Chapel Perilous/Existential Crisis/Awakening

Lion King & Queen B

I was first made aware of the 5% nation back in the 90's by my friend Jonny Jedi who was into his old school hip hop. It was also around the time I first became aware of ; Martin Luther King, The Civil Rights movement, Malcolm X, The Nation of Islam, Black Panthers ,The Weather Underground etc.

The 5% always resonated with me because as a teenager I went to an academically selective school (QEH) and my mother often reminded me "Your one of 5% of the nation that get this opportunity" 

While studying Psychology at University I read about the counter culture of the 60's; The Merry Pranksters, William Burroughs,  Robert Anton Wilson etc I  became aware of ;  The Illuminati , The Rosicrucians ,  The Freemasons, Conspiracy theories, Eastern Mysticism and Cults. during the same period I immersed myself in the emerging Rave culture.

It was in this environment I became aware of a  psychological  process that some people experience. This can be triggered by a variety of things, sometimes by a religious or spiritual experience , other times by drug use or energetic practises eg raising kundalini. It may also be triggered by literature or  societal pressures , sometimes it's just a naturally occurring process.

I became aware the experience can be referred to by a variety of names. An existential crisis/ psychotic breakdown/spiritual awakening/dark night of the soul/chapel perilous... depending on how it is experienced by the subject and interpreted by society . I remember a very extreme example playing out live on television in the eighties when Terry Wogan interviewed David Icke. 

The nature of the experience by the subject is dependent on a number of factors including (but not limited to) ; The language / belief system available to the subject (that enables the subject to makes sense of their experiences), their support network and their mental/physical health.

I had my own experience of Chapel Perilous in the mid 90's , I survived relatively unscathed despite/because of my contact with various cults.

At one point point while living in a Buddhist Temple and working at the Flagship offices of the Sitel Corporation I met a number of people from The Holy Tabernacle Ministries. Their  discussions about universal truths taught by the world religions and their focus on  "Knowledge of Self" resonated with me. This was time of Tupac, Biggie and Puff Daddy. It wasn't until more than a decade later that later I heard the phrase the Killuminati

In 2012 I took my wife and son to a pre  Olympic concert in Hackney.  Jay Z, Kanye West, Beyonce,  Rhianna , Ed Sheeran and Example all impressed. I was sad a few years later to see Kanye West go through his own existential crisis in public and see that for him, just like many others experiencing such an episode, fears about; economics/government , racism, paedophilia etc can become magnified and take one down a negative path.

Thee Totempole of JSteveKane