Black Mountain- Update

I didn't pick up on this immediately, but the Black Mountain dream dovetails perfectly with our discussions from last week, and poses several new questions of its own. I had forgotten, when I saw this, that the climax to Strieber's novel Black Magic- click here- is set in the Black Hills of South Dakota. This, due to the proximity of Ellsworth AFB, is where a rogue group of Islamists set up their ELF base, with the aim of remotely influencing the US to launch nuclear missles at Russia, and thus trigger Armageddon. (Strieber was rather forward-thinking in this respect.) Interestingly enough, although Minuteman-III missiles are no longer held at Ellsworth, it has been at the centre of an important Ufological controversy after Linda Moulton Howe claimed to have seen documents proving the existence of recovered disks at the base (see here), continuing the tradition of Ufological incidents 'clustering' around nuclear bases (eg, Roswell, Rendlesham Forest, etc.)

I find it interesting that you must have had this Black Mountain dream on or very close to the same night that I was reading the above passage. Also interesting is this mural, which I found on Wikipedia: allegedly painted on a wall shaft of the launching facility at Warren AFB, Colorado. Check it out:


The Black Hills are also home to what may eventually be the world's largest sculpture: the Crazy Horse Memorial. I'm reaching a little bit here- OK, a lot- but I couldn't help but recall our conversation about the Osmonds when I read this! (See here.)

The Black Mountains themselves, however, seem even more significant. (Like, for example, the name of its highest point- Mount Mitchell (MM)- which is also the highest peak in the whole of the Appalachians.) The key to this does indeed seem to be Black Mountain College, of which I had not previously heard, but which bears close resemblance to the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony (founded 1902) which I wrote about in this BTB post from last November. A regular guest at Byrdcliffe was the educator John Dewey, whose 'pioneering' ideas were central to the curriculum of Black Mountain College. Believing that education must serve 'a social motive', Dewey was instrumental in the gradual erosion of traditional subjects, thus preparing the way for the 'experiential' (and entirely ineffectual) methods exemplified by programmes such as Goals 2000, and 'child-centred learning.' (See here.)

I speculated in the above article that the residual energy of Byrdcliffe (based in Woodstock, New York) was the catalyst for the Woodstock festival of 1969, 'An Aquarian Exposition' and stargate event; a process to which Black Mountain College also contributed. Counterculture guru Buckminster Fuller was a former pupil; and through Allen Ginsberg, the school forged a close association with the Beat Movement, as you say, and the American avant-garde generally, devoted as much to the expansion of consciousness- and the creation of a new aeon- as much as the production of art. (John Cage was also educated at the school, which opened its doors in the esoterically-significant date of 1933.)

In summary, then, a very important place.

As to why it turned up in your dream, I think the fact that we were discussing the Beats is obviously a factor, though I prefer to think it may have been intelligently implanted- by something- to spur further study and thought. Perhaps the Mountains or College will turn up in some undisclosed way in a future investigation... I wouldn't be surprised if you had some incarnational relationship to the School either; whether in the sense of a past life, or perhaps in symbolic form, as an idealised 'Secret School'. Perhaps a visit to the Mountains could be a good idea for you? (Just a thought.)

One last point... When I think of the Appalachians, I always think of Dylan, and one song in particular: The Girl from the North Country (North Carolina?), the very song (from Nashville Skyline) we had been discussing a few days before this dream. Could this have triggered the dreamtime vision?