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.