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Part one of a return conversation with Ann Diamond, on the second part of her Leonard Cohen book, Jasun’s book about John de Ruiter, being entwined with one’s subject, working towards forgiveness, Leonard Cohen celebration month, a Silvia Symmonds event, Cohen wall murals and Masonic hand signals, hero worship & scapegoating, Hollywood pedophilia, erasing Kevin Spacey, a systemic reaction, removing the “bad apples,” comply or die, examining our conscious motives for writing an exposé, setting the record straight, breaking the trance state, the emperor’s clothes, the appeal of getting close to power, Cohen’s unknown dark side, the allure of mystery, putting the good side forward, concealing the shadow, metaphors that reveal and conceal, a perfect man, deep background, the Cohen archives, looking for clues in the discards, erasing traces, Cohen’s advancement through secret society ties, an unpublished novel, a trophy collector, a CIA cult, the Process Church in Montreal, John Stahl and pedophilia, ritual murder on Mount Royal, the Op Café, Italian clean-up crews, a series of inflammatory charges, intuition vs. logic, the essence of contradiction, putting down the dark side, a heap of slag for the alchemical process, programmed to self-sabotage, tipping one’s hand to the handlers, narrative reversals, the limits of journalism, a useless source, the question of credibility, choosing one’s target audience.
Mother of Darkness (Ann Diamonds’ blog)
Songs: “Creeping Crazy Time,” by Big Blood; “Skinny White Girl: by Trailer Bride; “Hey Ho,” by Orbiting Freakshow Orch.
I went to bed after rereading Ruth Wisse’s memoir of 20 years ago on being at McGill with Cohen in 1954
http://www.cim.mcgill.ca/~dudek/LouisDudek/wisse.htm
… which happens to be the year that photo was taken of me, age 3: the year I entered MKULTRA at McGill. It was also “the Marian year” as declared by Pope Pius XII –
So you can see this all gets complicated. Ruth Wisse, who took an English lit class with Leonard, remembers him as a shy, sweet boy with a sharp critical mind, a little quirky and very confident of his talent. Oddly, in this essay she quotes (twice) from his poem “Ballad” about a woman ritually murdered in a downtown rooming house in 1954 – Cohen rented a room on the same street for a while. So obviously she’s trying to convey something about Leonard that she can’t say straight out. But the poem says it. It’s written as a sly confession – there’s really no other interpretation possible. I havent found anyone who’s written about that poem although i’m sure someone has.
This is how Cohen made his name back then: by dropping hints that he was a psychopath. And coming on to women in the nicest ways. This was fascinating. Not just to women but to the psychiatrists who programmed him.
I woke up this morning with the thought: that the people who constantly interviewed him over the years were pretty much the same gang who programmed him. So the interviews were a way of checking back on him.
The people now vetting his archives and who recently removed a few damning poems that reveal his early cult activity, are performing the same function of making sure no one stumbles on the truth. It’s not easy to formulate all this without calling up a whole subterranean world where secrets are disguised as literary references. Obviously Ruth Wisse knew but couldn’t find a way to mention it in polite society.
So I guess I have to quote the poem, since it’s not easy to find on line:
BALLAD
My lady was found mutilated
in a Mountain Street boarding house.
My lady was a tall slender love,
like one of Tennyson’s girls,
and you always imagined her erect on
a
thoroughbred
in someone’s private forest.
But there she was,
naked on an old bed, knife slahes
cross her breasts, legs badly cut up:
Dead two days.
They promised me an early conviction.
We will eavesdrop on the adolescents
examining pocket-book covers in
drugstores.
We will note the broadest smiles at
torture scenes
in movie houses.
We will watch the old men in Dominion
Square
follow with their eyes
the secretaries from the Sun Life at
five-thirty…
Perhaps the tabloids alarmed him.
Whoever he was the young man came
alone
to see the frightened blonde have
her blouse
ripped away by anonymous hands;
the person guarded his mouth
who saw the poker blacken the
eyes
of the Roman prisoner;
the old man pretended to wind his
pocket-watch..
The man was never discovered.
There are so many cities!
so many knew of my lady and her
beauty.
Perhaps he came from Toronto, a half-
crazed man
looking for some Sunday love;
or a vicious poet stranded too long in
Winnipeg;
or a Nova Scotian fleeing from the
rocks and preachers…
Everyone knew my lady
from the movies and art-galleries,
Body from Goldwyn. Botticelli had
drawn her long limbs.
Rosetti the full mouth.
Ingres had coloured her skin.
She should not have walked so
bravely
through the streets.
After all, that was the Marian year, the
year
the rabbis emerged from their desert
exile, the year
the people were inflamed by
tooth-paste ads.
We buried her in Spring-time.
The sparrows in the air
wept that we should hide with earth
the face of one so fair.
The flowers they were roses
and such sweet fragrance gave
that all my friends were lovers
and we danced upon her grave.
I would just let that Jon feller be. After all, your path lead to him, not the other way around.
No cult leader, no guru, not political power has ever made anyone come to their side Mind body and spirit. Hook, line, and sinker.
They present a niche that desprate or searching people will fall into. Nothing more. As we awake the “traps” get deeper and harder to spot. Lossing ones self to a guru, or even a philosophyis part of the process (assuming there is one.)
Sometimes this is exactly what a desperate person can use to get -undessprate. Or they can die. Depends on how much personal power they have or don’t. And how well, or unwell they take responsability for were they stand.
Just seems erronious and superfulous to call one of these people out. Erronious because it really has very littlr to do with the individual who is the guru, etc. it is a roll not a person. That is obviously seen by the observance that for an individual to take up the position, they have to play the part. They have to metamorphosise into something beyond their persona. They personify the unpersonal.
Also in the sense that these individuals play a integral roll in the facilitating opportunities for “searches” to get lost and them find their way out.
They are inly a tool. When used correctly they are a blessing and teacher. When used incorrectly they can be a living pit of burning hell.
This is a bit preachy and rambling. However it is an honest sharing of my own living perspective ( as in I live the shit I say (or atleast try)) on the subject.
Post this comment or toss it in the ecompost bin where it will become substrate and nurishment for pontification eatting mushrooms.. I care not. It was for you.
I wish the best,
Travis
*”searchers”
so it is erroneous to draw attention to an abusive spiritual teacher, but not erroneous to BE an abusive spiritual teacher – or for you to draw attention to the error of drawing attention to abusive spiritual teachers?
It seems to me erronious to think that there is a end game worth winning.
One guru falls, one politician falls, another rises to take their place. The searchers shall then flock to them.
It’s not the individual, it’s the position.
Best-
I think it is erroneous to call out the individual players. Wouldn’t you agree that it more fruitful to unveil the game itself, and the tendencies people have to get trapped in it?
How would that be done without showing examples? You are asking for a narrative without protagonists.
Without Whitley, no Prisoner of Infinity.
No disrespect intended. But. Perhaps the problem with your position, is that you want it to be right.
you are the one who has the problem with my position.
Ok. I can see that true communication is imposable on this medium.
Add to that, that we are complete strangers. Add to that, that I would have to talk long to unravel what I am trying to get at. Top it off with perhaps there is no way to put into words where I am coming from.
Don’t worry though, I am at odds with most people most the time and all people (myself included) some of the time.
Esspecially after my experience of trancendance, where I became one with the universal radiance…just kidding. Actually it was nothing, literaly. Everytging fell away. It came back. However it left me empty. Not non feeling or callus. Infact quite the opposite. But empty. Empty yet whole. Everythings still there, still have hangups, still get mad and sad. But im empty.
Anyway I truly appologize for comming off so rude.
Take care,
Travis
I don’t find it impossible at all. I have exchanges everyday without problem.
it’s not about being rude; it’s about being coherent, fair-minded, and logical.
You don’t sound empty to me, you sound dissociated. (Our last disagreement was about marijuana use: are you still using it?) It’s possible that this isn’t your medium, but you are choosing to use it. Perhaps you could start again by questioning your own motives for posting here instead of questioning/challenging me. Currently I get the sense, rightly or wrongly, that you are not as conscious as you think.