I'm More Sane In My Insanity

I'm more sane in my insanity than you'll ever be in your so-called sanity. A friend as good as labelled me as insane around the Saturnalia festival (of Xmas time), which was awfully thoughtful of him. Over the festive period I awaited notice of an appointment from him so that I could put to rest the notion and the friendship - a term I'm using loosely here. I'm in an altered state of mind right now. By that I don't mean that I've taken anything, any substances, I most definitely have not. For as long as I can remember I've been in and out of altered states of mind. That's just me. (Don't put me in a box.) As stated previously, this year is going to be the last year I post on here, so I'll try and make the most of it. I'm going to recover some of my dignity. I'm going to try and be more honest and less blunt. For example, I've found it's easier for a male to say they've got a drug addiction than to admit to having an eating problem. I use the term 'eating problem' for myself when I don't deem it to be as severe of a case as it is for the people who're struggling with institutionally-defined eating disorders. Though it's been difficult, I've dealt with this alone. And I've not had an addiction to drugs, but I have had habits. I consider that to be an important distinction. There's addiction and then there's habitual behaviour. I was just watching Session 9. It's a film I first saw when I was about eleven, rented from a video shop called Choices. It's a film that's affected me on some level, a film I'd say has contributed to my development in someway, a film I once held to be a favourite. I don't know if I'd say it's one of my favourites anymore, but it is one of my favourite horrors and I certainly feel that it's one of the best of its kind. Each time I watch it I take something else away from it. This time I was almost tearful because I felt like I realised which side I'm on. I don't know if one has a choice, if one can turn their life around and change sides, or even if one should want to. For as long as I can remember, that'd be my mid-teens, I've been attracted by the night, the darkness. While the majority of people have gone through life in a daze, I took it further and went exploring the unknown. I wouldn't say I was won over - I've yet to be won over by anything - but I certainly went deeper into it than most others would ever dream of doing. I'm not bragging when I say this, I'm not sure there's anything to brag about, it was a disconcerting experience but one I feel to have been ultimately rewarding. I'm about to undergo regression therapy, not so much for the therapy aspect as for the will to open up further doorways in my psyche in this life, not to help myself but instead to drag up any darkness and fears that are buried in my subconscious. I've been feeling strange today as to begin with I did some of my own 'visualisation' this morning. 'Visualisation' in speech marks because I can't really visualise anything like I used to, not when it's required of me. If it's possible to change from being a predominantly visual learner to an auditory learner then I think that's what happened somewhere along the way. I watched Session 9, watched the featurette as I tend to do after watching the film. I felt as though I've been through all of this before, what's been and what's about to come. I'm romanced by the night while the Spring and early Summer sunlight washes over my pale but marked skin. I just hope that I don't make the same mistakes, because I can almost feel the pain it's going to bring, the regret, the guilt. I know it as if I've felt it before. I was thinking, if one has a predisposition to the sun then naturally that's going to treat them right, that's going to be right for them. The same goes for the moon. The sun wouldn't be for me, that path wouldn't be true, wouldn't be my truth. I was totally shocked and disturbed by the film, far more than usual. In your righteous sanity, my 'dear' friends, you have scorned and scolded me. Moreover, in your blissful ignorance you've caused great suffering unto others; children, women, gentlemen. I wouldn't want to go to where you do. Which leaves me with what? The cover of darkness? The cover of darkness where I can pitifully nurse my wounds. I'm the bad one, the one in the wrong. It's not fair, but then life isn't.

Lou Barlow, 'Choke Chain'
Untrained you never shut up
Needs keep you empty
Freedom spins you out of control
Till someone chokes you with a chain.

Learn to be paranoid
Fear pulls my strings, too
Oh what a lack of trust can do
Poor broken-hearted you.

I'm sorry I hurt you
Please don't leave me on my knees
We had a simple understanding
Didn't we?
Didn't we?
All consumed and convinced as ever
But where were you?
Tease my guilt but please me still
All the others just disgust me
Too simple to trust me
Too dull to engage
Too shallow to please me
It would be so easy to please me.

The Haunted Palace (The Ghosts of Danvers Hospital) (transcription of the Session 9 companion featurette)

David Caruso (Actor): "There's something here. I mean, there's nowhere like this in North America. This is probably the scariest building in the world."

Jeremy Barnard (Photographer): "There's something very human about this place. There's something that's here that's in all of us."

Mike Ramseur (Painter / Author): "It's a heavy-duty place, it's extremely heavy-duty, and it's very psychic, and I think we all in a sense have to protect ourselves."

A. Andy Chulyk (Sculptor): "You know, art and madness has always been connected. Creativity and madness. There's a fine line."

Peter Mullen (Actor): "When we perform in these rooms, it's not difficult to be fucking real because it's creepy."

Brad Anderson (Director, Writer, Editor): "We wrote the script with this actual location in mind."

Mike Ramseur: "The psychotic thought process that went on inside these walls. You can't imagine it."

Peter Mullen: "Don't suggest there was no pain in this place. Don't suggest that this was a lovely little sunny outpost for the inmates, you know, or if you do so, you do so at your peril."

[Title card] Becoming a Snake Pit

Ramseur, pastel: Heavy Metal Entry

Mike Ramseur: "I've done a lot of drawings of Danvers State and beginning about five years ago I began researching the history and writing a history of the place. I've got a number of horror stories that people have told me, and I've got a number of [stories that say] that there was a lot of caring that went on here."

Danvers Hospital closed in 1982 [note: this appears to be incorrect; although Danvers was dismantled throughout the '80s, it wasn't until 1992 that it was officially closed.]

Bodies buried in unmarked graves, just numbers.
After Danvers State Hospital closed in 1992, burial records were lost.
It was a group of former patients (as members of the Danvers State Memorial Committee)
that set out to restore and memorialise the cemeteries in 1998. Their heartfelt dedication was concluded in 2002.
I urge anyone to watch online the short documentary, 'From Numbers to Names'.

Peter Mullen: "Thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people have sat here with their fellow inmates and the old nurse popped around popping pills in their mouths in the '60s, hitting them in the head in the '50s, restraining them on the ground in the '40s, and these days we make movies about it. Is that progress? I've no idea."


Was it that something went wrong for all of these people?
Or is it that something these people did was taken the wrong way?

Jeremy Barnard: "Initially, Danvers State provided a wonderful asylum for the folks who lived here. They grew their own food, they raised their own livestock, they had a life which on some levels was rather idyllic."

Mike Ramseur: "There was a lot of reform in the beginning, there was a congregate diner room, there was a no-restraint policy around 1900."

David Caruso: "There's a real element of loss here, there's a real element of a high-stakes tragedy that's taking place."

Mike Ramseur: "The whole story of Danvers is about the evils of overcrowding which the physicians were always lamenting in their reports, so it was just constantly escalating census. By 1900 actually the whole dream of moral treatment which brought a place like Danvers into being was dead. These institutions were on their way — all of them, they were all the same story — were on their way to becoming snake pits."

Ramseur, pastel: Danvers Red and White

The Pre-Frontal Lobotomy was developed at Danvers Hospital in 1948

A. Andy Chulyk: "This is where they did the lobotomies, this is what happened, this is the horrific thing that happened here; you can just keep... it can just keep going."

Mike Ramseur: "The stories like the grandeur, the grandeur of the architecture and all this, versus the stuff that went on inside."

[Title card] Overactive Curiosity

Jeremy Barnard, A. Andy Chulyk: Mythra Circle (alt)

Peter Mullen: "Madness often times is completely ill-defined. Most madness is overactive curiosity. What's it like to walk down the middle of the street with no clothes on? What's it like to take an axe and chop off someone's head? And that's what makes them frightening, and that's what makes that place frightening. It's because not only were there people there who would exercise that bizarre curiosity, [but] many of them were physically lobotomised to prevent them doing so which thus makes the state - or the keeper - as bad as the kept, and I think that's what comes across here."

"We did a scene on the roof and for a blip of a nanosecond - it was that short - I wanted to throw myself off the roof. I don't know, would I fall, would I float? We're just chatting away and it suddenly just - like a voice - was kind of, 'try it, someone will catch you, it's a film, actors don't fall off roofs', and that scared me. It scared me of what you're capable of. Like why on earth would I want to jump off a fucking roof? I have no reason to want to fucking kill myself. But that was the thing, it wasn't a suicidal thought, it was a curiosity, and... I'm pretty convinced that came from here, that comes from the building."

[Title card] Inspired by the house

Brad Anderson: "It's a horror movie in the sense... in the traditional sense of horror as dread as opposed to shock. It's more about the internal mechanisms, the inner workings of the human mind and how they kind of get twisted; particularly five men, the relationships between five men under very stressful circumstances, working in a big crazy place like this and doing dangerous work. The horror evolves out of their relationships."

Josh Lucas (Actor): "The beauty of the script is that all of us have ... there's very different ideas about why life has not worked for them and why they've ended up in a position where they have a very risky, very dangerous, very lonely, ugly job."

Brad Anderson: "These guys enter this place and five days later they've kind of become patients themselves. The building has absorbed them, taken them in."

Brendan Sexton III (Actor): "The institution, the atmosphere is the sixth character in the film. It's the one pushing the other characters and making them change course and have different motivations, make them deviate from their normal characters. That's the whole sort of supernatural eeriness to it."

David Caruso: "When you get to do your first walkthrough, it's not something I mentioned earlier that you kind of go into denial to perform the movie, but you do your first walkthrough and those images and that feeling will stay with you forever."

Steve Gevedon (Actor / Co-writer): "It was a very synergistic kind of thing where we were inspired by the house, the house inspired us."

Peter Mullen: "It's a huge kind of maze of anguish. Every corridor has a different kind of story to tell, every room, every blade of grass around here has been touched by what went on and it looms large in everybody's psyche. You act very differently in a place like this."

[Title card] Art Has a Habit of Going Bad

Peter Mullen: "I don't know how much I believe in all this supernatural-y sort of stuff, but if it is there then because this film has been done - touch wood - with relatively good intent then there's been little interference. I think buildings and places where things have happened, I think if they think there's an ill intent then they start to react. But what it is, if it's done with ill intent, if it's done for ego or exploitation then art has a habit of turning nasty on you."

"I was waiting... I found a little corner for myself because I was having to do some quite sort of heavy kind of stuff... there was no one around me and someone whispers 'Peter'. It was the way in which they whispered it that made me turn. [...] it was a request, a very, very quiet request, and as I looked I was waiting to see someone [say] 'Peter, sorry to bother you, you're wanted on set', [but] as I turned there was no one there. I hadn't created this for myself, someone said to me as a request, 'Peter', and it scared me, it did scare me. But not scared in the sense 'oh my god, any second now someone's going to jump out and kill me', it scared me because it was a request, it was almost 'would you like to come in, I'd like to talk to you about something', and that's scary, because you fear for... that's when you fear more for your sanity than for yourself. It's like, no, I'm not going in there, I don't want to be talking to any fucking ghost, no. Someone make a film about it, fine, someone write me about it, fine, but I'm sorry, I don't have the wherewithal to sit down with something that doesn't exist to tell me what the fuck happened in this place over the last hundred and fifty years."

Bonner Medical. © Tom Kirsch. http://opacity.us/

[David Caruso reported in the official Production Notes that he saw "something pass my window" when shooting inside the Bonner Medical Building of Danvers State Hospital. "I didn't want to tell anybody, because people would start looking at me strangely...."]

[Title card] It's When You Walk Away

Peter Mullen: "I'm sure there are many ghostly spirits around here that would find us - our activities - laughable. It's like, you wanna know madness? I'll show you madness. Enter my brain for fifty seconds."

David Caruso: "In order to perform the movie you have to go to a place of denial somewhat because you kind of, well... wow, a lot went down here."

(As if the place wasn't off-kilter enough, staff felt it necessary to add a little clown spice into the mix.)
Jeremy Barnard: clown mold

Jeremy Barnard: "The line between sanity and insanity somehow is a bit blurred it seems to me and we all reside on one side or the other of that line and I'm not sure that we know which side that is always and I think that it's a question that this place poses to us."

Mike Ramseur: "I've developed more of a sense of respect here that borders on a fear, it's a respect out of fear, because I feel like in its own way the place is alive."

Peter Mullen: "I don't think it's like you walk in and it's musty and [you think to yourself] 'I want out of here', I think it's when you walk away."

Paintings, illustrations and history
by Michael Ramseur
old school website and across the web (just search his name to find his body of work which consists of art, videos and books):
http://www.angelfire.com/id2/DanversStateHosp/dshgues.htm

exit doors Mythra

View the Danvers-related artwork of Jeremy Barnard and A. Andy Chulyk, two exhibitions titled "Light into Darkness". Click. Click.


If you want to see the 12-minute featurette 'The Haunted Palace: The Ghosts of Danvers Hospital' for yourself, you could either pick up a copy of the psychological horror film Session 9 (where you'll find it on the special features menu) or, if you aren't able to do this for whatever reason, you could always see if it's on the net - the featurette, not the film. Last I checked it was indeed. I won't link to it because chances are it will be removed in the near-future and then the link'll be redundant.


History of Danvers State Hospital and the source of an old picture or two that I've used, here:
http://www.danverslibrary.org/archive/?page_id=1096

Avalon Danvers apartments, Danvers MA, 26th August 2010.
CC-BY-3.0 John Phelan.

Danvers closed in 1992, stood abandoned for around a decade and was put to good use in the 2001 film Session 9. It was a beautiful building, as strange as that is to say about such a place. Beautiful architecturally. It was 2006 that demolishment began against a public outcry, I remember it well. In 2007 there was a fire, mostly of the construction site, but a little of the historic. But, still, that year and the next the 'Avalon Danvers' apartments were gradually being occupied by residents. Can you imagine living on the site of all that confusion and suffering? I think turmoil leaves a greater impression than peace. The condominiums aren't just on the site, they've retained the original façade of the asylum as an act of preservation. I don't know if I'd be brave enough to live there. I'd absolutely go in the original building if it were still standing, might even bring myself to spend the night, likely with someone else, but semi-permanently living in apartments on the site, no way. That's too much commitment.

I like the parallel to be drawn between the mental hospital of both the film and of real life with the outside, how these individuals in the short featurette address the nature and personality of Danvers State Hospital as being like a microcosm for the world - we enter and it devours us. We're not from here but we're acclimatised to think that this is home, that this is where we belong. It's kind of insane.


From the boy who cried fair use. Fair use! Fair use! Fair use! Fair use! Fair use! Fair use! Was I not entirely fair?
(Be there, do it, see the movie, get the t-shirt - at your own discretion, of course. P.s I'm better than you. But nobody that I've referenced here affiliates what I've said, so get your panties out of a twist. There's no affiliation going on. None. I just appreciate their work. Is that alright or—?)

Serpent and the Butterfly

A few reflections on this day, considering the expression that there is 'no such thing as coincidences' (but synchronistic events...)

I stopped by a church so as to read and meditate in the quiet, away from distractions. I've always been appreciative of the architecture and atmosphere of churches and that I can differentiate between the building and the oppression that surrounds it. The artificial lighting overhead was switched off, suitably, and I chose to sit in the aisle which had a nice golden glow about it.

I was finishing Kundalini Tales and reflecting on what I'd read after each short chapter, enjoying the calm and the space. The book, by the way, is about the 'serpent energy' or serpent-like energy that we supposedly have in our possession - an aspect of the divine within our souls. I've had many unusual and often captivating experiences since my mid-teens, although I'd never associated them with the kundalini as it's not something I'd heard of until recently; I'm still not sure that my experiences are related to it - there are definite similarities, also inconsistencies - but it is possible.

Several times I looked up at the stained-glass window beside me without realising which biblical passage the image stood for. Then I noticed the serpent on the staff behind the man and realised it was Moses and... ah yeah.

'Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up...' (John 3:14)

One of the passages I mentioned in Afterglow and how it could be an allusion to the kundalini. A couple more snakes entangled there, almost appearing as two-headed, a dualistic quality. Unknowingly I'd taken a seat next to the window that depicts the lifting of the serpent in the wilderness, which is compared to the later story of the Son of Man being lifted up, to read from my serpent-related book. A neat coincidence, I thought.

Then I heard some fluttering sounds across the other side of the church. A butterfly had got inside through a tiny window and couldn't get back out. I watched for a moment, thinking on how its life was short and precious and that if it couldn't get out it wouldn't get to enjoy its final phase of magnificence; how people, too, are trapped by the church and religion. Prisons of the cross. The butterfly is of great importance to me, its symbolism, I'll write more on this soon; the next phase in my spiritual development is the last and I believe it to be near. As a result, inner tension and conflict is at a peak, I'll either crash and burn - or - take flight, shine on, transcend.

So, I saw this butterfly as a symbol of my current situation - trapped, unable to get out or break habitual behaviours, stagnation... As far as I'm aware the butterfly found its way out within a couple of minutes - the fluttering stopped - I hope so. If I could have gotten a photo of it against the old lattice window and azure sky, that would have been rad. Alas...

I finished reading, three chapters to go, and decided to blast out some Japanese Voyeurs and Marilyn Manson's Mechanical Animals on the church speakers. Then vicar came along and I made a dash to turn the music down and off, fumbling with the controls, obviously he heard. Seemed a friendly guy, so I asked him a question about the stained-glass window, how he would interpret the line: 'That rock was Christ'. It took him a while to answer, he had to recall what he'd been taught - fair enough, there's a lot of passages to remember - and his interpretation was textbook, recital, of course; to do with Moses and Jesus in their respective times providing water to the needy people. He didn't go into detail about what water is representative of from a spiritual perspective, but that's what I was thinking of - the living water, the Holy Spirit, Mary, Star of the Sea...

Anyway, best thing he said was, "Yes, they seemed to be obsessed with serpents back then."

Yes, yes they did. Why oh why, vicar?

I told him I'm not religious but in the middle, taking from different sources, and that's my way. I assume he took this to mean that I'm lost, as he invited me to a free autumn course for 'those who think there is more to life'. I'm considering going along in October - me, the pilgrim - just to observe the indoctrination.

Now to tie up loose ends, get this poor show over with. The magic número trois. I was tired, had to decide on the short or long route home, happened to choose the long route, and so I walked right by a dead snake. I took this as similar symbolism to the trapped butterfly - stagnation, wasted and unmet potential, shadow side; imbalance; destruction...
I hadn't seen a snake in over a decade until now. I've seen a couple of slow-worms, heh. This was a grass snake, coiled, certainly dormant, quite flattened by the wheel of a car and quite dead. I should have taken a picture for archive sake, not at all morbid. Alas, t'was not meant to be.

No such thing as coincidences, but synchronistic events. Serpent and the Butterfly. Both are symbolic of renewal or rebirth. The serpent sheds its skin and the butterfly goes through its metamorphosis to reach that glorious stage. I see these examples as like living sticky notes, reminders. They're there, on the periphery, something is definitely in motion, definitely occurring. I think they're a reminder of how fragile life is, especially in my current state of health, and that I can either embrace these days or they'll slip away. I know which I'd rather.

Blink, Blink

So, I am shuffling along with Kundalini Tales, truly, ever so truly shuffling...
Chapter two, an aspect. In the 1970s, author Richard Sauder participated in a weekend training session at The Monroe Institute. It was in the following week that he had his first kundalini awakening, most powerful, and with this his heart chakra was opened and he had vision. 360° vision, startling clarity. Not with his physical eyes, which were closed, but with his heart. I take this to mean that the so-called serpent energy (kundalini) had arisen from the base of the spine to as far as the heart center, this is what this means. The idea for anyone interested is to raise the energy up through the main chakra points to the seventh one at the top of the head; the sahasrara (crown chakra). That is if we're trusting of this 'serpent' power, given the time to understand and research it - interesting how it could be implicated with biblical teachings. Not the best choice of words though to put your mind at ease, 'serpent power', so coined by a so-titled Sir John Woodroffe.


Lovely heart with eye - JoanDougArt

Possibly the soul enters and leaves the body through the heart (anahata, heart chakra), as if by a portal or channel, and until death we are connected from physical to metaphysical to that region via a 'cord' or 'cords', sort of like an astral umbilical. Descartes referred to the pineal gland (associated with the third eye, thought to be of the ajna chakra) as the 'principal seat of the soul' though, where we're at the helm, where subconscious meets conscious mind.



In a seat older than this time, watching from behind eyeline, spinal staircase, lightbulb signifies consciousness, like a moth to a flame, enlightenment, brow and then crown, weeping, thy single eye...




Album art and above illustration are by Alan Aldridge.

So there you have the eye inside the heart again. Incubus, Light Grenades. Anyone have any interpretations for the spikes that surround the heart? I see some have described the grenade as shaped like an owl, where the peace symbol and sun are in place of the eyes. Incubus singer, Brandon Boyd, does have a tattoo of an owl on his back, alongside the Eye of Providence. Ordinarily I would have been wary of that, but I've had a radical change of mind in the last couple of days - for better or worse, a thrill nonetheless. The lotus flower at the foundation of the grenade; the lotus grows in muddy water, flowering above the murky depths, the bowels of below, to attain enlightenment. The lotus might double as flames here, flames at the foot of an owl. Cremation of Care, the annual ritual at Bohemian Grove where a human effigy (which represents 'Care') is burned before a 40ft owl statue; an event held by the Bohemian Club, all-male members and guests of which have included politicians and other notable figures; a convergence of the high-ranking. The Bohemian Club mascot is also of an owl, a symbol of knowledge and wisdom. Deftones used an image of an owl for Diamond Eyes album cover.



Bohemian Grove, Cremation of Care, covert image > look into history.

Deftones, Diamond Eyes, photograph by John Ross.

Continuing with the symbolism from Light Grenades then - the lotus might double as flames, but in all honesty it probably has no relation to the Cremation of Care. The grenade being shaped as an owl is likely intentional though. From the lotus rises the phoenix, commonly a symbol of renewal, meeting the base of the spiky heart. Although the spikes seem to be at one with the heart here, facing outwards, I considered how they might represent an assault of some sort; a denial of feelings; a defence mechanism, how a hard exterior has built and turned many a heart callous. It's difficult not to make comparisons with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the eye resides where the crown of thorns would, although I'm confident the band are saying something else, like not waiting for something to manifest and instead instigating our own change. In a traditional sense it could be viewed as anti-Christian, but that's labelling it. You only have to read the art and the lyrics of the album to understand what's being said here. Directly above the heart a dove rests an olive branch, making peace, an offer of reconciliation, making amends. The dove descends from a symbol of the sun, so it could be forgiveness, a reunion between heart and soul and thus mind, re-establishing a relationship with the world around us - nature - to undo the damage religion has caused. The dove and olive branch are of the bible also, apparently a symbol of the Holy Spirit. Therefore if we get back in touch with ourselves, first look within, then the spirit will descend upon us individually and we will be in communication with the 'universe' - be that God or Gods. Because the bible is a pack of distortions, the grief it has caused throughout history, it's a malevolent device. What does the bible say about malevolence? It promotes it so long as you revere it. Whereas to collapse this cataclysmic tangent and return to basics, there is the sun and there are the planets and evidently there are forces of nature that we can channel.

On why the album was titled Light Grenades, Brandon Boyd explained - "There's a song called that on the record and it felt like the most pertinent conceptual aspect of the album, the idea of throwing ideas at problems and the ideas explode with light and good results and intention on consciousness. So I started imagining imagery of students in different countries protesting and throwing Molotov cocktails with masks over their faces. But there's one brave student who runs up to the police line and, as opposed to throwing rocks or things that destroy, there's this concept of that one courageous, lonely student running up and throwing ideas and having them actually change things. It just seemed kind of a cool concept: the redefining of weaponry."

That combined with the lyrics to the title track, it's about realisation, illumination. I would provide the lyrics here for you to see, but we live in a world of twisted copyright laws, perfectly reasonable to an extent and then retarded for the rest. The theme that runs through song and album is that we've gone off course, which is no revelation to me, but I'm sure for most people that would be quite difficult to conceive of, otherwise we wouldn't still be in this mess we're in. Where the lyrics mention the end, I think this is not literal, rather an end to the old; out with the old, in with the new. I'm sure it has to do with the transition to Age of Aquarius, whether it is already here or its influence is being felt, and whether that's a good thing only time will tell - I think it depends on which force has its way, and this has more than one outcome. Those who subscribe to and promote the new age are hopeful.

Neptune has ruled in the Age of Pisces, while Saturn and Uranus will 'contend' for the Age of Aquarius. Christ or the story of Christ was the inauguration of the Age of Pisces, and ironically sought to divide our connectedness with God - which I consider to have been the purpose. What could be an inauguration of this new age? Contact with extraterrestrials, actual or staged?

So the song 'Light Grenades' is a call for change and awareness, ending with the repeated line 'Come on, remember who you are'. We've been led astray and these orthodox religions are old hat, it's no longer the plot device of choice. For as long as we are herded, we're not reaching our full potential.

The grenade on the album cover - each square around its edge has a religious symbol, each allocated their own little box. These are portions of the whole, the whole truth. On the left there is the Yin-yang, Star and Crescent, Torii, and Om. On the right is the Star of David, the circumpunct (represents much - known as ancient symbol of the Sun, Keter, Entered Apprentice Freemasonry... possible ties to Saturn...), Jain Hand, and the Christian Cross. Both sides lead to or are capped by a small heart, the spikes ever-present. If we're to view the grenade also as an owl, then these religions make up the greater knowledge or wisdom that is behind them. Not separately; they all offer bits of truth and good advice mixed with unequal measures of fear and oppression - not freedom. Within is trapped the heart, all the while, not open to living, not open to giving, not open to receiving; truth. Except for that dove. The dove that symbolises freedom and the spirit of life is reaching out, beyond the confines of doctrines and indoctrination.

The owl is commonly associated with knowledge and wisdom, but many meanings have been applied. Certainly the government and elite are the possessors of knowledge. Is that the only reason for their association with the owl? Or does it also correlate with their pagan beliefs?


Washington, wise old D.C. owl or power of suggestion?

Sophia came to my mind, the Sophia as mentioned several times by Kai ('the hatchet-wielding hitchhiker'). Sophia is honoured as a goddess of wisdom, seemingly then with connections to the owl. Wisdom, that's also Athena, Minerva, Lilith, et cetera... all goddesses represented with wisdom and the owl. According to one legend, Lilith was Adam's first wife, but refused to be submissive - who can blame her? - and either left or was kicked out of the Garden of Eden, thus she was a fallen angel. Yet another text portrays her as the serpent who tempts Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit. Athena and Minerva are connected with the olive tree and the dove. Worthy of mention, Deftones also have a song called 'Minerva' from their self-titled album. This is just a new stream of thought, so forgive me if it seems to go nowhere - to me it's obvious there is a relevance here, but I'm not yet familiar with mythology.

Crucial to what I started this post with - though it has unfolded as intended - we'll get back to the kundalini. In finishing the analysis of the Light Grenades album cover, there is the lever of the grenade which is composed of two snakes entwined, a peace symbol and a lone wing. The peace symbol contains two cloud-looking things and two hearts, light on the left and dark on the right, identical to the Yin-yang, maybe a reflection on the duality of man; altruistic and yet so barbaric.

'So that your understanding becomes perfect, consider that your heart is both good and evil.' - Carl Jung, The Red Book.

The serpents tangled as they are on the lever extend to the peace symbol or surmount, this is representative of the caduceus in Greek mythology. The caduceus as well has the wings attached to it; the winged sun. One myth depicts the wand as a sign of peace, so that fits with the artwork. What about the second wing? The dove's wing, while significantly smaller, neatly meets the peace symbol and completes the likeness. There's little doubt to my mind that the caduceus is emblematic of the kundalini process, as the serpent energy ascends the spine and stimulates each chakra. And is it a surprise to find that this ancient symbol has been adopted by government, mistakenly or not, and again the associations with wisdom and the dove?

Caduceus, staff of Hermes.

Seven major chakras.

The seven major chakras, kundalini and caduceus.

The kundalini of course extends to the crown chakra, not stopping at the throat chakra as shown in the superimposed image above. The wings and top of the caduceus can be seen as the highest level of enlightenment, the 'cherry on top'. The twin serpents may symbolise duality again and the marriage of polar opposites. As Jung was saying, we need to accept that this polarity exists within our nature if we're going to find balance and harmony. This is like the world of dualism here, this is what we're dealing with.

Knowledge and wisdom is fundamentally within, lying dormant, and this revelation is kept from us. If we don't look, we'll never know. We're kept distracted, kept from realising our destiny and kept from RISING. The keepers of this ancient knowledge have an utter revulsion for us, and how are we to know why? Apart from the dominion it gives them, I mean really, something deep-rooted sets us apart from them.



A closer look at the paperwork beneath the seat - the serpent, the coil, the kundalini...

There beneath the seat of the psyche is an illustration showing the coil; spiral; kundalini. Excuse the pixelation, in the booklet it is plain to see. This would appear to be the serpentine path we must take if we wish to be in communion with the spirit; the 'universe'.

And I now realise how scripture is a distortion, how its true meaning is craftily hidden, how it has been reversed and twisted to fit an agenda. It dawns on me that the serpent is not at all bad, it was an important component of our ancient past. In the bible it offers enlightenment in the form of fruit from the tree of knowledge, just as the kundalini process symbolically does. Humankind has been conditioned to think of the serpent as evil though, because it is a necessity in our development and evolution.

The serpent within encourages the pursuit of knowledge and therefore wisdom, understanding, advancement, since it is a gateway to truth.