Learn to forget...
The Doors' classic Soul Kitchen written in the summer of 1965 by Jim Morrison as a tribute to Olivia's a soul food restaurant in Venice Beach, California lends itself to something discovered in the soul's kitchen, the crucible, the fiery forge, the circle of 8 (8 of swords). The circle of glamor magick, illusions, and ultimately, sovereignty. I chose the image of the "vampire hotel" from Lost Boys as it represents the circle of 8 - a place of glamor, lies, and ultimately – liberation. In the film, Michael, the initiate, is glamoured, an act of forgetting, and yet he remembers his humanity. We must unremember to reknow.
Before reincarnation, we drink from the waters of Lethe, surrendering the burden of past identities, traumas, and knowledge. This forgetting is an act of mercy. The soul; however, remembers. Embedded within the soul are the whispers of past lives, the lingering taste of love lost and found, and the instinctive knowledge of roads once traveled. The initiate, should they so choose the circle of 8 will endure the finding it all at 7000 rpm.
Once the initiate steps inside the circle of 8, the blindfold is necessary (being glamoured not by an external force like in Michael's case but by the initiate themselves). The blindfold seeks to remove the false illusions those external of the initiate would wantonly, knowingly, and urgently wish the initiate to not only be distracted by but to be deceived. Star warns Michael he's being served David's blood and ignores her. The initiate must discern truth from lies in the circle - this is of utmost importance.
In the circle of 8, despite having hands bound, the initiate unshackles the bindings of memory, embracing the sacred forgetting that accompanies our crossing into the spirit realm - the spiritual alchemy. The swords surrounding the initiate are not merely physical obstacles, but reflections of all that limits the initiate. In the circle, forgetting is not loss but liberation. By going through the journey of the shadow, the crucible, the circle of 8, Michael embodies being human even more fully at the end.
Over there was Olivia's Place, a rundown diner politely described as funky. The outside was old, faded pink, - inside was old, faded green. There was a tapestry of JFK over the cash register, a faded landscape on the wall, a shiny jukebox. Plastic booths, and a menu written in pencil. Jim ordered liver and onions. I ordered coffee. - Jim Morrison Teenset (1968).
Where we, America, find ourselves today in the circle of 8 - the process of unbecoming what we thought we were, an understanding of how we got here, and where we can go from here - I offer some words for consideration:
In the aftermath of World War II, America became a nation balancing between the comfort of forgetting and the rebellion of remembrance. The 1950s were an era of conformity, an anesthetized dream where forgetting was encouraged—where history’s wounds and severe PTSD from survivors of the war were buried beneath suburban sprawl, the rise of consumerism, and the abject myth of post-war prosperity. This is now known as Magadonia to me - a faded landscape, an incredible mythos woven and imposed by larger forces - grand illusionists if you will. A large swath of our population wishes to return to this mythical landscape- to go into a state of forgetting - to sleepwalk unto death.
Despite all the hacks,deletions, and flurries of Exective Orders, the rebellion of the 1960s cannot be erased. The 1960s —a rupture, a moment of radical remembrance - one that has the potential of reimergence. The 60s saw the birth of the woke movement which the so-called pious Right detests (and hopefully, dear reader, you're starting to understand why). The youth of this era tore at the carefully constructed illusion that came before, awakening to the truths long suppressed. The Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, counterculture, and psychedelic exploration became the catalysts for peeling back the layers of amnesia. Music, protest, and altered states of consciousness became keys to the Codex of Remembering. The Codex, dear reader, would be infiltrated, hijacked, and twisted into illusions so deep many are still drowning in it.
Extreme paranoia within the United States government surrounding communism would be the justification for partnering with former Nazis under Operation Paperclip allowing war criminals to run incredibly secret programs. The paranoia coupled with deep-seated hatred and racism, led to the outright undermining of any leftist efforts. The fear of Soviet infiltration was used as a tool to discredit civil rights leaders, anti-war activists, and those advocating for economic justice. Figures like MLK Jr., the Black Panthers, and student activists were surveilled, labeled as threats, and in many cases, assassinated or incarcerated to ensure the empire’s continuity. We are here again, dear reader, make no mistake.
In 1963, a turning point was reached for the United States - the assassination of JFK. This marked a turning point: a moment when America stood at the threshold of remembrance but was violently pulled back into forgetting. The counterculture movement that followed was in many ways a reaction to this betrayal, an attempt to reclaim lost potential before the next great wave of amnesia could settle in. With his death, hope underwent a metamorphosis into uncertainty. A generation that had glimpsed another way of life was plunged back into paranoia and silence - The Warren Commission ensured that doubt, rather than clarity, became the prevailing truth. A confused public is easier to control than an enlightened one. The selection of figures like Allen Dulles, the former CIA director fired by JFK, to the Warren Commission was an intentional act of ensuring that the official narrative remained controlled, reinforcing the collective forgetting.
Forgetting was never purely organic though. It was curated, engineered, and reinforced. The intelligence community and evangelical power structures worked in tandem to cultivate a veil of illusion, shaping history, dictating memory, and controlling the narrative. The CIA’s MKUltra program, hidden behind national security, experimented with mind control, the fragmentation of memory, and the suppression of inconvenient truths. The rise of televangelists and faith-based nationalism has turned spirituality into an instrument of control, steering the nation away from radical self-awareness and back into compliance.
JFK, the leader of a new tomorrow, was now reduced to a tapestry over the cash register at the soul kitchen. There was no one coming to save anyone now - and the myth of the external savior - which has been used for millennia - finds itself at a crossroads for many, but an accepted truth for others. By perpetuating the cycle of charismatic leaders rising and falling, the system ensures that true collective awakening never takes root. The illusion remains intact, preventing true systemic change.
But we are not without hope, dear reader, but the work must be done and it begins with the self. There is nothing external of the initiate in the circle of 8 save the swords. Nothing. The initiate does not seek external counsel, but the inner knowing that arises in stillness - in the place where the initiate becomes both the question and the answer - in other words, sovereignty. Now, I'm not talking about the flim-flam term "sovereign citizen" that gets used ridiculously by anti-government groups who seem to be just fine with the current state of affairs (curious that isn't it?). I am speaking of embodying the divine within the human experience.
The soul's kitchen, the circle of 8 is simply not a warm and cozy place for the initiate. Rest comes after the process is complete - but joy does come in the morning with the rising sun. The sun rises and sets each day without fail - it was here before us and it will be here after us. So what do we do with all the calamity and despair we've now been made aware of? The illusions woven by master illusionists insistent we not find our way into the circle of 8 nor successfully emerge from it are being melted away. A new being now forged by the processes experienced is waiting to emerge.
The Soul's Kitchen is a vast and deep place - where nourishment is found and whilst your brain seems bruised with numb surprise - there's still one place to go.
I leave you with Emily Dickinson:
From cocoon forth a butterfly
As lady from her door
Emerged – a summer afternoon –
Repairing everywhere …
