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[ by Charles Cameron — “And ‘midst this tumult Kubla heard from afar, Ancestral voices prophesying war!” ]
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At 36 minutes and 12 seconds, this video of Bob Dylan‘s Masters of War slowed down “800%” — i.e. to eight times its normal length — may or may not be something you find time for.

It’s eeeeerie, I can tell you that much. And I’m not the only one to post it either — Wired featured it in their birthday greeting to Dylan last year.

If you have the meditative patience for Tibetan chanting, you might want to give Dylan at 1/8th speed a try.

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Sources:

Coleridge, Kubla Khan

Dylan, Masters of War, eight versions…

[ by Charles Cameron — with cites from the Qur’an and Bukhari, together with a concerto by Saint-Saëns ]
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Stephen Hough is a classical pianist of note recording on the Hyperion label, the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, and one of twenty living polymaths listed as “Pianist, poet, composer, writer on religion” in a 2009 survey by The Economist’s 2009 Intelligent Life blog.

Hough — a Catholic — blogs at The Telegraph, and today he wrote something that caught my eye in his post Why haven’t you written anything about Gosnell?:

I think that without religious faith it is hard to accept a zygote as equivalent in value to a fully formed child. I can understand that a non-religious person is going to see a scale of development in the nine months of pregnancy.

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To broaden Hough’s discussion a little, I’d like to gently point out that not all religious faiths perceive these matters in the same way. Islam, for instance, has a Qur’anic passage that’s apposite in Sura 20, The Believers, 12-16:

Man We did create from a quintessence (of clay); Then We placed him as (a drop of) sperm in a place of rest, firmly fixed; Then We made the sperm into a clot of congealed blood; then of that clot We made a (foetus) lump; then we made out of that lump bones and clothed the bones with flesh; then we developed out of it another creature. So blessed be Allah, the best to create! After that, at length ye will die Again, on the Day of Judgment, will ye be raised up.

Getting into more detail, we find these ahadith — the first in Bukhari, Chapter 6, The Book of Menstruation, 312:

It is related from Anas ibn Malik that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “Allah the Mighty and Majestic appoints an angel to every womb who says, ‘O Lord! A sperm drop! O Lord A clot! O Lord! A lump of flesh! ‘ Then if He desires to complete His creation, He does so and the angel asks, ‘Is it to be male or female? Wretched or happy? What is its provision? What is its life-span?’ This is all decreed in the mother’s womb.”

and the second in Bukhari Chapter 63, The Book of the Beginning of Creation, 3036:

It is related that ‘Abdullah said, “The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, who is the truthful confirmed one, said, ‘The way that each of you is created is that you are gathered in your mother’s womb for forty days as a sperm-drop and then for a similar length of time as a blood-clot and then for a similar length of time as a lump of flesh. Then an angel is sent and he breathes the spirit into you and is encharged with four commandments: to write down your provision, your life-span, your actions, and whether you will be wretched or happy.

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My Sources:

Qur’an 20, in the Yusuf Ali rendition

Bukhari, Book of Menstruation 312 the Aisha Bewley translation

Bukhari, Book of the Beginning of Creation, 3036 also in the Bewley translation

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Here Stephen Hough plays Camille Saint-Saëns‘ Piano Concerto 2 in G minor Op. 22 with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo conducting:

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[ by Charles Cameron — others will know more about the context here than I do, but this video deserves to be seen alongside the “Black banners” Mahdist example ]
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Here’s the other “end times” video that Tamerlan Tsarnaev liked on FaceBook, and I think if you put the two of them together, you get the sense that he found quasi-prophetic doomish videos appealing… without necessarily subscribing in detail to either the Madhism of the first or the Icke-ness of this one… there’s even an Aleister Crowley ref!

Vinnie Paz – End Of Days Ft. Block Mccloud MUSIC VIDEO ORIGINAL! (fan made)

I’ve posted the lyrics to End of Days below.

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Hey, I’m mostly Bach, Handel, Purcell, Byrd, Gregorian, I’m also Dylan, Joni, I’m almost seventy old, and I claim no knowledge of rap, so…

… knowing that the Wikipedia is not the most academically credible source, and being an utter layperson in these matters, here are a couple of paragraphs from their coverage of Vinnie Paz. with all appropriate caveats:

Religion

Vinnie was raised a Roman Catholic just like the majority of the people in southern Philadelphia. Although his family practiced Catholicism, Vinnie always felt disconnected from the religion. In high school, a good friend of his was Muslim, and he frequented this friend’s household. This particular friend’s father began teaching Paz about the Qu’ran. As an adult he gradually converted to Islam and currently still is a Muslim. In an interview with Jason Goss, Paz stated; “Growing up yeah, I’m Italian and from Philly, so obviously my family is Roman Catholic. Religion and spirituality are a strange thing, ya know? Most people just grow up and accept the propaganda that their parents pushed on them. Christian families produce Christian kids, Jewish families produce Jewish kids, and so on. Not many people break that mold. I just never felt any connection with Catholicism, or Christianity in general. I spent a lot of time in high school at my homeboy Arif’s crib, and he came from a Muslim family. I learned a lot there from his family and I got interested in Islam through them.”

Conspiracy theories

Jedi Mind Tricks and specifically Vinnie Paz are known for rapping about many different conspiracy theories. Most are chronicled in Paz’s song “End of Days” from his first solo album. The song features speech clips from famous conspiracy theorist David Icke. In this particular song, Paz raps about mostly conspiracy theories within the United States government. For instance he mentions that the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center towers was an inside job. He also introduces listeners to a place in California called Bohemian Grove, where world leaders and other influential men meet to discuss things that for the most part remain a mystery. Most of these conspiracy theories stem from the beliefs of a New World Order and the Illuminati.

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I suppose it bears saying that end times and conspiracist theories alike can become established explanations of current reality in some minds, but that there are very likely a whole lot of others who find them titillating, tasty, amusing, or just crazy enough to irritate the neighbors.

They merit study, because they can show us some of the undercurrents of the times we live in that we might otherwise miss. They are instances of a style of thinking that clearly has its own motivations with little regard for the particulars invoked, and are often self-contradictory amalgams in terms of those details. And yet specific instances can also be significant indicators of passionately held individual beliefs.

Cavete a canibus.

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Lyrics: End of Days:

The greatest form of control is when you think you’re free when you’re being fundamentally manipulated and dictated to. One form of dictatorship is being in a prison cell and you can see the bars and touch them. The other one is sitting in a prison cell but you can’t see the bars but you think you’re free.

What the human race is suffering from is mass hypnosis. We are being hypnotized by people like this: newsreaders, politicians, teachers, lecturers. We are in a country and in a world that is being run by unbelievably sick people. The chasm between what we’re told is going on and what is really going on is absolutely enormous.

[Chorus: Block McCloud]

It’s like we all know what’s going down
But no one’s saying shit, what happened to the home of the brave?
These motherfuckers they’re controlling us now
But no one’s talking about it, made us proud to be slaves

And everybody’s just walking around
Head in the clouds, we won’t awake until we’re dead in the grave
By then it’s too late, we need to be ready to raise up
Welcome to the end of days

[Verse 1: Vinnie Paz]

Everybody is slave, only some are aware
That the government releasing poison in the air
That’s the reason I collect so many guns in my lair
I ain’t never caught slipping, never underprepared
Yeah, The Shaytan army, they just break it proudly
George Bush the grandson of Aleister Crowley
They want you to believe the lie that the enemy Saudi
The enemy ain’t Saudi, the enemy around me
There’s fluoride in the water but nobody know that
It’s also a prominent ingredient in Prozac (for real?)
How could any government bestow that?
A proud people who believe in political throwback
That’s not all that I’m here to present you
I know about the black pope in Solomon’s Temple
Yeah, about the Vatican assassins and how they will get you
And how they cloned Barack Hussein Obama in a test tube

[Chorus]

[Verse 2: Vinnie Paz]

Whoever built the pyramids had knowledge of electrical power
And you know that that’s the information that they suppress and devour
Who you think the motherfuckers that crashed in the tower?
Who you think that made it turn into ash in an hour?
The same ones that invaded Jerome
The ones that never told you about the skeletons on the moon
Yeah, the ones that poison all the food you consume
The ones that never told you about Mount Vesuvius Tomb
The Bird Flu is a lie, the Swine Flu is a lie
Why would that even come as a surprise?
Yeah, the Polio vaccine made you die
It caused cancer and it cost a lot of people their lives
Do y’all know about Bohemian Grove?
How the world leader sacrificing children in robes?
Lucifer is God in the public school system
I suggest you open up your ears and you listen

[Chorus]

[Outro]

The greatest hypnotist on the planet Earth is an oblong box in the corner in the room. It is constantly telling us what to believe is real. If you can persuade people that what they see with their eyes is what there is to see you’ve got them. Because they’ll laugh in your face of an explanation then which portrays the big picture of what’s happening… and they have

[ by Charles Cameron — once again noting the value of seeking out parallels before rushing to judgment ]
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I’m not in a position to say whether the event at University College, London was “segregated” or not — a Muslim woman who favors separated seating and was present wrote:

As a woman, I should have the choice who I choose to mix with. The organisers were accommodating to all – for those who wanted to sit separately, and for those who wanted to sit together. During the event, 2 men demanded to sit in the women’s section in between the women, after much discussion, the organisers cleared space for them to sit – (there were so many rows), while still trying to respect the position of the women who had requested to be seated separately. A man in particular demanded to sit in between the women in order to ‘challenge their beliefs’

Meanwhile, a man who describes himself as an ex-Muslim atheist wrote:

The evening turned sour right at the outset, as attendees were herded through segregated entrances into ‘Ladies’ and ‘Gentlemen’ sections.

Five minutes of remonstration yielded a slender two-row mixed section for the debauched, with the remaining twenty devoted to good old-fashioned chastity, whilst the five rows at the back with the worst views of the stage comprised the ‘Ladies Area’.

Matters came to a head when two male attendees were forcibly evicted from a section of the auditorium which turned out to be part of the ‘Ladies’ Area’.

Incensed, they raised the matter with the organisers, but were staggered to see the organisers set the guards on them instead, this time with the express intention of evicting them from the auditorium itself for “unruly behaviour”.

This behaviour cited consisted of little more than the temerity to occupy a vacant seat in a public auditorium, and to protest one’s unjust eviction, without recourse to raised voices or physical contact.

Again, I wasn’t there. But perhaps we should think about the Perlman concert and its seating arrangements, and decide that offering seating in three sections, two “separated” for those who prefer that arrangement, and one “mixed” for those with that preference, is a civilized way to accommodate the wishes of a variety of people.

Overkill — or useful heuristic?

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Sources:

• Barclays Center Offers Separate Seating for Orthodox Jews
• Seating by Gender at UK University Debate on Islam Stirs Protest
• For a different angle on the UCL event, see this Slate piece

[ by Charles Cameron — on the religious and irreligious attributes of the sovereign citizen movement, with a glance at syncretism and the Grateful Dead ]
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There’s something of a question as to whether the US sovereign citizens movement is religious and perhaps apocalyptic, or basically secular in nature. As I said in part I of this double post, its main manifestations haven’t seemed particularly religious, and I have accordingly not been paying them a whole lot of attention.

This sense — that the movement is primarily legal rather than religious in emphasis, is nicely captured in this personal communication from JM Berger:

Very few of the beliefs that we use to define the sovereign citizen movement are by definition religious. The things that most often define a sovereign have to do with interpretations of secular law. Athough those interpretations are sometimes supported by religious concepts, the beliefs themselves are centered on what adherents think is a pragmatic reading of law. So to explain that, most sovereigns wouldn’t refuse to answer a policeman’s questions by citing a religious principle. They would instead cite some secular legal principle they believe is valid. But some sovereigns do mix religion in more aggressively, such as those who follow outgrowths of the old Moorish Science Temple religion. But even they rely on legal arguments.

The most common sovereign how-to materials and recruitment websites tend to be pretty secular and based on a reading of history that, while fanciful, is predicated on a misreading of history rather than on ideas we would normally consider religious. In fact, I think the big challenge in understanding this movement is figuring out how these ideas take such powerful hold having neither a consistent religious dimension nor any evidence — even subjective or anecdotal — that they work on a practical level.

JM is the author of Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam and of the New America Foundation report, PATCON: The FBI’s Secret War Against the ‘Patriot’ Movement… His views as expressed in the quote above are based on recent research.

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Jean Rosenfeld is also a researcher with an interest in both foreign and home-grown violent movements. She authored what may have been the first detailed inquiry into Al-Qaida from a religious studies perspective, The `Religion’ of Usamah bin Ladin: Terror As the Hand of God, back in 2001, edited the anthology Terrorism, Identity, and Legitimacy, and was one of the FBI’s advisory scholars during the [“sovereign”] Justus Freemen standoff, see her article The Justus Freemen Standoff: The importance of the analysis of religion in avoiding violent outcomes in Cathy Wessinger, ed., Millennialism, Persecution & Violence.

Also in a private communication, Jean writes:

Sovereign citizen ideology is basically a religious ideology. It is deviant, of course, and is often mixed with Christian Identity religion. It comes out of the same “cultic milieu” as the Posse Comitatus of the 1970s and CSA of the 1980s.

Setting these two opinions regarding the religiosity or otherwise of the sovereign citizens side by side, what strikes me most is the juxtaposition of the Moorish Science Temple in JM’s quote with the Covenant, Sword and Arm of the Lord in Jean’s. Both are “new religious movement” of considerable interest to scholars of such things.

For more on the Moorish Science Temple, see Peter Lamborn Wilson‘s Lost/Found Moorish Time Lines in the Wilderness of North America [part 1 and part 2]. For more on the CSA, see Kerry Noble‘s book, Tabernacle of Hate, with an Introduction by Jean Rosenfeld.

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Given my interest in the religious imagination — which is manifesting itself these days in a wild profusion perhaps unmatched since the times of Qumran , Nag Hammadi and the Corpus Hermeticum — I was intrigued, in looking a little deeper into the US Sovereign Citizens movement, to find at least one individual with an approach to religion that’s suitably sui generis.

The deliciously named (and I quote) ©H.I.R.M. J.M. Sovereign: Godsent™ is the author of TITLE 4 FLAG SAYS YOU’RE SCHWAG! The Sovereign Citizen’s Handbook (version 3.1), in which we read:

The source of all Sovereignty is God. God holds Absolute Sovereignty, meaning He rules over all He surveys and answers to no-one above Himself, every force in nature including human conduct is His subject and under the control of “The Laws of Nature”. For example, “gravity”.

The author then quotes 1 Chronicles 29:11-12

Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all.

and follows this directly with the seal of the “Church of Sovereigns” depicted at the top of this post, right. On the left of the same image is a graphic taken from a video titled Calling the Sheriff 2.1.2012, which, if you recognize it, will give you an immediate and visceral sense of the Deadhead spirit of this particular writer.

Here, by way of confirmation, is his bio:

©H.I.R.M. J.M. Sovereign: Godsent™, a veteran of the 2nd American Civil war, A.K.A the “War on Drugs” was born sovereign and free out of the the love generation but, was cast into slavery at age 5 in the police state of New Mexico, when his parents divorced. Struggling with the contradictions between society and the laws of nature, Godsent spent the next 33 years casting off the shackles of institutional conditioning, with the ultimate triumph of regaining the throne of his very own sovereign nation and setting new standards in the way Sovereign Americans and government employees interface.

Shown the path of ahimsa (non-violence) at an early age, he is a lover of music and art, who has traveled the world to dance with friends at over 400 Grateful Dead shows in 5 countries. Surviving repeated attacks at shows and on the streets, by public employees, and noting the patterns and the damage done, he concluded that the World needed a treatise on Sovereignty and Reservation of Sovereign Rights. With the Investment of 23 years of field research, networking and litigation, and 7 years of writing, he has recently authored the definitive treatise on Reservation of Sovereign Rights. Along with the first automated sovereignty e-course, accompanied by an inspirational soundtrack, network services, a private, third-party document tracking system and educational videos.

A monk of the 9 Sacred paths of Catholic, Buddha Rasta, Tao, Maya, Jain, Shvaite, Vaishnava, and Eckankar, he has traveled the world in search of priceless wisdom, humor, melody and artifacts. He has learned the most confidential knowledge and has been given the keys the Kingdom of God, by the enlightened masters, which he gives entrance to you here, in this book. He has never owned a weapon in his life.

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I am not totally immune to the charms of the Grateful Dead, and take an interest in Catholicism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Shaiva tantra myself.