'and jacob went out from beer-sheba, and went toward haran. and he lighted upon the place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took one of the stones of the place, and put it under his head, and lay down in that place to sleep. and he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of god ascending and descending on it. and, behold, the lord stood beside him, and said: 'i am the lord, the god of abraham thy father, and the god of isaac. the land whereon thou liest, to thee will i give it, and to thy seed. and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south. and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. and, behold, i am with thee, and will keep thee whithersoever thou goest, and will bring thee back into this land; for i will not leave thee, until i have done that which i have spoken to thee of.' and jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said: 'surely the lord is in this place; and i knew it not.' and he was afraid, and said: 'how full of awe is this place! this is none other than the house of god, and this is the gate of heaven.'
- genesis 28:10–19
the year was 2009—the global economy was reeling from the housing market crisis, obama had been elected as the first black president in american history, the sequel to the twilight movie was hitting theaters, and a drone/noise artist based out of california was busy sculpting soundscapes that felt less like albums and more like dream-states transposed onto magnetic tape. james ferraro's wild adventures into the analog and hypnagogic planes borne out of his alien mind in the mid to late 2000s led to some of the most hypnotic works of music ever created, of which one particular album stands out as both a personal favorite and a significant artifact in the grand project ferraro worked on during those years.
preceding his legendary summer headrush series that year, "genie head gas in the tower of dreams (jesters midnight toys)" functions as a sonic slideshow into ferraro's encounter with divine jesters and a rite of passage through mindfvck cathedrals that chart a canyon to the outside. the album oscillates between moments of eerie chaos and an almost religious serenity—littered with bells and percussion from lost atlantean tribes, vocalizations that pry open one's third eye, ambient arrangements stolen from another realm, and recordings of a jester god's polite yet mocking laugh. the bipolar havoc of the album lends itself to the music's personality as one that communes with the presence of the jester within. as always, any serious analysis of a ferraro album from this period must begin with a deep glance at the meticulously crafted collages that function as the cover art.
"there is a personal connection to memories that, through a process of spiritual recognition, can take the form of a world of its own. creating symbols to identify mirrors in that world is an avenue for progress. for me it's really important that this personal world remains a reality, so that true communication is possible"
- spencer clark
cover art for genie head gas in the tower of dreams (jester's midnight toys)
inverted and upscaled cover art
oversaturated with detail, the album art is as cryptic as one could expect from james, but an inversion of the image reveals aspects altered in the original to elude the viewer. take, for example, the very obvious smiling figure of the moon on the bottom right, the handheld fan the jester holds in his right hand, a blazing sun in the background, greek columns of the doric style, the trademark spirals from acid and dmt trip visualizations strewn across like silhouettes of a tentacle engulfing the scene, lifting up a pillar in the backdrop [foundations under THREAT!!!], the large canvas frame behind the jester containing an image of a child hiding in foliage, and the tiled floors alluding to freemasonic architecture.
1. concealed face of a child hidden in foliage on the canvas/door (left) 2. a grinning moon glancing through the pillars (right)
however, for all the occult details and textures on the cover, what stands center stage is the jester figure [the genie in the title is synonymous in that both characters are mischievous and "jinn". they both precede the modern human, while also possessing immense power] . historically, the jester was an entertainer often found in the courts of monarchs, and in many cultures, the sole member of the court who could rebuke the king, balancing the pitfalls of the fascistic personality of rulers with wisdom delivered through disarray, humour, and antinomy .
“the archetype of dmt is the circus.”
- terence mckenna
in a spiritual sense, the jester is an agent of entropy, shedding light on the random and seemingly apathetic nature of reality—one that absorbs all individual will, intent, goal, event, and schema into the ever-restless sea of confusion. but a more cogent view of the jester's role comes from jung's theory of archetypes, among which the jester (or trickster) archetype stands out.
tentacle of spirals lifting up a pillar in the backdrop of a blazing sun
archetypes are universal models and patterns that express themselves within every person. jung describes the jester archetype as a primitive one derived from base impulses and remnants of our beastly ancestors. chaotic, destructive, and untrustworthy, the jester's role shifts in its trickster form. tricksters reject authority and higher powers that seek to define their existence. playful, dynamic, and full of wisdom, they uproot narratives of control.
[the jester] is a forerunner of the savior, and, like him, god, man, and animal at once. he is both subhuman and superhuman, a bestial and divine being, whose chief and most alarming characteristic is his unconsciousness.
- carl jung (on the psychology of the trickster figure)
with material reality seen by some as one such meta narrative of [self-imposed] control, along with the long associated non-dual experiences in DMT trips, the jester here is more in likeness to a trickster, as an entity that overthrows our flawed conception of what is real and what is not, through acts of impulse, contradiction and pure chaos, the trickster uproots our sense of security provided by our own mental constructs of what reality is, and welcomes us instead to see and accept the free flowing and crazed aspects of the world. boundary crossing, reality warping, and defiant of authority, the anarchic nature of the jester is a weapon of liberation. its very incognizance enables us to transcend to higher states of consciousness and thought.
illustrations from "the red book" by carl jung
1. in the outer body palace, in the tower of dreams in ribbon and light, the jester awakes,
2. sunfestival / tower of dreams / jesters midnight lamp /
3. jesters dream turbine / life flash in the genie's starsign palace / wind of the jesters lamp / spring of healers
4. spirit maze / sun card
"dream incubation" was practiced by the greek devotees of the god asklepios, and previously by those who worshipped the egyptian god serapis [the ptolemaic fusion of greek and egyptian traditions likely contributed to the cross-pollination of these dream rituals]. the process involves seeking divine messages, revelations, and prophecies in one's dream state while asleep at sacred places of worship, especially those of the above mentioned deities [both of whom are associated with healing, knowledge, and medicine]. looking at the greek columns featured in the cover art it is probably inspired by the asclepieion of trikala. most of these asclepieion temples [of which 300 have been documented so far] were built in places considered pure and were usually associated/situated near mineral springs for their healing attributes. it must be noted that dream incubation was used for both divination and therapeutic aims.
stone art depicting asklepios visiting a person in their dreams and curing them of an ailment with the help of one of his daughters.
another intriguing aspect of dream incubation rituals were the preparations for it. in the temples of asklepios, sacred lamps were lit by the priests, upon who’s extinguishing the devotees would fall asleep in hopes of receiving a dream of revelation and healing from their god. when awoken, the people would then narrate what they had seen to dream interpreters who would either translate or explain the messages hidden and conveyed in the temple. the full moon in the cover along with the dreams could also be a reference to the popular notion in many cultures that dreaming/meditating under a full moon brings about a more heightened and vivid state of consciousness, a point that might have decided when the dream cult followers would plan and make ready for their visits to the temples. the sun card in egyptian tarot according to crowley's "book of thoth" symbolizes vitality, joy, and the beginning of a new age (aeon), and possibly within the context of this album, the beginning of a new and transformed life upon receiving wisdom from the trickster's antics.
illustration of an asklepion temple preparing for the dream incubation ritual
"as recounted by aristophanes’s character karion, (1) the god wealth is taken to an asklepieion so that he can regain his sight by means of asklepios’s intervention, a goal achieved after (2) wealth— accompanied the whole time by chremylos, chremylos’s slave karion, and some of his other slaves—had bathed, (3) entered the sacred precinct (τέμενος), (4) dedicated cakes and preliminary offerings upon an altar (βωμῶι πόπανα καὶ προθύματα / καθωσιώθη), (5) bedded down in an unspecified structure “as was proper” (ὥσπερ εἰκὸς ἦν) among many other ailing individuals (while karion and the others, in contrast, went to sleep upon pallets or mats (στιβάδες) that they prepared for themselves), (6) heard the temple servant (πρόπολος) instruct everyone to remain silent after the lamps had been extinguished,"
- from plutus
with some of these assumptions of the mythos ferraro might be attempting to illustrate in this album along with the track names listed, we can roughly chart the narrative of the story being told here. tracks 1 and 2 function as a sort of preliminary preparation [the pilgrimage] for what's about to come, as we enter the dream temple's abaton [sacred chamber] in anticipation with a crowd that sounds like a 100 party horns being crushed by a bulldozer, awaiting the burning out of the sacred lamps to fall asleep, and entering that outer body palace from a kingdom beyond. track 3 is how we are greeted at the doorsteps of this dream world, with the laughs and chants of the jesters who then guide us to what are quite probably the most ethereal couple of minutes in ferraro's entire discography [life flash!!!]. after the nirvana inducing moments of the beautifully layered beginnings of track 3 we are taken to the spring of healers whereupon we are granted remedies and cures for whatever ails us [spiritual xenotherapy?]. on track 4 we make our way back through the spirit maze [overcoming the confusion of our now falsified notions of what's real, and to affirm our inner transformation] accompanied by more dreamy compositions. and at the end of our astral mirror maze on track 5, we receive a sun card from jesters&co. [congratulatory certificate from our friends residing in that other place].
the production on display is the signature cassette recorded loops and sounds that defined ferraro's pre- far side virtual era, muddled under the cracks and imperfection of the outdated technology to sublimate what would otherwise have been more discernible songwriting. deliberate sabotage and subtraction by the artists to connect their art to something even more inexplicable than the conventionally "ugly". the assault of wires is our salvation, our launching pad to somewhere[and some-time] else than here. the beautiful layers that move and merge over each other like a broken ice sheet over turbulent waves are unworldly, with choirs and whistles that sound like they're registered from a distant and icy moon orbiting saturn, metallic bells and sheet like clangs at royal parades from antiquity, to underwater synths and melodies sourced from naga kingdoms living deep beneath the indian ocean. the adjectives one can use to describe what's heard from this [and virtually all of his and spencer's albums] are inexhaustible, and can exist in such strange combination that's permissible only when describing these extraterrestrial loops [to even glimpse the outside one must risk immolation of prosaic norms].
unlike kfc city 3099: pt.1 toxic spill and most of the other albums that followed in the summer headrush series, genie head gas in the tower of dreams is softer and almost meditative for a large part of it's run time, even with the analog stutters and at times crazed noise in the recording. sonically, it sounds like a passage from the ambient meditations found on heaven's gate to the jarring and chaotic collages and drones found on albums like the jarvid trilogy and @iasia. though there are no common portraits or messages between these releases, it is a very noticeable progression in the way the sound of the albums morphed from predictable (relative term for this era) to more discordant loops and layers.
in my opinion, this album is the truest manifestation of hypnagogia's extra-musickal potential in ferraro's discography [more so than "dreams"], in particular because the narrative of the album seems to[more explicitly than any other release of his] revolve around dream states, divination, and bridging(or erasing) the gap between the dream world and the "real" one. where most other artists in the genre employ it's nostalgic and low fidelity characteristics to augment whatever sonic climate they want to build, ferraro is one of the very few [alongside his longtime colleague spencer clark] to recognize the revolutionary potential of music that takes one to the in-between, and use it literally as a tool to explore hidden worlds.
speaking about the real, robert bosnak [in a lecture discussing dream incubation at a jungian conference] talks about the differing meta-meanings of the word between english and german, where, in english it refers to "objectness", and in german is used to denote anything "which has effects". this redefinition of sorts for what reality can be shoulders huge significance onto the relevance of dreams, their effects on the psyche, and the notion that they cross over into physical reality, a topic ferraro has emphatically mentioned with regards to his music.
ruins of the asklepion temple in trikala as seen today
"for the past few years of my life, i have become increasingly aware of how the worlds you can create in a cd can, on a larger scale, be applied to life; that dreams can come true in every sense that you imagine them to be; that there are no limits in life, which is the temple of materializing dreams. not just the cover art, but my albums in their entirety have become sigils in a personal sense, in that they help structure the world around my head matrix."
- james ferraro
to ferraro, hypnagogia may not just be a mental state between sleep and wakefulness, but rather an admission of the effects of that space between the real and the unreal, a space populated by dreams, private imaginations, and contestably a plane where phenomena are both real and unreal, a space where the borders of what can be and what can't are all but wiped out. his work is more than just mood music or an avant-garde indulgence in nostalgia, but is rather an invitation to meditate and dwell upon the false separation of the real and the phantasmal [fantasy can be as real as your five fingers], and all the wondrous landscapes the union can unlock, traversing liminal spaces between dream and waking states. the first greek dream temple was built in a place called trikala [who's translation to sanskrit just happens to be "3 ages", referring to the past, present, and future], zones outside of time and space are personified on this album like no other, a prize gem, and one of ferraro's most important works in the context of what he set out to do with the genre.
Good read 👏
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