Doors of Perception Skull Pendant

Description

The Doors of Perception

Part of our unique Skull Jewelry. This Skull Pendant which is a homage to the ancient Memento Mori concept. It is also an ouroboros pendant. The ancient symbol of the Ouroboros -The snake biting its own tale, devouring itself symbolizes on a personal level the ability to create ourselves anew. It is the symbol of the universe that creates itself a new from itself, or in the words of Stephen Hawking – It is the force of gravity that allows, in fact, the universe to create itself a new infinitely.

Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It’s too high!
Come to the edge!
And they came
And he pushed
And they flew.
Christopher Logue – An English Poet.

A true symbol of the rebellious spirit. Find your own path of freedom and unleash your true self and your creative force. Explore the boundaries of reality and become limitless.

I was a child when I first encountered the debut album of the Doors.
I actually have worn the tracks on the turntable. When my literature teacher asked us to bring lyrics from our favorite bands, I brought “Break on Through (To the Other Side) which was praised by her as real poetry….
The ideas and concepts of this album led me to Aldous Huxley, to William Blake, to Plato, and many others.

At a young age, I realized that society wants us to believe in a fixed and stable world and that only if we will follow the same laws and the same thought pattern we would be fine.
Systems, religions, politics and endless concepts that were made to lock our minds our creativity, curiosity, and imagination.
Fear and especially the fear of death makes us all delusional. We prefer to give away our creativity, to follow the path while living under the dogmatic fearsome beliefs of the masses.

From time to time there is a shining beacon of light in this darkness.
Like Plato’s allegory of the cave the masses are quite happy in their ignorance and if someone will try to move them from their comfort zone, they will react violently.
Perhaps that is why brave men and women who wanted to present to the masses radical concepts used art as their media. Art can be interpreted in many ways, so the real meaning can be kept hidden and yet remain seen to those who can grasp these concepts. That is why art is a favorable media for the rebellious mind and the outsiders. It’s a language without words, a SUPERNOVA FOR THE BLIND.

“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.”

That is the quote engraved on the Ouroboros – the snake biting its own tale symbolizing eternity, rebirth realization and self-exploration while the skull in the middle symbolizes overcoming death. It symbolizes how one can reach the eternal with his ideas and creations which will live on after our physical demise and how this constant reminder that you are going to die will free you from the white noise created by society and the fear that you have something to lose…..
This phrase was written in the 19th century by the ingenious William Blake who used it as his own paraphrase of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. In his masterpiece “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”.
Blake who was a poet and a brilliant illustrator wrote his book between 1790 and 1793 while imitating a religious biblical text, but, instead of conservative doctrines, Blake portrayed his revolutionary visions.
The title almost mocks Emanuel’s Swedenborg’s “Heaven and Hell” which was published 33 years earlier as a moral and theological work.

Blake used a mystical symbolic vision in order to describe a cosmos in which human will and the physical universe and material world are correlated and part of the divine cosmic will. Blake describes in his book a journey to hell like Dante’s Divine Comedy, however, according to Blake hell is not a place for tormented souls and eternal punishment, but the birthplace and crucible of the creative force.
According to Blake, all sacred texts are the causes of wrong conceptions and errors in the way humanity perceives itself:

All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following Errors:
1. That Man has two real existing principles, viz. a Body and a Soul.
2. That Energy, called Evil, is alone from the Body; and that Reason, called Good, is alone from the Soul.
3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies.

But the following Contraries to these are True:
1. A man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that called Body is a portion of Soul discern’d by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.
2. Energy is the only life and is from the Body, and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.
3. Energy is Eternal Delight.

This according to Blake suppresses creativity, free thinking, and free will.
“Those who restrain Desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place and governs the unwilling.
And being restrained, it by degrees becomes passive, till it is only the shadow of Desire.”
Since in a way thoughts are eternal and have a life of their own this 18th-century poet’s work traveled through time and cleared it’s path to the works of Aldous Huxley and from there to the musical and poetic work of The Doors.
“Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate are necessary to Human existence.From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil. Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing from Energy. Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell.”

Are the things outside the shadows of our concepts and beliefs are real? Can we be absolutely sure that what we see as real has its foundations on solid ground?
The “Doors of Perception Pendant” is a key that was created to make you wonder about your own path of freedom and to give you the courage to ask that question.