Not sure how many of you are into Game of Thrones. When watching last night's episode I became very interested in one of the scenes. In the scene, Jaqen H'ghar, the faceless man, leads Arya Stark deeper into the House of Black & White. They emerge into a cathedral or temple-like room. It's dark, and as far as you can see all around are pillars supporting this space. And the pillars are lined with columns of faces.
Clip attached:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDJkQGpcA9M
This immediately caught my attention, as my 3 most recent trips have had a similar theme. I enter a space that feels like a large temple, with many columns all around made up of heads, almost like a totem pole. The columns of heads are colorful and rotating up in a spiral like a barber shop pole. Each face stands out from the rest in a pronounced definition, as if each has their own unique color. Some faces are familiar; friends that are winking or gesturing back at me as I fly around the room. Others seem to be unknown, but unique identities.
The pillars in my experiences have been much more colorful than in the GoT scene, but at the same time bound by a darkness that surrounds the space like an underground cavern. I'm not sure who is responsible for creating that scene, but it's the closest artistic representation to my DMT visuals lately. I haven't read any of the books but I did some research on the building and the guy and here are some more details that I think are relevant to the DMT experience:
Quote:The House of Black and White is a temple in Braavos dedicated to the Many-Faced God. It also serves as the headquarters of the guild of assassins known as the Faceless Men. It sits alone on a small island in the lagoon of Braavos. Although can be reached by boat or bridge from other locations in the city, the island is usually deserted.
The sole entrance to the temple is a door, one half ebony, the other pale weirwood - thus one black door and one white door.
The interior of the House features a central sanctuary with a large pool in the center. The water filling the pool is poisoned, and is given out to those who are suffering and come to the temple to seek the release of death.
The sanctuary is lined with statues of many gods from many different faiths, from across both Essos and Westeros. Specifically they are gods that represent death and the unknown, such as the Stranger from the Faith of the Seven. The Faceless Men believe that all of these death gods are really one god who has revealed Himself to humanity in different ways: the Many Faced God of Death.
In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, the Faceless Men are based at the House of Black and White, a temple in Braavos dedicated to the "Many-Faced God" that everyone will face - a reference to death, as every religion either has a god of death, or in monotheistic religions, a god with dominion over death. While they are indeed a guild of assassins, they have philosophical and religious motivations that will lead them to rejecting commissions that clash with those motivations.
The Many-Faced God, also known as Him of Many Faces, is a deity worshipped by the Faceless Men, a guild of assassins established in the Free City of Braavos.
The founder of the Faceless Men came to believe that all the diverse slave population of Valyria prayed for deliverance to the same god of death, just in different incarnations. Thus, in Qohor, the Many-Faced God is called the Black Goat; in Yi Ti, the Lion of Night and in the Faith of the Seven, the Stranger.
This belief of a single god with many incarnations or 'faces' came to be reflected in the Guild's House of Black and White, which contains a public shrine with idols of many death gods, including the Stranger of the Faith of the Seven.
Beliefs
The worshipers of the Many-Faced God believe that death is a merciful end to suffering. For a price, the Guild will grant the 'gift' of death to anyone in the world, considering the assassination a sacrament to their god. In the Guild's temple, those who seek an end to suffering may drink from a black cup which grants a painless death.
Has anyone else had any experiences with columns, pillars, temples, or totempoles of faces? Or know of any other artistic or historical models of such? Trying to understand the significance of the vision. I took it as a representation of how we're all unique, yet connected in one structure of consciousness.