Adam Curtis's new BBC documentary entitled, Can't Get You Out of My Mind, is essential viewing.
Curtis continues the kind of gut-wrenching patch-work quilt that comes together to reveal what
has not quite been seen before, as he did in his The Century of the Self.
Here is the link:
Can’t Get You Out of My Head
Adam Curtis2021
Can’t Get You Out of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World is a six-part series that explores how modern society has arrived to the strange place it is today. The series traverses themes of love, power, money, corruption, the ghosts of empire, the history of China, opium and opioids, the strange roots of modern conspiracy theories, and the history of Artificial Intelligence and surveillance. The series deals with the rise of individualism and populism throughout history, and the failures of a wide range of resistance movements throughout time and various countries, pointing to how revolution has been subsumed in various ways by spectacle and culture, because of the way power has been forgotten or given away.
Series
Part 1 — Bloodshed on Wolf Mountain
We are living through strange days. Across Britain, Europe, and America, societies have become split and polarised. There is anger at the inequality and the ever growing corruption—and a widespread distrust of the elites. Into this has come the pandemic that has brutally dramatised those divisions. But despite the chaos, there is a paralysis—a sense that no one knows how to escape from this. Can’t Get You Out of My Head tells how we got to this place. And why both those in power—and we—find it so difficult to move on. At its heart is the strange story of what happened when people’s inner feelings got mixed up with power in the age of individualism. How the hopes and dreams and uncertainties inside people’s minds met the decaying forces of old power in Britain, America, Russia, and China. What resulted was a block not just in the society, but also inside our own heads, that stops us imagining anything else than this.
Part 2 — Shooting and F**king are the Same Thing
This next part traverses the story of what tore the revolutions in the 1960s apart. Jiang Qing in China, Michael X in London, Afeni Shakur in New York believed that millions of people’s minds were haunted by the corruption and the violence of the past. They wanted to show people how to escape those ghosts. But they hadn’t reckoned with the fact that the old structures of power still haunted their minds too. They too had been scarred by the past, and some of them wanted violent revenge. While psychologists and neuroscientists were starting to discover what they said were hidden forces inside the human brain that really controlled what they did. But the people weren’t aware.
Part 3 — Money Changes Everything
This is the story of how in the 1970s, those in power set out to create a world free of the dangerous big ideas of the past. They banished the grand dreams of changing the world. And replaced them with money. People would live from now on in their own heads—in their own dreams. And the banks would lend them the money to create those dreams. While China would supply a wave of cheap consumer goods on a scale never seen before in the world. But then money broke free across the world. And people started to get frightened that things were out of control. Not just money—but the world’s climate too seemed to be behaving in a strange, unpredictable way. The systems seemed to have a life of their own. Beyond the ability of anyone to shape and predict.
Part 4 — But What If the People Are Stupid?
No one trusted politics or politicians any longer. Instead we were all one world of free individuals. And we could intervene to save other individuals around the world without bothering with old politics and power. And people became what they as individuals truly were—emotionally and sexually. But power was mutating and finding ways to work its way back into our heads. The politicians realised that they no longer had the support or the trust of the people. So they switched sides and gave up being our representatives who would challenge the powerful on our behalf. Instead they began to tell us what to do on behalf of the powerful. And they made new alliances—with the psychologists who said that human beings were irrational and needed to be managed. But we didn’t notice because we were too busy shopping.
Part 5 — The Lordly Ones
It wasn’t just the Slave Trade: 150 years ago Britain had wrecked China by forcing opium on the country. It made Britain the richest and most powerful country in the world. But it enslaved the minds of millions of the Chinese and helped destroy the society. But then the British got frightened of what they had done and created a dream image of a Britain that had never existed, to hide from the fear. This film tells the story of how from the end of the 19th century a magical vision of Britain’s feudal past was created by artists and writers. How folk music and folk dancing was invented to create a kind of safe dream of the nation that could hide the violence and the horrors. The dream persisted under the surface of the 20th century. But as the fears and uncertainties and the chaos of the last few years rose up millions of people started to believe that dream: that it was real.
Part 6 — Are We Pigeon? Or Are We Dancer?
The final episode tells how the strange paralysis that grips us today was created. How all the different forces of our age—that started out as separate have come together to create what is a block against imagining another kind of future than this. How, money and debt, melancholy over the loss of empire, the strange roots of modern conspiracy theories, the history of China, opium and opioids, Artificial Intelligence, and love and power have all fed into creating the present time of anxiety and fearfulness about the future. And whether modern culture, despite its radicalism, is really also part of the rigid system—in the West and in Russia and China—where those in power have run out of all ideas. The film also lays out what are the different possible roads from here into the future, and the choices we will have to make about the very different futures we will have to choose very soon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14MGbEYQZ2Y&fbclid=IwAR2Rt-OROs70AOfCZn6pVgOxhRKv-BGQvYRW4uwrfYrhBdFy_NcTfPLYH-0
APPOINTMENT WITH THE WISE OLD DOG:
A Bridge to the Transformative Power of Dreams
David Blum’s long-awaited book, “Appointment with the Wise Old Dog: A Bridge to the Transformative Power of Dreams,” provides the necessary, comprehensive complement to his highly regarded 1998 documentary. In contrast to the DVD, this book contains the foundational work comprised of forty-three dream paintings and commentaries derived from a lifetime of numinous archetypal dreams—his thirty-five-year inner journey.
The primary sources of David Blum’s commentaries, his diaries and dream journals, date from his seventeenth to his sixty-fourth year. This crucible into which he poured his most intimate confessions contains the living spontaneity of his original experiences remarkably intact. By re-entering the dream state and allowing the images to speak to him, Blum gently leads the reader into his world of color, form, music, and the mapping of his soul.
The language, unhampered by jargon or weighty terminology, always remains accessible to the lay reader drawn to inner transformation. This work resonates with the musician, the artist, the theologian, the psychologist, and the patient — whether facing a terminal illness or not. It offers the rare potential to communicate our shared capacity to explore multiple levels of meaning, acting as a springboard into one’s own inner experience. Anyone interested in the power of dreams, the transformative effect of symbols and archetypes, or faced with an existential crisis will find this book inspirational.
Foreword by Murray Stein
Available at Amazon: https://linkzip.me/F2mXW
The unique paintings David Blum created throughout his life, and increasingly during his battle with cancer, are a window into his spiritual journey. The Wise Old Dog who came to David in dreams, was his guide and comfort. Through these images and David’s insightful commentary, we are reminded of the resilience of the human spirit, the power of art to help us understand life, and the role creativity can play in healing and transcendence.
—Yo-Yo Ma
I have studied and meditated on David Blum's extraordinary documentation of his dreams and inner work— the immense gifts that were given to him from his unconscious and poured into images and music. We are intrigued on all levels— emotional, imaginal, intellectual. Our hearts are split open as we watch the process of the inner marriage.
—Marion Woodman, Jungian Analyst and Author
If it were ever discovered that we all have an ancient source within, a wise fount, invested in our well-being, and speaking directly to us through the language of symbol, we would experience our centers relocate, our priorities shift, and our sense of place and purpose in this great mystery deepen. By risking such dialogue with this unknown center, David Blum found it spoke to him, and gave him and us renewed guidance in a time of fragmentation, distraction, and dis-ease. His example is a summons, a model and an invitation for the rest of us to risk such a dialogue in depth.
—James Hollis, Executive Director of the Jung Society of Washington
David is so real, so totally honest, definitely a person who has seen into the depths of the soul and what that means. I love his paintings. They enable us to see so much of what he experienced. Marie-Louise von Franz said that artists almost never are able to duplicate on a canvas what they see in their inner world, yet I can tell that David captured the essence of what he saw. We would all die a good death with such understanding as he had of the psyche.
—Gilda Frantz, Director Emerita of the Philemon Foundation
This body of work is an amazing achievement of the human imagination and spirit which requires multiple visits to take in its many wonders. Each viewer will find his or her own favorites from this extraordinary human document. The brilliant colors and composition of Blum's intensely personal yet highly sophisticated images constitute a treasure of which ARAS Online has been chosen to be guardian.
—Tom Singer, MD, Co-Chair of ARAS Online for National ARAS
I have used patients' dreams and paintings for decades to help them get in touch with their inner wisdom. David Blum, during his struggle with cancer, captured his dreams in an illuminating series of paintings taking him through a journey of self-exploration and transformation. David's inspiring story is a powerful invitation, for each of us, to go within and realize our creative potential so that we may find our way through the difficulties of life and discover the unique rewards in taking the journey.
—Bernie Siegel, MD, Author and Founder of Exceptional Cancer Patients
Of the many historic and impactful features of the ceremonies for inaugurating President Biden, for me, the most impactful event was the stunning poem and astonishing reading of The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman, the 22-year-old first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate.
I simply want to mark this by posting the link to her reading and include the text of her poem.
The link: https://youtu.be/Jp9pyMqnBzk
The Poem:
The Hill We Climb
When day comes we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry,
a sea we must wade
We’ve braved the belly of the beast
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace
And the norms and notions
of what just is
Isn’t always just-ice
And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it
Somehow we do it
Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken
but simply unfinished
We the successors of a country and a time
Where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one
And yes we are far from polished
far from pristine
but that doesn’t mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect
We are striving to forge a union with purpose
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and
conditions of man
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us
but what stands before us
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,
we must first put our differences aside
We lay down our arms
so we can reach out our arms
to one another
We seek harm to none and harmony for all
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew
That even as we hurt, we hoped
That even as we tired, we tried
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious
Not because we will never again know defeat
but because we will never again sow division
Scripture tells us to envision
that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
And no one shall make them afraid
If we’re to live up to our own time
Then victory won’t lie in the blade
But in all the bridges we’ve made
That is the promise to glade
The hill we climb
If only we dare
It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit,
it’s the past we step into
and how we repair it
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation
rather than share it
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy
And this effort very nearly succeeded
But while democracy can be periodically delayed
it can never be permanently defeated
In this truth
in this faith we trust
For while we have our eyes on the future
history has its eyes on us
This is the era of just redemption
We feared at its inception
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
of such a terrifying hour
but within it we found the power
to author a new chapter
To offer hope and laughter to ourselves
So while once we asked,
how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?
Now we assert
How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was
but move to what shall be
A country that is bruised but whole,
benevolent but bold,
fierce and free
We will not be turned around
or interrupted by intimidation
because we know our inaction and inertia
will be the inheritance of the next generation
Our blunders become their burdens
But one thing is certain:
If we merge mercy with might,
and might with right,
then love becomes our legacy
and change our children’s birthright
So let us leave behind a country
better than the one we were left with
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,
we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one
We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,
we will rise from the windswept northeast
where our forefathers first realized revolution
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,
we will rise from the sunbaked south
We will rebuild, reconcile and recover
and every known nook of our nation and
every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it
Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on
It's coming to America first
The cradle of the best and of the worst.
It's here they got the range
And the machinery for change
And it's here they got the spiritual thirst
It's here the family's broken
And it's here the lonely say
That the heart has got to open
In a fundamental way
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
--Leonard Cohen "Democracy"