As of Sunday, Jan. 2, 2005, at least 1,329 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq (news - web sites) war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,042 died as a result of hostile action, the Defense Department said. The figures include three military civilians.
The AP count is one higher than the Defense Department's tally, last updated at 10 a.m. Thursday.
The British military has reported 76 deaths; Italy, 19; Poland, 16; Spain, 11; Ukraine, nine; Bulgaria, seven; Slovakia, three; Estonia, Thailand and the Netherlands, two each; and Denmark, El Salvador (news - web sites), Hungary and Latvia one death each.
Sat Jan 1, 4:23 PM ET
By NICK WADHAMS, Associated Press Writer
SONG: "Do you see what I see? I'm so sorry" (NASB: Esther 7:7) "The king arose in his anger from drinking wine for he saw that harm had been determikned against him.
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq (news - web sites) had a rare moment out of the world spotlight in the past week, eclipsed by the tsunami devastation in Southeast Asia. But the country saw a host of critically important political developments and deadly attacks that could cripple elections set for Jan. 30, and that suggest the insurgents are refining their strategy to wreck the vote.
On Monday, insurgents tried to assassinate Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a Shiite leader who is among the candidates for the election, in an apparent bid to exacerbate religious tension. The same day, the leading Sunni Arab party withdrew from the race, dealing perhaps the heaviest blow so far to the vote's legitimacy.
Over the rest of the week, guerrillas mounted a campaign of violence that pointed to new tactics: luring police into booby-trapped buildings and targeting an American outpost with squad-sized units and at least three nearly simultaneous car bombs.
Despite U.S. claims that insurgents are growing desperate, their attacks continued to exact a high toll — dozens of Iraqis and at least four American servicemen were killed. How the events of the last week will play out is far from clear, but it showed the insurgents were more willing to make their voices heard politically as well as through violence.
"Democracy is a Greek word meaning the rule of the people, which means that the people do what they see fit," said a statement released Thursday by three Sunni-dominated militant groups condemning the vote. "This concept is considered apostasy and defies the belief in one God — Muslims' doctrine."
That comment came three days after the release of an audiotape attributed to Osama bin Laden (news - web sites). The voice on the tape said the Iraqi vote is being held under an interim constitution "imposed by the American occupation" and is "infidel" because it didn't rely solely on Islamic law.
The statements appear to be part of the insurgents' bid to widen the divide with Iraq's majority Shiites, whose leaders have said it is every Muslim's duty to vote. Shiites comprise an estimated 60 percent of the 26 million population, compared to the Sunni Arabs' 20 percent. If the vote goes forward, the Shiites are expected to take power, which the Sunnis have held since before the establishment of the modern Iraqi state after World War I.
But a vote that doesn't see widespread Sunni participation could render the new national assembly illegitimate. Those fears grew on Monday when the Sunni-dominated Iraqi Islamic Party announced it was withdrawing.
"We believe when a house is on fire, you should first put out the fire before working on decorating and arranging it," party Secretary General Tarek al-Hashemi said, calling for a postponement of the ballot.
Even Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations (news - web sites) suggested the election could be delayed by two or three weeks. In an opinion piece in The Washington Post, Samir al-Sumaidie proposed that idea and a host of others, including reserving some seats for groups who do poorly if their supporters don't vote — a clear reference to the Sunnis.
President Bush (news - web sites), however, reiterated his determination to see the vote go forward.
"The stakes are clear in this upcoming election," Bush told reporters at his Texas ranch on Wednesday. "It's the difference between the ability for individuals to express themselves and the willingness of an individual to try to impose his dark vision on the world, on the people of Iraq and elsewhere. It's very important that these elections proceed."
The insurgents continued with the violence meant to shake Iraqis' faith in the homegrown police who will bear most of the burden of protecting the vote. The bombing that targeted al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, killed 15 people, though he wasn't hurt. Jordanian terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's militant group, al-Qaida in Iraq, claimed responsibility.
On Tuesday, near Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s hometown of Tikrit, gunmen attacked a police station, overwhelmed 12 Iraqi policemen there, slit their throats and then blew up the building.
Then they experimented with new tactics. Tuesday night, they lured police to a house in west Baghdad with an anonymous tip about a rebel hideout, then set off explosives, killing at least 29 people and wounding 18. Seven police were among the dead.
The next day, in the northern city of Mosul, insurgents launched a highly coordinated assault against a U.S. outpost, moving in squads of 10-12 and setting at least three roadside bombs against the Americans, U.S. military spokesman Paul Hastings said.
The attack was a tactical failure — 25 insurgents were killed and one American solider died — but showed a level of planning that had not previously been seen. A militant group called the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, which was among the three groups that released the statement condemning the elections, said it organized the attack.
U.S. officials portrayed the violence in Mosul as an act of desperation with time running out to derail the vote — and not a sign that the insurgents were gaining strength or tactical skill.
"I would say it does seem like there's a higher level of coordination here," Hastings said. "The terrorists are growing more desperate in their attempts to derail the elections and they're trying to put it all on the line and give it all they can."
Expressing his continued frustration over the insurgency Friday, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi warned Iraq's neighbors to crack down on insurgents infiltrating from their territory, saying that Iraq's patience was wearing thin.
"Some countries are hosting people who are involved in harming the Iraqi people," Allawi told Baghdad's Al-Iraqiya television station, without naming any nations. "Harming Iraq and its people is not allowed."
Iraq and the United States have both complained about Syria and Iran purportedly allowing militants to cross their borders and go into Iraq — allegations the countries have denied.
But the insurgents were not finished. On Saturday, they released a tape that showed masked gunmen with al-Zarqawi's group shooting and killing five captured Iraqi national guardsmen in broad daylight in Ramadi as passers-by watched from 50 yards away.
Less than a week earlier, on Dec. 26, masked gunmen had assassinated a high-ranking Iraqi police officer, Col. Yassin Ibrahim Jawad, and wounded his two bodyguards, police in Baghdad said.
http://www.unfortunateeventsmovie.com/main_flash.html Song: "Stay close to me when the sky is falling" (NASB: Neh. 3:4) Next to them Meremoth made repairs; (Luke 9:25) For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses and forfeits himself?
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,66123,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3
India's Odd Couple: Cops and Tech
02:00 AM Jan. 05, 2005 PT
MUMBAI, India -- India has a split personality. It is the Taj Mahal of outsourcing, the great global back office and one of the largest producers of engineering graduates. On the other hand, its law keepers are poignantly comic enforcers and interpreters of cyberlaws.
Cybersecurity expert Raghu Raman said in 2004, police squads were known to confiscate evidence from some offices, returning with monitors and leaving computers behind. Computing teacher Vijay Mukhi said two years ago cops in Mumbai seized pirated software floppies and stapled them together as though they were documents, destroying the material.
A sleuth from Mumbai's high-profile Cyber Crime Investigation Cell once told Wired News how he planned to tackle hacking: "Let hackers know that some tough people are out here.... I have killed Naxalites (regional terrorists who wage guerrilla warfare against police in some Indian states) in Andhra Pradesh (a state).... We cops have seen such tough situations that we know how to handle boys."
Last month, another incident occurred. Avnish Bajaj, an American citizen of Indian origin who heads Baazee, a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay, was arrested on charges of sale and distribution of pornography. An engineering student had posted a listing on the portal to sell an e-mail with a video attachment of a sexual act involving a schoolgirl. Bajaj began to help the Delhi police, and even assisted in nabbing the boy who had posted the listing. On Dec. 17, Bajaj himself was arrested.
Bajaj's lawyers applied for bail equipped with a printout of the portal's terms and conditions, which included users of Baazee vouching that their items were legal. The engineering student had accepted the terms and conditions by pressing the Accept button. But the court rejected the bail application, according to an executive of the portal, "stating that since there was no ink-based signature, it is void." (Bajaj has subsequently been released on bail).
Mahesh Murthy, a technology investor, is shocked by the court's attitude. "That means, according to the court, all of India's e-commerce is illegal. The Information Technology Act that many industry people worked to put together, so that this country could be competent in the modern world, clearly validates electronic signature. But the court was not aware of it."
Murthy himself has been a victim in the past. When he wanted to register a firm called Pinstorm Online last year, the Registrar of Companies "refused to grant me the name because the government officials out there did not comprehend the word 'online,'" Murthy said. "I had to change the name to Pinstorm Technologies. And, in my detailed application in which I described my company, I had to change the word 'internet' to 'computer network' because the officials did not think (the) internet was a credible medium for business. They told me that."
In July 2001, Mumbai's Cyber Crime Investigation Cell launched its website, and a few days later it was hacked by 23-year-old Anand Khare, who guessed passwords and used readily available hacking tools. He pasted abusive messages about the cops, and invited them to catch him.
He was nabbed, along with Mahesh Mhatre, who owned the cybercafé where Khare had executed the hacking. It was a triumph for the Cyber Crime Investigation Cell after the public embarrassment of having its own website defaced. The cops held a meeting of businessmen to reassure them. A corporate executive who was present recalls a senior cop gnashing his teeth and declaring, "If there is a cybercrime committed in your office, just let us know. We will find him and get the confession out of him."
Soon after his arrest, Mhatre told the media and the National Human Rights Commission that he was hit with belts and that a senior inspector asked him to lick his shoes. Following these allegations -- odd even by Indian standards -- Mumbai police announced they were searching for jobs for the boys. Khare was even placed in the firm of Mahatma Gandhi's great grandson Tushar Gandhi.
Last month, a Mumbai tabloid wanted to demonstrate that the average Indian cop lived in a world far removed from everyday technology. It asked a constable to use his ATM card and photographed his every step. He did not know how to use the card and the machine swallowed it. He was left smiling sheepishly in the final frame.
"The cop who checks your car license does not own a car," said Raghu Raman, who heads an information security firm called Mahindra Special Services Group. "The passport official who checks your passport does not go abroad. The cop to whom you go to register a credit card misuse does not own a credit card. If a cop is in no position to own a computer, how can he fight cybercrime? The field cop (and) the beat constable live in another world."
(NASB: Isaiah 40:23) He it is who reduces rulers to nothing, who makes the judges of the earth meaningless, (40:24) Scarcely have they been planted, Scarcely have they been sown, Scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth, but he merely blows on them, and they wither, and the storm carries them away like stubble.
Justus-This is the world of "APPLIED ACTIVITIES". People throughout this world just do not realize that the Central Intelligence Agency, Freemasons (Skull and Bones),The Church of Scientology made a deal with some religious groups of people from India during the "INDIAN CONVENTION". They have a role to play in the larger scheme. That is when the many Indian paeople were brought to America to control 7/11's and to own hotels. They are controlled by the source of the "Cosmic Mind" and even have divination connections like the Scientologists. I saw Scientology eyes in the worker of the La Palmas Hotel. So not only are they vessels against Scientology
critics! They are also here to help destroy the "Meek and the Lowly". I began visiting many hotels throughout Los Angeles and realized most of them are indeed owned by Scientology controlled Indians from India. If you love GOD and hate evil, then no matter where you are in the world there are groups who work for satan and they will trey to bring you down. That is what is called organized crime.
SONG: "You have to believe" (NASB: Prov. 14:12) "There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death".
http://in.news.yahoo.com/041217/43/2iit7.html
Friday December 17, 8:05 PM
Silicon Valley techies to attend Indian convention
Bangalore, Dec 17 (IANS) Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), a global technology body formed by India-born techies in Silicon Valley, will participate in TiEcon India 2004 to be held in New Delhi Dec 20-21.
Touted as one of Asia's largest conventions, the two-day TiEcon will bring together entrepreneurs from the US and India, besides thought leaders from the industry, academia and government to exchange ideas and innovations on its main theme --
"Entrepreneurship in a Global Age: the Engine of Growth". ("APPLIED ACTIVITIES", "APPLIED RELIGOUS PHILOSOPHY", The "Source of the Cosmic Mind"; Scientology and Dianetics; "APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY".) (NASB: Isaiah 63:7) Great goodness toward the house of Israel, (Rom. 7:25) I myself with my mind am serving the other, with my flesh the law of sin.
Being organised by the New Delhi chapter of TiE, the event will feature panel discussions and mentoring sessions.
Among the speakers will be Desh Deshpande of Sycamore Networks and Kanwal Rekhi from Silicon Valley, management guru C.K. Prahalad, technocrat Sam Pitroda, Nasscom president Kiran Karnik and eminent cardiologist Naresh Trehan.
According to a TiE statement, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia will open the event.
Young parliamentarians like Navin Jindal, Milind Deora, Manvender Singh and B.J. Panda will participate in TiEcon and speak on their vision for India's future.
Set up in 1992 to foster and advance entrepreneurship, TiE has created a large pool of intellectual capital worldwide. (end of article).
Justus-The Indian Convention can be described like a "Initiation through higher consciousness". But in actuality it is satan's army deceiving you. Just like when I had the meeting in my mind with many people who were members of "Skull and Bones" and Scientology. They were telling me that I was one of them. This took back in 2000 ebfore I began to write.
SONG: "Eating U.S. away to our extinction" (KJV: 2Chron. 35:3) Israel did build.
SIGN: "1948" (NASB: Isaiah 62:8) "Never again will I give your grain as food for your enemies; Nor will foreigners drink your new wine for which you have labored". (62:9) But those who garner it will eat it an praise the Lord; and those who gather it will drink it in the courts of my sanctuary.
SIGN: "Mighty" and "United" (NASB: Prov. 13:25) The righteous has enough to satisfy his appetite, but the stomach of the wicked is in need.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050106/D87EIEV00.html
Muslims, Arabs Wary of U.S. Tsunami Aid
Jan 6, 6:56 AM (ET)
By NADIA ABOU El-MAGD
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Even when America is doing something for Muslims - in this case, helping mostly Muslim Indonesia and other tsunami-battered nations - it comes in for criticism in the Middle East, where resentment and suspicion color thinking about the United States.
On the streets of Tehran, technician Dariush Darabian accused Americans of "talking more than they actually do." Jordanian columnist Aida al-Najjar wrote in the daily Ad-Dustour that America's was exploiting "the suffering of people" to try to improve its image.
In the pages of leading pro-government Egyptian daily Al-Ahram, prominent columnist Salah Montasser scoffed that America's initial allocation of $15 million "is less than what America spends every minute in its war in Iraq."
The United States later raised its pledge to $350 million and sent Secretary of State Colin Powell to one of the worst-hit regions of Indonesia. Powell, speaking in Banda Aceh on Wednesday, said the outpouring of American aid and humanitarian help - citizens are adding tens of millions in donations to their government's contribution - could help Muslims see the United States in a better light.
U.S. generosity has been noted by some Muslims, even in unexpected quarters.
"I give them (Americans) credit for helping the tsunami victims," said Hassan al-Aali of Bahrain's National Committee for the Support of Iraqi People, who has organized several protests against the American occupation of Iraq.
"I believe their help is genuinely for humanitarian reasons," al-Aali said, adding that the U.S. has no vested interest in the disaster-struck areas because "there is no oil there."
But Bahraini political analyst Mohammed Almezel said the aid "can take hold in the minds of Muslims and Arabs only if it was part of a wider move by Washington to insert some balance in its policies that concern the region."
The United States is repeatedly accused of bias in favor of Israel in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and of plunging Iraq into chaos with the invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.
Influential satellite stations like Al-Jazeera have reported on the Dec. 26 south Asia disaster that killed at least 140,000 people and left millions in need and America's and the world's response, but the main focus of coverage remains on Iraq and other regional issues.
In a part of the world where conspiracy theories greet every development, the disaster was no different. Contributors to some Web sites known as clearinghouses for militant Muslim comment wrote that America knew the tsunami was coming but moved only to protect its military bases, a theory reminiscent of speculation U.S. officials staged the Sept. 11 attacks to demonize Muslims.
Others, including some clerics, have said that tsunami was God's revenge on Westerners who engaged in vice and prostitution while vacationing in southeast Asia.
The immensity of the disaster, though, also sparked introspection, with some commentators calling on Arab government and citizens to do more to help the tsunami victims.
Saudi Arabia stepped up its response to the disaster on Wednesday, tripling its official aid pledge to $30 million and planning a telethon so Saudi citizens can contribute.
Oil-rich Gulf states have been increasing their pledges for tsunami victims as the scope of the disaster becomes clearer, and amid accusations that they are doing too little, especially when one of the worst hit regions is mostly Muslim Indonesia.
(NASB: 1Kings 19:11) "STAND ON THE MOUNTAIN BEFORE THE LORD", and behold, "THE LORD WAS PASSING BY!"; "AND A GREAT AND STRONG WIND WAS RENDING THE MOUNTAINS AND BREAKING IN PIECES THE ROCKS BEFVORE THE LORD;
AND AFTER THE WIND AN EARTHQUAKE"; (19:12) "AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE A FIRE, AFTER THE FIRE A SOUND OF GENTLE BLOWING (Rev. 21:11) HAVING THE GLORY OF GOD; HER BRILLIANCE WAS LIKE A VERY COSTLY STONE, AS A STONE OF CRYSTAL CLEAR JASPER";
(21:9) "COME HERE, I WILL SHOW YOU THE BRIDE, THE WIFE OF THE LAMB! (21:10) COMING DOWN OUT OF HEAVEN FROM GOD; (21:19) THE FOUNDATION STONES WERE ADORNED, (21:22) FOR THE LORD GOD THE ALMIGHTY AND THE LAMB ARE ITS TEMPLE".
SONG: "The indians send signals
From the rocks above the pass
The cowboys take positions
She lets loose all the horses
When the corporal is asleep
they’ve got the word to go
They get a gang of villains
In a shed up at heathrow With the numbers on their names;
And he wakes to find the fire’s dead
And arrows in his hats
In the bushes; It’s funny how their missus’
Always look the bleeding same
To change the mood a little
I’ve been posing On seeing my reflection
I’m looking slightly rough
I fancy this, I fancy that
I wanna be so flash
I give a little muscle
And I spend a little cash
I ask her lots of questions
And she hangs on to the wall
I kiss her for the first time
And then I take her home" (Star...) (NASB: Rev. 21:6) "It is done, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end; "I WILL GIVE TO THE ONE WHO THIRSTS FROM THE SPRING OF THE WATER OF LIFE WITHOUT COST; (21:7) "HE WHO OVERCOMES WILL INHERIT THESE THINGS, AND I WILL BE HIS GOD AND HE WILL BE MY SON".
SONG: "TEACH THE CHILDREN WELL" and "KNOW THEY LOVE YOU" (NASB: Rev. 21:18) "CLEAR".
SONG: "Our house, With two cats in the yard; Where everything is easy" (NASB: Mark 10:33) The Son of Man will be delivered.
SONG: "Making music with my friends" (Mark 10:39) JESUS SAID TO THEM, "THE CUP THAT I DRINK YOU SHALL DRINK; AND YOU SHALL BE BAPTIZED WITH THE BAPTISM WITH WHICH I AM BAPTIZED; (Rev. 21:6) FROM THE SPRING OF THE WATER OF LIFE WITHOUT COST.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050106/D87EKGJO0.html
Tsunami Death Toll, Listed by Country
Jan 6, 9:16 AM (ET)
By The Associated Press
At least 140,339 people are reported dead around southern Asia and as far away as Somalia on Africa's eastern coast, most killed by massive tsunamis that smashed coastlines on Dec. 26. The United Nations estimates the total number of dead will exceed 150,000.
Death tolls by country:
- Indonesia: 94,200
- Sri Lanka: 30,615
- India: 9,682
- Thailand: 5,291
- Somalia: 298
- Myanmar: 90
- Maldives: 82
- Malaysia: 68
- Tanzania: 10
- Bangladesh: 2
- Kenya: 1
SONG: "And I feel like William tell pulling mucles from a shell" (Star...; Hollywood @ Western; 01-06; 8:14 a.m.) (NASB: Lam. 3:47) Panic and pitall have befallen us, devastation and destruction; (3:50) The Lord looks down and sees from heaven; (3:54) Waters flowed over (3:55) out of the lowest pit.
SONG: "Swinging hot spot; You don't know what you got til its gone." (same) (KJV: 1Chron. 22:7) My son, as for me, it was in my mind, (Ez. 48:30) the goings out of five measures; (Mark 9:29) This kind can come from nothing, (Eph. 2:4) but GOD, who is rich in mercy, for his great lovewherewith he loved us; (2:5) Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together, and made us sit together with Christ.
SONG: "Jesus built the ship to save us all" (NASB: Mark 10:17) He was setting out on a journey; (10:47) He began to cry out, (10:23) "HOW HARD IT WILL BE FOR THOSE WHO ARE WEALTHY TO ENTER THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN".
SONG: "When your time comes round; A good time to flip the switch" (Mark 10:48) Many (10:47) heard Jesus.
SONG: "Gloria" (NASB: Mark 10:40) To sit on My Right or on My Left, "THIS IS NOT MINE TO GIVE", but it is for those for whom it has been prepared".
SONG: "You can hear my show; I want to be free and safe" (NASB: Mark 10:43) It is not "THIS WAY", among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant; (10:44) and whoever wiches to be first among you shall be slave of all. (10:45) The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ranson for many.
SONG: "There is a young cowboy he lives on the range
His horse and his cattle are his only companions
He works in the saddle and he sleeps in the canyons
Waiting for summer, his pastures to change
And as the moon rises he sits by his fire
Thinking about _____ and glasses of ____
And closing his eyes as the doggies retire
He sings out a song which is soft but it's clear
As if maybe someone could hear
Goodnight you moonlight ladies
Rockabye sweet baby
Deep greens and blues are the colors i choose
Won't you let me go down in my dreams
And rockabye sweet baby
Lord, seemed dream-like on account
There's a song that they sing when they take to the highway
A song that they sing when they take to the sea
A song that they sing of their home in the sky
Maybe you can believe it if it helps you to sleep
But singing works just fine for me" (Star...) (NASB: Acts 7:43) "I ALSO WILL REMOVE YOU BEYOND BABYLON".
SONG: "Come to my window, I'm coming home soon"
SIGN: "A Perfect Image"
SIGN: "You're Blessed" (on Ca. Lic. Plate frame "4U KITA")
SONG: "It's too late to change events; It's time to face the consequences; Time to deliver the "Policy of Truth"
SONG: "It's time to come together; Let's celebrate"
SONG: "You know that's a game that I hate to lose; Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul; I want to get lost in your rock and roll; The world outside looks so unkind
Now I'm counting on you To carry me through; And when my mind is free You know a melody can move me And when I'm feeling blue The guitar's coming through to soothe me Thanks for the joy that you're given me
I want you to know I believe in your song Your rythm and rhyme and harmony You've helped me along Makin' me strong"
VOICE: "You got questions, we got answers" ( a radio commercial; 103.5)
SONG: "In your arms, I can stay here forever; I'm keepin you forever; I can feel your love for me; We will be together"
Scientologist' Ca. License plate "5WDW545"
SONG: "Two hearts beat as one; I'm a fool for you"
SIGN: "SHOCK WAVE THERAPY"
SONG: "You're shinning down at me from heaven"
SIGN: "DRVN 2B" (a California License plate)
SONG: "A whole new world; Where we will be for you and me"
SONG: "How SWEET it is to be loved by you"
SIGN: http://www.dc.state.fl.us/pub/10-20-life/
SIGN: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031027fa_fact
"Standing on the corner suitcase in my hand; all the poets they studied rules of verse; they come home from work; Sittin' down by the fire; radio does play, look classical music there, kids; "The March Of The Wooden Soldiers"
Some people like to go out dancing
and other people like us, we gotta work
And there's even some evil mothers
they're gonna tell you that everything is just dirt
And you know that women never really faint
and that villains always blink their eyes
That children are the only ones who blush
and that life is just to die
Anyone who ever had a heart
and wouldn't turn around and break it
Anyone who ever played a part
and wouldn't turn around and hate it
Sweet Jane, Sweet Jane
Sweet Jane, oh honey, Sweet Jane
Sweet Jane, oh, Sweet Jane
Sweet Jane, Sweet Jane"
Number 10, Part one, 01-07, 5:30 p.m.
Justus-This is an interesting paper for which I just began working on. We begin with David Bowie. I was purchasing a raincoat at a "Out of the Closet" location today when I heard David's voice speaking to me through his music. He said to me...... "Knowledge comes with death's release" and "The writings on the wall" and "Just remember Lovers never lose".
(NASB: Psalm 85:12) "Indeed the Lord will give what is good, and yield its produce.
(Dan. 11:20) His Jewel (Psalm 85:13) will go before Him and will make His footsteps into "A Way".
http://user.cyberlink.ch/~koenig/bowie.htm
What's David Bowie got to do with occultism and gnosticism?
Apart from being a sometime brilliant musician and dilettante artist, "Bowie's religious perspective and compositional techniques mirror an eloquent fragmentary projection of society". "I'm actually very nineteenth century - a born Romantic" he uttered in 1995. His work resembles that of many European post-romantic novelists and thinkers, such as Hermann Hesse (the Steppenwolf), Gustav Gründgens (his most famous rôle: Mephistopheles in Goethe's Faust) or Aleister Crowley. Indeed, the Gesamtkunstwerk 'David Bowie' crystallises this splintered reality into cultural artifacts, and these in turn coagulate into new realities. Bowie (born 1947 as David Robert Jones) is seen by some as a sort of 'Renaissance Man' whose professed 'universality' is an attempt to show the landmarks of evolution by reassembling the fragmentary pieces of our society; and in this, he resembles many occultists.
But unlike most occultists, Bowie has considerable wealth, critical acclaim, penetrating intelligence, and enduring good looks; he seems set to go on to even greater heights and achievements. What next, godhead? There is a Faustian/Mephistophelean element here. "How else to explain the absolute zenith of this man's worldly trajectory?" "In fact, there are people who are convinced that his success wouldn't be possible without some kind of "OTHERWORLDLY" - "ASSIST.*"
http://on-line.scientology.org/
Nigeria-Odutola Astropus Babatunde, I am a Nigerian Scientologist in my mid thirties and I live in Lagos with my family. South Africa-Akbar Abdulla, I know now what life is all about. I have more stability and knowingness. I have more confidence and stability in myself as a being. Karin Adolf, I am a professional member with I HELP (an organization of scientology counselors). Arthur Anderson, I have retired from the business world but am still interested in things such as the
stock
exchange, local community affairs and politics. In 1965 I listened to an introductory lecture about man, his body, his mind, and his reactive mind. "Immediately I knew that here was the mystery of life laid bare. Here was the answer to my preoccupation with the purpose of my life on earth". Why would God create me in a state of helplessness, through a laborious stage of learning for 20 years from grade one to university so that I could earn enough not to die. and then die 50 years later anyhow perhaps as an atheist. Lawrence Anthony, Scientology is a great adventure. Chris Arendse, I found Scientology in New York City whilst I was there to study and undergo primal therapy. My wins in Scientology has been many. I'm not the same person I was before. Dave Atkinson, I also organize and deliver Hubbard Dianetics Seminars into communities and organizations. I do this with my wife, and the results have been miraculous. Terry Atkinson. Tanzania-Wilson Malle, I run a tour company which deals mainly with adventure travel in Tanzania. India-Vikas Bnatneja, I’m Vikas Bnatneja, a Doctor by profession specialised in herbal remedies. I serve the community through my health advice. For mental and Psychological disorders, I was totally helpless until I was introduced to Scien
tology
and it’s miracles by Dr. Swhash Good in India. My wife Anita is a Gynecologist. Naveen Subramanyam Kothapalle, I am a graduate in Electronics and Communication Engineering from India. Currently, I am working as a Systems Analyst at Southern California Edison. I am from a place called Bangalore, India. Israel-Efrat Artzi, Cohen Avishag, I am a photographer. Moshe Aviv, A few months ago I learned something that explains how I can improve my control in some area. I a
pplied
it four times in the subject of money and each time I got money from different sources. First time I got about $2000. Second time I got $500, third time $11, and fourth time $1530. In all the cases above it was really unpredictable and it's hard for me to believe that I would have gotten it if I hadn't applied the knowledge. Yael Bar, Dani Berkovich, I'm a private investigator. Dalia Braunstein, Mordi Buckai, I am writing a children's book. I am a publisher and I am the executive director of "Dimor - consulting and training" and I am helping people to get along in life and fulfill their dreams. Carmela Cohen, I am a staff member of Dimor, the Haifa Field Group. Moti Cohen, Arik Elizari, I'm an actor and studying to become a personal consultant of Scientology. Haim Falcha, I am a businessman who lives in Tel-Aviv. I am running right now a consulting business and deliver a sales course to top salesmen. When I want something I GET IT!!! Gabi Fire, I live in Israel , near Tel Aviv and I love this country. I met Scientology 15 years ago while I was traveling in Europe. I was wandering from country to country, without any real pur
pose in
life. Life seemed to be useless, and I saw no real happiness . I was really looking for something else. Something that would give me the right answers to simple questions such as "what the hell am I doing here on Earth" and - "how did I get to be here anyhow ? " and - why are people not aware of it all"?.... I knew there must be some right answers for a change. Real answers. Not just "believe in God or go to Hell" stuff. I finally met with Scientology in Munich, Germany. I received real answers finally. Answers that came deep within myself. I did Scientology processing and training as well as administration training. I started to have fun in life, for a change... My ability was greatly increased, I was doing much better in life in all areas.
Israel-Or Hadidi, "From the knowledge I gained from Scientology I could handle a heavy crying situation with my child. I gave him a simple assist*"
Justus-Interesting.... (NASB: Psalm 91.5) "The arrow that flies by day".
David Miscavige is Chairman of the Board of Religious Technology Center (RTC), a non-profit organization formed in 1982 to preserve, maintain and protect the Scientology religion. Religious Technology Center holds the ultimate ecclesiastical authority regarding the standard and pure application of L. Ron Hubbard’s religious technologies. RTC is not part of the management structure of the Church and is not involved in its day-to-day affairs. In the early 1980s, Mr. David Miscavige was a leader in reorganizing the corporate structure of the Church and establishing a new and stronger management set-up capable of handling the rapid expansion of the Church and providing future stability.
Justus-After the Church took in Myers Lansky in the 70's. Rumor has it that he has been seen in Hollywood glarring at us critics? RTC is at the heart of the corruption. (NASB: Psalm 4:7) We have been consumed, (91:8) You will only look on with your eyes.
(( http://www.bowiewonderworld.com/cols/sstroud03.htm )) This web page is a funny read.
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/brokenspider/theforgottensongs.html
Justus-I perceive that David Bowie is a vessel for Crowelyism and The Golden Dawn and Scientology, all parts of the CIA's cosmic mind.
Peter-R. Koenig who is Author of this web page: I do not share this opinion. It is my conviction that Bowie's work has been seriously underestimated, and cannot be reduced to a series of single topics. Nevertheless, "it can't be ignored that Bowie has constructed his public persona from the various parts of the puzzle that are at the roots of modern occultism". "He was summoning up some of these pieces at the tender age of 16 already".
So what has David Bowie got to do with occultism? He gave the answer himself in his 1971 song 'Quicksand':
"I'm closer to the Golden Dawn
Immersed in Crowley's uniform of imagery"
Justus-Could it be any relation to?
In the 1976 song 'Station to Station' "he mentioned the occult key doors to other plans of reality" when he described how to travel down the Cabalistic Tree of Life
from Kether to Malkuth
that is from Godhead to Earth.
On 25 November, 1995, he finally admitted that in 1976 "My overriding interest was in cabbala and Crowleyism. That whole dark and rather fearsome never-world of the wrong side of the brain. ... More recently, [1995] I've been interested in the Gnostics".
What is Gnosticism and is it found in Bowie's fragments of reality?
'Gnosis' comes from the Greek word for knowledge, and may broadly be defined as a way of knowledge, as opposed to faith. The following definition of Gnosticism shows it as something partly spiritual, something partly psychological -- a chronic dislocation or unsettled-ness with the world.
"Those who are happy with and in the world, who benefit from good health, and who experience love and satisfaction in their preferred fields, seem not to need the universe-healing Gnosticism, which I believe is a religious tool to heal the agony of unbearable life".
"Gnostics live in two worlds at the same time". They seek a divine reality, a realm within this world here, which is only a sort of shadow world.
Historically viewed, Gnosticism is a varied set of overlapping religious traditions that often contradict each other. It is part of these traditions that every gnostic constantly invents their own Gnosticism. Living in a world which is subjectively felt and experienced as a "rotten place" (a Gnostic term), cries out for salvation. Art, music, hedonism, creativity, religiousness and all manner of creative and alternative lifestyles according to "Optimum through Maximum" or "Optimum through Minimum", hint at a possible or potential gnostic undercurrent of self-realisation beyond but through this world; or with Bowie's lyrics: "For you're dancing where the dogs decay, defecating ecstasy" (1974).
Bowie created a world beyond his earthly (meanwhile wealthy) existence: in the manifestation of constant emanations of differing stage personæ who sometimes blended in with his 'real' personality but most often had been used by him to disguise his alienation from himself, from society and its mechanisms: this is the recurring motif of his quest for the authentic self. Most prominent in his personal history is the fact that when he was a child one relative (from the maternal side of his family) after another required psychiatric treatment, sometimes due to religious hallucinations. This sort of 'pain' is traceable in much of his lyrics: it made him strip "myself down" and fill the blank spaces left behind "with a completely new personality. When I heard someone say something intelligent, I used it later as if it were my own. ... It's just like a car, replacing parts." In 1972 he felt that his "brain hurt like a warehouse / it had no room to spare".
As Bowie is one of the most innovative rock and pop artists ever, his creation of multiple personalities also mirrors pop culture, with its paranoid and para-religious myths of Star-Men visiting the earth, either becoming or influencing Messiahs, or else trying to live as unobtrusive Lodgers or Passengers among the Earthlings.
Famous "keywords"
Bowie's keywords Aleister Crowley and the Golden Dawn show us where to dig deeper to understand his symbolism.
The Golden Dawn was a magical secret society which flourished at the end of the 19th century and taught a unique blend of Jewish mysticism (called Cabbala, also to be found in Bowie's symbolism), astral travel, magic, yoga (also practised by Bowie) and how to communicate with angels and demons. For this latter communion it was first necessary to empty the mind, to make room for the unknown to enter - something that bears a strong resemblance to Bowie's 'cut-up' method of writing lyrics. "I've always felt like a vehicle for something else but then I've never really sorted out what that was" (1973). "There's a feeling that we are here for another purpose." Eventually he described his working method: "You nick a touch of this, you nick a touch of that. Then you do it better simply by using Scotch tape, sawdust and a little imagination." In the same way he invented a biography for himself by glueing together 'objets trouvés' (found in books, newspap
er
articles about himself, interview questions, TV programs) and often cleverly calculated inventions of stage personæ.
The Englishman Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) expanded the limits of the Golden Dawn by advocating identifying oneself with various Gods (called Assumption of God Forms), union with those Gods (angels and demons) during orgasm and/or consumption of mingled male and female sexual fluids.
Crowley's key maxim was "Do what Thou Wilt" (as can be found on Bowie's 'After All', 1970), which (among many other interpretations) is equated with the Greek word "Thelema" which stands for "Will". In the Crowleyan world, 'Thelema' refers to sexmagick (which Crowley spelt 'Magick' to distinguish it from the purely ceremonial variety): to reach illumination while having sexual intercourse through techniques focussing the sexual energies upon a wish, a sort of an inner photography which represents the desire to be fulfilled. I will expand on this subject later on.
The Cut-Up method: "Inspirations have I none"
"The cut-up technique was originally devised by the Surrealists, and most famously used in literature by William Burroughs: you take a text, cut it into pieces, reassemble these pieces haphazardly, and thus create something new". (NASB: Luke 1:19) The angel answered and said to him, "I am (Dan. 11:20) Jewel, (Luke 1:19) who stands in the presence of GOD, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news".
Because Bowie used the "cut-up technique to 'write' many of his lyrics" there is not much sense in trying to analyse them as a whole or each lyric individually word by word: instead one has to focus on the recurring images and codes that appear in the entire "David Bowie" 'opus', which connote his kind of gnosticism. Bowie defined his use of the cut-up method as his way of discovering his own past and future. He himself became a cut-up himself too - at least for those who followed his career closely throug the years - these followers were (and still are) confronted by reflections of themselves in the splintered facettes that make up Bowie's often odd-sounding lyrics; in Bowie's ever-changing styles of fashion images; in Bowie's constant name-dropping of keywords of books whenever a micro or a pencil of a journalist was and is at hand. It's probably also worth pointing out that he talks in fractals.
Bowie turned into a Gnostic who gave out Gnosis, "a theme which constantly recurs in his live performances, lyrics, and music"; for instance in his rôle as the messianic alien Ziggy Stardust (1971-1973), or as the 'Hanged Man' from the Tarot in his 1987 shows - or else in the photographs where he appeared with stigmata and a halo (1998).
The cut-up method makes it largely irrelevant whether or not Bowie is conscious of himself as a Gnostic; that is, whether he knowingly expresses himself in Gnostic terms - or whether he is hiding it ("in an all time low").
The Cabbala combines several factors: the analytical and linguistic aspects of it have certainly proved of interest to the erudite side of Bowie's character, while another part of him has been drawn to the meditative Cabbala, "where one immerses oneself in the Divine attributes of words and numbers to ascend spiritually". There is also a physical way of Cabbalistic working, the 'Ecstatic Cabbala', which involves exercises in breathing and movement, as well as chanting and singing.
Cabbala became "the new religion of Hollywood" in the 1990's, as stars like Madonna, Barbra Streisand, Mick Jagger, Jerry Hall and Roseanne Barr took up what had previously been a highly recondite subject.
Bowie has described himself as a "post-modern Buddhist"; certainly his working methods look post-modern, with their nature being associatively handicrafted rather than concrete. Ordinary materials in the form of music and text are taken, arranged, and re-arranged. Bowie studies the result, and tries something else, as he navigates his way through revisions, corrections, and different material. This method goes some way towards explaining his apparently inconsistent changes in musical style, and how he views his own work - something he claims as a masterpiece one day, becomes defective the next.
One word about sources
As the regular, commercial Bowie recordings mainly "mirror the marketing strategies of his producers and record-companies", I have based this article mostly on bootleg recordings of his live concerts, or on studio recordings which were never released commercially. I feel that artists tend to express themselves more freely on stage (even though stage performances are the main source of income for many musicians), as opposed to when the artist is being supervised in a recording-studio by a producer with an eye on the market-place. So for legal reasons, I obviously cannot reproduce the exact sources for most of the material used herein. My advice to the interested reader is to buy as many Bowie records as possible!
Without his all-consuming depressions ("hitting an all time low") Bowie's personæ would be a lot harder to understand, and ultimately be of little interest to any researcher, however dedicated. In fact, Bowie is more of a Gnostic than an artist - much, obviously, to his chagrin, as he wants to be known as an artist first and foremost. At the early age of 16, in about 1963, Bowie penned "the lyrics to his song 'I'm tired of my life', in which he sketched out his future career": "I'm trying to decide which game is best for me, which can I bear ... You don't perceive so I'm leading you away". "The pattern was the idea of changing identity or thinking up your own identity".
Deciding which game to play is plainly Bowie's habit of changing personæ, or re-inventing his personality.
Justus-And also playing the games of "Scientology" and "Freemasonry". Thos around you "ASSIST*" to a point of channeling divination and even talents to you. In other words, "Often times those around you can make you or break you". This is all part of the "GAMES".
Thus the idea of 'finding himself' showed up in Bowie's stage 'fragments' of such personæ like the Mod and the Bob Dylan phase (1964-1968), Major Tom (1969-1970), Ziggy Stardust (1971-72), Aladdin Sane (72-73), Halloween Jack (Diamond Dog) (1974), The Man Who Fell To Earth (1975), The Thin White Duke (1976), The Svelte Lounge Lizard (1978), Ashes To Ashes (1980), The Elephant Man (1980-81), Serious Moonlight (1983 when he once again claimed to be the real David Robert Jones), Screamin' Lord Byron (Tonight, 1984), Tin Machine (1989), Nathan Adler (1995), Earthling (1997), on the Internet alias Mr Plod (1997) and as Boz in the PC-game Omikron in 1999.
To some degree all these personæ are re-creations of the Pierrot figure, a disguised Gnosis in the form of parody. Bowie has repeatedly appeared on stage (and still stages) as the 'Pierrot in Turquoise', a sort of a Threepenny Pierrot (the colour turquoise connoting "the British symbol of everlastingness" as one of his early teachers gnomically recollected). This figure originated in 1967, when Bowie was a member of Lindsey Kemp's mime company - an environment where everything was apparently tragic, dramatic and theatrical, that is just an extension of his own life. At the same time (circa 1968) he performed in the mime-drama 'The Mask' playing the part of a youth who becomes fatally identified with his painful mask, a rôle which Bowie would later repeat as "Ziggy Stardust" who is stifled by his Mask while "making love with his ego" on stage (this is remeniscent of Oscar Wilde's 'Picture of Dorian Gray' which was later the plot in Bowie's video for the song '
Look
Back In Anger').
The 1979 track 'Look Back In Anger' was used as the opening song for many of Bowie's stage performances between 1983 and 1997.
The voiceover of the 1968 pantomime concludes, as the lights dim on the lifeless body:
"The papers made a big thing out of it. Funny though - they didn't mention anything about a mask."
The Mask was a concept that Bob Dylan had toyed with in 1964, when he appeared onstage with the words: "I got my Bob Dylan mask on", to which he added "I'm glad I'm not me" in 1966. This was making a plain distinction between searching for an identity, and actually producing it. The reference to the Mask signified a knowledge of how artificial it was as a myth, and how it was a sort of excessive satire. Bowie had outlined his projected career in his 1967 'The Laughing Gnome', where he sang about how he saw himself and Mick Jagger growing new personæ in the future:
'I'm a laughing Gnome and you can't catch me'
'Haven't you got an 'ome to go to?' (No, we're gnomads) ...
And we're living on caviar and honey (hooray!)
Cause they're earning me lots of money
In the German versions of his songs from 1967 as well, the time-table had been arranged, for example in the track 'Mit mir in Deinen Traum' (which translates as '"With me in your dream", which rather contradicts the English original 'When I Live My Dream'. Here he extolled the dreamland where a certain "you" is going to meet Bowie in that "you's" dream.
"He is a symbol of a new age / He glides above the realms of you and me"
Feeling "that the human complex is such an inadequate form of existence", Bowie said that he experienced "an incredible loneliness". He has always styled himself as a creature dwelling in the "human zoo", tattooed with Tarot cards (like Ray Bradbury's 1951 'Illustrated Man'); a 'Karma-Man' (which dates from 1967, and was on the live set list until 1970, talking about Zen-Buddhism while he joined the Tibet Society in 1967 with his then producer Tony Visconti) sitting "on my karma, dame meditation" ('Little Wonder', 1997) and being a 'Silly Boy Blue' (1966, "Child of Tibet", "Mountains of Lhasa") who never leaves his body now and so has "got to wait to die". -- (On the live set list in 2001)
'Dame meditation' most probably refers to the "Kundalini" ("ENERGY"), the yogic fire-snake that resides in the genital region, waiting to rise to the yogi's head to enable illumination symbolised by a lotus flower.
Buddhism is a tool to combine diet, drugs (or rather the absence of drugs, as stimulants are not considered to be appropriate indulgences), yoga and sexual techniques.
The Buddha's main objection to alcohol - and indeed to "all recreational drugs, was that it befuddles consciousness", thus making mental development difficult. He also often warned against alcohol's negative social effects. Consequently abstaining from all recreational drugs including alcohol is one of the precepts that all Buddhists are expected to practice. But one wonders whether psychedelics would be useful in the practice of Buddhism?
Yoga is one of the preliminary conditions to master the body before using it as a temple. By westerners, Yoga is mistakenly thought to be simply
"a system of physical exercises to keep the body supple and the mind calm". But the meaning of the word
yoga is
union and the system was developed by eastern adepts to
"assist them in attaining union with the source of all being".
Regarding Yoga: I watched a barefoot Bowie sitting in a very difficult Yoga position during his live performance of 'The Man Who Sold The World' (1970) at Zurich on 14th February 1996.
Between 1967 and 1969, it was reported that Bowie slept upright in an antique wooden box, ate only two modest meals a day, and underwent periods of intense silence.
But
"Zen and Mahayana Buddhism weren't his only tool to expand consciousness and perception". The hippie era was already over when he parodied it on his album 'Space Oddity'; by 1970 he was smiling
"sadly for a love I could not obey" for he was not to become one of those stars with a mundane message who devote their lives
"to save a slogan". At a time where he suffered from 11 flop singles, 2 flop albums and has stalked through seven Record Firms (in 1969, his father who was closely involved in his son's career, had died), he was looking for a
"new
love" and
"new words". In his song 'The Cygnet Commitee', Ziggy Stardust again was prefigured:
"I gave Them life / I gave Them all ... / I opened doors that would have blocked Their way." Impotence when confronting reality gave birth to fantasies of omnipotence.
http://socrates.clarke.edu/Guthrie.htm
W. K. C. Guthrie, "The Reaction Towards Humanism" (The Sophists and Socrates)" in The Greek Philosophers. London: Methuen, 1950.
We have now reached the second half of the fifth century B.C. Socrates is in middle life, Plato is born or about to be born. (He was born in 427.) It is the time when the reaction against physical speculation set in and philosophers began to direct their thoughts towards human life, the second of the two divisions of philosophy that I mentioned at the beginning. One reason for the change is not far to seek. It was a revolt of common sense against the remoteness and incomprehensibility of the world as the physicists presented it. The ordinary man was confronted with the choice of believing with Parmenides that all motion was illusion and reality an immovable plenum, or else 'saving the phenomena' (as the others had the impudence to call it) by accepting as the only realities atoms-invisible, colourless, scentless, soundless atoms-and void. Neither picture was either comforting or particularly credible. At any rate, if the physicists were to be believed, then what they calle
d the
physis or real nature of things was something utterly remote from the world in which we seem to live. If they were right, then the nature of the real world turned out to be of very little consequence to man, who had to deal every day with a world which was quite different.
To understand this attitude, we must of course remind ourselves again "of the complete absence of any experimental proof of their assertions, and also of any form of applied science". "The physicist of to-day tells me equally that the desk which seems so solid under my typewriter is in fact a whirling maelstrom containing more empty space than solid matter. I may retort that I do not experience it in that way, yet I cannot turn my back on him or conclude that his view of reality is therefore of no consequence to me".
SONG: "Somethings got a hold of me, It must be love; Everything seems to have changed" (Star...; Hollywood @ McCadden; 01-07; 2:17 p.m.) (KJ V:
Justus-I opened this book that was sitting at my table to page 172. Chapter 7 "Wording Your Speech".
Use Imagery: Appeal to the senses, especially visual, auditory, and tactile senses. "MAKE US SEE", "HEAR, AND FEEL WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT".
Auditory Imagery: Appeal to our sense of hearing by using terms that describe sounds. Let your listeners hear the car screeching, the wind whistling, the bells chiming, the angry professor roaring.
BOOK: "The Essential Elements of Public Speaking" By Joseph A. DeVito
We are all only too dismally aware of the practical impact which atomic science may have upon our lives. The Greek was luckier. He could and did turn his back, and it is partly at least to this circumstance that we owe some of the most profound reflections on the nature and purpose of human life.
The reasons for the change were bound to be complex. Athens had become the acknowledged leader of Greece in intellectual as in other matters, so that thinkers from other parts of the Greek world, like Anaxagoras or Protagoras, tended to be attracted into her orbit and to make their homes there. But Athens from the year 431 was engaged in the long and terrible war which was to lead to her downfall thirty years later, and soon after its outbreak suffered all the horrors of the plague. If disinterested scientific inquiry demands, as Aristotle rightly said, at least a minimum of leisure and comfortable material circumstances, then Athens was no longer the place in which it was easy, but rather a city where the problems of human life and conduct were obtruding themselves more and more. Moreover, Athens was a democracy, a democracy small enough to ensure that the participation of all free citizens in her political life was a reality and not merely a question of voting for a poli
tical
representative every few years. Some offices were filled by lot, and every citizen could feel that he had a good chance of playing an active part in the conduct of the state's affairs. This again fostered an ambition to learn more about the principles underlying political life and the arts which would ensure success in it.
Here however there is no room to be anything but strictly selective, so after that brief reminder that important social and political factors were at work as well, I propose to concentrate on the more philosophical reasons for the change, thus ensuring at least the advantage of a more continuous thread of argument to follow. The reaction away from the investigation of physis is sometimes attributed among other things to what has been called the bankruptcy of physical science, and we have already had a hint of what that phrase means.
"The basis of physical science in Greece, as we said at the beginning, was the search for permanence or stability, and for an underlying unity, in a universe superficially mutable and unstable, and consisting only of a most confusing plurality". To the ordinary man it must have seemed that the physicists had failed conspicuously. They offered him the choice between Parmenides and the atomists.
"Either he could accept unity in the world at the price of renouncing belief in everything that seemed to him real and admitting that all his sensations were false"; or he could follow those who had given up all idea of a one behind the many and produced a world of nothing but infinite plurality; and not even they would allow the name of reality to the secondary qualities which made up most of the world of his experience, the world that could be seen and heard and smelt and tasted.
(NASB: Psalm 89:12) You have created (89:13) a strong arm; (89:43) You also turn the edge of His sword and have made Him stand in battle.
"The flaming Dove"
Having already described himself ironically as "the Cream / Of the Great Utopia Dream" and as "a phallus in pigtails" in 1969, by 1971 Bowie was saying "I want to be a Superman"; he expressed these feelings more precisely in his song 'Quicksand': "I'm closer to the Golden Dawn / immersed in Crowley's uniform ... / I'm not a prophet or a stone age man / Just a mortal with potential of a superman."
In the live versions during 1973 the keywords "Golden Dawn" and "Crowley" were left out. It was only in 1997, when Bowie was in the process of floating himself on the stock market, that he started to re-use fragments of his worn-out and discarded personæ again, and 'celebrated' Crowley's 'uniform' as the opener to his live gigs that summer.
Sexmagick was hinted at in 'Holy Holy', 1970:
"Listen Lady, let me lie low, lie low with you
To be lie-high-high-high-high-high, my! Oh my!
Slowly, we get too good and too holy
Helping one another, just a righteous brother".
["righteous brother" is a term used in masonry and also in the Golden Dawn]
(NASB: Dan. 9:12) He has confirmed his words which He had spoken.... (Acts 27:44) and the rest should follow (27:41) by the force of the waves.
At the same time, he blessed gay culture with lyrics like "He swallowed his pride and puckered his lips / And showed me the leather belt round his hips ... / The snake and I, a venom high". ('The Width of a Circle', 1970).
Homosexuality was also hinted at in songs like 'Lady Stardust' (= Marc Bolan in 1970), 'Queen Bitch' (= Lou Reed in 1971), 'Looking for a friend' (Freddi Burretti, Bowie's costume designer), 'Scream like a Baby' (1979, where 'Sam' was like a gun), 'Hallo Spaceboy' (which in 1995, the date of the song, was the name of a S&M club in Amsterdam) and many others.
Justus-Yeah! Almost everybody in Hollywood, in order to exist in the intertainment industry must fall morally from grace, or leave the industry unscathed.
In 1971, Bowie stated that he wanted music to be "tarted up, made into a prostitute, a parody of itself. ... It should be the clown, the Pierrot medium" and so he introduced his androgynous gender-bender persona, as his lovers Romy Haag, Amanda Lear, as well as his wife Angie Bowie were able to observe at first hand - and to the admiration of his audiences.
While spending his time gazing into crystal balls and communicating with the spirit-world through a Ouija board, Bowie developed the persona of an androgynous messiah-figure who would blueprint the music scene of the 1970s and who would question accepted notions of truth and authenticity - especially where sexuality and pop/rock music running counter to everything deemed 'natural' was concerned. This undoubtedly fed Bowie's desires for 'folie de grandeur' and an aesthetic of excess, both of which might be used to re-create the self as a manufactured objetc - and which would mean the replacement of God
as the
creator.
But what about the occult world view, where "sex is sometimes viewed as neither male nor female, but as a state of mind?"
And eventually, for the audience 'Bowie' "became like LSD in the water supply".
Justus-And in the mirror, for the members, Scientology became like LSD in the water supply. I chose GOD, and truth. I am not willing to sell my soul and live the lie.
Ziggy Stardust - our fine, feathered friend
Who he?
In Bowie's visionary performance, the story went that civilization was going to collapse and the 'Infinites' would arrive. Ziggy Stardust (a sort of a Golem, "your face, your race, the way that you talk / I kiss you, you're beautiful, I want you to walk") was advised to announce the coming of these 'starmen' bringing hope. "Ziggy is their prophet, the messiah who takes himself to incredible spiritual heights", and is kept alive by the devotion of his disciples. "When the Starmen finally arrive, they take bits and pieces of Ziggy so that they can manifest themselves as real physical beings". Eventually they tear him to pieces on stage during the performance of the song 'Rock'n'Roll Suicide'. At the moment of Ziggy's death, "the Starmen take on his essence, and become visible".
This drama is gnosticism at its purest. In
Manicheism,
"every man and woman were once STARS", that is divine. Through a Philip K. Dick-like
"crack in the sky", most of the divine quality reascended to heaven, leaving behind only some tiny little sparks of the Divine Light in humanity on the physical level. These sparkling 'leftovers' of the Divine (when the so-called
Logos spermatikos left mankind), imprisoned in matter, have to be concentrated upon building up a brilliant "Body of Light" fitted for return to the "Blessed Realm" in heaven. Thus in this form of Gnosticism, the whole body of man was considered as divine (the Temple of the Holy Ghost) and the sexual organs were meant to fulfill a peculiar function: namely, the re-creation of the universe. In Manicheism, all other matter is "evil", a place of decay; and although many manicheist scriptures speak of the ascetic aspect (enjoining no meat, no coitus, no marria
ge)
there are more controversial reports that take a diametrical opposed view. But whether ascetic or sensual, it was a core belief of Manicheism that "angels" copulate with "archonts" as a way of freeing human beings from their the "evil bonds" to matter. - Archonts are the guardians of the universe and are often viewed as maleficient forces. One of the archonts is the demiurge or the creator of the world. The recurring image of archonts is that of jailers imprisoning the divine spark in human souls, held captive in material creation. -- But through the union of
Good and
Evil - angels and archonts - souls were purified and what is removed in this purgation might be 'given to all the species of the Earth'.
There are also strong shamanic elements involved; mutilation of the body (a reflection of Ziggy being torn apart) is common in shamanistic initiation.
In his book 'Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstacy' (Bollingen Foundation, published by Princeton University Press, 1964), Mircea Eliade recorded a Yakut shaman stating that as a rule the prospective shaman 'dies' and lies in their yurt for three days without eating or drinking as part of their initiation. The shaman recounted that in former times the candidate went through the ceremony thrice, during which he was cut to pieces. The candidate's limbs were removed and disjointed with an iron hook; the bones were cleaned, the flesh scraped, the body-fluids thrown away, and the eyes torn from their sockets. After this operation, all the bones were gathered up and fastened together with iron. It was also believed that the limbs were distributed among the evil spirits of disease and death. Each spirit devoured the part of the body that was its share; this gave the candidate shaman the power to cure the corresponding diseases. After devouring the whole body the evil spirits
departed.
The myth of renewal by fire, cooking or dismemberment has continued to haunt mankind even beyond the spiritual horizon of shamanism. Posing together with Damien Hirst, in 1994 and 1995 Bowie was going to play with the idea of torn apart bodies as Art.
Manicheism was also an important part in Aleister Crowley's "philosophy". Did his slogan "Every Man and Woman is a Star" lead to Bowie's Starman, Ziggy Stardust, the Rock'n Roll Star of the 1971-73 Ziggy-Incarnation?
"I was very aware of the idea of androgyny or an unknown gender being attached to most priesthoods in the East... Those original shamans have mutated into the entertainer ... that's where I was at in the early '70s," Bowie recalled in 'Interview' September 1995.
"I've had my share so I'll help you with the pain"
"It's the process that matters, isn't it? Rather than getting your information - or redemption - easily and directly you must go through this long stubborn painful trek. As with alchemy, the end result isn't as important as the long process whereby all the inessential aspects of "you" have been stripped away ..." [1995]
While Bowie had sexual intercourse with his alter ego Ziggy Stardust, his closest friend Marc Bolan (originally one of Ziggy's rôle-models for 'Lady Stardust' already in 1970 where Bowie sang "songs of darkness and dismay") celebrated libertine Gnose: "I got a Rolls-Royce 'cause it's good for my voice".
It's plain that Bowie and his coevals either neglected or ignored the ascetic aspect of Manichean practice (who avoided activities tending to disperse the Light/Divine Sparks) and sought their salvation/health/cure of souls via Optimum through Maximum. Or, as Bowie sang later in Bertolt Brecht's 'Baal' in 1981: "He will have his sky down there below"
When the stage shows in 1972 and 1973 opened with Beethoven's 'Freude Schöner Götterfunken' [Ode to Joy], it seemed that the musicians in his band, The Spiders from Mars, had found 'God' as well; but through the medium of Scientology. [Beethoven also was used in 1990 as the opener].
"Scientology and Crowleyanity have more in common than at first appears, as readers of Michael Staley's article The Babalon Working can learn".
In the end Ziggy Stardust had to die for real, as Bowie dropped Ziggy and sought out a new persona in his search for a mainstream audience; for a time he appeared to be 'going straight', but this was when the human being called David Bowie encountered cocaine. Bowie has always been described as a hyperactive personality with a very low attention-span. Maybe Gnosticism has a physical parallelism in people whose brains are under-stimulated by a lack of dopamine, a condition which impairs the 'censoring' or controlling functions of the fore-brain. People suffering from such lapses in concentration compensate for the lack of internal mental stimuli with apparently purposeless activities, while remaining hyperactive, restless and scatter-brained. Similarly, there are cocaine addicts who suffer from a hyperkinetic disorder, and need the drug to compensate for their feelings of 'emptiness'. Like music, drugs may serve as providers of creativity and productiveness, by inducing cha
nged
constants of perception and behaviour - which in turn leads to changes in expressions of creativity. Too much Dopamin (Levipoda, L-Dopa) also can be seen in the context of schizophrenia and the believe in the 'paranormal', that is seeing meanings between things as in Cabbala.
(NASB: Isaiah 41:20) "THAT THEY MAY SEE AND RECOGNIZE, AND CONCIDER AND GAIN INSIGHT AS WELL, THAT THE HAND OF THE LORD HAS DONE THIS, AND THE HOLY ONE OF ISRAEL HAS CREATED IT".
"And in the death ..."
In the biggest stage show ever mounted in rock history (the show stage was based on the expressionist designs of "The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari"), in 1974 Bowie presented himself as 'Halloween Jack' with his own face as a Japanese Kabuki-Mask, on which yet another persona was painted: Aladdin Sane (A Lad Insane).
An unreleased track from this time is called 'A Lad In Vain'.
"Everything became a mirror".
In 1993, Bowie took up to spray Aladdin Sane's red-blue zig-zag lightning-flash directly onto his face for portraits on the cover of lifestyle magazines, e.g. for "Q".
In the early 1974 live shows he played the rôle of the 'Cracked Actor', parodying a Hollywood Pierrot Hamlet who addressed a skull with the lyrics:
"you sold me illusions for a sack full of cheques / you've made a bad connection 'cause I just want your sex.".
The song 'Cracked Actor' appeared on the live set again in 1999 and 2000.
Reported to be heavily addicted to cocaine by the end of 1974, Bowie had his band introduce him with a 1969 song's lyrics:
"The Sun machine is coming down" and underlaying now new songs like 'Who Can I be Now' (
"can I be real?") and 'It's Gonna Be Me' (
"be holy again") with dancemusic (
"For you're dancing where the dogs decay, defecating ecstasy") in the most surging 'party/disco' style - which worked surprisingly well - unlike Bowie's attempts at dancing, which were stiff and jerky.
Lester Bangs reviewed this performance as a "parody of a parody".
In 1975, he was undoubtedly talking to himself while duetting with the sex icon Cher in 'Can you hear me?' In February that year Bowie insisted
"that Hitler was a terrible military strategist but his overall objective was very good." It was clear that he was living in other realms.
In May 1993 he professed in "Q": "I honestly have no idea what I thought between 1975 and 1977."
Bowie was reading Madame Blavatsky and Gurdjieff, he met the Crowleyite Kenneth Anger, and soon would develop a new alter ego: the emotionless Aryan superhuman called The Thin White Duke.
Angie Bowie recalled a good deal of occult activity during the subsequent LA period in 1975-76; it was also clear that Bowie was vulnerable to the influence of sycophants and hangers-on while he was heavily into cocaine. It has been alleged that at this time he scribbled frantic cabbalistic calculations on his own correspondence, stored his own urine in a fridge, and was obsessed about preventing anyone else getting hold of his nail-clippings and hair-trimmings - as Marianne Faithfull saw. This sort of voodoo superstition - a fear that bodily waste could be used for evil purposes by occult enemies - may also be found in Crowley's more secret teachings.
There's another anecdote about Bowie's fear of other people magickally using things he touched.
In 1983 and 1984, the late Derek Jarman wanted to do a film called 'Neutron'. Prospects looked really good financially as he had lined up an impressive cast-list and who else than Bowie wanted to play the lead. The two had a meeting in Derek's apartment and everything seemed hunky-dory. But then Bowie suddenly started chain-smoking and Jarman noticed that his guest was getting more and more nervous and was shooting furtive glances at one of his bookshelves plus some drawings on the wall. Then suddenly in the middle of a conversation Bowie stood up, made a lame excuse and left. Twenty minutes later Bowie's driver and bodyguard came back to the flat and said that the master had forgotten something and then proceeded to remove the cigarette-stubs from the trash... Needless to say Bowie backed out of the project which then collapsed. Jarman never did have the time to explain that his John Dee books and the Enochian squares on the wall were souvenirs from the time when he made
'Jubilee', a film in which Dr. John Dee, Elizabeth the First's astrologer, had been one of the main characters.
Dee's 'Enochian' system of magic, with its complex magical diagrams, was an important part of Golden Dawn teachings.
There is a postscript to this story. The producer of 'Twin Peaks' for sentimental reasons bought the rights to 'Neutron'. The project was revived recently. And guess who wants to play the lead?
Here is one of Aleister Crowley's 'secret teachings': "All bodily excrements, such as cut nails, and hair, should be burnt; spittle should be destroyed or exposed to the Sun; the urine and faeces should be so disposed of that it is unlikely that any other person should obtain possession of them." Yet still in March 1987 Bowie was insisting: "I never was in the occult". But for all these years he sang about the 'Jean Genie' who "keeps all your dead hair for making up [witchy] underwear".
"I'll be your king volcano right for you again and again"
The 1976 track 'Station to Station' is a fine example of Bowie's use of occult symbolism. Not only does he refer to Aleister Crowley's book of pornographic poems when he sings of "making sure White Stains", the 'stations' of the title refer to the ten stations of a cabalistic diagram called the 'Tree of Life', where the transcendent aspect of God becomes manifest through ten emanations or spheres (called 'Sefiroth' in Hebrew) from the highest 'Kether' (the crown), to the lowest 'Malkuth' (the kingdom).
Anyone who has the CD version of 'Station to Station' finds Bowie's photo on the back cover where he's sitting on the floor drawing this so-called Tree of Life with the 10 Sefirots. "Don't look at the carpet / I drew something awful on it", he sang in 'Breaking Glass' in 1977. Some years later, in March 2001 he admitted that this lyric "refers to both the cabbalistic drawings of the tree of life and the conjuring of spirits."
Bowie also told that these Stations are referring to the Stations of the Christian Cross, the fourteen landmarks on Christ's path to the crucifixion
Occultists who use the Cabbala make their reality transcendent by means of seeing Cabbalistic images all around them in the world - every thing and incident is interpreted in correspondence with the Tree of Life, as somehow a direct dealing with God - and sometimes also through the use of sex. They travel the paths and spheres of the Tree; to travel in "one magical movement" from "Kether to Malkuth" "lost in my [magical?] circle" (as Bowie sings) equates with the descent of the transcendent God to the immanent physical level, thus making man one with the Divine. And vice-versa, going from "Malkuth to Kether" could signify employing sex, and rising during orgasm from the physical level to become God. But which God was Bowie trying to reach? "Does my prayer fit in with your scheme of things?" he asked 'God' in the track 'Word on a Wing' on the same album, in 1976. Also in 'Station to Station' he was "flashing no colour" which hints at his
experimentation with the hindu Tattva system which advocates 'colour-flashing' in order to enter the several astral planes contributed to the 5 elements.
This song reappeared in the live set list in 1999, 'Station to Station' he sang again in 1990 and in the Summer 2000.
There is another less serious insight in Bowie's songs that involve a dialogue between Bowie and an 'Angel' (perhaps a sort of Mephistopheles?); there is a strong implication of some kind of Faustian pact, though this isn't immediately obvious.*
In 1999 Bowie's posed as 'Mephistopheles' on photographs.
In 1976's 'Golden Years', Bowie sang "I'll stick with you baby for a thousand years, nothin's gonna touch you in these golden years" to an "Angel"; this could be interpreted as the angel and Bowie assuring one another of their thousand year pact... though Angie Bowie remembers this track as a much more conventional love-song, written for her when Bowie was trying to save their failing relationship.
Then there is 'Cat People' from 1981: "See these eyes so green, I can stare for a thousand years; these tears can never dry. Judgement made can never bend." Maybe this is Bowie and his angel telling each other about their millenial pact as mentioned in the Bible, and the hurtful burden of God's condemnation.
You might find this association intriguing: in 'Let's Dance' (1983) the lyric runs "Under the moonlight / the serious moonlight", which bears a resemblance to Aleister Crowley's
'Lyric
of Love to Leah' from his diary for 1923: "Come, my darling, let us dance / To the moon that beckons us / Come, my love, let us dance / To the moon & Sirius!" A product of a 'cut-up'? A deliberate play on words? There are semantic connections between the two - as in "If you should fall into my arms / If you say hide we'll hide ..." and Crowley's "To dissolve our soul in trance / Heedless of the hideous / Heat & hate of Sirius." Also compare:
[Demon Dog] Diamond Dogs = Dog Star = Sirius = Serious Moonlight
In 'Station to Station' there is the line
"throwing darts in lovers' eyes". In Crowley's system, the dart or arrow is a symbol of direction, and shows the dynamic of True Will - which is not being but
going, not individual but
universal. The arrow pierces all points simultaneously in a perpetual orgasm; it is tipped with poison, an alkahest capable of dissolving the illusion of separateness.
In Crowley's 'Thoth' Tarot cards, the complementary card to 'The Lovers' is called 'Art', which depicts the flight of this arrow beyond its disintegrative stage. The two figures in 'The Lovers' are now resolved into their synthesis, which is Perfection. The arrow is soaring Beyond, piercing the rainbow. There is no goal, only the dynamic of the flight. The flight is towards Perfection. The House of God is smitten by the Lightning Flash of Illumination, the impact of the Holy Guardian Angel and the Flaming Sword of the Energy that proceeds from Kether to Malkuth. Thence are cast forth two figures representing by their attitude the Hebrew letter Ayin: these are the twins (Horus and Harpocrates) born at the breaking open of the Womb of the Mother (the second aspect of the House of God (or Tarot card 'Tower': symbolic of the ego in its phallic aspect) as "a spring shut up, a fountain sealed").
So perhaps that's why in 1987 the figure of the 'Glass Spider' sings of Bowie's empty river of universal consciousness "Gone, gone, the water's all gone, Mummy come back 'cause the water's all gone". Here 'Mummy' is Ishtar, Aphrodite, Maryam,
Ben Shaw, 53, is the church's lead spokesman in Clearwater. The son of a career Army officer, Shaw graduated from high school in India, where he played in a rock band and studied Indian religions. After reading Dianetics while working on a shrimp boat in Key West in 1971, he joined the church staff. He became a minister in 1978 and has held church positions throughout Europe and in Miami, Boston and Los Angeles. He has directed external affairs in Clearwater since 1996. His wife, Mary Shaw, is the president of the church's Flag Service Organization.
Bennetta Slaughter, 48, was among the first Scientologists to win acceptance among Clearwater civic leaders. Soon after she and her husband, David, moved their marketing and publications firm, AMC Publishing, from Dallas to Clearwater in 1994, Ms. Slaughter became active in civic and social groups. The inroads she made at the Chamber of Commerce and the Jazz Holiday opened doors for other Scientologists. Slaughter now splits time between Clearwater and St. Louis, where she is chief executive of Applied Scholastics International, a learning program that uses teaching methods espoused by L. Ron Hubbard.
Mary Story, 54, a native of New Zealand, is perhaps the most recognized church staffer in Clearwater. A board member of the Clearwater Marine Aquarium and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Clearwater, she also serves on the city's Main Street Design and Promotions Committee, the Homeless Task Force, and the Economic Development Task Force for the Clearwater Arts Foundation.
Elias Jafif, 50, is a private-sector Scientologist who heads an investment group planning a high-rise residential and retail project on 3 acres of prime downtown property purchased last year. Jafif, a native of Mexico, now has homes in Clearwater and Mexico City. A developer for 25 years, he and his partners have built numerous residential, hotel and retail projects in Mexico.
