PART II. FURTHER ON DARIO ARGENTO'S THE MOTHERS' TRILOGY OF FILMS: THE EMPTINESS IN THE FILM 'INFERNO, 7 FEBRUARY 1980', 107 MINUTES, DIRECTED BY DARIO ARGENTO.

1.0 - THE BLOG'S TITLE:

1.1 - PART II. FURTHER ON DARIO ARGENTO'S THE MOTHERS' TRILOGY OF FILMS: THE EMPTINESS IN THE FILM 'INFERNO, 7 FEBRUARY 1980', 107 MINUTES, DIRECTED BY DARIO ARGENTO.

1.2 - THE BLOG'S CONTENTS:

1.3 - Points 2.0–2.3: DISCLAIMER /

1.4 - Points 3.0–3.2: DATES OF RESEARCH, WRITING AND ON-LINE PUBLICATION /

1.5 - Points 4.0–4.3: REGARDING DARIO ARGENTO'S CINEMATIC VISION /

1.6 - Points 5.0–5.9: MATER TENEBRARUM: THE IMPOSTOR /

1.7 - Points 6.0–6.13: THE CHARACTER OF ROSE ELLIOT /

1.8 - Points 7.0–7.5: THE INTER-CHANGE OF MODALITIES /

1.9 - Points 8.0–8.15: THE APARTMENT BUILDING WAS AN OLD PRISON TOWER /

1.10 - Points 9.0–9.8: THE REAL VERSUS THE PSEUDO-REAL /

1.11 - Points 10.0–10.5: THE MOMENT OF TRUE REVELATION IS RESISTED AND DENIED "TO BE CONTINUED" /

1.12 - Points 11.0–11.5: A FEW COMMENTS ADDED AS BASED ON MY EXPERIENCES OF BEING LABELLED A CHANGELING /

1.13 - Points 12.0–12.9: ON THE SUBJECT OF ETHNIC CLEANSING /

1.14 - Points 13.0–13.7: THE GREAT OBLIVION OF EVERYTHING /

1.15 - Points 14.0–14.3: THE SOUND-TRACK OF INFERNO, 7 FEBRUARY 1980, 107 MINUTES //

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2.0 - DISCLAIMER.

2.1 - Changing, copying or disseminating this blog is strictly prohibited.

2.2 - The data within this blog is protected, per the Copyright Act circa 1988 of Australia, being only for the use of its researcher and writer, viz. Craig Steven Joseph Lacey, 4 December 1976–, Australia.

2.3 - Per the Cybercrime Act 2001 (Act Number 161) of Australia, fines and/or prosecution will apply per Australian and International law in reference to unauthorised access of this blog on Google.com and other storage devices with the data.

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3.0 - DATES OF RESEARCH, WRITING AND ON-LINE PUBLICATION.

3.1 - This blog was started 06.04.2024 and completed 07.04.2024, as researched and composed by Craig Steven Joseph Lacey at Brisbane City, Queensland, Australia, 4000.

3.2 - Last up-dated: 10.04.2024, 11:28, Australian Eastern Standard Time.

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4.0 - REGARDING DARIO ARGENTO'S CINEMATIC VISION.

4.1 - The sequel to Suspiria, circa 1977, 99 minutes, is titled: Inferno, 7 February 1980, 107 minutes, again directed by Dario Argento; an Italian film being produced by "Produzioni Intersound", and filmed at Rome, Italy, but mostly at Manhattan, New York, the United States Of America.

4.2 - Dario Argento has again, written the film script, as he had for Suspiria, circa 1977, to indicate the films are very much his own cinematic vision on the subject of the three mothers: the three Witches, Sorrows, Fates or Harpies, etc., as discussed by Thomas De Quincey in the essay 'Levana And Our Ladies Of Sorrow' from Suspiria De Profundis, circa 1845.

4.3 - The references of Dario Argento's Mothers' Trilogy to Thomas De Quincey's Suspiria De Profundis, circa 1845, are made arguably in furtherance of the poetic prose form of Thomas De Quincey's writing and the filmic form of giallo itself that is a peculiar but intriguing mix of exposition integrated with moments of poetic expansion of the narrative.

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5.0 - MATER TENEBRARUM: THE IMPOSTOR.

5.1 - Inferno, 7 February 1980, is based on a narration in association, by a degree, to the second witch, as referred as 'Mater Tenebrarum' in the Latin—translated as "Mother Of Darkness"—that is of the Western Church, viz. Roman Catholicism; though Latin is really the only allusion to Roman Catholicism except for a few scenes of the city Rome, Italy, portrayed later in the film, which conversely refers to witch-craft or alchemy by portraying boiling cauldrons within a library basement.

5.2 - Mater Tenebrarum, acted by Romanian Veronica Lazăr, is portrayed as firstly a nurse, and later a land-lady, rather than a leading witch who operates a coven parallel to a dance school, such as Mater Suspiriorum is shown to be.

5.3 - Mater Tenebrarum is found to be inextricably linked to the building of which she is the land-lady—to the extent, the building is an inter-changeable reference to her and an analysis of the building is discussed later in this blog.

5.4 - Firstly, the film is recognised as dealing with the notion of the inter-change or substitution, such as is already demonstrated in the classic sense regarding her as the nurse, who is also later revealed to be the land-lady, then, Mater Tenebrarum.

5.5 - Hers is an identity resistant to the moment of revelation, and I make a non-humourous pun on the word 'revelation' here to The Book Of Revelation, as to also refer to the unveiling of the fiend's identity as a staple of the detective genre.

5.6 - Rather Mater Tenebrarum exists always incognito: a disguised relation through which she may perpetually gather intelligence to further administer by stealth the affairs of others.

5.7 - That is, Mater Tenebrarum is something of an impostor and spy: her true identity and belonging is not quite exposed by the film's narrative, and inasmuch the signifiers of the nurse, the land-lady, the apartment building, its basement temple, fire itself, New York City and Rome, are subject to the unstable signs of an identity that forever seeks escape through plurality and disguise.

5.8 - Even at peace-time, Mater Tenebrarum is at war: recognizance being imperative in attaining a strategic advantage.

5.9 - During the film of 1980, there are no such moments of insight in to the mysterious identity of Mater Tenebrarum, but as is the case for the impostor, there is no interiority of personal identity as such, only a series of identifications to the places, objects and people in which the impostor dwells, such as is vividly narrated by the protagonist character Mr. Ripley from Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley, circa 1955; more recently published circa 2024, Vintage Classics, 272 pages, ISBN 9781529940886—such characters exist as imitators of the genuine.

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6.0 - THE CHARACTER OF ROSE ELLIOT.

6.1 - Instead the film concentrates upon the female protagonist, Rose Elliot, acted by Irene Miracle, who, as a poet, is believed to have interiority of identity—yet that may be a dupe, because Rose Elliot only starts to know of the "Three Mothers" and the sub-culture in which she dwells, mid-way through her life, possibly as a reference to the structure of art per "in media res / in the middle of things", such as represented by Alighieri Dante's Divine Commedia, circa 1382, a trilogy in which the first book is of the same title as this film: Inferno.

6.2 - An old book titled: The Three Mothers by E. Varelli, that is featured during the film's introductory sequences, is shown to be opened—at one point, a letter-opener is used to pry open two joint pages—and then read by Rose, amid her assortment of things: a fine silver bracelet; a bejewelled trinket of a snake design that attaches keys; a silver pen; a neck-lace of silver and jewels; fine paper; a Latin-English dictionary.

6.3 - Refer to the film still beneath of Rose Elliot using the envelope opener to cut joint pages in E. Varelli's book, with some of the collection of her artefacts on the desk.

6.4 - Rose Elliot is displayed, herself as the investigator, as might an historian be considered: involved with the analysis of clues, either documentary or exhibitory evidence, shows her own exteriorisation, her predilection for the empirical.

6.5 - May Rose have lost her Christian identity, presumed Christian because the Rose is traditionally a Christian symbol?—a question that must remain unanswered in Rose's quest to uncover the witch's identity.

6.6 - As is the case for most giallo films, the identity of the fiend is firstly suspended for a generally held acceptance of that character as some-one trusted, to some-one whose motives are brought in to focus by suspicion, is revealed as one whose criminality is an effect of psychological disturbance; that is, giallo and thriller-suspense films tend to embrace psychologism paradoxically while showing magic and pseudo-spirituality.

6.7 - The standard giallo filmic technique is to integrate in to the overall filmic narrative flash-backs of the antagonist's unusual child-hood: when the seeds of disturbance were sown.

6.8 - A psychological understanding is thereby established in the audience so as to curtail or prevent a type of persecution taking place, viz. dæmonization; but in this giallo / horror film, there are no flash-backs to an internal past of Mater Tenebrarum, rather she is revealed as "Death Personified", a type of Grim Reaper, the very cause celebré itself.

6.9 - While law enforcement officers, such as detectives, do not show up in this film as they do in the film: Suspiria, circa 2018, 152 minutes, directed by Luca Guadagnino, Rose tentatively acts as a type of private investigator, but she is indicated as dependent on a father-figure: a character known as E. Varelli, the author of the pseudo-text: The Three Mothers—it is his speech as voice-over that narrates her reading of the text, rather than her own voice be heard.

6.10 - E. Varelli may be as much Kazanian, the miserly, antique dealer next-door to the apartment building, as the aged Professor Arnold who is himself revealed as E. Varelli, such that he is also as an evasive figure as Mater Tenebrarum—but to set aside gender for a moment: "might they both be different sexes of the same identity?"

6.11 - E. Varelli is, what is often referred in psychoanalysis: "the anal father", who exists as a shadowy figure, the necromancer, "Silenus", a satyr of sorts; a consideration only mentioned here en passant, because it is too horrid to consider, but is nonetheless interpreted in relation to the three mothers by way of inference.

6.12 - Whomever E. Varelli really is, he provides Rose the possibility of augmenting her knowledge by "unlocking doors" through the use of keys, viz. keys of knowledge to ascertain the truth of the world in which she lives.

6.13 - There are, according to E. Varelli, three keys: the second key, the relevant to the unfolding moment of the film exists in reference to revealing Mater Tenebrarum's true name as an image presumably in relation to her face, as evidence in the cellar of the building—the cellar being at the roots of identity, the analogy further refers to wine and spirits, undoubtedly rum, though, this once again, would be read-in to the film's narrative.

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7.0 - THE INTER-CHANGE OF MODALITIES.

7.1 - It ought to be mentioned, to disspell any incredulity caused by the coincidences of the narrative's start, that the vintage book has been bought from an antique store, viz. 'Kazanian Antiques', shown next-door to the apartment complex in which Rose resides, to confer a regional truth of setting and historical positioning to the film's narrative to lend it credibility.

7.2 - During the film's initial scenes, the apartment building of Rose's residence is shown in reference to a sketch within E. Varelli's book to also be the home of Mater Tenebrarum as to indicate a series of points of almost magical synchronicity.

7.3 - There is a movement of the camera from the rough sketch of the apartment building in E. Varelli's text, to a detailed etching of the building in a frame hung on the wall of Rose's apartment—refer to a film still of the sketch in E. Varelli's book, beneath.

7.4 - It is a camera movement ending with a cut to a shot that shows Rose standing, comparatively very small, in front of the towering apartment building—Refer to the film still from Inferno, 7 February 1980, beneath, that is of the camera shot discussed above at point 7.3, that shows the apartment complex's complete façade at night.

7.5 - Rose's inquiries in to the world of the text, The Three Mothers, is relevant to her home: she must comprehend how her position in her place, neighbourhood and society is dominated by such iniquities without her being aware.

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8.0 - THE APARTMENT BUILDING WAS AN OLD PRISON TOWER.

8.1 - One of the first impressions of the apartment building is that of its Victorian styled, prison-type architecture.

8.2 - The entrance / gate and core of the building is that of a 'tower' such as of a gatehouse—the name of the traditional "observation centre" of captives who were observed for assessment regarding whether they be executed, sent to a prison proper, or released in to society.

8.3 - There are the mediæval, European-styled tower crenellations to be seen at the top of the central tower and its Northern and Southern flanked sets of apartments, which in a statement of power as of prison architecture, is perfectly symmetrical.

8.4 - Beneath, I have provided a photograph of the etching of the now demolished old gate-way of the notorious Newgate Prison, London, Britain.

8.5 - The similarities are obvious with the gated front entry, the column structures on both sides which rise up to a crenellated top, and further, centre of the building are the trifora windows beneath the unifying arch; that is of a similar triple-based structuration in the apartment building's tower's windows which face Manhattan, West Side, Central Park.

8.6 - There really is only one conclusion to make: the building from the film is a modified structure from prison architecture, that has been used in similar ways to how prison towers were used: to observe and assess its captives, except in this case, residents are assessed, not captives.

8.7 - Later in the film, the third key, which E. Varelli has discussed in terms of a riddle: "it may be found under the soles of one's shoes;" is revealed to refer to the secret, crawl spaces beneath the building's floor boards which are located at each apartment floor, and further, connects to a secret passage way that leads to the apartment of the land-lady, Mater Tenebrarum.

8.8 - Refer to the film still beneath of Mark Elliott, Rose's brother, acted by Leigh McCloskey, discovering the hidden crawl spaces connected to the building's secret passages.

8.9 - Refer to the film still beneath of Mark investigating, in a substitution of Rose's investigative role, the hidden crawl spaces of under the apartment building's floor-boards.

8.10 - Further, refer to the film still beneath of Mark walking from the crawl space, shut closed, in to the passage way leading to Professor Arnold's apartment.

8.11 - Mater Tenebrarum, as has been already mentioned, showed herself a nurse, that is, with a stately old man in a wheel-chair, the apartment tenet, Professor Arnold, and he is shown during the film's climatic scenes in his lavish apartment rooms, to be the alchemist and author E. Varelli, but also significantly the architect who supposedly was embroiled in to the Mothers' affairs—being commissioned to design and construct their residences.

8.12 - To that extent it is plausible the building in E. Varelli's text is that construction, similar  to the prison "panopticon", illegally used to observe and assess tenets for the hidden purposes of the building's supposed owner, Mater Tenebrarum.

8.13 - In further reference to Dario Argento's Inferno, 7 February 1980, the woman, the real-life model of the character, who may or may not claim to be Mother Tenebrarum appears associated to the cultures of Western World prisons, or E. Varelli is.

8.14 - The indication is, in that apartment building, modified from a prison tower, that abdominable couple—Mother Tenebrarum and E. Varelli—preside over a darkness that is really known to exist inside such penitential institutions, as prisons or mental asylums, but really as only a symbolic, mysterious absence of knowledge per se; that can only be considered a matter of control and censorship.

8.15 - Otherwise the question is asked: "exactly how many are killed in prison with their deaths going unrecorded?"

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9.0 - THE REAL VERSUS THE PSEUDO-REAL.

9.1 - Here the notion of the simulacrum of a real thing, viz. a set of a film that imitates a real building, is tested.

9.2 - The apartment building shown in Inferno, 7 February 1980, is not a set-piece, nor is it a computer animation integrated in to the real footage of the film: but the building is real / true—and to add a note of my own experience, was used by the sorts of folk who labelled and persecuted myself for being a changeling.

9.3 - Similarly, the book of the film, a "pseudobiblium", is shown as a real book, but it is no real book, to further test the internal logic of the film's versimilitude as a piece of fiction as pseudo-history as compared to official, true history.

9.4 - I am reminded of the apartment building in the film: Rosemary's Baby, 12 June 1968, 137 minutes, by Roman Polanski, that involves an apartment building also facing Manhattan's Central Park, where Satanic practices occur, and Roman Polanski's film also includes a narrative with reference to a pseudobiblium, this one titled: All Of Them Witches by J.R. Hanslet, where reality and fantasy are shown to be categories destabilized by degrees of representative representation as determined by modality.

9.5 - When the prefix 'pseudo-' is used, it denotes that the noun and thing connected to the prefix is false, but it is not simply a matter of falseness to refer to the totally fictitious because the pseudo-document or pseudo-exhibit is in its versimilitude found to be accurately representative; that is, in the thing's likeness of the real and true thing upon which it is modelled, it is representative of the truth of the thing's appearance.

9.6 - This is a similar notion to the aforementioned impostor, "the fake person", regarding who, there is only a presentation of versimilitude that can be assessed under conditions as to its fake or bonà fide status by revealing a lack of quality, or certain vërve, or paradoxical: "je né sais quoi"; a little something, such as genius and originality.

9.7 - The medium of film itself is simulacrum and the genres of giallo and horror are ladden with such standard conventions that the performativity reaches an almost camp aesthetic, in which the horror of the truth is ossified in to an on-going series of such moments of truth that attain the sort of mundaneness of everyday life, bizarrely perceived as non-threatening.

9.8 - How truths of official history can be found in such cultural texts, giallo and horror films, with a self-reflexive artificiality of performance and conceits of narrative constructs, is a problem of interpretative methodology as to evince truth from fiction.

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10.0 - THE MOMENT OF TRUE REVELATION IS RESISTED AND DENIED "TO BE CONTINUED".

10.1 - There is the moment of the supposed revelation in the film when Mater Tenebrarum shows herself, no longer as the nurse of the elderly man, but a woman of middle-age and wealthy presentation, the land-lady, who even in her basement temple is partially hidden by her hair.

10.2 - When Mater Tenebrarum is supposed to be revealed, she is seen to walk-out of a large mirror: inasmuch that Mater Tenebrarum is an imitation of that real self, being only ever a reflection / impersonation of another woman (or man)—for in that moment Mark appears to gaze in to the mirror he sees a woman, Mater Tenebrarum.

10.3 - Here Mater Tenebrarum reveals her true identity to Rose's brother, Mark Elliott, who has discovered the secrets of the apartment building; he had opened the locked spaces with the keys to the problems or riddles posed by E. Varelli, that Rose was attempting to solve, until she was made to disappear, at which point her "male twin", Mark, Rose's character's brother, who appears to complete the more action-based sequences of the film.

10.4 - Consistent to Dario Argento's films is the inter-play of a scrutiny of perception shared with audience, such as that of the giallo genre's use of the overall detective-based investigation, but with the distinction of being revealed as much as ellided, viz. when the moment of unveiling the truth is performed, typically during the narrative's climatic scenes, a proper revelation is denied, and I now ask: "for what reason?"

10.5 - Mater Tenebrarum says she is one of the three mothers, but that explains or reveals only that she is one of the feminine forms of death and sorrow.

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11.0 - A FEW COMMENTS ADDED AS BASED ON MY EXPERIENCES OF BEING LABELLED A CHANGELING.

11.1 - As I have mentioned in my previous blog, in a very brief foreword, that I was labelled a changeling during my child-hood years, I was a changeling to the extent I was persecuted for it as part of a culture in Australia and the United States of America, which believes a changeling deserves persecution, and it is a position both real and unreal; true and false—or of a pseudo-history, because official histories in such nations are shown to ignores its ever happening.

11.2 - The question emerges as to what extent both discussed films and the other two films of Dario Argento's "The Mothers Trilogy" really represent an all-encompassing conspiracy considered to be organised by a Satanic cult?

11.3 - By the phrase "Satanic cult", here I refer to the enclaves of organised pseudo-religion that are pivoted against Christianity—that is, a religious sect, or various types of sects, which not only disregard Christian social orders' regulations and the search for truth and justice, but pervert or corrupt the orders to satisfy varying forms of avarice and lust for power.

11.4 - There was the case of the infamous Manson Family of circa 1969, the State of California, but psychologism is found to divert explanation to the asocially individualistic, rather than direct it to the matter of proto-Satanism or Satanism of Asian cultures in the Western World—refer to: Jonestown And The Manson Family: Race, Sexuality, And Collective Madness, circa 1993, by Robert Endleman, New York: Psyche Press, xvii, 211 pages; 22 centimeters, ISBN: 096228856X, 0962288551.

11.5 - Whoever they really are, clearly they are many steps ahead: for they flaunt their power in "broad day-light" through the use of modified prison architecture within residential settings; not in some obscure location, but the renowned streets on the borders of Manhattan's Central Park, and further, flaunt such power through the popular medium of film, that is often considered as entertainment for the general Christian-educated audiences of the Western World—Dario Argento's Italian / American films being no exception.

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12.0 - ON THE SUBJECT OF ETHNIC CLEANSING.

12.1 - The connections between the "hocus-pocus" elements of the examined film narratives of my blogs through to fascistic styled governments, such as Nazism, has been a point discussed to a brief extent in my earlier blogs on the changeling—refer to: thoughtsdisjectamembra.blogspot.com, circa May 2023, PART III CRAIG STEVEN JOSEPH LACEY'S COMMENTS ON THE EUPHEMISM, CIRCUS ENTERTAINMENTS, MISCHLING, NAZISM, FOLK-LORE AND CHRISTAPHOBIA, at URL: <https://thoughtsdisjectamembra.blogspot.com/2023/05/part-iii-craig-steven-joseph-laceys.html>.

12.2 - Further dilating on this particular point, the untermensch, the half-human or sub-human as the mischling, that is, the Aryan child, with some parts Jewish Semitic or some ethnic other, as the equivalent to the mythified changeling, raises the concern of ethnic cleansing being at the centre of such folk-lorism or pseudo-religion and culture.

12.3 - The persecution of the child labelled a changeling may occur without the use of a politically reflexive language inasmuch to avoid the acknowledgement of the perpetrators acting on a fascistic government's ethnic cleansing regime.

12.4 - That is to note, the magic and mythology disguise the fascistic governance.

12.5 - Satan, the eternal war-lord, for who the world must forever be in his dominion, is also the fürher, the patriarch of the völk, is himself, that shadowy figure at the peripheries of histories, as Mephistopheles was noted to have been in my previous blogs, but in relation to the three mothers, is the Horned God, the counter-part to the three-bodied goddess, referred to as Hecate, Belladonna or Iris.

12.6 - The Horned God exists among his harem, who are his daughters, sisters and mothers; his concubines, slaves and witches, who dwell in the hidden spaces of society and life.

12.7 - But: "what of the children?"

12.8 - The crawl spaces of the apartment building initially is conceived as used by adults crouching beneath the floor boards to spy on the tenets, though such crawl spaces could be used to house small children.

12.9 - The comments of point 12.8 are made with the comments made on Mater Tenebrarum: as her being the mother to who children destined to die early life are sent.

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13.0 - THE GREAT OBLIVION OF EVERYTHING.

13.1 - The so-called democratic government is comparable to that apartment building complex in the film: Inferno, 7 February 1980, that is "safely" lived within, only to be subject to a secret governance from the censored areas of the society, and it can be seen at the film's end; the flames which consume the apartment building is part of that censoring process that leads to the darkness of ignorance, continued.

13.2 - To the traditional Christian mind-set, death is repugnent, but to other cultures it holds an allure; an irresistible pull; such as in reference to the great oblivion of everything, symbolized by "the inferno", the title of this film.

13.3 - It is precisely the threat of the great oblivion of everything that fuels the demand for witnessing emptiness continually and entertaining the notion: one has survived it.

13.4 - Arguably, it is shown in the fires that consume the film's apartment building and possibly in Mater Tenebrarum at the film's ending when, as Death Personified, flames engulf that figure that raises its arms up-wards as though in triumph.

13.5 - I cannot help but think instead of that peculiarly feminine form of darkness, a veritable swollen abdomen of emptiness: the world's first hydrogen bomb, named "Ivy Mike", as portrayed in the recent film, Oppenheimer, 11 July 2023 (at Le Grand Rex), 180 minutes, in which "Tenebrarum's children"—though not referred to as such in the film—gather round to witness emptiness itself; as if nothingness itself can be entertainment.

13.6 - Supposedly the reality is, death is final: there is no after-life and no such thing as the soul and spirit, but the Three Mothers' Trilogy involve narratives of a supposedly eternal triad.

13.7 - Perhaps it is better to keep the discourse to such freakish scenes as portrayed by Inferno, 7 February 1980, viz. of the eclipse of the moon in Central Park?—refer to the film still beneath of Central Park.

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14.0 - THE SOUND-TRACK OF INFERNO, 7 FEBRUARY 1980, 107 MINUTES.

14.1 - Dario Argento commissioned key-boardist Keith Emerson, a former member of the progressive rock-band: Emerson, Lake & Palmer, to create a sound-track titled Inferno, 47:26 minutes, that was released as a fifteen-track Long-Play vinyl disc, circa 1980, on Atlantic Records K-50753, and circa 1981 by Cinevox, then as a compact disc, circa 2000, with a bonus track of out-takes not included on the original vinyl release.

14.2 - Keith Emerson re-orchestrated "Va, pensiero, sull'ali dorate / Go, thought, on wings of gold" from the 'Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves' in the Italian Giuseppe Verdi's opera, of four acts, Nabucco, circa 1841, a restaging of the epoch of the Jews' exile and Babylonian captivity.

14.3 - The inference is the Babylonians, or Satanic Chaldeans, in reference to the film of 1980, have resumed a sort of secret tyranny, though how a tyranny can be secret is the mystery itself—with all leads ending up burnt, such Babylonian cultures, known for worship of fire, seem to govern as though it is all "smoke and mirrors".

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PART I. RE THE FILMS: SUSPIRIA, CIRCA 1977, 99 MINUTES, AND: THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE, CIRCA 1970, 96 MINUTES; BOTH DIRECTED BY DARIO ARGENTO—A COMMENTARY BY CRAIG STEVEN JOSEPH LACEY, 23 MARCH 2024 /

1.0: BLOG'S TITLE: PART I. RE THE FILMS: SUSPIRIA, CIRCA 1977, 99 MINUTES, AND: THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE, CIRCA 1970, 96 MINUTES; BOTH DIRECTED BY DARIO ARGENTO—A COMMENTARY BY CRAIG STEVEN JOSEPH LACEY, 23 MARCH 2024 /

1.1: BLOG'S CONTENTS —

2.0–2.3: DISCLAIMER /

3.0–3.2: DATES OF RESEARCH / WRITING AND PUBLICATION /

4.0–4.4: A BRIEF FOREWORD: ON MY HAVING BEEN A CHANGELING /

5.0–5.4: REGARDING "THE TAXI SEQUENCES" OF THE FILM: SUSPIRIA, CIRCA 1977, 99 MINUTES, DIRECTED BY DARIO ARGENTO /

6.0–6.13: (A) PROTRACTED; THE TAXI SEQUENCES OF SUSPIRIA, CIRCA 1977, 99 MINUTES /

7.0 –7.1: (B) OVER-EDITED; THE TAXI SEQUENCE OF SUSPIRIA, CIRCA 1977, 99 MINUTES /

8.0–8.12: "MONSTERS ARE NOT BORN, BUT CREATED" /

9.0–9.7: A FATAL SUBSTITUTION AND SACRIFICE /

10.0 –10.10: "TURN THE BLUE IRIS" /

11.0 –11.9: THE TAXI-DRIVER AS SATYR /

12.0–12.9: THE BIRD CONNECTION /

13.0–13.14: PROTO-SATANIC, NEO-PAGAN FOLK-LORISM /

14.0–14.12: THE POST-MODERN ART DIRECTION OF SUSPIRIA, CIRCA 1977, 99 MINUTES /

15.0: ON THIS BLOG'S USE OF PHOTOGRAPHY: A total of six film stills from: Suspiria, circa 1977, are included in this blog, specifically directly beneath points: 6.8; 11.7; 12.2; 12.7; 14.8; 14.11 /

15.1: A photograph of the film poster for The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, circa 1970, is directly beneath point 12.2 /

15.2: A photograph of the "ten virgins" sculptures of Madgeburg Cathedral's Paradise Door is directly beneath point 12.3 //

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2.0 - DISCLAIMER.

2.1 - Changing, copying or disseminating this blog is strictly prohibited.

2.2 - The data within this 

blog is protected, per the Copyright Act circa 1988 of Australia, being only for the use of its researcher and writer, viz. Craig Steven Joseph Lacey, 4 December 1976–, Australia.

2.3 - Per the Cybercrime Act 2001 (Act Number 161) of Australia, fines and/or prosecution will apply per Australian and International law in reference to unauthorised access of this blog on Google.com and other storage devices with the data.

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3.0 - DATES OF RESEARCH / WRITING AND PUBLICATION.

3.1 - This blog was started at 19.03.2024 and completed 23.03.2024, as researched and composed by Craig Steven Joseph Lacey at Brisbane City, Queensland, Australia, 4000.

3.2 - Last up-dated: 10:02, 31.03.2024, AEST.

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4.0 - A BRIEF FOREWORD: ON MY HAVING BEEN A CHANGELING.

4.1 - My writing on the changeling mythos over the past two years in the blogger site: thoughtsdisjecramembra at URL: <http://thoughtsdisjectamembra.blogspot.com>, was finished mostly in a vacuum on the topic, apart from the exception of the folk-lorist scholar, Dee L. Ashliman, 1 January 1938–, the changeling exists in folk-tales, books, plays, music, films and visual art—refer to: Dee L. Ashliman's website, accessed 26.03.2024, from URL: <https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/ashliman.html>.

4.2 - That is, as far as I am aware: as access to information is made available or unavailable to myself.

4.3 - During my child-hood I was labelled by "proto-Satanists" to be a "changeling" in Australia and other countries, owing to a birth-mark above my right ankle, and I have mostly relied on my own experiences as a "changeling" in discussing such matters here in my blogs.

4.4 - The not unrelated topic of the witch—that is: "the hag"—is an old, thoroughly discussed matter per often infantalized folk-lore or mythological narratives, but more significantly the witch / hag symbolism offers a socio-cultural discourse as a key part of recent inter-textual art, such as novels and films, that are specifically connected to a Satanic and Christaphobic sub-text, which I argue about in reference to socio-cultural and political arguments through sociological / film-based theoretical approaches and insights provided by my own experiences.

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5.0 - REGARDING "THE TAXI SEQUENCES" OF THE FILM: SUSPIRIA, CIRCA 1977, 99 MINUTES, DIRECTED BY DARIO ARGENTO.

5.1 - The start of the film: Suspiria, circa 1977, 99 minutes, directed by Dario Argento, involves what I will refer to as "the taxi sequences" which are both:

5.2 - (A) Protracted: with moments which dwell for too long of a time on Susie Bannion's face as a passenger who gazes out at the rain and Black Forest, and—

5.3 - (B) Over-edited: the taxi sequence is without narrational completion; a final sequence is edited out; such that the question begs answering: for what reason?

5.4 - Both (A) and (B) are discussed in detail beneath to arrive at something of an answer to that question, viz. a proto-Satanic, neo-pagan folk-lore / mythos discovered to operate in the filmic narrative upon a Christian setting and culture.

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6.0 - (A) PROTRACTED; THE TAXI SEQUENCES OF: SUSPIRIA, CIRCA 1977, 99 MINUTES.

6.1 - The opening sequences of the protagonist Susie Bannion, acted by Jessica Harper, riding a taxi to The Whale House, viz. the Tanz / Ballet Akademie itself, at Freiburg, Baaden-Würternberg, Germany, occupies about the first ten minutes of the film.

6.2 - Susie is shown to be "the passenger",

who, while paying for her ride, remains at the whims of the driver who may exploit her ignorance of the locality and her female physicality.

6.3 - There could be moments of the taxi-man as the ferry-man on the river Styx—an early reference to Susie as Iris, the bearer of a cup of water of the river Styx, by which Iris poisons those who perjure themselves to induce their sleep.

6.4 - Greek mythology seems distant to such modern, German, late-1970s contexts and now, to the 2020s, but there are later definite indications the witches are cultural successors of the harpies of the Strophades islands, Greece, and there is then the name and ethnic identity of the character of Helena Markos, a Greek immigrant, who is none other than Mother Suspiria, the director of the Akademie and head witch of the coven.

6.5 - Such portentousness in a matter as mundane as catching a taxi to a location requires a shift in cultural perceptions, possibly such as Grecian / Dacian for reasons, later discussed here, suggested as that neo-pagans take such culture to colonise regions of past Christian heritage.

6.6 - The extensive close-ups of Susie in the back of the taxi as she gazes out at the rain and Black Forest—with passing pools of light that bathe her in greens and blues to transform her appearance, are all portentous.

6.7 - The clinking chimes and grumbles of voices of the strange film sound-track of the band: Goblins, are heard to invest a pending significance to the sequences, when such music is reminiscent of the chanting done during ritualistic sacrifice.

6.8 - Refer to the film still beneath of Susie in the taxi.

6.9 - The protagonist, Susie, does later arrive at her intended destination: The Whale House at Freiburg, but it is an arrival fraught with distress.

6.10 - Susie encounters a distressed young woman and one of the school's dancers, Patricia, acted by Eva Axén, standing in the academy's door-way where Patricia yells out something unclearly at the time, as though she is herself a sign to the latest dance recruit to heed her next steps of entry in to the Tanz Akademie, or else she may become as frenzied and wild as Patricia; fed to the forest.

6.11 - Susie is much later able to remember Patricia's lip movements at the door-way, because in the taxi she could not hear Patricia, and deciphers Patricia's peculiar comment: "turn the blue iris."

6.12 - Patricia is seen to stumble away at one point with her hands in her tussled, hazel-coloured hair, when Susie at the portico is told through the intercom to "leave," essentially announcing a rejection of Susie by the academy.

6.13 - Susie gets back in the taxi that drives through the rainy night and Black Forest and, at one point, Patricia is seen to walk crazily through the forest trees, which is suggestive of Susie's own possible fate of being rejected by the academy and left to the darkness of the Black Forest.

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7.0 - (B) OVER-EDITED; THE TAXI SEQUENCE OF SUSPIRIA, CIRCA 1977, 99 MINUTES.

7.1 - Susie's induction to the world of the witch: Mother Suspirium at Freiburg is never finalised: the latter scenes of the taxi sequences are edited out or not directed.

7.2 - Thus, the taxi sequences are considered over-edited—on which point, compare filmic narration to the not dissimilar "music clip" direction that typically involves a form of heavily, poetically edited narrative as an evocation of dreamy surreality through which suspense is lost to the effect of weïrdness: in feature films, a balance must be achieved.

7.3 - The audience is left to contemplate the vague possibility of Susie finding accommodation late at night.

7.4 - Doubt creeps in as to whether Susie has befallen a similar fate as the many women who disappeared using taxis during the late 1970s and 1980s in Western Europe, North America and Oceania.

7.5 - Although now there is little available to report of such dark history: one exception is "Ireland's Vanishing Triangle", in which young women since the 1980s have disappeared in a region of Eastern Ireland, attributed to a group of serial killers, but as yet verified: refer to the "Ireland's Vanishing Triangle" website, accessed 22.03.2024, at URL: <https://www.irelandsvanishingtriangle.com/>.

7.6 - Overall, the taxi sequence is left without a directly expressed closure, amid a world that is unveiled by the film's introduction as stormy and ominous.

7.7 - It is assumed Susie is driven back in to town to stay at an inn, despite that such assumptions are difficult to make when demonstrations of madness are witnessed of current dance school students, such as Patricia.

7.8 - The explanation that many young women in Susie's place—having travelled far from their homes to attend the prestigious ballet school—were initially driven to: The Whale House only to be cruelly rejected and left to the caprices of the Black Forest, may emerge as a type of ritual connected to witch-craft and Satanism.

7.9 - In the contexts of a 1980s audience of Europe, the female contingency's fears are played upon by the film, while presumably the male component of the audience derive complicit amusement.

7.10 - It is questionable how many men would watch this film, and to add to the paradox, the film is directed by a man, Dario Argento, whose efforts to foreground such feminine culture from the shadows could only be considered productive of good.

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8.0 - "MONSTERS ARE NOT BORN, BUT CREATED".

8.1 - Patricia's narrative is unfolded instead of Susie's, to show Patricia has arrived at a friend's apartment where she advises her friend of her anxiety after her demonstrations of distress at The Whale House, but as to the reasons, no explanation by way of further narration is offered at that moment.

8.2 - In one of the apartment bed-rooms, a quite standard jump-scare of a window blowing open with curtains madly shaking around takes place.

8.3 - That is, the curtains have been blown back to reveal... Something of feminine anxiety.

8.4 - There exists a sub-culture of "the window" per se—with or without curtains—and in reference to women, and the spectre of monstrous femininity as the witch, for example, refer to the American film: The Witch In The Window, circa 2018, 77 minutes, directed by Andy Mitton.

8.5 - Women as typically defined by the domestic scene, exist much of their lives inside a house or apartment, specifically the bed-room, and rely on the window as an eye to the outside world.

8.6 - Many women have been imprisoned in a house for some mad reason by their fathers or mothers or family, to become monstrous in rage at the injustices of their domestic imprisonment.

8.7 - As is said: "monsters are not born, but created," as is exemplified by the text: Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus, circa 1818, by the British, female author: Mary Shelly (a recent edition being: 01 June 2018, Oxford World's Classics, Hard-cover, 304 pages, ISBN: 9780198814047, ISBN-10: 0198814046).

8.8 - The scene of the window blowing furiously open at Patricia could suggest she was imprisoned in her home, but such memories of those horrible times remain repressed to herself.

8.9 - Nonetheless, the character of Patricia and women of the film's audience, feel anxiety because repressed memories of trauma are provoked by signs reminiscent of the traumatic experience.

8.10 - Here the window that may have been curtained to blind the female prisoner of the outside world is blown open to signify the overwhelming nature of the outside world to women, who under Satanic régimes install in women a fear of politics and law-making.

8.1 - The house or school, viz. here, the dance academy, with secret passages and chambers, is itself symbolic of stored memories which may be kept secret by ways of repression despite the fact it is lived or worked in daily for years, thought to be completely familiar to its inhabitants.

8.12 - Might not consciousness be considered comparable, that is, despite the fact one's own head is lived in daily for years, there are secret passages and chambers yet familiar to even herself?

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9.0 - A FATAL SUBSTITUTION AND SACRIFICE.

9.1 - Minutes after speaking with her friend, Patricia is led to the apartment's roof only to be stabbed with a knife (by a masked man) then hung with a noose that lowers her through the apartment's sky-light.

9.2 - The stabbing is done to Patricia's stomach, such as to suggest she has been condemned for her diet or taste, or she has called her assailant "a stomach", that is, at some earlier point in the pre-narrated history of the text, or for some yet known reason.

9.3 - From a psychoanalytical approach the censored or edited-out scenes of Susie reaching a safe destination suggest the taxi driver took Susie elsewhere for some other purpose, regarding which supposedly requires censorship, that is, in a horror film in which all gruesome truths are meant to be told

9.4 - Thus the question is also asked: "exactly, how bad is it then?"

9.5 - The symbolic logic to be accepted is Patricia's death substituted for Susie's death, though Patricia is substituted for Sara as the friend who Susie confides in.

9.6 - Later Sara, acted by Stefania Casini, befalls a similar fate to Patricia, at least, manslaughter (upon whoever set the trap), as she flees from a murderer, steps in to a pit of razor wiring, such that further question is made to the symbolic lore of the filmic text.

9.7 - In the contexts of the taxi sequences, it may be that Sara's death permits for the admission of Susie in to the school which is a fatal substitution and something of a human sacrifice in the ritualistic sense.

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10.0 - "TURN THE BLUE IRIS".

10.1 - Imputed is the transgression of the rules of the coven regarding each of the young women.

10.2 - Patricia is thus murdered for giving away the secret to enter the secret passage ways of The Whale House: for her comment to: "turn the blue iris".

10.3 - Iris is both a reference to the multi-coloured flower that is a motif above the secret door of Madame Blanc's office, and further, to the Greek goddess Iris, the personification of the rainbow and similar to Hermés is a messenger of the gods, but is the female counter-part.

10.4 - Iris is the servant to the Olympians, particularly Queen Hera, the goddess of marriage, women and family, and the protector of women during child-birth.

10.5 - The witch, Mother Suspiria, is supposedly antagonistic to the domestic scene of Hera, and her coven members are inferred to declare those of Iris to be blue—that is of black, ethnic descent, an ethnicity that is conflated with cultural simplicity—who, in "being turned", convert to Satanic antagonism, gain entry to the coven's lair.

10.6 - Susie, then, is Iris who attempts to prevent the sacrifice, per the Grecian narratives of the 5th-century B.C. which focus on Iris as who is commanded to prevent sacrifice and as an effect rouses the satyrs' menace—refer to the mythology portrayed in fifteen black-and-red-figure vase painting: refer to Parody, Politics And The Populace In Greek Old Comedy, circa 2019, by Donald Sells, Bloomsbury Academic; ISBN 978-1-3500-6051-7.

10.7 - Where some of the Iris-based narrative is edited-out of Dario Argento's film, other narrative parts are included, such as, Susie as Iris finds Sara's cadaver, possibly the meat of sacrifice associated to the harpies; while of ancient Grecian myth and fabulous, the witches as cannabalistic harpies is an horrorific consideration that seems to disappear when Sara's body vanishes upon Mother Suspiria's death, caused by Susie who thrusts a spear in to the old woman's throat.

10.8 - In reference to another vase, Iris is sister of the harpies named (A) to (C):

(A) Aello / stormy;

(B) Ocypete / swift-winged;

(C) Celæno / the dark, who is included as a third sister by the poet Virgil in Æneid 3.209.

10.9 - Each of the harpies could be considered proto-typically the three mothers of Argento Dario's filmic Mothers Trilogy: Mater Suspiria, Mater Tenebrarum in Inferno, circa 1980 and Mater Lachrymarum, in Mother Of Tears, circa 2007, 

10.10 - On the vase's other side, the satyrs attack Hera who stands between Hermès and Heracles: refer to pages 627–628, Reconstructing Satyr Drama, 5 July 2021 by Andreas P. Antonopoulos; Menelaos M. Christopoulos and George W.M. Harrison; De Gruyter; ISBN 9783110725216.

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11.0 - THE TAXI-DRIVER AS SATYR.

11.1 - In further reference to satyrs as taxi-men, or as the guardians of the sacrificial altar of Dionysius, there is a man-servant, Pavlo, acted by Giuseppe Transocchi, who rouses to kill Susie when Susie discovers the cadaver of Sara, viz. the meat offering, but Pavlo is portrayed more a possessed goon than satyr.

11.2 - Rather it is the cabbie of the initial taxi sequences who may be the humanoid satyr.

11.3 - A satyr with the hind legs of a horse or goat was thought to move quickly, such as a taxi vehicle, but in this film the role of the taxi-man as satyr is avoided explicit expression due to the actual occurrences of taxi-men abducting and murdering women.

11.4 - Supposedly, there was a cultural problem regarding Eurasian, male taxi drivers in the Western World to take directions or orders, albeit paid, from women—the murders of mostly Christian women by taxi drivers were thought to be religiously motivated, that is, by Christaphobia.

11.5 - The leader of the satyrs "Silenus" works by subtraction: Silenus is only evident by what is removed, viz. subtracted, often to refer to a killing, as opposed to what is added or contributed: his only, most literal "additions" are made by fertilizing women at which point his creativity stops.

11.6 - Silenus appears to be that very taxi-man character, acted by Fulvio Mingozzi, born 6 October 1925 at Lagosanto, Italy, and died 19 September 2000 at Rome, Italy, of the taxi sequences which start the film: Suspiria, circa 1977, 99 minutes.

11.7 - Refer to the film still beneath showing Fulvio Mingozzi as the taxi-man of Suspiria, circa 1977.

11.8 - Fulvio Mingozzi's wizened, leathery complexion certainly lends itself to fit the description of a satyr, at least the upper half, and possibly for this reason Dario Argento has placed Fulvio Mingozzi in many of his films.

11.9 - Notably Fulvio Mingozzi is in Dario Argento's filmic debút: The Bird With The Crystal Plumage / Italian: L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo, circa 1970, that narrates of an American writer who, while visiting Rome, witnesses a murder by a serial killer, acted by Fulvio Mingozzi, targeting young women, and the writer attempts to uncover the murderer's identity before he becomes the next victim: a return of the satyr attacking Iris or Hera.

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12.0 - THE BIRD CONNECTION.

12.1 - Acknowledge, the connections between The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, circa 1970, and Suspiria, circa 1977, include not only Fulvio Mingozzi, but the same "crystal peacock" statue of the circa 1977 film, that is also found in the theatrical release poster for: The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, circa 1970.

12.2 - Beneath, the film still from Suspiria, circa 1977, showing Susie Bannion next to the bird statue that is revealed to her within Mother Suspiria's bed-room.

12.3 - Beneath is the illustration of the crystal-type bird statue in the circa 1970 theatrical release poster.

12.4 - The "bird with the crystal plumage" is referred to in the circa 1970 film as "a rare bird from the South Caucasus", held within the Roman zoo near to the Ranieri couple's apartment, but the species of bird is not identified.

12.5 - The bird may be the Grey Crowned Crane: the emblematic bird of Uganda due to similarities of its appearance to the statue in Suspiria, circa 1977 and the poster illustration for The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, circa 1970.

12.6 - Further, the reference is to be considered an allusion to the mystical qualities thought to endow the rock: crystal, such that a crystal bird, to configure the semiotics of: bird = flight AND crystal = psychic } both = "flight of the imagination" or "astral projection".

12.7 - The gruesome scene, in which the blind piano player of the Tanz Akademie, viz. Daniel, acted by Flavio Bucci, is bizarrely attacked by his own German Shepherd guide-dog at Konigsplatz Square, Munich, that shows a Phoenix with flame-like carvings in stone relief at the apex of one of the building's typanaums, such as to suggest a correlation between the witches' spells, Konigsplatz Square and the killing of the blind man.

12.8 - Birds have become generally considered symbolic of the feminine, and in that context the films' allusions to birds are to the female witches who have been connected in these notes to the half-human, half-bird harpies, and further related to Iris, who is portrayed herself as winged—albeit Iris, similar to Hermés, is comparable to the form of an angel.

12.9 - Aristophanes's comedy The Birds, 414 B.C., Athens, involves Iris representing the gods, flying to the sky-city of the birds to greet them, only to be ridiculed and threatened with rape by their leader Pisetærus, an elderly Athenian man—Pisetærus tells her the birds are the gods now, the deities to whom the humans must sacrifice.

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13.0 - PROTO-SATANIC, NEO-PAGAN FOLK-LORISM.

13.1 - Witches are mostly evil; only a few are good, "white witches", and Dario Argento's filmic Mother's Trilogy involves the macabre, where macabre is used to evoke allusions of a proto-Satanic, Turkish / Eastern European or Asiatic culture of neo-pagan folk-lore.

13.2 - Iris has a connection to the harpies that are, while of the Grecian / Dacian neo-pagan mythic, invariably Satanic, because of their association with Hell—known as Tatarus—because the harpies were known to carry-off the daughters of King Pandareus to torture them on their way to Tartarus where they were given as servants to the Erinyes: refer to Homer's Odyssey 20.78.

13.3 - The indication is Grecian / Dacian mythological neo-paganism as it may be practiced contemporarily involves different divisions within the neo-pagan, such as the often asinine folk-lorist division to include every-day superstitions, which, in some respects could be interpreted as Satanic, or simply of a different religious focus to Christianity, that is, pending the rituals and symbolism involved.

13.4 - Regarding the some-what muted symbolism of the satyr(s) in Suspiria, circa 1977, to further apply the psychoanalytical approach, the muted, censored and emptied-out allusions to the satyrs of the Iris narrative, rather than being considered as dimming their significance, magnifies it—particularly in the context of the horror genre text.

13.5 - In ancient Greek culture satyrs were tricksters, hubristic boasters, or debauched revellers, and Dionysian soldiers / legion, not necessarily with goats' hind-legs, but human in form except for a horse's or goat's tail.

13.6 - The iconography of satyrs are said to have gradually become associated with the god of Pan, regularly depicted with the legs and horns of a goat which is used in Christian depictions of Satan.

13.7 - The possibility of a proto-Satanic, Grecian / Dacian neo-paganism as informing the portrayal of the modern in Suspiria, circa 1977, is then open for serious argumentation.

13.8 - One counter-point of possible closure to that argument is the absence of Christian iconography in the film, which would have been prevalent throughout the Baden-Württemberg, German State—that is, because of the rule of symbolic binarism, the Satanic depends on an antagonism to Christianity: without Christianity, Satanism loses its definition and its traditions possibly regress in to cultish forms of neo-paganism.

13.9 - There is particularly relevant Christian iconography at the region of Freiburg, such as Freiburg's impressive, mediæval Minster / Cathedral of circa 1200 A.D., where a Christian parable in the inner portal expressed through sculptures of the ten virgins, viz. of "The Parable Of The Wise And Foolish Virgins" which similar to the film, speaks of traditions associated to girls and women.

13.10 - Regarding the parable—refer to Matthew 25:1–13: of the ten virgins, five were wise; five were foolish—throughout Europe sculptures of "The Wise And Foolish Virgins" were ubiquitous in church architecture, and continue to be found on many structures, such as: Amiens Cathedral; Auxerre Cathedral; Laon Cathedral; Notre Dame de Paris; Cathedral of Notre-Dame; Reims Strasbourg Cathedral; Erfurt Cathedral; Magdeburg Cathedral; many churches of Switzerland and Scotland; churches of Eastern Europe, viz. the portal leading in to the main church of Hovhannavank (Saint John) of Armenia, circa 1216 – circa 1221, that has carved scenes from the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins.

13.11 - Beneath is a photograph of The Wise And Foolish Virgins at Magdeburg Cathedral's Paradise Door: not shown in the film, but is of the Christian German culture.

13.12 - Further, The Wise And Foolish Virgins

formed the basis of a hymn: Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme by Philipp Nicolai, which Johann Sebastian Bach used for his chorale cantata: Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV.140, that is used as music for a one-act ballet titled: The Wise Virgins, circa 1941, by William Walton, with choreography by Frederick Ashton, such that there is indicated at least an indirect association to Suspiria, circa 1977, a film that involves a narrative of ballet dancers in a once-Christian school and in a once singly Christian region of old Christendom, Western Europe.

13.14 - An argument could be averred, that the film portrays a post-modern supplanting of the Christian traditions native to the people and lands of Western Germany, in which case the usurpation of Christianity is a Satanic task itself.

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14.0 - THE POST-MODERN ART DIRECTION OF SUSPIRIA, CIRCA 1977, 99 MINUTES.

14.1 - "The Whale House" in the past was made up of 17 separate buildings, now one house complex, opens on to the Franziskanerstraße, with the rear on the Gauchstraße, near Kartoffelmarkt square, that is named as such due to a reference to the biblical narrative of Jonah And The Whale.

14.2 - Further, the large house, that is the academy, next to its great gate, was residence to the Christian Humanist, Erasmus of Rotterdam, 28 October 1466 – 12 July 1536, as is shown at the start of the film in reference to a plaque near the house's front portico that commemorates Erasmus of Rotterdam, but the reference to the celebrated Christian scholar is arcane.

14.3 - The house contains stained glass windows but without Christian decorations set within them, to indicate of the intricate Christian designs' removal, with a plain single-coloured substitute.

14.4 - The tomato-red colouring of the house makes the building almost alarming during the taxi sequences, to add to the filmic suspense because the colour red may symbolize the redness of blood and be a warning.

14.5 - A further space shown in the film is of Patricia's friend's apartment, of a geometric, possibly Arabic patterning: the sky-light glass that breaks and falls in shards to kill Patricia's friend beneath is of bold, geometric forms.

14.6 - It can be seen that the iconographic de-identification of such formerly Christian architecture is part of the "Pop aesthetic" of modernity that itself is derivative of the sensational or thrilling of aesthetics associated with the use of opium, the "pop" of the opium poppy—on which point Dario Argento's Mother Trilogy films are noted as partially based on the famed opium-user Thomas de Quincey's Suspiria de profundis / Latin: "sighs from the depths", circa 1845, a collection of several essays in the form of prose poems.

14.7 - Neo-classicism emerges as a type of post-modern triumph such as in reference to Greco-Roman statues which act as pots for plants in the main hall of the academy; arch-ways per se and with classical proportions found in Patricia's friend's apartment that are set against mystical geometry: the esoteric symbolism, presented in the film, needs only be decoded out of the neutrality of neo-classicism.

14.8 - Refer to a still from the film Suspiria, circa 1977 of Patricia's friend's apartment beneath.

14.9 - The real "trick of the eye" is in reference to a door that is painted as part of the mural with many doors in Madame Blanc's office: the correct door opens when a blue iris, part of the room decoration, is manually turned by hand.

14.10 - The secret entrance is covered by blue velvet curtains behind which there is a passage way of black and gold painted walls inscribed in Latin and Hebrew phrases, that lead to a number of secret rooms, where the coven and its head witch are kept concealed.

14.11 - Refer beneath to the film still from Suspiria, circa 1977, where Susie walks down the decorated secret hallway of The Whale House.

14.12 - To an extent the openly lived lives of the women are de-identified by modern, simple geometric forms of non-religious significance, that is contrasted to the secret lives of the women whose secret spaces are goldly ornate and evocative of paganism and, or, or the Satanic. 

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PART III. CRAIG STEVEN JOSEPH LACEY'S COMMENTS ON THE EUPHEMISM, CIRCUS ENTERTAINMENTS, MISCHLING, NAZISM, FOLK-LORE AND CHRISTAPHOBIA.

1.0 – BLOG'S TITLE: PART III. CRAIG STEVEN JOSEPH LACEY'S COMMENTS ON THE EUPHEMISM, CIRCUS ENTERTAINMENTS, MISCHLING, NAZISM, FOLK-LORE AND CHRISTAPHOBIA.

1.1 – CONTENTS:

2.0 – 2.10: CHANGE-LING /
3.0 – 3.5: ACCURSED HUMOUR /

4.0 – 4.1: SALTIMBANCO /
5.0 – 5.7: THE DARK-SIDE /

6.0 – 6.2: NAZISM /

7.0 – 7.4: BRAVE NEW WORLD /

8.0 – 8.2: CHRISTAPHOBIA /

9.0 – 9.2: DISCLAIMER //.
☆☆☆

2.0 – CHANGE-LING: The noun: 'changeling' is derived from the affixation of the suffix: '-ling' with 'change', whereby the suffix: '-ling' attaches the signification of a quality of being: 'small'; 'miniature'; 'immature'.

2.1 – At one level, the adjective 'small' confers that the significance of the noun stem 'change' is modified by the suffix '-ling' to make the inference: if change is involved regarding the person referred as a changeling, it will be small or quaint.

2.2 – On this point, comparison is made to the example of the noun 'darling', in which the noun stem: 'dar' is emphasized as 'precious'; 'cherished'; 'delicate'; 'exquisite'; the evoked smallness is that greatness of potential and promise, possibly such as in terms of a messianic prophecy, from small things, found exemplified by people's reactions to a new-born: small as seed, will grow and offer the boons of blossoms and fruit.

2.3 – Smallness is referenced not only in terms of physical size, but mentality: refer to the Lilliputians of 'Gulliver's Travels, circa 1726' by Jonathan Swift, in which the small people are small-minded due to their focus on the cavill and trivial, such as to render matters, petty.

2.4 – In the case of 'darling', to which comparison can be made to 'changeling' by way of linguistic structure, the noun 'darling' is able to express affection phonetically: the '-ling' suffix rounds-out the intonation through the dipthong, to attach to the 'dar', a variant of 'dear', the conveyance of loving sentiment.

2.5 – The usage is defined as a "term of endearment" as are a number of words with the '-ling' suffix, which in a number of other contexts take on a patronizing signification: the subject of the term 'darling' is imposed by the relation of being sweet, cute and fluffy to the locutor; that is, the changeling as the darling "cannot be taken seriously" or, in any way, consequentially, such that the whole world might have become a nursery.

2.6 – The other signification of the suffix: '-ling' in 'changeling': of an 'idiot' or 'simpleton', in the patronizing sense is comparable to a beloved pet as a type of "dumb animal"; the dumb is a pun on dum, because the quality of being mute is often assumed as indicating idiocacy—the idiot was not taught how to speak or read and write in some cultures, because at the very least speech is acknowledged as being representative of some-one's self; the gestures of body language are similar to the language of the pantomime, which is a spectacular phenomena for children—and the other mode of purely visual performance, the masque, was traditionally created for the so-called peasantry who were comparable to adult-children; masques approached adult themes of morality and mortality but in a delimited sense—the keeping of "the human pet" in a symbolic / imaginary state of merger is the keeping of a child in the fœtal, unborn state.

2.7 – Any possibility of the person held to be threatening—the change of the change-ling could hypothetically become threatening—is nullified by the implied significance of affection that the suffix: '-ling' carries; because essentially the '-ling' evokes an imaginary effect of miniaturisation, indicative of immaturity, a regression is realised.

2.8 – An 'idiot' or 'simpleton' are generally treated as an 'ignoramus', a noun from the Latin: 'ignōrō', that refers to: “I do not know; I am unacquainted with; I am ignorant of"; the noun is from a farcical play: 'Ignoramus, circa 1615', by George Ruggle, who based it on the earlier Italian comedy: 'La Trappolaria, circa 1596', by Giambattista della Porta, who in turn borrowed from: 'Pseudolus, circa 191 B.C.' by Plautus for the Roman Megalesian Festival: a celebration of the Greek Magna Mater, Cybele.

2.9 – Idiocacy refers to a state of ignorance, specifically in reference to the changeling; due to immaturity such as caused by disability: the changeling does not know who he or she is, for example, due to brain damage or deformity at birth or for such knowledge kept hidden by relatives or others.

2.10 – As the idiot, "the dunce", the so-called "odd-one-out", the changeling is not so much representative of ignorance in the context of ignorance being a state of mind and feeling attributed to an infant or older child or youth, who are partially expected to display naïvety and undeveloped or inexperienced performances at tasks, but is, as "the but of all jokes", never to be inducted; refused the knowledge of that which every-one else knows, "the shibboleth" is with-held, and thereby the changeling is kept a foolish child by way of social exclusion.

3.0 – ACCURSED HUMOUR: That is, in essence, the effect of a curse, either implicit or explicit; made real by the consensus of the majority of the group or populace.
3.1 – The changeling appears to be connected with that age-old rite of the year-king or human sacrifice, by whose ruin, a type of catharsis takes place, referred to as pharmakós / Greek: φαρμακός, viz. scape-goating.
3.2 – As the year-king, the cruel jest is made by the fact that, similar to the fable of 'The Emperor's New Clothes', despite the king / emperor being in the privileged position of a monarch, is susceptible and vulnerable to others's opinions; that is, the year-king is made subject to the tyranny of the people, and the various human foibles which afflict every-one, including the act of committing a mistake.
3.3 – Some absolute monarchs have insisted their mistake is, in fact, accurate, given that the monarch can be represented as God on earth; hence, the erroneous one, the jester or clown, is found beside the monarch in texts, such as the famous 'The Tragedy Of King Lear, circa 1606' by William Shakespeare, in which the Fool uses a diminutive, child-like language against the old King's own bombastic apoplexy, yet the Fool is arguably more sane than the king: 'Tis a naughty night to swim in. Now, a little fire in a wild field were like an old lecher’s heart—a small spark, all the rest on ’s body...', Act 3, Scene 4, 111–114.
3.4 – Because all persons commit some sort of error at some point in their life, to commit a folly such as of a small kind, by the jester or clown is celebrated as characteristically human; rather than made the focus of chastisement, humour in celebration of folly and a shared sense of hopelessness in expecting the fool to change, are released.
3.5 – Love in general is as an affect, the opposite to purposive and functional: often what fails and engenders a sense of the absurd, is precisely what is loveable: for example, a baby who stumbles in his or her first attempts at walking or a loveable fool who is favoured over an admirable hero who performs tasks perfectly: a point of irony extended to the further point, often tragedy is required rather than comedy, to ensure the reality of the folly involved, that is a curse no less, is properly registered, albeit that farce inevitably is caused in the organization of the tragic consequences.

4.0 – SALTIMBANCO: In further reference to the changeling, along with clowns, they are the so-called "circus freaks"—the motley crew—who present a show of light, comical entertainment in momentary festivity of their marginality; exceptionalism; difference: as dalliance, fun, intoxication: exemplified by "the saltimbanco" of Italy and France, painted by the celebrated modernist visual artist, Pablo Picasso, refer to Figure I.; the noun literally was used to refer to “a leap (or somersault) on the bench", that is, as a reference to buskers or street performers, but the signification also refers to a fraud, con or quack.

Figure I. 'Acrobat and Young Harlequin / Acrobate et jeune Arlequin, circa 1905' by Pablo Picasso, 191.1 centimeters x 108.6 centimeters, oil on canvas, BF382, Barnes Collection; Artists Rights Society,  © 2023 Estate of Pablo Picasso, New York.

4.1 – The changeling as a cultural concept draws upon the strange, freakish and comical acts of the circus, such as once, dwarves or disabled persons were consigned through social pressures of stigmatization; the physical difference is equated with a dictate for standardized people performing standard tasks with-out risking any-thing unexpected.

4.2 – The unusual or abnormal often is connected to the creative and that which is considered frivolous to a philistine social order with an obsession for safety and security that can only ever be illusory: the out-siders, or out-siderism as a sub-culture must be alowed to exist because cultural diversity is the sign of a sophisticated society—nonetheless I will ask, "where, oh where do the changelings and misfits go?" And the modern, Canadian circus company of the 1990s and 2000s, such as Cirque de Soleil, does not count as an answer.

5.0 – THE DARK-SIDE: There is a "dark-side" to such qualities of the changeling, to which I have made reference in my blog posts since last year, that requires further focused discussion.

5.1 – For those who have dismissed my arguments of the occurrence of children and some adults deemed "changelings", because of the implied immature or fantastical elements, the facticity of the history of the 'mischling' might be considered verification of a correlative reality to the mystified discourse.

5.2 – Fantasy texts, while displaced and loosely metaphorical, will correlate with a true history, as an effect of euhemerism: historical facts become legend and legend becomes myth.
5.3 – The truth will be both disguised and revealed by a trope; hence, the appeals of such texts, for their expression of what is thought to be inexpressible, to establish some-thing of a "successful protest".

5.4 – There is a poetic truth to be found in such texts, often escaping the layman's notice, but which can be discerned by "the dream-interpreters", viz. the therapists, priests, sisters, teachers, authors, artists, etc., who must excavate the fragments of truth to re-construct what has really occurred, or is now occurring, at least as much as possible, because the power-centers will ensure that any trace of responsibility leading back to them is shut-down; for example, by causing the dream-interpreters to disagree with the argument made in this blog.

5.5 – The German Nazi noun: 'mischling', used to refer to an infant or adult with a mix of ethnicities, such as Aryan or Non-Aryan, is an euphemism for some-one determined as a pest: liable for racial cleansing or a range of mistreatments and persecutions, because the inference is, the racial differences will beget an irreformable degeneracy: an inherent defectiveness makes the person expendable.

5.6 – The changeling / mischling is an euphemism for mistreating that person with a range of moral disengagements and duty of care, because the racial difference is considered to signalize an idiocacy in which consciousness within the person in question is either kept subdued or unable to achieve certain adult levels of recognition.
5.7 – The changeling / mischling is declared a vector of degeneracy which supposedly is justifiably deserving of malice; that is, schadenfreude: the enjoyment derived from sadism, derived in witnessing or causing some-one else's suffering through torture: there can only be unveiled the fear of the torturer resuming the position of the tortured—the fool has, as the 20th century can attest, almost realising a Hegelian discourse, become the master at any price.

6.0 – NAZISM: The problem of racism has been already discussed to an extent in my blogs, regarding the racism of the white Asian, Aryans, against the white Europeans, Celts; involves the problem of recognizing the racism between two groups of ethnicities with similar appearances.
6.1 – One of the few texts I have come across that portrays the differences of the Celts of Northern Europe is 'The 12th Man, circa 2017', a Norwegian film—other-wise, most if not all texts confer that the ideologue Adolf Hitler praised the Norðs and Celts, when in fact the Aryanism of Adolf Hitler championed a Semitic tribe with greater Indo-Arabic / Persian cultural focus than the so-called Jews.
6.2 – Adolf Hitler and The Third Reich represented a white-appearance, Semitic ethnicity, that persecuted the Jews also of a Semitic ethnicity: that is—and this is a point that is made and re-made, but still no-one remembers it!—Adolf Hitler was a type of Jew advocating genocide against other Jews: in fact, the Pharisees have conflicted with the Sadducees and Gentiles, viz. non-Jews.

Figure II. The poster of the Norwegian film 'The 12th Man, circa 2017', directed by by Harald Zwart.

7.0 – A BRAVE NEW WORLD: The Nazis supposedly were unable to find a racial definition for the noun: "Jew" to instead rely on the religious ancestry of the person under question, such as to determine whether the person was of "Aryan" or "non-Aryan".
7.1 – The implication is the Nazi racial agenda against the ethnic other was based on religious identifications and cultural practices: presumably the Nazi regime was immersed in technology and science that promised to offer a 'Brave New World, [circa 1932']—to make use of the title of Aldous Huxley's fictional text—or else, the religious practices have been kept secreted away; even until now: a possible fact of which, in itself, suggests that Aryans have, despite contemporary media and history sources, re-asserted or sustained power to ensure that such a fact is unknown within the regions under their "pantheistic" power.
7.2 – The documentary: 'Triumph Over Violence, circa 1965', a Soviet film directed by Mikhail Romm, shows the pre-eminence of fire among the Nazi, almost to emphasize a connection of the Aryan to the Indo-Arabic Parsi / Pharisee cultures through a shared exaltation of fire: a factor celebrated in the opera 'Parsifal WWV 111., 26 July 1882, Bayreuth Festspielhaus', by the German composer Richard Wagner to suggest that the Asian Middle Eastern cultures had a long time ago entered Germany and usurped the Celtic Christians, who the Nazi are confusingly identified with—the Aryans who migrated to Germany certainly Westernized.
7.3 – There are further arguments of a Nazi regime steeped in Occult and Satanic practices; refer to the documentary: 'Nazis: The Occult Conspiracy, circa 1998', an American television-produced documentary film, first aired on the Discovery Channel; directed by Tracy Atkinson and Joan Baran, with narration by Malcolm McDowell; the quality of texts on the matter is average to low to indicate power-centers prefer no significant investment to reveal the truth.
7.4 – The point of 7.1 is an hypothesis that has arisen regarding the examination of the changeling symbolism, in which an unconscious sociological mechanism of persecution becomes consciously applied within a fascistically organized society, such as Nazi Germany's society: the systematic killing of people is, at least it is implied, accepted among Aryans as a standard part of society, but that nonetheless is a secret.

8.0 – CHRISTAPHOBIA: One observation must be made, with the inferred rise to power of the Aryans, a great proliferation of folk-lore took place through-out Europe during the 18th century to the present.
8.1 – The folk-lore is indicative of a nebulous phantasmagoria of diffused beliefs, supposedly untraceable to a particular ethnic and cultural centre and the values mediated must be cited as mostly Christaphobic because the gift of the birth of a child is at crux the message of Jesus Christ's Nativity; the changeling / mischling is not only Nazi but Satanic.
8.2 – In Christianity, there would be no changeling of mixed ethnicities, or deformity caused by a fairy or troll heritage, but a child requiring acceptance, protection and guidance.
8.3 – I must use the title of Christianity carefully, because of the recent records of mistreatment of children in Christian managed institutions, but at least in asserting the possibility of an Aryan infiltration of Christianity's churches, one that has been conducted under the stealth of a secret alterity, disguised by similar appearances, the further notion that the Christian Church is under gradual attack from within and with-out, could be argued plausibly.

9.0 – DISCLAIMER: This blog post is the exclusive intellectual property of Craig Steven Joseph Lacey, 4 December 1976–; Google email: craigsjlacey@gmail.com; by way of law, no hacking, copying, editing or disseminating of it is permitted.

9.1 – Three photographs have been used within this blog: Figures I to II; each of which is used within the editorial-educational rights's context.
9.2 – Craig Steven Joseph Lacey, 4 December 1976–, Australia; 17 April 2023, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 4000; Copyright 2023, Craig Steven Joseph Lacey.
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PART II. CRAIG STEVEN JOSEPH LACEY'S COMMENTS ON THE FILMS: 'WILLOW, CIRCA 1988', HARRY POTTER, 'THE OMEN, CIRCA 1976' AND 'MARK OF THE DEVIL, CIRCA 1970' AND FURTHER, COMMENTS ON THE PAINTING: 'EXAMINATION OF THE WITCH, CIRCA 1853'.

1.0: BLOG'S TITLE: PART II. CRAIG STEVEN JOSEPH LACEY'S COMMENTS ON THE FILMS: 'WILLOW, CIRCA 1988', HARRY POTTER, 'THE OMEN, CIRCA 1976' AND 'MARK OF THE DEVIL, CIRCA 1970' AND FURTHER, COMMENTS ON THE PAINTING: 'EXAMINATION OF THE WITCH, CIRCA 1853' /

1.1: BLOG'S CONTENTS:
2.0–2.5: A BIRTH-MARK OMEN /
3.0–3.2: 'WILLOW: TELEVISION SERIES, CIRCA 2022' /
4.0–4.4: THE CHANGELING DYNAMIC /
5.0–5.2: MARK OF THE DEVIL /
6.0–6.1: STIGMATIZATION /
7.0–7.1: 'THE OMEN, CIRCA 1976' /
8.0–8.2: 'WITCHES TORTURED TILL THEY BLEED, CIRCA 1970' /
9.0–9.1: THE WITCH'S TEAT /
10.0: 'EXAMINATION OF A WITCH, CIRCA 1853' /
11.0–11.2: THE DWARF /
12.0–12.3: WHITE IS PURE OR CHILDISH / 
13.0–13.2: DISCLAIMER //.
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2.0 – A BIRTH-MARK OMEN: The American film: 'Willow, circa 1988', 126 minutes, directed by Ron Howard, involves a plot in which a self-obsessed Queen, the sorceress Bavmorda of Nockmaar, orders for the pregnant women of her realm to be imprisoned in order she guard against—per a prophecy—an infant being born with a birth-mark shaped as a rune, viz. a letter of the Celtic alphabet.
2.1 – Nonetheless, the infant is born and escapes the sorceress's wolf-type hench-men, to float in a ruddy raft down a river to a village of dwarves, where the eponymous character, a novice wizard and dwarf, takes the baby girl in, and becomes the unlikely hero: supposedly as a type of changeling, Willow emerges as a victorious wizard-dwarf to reverse perceptions of small or different persons being of meagre value.

Figure I. The theatrical release poster of the film, 'Willow, circa 1988' directed by Ron Howard; art work by John Alvin.

2.2 – The matter of a birth-mark or skin-based sign is further treated as a distinguishing point for the character of Harry Potter of The Harry Potter texts by J.K. Rowling; for example, in the first of the series of five books: 'Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, 26 June 1997, by J.K. Rowling, (Bloomsbury, the United Kingdom; 223 pages; ISBN: 978-0-7475-3269-9), the protagonist as an infant is marked-out by a lightning bolt on his fore-head to signalize he is not only a different child, he is a child whose difference is a source of strength analogous to magical powers, that is, within such dream-like, allegorical contexts.

2.3 – The mark on Harry Potter's fore-head is not a birth-mark as such, but a symbolic scar left by the evil—unspoken of, Mephistopheles-type—Voldemort, after a legendary encounter in which Harry Potter, only an infant, vanquishes the fiend and becomes a wizard-infant; there-after the symbolic scar of the lightning bolt, in the Grecian, Zeus-based iconographic style, is treated as peculiar, if not reverentially.

2.4 – The self-obsessed family of Harry Potter nonetheless mistreat him, as if he is a changeling with that enigmatic scar, who can be abused because changelings are supposedly deemed the source of change for every-one, except that through the Harry Potter series his virtuous and sympathetic character shines through the ignorance to show some-one such as Harry Potter is worth valuing and treating respectfully.
2.5 – The theme of an infant marked with a sign is the variant of the omen, a central aspect of the changeling mythos: the ominous sign may be one of change for good or evil; change, or transformation, often demands behaving in ways which are unfamiliar and that can be up-setting for all involved.

Figure II. A still from the film, 'Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, circa 2001', in which a young Harry Potter bears the lightning bolt scar.

3.0 – 'WILLOW: TELEVISION SERIES, CIRCA 2022': 'Willow, circa 1988' by Ron Howard is the direct inspiration for a recent television series of eight episodes which premiered on the net-work: Disney+, 30 November 2022.
3.1 – While the television series was supposedly cancelled, the stigmatized positions of persons suffering from disabilities or who occupy a cultural difference to the main-stream culture, remains a contemporary dream-scape to the realities of every-day life.
3.2 – The texts of Harry Potter, both books and films, further reveal the relevance of such mythos to contemporary Western World cultures.

4.0 – THE CHANGELING DYNAMIC: The "change-ling" is, as if a person could be reduced to an effect, said to be an effect of change: there is an "ex-change" of a healthy child by fairies or goblins for one of their queer children, whereby the æther-world's hidden forces confer to bring about change in people's lives; at the very least, through mixing around infants from families or causing disability in a child by violent abuse to impact upon a family.
4.1 – The impacts of the so-called æther-world involve recognizing the bona fide from the impostor; interpreting the signs which may, prima facie, appear correct, really refer to some-thing forgotten or unknown: but when an error occurs, blame is placed upon the impossible, trickster-type antics associated with the æther-world—or to use the author, J.R.R. Tolkien's phrase: "middle earth" as indicative of such Pan / Celtic symbolism—and accountability is lost in the mist of where reality meets dreams.
4.2 – In the folk-lore, change is acknowledged as occurring through a person: often the much-lauded new-born, who is symbolic of an unknown potential to transform the people's lives, such as Jesus Christ's Nativity is symbolic, viz. of the gift from God: the messiah, no less; but when the new-born or child or child-type adult bears the stain of the birth-mark, such persons are treated with austere distrust or persecutory antipathy.
4.3 – The uncertainty of change itself is shared by such fantastic beings as familiars, half-breeds, Siamese twins, ghosts, goblins, trolls, witches, sorcerers, et al.: except for the changeling who is often deemed a real person, viz. an infant or dwarf; perceived as embodying a connection to the forces of change, is approached as the catalyst for change of which cannot be totally controlled and as such can provoke frustration by the folk who expect change to be magically bestowed by particular people, when change occurs by changing one's own attitudes.
4.4 – Often at the psycho-sociological level, control is attempted to be taken back, by society causing the infant to carry the burden of change: as an unwanted change, it is the curse of impending doom, or as welcomed change, a frightening yet lively out-put of creativity and innovation; the impacts for the one labelled a changeling often involve estrangement, isolation and other mistreatments.

5.0 – MARK OF THE DEVIL: Specifically, the sign that portends of ruin is the so-called "mark of the devil", which is claimed to signalize a "transformed and transforming person", such as a changeling is described: often marked-out by deformity, that in many cultures is read as a sign of being cursed, or of being an accursed thing, a birth-mark, distinctive skin-lesion or physiological deformity / scar, that is divergent from "normal" appearances, are interpreted as portentous of some hitherto known strife—are really matters of medical ignorance or pseudo-medical myth.
5.1 – There may be an extant connection of the brand or tattoo, which can be used to show membership, that was used in slavery to identify a specific class of slave: the birth-mark seems to be pre-ordained, a matter of fate, not dissimilar to the drudgery of slaves, the birth-mark sign is something of an evolved adaption from such ancient and barbaric practices.
5.2 – The "mark of the devil" or "witch's mark / stigma diabolicum" is possibly a Judeo-Christian phrase, that derives from the 16th century, reaching the zenith, circa 1645, during the historic, European witch trials which continued in the regions / colonies of the so-called New World, viz. the Americas, the Dutch East and West Indies, and Australasia.

6.0 – STIGMATIZATION: Through such stigmatization, infants, children and some adults are subjected to grossly unjust mistreatments and often murder or sacrifice dressed as just execution.
6.1 – No film of the Western World canon would provide a narrative on the torturing or killing of children, whether the children were deemed condemned or part of some perverse eroticism; whereas within Eastern Asia there is less an ethical compunction due to fanciful perceptions, a child is similar to an adult, in which the child is simply a small adult, that is, when children are physically and psychologically vulnerable, lacking physiological maturity and life experience.

7.0 – 'THE OMEN, CIRCA 1976': Further, the child is said to be possessed, or a connector / channel to the dæmonic / Satanic, such as the cause célèbre, the supernatural-thriller genre, American film: 'The Omen, circa 1976', 111 minutes, directed by Richard Donner: the narrative in this context plays upon the mark of the devil, the mark of the beast '666', on a boy who is considered to present one of the signs of the Anti-Christ, whose plans are to take-over the Christian world.
7.1 – The Christian orthodoxy is confused by having to involve the reading of omens, or the seeking out of the Anti-Christ to exorcise, such as those identifying with the vampire, viz. 'Dracula, [circa 1897], circa 2002' by Bram Stoker, (edited by John Paul Riquelme, Bedford Saint Martin's, 608 pages, ISBN: 9780312237103; 0312237103), and mythos of the undead or zombies; the Christian doctrines become enmeshed in the folk-lore on the devil and his legion.

8.0 – 'WITCHES TORTURED TILL THEY BLEED, CIRCA 1970': In the Western World, texts have been written and published or filmed as based on the torture and killing of women, in reference to the witch trials: for example, the Austrian film: 'The Mark Of The Devil', other-wise titled: 'Hexen bis aufs Blut gequält / Witches Tortured Till They Bleed, circa 1970', 97 minutes, directed by Michael Armstrong, that is an attempt to portray the history of the corrupted Catholic church in a frenzy of hysteria involving the torture of women to elicit confessions of being that which they are not, viz. witches.
8.1 – Beneath the peculiar marketing and hysteria regarding this film, labelled as being of the sexploitation genre, the priest-commissioner of the veritable inquisition, viz. Lord Cumberland, acted by Herbert Lom, is that elusive Mephistopheles figure of which much discussion has been written in my blogs, such as in reference to: 'You Are Not My Mother, circa 2021' by Kate Dolan—as revealed in the narrative of the film of circa 1970, Lord Cumberland as Mephistopheles has a quick escape "out the back exit"—the true significance of his involvements remain shadow-like and elusive, rather than, prima facie, audiences accept him as truly representative of the Christian church, but an heretical re-versioning or bastardization.
8.2 – In the film 'Willow, circa 1988', the presence and role of a ruthless maternal figure, viz. a witch and often a queen, is obviated, rather than censored: but more to the point, is how either a victim-child / victim-disabled person or witch / sorceress, are placed in stigmatized positions, and further, how the manipulative patriarch is mostly absent of the show, and hench-men are instead present as a masculine force of mercenaries.

9.0 – THE WITCH'S TEAT: The sign of the "stigma diabolicum" as the witch's mark was the witch's teat, a third nipple that could be found on the woman's anatomy other than her breasts, viz. a supernumerary nipple, by which a familiar or devil / dæmon could suck blood for nourishment.
9.1 – In the observation of the familiar or devil in a bodily collusion with the witch, the figures are described as 'kambion': half-breeds such as human-hybrids and dwarf-type creatures not dissimilar to children or changelings dependent on the mother-figure as sucklings are still dependent on the mother-figure—which include the changeling, but the further point should be made, most changelings are orphans or waifs with-out parentage as such, are often fostered or left to the streets or leafy grounds to live on their nimble wits.

Figure III. A painting titled: 'Examination Of A Witch, circa 1853' by Tompkins H. Matteson of New York, the United States of America.

10.0 – 'EXAMINATION OF A WITCH, CIRCA 1853': To briefly mention, the painting 'Examination Of A Witch, circa 1853' by Tompkins H. Matteson, the presence of the perfidious man dressed as clergy is shown: in red stockings to signalize blood, he is depicted to watch on, at one remove, from the witch-hunt inquisition that could be interpreted as ethnic cleansing, that is, in the mid-19th century New York State of the United States of America.

11.0 – THE DWARF: The dwarf is, with the witch, the main figure or symbol of the changeling folk-lore: the dwarf's short stature places a comparison of the adult dwarf with a child or vice versa: the changeling infant is often portrayed as wise or old beyond his actual appearance to represent a freakish anomaly to the natural order; but the inference is, nature's so-called order is subject to a numinous or super-natural one, which is open to interpretation often favouring an unjust and racist culture.
11.1 – The involved person's deformity, biological variance or disease seems to herald of an ominous engagement from which, he who meets such a person (changeling) will wish he had not, or that is the alleged impression taken to instruct any who think of becoming involved with a changeling, that causes for ostracism and scape-goating mechanisms: the source of social injustice.
11.2 – More often than not, the aberration, the changeling, will be determined within the ranks of the hegemonic race, to be an example of miscegenation or in-breeding conducted by other races.  

12.0 – WHITE IS SICKLY OR CHILDISH: Particularly relevant is the baby's birth-mark of 'Willow, circa 1988', that under a lens of racial politics must be read as racism against persons of Germanic or Nordic, viz. Celtic origins, because runes derive from such ethnicities and cultures.

12.1 – The politics regarding the disabled, or different child or adult, amid the changeling mythos, often represents an ethnicity that is invisible: as discussed in my previous blog, the Celts have been mistaken for white Aryans, to establish the phenomena of an invisible, white race.

12.2 – Considering the semiotics of colour, white is often thought of as colourless or clear, that is, as a blankness of colour, that is invisible, such that the persecution does not exist, or if the white is perceptible, indicates sickliness, disability and the moribund state which the cultures of the Middle East, Africa and Asia, have equated with the necessity to eliminate, and in the case of the white Aryans, white identifies the eliminators, to establish an under-pinning symbolic configuration: eliminated-white / white-eliminators.

12.3 – White can further represent a purity, "milk", or childish innocence that is experienced as tempting the weathering effects of time, viz. all things must grow older—through envy the purity or pristineness of the delicacy of white is experienced as an invite to tincture; sully; infect; blemish; mar; because white is treated as perfect or "too good to be true", envy is triggered, but the important point is, the provocation of envy is one of paranoia rather than being of a true provocation and consequently it is the envious person who is responsible for his or her own persecutory hatred: he or she must own up to prevent the further injustice of scape-goating.

13.0 – DISCLAIMER: This blog post is the exclusive intellectual property of Craig Steven Joseph Lacey, 4 December 1976–; Google email: craigsjlacey@gmail.com; by way of law, no hacking, copying, editing or disseminating of it is permitted.
13.1 – Three photographs have been used within this blog: Figures 1 to 3; each of which is used within the editorial-educational rights's context.
13.2 – Craig Steven Joseph Lacey, 4 December 1976–, Australia; 17 April 2023, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 4000; Copyright 2023, Craig Steven Joseph Lacey.
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