Letter RE "Twilight"

Mr. Granger: Thoughtful piece on Twilight saga. Twilight could well be seen as a North American Creation Myth repudiating old Logos/Eros of the Anglo European tradition for a new world Logos/Eros. The villain in Twilight is not surprisingly named Victoria – the Third Phase (dark moon) of Robert Graves “White Goddess” – she must be dispatched so that Graves White Goddess – (Bella – new moon) can begin the goddess cycle again. Note that Victoria’s “intuitive friend” is the Irishman Riley. Bella’s is the Native American, Jacob. The Voltori also appear to draw on the Italian - Eros realm of old school where love and religion resided and awakened Europe - , thus in Meyer’s Mormon saga they are the bad guys (Edward hates tradition, he says). The English and the Italians are displaced by a bonding of Mormon (Logos) and Native Americans (Eros). A new Quaternity is formed on the new continent and possibly for the new century – a west coast Mormon/Indian North American Quaternity: Father (Carlyle) Son (Edward), Trickster spirit (Jacob) and Psyche (Bella). Bella is the only human in this situation. Edward kills Victoria (the Red Queen) so that Bella (the White Queen) can be born again and can bring forth the goddess cycle on the new continent. Notice the cover of book four, “New Dawn”: it is the chess piece of the White Queen. And in book four Edward and presumably the other vampires are identified as archangels. Related to this, the old vampire movies and books can be seen as “empty crypt” myths and Europe entered the painful “silence of God” era (And Frankenstein, attempts like Rabbi Loeb’s to conjure the savior but finding only Golum). But here, the gods – archangels – awaken again in the unconscious.

Bernie Quigley
Haverhill, NH

"Twilight" - Victoria's Shadow - American Quaternity

As per the conversation below about "Twilight" as n oriignal Creation Myth it should benoted that is is a western event and one which may run opposite with the eastern United states. Bella as the rising "white queen" begins the first phase of the great Mother cycle - this in hippie lore can be estimated as rising in 2012. 2012, claimed to the an "end of the world" year on the AStez calender and causeing much fanfare, is actually auspicious as it is also a "beginning of the world" phenomenon or pyshic event.
NOteworthy that Victoria - the "third mother" or Death Moon has a "side kick" or lover - that would be Riley, the Irishman. While Bella, the "white goddess" has Jacob, the Native American. I wrote in Quigley in Exile early on how the Irishman was the awakening trickster in innigratn America (ADams" gardener in "The Educaiton of Henry Adams" and in pop works like "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken." But Native America is true guid in North America - the Natty Bumpo figure; Hawkeye in the Cooper tales, or the AFrican-American. I think this will regionalize. West and northwest are informed by Native America, South and north east by African American.

It is possible to see an American Quaternity rising now: South (black), North east (Old mother England), Southwest (Mormon - or the vampires in Twilight which are identified as archeangels in book four) and northwest Native American.

Twilight: Return of the White Goddess

Noted below, Eclipse, the third book in the Twilight quartet brings a ritual killing of Victoria, the "third Mother" in the Earth Mother triple goddess cycle best described in Robert Graves' classic, The White Goddess. Killing the Third Mother enables the return of the First Mother; the White Goddess or the White Queen. I just noticed as I picked up the fourth book, Breaking Dawn that the cover picture is a chess piece, the white queen.

Indians and Mormons: "Twilight" is a North American Creation Myth

RE the note below, Twilight is a North American creation myth. Bella links Native American intuition with Mormon structure (Twilight is a dream of Mormon writer Stephanie Meyers) - a new Logos/Eros for a new age and a new continent. The villians are England (Victoria) and Italy (Colturi); Logos/Eros or order/intuition of a former age. My commentary at The Hill is constantly based on the idea that our times including the recession do not resemble the 1830s as the Keynesians are driving it, but the 1830s when Native American intuition (Natty Bumpo) was a major influence and the Mormons were starting their journey across America.

Ritual killing of Victoria in "Twilight"

So much happens in the Twilight series; the Mormon suggestion of the vampires, the bonding with Native American intuition - Bella is Brahma, the benign vortex between Vishnu (ascending karma - Edward and the vampires) and Shiva (receding karma - Native Americans; the meeting of the Three in Italy (as Jesus and Abraham met the Three) but what I think is most significant is the killing of Victoria. There is a strain of the English civil conflict between Puritan moving to Unitarian and Mormon and heading west when the Anglicans appear in New England threabouts. But Victoria in astrological lore is the Third Mother - the death Mother; the world conquerer at the end of the age of Pisces. Pisces was a yin age - an earth and water age. The vampires here are benevolent and responsible - like Mormons, family and honor oriented. But before the new age - aquarius rises, the Third MOther - Kali must be ritually put to rest - that is the poin tof the Twilight saga; the destruction of Victoria, the third mother, so the first mother - the white goddess, can rise again.

If pop culture brings an archetype forth this series has taken hold of a generation. The ritual destruction of Victoira, the third mother, will allow for the awakening of the First Mother - the Earth Mother incarnate awakening in the new astrological cycle. That is perhaps the terror felt for Sarah Palin; she is representative of the first mother. Victoria dies in book three - the movie should be out in a year.

The Christ Dance in Dali's "Poetry of America"

In Dali’s Poetry of America the white figure has his arm across his eyes - in the dream folk lore when one sees a vision from the Unconscious they are told to cover their eyes. The "disintegrating Christ" is also seen here as partial and perhaps used up (blood turned to oil and coke, etc.) at journey's end - the vision of the Unconscious is "through a glass darkly" and only partial. I've had that dream with three ancient sculls – told to keep my head down. The Egg appears here as a tiny football with little man and will manifest in Geopoliticus Child . . .



In The Phantom of the Opera, for example, a classic folk opera about the fall of Europe in 1917, Madame Giry, Christine’s caregiver who sees into the Unconscious, tells the hero to cover his eyes when the "phantom" occurs and she leads him to the phantom's den in the underworld (when Christine tears off the Phantom’s mask the house falls and brings the death of Europe, indicated as the Paris Opera House).



Likewise, as Jung pointed out in the UFO dreams - their faces were burned by the confrontation with the Unconscious. As a dream, this picture represents a “vision” of Christ – the blue figure (blue; fro the Unconscious in a dream) by the dreamer in white. Ending the transition over decades of the pictures of the Knight, now a man with a staff. The egg first appears here rising out of the tiny man who rises out of the white dreamer.

Reading Dali's "Poetry of America" picture dream

One more point while I am on this on how a representative painting - one that stays beyond its generation or place - can be understood as a dream or a collective dream; a dream relevant to the Collective Unconscious. I've read a lot of comments about the tower in the picture "Poetry in America" and the Africa map hanging beneath it but nothing systematic. The Surrealist group especially DeCirico was preoccupied with towers - white and red towers suggesting the US and the USSR. The long sequence and the ancient qualities would suggest something rising from the Unconscious much as the sacred primal phallus that Jung talked about in Memories, Dreams, Reflections.

Looking at Dali's pictures over several decades they appear to present something rising from the Unconscious over a long period of time and coming into consciousness in the year 1943 in the heat of WW II when he painted Poetry in America and Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man. The technology today gives the opportunity to isolate elements in these pictures to see the procession rising from the Unconscious over time. The Knight "from the Unconscious" changes over time until he becomes a man in 1943. The Tower changes as well and in the same 1943 picture there is a clock - the Knight from the Unconscious has entered "time" - reality as we daily experience it, so we are ready for the "birth" of the "new man." It would work better if I had the dates of these older Knights but I don't have the time to go through them all right now.

These details match the paintings above. In this first, the Knight sees the Tower emerging, but it is still behind a natural veil: I have seen dreams like this with a natural veil of trees dividing magic animals from a group of people eating in a restaurant (dividing the Unconscious from the conscious).





In the next period, years later (as I recall), the Knight is more defined and less ancient. Light is dawning in the picture. The Tower is coming into focus; coming closer to "time."





In 1943, the Knight is now a naked man entered "time." He has arrived in the world. The Tower is completely "real" - come into time. The "old Christ" - dark figure dancing with candle in head will yield to the new "white dancer" and a new "Eggman" will be born.





I would say the tower represents here the journey of consciousness via the Knight of the Unconscious out of the long and ancient journey of ancient evolutionary consciousness, now entering a new phase. Thus the clock, representing the awakening of the new day and the "new man" - the "new Christ" if the wound and the fresh drip from the Egg is indication.