In the physical
universe, naturalism is forever pitted against reason, for only Man has reason.
Thus is the tautology born for, unless nature is a product of reason, the mind
is forever circling back to its source in the straight-lines of solar light.
Leigh Brackett’s The Long Tomorrow began with this
As
I’ve been saying for awhile, in classical Greece there always were two things:
the city and the agrarian surround; the Apollonian temple and the unkempt
Delphic Oracle seeing into uncertainty; the reasoning philosopher and the
Bacchanalian followers of Dionysus, god of the vine.
In other words,
our culture is not classical by any means. Nor does it have the advantages of
barbarism – of freedom from cultural trappings as Howard often notes. What we have
is a one-sided civilization that Francis Bacon seems to have foreseen in “The
Four Idols” (Tales of Faith 10).
We are in the
Idol of the Den, or the mind of the acolytes. Where Newton was a
scientist-sorcerer who saw that certain things were so, his acolyte followers have
us trapped in his light-box.
This is the
world of the cities that is so attractive to the ego; the ego that runs like
the robot on lines of steel. But the ego also runs on fear; fear of the
labyrinthine ways of the forest (see Kari Hohne Gilgamesh); the forest
of ragged pathways, spoor of deer, the signs that gamekeepers cherish, that the
hunter chases (Tales of Faith 11)
The path
joined a deer trail. Several times he bent to look at fresh signs, and when he
crossed a clearing with long grass in it he could see the ground crushed in places
whewre the deer had bedded. (The
Long Tomorrow, page 33)
The Gilgamesh
epic probably harks back to the Mesopotamia of verdant hills and luxurious
hanging gardens that bore far closer resemblance to Howard’s Turan that
presentday Iraq. What Kari Hohne refers to as the “Shadow Self” is the
labyrinthine ways of the forest that quells the ego the the savagery of blood
and revival, decay and rebirth.
Savagery is
something that can be reconciled with the beliefs of Man – as in the
Christendom of the Middle Ages – which is a good reason why Howard’s historical
tales all come from those ages of faith and blood. An age of faith of an age that attempts to
answer what modern Man no longer even admits – the fate of the dead.
It’s no real
surprise since, if we no longer live in a physical world of Earth – seasons,
planets, moonrise – we can also no longer live in a psychic world (of the
planets and the moon). What seems to happen in the modern world is that
countries – by way of the capitalist system which is essentially abstract
reason – tend to gradually lose both their physical sparkle and their psychic
or moral basis.
As mentioned
before, I lived in Franco’s Spain as a kid and those two things have always
stayed with me (Pictorial 72.) Spain today now has a very typical split
between two abstract ways of reason – ie left and right – and there is even confusion
about what Spain is (Catalonia). The king did attempt to unify the country in
the wake of the false referendum, and that may be their best bet.
Confusion is
even more prevalent in China, where the abstract reason of the Communist Party
eclipses all the traditional millennia old physical patterns of communal living
in town and country. China is neither a physical nor moral country, much more
like a living AI (head or electromagnetism).
The principle of
Tao or the Chinese Dragon is an uncontrollable force of crazed dance that existed
in all towns in the vastness of the mainland. A primeval theme that allowed for
variations of story and music. The physical that allows for the moral.
Similar things
are true for the cosmic being Quetzalcoatl (Hyborian Bridge 78 etc) who
visits Earth at equinoxes, appearing in shadow-form at El Castillo (Chichen Itza).
Earth lies suspended between sun and moon, and these cosmic serpents or dragons
enact extravagant balancing acts.
DH Lawrence in The
Plumed Serpent (Hyborian Bridge 82) did suggest that religions are variations of
a theme, and in this case the theme has to relate to Earth being suspended
between sun and moon, and that is the physical reality.
I did notice in the book that he introduces quite casually Nordic
elements to Quetzalcoatl, such as the Midgard serpent, probably because he
thought the religions were variations on a single mystic root (Carl Jung,
natch.)
The variations of irregular patterns existing over the Earth also applies
for similar reasons to Howard’s Hyborian Age. Amongst all the c ontrasting
beliefs of city-states and kingdoms, it’s noticeable that the followers of Set
are the only ones to attempt world domination.
Set, in Howard’s mythos, is much more akin to our modernday sorcerers of
the sun – dominating the human figure to such an extent that there exist
man-serpents (Conan #7) and serpent-men, such as these from Conan
#89
Thoth Amon desires not only rule, but the subjugation of mankind - not by cosmic forces, but by the snake that
is forever bound to its master; the sun. Thoth Amon you could liken to a
twisted sun-god, or the false Apollo that invites slime.
(ch 4)
Thoth’s ram’s horns represent the abstraction and expansion of the head
over the vibrancy of the body. This is always a sign of physical weakness and
the false copy that only appears true – such as the man-serpent.
The false-copy can only gain a foothold where the primeval theme of Earth’s
balance has been abandoned by the sorcerers of the sun.
Where the body
is a false-copy, it does not have the strength that derives from the cycle of
lifedeath – the cycle that follows the seasons of the Earth. Strength is in the
soil that supports plantlife that grows and decays over the seasons in a
fertile cycle.
This cycle is a
primitive belief that sanctifies the land and life of a tribe – see BWS Adastra
in Africa (Tales of Faith 2 etc). As mentioned, the hygiene-machines
of modern Man do not allow for the primitive cycles that support a tribal
culture (Bill Gates’ pathogen-killing toilet Hyborian Bridge 31). The
reason is that Gates and others like him have no concern with death and decay;
they are only concerned with the living, and once they cease to live they have
no value.
Traditional tribal
cultures are the exact opposite. They revere ancestors and preserve their
memory in trees and shrines and land (Adastra
again). The cycle of plantlife and
decayand rebirth therefore strengthens their ancestral culture and their
belief.
Where the physical culture of the land and people is strong (fertile)
there is much less need for advanced cures relating to people is the abstract
sense. In other words, people who are strong exist on fertile land that is
theirs, that they work and venerate ancestrally (belief). People who are weak
don’t have that and tend to live in cities.
This is the false Apollo that invites slime, since the very fact people
need treatment implies they are less well. The same applies to other things,
such as hazardous sex. What the false Apollo does is consider people when they
are living, but not in the cyclical sense of death and decay and revival. The
false Apollo supplies treatment for people in the abstract sense, discounting
the strength of primitive cycles of lifedeath.
I saw this ad which looks really great, until you realize it is a
treatment for the body as a machine that lives, and is a type of weakness.
The false Apollo invites slime because it invites weakness; it is a snake
with the head of Apollo as in Howard’s story. The head is so fantastically
convincing that one doesn’t realize until too late that there is no human
figure atall, and it is sliding up to you.
Conan #7
Conan #7