The Danger in Mind Control Icon
Lady Gaga’s Misplaced Pain

“But if you take a deeper look into her music, videos and live performances, you’ll find that they are replete with sinister symbols — of mind control, the occult, secret societies, Baphomet (emblem of the Church of Satan), ritualistic (blood) sacrifice, police states, transhumanism, and of course, sexual violence.”

Okay you must be joking me…I mean really, you’re equating the expression of a lifelong experience of abuse, social dislocation and disenfranchisement with “mind control, the occult, secret societies, Baphomet, ritualistic sacrifice, police states, transhumanism and sexual violence”? Of all of those the only one even remotely related is sexual violence. What more none of the listed things actually have any relevance to each other and often are contradictory. Her quoted lyrics have nothing to do with mind control, you’ve misinterpreted them. While I’m not a Lady Gaga fan, as a writer I must protest the idiocy of your claim.

Let’s actually examine this shall we?
“Stop callin’, stop callin’,
I don’t wanna think anymore!
I left my head and my heart on the dance floor.
Stop callin’, stop callin,
I don’t wanna talk anymore!
I left my head and my heart on the dance floor.”

In this particular segment is one: taken out of the context of the song, two: has nothing to do with mind control at all. The context of the song is about a relationship which has gone sour (hardly Transhumanism) (You should read the entire song before commenting Lady Gaga Lyrics – Telephone (feat. Beyonce)) The Lyrics themselves don’t say much other than she doesn’t want to talk to someone (literally) and she’s too busy on a dance floor listening to a song and not paying attention to her phone.

“But success doesn’t equal a healed past. In fact, open wounds can fuel an insatiable quest for more and more external validation — which masks (and compounds) the original problem.”

Isn’t that interesting, we talk about accusations but without any actual proof. You say that her troubled past, as exemplified on HBO means she’s trying heal that past by questing for external validation. Hello, it is that very past, the way the EXTERNAL validaters hurt her that created the problem in the first place.

Social pressure and expectations as you said “American normal” versus self fulfillment without the need of external validation, which is it? Does she need an external force to validate her self-esteem or doesn’t she? Again you’ve jumped to conclusions without supporting facts and made a wild claim that isn’t true.

As for Baphomet, you don’t know the history of the goat figure, because if you did you’d not have actually brought it up as it’s a NON-ARGUMENT. While iconography is a big part of any pop-star, and sexualization is a must for any professional artist in the field today (both men and women), the imagery is in precise with Gaga. In fact arguably except for some specific scenes many of her imagery is noir rather than sexual, and definitely so. She, through her lyrics and works use her strange proclivity and style to comment on the over sexualization and more importantly anti-individualism that exists. And while this might actually fit with some Modern Satanistic ideology (which ironically has nothing to do with Satan at All) it doesn’t fit into occultism nor the secret societies, sacrifices, nor Transhumanism you’ve speculated above.

(On Baphomet: Baphomet is a bastardization of the word Mohamed, stemming from the Dark Ages. The “goat goddess” of fertility predates Christianity by a few hundred years and wasn’t equated or even overlaid onto the pentacle or pentagram until after the council of Nicia. Frankly the modern iconography of the goat, Baphomet, and the Pentacle as it is to do is a Christian perversion in an attempt to discredit and demonize non-Christian faiths. Its ironic actually, because the Christian faith which demonized so many other religions used to use the Pentagram or Pentacle as a ward against evil spirits. A carry over from the earlier religions that predated it. As for the symbology, there is nothing wrong with it. In fact, again it comes down to her own sexual understanding and being. Horn graphs on the other hand (which she doesn’t have~ as you said they’re prosthetic~ aren’t related at all to any of this. Horn graphs are to the people who have them as earrings are to those who wear earrings or other piercings.)

As for “mind control techniques”, its bull. While we are socially conditioned to have certain expectations “The American Normal” again, none of the advertisers and consumerist users are actually instilling, they’re just taking advantage of it. What more social conventions change, and so have the advertisers. Go back to the 1950s and the image of beauty was far different than it is today, go back to the 1980s, the 1990s, and even at half decade marks and you’ll see remarkable differences between the socially accepted images and trends. These trends are followed by and used by marketing firms to sell goods. They follow celebrity and social icons. it has nothing to do with mind control, but social conditioning. It would be catastrophic to equate the two. And again, when it comes to Occult Iconography, its everywhere, in your churches, in your schools, in the very Alphabet you’re reading right now. To claim that the occult is being used to mind control people, and one has to become “occult-symbol-literate” is absurd.

For example: Halloween is marked by thousands of occult symbols, from spiders to the pentagram, to upside down crosses, vampires, monsters, etc. All the way down to angelic scripts, pagan rituals (of all various forms), and so on. 90% of it is fake, most of it is from the Victorian age and into the 20th century and has Nothing to do with actual religious ideology or iconography. Hell the upside down cross was a symbol of Christianity until Alister Crowley decided to make it a symbol of Satan. Satanism as it is known today is an invention of the 1960s, with some pre-60′s (that is; 1940-50s) sparks.

Finally, her “misplaced pain” as you call it and sadly don’t get only shows your lacking knowledge or ability to break down anything with a fair eye.

““I’m trying to give people things that they don’t need, but will eventually become the reality of the future. I like to tell lies that become true.””

She’s saying that she wants to get past current conventions and set the path for the future of her industry. In other words, as an entertainer, she is giving her audience her performance, not the performance of other entertainers that fit into the vibe of the present day. Comparable would be the Beatles in the 50s. They lead the way into the heavy rock and stoker rock period, while others were still playing in the big band. People wanted the Big Band, because that was the socially Expected convention of what music was. The Beatles changed that, and Gaga~ via her quote ~ believes she’s doing the same. The big about lies is ever more useful in this, she tells her fans “I’m a pop star for you now” but then she breaks the convention of being the pop star, thus lying to her fans, but then by leading the industry more singers are becoming innately stranger and thus the social convention changes and the lie no longer is one.

As for teens being “mind controlled” again, balderdash. Teens are the one social group Less likely to be brain washed through media than any other. They’re rebellious, they don’t want to fit into conventions. Not to mention that almost all scientific evidence that exists quite plainly states a single person, let alone a group of people, can’t be “mind controlled” through media input. There are too many other conditioning factors that take precedence over the input from media sources. That’s why subliminal messaging never worked and that’s why your claim is so bunk its not funny.

Meanwhile my other main points against your article is that you reference some things that you don’t otherwise address in the article. Where is your claim to “secret societies”, “Blood Sacrifice”, and “Sexual Violence” ever later referenced? How could you actually MISS the single comparison that you got Right (Sexual Violence) in the whole of your article?

Please don’t write anymore until you learn how to research properly, and more importantly, until you learn how to make a comprehensive and LOGICAL argument that isn’t based on Fallacies.

Krist

Point 1 of your rebuttal: You should be careful, when an article is presented in any form, there is an expectation of the writer to explicitly define what is fact and what is opinion. To assume that your writing is “safe to assume that everything I write here is subjective opinion, and I assume the same of your claims (including music criticism/social commentary)…” is incorrect. You present an argument as though it is based on fact and present no attempt even to say “in my opinion”. Therefore, as a reader, i presume you have some facts to back up your claims and will present them, which you failed to do. Proof is necessary to substantiate your claim, otherwise your commentary is nothing more than peanut gallery fodder.

Point 2: “I think you’ve missed my point — switching the set of external validaters doesn’t solve the problem of unhealthily relying on external validaters.”

I haven’t missed the point, I was explaining the presumptive nature of your claim, which you’ve again presented in slightly different and more direct terms. If we presume a person has validation from multiple sources some internal and some external, and the external validation is lopped off or corrupted then we have an unhealthy imbalance which would cause introversion. Thus the use of external validation in her case is an attempt (based on the logic of your argument at least, not as factually related to Gaga herself) to balance that relationship.

In fact, I don’t think you understand the full complexity of the ID Ego Super Ego concept to define what is and is not healthy reliance on external validation. If you did you’d have noticed the flaw in your original argument and the overwhelming underestimation of the complexity of the relationship a person has with their support network. What more, principally speaking, if she doesn’t have a personal external support system which validates her accomplishments and all she does is internalize those accomplishments, then she has no reason to express her self in the first place. Which means that she’d remain the “loser” if you will that no one likes. Self confidence is an extremely difficult thing to pin down and her emotions as an entertain go into her music. Her medium of expression is her music (as has been for countless other musicians) thus it is a vehicle to connect her self to others. Thus the claim that her emotions are misplaced (“Misplaced Pain”) is again not supported.

Point 3: You implied that Gaga is mind controlling teens, and you also made the direct reference of “Like many other major female pop stars, Gaga is a sexualized conduit for occult symbolism. How is that authentic?”

What more my point is that occultism isn’t Bad or Wrong, or at least with in the same sense and connotation that it’s not wrong or bad that Christian parent’s teach their kids about the Bible. The iconography of the “occult” is everywhere because it was founded on things found in normal society. There is no difference between the “sexualized”" pop stars and the sexualization of teens in high school, super models on billboards, and the otherwise general communal norms of attraction. You’ve equated (alongside many other critics of the sexuality in our culture) something you perceive to be evil or wrong (by the tone of your article) to an otherwise long standing social convention applied to both sexes for hundreds if not thousands of years. A social convention no less found in hundreds of other social species (primates, insects, birds, etc).

Point 3.5: “…and that the masses aren’t aware of mind control programs like MK-ULTRA. It’s up to each reader to form their own opinion on the juxtaposition of those two statements, just as you’ve done.”

The masses are aware of “mind control programs” and have rejected them as fallacy. Why, because such programs don’t work and fail every time. There is also a strong difference between representing your case through factual sources by quoting and explaining to at least a minor degree by what you mean by mind control and what those sources tell you, and what you’ve done which is, to put it as you have, referred to a source. The few quotes you have, although linked to a source, the source is incredible (meaning not credible in this case) which is written by an unknown author (labeled VC for the site’s name) and the author fails to source his information.

Since VigilantCitizen.com isn’t a credible source the quotes made are negligible at best if not down right worthless. While I’m loathe to use wikipedia they at least source their information and provide actual bibliographies for their articles and arguments. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKULTRA

Its noteworthy that conspiracy theorists have used MKULTRA to brand any number of things as “mind control” in the past and to the present day. None of which is supported by evidence or proof.

Point 4: Good going on taking your OWN WORDS out of context: “Because ultimately, those who still feel like loser kids will become mind controlled, if not highly influenced, by Lady Gaga herself. And all that sinister symbolism and direct messaging that come with the package.”

As i said, “teens being “mind controlled” again, balderdash.” Lady Gaga, as a pop star and social icon will have no more influence on a teen than any other social icon pop star. And, because we’re in an information age, that is to say, pop stars are run of the mill come and go icons for this era and there are hundreds of them competing for the same audience, Lady Gaga’s potential level of influence is limited. Compare this to the 1960s or 70s when pop stars were rarer and more influential due to the lacking means of communication, comparatively teens are more likely to be influenced by a website pop up that says “do you want to make your penis bigger” than Lady Gaga’s music.

In short your claim is dashed purely by the fact that there are hundreds of pop stars all of whom have the dumpy everyone hates me song and we do not see rash cultism following any of them (save for a few like Ozzy Osborne, Marilyn Manson, or Led Zepplin).

Point 5: “If you’ll notice, I linked to Vigilant Citizen heavily, who’s already made those claims in his articles on Lady Gaga. My point for writing this article is not to repeat what he’s done, but to contextualize my opinion on Gaga’s quote from the HBO clip.” If your purpose was to contextualize your opinion on Gaga’s HBO quotes then you should have said that out right instead of leading the article with otherwise unsupportable claims, and claims you otherwise barely, if at all, come back to. What more, if you wanted to lead with those things, you should have said VC said x, here’s my take on it. Again you failed at this.

Final point: “I’m sure you know that I will happily keep writing about topics that matter to me, whether or not they cater to your criteria for logic. As such, feel free to (respectfully) criticize away.”

My prior statement still stands, its great you’ll write on topics that matter to you, but there is a social standard of logic (not my criteria in anyway, if it were my criteria I’d have just laughed at your statements out right rather than sit down and take them apart to point out the flaws in your argument. Which is a courtesy I give all writers) that you’re to subscribe to if, that is, your goal is to be accepted as a writer and more importantly as a credible one. If in fact you’re happy to continue using false arguments, slander, defamation of character, and incredible sources to write, go for it. But I can guarantee you won’t be taken seriously in any light what so ever. Only those too stupid to not see the rigmarole of your writing will take anything you say as informative.

Sincerest regards, Krist.

Kristoffer Martin is not arguing fair. He is using abusive language, an arrogant tone, and trying to control opinions through force and over-writing. I believe he is feeding off other people’s energy much like a narcissist or a parasite. I really think he ought to be ignored due to his abusive tone alone.

That being said, I believe that Lady Gaga is incredibly gifted. Her vocal ability is on par with some of the greatest female voices of all time. When a producer hears a voice (and an attitude, and a look, and a message, etc) the producer sees dollar signs.

Where does the money come from? Who is it that invests in talented young people? Where does the marketing budget come from? Who pays for the clothes, the cars, the jewelry, the music videos, the travel, and all the expenses that go along with it all?

A young woman with a strong voice is a rarity, and we all know through Economics Class that what’s rare is valuable. Word gets out that Gaga is the next Madonna, and investors get worked into a frenzy. But ultimately, the highest bidder will always win. The highest bidder in her case was Vivendi/Universal.

I think it’s more important to focus on who Vivendi/Universal is as a corporation in order to understand the why and the how of Lady Gaga’s symbols and appearance. Because if all we’re doing is focusing on Gaga, then we’re doing exactly what the corporate media wants us to do: focus on the insignificant, the superficial, the glamor… while the corporations rape and pillage off camera.