This article is a little bit different, because the pictures are going to do a lot of the talking this time. There is substantial background information given on several of the people here, but in many cases you can just look at the pictures and see what you see.
Although you will see plenty of the occult symbolism and other things we talk about, you may also recognize some other things in this certain group of individuals that appear to be out of proportion with what is seen in the rest of the population.
In statistics, this is called the “probable distribution” of something, based upon how “x” thing is naturally distributed in the rest of a given sample group – which, in this case, is the rest the human population.
Pattern Matching and Pattern Recognition
In computer science, pattern matching is the act of checking for the presence of the constituents of a given pattern, in contrast to pattern recognition, where the pattern is rigidly specified.
Pattern recognition is more complex when templates are used to generate variants. For example, in English, sentences often follow the "N-VP" (noun - verb phrase) pattern, but some knowledge of the English language is required to detect the pattern. Pattern recognition is studied in many fields, including psychology, ethology, cognitive science and computer science.
Holographic associative memory is another type of pattern matching where a large set of learned patterns based on cognitive meta-weight is searched for a small set of target patterns. The holographic associative memory exhibits some remarkable characteristics. Holographs have been shown to be effective for associative memory tasks, generalization, and pattern recognition with changeable attention. Ability of dynamic search localization is central to natural memory.
For example, in visual perception, humans always tend to focus on some specific objects in a pattern. Humans can effortlessly change the focus from object to object without requiring relearning. It provides a computational model which can mimic this ability by creating representation for focus.
This type of computer intelligence is used in such modern applications as the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) and facial-recognition software used in airport security, law enforcement, etc.
It has been said for a very long time that the ruling elite, Hollywood and the entertainment industry, in general, are one big, incestuous family. There is at least one case of that here, literally, but mostly what this means is that the elite and celebrities are interrelated, so much so that even those who are paying attention don’t always recognize the nature and extent of these interrelationships.
Monarch Butterflies (Danaus plexippus) migrate to final destinations that they have never been before. As Monarchs fly north (or south, depending if it's spring or fall) they stop to mate and nourish themselves on milkweed plants, where they lay their eggs. Although many butterflies die before reaching their endpoint, their pin-head size eggs hatch, become caterpillars, and then butterflies, which continue the journey.
By the time the Monarch Butterflies arrive at their final destinations, they may be the fourth or fifth generation. Scientists believe that inherited information transmitted by genetic coding enables the tiny creatures to navigate. They may also use the earth's magnetic field or the position of the sun to guide them.
Similarly, many other mental and physical traits are passed down within families, genetically. Just as the Monarch butterfly passes navigation information to its young, genetically, the Monarch (MK-ULTRA) and other mind control programs sought to pass along, genetically, the innate ability to dissociate, within families.
There is much more than just a “buddy system” of who knows who in show business – there are actual family bloodlines, just as it was with the more ancient elite families of nobility (royalty) of this world. These genetic, multi-generational aspects tie directly into this, as it relates to family bloodlines.
This article was originally going to be one massive, overwhelming chunk of evidence and information, but I've decided to break it up into three (or perhaps more) major parts.
Within these parts, there are several categories: music (past and present), movies, television, child stars (who often fall into multiple categories), "supermodels", some corporate elite, politicians and world leaders, some other types of criminals (suspected of being MK related) and a few miscellaneous people who are just famous for being famous, not for doing anything especially artistic.
I hope you'll enjoy this historical tour of some of the people who were, and are, considered to be the elite of the entertainment business, corporate and other parts of our world. Let’s begin.
A Brief History of Stars
Chapter One: The First Megastars
Elvis Aaron Presley
Elvis Presley was known as “The King of Rock and Roll”. He was one of the original megastars, famous for music, movies and television – and just for being ELVIS.
The Colonel
Many people believe “Colonel” Tom Parker was Elvis' “handler”, in more ways than are known publicly.
"Colonel" Thomas Andrew "Tom" Parker (June 26, 1909 – January 21, 1997) born Andreas Cornelis ("Dries") van Kuijk, was a Dutch-born entertainment impresario known best as the manager of Elvis Presley. Parker's management of Presley defined the role of masterminding talent management and was seen as central to the astonishing success of Presley's career.
The "Colonel" displayed a ruthless devotion to his client's interests and took far more than the traditional 10 percent of his earnings (reaching up to 50 percent by the end of Presley's life).
Presley said of Parker: "I don't think I would have been very big with another man. Because he's a very smart man."
For many years Parker claimed to have been U.S.-born, but it eventually emerged that he was born in Breda, Netherlands. At the age of 15 Parker moved to Rotterdam, gaining employment on the boats in the port town.
At age 17 he first displayed signs of wanting to run away to America to "make his fortune", and a year later, with enough money to sustain him for a short period, he emigrated illegally into America by jumping ship off the vessel that employed him. During his first visit there, he traveled with a Chautauqua educative tent show, before returning briefly to Holland.
Parker returned to America at age 20, finding work with carnivals easily due to his previous experiences as a boy in Holland. After a short period, he decided to enlist with the United States Army, taking the name "Tom Parker" from the officer who interviewed him during his enrollment, to disguise the fact he was an illegal immigrant.
After serving two years with the 64th Regiment of the Coast Guard Artillery at Fort Shafter in Hawaii, Parker re-enlisted at Fort Barrancas in Florida. During this second enlistment he went AWOL and was charged as a deserter.
Parker was punished with solitary confinement, from which he emerged with a psychosis that led to two months in a mental hospital. He was later discharged from the Army due to his 'illness'.
It was after this psychosis and his subsequent discharge from the Army that Parker began to build up a list of contacts that would prove valuable in later years, including men of authority and influence.
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| Vernon Presley, Elvis Presley and "Colonel" Tom Parker |
Elvis Presley died of an apparent drug overdose after many years of high intensity drug use.
In the first eight months of 1977 alone, “Dr. Nick” (George Nichopoulos), had written 199 prescriptions totalling more than 10,000 doses of uppers, downers and assorted narcotics: all in Elvis' name. He told Adam Higginbotham he did it because he 'cared', in this very interesting article.
Priscilla Presley
Before you read this next part, I want to first point out that when some people say that military service and/or being part of a military family is a definite indication of mind control involvement, this type of generalization is simply not accurate.
However, in some specific cases it may be very accurate, indeed, and you will see this pattern emerge over and over again when researching this subject.
“Priscilla Beaulieu Presley was born Priscilla Ann Wagner on May 24, 1945.
Priscilla's biological father was US Navy pilot James Wagner. His parents were Kathryn and Harold Wagner. On 10 August 1944, at the age of 23, he married Priscilla's mother; they had been dating for more than three years. He was killed in a plane crash while returning home on leave when Priscilla was six months old.
When Priscilla discovered this "family secret" whilst rummaging through an old wooden box of family keepsakes, she was encouraged by her mother to keep it from the other children as she feared it would "endanger our family closeness".
In 1948 her mother met a United States Air Force officer named Paul Beaulieu, from Quebec. The couple were married within a year. Beaulieu took over the raising of Priscilla and was the only father Priscilla would ever know. Over the next few years, Priscilla grew up quickly, helping to care for the growing family as her father's Air Force career moved them from Connecticut to New Mexico to Maine.
In her own words, she described herself during this period as "...a shy, pretty little girl unhappily accustomed to moving from base to base every two or three years." Priscilla later recalled that she felt uncomfortable moving so often because she never knew if she could make friends for life, or even if she would fit in with the new people she met on each move.
In 1956, the Beaulieus moved to and settled in Austin, Texas, but soon her father was transferred to Wiesbaden, Germany. Priscilla was "crushed" by this news, and after finishing Junior High her fears of leaving her friends behind and making new ones were once again at the forefront of her mind.”
Lisa Marie Presley
Lisa Marie Presley was born on February 1, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, exactly nine months after her parents' wedding. She is the daughter and only child of Elvis Presley by his wife Priscilla Presley. Due to her father's superstar status, she has been called "The Princess of Rock and Roll".
“Until her parents' divorce, she lived at Graceland, Elvis' Memphis estate. She divided her time between living at Graceland with her father and in Beverly Hills with her mother. This arrangement continued until her father died on August 16, 1977, after which she lived exclusively in Beverly Hills.
When her father died, Lisa Marie became the sole heir and inherited Graceland, his legendary estate in Memphis. As a teenager, Lisa Marie became a member of the Church of Scientology, where she met her first husband, Danny Keough.
Scientology and Mommy’s Lustful Boyfriend
Presley's mother sent her to several boarding schools. She attended the 10th grade at an alternative boarding school in Ojai, California, called Happy Valley School. The last secondary school she attended was the Scientology-affiliated Apple School (later known as Los Feliz Hills School) in Los Angeles.
After the death of her father, Lisa and her mother had serious problems in their relationship. The key reason for this disharmony was her mother’s live-in boyfriend, Michael Edwards. Her mother often left her alone with Michael due to her commitments as a TV actress. After Priscilla broke up with Edwards, he admitted his lust for Lisa Marie in his book, titled ‘Priscilla, Elvis & Me’.”
Four Marriages made in…well, not Heaven
At the age of 20, Presley married her musician boyfriend Danny Keough on October 3, 1988. During their six-year relationship, they had two children together , Danielle Riley, born May 29, 1989 and Benjamin Storm, born October 21, 1992. In April 1994, Presley announced that she and Keough were separating, but would remain on good terms for their children's sake.
Later that month, she flew to the Dominican Republic to get a quick divorce, which was finalized on May 6, 1994. In the years since their divorce, Presley and Keough have remained friends and even written some songs together. Keough lives in the guest house on the same property as her home. He home-schooled their children during her musical tours.
Twenty days after her divorce from Keough, Presley married singer Michael Jackson on May 26, 1994, in the Dominican Republic. They had first met when the seven-year-old Presley attended several of his concerts in Las Vegas. According to Yahoo.com, when they met again years later, "things moved very quickly", with Jackson proposing over the telephone after four months. They stayed in contact every day over the telephone.
As child molestation accusations became public, Jackson became dependent on Lisa Marie for emotional support; she was concerned about his faltering health and his addiction to drugs. Lisa Marie explained, "I believed he didn't do anything wrong, and that he was wrongly accused and, yes, I started falling for him. I wanted to save him. I felt that I could do it."
We’ll get more into Michael and the other Jacksons later, but as you can already see, there are significant interrelationships between these elite entertainment families.
Lisa and Cage
Presley was engaged in 2000 to rocker John Oszajca. She broke off the engagement after meeting actor Nicolas Cage at a party.
Cage is the son of comparative literature professor August Coppola, a brother of director Francis Ford Coppola (another elite entertainment family) and dancer/choreographer Joy Vogelsang, Cage changed his name early in his career to make his own reputation, succeeding brilliantly with a host of classic, quirky roles by the late 1980s.
Presely’s relationship with Cage was on-again/off-again from the beginning. They were married on August 10, 2002, in an outdoor wedding at the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel on the Big Island of Hawaii. Cage had proposed just ten days earlier. An avid Elvis fan, Cage is said to be the only person outside the immediate Presley family to have been allowed to see Elvis' bedroom at Graceland.
He filed for divorce after 108 days of marriage, on November 25, 2002, just two days after the couple appeared looking happy together at the premiere of ‘Adaptation’. The divorce was finalized on May 26, 2004. The divorce proceeding lasted longer than the marriage.
Lisa Marie's Twins
Presley married for a fourth time on January 22, 2006, to Michael Lockwood. Lockwood is her guitarist, music producer, and director. Keough, Presley’s first husband, served as best man at the couple's wedding, which was held in Japan. Priscilla Presley walked her down the aisle in front of 16 guests.
In March 2008, Presley announced that she was pregnant, following speculation over her apparent weight gain. Her husband is a first-time father. On October 7, 2008, Presley gave birth to fraternal twin girls, Harper Vivienne Ann and Finley Aaron Love via Caesarean section. Presley stated that she and her family have now moved to England.
Twins are very significant in mind control related subjects. The early work in this area, done by Nazi monsters such as Dr. Josef Mengele (“Dr. Death”, or “Dr. Green”) at death camps like Auschwitz and Dachau, focused heavily on genetics and mind control, not to mention the senseless and brutal torture of many thousands of human beings. Josef Mengele was quite fascinated and obsessed with twins. You can find plenty of information on this, if you are interested, just google Mengele Dachau, etc.
Dr. Josef Mengele once said this, regarding dissociative trauma-based mind control:
“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”
Ol’ Blue Eyes, aka “The Chairman of the Board”
Frank Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey as the only child of Italian immigrants Natalie Della (née Garaventa) and Antonio Martino Sinatra. He left high school without graduating, having attended only 47 days before being expelled because of his rowdy conduct. His mother, known as Dolly, was influential in the neighborhood and in local Democratic Party circles, but also ran an illegal abortion business from her home; she was arrested several times and convicted twice for this offense.
Sinatra had three children, Nancy, Frank Jr., and Tina, all with his first wife, Nancy Barbato. He was married three more times, to actresses Ava Gardner (1951–1957) and Mia Farrow (1966–1968) and finally to Barbara Marx (married 1976), to whom he was still married at his death.
Throughout his life, Sinatra had mood swings and bouts of depression. He acknowledged this, telling an interviewer in the 1950s: "Being an 18-karat manic-depressive, and having lived a life of violent emotional contradictions, I have an over-acute capacity for sadness as well as emotion."
In her memoirs 'My Father's Daughter', his daughter Tina wrote about the "eighteen-karat" remark: "As flippant as Dad could be about his mental state, I believe that a Zoloft a day might have kept his demons away. But that kind of medicine was decades off."
Sinatra garnered considerable attention due to his alleged personal and professional links with organized crime, including figures such as Carlo Gambino, Sam Giancana, Lucky Luciano, and Joseph Fischetti.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) kept records amounting to 2,403 pages on Sinatra. The files include his rendezvous with prostitutes, and his extramarital affair with Ava Gardner, which preceded their marriage. Celebrities mentioned in the files are Dean Martin, Marilyn Monroe, Peter Lawford, and Sam Giancana's girlfriend, singer Phyllis McGuire.
Norma Jeane aka Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe (June 1, 1926 – August 5, 1962), born Norma Jeane Mortenson, but baptized Norma Jeane Baker, was an American actress, singer, and model. Monroe was born in the Los Angeles County Hospital on June 1, 1926, as Norma Jeane Mortenson (soon after changed to Baker), the third child born to Gladys Pearl Baker.
Gladys was mentally unstable and financially unable to care for the young Norma Jeane, so she placed her with foster parents Albert and Ida Bolender of Hawthorne, California, where she lived until she was seven.
While living with the Bolender's, an unusual incident occurred. One day, Gladys came to the Bolender's and demanded that Norma Jeane be released back into her care. Ida knew that Gladys was unstable at the time and insisted that this situation would not benefit Norma Jeane. Unwilling to cooperate, Gladys managed to pull Ida into the yard while she ran inside the house, locking the door behind her.
After several minutes, Gladys walked out of the front door with one of Albert Bolender's military duffel bags. To Ida's horror, Gladys had stuffed the now screaming Norma Jeane inside the bag, zipped it up, and proceeded to leave the house.
Ida charged towards Gladys and the quarrel resulted in the bag splitting open. Norma Jean fell out and began weeping loudly as Ida grabbed her and pulled her back inside the house, away from Gladys. This was just one of the many bizarre exchanges between young Norma Jeane and her disturbed mother.
In 1933, Gladys bought a house and brought Norma Jeane to live with her. A few months after moving in, however, Gladys suffered a mental breakdown, beginning a series of mental episodes that would plague her for the rest of her life. In My Story, Monroe recalls her mother "screaming and laughing" as she was forcibly removed to the State Hospital in Norwalk.
Norma Jeane was declared a ward of the state, and Gladys' best friend, Grace McKee, became her guardian. It was Grace who had told Monroe that someday she would become a movie star. Grace was captivated by Jean Harlow, and would let Norma Jeane wear makeup and take her out to get her hair curled. They would go to the movies together, forming the basis for Norma Jeane's fascination with the cinema and the stars on screen.
Grace McKee married Ervin Silliman (Doc) Goddard in 1935, and nine-year-old Norma Jeane was sent to the Los Angeles Orphans Home (later renamed Hollygrove), and then to a succession of foster homes. During the time at Hollygrove, several families were interested in adopting her; however, reluctance on Gladys' part to sign adoption papers thwarted those attempts. In 1937, Grace took Norma Jeane back to live with her, Goddard, and one of Goddard's daughters from a previous marriage.
This arrangement did not last for long, as she was nearly sexually assaulted by a drunk Doc Goddard, on at least one occasion. Grace sent her to live in with her great-aunt, Olive Brunings. This arrangement did not last long, either, as 12-year-old Norma Jeane was assaulted (some reports say sexually) by one of Olive's sons.
Biographers and psychologists have questioned whether at least some of Norma Jeane's later behavior (i.e., hypersexuality, sleep disturbances, substance abuse, disturbed interpersonal relationships), was a manifestation of the effects of childhood sexual abuse in the context of her already problematic relationships with her psychiatrically ill mother and subsequent caregivers.
In early 1938, Grace sent her to live with yet another one of her aunts, Anna Lower, who lived in the Van Nuys section of Los Angeles. The time with Lower provided the young Norma Jeane with one of the few stable periods in her life.
The First Issue of Playboy, featuring Mariyn Monroe
After spending much of her childhood in foster homes, Monroe began a career as a model, which led to a film contract in 1946. Her early film appearances were minor, but her performances in 'The Asphalt Jungle' and 'All About Eve' (both 1950) were critically acclaimed. In a few years, Monroe reached stardom and was cast as the leading lady in such films as 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes', 'How to Marry a Millionaire', 'Some Like It Hot', and 'The Seven Year Itch'.
Marilyn Monroe in 'Some Like It Hot’
The typecasting of Monroe's "dumb blonde" persona limited her career prospects, so she broadened her range. She studied at the Actors Studio and formed Marilyn Monroe Productions. Her dramatic performance in 'Bus Stop' was hailed by critics, and she won a Golden Globe Award for 'Some Like it Hot'.
Marilyn Monroe in Life
She made her first appearance on the cover of Life magazine in April 1952, where she was described as "The Talk of Hollywood". Stories of her childhood and upbringing portrayed her in a sympathetic light: a cover story for the May 1952 edition of True Experiences magazine showed a smiling and wholesome Monroe beside a caption that read, "Do I look happy? I should — for I was a child nobody wanted. A lonely girl with a dream — who awakened to find that dream come true. I am Marilyn Monroe. Read my Cinderella story."
It was also during this time that she began dating baseball player Joe DiMaggio. A photograph of DiMaggio visiting Monroe at the 20th Century Fox studio was printed in newspapers throughout the United States, and reports of a developing romance between them generated further interest in Monroe.
Over the following months, four films in which Monroe featured were released. She had been lent to RKO Studios to appear in a supporting role in 'Clash by Night', a Barbara Stanwyck drama, directed by Fritz Lang. Released in June 1952, the film was popular with audiences, with much of its success credited to curiosity about Monroe, who received generally favorable reviews from critics.
On June 29, 1956, Monroe married playwright Arthur Miller, whom she first met in 1950. City Court Judge Seymour Robinowitz presided over the hushed ceremony in the law office of Sam Slavitt (the wedding had been kept secret from both the press and the public). Monroe and Miller wed again two days later in a Jewish ceremony before a small group of guests. Rabbi Robert E. Goldburg, a Reform rabbi at Congregation Mishkan Israel, presided over the ceremony. Nominally raised as a Christian, Monroe converted to Judaism before marrying Miller.
The final years of Monroe's life were marked by illness, personal problems, and a reputation for being unreliable and difficult to work with. The circumstances of her death, from an overdose of barbiturates, have been the subject of conjecture. Though officially classified as a "probable suicide," the possibility of an accidental overdose, as well as the possibility of homicide, have not been ruled out.
On August 5, 1962, LAPD police sergeant Jack Clemmons received a call at 4:25 a.m. from Dr. Ralph Greenson, Monroe's psychiatrist, proclaiming that Monroe was found dead at her home in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California. She was 36 years old. At the subsequent autopsy, eight milligram percent of Chloral Hydrate and 4.5 milligram percent of Nembutal were found in her system, and Dr. Thomas Noguchi of the Los Angeles County Coroners office recorded cause of death as "acute barbiturate poisoning," resulting from a "probable suicide". Many theories, including murder, circulated about the circumstances of her death and the timeline after the body was found.
Some conspiracy theories involved John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, while other theories suggested CIA or Mafia complicity. Some say that she was assassinated by the U.S. government in an attempt to keep her quiet, as she had an affair with John F. Kennedy and may have known too much.
Journalist Anthony Summers examines the issue of Monroe's relationships with the Kennedy brothers at length in two books: his 1993 biography of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, entitled 'Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover', and his 1985 biography of Monroe, entitled, 'Goddess'.
In the Hoover book, Summers concludes that Monroe was in love with President Kennedy and wanted to marry him in the early 1960s; that she called the White House frequently; and that, when the married President had to break off their affair, Monroe became even more depressed, and then turned to Robert Kennedy, who may have visited Monroe in Los Angeles about the time that she died.
In 1999, Monroe was ranked as the sixth greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute. In the years and decades following her tragic death, Monroe has often been cited as a pop and cultural icon.
Chapter Two: The British Invasion
Meet The Beatles
The Beatles were the chosen ones, selected and pushed by the elite to bring about rebellion in the youth, not only in America, but globally. They were the tip of the spear in "The British Invasion”, which was heavily focused on the introduction of the psychedelic drug counterculture into the mainstream of mass culture.
The Beatles are the most popular and influential rock band of all time. Sid Bernstein said, "only Hitler ever duplicated [the Beatles'] power over crowds when the Beatles talk -about drugs, the war in Vietnam, religion -millions listen, and this is the new situation in the pop music world" (Time, Sid Bernstein, Sept. 22, 1967, p. 60).
Note the mirror, split-personality/duality symbolism.
John Lennon created a furor in 1966 when he claimed, "We're more popular than Jesus now." He went on to say, "Christianity will go, it will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that. I'm right and will be proved right." (Newsweek, March 21, 1966).
The Beatles led the way for many of their fans into pagan religion with visits to Guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Most of The Beatles soon split with the Maharishi, however. One reason for this was his suggestion that they turn over 25 percent of their income to his work. Another reason was that they caught the Guru eating meat, which was not allowed to his disciples, and engaging in acts of immorality with female disciples. Lennon later composed a song about the Maharishi titled, 'Sexy Sadie'.
Lennon originally wanted to title the song 'Maharishi', but the Beatles changed the title to 'Sexy Sadie' at George Harrison's request.
Lennon once said of the song: "That was inspired by Maharishi. I wrote it when we had our bags packed and were leaving. It was the last piece I wrote before I left India. I just called him, 'Sexy Sadie' instead of (sings) 'Maharishi what have you done, you made a fool...' I was just using the situation to write a song, rather calculatingly but also to express what I felt. I was leaving the Maharishi with a bad taste. You know, it seems that my partings are always not as nice as I'd like them to be."
George Harrison remained the lone Beatle follower of Hinduism. In 1971, George Harrison released his pagan hymn 'My Sweet Lord', praising the Hindu god Krishna, which ends with the Hare Krishna chant.
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| LSD on Beatles blotter paper. |
Of course, the Beatles' adventures into Eastern mysticism and their association with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi were directly linked to their adventures into psychedelic drug use (most notably LSD), and occurred in the same time frame.
John Lennon admitted that he began taking LSD in 1964 and that "it went on for years. I must have had a thousand trips. I used to just eat it all the time" (Rolling Stone, Jan. 7, 1971, p. 39; cited by Jann Wenner, Lennon Remembers, p. 76).
John Lennon read Timothy Leary's book 'The Psychedelic Experience' in 1966, after Paul McCartney took him to the Indica, a hip New Age bookshop in London. Lennon wrote 'Tomorrow Never Knows' after taking LSD, and he wrote the songs 'Come Together' and 'Give Peace a Chance' for Leary.
Lennon admitted to a Rolling Stone interviewer that there were "a lot of obvious LSD things in the music." Lennon said, "God isn't in a pill, but LSD explained the mystery of life. It was a religious experience."
In an interview with Playboy, Lennon said, "The Beatles thing had just gone beyond comprehension. We were smoking marijuana for breakfast. We were well into marijuana and nobody could communicate with us, because we were just all glazed eyes, giggling all the time. In our own world. That was the song, "Help!." I think everything that comes out of a song -- even Paul's songs now, which are apparently about nothing -- shows something about yourself."
In 1969, Lennon said: "If people can't face up to the fact of other people being naked or smoking pot, then we're never going to get anywhere" (Penthouse, Oct. 1969, p. 29, cited in 'The Legacy of John Lennon', p. 66).
Paul McCartney told Life magazine that he was "deeply committed to the possibilities of LSD as a universal cure-all." He went on to say, "After I took it, it opened my eyes. We only use one-tenth of our brain. Just think what all we could accomplish if we could only tap that hidden part. It would mean a whole new world. If politicians would use LSD, there would be no more war, poverty or famine" (Life, June 6, 1967, p. 105).
George Martin was the producer of The Beatles for many years, and is referred to by some as “The Fifth Beatle”, because he wrote, at a minimum, most or all of the orchestration (without always getting credit). Martin was trained in classical music, and was a composer for various events, including circuses.
You can hear Martin's comical, circus music influences in many of the Beatles songs; 'When I’m 64' and 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' are a few examples of this.
You can also hear George Martin’s heavy classical music influences and orchestration on the intensely sad, 'Eleanor Rigby'. “Wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door…who is it for? Ahh, look at all the lonely people…Where do they all come from? Where do they all belong?”
This sort of takes on a whole new meaning when you consider the possible connection with trauma-based mind control and multiple/fragmented personalities, doesn’t it?
In 1943, when he was seventeen, George Martin joined the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy and became a pilot and a commissioned officer. The war ended before Martin was involved in any combat, and he left the service in 1947.
Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr learning from their mentor, George Martin
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| The Fab Four |
John and Yoko
John Lennon and Yoko Ono lived together for a year while he was still married to Cynthia Lennon, and Ono was still married to an American filmmaker. When Cynthia returned from a vacation in Greece, she found Ono living with her husband in her own home.
Ono was still married to another man when she announced that she was expecting a baby by Lennon. The mocking 'Two Virgins' album cover featured the nude photos of Lennon and Ono on the front and back. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were both heavily involved in the occult. John purchased entire sections of occult literature in bookstores ('Hellhounds on Their Trail'; p. 181).
John and Chairman Mao
The Beatles advocated Communism and the overthrow of authority in songs such as 'Revolution No. 9', 'Working Class Hero', 'Back in the USSR', 'Power to the People', 'Sometime in New York City', 'Give Peace a Chance', 'Bloody Sunday' (which called British police "Anglo pigs"), 'Attica State' ("now's the time for revolution"), 'Angela' (which glorified communist Angela Davis), and 'Piggies'. Lennon performed at anti-America rallies and called upon America to "leave Vietnam to the communists".
Lennon said: "I really thought that love would save us. But now I'm wearing a Chairman Mao badge, that's where it's at. I'm just beginning to think he's doing a good job" (Lennon, cited by Wenner, 'Lennon Remembers', p. 86).
Lennon closely identified himself with the 'Trotskyist Workers' Revolutionary Party', and it was alleged he donated 46,000 English pounds to them. He also gave an interview to 'Red Mole', the Marxist magazine edited by Tariq Ali, and allowed himself to be photographed wearing a Red Mole T-shirt.
For a time Lennon's sympathies were clearly with the Irish Repubican Army (IRA), and supported the terrorist organization, which, at the time was wreaking havoc with their bombings of innocent civilians in Ireland and the UK.
In the light of some of his activities, Lennon's pontifications on PEACE seem profoundly hypocritical. He claimed publicly that he regretted the lyric in 'Revolution' that said: "When you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow."
This was around the same time that Mao Zedong entered The Guinness Book of Records as the world's greatest all-time mass murderer - estimates of the deaths attributed to Mao and his Communist Party vary from 30 million to 100 million, if not more.
Sir John Lennon, MBE
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions. In decreasing order of seniority, these are:
Knight Grand Cross (GBE) or Dame Grand Cross (GBE)
Knight Commander (KBE) or Dame Commander (DBE)
Commander (CBE)
Officer (OBE)
Member (MBE)
So, did John Lennon, who was a vehement and outspoken protester for various causes, return his MBE or say anything in protest of the 30+ million human beings murdered by the Maoist regime he had supported in Communist China or the 50 million people murdered (according to Mikhail Gorbachev some years later) by the Marxist-Leninists that he supported in the Soviet Union?
We heard not a word from John Lennon on that subject.
In 1968, Lennon changed the lyric in 'Revolution', "When you talk about destruction, Don't you know that you can count me out..."
...to "count me in", on the second version of the song released on 'The White Album').
John and Yoko and Paul and Linda
The pictures can speak for themselves here, but I’ll just add that Linda (Eastman) McCartney was the product of two more wealthy elite families; i.e., Eastman-Kodak and Lindner Department stores. Her father was Lee Eastman and her mother was Louise Sara Lindner Eastman, heiress to the Lindner Department Store fortune.
Sympathy for the Devil - The Rolling Stones
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
The Rolling Stones are thought by many to be the epitome of “making a deal with the devil”, for achieving such massive success with only marginal talent, unlike the Beatles, who were actually quite talented. The Stones, too, were a major part of the onslaught in bringing the 1960s psychedelic drug and occult spiritualism “counterculture” into our world.
Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull
Mick Jagger is known as a shrewd and ruthless businessman, as well as having had many exploitative relationships with women. Perhaps the most significant one was his relationship with Marianne Faithful, which was not only exploitative sexually, but also musically, as she is known to have written some of their better songs, as well as being the inspiration for others, and, allegedly, having been the writer of still other songs, whose authorship has been disputed.
Marianne Evelyn Faithfull, Baroness Sacher-Masoch (born 29 December 1946) was born in Hampstead, London. Her father, Major Dr. Robert Glynn Faithfull, was a British military officer and college professor in psychology. Her mother, Eva von Sacher-Masoch, Baroness Erisso, was originally from Vienna, with aristocratic roots in the Habsburg Dynasty and Jewish ancestry on her maternal side.
Faithfull's maternal great great uncle was Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the 19th century Austrian nobleman whose erotic novel, 'Venus in Furs', spawned the word "masochism".
Faithfull married artist John Dunbar on 6 May 1965 in Cambridge with Peter Asher as the best man. On 10 November 1965 she gave birth to their son, Nicholas. She then: "left her husband to live with Mick Jagger" and told the New Musical Express: "My first move was to get a Rolling Stone as a boyfriend. I slept with three and decided the lead singer was the best bet."
In 1966 she took their son to stay with Rolling Stones band member Brian Jones (who was found dead in his swimming pool in 1969) and Anita Pallenberg in London. During that time period, Faithfull started smoking marijuana and became best friends with Pallenberg. She also began a much publicized relationship with Mick Jagger that same year.
The couple became notorious and largely part of the hip Swinging London scene. She was found by British police while on a drug search at Keith Richards' house Redlands in West Wittering, Sussex, while wearing only a fur rug.
In an interview 27 years later with A.M. Homes for Details, Faithfull discussed her wilder days and admitted that the drug bust fur rug incident had ravaged her personal life: "It destroyed me. To be a male drug addict and to act like that is always enhancing and glamorising. A woman in that situation becomes a slut and a bad mother".
In 1968 Faithfull, by now addicted to cocaine, miscarried a daughter (whom she had named Corrina) while retreating to Jagger's country house in Ireland.
Faithfull's involvement in Jagger's life was reflected in some of the Rolling Stones' best known songs. 'Sympathy for the Devil', featured on the album 'Beggars Banquet' (1968), was in part inspired by 'The Master and Margarita', by Mikhail Bulgakov, a book which Faithfull introduced him to.
The song 'You Can't Always Get What You Want', on the 'Let It Bleed' album (1969) was written about Faithfull; the songs 'Wild Horses' and 'I Got the Blues' on the 1971 album 'Sticky Fingers' were also influenced by Faithfull, and she herself wrote 'Sister Morphine'.
The writing credit for the song was the subject of a protracted legal battle; the resolution of the case has Faithfull listed as co-author of the song. In her autobiography, Faithfull said Jagger and Richards released it in their own names so that her agent did not collect all the royalties and proceeds from the song, especially as she was homeless and battling with heroin addiction at the time.
Faithfull finished her relationship with Jagger in May 1970, and lost custody of her son in that same year, which led to her mother attempting suicide. Faithfull lived on London's Soho streets for two years, suffering from heroin addiction and anorexia nervosa.
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| Marianne Faithfull in 'Lucifer Rising' |
In addition to her music career, Faithfull has had a career as an actress in theatre, television and film. Faithfull appeared in the 1967 film 'I'll Never Forget What's 'is Name' alongside Orson Welles (where she notedly became the first person to say "f-ck" in a mainstream studio picture), and in Kenneth Anger's film, 'Lucifer Rising', she played Lilith.
She has played both God and the Devil. She appeared as God in two guest appearances in the British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous opposite friend Jennifer Saunders, with another close friend, Anita Pallenberg, playing the Devil.
In 2004 and 2005, she played the Devil in William Burroughs' and Tom Waits' musical, The Black Rider, directed by Robert Wilson, which opened at London's Barbican Theatre, toured to San Francisco, but from which she was forced to withdraw prior to performances at the Sydney Festival, owing to exhaustion. She also starred in the film 'Irina Palm', in which she plays the central role of Maggie, a 60-year-old widow who becomes a sex worker (prostitute) to pay for medical treatment for her ill grandson.
In October 2008, Faithfull's website and MySpace page announced her tour of readings of Shakespeare's Sonnets, drawing on the 'Dark Lady' sequence. Faithfull also lent her voice to the 2008 film 'Evil Calls: The Raven', although this was recorded several years earlier when the project was still titled 'Alone in the Dark'.
Marianne Faithfull also appeared in the 2008 feature documentary by Nik Sheehan on Brion Gysin and the Dreamachine, entitled 'FLicKeR'. Satanic filmmaker and long-time Rolling Stones associate Kenneth Anger also makes an appearance in 'FLicKeR'. You will hear so much more about him very soon.
(You can read my article about the Dreamachine and Brainwave Entertainment here.)
Keith and Anita
Keith Richards is notorious for his unprecedented drug use and his “walking corpse” appearance. The notorious substance abuser was so deep in the throes of addiction, he reportedly took drastic measures to clean up for an important European tour. There is little disputing that Richards underwent treatment in Switzerland; what is disputed is the nature of the treatment.
While it was most likely a blood-filtering "hemodialysis process", as Victor Bockris writes in 'Keith Richards: The Biography', some have maintained that the guitarist had complete blood transfusions, like a premature embalming. It didn't help that Richards told journalists that, "yes", he had in fact undergone complete blood transfusions.
Anita Pallenberg (born 25 January 1944) is an Italian-born model, actress and fashion designer. She was the romantic partner of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards from 1967 to 1979.
Pallenberg is known for her romantic involvement with Rolling Stones band members Brian Jones, whom she met in 1965 in Munich, where she was working on a modelling assignment, and Keith Richards, for whom she left Jones in 1967 while on holiday in Morocco. She remained in a relationship with Richards until 1980 although they never married.
There were rumours that she also had a brief affair with Mick Jagger during the filming of 'Performance', although Pallenberg denied the affair in March 2007 when 'Performance' was released on DVD.
Author A. E. Hotchner mentions Pallenberg's influence on the development and presentation of the Rolling Stones from the late 1960s and through the 1970s. She played an unusual role in the male-dominated world of rock music in the late 1960s, acting as much more than just a groupie or partner of a band member. Jagger respected her opinion enough that tracks on Beggars Banquet were remixed when Pallenberg criticised them.
In the 2002 compilation release of Forty Licks, Pallenberg is credited as singing background vocals on "Sympathy for the Devil", one of the Stones' more famous songs, and probably a very honest look at their situation and intentions at the time.
In an interview with Creem magazine, Jagger said, “[When people started taking us as devil worshippers], I thought it was a really odd thing, because it was only one song, after all. It wasn't like it was a whole album, with lots of occult signs on the back. People seemed to embrace the image so readily, [and] it has carried all the way over into heavy metal bands today.”
Yes, Mick, only one song...after already having an album titled 'Their Satanic Majesties Request', and many other indicators. These contradictory messages to conceal one's true intentions is reminiscent of that whole duplicity thing I talked about in a recent article.
Of the change in public perception the band experienced after the song's release, Richards said in a 1971 interview with Rolling Stone, "Before, we were just innocent kids out for a good time, they're saying, 'They're evil, they're evil.' Oh, I'm evil, really? So that makes you start thinking about evil... What is evil? Half of it, I don't know how much people think of Mick as the devil or as just a good rock performer or what? There are black magicians who think we are acting as unknown agents of Lucifer and others who think we are Lucifer. Everybody's Lucifer."
Back to Anita Pallenberg. She shared Richards's drug addiction; she was charged first in the 1977 Toronto heroin arrest that led to Richards being arrested on charges that could have led to a lengthy prison sentence. A warrant for Pallenberg's arrest was the reason police came to search the pair's hotel rooms; she pled guilty to marijuana possession and was fined, several weeks after Richards' arrest.
In 1981, after Richards and Pallenberg had split up, Richards stated that he still loved Pallenberg and saw her as much as he ever did, although he had already met his future wife Patti Hansen. In a 1985 Rolling Stone interview, Mick Jagger claimed that Pallenberg "nearly killed me", when he was asked whether the Rolling Stones had any responsibility for the personal drug addictions of people close to the band.
Kenneth Anger
Kenneth Anger (born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemeyer February 3, 1927) is an American underground avant-garde film-maker and author.
His short films, which he has been producing since 1937, have variously merged surrealism with homoerotica and the occult. He has focused upon occult themes in many his films, being fascinated by the notorious English occultist Aleister Crowley and following Crowley's religion of Thelema. This influence is evident from films like 'Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome' (1954), 'Invocation of My Demon Brother' (1969) and 'Lucifer Rising' (1972).
During the 1960s and 70s, Anger associated and worked with a number of different figures in popular culture and the occult, including Anton Szandor LaVey( founder of The First Church of Satan), Mick Jagger and Jimmy Page. Anger has described film makers such as Auguste and Louis Lumière and Georges Méliès as influences, and has been cited as an important influence on later film directors like Martin Scorsese, David Lynch and John Waters.
The mid 1960s saw the arrival of the hippie scene and the increasing use of the mind-altering drugs that Anger himself had been using for many years. In particular, the hallucinogen LSD, which at the time was still legal in the United States, was very popular, and in 1966 Anger released a version of his earlier film, 'Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome', entitled the 'Sacred Mushroom Edition' which was screened to people whilst taking LSD, thereby heightening their sensory experience.
By this time, Anger had become well known throughout the underground scene in the United States, and several cinemas across the country screened his better known films all in one event. With this growing fame, Anger began to react to publicity in much the same way as his idol Aleister Crowley had done, for instance describing himself as "the most monstrous moviemaker in the underground", a pun on the fact that Crowley had been labelled "the wickedest man in the world" by the British tabloids in the 1920s.
Anger's fame on the underground circuit allowed him to increasingly associate with other celebrities, including Anton Szandor LaVey, the founder of The First Church of Satan. The two became good friends and would remain so for many years.
Anger, born in 1930, was a child Hollywood movie star, and became a devoted disciple of Aleister Crowley. Anger, like Crowley, is a Magus, and appears to be the heir to Crowley. Anger believed that, "Lucifer is the patron saint of the visual arts. Color, form - all these are the work of Lucifer."
Lucifer Rising
In 1966, Anger began planning for a new film, which he planned to title, 'Lucifer Rising' , and which would echo his Thelemic beliefs about the ensuing 'Aeon of Horus'. He had the name of Lucifer tattooed upon his chest and began searching for a young man who could symbolically become Lucifer, "The Crowned and Conquering Child" of the new Aeon, for 'Lucifer Rising'.
Anger described his film in this way: “A film about the love generation – the birthday party of the Aquarian Age showing actual ceremonies to make Lucifer rise. Lucifer is the Light god, not the devil – the Rebel Angel behind what’s happening in the world today. His message is that the key of joy is disobedience. Isis (Nature) wakes. Osiris (Death) answers. Lilith (Destroyer) climbs to the place of Sacrifice. The Magus activates the circle and Lucifer – Bringer of Light – breaks through.”
Bobby Beausoleil
Anger met various young men at this time who could play the part of Lucifer in his film, inviting each to live with him, but eventually he settled on a man named Bobby Beausoleil. Beausoleil and Anger became gay lovers, and Beausoleil also formed a band, 'The Magic Powerhouse of Oz', in order to record the music for the film.
Then, in 1967, Anger claimed that the footage which he had been filming for 'Lucifer Rising' had been stolen, and he placed the blame upon Beausoleil, who would deny the claims, later telling Anger's unofficial biographer Bill Landis that "what had happened was that Kenneth had spent all the money that was invested in Lucifer Rising" and that he therefore invented the story to satisfy the film's creditors.
Beausoleil and Anger fell out, with Beausoleil then getting involved with Charles Manson and his cult, 'The Family', and Beausoleil eventually carried out Manson's bidding by torturing and murdering Gary Hinman. Beausoleil was later arrested and is now serving a life sentence in prison along with Charles Manson.
Anger's Patron and Financier - J. Paul Getty
The following year, Anger traveled to London where he first met J. Paul Getty, who would subsequently become Anger's patron and financial backer.
Jean Paul Getty (December 15, 1892 – June 6, 1976) was an American industrialist who lived his last 24 years in the United Kingdom. He founded the Getty Oil Company, and in 1957 Fortune magazine named him the richest living American. At the time of his death, he was worth more than $2 billion. A book published in 1996 ranked Getty as the 67th richest American who ever lived, based on his wealth as a percentage of the gross national product.
Getty moved to England in the 1950s and became a prominent Anglophile. He lived and worked at his 16th-century Tudor estate, Sutton Place near Guildford; the traditional country house became the centre of Getty Oil and his associated companies and he used the estate to entertain his British and Arabian friends, (including the British Rothschild family and numerous rulers of Middle Eastern countries).
Anger and The Stones
Please check out this very interesting interview with Kenneth Anger.
Around this same time, Kenneth Anger also met and befriended Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, members of The Rolling Stones, as well as Richards' drug addicted and occult enthusiast girlfriend, Anita Pallenberg. Anger then decided to use much of the footage created for 'Lucifer Rising' in a new film of his, 'Invocation of My Demon Brother', which starred Beausoleil, LaVey, Jagger and Richards, as well as Anger himself, and the music for this film was composed by Mick Jagger. It was released in 1969, and explored many of the Thelemic themes that Anger had originally intended for 'Lucifer Rising'.
The Process Church of the Final Judgment
Kenneth Anger was also a key link between the Rolling Stones and The Process Church of the Final Judgment.
The Process, or in full, The Process Church of the Final Judgment, commonly known by non-members as the Process Church, was a religious group that flourished in the 1960s and 1970s, founded by the Englishman Robert DeGrimston (originally, Robert Moor) and Mary Anne MacLean.
It originally developed as a splinter client cult group from Scientology, so that they were declared "suppressive persons" by L. Ron Hubbard in December 1965. In 1966 the members of the group underwent a social implosion and moved to Xtul on Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, where they developed "processean theology" (which differs from, and is unrelated to process theology). They later established a base of operations in the United States, in New Orleans, Lousiana.
The Process Church combined community activism with a peculiar set of beliefs: Jehovah, Christ, Satan and Lucifer were not enemies, but all equal parts of Creation. These four personalities were all venerated, though only the 'good guys' were truly worshipped at first. Like many cults that formed in the late 1960s, the Processeans depended on both youthful enthusiasm and cultish practices of separation, unquestioned beliefs that they were the chosen ones, and an apocalyptic worldview.
The Process Church's use of Scientology 'techniques' in order to determine the subconscious drives of members (drives personified by the four archetypes), and its misuse of Alfred Adler's view of the subconscious, helped keep members in line while 'The Teacher' Robert DeGrimston and 'The Oracle' Mary Anne Maclean waited for the end of the world. The world didn't end, but the 1960s did, with the Manson murders.
Manson was originally associated with the Process by several writers (he contributed a meditation on Death to a Process newsletter), most notably in 'The Family: The Manson Group And Its Aftermath' (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1971), a book about Manson written by Ed Sanders.
The Process Church had a unique brand of psychotherapy and religious rituals. The Process' use of the "P-Scope", a device not unlike the Scientologist's "E-Meter", managed to get the Process Church on Scientology's "List of Suppressive Persons". SPs have been targeted by Scientologists for harrassment, lawsuits, protests and invasions of privacy.
They were often viewed as Satanic on the grounds that they worshipped both Christ and Satan. Their belief is that Satan will become reconciled to Christ, and together will come at the end of the world to judge humanity, Christ to judge and Satan to execute judgment.
Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor of the Charles Manson Family trial, comments in his book, 'Helter Skelter' that there may be evidence Manson borrowed philosophically from the Process Church, and that representatives of the Church visited him in jail after his arrest. According to one of these representatives, the purpose of the visit was to interview Manson about whether he had ever had any contact with Church members or ever received any literature about The Process Church.
As a result of a lawsuit filed by The Process Church (a common tactic borrowed from Scientology to harrass any and all critics of their cult), the publisher of Ed Sanders' book about the links between The Process church and the murderous Manson cult, 'The Family', agreed to remove the chapter about the Process Church from this book.
Kenneth Anger has finished writing his book,'Hollywood Babylon III', but has not yet published it, fearing severe legal repercussions if he did so. Of this he has stated that, "The main reason I didn't bring it out was that I had a whole section on Tom Cruise and the Scientologists. I'm not a friend of the Scientologists." The Church of Scientology has been known on many occasions to heavily sue those making negative accusations against them.
During 1966-1967, when the Process Church was reportedly recruiting in London, Kenneth Anger was also on the scene. Author and friend of the Rolling Stones Tony Sanchez describes that Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and their girlfriends Marianne Faithfull and Anita Pallenburg, "listened spellbound as Anger turned them on to Crowley's powers and ideas."(Tony Sanchez, Up and Down WIth the Rolling Stones, p.155)
Having lost his star performer in Bobby Beausoleil, Anger then asked Mick Jagger to play Lucifer in his film. He finally settled upon Anton La Vey, author of 'The Satanic Bible' and head of the First Church of Satan, to play the part. The film was released in 1969 with the title 'Invocation To My Demon Brother'.
In London, Anger had apparently succeeded in recruiting Anita Pallenberg to Satanism. Pallenberg had met the Rolling Stones in 1965, and she immediately began sexual relations with three out of the five members of the group.
Kenneth Anger, commenting on Anita Pallenberg, said, "I believe that Anita is, for want of a better word, a witch...The occult unit within the Stones was Keith and Anita...and Brian [Jones]. You see, Brian was a witch too."
Tony Sanchez writes of Pallenberg in his book, 'Up and Down with the Rolling Stones', "She was obsessed with black magic and began to carry a string of garlic with her everywhere - even to bed - to ward off vampires. She also had a strange mysterious old shaker for holy water which she used for some of her rituals. Her ceremonies became increasingly secret, and she warned me never to interrupt her when she was working on a spell." (Tony Sanchez, Up and Down WIth the Rolling Stones, p.159)
Sanchez continues, "In her bedroom she kept a huge, ornate carved chest, which she guarded so jealously that I assumed it was her drug stash. The house was empty one day, and I decided to take a peep inside. The drawers were filled with scraps of bone, wrinkled skin and fur from some strange animals." (Tony Sanchez, Up and Down WIth the Rolling Stones, p.159)
In 1980, a 17-year-old boy, Scott Cantrell, the caretaker of Keith Richard's New England estate, was found shot to death in Anita Pallenberg's bed. The death, ruled a suicide by gunshot wound to the head, was committed with a gun owned by Keith Richards, who was out of the country recording at the time. Richards' house was located near the East Coast headquarters of The Process Church, where local Connecticut police had investigated several bizarre incidents of mutilated animals and ritualistic scenes, found in nearby wooded areas.
The Master Musicians of Joujouka
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| The Master Musicians of Joujouka |
And finally, this very interesting bit of information. In the remote mountains of Morocco there's a group that still practices, in a literal sense, the Rites of Pan. "The Master Musicians of Joujouka", as they are called, inhabit a mystical world where music is the key that unlocks the supernatural.
As rock artist and writer, Robert Palmer, described in his article on them for Rolling Stone Magazine:
"When the music and energy were at their height, the tribesmen milled in ecstatic trances, their eyes rolled back in their heads, screaming like a great rending of the heavens...Pan himself was there. Several times I witnessed the instant when the current began to surge in earnest and coursed through the quivering frame of a local shepherd. When the power came down, the shepherd suddenly wasn't there and Someone Else was looking out of eyes that abruptly began to glow like ruby lasers. One night he came and jerked me out of the crowd, and I ran with him. He leaped through a bonfire, and then I was in the bonfire, surrounded by flames but unharmed. Then I was spinning like a top, spinning into darkness.
'We have seen you through the music,' they (the Pan-worshipers) told me, 'Now you are one of us.'" (Rolling Stone Magazine, March 23, 1989, p. 106)
Palmer is not the only one to become "one of them". Rock has uniquely bridged the gulf, both geographical and cultural, that separates the Joujoukan cult from the rest of the world. Among its other disciples are David Bowie, Robert Plant and Patti Smith.
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| Brian Jones and Anita Pallenberg |
The Rolling Stones' founder Brian Jones spent considerable time in Joujouka recording and then later releasing an album of their music. The Stones' 1989 release 'Steel Wheels' features samples of this Moroccan form of voodoo.
Finally, it is perhaps no coincidence that on Patti Smith's most Joujoukan influenced album, 'Radio Ethiopia', she writes in her liner notes what could double as the bottom line for either Pan or Satan in their musical war for the hearts and minds of men:
"Rock n roll is royal warfare...the universe is our battleground...the fender - all guitars - our weapons...the technicians - great soldiers...the people - tender barbarians...the goal - the freedom to possess the key of the fifth battalion and release the fierce and stampeding angels of Abaddon (hell)."
The Master Musicians of Joujouka have a long history being recorded by Western artists. The name Master Musicians of Joujouka was first used by Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs (the inventors of the "Dreamachine", I discussed in this article) in the 1950s, Timothy Leary and Rosemary Woodruff Leary in the 1960s and 1970s and on the Brian Jones (Rolling Stones) L.P. released in 1971.
Sufism, Pan and Timothy Leary
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| LSD guru Timothy Leary |
The Master Musicians of Joujouka adhere to the traditional Sufi trance music of their patron saint passed down for 1200 years. LSD guru, Timothy Leary, having visited the village in September 1969 wrote an essay on his time with Mohamed Hamri and the master musicians in his 1971 book 'Jail Notes' called "The four thousand year old rock'n'roll band". Leary based his dating on Burroughs's belief that the ritual Boujeloud, performed in Joujouka, owes its origin to the Ancient Greek deity, Pan.
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| Pan and his flute |
Beat Generation
Their first exposure to Western audiences came through their introduction to the Beats. Painter/folklorist Mohamed Hamri, whose mother was an Attar from the village, led artist Brion Gysin to Joujouka to meet the group.
Gysin became fascinated with the group's music and led William S. Burroughs to the village. Burroughs described it as the world's oldest music and was the first person to call the musicians a "4000-year-old rock and roll band". In Tangier, Gysin and Hamri founded the 1001 Nights restaurant, in which the musicians played throughout the 1950s to a largely Western audience in what was then an international zone, the "Interzone" of Burroughs' fiction.
Brian Jones and Ornette Coleman
When Rolling Stones lead guitarist Brian Jones visited Morocco in 1968, Gysin and Hamri took him to the village to record the Master Musicians of Joujouka in the ground-breaking release Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka, whose original release featured cover artwork by Hamri before a controversial 1990s redesign. Ornette Coleman recorded with the musicians in January 1973, some results of which featured on his LP Dancing in Your Head. A second LP, Master Musicians of Jajouka, was released in 1974.
1990s to present CD and DVD releases
The Master Musicians of Joujouka, now led by Ahmed Attar, released their third album Joujouka Black Eyes, on Sub Rosa in 1995. In 1996 Sufi: Moroccan Trance II was released, an album featuring the Sufi music of Joujouka's saint Sidi Ahmed Scheech and also Gnawa music from Marrakesh. The same year 10%: file under Burroughs featured the Master Musicians in collaboration with Marianne Faithfull on "My Only Friend," an homage to Brion Gysin, as well as a prayer giving blessings and a vocal track by the musicians.
The same CD features artists such as Scanner sampling the musicians to create homages to Gysin and Burroughs. Other artists on album include Bill Laswell, Herbert Huncke, Burroughs, Bomb the Bass, Gysin, Chuck Prophet, and Stanley Booth.
The musicians travelled to perform at Casa Da Musica, Porto, Portugal in spring 2006. Their most recent CD Boujeloud recorded over a four year period, documents the music of the Boujeloud or Pan ritual, was released in September 2006.
A DVD, 'Destroy all Rational Thought', featuring their 1992 performances at the Here To Go Show in Dublin, Ireland was released in 2007. The documentary also feature the music of Laswell, Material, and Shabba Ranks. It also features Gysin and Burroughs, whose works were the focus of the show.
Music and Instruments
The Joujouka brotherhood play a form of reed, pipe, and percussion music that relies on drones, improvisation, and complex rhythms, much of which is unique to Joujouka.
Their flute is called the lira and is considered the oldest instrument in Joujouka. The double-reed instrument is called the rhaita; it is similar to an oboe, but possessing a louder sound and more penetrating tone. The drum is called the tebel and is made of goat skin and played with two wooden sticks. There is also another goat-skin drum called the tarija which allows for more fast-paced virtuosity.
The music itself is considered to be part of the Sufi tradition of Islam. Prior to the colonization of Morocco by France and Spain, master musicians of the village were said to be the royal musicians of the sultans. In past centuries master musicians of the Joujouka village traditionally were excused by the country's rulers from manual labor, goat-herding, and farming to concentrate on their music because the music's powerful trance rhythms and droning woodwinds were traditionally considered to have the power to heal the sick.
The music of the region has a strong connection to Pan. According to the tale, thousands of years ago a goat-man called "Bou Jeloud" appeared to an Attar ancestor in a cave, and danced to his music. The musicians of the village re-enact this event annually.
Thunder, Lightning and the Hammer of the Gods
Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin
The above phrase was used to describe the power of Led Zeppelin – not only their blending of blues and hard rock styles - but also their charisma and mystique. The phrase was probably borne of singer Robert Plant’s fascination with the Norse legends of Thor and Valhalla, which are mentioned in several of their songs, as are other mythological figures, such as 'Achilles’ Last Stand'.
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| Count the number of tuning pegs on that guitar...go ahead, I dare you. |
Jimmy Page was a groundbreaking guitarist at this time in rock history, perhaps as revolutionary as Jimi Hendrix, in a different way.
Jimmy Page is notorious for his obsession and fascination with the occult, in general, and Aleister Crowley, in particular. Page made frequent trips to Cairo, Egypt, for various unknown reasons, and even went so far as to purchase Crowley’s former estate, known as Boleskine House, located on the Southeastern shore of Loch Ness, in Scotland.
During tours and performances after the release of the fourth album, Page often had the "Zoso" symbol embroidered on his clothes, along with zodiac symbols. These were visible most notably on his "Dragon Suit", which included the signs for Capricorn, Scorpio and Cancer which are Page's Sun, Ascendant and Moon signs, respectively.
The artwork inside the album cover of Led Zeppelin IV (regarded by many as their best album, which includes their biggest hit song, ‘Stairway to Heaven’) is from a painting by William Holman Hunt, influenced by the traditional Rider/Waite Tarot card design for the card called "The Hermit". Page transforms into this character during his fantasy sequence in Led Zeppelin's concert film ‘The Song Remains the Same’.
The Swan Song Records logo - William Rimmer’s painting ‘Evening’, or ‘Fall of Day’
Swan Song Records was a record label launched by the English rock band Led Zeppelin on 10 May 1974. It was overseen by Led Zeppelin's manager Peter Grant and was a vehicle for the band to promote its own products as well as sign artists who found it difficult to win contracts with other major labels. The decision to launch the label came after Led Zeppelin's five year contract with Atlantic Records expired at the end of 1973. Atlantic Records ultimately distributed the label's product.
"William Rimmer was an obscure American painter, who did a picture around 1869 - 1870 entitled "Evening" or the "Fall of Day" which is currently in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. This picture was adopted by Led Zeppelin as the "Swan man" logo and appears in the centre of the Led Zeppelin vinyl LPs. Steven William Rimmer is a related descendant of the 19th century artist, and has a few details on his website. He quotes:
"Evening or the Fall of Day depicts the god Apollo rising from the earth at sunset — pretty much everyone who sees it seems to think it's Icarus, an angel or various Christian devils."
(Of course, Apollo doesn't rise at sunset, but I think I know what he means).
Note that the original Rimmer painting was modified slightly, with both arms raised and some alteration to the wings, for the Led Zeppelin emblem.
Is this Apollo?
Most people believe that the winged person is Apollo, who is falling in anguish at the end of the day. As a "Swan Song" is a dying dirge, the fall of the sun god Apollo at the end of the day would be a fitting symbol. Apollo is also the God of music - a fitting image for Led Zeppelin. But is the figure falling or rising? I decided to explore this further.
Or is it Lucifer?
Research reveals that William Rimmer never specifically stated that the figure was Apollo or anyone else. Some close to him believed that the winged man represented the angel Lucifer. Lucifer means "bringer of light", a symbol of which was the planet Venus which appears as the evening (or morning) star. Venus was very important for early civilisations - the orb of the monarch, the horns on the vikings helmet and the 5 sided pentagon star (later labeled as the witches symbol) all derive directly from the worship of Venus. After the sun and moon, Venus is the brightest object in the sky."
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| Venus, as seen from the Magellan spacecraft. |
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| Venus, imaged with an ultraviolet filter to enhance cloud structures, by the Galileo spacecraft. (Images courtesy of NASA/JPL) |
The following is from a very interesting and revealing article called "Patterns in Nature”, written by a follower of the new age cult known as Theosophy.
“The time taken by Venus to seemingly orbit the Earth (i.e. a Venus synod) is currently 584 days, so that 5 Venus synods are equivalent to 8 ‘practical’ earth-years (of 365 days). Venus has a sidereal orbital period of 225 days, and 13 of these periods equal 8 practical earth-years.
In both cases, the numbers composing these ratios are consecutive Fibonacci numbers, and therefore give approximations to the golden section: 8/5 = 1.6, and 13/8 = 1.625. Venus rotates extremely slowly on its axis: its day lasts 243 earth-days, or 2/3 of an earth-year (the same ratio as a musical fifth). Every time Venus and earth ‘kiss’, Venus does so with the same face looking at earth. Over the 8 years of the 5 kisses, Venus will have spun on its own axis 12 times in 13 of its years.
Thus, in 8 years Venus has 5 inferior conjunctions (when it lies between earth and sun) and 5 superior conjunctions (when it lies on the opposite side of the sun). Plotting either of these sets of 5 conjunctions in relation to the zodiac produces a five-pointed star or pentagram, the segments of the constituent lines being related according to the golden section.
There is a slight irregularity, for the pentagram is not completely closed, there being a difference of two days at the top. This irregularity generates a further cycle, as it means that the pentagram will rotate through the whole zodiac in a period of about 1200 years.
It is interesting to note that the pentagram was associated with the Babylonian goddess Ishtar-Venus, and that depictions of Venus as a five-pointed star have also been found at Teotihuacan in Mexico. In theosophy, Venus is said to be closely connected with our higher mind (manas), the fifth principle of the septenary human constitution.”
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| Teotihuacan: stellar symbol of Venus dispensing its influence downwards toward the earth. |
Over a period of almost exactly 8 years, Venus traces out a pentagram (or horn shape) in the sky - the 8 year rotational period is so exact that it was used for time synchronisation until quite recent times (the error is less than half a day every 8 earth years) and accurate time keeping was important to early societies for crop planting, etc.
"Could it be that the picture depicts the rising of the evening star, Venus? Venus was the "light bringer" or Lucifer, whom the Christian church later associated with Satan in order to dissuade worship of the ancient Pagan idol. The Luficer connection would undoubtedly have been attractive to Jimmy Page.
The figure is androgynous (i.e., neither male nor female).
[Actually, I differ with this author here, in that androgynous means having both genders, as opposed to being asexual - having no sexual reproductive organs, or being of neither gender - which the winged creature appears to be. It clearly does have male muscularity, however, so this may account for his use of the term androgynous.]
Is it the sun falling ("Fall of the day"), or Venus rising ("Evening"), or perhaps intended to be a combination of both indicative of that period at sunrise or sunset, where briefly everything is in equilibrium? The wind ceases, and a feeling of stillness and peace is felt (this is said to be the optimum time for meditation as taught in many Eastern and Western traditions).
Icarus?
It could also represent Icarus, who flew too close to the sun with wings made of feathers and wax (the wax melted and the feathers fell out, and Icarus took a nose dive into what is now the Icarian sea). Wikipedia states that Atlantic Records intended their logo to be Icarus (which is not identical to the William Rimmer original), but what would recording executives know about such matters?
The association of the image to the "Swan Song" label was done by Jimmy Page and Atlantic Records, not William Rimmer. In the Eastern religious traditions, the title Paramahansa or "Great Swan" was given to the greatest spiritual masters. The swan was held in high regard by the Eastern mystics. Is the Swan Song logo depicting the last call of an old dying bird, or does it herald superlative musical excellence?"
Mr. Crowley
Aleister Crowley, born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was a member of the esoteric Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, as well as a co-founder of the A∴A∴ and eventually a leader of Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.).
He is known today for his magical writings, especially The Book of the Law, the central sacred text of Thelema, although he also wrote widely on other subjects, including a large amount of fiction and poetry.
Crowley was also a hedonist, bisexual, recreational drug experimenter and social critic. In many of these roles he "was in revolt against the moral and religious values of his time", espousing a form of libertinism based upon the rule of:
"Do What Thou Wilt".
Crowley had periods of magical experimentation in the United States. In June 1916, he began the first of these at the New Hampshire cottage of Evangeline Adams, having ghostwritten most of her two books on astrology.
Slightly more than a month later, having taken ether (ethyl oxide), he had a vision of the universe from a modern scientific cosmology that he frequently referred to in later writings. Crowley began another period of magical work on an island in the Hudson River after buying large amounts of red paint instead of food. Having painted "Do What Thou Wilt" on the cliffs at both sides of the island, he received gifts from curious visitors. Here at the island, he had visions of seeming past lives, though he refused to endorse any theory of what they meant beyond linking them to his unconscious.
Magick and Drugs
Crowley was a habitual drug user and also maintained a meticulous record of his drug-induced experiences with opium, cocaine, hashish, cannabis, alcohol, ether, mescaline, morphine, and heroin. Allan Bennett, Crowley's mentor, was said to have "instructed Crowley in the magical use of drugs."
While in Paris during the 1920s, Crowley experimented with psychedelic substances, specifically Anhalonium lewinii, an obsolete, scientific name for the mescaline-bearing cactus peyote , and initiated the writers Katherine Mansfield and Theodore Dreiser in its use.
In October 1930, Crowley dined with Aldous Huxley in Berlin, and to this day rumours persist that he introduced Huxley to peyote on that occasion. Aldous Huxley, of course, wrote the very famous book, 'Brave New World', and his brother, Julian Huxley was the father of Transhumanism.
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| This album features the song, "Mr. Crowley" - and some outstanding neo-classical guitar work, by the late, great Randy Rhoads. |
In 2002, a BBC poll described Crowley as being the seventy-third greatest Briton of all time, whilst he has influenced and been referenced to by numerous writers, musicians and film-makers including Alan Moore, Ozzy Osbourne, Jimmy Page, David Bowie, Kenneth Anger and Harry Everett Smith.
In addition to his vast occult beliefs and activities, Crowley, was also an avid chess player, mountaineer, poet and playwright, and it has also been alleged that he was a spy for the British government, although this remains unproven.
Richard B. Spence writes in his 2008 book, 'Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence and the Occult', that Crowley could have been a lifelong agent for British Intelligence.
While this may have already been the case during his many travels to Tsarist Russia, Switzerland, Asia, Mexico and North Africa that had started in his student days, he could have been involved with this line of work during his life in America during the First World War, under a cover of being a German propaganda agent and a supporter of Irish independence.
Crowley's mission might have been to gather information about the German intelligence network, the Irish independent activists and produce aberrant propaganda, aiming at compromising the German and Irish ideals.
As an agent provocateur he could have played some role in provoking the sinking of the RMS Lusitania, thereby bringing the United States closer to active involvement in the war alongside the Allies. He also used German magazines The Fatherland and The International as outlets for his other writings.
The question of whether Crowley was a spy has always been subject to debate, but Spence uncovered a document from the US Army's old Military Intelligence Division supporting Crowley's own claim to having been a spy:
"Aleister Crowley was an employee of the British Government ... in this country on official business of which the British Consul, New York City has full cognizance."
If true, this could be very significant in terms of the connections of British Intelligence in both the psychedelic drug aspects of the CIA MK-ULTRA programs, and what soon after Crowley's death became the “British Invasion” of the rock music and psychedelic drug counterculture, which just happened to coincide with the Vietnam War, etc. You'll have to fill in the blanks for yourselves on all that.
Crowley Speaks...
This section would not be complete without some quotes from Aleister Crowley, himself.
"I simply went over to Satan’s side; and to this hour I cannot tell why. But I found myself passionately eager to serve my new master...I was not content to believe in a personal devil and serve him, in the ordinary sense of the word. I wanted to get hold of him personally and become his chief of staff." (Aleister Crowley, 'The Confessions of Aleister Crowley', p. 67)
"I have never lost sight of the fact that I was in some sense or other The Beast 666." (Aleister Crowley, 'The Confessions of Aleister Crowley', p. 387)
"Before I touched my teens, I was already aware that I was THE BEAST whose number is 666". (Aleister Crowley, 'Magick:Liber ABA, book four, parts I-IV', 1994 Ordo Templi Orientis editon, p. 127)
"For the highest spiritual working one must according choose that victim which contains the greatest and purest force [ed. such as a child]. A male child of perfect innocence and high intelligence is the most satisfactory and suitable victim...But the bloody sacrifice, though more dangerous, is more efficacious: and for nearly all purposes human sacrifice is the best". (Aleister Crowley, 'Magick:Liber ABA, book four, parts I-IV, part Three-Magick in Theory and Practice', 1994 Ordo Templi Orientis ediiton, pp. 207, 208)
"I do not wish to argue that the doctrines of Jesus, they and they alone, have degraded the world to it's present condition. I take it that Christianity is not only the cause but the symptom of slavery." (Aleister Crowley, 'The World's Tragedy', p. XXXIX)
"That religion they call Christianity; the devil they honor they call God. I accept these definitions, as a poet must do, if he is to be at all intelligible to his age, and it is their God and their religion that I hate and will destroy." (Aleister Crowley, 'The World's Tragedy', p. XXXI)
Who are You?
Pete Townshend of The Who
The Who were also a big part of the “British Invasion” of the late 1960’s. Pete Townshend, shown above, is a very influential guitarist and songwriter of that time. Their early work includes, 'My Generation', which is a sort of anthem for those times; rebellion against the existing state of morality in society, as it existed then. Later works include, 'Tommy', a visionary rock-opera concept album and movie that has many references to multiple personalities and trauma-based mind control.
The Eastern Mysticism of The Who
Townshend showed no predilection for religious belief in the first years of The Who's career. By the beginning of 1968, however, Townshend had begun to explore spiritual ideas.
In January 1968, The Who recorded his song 'Faith in Something Bigger' (Odds & Sods). Townshend's art school friend Mike McInnerney gave him a copy of C. B. Purdom's book 'The God-Man', introducing him to the writings of the Indian "perfect master" Meher Baba, who blended elements of Vedantic, Sufi, and Mystic schools.
Townshend swiftly absorbed all of Baba's writings that he could find; by April 1968, he announced himself Baba's disciple. At about this time, Townshend, who had been searching the past two years for a basis for a rock opera, created a story inspired by the teachings of Baba and other Indian spiritualists that would ultimately become 'Tommy'.
Few of the thousands of fans who packed stadiums across Europe and the U.S. to see The Who noticed the religious message in the songs: that 'Bargain' and the middle section of 'Behind Blue Eyes' from 'Who's Next' and 'Listening To You' from Tommy were all originally written as prayers.
One their most famous songs, 'Who are You', which is well known in today’s world as the theme song of the tv series, “CSI”. The very catchy chorus of this song "Who are you, who, who, who, who" was based on Sufi chants – which is another very interesting subject that I plan to get into more in a future article. There’s a good reason that some of the things you hear in music are so catchy – they are based on chants - very hypnotic chants.
Pete Townshend was cautioned by the British police in 2003 as part of Operation Ore. Following a news leak that Townshend was among the subjects of the investigation, he publicly stated that on one occasion he had used a credit card to access a website advertising child pornography.
Townshend, who had posted essays on his personal website in 2002 as part of his campaign against the widespread availability of child pornography on the internet, said that he had entered the site for research purposes and had not downloaded any images. A four-month police investigation, including forensic examination of all of his computers, established that Townshend was not in possession of any illegal downloaded images.
Instead of pressing charges, the police elected to caution him, stating, "It is not a defence to access these images for research or out of curiosity." In a statement issued by his lawyer, Townshend said, "I accept that I was wrong to access this site, and that by doing so, I broke the law, and I have accepted the caution that the police have given me."
The Non-British Invasion: The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Jimi Hendrix was probably the most revolutionary guitarist of modern times. In speaking about a more recent guitar virtuoso, the legendary (and bizarre) musical genius, Frank Zappa, said this: “Eddie Van Halen is the most influential guitarist since Hendrix.”
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is often considered to be the greatest electric guitarist in the history of rock music by other musicians and commentators in the industry.
Hendrix was born on November 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington, while his father, James Allen "Al" Hendrix (1919–2002), was stationed at an Army base in Oklahoma. His father, upon being discharged from the Army in November 1945, took custody of his son and changed his name to James Marshall Hendrix in memory of his deceased brother, Leon Marshall Hendrix.
Hendrix got into trouble with the law, and was given a choice between spending two years in prison or joining the Army. Hendrix chose the latter and enlisted on May 31, 1961. After completing boot camp, he was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division and stationed in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. His commanding officers and fellow soldiers considered him to be a subpar soldier: he slept while on duty, had little regard for regulations, required constant supervision, and showed no skill as a marksman.
For these reasons, his commanding officers submitted a request that Hendrix be discharged from the military after he had served only one year. Hendrix did not object when the opportunity to leave arose. He would later tell reporters that he received a medical discharge after breaking his ankle during his 26th parachute jump.
Jimi Hendrix was the American poster boy for the 1960's psychedelic revolution, and was famous for dropping liquid LSD-25 into his eyes before concerts. Many of his songs, such as 'Purple Haze', were written about his experiences with LSD and other psychedelic drugs.
Jimi Hendrix's interest in spiritism produced not only the song 'Voodoo Chile' but also the following observation from Kwasi Dzidzornu, a conga player who often played with Hendrix. Kwasi was from a village in Ghana, West Africa, where his father was a voodoo priest.
"One of the first things (Kwasi) asked Jimi was where he got that voodoo rhythm from...that many of the signature rhythms Jimi played on guitar were very often the same rhythms that (Kwasi's) father played in voodoo ceremonies. The way Jimi danced to the rhythms of his playing reminded him of the ceremonial dances to the rhythms his father played to Oxun, the god of thunder and lightning. The ceremony is called "Voodooshi". ('Scuse Me While I Kiss The Sky, David Henderson, p. 251)
Whether Hendrix's "voodoshi" was intentional or not is unknown, but two of his closest associates, Alan Douglas, road manager and producer, and Fayne Pridgon, long-time girlfriend, reveal a side of Hendrix that his fans seldom, if ever, hear about. (Interviews taken from the soundtrack album from the film 'Jimi Hendrix', Warner Brothers, 1973)
Alan Douglas: “One of the biggest things about Jimi was what he believed in. He believed that he was possessed by some spirit and I got to believe it myself and that is what we had to deal with all the time. And he was very humble about discussing it with people because he didn’t want people to feel he was being pretentious and so on, but he really believed it and he was wrestling with it constantly”.
Fayne Pridgon: “He used to always talk about some devil, something was in him and he didn’t have any control over it. He didn’t know what made him act the way he acted and what made him say the things he said and songs and different things like that just come out of him...you know. It seems like to me he was so tormented and so torn apart and he really was obsessed with something really evil, you know.”
Frank Zappa also said this about Jimi Hendrix:
“I knew Jimi (Hendrix) and I think that the best thing you could say about Jimi was: there was a person who shouldn't use drugs.”
If you’re wondering why I keep mentioning Frank Zappa, it isn’t necessarily because I’m a fan of his music, perse, but I have always seriously appreciated his extreme intelligence and musical talent. And here are some interesting facts about this very uniquely talented individual:
“Zappa's father worked at the Edgewood Arsenal chemical warfare facility at the Aberdeen Proving Ground. Due to their home's proximity to the arsenal, which stored mustard gas, gas masks were kept in the house in case of an accident. This had a profound effect on the young Zappa: references to germs, germ warfare and other aspects of the defense industry occur throughout his work.
During his childhood Zappa was often sick, suffering from asthma, earaches and sinus problems. A doctor treated the latter by inserting a pellet of radium into each of Zappa's nostrils; little was known at the time about the potential dangers of being subjected to even small amounts of ‘therapeutic radiation’.”
Many of Zappa's childhood diseases may have arisen from exposure to mustard gas, and his health was worse when he lived in the Baltimore area. In 1952, his family relocated mainly because of Zappa's health. They next moved to Monterey, California, where Zappa's father taught metallurgy at the Naval Postgraduate School.
Frank Zappa died in 1993 from prostate cancer.
Chapter Three: The Child Stars
A great deal has already been written about “child stars”, amply demonstrating the pitfalls that often accompany their fame, fortune and involvement in the entertainment business. Far too many unfortunate souls have fallen victim to drug and alcohol addiction, mental illness, violent episodes, suicides and homicides. Some believe that these can be explained simply by “the pressures of fame”, but there may be a lot more to it than just that.
Shirley Temple, or Shirley Jane Temple (born April 23, 1928), is a former American film and television actress, autobiographer, and public servant. She began her screen career in 1932 at the age of three, and, in 1934, skyrocketed to superstardom in 'Bright Eyes', a feature film designed specifically for her talents. She received a special Academy Award in February 1935, and blockbusting super hits such as 'Curly Top' and 'Heidi' followed year after year during the mid to late 1930s.
Mrs. Temple tried to influence her daughter's future by prenatal association with music, art, and natural beauty. During her pregnancy, she listened to phonograph records, read books aloud, and attended dance recitals and concerts. In the child's first years, Mrs. Temple read storybooks to her toddler, altering the pitch of her voice according to the character's sex, and enacted the story and characters. Her daughter began to mimic her.
Early in 1931, Temple’s mother took the first steps in bringing her daughter to the screen. She was convinced her three-year-old daughter had exceptional talent, and, at the prompting of her husband, enrolled the youngster in the highly competitive Meglin's Dance School in Los Angeles, California on the Mack Sennett lot (leased at the time to Educational Pictures, a Poverty Row studio) for twice weekly dance lessons beginning on September 13, 1931.
In 1945, seventeen-year-old Temple married Army Air Forces sergeant John Agar, who, after being discharged from the service, entered the acting profession. The couple made two films together before Temple divorced him on the grounds of mental cruelty in 1949. She received custody of their daughter Linda Susan and the restoration of her maiden name in the process. In January 1950, Temple met the conservative scion of a patrician California family and United States Navy Silver Star recipien,t Charles Alden Black. She married him in December 1950 following the finalization of her divorce and retired from films the same day, to become a homemaker. Her son, Charles Alden Black, Jr. was born in 1952 and her daughter, Lori Alden Black was born in 1954.
Shirley Temple-Black was appointed Representative to the 24th General Assembly of the United Nations by President Richard M. Nixon (1969–70), and was appointed United States Ambassador to Ghana (December 6, 1974 – July 13, 1976) by President Gerald R. Ford. She was appointed first female Chief of Protocol of the United States (July 1, 1976 – January 21, 1977), and was in charge of arrangements for President Jimmy Carter's inauguration and inaugural ball. She was appointed by President George H. W. Bush as United States Ambassador to Czechoslovakia (August 23, 1989 – July 12, 1992).
She also sat on the boards of many corporations and organizations including: The Walt Disney Company, Del Monte Foods, , Bank of America, the Bank of California, BANCAL Tri-State, Fireman's Fund Insurance, the United States Commission for UNESCO, the United Nations Association and the National Wildlife Federation.
In 1967, she ran unsuccessfully for United States Congress. In 1988, she published her autobiography, 'Child Star'. Temple is the recipient of many awards and honors including Kennedy Center Honors and a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.
Judy Garland
Judy Garland as Dorothy, in The Wizard of Oz (also featuring Toto)
Born Frances Ethel Gumm in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, Judy Garland was the youngest child of Francis Avent "Frank" Gumm and Ethel Marion Milne. Garland's parents were vaudevillians who settled in Grand Rapids to run a movie theatre that featured vaudeville acts.
Named after both her parents and baptized at a local Episcopal church, "Baby" (as Frances was called by her parents and sisters) shared her family's flair for song and dance. Baby Gumm's first appearance came at the age of two-and-a-half when she joined her two older sisters, Mary Jane "Suzy" Gumm and Dorothy Virginia "Jimmie" Gumm, on the stage of her father's movie theater during a Christmas show and sang a chorus of "Jingle Bells."
Accompanied by their mother on piano, The Gumm Sisters performed at their father's theater for the next few years. Following rumors that Frank Gumm had made sexual advances toward male ushers at his theater, the family relocated to Lancaster, California, in June 1926. Frank purchased and operated another theater in Lancaster, and Ethel, acting as their manager, began working to get her daughters into motion pictures.
Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years, Judy Garland attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist, and on the concert stage. Respected for her versatility, she received a Juvenile Academy Award, won a Golden Globe Award, received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for her work in films, as well as Grammy Awards and a Special Tony Award.
After appearing in vaudeville with her sisters, Garland was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a teenager. There she made more than two dozen films, including nine with Mickey Rooney and the 1939 film with which she would be most identified, 'The Wizard of Oz'.
Despite her professional triumphs, Garland battled personal problems throughout her life. Insecure about her appearance, her feelings were compounded by film executives who told her she was unattractive and manipulated her on-screen physical appearance. Plied with drugs to control her weight and increase her productivity, Garland endured a decades-long struggle with prescription drug addiction.
Garland was plagued by financial instability, often owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes. She married five times, with her first four marriages ending in divorce. She also attempted suicide on a number of occasions. Garland died of an accidental drug overdose at the age of 47, leaving children Liza Minnelli, Lorna Luft, and Joey Luft.
Judy Garland’s daughter, Liza Minelli (with friends, center)
The King of Pop
Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer-songwriter, dancer, actor, choreographer, poet, businessman, philanthropist and record producer. Referred to as "The King of Pop", he is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time, as well as one of the most influential. His unrivaled contribution to music, dance and fashion, and a much publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades.
Michael Jackson – Before and After
There is simply far too much that can be (and already has been) written about Michael Jackson, and you can find more than enough on your own about his unparalleled fame and success, as well as the many controversies surrounding his life, and death.
Michael’s Father
Joseph Walter "Joe" Jackson (born July 26, 1929) is an American talent manager and the patriarch of the Jackson family of entertainers which includes 'The Jackson 5', Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson.
Joseph's image as a father became tarnished from the late 1980s onward, as the media reported stories told by some of his children that he was abusive towards them. When he managed his family, he allegedly ordered each of them to call him "Joseph", which contributed to several siblings being estranged from their father.
Michael Jackson claimed that from a young age he was physically and emotionally abused by his father, enduring incessant rehearsals, whippings and name-calling, but also admitting that his father's strict discipline played a large part in his success. In one altercation—later recalled by Marlon Jackson — Joseph held Michael upside down by one leg and "pummeled him over and over again with his hand, hitting him on his back and buttocks.” It was alleged that Joseph would also trip up or push his male children into walls.
Michael first spoke openly about his childhood abuse in a 1993 interview with Oprah Winfrey. He said that during his childhood he often cried from loneliness and would sometimes get sick or start to vomit upon seeing his father. Michael recalled that Joseph sat in a chair with a belt in his hand as Michael and his siblings rehearsed and that "if you didn't do it the right way, he would tear you up, really get you." Joseph admitted to whipping his children with switches and belts, but not with any hard object as implied by the word "beating"; he also claimed only to have done so when they misbehaved.
Despite the much-publicized abuse, Michael honored his father with an annual "Joseph Jackson Day" at Neverland Ranch and ultimately forgave him, noting that Joseph's deep-South upbringing during the great depression and the Jim Crow years and working-class adulthood hardened him emotionally and made him push his children to succeed as entertainers.
The Jackson Family
Janet Jackson
Latoya Jackson
The Partridge Family
Danny Bonaduce
David Cassidy
Susan Dey
I once knew a tv producer, who shall remain nameless, that co-habitated with Susan Dey for a period of time. In the interest of avoiding graphic details, I will only say that he mentioned certain things that most definitely indicated programming, in the sexual sense. You can make of that whatever you like.
Shirley Jones
Shirley Jones and some friends
The Brady Bunch
You probably already know about some of the things that occurred within the "Brady family", both on and off the set (drugs, adults having sex with minors, etc. If not, do some research...it will be good for you. :)
Susan Olson and Mike Lookinland
Maureen McCormick
Eve Plumb
Florence Henderson and Ann B. Davis
Barry Williams and Robert Reed
Family Affair
Again, various incidents - drugs, suicide, sexual stuff, etc. - surround the people (victims?) involved here.
One Day at a Time
Bonnie Franklin, Mackenzie Phillips and Valerie Bertinelli
Mackenzie Phillips
In September 2009, Phillips' memoir 'High on Arrival' was released. Phillips appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show for an hour-long interview. She told Winfrey that she first tried marijuana when she was 11 years old, and that her father (John Phillips) did drugs with her and injected her with cocaine.
During the interview, Phillips read excerpts from her book. She said that at the age of 19, on the night before her first wedding, "I woke up that night from a blackout to find myself having sex with my own father." In a later article in People magazine she adds that she was under the influence of drugs provided by her father. Phillips then told Winfrey, "It became a consensual relationship," describing her participation as "sort of "Stockholm Syndrome", where you begin to love your captor." She backed off from her claim that the relationship was consensual saying during her reception speech when she received a Voice of Courage award from Darkness To Light in November, 2009.
John Phillips
Several months later, Mackenzie Phillips repeated her recantation in a more public setting, this assertion was repeated: "As I was writing the book, I thought, this word, it kept sitting wrong with me. But I used it for lack of a better word. Since then, I've been schooled by thousands of incest survivors all across the world that there really is no such thing as consensual incest due to the inherent power a parent has over a child. So, I wouldn't necessarily call it a consensual relationship at this time".
Phillips said the incestuous relationship had happened gradually for ten years, and that she ended it when she became pregnant and did not know who had fathered the child. She stated that her father paid for her to have an abortion, "and I never let him touch me again."
The Osmond Family
All the Osmond boys
Donny Osmond
Marie Osmond
The Two Coreys
Corey Feldman and Corey Haim
[Death update: Corey Haim died on March 10, 2010.
At the end of his life, Haim shared a month-to-month rental at the Oakwood Apartments between Burbank and the Hollywood Hills with his mother, who has breast cancer. Haim did not own a car. Christopher Ameruoso, Haim's neighbor for a year, said Haim sometimes could be seen wandering around the complex, "looking for companionship, looking for friends."
On March 10, 2010, after a 9-1-1 call from his mother, Haim was taken from their home by paramedics to Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, and pronounced dead at 2:15 a.m. Los Angeles police stated that his death appeared to be an accidental overdose and that four bottles containing Valium, Vicodin, Soma (a muscle relaxant) and Haloperidol (an anti-psychotic) were retrieved, later confirmed as prescribed by a specialist, but that no illegal drugs were found at the scene. It emerged that Haim had used aliases to procure 553 prescription pills in the 32 days prior to his death, "doctor-shopping" seven different doctors and using seven pharmacies to obtain the supply, which included 195 Valium, 149 Vicodin, 194 Soma and 15 Xanax.
Haim had been ill with flu-like symptoms for two days before his death. A doctor called on him and took his temperature, but did not suspect serious problems. At one stage, Haim woke his mother and said, "Mom, can you please come and lie next to me, I'm not feeling very good." After he attempted to walk around shortly after midnight, she saw him collapse. Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter said: "As he got out of bed he felt a little weak and went down to the floor on his knees."
Prior to the official autopsy reports being made available publicly, Haim's mother stated that the coroner had given her a "courtesy call" to state his preliminary findings that Haim died of pulmonary edema and was suffering from an enlarged heart and water in the lungs. Haim's agent discounted the possibility of an overdose, citing his recent drive toward clean living and affirming that he had been completely drug-free for two weeks.
Haim's primary doctor confirmed to Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement investigators that Haim was addicted to pain medication.]
The pain of life and addiction is over for you now. Rest in peace, Corey Haim.
Corey Feldman and friend
Different Strokes
Gary Coleman
[Yet another Death Update: Former Different Strokes actor Gary Coleman has died on 5/28/2010, at the age of 42 after suffering a serious brain hemorrhage. The former child star, who suffered from a congenital kidney disease, was admitted to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center on Wednesday following a fall at his home. He was conscious after the accident but his condition got worse.
On Thursday his manager, John Alcantar, said he was "unconscious and on life support". Coleman's wife Shannon decided to take him off life support early on Friday and he died at around 12:05 pm from an intracranial hemorrhage.
A statement released by his rep reads: "Thanks to everyone for their well wishing and support during this tragic time. Now that Gary has passed, we know he will be missed because of all the love and support shown in the past couple of days. "Gary is now at peace and his memory will be kept in the hearts of those who were entertained by him throughout the years."
Coleman, the adopted son of nurse Edmonia Sue and her partner W.G. Coleman, began his television career in the early 1970s with small roles in The Jeffersons and the hit show Good Times before getting the role as Arnold Jackson in Different Strokes in 1978. He starred in the hit series for eight years with Todd Bridges, who played Willis Jackson, as two African-American boys adopted by wealthy white widower Phillip Drummond (Conrad Bain).
Coleman became the show's most popular star, known for his character's catchphrase, "What'choo talkin' 'bout Willis?" and eventually earned $100,000 per episode. He went on to score his own animated series, The Gary Coleman Show, and voiced his character for a year before it was axed in 1983.]
Rest in Peace, Gary Coleman.
Todd Bridges
Webster
Emmanuel Lewis and friend
Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore was born in Culver City, California, the daughter of American actor John Drew Barrymore and Ildikó Jaid Barrymore (née Makó), an aspiring actress born in a Displaced Persons camp in Brannenburg, West Germany to Hungarian World War II refugees.
Barrymore was born into acting: her great-grandparents Maurice Barrymore and Georgie Drew Barrymore, Maurice Costello and Mae Costello (née Altschuk) and her grandparents John Barrymore and Dolores Costello were all actors; John Barrymore was arguably the most acclaimed actor of his generation. She is the grandniece of Lionel Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore and Helene Costello, the great-great-granddaughter of John Drew and actress Louisa Lane Drew, and the great grandniece of silent film actor, writer and director, Sidney Drew.
She is also the god-daughter of director Steven Spielberg, and Sophia Loren. Her first name, Drew, was the maiden name of her paternal great-grandmother, Georgie Drew Barrymore; her middle name, Blyth, was the original surname of the dynasty founded by her great-grandfather, Maurice Barrymore.
Drew Barrymore's career began when she auditioned for a dog food commercial at eleven months old. When she was bitten by her canine co-star, the producers were afraid she would cry, but she merely laughed, and was hired for the job.
She made her film debut in Altered States (1980), a movie about psychedelic drugs and sensory deprivation chambers, in which she got a small part. A year later, she landed the role of Gertie, the younger sister of Elliott, in 'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial', which made her famous. She quickly became one of Hollywood’s most recognized child actors, going on to establish herself in mainly comic roles.
In the wake of this sudden stardom, Barrymore endured a notoriously troubled childhood. She was already a regular at the famed Studio 54 when she was a little girl, smoking cigarettes at age nine, drinking alcohol by the time she was 11, smoking marijuana at 12, and snorting cocaine at 13. Her nightlife and constant partying became a popular subject with the media. She was in rehab at age 13.
A suicide attempt at age 14 put her back in rehab, followed by a three-month stay with singer David Crosby and his wife. The stay was precipitated, Crosby said, because she "needed to be around some people that were committed to sobriety."
Barrymore later described this period of her life in her 1990 autobiography, 'Little Girl Lost'. The next year, following a successful juvenile court petition for emancipation, she moved into her own apartment and has allegedly never relapsed.
The Disney Kids
Jodie Foster
Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster (born November 19, 1962) is an American actress, film director and producer.
Foster began acting in commercials at 3 years old, and her first significant role came in the 1976 film 'Taxi Driver' as the preteen prostitute, Iris, for which she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1989 for playing a rape survivor in 'The Accused'.
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| The highly symbolic promo picture from The Silence of the Lambs, starring Jodie Foster |
In 1991, she starred in 'The Silence of the Lambs' as Clarice Starling, a gifted FBI trainee, assisting in a hunt for a serial killer. This performance received international acclaim and her second Academy Award for Best Actress.
Foster was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of Evelyn 'Brandy' Ella (née Almond) and Lucius Fisher Foster III. Her father, an Air Force Lieutenant-Colonel (a veteran of the Battle of Britain and a highly decorated airman) turned real estate broker, came from a wealthy background and left his wife before Jodie was born.
Evelyn supported Jodie by working as a film producer. After appearing as a child in several commercials, Foster made her first credited TV appearance on The Doris Day Show. Her first film role was in the 1970 television movie 'Menace on the Mountain', which was followed by several Disney productions.
Foster attended a French-language prep school, the Lycée Français de Los Angeles, and graduated in 1980 as the valedictorian. She frequently stayed and worked in France as a teenager, and she still speaks the language fluently without accent. She attended Yale University, and was a member of Calhoun College. She graduated magna cum laude, earning a BA in literature in 1985.
She was scheduled to graduate in 1984 but the shooting of then-President Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley, Jr., in which Hinckley's fascination with Foster created unwanted adverse publicity for her, caused her to take a semester's leave of absence from Yale.
Jodie Foster
John Hinckley, Jr. became obsessed with Foster after watching 'Taxi Driver' a number of times, and stalked her while she attended Yale, sending her love letters to her campus mail box and even talking to her on the phone. On March 30, 1981, he attempted to assassinate U.S. President Ronald Reagan (shooting and wounding Reagan and three others) and claimed his motive was to impress Foster, then a Yale freshman.
The media stormed the Yale campus in April "like a cavalry invasion," and followed Foster relentlessly. In 1982, she was called to testify during Hinckley's trial. After she responded to a question by saying that "I don't have any relationship with John Hinckley," he threw a pen at her and yelled "I'll get you, Foster!"
Another man, Edward Richardson, followed Foster around Yale and planned to shoot her, but decided against it because she "was too pretty." This all caused intense discomfort to Foster, who has been known to walk out of interviews if Hinckley's name is even mentioned. In 1991, Foster cancelled an interview with NBC's Today Show when she discovered Hinckley would be mentioned in the introduction.
Foster's only public reactions to this were a press conference afterwards and an article entitled "Why Me?" that she wrote for Esquire in December 1982. In that article she wrote that returning to work on the film 'Svengali' with Peter O'Toole "made me fall in love with acting again" after the assassination attempt had shaken her confidence. In 1999, she discussed the experience with Charlie Rose of 60 Minutes II.
Jodie Foster is intensely private about certain aspects of her personal life, notably her sexual orientation, which has been the subject of speculation. In her teens, Foster was romantically involved with actor Scott Baio, her costar in Bugsy Malone and Foxes. This is the only relationship of Foster's that has ever been acknowledged.
Foster has two sons: Charles Foster (b. July 20, 1998) and Christopher "Kit" Foster (b. September 29, 2001). Foster gave birth to both children, but has not revealed the identity of the children's father(s).
In December 2007, Foster made headlines when, during an acceptance speech at Hollywood Reporter's "Women in Entertainment" event, she paid tribute to film producer Cydney Bernard, referring to her as "my beautiful Cydney, who sticks with me through the rotten and the bliss."
Some media interpreted this as Foster coming out, as Bernard was believed to be her girlfriend since both met in 1992 during the filming of Sommersby. Foster and Bernard never attended premieres or award ceremonies together, nor did they ever appear to be affectionate with each other. However, Bernard was seen in public with Foster's children on many occasions. On May 15, 2008, several news outlets reported that Foster and Bernard had "called it quits."
Foster is an atheist and does not follow any "traditional religion." She has discussed the "god of the gaps". Foster has "great respect for all religions" and spends "a lot of time studying divine texts, whether it's Eastern religion or Western religion." She and her children celebrate both Christmas and Hannukah.
Lindsay Lohan
You probably already know more than you ever wanted to about Lindsay and the showbiz-addicted Lohan clan.
M.C.
Miley Cyrus and her father, Billy Ray Cyrus
We’re watching this one unfold before our very eyes – Miley is making a very rapid transition from child star to adult sex kitten, as we speak.
There’s just something about those eyes.
Miley Cyrus / HannaH Montana – alter ego, by design.
Miley’s little sister, Noah Cyrus, and her friend Emily Grace Reaves.
If there is a definitive look of dissociative trauma, this may be it. This is sometimes referred to as “The Thousand Yard Stare”, regarding soldiers who encounter extreme trauma, also known as battle fatigue, or more recently, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Emily Grace Reaves
The MMC Mouseketeers
Young Britney Spears
On the evening of January 3, 2008, after not sleeping for over four days, Spears refused to relinquish custody of her children to Federline's representatives. In response, police were called to Spears' home. She was hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after she "appeared to be under the influence of an unknown substance", though blood tests tested negative for any illicit substances. She was held for psychiatric evaluation for two days.
Pending a February 19 hearing, Commissioner Scott Gordon issued an order on January 14 stating that her visitation rights have been suspended indefinitely.
On January 31, a court placed Spears under temporary co-conservatorship of her father James Spears and attorney Andrew Wallete, giving them complete control of her assets.
During her 2008 mental breakdown, Britney abruptly shaved her head. When a Body & Soul tattoo parlor employee looked at the pop star in disbelief and asked why she shaved her head, Spears said, “I don’t want anyone touching me. I’m tired of everybody touching me,” Us Weekly reports.
As a result of an order placed by her psychiatrist, she was taken to UCLA Medical Center to be put on a '5150' involuntary psychiatric hold for the second time that month. Interestingly, UCLA has long been known to have had major involvment in CIA MK-ULTRA research - google it, and see what you find.
On February 1, a restraining order was issued against Sam Lutfi, a prominent figure in Spears' life. She was released from the hospital on February 6, amid speculation that she has bipolar disorder, although medical records are confidential, and no confirmation has been made.
Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, Mouseketeers
Christina Aguilera – Before and After
Aguilera told USA Weekend magazine that she suffered from her father's abuse while her family was stationed on a military base. She says that domestic abuse is common on military bases, in her experience. Starpulse runs the quote from the article with commentary that she's "attacking" military bases, but she seems to be speaking about her childhood and doesn't overgeneralize.
Speaking exclusively to USA Weekend magazine, Aguilera says, "We lived on Army bases when I was little, and it (domestic violence) was happening a lot. The MPs (military police) would come, but a lot of them were doing the same things (to their wives and kids). I was surrounded with domestic violence, not only in my home but my friends'."
Aguilera has never been one to shy away from the abuse she experienced as her mother and father fought and often writes about her memories in songs like 'I'm OK' and 'Oh Mother'.
She adds, "It's therapeutic for me to talk about it. It gives me a reason to understand why I went through what I did."
Christina Aguilera is said to arrive two to four hours late for most every scheduled interview, she also refuses to look interviewers in the eye. During promo interviews she's refused to look at any journalist. Instead, the diva insists that the interview takes place in a dimly lit room, where she sits and stares in the other direction completely to the journalists while they ask, and she answers, questions.
The Many Faces of Christina Aguilera
Keri Russell, another famous Mouseketeer
The Olsen Twins
Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Fuller Olsen (born June 13, 1986) are American actresses. Both have appeared in television and films since infancy. Since then, they have continued their celebrity through numerous television programs, films, interviews, as well as commercial endorsements. Although they are virtually identical in appearance, they are genetically different fraternal twins. (They prefer the term "individual pair".)
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen
In 1987, the twins started their acting careers on the television series, ‘Full House’. They were hired at the age of six months and filming began when they were nine months old. The show was widely popular during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Both sisters played the same character, Michelle Tanner, taking turns during the tapings to do so, in order to comply with strict child labor laws regarding child actors. For the first year, Ashley would cry when she was brought on set to do a scene, so Mary-Kate had more screen time in the first season. Because the producers did not want viewers to know that Michelle was played by twins, the sisters were originally credited as "Mary Kate Ashley Olsen", but in the last season and most of season one, they were credited as separate people.
M. K. Olsen
In 2004, Mary-Kate checked into rehab in Utah for six weeks because she was suffering from the eating disorder anorexia nervosa. It was rumored that there was also a drug problem, but the Olsens' publicist said, "Mary-Kate was not admitted for drugs. Period." Mary-Kate put on about five to seven pounds immediately after her stint in rehab and pictures had shown that she may have gained more weight.
However, Star magazine has, as of January 2007, released a cover story article on Mary Kate's, once again, very low weight. They claim she is at 80 pounds. She has been seen wearing baggy clothes and carrying vast purses. Her spokesperson has denied the weight loss claiming "Mary-Kate has not lost weight. She is taking good care of herself."
In 2005, Mary-Kate ended her romance with Greek shipping heir Stavros Niarchos III. Mary-Kate said that the breakup was one of the main factors in her leave of absence from New York University. "I miss him and I love him," Mary-Kate said, "It's a hurtful and a painful subject." When asked if there was a specific reason for her leaving NYU, she replied, "I think we can all guess." The breakup and Niarchos's subsequent pairing with Paris Hilton led to a rift between Hilton and Mary-Kate.
In 2006, Ashley filed a $40 million lawsuit against tabloid magazine National Enquirer for printing a headline reading "Ashley Olsen Caught In Drug Scandal", with a story accompanied by an unflattering photo of Ashley with her eyes half-closed. The lawsuit stated that the photo was clearly used to create a misrepresentation of Olsen under the influence of drugs. Ashley completely denies the accusations and said that she has not and does not use or sell illegal drugs.
The suit consisted of $20 million in libel damages and $20 million in false light invasion of privacy damages. Per her suit, Ashley Olsen and her lawyers believe that "freedom of the press is a valuable right, but it is not a license for gossipy tabloids to tar and feather innocent celebrities and destroy their reputations and businesses for the rag's profits."
A very interesting choice of pose in this A&E 'Bi-ography' poster, wouldn't you say?
In 2008, Mary-Kate Olsen was caught up in the media-hype surrounding the death of Heath Ledger after Masseuse Diane Lee Wolozin, who had gone to the apartment to give Ledger a 3 p.m. massage and found his naked body in his bed, phoned the 21-year-old Olsen twice before calling the 911 emergency service.
There is also speculation that Olsen was having a relationship with Ledger at the time of his death. Olsen released a statement through her publicist stating "Heath was a friend. His death is a tragic loss. My thoughts are with his family."
The Olsen Twins with Satanic photographer, Terry Richardson. Here is an excellent article about Terry Richardson, by Benjamin Singleton over at PseudOccult Media. Below are some other pictures of Richardson, and examples of his "work", which speak volumes about this very sick man. (Note the knee bruising on the photo on the right - beyond creepy.)
And just, btw...I will say that I felt more than a little sickened at different times as I researched and wrote this article - this section was definitely one of those times. Ironically, one of the other times you'll see later involves another sociopathic photographer.
The very nauseating Terry Richardson
Just a few of the disturbing ideas that Richardson expresses in his "work".
And some of Richardson’s frequent “Lolita” themed photo shoots. Note the suggestive, yet subliminal, positioning of the "Lee" logo there.
Final Thoughts
I hope you’ve enjoyed Part One of this brief historical tour of the entertainment business and some of the people known as “stars” or the elite of the entertainment business, who many people have come to believe are somehow superior or better than average people.
This simply could not be further from the truth - actually it is quite the opposite.
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