What does it
mean by saying that words ARE propaganda (prev)? Well, for the world of
straight lines and light – electromagnetism, talking and expressive algorithmic
heads. After all, computers ARE words – they read language (ones and zeros).
In a way, that
entire area is a fantasy, an illusion (appearance). In HB92 it notes there that
in medieval times the beliefs – of the psyche – influenced events profoundly.
The psyche was held to be real, and belief in the far Eastern knight Prester
John – whose kingdom was practically totemic – influenced the Crusades.
Taking it
further, Christianity is “good news” – meaning for the psyche – and so medieval
faith becomes the events. This is almost the complete opposite to the idea that
there are events which are “real” and that reporters report on, completely
independent of the psyche.
Jean-Luc
Godard’s films such as One Plus One seemingly do take this on. The
reporter interviewing Eve Democracy, for example, is supplying all the
information, more or less including the answers. At the end of the Bookstore
scene, the intoner does make the concession that faith is the vital factor in
social power, which is pretty interesting for a fascist bookseller!
In his
interview, Godard comments that morality is informed by events (paraphrasing)
and that it is not important compared to politics. He almost implied it is a
fantasy of the church. Yes, but modern events are so complex that something as
simple as good or evil can appear fantasy. Equally, though, what appears as
reality can just be appearance (Apollo, light).
Words
propagandize this apparent reality by means of information. What about psyche
and faith? To me, faith would imply temples; atmospheric monuments that seclude
one from incessant words and impart instead poetic and allegorical truths that
feed the psyche. All ancient societies venerate temples, and that goes equally
for Hyboria, natch.
Eve Democracy
could almost represent a fertile woman wandering the trees, which are a type of
natural temple. But instead of Dionysian rites she is asked political
questions. Again, there appears to be two direct opposites (One Plus One =).
In a democracy “the point” is always the numbers, rather than the land,
community or temple. Yet in ancient Greece it would be taken as read that these
things are inalienable rights. Only landowners of the commune could vote, and
they gave offerings to the temple deities.
What seems to happen in modern democracies is that everything relates
to the head – which is impressed by numbers – and not to the body which works
the land of a commune, prays to the temple.
The commune has a psyche and a faith. The psyche of the commune will
tend to influence events with its beliefs in harvest and fertility. The rural
aspect of the society is therefore also a belief (see BWS Adastra
in Africa Tales of Faith 2)
They will tend to value information that accords with their beliefs.
The beliefs are to do with fertility and particularly the female body. This
accords with the gods and goddesses of Hyboria, and especially to the Elder
gods of Shem and Koth bordering on nighted Stygia.
As Robert Yaple notes in Savage Sword #8 (page 17)
the Shemitic mother goddess would have a subordinate mate who dies and is
reborn annually with the cycle of vegetation. Although nomads known as the Sons
of Shem later initiated sky gods such as Pteor, only Ishtar went any way
towards replacing Mitraic cults in neighbouring Koth.
Ishtar is typically portrayed as a Valkyrie-like Earth Mother in
sumptuous temples. According to Yaple,
Her ivory idols combined southern
sumptuousness with northern restraint. (Conan is restrained?)
City-states may have been political institutions but spent wisely on
“lofty zikkurats” to adorn their temples. As I’ve been saying for awhile, while
we live in a world of “facts”, reality in nature is to do with action,
predator-prey, blood, death and renewal. That world is strong and fertile,
Dionysian.
We live in a world of Apollo (light, appearance) but this is only half
of reality. Mitra is the skygod of Hyborian lands. Erlik the dark deity of
death. Ishtar the Earth-goddess who harbingers renewal, regrowth.
In this world, information and beliefs are tied together because we are
no longer in the numerical land of the ego; the land of physical boredom where
talk is about talk and not about the psyche that is strong and resurgent.
A lot of the Elder gods of whom Yaple writes were grossly obscene,
animalistic. They represent what in nature is not talk or words but active
events of sex, death, rebirth. Each god or goddess has a story associated with
them.
Hanuman (SS #8)
Pteor
Hanuman (SS #8) 
Pteor
Going back to One Plus One
, in the bookstore
scene the looseness of the sex counteracts the fascist text; the pulp magazines
shown are also storytelling - gross, obscene or animalistic as it may be!
Pornographic pulp-storytelling is practically quaint collectors’ items
compared to today’s “market”. Because life is a story; we are our bodies, not
just our brains which get the juice of information. Beliefs incorporate sex,
death, rebirth and from these is born a society that values strength, and not
simply information.