The Liminalist # 51: A Civilization of Clowns (with Jason Wilcox)

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Two-part conversation with Jason Wilcox, on David Bowie & the occult, Bowie’s birth and death days, the question of coincidence, marketing and social engineering, “Black Star” and “Lazarus,” Bowie’s many personae, Major Tom & 2001, deep space entities, Stan Gooch and The Nine, Phyllis Schlemmer & Robert Watts, “The Sentinel” & alien intelligence, the Heliopolitical gods & Sirius, the Aeon of Horus & the Star Child, memeplexes vs. implicate order, Bowie, Whitley Strieber, & the Kray twins, Oz magazine & London 1968, Donald Cammell and Performance, Bowie’s early influence on Jasun, William Shatner’s Bowie tribute, ISIS & Uri Geller, a civilization of clowns, Bowie and David Bowman, Bowie’s occult phase, using the name “Dawn,: heralding something even worse than ourselves, “Black Star” video, meeting Stan Gooch, red ocher and the origins of culture, distinguishing culture from civilization, the earliest forms of art, cosmos and cosmetics, creating a symbolic identity, studying ourselves, can Darwinism explain culture?, Theory of Mind, violence, & culture, Moon & Sun, hunting by the Moon, female signals to the male, first images of divinity, blood taboo, the ritual cycle of ancient man, Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals, red, white, & black, the Sphinx hybrid, the No-signal of the female, blood & cosmetics, Claude Levi-Strauss, separation and togetherness in myths, Persephone and Sleepy Beauty, hunting and agriculture, the end of magic.

Jason Wilcox Vimeo.

Songs: “El Mariachi” by The Freak Fandango Orchestra; “A Thousand Stars,” by “Pictures of the Floating World“; “Endless space far above the world (a lament for Bowie)” by Paul Janszen.

15 thoughts on “The Liminalist # 51: A Civilization of Clowns (with Jason Wilcox)”

  1. Dont know why but my enduring image of Bowie is of a gay British army POW who has an affair with the Japanese camp commandant , with hugely unpredictable consequences . Jack “Strafer” Celliers in ” Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence”. “Strafer ” apparently means ” soldiers soldier “.
    Bowie does seem to have a fascination with the military , being from a nation of bloodthirsty ultra violent quasi vikings like the Brits there would no doubt be plenty of warriors in his lineage .
    Listening to Bowie talk on your podcast , it struck me that jagger , bowie , saville , crowley , yourself , myself are all from the lower/middle , working class . In terms of recruiting Iconoclasts to shape and change there can be no better footsoldiers than us , a fact the Nazis also used to their advantage .
    Occultists like myself often seem to gravitate towards the Nazis and i’m starting to think this is no coincidence . The archaic , platonic and neo platonic ( druidic , jungian ) forces that animated the nazis have been around since ??? . It was just that the infantile psyches of the Nazis were fried by the current charge that they piped through themselves . These forces are inimical to the Saturnine , Talmudic , materialistic current of the present system . It has been mooted in some quarters that the Nazis were constructed by the elites to attack and damage bolshevism preceding the cold war , that it was implicitly understood that the Nazis would be destroyed in the process . Fascinating that of late a huge market has sprung up for Nazi regalia and artefacts , to the point where entire long dead nazi combat units are being dug up in Russia and Ukraine and plundered for their insignia and equipment .
    So we are not waiting for Crowleys aeon of Horus to appear , the last several decades having been an orgy of continuous warfare and environmental destruction, in which every citizen is at the front lines everyhour of the day , while the whore of babylon has cast her interweb to cover the entire globe , in an invasive coupling of mass surveillance and homogenous social media .
    I like the Archdruids summation of the homo sapiens phenomena as nothing more than a lucky chimp who lucked onto a tool making faculty that chanced upon the method of temporarily harnessing an unprecedented one off bonanza of fossil fuel . The chance and probability of us occurring anywhere else ( even given the same conditions ) are breathtakingly remote , given the series of ” serendipitous” accidents that led to our present state . No Nr Wilcox , we are not special or exceptional , and may well be the equivalent of pond scum to archetypal forces in the cosmos we are ill equipped to comprehend , so Major Tom , Dave the Bowman is not just a junky but a wanker ! RIP space program .

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    • Is there a middle way between seeing humans as special and seeing them as random and insignificant? Clearly we are not pond scum. I think we are, I am, the means by which the infinite becomes conscious of itself as transient & fleeting, the intersection point between time & space that can only know itself by experiencing its own mortality. Pond scum can’t wrestle with the cognitive burden of self-awareness in the face of eternity. That’s just for us. Culture may be the product of not-facing that challenge rather than the opposite, making art to feel immortal and significant…

      BTW, where’d you get the idea I was lower/middle class? Have you read “Occult Yorkshire”?

      Reply

  2. I suppose Americas ISIS are also a bunch of armband wearing fire breathing rustics who are being hurled against the walls of Syria, Iran and Russia with the implicit understanding that they will be annihilated by the end of the struggle , leaving a power vacuum of some sort in their wake

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  3. I’m not sure what metaphysical issues pond scum are currently wrestling with . In cosmic terms , i feel myself to be a part of a species that has some degree of awareness , but a PHD in self importance . The best we can hope for us to be aware and cognisant of our experiences ,thoughts , feelings , to express them in some imaginal form is a gift indeed . Like bees who weave perfect hexagrams , there may be some pattern we are meant to be weaving or expressing which we have deviated from , perhaps by thinking that we are the receptors for the almighty and the infinite . But i probably wouldnt be here if the blue green algae hadnt oxidised the atmosphere , are they regretting that now ? Certainly , the older things on this planet are quite small , and we chimps are relative newcomers in terms of years . Whatever i am , i am part of the body of the planet , which is why Major Tom is taking the piss , he isnt venturing out of the biosphere , he’s journeying toward its centre , if anything . Interesting i see you as lower middle class . I read your book and felt your old man and grandfather to be from the ranks of the plebs who wanted to be in the club , something we took great delight ( until recently) in mocking here in Australia with our very own “bunyip aristocracy “

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  4. A few clarifications and thoughts which arose after we spoke:

    – when I spoke of “Tom” being possibly connected to Bowie’s “Major Tom”,
    I forgot to add that the “Tom” who claimed to be spokesman for the “Nine”
    subsequently revealed that he was “Atum”, the ancient Egyptian God. This could
    also tie in with Bowie’s being photographed in Egyptian costume around the same
    time (early 1970s).
    – other lyrics by Bowie from that era (early 1970s) imply some sort of
    imminent arrival of a new “god” from another star/planet – dedicated to
    making a “Homo Superior” (phrase coined, I think, by Olaf Stapledon,
    who also wrote an odd novel called “Sirius”).
    – other lyrics by Bowie would seem to invite a “revolution” by children
    against their parents (cf. Robin Wood’s writings on the American horror
    film from the same time). Was Bowie’s influence here (apart from his
    own poor relationship with his mentally unstable mother) Arthur C.
    Clarke’s “Childhood’s End” (a work held in high regard by Stan Gooch,
    – Clarke was also a good friend of Stan’s friend Robert Temple, author of
    “The Sirius Mystery” – and which Kubrick wanted to film but could not
    because the rights were held by someone else)?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood%27s_End

    – notice the prominent eye on the cover of the first edition.

    – Bowie’s signing off as “Dawn” to Brian Eno could reference the Order of
    the Golden Dawn as well as the idea of birth/death/re-birth. “Black Star”
    is supposed to refer to Saturn, according to “The Guardian”.
    – Bowie’s dying on his birthday (almost): cf. many references to birthdays
    in “2001”. Other noted people who died on their birthdays: Shakespeare,
    Jimmy Savile (almost).
    – the reference to “Bluebird” in Bowie’s “Lazarus” brings to mind Project
    Bluebird, a precursor to MKUltra (authorised in 1950). Not sure if it was
    inspired by the Maeterlinck book of the same name, which was filmed
    with Shirley Temple the year after “The Wizard of Oz” (as a consolation
    for her not having got the role of Dorothy). Could there be a reference
    to mind control here? It’s also interesting to note that Bowie signed off
    other letters/emails to Brian Eno as “Milton Keynes” (MK). For some
    reason Milton Keynes now has some statues which seem to refer to
    “Eyes Wide Shut” (maybe because that part of the film was shot
    nearby, apparently at Mentmore Towers, not Luton Hoo as I thought).
    NB – Milton Keynes has a number of roads named after the Avebury/
    Stonehenge complex, and possibly its “grid” layout has symbolic
    meaning too…it is only a few miles away from West Wycombe Park,
    close to the caves of Hellfire Club renown, which was used as the location
    for the opening scenes of Bowie’s film “Labyrinth” – in which obelisks and owls
    feature, and for which Robert Watts is credited as Production Executive).
    – there would seem to be some synchronicity between the original
    Clarke story “The Sentinel” (which I’ve only now just read) and
    Bowie’s death – since the “sentinel” (a pyramid in the original
    story) is only identified in 2016, not 2001 (also it seems that the
    “emergency number” was changed in the US to 911 in the year
    1968, the year of “2001”s release! Further synchronicity – which
    I imagine was not mentioned in the film “Room 237” – in that
    the emergency command centre in Building 7 of the World Trade
    Center was the 23rd floor….

    You may know that, following his death, people wanted to have the
    planet Mars re-named Bowie – but now, with the “deduction” of so-called
    Planet Nine – announced by NASA on 20th January – they seem to want
    to name this new entity “Bowie”. “Planet Nine” would/should have been
    known as Planet Ten – were it not for the recent (2006) downgrading of
    Pluto to a “dwarf”. The number “nine” is again foregrounded – all very curious…

    Jason

    P.S. We spoke briefly about “Oz” magazine – apparently “77” was equivalent to “Oz”
    to Crowley (“Liber Oz” – possibly with Baum’s book in mind): a “z” inside a circle
    looking like two sevens? While David Bowman became the “Star Child” and David
    Bowie “Blackstar”, “007” became “Zardoz”…+ Bowie named his son Zowie.

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  5. Yes, the Bunyip Aristocracy would never espouse socialism , so you rose quite high . Thank goodness one of you has reemerged who didnt completely disappear up his own proverbial. Quite the reverse in fact .

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  6. The girl with the tail in Blackstar would seem to be a moon goddess or hermanubis of indeterminate origin , or an aspect of Bowies Jungian Anima who seems to also embody some of the animal , feline aspects of fallen mans lower nature . She seems to be overseeing the coniunctio of Major Tom with his bejewelled skull , Ziggy Stardust , as part of the death process of one who has during life at least partially suceeded in integrating the outer with the inner , the conscious with the unconscious the astronauts with the aliens for the more advanced initiate .
    It emerges that Bowies ashes are to be scattered at his favourite place in the world , his little farm in the Catskill Mountains , upstate New York

    I’ve never seen a tree branch fall on a cow on the farms around here , but have seen them fall on plenty of humans . How did all the animals know to flee the beaches of Asia just before the Tsunami appear while the chimps were still sunning themselves ?? Of course they are sentient , have cognitive ability and culture of their own , to suggest otherwise is simply hubris . As a male , i am far more horny in spring than any other time of year , and my wife is far more sexually available to me just prior to her ovulation , the physical effects upon myself quite pronounced , if i may say so myself . Honouring this fact and giving control of the mating process to the female chimp partner is indeed the key to a happy marriage , you might say . Curiously she is also sexually aroused just prior to her menstruation . Without lapsing into the morass of present day leftist feminist politically correct memes and identity politics , i feel It is only thousands of years of patriarchal religion and cultural conditioning that has suppressed these facts from collective awareness , though at an individual level they are bleeding obvious if youll pardon the pun .

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  8. Years ago I was told (by someone from an Air Force MK family) that the keys to Performance are in the climactic song “Memo From Turner” in which the rock star turns the tables on his managers in a final coup at the end, where everyone gets stoned and naked and ‘youth culture’ saves the world in a spasm of violence. Like so many sixties movies, it’s gruelling to watch because it’s so introspective and overburdened with veiled ‘meaning.” Allegedly, Jagger’s character was based on Brian Jones who had died earlier that year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3qgmVb4-kU

    But just about everything we need to know is in the final lines of the song:
    So be strong with your beast. So Rosie dear, don’t you think it’s queer. So stop me if you please. The baby’s dead, my lady said. You schmucks all work for me …

    Jagger and Faithfull were expecting a baby. Was it sacrificed for all the usual reasons?

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  9. “Culture may be the product of not-facing that challenge rather than the opposite, making art to feel immortal and significant…”
    – this is really good stuff , thanks . This makes me feel there may be a choice between being pond scum or a being that is truly in harmony with , and representative of the planet of which it is part , a flower growing briefly from its surface ..cheers

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  10. I don’t know about the Bowie relationship with MK Ultra, consensus reality, mass programing… but he was an inspiration to all us wannabe singers because as famous as he became, he didn’t have a naturally great voice; but he was fearless in the things he attempted.

    Even with all the effects and over dubbing he used, you can still hear him struggle with vocal dynamics. Eventually he became very good at using what he had; especially when it was just him and a single instrument “plinking” out a melody; then theres nothing to hide behind.

    Fortunately theres tons of Bowie Ive never heard of, or didn’t know it was him, so I’ll be on that train from here on down the line even though I often have no idea what he’s singing about. I assume the information must be meaningful due to his manor of presentation?

    Then again, maybe he’s just getting himself off?

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