After all, there is nothing real outside our perception of reality, is there?
This week, on Thursday, September 1st, 2016 there will be a solar eclipse in the sign of Virgo: priestess of divine order, the medium and the messenger of the Earth itself. And with Virgo’s ruler Mercury having recently stationed retrograde, there will be a stillness of mind present that will enable you to deeply contemplate some very heavy issues. This is a time for deep soul-level healing.
A solar eclipse is a hyper-charged New Moon. Therefore, the usual rhythm that encourages you to set intentions and birth new conditions becomes exponentially magnified! A solar eclipse contains the power of metamorphosis!
This solar eclipse in Virgo will be in a hard aspect with the Saturn/Neptune square which will require you to face the difficult clash between hard reality and delusion that has been pervasive since November 2015. Associated with violence, extremism, and insanity, there have been many wounds torn open by this tension between Saturn and Neptune.
At this solar eclipse, the uncertainty associated with the Saturn/Neptune square will penetrate into your personal experience (Sun), deeply affecting your emotions (Moon). Fortunately, in the sign of Virgo, this assault on your sense of security will be met by a potent immunological response!
The disease of the age in which we live is one of misinformation and cognitive dissonance. Thus, this visceral confrontation with the Saturn/Neptunesquare will be both beneficial and wisening. Think of this eclipse as an inoculation against the most malevolent forces of manipulation.
It is time to embrace a cure for the plague of narcissistic narcosis that has created a legacy of atrocities that all stem from dehumanization and the denial of ecological interdependence with the Earth.
The Saturn/Neptune square has been a powerful period of collective realization. The first lesson is that perception has no reliable relationship to objective reality. Thus, you really can’t believe everything you read or hear or see.
During the last ten months, there has been a particular amount of pressure (Saturn) put on your perceptions, creating confusion about the lines between reality and delusion. (Neptune) This influence is not meant to condemn you to a state of limbo, but is instead meant to teach you some hard lessons about how to protect yourself against the constant barrage of simulated reality.
If you’re not careful, it will become total hallucination. You’ll have to learn to live in a very strange new world…
At this eclipse, you will feel vulnerable and afraid only so long as it takes to re-discover your inner strength and flexibility. Virgo (better than any other sign) heals wounds, purifies poisons and carefully analyzes disease to prevent future attack.
But where is the collective wound and what poison has left it so infected?
Videodrome is a bioelectrical addiction. Videodrome is the ultimate addiction.
In times such as these, there is no better way to understand the wounding conditions we face than through the examination of the cerebral/visceral horror film, Videodrome by David Cronenberg.
In the tradition of masterful horror and sci-fi stories like Frankenstein, Videodrome’s prophetic power has only increased since it was released in 1983. Though there are many layers to the film which can be examined for rich discussion, it is essentially a film about the dangers of an all consuming addiction to pathologically stimulating media.
The basic plot of Videodrome follows a TV producer named, Max Renn, who is looking for something that will get him better ratings. Though his station runs nothing but soft-core pornography, audiences are no longer titillated. Oversaturated by stimulating imagery, the world of Videodrome shows media for what it is: a drug that requires ever increasing doses to achieve any kind of high.
The original shock of Videodrome in 1983 was the idea that people would actually watch someone being tortured and killed. This is unfortunately the way of the world now.
One day, Max comes across a pirate signal that is broadcasting a channel called, Videodrome. This channel shows the most depraved things imaginable (torture pornography) but rather than feeling disgust, Max feels tuned in and turned on!
In his mercenary quest for ratings, Max becomes totally addicted to Videodrome and like a parasite, it consumes him, mind, body and soul. Through constant communion with Videodrome, Max is physically metamorphosed into a receiver for the signal, becoming a fleshly media device. Max’s humanity, already weakened by enslavement to television, becomes totally lost in the Videodrome.
First it controlled her mind, then it destroyed her body… Long live the new flesh!
The director, David Cronenberg, was richly steeped in the theories of Marshall Mcluhan. Thus Videodrome deliberately engages with several of Mcluhan’s most pervasive themes including, media as extensions of the human psyche and the notions of discarnate man and virtual identities.
Cronenberg’s allusions to Mcluhan’s philosophies are explicit. One of the film’s characters, Brian O’Blivion, is even based on McLuhan.
You may be wondering why Virgo the Virgin’s solar eclipse should be represented by such ghastly themes. But it is important to remember that Virgo purifies disease by analyzing it and discovering the deepest root of its cause.
Therefore, horror stories that illustrate hubris and the mutilation of nature are ideal Virgoan morality tales. These cerebral horror stories influence us to purify our minds, strengthen our integrity and remain self-possessed, lest we fall prey to madness and oblivion.
Like the ring of fire around a solar eclipse, Cronenberg’s Videodrome burns through dissonance and narcosis by showing how media can create a physical mutation of the human body. This horrific and dystopian vision certainly makes you think twice before swallowing the current perception that our media landscape signifies progress and democracy.
Videodrome reveals how colonizing powers can be invisible, invading and mutating us through the psyche. In the film, it was not the violent pornography itself that mutated the man into a monster, but the parasitic force of the signal which was invited in by the viewer.
Even in Videodrome, the vampire can not enter the house unless invited in.
As the Saturn/Neptune square draws to a close this month, you will be challenged to better define the boundaries between virtual reality and physical reality. You will be asked to draw better boundaries regarding what you invite into your mind.
Your reality is already half video hallucination. If you’re not careful, it will become total hallucination. You’ll have to learn to live in a very strange new world…
This solar eclipse in Virgo will force you to raise your standards of awareness, contending with the fact that an untold proportion of your perceptions of reality are now injected into your subconscious by corporations while you are fully dilated in narcotic trance.
How this trance is mutating your perception of reality, your relationship to others, and your connection to the Earth is essential to understand sooner rather than later. And the damage that this has already done is your responsibility to heal.
Media literacy is not about deconstructing narratives and having sophisticated political views. It is about acknowledging how the apparatus itself has attached to your mental, emotional and physical experience. It is about seeing how humans “shape the tools that in turn shape us” potentially leaving us in a mindless state of numbness.
By now in your life, how much violence have you become numb to?
At this solar eclipse in Virgo, you will be given the strength to discern the HUGE difference between visceral experience and artificial simulations. Your appetite for real sensorial stimulation and communion with the Earth will eclipse your addiction to media narcosis.
Use this New Moon Solar Eclipse in Virgo to purge parasitic subliminal influences and embark on a new path of discovery, no longer naive about the negative effects of the constant exposure to the media mind.
Under Virgo’s influence, you will have what it takes to shield yourself from subliminal influence and spare yourself from enslavement to a mindless existence. This eclipse in Virgo offers a much brighter future for all those that take the time to disentangle themselves from simulated environments in favor of real human connection and real experience with the Earth.
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