Here’s a wonderful bit of darkly lysergic quick-cut photo collage for “Scum of the Moon,” the new single by Berlin-based Montreal trash-punker King Khan’s side project The Black Jaspers.

Posted by the charmingly named YouTuber LSD210SCUM, this rather incredible vid captures the extreme spirit of Khan & Co.’s ditty, and is pretty fun to just watch and randomly pause. As one commenter noted, “If you watch this video three times, you’ll be declared legally insane.”

Unfortunately, there are no shots of our King’s Cannes nightclub dalliances with a certain constantly rehabbing and self-reinventing starlet, but hey, can’t have it all…
 

 
Here in England, as the phone hacking scandal continues to escalate, questions about Tony Blair, and the exact nature of his relationship to the Murdoch Family (as in Manson, or Addams), endure. Far from their ideological opponent, Blair seems to have been something of an adoptee (or even initiate)...

Blair’s own account of his relationship with Rupert Murdoch appears in his memoir, A Journey , where he writes that that he “came to have a grudging respect and even a liking” for the disgraced media tycoon.

He was hard, no doubt. He was rightwing. I did not share or like his attitudes on Europe, social policy or on issues like gay rights, but there were two points of connection: he was an outsider and he had balls.

In a recent Vogue interview, Mrs. Murdoch,  Wendi Deng , revealed that Blair became godfather to their daughter Grace in 2010, donning white robes for her baptism in the River Jordan, right where it’s thought John the Baptist first dunked Jesus Christ (Blair’s presence was omitted from the original 2010 Hello article).

An additional, equally curious detail, and one I think has yet to be considered alongside the above, is that Blair’s own youngest, little Leo (born in 2000), also had the mystical honour of being baptized in the same stretch of the Jordan (Something tells me the guests donned white robes then, too).

All of which invites two interpretations. What we have here is either one vulgar megalomaniac imitating another (perfectly possible), or this ceremony is something creepily and specifically religious. It might even be evidence of some sort of elitist religion, which is even weirder.

Of course to entertain such crazy thoughts you’d need to find a white-robed sect that was known for baptizing children in the Jordan. Hmmmm. How’s about… the Mandaeans (see below) a Gnostic sect that revere John the Baptist? That’s right, John the Baptist.

Now I don’t pretend to understand what all this means (or that it necessarily means anything at all), but anyone curious could doubtless do worse than refer to Christopher Knowles and his splendid parapolitical blog The Secret Sun (specifically here).

Otherwise, it’s just interesting to note what complete freaks run the show.
 

 

“Madwoman of the Sacred Heart.” Graphic novel by by Moebius and Jodorowsky.

On the heels of sharing The Holy Mountain with DM readers, I thought an Alejandro Jodorowsky documentary might be timely and this is a good one.

In 1994 French film maker Louis Mouchet interviewed Jodorowsky and a bunch of his friends and collaborators, including director Fernando Arrabal, Peter Gabriel, Marcel Marcea and artist Moebius.

Jodorowsky is witty and wise as he discusses his masterpieces El Topo and The Holy Mountain, his failed Dune project, the Tarot, his role as a teacher and reluctant new age guru. He’s kind of like Freud on psychotropics.

I hope you enjoy this fascinating look into the mind of a modern magician and trickster who is constantly evolving and adapting to new technologies and formulating new philosophies. 

“As soon as I define myself I’m dead.” ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky.

Alejandro Jodorowsky- Constellation 1/4 by zindabad7
 
Parts two, three and four here.

“Britney Spears and Madonna Kiss/Life is Beautiful” by Mr. Brainwash, 2008

Usually recollected (if at all) as one of the decade’s more craven publicity stunts, it now transpires that like Madonna’s recent Illuminati-themed Super Bowl half-time spectacle, Madge’s earlier 2003 MTV Video Music Awards number—where she famously kissed Britney Spears—was also, in fact, a massive, multi-leveled working of choreographed sorcery…

Such, anyhow, is the contention of many so-called “synchromystics,” an enjoyably kooky sub-sect of conspiracy theorists who seem to spend most of their time on the lookout for occult and mythical phenomena in popular culture. Imagine, if you will, a combination of David Icke and D-Listed blogger Michael K.

Based on previously unobserved details and events before, during and after the MTV performance itself –such as the thirteen step staircase in the middle of the stage and of Madonna subsequently changing her name to “Esther” (yeah I missed that too) – the revised interpretation is summed up by leading synchromystic Freeman in the footage below: “What’s actually going on here is Madonna passing on her priestess status to these two ex- Mouseketeers” (refering also to Christine Aguilera, who was involved in the proceedings as well, but is usually dismissed as a sort of symbolic decoy – it seems that the jury’s out regarding Missy Elliot’s rapping cameo, however). As likeminded blogger the Celtic Rebel puts it:

The purpose of the kiss in the ceremony was more than the passing of the ceremonial staff of Queenship; it was the sharing of saliva (i.e. DNA), symbolic of the dualities that are Isis (in this case, the Dark/Light, Evil/Good, Pure/Soiled) becoming one (an insemination of sorts).

Dig? Now, for any self-respecting synchromystic, Freeman’s Mouseketeer reference is no mere aside. To them, Disney’s in-house fame academy is a byword for mind control and degradation, where the eventual participants in these mass rituals (celebrities themselves) are selected and groomed for service to, and to become part of the so-called “priest class”... which is why Britney’s 2007 visit to Esther’s Hair Salon (not Madonna’s) to get her head shaved caused such a synchromystical stir, as Freeman and his trusty sidekick explain below, following a more detailed discussion of that kiss.

“Poor Britney” indeed…
 

 
Previously on DM: The Devil’s discotheque: Madonna’s half-time show a Satanic Ritual.

 
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo and The Holy Mountain truly define the meaning of the words “head movie.” Both films have the capacity to alter your consciousness while you’re watching them and long thereafter. Like the afterglow of a deeply profound dream, El Topo has been a part of me, shifting the gears in the soft machine of my brain, since I first saw it in 1971 at a midnight screening in Denver, Colorado when I was 19 years old. It was in every respect a spiritual experience.

Years later, when I saw The Holy Mountain the impact was less transformative than seeing El Topo, but I was still thoroughly blown away by Jodorowsky’s Technicolor alchemy. His celluloid transmission was light years ahead of its time. Made in 1973, the film’s look and attitude seem totally of the moment. Yes, it has its hippy dippy moments and goes soft in places, but overall it’s an amazing piece of film making that in its visual design - sets, costumes, symbols, color palette - is as cutting edge as anything made by contemporary directors like David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, Chan Wook-park or Gaspar Noé. The movie is breathtaking. And it looks like it cost 20 times its $750,000 budget. Amazing.

 
If you’ve never seen The Holy Mountain, I suggest you see it on the big screen. Its visual wonders should be allowed to overwhelm and engulf you.

For home viewing, THM has been released in a beautiful Blu-ray transfer that is vast improvement over the fifth-generation bootlegged VHS copies that used to circulate among hardcore fans way back in the days before Jodorowsky’s praises were being sung by Marilyn Manson and Daniel Pinchbeck.

Normally I wouldn’t steer Dangerous Minds’ readers to a YouTube upload of something as visually sumptous as The Holy Mountain, but this happens to be really nice looking. Watch it and you’ll probably want to own it in remastered form, either on DVD or Blu-ray. Consider this as a kind of introduction, a full-length teaser, a first date with someone you’ll eventually marry.

Watch in 720p for a nice hi def image. This version has English dubbing, which is unfortunate but it doesn’t really diminish the overall experience.
 

 
Vice editor Rocco Castoro interviewed the 85-year-old Magus of American cinema, Kenneth Anger at the ritzy Cicada restaurant in downtown Los Angeles:

VICE: Looking back at the films of the silent era, the way they were shot and cut make it seem like everyone was snorting massive lines right up until the director yelled, “Action!”

I find film style reflects it, particularly the Mack Sennett [the director largely responsible for the popularity of slapstick] comedies. And my research proves that they were taking cocaine. You can see a sort of hyper-influence there.

VICE: There are lots of tales that make reference to “joy powder” in Hollywood Babylon, which makes it seem as innocent as taking one of those 5-hour Energy shots. Another phrase you use in the book, in the first few pages, is the “Purple Epoch.” What is that? It sounds nice.

That was when there were very talented people who also had extravagant tastes and money. It was the 1920s, a reflection of the Jazz Age. And the Hollywood version of that was pretty wild.

VICE: Another topic you cover early on in the book is the circumstances surrounding the death of Olive Thomas, which is perhaps the first instance of “Hollywood scandal” as we know it. You write, and it’s long been rumored, that she was very fond of cocaine, which was apparently a fatal flaw when combined with alcohol and ingesting her husband Jack Pickford’s topical syphilis medication.

She was one of the earliest beautiful stars to die in grim circumstances. And so her name became associated with lurid [behavior]. Things going on in Hollywood.

VICE: Her death also seemed to pull the wool from everyone’s eyes. Olive Thomas’s image was so sweet and pure. It caused Hollywood’s reputation to snowball into something far darker than how it was previously perceived. People must have thought, “If Olive’s doing it, everyone else must be too.”

There were other ones too, like Mary Miles Minter [who was accused of murdering her lover, director William Desmond Taylor, at the height of her success]. She was a kind of version of Mary Pickford [Jack Pickford’s sister], but the great stars like Pickford were never touched. These scandals swirled around, but there were certain stars that weren’t implicated in any way by this sort of thing.

 
Pat Robertson on Feng Shui:

“You don’t wanna fool with that stuff. At best it’s demonic, at worst it’s just, it’s just superstition. Whatever it is. you don’t need it.”

Of course this is the same man who thinks strength in martial arts comes from “inhaling demon spirits.”

Tai chi is cool, though, sez Pat.
 

 
Via Joe.My.God.

 
Someone has posted the original, longer version of the Disinfo Nation (as the show was called in the UK) episode with my Grant Morrison interview from 2000. This is quite a bit longer than what appeared on the DVD and has some extended clips from Grant’s epic speech at the DisinfoCon. If this is the first time—or one of them—where he told the story of his “alien abduction” experience, I’d imagine that he’s really sick of recounting this tale by now!

When the second series of the show was originally transmitted, I was as pleased as pleased could be that the legal department at Channel 4 let the segment fly without any comments where Grant describes Austin Osman Spare’s theory of sigil magick. To get something like that on network television was a real coup for higher revolutionary mutation, I’d like to think…

The interview was taped at the Standard Hotel in Hollywood. We started on the balcony, but they made us go inside. Those are Andy Warhol print curtains behind Grant, btw.

There’s also a short segment about “The Picture” an amazing drawing/assemblage piece by artist Howard Hallis. Hallis didn’t finish the work until ten years later, when it was first exhibited at La Luz de Jesus gallery in Los Angeles in 2011 as “The Picture of Everything.” It was already a masterpiece back in 2000, and now it’s 5x more detailed and elaborate. Part II is here.
 

RAW by Bobby Campbell

I was actually in attendance at this talk, held at The Prophets Conference, a New Age confab held in various cities about fifteen years ago. This one was held in Palm Springs in mid-December of 2000. I wrote about it a bit on Boing Boing, in my contribution to their Robert Anton Wilson week:

The RAW fans contingent in Palm Springs were totally distinct from everyone else present (goths and cyberpunk vs New Agey senior citizens who wanted to hear about Pleiadian prophecy and 2012 Mayan stuff, which Bob just hated). Bob got really ripped on hard alcohol before his talk and swore like a sailor, which seemed to deeply offend the organizers of the event. We ended up hanging out in his hotel suite, smoking pot. A young guy had given him a bag of these black psilocybin mushrooms which he’d managed to smuggle into America from Ireland, which Bob didn’t really seem to want and gave to me (my god were they strong). It was in Palm Springs that I got to see firsthand how bad his post-polio syndrome had gotten. He was getting pretty wobbly on his feet, but this did not seem to dampen his enthusiasm in the least for copious amounts of Marlboro reds, whiskey and weed.

Mentally he was certainly as sharp as ever, that never changed, but his health seemed to go downhill quite fast in the years I knew him. The aforementioned “enthusiasms” were often consumed with rapacious gusto for a man of his age and he once revealed to me that since nearly everyone who he had ever loved in his life was already dead, he was going to smoke as many cigarettes and pound back as much Scotch as he damn well pleased. Bob’s your uncle!

Read more of Wilson and I, by Richard Metzger (Boing Boing)

I’m not sure how ripped Bob appears to be in the video, because he could hold his liquor pretty well, but trust me, he was fuckin’ bombed
 

 
Northwest Film Forum in Seattle presents: Magick in Cinema with Brian Butler this Thursday night featuring some rarely seen occult-themed films. The films will be followed by a lecture and ritual performance by Butler.

Films include Brian Butler’s “Night of Pan” (2009), “Death Posture” (2011) and his latest “Union of Opposites” (2012);  Kenneth Anger’s documentation of the paintings of Aleister Crowley “Brush of Baphomet” (2009); Ira Cohen’s “The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda” (1968); Harry Smith’s “No. 11: Mirror Animations” (1979); and Curtis Harrington seldom-seen visual poem about Marjorie Cameron, Wormwood Star (1955), where you can see dozens of her amazing paintings, most which she sadly destroyed.

Brian Butler’s films have screened at the Tate Modern and the Cannes Film Festival. He recently had his first solo exhibition in Los Angeles at LA ART and performed in collaboration with Kenneth Anger at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA).
 The Seattle event is co-presented by the Esoteric Book Conference.

Magick in Cinema with Brian Butler, Thursday, 7:00 pm April 5th
Northwest Film Forum 1515 12th Ave. E. Seattle Tickets are available at www.nwfilmforum.org or by calling 1-800–838-3006

Below, an excerpt from Butler’s “Night of Pan” short: