Modern culture
seems to convince the body through the mirror of illusions – screens viewed by
the head – that the world can be apprehended by sight. Images are
ultra-convincing but also immaterial; the two seem to go together!
I say “convince
the body” since images are kinetic; playing video games is a muscular endeavour
of hand-eye- coordination. The fact that ultra-clear images are almost
pornographically convincing shouldn’t come as a shock; by the same token they
are also as unreal as a video-game.
So the two
aspects, unreality and clarity, go together. This is the way the modern world
works, since it’s at one and the same time convincing to the ego and an
illusion. The real problem is, how to know what is real. Are your bodily
responses real?
Of course, they
have to be, but there’s a phenomenological problem (P21
Dark Star) All sense-data could be an illusion, one that seems real.
This is the real problem of the modern world (of futurism) since everything –
bar nothing – is electrochemical impulses in the brain (HB37)
Instead of
everything being images, a better way to think of it is that humans have a
psyche.
Visual
experiences arise from anywhere within the optical system.. which includes the
occipital lobes.. and many other portions of the neural cortex that process
visual stimuli. (The Norse Shaman, Evelyn Rysdyk, Destiny 2016 page 9)
Trance states were dream states that were used by Eurasian shamans to
contact nature spirits, to seek to harmonise and propitiate animals,
landscapes. Since all shamanic experience from a wide ambit ranging from
Amerindian to Siberian and European share many common facets, this is a very
good indication that the visual/psychedelic experiences are not illusory.
They are actually wired into the brain and form part of our psyche.
Rysdyk uses the example of a campfire that wavers and gives off flickering
shadows as we gaze into its depths, as a material substance that can help
induce trance-states. In that a trance is a psychic phenomenon that connects us
to the natural forms, it is not simply an accurate illusion.
It’s the very accuracy of modern images, their lack of spiritual
ramifications and metaphorical significance that makes them illusory (made in Japan)
(page 42)
Rysdyk also makes the point that ancient European shamans were often or
probably usually women. Women represent not only fertility but also blood. A
woman at Dolni Vestonice (Czechoslovakia) 28,000 years ago was buried and she
and the whole grave painted with red ochre.
Over her head was a flint spearhead, and
in one hand she held the body of a fox. (page 40)
Rysdyk speaks a lot about harmonising and fostering relationships with
the sprits of animals, plants, landscape. It’s all very New Age, but red ochre
also puts me in mind of Shiva, the destroyer in Hindu myth (prev.)
The female shaman buried at Bad Durrenburg was
Interred in a foot-thick layer of red
ochre (page 40)
This reminds me of nothing so much as Clair Noto’s “Red Lace” (var)
This woman is wearing the animals that were hunted and eaten. The tribes
inhabited a tangled web of blood, death and renewal that it was the shaman’s
role to propitiate, through the spirits. Ritual dance, trance, psychedelic
plants.
The visions that these special people had – and that were drawn on rock
walls are wired into the human brain. The human brain being an evolution of
nature along with the beasts the priestess wears.
This makes it clear it is not sense-data but a psychic experience –
common to all shamans – that is being pictured. So, in other words, shamanic
psychic experiences are proof that images are not illusory, as they are experienced
universally.
The real point is, without these types of experiences, we have no real
proof. It’s like grasping at straws and the more head-bound, screen-bound the
thinner the straw.
If the body is convinced – via the images that the head receives (as
education, see La Chinoise) – the body
is no longer rough and cowboy-tough, but is soft and surrounded by “smart eco”.
This is the same “order and method” (Les Carabiniers) that seems to masquerade as industrial
competition. The order and method “they” want is the one attached to the head
(via screens), the one that educates the head that the body is no longer rough
and tough.
Do you see where
this is heading? The images and words “they” send us may be convincing, but
they dissociate us further from a psychological affinity to nature that is
actually wired into our psyche.
Just the small
matter of cold and heat. Our bodies are designed to live in variable temperatures
and are thermostatically controlled (by the brain). A castle or an old shack that
has hot and cold and drafts is ideal for the body to experience. Instead we are
told (by “them”) that smart-eco means heat-pumps and a vapid fog of air (all
apparently Mitsubishi Heavy Industry).
This is what
they mean by eco; the very opposite of allowing our bodies to experience
natural climate! The reason is really that climate is not tidy or hygienic or
methodical; it’s rough and tough, dirty and decadent.
This really
points to the fact that the body that is rough and tough, that is exposed to
dirt, to the smells and feel of nature as well as the sights and sounds, is
also in touch with a very ancient psyche. The affinity of the human brain to
the planet it evolved on.
The ancient
human culture, the hunter and gatherer, is not so far removed from that of the
Western cowboy. Musically, one can get a sense of this – ironically always via
YouTube! I happened to find that Catherine Ribeiro – who starred in Les
Carabiniers – is a French folk singer-composer. Her 70sa band +Alpes
here pay tribute to the trans-European culture that also takes in ancient Greek
and Celtic.
AME
DEBOUT (UPRIGHT SOUL)
The trans-Alpine
ideal of non-political rusticality is somewhat akin to the US ideal of yore (“Indian
Summer”). Yeah it’s Brietling watches and banks but that’s much more superficial
than a global order of masculine egotists (Jean-Jacques Rousseau was Swiss; Jean-Luc
Godard is Franco-Swiss).
