Why Jim?

I’ve discussed why I consider Jim Morrison to be a modern-day hero, but I was recently asked by Alder Knight, (of the immensely enjoyable Once Bitten, Twice-Born), why he seems to be singled out for special veneration within the thiasos of the Starry Bull as opposed to other Dionysian figures such as David Bowie, Kurt Cobain, and Freddie Mercury. As my response touched on some important matters I wanted to share it (slightly modified) with you guys here.

It’s all of those things, to be sure, as well as the fact that his verse is utterly saturated in Dionysian symbolism, but the real reason is simply that he was there. He was there at the start of a lot of people’s walks with Dionysos, he was there at important pivotal moments in my own and he’s been there for people who have never even heard of the god. In other words he’s one of the mighty dead who is active and capable of causing change in our world. Specifically he seems to have healing and prophetic powers and he acts as a medium, both letting Dionysos and other dead people and spirits through. What he was in life – musician, performer, shaman, mask of Dionysos – is only the tiniest part of why he’s venerated within the thiasos. (It’s also one of the reasons that I’m willing to overlook the fact that he could be a complete fucking prick.)

Now none of that is to suggest that those other great figures aren’t worthy of veneration, aren’t capable of doing the same things Jim has posthumously or weren’t Dionysian artists or even avatars in life. Bowie has been hugely inspirational for me, particularly the way he keeps reinventing himself and had such a strong interest in commedia dell’arte and Fascist aesthetics. Plus he was fucking Jareth, man, and Dionysos is the Padre dei Farraini e dei Folletti. Also, Bowie is still alive so that kind of precludes him from being considered a Dionysian hero.

Kurt Cobain is the voice of my youth and having developed a chronic invisible illness similar to the one that he suffered from and was largely responsible for his death – I probably resonate with him a little too much.

And while I would be more than happy to consider Freddie Mercury among the ranks of the Dionysian Dead, the simple fact is he belongs to Ahura Mazda. Likewise, Andy Warhol should totally be one of ours but he was a devout Catholic (of an admittedly heterodox nature) and it seems disrespectful to me to erase their religious identity considering how important it was to them. (Mercury actually went to great pains to ensure that he had a traditional Parsee funeral, which was kind of a big deal since he was an out bisexual who had just died of AIDS.) That said, even though Freddie doesn’t necessarily belong to Dionysos I’m sure he’s got a standing invite to the revels. (And that’s for all I know – hell, just because he’s never come through in ritual and was a Zorastrian in life doesn’t mean he wasn’t tight with the Big D. Herakleitos even talks about the magoi and lenai participating in joint revels – plus the Persian race is, technically, descended from Dionysos.)

Which applies to all of the rest as well. As an emergent tradition, everything is up for revision in this thiasos so if it comes up that those guys are down there partying with Dionysos and his retinue or they start doing shit on behalf of members or otherwise making their presence felt then they’ll be formally inducted into the pantheon.

Total side, but a lot of folks, particularly queer and feminist folks, have concerns about venerating Jim. A lot of that, I suspect, is the result of the book No One Here Gets Out Alive by Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman. The thing to keep in mind is that it’s not a biography – it’s straight-up hagiography and probably the single most important document for the shaping of Morrison’s posthumous cultus and his image in the wider culture. Before its release only a small subsection (mostly in the punk and goth communities) even remembered who he was – then all of a sudden he emerges as the god of rock and cock, the embodiment of the nightmarish underside of the flower power generation. The thing is, it’s total bullshit. The other guys in The Doors had failed to keep their careers going (despite being immensely talented) and so they sat down with the authors and carefully constructed the Jim we all know and love. (And sometimes hate.) They did so by ridiculously emphasizing certain traits and incidents and completely omitting others like his college flings with guys and later with a couple male groupies because they wanted to appeal to the aging fan-girls who had fantasized about Jim, and more importantly their daughters.

It worked like a charm, too.

You’ll note how they completely spin his relationship with Patricia Kenneally, the one who initiated him into a Wiccan coven – they couldn’t leave that out, but they didn’t want to risk alienating the estate of Pamela so they wrote her off as a crazy girlfriend he wasn’t that into. Though the book definitely helped shape the myth of Jim that was fully cemented with the Oliver Stone biopic based on it, which rises to operatic levels of absurdity. (Every other line of the dialogue is lifted from his lyrics and don’t get me started on all the inaccuracies and omissions which go far beyond anything in the Sugerman book. It was so bad that the band members eventually distanced themselves from the project even though Stone was just doing what they had started.) I think in some ways this gives us insight into how early Christianity developed.

Unfortunately I can’t recall where I read the stuff about his queerness (though I believe it’s in a couple of the competing bios) as I read a ton of shit about him, including a bunch of interviews and excerpts from his journals, back around 2003 and the only recent stuff I’ve read on him has been academic articles on his posthumous activities (including visitations and miraculous healings) and the spontaneous hero cultus that’s developed around him. I should really track some of that stuff down and write about it.

I will say this, though – and not with intent to change anyone’s mind, because I respect the hell out of the stances people feel called to take – Morrison’s stage persona Mr. Mojo Risin’ (which is an anagram of his name) was precisely that, an act. The man himself was deeply sensitive, and almost clinically shy. For the first couple years he couldn’t even face the audience unless he had worked himself up into a trance-state or took the shortcut of consuming massive quantities of drugs and alcohol.

I’m not saying that somehow redeems him – brilliance aside, he was often a total dick, especially to those close to him and his image alone, which fetishizes early death and tragic excess, has done a lot of damage. Do you know how many people come to Dionysos with some really fucked up notions because of that?

Having not only worked with him as a hero but carried him a time or three in ritual, I get the impression that Morrison is both annoyed by how his image has been manipulated and incredibly amused since he spent a lot of effort intentionally shaping how he was perceived and fucking with the expectations of his audience. I also think in a small way he’s working to atone for some of his mistakes posthumously which is why I am glad to be able to give him the opportunity to do so through the thiasos. Which is very much in keeping with the foundational notions of Bacchic Orphism – it’s never too late to seek deliverance:

But the most astounding of all these arguments concerns what they have to say about the gods and virtue. They say that the gods, too, assign misfortune and a bad life to many good people, and the opposite fate to their opposites. Begging priests and prophets frequent the doors of the rich and persuade them that they possess a god-given power founded on sacrifices and incantations. If the rich person or any of his ancestors has committed an injustice, they can fix it with pleasant things and feasts. Moreover, if he wishes to injure some enemy, then, at little expense, he’ll be able to harm just and unjust alike, for by means of spells and enchantments they can persuade the gods to serve them. And they present a hubbub of books by Musaeus and Orpheus, offspring as they say of Selene and the Muses, according to which they arrange their rites, convincing not only individuals but also cities that liberation and purification from injustice is possible, both during life and after death, by means of sacrifices and enjoyable games to the deceased which free us from the evils of the beyond, whereas something horrible awaits those who have not celebrated sacrifices. (Plato, Republic 2.364a–365b)