The Paradise and the esoteric origin of mankind

[reputation 6,313]

By far the most interesting thread is read on here! Wow!

[litewave 519]

The Love video envisions a gentle flowering of the potential of human race. Lana speaks to the modern generation, yet they are the ancient children from the paradise, who passed through a darker age and emerged revived on the threshold of freedom. She reminds them of their original purpose, which has been largely forgotten since the fall. Their destiny is to enjoy and participate in universal creation. Limitations of the earth shall be transcended in love. And love is the eternal play of the masculine and the feminine, the never-ending process of analysis and synthesis (solve et coagula).

[litewave 519]

Best American Record

 

Damn this is a good song.

In Lana's art, America is a symbol of God's creation, from the heavenly East Coast to the earthly West Coast, with the nostalgic 1950s-1960s period representing the garden of Eden/Paradise. In the beginning the music of creation unfolded harmoniously under God's benevolent guidance. But the ego of man tried to be too much like God and "write the next best American record", which was an obsession that led to man's extreme self-assertion, separation from God and soul, and falling out of universal harmony.

 

The soul sings:

 

My baby used to dance underneath my architecture

 

The architecture here is the celestial firmament, the spiritual realm of the soul. The baby is the soul's individual expression, the ego, which went down to earth, to the material realm. In the beginning the ego was full of joy and energy, derived from its dynamic contact with the soul. This means that man's spiritual and material sides were in a healthy balance.

 

To the "Houses of the Holy"

 

"Houses of the Holy" is a Led Zeppelin song from the 1970s, where the singer courts his girl to let him take her "to the movies, to the show". It is a sexual song with spiritual overtones and also with references to Satan. The relationship between the ego and the soul has a masculine-feminine dynamic, which is reflected in human sexual relationships.

 

Smoking on them cigarettes

 

Turning white into black (innocence into experience), burning with passion, breathing the spirit of life.

 

He was seventies in spirit, nineties in his frame of mind

 

Although influenced by the 1960s hippie ideals, the mood of the 1970s turned from the hippie emphasis on community toward individualism (the "Me" decade). This individualistic trend continued in the 1980s and received a new boost in the 1990s from the collapse of communist governments in Eastern Europe and Soviet Union, even as the boundaries between countries and cultures further weakened and unification of the world accelerated. Individualism is the nature of the ego, while collectivism is the nature of the soul.

 

The ego did need to distance itself from the soul - but only for a while, in order to build the mental and physical structures that the soul could infuse at their reunion. But the ego became "obsessed with writing the next best American record", for fame. Its focus on self-aggrandizement and self-gratification isolated it from the soul, from others, and from a larger reality. Man became trapped on earth, ran out of energy and ran out of life.

[therealmikedealer 4,284]

@litewave I adore your contributions!!

[litewave 519]

Just to remind ya'll that these interpretations don't deny the obvious or literal ones but rather parallel them... Here goes another one.

 

Lust for Life

 

Lana revisits the Hollywood theme, which metaphorically refers to time (movies/stories) and fame, all this set in a larger, timeless whole (the name of the A-ha song "Minor Earth Major Sky" comes to mind). Lust for Life is a brisk and optimistic song but it also has an implicit darker side. Although it celebrates life, passion and self confidence, it also hints at a tragedy connected with the H of the Hollywood sign - the actress Peg Entwistle, who committed suicide by jumping from the H.

 

The notion of a ladder has been pointed out as significant by the director of the album trailer and besides there being a ladder attached to the H (as well as to the other letters of the Hollywood sign), the letter H itself looks like a section of a ladder, with the horizontal piece in the middle as a rung. Towering above the earthly West Coast "city of angels" (associated with the "entrance to the underworld" in Tropico), the ladder may symbolize a connection between the earth and heaven known as Jacob's Ladder, which appeared in a dream of the biblical figure Jacob, with angels ascending and descending on it. Lana also referred to this notion a day before the release of Lust for Life when she posted a short clip on Instagram of a little song of hers in which she sings that she would trade everything for a stairway to heaven and take her time as she climbed up to top of it.

 

But when you are on a ladder and you are not vigilant there is the danger of falling. According to Abrahamic religions as well as esoteric accounts of man's origin there was a major spiritual fall at some point in the past, when man lost contact with heaven/God and got mired on earth. His consciousness closed, as the narrowly focused ego became separated from the heaven-oriented soul. What followed is the human history as we know it. Through the arc of long and often arduous history, the fallen ego was gradually revived and lifted from the caves to the age of space flights and the internet.

 

And so the soul's partner is back, Stargirl and Starboy reunited. But watch out, Lana is hanging out on top of the H with a self-proclaimed "King of the Fall". The word "fall" has a double meaning. One meaning is the season of the fall (autumn), as evidenced in The Weeknd's fall tours. After his first international tour in spring 2012 followed the fall tours: The Weeknd Fall Tour (2012), The Weeknd Kiss Land Fall Tour (2013), King of the Fall (2014), and The Madness Fall Tour (2015). In the song Starboy he aptly mentions: "I come alive in the fall time". His latest tour is titled Starboy: Legend of the Fall Tour, even though it is scheduled to last from February to July 2017, so it refers either to his already established status as the "legend" from the past seasonal fall tours, or to the second meaning of the word "fall". The second meaning of "the fall" is spiritual and is reflected in the general content of his songs: fame and decadence. In the song The Fall, he sings about falling to the ground, and in Starboy he also refers to the Brad Pitt movie Legends of the Fall. The title of this movie seems ambiguous: imdb says that it refers to the biblical fall from innocence, although "the Fall" part was translated as the season (autumn) in countries such as Sweden and France, while in Germany and Spain it was translated as "Passion". Anyway, even in the season of the fall we can find a spiritual meaning: the season is connected with harvest, which in a New Testament parable signifies the end of the age when the righteous are "ripe" for entering heaven and the "wheat" is separated from the "chaff".

 

With man's individuality and consciousness revived, his capacity for self-destruction is restored too. Although we now have a history to learn from, will it be sufficient to prevent another fall?

[litewave 519]

Lana has just denied knowing of the Peg Entwistle story:

 

 

If she really didn't know about it then this looks like an example of synchronicity, a meaningful coincidence that Carl Jung posited is mediated by the collective unconscious or a deeper order of the world.

[delreyfreak 5,340]

Lana has just denied knowing of the Peg Entwistle story

 

If she really didn't know about it then this looks like an example of synchronicity, a meaningful coincidence that Carl Jung posited is mediated by the collective unconscious or a deeper order of the world.

Your posts are always so intriguing. Thank you for sharing. I absolutely love reading them!

 

It is certainly an odd occurrence to have Lana mention all these specific details connected to Peg Entwistle's story but for her to not be aware of their symbolic significance. So many of the lyrics make sense in light of the Entwistle story.

 

"Climb up the H of the Hollywood sign, yeah

In these stolen moments, the world is mine (do it, do it)"

 

​The symbolism of the H is probably the most identifiable symbol, obviously having jumped from it and falling to her death, but the "do it, do it" part especially haunts me, as I interpret it as Entwistle's inner consciousness telling her to commit suicide. 

 

"We're the masters of our own fate

We're the captains of our own souls"

 

This part also seems relevant to the story, perhaps acting as a justification of leaving behind the world, since we are all in control of our own fate and our own souls under this philosophy.

 

"They say only the good die young

That just ain't right"

 

Entwistle died at a very young age - 24 to be exact.

 

"Then, we dance on the H of the Hollywood sign, yeah

'Til we run out of breath, gotta dance 'til we die"

 

That last part has an uncanny resemblance!

 

It really is unusual that Lana has written this song, unaware of its other meanings. I like the theory that this is a case of Jungian synchronicity

[slang 1,508]

I'm still digesting your provocative discussion of the fall (@@litewave). But for now, the robot/logician in me seems to want to believe that all she is doing is denying having discussed it in the studio, not that she doesn't know (or has never heard of) Peg. Did somebody try to nail her on the issue of having *ever* known of her. Even if the song is about Peg though, to jump to the idea that she is darkly fixated on her suicide (as I'm sure the media critics would like to conclude) makes about as much sense as saying all those horrific don't-start-smoking commercials shown in the U.S. are by people who are darkly fixated on smoking.

[Stargirl 13,348]

The Love video envisions a gentle flowering of the potential of human race. Lana speaks to the modern generation, yet they are the ancient children from the paradise, who passed through a darker age and emerged revived on the threshold of freedom. She reminds them of their original purpose, which has been largely forgotten since the fall. Their destiny is to enjoy and participate in universal creation. Limitations of the earth shall be transcended in love. And love is the eternal play of the masculine and the feminine, the never-ending process of analysis and synthesis (solve et coagula).

Lana comes to us speaking as a guardian, one who has experienced the deepest depths of the human experience in the land of Gods and Monsters and who has lived many lives (Artist, Lolita, Jackie O, to name a few). Lana's separation from society is resembled by her place on the moon, a planetary body who's only experiences with humanity directly are due to passionate perseverance and ambition of the world's greatest scientific minds. 

 

Lana is the spark in our hearts, a call to unification and eternal love and light. She brings the young people of Earth together in a way similar to the events in Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke, in which a species first thought of as being satanic (see conspiracies surrounding Lana's attribution to Satanism and witchery) but whose true purpose is to unify the young people of Earth into one entity, and a higher being. This is our destiny, and Lana is our deliverance. 

 

Lana and the Gaia Hypothesis 

 

Happy Earth day, everyone! Here's a definition of Gaia given by Google 

 

"The Gaia hypothesis (/ˈɡaɪ.ə, ˈɡeɪ.ə/, GY-uh, GAY-uh), also known as the Gaia theory or the Gaia principle, proposes that organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic self-regulating, complex system that helps to maintain and perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet."

 

As litewave said, "Love" is a call to synthesis and synergy. Lana is asserting that we are all a part of a single living organism and she wants to strengthen this connection for the benefit of mankind in our journey towards world peace. In the Gaia model, every piece works together, and every action, however insignificant (going to work or the coffee shop, "nothing in particular") is contributing to a greater whole. 

 

The daisies in Lana's hair hold significance. In the scientific models of Gaia hypothesized by scientist James Lovelock, Daisyworld is a computer model emulating the homeostatic regulation of a Gaia-type planetary organism (http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/models/Daisyworld). Lana wants us to join her Daisyworld. Are you in?

[litewave 519]

But for now, the robot/logician in me seems to want to believe that all she is doing is denying having discussed it in the studio, not that she doesn't know (or has never heard of) Peg.

 

Oh... I didn't think of it this way, but I imagine a robot/logician might interpret her words like that lol. To me she seemed surprised. Assuming that she genuinely didn't know about Peg's suicide, I can imagine that guided by her aesthetic and spirituality she took the H as a symbol for a ladder to heaven and she was aware that despite its promise something might go wrong there, something regarding spiritual corruption (perhaps inspired by the Led Zeppelin classic Stairway to Heaven). Lyrics like "we are the masters of our own fate" or "boy we're gold" might be innocent or they might indicate a somewhat overblown ego. "Dancing on the H till we run out of breath/till we die" might suggest a gentle warning. She might have been unaware that Peg's suicide on the H dramatically underlined the darker element of the song.

[litewave 519]

Lana comes to us speaking as a guardian, one who has experienced the deepest depths of the human experience in the land of Gods and Monsters and who has lived many lives (Artist, Lolita, Jackie O, to name a few). Lana's separation from society is resembled by her place on the moon, a planetary body who's only experiences with humanity directly are due to passionate perseverance and ambition of the world's greatest scientific minds. 

 

Lana is the spark in our hearts, a call to unification and eternal love and light. She brings the young people of Earth together in a way similar to the events in Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke, in which a species first thought of as being satanic (see conspiracies surrounding Lana's attribution to Satanism and witchery) but whose true purpose is to unify the young people of Earth into one entity, and a higher being. This is our destiny, and Lana is our deliverance.

 

Wow, very interesting post, Stargirl. This is a nice expression of how I view Lana too. I have not read Childhood's End but from the plot summary on Wikipedia it seems that the unification of the children eventually reached an extreme stage where their individual identities merged and stopped existing. I don't think this is what Lana would desire though, as she does care about human individuality (ego). Individuality and diversity are important, for creativity, consciousness and true fulfilment, but so is unity. Without sufficient unity the society as well as individual minds would fall apart. So the goal is some sort of healthy balance between the individual and the collective. Unity in diversity, like in the Gaia hypothesis. There is something both wise and adorable about Lovelock's Daisyworld model!

[Stargirl 13,348]

Wow, very interesting post, Stargirl. This is a nice expression of how I view Lana too. I have not read Childhood's End but from the plot summary on Wikipedia it seems that the unification of the children eventually reached an extreme stage where their individual identities merged and stopped existing. I don't think this is what Lana would desire though, as she does care about human individuality (ego). Individuality and diversity are important, for creativity, consciousness and true fulfilment, but so is unity. Without sufficient unity the society as well as individual minds would fall apart. So the goal is some sort of healthy balance between the individual and the collective. Unity in diversity, like in the Gaia hypothesis. There is something both wise and adorable about Lovelock's Daisyworld model!

Oh yes, I didn't mean an exact emulation of that scenario at all, the events of that book are actually super extreme (as much as I love it). I especially drew the connection between Lana's focus on the younger generation, albeit a wider margin then presented in the book. So you're absolutely right. 

 

In terms of comparisons from scifi literature, I'd say that she'd have more of a Gaia/Galaxia direction in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_(Foundation_universe)), in which a character with immense power (and compassion for human kind) wants to join humanity (and everything else) into a group mind that can still maintain its individuality, but that will bring human and animal (and plant and flowers and rocks and stars etc) understanding to a maximum point. The character who orchestrated these means and Lana also both set up base on the moon, and both live in hiding in the world(s) below, slowly influencing mankind by "sending love through the ether". 

[DeadAgainst 1,514]

Love also shows a maturer perspective from Cruel World, where she as the bodhisattva Dakini no longer laments how far they are from Her but instead optimistically looks towards the ascent of humanity in the future, towards the Black Star that is the dark center of one's being

 

As I mentioned in another thread...

And the H of the Hollywood sign obviously refers to the Heh in the Kabbalistic Tree of Life (the Holy Wood) as the letter of the Shekinah in the Tetragrammaton YHWH, this being the Mother who overlooks the world in the supernal triad while also descending into Malkuth in a progressively denser clothing of light [on Tuesdays]

 

 

 

LUST (FOR LIFE) = Babalon the Mother as Binah, who is also, of course, associated with the Hebrew letter H, Heh:

 

Lana of course had SOLVE ET COAGULA on her Instagram...depicting herself as the Queen of Alchemy and Magician hermetically creating the album Lust for Life in her Cup (depicted as the Cup of Babalon on the Thoth Tarot card of Lust)

 

 

 

https://books.google.com/books?id=Ksh4o6b63mMC&pg=PA181&lpg=PA181&dq=heh+binah+malkuth&source=bl&ots=lw1pQW-PCM&sig=6kGxWMJwSdpn-F6EuoI_vRQkP6s&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjG8d3L2bnTAhUkS2MKHfnWD0gQ6AEIJTAA#v=onepage&q=heh%20binah%20malkuth&f=false

 

https://books.google.com/books?id=tBeSDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA62&lpg=PA62&dq=heh+binah+malkuth&source=bl&ots=ZkzOujfGIO&sig=DSI556cGvalbYe3ZLNLBVFiwhk4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjG8d3L2bnTAhUkS2MKHfnWD0gQ6AEILTAC#v=onepage&q=heh%20binah%20malkuth&f=false

 

Just sayin'

 

Peg Entwhistle is another glyph of the ancient Gnostic Fallen Goddess Scenario wherein the Mother descends into the world or "falls"... contemporary synchromysticism is a new movement that shows the eternal verities behind temporal phenomena as echoes of the original creation.

 

Starboy is another iteration of the Starman as Major Tom who hears the Calls from Sophia as the Gnostic-Kabbalistic feminine goddess who tells him to return to her, like the eternal play of Shiva and Shakti, or Adam and Eve... as said.

[litewave 519]

I just saw The Weeknd's video for his song I Feel It Coming. It came out a few weeks after Lana's Love video and has similar cosmic, otherwordly visuals with eclipses/syzygies. The Weeknd is alone on some dark planet when a being of light arrives, turns into a woman and they start dancing together. However, a parallel visual of a progressing eclipse shows the light body being gradually "eaten up" by the dark body and at the moment of total eclipse the woman turns into stone. Then The Weeknd starts turning into stone too, as a snake appears crawling on the ground.

 

 

In the past times an eclipse was viewed as a dramatic bad omen, a herald of a disaster. It is one of the apocalyptic signs in the New Testament too. The term "eclipse" is derived from an ancient Greek word that means "the abandonment", "the downfall", or "the darkening of a heavenly body". But from a more neutral perspective the phenomenon can also be seen as a symbol for a union of opposites (an alignment of a light body and a dark body) that creates a grander reality.

 

 

 

 

[DeadAgainst 1,514]

Finally, I'm crossing the threshold

From the ordinary world

To the reveal of my heart

Undoubtedly, that will for certain

Take the dead out of the sea

And the darkness from the arts

 

Some of her most revealing lyrics; cross-reference with everything said before: Crossing from the ordinary world below the Abyss to the heart's noetic world, the raising of the dead in the esoteric sense

 

I can't remember which interview she said that the Love video represented space as ascending to a higher plane of being ... anyone know?

 

http://www.journaldesfemmes.com/loisirs/musique/1875230-lana-del-rey-interview/

 

Je suis mystique dans l'âme. L'histoire de l'ésotérisme et de la magie me parle. J'aime l'idée d'être sur la Lune pour Love ou dans une ambiance futuriste pour le clip de White Mustang, qui va bientôt sortir. C'était important de marquer symboliquement que je vais de l'avant. J'ai consciemment voulu orienter ma vie vers le futur. Ce renouveau devait aussi être allégorique. C'est amusant comme de nouvelles images vous apparaissent quand votre vision des choses évolue. Je me rends compte que j'étais bloquée dans le passé. Je n'aurais jamais pensé à ces univers il y a quelques années.

 

"I am mystical at my core. The story of esotericism and magic speaks to me. I love the idea of being on the Moon for Love or in a futuristic atmosphere for the clip of White Mustang, which will soon be released. It was important to mark symbolically that I am moving forward. I consciously wanted to direct my life towards the future. This renewal must also have been allegorical. It's fun as new images appear to you when your vision of things evolves. I realize that I was stuck in the past. I would never have thought of these universes a few years ago. "

[litewave 519]

 

Finally, I'm crossing the threshold

From the ordinary world

To the reveal of my heart

Undoubtedly, that will for certain

Take the dead out of the sea

And the darkness from the arts

 

Some of her most revealing lyrics; cross-reference with everything said before: Crossing from the ordinary world below the Abyss to the heart's noetic world, the raising of the dead in the esoteric sense

 

In recent days I've been having 13 Beaches, White Mustang and Heroin on a loop and I forgot about the gem called Get Free. Indeed, the verses read like from a mystical book about spiritual awakening. She feels that she and the world are undergoing a big change that may unleash the creative potential of mankind and restore the lost paradise in a modern form. Her songs about her romantic relationships, struggles and transformations have always had a wide social aspect but now she's making this social aspect more explicit in songs like Love, Coachella, God Bless America or When the World Was at War.

 

I can't remember which interview she said that the Love video represented space as ascending to a higher plane of being ... anyone know?

 

Maybe I missed it? I also didn't know about the French interview you just quoted.

 

[reputation 6,313]

@litewave would love to see your interpretation of Heroin. really felt you with BAR, damn. but is there an explanation to the bed lyric? 

[litewave 519]

@litewave would love to see your interpretation of Heroin. really felt you with BAR, damn. but is there an explanation to the bed lyric? 

 

I think when Lana sings about drugs (whether it is heroin, cocaine or meth) she doesn't necessarily mean literal drugs but rather intense stimulations, passions and addictions. On the esoteric view these would be the stimulations, passions and addictions that the soul derives from its incarnation in the material world. Basically, sensory or carnal pleasures. During incarnation, as in the activity of the soul in general, there is a temporary and cyclical separation between the ego, which is basically the focus of the soul's consciousness, and the soul as a whole: the ego is sent forth while the soul recedes into the background of the mind. After the ego has analyzed the situation/problem/environment, gained knowledge or created something, it is integrated back into the consciousness of the soul as a whole: the soul and the ego reunite. And again and again - thus the soul evolves. The problem arises when the ego becomes overly fixated, in its narrow focus, on the world or on the material body and forgets about the soul; the consciousness of the soul thus becomes trapped in a part of reality and this is the spiritual fall. The word "heroin" also suggests "hero", which fits with the sense of individuality that the soul experiences in its ego and with the dangers that it must overcome in its exploration of the world.  

 

In the chorus to Heroin the ego travels to the material world (foreign land); this is the initial separation between the soul and the ego during incarnation. The soul hopes for an eventual reunion but the ego falls on the trip; the "heroin" takes its life away. After the death of the ego (spiritual or physical) the soul withdraws into the spiritual world (to the moon). Topanga is used as a symbol of decadent lifestyle, which eventually results in insanity and violence, as shown in the reference to Charles Manson, who lived in Topanga with his followers. His followers committed some grisly murders back in 1969, which involved writing words in their victims' blood on the walls. This was around the end of 1950s-1960s "paradise" era. The hotness of Topanga refers to the insane and violent atmosphere.

 

At the end of the song the soul becomes sick of the crazy lifestyle and desires change.

[DeadAgainst 1,514]

Gone is the burden

Of the Crowley way of bein'

That comes from energies combined

Like my part was I

Was not discernin'

And you, as we found out

Were not in your right mind

 

She directly namedrops Aleister Crowley in this song, which, somehow, nobody seems to have noticed!! Just gonna gloat about this for a while. 

[litewave 519]

 

Gone is the burden

Of the Crowley way of bein'

That comes from energies combined

Like my part was I

Was not discernin'

And you, as we found out

Were not in your right mind

 

She directly namedrops Aleister Crowley in this song, which, somehow, nobody seems to have noticed!! Just gonna gloat about this for a while. 

 

 

Yess, "the wickedest man in the world", obsessed with sex and control, addicted to heroin and cocaine.