Anarchy in the UK?

…or fixing the Volatile?

June the 20th saw two crop circles appear at Winterbourne Stoke, near Stonehenge. Both circles were in the same Barley field each at almost opposing ends.

One was a small formation made from three circles with a short flattened bar. The other circle was rather astonishing. It was a very stylised design, a reversed ‘s’ shape with a serpent head at either end. It was impressively made, with cookie-cutter edges and a pretty swirled floor-lay. Such a design immediately invites speculation as to what it might mean, but very quickly it was identified as a design used by a punk band called ‘Crass’ as a band logo. Now I ask you to all forgive my mixed punk metaphors here. In 1977, the height of the punk movement in the UK, I was 7 years old and to say that the punk movement ‘flew over the top of my head’ would be an understatement. At seven I was more interested in playing with my Victoria Plum and Strawberry Shortcake (scented) dolls! By the time punk entered my vocabulary it’s blistering heyday was long gone and the 1980’s had brought forth a very different cultural sensibility.

However, after doing the most cursory of internet searches I was interested to find out that Crass were a very interesting band. You can read more about them on Wikipedia. Crass mixed their anarchic philosophy with music, politics and even art.

Of course many wanted to simply write this crop circle off as a one-dimensional manmade tribute to a long gone punk band. This may or may not be true, but as ever, I think there is something bigger at work, and that there are many connections between the physically manifested world of crop circles and the un-manifest realm of human consciousness. To me this is why there is something much more to the whole crop circle subject than just endless arguments over their perceived origins. Here we have a logo, clearly used by the punk group Crass, but is it also a symbol of anarchy on our fields?

As I have expressed before, I think the crop circle designs are often an uncanny mirror reflecting what is happening on a larger scale within the subject, or even sometimes what is happening beyond the subject. I think that the have a symbol in the fields, right now, that is representative of the anarchic punk spirit is extremely interesting.

There often seems an element of the unconscious at work in the crop circle subject; however, the unconscious is not always immediately identifiable. It is, by its very nature, not a part of our conscious state, therefore not readily apparent. It is usually identified by connections and patterns of behaviour or events, commonalities or coincidences (or synchronicity as Jung preferred). Dreams and creative acts are considered to be our unconscious at work, expressing itself.

According to Jungian thought there is the personal unconscious (belonging to each of us as individuals) and then there is a collective unconscious which is the unconscious of a society, a culture or an entire race. As human beings, Jung speculated that we had access to both, through our dreams, intuitions and our creative impulses. If our personal unconscious is the sum of our individual life experiences then the collective unconscious could be said to be what connects the psyches of all human beings, the sum of all our commonalities in experience and thought.

It has long been speculated that creativity is pulled from not just our own personal unconsciousness, but that we may also pull some of it from the collective unconscious. Jung noted that many themes in unconscious material (dreams, art and creativity) were common to all no matter what their cultural background; he called some of these commonalities the archetypes. These archetypes are thought to be universally experienced by all peoples.

Anarchy could be considered an archetype. The archetype of being without boundary, destruction as an act of creation, perhaps even nihilism itself. It could be said to be the angry rejection of all boundaries, conventions and traditions. It seems to me that there is much of this going on within the crop circle subject itself, particularly this season. There seems to be an angry rejection at work; a rejection of previous convention, tradition, etiquette and particularly long established authority figures. It is a forceful, unchecked energy burning its way through the subject with little notice of consequence or end game. This is the essence of the energy of Anarchy.

I mention this not as a political statement, but as an illustration of how there is a depth to this subject that goes way beyond our personal conscious actions. We may think we are in control, that we are steering the ship, but this subject has shown us the connection (time and time again) it has to the collective unconscious, I think is hugely significant. It is one that is rarely seen, discussed or considered. Perhaps it is still, for many, literally, unconscious.

In this case, here we have a crop circle whose symbolism, significance and magnitude far exceeds the simple, conceivable actions of any one individual, or group of individuals. That is the sheer raw power of the crop circle subject, its ability to bridge the gap between the seen and unseen worlds, between our conscious thoughts and actions and the collective unconscious of a whole community and beyond. The crop circles literally make the unseen (unconscious) manifest.

Fixing the Volatile?

There is something else about this design that I would like to put before you for your consideration. This design brings together several symbolic themes and weaves them into a whole. Central to that symbolism is that of the cross and the serpent. There are of course many symbolic links to both, but there is one in particular that I’d like to drawn your attention to.

In alchemy there is a famous emblem (or symbol), which depicts the crucifixion of a serpent. It is unsurprisingly called ‘the crucified serpent’ – see below. This particular illustration comes from the notebooks of Nicholas Flamel, but I believe there are others. It represents the ‘fixing of the volatile’. Riddled throughout alchemical literature and symbolism there are countless references to pairs of opposites, male-female, hot-cold, dry-moist, sun-moon – this list is almost endless. One of those pairs is the ‘fixed’ and the ‘volatile’. In order to make the philosophers stone one was said to have had to ‘volatised the fixed’ and ‘fixed the volatile’ – like a role reversal of properties within the alchemical matter.

In this emblem, the serpent represented the volatile principal. Crucially, in order for this reversal to happen this volatile principal had to endure a symbolic death in order to be transfigured into a new state of being. I find this profoundly symbolic. Perhaps the 2011 season is exactly that, the crop circles enduring a symbolic death in the service of being transfigured into a new state of being.

There was much about this circle that was pertinent to the crop circle subject as a whole; its symbolism and timing are uncanny. That it may faithfully reflect part of what is happening in the crop circle world right now, at this very moment, is pretty damn amazing, wherever it came from.

It is the tendency of our current mental/rational age to break apart, to reduce, and to over simplify. But to me, the circles seem to suggest a completely different approach. There is a level to this subject which shows that there are qualitative connections between what is happening in our unconscious and what is happening in the material world. This is new and, I believe, important.

Finally, the nature of the phenomenon of ‘inspiration’ is one that has long occupied artists, philosophers (and others), for thousands of years. From where do we conjure our creative impulses, are they ours alone or is there something more at work? Jung’s theory of a collective unconscious offers us one theory, but there is also another. The word inspiration means to be ‘filled with holy breath’, it is a beautiful concept. It describes the idea that some inspiration may have its origins with the Divine; that we may (if we are lucky enough), for a brief time connect with something far beyond ourselves and that we channel it into the physical realm through our creative acts. When we look at some very special works of art we may sometimes see an element of the Divine staring back at us. I believe there is sometimes an element of the Divine at work in the crop circles. To look upon the soul-aching beauty of some formations is simply heavenly.

KAREN ALEXANDER – JULY 8, 2011