Cause for Pause: the Rot at the Core

Hitler - oil painting - 1934, Victor Brauner.

"Each painting that I make is projected from the deepest sources of my anxiety..."

- Romanian-French Surrealist artist, Victor Brauner, (1903-1966). Although not always as well-known in the States as he was in Europe, recognition of his importance in Surrealism is more evident now than it was when I first featured him in an old TD post, The Magic of Art & The Art of Magic. In the post I included a link to the Hitler image (above), referring to it as "Brauner's voodoo doll." Nowadays I would use the word Vodou, but I would still interpret it the same. I imagine André Breton did, too, when he added it to his eccentric art collection. (Brauner's haunting portrait of Breton) Hitler would be dead 11 years later... No, not soon enough for an authentic correlation, but, in this case, it's the thought (and the passion) that counts. From this excellent online source we have:

" One of the most significant symbolic aspects of voodoo dolls is their role as a conduit for energy and intention. In many traditions, the doll is believed to act as a vessel, allowing the practitioner to channel their desires, whether for healing, protection, or even retribution, into the physical form of the doll."

But, can weaponized art fulfill the requirements of aesthetic beauty? Apparently, it depends upon who you ask. For some members of the Young Republican National Federation here in the States, Hitler had an "aesthetic." (See quotes below.)

'I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat

"Peter Giunta, who at the time was chair of the same organization, wrote in a message sent in June that 'everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber.'

Giunta was referring to an upcoming vote o@n whether he should become chair of the Young Republican National Federation, the GOP’s 15,000-member political organization for Republicans between 18 and 40 years old.

'Im going to create some of the greatest physiological torture methods known to man. We only want true believers,' he continued.

'Can we fix the showers? Gas chambers don’t fit the Hitler aesthetic,' Joe Maligno, who previously identified himself as the general counsel for the New York State Young Republicans, wrote back.

'I’m ready to watch people burn now,' Annie Kaykaty, New York’s national committee member, said."

For most of us, this latest Republican gaff is old news. But, I must admit, of all the nightmares presented to us in the past year, this one made my blood run cold. While it's possible that the words may have been taken out of context, the message is clear. The "Hitler aesthetic" is the cherry on this shit-sundae. I can find no element of grace or beauty in Hitler's pathological hate tale.

What is particularly scary is that most of the members quoted actually worked for the government, up to and including a Senator!

Yes, this chat was immediately condemned by the Republican base, but it was too late to get the cat back into the bag. The rot at the MAGA core was exposed.

Bravo, Politico, this story makes for a "charming" Halloween horror vignette!

It is, after all, the witching season; Halloween is arriving soon, along with the Day when the Dead shall rise. But, while Halloween is a great time for confronting ones deepest fears, in the modern world, we do so almost as a form of play. The vintage animation below is an example of this. Created by Disney studios in the late 1920s, Skeleton Dance was the first of the Silly Symphonies. Ah, maybe this fits the "Hitler aesthetic"...

... along with another seasonal title, Mel Brook's Springtime for Hitler.

(Source: the Laughing Place.)

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UPDATE - October 18, 2025

LIVE - NO KINGS Protests, USA

PBS - Live coverage in DC

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CNBC-TV 18 Live Nationwide Coverage

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The Daily Discourse - Live National Coverage

⭐ NEW!!!

When That Man is Dead & Gone

Here's a tune you might enjoy... written by Irving Berlin in 1941 as an anti-Hitler anthem and performed by the modern band, Lizzy & the Triggermen - it has suddenly achieved new popularity.

File under: Ways in Which Art Removes Tyrants.

The Crow-kins Unite! (New video link, April 13, 2025)

The Growing Resistance... (detail) - ceramic - 2025, BG Dodson.

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Here’s what to know about Saturday’s ‘Hands Off!’ anti-Trump protests

"The “Hands Off!” rallies are taking place in more than 1,000 cities across all 50 states, and nearly 400,000 people have signed up to attend them...

'Donald Trump and Elon Musk think this country belongs to them,” the movement’s website states. “They’re taking everything they can get their hands on, and daring the world to stop them. On Saturday, April 5th, we’re taking to the streets nationwide to fight back with a clear message: Hands off!'"

Video (above): HANDS OFF! Chicago, IL, USA, 4/5/2025) 

‘Hands Off!’ protesters across US rally against President Donald Trump and Elon Musk

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Comic Relief:

SNL - Trump Tariff Cold Open

NEW!

Trump Easter 2025 Cold Open - SNL

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Tens of thousands in France join protests against racism and far right

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Thousands of Slovaks protest in Bratislava against PM Robert Fico and his Russia-friendly policies

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Hungarian Opposition Rallies in Massive Protest Against Orbán’s Rule

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Serbia's largest-ever rally sees 325,000 protest against government

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Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the courage to brawl for the working class

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Hundreds of thousands join mass opposition protest in Istanbul

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Everywhere around the world a rallying cry is beginning to rise... against tyranny... against censorship, against incompetency and indifference to injustice. Perhaps, it's humanity's last stand before the self-designated overlords do what overlords do best: suppress... oppress... distress.

It pays to stay one step ahead. We might ask ourselves: "where will I be a year from now?" If present global trends continue - that is, the continuing disablement of the working class* - the choices we have may be limited. This applies especially to the most vulnerable members of society. (Inset left, Dodson's Scenes from the Circus of Dreams, 2023.)

How do the powerless practice dissent? First, keep in mind, no true individual, nor group of individuals is without power. We swim in the same primordial ocean. We each have the ability - and the authority - to express ourselves. And, if, within our lifetimes our autonomy is threatened, it is our responsibility to defend it. It is our right; it is our life. And, so it goes...

(Continued below the jump)

Shadows of Ancient Galaxies

Dark Cosmic Nest, 2019, DS; a re-imaging of a graphic found here.

Click images to enlarge.

Astronomers uncover 'invisible' massive ancient galaxies

"Although once invisible to us in the vast reaches of the universe, 39 massive ancient galaxies have been discovered by astronomers using multiple space and ground-based observatories. This is the first discovery of its kind, the researchers said.

'This is the first time that such a large population of massive galaxies was confirmed during the first 2 billion years of the 13.7-billion-year life of the universe. These were previously invisible to us,' said Tao Wang, study author and researcher at the University of Tokyo, French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. 'This finding contravenes current models for that period of cosmic evolution and will help to add some details, which have been missing until now.'

The new prevalence of these galaxies, which are connected with supermassive black holes and dark matter, contradicts the current known models of the universe.

Given their age and distance, the massive galaxies were hidden from our view because their light is weak and stretched. The universe is also expanding, which makes the distance greater. Over that distance, visible light becomes infrared, according to the study."

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Happy Birthday to Mac in the Multiverse.

Carl Jung and the I Ching

Ultimately, when one starts unwinding the various threads that compose our paranormal tapestry, we eventually arrive at possibly one of the oldest and certainly the most extensive divination systems ever created - the I Ching. Developed in bronze age China during the Shang dynasty, it was the oracle of the Chou people. It's early history has all the inevitable attending mythology one might assume of any antiquity, but not all of it is necessarily expected.

"For example, according to legend, the early Chou ministery Hung Yao had a face and body completely covered by hair. This became plausible after archeologists discovered Neolithic skeletons of a hairy race in a cave of about 15,000 B.C."

- Ralph Abraham - from Commentaries on the I Ching, 1972.

Is this our first indication of the Yeti? Then again:

"Another version also involving tortoise shells describes descendents of the “many Fu”—an ancient clan of female diviners—who read the shells of live turtles. According to the legend, they became the queens and royalty of the Shang Dynasty—which had been considered mythical until archeological evidence proving its existence was unearthed in 1899. Some say Lao Tzu, the enlightened forefather of Taoism and the author of the Tao Te Ching, was a descendent of this clan."

Ah, of witches and queens. But, keep the name Lao Tzu in mind; it'll resurface in my next post. And, about those tortoise shells:

"But little by little they came to the conclusion that it was the quality of the moment more than the goodwill of the gods that was important and that created the cracks. Their pragmatic side led them progressively to do without the intervention of the gods. They ceased to perform expensive sacrifices and created a new ceremonial, using tortoise shells on which they apply firebrands. For the Chinese, the tortoise is a living form at the image of the universe. Who could, better than her, answer the interrogations of men on the quality of time? These shells were then carefully stored and archived. To remember their interpretations, the seers, becoming scribes, carved little signs beside the cracks. It is these signs which gave birth to the ideograms of the Chinese writing. They observed, thanks to their archives – hundreds of thousands of tortoise shells have been recently found – that the same cracks reappeared with similar meanings. So, starting from empiric data, a very structured system was developed, which became, after centuries of trial and error, the I Ching that we know today. "

- Pierre Whittmann

And, it was this very concept, "the quality of the moment" that a millennium or two later, in the 20th century, reverberated in one man's mind, leading him to an explosive metaphysical hypothesis that still rocks our world... both the scientific-paranormal and the psycho-scientific. The man was Carl Jung. His concept: Synchronicity. F. David Peat wrote in his illuminating Synchronicity, The Bridge Between Mind & Matter (one of my bibles in the 1980's):

"In 1929, while lecturing to a group of students, Jung said, 'Synchronicism is the prejudice of the East, causality is the modern prejudice of the West". A year later, during a memorial address on the death of Richard Wilhelm, the noted student of Chinese thought, Jung expanded on the original remark,: 'The science of the I Ching, indeed, is not based on the causality principle, but on a principle (hitherto unnamed because not met with us) which I have tentatively called the synchronistic principle.'...Five years later, Jung appears to have used the term "synchronicity" for the first time. 'Tao can be anything, I use another word to designate it, but it is poor enough. I call it synchronicity.'"

For any serious student of the paranormal, it is crucial to understand the relationship between that terribly occult mechanism of divination - the oracle - and Jung's concept of synchronicity. To that end, I recommend another one of my bibles of the 80's: Marie-Louise Von Franz's On Divination and Synchronicity - The Psychology of Meaningful Chance. In the end, that word, "meaningful", is where the doors of mechanistic science slam shut and the psycho-paranormal world begins. Ah, but there are cracks at the perimeters of the mightiest of doors... and Carl Jung is whispering through each and every one of them.