Psychic Poetry Predictions: “Workers Wake to a New Day”
Surrealism, Mediumship, and Prophecy in Poetry
What is Psychic Poetry?
“Psychic Poetry Predictions” is a series that features poems channeled during hypnotic states. These posts will analyse predictive and visionary poetry throughout literary history and offer new examples of poetry predictions with my own contributions. There are multiple poetic channeling techniques which we will explore together. To begin with, Surrealist cofounders André Breton and Philippe Soupault coauthored the book of automatic poems Les Champs magnétiques (1920; The Magnetic Fields) and a channeled play S'il Vous Plaît (1920; If You Please). According to Breton’s first Manifeste du Surréalisme (1924; Manifesto of Surrealism), Breton and Soupault utilised a Freudian channeling method, which means that the origin of their creative work was theoretically derived from their personal unconscious minds. Breton describes the Freudian origins in their writing process:
“Completely occupied as I still was with Freud at that time, and familiar as I was with his methods of examination which I had some slight occasion to use on some patients during the war, I resolved to obtain from myself what we were trying to obtain from them…It was in this frame of mind that Philippe Soupault — to whom I had confided these initial conclusions — and I decided to blacken some paper, with a praiseworthy disdain for what might result from a literary point of view. The ease of execution did the rest…The only difference between our two texts seemed to me to derive essentially from our respective tempers”.
Breton and Soupault wrote their coauthored pieces while awake, but this manifesto suggests another method of creative channeling in which a poet creates while sleeping and dreaming. Breton recounts a story of a poet whose work began in dreams. In order to not be disturbed during his creative process, this poet placed a sign on his door every night that read, “THE POET IS WORKING”:
“A story is told according to which Saint-Pol-Roux, in times gone by, used to have a notice posted on the door of his manor house in Camaret, every evening before he went to sleep, which read: THE POET IS WORKING”.
A Jungian concept of channeling would be expanded to include the collective unconscious. Modern Spiritualism was a social and religious Anglo-American movement beginning in the mid-nineteenth century that contributed to the popularity of mediums. A Spiritualist belief about channeling was that specific spirits were being summoned during séances.
I first learned about the possibility of channeling spirits when my father described a Jewish shamanic tradition that had been passed down to him by his mother, who was recognised as a neviʾ, or Hebrew “prophetess”, in her community. In the Jewish shamanic practise of spiritual channeling, a revolutionary idea or artistic concept that we need to know on Earth is simultaneously psychically delivered to many humans. Whoever shares the message first will most likely be the person to receive the credit, but they are not the only ones who picked up on the notion that they channeled. The more people who are given an idea, the quicker that revelation can be translated by someone into written, spoken, or visual form which expedites its contribution to the intellectual and spiritual progress of humanity.
Based on psychological, Surrealist, and Spiritualist theories about the origins of creative works, a psychic poem might be channeled from your unconscious mind, the collective unconscious, spirits on the Other Side, or a combination of more than one of these methods. An example of Spiritualist channeling would be a psychic medium who conjures spirits, interprets or receives their messages in poetic form, and presents or records the final results through rhetoric or writing. Whether the origins of a creative work are psychological, Surrealist, or Spiritualist, all of these compositional methods are referred to as “automatic writing” or “psychography”. Automatic writing was the central topic of my Master’s thesis, which explored a specific movement and time period during which this practise was intentionally employed as a writing technique. I will provide instructions in future articles on how to use self-hypnosis for generating automatism in your own creative work.
Spirituality in Art History: Jean Cocteau and the Angel Heurtebise
Can spirits be summoned to co-author poems with you, or even to write them in their entirety? Surrealist poet, playwright, and visual artist Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) believed so, penning works prompted by an angel he called “Heurtebise”, whom he first encountered in an elevator on the way to Pablo Picasso’s apartment. Cocteau wrote the poem L’Ange Heurtebise (1925; The Angel Heurtebise) under the direction of this spirit:
“For a week, the fabulous creature became unbearable, even diabolical, and forced the poet to write against his will. At 7 p.m. on the seventh day, Cocteau adds, ‘Angel Heurtebise became a poem and freed me…He was distant, proud, totally indifferent to anything outside himself. A monster of egotism, a mass of invisibility’ (Charles Guenther). Of his poem Cocteau posits that, ‘If someone proved to me that I would be signing my death sentence if I didn’t add or subtract one syllable, I could not touch it. I would refuse, and die…I have written only one poem in my life with luck favoring me to the very end: it is L’Ange Heurtebise’ (Steegmuller, 352-53)”.
Jean Cocteau and other Surrealist artists used automatic drawing and painting to produce visual works, such as the sketch by Cocteau below entitled l'Ange Heurtebise. Heurtebise appeared as a character in Cocteau’s 1926 production of Orphée (Orpheus), a play that investigates the connection between a poet and their work through a modernisation of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.
In the drawing of l'Ange Heurtebise, a comparatively diminutive, upside-down man is dressed in what appear to be army fatigues and a helmet. He holds a device attached to his wrist that is possibly a microphone, aiming it at a larger figure who stands in front of a mirror while hiding an envelope behind his back. A substance emanates from the upside-down man’s head, taking on the shape of a profile. This same profile culminates in a heart that almost touches the palm of the receiving man’s hand.
Which of these figures is the spirit, and which is the writer? Are they both the authors of the letter in the envelope? Furthermore, was Cocteau the ultimate “author” or “artist” of the drawing, or was this sketch also channeled from Heurtebise? If Heurtebise was the artist, does that make this a self-portrait? Considering that this sketch was created the year before Cocteau’s play Orphée was produced, the image may represent one of the scenes in which Heurtebise beckons Orpheus to pass through a mirrored portal into another realm in search of Eurydice. The timing of this drawing makes it likely that Heurtebise is the larger figure, especially as he is a supernatural figure who guides Orpheus into the mirror, which functions as a concurrent reflection of the passage of time and pathway to another realm. The presence of a heart that falls from Orpheus’ consciousness into the angel’s hand may signify the love Heurtebise developed for Orpheus’ wife, Eurydice. The stage production of Orphée was adapted for the screen and appeared as part of a trilogy in the 1950 film, Orpheus.
Jean Cocteau, Mediumship, and Prophecy in Poetry
Cocteau addressed the presence of prophecy in poetry when he recorded a channeled poetic essay entitled Jean Cocteau Speaks to the Year 2000 (1962), in which he lectures to the future people of the year 2000. In this short film, he contends that “There is a prophet in each poet” and poets are “almost always prophetical”:
Additionally, Cocteau asserts a belief that psychic mediumship plays a part in poetic composition when he states, “All poets are mediums and work-hands for this mysterious force that inhabits them”.
The following section from this film is a quote from Cocteau in which he describes poets as psychic mediums who channel poetry from discarnate spirits. Towards the end of this section of the video (7:37-10:59), you will notice that he refers to himself as the medium by asserting, “I am not that me”:
“What is a poet? By poet I mean just as well a painter, a musician, a sculptor, an architect, or whoever it might be. But it’s important not to confuse what is poetical and poetry. Poetry is a kind of superior mathematics and, let’s not forget: it is almost always prophetical. There is a prophet in each poet and we are very humble about this…A poet is in a way the work-hand whose act engages a self more profound than himself, which he doesn’t know too well…mysterious forces which inhabit him and which he knows poorly…I have been made a character that I am not, a character from a legend who is not at all like me…The inner person who lives in me is a totally timeless character whom I know very poorly. Therefore I am not responsible for what I am about to say to you. I am not responsible for my poems. I am but an intermediary, a medium, a work-hand. All poets are mediums and work-hands for this mysterious force that inhabits them.
Thus, it is hard for me to speak to you of this. I am not making myself up. I do not mean ‘inspiration’. Inspiration does not come to us out of the blue. Inspiration should be called expiration. It’s something that emerges from our depths, our night, and a poet tries to lay his night out on the table. And he sometimes clumsily helps this deeper me who is mostly in a bad mood because he isn’t well served. It’s this me, who tries to speak to you now, with my mouth, but poorly, since I repeat, I am not that me. I am following him without a guide, which means that from our birth to our death we are a stream of others”.
Another distinction he makes in this video is the difference between mediumship and inspiration. According to Cocteau, inspiration “does not come to us out of the blue”. Therefore, if mediumship is not inspiration, a medium directed by a spirit could be compelled to write suddenly and without warning. Also, when he insists, “I am not responsible for my poems”, he is proclaiming that they are entirely written by an immaterial being. However, would Cocteau want to take partial responsibility if he believed himself to be one of the authors? Should authors never take the credit or the blame for purely psychically channeled works? There are material rewards in taking credit for a work of art, but it is also critical to consider the potential benefits of an author or artist who is absolved of any responsibility for the final results of their work. For instance, an offensive concept could be framed as the fault of the spirit who possessed a poet to write. Speaking of possessing, while “I am not that me” indicates a metaphysical orator has once again inhabited his body in Jean Cocteau Speaks to the Year 2000, he acknowledges that those musings are ultimately translated through his anatomy, or “with my mouth”.
In the final part of this clip that I quoted above, Cocteau explains that he follows the direction of the spirit who writes his works, a process that is undertaken “without a guide”. This statement could be open to interpretation. Perhaps he means that the collaboration does not include an additional guide outside of the spirit who chose him as a poet-medium? The ending phrase of the last line, “from our birth to our death we are a stream of others”, is a thought-provoking theory. If we are periodically channeling from the spirit world, how often are we ourselves? Are we playing characters from the Afterlife every time they inhabit our bodies to produce works of art? And if we are possessed by spirits who temporarily borrow our forms for the purpose of self-expression or the enrichment of humanity, where are we, or where does the rest of us go, while that work is being created?
Detecting Signatures of Spirits in Poetry
Have you ever looked back at something you wrote, constructed, painted, or composed, and wondered afterwards where it came from? Similarly, have you done any gardening, redecorating, or even cleaning of your living space and wondered how it happened? Sometimes it’s surprising to observe the results of an undertaking and wonder in retrospect how we possibly could have completed that action alone. Over and above, if you placed yourself under hypnosis while performing a creative task, you might not even remember every step of the process.
I wrote the poem at the end of this article while I was under self-hypnosis. When I was adding my final edit to the following line, I noticed a possible double interpretation: “This rare poem of all life’s rewrit each time kind spirits gather!” I wasn’t sure if this referred to the gathering of spirits on Earth or spirits who gathered to help write this poem. While this piece was channeled during a self-induced hypnotic state, I’m not saying that it was or wasn’t assisted by authors from beyond. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, a psychic poem can be channeled from the collective unconscious or personal unconscious mind without involving a particular spirit. However, if this was written with the help of incorporeal spirits, that line being the last one I was compelled to rewrite (“rewrit”) would have been like their signature—and also provided a description when they referred to themselves as “kind spirits”. Assuming this was channeled from extrinsic figures, and considering that they referred to themselves in the plural as “spirits”, this poem would have been co-authored or written by more than one visitant.
At the same time, these supernatural beings are encouraging similarly kind spirits here on Earth to gather together and create an alternative to “un-capital ventures”. This phrase refers to profits for the few (“capital ventures”) that nonetheless yield nothing “capital” (referring to the other meaning of “capital”, defined according to the Cambridge Dictionary as: “very good or excellent”) for most of the rest of us. It looks like I may have connected with some anti-capitalists in the Afterlife!
Finally, in the temporal structure of this poem, you will notice that the last two lines symbolically depart from archaic language to signify waking up to another time period, or even the present (depending on whether you are reading this now, or in a future post-capitalist world). Moreover, the rhyme scheme changes completely as soon as the story bids “good night” to a capitalist world. These structural details were unplanned and I didn’t notice them until after the piece was written. I also refrained from formulating how many syllables would be in each line. Despite the undeniable assistance of my brain and typing fingers, this poem mostly felt like it was writing and editing itself, which can happen when you’re in an altered state. Based on my research of case studies involving self-professed psychic channeling in works such as Cocteau’s L’Ange Heurtebise and the script of his pre-Surrealist play, Les mariés de la tour Eiffel (1921; The Wedding on the Eiffel Tower), altered states of consciousness offer access to alternative modes of guidance. These guides have the potential to produce and co-produce theatre, music, musical theatre, literary journeys, characters, and works of art.
Psychic Poetry Tarot Card
One of the themes of the tarot card The Magician is the agency made possible by gathering words and images to help transform one’s own life or the world. This figure has the ability to divine, decipher, and distribute poetic works. I chose The Magician to represent this series because psychic experiences anticipate the future, psychic writers sometimes express those visions in poetic form, and The Magician is a word-driven, vocal visionary. The Magician is ruled by Mercury, and while it carries some traits of Virgo, this card is most closely related to the astrological sign Gemini. This is also an apt card for today because Mercury enters Virgo tomorrow.
Electrical Magical Kettle
On the subject of magic—and I don’t mean magic tricks—I had an unusual experience last week while writing the following poem. I was making tea throughout the day and my electric kettle kept tripping the switch. I turned the switch back on each time and minutes later, the switch would trip again. I tried unplugging nearly everything else in my home, yet the switch continued to get tripped and the kettle would turn itself off multiple times while I was trying to brew just one cup of tea. This went on day after day while I continued to edit the poem. It got to the point where the switch tripped within seconds of pressing the power button, so the kettle was turning off dozens of times a day. I contacted the building manager who informed me that the panel was working as expected but the kettle had probably shorted. A new electrical panel was installed within the last year so the glitch wasn’t in the panel. I unplugged the kettle from the wall in case it posed a hazard and ordered a new kettle from the supermarket.
After placing the order, I left for most of the day. When I returned home, I pressed the power button on my window air conditioner. That action immediately tripped the switch, only this time the outlet was outside the kitchen. I couldn’t understand why this was happening when I had just removed the kettle from the other room which should have solved the problem. My new kettle arrived the next morning and hasn’t tripped the switch since I started using it last Thursday. However, my air conditioner is continuing to trip the other switch, and more so every day. Just last night, I was typing the section on “Jean Cocteau, Mediumship, and Prophecy in Poetry”, and I heard the air conditioner turning itself off again, which blocked the internet that is plugged into that same wall and forced me to take a break from revising that section. A third electrically-inclined mishap occurred yesterday afternoon when I attempted to make a final recording of the poem that is attached to this post. I plugged a USB cord into my computer and when I attempted to connect it to my microphone, the metal end snapped off completely.
Of course, the most likely explanation is that my kettle, air conditioner, and USB cord coincidentally stopped working properly at roughly the same time. In the case of the broken cord, it was a wear-and-tear issue that can be more easily explained than an expired appliance. It makes the most sense to investigate every scientific possibility before jumping to any conclusions and there is almost always a physical explanation for what initially appears to be an electrical mystery. No matter what the physical cause might have been, I thought it was noteworthy that two electrical appliances expired while I was being guided to channel a written work about being guided to channel written works! Astrologically, the current Mars-Uranus conjunction makes electrical outages more likely, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. However, Uranus doesn’t go into Retrograde until August 24th. Mercury is not currently in Retrograde. Who knows? At least I can have my tea again.
Post-Capitalist Poetry Corner
In future “Psychic Poetry Predictions” posts, premium subscribers will be invited to ask a question about future news or their own life and I will reply with a short poem or haiku to interpret your tarot card.
Likewise, when we return to my blog series “Psychic Time Traveller: History’s Mysteries Solved!”, paid subscribers can submit questions about unsolved mysteries. I will shuffle the tarot deck, pull a card, and channel a poem inspired by that card to uncover mystical insights about your mystery of choice. All subscribers are welcome to post comments.
Some psychic poems envision the future. The following poem predicts a transformation into a post-capitalist world.
“Workers Wake to a New Day”
BY KYRA OSER
Workers wake each day alarmed by risk of loss to low-cost labour,
Ailing laid-offs dropped on unseen lucklorn streets, shunned and unquartered.
Other option’s to keep pushing ‘til you’re backed into a corner,
Laid with coronary minefields where your heart’s love’s ever-thwarted;
Your first break’s on your last day, which works out well for corp’rate coroners.
“Worked to death’s a renter’s honour!” bark reporters of world orders,
Yet your mirror casts a work of art, redrawn each dawn by nature.
When will greedy centuries cut costs of un-capital ventures?
Humankind survived olde binds when we aligned to work together;
This rare poem of all life’s rewrit each time kind spirits gather!
So good night to our adoptive captive corporate families,
Farewell, oft-troubled tales of time’s war-crimed, impov’rished tragedies.
Good morning to what works for you, versed sisters, friends, and brotherly,
Tomorrow’s yours and mine, shrined works of art touched up in harmony.
Preview Papers from the Future:
“Literary History of Visionary Poetry”
“Spirituality in Art History”
“Altered States in Audio’s Hypnosis for Confidence I: Extreme Esteem”
“Dream Prophecies in History: Factual Figures and Characters in Literature”
“Meditation News Station: Long-Term News for a Change”
“Psychic Time Traveller: History’s Mysteries Solved!”
“Adventure to the Future I: Predictive Dreams and Future Life Progressions”
“Grief and the Afterlife IV: Coming to You Live from the Other Side”
“U.S. and World News from the Future Predictions”
“Altered States in Audio: Metta (Loving-Kindness) Meditation I”
“This Week in Tarot”
“The Realm of Dreams: Exploring Dream Meanings and Precognitive Dreaming”
“The History and Spirituality of Past Life Regression Exploration”
“Music as Meditation: Musicality and Spirituality”
“Viking Rune Stone Reading Meanings”
“Dream Journal Journeys”
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