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1/22/1998
EAR PLUGS:
Rumor has it the Pushups have collapsed in a huff.
On a totally unrelated note, the Degenerate Press staff finally got around to
checking out another strip joint, the recommended Pink Pony. A big joint with
lots of attractive dancers, not too much silicone, fair service and personable
folk but the layout leaves a bit to be desired - there's not a great place to
sit where you can see more than one stage without cranking your head like some
posessed child. Still in search of the perfect place! Suggestions welcome.
BLASPHEMY:
NOTES TOWARD AWAKENING THE SLEEPER;
a surreal exploration of the vampire archetype.
"The World is a Vampire....."
'Bullet With Butterfly Wings,' SMASHING PUMPKINS
PART ONE - A meditation on vampirism.
At the same moment Anne Rice's 'Vampire' novels took off, conservatism swept
the Americas and Great Britain. Movie screens saw the revival of the un-living
at the same time that liberal/progressive social reforms - a century in the
making - were weakened and then bled to death , replaced by the idea of 'work-fare'
and other thinly disguised versions of wage-slavery. Meanwhile, the hippest
of the nihilists, such as Trent Reznor, championed sado-masochism, mental disorder,
and blood worship AS culture. As if to display in concrete form the agony and
mindlessness of contemporary America, body piercing, branding, ritual scarrification,
and the old fashioned tattoo become popular modes of expression amongst GEN-X.
Literal blood-drinking became accepted behaviour in some circles.... Why has
the Undead One whose throat is dry from want of blood manifested here, now?
PART TWO - Archetypes.
According to the great analytical psychologist Carl Jung, we each carry within
us an entire constellation of forces, forces which belong to none of us individually,
but to all of us in common through the collective unconscious. It makes more
sense sometimes to say that we belong to them, not the other way around. For
example, we carry within us the archetype of Mother; and this universal Mother
is not my mother (though 'real' mothers participate in her and find energy in
Her manifestation). She is closer to the Mother in myth and religious thought
- Gaia, Ceres, Isis, Our Lady - than to flesh-and-blood mothers who are always
something more and less and other than the literally ideal "Mother."
And the Vampire, present in most every culture, is another such archetype. The
Vampire, the one who lives off the life of others, who can produce no life and
who sustains his existence by stealing or seducing the life-force of others
is assuredly manifesting His archetypal self at every level of our present cultural
situation. My question is - Why? According to Jung and others, if a certain
natural energy is suppressed, denied, and ignored, individually or as a people,
that energy will return pathologically in the form of straightforward illness
(physical, mental, and/or spiritual), or will embed itself in the institutions
of a people. And we have ignored that part of ourselves which calls for the
blood - symbolic and mystical blood - and the flesh of the Sacrificial Lamb
or its other mythico-anagogical equivalents; we have, in America fostered the
notion that each of us is sufficient unto himself, not in need of anyone outside
himself, incapable of true evil. We have made it difficult to admit that we
are lifeless and wounded and in dire need of the help of others -- and, in so
doing, this shadow of ourselves has congealed into... cultural vampirism. Since
Christmas is done with, I will now mention it to make my point. The pagans celebrated
the Saturnalia at the time Christians decided to celebrate the Nativity. Why?
Many, motivated by anti-Christian prejudice or ignorance, announce that it is
merely an example of exploitation and expropriation of the pagan's holy-days
which, in turn, were merely celebrations of this and that equinox, etc. I say
this: The Christians chose the Saturnalia for the celebration of the Nativity
for one reason - both Christians and pagans are saying the same thing but in
two different ways. Both are recognising the dark depths of life in such fashion
that the essential ambiguities of life and death, eternity and time, God and
man, hope and despair, faith and doubt, satisfaction and need are given full
hearing. Saturnalia culminated in the ritual sacrifice of the victim, crowned
as Saturn or Kronos some 30 days earlier, on equinox - after this man had 30
days in which all of his commands were obeyed, every wish satisfied, every lust
fulfilled. Christ-mass, in turn, was never a feast of the present magnitude
until commercial interests sucked from it its marrow and replaced that with
greed; but before that, every Christian recognised that the first people called
to witness the birth of the God-man in a stable were shepherds, shepherds who
kept watch over the sacrificial lambs; and then, 12 days later, the Zoroastrian
astrologers, the Magi, arrived bearing the ingredients for embalming the corpse
of a king. The Son of God was recognised as a Saturn-figure, symbolically equivalent,
hence the Christians placed the Nativity where it is on the calendar. Moreover,
the ancients chose the equinoxes not for mere materialist reasons - e.g. 'winter
will be over soon and we can go out and play some more' - but because they resembled
our own lives, the rhythm of our internal lives and the archetypal energies
which rest there urging us to this or that activity. Our ancestors found something
inspiring in the similarity and kinship of the microcosmic and the macrocosmic
worlds. To most of us it's just so much dirt and fire up there, I suppose, but
when our ancestors looked up at the night sky they saw... something of themselves
commingled with eternity reflected back. Back to cultural vampirism: A people
who can no longer create, but who 'borrow' from other, vital cultures - a people
such as ours who exist by appropriation - I call vampiristic. We are so terrified
by death and real risk that we have turned death into an industry -- Gangsta
Rap and most music by N.I.N. are nice examples, but our weapons industry is
another and the nukes awaiting liberation around the world are more. Meanwhile
our scientists are literally searching for the genetic 'fountain of youth' and
'tree of life,' searching for 'more life' when most of us don't have a clue
as to how to properly spend the 70-odd years we probably have. Capitalism, unfettered
from social purpose and filled with loathing for justice, truth, mercy, reveals
itself as the Undying One every time another advertising agency appropriates
a work of art or piece of music to sell this year's model of whatever - the
soul of the art is removed and replaced by the desire for money and power and
sales at all costs. Meanwhile, Servants of Capital such as GM, throw thousands
of workers into unemployment lines whilst making record profits; they have used
the workers up and now are headed to where wages are still lower; they are defended
by folks, thirsty themselves or demoralised and drained, who have nothing more
to say than - "The bottom line is sovereign."
FINAL WORD What is the cure for vampirism?
We have to put a stake of living wood through the Vampire's heart; we have to
sever its head, place a host in its mouth and stuff it with garlic. But what
are the real world equivalencies of these mythic items? I don't know as yet.
But I am looking. For certain, we all have to meet the Vampire within the ambit
of our own souls first, as a prerequisite to facing Him in the form of cultural/socio-economic
difficulties. We must - those who are creative - exorcise Him in our music,
to recognise this weakness and neediness we've chosen to give strength to by
suppression or by imagining that it is bad to be needy in the first place. It
will be by recognition of one's own neediness, weakness that deliverance may
come. And then, perhaps, the Vampire-archetype will take its proper place in
the hierarchy of the soul, fed and strengthened by asking for what it once stole
without hesitation. Perhaps it will learn to feed itself through union with
creative forces, or it may be that it must learn to live on what is offered
and to tolerate a short, strong leash. Perhaps the archetype is not a vampire
at all - once it is recognised consciously and cared for. Maybe it is a call
to serve the neediness one finds in others without recoiling in fear or worrying
overmuch about personal gain? Prehaps the vampire is really a child in a cradle?
RVI
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