Toyah Willcox : The Enigma of The Hands

In 1973, ‘A Book Of Dreams’ by Peter Reich was first published in the U.S.A. The content of the book largely concerns Peter Reich’s relationship with his father, the scientist Wilhelm Reich, who died in 1957 after being imprisoned substantially due to an irrational investigation by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration of his Orgone Energy discovery and therapeutic applications thereof.

‘A Book of Dreams’ was an influence on the Patti Smith track ‘Birdland,’ which can be found in a variety of forms on various live recordings from the mid-1970s, as well as on the Patti Smith debut (1975) LP release ‘Horses.’

A couple of years after this ‘classic’ album was released, the group Toyah, fronted by Toyah Willcox, began playing live dates in England. One of the songs which they played and would continue to play over the coming years - ‘Danced’ - is about a “strange man” who has come to Earth from a planet “so far away” and whose last visit was “2,000 years” back. ‘Danced’ appears to be based around the concept of Jesus Christ returning to Earth as an Extraterrestrial, and yet, from the passionate first person vocal delivery of the lyrics by Toyah Willcox, we might justifiably wonder whether or not the song is also inspired somehow by some sort of profound personal experience.

In a passage from ‘A Book Of Dreams’ relating to his childhood, Peter Reich mentions a pictorial illustration of the concept that the facing palms of two hands held apart generate an orgone energy field:

“..Oranur was when Daddy put a radium needle in the big accumulator in the lab and everyone got sick. The lab closed, the mice died. People went away. The air was so bad I had to take a bath every day and have blood tests. A lot of people got sick. Eva got sick. Mummy had to go away for a long time. She was sick too. I missed her a lot. Then she came back. I wanted her to stay.
The instruments were still and quiet in the big room downstairs in the observatory. After the lab was closed all the instruments were moved up the hill. The red linoleum floor was soft, cold grey. I tiptoed upstairs. Daddy was sitting at his desk working. I waited at the top of the stairs underneath the picture of the two hands making an energy field…”

In another passage dealing with events - dream or real - after his father’s imprisonment and death, the energy concept of the hands held apart is described as being put to practical use in focussing the attention of people in a spaceship (EA):

“Every night after lights out I went to the window to watch for EAs because they were going to come and take me away. One would land on the lacrosse field behind the dormitory and I would know and they would know and Daddy would be inside, happy again, smiling…
…It happened the night that Blackman and MacGregor fixed up a special thing on the doorknobs of their room… I slid out from under the bed to look out of the window. Three red and green balls were flying in tight formation in the sky over the lacrosse field, flashing, glowing, and signaling… These flying saucers were coming to take me away… I had to let them know I was here. If I concentrated hard enough and thought real hard, they would catch my signal… My eyes were in give and they went up through the sky and the wind saying please come and take me away to the stars, please come please come…
…It could land right over there at the end of the field if I could only signal them. There must be a signal in case they don’t know. What if Daddy is in the spaceship? How will they know if it is really me and not a spy? I remembered the photograph of the two hands making an energy field, hanging in the observatory. As I walked to the end of the field I started making the energy with my hands, holding them out in front of me, palms facing. Slowly I brought them together and then apart until I felt the energy field between them. They would be able to see it on the scope…”

Several audio-visual recordings exist of Toyah performing the song ‘Danced’, in which Toyah Willcox sings (ostensibly) of how she communicated with a spaceman, who inspired great love and devotion in her. The earliest include performances…

1) …broadcast on the TV drama ‘Shoestring’.
2) …included as part of the various artists concert film ‘Urgh! A Music War’.
3) …broadcast on the rock music BBC TV programme ‘Old Grey Whistle Test’.

The images here are from the 1980 performance on ‘OGWT’ and show the sort of hand and arm movements Toyah went through when performing the song ‘Danced’ on this and other occasions. The similarity of the dream-or-reality personal experience in the lyrics of ‘Danced’ to the also dream-or-reality based experience I quoted earlier that is related in ‘A Book Of Dreams’ exists, and would, perhaps, not be an issue were it not for the fact that on multiple occasions when the song was played live or for television, Toyah portrayed physical movements remarkably comparable to those described by Peter Reich in his E.T. contact, including movements of the palms of the hands held apart facing each other.

Archive

This article was printed as a letter in issue 1 of 'Man In Black,' spring 1996.

"If E.T. didn't come to Elliott, he would have come to Michael's house. Michael is one of the last living innocents who is in complete control of his life. I've never seen anybody like Michael. He's an emotional star child." Steven Spielberg

Michael Jackson: Starchild

Consider the following Statements of Possibility:

Is Michael Jackson (1) An extraterrestrial with a mission on Planet Earth.
(2) A human whose life has been influenced substantially by alien life-forms.
(3) Merely a "very talented" human being with a "weird" lifestyle.

What do you think? Perhaps none of these statements is factually correct. If so, then what is the truth about the enigma that is Michael Jackson. This article aims to provide a few snippets of information, which, when taken together suggest that the first two statements listed above might contain elements of truth.

Michael Jackson was born on August 29th 1958 in Gary, Indiana, USA. In adulthood he would speak of his love of Steven Spielberg's film "E.T." Another of Spielberg's most popular films "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" began in Gary, Indiana, where Michael Jackson was born and grew up. Was this just coincidence? Or, perhaps part of a plan or destiny that is evolving on this planet (The Jacksons released a single and LP in 1978 entitled "Destiny").

Around the beginning of 1980, Michael Jackson was asked during an interview with music journalist Vivien Goldman whether he thought it was possible to appreciate escapism a little too much. The answer given deserves to be extensively quoted here, as it could be seen to be very revealing in connection with our original statements of possibility:

"No, I don't. There's a reason why God made the sunset red or purple or green. It's beautiful to look at - it's a minute of joy. There's a reason why we see rainbows after a rain, or forest where the deer come out. That's wonder, that's escapism - it touches your heart, and there's no danger in that. Escapism and wonder is influence. It makes you feel good, and that allows you to do things. You just keep on moving ahead, and go say, "God, this is wonderful - do I appreciate it." Like when I'm 40,000 feet in the air in a jumbo jet at night and it's dawn. Everybody on the plane is asleep, and there I am in the cockpit with the pilots because they let me come up there with them and -ooooh, it's just incredible seeing a sunrise and being there with it. I've seen illusions in the air that man has never seen. We went over the North Pole and it was total dark, and you saw these big icebergs that were glowing in the night. And then I looked far out into the sky and saw purple, green and blue crystals sparkling and turning in the air. I said, what is that? And the pilot said he didn't know, they'd only seen that once before. I said My God, I'll never forget this." Michael continued to describe the sense of wonder he'd experienced when flying; and he made a comparison between being the pilot of an aircraft and being a performer on stage in front of 40,000 people: "..Nothing can harm me when I'm on stage - nothing. That's really me. That's what I'm here to do."

Two years later, "Thriller" - one of the most successful records of all time was released. The title song, with its memorable accompanying video, related Michael's fears of "ghouls", "demons", "creature/s", "the alien" that come/s out looking for him "close to midnight." It's not hard to see a connection here with alien abductions - after all, Michael even uses the word "alien" at one point in the song. The big question is: Does the "alien" encounter theme of the song have any basis in Michael Jackson's real-life experience?

Whether Michael has actually come into contact with or been influenced by aliens, or not, it certainly seems that he is very interested in being contacted by them. The New York Post issue dated June 7th 1990, included an article in which it was revealed that "..the star has scouts checking out Nevada real estate on which to build a UFO landing site." Michael Luckman of the New York Center for UFO Research claimed later that he knew an "inside source" who had confirmed the tale, adding that the site sought by Jackson would eventually be equipped with devices to attract UFOs. Luckman himself commented: "Many rock stars have had UFO contacts and/or believe in UFOs. I'd like to get Jackson to expand his efforts - perhaps perform at a Concert For The Stars."

Luckman's faith in Michael Jackson's ability to play a significant role in establishing contact with aliens and in spreading awareness, apparently received an extraordinary confirmation of its appropriateness on July 31st 1992, when Jackson was performing live in concert at Wembley Stadium in London. Information about an unscheduled addition to the show that night was given in a letter printed in Flying Saucer Review, Spring 1994, sent by a John L.Clarke. According to Mr.Clarke, a retired Flying Officer and Police Officer, he had interviewed a woman called Yvonne, who told him about an incident that had occurred during the concert by Michael Jackson, when she'd seen a number of spectators turn their backs on the stage to stare up into the sky. She and her husband did the same, and saw a "plasma"/"jellyfish" type of luminous object hovering above the stadium roof. The object gave Yvonne "an overwhelming feeling of well-being" and she cried when it slowly moved out of view. Yvonne and her husband questioned security officers at the stadium, who had also seen the UFO, which was definitely not a normal part of Michael Jackson's show!

So, what can we conclude from this miscellany of otherworldly Michael Jackson information?

We know that Michael loves the film "E.T.", and that he feels he has a mission to sing and to perform: he feels that this is what he is here to do - in one interview he's said that he's one of God's messengers.

In the 1980 interview, he compared his role as performer with the role of the pilot flying an aircraft, having just described some of the strange and wonderful phenomena he'd observed when flying at night.

In song, Michael has sung of an "alien" creature coming out at night looking for him; and in concert a UFO has, on at least one occasion, stopped by - visible to members of the audience.

He has a flying saucer ride on his 'Neverland' ranch, and is said to have been interested in building a "UFO Landing Site."

The plastic surgery Michael has had, when combined with the make-up and clothing he wears, some would say makes him look at times rather like an alien; photographs of him lying in an oxygen chamber have also contributed to the impression that many people have given voice to: the opinion that Michael Jackson is weird ("wacko Jacko"), or even, not quite a regular human being.

Yes, the enigma that is the pop star Michael Jackson definitely includes otherworldly components that cannot be easily dismissed by sensitive, informed minds. If, as I suspect, the second of my original statements of possibility is correct, then, given the great popularity and influence of Michael Jackson in our world, those otherworldly elements in his life and work should be taken as signs that there is an urgent need for serious, dedicated investigation by people well-informed about UFO/Alien phenomena into this hugely popular cultural phenomenon that we have been considering - this phenomenon known to hundreds of millions as Michael Jackson.
　

Let children be children

When I was six years nine months old, my mother got me into a church choir. For about seven years after that, I had the identity of 'choirboy' forced onto me - without ever having had any desire for this role. Attendance was required for rehearsals and services as 'choirboy' four times every week throughout the years excepting when my family went away on holiday.

When I was 8½ years old, I was moved from a friendly, pleasant primary school to a fee-paying, repressively authoritarian, academic achievement-fixated public school. For a period of three years and two school terms, I was forced to spend most of my waking day five days a week, excepting holidays, at this place, in the role of 'public schoolboy', as well as having to do homework every night and at the weekend. I never asked for or desired this role, from which I was powerless to escape, any more than I wanted or needed the 'choirboy' role.

Most people in this world seem to have identities imposed upon them in childhood.

In my opinion, children generally want to live their lives simply as children.

What is it with adults, that they feel the need to force a role onto children, so that they can't just live a happy, carefree childhood?

Princess Diana - One Wedding and A Funeral

On 29th July 1981, Lady Diana Spencer married Prince Charles (the Prince of Wales) at St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. According to Wikipedia: ‘..It was widely billed as a “fairytale wedding”…’ The BBC website states that: ‘Crowds of 600,000 people filled the streets of London to catch a glimpse of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer on their wedding day.. (there was) an invited congregation of 3,500 and an estimated global TV audience of 750 million making it the most popular programme ever broadcast. Britons enjoyed a national holiday to mark the occasion…’

On 31st August 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales, who had divorced her only husband Charles, reportedly died after a car crash. It was in Paris. The car was reported to have crashed into the 13th pillar of the Pont de l’Alma road tunnel when travelling at a fast speed.

Masses of people in Britain and other parts of Planet Earth were shocked by this tragedy and there was a great deal of what has been referred to as “emotional outpouring” in the days following the death of Princess Diana, including during the televised funeral event, which took place in Westminster Abbey, London on 6th September 1997.

Cynical characters then emerged in the British media complaining about what they (or some of them) characterised as “the hysteria surrounding” Princess Diana’s death and funeral. These critics (or some of them) likened the response of masses of people at this time to a sort of “fascism.”

While it isn’t remotely surprising that there would be people writing and broadcasting in the media who felt alienated by the public “display of grief” at the time of Princess Diana’s tragic death, what is very much surprising and a mystery to me is that such people would talk and write about these events as if they were somehow unexpected or without precedence in recent history.

Did these journalists (e.g. Christopher Hitchens, Victor Lewis-Smith) have the previous “emotional outpouring” and “hysteria” that occurred surrounding the wedding of Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles erased from their memory banks?

Or, were they being deliberately selective in their memory of these two time-periods in modern British history?

Do they want history to be re-written so that, over the years, we all forget the hysteria surrounding the wedding and live the historical lie that the emotional aftermath to the death of Princess Diana had no precedent at all in her public life?

It was this precedent of the wedding which made the public and media reaction after the car crash largely predictable in character, if not necessarily in scale.

Or, is it the case that these critics of the “irrational” public reaction to Princess Diana’s death thought that the public reaction to her wedding was somehow, by contrast, O.K.?

Is it, according to the cynical, sneering journalists, alright for the “Establishment” to organise a huge public royal wedding at great expense, seemingly manipulating the emotions of a large proportion of the general population, with much pomp and circumstance and attendant commercial exploitation?

Wasn’t this wedding between Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles rather “irrational” and surrounded by a sort of hysteria, which might be found in a fascist state?

I think so.

Did not the atmosphere surrounding this royal wedding make a significant proportion of the British public feel alienated, being as they were unable to find the huge, indulgent spectacle in any way moving, meaningful or of any relevance to the reality of their lives?

In my opinion, YES.