Monday, July 18, 2011

A Fairy Tale for Paranoids

Robert Anton Wilson and/or Robert Shea have a qabalistic look at Death in The Illuminatus! Trilogy but first I feel it prudent to give the disclaimer found on the back cover of my copy:

"A fairy tale for paranoids."

- Epicene Wildblood

these excerpts, demonstrating a cynical and twisted view are from p. 680 - 682. The character Drake is getting a Tarot card reading:

"That isn't what you see," Drake said. "And it isn't what I see. The Devil and the Tower together are a pretty destructive pair, aren't they? "

"I suppose you know what the Lovers reversed means, too?" she asked.

"'The Answer of the Oracle Is Always Death.'" he quoted.

"But you won't accept it."

" The only way to conquer Death -- until science provides an immortality pill -- is to make him your servant, your company cop," Drake said calmly. "That's the key I've been looking for. The bartender never becomes an alchoholic, and the high priest laughs at the gods. Besides, the Tower is rotten to the core and deserves to be destroyed." He pointed abruptly to the Fool ...

"... You will make Death your servant as a tactic to master him. Yours is, indeed, the left-hand path. You will cause immense suffering -- especially to yourself at first. But after a while you won't notice that; after a while you won't even notice the horror you inflict on others. Men will say that you are a materialist, a worshipper of money.
What do you hate most?" she asked abruptly.

"Sentimental slop and lies. All the Christian lies in Sunday school, all the democratic lies in the newspapers, all the socialist lies our so-called intellectuals are spouting these days. Every rotten, crooked, sneaking, hypocritical deception people use to hide from themselves that we're all still hunting animals in a jungle.." ...

... "Go on" Drake was unsmiling but undisturbed.

"The King of Swords and the King of Wands are both very active. You could do all this harmlessly, by becoming an artist and showing this vision of the jungle. You don't have to create it literally and inflict it on your fellow humans."

Drake rejects the advice and retreats back into cynicism.

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