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BLUEPRINT FOR RADICAL THEATER EXPERIMENTS:

Transformational Primal Theater as Art, Education, Sacred and Ritual Praxis Towards a

Cosmogonic Cosmological Healing System

dragon (Andre’ Little/Ifakoya Eshutolu)

MASC Project Course

Gabriella Lettini

Starr King School for the Ministry

Berkeley, California

June, 28, 2020

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MASC Project:

BLUEPRINT FOR RADICAL THEATER EXPERIMENTS:

Transformational Primal Theater as Art, Education, Sacred and Ritual Praxis Towards a

Cosmogonic Cosmological Healing System

Table of Contents

A. Opening Statement 4

I. Alternative titles 11

II. Terms & Definitions 11

B. Introduction 18

C. Theater Forms and Practices 26

D. Narrative Conventions & Traditions 31

E. Questions Answered & Assessed, Plans, Goals, Expectations 53

F. Conclusion

List of References
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MASC Project:

BLUEPRINT FOR RADICAL THEATER EXPERIMENTS:

Transformational Primal Theater as Art, Education, Sacred and Ritual Praxis Towards a

Cosmogonic Cosmological Healing System

A. Opening Statement:

My journey to this point has been one of zig-zags; of highs in love and lows in loss. This human

tragedy plot-line is somewhat typical for most modern people. I reason this is partially because,

it seems, there is less that is sacred today compared to the ancient world, as far as we may

comprehend, and further quest for more answers to that which is sacred. Moreover, there is very

little we can do to measure the gulf between the sacred past, and modern profane, or vice versa,

with any great scientific accuracy. As a seminary student and long time dreamy hobbyist of the

arts, philosophy, history, and culture, I continually marvel at the ceaseless unfolding of

knowledge acquired, as the experts say, purely by science, yet as they unfold, such marvels

express and address the mysteries of ancient knowledge, civilization, cultural behaviors, and

practices. I much rather take a leap, and venture to say that all things assumed sacred are not

necessarily so, or their sacredness has eroded in time. By the same token, many things widely

regarded as secular, hold sacred value. Maybe this is all fantastic romanticism of the sacred and

profane. Looking at the larger vast layers of worlds within worlds we live in today, perhaps this

fantasy needs to be revisited. Religion itself has morphed into politics and lifestyle choices.
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And while perhaps there still may exist at some level, the concept of the universally sacred, what

have we to say in regards to the universally accepted secular? Are institutions universally

secular? Is science universally secular? Can we apply secularity to the politics of the state?

Should we? And what about our year-round holy day rituals of consumerism? Of labor? Of

exploitation and incarceration?

Quantum physics now, (and Wow!, I mean like “Pow!”), who would have known that today, at

the end of our modern time, directly speaks to the ancient Eastern or Gnostic Laws of the

Universe, esoterica, the occult, etcetera. Modern science is discovering and simultaneously

uncovering and explaining knowledge that has been with us since before the ancient days of

Kemet. Discovered in 1945, the Nag Hammadi texts, also known as the "Chenoboskion

Manuscripts" and the "Gnostic Gospels", 1 revealed hidden, additional biblical knowledge that

was written in the 3rd and 4th centuries. This modern knowledge reaches back to an ancient

consciousness, as the ancients shot hidden memoirs forward. Now an awakening humanity

awakens daily to more awakening, in a positive feedback loop. The Mayan Calendar and the

time of the Kali Yuga are actually accurately clocking the alarm clock (911?/2020?) on the rising

consciousness of humanity. These examples directly illustrate the magic & beauty of ancient

mysteries continually unfolding into modern light. I am witnessing such illumined unfoldings of

knowledge within my own zig-zags in life, seeking connections seemingly unconnected, simply

because I once asked the

Universe-Source-CodeMaster-MostHighCreator-CreatureCultureTeacher (The-1-In-ALL) to help

1
"Nag Hammadi library - Wikipedia." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nag_Hammadi_library.
Accessed 21 Jun. 2021.
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me make powerful quickening comparisons, and to be able to analyze as much spiritual and

arcane knowledge I could find. And thus, this light doth shine in this zig-zagging over sands of

time.

The message in the sand was written upon my destiny, my head, my “Ori,” as the indigenous

Yoruba peoples have understood it in the context of Ifa, one of the sacred practices which led me

to study at Starr King School for the Ministry. Connecting further dots, it has become apparent

that I do not always see the road beyond my headlights on this zig-zagging journey. Although

this road is misty, lonely at times, and often a dark journey, similar to the mysterious and

unknown nature involved in the process of an Ifa sacrifice or “ebo,” I have accepted my path as a

wonderful scavenger hunt with a general good destination. And at the same time I am

experiencing sacrifices within small offerings, within trips, within journeys, within the entire

sojourn that is this waking dream of life as we know it. Herein lies my personal, emotional, and

dare I say devotional, depth with sacred within the secular. I cannot write further without full

acknowledgement of the gracious yet profane sacrifices of labor and love of my ancestors who

have paved the way for this sacred journey that is my life, breath, and purpose. Respectfully,

regarding Ifa’ while I can only speak on what I know of the 17 years experience through trials

and tribulations as a young ignorant, devotee, reluctant to accept the initiation, title and covenant

of “Awo,” I sorta know where I am going, and at the same time the this indigenous Yoruba

practice has taught me so much about ancestors, initiations, and the power of the mind.
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In completion of this final draft, I came across a breadcrumb I’d left myself in the Spring of

2017. This was amazing! In an eerily sublime way; this piece of writing stated nearly

word-for-word, the very basic essence of what it is I am presenting here. And to think, how lost

and clueless, I have felt nearly this entire 4 years of time. I now conclude this was a written

premonition and, at the same time a set sacred, and perhaps also secular intention. So significant

that I had to include it both as an applicable example to the potential of this body of work about

the body, and also as a reflective illustration of theatrical narrative journeys within the context of

our very lives.

In a sense, and in my case, all roads lead to enlightenment in innocence, as I have journeyed

through social awkwardness, religious confusion, the identity crises of capitalism, revolutionary

action, mental and physical pain and trauma, self deprecation, anger, fear, fight, flight, in cycles,

grief, anxiety, etcetera in the giving and taking of varied doses of self - hate, to arrive again at a

remembrance of, and a yet more clear re-listening to “The Call” that is “My Call.” This “call” is

but one part, one small slice of a pie at the table of elements of the complete narrative of the

purpose of our human experience. But it is a significant slice nonetheless, and is part of a

common journey or road we all tread. But how many slices are universal anymore? Do as many

people today even receive a “call,” from or toward any kind of purpose? Are any small journeys

within our short lives even acknowledged anymore? Does anybody notice? Does anybody care?

Is it important or significant at all to conceptualize? And what difference would it make if we did

examine our common, and not-so-common slices of experiences in life? What is your “call” or

purpose in life?
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“I am often asked what keeps me going after all these years. I think it is the realization that there

is no final struggle. Whether you win or lose, each struggle brings forth new contradictions, new

and more challenging questions. As Alice Walker put it in one of my favorite poems: I must love

the questions themselves as Rilke said, like locked rooms full of treasures to which my blind and

groping key does not yet fit.”

― Grace Lee Boggs, Living for Change: An Autobiography, 2016

This paper is seeking an answer to some general “big” life questions, for myself, others, and

particularly for our pressing & present times. Philosophy has taught me that it is not the answers

that are important but the questions. It is those “big” questions of life and the pursuit of their

depth of meaning; the dissection of the elements from which such questions emerge, that make

the adventure of life a little bit more fulfilling. It is through this process that self knowledge

arises as what I call, “praxis-by-proxy”. As simple as it sounds, such a process is not exactly a

no-brainer in the theater of life, for it requires that we pay basic attention to our lives and reflect

for some moments on our senses, our thinking, intentions, words, actions, personal goals, &

desires, while observing our emotions objectively, bearing witness to their changes without harsh

judgement nor reactive folly. This MASC project marks completion of a step, a cycle, in my

personal hero's journey as a student, and at a point of solar return, my 47th year “on the round.”

So it just makes sense that I would come to this grand conclusion now, with a graceful extension,

allowing me to kindly place my middle-aged back against a gentle wall.

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The grand conclusion is one of mind-body-spirit somatic manifestation and experiencing the

greater connectedness of things through multiple perspectives. This is the zooming out from our

small personal issues for a greater depth of context and purpose. To quote Abraham Hicks I’m

going to go “big picture,” tackling “big” questions, and not restrict the conversation to Theater of

the Oppressed and the Indigenous Body, as I had focussed on in the preliminary research. Here, I

am exploring journeys within journeys, and how this smaller MASC journey, as an individual

Indigenous Body, is part of a bigger journey that has seen and felt a life experience much like a

mustard seed caste into fertile soil, and nurtured with my attention following intention on it,

toward manifestation through focused intense fires of alchemy, ironing out of a grey blurry idea

into a golden light of fruition and revelation on my personal mission of service

for the world. This is a story within a story, within a story covering 100 million or more stories.

Everybody’s story in mine and mine in everyone’s too. A story about the power of stories in each

of our eternal souls, all connected. What started out as a whimsical personal healing exploration

is becoming a magnum opus before my eyes.

To provide some visionary background, initially it was Ibrahim Baba, his style, influence, efforts,

and success in opening the door for Islamic Studies into the GTU system that fertilized or

pollinated my dream of an Indigenous Faith Institution of equal caliber community, healing, &

higher learning where intensive certificates to PhD level education in Indigenous Studies could

thrive. To be honest the vision wasn’t that clear right away, but the shell of the idea grew out of

my Indigenous faith study of Ifa and in conjunction with some knowledge of my Indigenous

ancestry here in the Americas. The major challenge emerging was finding anything spiritually
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meaningful directly to my American lineage other than Internet searches, and asking family to

try and put the pieces together. And there, from the little me, tree immediately concerned of the

greater global forest, there followed my usual cognitive zoom-out question which was; “Who

else shared this feeling?”

I just kept digging into my ancestry, old stories East and West. I was beginning to put pieces

together while developing my Hilda Mason class and further roots tracing, in order to find the

medicine to my personal traumas and how to learn from them to propel me further into the

future. I knew my ancestors knew more about nature than we did. Nature was a large part of all

they did. I knew they had special medicine that could heal us. I knew Theater of the Oppressed

addressed a lot of social concerns, and emotional traumas, and was born as a modern, or perhaps

a remixed medicine of theater; a form of entertainment transformed into self-education, and as a

healing praxis for life. Theater of the Oppressed, or Pedagogy of the Oppressed in union with

stories of Indigenous life culturally was not only a match made in heaven but a match made on

earth, originally earning it’s wings through its interaction as theater adapted for the education of

Indigenous peoples in language acquisition.

I began to think deeply and to be spurred on by Spirit through my heart aligned with mind. “Are

there more theater techniques, styles, modes, or models that could be applied to liberation of the

mind, body, and or soul?” And, as the real turning point beyond that, Spirit inspired me to

explore; “What are the basics of narrative structure?...What are the most-common, the familiar

ones, and the not so familiar ones? How might TO (Theater of the Oppressed) plus other radical
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theater techniques and knowledge of narratives help provide the participants with further

engagement in deeper transformation?”

“Everybody has a plan, until they get punched in the mouth.” (Wyld 2019) I was struck with this

famous Mike Tyson slogan echoing in my brain, as COVID-19 happened. I was three or four

weeks into my class that had already started late due to a significant and trying transition in the

family, so I felt like I got punched in the mouth twice. But I was bound and determined to not get

beat up and to fight the good fight all the way through! In addition it became of utmost

importance that I increase the value of this class to the students. School is expensive enough, and

I did not want them to feel cheated, nor myself, defeated by the circumstances. To this end, I

placed more emphasis on our final project as larger “a seminar in a bag” for lack of a better word

or phrase. The idea was inspired by the field of home-based internet business marketing of all

places. It simply makes no sense at all for any of our students, most of whom are adults in

middle-age or older to get a masters degree and to go out into the world and look for yet another

job. And I myself have been wanting to see, and to actively participate in transforming education

systems as they are developed and implemented, especially into working class and marginalized

communities.

My paternal family, having been involved in the education system for generations, as teachers,

principles, and admin professionals, regularly discuss education at nearly every family function.

Through my twenty plus years in the education field, I have long been able to see significant

cracks in the system. In terms of my MASC experience, I began to form the opinion that I had
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wished many of my classes finished with a final project that, if it couldn’t directly impact a

major change in the world, like an organized protest, then perhaps a tangible service or product

of necessity could be produced, so that students could continue to earn real income as a small

business entrepreneur while also completing their studies. And perhaps with such an income as a

stepping stone, an individual or a cooperative of students could increase the scale and outreach

by the time they graduated, and position the product or service entity to support and impact

systemic change in a greater way.

Mind, heart and soul now all aligned again, I thought, “If I want this for my students why don’t I

develop such a project for myself? Why don’t I make my own project into a bigger and more

fully developed impactful dream I had envisioned all along? Why not work hard at developing a

system that helps others envision what it is to master social change? If my students could take

their own final projects beyond one short semester class final that’s over and done with just for

an electronic grade or a piece of paper degree, along with the full struggle of having to attain a

grade, why not transform our thinking and discussions of social change into productivity and the

real power of tangible change? Why not create a sort of plan or success blueprint, for students

and others, as my own final project? Why not kill all the giant birds you can with one stone?” In

this case the stone is this MASC project, and the giant bird birds, well, let’s try the fall of

mankind, through the breakdown of Spirit into the fragmented cultural, social, community, and a

near-death environmental crises?

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This paper serves as a blueprint, not only for the development of a leadership program to be

implemented and customizable to quite possibly every social strata of society, but also an

initiatory program philosophy and entry level into a vast array of future potential programming

to be scaled up from 15min introductory speeches, to 45 min lectures, to seminars, retreats, to

6-14 week classes, to possible certification to Bachelors and PhD degree programs, all revolving

around the experimentations and personal transformation with the power of theater arts and the

human story as the hub of this creative wheel. There is such a wide range of information that is

unknown to the mainstream world of education. And due to the levels of technology we are at

today, compounded with environmental and social issues at the very moment of this writing,

education, technology, and everything in and around this relationship; are now changing

dramatically. The past is never the same as the now, as somethings they say never change, while

now cannot be the future, as both future and past are illusions, delusions and confusions that

distract us from the present, which is the gift. I think this is where such dreams come in to add

value and to validate creatively our ancient past and glorious futures. While wisdom teaches that

noteworthy signs and synchronicities on the forefront of our present paths, are not symbols of

predestination, but evidence of past thought and intent. In other words, the signs of success, on

our journeys, follow and do not precede. The increasing challenge of modernity is confusing and

confounding of the sacred and secular, via external human processed technologies vs. the natural

and internal “tech-gnosis.” The social GPS that the entire institution of organized religion once

functioned as, with soul salves and life lessons, now remains but a dusty library collection of

hobbyist, ritualistic club-cults, foreign and far removed from positive impactful community

growth and transformation. This is largely due to the removal of the physical body from the very
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act of worship, meditation, prayer, chanting, social exchange, and reflection. The parishioners

are but a passive audience being talked about, at, and down to, and expected to heal and grow

into good people. This doesn’t work in classrooms, theaters, politics, nor churches. In fact, this

instructional method is a manipulation and enslavement from the start. This Blueprint, is the

beginning of such an enslavement’s demise.

MASC Project:

BLUEPRINT FOR RADICAL THEATER EXPERIMENTS:

Transformational Primal Theater as Art, Education, Sacred and Ritual Praxis Towards a

Cosmogonic Cosmological Healing System

I. Alternative Titles:

A. Blueprint to Sacred Theater as an Educational Therapeutic Praxis

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B. Radical Theater as a Praxis for Change

C. B2Do2Do2B…(A living postcolonial palimpsest codex manuscript)

II. Terms & Definitions-

Evolutionary- This term is used as an alternative to the co-opted, overtly commercialized, dated,

and perhaps counter-revolutionarily-pimped term “revolutionary.” I humbly borrow this one

meaning from a collection of inspired words of the great Grace Lee Boggs, who suggested

something to the effect that rebellion is the microcosmic of revolution, which is in turn the

microcosmic of, or a predetermining factor to the greater unfolding evolution of humanity.

“Going big” here, in this paper, is aptly synonymous to “going Boggs,” or going home, in that all

the micro-organic, rebellious small moments of movement and moving pieces and revolutionary

dialectic, discourse, and details add into the course of nature as organized in macro-organic, large

scale networking. “History is not the past. It is the stories we tell about the past. How we tell

these stories - triumphantly or self-critically, metaphysically or dialectically - has a lot to do with

whether we cut short or advance our evolution as human beings.” (Boggs, 2012)

crucifixion-fixation-victim-consciousness- This is the idea that the Christ character, as

specifically portrayed in the now well globalized narrative of the Gospels, has been extended

into great commercial proportions through manifest destiny into the minds, myths, cultures, and

personal lives of working class people’s everywhere, and that those masses were not taught the

true transformative meaning behind the narrative. Further, Christians and non-Christians alike in
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the postmodern world know truly of the Jesus story subliminally in their subconsciousness to the

extent of which, “goodness” and/or “God-ness” means to sacrifice themselves over a lifetime

through hard labor and to but hope through passive prayer and/or via passionate rebellion, while

enduring suffering in ignorance of any real knowledge or spiritual tools to access the Universal

“Christ” or the enlightened Self. Simply put, the poor and working class masses are fed an

Abrahamic (sacrificing of child, woman, and self) / Brahmanic (Creation as Sacrifice of Purusha)

thematic plotline on the sacrificing of self; especially the body, without the deeper esoteric inner

knowledge of the mind of miracles and what it means to embody, perfect performance

manifestations through breath, visualization, meditation, self awareness, sense control and

emotional transmutation.

Catharsis-

Webster says:

1a: purification or purgation of the emotions (such as pity and fear) primarily through art

b: a purification or purgation that brings about spiritual renewal or release from tension

2: elimination of a complex by bringing it to consciousness and affording it expression

3: PURGATION

(Webster, 2020)

Augusto Boal points out that catharsis is a substitute for action when viewing theater because all

of our emotions, highs and lows are satiated and satisfied by the end of the play. In a sense we

are fed this tidy single conclusion as the only outcome; a spoonful of sugar, salt, or vinegar

wrapped up in a package as the accepted norm. This is a commodified bourgeois theater that is
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finished rather than an original theater of the people, or a family, clan, tribe, or affinity group that

is purposely unfinished with unfinished dreams, thoughts, practices, ideas, goals, plans, tactics,

songs, dances, costuming, puppetry, continually open to be worked on and worked out as

“spect-actors.” (Schutzman & Cruz 1994)

spect-actors-

SPECT actors is a term Boal uses to rename spectators of theater, which are the people, the

masses, in my understanding fed the pipeline production of plot lines, but given a new

opportunity for empowerment through Theater of the Oppressed Games, Image theater, Forum

theater, Legislative theater, etc.

Popular Education- This term emerges out of Latin America particularly in the work of Paulo

Freire and his Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Popular education is the education focused on the

masses; the populace, mainly the bottom, the least of us being educated amongst ourselves with a

critical look at our systems against oppression that work and serve our communities.

In Popular Education:

* The starting point is the concrete experience of the learner.

* Everyone teaches; everyone learns.

* Involves a high level of participation.

* Leads to action for change.

* Is a collective effort – focusing on group rather than individual solutions to problems.

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* Stresses the creation of new knowledge, rather than the passing on of existing knowledge.

* The process is ongoing – any time, place or age.

* And it’s fun!

(Arnold & Burke, 1983)

This model of education is applicable to not only church and youth groups as spiritually

transformational work, but in justice work, leadership development, rights of passage, family and

community planning, motivational and intentional manifestation groups, investment groups,

corporate strategists, team visioning for sports, political and workers union, generally to

empower individuals and impact teams with dreams.

In my blueprint, this paper, the key is to tax those of higher income first by training leadership

from the bottom to do so. This is being true to the spirit of this mode of education envisioned in

alignment with the light of the Most High Creator, and the intentions of the very definition of the

popular education model.

Praxis by proxy/Autopraxis-

This phrase, which applies most directly to the idea of Somatics, emerges through this very

writing as a way of defining any practice that bears within it any process of automated reflection.

Poetry, performance art in particular, choruses, sports, anything requiring rehearsal particularly

with the body and theater specifically for example bear within opportunities for deepening

physical emotional knowledge and transformational growth. Automatic reflection is especially

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true in these instances due to the fact that multiple forms of communication must be used to,

first, express the initial focus goal of the physicalized practice in one format (dance, drumming,

puppetry, modelling, etc.), and second, another format of communication is used to express the

reflection (touch, speech, song, applause, etc.).

“spiri-radical/spiri-actual”-

This is a term I coined to describe what I envisioned in my mind to be two ideas that express

almost a unified vision, or even a yin/yang expression in the nature of this project, which is to

combine a spiritual, spiraling, radical and a self-actualizing therapeutic theater with all the tools

and resources I could possibly access and to put into this container; this cauldron of positive

manifestations for myself and others. Spirit, to me, is simply the verb of a spiraling ritual into the

ether with pure embodiment of emotions. The spiral is the way growth happens based on

particles and wave patterns into physical nature, as sea shells, the weather patterns, the uncoiling

spring leaves on the tree, the slow fast motion of the cosmos. Ritual is synonymous with

behavior, acting or theater. A radical spiraling ritual is pure embodiment; raw-wild like a toddler

child, energized maybe yang with yin contained inside or yang shelled in a thin yin. An

actualizing spiraling ritual feels a little bit more quiet, maybe with all the power contained just

under that thin yin or a hard yang protecting a powerful peaceful yin within. The point being, no

matter what type of individual or thematic focus within a session, embodied transformational

play-work with theatre can be such a powerful manifestation prayer and a full on creation

process, while processing our very preconceived programmings.

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Play-work-

This essentially is the idea of what actors call stagecraft modified into the linguistic model of

Boal’s “games” from Theater of the Oppressed and to a lesser degree, also holding to the notion

of what is known as “games” people play, within the grand game of life. This is an abstract way

of looking at popular education through a theatrical “spect-actual” lens. For the Proletariat it

might be advantageous to re-envision the labor known as work, into play. Further I envision

myself in this process as a “joker” trainer, whereby my own work of “playing games,” is play. So

appropriately, play work is ultimately my most worthy work.

cosmogonic cycle vs. the cosmologic cycle-

According to Space.com, “Cosmology is a branch of astronomy that involves the origin and

evolution of the universe, from the Big Bang to today and on into the future. According to

NASA, the definition of cosmology is "the scientific study of the large scale properties of the

universe as a whole.” (Redd, 2017) Cosmogonics, is more so concerned with the theory or story

of the origins. As we will examine, this perhaps implies that the fool’s journey, for example as a

cosmogonic cycle is based upon a theoretic or scientific study of a microcosm within a

macrocosm, a cycle of man within a natural cycle of the greater universe. Bantu Kongo

Philosopher and Spiritualist Fu-Kiau used the word cosmology to explain the world view from

which his indigenous culture teaches about the origin and evolution of reality. This cosmologic

and cosmogonic difference could be described as a right brain, left brain Yin Yang, East West,

binary split between two ways of arriving at likely the same Quantum end. Both are

fundamentally working out the human origin and purpose, scientifically vs. philosophically. Seek
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and find. Sow and reap. Ask and it is given. We become what we think about. Life is less no,

neither nor, nor either/or but most always yes, and yes, and yes, and.... Affirming whatever we

choose to focus on.

B. Introduction

This study is a culmination of the zigzags and destinations of a long journey that involves

information sought from a dreamer’s intention. In this natural curiosity of the human purpose

and a seeking to know, this writer has learned and lived in the love of knowledge and sharing it

with everyone around. More specifically, I have loved the arts, performance art, and especially
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drawn to the art of theater, acting, comedy, “clowning, acting-up, acting-out” as my father might

have called it.

In expanding my awareness, I learned to appreciate my beloved “Pops” gifting me with the

books and teachings of thinkers from Jung to Freud, Malcolm X to Pavlov, Raj Neesh to

Kierkegaard. In his subtle awareness expanding my gifts, he had me audition and cast into a

Hollywood film. Reflecting on both my creative interests and personal gifts today, I must honor

them and use them to the best of my ability serving others. I was called. It took some time, but I

began the journey. Only now is it clear to me, that the express vehicle to my goal is radical

theater as a form of transformational healing.

All the pieces of the puzzle are at present fitting together so well. Let me not forget first, the

Most High Creator, my ancestors, astral mates, the Orisha/Saints of the Diaspora, spirit guides,

energies, and the elder guiding lights on this journey. I am extremely appreciative of all my

spiritual mentors in community; the Reverend Eloise Oliver, Founder of the East Bay Church of

Religious Science, Baba Obafemi Origunwa of The School of Orisha Studies in Oakland, Araba

of Lagos Chief Awodiran Agboola of the Indigene Faith of Africa Institute, Amir Sabzevary,

Head Professor of the Philosophy Department at Laney College, Professor Purush Billamoria of

the Dharma Studies Department at the Graduate Theological Union. And of course the late great,

Ibrahim BaBa who specifically encouraged me to pursue my interests at the GTU, and to see this

process completely through.

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In 2016 I entered Starr King actively engaged in the emotional physicality of my own healing

through the spirit, or so I thought. However I soon discovered that I was embarking on a journey

through the body, mind, and heart simultaneously. One of my first classes, recommended by my

beloved advisor Sofia Betancourt was Theater of the Oppressed, “Jokered” by Jiwon Cheung. I

was immediately mesmerized and deeply immersed into a direct somatic healing process that

engaged my physical pain and emotional grief I was going through, via a new and fresh spiritual

insight.

Theater of the Oppressed itself comes from Augusto Boal, of Brazil who was influenced by the

Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Frierre. Boal saw all theater as a way in which to transform

reality. Boal was very close friends with Frierre and was very influenced by his approach to

addressing education of the masses. He said “There’s no such thing as neutral education.

Education either functions as an instrument to bring about conformity or freedom.”2 And,

appropriate for parents, corporate heads, teachers and leaders, but amazingly poignant for today

politically as any; “Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do

not organize the people–they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they

oppress.”3

Boal, also influenced by experimental theater in places like Harlem, NY, and artists like Paul

Robeson, & Langston Hughes, on the other hand reflected on his limitations as a light skinned,

2
"Quote by Paulo Freire: “There's no such thing as neutral ...."
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9491323-there-s-no-such-thing-as-neutral-education-education-either
-functions. Accessed 5 Aug. 2020.
3
"Quotes by Paulo Freire - Freire Institute." https://www.freire.org/paulo-freire/quotes-by-paulo-freire.
Accessed 5 Aug. 2020.
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white-educated, urban theater person trying to educate rural indigenous people on primary

language acquisition through theater. Starting with a newspaper theater he used pictures to

illustrate the performance visualization of the words in text, however he soon discovered that he

needed to take this process a step further, quickly realizing that he was limited by his own

experience and not fully understanding the problems of the oppressed communities he was trying

to serve. That is when it clicked for him as an indigenous woman interrupted one of his

instructional performances to redirect or instruct from the audience perspective onto the

proscenium. He was inspired to invite the rather bold and large woman on stage to further

illustrate the intimate details of what oppression looks like in her community, and how she would

address this particular man-wife domestic dispute. In this instance the fourth wall was broken by

an indigenous brown-skinned woman heckler spectator from the student-audience.

It’s amazing how this instance is reflective of the countless many of these fourth walls broken in

public school classrooms every school day throughout the western industrialized world that

aren’t supposed to even be there in the first place for them properly places of education, because

these systems do not honor the dialectical nature of education. This is the “presence of

oppression; of an unequal relationship between two individuals or parties, of a monologue

instead of a dialogue.” Augusto Boal said “Whenever a dialogue turns into a monologue, you

have an oppressor and an oppressed. And that's where the Theatre of the Oppressed comes in.” 4

Given our problems with education in the world today, perhaps theater may provide a remedy.

4
"The Rainbow of Desire The Boal Method of Theatre and Therapy." https://gp.vash-direct.ru/136.
Accessed 5 Aug. 2020.
 23

Theater of the Oppressed plays a particular game amongst many social games that involve the

science, psychology and somatic awareness5 of the body in a powerfully creative and safely

expressive environment maintained by the guidance of the “Joker,”6 whose job it is to facilitate

somatic consciousness games and conversations about the feelings and sensations experienced

by the group in this very physical, thought provoking, and emotional living laboratory. A

veritable petri dish of emotions and sensations is created, to be experienced, expressed and

shared amongst the group intimately with reminders of the engagement in the larger community

outside the walls of this contained stage. The “forum” game7 for which I am referring to is

focused on stopping the action of an antagonistic oppressor or group upon a protagonistic

oppressed individual or group, beginning with an action, verbal or non-verbal communication

that increases in escalation. The spectators, are the potential players in the play they are

observing, and are called “spect-actors”8 because this non-captive audience is assigned, or

empowered with the responsibility to individually at random yell “STOP!,” thereby freezing the

action at a chosen point of escalation, and to step in, to replace the actors frozen in action as the

same, or sometimes as additional characters. This forum can be slowly set to play in reverse by

the Joker’s suggestion, or it might be frozen to move characters, or perhaps certain body parts,

facial expressions or gestures might be made, or environmental props or positionings altered.

5
"Somatic Awareness." 19 Jul. 2011, https://www.selfleadership.org/blog/somatic-awareness/. Accessed
5 Aug. 2020.
6
"FAQ: What is a Joker? - Theatre of the Oppressed NYC." https://www.tonyc.nyc/faq_what_is_a_joker.
Accessed 5 Aug. 2020.
7
"Theater of the Oppressed - Organizing for Power."
https://organizingforpower.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/games-theater-of-oppressed.pdf. Accessed 5
Aug. 2020.
8
"Theater of the Oppressed | Beautiful Trouble."
https://beautifultrouble.org/theory/theater-of-the-oppressed/. Accessed 5 Aug. 2020.
 24

This experience for me was part and parcel to a larger transformational process. I was not healed

instantaneously by sharing some personal traumas, and having people in the community assess

them in an honorable way. However there was deep dignity and strength restored unto me in this

sharing while at the same time I was surrounded by other people's traumatic stories, narratives,

and exchanged engagement. A community pot of transformable pain? Maybe, but perhaps in a

fun, safe, creative, trusting and less messy way than many other physical workshops I’ve ever

experienced. Is this because there are so many minds engaged in solving one person’s problem

in front of everyone to share? Or is it that everyone gets to feel the fact that they’re not alone in

feeling oppressed that makes the warm and fuzzies come out?

Hard to detect, but there is this subtle community affection that is garnished in this sharing of

pain and transforming it together something that is not probably experienced in many people's

lives on the whole let alone at an evening dinner table with their family. This was the feeling that

I experienced while teaching this class about the Indigenous Body9 and its power through all the

pain. I decided to hack the educational system by using Theater of the Oppressed “Games” to at

least make my class more interesting and to make it easy on me to teach and plan. What I did not

factor in, but just simply unfolded as an element of surprise, was not only the immense

knowledge of Indigenous practices that are sort of interwoven into the Theater of the Oppressed

philosophy, but that I would become so deeply connected with my students in an emotional way.

I marvel at how empowering it was for myself, in such a limited time and space considering the

9
"Indigenous Bodies - SUNY Press." https://www.sunypress.edu/p-5807-indigenous-bodies.aspx.
Accessed 5 Aug. 2020.
 25

surprising and sudden circumstances of COVID-19, how we were able to use this technique to

process the feelings under the shadow of this “black swan event.”10

At this point, on a personal level this healing process was unfolding into at least a three-part

healing journey for me using Theater of the Oppressed as the center, tool, vehicle or medicine of

which I was not aware it was always sort of present in my life. There I was on the verge of

teaching a class involving the study of the Indigenous Body, large and small, as object and

subject, as political and personal, and as a praxis for which I was already in, as I was studying

my very own body in the context of the social construct of the larger Aboriginal Autochthonous

“Indio” American American Indigenous Moor11121314 body politic. This was a result of a deep dig

in to my ancestry and a simultaneous conflict of physical, mental, emotional, and financially

injurious proportions, I was a prominent Oakland Occupy-to-Decolonize15 activist reeling from

being assaulted by police officers/slave overseers/13th amendment, Jim Crow, Commercial

Color Code, Dred Scott enforcers, etc., etc., etc. This said conflict left me with physical and

emotional, and therefore spiritual pain that I process on a daily basis, but one that is not

augmented or treated without the interaction with the theater as therapy.

10
"Is coronavirus really a black swan event? - The Week."
https://theweek.com/articles/900400/coronavirus-really-black-swan-event. Accessed 5 Aug. 2020.
11
"National Self-Determination and Ethnic Minorities - University ...."
https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1297&context=mjil. Accessed 5 Aug. 2020.
12
"Full text of "The Mythology of all races .." - Internet Archive."
https://archive.org/stream/mythologyofallra11gray/mythologyofallra11gray_djvu.txt. Accessed 5 Aug.
2020.
13
"LAW OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN THE AMERICAS ...."
https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/KIA-intro.pdf. Accessed 5 Aug. 2020.
14
"THE NATIVE AMERICAN MOOR A True History of Your People."
http://moorishdirectory.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/YOUR-TRUE-MOORISH-HISTORY.pdf.
Accessed 5 Aug. 2020.
15
"Decolonize Oakland: Creating a More Radical Movement ...." 3 Dec. 2011,
https://occupyoakland.org/2011/12/decolonize-oakland/. Accessed 5 Aug. 2020.
 26

The way in which students in that very first T.O. (Theater of the Oppressed) class experience,

listened to my pain, re-enacted it, re-arranged the outcome, touched me emotionally and

physically as a gesture of support and strength was unforgettably powerful and transformative.

This time, for the students in my class online this past semester experiencing TO for the first or

second time, it also became powerful for them to just share what was going on inside their

bodies, now restricted to being inside their homes, and to have others engage in the physical

interpretation of those experiences and to discuss the physical sculpting and the sounds made to

express and release the emotions felt, by sudden social confinement. And sometimes we would

just individually in silence stir up a recollection of a smell that sparked a memory of a pleasant

outside adventure, we had all been missing so much.

All this got me to thinking, emitting, and reflecting on how easy it seemed, to be able to social

distance myself because I had this small group of of six like-minded community members

engaged in the healing process of not only in Indigenous Bodies collectively through real-life

narratives from the text we were reading, but we were engaging in the healing process

individually through the complex life situation we were going through in real-time. This marked

a plateau in the healing process for me, because my personal pain had finally rebirthed into a

community healing process. To my amazement, this had become the Shamanic Journey16 I had

been seeking, but immersed in all along! One I feel began before birth, took many significant

turns, but hit a major turning point when I was excessively tazed by Richmond PD, and had an

16
"The Shamanic Journey - Shaman Links."
https://www.shamanlinks.net/shaman-info/about-shamanism/the-shamanic-journey/. Accessed 5 Aug.
2020.
 27

immediate “out-of-body experience” (OBE17). This grand trial and tribulation was a personal

initiation of sorts which was sliding into a weekly community healing program which I wanted

to continue after the semester was over. One in which we all look forward to week after week! I

still have emails to send to thank my students for their open and loving participation and

feedback, and to check-in on how they were doing at this time.

Therefore, in an effort to continue this Shamanic Transformation, Spirit whispered to me to

package my own former presentation or whatever this was that was happening, in order to

preserve the purity of the first idea before COVID-19. I had to adjust my MASC project to

reflect what is currently in the focus of this vision. This vision being a step-by-step healing

consultation platform or program, a workshop that I can use to sustain myself financially while I

continue to study and add more knowledge to a larger version of an online university system

based upon Indigenous cultural knowledge that is rooted in performance art.

An unfolding of a myriad of ideas came flooding in with every morning light, as I was inspired

to explore other forms of theater because I believed theater is historically and universally the best

tool for the common people to express common people’s woes. As I dug deeper into theatrical

experimentation, there emerged a common theme of revolutionary/evolutionary justice problem

solving which theater is the main tool.

17
"Out-of-body experiences: Neuroscience or the paranormal?." 19 Jul. 2017,
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318464. Accessed 5 Aug. 2020.
 28

I began by exploring multiple forms of theater, as well as multiple forms of thematic storytelling

because I was learning the power of the narrative is almost as important as the body in the

theatrical process. Not only that, stories, narratives, mythology tell our bodies how to respond to

certain events. This is even true in the animal world, in the past-on generational communication

of ravens and crows1819. Some stories simply live in our bodies DNA for various reasons,

physical, emotional, gender specific or non-specific, political reasons, social, and on and on.

Generally, memory is the storehouse of these stories for the most basic sake of improving our

chances of survival.

There are many theatrical forms, modes, methods, and strategies to explore. Theater itself is

basically as old as the first human-to-human experience that was ever shared. Theater is

by-in-large the most primal form of communication there is. Humans, most without realizing it,

as a species, are engaged in theater throughout their entire so-called, conscious, waking lives,

always experiencing to experiment, to experience to experiment again in drama, comedy,

tragedy, romance, thrills, chills, and spills. To touch on the formal human experiments of

theatrical forms in which I explored there are “Poor Theater,” “Peoples Theater,” “Guerilla

Theater,” “AgitProp Theater,” “Third Theater,” and “Theater of the Absurd,” to name a few.

Other topics or themes that will be visited in terms of the narrative, thematic storytelling, and

subsequent “auto-praxis” processing include the following:

18
"Ravens can remember the faces of humans who wronged ...." 7 Jun. 2017,
https://qz.com/1000035/when-you-cross-a-raven-the-bird-will-hold-a-grudge/. Accessed 5 Aug. 2020.
19
"Grudge-Holding Crows Pass on Their Anger to Family and ...." 30 Jun. 2011,
https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/grudge-holding-crows-pass-on-their-anger-to-family-and-
friends. Accessed 5 Aug. 2020.
 29

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave

The Heroes/Fools/Heroine journey

Alchemy/The Alchemical Man/Purusha

Myths & Fairytales

Bantu Kongo Cosmology

Kundalini/Serpent in Garden/Sacred Spine Sacrum/Plumed Serpent

Themes:

The Call, The Quest, The Return

Initiation

Sacrifice

Divination

Community

Self and World

Light and Dark

Growth formula/fibonacci sequence growth sequence

Time

Nature

Life cycles

Hermetics

And much more…

 30

C. Additional Theater Forms and Practices

Poor Theater
 31

Also known as ‘paratheatre’20 meaning “beyond theater,” Poor Theater was a theater form by

Grotowski loosely connected to Theater of the Oppressed in that it sought to be a theater with

minimum extras; minimum costumes, props, single, unrepeatable performances and available to

the poor; in unconventional spaces or the streets, with emphasis on the body as props, or

emotionally, as to employ some of the influences of Stanislavski’s emotional memory technique.

Emotional memory technique is a mindset whereas actors or performers are encouraged to dig

deeply into the emotions of the character being portrayed, even if that means remembering a

personal memory, and emotional similarities that would enhance the portrayal of the characters

conflict.

Guerilla Theater

Born as an extension of an outgrowth of two members of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, Berg

and Davis, in the 60’s calling themselves ‘The Diggers,’ after an older radical group of

proto-anarchists of England in the 1800s. “By exhorting his theatrical ensemble to become a

Marxian cadre, or at very least a catalyst for social change, Davis committed the Mime Troupe to

serve as a Movement vanguard in the nascent cultural revolution.”21 Their theater centered

Around satirical protest with a carnival style technique influenced by the AgitProp movement,

Dada performance art movement22, and the influence of Che Guevara’s “Guerilla Warfare” on

20
"Poor Theatre Conventions | The Drama Teacher." 12 Mar. 2014,
https://thedramateacher.com/poor-theatre-conventions/. Accessed 8 Aug. 2020.
21
"Staging the Revolution: Guerrilla Theater as a Countercultural ...."
https://www.diggers.org/guerrilla_theater.htm. Accessed 8 Aug. 2020.
22
"Performance Art and Dadaism -." 31 Aug. 2011,
http://performanceartist.com/performance-art-dadaism/. Accessed 8 Aug. 2020.
 32

art.23 Politically motivated they performed in public with the aim to increase revolutionary

sociopolitical change.

AgitProp

Short for “agitation propaganda,” AgitProp theater was largely influenced by the Russian

communist movement of the 20s and 30s as a response to the horrors of WW1.24 They often

performed in public places where the working class dwelt, dressed in blue overalls, reading aloud

controversial topics from newspaper articles directed at catching the attention of the workers in

the vicinity.

Theater of the Absurd

Critic Martin Esslin named this type of theater one that breaks away from all conventions of plot,

story, characterization and thematic structure, obscuring the human sense of nature by means of

existentialist notions of the meaninglessness of life, or in which man is controlled or manipulated

by unseen outside forces. When can see examples of this avant-garde form of theater in Silent

films by Groucho Marx or Charlie Chaplin. In his book Absurd Drama (1965), Esslin wrote,

23
"Guerilla Warfare - Small Wars Journal." https://smallwarsjournal.com/documents/guevara.pdf.
Accessed 8 Aug. 2020.
24
"Agitprop | Soviet history | Britannica." https://www.britannica.com/topic/agitprop. Accessed 8 Aug.
2020.
 33

“The Theatre of the Absurd attacks the comfortable certainties of religious or political orthodoxy.

It aims to shock its audience out of complacency, to bring it face to face with the harsh facts of

the human situation as these writers see it. But the challenge behind this message is anything but

one of despair. It is a challenge to accept the human condition as it is, in all its mystery and

absurdity, and to bear it with dignity, nobly, responsibly.”25

Third Theater (US)

Brustein, founder of both the Yale Repertory and American Repertory Theaters called “third

theater” a fringe movement whose continued survival was as problematical as its anti-war

position was unpopular, so it was with considerable surprise that I watched it, soon after, begin to

take a position of power in the theater.”26 I position this very famous, published, actor,

playwright, director, educator, and critic’s naming of a theater movement because I am not only

interested in the depth of his articulation and observation of this art form in the flux of history,

but also his further writings on the radical theater and it’s formality into western academy

consumerism, and entertainment for example. Brustein’s critical looks at 1960s radicalism and

theater from the lens of the white male of the western academy, also poses an intriguing

exploration.27 Under the similar, but yet more complex social conditions today, and noting the

25
"Martin Esslin (1918-2002) - Theatre Database."
http://www.theatredatabase.com/20th_century/martin_esslin_001.html. Accessed 9 Aug. 2020.
26
"The Third Theater Revisited | by Robert Brustein | The New ...."
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1969/02/13/the-third-theater-revisited/. Accessed 9 Aug. 2020.
27
"Critic Brustein's papers a dramatic addition to Gotlieb Center." 12 Dec. 2003,
https://www.bu.edu/bridge/archive/2003/12-12/brunstein.html. Accessed 9 Aug. 2020.
 34

changes that theater in the 60’s had on society and popular culture of that time, presents

significant comparisons of living within the aging crust of the classic Academy today interwoven

and at present primarily supported by the radical youthfulness of technology. Technology itself

now presenting new theatrical spaces, places, and concepts, all their own.28 While one cannot

help but appreciate the truth of Brustein’s centrist view from the academic second-hand, yet

careful and keen observation of the theater touched and absorbed and caught up in some ways

into the vast world of other systems that time are whips up in flux around what he terms the

avant-garde. So one might say that technology is the main aggregate and the very transformer of

both theater, the academy, and all social systems en masse.29 Any and possibly all of the 3.5

billion plus smartphone users worldwide is now a spectator and potential paid performer in some

form of theater 24/7/365.30 All this as the formality of buildings to service entertainment needs

for example, this is changing society as we speak as well, along with the general utility of certain

things like entertainment itself. Therefore theater itself must now bear the embrace of dramatic

change, dare I say, transformation, once again.

Third Theater (India)

28
"How Has Technology Changed Theatre? 4 Ways ...."
https://www.theatreartlife.com/staying-still/4-ways-technology-changed-theatre/. Accessed 9 Aug. 2020.
29
"Technology can have positive and negative impact on social ...."
https://us.humankinetics.com/blogs/excerpt/technology-can-have-positive-and-negative-impact-on-social-i
nteractions. Accessed 9 Aug. 2020.
30
"• Smartphone users worldwide 2020 | Statista." 28 Feb. 2020,
https://www.statista.com/statistics/330695/number-of-smartphone-users-worldwide/. Accessed 9 Aug.
2020.
 35

Also influenced by Jerzy Grotowski’s ‘The Poor Theatre’, and coined as a term by around the

early 70s Badal Sircar “brought new ideas and methods to Indian theatre from the West and

constructed a new form called the ‘Third Theatre’ coined by Barba to describe Odin Teatret.”31

“What relations, what differences and what antagonisms can be established between puppetry,

mime, dance and dramatic art? The notion of “third theatre” is an attempt to answer this

question.”

“The “third theatre” is a mix of contemporary theatrical techniques and ancestral traditions.

Through the will and desire necessary for these encounters to take place, the opening up of

cultures is enabled.”32 Badal Sircar innovated this form of theater to include whole communities

of the audience in chorus and with scripted roles in the plays very production, and regularly

including controversial topics regarding the modernization of traditional Indian cultural norms.

Third Cinema

Solanas and Getino of Argentina created this film style in the 70’s as a response to the first

cinema, which was a space occupied by Hollywood, and second cinema which was largely

independent cinema of European creation, as society was pushing towards a third cinema of the

people of the Third World; Latin American countries, Africa, India, Southeast Asia, etc. This

31
"Jerzy Grotowski on the notion of poor theatre - Fresques ...." 10 Mar. 2010,
https://fresques.ina.fr/europe-des-cultures-en/fiche-media/Europe00064/jerzy-grotowski-on-the-notion-of-
poor-theatre.html. Accessed 9 Aug. 2020.
32
"Third Theatre - WEPA - Unima." https://wepa.unima.org/en/third-theatre/. Accessed 10 Aug.
2020.
 36

form of film was militant, postcolonial, and anti-capitalist, and as such serves as a significant

study in the art of theater, narratives, popular culture and social expression from the margins. I

mention Third Cinema as a note to continue exploration of sociological connections of the time

in Latin American countries, and elsewhere in which third cinema and third theater may have

interacted and from which more techniques, styles and tactics for creative art revolution may

potentially be born.

An additional note on the two separate above mentioned “Third Theater” forms, and their

respective origins. There is not, as of yet a significant work addressing the possible connections

between Brustein’s 1960’s observations of antiwar and radicalized theater that he called “Third

Theater, and that of Barba in ‘76 and his emphasis on the use of the body and minimal materials

it in nontraditional and public spaces of performance. However, from the following quote, one

might argue that Barba’s notion of “Third Theater” is one further removed from the First World

western, academic, and critically acclaimed ideas of performance art:

“Separate from institutional theatre, a vector of cultural values both past and present, ever fertile,

also aside from supposed ‘avant-garde’ theatre and from experimental theatre, in the quest of

values other than those of tradition, this is where ‘third theatre’ appears.” (Ferdinando Taviani,

“Le monde du tiers théâtre”, Le Courrier de l’Unesco, janvier 1978). This proposes a different
 37

type of theatre which doesn’t demand the confrontation of vernacular theatre forms. The “third

theatre” is a mix of contemporary theatrical techniques and ancestral traditions.33

All this exploration of radical theatre may in fact just be the tip of the iceberg. For I am

discovering theater itself from its inception even to present day has gone through, if not, cycles

of ever increasing radicalization, perhaps stair-step patterning like external technologies, or

maybe theater itself was radical from birth and is meant to be so because radicalization is

embedded into its DNA as part of its tradition within the context of the history of human

communication itself, like secular notions of solemnity or peace is embedded within the DNA of

the sacred.

D. Narrative Conventions & Traditions

33
"Third Theatre - WEPA - Unima." https://wepa.unima.org/en/third-theatre/. Accessed 10 Aug. 2020.
 38

The content of this section regarding narratives and themes consists greatly about universal and

specified cultural myths and the power of myths. This is essentially the matrix.34 The

programmed reality from which all social constructs or “games” are played. And I suppose this is

the natural effect of a headlong dive into the secular wormhole of this primal communication

turned artform that is theater itself, while spiritually considering the very power of the narrative

in our conscious, subconscious, and collective unconscious. For “All the world's a stage, and all

the men and women merely players.”35 This poem, of Shakespearean fame fits but oh so

succinctly here, like a puzzle piece in a timely timed game, as if it ‘twas made to complement

this modern writing of a sage, ‘o the sacredness of the stage as it is both most human and yet

humane, with its wittiness, the playful liquid truth joyfully loose, embedded wittily if not prettily

within the stern gaze of fallacies, the court of chorus, as fairies singing fantasy fancily, with

scenes as seasons change, reflecting wits o witness’ gaze, pon thee ye the profane and gnosis of

the arcane.

This is where the fun comes in to a certain extent, reminding me of a time I discovered my

auntie Viola’s ragged and tattered hardback edition of Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth.36

Coming from a purely southern Baptist family, philosophically speaking, combined with a

Catholic school education, all subverted by the social and media influences of “Black Power,”

“Black is Beautiful,” “Black Enterprise” radicalism, Classic Rock, R&B, Hip Hop and Reggae

34
"The Philosophy of The Matrix: From Plato and Descartes, to ...." 31 Mar. 2017,
http://www.openculture.com/2017/03/the-philosophy-of-the-matrix.html. Accessed 10 Aug. 2020.
35
"Speech: “All the world's a stage” by William… | Poetry ...."
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56966/speech-all-the-worlds-a-stage. Accessed 10 Aug. 2020.
36
"The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers ...."
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/23332/the-power-of-myth-by-joseph-campbell-with-bill-moy
ers/. Accessed 10 Aug. 2020.
 39

culture, The Power of Myth, and the characterizations of common story personalities, suddenly

gave me a cheat code for understanding the larger world in a more complete and meaningful

way. All I had known about archetypes in general, at the age of 8 or nine was restricted to my

birth sign, and that Taurus’ were most typically “stubborn.” Finding out the existence of greater

and culturally universal archetypes meant that I could choose a different personality from those

choices which had been assigned to me which were for the most part purely biblical, or in my

mind fictional, which I could not relate to, and had no human characteristics that seemed

accurate by any means, because this human world at that age was a maze of a series of

confusions, or pain without instant miracles popping up on the next page after a prayer or two.

Allegory of the cave

Speaking of the Matrix, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is a perfect starting point to explore

narrative conventions and traditions because to my knowledge the very first complete book ever

to be written down, The Epic of Gilgamesh, involves this very theme, which perhaps

not-too-ironocally has been masterfly compared to the Matrix film. Not only does Plato’s

Allegory apply generously over a great number of heroic bodies of work like suntan oil on a

scorching Miami beach, but the very notion of the common human experiential steps of the Call,

the Search, the Struggle, and the Return, compare "the effect of education (παιδεία) and the lack

of it on our nature.” And what is education, or any experiential learning, but an imparted upon or

shared discovery of new found knowledge, or philosophical understanding.

In the Matrix film a deep reflective philosophy, or love of wisdom occurs in the hero Neo, who

gives uncompromising devotion to his teacher Morpheus. In the Epic of Gilgamesh it is

 40

Gilgimesh who falls in love with the wisdom emparted to him vis-a-vie Enkidu. Both are

cosmically triggered by a series of events which nibble almost annoyingly at the necks of their

conscious curiosity like a gadfly on a stallion’s mane.

The Hero in Plato’s Allegory is transformed by the effect of his call of curiosity toward the

source of the shadowy false reality projected on the enslaved clan’s cave wall. This sets him on a

search from his home world of known comforts and power, to the source of the light and

shadows, through a hole in the Earth to another blinding world of a completely altered yet

awakened and enlightened state of reality, where his very new light must face and succumb to a

very personal and transforming struggle with darkness and challenges only to return home in a

fuller appreciation of self, home and something of a lesson to impart to those within his clan and

cave. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is but a brief synopsis of what is fact universally accepted as

the Hero’s Journey.

The Hero's Journey

From here one is required to take but a short leap to bear witness to how the Allegory of the

Cave represents a foreshortened or summarized experience that is in fact Joseph Campbell’s

legendary Hero’s Journey. It must be firmly stated that Joseph Campbell himself assembles this
 41

information from ancient knowledge as well, and perhaps under some influence of Jungian

archetypes, as they relate to all of our human collective unconscious, and ancestral knowledge.37

The Rider-Waite version of the Tarot card deck includes what is widely understood as this Hero's

Journey as essentially the Fool’s Journey. Mitch Horowitz, historian and writer of the book

Occult America, insists that the original Tarot, discovered as playing cards which appeared in

early 15th-century northern Italy, had no mystical origin whatsoever, but that the imagery and

meanings of the symbology printed on the cards may in fact possess an underlying meaning of

primeval nature.38 The parlor game that was played with these cards was an ancestor to modern

Bridge. When the Rider-Waite version appears on the scene, Pamela Coleman Smith is the artist

commissioned to add these specific archetype imagery to the cards, comprising the 22 human

journey arcana or trump cards.39

At this stage in this story of stories, Plato’s tribal caveman, has become King Gilgamesh, Neo the

Matrix Hero, Joseph Campbell’s and Jung’s everyman, to the now Fool, an archetype

transformed within many a narrative and also the Tarot decks querent, the very human person

asking a question of the oracle, deck or of their own choices in the universe. All of this under the

influence of the greater cosmogonic cycle, which imposes, or projects it itself upon the very

37
"The Myth: Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung | by Keane Li ...."
https://deepsexythoughts.com/the-myth-joseph-campbell-and-carl-jung-35a1397cc759. Accessed 10 Aug.
2020.
38
"The Miracle Club: How Thoughts Become Reality: Horowitz ...."
https://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Club-Thoughts-Become-Reality/dp/1620557665. Accessed 11 Aug.
2020.
39
"The Divine Mystery of Pamela Colman Smith – Enchanted ...."
https://enchantedlivingmagazine.com/divine-mystery-pamela-colman-smith/. Accessed 11 Aug. 2020.
 42

nature of reality as we understand it from our human perspective. The Universal law of

Correspondence dictates that this principle expresses its energy in the experiential reality of “as

above so below, and as below so above,”40 Therefore when the human querent asks the oracle a

question, the cards that reveal themselves are not only reflective of the specified question, but

amazingly are reflective of the influential energies around the querent and or the personality or

personality types affecting that person at that particular space-time point in which the cards are

drawn. In other words, the person asking a question is living a microcosmic version of the heroes

or fools journey by asking the question within the larger time frame of their whole life cycle on

the heroine/hero/fool's journey again, within the larger cosmogonic cycles of the universe itself.41

In other words we die 1000 deaths or more within our lifetime, and thereby we play 1000

characters in the thousands storylines with this within the same single, actual human, birth to

death timeline.

In the narrative of the Tarot deck, there is a particular order in which the fool traverses this realm

that involves all the 22 cards of arcana, “hidden things or secret mystery”.42 The fool reluctantly

at first, much like the young Harry Potter, Arthur of Camelot, Bilbo or Froto of the Shire,

encounters the magician, then the high priestess, to the empress, to the emperor, to the

hierophant, to the lovers, all somewhat representing stages within the confines of is his known or

understandable stable world. He or she then traverses into an unknown world by means of the

40
"As above, so below - Wikipedia." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_above,_so_below. Accessed 11 Aug.
2020.
41
"Tarot Hero's Journey - using The Fool tarot card to learn the ...."
https://thesimpletarot.com/tarot-heros-journey/. Accessed 11 Aug. 2020.
42
"What does arcana mean - Definition of arcana - Word finder." https://findwords.info/term/arcana.
Accessed 11 Aug. 2020.
 43

chariot, to gain strength, to meet or experience study as a hermit, to a challenge by a wheel of

fortune, to further encounter justice, and a suspended sentence as the inverted hanged man, who

then must encounter the potential or subliminal ego death, which comes with a new maturing or

learning of temperance, in which encountering most assuredly the devil within represents new

clarity but, yet a subtle hidden blindness, after which this seemingly logical and solid tower

comes crashing down, releasing indwelling tension of ego into a star, of rebirth, revival, renewal,

and growth with a reminds us of natural cycles of the moon, with the sun beckoning a new home

coming where a judgment or test is past teaching a revelation to a whole completely new

enlightened view of the world, with of course yet another cycle to come, as a brand new fool.43

Apparently these cards line up nearly exactly to Joseph Campbell’s hero's journey according to

some tarot practitioners.

The fascinating part about this mysterious arcanum is that although some hold firm to the notion

that the Tarot was just merely a parlor game in origin, Leo Meyer in 1931 discovered medieval

playing cards in Istanbul, of Arab origin presumably used for divination.4445 Beyond that it was in

the 1300s that the Mamluk sultanate of Egypt had something to do with the import along the silk

road of Chinese bamboo stick games of 100 sticks called cheese cheese sticks these sticks Also

called lottery poetry involved elaborate stories and the definition of a yes or no binary, contained

43
"22 SOUL ARCHETYPES, THE MAJOR ARCANA & CARL JUNG." 25 Nov. 2019,
https://www.moonluxcove.com/post/22-soul-archetypes-the-major-arcana. Accessed 11 Aug. 2020.
44
"Trzes' Mamluk Deck: The Granddaddy of European Playing ...." 5 Apr. 2019,
https://tarot-heritage.com/2019/04/05/trzes-mamluk-deck-the-granddaddy-of-european-playing-cards/.
Accessed 11 Aug. 2020.
45
"Ganjifa - Wikipedia." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganjifa. Accessed 11 Aug. 2020.
 44

In a bamboo cup with Arab and Chinese letters engraved upon them.46 This would not only

explain the Divinatory nature of the tarot system, and the archetypical Cosmogonic Cycles

attached, but it would also link other forms of divination to the tarot, the Moorish-Arab influence

on the European Renaissance, and modern world.

From a personal example with my very involvement within the Orisha tradition of Ifa, involves

quite thorough lessons in divination. It is rumored that the 64 trigrams of the I-Ching or “Book of

changes,” the popular Taoist divinatory system is a perhaps a microcosmic version of Ifa's larger

256 odu corpus system, of which both are based upon a binary system of opened and closed

(0,1), yin, yang multiple choices.47

Let us remind ourselves of the historical significance of, not only the Arab and African

contributions to the world, but the Indigenous sources behind those contributions, and underlying

ancestral archetypical and technological science that traversed in the roots of the DNA of those

people traveling along the ancient Silk Road, and many other unknown and unrecorded diasporic

migration journeys. Here is yet another reason among many, to be grateful for such a present gift

of subtle human technological knowledge that survived and now thrives. Even in brief

examination of the very script of our alphabets we use today in so many languages pictorially

describe particular activities, representative images or characteristics, as cultural behavior; these

46
"Chinese Fortune Sticks: History, Meaning, and How They Are ...." 8 Aug. 2020,
https://chinamarketadvisor.com/chinese-fortune-sticks-history-meaning-how-they-are-used/. Accessed 11
Aug. 2020.
47
"Welcome to Ajendu: DIFAnation, Duality and Binary Theory." 12 Dec. 2012,
http://ajendu.blogspot.com/2012/12/difanation-duality-and-binary-theory.html. Accessed 11 Aug. 2020.
 45

our Aleph Beta (Hebrew), Alufabẹẹti (Yoruba), Abjat (Arabic), Abugida (Sanskrit), Hanzi

(Chinese) or Kanji (Japanese).

Jung’s archetypes.

Under the influence of Jung’s archetypes Christopher Booker comes up with seven basic

principles of story archetypes.

* Overcoming the Monster.

* Rags to Riches.

* The Quest.

* Voyage and Return.

* Comedy.

* Tragedy.

* Rebirth.

These Archetypes, immediately upon reading seem shelved or split in several chapters from the

one book Epic of Gilgamesh, which I have pointed out, is basically the Allegory of the Cave and

Hero’s journey.4849 Not only that but these are part of natural seasonal life cycles in essence and

help counselors, writers, marketers, and many professionals make sense of the world in their

varied industries.

48
"The 7 Story Archetypes, and How They Can Dramatically ...." 31 Oct. 2011,
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/7-story-archetypes-and-how-they-can-dramatically-improve-yo
ur-marketing. Accessed 11 Aug. 2020.
49
"Hero Archetype: Deeper Aspects: Q&A." http://tatsbox.com/hero/heroques.htm. Accessed 11 Aug.
2020.
 46

However, one can also find elements of this same overarching theme of the innocence of virtue

as the main character, hero, heroine, or fool querent as basically the self, which virtually is you,

the receiver of the story being projected onto your worldview screen or your reality, that are told

you are to relate to, as the main character, basically trapped in an emotional catharsis to even

understand or comprehend the story, or game of life in any sense.50 This real life drama, or our

encaved human calamity is not unlike any dramatic movie we’ve ever seen.

Even going back into the most ancient of oral language, narrative, theatrics and informal

instruction, we had to have been told a story from, the secondary sense of a person, emerging

from a state of knowledge gathered from having delved into a space of a questionable survival

threshold, to have returned to tell that story so that we, the unseasoned innocent initiate might

have yet a better chance to learn to survive beyond that initial basic level. This is what human

growth as education is; to extract from within oneself’s own self-made cage, or dark hole the

thoughts, will, and actions, to conquer inner dragons, limits, challenges, demons, adversaries,

antagonists, oppressors, etc, to thereby alchemically evolve.

I imagine this basic human communication might have resembled the natural secret life of plants,

also communicating as we may have all along, trying, yet struggling to express a non-verbal

message of love. Or how those crows recognize and communicate details of friendly versus

adversarial human faces over generations. How trees communicate survival strategies beneath

50
"Catharsis | Definition of Catharsis by Merriam-Webster."
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/catharsis. Accessed 11 Aug. 2020.
 47

the soil. Or the imagining of how water is able to communicate with other forms of itself, other

places and locations in other bodies of itself, to evaporate and meet in the freshly formed clouds

and take rain dives in transformation yet again. And what about human unconscious thoughts

communicating across great distances, and other minds catching the same thoughts to change

society with fresh ideas, conventions, or inventions. Even through the World Wide Web this

matrix of ultra consciousness, or consciousness at a super ultra collective level is expanding

knowledge and human experience in a massive growth scale of binary 1’s and 0’s. Combine that

knowledge with the thought that we are all related and, if we just hold two other people's hands,

on our right and left respectively, we are simultaneously touching the whole world's hands at the

same time according to numbers and the distribution of DNA. This is to but briefly say therein

lies an infinite subconscious power to “play” with. And was this the subjective subconscious

that the ancients were playing, practicing, and “praxising” with all along, by living indigenously

in natural cycles?

Personality types

From Jung’s 7 archetypes we smoothly transition from the dynamics of divination of the human

hero, heroine, fool to the enneagram. What are the seven basic personality types of the human

race as they may relate to the seven planets? It has been stated that the seven planets correspond

to our seven chakras or seven energy centers of the auric or etheric body, seven gods, Orisha,

saints, angels, seven rays of light, seven cobra snakes, or Nagas protecting the Buddha, etc. etc.
 48

Jung’s model had 8. The eight types are:

* Extraverted Thinking.

* Introverted Thinking.

* Extraverted Feeling.

* Introverted Feeling.

* Extraverted Sensation.

* Introverted Sensation.

* Extraverted Intuition.

* Introverted Intuition.51

Myers Briggs personality test, loosely based on Jung's eight, might be considered an expanded

version of 16.52 A new study recently published in 2018 reveals that we may simplify this even

further with a mere four basic personality types which include:

* Average: The most common type are people who are high in neuroticism and extraversion

while lower in openness.

* Reserved: People in this type are not open or neurotic but they are emotionally stable. They

tend to be introverted, agreeable and conscientious.

51
"How Psychologist Carl Jung Described Our Personality Types." 28 Jan. 2020,
https://www.truity.com/blog/how-psychologist-carl-jung-described-our-personality-types. Accessed 11 Aug.
2020.
52
"Myers & Briggs' 16 Personality Types | Truity."
https://www.truity.com/page/16-personality-types-myers-briggs. Accessed 11 Aug. 2020.
 49

* Role-models: These people are natural leaders with low levels of neuroticism and high levels

of agreeableness, extraversion, openness and conscientiousness. They listen to new ideas and are

reliable.

* Self-centered: While these people score high in extraversion they rank below average

openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness.5354

The Color Code-

Taylor Hartman in 1987 came out with his own research which led him to write the book The

Color Code.55 Although I have not at this time delved deeply into his sources. Perhaps, for more

than obvious reasons, the color code personality types seem to directly parallel some of the

color-coded Orisha knowledge from Afa, Ifa, Santeria, Lucumi mythology. His colors are red

blue, white, and yellow, each representing power, intimacy, peace, and fun as life motivations,

which from a counseling standpoint, also indicates potential personal demons, addictions, or

weaknesses to watch out for. Is this the symbolic double-edged sword our hero or heroine, pulled

from the sacred stone?

This is not at all unlike the symbolic personality of the Orisha or nature spirits, that correspond to

the same colors. Shango’s color is red and his energy is powerful and indeed known for the

53
"Personality types: average, self-centered, role model or reserved." 20 Sep. 2018,
https://www.today.com/health/personality-types-average-self-centered-role-model-or-reserved-t137902.
Accessed 11 Aug. 2020.
54
"A robust data-driven approach identifies four ... - Nature." 17 Sep. 2018,
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-018-0419-z. Accessed 11 Aug. 2020.
55
"About :: ColorCode Personality Science." https://www.colorcode.com/about/. Accessed 11 Aug. 2020.
 50

power of lightning. Blue is associated with Yemaya as a great mother whose element is

expressed intimately as deep love for her children through the waters of oceanic creation.

Obatala occupies the place of the pure wisdom of an elder of the white cloth. White often

represents peace but also heaven and the underworld and/or death in many eastern practices.

Oshun, the river rain goddess, coundusts the sweet young exciting and seductive energetic fun of

the Maiden archetype.

Maiden, Mother & Crone

The Maiden-Mother-Crone is a three-step process that is often featured in Goddess-centered, or

nature practices, with the goddess or great god reflected as earth going through these stages that

traverse through the natural cycles of the seasons. These natural nature-reflecting stages

particularly define specific events within the heroine's journey in my opinion, because male

bodies are genuinely in search of philosophy outside of themselves physically as a function of

their biology, women on the other hand are genuinely born within the cultural community, with a

philosophy embedded in their family behaviors, and simultaneously also within the child-bearing

ability of their DNA. This system within serves as an internal teacher as a ticking natural,

seasonal, and tidal clock, most often attached to an formal or non-formal feminine cultural

tradition that nurtures first the pubescent girls transition to marriage, to childbearing and

menopause transition time, beneath the 3 main maiden, mother, crone transitionings. This is not

to imply general individual universality of female experience as an archetypical play or

consciousness program game underlying all natural stages in life and in the universe. However,
 51

traditionally male bodies have had to leave the village, household, or community in initiation

away from the clan in a group to undergo their sacred rites of becoming.

The Heroine’s journey-

“As a student of Joseph Campbell’s, Maureen Murdock, came to believe that the Hero’s Journey

model did not adequately address the psycho-spiritual journey of women. She developed a model

of a heroine’s journey based on her work with women in therapy.”56

I don’t know what the consensus is amongst ecofeminists or womanist groups in general in

reference to this work, but I believe Murdock does an excellent job of mapping a model for what

generally speaking is similar to the modern woman may undergo in an industrialized globalized

world.57

56
"Maureen Murdock's Heroine's Journey Arc – The Heroine ...."
https://heroinejourneys.com/heroines-journey/. Accessed 11 Aug. 2020.
57
"Initiation: Women's Initiation | Encyclopedia.com."
https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/initiation-wom
ens-initiation. Accessed 11 Aug. 2020.
 52

The Initiatory Narrative

Through review of the whole of this collective library of human knowledge and experiential

information, the most obvious of common threads emerges. One cannot help but take note of the,

dare I once again suggest, the macro-micro cosmic earth-being theme of whole origin of the

narrative matrix of storytelling itself; the griot, the adept, the teacher-student, companion, the

homie, the lover, the friend. Relationships on the whole are accessed, addressed, undressed, and

redressed through the power of storytelling. Mistakes are examined, time and space pauses for

reflection.

Furthermore, from this power of story that deeply imbeds in our subconscious, the processing of

or more or less, examined “self verse,” i.e. the things we say to ourselves, within the larger

framework of our mind within all of Mind. It is as if every story told is truly every story to be

learned from, to develop a relationship with, to teach ourselves, and cells, and atoms, more,

about ourselves in an ever expanding, perpetual ritual of Initiatory education. And what is

Initiatory Education, but a sacred process that it is meant to isolate, and symbolically destroy the

caterpillar in its own self made cocoon, liquifying itself as it knows its old creeping, crawling

self completely int that isolation, to emerge colorful and flying into the sun. This is a

transformation. And life on this planet, at all times, throughout all narratives on the whole simply

reflects human transformation, or rather a live transformation in which being “human” is but a

step, in a larger macrocosmic process. And, as there are stages to this growth and
 53

metamorphosis, we adapt and change, alter, and altar (worship) these initiatory rites/education

based on space and time augmentations.

 54

Intents and Conclusions

Given the length and time required to complete this step within the very evolutionary process

and completion of this MASC Graduate journey, I must conclude here this particular written

portion of this larger journey. However, I will include at this point, other topics included in what

is to become a self-help, personal development, family, community, team unity in community

offering to the whole of humanity. This vision gathers all of the above knowledge along with

additional other themes, Comparative Mythology, 12 zodiac and the Christ Story, the Matrix of

Descartes and Matrix mathematics, The Ennead the Netcher/NTR/nature Spirits, The Nagas,

Harim Abiff and Masonic initiation rites, Indigenous stories and symbolisms, the global

distribution of Bantu-Congo Philosophy and culture, etc.

What started out as one little boy’s childhood fancy of reading, writing poetry, drawing out

sketched goals and dreams is coming to not another ending, but plateau onto a higher goal of

bringing this universal somatic thematic knowledge into homes, offices, classrooms, churches,

high schools, hospitals, prisons, courtrooms, graveyards, restaurants, hotels, cruise ships,

camping and sacred site retreats, and maybe even theaters. I fully intend to wrap this MASC

project into a boutique community somatic thematic human relationship reengagement model to

assist not the buildings, mentioned above that are mostly empty today, but to uplift the fallen

humanity that is needing and wanting to be attended to, cared about, and rebuilt. And that very

key works from the inside out!

 55

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61