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 18th 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 20th
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.
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.
