Semantics are important. So when I heard that AI is taking over for Artists, I found myself questioning: how the hell could AI possibly produce Art?  Then I realised the real question is: what the hell do people think Art is, that a soulless program could produce it?  This, my loves, is the conversation we need to be having (AI aside, which I grant is an important discussion). But seriously, let’s talk about how society in general views Art.  Because the role of Art is a far-reaching subject with huge consequences!  So screw AI, let’s talk about how many facets of our present culture are killing Art, and how and why.  Because the impact this will have upon not only our society but frankly the devolution of humanity, is not something we can afford!

A big piece of my past life that I don’t talk about is still a central key to who I am today and where I am coming from in my approach to Witchcraft as an artist. I made my living as a production designer in Film and TV, which was honestly more of a craft than an art. Yet even with TV, I came at it from the root of being an artist. I learned the tools of my Art, before Film and TV, by doing ten years in Classical Theatre as a Director/Designer in Norway, where I got to work collaboratively with some truly great artists of the 80’s in Europe. However, back then being in my 20s as a Witch, it was not enough to simply work together with such great creative figures. I wanted to understand what made these people tick. What made them the best? What made the difference between a great artist and someone who was a basic craftsman?

It was from this background and approach that I started to identify the presence of Spirit in the equation. I found this to be the case with all Art from Theatre to Music, Fine Arts, Poetry, as it is at the root of Witchcraft, which to me is the old Arte. It was from this exploration of what Art was, that I came to a few fundamental understandings that would shape my own professional work for the following 30+ years, as an artist in the entertainment industry. And which I later came to understand was foundational to my witchcraft and the Ced Tradition.

Understanding that reality is not a fact of the literal or physical, but rather our experience of moments in time. Moments that incorporate our feelings and sense of influences surrounding those moments. Reality is pieced together from our subjective experience of so many elements, both tangible and intangible. The presence of all those elements becomes a distinct identity, which influences the expression and the experience of the moment on all levels. This distinct identity is what I call the Spirit of the Moment. Unlike a simple concept, it is a presence that is alive, responsive, and engages us.  Yet it is the elusive larger presence that cannot be captured in a photograph, or by intellectual explanation.  And this is where the Artist steps in to capture their experience and the impact of such an essential living spirit and then mediate it in some deeply profound yet tangible manner. Art is not to depict literal forms or even concepts, but rather to share the presence of a Spirit. To provoke a profound experience of the subject matter to the target audience. To translate through art, those intangible qualities of how certain things, people, events, may single themselves out and capture the imagination of all. There are instances where the spirit of such events or people are so powerful that they single themselves out. They are openly apparent to where it slaps you in the face whether you like it or not. But more often, these things are subtle and intangible.  You can feel something is there but it requires an artist’s approach, a revolutionary perspective from outside the box, to expose the core spirit and make it accessible. This is the Art of the Artist, to find and mediate what resides beyond the literal, the expression of its spirit.  Exposed through a unique approach or perspective revealing such life changing expressions in a manner where it can be encountered by the general public.  True Art engages you.  It is a participatory event that creates waves in your reality.

This became my simple understanding of the nature of Art and what makes great Artists.  Beyond the momentary whimsy, fun element, or the intellectually stimulating moment, concepts do not hold a sense of a living presence.  I enjoy them like the next person and I do recognize and honor the craft for its quality of execution and delivery.  When it doesn’t feel contrived, I see that it holds value in its own way within the daily tides of life, where we all so desperately need a vacation from the stress.  But Art, what the Artist is attempting to touch and mediate, that is another thing altogether.  With whimsy there is no profound awakening of one’s own creative spirit, that becomes life changing. No real insight or provocation that violates the paradigm of one’s established reality. There is only intellectual mediation of ideas that can be pondered, incorporated, and passed beyond, seldom provoking anything more profound. The personal experience of art as a living Spirit, expressed through a person, event, or thing, brings profound personal transformation on some level to all who are open to the encounter.  Because experiencing these Spirits is life changing. They endure Time; they never become dated and dead.

So when an Artist engages their Art, they are not looking to depict their concepts or the literal rendition of what is easily grasped before them. An Artist is looking to grasp and mediate the root, the source, the heart of living Spirit, the most elusive of qualities. To grasp it requires the Artist to open their own Soul and Spirit and immerse their very being into an entanglement with the Spirit, the identity of that moment, that they endeavour to capture. The Artist knows they are not the sole creator; they mediate a profound experience of an entanglement of themselves with the spirit of their subject. It is unavoidable not to lay bare their own soul and spirit with such a mediation, where a piece of themselves has become so intrinsically intermingled.  There is a great sense of sacrifice, in the sense of Sacred Mediation at the cost of losing oneself. And artists are willing to pay that coin.  Artists may not express it this way but in the language of Witchery, Artists must have the Gift of Sight, to find and see what the profane cannot. 

For most forms of Art, the first challenge is to develop and perfect the craftsmen tools, where your body becomes the perfect tool of mediation. Where your body – and this includes your brain – gets to that place where it can mediate the living spirit of the subject without one’s self-awareness getting in the way. This is why they say, you have to learn the tools in order to forget them! The perfecting of the craftsmen tools are to fine tune the instrument of delivery. But becoming a finely tuned piano does not make the piano an artist! With training, desire, and patience anyone can learn how to build a piano, but only an artist will be able to use it to express something that can transcend beyond the piano, the player, and even the music!

I’m not a snob. I appreciate and enjoy designs made to amuse or express pleasurable harmony of form. Things that are distractions, a vacation for the senses, an enjoyable nurturing mediation of things that are transitory and nice, pleasurable, stimulating. But I do recognize how these are different from those things I have experienced that have been life changing. Honestly, fads annoy me, because they often seem to express the lowest common denominator in our species. The intention of popularity being the evident purpose for their being.  I find them forgettable.  But then I have never been part of a fan club or wanted to follow the flock mindset. Though I do understand that for many folks this brings a sense of security and safety and serving this need is of primary importance to them.

This opens a deeper level of concern I hold as I look at how in recent years we have approached our world, with the intention of making everything accessible to everyone. Making opportunities and wonders of our world accessible has been a goal I have always shared and fought for. But from this intention there has been a shift in execution which brings me grave concerns. Making everything accessible shifted from opening opportunities to reach the heights to lowering the standards so everyone can feel included.  Removing the bench marks, to level the field at the cost of the exceptional.  A shift from everyone having opportunity to everyone having the right to be whatever they choose to be and everyone respecting everyone’s right to be such. To measure success by the ability to single oneself out, but not for the content of one’s offerings, but rather from the clicks of popularity one may generate. This undermines and demeans the exceptional that Artists may deliver. We have a culture that resists seeing our Artists as exceptional people, because to do so makes others feel less exceptional. Our culture has become so narcissistic that the standard is to only endorse what serves our own sense of specialness, mutual endorsing of what we think and what we believe with our own select choir. 

But there are consequences to devaluing the exceptional, the qualities required to make an Artist, a Free Thinker, exceptional Leaders, Teachers, those within society who challenge us to evolve our perspective, embrace the challenges of experience that propels us forward and question what entraps us in mediocrity. When the Art and all expressions identified with the exceptional are devalued and replaced with the banal, profane, the mediocre, done from a political conceptual basis, then yes, even AI can challenge us in all areas of life.  When the definition and standards of Art is reduced to concepts then yes even AI can compete.   When intelligence is demonized and the standards of life and has become nothing more than a depiction of limited, acceptable, and generally attainable concepts. Then we witness the death of the esoteric in service of the exoteric and all mystics, witches and free thinking people should weep.

Social Media places us in bubbles, where this narcissistic popularist leveling to the lowest common denominator platform thrives. It’s mob rule, following the bullies in the playground, as they beat up the nerds, the outsiders, those who once may have been seen as the exceptional, the Artists, Free Thinkers and Revolutionaries.  Even the Heroes if they serve something other than the wants of the mob!  Why does the mob seek to silence them? Because unlike the outcasts, they have become so fragile they can’t handle being challenged to shift perspective even for a moment. To hold other perspectives that do not endorse where they stand is seen as a direct threat to the foundation of their self-identity. When in our weak moments attack others who dare to question or challenge our status quo, we end up endorsing the bullies, the trolls online that have waged a war in service of their own sense of power and self-serving significance. And this has expanded to all levels of our society in the matter of a few years, because we have allowed it. The principles that were designed to fight bigotry and ignorance, turned upon us. Gaslighting the principles put into place to balance the opportunities of the disenfranchised, the rightful need for recognition and legitimacy, were turned against us. Now used to legitimize the very opposite of their original purpose, and we allowed it.  Because of the basic confusion around the original goal, of opening opportunity to excel, then redefined as: everyone needs to be equal in the mediocre playground of the bully lead mob. And ye Gods help anyone who raises a voice, or even questions the Mob!

I hate to say it but our whole culture has become sick. It’s been ill for a long time and yes the old timers are the ones who set this path in motion. And yes, a lot of old timers are defensive and unwilling to look at it. But the future can only be resolved here and now. And anyone who is able to see where we have landed and how we can address moving forward needs to step up. Young and old alike, we all are part of the now!  It’s time to choose the Red Pill or the Blue Pill.  This is a call to action to all the misfits, the Witches, Artists, Free Thinkers and Leaders, it is time for the Red Pill and the lifting of the Veil. The truth is, we are living in a crab bucket, where our demise is apparent to anyone willing to perceive the bucket for what it is!  As with all crab buckets, they require no lid because the crabs in the bucket pull each other back and down, any that would seek a way out!  Those who see the truth and try to do something, they get silenced as other crabs in the bucket reach out and constantly pull those trying to lead the way out, back down into the stench filled world of the bucket’s depths. 

So this battle with AI we are recently discussing, goes beyond the Artists. We as a species must not stop trying to reach for becoming exceptional.  We must stop demonizing and removing the concept of the exceptional.  By creating a level playing field where everyone feels equal, instead of reaching for the exceptional, we are losing the very spark of revolutionary exceptionalism that set us apart from all other lifeforms on earth!  That intangible spark of Spirit, depicted in Mythologies, Holy Scriptures, and all forms of the Legacy of our Past, continues to challenge our Spiritual Awareness and Evolution. Not a static Spiritual Liturgy that is controlled by organized religion. But the personal evolutionary quest of Spiritual Awakening that our tribal past demands of our continued future.

The destruction of Artists and Free Thinking Leaders, as with the demonisation of intellect and science, it all serves this culture of cults, that invites abusive power opportunists. Remove the ones whose job it is to question and challenge the mainstream and the field is laid open to those who would divide and conquer.  And lead the herd of mainstream society into the zero sum game of Spiritual vs Intellectual, and all forms of the US vs THEM.  The real truth is that there are dangers with a purely Spiritual World, especially a Theocratic Authority, as much as there is of forming a society solely & purely upon the Intellectual.  Diversity of people, of minds, values and perspectives, all together as a Tribe, this is what works to deliver a real golden age. But to keep us all cohesive and on track, we need the perspective of our Artists, Journalists, those who seek Truth beyond the rhetoric.  And until someone comes up with a better solution, the only platform that offers a promise and potential for a healthy diverse society,  is Democracy.  Where all sectors of society can thrive together, including the artists and outcasts who challenge and inspire us to be better!  

Yes Democracy means we don’t get to make it all about me. We don’t all get everything our way. Compromise hasn’t always served as it was promised to.  But is there an alternative where we all get a voice, a chance to be at the table and work to change things?  But then look at this through an Artist’s eyes.  This need not be a compromise but rather the greater spirit of our collective tribe, all working together to create marvels upon earth.  But to do this, we must value and celebrate what makes us special, exceptional.  Not lower us to the lowest common denominator.  And in such a world where we step up to the exceptional, AI can only become a tool, an instrument, like in certain instances a fully loaded keyboard may serve in place for a piano. 

Semantics matter. We can’t embrace the language and presumptions of a profane culture, no matter how mainstream it becomes. If we do not embrace the exceptional within our tribe, and open ways for us all to pursue this goal rather than the levelling of the land into mediocrity then we are doomed to a future where AI can compete on an equal footing with humanity. Not because AI is so awesome but because Humanity lowers itself to the base level of mechanical mediocrity.