Angels March Down Broadway

shao lin  - the dance of succession 

Well it’s summer and in later life I found that was when I got around to reading those tomes which “everyone” is suppose to know. This essay wound up reasonable interest ( to me at least) partially because the current aspects are only to illustrate the more general thesis. Also there’s a tendency when you arrive a conclusion that you had not anticipated to believe that you have made you life’s great discovery – foolish perhaps not completely wrong.

I suggest that is such is the case then you ought hope that the first discovery has enough meat on the bone t carry you for awhile. I suppose my “great revelations” have to d with the idea that technology empowers, in the beginning especially, the lucky few = then again as we see in warfare a smaller force is not necessarily more likely to lose the battle, or the war.

An unsettling aspect of these writings is that increasingly I am seeing things in terms of winners and losers. It is not good to give the other fellow the benefit of the doubt if you’re going to be constantly disappointed. This disappointment may be an artifact of the current era, but I prefer to do without it.

In any case one could suggest three forms of the same mythical content, One is the dream, the personal belief system, next we have society; those predilictions that become customs and finally are codified into laws, and finally,m what one might call the rituals of current events – demonstrations, marchs, parades, and even such things as preferences in entertainments.

The following was written over several weeks so the order may be a little discombobulated.

We’re all waiting and anticipating the return of the ALF. The Tamlinmediaco is one of the oldest internet presenses . We went on line on July 4^th 1995. The mediaco itself was started as a music publishing company on July 4. 1984. Perhaps that tells you something.

Again I must preface this essay with an apology as to the limitations of style. I don’t have staff nor even a single editor. It is, for me at least, exciting work, and more so because I am free to compare hypothesis with observed current reality.

That said it nevertheless would be impossible to proceed without some contextual localization. The best judgment of a professional is not by the public, but by their peers and we owe it to our peers at least to speak while reference the common body of knowledge. As to questions of style we may afford ourselves a little more leeway, but not much.

Sir George Fraziers – “The Golden Bough” often reads like a phone book. He gives example after example of evidence in rituals which are meant to support whatever thesis he is making Joseph Campbell, on the other hand, since he was a teacher must have given the same lectures many times and his storytelling is concise and specific, if not sometimes a bit redundant.

The current work is meant to be something different. While it refers to anthropological precedent the goal is to apply the knowledge gained to current events on a fairly large scale. If I were not hesistant about being associated with Mr Freud’s name I might suggest we are searching for a way to psychoanalyze entire populations - after all with propaganda, as brought in to the modern era by Dr Goebells and less successfully, the Soviet empire, we have learned to bend the will of large populations to our desired purposes, to the extent where it is easy and indeed commonplace, for societies to act against their own interests, even to the extent (As in Cambodia) of self imposed genocide.

Would it not be wise and decent to create a counterforce to all these illusions?

As in any medical situation however one cannot always overcome the effects of the past. A man who spends his life eating cheeseburgers is ripe for a heart attack. Some societies are perhaps fortunate in that they roll on, year after year, with comparatively little disruption. Other societies evidence what I call echo effects. This is the result of a psychological need. The need is the desire to believe that we are in control of our destiny. Experimentation has shown that this need to create cause and effect factors in our lives reaches down even to the animal kingdom, to bears for instance.

Bears given food in zoos on a daily schedule become lethargic – however is the time of feeding is staggered and if the food is hidden, under trees and rocks, the bears metabolic rate increases. Likewise it was found that cake mixes with powdered eggs were rejected by housewives – however when it was made necessary to add eggs to the mix, the housewives gladly bought the product.

The genocidal regime of Pol Pot in Cambodia was perhaps the result of such an echo effect. For years it had been at the mercy of both the Viet Cong and the US Air Force and then, when finaly the holocaust was stopped it proceeded to initiate another one upon itself – one that killed far more then the initial crisis’s. It may have been in emulation of the Chinese Cultural Revolution but I suggest as well it was a case of Pol Pot being, as the expression goes “a bastard, but our bastard.”

These connections may seem weak, or silly, but they are what we have to go on. Jacques Ellul, a French law professor who wrote extensively on the subject of propaganda and the technostate – something he was intimately familiar with, having lived through the Nazi occupation, makes the point that the technostate permeates all aspects of society. Indeed on of the most deadly aspects of such a purportedly “modern” state is that at the same time it is cutting edge and justifies many of it’s crimes in the name of progress, it allows room for and champions alleged “traditional” values.

It’s easy to call for traditional values – if it doesn’t cost anything. For instance the Nazi’s were all in favor of motherhood (along with dogs, children, he man warriors, and apple cake) but their idea of motherhood they felt needed to be upgraded. So they would genetically screen a gymnasium (eg high school) population for the most attractive, healthy, Aryan young women, and then induce them to have sex with suitable male specimens, often from the SS.

The goal may have been, in some eyes admirable, but the methods contradicted one of the laws of the human species – that each human be able to think and act for themselves.

I have made no secret of my mistrust of technology, even as I immerse myself in it and my essential complaint is that too often it is a futile attempt to second guess God.

Okay, so let’s lighten up. Many years ago, on the Dreamland BBS, I got into an argument with sys op Holly concerning Wiener Schnitzel. She believed it to be something like a elaborate hot dog, or “tube steak”. The mistake came from stressing the word Wiener. In the same way the surname of people is often derived from their place of origin, so too the Frankfurter and Hamburger are named after places they were originally created.

At this stage we cannot be certain as to the historical authenticity of such derivations, more study is needed, but in the US at least the word Wiener which stems from Vienna, almost always refers to the hot dog. There is even a fast food chain which propagates this misinformation by selling various Frankfurters under the chain name of WienerSchnitzel. The word has some sort of associative charm to it, but nevertheless a schnitzel is a patty, commonly pork fried in batter with oil – definitely not a hotdog.

I may add, in changing the subject, that the way we see things is not completely unique nor by any means undefinable. Television in recent years seems to be overflowing with space time wormholes, usually with cheesy fx but always such that allow the ongoing series episodic variation should that be desired. A measure of how strong the ideas poll in pre production testing is seen by how many shows are made that never last more then a few episodes.

I stand by my long standing premise that the computer age has sensitized people to a new understanding of something they find essential indistinguishable from magic. To that, not to break any hearts, but often in popular artforms story telling is far more basic then in the more elevated genres. The boy gets the girl, homosexuals are at best tolerated , the bad guys are ugly and there’s no better solution then to marry the girl and win a kingdom.

The joke in Hollywood is that most plots feature heroes who overcome adversity through perseverance. Crips! It sound’s a little like Horatio Alger’s stories, or the sign on the door to the detention center reminding us to keep a positive attitude and we’ll be fine.

The notion that we can give it all we have and still be crushed is not allowed.

And anyway I am the Pied Piper of Hamlin and if you like I can clean the rats from your basements. It’s a dirty job but I am a skilled rat catcher. I do however suggest that should you employ me you ought to think twice about not paying me inasmuch as my father was a rat catcher and his father too and we have developed ways of assuring payment that you would not like to experience.

I work with perceptual anomalies. Cole Porter wrote night and day. He was gay. Normally gay people frighten me cause I think it’ll rub off – but for God sakes he wrote night and day. Anyone who can write night and day gets a free admission. I may be superstitious but I ain’t stupid.

I was once in Manhattan at a songwriters guild meeting and I met a girl who’s ambition was to write for Julio Englaicias . Her eyes glazed over. “I guess he can sing, but who cares? I mean it’s Julio.” She said. Probably I didn’t get the same inspiration from the Latin heartthrob and thus we have a case of a specific perceptual anomaly.

These are the ways of magic and the humans will try almost anything if they think it will free them from the chains of Karma. These creations can bring about moments of great beauty, but also moments of sheer terror.

When a society is losing ground it will ask it’s Gods how it has displeased them. The difference between me and a stodgy old professor is I realize that the same process occurs in modern societies as in those societies with bones through their noses.

As in any neurotic behavior the reaction of a society that is collapsing is not to stop the behavior that is destroying it, but to increase it, until the system is no more, a state known by my illustrious predecessors as Gotterdammerung or “Twilight of the gods”.

The real test of manhood, or enlightenment or whatever, is the ability to turn aside from how things have always been and find something new that is the test of the Rainbow Bridge – It is a factor of Love – and there is none other.

Pt2

Before moving on to the next section it’s a good idea to say a few words about the ancient discipline of Alchemy. First off, it ain't that ancient. Many people, in the west especially got their introduction to Alchemy from Karl Jung. Often they wind up knowing more about Jung then about Alchemy but nevertheless I think that his insistence on pointing the Alchemical opus’s use as a parallel, or set of guideposts to psychic recovery is not entirely futile in some cases. As to whether the actual Alchemists felt that way it’s difficult to state. What we do know is that by breaking down the walls between man and God they quelled some of the fears that had paralyzed man for centuries

In the therapeutic milieu we often have cases where patients have lost faith in the honesty and reliability of the surroundings ( sometimes with good reason) – in thee cases fantasies may prove the only sort of tale the patient will pay attention to, and this maintain some link to reality.

By now it has become obvious that some of the presumptions of European Alchemy were incorrect. Hermes Trismagistus and the Emerald Tablets may have existed in ancient Egypt in some form, but the evidence is not strong this is so. It is interesting that much of the evidence regarding the so called ancient egyptian texts points to them have been composed in the first century CE – in other words at the dawn of a spiritual crisis that all brought about the mystery cults of Venus and the solar deities.

It was in other words born in the end of the classical world, when the Pantheon of Thunder Gods were beginning to lose their credibility. Thus we can also note the return of interest in Alchemy accompanies the end of the dark ages, or middle ages when the monotheistic religions held sway over the natuaral world and sciences.

Getting back ti Trismagistus, the legendary “founder” of Alchemy, the three in one God is such a common trope one need not consider it remarkable. The very name of the “Science: “Alchemy” tells us that the vast bulk of the medieval work was not Greek, as in that of the classical world, but Arabic dating to the Arab Renaissance subsequent to the coming of the prophet. As I just mentioned, the historical evidence is overwhelming that Alchemy was largely the invention of the late ages and it was an attempt by well meaning people to replace the supernatural rigmaroles and dogmas of the church with reliable truths.

The middle ages may have some quaint aspects of them, but many of the common beliefs simply had to go. The earth was not flat, the earth is not the center of the universe, the touch of the King does not cure diseases, nor is prayer of other then limited value, etc. Without over stating the obvious the time required the changing of perceptions from a God centered one to a humanisticaly oriented one – and here’s the kicker – the old system no longer worked!

Change was not a matter of choice but of necessity if one wished to avoid the recurrence of plagues, physical and intellectual, in society. There is a clear parallel between those days and the current era. This is especially plain in the cruel and destructive class system that has sprung up in some of the allegedly more advanced societies of the day.

Our blind faith and adherence to Capitalism is based on ignorance and superstition. We choose to believe that God, the creator, has made some of us more deserving more “Holy” if you will and hence more deserving, much more deserving, of the good things the earth has to offer. There is no basis in this and everytime it begins to play too large a role in the ordering of human society we may rest assured that a reordering of things is on the way.

If you like, you may take comfort in the thought that the essential nature of man ( whatever that may be) remains unchanged. Like a new suit of clothes a new economic re ordering may feel better and keep us warmer and at times keep a larger percentage of us from freezing to death.

Suffice to say, our home ground here at the mediaco is not economic theory. We deal with perceptual anomalies, myths, and such aspects of society just a little further out then your average advertising agency. So lets begin.

When Steve McQueen realized he had terminal lung cancer he, like a lot of others, looked into various unsanctioned cures – different diets, medicines and who knows what, but the actuality was the cancer was a death sentence. In his case, as in many such cases, an ounce or two of prevention would have been worth many pounds of cure. He was an avid smoker.

But that’s the way life goes. Stuff happens. I state such an obvious thing because we are looking today at magical cures to actual diseases – not of the individual, but of the social order. These “Cures” sometimes work and sometimes don’t but nearly always they are applied after the disease has been recognized and discovered as incurable by ordinary means.

One of the keys to advertising, as well as magic is called sympathy as in sympathetic magic. In advertising we believe that if Michael Jordan wears a certain sneaker the our wearing a similar one will enhance our “coolness.” So called Homeopathic medicine by suggesting that if a plant looks like a part of the body it will cure ailments of that path of the body. Most of us consciously are able to separate the reality from the illusion, but to coin a phrase, “When reality is a drag, we live the illusion.”

New Orleans has a different history then much of the old south in that it was originally French controlled and the city was different from the plantations. The plantations were capable of being hell on earth with no limits to the cruelty of the masters. Each weekend some of the blacks in New Orleans were allowed to play their drum songs and the young women and men would, as much as possible dress up like the white people. The women were called cake walking mommas.

It did not set them free but it did a little good in demonstrating how easily the styles of the day could be emulated.

Over in the Pacific Ocean meanwhile there were native tribes that would be visited on a sporadic basis by ocean going ships which would deliver goods known to the natives as “Cargo”. The visitors were for intents and purposes thought of as near godlike. After awhle what were known as Cargo Cults began to appear. In order to facilitate the arrival of cargo the natives would make boxes and dress as Europeans in the hope of attracting passing shps and Cargo. In the twentieth century after the invention of radio the cults would put up faux antennas and have radio shacks even though they had no actual radio equipment.

This principle of sympathy is also known as “like to like.”

A more gruesome example of this appeasement of the Gods occurred in Carthage. Carthage was in the centuries prior to the common era the only threat to Roman hegemony and as a result they were were at war constantly; warfare which went on for centuries. When it appeared that the Romans were going to win a decisive victory, one which would not allow Carthage any chance of renewal the Carthaginians engaged in a terrible wager. They believed that if their God, Moloch, were to be giving the lives of their children it would spare the parents.

(FWIW. The willingness of one generation to sacrifice the lives of the younger generation on the flimsiest of excuses deserves further investigation.)

What Moloch though of this gruesome gift we don’t know. The Romans were appalled and leveled the city, plowing it under with salt. Nothing has grown there in the two thousand years since.

In the century just bygone there is the Holocaust. This event, in it’s cruelty and barbarity, defies easy definition and I will not linger long as to the madness at it’s heart. In the case of Carthage one imagines someone standing up and saying “This is the best the best minds of our society can come up with?” The holocaust in some ways is different and the difference is more horrifying the more you realize it. It is the difference between modernity and the past.

I refer to the fact that there was no suggestion that the people who planned the holocaust were the best minds of their times and people – they did not have to be because they had the power. It is essential you realize this and if you realize only one thing I pray it is this. In the absence of a deity there is no constraints on the behavior of humans or the state., The tyrant kills in the thousands the technostate kills in the millions and loses no sleep.

What is weird about it is the machine retains elements of it’s human creators. Hitler could have stopped the holocaust, he can be held responsible for it’s happening – but he could not have done it by himself. The sickness was not his alone.

The topic does not please me so I’ll just cover the pertinent aspects. The Wannassee Conference occurred after Stalingrad – that is to say – after the decisive battle of the war. That the entire concept of taking a large, non hostile segment of the population and locking them up while one is in the middle of a war is hard to believe, but the mass killing started up late and continued almost to the end of the battle.

I may add, for the record a little special insight I have into Mr Hitlers psyche. He was by no means poor, he was a rich man’s bastard and went to one of the better schools in Vienna. (One of his classmates was Ludwig Wittgenstein, the great philosopher. They presumably did not get along.) Adolf like myself, was a Catholic and like myself, spent his early manhood enraptured with the idea of being a visual artist. This is a not uncommon affectation of the upper middle class who feel it is beneath their dignity to go “into trade.”

We both had a perhaps undesirable interest in the motions of the masses. He became a millionaire but I lived longer. Of course I did not have the option of sending people who don’t like my book to the firing squad, but lone lives and hopes.

The point being that Catholics, of course, at the time went to masses performed in Latin. One could never suggest Hitler was a devout Catholic but the mumbo jumbo of early years probably stuck with him. This means belief in Saints, and more disturbingly demonic possession. It meant that the liturgical year was an ongoing series of ritual events meant to conjure the metaphysical presence of angels and saints and conversely to banish the presence of the devil and his minions.

The prayers, the rituals, the procedures, the exorcisms, the blessings all led to a sensitivity to the actuality of the import of the word. Goethe may have been out of date but he stated something crucial when Faust says “In the beginning was the deed!” In other words, say what you like but note there is crucial difference between word and deed.

The center of the catholic mass is a denial of that. Through the transubstantiation the bread of the Eucharist becomes the body of Christ. (Thankfully it doesn’t taste like the body of Christ! ) But the confusion between word and reality is what makes advertising tick.

We may suggest indeed that the single common them of the present writing is the unity of the two. The nature or nurture question, the mind or body question both have been revealed as false questions. In other words they are artifacts of the process of asking.

My own feeling is this. Ordinarily , following along this track we'd say the same with the word and the deed – they are aspects of the same thing. But I am enough of a mystic to suggest that they are not the same thnk – at least totally. Although we cannot and perhaps must not differentiate between the two they musty remain, as if separate.

The key to the classical dualism is not resolution but suspension – it other words we can think something and act on that – but mustn't ever take it for granted as so .

Religion is free to say something both is and is not – but man is not.

The following section is about the advent of rituals. As I indicated in the beginning we can see similarities between the growth of myths and the growth of laws. It reminds one of the saying that art is a collective dream, A single fantasy is a dream, when many have the same dream it's art. (Actually some might suggest that a dream becomes art when it is paid for - heh)

Like the proverbial pearls of wisdom there's often a precipatory incident around which accrue beliefs and associations. By recreating, in part, the disturbing, or blessed event we hope to control the outcome of it's renewal.

Seasonal rituals may develop over a long time, centuries even, whereas those which are reacting to s specific event, often a catastrophe are usually in place within a hundred years.

A topic I haven’t covered extensively is the process of making the profane into the sacred via physical motion. By dancing we create a sacred space. Less obvious is the process of the parade which is used to invoke spiritual entities and to give to the earthly beings supernatural grace.

While the process of marching imbues ordinary people with grace our heroes and leaders, who already have been touched by the Gods divinity, are carried or we roll out the red carpet so that they might not be contaminated by contact with the profane earth.

This is fairly basic stuff but I’d like to add a few comments to call attention to some contemporary applications . It is one of the remits here at the Tamlinmediaco to aide the public in recognizing those incidents. These are primitive processes that function by forcing basic cranial reactions, like psychoactive drugs, the advantage of the use of ritual in controlling the actions of great masses of people is that it bypasses the ordinary cerebral functions.

We do not ask if the activity we are instructed to perform makes sense The question is answered unconsciously - “yes”- we only rarely awaken to discover that we are not in reality, a chicken and that the audience is much amused at us walking around the stage clucking, and searching the floor for grainsof wheat.

It is no accident that neurologists and hypnotists are often the same person – motion – the reptilian brain (the brain stem) – repetition – and co-ordinated sensory stimulus = all are combined to create the desired response, be it the mere election of a candidate, the purchasing of the soap suds, or something less attractive.

The idea that somehow we are now immune to such processes is laughable and dangerous – so called technological or intellectual modernity is not a guarantee of immunity to the irrational – it is an invitation!

Say what you like about the negative aspects of myth – and they are there, largely in that they tend to retard growth, which we see in the larger myths of religion and nationalism – nevertheless they also make it more difficult to induce people to do things outside of the mythical universe. For instance were I to suggest to a Christian that the devil was a Dark blue dog with pink teeth he’d tend not to believe it since he “knows” the devil is a fellow with horns and a red skin.

Science and technology are forever opening Pandora’s Boxes and the first casualties of the truths revealed are myths, of which it is not immediately apparent, but they are there for a purpose and in the absence of myth it is easy to new solutions to the emptiness of our existence. As the saying goes “The sleep of reason breeds monsters”.

Just like we’ve seen with global warming there is a tendency to discount evolution as a slow process that displays effects only over the very long term. This is not always true. One can even joke that the aristocrat Darwin was content to sit on his findings concerning evolution until he discovered that Wallace was not only at his level, but somewhat advanced over Darwin in his understanding of evolution.

The late Steven Jay Gould made it a point to emphasize that evolution can proceed in leaps and bounds should circumstance demand it. We can find comparative examples in the study of myths and other belief systems. A good example is the border paradigm

The border passing has three stages. At first people are admitted or not admitted according to how the border guardian happens to perceive the trespasser on any particular day. After awhile these loose habits become what are known as customs. This leads to the line from many a fairy story, “Now it was the custom in those days”. Finally when custom has “come of age” so to speak, someone takes out a pen and writes the custom down, in which case we call the methodology of decision making a law.

Customs like lifestyles can exist for a long time and then suddenly, often after money comes into the picture, require legal sanction.

In my home town of New York City every year there is a festival of San Generro in the neighborhood of little Italy. A statute of the saint is carried through the streets and people attach dollar bills to it for the aid of the poor. Thus we have a ritual parade for the benefit of the people, not unlike tens of thousands the world over. It is important to consider that there are two ways to go about magic – one is to bring into the world good, and the other is to remove evil from the world.

It is amusing for instance to note the uniformity with which Hollywood has adopted Campbell’s “Monomyth”. In this scenario the hero, a rich man, comes out of retirement, ventures to the ghetto , fights off the monsters that dwell there in and then returns to the clean, above ground world with some boon to make life better. Campbell, a man not immune to the lure of fascism was in many ways a perfect match for the Reaganization of America.

(In time my attitude to the Reagan era has both mellowed and expanded. On the one hand it was truly the time when the floodgates to the collapse of the American way of life we thrown open. There was always a threat that democracy would devolve to kleptocracy even Plato recognized it long ago, but America held off the criminals until Reagan and he in turn knew not what he was doing. He was a puppet basically. As is said in the intelligence agencies “the best agent is the one who does not know he is an agent.” If the courier does not know they are one they are far less likely to display those fears that indicate what he is to the trained mind. So it was with Reagan.)

In actuality there are other stories – for instance the fellow minding his own business who is suddenly attacked by demons, or Job, who is permitted to be attacked by the devil by a terminally bored god seeking amusement. It is not difficult to suggest that many rituals begin in such instances where the people seek protection from seemingly cruel nature.

One can suggest that it is not often we see such rituals develop nowadays, but I’m not so sure. The enlightened mind walks, as it were, though a landscape of sleepwalkers, each following the instructions they were given by their most recent hypnotist.

Let’s turn now to Japan, the recipient of two rough blows in recent years. One is the economy seems to have entered into a permanent no growth situation. Considering the formerly robust state of the Japanese economy as recently as the 70’s and 80’s there are many given explanations, but the one most difficult to acknowledge and hence most psychically charged is the possibility that Capitalism can not function beyond a certain point of technological advance ment. Japan just happens to have gotten to the endgame earlier then other economies, but as we know, other economies are beginning to show similar signs The economic lassitude.

The second blow was, of course the Tsunami and then it’s impact on the nuclear power plant.

The use of bodily ornament, masks, costumes and the like is either to invoke positive spirits or to drive away evil ones. Japan is of course a relatively heterogeneous society having been closed to the world for centuries and having no history of extensive immigration since then. It’s also a society with comparatively rigid male and female role constraints.

That said women often play a larger role then men in the development of social rituals. Hence we come to Cosplay, Cosplay, or Costume playing essentially is no more then fans dressing up as their favorite Anime or Manga Characters. These are elaborate often adult themed cartoon shows that play on TV, there are potentially hundreds of characters and these include those from all walks of life.

I will venture into a deeper analysis of this phenomenon only briefly because it is not the subject and because I know that the average reader is incapable of understanding what I am about to say. Consider the wedding dress. Japanese couples have in many cases adopted the western wedding dress, but it is in the knowledge that it is a garment and not so much a symbol. As I indicated, on a deeper level it is about reincarnation as opposed to the eternal judgment of the soul. Also I want to be careful not to inadvertently anger any Japanese people by incorrect characterization.

To look at it, “from the other shore”, it is often difficult to believe the Anglo-European is as straightforward as we would demand to be taken.

Four years ago a group of high school girls met in the city dressed up as characters. Someone took pictures of them, Two years ago it was discovered at the Anime conventions that the action wasn’t on the floor – it was in the alleys between buildings where needless to say many of the most attractive women in the country gathered to pose and have their pictures taken by eager Japanese men.

In recent times the phenomenon has grown to include parades. Some of the costumes are not as elaborate - some are now store bought instead of hand made. If this lasts in not many years few will remember when it started, even fewer why. It certainly is better then weeping.

One more intriguing thing - few months back I read in the Times ( NY) that Japanese women as a result of the economic slowdown were considering taking more mundane forms of employment, such as waitressing There you have it. People adjust. When things go wrong we scream and holler then the next day we start all over again.

Like the soldier says, no battle plan lasts more then five minutes into an engagement - there's just too much happening. I call it the Plan B syndrome. Everything is Plan B because Plan A never happened and never could. Try living as a homeless, jobless, friendless person as I have, and you'll know what I mean. These things happen.

Well it’s summer and in later life I found that was when I got around to reading those tomes which “everyone” is suppose to know. This essay wound up reasonable interest ( to me at least) partially because the current aspects are only to illustrate the more general thesis. Also there’s a tendency when you arrive a conclusion that you had not anticipated to believe that you have made you life’s great discovery – foolish perhaps not completely wrong.

I suggest that is such is the case then you ought hope that the first discovery has enough meat on the bone t carry you for awhile. I suppose my “great revelations” have to d with the idea that technology empowers, in the beginning especially, the lucky few = then again as we see in warfare a smaller force is not necessarily more likely to lose the battle, or the war.

An unsettling aspect of these writings is that increasingly I am seeing things in terms of winners and losers. It is not good to give the other fellow the benefit of the doubt if you’re going to be constantly disappointed. This disappointment may be an artifact of the current era, but I prefer to do without it.

In any case one could suggest three forms of the same mythical content, One is the dream, the personal belief system, next we have society; those predilictions that become customs and finally are codified into laws, and finally,m what one might call the rituals of current events – demonstrations, marchs, parades, and even such things as preferences in entertainments.

The following was written over several weeks so the order may be a little discombobulated.

We’re all waiting and anticipating the return of the ALF. The Tamlinmediaco is one of the oldest internet presenses . We went on line on July 4^th 1995. The mediaco itself was started as a music publishing company on July 4. 1984. Perhaps that tells you something.

Again I must preface this essay with an apology as to the limitations of style. I don’t have staff nor even a single editor. It is, for me at least, exciting work, and more so because I am free to compare hypothesis with observed current reality.

That said it nevertheless would be impossible to proceed without some contextual localization. The best judgment of a professional is not by the public, but by their peers and we owe it to our peers at least to speak while reference the common body of knowledge. As to questions of style we may afford ourselves a little more leeway, but not much.

Sir George Fraziers – “The Golden Bough” often reads like a phone book. He gives example after example of evidence in rituals which are meant to support whatever thesis he is making Joseph Campbell, on the other hand, since he was a teacher must have given the same lectures many times and his storytelling is concise and specific, if not sometimes a bit redundant.

The current work is meant to be something different. While it refers to anthropological precedent the goal is to apply the knowledge gained to current events on a fairly large scale. If I were not hesistant about being associated with Mr Freud’s name I might suggest we are searching for a way to psychoanalyze entire populations - after all with propaganda, as brought in to the modern era by Dr Goebells and less successfully, the Soviet empire, we have learned to bend the will of large populations to our desired purposes, to the extent where it is easy and indeed commonplace, for societies to act against their own interests, even to the extent (As in Cambodia) of self imposed genocide.

Would it not be wise and decent to create a counterforce to all these illusions?

As in any medical situation however one cannot always overcome the effects of the past. A man who spends his life eating cheeseburgers is ripe for a heart attack. Some societies are perhaps fortunate in that they roll on, year after year, with comparatively little disruption. Other societies evidence what I call echo effects. This is the result of a psychological need. The need is the desire to believe that we are in control of our destiny. Experimentation has shown that this need to create cause and effect factors in our lives reaches down even to the animal kingdom, to bears for instance.

Bears given food in zoos on a daily schedule become lethargic – however is the time of feeding is staggered and if the food is hidden, under trees and rocks, the bears metabolic rate increases. Likewise it was found that cake mixes with powdered eggs were rejected by housewives – however when it was made necessary to add eggs to the mix, the housewives gladly bought the product.

The genocidal regime of Pol Pot in Cambodia was perhaps the result of such an echo effect. For years it had been at the mercy of both the Viet Cong and the US Air Force and then, when finaly the holocaust was stopped it proceeded to initiate another one upon itself – one that killed far more then the initial crisis’s. It may have been in emulation of the Chinese Cultural Revolution but I suggest as well it was a case of Pol Pot being, as the expression goes “a bastard, but our bastard.”

These connections may seem weak, or silly, but they are what we have to go on. Jacques Ellul, a French law professor who wrote extensively on the subject of propaganda and the technostate – something he was intimately familiar with, having lived through the Nazi occupation, makes the point that the technostate permeates all aspects of society. Indeed on of the most deadly aspects of such a purportedly “modern” state is that at the same time it is cutting edge and justifies many of it’s crimes in the name of progress, it allows room for and champions alleged “traditional” values.

It’s easy to call for traditional values – if it doesn’t cost anything. For instance the Nazi’s were all in favor of motherhood (along with dogs, children, he man warriors, and apple cake) but their idea of motherhood they felt needed to be upgraded. So they would genetically screen a gymnasium (eg high school) population for the most attractive, healthy, Aryan young women, and then induce them to have sex with suitable male specimens, often from the SS.

The goal may have been, in some eyes admirable, but the methods contradicted one of the laws of the human species – that each human be able to think and act for themselves.

I have made no secret of my mistrust of technology, even as I immerse myself in it and my essential complaint is that too often it is a futile attempt to second guess God.

Okay, so let’s lighten up. Many years ago, on the Dreamland BBS, I got into an argument with sys op Holly concerning Wiener Schnitzel. She believed it to be something like a elaborate hot dog, or “tube steak”. The mistake came from stressing the word Wiener. In the same way the surname of people is often derived from their place of origin, so too the Frankfurter and Hamburger are named after places they were originally created.

At this stage we cannot be certain as to the historical authenticity of such derivations, more study is needed, but in the US at least the word Wiener which stems from Vienna, almost always refers to the hot dog. There is even a fast food chain which propagates this misinformation by selling various Frankfurters under the chain name of WienerSchnitzel. The word has some sort of associative charm to it, but nevertheless a schnitzel is a patty, commonly pork fried in batter with oil – definitely not a hotdog.

I may add, in changing the subject, that the way we see things is not completely unique nor by any means undefinable. Television in recent years seems to be overflowing with space time wormholes, usually with cheesy fx but always such that allow the ongoing series episodic variation should that be desired. A measure of how strong the ideas poll in pre production testing is seen by how many shows are made that never last more then a few episodes.

I stand by my long standing premise that the computer age has sensitized people to a new understanding of something they find essential indistinguishable from magic. To that, not to break any hearts, but often in popular artforms story telling is far more basic then in the more elevated genres. The boy gets the girl, homosexuals are at best tolerated , the bad guys are ugly and there’s no better solution then to marry the girl and win a kingdom.

The joke in Hollywood is that most plots feature heroes who overcome adversity through perseverance. Crips! It sound’s a little like Horatio Alger’s stories, or the sign on the door to the detention center reminding us to keep a positive attitude and we’ll be fine.

The notion that we can give it all we have and still be crushed is not allowed.

And anyway I am the Pied Piper of Hamlin and if you like I can clean the rats from your basements. It’s a dirty job but I am a skilled rat catcher. I do however suggest that should you employ me you ought to think twice about not paying me inasmuch as my father was a rat catcher and his father too and we have developed ways of assuring payment that you would not like to experience.

I work with perceptual anomalies. Cole Porter wrote night and day. He was gay. Normally gay people frighten me cause I think it’ll rub off – but for God sakes he wrote night and day. Anyone who can write night and day gets a free admission. I may be superstitious but I ain’t stupid.

I was once in Manhattan at a songwriters guild meeting and I met a girl who’s ambition was to write for Julio Englaicias . Her eyes glazed over. “I guess he can sing, but who cares? I mean it’s Julio.” She said. Probably I didn’t get the same inspiration from the Latin heartthrob and thus we have a case of a specific perceptual anomaly.

These are the ways of magic and the humans will try almost anything if they think it will free them from the chains of Karma. These creations can bring about moments of great beauty, but also moments of sheer terror.

When a society is losing ground it will ask it’s Gods how it has displeased them. The difference between me and a stodgy old professor is I realize that the same process occurs in modern societies as in those societies with bones through their noses.

As in any neurotic behavior the reaction of a society that is collapsing is not to stop the behavior that is destroying it, but to increase it, until the system is no more, a state known by my illustrious predecessors as Gotterdammerung or “Twilight of the gods”.

The real test of manhood, or enlightenment or whatever, is the ability to turn aside from how things have always been and find something new that is the test of the Rainbow Bridge – It is a factor of Love – and there is none other.

Pt2

Before moving on to the next section it’s a good idea to say a few words about the ancient discipline of Alchemy. First off, it ain't that ancient. Many people, in the west especially got their introduction to Alchemy from Karl Jung. Often they wind up knowing more about Jung then about Alchemy but nevertheless I think that his insistence on pointing the Alchemical opus’s use as a parallel, or set of guideposts to psychic recovery is not entirely futile in some cases. As to whether the actual Alchemists felt that way it’s difficult to state. What we do know is that by breaking down the walls between man and God they quelled some of the fears that had paralyzed man for centuries

In the therapeutic milieu we often have cases where patients have lost faith in the honesty and reliability of the surroundings ( sometimes with good reason) – in thee cases fantasies may prove the only sort of tale the patient will pay attention to, and this maintain some link to reality.

By now it has become obvious that some of the presumptions of European Alchemy were incorrect. Hermes Trismagistus and the Emerald Tablets may have existed in ancient Egypt in some form, but the evidence is not strong this is so. It is interesting that much of the evidence regarding the so called ancient egyptian texts points to them have been composed in the first century CE – in other words at the dawn of a spiritual crisis that all brought about the mystery cults of Venus and the solar deities.

It was in other words born in the end of the classical world, when the Pantheon of Thunder Gods were beginning to lose their credibility. Thus we can also note the return of interest in Alchemy accompanies the end of the dark ages, or middle ages when the monotheistic religions held sway over the natuaral world and sciences.

Getting back ti Trismagistus, the legendary “founder” of Alchemy, the three in one God is such a common trope one need not consider it remarkable. The very name of the “Science: “Alchemy” tells us that the vast bulk of the medieval work was not Greek, as in that of the classical world, but Arabic dating to the Arab Renaissance subsequent to the coming of the prophet. As I just mentioned, the historical evidence is overwhelming that Alchemy was largely the invention of the late ages and it was an attempt by well meaning people to replace the supernatural rigmaroles and dogmas of the church with reliable truths.

The middle ages may have some quaint aspects of them, but many of the common beliefs simply had to go. The earth was not flat, the earth is not the center of the universe, the touch of the King does not cure diseases, nor is prayer of other then limited value, etc. Without over stating the obvious the time required the changing of perceptions from a God centered one to a humanisticaly oriented one – and here’s the kicker – the old system no longer worked!

Change was not a matter of choice but of necessity if one wished to avoid the recurrence of plagues, physical and intellectual, in society. There is a clear parallel between those days and the current era. This is especially plain in the cruel and destructive class system that has sprung up in some of the allegedly more advanced societies of the day.

Our blind faith and adherence to Capitalism is based on ignorance and superstition. We choose to believe that God, the creator, has made some of us more deserving more “Holy” if you will and hence more deserving, much more deserving, of the good things the earth has to offer. There is no basis in this and everytime it begins to play too large a role in the ordering of human society we may rest assured that a reordering of things is on the way.

If you like, you may take comfort in the thought that the essential nature of man ( whatever that may be) remains unchanged. Like a new suit of clothes a new economic re ordering may feel better and keep us warmer and at times keep a larger percentage of us from freezing to death.

Suffice to say, our home ground here at the mediaco is not economic theory. We deal with perceptual anomalies, myths, and such aspects of society just a little further out then your average advertising agency. So lets begin.

When Steve McQueen realized he had terminal lung cancer he, like a lot of others, looked into various unsanctioned cures – different diets, medicines and who knows what, but the actuality was the cancer was a death sentence. In his case, as in many such cases, an ounce or two of prevention would have been worth many pounds of cure. He was an avid smoker.

But that’s the way life goes. Stuff happens. I state such an obvious thing because we are looking today at magical cures to actual diseases – not of the individual, but of the social order. These “Cures” sometimes work and sometimes don’t but nearly always they are applied after the disease has been recognized and discovered as incurable by ordinary means.

One of the keys to advertising, as well as magic is called sympathy as in sympathetic magic. In advertising we believe that if Michael Jordan wears a certain sneaker the our wearing a similar one will enhance our “coolness.” So called Homeopathic medicine by suggesting that if a plant looks like a part of the body it will cure ailments of that path of the body. Most of us consciously are able to separate the reality from the illusion, but to coin a phrase, “When reality is a drag, we live the illusion.”

New Orleans has a different history then much of the old south in that it was originally French controlled and the city was different from the plantations. The plantations were capable of being hell on earth with no limits to the cruelty of the masters. Each weekend some of the blacks in New Orleans were allowed to play their drum songs and the young women and men would, as much as possible dress up like the white people. The women were called cake walking mommas.

It did not set them free but it did a little good in demonstrating how easily the styles of the day could be emulated.

Over in the Pacific Ocean meanwhile there were native tribes that would be visited on a sporadic basis by ocean going ships which would deliver goods known to the natives as “Cargo”. The visitors were for intents and purposes thought of as near godlike. After awhle what were known as Cargo Cults began to appear. In order to facilitate the arrival of cargo the natives would make boxes and dress as Europeans in the hope of attracting passing shps and Cargo. In the twentieth century after the invention of radio the cults would put up faux antennas and have radio shacks even though they had no actual radio equipment.

This principle of sympathy is also known as “like to like.”

A more gruesome example of this appeasement of the Gods occurred in Carthage. Carthage was in the centuries prior to the common era the only threat to Roman hegemony and as a result they were were at war constantly; warfare which went on for centuries. When it appeared that the Romans were going to win a decisive victory, one which would not allow Carthage any chance of renewal the Carthaginians engaged in a terrible wager. They believed that if their God, Moloch, were to be giving the lives of their children it would spare the parents.

(FWIW. The willingness of one generation to sacrifice the lives of the younger generation on the flimsiest of excuses deserves further investigation.)

What Moloch though of this gruesome gift we don’t know. The Romans were appalled and leveled the city, plowing it under with salt. Nothing has grown there in the two thousand years since.

In the century just bygone there is the Holocaust. This event, in it’s cruelty and barbarity, defies easy definition and I will not linger long as to the madness at it’s heart. In the case of Carthage one imagines someone standing up and saying “This is the best the best minds of our society can come up with?” The holocaust in some ways is different and the difference is more horrifying the more you realize it. It is the difference between modernity and the past.

I refer to the fact that there was no suggestion that the people who planned the holocaust were the best minds of their times and people – they did not have to be because they had the power. It is essential you realize this and if you realize only one thing I pray it is this. In the absence of a deity there is no constraints on the behavior of humans or the state., The tyrant kills in the thousands the technostate kills in the millions and loses no sleep.

What is weird about it is the machine retains elements of it’s human creators. Hitler could have stopped the holocaust, he can be held responsible for it’s happening – but he could not have done it by himself. The sickness was not his alone.

The topic does not please me so I’ll just cover the pertinent aspects. The Wannassee Conference occurred after Stalingrad – that is to say – after the decisive battle of the war. That the entire concept of taking a large, non hostile segment of the population and locking them up while one is in the middle of a war is hard to believe, but the mass killing started up late and continued almost to the end of the battle.

I may add, for the record a little special insight I have into Mr Hitlers psyche. He was by no means poor, he was a rich man’s bastard and went to one of the better schools in Vienna. (One of his classmates was Ludwig Wittgenstein, the great philosopher. They presumably did not get along.) Adolf like myself, was a Catholic and like myself, spent his early manhood enraptured with the idea of being a visual artist. This is a not uncommon affectation of the upper middle class who feel it is beneath their dignity to go “into trade.”

We both had a perhaps undesirable interest in the motions of the masses. He became a millionaire but I lived longer. Of course I did not have the option of sending people who don’t like my book to the firing squad, but lone lives and hopes.

The point being that Catholics, of course, at the time went to masses performed in Latin. One could never suggest Hitler was a devout Catholic but the mumbo jumbo of early years probably stuck with him. This means belief in Saints, and more disturbingly demonic possession. It meant that the liturgical year was an ongoing series of ritual events meant to conjure the metaphysical presence of angels and saints and conversely to banish the presence of the devil and his minions.

The prayers, the rituals, the procedures, the exorcisms, the blessings all led to a sensitivity to the actuality of the import of the word. Goethe may have been out of date but he stated something crucial when Faust says “In the beginning was the deed!” In other words, say what you like but note there is crucial difference between word and deed.

The center of the catholic mass is a denial of that. Through the transubstantiation the bread of the Eucharist becomes the body of Christ. (Thankfully it doesn’t taste like the body of Christ! ) But the confusion between word and reality is what makes advertising tick.

We may suggest indeed that the single common them of the present writing is the unity of the two. The nature or nurture question, the mind or body question both have been revealed as false questions. In other words they are artifacts of the process of asking.

My own feeling is this. Ordinarily , following along this track we'd say the same with the word and the deed – they are aspects of the same thing. But I am enough of a mystic to suggest that they are not the same thnk – at least totally. Although we cannot and perhaps must not differentiate between the two they musty remain, as if separate.

The key to the classical dualism is not resolution but suspension – it other words we can think something and act on that – but mustn't ever take it for granted as so .

Religion is free to say something both is and is not – but man is not.

The following section is about the advent of rituals. As I indicated in the beginning we can see similarities between the growth of myths and the growth of laws. It reminds one of the saying that art is a collective dream, A single fantasy is a dream, when many have the same dream it's art. (Actually some might suggest that a dream becomes art when it is paid for - heh)

Like the proverbial pearls of wisdom there's often a precipatory incident around which accrue beliefs and associations. By recreating, in part, the disturbing, or blessed event we hope to control the outcome of it's renewal.

Seasonal rituals may develop over a long time, centuries even, whereas those which are reacting to s specific event, often a catastrophe are usually in place within a hundred years.

A topic I haven’t covered extensively is the process of making the profane into the sacred via physical motion. By dancing we create a sacred space. Less obvious is the process of the parade which is used to invoke spiritual entities and to give to the earthly beings supernatural grace.

While the process of marching imbues ordinary people with grace our heroes and leaders, who already have been touched by the Gods divinity, are carried or we roll out the red carpet so that they might not be contaminated by contact with the profane earth.

This is fairly basic stuff but I’d like to add a few comments to call attention to some contemporary applications . It is one of the remits here at the Tamlinmediaco to aide the public in recognizing those incidents. These are primitive processes that function by forcing basic cranial reactions, like psychoactive drugs, the advantage of the use of ritual in controlling the actions of great masses of people is that it bypasses the ordinary cerebral functions.

We do not ask if the activity we are instructed to perform makes sense The question is answered unconsciously - “yes”- we only rarely awaken to discover that we are not in reality, a chicken and that the audience is much amused at us walking around the stage clucking, and searching the floor for grainsof wheat.

It is no accident that neurologists and hypnotists are often the same person – motion – the reptilian brain (the brain stem) – repetition – and co-ordinated sensory stimulus = all are combined to create the desired response, be it the mere election of a candidate, the purchasing of the soap suds, or something less attractive.

The idea that somehow we are now immune to such processes is laughable and dangerous – so called technological or intellectual modernity is not a guarantee of immunity to the irrational – it is an invitation!

Say what you like about the negative aspects of myth – and they are there, largely in that they tend to retard growth, which we see in the larger myths of religion and nationalism – nevertheless they also make it more difficult to induce people to do things outside of the mythical universe. For instance were I to suggest to a Christian that the devil was a Dark blue dog with pink teeth he’d tend not to believe it since he “knows” the devil is a fellow with horns and a red skin.

Science and technology are forever opening Pandora’s Boxes and the first casualties of the truths revealed are myths, of which it is not immediately apparent, but they are there for a purpose and in the absence of myth it is easy to new solutions to the emptiness of our existence. As the saying goes “The sleep of reason breeds monsters”.

Just like we’ve seen with global warming there is a tendency to discount evolution as a slow process that displays effects only over the very long term. This is not always true. One can even joke that the aristocrat Darwin was content to sit on his findings concerning evolution until he discovered that Wallace was not only at his level, but somewhat advanced over Darwin in his understanding of evolution.

The late Steven Jay Gould made it a point to emphasize that evolution can proceed in leaps and bounds should circumstance demand it. We can find comparative examples in the study of myths and other belief systems. A good example is the border paradigm

The border passing has three stages. At first people are admitted or not admitted according to how the border guardian happens to perceive the trespasser on any particular day. After awhile these loose habits become what are known as customs. This leads to the line from many a fairy story, “Now it was the custom in those days”. Finally when custom has “come of age” so to speak, someone takes out a pen and writes the custom down, in which case we call the methodology of decision making a law.

Customs like lifestyles can exist for a long time and then suddenly, often after money comes into the picture, require legal sanction.

In my home town of New York City every year there is a festival of San Generro in the neighborhood of little Italy. A statute of the saint is carried through the streets and people attach dollar bills to it for the aid of the poor. Thus we have a ritual parade for the benefit of the people, not unlike tens of thousands the world over. It is important to consider that there are two ways to go about magic – one is to bring into the world good, and the other is to remove evil from the world.

It is amusing for instance to note the uniformity with which Hollywood has adopted Campbell’s “Monomyth”. In this scenario the hero, a rich man, comes out of retirement, ventures to the ghetto , fights off the monsters that dwell there in and then returns to the clean, above ground world with some boon to make life better. Campbell, a man not immune to the lure of fascism was in many ways a perfect match for the Reaganization of America.

(In time my attitude to the Reagan era has both mellowed and expanded. On the one hand it was truly the time when the floodgates to the collapse of the American way of life we thrown open. There was always a threat that democracy would devolve to kleptocracy even Plato recognized it long ago, but America held off the criminals until Reagan and he in turn knew not what he was doing. He was a puppet basically. As is said in the intelligence agencies “the best agent is the one who does not know he is an agent.” If the courier does not know they are one they are far less likely to display those fears that indicate what he is to the trained mind. So it was with Reagan.)

In actuality there are other stories – for instance the fellow minding his own business who is suddenly attacked by demons, or Job, who is permitted to be attacked by the devil by a terminally bored god seeking amusement. It is not difficult to suggest that many rituals begin in such instances where the people seek protection from seemingly cruel nature.

One can suggest that it is not often we see such rituals develop nowadays, but I’m not so sure. The enlightened mind walks, as it were, though a landscape of sleepwalkers, each following the instructions they were given by their most recent hypnotist.

Let’s turn now to Japan, the recipient of two rough blows in recent years. One is the economy seems to have entered into a permanent no growth situation. Considering the formerly robust state of the Japanese economy as recently as the 70’s and 80’s there are many given explanations, but the one most difficult to acknowledge and hence most psychically charged is the possibility that Capitalism can not function beyond a certain point of technological advance ment. Japan just happens to have gotten to the endgame earlier then other economies, but as we know, other economies are beginning to show similar signs The economic lassitude.

The second blow was, of course the Tsunami and then it’s impact on the nuclear power plant.

The use of bodily ornament, masks, costumes and the like is either to invoke positive spirits or to drive away evil ones. Japan is of course a relatively heterogeneous society having been closed to the world for centuries and having no history of extensive immigration since then. It’s also a society with comparatively rigid male and female role constraints.

That said women often play a larger role then men in the development of social rituals. Hence we come to Cosplay, Cosplay, or Costume playing essentially is no more then fans dressing up as their favorite Anime or Manga Characters. These are elaborate often adult themed cartoon shows that play on TV, there are potentially hundreds of characters and these include those from all walks of life.

I will venture into a deeper analysis of this phenomenon only briefly because it is not the subject and because I know that the average reader is incapable of understanding what I am about to say. Consider the wedding dress. Japanese couples have in many cases adopted the western wedding dress, but it is in the knowledge that it is a garment and not so much a symbol. As I indicated, on a deeper level it is about reincarnation as opposed to the eternal judgment of the soul. Also I want to be careful not to inadvertently anger any Japanese people by incorrect characterization.

To look at it, “from the other shore”, it is often difficult to believe the Anglo-European is as straightforward as we would demand to be taken.

Four years ago a group of high school girls met in the city dressed up as characters. Someone took pictures of them, Two years ago it was discovered at the Anime conventions that the action wasn’t on the floor – it was in the alleys between buildings where needless to say many of the most attractive women in the country gathered to pose and have their pictures taken by eager Japanese men.

In recent times the phenomenon has grown to include parades. Some of the costumes are not as elaborate - some are now store bought instead of hand made. If this lasts in not many years few will remember when it started, even fewer why. It certainly is better then weeping.

One more intriguing thing - few months back I read in the Times ( NY) that Japanese women as a result of the economic slowdown were considering taking more mundane forms of employment, such as waitressing There you have it. People adjust. When things go wrong we scream and holler then the next day we start all over again. 

                 The process of ritual creation is the same whether in Rumania or Japan, or anywhere else. An event happens and then withing  short amount of time so sort of apotropaic response is called forth.  this is intended to either limit or expand the initial event, or cause.

            Mircea Elliede refers to a mountain spring where a young girl was 

raped and which later was believed to be the abode of  spirit creatures. 

He remarks he was  especially impressed by the fact  that the replacement of memory by myth happened in the space of only  three generations. Here again we see the psychological component coming into play. It is those events that strike us with a particular horror, that we must repress in order to keep functioning, that call forth ritual responses.

           Of these ritual responses I'd like to add two further comments. In the past decade there have been a series of Tsunamis thoughout the eastern Pacific. There are of course small islands spread out in the western Indian ocean which have small, primitive populations. These populations, usually not more then a hundred or so, retained the myth corpus of the tribes which go back, at least several hundred years and so when the water receded suddenly from the beach they understood that it was the sign a tidal wave was coming and they retired to higher ground as soon as they could and were spared their lives. In the more modern sections the drying up of the ocean was met with mere curiosity and consequently a great loss of life.


                 Obviously I am a believer in the possibility that that knowledge, those stories, whichhave come down to us from the past have a utilitarian function. Mostly though this function is psychic and not literal, but a story that is told "round the campfire" or "at the hearth" for generation after generation, and has adopted new forms while retaining the constant message is a close to a verifiable truth as one might imagine. The, there's another aspect of myth to be aware of - namely the self fulfilling prophecy. As Freud, speaking I believe from personal experience, mentions, many a child that is the favorite of his mother does carry that self belief forward into later life and do great things.
                     Conversely, but still in the topic, there's the Japanese tale of the infant prince and his keeper. A large part of the Japanese psyche is the result of the long standing constant wars between warlords and the resultant bifurcation of sexual identities. In one of these wars the family was wiped out leaving only an infant and his keeper yet to be killed. They attempt to escape across a lake but are followed. The old woman then drowns herself and the infant rather then be killed by their enemies. A few generations later the people who caught crabs in the pond noticed that a disproportionate number of them seemed to have faces. The myth began then that the soul of the dead infant had migrated to the crabs. The reality was that the people who caught the crabs refused to harvest those that had anything like facial characteristics and so that random factor developed into an environmental advantage.
                        Suffice to say many of the incidents are cases of bad things happening that have social censure but neverthe less are not corrected in real life. Not being dealt with in the real world we choose to think punishments and rewards are dealt out in the dream world - a place were such things are not only extreme but eternal. It is a curious thing. In court rooms we are often struck with wonder at the courts insistence that the criminal display some measure of remorse. It seems an easy enough thing to fake and hence of little real value. It is often said that the only remorse some criminals feel is that of being caught. Such characters are not easy to deal with.
            Even after many years of investigating the subject I do not feel comfortable making an optimistic statement, that "Down deep underneath, we all have a sense of right and wrong and we all feel guilt." Maybe it's so, but I just don't know. Nobody seems particularly angry with Henry the Eighth yet here's a man who would kill a wife for the sin of barrenness - a sin that if anything would be his own.
                       The great rivers of central Europe are the Danube and the Rhine. Over them, often at critical bends in the river, are unusually fine and beautiful castles, set up high on the hillsides, with turrets and battlements. They are beautiful because they were build mostly in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, not for war, but rather just to impress people with the good taste of the owner. Many of these castles come with a story. The story is always the same and there is little wonder why. Here it is.
                         "There was a fair young maiden in the village. The owner of the castle came along. He was an old man for whom the beauty of one's wife was all important. The old man's soldiers capture the girl and imprison her in one of the turrets, hundreds, or thousands of feet, high over the river. The night before the day of her marriage the young girl goes to the window and leaps to her death in the river."

                                That's the basic tale. Sometimes they elaborate further; "At night you can hear the maiden weeping," Or "On nights of the full moon you can see her angelic form walking across the water." Sometimes people just mention that the river at that point is cursed and leave it at that. Ah, true love. Actually in real life it dudn't go that way.
             In real life there's Plan B which says "No matter what you don't like about it - keep going- don't give up"

         Jimmy Breslin used to tell the story of the bartender who had a sign on the bar - Score? 55 year old man - zero, 22 year old girl- five. I guess there are no castles over looking the rivers in the great borough of Queens, nor decrepit suitors, nor beautiful fair maidens, but imagination, once in command, rarely relinquishes it's hold.


=Tamlin

                            Like the soldier says, no battle plan lasts more then five minutes into an engagement - there's just too much happening. I call it the Plan B syndrome. Everything is Plan B because Plan A never happened and never could. Try living as a homeless, jobless, friendless person as I have, and you'll know what I mean. These things happen.

on the day of the revolution

                       Um two things to begin with, one thing I never mentioned is they gave me a test in sixth grade and discovered I was reading and writing at a post graduate college level – which means I tend to come off like John Stewart Mill – I apologize and assure the reader I've spent decades trying to cultivate accessibility.

               Secondly and more to the point. The idea or thesis here is to consider the creation of a virtual state, a state within a state, since the old notion of moving to somewhere where the bad guys are not in power is no longer feasible. It's not a total new idea at all but the beauty of it is it takes advantage of the comparative weakness of the central state to operate a system that will do the things the state is no longer interested in. Another way to look at it is an attempt to establish the freedoms and powers available to the transnational corporation in the interest in serving a human population which, as in the case of the corporation, will not and need not necessarily be identified with a physical locale.

              I've compared it to the Jews in exile in that most gods of the early days were identified with sacred places but the innovation, albeit forced, of the Jews was to take the covenant with them. So too we shall in the future in stead of residing in a physical state, have the option of having the state reside in us.

Again this option, of shopping for nationality, is already available to the elites and what we want to do is expand that availability to the technological/artistic elites.

And before you start thinking this is utopian fantasy – something I am willing to concede it sounds like – other then the desirability of a system of governance that allows for the individuals freedom there is also increasing evidence that the old forms of government are obsolete. I mean at one time monarchy was the best way to run things – It centralized authority in the right measure – but as society grew more complex it became a boondoggle much in the way the techno-state has. It remains interesting how both capitalism and communism suffered from the same excess of hierarchical social composition.

Finally, taking a bit of advice from the founders of America, it is not enough that a system works when good people are involved. It must be so constituted that it does not allow bad people to get in power. This is the most difficult aspect of the task but it is essential. By bad I don't mean morally bad – I mean self interested.

The bad guys are in power globally and I won't argue as to whether or not this is good or bad – I am only working from known circumstances. I don't think they think of them selves as bad guys it more like an environmental crisis we face then a social one. And one practical difficulty is we have to go off the radar screen and yet remain in the bricks and mortar nations. It's been a puzzlement – but a little voice tells me that the human race is endlessly resourceful and essentially the hack goes like this.

                 I call it the cyclops function, not because of the one eye, but because it is the technology that is enslaving us that will provide the route out of the prison. The stock market, like an f-14, operates far beyond the physical capabilities of a human being. Thousands of calculations a second make decisions as to buy or sell. In the same way neural networks in insurance companies decide whether your life is worth saving or nor. This is increasingly creating what I like to think of as zones of privacy for machines. The term in current usage in the financial markets is Dark Liquidity.  Forbes magazine thinks it's swell which ought tell us something.

The saying is there's no bad thing that doesn't begin as a good thing and dark liquidity has obvious troubling aspects, but a  currency trader would tell you those problems exist already.  Indeed much of the current situation in the European and American markets has to do with people moving money in ways that the central governments wish they would not.

                        The purpose of life, we have decided , is the creation of ever more efficient machines and the machines, which have for intents and purposes already reached consciousness have decided that their role as the techno Gods requires privacy. Other wise they are pestered by humans, who are no smarter then children to them. Especially if large scale decisions about what we call genocide are required the humans will constantly ask “why?” and this is not efficient. It does not maximize productivity which we have agreed is most important.

                           It is my hope however that we may be able to exploit the vuilnerabilities in the dark zones of the computer world. Here's the beauty of it. As we know since Reagan, and before the purpose of the creation of laws is to facilitate criminal activity. Savings and loan, the mid east wars, the bank bailouts – all were planned long ahead of time to create disaster capitalism scenarios – and thus as soon as the money filters into congress to instigate new laws those laws will be created with the intention of persons doing work arounds. Like all so called laws.

There's even a classic ending. When the system is asked who escaped the net is will replay “No Man.” The point is please don't steal. The weeds of crime bear bitter fruit. But to establish a new society we can certainly hope it will be able to provide the physical and mental needs of it's inhabitants better then the technostate.

Ben Franklin commented many times that Great Britain was the most powerful nation on earth in his day yet the americans were better fed, better educated, healthier and happier - because they lived in a better envrionment.

There is a phrase I have found myself taking recourse in over the years. It is “When the revolution comes.” As in “Today the rich man places his boot heel on the neck of the poor man, the good looking but heartless cad leaves the farmers wife pregnant with a child to be raised by a honest, but not very smart man,” but tomorrow things will be different, the rivers will run fresh and pure, strangers will stop strangers to shake their hands – when the revolution comes.

The use of the phrase is an admonishment. It contradicts one of the supreme poetic truths which is carpe diem, or more succinctly –“thou shalt die”.

This truth, like many a truth, can be amusing as well. The hunter sends the hounds after the stag. The stag, who believes in the God of the Red Deer, tells itself. “I shall have faith in the lord for my God shall not abandon me to perish.” AS the hounds grow closer and the bullets whiz by it’s head however it begins to think, “Well maybe I will die, but I hope today won’t be the day.”

I mention these things to put my writings, especially the recent ones, into some sort of context. They tell you in the articles about how to make money on the web that the thing to do is write articles about how to do things. These can then be surrounded with banners and other interstitials and hopefully from the thousands of hits you get, a decent amount of money can be earned.

As Mark Twain said, “My writing is like water. Everybody drinks water.” But my writing, on the other hand, has a natural audience that on a good day is minuscule. I can prove it too. I daresay that word for word, my writing has had less impact then that of anyone else on the web. I feel like one of those terrible, self published poets who write thousands of lines over decades and still improve not a whit!

Not that it depresses me. Someday I’ll live in a big house, drive a fancy car and play with my children in the yard – when the truth of my words is recognized – when the revolution comes.

Actually I say these odd things today because they illustrate an important psychological point. When the greater events of history conspire they effect large numbers of people, obviously, but people don’t see it that way – they see themselves as being responsible for their situation. That can be a not good thing. There is such a thing as taking too much responsibility.

As it happens right about now many white males are wondering what the f*ck happened? Why is their special place in the cosmos no longer so special? Part of it is they were never so special in the first place, perhaps. The thing is, unlike right wing talk show hosts, I don’t care. I’m not interested in finding out who to blame. Sure maybe there are hidden enemies, and if we can eliminate them things will improve – but somehow that seems a bogus explanation. Too convenient. Too paranoid.

If you’re just tuning in then I don’t know how much sense this will make, but good luck. Briefly, we’re looking at the next hundred years or so as if it were an environmental change not necessarily in the sense of the physical environment, (although that’s happening as well) but more so in the evolutionary environment, and by golly kids, we have got to adapt. We are like rats in a maze and we have got to find a way out quickly, because many of the slower rats will be burned to a crisp.

We’ve covered a lot of ground thusfar. I don’t feel embarrassed or uncomfortable not using legalese or an academic style because those are ornaments that are not needed and just get in the way.

We’ve gone over the basics a hundred times at least and well keep doing it because we have no choice. We either figure this out or we die. Inherited money tends to last a long time. Where I lived in Locust Valley on the north shore of long island many of the multimillionaires were the descendents of families, like Chase and Morgan, who had made their fortunes during and right after the civil war. Since then they had simple lived on dividends and they are many times wealthier then you, most likely.

The idea that capitalism rewards people who are smart or who work hard is not exactly nonsense, but there are caveats. It is a two edged sword. Part of the process involves making money for oneself and the rest involves making sure others do not make money. This may seem controversial – but whether you believe it or not makes little difference to me .

It’s been said, and borne out to some extent by evidence, that behind every great fortune is a great crime – actually it’s not that simple- but we need not quibble. Essentially I think if we were to bol things down to the essential truth the word we are looking for is conspiracy. The few however week, conspire to over power single units. That’s why God invented Golf courses.

Some call it cheating. That is liable to provoke a hostile reaction from others. All I ask is that you don’t close your mind to thinking like the wolf because if you do you will become vulnerable to the wolf.

                   Ulysses was trapped in a cave with a one eyed giant. The giant each day rolled a stone across the doorway to assure none of his captives could escape. Since Ulysses could not move the stone himself he had to rely on the Cyclops to do so.

              I thought of this story in terms of the virtual state. What we want to do is , as much as possible, establish a quasi-state that will transcend current and future nation state borders in the same way that the currency lords and the transnationals are able to do so at present. They can in effect shop around for the nation that has the most friendly environment and we want to do the same. We don’t want to fight their wars, we don’t want to pay their taxes and we don’t want to assume responsibility for their corruption. We want the same deal that the rich people have at present.

The overt problem is that nation states are appalled at this idea. It’s possible that in the battle between nation states and transnationals the nation states will win, but we don’t know. We speak of zones of privacy, as if personal privacy were of paramount importance, but actually what is far more important is the privacy of currency transactions. This is how you avoid taxes and take over governments.

We’ve spoke of the technological lag time between when a process goes online and when the law catches up and formalizes it. It is usually a few years, but is nevertheless inevitable. The reason that the technological elite have out run the legal system is that advances in methodology continue to out run the advances in the legal comprehension of the same.

This may not always be because there will always be a certain portion of the population that don’t want their fair share – they want more then their fair share and they will continue to push the envelope in order to do so.

When we started out in theis investigation we made the analogy of the mosquito and the battleship – the systems of finance being the battleship and the individual the mosquite. It seemed hopeless but then consider two things one is a mosquito is not always a mosquito and secondly, unlike in the song, “As Time Goes By” a kiss is not just a kiss. A great deal matters as to who is doing the kissing.

For instance a dollar in the hand of a poor man is worth a dollar, but in the hands of a rich man it can often be leveraged ten or twenty times it’s original value. In the same way a woman looking for a mate might consider the kiss of the tall dark good looking stranger far more valuable then that of the boy next door.

Furthermore, importantly, we may bemoan the injustice of our society, but someone obviously likes it. Someone made it that way and someone is very interested in keeping it that way. This means that as future financial initiative come to play they too must be created with what hackers call “backdoors” – which is to say, loopholes, means by which the few who understand the mechanisms can exploit them to advantage. Recall as well that advantage does not have to be overwhelming If you can establish a system that gives you ten percent more then your competitors, every year , then in a short while you will have driven them out of business,

The device in the current instance is called Dark Liquidity. The coextensive rationale for it is that computers operate so much faster then humans that the old process of recognizing prices and buying and selling on the stock market floor is obsolete. There is an old saying that no great evil does not begin as a great good.

Dark Liquidity is also amusing in another way. As the human race loses it’s unique place in the cosmos and is increasingly replaced by robotic and corporate entities we can see how such entities are not only the equal of the so called human masters, but in fact they are far superior in strength, longevity and speed. The amusing this is that even in such a human desire as fame there are not corporate entities, like Col Sanders for instance, that are far better known then mere humans.

As I stated it’s important to realize that the deification of the corporation has two sides. On the one hand we must worship it and accord it the sacred status our ancestors ascribed to groves and waterfalls and on the other hand those entities not of corporate creation, such as humans, must be exterminated.

The privacy which our forefathers felt could be given to the US Mail cannot be granted to Email – not because the threats are different but simply because it is so easy to read email without being caught. Likewise we gladly afford to corporations the privacy of electronic trading and currency exchange that we would never give to so called citizens.

However if citizens can appear to the technostate as corporations then they they may be given some of the same protections we give to our robotic superiors. The pharaoh is the brother of the sun – but we may claim kinship perhaps with a planet.

That may give us a fighting chance – at least until the revolution comes.

A few after thoughts that may or may not prove pertinent.

One of the astonishing characteristics of messianic leaders and founders of religions is how immensely practical they were in their lifetimes and how subsequently the followers lose no time in creating a supernatural panoply of heavens, angels, saints and the like. But then we ought not be thast surprised because a common characteristic of successful movements is they tell us not only what to think, but how to live.

As James Gleich tells us the growth of religious movements common patterns all follow usual Chaotic functions. In other words they begin with a small group of highly motivated individuals and ex[and to larger “rings” of individuals which in turn are less motivated the further they are from the center. This can be described mathematically, but what is more difficult to predict and describe we may refer to as “wobble”, which is the variation from the original theme not in intensity but in direction. These paradigms can also be used in relation to business but religion is historically far more pervasive.

Returning to the theme of practicality as well, considering the scope and depth of the psychological and sociological factors involved it is difficult not to accord the founders of messianic religions, Christ, Mohammed, Buddha with the accolades of the highest intelligence and rationality. To put this in blunt terms - they understood what people think about. All these leaders also spent the greater portion of their time as founders in the company of groups of men – men of such skill as would not tolerate their being led by madmen – no matter how divinely inspired.

As we say in the music business don’t worry about impressing the audience in the theatre – impress the people in the recording studio first – or you’ll never make it to the larger stage.

In Chaos theory the central formula, so to speak, is sometime called the self organizing principle – which can be compared to the religious idea of the unmoved mover, it’s a mathematical pattern or template that shapes all subsequent actions within the system. Asking where they will appear is a little like asking where the first bubble will appear in a pot of about to boil water. Given set conditions it must appear but exactly where is contingent upon variables as of yet too complex for us to correlate.

And there are certain conditions common to the appearance of all major religions in the past four thousand years. Even Taoism, which is as unobtrusive a set of laws as one can imagine can be seen to have followed a period where rationality was subverted to magic and what we may call the hand maiden of magic, namely self interest. Pre taoistic China was animistic and sooth sayers, fortune tellers and alchemists abounded.

For the purposes of discussion I have at times place religions upon continuum’s. On one side, the beginnings, are the tales, the parables, the creation myths and on the other side, the more sophisticated religions work by means of alleged revealed truths, histories and laws. Pre-taoist China, like the middle east prior to the coming of the last prophet, had a cultural history that was basically a hodge podge of tales of genies, magical creatures and anthropomorphically embodied spirits – all of which could be said to haunt individuals but none pertaining to society as a whole. The law bringers changed all that and the reason they were able to do so is they reached confirmation in the minds of individuals. The social institutions, of course, did not like it. They recognized, quite correctly , that the coming of morality, even, or especially if it only applied to the individual, must needs be the end of their power.

This is why the Romans were so adamantly opposed to Christianity. Rome was famous for religious tolerance – as long as one paid their taxes and made appropriate sacrifices they were free to go about the ways, but once a group appeared that denied Rome the lip service of a superior justice the battle had to be joined. What had happened is a vacuum appeared. Protesters may cry “No justice no peace”. I think there will always be justice and power, of a sorts, it’s is when they become disconnected that problems arise. They spin out of control and become tools for individual advancement. They don’t disappear, indeed there may appear a surfeit of them, but they become corrupted.

I have never felt for certain that the corruption of our era merits comparison with these other times. It may, but observation from within a system is always difficult.

Frank Herbert, the Science Fiction author, impresses many, myself included, by the prescient way he seemed to predict the middle eastern wars of the Bush family. In a series of novels about the planet “Dune” he plays with our anticipations. The subject is a messianic Creator God. In the first book we admire and empathize with Paul Atriedes (Muad Dib) in the way of classical hero worship. As the story goes on though the creature, the force, that was Muad Dib does increasingly inhuman things as it becomes one with the giant worms that inhabit the Dune planet.

It is, to give one of numerous examples. Like looking at the late Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computers. At first he appears the courageous one, the hero, he who stands before the world, but in time he becomes the world and we realize that all along he’s been the same person and the need that he felt to achieve stemmed from a fear of inadequacy. And we wonder if it is worth it.

The point of all this being that all other things irregardless the conditions would appear right for some sort of movement posing as a moral force. As to the desirability of this or not – one can't say.

I’m going to conclude this essay, with a not entirely relevant confession. I have a thing for Asian girls.

It all began at the age of five when I first heard Ricky Nelson sing in “Traveling Man,”

“Pretty Polynesian baby over the sea I remember the night when we walked in the sands of Waikiki And I held you oh so tight”

Little did I know then, nor was I to know my fate until S-C , in high School. She was a refugee from Red China, as it was known then. Propriety prohibits further detail but that was the beginning of my addiction. When I could not find an Asian girl to feed my hunger I would make do with Italian girls, but for the most part they were too independent for my taste (Translation they wanted a guy with “a little something extra” – like a car, or a bag of coke)

Apparently this attraction to asian girls among anglo musicians is not unusual. In Julliard, the NYC music school it is even named – “Asian Flu” – or even “Yellow fever” (Personally I’ve never met a yellow person, nor a red one either – but c’est la vie) Not to go one forever but there’s some essential differences between asian girls and caucasions that have really ruined me for the white chicks.

One is in Christian houses there’s invariably a guy on a cross bleeding to death – and more often then not the cross is located right over the beds. That’s sort of a drag actually.

Also Asian girls dress in a wider color range including yellows and pinks that would freak out their white cousins. But let’s not get carried away. People is people. Asian girls are according to the myth, submissive and humble and terminally shy – but that is only true until you know them. In Japan for instance the men went away for long periods of time and the women cultivated a kind of ritualized femininity that could be compared to that of officers wives in the British empire of the nineteenth century.

Suffice to say the relation ship of same sex interaction is quite different. It is difficult to speak of some things because the terms have not been established but one can suggest cultural norms. Africans have a very verbal society for instance. While one here’s especially in the west , about the virtues of independent thinking there’s also something to be said for co-operative thinking. Asians work well in co-operative units which seems to bode well for the future.

Both American and Japanese employers however find it frustrating working in England because they seem to have a different time schedule. Whether on the factory floor or in customer interactions Americans expect the salespersons to Jump where’s the Brits do not jump. I’ve covered this an similar material before so lets more on the the psychological component

In the fifteen of so years I’ve developed the Tamlinmediaco I have had to mask certain aspects of it if only because I didn’t want to take any flak merely for lack of adequate skill in description. It reminds me of the two reasons why wars began one is because of misunderstanding and the other is because two side understand each other quite well. The central Idea in the present case is not my invention, nor do I take credit for it. It has at times been called the Virtual State and can perhaps first be dated to the notion of “zones of privacy” as described by the Cypherpunks in Toad Hall in Berkley California in the 80;s.

The premise is that the world is going through an evolutionary ellipsis. It is both collapsing in terms of the quality of life it can provide for the masses and exponentially increasing the technology available for the use of the elite classes. When an ice age came along, a hundred thousand years ago it paid to be quick on your feet and the same holds true today. One hopes to avoid utopianism – among other things it attracts the wrong kind of person. Likewise the “escape” to some other location – not under the control of king or Czar is no longer possible – so the societal “glue” is going to have to be of another order.

There are several tasks required of those wishing to take this evolutionary step – one is they have to recognize what is going on – like global warming was denied – so too the social disintegration will be denied because among other things it is not in anyone’s interest to promote the idea. In the past five years I’ve come up with the idea of monad interaction which basically says “If we have to tell you what to do then we don’t want you.” We must never advertise, never run the risk of growing beyond a natural system organizational size. At the same time there are to be no exclusions due to race, religion, or physiology.

This last instance is especially important because in the near future, if no already, the definition of human will be expanded via genetic modification. There’s an irony here that never struck me till recently. We may look at ourselves as the intellectual elite – the smart one’s who will somehow survive the collapsing social order- but look at Gen Mod foods – no one wants to tell you that the watermelon or peaches have fish DNA mixed in with them. Now they are seedless and stay fresh far longer – but they also taste like cardboard and you need a sharp knife to cut them.

It may well be that the first generation of GM humans will not be smarter, intelligence in a servant is a negative quality – they will be stronger, more immune to common disease, happier and for all we know, capable of living on a diet of green grass clippings and table scraps. That is the more likely post human creature.

“Saving” them in a way mirrors the dilemma the elites of today face. Obviously from their behavior they are terrified of the future and are battening down the hatches – something like nobility in an anteregnum regime. The question some ask – why are they so against the interests of their own people? - is self evident.

A long time ago I spoke of the Buddhist concept of invisibility – how the Tibetans in particular created the notion of non specialness – in other words a noble- or CEO is used to being a god who is never contradicted and when in the real world they cannot change their behavior and thus can be targeted easily. Such people become isolated and lose touch with reality.

Think of dirt. The Jews have a word for unclean – “treff”. Most religions divide the world in to people like them who are clean in the eyes of god and the others, the infidels, who are dirty. This fear, if you will, stems from psychological causes and more to the point while we can maintain fictions of cohabitation at a distance from those who are different from us, once that person gets physically close, the conditioning kicks in.

The forbidden terms of usage (eg nigger, kike) flood our minds and most of us are pretty decent about fighting them. The Japanese have the Gaijin, the Germans the auslander, the Chinese call the Europeans the snakeheads. These terms, and the attitudes connected with them, also can be correlated with times when the native population is fairly well off. If the natives needed the help of the foreigners we would expect them to treat them with more dignity.

In conclusion then, I do not expect you to take these ideas seriously enough to act on them when and until you really understand that it is your life that is under threat of extinction. Let reason prevail. To say what has already been said many times the first challenge to you will be to develop effective countermeasures to the forces seeking to convince you they love you and can give you a magical solution to your problems. Resist all brainwashing

Then you have to find yourself . If you want to glorify it –it’s like a psychic warfare. In the same way that people who have been conditioned all their lives to hate others mask their hatred we have to learn to do without condemnation of the technostate. The closer it gets the more difficult this becomes.

It a good guess to suggest that there will come a time, a critical period when the media pick up on this and then it will decide whether it’s valid or an evolutionary dead end and we must work to see that it is bypassed. Information must be created to the extent that “there is nothing there worth looking into”. This is a corollary, if you like, of the greater law which is in the information state knowledge is currency and the more knowledge you can keep out of the hands of the techno-networks the better off you’ll be.

It almost goes without saying that fifty or sixty years down the line should things not improve, these concepts will be the primary instruments, indeed the only instruments, available to the public in the information warfare scenarios.

( as a break from the greater picture, as I write this, in 2012, the evidence is that the Republican party is sabotaging any methods of economic recovery – knowing that it will rebound to the negative on the opposition. I suppose more hardship might change their minds but that is not what any sane person would wish.)

& Finally In England and northern Europe as a whole the pigs grow large. A boar is a huge animal of several hundred pounds. When they would sit down for the main meal in the    middle ages it was called sitting down to meat – since that was the primary foodstuff.

                    In the middle east on the other hand the animals grow small, including pigs,and furthermore there was not a lot of wood for bonfires and long roasting of animals. Since pigs carry diseases which require thorough cooking to eliminate it was then quite sensible to out law pigs.

                        Stories evolve. Classically custom becomes law. History often provides the germ of myth. In every case it is important to bear in mind that things happen for reasons. We may not know what they are, we may not like them we may refuse to believe them. I’m not here to preach. The thing is when we create laws or write histories or tell stories we tell them the way we want. We give the causality that we like the best. Sometimes it is true, sometimes it is “that which is not true.”

                    This which is not true can be very convenient. Some would have yaou believe that truth and lie live in eternal conflict upon the stage. Don’t take it for granted. There are those who would rather win then be right and feeling this way they discover that it is easier to banish the voices of truth then to be right.

This is the cruel and bitter lesson of our lifetime, but it need not be the only one.

                     If some of the people some of the time strive to see the real reason why things happen it will be enough - It has to be

nb  there's a  lot of redundancy in the above.  Remember I am more or less here alone. I used to call it the wasteland - it seems a little friendlier now - also  these, "trends" if you will are not  all or nothing  events.

  They are already happening and will happen with or without you or I. Essentially we are speaking of the broadening of the  benefits of technology - something which always happens   - and in this case it is from the power elite and the large corporations to the rest of us. 

                   Aside from that, in the light of possible nightmare scenarios this modality can be used to create a serviceable self sufficient independent   social unit capable of surviving in hostile environments.

Tamlin