In Pursuit of Mysteries

Spending Time at the State Penn…

Wow. Today was a long day. I got up at 5:10 AM in order to meet Monk (aka Major Pain-in-the-Ass) by 6:00 AM sharp at his place. Luckily, I was wise enough to make coffee and eat breakfast first. Monk and I drove down to McNeil Island (the prison) and met with the inmates there in the Wiccan group Monk has been sponsoring for a long time for about three hours. We did a basic run through of ritual technique, I handed out a history of Wicca lecture, and Monk did a guided meditation that showed a way to work with certain energies.

I will be doing my volunteer training with the Department of Corrections on 3/20 (got my paperwork in today). With that done, I’ll be a accredited volunteer with my own badge and free government photo on it. This will put me on equal footing with Monk so I can concievably go down to the facility on my own or take over for him if he moves away. I’ve been needing to get this done. Now, if only we could get them to offer the full sponsor training to make us completely legit.

Having the training has been an issue because Monk was restationed in Atlanta for two months and only luck of the draw on the holidays allowed him to be back for Yule with the inmates. There has been a change in chaplains at the site and with the supervisor running things directly, I’m not allowed on the site by myself. This meant that neither Monk nor I saw the guys in January which, in turn, meant that they missed out on a monthly meeting. My bad.

I got home from this about 2:00 PM (already a full day!) and crashed for an hour and a half or so to take a nap. Around six, after some dinner, R and I went to pick Madeline up. After that, we went over to Aion’s place for a Tara Puja in his yurt with him, Sophia (his wife), Shade, and another woman. We wound up doing a 21 Tara sadhana in a slightly altered form. This is the first time Madeline has ever attended anything like this with me since she was a baby. I am fairly sure she was bored with the chanting but she didn’t squirm much and didn’t complain (except saying she was bored after the ritual) so I think it went well overall. R hasn’t done a lot of this sort of ritual and I like my friends and family to understand more of what Tantric Buddhist ritual is really like and Aion kept it mostly true to form. The closing was abbrieviated but that was about it.

His and Sophia’s yurt (http://www.psychicsophia.com/forestyurt.html) is, as always, a beautiful ritual space. It’s about 16 feet across inside and they have covered the walls with textiles from their travels in Asia, along with thangkas, statues, candles, etc. The floor is carpeted inside and we sit on cushions. I can only hope to make my oratory/shrine area at home something as nice to work within.

My dad is visiting the area and he’ll be coming over in the morning to go out to breakfast with everyone. He likes seeing his granddaughter and he doesn’t get to spend a lot of time with me either. We went out to lunch on Friday and I took him to the Microsoft Company Store to buy a bunch of games and other software. So far, tomorrow afternoon is blissfully free of events but my dad is going to spend tomorrow night in the spare room so I can look forward to entertaining family…

By the way, R and I have put a deposit down on the Shumway Mansion for our wedding. The official date, barring complications, is now October 2 of this year.

Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter

JESUS CHRIST VAMPIRE HUNTER (DVD)
by Eric Campos
2001, Un-rated, 85 Minutes, Odessa Filmworks

Remember all of those What Would Jesus Do (WWJD) bracelets and necklaces? Well, according to Lee Gordon Demarbe Jesus would kick the shit out of a bunch of lesbian vampires and I gotta say, I think that rules!

In “Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter”, Jesus is called upon to vanquish an army of lesbian vampires, who take the skin from other lesbians and graft it over theirs so that they’re able to run about in daylight, raising hell. Aiding Jesus in his battles with the undead are femme fatale Mary Magnum and legendary Mexican wrestling star (and crimefighter) El Santo. The basic premise alone is worth the price of admission for this one. Seeing Santos kicking ass again may just bring tears to your eyes…that is if you’re my type of person.

Very much like Lee’s short film “Harry Knuckles and the Treasure of the Aztec Mummy”, “Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter” is a loving homage to exploitation flicks of the 70’s – the ADR is noticeably bad, the acting laughably terrible, the situations ridiculous, the logic non-existent and the film washed out and blemished, but it all comes around to make a perfect package for anyone who likes to get into some good sleaze. The only thing keeping the viewer from completely getting pulled into the 70’s is the fashion. I don’t think Paul Frank t-shirts and vinyl jumpsuits quite made the scene in the 70’s. And this brings me to a major point.

I think a good part of the allure of this film is that you get to watch a guy who looks like Jesus Christ kick some ass, but what happens within the first third of the film is that Jesus gets a shave and a haircut and new clothes. From then on, he battles the forces of evil looking like a normal guy (actually, looking exactly like Harry Knuckles) who goes by the name of Jesus Christ. That kinda takes the fun out of things, don’t ya think? That’s like going to a Halloween party in your normal clothes and telling everyone that you’re Jesus or Sherri Lewis or somebody. Luckily, the film doesn’t count on the Jesus aspect alone to carry the film, there’re plenty of other elements to laugh and cheer at. I do think, however that they should’ve just made another Harry Knuckles film and left Jesus out of the whole thing because for an exploitation film, it sure doesn’t exploit the Christ angle nearly enough.

Speaking of exploitation – what’s an exploitation film without the perfect soundtrack? Graham Collins provides a smoking score to “Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter” that switches from throbbing techno for the fight scenes to swanky sleaze for when JC is strolling down the street. This awesome score is a major character in the film.

Catch “Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter” if you can and keep your eyes open for further works from Lee Gordon Demarbe and crew. These guys know what they’re doing!

Giordano Bruno and Weekends

I completed The Pope and the Heretic by Michael White this evening. This is a fairly short (180 or so pages) book on the Inquisition trials of Giordano Bruno and the events leading up to it. If you don’t know who Giordano Bruno is, the best two books that I can suggest on him are Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition and The Art of Memory, both by Dame Francis Yates. These books are biased towards the more esoteric end of his thinking as a great promulgator of the Art of Memory (the Ars Memorativa) and as a Hermetic synthesizer of both Catholicism and previous pagan traditions. After he was burned at the stake (without repenting of his thoughts and writings), he was held as a martyr for such diverse groups as socialists, scientists, humanists, free-thinkers of various sorts and even magicians. A man for all men.

The book, itself, was tolerable. I wouldn’t call it excellent but I can’t say I learned a lot terribly new. Since I bought it remaindered for about four dollars, I don’t feel bad about it and I am quite fond of Bruno and occasionally consider myself one of the Giordanisti that have been influenced by his work.

Tomorrow, I will sit down some more and try to finish a collection of essays by Dzogchen master, Namkhai Norbu, that are collected from the newspaper/magazine that his Dzogchen Community puts out called “The Mirror.” I have a lot of Norbu material that I am working through but these essays are each only a few pages (ten or twelve at most) long and on a variety of topics.

As to my last few days, this weekend past was quite busy. On Friday evening, I spent five hours helping Kilung Rinpoche get his Windows ME-based Compaq laptop functioning again. I wound up wiping the whole thing after making an external CD backup of his files, reinstalling his OS, tracking down drivers for a Chinese modem and reinstalling his software and restoring his files. That took a lot longer than I expected. Saturday, R and I went down to the Shumway Mansion near our home and spoke to them about weddings. They offer a fairly low price (by a few thousand, probably) for hosting weddings and they do their own catering for a good price. We’re looking at doing our wedding there this fall (early October probably) and wanted to check the place out. Saturday evening, I attended Tibetan Losar (New Year) and a Long-life empowerment with Kilung Rinpoche. This was followed by a house blessing party that friends were holding. I believe I got home after midnight on both nights.

Sunday, R and I had volunteered to be children in the Gnostic Mass at Horizon Oasis, OTO. This is the first time that I’ve actually fulfilled any sort of official role in the rite even though I have attended on and off over the last eight years. One friend of ours was ordained a deacon and the mass closed with the priestly ordination of another friend so it was a bit of a special event. Following mass, the Citadel of the Ouroboros met at Monk’s house and did some ritual work as well.

All of this is very eventful but it doesn’t make for a calm and relaxing weekend. Next weekend, I’m going down to the McNeil Island prison to work with the Wiccan inmates group with Monk. My dad is also coming to town and we’re going to have lunch on Friday and he’s going to spend the night at my place on one night. My daughter Madeline will visit over another night (and hopefully Dad will get to spend some time with her as well). It’s shaping up to continue to be busy though this week seems largely free of too many evening activities.