Some more definitions of words, since we live in a verbal world. Human
Geography is the study of the spread of race, ideology, wealth (goods),
pandemics, religions and the outlines or boundaries of city-states,
regions, countries.
Physical Geography is, as you might expect, the study of the natural
world and as it relates to the human in terms of plants, animals, water.
If you can say that physical geography represents the "unthinking", its
preponderance is vastly more in the Hyborian
world than in our own.
After all, religions, pandemics or goods may spread, but they spread by
way of trade-routes. They go along the surface of the Earth and round
various features. Overland the routes would employ camels, mules, oxen.
Humans would tend to be in close proximity
with animals. Even on sea-routes, the ubiquitous rat would frequent
ships.
Whereas nowadays all the space on trade-routes is taken-up by the goods
themselves, in the Hyborian world animals of various types take up a lot
of the space. What that basically means is that an ecosystem is
following Man, accompanying his trade-routes by
land or sea. This is a good illustration of the fact that the ecology
and the economy cannot be separated into distinct disciplines, as today (P108).
In practice, this means the economy is part of an active system as
opposed to a numerical (monetary) one. Active systems always comprise
the elements of dirt and cleanliness, since it is just the process of
living and feeding.
As I tend to keep saying, there is no cleanliness without dirt, there is
only hygiene. But hygiene - or sterilizartion - allows in resistant
microbes. Whereas Hyborian trade is fairly filthy, as long as it
maintains a balance of cleanliness it is also fairly
healthy and devoid of contamination. Before going into more Hyborian
details, it's worth specifying the difference with our modern order.
Well, first of all the ancient world - whether fantasy or Roman - was a
balanced one, while we inhabit a masculine order of inductive reason.
This "sausage-factory" (P107, 108) is run by the acolytes' heads and has no real picturesque quality (of the
body). At its most banal it consists of number and sex, or the expressive algorithm (prev.)
Our masters will write stories for the expressive faces, and one can
imagine a future where the story we are told by these animated faces is
that rteal money is now too dangerous - not hygienic enough - and we
must now be microchipped to pay by waving. This
is actually a thesis of a Christian cult who prophecy that
human-microchipping is the mark of the beast (from
Revelations).
This gives quite a nice link to Jack London's Before Adam which I
read awhile back and may have cited. The book tells of ultra-vivid
dreams of antideluvian times. He terms this his "dissociated
personality"; different, before Man and something arboreal.
London talks of "race memory" for the reality that he sees, hears,
smells and touches. The picturesque quality is highly apparent; in fact,
the first three words of the book are,
Pictures!" Pictures! Pictures!
The book is clearly above all about the body, about the shapes of animals and plants.
Snakes?
Long before I had heard of the existence of snakes I was tormented by
them in my sleep. They lurked for me in the forest glades; leaped up,
striking, under my feet; squirming off through the dry grass or acrosss
naked patches of rocks; or pursued me through the tree-tops, encircling
the trunks with their great shining bodies, driving me higher and higher
or further out on swaying and crackling branches, the ground a dizzy
distance beneath me. (page 7)
This same focus on the attributes of the body is also apparent in Conan, as can be seen from these panels from
Savage Sword #211 that obviously pays homage to the original with the surly banter.
Where the body is active in wilderness areas, the aspect of hygiene is
never of any concern, since most of the activity is taken up with
survival. Survival is completely to do with shape, with the acrobatic
performances of monkeys, the muscular endeavors of
snakes. Survival is therefore very picturesque, as well as being fairly
filthy and smelly.
It probably hasn't escaped you that all these shape-dependent phenomena
are outside of modern civilization even though - as noted previously -
the body is controlled by shape-dependent hormones (protein messengers).
Hormones are aromatic substances - as noted with plants - and control
the sexual burgeoning of the body. So where is all this leading to? Just
this. That an active system is shape-dependent and comprises the
elements of dirt and cleanliness, since it is part
of the process of living and feeding. If - as previously stated -
trade-routes in ancient times are part of an active system, they will
contain the same cycles of dirt and cleanliness - for example in the fur
of animals that harbor tics, fleas.
All this is to do with the female harmonic that comprises shape and fertility. The primordial snake or
a priori movement. The ground litter that decays and establishes a new cycle of fertility.
This is the real, a priori universe that consists of dirt and cleanliness, and that is string and healthy. As noted
HB107 ancient societies gather information from this feminine harmonic. Their belief in fertility is sacrosanct.
Modern societies gather information from an illusory universe of a
masculine order. Not just DNA but the numerical, monetary order of
straight-lines. This mirror-universe is convincing to the ego, but has
no feminine power of dirt and cleanliness.
It is a product of weakness and hygiene. As previously noted, it is a
type of void or black hole whereby number becomes sex (head becomes
body.) Without the feminine dynamic - which is the
a priori reality of shape and grace - there is no reality since
reality means dirt (living a feeding). With dirt comes cleanliness and
health. Without that cycle one can only have the banality of hygiene
which is a type of weakness.
The romance of Jack London - and equally of Howard - is the romance of a
feminine dynamic of shape; dance' line; movement. This is the
a priori reality that is the genesis of both dirt and cleanliness
(see Mosaic Law). The physical activity, the sweat of the body that is
expressed artistically. In
Before Adam the pre-human ritual of a "hee-hee council" is described, where desires and needs are put into the abandonment of a group performance, "art nascent".
Here
were we drawn together by mutual rage and the impulse toward
co-operation, led off into forgetfulness by the establishment of a rude
rhythm... In ways the hee-hee council was an adumbration of the councils
of primitive man, and of the great national assemblies.. of latter-day
man.. Then would come thew rhythm - a clapping of hands; the beating of a
stick upon a log; the example of one that leaped with repetitions; or
the chanting of one that uttered, explosively and regularly, with
inflection that rose and fell, 'A-bang, a-bang! A-bang, a-bang!'
..And
so with mad antics,leaping, reeling, and over-balancing, we danced and
sang in the sombre twilight of the primeval world, inducing
forgetfulness, achieving unanimity, and working ourselves up into a
sensuous frenzy.
..
We had no germs of religion, no conceptions of an unseen world. We knew
only the real world, and the things we feared were the real things, the
concrfete dangers, the flesh-and-blood animals that preyed. (page 84)
The primitive-seeming visions of London and Howard are actually vastly
more realistic since they are not burdened by "facts" of a masculine
order. One can almost predict that, once this corona episode is over,
"they" will be doubling down on regimes of hygiene
that are the exact opposite to reality in a balance of male and female.
Ancient societies - from Hindu to Hyboria - are lithe and graceful in
their expressions. This is a type of reality that is nothing to do with
"fact" (of a masculine order),a nd is the action of the body that
expresses desire, needs of an individual within a
harmonic ritual. The fertile dynamic that gives societies grace and
artistry that Man needs for the soul.
