THE MYSTERY OF MYSTERY

I stopped watching television in 1998, when Seinfeld ended its nine-year run. 

In the fall of 2021, I had a dream in which I was watching a BBC crime show. When I worked on the dream, and looked at the offerings on BBC, I found myself attracted to a program called Vera. Vera began broadcasting in 2011 and continues to the present time. The series is based on the Vera novels by British author Ann Cleeves. As I began watching, I also began reading. Something about the crime genre hooked me and since then I have watched numerous other crime shows and read the novels or screenplays they were based on. 

This activity also brought to mind that as a kid I read a lot of mysteries and would also write my own stories and scripts.. When we got our first TV (1950), it also housed a record making turntable. The whole family participated in performing the scripts I wrote. I felt I was reconnecting with some important piece of myself left behind.

A subsequent dream pictured the title page of either a novel or screenplay entitled, Rule of 3. It also showed that this was an "Arlan Condon Mystery." Arlan Condon is one of the main figures in my novel, DREAMS: The Final Heresy (not yet finished). 

The majority of dreams this year have involved the mystery genre in various ways. some seemingly influenced by the books I've read or programs I have watched. But never in any sense just repetitions—always adding a twist or turn or phrase or simply a word. And others with content that is wholly new and different from anything I have read or watched but still enveloped within this realm of crime and mystery. I do not experience the insistence and persistence of this theme as evidence that I am not “getting” the message. Instead, it feels like an essential collaboration with “the other” prodding me with ideas and elements to take seriously in this task.

I am used to experiencing dreams as tasks and most of the things I have written or published have had their origin in dreams. Still, I am an old man now with much “on my plate” as they say. Lots of things to finish. At this rate I will run out of days before running out of things to finish. For some time I fought this “pressure.” No longer. I now consider it a bounty and I am learning to enjoy it. 

Remembering Ziggy

Back in the early 70’s, I taught a seminar at the C. G. Institute of Los Angeles, entitled something like, “The Value of Pop Culture for Depth Psychology.” What I tried to examine was the question of what depth psychology could learn from Pop Culture. This I contrasted with the idea of interpreting and explaining and otherwise understanding Pop Culture using depth psychological methods.

My main idea stemmed from my valuing the creative arts as sources of new and developing mythologies that would become new dominants in the contemporary culture.

At the time, I focused on three figures: David Bowie, Leonard Cohen and Laurie Anderson. Each of these figures seemed to me to have  tap-roots in the deeper regions of the psyche and were each in their own way story tellers of what they found there.

It’s now 50 years later, and each of these figures have been icons in their genres for decades. David Bowie died at 69. Leonard Cohen at 82. Laurie Anderson is now 75.

This set me to remembering how in that early seminar we worked with David Bowie’s first major album: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. It was the story of the end of the world because the world had run out of natural resources and how aliens were coming who were “black hole” jumpers, jumping from universe to universe. It was a musical version of welcoming the Coming Guest that Jung described in his 1960 letter to Herbert Read.

I talked about this story as a “new” myth. I talked about how the mythic potential of the psyche did not stop with Greek myths, but is always creating the stories of new myths both in our individual psyche and in the collective psyche.

I listened again recently to Ziggy, I felt the deep loss of David Bowie.

What he said about dreams is important.

“I suspect that dreams are an integral part of existence, with far more use for us than we’ve made of them, really. I’m quite Jungian about that. The dream state is a strong, active, potent force in our lives…the fine line between the dream state and reality is at times, for me, quite grey. Combining the two, the place where the two worlds come together, has been important in some of the things I’ve written, yes.” (Roberts 1999 NYT Interview “David Bowie: Critical Perspectives”).

Here is a brief interview with David Bowie on the theme of “Life is a Finite Thing.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03f5cyt

Hi all,

I am posting a most important essay from blog member John Woodcock

entitled, DIVINE SERVICE: in a postmodern world. I encourage

everyone to read and story it.

Here is the link:

http://ralockhart.com/WP/DivineService0905b.pdf

Russ

Here is the link:

https://aeon.co/essays/we-live-in-a-wake-centric-world-losing-touch-with-our-dreams?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&&utm_campaign=launchnlbanner

Contents

Life after death?
No stopping it
Dreams as disruptive technology
Down the drain
Hope is evil’s anvil
The bridge is love
Strange and weird experiences
Dart of destiny
The coming guest
A new type of religion
Could the god of greed die like Pan did?
The I Ching’s response
Faster than we thought it would
Dark matter and Jung’s dunkle Substanz
To metaphorize is to imagine
The failure of imagination
Is there an antidote?
Devouring ourselves
Celebrating the end
The necessity and purpose of humility
Epilogue: Paco Mitchell
Epilogue: Russell Lockhart
Endnotes

Dreams, Bones & the Future: Endings will be available soon.

Russ & Paco

Hi all,

COD Scene 34 has been posted.

Here is the direct link:

fexandcoo.website/COD34.pdf

Enjoy!

Russ, Paco, Owl Man and Heron Man

Here is the link:

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=disturbed+the+sound+of+silence&docid=608037438075134754&mid=44F600D7B15EC73DAAF344F600D7B15EC73DAAF3&view=detail&FORM=VRAASM&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Ddisturbed%2Bsounds%2Bof%2Bsilence%26qpvt%3Ddisturbed%2Bsounds%2Bof%2Bsilence%26FORM%3DVDRE

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/apr/23/the-vision-collector-the-man-who-used-dreams-and-premonitions-to-predict-the-future