The following is an essay written to support the promotion of Taken By The Tide’s 2014 EP Hands of Spite.

It’s rare I’ll explain my work in this much depth.  I much prefer to allow people to develop their own understanding, create a meaning resonates more personally with them.  On this occasion, however, Taken By The Tide have specifically asked me to contribute a few words on this piece, produced for their second EP; Hands Of Spite.  As with a lot of my work there is a lot going on here, too much for just a few paragraphs and as I’m going to look at this in depth, I thought it might be of interest to really do so.

“There Is A Policeman In All Of Our Heads And He Must Be Destroyed”

This song title was the stepping off point for the whole concept and, at the time, the title of the EP as well.  Coined by guitarist, Martin, it really resonated with me for a variety of reasons and was apparently born with no point of reference, which allowed me to imbue it with as much meaning as I saw fit.  As a result, the process began with discussing a few of my own interests which would inform the content of the work.  One theme that I knew would resonate heavily, was the breaking of systems of control as discussed by people like Crowley, Burroughs and most significantly in this context, Timothy Leary and Robert Anton Wilson.  

Through a variety of thought experiments, meditative techniques and hallucinogenic experiences, these two men and their contemporaries explored methods of altering and removing certain beliefs instilled in us from the beginning of our education and exposure to society:

If one can only see things according to one's own belief system, one is destined to become virtually deaf, dumb, and blind. It's only possible to see people when one is able to see the world as others see it. That's what guerrilla ontology is — breaking down this one-model view and giving people a multi-model perspective.

-"Robert Anton Wilson: Searching For Cosmic Intelligence" - interview with Jeffrey Elliot (1980)

It’s very difficult to summarise the weight of influence that Wilson has had on this piece and explaining them would be an article in itself, so if you’d like to know more about his ideas, I recommend exploring some of his excellent interviews and lectures on YouTube.

To summarise, this explains in much more depth how Guerrilla Ontology is the process by which one can develop the realization that one’s current mindset and situation isn’t necessarily their most beneficial.  In addition to this, my own political beliefs and a variety of current domestic world events you can probably anticipate, also heavily informed this piece.  Much of which you’ll likely gather from the following breakdown of the piece itself.

The Interloper

We’ll begin our examination of the artwork with our avatar; scruffy, defiant and standing at the gates of some vast, palatial official building.  We can tell by his stance that he plans to breach these gates and we can probably imagine why.  The noose is also significant, not only as it is suggestive of what he has planned but also as it directly references The Hanged Man from the Tarot deck.  The Hanged Man represents divinity and is linked to myths such as the death of the Christ, which brought salvation to humanity and Odin, who sacrificed his life in obtaining wisdom.  Here we see a figure on a similar path.

The Architecture of control

The gates and the building beyond it represent systems of authority present in all our lives.  A composite of architectural elements from a number of famous buildings and institutions that we associate with this; the gates from Downing Street, the porch from the White House, the towers, balconies and windows from The Houses Of Parliament, the dome from Capitol Hill.  The statue, just for the sake of irony, is Lady Justice.  This building was one of the first visual elements I knew would be present in the image.  When I hear the record I constantly think in metaphors of architecture; construct, angles, foundation, texture…

Tree of life

Intersecting the image in red is the tree of life.  This is the foundation of Kabbalah and the key to the life's work of progression through the system.  As traditionally you work up the Tree, I've flipped it upside down here.  Not only to dislocate it further from it’s true meaning, which is something people spend their whole lives exploring, but to create a balance symbolising that ascending the tree, pursuing one course of life, requires descending, or leaving another.

Our avatar sits over the top of the first two central elements, at his feet and head, implying the first stages of the journey; the realisation that it's necessary and the ambition to pursue it, have already been achieved.  From here we work in levels:

Assentionistic Symbology

The first three levels have two separate balanced elements each:

1. Radical politics- The first is represented by the red star of communism and the more familiar symbol of anarchism.  This denotes the dissolution of political construct and it's influence over the individual.  Breaking political/societorial control.

2. DMT/LSD- The second level is the LSD and DMT molecular structures, representing the tools used to break psychological and social conditioning.  The breaking of personal restraint.

Our avatar spans these two stages.  His stance at the gates denotes his awareness of this and the great steps that must be taken to achieve the next levels.

3. Hermeticism- The symbols used to represent this are those later used by the Alchemists to denote abstraction and purification.  Hermeticism refers to the religious and philosophical texts attributed to Hermes Trismegistus and is understood as the foundation of pretty much all surviving western religious structures.  Amongst it's key texts is The Emerald Tablet which reputedly concerns the construct of the universe in terms of it's creator and was closely studied by Alchemists for centuries, including people as late as Isaac Newton who provides one of only two known english language translations.  Although later evolving into modern chemistry and physics, Alchemy was incredibly controversial as its primary focus was the process of decoding Gods world to better understand both it and the mind which created it.  

From here the paths unify, distilling on a singular element:

4. The All Seeing Eye-  The Illuminati, with whom the eye in the pyramid is most commonly associated with, derive their name from the concept of Illuminism; total gnosis of all things.  Having surpassed the constraints of control imposed on us by others, ourselves, and the world we inhabit, there is little further we can go... 

5. The Tetragrammaton-  From total gnosis only one point of ascension can remain.  The Tetragrammaton is Hebraic spelling of god’s true name from which readers of the Torah and other jewish texts are forbidden from pronouncing.  It’s translation into the latin alphabet is YHVH, or Yaweh and has since evolved into ‘Jehova’ which is itself replaced in Christian texts with the denotation of ‘Lord’ just as Judaism uses ‘Adona’, to avoid the blasphemy of speaking his name.  Of invoking the highest entity.  The unknowable, infallible, masterless Aeon.

~ 

Be it in the persecution of the Alchemists of the 16th Century or the Psychonauts of the 60’s and 70’s, each with their own personal Good Friday Experiment, throughout history there has always been an Inquisition of one kind or another.  Always undertaken by an authority who claims to have all the answers and the ear of the divine.  It is important to remember that with the right focus and willingness, one can sidestep the systems set up to prevent the realisation that one could themselves become that divinity.  Whether working in metaphors of spiritual transcendence or political revolution, most important is the realisation that the secret these authorities keep the safest is that they were founded to serve you and you have the tools to enforce this.  They are lying all around us.  Waiting to be picked up.  Waiting to be sharpened.

Michael Cowell

-March 2014