THE DARK KNIGHT OF THE RISING DEAD

By Clyde Lewis
Ground Zero Radio
http://www.groundzeromedia.org

Back in 2008 I found myself in the same position I find myself in today, trying to understand the curse that seems to follow the Dark Knight film series by Christopher Nolan. I know that many people will roll their eyes and disregard any possibility of a curse with a film, however after the massacre that happened in an aurora Colorado Movie theater I can again recall and draw some creepy coincidences with regard to the trilogy of Batman films that would be completely triumphant if it weren’t for the fact that death and danger seems to surround the films.

The shooting rampage at a screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” in Colorado is now the topic of every talk and news show across the country and the arguments that have been made seem to always devolve into whether or not the shooter was a Tea party member or a registered democrat.

It all boils down to whether or not we need gun control, or whether or not we need the TSA to frisk us and x-ray our boxes of junior mints before entering a theater.

The shooter in Colorado reportedly wore a riot helmet and a bulletproof vest and was dressed in black, raising questions about whether theaters should ban or limit costumes at the screenings. Many fans of Comic book films attend screenings in costume.

We live in times where reality and fantasy actually collide. It happens so much that there always seems to be a question as to whether or not this is causal engineering, retro causality or that we are all victims of the Cosmic Trickster, the same Trickster that Inspired Bob Kane to create Batman’s Arch Enemy, The Joker.

James Holmes, the man suspected of killing at least 12 people in a gun rampage during a Batman screening, dyed his hair red and told arresting officers he was “the joker the enemy of Batman.” Holmes released a tear gas canister and started firing indiscriminately at theatergoers, many of whom were children.

I couldn’t help but feel an aching sense of Déjà vu being a fan of the Batman Comic books. There was a strange parallel to what happened in Colorado and issue #2 of the comic book The Dark Knight Returns where a character named Arnold Crimp, inspired by a secret back masking on Led Zeppelin’s classic Stairway to Heaven walks into a Porn theater and opens fire during a Batman inspired Porn Film.

The issue was written by Frank Miller and the story is peculiar since the gunman shows up at a porn theater because a priest shows him that there are secret messages in records and films that can trigger rage. In the comic book version the movie is called “My Sweet Satan” and after the shooting there is a panel with a news man and the familiar Bat symbol behind him stating “Three slain in Batman-inspired porn theater shoot-out. Details to follow…”

Well the devil is always in the details, Satanist Kenneth Anger the author of Lucifer Rising once said about films that “Lucifer is the patron saint of movies . Some movies that are made are invocations or evocations to cast a spell on the audience Orientis The purpose for some films is to stir the primal forces and are used as magical weapons to stir the soul out of conformity.

The flickering image according to Anger creates a thought form and even if the image flickers for no one, it is still a causal engine that sends the image into the ether. If someone picks up on the meme and it is successfully implanted in the zeitgeist it is theorized that the very nightmare could easily transpire in the real world.

In 1984 there were worries that perhaps the movie “Nightmare on Elm Street” inspired the real life “night stalker” Richard Ramirez.

In the 1996 film “The Long Kiss Goodnight” Samuel Jackson is told in explicit detail by the government official that 4000 people will be killed in a fake terrorist event on American soil in order to “get some money out of congress”. Of course this event will be “blamed on the Muslims, naturally”.

The Matrix was released just weeks before the Columbine massacre. Like suspects Dylan Kliebold and Eric Harris The character of Neo had no friends and was trained to be a killing machine for a group of outcasts that believed the world was a computer construct.

Thirteen years later just miles from the Columbine massacre the worst shooting in history is now on everyone’s mind and home grown terror has the face of the Joker, a visage that is the direct representation of the devil or the trickster whose actions spark controversial behaviors from people who cannot spot psychological manipulation and give in to knee jerk decisions that are trauma based.

The image of the trickster is a powerful one and anything associated with it, any triggering mechanism or meme could spark a backlash or ethereal blowback. The result is chaos. Chaos has no regard for race, creed, color or morality.

In the ancient Gnostic beliefs the trickster is a God. The God you make a deal with to come to this planet. It is neither man nor woman. It is an androgynous figure with distorted features, who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and conventional behavior. Ancient memes within all of us confuse the trickster with the hero. The trickster and the culture hero are often combined in ancient cultures. It was Karl Jung that gave a very interesting view of the Clown turned Carnival barker who collected young, impressionable souls for food sources.

The word Carnival itself is taken from the Latin ‘carnus’ (‘flesh’) and ‘levare’ (remove) as in being skinned or shed of meat.

According to Jung the Trickster loves to play malicious pranks on people. His home is the Carnival and he manages to achieve through flash and showmanship what most people can do with their intelligence. He has the personality that appears to be gentle and childlike and yet on the inside, the trickster is dark, conflicted, and threatening. He can convince even the keenest of intellect to play in his world and has the ability to draw upon the innocence in the unconscious to cover up his devilish intent. The trickster is also obsessed with changing his shape and demeanor.

The Clown is an ancient symbol of the shape shifter whose expression bends and molds a visage of death. I always wondered why people feared clowns and as I grew older I was able to figure out that not all clowns are evil, however there are clown faces that represent the death mask and it is those faces that I would like to comment on. I would also like to throw out a theory about the reality of how those who have portrayed the death clown have met horrible ends.

The Joker himself appeared in the previous Christopher Nolan Batman film saying “I am an agent of Chaos and you know the thing about chaos is … it’s fair.” There are a lot of memorable things uttered by the Joker in the film that are just as eerily prophetic. The psychotic prince of crime played by the late Heath ledger also commented that “When the chips are down civilized people will eat each other. “

Can it be too much of a coincidence to note that since that time we have now seen in our reality the cannibalistic nature of mankind with stories of ritualistic murder and crimes that involve the eating of human flesh?

The trickster, the clown and the Joker represent death, shape shifting, and deceit . The image of the trickster is a powerful one and anything associated with it, any triggering mechanism or meme could spark a backlash or ethereal blowback. The result is chaos. Chaos has no regard for race, creed, color or morality.

During the buildup of a massive viral marketing campaign for the second Batman movie franchise the Dark Knight, images of Heath Ledger as the Joker started popping up everywhere. One of the most disturbing images was Ledger in joker make-up with puffy scars on his lips. While most clowns wear a full white paint, and use colorful accents to their image, Ledger chose to wear “corpse paint” a term coined by death metal bands to invoke an image of death and decay. The colors they use are limited to black white and red.

Ledger’s Joker was the image of the classic “dead clown” and was even more ghoulish when you consider that after playing the Joker Ledger died of a drug overdose. This stated the awful rumors about the Batman films being cursed. There was also the awful coincidence that happened during the marketing of Nolan’s Previous Dark Knight Film.

During the marketing of the film there was a lobby card image showing the Joker, portrayed by Heath Ledger holding up his Joker “calling card.” The card showed a Joker with lance. The joker has the head of another joker on the lance showing that he has decapitated someone.

In a creepy coincidence, a month prior to the “Dark Knight’s” debut an unfortunate accident took place at Six Flags over Georgia. Asia Leeshawn Ferguson of Springfield, South Carolina scaled two six-foot fences and passed signs that said the restricted area was both off-limits and dangerous to visitors in order to retrieve a hat that had flew off of his head while riding the Batman roller coaster. He was struck by the coaster and was decapitated.

In a grizzly coincidence there is a scene in the Dark Knight film where the Joker is seen in a semi truck trailer with the words “HYAMS AMUSEMENT RIDES” and then the words “LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE.” Spray painted on the truck, is a big letter “S” changing the word LAUGHTER to SLAUGHTER. To the left of the word SLAUGHTER is a Ferris wheel and a rollercoaster.

Was it all coincidence or was it some cosmic nightmare where films seem to foreshadow events?

Wes Craven who is the creator of many horror films including the popular Nightmare on Elm Street series once said that Movies serve as a means of evoking, and then containing (for a time), the violent, aggressive impulses that are seething in contemporary American society.”

Is this why films like the “The Dark Knight Rises” seem to evoke a sense of predictive programming where we see what appears to be a revolt by the poor against Gotham’s elite where the Mayor is killed in a sports event and Bane, the Villain this time out mockingly says “Let the Games Begin” when the Olympic Games are about to commence on July 27th, 2012? It all looks like it is hinting at a stadium event where bombs go off – and in another strange coincidence one of the lobby cards for the Dark Night Rises has an image that looks eerily similar to the terrorist of the Black September group that killed 11 Israelis during the Munich Olympics of 1972.

Could it also be coincidental that as the gun play began on the screen during the Batman film in Colorado, the gunman opened fire on the crowd leaving many in the theater thinking it was a publicity stunt? Many thought that it was a well thought out skit being dine as an added bonus during opening night?

Is it all coincidental that On July 27th, 2012 there will be a review and vote on a UN gun control treaty that Barack Obama may sign off on?

Government representatives from more than 190 countries, are currently in negotiations at the United Nations headquarters in New York to hammer out the terms of the first UN Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). What does this mean? Well it is an attempt to equalize gun laws all over the world. Many Americans see it as a threat to their second amendment rights. Now who says that cosmic coincidences don’t happen, or that strange gunman with a bad Joker costume and Kevlar suit isn’t a programmed Manchurian candidate who is given a 30 year old comic book and is told that he too can be as infamous as ‘the joker?

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who favors more gun control measures such as thorough background checks, called upon Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney to speak out immediately on the issue. I mean how soon do you really have to exploit a tragedy politically in order to pressure the President into signing a UN arms control treaty?

Also is it any coincidence that HBO aired the Aaron Sorkin aired an episode of “The News Room “ with Jeff Daniels criticizing Obama for relaxing his gun control policies and then ending the program with the tragic shooting of Gabriel Giffords in Arizona?

Then we have this real shooting take place during the gunplay between thugs and police during the The Dark Knight rises? What part of psy-op is not being seen with the “rise” of the gun control discussion? It is almost a given that this was planned—but then again that would be a paranoid thought in times where issues conveniently write themselves and talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh are out to find uncanny connections to Bane and Bain Capital.

We were all face palming when this was brought up and now when very real comparisons and coincidences can be pointed out they all can be ignored on a weekend where absolutely no one cares about the news, and wants to fight for tickets to see the New the New Batman film.

Ironies never cease to amaze me. It just goes to show you that the trickster refuses to go quietly into the dark night.