The Coming Death of Canada

 

Read it and weep. My SubStack.

Democracy Has Come

 

Leonard Cohen died November 7, 2016, the day before Donald Trump was first elected. Cohen’s son Adam says his father predicted Trump would win. Everyone thought Clinton would. Why did he think so?

Like any great poet, Cohen was a prophet. He saw deeply into the zeitgeist; he could see which way things were heading. In 1992, he put out an explicitly prophetic album, “The Future.” In in he traced two possible paths: a dark one: “I’ve seen the future, baby. It is murder”; and a hopeful one: “Democracy is coming—to the USA.” It was, clearly, a warning.

It does seem America and the world has been going down the dark path traced in “The Future”:

Give me absolute control
Over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby
That's an order
Give me crack and anal sex…

This sounds like the obsession with power relationships and self-indulgence that underlies woke culture.

Destroy another fetus now
We don't like children anyhow
I've seen the future, baby
It is murder

That hardly needs comment, does it?

On the other hand, surely Trump’s election was and is the second path, the path of light. Cohen saw that the US was, as of 1992, not truly democratic. That new truer democracy is the “populism” Trump and Elon Musk’s X represents.

It's coming from the silence
On the dock of the bay
From the brave, the bold, the battered
Heart of Chevrolet

This predicts a return from multicultural idolatries to traditional American culture. Make America great again!

It's coming from the sorrow in the street
The holy places where the races meet
From the homicidal bitchin'
That goes down in every kitchen
To determine who will serve and who will eat.

The holy places—sounds like a predicted religious revival. The more so since he also says it comes “From the staggering account/In the Sermon on the Mount.” In “The Future,” he laments, “Give me Christ or give me Hiroshima!” 

And this stanza also sounds like a rejection of feminism and sexual politics, the great example of the woke power dynamics.

He also says true democracy is coming from “the ashes of the gay.” This might mean gay martyrdom. Or it might mean gay politics become a spent force.

Democracy is, Cohen says, coming to America first partly because of America’s cultural dominance, partly because the US system is flexible. It has “the machinery for change.” And partly because “It’s here the family’s broken.” This sounds like a need to return to “family values.”

I wonder if Cohen died in peace, seeing clearly that the US and the world was going to choose the better path after all.

Tell All the Truth

 

“I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kin,
and will put my words into his mouth;
he shall tell them all that I command him.
Whoever will not listen to my words which he speaks in my name,
I myself will make him answer for it.
But if a prophet presumes to speak in my name
an oracle that I have not commanded him to speak,
or speaks in the name of other gods, he shall die.” 

Deuteronomy 18:17-20

Deuteronomy 18: 15-20 was the first reading at today’s mass. It is God’s promise to always send prophets to guide his people.

We should assume prophecy continues in our time. God would not abandon us. Nor do we have God’s wishes all down by law. There must be prophets among us now.

The task of a prophet is to express God’s concerns regarding current human actions. Prophets warn and admonish. They do not tell the future. This is necessarily so, since there is free will. The entire point is to allow us to repent.

Where are the modern prophets, then?

These are our writers and artists. If we no longer have the job and title of prophet among us, the ancient Israelites did not have an artist class. What we call “art” is simply the melding of craft, craftsmanship, with inspiration.

Prophets speak by inspiration; artists speak by inspiration. It is the same: inspiration speaks.

Why do modern prophets, unlike Moses, speak indirectly? For the same reason Jesus spoke in parables. The mighty will persecute a prophet. Ask Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor. They were presecuted in the Old Testament. Those of swinish disposition will trample their insights underfoot. It is wise to half-conceal the point, so that “those who have ears to hear, will hear.”

So, as Emily Dickenson said, “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant.” 

This too is the tradition of the court jester.

However, this is not to say that all art is from God. We see that some current offerings seem positively Satanic. There are more ambient spirits than one. Inspiration can come from God. It can also come from demons.

But if it does, Moses warns, the prophet will be truck dead.

Should a prophet speak for demons, God has an urgent need to silence him. He raises prophets to guide his people; a false prophet does the opposite with equal force. He must be silenced as the Canaanites had to be extirpated, the cities of the plain immolated: they misled souls into Hell.

The 27 Club is a celebrated list of pop musicians who died at the age of 27. An odd coincidence, if it is coincidence. The first member of the Club was actually Robert Johnson. Robert Johnson reputedly went in a short time from being an adequate to an uncannily good guitarist, because one day he met the Devil at a crossroads and sold his soul.

He died gruesomely within two years of that encounter.

Jim Morrison is another member of the club. His family never knew him to be musical or able to sing, and were amazed when he became a pop star. He actually claimed to be possessed by some ambient spirit that entered him at the scene of a traffic accident in the desert.

Other members of the club: Brian Jones, who reputedly was into Satanism; Amy Winehouse; Kurt Cobain; Jimi Hendrix; Janis Joplin.

This can explain why artists have a reputation for dying young; some are wrestling with devils. If the Devil doesn’t kill them, to take their soul, God must.

It’s a risky business, channelling spirit voices.

Those artists who defy the Romantic stereotype and live to a ripe age seem to turn to religion. I think, for example, of the Byrds. Of the original five, two survive: Roger (Jim) McGuinn and Chris Hillman. Both are openly Christian, unlike their bandmates; and have been spreading subtly Christian messages since “Turn1 Turn! Turn!” Of the Beatles, the public atheist, John Lennon, was the first to go, in an unnatural way. There are rumours he sold his soul to the Devil, like Robert Johnson, to become a rock star. Two survive, and they are the two Christians. Ringo Starr is open about it; Paul McCartney as been spreading Christian messages in his lyrics at least since “Let It Be” and “Long and Winding Road.”

For ordinary people, the contrary principle that “the good die young” logically applies. God wants to give the merely wicked a long leash in this life to have the opportunity to repent. The good deserve their reward. 

But the math reverses in the case of prophecy. The longer a true prophet lives, the more souls he can save. The longer a false prophet lives, the more he condemns.

What about George Orwell? Despite his political interests, he seem to have been on the side of the angels. Yet he died young.

But he had already said everything good he had to say. 1984 simply repeats the same lesson as Animal Farm. His spirituality was tenuous; he might have had no more in him. 

What about Keith Richards? If he is a prophet, is he really on the side of God? I mean—the Rolling Stones? Yet they seem to just keep on going.

First, Richards writes the music for the Stones, not the lyrics. If there is a satanic message in the lyrics, that’s down to Mick Jagger. Silencing Richards would not silence Jagger, but silencing Jagger would be sufficient without silencing Richards. Richards may be a bad man personally; but he is being given all the time he needs to repent.

But there is no satanic message in the Stones lyrics. Despite the hype, if you listen to them, Jagger’s lyrics are never advocating immorality, and are sometimes obviously Christian.

It just doesn’t pay to say it straight. Success in circuit lies.

And the Spirit of the Lord Moves over the Waters

 

Javier Milei’s speech to the WEF makes me suspect something uncanny is happening. Why is it that we abruptly have such powerful rhetoricians emerging on the right? Aside from Milei, Meloni in Italy is, as far as I can judge in translation, a powerful and witty speaker. Trump is masterful, able to entertain a crowd extempore for hours. Ramaswamy has also now emerged as a great communicator. Poilievre in Canada is brilliant. The UK’s Farage is delightful. One might add RFK Jr. to this list.

Some of course worry that this is the rise of personality cults, the opening for dictatorships. “Trump will be a dictator.” But there are critical differences between these folks and a Hitler or a Mussolini. 

First, the fascist dictators, and demagogues generally, played to anger, worked their audiences up emotionally in sprays of spittle. These new Demosthenes’s of the right are strikingly calm, cool under fire, speaking, for example, while munching an apple, and rely on humour.

Second, William Shirer observed that Hitler’s speech was always tailored to his audience. He read the crowd and told them whatever they wanted to hear. Famously, he told Chamberlain whatever he wanted to hear. Milei just did the opposite: he chose the most hostile crowd for his speech. Ramaswamy, Farage, Trump, Meloni, are famous for doing the same thing. Farage rose to fame by haranguing the European Parliament on how awful they were. Poilievre, Trump, or Ramaswamy are celebrated for how they handle hostile questioners.

Third, the whole point of fascism was to concentrate power in the government and the leader. The actual programme these modern rhetoricians are calling for is the exact opposite, cutting the size and powers of the government. This is what Trump actually did, and Milei is actually doing, when in government.

Fascism or totalitarianism is not coming from this corner.

One might protest that we have also seen good communicators on the left, and recently. Obama is given credit for great oratorical ability. Bill Clinton was always convincing; he could charm himself out of any scandal. Justin Trudeau is credited with being a good campaigner. 

But there is a difference. Obama was tied to the teleprompter: he was simply good at reading a speech and giving it cadence; the tones of an evangelical preacher, actually. This is acting ability, not rhetorical ability. Trudeau, or Clinton, are also primarily actors, able to give an impression of the desired emotion, rather than rhetoricians. Strikingly, Trump, Poilievre, Ramaswamy, are instead at their best in speaking off the cuff, handling hecklers or hostile journalists. They write their own best lines, and are not rehearsed.

If I may point it out, the skills and approaches of a Clinton or a Trudeau are closer to demagoguery. Clinton echoes to his audience or questioner what they want to hear; Trudeau commonly resorts to feigned anger, whipping up the crowd against his opponents.

This is a general truth of the modern right versus the modern left: the left lacks humour and spontaneity. “The left can’t meme.” “NPCs.” The right seems to have a corner on both.

With perhaps the current exception of RFK Jr., who is still theoretically on the left. Although moving right, as so many are recently. Like Tulsi Gabbard, Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, and so many others, he seems to be getting “red-pilled” in real time.

This seems to me to be the working of the spirit: the spirit of prophecy. Just as in the Hebrew Bible, when governments or cities grew corrupt, a prophet would arise. God does not abandon his people. And we are still his people. He is not done with the US or the “West.”

The arts have grown moribund since the 1960s—since JFK or MLK or Diefenbaker spoke with the spirit of prophecy. Inspiration has abandoned us, as our societies have grown corrupt.

Now we see prophets arising. First in the desert; but now loudly in the public square. 

Interestingly, perhaps unexpectedly, they seem to be arising in the political realm sooner and stronger than in the arts. It upends Breitbart’s famous formula: “politics is downstream from culture.” But perhaps that was always wrong. Everything starts in God, then in religion and philosophy, and spreads next either to the culture or to politics, depending on the current circumstances. When government and politics become too intrusive, they strangle culture. That stranglehold must first be broken in the political arena in order to allow artistic voices to speak.

The Mantle of Prophecy

 

The mass readings this Sunday were full of advice for prophets. 

Who is a prophet? We are all supposed to be. 

Numbers 11: 29. “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all Yahweh’s people were prophets, that Yahweh would put his Spirit on them!”

We ought to attend.

No, this does not mean we can reliably predict the future. William Blake had it right: 

Prophets in the modern sense of the word have never existed. Jonah was no prophet in the modern sense, for his prophecy of Nineveh failed. Every honest man is a Prophet. He utters his opinion both of private & public matters “/Thus/If you go on So/the result is So/” He never says such a thing shall happen If you do what you will.”

If anyone sincerely seeks and speaks the truth, he is a prophet. These are God’s people. Most people do not do this. Winston Churchill said, “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.”

George Orwell was a prophet in simply this sense: his talent, by his own estimation, was simply in being able to face the truth without flinching. The same might be said of Churchill. Or truly good artists generally.

On to this Sunday’s lesson:

Ezekiel 2: 2-5

“As the LORD spoke to me, the spirit entered into me and set me on my feet, and I heard the one who was speaking say to me: Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites, rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have revolted against me to this very day.

Hard of face and obstinate of heart are they to whom I am sending you. But you shall say to them: Thus says the LORD GOD!

And whether they heed or resist for they are a rebellious house they shall know that a prophet has been among them.”

2 Corinthians 12: 7-10:

“Brothers and sisters: That I, Paul, might not become too elated, because of the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated.

Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me.

Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Mark 6: 1-6:

Jesus departed from there and came to his native place, accompanied by his disciples.

When the sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him? What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands!

Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honour except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.”

So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them.

Let’s try to extract the lessons. If you are a prophet, a truly honest man:

1. Nobody will listen to you. They will not follow your advice.

2. You will endure “weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints.”

3. You will be scorned by your own family, and by those with whom you grew up.

The Madness of Crowds

Isaiah

Given that people in groups are prone to madness, how can we prevent this and stay sane? It becomes an urgent issue. Perhaps the most important issue for any culture or civilization.

Freedom of speech. If someone sees the delusion, he or she must be free to announce it to others.

Ancient Israel had the tradition of prophecy. The system was not perfect, but the office of prophet was recognized: the individual could speak truth in against the social authority. And a Hebrew prophet was not without honour.

It is troubling therefore that we no longer recognize prophets.

Ancient Greece had a more accidental system. It had professional philosophers. Broken into city states, it was easy for a thoughtful individual who alienated the consensus in one city to escape to the next for asylum. Socrates was famously put to death for dissent—but in Plato’s account, he did have the option of instead slipping off to Thebes.

I suspect it was these two systems allowing perceptive and sane individuals to openly call out the mass delusions and popular sins that gave Judea and Greece, tiny nations, their overwhelming cultural and intellectual dominance over the ancient world; a dominance that persists into the present.

More recently, the British and American legal traditions of freedom of speech, imperfect as they are, are surely what has led to the modern global cultural and intellectual dominance of the Anglosphere.

Perhaps, it is true, a chicken is here in hot pursuit of a hypothetical egg. An honest group will naturally be more open to freedom of speech. A polity that is aware it has something to hide will naturally suppress it.

Either way, it is obviously ominous that free speech is now under attack. To believe in free speech is now automatically “racist.” It is not just the formal legal assault of “hate laws,” but “political correctness” and the social shunning of those whose opinions differ. Amplified and abetted by the cult of psychiatry, which essentially holds, in Orwell’s words, that “lunacy is a minority of one”—whatever the majority believes is necessarily true, and anyone who thinks otherwise necessarily mad. If some bearded, hair-shirted senior declares today in the street that we all risk divine retribution for our wrongs and errors, we do not respect him as prophet. We silence him as insane. Psychiatry is a tremendously effective tool for the matrix.

Democracy Is Coming

A few days go, I looked at Leonard Cohen’s prediction of civilizational disaster, “The Future.”

I should say that I don’t share his pessimism.

Perhaps he doesn’t either. He includes as second, more hopeful vision, “Democracy,” on that album. But he says he considers this happy future less likely.

It's coming through a hole in the air,
from those nights in Tiananmen Square.
It's coming from the feel
that this ain't exactly real,
or it's real, but it ain't exactly there.
From the wars against disorder,
from the sirens night and day,
from the fires of the homeless,
from the ashes of decay:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.


It's coming through a crack in the wall;
on a visionary flood of alcohol;
from the staggering account
of the Sermon on the Mount
which I don't pretend to understand at all.
It's coming from the silence
on the dock of the bay,
from the brave, the bold, the battered
heart of Chevrolet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming from the sorrow in the street,
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin'
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat.
From the wells of disappointment
where the women kneel to pray
for the grace of God in the desert here
and the desert far away:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.

It's coming to America first,
the cradle of the best and of the worst.
It's here they got the range
and the machinery for change
and it's here they got the spiritual thirst.
It's here the family's broken
and it's here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming from the women and the men.
O baby, we'll be making love again.
We'll be going down so deep
the river's going to weep,
and the mountain's going to shout Amen!
It's coming like the tidal flood
beneath the lunar sway,
imperial, mysterious,
in amorous array:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can't take the scene.
And I'm neither left or right
I'm just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags
that time cannot decay,
I'm junk but I'm still holding up
this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

The most striking claim here, of course, is that America is not a democracy; no country is, yet. This may be a prediction of Trump, an uprising by the grassroots.

Again, when Cohen refers to the Sermon on the Mount, and to “the brave, the bold, the battered heart of Chevrolet,” he seems to be referring to the “deplorable” Trump crowd. “Heart of Chevrolet” seems to juxtapose the phrase “heartland” with an image of the common man. The Sermon on the Mount spoke of the “little people,” the salt of the earth, and predicted that they would inherit: the poor, those who mourn, the despised. These Cohen would seem to identify with the traditional Chevrolet owner, the American common man, the working class guys who voted for Trump.

The left, of course, would disagree. While they too speak of the poor, they usually mean the folks on welfare, not the working poor. But this is a category that did not exist in Jesus’s time. Kathy Shaidle likes to say that the modern poor in this sense “are the rich Jesus warned you about.” In a sense, they are privileged. They get stuff free and do not have to work. And they have bought into the system, or been bought into it.

Where does Cohen say democracy is coming from?

Here, from the Sermon on the Mount. That is apparently his vision of true democracy. The poor shall inherit the Earth.

But this also implies, from the spiritual realm, and from religion.

It's coming through a hole in the air

It's coming from the feel
that this ain't exactly real,
or it's real, but it ain't exactly there.

It's coming through a crack in the wall;
on a visionary flood of alcohol;

It's coming from the silence
on the dock of the bay,

Does that pinpoint it?

What might it mean to come from a hole in the air? Surely, this means it comes from the immaterial realm. A place that we, as materialists, think “ain’t exactly real,” and which, having no location in space, “ain’t there.” The image of a “crack in the wall” also seems apt for the material world: a physical wall beyond which is eternity. It comes from vision, from the mental or spiritual realm.

More specifically: what is the silence on the dock of the bay? “Dock of the Bay” is a famous song by Otis Redding released after his death. To put that another way, it comes from heaven.

It's coming from the sorrow in the street,
the holy places where the races meet;

What are the holy places where the races meet? Church is the obvious place. For most of us, it is, definitively, the holy place.

One might argue, “But Cohen is a Jew. Why would he be referring to churches as the holy place? And, most definitely, the races do not meet in a synagogue; Judaism, is a race-based religion.”

Just so—so he cannot be referring to a synagogue. But the traditional term for non-Jews among Jews is “the nations”—gentiles. The term could equally be translated into English as “the races.” So Cohen may, as a Jew, be referring to Christian churches—“the holy places where the non-Jews meet.” And remember, he did just say democracy was coming from Jesus’s teachings.

Many think that religion is a partisan thing. But it is not, to the religious. Cohen is Jewish. He feels obliged to be; he has a special covenant, as a Jew, with God, and as a Cohen, he bears an even greater responsibility. He is a hereditary priest.

But this is not incompatible with Christianity. Christianity too holds that the covenant with Moses is still in effect, for Jews. And the Jews are called upon to be a leaven to the nations.

That is what Christianity is, Judaism offered to the nations. As a priest of Yahweh, Cohen has responsibility to support and encourage it; it is his prime responsibility. The nations are not expected to convert to Judaism proper, because Judaism proper has to do with a specific ancestry. So a non-Jew becomes a good Jew by becoming a good Christian.

For my part, I believe in something like the pendulum theory: when something has gone too far, it begins to swing back in the other direction. The way I think it works here is this: once something is pursued to the point of absurdity, people gradually begin to see this. At first, they are afraid to say anything, thinking everyone else agrees with the dominant “narrative,” and it is just them. Until a critical moment is reached, when someone says the truth everyone is thinking. And then they all turn, and everything collapses suddenly.

We saw something like this dynamic, I think, in the fall of the Eastern Bloc. We see something of this dynamic in the rise of Trump, who refused to measure his words for political correctness.

In a similar way, when a person or a society is guilty of some definite evil, for a long time they will go to crazy lengths to deny it, but their conscience eats away at them until they do something almost suicidal to force their exposure. You often see this with serial killers, who tend to keep getting more and more reckless until they are caught, as if they ultimately want to be caught. Like Jack the Ripper or Son of Sam writing their taunting notes to the police.

I feel we are near this point with the political correctness crowd. The election of Trump may have been the turning point, and their reaction to the election of Trump underlines the fact that they are up there somewhere without a parachute.

Examples of terminal overreach by the left:

• The insistence on allowing men to use women’s public bathrooms. Great way to alienate your largest body of supporters, feminist women.
• The insistence that gender is a free choice—but sexual orientation is not.
• The insistence that there are an indefinite number of possible genders; which all must be accommodated in common speech. That’s a good way to convince people that its all just too much trouble, and, what the heck, screw you.
• The embrace of radical Islam, together with an embrace of feminism and gay rights, incompatible and mutually hostile interests. Somebody is going to wake up to this.
• Open opposition to the police—Black Lives Matter. Idiotic move, if you take to the streets and expect that approach to succeed.
• Refusal to accept or appear to try to be working with the newly-elected president—taking to the streets right after a democratic election. This almost forces anyone who cares about peace and good order, or the US, to fight them.
• Insistence that gay marriage not only be legal, but recognized as a human right, and anyone who disagrees be charged with discrimination. This gratuitously takes on all religion and anyone who believes in traditional freedoms; for no apparent benefit to any interest group. It seems like a paranoid move, a suspicion that they are all against you, and you must hit them first. It implies a consciousness of guilt.
• Trying to shut down any disagreement, with “hate laws,” speech codes, “microaggressions” and “safe spaces.” This is like an admission that you know you are in the wrong, and your position is rationally indefensible.

I am usually too optimistic about these things, but I expect it all to collapse soon, and suddenly.

Clint Eastwood as Prophet

Elijah ascends to heaven in his chariot of fire.

Several commentators are amazed at the prescience of Clint Eastwood. He imagined Obama as an empty chair in his speech at the Democratic convention, and that is just how Obama came across to many at the first Presidential debate. Suddenly there are all kinds of cartoons, including a New Yorker cover, showing Obama as an empty chair behind the debate lectern. It rings true. Then Eastwood, in the same speech, described Joe Biden as “a grin with a body behind it,” and now everyone is commenting on Biden's constant smirking in the VP debate. It rings true.

So what is going on? Is Eastwood clairvoyant?

Yes and no. Eastwood is an artist. Artists have a special, and an especially close, relationship with the imagination.

And the contents of the imagination are not random or meaningless. The imagination is a window on the spirit world.

I'm not the first to say this. It's not just my idea. Thomas Aquinas said it, and it is taken as a given in most cultures. Welcome to the real world: the spirit world.

The character type who becomes an artist in our modern Western culture is the same character type who would have been a shaman in an earlier culture, or, in ancient Judea, a prophet. He can see things hidden to the visible world.

You want another example of artistic prophecy? Did you know that Jack Kerouac's On the Road, written in 1949, at one point imagines its antihero, Dean Moriarty, driving relentlessly toward New York City, as an "Arab" intent on blowing up its towers?

Not all artists speak with the voice of God. There are false prophets. That does not mean they cannot prophecy. We know there are many spirits, good and bad. Jim Morrison, for example, believed he was possessed by the ghost of an Indian killed in a traffic accident. Phil Ochs believed he was possessed by a person named John Train. Bob Dylan, I recently read somewhere, believed he was possessed throughout the Sixties by a spirit who coincidentally had the same name as he did, Robert Zimmerman. No kidding. You may not believe it, but the artists themselves did.

These spirits in any given case might be benevolent, or they might be mischievous, or they might be malicious. It seems as though the spirits who possess rock stars are generally on the shady side. But all artists have a “genius.” That is a spirit guide—same root as “genie.” The greatest artists, surely, have God as their guide. These are the true prophets.

Not sure about Eastwood. Could be.