Hyborian Bridge 70

I was listening to a talk on the Indians of Allegheny valley by Chuck Erdeljac, having segued in from Buffy’s Now That the Buffalo’s Gone. Amongst all the Senecas and Delawares, he said (several times) the traders and trackers of the Allegheny “got on” till the late 18^th century. At about that time, instead of individual parleys and actions amid the creeks and rivers, there began a full-throated battle of two cultures; one of high Enlightenment idealism; the other of Dionysian savagery.

Chuck did say the term “savage” was used disparagingly, but I think for the sake of comparison it may be justified. The Enlightenment is the sense that one argues from the authority of logical thinking; Dionysian is muscular exertion, song and dance. At that time European civilization was fully on the side of the former.

In the 20^th century – as mentioned previously  - there were two significant rebellions. The first was the pulps, and particularly Weird Tales of the 30s, the second was the hippy era culminating in Woodstock in 1969. Both were essentially rebellions against a culture of words of the head (scripted routines) and in favour of a poetry of the physical substance of the body.

So far, the culture of the head has won out since it’s essentially a culture of precision, whereas the body is a culture of vague sentiments of discord. To give an example of what I mean, here’s a model of DNA

 

DNA is a perspective image which gives rise to a perspective universe of products. That is, products which are observed through lenses (microscopes) in order to maintain precision. Here’s one example of a Japanese experiment based on chromosome observation

..Scientists looked for receptor molecules that were only on the outside of X-chromosomes, and found a pair called Toll-like receptor 7 and 8.

A precise universe has got to be perspective (light) because it is “run” by lenses (see Hyborian Bridge 56) That makes it very convincing, but it is not a universe of physique which is imprecise and strong (muscular, athletic, games).

I know this can get confusing, since photographers photograph physique (of models etc). Yes, I know, but science operates in a world of lenses (light) which makes it a perspective world. Photographers operate in the real world. Same goes for (most) film.

Scientists, because they see the world through the head rather than experience it with the body, have perspective views always, as it’s the most precise. What that does is takes you away from disorder – which is the general attribute of strength in nature – and towards order.

Disorder in nature (see prev) is the strength of revival that comes from decay. Buffy, in an interview with co-conspirator Andrea Warner, made reference to dried buffalo manure as a physical use of a product with a pungency that is strong and pure (see Laurens Van der Post prev.)

What tribal people tend to realize is that there is strength in metamorphosis. The decay or rotting process is ultimately cleansing. This is an ancient ethical question which pits order against disorder; dirt against cleanliness (see Mosaic Law). If one lives in a world of order, that balance of seeming opposites is no longer possible. Therefore the very precision of science leads to a robotic universe that cannot revive through disorder (decay or dried buffalo manure).

How come more people are not seeing this already? Is it because the human is being made less physical, and more in the head? (I’ll leave that as an open question!)
If that latter point has any semblance, though, it does point to a type of sorcery that changes human nature to its own “reality” – which is actually false.

What you could call the black magic of modern sorcery gives overwhelming authority to the reasoning head over the unreasoning body. But it’s a reason which tends to overlook the physical reality that is out there in the grace and danger of natural forms.

Whereas the ideal for science/medicine is to ease the way towards death (or not even notice it!) the physical ideal is to be ready for and aware of danger. In Clair Noto’s “Skranos” plot-cycle (from Red Sonja #7 -13 and including the classic “Red Lace”) Suumaro’s mother, the sorceress Apah Alah, tests Red Sonja with a mystical serpent, having previously rescued her with a bough.

  Red Sonja #8

To me, this sorcery is natural mysticism along the lines of Van der Post and what I would call white, and not black. Apah Alah, builder of the wooden-stone temple from “Red Lace” (Weird1 Aspects3) still loves Suumaro’s father, and love plays strange tricks on human soulds. I’ll leave it there.

In the same issue, Red Sonja has a fight to the death with one of Suumaro’s generals, and lures him onto the carcass of one of Skranos’s famed behemoths. Fighting atop the beast’s rotting body, the heavyweight Jimodo starts to sink.