u/BOBOUDA

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1818529906064895&set=a.781522336432329

This thread can be dedicated to discussing all of this, I'd love to get some feedback and discussions. No need to read my wall of text if it's too long, feel free to share whatever you know or are curious about.

Clearly, Blood Incantation has a ton going on in the themes and messages they want to communicate. It is shown through the music, videos, artworks, stage set… I mean I don't know many bands that could end up with a song called "Awakening from the Dream of Existence to the Multidimensional Nature of Our Reality (Mirror of the Soul)".

It's very explicit also in some interviews.

This interview of Paul for example, on the story and importance the band has in their lives, and his views on a lot of these themes. I also checked out many others, often through the transcript, I added the source near the quotes.

The parts about the relationship they have with their own band are very interesting, but I won't get into that.

There's also this part from the documentary All Gates Open: In Search of Absolute Elsewhere about the making of the album, Paul goes into this long speech about connecting to the listener, interconnectedness, consciousness... etc. It's filmed in a funny way, zooming in on the faces of the other members, which makes me think they take the themes seriously but also have a good level of auto derision.

I'm missing a lot of media, for example I need to re-read the pages in the 4 CD limited edition record. I mostly focused on lyrics and interviews, but I plan to look into it a bit more.

It's just a lot going on and it's hard to get a coherent view of the totality and interlinking of all of it, at least for me.

In a previous thread about Absolute Elsewhere I tried to interpret some stuff. I was wrong often but it was fun to dig into the lyrics and video.

I don't think I'd be convinced of most of these beliefs, I'm globally a materialist (in the philosophal and scientific sense). But there's still objectively deep uncertainties like on the hard problem of consciousness, which could give rise to deep spiritual and metaphysical questions, even if you think that the content of the human mind are at bottom a result of electric impulsions in the brain, predetermined by prior causes. There's a lot of other historical uncertainties about stuff like past civilizations, alien life... etc. So I don't believe theses ideas to be "out there".

it's very intriguing and I'd like to know if someone "gets" the overall message, theme, worldview or whatever, that the band shares through music.

Here's some research I made from lyrics and interviews.

As far as I understand the core theme around their music is a metaphysical one about consciousness, akin to stuff like non-duality, but maybe richer than basic spiritual and philosophal stuff like this. It's also not just a commentary on those topics but a way to connect to the listeners, to share this knowledge with them :

>"I believe that we’re constricted into the biology of human life, and that the world soul, the oversoul, the collective consciousness—whatever you want to call it, the god-mind, this giant thing we’re all a part of—when you come into Earth, you’re like a raindrop." - Source

>"And I'm trying to frame the lyrics in a way that a person could read them and listen to the music and feel in a way that they're like "wow, I'm not only connected to this big thing, but these guys know this as well, and we are now sharing this bridge of consciousness between wherever they're listening to our record from and wherever we are on tour at the time." And it creates this huge synergy between everybody reading it, thinking about it, and then gradually elevating the collective consciousness one little iota at a time, you know." - All Gates Open - chapter 4

>"when you're at a performance, you're at a concert, you're taken somewhere else and you're living outside of that physical regular everyday life — that Oneness with you know you're in the audience and there's performer and you're in that symbiotic relationship that transcends your everyday" - Source

>"star spawn lyrics take the crypticness and expand it to a more metaphysical esoteric system — I have a lot of lyrics influenced by the Tibetan Book of the Dead or people like Alan Watts, Terence McKenna — what is consciousness — matter animated by consciousness — which came first the universe or the — all this type of stuff" - Source

>"I'm trying to get the listener to contemplate their own consciousness — wonder about who am I — what does it mean to be — what is nature — what is reality — what are psychedelics — what is civilization — what is history" - Source

>"We each have the ability to experience and to explore our own consciousness, and we should have that freedom to do so — Blood Incantation is about speaking to the person, the listener, and to ourselves, and saying: this is up to you — however far you want to take yourself is up to you" - Source

The idea of an "eternal now" is also a classic concept in non-duality and spiritual teachings from people such as Eckert Tole Or Rupert Spira (not sure if they're the best references, it often delves into a form of "self help", but that the 2 I'm a bit familiar with). It's technically impossible to make a real experience of the past or the future, as they can only be memories or projections happening in the now. Our experience apparently change over "time" but are only ever perceived at the present moment.

>"One of the most beautiful things about human life, reincarnation, the multiverse—whatever framework you prefer—is that time is only a perceived factor of material engagement. The now is the only real moment. It’s omnipresent in every direction, forever. Quantum theory, many-worlds theory, unified field theory—they’re all pointing to the same thing: the eternal now." - Source

>The quote they start their set with. Found by a user in the thread to be from a clip from the BBC Horizon episode, "It's About Time" (1979). It's interesting that it comes from this type of more sciency media. I believe the name of the album also comes from a band called Absolute Elsewhere, so that's a second context where the term is used.

Death is a classic theme in metal and the main metal genre influence they have is even named after it. I assume they believe in a form of afterlife, that would be more something like getting back to a central consciousness we're only a part of once we're done with out human time on Earth. Again, a classic idea behind non-duality and other spirituality centered on consciousness. I often reflect about death, being for example an explorer of the Parisian catacombs and having myself a deep fear of the end of life.

>"That’s why the lyrics to “Starspawn”, which we have etched into the obelisks on our stage and on shirts and stuff, say: “No death has known, only doorways." You are the Stargate. - Source

>"There is no end of the story until you physically die. And even then that's just a transition from one state of existence to another, of which we're just beginning to dabble with our understandings in clinical sciences. But in the ancient world it was always part of a continuum of consciousness across life and death and rebirth, and this cyclic reincarnation through lifetimes and planets and other timelines and all this stuff." - Source

>"Religion depends on you believing that there's nothing else after this. So either repent or don't. But the continuum of human consciousness beyond physical material life on this plane is something that has been discussed by every culture on every continent of the earth for millennia. And it's only the past couple hundred years where we're like, oh, that's nonsense" - Source

>Incarnate in time
To play the game of life and death
Human souls at war
Endlessly reborn just to die
And die again
Slave Species of the Gods lyrics

As far as aliens go, I don't think if it's that big of a subject compared to the rest. There's of course "Nathaniel" (apparently) on the album cover, there's titles such as "Slave Species of the Gods", lyrics about mysterious beings and species in some songs. There's also the movie passage from The Stargate,

>Movie audio sample from Tablet II - Reddit thread

>Someone in the thread I made about the themes of Absolute Elsewhere seemed to think that the group believed in Ancient Astronauts, "the belief that aliens came to earth and taught our ancestors how to utilize certain technologies." - Source

>"So, how much are you into the school of thought — or is it at least a point of intrigue — of the whole idea of humanity being made as a slave species?"
"Personally I'm quite persuaded. I love it as an idea, as an intrigue, but I certainly think that there's more evidence leaning in that direction than to the contrary, or as any religion on earth espouses — besides the most ancient ones, like Zoroastrianism, ancient Sumer, and even like I said the Vedas. I'm fascinated by the Shrimad Bhagavatam and these Hindu epics, with their flying machines and deities from other planets and other worlds." - Source

>It's actually not about aliens — of course it's not. It's about consciousness, it's about humans, it's about the human experience, reality, everyday life, the cosmos, and this inside microcosm to the outside objective type of thing. Everything being related, sharing of experience, sharing rapport, and the creative impulse that we're trying to archive — our interpretations of whatever this music is — shared between plants and animals and inanimate objects like rocks and stones. Everything has chi, the inner energy force, the life force, and bloody hell, music speaks to and is informed by that light force permeating all forms of existence, about the material and immaterial, regardless of whether they're recognized as biologically sentient. - Source

>Blood Incantation — delving into not just the outer space but the inner space, thinking about what are we doing here as human beings, why are things the way they are, who's in power and who's at play with all that stuff. Our message is not just about finding out about aliens out there, but it's also about our own demons within, and figuring out who we are as a species. - Source

>These beings are hiding outside of time
Tethering starseeds inside your mind
Rotten seeds grown inside astral beings from beyond
Corrupting your DNA
To make your soul obsolete
Hidden Species (Vitrification of Blood, Pt. 2)

>"BLOOD INCANTATION represents the ultimate cosmic conspiracy that is humankind — Your species / plague in particular was genetically engineered by yet another humanoid, very similar in anatomy to homo sapiens but with superior intellect, originating from a dwarf planet in our sun's binary star Sirius B — Homo sapiens sapiens is the resulting hybrid, bred for energetic / astral predation / occupation as well as physical slave labor, specifically to mine / hoard gold" - Source

The end of the Message also gives more "down to Earth" and positive vibes on human behavior, probably a knowledge that can be acquired once you understand the nature of consciousness, and once you have "opened the stargate." Unrelated but the last few minutes of the Message is maybe the best musical passage I've heard in my entire life.

>"Because the Stargate is within. You have inner consciousness. That’s why they say the only way out is in. You have to go through. You have to transmogrify your own consciousness to get outside of your own ego and embrace the cosmic—whatever is happening out there." - Source

>"Fight the tide of greed, open your heart and believe / Sow peace through deeds / Recognize one's place within the dance / Know thy beat in time and whence to step" - The Message lyrics

>"And so when you come into an environment which seems reciprocal to your energy or your your state of consciousness, that conduciveness and that resonance is what amplifies these good or bad deeds. And that's where karma gets into play where it's like if you're fixating and espousing all this really negative, hateful uh almost parasitic energy where people are like glorifying the the really of materialism and you know anti-consciousness and all this stuff. It it impacts people. they grow up and they're they're reading these things and like, "Yeah, nothing matters. Everything sucks. I'm worthless. So are you. Who cares?" - Source

>The message lyrics origin, a discord comment from Paul

Other interesting quotes from interviews

>I think that like you know there's a lot to be said to me at least for music being that Stargate, being that kind of meditation, I think of music and playing music and performing and writing it as a spiritual Endeavor - Source

>I wanted it to be like a logo like that, a name like that, lyrics and song titles like this — really intricate, spindly, needly riffs and compelling melodies but also these weird atonal parts. All this stuff combined, mixed with this sort of mystical essence which is both primeval and occult and also futuristic and sci-fi, because that's the nexus in which humanity finds itself — that humans are the blood incantation. That's what the concept is based on.
Whether it's through magic or a deity or an alien or technology, we are made manifest through some occult or sci-fi ritual, some evolutionary something or other that brings humanity from the ether into the flesh. And ideas, art, everything that exists begins first as immaterial and then it's manifested via human consciousness and the animal form — we carve reality to come up with something like a chair. - Source

>I can't really say — other bands, other aspects of media and culture try to say "it's this or that, this is what you need to hear," all this stuff. I'm just being like: what is this? I don't know, do you know? I think this is interesting. There's a book list referenced in the Hidden History booklet, and because it's the modern age we have to be like "hey, we don't subscribe to any of this stuff, we are not telling you to believe any of this stuff — we're just saying we think it's interesting." - Source

>"a silly band with a sci-fi silly metaphysical conspiracy theory lyrical company — they can say whatever they want — and he can put it out — we're not espousing anything factual or trying to say this is the way it is — we're just out there being like hey man you know you're gonna tell me that fractal humanoid dimensions isn't a cool solo title — come on just roll with it" - Source

>"It is critical to understand that, first and foremost, we are fans of the music itself and are being taken along for the same ride as anyone else while we follow wherever the music happens to take us" - Source

>“One day,” winks Paul, “you’ll get an hour-long song called Blood Incantation, from the album Blood Incantation, presented live on Broadway. We should be careful what we joke about, though. The universe is malleable. You’ve got to be careful what you wish for.” - Source - By far the most important quote, can't wait for that song, which is definitely happening c:

>"We just wish people would do a little more research, both in regards to our band as well as life in general" - Source - Well, I did my best c:

Sorry for the long-ass post, I'm mostly in it from the incredible music, and I assume that these subjects are an influence on the ambiances, riffs, everything they come up with, alongside their impressive musical culture (cf the documentary).