Mystery-Saint vs. The Knife

"I had a dream all my teeth fell out. A cracked smile and a Silent Shout."

The Knife. Best band around right now? (To these ears) Undoubtedly! And I am not even that big a fan of techno or electronica or what have you. But wait. Before I even start dear reader, have you noticed the the bird masks Brother Olaf and Sister Karen of the Knife wear? I didn't even know they wore bird masks until I looked for a photo for this post.

- (Flashback Synchonicity Alert!) About six months ago I am in a Virgin Records Megastore down the street from me and I notice a cd with the most amazing cover; a strange almost cartoonish black and white drawing of a girl with long hair wearing cool sunglasses and projecting some kind of magick energy sphere between her hands. The cover says "Fever Ray" and a sticker on the album says this is the solo album by Karen from The Knife. I have never heard of this Knife but I love this chick and her occult accoutrements on this cover. Sadly I balk at spending money for a cd I know nothing about and move on, I think I end up buying a Lee "Scratch" Perry album which is a whole other post but a seed has been sown and in time the Reaping of the Knife will come. A few months later I am at the Library picking up some more occult books and I browse through the cd selection and notice an album called Silent Shout by a band called The Knife. Rusty gears click and whir in this old head and a connection is made. I grab the cd and jet to the counter; stay out of my way Mousey Librarians! Don't even tell me I have a fine on my card and I can't check this cd out, God wants me to hear this album! I get home and imbibe my favorite sacrament and slip on those headphones. The Knife's Silent Shout begins with a cold but bouncy bass drum slash bass note pounding sinuously. The vocals start and what the f- is this? The vocals have been prismatically splayed into various pitches, it's like the Icy Chorus of the God's of the North blowing witchy wind all over the techno throb of the music. The ray of light of melody sent through the crystal of voice processing and voila! A vocal Rainbow! As the cd goes on I realize there is a definite minimal agenda at work here. The songs seem pared down to the absolute minimum. Now I am a songwriter and to be honest I am not really impressed with techno knob-twiddling in general or how great stuff sounds. I am a lo fi dude. This band knows how to work it though. They seem to focus on just writing really good songs and letting the bleeps and bloops serve the song. So, besides making petitions to Odin One eyed God of the Ravens or whoever they pray to how do bro and sis Karen and Olaf come up with such good stuff. I have a sister and you know bros and sis's can kill each other but also there is something deep there. Some intuitive thing. Maybe also just the fact that because they are siblings they can push each other and push each other's buttons. (Name Synchronicity Alert! Karen seems to be a popular name for girl singers isn't it? Karen Carpenter. Karen O from the Yeah, Yeah, Yeah's. To be honest though, you get yourself some Kate Bush especially the album the Dreaming and you will really never need to listen to Karen O from the Yeah, Yeah, Yeah's again. More like the Blah, Blah, Blah's!) Where was I? So something child-like and dark and very emotionally powerful. Isn't that amazing? With all the techno processing of the vocals and the music these are very emotionally virile songs.

"You try to feel it but you can't wake up- you try to touch it but you can't wake up... I do it backwards but I don't wake up..." (that's some spooky shit!)

So far I have bought the albums Silent Shout, Deep Cuts and Karen's solo album Fever Ray.

Silent Shout is definitely the masterpiece. Dark, monolithic, cthonic (and H.P. Lovecraft always uses that word and I am sure he would have loved this album) Beautiful and sharp, no fat at all..

Deep Cuts is more brightly colored and bouncy. It seems to have more of an idea of creating an androgynous sound which I think is brilliant. There is a definite dance around the room feel to this album. Very melodic and catchy. Sort of like a techno version of what Lou Reed was doing with the Velvets on songs like Candy Says ( I loooove the Velvet Underground!)

Fever Ray is strange. It's much more low energy and feminine. As if the strong bright male (Chockmah) elements of light have not yet been brought forth by YHWH, like the darkness has not yet been split into the shining edges of light that we hear in the Knife albums. This album is like the Ama aspect of Binah: in it's essence it is the force of travail in all types and levels of bringing to birth... the waters of form... a dark womb...

I am lost in the sauce now, The Knife is not an easy band to write about, but they are an easy band to love... Check them out fools! Forget whatever second-hand crap MTV is trying to sell you or whatever those overrated and wimpy Animal Collective type bands are up to. This is where songwriting is right now... I thought you knew!

- The Mystery-Saint

The Mystery-Saint Vs. The Book of Daniel... part 1

So I have embarked on a mission of reading The Bible with an eye to the esoteric or occult gems hidden in there and believe me it's got it! The Bible I use is The Jerusalem Bible (check it out, one of the contributor's to the translation was J.R.Tolkien). I don't know how all these Xtians are so against Magick when it is all over their book! So I started with Daniel. This book is like a summer blockbuster movie y'all. It has magick, intrigue, lion's den's, angels in firey furnaces and dragons (?) Even a prophet getting picked up by the hair (OUCH!) by an angel and transported that way to Babylon to deliver Daniel a message. But that's getting ahead of the story.
Daniel's main thing is he will not give in and worship stone idols or the King, he won't sell out YHWH. However, Daniel somehow has the best nose for sniffing out the meaning of dreams in the area and this is going to save him.
So old Nebuchadenezz' wants to pick the best of these Israelite males to be like his own private think-tank:
"a certain number of boys of either royal or noble descent; they had to be without any physical defect... trained in every kind of wisdom..."
Now what is "every kind of wisdom"? For all the studying into the History of Religion and The Occult I have done I immediately think we are talking about Qabalah here. I think you could make a pretty good case that the Israelites were into the Qabalah at least since the time of Moses. Moses who was trained in all the magick of the Egyptians... So let's start with at least the impression that Daniel was performing magick and divination of some sort, probably a early form of Qabalah.
So these special boys of King Neb's are to eat and drink the food and wine left from the King's own table. Sounds good! But not to Daniel. YHWH has given some pretty strict dietary guidelines and Daniel is not about to break his diet. Daniel comes up with a brilliant plan, he is almost like the first personal trainer... "Please allow your servants a ten day's trial, during which we are given only vegetables and water to drink. You can then compare our looks with the boys who eat the King's food..."
Daniel is throwing it down. You wonder if any of the other Israelite boys were "foodie's" and if they felt like maybe Daniel had been a little hasty with all this water and vegetables craziness! So these four Israelite boys get their six packs a little tighter than the other gluttons and when The King asks to see their ab's Daniel says: "Here's the situation King!" Gradually these four become prominent members of The King's Court.

So now we get to the action. King Neb has a crazy dream and gets all his magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and Chaldeans (?) together to interpret this dream. But King Neb is tricky. He tells these Scryer's they must first tell him what his dream was and then interpret it. Obviously these dudes are a little taken back by this challenge, they thought they were going to be hearing a story and then doing some vague semantic dances with occult symbolism. Instead they don't get to hear what the original dream was; and like Charles Mingus said; "you can't improvise off nothing!" The King takes it to another level and really gets the Diviners shaking when he says; "... if you cannot tell me what I dreamt and what it means I will have you torn limb from limb and your houses razed to the ground (and your family forced to go on the Daniel Diet of vegetables and water)"
So the Sorcerers mumble a faint: "Let the King tell his dreams to his servants and we will reveal it's meaning."
This standoff repeats itself a few times until the Sorcerers say that what the King asks is impossible and well, that's it dudes. This backfires on all the sages in the land as the King now wants them all killed. Daniel finds out about this though through a connection and takes the initiative and goes home and has himself a night vision of the resolution to the King's dream.
Daniel then goes before the King and interprets his dream which has to do with a statue made of different metals which represents different ages of man, The Gold Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age and Iron and Earthen-ware Ages. I am just going to say this; it seems that if you are interpreting a dream for a King you really can't go wrong in assigning all the meaning to the King and his reign, I mean, King's are self-centered anyway, so this is just going to fit right in, basically you play on their vanity. And of course as the symbol of King Neb's reign is the Golden Head of the Statue it is inferred that after his reign it's all downhill...
So King Neb has a new top Magician... find out what happens in the next exciting Post!

Things behind the sun

Check out this link to a video of footage (allegedly) filmed by one of NASA's satellites which shows huge spherical objects that look loike small metal planets orbiting behind the and around the sun! Pretty freaky! Is this photo shop or is this real? It makes me think of the Nick Drake song; Things Behind the Sun! What did Nick know that we don't?

http://aliencasebook.blogspot.com/2010/01/video-hugh-ufos-orbiting-sun.html

Mystery-Saint vs. The Sandman

Mystery-Saint vs. The Sandman

Whoa. Somehow I escaped all the Sandman action when it was current. I came late to the Graphic Novel game. The first one that really nailed me to the wall was Alan Moore's tasteful Melodrama "From Hell".

Well over the last few months I have gotten hooked on The Sandman. From the first time in the comic book we see our Hero who has been invoked and trapped inside a magickal crystal by an Aleister Crowley style diabolist; I am hooked. The Sandman (or Morpheus; The Dream King) is like the ultimate thin drawn lost rock and roller, burning his candle at both ends to keep the world of Dream, which we mortals just take for granted, rocking around the clock. He's like the guy Robert Smith stole his look from; but the guy who actually knew how to work the symbols and scry in the glass, as opposed to just putting on his eye make-up on in the glass.

I read the different volumes out of order, based on what was available.

Along the Sandman journey I saw scenes of Horror and Romance, Tragedy and Comedy. I met other characters; Matthew the talking Raven, Thesallie the Witch, Dream's other siblings (Destiny, Destruction, Desire, Delirium, Despair and Death, who is the cute Punk Rock Girl of Your Dreams). There are many plots and subplots and much reference to occult mythology and fairy tales and practices of the cunning folk and even a little bit of Quantum Theory spookiness in the form of a little Science dropped by young Delirium on Dream about the nature of the Observer and how he alters the Observed in this mutable universe.

The art is beautiful throughout but I most liked the minimalist Murakami-esque super flat style of Volume 9: The Kindly Ones. The Bonus Volume Endless Nights has jaw dropping art as well.

Neil Gaiman's writing is clear and effective, even poetic at times. He has a natural musicality and better humour than most comic book writers. He doesn't dive as deeply into esoterica as Alan Moore but still seems to to know his way around around a grimoire or two. Reading this comic book coincided with my discovery of the band The Knife and I can't think of a better soundtrack album to this than "Silent Shout".

You won't be wasting time getting to know The Dream King, The Sandman, Lord Shaper, the one for whom everything is mutable except the rigid parameters of the Self, this is his journey to becoming unstuck, or what the Buddhists would call reaching Enlightenment and it may juyt the thing to get your consciousness unstuck as well.