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kimberlysteele
In the original Svengali, the starmaker transforms his charge into a great talent via hypnosis.
At the root of all entertainer kompromat, we have two roles, the Star and the Svengali. The Star is the talent and the visible part of the equation. For all of the Star's amazing abilities, he or she usually has an extreme handicap when it comes to promotion. The Star could be the most captivating performer who has ever lived; people are fickle. They can be exposed to the greatest talent in the world and sit mere inches from the greatest performance ever sung or played. They will still prefer the repetitive, inane, egocentric, mass-marketed bilge that is the McDonald's to the unpromoted Star's gourmet six course degustation. They will still prefer the crappy glamour of the pre-fabricated, pre-digested, animalistic tripe to the star's thoughtful and exquisitely crafted genius.
Despite the enormous revolutionary self-promotional influence of the internet, any given Star does far better when he or she has a Svengali. The term Svegali comes from George du Maurier's 1894 novel Trilby, which is the story of a young, half-Irish laundress/party girl who falls under the control of an older, domineering, evilly-evil Jewish stereotype character named Svengali. Spoiler alert: both the starlet and her ill-meaning mentor end up dead. Trilby was wildly popular in its day, owing to its lusty, controversial bohemian stereotypes and salacious content.
Why does the stereotype of an older, corrupt pervert preying upon a beautiful young girl have such eternal appeal? Could there be some (clutches pearls) truth to it? To my mind, it has to do with the astral and etheric polarities operating beneath the surface.
I have talked in past essays about sexual polarity. To sum it up, humans are born male or female. There is no spectrum in Meatworld -- you're born with masculine or feminine parts, and if you are born with too few or too many parts, you are what we used to call a hermaphrodite back in the day. Males are female on the plane of energy and electricity, also known as the etheric plane. Females are male on the etheric plane. When we go one level more subtle to the plane of images known as the astral plane, males tend to be astral males and females tend to be astral females. One level more subtle, we get to the mental plane, the plane of math and conceptual mastery. Human beings, myself included, are far too primitive to understand much about the mental plane, and that includes whether or not it is gendered. I will let you know if mental plane gender ever becomes lucid to me; for the time being, it is not.
A man is biologically predisposed to be most active on the physical plane. He is better at doing dirty jobs such as hunting the mighty buffalo, building roads and bridges, raiding enemy forts, and busting chops. He is the only one who puts out sperm. On the etheric plane, the man is feminine. He creates infrastructure on the physical and builds the house which is receptive on the energy plane. The product of his physical labors receives. Once again, we visit the astral where his polarity flips back to male. Males and females have equal but different emotional worlds. Males find it far more difficult to control their emotions, and that is why the murder rate is much higher among males than it is females even in chimpanzees. Males also tend to engage far more frequently in astral dumping, which is the compulsive need to push one's own opinions or worries upon others, especially upon women and children.
A woman is biologically predisposed to be passive on the physical plane. She is better at doing necessary jobs such as gathering and sorting plant materials, cooking and cleaning, nurturing and nursing her family, and listening. She is the only one who can bring a a fertilized egg to term within her body. On the etheric plane, the woman is masculine. She sits within the created infrastructure and transforms it into a place of healing and development. The product of her physical labors gives and nourishes. Women find it easier to control their emotions, which makes them better at mediation, teaching, and at following the scientific method. Women are receptive on the astral plane, so unfortunately, they are more prone to mass hysteria/mass formation hypnosis than men, and because of their astral passivity, easily turn into astral infection vectors that spread poisonous imagery and thought forms far and wide.
Everybody wants to be her, and not just according to Crowley/Aiwass.
Children and Stars
Children and entertainers tend to skew etherically male no matter what their biological gender. All humans are start off in the uterus as biological females, and the developing etheric body stays male for a long time. I would argue it stays male (and the child is for all intents and purposes biologically female) until puberty, and that explains a great many phenomena. Children have a great deal of yang energy or life force. This life force is what we refer to as "etheric".
Entertainers a.k.a. stars have the energy of children. The reason we are attracted to them isn't so much physical as it is etheric. They have charisma. We want to be near them so some of that energy will rub off on us. Because the Star is both an eternal child and an etheric male, we see the Star taking on the markers of etheric masculinity/physical femininity such as long hair, dramatic clothing, and makeup.
The Svengali is a Saturnian figure. He is both Santa Claus and Faust's devil. Though Svengali is the host with the most, he is the predator and the Star is his prey. He is attracted to the Star because he is jealous. Inside every Svengali is an aborted Star. Svengalis are invariably Star-wannabes who either lacked the talent, the looks, or who had those things rooted out of them by another Svengali. Just as there is always a bit of physical femininity/etheric masculinity to the Star, every Svengali is essentially masculine even if she is a biological female and mother of seven. To put it in the most crass of terms, the Star is the whore and Svengali is the pimp.
Feeding Frenzy: Anatomy of a Rock Concert
When a Star is particularly charismatic, she has an abundance of etheric plane energy/etheric masculinity. This energy acts as bait, especially in our era of etheric starvation where everyone is constantly jonesing for an etheric fix. Music is primarily an etheric phenomenon because it operates via sound energy, which is a vibration, to state what I hope is the obvious. The vibration of sound affects our ears physically for sure and it helps evoke images in our brains on the astral, but clearly its main theater (pun intended) is via sound waves and their energetic ripples through space. When a large crowd is held in thrall at a rock concert, it is a prime example of binding and bonding via the etheric plane.
In my own case, I have never attended a concert where I felt the vibe. Most people feel the vibe every time they go to see live music. I seem to have a strange immunity that may have something to do with my autism. Just as often I cannot "see" the animals hidden in the optical illusion drawing, I cannot feel the camaraderie of a Grateful Dead concert. I am left cold and bored. I am not inspired by the etheric togetherness of crowds; I would much rather be at home reading a book. I don't attend any kind of church because the same absence of etheric togetherness affects me when I sit in a pew.
When the Star or the Preacher does their thing on stage, their display of talent and charisma brings down an astral channel into the etheric just as a good cook uses her imagination (astral) to put together a delicious meal with the physical resources on hand. In turn, what is the reward for the cook? She seeds on the etheric, infusing the communion with her own magical energy. On the astral, she receives admiration, love, and potentially fame and fortune for her cooking talent, if she has the right Svengali.
The Svengali provides the Stage, and without it, the Star is nothing. In the classic sense, Svengali is the only one who has amassed the fortune to build the stage or to have it built. Staging any given performance is fraught with Catch-22s: the Star needs the Stage but the Stage also needs the Star. If you build it, they will come, but only if the Star is good enough to compel them to be there. The stage is etherically female and the Star is its phallus. The Stage is empty until the Star comes and fertilizes it. The Star is nothing until she finds the right Stage to fertilize. Fans also act as etheric females no matter what their actual gender, hungry for male etheric energy. My own etheric maleness is so pronounced -- my huge hair is an outward symptom of this -- that I have little to no interest in the stomping grounds of other etheric males. Too many cooks spoil the soup.
For a long time, we have been beholden to Stars requiring Svengalis as a sine qua non to become famous. We now seem to be entering an Aquarian era where that model falls away for a new paradigm. I'm not sure where we are being led as the old system crumbles, but I do know I plan on talking about it more. I originally meant this essay as Diddy Part Two and quickly realized it is far more sweeping than his particular story arc. I do plan on talking about Diddy again in the future, but perhaps this essay may serve as an index to clarify what I am talking about when I revisit specifics.
Where I'd rather spend every single weekend night instead of a music concert
no subject
Date: 2024-11-13 09:16 pm (UTC)I also always thought it was just some weird fault in my programming that I dislike music concerts, but it seems it's not just me. They're too loud, the sound quality is terrible from being distorted through the overly-loud speakers, there are too many people, everyone is drunk, you can't hear/talk to anyone and there is a constant vague smell of sweat/beer/urine/vomit. Plus, the type of music I used to like, and got dragged along to concerts of by friends, was metal, which means that there is a mosh pit. Which is just a fight with strangers to music. I once went to a concert where the bass was so strong that I could feel my internal organs vibrating - I'm pretty sure that can't be good for you. I've never been to a music festival, and have no intention to ever go. Given events such as Astroworld, I don't think I'm missing out on much though.
I am physically male, but it seems I lean more towards male on the etheric plane as well - I am a good cook, I dislike a messy house and am domestically quite self-sufficient. However, I actually lost my hair in my 20s - it's standard male pattern baldness, but the physical plane is just an expression of the etheric, so maybe a male etheric body is how that manifests in men? There are a disproportionately large number of bald celebrity chefs.
Even when I had hair, it was wildly untameable though - curls in random directions that no hair gel could hold. My friends all had the classic early 2000s British teenager 'slicked up quiff' hairstyle, whilst I just looked like a greased honey badger, with an attitude to match. I presume I get it from my mum, who has hair like Alice from Dilbert.
I can't quite remember JMG's description of how you can tell what your polarity is on the etheric and astral levels, but I seem to remember that the astral one is whether you become more creative when you're in love, which I definitely do. Is male, male, male even possible...? I am a gemini though, and geminis are generally just chaotically weird and changeable.
I hope I'm not oversharing, but all of my romantic partners have been 'broken' in some way as well, either physically or psychologically. My ex-girlfriend before my wife was hypersexual, which often happens as a result of early childhood sexual abuse that makes the partially-formed etheric body 'leaky'. As a result, I only came to realise a year or so ago that she was unconsciously parasitising me for etheric energy - over the course of 3 years with her, my photos look about 5-10 years older by the end. I may have said before, but 'normal' women have always been somewhat scared of me - I'd say it was due the metal music and hostile attitude, but if anything, that was a proto-incel response to a lack of female attention, despite being of no worse physical attractiveness than my partner-ed friends. I assume that, much as you say about "too many cooks spoling the broth", most women don't want an etheric male as a partner. My friend, with whom I went to metal concerts with, would not be offended if he were (deservedy) described as a sexual pervert. Despite being shorter and (subjectively) less attractive than me, girls loved him, and I could never understand why. I think he was so etherically female (and such a mess on the physical plane to boot) that they could direct all their etheric energies onto him. It also explains why so many teenage girls date what are obviously just creepy perverts in their late 20s and 30s, apparently blind to this fact.
The Aquarian age seems to be a distributed one - instead of thousands of people attending a huge concert of a talented(?) Star, people find a performer who they like on Soundcloud/Spotify/Youtube (probably others, I'm not up to date). These sites are a *bit* like the Svengalis, but only in a grifting sense - they just want money, not energy, and there are enough of them that none can be a gatekeeper. There were hints of this during the lockdowns, where people hired musicians to play a concert just for them over Zoom. I'd guess it will be more like that, where you hire a musician/performer you like to play for you either in your home or at a wedding, etc. It's probably open to its own forms of abuse, but at least gives far more of a Stage to more performers, so that the 'zero-sum game' of the Piscean age is less pronounced.
As an aside, I know you said that you'll be writing about the US election soon, and I live in the UK, so it arguably matters less to me, but watching the election result, particularly relative to the last one, I got the same feeling as the characters in a horror movie where they think they've defeated the Big Bad, and then one of them says "anyone else think that seemed too easy?" just before the 'final form' of the monster appears.
Mr. Crow
(Sorry if this double-posts, the site connection failed after I clicked "post" the first time)
no subject
Date: 2024-11-15 03:20 am (UTC)As far as your etheric body, there's no way of knowing. Being attracted to homemaking, cooking, and domesticity does not necessarily indicate your etheric sex. What it does mean is that your future partner is a very lucky woman because she has an extremely good chance of coming home to a homemade meal on a day when she is tired, spent, and would rather not cook. Homemade meals, especially those meals made by someone who has talent for it, are far more etherically nourishing than their factory-made or even restaurant-made equivalent. Considering that etheric starvation is the most ubiquitous condition of our time, it's no small thing. My late father was 100% male and he cooked and cleaned along with working full time most of his life. Being willing to learn to cook and clean as a male doesn't make you an etheric male; it makes you hardworking and conscientious. My father's father died when he was 15, and he became Superman to my grandma and my aunt because that's what he thought he had to do. He was a provider, but also a nurturer and a general ass-kicker. He is a hard act to follow. I think he was an etheric female and an astral male. He was colorblind (I have yet to meet a colorblind woman) and bald from his late 20s onward, both signs of an etheric female.
One of my biggest issues with men in general is their tendency to engage in astral dumping. Women tend to dump on the etheric -- a messy, hoarder situation is a great example. Men have the bad habit of astral dumping, unloading their worry and anxiety on women and children. They don't talk with the guys but once they get home to the wife/girlfriend, it's a litany of gripes. This is why women become distant from their men. The man doesn't so much talk to his woman... he talks at her. Not cool. When she does insert a word in there somewhere or gods forbid expresses irritation, she gets pegged as a nag or a bitch. But if she tunes out and does not listen, she earns the same labels. She cannot win.
I think young girls date the older creeps because the young ones are so damn insecure. The young ones need to be more assertive and unafraid.
I do hope you're right about the Aquarian model gaining steam. It certainly appears to be going that way. I think we are all good and tired of the Svengali gatekeepers preventing us from listening to anyone outside of their incestuous (often literally, Diddy and his aunt/mother) circles.
This election has brought me relief I did not expect to have. I hope the UK is able to take the next leg of the relay and kick that freak Starmer to the curb where he belongs.
no subject
Date: 2024-11-15 05:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-11-16 08:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-11-16 01:16 am (UTC)True, women are better at dealing with emotions than are men, but men are certainly better at restraining their emotions, and I think overall that’s for the good. Prob is men can repress the emotions they’ve restrained whereas women seem much more capable of acknowledging, facing their negative emotions. One thing I’ve noticed is that men who at a relatively young age consider themselves failures often seem unable to rebound and they get lost in a bottle and then die early. Women who fail at, say, finding a spouse seem more capable of moving into a productive life alternative.
Re crowds and performers - I recall reading about the famous sitarist Ravi Shankar thought about his time performing at the ‘69 Woodstock festival. He had given a night performance for a million mud-splattered, arm flailing hippies, a good portion of them with their minds boiling on lysergic acid. Ravi said he couldn’t quite find the words to describe the hellishness of it all. I think that would be our reaction, but there were many who to this day say that it was the great spiritual experience of their lives.
Will M.
no subject
Date: 2024-11-16 08:30 pm (UTC)Hmm, it sounds like being on the victim end of a vampire experience from Ravi Shankar. There is something about drugs that makes people rapacious on the etheric. It's worth some thought.
no subject
Date: 2024-11-17 02:22 am (UTC)Huh, the women I knew who didn’t get married became lawyers, engaged in some kind of social work, became teachers. Believe me, their first life goal was to be married, family, children, but it didn’t happen and they rebounded admirably. I’m a generation older than you, so I dunno, maybe things have changed.
no subject
Date: 2024-11-17 04:03 pm (UTC)The women of your generation were lucky in that sense. They were the first wave of professional working women who were compensated very well compared to professional women who got in later once the vicious games of musical chairs started. That said, one of my maiden aunts who worked for a huge corporation got laid off in the 90s and never recovered financially or psychologically. Nowadays it is dog eat dog out there whether you're male or female.