This is the kind of stuff I want to put on a greatest hits compilation of my favorite esoteric articles titled, "Now! That's what I call Schizo!" Not literally, of course, but you're really tapping into the fundamentals here that a lot of people - myself included, at times - really don't want to admit.
I was never big on Seasame Street, or at least no more so than any other kid, since they're ubiquitous in American culture, but a couple years back on a certain Tibetan Shadow Puppetry Forum's political board, I remember stumbling upon a thread pertaining to Seasame Street and a particular experiment run by the United States government in the 60's which may or may not be about mind control. I don't remember the specifics but the broad strokes was how Seasame Street was well-documented and proud to talk about the cutting edge pediatric psychology used to formulate the "most ideal" way of communicating and "teaching" children, and, of course, if yoj pick at the various individuals who were involved... well, all roads lead to Langely, one way or a other. Mostly through association, but that's suspicious enough.
I actually encountered a prime example myself - and this is what REALLY tipped me off that there's more to this theory than is comfortable. In late 2020, maybe early 2021 Steve Burns of Blue's Clues fame put on his old green shirt and did an address to the internet. It wasn't so much a "wear a mask and get the shot" lecture, just "I'm so proud of who you grew up to be" pablum. Not the worst message in the world, honestly a bit sweet, but it turned so sour so fast because people went NUTS over it. I mean, you had Redditors, man-children, and the extremely socially maladjusted proclaiming this "whole epic chungus 100" to be this great savior and how we all need to love each other in these unorecedented times... unless you didn't get the shot, in which case you could die. The response to his little three minute video was very religious. Given that I've yet to fully outgrow childish things myself, I attended Emerald City Comicon, and, long story short, Steve Burns was doing a Q&A panel. It was billed as a main event and you had to get a seperate ticket from your pass to even enter the room. Well, nothing else was happening at the time so me and my friends snuck in through the back because, at first, we didn't even know it was paid, we were just keeping a low profile because we didn't want to wear masks. The room was about half full, which, for a room as big as the one it was in, was no mean feat. But what really amazed me was, again, the reverence people treated this man with. Lauding him as if he'd discovered the cure for cancer, or something, about how he "changed their life" and "helped them through tough times" and, saddest of all, "you were a parent when mine were too busy for me". It was a lot of very damaged people (some visibly, with the typical aposematic signs), almost worshipping this guy. Many of them were wearing Steve's iconic green shirt or carrying Blue's Clues toys. Me and my friends were snickering about how ridiculous it was - especially when some attempted to sing a song from the show, or, worse, several of the people who attempted to do impressions of the dog - but the stark reality is that it's tragic that so many of these people came from broken families or tough situations and were quite literally conditioned to see this man as a surrogate parent via parasocial conditioning.
And, what's most fascinating of all - Steve Burns told the story of how he was chosen for the role. Apparently, they had "child psychologist" consultants that had written about how children are very easily imprinted on by a television host because, as you said about Grover, they can't tell that Steve the host of Blue's Clues isn't Steve Burns. And, apparently, children responded better to him than any of the other hosts, which even he said was strange because he was a punk rock guy before he became almost defined by the Blues Clues role. That programming - the establishment of a parasocial relationship - runs deep. Look at the way children gravitate towards various YouTube figures like the very questionable Mr.Beast - you see the same thing. Very funny how Mr.Beast - a supposedly self-made creator - has been propped up for almost his entire career by a production company that is basically a shell front for... what for it... Disney! Who also owns... that's right - Seasame Street! Curious, isn't it?
I don't know if Steve Burns or Jim Henson were really concious of what was at play behind them, and what they were being used for. I like to think they weren't, but, at the same time, I feel like it would be very difficult to plead total ignorance, no matter how kind of genial they may seem. Or maybe that's just my own conditioning speaking. Point is, a lot of people will say this is crazy talk, but the people responsible for these shows openly admit to and brag about the mental trickery and psychological manipulation techniques they use. They're just so effective at "teaching", why wouldn't you boast? It's not like they can even comprehend what you did.
There's a lot here to talk about. I do know a bit about the connections to Langley, for instance (and, after all, The Man From Alphabet taught me the letters). The Steve Burns story is also very interesting, and something I know next to nothing about. But, yes, the same parasocial relationships are strikingly obvious. It almost feels sometimes like I want to smack my forehead. So much of it should have been obvious. But I was sleeping too. My only concern now is that I'm still bleary-eyed or even "half-asleep" as is sung in the Rainbow Connection.
I guess I'm also mostly out of the loop on Mr. Beast. What I do know of this phenomena is that it looks highly constructed (or at the very least, a project that was quickly and fully co-opted).
I look forward to seeing you flesh both of these ideas out if you see fit. I am grateful that some in our circles have drank deeply enough from some of these more recent cups to play Sherpa. Because of you, I know more about MLP now than I ever wished to, but at the same time at least as much as I think everyone should.
And I'm happy to play Sherpa, if it means helping shed light on smaller and more niche subjects that help bring a greater understanding of the whole. If we ever hope to vanquish the beasts, we must understand them. I'd like to do a deeper dive into both the connections between children's entertainment and various alphabet agencies, as well as a deeper look into Mr. Beast as well, though that one might require even more research than the first. He and the phenomenon around him are one of the first internet age anomalies I feel like I'm too old or too out of the loop to truly, genuinely confuse me, for better or worse, and his astronomical rise to fame on the backs of the iPad baby generation is as confounding to me as it is disturbing. There's something off-putting about the guy and his outsized influence that puts him in a different tier of your run-of-the-mill social media influencer.
This series of articles is the first I'm reading of these ideas.
However, they affirm my inner intuition. I never was excited about Sesame Street. Our parents never let us watch them because they danced, and we were brought up that dancing was wrong. And the first time I saw Mr. Beast, I felt uncomfortable. Couldn't have put my finger on it. Now it turns out he has some association w homosexuality, I forget the details. We had already forbidden our kiddo to watch.
I've never been keen on most popular kids programming. Trivializes the good and truly beautiful.
When they started to use Sesame Street to get kids to pressurise adults into giving them the jab, they showed their true colours [pun intended] and we saw behind the curtain in the Emerald palace at the end of the Yellow brick road.
Yep. And though I didn't want to get into those weeds, the Sesame Street of today is buried eyeball-deep in every other form of posthuman political sexual and racial sickness that infects us.
Speaking of targets, Target sponsored an adult diaper stand, clearly designed to draw in children, for Minneapolis Pride. Clearly the programming worked and is working, as you suggest.
I find myself increasingly repulsed by it. I was watching a Minnesota Twins baseball game last night, which as a former college player, I find myself also very much astranged by, the rank commodification of it. Much of the outfield was painted in Pride colors. The cuffs of the Baltimore orioles jerseys were Pride colored.
Clearly the plan is total world domination. I imagine they are working on an mRNA "vaccine" to prevent manhood.
I keep imagining a fellowship of men, come together to drive this demon asunder.
Another brilliant analysis of this abomination! The wayward wizards clearly planned — just as they manufactured the desire for mothers to leave home and flood the work world — for the fact that children would require a new mommy. Et voilà! The tell-a-vision gets the job.
And, to your quote:
"...I know that many Sesame Street episodes contained occult symbols and themes"
The image you included of The Count shows a background of virtual 8s that are split into mirrored 33s. Subtle, indeed.
"Tell-a-vision" is exactly what it is. These electronic screens, first the TV and now the smartphone, have been the superspreaders of the demonic mind-viruses that have infected our culture.
Indeed, Daniel. But let's not forget the education system: "We've been teaching lies, half-truths, and generally useless crap for generations, and we can proudly say with a 100% statistical confidence level that our brainwashing-slash-indoctrination program is totally successful for 98% of the population. This is some shiny shit!"
Yeah, there's a metric ton of stuff like that. I decided not to start cataloging it, for fear of missing the forest for the trees. Just the core idea (spectral monster teaching little kids) seemed like the most efficient way to attack it, but maybe it deserves a deeper dive. If I can't do it, hopefully someone else can (hint-hint).
We lived in such a rural place that we couldn't get Sesame Street on tv. My husband was a Boston kid, though, and watched lots! Hmm. As for the song Rainbow Connection I am unable to read the lyrics without actually singing the tune in my head. It was one of my favorite songs sung by my school choir, directed by my very sweet and genuinely Christian music teacher. Yes, this has all been going on for a long, long time.
It really is a beautiful melody. Calling it out on the carpet for its lyrics and themes was one of the hardest things I've ever tried to write. When I linked the video and watched it, I had this incredibly sad feeling that I was watching it for the last time through a kid's eyes. Even started singing along.
I always thought the rainbow connection song was weird.
Never understood it, and still, in my concreteness, don't really "get" what it is trying to say. But clearly it is in contradiction to a Christian worldview... rainbow connection... what even is that? 🤔. And the references to lovers, dreamers, and me.... just always seemed off although I couldn't have explained why.
Every day I thank my late mother for not having allowed TV in our house. I made it through the 80s without even knowing that Sesame Street existed. The only “cultural properties” (telling phrase) as opposed to culture that my brothers and I encountered were GI Joe (through the comics) and the A-Team and Knight Rider (from the kids down the road). Heck we hardly even knew who the President was. I guess now we would be called deprived or neglected or something. LOL.
My wife also didn't have a TV through much of the 80's, despite (or because of?) living in the heart of a major city. Her mom thought it was poison. Her mom was right.
Very nice Mark. The obsession with transcending humanity is as old as snakes and gardens but the only thing truly transcendant is the one new thing under the sun-the Lord's Incarnation and attendant Humiliation. All of our attempts to climb to the next stage of evolution are bound to fail, because the One who is truly 'high and lifted up' has placed Himself under us, not among the elites or even the common man but among the criminal class. The real truth of the rainbow then is that Heaven can't be reached by climbing but only by its own descent to Earth.
"If it all seems too big to imagine, that's probably because it IS"
Powers and principalities, my dude. The whole world is under the sway of the wicked one.
If self-processed Christians claim this is "too crazy to imagine", then they haven't been paying attention. It's like in the Devil's Advocate, one of the only movies I know of where the god-fearing church-going mom warns her son about New York being a home for demons and actually being RIGHT.
Shit, that just made me thought of an idea to do a review of that movie. It was something else.
"Powers and principalities, my dude. The whole world is under the sway of the wicked one."
You got the beat, brother. And yeah, I remember that scene from The Devil's Advocate, which was one of the greatest bait-and-switches of all time (though I think the #1 prize in that territory goes to "Frailty").
So, I have to admit a love of the rainbow. The one in the sky, the refraction of light. And the fact that God Almighty is described by both Ezekiel and John as being surrounded by a rainbow. Well, here, just read it:
Ezekiel 1:25-28
Then there came a voice from above the expanse over their heads as they stood with lowered wings. Above the expanse over their heads was what looked like a throne of sapphire, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him.
That's the rainbow. An eminence of God himself. Ezekiel's response was to fall on his face. As you are pointing out what is good is always inverted, but this inversion is particularly perverse and, I think, dangerous. Because I think a person's natural response to a rainbow is delight, which first occurs when we are little (and innocent). So it makes sense that to make children immune to its beauty by saturating the environment with fake rainbows is an excellent first step to leading them away from God. Imagine being the child of a parent who reads to you (it needs to be early) the descriptions of Cherubim and God on his throne-chariot. The mental imagery laid down through such reading makes all commercial offerings plain boring. Anyway, thanks for your essays, Mark.
I guess what I'm curious about in the Ezekiel text (one of my favorite books, and I think one of the most poetic) is that the rainbow is used as simile (i.e. not a rainbow, but "like the appearance of a rainbow... on a rainy day"). In other words, I don't necessarily think this is a description of color palette, but again of the *feeling* of the covenant, of seeing "light" in the wake of a terrible storm.
I could be wrong, of course. Thanks for the food for thought, Miss Teacup.
And in Revelation 4:3 it says "...A rainbow, resembling an emerald, encircled the throne." So, shades of green I guess, which supports your assertion that the Almighty's rainbow maybe isn't particularly concerned with color palette, but rather with Light itself. Given that no one (this side of eternity) gets to see the face of God and live, it is instructive that Ezekiel and John saw an awesome effect of light known since forever as a rainbow and not, say, a cloud of gnats or mosquitos. If it was just a matter of simile, metaphor, or symbolism would Satan shove his inversion of it down our throats with such insistence? All interesting to think about but I'm going to let it go lest I end up in the weeds. :)
I think you're going a bit far on the Muppets. Maybe Sesame Street is worth suspicion, I bailed on that show early and didn't drink it's multicultural KoolAid. But the Muppets are vaudeville. Jim Henson was repurposing and expanding the puppets he used to sell coffee and cigarettes on Madison Ave. He was bringing back the old dance hall days, making amusing all ages entertainment, not just something targeting kids.
As for the "Rainbow Connection"...I think you're off base there too. 'What's on the other side' of rainbows is a reference to 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' from the Wizard of Oz. Please don't try to read too much into 'Manamana'. Please. But if you want to rag on L. Frank Baum next, go right ahead.
The author of Oz, Baum, was also a fervent theosophist and no stranger to the esoteric occult. The entire story revolves around this, and was sold as a "children's film"
"But the Muppets are vaudeville..... He was bringing back the old dance hall days"
Does that make them beyond suspicion or reproach? Was vaudeville meant for kids, or deemed appropriate for them, even then? And if so, isn't that just another value judgement 🤔
"As for the "Rainbow Connection"...I think you're off base there too. 'What's on the other side' of rainbows is a reference to 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' from the Wizard of Oz. "
The Wizard of Oz is blatantly luciferian. The Wizard is a metaphor for God. He's a false God, and Dorothy and the crew overcome him with self-actualization
The Wizard might be a metaphor for God and show Him as a humbug, but He is overcome by a dog pulling down a curtain and they defeat the witch by accidently spilling water on her while in her employ. Where is the self-actualization? I don't remember theosophy well but the idea of the world as a dream ties in with what I do remember. The Wizard, once become Immanent, then provides them with knowledge of theirselves, but lacks the true knowledge of the world as a dream. If the Wizard is God then he is a well-meaning incompetent, trying to take Dorothy home with a balloon when she needs to wake up. What it really illustrates is not the carefully constructed serious reality of an occultist dotting his 'i's and crossing his 't's for the fastidious society of the demons, but a believer in the illusory world carelessly tossing out whatever nonsense comes into his brain.
Except she rejects the balloon. The ruby slippers provided by the witch take her home, not the balloon. The self actualization was in the Scarecrow, tin man and lion realizing they weren't missing thing at all.
They were "perfect just the way they were". They didn't have to improve or strive to anything greater. They were always just fantastic.
Perhaps. But the 'self actualization' was brokered by the 'broken god' of the wizard and they don't in any sense overcome the wizard. It might be fair to say that they succeed where he fails which is blasphemous enough if we take him as a surrogate of God.
I'll grant you that there is a sort of 'inner light' nonsense being smoked, but it is rather more Buddhistic than Luciferian. I know, I know 'What is the difference between one false religion and another?' or 'Don't they all come from the pit of hell?' Well, yes and no. Buddhism and its ilk, slimy as they are, do not reject the moral law, the Tao if you like, and are capable of building a functioning temporal society, when not hamstrung by modernity. The frank acknowledgement of human sinfulness and the inevitable suffering that attends it, while certainly not perfect, is far far from 'Thelema'. Now if we are comparing the 'good works delusion' to the Gospel there is no comparison. But if we are comparing the 'good works delusion' to 'Do what you wilt shall be the whole of the Law.', good works comes out a little better. I do think that it is important to distinguish.
Interesting...I've never heard of that rainbow song, but the morning star bit really jumps out at one. Never watched Sesame Street...the puppets repulsed me. I did enjoy Captain Kangaroo, though.
Just discovered this. Anyone remember Broadways "Avenue Q"? Pornographic Muppets. I don't recall the year. I remember I went. I remember I walked out after after intermission. Some people didn't even wait that long....
This is the kind of stuff I want to put on a greatest hits compilation of my favorite esoteric articles titled, "Now! That's what I call Schizo!" Not literally, of course, but you're really tapping into the fundamentals here that a lot of people - myself included, at times - really don't want to admit.
I was never big on Seasame Street, or at least no more so than any other kid, since they're ubiquitous in American culture, but a couple years back on a certain Tibetan Shadow Puppetry Forum's political board, I remember stumbling upon a thread pertaining to Seasame Street and a particular experiment run by the United States government in the 60's which may or may not be about mind control. I don't remember the specifics but the broad strokes was how Seasame Street was well-documented and proud to talk about the cutting edge pediatric psychology used to formulate the "most ideal" way of communicating and "teaching" children, and, of course, if yoj pick at the various individuals who were involved... well, all roads lead to Langely, one way or a other. Mostly through association, but that's suspicious enough.
I actually encountered a prime example myself - and this is what REALLY tipped me off that there's more to this theory than is comfortable. In late 2020, maybe early 2021 Steve Burns of Blue's Clues fame put on his old green shirt and did an address to the internet. It wasn't so much a "wear a mask and get the shot" lecture, just "I'm so proud of who you grew up to be" pablum. Not the worst message in the world, honestly a bit sweet, but it turned so sour so fast because people went NUTS over it. I mean, you had Redditors, man-children, and the extremely socially maladjusted proclaiming this "whole epic chungus 100" to be this great savior and how we all need to love each other in these unorecedented times... unless you didn't get the shot, in which case you could die. The response to his little three minute video was very religious. Given that I've yet to fully outgrow childish things myself, I attended Emerald City Comicon, and, long story short, Steve Burns was doing a Q&A panel. It was billed as a main event and you had to get a seperate ticket from your pass to even enter the room. Well, nothing else was happening at the time so me and my friends snuck in through the back because, at first, we didn't even know it was paid, we were just keeping a low profile because we didn't want to wear masks. The room was about half full, which, for a room as big as the one it was in, was no mean feat. But what really amazed me was, again, the reverence people treated this man with. Lauding him as if he'd discovered the cure for cancer, or something, about how he "changed their life" and "helped them through tough times" and, saddest of all, "you were a parent when mine were too busy for me". It was a lot of very damaged people (some visibly, with the typical aposematic signs), almost worshipping this guy. Many of them were wearing Steve's iconic green shirt or carrying Blue's Clues toys. Me and my friends were snickering about how ridiculous it was - especially when some attempted to sing a song from the show, or, worse, several of the people who attempted to do impressions of the dog - but the stark reality is that it's tragic that so many of these people came from broken families or tough situations and were quite literally conditioned to see this man as a surrogate parent via parasocial conditioning.
And, what's most fascinating of all - Steve Burns told the story of how he was chosen for the role. Apparently, they had "child psychologist" consultants that had written about how children are very easily imprinted on by a television host because, as you said about Grover, they can't tell that Steve the host of Blue's Clues isn't Steve Burns. And, apparently, children responded better to him than any of the other hosts, which even he said was strange because he was a punk rock guy before he became almost defined by the Blues Clues role. That programming - the establishment of a parasocial relationship - runs deep. Look at the way children gravitate towards various YouTube figures like the very questionable Mr.Beast - you see the same thing. Very funny how Mr.Beast - a supposedly self-made creator - has been propped up for almost his entire career by a production company that is basically a shell front for... what for it... Disney! Who also owns... that's right - Seasame Street! Curious, isn't it?
I don't know if Steve Burns or Jim Henson were really concious of what was at play behind them, and what they were being used for. I like to think they weren't, but, at the same time, I feel like it would be very difficult to plead total ignorance, no matter how kind of genial they may seem. Or maybe that's just my own conditioning speaking. Point is, a lot of people will say this is crazy talk, but the people responsible for these shows openly admit to and brag about the mental trickery and psychological manipulation techniques they use. They're just so effective at "teaching", why wouldn't you boast? It's not like they can even comprehend what you did.
There's a lot here to talk about. I do know a bit about the connections to Langley, for instance (and, after all, The Man From Alphabet taught me the letters). The Steve Burns story is also very interesting, and something I know next to nothing about. But, yes, the same parasocial relationships are strikingly obvious. It almost feels sometimes like I want to smack my forehead. So much of it should have been obvious. But I was sleeping too. My only concern now is that I'm still bleary-eyed or even "half-asleep" as is sung in the Rainbow Connection.
I guess I'm also mostly out of the loop on Mr. Beast. What I do know of this phenomena is that it looks highly constructed (or at the very least, a project that was quickly and fully co-opted).
I look forward to seeing you flesh both of these ideas out if you see fit. I am grateful that some in our circles have drank deeply enough from some of these more recent cups to play Sherpa. Because of you, I know more about MLP now than I ever wished to, but at the same time at least as much as I think everyone should.
And I'm happy to play Sherpa, if it means helping shed light on smaller and more niche subjects that help bring a greater understanding of the whole. If we ever hope to vanquish the beasts, we must understand them. I'd like to do a deeper dive into both the connections between children's entertainment and various alphabet agencies, as well as a deeper look into Mr. Beast as well, though that one might require even more research than the first. He and the phenomenon around him are one of the first internet age anomalies I feel like I'm too old or too out of the loop to truly, genuinely confuse me, for better or worse, and his astronomical rise to fame on the backs of the iPad baby generation is as confounding to me as it is disturbing. There's something off-putting about the guy and his outsized influence that puts him in a different tier of your run-of-the-mill social media influencer.
This series of articles is the first I'm reading of these ideas.
However, they affirm my inner intuition. I never was excited about Sesame Street. Our parents never let us watch them because they danced, and we were brought up that dancing was wrong. And the first time I saw Mr. Beast, I felt uncomfortable. Couldn't have put my finger on it. Now it turns out he has some association w homosexuality, I forget the details. We had already forbidden our kiddo to watch.
I've never been keen on most popular kids programming. Trivializes the good and truly beautiful.
When they started to use Sesame Street to get kids to pressurise adults into giving them the jab, they showed their true colours [pun intended] and we saw behind the curtain in the Emerald palace at the end of the Yellow brick road.
Yep. And though I didn't want to get into those weeds, the Sesame Street of today is buried eyeball-deep in every other form of posthuman political sexual and racial sickness that infects us.
Speaking of targets, Target sponsored an adult diaper stand, clearly designed to draw in children, for Minneapolis Pride. Clearly the programming worked and is working, as you suggest.
I find myself increasingly repulsed by it. I was watching a Minnesota Twins baseball game last night, which as a former college player, I find myself also very much astranged by, the rank commodification of it. Much of the outfield was painted in Pride colors. The cuffs of the Baltimore orioles jerseys were Pride colored.
Clearly the plan is total world domination. I imagine they are working on an mRNA "vaccine" to prevent manhood.
I keep imagining a fellowship of men, come together to drive this demon asunder.
https://www.libsoftiktok.com/p/family-friendly-pride-festival-in
A lot of it is based in humiliation tactics, I think. Look what we can make you do for money!
That is so disturbing... the diapers
Sick phuks
😬
Another brilliant analysis of this abomination! The wayward wizards clearly planned — just as they manufactured the desire for mothers to leave home and flood the work world — for the fact that children would require a new mommy. Et voilà! The tell-a-vision gets the job.
And, to your quote:
"...I know that many Sesame Street episodes contained occult symbols and themes"
The image you included of The Count shows a background of virtual 8s that are split into mirrored 33s. Subtle, indeed.
"Tell-a-vision" is exactly what it is. These electronic screens, first the TV and now the smartphone, have been the superspreaders of the demonic mind-viruses that have infected our culture.
Indeed, Daniel. But let's not forget the education system: "We've been teaching lies, half-truths, and generally useless crap for generations, and we can proudly say with a 100% statistical confidence level that our brainwashing-slash-indoctrination program is totally successful for 98% of the population. This is some shiny shit!"
Very true!
Yeah, there's a metric ton of stuff like that. I decided not to start cataloging it, for fear of missing the forest for the trees. Just the core idea (spectral monster teaching little kids) seemed like the most efficient way to attack it, but maybe it deserves a deeper dive. If I can't do it, hopefully someone else can (hint-hint).
We lived in such a rural place that we couldn't get Sesame Street on tv. My husband was a Boston kid, though, and watched lots! Hmm. As for the song Rainbow Connection I am unable to read the lyrics without actually singing the tune in my head. It was one of my favorite songs sung by my school choir, directed by my very sweet and genuinely Christian music teacher. Yes, this has all been going on for a long, long time.
It really is a beautiful melody. Calling it out on the carpet for its lyrics and themes was one of the hardest things I've ever tried to write. When I linked the video and watched it, I had this incredibly sad feeling that I was watching it for the last time through a kid's eyes. Even started singing along.
I always thought the rainbow connection song was weird.
Never understood it, and still, in my concreteness, don't really "get" what it is trying to say. But clearly it is in contradiction to a Christian worldview... rainbow connection... what even is that? 🤔. And the references to lovers, dreamers, and me.... just always seemed off although I couldn't have explained why.
Every day I thank my late mother for not having allowed TV in our house. I made it through the 80s without even knowing that Sesame Street existed. The only “cultural properties” (telling phrase) as opposed to culture that my brothers and I encountered were GI Joe (through the comics) and the A-Team and Knight Rider (from the kids down the road). Heck we hardly even knew who the President was. I guess now we would be called deprived or neglected or something. LOL.
My wife also didn't have a TV through much of the 80's, despite (or because of?) living in the heart of a major city. Her mom thought it was poison. Her mom was right.
"benign neglect" my mother called it, and it was glorious.
Very nice Mark. The obsession with transcending humanity is as old as snakes and gardens but the only thing truly transcendant is the one new thing under the sun-the Lord's Incarnation and attendant Humiliation. All of our attempts to climb to the next stage of evolution are bound to fail, because the One who is truly 'high and lifted up' has placed Himself under us, not among the elites or even the common man but among the criminal class. The real truth of the rainbow then is that Heaven can't be reached by climbing but only by its own descent to Earth.
An interesting way to look at it, Jon. I'll have to ponder this, thanks.
Harkens back to one of my thoughts
"If it all seems too big to imagine, that's probably because it IS"
Powers and principalities, my dude. The whole world is under the sway of the wicked one.
If self-processed Christians claim this is "too crazy to imagine", then they haven't been paying attention. It's like in the Devil's Advocate, one of the only movies I know of where the god-fearing church-going mom warns her son about New York being a home for demons and actually being RIGHT.
Shit, that just made me thought of an idea to do a review of that movie. It was something else.
"Powers and principalities, my dude. The whole world is under the sway of the wicked one."
You got the beat, brother. And yeah, I remember that scene from The Devil's Advocate, which was one of the greatest bait-and-switches of all time (though I think the #1 prize in that territory goes to "Frailty").
Very rare for the "country bumpkin bible thumper" to be proven right in film
Corey’s digs did a great article
https://www.coreysdigs.com/global/unraveling-the-many-layers-of-pride/
So, I have to admit a love of the rainbow. The one in the sky, the refraction of light. And the fact that God Almighty is described by both Ezekiel and John as being surrounded by a rainbow. Well, here, just read it:
Ezekiel 1:25-28
Then there came a voice from above the expanse over their heads as they stood with lowered wings. Above the expanse over their heads was what looked like a throne of sapphire, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him.
That's the rainbow. An eminence of God himself. Ezekiel's response was to fall on his face. As you are pointing out what is good is always inverted, but this inversion is particularly perverse and, I think, dangerous. Because I think a person's natural response to a rainbow is delight, which first occurs when we are little (and innocent). So it makes sense that to make children immune to its beauty by saturating the environment with fake rainbows is an excellent first step to leading them away from God. Imagine being the child of a parent who reads to you (it needs to be early) the descriptions of Cherubim and God on his throne-chariot. The mental imagery laid down through such reading makes all commercial offerings plain boring. Anyway, thanks for your essays, Mark.
I guess what I'm curious about in the Ezekiel text (one of my favorite books, and I think one of the most poetic) is that the rainbow is used as simile (i.e. not a rainbow, but "like the appearance of a rainbow... on a rainy day"). In other words, I don't necessarily think this is a description of color palette, but again of the *feeling* of the covenant, of seeing "light" in the wake of a terrible storm.
I could be wrong, of course. Thanks for the food for thought, Miss Teacup.
And in Revelation 4:3 it says "...A rainbow, resembling an emerald, encircled the throne." So, shades of green I guess, which supports your assertion that the Almighty's rainbow maybe isn't particularly concerned with color palette, but rather with Light itself. Given that no one (this side of eternity) gets to see the face of God and live, it is instructive that Ezekiel and John saw an awesome effect of light known since forever as a rainbow and not, say, a cloud of gnats or mosquitos. If it was just a matter of simile, metaphor, or symbolism would Satan shove his inversion of it down our throats with such insistence? All interesting to think about but I'm going to let it go lest I end up in the weeds. :)
She makes a good point, Mark. I hope that this series ends with the eschatological significance of the rainbow.
I think you're going a bit far on the Muppets. Maybe Sesame Street is worth suspicion, I bailed on that show early and didn't drink it's multicultural KoolAid. But the Muppets are vaudeville. Jim Henson was repurposing and expanding the puppets he used to sell coffee and cigarettes on Madison Ave. He was bringing back the old dance hall days, making amusing all ages entertainment, not just something targeting kids.
As for the "Rainbow Connection"...I think you're off base there too. 'What's on the other side' of rainbows is a reference to 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' from the Wizard of Oz. Please don't try to read too much into 'Manamana'. Please. But if you want to rag on L. Frank Baum next, go right ahead.
The author of Oz, Baum, was also a fervent theosophist and no stranger to the esoteric occult. The entire story revolves around this, and was sold as a "children's film"
See, now this is all fine and good, bash Baum all you want.
However, I must observe that the song 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' wasn't written by him. That was Harold Arlen and lyricist Yip Harburg.
"But the Muppets are vaudeville..... He was bringing back the old dance hall days"
Does that make them beyond suspicion or reproach? Was vaudeville meant for kids, or deemed appropriate for them, even then? And if so, isn't that just another value judgement 🤔
"As for the "Rainbow Connection"...I think you're off base there too. 'What's on the other side' of rainbows is a reference to 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' from the Wizard of Oz. "
But what is the reference of the reference? 🤔
The Wizard of Oz is blatantly luciferian. The Wizard is a metaphor for God. He's a false God, and Dorothy and the crew overcome him with self-actualization
The Wizard might be a metaphor for God and show Him as a humbug, but He is overcome by a dog pulling down a curtain and they defeat the witch by accidently spilling water on her while in her employ. Where is the self-actualization? I don't remember theosophy well but the idea of the world as a dream ties in with what I do remember. The Wizard, once become Immanent, then provides them with knowledge of theirselves, but lacks the true knowledge of the world as a dream. If the Wizard is God then he is a well-meaning incompetent, trying to take Dorothy home with a balloon when she needs to wake up. What it really illustrates is not the carefully constructed serious reality of an occultist dotting his 'i's and crossing his 't's for the fastidious society of the demons, but a believer in the illusory world carelessly tossing out whatever nonsense comes into his brain.
Except she rejects the balloon. The ruby slippers provided by the witch take her home, not the balloon. The self actualization was in the Scarecrow, tin man and lion realizing they weren't missing thing at all.
They were "perfect just the way they were". They didn't have to improve or strive to anything greater. They were always just fantastic.
Perhaps. But the 'self actualization' was brokered by the 'broken god' of the wizard and they don't in any sense overcome the wizard. It might be fair to say that they succeed where he fails which is blasphemous enough if we take him as a surrogate of God.
I'll grant you that there is a sort of 'inner light' nonsense being smoked, but it is rather more Buddhistic than Luciferian. I know, I know 'What is the difference between one false religion and another?' or 'Don't they all come from the pit of hell?' Well, yes and no. Buddhism and its ilk, slimy as they are, do not reject the moral law, the Tao if you like, and are capable of building a functioning temporal society, when not hamstrung by modernity. The frank acknowledgement of human sinfulness and the inevitable suffering that attends it, while certainly not perfect, is far far from 'Thelema'. Now if we are comparing the 'good works delusion' to the Gospel there is no comparison. But if we are comparing the 'good works delusion' to 'Do what you wilt shall be the whole of the Law.', good works comes out a little better. I do think that it is important to distinguish.
Weren't missing *anything*
Interesting...I've never heard of that rainbow song, but the morning star bit really jumps out at one. Never watched Sesame Street...the puppets repulsed me. I did enjoy Captain Kangaroo, though.
Just discovered this. Anyone remember Broadways "Avenue Q"? Pornographic Muppets. I don't recall the year. I remember I went. I remember I walked out after after intermission. Some people didn't even wait that long....
I suspect there will be a lot of headscratching at some water coolers over this development:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/17/hamtramck-michigan-muslim-council-lgbtq-pride-flags-banned
Watch (painfully) one episode of a Teletubbies and try and tell me ‘nothing going on here folks...move along’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFGdeoGO3rg
"A Sense of Betrayal..."
LOL. Let's hope the heads are only scratched. They may be awakening many more lions than they've been trained to think.
Hated Sesame Street! Hated it! But I was too old for it. My best friend, a year younger than me LOVED it.
I did love the Muppets. That show had my Mom, Dad and I screaming with laughter on many occasions.
I particularly loved Animal. "AN-I-MAAAAL!"
Animal, truly, rocked!
Beaker always cracked me up, too.
I loved the Muppets too. Just trying to shine a light where I can.