The Medicine Man, Shaman, and Shaker

 

 

THE ARK OF THE COVENANT

The Ark of the Covenant was made of acacia wood and lined inside and outside with gold. It was three and three-fourth feet long, two and one-fourth feet wide, and two and one-fourth feet high. Moses placed the two tablets of the law and a vessel containing some manna in the Ark. Later the rod of Aaron was also placed in it. The cover was of solid gold and on each end were two golden angels whose wings covered the Ark. This cover was called the Propitiatory, or Mercy Seat. Henceforth, when God spoke to Moses, it was from a cloud that rested over the Mercy Seat. The Ark was the only thing placed in the Holy of Holies.

 

MYSTIQUE

 

Hal Hinson’s [Washington Post] spirited review of “Medicine Man” begins with these comments: “When we first see Rae Crane (Lorraine Bracco) in John McTiernan's spectacularly thrilling new movie "Medicine Man," she's strapping on a pair of boots as if she were a warrior preparing for battle. And, in essence, she is. A brilliant research scientist, Crane has been sent to South America by her employers, an American pharmaceutical firm, to check up on Richard Campbell (Sean Connery), a renegade biochemist who's spent the last six years living deep in the rain forests along the Amazon searching for what he believes to be a miracle serum.

For some time, though, Campbell has been doing precisely as he pleases, refusing to submit reports on his findings, account for his expenses, or even communicate with his superiors. Like Kurtz in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," he's off on his own. And, like Marlow, Crane has been sent upriver to find out what the hell is going on.

After an arduous trek on foot and by canoe -- it's a good thing she laced on those boots -- she finally confronts her subject, who is stinking drunk and outfitted for a native ceremony in a lavish straw head-dress, topped with an enormous beak. To say that her first impressions are negative would be a gross understatement. For the audience, though, their initial exchange of antagonistic cross talk and bickering is sublimely funny, a sort of forest primeval variation on '30s movie banter that sets the stage for the battle of sexes to follow.”
Read the article

Palm - tattoo
Beat ~ San Francisco

 

THE POWER OF MYTH
Page 86-87

Siberian Shaman image in upper corner of textbook The Power of Myth
The shaman is a person, male or female, who has an overwhelming psychological experience that turns him totally inward. The whole unconscious opens up, and the shaman falls into it. Descriptions of this shaman experience are found all the way from Siberia right through the Americas down to Tierra del Fuego.

Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell discussions were put in print shortly after the landmark television series aired on the PBS channel. The “Power of Myth” original series in it’s video format is usually on the rental shelf at any video store.

CAMPBELL: Now, there’s a fantastic example of something. The Bushmen live in a desert world. It’s a very hard life, a life of great, great tension. The male and female sexes are, in a disciplined way, separate. Only in the dance do the two come together. And they come together this way. The women sit in a circle or in a little group and beat their thighs, setting a pace for the men dancing around them. The women are the center around which the men dance. And they control the dance and what goes on with the men through their own singing and beating of the thighs.

Moyers: What’s the significance, that the woman is controlling the dance?

Campbell: Well, the woman is life, and the man is the servant of life. That’s the basic idea in these things. During the course of the circling, which they do all night long, one of the men will suddenly pass out. He experiences what we might call a possession. But it is described as a flash, a kind of thunderbolt or lightning bolt, which passes from the pelvic area right up the spine into the head.

Moyers: It is described in your book The Way of the Animal Powers- here:

Campbell: "When people sing, I dance. I enter the earth. I go in at a place like a place where people drink water. I travel a long way, very far." He’s entranced now, and this is a description of an experience. "When I emerge, I am already climbing. I’m climbing threads, the threads that lie over there in the south. I climb one and leave it, then I climb another one. Then I leave it and climb another… And when you arrive at God’s place, you make yourself small. You have become small. You come in small to God’s place. You do what you have to do there. Then you return to where everyone is, and you hide your face. You hide your face so you won’t see anything. You come and come and come and finally you enter your body again. All the people who have stayed behind are waiting for you – they fear you. You enter, enter the earth, and you return to enter the skin of your body… And you say ‘he-e-e-e!’ That is the sound of your return to your body. Then you begin to sing. The ntum-masters are there around." Ntum is the supernatural power. "They take powder and blow it –Phew!Phew!- in your face. They take hold of your head and blow about the sides of your face. This is how you manage to be alive again. Friends, if they don’t do that to you, you die… You just die and are dead. Friends, this is what it does, this ntum that I do, this ntum here that I dance."
My God! This guy’s had an experience of another whole realm of consciousness! In these experiences they are, as it were, flying through the air.

Moyers: He then becomes the shaman.

Campbell: Not in this culture. He becomes the trance dancer. All the men are potentially tranced.

Moyers: Is there something like this common in the experience of our culture? I’m thinking particularly of the born-again experience in our Southern culture.

Campbell: There must be. This is an actual experience of transit through the earth to the realm of mythological imagery, to God, to the seat of power. I don’t know what the born-again Christian experience is. I suppose medieval visionaries who saw visions of God and brought back stories of that would have had a comparable experience.

Moyers: There’s a sense of ecstasy, isn’t there, in this experience?

Campbell: As reported, it’s always of ecstasy.

Campbell, Moyers, and Lucas - Star Wars exercise

 

 

From the article by Belden C. Lane professor of theological studies and American studies
at Saint Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri.

Campbell frequently would contrast the priest, who serves as a custodian of facts, with the shaman, who functions as a sharer of experience. He was uneasy with theology because of its penchant for codes and creeds and its abandonment of poetic language. He cited Jung's warning that religion can easily become a defense against the experience of God. The first question that Campbell's work poses, then, is how to see ourselves as a people for whom myth is life and breath. How can theologians, in particular, be called back to the vitality of narrated experience? Mythology, as Campbell knew, always aims to include the listener in the tale. The story of the hero, for example, ultimately turns us back to our own experience. "The mighty hero of extraordinary powers -- able to lift Mount Govardhan on a finger, and to fill himself with the terrible glory of the universe -- is each of us! " (Hero with a Thousand Faces). I am Telemachus, ever waiting for the lost father Odysseus to come home; I am Gilgamesh, longing to overcome the mystery of death. There is in me the blood-red hatred of Kali, who is consumed by his own rage; in me too is Demeter, the earth mother that loves and nurtures. I am Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, the learner and the teacher, preparing for bold action. All these stories are my stories.

But our culture denies such a "participation mystique." It suggests that myth functions only as a dimension of primitive consciousness, and is no longer operative in any significant way. Indeed, the whole history of Western culture can be seen as a history of demythologization. The dominant Western story we have been telling ourselves for 3,500 years has been a painful tale of children who, in their progress toward maturity, have steadily cast off their illusions.

 

Robin Hood - Robin of Sherwood cast

 

 

Shakers

In the New England States tradition has it the first group of spiritual European pilgrims were the Shakers, described in The New Century Dictionary as, "an American communistic celibate religious sect ("United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing") so called, popularly, from the agitations or movements of the body which form part of their ceremonial."

Also, -Shakeress, n.- A female Shaker and the religion, Shakerism, n.
The principles and practices of the Shakers. Still, few in the US mainstream know much about this unique early American group, unless they’ve seen "Witness," a film that aptly portrays the lifestyle on an Amish farm. The Hollywood debut of director Peter Weir, stars Harrison Ford playing opposite Kelly McGillis, and Danny Glover as the bad cop.
Harrison Ford fans note: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, a father-son team, Sean Connery and Harrison Ford, in the third outlandish adventure of the intrepid archeologist.

 

 

FYI
When in doubt as to the identity and framework of any author [re: mystique], check the accent of the whole text. When the concern is about function - does it work? - you are reading a writer with a background in paranormal or metaphysical reference work. The emphasis will almost always be the 'utilitarian' characteristic. This may be extended to include analysis or review of blueprints, or care and maintenance guidelines.

An archeologist is usually concerned with the point of origin and age of a discovery, and will try to position the subject within an established chronological timeline. The following paragraph from, Archeology illustrates the 'digger' approach:

Crystal skulls have undergone serious scholarly scrutiny, but they also excite the popular imagination because they seem so mysterious. Theories about their origins abound. Some believe the skulls are the handiwork of the Maya or Aztecs, but they have also become the subject of constant discussion on occult websites. Some insist that they originated on a sunken continent or in a far-away galaxy. And now they are poised to become archeological superstars thanks to our celluloid colleague Indiana Jones, who will tackle the subject of our research in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Details about the movie's plot are being closely guarded by the film's producers as I write this, but the Internet rumor mill has it that the crystal skull of the title is the creation of aliens.
-Jane MacLaren Walsh, Archeology, May-June 2008
Indy Spirit Awards

 

 

Journey Through Heaven and Hell, Indiana Jones
and The Temple of Doom

The movie is set against a backdrop that touches on extreme strength and extreme weakness. Indiana Jones and his companions, Willie Scott and Short Round, explore the dark side of our deeper dreams and universal initiation rites [Shakti as the Goddess Kali] in general. The trio take the part of Hermes/Mercury in Western mythology, as they descend into Hades and return to the world of mortals. In a parallel reality, Harrison Ford herniated a disc in his back, during the filming of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in London. He was forced to fly back to Los Angeles for an operation. His accident and speedy recovery is represented in his star chart for those dates.

Harrison Ford was working with his progressed Sun @ 28 Leo conjunct the Royal Star Regulus. This excellent augury for his immediate mend was augmented by many sextiles and other beneficial influences in his star chart at that time. Ford was okay and able to return to the set only six weeks later.

Day of the accident, progressed Saturn [skeletal frame, especially back and knees] @ 11 Gem 29' was square his p Mars 13 Vir 03', and p Mercury @ 15 Vir 37'.
His p Moon just entered 1 Capricorn opposite his radix Moonsign placements, close to his Midheaven, [reputation, public image, perceived place in the world] @ 3°12' Moonchild. One of the most powerful conjunctions in the radix map is the bond between Mercury and Jupiter [exalted], in conjunction. This aspect is represented by Nathaniel Hawthorne in The Miraculous Pitcher.

There are several other Gemini square Virgo aspects that occur outside the 8 degree orb usually considered applicable for such an injury incurred by Ford in London. go Harrison Ford fanpage

 

Illuminating action-adventure, Indiana Jones
and The Last Crusade

Indiana Jones [Harrison Ford]: We didn’t talk.
We never talked.
Professor Henry Jones [Sean Connery]: Do I detect a rebuke?
IJ: A regret. It was just the two of us dad. It was a lonely way to grow up, for you too. If you’d have been an ordinary, average father like the other guys dads you’d have understood that.
HJ: Actually, I was a wonderful father.
IJ: Were you?
HJ: Did I ever tell you to eat up, go to bed, wash your ears, do your homework? No. I respected your privacy and I taught you self-reliance.
IJ: What you taught me was that I was less important to you than people who’d been dead for five hundred years in another country, and I learned it so well that we’ve hardly spoken for 20 years.
HJ: You left just when you were becoming interesting.
IJ: Dad, I’ve… [sputter]
HJ: I’m here. Now. What do you want to talk about, hummm?
IJ: [laughing] I can’t think of anything!
HJ: Than what are you complaining about? Look, we have work to do!

 

 

Indiana Jones Marathon Menu
great for your next Saturday Movie Marathon

Rebel Scum Raiders comic links

 

 

 

 

Spielberg and Lucas in depth, see Energy Management #3

Club Obi Wan
Georgettes World- humour Indy and Star Wars
Making Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom
Photo - Father and Son

Lucas History Lunch
Lucas Palm and Numbers
Obi-Wan and Hal

WIZARDS
with
Professor Dumbledore ~ Professor McGonagall Main Index

 

 

…although the inspiration for the film [Raiders of the Lost Ark] originally came to George Lucas (who ended up as producer) long before Spielberg became involved in the project, it was probably the ideal material – and the ideal collaboration - for the director who stated, referring to his producer and friend, "We both see movies through youngsters’ eyes…. I don’t make intellectual movies." Spielberg is by no means childlike, however, in his determination to make it perfectly clear that his aim in making films is to provide audiences with the pure, undiluted escapism they now seem to crave almost exclusively. Certainly, no one can take Raiders of the Lost Ark to task for intellectualism (although its very clever, self-conscious toying with genre conventions might be viewed as a form of intellectualism.)

What Spielberg is trying to recreate in Raiders is not, of course, old serials themselves, but rather the excitement of watching them as a kid, an excitement that is usually considerably dampened by later viewings in mature years...

-Jean-Pierre Coursodon with Pierre Sauvage, AMERICAN DIRECTORS, VOLUME II

 

Tom Cruise, Samantha Morton, and Steven Spielberg film Minority Report,
Phillip K. Dick's plausible but dark future-shock thriller. Some tasty food for thought
about consequences that may result if we suspend vigilant discipline with regard
to our expansive left brain tech systems. When expansion of the left brain is achieved
at the expense of the right brain, cosmic adjustments usually involve the complete
dissolution of any extreme advantage achieved by either the left or the right brain.
Order and natural balance quickly return. The Shaman walks in the centre and maintains
an unaltered connection with the Great Spirit. Many Native American Indians lived over
a hundred years and never experienced a day of bad health.

Steven Spielberg comments, What little privacy we have now will be completely evaporated
in twenty or thirty years because the technology will be able to see through walls, through
roof tops, into the very privacy of our personal lives, into the sanctuaries of our families.
-The Minority Report DVD

 

 

 

 

Strider in the Wild Aragorn and Arwen
Arwen's garden Support Your Local Elf
Check out the community of Elves in Lothlorien and Rivendell, the House of Elrond

 

Kingdom of Heaven Orlando Bloom and IMDb page

 

Numbers 1 - 9 and Numbers 11, 22, & 33

 

Robin Hood in Television Series
Weyland the Smith in Oxfordshire ~ Forging the rings THE LORD OF THE RINGS production photo 'at the fire'

 

 

 

Olivier, The Boys From Brazil

The Boys from Brazil is an unusual mystery along the lines of the Odessa Files about a post World War II plot to revive world Nazism. The story begins in Peru, where a young American, Barry Kohler (Steve Guttenberg), inspired by the writings of Nazi-hunter Ezra Lieberman (Sir Laurence Olivier), has come to track down Nazis who had fled to South America after the war, and still maintain an active underground organization. Kohler has been tracking the comings and goings of various Nazis, and is surprised to see the arrival of Dr. Josef Mengele (Gregory Peck plays the evil Dr. Josef Mengele, the Nazi "Angel of Death") for some sort of summit meeting at the luxurious home of one of the Nazi leaders.

full review

 

SCHINDLER'S LIST
Iron or Mars is the last metal cleared because it is the most difficult to master and can revert faster than other ores. Adolph Hitler was unable to process Mars/Iron because he did not place the aggressive urge in the proper order. He failed to purge Iron of all dross factors and shoulder the Mars essentials. His anger, frustration, and resentment were directed at other people: the Jews, Gypsies, and Catholics. All three groups have direct links to the great lawgiver Moses, who was first a Prince of Egypt, and then the great qabbalist deliverer. The esoteric ten commandments, known as qabbalah or kabbalah, can be tracked back to Moses while he studied engineering in the Temple of Isis [as an Egyptian Prince.] Moses is directly linked with the Jews he led out of Egypt, the descendants of the religious leaders from the Temple of Serapis [the Gypsies], and the followers of Jesus, thought by many metaphysical scholars to be a qabbalist rabbi. Hitler attacked these three groups without mercy.

Because the Gypsies do not always have birth records no one can list their numbers and so we do not know how many of them were killed. There is no record of the number of pregnant women in any group because most women were led directly into gas chambers. If the actual number of men, women, children, and unborn murdered in the death camps could be known, the estimated six million people lost would probably be a conservative estimate.

Schlindler List picture

 

 

THE GREEN WAVE

Holy Well and Sacred Springs in Glastonbury

Glastonbury White Springs bring people to the mystical Isle of Avalon, in search of the Arthur Legend. A key part to the mystery of the springs is the water, a cure for cholera centuries ago. Full of historic lore and symbolism, two springs rise within feet of each other at the base of the Tor - the holy hill of Avalon - long thought of as a mythical island. One spring is white and the other red. The symbol of combined waters refers to the purified ores [white eagle, for the feminine principle, and a red lion, the masculine principle] necessary for the great work.

The Temple is home to a Brigid shrine, in honor of the Celtic Fire Goddess [flame of divine love] and guardian of sacred springs. She is both Druid and Christian Saint. The Roman Vestal Virgins, doctrinally related to Saint Bridget's Vestals in Ireland, since both maintained the eternal holy fire, exercised clever disobedience as most useful, but which turned out to be also a most dangerous form of resistance to authority. The more openly aggressive members of their Order foolishly underwent, in full view of Rome, the supreme penalty. The most intelligent beat the system, disobeyed as they pleased, and survived.

The candle at the shrine re-kindles the flame which burned for a thousand years. The Shrine of Our Lady of Avalon is to be found within the healing pool. Glastonbury has been home to such a shrine, it is said, since time before history began.
go The Green Wave and to  Stonehenge.

 

 

THE EMERALD FOREST

The Emerald Forest, directed by John Boorman
Review by David Wood here

American engineer Bill Markham [Powers Boothe] and his family just settle into a new life in Brazil, built at edge of the jungle, literally. Soon after their arrival, young Tommy, absorbed with trailing ants, follows their path into the lush green wonderland. He is quickly adopted by the Invisible People. As construction progresses over the following decade, Markham’s private life remains focused a frantic search for his lost son, to no avail. Based on a true story, there are spellbinding scenes that portray the beauty of the rainforest and the people living there. There is also the contrast between the world of wood and the world of metal.
Screenwriter Rospo Pallenberg brilliantly conveyed the two worlds in a segment showing how several construction workers disrespected the young native girls they abducted in contrast to the Invisible Tribe who gave Tommy the ‘royal’ treatment from the time of his arrival. Many critics fail to mention these subtle threads running through the story, preferring to chalk the movie up to "many clichéd scenes of frolicking in the river, courtship and coming-of-age rituals." Scenes of family life in the tribe exist in a circumspect setting within the context of the unfolding story. However, we are also introduced to the secret mysticism of the invisible people and how they maintain order in a world being deconstructed around them. A refreshing glimpse into inner, secret worlds of the shaman and mystic. Similar to the revelation of the Fremen world on the planet Dune in Frank Herbert's book/films.

 

Koyaanisqatsi

Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance directed by Godfrey Reggio

Original inspiration for this film seems to stem from script concepts we read in, "Enemy of The State" style campaigns focused on pushing National Security issues down everyone’s throat. Ads from an Institute for Regional Education privacy campaign started some machinery turning inside the skull of screenwriter Reggio who says the nature of this film "was meant to provoke… Technology is as ubiquitous as the air we breathe."

One review written by someone from a dessert landscape, who spent time with Hopi and Navajo people, seemed to pick up on the subtle subtext the film postulates:

"Over a low rumbling chant, resembling that of Hopi mudhen kachinas or Buddhist monks, that simply repeats the film's title and Phillip Glasses enigmatic score, Koyaanisqatsi invokes the basic elements in its opening sequences that shift from petroglyphs, to fiery images, to aerial shots over the mesas and red sandstone canyons of the great Southwest. Before long, mesmerizing time-lapse photos of billowing clouds shadowing the Grand Canyon, then flowing over ancient Canyon de Chelly merge with Niagara Falls and the ocean—convincing evidence of the harmony between air and water to sustain life on Earth."
Visit "Koyaanisqatsi review by CultureDose.net for full article

 

 

SWORD AND SORCERY

Click Conan for more about King Conan Crown of Iron
Arnold's Star Menu ~ a DVD review for Conan

Sarah Douglas, devilishly deadly Queen in CONAN, THE DESTROYER ~ Summer Convention news

Swords and armor made famous in film, television, literature and fantasy art from Albion
and from WETA Workshop. Also see 'Dinner at Amon Sul.'

 

MODERN ART~ The Doctor Is In, Master of the Mystic Arts, Dr. Strange ~ Ditko page ~ Marvel Universe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Lady of the Golden Wood