Showing posts with label Persecution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Persecution. Show all posts

Thursday, 15 August 2024

PART V. DEEPER BENEATH THE SURFACE: THE PERSECUTION OF CHANGELINGS.

§1.0 - Points 1.0–1.13: THIS BLOG'S CONTENTS:
1.1 - THIS BLOG'S TITLE:
1.2 - PART V. DEEPER BENEATH THE SURFACE: THE PERSECUTION OF CHANGELINGS.
1.3 - THIS BLOG'S LISTED SECTIONS AND NUMBERED POINTS:
1.4 - §2.0: Points 2.0–2.12: THE DISCLAIMER /
1.5 - §3.0: Points 3.0–3.3: THE DATES OF RESEARCH, WRITING AND ON-LINE PUBLICATION /
1.6 - §4.0: Points 4.0–4.21: A BRIEF COMMENTARY REGARDING THIS SERIES OF BLOGS AT 'THOUGHTSDISJECTAMEMBRA' /
1.7 - §5.0: Points 5.0–5.16: SOME VISUAL EXAMPLES OF SUPER-REALISM /
1.8 - §6.0: Points 6.0–6.22: REVISITING THE SUPER-REALIST ÆSTHETIC IN PROSE POETRY AND FILM /
1.9 - §7.0: Points 7.0–7.20: DEEPER BENEATH THE SURFACE: THE PERSECUTION OF CHANGELINGS /
1.10 - §8.0: Points 8.0–8.13: THE WITCHES EXCLUDE THE CHANGELING AND THE CHANGELING EXCLUDE THE WITCHES /
1.11 - §9.0: Points 9.0–9.23: SIMILAR TO THE CHANGELING: THE LOVE-CHILD /
1.12 - §10.0: Points 10.0–10.11: THE NATIVITY OF THE BABY JESUS CHRIST /
1.13 - §11.0: Points 11.0–11.10: A BRIEF AFTER-WORD // 
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§2.0 - THE DISCLAIMER—Points 2.0–2.14.
2.1 - All rights reserved © Craig Steven Joseph Lacey, 4 December 1976–, Australia. 2.2 - Changing the content or re-publishing this blog is strictly prohibited. 2.3 - This blog is protected by the: 2.4 -Privacy Act 1988 of Australia, against unauthorized access to Craig Steven Joseph Lacey's Samsung Galaxy A05s, and Google account; 2.5 - Cybercrime Act 2001 of Australia, against computer fraud or internet fraud; 2.6 - Copyright Act 1968 of Australia, against intellectual property theft; 2.7 - Universal Copyright Convention, circa 1952; 2.8 - Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, 9 September 1886. 2.9 - Fines and/or prosecution will apply according to Australian and International law in reference to unauthorised access and use of this blog published through the Blogger app of Google.com and the author's storage device(s) with the data. 2.10 - Images used in this blog include: 2.11 - At point 5.7, a jpeg of the photograph: Untitled, circa 2005, by Gregory Crewdson, chromogenic print, 144.8 centimetres × 223.5 centimeters, at The Met, Fifth Avenue, New York City, sourced, 15 August 2024, from the URL: <https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/818025>. 2.12 - At point 5.11, a jpeg the photograph: Baby, circa 2000, 26 centimeters x 12.1 centimetres x 5.3 centimetres, of the sculpture by Hans Ronald Mueck, sourced at the Thaddaeus Ropac website, 15 August 2024, from the URL: <https://ropac.net/artists/63-ron-mueck/works/12902/>. 2.13 - At point 5.13, Gilles And Two Flowers, circa 2006, 168 centimeters × 107 centimeters, acrylic on linen, by Ben Schonzeit, sourced at Artsy 15 August 2024, from the URL: <https://www.artsy.net/artwork/ben-schonzeit-giles-and-two-flowers>. 2.14 - At point 6.12, a film still from: You Are Not My Mother, 13 September 2021, 93 minutes, directed by Kate Dolan, Fantastic Films, that portrays Char, acted by Hazel Doupe, and Rita, acted by Ingrid Craigie, in a window-lit scene at dusk, with Rita's reflection visible in the back-ground, behind Char who is seen listening to to her grand-mother within a lounge space.
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§3.0 - THE DATES OF RESEARCH, WRITING AND ON-LINE PUBLICATION—Points 3.0–3.4.
3.1 - This blog was started with draft notes: 21 April 2023 – 9 May 2023, then re-worked: 7 August 2024 – 15 August 2024. 3.2 - Researched and composed, 21 April 2023 to 15 August 2024, by Craig Steven Joseph Lacey at Brisbane City, Queensland, Australia, 4000. 3.3 - The word count of this blog: 6,183 words and 37,590 characters with spaces. 3.4 - Last up-dated: 02:37, 26 August 2024, Australian Eastern Standard Time.
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4.0 - A BRIEF COMMENTARY REGARDING THIS SERIES OF BLOGS AT 'THOUGHTSDISJECTAMEMBRA'—Refer to Points 4.0–4.21.
4.1 - The cultural representation of the extensive persecution of changelings, going from my experience, is poorly represented because of problems regarding censorship in main-stream Western World culture—and as far as I am aware, a similar case of censorship exists in Eastern World culture. 4.2 - There needs to be greater representation of the changeling superstition and its causes of persecution to white, Anglo-Saxon, Christian—mostly Baptist—children, at least in order to prevent such horrific forms of torture and killing from recurring. 4.3 - In reference to the scarcity of material and my claims of its occurrence, perhaps this matter of the changeling and holocaust is, as the character, the so-called expert, the psychotherapist, Doctor Klemperer—of the film: Suspiria, 7 September 2018, 152 minutes—would announce: "delusion; it's delusion"? 4.4 - As briefly discussed through my blog series, texts that focus upon the changeling: the half-human child, and in a number of cases, half-human adult, exist in less numbers and complexity than the changeling persecution and holocaust deserves in representation—even in the mythified representation it receives. 4.5 - If I write on the matter in greatly historical terms and it becomes demystified to the extent it becomes consequential, there is a problem. 4.6 - Such that by writing on this matter at the prima facie levels—of the folk-lore and æsthetics—its memory at least keeps alive, rather than it fall to the forgotten realms of the world where it will repeat ad infinitum. 4.7 - But may I probe slightly deeper, in reference to my theory of the super-realist style, that I have argued to be an æsthetic of the every-day re-invested with qualities of "the numinous", regarding which, I will re-affirm here now: as an adjective defined as 'evoking a sense of the mystical, sublime, or transcendent; awe-inspiring'. 4.8 - Derived from the noun: 'numen', it refers to: "nod", that means to confer divine will, command or majesty. 4.9 - Comparison can be made to Immanuel Kant's philosophical use of 'noumenon': a Greek term referring to an unknowable reality underlying all things: regarding which refer to: 4.10 - The Critique Of Pure Reason, circa 1781, by Immanuel Kant—and note I have down-loaded a German publication to my Samsung Galaxy A05s: the second edition 1787, in the German language: Kritik Der Reinen Vernunft, circa 1781, that contains closer to the original number of pages, approximately 850, than the English language publications. 4.11 - 'Noumenon' is contrasted with 'phenomenon', the latter of which is concerned with observing the appearances of the world; whereas 'noumenon' refers to the essences of the world, of the thing-in-itself, which remains beyond humanity's precise interpretation, though Immanual Kant indicates the 'noumenon' is connected to the moral order, and morality is a subject discussed in many fields of the humanities and religion that is set aside here for æsthetical and sociological enquiry. 4.12 - The numinous is associated to the noumenon, but there is in reference to the numinous a definition of the divine presence of a thing; a notion explained in reference to: 4.13 - The Idea Of The Holy: An Inquiry In to The Non-Rational Factor In The Idea Of The Divine And Its Relation To The Rational / German: Das Heilige: Über das Irrationale In Der Idee Des Göttlichen Und Sein Verhältnis Zum Rationalen, circa 1917, by the German theologian and philosopher Rudolf Otto; 4.14 - Re-published: 27 June 2021, Wipf And Stock, English language, paper-back, 260 pages, ISBN-10: 1666731404, ISBN-13: 978-1666731408. 4.15 - Rudolf Otto describes the numinous as a Latin: mysterium / mystery, that is at once: 'tremendum' / terrifying and 'fascinans' / fascinating. 4.16 - I argue the super-real æsthetic approaches aspects of this definition of the numinous, particularly as something beyond affect / feelings—as something felt and sensed beyond explanation; as deep mystery. 4.17 - The giallo form with a murder mystery threaded through its films, similar to film noir, regarding which I have discussed in detail in reference to Dario Argento's 'Three Mothers Trilogy', involve a detective mystery that can be solved based on reason, but the giallo form takes such matters of deductive reasoning to a realm that is numinous and defies explanation. 4.18 - It may be that such a realm is that of the censored, viz. censored history—what I have referred to as dark history, regarding which I argue my experience exists as labelled a changeling and being persecuted for it. 4.19 - The æsthetic is a sensory matter that connects to something outside the ambit of language, as experiential, and to a locality / locus, similar to the texts of the urban legend genre, where the truth of a mystery is narrated and explained, and further, there is always a remainder outside explanation and is evoked by the place in which it happened. 4.20 - I discussed in my first blog that the index of repressed memories often corresponds to haunting spaces that exist in such capacities inasmuch that it is kept in the realm of dark history: accessible to some people, though not all people; similar to how the dark web is accessed by some people, though not all people. 4.21 - The persecution of changelings, is an omission that may be over-looked for its intermittent absence within spaces; places; nations; but I hope for such wide-scale ignorance or indifference to change.
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5.0 - SOME VISUAL EXAMPLES OF SUPER-REALISM—Refer to Points 5.0–5.16.
5.1 - The æsthetic is not exactly religious as such (though possibly of a cult), nor of surrealism, nor dadaism. 5.2 - I believe the visual styles of this æsthetic are implemented by a number of artists whose works confer with the cinematography used in the films / television series directly based on the subject of the changeling, such as: 5.3 - The Changeling, 28 March 1980, 107 minutes, directed by Peter Medak; 5.4 - Changeling, 24 October 2008, 142 minutes, directed by Clint Eastwood; 5.5 - You Are Not My Mother, 13 September 2021, 93 minutes, directed by Kate Dolan; 5.6 - The Changeling, television series, 8 September 2023, created by Kelly Marcel and directed by Melina Matsoukas for Apple TV+—based on the eponymous novel by Victor LaValle. 5.7 - The photography by Gregory Crewdson, born 26 September 1962–, the United States Of America, a further example of which, I have placed directly beneath: 5.8 - Untitled, circa 2005, chromogenic print, 144.8 centimetres × 223.5 centimeters, at The Met, Fifth Avenue, New York City, with the credit line: Promised Gift of Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary.
5.9 - The sculpture by Hans Ronald Mueck, born 9 May 1958–, for example: 5.10 - Baby, circa 2000, 26 centimeters x 12.1 centimetres x 5.3 centimetres: the figure depicted by Baby, circa 2000, was taken from a photograph, upside-down, that Hans Ronald Mueck found in a medical text-book of a new-born, held aloft by its feet moments after delivery, the sight of which: ‘set [Hans Ronald Mueck] marvelling at the alien strangeness of these raw, brand-new creatures, and sowed the idea for a work’—refer to: 5.11 - page 75, Ron Mueck: A Girl, circa 2007, by Susanna Greeves and Craig Raine, CAC Malaga, 78 pages, ISBN-10: 8496159523, ISBN-13: 9788496159525. 5.12 - The photograph of the sculpture: Baby, circa 2000, 26 centimeters x 12.1 centimetres x 5.3 centimetres, by Hans Ronald Mueck, born 9 May 1958–, is directly beneath.
5.13 - Paintings of 'momento mori' by Ben Schonzeit, born 9 May 1942–, the United States Of America, for example: 5.14 - Gilles And Two Flowers, circa 2006, 168 centimeters × 107 centimeters; 5.15 - The art of Ben Schonzeit is described as hyper-realist by many theorists, though I argue, because mystery is invested in his work, it bridges super-realism, similar to the enigmatic art-work of: René Magritte.
5.16 - Acknowledge that the list of art-works is indicative rather than exhaustive.
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6.0 - REVISITING THE SUPER-REALIST ÆSTHETIC IN PROSE POETRY AND FILM—Refer to Points 6.0–6.22.
6.1 - There appears to be no exact equivalence to poetry, such as to declare a set of texts of the super-realist poets, rather it is an apparent æsthetic movement. 6.2 - There is prose poetry or the proem form that is itself suggestive of super-realism—for example, the first text to reflect the proem form: 6.3 - Gaspard De La Nuit—Fantaisies À La Manière De Rembrandt Et De Callot / English: Treasurer Of The Night—Fantasies In The Manner Of Rembrandt And Callot, circa 1845, by the Italian-born French poet Aloysius Bertrand, an excerpt of which is provided here: 6.4 - 'C'était un pauvre diable dont l'extérieur n'annonçait que misères et souffrances. J'avais déjà remarqué, dans le même jardin, sa rodingote râpée qui se boutonnait jusqu'au menton, son feutre déformé que jamais brosse n'avait brossé, ses cheveux longs comme un saule, et peignés comme des broussailles, ses mains décharnées, paeilles à des ossuaires, sa physionomie narquoise, chafouine et maladive qu'effilait une barbe nazaréenne; et mes conjectures l'avaient charitablement rangé parmi ces artistes aux petit-pied, joueurs de violon et peintres de portraits, qu'une faim irrassasiable et une soif inextinguible condamnent à courir le monde sur la trace du Juif-errant. / He was a poor devil whose exterior announced only misery and suffering. I had already noticed, in the same garden, his thread-bare rodingote that buttoned up to his chin, his misshapen felt hat that had never been brushed, his hair as long as a willow and combed like brushwood, his emaciated hands, straw-like in ossuaries, his mocking, grumpy and sickly physiognomy that was thinned by a Nazarene beard; and my conjectures had charitably ranked him among those small-footed artists, violin players and portrait painters, whom an unquenchable hunger and an unquenchable thirst condemn to roam the world on the trail of the Wandering Jew'—from: The Project Gutenberg website, sourced: 15 August 2024, at the URL: <https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17708/pg17708-images.html>. 6.5 - The narration is paused for a moment of conjectural observation upon a character whose description is ladden with imagery and allusions; particularly within the second, long sentence that uses the rhetoric of 'accumulatio', the amassing of signs, to meet with a semi-colon, that conjoins a further sentence fragment, in mirrored reflection to surmise of a philosophical or numinous perspective, that the vagrant man is comparable to the "Wandering Jew". 6.6 - The prose is similar to the poetic form that starts with observations of details which shunt up in to a totalizing philosophical or numinous summation. 6.7 - The writing of Thomas De Quincey has featured in my blogs and I refer again to his prose poetry: Suspiria De Profundis, circa 1845, as excerpted here: 6.8 - 'At midnight the secret word arrived; which word was—Waterloo and Recovered Christendom! The dreadful word shone by its own light; before us it went; high above our leaders’ heads it rode, and spread a golden light over the paths which we traversed. Every city, at the presence of the secret word, threw open its gates. The rivers were conscious as we crossed. All the forests, as we ran along their margins, shivered in homage to the secret word'—from: page 114, Suspiria De Profundis, circa 1845, by Thomas De Quincey: an evocation of Thomas De Quincey's dream, supposedly influenced by laudanum that uses 'pathetic fallacy': the anthropomorphism of the land. 6.9 - 'Pathetic fallacy' is a form of rhetoric that entertains the beliefs of animism, such that, while the whole world is infused with spirit and movement / animation, some localities are more so than others. 6.10 - An approach that is visible in Gregory Crewdson's photography, where the space that surrounds the person portrayed is as evocative, if not more than the portrait of the person in the image—an effect achieved through lighting and visual puns with mirrors and props: the indexical phenomena, viz. the trampled rose petals or flowers, all of which testify of an occurrence that may go unspoken: only known to who experiences it in their "dark hour". 6.11 - In further regard to: You Are Not My Mother, 13 September 2021, premiered at Toronto International Film Festival, 93 minutes, directed by Kate Dolan, the cinematographer Narayan Van Maele uses a similar diffused back lighting interspersed with smaller filler-lights all of which are lit by a low-key lighting scheme within the camera's perspective: that is a similar technique used in Gregory Crewdson's photography that approaches chiaroscuro treatments. 6.12 - Refer to a film still directly beneath from: You Are Not My Mother, 13 September 2021, 93 minutes, in which Char is lit in very low-key lighting, almost cast in silhouette, with a mirror as a visual pun on perspective that suggests her grand-mother demands of Char to be her.
6.13 - Further, as briefly discussed in the blog: <https://thoughtsdisjectamembra.blogspot.com/2024/03/10-title-part-i-re-films-suspiria-circa.html>: '(A) Protracted: with moments which dwell for too long [on the subject]' and the text being: '(B) Over-edited'—there are counter-expectant dilations upon a subject that involve a mysterious lack of exposition caused by over-editing, the effect of which is to imbue the prolonged meditation with the portentous or numinous. 6.14 - The transition from the static photograph to cinematography involves the dimension of time through which focus upon a narrative is directed: a matter that is closely aligned to the signification of the narrative that exists as a structure that is itself symbolic. 6.15 - There are many film-genre encoded conventions, but a cut in the editing of a sub-plot generally signifies an ending, not necessarily death—and I suspect that audiences unconsciously believe the non-acting actors have gone for a sleep until they are "back on stage" even when film is the medium being used—but also, the cut symbolizes a reformation of sorts, that itself involves an anxiety regarding change. 6.16 - Dario Argento has accentuated the audience's suspense of the murder suggested to occur of Susie, but the cut of film editing partially substitutes for it. 6.17 - Here is the recurring theme of the return of the satyrs also discussed in reference to: <https://thoughtsdisjectamembra.blogspot.com/2024/03/10-title-part-i-re-films-suspiria-circa.html>, reminiscent of the theatrical form of the masque, in which satyrs exist as perennial "scene shifters" who change the mise-en-scene as animating spirits of the represented locality, but this interpretation is of an animistic belief seemingly ignorant of the technicalities of John Ruskin's theory of rhetoric 'pathetic fallacy'—on which point refer to: 6.18 - Modern Painters, circa 1843 –circa 1860, 5 Volumes, by John Ruskin, re-published: 1 April 1988, Alfred A. Knopf, approximately 232 pages, English Language, ISBN-10: ‎039456846X, ISBN-13: 978-0394568461, and further, on-line: 6.19 - Modern Painters, circa 1856, §5, Part 4, Volume III., circa 1856: <https://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/ruskinj/>. 6.20 - With ever increasingly sophisticated special effects in film which cross-over the traditional boundaries of film convention, audiences are far greater in their skepticism then ever before, and John Ruskin's original significance of 'pathetic fallacy': as a falsely constructed metaphor that perceives inanimate or dead things as truly alive, is often a pact taken with the putative father figure as to accept the mortifying effects of such delusion: where 'delusion' is a belief in something that is untrue. 6.21 - As compared to the truth of the miracles of Jesus Christ which set the soul free: 6.22 - 'A miracle is to be distinguished from wonders wrought by designing men through artful deceptions, occult sciences, or laws of nature unknown except to adepts'—from on-line: "Miracle", The American Tract Society Bible Dictionary portal of the website Bible Hub: <biblehub.com>, sourced, 14 August 2024, from URL: <https://biblehub.com/dictionary/amtract.htm>.
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7.0 - DEEPER BENEATH THE SURFACE: THE PERSECUTION OF CHANGELINGS—Refer to Points 7.0–7.19.
7.1 - Many films of the giallo, super-natural thriller and horror genres, exploit traumatic history and traumatic moments common to many people—however insensitively and cruelly—but there are traumas which exist at the very peripheries of collective memory that have only a ghost-type or residual effect of representation, such as I argue is the case of the history of the changeling. 7.2 - To reach at the truth of the possible racial and religious persecution, such as I myself have experienced by being labelled and mistreated as a changeling, the aspects of the truth of such sensationalized accounts in texts must be brought in to focus by argumentum ex silentio. 7.3 - While the filmic treatment is of fiction, the truth of horrific abuses done to white, Christian children, left orphaned and vulnerable, is the truthful element that by an effect of euhemerism is mythified and sensationalised in the texts, but the censorship causes for the ex silentio; the silent mystery. 7.4 - The changeling of the film: The Changeling, 28 March 1980, 107 minutes, directed by Peter Medak, refers to a spirit connected to an old house that the protagonist buys with his wife, and the house is of a Dutch / West German architectural style and the ghost: a white boy, the home's isolated inheritor, was beaten and made disabled, locked in the attic for his brief life, and, it is inferred, that the servants took the property over and sold it as though it was legally theirs. 7.5 - While strange superstitions entered the people's minds, particularly regarding the orphaned, disabled or marked child, the façade of the Christian way of life was maintained, to indicate a socio-cultural schism. 7.6 - At this point, I further consider Thomas De Quincey's reference, as excerpted above, to 'the secret word' that 'arrived' which was: "Waterloo and Recovered Christendom!" 7.7 - Christianity is still reported as the most populous religion in the world, yet Christendom fell; it was not recovered. 7.8 - The Battle of Waterloo was, along with the Allies' victory during the second world war, exemplary of wars which made the history books; that is, when other unrecorded battles, nip by nip, led to the over-throw of the last Christian nations, arguably as recent as circa 1990. 7.9 - Such battles were conducted at the regional levels, on the domestic and business fronts; not battles as such, but troops of militia, corrupt police or gangs going about and committing massacres, here and there, not all at once, upon the Christians left without husbands and fathers after the war—with fewer yet "Christian remnants", children often left locked-up by foreign domestic servants who had secretly committed "mutiny". 7.10 - Regarding this matter of the early fall of Christendom refer to: 7.11 - The Fall Of Christendom: The Road To Acre 1291, 15 October 2021, by W.B. Bartlett, Amberley Publishing, English Language‎, hard-cover‎, 320 pages, ISBN-10‎: 1445684179, ISBN-13‎: 9781445684178. 7.12 - Once the so-called puritan Christians of the Baptist creeds opened wide gates to extend to our fellow humans, in the gist of humanism, our cities, townships and rural lands, and despite being depleted in numbers after the second world war, nonetheless were exploited and murdered, as though none of it happened. 7.13 - This is because of the justification made by the perpetrators, that such whites deserved it: they were getting back what was done to the blacks. 7.14 - Many "blacks" applied racism upon "whites" because they assumed all whites were the same in racism against them, but there were different whites; a point of which I have written in this series of blogs in reference to the Celts / Galls and Aryans / Assyrians, between who persecutions occurred and the Celtic Christians were the least racist of people. 7.15 - Ethnic difference as a matter of skin colour set aside, it became a matter of superstitious or religious persecution, as the notion of changelings refers to a belief that the real son or daughter has been taken by goblins who left an impostor and deformed goblin-child or fairy-child in its place. 7.16 - My experience, as I can remember, is that the pervasiveness of the persecution of changelings during the 1970s until the 1990s was almost all-encompassing, yet according to historical documents from various nations, and further fictionalized texts, the changeling persecution, if it occurred, occurred randomly and infrequently—if at all. 7.17 - At this point in time, my blogs engage with similar sorts of critical discourses as the so-called structuralists, such as Roland Barthes or Jacques Derrida, who analyse the 'text' for cultural and sociological  significance that "make room for difference", rather than censure interpretations that are incompatible with the establishment. 7.18 - The further film: Changeling, 24 October 2008, 142 minutes, directed by Clint Eastwood, is well-known to be based on historical fact, viz. on the Wineville Chicken Coop serial killer, circa 1926 – circa 1928, viz. Gordon Stewart Northcott with his mother, Sarah Louise Northcott, of Jurupa Valley, California, 91752, regarding which I briefly passed comment in this blog: 7.19 - '11.5 – There is no problem of racial integration or cultural / ethnic territorialities at 1920s California—quite unbelievably—on which point, the usurpation of white boys for other "white" boys, may not necessarily have correlation to a myth, but a gradual usurpation; an invasion of attrition at the neighbourhood scale, conducted "just quietly" amid the lucrative Western World society of California. 11.6 – The media has been involved to sort of record it and mitigate it, as might propaganda be used, sensationally, as an extension of folk-lore: the truth always refers to a conspiracy which must be denied, mythified or brocaded in style'—from: <https://thoughtsdisjectamembra.blogspot.com/2023/04/part-i-craig-steven-joseph-laceys.html>.
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8.0 - THE WITCHES EXCLUDE THE CHANGELING AND THE CHANGELING EXCLUDE THE WITCHES—Refer to Points 8.0–8.13.
8.1 - A formulation of almost mutual exclusion arguably is found in relation to not only texts involved in the narration of the changeling, but the witch also. 8.2 - It may be discerned that where one is portrayed as in the twilight and shadows of the world, the other is centre-stage—a divide upon the traditional Christian notions of motherhood, and we are to accept this injustice as an effect of modernization rather than the witch-craft religions. 8.3 - One of the reasons I write often in reference to the film: 8.4 - You Are Not My Mother, 13 September 2021, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, 93 minutes, directed by Kate Dolan, Fantastic Films, Ireland; 8.5 - is because it represents the exception of an integrated narrative of the changeling and witch, though, as discussed, both are represented in a subdued, repressed context—as an effect of over-editing—and as though a hidden figure, "Mephistopheles", lurks behind the cinema's screen itself: such a figure could as easily be Josef Stalin or Mao Zedong or any other brutal dictator. 8.6 - Char must, according to the unspoken lore, burn her changeling mother in order to become a witch and this is a reversal of "mutterrecht", as to indicate that the witch has been involved in killing infants or children, who could be described as bastards of a foreign heritage. 8.7 - One of the great mythic narratives of the witch is based on the witch, Medea, as celebrated by the texts: 8.8 - Medea, 432 B.C., a play of a tragedy by the Ancient Greek playwright Euripides, that was adapted to film in: 8.9 - Medea, 1 April 1988 Denmark, 76 minutes, directed by Lars von Trier with a screen-play by Carl Theodor Dreyer. 8.10 - Further there is: Argonautica, 3rd century, by Apollonius of Rhodes, the epic; re-published, circa 2008, translated by Robin Hard, Oxford University Press, 336 pages, ISBN-10: 0199536325, ISBN-13: 9780199536320. 8.11 - Within such texts, Medea is the archetypal helper-maiden who initially assists Jason in his task of retrieving the golden fleece because, it is inferred, of her love for him, such as to indicate her later marriage and children with Jason symbolize a romantic love pact. 8.12 - After ten years of marriage Medea rises up for revenge, when Jason declares he will marry the Corinthian king's daughter and organise for their children to live with him, because she murders their children and King Creon's daughter, later to re-settle at Iran. 8.13 - The mother's filicide appears to be influenced by her feelings towards the children's father, such as the pathos for revenge and wrath, rather than be a gesture, at the very beginning, of a witch-craft "religion".
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9.0 - SIMILAR TO THE CHANGELING: THE LOVE-CHILD—Refer to Points 9.0–9.23.
9.1 - A 'love-child' is an hyphenated compound noun used as an euphemism to refer to a child born out of wed-lock, but who is a result of a romantic affair, rather than a "lusty fling". 9.2 - The love-child is of an extra-marital affair of true and passionate romance, such as to symbolise the famed, though often secret love between the involved couple. 9.3 - Because the affair is outside of the laws of marriage, the notion of love as an honourable or chivalric ideal and experience, as of courtly love, becomes symbolic of infidelity and betrayal in the context of the third, married partner. 9.4 - The love-child symbolizes the abandons of love's passion for breaking the rules of marriage, inasmuch is shamed, nonetheless is perceived as holding the seed to the truth of love as a transcendence to the rules. 9.5 - The more famed of folk-lore on the subject of a loving extra-marital affair is that of the Arthurian Legend, viz. involving Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere, possibly most celebrated by the 12th-century Old French poem by Chrétien de Troyes: 9.6 - Lancelot, The Knight Of The Cart / French: Lancelot, Le Chevalier De La Charrette; re-published as: Lancelot, Or, The knight Of The Cart, circa 1990, translated by Ruth Harwood Cline, Athens: University of Georgia Press, xxxiv, 231 pages, ISBN 0820312126, ISBN 0820312134—from which judgment is often cast against the maiden for her loose morals, though the mediæval revivalist William Morris wrote the poem: 9.7 - The Defence Of Guinevere, circa 1858—refer to the John Lane publication, circa 1904, 54 pages, illustrated by Jessie M.King; 9.8 - Re-published: 14 February 2006, Obscure Press, English Language, 252 pages, ISBN-10: 1846644321, ISBN-13: 9781846644320. 9.9 - Yet references to children born of passionate love are scarcely found among literature; hence, there is no description of a child born out of true love, such as imaginably would have occurred in the Arthurian Legend: no child born from the parents of such courtly, passionate, Romance. 9.10 - Such texts weave the subjects of desire and love around couples in an almost delicate way to avoid "the complication" of a new-born. 9.11 - The genre of English romantic literature arguably begins with the 18th century epistolary novel: 9.12 - Pamela; Or, Virtue Rewarded, circa 1740, by Samuel Richardson; re-published: circa 1981, Penguin Classics, 544 pages, ISBN-10: 0140431403, ISBN-13: 9780140431407—through to the romantically iconic: 9.13 - Sense And Sensibility, circa 1811, by Jane Austen; re-published 07 December 2023, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Harper Muse Australia, 432 pages, ISBN: 9781400339686, ISBN-10: 1400339685, and the historical romance: 9.14 - The Black Moth, circa 1921, by Georgette Heyer—26 August 2021, Cornerstone, William Heinemann Ltd., 336 pages, ISBN: 9781785152399—through to the later mass-market: 9.15 - Romance literature of Mills And Boon of Harlequin Enterprises ULC, such as: 9.16 - Song In The Night, circa September 1984, first edition, Silhouette Special Edition 188, Mills And Boon, paper-back, ISBN: 0671536885, ISBN13: 9780671536886. 9.17 - The further, contemporary allusion of the noun: 'love-child' is to the notion of the conception of a child born outside of wed-lock being a "mistake" of judgment, that is often attributed to the clouding stirred by fallible passion; that is typically an error placed upon the mother, her being the bearer of the infant, such that the unborn child is organised to be medically aborted to prevent the child's birth. 9.18 - The allusion to the 'love-child' is ironically applied in this context because of the demands to abort the child made from the surrounding family or community of the involved couple—when the unborn child has then become a child of shame and is thus unwanted and unpaid for, often forced in to the "accursed" life within institutional care, because the child is given up to adoption where abuses are known to occur. 9.19 - Refer to the Australian drama-genre, television series titled: 9.20 - Love Child, 17 February 2014 – 4 July 2017, 48 minutes, 36 episodes, by Sarah Lambert, Channel 9, that portrays the lives of staff and residents of the fictional Kings Cross Hospital and Stanton House in Sydney, circa 1969 and continuing into the 1970s, based on the true history of forced adoption within Australia at that time, for which former Prime Minister Julia Gillard offered a national apology to who was affected, circa 2013. 9.21 - Further, there is the film: 9.22 - Love Child, 15 October 1982, 96 minutes, directed by Larry Peerce, written by Anne Gerard and Katherine Specktor, by The Ladd Company; 9.23 - Based on the life of Terry-Jean Moore, in which the female protagonist, while she serves a conviction sentence, fights to keep her love-child who is conceived with one of the prison guards.
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10.0 - THE NATIVITY OF THE BABY JESUS CHRIST—Refer to Points 10.0–10.11.
10.1 - Jesus Christ of the Nativity is symbolic of the new born: a soul brought from Heaven to the Earthly plane who is of the great gift of God to human-kind: God's gift, the gift of life. 10.2 - With the birth of Jesus Christ there is the greatest cause for rejoicing; for the birth of Jesus Christ is the promise of the Messiah fulfilled: Jesus Christ, the only son of God, brought to earth to give the world wisdom. 10.3 - For it is in wisdom that true wealth is accrued and true wisdom holds that life is verily precious, above all else in value, and a child, even with imperfections is valuable as one of God's own children, with soul and spirit worthy of the deepest respect. 10.4 - Some people will argue love is a delusion; that the reality is, there is only cruelty, pain and suffering. 10.5 - Love is full of pain and suffering, yet love exists—love is pleasurable too; too complex to reduce to only sensations. 10.6 - Through God's love there is a higher path to travel and that is made manifest through Jesus Christ. 10.7 - I have written in my previous blog of an artificial apocalypse—an apocalypse that was intended to end all anticipations of an apocalypse—but it was far from The Second Coming of Jesus Christ as of The Book of Revelation, that remains yet fulfilled. 10.8 - 'I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches'—from: Revelation 22:16, English Standard Version10.9 - If only change that brought pain and suffering could be prevented; if only changelings who supposedly bring change could be banished once and for all. 10.10 - 'If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my service I would wait, till my change should come'—from: Job 14:14, English Standard Version. 10.11 - If some-one could change oneself and be the change that he or she prays to witness in the world, then, it is a matter of imitating Jesus Christ.
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11.0 - A BRIEF AFTER-WORD—Refer to Points 11.0–11.11.
11.1 - I wrote almost the exact same blog as this blog five years ago and it was removed from my Google Blogger account, unlawfully, and the storage device with the data was confiscated by the Brisbane City Police of Queensland, Australia. 11.2 - Much of my research and writing—I write much greater than these blogs—stored on my data storage devices, is taken with other items by police. 11.3 - Due to identity theft, I fight for my identity, that is, while I am sick with multiple cancers and only extended half-hearted care. 11.4 - Money is owed to myself, but the people who owe myself payments state: "why re-pay him if I do not have to?" 11.5 - Forced out of Sydney and Brisbane universities for being physically sick, I am almost ostracised as though I am once again: "the changeling among the witches"—or whatever they are. 11.6 - I suspect that the people who I have alluded to in these blogs are those same people involved in proto-typic Satanic forms of sect congregation—cults with shared delusion are not harmless fantasies, because they have often dire consequences, as these blogs indicate. 11.7 - Certainly, they have been involved in 'The Church of Scientology': that cult that removed the dark scriptures' allusions to Satan (at some point Vulcan became Satan and both are interchangeable), such that Satanic Ritual Abuse became "Ritual Abuse". 11.8 - Their power is based on enslavement; and slavery—whether defined as volunteer work or work done as a matter of family ties—is against Australian and international law, such as stated in the: 11.9 - Modern Slavery Act 2018, Number 153, of Australia, and: 11.10 - The International Covenant On Civil And Political Rights, circa 1966. 11.11How law and order can be metéd out in such an intermixture of law and lore; culture and sub-culture; corruption and "corruption"; could be the sixty-four million dollar question.
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Monday, 17 April 2023

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 //.
☆☆☆
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.  

12.0WHITE 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 hatredhe or she must own up to prevent the further injustice of scape-goating.

13.0DISCLAIMER: 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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Saturday, 18 June 2022

Craig Steven Joseph Lacey's Part V. A Further Commentary On The Film: 'You Are Not My Mother', Premiered, 13 September 2021, at Toronto, Canada.

1.0: Blog Contents:
2.0–2.7: Omitted /
3.0–3.5: The Bridge Builder /
4.0–4.4: "Blud Und Boden" /
5.0–5.3: Making Use Of Sociological Methods /
6.0–6.4: Treating The Symptoms And Not The Cause /
7.0–7.4: The Sexes /
8.0–8.7: The Case Of Bridget Cleary /
9.0–9.5: Persecuting White Christians /
10: Cannibalisation /
11.0–11.2: Disclaimer //.
☆☆☆
2.0 — Omitted: Until now my series of blogs on the film: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, by Kate Dolan, have treated the 'Faustian bargain' as part of an hitherto undiscussed cultural complex that I will tentatively call: "the macabre tax", viz. the forced taking of one's own life or children, such as implicated "by signing one's own life away [to the devil]" or "by making a pact with the devil". As such phrases are often stated and inasmuch are readily at hand: point towards an already existing wide-ranging awareness of such macabre tax, the quite obvious concern that is unofficially represented is irrespectively treated as marginal, or irrelevant history, or part of fanciful folk-lore. The question begging an answer: is that how the perpetrators perceive such matters?
2.1 — It is mostly omitted from serious social analysis and instead is found among lulling children's tales, such as: 'The Pied Piper Of Hamelin', based on a rat-catcher, who introduces rats to the town later to demand a fee for removing the vermin, is accused of extortion, then, out of revenge for no receipt of payment, re-appears on the Feast Day of Saints John and Paul, 26 June, to take the children with him—and note, the narrative is, in fact, recorded by 'The Lüneberg Manuscript', circa 1440 / circa 1450, of Lower Saxony—refer to 'The Herzog August Bibliothek' web-site, accessed 18 June 2022, at: <https://www.hab.de/en/digitising-the-medieval-manuscripts-in-the-ratsbuecherei-lueneburg/>.
2.2 — The specific narrative has been a recurring literary theme, not losing relevance, such as demonstrated by Robert Browning's poem: 'The Pied Piper Of Hamelin', circa 1842, for which the abduction is dated circa 1376; or the tale of: "The Rat-catcher" in 'The Red Fairy Book', ‎Dover Publications; a new publication: 1 June 1966, [Longmans, Green And Company, London, circa 1890], ‎367 pages; ISBN-10: ‎048621673X; ISBN-13‎: 978-0486216737, by Andrew Lang, 31 March 1844, Selkirk, Britain, until 20 July 1912, Banchory, United Kingdom—the renowned cultural critic, folk-lorist and anthropologist.
2.3 — The concern of the truth being of such horrorific proportions that it can only be told through fantastical contexts, viz. folk-lore, or super-natural / horror, or super-realist / psychological thriller genres, is the main point to be made: paradoxically, the truth can only be told through a fabulous lie; but the further question required an answer is: to whose benefit is that fictitious arrangement, exactly?
2.4 — In historical or report-based texts, such modern histories are generally absent of the horror: euphemistically referred to here as "the macabre tax"; and the assumption to make is: if there is no such horrific news then such events do not take place—surely, a logical deduction to make due to the pervasive surveillance culture of many cities, that is, when such surveillance can be contrived, controlled by who taxes.
2.5 — The point is, the matter of such tax appears hitherto officially discussed, particularly in any theoretical context, that is, unless the holocaust of Northern Europe during the 20th century is the one and only time such horrors occur in rarity; as a one-off trait of wide-scale war. It simply could not occur regionally or regularly—a point that contemporary French literature appears to confute by numerous authors telling of an experience of holocaust-like character, such as exemplified by: 'Le Rapport de Brodeck / Brodeck's Report', circa 2007 / English translation by John Cullen, 7 January 2010; a novel by Philippe Claudel; Quercus Publishing: London; 288 pages; ISBN-10: 1906694680; ISBN-13: 9781906694685; or the post-holocaust night-mare of: 'Le Non De Klara / Refusal', circa 2002, by Soazig Aaron, publisher Maurice Nadau, ISBN 2862311723, 9782862311722, in which "Klara", a pronoun and noun re-encoded dialectically to refer to a Nun, such as of the once pervasive order of Saint Clare of Assissi, portrays a protagonist who is refused entry back in to society because the cultures of caritas and such cultures' representatives are rejected, that is, within the new—or perhaps very old?—system of the macabre tax.
2.6 — The silence on the matter of such tax may be caused by the register of a degree of poetic license whenever it is spoken of; in saying some-one has made a pact with the devil, hyperbole is said to be demonstrated, if only to convey the feeling of cost involved by establishing a particular contract—on which point the discourse refers to that interminable matter of exploitation in which the pay rate is incommensurate with the demands of a type of employment: really enslavement.
2.7 — The tyrant / dæmon as the merciless boss is subject to an extensive examination in cultural texts, such as in reference to C.S. Lewis's text: 'The Screwtape Letters', [circa 1942] 12 April 2012, 224 pages; ISBN-10: 0007461240, ISBN-13: 9780007461240; often in these contexts the religious and profound are displaced to the secular terms of exploitation found in employment law and the great machine of civilisation turns it's cogs as part of an impersonal system supposedly permitting an attitude of indifference.
2.8 — Or where the arena of the court ought to be the bastion of counter-action against the oppressions of society, it regulates the mechanisms of persecution: the whole-scale elimination of quite blameless folk, trundled in a conspiring system of persecution. Franz Kafka's 'The Trial', Tribeca Books, 11 October 2011 [circa 1915], 160 pages, ISBN-10: ‎1612931030; ISBN-13: ‎978-1612931036, is one of the so-called existential or "demythologized" fictional musings on the court system gone awry; a textual treatment found more tangibly examined as disability discrimination in the film: 'Let Him Have It', 4 October 1991, by Peter Medak, produced by Canal+ et al., Britain—refer to: the Internet Movie Database web-site, accessed 18 June 2022, at: <https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0102288/?ref_=m_tttr_tt>.
2.9 — Filmic texts of American popular culture, such as the: 'Devil's Advocate', circa 1997, by Taylor Hackford, produced by Regency Enterprises—refer to: the Internet Movie Database web-site, accessed 18 June 2022, at: <https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0118971/>, are seen to portray the courts and legal firms as the very places where the devil him-self can be found; a cloaked figure who betrays his privileged position to wrought ruin upon people's lives in the name of greed.
3.0 — The Bridge Builder: There is, then, the under-pinning Christian-Judaic religious symbolism, viz. of "the devil": the Slanderer or Satan who obstructs freedoms of movement, both literal and figurative, to prevent particular classes of people from flourishing: it is the case that the classes of people must be oppressed and kept destabilised by interference and sabotage.
Figure 1. 'Die Teufelsbrücke Saint Gotthard / The Devil's Bridge Of Saint Gotthard', circa 1804, by Joseph Mallord William Turner, oil on canvas, 76.8 cm x 62.8 cm, Kunsthaus Zürich.
3.1 — Yet what I argue of, the macabre tax, that under-scores the narrative of: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, is some-thing else: atrocity in the back-yard; the maniacal amid the every-day; yet it is still a matter apparently out-side rational thinking or discussion because psychology must place it's devils on it's particular bridges to work within the over-all system of "civilisation".
3.2 — The folk-lore of The Devil's Bridge / Teufelsbrücke serves as an illustration of the crossing of traditional oppositions that the devil figure is often considered to demand remains opposed and obstructed. With construction of the bridge "new ground", that is, new knowledge, will be gained, of which the devil would prefer remained inaccessible. The bridge builder must endure unbearable conditions to construct the bridge, in which case the bridge builder emerges as a hero, rather than a traitor who has betrayed even his own family to attain power, such as in the cases of Faust or Aaron.
3.3 — The notion of "the pact with the devil" was, during Wolfgang Goethe's time of 19th century Germany one of freely made choice; whereas the narrative of 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, indicates a family over-taken by an insidious influence foreign or super-natural to the regional community.
3.4 — I have already discussed how Mephistopheles disappears in: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, to leave behind no trace of his presence—expert criminal that he is—to reveal a male presence in the family home, the character of Aaron, left-over instead, as an index of a demeaned masculinity; as an adult son who is coerced in to copulating with his sister, and further, demeans her and her daughter too: significantly in ways which are inimical to the family and the father's natural culture.
3.5 — The case seems that regarding: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, that the devil has not waited for the bridge builder to emerge out of one of the homes of the village to go to the river to construct his juncture between the opposite points of land; the devil has anticipated the movements of the potential bridge builder; the devil has entered the home to derange the family members and further apply an unspeakable and, or, or immemorable macabre tax; possibly to the extent the devil has promised a better way of life to the immediate father or father substitute, such as Aaron.
4.0 — "Blud Und Boden": The phenomena may have a less fantastical correlation with the practice of "blud und boden / blood and soil", of spilling blood in to the earth in order that a people may be able to claim it as truly their own; as a type of naturalising, except that often revised or contemporary texts interpret the phrase as referring to the abstracted notion of the "national body".
4.1 — The German Nazi were of Aryan, that is, Iranian-Median or Scythian / Hunic racial supremacism, rather than Anglo, Nordic or Saxon, as is often confusingly reported as white supremacy—there are different whites—such that the highly militaristic society of the Aryans is found expressing the loss of life as a necessary sacrifice; whereas genuine Northern European Christian cultures bear heavily any loss of life.
4.2 — The holocaust and genocide of the Jewish Semites and Christian Slavs are extensively documented, but the killing of children is some-thing else that must be told through the lulling effects of the fantastical—religion is often kept out of the discourse because tensions mount in regard to specific enmities, such as the Israeli against the Palestinians, or vice versa, at which point the context of genre has changed and matters are taken more seriously, if not cynically.
4.3 — The religious texts are subjected to the cynical reader who reads a pseudo-history, yet the truth nonetheless is found as an illumination and enlightenment of the nature of humankind.
4.4 — The accounts of the Old Testament state according to: 1 Kings 11:7, that Solomon erected a high place for [the idol of Molech] on the Mount of Olives, and from that time till the days of Josiah his worship continued, 2 Kings 23:10, 13. The calf-type idol sculpted of brass, hollow and heated by fire within, Molech, is the fire god of child sacrifice; is similar to that other demi-god, the Minotaur, to which seven youths and seven maidens were sacrificed as the fulfilment of King Minos's tax, applied every nine years on the people of Athens as recompense for the loss of his son: such occurrences echo through the halls of time, in mystified symbolism, to resist having the semblance of a precise relevance to now.
5.0 — Making Use Of Sociological Methods: An amount of blind faith is required to give credence to the claims such horrors occur now, when people are more willing to place faith in what is hopeful, unless fear is a type of hope in reversal and that which is goodly is too paradoxical to conceive: a point of not so much cynicism but faithlessness and Godlessness.
5.1 — Faith, of course, is insufficient "sola fide"; there is the matter of proof of faith, a work, in this case of reconstruction, that is, with what little structure that is available to reconstruct a glimpse in to the family life of North Dublin, the film: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, a type of psychological interpellation must be applied that more realistically perceives triggers of external occurrence as the cause of Angela's depression, rather than accept the often touted notion, mental illness or disabilities of a physical category are similar to the stigma of a changeling as incurable or innately defective, automate abjection and persecution.
5.2 — The film: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, reveals a perspective in which the world is flat, that is, before the so-called Copernican Revolution, that proved the earth to be spherical: to extend upon the analogy, then using psychological interpellation, I have rendered through these series of five blogs the narrative of the film that is portrayed flatly in three-dimensions by examining the assumptions, which are all too easily and readily accepted—the first assumption being that the filmic text is completely fictional.
5.3 — While I refer to psychological interpellation as part of the deductive method that anticipates behaviours caused from triggers rather than an innate causation, I substantiate this approach in reference to applying both a standard set of intertextual analyses focused on a comparative method; such as found in the most basic structural anthropology espoused by Claude Lévi-Strauss or folk-lorist Vladimir Propp, who are credited with the notions of the mytheme or narrative unit, as a narrational set of relations, and as it correlates with a psycho-social complex, in which there is located the psychoanalytical concern of foreclosure, viz. Mephistopheles——Faust, or Mephistopheles——Grand-mother, and daughters——Faust or daughters——Grand-mother, and not: daughters——Mephistopheles or the Law; such that it can be asserted the over-all faculty of the work exists within the disciplines of sociology, viz. literary / cultural discourse analysis based on anthropology / psychoanalysis through an intertextual analytical method.
6.0 — Treating The Symptoms And Not The Cause: Confronted with the almost impossible conditions of joining a point of impasse of the super-realistic æsthetic—subtly infusing the social scientific discourses through the quality of it's subject with implausibility—and a societal "establishment" that may function to discourage the building of bridges between the sexes, cultures and classes of people; I nonetheless argue that this macabre tax is extolled; that the agitator, the Mephistopheles, has slipped away, a shadow cast as quickly as it has faded from the action of the narrative, to perform his greatest trick yet, to leave the blameless behind and let accusation fall upon them. 
6.1 — From the out-set, 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, portrays an elderly woman as a suspected murderer of an infant, that is as much as the super-realist æsthetic will permit the consideration to be made: the immolation is it-self omitted as a mark of the foreclosed suspicion that the style plays with.
6.2 — The elderly woman is seen to limp with a pram to a bushy area away from the neighbour-hood where a fire is lit and the baby, placed on the pile of dead branches, watches the elderly woman stare back at the infant; the old woman, Rita, acted by Ingrid Craigie, stares with suspicion, disbelief and welled-up eyes, as the flames suffuse her face with an orange glow.
Figure 2. Film still at 03:15 of 93:00: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, by Kate Dolan.
6.3 — It would be presumptuous to blame the elderly woman of immolating the child—there is the fact, an infant is not reported as missing or burnt dead later in the film. The trap would be to confer credence to the fallacy of: 'post hoc, ergo propter hoc', that is: 'because of this, therefore that': because of this scene, the elderly woman immolates children. The assumption is coaxed, that some-one is guilty because of an happenstance placement amid circumstantial evidence; condemnation occurs at the risk of a complicity with the devil's deception.
6.4 — Could the arrangement, the set-up, not be a trick of the devil? The devil, that master illusionist, demands from the arrangement, that on-lookers confer to his trick of controlling the people to perceive a blameless person as guilty for the devil's own crimes: he has ordered one of the mothers to do that which he would do, but for the fact, he must evade a direct connection to the collection of his tax.
7.0 — The Sexes: The structural elements of a narrative based on a witch often involves a pact with the devil: the narrative of Washington Irving's 'The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow', circa 1820—adapted to film: 'Sleepy Hollow', 17 November 1999 at Mann's Chinese Theatre, Los Angeles—portrays the character of Lady Van Tassel as pledging her soul to Satan: a moment that is found in the film: 'Belladonna Of Sadness', circa 1973, directed by Eiichi Yamamoto, in which the character of Jeanne makes a pact with the devil who is a spirit of the wilderness rather than a tycoon.
7.1 — The devil is considered to bestow a woman with her witch status as a matter of an agreement; such that the division of the sexes cannot exonerate one side and only blame men.
7.2 — The world that comes in to view through the film, 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, is mysterious as much for the expression of an adolescent girl's brain-washed perspective, as the decontextualisation of greater causes of historical significance: if not God versus the devil, then, what?
7.3 — The further point is: to be disconnected to the causes of true history is to establish a position neither interactive with or consequential to the changes of history: what occurs in Char's world is of no consequence to any-one else.
7.4 — The primary concern is, rather than treat the symptoms, the cause is seen to be treated: which comparatively refers to the Mephistopheles who has slipped away from sight and accountability, as exemplified by the Irish narrative of: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021—he will return and cause the recurring patterns of strife when measures of intervention lack.
8.0 — The Case Of Bridget Cleary: To cross the thresholds of the fictional to the historical, the further argument is made: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, is based, at least in part, on the Irish case of Bridget Cleary, a young woman who was immolated, at Ballyvadlea, County Tipperary, Ireland, on 15 March 1895, for allegedly being either a witch or changeling. 
8.1 — Bridget Cleary disappeared and returned to her family no longer her-self; was ill and three days later, her husband, Michael Cleary, and father, Patrick Boland, and seven further family members, burnt her alive.
8.2 — Three extensive case studies of Bridget Cleary have been published:
8.3 — 'Murder Of Bridget Cleary', by Carlo Gébler; Hamish Hamilton, circa 1994; 160 unnumbered pages; ISBN: 0241132061, 9780241132067, 9780349103150, 0349103151.
Figure 3. The cover of Angela Bourke's 'The Burning Of Bridget Cleary, A True Story', circa 2006—refer to point 8.4, directly beneath.
8.4 — 'The Burning Of Bridget Cleary', by Angela Bourke; New York: Penguin, circa 2001; 279 pages; ISBN: 0141002026, 067089270X, 9780670892709. 
8.5 — 'The Cooper's Wife Is Missing: The Trials Of Bridget Cleary', by Joan Hoff and Marian Yeates; New York: Basic Books, [circa 2000], reprint circa 2006; online 477 pages; ISBN: 9780465030880, 9780465012084, 0465012086.
8.6 — A further text shows the case of Bridget Cleary as a witch trial, not a matter regarding a fairy's changeling, that is titled: 'The Tipperary, Or Clonmel, Witch Case: transcripts of newspaper reports etc., concerning Bridget Cleary, burned as a witch, and the trial of her husband and neighbours for murder, circa 1895', by Doctors William Osler and George Foy, circa 1917. 
8.7 — Because all nine family members were convicted, five of murder, the further four, of wounding, the social science of law demonstrates that the stigmatising mechanisms of folk-lore, such as the applied label of the changeling, is found only to motivate hatred, violence and murder.
9.0 — Persecuting White Christians: The folk-lorist of the state of Idaho, the United States Of America: Dee L. Ashliman, refers to the German folk-lorists Jacob and Wilhelm Grimms' accounts: '... of changelings being thrown in to water, beaten severely with a switch, left unfed and crying in an open field, or placed on a hot stove', and further notes, that such ordeals are reported as common, told in reference to the changeling legends of Northern Europe, which: '...do not misrepresent or exaggerate the actual abuse of suspected changelings': in 'Changelings;
An Essay', copyrighted circa 1997; refer to the web-site of The University of Pittsburgh, accessed 18 June 2021, at <https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/changeling.html>.
9.1 — Dee L. Ashliman reports: 'Court records between about 1850 and [circa] 1900 in Germany, Scandinavia, Great Britain, and Ireland, reveal numerous proceedings against defendants accused of torturing and murdering suspected changelings'—in 'Changelings; An Essay', copyrighted circa 1997; refer to the web-site of The University of Pittsburgh, accessed 18 June 2021, at: <https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/changeling.html>.
9.2 — The cruel and unusual punishments meted to children based on a stigma constructed through the changeling myth, to confer the superstition that a child had not developed a deformity or disability, but had been replaced with a child not of the parents, that is by other-worldly beings, has allowed the vilest cruelties known, not only to children but adults with fair complexions of North Western Europe and colonial regions, often Christians.
9.3 — Within the discourse emerges the problem of racism against white-skinned folk of a Northern European heritage—as distinct from white-skinned Berber, Iranian, Hun or Han ethnicities—and that is predicated against Christians, viz. is Christaphobic or of the Anti-Christ.
9.4 — Where domestic abuse might be terms of reference, as though family members are involved, the motivation being racist and religiously intolerant, more correctly applies persecution; the matter is not simply white against black.
9.5 — The figure of the adult changeling, as discussed in Part IV. of my blog, regarding the film of 2021 and music, such as by the band Toyah, involves a reduction of white-skinned Christians to the status of children; who might be considered unborn, that is, fœtal; are held to be the equivalent to souless flesh; as live stock raised, as cattle are raised, for ingestion.
10.0 — Cannibalisation: In regions of Ireland the thought of cannibalisation may be startlingly or one of disbelief, when truthfully the matter is old; such as demonstrated by the text 'A Modest Proposal For Preventing The Children Of Poor People From Being A Burthen To Their Parents Or Country, And For Making Them Beneficial to the Publick' ("A Modest Proposal"), circa 1729, in which the Irish clergyman and author Jonathan Swift, 30 November 1667, Dublin, Ireland until 19 October 1745, Dublin, Ireland, ironically advises the poor Irish to sell their children to the rich as food.
11.0 — 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.
11.1 — Three photographs have been used within this blog: Figures 1 to 3; each of which is identified to a resource and is used within the editorial rights' context.
11.2 — Craig Steven Joseph Lacey, 4 December 1976–, Australia; 189 Leichhardt Street, Spring Hill, Queensland, Australia, 4000; Ⓒ 2022, Craig Steven Joseph Lacey. 
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