Was Jim Morrison the reincarnation of Dionysios?

[Mygdonia]

Please take a moment and read this.

http://home.earthlink.net/~delia5/pa...lizardking.htm

THE CULT OF THE LIZARD KING

by Delia Morgan



I. The Rock God:



Jim Morrison -- rock star, poet, prophet, electric shaman, and god incarnate.

The lead singer of the 1960’s acid rock band known as The Doors,

Jim Morrison identified himself very strongly with Dionysos. The Doors

were the first group to really do rock concerts as ritual, as a means of

taking the audience on a psycho-religious trip. They took their name

from Aldous Huxley's quote (here paraphrased) that "When the Doors of

perception are cleansed, we will see things as they truly are --

infinite." Morrison described their mission in terms of trying to

"Break On Through" to a bigger reality: "There are things that are

known, and things that are unknown, and in between are the Doors."



Morrison, with his "Greek God" beauty, his fiery passion and dark

mysterious persona, has been considered a Dionysos incarnate. He

certainly tried to bring something like shamanism and Greek drama to

rock music and to the stage; he tried to shock people out of their

complacency and into a terrifying and liberating ecstasy. Since his

death at a young age in 1971, a cult has grown around him; many people,

myself included, sense his presence as a guiding force, build altars to

him, etc. There was even a "First Church of the Doors" at one time.



Morrison himself was, by all accounts, a man as brilliant as he was

daring. At a young age he had read extensively on shamanism and ancient

mythology, including James Frazer's "The Golden Bough" (much of which is

about Dionysos); he was also quite taken with Friedrich Nietzsche's

passionate vision of Dionysos as portrayed in "The Birth of Tragedy."

One of the last books he had been reading before his death was Jane

Ellen Harrison's voluminous and challenging "Prolegomena to the Study of

Greek Religion" which is also mostly about Dionysos. It seems to me that

Morrison let himself be completely possessed by Dionysos, until the man

and the god were irrevocably merged; he carried the torch of his mythic

Dionysian vision all the way to his death.



Unfortunately, most people never quite 'got' what he was trying to do at

the time, which was religion. Rock critics called him pretentious for

taking himself so seriously; few of them knew enough about myth and

religion to put the pieces together. Ray Manzarek's recent book "Light

My Fire" is a personal history of the Doors, and also talks about

Morrison as Dionysos.



Here are just a few quotes from Morrison’s songs and poetry where the

dark and Dionysian mystic slips through:



"I call upon the dark hidden gods of the blood..."



"Where is the wine we were promised, the new wine...?"



"We could plan a murder, or start a religion..."



"I promised I would drown myself in mystic heated wine..."



"Let us reinvent the gods, all the myths of the ages;

celebrate symbols from deep elder forests..."



"I am a guide to the labyrinth."



II. Perspectives on the Morrisonian mythos:



Some perceptive authors and music critics at the time caught

on to the Dionysian element in Morrison’s philosophy and in his

performances; others have come to realize this in retrospect.

(Still others never caught on, and can’t understand what all

the fuss is about.)



The following excerpt from a Doors website makes explicit

the Doors’ connection to Pagan spiritual sentiment:



http://www.elektra.com/rock_club/doors/bio.html



During the late 1960's bands sang of love and peace

while acid was passed out. But for The Doors it was

different. The nights belonged to Pan and Dionysus, the

gods of revelry and rebirth, and the songs invoked their

potent passions-- the Oedipal nightmare of "The End,"

the breathless gallop of "Not to Touch the Earth," the

doom of "Hyacinth House," the ecstasy of "Light My

Fire," the dark uneasy undertones of "Can't See Your

Face in My Mind," and the alluring loss of consciousness

in "Crystal Ship." And as with Dionysus, The Doors

willingly offered themselves as a sacrifice to be torn

apart, to bleed, to die, to be reborn for yet another night

in another town.



The pagan/Dionysian theme is expanded upon by Danny Sugerman

in the following excerpts from the introduction to the famous

biography of Jim Morrison, titled “No One Here Gets Out Alive.”



http://www.thedoors.com/beta/mythos.htm



DOORS MYTHOS

by Danny Sugerman



"Though the favorites of the gods die young, they also live eternally

in the company of gods."

-- Fredrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy



<snip>

An account of initiation into the mysteries of the goddess Isis

survives in only one in-person account, an ancient text that translated

reads: "I approached the frontier of death, I saw the threshold of

Persephone, I journeyed through all the elements and came back, I saw at

midnight the sun, sparkling in white light, I came close to the gods of

the upper and the netherworld and adored them near at hand. " This all

happened at night. With music and dance and performance. The concert as

ritual, as initiation. The spell cast. Extraordinary elements were

loosed that have resided in the ether for hundreds of thousands of

years, dormant within us all, requiring only an awakening.



Of course, psychedelic drugs as well as alcohol could encourage the

unfolding of events. A Greek musicologist gives his description of a

Bacchic initiation as catharsis: "This is the purpose of Bacchic

initiation, that the depressive anxiety of people, produced by their

state of life, or some misfortune, be cleared away through melodies and

dances of the ritual."



There is a strange tantalizing fascination evoked by fragments of

ancient pagan mysteries: the darkness and the light, the agony and the

ecstasy, the sacrifice and bliss, the wine and the ear of grain

(hallucinogenic fungi). For the ancients it was enough to know there

were doors to a secret dimension that might open for those who earnestly

sought them. Such hopes and needs have not gone away with time. Jim

Morrison knew this. Morrison was the first rock star I know of to speak

of the mythic implications and archetypal powers of rock 'n' roll, about

the ritualistic properties of the rock concert. For doing so, the press

called him a pretentious asshole: "Don't take yourself so seriously,

Morrison, it's just rock 'n' roll and you're just a rock singer."



Jim knew they were wrong, but he didn't argue. He also knew when the

critics insulted him they demeaned his audience. Jim knew that music is

magic, performance is worship, and he knew rhythm can set you free. Jim

was too aware of the historical relevance of rhythm and music in ritual

for those transforming Doors concerts to have been accidental.



From his favorite philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jim took solace and

encouragement in the admonition to "say yes to life." I never believed

that Jim was on a death trip as so many have claimed, and to this day

still find it difficult to judge the way he chose to live and die. Jim

chose intensity over longevity, to be, as Nietzsche said, "one who does

not negate," who does not say no, who dares to create himself. Jim also

must have been braced to read the following Nietzsche quote: "Saying yes

to life even in its strangest and hardest problems; the will to life

rejoicing over its own inexhaustibility even in the very sacrifice of

its highest types-this is what I call Dionysian, that is what I

understood as the bridge to the psychology of the tragic poet. Not in

order to get rid of terror and pity, not in order to purge oneself of a

dangerous effect by its vehement discharge, but in order to be oneself

the eternal joy of becoming, beyond all terror and pity. "



It was Jim's insatiable thirst for life that killed him, not any love of

death.



III. Morrison today



Why, among all stars in that infamous rock-n-roll heaven, is Jim Morrison

uniquely qualified as an avatar of Dionysos? It's no doubt true that various

worthy and charismatic figures in rock-n-roll have gained something of a

fanatical cult following. Visions of Elvis, etc. One recent translation of

Euripedes' play "The Bacchae" even put Elvis on the cover. But, really, it

should have been Jim.



Morrison was, as far as I know of, the first or only rock performer to

actually identify with Dionysos, and to express (sometimes subtly)

the stated intent of trying to bring back the old pagan

religions. He was also the only one to do serious research on the cult

of Dionysos, and to attempt to recreate the cathartic experience of

Greek tragedy as a ritual on the stage. He forged a connection between

shamanism and Dionysiac cult: the shaman, by going on a spirit journey,

could heal the tribe; then the rock performer, by making the presence of

Dionysos manifest, and by bringing the audience with him, could create

a healing breakthrough for both himself and the spectators/participants.

He was brilliant, and possibly mad.



He was also the performer who (in my view) best expressed the enigmatic,

mysterious qualities of Dionysos himself - the paradoxical juxtaposition

of sweetness and violence, ecstasy and agony, deep masculinity and

androgynous beauty, orgasmic chaos and graceful precision. Etc., etc.



I have no doubt that the spirit of Dionysos permeated the world of rock

music in the 60's, and even somewhat today. But it remains that Jim

Morrison alone gave himself to Dionysos, entirely and without

reservation, to the very end; and all for the purpose of bringing back

Dionysian religion to a world without a clue.



And since his death, he has become a real and guiding presence for many

devotees; in other words – a god. Doors fans have built altars and web

shrines, conducted rituals in his honor and written poems about their spiritual

encounters with Jim. He was certainly a powerful force in my own

pagan awakening. This point came home to me, in many ways over the

years; I'll relate one.



One evening, I was sitting on the couch reading Jane Ellen Harrison's

"Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion," a book which deals

extensively with the religion of Dionysos. I was at the section where

she describes how the dead hero becomes transformed into a god. I got

very excited, and was scribbling notes in the margins, about how I saw

this process of heroic deification as applying to Jim Morrison. (Snakes

figured largely into this process, as they did in the cult of Dionysos;

and Doors fans know all about Jim and "the ancient snake.")



Suddenly, for no reason, I had a strong urge to turn on the television.

(I almost never watched it; my roommate did.) When I did so, there was a

program about the history of rock music, and they were doing a short

segment on Jim Morrison. Then they interviewed the Doors keyboardist Ray

Manzarek, on the subject of Jim's death and/or possible continued

existence. Ray said (paraphrased): "Jim isn't here on earth anymore.

Dionysos returned to Olympus, and he's sitting up there laughing at us."



This statement, coming right after my reading the same idea in

Harrison's book (and my relating it to Morrison), seemed like a

remarkable coincidence to me at the time. I'm sure it was Jim who

prompted me to turn the TV on at that moment. A few years later, I

learned that (according to Jim's girlfriend, Wiccan priestess Patricia

Kennealy) that Harrison's book on Greek religion was the very same one

that Jim was reading just before he left for Paris, where he died a few

months later.



================================================== =



"Calling on the Gods...

Cobra on my left, leopard on my right..."



- Jim Morrison, from the album "The Soft Parade"

[Victor]

NO,he was just another moderately talented alcoholic who had serious family issues.

[Mihalakis]

Maybe he was the reincarnation of Mythras..or...Osiris!

[Cadmus]

I myself was a huge fan in my younger years..

Only to learn later that mystifying or deifying Jim Morrison is overrated..
He was a very talented man , whose body and brain could take a huge amount of pounding..untill his 27th birthday ..when he payed his price for it all.

As Jim said it himself he beleived that at a young age : the ghost of the souls of those dead indians, maybe one or two of them were just running around freaking out and just leaped into my soul.

Now looking back and just recently relistening the songs i was so fond of years ago, i still see that most songs are very powerfull and especially about breaking on through to the other side...and all that.

But he indeed loved the Dionysic rite and philosophy of Nietzsche especially his work Zarathrustra (which mentions the three states of consciousness)
And he was an admirer of Rimbaud's poetry..

What prompted him to use mindexpanding drugs was Huxley's the doors of perception..a horrible book compared to his other work a brave new world..but the doors of perception was purely about expanding your mind and going beyond that..

Especially Jim took huge amounts of acid, LSD to achieve that and i truly believe that it helped him on his path of shamanism(morrison said himself that after a while he didn't needed to take acid anymore because he was able to open those doors without it, which makes sense expanding your mind to a certain degree, the rest is purely addiction!)..LSD is perfect for that as is Mescalin.
Now mind you Jim had a very strong mind and was very stable..and could handle that..anyone taking those amounts of acid is literally toying with himself and his personal psyche..let alone risking a LSD psychosis.

Besides it is the most powerfull drug in the world, and i find it truly amazing how he managed to perform in various such situations.
Besides drinking a lot he was very against heroin and speed (uppers) which are indeed worthless.

I say he was closer connected with the Indian spirits and shamanism then the cult of Dionysus, why actually? because the basis is exactly the same clebrating life ,a feast of friends and searching for your borders and go beyond.

I mean that such cult and the human psyche are intertwined and mankind is very curious about that specific part to Quote Morrison: way back deep in to the brain, way back past the realm of pain, back where there's never any rain..and the sole meaning about breaking on through to the other side..

Conclusion Morrison was incredible and very talented, not only a very nice and civilised man, god knows i envied him, no jealousy but amazement took ahold of me..
There truly is another world outthere, not the so called multiple dimension we can encounter in physics according to the string theory but purely in the human psyche and especially perception in general..taking LSD is a short duration of a true and genuine psychosis..it can be beautifull and frightening.

But to pay such a high price dying at 27 while the man/boy you say it! had so much going for him, a truly amazing grorgeous girlfriend..and he himself was a true character he not only was a character but also had one!..

Looking back at his life and how great it was makes my heart fill with a sad emotion, and goosebumps he truly was great..but when i reached the age of 27 myself i saw that living like that always comes back for you, and you have to pay the price eventually the bill is due!!

This is all i have got to say about that..

[Truth Bearer]

I was and still am a huge fan of the Doors and after reading everything about the Lizard King I came to the conclusion even though as a si9nger he was good and as a song writer with his deep maningful songs and though he rated himself a poet the treality was that the god like lad was far too complex to fully understand.His looks were the key and it was his looks that he wanted to destroy later so he can prove to all that he couild still make it by being fat with a beard.He was totally shy lad who only got brave with the help of uppers and downers.Genius yes flawed yes complex yes self destructive yes cult of Dionysos who knows what world the drugs took him?

[Ariadni_Nefeli]

What I know for a fact is that Morrison was very interested about alternative religions and also experimented with paganism, I will try and find more over this.

[Ariadni_Nefeli]

http://www.hollywoodusa.co.uk/Graves...immorrison.htm

Morrison's gravestone has a Greek inscription reading Κατά τον δαίμονα εαυτού (transcribed into Roman lettering: KATA TON DAIMONA EAYTOY). Various interpretations have been proposed, including, "down (presumably in Hell) with his own demons", "burnt by his demons", "with the devil himself." In ancient Greek, the word daimon means spirit rather than demon and contains no negative or pejorative qualities. The phrase is more properly translated as "True to his own spirit," and is the meaning intended by the Morrison family when the inscription was selected. It was Morrison's father who either selected the phrase or drafted it himself.
Some conspiracy theorists contend that Morrison did not die in Paris. The fact that only two people (other than the police, emergency personnel, and mortician), admitted to the press that they had seen his body, has helped keep the rumor alive for over 30 years.
Throughout Morrison's turbulent career, there had been numerous rumors that he had been killed in an auto accident or had died of a drug overdose. Also, in the days preceding the announcement of his death, the press had been told that Morrison was simply "very tired" and resting in an unnamed French hospital, contributing to the suspicion.
In The Lizard King, Jerry Hopkins recounts that, well before the Doors achieved noticeable success, Morrison had joked that he should fake his own death in order to generate publicity. According to some of Morrison's friends and bandmates, once the Doors had achieved their remarkable success, publicity was no longer seen as being so desirable. Morrison then spoke of wanting to fake his death and move to Africa in order to escape the scrutiny that surrounded his every move. He told them that if he could succeed with the ruse, he would write to them using the pseudonym "Mr. Mojo Risin." Such a disappearing act would have paralleled the life of one of Morrison's favorite French poets, Arthur Rimbaud. According to Krieger and other Doors members, they have yet to receive any letters. Nonetheless, some fans still feel his death was a hoax.

Speculation about the cause and actuality of Morrison's death plays a large and continuing role in the Morrison mystique. Rumors still abound that Morrison committed suicide, was assassinated by the CIA, murdered by a witch, died in a toilet at the notorious Rock and Roll Circus (a nightclub in Paris) or any number of variations. Add to that persistent rumors that he is still alive and living in India, Africa, South America, as a cowboy in Oregon, above a Quik-Check in New Jersey, or in North Dakota anonymously and the "Morrison legend" has taken on a life of its own. It may be fitting that Morrison the man, always fascinated by ancient mythology, has merged with the image of Morrison as Dionysus, the ever dying, ever re-born god of ecstasy of ancient Greece.

[Truth Bearer]

He self destructed into the abyss amen for such a genius tragic......

[Cadmus]

Hi TB.

I just found somewhere that in his last days in Paris before his death he had a whole bottle of cognac with breakfast and later on the day another two bottles of distilled..no wonder of the hartfailure your nerves (symphatical) system which controls breath/heart pumping etc just gives up with those amounts of alcohol.

[kzk842]

I used to listen the Doors a lot.

And the only conclusion i have,that James Douglas Morrison was so talanted but also so stupid.(sometimes those two come together).

My favorite Doors song

My wild love went riding,
She rode all the day;
She rode to the devil,
And asked him to pay

The devil was wiser
It's time to repent;
He asked her to give back
The money she spent

My wild love went riding,
She rode to sea;
She gathered together
Some shells for her hair

She rode on to Christmas,
She rode to the farm;
She rode to Japan
And re-entered a town

My wild love is crazy
She screams like a bird;
She moans like a cat
When she wants to be heard

She rode and she rode on
She rode for a while,
Then stopped for an evening
And laid her head down

By this time the weather
Had changed one degree,
She asked for the people
To let her go free

My wild love went riding,
She rode for an hour;
She rode and she rested,
And then she rode on