Morrison’s Views On Prayer:

I was thinking about that song recently, as well as some of Morrison's other poetry, and
came to a startling, if initial, conclusion about something he may, or may not have,
believed concerning God; however right or wrong his beliefs may have been, or even
how well founded they were.

He says that you cannot petition the Lord with prayer and follows it with "can you find
me sanctuary, I must find a place to hide; a place for me to hide." He also says, in
American Prayer, "This other kingdom seems by far the best until its other jaw reveals
incest and loose obedience to a vegetable law. I will not go; prefer a Feast of Friends to
the Giant Family."

I think that he was having, not moral issues per se, but, rather, theological or deistic
conflicts.

He, it would seem, had prayed, more than once, and found that the prayers he was
offering up were not being answered. Also he would have studied the Bible (being raised
in the Protestant faith) in his youth - Seminary school - and as an adult. He, obviously,
read philosophy quite extensively and found great and abiding truths there-in which
counteracted and belied his belief, or desire for belief, in a supreme deity.

First off his statement that you cannot petition the Lord with prayer may have been, to his
mind, well founded (whether he believed his words or not - as Paul Simon says, "Why do
I spend my time writing words I cannot believe?"). He, for as smart and educated as he
was, may not have learned that great esoteric truth that the Lord always answers our
prayers, it just may not be in the manner or the way we expect. He was lost and drifting,
feeling as John Lennon did ("The way things are going they're going to crucify me"); this
being evidenced in the LA Woman album insert (the form being crucified on a telephone
pole) and how he is hunkered down below the rest on the far right side of the cover. Also,
the Miami Incident provides great insight into his mindset at the time, he was sick of
being adulated as a pop god, as a sex symbol - as did Miss Monroe, and he wanted the
world to take him seriously as a poet (yet to happen). His heroes were poets, not rock
stars as so many of us today. He was burdened with, at one time no less than 16, paternity
cases, multiple court cases, etc. and he was frustrated with it all. He wanted out, maybe
even for good. He spoke, in Miami, about love, "grab your fucking friend and love him."
He was trying to express a new idea to his disciples and hangers-on, to a people too
caught up in their own "rock worship" to realize his plight ("Help!" was an album the
Beatles released right at the height of their career and nobody asked why). Perhaps, and
this is only speculation as he is not here to confirm nor deny the truth there-of, but
perhaps he was trying to express to the people his growing conflict with morality/deity;
his budding confusion with what he was coming to realize as being a truth conflicting,
not to say with his actions, but with his pre-conceived notions about God. He was seeing
what to him was a conundrum, a paradox of virtues, and its seeming inconsistencies with
other truths. He, it would seem, had found that what he supposed was the Path was not
the correct one; not to say that it was not proper for him to follow down it, but he
realized, perhaps, that somewhere along the line he had missed his exit. Not his exit
alone, but that of the people of his time. He was seeing truth in a new light for the first
time...

Second, he speaks, as I stated above, in American Prayer, that "this other kingdom seems
by far the best until its other jaw reveals incest and loose obedience to a vegetable law..."
It would appear, to my calculated and extensive studies into his life, that he was referring
to the established doctrines of the Christian theology and was confused and, even,
disgusted by the idea of all men and women coming from one set of parents - i.e. the
children of Adam and Eve, perhaps they themselves, committing incest (The "vegetable
law" being the Ten Commandments).

It would seem that his view of the commandments and requirements of the Christian
theology brought about some major issues, both with the practicality and practicability of
the tenets there-of. He looked upon them, as stated formerly, as being a paradox. How
can one achieve these ideals? He was a searcher - a seeker after truth - and, though
Christian ideals and theological/doxocological precepts seemed, and even struck him, as
being innately true, he was having difficulty coming to grips with certain doctrinal tenets
and practices; preferring a "feast of friends" to "the Giant Family" - i.e. Adamic
interrelationship.

As one runs through the chronology of the Doors albums, one comes across a very wide
schema of theological belief. First he speaks of breaking on through, of finding a path, of
coming to your own, etc. Then he carries on with this concept in the second album (both
being written about the same time). The third album one begins to see a slight deviation
from his standard path of excess with such songs as "Yes the river knows" and "Unknown
Soldier", not to mention "Five to One" and the searching, pleading, depths of
"Celebration of the Lizard."Followed by the Soft Parade album with the title track. This
album being the first in a series of albums to follow in which Morrison explores the
spiritual side of things, he is beginning to falter in his beliefs about Rimbaud's Road of
Excess philosophy. He explores religion in the title track; "Wild Child" delves into deeper
into the mythology of the Native American culture, less with the "Celebration" idea and
more with the shamanistic ideals ("Shaman's Blues" being another as well as "Easy
Ride"). On Morrison Hotel he shows deeper knowledge and a greater desire for truth as
he proclaims being the Spy, "an old blues man", "blood being the rose of mysterious
union", etc. When he comes to the last and final official Doors album he has seemingly
come full circle, burned out and saddened by the journey, but enlightened nonetheless.
LA Woman has been discussed a little bit above and time and space constraints do not
allow much devolving, but this album shows a grown and matured Morrison, a man with
whom the world is about to exact the final toll - "no one here gets out alive".

Morrison considered himself a shaman of sorts, a man who would lead the tribe into a
higher more enlightened realm, and was saddened and disgusted by the people's lack of
understanding - the seeming dilemma of all prophets. He had found a path, a newer,
better path, and the people only wanted to stay where they were, in the land of
comfortablilty; the people did not want to be led to a higher, far greater plane of existence
and understanding. Morrison died because we killed him. We are still killing him as we
refuse to allow new thoughts or ideas come into our minds to expand them. Morrison
spoke of going to extremes, of coming full circle and experiencing again what we once
knew; leaving out the bad from the past and moving on into a new, brighter, better future.
He was, and is, a man truly beyond his time. Are we ready to make that leap? Are we
willing to move beyond idol worship of Jim and to find that truth which he so ardently
sought and urged us to seek? Are we truly ready to "break on through to the other side"?