hollywood’s Most Filmed Legend (DVD)

Reality Films

This review also appears at Earthpages.org

Robin Hood: The Truth Behind Hollywood’s Most Filmed Legend is a documentary by Philip Gardiner that opens with some great footage of contemporary actors playing Robin Hood and his band of noble rebels.

The film includes some wonderful scenes of Sherwood Forest, along with enchanting medieval ruins and artifacts.

With this authentic setting, Robin Hood delves into historical records, folkloric possibilities and mythological parallels centered around the legend of Robin Hood, the pervasive culture hero who “steals from the rich and gives to the poor.”

The film’s content is quite rich and informative and its atmosphere is convincing. While the actors portraying the outlaw community are quite obviously modern people, they seem to resonate nicely with the Robin Hood myth, probably because most are forestry workers who volunteered for the film.

Toward the second half of the DVD, Robin Hood begins to reveal its distinctly Gnostic approach and the film arguably begins to lose some of its former objectivity.

I use the word “objectivity,” however, with a grain of salt because it’s probably impossible for any human being or group to be entirely objective.

When you think about it, what independent, non-commissioned filmmaker doesn’t tend to present a unique outlook within his or her work?

Looking at this another way, one could say that the first half of Robin Hood covers the bases. Around the middle, the film shifts to emphasize the filmmaker’s Gnostic leanings, which closely resemble those of the Swiss psychiatrist, C. G. Jung.

I’ve never met Philip Gardiner and am assuming the Gnostic position accurately reflects his own beliefs. This seems a reasonable assumption as many of his films depict Gnosticism as a shining counterpoint to a tarnished old Christian Church.

As a believing Christian who sees the New Testament as a theological work containing elements of fact, myth and exaggeration, I admittedly stumbled a bit over Robin Hood’s claim that Jesus Christ and John the Baptist are equals.

Consider the following New Testament passage:

John replied to all of them, “I am baptizing you with water, but one is coming who is more powerful than I, and I’m not worthy to untie his sandal straps. It is he who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Luke 3:16).

Despite what the New Testament story says here, Robin Hood suggests that the archetypal pair of Jesus and John is also manifest in the images of Robin Hood and Little John, the Graeco-Roman twins Castor and Pollux, and among many other mythic exemplars and cosmological models.

Carl Jung, who developed the modern notion of the archetype, also made liberal use of analogy among world religions and myths. Jung claimed that the basic truth underlying diverse archetypal imagery was discernible through the insights of analytical psychology–i.e. depth psychology.

Some scholars, however, have little sympathy for this approach, maintaining that the extensive use of analogy is usually too loose and not grounded in real historical and cultural contexts. Unrestrained analogizing, they say, yields specious arguments and ultimately detracts from the credibility of a given study.

Scholars of this persuasion say that aspects of contemporary scholarship are lamentably falling into a kind of black hole where any pseudo-historical truth claim is passed off as fact as long as it sells.

Meanwhile, many authors and researchers promote the liberal use of analogy, equating it with seeing “The Big Picture.”

One could also ask whether the abundant use of analogy really is the Big Picture approach, or whether it just appears to be for those who haven’t experienced and therefore don’t know of anything better.

Enter the Christian theologians, particularly the Catholics, who claim that the contemporary Church doesn’t mindlessly bash Gnostic and Pagan elements but ennobles their worthwhile aspects within the higher, more comprehensive vantage point of Christian belief.

That’s why, they’ll argue, we find various artworks depicting Pagan themes within the Vatican museums.

Not a few Protestants, of course, balk at this scenario. Some even pejoratively call the Catholic Church the “Whore of Babylon.”

But this isn’t the place to go too deeply into the complexities of religious rivalry.

To return to Robin Hood, from a purely educational standpoint this is a valuable film. It brings to life the timeless tale of a notorious sinner-saint who, like many before him, takes refuge in the woods while pursuing justice in the face of an ignoble ruler.

The DVD’s special features section includes more commentaries and Gnostic-Pagan pop music videos.

Indeed, there’s something for everyone here. Even the most discerning of scholars might learn from Robin Hood: The Truth Behind Hollywood’s Most Filmed Legend, lest they get lost in the minutiae and miss the forest for the trees.

–MC

Sneak preview of a new blog I’m developing…

It’s called the dot matrix… sort of a cool idea that came to me while thinking about the history of printing.

I’m not exactly sure yet what its focus will be. Probably will contain all the stuff that’s a bit too far out for here or Earthpages.

Check it out! Still a prototype… http://thedotmatrix.wordpress.com/

Reflections on the Olympic Closing Ceremony

Photo credit: Rob Baxter

This commentary also appears at Earthpages.org

Well it’s come and gone. The 2010 Winter Olympics are history.

Once again I felt compelled to watch the closing ceremony, not because I like seeing massive amounts of money spent on superficialities, but because I was curious to see how my country chose to spend them.†

Granted, the whole thing is open to debate. I get that. I mean, some say we need “spectacles” to keep life interesting, even though people are freezing to death on the streets and aboriginal teens are killing themselves because of the grim desperation that poverty can bring.

Others say that spending money on the Olympics stimulates local economies. In addition, many corporations involved in their overall production benefit. I get that too.

But what I don’t get is why the artistic director of the closing ceremony dished out every idiotic stereotype about Canada known to mankind. To spend significant sums of money on massive images of bears, log cabins, and Mounties in red ceremonial uniform seems misguided.

That’s not Canada at all. That’s just a silly cliché that, so it seemed, the opening ceremony hoped to eradicate.

Contradiction?

You bet.

Waste of money?

Well, let’s just say that I don’t agree with Marshall McLuhan’s dictum that “The medium is the message.”

I believe that part of the message is content. And in my opinion, the content of the closing ceremony was a bit of a joke. And not a good one, as intended.

Having said that, it wasn’t all bad. Neil Young and Michael J. Fox were highlights. And William Shatner was… well, William Shatner. That is, overblown but delightfully so.

How ironic, however, that these stars made their fortunes south of the border and basically left Canada to live in the USA.

Bottom line?

Even these greats came off a bit thin because, as I say, the medium isn’t the only message. Content also matters. And despite their best efforts, these three stars sent out a message that Canada is a nice place to visit but, by gosh, we wouldn’t want to live there any more.

–MC

† Opinion – Olympic opening speaks volumes

Review – The Magick of Solomon: Lemegeton Secrets Revealed (DVD)

Reality Films

This review also appears at Earthpages.org

Do you believe in magic? Miracles? Is there a difference?

The answer to these questions will most likely depend on one’s beliefs and experiences.

The Magick of Solomon: Lemegeton Secrets Revealed is an engaging instructional video by Carroll “Poke” Runyon of the Church of the Hermetic Sciences.

The film attempts to integrate a variety of religious and esoteric traditions by demonstrating an elaborate pagan ritual accompanied with a learned commentary.

For Runyon, it seems there’s no clash between his style of magic and genuine miracles, although he and his fellow Church members would probably make a distinction between their form of soul magick (with a “k”) and stage magic (without a “k”).

The DVD is a remastered and enhanced version of the original VHS of 1996, to include some older material from the 1970s and a commentary from 2003.

Runyon holds a Masters Degree in anthropology and begins the video with a disclaimer, warning of the inherent dangers of causally meddling with the potent forces that might be evoked by watching it.

And rightly so.

C. G. Jung, whom Runyon refers to, speaks to the power of the archetypes and cautions that delving into the collective unconscious without the appropriate psychological preparedness to integrate it within ego consciousness could result in mental disruption, perhaps even psychosis.

At the beginning of this movie I, a believing Christian, felt slightly uneasy. I’ve had minimal experience with paganism, only dabbling in Tarot cards in my youth and, years later, watching slick TV programs like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Supernatural.

After the first 25 minutes, however, my unease turned to fatigue. The DVD wasn’t dull by any stretch of the imagination but I probably had to enter the dream state to better understand why it was impinging on my comfort zone.

So I paused the disc and had a nap. On waking I was ready to go and, the second time around, found The Magick of Solomon absorbing but not uncomfortable.

This DVD may not be quite as slick as Buffy or Supernatural, but it does provide viewers with a penetrating look inside an alternative religion.

The temple, itself, is devoted to Astarte, a deity with a long list of analogues, to include the Greek Aphrodite and the Roman Venus.

Its rites are premised on the belief that wisdom may be gained by first invoking heavenly angels, and then evoking lower, possibly demonic powers. The rationale, in keeping with Jung’s model, is that higher angels protect and help the aspirant to integrate the lower demons, which essentially reside within the self.

At this stage Runyon differentiates the terms invoke and evoke. To invoke is to call on heavenly agencies from above and outside oneself, while to evoke is to activate the dark powers of the collective unconscious within the self.

From this we see that Runyon believes in heavenly beings – in particular, the four traditional archangels and their legendary mediators – while proposing that some demons are merely the result of mankind’s subjugation of pagan deities to the collective unconscious.

I found this cosmology a bit confusing because Runyon also treats the lower realm entities with all the awe and respect one would accord a real, independent deity.

Again, this brings to mind Carl Jung’s schema which raises the same question: Do the archetypes of the collective unconscious enjoy an independent existence or do they simply exist as a repressed part of ourselves?

Let’s also not forget that the “unconscious” is just an idea, a point which this video might have more thoroughly explained.

Runyon, himself, is articulate and charismatic. He seems to have a good grasp of the scholarly aspects of magic and esoterica. Moreover, his prior vocation as a salesman serves him well.

I don’t mean this disrespectfully. We live in a predominantly consumer-driven culture and it would be naïve to suppose that most organized religions don’t engage in some kind of promotional activity geared toward the twofold agenda of fund-raising and facilitating conversions.

There’s nothing wrong with fund-raising strategies provided that a house of worship believes in the goods, services and overall message it’s promoting and, more important, it’s not willfully deceiving, harming or manipulating vulnerable individuals.

After all, in liberal democracies we are free to choose.

Another similarity between The Church of the Hermetic Sciences and some traditional Churches becomes evident when Runyon suggests that his magickal synthesis is authentic and safe while a rival sect of former disciples is apparently proliferating dangerous doctrines and engaging in equally hazardous activities.

Runyon then says these former disciples have opened a “Pandora’s Box” of evil that his methods can effectively quell.

Shades of the old Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation?

Whether or not one envisions Runyon’s techniques as a key to psycho-spiritual insight, The Magick of Solomon: Lemegeton Secrets Revealed is certainly different and informative. It should be of considerable interest to those wanting to learn about a new Church that blends ancient legend, belief and practice with some recent concepts from Carl Jung’s analytical psychology.

–MC