Ego. The Healing Pt ll. An Eye For An Eye. Amera Ziganii Rao
With your eyes closed, imagine the world as its highest, most creative possibility .. a radiant expression of goodness and light. Allow the image to unfold, then hold it in your mind for at least 10 seconds. Now, keeping your eyes, closed, see where you fit in: Where are you? What are you doing? What is your unique contribution? Before opening your eyes, take the image and place it in divine hands. Congratulations. You just started up the most powerful engine in the universe. Marianne Williamson
You don't need to explain your dreams. They belong to you. Paulo Coelho
Let your hopes, not your hurts, shape your future. Robert H. Schuller
Ego. The Healing Pt ll. An Eye For An Eye. Amera Ziganii Rao
Second Existence. Soul. Second Existence. Second Love. Second Life. Second Thought. Second Feeling. Second Sensuality. Second Physicality. Second Understanding. Second Sexuality. Second Imagination. Second Mind. Second Being. Second Psyche. Getting out of the way. Courage. Intuition. Forgiveness. Love. Second Self. The Real Self. Soul.
So we have seen the four essential elements of ego. Here they are again.
So we have seen the four essential elements of ego. Here they are again.
1. Dehumanising the person you love the most. Like a mad, insane, uncontrollable force, the ego makes us dehumanise out of chronic need, fear and fear of abandonment. We are unable to be objective, to be friends with the person we love the most, to be their friend, or to treat that human being with love, even though we love them the most. We treat strangers better than we treat those we love the most. We do it and then we are appalled at ourselves and can yet, just not change the way we behave, whatever we do.
2. The Warlord to Warrior transformation. In ego, we cannot believe that we are allowed to 'kill'. We see love or spirituality as only peace. As being ‘good’. And that we will be punished if we are ‘bad’. We do not believe that it is holy or morally correct to fight or 'kill' or stand up for ourselves with any force, and yet we have this latent violent rage which means we do just that but we don’t know how to control it. We don't understand why it could possibly be our job to fight another person and we would like to think we are above such things and we are shocked instead at the amount of people who are so cruel and rude and horrible and we just try to avoid them instead and find ourselves, unconsciously of course, getting more and more afraid of life and people and disliking them more and more. Our latent rage frightens us even more so we just have to spend all our energy suppressing it and believe we are really 'bad' people for even feeling it. And yet we remain so angry that so much non peace exists, everywhere we go and everywhere we look.
3. In ego, we do not believe God loves us (not the way I talk about it, if you've seen my other writings. I am talking as a forced master, ie Maximus, in Ridley Scott's 'Gladiator' and not as ego. I am talking from superego and that is another story). In ego, we just believe that somehow we are outside the grace of God and that good things happen to other people and not to us. We are especially bad. We try to do everything alone, without spirit, because we don’t believe spirit loves us. We are also latently furious at existence, because Earth is so hard. We are actually furious at God's Universe and frankly, would rather do it alone. But we feel afraid as we do it alone, because we actually believe God is out to get us and that we have no control over anything and we don't understand why, so we are in a perpetual state of terror and hatred and resentment and we just try to make the best of it, but it is really tiring and makes us really afraid.
4. In ego, we separate illusion from love. We would rather fantasise about romantic love, than experience it. We are chronic idealists (I used to hate that word so much) in ego, and that is actually to hide the fact that we are still terrified of risking love, risking our hearts, so we would rather, despite all our apparent wishes, dream our life away, rather than live a life of love. We live inside our imagination, rather than live our imagination. This, like all ego thoughts and emotions is not a conscious decision, but it ends up dictating everything, despite our best attempts. In men, it is called the 'Whore and Madonna' syndrome, but it is gender generic and always what we do in ego. The more wounded we are in ego, the more wounded our ego, the less we will be brave enough to love, so the more we will separate reality and fantasy. In some, it may be the separation of desire and family style love and in others it comes out differently. It is all the same thing. Just not having the courage to risk our hearts. In ego we wouldn't.
FORGIVENESS AND ITS NEMESIS, VENGEANCE.
And then there is forgiveness. A whole chapter in itself and maybe the final chapter. It was for me, because actually forgiveness is about vengeance. Love is about hate. Putting the past behind us is about those deep warlike feelings we have had forever and those emotions of hate, revenge, fury and violence, to hide the immense terror we feel about life and people and God and everything around us. Vengeance. Hate. Fury. Violence. War.
Ego is created in us out of vengeance. Gary Zukav and other Masters talk of how the ego is the part of our soul that has been born into this lifetime to heal or to experience something that the soul has not experienced before. It is the part of soul that comes here to experience the lessons soul wants to experience in this life. And for those of us who know intuitively that re-incarnation is the process, ego is the part of soul that comes here to heal the experiences it did differently last time and maybe every last time we have been on Earth. Earth, being just one existence in the Universe.
That’s the spiritual aspect and esoteric angle on life. Psychologically, ego is our vengeance. Our self protection and our self medication that drops in at 8 or 9 and that remains, for most of us, until death. So, lifetime after lifetime, that ego just gets more and more ‘powerful’ in its vengeance, hatred, ability to self protect and in its skills as a pure killer.
And that is the aspect of ego that NONE of us ever believe we are or are capable of. Because ego is also the most WOUNDED part of us. Ego is our pain. Ego is our reaction to life and whether we have had a loving upbringing or not, a loving life or not, life is not for the faint hearted. ‘Life on Earth. There’s no cure for that’, says Nobel Prize winning dramatist, Samuel Beckett and much as we try to cope with life the best we can, so we can avoid this tortuous truth, it is the truth. Life on Earth is a training ground for the soul.
God, in ‘Conversations with God’ with Neale Donald Walsch, talks of the fact that Earth is specifically about splitting ourselves from soul, so we can study soul. So we can find out who we are. We become non love so we can become love. Other than the pure fury that evokes in me, at the memory of the pain I have experienced in my life and indeed lifetimes on this planet, yes, that is exactly what Earth life is and there are answers, solutions and beauty that come out of it. It’s called healing, redemption, heaven on earth, nirvana, becoming whole and killing that mortal husk of the ego forever. I have done it. And I cannot express, that despite all the hardship I have experienced, and how I am now in a ‘Maximus’ in Gladiator type of Scheherazade position in life to heal my man, in the same way I healed myself, because that is my purpose and my ‘giving Rome back to the people’ task, which I honour completely, healing one’s heart, killing one’s ego is an extraordinary miracle of being. And life truly is never the same again. It is beautiful. Actually beautiful and poignant and light and dark all together and extremely sexy.
God, in ‘Conversations with God’ with Neale Donald Walsch, talks of the fact that Earth is specifically about splitting ourselves from soul, so we can study soul. So we can find out who we are. We become non love so we can become love. Other than the pure fury that evokes in me, at the memory of the pain I have experienced in my life and indeed lifetimes on this planet, yes, that is exactly what Earth life is and there are answers, solutions and beauty that come out of it. It’s called healing, redemption, heaven on earth, nirvana, becoming whole and killing that mortal husk of the ego forever. I have done it. And I cannot express, that despite all the hardship I have experienced, and how I am now in a ‘Maximus’ in Gladiator type of Scheherazade position in life to heal my man, in the same way I healed myself, because that is my purpose and my ‘giving Rome back to the people’ task, which I honour completely, healing one’s heart, killing one’s ego is an extraordinary miracle of being. And life truly is never the same again. It is beautiful. Actually beautiful and poignant and light and dark all together and extremely sexy.
Killing that ego is the way and it is the most worthwhile task on this planet and unbelievably satisfying and glorious to behold and the most empowering thing one can do. One has created a miracle. Oneself. Despite all the odds, despite all the terrors of not knowing how one is going to have what one wants in life or even be able to attain it, while everyone else seems to be okay. Wow. I remember those days. I remember those feelings and I remember the pain.
And to know finally that I have been given the gift of speaking and writing about this journey so other people can maybe do it too, so other people can DEFINITELY do it too. Wow.
Self help, or Gnostic esoteric spirituality or philosophy or mystic learnings, or mysticism or whatever you want to call it. Witchery, wizardry, Neuro Linguistic Programming and other applied psychology. God, Gnostic religious teachings. Whatever you want to call it, there is nothing else more worthwhile to know about. LOVE. Re-programming our stupid, poor, self medicating, self educated, ego minds is the best way of putting it for me. Becoming Second Existence. Soul. The most elusive, hidden areas of knowledge on this planet. And the thing that most of us would die to avoid, than have to do and face and become and learn. If we spent our time at school, learning this information, we would be a fuck of a lot more equipped to deal with life than we are currently at 18, when we are thrown out in the world and expected to behave like adults, when we are still toddlers in terms of the true education of life.
As Plato says, Until philosophers are kings (queens), or the kings (queens) and princes (princesses) of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils.
And as Socrates says, If on the other hand I tell you that to let no day pass without discussing goodness and all the other subjects about which you hear me talking and examining both myself and others is really the very best thing that a man (woman) can do, and that life without this sort of examination is not worth living.
So we have to conclude that despite the fact that this was thousands of years ago, we have learnt nothing as a people and it is still the most elusive thing to do. Heal one’s heart on Earth. Most of us call it the spiritual journey. I did. I only entered this journey in the first place, because I was in so much trouble emotionally. It still took me two years to enter therapy and I still did not have a clue that what I was doing was actually deeply spiritual. Healing myself.
And judging by Plato’s quote, we know why. The wrong people are in power, so this knowledge is the last thing available to anyone easily and if you keep a people stupid and afraid, they are much easier to control anyway. So ‘nuff said. Let’s just get on with it if we can and forget the whys and wherefores. The aim is happiness and happiness can only be attained through healing one’s ego. And becoming superego and soul.
Healing.
Ego and vengeance.
Forgiveness.
These aspects of ego now being discussed, go well beyond archetypes. Either male or female, and either Venus archetype or Mars archetype and either of the archetypes that Deepak Chopra discusses in his book, ‘How to Know God’. The person who splits good and evil, between the two parents or the person who denies the existence of the darkness and evil and pain completely and utterly. The two ways of being a wounded child and therefore symbolic of human beings’ relationship with God. The evolution of our experience with God it seems, and I have just begun exploring that aspect, is to move from believing that God is a parent, to understanding that the Universe is a nebulous, highest love intelligence forcefield of intention that we harness and direct at our will, our soul’s will or our ego’s will, ie that we create our reality. Spiritual existentialism. Creators.
No wonder philosophers do not run governments. We would all be happy and intelligent and wise and powerful and full of abundance. Such is the grip of evil on this planet. We all have our work cut out for us and according to Deepak Chopra, who I have only listened to vaguely, but who is so worth listening to forever, Earth is always evolving in its relationship to Universe. And that makes so much sense. Why would Earth’s people be stagnant in relationship to anything? The religious books would have us think so, but let’s not even go there. Too boring. And useless. I value the religious texts too. I am humble enough to learn from all the masters. I see them as storybooks with the same sacredness. But like everything else, if something does not resonate as truth, it isn’t. Second existence is not confined to what religion you are for sure! And compared to literature, the religious texts come across like one dimensional, simplistic Enid Blyton stories. With due respect! But not too much actually. More to Enid Blyton.
Let’s heal instead.
The Visit. Friedrich Durrenmatt. Swiss dramatist, Friedrich Durrenmatt wrote a play that I had the privilege of reading and studying at the age of 17. It has always stayed with me, as much of the literature I have read and watched has. On a slight tangent, I now know that if second existence, soul, exists, which it does and I am living proof of that, having been the recipient of such a pained, wounded, cynical and fearful and vengeful ego myself, then the study of literature, especially, but all the arts, is actually the study of sacred texts. You don’t need to do anything else. Anything that carries timeless themes, universal themes, the study of human motivation, the philosophical questions of who we are and why we are here and what we are capable of, these are the sacred texts that are far more useful than anything else. Literature, including the greatest films ever written or that have been made out of great literature, most definitely fall into that category for me. Literature is certainly not confined to the shelves of a bookshop or to the stage. All three forms to me are one of the exquisite vehicles of sacred knowledge. Drama.
Der Besuch der Alten Dame. The Visit of the Old Lady. The Visit in its English title. Stunning play and all to do with vengeance and the poignancy of the ego heart and the brutality of existence in the ego and how hurt we are as human beings. I want to include the notes on this play and then – especially because The Visit is about a female and I don’t want any man to start getting swallowed up into ideas of gender, especially with 8000 years of male vengeance on the female species it seems. The story called Adam and Eve. That thing called misogyny that I have extensively covered in my writings. And which, as Nancy Friday who writes on Sadomasochism and a man’s relationship with his mother, may agree, could actually all be from the same thing. Ego wounding and what men, in particular the Mars archetype of man, did with that ego vengeance. No, we are not going there right now. This is beyond archetypes. And certainly beyond gender.
I want to also include notes on one of the most shocking films I have recently seen. The final scene still gives me nightmares and is about exactly the same theme. Vengeance, violence and the ego running one’s life. There Will Be Blood, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and starring the phenomenal Daniel Day Lewis. And very loosely based on the 1927 novel Oil! by Upton Sinclair.
In a way, this also does cover archetypes, as I feel, that The Visit is very much one type of vengeance and There Will Be Blood is about the other. One is cold and calculated and methodical and so fucking ‘reasonable’ and soft spoken and logical, that it is chilling to the bone, and the other just pure, relentless cruelty, greed, selfishness, self pity, belligerent self importance, utter hatred for everyone and the most shocking animal, almost unconscious, violence.
You could say that is female and male respectively, if we look at stereotypes, but you could just as well say that is about the Deepak Chopra defined archetypes of the person who separates good and evil to destructive and psychotic levels and the other who just psychotically denies his or her own darkness completely. It’s all the same. Ego. First existence. Stupid existence and wounded existence and unnecessary existence. That is the point. Totally understandable but the ONLY reason for hate and violence and cruelty and evil in this world. And certainly ABUSE OF POWER. Us.
Us in first existence. Us in ego. Not God. Us.
Vengeance. Not a pretty sight in any form, any archetype, any gender, any human being, anyone. And in every single one of us, in first existence. Whether it is Commodus in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator or Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire...the two archetypes of vengeance, abuse of power and evil as ego, it is the SAME generic unhealed, wounded SICKNESS of ego.
And what CAN BE HEALED.
LOVE IS CREATED. That is Soul and that is Mastery and that is Second Existence.
The Visit. Friedrich Durrenmatt
The story opens with the town of Guellen (which literally means "to manure") preparing for the arrival of famed billionairess Claire Zachanassian. The town is in a state of disrepair, and the residents are suffering considerable hardship and poverty. They hope that Claire, a native of the small town, will provide them with much-needed funds. Alfred Ill, the owner of Guellen's general store and the most popular man in town, was Claire's lover when they were young, and agrees with the Mayor that the task of convincing her to make a donation should fall to him. As the town gathers at the railway station to prepare for Claire's arrival, they are met with an unexpected surprise when Claire steps off of an earlier train, having pulled the emergency brakes in order to do so. She is grand, grotesque, and fantastic, and is accompanied by two henchmen, her husband, a butler, and two blind eunuchs, along with a coffin, a caged black panther, and various pieces of luggage. She begins a flirtatious exchange with Ill, and they promptly revisit their old haunts: Petersen's Barn and Konrad's Village Wood. Ill pretends to find her as delightful as ever, though they are both now in their sixties and significantly overweight. Claire draws Ill's attention to her prosthetic leg and artificial hand.
After settling into the Golden Apostle Hotel, Claire joins the rest of the town, who have gathered outside for a homecoming celebration. A band plays, gymnasts perform, and the Mayor gives a speech. Claire takes the opportunity to announce that she will make a donation of one billion units of an unspecified currency, half for the town and half to be shared among the families. The townspeople are overjoyed, but their happiness is dampened when Claire's Butler steps forward to reveal her condition. The Butler was once the Lord Chief Justice of Guellen, and had overseen the paternity suit that Claire had brought against Ill in 1910. In the suit, Ill had produced two false witnesses (who have since been transformed into Claire's eunuchs), and the court had ruled in his favor. Ill went on to marry Matilda, who owned the general store, and Claire moved to Hamburg and became a prostitute and her child died after one year. She declares to the townspeople that she has come to Guellen to prove that justice can, indeed, be bought. Her donation is conditional on someone killing Alfred Ill. When the Mayor refuses, the town cheers in support, but Claire states rather ominously, "I'll wait."
Ill feels generally confident about his status in the town. However, as time passes, he becomes increasingly fearful as he begins to notice the proliferation of new yellow shoes on the feet of the townsmen, and the fact that everyone seems to be purchasing especially expensive items on credit. He goes to see the Policeman to demand that he arrest Claire for having threatened his life, but the Policeman tells him that the threat is nonsense. Ill then turns to the Mayor, who echoes similar sentiments. Both figures are armed, because Claire's black panther has escaped from his cage and is prowling about the town. This only feeds Ill's fear, since "my black panther" was Claire's pet name for him in their youth. He runs to see the Priest, but the Priest seems to be turning away from him as well, as he effectively ignores Ill's fears and instead draws attention to the magnificent new church bell. Slowly, the standard of living in the town rises, even though the townspeople continue to assure Ill that he is safe. Claire then receives the news that her black panther has been killed, and she has a funeral song played in its memory.
In an effort to escape, Ill heads to the railway station, but finds that, strangely, the entire town is gathered there. They ask him where he is going, and he says that he is planning to move to Australia. They wish him well, again assuring him that he has nothing to fear in Guellen, but Ill grows increasingly nervous nonetheless. The train arrives, but he decides not to board, believing that someone will stop him anyway. Paralyzed, he collapses in the crowd, crying, "I'm lost!"
After some time passes and Claire weds a new husband in the Guellen Cathedral, the Doctor and the Schoolmaster go to see her and explain that the townspeople have run up considerable debts since her arrival. The Schoolmaster appeals to her sense of humanity and begs her to abandon her desire for vengeance and help the town out of the goodness of her heart. She reveals to them that she already actually owns all of properties in the town, and that she is the reason the businesses have been shut down and caused stagnation and poverty for the citizens. The Doctor and the Schoolmaster are horrified at this revelation.
In the meantime, Ill has been pacing the room above the general store, his terror growing as the townspeople buy more and more expensive products on credit. News reporters, having received word of Claire's imminent wedding, are everywhere, and they enter the store to get the scoop on Ill, having heard that he was Claire's lover back in the day. The Schoolmaster, drunk, tries to inform the press about Claire's cruel proposal, but the townspeople stop him. Finally Ill descends the stairs, surprised at the hubbub, but quiet. The reporters clear the room when they hear that Claire has just divorced the man she has just married, and has found a new lover.
After the confusion has cleared, the Schoolmaster and Ill have an honest discussion. The Schoolmaster explains that he is certain that Ill will be killed, and admits that he will ultimately join the ranks of the murderers. Ill calmly states that he has accepted his guilt, and acknowledges that the town's suffering is his fault. The Schoolmaster leaves, and Ill is confronted by the Mayor, who asks whether Ill will accept the town's judgment at that evening's meeting. Ill says that he will. The Mayor then suggests that Ill make things easier on everyone and shoot himself, but Ill refuses, insisting that the town must go through the process of actually judging and then killing him.
Ill goes for a ride in his son's newly-purchased car, accompanied by his wife, Matilda, and his daughter, both of whom are wearing new outfits. As they drive through Konrad's Village Wood, Ill says that he is going to go for a walk through the woods before heading to the town meeting. His family continues on to the movie theater. In the woods, Ill comes across Claire, who is walking with her newest husband. She asks her husband to leave so that she and Ill can speak privately. They reminisce about the past, and make plans for the future. Claire tells Ill that she plans to take his body away in the coffin to a mausoleum in Capri that overlooks the Mediterranean. She also tells Ill that she has never stopped loving him, but that over time her love has grown into something monstrous.
The town meeting is flooded with press, and the town publicly announces their acceptance of Claire's donation. They then go through the formality of a vote, which is unanimous, and the Mayor states that they have Ill to thank for their new-found wealth. The press is then ushered out of the auditorium to enjoy refreshments. The doors are locked, and the lights are dimmed. The Priest crosses Ill, and he is killed by the townsmen. Just as a reporter reappears in the auditorium, the Doctor announces that Ill has died from a heart attack. The reporters gather, and declare that Ill has died from joy. Claire examines the corpse, gives the Mayor his cheque, and leaves the town with Ill's body in the coffin that she brought with her when she arrived in Guellen. Claire boards the train at the railway station, and the visit comes to an end.
Characters and Themes
Claire Zachanassian
When the play begins Claire is over sixty years old, with red hair and an artificial leg and hand. She visits Guellen, her hometown, with the intention of buying herself justice. Upon her arrival, she announces to the impoverished townspeople that she will donate the million. The gift, however, will be given only in return for the death of her former lover, Alfred Ill.
Husbands VII–IX (or Moby, Hoby, and Zoby)
The staging directions for the play indicate that all three husbands can be played by the same actor.
Butler
Roby and Toby
Koby and Loby
Ill
In his youth, Ill was the lover of Claire, the multi-millionairess. While the town awaits Claire's visit, the Mayor urges Ill to bank on nostalgia and see if he can convince her to donate funds. However, Ill quickly becomes the target of the townspeople once Claire declares that she will give a generous financial donation to the town only if Ill is murdered. She seeks revenge because he had impregnated her when they were young, but had successfully denied paternity by presenting two false witnesses. He married Matilda because she owned the general store, and Claire was forced to give birth to a child out of wedlock and to become a prostitute in Hamburg. Claire later tells Ill that the child died after being born. She says that she named the girl 'Geneveve' and she did not even open her eyes.
Mrs. Ill
Son
Daughter
Mayor
Priest
Schoolmaster
Doctor
Policeman
Townsmen 1–4
These men are seen at the railway station, and also in Ill's general store. They symbolize the townspeople of Guellen, and also transform into the trees of Konrad's Village Wood.
Painter
Bailiff
Louisa
Themes
The author often emphasized that The Visit is intended first and foremost as a comedy. However, it is often difficult to ignore the serious and usually dark points being made about human nature throughout the play. A popular method of bringing up concerns important to German-language authors of this period was through their use of unsettling humour of this type.
The main theme is about how money corrupts even the most morally strong people.
Women's Rights.
Women did not achieve full suffrage in Switzerland until 1971 (in one canton until 1990), alone with neighboring Liechtenstein, the only European country to limit women's voting rights at the time. Women still lacked voting rights when the author refashioned the play as an opera libretto for Gottfried von Einem (premiered 1971). The sham vote at the end, where Claire has no say, followed by the false ascription of the town's new wealth to Ill, highlights this injustice in Swiss society. Symbolically, Claire lacks a hand and foot – tools to control her destiny. She has been thrown by men into prostitution against her will.
Can justice be bought?
When Claire visits the town, she offers an extraordinary monetary gift – but only on the condition that the town rectifies its past failure by putting Ill to death. In her mind, Claire equates Ill's punishment with "justice". The drama of the play unfolds as a kind of "proof" of Claire's assertion: that everything, including justice, can be bought.
In the past, Claire has purchased justice many times. Boby the Butler, for instance, was previously a judge in Guellen, but ultimately opted out of the profession in order to enter into Claire's personal service. The salary, he explains to the town, was so high that he couldn't refuse her. This foreshadows the town's experience with Claire's conditional gift: the gift is so generous that the sacrifice of personal and collective dignity is not too high a price to pay in return.
In an ironic inversion of Claire's decree, Claire has rescued the characters Roby and Toby, former American gangsters who had been sentenced to death by electric chair. She purchases each man's life, thus proving that her wealth is capable of altering the very essence of the American justice system.
It is important to note that the political institutions helpful in fashioning and enforcing an idea of "justice" in society are corrupted and rendered passive in "The Visit".
Prostitution.
Now that Claire has risen out of her prostituted state, she attempts to turn the world into her own, personal "brothel", as she announces to the Doctor and the Schoolteacher at the beginning of the third act. Once, she was a prostitute, an outcast; now, she is the opposite: she hovers above society in a mythic, almost goddess-like position by imposing her own "rule of law" to exact her own idea of "justice" on the town of Guellen. She employs the lessons that she learned in the sexual marketplace: all desires can be bought, if one has the money.
The rule of law.
In the first act, the audience learns from the Priest that there is no capital punishment in Germany. Claire's gift, however, is conditional upon the townspeople's willingness to apply capital punishment to Ill. The townspeople collectively keep Claire's decree a secret, implying that they intend to eventually carry it out.
Claire's personal, almost tyrannical "rule of law" has the effect of a secret extrajudicial proceeding. The question is whether the result of such a proceeding can ever fairly demonstrate "justice", given that the process lacks accountability and occurs outside of the generally accepted laws. For Claire, however, "justice" in the ideal - that is, legal - sense is not really the issue. Her idea of justice has been conflated by her desire for personal vengeance.
Vengeance as justice.
The fates of Koby and Loby illustrate Claire's view of justice. Like God in the Old Testament, she tracks down both of Ill's false witnesses on the opposite ends of the earth. Roby and Toby, her employees, blind the men and castrate them. Claire sentences Ill to an existence characterized by suffering and fear. Ultimately, the death that Claire selects for Ill is one inspired by the same material desires that drove her former lover to betray her in the first place.
Forgiveness.
Cold logic.
The townspeople of Guellen engage in a powerful process of rationalization before deciding to kill Ill. Throughout the play, they consistently – though never explicitly – justify meeting the conditions of Claire's gift. At first, they are repulsed by the idea of sacrificing a popular local figure's life in exchange for wealth and prosperity, but as their subconscious desires are fed by the slow rise in their standard of living, and once it becomes clear that Ill is the cause of the town's suffering, the townspeople come to the decision that it is just, fair, and reasonable to kill Ill. By slaying Ill, they will both appease a powerful figure and restore the town's well-being.
Dehumanization versus humanism
Claire's physical artificiality (as evidenced by her prosthetic leg and her ivory hand) reinforces the idea that Claire is "unkillable"; not quite human. As a prostitute, her status was not much higher than that of an animal; now, she has risen to the status of a god. Claire's identity raises the question of what is fundamentally human. Dürrenmatt expresses humanist ideals using the history of the town of Guellen and the character of the Schoolteacher. These values, while sincere, have little stamina in the face of someone as wealthy and powerful as Claire. In other words, Dürrenmatt appears to believe that as society becomes increasingly capitalistic, humanist ideals have little hope for survival.
Romantic love.
Stereotypical romantic love in the story exists in a pastoral setting. Claire and Ill conducted their romance in the idyllic, nostalgic locales of Petersen's Barn and Konrad's Village Wood: perfect symbols for the beauty and innocence of their youthful infatuation.
Over time, however, Claire's love for Ill grew into an evil, monstrous thing. Filled with rage, Claire demands her own version of justice: revenge. Dürrenmatt reveals how deeply perverted her love has become with Claire's conditional gift to the town; ultimately, however, what she wishes is to take Ill away with her to an island in the Mediterranean Sea where they will be able to spend all eternity together. Her desire is romantic, but simultaneously monstrous.
The second act positions Claire and Ill in a perverse reconstruction of Shakespeare's famous balcony scene between Romeo and Juliet. In this scene, however, Claire stands on the balcony of her hotel with her newest husband, gazing out over the town, while Ill manages the general store below. The scene is no longer an expression of young love: here, the woman looks down on the man from high above more like a tyrannical queen than a lover.
There Will Be Blood. Paul Thomas Anderson
There Will Be Blood is a 2007 drama film written, co-produced, and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. The film is based on Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel Oil!. It tells the story of a silver miner-turned-oilman on a ruthless quest for wealth during Southern California's oil boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It stars Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano.
The film received significant critical praise and numerous award nominations and victories. It appeared on many critics' "top ten" lists for the year, notably the American Film Institute, the National Society of Film Critics, the National Board of Review, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Day-Lewis won Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, NYFCC, and IFTA Best Actor awards for his performance. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards including Best Picture, winning Best Actor for Day-Lewis and Best Cinematography for Robert Elswit.
In late 2009, it was chosen by Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian, Peter Travers of Rolling Stone, and Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune and At the Movies as the best film of the first decade of the 21st century.
In 1902, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), a mineral prospector, discovers oil and establishes a small drilling company. Following the death of one of his workers in an accident, Plainview adopts the man's orphaned son (his mother nowhere to be seen). The boy, called H. W. (Dillon Freasier), is thereafter introduced as his business "partner".
Nine years later, Plainview is approached by Paul Sunday (Paul Dano), who tells him there is oil under his family's property in Little Boston, California. Plainview visits ostensibly to camp, and attempts to buy the farm at a bargain price. Another brother, Eli (also Dano), aware of the oil seeping out of the ground, holds out for more, wanting the money to fund the local church, of which he is the pastor. Plainview talks Eli's father to agree to the lesser amount being paid upfront, promising more for the church after the well comes in. Plainview goes on to snatch up all the available land in the Little Boston area, save for one holdout -- William Bandy (Hans Howes).
The next morning, Plainview is awakened by Mr. Bandy. Bandy says he is willing to lease Plainview land for a pipeline -- on the provision that the latter repent his sin of the night before, which Bandy reveals he somehow knows about, and join the Church of the Third Revelation. At the church, Eli repeatedly slaps and humiliates Plainview as part of his initiation, forcing him to call himself a sinner and confess "I have abandoned my child!" Plainview seems genuinely affected at having to say this, but knows as well as Eli that it is all an act meant to demean him. Soon after, Plainview decides to bring H.W. back while Eli leaves town to perform missionary work.
In 1927, a grown up H.W. (Russell Harvard) marries his childhood sweetheart, Mary Sunday (Colleen Foy), whom the first well was named after. By this time Plainview, now an alcoholic but extremely wealthy, is living in an enormous mansion with only a servant for company. H.W. asks his father (through an interpreter) to dissolve their partnership so he can establish his own business in Mexico. Feeling betrayed, Plainview mocks his son's deafness and tells him of his true origins. H.W. states he is glad to learn that they are not related, and leaves.
Eli, now working in radio, visits Plainview. He explains that Mr. Bandy has died and offers to broker a deal on his land. Plainview agrees to the deal if Eli confesses, "I am a false prophet; God is a superstition", subjecting Eli to the same humiliation Eli had put him through years earlier. Eli does so after much berating by Plainview. To Eli's horror, Plainview then reveals that his rights had already allowed him to take the oil from the Bandy property via drainage. Eli reveals that he is in dire financial straits and is desperate to make a deal with Plainview, whom he reminds that they are related by marriage. Plainview flies into a rage, chases Eli about the mansion's bowling alley, and beats him to death with a bowling pin. When Plainview's butler comes down to check on him, Plainview simply says, "I'm finished."
Background.
Writer, Eric Schlosser decided to read most of Sinclair's works, and eventually read the novel Oil!, which he loved. Schlosser, who found the book to be exciting and thought it would make a great film, sought out the Sinclair estate and purchased the film rights. He then thought that he would try to find a director that was as passionate about the book as he was, but Paul Thomas Anderson approached him first.
Anderson had been working on a screenplay about two fighting families. He struggled with the script and soon realized it just was not working. Homesick, he purchased a copy of Upton Sinclair's Oil! in London, drawn to its cover illustration of a California oilfield. As he read, Anderson became even more fascinated with the novel, and after contacting Schlosser, adapted the first 150 pages to a screenplay. He began to get a real sense of where his script was going after making many trips to museums dedicated to early oilmen in Bakersfield. He changed the title from Oil! to There Will Be Blood because, "there's not enough of the book to feel like it's a proper adaptation."
Anderson, who had previously stated that he would like to work with Daniel Day-Lewis, wrote the screenplay with Day-Lewis in mind and approached the actor when the script was nearly complete.
Anderson had heard that Daniel Day-Lewis liked his earlier film Punch-Drunk Love, which gave him the confidence to hand Day-Lewis a copy of the incomplete script. According to Day-Lewis, simply being asked to do the film was enough to convince him. In an interview with The New York Observer, the actor elaborated on what drew him to the project. It was "the understanding that [Anderson] had already entered into that world. [He] wasn't observing it — [he'd] entered into it — and indeed [he'd] populated it with characters who [he] felt had lives of their own."
The line in the final scene, "I drink your milkshake!", is paraphrased from a quote by U.S. Senator for New Mexico Albert Fall speaking before a Congressional investigation into the 1920s oil-related Teapot Dome scandal. Anderson was enamoured of the fact that a term like "milkshake" found its way into such official testimony, to explain the complicated technical process of oil drainage to senators.
According to Joanne Sellar, one of the film's producers, it was a hard film to finance because "the studios didn't think it had the scope of a major picture." It took two years to acquire financing for the film.
For the role of Plainview's "son," Anderson looked at people in Los Angeles and New York City, but he realized that they needed someone from Texas who knew how to shoot shotguns and "live in that world." The filmmakers asked around at a school and the principal recommended Dillon Freasier. They did not have him read any scenes and instead talked to him, realizing that he was the perfect person for the role.
To build his character, Day-Lewis started with the voice. Anderson sent him recordings from the late 19th century to 1927 and a copy of the 1948 film, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, including documentaries on its director, John Huston, an important influence on Anderson's film. According to Anderson, he was inspired by the fact that Sierra Madre is "about greed and ambition and paranoia and looking at the worst parts of yourself." While writing the script, he would put the film on before he went to bed at night. To research for the role, Day-Lewis read letters from labourers and studied photographs from the time period. He also read up on oil tycoon Edward Doheny, upon whom Sinclair's book is loosely based.
There Will Be Blood is bravura film-making by one of American film's modern masters. Paul Thomas Anderson's epic poem of savagery, optimism and obsession is a true meditation on America. The film drills down into the dark heart of capitalism, where domination, not gain, is the ultimate goal. In a career defined by transcendent performances, Daniel Day-Lewis creates a character so rich and so towering, that "Daniel Plainview" will haunt the history of film for generations to come.
In November 2009, the critics of Time Out New York chose the film as the second-best of the decade, saying:
Two years after first seeing There Will Be Blood, I am convinced that Paul Thomas Anderson's profound portrait of an American primitive—take that, Citizen Kane—deserves pride of place among the decade's finest. Daniel Day-Lewis gave the best and ballsiest performance of the past 10 years. As Daniel Plainview, a prospector who loots the land of its natural resources in silver and oil to fill his pockets and gargantuan ego, he showed us a man draining his humanity for power. And Anderson, having extended Plainview's rage from Earth to heaven in the form of a corrupt preacher (Paul Dano), managed to "drink the milkshake" of other risk-taking directors. If I had to stake the future of film in the next decade on one filmmaker, I'd go with PTA. Even more than Boogie Nights and Magnolia—his rebel cries from the 1990s—Blood let Anderson put technology at the service of character. The score by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood was a sonic explosion that reinvented what film music could be. And the images captured by Robert Elswit, a genius of camera and lighting, made visual poetry out of an oil well consumed by flame. For the final word on Blood, I'll quote Plainview: "It was one goddamn hell of a show."
Chicago Tribune and At the Movies critic Michael Phillips named There Will Be Blood the decade’s best film. Phillips stated:
This most eccentric and haunting of modern epics is driven by oilman Daniel Plainview, who, in the hands of actor Daniel Day-Lewis, becomes a Horatio Alger story gone horribly wrong. Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson’s camera is as crucial to the films hypnotic pull as the performance at its center. For its evocation of the early 1900’s, its relentless focus on one man’s fascinating obsessions, and for its inspiring example of how to freely adapt a novel--plus, what I think is the performance of the new century--There Will Be Blood stands alone. The more I see it, the sadder, and stranger, and more visually astounding it grows--and the more it seems to say about the best and worst in the American ethos of rugged individualism. Awfully good!
Entertainment Weekly critic Lisa Schwarzbaum named There Will Be Blood the decade's best film as well. In her original review, Schwarzbaum stated:
Anyhow, a fierce story meshing big exterior-oriented themes of American character with an interior-oriented portrait of an impenetrable man (two men, really, including the false prophet Sunday) is only half Anderson's quest, and his exciting achievement. The other half lies in the innovation applied to the telling itself. For a huge picture, There Will Be Blood is exquisitely intimate, almost a collection of sketches. For a long, slow movie, it speeds. For a story set in the fabled bad-old-days past, it's got the terrors of modernity in its DNA. Leaps of romantic chordal grandeur from Brahms' Violin Concerto in D Major announce the launch of a fortune-changing oil well down the road from Eli Sunday's church — and then, much later, announce a kind of end of the world. For bleakness, the movie can't be beat — nor for brilliance.
Daniel Plainview. Quotes
Can everything around here be got?
What would you like, Eli?
Now run along and play, and don't come back.
There's a whole ocean of oil under our feet! No one can get at it except for me!
I'm Finished
One night I'm gonna come to you, inside of your house, wherever you're sleeping, and I'm gonna cut your throat.
I told you I was going to eat you! I told you I was going to eat you up!
I drink your milkshake. I drink it up!
Scenes from the film.
Plainview: What did my mother know?
Henry Brands: I don't know. I don't know if she knew and looked the other way, if she never knew. Why did you leave? I know you didn't get on with our father.Plainview: I worked for Geological Survey and went to Kansas. I couldn't stay there, I just couldn't. I don't like to explain myself.
[Pause]
Plainview: Are you an angry man, Henry?
Henry Brands: About what?
Plainview: Are you envious? Do you get envious?
Henry Brands: I don't think so. No.
Plainview: I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people.
Henry Brands: That part of me is gone... working and not succeeding- all my failures has left me... I just don't... care.
Plainview: Well if it's in me, it's in you. There are times when I look at people and I see nothing worth liking. I want to earn enough money I can get away from everyone.
Henry Brands: What will you do about your boy?
Plainview: [strained] I don't know. Maybe it'll change. Does your sound come back to you? I don't know. Maybe no one knows that. A doctor might not know that.
Henry Brands: Where's his mother?
Plainview: I don't want to talk about those things. I see the worst in people, Henry. I don't need to look past seeing them to get all I need. I've built up my hatreds over the years, little by little. Having you here gives me a second breath. I can't keep doing this on my own with these... people.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tilford: Where you going to put it all? Where? Build a pipeline, make a deal with Union Oil, be my guest. But if you can’t pull it off, you've got an ocean of oil under your feet with nowhere to go. Why not turn it over to us? We'll make you rich. You spend time with your boy. It's a great discovery... Now let us help you.
[LONG PAUSE]Plainview: Did you just tell me how to run my family?
Tilford: It might be more important now that you've proven the field and we're offering to buy you out.
[PAUSE]
Plainview: One night, I'm gonna come to you, inside of your house, wherever you're sleeping, and I'm going to cut your throat.
Tilford: What? What are you talking about? Have you gone crazy Daniel?
Plainview: Did you hear what I said?
Tilford: I heard what you said, why did you say it?
Plainview: You don't tell me about my son.
Tilford: Why are you acting insane and threatening to cut my throat?!
Plainview: You don't tell me about my son.
Tilford: I'm not telling you anything! I'm asking you to be reasonable, if I've offended you I apologize.
Plainview: You'll see what I can do.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eli Sunday: I truly wish everyone could be saved, don’t you?
Little Boston Congregation: Yes.Eli Sunday: I’m afraid that’s just not the case. The doctrine of Universal Salvation is a lie, is it not? It’s a lie. I wish everyone could be saved, but they won’t. No. They. Won't! You will never be saved if you...
Little Boston Congregation: ... reject the blood!
Eli Sunday: Good. Is there a sinner here looking for salvation? A new member?... I’ll ask it again. Is there a sinner here looking for God--
Plainview: Yes.
Eli Sunday: Thank you for coming, brother Daniel.
Plainview: Thank you Eli.
Eli Sunday: We have a sinner with us here, who wishes for salvation. Daniel, are you a sinner?
Plainview: Yes.
Eli Sunday: Oh the Lord can’t hear you Daniel. Say it to Him, go ahead and speak to Him, it's all right. Down on your knees and do it. Look up to the sky, and say it.
Plainview: What do you want me to say?
Eli Sunday: Oh, Daniel, you’ve come here and you’ve brought good and wealth, but you have also brought your bad habits as a backslider. You’ve lusted after women and you have abandoned your child. Your child, that you raised, you have abandoned all because he was sick and you have sinned, so say it now, “I am a sinner.”
Plainview: I am a sinner.
Eli Sunday: Say it louder: “I am a sinner.”
Plainview: I am a sinner.
Eli Sunday: Louder, Daniel: “I am a sinner!"
Plainview: I am a sinner.
Eli Sunday: "I am sorry Lord."
Plainview: I am sorry Lord.
Eli Sunday: "I want the blood.”
Plainview: I want the blood.
Eli Sunday: You have abandoned your child!
Plainview: [pause] I’ve abandoned my child.
Eli Sunday: “I will never backslide."
Plainview: I will never backslide.
Eli Sunday: "I was lost but now I am found."
Plainview: I was lost but now I'm found.
Eli Sunday: "I have abandoned my child.” Say it, say it...
Plainview: I’ve abandoned my child.
Eli Sunday: Say it louder, say it louder!
Plainview: I’ve abandoned my child! I’ve abandoned my child! I’ve abandoned my boy!
Eli Sunday: Beg for the blood!
Plainview: Just give me the blood Eli, let me get out of here. Give me the blood, Lord, and let me get away!
Eli Sunday: Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?
Plainview: Yes, I do.
Eli Sunday: Get out of here, Devil! [slaps Plainview across the face]
Plainview: Can't feel that, Eli.
Eli Sunday: Out, Devil! Out, sin!
Plainview: Let me feel the power of the Lord, Eli!
Eli Sunday: Do you accept the Church of the Third Revelation as your spiritual guide?
Plainview: Yes, I do.
Eli Sunday: Get out of here, get out of here!
Plainview: [as he is being slapped] Where is your Lord, Eli, let me feel Him! Where is He? Where is He? There He is! Oh, there He is!
Eli Sunday: Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior?
Plainview: Yes, I do!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Plainview puts a napkin over his face]
Plainview: [clears throat] So Standard offered us a million dollars for the Little Boston leases. I told H. M. Tilford where he could shove that, and we made a deal with Union! On the pipeline! And that whole ocean of oil underneath our fields!Tilford: [to his fellow businessmen] ... 150,000 dollars...
Businessman: We needed the money to drill.
Businessman: Who is this guy?
Tilford: I go out to meet him. He's getting oil on the property. We're trying to make a claim on it. Offered him a million dollars. Turned us down flat.
Plainview: [frustrated] All right. I want you to look over there.
Tilford: Daniel, let me introduce--
Plainview: Look over there, you see. That's my son. You see him?
Tilford: Yes.
Plainview: You SEE?
Tilford: I see him.
Plainview: You don't tell me how to raise my family. I told you not to tell me how to raise my family.
Tilford: Daniel--
Plainview: So, what do you see?
Tilford: I'm very happy for you that--
Plainview: Yes, I've made a deal with Union. My son is happy and safe.
Tilford: Congratulations. Excellent.
Plainview: I'm taking care of him now, so... You look like a fool, don't you Tilford?
[Pause]
Tilford: Yes.
Plainview: Y-y-yes, yes you do.
Tilford: [embarrassed] Excuse me gentlemen.
Plainview: Oh, excuse me, gentlemen. Excuse him, gentlemen. [to Tilford] I told you what I was gonna do.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[HW is speaking through his interpreter, George]
H.W./George: I’d prefer to speak to you in private.Plainview: You can’t speak. So why don’t you flap your hands about and have what’s-his-name tell me where you’ve been. Or do you think I don’t know?
H.W./George: This is hard for me to say. I’ll tell you first: I love you very much. I’ve learned to love what I do because of you. I’m leaving here. I’m going to Mexico. I’m taking Mary, and I’m going to Mexico. I miss working outside. I miss the fields. It’ll only be for a time, for me to do my own drilling, and start my own company. It’s time to make a change.
Plainview: This makes you my competitor.
H.W./George: No. No, it's not like that.
Plainview: It is like that, boy... Your own company, huh?
H.W./George: That’s right.
Plainview: In Mexico...
H.W./George: Yes.
Plainview: You’re making such a misstep. So, what are you doing?
H.W./George: I know you and I have disagreed over many things. I’d rather keep you as my father, than my partner.
Plainview: Then say it! You got something to say to me then say it, I’d like to hear you speak instead of your little dog, woof woof woof woof woof woof woof!
H.W.: I’m going to Mexico with my wife. I’m going away from you.
Plainview: That wasn’t so hard, was it? You’re killing us with what you’re doing. You’re killing my image of you as my son.
H.W./George: You are stubborn. You won’t listen.
Plainview: You're not my son.
H.W./George: Please don't say that. I know you don't mean it.
Plainview: It's the truth. You're not my son. You never have been. You're an orphan. Did you ever hear that word? [to George]: Tell him what I said. You operated here today like one. I should have seen this coming. I should have known that under this all, these past years you've been building your hate for me piece by piece. I don't even know who you are because you have none of me in you, you're someone else's. This anger, your maliciousness, backwards dealings with me. You're an orphan from a basket in the middle of the desert. And I took you for no other reason than I needed a sweet face to buy land. Did you get that? Now you know.
[Plainview whistles mockingly]
Plainview: Look at me. You're lower than a bastard. Mmm-hmm. You have none of me in you. You're just a bastard from a basket.
H.W./George: I thank God I have none of you in me.
[H.W. and George get up and begin to leave the room]
Plainview: You're not my son. You're just a little piece of competition. Bastard from a basket, bastard from a basket. You're a bastard from a basket!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Eli is attempting to wake up Plainview]
Eli Sunday: Daniel! Daniel Plainview the house is on fire!![Plainview continues to snore]
Eli Sunday: Brother Daniel... It's Eli.
[Plainview wakes up]
Plainview: Yes it is. Yes it is.
Eli Sunday: I'll make us a drink. Oh, your home is a miracle. It's beautiful. God bless it. I've been spreading His Word far and wide, far and wide. So much travel for Him. I've been working in radio. Yes, so much, so much has been happening. To be here and find you and see you well is wonderful. And we have a chance to catch up!
[Eli offers Plainview whiskey]
Plainview: No, thank you so much.
Eli Sunday: Ah, my brother. Daniel, my brother by marriage. We're such old friends. So much time. [pause] Things go up, things go down, but at least the Lord is always around. We've seen ups and downs, haven't we?
Plainview: Are things down for you right now Eli?
Eli Sunday: No! No. But I do come with some sad news. Perhaps you remember Mr. Bandy? Mr. Bandy has passed on to the Lord. He lived to be ninety-nine years old, God bless him. Mr. Bandy has a grandson, have you met his grandson William? William Bandy is one of the finest members we have at the Church of the Third Revelation. He is eager to come to Hollywood to be in movies. He is very good-looking. And I do think he will have success.
Plainview: [chewing on his steak] That’s wonderful.
Eli Sunday: Would you like me to speak with him? … Daniel, I’m asking if you’d like to have business with the Church of the Third Revelation in developing this lease on young Bandy’s thousand acre tract?! I’m offering you to drill on one of the great undeveloped fields of Little Boston!
Plainview: I’d be happy to work with you.
Eli Sunday: You would? Yes, yes, of course, that’s wonderful---
Plainview: But there is one condition for this work.
Eli Sunday: All right.
Plainview: I’d like you to tell me that you are a false prophet. I’d like you to tell me that you are, and have been, a false prophet, and that God is a superstition.
Eli Sunday: But that’s a lie. It’s a lie, I cannot say it...
[PAUSE]
Eli Sunday: When can we begin to drill?
Plainview: Very soon.
Eli Sunday: How long will it take to bring in the well?
Plainview: It shouldn’t take long.
Eli Sunday: I would like a 100,000 dollar signing bonus, plus the five that is owed to me with interest.
Plainview: That’s only fair.
Eli Sunday: I am a false prophet and God is a superstition, if that’s what you believe, then I will say it.
Plainview: Say it like you mean it.
Eli Sunday: Daniel…
Plainview: Say it like it's your sermon.... Don’t smile!
Eli Sunday: I am a false prophet, God is a superstition--
Plainview: Why don’t you stand up? Put your glass down.
Eli Sunday: I am a false prophet, God is a superstition--
Plainview: Eli, Eli, stop! Just imagine this is your church here, and you've got a full house today, so…
Eli Sunday: I am a false prophet, God is a superstition!
Plainview: Say it again.
Eli Sunday: I am a false prophet, God is a superstition!
Plainview: They can’t hear you in the back!
Eli Sunday: I am a false prophet, God is a superstition!
Plainview: Say it again.
Eli Sunday: I am a false prophet, God is a superstition!
Plainview: Say it again.
Eli Sunday: I am a false prophet, God is a superstition!
Plainview: Those areas have been drilled.
Eli Sunday: What…?
Plainview: Those areas, they've been drilled.
Eli Sunday: No they haven't…
Plainview: Yes; it's, uh, it's called drainage, Eli. See, I own everything around it; so of course, I get what’s underneath it.
Eli Sunday: But there are no derricks there. This is the Bandy tract, do you understand?
Plainview: Do you understand Eli, that's more to the point, do you understand? I drink your water. I drink it up. Every day, I drink the blood of lamb from Bandy's tract. You can sit down again.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eli Sunday: Oh Daniel. Daniel. Please? I am in desperate times.
Plainview: I know.Eli Sunday: I need a friend.
Plainview: Yes, of course you do.
Eli Sunday: I’ve sinned. I need help, I’m a sinner. I’ve let the Devil grab hold of me in ways I never imagined. I’m so full of sin..
Plainview: The Lord sometimes challenges us, doesn’t He, Eli?
Eli Sunday: [becomes hysterical] Oh yes He does, Daniel, yes He does--
Plainview: ...Yes He does...
Eli Sunday: He completely failed to alert me to the recent panic in our economy.
Plainview: Oh dear.
Eli Sunday: This… I must have this, Daniel, I must, I must, I must, I must, I must have this. My investments have... Daniel I won’t bore you but, if I could grab the Lord’s hand for help I would but He does these things all the time, these mysteries that He presents and while we wait! While we wait for His word!
Plainview: Because you're not the chosen brother, Eli. 'Twas Paul who was chosen. See he found me and told me about your land, you're just a fool.
Eli Sunday: Why are you talking about Paul? Don’t say this to me.
Plainview: I did what your brother couldn't, I broke you and I beat you. It was Paul told me about you, he's the prophet, he's the smart one. He knew what was there, he found me to take it out of the ground. You know what the funny thing is? Listen, listen, listen-- I paid him $10,000 cash in hand, just like that. He has his own company now. Prosperous little business. Three wells producing $5000 a week.
[Eli weeps]
Plainview: Stop crying, you snivelling ass! Stop your nonsense! You're just the afterbirth, Eli, slithered out on your mother's filth. They should have put you in glass jar on a mantelpiece. Where were you when Paul was suckling at his mother's teat, eh? Where were you? Who was nursing you, poor Eli, one of Bandy's sows? That land has been had, there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s gone, had.
Eli Sunday: If you would just---
Plainview: You lose.
Eli Sunday: Take this lease, Daniel--
Plainview: Drainage! Drainage, Eli, you boy. Drained dry, I’m so sorry. Here: if you have a milkshake... and I have a milkshake... and I have a straw; there it is, that’s the straw, see? Watch it. My straw reaches across the room... and starts to drink your milkshake: I... drink... your... milkshake! [slurps] I drink it up!
Eli Sunday: Don’t bully me, Daniel!
[Plainview picks up Eli and tosses him on the ground]
Plainview: [screams] Did you think your song and dance and your superstition would help you, Eli?! I am the Third Revelation! I am who the Lord has chosen!
[Plainview begins throwing bowling balls at Eli]
Plainview: Because I’m smarter than you, I’m older---
Eli Sunday: I’m your old friend, Daniel--
Plainview: And because I’m not a false prophet, you snivelling boy. I am the Third Revelation! I am the Third Revelation! I told you I would eat you! I told you I would eat you up!
[Plainview chases Eli]
Eli Sunday: We're family! We're brothers! We're brothers! Daniel please forgive me, I beg you--
Plainview: That's it, that's it...
[Plainview bludgeons Eli to death with a bowling pin. The butler hears the noise]
Butler: Mr. Daniel?
[Plainview sits down on the floor, panting, then finally responds]
Plainview: I'm finished!
AMERA ZIGANII RAO
A PROFILE
FEMINIST AND HUMAN RIGHTS, METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHER. WRITER. MENTALIST AND ARTIST
AMERA ZIGANII RAO ALCHEMY & LIBERATION & HUMANITY™
The Sacred Whore High Priestess Monarch Society™
The Super Sacred Brother Lover™
The Return To The Source. Ascension.
The Sacred Whore High Priestess Monarch Society™. When we were giants. All of us. When you did more than rape me.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013
Neo Feminist™, Post Tribe Social Reformer™ and Sacred Sexualist™. Human Rights Healer. Metaphysical Philosopher, Writer, Spiritual Intelligence Teacher, Hierophant (Interpreter of The Universe) and Mentalist Self Actualiser.
I can help you grow power, from nothing.
Alchemy & Liberation & Humanity™.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013
The Sacred Whore High Priestess Hierophant™ and Sacred Pimp Warrior Protector, Brother Lover™ Society. The kings and queens of old. Angels and Sorcerers together in each of themselves and in the other. The Wizard life. Forever. Living and loving from The Source. Sourcery, Carlos Castaneda first said. I'll say it again. Sourcerers together. Living a life worth living. At last.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013
Witches are healers. Witches are the Love Healers and SOURCErers of The Lost World, when we were the giant warriors. We were good and so were were you. 'The World of Men'. The Tribe of Misogyny and Bourgeois™.
Gives us all a bad name. And poisons all hearts.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013
Feminist Lolita Intellectuals™. You lucky man. A place at the table, a place at the Executive Table. That's all. The rest is easy.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013
THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS: APPLIED CONSCIOUSNESS™, NEO FEMINISM™, METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY & SACRED SEXUALISM™. POST TRIBE SOCIAL REFORM™. POWER IS THE NEW LOVE. FREEDOM + HOPELESSNESS + SEX. NIHILISM FOR A SUCCESSFUL LIFE™ THE LOST KNOWLEDGE™ THE WIZARDRY OF BEING™ POLITICAL SPIRITUALITY™ TRUE NEW LOVE. BEYOND THE REVOLUTION™
SOCIAL REFORM. THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM AND LOVE. SHAMANISM. PHILOSOPHY. TRUE (UNIVERSAL) LOVE. NEO FEMINISM™. ANTI MISOGYNY. THE ARTIST'S WAY. WIZARDRY. TRUE INTELLECTUALISM™. WISDOM. GONZO SPIRITUALITY. NIHILISM. SEX. SOUL. GOD, THE MOTHER, THE UNIVERSE™. SPIRITUAL EXISTENTIALISM™. THE VOID OF CREATION™. ALCHEMY & LIBERATION & HUMANITY™. HELL. SUFFERING. GROWTH. ASCENSION. LOVE. LIFE. DEATH. WARLORDS OF LIGHT™ TRUE LOVE & TRUE SEX. THE POST TRIBE SOCIETY™
The Company.
Writer, Speaker and Enlightener, Amera Ziganii Rao, is now putting together a comprehensive and unique programme of Alchemy & Liberation & Humanity™. A programme of learning that is specifically about one particular kind of woman. And one particular kind of man. The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and the Sacred Whore High Priest™, and the true society that they come from and the one they, in particular, she can and has to return to and that anyone can join her and him in. This is about Paradise on Earth.
This is about The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and the Sacred Whore High Priest™, and the Alchemy and Liberation and Humanity that is for all as a result of their healing and in particular, hers. This is about the kind of woman who is at the bottom of the pile in a Patriarchal Toilet Tribe from Hell Society™, the norm, the conventional world and the world of the Tribe. This is about the kind of man who is next in line from the bottom. The sensitive man and the female chattel. The High Priestess and High Priest of a profane society, that has long forgotten who they are.
This is about being at the bottom of the pile, for the forgotten and strangled shamans, and for her, the story of escape. Abused by her family, her friends, her men, her whole society, by the very nature of who she is and who they are and what has happened on this Earth. It is about women of love, of Spirit and of sex. It is about men of love, of Spirit and of sex. It is about the Cinderellas of this world. It is about the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™. Who she is and how, loving her is the secret to Paradise on Earth and how we have been living a lie for 8000+ years. A lie of male (non High Priest) religion with a male ‘God’ and with Patriarchs and Patriarchal types and Matriarchs and Matriarchal types ruling over us and making our lives hell, all in the name of family, the tribe and the way things are and should remain. Hate, fascism and profanity. A sick society that vilifies, more than anyone else, the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™, just because it was told to. A sick society that calls her Eve. A sick society that has forgotten who we all are, let alone the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and the Sacred Whore High Priest™. This is about us remembering and knowing who WE are.
This is a programme of healing for the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™, and the Sacred Whore High Priest™, to take them and particularly, her, from monstrous levels of low self esteem and lack of self knowledge, back to herself and it is a programme for all those who truly want to love her, and indeed, him. This is a programme for the greatest carers on Earth, who are vilified, destroyed, ridiculed, ignored, abused, used, misused and hated for being everything that those who would steal from us are not. This is a programme to turn Cinderellas into The Sacred Whore High Priestesses and for anyone who wants to love her or live by the values of the The Sacred Whore High Priestess Society™. And this is a programme to turn sensitive men into Sacred Whore High Priests™ and for anyone who wants to love him and live by the values of the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and High Priest Society. Love, humanity, Spirit and sex. This is a programme to reverse 8000+ years of witch burning, women hating and healer ridicule. This is about the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and all those who would love her and live by her values.
This is about the chance for Paradise on Earth. This is a programme for the most beautiful, kind hearted, wounded women and men on this planet. A programme of how to implement a system of how to beat life, how to survive life and how to resurrect from the grief that is a true life. Alchemy and Liberation and Humanity of the lower mind into the higher mind, the soul and the inner heart and therefore one's true, confident, ‘happy’, successful, creative, sexual, sensual, individual, intelligent, emotionally healed, capable of loving and being loved self. How to turn grief into creation and survive and thrive, despite all the shit, all the pain and all the hurt. How to live in a world of madness, hollowness and cruelty and how to be a winner. How to stand up for oneself and to take back the power that has been stolen from anyone with heart, Spirit and sex. The art and science of Alchemy.
This is a programme, based on my scholarly and non scholarly work over 15 years (so far), if not for my whole life, and my extensive and intense, visceral experiences of self transformation from resignation, cynicism and despair to a state of relative bliss, and above all, the right to be. The programme and the courses and my speaking and indeed my forthcoming book, will cover the method of change. The psychological, sociological, spiritual, cultural, political, emotional and physical and even anthropological methods of change. Why we are here. Who the Sacred Whore High Priestess™ is and why she is here. And who the Sacred Whore High Priest™ is. Why we are here. Who we are and what we are and why we are. The beauty and glory of the truth. The meaning of life, no less. This will be on offer in the future.
My first book of consciousness, my first book of the spiritual politics of humanity, of authentic power and of self love and strength. A comprehensive series of online courses, live events and audio and visual material. Books, live events, CDs and DVDs. And one on one personal empowerment consultations. The Amera Ziganii Rao Method of Change™. The right to be and the way to have the right to be. And indeed, how to maintain the will to live without love. How to BE unconditional, self sufficient, self caring, self love. The right to be and the will to be and the unparalleled success that comes with that. The Lost Knowledge™. HOW to live. And how to heal others, the profane and the sick and the soulless. The others. My Business and that of any Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and Sacred Whore High Priest™, is Human Rights, The Right to a Sexual Society, Self Actualisation and Freedom.
My Business is To Overthrow Fascism, in the Home and in the Country. My business is also mastering destiny. Overthrowing the ultimate 'fascism'. Our journey on Earth and The Return To The Source. Our healing, our ascension and our redemption. Fate. The daily crucifixions of a true life, the challenges and the fury of being healers and people of love on a planet like Earth.
Submitting to the journey to liberate and evolve oneself, through following one's heart, however much heartbreak and devastation it leads to on the long long long journey to freedom and then the longer journey to happiness. 'Long Road to Freedom', as Nelson Mandela says. My business is always taking risks, never giving up and making the endless sacrifices it takes to become whole. Enlightenment, Nirvana and then Parinirvana and beyond. My business is pain. My business is bliss.
My business is seeing the truly glory of Spirit on Earth. The Sacred Whore High Priestess Society™ and all that it is. Spirit, humanity, sex and love again at last. And the end of our legacy as either servants or witches or unpaid carers or indeed, ignored mistresses, other women, other men even, and the weirdos that are at the bottom of society. This is our world and it is time to take it back and I can show you how. And that makes my life, truly, worth living.
I want you to feel the way I do. Alive, with the right to be and the belligerence to exist in this profane and male ‘God’ led world of male supremacy, female supremacy, domestic, casual fascism, tribe rules from hell, with beautiful and kind, love intelligence laden, female and male Cinderella warriors at the bottom, caring for everyone else and getting nothing but hatred, ridicule and isolation for it. The meek are already inheriting the Earth and I can show you how.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012
I am THE High Priestess Monarch of the ancient past and I forgive you for becoming enslaved and taken over by the machines of the alien reptile force that invaded and took over Earth 8000 years ago. They taught you to hate me and my kind and you believed them. They told you I and my kind were dictators and that you were slaves, when all we had done was love you, honour you as companions and above all, we had let you just live.
We were the holy communers, the ones who gave birth to human beings, the leaders of society, the creators of society, the vehicles of Divinity on Earth and the channels of wisdom. The ones who looked after everything and the ones who built everything and ran everything, because we could. And because we loved it. We are and were the force of creation. And you loved us and you lived.
But they told you that you ‘deserved’ power too and that we were the ones standing in your way. And you believed them. The oldest ‘divide and rule’ strategy of hate in history and it worked. They used it and you bought it, hook, line and sinker. You had to give up sex, love, magic and your own spiritual gifts and you burnt, destroyed and violated me for 8000 years.
The world calls that male supremacy. And indeed, family supremacy, Matriarchal supremacy and supremacy of the material world and all who believe in it. Men and women like you. When all that you are are slaves to a reptile force to generate hate energy for them to live and thrive and vampire the human race. The puppets of a hate force, that chose to destroy women and men like me, for hate to grow, so they could live. You bought it and it worked. The greatest fraud in the history of the world.
I am THE High Priestess Monarch of the ancient past and I forgive you for becoming enslaved and taken over by the machines of the alien reptile force that invaded and took over Earth 8000 years ago. They taught you to hate me and my kind and you believed them. They taught you that my mind was evil. My mind, my sex, my body and my ways of life.
The humanity, the glory of sexuality and the glory of creation and creativity and the glory of Divinity in each and every one of us. Our souls. They taught you that human beings are separate from Divinity, that sex was wrong and that women who have minds of their own are uppity slaves. They vilified us but much much worse than that, they destroyed your relationship with all that is unseen, all that we honour and love.
They taught you to hate what is really God. By teaching you to hate us, you hated all that is good in yourselves. They taught you to hate the light. They taught you to kill us. The daughters of The Universe. The High Priestesses of God. The Spiritual Mothers. The Sacred Whore High Priestess Avatars of The Universe™. The Sacred Army of Love on Earth.
The Shamans, the Mystics and the Communers. The Hierophants.
They called me Eve and blamed me for the downfall of the human race and created the awesome profanity that is religion. Of men, by men and from men. Of reptiles, by reptiles and from reptiles. Christianity, Islam and Judaism and every other philosophy around the world was poisoned. There are no female spiritual leaders left. It is all profanity. They chose you to represent them because they wanted to divide us and they did. They told you to hate me. And you believed them. Now I am back and I forgive you.
I forgive you because I can. Because I came here to save your soul. And because I finally know who I am. I am THE High Priestess Monarch of the ancient past. I came here to return your soul to The Source. God, The Mother, The Universe. To return you to what is really God. Because I love you. And because She loves you and your kind, whatever you have done.
Whatever you have done to me and whatever you have done to Her. And most of all, whatever you have done to yourself. We forgive you. This is your redemption. Your freedom and your ascension. We are here to save your soul.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012
You bought the Sacred Whore like a piece of meat and you called that a wife. Your trophy wives. Your dancing girls. Your chattel and serving girls. Your piece of beauty. You bought us like you would cattle. Then you called it wives. Now you call it prostitution. The High Priestesses of the real God. You bought us to buy God, The Mother, The Universe and you caged us, separated us from our Divine gifts and skills in the Temple and drove us mad and then lost interest in us, because we had no gifts left, no excitement, no hunter in ourselves and no hope or joy left. Then you just called us mad and discarded us. You called us evil and you call love obedience, even though it had already killed us. You moved into our Temples and you played with the divination tools and thought you communed. The destruction of Atlantis was your gift.
You stole us from God, The Mother, The Universe and you tried to usurp us. You vilified us, enslaved us and you still envy us today. You call it intuition. You might want to think about this when you hate us out of your jealousy. The mystic gene means physical tortuous pain and taking on the empathy of the human race. All their pains, evils and dark thoughts. We see and feel everything. We make crucial sacrifices to be near Spirit and the unseen and we go without for years. To be shaman is not glamour. I make it glamour. To be shaman is a specific Samurai existence, ascetic and harsh. We commune to be guides. And you take that and you shame yourselves because you just want the meat. You didn’t just want the meat. You wanted our beauty of spirit, our personalities and our love and kindness. And you destroyed them, because you caged us and called us wife.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012
The High Priestess Sacred Whores, the High Priests and the true protectors. Those who do not have the gift like either the High Priests or especially like the highest of all, the High Priestess Sacred Whores but who honour, protect and facilitate them to the world. Who honour the Shaman Sacred Whores of this world most of all, and who know who they are and who they are not. Who know the difference, who do not envy and who protect and love the representatives of Spirit, GOD, THE MOTHER, THE UNIVERSE, on Earth. Who honour their wisdom and who honour the latent Shaman in themselves too and who honour the communing ability of the High Priestess Sacred Whores. The non violators. Our only friends. The New Society exists. It is called Enlightenment. It is called Love. It is The Holy Grail.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012
The master race. It's all a lie. You are brought up to be a despot king and it is only your sister who ever tells you that you have become a pratt. The master race is all a lie. There are no kings in an equal world. Your father was misinformed. What he brought you up to be was a killer. Pure and simple. A misogynist. A modern misogynist. A polite killer.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011
I enter the magical hours of pure feeling, pure thought, pure imagination and I think and I write and I 'mysticise' the Universe. I escape at will, the truth of my humanless, Samurai solitude, and I pursue the truth of love in myself and in everyone else. I am philosopher. I am shaman. I am alone. I frontier the Soul to be spirit on Earth.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011
Amera Ziganii Rao is a former hard news journalist who is now turning professional with her art forms and indeed, her healing forms, after a long journey of inner searching, self teaching and exploring many layers and areas of both craft and wisdom. She is now working on her first book of philosophy and esoteric thought, and social, cultural and spiritual commentary. She is also showing her first photography collections. And last but most definitely not least, she is building a business to share her Sacred Whore High Priestess Society consciousness and empowering explorations to reach as many people as possible across the world. She is in her forties and lives in London.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011
In the meantime, please enjoy this website. I have included many of the subjects I am covering, areas of experience and insight that I will be exploring to the fullest in my book, the courses and all the other work that is to come as a dramatist, novelist and essayist. I also of course, include many of the wise people on this planet, who have come long before me; authors, screen dramatists, playwrights, film makers, artists, and other enlighteners and grand carriers of the wisdom I have found the most helpful on my journey, to find peace and become enlightened. The seemingly impossible journey, in the face of oneself and one’s circumstances. People who have contributed massively to my healing on this mad journey called life, in this insane existence called The Universe. People who have helped to make me as good a carrier of wisdom as I in turn, can be. Thank you.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011
Copyright and intellectual property rights are serious issues. And legally protected. Please do not reproduce my work anywhere without due credit and obviously, never for financial gain. 'Big Sister' is watching you! Other than that, please continue to enjoy my original work and the work of (credited) others, for free, while I work on using my material in further professional formats. Thank you for your interest and support.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012
Thank you to outside sources for photography and artwork. Darkroomed by Amera Ziganii Rao
.jpg)
