The Other Mary
- Aug 1, 2021
- 38 min read

BOB DYLAN: THE (anti) PROPHET OF THE SHADOW KINGDOM

John 1:5 “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

1 John 1:5b “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”

THAT VINYL CRACKLE BEFORE THE SONG STARTS:

On Side A, I had written more; I went further into depth about behind the scenes characters and events, including the history of certain spiritual and social movements. In the end I was afraid it was too tangential and made the article long, so chunks of history hit the cutting room floor. I found that kind of omission impossible this time around. Therefore, it is longer, but I believe necessarily so, and I trust you will be happy I included everything I did, as it truly provides a lusher landscape to not just Dylan’s yard in the Shadow Kingdom, but vistas of culture, movements, and generational nostalgia. There’s SO much more to say - this is only scratching the surface, but I plan to write again about it all. I hope this piques your interest, that you learn something new, and are entertained.

So without further ado…is it rolling, Bob?

MASKED AND ANONYMOUS

“You can call yourself what you wanna call yourself; this is the land of the free.” - Bob Dylan

Dylan and Joan Baez, 1964. Bob will never conform.

Halloween,1964. A 22 year old Bobby Dylan takes the stage at the Philharmonic Hall in New York City amidst a crowd of eager ears. Just that fact alone is something short of witchcraft, having just arrived on the city’s hipster music scene as a cherub-faced noob from rural Minnesota just 3 years prior. As an artist constantly trying to “establish myself”, I can say that’s quite a feat. Halloween - known as Samhain to new-pagans and the Day of the Dead to the old school ones - is naturally the most popular calendar day to carry out a ritual, as it’s believed that the veil between the spiritual and manifested worlds is particularly thin.

These days, performance-as-mass-ritual is much more in your face (though still hidden in plain sight if you don’t know what you’re witnessing). But I wonder about older performances, and if the intention was still there, despite lack of pyrotechnics and special effects.

The audience is spellbound by his presence - it’s palpable in the audio recording. Dylan sounds a bit squirrelly (critics claim he’s high), trying to please the audience while also toying with them. He seems to be aware that delivering his bewildering lyrics is like tossing them a Rubix cube made of beat poet-inspired jive; he jangles about in a cavalier manner. But there’s a moment when he plays a sprawling acid-tinged prophecy “Gates of Eden” which he refers to as “a sacreligious lullaby in D minor” that crosses an invisible line - perhaps one too many furrowed brows and sideways glances - causing him to side-step with a response that is truly the epitome of Dylan’s entire career/persona: “It’s just Halloween. I’ve got my Bob Dylan mask on … I’m masquerading.” He launches into an upbeat playful song and the audience laughs - the pressure valve released.

The levity doesn’t seem to want to leave the room, like a kid who just ran through the dark and dove safely under the blankets, daring not peek back out. So when he introduces another new song as “It’s Alright Ma, it’s Life and Life Only,” The audience laughs nervously at the odd title, and Dylan giggles, “Yes, it’s a very funny song.” But it’s not; it’s someone speaking in tongues on Judgement Day. In fact he titles the song on the album: “It’s Alright Ma (I’m only Bleeding.)” In an interview later in life, Dylan says of those lyrics from that song, and from his early works in general:

All those early songs were almost magically written. Try to sit down and write something like that. There’s a magic to that, and it’s not Siegfried and Roy kind of magic, you know? It’s kind of a penetrating magic.

Someone in the comment section of the video from which I pulled this quote says to the uploader who subtitled it, “You forgot the “k” on magic. He aint talkin’ about parlor tricks.” When you study the occult, in order to differentiate from the kind of magic you do at a kid’s birthday party vs the kind of ritualized workings of Mystery Babylon, you spell the word magick. Indeed, this sounds more like Dylan is talking about the occult practice called automatic writing, where one channels material from a spiritual influence. For the sake of the argument, if this were true, the lyrics would have the unusual effect on the listeners, as they did.

Bob with his Bob Dylan Mask on, Baez with...an oven mitt?

In a brilliant move, Joan Baez comes on stage ¾ the way through the show, her lilting voice, femininity, and trustworthy celebrity status lassos Dylan in and gives the audience sweet relief, snuggling into the bosom of the goddess. They sing 4 duets, the

masculine and feminine copulating in beautiful harmonies; the two becoming one is often the - pun unavoidable - climax of the magical ritual.

I’m only speculating about the ritual aspect of course, but I would argue that if you put yourself back into that time period and listened to those songs, you could grant me that something profound happened to everyone at that auspicious show on All Hallow’s Eve, cast by the young magician in the mask.

I CONTAIN MULTITUDES

Credit where credit it due for this gem! Visit: https://teespring.com/nl/stores/desolation-row for merch with this rad print.

As stated on Side A, Robert Zimmerman is notoriously vague and impossible to catch - like Peter Pan’s shadow. Bob Dylan is of course his artistic alias - one of many. He also has gone by Elston Gunn, Tedham Porterhouse, Blind Boy Grunt, Robert Milkwood Thomas, Boo Wilbury, and Jack Frost.

Dylan often made up stories about his past, stealing from his idols such as Woody Guthrie and painting an idyllic mythology of what we would hope and expect an artist like him to have gone through. Ironically he is trying to fabricate a biography that would make him seem more authentic. Roger Ebert, in his review of the Dylan documentary Don’t Look Back:

Sometimes you simply cannot imagine what he, or the filmmakers, were thinking. "How did you start?" he's asked at a press conference. Cut to a scene in a Southern cotton field. Dylan stands in front of a pickup truck with some old black field hands sitting on it. He sings a song. Are we supposed to think he rode the rails and bummed in hobo jungles and felt proletarian solidarity with the workers, like Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger or Ramblin' Jack Elliott? I was reminded of Steve Martin in "The Jerk," saying "I was born a poor black child." The field hands break into grateful applause, as the scene dissolves into a thunderous London concert ovation. Give us a break.

Writer Scott Warmuth meticulously researched Dylan’s “autobiography” Chronicles Volume One and titled his essay on it, “Bob Charlatan.” I thought the essay would be accusatory, and while it does give you a peek at the man behind the curtain, disenchanting some of Dylan’s poetic mystique, Warmuth is bedazzled by his ability to weave it all together, turning it into something golden, suggesting that Dylan’s less con-man and more alchemist:

Bob Dylan, who has embraced camouflage to an astounding degree, in a book that is meticulously fabricated, with one surface concealing another, from cover to cover. Dozens upon dozens of quotations and anecdotes have been incorporated from other sources. Dylan has hidden many puzzles, jokes, secret messages, secondary meanings, and bizarre subtexts in his book.

In the best cons, the marks never have a clue that they’ve been played. They may be out a little cash, but they’ve bought into a really good story and are none the wiser. Dylan’s cons are pretty good; it’s difficult to catch on to them and no one ends up a victim. I believe this hidden material was meant to be discovered. Now that I am aware of the cons I think of Dylan as a magician. Magicians do what con men do—except that the audience knows an illusion is being created.

Dylan is also accused of being a thief when it comes to lyrics, guitar and vocal styles, and stealing the limelight away from people who helped launch his career such as Joan Baez and Dave Van Ronk, both part of the Greenwich Village scene before Dylan and helped get him integrated into it. Van Ronk recalls a time when Dylan asked him if he could play Van Ronk’s version of “House of the Rising Sun.” When he said no because he’s putting it on an album, Dylan cringed; he’d already been playing it and Van Ronk had to remove it from his repertoire, as everyone accused him of copying Dylan. Here’s an irate addition by someone on Van Rock’s Wikipedia page regarding “He Was a Friend of Mine” that is apparently attributed to Dylan:

It's not Bob Dylan's f****** song. Period. End of story. Eric Von Schmidt had a version... Bob Dylan had a version... Dave Van Ronk had a version. But it's a traditional song. It even predates that other guy who recorded it for the Library of Congress. It's an old chain-gang/slave song. My great-great grandfather used to sing it. So did his son and his son's son…I could rearrange the chords and record a version of it tomorrow and DARE Bob Dylan to sue me for it…In fact I'd be more than willing to spend the rest of my life making sure that the world knows that Bob Dylan didn't write every damned song on the planet. -Rainless

Off his latest album, Rough and Rowdy Ways, Dylan sings of his shape-shifting with poetic bravado in the overtly titled song, “I Contain Multitudes”:

I'm just like Anne Frank, like Indiana Jones And them British bad boys, The Rolling Stones I go right to the edge, I go right to the end I go right where all things lost are made good again I sing the songs of experience like William Blake I have no apologies to make Everything's flowing all at the same time I live on the boulevard of crime I drive fast cars, and I eat fast foods I contain multitudes

Pink petal-pushers, red blue jeans All the pretty maids, and all the old queens All the old queens from all my past lives I carry four pistols and two large knives I'm a man of contradictions, I'm a man of many moods I contain multitudes

Is “I contain multitudes” another way of saying, “I am legion”- the infamous quote from the Bible by the man who was possessed by multiple spirits? Perhaps the spirits speaking those magical lyrics to him?

In July of 2003, he co-wrote and starred in the film Masked and Anonymous, adding further pseudonyms to his list as Sergei Petrov the writer, and Jack Fate the actor. The film drops you into a bad-trip post-revolutionary world where mob rules and a totalitarian regime is going for broke. There’s a deplorable ramshackle cast of characters living out of trailers like circus peanut shells trying to survive death threats amidst an anarchist shakedown. The only way out is to stage a fundraiser for some cause that no one really cares about, and the only dried up celebrity from whom they can milk the last licks is incarcerated Bob Dylan/Jake Fate (perhaps that double homicide in the Sinatra saloon finally caught up with him).

Milk him they do, and you are torn about sympathizing with this washed up, withered entertainer being used to dance like a monkey for someone else’s gain, realizing all the while that he made his bed and now he’s gotta lie in it - right?

Dylan’s Shadow Kingdom band - masked an anonymous; Scenes from the film Masked and Anonymous.

A PAWN IN THEIR GAME

Ambiguity is Dylan’s middle name, or at least his pseudo-middle-nym. As early as 1963, Dylan was playing with this idea of questionable culpability when it comes to our actions: can we truly be held accountable for the sins we commit while under the thumb of the devil? Do we have volition in the Shadow Kingdom? Here’s a verse from “Pawn in Their Game”:

The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid And the marshals and cops get the same But the poor white man's used in the hands of them all like a tool He's taught in his school From the start by the rule That the laws are with him To protect his white skin To keep up his hate So he never thinks straight 'Bout the shape that he's in But it ain't him to blame He's only a pawn in their game

A fascinating twist to the social justice issues of the time - civil rights for blacks and women’s empowerment - Dylan has pity on the whites who were taking the blame for racism, pointing out that they can be just as poor and victimized as anyone else, and they’ve been brainwashed by an evil system to act the way they do; they are not oppressors, but rather pieces in someone else’s game - the Grand Chessmasters moving about the Black pawns vs White pawns: controlled opposition.

Songs like this and others which he lifted from troubling news reports painted him as an activist, lumping him in with the other 60’s “protest singers”. At first it seems he’s in his element. Dylan himself admitted that when he first heard folk music on the radio in his youth, he identified with the style, and the way the music “said something.” In 1963 he was given the Tom Paine award for his work in civil rights campaigns. His acceptance speech was a disaster; Dylan was rushed off stage when he said he saw something in himself in Lee Harvey Oswald, reflecting on the Kennedy assassination that was still a fresh wound in the American spirit. He explained himself at a written statement:

When I spoke of Lee Oswald, I was speakin of the times, I was not speakin of his deed if it was his deed. The deed speaks for itself but I am sick, so sick at hearin 'we all share the blame' for every church bombing, gun battle, mine disaster, poverty explosion, and president killing that comes about. It is so easy to say 'we' and bow our heads together. I must say 'I' alone and bow my head alone for it is I alone who is livin my life...I do not apologize for myself nor my fears. I do not apologize for any statement which led some to believe 'oh my God! I think he’s the one that really shot the president.

Oswald himself famously cried out to the cameras as he was being hauled away: “I’m just a patsy!” He’s just a pawn of the Shadow Kingdom.

Patsy Oswald the moment he is taken out point blank by Jack Ruby. (Anyone relate to the dude handcuffed to Oswald: 😬)

I think of the collective guilt being pushed on society today, and how as far back as the early 60’s this sort of tactic was being used. In both this statement and in “Pawn”, Dylan is not shirking responsibility for wrongdoing, but rather saying we can only hold ourselves accountable; it is not right to bear the sins of the fathers, or be lumped into a whole. This collectivism bothered Dylan, obviously a rugged individualist. No doubt this is why he resonated so deeply with characters like Jack Kerouac, who carved his own destiny down the open road, and Woody Guthrie, who spoke out creatively against the aggregate monster that is Fascism.

Though Dylan continued to write about social and political issues, it became clear to him that being part of the folk/protest scene was starting to force him into a choir, singing about the world to a particular tune. In 1963, he participated in the Newport Folk Festival alongside the musical SJW OG himself, Pete Seeger. Dylan performed well, but seemed a little slow on the draw, noodling for an awkward amount of time, and needing to borrow a pick from Seeger.

Bob’s Newport evolution: Protest choir boy 1963; Pete Seeger gazing, “I know him, he’s mine” 1964; Dylan: “Screw that.” 1965

The following year at the festival, the death blow came. Innocently, though with a little too much fan-girl enthusiasm, Ronnie Gilbert, member of the Weavers (Seeger’s band), introduces Dylan to the Newport audience as the “voice of a generation” by saying, “You know him, he’s yours: Bob Dylan.” That moment, Dylan the Elusive became self-realized. He says of it, in his book Chronicles:

“What a crazy thing to say! Screw that. As far as I knew, I didn’t belong to anybody then or now.”

The following year in 1965, Dylan played at the Newport Festival again, this time infamously whipping out his electric guitar and playing raucously to a crowd of stunned flower children and clean-cut coeds. Rumor has it an irate Seeger took an ax to Dylan’s cables; Old Man Protest himself cut the umbilical cord and released Dylan from Mama Folk Scene: he was not hers, and she did not know him.

London 1966 - talkin’ paranoid drug induced overworked ego trippin’ blues.

In 1966, Dylan went on tour across the pond. An absolute arse, he struts about like a diva, mocking the media, snubbing Joan Baez, and slapping his folk fans with screeching electric guitars and a piercing vocal delivery: no longer the voice tolerated by any generation. He had to put Greenwich Village Bobby to death once and for all. One audience member screams amidst boos, “JUDAS!” To which Dylan responds, “I don’t believe you. You’re a liar.” And proceeds to play the song “Like A Rolling Stone” through which he vindictively spits,

How does it feel To be on your own Like a complete unknown With no direction home Like a rolling stone.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Is being a directionless rolling stone the same “Blowing in the Wind” sentiment as suggested in the title of his previous album, Freewheeling? The song taunts someone upon whom irony seems to be heaped like burning coals; it’s a merciless come-uppins’ story. Perhaps the audience is the Judas, and this song is about them, now hanging themselves. Did they romanticize this freewheeler Dylan, but fail to truly understand what that word meant? Here’s the Miriam Webster definition:

Dylan didn’t betray them; he told them exactly who he was, and now they hate him for it.

Still, Roger Ebert says of Dylan during that time:

What a jerk Bob Dylan was in 1965. What an immature, self-important, inflated, cruel, shallow little creature, lacking in empathy and contemptuous of anyone who was not himself or his lackey. Did we actually once take this twerp as our folk god?

But is it any of their faults? After all, both Dylan and the audience are players in a much bigger game involving Columbia Records, Albert Grossman his manager, the music industry, the Hollywood star maker machine, the idol factory, the fame monster, the Big Apple…

Notice the All-Seeing Eye of Horus in the Columbia Records logo?

Judas, in fact, was also a pawn. Jesus’ needed to die to fulfill the Messianic prophecy of salvation for humankind. Someone had to betray Jesus, someone had to kill him. Is Judas a pawn of the Jewish leaders who used him to get to Jesus, or is Judas an instrument of God’s, used to carry out His divine purpose? Jesus knew Judas’ role in the matter and even told him to go finish the job. If Judas had said no, would this be acting against God’s will?

Bob Ambiguity Dylan himself pondered this very question, as he sings in “With God On Our Side” (1963):

Through many a dark hour I've been thinkin' about this That Jesus Christ was Betrayed by a kiss But I can't think for you You'll have to decide Whether Judas Iscariot Had God on his side.

Before you have too much sympathy for the devil, let’s return to the spiritual side of the Shadow Kingdom with the question upon which we ended Side A: Dylan wonders if God is on our side, but is Dylan on God’s?

THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGING

It’s worth taking a little Magical Mystery Tour down Abbey Road here for a moment - bear with me on this important detour from Highway 61, which will be revisited momentarily.

In 1966, The “British Dylan”, Donovan, released the song “Season of the Witch.” I’m unsure if he was aware of this zeitgeist, or if the song helped kick it off, or maybe he was just trying to make a buck off it. There’s a line in it that says,

Beatniks out to make it rich Must be the season of the witch.

Indeed, peace-loving social movements, as well as the free-wheeling poetic ones, were being absorbed into the machine, as is always the case with an artistic movement that catches on, regardless of how humble its beginnings. That is certainly one “witchy” aspect, in the sense of sacrificing integrity to the god Mammon.

But in general, there was a strange spiritual wildfire that blazed through the late 60’s, and even that was monetized. Movies, books, and records on the topic of witchcraft, New Age universalism, astrology and crystals, and even Satanism were the rage. Paganism and feminism merged into what became known as Dianic Wicca: goddess and nature worship, complete with spells, rituals, and tarot card decks. The official church of Satan was established in 1966. Psychedelics - namely LSD and the ubiquitous use of “magic mushrooms,” which spread in popularity through the concert/festival/music scene - played a big role in this movement, essentially as the holy sacraments, promising enlightenment and spiritual insight. Eastern philosophies and religions, yoga and transcendental meditation exploded in the West, greatly due to such influencers as the Beatles, when they went to India and promoted the guru Maharishi.

Z Budapest, founder of feminist occult order “Dianic Wicca” and the Susan B Anthony Coven; There are many books documenting this phenomenon; The Beatles in India at the Maharishi’s ashram.

Some have argued that rock-n-roll itself is the devil’s music, but I think the Fab Four started out innocently enough. Nonetheless by the time ‘66 rolled around, the Beatles had gone through a noticeable transformation. It is this year John Lennon met Yoko Ono, who has declared herself a witch, and - if you ask the other members of The Beatles and many bitter Beatles fans - they will swiftly declare she certainly had put a spell over John. The exact day of their meeting was November 9th, at an art gallery opening. Here’s a juicy one for the conspiracy theorists out there: if you’re familiar with the Paul Is Dead theory, Paul McCartney supposedly died on that very same day, making the inflammatory statement, “Yoko Ono killed The Beatles” more than just hyperbole.

Yoko Ono starring in a film called Satan’s Bed; Her album, Yes, I’m a Witch; Plastic Ono Band album, Take Me to the Land of Hell.

Also in 1966, The Beatles released their album Revolver, described as capturing the “spirit of the times”, mostly due to the embracing of psychedelia. John Lennon deliberately designed the album’s “Tomorrow Never Knows” to be an invocation of a Tibetan Buddhist ceremony. He adapted the lyrics from Timothy Leary’s 1966 book, The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which details the LSD experience and how the realizations therein mark a level of spiritual enlightenment, similarly gained through Eastern meditation. Critics referred to the Lennon song as "the most effective evocation of an LSD experience ever recorded.”

Timothy Leary giving an interview; A closeup of the image behind him of the “cosmic christ,” aka antichrist, surrounded by images of the world’s various deities; The cover of one of Crowley’s books - Crowley referred to himself as “The Beast 666” from the Bible.

Timothy Leary was the dude who coined “Turn on, tune in, and drop out.” He was a Harvard professor working on psilocybin (magic mushroom) and LSD research, conducting experiments on convicts. Fired from Harvard for being too controversial, and for giving experimental drugs to undergraduate students off campus, he became known as the “high priest of LSD”, founding a religious organization in 1966 called the League of Spiritual Discovery which took acid as its sacrament. The movement which grew from Leary and his cohorts, including social influencers and the chemists who synthesized LSD, is too massive to detail here, but the effect was profound; the use of psychedelics were so ubiquitous among the youth that there was actually a senate subcommittee hearing on the matter. President Nixon referred to Leary as “the most dangerous man in America.”

Another most dangerous man, Aleister Crowley, was called by newspapers “the wickedest man in the world” after a scandal that involved an occult ritual of drinking blood that reportedly led to a man’s death. Crowley is widely known as the wellspring from which the modern Western occult movement is sourced. He also studied Eastern mysticism and developed a mystery school/ religion called Thelema, the holy books of which Crowley channeled from a grey alien-looking being. The magickal workings of their holy rituals are in essence a mockery of the Catholic mass, and directly call upon Babylonian and Hellenistic gods, as well as Lucifer. Anton Levay, the founder of the church of Satan, named Crowley as an influence. Crowley was also the major influence behind Helena Blavatsky’s work, in turn influencing Alice Bailey's teachings, which as mentioned on Side A, is adopted by the Freemasons.

Timothy Leary was also influenced by Crowley, saying that while he was doing a reading with tarot cards Crowley designed himself, it was revealed to him that he was Crowley reborn, and that he was to continue the work Crowley began in the early 1900’s, ushering in a “new age.” In a PBS interview, Leary admitted this openly on television:

I’ve been an admirer of Aleister Crowley - I think that I am carrying on much of the work that he started a hundred years ago. You know the ‘60’s themselves - you know Crowley said he was in favor of finding your own self and ‘do what thou wilt is the whole of the law, under love’ - it is a very powerful statement; I’m sorry he isn’t around now to appreciate the glories he started.

A very creepy grotesque photo shoot of The Beatles; John and Yoko’s “bed-in” with a jolly Leary in front; Crowley’s mug highlighted on the cover of The Beatles Sergeant Pepper album along with an old zine page, drawing connections between Led Zeppelin and Crowley. (You can click on images to see the whole thing)

Leary dubbed the Beatles as the “four evangelists” of this new age. They wrote the song “Come Together” as an anthem for Leary’s presidential campaign, and they put Crowley’s image among their hodge-podge entourage on the album cover of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Leary said of them:

I declare that The Beatles are mutants. Prototypes of evolutionary agents sent by God, endowed with a mysterious power to create a new human species, a young race of laughing freemen.

During Dylan’s 1966 world tour, he hung with The Beatles, Lennon his creative nemesis, the two in a love-hate battle for artistic superiority. At that time, when he “went electric” (literally and figuratively) on top of the world and the charts, Dylan seemed to be part of it all - the sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. But the strain the exhaustive tour put on him, the frantic energy from his celebrity status, the drugs he was taking, and the persona to which he was laboring to give birth, proved too much for the Minnesota minstrel. Not unlike many victims of this lifestyle - especially during this era - who “burn burn burn like fabulous Roman candles” as Jack Kerouac put it, Dylan was on the perilous road to collapse and possibly death. Biographers say he was nearly suffering from a nervous breakdown, plagued by paranoia, and unhealthily gaunt.

Back from the tour in the summer of ‘66, Dylan was being milked for more. He was contracted to work on a book, and his manager, Albert Grossman, was planning another tour just a few months out. Call it burnout, or divine intervention, on July 29th, Dylan crashed his motorcycle in the hills of Woodstock, NY, where he was living at the time. This forced him to stay off the road and the stage, and showed him where his life was headed if he didn’t slow down; a good gambler has to know when to fold ‘em. He started anew living quietly and domestically, with his wife Sara Lownds with whom he had four kids. He recorded “down to earth” country albums, ditched his leather for linen, and his shades for spectacles.

Bob on his bike in Woodstock; Chillin’ like Bob Dylan - the family man; Yours truly with Dylan’s hat on while hanging at the home of Dylan’s photographer’s widow in Woodstock (Dylan has a small head).

Dylan comments on the event in Chronicles:

I had been in a motorcycle accident and I’d been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race. Having children changed my life and segregated me from just about everybody and everything that was going on. Outside of my family, nothing held any real interest for me and I was seeing everything through different glasses.

I also think it was seed-planting of what would become a spiritual awakening for Dylan - and not the Timothy Leary kind. I believe Jesus took the wheel of Dylan’s bike. He crashed on the pavement that day, but his life still had a bit more breakdown to go before he’d truly looked up…

THUNDER ON THE MOUNTAIN

1975-1976: Having been low-key for a while, Dylan has an idea for a tour called Rolling Thunder Review, intended to play in small venues and town halls, in an effort to come down off the mountainous stadium superstar stages and reconnect with the people more intimately. What manifested was a misfit medicine side show, documented by renowned film director Martin Scorsese. (Not gonna lie, the music - and Dylan’s charisma - is outstanding. Probably my favorite Dylan era.)

Rolling Thunder: The mesmerizing Scarlet Rivera; Dylan and Ginsberg at Jack Kerouac’s grave; Patti Smith madness.

It was a chaotic swinging saloon door of carnival characters, a few of which included the nearly incoherent Patti Smith, and the enigmatic performer Phil Ochs, who committed suicide shortly thereafter. There was Scarlet Rivera (her pseudonym, sounding a lot like “blood river”), a captivating woman described as “a wraith, a witch, a gypsy princess, a Cottingley queen”, who reportedly wore a sword and carried around a trunk with chains and snakes inside. She had a grim reaper-looking character taped to her violin whom she said keeps her company; Dylan noted she also dated the lead singer of KISS. Then there was pervert poet Allen Ginsberg, known member of NAMBLA - The North American Man/Boy Love Association, a pedophilia and pederasty advocacy organization - who’s infamous poem Howl invokes the Babylonian bull-god of child sacrifice, Moloch. Joan Baez shows up again, who at the time was also starring in Dylan’s movie Renaldo and Clara, in which the audience awkwardly sits through the sexual tension between Baez, Dylan, and Dylan’s wife Sara Lownds (also a pseudonym, whom Dylan refers to as the Egyptian goddess “Isis”), with whom he cheated on Baez and knocked up in 1965. The following year (1977), Dylan and Sara’s marriage ended.

1978: Dylan recently divorced, the Renaldo and Clara film he’d worked on for the past 3 years had just been released to bad reviews, and the tour he was on for his current album, Street Legal, was also being picked apart by critics. He was burning out again blow by blow. Dylan was playing a show in San Diego, and recalls starting to lose it:

Towards the end of the show someone out in the crowd ... knew I wasn't feeling too well. I think they could see that. And they threw a silver cross on the stage. Now usually I don't pick things up in front of the stage. Once in a while I do. Sometimes I don't. But I looked down at that cross. I said, 'I gotta pick that up.' So I picked up the cross and I put it in my pocket ... And I brought it backstage and I brought it with me to the next town, which was out in Arizona ... I was feeling even worse than I'd felt when I was in San Diego. I said, 'Well, I need something tonight.' I didn't know what it was. I was used to all kinds of things. I said, 'I need something tonight that I didn't have before.' And I looked in my pocket and I had this cross."

That night in a Tucson hotel room, Dylan experienced Christ. When talking about this moment, Dylan says that Jesus literally saved him from an early grave.

Dylan, still wearing the silver cross thrown on stage.

Jesus did appear to me as King of Kings, and Lord of Lords…there was a presence in the room that couldn't have been anybody but Jesus ... Jesus put his hand on me. It was a physical thing. I felt it. I felt it all over me. I felt my whole body tremble. The glory of the Lord knocked me down and picked me up.

One critic blows this off as simply being on the verge of collapse, psychologically susceptible to something mystical like this. But Dylan doesn’t come down from this mountain top experience and just go on like nothing happened. He is radically changed.

COMMANDER IN CHIEF

When God calls someone, he provides a way for them to answer. For Dylan, it was through band members who had recently started attending Vineyard Fellowship. Dylan went along, and soon two more joined the crew: one of the band’s backup singers, and Dylan’s romantic involvement at the time.

Dylan was hungry and sought instruction, and was invited to attend their Bible study, a rigorous program 4 days a week for 3 months. At first Dylan refused, saying he had to go back on the road. But he claims he woke up in the morning, prompted to go to the Bible study, and so he did. There he learned how to interpret and articulate the scripture, which he started to weave into his existing material, at first changing a lyric here and there to a Bible reference, and then writing full worship songs. He went on to write three “Christian Rock” albums and toured them over the next few years: Slow Train Coming (1979), Saved (1980), and Shot of Love (1981).

This is where I have to emphasize that Dylan did profoundly change. Rather than his old mercurial lyrics with slippery meaning, these songs do not mince words. He is not obscuring his faith or being esoteric, and nothing he says comes from any ego or self-interpretation; he is accurate and articulate with historical Biblical doctrine, and his love lyrics could rival Psalms and Song of Solomon.

Deeply affected by the book of Revelation, Dylan wanted to tell people what was going to happen; he had to get his message out to others, and no better place than the stage. The man who didn’t want to be pinned down is now nailed to a cross, with the bleeding, sacred heart of Jesus on his sleeve for all to witness. Profoundly, Dylan, who never wanted the meaning of his songs to be put in a box, was now standing on one preaching something specific; Christianity remains the one topic upon which Bob Dylan officially came down.

During his Gospel Tour that kicked off in 1979, crowds booed and walked out during the middle of the show because he started preaching. Ironically, Dylan was going through “The Betrayal” all over again; the audience acted with the same vitriol they did in 1966 when he went electric. In ‘66 England, the fans said they wanted to see Bob Dylan, not a pop band. They said this time that they wanted to see Bob Dylan, not a church choir. He lost more fans in 1980 than he did in 1966. (Fun fact: the gospel tour started on November 1st, All Saints Day, a holy day of solemnity in the liturgical church, in contrast to the more pagan-associated aforementioned October 31st concert).

Critics might accuse him of being brainwashed into a religious fundamental “Bible thumping” mentality. But Dylan was adamant about his beliefs being Christ-centered, not church-centered. The following are clips from interviews Dylan gave during this time period.

Bob Dylan (BD) with Bruce Herman (BH) KMGX Radio, Tucson December 7, 1979:

BD: [Regarding upset audience members] What is it exactly that are they protesting? They’re against the doctrine of Jesus Christ or that he died on the cross or that man is born into sin?

BH: Well the atheists are against any sort of religion, be it…

BD: …Well Christ is no religion. We’re not talking about religion. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. I follow God, so if my followers are following me, then indirectly, they’re going to be following God too. I don’t sing any songs that haven’t been given to me by the Lord to sing.

BH: They believe that all religion is oppressive…

BD…well all religion is oppressive to a certain degree. Religion is another form of bondage, which man invests to get himself to God, but that’s why Christ came. Christ didn’t preach religion - he preached the way the truth and the life. He said he came to give life more abundantly. He’s talking about life. My ideology now would be coming out of the scripture. I didn’t invent these things - they’ve been shown to me. I stand on that faith that they are true. I know they are true.

BH: Do you feel the message of your music has changed over the years, from music which talked about war to music that talks about Christianity?

BD: No, there’s always war and rumors of war. The Bible talks about a war coming up which would be a war to end all wars. The spirit of the atheist will not prevail. I can tell you that much. It’s a deceiving spirit.

Bob Dylan (BD) with Paul Vincent (PV), KMEL Radio San Francisco, November 18, 1980:

PV: Is Jesus Christ the answer for all of us in your mind?

BD: Yeah, I would say that. What we’re talking about is the nature of God. In order to Go to God, you have to go through Jesus. You have to have experience with that.

For the joy of it, I am sharing “Dylan’s Sermon”, given on April 20, 1980 at Massey Hall in Toronto, Ontario. Dylan addresses the penultimate manifestation of the Shadow Kingdom, as referenced in the Bible - the Antichrist, who will come to establish a one-world New World Order under the guise of universal peace:

I read the Bible a lot, it just happens that I do [claps] so it says certain things in the Bible that I wasn’t aware of until recently. In Universities, they have a different - a “higher learning” there - they teach philosophies, so people they study all these different philosophies - Plato…I can’t remember all the names - Nietzsche, people like that. But anyway, the Bible tells you all these things, like in the book of Daniel, and the book of Revelation, which just might apply to these times here. And it says that certain wars are about to happen - I can’t say exactly when, but pretty soon anyway…I see all these things in the Bible and they tell me the truth.” [Audience and back up singers say amen and cheer.]

These things that happen in the Bible - I pay mighty close attention to. It’s talking about this man - called Antichrist. We’ve seen previews of what this man will be like: Jim Jones we had a preview, Adolf Hitler - a preview - anyway Antichrist is going to be a little bit different than that - he’s going to bring peace to the world for a given length of time. But he will eventually be defeated too. Supernaturally defeated. God will intervene. But you’re still going to have to be aware of these things. You need something strong to hang on to. I don’t know what you’ve got to hang on to, but I’ve gotten something called a Solid Rock to hang on to - that was manifested in the flesh, and justified in the Spirit - and seen by angels. Preached on in the world.

Though Dylan went back to recording “secular” albums, you will find many Biblical and spiritual themes scattered throughout his work from this point forward. His album following the gospel records, Infidels in 1983, includes tracks like “Jokerman”, said to be about an antichrist figure who is a “manipulator of crowds…a dream twister.” Similarly, the song "Man of Peace" deals with the concept of Satan, or evil generally, disguised to mislead humanity.

Dylan‘s angel choir on the Gospel Tour, 1979-1980

Some speculate that his departure from overt Christian music suggests he gave up his “Jesus phase” and went back to take his place as poet laureate of the Shadow Kingdom. There’s a 60 Minutes interview with Ed Bradley in 2004 which all the skeptics and ghost busters like to reference as proof that Dylan has eternally sold his soul to the devil - be it actually Satan, or The Man, The Machine. I myself previously pulled quotes from this interview in the MASKED AND ANONYMOUS section, where Dylan describes his songs as being magically written. But the quote everyone goes nuts over as diabolical proof is when Ed Bradley is commenting on how Dylan’s song “Like a Rolling Stone” has been named by Rolling Stone Magazine the number one song of all time (though maybe they’re biased because of their namesake). Ed wonders why after all this success, at his age, why does Dylan keep going?

EB: Why do you still do it? Why are you still out here?

BD: Well, it goes back to that destiny thing. I made a bargain with it, you know, long time ago. And I’m holding up my end…

EB: What was your bargain?

BD: …to get where I am now.

EB: Should I ask who you made that bargain with?

BD: [laughs] With the chief commander.

EB: On this earth?

BD: [laughs] In this earth and in the world we can’t see.

They say this “chief commander” is the devil. And it’s true, in Freemasonry, they use that term to refer to Lucifer in the higher degrees. But Luciferians twist things. In scripture it is very clear that God is the Chief Commander - there is none higher authority than Him. In terms of his statement about “this earth and the world we can’t see,” Jesus says about Himself:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” - Matthew 28:18,

And in terms of “making a bargain” - if you know anything about Dylan (especially if you’ve read Chronicles) you know he talks slang. It is Biblical to make covenants with God. God made a covenant with Israel in the Old Testament to remain faithful to His people, and this was extended to all people with the Resurrection of Christ. We make covenants - promises - bargains to put it colloquially - with God when we give our lives to Him.

Everyone who pulls that quote takes it out of the context of the whole interview. Earlier on, Ed asks Bob why he fabricated stories to the press, to which Bob responds,

I realized at the time that the press - the media - they’re not the judge. God’s the judge. The only person you have to think about lying twice to is yourself or to God.

That doesn’t sound like a sold-out soul to me. And I'll also reference something he said in one of his radio interviews:

I follow God, so if my followers are following me, then indirectly, they’re going to be following God too. I don’t sing any songs that haven’t been given to me by the Lord to sing.

Dylan never claimed to be a “Christian Artist.” He’s not on Sparrow or Integrity Records and has no obligation to say anything at all, though I would say, as a believer myself, I feel compelled to. Yet Dylan has said more about Jesus and Biblical Truth in his songs than Lauren Daigle or Amy Grant - “Christian Artists” - ever have.

Here’s what a fan forum have to say on the matter:

Once you are filled with the Holy Spirit - the way Dylan clearly was in the 80’s (or he’d never have been bold enough to preach on stage with such passion and truth, lose half his audience, and risk public persecution) - it’s not that easy to just “not be Christian” anymore. There’s terms like “back-slidden” or “lukewarm.” But Dylan would have to formally renounce his faith to be an apostate, and I don’t get the feeling he’s done that. Dylan has never apologized for his gospel records, nor backpedaled, and in fact in 2017, released a phenomenal Bootleg Series double album of live performances from his Christian tours, including a song that never made it onto any of his records called, “I Ain’t Gonna Go to Hell For Anybody” in which he declares “not today, not tonight, not tomorrow, no never, no way!”

Personally, I believe that his conversion is a “Don’t Look Back” moment, a point of no return.

CROSSING THE RUBICON

President John F Kennedy was well aware of the Shadow Kingdom, namely its infiltration into politics, hijacking the system; when one pledges to an occult or fraternal order, your allegiance to it takes priority over any other law or code you may be under. In a 1961 public address, the Commander in Chief was concerned about secrecy, censorship, and Marxism:

The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it.

Some suspect this public defiance against the shadow government lead directly to his assassination on November 22, 1963. In an odd coincidence, the Beatles released their second album, With the Beatles, on that very same day, on which they also gave a concert at the Stockton Globe in England. They recall having known about the shooting before going on stage, but said they had a job to do and had to go on. After the show they discovered Kennedy had died. John Lennon will be shot dead in America 17 years later.

Esoterically, events that involve intentional slaughter witnessed by many are often dubbed mass rituals, in which the victim is the sacrificial offering, and the fear, shock, and psychic energy released en masse is considered to bolster power, and therefore have greater magickal effect. Even if you don’t want to go there, undeniably the Kennedy assassination was an event that forever shifted the collective consciousness, namely the American spirit.

A phrase used to describe revolutionary phenomena is “Crossing the Rubicon”, or the point of no return. This refers to when Julius Caesar led his legion from Gaul, across the Rubicon River which acted as a border, into Italy in order to march into Rome. This was directly in defiance of military orders, thus making the act treasonous, and Caesar therefore an insurrectionist. He is said to have uttered the phrase alea iacta est - the die is cast - there is no going back.

The Beatles highlighted in The Rolling Stones album, Their Satanic Majesties Request; Rough and rowdy ways at the Altamont concert With Hell’s Angels - four people die; The cover of the album With The Beatles, released the same day as JFK assassination.

Bob Dylan, on his recent album Rough and Rowdy Ways, has a song called “Crossing the Rubicon”, in addition to an epic 16+ minute riddle of the Kennedy Assassination, “Murder Most Foul”, in which he alludes to Kennedy as the sacrificial lamb killed “on the altar of the rising sun” (the dawning of the new age). He references the Beatles, ties in the Aquarian Age (the occult New Age), and other occult bands like The Rolling Stones, with songs like “Sympathy for the Devil” and an album called Their Satanic Majesties Request, at whose Altamont concert another public shooting took place amidst a debacle with the Hell's Angels gang. Dylan also admits that the Kennedy assassination was magick, timed and executed perfectly, and intentionally witnessed by many. He refers to this “Rubicon moment” as “the place faith, hope, and charity died.” Sorry, but you can’t convince me with a song like this that Bob the Blank-face is not trying to say something:

Twas a dark day in Dallas, November '63 A day that will live on in infamy President Kennedy was a-ridin' high Good day to be livin' and a good day to die Being led to the slaughter like a sacrificial lamb He said, "Wait a minute, boys, you know who I am?" "Of course we do, we know who you are" Then they blew off his head while he was still in the car Shot down like a dog in broad daylight Was a matter of timing and the timing was righ

The day they blew out the brains of the king Thousands were watchin', no one saw a thing It happened so quickly, so quick, by surprise Right there in front of everyone's eyes Greatest magic trick ever under the sun Perfectly executed, skillfully done

I'm goin' to Woodstock, it's the Aquarian Age Then I'll go to Altamont and sit near the stage Put your head out the window, let the good times roll There's a party goin' on behind the Grassy Knoll

As previously mentioned, this album was released in 2020 during the peak of Covid confusion and the death of George Floyd, also witnessed by millions of people. Both events have likewise created a social point of no return.

Twisted demon faces appearing in the plumes of smoke and ash at the falling of the twin towers; The two pillars of Freemasonry; A bizarre rendition of Alice in Wonderland (as if it’s not bizarre enough) upon the Masonic game board.

But perhaps the most terrifying and life-altering mass-witnessed murder occurred on September 11, 2001, with the destruction of the twin towers and the death of thousands. In another uncanny coincidence, Bob Dylan released an album on 9/11 called Love and Theft - awkwardly suggesting two “towers” - the good and the bad - on which the first track is also a pairing: “Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum”, in which you can find lyrics referring to bags of bones and "stabbing them where they stand". Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum are characters in the story Alice in Wonderland - the absurdist upside-down world one lands in by tumbling down a rabbit hole, which is the term used to describe the dark passages one goes through when researching esoteric topics. Wonderland is also a “shadow kingdom” - an alternate reality some believe to be drug induced, and even darker, the MK-ULTRA CIA mind control program, which also involved drugs.

I’ve mentioned the checkerboard floor in Masonic rituals, but another element found in every Masonic temple are the “twin pillars”, named Joachim and Boaz after the pillars in the Temple of Solomon as mentioned in the Bible. Again they are said to represent such opposites as the sun and the moon, and the left and right, East and West. Between the pillars where the initiate passes, there is said to be equilibrium. The World Trade Twin Towers - duality now destroyed - have been replaced by the One World Tower, the union of opposites, perhaps signaling the return of the Tower of Babel - the one world system of Mystery Babylon - in which Love and Theft (betrayal/deception) can no longer be differentiated; It's all good, man.

IT AINT ME BABE

There’s a saying that goes: The greatest trick the devil ever told was that he didn’t exist. I might say in conclusion of this article: The greatest publicity stunt an entertainer ever pulled was that he didn’t exist. The magician causes himself to disappear. But is this sorcery? Trickery? Or is this humility?

This song, “False Prophet”, released over a year before Covid vaccines hit the market, the syringe seems pretty prophetic to me!

Speaking to an audience in Omaha, Nebraska during a concert at the height of his gospel period in 1980, Dylan said:

Years ago they ... said I was a prophet. I used to say, 'No I'm not a prophet'. They say, 'Yes you are, you're a prophet'. I said, 'No it's not me'. They used to say, 'You sure are a prophet'. They used to convince me I was a prophet. Now I come out and say Jesus Christ is the answer. They say, 'Bob Dylan's no prophet'. They just can't handle it.

As a worship leader, the worst thing I can do for myself, the congregation, and the Holy Spirit, is to be seen. Yes I’m up there singing - yes people can “see” me and hear me, and I want my music to go well. But not too well. I have to be careful to create an environment that is conducive to worship; I am a vessel for that worship - I am not a performer. This is not a show, they are not an audience. I have to be skilled enough so that my bad notes don’t take them out of the moment, and I have to remain reserved enough that my persona doesn’t keep them from getting into the moment. In other words, I’m not there.

The Dylans of I’m Not There.

In 2007, yet another strange film about Bob Dylan hit the theatres. I’m Not There is hard to explain so I don’t know if I want to try, but essentially, a number of different actors play a number of different Dylans throughout the vastly different stages of his life/career/music styles. They represent the various caricatures by which Dylan has been mythologized, all woven into a story that really doesn't have a straight-forward narrative.

Of the film, critic Roger Ebert says:

There are so many Bob Dylans that it is difficult to sort out which ones you admire, and which you despise. I spent years disliking Dylan on the basis of the 1967 D.A. Pennebaker documentary "Don't Look Back," and then underwent a conversion after seeing Martin Scorsese's 2005 doc "No Direction Home: Bob Dylan." But what was either film but the portrait of a possible Dylan? No considerable artist since B. Traven has spent more effort concealing his tracks and covering his trail, and at the end of the day, we are left with the music, which is all the artist really owes us.

I agree. What does the artist owe us? His personal life? His history? His relationship with God? I would argue the only thing an artist “owes” us is Truth and Beauty, because by stepping into the “profession” of Artist, that’s your job description; a doctor wouldn’t owe us a song or a haircut, but she does owe us an examination, because that’s her job.

But how you convey that Truth and Beauty, that’s a personal, spiritual matter. You gotta be tapped into it. That’s where your unique soul comes in, which you don’t want to sell out. If you do, you can no longer authentically portray Truth and Beauty; it would have no place within you from which to arise. Dylan talks about keeping himself close to his chest:

You know something about yourself that nobody else does…it’s the kind of thing you have to keep to your own self, because it’s a fragile feeling and if you put it out there, someone will kill it, so it’s best to keep that all inside.

The last scene in the movie Masked and Anonymous has the military putting Jack Fate, handcuffed, into a truck, clearly taking him back to prison. Fate was left holding the bag - the pawn disposable, his purpose used in this Shadow Kingdom. As he sits in the back of the truck, the camera holds a long shot on Dylan’s weathered face, with an expression that is somewhere between sociopath and zen master. Dylan’s voice-over says:

I was always a singer, and maybe no more than that. Sometimes it’s not enough to know the meaning of things - sometimes we have to know what things don’t mean as well…things fall apart, especially all the neat order of rules and laws. The way we look at the world is the way we really are. See it from a fair garden, and everything looks cheerful; climb up to a higher plateau and you’ll see plunder and murder. Truth and Beauty are in the eye of the beholder. I stopped trying to figure everything out a long time ago.

Still holding that long shot of Dylan’s masked look, the soundtrack cross-dissolves into a rendition of “Blowing in the Wind."

The Answer my friend, is blowing in the wind…

Dylan, blowing some wind during Shadow Kingdom Livestream

I think we need to stop interpreting that song as some simplistic hippy-dippy “whatever man” post modern statement about relativism or the elusiveness of absolute truth. It’s actually a deeply profound, perfectly crafted parable, again Biblical in nature. Rather than Dylan proselytizing some social statement about himself, his art, or the way the world should be, he asks questions. He throws it back at the listener, and asks you to ponder it for yourself. His mask is actually a mirror. But Dylan doesn’t leave you high and dry: he gives you a hint to his riddles: Pssst! The answer is in the Holy Wind - the Ruach - the Spirit.

Before we think that’s just too elusive, too esoteric, consider how we even know what “wind” is: we can’t see it. Rather, it is revealed by what it touches. We feel it gently tussle our hair in the summer, and whip mercilessly at our cheeks in the winter, or smell the wafting of a rose bush or a camp fire, you hear it passing through someone's vocal chords, or wind chimes. And there's nothing esoteric about that: what we sense is real, it's here and now.

Jesus says to Nichodemus about being born of the flesh vs born of the Spirit:

“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” - John 3:8

The artist - the performer - “the Dylan” - is not the Truth, but as the wind makes a joyful noise in the rusting of the leaves and the crashing of the waves, so Breath of God moves through us as instruments, to play the song of The Light - of Truth and Beauty - on the stage of the Shadow Kingdom.

Ben Roylance of Tiny Mix Tapes, a music review blog, sums up who Bob is and who he aint, babe:

If there is an Illuminati then Bob Dylan is somehow affiliated. The American songbook is a catalogue of occult hymns.

The occult tradition is diverse. Dylan isn’t a witch. Dylan isn’t practicing Thelema. Dylan is cleaning the years of glitter and shine (dust and life) off of these songs, these incantations, these rituals. Dylan is rearranging, channeling, reinterpreting American musics, a magus, like he has been for decades.

Finger hovering charged over the reset button, tenderly depressing it, full moon above. These songs are now, again, the basic totems of the 20th century’s repressed occult psyche.

This, friends, is the Shadow Kingdom: the subliminal programming through media of all kinds, psychological operations such as rituals witnessed and unwittingly participated within, and the idols/ totems built around us to anchor our beliefs and emotions. Yes Dylan is in it. He’s on the checkerboard floor. So are we. Mystery Babylon is all around us. We are all, indeed, somehow affiliated. But as the True Christ, Jesus the Messiah, says, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within.” We can be in the kingdom of darkness, but not of it. They have the world of magick and illusion, power and entertainment, they can even take your body and your life, but they don’t have your soul unless you give it to them. I don’t think they have Dylan’s.

When they tell you you’re just a pawn in their game, or you're a Judas for refusing to play, you can say to them:

“I don’t believe you. You’re a liar.”

I’ll give Ebert the last word here: