We can debate all the causes of our current situation but most would agree with the danger of, as you state, "no connection to any natural or spiritual reality". So how can we further and promote that connection?
For spiritual reality, I like martial arts such as Aikido and Tai Chi and others that embrace non-violence and character development, practices that include Yoga and Meditation, any religion that elevates love and tolerance, and any philosophy and cosmology that allows openness and respect for the Divine.
For natural reality, there is no substitute for venturing out of "the city" and into "the wilderness" - great books to support this include my namesake, Gary Snyder's book "Practice of the Wild", and, Rupert Sheldrake's "The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God".
For myself, as an art dealer, I am championing Ben Miller (www.benmillerartist.com) who paints rivers in a ritualistic manner - although most of his paintings are rivers in the West, he has more recently painted urban rivers - the Chicago, Hudson, East and Hackensack Rivers, raising awareness and money for river-keepers.
"The mountains and the rivers of this moment are the actualization of the way of the ancient Buddhas. Each, abiding in its own phenomenal expression, realizes completeness."
Dogen Kigen (13th Century)
"Worship the rivers: they are Godesses and will bless you."
I was a mega fan of Ye and actually went to his Miami Donda show, which was insane and he blew up a full size church that was painted black. Marylin Manson was all up in it. My eyebrows felt singed and I was coughing from the smoke of the explosion. It was sort of scary because I was in the second row. The fire department came. There were people in black droid clothes roaming in circles and it had a gladiator feel, like a Roman/alien vibe. At the time I thought it was the greatest show I’d ever seen.
But now I feel betrayed now by his behavior since my mom is Jewish and because of his abusive behavior to Kim K.
He also had a song called Black Skinhead. That whole album with that song is real dark, as well as his longform video for Runaway, which I also loved, thought it was brilliant at the time it came out, but there is also the occult mood in it.
I’m glad you wrote about this, because seems like no one else is.
I’m like why aren’t more people writing about this! He thinks he’s doing performance art in protest of can El culture, but he’s really a Christian theocrat with the dumbest ideas. He wants Gilead for real. Handmaid’s Tale would be fine with Yedolf.
Also, classic Bipolar actions of extreme Christian views, hearing angels, and thinking one is a prophet.
And if I’m truly honest with myself, I’m still a fan. I don’t like cancelling people’s artistic work for their political views. I’m just taking a break for now, but even not really. Idk it’s complicated...
I’ve been thinking about this question a lot. There are many reasons, but the main one is the music itself and his visuals. It spoke to me.
I especially loved the longform video for Runaway. I was working as a video editor at the time and many people in the industry were enthralled by it. It was the first “visual album” in a way, that then kicked off Lemonade and others.
Danced when I was young in the clubs to his music too, so there is some nostalgia involved. But I loved his later music as well. He was in my top spotify wrap up every year, including this year... whatever that says about me...
I am in a similar position as you, and I have wondered for a long time now why I am so attracted to his whole thing. I used to despise him until a switch flipped for me and i have been borderline obsessed for almost 10 years now. Myself being hyper self conscious, I think his pure expressive ability to say exactly what is on his mind became a model for me to break out of my overly strong critical self filter. I think a lot of people feel gravitate to him for this reason. As a musician and artist, when I was able to embrace his music I could finally see what everyone was talking about; the richness and depth behind the crude surface layers. And yes like you said the vision for visuals and shows and marketing are something like genius. I myself have always been a subversive artist and have always pushed taboos and convention, to a less extreme degree, but can still understand what he is doing now from that perspective. I don't condone it but am optimistic that after he burns out something good will rise from the ashes.
Yes. Yes. Yes! I feel the same. Hopefully 🤞 he changes his mind, though he’s probably already done a lot of damage and bolstered the profile of Gilead twats like Nick Fuentes.
The Fuentes thing really throws me. I really can't understand this newer stuff. Hoping that God works in REALLY mysterious ways. Through fully manifesting Anti-Christ, to reach the next stage of Christ-consciousness? I wonder if Ahriman is analogous to the idea of Anti-Christ?
The way Ye punked Trump by showing up to his house with Fuentes and asking Trump to be his vice president, angering Trump, then making a campaign video telling the story doing that, then the media roasting Trump for having dinner with them, was sickly funny I have to say tho. Tricked the trickster!
I have a few friends who have been lifelong Steiner devotees, but it’s a philosophy that for some reason I’ve never delved into. So, I’m glad that I’m starting to get filled in via your newsletter. Certainly, something dark is in the air. Things started to become more unreal and unsettled for me when Trump took office, but he was just a symptom of a transition to a new reality in which old norms and assumptions have disintegrated. Some spiritual teachers insist we are transitioning to a new higher consciousness, and that may be the case, but on the denser physical level, there are cracks and tears everywhere. I am feeling neutral about AI, or perhaps, more accurately said, I feel incapable of predicting how it will impact humans and our planet. I am in awe of AI Art, and have enjoyed making it, but while I and others find ways to distract ourselves (as you rightly point out) is it just another tactic to keep up from rallying around the problems that truly need to be solved in our world? Also, how many uses and misuses of AI am absolutely unable to fathom? Lastly, for your comments on Kanye, I’ve never listened to his music and know little about him. The lyrics you shared are quite telling. Reading them reminded me of the mixed feelings I use to have listening to Eminem back in the day. I thought he was both talented and deeply troubled, and that by listening to his music I was somehow taking on some of his bad vibes, or even invoking and taking on his “jinns” as they may be referred to in the Islamic tradition. Certainly, we have little knowledge of what inhabits the unseen world (Ālam al-Ghayb).
As an avid follower of Kanye's "journey" and a huge fan of his music(wasn't always that way!) I am glad for this discussion about what this moment means instead of just dismissing him as evil. My most recent thoughts are that he is taking maybe THE biggest taboo of our era and blowing it up. Dissolving a sacred cow or dogma of our modern mythology that is perhaps setting us up for some sort of "reset" of our collective consciousness. Or perhaps fulfilling a "holy fool" role of flipping an upside down world back up again. I don't believe that he is doing this totally consciously, but I also think he is also much smarter than people think. I have also been thinking about attention and how his actions could be consolidating attention for some reason. Through hate and outrage he is disintegrating but unifying simultaneously. He has always been an extreme paradox.
He also obviously has a Christ complex and I could see a way that he is trying to be Christ in taking all sin and hate upon himself to be crucified by the people in order to somehow redeem us? I have been so confused by his moves however that I think he certainly doesn't have control over his inertia. The way he is surrounding himself with the most cancelled of people in certainly flabbergasting. Perhaps mimicking Christ again in how he would socialize with "sinners", tax collectors and prostitutes. Either way he has certainly gone past the point of no return and I can only see it getting more extreme from here, so buckle up! I heard Neal Brennan make up the phrase "algorithmic personality disorder", pretty apt title for this social media infused phenomena.
Powerful and interesting share, Daniel. I appreciate this layer of Steiner's perspective and look forward to exploring more. I definitely feel the surreal in life at this juncture. It's hard to comprehend I'm even here for all of this! A novel I've returned to several times over the last few years is David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas — it really seems to have much of this mapped out with a scope of storytelling that allows it all, yet still condemns and guides. (Find the others...)
I used to like Ye's music because it explored occult christian themes. But now wtf. He's possessed by something wretched. It's obvious. We need a counternarrative to defeat these wicked forces. If only...
"Although he seemed to suggest that this incarnation would take a particular human form, I suspect it may be more a consequence of these rapid technological developments that Musk is driving (unless Musk, himself, is the Ahrimanic incarnation, which is not inconceivable!)."
Has anyone looked into the theory that Von Braun's 1953 book "Mars Project" references the term Elon?
"The Martian government was directed by ten men, the leader of whom was elected by universal suffrage for five years and entitled 'Elon.' Two houses of Parliament enacted the laws to be administered by the Elon and his cabinet."
Like...is this real or a mistranslation or something? Y'all know about Operation Paperclip? Annie Jacobsen wrote a good book about it.
This is wild af. Whether it is the "title" or the "name" Elon....may not matter. Honestly if we are dealing with interdimensional hierarchies it would not be beyond a realistic occult analysis to have an Ahrimanic incarnation take birth with the their birth name as their "title" if they purposefully came into the Earth realm to cause discord. These are just theories of course.
also just a counter-narrative to the Nazi ideology that is taking over. Because honestly, they are using the element of myth to warp people's minds. Maybe it will backfire if people know the "truth."
Maybe we can prevent people from being lured into violent fanaticism if we contextualize these strange truths in a larger cosmic narrative.
Kendrick has generally been a counter to Kanye, but on his last album I noticed him diverging away from his normally uplifting spirit, saying things more along the lines of Kanye like, "what the fuck is cancel culture?" "if i said what i really think you wouldn't like me" and bringing Kodak Black in throughout the whole album, who would better fit into Kanye's cabinet of the cancelled. He seemed to be distancing himself from his previous image throughout and repeating "I am not your savior". He is certainly the more integral person upon analysis but I found it interesting the turn he made with Mr. Morale.
ha thanks but I dont. I am trying to put together some writing in different areas but have never written about music. It is an area of passion so thanks for the encouragement!
Hi Daniel, Ill caveat my question by first admitting that I know little about Kanye and second stating clearly that Hitler was among the worst murderers of the 20th century.
Leaving Kanye aside for the moment, what if the comment was simply: “Every human being has something of value that they brought to the table.” How do you feel about that proposition?
I think you're doing a great job deciphering Steiner's information and concerns regarding the evolution of human beings and the dangers that have arisen from the start of the second millennium onwards. A quick read through The Work of the Angels in Man's Astral Body helps clarify what we are seeing in the bizarre behaviour of certain leaders, celebrities, and people who seem soulless at this time. https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/WrkAng_index.html
I’m here for this line of inquiry. I also wonder about characters like SBF and others… is this just a reflection of psychological fissures exploding under extreme pressure of massive (unnatural) celebrity? Or, as you explore, the incarnation of more occult archetypes… or maybe that is a false dichotomy.
Perhaps Ye’s massive success as a musician and designer reflects a sort of Qi or spiritual potency innate to his incarnation? He’s clearly got a lot of energy coming through him, probably (as with all of us) light + dark forces. Or luciferian and Ahriman forces as the essay explores
My limited understanding is that Christ was early invoked as a protector from dark spiritual forces. When one is engaged in high-level spiritual realms, it seems naive to assume all forces are 100% benevolent. If one tosses aside all traditions, safety guides, and rituals, and self-anoints as a Christ-like figure, this sort of downfall seems almost predictable.
This is a really interesting conversation. I appreciate all these comments, and Daniel's fascinating interpretation of the symbolic side of it. As I've been very hearing impaired my whole life, but at the same time profoundly touched by music, and a half-decent amateur musician, I'll just throw out an observation I've found over the years: the relationship between music on the one hand, and lyrics and symbols on the other is often completely unclear, but people instantly latch onto them as though they're in sync, and in particular give much more ground to the symbolic side as the one which moved them, which had 'meaning'. As someone who spent virtually their entire life unable to understand lyrics while listening to songs, only to discover them later, I'm always struck by how you really never hear terrible music that's widely celebrated because of its 'great lyrics'. But I'm often surprised at how much powerful 'meaning' people find in the lyrics of spectacular pieces of music whose lyrics or attached symbols have little going on. People like symbols, they're of course drawn to 'meaning-making', but music is the most mysterious, potent energy in the world, something that infuses meaning into everything through its sheer power to reach to the core of our being. I bow down to it, and always hold the symbolic interpretations at arms length.
In my experience it's only great music that gets lifted into the cultural conversation and that's what's happened with Ye. He really is a musical genius, period. We've responded on that basis, and the effort to connect his psychic darkness with his music as though THAT'S what we're responding to is, in my mind, a tricky misdirection. Those lyrics are not necessary or essential expressions of the underlying music which is the energy that we're actually responding--I think they're just expressions of Ye's unerring instinct towards controversy and strife, for whatever reasons.
I tend to agree as his behaviour strongly reminds me of a friend who was bipolar.
I think the TikTok-isation (?) of modern life has led to this moment where there is a kind of arms race for who can most grab the public's attention. Musk does it by constantly starting 'bold' new projects and claiming that 'by the year x, y will be possible': live on Mars, move around in tunnels in electric 'pods', have chips in our brains (very Ahrimanic, as you say Daniel), etc. None of it makes any economic sense, and almost none of it will come to pass for that reason. But an almost total lack of journalistic rigour has allowed him to get away with it up to now.
Ye does it by being as controversial as possible. Saying one is a fan of Hitler is pretty much the ultimate, yes there are a few levels below that, but only a few.
The deeper dynamics definitely look like some kind of dark energy taking control.
I agree with a lot of this, Daniel, but have one giant bone to pick: Elon Musk is not a genius, nor is he about to master AI, or self-driving cars or anything else. He is a garden variety con-man who has ridden the upward drafting winds of the tech sector and been very good at creating a media image of a "lone genius fighting to save humanity!" But if you ignore his self-mythologizing and look at his actions and track record, you can see him for what he is.
1.) Tesla is a joke of a car company. Wildly overvalued (they made about 386,000 cars in 2021, while GM made over 6 Million, yet Tesla is valued at 10x what GM is!) This overinflated stock price (provided by gullible VC's & wall street) will not last. There are already better electric cars on the market. Keeping this stock price pumped is the main goals of Musk's antics and publicity. The only positive cash flow Tesla has had through the years is selling pollution credits, not cars.
2.) All his other companies are disaster/jokes too, Space X, Solar City, whatever. They're all houses of cards held together by free government money and that over-inflated Tesla stock. Solar CIty's solar panels are dog-shit quality, and the company is terminally mismanaged.
3.) Musk very clearly didn't want to buy Twitter. He had to be ordered to do so by a court in Delaware. His offer to buy it was another one of his stunts (performed largely on Twitter!) He put together a murderer's row of "investors" to fund the deal, (all of whom have their own dark agendas, I'm sure) so that he wouldn't have to sell any of his Tesla stock- if he had sold $44B in Tesla stock to buy Twitter, Tesla's stock price would have plunged, collapsing the entire house of cards.
4.) Since he bought Twitter, he's simply been spinning his wheels, floundering. Yes, he's fired a bunch of staff (typical private equity maneuver) and reinstated some Nazis. But he has neither tanked the company nor revolutionized it. It seems pretty clear that he has no plan, just like all his other ventures. He's just riffing, improvising, making it up as he goes along. But he's such a dullard that all he can come up with is idiocies: the like button is red now, instead of blue! WOOOW!
5.) Neuralink is nowhere close to making an actual brain-computer interface, this is just more Musk bullshit. (https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/17/business/elon-musk-neuralink-animal-cruelty-intl-scli/index.html) Nor is he or anyone else close to making a self-driving car that is safe. I'm beginning to suspect that AI is turning out to be a historic bust- it isn't actually possible to stack up processing power and expect it to come alive. That's not what Mind is made of. AI is just an excuse for computer people to not make any moral judgements, a final end-point for people who have been so conditioned by sitting in chairs and pushing buttons for a living that they imagine all world problems can be solved with a better button. But it just doesn't work like that. It requires work, and physical discomfort sometimes!
Musk is a detestable piece of human excrement coughed up by our failing system, nothing more.
Hi Daniel, I highly value and enjoy your perspective on all these crazy cultural events as they are unfolding. The archetypal view on human affairs is always relevant as you skillfully remind us again and again. Thank you.
My bias on these kinds of things usually tends towards the psychological though. It is interesting that in this age of social media, it is the neuro-divergent that seem to consistently hold the most sway. Bezos and Zuckerberg the psychopaths. Musk the autistic. Ye the raging bi-polar disorder. Whether its the influence of supersensible beings that make it so or not, it does appear that we are being forced to face and contend with humanity's various mental pathologies on a grand scale. Mental illness has been pushed to the margins for so long it makes sense that a breaking point would be reached when we can no longer brush the issue aside.
Years ago I read Foucault's "Madness and Civilization," which I think has become quite relevant to our times. I remember the book having a lot to say about how in many ways 'the mad' are simply those with a perspective on the world that doesn't fit with the overriding social narrative and that the key aspect of that narrative is control. So they were silenced or disappeared. There was a time when the mad were considered simply a part of society and wandered relatively freely, but then in the 1800s they were thrown in prison by the millions. Disappeared. Foucault examines this in depth. Many fit the definition of what we would now call mentally ill, but many were simply non-conformists of some type. I don't remember enough. Need to read the book again. Seems highly relevant. As you say, "something is happening that seems outside of logic and language." Sounds like a neurotypical trying to understand the perspective of the mad.
And just one quick comment on the genius of Kanye. He changed the sound of Hip Hop multiple times over his career. His skills at rapping were always secondary to his incredible beats and production skills. Entire subgenres sprouted from his albums. That was always what made me a fan. I don't think this is much the case anymore, but right up to Yeezus (The Life of Pablo had its moments, but his inability to finish a project started to show here), the sound and structure of his music was consistently visionary and super fun to listen to. For me at least. And millions of hip hop fans and pop music fans besides. Before there was Kanye the celebrity, there was Kanye the underdog beatmaker and producer. So many people fell in love with that version of Kanye that there has remained an irrational belief that someday 'the old Kanye' might still come back. I think its finally fading for all but the most devoted now though. Kind of like Trump.
I feel I always heard this narcissist / Fascist undertone in Kanye’s music… like a particular pitch or frequency. Something like desperation also… a desire for “Power,” to overpower. Certain kinds of music seems to evoke particular political or social orchestrations… Psy trance often sounds like Communism to me. Always intrigued by the Russians and East Europeans who flock to it.
I don’t think I am neurotypical, if there is such a thing.
I think our society is largely insane at this point. The one essential thing we need to deal with is the ecological emergency and we don’t / can’t . We turn away from it. Beyond that our techniques of education/ indoctrination are insane and senseless. We rob children of their joy and curiosity and force them to sit in endless stupid classes so they can be part of a regimented industrial civilization that no longer exists. I could go on!
I just listened to a few old Kanye favs on headphones to check for the fascist undertones and not gonna lie, I had to get up and dance around the kitchen. It just sounds too much like wildin out to be fascist. I never saw him in concert though, and am curious what the crowd vibe would be like. Especially now compared to the 2000s.
Fully agree though that we are living in a society going mad and that just exacerbates the prevalence of mental illness in its populous. The crazed colonist / dominator / capitalist mindset has suffused all our exchanges and ways of being to the point of being utterly inescapable. We are all Major Clipton at the end of the Bridge Over the River Kwai, beholding the destruction. “Madness.” “Madness!”
Lying on the couch after dinner and getting my son to bed, while my wife taught ballet to her students in Kauai over zoom in the next room, I put on my headphones and listened to some Kanye tracks, pulling favorites from his popular songs playlist on Tidal. "Ni**as in Paris," ""Can't Tell Me Nothing," "Love Lockdown," "Gold Digger," "All Falls Down," "Runaway," "Diamonds from Sierra Leone (Remix)," "Black Skinhead," "Ultralight Beam." Ok, I just listened to Ultralight Beam now, but ripped through the rest of those last night just blown away by the sounds I was hearing. I had been on a pretty long Kanye diet and hadn't heard most of these on good headphones, maybe ever, if not for quite some time. By the time I got to Runway, the music chills set in harder than they have in quite some time, and I had to get up to dance. I went into the kitchen and slid back and forth across the slippery mat floor dancing hard to the thundering drums, the plinking piano, the distorted synth lines, the pained honesty of the lyrics. Its a dark track, depressing even. The protagonist of the song is such an asshole, as he confesses, professes throughout. The uncompromising clarity of the lyricists as they describe their faults and habits remains entrancing and invigorating still, all these years later after its debut at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards (in the wake of the now historic Kanye-Taylor Swift incident at the 2009 MTV VMAs. It's a monument to our age, really. And now we are watching the monument collapse as Ye descends into the mental illness and paradoxical extremes of narcissism and self-loathing at the heart of his art. We can't look away from the train wreck of our culture driving off the exploded bridge into the brown water of the jungle river, ceaselessly flowing out into the endless waters of the sea.
Thanks for highlighting his music production capabilities, I was a fan of hip hop for a long time and he did single handedly change the genre while working with jay-z, it was something to behold back then.
This sounds terrible but I also have to say that New York is becoming intolerable and dangerous due to the increasing numbers of lunatics. So many people just feel broken. I keep escaping to other places because they feel much more humane.
Where are they being removed to? If it is proper treatment centers, psychiatric hospitals, it's a positive. Nobody should be left to the streets to fend for themselves when they are out of their minds, and unable to feed and clothe themselves, because they obviously can't work.
I have family member who is schizophrenic. From what I can glean from the most recent studies-- some of the inhibitory mechanisms of the brain are pruned back during late teens, in schizophrenia. It's both an auto-immune brain disease (that likely allows archonic forces more access to the individual.) and a spiritual malady.
Psychiatry, psychology professions have to address the fact that the mentally ill are not merely randomly crazy, but are more easily accessed by other forms of intelligent consciousness.
We can debate all the causes of our current situation but most would agree with the danger of, as you state, "no connection to any natural or spiritual reality". So how can we further and promote that connection?
For spiritual reality, I like martial arts such as Aikido and Tai Chi and others that embrace non-violence and character development, practices that include Yoga and Meditation, any religion that elevates love and tolerance, and any philosophy and cosmology that allows openness and respect for the Divine.
For natural reality, there is no substitute for venturing out of "the city" and into "the wilderness" - great books to support this include my namesake, Gary Snyder's book "Practice of the Wild", and, Rupert Sheldrake's "The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God".
For myself, as an art dealer, I am championing Ben Miller (www.benmillerartist.com) who paints rivers in a ritualistic manner - although most of his paintings are rivers in the West, he has more recently painted urban rivers - the Chicago, Hudson, East and Hackensack Rivers, raising awareness and money for river-keepers.
"The mountains and the rivers of this moment are the actualization of the way of the ancient Buddhas. Each, abiding in its own phenomenal expression, realizes completeness."
Dogen Kigen (13th Century)
"Worship the rivers: they are Godesses and will bless you."
Ramayana (5th century BC)
I was a mega fan of Ye and actually went to his Miami Donda show, which was insane and he blew up a full size church that was painted black. Marylin Manson was all up in it. My eyebrows felt singed and I was coughing from the smoke of the explosion. It was sort of scary because I was in the second row. The fire department came. There were people in black droid clothes roaming in circles and it had a gladiator feel, like a Roman/alien vibe. At the time I thought it was the greatest show I’d ever seen.
But now I feel betrayed now by his behavior since my mom is Jewish and because of his abusive behavior to Kim K.
He also had a song called Black Skinhead. That whole album with that song is real dark, as well as his longform video for Runaway, which I also loved, thought it was brilliant at the time it came out, but there is also the occult mood in it.
I’m glad you wrote about this, because seems like no one else is.
I’m like why aren’t more people writing about this! He thinks he’s doing performance art in protest of can El culture, but he’s really a Christian theocrat with the dumbest ideas. He wants Gilead for real. Handmaid’s Tale would be fine with Yedolf.
Also, classic Bipolar actions of extreme Christian views, hearing angels, and thinking one is a prophet.
Idk. It’s so much to unpack.
Thank you.
Protest of cancel* culture is what he thinks. Sorry for the typo.
What did you find so appealing about him when you were a fan?
And if I’m truly honest with myself, I’m still a fan. I don’t like cancelling people’s artistic work for their political views. I’m just taking a break for now, but even not really. Idk it’s complicated...
I’ve been thinking about this question a lot. There are many reasons, but the main one is the music itself and his visuals. It spoke to me.
I especially loved the longform video for Runaway. I was working as a video editor at the time and many people in the industry were enthralled by it. It was the first “visual album” in a way, that then kicked off Lemonade and others.
Danced when I was young in the clubs to his music too, so there is some nostalgia involved. But I loved his later music as well. He was in my top spotify wrap up every year, including this year... whatever that says about me...
I am in a similar position as you, and I have wondered for a long time now why I am so attracted to his whole thing. I used to despise him until a switch flipped for me and i have been borderline obsessed for almost 10 years now. Myself being hyper self conscious, I think his pure expressive ability to say exactly what is on his mind became a model for me to break out of my overly strong critical self filter. I think a lot of people feel gravitate to him for this reason. As a musician and artist, when I was able to embrace his music I could finally see what everyone was talking about; the richness and depth behind the crude surface layers. And yes like you said the vision for visuals and shows and marketing are something like genius. I myself have always been a subversive artist and have always pushed taboos and convention, to a less extreme degree, but can still understand what he is doing now from that perspective. I don't condone it but am optimistic that after he burns out something good will rise from the ashes.
We sometimes look to others to fulfill something for ourselves that actually we need to do ourselves, rather than giving away our power.
true and sometimes you just need something modeled for you until you don’t need the model anymore, like emulating any artist until you find your
own voice within that
Yes. Yes. Yes! I feel the same. Hopefully 🤞 he changes his mind, though he’s probably already done a lot of damage and bolstered the profile of Gilead twats like Nick Fuentes.
The Fuentes thing really throws me. I really can't understand this newer stuff. Hoping that God works in REALLY mysterious ways. Through fully manifesting Anti-Christ, to reach the next stage of Christ-consciousness? I wonder if Ahriman is analogous to the idea of Anti-Christ?
The way Ye punked Trump by showing up to his house with Fuentes and asking Trump to be his vice president, angering Trump, then making a campaign video telling the story doing that, then the media roasting Trump for having dinner with them, was sickly funny I have to say tho. Tricked the trickster!
What troubles me is I can see lots of young people embracing a world with the society Musk envisions.
I have a few friends who have been lifelong Steiner devotees, but it’s a philosophy that for some reason I’ve never delved into. So, I’m glad that I’m starting to get filled in via your newsletter. Certainly, something dark is in the air. Things started to become more unreal and unsettled for me when Trump took office, but he was just a symptom of a transition to a new reality in which old norms and assumptions have disintegrated. Some spiritual teachers insist we are transitioning to a new higher consciousness, and that may be the case, but on the denser physical level, there are cracks and tears everywhere. I am feeling neutral about AI, or perhaps, more accurately said, I feel incapable of predicting how it will impact humans and our planet. I am in awe of AI Art, and have enjoyed making it, but while I and others find ways to distract ourselves (as you rightly point out) is it just another tactic to keep up from rallying around the problems that truly need to be solved in our world? Also, how many uses and misuses of AI am absolutely unable to fathom? Lastly, for your comments on Kanye, I’ve never listened to his music and know little about him. The lyrics you shared are quite telling. Reading them reminded me of the mixed feelings I use to have listening to Eminem back in the day. I thought he was both talented and deeply troubled, and that by listening to his music I was somehow taking on some of his bad vibes, or even invoking and taking on his “jinns” as they may be referred to in the Islamic tradition. Certainly, we have little knowledge of what inhabits the unseen world (Ālam al-Ghayb).
Steiner believes there is a healthy way to attain that knowledge.
As an avid follower of Kanye's "journey" and a huge fan of his music(wasn't always that way!) I am glad for this discussion about what this moment means instead of just dismissing him as evil. My most recent thoughts are that he is taking maybe THE biggest taboo of our era and blowing it up. Dissolving a sacred cow or dogma of our modern mythology that is perhaps setting us up for some sort of "reset" of our collective consciousness. Or perhaps fulfilling a "holy fool" role of flipping an upside down world back up again. I don't believe that he is doing this totally consciously, but I also think he is also much smarter than people think. I have also been thinking about attention and how his actions could be consolidating attention for some reason. Through hate and outrage he is disintegrating but unifying simultaneously. He has always been an extreme paradox.
He also obviously has a Christ complex and I could see a way that he is trying to be Christ in taking all sin and hate upon himself to be crucified by the people in order to somehow redeem us? I have been so confused by his moves however that I think he certainly doesn't have control over his inertia. The way he is surrounding himself with the most cancelled of people in certainly flabbergasting. Perhaps mimicking Christ again in how he would socialize with "sinners", tax collectors and prostitutes. Either way he has certainly gone past the point of no return and I can only see it getting more extreme from here, so buckle up! I heard Neal Brennan make up the phrase "algorithmic personality disorder", pretty apt title for this social media infused phenomena.
Powerful and interesting share, Daniel. I appreciate this layer of Steiner's perspective and look forward to exploring more. I definitely feel the surreal in life at this juncture. It's hard to comprehend I'm even here for all of this! A novel I've returned to several times over the last few years is David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas — it really seems to have much of this mapped out with a scope of storytelling that allows it all, yet still condemns and guides. (Find the others...)
when is there not occult meaning? :)
enjoyed this essay thoroughly
I used to like Ye's music because it explored occult christian themes. But now wtf. He's possessed by something wretched. It's obvious. We need a counternarrative to defeat these wicked forces. If only...
"Although he seemed to suggest that this incarnation would take a particular human form, I suspect it may be more a consequence of these rapid technological developments that Musk is driving (unless Musk, himself, is the Ahrimanic incarnation, which is not inconceivable!)."
Has anyone looked into the theory that Von Braun's 1953 book "Mars Project" references the term Elon?
"The Martian government was directed by ten men, the leader of whom was elected by universal suffrage for five years and entitled 'Elon.' Two houses of Parliament enacted the laws to be administered by the Elon and his cabinet."
Like...is this real or a mistranslation or something? Y'all know about Operation Paperclip? Annie Jacobsen wrote a good book about it.
This is wild af. Whether it is the "title" or the "name" Elon....may not matter. Honestly if we are dealing with interdimensional hierarchies it would not be beyond a realistic occult analysis to have an Ahrimanic incarnation take birth with the their birth name as their "title" if they purposefully came into the Earth realm to cause discord. These are just theories of course.
Werner Von Braun?
hi Jess.
Yes.
I think the last Kendrick Lamar album is a pretty good counternarrative in the same sort of area musically.
also just a counter-narrative to the Nazi ideology that is taking over. Because honestly, they are using the element of myth to warp people's minds. Maybe it will backfire if people know the "truth."
Maybe we can prevent people from being lured into violent fanaticism if we contextualize these strange truths in a larger cosmic narrative.
Kendrick has generally been a counter to Kanye, but on his last album I noticed him diverging away from his normally uplifting spirit, saying things more along the lines of Kanye like, "what the fuck is cancel culture?" "if i said what i really think you wouldn't like me" and bringing Kodak Black in throughout the whole album, who would better fit into Kanye's cabinet of the cancelled. He seemed to be distancing himself from his previous image throughout and repeating "I am not your savior". He is certainly the more integral person upon analysis but I found it interesting the turn he made with Mr. Morale.
do you have any more long-form music critiques anywhere? this was a fantastic read.
ha thanks but I dont. I am trying to put together some writing in different areas but have never written about music. It is an area of passion so thanks for the encouragement!
appreciating a nuanced take on Ahriman relative to all of this! sending warmth and solidarity from the Goetheanum <3
Hi Daniel, Ill caveat my question by first admitting that I know little about Kanye and second stating clearly that Hitler was among the worst murderers of the 20th century.
Leaving Kanye aside for the moment, what if the comment was simply: “Every human being has something of value that they brought to the table.” How do you feel about that proposition?
congrats Daniel - great article.
I think you're doing a great job deciphering Steiner's information and concerns regarding the evolution of human beings and the dangers that have arisen from the start of the second millennium onwards. A quick read through The Work of the Angels in Man's Astral Body helps clarify what we are seeing in the bizarre behaviour of certain leaders, celebrities, and people who seem soulless at this time. https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/WrkAng_index.html
I’m here for this line of inquiry. I also wonder about characters like SBF and others… is this just a reflection of psychological fissures exploding under extreme pressure of massive (unnatural) celebrity? Or, as you explore, the incarnation of more occult archetypes… or maybe that is a false dichotomy.
Perhaps Ye’s massive success as a musician and designer reflects a sort of Qi or spiritual potency innate to his incarnation? He’s clearly got a lot of energy coming through him, probably (as with all of us) light + dark forces. Or luciferian and Ahriman forces as the essay explores
My limited understanding is that Christ was early invoked as a protector from dark spiritual forces. When one is engaged in high-level spiritual realms, it seems naive to assume all forces are 100% benevolent. If one tosses aside all traditions, safety guides, and rituals, and self-anoints as a Christ-like figure, this sort of downfall seems almost predictable.
This is a really interesting conversation. I appreciate all these comments, and Daniel's fascinating interpretation of the symbolic side of it. As I've been very hearing impaired my whole life, but at the same time profoundly touched by music, and a half-decent amateur musician, I'll just throw out an observation I've found over the years: the relationship between music on the one hand, and lyrics and symbols on the other is often completely unclear, but people instantly latch onto them as though they're in sync, and in particular give much more ground to the symbolic side as the one which moved them, which had 'meaning'. As someone who spent virtually their entire life unable to understand lyrics while listening to songs, only to discover them later, I'm always struck by how you really never hear terrible music that's widely celebrated because of its 'great lyrics'. But I'm often surprised at how much powerful 'meaning' people find in the lyrics of spectacular pieces of music whose lyrics or attached symbols have little going on. People like symbols, they're of course drawn to 'meaning-making', but music is the most mysterious, potent energy in the world, something that infuses meaning into everything through its sheer power to reach to the core of our being. I bow down to it, and always hold the symbolic interpretations at arms length.
In my experience it's only great music that gets lifted into the cultural conversation and that's what's happened with Ye. He really is a musical genius, period. We've responded on that basis, and the effort to connect his psychic darkness with his music as though THAT'S what we're responding to is, in my mind, a tricky misdirection. Those lyrics are not necessary or essential expressions of the underlying music which is the energy that we're actually responding--I think they're just expressions of Ye's unerring instinct towards controversy and strife, for whatever reasons.
This video makes a strong case that Ye is going through a manic bipolar episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb9ZU_bQAXM
I tend to agree as his behaviour strongly reminds me of a friend who was bipolar.
I think the TikTok-isation (?) of modern life has led to this moment where there is a kind of arms race for who can most grab the public's attention. Musk does it by constantly starting 'bold' new projects and claiming that 'by the year x, y will be possible': live on Mars, move around in tunnels in electric 'pods', have chips in our brains (very Ahrimanic, as you say Daniel), etc. None of it makes any economic sense, and almost none of it will come to pass for that reason. But an almost total lack of journalistic rigour has allowed him to get away with it up to now.
Ye does it by being as controversial as possible. Saying one is a fan of Hitler is pretty much the ultimate, yes there are a few levels below that, but only a few.
The deeper dynamics definitely look like some kind of dark energy taking control.
I agree with a lot of this, Daniel, but have one giant bone to pick: Elon Musk is not a genius, nor is he about to master AI, or self-driving cars or anything else. He is a garden variety con-man who has ridden the upward drafting winds of the tech sector and been very good at creating a media image of a "lone genius fighting to save humanity!" But if you ignore his self-mythologizing and look at his actions and track record, you can see him for what he is.
1.) Tesla is a joke of a car company. Wildly overvalued (they made about 386,000 cars in 2021, while GM made over 6 Million, yet Tesla is valued at 10x what GM is!) This overinflated stock price (provided by gullible VC's & wall street) will not last. There are already better electric cars on the market. Keeping this stock price pumped is the main goals of Musk's antics and publicity. The only positive cash flow Tesla has had through the years is selling pollution credits, not cars.
2.) All his other companies are disaster/jokes too, Space X, Solar City, whatever. They're all houses of cards held together by free government money and that over-inflated Tesla stock. Solar CIty's solar panels are dog-shit quality, and the company is terminally mismanaged.
3.) Musk very clearly didn't want to buy Twitter. He had to be ordered to do so by a court in Delaware. His offer to buy it was another one of his stunts (performed largely on Twitter!) He put together a murderer's row of "investors" to fund the deal, (all of whom have their own dark agendas, I'm sure) so that he wouldn't have to sell any of his Tesla stock- if he had sold $44B in Tesla stock to buy Twitter, Tesla's stock price would have plunged, collapsing the entire house of cards.
4.) Since he bought Twitter, he's simply been spinning his wheels, floundering. Yes, he's fired a bunch of staff (typical private equity maneuver) and reinstated some Nazis. But he has neither tanked the company nor revolutionized it. It seems pretty clear that he has no plan, just like all his other ventures. He's just riffing, improvising, making it up as he goes along. But he's such a dullard that all he can come up with is idiocies: the like button is red now, instead of blue! WOOOW!
5.) Neuralink is nowhere close to making an actual brain-computer interface, this is just more Musk bullshit. (https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/17/business/elon-musk-neuralink-animal-cruelty-intl-scli/index.html) Nor is he or anyone else close to making a self-driving car that is safe. I'm beginning to suspect that AI is turning out to be a historic bust- it isn't actually possible to stack up processing power and expect it to come alive. That's not what Mind is made of. AI is just an excuse for computer people to not make any moral judgements, a final end-point for people who have been so conditioned by sitting in chairs and pushing buttons for a living that they imagine all world problems can be solved with a better button. But it just doesn't work like that. It requires work, and physical discomfort sometimes!
Musk is a detestable piece of human excrement coughed up by our failing system, nothing more.
Interesting perspective… seems too negative… he clearly has some extraordinary abilities.
Hi Daniel, I highly value and enjoy your perspective on all these crazy cultural events as they are unfolding. The archetypal view on human affairs is always relevant as you skillfully remind us again and again. Thank you.
My bias on these kinds of things usually tends towards the psychological though. It is interesting that in this age of social media, it is the neuro-divergent that seem to consistently hold the most sway. Bezos and Zuckerberg the psychopaths. Musk the autistic. Ye the raging bi-polar disorder. Whether its the influence of supersensible beings that make it so or not, it does appear that we are being forced to face and contend with humanity's various mental pathologies on a grand scale. Mental illness has been pushed to the margins for so long it makes sense that a breaking point would be reached when we can no longer brush the issue aside.
Years ago I read Foucault's "Madness and Civilization," which I think has become quite relevant to our times. I remember the book having a lot to say about how in many ways 'the mad' are simply those with a perspective on the world that doesn't fit with the overriding social narrative and that the key aspect of that narrative is control. So they were silenced or disappeared. There was a time when the mad were considered simply a part of society and wandered relatively freely, but then in the 1800s they were thrown in prison by the millions. Disappeared. Foucault examines this in depth. Many fit the definition of what we would now call mentally ill, but many were simply non-conformists of some type. I don't remember enough. Need to read the book again. Seems highly relevant. As you say, "something is happening that seems outside of logic and language." Sounds like a neurotypical trying to understand the perspective of the mad.
And just one quick comment on the genius of Kanye. He changed the sound of Hip Hop multiple times over his career. His skills at rapping were always secondary to his incredible beats and production skills. Entire subgenres sprouted from his albums. That was always what made me a fan. I don't think this is much the case anymore, but right up to Yeezus (The Life of Pablo had its moments, but his inability to finish a project started to show here), the sound and structure of his music was consistently visionary and super fun to listen to. For me at least. And millions of hip hop fans and pop music fans besides. Before there was Kanye the celebrity, there was Kanye the underdog beatmaker and producer. So many people fell in love with that version of Kanye that there has remained an irrational belief that someday 'the old Kanye' might still come back. I think its finally fading for all but the most devoted now though. Kind of like Trump.
I feel I always heard this narcissist / Fascist undertone in Kanye’s music… like a particular pitch or frequency. Something like desperation also… a desire for “Power,” to overpower. Certain kinds of music seems to evoke particular political or social orchestrations… Psy trance often sounds like Communism to me. Always intrigued by the Russians and East Europeans who flock to it.
I don’t think I am neurotypical, if there is such a thing.
I think our society is largely insane at this point. The one essential thing we need to deal with is the ecological emergency and we don’t / can’t . We turn away from it. Beyond that our techniques of education/ indoctrination are insane and senseless. We rob children of their joy and curiosity and force them to sit in endless stupid classes so they can be part of a regimented industrial civilization that no longer exists. I could go on!
I just listened to a few old Kanye favs on headphones to check for the fascist undertones and not gonna lie, I had to get up and dance around the kitchen. It just sounds too much like wildin out to be fascist. I never saw him in concert though, and am curious what the crowd vibe would be like. Especially now compared to the 2000s.
Fully agree though that we are living in a society going mad and that just exacerbates the prevalence of mental illness in its populous. The crazed colonist / dominator / capitalist mindset has suffused all our exchanges and ways of being to the point of being utterly inescapable. We are all Major Clipton at the end of the Bridge Over the River Kwai, beholding the destruction. “Madness.” “Madness!”
Happy you got a good dance on! Which tunes are your favorites?
Lying on the couch after dinner and getting my son to bed, while my wife taught ballet to her students in Kauai over zoom in the next room, I put on my headphones and listened to some Kanye tracks, pulling favorites from his popular songs playlist on Tidal. "Ni**as in Paris," ""Can't Tell Me Nothing," "Love Lockdown," "Gold Digger," "All Falls Down," "Runaway," "Diamonds from Sierra Leone (Remix)," "Black Skinhead," "Ultralight Beam." Ok, I just listened to Ultralight Beam now, but ripped through the rest of those last night just blown away by the sounds I was hearing. I had been on a pretty long Kanye diet and hadn't heard most of these on good headphones, maybe ever, if not for quite some time. By the time I got to Runway, the music chills set in harder than they have in quite some time, and I had to get up to dance. I went into the kitchen and slid back and forth across the slippery mat floor dancing hard to the thundering drums, the plinking piano, the distorted synth lines, the pained honesty of the lyrics. Its a dark track, depressing even. The protagonist of the song is such an asshole, as he confesses, professes throughout. The uncompromising clarity of the lyricists as they describe their faults and habits remains entrancing and invigorating still, all these years later after its debut at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards (in the wake of the now historic Kanye-Taylor Swift incident at the 2009 MTV VMAs. It's a monument to our age, really. And now we are watching the monument collapse as Ye descends into the mental illness and paradoxical extremes of narcissism and self-loathing at the heart of his art. We can't look away from the train wreck of our culture driving off the exploded bridge into the brown water of the jungle river, ceaselessly flowing out into the endless waters of the sea.
Thanks for highlighting his music production capabilities, I was a fan of hip hop for a long time and he did single handedly change the genre while working with jay-z, it was something to behold back then.
Last week: New York City to Involuntarily Remove Mentally Ill People From Streets
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/29/nyregion/nyc-mentally-ill-involuntary-custody.html
This sounds terrible but I also have to say that New York is becoming intolerable and dangerous due to the increasing numbers of lunatics. So many people just feel broken. I keep escaping to other places because they feel much more humane.
Where are they being removed to? If it is proper treatment centers, psychiatric hospitals, it's a positive. Nobody should be left to the streets to fend for themselves when they are out of their minds, and unable to feed and clothe themselves, because they obviously can't work.
I have family member who is schizophrenic. From what I can glean from the most recent studies-- some of the inhibitory mechanisms of the brain are pruned back during late teens, in schizophrenia. It's both an auto-immune brain disease (that likely allows archonic forces more access to the individual.) and a spiritual malady.
Psychiatry, psychology professions have to address the fact that the mentally ill are not merely randomly crazy, but are more easily accessed by other forms of intelligent consciousness.