I've just come back from "The Dark Knight," and I'm still trying to marshall my thoughts on it - along with that, I'm working on a "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" review, and I'm going back and taking a fine toothed comb to my "Happy Feet" review (which is the reason for its absence), giving it a more legitimate feel in place of the almost stream-of-rambling-consciousness that sits there at the moment, which will include Yar Habnegnal's analysis.
As far as "The Dark Knight" goes, I can say that none of the buzz has been undeserved. This is a balls-out masterpiece of a film, and along with "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Happy Feet," has currently earned a place in my top five - I'm still kind of giddy.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Addendum to the previous post
"This wasn't what we talked about, man!""An Antarctic fur seal has been observed trying to have sex with a king penguin.
The South African-based scientists who witnessed the incident say it is the most unusual case of mammal mating behaviour yet known.
The South African-based scientists who witnessed the incident say it is the most unusual case of mammal mating behaviour yet known.
The incident, which lasted for 45 minutes and was caught on camera, is reported in the Journal of Ethology. The bizarre event took place on a beach on Marion Island, a sub-Antarctic island that is home to both fur seals and king penguins.
Why the seal attempted to have sex with the penguin is unclear. But the scientists who photographed the event speculate that it was the behaviour of a frustrated, sexually inexperienced young male seal. Equally, it might have been an aggressive, predatory act; or even a playful one that turned sexual.
"At first glimpse, we thought the seal was killing the penguin," says Nico de Bruyn, of the Mammal Research Institute at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.
"At first glimpse, we thought the seal was killing the penguin," says Nico de Bruyn, of the Mammal Research Institute at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.
Pinniped behaviour
The brazenness of the seal's behaviour left those who saw it in no doubt as to what was happening. De Bruyn and a colleague were on Trypot beach at Marion Island to study elephant seals when they noticed a young, adult male Antarctic fur seal, in good condition, attempting to copulate with an adult king penguin of unknown sex. The 100kg seal first subdued the 15kg penguin by lying on it. The penguin flapped its flippers and attempted to stand and escape - but to no avail.
The seal may have been frustrated in its attempts to find a partner
The seal then alternated between resting on the penguin, and thrusting its pelvis, trying to insert itself, unsuccessfully.
After 45 minutes the seal gave up, swam into the water and then completely ignored the bird it had just assaulted, the scientists report. Why a fur seal would indulge in such extreme sexual behaviour is unclear.
Sexual coercion among animals is extremely common: males of many species often harass, coerce or force females of their own kind to mate, while animals are also known occasionally to harass sexually a member of a closely related species.
Harassment is common among pinnipeds, the group of animals that includes seals, fur seals, and sea lions; and occasionally it happens between related species. Male grey seals have been known to harass and mate with female harbour seals, for example, producing hybrids.
"Sexual harassment is often more commonplace in non-monogamous mating systems, and in species where males are physically much larger than the other sex and thus physically capable of coercion or harassment," says de Bruyn.
But this is thought to be the first recorded example of a mammal trying to have sex with a member of another class of vertebrate, such as a bird, fish, reptile, or amphibian.
'Too young'
Chinstrap penguins occasionally indulge in homosexual behaviour, and adelie penguins sometimes "prostitute" themselves to get stones for nest-building; while one in seven emperor penguins will change partners from one year to the next. But generally, king penguins lead straightforward sex lives: males and females pair up for years on end.
Marion Island is the only place in the world where Antarctic fur seals are known to hunt king penguins on land, so the idea that the fur seal was trying to eat the object of its attention made sense.
"But then we realised that the seal's intentions were rather more amorous."
The researchers speculate that the male seal was too young to win access to female seals, and in a state of sexual excitement, looked elsewhere.
But the mating season was nearly over when the incident took place, leading the scientists to also wonder whether the seal's natural predatory aggression toward the bird became redirected into sexual arousal. Equally, the incident may have arisen because the seal was "play-mating".
"It was most certainly a once-off and has never previously or since been recorded anywhere in the world to our knowledge," says de Bruyn.
The penguin did not appear to have been injured by the seal, the scientists report."
Marion Island is the only place in the world where Antarctic fur seals are known to hunt king penguins on land, so the idea that the fur seal was trying to eat the object of its attention made sense.
"But then we realised that the seal's intentions were rather more amorous."
The researchers speculate that the male seal was too young to win access to female seals, and in a state of sexual excitement, looked elsewhere.
But the mating season was nearly over when the incident took place, leading the scientists to also wonder whether the seal's natural predatory aggression toward the bird became redirected into sexual arousal. Equally, the incident may have arisen because the seal was "play-mating".
"It was most certainly a once-off and has never previously or since been recorded anywhere in the world to our knowledge," says de Bruyn.
The penguin did not appear to have been injured by the seal, the scientists report."
After the penguin was sure the seal was out of sight, it dashed towards the water and began scrubbing furiously at its feathers - but, no matter how hard he tried, he could not get the smell of patchouli and ass out.
New findings somewhat validate interspecies sexual relations. Kentuckians and furries everywhere take to the streets.
All silliness aside for a moment - boi-oi-oi-oi-oing."The act of mating with a species other than your own may not be as ill advised or peculiar as it seems.
Recent research indicates that hybridization is not only widespread in nature but it might also spawn many more new species than previously thought.
A growing number of studies has been presented as evidence that two animal species can combine to produce a third, sexually viable species in a process known as hybrid speciation. Newly identified examples include both insects and fish.
This evolutionary process, while known to be common in plants, has long been considered extremely rare among animals.
Animals are generally thought to evolve the opposite way, when a single species gradually splits into two over many generations. But some scientists now believe that the behavior that has been called animals' sexual blunders could be an important force in their evolution.
"Given the fact there have been several reported cases of hybrid speciation in animals, I think it's possible that's just the tip of the iceberg," said biologist James Mallet of University College London in the United Kingdom.
Mallet said that advances in technologies for decoding genes are only now giving scientists the opportunity to make such discoveries.
Hybrid-formed species are usually extremely difficult to detect because of their close physical resemblance to their parent species, he said. But today scientists are able to collect the detailed molecular data needed to identify previously unrecognized hybrids.
Fast Evolving Groups
Plenty of opportunities exist for hybrid species to emerge, especially among diverse and fast-evolving groups of animals, Mallet said. "In the past people have often viewed hybridization as a mistake," Mallet said. "But this is probably not an unnatural phenomenon."
And, he said, "sex with another species may be very occasionally quite a good idea."
Hybridization can increase genetic variability within a population, perhaps offering adaptations particularly suited to new or altered environments.
"It might be worth throwing the dice every now and then to try for something really weird and see if it works out," he said. Occasionally the act produces sexually fertile hybrids that may have the opportunity to evolve into separate species.
This process in animals involves so-called homoploid speciation, in which the hybrid offspring's DNA is packaged into the same number of chromosomes as the parents' (get a genetics overview).
Homoploid speciation has traditionally been seen as unlikely, because the hybrid could easily breed with its parent species and thus not evolve into its own genetically distinct creature.
But recently identified examples suggest how hybrid species might be able to give themselves room to develop separately. Last year a team led by Jesus Mavarez of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute published details about a hybrid butterfly species from Venezuela and Colombia that appears to use several tactics to isolate itself.
The hybrid butterfly, Heliconius heurippa, inherited yellow wing markings from one parent species and red from the other. The study team found that both wing colors where needed to attract a mate, so the butterfly tended to breed only with its own kind.
The hybrid insect was also found to live at a slightly higher altitude than either of its two parent species. And the butterfly's caterpillar appears to prefer different plants as food.
Another study reported in 2005 indicated that a hybrid fruit fly from the northeastern United States had made a distinct niche for itself by basing its lifecycle around a non-native plant, the honeysuckle.
Likewise, a hybrid sculpin fish discovered in Germany appears to have put evolutionary distance between itself and its forebears by inhabiting muddy canal waters that don't suit its parent species. Mallet said such examples suggest that "the weight of evidence is in favor of hybrid speciation being reasonably common."
But as Mallet himself admits other scientists are far more cautious. Critics say that the likelihood of a hybrid establishing in reproductive isolation from its parents is very low, and that hybrids form less than 0.1 percent of animal populations. Given this low number, animal hybrid species are likely to always be rare no matter how sophisticated or exhaustive the genetic analysis is.
More examples may emerge, skeptics add, but these are likely to be the exceptions and not the rule."
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/03/070314-hybrids.html
"Watchmen" trailer finally released - comic book collective breathes a giant sigh of release (as a result, global temperature rises seventy degrees)
I came, repeatedly. Everything just looks so pitch perfect here - every scene is recognizable to those who've read the book. I don't even have a problem with the changes in costumes, as the reason given is actually pretty clever, and there's real meaning behind it. It's not just "Batman would totally need armor, because that's how Batman works - he comes at his enemies like a SWAT team."
Now, my computer is ass. It really is. It's ass-to-mouth-to-ass again. So, I can't embed the video from Youtube, but honestly, it's better that way. This one needs to be seen in high def - so, head over to Apple Trailers, and watch it, 'foo.
Then, when you've changed your pants, watch it again. Repeat.
Christian Bale accused of Assault - Witnesses report hearing him scream "Quiet, or papa spank!" several times
"MAKE ME A SAMMICH, WOMAN!" COPS allowed Batman star Christian Bale to attend the biggest film premiere of the summer last night — despite him being accused of assault.
Bale, 34, faces questioning over the claim — made by his own mother and sister. But he was able to attend the first European screening of new Batman blockbuster The Dark Knight in London’s West End. He is alleged to have lashed out on Sunday night at Park Lane’s Dorchester Hotel — where he has a suite. Mum Jenny, 61, and sister Sharon, 40, who lives in Dorset, went to a police station in Hampshire yesterday to lodge the allegation. The matter was referred to the Met Police. Detectives, well aware of last night’s glittering bash, took the decision not to approach Bale yesterday. But they are expected to make attempts to quiz the Wales-born actor today. A source said: “It was a very difficult situation but it would have been wrong to have wrecked the premiere over a complaint which we don’t yet know is founded in truth. “But Mr Bale will be contacted at the earliest opportunity and be asked to provide an account of anything that happened.” A Met Police spokesman said: “We can confirm we have received allegation from another force in relation to an alleged incident in central London.” The allegation is the latest drama to surround the film. In January Heath Ledger, who plays arch-villain The Joker, died from an accidental drugs overdose aged just 28. And a special-effects technician was killed last September in a stunt car accident.Source: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1453926.ece
Monday, June 2, 2008
Dr. Jimmy Slyde, 81, passes on
The Tap Heritage Foundation has announced the passing of Dr. Slyde on the 16th of May. I wasn't even aware of his passing until about an hour ago. This man was one of my idols, for his technique, and for his spirit - he will be greatly missed.
Jimmy Slyde dances at the White House, alongside Savion Glover -
Jimmy Slyde alongside Sammy Davis, and (I believe) Fayard Nicholas, among others -
Jimmy Slyde dances at the White House, alongside Savion Glover -
Jimmy Slyde alongside Sammy Davis, and (I believe) Fayard Nicholas, among others -
Sunday, May 4, 2008
So, the new TDK trailer is out
- and, well, I think I can sum up the collective response from the majority of fans all over the internet. Hold on a sec.
Now, I do have a few contentions - the fact that Batman's cape is apparently stored in some sort of Batpack, and the Joker's makeup is always going to get me a little (my problems with the new Batsuit are well known already), but honestly? I did a backflip after watching this for the first time, a week ago, on a shitty bootleg cam.
Every time The Joker's on-screen, I almost screamed like a schoolgirl, in a completely hetero-way. He's just absolutely perfect, performance wise - and the same goes for the rest of the cast, from what I saw.
I'm kind of glad I didn't see this with Iron Man - the nerdout I would've had right there in the theatre would've been embarrassing.
For those of you who haven't seen it yet (and what's wrong with you?), here it is:
Now, I do have a few contentions - the fact that Batman's cape is apparently stored in some sort of Batpack, and the Joker's makeup is always going to get me a little (my problems with the new Batsuit are well known already), but honestly? I did a backflip after watching this for the first time, a week ago, on a shitty bootleg cam.
Every time The Joker's on-screen, I almost screamed like a schoolgirl, in a completely hetero-way. He's just absolutely perfect, performance wise - and the same goes for the rest of the cast, from what I saw.
I'm kind of glad I didn't see this with Iron Man - the nerdout I would've had right there in the theatre would've been embarrassing.
For those of you who haven't seen it yet (and what's wrong with you?), here it is:
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Metaphors in Happy Feet - Various interpretations from different reviewers
NOTES - Metaphors in Happy Feet - Various interpretations from different reviewers
- - - -
"The script has the clever idea of interpreting the penguins’ encounters with human civilization in terms of an analogue for alien abduction. It makes for an appealingly intelligent metaphor – a penguin with a tracking tag on its leg is seen as an abductee; the remains of a mining base as alien artefacts; and in one scene the image of an icebreaker moving through the fog becomes something akin to the mothership of lights from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). There’s a completely lovely scene where Mumble is placed in a zoo and sees himself surrounded by a wall of human faces (which all come with an extraordinary degree of photographic realism). "
- - - -
"Mumble refuses to acquiesce to this kind of misology (he blames the fish recession on aliens, thusly discredited as a wild conspiracy theorist)."
- - - -
"The first time around, I too wondered why the humans would assume that a dancing penguin equals "we need to stop overfishing the seas." Best guess is that Mumble taught them while they were studying him. No fish, I curl up into a ball. If you feed me, I dance. Therefore when all the penguins danced, it said Feed Me. We hope.
Having said that, the odds that someone actually would release a dancing penguin if they found one are slim. Too many people would try to make money off it like Michigan J. Frog.
There definitely are religious themes in this film: theodicy, sincerity, sincere people being sincerely wrong, inflexibility as a hindrance to growth, and "rejoice without ceasing" in the face of suffering.
I've heard a lot of complaints about how most of the "denominations" illustrated were portrayed, but it's more complex than merely "Lovelace the con man" or "Noah the narrow-minded control freak." Noah and the elders remind me of Stiff Tail of Uhura's Song, with the difference that Noah denied the situation out of honest ignorance. That makes the Elders a (slightly) more sympathetic bunch, since there's nothing wrong with their faith or their ancient wisdoms. The Wisdoms have kept their people warm and safe. They simply had nothing in their background to account for a new invasive species called Man. (Penguins are still largely innocent of us, as humans only discovered the last continent a few hundred years ago.)
Mumble/Mambo is not a true Christ figure. Rather, he plays a sort of prophet role. His elders assume that Mumble has brought a curse upon their land; it never occurs to them that the Great Guin, if it is a penguin deity worth following, already knows their suffering and what to do about it. How do the penguins know whether Mumble (like Queen Esther) might not have been sent for just such a time as this?
Memphis is actually a reasonable choice for the Guin to entrust this unusual child, since Memphis, a reckless fellow in his younger days, figured that he was hardly in a position to judge. As long as Mumble's "happy feet" remained a secret, he wasn't going to send the child away. Now, when Memphis got caught, he made his relationship with his child conditional. (Fortunately Mumble was grown by now, so it wouldn't hurt him physically.) His horror at feeling he had to choose between his religion and his son was subtly portrayed, and mostly believable. We could say he "got true religion" when he realized that it begins at home. "There ain't been one day, not one day, that I done right by you." That part was heartfelt, but it shows how his grief overshadowed the (fewer) good things he did: his son grew up warm and fed and as safe as anyone could be. People aren't all one thing or the other, but a mixture. Isn't that why we have to choose?
Norma "Marilyn Monroe" Jean's unwavering loyalty to her son is touching; I don't know if the real Marilyn was given a similar role.
The Adelie Amigos also showed iron loyalty. They came across as immature and lazy around the female penguins (refusing the grown-up role of building the nest), but they probably saved Mumble and Lovelace's lives in the blizzard country. They also honored Mumble's request to watch over his mother -- a particular comfort to him since it turned out Mumble's dad had lost his way and Norma Jean would have been totally alone without "her boys.""
- - - -
"When Mumble is brought to the zoo, he is practically losing his mind and his will to live. But while doing a playful tapdance in response to the little girl tapping on the glass, he creates a human fascination with this newfound "gimmick". The result, after much debate amongst humans, is to send a team down to Antarctica to witness the penguins and find ways to help them get the fish supply back to normal. The last scene is of the penguins and humans dancing and celebrating together. Isn't that a happy ending? Well, in my opinion, no. I think the film is suggesting that while it's great that the humans used their power for good at the end, would they have done anything at all if not for the unique gift possessed by Mumble? Why did it take a celebrity penguin to get humans to act at all? Furthermore, I think the ending is actually a bittersweet scene. After seeing the dark side of human overindulgence, all of the sudden we see this miraculous tapping into our good nature and we save the penguins. And though this scene is a wonderful celebration of what could be if we would only take better care of the natural world, it becomes bitter because we know all too well that humans aren't likely to cooperate with the natural world to that extent. In other words, I felt the last scene teased us with a glimpse of utopia - humans and animals cooperating for the good of all - but we don't live in utopia, and with the exception of small pockets we are not treating the natural world with respect. Perhaps the last scene is a glimpse of what heaven will be like, with humans and animals enjoying each other and celebrating the end of the competition for survival."
"And the Dancing Fool returns to Emperor Land transformed into a Hero. Mumble is a Truth Seeker."
- - - - -
"Well, to each his own, I guess, but I think all the criticisms of "heaviness" are kind of sad. First of all, the issue IS that heavy -- actually far MORESO but this isn't the politics forum so I won't get into it. Second, that heaviness makes for great drama. Once they find out Lovelace is being choked by the can-holder it starts to build, and gets heavier and heavier until it culminates in a moment of down-right despair when Mumble bangs his head on the wall at the penguin pen.
That kind of despair is what creates such a touching moment when the little girl and Mumble connect and things spiral back to a happy ending. Humans aren't just heartless, mass-fish-consuming "annihilators" -- we are also empathetic and able to change for selfless reasons.
You may say, "Hey, I don't go to a cartoon to see that kind of thing" - but maybe you should. What is it you want - a movie like "Cars" that gives you a nice comfortable little jerk-off and then you forget about it the next day? A movie that allows you to leave your heart and brain in the car when you walk in the theater. In that case, you really ought to see Tray Parker's new movie "Idiopolis" to see where our culture is headed.
For me, I want drama. I want movies to engage my brain and my emotions, animated or no. And as for this being a kids' movie, I don't really think it exactly was -- and if kids see it and based on that decide not to eat seafood because the fishing industry is EEEEEVIL, what the heck is wrong with that? It's true!!! God forbid we actually get a little education with our all-important ENTERTAINMENT.
Beg pardon. I'm lousy with names -- I tend to focus more on the message. Point is what it is though.
Kate.lin, your English seems pretty darn great to me. I'd be hard pressed to express what you did in Chinese!
I haven't seen any films by the director you mentioned, but will have a look.
As for your criticism of naivety and schism within the film, well, it's a subjective consideration, but I didn't see it that way. I thought it was a rather subtle play on the theme of humans as merciless and technologically-advanced aliens from the perspective of an isolated species -- which ultimately transforms via the main character's perseverence in trying to communicate with us into a more benign "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". This theme gets brought in right off with the initial outer space shot that focusses in on first Earth, then Antarctica. We have a sort of space/Earth; Earth/Antarctica parallelism there that sets the stage for the dynamic that will be developed. Very quickly, it is more concretely manifested with the sea-gull's story of alien abduction, and it plays out from there.
What you guys saw as a giant Greenpeace sign (when the fishing trauler is first seen by the penguins), I saw as the citizens of New York and LA looking up at the giant alien ships enveloping their entire cities in shadow in "Independence Day". They are getting their first "real" view of the "annihilators" that have been described to them. (When you consider the methods employed by the fishing industry these days - drift-nets, bottom-trauling, 2-mile-line fishing and so on to catch an ever-dwindling supply of sea-life for the bottomless stomachs of nations like Japan and China, I think the depiction is accurate).
This portrayal is tempered, however, by the child at the zoo, who, unlike the headless adults, is able to make a connection that establishes communication through Mumble's quirky method of self-expression. (Come to think of it, this aspect calls to mind the children in this story, who kept craning their necks to see the virtuoso violinist as their parents pressed on, headlong and headless.)
The "second part" of the movie is not just about environmentalism, it's about Mumble's not backing down -- neither to his own kind, nor to an alien menace, nor to the mind-numbingly huge distance that separates them (That distance, and the isolation it creates, is the reason that penguins were the proper casting choice for this movie - although admittedly they have been kind of trendy ever since "Madagascar"). Moreover, this portion of the movie - as in "Close Encounters" - is about establishing communication when words or voices fail.
I think when we get down to it, what makes people uncomfortable about this movie is not "heaviness", but that it portrays all-too-accurately our race as it would initially be perceived by a species that first came into contact with us. With the whole "self-esteem" movement in education and Doctor Spock in parenting, feeling guilty is definitely "out" these days -- "Don't preach to me" is everybody's slogan -- whether they need preaching or not."
- - - -
"The point in Happy Feet at which the adult viewership laughs in unison, while the kids smile obliviously, is precisely at the moment at which Mumble’s salvation plan succeeds. The sight of heads of state and UN ambassadors angrily demanding an immediate removal of the threat to the penguins’ existence is, surely, supposed to be comical, because we adults know how unreal is the prospect.
That is Happy Feet’s equal-best political joke. The second is the fact that the penguins can only survive because they function as a specific example of how non-humans might titillate humans: that, in short, humanity is too stupid to cope with the idea of animal rights, environmentalism, or whatever we wish to call it. Is the sight of the penguin tribe desperately submitting to the necessity of pragmatically tap-dancing not the most upsettingly pathetic spectacle? Mumble’s political genius does not come from overturning the false traditions of Guin-worship, but in recognising that the penguins’ true masters are not gods, but men. Our hero exposes the materialist basis of his people’s subservience, but only so they might submit to its permanence and invincibility. At the very moment the penguins are liberated from superstition, they are enslaved to reality. I ask you: are the penguins really “freed” to dance, when the alternative is death? These “happy feet” are the most dialectical of symbols.
If Happy Feet has to be attributed a “radical” political force, then, said force does not come from advocating a policy of Mumble-mimicry, but from flagging up the two key obstacles to genuine environmental reform: the intransigence of world leaders (alluded to by comic inversion) and the narrowmindedness of popular conceptions (represented by humanity’s pathetic motive: the novelty of the spectacle). The fact that these problems seem to be alluded to intentionally (though probably not so seriously) is a credit to the film-makers."
- - - -
"The script has the clever idea of interpreting the penguins’ encounters with human civilization in terms of an analogue for alien abduction. It makes for an appealingly intelligent metaphor – a penguin with a tracking tag on its leg is seen as an abductee; the remains of a mining base as alien artefacts; and in one scene the image of an icebreaker moving through the fog becomes something akin to the mothership of lights from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). There’s a completely lovely scene where Mumble is placed in a zoo and sees himself surrounded by a wall of human faces (which all come with an extraordinary degree of photographic realism). "
- - - -
"Mumble refuses to acquiesce to this kind of misology (he blames the fish recession on aliens, thusly discredited as a wild conspiracy theorist)."
- - - -
"The first time around, I too wondered why the humans would assume that a dancing penguin equals "we need to stop overfishing the seas." Best guess is that Mumble taught them while they were studying him. No fish, I curl up into a ball. If you feed me, I dance. Therefore when all the penguins danced, it said Feed Me. We hope.
Having said that, the odds that someone actually would release a dancing penguin if they found one are slim. Too many people would try to make money off it like Michigan J. Frog.
There definitely are religious themes in this film: theodicy, sincerity, sincere people being sincerely wrong, inflexibility as a hindrance to growth, and "rejoice without ceasing" in the face of suffering.
I've heard a lot of complaints about how most of the "denominations" illustrated were portrayed, but it's more complex than merely "Lovelace the con man" or "Noah the narrow-minded control freak." Noah and the elders remind me of Stiff Tail of Uhura's Song, with the difference that Noah denied the situation out of honest ignorance. That makes the Elders a (slightly) more sympathetic bunch, since there's nothing wrong with their faith or their ancient wisdoms. The Wisdoms have kept their people warm and safe. They simply had nothing in their background to account for a new invasive species called Man. (Penguins are still largely innocent of us, as humans only discovered the last continent a few hundred years ago.)
Mumble/Mambo is not a true Christ figure. Rather, he plays a sort of prophet role. His elders assume that Mumble has brought a curse upon their land; it never occurs to them that the Great Guin, if it is a penguin deity worth following, already knows their suffering and what to do about it. How do the penguins know whether Mumble (like Queen Esther) might not have been sent for just such a time as this?
Memphis is actually a reasonable choice for the Guin to entrust this unusual child, since Memphis, a reckless fellow in his younger days, figured that he was hardly in a position to judge. As long as Mumble's "happy feet" remained a secret, he wasn't going to send the child away. Now, when Memphis got caught, he made his relationship with his child conditional. (Fortunately Mumble was grown by now, so it wouldn't hurt him physically.) His horror at feeling he had to choose between his religion and his son was subtly portrayed, and mostly believable. We could say he "got true religion" when he realized that it begins at home. "There ain't been one day, not one day, that I done right by you." That part was heartfelt, but it shows how his grief overshadowed the (fewer) good things he did: his son grew up warm and fed and as safe as anyone could be. People aren't all one thing or the other, but a mixture. Isn't that why we have to choose?
Norma "Marilyn Monroe" Jean's unwavering loyalty to her son is touching; I don't know if the real Marilyn was given a similar role.
The Adelie Amigos also showed iron loyalty. They came across as immature and lazy around the female penguins (refusing the grown-up role of building the nest), but they probably saved Mumble and Lovelace's lives in the blizzard country. They also honored Mumble's request to watch over his mother -- a particular comfort to him since it turned out Mumble's dad had lost his way and Norma Jean would have been totally alone without "her boys.""
- - - -
"When Mumble is brought to the zoo, he is practically losing his mind and his will to live. But while doing a playful tapdance in response to the little girl tapping on the glass, he creates a human fascination with this newfound "gimmick". The result, after much debate amongst humans, is to send a team down to Antarctica to witness the penguins and find ways to help them get the fish supply back to normal. The last scene is of the penguins and humans dancing and celebrating together. Isn't that a happy ending? Well, in my opinion, no. I think the film is suggesting that while it's great that the humans used their power for good at the end, would they have done anything at all if not for the unique gift possessed by Mumble? Why did it take a celebrity penguin to get humans to act at all? Furthermore, I think the ending is actually a bittersweet scene. After seeing the dark side of human overindulgence, all of the sudden we see this miraculous tapping into our good nature and we save the penguins. And though this scene is a wonderful celebration of what could be if we would only take better care of the natural world, it becomes bitter because we know all too well that humans aren't likely to cooperate with the natural world to that extent. In other words, I felt the last scene teased us with a glimpse of utopia - humans and animals cooperating for the good of all - but we don't live in utopia, and with the exception of small pockets we are not treating the natural world with respect. Perhaps the last scene is a glimpse of what heaven will be like, with humans and animals enjoying each other and celebrating the end of the competition for survival."
"And the Dancing Fool returns to Emperor Land transformed into a Hero. Mumble is a Truth Seeker."
- - - - -
"Well, to each his own, I guess, but I think all the criticisms of "heaviness" are kind of sad. First of all, the issue IS that heavy -- actually far MORESO but this isn't the politics forum so I won't get into it. Second, that heaviness makes for great drama. Once they find out Lovelace is being choked by the can-holder it starts to build, and gets heavier and heavier until it culminates in a moment of down-right despair when Mumble bangs his head on the wall at the penguin pen.
That kind of despair is what creates such a touching moment when the little girl and Mumble connect and things spiral back to a happy ending. Humans aren't just heartless, mass-fish-consuming "annihilators" -- we are also empathetic and able to change for selfless reasons.
You may say, "Hey, I don't go to a cartoon to see that kind of thing" - but maybe you should. What is it you want - a movie like "Cars" that gives you a nice comfortable little jerk-off and then you forget about it the next day? A movie that allows you to leave your heart and brain in the car when you walk in the theater. In that case, you really ought to see Tray Parker's new movie "Idiopolis" to see where our culture is headed.
For me, I want drama. I want movies to engage my brain and my emotions, animated or no. And as for this being a kids' movie, I don't really think it exactly was -- and if kids see it and based on that decide not to eat seafood because the fishing industry is EEEEEVIL, what the heck is wrong with that? It's true!!! God forbid we actually get a little education with our all-important ENTERTAINMENT.
Beg pardon. I'm lousy with names -- I tend to focus more on the message. Point is what it is though.
Kate.lin, your English seems pretty darn great to me. I'd be hard pressed to express what you did in Chinese!
I haven't seen any films by the director you mentioned, but will have a look.
As for your criticism of naivety and schism within the film, well, it's a subjective consideration, but I didn't see it that way. I thought it was a rather subtle play on the theme of humans as merciless and technologically-advanced aliens from the perspective of an isolated species -- which ultimately transforms via the main character's perseverence in trying to communicate with us into a more benign "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". This theme gets brought in right off with the initial outer space shot that focusses in on first Earth, then Antarctica. We have a sort of space/Earth; Earth/Antarctica parallelism there that sets the stage for the dynamic that will be developed. Very quickly, it is more concretely manifested with the sea-gull's story of alien abduction, and it plays out from there.
What you guys saw as a giant Greenpeace sign (when the fishing trauler is first seen by the penguins), I saw as the citizens of New York and LA looking up at the giant alien ships enveloping their entire cities in shadow in "Independence Day". They are getting their first "real" view of the "annihilators" that have been described to them. (When you consider the methods employed by the fishing industry these days - drift-nets, bottom-trauling, 2-mile-line fishing and so on to catch an ever-dwindling supply of sea-life for the bottomless stomachs of nations like Japan and China, I think the depiction is accurate).
This portrayal is tempered, however, by the child at the zoo, who, unlike the headless adults, is able to make a connection that establishes communication through Mumble's quirky method of self-expression. (Come to think of it, this aspect calls to mind the children in this story, who kept craning their necks to see the virtuoso violinist as their parents pressed on, headlong and headless.)
The "second part" of the movie is not just about environmentalism, it's about Mumble's not backing down -- neither to his own kind, nor to an alien menace, nor to the mind-numbingly huge distance that separates them (That distance, and the isolation it creates, is the reason that penguins were the proper casting choice for this movie - although admittedly they have been kind of trendy ever since "Madagascar"). Moreover, this portion of the movie - as in "Close Encounters" - is about establishing communication when words or voices fail.
I think when we get down to it, what makes people uncomfortable about this movie is not "heaviness", but that it portrays all-too-accurately our race as it would initially be perceived by a species that first came into contact with us. With the whole "self-esteem" movement in education and Doctor Spock in parenting, feeling guilty is definitely "out" these days -- "Don't preach to me" is everybody's slogan -- whether they need preaching or not."
- - - -
"The point in Happy Feet at which the adult viewership laughs in unison, while the kids smile obliviously, is precisely at the moment at which Mumble’s salvation plan succeeds. The sight of heads of state and UN ambassadors angrily demanding an immediate removal of the threat to the penguins’ existence is, surely, supposed to be comical, because we adults know how unreal is the prospect.
That is Happy Feet’s equal-best political joke. The second is the fact that the penguins can only survive because they function as a specific example of how non-humans might titillate humans: that, in short, humanity is too stupid to cope with the idea of animal rights, environmentalism, or whatever we wish to call it. Is the sight of the penguin tribe desperately submitting to the necessity of pragmatically tap-dancing not the most upsettingly pathetic spectacle? Mumble’s political genius does not come from overturning the false traditions of Guin-worship, but in recognising that the penguins’ true masters are not gods, but men. Our hero exposes the materialist basis of his people’s subservience, but only so they might submit to its permanence and invincibility. At the very moment the penguins are liberated from superstition, they are enslaved to reality. I ask you: are the penguins really “freed” to dance, when the alternative is death? These “happy feet” are the most dialectical of symbols.
If Happy Feet has to be attributed a “radical” political force, then, said force does not come from advocating a policy of Mumble-mimicry, but from flagging up the two key obstacles to genuine environmental reform: the intransigence of world leaders (alluded to by comic inversion) and the narrowmindedness of popular conceptions (represented by humanity’s pathetic motive: the novelty of the spectacle). The fact that these problems seem to be alluded to intentionally (though probably not so seriously) is a credit to the film-makers."
Metaphors in Happy Feet - Various interpretations from different reviewers
NOTES - Metaphors in Happy Feet - Various interpretations from different reviewers
- - - -
"The script has the clever idea of interpreting the penguins’ encounters with human civilization in terms of an analogue for alien abduction. It makes for an appealingly intelligent metaphor – a penguin with a tracking tag on its leg is seen as an abductee; the remains of a mining base as alien artefacts; and in one scene the image of an icebreaker moving through the fog becomes something akin to the mothership of lights from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). There’s a completely lovely scene where Mumble is placed in a zoo and sees himself surrounded by a wall of human faces (which all come with an extraordinary degree of photographic realism). "
- - - -
"Mumble refuses to acquiesce to this kind of misology (he blames the fish recession on aliens, thusly discredited as a wild conspiracy theorist)."
- - - -
"The first time around, I too wondered why the humans would assume that a dancing penguin equals "we need to stop overfishing the seas." Best guess is that Mumble taught them while they were studying him. No fish, I curl up into a ball. If you feed me, I dance. Therefore when all the penguins danced, it said Feed Me. We hope.
Having said that, the odds that someone actually would release a dancing penguin if they found one are slim. Too many people would try to make money off it like Michigan J. Frog.
There definitely are religious themes in this film: theodicy, sincerity, sincere people being sincerely wrong, inflexibility as a hindrance to growth, and "rejoice without ceasing" in the face of suffering.
I've heard a lot of complaints about how most of the "denominations" illustrated were portrayed, but it's more complex than merely "Lovelace the con man" or "Noah the narrow-minded control freak." Noah and the elders remind me of Stiff Tail of Uhura's Song, with the difference that Noah denied the situation out of honest ignorance. That makes the Elders a (slightly) more sympathetic bunch, since there's nothing wrong with their faith or their ancient wisdoms. The Wisdoms have kept their people warm and safe. They simply had nothing in their background to account for a new invasive species called Man. (Penguins are still largely innocent of us, as humans only discovered the last continent a few hundred years ago.)
Mumble/Mambo is not a true Christ figure. Rather, he plays a sort of prophet role. His elders assume that Mumble has brought a curse upon their land; it never occurs to them that the Great Guin, if it is a penguin deity worth following, already knows their suffering and what to do about it. How do the penguins know whether Mumble (like Queen Esther) might not have been sent for just such a time as this?
Memphis is actually a reasonable choice for the Guin to entrust this unusual child, since Memphis, a reckless fellow in his younger days, figured that he was hardly in a position to judge. As long as Mumble's "happy feet" remained a secret, he wasn't going to send the child away. Now, when Memphis got caught, he made his relationship with his child conditional. (Fortunately Mumble was grown by now, so it wouldn't hurt him physically.) His horror at feeling he had to choose between his religion and his son was subtly portrayed, and mostly believable. We could say he "got true religion" when he realized that it begins at home. "There ain't been one day, not one day, that I done right by you." That part was heartfelt, but it shows how his grief overshadowed the (fewer) good things he did: his son grew up warm and fed and as safe as anyone could be. People aren't all one thing or the other, but a mixture. Isn't that why we have to choose?
Norma "Marilyn Monroe" Jean's unwavering loyalty to her son is touching; I don't know if the real Marilyn was given a similar role.
The Adelie Amigos also showed iron loyalty. They came across as immature and lazy around the female penguins (refusing the grown-up role of building the nest), but they probably saved Mumble and Lovelace's lives in the blizzard country. They also honored Mumble's request to watch over his mother -- a particular comfort to him since it turned out Mumble's dad had lost his way and Norma Jean would have been totally alone without "her boys.""
- - - -
"When Mumble is brought to the zoo, he is practically losing his mind and his will to live. But while doing a playful tapdance in response to the little girl tapping on the glass, he creates a human fascination with this newfound "gimmick". The result, after much debate amongst humans, is to send a team down to Antarctica to witness the penguins and find ways to help them get the fish supply back to normal. The last scene is of the penguins and humans dancing and celebrating together. Isn't that a happy ending? Well, in my opinion, no. I think the film is suggesting that while it's great that the humans used their power for good at the end, would they have done anything at all if not for the unique gift possessed by Mumble? Why did it take a celebrity penguin to get humans to act at all? Furthermore, I think the ending is actually a bittersweet scene. After seeing the dark side of human overindulgence, all of the sudden we see this miraculous tapping into our good nature and we save the penguins. And though this scene is a wonderful celebration of what could be if we would only take better care of the natural world, it becomes bitter because we know all too well that humans aren't likely to cooperate with the natural world to that extent. In other words, I felt the last scene teased us with a glimpse of utopia - humans and animals cooperating for the good of all - but we don't live in utopia, and with the exception of small pockets we are not treating the natural world with respect. Perhaps the last scene is a glimpse of what heaven will be like, with humans and animals enjoying each other and celebrating the end of the competition for survival."
"And the Dancing Fool returns to Emperor Land transformed into a Hero. Mumble is a Truth Seeker."
- - - - -
"Well, to each his own, I guess, but I think all the criticisms of "heaviness" are kind of sad. First of all, the issue IS that heavy -- actually far MORESO but this isn't the politics forum so I won't get into it. Second, that heaviness makes for great drama. Once they find out Lovelace is being choked by the can-holder it starts to build, and gets heavier and heavier until it culminates in a moment of down-right despair when Mumble bangs his head on the wall at the penguin pen.
That kind of despair is what creates such a touching moment when the little girl and Mumble connect and things spiral back to a happy ending. Humans aren't just heartless, mass-fish-consuming "annihilators" -- we are also empathetic and able to change for selfless reasons.
You may say, "Hey, I don't go to a cartoon to see that kind of thing" - but maybe you should. What is it you want - a movie like "Cars" that gives you a nice comfortable little jerk-off and then you forget about it the next day? A movie that allows you to leave your heart and brain in the car when you walk in the theater. In that case, you really ought to see Tray Parker's new movie "Idiopolis" to see where our culture is headed.
For me, I want drama. I want movies to engage my brain and my emotions, animated or no. And as for this being a kids' movie, I don't really think it exactly was -- and if kids see it and based on that decide not to eat seafood because the fishing industry is EEEEEVIL, what the heck is wrong with that? It's true!!! God forbid we actually get a little education with our all-important ENTERTAINMENT.
Beg pardon. I'm lousy with names -- I tend to focus more on the message. Point is what it is though.
Kate.lin, your English seems pretty darn great to me. I'd be hard pressed to express what you did in Chinese!
I haven't seen any films by the director you mentioned, but will have a look.
As for your criticism of naivety and schism within the film, well, it's a subjective consideration, but I didn't see it that way. I thought it was a rather subtle play on the theme of humans as merciless and technologically-advanced aliens from the perspective of an isolated species -- which ultimately transforms via the main character's perseverence in trying to communicate with us into a more benign "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". This theme gets brought in right off with the initial outer space shot that focusses in on first Earth, then Antarctica. We have a sort of space/Earth; Earth/Antarctica parallelism there that sets the stage for the dynamic that will be developed. Very quickly, it is more concretely manifested with the sea-gull's story of alien abduction, and it plays out from there.
What you guys saw as a giant Greenpeace sign (when the fishing trauler is first seen by the penguins), I saw as the citizens of New York and LA looking up at the giant alien ships enveloping their entire cities in shadow in "Independence Day". They are getting their first "real" view of the "annihilators" that have been described to them. (When you consider the methods employed by the fishing industry these days - drift-nets, bottom-trauling, 2-mile-line fishing and so on to catch an ever-dwindling supply of sea-life for the bottomless stomachs of nations like Japan and China, I think the depiction is accurate).
This portrayal is tempered, however, by the child at the zoo, who, unlike the headless adults, is able to make a connection that establishes communication through Mumble's quirky method of self-expression. (Come to think of it, this aspect calls to mind the children in this story, who kept craning their necks to see the virtuoso violinist as their parents pressed on, headlong and headless.)
The "second part" of the movie is not just about environmentalism, it's about Mumble's not backing down -- neither to his own kind, nor to an alien menace, nor to the mind-numbingly huge distance that separates them (That distance, and the isolation it creates, is the reason that penguins were the proper casting choice for this movie - although admittedly they have been kind of trendy ever since "Madagascar"). Moreover, this portion of the movie - as in "Close Encounters" - is about establishing communication when words or voices fail.
I think when we get down to it, what makes people uncomfortable about this movie is not "heaviness", but that it portrays all-too-accurately our race as it would initially be perceived by a species that first came into contact with us. With the whole "self-esteem" movement in education and Doctor Spock in parenting, feeling guilty is definitely "out" these days -- "Don't preach to me" is everybody's slogan -- whether they need preaching or not."
- - - -
"The point in Happy Feet at which the adult viewership laughs in unison, while the kids smile obliviously, is precisely at the moment at which Mumble’s salvation plan succeeds. The sight of heads of state and UN ambassadors angrily demanding an immediate removal of the threat to the penguins’ existence is, surely, supposed to be comical, because we adults know how unreal is the prospect.
That is Happy Feet’s equal-best political joke. The second is the fact that the penguins can only survive because they function as a specific example of how non-humans might titillate humans: that, in short, humanity is too stupid to cope with the idea of animal rights, environmentalism, or whatever we wish to call it. Is the sight of the penguin tribe desperately submitting to the necessity of pragmatically tap-dancing not the most upsettingly pathetic spectacle? Mumble’s political genius does not come from overturning the false traditions of Guin-worship, but in recognising that the penguins’ true masters are not gods, but men. Our hero exposes the materialist basis of his people’s subservience, but only so they might submit to its permanence and invincibility. At the very moment the penguins are liberated from superstition, they are enslaved to reality. I ask you: are the penguins really “freed” to dance, when the alternative is death? These “happy feet” are the most dialectical of symbols.
If Happy Feet has to be attributed a “radical” political force, then, said force does not come from advocating a policy of Mumble-mimicry, but from flagging up the two key obstacles to genuine environmental reform: the intransigence of world leaders (alluded to by comic inversion) and the narrowmindedness of popular conceptions (represented by humanity’s pathetic motive: the novelty of the spectacle). The fact that these problems seem to be alluded to intentionally (though probably not so seriously) is a credit to the film-makers."
- - - -
"The script has the clever idea of interpreting the penguins’ encounters with human civilization in terms of an analogue for alien abduction. It makes for an appealingly intelligent metaphor – a penguin with a tracking tag on its leg is seen as an abductee; the remains of a mining base as alien artefacts; and in one scene the image of an icebreaker moving through the fog becomes something akin to the mothership of lights from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). There’s a completely lovely scene where Mumble is placed in a zoo and sees himself surrounded by a wall of human faces (which all come with an extraordinary degree of photographic realism). "
- - - -
"Mumble refuses to acquiesce to this kind of misology (he blames the fish recession on aliens, thusly discredited as a wild conspiracy theorist)."
- - - -
"The first time around, I too wondered why the humans would assume that a dancing penguin equals "we need to stop overfishing the seas." Best guess is that Mumble taught them while they were studying him. No fish, I curl up into a ball. If you feed me, I dance. Therefore when all the penguins danced, it said Feed Me. We hope.
Having said that, the odds that someone actually would release a dancing penguin if they found one are slim. Too many people would try to make money off it like Michigan J. Frog.
There definitely are religious themes in this film: theodicy, sincerity, sincere people being sincerely wrong, inflexibility as a hindrance to growth, and "rejoice without ceasing" in the face of suffering.
I've heard a lot of complaints about how most of the "denominations" illustrated were portrayed, but it's more complex than merely "Lovelace the con man" or "Noah the narrow-minded control freak." Noah and the elders remind me of Stiff Tail of Uhura's Song, with the difference that Noah denied the situation out of honest ignorance. That makes the Elders a (slightly) more sympathetic bunch, since there's nothing wrong with their faith or their ancient wisdoms. The Wisdoms have kept their people warm and safe. They simply had nothing in their background to account for a new invasive species called Man. (Penguins are still largely innocent of us, as humans only discovered the last continent a few hundred years ago.)
Mumble/Mambo is not a true Christ figure. Rather, he plays a sort of prophet role. His elders assume that Mumble has brought a curse upon their land; it never occurs to them that the Great Guin, if it is a penguin deity worth following, already knows their suffering and what to do about it. How do the penguins know whether Mumble (like Queen Esther) might not have been sent for just such a time as this?
Memphis is actually a reasonable choice for the Guin to entrust this unusual child, since Memphis, a reckless fellow in his younger days, figured that he was hardly in a position to judge. As long as Mumble's "happy feet" remained a secret, he wasn't going to send the child away. Now, when Memphis got caught, he made his relationship with his child conditional. (Fortunately Mumble was grown by now, so it wouldn't hurt him physically.) His horror at feeling he had to choose between his religion and his son was subtly portrayed, and mostly believable. We could say he "got true religion" when he realized that it begins at home. "There ain't been one day, not one day, that I done right by you." That part was heartfelt, but it shows how his grief overshadowed the (fewer) good things he did: his son grew up warm and fed and as safe as anyone could be. People aren't all one thing or the other, but a mixture. Isn't that why we have to choose?
Norma "Marilyn Monroe" Jean's unwavering loyalty to her son is touching; I don't know if the real Marilyn was given a similar role.
The Adelie Amigos also showed iron loyalty. They came across as immature and lazy around the female penguins (refusing the grown-up role of building the nest), but they probably saved Mumble and Lovelace's lives in the blizzard country. They also honored Mumble's request to watch over his mother -- a particular comfort to him since it turned out Mumble's dad had lost his way and Norma Jean would have been totally alone without "her boys.""
- - - -
"When Mumble is brought to the zoo, he is practically losing his mind and his will to live. But while doing a playful tapdance in response to the little girl tapping on the glass, he creates a human fascination with this newfound "gimmick". The result, after much debate amongst humans, is to send a team down to Antarctica to witness the penguins and find ways to help them get the fish supply back to normal. The last scene is of the penguins and humans dancing and celebrating together. Isn't that a happy ending? Well, in my opinion, no. I think the film is suggesting that while it's great that the humans used their power for good at the end, would they have done anything at all if not for the unique gift possessed by Mumble? Why did it take a celebrity penguin to get humans to act at all? Furthermore, I think the ending is actually a bittersweet scene. After seeing the dark side of human overindulgence, all of the sudden we see this miraculous tapping into our good nature and we save the penguins. And though this scene is a wonderful celebration of what could be if we would only take better care of the natural world, it becomes bitter because we know all too well that humans aren't likely to cooperate with the natural world to that extent. In other words, I felt the last scene teased us with a glimpse of utopia - humans and animals cooperating for the good of all - but we don't live in utopia, and with the exception of small pockets we are not treating the natural world with respect. Perhaps the last scene is a glimpse of what heaven will be like, with humans and animals enjoying each other and celebrating the end of the competition for survival."
"And the Dancing Fool returns to Emperor Land transformed into a Hero. Mumble is a Truth Seeker."
- - - - -
"Well, to each his own, I guess, but I think all the criticisms of "heaviness" are kind of sad. First of all, the issue IS that heavy -- actually far MORESO but this isn't the politics forum so I won't get into it. Second, that heaviness makes for great drama. Once they find out Lovelace is being choked by the can-holder it starts to build, and gets heavier and heavier until it culminates in a moment of down-right despair when Mumble bangs his head on the wall at the penguin pen.
That kind of despair is what creates such a touching moment when the little girl and Mumble connect and things spiral back to a happy ending. Humans aren't just heartless, mass-fish-consuming "annihilators" -- we are also empathetic and able to change for selfless reasons.
You may say, "Hey, I don't go to a cartoon to see that kind of thing" - but maybe you should. What is it you want - a movie like "Cars" that gives you a nice comfortable little jerk-off and then you forget about it the next day? A movie that allows you to leave your heart and brain in the car when you walk in the theater. In that case, you really ought to see Tray Parker's new movie "Idiopolis" to see where our culture is headed.
For me, I want drama. I want movies to engage my brain and my emotions, animated or no. And as for this being a kids' movie, I don't really think it exactly was -- and if kids see it and based on that decide not to eat seafood because the fishing industry is EEEEEVIL, what the heck is wrong with that? It's true!!! God forbid we actually get a little education with our all-important ENTERTAINMENT.
Beg pardon. I'm lousy with names -- I tend to focus more on the message. Point is what it is though.
Kate.lin, your English seems pretty darn great to me. I'd be hard pressed to express what you did in Chinese!
I haven't seen any films by the director you mentioned, but will have a look.
As for your criticism of naivety and schism within the film, well, it's a subjective consideration, but I didn't see it that way. I thought it was a rather subtle play on the theme of humans as merciless and technologically-advanced aliens from the perspective of an isolated species -- which ultimately transforms via the main character's perseverence in trying to communicate with us into a more benign "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". This theme gets brought in right off with the initial outer space shot that focusses in on first Earth, then Antarctica. We have a sort of space/Earth; Earth/Antarctica parallelism there that sets the stage for the dynamic that will be developed. Very quickly, it is more concretely manifested with the sea-gull's story of alien abduction, and it plays out from there.
What you guys saw as a giant Greenpeace sign (when the fishing trauler is first seen by the penguins), I saw as the citizens of New York and LA looking up at the giant alien ships enveloping their entire cities in shadow in "Independence Day". They are getting their first "real" view of the "annihilators" that have been described to them. (When you consider the methods employed by the fishing industry these days - drift-nets, bottom-trauling, 2-mile-line fishing and so on to catch an ever-dwindling supply of sea-life for the bottomless stomachs of nations like Japan and China, I think the depiction is accurate).
This portrayal is tempered, however, by the child at the zoo, who, unlike the headless adults, is able to make a connection that establishes communication through Mumble's quirky method of self-expression. (Come to think of it, this aspect calls to mind the children in this story, who kept craning their necks to see the virtuoso violinist as their parents pressed on, headlong and headless.)
The "second part" of the movie is not just about environmentalism, it's about Mumble's not backing down -- neither to his own kind, nor to an alien menace, nor to the mind-numbingly huge distance that separates them (That distance, and the isolation it creates, is the reason that penguins were the proper casting choice for this movie - although admittedly they have been kind of trendy ever since "Madagascar"). Moreover, this portion of the movie - as in "Close Encounters" - is about establishing communication when words or voices fail.
I think when we get down to it, what makes people uncomfortable about this movie is not "heaviness", but that it portrays all-too-accurately our race as it would initially be perceived by a species that first came into contact with us. With the whole "self-esteem" movement in education and Doctor Spock in parenting, feeling guilty is definitely "out" these days -- "Don't preach to me" is everybody's slogan -- whether they need preaching or not."
- - - -
"The point in Happy Feet at which the adult viewership laughs in unison, while the kids smile obliviously, is precisely at the moment at which Mumble’s salvation plan succeeds. The sight of heads of state and UN ambassadors angrily demanding an immediate removal of the threat to the penguins’ existence is, surely, supposed to be comical, because we adults know how unreal is the prospect.
That is Happy Feet’s equal-best political joke. The second is the fact that the penguins can only survive because they function as a specific example of how non-humans might titillate humans: that, in short, humanity is too stupid to cope with the idea of animal rights, environmentalism, or whatever we wish to call it. Is the sight of the penguin tribe desperately submitting to the necessity of pragmatically tap-dancing not the most upsettingly pathetic spectacle? Mumble’s political genius does not come from overturning the false traditions of Guin-worship, but in recognising that the penguins’ true masters are not gods, but men. Our hero exposes the materialist basis of his people’s subservience, but only so they might submit to its permanence and invincibility. At the very moment the penguins are liberated from superstition, they are enslaved to reality. I ask you: are the penguins really “freed” to dance, when the alternative is death? These “happy feet” are the most dialectical of symbols.
If Happy Feet has to be attributed a “radical” political force, then, said force does not come from advocating a policy of Mumble-mimicry, but from flagging up the two key obstacles to genuine environmental reform: the intransigence of world leaders (alluded to by comic inversion) and the narrowmindedness of popular conceptions (represented by humanity’s pathetic motive: the novelty of the spectacle). The fact that these problems seem to be alluded to intentionally (though probably not so seriously) is a credit to the film-makers."
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
The Real Jesus - Yeshua, Joshua, ben Veshua - it goes on.
"" WHO WAS THE REAL JESUS?"
David Pratt
Jesus as fiction
The story of Jesus as presented in the four gospels of the New Testament is essentially a piece of fiction. There are no authentic references to such a figure in the works of any historians of the early 1st century CE (common era). The pre-gospel writings of the early Christians also make no reference to the life and teachings of a recent historical Jesus. Paul, for instance, was supposedly Jesus' contemporary, yet he never claimed to have met him in the flesh or to have met anyone else who had done so; he encountered him only in visions, as a spiritual being. The Christian groups of the 1st century CE held extremely diverse theological views, and this would be hard to explain if they were the followers of a single, recent teacher. Remarkably, they showed no interest in the holy sites and relics associated with Jesus' alleged earthly career; it was not until the 4th century that pieces of the 'true cross' began to surface, and that the first shrine was set up on the supposed mount of Jesus' death.
It is only in the four canonical gospels and certain other New Testament writings that the now orthodox story of Jesus is to be found. The gospels, however, were largely written in the 2nd century, have suffered numerous alterations and additions, and contain significant contradictions and inconsistencies. Their shortcomings are recognized by Christian and non-Christian scholars alike. Some theologians are now prepared to question not only the virgin birth and miracles, but even the much more fundamental doctrine of the resurrection. Theology professor Burton Mack, for example, goes as far as to call the gospels' portrayal of Jesus 'fantastic', 'the result of a layered history of imaginative embellishments of a founder figure' [1]. But even the very existence of a great Christian founder figure living at the start of the 1st century is highly implausible, given the silence of contemporary historians and even 1st-century Christians [2].
H.P. Blavatsky stated that the story of Jesus was invented after the 1st century. Jesus, she says -
" is a deified personification of the glorified type of the great Hierophants of the Temples, and his story, as told in the New Testament, is an allegory, assuredly containing profound esoteric truths, but still an allegory. . . . Every act of the Jesus of the New Testament, every word attributed to him, every event related of him during the three years of the mission he is said to have accomplished, rests on the programme of the Cycle of Initiation, a cycle founded on the Precession of the Equinoxes and the Signs of the Zodiac. [3]"
The gospel figure of Jesus is a Jewish adaptation of the mythical godman found under many different names in ancient pagan mystery religions: in Egypt he was Osiris, in Greece Dionysus, in Asia Minor Attis, in Syria Adonis, in Italy Bacchus, in Persia Mithras. All the major elements of the Jesus story, from the virgin birth to the crucifixion and resurrection, can be found in earlier stories of pagan godmen. As G. de Purucker puts it:
"the 'Gospel' story is merely an idealized fiction, written by Christian mystics in imitation of esoteric mysteries of the 'Pagans,' showing the initiation trials and tests of the candidate for initiation; and it is not very well done, there being much error and many mistakes in the 'Gospels.' [4]"
A historical Jesus?
The fact that key elements of the gospel story of Jesus are clearly mythical does not automatically mean that the entire portrayal is fiction. Over the past two centuries scholars have produced many different reconstructions of the 'real Jesus'. He has been depicted, for example, as a priestly zealot fomenting popular unrest against the Roman occupation, an apocalyptic prophet, a progressive Pharisee, a Galilean healer and miracle-worker, and a Hellenistic sage. Commenting on the many 'historical Jesuses', Robert Price writes:
All tend to center on particular constellations of gospel elements interpreted in certain ways, leaving other data to the side as spurious . . . What one Jesus reconstruction leaves aside, the next takes up and makes its cornerstone. . . . Each sounds good until you hear the next one. [1]
The Jesus Seminar, an association of progressive biblical scholars based in California, was formed in the 1980s and has played an important role in exposing the unreliability of the early Christian record. Its members believe that Jesus was primarily a sage who taught that the kingdom of heaven is within. They dismiss the gospel stories of him working miracles, and regard him as too enlightened to have threatened his opponents with damnation on Judgement Day. In fact, they reject as inauthentic some three quarters of the sayings attributed to Jesus in the gospels. But their selective portrayal tells us more about their own preconceptions and preferences than about an historical Jesus [2].
Mark's Gospel, the shortest and simplest, is widely believed to have been the first of the four canonical gospels to be written. The authors of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke copied large chunks of it, but also appear to have been in possession of another document, now lost, known as 'Q' (standing for Quelle, a German word meaning 'source'), which apparently contained the sayings of Jesus. Q is thought to have been written in three stages: Q1 contains wisdom sayings, Q2 more sectarian, apocalyptic sayings, and only Q3 refers to a founder figure called Jesus. This legendary figure is depicted as a purely human teacher, which is how early Christians such as the Ebionites and Nazoreans regarded Jesus; there is no mention of Jesus being the son of God, or of his crucifixion and resurrection.
Some scholars, however, believe that even Q1 may be based on the life of an actual itinerant Galilean preacher of the 20s or 30s, who was one of the prototypes of the gospel Jesus [3]. Opponents of this view argue that the sayings represent ideas widely held in various brotherhoods and mystery schools long before Christianity was created. In particular, they bear ample marks of Cynic origin, with parallels in the works of Seneca, Epictetus, Diogenes Laertius, etc. Robert Price states that the sayings convey 'not the personality of an individual but that of a movement, the sharp and humorous Cynic outlook on life' [4].
The Jewish historian Josephus mentions three characters who people thought were messiahs and who were crucified by the Romans: Yehuda of Galilee (6 CE), Theudas (44 CE), and Benjamin the Egyptian (60 CE). It is possible that the Jesus story is partly based on their lives [5].
G.A. Wells maintains that Paul regarded Jesus as a heavenly, preexistent figure who had come to earth perhaps one or two centuries before his own time. Alvar Ellegard has gone a step further and has suggested that the main prototype for Jesus was the Teacher of Righteousness mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls (discovered in the late 1940s and early 50s) [6]. Ellegard argues that this figure was the founder of the Judaic reform movement known as the Essenes, and died around 100 BCE (before common era). He was looked upon as a great prophet and also as a martyr, who had been harassed and eventually put to death by the Jewish priestly hierarchy. According to Ellegard, Paul and his colleagues were the first to refer to this figure as 'Jesus', and it was they who introduced the idea that he was the messiah or saviour. He acknowledges that the Teacher of the Scrolls differs in many ways from the Jesus of the gospels, but stresses that the latter is largely a fictional figure.
There is disagreement as to whether Paul and his fellow-believers saw Jesus as a man who had lived on earth at some more distant time in the past or whether they saw him entirely as a mythical figure, a spiritual being who lived and operated in the 'supernatural' world, like all the other saviour gods of the time. Although Paul makes it clear that he himself had never met an historical Jesus, there are a handful of passages in his writings that could be interpreted as referring to a previous earthly existence of Jesus. Earl Doherty, however, argues that these are better interpreted in line with Platonic thinking about counterpart realities in the higher spiritual world [7]. In his view, pre-gospel Christian records do not provide any evidence of a widespread tradition about a human founder who was a prophet, teacher, miracle-worker and interpreter of scripture -- in either the recent or distant past.
In a highly speculative reconstruction of the life of the Teacher of Righteousness (who may have been called Judah), Michael Wise argues that he was a priestly prophet, a member of the elite, and rose to preeminence around 105 BCE as a leader of the political coalition that supported King Alexander Jannaeus (who reigned from c. 103 to 76 BCE) [8]. Alexander was supported by the Sadducees and oppressed the Pharisees, but when his wife, Alexandra, became queen, she did an about-face and embraced the Pharisees. Judah, who came to regard himself as the messiah, defied the new regime, labelling it Satan's dominion. He was arrested, charged with false prophecy, and exiled around 74 BCE, and within a few years he had been killed. Wise does not specifically link the Teacher with the Essenes.
Robert Eisenman contends that the Dead Sea Scrolls have been dated a century too early, and that they should be seen as 1st-century CE works stemming from the community led by James the Just. According to this view, it is the latter who was called the Teacher of Righteousness. The Teacher is said to have been ambushed, betrayed and killed by a wicked priest, and this closely parallels the plot of Ananus the High Priest to trap and kill James [9]. If this theory is confirmed, it would rule out Ellegard's hypothesis that the Teacher of Righteousness was the historical Jesus and undermine Wise's attempted reconstruction of his life. A more important candidate for an historical Jesus is found in the Jewish Talmud.
Jesus in the Talmud
The Talmud contains a number of passages that refer to a certain Jeshu (or Joshua) ben Pandera, who lived around 100 BCE [1]. Jeshu is said to have been the disciple of Joshua ben Perachiah, who was certainly a historical figure, being one of the most prominent rabbis of the time. During the persecution of the Pharisees by Alexander Jannaeus, which began around 94 BCE, Joshua ben Perachiah fled with Jeshu to Alexandria in Egypt, where Jeshu is said to have learned magic. Described as a learned man, Jeshu was expelled for heretical tendencies from the school over which Joshua presided. He became a religious teacher, had several disciples, and preached to ordinary people. He was accused of practising sorcery, deceiving Israel and estranging people from God. After being tried and convicted, he was stoned to death and his body was then hung up as a warning to others.
Some Jews still adhere to the 100 BCE date for Jesus and argue that many gospel stories are specific responses to the Talmudic picture of Jeshu ('Jesus' is the Latin form of 'Jeshu' or 'Yeshu') [2]. Christians, on the other hand, claim that the Talmud Jeshu is partly based on the 'real', gospel Jesus, and that the stories about Jeshu reflect the Jews' intense hostility towards the Christians [3]. Many writers who argue that the gospel Jesus is a fictional character also deny the historical reality of the Talmud Jeshu [4]. Theosophical writers such as H.P. Blavatsky and G. de Purucker, on the other hand, insist that there was a historical Jesus who lived around 100 BCE, on whom the gospel Jesus is partly based, and they give credence to the Talmudic tradition [5]. Blavatsky writes:
However cautious one ought to be in accepting anything about Jesus from Jewish sources, it must be confessed that in some things they seem to be more correct in their statements (whenever their direct interests in stating facts is not concerned) than our good but too jealous [Church] Fathers. [6]
The Talmud was compiled between the 2nd and 6th centuries CE from earlier traditions. In the middle ages, the scattered passages referring to Jeshu were worked up, together with other material, into a book, the Toldoth Jeshu (Life of Jesus). Whereas the Talmud is a fairly sober work, the Toldoth Jeshu is full of wild tales, which are clearly not intended to be regarded as historical. The statements made about Jesus in the Talmud and Toldoth are sometimes rather confused, and some were probably written after the gospel story emerged in order to ridicule Christian beliefs (e.g. the story about Jesus' mother being an adulteress and Jesus a bastard, and the story that Jesus' disciples stole his dead body and hid it).
The Talmud also speaks of a man named ben Stada ('strayed one'), who sometimes stands for Jesus, but one of the passages implies that he lived around 100 CE -- nearly 200 years after King Jannaeus' death. However, this should not be used as an excuse to reject the whole rabbinical tradition about Jesus as unhistorical and unreliable, especially since ben Stada appears originally to have been a separate character who was later confused with Jeshu [7]. G.R.S. Mead shows that the 100 BCE date is part of the oldest deposit of the Talmud and predates the stories containing the later date, which were developed by the Lydda (or Lud) school of rabbis for polemical purposes [8].
The early Christians were well aware of the Jewish stories about Jesus. The pagan philosopher Celsus, who was famous for his arguments against Christianity, referred to the Jewish tradition current in his own day (c. 170 CE) that Jesus went to Egypt where he learned magic and later returned home and started claiming he was a god. Jesus' mother, Mary, had allegedly been divorced by her husband, a carpenter, after it had been proved that she was an adulteress. She wandered about in shame and bore Jesus in secret, his real father being a soldier named Panthera (or Pandera). The 3rd-century church father Origen found this story to be of sufficient importance to go to the pains of arguing against it in his book against Celsus. At the end of the 2nd century, the fiery church father Tertullian, in a diatribe against the Jews, indicated that he was aware of several elements of the Talmud Jesus stories, and also several additional elements not mentioned in the Talmud but included in the Toldoth Jeshu, which was not written down until many centuries later [9].
In the 4th century the Christian saint Epiphanius gave a Christian genealogy in which Panthera is mentioned as the grandfather of Jesus. He even states that Jesus lived in the time of King Jannaeus, but then goes on to say that Jesus was born in 2 BCE, some 70 years after Jannaeus' death [10]! Epiphanius was trying to dispose of the Jewish tradition about Jesus by incorporating elements of it into his own (clearly fictional) account, apparently unconcerned by the blatant incongruity to which this gave rise.
According to Matthew's Gospel, Joseph and Mary had to flee with the baby Jesus to Egypt because King Herod had ordered all infant boys born in Bethlehem to be killed. As already mentioned, the Talmud says that ben Perachiah fled to Egypt with Jeshu to escape being killed by King Jannaeus. In contrast to the Christian story of the 'slaughter of the innocents' under Herod, for which there is no historical evidence whatsoever, the persecution of the Pharisees by Alexander Jannaeus is a historical fact [11]. Jannaeus (supported by the Sadducees) overcame the Pharisees around 88 BCE after six years of fighting. He allegedly crucified 800 of them and had the throats of their wives and children cut in front of them; another 8000 rabbis fled Judea. The 'slaughter of the innocents' may be partly based on this fact (initiates were sometimes called 'innocents' or 'infants'). However, it should be noted that the theme of a divine or semi-divine child who is feared by an evil king is very common in pagan mythology (Buffalo's notes - and indeed mythology altogether, according to Campbell).
According to the gospels, Jesus was crucified. However, Paul and Peter, who were writing before the gospels were composed, say he was 'hanged on a tree' (Galatians 3:13; Acts 5:30, 10:39). The Talmud Jesus is said to have been stoned and hanged on a tree (in accordance with Jewish law). Jesus' crucifixion is also, of course, symbolical. Christ represents both the spiritual sun (whose emblem is the physical sun) and the spiritual self in each individual. The cross represents the intersection of the ecliptic and the celestial equator, and also the interdependence of spirit (the vertical bar) and matter (the horizontal). Just as the sun is 'reborn' at the vernal equinox, when it crosses the celestial equator and begins its northward journey along the ecliptic, so the aim of initiation is to end the 'crucifixion' of the higher self in the world of matter by bringing about a second or spiritual birth, in which the lower nature is transmuted and united with the higher. During the trials of initiation the candidate often lay on a cruciform couch.
The theme of a divine or semi-divine being who is sacrificed against a tree, pole or cross and then resurrected is frequently found in pagan mythology. For instance, at the vernal equinox, pagans in northern Israel would celebrate the death and resurrection of the virgin-born Tammuz-Osiris. In Asia Minor (where the earliest Christian churches were established) a similar celebration was held for the virgin-born Attis, who was shown as dying against a tree, being buried in a cave and then being resurrected on the third day [12].
Jesus the Nazar
The Hebrew name for Christians has always been notzrim, and although modern Christians claim that Christianity only started in the 1st century CE, the 1st-century Christians in Israel considered themselves to be a continuation of the notzri movement, which had been in existence for about 150 years [1]. In the rabbinical tradition, Jeshu ben Pandera is also called Jeshu ha-Notzri (Jesus the Nazar). The Greek equivalent of notzri is nazoraios (or nazaraios/naziraios). The stem of this word means 'to keep oneself separate' -- an indication of the ascetic nature of this sect. The early Christians conjectured that nazoraios (variously rendered Nazar/Nazarite, Nazorean or Nazarene) meant a person from Nazareth and so it was assumed that Jesus lived in Nazareth. However, the original Hebrew for Nazareth is Natzrat and a person from Nazareth is a Natzrati. The expression 'Jesus of Nazareth' is therefore a mistranslation of 'Jeshu ha-Notzri'.
At the time of the emergence of Christianity, the Middle East was the scene of great religious diversity, as has been confirmed by the Nag Hammadi writings and Dead Sea Scrolls. Many of the various sects -- e.g. Essenes, Therapeutae (lit. 'healers'), Nazars, Nabatheans, Ebionites and Gnostics -- were closely interrelated and often difficult to tell apart. As H.P. Blavatsky says, they 'were all, with very slight differences, followers of the ancient theurgic mysteries' [2]. Several scholars have pointed to similarities between eastern religious traditions (especially Buddhism and Brahmanism) and the ideas of the Essenes, Nazars and Gnostics. Trade routes between the Greco-Roman world and the Far East were opening up at the time Gnosticism flourished (80-200 CE), Buddhists were in contact with gnostic Christians in southern India, and for generations Buddhist missionaries had been proselytizing in Alexandria and elsewhere in the Middle East [3]..."
According to Blavatsky, the Essenes were 'the converts of Buddhist missionaries who had overrun Egypt, Greece, and even Judea at one time, since the reign of Asoka' (mid-3rd century BCE) [4]. She states that although Jesus was a pupil of the Essenes, he was not a strict Essene as he disagreed with his early teachers on several questions of formal observance.
[T]he Nazarene Reformer, after having received his education in their [the Essenes'] dwellings in the desert, and been duly initiated into the Mysteries, preferred the free and independent life of a wandering Nazaria, and so separated or inazarenized himself from them, thus becoming a travelling Therapeute, a Nazaria, a healer. [5]
She describes the Nazars as 'a class of Chaldean initiates' and 'kabalistic gnostics' [6]. Regarding Jesus' mission, she writes:
The motive of Jesus was evidently like that of Gautama-Buddha, to benefit humanity at large by producing a religious reform which should give it a religion of pure ethics . . .
In his immense and unselfish love for humanity, he considers it unjust to deprive the many of the results of the knowledge acquired by the few. This result he accordingly preaches -- the unity of a spiritual God, whose temple is within each of us, and in whom we live as He lives in us -- in spirit. [7]
The Mandeans asserted that Jesus was Nebu, the false messiah, and the destroyer of the old orthodox religion, while other opponents said he was the founder of a new sect of Nazars. The Hebrew word naba means 'to speak by inspiration', and Nebo is the god of wisdom and also the planet Mercury. The Hindus call this planet Budha ('wise man'), and it is closely connected with the Buddha ('awakened one'). Similarly, the Talmudists hold that Jesus was inspired by the genius or regent of Mercury [8]. According to the modern theosophical tradition, there is an intimate link between Jesus and Buddha, connected with Jesus' status as an avatara.
Jesus as avatara
The term 'avatara' signifies the 'descent' of a divine being who overshadows and works through a human vehicle. Mahatma KH stated that the man Jeshu was 'a mortal like any of us, an adept more by his inherent purity and ignorance of real Evil, than by what he had learned with his initiated Rabbis and the already (at that period) fast degenerating Egyptian Hierophants and priests' [1]. Jesus was chrestos (good and holy), and became christos ('anointed', i.e. glorified) only when the celestial power began to work through him. As Blavatsky explains:
Western Theosophists accept the Christos as did the Gnostics of the centuries which preceded Christianity, as do the Vedantins their Krishna: they distinguish the corporeal man from the divine Principle which, in the case of the Avatara, animates him. [2]
To make a complete avatara, a third element is necessary: the physical-astral body and the spiritual-divine entity must be linked by a psychological apparatus, which is provided by a master of wisdom with the status of a buddha. Blavatsky and Purucker indicate that in the case of Jesus, it was the adept known in his last incarnation as Gautama Buddha who provided this link [3]. When the Buddha achieved enlightenment, his spiritual self is said to have entered the state of nirvana, while his intermediate self, the bodhisattva, remained after his death in the earth's ethereal atmosphere as a nirmanakaya so that it could continue to help on human evolution [4].
Purucker explains that avataras are humans of extraordinary spiritual and intellectual powers embodying a divine ray, who have no human karma because they are not the reincarnations of an ordinary human soul evolving on this earth. They are created by an act of white magic at cyclical points in human history for the purpose of introducing the spiritual influence of a divine being into human affairs [5]. The chosen child, even before it is born, is overshadowed by the soul of the Buddha, who watches over and strengthens the body concerned until it can receive the fuller incarnation of the Buddha's spiritual and intellectual powers. Somewhat later, usually when the borrowed body has reached adulthood, the soul of the Buddha rises through the ether and links itself with the waiting divinity, and from that instant, which usually takes place during initiation at the time of the winter solstice, the avatara exists as a complete entity and goes about its work [6]. Purucker writes:
An avatara usually happens in our world when a divinity is passing through initiation, and a human being provides the vehicle to enable it to descend into what is an underworld to the divine spheres. When a human being undergoes a corresponding initiation, the man descends into the underworld where a denizen thereof cooperates to lend its thinking conscious vehicle to allow the human monad to manifest and work there. [7]
The gospel Jesus appears to be a patchwork character, partly mythical and partly based on a number of historical characters, including the Talmud Jeshu. As for the avatara Jesus mentioned in the theosophical tradition, Purucker points out that there is no exoteric proof that such a figure did live and teach [8]. He may have been born in 107 BCE [9], and Blavatsky quotes an obscure passage from a 'secret work', which could be interpreted to mean that he died in his 33rd year (i.e. in 75-74 BCE) [10].*
*Shankaracharya, the great Vedantic teacher of India, is also said to have been overshadowed by the Buddha. Born in 510 BCE, he chose to die in his 33rd year. A commentary explains: 'At whatever age one puts off his outward body by free will, at that age will he be made to die in his next incarnation against his will' [11].
In the Talmud, Balaam (a name meaning 'destroyer or corrupter of the people') -- who sometimes denotes Jeshu -- is said to have died when he was 33 years old. The Toldoth Jeshu indicates that Jeshu outlived Jannaeus, who died between 79 and 76 BCE. He was succeeded by his wife, Salome, who reigned for some nine years and, unlike her husband, was favourable to the Pharisees. It may have been only after Jannaeus' death that both Joshua ben Perachiah and Jeshu returned to Judea [12].
The New Testament does not indicate how old Jesus was when he died, though he is said to have begun his ministry at the age of 30. Some of the early Christians gave the time of his ministry as one year. The church father Irenaeus dismissed this and stated that Jesus' ministry lasted 20 years. The accepted opinion among Christians today is that his mission lasted 3 years, and that he was crucified in his 33rd year [13].
In theosophical literature, Jesus is said to have been the avatara for the Piscean Age, the age which is now closing as we enter the Aquarian Age [14]. Significantly, the Jesus story contains a great deal of fish imagery. The apostles were known as 'fishers of men'. The early Christians called themselves 'little fishes', and used the Greek word ichthys ('fish') as a code word for Jesus, as it was seen as an acronym for 'Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour'. In John's Gospel, Jesus miraculously helps his disciples land a large catch of 153 fish. 153 is a sacred number associated with the vesica piscis or 'vessel of the fish', an ancient Pythagorean symbol used by early Christians to represent their faith [15].
Figure. Two circles, symbolizing spirit and matter, are brought together in a sacred marriage. When the circumference of one touches the centre of the other they generate the fish shape known as the vesica piscis. The ratio of length to height of this shape is 265:153, and is known as the 'measure of the fish'. It is a powerful mathematical tool, being the nearest whole number approximation of the square root of three and the controlling ratio of the equilateral triangle.
Purucker says that Jesus 'came at a time of a downwards-running cycle in order to sow some seeds at least of spiritual light, preceding a time which was going to be spiritually dark'. His mission quickly proved to be a failure, because although the cyclic time for an avatara had come, everything was working against the spiritual forces for which he opened the way, and within less than a hundred years the teachings that he had left behind had degenerated [16]. For instance, the doctrines of reincarnation and karma were replaced by the irrational and unjust dogma that belief in Jesus is sufficient to absolve us of all our sins and secure us an eternity of heavenly bliss, while unbelievers will suffer eternal torment in hell.
'Christ' refers to far more than a single man. In his Letter to the Colossians (1:25-8), Paul describes himself as having been assigned the task of announcing 'the secret hidden for long ages and through many generations': 'The secret is this: Christ in you!' As Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy remark, this 'is the perennial mysticism of Gnosticism and the Pagan Mysteries -- that within each one of us is the one Soul of the Universe, the Logos, the Universal Daemon, the Mind of God' [17]. The purpose of our evolutionary pilgrimage is to bring this inner christ or buddha nature to full expression over the course of numberless lives. As Blavatsky puts it:
Christ -- the true esoteric SAVIOUR -- is no man, but the DIVINE PRINCIPLE in every human being. He who strives to resurrect the Spirit crucified in him by his own terrestrial passions, and buried deep in the 'sepulchre' of his sinful flesh; he who has the strength to roll back the stone of matter from the door of his own inner sanctuary, he has the risen Christ in him. The 'Son of Man' is no child of the bond-woman -- flesh, but verily of the free-woman -- Spirit, the child of man's own deeds, and the fruit of his own spiritual labour. [18]
(Hobo's notes - I find this part really interesting) Blavatsky relates that she was once in a large cave-temple in the Himalayas with her Tibetan teacher, Morya. There were many statues of adepts and, pointing to one of them, her teacher said: 'This is he whom you call Jesus. We count him to be one of the greatest among us' [19]. The importance of Jesus is highlighted in the following passage:
all the civilized portion of the Pagans who knew of Jesus honored him as a philosopher, an adept whom they placed on the same level with Pythagoras and Apollonius. . . . As an incarnated God there is no single record of him on this earth capable of withstanding the critical examination of science; as one of the greatest reformers, an inveterate enemy of every theological dogmatism, a persecutor of bigotry, a teacher of one of the most sublime codes of ethics, Jesus is one of the grandest and most clearly-defined figures on the panorama of human history. His age may, with every day, be receding farther and farther back into the gloomy and hazy mists of the past; and his theology -- based on human fancy and supported by untenable dogmas may, nay, must with every day lose more of its unmerited prestige; alone the grand figure of the philosopher and moral reformer instead of growing paler will become with every century more pronounced and more clearly defined. It will reign supreme and universal only on that day when the whole of humanity recognizes but one father -- the UNKNOWN ONE above -- and one brother -- the whole of mankind below. [20]
Selah.
David Pratt
Jesus as fiction
The story of Jesus as presented in the four gospels of the New Testament is essentially a piece of fiction. There are no authentic references to such a figure in the works of any historians of the early 1st century CE (common era). The pre-gospel writings of the early Christians also make no reference to the life and teachings of a recent historical Jesus. Paul, for instance, was supposedly Jesus' contemporary, yet he never claimed to have met him in the flesh or to have met anyone else who had done so; he encountered him only in visions, as a spiritual being. The Christian groups of the 1st century CE held extremely diverse theological views, and this would be hard to explain if they were the followers of a single, recent teacher. Remarkably, they showed no interest in the holy sites and relics associated with Jesus' alleged earthly career; it was not until the 4th century that pieces of the 'true cross' began to surface, and that the first shrine was set up on the supposed mount of Jesus' death.
It is only in the four canonical gospels and certain other New Testament writings that the now orthodox story of Jesus is to be found. The gospels, however, were largely written in the 2nd century, have suffered numerous alterations and additions, and contain significant contradictions and inconsistencies. Their shortcomings are recognized by Christian and non-Christian scholars alike. Some theologians are now prepared to question not only the virgin birth and miracles, but even the much more fundamental doctrine of the resurrection. Theology professor Burton Mack, for example, goes as far as to call the gospels' portrayal of Jesus 'fantastic', 'the result of a layered history of imaginative embellishments of a founder figure' [1]. But even the very existence of a great Christian founder figure living at the start of the 1st century is highly implausible, given the silence of contemporary historians and even 1st-century Christians [2].
H.P. Blavatsky stated that the story of Jesus was invented after the 1st century. Jesus, she says -
" is a deified personification of the glorified type of the great Hierophants of the Temples, and his story, as told in the New Testament, is an allegory, assuredly containing profound esoteric truths, but still an allegory. . . . Every act of the Jesus of the New Testament, every word attributed to him, every event related of him during the three years of the mission he is said to have accomplished, rests on the programme of the Cycle of Initiation, a cycle founded on the Precession of the Equinoxes and the Signs of the Zodiac. [3]"
The gospel figure of Jesus is a Jewish adaptation of the mythical godman found under many different names in ancient pagan mystery religions: in Egypt he was Osiris, in Greece Dionysus, in Asia Minor Attis, in Syria Adonis, in Italy Bacchus, in Persia Mithras. All the major elements of the Jesus story, from the virgin birth to the crucifixion and resurrection, can be found in earlier stories of pagan godmen. As G. de Purucker puts it:
"the 'Gospel' story is merely an idealized fiction, written by Christian mystics in imitation of esoteric mysteries of the 'Pagans,' showing the initiation trials and tests of the candidate for initiation; and it is not very well done, there being much error and many mistakes in the 'Gospels.' [4]"
A historical Jesus?
The fact that key elements of the gospel story of Jesus are clearly mythical does not automatically mean that the entire portrayal is fiction. Over the past two centuries scholars have produced many different reconstructions of the 'real Jesus'. He has been depicted, for example, as a priestly zealot fomenting popular unrest against the Roman occupation, an apocalyptic prophet, a progressive Pharisee, a Galilean healer and miracle-worker, and a Hellenistic sage. Commenting on the many 'historical Jesuses', Robert Price writes:
All tend to center on particular constellations of gospel elements interpreted in certain ways, leaving other data to the side as spurious . . . What one Jesus reconstruction leaves aside, the next takes up and makes its cornerstone. . . . Each sounds good until you hear the next one. [1]
The Jesus Seminar, an association of progressive biblical scholars based in California, was formed in the 1980s and has played an important role in exposing the unreliability of the early Christian record. Its members believe that Jesus was primarily a sage who taught that the kingdom of heaven is within. They dismiss the gospel stories of him working miracles, and regard him as too enlightened to have threatened his opponents with damnation on Judgement Day. In fact, they reject as inauthentic some three quarters of the sayings attributed to Jesus in the gospels. But their selective portrayal tells us more about their own preconceptions and preferences than about an historical Jesus [2].
Mark's Gospel, the shortest and simplest, is widely believed to have been the first of the four canonical gospels to be written. The authors of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke copied large chunks of it, but also appear to have been in possession of another document, now lost, known as 'Q' (standing for Quelle, a German word meaning 'source'), which apparently contained the sayings of Jesus. Q is thought to have been written in three stages: Q1 contains wisdom sayings, Q2 more sectarian, apocalyptic sayings, and only Q3 refers to a founder figure called Jesus. This legendary figure is depicted as a purely human teacher, which is how early Christians such as the Ebionites and Nazoreans regarded Jesus; there is no mention of Jesus being the son of God, or of his crucifixion and resurrection.
Some scholars, however, believe that even Q1 may be based on the life of an actual itinerant Galilean preacher of the 20s or 30s, who was one of the prototypes of the gospel Jesus [3]. Opponents of this view argue that the sayings represent ideas widely held in various brotherhoods and mystery schools long before Christianity was created. In particular, they bear ample marks of Cynic origin, with parallels in the works of Seneca, Epictetus, Diogenes Laertius, etc. Robert Price states that the sayings convey 'not the personality of an individual but that of a movement, the sharp and humorous Cynic outlook on life' [4].
The Jewish historian Josephus mentions three characters who people thought were messiahs and who were crucified by the Romans: Yehuda of Galilee (6 CE), Theudas (44 CE), and Benjamin the Egyptian (60 CE). It is possible that the Jesus story is partly based on their lives [5].
G.A. Wells maintains that Paul regarded Jesus as a heavenly, preexistent figure who had come to earth perhaps one or two centuries before his own time. Alvar Ellegard has gone a step further and has suggested that the main prototype for Jesus was the Teacher of Righteousness mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls (discovered in the late 1940s and early 50s) [6]. Ellegard argues that this figure was the founder of the Judaic reform movement known as the Essenes, and died around 100 BCE (before common era). He was looked upon as a great prophet and also as a martyr, who had been harassed and eventually put to death by the Jewish priestly hierarchy. According to Ellegard, Paul and his colleagues were the first to refer to this figure as 'Jesus', and it was they who introduced the idea that he was the messiah or saviour. He acknowledges that the Teacher of the Scrolls differs in many ways from the Jesus of the gospels, but stresses that the latter is largely a fictional figure.
There is disagreement as to whether Paul and his fellow-believers saw Jesus as a man who had lived on earth at some more distant time in the past or whether they saw him entirely as a mythical figure, a spiritual being who lived and operated in the 'supernatural' world, like all the other saviour gods of the time. Although Paul makes it clear that he himself had never met an historical Jesus, there are a handful of passages in his writings that could be interpreted as referring to a previous earthly existence of Jesus. Earl Doherty, however, argues that these are better interpreted in line with Platonic thinking about counterpart realities in the higher spiritual world [7]. In his view, pre-gospel Christian records do not provide any evidence of a widespread tradition about a human founder who was a prophet, teacher, miracle-worker and interpreter of scripture -- in either the recent or distant past.
In a highly speculative reconstruction of the life of the Teacher of Righteousness (who may have been called Judah), Michael Wise argues that he was a priestly prophet, a member of the elite, and rose to preeminence around 105 BCE as a leader of the political coalition that supported King Alexander Jannaeus (who reigned from c. 103 to 76 BCE) [8]. Alexander was supported by the Sadducees and oppressed the Pharisees, but when his wife, Alexandra, became queen, she did an about-face and embraced the Pharisees. Judah, who came to regard himself as the messiah, defied the new regime, labelling it Satan's dominion. He was arrested, charged with false prophecy, and exiled around 74 BCE, and within a few years he had been killed. Wise does not specifically link the Teacher with the Essenes.
Robert Eisenman contends that the Dead Sea Scrolls have been dated a century too early, and that they should be seen as 1st-century CE works stemming from the community led by James the Just. According to this view, it is the latter who was called the Teacher of Righteousness. The Teacher is said to have been ambushed, betrayed and killed by a wicked priest, and this closely parallels the plot of Ananus the High Priest to trap and kill James [9]. If this theory is confirmed, it would rule out Ellegard's hypothesis that the Teacher of Righteousness was the historical Jesus and undermine Wise's attempted reconstruction of his life. A more important candidate for an historical Jesus is found in the Jewish Talmud.
Jesus in the Talmud
The Talmud contains a number of passages that refer to a certain Jeshu (or Joshua) ben Pandera, who lived around 100 BCE [1]. Jeshu is said to have been the disciple of Joshua ben Perachiah, who was certainly a historical figure, being one of the most prominent rabbis of the time. During the persecution of the Pharisees by Alexander Jannaeus, which began around 94 BCE, Joshua ben Perachiah fled with Jeshu to Alexandria in Egypt, where Jeshu is said to have learned magic. Described as a learned man, Jeshu was expelled for heretical tendencies from the school over which Joshua presided. He became a religious teacher, had several disciples, and preached to ordinary people. He was accused of practising sorcery, deceiving Israel and estranging people from God. After being tried and convicted, he was stoned to death and his body was then hung up as a warning to others.
Some Jews still adhere to the 100 BCE date for Jesus and argue that many gospel stories are specific responses to the Talmudic picture of Jeshu ('Jesus' is the Latin form of 'Jeshu' or 'Yeshu') [2]. Christians, on the other hand, claim that the Talmud Jeshu is partly based on the 'real', gospel Jesus, and that the stories about Jeshu reflect the Jews' intense hostility towards the Christians [3]. Many writers who argue that the gospel Jesus is a fictional character also deny the historical reality of the Talmud Jeshu [4]. Theosophical writers such as H.P. Blavatsky and G. de Purucker, on the other hand, insist that there was a historical Jesus who lived around 100 BCE, on whom the gospel Jesus is partly based, and they give credence to the Talmudic tradition [5]. Blavatsky writes:
However cautious one ought to be in accepting anything about Jesus from Jewish sources, it must be confessed that in some things they seem to be more correct in their statements (whenever their direct interests in stating facts is not concerned) than our good but too jealous [Church] Fathers. [6]
The Talmud was compiled between the 2nd and 6th centuries CE from earlier traditions. In the middle ages, the scattered passages referring to Jeshu were worked up, together with other material, into a book, the Toldoth Jeshu (Life of Jesus). Whereas the Talmud is a fairly sober work, the Toldoth Jeshu is full of wild tales, which are clearly not intended to be regarded as historical. The statements made about Jesus in the Talmud and Toldoth are sometimes rather confused, and some were probably written after the gospel story emerged in order to ridicule Christian beliefs (e.g. the story about Jesus' mother being an adulteress and Jesus a bastard, and the story that Jesus' disciples stole his dead body and hid it).
The Talmud also speaks of a man named ben Stada ('strayed one'), who sometimes stands for Jesus, but one of the passages implies that he lived around 100 CE -- nearly 200 years after King Jannaeus' death. However, this should not be used as an excuse to reject the whole rabbinical tradition about Jesus as unhistorical and unreliable, especially since ben Stada appears originally to have been a separate character who was later confused with Jeshu [7]. G.R.S. Mead shows that the 100 BCE date is part of the oldest deposit of the Talmud and predates the stories containing the later date, which were developed by the Lydda (or Lud) school of rabbis for polemical purposes [8].
The early Christians were well aware of the Jewish stories about Jesus. The pagan philosopher Celsus, who was famous for his arguments against Christianity, referred to the Jewish tradition current in his own day (c. 170 CE) that Jesus went to Egypt where he learned magic and later returned home and started claiming he was a god. Jesus' mother, Mary, had allegedly been divorced by her husband, a carpenter, after it had been proved that she was an adulteress. She wandered about in shame and bore Jesus in secret, his real father being a soldier named Panthera (or Pandera). The 3rd-century church father Origen found this story to be of sufficient importance to go to the pains of arguing against it in his book against Celsus. At the end of the 2nd century, the fiery church father Tertullian, in a diatribe against the Jews, indicated that he was aware of several elements of the Talmud Jesus stories, and also several additional elements not mentioned in the Talmud but included in the Toldoth Jeshu, which was not written down until many centuries later [9].
In the 4th century the Christian saint Epiphanius gave a Christian genealogy in which Panthera is mentioned as the grandfather of Jesus. He even states that Jesus lived in the time of King Jannaeus, but then goes on to say that Jesus was born in 2 BCE, some 70 years after Jannaeus' death [10]! Epiphanius was trying to dispose of the Jewish tradition about Jesus by incorporating elements of it into his own (clearly fictional) account, apparently unconcerned by the blatant incongruity to which this gave rise.
According to Matthew's Gospel, Joseph and Mary had to flee with the baby Jesus to Egypt because King Herod had ordered all infant boys born in Bethlehem to be killed. As already mentioned, the Talmud says that ben Perachiah fled to Egypt with Jeshu to escape being killed by King Jannaeus. In contrast to the Christian story of the 'slaughter of the innocents' under Herod, for which there is no historical evidence whatsoever, the persecution of the Pharisees by Alexander Jannaeus is a historical fact [11]. Jannaeus (supported by the Sadducees) overcame the Pharisees around 88 BCE after six years of fighting. He allegedly crucified 800 of them and had the throats of their wives and children cut in front of them; another 8000 rabbis fled Judea. The 'slaughter of the innocents' may be partly based on this fact (initiates were sometimes called 'innocents' or 'infants'). However, it should be noted that the theme of a divine or semi-divine child who is feared by an evil king is very common in pagan mythology (Buffalo's notes - and indeed mythology altogether, according to Campbell).
According to the gospels, Jesus was crucified. However, Paul and Peter, who were writing before the gospels were composed, say he was 'hanged on a tree' (Galatians 3:13; Acts 5:30, 10:39). The Talmud Jesus is said to have been stoned and hanged on a tree (in accordance with Jewish law). Jesus' crucifixion is also, of course, symbolical. Christ represents both the spiritual sun (whose emblem is the physical sun) and the spiritual self in each individual. The cross represents the intersection of the ecliptic and the celestial equator, and also the interdependence of spirit (the vertical bar) and matter (the horizontal). Just as the sun is 'reborn' at the vernal equinox, when it crosses the celestial equator and begins its northward journey along the ecliptic, so the aim of initiation is to end the 'crucifixion' of the higher self in the world of matter by bringing about a second or spiritual birth, in which the lower nature is transmuted and united with the higher. During the trials of initiation the candidate often lay on a cruciform couch.
The theme of a divine or semi-divine being who is sacrificed against a tree, pole or cross and then resurrected is frequently found in pagan mythology. For instance, at the vernal equinox, pagans in northern Israel would celebrate the death and resurrection of the virgin-born Tammuz-Osiris. In Asia Minor (where the earliest Christian churches were established) a similar celebration was held for the virgin-born Attis, who was shown as dying against a tree, being buried in a cave and then being resurrected on the third day [12].
Jesus the Nazar
The Hebrew name for Christians has always been notzrim, and although modern Christians claim that Christianity only started in the 1st century CE, the 1st-century Christians in Israel considered themselves to be a continuation of the notzri movement, which had been in existence for about 150 years [1]. In the rabbinical tradition, Jeshu ben Pandera is also called Jeshu ha-Notzri (Jesus the Nazar). The Greek equivalent of notzri is nazoraios (or nazaraios/naziraios). The stem of this word means 'to keep oneself separate' -- an indication of the ascetic nature of this sect. The early Christians conjectured that nazoraios (variously rendered Nazar/Nazarite, Nazorean or Nazarene) meant a person from Nazareth and so it was assumed that Jesus lived in Nazareth. However, the original Hebrew for Nazareth is Natzrat and a person from Nazareth is a Natzrati. The expression 'Jesus of Nazareth' is therefore a mistranslation of 'Jeshu ha-Notzri'.
At the time of the emergence of Christianity, the Middle East was the scene of great religious diversity, as has been confirmed by the Nag Hammadi writings and Dead Sea Scrolls. Many of the various sects -- e.g. Essenes, Therapeutae (lit. 'healers'), Nazars, Nabatheans, Ebionites and Gnostics -- were closely interrelated and often difficult to tell apart. As H.P. Blavatsky says, they 'were all, with very slight differences, followers of the ancient theurgic mysteries' [2]. Several scholars have pointed to similarities between eastern religious traditions (especially Buddhism and Brahmanism) and the ideas of the Essenes, Nazars and Gnostics. Trade routes between the Greco-Roman world and the Far East were opening up at the time Gnosticism flourished (80-200 CE), Buddhists were in contact with gnostic Christians in southern India, and for generations Buddhist missionaries had been proselytizing in Alexandria and elsewhere in the Middle East [3]..."
According to Blavatsky, the Essenes were 'the converts of Buddhist missionaries who had overrun Egypt, Greece, and even Judea at one time, since the reign of Asoka' (mid-3rd century BCE) [4]. She states that although Jesus was a pupil of the Essenes, he was not a strict Essene as he disagreed with his early teachers on several questions of formal observance.
[T]he Nazarene Reformer, after having received his education in their [the Essenes'] dwellings in the desert, and been duly initiated into the Mysteries, preferred the free and independent life of a wandering Nazaria, and so separated or inazarenized himself from them, thus becoming a travelling Therapeute, a Nazaria, a healer. [5]
She describes the Nazars as 'a class of Chaldean initiates' and 'kabalistic gnostics' [6]. Regarding Jesus' mission, she writes:
The motive of Jesus was evidently like that of Gautama-Buddha, to benefit humanity at large by producing a religious reform which should give it a religion of pure ethics . . .
In his immense and unselfish love for humanity, he considers it unjust to deprive the many of the results of the knowledge acquired by the few. This result he accordingly preaches -- the unity of a spiritual God, whose temple is within each of us, and in whom we live as He lives in us -- in spirit. [7]
The Mandeans asserted that Jesus was Nebu, the false messiah, and the destroyer of the old orthodox religion, while other opponents said he was the founder of a new sect of Nazars. The Hebrew word naba means 'to speak by inspiration', and Nebo is the god of wisdom and also the planet Mercury. The Hindus call this planet Budha ('wise man'), and it is closely connected with the Buddha ('awakened one'). Similarly, the Talmudists hold that Jesus was inspired by the genius or regent of Mercury [8]. According to the modern theosophical tradition, there is an intimate link between Jesus and Buddha, connected with Jesus' status as an avatara.
Jesus as avatara
The term 'avatara' signifies the 'descent' of a divine being who overshadows and works through a human vehicle. Mahatma KH stated that the man Jeshu was 'a mortal like any of us, an adept more by his inherent purity and ignorance of real Evil, than by what he had learned with his initiated Rabbis and the already (at that period) fast degenerating Egyptian Hierophants and priests' [1]. Jesus was chrestos (good and holy), and became christos ('anointed', i.e. glorified) only when the celestial power began to work through him. As Blavatsky explains:
Western Theosophists accept the Christos as did the Gnostics of the centuries which preceded Christianity, as do the Vedantins their Krishna: they distinguish the corporeal man from the divine Principle which, in the case of the Avatara, animates him. [2]
To make a complete avatara, a third element is necessary: the physical-astral body and the spiritual-divine entity must be linked by a psychological apparatus, which is provided by a master of wisdom with the status of a buddha. Blavatsky and Purucker indicate that in the case of Jesus, it was the adept known in his last incarnation as Gautama Buddha who provided this link [3]. When the Buddha achieved enlightenment, his spiritual self is said to have entered the state of nirvana, while his intermediate self, the bodhisattva, remained after his death in the earth's ethereal atmosphere as a nirmanakaya so that it could continue to help on human evolution [4].
Purucker explains that avataras are humans of extraordinary spiritual and intellectual powers embodying a divine ray, who have no human karma because they are not the reincarnations of an ordinary human soul evolving on this earth. They are created by an act of white magic at cyclical points in human history for the purpose of introducing the spiritual influence of a divine being into human affairs [5]. The chosen child, even before it is born, is overshadowed by the soul of the Buddha, who watches over and strengthens the body concerned until it can receive the fuller incarnation of the Buddha's spiritual and intellectual powers. Somewhat later, usually when the borrowed body has reached adulthood, the soul of the Buddha rises through the ether and links itself with the waiting divinity, and from that instant, which usually takes place during initiation at the time of the winter solstice, the avatara exists as a complete entity and goes about its work [6]. Purucker writes:
An avatara usually happens in our world when a divinity is passing through initiation, and a human being provides the vehicle to enable it to descend into what is an underworld to the divine spheres. When a human being undergoes a corresponding initiation, the man descends into the underworld where a denizen thereof cooperates to lend its thinking conscious vehicle to allow the human monad to manifest and work there. [7]
The gospel Jesus appears to be a patchwork character, partly mythical and partly based on a number of historical characters, including the Talmud Jeshu. As for the avatara Jesus mentioned in the theosophical tradition, Purucker points out that there is no exoteric proof that such a figure did live and teach [8]. He may have been born in 107 BCE [9], and Blavatsky quotes an obscure passage from a 'secret work', which could be interpreted to mean that he died in his 33rd year (i.e. in 75-74 BCE) [10].*
*Shankaracharya, the great Vedantic teacher of India, is also said to have been overshadowed by the Buddha. Born in 510 BCE, he chose to die in his 33rd year. A commentary explains: 'At whatever age one puts off his outward body by free will, at that age will he be made to die in his next incarnation against his will' [11].
In the Talmud, Balaam (a name meaning 'destroyer or corrupter of the people') -- who sometimes denotes Jeshu -- is said to have died when he was 33 years old. The Toldoth Jeshu indicates that Jeshu outlived Jannaeus, who died between 79 and 76 BCE. He was succeeded by his wife, Salome, who reigned for some nine years and, unlike her husband, was favourable to the Pharisees. It may have been only after Jannaeus' death that both Joshua ben Perachiah and Jeshu returned to Judea [12].
The New Testament does not indicate how old Jesus was when he died, though he is said to have begun his ministry at the age of 30. Some of the early Christians gave the time of his ministry as one year. The church father Irenaeus dismissed this and stated that Jesus' ministry lasted 20 years. The accepted opinion among Christians today is that his mission lasted 3 years, and that he was crucified in his 33rd year [13].
In theosophical literature, Jesus is said to have been the avatara for the Piscean Age, the age which is now closing as we enter the Aquarian Age [14]. Significantly, the Jesus story contains a great deal of fish imagery. The apostles were known as 'fishers of men'. The early Christians called themselves 'little fishes', and used the Greek word ichthys ('fish') as a code word for Jesus, as it was seen as an acronym for 'Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour'. In John's Gospel, Jesus miraculously helps his disciples land a large catch of 153 fish. 153 is a sacred number associated with the vesica piscis or 'vessel of the fish', an ancient Pythagorean symbol used by early Christians to represent their faith [15].
Figure. Two circles, symbolizing spirit and matter, are brought together in a sacred marriage. When the circumference of one touches the centre of the other they generate the fish shape known as the vesica piscis. The ratio of length to height of this shape is 265:153, and is known as the 'measure of the fish'. It is a powerful mathematical tool, being the nearest whole number approximation of the square root of three and the controlling ratio of the equilateral triangle.
Purucker says that Jesus 'came at a time of a downwards-running cycle in order to sow some seeds at least of spiritual light, preceding a time which was going to be spiritually dark'. His mission quickly proved to be a failure, because although the cyclic time for an avatara had come, everything was working against the spiritual forces for which he opened the way, and within less than a hundred years the teachings that he had left behind had degenerated [16]. For instance, the doctrines of reincarnation and karma were replaced by the irrational and unjust dogma that belief in Jesus is sufficient to absolve us of all our sins and secure us an eternity of heavenly bliss, while unbelievers will suffer eternal torment in hell.
'Christ' refers to far more than a single man. In his Letter to the Colossians (1:25-8), Paul describes himself as having been assigned the task of announcing 'the secret hidden for long ages and through many generations': 'The secret is this: Christ in you!' As Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy remark, this 'is the perennial mysticism of Gnosticism and the Pagan Mysteries -- that within each one of us is the one Soul of the Universe, the Logos, the Universal Daemon, the Mind of God' [17]. The purpose of our evolutionary pilgrimage is to bring this inner christ or buddha nature to full expression over the course of numberless lives. As Blavatsky puts it:
Christ -- the true esoteric SAVIOUR -- is no man, but the DIVINE PRINCIPLE in every human being. He who strives to resurrect the Spirit crucified in him by his own terrestrial passions, and buried deep in the 'sepulchre' of his sinful flesh; he who has the strength to roll back the stone of matter from the door of his own inner sanctuary, he has the risen Christ in him. The 'Son of Man' is no child of the bond-woman -- flesh, but verily of the free-woman -- Spirit, the child of man's own deeds, and the fruit of his own spiritual labour. [18]
(Hobo's notes - I find this part really interesting) Blavatsky relates that she was once in a large cave-temple in the Himalayas with her Tibetan teacher, Morya. There were many statues of adepts and, pointing to one of them, her teacher said: 'This is he whom you call Jesus. We count him to be one of the greatest among us' [19]. The importance of Jesus is highlighted in the following passage:
all the civilized portion of the Pagans who knew of Jesus honored him as a philosopher, an adept whom they placed on the same level with Pythagoras and Apollonius. . . . As an incarnated God there is no single record of him on this earth capable of withstanding the critical examination of science; as one of the greatest reformers, an inveterate enemy of every theological dogmatism, a persecutor of bigotry, a teacher of one of the most sublime codes of ethics, Jesus is one of the grandest and most clearly-defined figures on the panorama of human history. His age may, with every day, be receding farther and farther back into the gloomy and hazy mists of the past; and his theology -- based on human fancy and supported by untenable dogmas may, nay, must with every day lose more of its unmerited prestige; alone the grand figure of the philosopher and moral reformer instead of growing paler will become with every century more pronounced and more clearly defined. It will reign supreme and universal only on that day when the whole of humanity recognizes but one father -- the UNKNOWN ONE above -- and one brother -- the whole of mankind below. [20]
Selah.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
So I just moved
- to Decatur, which is a welcome change from my previous 'place of residence.' While I'm not an especially big fan of the country in general, there's beautiful scenery here, and there's cable.
The town itself's pretty small, but cozy - lots of antique shops, a couple of 'ma 'n pa' bookstores, and some other various little here and there's. And in the middle of the square, there's this beautiful old courthouse building -
The town itself's pretty small, but cozy - lots of antique shops, a couple of 'ma 'n pa' bookstores, and some other various little here and there's. And in the middle of the square, there's this beautiful old courthouse building -
Not a bad place, really.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Addendum to "Happy Feet" review
I've been wondering, of late, what the film's impression on audiences would have been if it had ended with Mumble's submission into madness in the zoo. I love the film, you know. Don't get me wrong. But, it is an interesting idea to play around with. It would have been so much more like "The Plague Dogs" dark, haunting and beautiful ending.
If that scene, and the pull out to space, were the last shots of the film, it would have still been a masterpiece, but a much more haunting one. However, were that the case, as would much be the same if "The Plague Dogs" were released today, you can bet the media pundits like your Medved, your Hannity, and so on would attack the film with even more vitriol than they did when the film was originally released -
which, frankly, would have urged me even more to see it.
If that scene, and the pull out to space, were the last shots of the film, it would have still been a masterpiece, but a much more haunting one. However, were that the case, as would much be the same if "The Plague Dogs" were released today, you can bet the media pundits like your Medved, your Hannity, and so on would attack the film with even more vitriol than they did when the film was originally released -
which, frankly, would have urged me even more to see it.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Beautiful picture
Lightening strikes the Christ statue on Corcovado mountain in Brazil. I want a poster of this.
Top twenty-five films of 2007
1) Before The Devil Knows You're Dead - My favorite from this year; I'm serious. Go see this movie.
2) Sunshine - Good, with a lot of very interesting philosophical ideas. I'll stick it in on a rainy day.
3)Rescue Dawn - Can Christian Bale do no wrong?
4) No Country For Old Men though I didn't like it as much as my brother did, I still found it a great film, and - hey! It's that kid from "The Goonies!"
5) Ratatouille - Top marks for this film - only thing that bugged me was the riff on HF in the end credits, which is all in good fun, I guess.
6) Grindhouse - (half of it)
7) 300 - Being stylistic doesn't equal being a good film. While it wasn't 'bad,' it wasn't one of my favorites, to say that much.
8) Beowulf - Was impressed, to a point. People looked like reanimated corpses. Too much cg-guy ass.
9) I Am Legend - Good film; hated the ending though.
10) Live Free Or Die Hard - Oh, this was horrid. You don't make a "Die Hard" film PG-13. Blasphemy.
11) Vacancy - Succeeded in making me jump, which is rare.
12) Disturbia - Why is Shia Lablarbarg still playing high-school kids, man? It works for some twenty year olds, but it's just weird on him. He shot up fast.
13) Pan's Labyrinth - Ah, Pan's Labyrinth.
14) Zodiac - Excellent film.
15)The Simpsons Movie - Well, I know I enjoyed it. I'm still waiting for a live action version, though.
16) Surf's Up - Good little escapist cg film; there's no real reason for them to be penguins, other than aesthetic value. The first ten minutes, though, are great. Especially the whale scene - it's got a tone all it's own that the rest of the film should've kept.
17)1408 - I don't think there's been a Cusack film I haven't liked. Plus, Samuel L. Jackson.
18) ATHF - The randomness of the show really only works in those fifteen minute doses. The movie, while funny, gets kinda...meh after a while.
19) Spider-Man 3 - I have a love/hate thing going on with this film. I love the character moments - MJ and Harry's thing, Peter's whole saga, all that - but it just puts me off for all the 'filler' they threw in there, as well as all the mock sentimental schmuck. Raimi's better than this; come on now. The end of the film - good moment. Sandman telling his wife 'I'm not a bad guy' - stupid.
20) Transformers - It's Michael Bay. I turned my brain off beforehand and enjoyed it the first and second time around, but come the third time I started noticing all the internal logic flaws, and all that.
21) 28 Weeks Later - Not as good as the first one. Mehz. Girlfriend was appropriately shocked though. She hadn't seen the first one, which is oodles better.
22) Black Snake Moan - Surprisingly good - wasn't what I thought it would be. Plus, Samuel L. Jackson.
23) Snakes On A Plane - Absolutely all hype; I mean, it was gonna be a 'b' film, granted; but I just couldn't get into it. Plus, Samuel L. Jackson.
2) Sunshine - Good, with a lot of very interesting philosophical ideas. I'll stick it in on a rainy day.
3)Rescue Dawn - Can Christian Bale do no wrong?
4) No Country For Old Men though I didn't like it as much as my brother did, I still found it a great film, and - hey! It's that kid from "The Goonies!"
5) Ratatouille - Top marks for this film - only thing that bugged me was the riff on HF in the end credits, which is all in good fun, I guess.
6) Grindhouse - (half of it)
7) 300 - Being stylistic doesn't equal being a good film. While it wasn't 'bad,' it wasn't one of my favorites, to say that much.
8) Beowulf - Was impressed, to a point. People looked like reanimated corpses. Too much cg-guy ass.
9) I Am Legend - Good film; hated the ending though.
10) Live Free Or Die Hard - Oh, this was horrid. You don't make a "Die Hard" film PG-13. Blasphemy.
11) Vacancy - Succeeded in making me jump, which is rare.
12) Disturbia - Why is Shia Lablarbarg still playing high-school kids, man? It works for some twenty year olds, but it's just weird on him. He shot up fast.
13) Pan's Labyrinth - Ah, Pan's Labyrinth.
14) Zodiac - Excellent film.
15)The Simpsons Movie - Well, I know I enjoyed it. I'm still waiting for a live action version, though.
16) Surf's Up - Good little escapist cg film; there's no real reason for them to be penguins, other than aesthetic value. The first ten minutes, though, are great. Especially the whale scene - it's got a tone all it's own that the rest of the film should've kept.
17)1408 - I don't think there's been a Cusack film I haven't liked. Plus, Samuel L. Jackson.
18) ATHF - The randomness of the show really only works in those fifteen minute doses. The movie, while funny, gets kinda...meh after a while.
19) Spider-Man 3 - I have a love/hate thing going on with this film. I love the character moments - MJ and Harry's thing, Peter's whole saga, all that - but it just puts me off for all the 'filler' they threw in there, as well as all the mock sentimental schmuck. Raimi's better than this; come on now. The end of the film - good moment. Sandman telling his wife 'I'm not a bad guy' - stupid.
20) Transformers - It's Michael Bay. I turned my brain off beforehand and enjoyed it the first and second time around, but come the third time I started noticing all the internal logic flaws, and all that.
21) 28 Weeks Later - Not as good as the first one. Mehz. Girlfriend was appropriately shocked though. She hadn't seen the first one, which is oodles better.
22) Black Snake Moan - Surprisingly good - wasn't what I thought it would be. Plus, Samuel L. Jackson.
23) Snakes On A Plane - Absolutely all hype; I mean, it was gonna be a 'b' film, granted; but I just couldn't get into it. Plus, Samuel L. Jackson.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
On the Celtx screenwriting software
*insert fourteen paragraphs of gushing and plugging here*
It's that good, ladies.
It's that good, ladies.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Tights or rubber?
Or, simply:
Which looks more badass?
This:
Or, THIS:
I think the choice is obvious, really. Okay, another example.
This is Batman in rubber (note the little nipples):
This is Batman in tights (note the real muscles):
Really, this is the essential fallacy of the universe that Nolan has set up in his bat-films. In trying to distance himself from the old Burton/Shumacher franchise (of which three of the films were quite good), he missed the opportunity to do something markedly different. I mean, there's no real difference between the suit in the latter half of "Batman Forever" and "Batman Begins' " 'Nomex' combat suit. Look at these two:
Now, don't get me wrong. I 'get' the reasons for the rubber look, and chief among them is the name of one man: Adam West. His portrayal of Batman in tights in the sixties gave the impression that tights just didn't work. And, I see why. The guy was pudgy, and not fit enough for the role to make the tights work for him. So, for Burton's Batman, the suit was rubber because Keaton wasn't a muscular dude, and because the sixties show gave the impression that (say it with me) tights didn't work.
But, in 2003, Sandy Collara's "Batman: Dead End" showed us that, among other things (like Batman fights Predators and Aliens) that tights do work, and they work extremely well, with the right actor, who was Clark Bartram. Following this were fan-films from Bat-In-The-Sun that affirmed this point with American Gladiator Tanoi Reed.
As far as logical reasons for tights or skintight material goes, one only has to look at where the costume came from in the first place, which is circus acrobats of the 1920's and 30's. And there you are. And as for 'body armor,' I'm either way about it, but really, that's always been one of the cool things about the character, was that he could be shot and hurt, that he bled. He wasn't Superman, or Spider-man. He had a drive, and insane intelligence and strength, but still, all it would take is one bullet. To take that element away is to ruin a part of the character; to paraphrase a popular geek-meme, Batman don't need no body armor. He's got prep-time.
Don't get me wrong, I loved Batman Begins (sans costume), and I think I'll say the same thing about The Dark Knight, when I see it. But, still, when I see this, I wanna punch somebody.
I have given a name to my pain.
And it is Lindy Hemmings.
Which looks more badass?
This:
Or, THIS:
I think the choice is obvious, really. Okay, another example.
This is Batman in rubber (note the little nipples):
This is Batman in tights (note the real muscles):
Really, this is the essential fallacy of the universe that Nolan has set up in his bat-films. In trying to distance himself from the old Burton/Shumacher franchise (of which three of the films were quite good), he missed the opportunity to do something markedly different. I mean, there's no real difference between the suit in the latter half of "Batman Forever" and "Batman Begins' " 'Nomex' combat suit. Look at these two:
Now, don't get me wrong. I 'get' the reasons for the rubber look, and chief among them is the name of one man: Adam West. His portrayal of Batman in tights in the sixties gave the impression that tights just didn't work. And, I see why. The guy was pudgy, and not fit enough for the role to make the tights work for him. So, for Burton's Batman, the suit was rubber because Keaton wasn't a muscular dude, and because the sixties show gave the impression that (say it with me) tights didn't work.
But, in 2003, Sandy Collara's "Batman: Dead End" showed us that, among other things (like Batman fights Predators and Aliens) that tights do work, and they work extremely well, with the right actor, who was Clark Bartram. Following this were fan-films from Bat-In-The-Sun that affirmed this point with American Gladiator Tanoi Reed.
As far as logical reasons for tights or skintight material goes, one only has to look at where the costume came from in the first place, which is circus acrobats of the 1920's and 30's. And there you are. And as for 'body armor,' I'm either way about it, but really, that's always been one of the cool things about the character, was that he could be shot and hurt, that he bled. He wasn't Superman, or Spider-man. He had a drive, and insane intelligence and strength, but still, all it would take is one bullet. To take that element away is to ruin a part of the character; to paraphrase a popular geek-meme, Batman don't need no body armor. He's got prep-time.
Don't get me wrong, I loved Batman Begins (sans costume), and I think I'll say the same thing about The Dark Knight, when I see it. But, still, when I see this, I wanna punch somebody.
I have given a name to my pain.
And it is Lindy Hemmings.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Scientology kills. Like crack, but worse.
Found this on one of the boards I frequent. Damn, Cruise.
"By now you may have come to learn not only of our existence, but the existence of the Church of Scientology and the corrupt and evil methods by which their leaders conduct themselves. Through their malicious litigious practices, and the exploitation of the weak and vulnerable, the leaders of Scientology have crafted a palace of lies on which they preside.
If you are unaware about the practices of Scientology; this is designed to educate you on the tactics of brainwashing, paranoia, and numerous violations of human rights performed by the leaders of Scientology.
If you are ambivalent to the cause of Anonymous, or the suffering and suppression of those within Scientology caused by their leaders, this will show you a small part of the practices and methods of Scientology. If this video is taken down by Scientology lawyers, you may also find it on http://www.ytmnd.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCGP-0545EU
Graphic content at points listed, watch these portions at your own discretion
3:18-3:3
She was pronounced dead after being restrained against her will for 17 days by Scientology. She showed signs of being severely dehydrated, had shown signs of being forcibly restrained, and was severely underweight she also have over 100 cockroach bites on her body all while under the ?care? of Scientology.
She had $151 in her bank account the day she died.
4:23-4:23
The water in his bathtub at the hotel was so hot that it had boiled most of his skin off his body.
All Scientologists are not created equal, for a brief lesson on the disparity, and thus exploitation of the lower class of Scientologist (who has no hope of ever affording the higher level ?courses? the Church will teach you, for a large sum of money)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elw9e9LJIwQ&NR=1
To Scientology, we are all:
Anyone who is not a Scientologist: May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_%28Scientology
- Fair Game Continues to this day and ample evidence of it can be found at every corner where any person has dared to criticize Scientology.
Learn more about Operation Snow White, Scientology Infiltrated the IRS, some 5000 Scientologists engaged in forgery, blackmail, leaking of government secrets, and gathering information on potential enemies of the Church while attempting to remove any records or information that would be harmful to them.
Learn more about Operation Freakout where Scientologists attempted to suppress an author who and written a book on L Ron Hubbard, the churches founder, and the scam that is Scientology,. Their tactics included, framing her for bomb threats, death threats, harassment, attempting to destroy her reputation?.
To the suppressed followers of Scientology....
Testimony from a former Scientologist:
http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?p=57816#post57816
If you yourself are a Scientologist: and have come to realize how you have been exploited and abused by your leaders, we urge you to remember that You are not alone!. They will never let you Cross The Bridge; if you are thinking of leaving Scientology, Anonymous recommends you get in contact with others who can help you.
The most dangerous individual at this time would not be any member of the Church itself, but those who are ambivalent to the goals of Anonymous in the face of the 'alleged' crimes of Scientology.
Our power is in our ability to manipulate the flow of information that they, the Church leaders, have sought to control. Search the internets, the secret documents and tenants of the church can be found, and exposed. Without their secrecy, Scientology would be unable to extort money from its 'followers'. These are not the traits of a religion, but a pyramid scheme designed to prey on the weak, and exploit them and the rich, in kind.
If you know of places where this can be posted to reach an ever greater number of individuals, Anonymous urges you to do so. If Anonymous can improve upon this message, Anonymous urges you to do so.
This is only the Beginning."
Well, it was gonna end sooner or later. L. Ron Hubbard wasn't that good of a writer anyhow. "Battlefield Earth," my ass.
"By now you may have come to learn not only of our existence, but the existence of the Church of Scientology and the corrupt and evil methods by which their leaders conduct themselves. Through their malicious litigious practices, and the exploitation of the weak and vulnerable, the leaders of Scientology have crafted a palace of lies on which they preside.
If you are unaware about the practices of Scientology; this is designed to educate you on the tactics of brainwashing, paranoia, and numerous violations of human rights performed by the leaders of Scientology.
If you are ambivalent to the cause of Anonymous, or the suffering and suppression of those within Scientology caused by their leaders, this will show you a small part of the practices and methods of Scientology. If this video is taken down by Scientology lawyers, you may also find it on http://www.ytmnd.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCGP-0545EU
Graphic content at points listed, watch these portions at your own discretion
3:18-3:3
She was pronounced dead after being restrained against her will for 17 days by Scientology. She showed signs of being severely dehydrated, had shown signs of being forcibly restrained, and was severely underweight she also have over 100 cockroach bites on her body all while under the ?care? of Scientology.
She had $151 in her bank account the day she died.
4:23-4:23
The water in his bathtub at the hotel was so hot that it had boiled most of his skin off his body.
All Scientologists are not created equal, for a brief lesson on the disparity, and thus exploitation of the lower class of Scientologist (who has no hope of ever affording the higher level ?courses? the Church will teach you, for a large sum of money)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elw9e9LJIwQ&NR=1
To Scientology, we are all:
Fair Game
Anyone who is not a Scientologist: May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_%28Scientology
- Fair Game Continues to this day and ample evidence of it can be found at every corner where any person has dared to criticize Scientology.
Learn more about Operation Snow White, Scientology Infiltrated the IRS, some 5000 Scientologists engaged in forgery, blackmail, leaking of government secrets, and gathering information on potential enemies of the Church while attempting to remove any records or information that would be harmful to them.
Learn more about Operation Freakout where Scientologists attempted to suppress an author who and written a book on L Ron Hubbard, the churches founder, and the scam that is Scientology,. Their tactics included, framing her for bomb threats, death threats, harassment, attempting to destroy her reputation?.
To the suppressed followers of Scientology....
Testimony from a former Scientologist:
Quote:
| Summarized Experiences From Within the Cult Scientology 1. Not allowed to see my mom but once a day when I was six. Was only permitted to see her at dinner for one hour. 2. My mom was made to work 12 hour days and was only paid $50.00 a week and given room and board. 3. I was made to live in a dorm at the age of six, separate from my mom or dad, with three other girls my age. 4. I was made to believe from a very early age that Scientologist were the better than other people, and if you were not in it, you were not good enough. 5. I was told to only tell my grandparents good things about myself when I visited, to not let on if I was behind in school, but just make them think I am a great student. 6. Scientologists constantly refers to people outside of their 'religion" as "Wogs". A derogatory term used commonly by members in it. 7. I was made to join staff when I was 14. I had to sign a billion year contract because of their beliefs in reincarnation. 8. I had to stop attending school when I was 14, to join staff. I could only attend school one day a week on Sunday for about 10 hours. 9. I was made to live in a two room apartment with seven other women when I was 14. Overcrowding is commonplace. I live like that for most of my seven years on staff. 10. I had 30 minute lunches, breakfasts and dinners. If I was late back to work I would get in trouble. 11. I was working 10 hour days, six days a week, from the age of 16. I was not getting paid overtime. I was only making $50.00 a week. 12. The only time I would have off, was every other week, if my production was good enough. Sometimes I would go a month without even one day off. 13. When I joined, I would not see my mom for days at a time. She lived in a different dorm than I did, and had a different eating schedule than me. 14. At the age of 15 I was made to stay up until 12 pm every Thursday and Friday to attend Scientology meetings and clean their facilities with all the other staff. 15. After Scientology events we were all assigned a number of books or tapes we were suppose to sell to the public. We had to make our quotas before we were allowed to go home. I started selling books when I was 15. Sometimes we had to call from lists we were given to make our quotas. Most of these lists were to Scientologist who were out of the state or out of the country. 16. The staff was not aloud to eat the nice food put out for public after events. It was only for the public, we would get in trouble if we were caught eating it. 17. The staff was not allowed to socialize with the public after events, only to sell books, we could not join them on the dance floor, or in the auditorium. 18. The Hacienda (apartment complex where the staff live) is set up so that staff can not just get up and leave when they want to. The Premises is surrounded by a large gate and bushes so that people cannot see in easily. There are several cameras around the complex to keep an eye on the staff. There is a security guard at the front gate at all times to let people in and out. Staff may not leave without first explaining where they are going and what they are doing to the security guard. 19. Sea Org staff are not allowed to own televisions, mine was confiscated when I was 14 or 15. Staff are not aloud to watch TV ever. Movies are only allowed on the weekend if you get approval to have time off. Movies are not allowed on weekdays. 20. Most staff do not have cars or cell phones because it costs to much money to own them. If you have a car, you have to check with the security guard if you want to leave, if he is suspicious he will not let you leave. 21. The only days staff are allowed to celebrate and dance together is the Christmas party and Beer and Cheese party. Twice a year. Don't ask, neither of these celebrations make much sense. 22. I was forced to cut all ties with my dad when I was 15. He was declared a Suppressive Person by Scientology, and that meant I could no longer talk or associate myself with him at all. 23. My mom died of cancer when I was 16. She was still on staff at the time, and she wrote in her will she wanted my brother and I assigned the guardians of Rusty and Linda Hilton, both on staff at Flag. 24. Once I joined staff I could no longer visit my relatives or grandparents for even a weekend without prior approval. At times my once a year request was denied for whatever reason, or no one had the time to look at it. 25. I was not allowed to socialize with anyone outside of the staff. If I did I was reported on and pulled in for questioning. 26. I was put on the e-meter once a week, along with all the other staff, to see if I had a clean or dirty needle. Clean meant I was OK, dirty meant I was hiding something. If it was dirty I was pulled in for questioning, and made to write up stuff I thought I was hiding 27. After each live success story we were suppose to stand up, clap, and say hip hip hooray three times to LRHs picture. This was daily. After each course completion in Scientology we had to tell everyone in our class our successes, once we were done we had to clap and say hip hooray to LRHs picture. His pictures are everywhere in their buildings. It was not optional you had to do it. 28. I had to get a divorce while I was in Scientology because my husband wanted out, and I did not. I was actually not told he was leaving until the day he left. He didn't even tell me, I was told by someone who knew him. It is against their rules to speak or mention to anyone in Scientology you are leaving staff. If you do, you can get kicked out and never be able to talk to your friends in it again. 29. When I finally decided I wanted to leave because I missed my ex husband too much, I was not allowed to just go. They made me work in the galley scrubbing pots and pans. They said I could not mention to anyone I wanted to leave, but everyone pretty much knew what I was doing. It took me three months of being separated from the group, all my friends, being put on the e-meter (lie detector) for two weeks straight and asked if I intend to contact my dad when I leave. I finally was aloud to leave, but was told I was moving to New Mexico to work for a Scientology school. I was told I could not return to Clearwater at all. 30. They made me sign a 10,000.00 waiver, promising that I would never talk out about my experiences with Scientology. I had to sign it before they would let me leave. 31. I was assigned handlers when I wanted to leave. I could not leave any of the buildings or walk outside without one of them. There are security guards assigned to each building, video cameras at each building entrance and exit, so if I wanted to leave without my handler, they would know. 32. I returned to Clearwater about a year after they sent me away. I was approached by one of their security guards and asked what I was doing here. I was on a public street on my lunch break. I just ignored him and walked away. They still thought they could control me, even though I was no longer on staff. 33. When my brother found out I was talking to my dad again, he refused to talk to me anymore. Now that I have associate myself with my dad, I am also declared, which means my brother can't talk to me. 34. Once I left, my "legal guardians' have never contacted me or spoke to me, even before I was declared. 35. I do not have one single friend I knew before I left Scientology (2002). They have all chosen to write me off because I no longer am a Sceintologist. Once I was declared, I was deleted from about 15 peoples myspace page. I did not delete them , they deleted me. 36. I am not allowed to talk to my Scientology school or teachers. They will also no longer talk to me. Once I left staff, they no longer thought it necessary to associate themselves with me. 37. I did not have a High School diploma when I left in 2002. I was 20 years old. Once I was married, they said I was now considered an adult and I no longer needed to attend school. I was only 17 when I married. 38. I never learned to drive, I now have a car, but driving was something they did not think was necessary. |
If you yourself are a Scientologist: and have come to realize how you have been exploited and abused by your leaders, we urge you to remember that You are not alone!. They will never let you Cross The Bridge; if you are thinking of leaving Scientology, Anonymous recommends you get in contact with others who can help you.
The most dangerous individual at this time would not be any member of the Church itself, but those who are ambivalent to the goals of Anonymous in the face of the 'alleged' crimes of Scientology.
Our power is in our ability to manipulate the flow of information that they, the Church leaders, have sought to control. Search the internets, the secret documents and tenants of the church can be found, and exposed. Without their secrecy, Scientology would be unable to extort money from its 'followers'. These are not the traits of a religion, but a pyramid scheme designed to prey on the weak, and exploit them and the rich, in kind.
If you know of places where this can be posted to reach an ever greater number of individuals, Anonymous urges you to do so. If Anonymous can improve upon this message, Anonymous urges you to do so.
This is only the Beginning."
Well, it was gonna end sooner or later. L. Ron Hubbard wasn't that good of a writer anyhow. "Battlefield Earth," my ass.
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