Straw Sage: The Shtickless Shtick & Perception Management of Leonard Cohen

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“When I was a young man my friends and I thought we were famous and believed that every time we met for a beer it was a historical event. I grew up before television so it was easier to create one’s own mythology, but we truly believed that Montreal was a holy city, all of us were sainted, gifted beings, our love affairs were important, our songs immortal, our poems deathless, and we would lead lives of delicious self-sacrifice to art of God.” ~ Leonard Cohen, 1988

“War is wonderful. They’ll never stamp it out.” ~ Leonard Cohen, 1974

“I’d say it’s all from real situations. The experience is real but one tries to treat the experience imaginatively.” ~ Leonard Cohen, 1973, on his song-writing.

Today parts 3 & 4 of my discussion with Ann Diamond go up, plus a fifth mp3 with the stuff that didn’t make it to the final cut, for those completionists out there (in my opinion it’s all worth your time, of course, but I know many people aren’t as interested in dismantling the wall of cultural illusion brick by brick as I am).

In the third audio, Guerrilla in the Room, Ann talks about the art scene in Montreal in the 1960s and 70s and how closely tied it appears to have been to McGill and the MKUltra program, making it clear that Leonard Cohen was part of a much larger social phenomenon which has been mostly forgotten or buried since that time. But if you take a cultural figure out of the context from which they emerged, what you end up with is something very far removed from the actual truth.

Since recording these podcasts, I’ve been reading a large book collection of Cohen interviews called Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen. That  sort of says it all, doesn’t it?

Pop history is written by the winners.

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within
I’m coming now, I’m coming to reward them 

As I already knew, Leonard Cohen is capable of a degree of apparent wisdom that’s rare in the entertainment field. There were times when I found myself wondering how it was possible, in the face of such seeming depth and insight, that Cohen could really be involved in the sort of CIA-mafia-pedocratic shenanigans which Ann Diamond’s testimony so compellingly unveiled. Of course, this idea—that apparent depth and wisdom, even kindness and humility—cannot co-exist with (or be a front for) sociopathic behaviors is really no more solid than the one about great art showing the soul of the artist and therefore being “all we need to know” about any given social mover and shaker. (Hitler was a lousy artist. There you go!)

I fought in the old revolution
on the side of the ghost and the King.
Of course I was very young
and I thought that we were winning;
I can’t pretend I still feel very much like singing
as they carry the bodies away.

The facts have to speak for themselves, however, and for me they do just that. Not that together they make up a fully coherent counter-narrative to the official LC story; it’s too soon for that. But they do prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that many aspects of Cohen’s life, personality, and actions have been covered up. This strongly suggests that the accepted version of Leonard Cohen is not to be trusted, and therefore, that neither is Leonard Cohen.
I said this can’t be me, must be my double.

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For me, there is an almost irresistible attraction, once the buried Plutonium starts to seep through the disturbed earth, to dig deeper and find the evidence that will do away with the cover-story for good. And so here we are again.

When they poured across the border
I was cautioned to surrender,
this I could not do;
I took my gun and vanished.

While reading the interviews, I found myself less and less impressed by Cohen’s apparent wisdom and aplomb, and more and more turned off by what I began to see as a subtle kind of condescension, self-importance, and messianic proselytizing posing as humility and self-effacement. In a way, the proof for me was in how adoring the pieces written around these interviews invariably were. Almost every last one of them (I am up to part IV, page 439) introduces the conversation with commentary about how gracious, kind, humble, and beguiling a man Cohen is, and how excited and honored the interviewer is to be meeting him. Time after time, the pieces stress his legendary status and how, as an artist, he is just a feather or two away from incarnated divinity.

By his fruit shall ye know him, the fruit here not being the many (and increasingly bloated) songs, but the abject adoration which they have invoked in (alleged) music critics and biographers. Interesting to note, in this regard, that Cohen himself and many of the writers all refer to his songs as “prayers” (even Bob Dylan did). Which begs the question, prayers for what?

The holy man praying for that special sort of humility that inspires worship?

Who is it whom I address,
who takes down what I confess?

Another thing I noticed was how frequently Cohen used the same terms, phrases, descriptions, sometimes verbatim, making his sage-like persona look increasingly like just that: a mask, a routine, a shtick. This is one thing if you’re Mick Jagger, whom no one is going to mistake for a saint. Another when it’s a man supposed to be beyond all that. So is Cohen’s master-shtick appearing to be a man without a shtick?

If you want a lover
I’ll do anything you ask me to
And if you want another kind of love
I’ll wear a mask for you

There is one interview towards the end of Part III which is a marked exception. It’s with Richard Guilliat for the Sunday Times, dated December 12th 1993. In it Cohen is obviously drunk and talks more like a sexual predator than a holy man. As well as recording, without judgment, Cohen’s drunken crassness, Guilliatt writes this:

Unlike many Canadians, Cohen is a passionate defender of the American ideal, but the solutions he sees to the country’s problems are surprisingly authoritarian—more police on the streets, the censoring of violent television, the application of force. “At certain times of crisis, like in every other society, extraordinary and emergency measures have to be invoked . . . The fact is that the predators—on all levels, whether it’s Wall Street of the streets—are about to take over.”

A moment when the mask slips? In vino, veritas. (Another thing to note: Cohen’s unaddressed alcoholism bleeds through the pages of this book. How holy is that?)

Of course, this is all observation and not evidence. If it were presented as evidence, it would more likely be interpreted as my own prejudice against Cohen, now that I have begun to adopt an alternate version of “the Man.” But from my point of view, it is an essential part of the reassessment process. Evidence causes a shifts in perception, and shifts in perception allow for previously unseen evidence to be recognized.

When I hear Ann Diamond’s experiences of Cohen, or read about Kelley Lynch’s side of the story, and place Cohen’s public persona in the context of those testimonies, what I start to see, or imagine I see, is less the charming raconteur or droll connoisseur of love and life, and more the clever dissembler, manipulator of information, and manager of perception.

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So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll
I’m very sorry, baby, doesn’t look like me at all
I’m standing by the window where the light is strong
Ah they don’t let a woman kill you
Not in the Tower of Song

Another thing about those “prayers”: so much of what Cohen says, particularly in the latter part of his career (the post-Prozac years, from 1990 to date) is devoutly religious both in tone and terms, even if it doesn’t pay lip service to any specific religion or deity. Cohen is downright pious, let’s face it, and yet somehow he gets away with it. But how often has religious rhetoric and sentiment been a cover for a legion of sins? Often enough for us to smell a rat when we hear it? Don’t we know the signs by now, or that only the worst of sinners prays so goddamn much? Apparently not.

Give me back my broken night
my mirrored room, my secret life
it’s lonely here,
there’s no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby,
That’s an order!

In an unrecorded conversation with Ann Diamond, we talked about how the desire to get to the truth of Cohen wasn’t primarily a desire to expose him as a liar and a thief (and possibly much worse). It was out of a need to identify a false representation of reality for what it was, allowing us to take steps towards a truer one.

The saintly sage Cohen whom so many admire, revere, and even worship, is, in my view, a counterfeit of the real thing. Granted, he is a very good counterfeit. The MKUltra team didn’t mess around. Cohen may just be their proudest accomplishment, from that period at least, and in terms of a successfully engineered “lifetime actor” with an extremely high public profile. As such, he is an almost flawless representation of the good (and successful!) poetic soul, the man of high art and sensual lusts who is both a worldly success and a spiritual servant. Holy mount Zion! In the halls of rock n’ roll, he’s practically the Messiah. (Sorry, Bob.)

You don’t know me from the wind
you never will, you never did
I’m the little jew
who wrote the Bible

Yet all the while working for the Man?

Perhaps this is the most important job a socially engineered cultural icon such as Cohen (if such he is) can do for the System? By presenting a counterfeit spiritual and artistic currency, he helps ensure we won’t look for the real thing. And even if we happen to stumble on it, we are unlikely to recognize it because it won’t match the sort of style and grace that we have been conditioned, by straw sages like Cohen, to expect.

He will speak these words of wisdom
Like a sage, a man of vision
Though he knows he’s really nothing
But the brief elaboration of a tube

All I know for sure (as with Strieber, John de Ruiter, my brother) is that Cohen is not what he seems. To find out more about the man behind the seeming means going into the margins where the small shrill voices of possible truth can be heard. It means moving away from the machine-like howling of Hype that is doing its utmost to drown those small voices out, and when it can’t drown them out, to pathologize, criminalize, and institutionalize them, as appears to be the case with Kelley Lynch.

One good thing about that: in the process, both the Bitch Goddess of Culture and her cold-cutting servants start to show their true colors.

The war was lost
The treaty signed
I was not caught
I crossed the line
I was not caught
Though many tried
I live among you
Well disguised
I had to leave
My life behind
I dug some graves
You’ll never find
The story’s told
With facts and lies
I had a name
But never mind 

“Forgive me for asking…” it may have seemed a significant question made banal, but it needed an answer, “what are you trying to achieve in your songs; what is your ambition?”
“To create a vapor and a mist,” Cohen responded, “to make oneself attractive, to master it . . . Really, it’s all an alibi for something nobody’s ever been able to talk about.”
(“The Romantic in a Ragpicker’s Trade,” by Paul Williams)

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57 thoughts on “Straw Sage: The Shtickless Shtick & Perception Management of Leonard Cohen”

  1. I’m becoming more and more interested in how there is every sign that Cohen has been at the very least a highly disturbed and disturbing figure, but I’m nowhere near understanding what the purpose of his controllers has been, if these theories are correct.
    I’ve listened to and enjoyed Cohen’s songs for 25 years, but have been completely unaffected by this listening. You write above about creating a straw sage so I won’t look for a real one. But what good would a ‘real’ sage do me anyway? I also have to insist that when I meet those who come across as wise, I heed their wisest words with the due respect and attention, and 25 years of listening to Cohen songs hasn’t diminished that impulse.
    And on the subject of abuse: if LC has been doling out abuse and manipulating people, what has been the specific goal of that? Again, though I would feel completely horrified by any confirmed abuse of another person by LC, and want to see that abuse brought to justice, I don’t think it’s insensitive of me to ask: how has that abuse affected the vast majority of people? Those advancing the idea that the abuse perpetrated by LC and others is social engineering have the task of answering the question of what the purpose of that engineering is, and how it works.
    Another, more neutral question: is the difference in timbre of LC’s voice between So Long Marianne and The Future purely the result of 30 years of smoking and drinking, or revealing of something darker?
    But one thing is for sure, I really can’t believe I never noticed before just how screwed up some of the lyrics are, so thanks for bringing that to my attention, although it kinda proves my point that if this was a psy-op that it kinda failed, no?

    Reply
      • What would constitute evidence that a subconscious message in LC’s lyrics had failed to have any effect on me? It seems that you are trying to cover all bases. If I were disturbed, it would be the lyrics. If I’m not disturbed (which I’m not), then the lyrics got by me under the radar. I don’t really follow this. If the music and lyrics were part of a conscious effort to distort people somehow, then there would be some commonality in the effect it had on people. I listened to your account of the effect of the music on your life, and there is one similarity: the personal association with a particular song at a low point in my life. But even though I’ve gotten over that low, I actually think the music helped me, unlike you who thinks it may have worsened it. Does this prove I’m in a trance or still under the thrall of the song?

        Reply
        • Hi consentient
          I avoided answering your first post because the questions seemed to be premised on a misunderstanding of the material, one that would need to be cleared up before addressing the questions. To use a phrase of author Paul Collins, they were “not even wrong.” This could be one of the consequences of being introduced to alternate information via a source like Alex Jones. Context is everything, and the medium is the message.
          So for example, you comment:
          I’ve listened to and enjoyed Cohen’s songs for 25 years, but have been completely unaffected by this listening
          This statement makes little sense to me. If you were completely unaffected by the listening, why would you have even listened to the songs? It also presumes that all affects are observable. I am not even sure how to address that sort of thinking. It’s “not even wrong.”
          One line later you say: But what good would a ‘real’ sage do me anyway?
          This is presumably the voice of inexperience speaking? I don’t really understand this question either, maybe because it not really an honest one but more of a statement of skepticism about the idea of sages.
          A better question, IMO, might be: “What good would a real (i.e. present, loving, trustworthy) father have done me, and can I address the lack of that presence by connecting to an older man who has some of these qualities? (This might seem like I am assuming a lot, but it’s more a matter of deducing.)
          Those advancing the idea that the abuse perpetrated by LC and others is social engineering have the task of answering the question of what the purpose of that engineering is, and how it works.
          I don’t think I have stated that LC was perpetrating abuse, though it’s perhaps reasonable to infer this from everything else. But if you are going to challenge someone for their arguments, you need to quote specific points and address them, not conflate your own version of what has been stated and then argue with that. (I think that’s known as a straw man argument?) Regarding the other point, that’s just your opinion, and quite presumptuous to assign a task to a writer or researcher based on what you want. On the other hand, I think I have addressed this repeatedly, regarding the purpose of the social engineering.
          The problem (if I am reading you correctly, I may be missing something) seems to be that you want answers that will appeal to your own socially engineered identity. That’s not possible, obviously. To see how social engineering works means seeing how it has worked on YOU. That requires doing the self-work to clear out your own programming, which is a lifetime’s work. You at least have the right idea of checking yourself for the signs, but since you are looking in all the wrong places (ie, your mind), you are of course going to conclude that “there is nothing to see here.”And yes, that does mean the social engineering worked.
          If the music and lyrics were part of a conscious effort to distort people somehow, then there would be some commonality in the effect it had on people.
          Yes there would. For example, a disproportionate emphasis on the importance of sex, women, romantic fulfillment. Or an interest in altered states of consciousness. Or Eastern spirituality. You could argue that these things would have come about anyway and it’s possible that they would have. But not in the same way as they have as the result of specific cultural figures, trends, and movements drawing people to them. If you have a guide taking you into the jungle, how trustworthy and honest he is, and what his actual motives are, could mean the difference between life and death. But it is the same jungle.

          Reply
      • Also you mention your brother in this piece. What’s the best piece of your output dealing with your thoughts about him? I’ve only read what was printed about him in the thinstream media,

        Reply
    • Great reply, I just got into him a year or two ago. He sung the theme song to The Sopranos which was written by Alabama. This article alludes to him being mind controlled like a hollywood puppet or any pop star. Therefore the article alleges his lyrics lead us to servient mindsets to accept the globalist agenda. The aspect of creating mind controlled abusers and assassins is another issue and another contingent of the MK program but not what this is stating. So I agree with this response. The guy has some wisdom but isn’t evil. Whether it is leading us to unusable conclusions is up to the listener. Your interpretation is yours.
      Incidentally check out a movie called “Idiots and Angels.” It is a noir cartoon and similar to Cohens’ songs, ironically there is not one word spoken in the movie.

      Reply
  2. “To use a phrase of author Paul Collins, they were “not even wrong.” This could be one of the consequences of being introduced to alternate information via a source like Alex Jones. Context is everything, and the medium is the message.”
    I really wish you would stop bringing up Alex Jones. I don’t think there is ANYTHING I’ve ever been introduced to by Alex Jones. The reason I have him on my list of influential thinkers is that he is, as far as I know, the only guy from a non-writer background who gave up his whole life to be dedicated to the truth. When he did this, it was a noble act. Now, I don’t think he’s done that great job of uncovering the truth, he’s a Xtian, he’s a paleoconservative/minarchist/constitutionalist, and I’ve written to him a number of times criticising his conclusions. But as an example of someone waking up he serves as the poster boy, I’d say. A jock-type who saw ‘Waco’ and thought ‘hang on, there’s something else going on here besides what I’m being told’. Less than 1% of people who saw Waco had that thought, I would say. So to me his example is partially inspirational.
    Now that I’ve dealt with that, I hope you’ll stop bringing it up, especially as a way of denigrating or dismissing my existing knowledge framework 🙂
    It’s really easy to say something is “not even wrong”, but I’ve only been in correspondence with you a short time and already I feel you’re overusing that. If we’re talking about a third category besides ‘true’ and ‘false’ that we’re calling something like ‘meaningless’ (as Korzybski and R.A.W. insist), then I think it would mean to suggest there is no meaning in the points I’m making.
    Regarding my statement “I’ve listened to and enjoyed Cohen’s songs for 25 years, but have been completely unaffected by this listening”, I meant besides the obvious mild enjoyment. But even that enjoyment has not been strong, or ever come close to the feelings I have felt for the music I really like. And it’s been a temporary enjoyment. The peak enjoyment that I had, let’s say for ‘I’m Your Man’ (the song), is 1/100 of what I’ve felt for ‘If…’ by Neil Hannon, for example. And 360 days out of the year I don’t even think about LC.
    “It also presumes that all affects are observable. I am not even sure how to address that sort of thinking.”
    Now, this leads us onto the ‘having it both ways’ stance that you have set up. If I say “I’ve suffered trauma”, then I have. If I say I haven’t, then to you, this denial is evidence that affirms the positive.
    If I say “LC’s music really affected me” then it’s evidence that there is something there besides notes and words, if I say “it didn’t affect me”, then it’s evidence that the effect was subconscious.
    Other than being non sequitur, the other thing I would say about this stance is that it seems to indicate you have made up your mind on these issues. This means that in specific areas you don’t want ambiguity or liminality.
    And when I said “what good would a ‘real’ sage do me anyway?” it was from the point of view of someone who believes absolutely in the importance of a person thinking for their self. Informed and assisted by all manner of sources: other people, the natural world, logic, and others, but ultimately arbitrated by the self. If I relinquish control of my conscious mind, when, as you’ve said repeatedly, my subconscious is wholly outside my control, then what autonomy remains?
    So no, this is not “the voice of inexperience speaking”, this is a conscious choice to vet what goes in my head. It relates to what I said when we spoke on Skype about feeling out of control, and really not happy at all, and building my own philosophy brick by brick over a number of years. This was not because I ‘couldn’t handle it in the liminal realm’, I’d say that what I was rejecting there was not liminal but civilisational. In 2004 I came the closest to being swallowed up by Leviathan and after laying washed up on the shores of confusion for 5 years, decided to turn it all around. That STARTED by claiming the island of my own mind. No man is JUST an island, but I wanted to know HOW IT WAS POSSIBLE TO KNOW ANYTHING before I proceeded. If you’re comfortable not knowing anything, then that’s your choice. But I think that is a dark path, at least for me.
    You asked:-
    “What good would a real (i.e. present, loving, trustworthy) father have done me, and can I address the lack of that presence by connecting to an older man who has some of these qualities? (This might seem like I am assuming a lot, but it’s more a matter of deducing.)”
    And you’re probably not wrong to deduce this. But that’s not the same as a sage, as I’ve thought of it. Yes, the original meaning of a sage was a healing plant, but it has in present usage become analogous to guru, and all gurus are an affront to individual thought, I would say.
    What you describe is kin, one of the forgotten qualities of life, and one which my idea of consentient community would revive and embrace. Anyone with whom I could connect that I could love and trust with, would be a good thing. But that doesn’t diminish in any way the idea (which you skated over) that “when I meet those who come across as wise, I heed their wisest words with the due respect and attention, and 25 years of listening to Cohen songs hasn’t diminished that impulse.”
    You said:-
    “I don’t think I have stated that LC was perpetrating abuse, though it’s perhaps reasonable to infer this from everything else. But if you are going to challenge someone for their arguments, you need to quote specific points and address them, not conflate your own version of what has been stated and then argue with that. (I think that’s known as a straw man argument?) Regarding the other point, that’s just your opinion, and quite presumptuous to assign a task to a writer or researcher based on what you want. On the other hand, I think I have addressed this repeatedly, regarding the purpose of the social engineering.”
    I definitely think it’s fair to infer it. You wrote that talking to Ann was a threshold moment, and her account is replete with suggestions that LC was perpetrating abuse. I don’t really want to get drawn into the specifics of the claims, because I’ve already discovered that there is little I can say about them by way of a discussion, really. I’ve now listened to all 4 parts yet would be unable to find anything in the way of specific points which I feel even COULD shed light on the specific content of this ‘stream’ of social engineering. You mention a lot of concepts – art as technology, to name one – but I can’t see the necessary information that links those themes to the events themselves – and nobody could deny that the timeline on which those events is muddy as hell. Now, that’s not to say that this invalidates the theory, I’m not suggesting that. But it doesn’t validate it, either. And the biggest part that’s missing for me is any particular answer to the question of why, if the theory was true, would these people be doing these things?
    Ann’s answer was ‘to help the Cult’. But to help them do what? I’m sitting here typing this, which I think is a fairly good indication that I am free of this cultish influence. I really hope this won’t fall victim to the same both ways things and receive the suggestion in response that maybe I’ve been programmed to visit this website and contribute to this discussion. On the subject of free will, I once wrote an airtight defence: https://consentient.wordpress.com/the-free-wanker/
    Now I’m not suggesting that everyone is free, far from it. But they could be, if helped, and/or the right prompts arose in their lives. Dmitry Orlov talks about how events in mass society would lead to people abandoning belief in the free market, government, and eventually in mass society itself. But I’m bringing this up just as an example of how people could be free of all the social engineering they’ve received. Of course I recognise the broad strokes of social engineering, but I’m just NOT SEEING how LC’s music would have been used. I am not denying it, just waiting for something a bit more convincing than hearsay that a crowd was put into a trance, or various anecdotes about feelings that arose. I hope you can understand that I feel this particular example of skepticism is founded in a general desire not to be misled (not that I’m accusing you of trying to mislead).
    “The problem (if I am reading you correctly, I may be missing something) seems to be that you want answers that will appeal to your own socially engineered identity. That’s not possible, obviously. To see how social engineering works means seeing how it has worked on YOU. That requires doing the self-work to clear out your own programming, which is a lifetime’s work. You at least have the right idea of checking yourself for the signs, but since you are looking in all the wrong places (ie, your mind), you are of course going to conclude that “there is nothing to see here.”And yes, that does mean the social engineering worked.”
    When we spoke on Skype, you apologised after recognising that you were being a little patronising. Well this paragraph is immensely patronising. Of course I’ve examined how social engineering has worked on me. I’ve done a huge amount of “self-work” to clear out my programming, and that will continue. It’s not over. But your blanket assertion that all my work has been a waste because I’ve focused on my mind, and YOUR STRAWMAN that I’ve concluded ‘there’s nothing to see’ (I haven’t, I’m just not taking the opposite conclusion ‘wow, look at this, this is really groundbreaking truth’), are not appreciated or deserved.
    My mind is something I can connect with and analyse, and experiment with, and watch how it develops over a long period, so as not to draw hasty conclusions. What’s wrong with that? Why is it ‘the wrong place’? What other places can I look for answers? How can I access them?
    “a disproportionate emphasis on the importance of sex, women, romantic fulfillment. Or an interest in altered states of consciousness. Or Eastern spirituality. You could argue that these things would have come about anyway and it’s possible that they would have. But not in the same way as they have as the result of specific cultural figures, trends, and movements drawing people to them. If you have a guide taking you into the jungle, how trustworthy and honest he is, and what his actual motives are, could mean the difference between life and death. But it is the same jungle.”
    I accept this as a fair comment.

    Reply
    • Remember when we talked about negative identity? (This exchange is a nice way to generate interest for tomorrow’s podcast, BTW.)
      It was a relief to get to the last quote you answered and see that you accepted it. But then disappointing that this was all you had to say. I think maybe you mistake disagreement for discussion, or argument. This is why I mentioned negative identity, which has to do with how the ego feels strongest and most real when it’s in opposition to something.
      It could of course just be me, but I experience this last post as like the full frontal onslaught of a belligerent mind. Not saying that’s what it is, pls note, only that this is my experience. It really doesn’t invite me to engage with it. For me to engage at the level of intellect you are comfortable at wouldn’t be enjoyable to me. It already isn’t. Been there, done that, worked long & hard on moving past it. To be more specific, some of your points entail twisting my words into something close but still different from what I actually said or wrote. It’s tiresome to have to correct you and only then respond, especially knowing that, chances are, you’ll do it again next time. This isn’t meant to patronize you, BTW, or correct you, but to extricate myself from the chore of addressing some of your arguments.
      You did say this wasn’t your preferred mode of communication. Maybe that’s why (ie, that writing allows the intellect to really take over the controls)?
      The thing about sages has to do with being open to learning from others’ wisdom or experience. The preponderance of false ceremony masters or straw sages means the chances of finding someone who has a genuine transmission of truth, or something close enough to it to be nurturing, are slim, hence your across the board anti-guru position seems sound. But there’s a conundrum you might want to consider, which is that, if we are already stripped of autonomy by our social conditioning and (forgotten or remembered) trauma, it may be essential to find a teacher who can show us that we CAN be autonomous and do not NEED teachers. So it’s been for me at least.
      Also, I wasn’t conscious of being patronizing when we spoke, only that I realized you had received it that way. It’s a subtle but important difference. The same applies above. If I try to bypass your ego and speak plainly, sometimes the ego objects. In which case, what I will cop to is being too heavy-handed, even insensitive. I have a tendency to mirror that aggressive intellectual energy when I see it coming, especially if the person isn’t aware of it themselves, as I am pretty sure is true in your case. You like a good debate, and since your are thick-skinned, you don’t necessarily know when you are using excess force, as now.
      The first part of our chat will be up tomorrow.

      Reply
  3. I fail to see how I twisted anything. I used your own words. If I misinterpreted them, then please tell me how.
    1. I’m not even wrong -> and I’m asking how you decided that I’m not ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, i.e. looking for the working behind this assessment.
    2. LC’s music as social engineering -> and I’m just saying that I don’t see it, really. You could just accept this as a comment. I’m not giving you any task. But you are concentrating fairly heavily on these theories, and I think it’s natural for those also interested to pose questions.
    3. I’m looking in the wrong places -> I’ve not twisted anything here, you said it, and I asked you why it’s wrong and what the other places are.
    4. I accept your final paragraph as fair comment without responding because I can’t add anything to it, positive or negative. It’s a comment. Guides should be questioned. The jungle is fierce. And while LC may have a disproportionate emphasis, it’s never really impacted on me. So yeah, nothing to add. He might have been your guide, but never mine.
    When we talked, right at the beginning we talked about dismantling heroes and icons. I did that with mine, but LC was never one. I think that the principles behind the process are far more interesting than the details. Why OUGHT people challenge their icons? Why OUGHT people learn to separate ideas from ideologies and ideas from idealists? Why is it OK to find beauty in Kaczynski’s work and still criticise his violence? Why is it OK to say that Jensen’s DESCriptions are almost spot on but his PRESCriptions useless (and counter-productive)? Questions of principle are, for me, where it’s at. That this is a process of the mind seems to be the main issue we have, and all I was really doing was asking what else I could use.

    Reply
  4. OK, I skipped over that one because I don’t know how to answer it. It’s at the root of the dilemma.
    The easy answer is “the body” but of course that requires lots of expostulation. And it may be that a person can’t even begin to really even try to listen to/tune into the body as long as they are trusting in the mind to tell them what’s what. Same applies to psyche or soul, but even more so.
    While I have always enjoyed the use of the intellect, I don’t think I have ever really believed in its capacity to encapsulate reality, so for me something like acclarism is a nonstarter. I have not read your description of it, but my impression of it so far, via your own appliance of it here, is that it’s based on a flawed premise, the premise that logic is enough. Logic is indispensable (until it isn’t), but it’s certainly not a sufficient tool to grasp reality.
    All I can say is when I am on the trail of truth, I’m not using the mind to do more than turn my body’s (& psyche’s) findings into language and to categorize the findings. It’s a processer of information but not the generator of it. This is why in my view most information is untrustworthy, even when accurate, because it’s been passed from mind to mind without being checked by the body-soul system. So by the time it reaches us, it’s devoid of substance. It doesn’t help us to find the ground, which is the only point of any of these investigations IMO: finding the ground.
    You want to bypass the details and get to the principals, but my experience is that you can ONLY map the principals by observing the details. Principals operate at a soul-body level and are not observable by mind or the gross senses.
    This is also at the root of why I can’t or won’t answer your questions because understanding how the mind is the product of socially engineered trauma, and therefore cannot ever recognize that fact, can’t be done with the mind. It’s like trying to see your own entrails: the only way is to butcher the thing you are trying to uncover.
    So my impetus in exploring all this is very different from what you’re perceiving, as evidenced by your insistence on having it all explained to you and converted into principals. That’s your job. All you get here is to witness me doing it as part of my own process, which has been going on for 30 yrs now. I can describe what I discover, but only *as* I do so, not before (or even after, really, because the moment has then passed); And even then, the descriptions won’t mean much unless you’ve paid attention to all the details and more or less reached the same or similar insights yourself. Then I can help to languify it. That’s all.

    Reply
    • What’s the difference between ‘mind’ and ‘psyche’ as you are using these words? Psyche is subconscious and liminal and visceral while mind is rational and ‘Cartesian’ ?
      Acclarism certainly isn’t hard Cartesian processing, it includes feedback loops from every bodily and sensory and intuitive process we have available. Since that isn’t clear (and that’s my responsibility), I’ll write something to tie together the overall value of acclarism as a toolset with what I’ve been meditating on a lot lately, which is what I call ‘a philosophy of touch’. Hopefully then it will be clearer.

      Reply
  5. Hey mate i think you need to be careful that we’re not just indulging in a spot of good old jungian projection of the shadow here . Leonard bashing is fun , to be sure , but from what i can see most artists are deeply flawed indviduals , perhaps even moreso than the average punter , being more in touch with both balanced and unbalanced aspects of self . Producing good art is like being a lightning rod or conductor , if the vessel fails the stress test it could well shatter . No matter what nefarious government agencies may or may not have been at work , Ann and Leonard were drawn to each other , for better or for worse .

    Reply
  6. One of the interviews in that book was done by a friend of mine whose birthday it was on the day you posted this… I didn’t want to just say ‘Happy Birthday’ without an accompanying link or image he might like, and I settled on a painting I had recently encountered of Jesus riding a Tyrannosaur… Unbeknownst to me, our best mutual friend (a poet and composer whose band I played in, and whose albums were produced by the birthday boy) had sent him a picture of a birthday cake with an image of Jesus cradling a baby Tyrannosaur!!
    … the child becomes the VEHICLE of the man??

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  7. I came across your postings (jasunhorsley and consentient) serendipitously and would like to extend my gratitude to you both for the mental stimulation. You have good minds and you recognize that you are more than that.

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  8. I finally had the time yesterday to finish listening to this conversation and found myself really shaken up by this. I’d expect to hear sordid tales about someone like Mick Jagger or Jimmy Page, but Leonard Cohen? I’ve been a fan of his for nearly a decade now, and part of the shock is that I’d never expect Leonard Cohen to have any connections to MK-Ultra, shadowy intelligence agencies, the Rothschilds, Sabbateans, etc. Plus all those cryptic references to murder in his poetry in your other post… It’s chilling. I don’t really have much else to add except that I really enjoyed this conversation. I hope you have Ann on the podcast again – the stuff you got into in the ‘outtakes’ felt essential to the whole picture – or possibly Kelley Lynch.

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      • Jason, I want to thank you for including me in your article on Leonard Cohen. You have absolutely addressed the crucial point with Cohen – his public persona and how that differs from who he really is. Leonard Cohen is chilling and I personally feel he verges on pure evil. Cohen has hinted at his relationship with CIA and intelligence for years and years now. In his lyric “Field Commander Cohen” he notes that he is our most “important spy.” His tales of revolutions he’s been involved with (including possible reconnaissance) re. the Bay of Pigs cannot be overlooked. I would also like to add that Ann Diamond is a wonderful individual who was in a relationship with Cohen years ago. I never once, in the 17 years I worked as Cohen’s personal manager, heard a mean comment about her from Cohen – until she was questioned about comments his daughter made while attending Concordia University. After that, Ann was demonized and referred to as a stalker, someone who harassed Cohen, and a disgruntled ex. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is a pure disinformation campaign and the same tactics were used against me. Cohen also didn’t want to pay what he owed me. He has a pattern of that as well. I will give you a head’s up. I have a “stalker” who is also targeting Ann Diamond. His name is Stephen Gianelli and he appears to be an unofficial member of Leonard Cohen’s legal team. He appears to spend 24/7 on this campaign so the stakes are high and the lows are inconceivably vile. Cohen uses operatives to target others. I’ve witnessed it for years. Thank you again. Kelley

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  9. Those who confuse the artist with his art (or his carefully crafted public persona) are bound to be disillusioned. But the deconstruction of a handful of lyrics hand picked to make a point + the “testimonies” of one “witness” who has also written that the British Royal Family has engaged in ritualistic orgies and animal sacrifice and another who was found by a Los Angeles jury to have engaged in a decades long harassment campaign against the artist in question (including obscenity laced voice mailed and emailed death threats) which “witness” just happens to have a $14M embezzlement based money judgment against do not proof of a conspiracy make. Not even close.

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      • I have never worked for Leonard Cohen (although I understand that is Ms. Lynch’s paranoid suspicion), in fact I don’t even care for Leonard Cohen the man. Nor do I exactly get along with his attorney – to put it mildly. Nor have said anything here that is not a matter of public record – let alone something that requires “trust” (eminent or otherwise) to believe. I simply wish to point out that there are emails to/from Ms. Lynch and Cohen’s attorney who was retained to sue her commencing the day in 2005 that Cohen claims she was served with the suit in which Ms. Lynch acknowledges being aware of the date/time/location of the hearing to request a multi-million dollar judgment against her premised on alleged embezzlement. She elected not to file an answer to the suit, or even to simply show up in court to deny the charges. Instead she commenced a campaign of email and voice mail harassment that continued after Cohen obtained a court order prohibiting the phone calls and emails until her arrest in 2012. (By then she was copying me with 40-60 emails a day and I have seen many of her emails to Cohen.) She berated his penis size, referenced allegations that he molested his daughter, and threatened his life. A Los Angeles jury heard the evidence and convicted her. When she was released from her 18-month jail sentence, Ms. Lynch violated her probation by emailing her trial prosecutor to say (among other things) that she was on Ms. Lynch’s “kill list” and Ms. Lynch was returned to jail for 6-months in 2014. I would therefore respectfully disagree with your characterization that Cohen has “criminalized” her attempts at truth telling. Violating a restraining order with patently abusive and threatening emails then later sending death threats to your public prosecutor has always bee illegal in the State of California. Finally, it is not I that is trying to support the theory that Leonard Cohen is a part of a CIA conspiracy to engage in “social engineering” through his published lyrics with “testimony” from Kelley Lynch. I am in fact a retired Californian lawyer living on Crete, Greece.

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  10. With a peculiar interest in setting “the record straight.” Why are you taking so much time & trouble to post at some obscure website? We already know Cohen’s story, as you point out, it is a matter of “public record,” being the version of facts that the mainstream media picked up and spread far & wide. I have heard from both Lynch and Ann Diamond that you have been bombarding Lynch relentlessly with emails. Why? No one is that interested unless they have a *vested* interest. Unless you are simply trying to save me from making a public blunder by supporting a version of history that is false. In which case, I thank you for your concern, but it’s neither needed nor welcome.

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    • This is the blog where I wrote about day trip to Samothrace. I didn’t actually mention “ritualistic orgies” and “animal sacrifice” or make lurid accusations against the royal family. I’m not delusional – i’m ludic. i just reported on local rumours and my experiences that day. http://lunamoth1.blogspot.ca/2010/05/their-satanic-majesties.html?m=1
      Mr Gianelli is prone to exaggerate and overstate (unlike you and me). He’s the Stephen King of legal bloggers.
      Kelley Lynch didnt send out death threats – that’s only a possible interpretation of an image she mailed to the prosecutor.

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    • I used to be a legal blogger and in April of 2009 wrote about a legal matter in which Kelley Lynch has an interest. I returned from Europe to learn that Lynch had hijacked my blog with hateful posts attacking everyone (not just Leonard Cohen). It became necessary to ban her from my blog. She started sending out mass emails, to the FBI, the IRS the Department of Justice, the media, colleagues, friends, others – all republished on various blogs – falsely accusing me of being “gay”, having a homosexual attraction to Leonard Cohen, “witness tampering”, interfering with an IRS matter, and other crimes. Both of her sons emailed me to apologize for her behavior, asserting she was an “alcoholic” and “mentally ill” and her son Ray posted on my blog begging Lynch to stop emailing everyone and to get help. Lynch then accused me in mass emails of “enticing” her minor son, being a “child molester”, and made other false and malicious claims in mass emails, which arrived in my G-mail inbox at the rate of 40-60 per day. Most of Lynch’s harassment victims have elected to hide from her hoping she will stop. (Including, notably, NYC attorney Bruce Cutler who detailed Lynch’s 5-year campaign of daily harassment against him in this 2012 letter to Lynch’s sentencing judge. .)= His silence was simply met with more voice messages, more emails, and more harassing faxes). I decided early on to instead engage Lynch with truth. I KNOW the crimes she has maliciously accused me of are lies, and I decided to never let her get way with lying about others on the internet either. I looked into her claims that Cohen’s 2006 judgment and 2008 restraining order were “fraudulent” and that there was no evidence that she knew about or violated it adduced at her 2012 trial by reading the relevant court record and transcripts. Al, of these claims were and are false. (For instance, she appeared at the 2008 hearing on restraining order and agreed to it – per the official transcript.) If you wish to rely on Kelley Lynch form important conclusions about another person, that is entirely your prerogative. (I would expect little else from a person willing to see a CIA mind control conspiracy in the song lyrics of a relatively obscure singer/songwriter – which is preposterous on its face.) My motive lies elsewhere, to set the record straight regarding Kelley Lynch wherever possible, so the blog reading public has the facts and does not unwittingly rely on this malicious and delusional prevaricator. This is more information than I intended to post – but you asked “why” and that is my answer. Accept it or not.

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      • I don’t accept it. I do not find your reasons convincing and hence I have no choice but to view you as a malicious disinformation agent or a fool. If I am wrong I apologize. But if you are an ex-lawyer you ought to have enough sense to know you are in the wrong place to “set the record straight” if that includes ridiculing people who talk about CIA mind control conspiracies, being as these are a matter of documented fact for anyone not blinkered by ideologies. I have no more tolerance for that view here than most places have for holocaust denial, and for the same reasons: it betrays either rank ignorance or malign intent.
        Any further comments from you will be removed. Thanks.

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    • It’s known as “rage” or better still “Rage,” Mr. Gianelli. It’s best to avoid stoking it because it burns everything it touches
      A study recently showed that women who can’t control their are less likely to be believed than women who speak calmly. This is apparently not true for men. Male anger is more often considered acceptable or justified.
      In Kelley’s case, you have uncontrolled rage expressing itself through emails and phone calls. And nobody listening to her while she loses her job, reputation, home, children – essentially everything. Her life.
      If she had stolen Cohen’s money, she would at least have had some cash stashed away, but instead she ended up living in her car until it broke down. Then her young son went out to work and ended up losing half his hand in a food grinder at his job.
      I don’t think any of us can comprehend all this because I believe I can safely say it has never happened to us. I’m guessing no one on this forum has suffered that much loss and tragedy in a matter of a few months, or gone from being a well-respected high-profile agent in a glamorous profession, to an accused criminal on the run, penniless and offered no chance to tell her side of a story which needed a detailed accounting and took years to unravel.
      What’s a natural response to being thrown into her position?
      I’d go to Shakespeare or (since you’re on Crete) — Aeschylus or Sophocles for answers.

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      • Kelley Lynch has AGAIN been charged with harassing Leonard Cohen in violation of his restraining order against her. She is once again defending the 16 count criminal complaint by accusing her prosecutors of “fraud”. This time she faces 9-years in prison. Under California law she would serve half of that sentence.

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        • Jasun, it’s true that the same parties who targeted and lied about me throughout the 2012 Stalinesque Show Trial (Cohen’s lawyers, now representatives of his estate who have benefitted from their conduct towards me for years, Ciity Attorney of Los Angeles, and LAPD’s Threat Management Unit (celebrity unit) are targeting me once again. I am about to file a federal lawsuit against LAPD, City Attorney, et al. as they are literally obstructing justice re. federal tax laws whlie criminalizing compliance with same. The prosecutors routinely lie and spin LC’s own conduct as my “intent.” This permits them to target the content of my speech and elicit information about IRS, Phil Spector, etc. Stephen Gianelli continues to harass me through electronic communications, is engaged in cyber-stalking, and constantly posts libelous statements about me online. I also believe he is part of Cohen’s “team” and has operated in this manner for years. I’ll send you my federal complaint when it’s filed. I have accused the prosecutors of retaliating. I filed claims against the City and County and believe that figures into the mix. Kory & Rice continue to lie and have submitted entirely perjured declarations to the Court once again. When courts permit this type of unconscionable conduct, at the expense of the taxpayer, there is no reason for individuals such as these samsaric criminals to change their tune.

          This is a letter I recently wrote to one of Cohen’s biographers (Jeff Burger) asking him to stop slandering me. Cohen’s lawyers are convinced this activity is “litigation protected” and their fraudulent lawsuits are also used as press releases. The goal is obviously to discredit me.

          I trust you’re well and Happy Holidays!

          Kelley

          http://riverdeepbook.blogspot.com/2019_12_08_archive.html

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      • Yes, AD knows but does not discuss it on line for several reasons. One, it’s potentially libelous. Two, although I sensed something was wrong I was not a direct witness and didn’t hear the disturbing reports until later when many heard them Three, accusations are volatile and can be retracted for many reasons. Four, I try to avoid walking into quicksand.
        Kelley had nothing to lose by hurling allegations. I don’t think they helped her case but they scared people – like gunfire. They can’t be proven because the alleged victim has made her peace, or been bought off.

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  11. Jasun, Stephen Gianelli is an out of control lawyer who appears to represent Leonard Cohen’s legal interests and may very well moonlight for the Phil Spector prosecution. I stumbled upon his blog in 2009 and was astounded to find parties such as Michelle Blaine posting there. Blaine is Spector’s former assistant who stole approximately $1 million from him and then went on a rampage on the internet about him. She and Gianelli have worked in tandem targeting and slandering me. They targeted my email accounts and blogs. Gianelli is a chronic liar who has targeted everyone in my life. He has relentlessly harassed and targeted my sons. Please feel free to read their own thoughts on this yourself. These declarations, signed by my sons personally, were submitted to numerous courts of law. Leonard Cohen’s fan, Susanne Walsh, was also involved in the targeting of my sons. Gianelli continues to harass me, Paulette Brandt (Phil Spector’s former girlfriend and personal assistant) and others.
    http://riverdeepbook.blogspot.com/2015/07/declaration-of-john-rutger-penick-filed.html
    http://riverdeepbook.blogspot.com/2014/09/ray-charles-lindsey-kelley-lynchs-son.html
    I reported the allegations that Leonard Cohen committed criminal tax fraud to IRS. Cohen understood this and retaliated. He then used a fraudulent default judgment, in a lawsuit I was not served, as a means to steal from me. I own 15% of his intellectual property. He has also stolen from his former management company, Machat & Machat, and – as with me – withheld commissions due. Cohen needed a fabricated narrative to defend himself against allegations that he committed tax fraud. I have a memorandum from his lawyer confirming that Cohen and his representatives failed to report $8 million in gross income. Cohen cannot live in Canada due to residence and tax problems. He is desperate and his conduct betrays his public persona which appears to be that of a religious sage.
    Phil Spector’s attorney, Bruce Cutler, has nothing whatsoever to do with the situation between me and Cohen. I intend to file a federal RICO suit against Leonard Cohen in approximately one month. He feels entitled to perjure himself as he sees fit. Cohen has, however, testified personally that I never “stole” from him. I have his offer of 50% community property in writing. His fabricated complaint narrative is not supported by the evidence. Cohen personally borrowed approximately $6.7 million from the alleged “retirement account.” He concealed that from the news media. Cohen went on the offensive and decided to destroy my reputation to save his own proverbial ass.
    I am not an alcoholic; do not have drug problems; but continue to be slandered. It works well for misogynists such as Leonard Cohen. He now has three versions of his bullshit Phil Spector gun story before LA Superior Court and that appears to be a problem for LA Confidential. As for MKULTRA. Leonard Cohen is the individual who claims he participated in this program. I have never said Cohen told me CIA was using his lyrics to promote a message. Gianelli’s motive lies in the fact that he is an agent provocateur, infiltrator, bald faced liar, moonlighting, and his job is targeting and slandering me and others. For instance, Ann Diamond. Ann’s piece on Gianelli really captures him perfectly. Gianelli’s not trying to set the record straight. He’s a con artist, liar who is engaged in criminal conduct. Feel free to read through my blog.
    And, I would like to say with respect to Ann that Cohen never once told me in 20 years that Ann harassed or stalked him. Once certain comments Cohen’s daughter made publicly at Concordia were made public, Cohen targeted Ann Diamond. That’s how he operates. Please see Ann Diamond’s declaration that has now been submitted to LA Superior Court.
    Ann Diamond piece on Stephen Gianelli
    http://riverdeepbook.blogspot.com/2015/11/ann-diamonds-piece-on-ambulance-chaser.html
    Ann Diamond Declaration. I have redacted the precise comments Lorca Cohen made but not because they are potentially libelous. I have Cohen’s own emails to me about this situation and other evidence. I beg to differ with Ann’s position that I had “uncontrolled rage.” I was targeted by a gang of dangerous clowns and other criminals in Los Angeles. There are many sycophants in certain political circles that find Cohen of interest – particularly with respect to his tales about a gun and Phil Spector.
    http://riverdeepbook.blogspot.com/2015/06/anne-julia-macleans-insightful.html

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  12. Jason, as for the other allegations. The prosecutor in my trial lied about everything. I sent FBI and DOJ an image as an example of what people are prosecuted over. The prosecutor then used it as an opportunity to retaliate. There is a reason people view LA as corrupt. Actually, Cohen exposed his penis to me; looked at people online defecating on one another; forced me to read business and legal documents while he soaked in a bath; etc. We weren’t lovers and never dated. I found it unconscionable and intolerable. A friend of mine asked me about this conduct on Cohen’s part. My so-called prosecutor believes Cohen was annoyed that I had the audacity to speak about it. She also felt it was acceptable for strangers, like Gianelli, to target, my then minor son. These emails, and this is what he addressed to Gianelli, made him physically ill. I don’t have a kill list which is a euphemism for CIA’s disposition matrix. Here is a link to the drone Valentine card I sent FBI and DOJ as an example. Streeter doesn’t work for FBI or DOJ but may have been hallucinating. Either that or she retaliated. I was reading an article on the drone program by Glenn Greenwald on Valentine’s Day. Gianelli has stated that I referenced allegations that Cohen molested his daughter. That is not what occurred. Freda Guttman asked Ann Diamond a question about Lorca Cohen’s public statements at Concordia University with respect to her father. Ann Diamond and I have been demonized over this situation. Gianelli began emailing my alleged prosecutor slandering me, upsetting my sons and family who he copied in, and lying to them about me. The appropriate response is to advise the party to cease and desist and correct the slanderous comments. Stephen Gianelli is an operative. He spends 24/7 on this project. He’s also a dangerous clown.
    http://mondoweiss.net/2013/02/valentines-special-someone

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  13. Why is it that every piece I read that contains both the words “Leonard Cohen” and “Kelley Lynch” is so long, meandering, self-contradicting, self-congratulating and boring? If I wanted to be that dumbed down, I’d listen to Cohen’s albums.

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  14. Kelley: Stephen Gianelli is bombarding me with the news that your case was dismissed and insisting I post it in the interests of fairness. Specifically this link: https://www.scribd.com/doc/313156039/Order-Dismissing-Kelley-Lynch-s-Federal-Case-Against-Leonard-Cohen-as-Frivolous-Judge-Stephen-v-Wilson-Case-n0-Cv16-2771svw
    He seems to think it proves something, based presumably on the premise that the US judiciary system is, of course, 100% fair and honest, and no judge ever bowed to pressure from on high. I think he has a faulty idea of my readership (as being made up of the born-yesterdays), but anyway.

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  15. Jasun,
    A single email (and two increasingly succinct attempted but unapproved comments) hardly constitutes “bombardment”. As to what the opinions of a federal magistrate judge, then adopted by a federal judge “prove”? When read in conjunction with the orders of the Los Angeles County Superior Court in 2014 and 2015, the federal tax court in 2015, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2016 what is proven is EITHER every federal and state court in California is a part of some sinister over-arching conspiracy OR Kelley Lynch’s claims really are “frivolous”. Those who believe that the phone company shot JFK and that the moon landing was faked, will probably chose to believe the former. But people should be free to make up their own minds. Thank you, and forgive the “bombardment”.

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  16. Hi Jasun,
    I filed a federal RICO (racketeering) lawsuit against Leonard Cohen and the federal court had the audacity to advise me that criminal conduct is protected activity. That speaks volumes about their justice system and nothing about me. Gianelli is bombarding everyone. He is Leonard Cohen’s agent and definitely appears to be moonlighting for the Phil Spector prosecutors. Who knows what these judges are doing. From my perspective, they are engaged in criminal conduct that involves condoning fraud, perjury, theft, extortion, money laundering, embezzlement, and so forth. On top of all of this, they want to be glorified. Stephen Gianelli terrorized my sons for seven straight years and is a blatant criminal and precisely the type of dangerous clown, as Ann Diamond concluded, that Cohen uses as a proxy. Tax Court and our 9th Circuit federal court also view fraud, perjury, etc. as patently frivolous. Ask yourself this question: why do they have jobs? What does JFK or the moon landing have to do with a court system that condones criminal conduct? Maybe the taxpayers should ponder that question.
    Kelley

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  17. Speaking of JFK and the Moon Landing, why does Leonard Cohen have the right to argue that he was a participant in CIA’s MK Ultra Program, CIA Recon during Bay of Pigs, an individual in advance possession of information re. Yom Kippur War, etc. but everyone else that speaks the truth is a Moon Landing conspiracy theorist? JFK was obviously assassinated so that is not a conspiracy. Perhaps Cohen would like to discuss his “fantasies” about men that hold guns on him in Cuba if he wants to discuss conspiracy theories.

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  18. What an extraordinary series of articles. While I was shocked it wasn’t my first such shock as similar rumors about the 60s artists (or “artists” – phonies if you ask me) have long been around. You’ve probably heard of the 1995 New York Times article about how modern art luminaries such as Pollock and de Koonz were covertly financed by the CIA – the idea supposedly was to finance left-leaning artists to thwart the influence of leftist ideology from the communist world. Then there are those odd alleged connections between rock stars and the establishment. And the Salinger, or the Leary rumors. And on and on. All begging the question of course, what else is there, which parts of the counter-culture, and more generally the post-WWII period, have not been perception-managed?

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  19. RIP Leonard Cohen. And thank you Jason and Ann for this most interesting series of interviews.
    I am still quite moved by LC’s earlier music as I have been since I was very young, but I did not find any of the information shared in these interviews particularly difficult to believe. Indeed, it allows a much greater depth of understanding of Cohen and many of his songs. If he was truly an MKULTRA subject, whether willing or or, then I don’t think any of his actions or involvement with intelligence or military can really be judged. It doesn’t necessarily make his music or poetry any less sincere, even if it’s only the sincerity of a well-designed fragment that we see.
    It’s funny though how so many of the same people in my circles who have nothing but contempt for Trump and everything that he stands for practically worship Cohen. In so many ways, it would seem that the two aren’t really that far apart.
    Somehow the poet gets away with it all, attracting awe and worship in spite of his questionable acts and character traits, while the buffoon is ridiculed and vilified. Such an interesting culture we live in.

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  20. According to some of his biographers, Leonard Cohen experimented with non consensual trance when he was a
    young adolescent – trying to persuade the family maid to undress.
    So, even if Cohen never did encounter the CIA this suggests that he had a precocious interest in manipulating
    people.
    https://www.google.com/search?ei=Cl5FWrLtMKWGjwTf6bCACg&q=%22leonard+cohen%22+%22hypnosis%22+%22maid%22&oq=%22leonard+cohen%22+%22hypnosis%22+%22maid%22&gs_l=psy-ab.12..33i160k1l3.14788.21772.0.23755.15.15.0.0.0.0.180.1837.0j13.13.0….0…1c.1.64.psy-ab..2.11.1532….0.NhKCuclzUdQ

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  21. There are plenty of great artists whose work is appreciated, but who do not develop the reputation of being gurus or sages.
    First, do not speak of your music or lyrics as prayer. If you have one, keep mum about your spiritual practice. Avoid hobnobbing with
    spiritual and religious celebrities. If you go on retreats, call them vacations and mental health breaks.
    If your spiritual commitment becomes known, **refuse** to become an influential big name patron, even
    if your pastor, your meditation teacher or the High Lama of Pajandrum pleads that you do so, and lists all the
    good you can accomplish.
    Your patronage may bring in such a tide of wealth, fame, and new converts that this will actually corrupt the whole thing.
    If your prestige become linked to your church or meditation tradition, others may convert
    to it because you’ve made it fashionable, rather than because their own personal journey has led them in that direction.
    If you bring fame and riches to a guru who later abuses money sex and power, those who are harmed may take
    years before they dare speak out, because your support has given the organization fame, wealth and means
    of intimidation. Love and serve your guru by keeping him humble, honest and obscure. Am not kidding. A genuinely
    holy advisor will prefer this.
    If admirers ask you questions that put you in the role of sage, guru, prophet, do NOT take that bait,
    Get advice from college instructors on ways you can learn and keep on learning about the power of crowds, the
    phenomenon and dangers of mass hysteria. Get people into your life who will remind you again and yet again that
    you have great responsibility as someone who can admiration and excitement from audiences. Keep in mind
    that YOU set the tone for how your security personnel and roadies behave toward fans, and that you must
    always, always prevent an atmosphere of thuggery and sexual exploitation from developing around you.
    People may try to turn you into a sage or guru; all you need do is reject all such overtures, change your own clothes
    and behavior if necessary.
    Yet another precaution: select interviewers and publicists who emphasize that you are merely an entertainer, period.

    Reply

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