Saturn Return indeed. It's been crazy lately, and even though I know I have no readers, I apologize for the lateness of this entry. I have so much to say on so many things, It's like I don't even know where to start sometimes I do intend to keep up this blog more frequently, but it's likely going to be more of a journal than I was originally intending, I have bigger and better plans for some of my essays. If you've tuned in in the past, stay tuned and we'll see what we come up with, here.

An update...

It's been a bit since my first post, and now I'm posting twice on the same day. The fact is I've been working on the article that I posted today. The beginning was getting a little long, so I realized I was going to have to post it in multiple parts, or risk straining the readers eyes, or just causing the page to take too long to load.

Of course, this isn't supposed to be a place just for my cerebral essays, I'm here to talk about my spiritual journey. I could talk about what has led me up to this point, and perhaps I will some time. But not right now.

I seem to have these periods of time where I just sort of lose interest in everything for a couple of days, and I'm just getting past that.

My current ideas about my spiritual path are about training both the mind and the body, so I'm currently studying yoga through two sites here and here.

I got a copy of I think it was yoga for dummies as well. I'm considering Tai Chi at a future point.

I guess I just wanted to let anyone who happens to be reading know what's going on. Of course, There aren't any views yet, but this is only my third post, so that's to be expected.

I'll be back as soon as I can with the remainder of the essay, though don't be surprised if it takes a few days.

Media and the occult seeker, part 1

Media is a wonderful tool in this day and age, one which is a vastly under-appreciated resource for serious spiritual seekers.It is not only scholarly works on the subject of spirituality and occultism which can provide insight, but many works of fiction can be used as a learning tool. Mass media is often maligned as a tool to passify the masses, and while this is true for a large portion of what we see come out of production studios and publishing houses and the like, there are a sparse handful of creators in the fields of entertainment who may just be trying to pass along a message. This "slipping the pill in with the meat" could be for many reasons, some of which I hope to discuss in this article. Please bear in mind, this specific article will deal heavily in generalities, as there are quite a few concepts that I want to deal with in the abstract before I talk about them more concretely in later essays.

The trick to this idea, is being able to recognize how and when it's being done, and to be able to decipher precisely what's being said. The secret languages of various systems lend themselves easily to misinterpretation, and over interpretation. Within the scope of this essay, I want to take it as a given that any interpretation discussed or linked to is not necessarily one I wholly agree with, but instead comes from an interesting line of thought. My purpose here is not to tell you what to think about these works, but instead I wanted to show some thinking methods which I admire, for various reasons. The tactic of coming up with far-fetched ideas, and then eliminating the least likely ones is a useful one, but one must first be able to conceive of the far-fetched idea. They might not always be useful ideas, but it's better to have an idea you can disregard than having no ideas at all.

The first step is learn about symbols. Various creators use different systems of occult symbolism. Many systems have an overlap, where the commonalities of human existence show up in all different places and times. The more different systems you are proficient in, the more you will get out of art that is spiritually inspired. Reading things about psychology and mythology are also very useful, as the works of Jung and Campbell can be very illuminating as well, so don't just stick to the strictly occult stuff. There may be further discussions about these systems in more detail, and how they show up in various places in a later essay.

Once you think you can recognize the basic symbols, make sure you are looking for them properly. Such things are not always obviously presented, and it takes an amount of ferreting to find them. On the other hand, be ready to let a tenuous connection go; it's very easy for people looking for a hidden meaning to find one iff they only look hard enough. Numerological interpretations are especially prone to this. If you are going to try to interpret anything it's usually best to stick to actual numbers that are presented. Once you stray into the realm of adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing you can make anything equal anything, and your conclusions become highly suspect, and appear entirely insane to anyone you try to explain it to. If you ever get hung up on a number, such as 23, choose another number at random, and if you put as much effort into finding it, you will find it just as many connections for any other number you should choose.

Sometimes, a creator will, for whatever reason, couch his meaning in many layers of metaphor, making it very difficult for someone who's trying to ferret it out to discern precisely what it is that's being said. Once you start digging, you sometimes can find some strange synchronicities, which can make you doubt your own sanity. Perhaps all of it is a coincidence?

I've been personally had that problem with Kubrick, recently. Either the man is a genius or he's really a very terrible overrated director. His films are full of continuity errors, and long dragging bits that don't seem to have anything to do with anything.
OR
He's a visionary, filling his films with subtle cues and intentional discrepancies to force the audience to pay attention. His long dragging plots are full of visual details which are the keys to unlocking a code of hidden narrative structure, which only an astute and very interested induvidual could crack.

Whenever you can't quite seem to decipher a piece of art, if you're unsure if there's a hidden agenda at work look at where it's coming from. Try to see the person behind it all. And when you do so make sure you're looking at the person responsible. There are plenty of faces in the mainstream media who get credit for art that is not truly thier own.

This is most rampant in the pop music scene, where many of the "artists" are simply voices with faces. Many of them don't write any part of thier own music, nor do they have much say in the way it's promoted, or proliferated. They merely show up, look beautiful and sing when they're told.

Once you can pin down the actual creator try to look at the kind of person they are. In the above example, I discussed Kubrick's Films and the state of ambiguitythat they left me in, but my uncertainty in this matter is somewhat mitigated by the noted fact that he put tons of work in to each an every film. He at one point held a guiness world record for the most reshoots of a single scene. While he's very tight lipped on any of the symbolism in his films, we can quite safely assume that there is something deep and layered to be uncovered, because even a man with average intelligence would spot many of the inconsistancies in his films after putting in so many hours on reshoots, editing, and meticulous planning. This is an example of how knowledge of a work's creator can inform your interpretation, but it's really just scratching the surface, and something I hope to address in more detail in later essays.

Of course all of the interpretations of media that you read are no replacement for doing your own thinking. Deconstructors aren't perfect, they miss things, and they have biases. Metaphor is a tricky creature, it can have several layers to it. When you're dealing with a particularly complex work, it's entirely possible for several  different interpretations to be simultaneously true, even sometimes when they conflict. Because artists can be so complicated, sometimes working on several levels, possibly subconsciously, it's sometimes more work than one person can be expected to take on. So, once you've seen how the pros do it, take some time, and see what you can come up with.

To be continued in a later post.

First post.

I've been looking for it all of my life, have you been looking, too?

Don't go asking me "looking for what?" We both know that's a stupid question. If any of us knew, I imagine we would have found it already.

That's what makes it such a bitch. Those of us who are looking, we don't know what it is we're trying to find. Phrases like "the meaning of life" or "why I'm here" are so incredibly trite, and don't even seem to begin to cover it. "Answers" is the best way I've thought to put it, but that's so vague.

It doesn't matter to me if you believe in astrology or not. Hell, I'm not even sure I do. I see things that seem to gel with it, and then I read something about confirmation bias or whatever, and it shoots it all to hell.

Anyways, This is the year of my Saturn return. I know that this phenomena doesn't last an entire year, and that it might have happened earlier or later depending on my natal chart and so on, but... I'm taking this year to set my shit straight, it's a promise I made to myself as soon as I first heard of this phenomenon.

This... This is it, the year of my big spiritual journey. I've been putting off some of the serious stuff for almost a month now, but it can't wait any longer. This is the year I decide what my life is going to be about, the year I turn into the person I want to be.

It's time to stop waiting. The time is now.

So, why the blog? Even I'm not sure. Maybe I hope it will help someone else who's trying to find Answers. Maybe I feel the need to write everything down to set it straight in my head.

No. No, I have to be honest. I'm hoping that someone will read this, and come and find me and say: "You're just the kind of person we're looking for, this is your place, here with other people like you who want Answers. These other people, Answers are the most important thing to them, and we're here to help you find yours."  It's silly, but I can dream can't I?

I'm not going to lie to any of you. I hope this will become a vehicle for my own personal transformation, but not all of my posts are going to be "uplifting" or "inspirational". There's plenty of other places for that online, and I hope you find that if you need it. What I'm trying to say is: I might get a little emo here and there. Spiritual Journeying is Hard Fucking Work. Letting go of things, forcing yourself to take action, searching a sea of contradictory knowledge to find what answers you think are right, and then giving that hard won knowledge up when you realize you might be mistaken... All of that isn't all balance and goodness and light. It's scary, it hurts, it leaves you tired and shaking and alone. But if you're here on this Earth, and you have no idea why, then what the hell else are you doing with your time if it's not looking for answers? It's terrifying and painful, but it seems to me that there's nothing else I can do.

I'm here for Answers.

I'm here for Truth.

I'm going to get it, or die trying.