Welcome to the Circus! ~ LA PENSINE MUTINE (EN)

Circus is a reflection of society, with its three main characters: the White Clown, Auguste, and the Ringmaster, namely the president, the people and the police.
Alexis Grüss

Crystal ball, gumballs, clown nose... these monthly challenges are going to make me lose my marbles! So we're back to the fairground world with a 3 of Diamonds warning us against distractions deviating us from our targets. All the trivia diverting our attention and bringing chaos in our lives. Interestingly, some old card reading schools would remove the accursed card from the deck to avoid ”introducing deception in the reading”, while others have given it another meaning: one of silence. “In a world constantly filled with noise and where we always want to extract the most meaning and experience out of everything it is sometimes worthwhile to pull back and be silent.”

What the Hell Is This?

Deriving from Latin word circus, which is the romanisation of the Greek kirkos, meaning ‘circle’ or ‘ring’, the first circus games were allegedly staged by Circe in honour of her father Helios, the Sun God, and later popularised by the Romans. During the Middle Ages, as large circus buildings had fallen out of use, itinerant performers, animal trainers, and showmen would travel between towns throughout Europe, pioneering the circus as we know it today.

But what kind of circus are we talking about? The traditional circus featuring acrobats, tightrope walkers, jugglers, horse trainers, lion tamers, clowns, magicians, and the like? Or is it the political media circus, shown over and over again on all TV channels, bucking us for big bucks? Oh, well, it's all the same anyway.

Slogans, war paint
What a great carnival
A perfect world
Look at the world
It's a great carnival
"Un Grand Carnaval", Indochine (1987)

What about the acrobatics of financial wizards juggling with figures? Or rogue riders horsing around? Or crowd tamers and fire-eaters, all in this to the neck and working for the Bearded Lady and her unbalanced Rigmaster — the latter performing ever more perilous high-wire acts, with the tail of his coat between his legs and his top hat at rock bottom? What about straight-faced TV clowns, with their nose on red alert after one line too many that blew up the mule? Who's fault is it that all hell breaks loose?

Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys

So what is this matrix circus? Controlled chaos providing continual distraction in order to hijack humanity's focus on spirit? An orchestrated illusion meant to hold dormant awareness into a false sense of reality? Or a hall of manipulation, where all actors (politicians, journalists, spiritualists, etc.) play a role designed to help direct the energy of the people towards preset patterns?

I must confess that, ever since I was a child, I have always hated circus, for some reason I couldn't explain. But today, I can.

Circus shows are repetitive, endless cycles re-enacted in a variety of ways, but following the same structure. This ties in with the cyclical nature of the matrix, maintaining an illusion of change, whereas in reality, souls are trapped in a recurring programme in which history keeps repeating itself over and over again.

The big top is an enclosed space, decorated so as to create an illusion of spaciousness, when it's actually limited. A bubble cut off from reality, just like the matrix, which prevents us from seeing universal circuits. An artificial world distracting us from taking a look beyond. A temporary setting that looks real for as long as you're in it, but vanishes as soon as you step outside (in the same way that reconnecting with your spirit shatters illusions).

Before the eyes of the sleeping masses — passive souls taking in whatever is thrown at them, never seeking to grasp its true nature, but applauding or booing at the whim of the ringmaster —, jugglers, acrobats and high-wire performers all try to keep their balance on the tight rope between electric pulses from their spirit and astral magnitudes, at the risk of falling into the recycling nets of the matrix. These people won't let boos, applause, drum rolls or spotlights distract them anymore. They know how to jump from track to track, like virtuoso DJ's.

Archontic tamers use coercive methods to control incarnated souls (fear, reward/punishment, repetitive training) and the latter obey without ever understanding the true purpose of their conditioning. At the end of their performance (incarnation), they are returned to their astral cage (death) until the next show in a continuous loop.

Squeezed in a costume with Masonic colours and Mad Hatter (or magician) top hat, the ringmaster stages the show, sets the rules, and imposes roles behind the scenes. The demiurge fully corresponds to this manipulative figure running the matrix and showing up only in indirect forms (religions, messianic figures, karmic laws). Ringmaster... Lord of the Rings, how uncanny.

Send in the Clowns

What about clowns? Just like human avatars under the influence of astral entities, they're entertainers, yet their laughter often covers up deep sadness. They are being ridiculed for wearing (social) masks and playing absurd roles, but do not understand why they have to.

My makeup is dry and it clags on my chin
I'm drowning my sorrows in whisky and gin
The lion tamer's whip doesn't crack anymore
The lions they won't fight and the tigers won't roar
So let's go and drink to the death of a clown
Won't someone help me to break up this crown?
"Death of a Clown", The Kinks (1967)

The earliest documented clowns have been found in Ancient Egypt and also in Greek and Roman theatre, prior to developing into court jesters in the Middle Ages. Originally a comic character, over time, the clown archetype has been progressively diverted to the sad clown figure (quite reminiscent of the Pierrot character) and later, to the scary (or evil) clown, giving rise to coultrophobia.

Although a number of theories suggest that the fear of clowns is directly linked to their face painting, some also point to the similarities between clown apparitions and the cultural representations of demons. In addition, Steven Schlozman, a psychiatrist at prestigious Harvard Medical School, explains how the medieval jester might contribute to this modern vision of the scary clown: “In the Middle Ages, clowns would pay dearly for failing to make the king laugh. Many jesters had their face mutilated into a permanent smile.” (source)

Within the demiurgic matrix always resorting to inversion and deception, the clown embodies a seeming duality in which he is meant to provide laughter and entertainment, while concealing his dark and sinister nature.

The best-known evil clowns are undoubtedly Stephen King's Pennywise (It); Ronald McDonald of McDonald's restaurants; and the Joker from the Batman series. These three figures embody different aspects of matrix corruption.

Just like the archons, Pennywise, a shapeshifting entity who lives in the depths and feeds on the fear of children, is the archetypal astral predator. Under a harmless, playful guise, it traps its victims in delusion before devouring them.

Ronald McDonald, on the other hand, is not directly scary, but conditions people to self-destruction by associating toxic food with fun and games, creating an emotional bond at a young age that will make food addiction all the stronger later in life. He's related to fairground clowns and symbolises the abuse of innocence for vibratory enslavement purposes (junk food drastically lowers frequencies). Like the demiurge, he is a false benefactor claiming to offer happiness when, in reality, he's providing poison.

Last but not least, the most complex of the threesome, the Joker, differs in that he embodies the agent of matrix chaos. He rejects social order and seeks to destroy the matrix; he is out of control and operates without any apparent logic. He seems ‘aware’, but he is still trapped by the matrix. He thinks he can fight his way out of the system, yet he 's part of the show. He's not seeking mental sovereignty but complete destruction — such energy is being recycled by the matrix for self-perpetuation as chaos is but another controlled illusion to prevent individuals from truly awakening.

Other significant features of the Joker are his scars, reminiscent of the mutilations inflicted on medieval jesters and on children in paedosatanic rituals. Various motives include destroying original identity; inverting the sacred, as the face is connected to the soul (disfigurement aims to wipe out any trace of the divine); and harnessing suffering and trauma in order to generate energy to sustain astral entities.

What's more, in various occult traditions, masks (such as the clown's) are thought to facilitate possession, allowing entities to use the body as a vessel.

Put simply, the evil (or demonic) clown is a powerful matrix figure standing for the deceptive duality of the system (joy/suffering, illusion/reality); the energetic consumption of fear (Pennywise) or flesh (Ronald McDonald); organised chaos (the Joker, who destroys but does not liberate); and corruption of childhood (satanic rituals, psychic manipulation).

Ha! ha! said the clown
Has the king lost his crown?
"Ha! Ha! Said the Clown", Manfred Mann (1967)

When are we going to break the ring of fire, unseal our eyes and lips and stand up to the maniacal sniggering of mad hyaenas, laughing at the dark antics of uptown mountebanks mocking our every steps? Let's break up the crown of the false king and reclaim our inner kingdoms. Here and now.