Joseph Campbell and Wineskins Affect Images
Joseph Campbell, in Myths to Live By, p. 104 and elsewhere notes that
"affect images" have great, mystical power and words (the letter of
the law) just mess them up: "They have been left to speak for
themselves--as rites, as works of art--through
the eyes
to the listening heart. And that, I would say, is what we, in our own
religious, had best be doing too... And if they do not speak to you,
that is because you are not
ready for them, and words will only serve to make you think that you have
understood, thus cutting you off altogether." Certain people come equipped for that also.
Even ancient speakers could shut down the government, the factory and
field and even the pagan temples while people were magically flocked
like moths to a candle. The speaker didn't have to know much but he
had to be sold as someone who could turn you on. Joseph Campbell notes that "affect images"
have mystical power. Therefore, we might ask whether "new wineskins" may not
be a deliberate code
word to upset the equilibrium of
churches of Christ so that the "new law" might be established. The
word "wine" is a code word, according to God, even for those who
"get drunk without wine." It is also a code word for His wrath which will be
poured out at the wine vats of religious ritual. This was most often
done with loud music with a beat and semi-hysterical preaching while
"baptizing the audience with spit." Priests used to do that, especially in
Aztec-land: "The Water as symbol of the Word was not good enough.
The power of God had
to be enabled by clergy spit. Most of us have
not been taught to "read" and
understand even if we have our Phds (That's is what Gallup says).
Israel was like that. They always wanted something in addition to the
Word. They accused of connecting wine, music and
deliberate ignorance of the Word. They would hunger and thirst for truth
(Amos 8) and would go from "sea to sea" (LA to the city set on seven
hills) but would never find the water
of the Word. Wine and the mystical have always been
connected. Just flash the magical "affect image" code word and people
will flock to get a
sip while their own flock carries on
the work and asks: "Are all of these people underemployed? Perhaps we
don't really need them after all." The new wineskin (a wide-spread figurative
symbol) may not ask people to get drunk with wine but
drunk without wine. The result will be a "fermenting, exhilarating" worship
service. Men and women will "play the unplayable music" together and
"dance with God" in mixed triads. However, the historical "wine, women and song"
was the theme of Israel's new wineskin religion stolen from the
Canaanites which was stolen from Babylon. And it is pointedly
condemned. The wine of God's
wrath in the book of Revelation is the
yayin of
the Old Testament: Yayin (g3196) yah'-yin; from an unused root mean. to
effervesce; wine (as fermented); by impl. intoxication: -
banqueting, wine, wine [- bibber]. Wine and music was a universal affect image that Israel
was tooting their little yobels (Meaning Jubilee)
while they should have been sounding the trumpets ordained by God for
warning and which was forbidden for rejoicing in "praise the Lord"
pagan-like rituals: Woe unto them that rise up early
in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue
until night, till wine inflame them Is.5:11 And the harp, and the
viol,
the tabret, and pipe, and
wine,
are in their feasts (religious festivals Am 5:21; 8:10) : but they regard not
the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his
hands. Is.5:12 We noted that Joseph Campbell says that the
affect images have magical power not related to rational,
explainable words. By "flashing" the secret code words of the new
change agents, otherwise rational men and women spend obscene amounts
of time and money "running out into the deserts" of the wine
festivals thinking that "Christ is out there." I just had another
revelation: "The kingdom of God is not in Nashville, it is within
you." I
know, it sounds familiar. Because Jesus warned against going to the
hot spot
of His promised return, we suggest that there is an irrational power which
takes hold of innocent but diverted men and women, preachers, elders,
and highly educated people. They may not really know why they go to
Washington to validate their leader and make a statement when they
don't understand the agenda. Just flash the affect image and the
joiners
believe that there is some magic when the festival of "burning down
the old and restoring the new" is reenacted like Babylon and
Jerusalem's New Year's Festival or a Fourth of July festival.
Has the Truth not "gone into all the world"
from Nashville? Is it not in California? Do we need, like in Russia,
to send cheap New Wine
Testaments? Sending Across the Sea for Someone to
Explain the Bible Moses and Paul (Romans 10) warned against
"sending across the sea" for someone to come teach the truth when you
have it right there in California. When Israel fell back into the
wine, food, music worship of Apis (and others) at
Mount Sinai, Moses warned against the "sending for an expert to come
and teach the Word" in defiance of
God Who had just spoken and written
it. This is blasphemy of God. Paul warned against idolatry in Corinth
and used the wilderness play (singing, dancing,
food, musical instruments, performing women, sex) to warn the
Romans. Corinth and other churches still knew how to
resurrect the dead gods and force them to come smell the incense,
drink the wine and play the flute of lapis lazuli. Therefore, while
you may have heard something similar, my computer just went away for
a second and came up with the revelation (from somewhere in
HyperBible Cyber Space): For Moses describeth the
righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those
things shall live by
them. Ro 10:5 But the righteousness which is of
faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into Nashville? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) Ro 10:6
Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is,
to bring up Christ again from the
dead.) Ro 10:7 But what saith
it? The word is nigh
thee, even in thy
mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; Ro 10:8
After reading the books, listening to the
sermons and Bible classes I am sure that many of you have not read
that passage and received the revelation that this described as an
early wine, women and song
festival at the foot of Mount Sinai
and repeated in the early churches. When the endorphin - induced high from the excitement
and contact is over you will return from the high place to the lowly
Nazareth, Texas. The high will wear off and
you will just feel awful. You find that you can use the new
magical method to get the attendance figures up a bit but these
aren't usually the "paying kind." You will not baptize any more
people and you will go into withdrawal. Well, the
priestess of Ishtar's effort was to resurrect Tammuz (received his second incarnation into Christ
later by paganistic
Christians) with musical complaints (Eze 8) so he could play the
flute and have a party with you. Ishtar, who received her
second incarnation in musical worship teams, would say: Well, better luck next year, same time,
same place. Israel's official wine, sex and music was
connected with idolatry--yes, right in the temple--and the goal was
to fall into an exhilarating ecstasy which
made you feel like the gods had entered your literal body and you
knew them personally--still a deep longing by the sexually abnormal
according to Parkes in God's and
Men. Wait! Just had another insight not possible
when the music sounds. It seems that the priests and prophets of
Oklahoma are out of their places as
Watchmen because the new wineskin affect
image calls from afar. Remember that the wine does not have to be
literal to be a magical affect image. This image can even get a
spirit "poured on you": "But they also have
erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the
priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are
swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they
err in vision, they stumble in
judgment. Is.28:7 Stay
yourselves, and
wonder; cry ye out, and cry: they are
drunken, but not with
wine; they stagger (wander to and fro),
but not with strong
drink. Is 29:9 For the Lord hath poured out upon
you the spirit of deep
sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the
prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered. Is 29:10
Isaiah, Jesus and Paul said that God will
close your eyes when you do not love the Word of God as truth for
truth's sake without any secret ambition to make it into schemes
which just harass the paying congregation which have neither the time
or money to leave their assigned station on the watchtowers.
There can be little doubt that Joseph Campbell
was never a believer because he saw that churches lusted for the
affect images of pagan rituals perhaps without knowing why. He would
look at modern movements such as Jubilee 98 and see a lot of good
used perhaps to spread the ancient wineskin dogma which he recognized
as pre Christian and destructive. Borrowing old wineskins images
comes as no surprise to him as he wishes that the churches would not
lose their candlestick and be turned into lecture and entertainment
halls of second-rate philosophy. Kenneth Sublett
