Chapter One: No Conclusion
By Apuleius Charlton
Special guest blogger
Last night I rewatched an episode of South Park from the halcyon days of 2016. The episode was the first made after Trump’s election to the presidency, which Parker and Stone had to redo at the last minute as the produced episode involved Hilary Clinton winning the election. Parker and Stone hadn’t imagined Trump could win.
During the episode a part of the season arc concerning Kyle’s father (Gerald) being an infamous internet troll comes to a head as Secret Service agents come to fetch him from his home. Earlier, Gerald had tried to hide his double life from his wife (Sheila) by explaining to her he has a piss fetish. So, while Gerald is being taken by the agents his wife is defending him by detailing the history of urophilia. Amidst all the confusion a decorative golden apple is seen in the background. I wonder if that was purposeful, I can imagine the creators as having been among the members of Gen X exposed to RAW’s ideas. I also wonder, if the apple was meant to reference the Apple of Discord, if the apple was added during the hectic rush to rewrite and reanimate the original episode.
I’ve been a regular guest blogger on Rawillumination for almost two years as I led the discussions about the final two books of The Historical Illuminatus! Trilogy and for the past months we’ve explored the introductions as well as the first chapter of Prometheus Rising and my, how the times have changed. It seems that Terrence McKenna’s 2012 prophecy, explained by Wilson as “the Jumping Jesus Phenomenon,” and Alan Moore as “information-doubling,” might have ended up being more on target than some believe. The world seems to be a constant whirlwind of change and crescendo, Yeats centre keeps threatening to not hold but we just find another. Whether it be a lower bar or simply another location, the world holds in its warp and weft as it faces conspiracy, riot, outrage, nihilism, plague and whatever else...granted, the Horsemen have always been riding high but I am tempted to think that the introduction of extraordinary amounts of information is a catalyst, causing change to happen in increasingly bizarre and rapid ways. Hail Eris.
Wilson asks the reader to reread the chapter after one month of doing the exercises and to try to believe that they might have something new to learn. Happily enough, it seems I have no choice in the matter as I am constantly surprised by the developments in my life and the world over.
I think often of one of the Ten Secret Joys of the Master that struck me when I read it in a quiet apartment in 2010, prehistory at this point: The Stability of the Universe is Change, the Assurance of thy Truth.
6 comments:
Great post and image! I think it likely Stone and Parker did know and represent the Golden Apple of Dischord in that episode, the perfect symbol to start that era. I worked with Matt Stone one time on a record. Handling increased information flow and surfing change seems an excellent excuse for working with the PR exercizes.
I remember Prometheus as being a guy chained to a rock for stealing fire from the Gods and giving it to humans. Everyday an eagle would come and eat his liver out and he'd grow a new one over night only to have it eaten the next day.
In the appendix under The Magus card in The Book of Thoth Crowley provides an excerpt from The Paris Working:
"Here follows a very full description of the nature of Mercury in several aspects, particularly his relation with Jupiter and the Sun:
'In the Beginning was the Word, the Logos, who is Mercury; and is therefore to be identified with Christ. Both are messengers; their birth mysteries are similar; the pranks of their childhood are similar ...'"
It goes on, at one point he writes:
"Note also Mercury as the deliverer of Prometheus"
I thought it interesting that the Magus corresponds to the one who frees Prometheus, the Magus allows Prometheus to rise."
Why did he give us fire? On the pragmatic level, to cook and keep warm and later to power things. On the symbolic/alchemical level, to change depleted death energy into energy self-generated; to unlock the solidity of matter. Maybe.
RAW hopes everyone works on the exercizes in Prometheus Rising. What will an exercize do qabalisticaly, one might ask.
exer = 300 = Shin = FIRE
cize = 30 = "It will be"; also 30 = Lamed = Libra (balance) and Maat (Truth)
if plural, cizes = 90 = The Star
Regarding English Qabalah mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I've never used it, don't know if this interpretation works. It said RAW = 16. The 16th Tarot trump = The Tower which corresponds to Peh, in English "P". I note the giant P on the cover of Prometheus Rising. If one reverses the foreground and background, a letter D emerges. Peh and Daleth represent two key paths on the Tree of Life, especially as an introduction for beginners. They are two of only three paths that cross horizontally and connect the outer and opposite pillars on the Tree. Prometheus rises and does what?
Where did you get this picture from, Gregory?
It looks like a very cool depiction of Tom Jackson’s cat being responsible for spilled liquid leading to the discovery of a nice shiny round quarter. Note Tom’s happy face upon finding his coin.
Far from me the idea of calling you a fool, Tom. That being said, I get the impression that the Fool card usually features a canine companion, and this one definitely looks feline to me.
This story of being stuck in an unending vicious circle of having your liver eaten away daily sounds like a depiction of alcoholism to me. A more American libertarian reading might say that the eagle is that damn US government eating your life away with their damn taxes.
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In addition to your posts here, I went to read the blog post you linked to last week, Oz Fritz.
So to sum up, and assuming I got this right, one interpretation could be as follow.
Water that is solid (ice) or at least still, represents the zero entropy state of someone going about their business of sticking to the four terrestrial circuits. Individuality is only expressed through consumerism and, since as above so below and vice-versa, so-called developed societies not only go nowhere but even seem to be regressing.
Selfishness, mental blocks, depression are all symptomatic of the water not flowing.
Now, if one manages to become enlightened (that is, gaining control over C5 and C6) through doing the PR exercizes, hiking along the Fourth Way, being and non-being a Zen student, taking heroic doses, or Eris knows what, then not only the permaculture of one’s psychosomatic system becomes fully functional, but one’s own personal river might also finds its way to the cosmic ocean of the Mind at Large (C7 & C8). Because one drop already is a fractal of the entire ocean.
Said fractal thus becomes a new carrier of the Logos and keep on spreading it, or die trying.
If the meaning of life simply is to always go forth and SMI²LE, at this point of evolution we seem to still be stuck at first saving ourselves before we can start the Work.
This all relates to the recent post from RAW semantics as well, since the guru game is a great danger here, Christianity being a perfect example.
They managed to turn that guy going around trying to create more Christs like him (“the kingdom of Heaven is within YOU, man”) into a lucrative business (“buy yourself a comfy place in Heaven, first row, only five gold coins, good price for you my friend! For only one more gold coin, you can have an extra large Holy Water. Thank you come again, and love thy neighbor!”)
Another way to put it would be that, for the Church, the medium is the message. It is more important to idolize Jesus as a symbol rather than his word, thus the Logos got lost in translation.
It might be argued that without his message, Jesus is an empty symbol. No wonder Christianity became a religion based on fear: “don’t do premarital sex/anal sex/actually any kind of non-procreative sex, or else Nobodaddy will send you Great Balls of Fire…”
Of course Jesus was the earthly manifestation of God, they just conveniently forgot to mention that we all are. I guess the Vatican also forgot the bit about the camel passing through the eye of a needle…
One can only dream of a world in which, instead of eating “the body of Christ”, 2.5 billions Christians were feasting on the Food of the Gods.
It seems that my “summary” turned out more flowery than I expected.
Please feel free to tell me if you think that I’m speaking out of my ass again, or actually got the general idea that might have been in the back of Bob’s mind.
@BFHN, it looks like a cat to me too, in the image; the Fool's face and hair looks like Harpo Marx who famously played that archetype in films.
Thank-you for reading my blog and commenting. I like your interpretation, it expands upon what I wrote. Alchemically, the element Water corresponds with emotions, lower or higher. Fire out of ice, symbolically makes a combination of the elements Fire and Water. The right balance of Fire and Water produces the motive force of steam. In Cosmic Trigger I when RAW writes: "It steam engines when it's steam engine time," he seems to be speaking on more than one level.
Of course, people can do whatever they want, I personally don't do or recommend heroic dosing. As Aleister Crowley once commented when told his girlfriend had left him, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away."
The Meaning of Life manifested itself as a brilliant film by Monty Python. If we agree with the Buddhists that the self doesn't exist beyond an elaborate program or programs we run, then it seems we have nothing to save and can get on with the business of making everything functional, reprogramming as necessary for Max Headroom.
Right on, I now cannot unsee Harpo in this picture.
I never had the courage, or foolishness, to do heroic doses. But neither would I have the patience to go study Zen with a master. I was just listing several ways that might perhaps take you “there”, since different things work for different people.
Regarding psychedelics, mild doses definitely tend to be enough for me to bring about positive changes, at least temporarily. I really like the expression “trip reset” coined by Genesis P-Orridge.
"It steam engines when it's steam engine time" reminds me of Joseph Campbell saying that during his journey, the Hero always ever encounter difficulties that challenge him just enough at that time that he can pass the test.
Since, in trying to get an idea of what is it we are dealing with, we always have to use metaphors, I personally find it helpful to bring together variations on what seems to me like a same theme.
When I wrote “one drop already is a fractal of the entire ocean”, I was probably attempting to describe the same idea than with Indra’s Net.
Wouldn’t you say that coming upon the realization (as in truly feeling the meaning of it) that “the self doesn't exist beyond an elaborate program or programs we run” seems very much like saving ourselves? I mean, I understand this statement, but I still don’t “really understand” it.
Call it salvation, enlightenment, or self-remembering, it’s a long and winding road before breaking free from the chains and getting away from that eagle.
And the first step would be to spot repressed feelings and unresolved conflicts in order to break the dam and get the water flowing, hence the need for therapy mentioned here some weeks ago.
I thank you back for consistently sharing valuable food for thoughts. I feel privileged for being able to discuss these ideas with people who have been thinking about it for much longer than me.
BFHN said ... "It steam engines when it's steam engine time" reminds me of Joseph Campbell saying that during his journey, the Hero always ever encounter difficulties that challenge him just enough at that time that he can pass the test."
Some video games do with that model, the monsters and challenges get increasingly more difficult as the player advances through the levels.
I agree with the penultimate paragraph in the last comment, I can see that point of view. The Long and Winding Road song makes a good musical hypertext reference. It has a lyric, "... crying for the day." that reminds me of Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon that contains a fair amount of excellent, non-flowery, commentary on psychedelic use in the form of explosive metaphors.
In seems synchronicities increase for me whenever engaging with anything RAW related. The day of this week's OP about accelerated information flow, I began reading The Order of Things by Michel Foucault, basically a philosophical, historical look at how we attempt to organize information. The subtitle is An Archaeology of the Human Sciences.. I waited about a year to read it until I finished something else.
The week of the excellent Blakean Jehovah religion rant, I had just started The Divine Invasion by P.K. Dick on a whim, I found out Linda Ronstadt is in it. Yah (for Jehovah) one of the two male protagonists has the same issues and limitations that Gregory wrote about in that post. Another archetypal character, in the form of a little girl, points out Yah's shortcomings and educates him to become a better deity, something he acknowledges. I found this an interesting way to deal with the problem.
I held great respect for Phil Dick before reading The Divine Invasion that shot up several notches after. Immediately closing the last page, I picked up The Exegesis of Philip K Dick, begun about 10 years ago when it first came out, but not quite finished. I came across an amazing passage where I had left off related to making fire out of ice:
"The blood and the cross are the highest point of this world (2-3-74). The tears – 'of the repentant sinner' – turn to agape, as in Tears; the tears has to do with sin and atonement and Christ and the cross. But all this (sorrow) is a gate to: love (v.Tears! and love (agape) equals ecstasy; so tears of sorrow – the cross – are converted into the opposite; joy. Through agape, this is the goal and mystery of Christianity, this conversion; utter sorrow (Mitleid) to bliss (agape).
2-3-74 refers to February and March of 1974, the period when Dick had a series of gnostic mystical visions and experiences. Tears capitalized and in italics refers to his 1974 book Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, a future dystopia where the U.S. has become a police state after a Second Civil War.
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