Found 729 posts tagged ‘king’ |
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This May Surprise You –
June 8, 2014 |
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Originally, the E of e-mail stood for eagle. From What Was the Gunpowder Plot by John Gerard (1897). The caption reads: "The gallant Eagle, soaring up on high." |
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Restoring the Lost Sense –
January 31, 2013 |
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An illustration from a 1903 issue of Saturday Evening Post. Dedicated to the Master of Masks, Jeff McBride.
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| [Inexplicable images from generations ago invite us to restore the lost
sense of immediacy. We follow the founder of the Theater of
Spontaneity, Jacob Moreno, who proposed stringing together "now and then
flashes" to unfetter illusion and let imagination run free. The images
we have collected for this series came at a tremendous price, which we explained previously.] |
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Hindpsych: Erstwhile Conjectures by the Sometime Augur of Yore –
May 24, 2010 |
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Today's Question:
Was King Ludwig II of Bavaria declared insane just days before his mysterious death in 1886?
With hindpsych, the regrettable answer is "yes." On the left side of our striking Tarot spread, the Moon card speaks of Ludwig's vivid imagination and his shadow self. Indeed, Ludwig was famous for his moonlit excursions and night owl schedule. His enemies would have used this card as evidence of chasing after fantasies (at best) and entertaining distorted thoughts.
In the central card, the hands of the lovers don't touch—Ludwig's connection to love isn't through physical union. Rather, a higher ideal (the angel) governs a mountaintop in the clouds—home of Neuschwanstein castle. This card would have reminded Ludwig's enemies of the king's failure to secure an alliance through marriage, not to mention the rumors of the king's homosexuality.
On the right, the young man of the Two of Pentacles skillfully juggles a couple of gold coins. This of course symbolizes the king's playful nature as well as his confident investment in personal projects. His enemies would have used this card as evidence of reckless spending—note the infinity symbol around the coins.
The moon faces left; the juggler of coins faces right; the lovers in the middle don't touch. We see an unmistakable polarity in this spread of cards. Is it evidence of a strong Anima/Animus personality or of mental instability? Ludwig's enemies saw imbecilic dancing in the juggler and heard mad howling from the moonlit wolves. They declared the king insane and deposed him in 1886.
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| * Historians must reconstruct the past out of hazy memory. "Once upon a time" requires "second sight." The "third eye" of intuition can break the "fourth wall" of conventional perspectives. Instead of "pleading the fifth," historians can take advantage of the "sixth sense" and be in "seventh heaven." All with the power of hindpsych, the "eighth wonder of the world." It has been said that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. Therein lies the importance of Tarot readings for antiquity. When we confirm what has already occurred, we break the shackles of the past, freeing ourselves to chart new courses into the future. |
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In a gross disservice to Bavarian history, it is universally said that King Ludwig II constructed his fairy tale castle Neuschwanstein as an escape from "reality." The castle itself is a colossal refutation to such sloppy—if not willful—misrepresentation. Quite the opposite of being trapped in the past or caught up in a romantic dreamworld, Ludwig was so forward thinking, so revolutionary, that he built a portal to access the very framework of the Bavarian ideal. Emblazoned throughout with murals and architecture depicting key scenes from Bavarian folklore, Neuschwanstein castle constitutes an elaborate "War Room" of mythic proportions. Indeed, Neuschwanstein is evidence that Ludwig attained a state of consciousness that Timothy Leary called the "Neurogenetic Circuit." Robert Anton Wilson explains that the Neurogenetic Circuit: processes DNA-RNA-brain feedback systems and is "collective" in that it contains and has access to the whole evolutionary "script," past and future. Experience of this circuit is numinous, "mystical," mind-shattering: here dwell the archetypes of Jung's Collective Unconscious—Gods, Goddesses, Demons, Hairy Dwarfs and other personifications of the DNA programs (instincts) that govern us. [ Prometheus Rising, 1983, p. 41] To properly govern his people, Ludwig positioned himself to draw from the very paradigms of the Bavarian spirit. In other words, he infused his nobility with the high ideals of his country, literally surrounding himself (dome ceilings to floors) with model images of Bavarian enlightenment. Ludwig held a magnifying glass over the Bavarian blueprint, and a ray of sunlight hit the lens to form a hologramatic castle. Far from having his head in the clouds, Ludwig's feet were firmly planted in his culture. That such a visionary was ultimately judged "mad" by his political enemies comes as no surprise. That Neuschwanstein has endured as the Eighth Wonder of the World is a testament to Ludwig's genius.
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Images Moving Through Time –
April 3, 2007 |
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Each one of the pictures below is entitled "Unknown Fisherman." Is an Unknown Fisherman some sort of archetypal figure? He is symbolic by his very nature, for we know nothing about him. What does his appearance suggest? Is he a manifestation of the Fisher King of Arthurian legend? And/or a Christ figure? Does he hold the Salmon of Wisdom from Irish mythology? Here's an anecdote by a person who carried an Atlantic salmon fly from one corner of Europe to the other, with the sole purpose of giving it to an unknown fisherman. The quest sounds like some sort of pilgrimage, and the gift sounds like a tribute to a deity. (In the interest of full disclosure, I am against the pestering and/or killing of fish.)
Top left, The Unknown Fisherman. Top right, the Unknown Fisherman who caught a 22lb4oz hatchery steelhead on the Wynooche in the winter of 2002. Bottom left, an Unknown Fisherman holding a 4-foot long 20 Lb Northern Pike in the year 1900. Bottom right, an Unknown Fisherman circa 2000-2001, participating in the Carmel River Steelhead Catch and Release Program.
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Original Content Copyright © 2025 by Craig Conley. All rights reserved.
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