The dream of the
universe; a train-ride through an African dream. Beware! I suppose Bilal could
be saying here (bottom panel) as the unsavoury KKDZO have appropriated his Ark, and assigned
to it scientific indices. This is what science as a methodology has done, by
assigning to nature indices of rule in a competitive order, when in forest of
night only the unruly rule; swooping predators and timid prey; the primeval
rhythm.
This is where
Niko becomes a type of scientific experiment hooked into his own head, mistaken
for Nikopol (top) - see “Pets” Hyborian Bridge 56
The irrational
side of the pulps I guess comes out full heartedly in Weird Tales, and
it was the one where Howard sought to put distance between the scripted mind of
civilization, with his blend of sorcerous deviltry versus the honed resolve of
muscular might. The battle is fought in the irrational world of monumental
city-states and jewelled kingdom.
If the sorcerer
were to win they might establish a kingdom of civilized order such as our own.
In Hyboria no doubt the sorcerer would rule, but in our own world no one rules
save the cursed acolytes – the true believers. These are the ones who worship
“The Idol of the Den”, the world of the head, and of Bilal’s “scientific
indices” that assign a rational score, a numerical index, thus taking it out of
the physical sphere.
The physical
sphere is the strength of the cycle of life and death, of decay and
regeneration, that enables the luxurious form of Diana to go bounding over hill
and dale in search of prey. The springy terrain is ancient with the eternal
cycle of the leaves that fall, the hounds that spring, carrion that is prey to
scavengers of every type, heartless tricksters of the skyborne night.
Where things are
unruly, the planets rule, travel is not about destination but about carefree
spontaneity. Where the sun rules, travel is all destination and indices on
graphs. As I tend to say, this has the effect of making things relate to the
head, the non-physical head that is the vanishing point of technique (“speed”).
Here’s the
latest on hyperloops, a guy called Giegel who is building
trial roads in India for Branson. Giegel, like all these types, is convinced
he’s on the right lines because he lives in the world of perspective or
convincing illusion (sun). He calls himself an engineer but it’s obvious these
things are run by algorithms, same as the rockets of Musk (for whom he used to
work, natch.) Like CERN, they build pure perspective, and a hygienic science
that convinces the head with indices, numbers, and not physical reality
trundling through the jungle night in steam and fury.
One reality is
directed at the head (electromagnetism); the other is a physical reality that
the body experiences in all its chaotic, animal splendour. If one reality can
be called relativity (to the sun), the other is absolute to the Earth of the
psychic realm of planets, of the physical twins Artemis and Apollo, of Diana of
the bounding fens and springy ferns.
One is weakness of
disproportionate head; the other is strength of the proportionate body where
the physicality hits you and the psyche emanates from the unruly physique.
We’re back with the pulps, and I took a few notes on The Sword of Rhiannon (Leigh
Brackett) which seems to take equally from Howard and CL Moore.
Rhiannon was the
one who gave the Serpent race scientific knowledge in Mars’s past; Earthman
Carse travels there through the tomb that binds the cursed one, and they become
mentally joined. Brackett makes quite a big thing of the immateriality of the
mind. When Carse is tried for his treasonous joining with the cursed one, the
learned of both sea and air are there.
Their eyes
were the most awful things Carse had ever seen. For they were young with an
alien sort of youth that was not of the body and in them was a wisdom and a
strength that frightened him.. Looking up he saw on the shadowy ledges three
brooding figures, the old, old eagles of the Sky Folk with tired wings, and in
their faces too the light of wisdom divorced from flesh. (page 84)
Later, Rhiannon
is forced to speak through the mouth of Carse, and explains
“I fitted the
immaterial electric web of my mind into his brain. I could not dominate him,
for his brain was alien and different.. I thought that through him I might find
a way to crush the Serpent whom I raised from the dust to my sorrow long ago.” (page 88)
As Brackett
implies, the mind is electrochemical impulses, not physical reality, and it is
the cold-blooded serpent who are most suited to this solar reality (needing
heat). This is also why, here on Earth, we are run by serpent acolytes of dead
sorcerers, convinced by the electromagnetic universe; built of perspective,
harnessing speed or the vanishing point of technique.
The narcissistic
tendency of technicians to value their own minds (over physicality) contributes
to the malaise. The malaise being that hygienic science is not a physical
reality; it is a production of the electromagnetic universe (light, sun,
speed).
In Greek
mythology, Apollo is appearance, not reality. The lusty, carefree abandon of
satyrs in woodland groves is what has been lost to alien science. Appearance is
very convincing, but it’s immaterial, a reflection of a reflection.
There has to be
a reason for travel, and the only possible reason is physical since the brain
itself is only electromagnetic impulses. These impulses are convincing, but
they are immaterial. The more narcissistic we (or “they”) get, the more
immaterial our civilization, the more we become mere impulses (like Niko/
Nikopol).
If this is a
solar (non-physical) reality, the alternative is Earth facing the stars, the
planets, sun and moon. Diana bounding through night-dark forests, the twang of
the bow, the bark of the deer, drops of blood on rustic fern of green.
This sort of
lifestyle is untidy and unruly, unhygienic and dirty – and that is its physical
strength. It’s Enid Blyton as well as the pulps. It’s the primal strength of
Man amongst the physical cosmos of stars that give life meaning. Anything else
is a convincing illusion of the mind; a mere immaterial impulse that
disconnects us from the physical body.
