Doors of Perception - Art, Death and Alchemy

 

Doors of Perception - Art, Death and Alchemy

When creating music, literature, film or art, the pivotal idea is that one enters into the flow of pure existence.  As has been established in the introductory text on this website; music for example, has its origin in expressing and spreading something that is beyond the limited physical world. All creation is spiritually delineated in its very core since the world is constantly being created. An initiatory alchemist and magician do not think in terms of the world was created but rather that the world is being created here and now in eternity. To view creation as an ongoing process enables one to embrace the power of now - the pure existence of timeless effortless bliss beyond thoughts, without fear. One can thus create the world to a greater or lesser extent; create one's own world but also co-create the world that we share. Since existence is constant change, the removal of something undesired is more of a leaving behind concept than destroying. Einstein established that energy cannot be destroyed. It can only change form. Thus any act that attempts to annihilate anything merely changes the object acted upon. Esotericism and magic views life and death as two states of consciousness. Death is a gateway to another form of existence, not an end in any way. This reveals existence as something we cannot escape and an initiatory magician embraces this constant change as a source of power to influence the process according to a higher will - the true will, the higher solar consciousness Daemon. This concept of initiation where the ability to create and influence existence is related to enlightenment and higher states of existence makes sure that those with limited concepts are also with limited influence from a truly spiritual perspective. This may reflect a hope for the development of mankind and the ability of the creative power to be the pole star of change. 

 

Creative work that encompasses this concept will break down the shackles of limitations that mankind constantly puts up around life. Some people have at some moment found a creative work, perhaps a song, that could cut through all or some of the limitations and make one feel something great, something larger than life, something pure. As has also been discussed; creators can have more or less conscious initiatory aims, and some are more aware than others about the core of the creative process. This means that some great art is mainly channelled and the artist is a mere vessel. In those cases the art generally has a limited time span before the artist can't handle the process any longer, since it is demanding touching the sun without the initiatory ladder to stand on. Perhaps these artists who were more or less unaware were able to create the most singular art since they were  chosen by the universe to establish their unique work. Those loved by the gods die young, the saying goes. Those who are initiatory magicians and work with art may have more focus on their magical work and initiation than the pleasing and audience-attracting aspects of the creations. Their creations, however, will have the same if not more power to influence the world and listeners and above all be true keys to human development and is thus a potent antidote to the mass produced sea of stupidity that often masquerades as popular music and art. 

Looking back to a time when there seemed to be an unusually high presence of these chosen geniuses, more or less aware of their spiritual channelling, there is one group especially that has held a special place as an inspiration: The Doors. Led by the electric shaman Jim Morrison, they established the classic esoteric concepts in music and lyrics with total power and perfect timing in the late 1960s. Jim Morrison was aware of magical initiation, but nobody knows how he actually used it besides all his work being magical in itself and him being the poster boy for magic rock. Jim was also a poet, and since he was extremely famous, most literary people outside the Doors fan base all decided he was an inferior poet. This is an erroneous and unfair judgement. The world has since agreed that his lyrics for the Doors are a great body of work and it is evident that it, especially from a magical point of view, is leagues beyond any other rock lyricist. His poetry furthermore reflects a wide range of both classical and modern output and his first publication: The Lords include many esoteric and alchemical insights that are relevant to our discussion and will be cited and discussed below. One may here substitute cinema for music, eyes for ears etc: 

Cinema is most totalitarian of the arts.  All

energy and sensation is sucked up into the skull,

a cerebral erection, skull bloated with blood.

Caligula wished a single neck for all his subjects

that he could behead a kingdom with one blow.

Cinema is this transforming agent. The body

exists for the sake of the eyes; it becomes a

dry stalk to support these two soft insatiable

jewels.

Film confers a kind of spurious eternity

This reflects how one becomes one with creative work, for good or bad. The Caligula line here makes one think of how modern governments and political agents today militarises social media. Jim then goes on by introducing the transformative aspect of how we can in the experience approach the concept of timelessness as mentioned above. 

Cinema derives not from painting, literature,
sculpture, theater, but from ancient popular 
wizardry. It is the contemporary manifestation 
of an evolving history of shadows, a delight in 
pictures that move, a belief in magic. Its 
lineage is entwined from the earliest beginning 
with Priests and sorcery, a summoning of phantoms.
With, at first, only slight aid of the mirror and 
fire, men called up dark and secret visits from 
regions in the buried mind. In these seances, 
shades are spirits which ward off evil.

Interesting here how creative work, here cinema, is viewed as contemporary wizardry and a belief in magic. As we have established in the introductory text also Morrison delineates the creative arts from sorcery, magical summonings and seances. Indeed, the Doors often referred to their performances as ceremonies. Morrison also revealed a Draconian theme in his Celebration of the Lizard. 

The spectator is a dying animal.

This line echoes how the uninitiated and unaware audience who were captivated above by the art are in fact helpless without the spiritual agent. Morrison here compares, as does Gnosticism, mankind without the inner fire, the spirit and awakened soul, to an animal. This would from one point of view equal human-ness, as distinct from the animals, to being aware of the inner fire, the spiritual and magical aspects. We can here relate to the discussion how mankind was at first logs or clay, but was given fire, higher consciousness and magic from the gods (Prometheus, Odin etc). This is not necessarily an elitist view because we are all dying animals since we all have bodies. The difference is that those who are magically aware know that we are not just our limited created bodies marching towards the end. And the end, as we have touched on above, is not the end at all, but just a change of consciousness. In fact Jim and The Doors, as is evident in their name, wanted their audience to wake up from the sleeping state (go read some Gurdjieff) to enter the magical theatre (and some Hesse) they were risking their lives and minds to act out. The Doors were one of the most dedicated and interesting bands in the history of music not least because their live ceremonies were always on the edge, always powerful and always about waking up. 

The appeal of cinema lies in the fear of death.

We know Jim was preoccupied with death, but perhaps not in the exoteric sense of bodily cessation but the concept of change and initiation. In magical initiation death occurs during initiation and is a necessary alchemical tool to move on to the next level. The matter changes state. Taking part in art, be it cinema or music may temporarily make us forget the fear of death - possibly since we become one with the art and the lesser ego is no longer holding us prisoner with thoughts and fear. This state then reached is a precursor to initiation. 

It is wrong to assume that art needs the spectator
in order to be. The film runs on without any eyes.
The spectator cannot exist without it. It insures
his existence.

By creating magical and alchemical art, the process is an end in itself and no audience is actually needed. But the audience needs the art, according to Morrison. Here we see how our life is being mirrored in art and that makes it livable. 

Separate, purify, reunite. The formula of
Ars Magna, and its heir, the cinema.

The adept holds to both the mystical
and physical work.

Cinema returns us to anima, religion of matter,
which gives each thing its special divinity and
sees gods in all things and beings.

Cinema, heir of alchemy, last of an erotic science.

Creative arts are indeed heirs of alchemy and the adept holds to both the mystical and physical work. The Great Work - The Ars Magna needs both the inner fire and the body to fulfil its opus. As a magician one needs the outer creative work to channel and earthen ones will, just as the creative work needs an inner core, a higher spiritual vibration to truly live. Those who are not consciously aware of this aspect will not create art without it, just that it will be a completely unaware process and with possibly derogatory and unwanted results. The history materialism and one sided theoretical sleight of hand so popular these days perhaps wants to create a world of dying animals preaching to dying animals about details in their dying. The eternal magical and alchemic arts are instead inviting everyone to create their own existence here and now beyond the determined and limited scope of earth and flesh towards timelessness and the fractal of change and possibilities.