{"id":180,"date":"2019-01-03T15:47:45","date_gmt":"2019-01-03T14:47:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mordorswiss.com\/?p=180"},"modified":"2019-12-19T20:22:03","modified_gmt":"2019-12-19T19:22:03","slug":"the-black-priestess-of-kali-live-at-dolce-vita-1997","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mordorswiss.com\/index.php\/2019\/01\/03\/the-black-priestess-of-kali-live-at-dolce-vita-1997\/","title":{"rendered":"The Black Priestess of K\u0101l\u012b \u2013 Live at La Dolce Vita (1997)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><p style=\"text-align:justify\">\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\">Among the unreleased Mordor tracks, \u201cThe Black Priestess of K\u0101l\u012b\u201d \u2013 alternatively titled \u201cLa Sombre Servante de K\u00e2l\u00ee\u201d \u2013 is an unlikely mix of ethnic inspired music and industrial symphonic metal, including female lead vocals, French lyrics and some Sanskrit words. It is part of a trilogy dedicated to the Hindu goddess K\u0101l\u012b, also comprising the songs \u201cMah\u0101r\u0101tr\u012b\u201d and \u201cChants \u00e0 K\u00e2l\u00ee\u201d.\n<br><br>\n\u201cThe Black Priestess of K\u0101l\u012b\u201d was poorly recorded hardly in stereophony in 1997 on a 2-track tape during a private live act at La Dolce Vita, formerly a famous alternative music club in Lausanne, Switzerland. Even tough the many sound and performing imperfections due to live situation may cause some trouble for the listener to recreate in himself the original Idea of the song, this version is the only historical vestige of a piece having a peculiar place in our musical repertoire.\n<br><br>\nTo serve the narrative of the track, the music video features notably pictures of authentic Hindu art and documents, but also a distorted dance scene from 1934 film <i>House of Mystery<\/i> and 19th-century works from Westerners illustrating their (mis)perception of India, Thuggee and K\u0101l\u012b&rsquo;s cult.\n<\/span>\n<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/upk3K2S8iic?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p><p style=\"text-align:justify\">\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\">\nThe lyrics of the song are a sinister hymn in praise of the dark divinity, with various possible interpretations. It is based on the viewpoint of a K\u0101l\u012b&rsquo;s fictional female devotee, member of a \u015a\u0101kta movement \u2013 Hindu goddess-focussed tradition \u2013 and also inspired by the Thugs, a secret fraternity of robbers who worshipped K\u0101l\u012b and were renowned for their numerous ritual murders. However, some modern scholars seriously debate about the real existence of a Thuggee cult in the 19<sup>th<\/sup> century, believing that it was in fact partly the product of British colonial imagination and fears, used for extending control on the populations of India with brutal repression and to justify the \u201ccivilizing mission\u201d of the colonizers.\n<br><br>\nExaggerated representation of Thugs as followers of an evil cult was frequently exploited in literature (<em>Confessions of a Thug<\/em>&#8230;) and later in cinema, the best known example being likely <em>Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom<\/em>. Thus in the film Mola Ram, the high sacrificial priest of K\u0101l\u012b, declares:\n<br><br>\n\u201cThe British will be slaughtered. Then we will overrun the Muslims. Then the Hebrew god will fall. And then the Christian god will be cast down and forgotten. Soon K\u0101l\u012b M\u0101 will rule the world.\u201d\n<\/span>\n<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/mordorswiss.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/BP_pict.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-742\" width=\"578\" height=\"323\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mordorswiss.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/BP_pict.png 770w, https:\/\/mordorswiss.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/BP_pict-300x168.png 300w, https:\/\/mordorswiss.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/BP_pict-768x429.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 578px) 100vw, 578px\" \/><figcaption>  The high priest Mola Ram of the Thuggee cult appearing in the 1984 film <em>Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom<\/em>, played by actor Amrish Puri. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><p style=\"text-align:justify\">\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\">\nIn his vindictive project, he equates thus K\u0101l\u012b&rsquo;s cult, anti-colonialism, fight against Abrahamic monotheisms and desire to dominate. This is a good example of \u201caccusatory inversion\u201d and anti-Hindu bias, for historically it is in fact rather Abrahamic universalistic religions and materialistic&nbsp; ideologies stemming from modernity that have tried violently or insidiously to impose their views on Hinduism, one of the last pagan citadels under siege.<br><br>\nMoreover, Mola Ram whose name is a juxtaposition of mullah and R\u0101ma, a Vi\u1e63\u1e47u&rsquo;s divine avatar, does not seem to know that a part of Thugs was of Muslim origin, perhaps Ismaili Nizaris, connecting K\u0101l\u012b to Fatimah, the daughter of the Prophet, and that Thuggee religious aim was not global hegemony but sacred service to preserve world from destruction or to avoid excessive proliferation of life on earth and dominance of the creative power over the destroying one.\n<br><br>\nAccording to ethnographic fiction <em>Confessions of a Thug<\/em>, &nbsp;the two powers conflict with one another from the beginning but are emanations from the Supreme Being, which has some similarity with ancient Iranian Zurvanism and the doctrine of the \u201ctwin brothers\u201d, sons of the great androgynous god Zurvan \u201cTime\u201d. It is representative of a philosophical conception both ditheistic, with two powers opposing each other, and monist, because they are generated by a First Principe. In any case, Mola Ram&rsquo;s statement is certainly more indicative of the ideology in action behind the movie and its appointed enemies than of Thugs&rsquo; real worldview.\n<br><br>\nThe exact religious status of the Thuggee cult \u2013 if it has actually existed \u2013 inside Hinduism is difficult to determine precisely: emphasis is placed on ritual sacrifice, there is evidence of initiation ceremony and <em>guru<\/em>, but despite the importance of K\u0101l\u012b, it was not directly part of \u015a\u0101kta traditions or Tantric Left-Hand Path (<em>V\u0101mam\u0101rga<\/em>), and its devotees did not appeared to try to reach <em>mok\u1e63a<\/em>, the spiritual liberation, but to keep a balance between the creative and destroying powers, in serving&nbsp; the latter. Nevertheless, as the Tantric hero (<em>v\u012bra<\/em>) has often to go through extreme experiences, we would say that there is at least one common ground between the two paths.\n<\/span>\n<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/mordorswiss.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Kali.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-181\" width=\"330\" height=\"460\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mordorswiss.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Kali.png 275w, https:\/\/mordorswiss.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Kali-215x300.png 215w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 330px) 100vw, 330px\" \/><figcaption> <em>K\u0101l\u012b trampling \u015aiva <\/em>by R. Varma. Source: Wikipedia. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><p style=\"text-align:justify\">\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\">\nAs for K\u0101l\u012b&rsquo;s iconography, the lyrics of \u201cThe Black Priestess of K\u0101l\u012b\u201d should be not interpreted only literally, but rather symbolically: what we must sacrifice are our ego (the \u201cfalse I\u201d, a temporary knot in opposition to the Self), countless illusions, fears and conditionings. Life is both tragic and ridiculous, death is inevitable for all beings and according to Schopenhauer, is \u201cthe true inspiring genius, or the muse of philosophy\u201d, but K\u0101l\u012b may be the death of death, because as \u0100dy\u0101 K\u0101l\u012b \u201cPrimordial K\u0101l\u012b\u201d, She is the devourer of K\u0101la \u201cTime\u201d and the original form of all things. One of the higher goals of <em>s\u0101dhan\u0101<\/em>&nbsp;(spiritual practice) is to achieve identity between the worshipper and the deity, while being aware that it is difficult to reach it.\n<br><br>\nA line from a poem by \u015a\u0101rik\u0101 Dev\u012b said: \u201cYour ultimate destiny is the cremation ground; do not forget your true identity\u201d. It is important to fully realize the physicality of death, as we tend in modern societies to avoid it and to forget that we are mortal beings. Therefore for a radical Left-Hand Path follower, when possible the ideal place to learn about death is the charnel ground, by being confronted with the impermanence of all things, carrion feeders, spirits of the deceased, and those attracted by miasma (spiritual pollution). As the Aghori Vimal\u0101nanda told to Robert E. Svoboda:\n<br><br>\n\u201cThe worst fear of all is the fear of death; once you go beyond the fear of death, you go beyond all fears because you go beyond expectation and anticipation which are the causes of most karmas [\u2026] When death has no value for you, time loses its value, and then you don&rsquo;t bother about anything.\u201d\n<\/span>\n<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:0;text-align:center\"><p style=\"text-align:center\">\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\">\n\n\u201cDancing mad with joy,<br>\nCome, Mother, come!<br>\nFor Terror is Thy name,<br>\nDeath is in Thy breath,<br>\nAnd every shaking step<br>\nDestroys a world for ever.<br>\nThou &lsquo;Time&rsquo;, the All-Destroyer!<br>\nCome, Mother, come!<br>\nWho dares misery love,<br>\nAnd hug the form of Death,<br>\nDance in Destruction&rsquo;s dance,<br>\nTo him the Mother comes.\u201d\n<br><br>\nExcerpt from the poem \u201cK\u0101l\u012b the Mother\u201d (1898) by Sv\u0101mi Vivek\u0101nanda.\n<\/span>\n<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><p style=\"text-align:justify\">\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\">\n\u201cThe Black Priestess of K\u0101l\u012b\u201d is dedicated to \u0915\u093e\u0932\u0940.\n<br><br>\nMordor were at the time of this recording:<br>\nFlore de la Mandragore \u2013 female voice<br>\nScorh Anyroth \u2013 voice, guitar, machines, sounds<br>\nDam Gomhory \u2013 bass, machines<br>\nS3th \u2013 guitar<br>\nFark\u00e1s \u2013 drums &amp; percussion<br>\nH. G. \u2013 visuals\n<br><br>\nMusic and words by Scorh, 1997.<br>\nMusic video by Vorknasor\/Scorh\/Dam, 2018.\n\n<\/span>\n<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Among the unreleased Mordor tracks, \u201cThe Black Priestess of K\u0101l\u012b\u201d \u2013 alternatively titled \u201cLa Sombre Servante de K\u00e2l\u00ee\u201d \u2013 is an unlikely mix of ethnic <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/mordorswiss.com\/index.php\/2019\/01\/03\/the-black-priestess-of-kali-live-at-dolce-vita-1997\/\" title=\"The Black Priestess of K\u0101l\u012b \u2013 Live at La Dolce Vita (1997)\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":416,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v16.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Black Priestess of K\u0101l\u012b \u2013 Live at La Dolce Vita (1997) - 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