The Paradise and the esoteric origin of mankind

[litewave 519]

Using "her" would be the pendulum swinging all the way in the other direction, no? I think that's a misconception to attribute something like that to "super feminist" (whatever that term even means). Nothing to do with Affirmative Action either. If you were talking about, say, Asian people in an all inclusive way, to represent the whole of the continent, you wouldn't keep referring to them as Chinese, would you? I didn't realize using "him/her" or "their" when speaking of all people could be awkward. It goes beyond just being gender-sensitive.

Ok.

 

Does this have to do with the double slit experiment with photons?

Yes, but not just photons. Wave-particle duality is a fundamental property of matter.

[litewave 519]

Where you go I go

What you see I see

I know I'd never be me

Without the security
Of your loving arms
Keeping me from harm
Put your hand in my hand
And we'll stand

- through Adele (Skyfall)

 

Palms rise to the universe
As we moonshine and molly
Feel the warmth, we'll never die
We're like diamonds in the sky
You're a shooting star I see
A vision of ecstasy
When you hold me, I'm alive
We're like diamonds in the sky

- through Rihanna (Diamonds)

 

With understanding

You won't let it cast you down

A mind full of questions

A current to purify

Science and visions

Be near when I call your name

Or ask me a question

- through Chvrches (Science/Visions)

 

And if you stay a while

I'll penetrate your soul

I'll bleed into your dreams

You'll want to lose control

I'll weep into your eyes

I'll make your visions sing

I'll open endless skies

And ride your broken wings

Welcome to my world

- through Depeche Mode (Welcome to My World)

 

Why can't this moment last forevermore?

Tonight eternity's an open door

No, don't ever stop doing the things you do

Don't go, in every breath I take I'm breathing you

Euphoria

Forever, till the end of time

From now on, only you and I

We're going u-u-u-u-u-u-up

- through Loreen (Euphoria)

 

So open up your heart and just let it begin
Open up your heart and just let it begin
Open up your heart and just let it begin
Open up your heart
Acceptance is the key to be
To be truly free
Will you do the same for me?

- through Katy Perry (Unconditionally)

 

Mon amour, sweet child of mine
You're divine
Didn't anyone ever tell you
It's ok to shine?
Roses, Bel Air, take me there
I've been waiting to meet you
Palm trees in the light
I can see late at night
Darling, I'm waiting to greet you
Come to me baby

- through Lana Del Rey (Bel Air)

 

[litewave 519]

As this current wave of consciousness slowly fills the conceptual atmosphere of this planet, more and more people look up from their affairs to notice that their society's understanding of the world is neither complete nor accurate. There are some who shrink away from this truth, but properly understood it is a source of joy and not of fear. The perspective to which we call is one of wholeness. It is the vision that sees, behind the changes of these times, an Eternal Presence slowly filling the fields of human consciousness, a holy Presence, the Presence that inspires life itself.

 

Those who embrace this vision are both more comfortable and more effective in the arenas where human goods, services and ideas are exchanged. Their lives are rooted in a sense of peace that weathers well the temporal storms. They use their skills and their insight to prepare the way for change in commercial and political spheres. And as this magical quarter century continues to unfold, their peace continues to deepen. How could it be otherwise? They bring peace to all they encounter.

 

We address those locked in historical perspectives as best we can, transmitting our information through those of resonant transduction in whom we are able to incarnate occasionally, not necessarily full-time, but long enough to create a work of art, a song, a motion picture, an article, a documentary. As electronic communication devices help to alert more people to the deeper currents of perception within themselves, our transmission of higher-frequency consciousness increasingly takes the form of radiant light energy beamed directly into human awareness. People turn again to the historically neglected flow of information through collective human consciousness, even as that flow is itself being amplified, even as its warmer, love-centered informational currents infiltrate the cooler currents of compartmentalized egoic thought.

 

Some associate this with a vague conception of God, but few suspect the immensity of the event that is before them as this new consciousness - aware, alert, active - flows like a tide into the very core of their societies, into their very minds and hearts.

 

- Ken Carey, The Third Millennium

[DeadAgainst 1,514]

This is brilliant. I understand you completely and interpret BTD in much the same way. With the release of Tropico, I think much of what you say here, as outlandish as it appears, has been proven correct.

[ZeroZero 2,223]

I'm literally so confused and I'm crying. I don't know why but anytime my brain is faced with deep meaning or life I go into break down mode and I'm close to an anxiety attack maybe it's the drugs I used to do LMAO it'll probably take me years to comprehend this forum

[smoledman 199]

Honestly are people really contemplating these things any more now than 10-15 years ago? I think it's just because of the internet that we've become more aware of other peoples' philosophical musings.

[DeadAgainst 1,514]

In the Electronic Beats interview she says the two things she writes about are Metaphysics and her boyfriend http://www.electronicbeats.net/en/features/interviews/lana-del-rey-interview/

 

I graduated with a metaphysics degree and I loved philosophy, I’ve kind of gone back to things that made me feel excited about learning maybe six years ago when I was in school. And I have a boyfriend I really like, I write about him a lot. That’s really it. [...] Why do we exist? How did reality come to be? Why do we do what we do? [...]
 

Almost every song on Born To Die is in the second person, the same goes for Paradise. To what extent is it all addressed to the same person?

It depends. It’s just like a general, spiritual collective. The ether.

 

http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/11702/1/lana-del-rey-bad-girl-blues

 

“The verse was about the way things were with one person, and the chorus was the way that I wished things had really been with another person, who I thought about for a long time,” she says, breaking into an acapella of the song. “‘Swinging in the backyard, pull up in your fast car, whistling my name’. That was what happened, you know? He’d come home and I’d see him. But then the chorus, ‘Heaven is a place on earth with you, tell me all the things you wanna do’ wasn’t like that. That was the way that I wished it was – the melody sounds so compelling and heavenly because I wanted it to be that way. The verse is more matter-of-fact because that’s how it was. It’s a mix of memories and the way I wished it could have been.

 

"Video Games" is said to be about her boyfriend in the verses, and about something quite different in the chorus:

 

Heaven is a place on earth with you
Tell me all the things you wanna do
I heard that you like the bad girls
Honey, is that true?
It's better than I ever even knew
They say that the world was built for two
Only worth living if somebody is loving you

 

"When Eve was still with Adam, death did not exist. When she was separated from him, death came into being. If he enters again and attains his former self, death will be no more."

 

Existing I peer and penetrate still,

Content with the present, content with the past,

By my side or back of me Eve following,

Or in front, and I following her just the same. (Whitman)

 

In Tropico there are two Lanas, one heavenly, one earthly, representing the two perspectives in her music

 

The same pattern is repeated in "Blue Jeans" -- the verses are about a boyfriend, but the chorus shifts perspective from the mundane to the cosmic --

 

I will love you 'til the end of time
I would wait a million years
Promise you'll remember that you're mine
Baby can you see through the tears
Love you more
Than those bitches before
Say you'll remember, oh baby, say you'll remember, oh baby ooh
I will love you 'til the end of time

 

Eve can love Adam for a million years, until the end of time ... Lana, perhaps not quite so long

 

Say you'll remember http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anamnesis_%28philosophy%29

 

When you got her in the back seat
Drivin' round the back streets
Trying to block me out
Do you remember my name?

Cruising down Santa Monica Boulevard
Does it light up the spark?
Do you remember my name?

Is she a Ride or Die Bitch?
Does she know I'm tattooed onto your heart?
You can try to fight it.
I have left my mark on you
There is nothing you can do...

When you think you're over me
And your bad baby is dead and gone
Remember I'm the ghost in your machine...

 

You try to forget and you tell her that you miss her
But I bet every time you go to kiss her
You get a hot rush feeling on your lips...
It's me taking over you, throwing you a curve ball.

Reminding you of that true romancin'
Just like the first time, you and me dancin'.

 

Lana dies in both the "Born to Die" and "Blue Jeans" videos -- in "She's Not Me" she (the forgotten Anima) comes back as a ghost, reminding Adam to remember Paradise

[litewave 519]

Remember I'm the ghost in your machine...

 

Ghost in the machine

[DeadAgainst 1,514]

Ghost in the machine

 

"According to Descartes, the human body may be a machine, but it only became a 'person' when it was infused with an immaterial soul. "

 

"She's Not Me" enforces the same notion; immaterial Soul is "not" material Body (invisible versus visible); but these two as Subject-Object are reconciled at the end of Tropico, since Soul must unite the genera that appear divided

 

The idea of psychic memory was used by Neoplatonists to demonstrate the celestial and immaterial origins of the soul, and to explain how memories of the world-soul could be recalled by everyday human beings. As such, psychic recollection was intrinsically connected to the Platonic conception of the soul itself. Since the contents of individual "material" or physical memories were trivial, only the universal recollection of Forms, or divine objects, drew one closer to the immortal source of being.

 

Every time you tell me that I'm wrong

I just can't remember how to play along

There's something I have never told you

I'm not really from this world

There's something I have been withholding

I'm not like every other girl...

 

So if you begin to think that my light might be supernatural

I'd have to say alright, you're right mon cher it is

I come from a place that your mind cannot even imagine

[litewave 519]

West Coast

 

I can see my baby swingin'

His Parliament's on fire and his hands are up

 

Chances are that once you made out what Lana was saying in the chorus the first image that emerged in your mind was one of a Cuban guy smoking a cigarette and swaying on a balcony. That's a nice image, it has an atmosphere and a vividness Lana is known for. But for someone like me, who is rather clueless about cigarette brands, the first thing that came to me with the word Parliament was a… Parliament (you know, the assembly of people who vote on laws of the country). Although I got quickly oriented with the help of this forum the original idea of a Parliament still seemed intriguing so I let myself explore it further. Initially there was an image of a national leader delivering a fiery speech in a Parliament, reminiscent of the National Anthem video. Then as I kept drifting on the ethereal waves of the chorus, more abstract thoughts emerged.  

 

In a Parliament you will typically find two kinds of people: those who prefer that the laws should promote individual liberty and responsibility, and those who place more emphasis on solidarity among individuals and collective cohesion. Traditionally these two political orientations came to be called right wing and left wing, respectively. In the US the right is currently associated with conservatism/Republican party and the left with liberalism/Democratic party. As I described in an older post (here) we can draw parallels between these two orientations and the dichotomy of the human being I've been referring to as the ego and the soul. The right wing emphasizes the autonomy and distinctness of the ego, the left wing the inclusiveness and expansiveness of the soul. This human dichotomy is also reflected in the orientations of our brain hemispheres: the left brain hemisphere specializes in analyzing, in breaking things up into and focusing on parts, differentiating, separating, individualizing; and the right brain hemisphere specializes in making connections, merging, intuitively sensing a larger whole or context. Where one sees the trees the other sees the forest.

 

As we grow older, developing our individuality and specializing in a selected field, we tend to move from the intuitive right brain orientation toward the analytical left brain orientation and get stuck there. So has done mankind, moving from a primitive unity with nature and others towards the modern bureaucratic and technological world. But persistence of such an imbalance is not inevitable. In fact, the growth of consciousness and society requires both orientations at least to some extent: without wholeness the mind and society start to disintegrate; without analysis progress is stopped too. As you know, Lana wears a tattoo saying "Paradise" on her left hand and "Trust no one" on her right hand. The left half of the body is controlled by the right brain hemisphere and the right half of the body is controlled by the left brain hemisphere. "Paradise" expresses the childlike guilelessness of the soul, "Trust no one" the shrewdness of the ego.

 

But back to West Coast. My interpretation is as follows: the guy whose Parliament is on fire represents a human whose mind/brain is aroused, synapses are firing; he moves rhythmically between left and right and votes with both hands because he knows the value of both perspectives, and surrenders to the value that unites them, love. He stands on an elevated platform, above the fray of the dichotomy. The Spanish/Latin references indicate sensuality and heightened emotion. Lana, the symbol of the soul as usual, the music in him, sings to him, as the soul, now not just an orientation toward the whole but the whole itself of his forgotten identity, descends into his body and infuses his ego-delimited consciousness, in the reunion of the ego and the soul. The values of individualism and liberty have achieved their fullest, even though sometimes decadent, expression in the Western culture, and now the reunion is happening in the west of the West, metaphorically speaking. There's nothing further west but the wide and wavering ocean, again a symbol of the holistic soul, who awaits her west-bound beloved after the cycle has passed and West turns to East, night to dawn.

[DeadAgainst 1,514]

I think "West Coast" has a lot to do with this poem Barrie posted on FB: https://www.facebook.com/nightmareboybjo/posts/413946528751206

"She's a drunk bitch
he's a drunk cunt
she's so lonely now he's gone
he's day dreaming of his new gun
she's a feeling his only one

burn me a liar
want to die in a fire
holy and wired
addicted to liars

Pontius pilate serve me a sin
be my next of kin
broken by her violent hymn
she thinks he's jesus crying within

serve him a sire
he wants to die in a fire
holy and wired
addicted to liars
burn me a liar
i want to die in a fire
buried in fire
addicted to liars

my girl she burns her lover and
she says something as he's on fire and
my girl she burns her lover and
says something like love"



"Chelsea Hotel #2" appears on this Leonard Cohen album, whose cover features "an image from the alchemical text Rosarium philosophorum"

"You're the King
My fear baby
I'm the Queen of Alchemy
I know a way to make gold by mixing our souls to escape reality"

Lana, as she told us in "Heavy Hitter," is the Queen of Alchemy, and her work must be interpreted in this context. She is burning her lover (and/or the listener) in the alchemical fire, purging away his impurities and symbolically "killing" the lower self so that it may be reborn as a Phoenix.

The first stage of Alchemy is the Nigredo, in which the sun of day-consciousness figuratively is immersed in the darkness of the lower world, interpreted in both its macrocosmic and microcosmic aspects as the soul descending into body and the consciousness descending into the unconscious waters of the psyche, respectively. This is the sun setting in the "West" to make the night-journey through the Underworld.

"Down on the West Coast, they got a sayin'
If you're not drinking, then you're not playing
But you got the music, you got the music in you, don't you?

"Down on the West Coast, I get this feeling, like
It all could happen, that's why I'm leaving you for the moment, you for the moment, boy blue, yeah, you..."

"Down on the West Coast, they got their icons
The silver starlets, their queens of Saigons
...they love their movies
Their Golden Gods and rock 'n' roll groupies
And you got the music, you got the music in you, don't you?"

Los Angeles is the Gateway to the Underworld, as she said in Tropico. The Land of Gods and Monsters is an inverted reflection of the higher spiritual reality of the world of forms, where all of the "Golden Gods" and "Silver Starlets" dwell in their own false Paradise. Here one is subjected to spiritual intoxication and occlusion that dulls the senses. Lana, as the Alchemical Queen, has descended into this world as a Ray of light broken off from the Divine, here to alchemically transform the lower world into a true image of the eternal Paradise; she as Soul is the "music" in her lover as Ego that will transform him from the dead to the living.

"You're falling hard, I push away
I'm feeling hot to the touch
You say you miss me and I wanna say, "I miss you so much"
But something keeps me really quiet"

This ties into the symbolism of "Black Beauty," in which Lana as Soul paints herself black in the Nigredo stage of the work, when the alchemical fire turns all to ashes; she no longer speaks to her lover and he is left seemingly alone in his Dark Night of the Soul.



"I can see my baby swinging, his Parliament's on fire and his hands are up
On the balcony and I'm singing, ooh baby, ooh baby, I'm in love
I can see my sweet boy swinging, he's crazy and Cubano como yo, my love
On the balcony and I'm swaying, move baby, move baby, I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love"

Lana repeats the familiar trope of separating herself into two characters in the verse-chorus structure; here she stands as the Higher Sophia, in distinction from the Lower (the White and Red girls as Soul and Body, Mary and Eve), who declares her love as her "baby" burns himself in the alchemical fire. In Barrie's "Mary," we see Mary on a balcony as the Mother Goddess, overlooking the mortal child who wishes to approach her divinity.

"Would you kill for me? Would you die for me?

Put your hands where I can see them,

Put them in the air."

 

And if it seems strange that she would personify herself as a goddess . . .

 

"I want to be the whole world's girl, gramma
Tell me do you think that's wrong?

"Don't cry, honey, crazy girl
Don't you know you are the world?
Every time you feel unsure
Try to remember what you are"

[litewave 519]

Speaking of alchemy there's the general motto of Solve et Coagula:

 

Solve et Coagula is an alchemical motto which suggests analyzing a substance into its components before synthesizing the desirable elements into a new substance

 

In terms of soul evolution, I suppose this corresponds to the narrowing of one's consciousness/soul into an isolated part/ego (the darkening or Nigredo phase as you mentioned) for the purpose of defining/developing it and the subsequent re-establishment of balance by integrating in consciousness the developed part with one's whole identity. This cycle of differentiation and integration seems to occur on many scales, for example also on a small daily scale as the ebb and flow of focus and relaxation, getting absorbed in a problem and then re-establishing contact with a wider environment, etc.

[DeadAgainst 1,514]

"Mary" on the balcony



Ravens = Nigredo

Good overview: http://www.soul-guidance.com/houseofthesun/alchemyintro.htm

"I am an infirm and weak old man, surnamed the dragon; therefore am I shut up in a cave, that I may become ransomed by the kingly crown...A fiery sword inflicts great torments on me; death makes weak my flesh and bones...My soul and my spirit depart; a terrible poison, I am likened to the black raven, for that is the wages of sin; in dust and earth I lie, that out of Three may come One. O soul and spirit leave me not, that I may see again the light of day, and the hero of peace whom the whole world shall behold may arise from me..." ~ Aurelia Occulta Philosophorum

"I'm leaving you for the moment" = "My soul and my spirit depart"

Many scales, yes . . . alchemy repeats the creation of the universe; the Fall and Redemption



Dark Paradise



--The Tower of Alchemy



Fire as violent love, Sulphur and Mars energy of transformation performing the Operation of the Sun

Guy Fawkes the revolutionary attempts to blow up Parliament; i.e. destroy the old order of Ego and its ossified belief structures (represented by Jackoff Jack in the Tower in Tropico)





The video for "Born to Die" with Bradley again depicts the first stage of the Alchemical work as "Death": Lana in two forms as the Higher and Lower Shekinah (Sophia). Bradley as the alchemical King from whom Soul departs in a fiery crash as he steers his Merkabah-Chariot. Brad takes the cig and gives it to Lana ("His Parliament's on fire ..."); i.e. he communicates his alchemical fire to her.

"I got the ice, you got the fire.
I got the stuff, to take you higher....
This is a race, let's go fast honey....
C'mon pretty baby, I'll be takin' you down."

[litewave 519]

Now that I look at the loop in the audio video, perhaps the cycle of union and separation is implied here too.

 

 

Anyway, the fact that the cig is all white and the flame is red (at least on the UV billboard) definitely seems to be deliberate symbolism. The white cig turns black and decomposes into bits of ash. But I guess this is supposed to be an enjoyable process, only the end looks dismal lol. But then again, a sort of "rising from the ashes" might be implied...

 

 

[DeadAgainst 1,514]

 

 

On the balcony, overlooking the world = Lana in white (higher Mary-Sophia) with her "Daddy" character as God (YHWH, "Our Father, whose Art's in heaven"), riding her throne-chariot through the heavens ...

 

 

Lana in red (lower Eve-Sophia) as the "Girl on Fire," the Phoenix in flames. ("Phoenix" = "palm tree.")

 

 

The final scene shows Christ crucified with Lana as Sophia overshadowing him in her soft resurrection.

 

 

She is seen in the flames in red before turning to black leather--the Nigredo when she puts on her black wedding dress.

[litewave 519]

The replacement of the young lover with an old one in the WC video can represent the maturation but also devitalization and ossification of the ego as it becomes alienated from the soul. The soul herself doesn't seem to age because she is the transcendent aspect, youthful innocence, closer to heaven and to the source of eternal life. I think the two guys look similar and as was pointed out the video is a reference to a documentary about the jazz musician Chet Baker – which contrasts the same young and old Baker. But it is not explicitely shown that the two guys in the WC video are the same person (and there are no traces of tattooes on the old guy but this may just indicate that he lost his rebellious nature). This ambiguity may be there to retain the option of interpreting the video in both an esoteric way (relationship between ego and soul – if the two guys are the same person) and an exoteric way (relationship between man and woman – if the two guys are different persons, because it wouldn't make much sense if the man got old while the woman stayed young?).

 

Either way the contrast between an earlier happy and a later unhappy relationship is a classic Lana theme and the fire scene too offers the choice of both an esoteric interpretation (a phoenix-like transformation) and an exoteric one (burning love).

[TRENCH 15,342]

 

"I want to be the whole world's girl, gramma

Tell me do you think that's wrong?

 

"Don't cry, honey, crazy girl

Don't you know you are the world?

Every time you feel unsure

Try to remember what you are"

 

 

i find it interestingthat she says WHAT you are not WHO you are 

[DeadAgainst 1,514]

I guess my reasoning was that if Lana in white is Mary, then her Daddy must be "Dear John" by default . . .

 

"Now I'm in LA and it's Paradise"

 

There is some merit to interpreting UV as being about her musical career as well; this seems to be part of her design to turn her life into a work of Art, by which she seems to mean a work of poetic alchemy (thus the flames as she sways on the SNL stage--stumbling on the way to Golgotha, as you say).

 

"Three years down the line of being on an endless world tour"--well, she hadn't been on an endless world tour for three years when she said that; she is obviously referring to a spiritual path (feet, don't fail me now) rather than anything literal. Fuck your way to the top.

 

"And if I said I didn't plan for it to turn out this way, I'd be lying ..."

 

"No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself ..."

[litewave 519]

Hmm... Daddy in the WC video being God? Like, the soul returned to God because her incarnated part (ego) literally died? Fuck, that would be a whole new level of depressive!

[litewave 519]

I couldn't help noticing that her father in heaven is now actively engaged in her career.

 

 

 

Some of the stuff he tweets is actually quite interesting.

 

 

Lana was born in New York (East/garden of Eden), now she is in LA (West/garden of evil).