tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73612237270377115522024-03-12T16:42:40.522-07:00The Oz MixOz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.comBlogger372125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-73016919234595692962024-02-12T19:20:00.000-08:002024-02-14T15:42:52.124-08:00The Golden Thread<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"> A Mystical Puppet Rock Opera</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">by</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Dalrymple and the Wild Daimons </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyk_B_uMGmi-IoUJ2NBQjGtkkKaXSMVxSljHa24Dpo9JCa-79QCGW-2WgIPRu86W2UpRs9CJQV2sp6s_VOZWsVQxev9q8sZt5BXNHaVkojmT6x3_iEK_aJCtgpcXdfCNjFWaLRnATJOc64HTEOog5TnDUOpYQusZOKt2tV0xc8JA0N1BCUWiwHu-5m1-Rm/s4892/_MG_2208.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4892" data-original-width="3648" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyk_B_uMGmi-IoUJ2NBQjGtkkKaXSMVxSljHa24Dpo9JCa-79QCGW-2WgIPRu86W2UpRs9CJQV2sp6s_VOZWsVQxev9q8sZt5BXNHaVkojmT6x3_iEK_aJCtgpcXdfCNjFWaLRnATJOc64HTEOog5TnDUOpYQusZOKt2tV0xc8JA0N1BCUWiwHu-5m1-Rm/s320/_MG_2208.JPG" width="239" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Dalrymple MacAlpin</span></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Rotes Erdherz Kupferkatze enters the darkened stage from the back wearing a deerstalker hat, the kind made famous by Sherlock Holmes, and strikes a few notes on the vibraphone to start the show and begin the Invocation. Yes indeed, the game is afoot – the game being magic, or if you like, magick. The first visible non-human character, Rumpelstilzchen, enters the back of the theater introducing himself and setting the stage for the night's adventure. In the darkness behind the puppet, lit only with a flashlight by an apprentice light technician, Dalrymple pulls the puppet's strings and channels his voice as they walk through the aisle directly in front of where I'm sitting; I can feel the timelessness of Rumpel's character; he's been at this a long time: weaving golden threads which he says are stories. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The immediacy of the opera coming to to life in the middle of the audience recalls for me a performance of <i>Back to Methuselah</i> by the Living Theater in New York led by Julian Beck and Judith Molina where imp-like performers ran through the audience chanting: "in the future, all is poetry." It also recalled the way Tom Waits began his Mule Variations tour, coming through the back of the theater in Oakland giving a carny-style rap while walking through the theater to the stage. Rumpel is clearly in good company with dramatic stage entrances. It seems kind of a genius way to start a show because it captures the audiences attention immediately and lets them know they are part of the adventure and invocation. The fourth wall, the division between performers and attendees, is broken before it was even built. An intimate rapport with the audience gets established from the get go.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The humans in the Wild Daimons are: Chuckling Crow playing bass, upright and electric, and the occasional conga; Ouroborous playing all things drum and percussion-like; and Rotes Erdherz Kupferkatze on tenor sax, vibraphone and theremin. Dalrymple MacAlpin's instruments include guitar, piano, synthesizer, gut-stringed medieval harp and counter-tenor vocals. The Wild Daimons also consists of four marionette puppets: Rumpelstilzchen, Dortchen Wild, DJ Tele-Grimm-Gram and Ceridwen. The puppets are one form of the non-human life this production calls forth – each of them manifest and project themselves as a distinct entity, a non-homo sapien life-form able to cross over into the human dimension. The musicians play textural sound effects creating an evocative soundscape for the narration then transform into a band playing full on rock songs with lyrics advancing the story as operas do. Opera comes from the Latin and means work.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Live video projections bring an electronic kind of non-human life through a screen hanging above the center of the stage, a square-shaped box angled to resemble a diamond. The first band song is "Three Sisters and Their Thread" and we see their visages on the screen spinning and weaving the threads of Fate and Destiny. They are the three fates from Greek Mythology: Clotho spins the thread of human fate, Lachesis dispenses it and Atropos cuts the thread determining the moment of death. In the lyrics they tell the assembled: <span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">"we expect you to remember for what it is you yearn."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">This gives the first explicit reference of a central theme here: waking up and remembering the divinity within, the empowered soul. Synchronistically as I write this, the song <i>Power of Soul</i> by Jimi Hendrix is playing on the radio: </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"With the power of soul anything is possible, </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"> with the power of you, anything that you wanna do."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">The program guide given to the audience on the way into the theater helps explain. Multiple descriptions of the Wild Daimons appear in their Mission Statement, one of them being: <span style="color: red;">"Alter-ego comic book superheroes waging war against the soulless eradication of personal godhood."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">It also informs us that "daimon" comes from the Greek word meaning provider of destiny. No less than Carl Jung attests that: <span style="color: red;">"There was a daimon in me and in the end its presence proved decisive."</span> Later in the show, we hear that the Golden Thread is to help make contact with your daimon. <span style="color: red;">"Tune in to the Golden Thread." </span>In the Author's Statement, Dalrymple expresses the wish for the receivers of this gnosis <span style="color: red;">"[t]o transform your reality by remembering your destiny." </span>Appropriately enough, the song after the three Fates is: "We Are Gods."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I can strongly relate as this all seems cognate with my personal religion, Thelema and Magick, which instructs the student to aspire to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel also known as the individual's True Will. The qabalistic Tree of Life provides the structure for Magick to hang its hat on. The journey to the daimon there, the HGA, begins in the central sphere on the Tree corresponding with the color gold – a golden thread leads you there. Perhaps the connecting link is Irish poet William Butler Yeats who is cited as an inspiration. Yeats was a prominent member of the late 19th Century occult society, The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn which formed the foundation of Magick.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Daimons and entities coming through puppets aren't the only kinds of praeter-human Intelligences encountered on this journey. Extraterrestrial aliens break through in one song along with appropriate imagery lighting up the screen. One image reminded me of a classic moment in the film <i>ET</i> by Steven Spielberg where the finger of the friendly ET touches and electrifies the finger of the little boy.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXF767PoeFhChME-lPYw8cufHipHHl5LGkjWJVayUKFDQDo8MgO6IFDYCkPNhZUr2Kwo-o3gtOY5hsUtmqQHRTkx_P2zeOIFbk50m1CwkA804mCMek6iF3xEeTZUzd83nkI97hbUUlgDoLB5UP4CH21Vq0fmQc-9SwvkUeVUjCtqHCT1O4BK9e9xIsf8Vs/s394/E_t_the_extra_terrestrial_ver3.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="394" data-original-width="253" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXF767PoeFhChME-lPYw8cufHipHHl5LGkjWJVayUKFDQDo8MgO6IFDYCkPNhZUr2Kwo-o3gtOY5hsUtmqQHRTkx_P2zeOIFbk50m1CwkA804mCMek6iF3xEeTZUzd83nkI97hbUUlgDoLB5UP4CH21Vq0fmQc-9SwvkUeVUjCtqHCT1O4BK9e9xIsf8Vs/s320/E_t_the_extra_terrestrial_ver3.jpeg" width="205" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This image itself seems to have been inspired by Michelangelo's famous painting that adorns the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel called <i>The Creation of Adam</i>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZNPIoHiBgcZ-LVwZORPdiV1Xw01iMLk9BTgk670Um4RBzixKZFcz-UqTkAXGGv31acPZN-g1hJHsestpeZVX1WV_00rcucpekLp4VyD1v0fg2Za1dAOPbU4JTyVWFEvdEsgQ1H3ieeePJDg5O5ebeLmDgrVMkUtxgH__ZSpMKBFLubcyrI-o-UR392R0W/s1200/Michelangelo_-_Creation_of_Adam_(cropped).jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="544" data-original-width="1200" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZNPIoHiBgcZ-LVwZORPdiV1Xw01iMLk9BTgk670Um4RBzixKZFcz-UqTkAXGGv31acPZN-g1hJHsestpeZVX1WV_00rcucpekLp4VyD1v0fg2Za1dAOPbU4JTyVWFEvdEsgQ1H3ieeePJDg5O5ebeLmDgrVMkUtxgH__ZSpMKBFLubcyrI-o-UR392R0W/w503-h163/Michelangelo_-_Creation_of_Adam_(cropped).jpeg" width="503" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">The music informs us that these alien intelligences appear interdimensionally rather than from other planets or star systems in our Universe. This aligns with my understanding of those that have registered on my radar, but who can really tell for sure? </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Not all of the nonorganic Intelligences come from the serious, occult, mystical, supernatural, or UFO side of things. We also get a healthy dose of whimsy through children's make-believe. Does anyone still remember being a child and seeing things outside the ordinary before the grown-ups told us it wasn't real? The children in the audience may have had some of the deepest experiences of the night being so closely in touch with their imagination. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The dream realm gets paid a visit in the piece "A Re-occurring Childhood Dream." Another song concerns the spelling controversy surrounding the Berenstein Bears children's books that some think is correctly spelled Berenstain. By an extraordinary bit of luck and good fortune the Berenstein Bears themselves are reached and asked their opinion on the matter. Mama Bear says it's always been Berenstein and doesn't know what all the fuss is about. The song presenting this matter has the title Ambiguity and uncertainty even surrounds beloved children's literature. Some imaginative types hold that both spellings are correct in different universes, parallel universes that have somehow become known to each other. This phenomena even has a name - the Mandela effect named after Nelson Mandela whom some have sworn died in prison, contrary to the alternate view that he was released from prison and lead the reform in South Africa. Parallel universes is given serious consideration by some theoretical physicists, but it's not known whether they've looked into the Berenstain/Berenstein brouhaha.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Act One concludes with a guided meditation lead by Dortchen Wild, a distinguished crone whom Rumpel calls his meditation teacher. Once again, the whole audience is invited to participate in "The Golden Thread Meditation Class" which begins with Dortchen instructing the class to "shake it out" – shake the body out to wake up and release any tension from sitting through the first act. Production assistants armed with straw baskets containing strands of gold fabric roam through the public giving each member their own physical golden thread. Another sign of magic at play.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This trailer gives a little taste of <i>The Golden Thread</i>:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VR8mjow7X_U" width="320" youtube-src-id="VR8mjow7X_U"></iframe></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">In Act Two we collectively cross over into the Land of the Dead. It's the spirit of DJ Tele-Grimm-Gram coming across the video screen who serves as our guide to the Afterlife through his Dead-Time radio program. In an earlier iteration of<i> The Golden Thread</i> I attended a few months back, Tele-Grimm-Gram enthused wildly about the artistic collaboration between Mr. Rodgers (yes, that Mr. Rodgers) and James Brown which resulted in the soon-to-be hit song, "It's a Beautiful Day in This Funky Neighborhood," a funky uptempo jam sure to get any skeleton swaying to the beat and rattling their bones. They played it again for this evening's performance. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In his former incarnation, Mr. Rodgers posed as the innocuous host of a children's TV program, but in reality served as the vessel for his own angelic Daimon. His <i>raison d'être</i> (Fred Rodgers spoke fluent French) appears closely aligned with<i> The Golden Thread's</i> central theme: <span style="color: red;">"The world needs a sense of worth, and it will achieve it only by its people feeling worthwhile. Anyone who does anything to help a child is a hero to me. It's our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression." </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Some of his other life lessons include:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Embrace your inner child</li><li>Don't talk down to children</li><li>Don't be afraid to feel things</li><li>To love is a choice, a process, and a struggle</li><li>Be a good neighbor</li><li>Look for the helpers</li><li>Accept and love everyone, no matter their differences</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div>The Wild Daimons' self-description as comic book superheroes finds literal expression in a comic book created and written by Dalrymple with help from: Grey Cat (illustrations), Annie Kendall (coloring and lettering), P.M. Hodges (layout and editing) and Daniel Agulilar (cover colorist). The first issue, Issue O called<i> Children of the Void,</i> released last November was available at their merch table. Its style resembles the graphic novels of Grant Morrison (<i>The Invisibles</i>) or Alan Moore (<i>Watchmen</i>). My companion picked one up and discovered this first edition signed and numbered (she got #74 out of 500) and came with a fully charged <span style="color: red;"><b>Key to the universe</b></span> (a real physical key, small but potent) designed <span style="color: red;">"[t]o aid in the process of <b>making things happen</b>." </span>My friend Paula put the key on her meditation altar.</div><div><br /></div><div>It reminded me of the Greenwich Village folk singer Melanie who had a hit song called <i>Brand New Key</i>. Melanie enjoyed her Greater Feast, leaving her biological form and crossing over to the Other Side about ten days before this performance. She could still have been in her 49 day bardo cycle before taking rebirth or moving on. The comic book story continues the theme of communication from the Land of the Dead. The first page following the opening quotes welcomes the reader to DEAD Time and instructs us to <span style="color: red;">"have a pleasant death."</span> It maintains a strong bardoesque mood and presence throughout with both evocative illustrations and the <i>aprés vie</i> storyline.</div><div><br /></div><div>The theme of moving through the bardos, aka voyaging in the macrodimensions of the Labyrinth, has a Golden Thread connection to the well-known Tibetan Buddhist exhortation to <span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>"maintain the thread of consciousness" </b></span>as one goes through sudden disorientating reality shifts and experiences intense sensations, lights, sounds, and radiations while getting instantly stripped of all ego and personality and having your mind taken apart; try not to blackout and lose the thread of consciousness.</div><div><br /></div><div>"It's a Beautiful Day In This Funky Neighborhood" seems a slightly coded metaphor for the <i>Egyptian Book of the Dead</i> aka the <i>Book of Going Forth by Day</i>. The territory of the bardo could certainly appear a funky neighborhood. The main instruction in said book tells the departing soul to unite with Osiris; that's the prime aim. Osiris is one of the death and resurrection gods that corresponds with Tiphareth on the Tree of Life making him consonant or interchangeable with Christ, Buddha or Krishna, etc. The English word for Tiphareth is Beauty. If you regard "this funky neighborhood" as the afterlife, then declaring it "a beautiful day" suggests the contact or union of the soul with Tiphareth.</div><div><br /></div><div>One way to prepare for death is to attempt this contact with Tiphareth before you die and make it a habit. It seems cognate with contacting your daimon or establishing the knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. Discovering your truest self and aligning to it has the bonus effect of preparing for biological death. Paradoxically, the practice and aim of being ready for death, however far in the future that may be, has the effect of making Life come alive. Getting ready for death as a daily meditation practice affirms Life.</div><div><br /></div><div>The rock opera changes gears out of the bardo and enters into more science fiction types of alternate realities with "Kozmar's Portal Transformation" and "Projection Outer Space Transender." It concludes with Rumpel bestowing various blessings upon the audience in his inimitable poetic style in "Initiation of the Spirit." This title sums it up perfectly for me as the night's performance did feel like an interactive initiatory journey. I saw my friend Camen Hodges, a professional in the film industry, memorializing the production on videotape so one can only hope a recording of it will be available in the not too distant future for those unable to be there in person. A full length album with much of the music is scheduled to go into production this Spring.</div><div><br /></div><div>Along with Camen, <i>The Golden Thread</i> had a dedicated team helping it come to life that included: Angela Holm, Rowan Holm, Benjamin Milner, Pamela Hodges, Mistress Nimble Thimble, Michael West, Casey Burke and Stephanie Moellman. Special thanks is also due to Paul Emery who promoted the event. More information on Dalrymple and the Wild Daimons can be found on <a href="https://www.dalrympleandthewilddaimons.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00f7;">their website</span></a>.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Every page of your story reflects the potential inner light of transcendence. The Golden Thread connects us to the world of the unconscious where shines the source of this light, i.e. the daimons.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;">- Dalrymple MacAlpin</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-33336066282018569592023-12-16T21:17:00.000-08:002023-12-18T09:55:05.332-08:00Folds and Overlaps between Aleister Crowley and Finnegans Wake<div style="text-align: center;"> “Smiting his breast, he reproached his heart with word. </div><div style="text-align: center;">Endure, heart, endure you have endured worse before.” </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div> -<i> Odyssey</i>, XX, 17 -18 by Homer as quoted in Allan Bloom’s translation of <i>The Republic, </i>p. 68<i>.</i> <div><br /></div><div>It’s interesting to see how different books in a writer’s oeuvre connect together. Each episode in <i>Ulysses</i>, except for the first three, corresponds with an organ in the human body. For instance, the 6th episode, Hades, connects with the heart. This scene in the book takes place at Paddy Dignam’s funeral in a graveyard causing Bloom, by association, to reflect upon his dead son Rudy as well as his late father. Reaching the end of the book, these organs collectively and metaphorically construct a transcendental, new “man,” actually a WoMan. This new WoMan, Eve and Adam, continues her riverun in the first sentence of Finnegans Wake signified by the initials HCE found in Howth Castle and Environs.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: red;"> “riverun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodious vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.”</span> </div><div><br /></div><div>This describes a real place in space/time. The river, the Anna Liffey, flows through Dublin, Ireland past the Church of the Immaculate Conception aka Adam and Eve’s and out into the ocean overlooked by Howth Castle. We’ll call this real place, a Microcosm. Joyce likes to use puns to suggest or convey multiple meanings. I postulate that Joyce intends to communicate HOW to construct an edifice, a castle, in the Higher Dimensions, or, if you will, the higher, “extraterrestrial” brain circuits as given in Timothy Leary’s 8 Circuits of Consciousness model. This edifice, if successful, will connect with everything. We call that the Macrocosm. Uniting the Microcosm with the Macrocosm describes a basic goal of Magick.</div><div><br /></div><div>Constructing such a structure, or a “higher body” if you will, seems a different kind of immaculate conception. It’s signified by the initials HCE (Howth Castle and Environs) which appears frequently throughout the book in many guises. These are the initials of the primary protagonist, Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker but they also stand for Here Comes Everybody; these two significations allude to uniting the Microcosm with the Macrocosm. This theme gets suggested again at the beginning of the 4th section:<span style="color: red;"> “Array! Surrection! Eireweeker to the wohld bludyn world”</span> (p. 593). I read this as: A resurrection! Earwicker to the whole bloody world. The “how” part gets suggested later on the same page:<span style="color: red;"> A hand from the cloud emerges, holding a chart expanded.</span> Joyce gives us a map; HCE shows up twice in that sentence. An allusion to “how” turns up in the last complete sentence in the book and the sentence preceding: <span style="color: red;">“The keys to. Given!”</span> The trope, “keys” turns up elsewhere in <i>Finnegans Wake</i> including a few pages before the end. The same trope turns up in <i>Ulysses</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div>Incidentally, Joyce used Cabala, a fundamental technology for the construction of higher bodies or brains. By Gematria, the Cabalistic transposition of letters into numbers, HCE adds to 18; Ulysses has 18 episodes. </div><div><br /></div><div>Aleister Crowley also endeavored to provide everyone with such edifice building keys through Magick and his system or quasi-religion called Thelema. This essay intends to point out some of the parallels between <i>Finnegans Wake,</i> Magick and Thelema alongside references to Mr. Crowley, himself. Due to time constraints and the vastness of the subject, this piece merely provides an outline for a more detailed expanded account in the future. You could call this a work in progress, if you will. </div><div><br /></div><div>Thelema and <i>Finnegans Wake</i> appear completely isomorphic and resonant with each other right from the get go. Thelema means Will in ancient Greek and adds to 93 by Greek Cabala. Agape, spiritual Love – the highest kind, also adds to 93 indicating a connection and strong resonance between Love and Will. It’s called love under will because on the surface Thelema directly means Will and under that, qabalistically, it also means Love. Love under will also indicates intentional or directed love. </div><div><br /></div><div>Speaking of the Greeks, the word “swerve” from “swerve of shore” in the first sentence dates back to Lucretius when he used it to describe the unpredictable and indeterminate swerve atoms take which he attributes to the creation of life and order out of chaos. This swerving (of shore)<span style="color: #2b00fe;"> “provides the free will which all living things throughout the world have.” </span>Gilles Deleuze calls it the production of sense. Swerve = Will. </div><div><br /></div><div>The next sentence, physically under the first one as you look at the page, has:</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: red;">“Sir Tristram, violer-d’amores, fr’over the short sea, had passencore rearrived from North Amorica on this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war.”</span> </div><div><br /></div><div>“Violer” could mean violater; it also suggests what Joyce had in his first draft, “viola-d’amore,” a six or seven stringed musical instrument with an equal number of sympathetic strings below the played ones to create additional harmonics. It’s similar to a regular viola; played in the baroque period. Stringed instruments at that time often had intricately carved heads at the top of the neck. Most common on a viola d’amore was a carved head of Cupid blindfolded to show the blindness of love. As a bonus, the “d” before “amore” qabalistically connects with Venus, the Goddess of Love. The first two sentences in <i>Finnegans Wake</i> clearly show “love under will – Thelema.” </div><div><br /></div><div>Still on page 1, Joyce not only indicates great potentialities he also confronts those possibilities with obstacles and challenges anyone attempting to realize those potentials might face such as <span style="color: red;">“wielderfight the penisolate war”</span>, <span style="color: red;">“the great fall”</span> and the fragility and volatility of the metaphysical surface (higher brain circuits) represented by Humpty Dumpty, the giant, sentient egg. </div><div><br /></div><div>The appearance of Sir Tristram alludes to the story of Tristram and Iseult, a frequently recurring theme in the Wake, where Tristram is a knight escorting the Irish princess Iseult back to Ireland to marry King Marc. They fall in love along the way. Joyce has him coming back from North Armorica, Armorica being an ancient name for Brittany. It also suggests North America, where Joyce is about to go in this same second sentence. </div><div><br /></div><div>Sound plays a huge role and provides an entrance to Joyce’s language and meanings. Armorica sounds like amour – love; it also has the word “armor,” the American spelling for armour. The message: protect your love. Very soon we see the fragility of this construction of higher consciousness. The image of the Thoth Tarot card The Chariot illustrates this story – escorting and protecting the Grail. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqrzqBXBmMwR2Du7k8bLmVRvKa5SwapPEqawxfttIvtveiagnpcFchztifR-Al-ftne-Vjj22fge29v8UA3FhfehI7Js0dUp4OFXGTMKAQXBCjPnPBtznwprgR1XLutU8XSGN_DZiXEZdIF6Gdh4CB7jNpAMSGBWYPmNGTzBqF6qdRH0wZ3KFDmvod3zcE/s600/atu-vii-the-chariot-thoth-tarot.jpg!Large.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="398" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqrzqBXBmMwR2Du7k8bLmVRvKa5SwapPEqawxfttIvtveiagnpcFchztifR-Al-ftne-Vjj22fge29v8UA3FhfehI7Js0dUp4OFXGTMKAQXBCjPnPBtznwprgR1XLutU8XSGN_DZiXEZdIF6Gdh4CB7jNpAMSGBWYPmNGTzBqF6qdRH0wZ3KFDmvod3zcE/s320/atu-vii-the-chariot-thoth-tarot.jpg!Large.jpg" width="212" /></a></div><br /><div>Iseult connects with all the Goddess archetypes in the Wake and with Babalon in the Thelemic cosmology. In the Hebrew tradition both of these, Babalon and Iseult is called the Shekinah. </div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> * * * * * * </div><div><br /></div><div>Nothing mentioned thus far connects directly with Crowley. We first find this link on page 105, the only time in the book he’s mentioned this clearly and unambiguously. Joyce connects him with Rabelais, a major influence on both Crowley and Joyce, by alluding to the Abbey of Thélème: </div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;"> From Abbeygate to Crowalley </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;"> Through a Lift in the Lude, Smocks for Their Graces and </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;"> Me Aunt for them Clodshopper, How to P<span style="font-family: inherit;">ull a Good Horuscoup </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-family: inherit;"> even when Oldsire is Dead to the World, ...</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> "Abbeygate" seems a clear reference to Rabe</span>lais connecting with Gargantua chapter 52, "The Inscription set above the main Gate of Thélème." The first line obviously alludes to the trajectory of the Abbey of Thelema; the word "all" appears in the Crowley allusion consonant with the theme of Pan. "Lude" suggests the lewd humor Rabelais was known for, it also translates as 'play" from Latin; this one word indicates playful lewdness or lewd playfulness. "Lift in the Lude" implies wisdom in the folly; <span style="color: red;">"Smocks for Their Graces"</span> = mocking their Graces - satirizing Papal and Church establishment authority. <span style="color: red;">"Horuscoup"</span> brings us back to Crowley who was an expert astrologer (horoscope - he was the ghostwriter for popular American astrologer Evangeline Adams). More pertinent is the inclusion of the Egyptian god Horus in the portmanteau word. Crowley defined his mission as announcing and helping make manifest the new aeon of Horus, a central tenet of Thelema. </div><div><br /></div><div>Both Joyce and Crowley drew upon Nietzsche. <span style="color: red;">“ … even when Oldsire is Dead to the World”</span> suggests the famous “God is dead” pronouncement which, according to Deleuze, has at least 12 different interpretations. <span style="color: red;">Horuscoup</span> also = a coup by Horus as in a coup d’etat; a take-over from the old, authoritarian rendition of God to one that affirms life and the joy within it. Affirmation of life was also championed by Nietzsche. The first page of the Wake ends: “where oranges have been laid to rest upon the green since devlinfirst loved livvy.” Joyce announces an affirmation of life here: “livvy” = the river Liffy = Anna Livia Plurabelle = LIFE. </div><div><br /></div><div>Anna Livia Plurabelle is the main female protagonist, wife of Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker and mother to their children. Her initials, ALP appear the second most frequently found in phrases throughout the book. She represents the Goddess archetype and, in this sense, is the first character in the <i>Wake</i> entering with the 3rd word “Eve.” Just as Crowley or Aiwass begins <i>The Book of the Law</i> with Nuit, Joyce begins <i>Finnegans Wak</i>e with Eve. </div><div><br /></div><div>Attentive readers will notice that nearly everything – themes, people, places, etc. - repeats or recurs in the Wake albeit a little differently each time. This seems along the lines of Nietzsche’s concept of Eternal Recurrence as well as Vico’s cyclic theory of History. The first sentence illustrates this structural aspect with the phrase: <span style="color: red;">“commodious vicus of recirculation.”</span> Pattern recognition seems a crucial key for unlocking the secrets and keys herein. Thus we can expect a return to Crowley by name even if obscurely. </div><div><br /></div><div>The first mention of Crowley, quoted above, comes on the second page of the first Anna Livia Plurabelle chapter as part of a list of names of [h]er untitled<span style="color: red;"> mamafesta memorializing the Mosthighest.</span> The second time, more of an obscure allusion, comes on the second page of the second Anna Livia Plurabelle chapter, p. 197, with the name <span style="color: red;">“Garda Growley.”</span> It’s preceded by a description that bears some resemblance to Uncle Al as portrayed in the tabloid press in the early to mid 1920s: <span style="color: red;">“And the cut of him! And the strut of him! How he used to hold his head as high as a howeth, the famous eld duke alien, with a hump of grandeur on him like a walking weasel rat. And his derry’s own drawl and his corksown blather and his doubling stutter and his gullaway swank.”</span> The last sentence references various Irish locales. Crowley is an Irish name though Aleister was an Englishman, alien to Ireland. <span style="color: red;">“Garda Growley”</span> suggests the nursery rhyme: <span style="color: #2b00fe;">“Mary, Mary quite contrary how does your garden grow? With silverbells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row.”</span> Crowley’s lifestyle certainly seemed contrary to convention. The feminization of the male principle appears an important concept in both the Wake and Thelema and connects with the concept “becoming-woman” as presented by Deleuze and Guatarri in<i> A Thousand Plateaus</i>. More on that later. </div><div><br /></div><div> The next possible mention occurs on page 229: </div><div><span style="color: red;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: red;">“Go in for scribenery with the satiety of arthurs in S.P.Q.R. ish and inform to the old sniggering publicking press and its nation of sheepcopers about the whole plighty troth between them, malady of milady made melodi of malodi, she, the lalage of lyon-esses, and him, her knave arrant. To Wildrose La Gilligan from Croppy Crowhore. For all within crystal range.</span> </div><div><br /></div><div>Crowhore could be a portmanteau allusion to Crowley and Horus. Joyce plays around a lot with the name Horus elsewhere in the Wake. Horus, of course, represents the reigning deity of the new aeon in Thelema. <span style="color: red;">Wildrose La Gilligan</span> might represent Rose Crowley, AC’s first wife who was quite wild. Their marrriage lead to the reception of The Book of the Law. There was a <span style="color: red;">“plighty troth between them”</span> – they got married to rescue Rose from a planned marriage to someone else whom she didn’t love – her malady? Gilligan comes from an Irish name meaning lad or boy. La adds to 31 = Not or Nothing and corresponds with Nuit. Wildrose not a boy? La also = the feminine form of “the” in French; “the” is the last word in<i> Finnegans Wake</i> and etymologically means God. Croppy was a name for Irish rebels in the late 19th Century. Crowley, along with Nietzsche and Joyce strongly rebelled against the Roman Catholic Church. S.P.Q.R. stands for the “Senate and the People of Rome.” Crowhore could also indicate Crowley plus whore. Wildrose is described as the lalage of lyon-esses. Lalage was an old common name for courtesans = high class prostitutes. It’s also the name of the genus of triller birds – song birds, thus a connection with <span style="color: red;">“milady made melodi.”</span> And with enough imagination one can suggest the reception of <i>The Book of the Law</i>. Making a melody out of a malady connects with the alchemical transformation of gold out of lead or out of shit. Lyon-esses recalls the French city Lyon, also female lions. Lion has great symbolic importance in Thelema, it corresponds with Tiphareth. Crowley has been called a lion of light. The beginning of the quote could again refer to the yellow journalism that befell the Beast. La = 31 also = “How?” according to the<i> Sepher Sephiroth</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div>I found an aside with Gilligan that Joyce couldn’t possibly have known, a fun coincidence. Most readers will remember the TV sitcom, <i>Gilligan’s Island</i>. The very last episode was called "Gilligan, the Goddess." It concerns the Chief of a neighboring island in search of a “White Goddess.” The characters think that this might get them off the island but the three women bow out after finding out this Goddess is meant to be sacrificed to a volcano. So the men put on dresses and pretend to be this White Goddess recalling the “becoming-woman” concept mentioned earlier. </div><div><br /></div><div>Moving on to page 234 we find another possible Crowley reference: <span style="color: red;">he had his tristiest cabaleer on; and looked like bruddy Hal</span>. Hal = Al? “bruddy” = either brother or bloody or both (blood brother) all of which could apply to A.C.. Cabaleer = someone who practices Cabala. Hal adds to 36 = 6 x 6. 36 also = “How?” A few lines down on the same page: <span style="color: red;">“a haggiography in duotrigesumy, son soptimost of sire sixtusks.”</span> A hagiography is the biography of a Saint. Crowley famously called his autiobiography, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley a hagiography or the “hag” for short. Joyce could have seen that – the first volumes of the hag were published in the 1920s. Duotrigesumy breaks down as duo (2) + tri (3) + gesu (Italian for Jesus = key 6 Tiphareth ) + my (possessive pronoun). I could go on, and there’s more of a similar nature on the same page. I considered that this may be Joyce calling Crowley his brother, maybe? </div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: red;">Sixtusks</span> could refer to 6 + the tusks of an elephant, a large beast. Page 234 also alludes to Buddha, another key 6 correspondence; there’s a well-known parable about Buddha calming an angry elephant with loving kindness. Tusks also sounds like a homonym for “tasks” as in 6 tasks; especially when we look ahead to p. 263 to find:<span style="color: red;"> “The tasks above are as the flasks below, saith the emerald canticle of Hermes [HCE] and all’s loth and pleasestir [ALP], we are told on excellent inkbottle authority, solarsystemised, seriol-cosmically, in a more and more almightily expanding universe under one, there is rhyme-less reason to believe, original sun.</span> </div><div><br /></div><div> Next on page 276:<span style="color: red;"> “But bless his cowly head and press his crankly hat, what a world’s woe is each’s other’s weariness waiting to beadroll his own proper mistakes, …” </span>Head and hat qabalistically connect with Tiphareth and Kether respectively. The two adjectives in the first phrase are “cowly” and “crankly” and when you switch their first letters you get “crowly” and “cankly”; it seems the kind of wordplay Joyce employs.</div><div><br /></div><div> This one on p. 328 – 329 seems less visible except for the obvious Thelemic symbols:<span style="color: red;"> “our fiery quean, upon the night of the things of the night of the making to stand up the double tet of the oversear of the sieze who cometh from the mighty deep and on the night of making <b>Horuse</b> to criumph over his enemy, be the help of me cope as to pluse the riches of the roed-shields, with Elizabeliza blessing the bedpain, at the <b>willbedone of Yinko Jinko Randy</b>, come <b>Bastabasco and hippychip eggs</b>, she will make a suomease pair and singlette…”</span> </div><div><br /></div><div>The first part of “Bastabasco” sounds close to “Beast.” Beast gets mentions elsewhere, but doesn’t seem to connect much with Crowley as far as I can tell – except for this one and the next one below with its proximity to Horus. Crowley + Horus becomes a recurring motif. It also has the Egyptian cat-headed goddess Bast who sometimes manifested as a black jaguar or a humanoid jaguar, a unique beast. Bast is a protector goddess and the daughter of Ra. She was sometimes called the Goddess of the Rising Sun. The second half, basco, suggests the fiery tobasco sauce used in some egg recipes. <span style="color: red;">The “willbedone of Yinko Jinko and Randy”</span> provides a qabalistic synch: Y+J+R = 220 = the number of verses in <i>The Book of the Law.</i> </div><div><br /></div><div>The next beast linked to Crowley and Horus appears on page 347. We see “a white horsday” . . . <span style="color: red;">“how the krow flees end in deed. . . “</span> (Crowley’s name Perdurabo means “I will endure until the end”.) and <span style="color: red;">“when we sight the beasts.”</span> All in the same sentence.
This last mention from page 473 occurs at the end of the second chapter of Book 3 or chapter 14 overall. In the story it speaks of the ending of night and the coming of the morning:<span style="color: red;"> “Brave footsore Haun! Work your progress! Hold to! Now! Win out, ye divil ye! The silent cock shall crow at last. The west shall shake the east awake.”</span> Haun refers to Shaun, one of the twin sons of HCE and ALP. The last line quoted here resonates with a line in The Book of the Law: “There cometh a rich man from the West who shall pour his gold upon thee” (III:31).
“The silent cock shall crow at last” looks very straightforward on the surface, but also pregnant with Thelemic meaning. Silence seems a big deal in Magick. Horus represents a twin God with one aspect, Ra Hoor Khuit, very outgoing and connected with yang/male energy. The feminine aspect, Hoor Pa Kraat, is withdrawn and connected with silence. In the Star Ruby, the Thelemic version of the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, one assumes the classic posture of silence, forefinger to the lips, no less than four times in the short ritual. It occurs immediately after assuming the posture of sign of The Enterer aka the sign of Horus for the outgoing aspect. Cock being slang for penis, silent cock combines the female (silence) and male energies. Silent cock represents a feminization of male energies, a subject I haven’t been able to expand upon much with this short piece, but which recurs throughout the <i>Wake</i>. This feminization has absolutely nothing to do with either biological gender identities or emasculation. It represents the sublimation of sexual energies. Sexual energy = spiritual energy when sublimated. We find this “becoming-woman” trajectory in the name of the male protagonist, HCE. Both the letters H and E correspond with the Hebrew letter “Heh” which occurs twice in the four-fold name of God called Tetragrammaton: YHVH (Jehovah). These letters symbolize: Y = Father, King or Knight in the Tarot court cards depending on the deck; the first H = Mother or Queen; V = the Son/Prince; the final H = the Daughter/Princess (Thoth Tarot). The final two words of the sentence under discussion, “at last” have the initials a + l, which holds much significance Thelemically. <i>The Book of the Law</i> seems more commonly known by its Latin title: <i>Liber AL vel Legis</i> often abbreviated as <i>Liber Al</i>. This a +l letter combo occurs four times in the last sentence of<i> Finnegans Wake</i><span style="color: red;">: A way a lone a last a loved a long the</span> </div><div><br /></div><div>Joyce tips off the alert reader to look through the lens of Cabala in the third word of the Wake, “Eve”, which corresponds with the third sephira, Binah, key # 3. In Coincidance, Robert Anton Wilson writes of the Cabalistic significance of Anna Livia Plurabelle = ALP = 111. He also seems very aware of the SC code as I’ve commented upon numerous times often in discussion groups about one or another of his books. Joyce employs this code. Joyce scholars appear pretty hip to the cryptography and letter play of HCE and ALP. They may want to also turn their attention to SC. This code appears quite connected to Crowley’s system stemming from an often overlooked important text of his called The Paris Working which revealed the identification of Christ (Tiphareth – 6) with Mercury ( Hod – 8). SC adds to 68 when corresponding C with Cheth as non-traditional Qabalists do. Tiphareth = the heart chakra; Hod = communication. Communicate the heart. The Book of the Law affirms this in the 6th verse of the first chapter: <span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>“Be thou Hadit, my secret center, my heart & my tongue!”</b></span> <span style="color: red;">“The silent cock shall crow at last.”</span> shows two instances of S+C in this short sentence. </div><div><br /></div><div>I traced this SC coding back to Rabelais in a section about Saint Chapelle found in the third book of <i>Gargantua and Pantagruel</i> in chapter 15 called “The Excuse of Panurge; and an exegesis of a monastical cabbala concerning salted beef.” It also connects with divine food – see Chapter 68 in <i>The Book of Lies</i> called “Manna.” On page 68 of <i>Finnegans Wake</i> in one sentence near the top we find: <span style="color: red;">"sweet churchyard"</span>; <span style="color: red;">"soft coal"</span>; <span style="color: red;">"same hot coney"</span> and <span style="color: red;">"son of a Coole</span>.<span style="color: red;">"</span> The next sentence begins with a phrase carrying the initials HCE followed by one with ALP. On page 132 amidst much Cabalistic reference we find: <span style="color: red;">“cabalstone”</span>, <span style="color: red;">“sleepy children”</span>, <span style="color: red;">“storen clothes”</span>, <span style="color: red;">“snake charmer”</span>, <span style="color: red;">“calm sagacity”</span>, and <span style="color: red;">“the clearness of his spotless honour.”</span> This penultimate phrase on this page reads: “and as for the salmon he was coming up in him all life long.” From <i>A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake</i> by Campbell and Robinson: <span style="color: #2b00fe;">“The strong play on the salmon theme throughout <i>Finnegans Wake</i> corresponds to the importance of salmon in Irish myth and folklore. It was from the taste of the flesh of the great, wise, salmon that Finn MacCool, according to the ancient tale, acquired his ‘Tooth of Knowledge.’”</span> There’s the food connection. Incidentally, the first word in Ulysses begins with S; the last word of the first sentence begins with C. </div><div><br /></div><div>So many subjects, so little time. <i>The Egyptian Book of the Dead</i> gets lots of airplay in the <i>Wake</i> and serves as a major component in Golden Dawn magic, the basis of Crowley’s Magick. Phoenix Park in the Wake and the “Mass of the Phoenix” in Thelema illustrates another overlap between the two, both concerning the theme of resurrection. It was either Campbell, Robinson or Tindall who opined that resurrection serves as the main theme in <i>Finnegans Wake</i>. Resurrection follows death; in between is the territory known as the Bardo. This territory gets addressed by the Egyptian and other books of the dead. One of the two major ordeals in Thelema is known as “Crossing the Abyss” which appears a similar territory as the Bardo and relates with Chapel Perilous. <i>Finnegans Wake</i> can be looked at as how to successfully navigate the Bardo to realize a good resurrection, or how to cross the Abyss; how to get through the Night or Chapel Perilous. John Lilly called it meta-programming. All this and more lies ahead in the riverun. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> TO BE CONTINUED </div></div>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-76324145371249491392023-11-06T15:44:00.002-08:002023-11-06T15:44:59.157-08:0034th Series of Primary Order and Secondary Organization<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: inherit; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">This series begins by looking at the development of the phantasm as a pendular motion swinging between the two extremes of the metaphysical surface and the partial objects and drives in the depths. The greatest danger is the collapse of the surface into the depths. The greatest potential lies in the constitution of a metaphysical surface of great range on which even the objects of the depths are projected. </span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">Deleuze calls this pendular motion the forced movement of the phantasm; this forced movement increases its amplitude. The full amplitude brings about the metaphysical surface which he also calls Thanatos or the Death Instinct. Deleuze defines the Death Instinct differently than Freud – not as a wish for death but a wish to go beyond death.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">He envisions a struggle between Thanatos, or the metaphysical surface and the destructive drives of the depths. If the metaphysical surface wins out then an infinitive verb or an Eternal Truth gets inscribed on this surface. What Lewis Carroll calls "Impenetrability" and "Radiancy" gets actualized.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">Impenetrability comes from the 6th chapter in <i>Through the Looking Glass</i>, and is uttered by Humpty Dumpty. Examples of Radiancy can be found in Carroll's poems:</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/651/651-h/651-h.htm" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00e1;">Phantasmagoria</span></a></i></span></span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><a href="https://www.netpoets.com/classic/poem/013010" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00ea;">Dreamland</span></a></i></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><a href=" http://pinkmonkey.com/dl/library1/carol11.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00bb;">Beatrice</span></a></i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the infinitive verb inscribed upon the metaphysical surface, the secondary organization is brought about and from this organization, the entire ordering of language. This allows the event as that which can be expressed. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">The sexual organization is a prefiguration of the organization of language just as the physical surface was a preparation for the metaphysical surface.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">Perversion is an art of the surface as opposed to subversion as a technique of the depths. Most sexual crimes are subversion not perversion.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">The real problem of perversion (radical change) is shown correctly in the essential mechanism which corresponds to it, that of <i>Verleugnung</i> (denial). <i>Verleugnung</i> is not an hallucination, but rather an esoteric knowledge.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">Primary order goes from the beginning sounds and noises in the depths then to the voice on high followed by speech then language. Words are directly actions and passions of the body. They are demonic possession or divine privation. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">In relation to the voice, words can reach an excessive equivocation. (Perhaps the best example gets found in Joyce's <i>Finnegans Wake</i>.) </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">An equivocation which ends equivocity and makes language ripe for something else. This something else is that which comes from the <i>other</i>, desexualized and metaphysical surface – the revelation of the univocal, the advent of Univocity – that is, the Event which communicates the univocity of being to language. Humor constructs all univocity. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">The dynamic genesis doesn't end. There is the problem of the work of art yet to come. A construction of <i>Music für ein Haus</i>.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">See Karlheinz Stockhausen's 1968 group composition project: </span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musik_f%C3%BCr_ein_Haus" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00bb;">Music für ein Haus</span></a>.</i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="329" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/I882iQwecRI" width="491" youtube-src-id="I882iQwecRI"></iframe></div></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-30491720732777984062023-09-25T16:55:00.000-07:002023-09-25T16:55:34.367-07:0033rd Series of Alice's Adventures<p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">In this Series Deleuze plugs <i>Alice's Adventures in Wonderland</i>, and <i>Through the Looking Glass</i> into the three orientations of the dynamic genesis: the depths, the heights, and the surface. He mentions the circular mushroom that causes Alice to grow or to shrink depending upon which side she eats from. This circles the reader back to the very beginning of <i>The Logic of Sense</i> as that's how the book starts.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #0d0d0d;">In a footnote, Deleuze mentions two poems by Carroll that illustrate the good voice on high. They are: </span><i><a href="http://pinkmonkey.com/dl/library1/carol73.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00d0;">The Two Brothers</span></a> </i></span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #0d0d0d;">and </span><i><a href="http://www.online-literature.com/carroll/2819/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00ee;">The Three Voices</span></a></i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #0d0d0d;">He also mentions </span><i style="color: #0d0d0d;">Sylvie and Bruno</i><span style="color: #0d0d0d;"> which he again calls a masterpiece as he did earlier in the book. It gives another example of the good voice on high withdrawn but also the two surfaces, the surface between bodies and ideas (ordinary reality in </span><i style="color: #0d0d0d;">Sylvie and Bruno</i><span style="color: #0d0d0d;">), and the metaphysical surface (the fairy/magic reality). The first book is </span><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/620/620-h/620-h.htm" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00f7;">here</span></a><span style="color: #0d0d0d;">. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i style="color: #0d0d0d;">Sylvie and Bruno Concluded</i><span style="color: #0d0d0d;"> is </span><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/48795/48795-h/48795-h.htm" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00f7;">here</span></a><span style="color: #0d0d0d;">.
</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">About two thirds of the way through this Series there's an inflexion point where Deleuze stops talking about <i>Alice</i> and Lewis Carroll and begins to look at great authors as Doctors or Diagnosticians of Civilization. He'll talk about this in relation to the pure event and the metaphysical surface.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Series ends with obscure quotes from another Lewis Carroll story:</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i style="color: #0d0d0d;">A Photographer's Day Out</i><span style="color: #0d0d0d;">. I don't find it in print on the internet but </span><a href="https://youtu.be/_li-c4Vd3So?si=GA0QkmkgG8Or0DRT" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00d0;">here's a video</span></a><span style="color: #0d0d0d;"> of the story being read.</span></span></span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="309" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3NC5f_jwQa4" width="492" youtube-src-id="3NC5f_jwQa4"></iframe></div><br />
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #0d0d0d;"><br /></span></span></span></div></div>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-17785875231548934342023-09-12T17:20:00.002-07:002023-09-12T18:37:46.929-07:00Let This Be Enough by Catherine Scholz<p>There is no right way or wrong way to record music. Sometimes it's done very fast to capture spontaneity and freshness. Bob Dylan is known to prefer this method. Other times, it can be labored over longer. Both approaches went into the creation of the new single by Catherine Scholz. Much of the track - drums, percussion, rhythm guitar, violin and lead vocal was recorded in half a day at Ancient Wave in Nevada City. There was also some minimal drum editing. That's lightening speed for me when you consider that it usually takes a minimum of two hours to set up drums, mics and rout them into the desk. </p><p>We started with Catherine playing a rhythm track on one of the studios beautiful Martin acoustic guitars. She played to a click track, a metronome, to assure consistency with the timing. However, most serendipitously, she made a mistake in the form by including an extra verse section. Following Brian Eno's oblique strategy to "honor thy mistake as a hidden intention," we kept it for use as an instrumental section for solos. Then I had Catherine double her guitar part; she made the great suggestion to play it on a different acoustic guitar, her own. Next was her vocal. She did a warm up pass while I got her level. Then she did a take all the way through. By then, Mark McCartney had arrived to set up his drums. I expected to come back later to work on Catherine's lead vocal, but we never did. That first take was all that was needed.</p><p>We got the drums up and sounds on them lickety-split. Mark is a pro, and pretty instantly locked into the groove. It had already been decided in a pre-production meeting that he would play the drums with brushes. We did three drum takes. For the final one, Catherine requested more of what's known as a "stirring the soup" sound like you might hear in older jazz recordings where the brushes swirl around the surface of the snare drum and play accents on the 2 and 4 of the measure. In one of the initial passes, I liked the way Mark was keeping time with his hi hat on the "1 and" + "3 and" of the beat and asked for more of that. That third take was the one we went with. Mark came in for a playback, heard a few things slightly off which we fixed on the spot through editing. He heard a tambourine part, overdubbing it in one pass. Catherine had the thought for him to play some cymbal swells at transition areas, from the first verse into the chorus, from the chorus to the solo section, etc. I asked Mark if he had mallets for that, but he was way ahead of me and already had them out, ready to go.</p><p>Following the drums, we had just enough time to record some violin parts by the very talented Mei Lin Heirendt. Based on the lyrics, I asked her to consider a melancholy mood with a glimmer of hope in there as she played. We recorded a couple of passes all the way through with Mei Lin playing fills in response to Catherine's words along with a solo. After those two passes, we worked on just the solo and got a beautiful one. John Taber, a professional and extremely excellent photographer (among other things) got some great shots of this musical invocation. Hats off to my assistant, Jaya Betts, who made the seamless, technological flow possible.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpIHp4jjE5yLxbBvOcYj0JmZ2QG5lTST9OUMdMqaQxXqigeLhRp8uk1Dez0vKuTDNUgJ2qUnHPe_DxA2V_UcwRUKwxxV9aRDW3vP3tMzXo6aragtSKvBSyMW2Ql8LMM75_JBB3xs66NrLpdOLbVfCOwHtucL--cqRDhFtLeqkBa56JQ5d2N9PEIopvtWyy/s1500/Catherine%20Scholz.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="783" data-original-width="1500" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpIHp4jjE5yLxbBvOcYj0JmZ2QG5lTST9OUMdMqaQxXqigeLhRp8uk1Dez0vKuTDNUgJ2qUnHPe_DxA2V_UcwRUKwxxV9aRDW3vP3tMzXo6aragtSKvBSyMW2Ql8LMM75_JBB3xs66NrLpdOLbVfCOwHtucL--cqRDhFtLeqkBa56JQ5d2N9PEIopvtWyy/w400-h219/Catherine%20Scholz.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Catherine Scholz</span> </div><p>More of John Taber's shots can be seen in the <a href="https://www.catherinesmusic.com/let-this-be-enough-production-credits/?fbclid=IwAR0Gsr2siSu7vzWFvPXAqS6-9akBz5oLC5ajCvXSrO8gZGBmY1-xsptD6Jc" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00ea;">Production Credits</span></a> on Catherine's site.</p><p>The rest of the instruments were recorded remotely at the various musician's local studios. Catherine added some background vocals at her place. Bassist Jared May sent in his part from his home in L.A. Tommy Coster was enlisted to play piano. He graciously included some other ideas he had: a wurlitzer piano part and some ambient synthesizer swells for transitions. Pete Grant sent multiple takes of lap guitar, pedal steel guitar and dobro – all gorgeous fills, textures and solos. I had an embarrassment of riches to flesh out the arrangement.</p><p>Catherine's fiancé, John, had the suggestion to turn the song into a duet. We both thought it could significantly contribute to the song. She asked her friend, Francisco Aviles to contribute a verse and a chorus. Francisco sang the second verse modifying the lyrics slightly to suit his vocal delivery, then they both sang the last chorus. Francisco sent me one take which I plugged into mix and sent to Catherine. She asked if there were any alternate choices, so I had him send all his takes which included nine more. I spent a few hours listening and compiling the best parts. It was a good call; his earlier takes had a softer, more velvety quality that suited the song well. Catherine heard the new, composite take and requested one line be swapped back to the first take which worked very well. </p><p>For the solo, I originally went with Mei Lin's violin for the whole thing. John also had the idea to have the solo switch to the lap steel halfway through, then have the violin come back to join it at the end. It was another great idea as it musically anticipated a second voice, Francisco's, entering the song with both voices together on the last chorus.</p><p>Emotionally, as I interpret it, it seems to concern a reckoning of a relationship which both parties want to confront directly as per the lyrics that begin each verse: "Say it to my face ...". They both agree that their union will be enough to carry them through anything. I find it very moving.</p><p>A review at Melo Groove puts it more eloquently:</p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #919191;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Celebrated singer-songwriter Catherine Scholz is set to make a profound impact on the hearts and minds of listeners with the release of her latest single, “Let This Be Enough.” This soul-stirring song transcends boundaries and speaks to the deeply human experiences of unrequited love, longing for reciprocation, and the struggle for self-acceptance.</b></span></span></p><p>The full review is <a href="https://melogroove.co/catherine-scholzs-empowering-new-single-let-this-be-enough-strikes-a-chord-with-emotional-resonance/?fbclid=IwAR3VdEX2VR9fiHRdbdLBaTyHAZAVdS9pxAfSEJn4sn4EoYUpv7wqwYz9bwg" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00f2;">here</span></a>.</p><p>You can listen or download <i> Let This Be Enough</i> on any of <a href="https://www.catherinesmusic.com/let-this-be-enough-now-available-on-all-platforms/?fbclid=IwAR325Q4sKcIzT33TEF-mDqZqoTlRZ1Uxb1d0Y3uYFrZr-FeHLtz5H7R0esU" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00bf;">these platforms</span></a>.</p><p>Enjoy!</p><p><br /></p>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-55590662555218505502023-08-28T16:42:00.000-07:002023-08-28T16:42:29.990-07:0032nd Series on the Different Kinds of Series<p><span style="font-family: inherit;">T<span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">he 32nd Series returns to earlier concepts in <i>The Logic of Sense</i> but this time in the context of Freudian psychology and analysis. The serial form begins with the release of the sexual drives. It talks about three different kinds of series and the type of synthesis they provide; the connective, conjunctive and dynamic syntheses. It recapitulates the dynamic genesis of the developing child learning language starting from the chaotic noises in the depths, then hearing their parents use language (the voice on high) and finally beginning to use speech at the surface. This still isn't language until the Event or sense occurs.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">Working from<i> Psychanalyzer</i> by Serge Leclaire, Deleuze connects the basic elements of language, phonemes, morphemes and semantemes, with the three sexual positions: erogenous zones (connective synthesis), the phallic coordination of the surface (conjunctive synthesis) and the Oedipal affairs or castration complex (disjunctive synthesis). </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">The paradoxical nature of the phallic image both coordinating the surface and contributing to the dissipation of the castration complex is compared to the paradoxical "Object = X" that circulates between the two series of the signifier and the signified. It is both an excess and a lack and is always in a state of disequilibration.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not said in the video: The disjunctive synthesis proves to be "the destination and truth of the others."</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="335" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DPhoeMggFrQ" width="514" youtube-src-id="DPhoeMggFrQ"></iframe></div><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-3221946172648189482023-08-15T19:36:00.001-07:002023-08-16T12:11:33.153-07:00Picture Frame by Cassidy Joy<p> A strong invocation brings its own resistance. I tell my clients that unusual obstacles or adversity in the recording process often indicate the music coming through carries a strong force. Giving birth in any realm presents its own challenges. This appears clearly evident with the capturing of Cassidy Joy's new single <i>Picture Frame</i>. </p><p>The first recording date was postponed due to a slight cold – nothing too uncommon there. On the morning of the new date, a power outage shut down all electricity to the studio. Our irresponsible provider, PG&E, said it would be back on by 11:30 am; no problem there, the session was scheduled for noon. Indeed, power was restored shortly after 11. Cassidy arrived and got settled. She did a little warm up run through of the song as I set my levels. We checked the tuning on her acoustic guitar – looking good, we were all set to go. At that exact moment, the power goes out again. Unbelievable! I got my emergency generator going and we finally began. This is less than ideal as my generator and all the other generators in the neighborhood increases the ambient noise hum in the space, but I thought I could deal with it. Halfway way into her performance the power came back on, but near the end of the song my audio software abruptly stopped. That had never happened before – likely due to the less than steady electricity provided by my generator. Cassidy felt good about the take, but I had to sheepishly tell her about the drop out and ask her to play it again. </p><p>We did another run through; it was a significantly stronger delivery, the best. The obstacles had pushed her to another level. It felt like the one. During the playback to confirm, we heard the yowling of a cat. Was it in the recording? Would this great performance be compromised? Fortunately not, the cat's contribution only occurred during playback not the recording itself. We added another rhythm guitar part, did some minor editing and had a track. After much more than usual resistance, a new piece of beauty had come down from wherever it comes from for all the world to hear. Perseverance paid off.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEWfU8SbgwZtyEByNonpqDw9ODvwlVtg5BDaGLjbr3pwoSTrucpZSjRD6PUGCwLG5y_f6yOPj2aYKhpsXQA9dsS3p6PVs5pfpDMgIRYJmNZHeoAtchBzEEw33mwkMUJOlZO-v3Tzl5RtagJKMgYhvJSuirrvUPkrfDXNxCJ4efEwlA43zTMyAI99GbM5QY/s1334/Cassidy%20Joy.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1334" data-original-width="750" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEWfU8SbgwZtyEByNonpqDw9ODvwlVtg5BDaGLjbr3pwoSTrucpZSjRD6PUGCwLG5y_f6yOPj2aYKhpsXQA9dsS3p6PVs5pfpDMgIRYJmNZHeoAtchBzEEw33mwkMUJOlZO-v3Tzl5RtagJKMgYhvJSuirrvUPkrfDXNxCJ4efEwlA43zTMyAI99GbM5QY/w225-h400/Cassidy%20Joy.jpeg" width="225" /></a></div><div><br /></div>As I interpret the song, it tells a story of someone looking at a photo and reading the biography of what they see there:<div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Pretty lady in a picture frame</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Silk white dress</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Wreaths the baby's breath</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Pretty mama of a high born name</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Keeps a treasure chest</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Never leaves a mess</i></div><div><br /></div><div>There's a subtle sense of tragedy, a mood of melancholy in this song.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>And if I didn't know better</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>I'd say you had it all together</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>And if I couldn't see through you</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>I'd almost swear that I knew you</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>From the face that you were wearing in a picture frame.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>One belief in philosophy holds that the artistic expression of tragedy is just as necessary as comedy in the balanced development of society. Perhaps when feeling some pain in a work of art, it helps us deal with any pain we'll inevitably experience in life itself?</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Pretty mama sitting all alone</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Underneath the roses, hoping someone would notice</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>She built her castle from her father's stone</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>And though she'd never know it</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Inside the tears are flowing.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>It goes on to tell the tale of this woman's family and the hardness of their lives. These words don't and can't tell the complete story. You have to listen to the emotion of Cassidy's vocal delivery together with the key and chord changes in the song. My advice is to listen many times. I naturally do in the production of it. The repetition of the playback, always hearing something different each time, searching for the technical parameters that will give the best expression, made me feel like I was in a picture frame. Listening to it now without any technical considerations, makes me want to find a way to heal all the pain in the world. To quote John Lennon: "You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one." Perhaps if enough people hear <i>Picture Frame</i> enough times, the empathy in world will increase by one slight degree. Maybe that will help get us through the night?</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Ain't love a funny thing?</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;">You can download Picture Frame <a href="https://cassidyjoy.bandcamp.com/track/picture-frame" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ea00ff;">here</span></a>. It will be available to listen on Spotify and Apple music soon.</div><div><p><br /></p></div>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-12054545804400360682023-07-24T16:11:00.004-07:002023-07-24T16:11:59.138-07:0031st Series of Thought<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This Series looks at the process of the phantasm engendering thought. A narcissistic wound or trace of castration causes desexualized/neutral energy to create a metaphysical/cerebral surface resulting in thought. This metaphysical surface of thought is invested by the sexual surface of the body (sublimation) and by the objects of the depths and the heights (symbolization). </span></span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">Deleuze uses a metaphor of a romantic couple to conceptualize sexual sublimation. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">The phantasm's formula: from the sexual pair to thought via castration. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">It may prove useful to approach this Series like a Zen koan. The phantasm originates in the void. He last wrote about the void in the "19th Series of Humor" in connection with Zen. I suggest giving it a review (p. 137 in the 1990 edition; p. 141 in the Bloomsbury newer edition).</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">There seems a great deal of movement, cycling back and forth and feedback loops implied as thought metamorphosizes and reinvests in itself through sublimations and symbolizations. The phantasm always goes back to an originary phantasm and carries it along to wherever it's going. It constantly changes. Due to all this looping, Deleuze says the phantasm is the site of the eternal return. The writing returns to earlier concepts like the void. Again, by connecting the trace of castration with the crack of thought from the "22nd Series: Porcelain and Volcano" mentioning the writers Lowry and Fitzgerald from that Series. He references the "21st Series of the Event" when talking about death toward the end.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is an inflexion point in this Series when Deleuze changes from talking about the little thoughts of the internal dialog to more creative, problem-solving thoughts. This point is where he mentions the "phantasm's path of glory." It does it with "the incorporeal splendor of the event as that entity which addresses itself to thought, and which alone may invest it – extra-Being." I.e. sense.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #0d0d0d;">Splendor, in the hermetic sense, can be researched in my blog: </span><a href="https://oz-mix.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-hermetic-transmission-of-francois.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: magenta;">The Hermetic Transmission of Francois Rabelais.</span></a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><br /></span><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="320" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gLQHawLIHCw" width="523" youtube-src-id="gLQHawLIHCw"></iframe></div><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-20043013718733722562023-07-14T12:20:00.003-07:002023-07-14T12:21:10.254-07:0030th Series of the Phantasm<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Deleuze first presents his interpretation of the concept of the phantasm and its relation to sense in this Series. He comes from a Freudian point of view saying that psychoanalysis is the science of the event. He goes into three characteristics of the phantasm in this series and continues the discussion of it in the next Series. </span></p><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">1. The phantasm is the resultant of an action (outer) and a passion (inner) and represents a pure event.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">2. The relationship of the ego to the phantasm </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">3. The phantasm finds expression in the proposition. It inheres in the infinitive form of the verb. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Aion is the neutral infinitive for the pure event. Objects in the depths he calls simulacra; objects in the heights = idols; objects at the surface = images.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #0d0d0d;">Freud's book "Totem and Taboo" is the great theory of the event. You can read it </span><a href="https://ia800909.us.archive.org/4/items/totemtabooresemb00freu/totemtabooresemb00freu.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00f7;">here</span></a>.</span><div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="341" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tSCBuspUB4Q" width="565" youtube-src-id="tSCBuspUB4Q"></iframe></div><br />
</span><br /></div>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-19444457812074620832023-07-04T18:48:00.003-07:002023-07-16T10:06:46.156-07:00The Hermetic Transmission of Francois Rabelais<webring-banner>
<p>Member of the <a href="https://new-trajectories.com">NEW TRAJECTORIES WEBRING</a></p>
</webring-banner><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"> Happiness is reached when a person is ready to be what (s)he is.</div><div style="text-align: right;">– Desiderius Erasmus</div></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Rabelais, once more, laid down the philosophical principles </div><div style="text-align: center;">which determined the destiny of Shakespeare in literature</div><div style="text-align: center;"> and Bacon in science.</div><div style="text-align: right;">– Aleister Crowley</div><div style="text-align: right;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;">All references are to the 2006 Penguin Classics edition of <i>Gargantua and Pantagruel</i> translated and annotated by M.A. Screech. This edition contains five books ordered chronologically by publication date. This makes the second book <i>Gargantua</i>; some editions place it first in the sequence given that it takes place before Pantagruel's birth. In modern parlance, Gargantua is a prequel. Since the 19th century, most scholars, including Screech, don't believe Rabelais personally wrote the fifth and final book. The anonymous writers writing under his name do a good job of imitating his style.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7gRQjeTN9pSAiOjz6JyMqFcCxVtvs1m92Rp2016xXmxLMGO_nRC-L4rJ-43FOhUzNQ5Irmo6M5hHYxwHE79nTRQkg-1UGzsXN5fY1a4Fsmko-feOyUC2x7s4pPURx6HIURRyf7hMVPQlOc3U5jBjALk0lw5XPPN93ciGMizlWYQRhnQsi-X2bt_llEzAd/s500/pantagruel.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="303" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7gRQjeTN9pSAiOjz6JyMqFcCxVtvs1m92Rp2016xXmxLMGO_nRC-L4rJ-43FOhUzNQ5Irmo6M5hHYxwHE79nTRQkg-1UGzsXN5fY1a4Fsmko-feOyUC2x7s4pPURx6HIURRyf7hMVPQlOc3U5jBjALk0lw5XPPN93ciGMizlWYQRhnQsi-X2bt_llEzAd/w242-h400/pantagruel.jpeg" width="242" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Gargantua and Pantagruel</i>, by Francois Rabelais, distinguishes itself as the first mass-produced popular novels that combine literature with philosophy and mysticism in the hermetic fashion. The carrier wave for this transmission is humor in every form imaginable: satire, slapstick, scatalogical, salacious, sexual, irony, wordplay, nonsense, parody, dark, burlesque, ribald, bawdy, juvenile, farcical, facetious, surreal, etc. A massive dose of sugar that makes the medicine go down or be unnoticed. <span style="text-align: justify;">Rabelais was dubbed the Laughing Philosopher by Mary Patricia Willcock in her 1950 biography of him, a well-deserved epithet he shares with the ancient Greek writer Democritus. These novels should be in the <i>Guinness Book of World Records</i> for the most extensive, detailed, erudite, cultivated, fetid, malodorous, putrid, stinking and rank variety of fart jokes in the entire output of human literature. Rabelais celebrates both physics and metaphysics, but above all, JOY.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">These five multileveled novels comprise, among other things, a survey and criticism of philosophical, religious and ethical knowledge from the West, ranging in time from Ancient Greece to the beginning of Renaissance Europe. It's presented as a pastiche of fable and folklore replete with proverbs, adages, sayings, quotations, etc. Sources drawn upon include Plato, Plutarch, Pliny, Aristotle, Aesop, Avicenna, Homer, Hesiod, Cicero, Seneca, Virgil, Ovid, the Bible, Erasmus, Cornelius Agrippa, and many others, some of them totally obscure to the modern reader. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Roots</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Rabelais' funny bone taps into roots going back to the dawn of civilization. The oldest joke known to humankind is a Sumerian fart joke: They had a saying: Something that never happened since time immemorial; a young lady did not fart in her husband's lap. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">His most prominent, guiding light, his mentor, was the humanist philosopher Desiderius Erasmus who died a few years after the initial publication of <i>Pantagruel</i>. Erasmus' best known book is <i>In Praise of Folly,</i> a satirical look at society, in particular The Church. Both Rabelais and Erasmus were inspired by the Greek satirist Lucian, in particular his short essay (or letter) <i>To One Who Said to Him '<a href="http://lucianofsamosata.info/wiki/doku.php?id=home:texts_and_library:essays:a-literary-prometheus" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00fb;">You Are a Prometheus in Words.</span></a></i><a href="http://lucianofsamosata.info/wiki/doku.php?id=home:texts_and_library:essays:a-literary-prometheus" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00fb;">'</span></a> He wrote it in response to a critic who complained that he put "comic laughter in philosophic solemnity." Up until Lucian, it was unusual to combine Comedy with thoughtful Dialogue. As an example, Lucian points out how philosophy was ridiculed in Aristophanes' satire, <i>Clouds,</i> with Socrates reduced to calculating how far a flea can jump in one leap. Clouds symbolize philosophical hot air in that play.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Erasmus begins <i>In Praise of Folly</i> with a short poem, <i>On the Argument and Design of the Following Oration</i> which closes with:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">"So here,</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Though Folly speaker be, and argument,</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Wit guides the tongue, wisdom's the lecture."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">He starts the oration proper demonstrating, why humor? In a ridiculous costume and speaking as Folly:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">"HOW slightly soever I am esteemed in the common vogue of the world, (for I well know how disingenuously Folly is decried in the world, even by those who are the greatest Fools) yet it is from my influence alone that the whole universe receives her mirth and jollity: of which this may be urged as a convincing argument, in that as soon as I appeared to speak before this numerous assembly all their countenances were gilded over with a lively sparkling pleasantness: you soon welcomed me with so encouraging a look, you spurred me on with so cheerful a hum, that truly in all appearance, you seem now flushed with a good dose of reviving nectar, when as just before you sate drowsy and melancholy, as if you lately come out of some hermit's cell."</span>*</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">*<span style="font-size: x-small;"> This vivifying life-force, the reviving nectar, exemplifies what Gilles Deleuze refers to as humorous nonsense making a donation of sense in his magnum opus, <i>The Logic of Sense</i>.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">Erasmus was a close friend of Sir Thomas More, known for his book <i>Utopia</i>, a term he coined. Both writers translated different works of Lucian into Latin. The Latin title of <i>In Praise of Folly</i>, <i>Moraie Encomium</i> puns off of his friend's name: it can be translated as<i> In Praise of More</i>. Moria, in Greek, translates to Folly. Puns run throughout <i>In Praise of</i> <i>Folly. </i>Like fart jokes, <i>Gargantua and Pantagruel</i> multiply puns wherever possible<i>. </i>A great thing about this edition is that M.A. Screech notes which puns in French don't come through in translation.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Erasmus loved and collected proverbs, over 4000 of them, which he also commented upon; some are still in current use like: <span style="color: red;">"in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."</span> He published them under the title <i>Adagia</i> - adages. One or another of these adages, sometimes several at a time, get referenced by Rabelais in nearly every chapter. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Both Rabelais and Erasmus were ordained as Catholic clergy and both eventually got excused from having to perform their priestly duties to pursue scholarly activities which in Rabelais' case also involved becoming a Doctor of Medicine. They were known as lay priests. Rabelais had also joined both the Benedictine and Franciscan monastic orders. Religious upheaval was in the forefront during their era. The Protestant Reformation began in 1517 c.e., less than twenty years before the first edition of <i>Pantagruel</i>. Both these scholars skewered the Papacy, monastic life and other aspects of The Church while avoiding taking sides in the religious schism of their times.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Contemporary Influence</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The enduring effect of Rabelais on entertainment culture, even in small ways, goes largely unnoticed these days. How many fans who have seen Pink Floyd play live post-<i>Animals</i> album realize that the flying pig at their concerts appeared in the third book of <i>Pantagruel?</i> A satire on semiotics, two characters communicating nonverbally through ridiculous signs and gestures happens twice in the Pantagruelian adventures. A skit riffing off the same premise would turn up some 400 years later in an episode of Monty Python and the Flying Circus called <i>Michael Ellis</i>. This episode strongly influenced writer Robert Anton Wilson as I document <a href="https://oz-mix.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-walls-came-tumbling-down.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00fb;">here</span></a>. Studies exist looking at the influence of Rabelais upon Monty Python. Someone writing as Dr. Karma calls Rabelais the father of modern sketch comedy in the piece <a href="https://www.dr-karma.com/2020/04/13/the-quintessence-of-the-rabelaisian-pythonesque/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00d0;">The Quintessence of Rabelaisian Pythonesque</span></a>. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The humor in <i>G & P</i> for the most part, appears very low-brow, often scatalogical. As a medical Doctor, Rabelais became fascinated and intrigued by every aspect of the body and all its working parts. In <i>Rabelais and His World</i>, Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin formulates two interconnected concepts, literary modes he calls Carnival and the Grotesque Realism. The former has developed <span style="color: red;">"an entire language of symbolic concretely sensuous forms"</span> that challenge dominant cultural assumptions through humor and nonsense. He defines the latter as pulling down all that is noble and ideal to the material level. Pointing out, for instance, how Rabelais metaphorically employed various functions of human anatomy to illustrate political conflict. Bakhtin begins his study with a very interesting quote from Alexander Herzen: <span style="color: red;">"It would be extremely interesting to write the history of laughter."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">From his very first album, <i>Freakout,</i> musician and composer Frank Zappa showed a distinctly Rabelasian bent for combining bawdy, often sexually explicit, humor with social satire. This risque sensibility runs throughout Zappa's oeuvre. Some prime examples come to mind:<i> "</i>Dinah Moe Hum" and "Camarillo Brillo" from the <i>Over-Nite Sensation</i> album, the" Don't You Eat the Yellow Snow Suite" and "Cosmik Debris" from <i>Apostrophe</i>, the film <i>200 Motels</i>, "Why Does It Hurt When I Pee", "Crew Slut" and "Catholic Girls" from <i>Joe's Garage</i> to name just a few.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In a 2008 thesis for her Master of Arts degree titled <a href="https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1141&context=etd-project" target="_blank"><span style="color: #fb00ff;">Frank Zappa and Mikhail Bakhtin: Rabelais's Carnival Made Contemporary</span></a>, Sarah Hill Antinora calls <span style="color: red;">"<i>Joe's Garage: Acts
I, II</i>, and <i>III</i>, a carnivalesque attack on organized
religion, the Church of Scientology, rock and roll's
obsession with groupies, and, above all, censorship."</span> Pulling an anecdote from an interview of Zappa by David Fricke in Rolling Stone magazine, Antinora demonstrates his musical comedy:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">"Just as many of the carnivalesque writers did before
him, Zappa often mocks with love. For example, he used to
play Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" note for note, until the guitar solo. His complete brass section performed
the guitar solo instead."</span> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCC7kPV_fgpGW5_yIEInOipz5ZGGnoWme31oaenzX9_p-_In77OMvW60nC78fbyuryQOft2_3idFavUOg19TrNrg5JGt63bGBNf3pHI9GZ6hJd80AMtWy3lWBjTTde-tpwwHFmCn7FVjR8C_w6pSHKN2Laa65n8tU8gMjxKRZJPRvOAVIELhO3ARYGHhmL/s867/09zappa-obit-articleLarge.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="867" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCC7kPV_fgpGW5_yIEInOipz5ZGGnoWme31oaenzX9_p-_In77OMvW60nC78fbyuryQOft2_3idFavUOg19TrNrg5JGt63bGBNf3pHI9GZ6hJd80AMtWy3lWBjTTde-tpwwHFmCn7FVjR8C_w6pSHKN2Laa65n8tU8gMjxKRZJPRvOAVIELhO3ARYGHhmL/w276-h400/09zappa-obit-articleLarge.webp" width="276" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Gail and Frank Zappa</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Zappa employed Pauline Butcher as his platonic, live-in secretary for four years in the late '60s/early '70s. Along with his family, Zappa lived in a large log cabin in Laurel Canyon, LA, formerly owned by cowboy star Tom Mix. Seven other people lived there along with Frank's then family of four. It wasn't uncommon for rock star royalty to drop in and pay him a visit. Butcher recounts how Robert Plant gave his wife Gail a book by Aleister Crowley on <span style="color: red;">"the otherness of life."</span> The book made its way to Frank. <span style="color: red;">"I think he was strongly influenced by Aleister Crowley. I think he got quite a few ideas from Aleister Crowley's book."</span> (Quoted from a You Tube video in which Butcher was asked why Zappa didn't read newspapers or pay attention to the news.) Aleister Crowley has been more influenced by Rabelais than anyone else except, possibly, James Joyce. More on that ahead.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Hermeticism </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Among the arts and sciences which it is affirmed Hermes revealed to mankind were medicine, chemistry, law, art, music, astrology, rhetoric, magic, philosophy, geography, mathematics (especially geometry), anatomy and oratory. Orpheus was similarly acclaimed by the Greeks.</span></div><div style="text-align: right;">– Manly P. Hall, <i>The Secret Teachings of All Ages</i></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Encounters with all these fields of learning occur in <i>Gargantua & Pantagruel</i> though often subject to the ridicule of parody or satire. Rabelais provides a broad reckoning of the knowledge of his time and didn't appear at all shy with giving an opinion except where it could get him in trouble. Contemporary authors that have attempted an encyclopedic scope of all known knowledge include James Joyce with<i> Finnegans Wake</i> and Ezra Pound's <i>The Cantos</i>. Robert Anton Wilson had ambitions to write his own epic exploration to be called <i>Tale of the Tribe</i>. In its five volumes, <i>Gargantua & Pantagruel</i> portrays a Renaissance tale of the tribe.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The strict definition of Hermetic thought adheres to those writings bearing the authorship Hermes Trismegistus. A much broader definition is adequately summed up in the full title to Hall's opus quoted above:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">An Encyclopedic Outline of </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic, and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Being an Interpretation of the </div><div style="text-align: center;">Secret Teachings concealed within the Rituals, Allegories</div><div style="text-align: center;">and Mysteries of All Ages</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Hermetic also indicates a tightly sealed container, as in hermetically sealed. This metaphorically applies to Hermetic philosophy as many of the symbols or allegories don't easily give up their knowledge. The symbolism acts as a sealed container holding information or wisdom inaccessible to the profane. They need to be unlocked before their secrets get revealed in gnostic apprehension. Hence the term "occult," meaning hidden, gets accurately applied to Hermetic thought. Rather than anything macabre or scary, garish or ghoulish, occult simply means hidden. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Rabelais immediately lets us know he intends a Hermetic transmission. In the second paragraph from "The Prologue of the Author" to the first book, he implores the reader to drop all his daily tasks to learn his novel by heart, in case printing presses should fail so it can be passed on to their descendants as a "religious cabbala." Those two words don't appear in the first edition, circa 1531 but do turn up in the definitive edition of 1542 which include a number of revisions and variations he added, many of which were done to avoid the (sometimes fatal) wrath of the Authorities. It seems possible he added the "religious cabbala" description to clue people in to the esoteric side found therein. Cabbala would explain his odd and apparently deliberate use of long, strangely specific numbers. "The Prologue" starts by addressing <span style="color: red;">"Knights most shining and chivalrous ..."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Pantagruel is a giant coming from a long line of giants. Tales of giants were popular then. His father is Gargantua, a name Rabelais picked up from an earlier folk tale by an anonymous author called the <i>Great and Inestimable Chronicles of the Enormous Giant Gargantua</i>. He tells us the meaning of Pantagruel – Pan in Greek means all; gruel means thirst, hence all thirst or always thirsty. It's suggested Rabelais named him that because he wrote it at the end of a four year drought in Europe. In the book, he writes that<span style="color: red;"> "his father imposed that name on him ... wishing to signify that at the hour of his nativity all the world was athirst, and foreseeing in a spirit of prophecy that he would one day be the Ruler of the Thirsty-ones."</span> This is immediately followed by another sign: when his mother was giving birth, before he came out of the womb <span style="color: red;">"there first sallied forth from her belly sixty-eight muleteers, each leading by the halter a mule laden with salt; after which there came nine dromedaries laden with smoked bacon and ox-tongues, seven camels with eels, and then five-and-twenty wagons with leeks, garlic, chibols and onions."</span> All things that will drum up a great thirst.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">We find Cabbala in the title of the first book:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">PANTAGRUEL</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">The horrifying and dreadful</div><div style="text-align: center;">DEEDS AND PROWESSES</div><div style="text-align: center;">of the most famous</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">PANTAGRUEL</span></div><div style="text-align: center;">KING OF THE DIPSODES,</div><div style="text-align: center;">Son of the Giant Gargantua.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Newly composed by Maître Alcofribas Nasier</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Dipsodes means thirsty. Maître translates as master. Alcofribas Nasier is an anagram of Francois Rabelais. The initials of the author's name as presented here spells MAN. This aligns with the <i>Tale of the Tribe</i> aspect of this work. Looking at the pseudoynm he chose: in the Bible, "Al" represents God. "Nasier" is close to the Arabic name Nasir which means friend or supporter. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Speaking on the issue of Rabelais' attitude toward free-will, translator M.A. Screech writes in his Introduction: <span style="color: red;">In Pantagruel (following the Latin Vulgate) men must be 'God's <i>helpers'</i>. By the time of the Fourth Book, following the original Greek, men must be God's <i>co-operators</i>... The technical name for the doctrine of Rabelais is synergism ('working together').</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Cabbalists have a penchant for all kinds of puns, wordplay and looking at things in reverse. Seen this way, Pantagruel means both always thirsty and a thirst for All. "Drink" becomes a watchword throughout the novels, as if a central sacrament; what they drink, what quenches their thirst is wine. However enthusiastic any of the characters become about the product of the vine, it never seems to get consumed in excess, we never find a celebration of inebriation or drunkenness. Wine, of course, symbolizes intoxication of the innermost, intoxication of spirit, as in the blood of Christ. In the Fourth Book, Rabelais uses the symbol of a winged Bacchus borrowed from the 2nd Century <i>Description of Greece</i> by Pausanius to represent spiritual intoxication. This sign caught on to become included in many Renaissance emblems.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Hermes Trismegistus</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiORBxuzHhWPZarb5QsoUBkL7SlwaoEl-2rJRhgN4kqI_cRFrj7QtW7cfuRSn1YPW_O94G4rC82hXdqOF4WrvSiOFqFKm993lc4wVAfJTrzGSzWjTKy2zGsoZdEJvLs_Fi-yztgTCqAlseK1TdUCV8nXmOxv2wgZ5cVsjhrjE59GAAN9A42A6QG1nc0PE-3/s386/hermes.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="386" data-original-width="300" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiORBxuzHhWPZarb5QsoUBkL7SlwaoEl-2rJRhgN4kqI_cRFrj7QtW7cfuRSn1YPW_O94G4rC82hXdqOF4WrvSiOFqFKm993lc4wVAfJTrzGSzWjTKy2zGsoZdEJvLs_Fi-yztgTCqAlseK1TdUCV8nXmOxv2wgZ5cVsjhrjE59GAAN9A42A6QG1nc0PE-3/w311-h400/hermes.jpeg" width="311" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">This legendary Egyptian figure, who most likely didn't literally exist as a single individual, gets directly mentioned by our author multiple times. But then again, it seems every ancient learned character imaginable gets name checked by Rabelais, whether in praise or criticism, to make most erudite his raunchy tale of the tribe. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">A large part of the Third Book concerns Panurge trying to decide if he should get married or not. Getting cuckolded (cheated on) is his biggest fear. The character of Panurge serves as a foil to Pantagruel; it's his earthly, more human and base side. If you think of Pantagruel in the position of Thoth – the Egyptian God who brought writing and magic to humanity, cognate with Hermes, then Panurge would be the Ape of Thoth – the animal aspect. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The insight that humans can develop abilities, visions and empathies going far beyond ordinary capacity lies at the heart of Hermetic thought. Among other things, a hermetic transmission intends to show through metaphor, allegory and directly, how to go about unlocking hidden potentials in the human biological machine. Gargantua and Pantagruel are giants and come from a long line of giants: allegorical for expanded human potential. Not only are they giants, they're shape-shifting giants, their size varies in different situations.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The adages, jokes, proverbs, puns, fables, allegories, etc. injected into the satire communicate a multi-level didactic course of learning in <i>Pantagruel</i>. As mentioned above, the nonsense makes a donation to the sense of the instruction. Aleister Crowley received this so well that he made salient parts of it a cornerstone of his School. There's an excellent section in Book 1 Ch. 8 where Gargantua writes a letter on how he wants his son to be educated. He is to develop his capabilities and knowledge to the max. He tells him to learn multiple languages, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Chaldean. <span style="color: red;">"I want you to learn all of the beautiful Civil Texts by heart and compare them to moral philosophy."</span> ...<span style="color: red;">"Then frequent the books of the ancient medical writers, Greek, Arabic and Latin, without despising the Talmudists or the Cabbalists; and by frequent dissections acquire a taste of that other world which is Man." </span>Along with much more in the curriculum.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Abbey of Thélème and Aleister Crowley</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">After a long, eventually victorious war that takes up much of Book Two, Gargantua rewards those who fought beside him with land and riches. That won't do for the heroic Frere Jean des Entommeures aka the Monk. Gargantua offers to make him Abbot of one or another or both of two distinguish Abbeys but the Monk turns him down and requests that he be allowed to establish his own abbey to his own devising, contrary to all others. The last six chapters of <i>Gargantua</i> concern the building of the Abbey of the Thélèmites and how it's to be run. It's Rabelais' ideal, utopian formulation of a Monastery.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The Cabbalistic numerology of its financing and construction appears obvious. Six and multiples of six play a prominent role. The building is to be hexagonal and its to be six stories high. Each angle has a solid round tower measuring sixty paces in diameter. The specificity of the financing suggests numerology. I'm amused that Rabelais includes how the budget is to be balanced. The initial outlay is:<span style="color: red;"> "twenty-seven hundred thousand, eight hundred and thirty-one <i>Agnus-dei</i> in ready coin"</span> supplemented with <span style="color: red;">sixteen hundred and sixty-nine thousand Sun-crowns and as many golden<i> Pleiades </i>raised from tolls on the river Dive"</span><i> </i>until<i> </i>its completed. A perpetual annual endowment for maintenance and upkeep comes to twenty-three hundred and sixty-nine thousand, five hundred and fourteen rose nobles derived from ground rent. Both men and women are equally welcome in this utopian religious order though they abide in separate living quarters. <span style="color: red;">"In each of the ante-chambers stood a crystal looking-glass, framed in fine gold and surrounded by pearls; it was large enough to give a true reflection of the whole person."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwTrqghSiamOCrmLd4CFPH3aIWy4f3MAGDGmQF9ipd4yHuSIFwqagClVSUsOT1zQmHDXtdT4t7qJ6eYPiPAmrwF8JsNRmiQPA6Vwl46kclrsoGEMbvo7uQVNPbZ40CmlkDqrSk1SLsmdi4tes2CHxVq83oZIqmbCgsf-xofudbBV3_ZgPfAOOOt-GbgzBU/s2674/The%CC%81le%CC%80me-Lenormant.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2302" data-original-width="2674" height="344" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwTrqghSiamOCrmLd4CFPH3aIWy4f3MAGDGmQF9ipd4yHuSIFwqagClVSUsOT1zQmHDXtdT4t7qJ6eYPiPAmrwF8JsNRmiQPA6Vwl46kclrsoGEMbvo7uQVNPbZ40CmlkDqrSk1SLsmdi4tes2CHxVq83oZIqmbCgsf-xofudbBV3_ZgPfAOOOt-GbgzBU/w400-h344/The%CC%81le%CC%80me-Lenormant.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Abbey of Thélème </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>Perhaps the most controversial, misunderstood and enduring legacy is the one rule of the Abbey translated either as 'Do what thou wilt' or 'Do what you want' depending on which interpretation you read. Examined closely, these interpretations contradict each other. Aleister Crowley and M.A. Screech interpret it as Do what thou wilt. Many choose 'Do what you want' to excuse libertine debauchery. 'Do what thou wilt' appears much more aligned with Pantagruelian philosophy, as I read it. To start, Thélème, or Thelema as Crowley later spelled it, is a Greek word meaning Will therefore it seems the one rule would have more to do with Will than with Want. This chapter (55) begins: <span style="color: red;">"Their whole life was ordered not by laws, rules and regulations but according to their volition and free-will."</span> Rather than providing a license for immorality, Rabelais explains:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Do what thou wilt because people who are free, well-bred, well taught and conversant with honorable company have by nature an instinct – a goad – which always pricks them to virtuous acts and withdraws them from vice. The call it Honor.</span> In a note, Screech points out that Rabelais' definition of honor matches that of a theological concept called synderesis - the guiding force of conscience. This force can be cultivated and strengthened. In the story, the freedom and liberty given by 'Do what thou wilt' results in the Thélèmites all trying to please each other.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Aleister Crowley felt that Rabelais forecast a new aeon of Life, Love, Liberty, Laughter and Light some 370 years ahead of time. Crowley endeavored to actualize what Rabelais had imagined. He set up his own Abbey of Thelema in Cefalu, Sicily to put his principles into practice. As he saw it, these principles came from outside ordinary humanity. The man Crowley did not write, but rather received the Law of Thelema; it was given to him for humankind by an outside source. As the story goes, a "praeter" (beyond) human Intelligence named Aiwass dictated the the Law of Thelema to him in what became known as <i>The Book of the Law</i>. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. In the 16th century, M.A.N. (Maitré Alcofrybas Nasier) had prophesied its own next step.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjyw4cZAWbkKhOcnAc5BKNrFcoICCmkcLQ9dMm-mUcV-nlPEHYgl7k3jwyHdb5DCY4Hjj6fVkLdj2TUkq6L5ZdPvxOSvSLJEH-Dp-LR33_B2hTwSK8jY10Sug9jsHCgLlJEbGvq7jdFNumpwdn5FRDe6HJp-g2g7JuwqEdsq8l080fGtNRoUhBqjTUnWtD/s1507/Aleister_Crowley,_thinker.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1507" data-original-width="1206" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjyw4cZAWbkKhOcnAc5BKNrFcoICCmkcLQ9dMm-mUcV-nlPEHYgl7k3jwyHdb5DCY4Hjj6fVkLdj2TUkq6L5ZdPvxOSvSLJEH-Dp-LR33_B2hTwSK8jY10Sug9jsHCgLlJEbGvq7jdFNumpwdn5FRDe6HJp-g2g7JuwqEdsq8l080fGtNRoUhBqjTUnWtD/w320-h400/Aleister_Crowley,_thinker.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-size: small; text-align: center;">Aleister Crowley</span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Crowley analyzes and comments upon Rabelais' prophecy in the article, <i>The Antecedents of Thelema</i> reprinted in <i>The Revival of Magick</i>. It's remarkable that a force starting out virtually, as an idea in a piece of literature, becomes actualized into the world. Crowley found other prophetic synchronicities in <i>Gargantua;</i> he found his name and magickal motto there. The final chapter (56) is called "An enigma uncovered amongst the foundations of the Abbey of the Thélèmites." This enigma appears as a long, apocalyptic visionary poem by the Court poet Mellin de Saint-Gelais (a real person) Rabelais tacked in there supplemented with his own intro and outro. It concludes:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Then we shall all with certain knowledge see</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">The good and fruit brought forth from patience' tree:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">To whom, before, most suffering did grieve</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Shall be allotted most, shall most receive</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Such was the promise. How must we revere</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Him unto the End does persevere.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Crowley's first motto, his name, in the Golden Dawn, <i>Perdurabo</i>, means 'I will endure unto the end.'</div><div style="text-align: left;">Crowley received the<i> Book of the Law (</i>"shall most receive"<i>)</i>. This looks like a prediction, to me.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The Monk, head of the Abbey of Thélème, asks Gargantua what he thinks this engimatic poem means and gets the answer: "divine Truth." The Monk disagrees, he sees it as a description of a tennis-match. <span style="color: red;">"The end means that, after such <i>travails</i>, they go off for a meal! And be of good cheer!"</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The Roman Catholic Church looms large in <i>G & P</i>. Both Rabelais and Crowley knew the Bible inside out and used quotations from it to suit their own purpose. Both also sharply criticized The Church and its bureaucracy though it held much more danger to do so for Rabelais therefore he appears more guarded; guarded, but far from silent in his criticism. As we shall see, Thelema wasn't the only thing Crowley inherited from Rabelais. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Another obvious connecting link between the two is humor, both writers were extremely funny. It's not always clear when they intend to be serious or when a serious point lurks behind a joke, or when it seems pure, nonsensical farce. Robert Anton Wilson calls Crowley the funniest mystic he knows.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Final Oracle</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">"Do you have gullets so daubed, paved and enamelled </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">that you did not recognize the savor of the bouquet of this deifying liquor?"</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span>As the story of Pantagruel and friends continues, it increasingly incorporates mythology into the hermetic signal. Most scholars agree that the posthumously published Fifth Book was by Rabelais in name only. It seems one or more Adepts saw the underlying hermeticism in the first four books and not only took up this line of thought, but brought it forward making it blatantly obvious. The writing has as much erudite reference and imitates the voice of Rabelais well, but perhaps with a little less subtle wit in the humor. However, the Alchemy, Magic and Cabbala loudly states right off the top "Here I Am!" in the Prologue to the Fifth Book (<span style="color: red;">"I will wait upon the masons, boil up the pot for the masons and, since I cannot be their comrade, they will have me as a listener – I mean an indefatigable listener – to their most excellent writings."</span>) proceeding to a slowly rising crescendo that climaxes with an archetypal journey down through the Underworld leading to an encounter with the final oracle, the oracle of the bottle.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span>Panurge's question of whether to marry or not eventually sends the gang to the oracle of La Bouteille on a distant island. Chapters 33 - 47 of Book 5 concerns their adventure when they get to that island. I consider this essential reading for students of Thelema; the chapters are short. We discover the bottle is "trismegistical." The High Priestess Bacbuc brings Panurge to the bottle telling him to listen to it for a word. She does a ritual to bring forth the Word. Panurge hears <span style="color: red;">"a sound such as is made by bees when they are born from a young ox duly </span></span><span style="color: red;">slaughtered ...</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Whereupon was heard this Word: Trinck.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">'Might of God!' exclaimed Panurge. She has split – to tell no lie, cracked! Thus in our lands speak crystal bottles when they burst by the fire.'"</span> Trinck is a German command: "Drink!" The Word of the final oracle is Drink!, a main theme of Pantagruel (thirsty for All.) German is used for the onomatopoeic sound of a bottle cracking, and perhaps also for the cabbalistic significance of the letters.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">As mentioned above, the great majority of chapters in <i>Gargantua and Pantagruel</i> refer to one or several adages by Erasmus whose first book, <i>In Praise of Folly</i>, he wrote to communicate Wisdom. Aleister Crowley composed a lengthy epistle to his magical son called <i>Liber Aleph vel CXI, The Book of Wisdom or Folly</i>. It comprises 208 short, adage-like chapters of a page, or often less. The last one is: <i>On the Final Oracle.</i> It concludes: <span style="color: red;">"I cry aloud My Word, as it was given unto Man by thine Uncle Alcofribas Nasier, the Oracle of the Bottle of BACBUC, and this word is TRINC."</span> Crowley then changes it to TRINU, saying that was the ancient spelling, to make it add up to 666. As he testified in Court: <span style="color: red;">"'The Beast 666' only means 'sunlight'. You can call me 'Little Sunshine'."</span> It's a solar number as 6 = Tiphareth. 6 x 6 = 36. Adding the numbers 1 - 36 = 666. This agrees with the Cabbala in the story where Trink is called <span style="color: red;">"that Word of beauty." </span><i>Liber Aleph</i> enumerates as 111. 111 x 6 = 666.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Crowley also used TRINC as an adage for The Chariot tarot card in the 1925 publication, <i>The Heart of the Master</i>. He used this adage again in <i>The Book of Thoth</i>, one of the last books he wrote:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">VII</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">The issue of the Vulture, Two-in-One, conveyed; </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">This is the Chariot of Power</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">TRINC: the last oracle.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's outside the scope of this essay to unpack all the Qabalah here, it seems central to Thelemic magick. The chariot carries the Holy Grail. Suffice to comment briefly from <i>The Book of Thoth</i>: The Holy Grail in this card is described as: <span style="color: red;">" . . . of pure amethyst, of the color of Jupiter, but its shape suggests the full moon and the Great Sea of Binah.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;"> In the center is radiant blood; the spiritual life is inferred; light in the darkness."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5wVAa9ERypYjzN-uORB5KajFzCS85uORrC8YP0yGfpGPJlNRc-0mbq2jbJCv7BZ4lYxKKGgmjxz_3yz5l8_S4HBaXWpYcgiIYrcWrJPdH-sAhIt52WupoOVUFZiZKuyed_RAZ3LNZ2_ijmfd_OqS4PRwX1zrvx19oc7kHRI2efVFlHzaWUOV3Y2xtj931/s600/atu-vii-the-chariot-thoth-tarot.jpg!Large.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="398" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5wVAa9ERypYjzN-uORB5KajFzCS85uORrC8YP0yGfpGPJlNRc-0mbq2jbJCv7BZ4lYxKKGgmjxz_3yz5l8_S4HBaXWpYcgiIYrcWrJPdH-sAhIt52WupoOVUFZiZKuyed_RAZ3LNZ2_ijmfd_OqS4PRwX1zrvx19oc7kHRI2efVFlHzaWUOV3Y2xtj931/w265-h400/atu-vii-the-chariot-thoth-tarot.jpg!Large.jpg" width="265" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Chariot Thoth Tarot</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The oracular bottle at the end of <i>Gargantua and Pantagruel</i> is the Holy Grail. As noted, it's trismegistical – thrice greatest – connecting it to Binah, the Great Mother archetype, through key number three.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">James Joyce</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">French writer Valery Labaud called Joyce's novel <i>Ulysses</i> the vastest and most human work written in Europe since Rabelais. (Joyce, <i>Selected Letters</i>). <i>Ulysses</i> shocked and scandalized readers when it came out for its frank portrayal of human bodily functions. Both Joyce and Rabelais examine the human body, its parts and functions, sexual or otherwise in great detail sometimes going deep into its anatomy. Rabelais, after all, was a medical Doctor. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Mythology informed both their works against the ever present background of The Church. Though set in modern times, Joyce modeled <i>Ulysses</i> after <i>The Odyssey</i>, the ancient Greek epic poem by Homer. Similarly, Rabelais has his adventurers sail in unknown lands in the last two books encountering many different unusual, fantastic, inhabitants of strange islands.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">The constant wordplay with the aim of packing as many different meanings as possible into any particular word or phrase runs through <i>Gargantua and Pantagruel</i> but is taken several levels beyond by Joyce, particularly in <i>Finnegans Wake</i>. Rabelais experiments with portmanteau words and punning homophones – words or phrases that sound the same but have different meanings: <span style="color: red;">"'By Holy Goosequim!' exclaimed Pantagruel, 'since the last rains came you have developed into a great fill-up-it, Sir – I mean philosopher!'"</span> Later on we have: <span style="color: red;">"'We are lost, all of us. O that now, to kill him, there were here some valiant Perseus.'</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">'Pursue us: then pierced by me!' Pantagruel replied"</span></div><div style="text-align: left;">The sounds of the words must be heard to get the puns. Joyce does this so much in <i>Finnegans Wake</i> that it often reads like its own language. Sounding out the words seems the only way to extract some sense from it. This is a form of Cabbala. Cabbala means 'to receive'.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDZRVibRBfGc5RAmTKNbjEsQX9huMTUa1zImOqFB9bHjls5wYNBVZDr3YnSylBhKrmnngVM4bVpcWtjcwD1eSwwVw-AjFpHpJ_ZTfw-K_ENZTsfTiYTsBDs4UVqUklDtrPAkF2daJw-5upGtGKzr-rXo8St2lgLnm5SpDiqPkKSXX7VTjfU7H2Bi8cIg37/s500/james_joyce_in_1915.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="392" data-original-width="500" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDZRVibRBfGc5RAmTKNbjEsQX9huMTUa1zImOqFB9bHjls5wYNBVZDr3YnSylBhKrmnngVM4bVpcWtjcwD1eSwwVw-AjFpHpJ_ZTfw-K_ENZTsfTiYTsBDs4UVqUklDtrPAkF2daJw-5upGtGKzr-rXo8St2lgLnm5SpDiqPkKSXX7VTjfU7H2Bi8cIg37/w400-h314/james_joyce_in_1915.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">James Joyce</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Joyce also inherited Rabelais' penchant for making lists and cataloging things. Both take it to absurdly humorous lengths at times. They both use satire and parody to challenge conventions; they both saw value in learning as many languages as possible. They were both experimental writers. Joyce famously tried different narrative techniques in <i>Ulysses</i>. Rabelais does the same but not to the same extent. Joyce had upwards of three hundred and fifty years more material at his disposal. He had Shakespeare, Jonathon Swift and Laurence Sterne to draw upon. All three show a marked influence by Francois Rabelais.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">On the first page, Joyce alludes to the male protagonist of <i>Finnegans Wake</i>, Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, as a sleeping giant in repose under the landscape of Ireland. The giant theme comes up again on page 6: <span style="color: red;">"And the all gianed in with the shout-most shoviality. Agog and Magog and the round of them agrog."</span> Remember, Joyce uses the sound of words to suggest puns. Therefore, "gianed" suggests gianted; all = Pan; "shoviality" suggests joviality; "shout-most shoviality" implying the physical, slapstick, sometimes cruel humor found in <i>G & P</i>. Agog and Magog connects with a legendary British giant, Gogmagogg, which later got corrupted into two giants, Gog and Magog; "agrog" can refer to an alcoholic beverage recalling the Pantagruelian enthusiasm (agog also = enthusiastic, or excited eagerness) for drinking wine. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Joyce claimed to have not read Rabelais, a little digging proves otherwise. The Joyce scholar John Kidd even tracked down Joyce's copy of <i>Gargantua and Pantagruel</i> which was in the original French. <i><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3831649" target="_blank"><span style="color: #d900ff;">Polyglotism in Rabelais and Finnegans Wake</span></a></i> by Jacob Korg is one of many papers looking at approaches and techniques Joyce likely picked up from <i>Pantagruel</i>. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Nexus of Crowley and Joyce</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Both writer/mages borrowed significantly from Rabelais, albeit in different ways. Crowley was very explicit about it, Joyce, more implicit. Did the two know each other's work? We have explicit evidence Crowley read Joyce, he published a review in a magazine calling him a genius. The whole, short review appears in the Nocturnal Revelries blog <a href="https://nocturnalrevelries.com/2019/03/17/aleister-crowley-on-james-joyce/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #d900ff;">here</span></a>. In an excellent biography of Crowley, <i>Perdurabo</i>, by Richard Kaczynski, the author states categorically that Joyce never read Crowley. He doesn't cite how he knows this; my guess is that he made an inference based on a published list of books in Joyce's library that contained nothing penned by Crowley. It sounds disingenuous to suggest that Joyce didn't know of Uncle Al and his philosophy. Both were well acquainted with W.B. Yeats, Crowley even knew Yeats' father. Yeats disapproved of Crowley, but admired Joyce and did what he could to help get him established in the literary world. Later, Yeats invited Joyce to join the Irish Academy. It seems Joyce and Yeats corresponded not infrequently over the years; perhaps the subject of Crowley never came up? Maybe so, but Joyce did read newspapers; Crowley appeared as a subject/target in multiple, salacious newspaper articles particularly in the early 1920s when the alleged scandals of his Abbey of Thelema got splashed all over the tabloids. Those articles included glosses of Thelemic ideology, though highly, unfavorably biased. Circumstantial evidence aside, we find a direct indication Joyce knew Crowley because he clearly invokes him in <i>Finnegans Wake </i>on page 105:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">From Abbeygate to Crowalley </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Through a Lift in the Lude, Smocks for Their Graces and </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Me Aunt for them Clodshopper, How to Pull a Good Horuscoup </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">even when Oldsire is Dead to the World, ...</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>"Abbeygate" seems a clear reference to Rabelais connecting with <i>Gargantua</i> chapter 52, "The Inscription set above the main Gate of Thélème." More on that below. The first line obviously alludes to the trajectory of the Abbey of Thelema; the word "all" appears in the Crowley allusion consonant with the theme of Pan. "Lude" suggests the lewd humor Rabelais was known for, it also translates as 'play" from Latin; this one word indicates playful lewdness or lewd playfulness. "Lift in the Lude" implies wisdom in the folly; "Smocks for Their Graces" = mocking their Graces - satirizing Papal and Church establishment authority. "Horuscope" brings us back to Crowley who was an expert astrologer (horoscope - he was the ghostwriter for popular American astrologer Evangeline Adams). More pertinent is the inclusion of the Egyptian god Horus in the portmanteau word. Crowley defined his mission as announcing and helping make manifest the new aeon of Horus, a central tenet of Thelema. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">A contemporary post-Rabelasian nexus point of James Joyce and Aleister Crowley is found in various books and talks by Robert Anton Wilson. RAW became deeply immersed in both their work and often compared the two, sometimes mashing them together as, for instance, in <i>Masks of the Illuminati</i>.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Robert Anton Wilson</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Striking correlations between Rabelais and Robert Anton Wilson are easily noticed. Both endeavored to write a <i>Tale of the Tribe</i>. Both present a didactic, Hermetic transmission couched in humor, satire, parody, and playfulness. Wilson wrote that all his novels and some of his non-fiction books were composed in the Hermetic style; he put a great deal of stock in 'Do what thou wilt'. One clear point of reference in common: the ancient Greek mystic and philosopher, Pythagoras and his school. Pythagoras and different aspects of his system – numerology, geometry, even his dietary habits – turn up frequently in<i> Gargantua and Pantagruel</i>. Wilson outlines a general gloss of Pythagoras in <i>Cosmic Trigger I</i> that sounds very much like his own approach:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">"... his work was the first attempt in history to unify science, mathematics, art and mysticism into one comprehensible system and as such is still influential. Leary, Crowley and Buckminster Fuller have all described themselves as modern Pythagoreans."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">At one point Wilson became obsessed with Sirius, the Dog Star, going so far as to suspect he might be in telepathic contact with Higher Intelligence coming from there. Pantagruel was born when the Dog Star bays at the Sun – the dog days of July and early August. Like James Joyce and Aleister Crowley, both Rabelais and Wilson appeared to have prophesied future events in their writings.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjszdZ1ieLxvXwIhQf967i_HkFUNcn4y_6yzVsNRcgRBT1dKLD7snz0ahLhfsZQBmn09AjUbR0cxSmglS2UPVeVmfT1-UzFH__pvdO1qH4-wfEUuv0o83B31ln46_xWVjwTCWXD3oS-tDvdCDjCEg-2_w_KQfbjAaHO5k8DxSV8TCbUTEUq3ktp5UkO3kAk/s252/wilson.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="252" data-original-width="200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjszdZ1ieLxvXwIhQf967i_HkFUNcn4y_6yzVsNRcgRBT1dKLD7snz0ahLhfsZQBmn09AjUbR0cxSmglS2UPVeVmfT1-UzFH__pvdO1qH4-wfEUuv0o83B31ln46_xWVjwTCWXD3oS-tDvdCDjCEg-2_w_KQfbjAaHO5k8DxSV8TCbUTEUq3ktp5UkO3kAk/w317-h400/wilson.jpeg" width="317" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Robert Anton Wilson</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Another tangential connection with Rabelais comes with Wilson's character Frank Dashwood, the head of Orgasm Research in the <i>Schrödinger's Cat</i> trilogy. The character's name comes from the 18th century politician and rake, Sir Francis Dashwood, who is mistakenly said to have started one of the most notorious Hell-Fire clubs that came and went in England and Ireland during that era. The original Hell-Fire club was started a little before Dashwood's time possibly by Philip Wharton, the history is unclear. Members were alleged to be atheist blasphemers who mocked the Church by engaging in Satanic rituals and sexual debauchery; so the story goes, no one really knows exactly what went on. The press conflated Dashwood's equally anarchistic, libertine club, the Monks of Medmenham Abbey, aka the Order of the Friars of St. Francis of Wycombe, with the Hell-Fire Club. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Dashwood is said to have put the one rule of the Abbey of Thélème, 'Do what thou wilt' above the door to his Abbey. It had been a real medieval monastery at one time, founded in the 12th century. Dashwood had it fixed it up and formed a club for the elites of his day entertaining notables like Benjamin Franklin and many prominent British politicians. During the restoration of Medmenham, workers found an old Madonna statue. Dashwood had it spruced up and placed front and center in the courtyard. RAW calls Medmenham Abbey, the "Abbey of St. Francis" in his historical novel, <i>The Widow's Son</i> but notes that the press more accurately called it <span style="color: red;">"t</span><span style="color: red;">he Hell Fire Club – </span><span style="color: red;">a kind of society of freethinkers and atheists who took perverse pleasure in burlesquing the sacraments of Christianity."</span> He then references a possibly apocryphal story concerning the Earl of Sandwich getting bitten by an orangutan during a Black Mass there. Skeptics suggest that it was really the local Anglican Bishop dressed up in an orangutan suit.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Last, but not least: Rabelais writes a long list of useless and preposterous activities of one outrageous character where it is said: <span style="color: red;">"if he dreamt: it was of flying phalluses scrambling up walls."</span> A flying phallus serves as a recurring motif in <i>Schrödinger's Cat</i>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Introducing Ms. God – the Divine Feminine</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">More common ground (or sky) shared by James Joyce and Aleister Crowley involves placing the archetype of the Great Mother centerstage in their works. Joyce does so with the character Anna Livia Plurabelle in <i>Finnegans Wake; </i>before that<i>, </i>with a perspective from deep inside a woman's consciousness – Molly Bloom in <i>Ulysses</i>. After reading the latter, renowned psychoanalyst and hermetic philosopher Carl Jung quipped: "only the devil's grandmother knows so much about the real psychology of a woman. I didn't." Crowley's sacred text, <i>The Book of the Law</i>, begins with <span style="color: red;">"[t]he manifestation of Nuit."</span> Nuit originates from the ancient Egyptian sky goddess, Crowley promotes her to a star Goddess. She represents the Divine Feminine at its most expansive and all encompassing, among many other things. She invites humanity to join her:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Now, therefore, I am known to ye by my name Nuit . . . Since I am Infinite Space, and the Infinite Stars thereof, do ye also thus.</span> - <i>Al</i>:I:22</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSxX8_zgVhbkuYoXaGlGHqpEf1IUKWFvFexCcvLhM36MCh4bF7UvFVf-YutGsDlKu0GXJMrZIBd_DZRcMiz5JoBATfBG29kFnD1nAMdxgroox8zir6I3aAnsOSgaJi074WaPQCqLFw5419oFMkXRA6aBKNzjy8ZUt3Lucf1d8buoJ7-Lggp__QiLfOGQAN/s984/DenderaRelief2022.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="984" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSxX8_zgVhbkuYoXaGlGHqpEf1IUKWFvFexCcvLhM36MCh4bF7UvFVf-YutGsDlKu0GXJMrZIBd_DZRcMiz5JoBATfBG29kFnD1nAMdxgroox8zir6I3aAnsOSgaJi074WaPQCqLFw5419oFMkXRA6aBKNzjy8ZUt3Lucf1d8buoJ7-Lggp__QiLfOGQAN/w325-h400/DenderaRelief2022.jpeg" width="325" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Relief of Nuit from the Dendera Temple, Egypt</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Crowley's gig centered upon announcing the aeon of Horus. He said the formula of this aeon is the tarot card, The Chariot. The charioteer is built into the chariot. <span style="color: red;">"His only function is to bear the Holy Grail." </span>The Holy Grail carries the pure essence of the Divine Feminine.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Joyce seems to have understood this about Crowley, while also pointing to another source for introducing the feminine into contemporary spirituality, Francois Rabelais. I infer this because the above quote from <i>Finnegans Wake</i> that alludes to both Rabelais and Crowley appears in the section that introduces Anna Livia Plurabelle. This glorious, Nuit-like introduction is worth quoting:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">In the name of Annah the Allmaziful, the Everliving, the Bringer of Plurabilities, haloed be her eve, her singtime sung, her rill be run, unhemmed as it is uneven!</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Her untitled mamafesta memorialising the Mosthighest has gone by many names at disjointed times.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The last line seems one of Joyce's paradoxes or jokes because although this mamafesta (manifesto/mama festival/mama feast) may be untitled, its many names (which aren't titles apparently) goes on for about three pages. One of those names is the above quote that starts: "From Abbeygate to Crowalley . . ."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I contend that Rabelais was an early disseminator for introducing the sacred feminine principle into Western thought. Let's begin in the middle of<i> Gargantua and Pantagruel</i> then make our way forward and backward to each end. We'll start with the Joyce reference – Abbeygate. It's been incorrectly stated that the words 'Do what thou wilt' were inscribed over the entrance gate to the Abbey of Thélème. 'Do what thou wilt' was the only rule of the Abbey. The inscription over the gate goes on for about three pages and describes the kind of people welcome to come inside and those who are not. Nothing is said about gender until the penultimate stanza:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Enter herein you dames of good descent,</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Come with frank minds and with us find true joy:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Beauteous Flowers, with faces Heaven-bent,</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Upright and pure, on Wisdom all intent;</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In the notes preceding the second chapter of Book 1, "On the Nativity of the Most-Redoubtable Pantagruel," M. A. Screech informs us that along with the landscape of the Old Testament, the story is also set in a comic version of Thomas More's <i>Utopia</i> which had been out for less than twenty years at that point and only available to Latin readers. Pantagruel's mother, Badebec, was the daughter of the King of Amaurotes in Utopia. Unfortunately, Badebec dies giving birth to Pantagruel. Gargantua is torn between weeping for the loss of his wife or laughing for joy at the birth of his son. This dialectic between the highest and the lowest, or between comedy and tragedy informs the whole book. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I postulate that Pantagruel's mother dying upon childbirth provides a metaphor for the death of the role of Female intelligence in the birth of The Church. In the Fourth Book, Rabelais makes the Greek god Pan correspond with Christ; Pantagruel's birth thus alludes to the birth of Christ and the resulting establishment of the Church without the Mother. Gargantua's loss echoes the world's loss:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">'Should I weep?' he asked. 'Yes, Why? Because my good wife is dead, who was the best <i>this</i> and the best <i>that</i> in all the world . . . Her loss to me is immeasurable. O God of mine! What have I done that you should punish me so? Why didn't you send death to me rather than her? <b>To live without her is for me but to languish</b>. . . Alas, my poor Pantagruel: you have lost a good mother, your gentle nurse, your most beloved lady! Ha, false Death, how malevolent, how cruel you are, to take from me her who, as of right, deserves immortality.' </span> (emphasis added)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Rabelais certainly didn't appear to be a feminist, none of his principle characters are women. He also seems no misogynist. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Pantagruel takes Panurge to various oracles attempting to divine the answer to the latter's matrimonial question. Pantagruel explains how each oracle works. At the oracle of dream interpretation he says: the soul often foresees what is to come, and then goes on to explain. Quite out of the norm for his time, Rabelais represents the soul as female. In that era, following Plato, the soul was thought to be genderless. As the body sleeps, she – the Soul – is able to go back to her home in Heaven:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">From there, she is granted the signal favor of participating in her primal and divine origin and of contemplating that infinite Sphere whose center is in every place in the universe and whose circumference nowhere: God, that is, by the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus in whom there is no becoming, no transience, no waning, all times being the present; there she discerns things not only past amongst the motions here below but also things to come; she bears them back to her body, and as she expounds them to her friends via her body's organs and senses she is termed prophetic . . .</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">Many years later, this found its way into Crowley's <i>Book of the Law</i>: <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: red;">"In the sphere I am everywhere the center, as she, the circumference, is nowhere found.</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;">"</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"> - <i>Al</i>:2:3. Crowley conceives this sphere as the union of the archetypal male – Had, the center – with the archetypal female – Nuit, the circumference. Qabalists will note that this appears as the 3rd verse (key 3 = Binah – the Mother) in the 2nd chapter (key 2 = Chokmah the Father).</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;">To reiterate, Cabbala runs throughout this epic adventure. Therefore, it corresponds quite nicely that Rabelais dedicated the Third Book to Marguerite, Queen of Navarre. He had to receive permission to do this, probably from her brother, Francois I King of France. Marguerite became Queen of Navarre through marriage. She had become a patron and protector of Rabelais. She also wrote books; Screech describes her as liberal, platonizing, defender of evangelicals – </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;">some frowned upon by her royal brother –</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: inherit;"> and attracted to the mystical teachings of Hermes Trismegistus. Rabelais begins Book 3 with the short dedication:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">FRANCOIS RABELAIS</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">to the Mind</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">of the </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Queen of Navarre</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: inherit;">Abstracted Mind, enraptured, true ecstatic,</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: inherit;">Who Heaven dost frequent whence thou derivest</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: inherit;">(Leaving behind thy host and place domestic,</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: inherit;">Harmonious body, which in concord striveth</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: inherit;">To heed thine edicts: stranger, it arriveth</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: inherit;">Bereft of senses, calm in Apathy)</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: inherit;">Deignest thou not to make a lively sortie</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: inherit;">From thine abode divine, perpetual,</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: inherit;">This Third Book here with thine own eyes to see</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: inherit;">Of the joyful deeds of good Pantagruel?</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #202122;"><span style="background-color: white;">A direct call to the Divine Feminine comes at the end of chapter 53 of the Fourth Book with a pun:</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #202122;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="background-color: white; color: red;">"Deacon!" said Homenaz "Deacon! Beacon! Shine light over here with double lanterns. And girls: bring in the fruit . . . O, good my God, whom I adore yet have never seen, open for us, by special grace – at least in the article of death – the most sacred treasure of Holy Church, our Mother, of which thou art the Protector, Guardian, Custodian, Administrator and Distributor . . ."</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #202122;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #202122;"><span style="background-color: white;">When Pantagruel and Panurge receive the advice to seek the oracle of La Dive Bouteille, the plot essentially becomes a quest for the Holy Grail with a variety of situations and adventures along the way, Once on the island, to get to the Holy Grail, they must make the archetypal journey through the Underworld. Their guide is the High Priestess Bacbuc. Note the similarity between her name and Pantagruel's mother, Badebec. William Tindall points out that James Joyce coins the word "baccbuccus" (<i>Finnegans Wake</i>, p. 116) which combines Bacbuc with Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and pleasure who also shows up toward the end of the Fifth Book. <i>Baqbuq</i> is the Hebrew word for flask. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #202122;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #202122;"><span style="background-color: white;">Frank Zappa benefited greatly by by putting one iteration of the Holy Grail, a strong female presence, front and center in his music. One day in the early 80s, Moon Zappa wrote a playful note to her father suggesting they work together on a song so she could spend more time with him. Frank took her up on it and came up with "Valley Girl" featuring 14 year old Moon ad libbing different scenarios in "valley-speak" caricaturing the San Fernando Valley youth culture where she went to school. The song, continuing the long tradition of social satire dating back to Rabelais, took on a life of its own spawning a Valley Girl cottage industry successful to this day. It was also Frank Zappa's only successful commercial hit song and brought in much extra revenue that allowed him to pursue other artistic interests like his experimental orchestral music.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #202122;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #202122; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white;">Pantagruelion</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #202122; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #202122;"><span style="background-color: white;">Pantagruelion is a plant spoken of with great enthusiasm. It has "so many virtues, so many powers, such perfection and so many wonderful effects." It's basically a cannabis plant so m</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;">any people believe it concerns the joys of ingesting THC and getting high. However, on the surface at least, the reference is to hemp. Great detail goes into all the things that can be done with hemp which one commentator believes is a metaphor about industriousness in the world. Rabelais specifically says that the female plant, what provides strong THC, "serves no useful purpose." This may or may not be a dodge; I see no indication of a hidden agenda about getting high. He does go into the anti-inflammatory properties made possible by boiling the root and ingesting it, what we now know as CBD, which is derived from the male plant. The male plant only contains trace amounts of THC. The only clue he may be referring to pantagruelion as consciousness altering comes with the ambiguous statement: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: red;">"By exploiting the virtues of this plant, Pantagruel has put new and painful thoughts into our minds, worse than those stirred by those giant Aloïde."</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"> Rabelais then speculates that perhaps the children of Pantagruel will discover another plant with similar powers which will allow humanity to visit the stars. It's easy to think of this plant as psychotropic.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Laughter is the Best Medicine</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;">Rabelais, ever the Cabbalist and Medical Doctor, begins Book 3 with an address to his patron about why he wrote this book:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: red;">Most-illustrious Prince: you have already been duly informed how I have been daily solicited, begged and importuned by so many great personages for the sequel to my pantagruelic mythologies, of the grounds that many of the ailing, the sick, the weary or the afflicted have, when they were read to them, beguiled their benighted sufferings, passed their time merrily and found fresh joy and consolation. To whom I normally reply that, as I wrote them for fun, I sought neither glory nor praise of any kind: my concern and intention were simply to provide such little relief as I could to the absent sick-and-suffering as I willingly provide to those who are present with me, seeking help from Art and my care. Occasionally I explain to them at some length how Hippocrates (describing in several places especially in the <i>Sixth Book of the Epidemics</i>, the formation of his doctor-disciple). . .</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;">He frames the whole purpose of his comedy writing in terms of the best way for a doctor to provide for a patient. To illustrate the multiple sides of his writing, he uses the parable of the Emperor's daughter Julia appearing in provocative dress before her displeasing father Octavian Augustus. The next day she's dressed chastely and her father says, that's more like it. She explains that today I dress for the eyes of my father, yesterday for the eyes of my husband. Rabelais compares his writing to a female voice dressing differently, wearing different masks for different occasions. He brings up the <i>Sixth Book of the Epidemics</i> by Hippocrates again for the belief mentioned therein that the doctor's demeanor or "vibe" determines the outcome of the patient's health to a significant degree. He raises the question of whether the patient's health improves or worsens by contemplating the happy or gloomy qualities of the doctor or whether it's due to </span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: red;">"the pouring of the doctor's spirits, serene or gloomy, aerial or terrestrial, joyous or melancholic, from the doctor into the person of his patient (as in the opinion of Plato and Averroës) . . . "</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;">It boils down to: </span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: red;">everything must aim at one target and tend towards one end, namely to cheer him up without offence to God and never to depress him in any manner whatsoever.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;">The second option, 'the pouring of the doctor's spirits', sounds like what Sufis call the transfer of baraka. Remember, this metaphor of the doctor/patient relationship gives the rationale of why he wrote<i> Pantagruel</i>. Rabelais is the doctor, the patient is the world. On the following page, he finds a way to cite the <i>Sixth Book of the Epidemics</i> for a third time (666). Of course, the metaphor of literature as a doctor fits very nicely with Gilles Deleuze's notion that literature functions as a cultural diagnostic tool.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXy6dPBrhTGH2H3OGDB-fOVTk93MScv0pkGSa6H_WiNrs-WtI4UiDWdprkd2i8UvOSpZfD5I87opJ_9tb4C53r-8ZAMnqejOOrwDnYWZESoLFdl9lKnX8AuaBCYf8asoi5YsRaWUuH1OJn10GgT9nkM7fEJAyixMnj0muVnQVJ7IFE7XUe7tMGrjDxhBBi/s1920/Francois_Rabelais%20photo.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1920" data-original-width="1552" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXy6dPBrhTGH2H3OGDB-fOVTk93MScv0pkGSa6H_WiNrs-WtI4UiDWdprkd2i8UvOSpZfD5I87opJ_9tb4C53r-8ZAMnqejOOrwDnYWZESoLFdl9lKnX8AuaBCYf8asoi5YsRaWUuH1OJn10GgT9nkM7fEJAyixMnj0muVnQVJ7IFE7XUe7tMGrjDxhBBi/w324-h400/Francois_Rabelais%20photo.jpeg" width="324" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Dr. Francois Rabelais</div><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;">Rabelais' philosophy came to be known as pantagruelism loosely defined by M.A. Screech as </span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: red;">"a smiling, charitable and tolerant wisdom which accepts and surmounts misfortune."</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"> It has this in common with the Stoics. Pantagruelism might be thought of as a pragmatic approach to Stoic philosophy. Rabelais clarifies a bit more in Book 3:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: red;">"I will recognize in all of them a specific form and an individual property which our elders called <i>pantagruelism</i>, by means of which they will never take in bad part anything they know to flow from a good, frank and loyal heart. I have regularly seen them accept good-will as payment and, when attributable to weak resources, be satisfied with it."</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;">Compare this with the metaphor above of a doctor pouring their spirits onto the patient.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Sainte Chapelle</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">I have commented frequently in the past on the cabbalistic SC letter combination found quite a bit in the literature of Robert Anton Wilson, Thomas Pynchon, Aleister Crowley with additional appearances in James Joyce and Gilles Deleuze. It seems to have something to do with food, particularly divine food known as manna. For example, by Gematria, S + C = 68 (Samekh + Cheth). Crowley's cabbalistically numbered <i>Book of Lies</i> chapter 68 has the title "Manna." Elaboration upon the basis of this motif can be found in <a href="https://oz-mix.blogspot.com/2018/01/thelema-deleuze-and-68.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00f2;">Thelema, Deleuze and 68</span></a>. Some examples appearing in Robert Anton Wilson's oeuvre can be seen in this post on <a href="http://oz-mix.blogspot.com/2011/07/gematria.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00e1;">Gematria</span></a>. I have often wondered where this semiotic coding originated? Perhaps in <i>The Third Book of Pantagruel</i>:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">"'I know what you mean!' Frère Jean replied. 'That metaphor has been served up from the cloister cooking-pot . . . For in my days, whenever the monastic fathers got up for their mattins (morning prayers), they, following a certain ancient practice – cabbalistic: not written but passed down from hand to hand – performed certain noteworthy preliminaries before going into church: they shat in their shitteries, pissed in their pisseries, spat in the spitteries, melodiously hacked in the hackeries and raved in the raveries, so as to bring nothing impure into divine service. Which done, they would devoutly proceed to the Saint Chapelle (for that was the name for the monastery's kitchen in their enigmatic jargon) and there devoutly urge that the beef for the breakfast of Our Lord's monastic brethren be put then and there on the fire. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;"> Often they lit the fire under the pot themselves.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I repeat: "Often they lit the fire under the pot themselves." </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-MsOkkw8hS1TY9jMXbyFc-ABThajoMy9pD8CnK9qdCg5wOuk7acS3AKF4mu7kSnL7vf5-asRTkxytQwACnTf9aLcXNSctv3_FHiF5BgMpFOYoHMckAK0n8eLO-DP1Mn-2_D6_KxkxMGYgIlRGBs7rS-lEP-JWh8cDJ6Zi7mMdgYiuzHEZYbSQFFY7aelG/s1600/778435-la-sainte-chapelle-et-ses-1113-vitraux-un-veritable-joyau-gothique-a-paris.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-MsOkkw8hS1TY9jMXbyFc-ABThajoMy9pD8CnK9qdCg5wOuk7acS3AKF4mu7kSnL7vf5-asRTkxytQwACnTf9aLcXNSctv3_FHiF5BgMpFOYoHMckAK0n8eLO-DP1Mn-2_D6_KxkxMGYgIlRGBs7rS-lEP-JWh8cDJ6Zi7mMdgYiuzHEZYbSQFFY7aelG/w400-h300/778435-la-sainte-chapelle-et-ses-1113-vitraux-un-veritable-joyau-gothique-a-paris.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">The real Sainte Chapelle in Paris</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Traveling through the Underworld on their way to the oracle of the bottle, the High Priestess Bacbuc takes our heroes to a Temple at the center of which is a most marvelous fountain. The waters of this fountain taste like whatever wine the drinkers choose. After quenching their thirst, Bacbuc asks them what they think. Unsatisfied with their answers, she determines that their palates need cleaning:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">And so there were brought in lovely, fat, happy hams, lovely, fat, happy smoked ox-tongues, lovely tasty, salted meats . . . and other such chimney-sweepers of the gullet. At her command we ate until we had to admit that our stomachs had been well and truly scoured clean by a thirst which had quite dreadfully plagued us. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Bacbuc then improvises on the story of Moses providing manna from Heaven when the Israelites were wandering in the desert, as told in <i>Exodus</i>. Only this manna, as Bacbuc tells it, similar to the waters of the fountain, tastes like whatever food you want. She takes them back to the fountain: <span style="color: red;">"Bring your mind to it and drink!"</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The waters of the fountain seem to have a life-giving quality to them. The fountain's form, as described, seems prophetic of a life replicating molecule discovered in the 19th century and decoded by Science in the 20th century.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">"The outflowing water gushed from that fountain through three pipes and channels made of fine pearls and sited at the apex of three equilateral angles at the tip of the fountain as described above. Those channels projected in the shape of a double helix."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The big discovery/decoding of the life transmitting DNA molecule is its double helix structure. This begat the new science of molecular biology. The monumental importance of this to human progress doesn't need to be said and is yet to be fully known; you could call it a giant discovery. I don't know if these Sherlock Homes-like, scientific sleuths, James Watson and Francis Crick, the double helix DNA model formulators, were pantagruelions, but they tapped into something. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Bacbuc, the High Priestess, explains how the double helix form affects the fountain's water:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">" . . . it is entirely via the form of that twin spiral which you can see, together with that five-fold fleuron (flower shaped) which vibrates with each internal impulse – as in the case of the vena cava where it enters the right ventricle of the heart – that the waters of this holy fountain filter out, producing a harmony such that it rises to the surface of the sea in your world."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Conclusion</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Writing at a time when expressing the wrong thing could easily get you killed or locked up, Rabelais managed to engage in a very broad range of social, political, and ecclesiastical satire and have his audience, including the Establishment, clamoring for more. He took his humor-laced criticism right to the edge and reeled it back. The edition I have shows the revisions he made from the first edition in 1532 to the second, definitive edition published in 1542. He expanded many of the passages, but also changed things, adding ambiguity, to avoid upsetting certain Authorities when the satire got a little too direct.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Rabelais always operates within the mystical dimension of Christianity. He brings in pagan and hermetic wisdom to expand the Judeo-Christian framework from within. For instance, calling KNOW THYSELF (caps in the book) the "Law of Moses" given to the Jews. The very next sentence explains that this law appeared on the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Rabelais seems receptive to the wisdom and understanding at the core of all doctrines. Like Crowley, he selectively quotes many passages from the Bible to support his points. Other times, he'll modify Biblical phrases in his narrative to suit his purposes.<span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span>He identifies Pan with Christ.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span>His mentor, Erasmus, expressed this blending well:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Sacred scripture is of course the basic authority for everything; yet I sometimes run across ancient sayings or pagan writings – even the poets – so purely and reverently and admirably expressed that I can't help believing that the author's hearts were moved by some divine power. And perhaps the spirit of Christ is more widespread than we understand, and the company of the saints includes many not on our calendar.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span>Like many of the works it would later inspire, <i>Gargantua and Pantagruel </i>communicates on many levels simultaneously. It can be read for sheer fun and entertainment; a burlesque carnival approach to this adventure we call life. The fart jokes alone are worth the price of admission. It can be read as a compendium of folktales dispensing the common sense and morals of the day; or as scathing satire on established Institutions couched in humor. Monty Python and Frank Zappa are just two of the many artists who carried on that tradition. Many comedians as well: Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Richard Pryor and Eddie Izzard to name just a few. Influenced by Thomas More's <i>Utopia</i>, Rabelais expresses a hopeful vision for humanity with an inherent hidden agenda that things can get better. Also hidden, how to go about putting this vision into action. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span>Receiving the full Hermetic transmission seems incumbent on getting initiated into its mysteries. It appears axiomatic in the Western occult tradition that the only real Initiation is self-Initiation. The transmission is hermetically sealed but it can be unlocked. It presents a challenge for the reader who is also interested in the Great Work of transformation.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span>I'll end with a quote that exemplifies the inclusion of Hermetic philosophy – the infamous "as above, so below; as below so above" relationship of the microcosm (the individual WoMan) with the macrocosm (Universe) – into Christian symbolism. It also illustrates what G. I. Gurdjieff called "the Law of Reciprocal Maintenance." Lastly, it says in different words Gilles Deluze's statement that sense must be produced.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">"For Nature created Man but to lend and to borrow. The harmony of the heavens will not be grander than the harmony of his polity (community).</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">The intention of the Founder of this microcosm is to maintain therein its soul, whom he has placed within as its host, its life. Now life consists in blood. Blood is the seat of the soul. That is why one single task weighs down upon this microcosm: continually to forge blood. And in that forging all its members are in their proper roles, their hierarchy being such that each borrows from the other, each lends to the other. The material – the substance – proper to be transmuted into blood is supplied by Nature: bread and wine. Within these two are comprehended every kind of food . . ."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span>Or as The Beatles put it: I get by with a little help from my friends.</span></div></div>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-83952890738304536502023-05-27T15:55:00.000-07:002023-05-27T15:55:05.932-07:0029th Series – Good Intentions Are Inevitably Punished<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">The 29th Series continues looking at the process of the dynamic genesis. It continues directly from where the 28th Series leaves off speaking of Oedipus as the hero of the surface. The good intentions concerns Oedipus restoring the image of the mother from the depths and evoking the father image of the heights to produce the surface. The surface is where the development of the ego mostly occurs. These intentions inevitably go wrong due to the fragility of the surface.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">Deleuze references Freud's <i>Beyond the Pleasure Principle</i> chapter 4 for the development of the ego which he says is essential to the bio-psychic theory of surfaces. The whole book </span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.libraryofsocialscience.com/assets/pdf/freud_beyond_the_pleasure_principle.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00c8;">is here</span></a></span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.libraryofsocialscience.com/assets/pdf/freud_beyond_the_pleasure_principle.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00c8;">,</span></a><span style="color: #0d0d0d;"> scroll down for chapter 4.</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is a look at what is meant by the image of the phallus and castration.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">Deleuze looks at what is meant by intention which he says is the moral notion par excellence. He compares intention, willed action, with accomplished action.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">He also looks at what he means by Image which eventually designates action in general or the pure event.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another concept of Freud's, <i>desexualization</i>, is examined. Freud thought this desexualization nourished he death instinct and conditioned thought. Deleuze cites chapter 4 from <i>The Ego and the Id </i>by Freud.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #0d0d0d;">Again, the whole book </span><a href="https://www.sigmundfreud.net/the-ego-and-the-id-pdf-ebook.jsp" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00d9;">is here</span></a><span style="color: #0d0d0d;">, scroll down to chapter 4:</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Deleuze calls the two aspects of desexualization, <i>sublimation</i> and <i>symbolization</i>.</span></span> </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="327" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TVvn9wumDEM" width="504" youtube-src-id="TVvn9wumDEM"></iframe></div><br /><div><br /></div>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-45578128200165695932023-05-10T18:03:00.000-07:002023-05-10T18:03:42.242-07:0028th Series of Sexuality<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">This series continues the dynamic genesis looking at infant psychology in the first year of life. Sexuality is Melanie Klein's third position after the paranoid/schizoid position of the depths and the manic-depressive position of the heights. The sexual position produces the surface, the meeting place of bodies and language. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">The sexual position gets formed by libidinal energy getting freed from the two drives of conservation and destruction in the depths of bodies and having that energy projected onto an erogenous zone on the surface. The phallus - a projected "image", not the organ, unites the various erogenous zones to produce the surface. Deleuze also compares the coordination of the erogenous zones with Lacan's mirror stage.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">He closes this series with by beginning a discussion of the Oedipus Complex which continues in <i>Series 29</i>. Oedipus brings up the fragmented bad penis of the depths to unite with the whole good penis of the heights on the surface. Thus <i>"Oedipus is a pacifying hero of the Herculean type."</i></span> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="342" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BW3TVniHXoY" width="457" youtube-src-id="BW3TVniHXoY"></iframe></div><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p></p>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-31572934941798906352023-04-30T22:07:00.000-07:002023-04-30T22:07:55.618-07:00The Walls Came Tumbling Down<div style="text-align: center;"> When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.</div><div style="text-align: center;"> - Hunter S. Thompson</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">... most of the really weird events in this story actually happened to people I have known. ... Some of them happened to me, as readers of my <i>Cosmic Trigger I</i>: <i>Final Secret of the Illuminati</i> will realize; but most of them happened to other people.</div><div style="text-align: center;"> - Robert Anton Wilson, <i>Introduction</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjEA4rc67-d3BtnNMeG4JhEX5GYegOxJKtXwI9z_rlM2L-XNo_dtrwJKPvE1kTkTPFELMJQyoxJiVH5-4NJbqa-UeXa_mI9DWms-YH6B8-QPOOLLc36qTm7evJMVYfuTVWIJUm44w1_Cdqeh1hngKfOMAsDrcY94lhPAnJIHowy8zDger6dE269Kgm9g/s1000/walls.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="683" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjEA4rc67-d3BtnNMeG4JhEX5GYegOxJKtXwI9z_rlM2L-XNo_dtrwJKPvE1kTkTPFELMJQyoxJiVH5-4NJbqa-UeXa_mI9DWms-YH6B8-QPOOLLc36qTm7evJMVYfuTVWIJUm44w1_Cdqeh1hngKfOMAsDrcY94lhPAnJIHowy8zDger6dE269Kgm9g/s320/walls.jpg" width="219" /></span></a></div><i style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i style="text-align: left;"><br /></i></div>SPOILER ALERT</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i style="text-align: left;"><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;">(It doesn't really matter as you'll never get everything in the script one or many times time through; it will look different every time as walls come down and break boundaries of understanding and comprehension<i>).</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>The Walls Came Tumbling Down </i>is a film waiting to get made (hint, hint); a film existing in one future or another, perhaps. It currently enjoys life in this universe as a 2023 Hilaritas Press Second Edition book. Robert Anton Wilson wrote it in L. A. circa late '80s intending it as a film he planned to direct. No filmmaker smart and financially savvy enough to make it happen picked it up ... not yet. Fortunately, we have the script, complete with scene directions supplemented with an Introduction by the author, a Forward, Afterword and Eulogy by Gregory Arnott, Bobby Campbell and Alan Moore respectively. The eulogy is for Robert Anton Wilson; most apropos as Death, in a variety of forms - literal, metaphorical, symbolic - revolves in and out through the screenplay. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Wilson tells us how to read this <i>potentiale motabilem imaginem</i>, both in the <i>Introduction</i> then followed by the tutorial aptly called: <i>How To Read A Film Script</i>. He also provides context, his situation at the time of writing it beginning with a weather report: <span style="color: red;">"After six years in Ireland, where the year consists of 'nine months of winter and and three months of ungodly weather' as the Dublin adage says, the Southern California climate seemed like the Garden of Eden."</span> He proceeds to let us know of the multiple levels in the story, the multiple meanings of the walls that tumble down, from our tunnel-realities to the then contemporaneous Berlin Wall, while clueing us in to a deeper mythic level: <span style="color: red;">"the tunnel-walls of the labyrinth of Minos in the Greek myth</span><i>.</i>"</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">When RAW introduces his <span style="color: red;">"hero"</span> Michael Ellis, he describes some of the territory to be covered: <span style="color: red;">"Since several million Americans still find themselves lost in that neurological Area 51 (not to mention the millions elsewhere on this planet), I think we should try to understand what has happened to the human race ..."</span>. By gematria, 51 = "Pain"; "Failure"; and a few other unpleasant associations. He basically says the human race hasn't gotten it together because they don't have their brains together. </div><div style="text-align: left;">He calls Michael Ellis a <span style="color: red;">"20th Century Everyman"</span> (notice anything Joyceans?) and puts him through a profound transformation - from a rigid, arrogant, scientific elitist to what might be called an Angel, or Healer. <b>The implication is that anyone can potentially go through that transformation.</b> In this film script we find an act of Magick, an experimental event still very much in play. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">An <i>Alice in Wonderland</i> quote in the third section of the <i>Intro</i> blatantly hints at what lies ahead:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">"'I'll be the judge, I'll be the jury,'</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">Said cunning old Fury</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">'I'll hear the case</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">and condemn you to death'"</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">When death comes around, all your walls come down. Might as well get used to it ahead of time. The <span style="color: red;">"borderless or other-wordly consciousness"</span> his characters frequently stumble into is called the Bardo by Tibetan Buddhists. The Bardo describes the weird territory between lives, the space after death and before rebirth. The first serious scientific effort to map this territory in the West, and enter the Bardo before <i>Extremum Vitae Spiritum Edere</i> (giving up the ghost) gets documented in the <i>The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead</i> by Leary, Metzner, and Alpert who all met at Harvard University - where Michael Ellis works in RAW's film. All three authors get name-checked in a single breath in an allusion to their book. (p.86); Leary becomes a minor character and obvious influence.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The opening scene evokes the bardo by describing an ambience out of an H.P. Lovecraft story (also how<i> Cosmic Trigger I</i> begins) complete with weird, fast, ominous music as Ellis, upset about something, goes racing to his friend for help. By the end of the film he will find that:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red;">"You must be ready to accept the possibility that there is a limitless range of awareness for which we now have no words; that awareness can expand beyond the range of your ego, your self, your familiar identity, beyond everything you have learned, beyond your notions of space and time, beyond the differences which usually separate people from each other and from the world around them."</span> </div><div style="text-align: right;">- <i>The Psychedelic Experience</i>, p. 14.</div><div style="text-align: right;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>How To Read A Film Script</i> deciphers the filming instructions, locates the scene, the type of shot, the camera angle and whether it moves or not. In short, it presents <span style="color: red;">"just what the audience would see and hear in the final version." </span>He jokes at the end of this section that this script shouldn't be harder to read than <i>Finnegans Wake</i> or <i>Gravity's Rainbow</i>, two extremely complex, multi-level, qabalistic novels that contain an association with death in the title. We infer an influence by those works from Joyce and Pynchon on <i>The Walls Came Tumbling Down</i>. I've shown one such influence above. Motivated scholars and readers have dug deep into the labyrinthine convolutions in the <i>Wake</i> and the <i>Rainbow </i>inviting a similar approach here. Repetitive readings appear key to penetrating these monasteries of thought. Every repetition brings something different into awareness. Malaclypse the Younger affirms Difference in the very first quote of the <i>Introduction</i>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">People read Robert Anton Wilson for different, mutually non-exclusive reasons: entertainment, information, knowledge, futurist speculation, etc. It's been remarked that reading fiction from Wilson doesn't have to be a passive experience. In his non-fiction works like <i>Prometheus Rising</i> and <i>Quantum Psychology</i>, he gives exercizes for his readership to experiment with allowing the possibility of an experiential encounter with whatever point he makes. Exercizes get suggested at various points in all his fiction when reading between the lines. An experiment here could be to visualize the film as you proceed through the script; feel the space and atmosphere of the scene; see it from the camera's pov; get the unnerving sensation of sudden transitions and fast cuts, leaps through time; in and out of parallel universes, different dimensions, realities and hallucinatory surrealities. Get a feeling for the borderless, other-wordly, bardo consciousness. Watch and live it with the mind's eye.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Wilson informs us that he borrowed the name of his primary protagonist, Michael Ellis, from a Monty Python episode called <i>Michael Ellis; </i>a surrealistic, bardoesque, tour de force. It appears to have had significant influence on our author as we find overlaps in themes found in his fiction - not only in <i>Walls; </i>subjects<i> </i>like synchronicity, gematria, semiotics and dialectics<i>. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The hero in the Python show, played by Eric Idle, goes into <i>Giants,</i> the strangest department store on Earth, to buy a pet ant. Metaphors abound - we initially see customers with bandaged noses leaving the store and soon find out why. They tend to be unable to negotiate the exit doors, smashing their noses into a plate glass window whereupon a store employee directs them to the Nasal Injuries Hall on the third floor. As our hero proceeds to the ant procurement counter we see a woman considering buying a flame thrower. She asks to try it and proceeds to set a nearby gentleman's coat on fire.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Our ant loving hero soon gets mistaken for Michael Ellis. This name recurs throughout the episode in different random contexts but we never meet him. After some back and forth about Ellis, Idle's character complains a few times about how silly the clerks appear due to their very odd behavior. Ellis reversed = Sille (silly). RAW hints at reversing language in his script. His Ellis encounters two dwarfs (p. 110) who speak a language that spells out popular cigarette brands when reversed. The initials of Michael Ellis, ME suggest the ego. RAW's Ellis goes through multiple ego deaths in the course of the story. Python's Michael Ellis, always present but never there, suggests an interpretation that all the events in the episode occur inside his ego dissolution. We get an inside look at his bardo. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The strange recurrence, non-occurrence of Ellis in Python recalls the character of Glen Runciter in Philip K. Dick's <i>Ubik</i>, a classic, science fiction encounter with death and the bardo. That novel begins with an explosion apparently killing Runciter while slowly altering the reality of those who "survived." Soon, Runciter begins to manifest to them in odd, discontinuous ways like appearing on their money. These weird encounters suggest the interpretation that the other characters travel through Runciter's bardo - the unravelling of his subconscious mind. Dick influenced <i>Walls</i> as we shall see.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Idle brings his pet ant home to find his mother sloppily dishing out generic pet food to a variety of odd pet bowls labeled: Gorilla, Trout, Dromedary, Baboon and a few you can't see. We see a tiger in a cage they feed with drugs who constantly roars. Mom starts seriously bitching about having to care for another pet and reminds him he didn't take care of his pet sperm whale which they had to turn into a garage due to not being able to find 44,000 tons of plankton to feed it every morning (<span style="color: red;">"Your papa was dead vexed about that"</span>). We get a dialectic between the infinitely large (sperm whale) with the infinitely small (ant).</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Idle retreats into a den that has a wall filled with many various televisions (multiple vision) chooses one, then sits down to enjoy a show with his ant, Marcus. By fortuitous chance, or synchronicity, the show they tune into is about ant communication. They have a scene of two "ants" (Python actors in a restaurant) acting out their semiotics, communicating in ridiculous whole body sign language with a caption in English of what they're saying. It seems influenced by a chapter from Rabeleis' <i>Pantagruel and Gargantua</i> which has a very satirical scene of two intellectuals debating exclusively through absurd hand and body signs. RAW's semiotics in <i>Walls</i> appears much subtler yet still an essential part of the transmission. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Idle's mother interrupts just as the TV announcer starts talking about Michael Ellis cutting off news about him. Another show comes on about Surgical Homeopathy <span style="color: red;">"Part 68, Ants."</span> The show's host gets into the anatomy of an ant in rather gruesome fashion while mentioning that their legs can carry hundreds of times more than their own weight before he plucks them out while counting them. Idle exclaims, <span style="color: red;">"I didn't know ants had six legs!"</span> The TV answers back:<span style="color: red;"> "I assure you they do Mr. Ellis." </span>Idle realizes that Marcus only has four legs and proceeds back to the department store to make a complaint. Robert Anton Wilson begins<i> Schrodinger's Cat</i> with the information that most of the inhabitants of Earth (insects) have 6 legs. I can't help but think that this Python episode may have inspired that opening. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Giants</i> department store appears even more over-the top surrealistic than before, both with the staff and customers. Idle's character gets directions for the Complaint Department and sets off on a Kafkaesque, labyrinthine journey. On the way, he goes into the Victorian Poetry bardo space filled with people seated for a recital by Wordsworth, Shelley, Tennyson and Keats who all read from their most famous works. Only they've been altered into poems about ants. It's moderated by a very tall, soused woman who asks and receives a refill from a very short man beside her every time she mishears Shelley say his last name. She keeps introducing him as Percy Bysshe and he responds with Shelley to correct her. whereupon she hears him suggesting more sherry. Of course, all the main female characters in Monty Python are played by men in drag with fake, high-pitched voices.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">After the poets read, Queen Victoria herself comes into this space with a coffin containing her dead husband to discuss a matter of national import - ants are starting to dominate literature. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In the next scene, our ant-loving hero finally finds the Toupee Department which he was told he had to find to get to the Complaint Department. A comic scene on toupees ensues. One of the counter helpers gets introduced as "Mr. Crowley." At last Idle sits waiting in the Complaint Department. The woman with the flame thrower complains about it not having a safety mechanism then proceeds to accidentally start several small fires including the next customer's suit. During the next complaint, the P.A. chimes and announces the end of Michael Ellis week and the beginning of Chris Quinn week. Zoom in to a close-up of Idle - we finally learn his character's name. He breaks the theatrical fourth wall, saying "what a rotten ending" about the episode. Instantly transitioning to the End of the Show Department, he looks for an alternative ending. He views several, some with camera directions similar to the <i>Walls</i> script, others back to the Michael Ellis theme. The last option is <b>Sudden Ending</b> whereupon it cuts to a blackout, again suggesting death.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I highly, highly recommend everyone see Monty Python's <i>Michael Ellis</i> for essential background information on what influenced Robert Anton Wilson. It's currently on Netflix but if you do a search on Netflix, the different episodes don't come up. The<i> Michael Ellis</i> episode will come up if you make the search on Google and probably other browsers.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Back to the tumbling <i>Walls</i>, we find science, sex, drugs and music well represented. Ellis has a PhD in physics. His friend Simon Selene is a psychologist. Another character suggests Carl Sagan. Ellis' wife is also a scientist. Rigid scientific skeptics get compared to Nazis. The morality of providing the atomic key for nuclear bombs comes up, framed as killing Christ, as does basic working explanations for nearly every model of quantum physics recalling similar explanations in <i>Schrodinger's Cat</i>. We get an experiential sense of parallel universes in the script with abrupt shifts in some of the character's personalities. Subtle shifts into a universe next door get indicated by slightly different home furnishings. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Drugs accelerate the unhinging of Ellis when he gets some sodium pentothal at the dentist that bring on "hallucinations." Returning from the dentist appointment, he flashes on a military coffin being unloaded by an Honor Guard. This image and reinforcing soundtrack will recur. He talks about drugs to his wife, Cathy, then the visual starts tripping out to suggest a UFO. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The dentist episode parallels what actually happened to Philip K. Dick in 1974. After his trip to the dentist where he was given sodium pentothal, he entered another space/time reality triggered by the reflection of sunlight off a piece of jewelry worn by a young, beautiful delivery girl. His subsequent visions, which lasted for at least two months, included the strong perception the he/we still live in early Christian times. Dick experienced an overlay of this era with the present. This also occurs to Ellis. When Wilson says in the <i>Introduction</i> that these weird things actually happened to people he knows, this is what he means. He rewrote parts of Dick's visionary episodes staying true to the "facts" as Dick experienced them.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Jumps in external time and space abound. The different locales include Cambridge, Massachusetts in present time; Santa Cruz, CA 1952; Harvard early 1970s and present time; Cuernavaca, Mexico, the Mexican desert, early 1960s; ancient Rome; and Calvary Hill, Jerusalem at the Crucifixion. The action also jumps around in internal space shifting in and through alternate states of consciousness featuring encounters with dwarves, extraterrestrial aliens and other anomalies. These alternate states get accessed in a variety of ways: drugs, dreams, sex, meditation, art, music and brain machines. Contributing to the bizarre, unconventional realities that happen are Russian psychic experiments and psychokinetic feats recalling the spoon bending demonstrations of Uri Geller, a psychic familiar to Wilson's readers. The aforementioned models attempting to explain quantum physics provide their own tweaks to both inner and outer realities.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Wilson creates a trippy effect combining all kinds of visual art (prehistoric cave paintings, Egyptian, Oriental, African, Byzantine, medieval art) with powerful music from Beethoven – it seems a kind of subtle programming. He writes: <span style="color: red;">"[T]he effect is that something more than great art and great music is being transmitted, something only art and music symbolize."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The artists mentioned include Michelangelo (Michael the Angel), Van Gogh, Picasso and Jackson Pollock. Elvis, John Lennon, James Dean and Star Trek posters provide pop art. Michelangelo's <i>Pieta</i> flashes briefly on the screen, almost, but not quite, subliminally. This sculpture depicts Mary holding the body of her dead son, an allusion to at least two different events in the script. An image of Van Gogh's <i>Starry Sky</i> follows immediately just as quickly before cutting back to Ellis. Two brief scenes ahead finds Michael and Cathy back in Mexico at a cafe listening to Bing Crosby sing <i>If You Want to Swing on a Star</i> discussing drugs with a fellow named Peter Stone - an obvious allusion to Jesus telling the Apostle Peter, "upon this rock I will build my church." Minutes later, the scene shows Michael and Cathy in a Cambridge bar discussing parallel universes. A television above them shows the final scene from <i>2001 A Space Odyssey.</i> Wilson has them <span style="color: red;">"look up at the screen for a moment as the Star Child appears and the film ends."</span> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">A few scenes later, after a shift into a universe next door, Michael and Cathy are back at the bar discussing parallel universes in a different way. We see someone put money into a juke box followed by the song <i>On A Clear Day You Can See Forever</i>, the theme song from the 1970 film of the same name. Elsewhere, RAW rates this as the best film on magick. The lyrics get shown onscreen, the last line stating: <span style="color: red;">[H]ow the glow of your being outshines every star ..."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">If all those literal Star references weren't enough – looking at Ellis reversed again gives "Sill" + "e." Sill suggests a window sill which corresponds with the Hebrew letter <i>He, </i> = The Star in Tarot. The English "e" also corresponds with <i>He. </i>Qabalistically, Ellis backwards = a double e. To digress slightly, a double e also turns up in Bob Dylan's, <i>It Takes A Lot to Laugh, It Takes A Train to Cry</i> along with a window sill and the death/rebirth archetype. <i>Walls</i> has it's own balance of laughter and tragedy.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Music plays a significant part in this film. Wilson meticulously choreographs the soundtrack, frequently giving instructions for tempo and mood along with the placement. He uses <i>Taps</i> frequently, always connected with death, of course. Chuck Berry, The Beatles and the Sex Pistols (three of my favorites) represent rock-n-roll. He makes sure to let us know that we hear <i>Thus Spake Zarathustra</i> by Strauss in the <i>2001</i> scene. We hear "Christmas music" in one scene and <i>Silent Night</i> in another. Beethoven's <i>Ode to Joy</i> figures prominently.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">A crucial subplot concerns Ellis' memory of a past life event where he was the Roman Centurion that killed Christ by plunging a sword into his chest. Later, this gets framed as a compassionate gesture: he killed Christ so he wouldn't have to suffer anymore. Wilson says this screenplay was originally called<i> The Man Who Murdered God</i>. The crucifixion and resurrection of Christ obviously suggests an archetype of death and rebirth. We get the point of view of a man willfully causing this death, not Christ dying on the cross. Ellis goes through several death and rebirth sequences.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">RAW sometimes uses a dialectical approach, contrasting and blending darkness and light - pretty much a trademark in Pynchon's <i>Gravity's Rainbow</i>. A great example: Michael and Cathy's son Charles, called Charlie, whom they love deeply, enlists and goes to Vietnam where the enemy is called "Charlie." You can read the rest in the script and viscerally discover why this makes the perfect example.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Synchronicities outside the screenplay: </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">1. Much of the action takes place in and around Harvard University where Michael and Cathy teach and work. A recently found "lost manuscript" by Robert Anton Wilson of an introduction to Aleister Crowley called <i>Do What Thou Wilt</i> mysteriously turned up at Harvard University and is now being prepared for publication. Apart from the "Every man and every woman is a star' allusion mentioned above, Crowley gets invoked in the script by a brief snippet on TV suggesting the IRS = the Beast 666. The Forward to this forthcoming RAW on Crowley book is by Crowley biographer Richard Kaczynski. The sound-alike name "Katzinski" gets said early in the script.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">2. RAW gives Cathy Ellis flaming red hair like his wife Arlen's hair in real life. This made me wonder if Michael Ellis - ME - might be a fictionalized partial stand-in for Wilson himself along with serving as an "Everyman." They both smoked cigarettes, for instance. This book has much to do with death. The last caregiver RAW had, the last person to see him alive has the first name Cathy. The first person who inadvertently opens Ellis' mind, the dentist Dr. Riley is named after Arlen Wilson's maiden name.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The<i> Forward</i> with the tantalizing title, <i>Robert Anton Wilson at the End of History</i>, by Gregory Arnott, takes an insightful look at how the dialectic of infophilia and infophobia looks today. RAW's <i>Introduction</i> explains how this dialectic appears in <i>Walls</i>. Arnott's analysis covers how this has sociologically played out over the years along with conspiracy thinking. He helpfully makes comparisons with other well-known cultural references including The <i>X Files</i> and <i>Twin Peaks</i> TV shows. I found it enlightening to read this <i>Forward</i> again after finishing the script. It may prove helpful to your next reading of Walls. Check out what he says about the camera work – whose films to watch to see a similar style.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The <i>Afterword</i>, <i>Big Mouth</i>, by Bobby Campbell reveals a priceless encounter with the Great Man himself when, through synchronicity, one of RAW's own walls came tumbling down. It comes across as a well-told, gripping adventure, a pilgrimage of sorts, that provides an intimate account of our Beloved Author in his home world. Bobby recounts episodes where his walls disappeared and the help, literary and otherwise, RAW provided him to deal with those challenges. <span style="color: red;">"RAW upgraded my metaphor, swapping out a monstrous demonic antagonist with a whimsically mischievous ally."</span> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Eulogy for Robert Anton Wilson</i> by Alan Moore gives a colorful, imagistic, psychedelic rundown of notable events in the life of our dear departed scribe. Alternatively, he suggests the same bardo theme mentioned above in Monty Python's <i>Michael Ellis</i> and P.K. Dick's <i>Ubik</i>: <span style="color: red;">"all these people, moments and events, could be no more than thoughts suspended simultaneously within the snowglobe consciousness of Luna Wilson, dreaming in the ice." </span>Moore concludes with the vision he had of Wilson as a member of the real Illuminati. I've experienced that vision in a different way.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This film will go a long way toward raising the Intelligence of humans whenever someone has the wherewithal to make it. I happily volunteer my services as a consultant should that time arrive before my own walls come tumbling down permanently.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I'll conclude with another parallel from Leary, Metzner, and Alpert. Wilson begins the second section of his <i>Intro</i> with a quote by Frater Perdurabo from <i>The Book of Lies</i>: <span style="color: red;">"Doubt everything"</span>. Naturally, this evokes skepticism right at the top, a common occurrence in Thelemic writing. Writing about it when in a deep bardo state: <span style="color: red;">"Whenever in doubt, turn off your mind, relax, float downstream."</span> <i>The Psychedelic Experience</i>, p. 14. I would add, maybe listen to a Beatles song. Tomorrow never knows.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-13217357327608022652023-04-09T15:59:00.004-07:002023-04-09T15:59:44.400-07:0027th Series of Orality<p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">Series 27 begins Deleuze's deep dive into psychoanalysis looking at a process he calls the dynamic genesis. He bases it on the theories of Sigmund Freud, Jaques Lacan, and Melanie Klein. Klein and Freud are most obvious here. It's very helpful to get some background on Klein's work to understand what's going on. Here are some links:</span></span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv-iJc8c52E&t=390s" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">A basic primer video</span></a><span style="color: #0d0d0d;"> on Klein's theories.</span></span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://melanie-klein-trust.org.uk/theory/" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Short descriptions</span></a><span style="color: #0d0d0d;"> on some of Klein and Freud's basic ideas.</span></span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: red; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanie_Klein" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Melanie Klein wikipedia</span></a></span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Introducing-Melanie-Klein-Graphic-Guide-ebook/dp/B00KFEK0FG/ref=sr_1_1?" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Introducing Melanie Klein: A Graphic Guide</span></a></i><span style="color: #0d0d0d;">. The e-book version is free to read for Amazon Prime members:</span></span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: red; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Priority-Events-Deleuzes-Plateaus-Directions/dp/0748643648/ref=sr_1_1?crid=JISA0WTNRWUJ&keywords=The+Priority+of+Events+Sean+Bowden&qid=1681078210&s=books&sprefix=the+priority+of+events+sean+bowden%2Cstripbooks%2C166&sr=1-1" target="_blank">
</a></span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span><i><span style="color: red;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Priority-Events-Deleuzes-Plateaus-Directions/dp/0748643648/ref=sr_1_1?crid=JISA0WTNRWUJ&keywords=The+Priority+of+Events+Sean+Bowden&qid=1681078210&s=books&sprefix=the+priority+of+events+sean+bowden%2Cstripbooks%2C166&sr=1-1" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">The Priority of Events: Deleuze's Logic of Sense</span> </a></span></i><span style="color: #0d0d0d;">by Sean Bowden, Chapter 5 </span></span><i style="color: #0d0d0d;">Psychoanalysis – Dynamic Genesis</i><span style="color: #0d0d0d;"> is very helpful to understanding this part of the book.</span></span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><br /></span><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="313" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Sd3d7zOatl8" width="468" youtube-src-id="Sd3d7zOatl8"></iframe></div><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-27288035240877599202023-03-09T17:26:00.000-08:002023-03-09T17:26:20.913-08:0026th Series of Language<p><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Deleuze begins this series with the statement that "Events make language possible." This describes, in a general way, the subject for the rest of the book. This series marks a dividing line or a major inflection point in <i>The Logic of Sense</i> as he shifts his focus to psychoanalysis in the next series and stays with it until the Appendices. </span></p><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Deleuze performs his philosophy with the form of the book. In the previous series on Univocity, he said the problem has shifted to how does the individual transcend their form and syntactical link to a world. He also discussed the Eternal Return in the previous two series. After suggesting the individual transcend their syntactical link, he returns to language, and spends the remainder of the book writing about how this syntactical link gets formed. </span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">This first part of this series recapitulates and reiterates material from Series Two, Three and Four, another kind of Return. After this review, Series Twenty-Six explicitly returns to looking at what makes language possible.</span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">This series also appears isomorphic with the incorporeal line-frontier that separates bodies from propositions. It separates the first twenty-five series, primarily of philosophy (concepts and ideas), from the remaining eight series concerning the "dynamic genesis," the development of the human body from birth into what Jaques Lacan calls the Symbolic Order, i.e. incorporating language into their world.</span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Events and sense get used interchangeably. Deleuze explicitly states their equivalence. It's equally correct to say that sense makes language possible.</span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The verb constitutes the ring of the proposition bringing signification to bear upon denotation. A verb has two poles that it oscillates between: the infinitive which indicates the sense or event, and the present which indicates its relation to a state of affairs. It is from the verb that we infer what the ring conceals or coils up or what it reveals once it is split, unrolled or deployed over a straight line - sense or the event as the expressed of the proposition.</span><div><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="254" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gqrDn97A3nM" width="442" youtube-src-id="gqrDn97A3nM"></iframe></div><br /><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-6636091986242151112023-02-02T15:33:00.000-08:002023-02-02T15:33:18.858-08:0025th Series of Univocity<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Deleuze gives his ontology in this series as Univocity or Univocal Being. "The univocity of Being signifies that Being is Voice, that it is said, and that it is said in one and the same "sense" of everything about which it is said." This sense is that of the eternal return.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">With the affirmation of divergence and disjunction as a positive synthesis, the problem has changed. It no longer appears as the alogical compatibility or incompatibility of events between each other. All events are compatible with other events. They only become incompatible with individuals, persons, or worlds. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">The problem now gets stated as: "knowing how the individual would be able to transcend his form and his syntactical link to a world in order to attain to the universal communication of events."</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">Further study on Univocity can be found in <i>Difference and Repetition</i>, p. 35 - 42 and p. 303-304 Columbia edition. Delezue ends<i> Difference and Repetition</i> discussing univocal being and the eternal return.</span></span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="291" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oJWmoXbPoCI" width="459" youtube-src-id="oJWmoXbPoCI"></iframe></div></div>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-1193523801454871772023-01-05T18:37:00.002-08:002023-01-05T18:38:20.363-08:0024th Series of the Communication of Events<p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">Deleuze begins this series by examining causality dividing it into the causality of bodies in their depths (and the depths can go down to the quantum level), and the causality from the incorporeal effects that result - quasi-causality. Destiny results from both causes from bodies and quasi-causality. The former acts from necessity, but this shifts in quasi-causality to expression. Moving from necessity to expression suggests free will. "The Stoic paradox is to affirm destiny while denying necessity."</span></span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">What are these expressive relations of events? Events appear to have relations of compatibility and incompatibility with one another. Chyrsippus looked at hypothetical propositions with conjunctions and disjunctions (eg. If it is light, it is day) and concluded they expressed their relation as a non-casual correspondence. "Astrology was perhaps the first important attempt to establish a theory of "alogical incompatibilities and non-causal correspondences.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">Deleuze examines identity and contradiction. Is that necessary for events?</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">Moves to Leibniz and compossible and incompossible worlds. Moves away from Lebiniz because he excludes predicates of incompossible worlds from each other. Deleuze wants to affirm their difference have them communicate through each other through resonance. When their difference gets affirmed, but not conjoined, he calls this a disjunctive synthesis.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">Three kinds of synthesis: 1. connective synthesis ( "if ... ,then ...") which forms a single series. 2. conjunctive synthesis ("and) forming convergent series (worlds). 3 Disjunctive synthesis (either/or) which distributes the divergent series.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">Example of Nietzsche affirming the difference between his sickness and health by his gaining the know-how of reversing perspectives. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">Recommended reading: It helps a lot to read two of the books Deleuze cited in the previous Series - the chapter on Zeno (beginning of Book 7) from <i>Lives of Eminent Philosophers</i> by Diogenes Laertius and "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius. </span></span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #0d0d0d;">Also, cited in this Series, D<i>e Fato</i> by Cicero. You can read this<a href="https://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/cicero/de_fato_english.html" target="_blank"> </a></span><a href="https://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/cicero/de_fato_english.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">here</span><span style="color: #0d0d0d;">.</span></a></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">The paper<i>, Cicero's "De Fato" in Deleuze's "Logic of Sense"</i> by Michael James Bennett shows the basis of quasi-causality in Stoic thought. A pdf can be downloaded<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/45332029" target="_blank"> </a></span><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/45332029" style="font-family: inherit;" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: white; color: red; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></a></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For more on the disjunctive synthesis, Deleuze cites the third appendix in <i>Logic of Sense</i> called <i>Klossowski or Bodies-Language</i>.</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="335" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VZWqaldQXug" width="521" youtube-src-id="VZWqaldQXug"></iframe></div><br /><div><br /></div>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-68274746751962807562022-12-09T13:09:00.006-08:002022-12-09T13:09:58.848-08:0023rd Series of the Aion<p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">This series discusses Deleuze's two opposing readings of Time, Chronos and the Aion. Chronos is presented from the point of view of Plato's philosophy. Chronos is circular, encased by God. Chronos, the present, is the time of mixtures and blendings and corporeal causes. The Stoics distinguished between good and bad mixtures, whether they spread order or chaos. The "bad mixtures" Deleuze calls the becoming-mad of the depths. This becoming-mad tries to subvert the present; this is how Chronos attempts to die. Deleuze presents the argument, via <i>Meditations</i> by Marcus Aurelius that another element is needed, the Aion.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Aion is a straight line (Chronos unfolded) that goes infinitely into the past and future, but is limited because its present only lasts an instant. The Aion is the world of surface effects and allows language to be abstracted from the sounds of the body. The Aion articulates the frontier between bodies and language, between things and propositions. Pure events ground language. It is what is expressed in its independence that grounds language, i.e. sense. Events and sense are the same thing. Sense brings that which expresses it into existence.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">Aion lasts for an instant in the present then divides into the past and future simultaneously. Aion is the eternal truth of time: <i>pure empty form of time</i>.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">Suggested additional reading: 1. <i>Parmenides</i> by Plato which is a dialogue between Parmenides, Socrates and Zeno, the founder of the Stoics.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">2. The section on Zeno (Book VII, first philosopher) in <i>The Lives of the Philosophers</i> by Diogenes Laertius.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">3. Sections on the empty form of time from <i>Difference and Repetition</i> by Deleuze, p. 87 - 91 and p. 294 - 300 in the Columbia edition. See the index under Time for more references.</span></span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="328" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3bxBVKVhuts" width="488" youtube-src-id="3bxBVKVhuts"></iframe></div><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-43723173052572914162022-11-26T10:08:00.003-08:002022-11-26T14:14:22.202-08:0022nd Series – Porcelain and Volcano<p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">In this series Deleuze <span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">explores a concept he calls "the crack," a crack in the surface organization. He uses F. Scott Fitzgerald's memoir piece, <i>The Crack-Up</i> as a jumping off point. In it, Fitzgerald discusses the disintegration of his life comparing it to a cracked plate (porcelain). He also looks at the crack through Malcolm Lowry's novel <i>Under the Volcano</i>. Deleuze attributes the crack in both these cases to alcoholism and does a brief psychological analysis of that disease. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, the crack may have a beneficial side: "If one asks why does health not suffice, why the crack is desirable, it is perhaps because only by means of the crack and at its edges does thought occur, that anything that is good and great in humanity enters and exits through it, in people ready to destroy themselves - better death than the health we are given." (<i>Logic of Sense</i>, p. 164 - 165 Bloomsbury edition). Deleuze wants to know if it's possible to utilize the crack without compromising our health. The crack can also be brought about by schizophrenia (Artaud & Nietzsche), drugs or sudden loss of wealth or love, etc. Is it possible to get the revelations given by drugs and alcohol without chemical means? Counter-actualization seems a key to using the crack. Counter-actualization takes a difficult or tragic event and turns it into something else.
The <i>Crack-Up</i> is both the title of a post-humous collection of Fitzgerald's letters and short stories and the name of a particular piece containing three short memoir stories originally written for and published in Esquire magazine. In the video, I incorrectly state that it was for Vogue magazine. It is the short story, <i>The Crack-Up</i>, that Deleuze uses. It can be read for free at the Internet Archive by registering for a free account. It begins on page 69 </span><a href="https://archive.org/details/cerackup0000fsco/page/68/mode/2up?view=theater." target="_blank"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #ff00d0;">at this link</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></a><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #0d0d0d;">
</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">It can also be purchased </span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Crack-Up-F-Scott-Fitzgerald/dp/0811218201/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2CBHIFDKB8RFF&keywords=the+crack+up+f+scott+fitzgerald&qid=1669484312&sprefix=The+Crak+Up%2Caps%2C144&sr=8-1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00d9;">here</span></a><span style="color: #ff00d9;">.</span></span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #0d0d0d;">
</span></span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #0d0d0d;"><i>
Under the Volcano</i> is available </span><a href="http://here.https://www.amazon.com/Under-Volcano-Novel-Malcolm-Lowry/dp/0061120154/ref=sr_1_1?crid=315745IDGY2KJ&keywords=under+the+volcano+by+malcolm+lowry&qid=1669484549&sprefix=under+the+volcano+Lowry%2Caps%2C147&sr=8-1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00ea;">here</span><span style="color: #0d0d0d;">.</span></a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="314" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/S6ryDypGsec" width="510" youtube-src-id="S6ryDypGsec"></iframe></div><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-85135357557876928282022-11-05T17:33:00.000-07:002022-11-05T17:33:21.931-07:0021st Series of the Event<p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">Transforming hardship like a Stoic. Illustrated with the story of French poet Joe Bousquet and his wound. How he apprehended the universal truth of the pure event of his wound and through Will became a quasi-cause for transmuting it into something else; in his case, becoming a poet and writer.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">The only ethics worth having - to be not unworthy of what happens to you. This relates with Nietzsche's concept of Amor Fati. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">Also goes into Nietzsche's concept of "ressentiment" (resentment) as an attitude of slave morality. Those who feel the events of their life seem unwarranted or unjustified - it's always someone else's fault - are full of ressentiment as are those who "pick at their sores." </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">Touches upon the two big problems of war and death. "There is, nevertheless, a good deal of ignominy in saying that war concerns everybody. It does not concern those who use it or serve it – creatures of ressentiment."</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Stoic sage, the "actor," also called the Operator in this Series - I would also call a Magician - becomes a quasi-cause relative to any event in the depth of the body that may bring misfortune (a wound) by willing the pure event with splendor and magnificence which is sense. Sense can dry up the misfortune, this gets done by the static genesis and the immaculate conception, i.e. humans who know how to produce sense. The Operator takes the splendor and contour of the pure event and transmutes the misfortune into something else. The example of Bousquet using his wound (which left him bed-ridden for life) to establish a writing career.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Operator aims to turn war against war and death against death. The paradox of the actor and the ambiguity of the event relate to the two modes of time, Chronos and the Aion. The actor actualizes the event in the present moment in a state of affairs (Chronos); the pure event always bypasses the present moment splitting into the infinite past and the infinite future. The pure event is the actor's role. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;">Quotes from<a href="Transforming hardship like a Stoic. Illustrated with the story of French poet Joe Bousquet and his wound. How he apprehended the universal truth of the pure event of his wound and through Will became a quasi-cause for transmuting it into something else; in his case, becoming a poet and writer. The only ethics worth having - to be not unworthy of what happens to you. This relates with Nietzsche's concept of Amor Fati. Also goes into Nietzsche's concept of "ressentiment" (resentment) as an attitude of slave morality. Those who feel the events of their life seem unwarranted or unjustified - it's always someone else's fault - are full of ressentiment as are those who "pick at their sores." Touches upon the two big problems of war and death. "There is, nevertheless, a good deal of ignominy in saying that war concerns everybody. It does not concern those who use it or serve it – creatures of ressentiment." The Stoic sage, the "actor," also called the Operator in this Series - I would also call a Magician - becomes a quasi-cause relative to any event in the depth of the body that may bring misfortune (a wound) by willing the pure event with splendor and magnificence which is sense. Sense can dry up the misfortune, this gets done by the static genesis and the immaculate conception, i.e. humans who know how to produce sense. The Operator takes the splendor and contour of the pure event and transmutes the misfortune into something else. The example of Bousquet using his wound (which left him bed-ridden for life) to establish a writing career. The Operator aims to turn war against war and death against death. The paradox of the actor and the ambiguity of the event relate to the two modes of time, Chronos and the Aion. The actor actualizes the event in the present moment in a state of affairs (Chronos); the pure event always bypasses the present moment splitting into the infinite past and the infinite future. The pure event is the actor's role. Quotes from "The Space of Literature" by Maurice Blanchot illustrate this ambiguity. https://monoskop.org/images/9/94/Blanchot_Maurice_The_Space_of_Literature.pdf" target="_blank"> </a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #ff00fe; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="Transforming hardship like a Stoic. Illustrated with the story of French poet Joe Bousquet and his wound. How he apprehended the universal truth of the pure event of his wound and through Will became a quasi-cause for transmuting it into something else; in his case, becoming a poet and writer. The only ethics worth having - to be not unworthy of what happens to you. This relates with Nietzsche's concept of Amor Fati. Also goes into Nietzsche's concept of "ressentiment" (resentment) as an attitude of slave morality. Those who feel the events of their life seem unwarranted or unjustified - it's always someone else's fault - are full of ressentiment as are those who "pick at their sores." Touches upon the two big problems of war and death. "There is, nevertheless, a good deal of ignominy in saying that war concerns everybody. It does not concern those who use it or serve it – creatures of ressentiment." The Stoic sage, the "actor," also called the Operator in this Series - I would also call a Magician - becomes a quasi-cause relative to any event in the depth of the body that may bring misfortune (a wound) by willing the pure event with splendor and magnificence which is sense. Sense can dry up the misfortune, this gets done by the static genesis and the immaculate conception, i.e. humans who know how to produce sense. The Operator takes the splendor and contour of the pure event and transmutes the misfortune into something else. The example of Bousquet using his wound (which left him bed-ridden for life) to establish a writing career. The Operator aims to turn war against war and death against death. The paradox of the actor and the ambiguity of the event relate to the two modes of time, Chronos and the Aion. The actor actualizes the event in the present moment in a state of affairs (Chronos); the pure event always bypasses the present moment splitting into the infinite past and the infinite future. The pure event is the actor's role. Quotes from "The Space of Literature" by Maurice Blanchot illustrate this ambiguity. https://monoskop.org/images/9/94/Blanchot_Maurice_The_Space_of_Literature.pdf" target="_blank">The Space of Literature</a></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="Transforming hardship like a Stoic. Illustrated with the story of French poet Joe Bousquet and his wound. How he apprehended the universal truth of the pure event of his wound and through Will became a quasi-cause for transmuting it into something else; in his case, becoming a poet and writer. The only ethics worth having - to be not unworthy of what happens to you. This relates with Nietzsche's concept of Amor Fati. Also goes into Nietzsche's concept of "ressentiment" (resentment) as an attitude of slave morality. Those who feel the events of their life seem unwarranted or unjustified - it's always someone else's fault - are full of ressentiment as are those who "pick at their sores." Touches upon the two big problems of war and death. "There is, nevertheless, a good deal of ignominy in saying that war concerns everybody. It does not concern those who use it or serve it – creatures of ressentiment." The Stoic sage, the "actor," also called the Operator in this Series - I would also call a Magician - becomes a quasi-cause relative to any event in the depth of the body that may bring misfortune (a wound) by willing the pure event with splendor and magnificence which is sense. Sense can dry up the misfortune, this gets done by the static genesis and the immaculate conception, i.e. humans who know how to produce sense. The Operator takes the splendor and contour of the pure event and transmutes the misfortune into something else. The example of Bousquet using his wound (which left him bed-ridden for life) to establish a writing career. The Operator aims to turn war against war and death against death. The paradox of the actor and the ambiguity of the event relate to the two modes of time, Chronos and the Aion. The actor actualizes the event in the present moment in a state of affairs (Chronos); the pure event always bypasses the present moment splitting into the infinite past and the infinite future. The pure event is the actor's role. Quotes from "The Space of Literature" by Maurice Blanchot illustrate this ambiguity. https://monoskop.org/images/9/94/Blanchot_Maurice_The_Space_of_Literature.pdf" target="_blank"> </a>by Maurice Blanchot illustrate this ambiguity. </span><div><br /></div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="279" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6rrK7-Y7a90" width="439" youtube-src-id="6rrK7-Y7a90"></iframe></div></div>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-48133998960574774282022-10-30T15:01:00.001-07:002022-10-30T15:01:50.309-07:00Live Music: Dalrymple and the Wild Daimons <p style="text-align: center;"><span><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Today is the first day of the rest of your mythology.</span></b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">A crack between the worlds opens up November 10th, 7:30 pm at the historic Nevada Theater in downtown Nevada City, Ca with a concert by Dalrymple and the Wild Daimons and a special guest to open the show.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;">The ensemble currently performs several pieces from their forthcoming 2023 album release, <i><b><span style="font-size: medium;">We Are Gods.</span></b></i> </p><p style="text-align: left;">The album is a musical blueprint born out of the need<b><span style="font-size: medium;"> t</span></b><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>o align human beings with the personification of their individual destiny, the center of the source of inherited power.</b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"> The band took their name from the Greek word for Provider/Divider of destiny/fortune, i.e. The Daimon.</p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">“There was a Daimon in me and in the end its presence proved decisive.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">~Carl Jung</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoNy-6LUNSGxm4k_53nGJYGqhyOyQl7F5D2ISguMtZgRz4_tjlfjWfvfTvpJKb8EWsySDcPI99baQkG1TDbDcdO_RPs1-UnH8Sd0Dl2Zqmr4q3Krn-rxNg-NnJqlqguuj_m8DEUDkAs7x82zmmsDcmfVOUUaFU_dq4YbNv5RdVAmLs2MMSQFofa9aCAA/s813/Dalrymple%202.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="813" data-original-width="526" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoNy-6LUNSGxm4k_53nGJYGqhyOyQl7F5D2ISguMtZgRz4_tjlfjWfvfTvpJKb8EWsySDcPI99baQkG1TDbDcdO_RPs1-UnH8Sd0Dl2Zqmr4q3Krn-rxNg-NnJqlqguuj_m8DEUDkAs7x82zmmsDcmfVOUUaFU_dq4YbNv5RdVAmLs2MMSQFofa9aCAA/w285-h400/Dalrymple%202.jpeg" width="285" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span>Dalrymple and the Wild Daimons was conceived in the frosty confines of the Dream Factory in the isolated winter of 2020. Part band, part comic book, part conceptual art project, they defy categorization but align with the visionary artists who inspire them, David Bowie, Bahaus, Nick Cave, Carl Orff, Terry Riley, Moondog, Alan Moore and Carl Jung to name a few.<p></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">The music of this power trio borders multiple genres and tonal expressions such as neo-classical, gothic-folk, chamber-psych, avant-rock and doomy funk, all charged with cosmic undertones.</span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">The band is comprised of multi-instrumentalist Dalrymple MacAlpin, performing guitar, piano, synth and gut-string medieval harp along his idiosyncratic counter-tenor vocals. Dalrymple is backed up by two rhymically oriented Wild Daimons, Michael Clark on drums, gongs and percussive oddities and Michael Wronski on upright and electric bass. Guest Wild Daimon Ben Milner provides textural sonic soundscapes.</span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">On display at their live shows will be the first 9 pages of the bands forthcoming graphic novel, Planet Daimon, written by Dalrymple and illustrated by Sacramento based artist Greycat. The graphic novel is a further extension of Dalrymple and the Wild Daimons mission statement~</span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">“To save as many Daimons as they can from being ignored, repressed and annihilated, using the divine electricity that courses through the cosmic fields of music, art, theatre, magick and the power of active imagination. Today is the first day of the rest of your mythology.”</span></p><p>Get your tickets<a href="https://ci.ovationtix.com/35912/production/1138324?performanceId=11158994" target="_blank"> <span style="color: #ff00fe;">HERE</span></a></p><p>For more information or to listen to their new single <i><b>Blood on the Concrete</b></i> (mixed and mastered by Yours Truly) go<a href="https://www.dalrympleandthewilddaimons.com/" target="_blank"> <span style="color: #ff00fe;">THERE</span></a> to their website.</p>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-50905827816287240252022-10-22T16:08:00.001-07:002022-10-22T16:08:12.796-07:0020th Series on the Moral Problem in Stoic Philosophy<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This chapter concerns the spatio-temporal actualization of the event into a state of affairs. The Stoic master wills the embodiment of the event into a limited present. The Stoic master identifies with the quasi-cause (events causing other events) to will the embodiment of the event. This also becomes the representation of the event. This willing of the event seems a dramatisation with the Stoic master as first, an actor with the pure event in eternal time (the Aion) being the character. Later Deleuze calls the actor a mime. The Stoic master in this role gets compared to a Zen master.
Deleuze begins with the example of Diogenes Laertius comparing philosophy to an egg with the shell as Logic, the white as Ethics, and the yolk as Physics but says that Diogenes rationalizes - what we really need is aphorisms/anecdotes or koans. Later he criticizes Plutarch for rationality hostile to Stoic philosophy. Hence this series reads more like a collection of koans than a rational presentation. For example, Deleuze says that Divination grounds Ethics and discusses the fortune-telling art.
The dramatisation of the Idea from virtual into actual as discussed in <i>Difference & Repetition</i> p. 216 - 218 (Columbia University Press edition) compares with the dramatisation of the actualization of the event.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="310" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0ad_w3HUM98" width="498" youtube-src-id="0ad_w3HUM98"></iframe></div><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p></p>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-49927049733648395032022-10-03T21:22:00.000-07:002022-10-03T21:22:19.219-07:0019th Series of Humor<div class="style-scope ytd-video-secondary-info-renderer" id="top-row" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; display: flex; flex-direction: row; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 16px 0px 0px;"><ytd-video-owner-renderer class="style-scope ytd-video-secondary-info-renderer" style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; flex: 1 1 1e-09px;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><div class="style-scope ytd-video-owner-renderer" id="sponsor-button" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></div><div class="style-scope ytd-video-owner-renderer" id="analytics-button" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; display: flex; flex-direction: column; justify-content: center; margin: 0px 4px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><ytd-button-renderer button-renderer="true" class="style-scope ytd-video-owner-renderer style-primary size-default" is-paper-button="" style="--paper-button-ink-color: var(--yt-spec-icon-disabled); --yt-formatted-string-deemphasize-color: var(--yt-spec-static-brand-white); background-color: var(--yt-spec-call-to-action); border-color: var(--yt-basic-foreground-title-color,var(--yt-spec-text-secondary)); border-radius: var(--yt-button-border-radius,3px); color: var(--yt-spec-text-primary-inverse); display: inline-block; font-size: var(--ytd-tab-system-font-size); font-weight: var(--ytd-tab-system-font-weight); letter-spacing: var(--ytd-tab-system-letter-spacing); margin: var(--yt-button-margin,0 0.29em); text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: middle; white-space: nowrap;" use-keyboard-focused=""><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap;">Humor appears a way to bring language down from the heights of ideas and up from the depths of bodies to the expression of sense at the surface. Objects and events communicate in the void which constitutes their substance. The Stoics conceived of the void as having extra-being and insistence. The void = the nonsense at the surface, the paradoxical element, the aleatory point. Humor = the co-extensiveness of nonsense with sense. Humor seems how nonsense can make a donation of sense.
To get to the pure expression of sense one tries to abolish language and thought. Deleuze connects the Stoics with Zen Buddhists. The balance of form and emptiness. They both give blows on their staff. The way Deleuze puts it, this makes a pun on a music staff, the way music gets noted and designated. Music, like humor, can bring us to the surface.
Not said in the video: "To the question 'Who is speaking?', we answer sometimes with the individual, sometimes with the person, and sometimes with the ground that dissolves them both. 'The self of the lyric poet raises its voice from the bottom of the abyss of being, its subjectivity is pure imagination.'" - <i>The Logic of Sense</i> p. 140. The last quote is from Nietzsche.</span></ytd-button-renderer><ytd-button-renderer button-renderer="true" class="style-scope ytd-video-owner-renderer style-primary size-default" is-paper-button="" style="--paper-button-ink-color: var(--yt-spec-icon-disabled); --yt-formatted-string-deemphasize-color: var(--yt-spec-static-brand-white); background-color: var(--yt-spec-call-to-action); border-color: var(--yt-basic-foreground-title-color,var(--yt-spec-text-secondary)); border-radius: var(--yt-button-border-radius,3px); color: var(--yt-spec-text-primary-inverse); display: inline-block; font-size: var(--ytd-tab-system-font-size); font-weight: var(--ytd-tab-system-font-weight); letter-spacing: var(--ytd-tab-system-letter-spacing); margin: var(--yt-button-margin,0 0.29em); text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: middle; white-space: nowrap;" use-keyboard-focused=""><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></ytd-button-renderer><ytd-button-renderer button-renderer="true" class="style-scope ytd-video-owner-renderer style-primary size-default" is-paper-button="" style="--paper-button-ink-color: var(--yt-spec-icon-disabled); --yt-formatted-string-deemphasize-color: var(--yt-spec-static-brand-white); background-color: var(--yt-spec-call-to-action); border-color: var(--yt-basic-foreground-title-color,var(--yt-spec-text-secondary)); border-radius: var(--yt-button-border-radius,3px); color: var(--yt-spec-text-primary-inverse); display: inline-block; font-size: var(--ytd-tab-system-font-size); font-weight: var(--ytd-tab-system-font-weight); letter-spacing: var(--ytd-tab-system-letter-spacing); margin: var(--yt-button-margin,0 0.29em); text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: middle; white-space: nowrap;" use-keyboard-focused=""><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="309" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ArEbP3sZBuQ" width="454" youtube-src-id="ArEbP3sZBuQ"></iframe></div><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></ytd-button-renderer></div></ytd-video-owner-renderer></div>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-70194856922417411382022-09-20T10:12:00.000-07:002022-09-20T10:12:08.719-07:0018th Series of the 3 Images of Philosophers<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Discusses 3 orientations of philosophy or thought, the heights, the depth and the surface. These are represented by Platonism, Nietzsche & the Pre--Socratics, and the Cynics and Stoics. Symbolized by Platonic wings, Empedocles' sandal, and the philosophical staff blow. Connection with Zen. Empdeocles connection with magic and with Nietzsche. Vigorous attack on Platonism; the philosophical disease of Idealism which gets compared to manic depression. </span></p><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Deleuze references Diogenes Laërtius book, <i>The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers</i> for accounts of Pre-Socratic Philosophers, Cynics and Stoics. </span><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/57342/57342-h/57342-h.htm" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;">The ebook is here</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.gutenberg.org/files/57342/57342-h/57342-h.htm</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thelemic associations not mentioned in the video:</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Philosophy of the heights corresponds with Nuit.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Philosophy of the depths corresponds with Hadit.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Philosophy of the surface corresponds with Ra Hoor Kuit (Horus)</span><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="303" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GsXOBpB9V5Y" width="481" youtube-src-id="GsXOBpB9V5Y"></iframe></div><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7361223727037711552.post-58476998707297276142022-09-13T18:31:00.002-07:002022-09-14T07:44:47.368-07:0017th Series of the Static Logical Genesis<p><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Logical Genesis continues the construction of a structure that can produce sense. It's grounded upon the first two stages of the Ontological Genesis. Language appears primary to this genesis. Language is contingent upon sense. The logical genesis = the complex structure of language. Also called the condition or forms of possibility of the structure. It is the rational or intellectual aspect. </span></p><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The "problem" is the reality of the genetic element. The problem is not propositional but only exists within propositions.</span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The surface gets formed and organized by the depth in bodies.
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</span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Left out of the video: Sense is that which is formed and deployed at the surface. </span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sense is that which happens to bodies and that which insists in propositions. </span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sense is doubly generative, it engenders language and things.</span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">As long as we remain within the circle of the proposition - revolving between denotation, manifestation & signification - we can only infer sense. We have to break through and go beyond the rational to directly experience and work with (produce?) sense.</span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_of_the_Truthful" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">More on Avicenna's idea that God = not</span></span><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></a><br /><div><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="302" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vmuQzKXdGM0" width="460" youtube-src-id="vmuQzKXdGM0"></iframe></div><br /><span face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0d0d0d; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>Oz Fritzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com0