Black Star Academy of Arts and Alchemy

The Black Star Academy

Headmaster Pope Greyling IV





“Time is the school in which we learn,

Time is the fire in which we burn.”
  
-Delmore Schwartz


“As a human being the artist may have many moods and a will and personal aims, but as an artist he is 'man' in a higher sense – he is 'collective man' – one who carries and shapes the unconscious, psychic life of mankind.” (Carl Gustav Jung)



One of the lynchpins of the Black Star Academy of Alchemy and Arts is our perspective on problems and problem solving. As Artists our academy thrives on developing ourselves from inside out. We view our school buildings in the same way. We seek out abandoned buildings in impoverished areas and develop our academy from the ashes of the neglected community. In this way the very foundation of the school serves to remind the staff and students that were are here to do a job, what other societies have called “the Craft” or “the Work”, that regardless of the title or trademark, boiled down to self- improvement through modern western esotericism(a) that after being achieved and maintained, is reinvested back into communities in need.
A couple of example of the Black Star Academy schools can be found by following these links (b) (b1). In these location the Black Star Academy was able to refurbish the building working closely with Habitat for Humanity to better budget the repairs. On that note I’d like to add that many of the repairs that the Black Star Academy needs for their buildings are met by donations of time and effort through the community. In this way the staff and students never forget that there isn’t anything that we achieve that isn’t in some way influenced by one another.
At these locations the Black Star was able to develop a gymnasium and a well supplied music room as well as an art studio and classrooms. The gymnasium serves as a place for the students to learn martial arts as well as many different types of Taoist meditation methods and various yoga poses. Our gym classes are tied to much of the curriculum that our students enjoy. In this way the students are able to learn about various topics from psychology to the medical sciences and biology in the cross studies method that the Black Star strives towards. Quite often our young artist program will have one of their popular sit and sketch classes right in the gym. In those classes the student will receive a cross discipline education in both basic physics and fine art as the students will work through numerous sketches while applying lessons they’ve learned from their physics classes to the student athletes.
Back to the student grounds, the Black Star Academy prides itself on the artistry that goes into our herbology and gardening programs. Although we’ll discuss those classes in more depth later I feel that it is important to mention that it is one of our core beliefs that beautification of a community is integral to the self worth of individuals in the community. Its pretty clear in the south suburbs of Chicago that if you pay enough someone will keep up the facade of your community. At the Black Star Academy we take that concept a few steps further. We educate our children in the basics of herbology and botany so that a graduate of the Black Star will take with them the ability to help heal sick individuals in their next community. By planting gardens that support not only the beauty of the community, but also one that produces locally grown medicine to help relieve many of the more common ailments that might plague a proletariat town or village. With all these concepts considered one might see how simply by existing the Black Star Academy has already refurbished an abandoned or long neglected building, but also had increased the value of the community by becoming a producer of homeopathic medicine.

“Nothing has a stronger influence on their children than the unlived lives of their parents.” (Carl Gustav Jung)

In the opinion of the Black Star Academy once a person becomes a parent they must begin to start thinking in gestalt and decades. Short sightedness and otherwise distracted parents leave their children a world they have unknowingly chose by one means or another, one that is far inferior to what they could have willed their children. Being that the nature of the Black Star Academy is to bring forth the diamonds that are still in the rough, we acknowledge that the influence the parents of our students has left an indelible impression on the developing child. The Black Star Academy looks to enable the student that has already learned lessons about the hardships of life that others many years their elder, have yet to experience, if they ever do. To us these children are more acquainted with the realities of life and less inclined to be distracted by the inherent illusion of life, media and culture. Combining educational and psychological models the Black Star Academy develops students into individuals who contribute to social and cultural reform with their own empirical evidence guiding them along their way.
The Black Star Academy develops students into individuals and Artists from the ages of seven through nineteen with College Prep courses available as well to students wishing to continue their education in a more standard way. The nature of the school lies in its placement within; and development of, individuals from impoverished and otherwise underclass areas. The Black Star Academy seeks to reproduce itself as an academic institution in oppressed areas throughout the nation. Once a student has completed the four tiers of our program the student would either be invited back to be an underclassman (Fifth Tier) or relocated to another Black Star Academy to participate in a Journeyman (Sixth Tier) program that would supply room and board to student that are seeking to develop the spirit of the Black Star program by striving to become a medical professional or educator who will dedicate a portion of their lives to helping other that are still in the thrall of environments that produce the proletariat. The student body is co-ed and supports a student body of 20 to 55 students depending on the building that is selected and space and resources available.   
The Black Star Academy seeks to help students cultivate a modern (c) way of life and recognizes that malnourishment is a big part of the problems facing underclass students. The school’s day is structured to include three meals with daily activities and education in between. A portion of the food we eat at the Black Star is prepared by the staff and student with our goal being a fully supported culinary program that would provide meals for the students and work in tandem with local food banks and homeless shelters to reach out into the community and to better learn how nutrition forms the basic foundation of healthy human experience.
What of our Teachers you might be asking. Yes, we employ them but not the conventional educator. The Black Star Academy is supported by an educated, individualistic and unconventional staff. Our gym teachers are kung fu masters and yogis. Our humanities teachers are master meditators and our maths teachers support our artistic studies so that the students learn the “why” along with the “how” in relation to the intimate connection between the arts and maths.
Part Two:
The philosophy of the Black Star Academy is at heart based on the ancient Gnostic/Hebrew archetype called Da’ath or “Knowledge” Da’ath is knowledge in action, living knowledge unaffected by age or sediment. It is the state of knowledge required by the “modern man” figure of C G Jung the psychoanalyst whose teachings and research factors into the structure of this institution. Students learning in the spirit of Da’ath will approach life armed with that living fire that Prometheus suffered to give to humanity.
The Black Star Academy professes to teach it’s students the hidden or occulted system of Art, Culture and Education. After completion of the academy’s curriculum the student will have developed past the individuality that calcifies the lives of others and emerge as an Artist. This term artist is not used in the common way but rather as C G Jung put it; “As a human being the artist may have many moods and a will and personal aims, but as an artist he is 'man' in a higher sense – he is 'collective man' – one who carries and shapes the unconscious, psychic life of mankind.” (Carl Gustav Jung)
The Black Star Academy believes that; “the collective, unconscious, psychic life of mankind” has been hijacked and systematically manipulated openly by the Military-Entertainment Complex and now poses a greater threat than ever to our greatest natural resource, our students, as allowed by Title IX of the No Child Left Behind Act. Students of the Black Star Academy would learn to properly use their consciousness through a better understanding of Eastern Medicine’s triune, co-operating systems of intelligence and immune system (d) and free themselves and others from the unconscious thrall of others. This being the case the Black Star Academy, requires the student to believe in God. The Black Star Academy, as do many other so called, mystery schools like the Masons and the OTO, believe that God is a subjective experience and does not profess to know whether or not a supreme external force exists or not. In this way one’s God cannot ever be the God of another, thus eliminating dogma and ego from the religious aspect of art and religion.
As Headmaster of the Black Star Academy I believe, all Knowledge is contained within the student and is developed in interaction with teachers and other students. At the Black Star we feel that without proper physical and emotional health the student is simply unable to properly learn. While suffering from the malnourishment of today's diets of chemicals and preservatives a student is unable to learn and be educated to their maximum potential (e). Simply put a student can be taught to perform simple tasks of to remember figures etc until test time, but true learning and knowledge escapes the majority of individuals. What isn’t rotted away by their diets is then consumed by media in an invisible feeding frenzy. The Black Star Academy believes that the goal of the human being is to evolve as has been instructed by humanity's ancestral heritage of great teachers and masters. A student cannot evolve if they are battling daily against immune system attacks brought upon by the food they consume and emotional distress from the media they employ.
At the Black Star we employ all four of the modern American educational philosophies Existentialism, progressivism, social reform and essentialism. We believe that at one point or another a student needs to rely on one aspect or another of each of these philosophies so to isolate one from the other only serves to limit the student. Each is divided into one of four tiers and in the spirit of the Black Star Academy’s mascot; the Sphinx (f) work with each tier from an elemental basis. The elemental association to each of the modern American educational philosophies are; Essentialism ( Earth), Progressivism (Water), Externalism (Air) and Social Reformation ( Fire). Each tier is given a basis in the arts and connects to the next tier through a merit system and via an academic and practical checklist of requisites for development in the program.  
Students at the Black Star Academy will learn to live life as an Artist. In this life they will come into contact will all aspects of human activities, including; health/healing/nutrition, psychology/media, government/art/religion. The student will learn to have the “eyes to see” that they will need to continue through their lives unmolested by those aforementioned detractors in politics, media and culture. My goals for the students would be to for the student to become their individual self, who respects the freedoms of all others and sees their personal liberty reflected in the liberties of others. My goals would be for students to develop life as an artist who is able to apply a knowledge of one field of study or experience to many others. All while applying their knowledge to the health and prosperity of others.
The Black Star Academy’s purpose is to reproduce itself as a cell of educational and deprogramming of cultural binding and pathology. We believe that since the 1960’s American culture and media have been manipulated for profit and have resulted in disease from the bodily level to the social and archetypal level. The Black Star Academy uses art and occult arts/ humanities to free the individual from the dogma and illness of the membrane called the Spectacle (g).

“There are no facts, only interpretations.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche




The scope of education at the Black Star Academy is wide and varied by its very nature. while we share the same values as a traditional education in our belief that the foundation of any lofty education begins with a good grounding in Essentialism. For the Tier one ( Earth ) aspect of a student's education we focus on attending to the students most essential need, nutrition. An example of material a student would be assessed and evaluated by would be, a Tier one student participating in a Home Economics style class that combines Mathematics in the sense of weights and measurements used for measuring and cooking foods The students would participate in a cross discipline class that would require them to learn to care for their nutrition with the basics of a healthy diet.
Pulling our inspiration from the surrounding community, a student at the Black Star Academy might have come from a lifestyle that supported such unhealthy eating habits as a bag of chips or even worse McDonalds for dinner. In these Tier one classes a student will learn how maths are helpful in not only baking/ cooking are important in making food taste good, but how learning to properly measure food in the preparatory stages will conserve food in communities that don’t have the money to waste supplies.
Learning to properly measure rice ( for example ) requires an understanding of Volume and maths vocabulary terms such as Units, Quarts and Cups, just to name a few. Classes that are responsible for learning to bake goods such as breads and cakes will learn how to apply science and maths and basic reading skills involved with following direction to their new skill. Students will learn Basic skills in math and science while preparing their food that they will take with them throughout their lives and back into their community.
Students in Tier one classes will also learn other basics of personal health care that will serve them throughout their lives. Students will learn various yoga poses and meditation that will serve to support good mental and physical health as they develop into responsible adults. These aspect of self care include learning First Aid and CPR as a student at the Black Star Academy is equipped and educated in various forms of Basic Life Support (BLS) a well as being educated in degrees of physiology as young children love to learn about their amazing bodies! It’s worth noting that the older student that are developing through puberty feel much better about themselves and the changes that they’re going through with a chemical understanding of the hormonal processes they are experiencing. Although, students at that age are usually participating in either tier two or three programs and classes, they are still given fundamental reviews of the basics in maths and science as applied to their lives and environments. One of the most important aspect of Tier One assessment is that the student has learned personal value and to appreciate the difference in their lives without the chance of education and are asked to reflect on what their lives were like before joining the academy.
An example of tier two (water) learning would put a focus on learning by way of the educational philosophies, Progressivism. A student working in this aspect of the program would learn to work with a team and to work independently. Students working in the Progressive portion of the program would learn to work with the teaching staff to explore problems and find multiple venues towards solving or at least better understanding the problems that they have encountered. From here the students and staff develop models for solving problems and gain new insights into problem solving but also into the different methods of thinking and seeing available to them.
Tier Two education is experienced based and there in the subjective experience of the student must be acknowledged. Being that tier two learning is subjective, an objective means of observing and reviewing the material must be employed. Students and teachers in tier two activities would piece together a student portfolio for the student to work on and with through the school year. With these portfolios in hand the student can review algorithms and statistics that demonstrate the student's development through the school year, against the initial findings and recordings in the portfolio.
Applying the portfolios as an active, dynamic document, the student and the teacher can better develop the trajectory the student will use to plot their education and otherwise developmental progress. Tier Two learning takes place in a completely different mode than Tier Three but the portfolio that the student assembles will  still be useful as a tool that will illustrate for the student how they have handled problems and matured in their problem solving skills. In the Progressive aspect of Tier Two the student will work closely with other student and share in group decisions. The student will understand that the human being works well with others to achieve goals because the human is a social animal that thrives in a positive environment where they are just as important as everyone else. Student’s and staff are evaluated and assessed together in Tier Two. The portfolios that the students and staff keep throughout the duration of the Tier are used to discern how they performed during their time here.
Tier Three (Air) of the program is modeled after the Existentialism educational philosophy. With this type of education the student is driving the education and material and the teacher is a facilitator. For the duration of this program the student must accept that their education, much like everything else in their lives is a matter of personal responsibility. That being the case the student can choose anything and everything as material for education so long that no other student experiences an adverse reaction to another’s projects or learning materials.
One learning model that is very popular with student at this point in their education is computer coding education. Students in tier three have historically passed down a love of computer coding to incoming students. These students believe that computer coding is a useful skill to avoid many of the trappings that modern internet useage contains. Some examples of this might be that a student, after some education in the computer coding club, would be able to operate their browser without advertisements or spyware clogging their connection.
Tier Three students at the Black Star Academy also participate in student government as one of the only requirements of this tier.  This student body is responsible for weekly council meetings that judicate the school's daily life for the student body. If there are any complains by a student against another student the adjudication committee would investigate the complaint and check their Academy’s rules and bylaws to see if an infraction of any rules has occurred. If there has been a violation of rules, that are not out of the power of this student government group (ie. gross violence or any other violations that might be of a criminal nature) the group then would come to a decision about any course of action in a democratic manner and notify the guilty party(ies) of any ruling. The committee can also choose to dismiss a complaint if there is a finding of no confidence in the initial complaint or complainant.
By applying the skills the student has learned from the judicial committee the student is better prepared for the slow moving but affective world of red tape and bureaucracy. Students are self assessed in this tier and are required to keep a daily journal that they can later reflect on when they consider that their time in Tier Three was completely theirs to either apply or waste however they saw fit.
Tier Four students will have the opportunity to apply all that they have learned in the preceding Tiers and transmute that knowledge and experience into something positive for society. Tier Four students participate in the basic education of the Social Reconstructionism educational philosophe. Here students learn that they will have the chance to give back to the cultures and societies that they were able to escape. Students of a Social Reconstruction (SR) education will find that their classroom is in the streets and shops of the community. Black Star Academy students will bring the artistic and alchemical training that they have received back into the world, but this time they are better prepared for the sensory and soul assault young adults are expected to endure.
The SR student will look deep into the pathology that plagues their community and find the heart and root of the problems that brought them to the Black Star Academy initially. Student will have the chance to assess social ills and apply the education they received to addressing these problems. The key to evaluation and assessment of a student and staff at this point in their time with the Black Star Academy would be to define how the social ill was addressed and not whether or not the social ill was healed. The student will also learn hard lessons about life and how limited we are at helping others with relief from suffering. Where some might see a lack of results as a failure the Black Star Academy sees individuals that cultivate a culture of compassion and empathy through their sacrifice and investment into family, friends and community. The student participating in this tier learns about self sacrifice and how raising up the least of us, raises all of us.

“No one can construct for you the bridge upon which precisely you must cross the stream of life, no one but you yourself alone.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

The Tiers beyond the fourth are by their very nature a mystery. Decoding that mystery begins with material that a student is given on their first day at the Black Star Academy. These seemingly unimportant materials are the Keys that they’ll need if they hope to access the higher levels of teaching and self mastery that the Black Star Academy offers to those with eyes to see. Beyond that the academy seeks to reproduce itself, germinating in communities in need, and creating a better human being by showing them the means and materials to live life as an Artist whose canvas is this Life.




Black Star Academy Motto:

Mutatis Mutandis
Responsibility is the only lasting Power
sacrificium intellectus

DAS

Citation Sheet

a)http://www.masterstudies.com/Master-of-Arts-(MA)-in-Western-Esotericism/Netherlands/UVA/

b)1448 S Halsted St, Chicago Heights, Illinois

b1) 222 Blackhawk Dr, Park Forest, Illinois

c) “At first we cannot see beyond the path that leads downward to dark and hateful things but no light or beauty will ever come from the man who cannot bear this sight. Light is always born of darkness, and the sun never yet stood still in heaven to satisfy man's longing or to still his fears.”
― C.G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul

d) https://www.academia.edu/10063717/Shen_Disturbance_Manifestation_in_Western_Culture

e) http://www.jni-journal.com/article/S0165-5728(09)00474-3/pdf
Abstract: C57Bl/6 mice were administered a high fat, Western diet (WD, 41% fat) or a very high fat lard diet (HFL, 60% fat), and evaluated for cognitive ability using the Stone T-maze and for biochemical markers of brain inflammation. WD consumption resulted in significantly increased body weight and astrocyte reactivity, but not impaired cognition, microglial reactivity, or heightened cytokine levels. HFL increased body weight, and impaired cognition, increased brain inflammation, and decreased BDNF. Collectively, these data suggest that while different diet formulations can increase body weight, the ability of high fat diets to disrupt cognition is linked to brain inflammation.

f) https://www.academia.edu/10063666/Manual_of_Placebo_Sphinx-Archetypical_Activation_Mind_Over_Matter_

g) https://www.academia.edu/16669255/The_Lords_of_Disinformation

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