Is, then our
logical order an illusion of sorcerer’s promulgated by acolytes? That makes it
pretty Weird Tales, but where’s the convincing proof?
Well, it’s like
Harlan Ellison’s phrase, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” It seems
like that’s the way it is, and if you wanted proof you’d have to go to a
super-computer – which is electromagnetism.
We live in a convincing world – and that’s all the proof you’ll get. For
example, ads are designed to be convincing. Here’s another quote from Grace
Slick’s memoir.
(page 70)
If everything you see or hear is convincing, then that is the proof that
the world is illusory, because the acolytes of sorcerers make it so. The moon or
sun or stars don’t have to be convincing, they just are.
The Africa described by Van der Post is wild and partly civilized and
reckless under livid skies; there is no overall design to it or, if there is,
it’s a laissez-faire design, red and ragged. These are the two sides of life.
Apollonian which is appearance and the established order. And Dionysic which is
reality untamed and rambunctious. The denial of Dionysus leads to macabre and
tragic consequences – see Euripides’ The Bacchae (The False Apollo)
What seems to have happened is that sorcerers have established a
convincing order of illusion; Apollo as appearance is everywhere but, of
course, appearance is reflection (electromagnetism, sun Pictorial 27).
Those who deal in reality are often scurrilous or lewd, like satyrs. One
thinks of San Francisco stalwarts Slick and Zappa. The attitude is what Slick
calls “Chaucerian”, which is just bawdy peasant badinage. You may know of the
joke in Chaucer which is ruled too scurrilous for some editions, of a peasant girl
presenting her other cheek to an admirer.
The physical scene is lusty and rude; this was the main origin of the San
Francisco scene, described by Slick.
As you walk onto the dance floor, you have the feeling you’ve just entered
seven diffefent centuries all thrown together in one room. The interior of the
building is turn-of-the-century rococco, and a man in red briefs and silvery
body paint is handing out East Indian incense. A girl in full Reanaissance drag
is spinning around by herself listening to some baroque music in her head,
while several people in jeans and American Indian headbands are sitting in a
circle smoking weed.. Over in the corner, people are stripping off their
clothes, and while the acid is taking effect, they’re getting body-painted so
they’ll glow in the dark as the night progresses.. Sometimes there are chairs,
sometimes there aren’t, so people sit, dance, or lie down on the floor.
Electronics and Indians, dsco balls and medieval flutes. Day-Glo space colors
and Botticelli sprites. The howl of an
amplifier and the tinkling of ankle bracelets. (page 97)
She describes the farmland of Marin County, the ranch held by The Grateful
Dead, the community of spirit. What she calls the “purposely fragmented”
commune is just the rough-and-tumble of previous eras (see “Indian Summer” Hyborian
Bridge 61).
A society that is pure order is always an illusion because it is of the
head, not the rambunctious body of free expression. When “they” say “the future
is space”, at the same time it’s not one of free communal expression.
The Apollonian head will travel into space because what they see is a
perspective illusion of order (all is convincing and all is false).The only way
out of that is to have hippy communes in space as in Paul Kantner’s 1970 album Blows
Against the Empire
Kantner’s vision is rough and lewd and shrewd since Dionysus is aboard the
vessel. This is why the visions of Musk and Bezos &Co have to fail since
they are not bringing on board Dionysic lusts. It’s a false vision (the false
Apollo) of pure order by algorithm, a rerun of Euripides.
perspective order (head)
communal free-expression (body) - Magnum-type spontaneity of chaotic action, Venezuela today
perspective order (head)
communal free-expression (body) - Magnum-type spontaneity of chaotic action, Venezuela today
Dionysic revelry, gaiety
Courseness and roughness are a clasical trait because they deal in
reality. This brings in the question that, if we live in an illusion of
(acolytes of) the head, how real by comparison are the naked fantasies of Weird
Tales?
Even though we seem to live in a convincing world, it’s still of the
living, not the dead (or “The Dead”). By comparison, tribes such as the one in
BWS’s Adatra in Africa venerate the dead, and live in a spirit world.
The spirits of the ancestors sanctify the earth so that the strength of
the soil and harvest strengthen the tribe. The cycle is that of decay, or
natural cleansing. The modern alternative to that is hygiene machines (see
Gates prev Hyborian Bridge 31) which weakens the land and destroys the
tribal culture.
In other words, the entire cycle of decay which regenerates life (from the
dead) is missing in modernity. Actually, there is a US company that is
composting corpses but, without the Dionysic culture of rustic nonchalance and
dreamy dancing under starlit trees, it’s a bit late!
The Dionysic spirit is strong inWeird Tales, the veneration of rustic
antics and, particularly in Howard, the brawny sons of the earth who go from
haywaining to hurling spears at the drop of a hat.
They pushed
on without pausing, though Balthus gazed longingly at the squirrels flitting
among the branches, which he could have brought down with a cast of his ax.
With a sigh he drew up his broad belt. The everlasting silence and gloom of the
primitive forest was beginning to depress him. He found himself thinking of the
open groves and sun-dappled meadows of the Tauran, of the bluff cheer of his father's
steep-thatched, diamond-paned house, of the fat cows browsing through the deep
lush grass, and the hearty fellowship of the brawny, bare-armed plowmen and
herdsmen. (Beyond the
Black River, CH5)
