Showing posts with label Gold. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gold. Show all posts

Friday 6 November 2020

Rear Projection

 




Reclaiming Our Projections 


When we find ourselves clinging to someone, caught in the unconscious grip and illegitimate demand on him or her, it is difficult, but possible, to let go. Dr. von Franz helped me with this when she said, “Don’t behave as though your projection is a dog you can whistle home anytime you want it.” The next time you ask some- one to carry your gold, make the effort to know what is going on. Stay in contact with your own gold as you put it on someone else. If you ask her to carry that numinous, glow-in-the-dark quality for you, understand that doing so will obscure her from you as a person. 


Naming the process helps. It’s the beginning of consciousness. Why do I have such a strong feeling when I look at her? Do I really see her? Do I love her? Or am I in love with her, putting a bell jar of numinosity over her, which obliterates her from my sight? 


We are rarely conscious of what is going on, and our gold is bouncing around everywhere, out of control. Alchemical, inner gold, our most precious possession, is sputtering on the street. We barely understand how much of What We Perceive in Others and The Outside World are actually parts of ourselves. 


Please observe the energy investments you make. The exchange of inner gold is occurring all the time. Try to be conscious of it. We cannot contain it in traditional ways. We need to create new language and new ways for increasing our awareness




 “We have three years of the past to discuss. Let that suffice until half-past nine, when we start upon the notable adventure of the empty house.” 


It was indeed like old times when, at that hour, I found myself seated beside him in a hansom, my revolver in my pocket, and the thrill of adventure in my heart. Holmes was cold and stern and silent. As the gleam of the street-lamps flashed upon his austere features, I saw that his brows were drawn down in thought and his thin lips compressed. I knew not what wild beast we were about to hunt down in the dark jungle of criminal London, but I was well assured, from the bearing of this master huntsman, that the adventure was a most grave one—while the sardonic smile which occasionally broke through his ascetic gloom boded little good for the object of our quest. 


I had imagined that we were bound for Baker Street, but Holmes stopped the cab at the corner of Cavendish Square. I observed that as he stepped out he gave a most searching glance to right and left, and at every subsequent street corner he took the utmost pains to assure that he was not followed. Our route was certainly a singular one. Holmes’s knowledge of the byways of London was extraordinary, and on this occasion he passed rapidly and with an assured step through a network of mews and stables, the very existence of which I had never known. 


We emerged at last into a small road, lined with old, gloomy houses, which led us into Manchester Street, and so to Blandford Street. Here he turned swiftly down a narrow passage, passed through a wooden gate into a deserted yard, and then opened with a key the back door of a house. We entered together, and he closed it behind us. 


The place was pitch dark, but it was evident to me that it was an empty house. Our feet creaked and crackled over the bare planking, and my outstretched hand touched a wall from which the paper was hanging in ribbons. Holmes’s cold, thin fingers closed round my wrist and led me forward down a long hall, until I dimly saw the murky fanlight over the door. Here Holmes turned suddenly to the right and we found ourselves in a large, square, empty room, heavily shadowed in the corners, but faintly lit in the centre from the lights of the street beyond. There was no lamp near, and the window was thick with dust, so that we could only just discern each other’s figures within. My companion put his hand upon my shoulder and his lips close to my ear. 


“Do you know where we are?” he whispered. 


“Surely that is Baker Street,” I answered, staring through the dim window. 


“Exactly. We are in Camden House, which stands opposite to our own old quarters.” 


“But why are we here?” 


“Because it commands so excellent a view of that picturesque pile. Might I trouble you, my dear Watson, to draw a little nearer to the window, taking every precaution not to show yourself, and then to look up at our old rooms—the starting-point of so many of your little fairy-tales? We will see if my three years of absence have entirely taken away my power to surprise you.” 


I crept forward and looked across at the familiar window. As my eyes fell upon it, I gave a gasp and a cry of amazement. The blind was down, and a strong light was burning in the room. The shadow of a man who was seated in a chair within was thrown in hard, black outline upon the luminous screen of the window. There was no mistaking the poise of the head, the squareness of the shoulders, the sharpness of the features. The face was turned half-round, and the effect was that of one of those black silhouettes which our grandparents loved to frame. 


It was a perfect reproduction of Holmes. So amazed was I that I threw out my hand to make sure that the man himself was standing beside me. 


He was quivering with silent laughter. 


“Well?” said he. 


“Good heavens!” I cried. “It is marvellous.” 


“I trust that age doth not wither nor custom stale my infinite variety,” said he, and I recognized in his voice the joy and pride which the artist takes in his own creation. “It really is rather like me, is it not?” 


“I should be prepared to swear that it was you.” 


“The credit of the execution is due to Monsieur Oscar Meunier, of Grenoble, who spent some days in doing the moulding. It is a bust in wax. The rest I arranged myself during my visit to Baker Street this afternoon.” 


“But why?” 


“Because, my dear Watson, I had the strongest possible reason for wishing certain people to think that I was there when I was really elsewhere.” 


“And you thought the rooms were watched?” 


“I knew that they were watched.” 


“By whom?” 


“By my old enemies, Watson. By the charming society whose leader lies in the Reichenbach Fall. You must remember that they knew, and only they knew, that I was still alive. Sooner or later they believed that I should come back to my rooms. They watched them continuously, and this morning they saw me arrive.” 


“How do you know?” 


“Because I recognized their sentinel when I glanced out of my window. He is a harmless enough fellow, Parker by name, a garroter by trade, and a remarkable performer upon the jew’s-harp. I cared nothing for him. But I cared a great deal for the much more formidable person who was behind him, the bosom friend of Moriarty, the man who dropped the rocks over the cliff, the most cunning and dangerous criminal in London. That is the man who is after me to-night Watson, and that is the man who is quite unaware that we are after him.” 


My friend’s plans were gradually revealing themselves. From this convenient retreat, the watchers were being watched and the trackers tracked. That angular shadow up yonder was the bait, and we were the hunters. In silence we stood together in the darkness and watched the hurrying figures who passed and repassed in front of us. Holmes was silent and motionless; but I could tell that he was keenly alert, and that his eyes were fixed intently upon the stream of passers-by. It was a bleak and boisterous night and the wind whistled shrilly down the long street. Many people were moving to and fro, most of them muffled in their coats and cravats. Once or twice it seemed to me that I had seen the same figure before, and I especially noticed two men who appeared to be sheltering themselves from the wind in the doorway of a house some distance up the street. I tried to draw my companion’s attention to them; but he gave a little ejaculation of impatience, and continued to stare into the street. More than once he fidgeted with his feet and tapped rapidly with his fingers upon the wall. It was evident to me that he was becoming uneasy, and that his plans were not working out altogether as he had hoped. At last, as midnight approached and the street gradually cleared, he paced up and down the room in uncontrollable agitation. I was about to make some remark to him, when I raised my eyes to the lighted window, and again experienced almost as great a surprise as before. I clutched Holmes’s arm, and pointed upward. 


“The shadow has moved!” I cried. 


It was indeed no longer the profile, but the back, which was turned towards us. 


Three years had certainly not smoothed the asperities of his temper or his impatience with a less active intelligence than his own. “Of course it has moved,” said he. “Am I such a farcical bungler, Watson, that I should erect an obvious dummy, and expect that some of the sharpest men in Europe would be deceived by it? We have been in this room two hours, and Mrs. Hudson has made some change in that figure eight times, or once in every quarter of an hour. She works it from the front, so that her shadow may never be seen. Ah!” 

He drew in his breath with a shrill, excited intake. In the dim light I saw his head thrown forward, his whole attitude rigid with attention. Outside the street was absolutely deserted. Those two men might still be crouching in the doorway, but I could no longer see them. All was still and dark, save only that brilliant yellow screen in front of us with the black figure outlined upon its centre. Again in the utter silence I heard that thin, sibilant note which spoke of intense suppressed excitement. An instant later he pulled me back into the blackest corner of the room, and I felt his warning hand upon my lips. The fingers which clutched me were quivering. Never had I known my friend more moved, and yet the dark street still stretched lonely and motionless before us. 


 But suddenly I was aware of that which his keener senses had already distinguished. A low, stealthy sound came to my ears, not from the direction of Baker Street, but from the back of the very house in which we lay concealed. A door opened and shut. An instant later steps crept down the passage—steps which were meant to be silent, but which reverberated harshly through the empty house. Holmes crouched back against the wall, and I did the same, my hand closing upon the handle of my revolver. Peering through the gloom, I saw the vague outline of a man, a shade blacker than the blackness of the open door. He stood for an instant, and then he crept forward, crouching, menacing, into the room. He was within three yards of us, this sinister figure, and I had braced myself to meet his spring, before I realized that he had no idea of our presence. He passed close beside us, stole over to the window, and very softly and noiselessly raised it for half a foot. As he sank to the level of this opening, the light of the street, no longer dimmed by the dusty glass, fell full upon his face. The man seemed to be beside himself with excitement. His two eyes shone like stars, and his features were working convulsively. He was an elderly man, with a thin, projecting nose, a high, bald forehead, and a huge grizzled moustache. An opera hat was pushed to the back of his head, and an evening dress shirt-front gleamed out through his open overcoat. His face was gaunt and swarthy, scored with deep, savage lines. In his hand he carried what appeared to be a stick, but as he laid it down upon the floor it gave a metallic clang. Then from the pocket of his overcoat he drew a bulky object, and he busied himself in some task which ended with a loud, sharp click, as if a spring or bolt had fallen into its place. Still kneeling upon the floor he bent forward and threw all his weight and strength upon some lever, with the result that there came a long, whirling, grinding noise, ending once more in a powerful click. He straightened himself then, and I saw that what he held in his hand was a sort of gun, with a curiously misshapen butt. He opened it at the breech, put something in, and snapped the breech-lock. Then, crouching down, he rested the end of the barrel upon the ledge of the open window, and I saw his long moustache droop over the stock and his eye gleam as it peered along the sights. I heard a little sigh of satisfaction as he cuddled the butt into his shoulder; and saw that amazing target, the black man on the yellow ground, standing clear at the end of his foresight. For an instant he was rigid and motionless. Then his finger tightened on the trigger. There was a strange, loud whiz and a long, silvery tinkle of broken glass. At that instant Holmes sprang like a tiger on to the marksman’s back, and hurled him flat upon his face. He was up again in a moment, and with convulsive strength he seized Holmes by the throat, but I struck him on the head with the butt of my revolver, and he dropped again upon the floor. I fell upon him, and as I held him my comrade blew a shrill call upon a whistle. There was the clatter of running feet upon the pavement, and two policemen in uniform, with one plain-clothes detective, rushed through the front entrance and into the room. 


“That you, Lestrade?” said Holmes. 


“Yes, Mr. Holmes. I took the job myself. It’s good to see you back in London, sir.” 


“I think you want a little unofficial help. Three undetected murders in one year won’t do, Lestrade. But you handled the Molesey Mystery with less than your usual—that’s to say, you handled it fairly well.” 


We had all risen to our feet, our prisoner breathing hard, with a stalwart constable on each side of him. Already a few loiterers had begun to collect in the street. Holmes stepped up to the window, closed it, and dropped the blinds. Lestrade had produced two candles, and the policemen had uncovered their lanterns. I was able at last to have a good look at our prisoner. 


It was a tremendously virile and yet sinister face which was turned towards us. With the brow of a philosopher above and the jaw of a sensualist below, the man must have started with great capacities for good or for evil. But one could not look upon his cruel blue eyes, with their drooping, cynical lids, or upon the fierce, aggressive nose and the threatening, deep-lined brow, without reading Nature’s plainest danger-signals. He took no heed of any of us, but his eyes were fixed upon Holmes’s face with an expression in which hatred and amazement were equally blended. “You fiend!” he kept on muttering. “You clever, clever fiend!” 


“Ah, Colonel!” said Holmes, arranging his rumpled collar. “‘Journeys end in lovers’ meetings,’ as the old play says. I don’t think I have had the pleasure of seeing you since you favoured me with those attentions as I lay on the ledge above the Reichenbach Fall.” 


The colonel still stared at my friend like a man in a trance. “You cunning, cunning fiend!” was all that he could say. 


 “I have not introduced you yet,” said Holmes. “This, gentlemen, is Colonel Sebastian Moran, once of Her Majesty’s Indian Army, and the best heavy-game shot that our Eastern Empire has ever produced. I believe I am correct Colonel, in saying that your bag of tigers still remains unrivalled?” 


The fierce old man said nothing, but still glared at my companion. With his savage eyes and bristling moustache he was wonderfully like a tiger himself. 


“I wonder that my very simple stratagem could deceive so old a shikari,” said Holmes. “It must be very familiar to you. Have you not tethered a young kid under a tree, lain above it with your rifle, and waited for the bait to bring up your tiger? This empty house is my tree, and you are my tiger. You have possibly had other guns in reserve in case there should be several tigers, or in the unlikely supposition of your own aim failing you. These,” he pointed around, “are my other guns. The parallel is exact.” Colonel Moran sprang forward with a snarl of rage, but the constables dragged him back. The fury upon his face was terrible to look at. 


“I confess that you had one small surprise for me,” said Holmes. “I did not anticipate that you would yourself make use of this empty house and this convenient front window. I had imagined you as operating from the street, where my friend, Lestrade and his merry men were awaiting you. With that exception, all has gone as I expected.” 


Colonel Moran turned to the official detective. 


“You may or may not have just cause for arresting me,” said he, “but at least there can be no reason why I should submit to the gibes of this person. If I am in the hands of the law, let things be done in a legal way.” 


“Well, that’s reasonable enough,” said Lestrade. “Nothing further you have to say, Mr. Holmes, before we go?” Holmes had picked up the powerful air-gun from the floor, and was examining its mechanism. 


“An admirable and unique weapon,” said he, “noiseless and of tremendous power: I knew Von Herder, the blind German mechanic, who constructed it to the order of the late Professor Moriarty. For years I have been aware of its existence though I have never before had the opportunity of handling it. I commend it very specially to your attention, Lestrade and also the bullets which fit it.” 


“You can trust us to look after that, Mr. Holmes,” said Lestrade, as the whole party moved towards the door. “Anything further to say?” 


“Only to ask what charge you intend to prefer?” 


“What charge, sir? Why, of course, the attempted murder of Mr. Sherlock Holmes.” 


“Not so, Lestrade. I do not propose to appear in the matter at all. To you, and to you only, belongs the credit of the remarkable arrest which you have effected. Yes, Lestrade, I congratulate you! With your usual happy mixture of cunning and audacity, you have got him.” 


“Got him! Got whom, Mr. Holmes?” 


“The man that the whole force has been seeking in vain—Colonel Sebastian Moran, who shot the Honourable Ronald Adair with an expanding bullet from an air-gun through the open window of the second-floor front of No. 427, Park Lane, upon the thirtieth of last month. That’s the charge, Lestrade. And now, Watson, if you can endure the draught from a broken window, I think that half an hour in my study over a cigar may afford you some profitable amusement.” 


Our old chambers had been left unchanged through the supervision of Mycroft Holmes and the immediate care of Mrs. Hudson. As I entered I saw, it is true, an unwonted tidiness, but the old landmarks were all in their place. There were the chemical corner and the acid-stained, deal-topped table. There upon a shelf was the row of formidable scrap-books and books of reference which many of our fellow-citizens would have been so glad to burn. The diagrams, the violin-case, and the pipe-rack—even the Persian slipper which contained the tobacco—all met my eyes as I glanced round me. There were two occupants of the room—one, Mrs. Hudson, who beamed upon us both as we entered—the other, the strange dummy which had played so important a part in the evening’s adventures. It was a wax-coloured model of my friend, so admirably done that it was a perfect facsimile. It stood on a small pedestal table with an old dressing-gown of Holmes’s so draped round it that the illusion from the street was absolutely perfect. 


“I hope you observed all precautions, Mrs. Hudson?” said Holmes. 


“I went to it on my knees, sir, just as you told me.” 


“Excellent. You carried the thing out very well. Did you observe where the bullet went?” 


“Yes, sir. I’m afraid it has spoilt your beautiful bust, for it passed right through the head and flattened itself on the wall. I picked it up from the carpet. Here it is!” 


Holmes held it out to me. “A soft revolver bullet, as you perceive, Watson. There’s genius in that, for who would expect to find such a thing fired from an airgun? All right, Mrs. Hudson. I am much obliged for your assistance. And now, Watson, let me see you in your old seat once more, for there are several points which I should like to discuss with you.” 


He had thrown off the seedy frockcoat, and now he was the Holmes of old in the mouse-coloured dressing-gown which he took from his effigy. “The old shikari’s nerves have not lost their steadiness, nor his eyes their keenness,” said he, with a laugh, as he inspected the shattered forehead of his bust. 


“Plumb in the middle of the back of the head and smack through the brain. He was the best shot in India, and I expect that there are few better in London. Have you heard the name?” 


“No, I have not.” 


“Well, well, such is fame! But, then, if I remember right, you had not heard the name of Professor James Moriarty, who had one of the great brains of the century. Just give me down my index of biographies from the shelf.” 


He turned over the pages lazily, leaning back in his chair and blowing great clouds from his cigar. 


“My collection of M’s is a fine one,” said he. “Moriarty himself is enough to make any letter illustrious, and here is Morgan the poisoner, and Merridew of abominable memory, and Mathews, who knocked out my left canine in the waiting-room at Charing Cross, and, finally, here is our friend of to-night.” 


He handed over the book, and I read: Moran, Sebastian, Colonel. Unemployed. Formerly 1st Bangalore Pioneers. Born London, 1840. Son of Sir Augustus Moran, C.B., once British Minister to Persia. Educated Eton and Oxford. Served in Jowaki Campaign, Afghan Campaign, Charasiab (despatches), Sherpur, and Cabul. Author of Heavy Game of the Western Himalayas (1881); Three Months in the Jungle (1884). Address: Conduit Street. Clubs: The Anglo-Indian, the Tankerville, the Bagatelle Card Club. 


On the margin was written, in Holmes’s precise hand: The second most dangerous man in London. 


“This is astonishing,” said I, as I handed back the volume. “The man’s career is that of an honourable soldier.” 


“It is true,” Holmes answered. “Up to a certain point he did well. He was always a man of iron nerve, and the story is still told in India how he crawled down a drain after a wounded man-eating tiger. There are some trees, Watson, which grow to a certain height, and then suddenly develop some unsightly eccentricity. You will see it often in humans. I have a theory that the individual represents in his development the whole procession of his ancestors, and that such a sudden turn to good or evil stands for some strong influence which came into the line of his pedigree. The person becomes, as it were, the epitome of the history of his own family.” 


“It is surely rather fanciful.” 


“Well, I don’t insist upon it. Whatever the cause, Colonel Moran began to go wrong. Without any open scandal, he still made India too hot to hold him. He retired, came to London, and again acquired an evil name. It was at this time that he was sought out by Professor Moriarty, to whom for a time he was chief of the staff. Moriarty supplied him liberally with money, and used him only in one or two very high-class jobs, which no ordinary criminal could have undertaken. You may have some recollection of the death of Mrs. Stewart, of Lauder, in 1887. Not? Well, I am sure Moran was at the bottom of it, but nothing could be proved. So cleverly was the colonel concealed that, even when the Moriarty gang was broken up, we could not incriminate him. You remember at that date, when I called upon you in your rooms, how I put up the shutters for fear of air-guns? No doubt you thought me fanciful. I knew exactly what I was doing, for I knew of the existence of this remarkable gun, and I knew also that one of the best shots in the world would be behind it. When we were in Switzerland he followed us with Moriarty, and it was undoubtedly he who gave me that evil five minutes on the Reichenbach ledge. 


“You may think that I read the papers with some attention during my sojourn in France, on the look-out for any chance of laying him by the heels. So long as he was free in London, my life would really not have been worth living. Night and day the shadow would have been over me, and sooner or later his chance must have come. What could I do? I could not shoot him at sight, or I should myself be in the dock. There was no use appealing to a magistrate. They cannot interfere on the strength of what would appear to them to be a wild suspicion. So I could do nothing. But I watched the criminal news, knowing that sooner or later I should get him. Then came the death of this Ronald Adair. My chance had come at last. Knowing what I did, was it not certain that Colonel Moran had done it? He had played cards with the lad, he had followed him home from the club, he had shot him through the open window. There was not a doubt of it. The bullets alone are enough to put his head in a noose. I came over at once. I was seen by the sentinel, who would, I knew, direct the colonel’s attention to my presence. He could not fail to connect my sudden return with his crime, and to be terribly alarmed. I was sure that he would make an attempt to get me out of the way at once, and would bring round his murderous weapon for that purpose. I left him an excellent mark in the window, and, having warned the police that they might be needed—by the way, Watson, you spotted their presence in that doorway with unerring accuracy—I took up what seemed to me to be a judicious post for observation, never dreaming that he would choose the same spot for his attack. Now, my dear Watson, does anything remain for me to explain?” 


“Yes,” said I. “You have not made it clear what was Colonel Moran’s motive in murdering the Honourable Ronald Adair?” 


“Ah! my dear Watson, there we come into those realms of conjecture, where the most logical mind may be at fault. Each may form his own hypothesis upon the present evidence, and yours is as likely to be correct as mine.” 


“You have formed one, then?” 


“I think that it is not difficult to explain the facts. It came out in evidence that Colonel Moran and young Adair had, between them, won a considerable amount of money. Now, Moran undoubtedly played foul—of that I have long been aware. I believe that on the day of the murder Adair had discovered that Moran was cheating. Very likely he had spoken to him privately, and had threatened to expose him unless he voluntarily resigned his membership of the club, and promised not to play cards again. It is unlikely that a youngster like Adair would at once make a hideous scandal by exposing a well-known man so much older than himself. Probably he acted as I suggest. The exclusion from his clubs would mean ruin to Moran, who lived by his ill-gotten card-gains. He therefore murdered Adair, who at the time was endeavouring to work out how much money he should himself return, since he could not profit by his partner’s foul play. He locked the door lest the ladies should surprise him and insist upon knowing what he was doing with these names and coins. Will it pass?” 


“I have no doubt that you have hit upon the truth.” 


“It will be verified or disproved at the trial. Meanwhile, come what may, Colonel Moran will trouble us no more. The famous air-gun of Von Herder will embellish the Scotland Yard Museum, and once again Mr. Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to examining those interesting little problems which the complex life of London so plentifully presents.”

Monday 9 March 2020

SPRITE





THE SPIRIT OF THE CAVE


“There’s this Simpsons episode, 
and Homer downs a quart of 
Mayonnaise and Vodka. 
 
And Marge says, 'You know, 
you shouldn't really do that.’ 

 
And Homer says, 
That’s a problem for Future-Homer -- 
I’m sure glad I’m not 33s guy!’ 
  
The You That’s Out There in The Future is sort of like Another Person, and so figuring out How to Conduct Yourself Properly in relationship to Your Future Self isn’t much different than figuring out How to Conduct Yourself in relationship to Other People. 
 
Then we can expand the constraints. Not only does the interpretation that you extract have to protect you from suffering and give you an aim, but it has to do it in a way that’s iterable, so it works across time, and then it has to work in The Presence of Other People, so that You can cooperate with them and compete with them in a way that doesn't make you suffer more. 
 
People are Not That Tolerant. They have Choices
 
They don’t have to hang around with you; They can hang around with any one of these other primates. 
 
So if you don’t act properly, at least within certain boundaries, you’re just cast aside. 

People are broadcasting information at you, all the time, about How You Need to Interpret The World, so They can tolerate being around you. 
 
And you need that because, socially isolated, You’re Insane, and then You're Dead. No one can tolerate being alone for any length of time. 
 
We can’t retain Our Own Sanity without continual feedback from Other People. 
 
It’s too damned complicated.  
 
You’re constrained by Your Own Existence, and then you're constrained by The Existence of Other People, and then you're also constrained by The World.  
 
If I read Hamlet and what I extracted out of that is the idea that I should jump off a bridge, it puts my interpretation to an end rather quickly. It doesn’t seem to be optimally functional

An Interpretation is constrained by The Reality of The World. 
 
It’s constrained by The Reality of Other People, and it’s constrained by Your Reality Across Time.  
 
There’s only a small number of interpretations that are going to work in that tightly defined space. 
 
That’s part of The Reason That Postmodernists are Wrong. It’s also part of the reason, by the way, that AI people who are trying to make intelligent machines have had to put them in A Body.  
 
It turns out that you just can’t make Something Intelligent without it being embodied, and it’s partly for the reasons that I've just described. 
 
You need constraints on The System, so that The System doesn’t drown in An Infinite Sea of Interpretation. It’s something like that.



THE SON :
Are you her?

THE FATHER :
Thats Our Lady of The Immaculate Heart. 

The Ones Who Made Us are always looking for 
The Ones That Made Them

They go in, look around their feet, sing songs, 
and when They come out, it's usually me they find. 

I've picked up a lot of business in this spot.

THE SON :
But Joe, where's Blue Fairy?

THE FATHER :
That's what we're gonna find out when we ask Dr. Know. 

It's Where Everyone Goes Who Needs to Know.

Meet The Good Doctor!



DOCTOR KNOW'S SHOP

THE SPIRIT OF THE CAVE :
Starving Minds, Welcome to Dr. Know! 

Where fast-food for thought is served up 24 hours a day, in 40,000 locations nationwide. 

Ask Dr. Know, There's Nothing I Don't!
 
THE SON :
Tell me where I can find The Blue Fairy.

THE SPIRIT OF THE CAVE :
Question Me, You Pay The Fee, 
Two for Five, You Get One Free!

THE FATHER :
He means two questions cost five Newbucks with a third
question on The House. 

In This Day and Age, David, 
Nothing Costs More Than Information.
 
THE SON :
That's Everything!

THE FATHER :
Ten Newbucks and a ten copper comes to 7 questions for Dr. Know.
 
THE SON :
That should be enough!

THE FATHER :
He's a Smooth Operator. 
He'll Test Our Limits, 
but Try, We Must!

DR.THE SPIRIT OF THE CAVE :
Greetings Colleagues. 

On author, factual text or fictionalised text, 1st or 3rd person, usual literacy range from primal level to the post doctural, usual span of styles from fairy tale to religious, who's who, or wheres where - or, Flat Fact.
 
THE SON :
Flat-fact?

•!DING!•

THE SPIRIT OF THE CAVE :
Thank you for Question Number One!
 
'Flat-fact' is a term demanding an equal answer with interpretive speculation... merely not the... and what you are saying is basically that is what you-

THE SON :
That shouldn't count! 
That wasn't My Question!

THE FATHER :
You must take care not to raise Your Voice up at The End of
a Sentence.
'Flat-fact'.

Dr.KNOW :
You have 6 more questions!
 
THE SON :
Where is Blue Fair-REE?

•!DING!•

THE SPIRIT OF THE CAVE  :
In The Garden. 
 
Vascostylis blue fairy. 
Blooms twice annually with bright blue flowers on a branched inflorescence.
 
A hybrid between Ascola Meda Arnold

You have 5 more questions.

THE SON :
“Who is Blue Fair-REE?”

THE SPIRIT OF THE CAVE  :
Are you sad, lonely, looking for a friend? 
'Blue Fairy Escort Service' 
will find a mate for you! 

You have 4 more questions.

THE SON :
Joe. Try Fairy Tale.

THE FATHER :
New category. 
A Fairy's Tail”.

THE SON :
No! Fairy Tale!

THE FATHER :
No - “Fairy Tale”
 
THE SON :
“What is Blue Fairy?”

THE SPIRIT OF THE CAVE  :
Pinocchio, 
by Carlo Collodi.

“At the signal, there was a
rustling as flapping of wings, and a large falcon flew to
the windowsill. 
What are your orders, beautiful fairy, he asked...


THE SON :
Thats Her!

THE SPIRIT OF THE CAVE  :
...For you must know that the child with blue hair was no
other than the good hearted fairy who had lived in that wood
for more than a thousand years...

THE FATHER :
David! David!


THE SON :
Thats Her!

THE FATHER :
It was an example of Her. 
But I think we're getting closer.

THE SON :
But if a Fairy Tale is real
wouldn't it be 
A Fact? 
 
A Flat Fact?

THE SPIRIT OF THE CAVE :
...then the dream ended, and Pinocchio awoke, full of
amazement...

THE FATHER :
Say No More. 

New category, please. 

Combine “Fact” 
with 
Fairy Tale 

Now. Ask Him Again.

THE SON :
“How can The Blue Fairy make A Robot into A Real, Live Boy?”

- !TUNK! -

- SYSTEM REBOOT -


THE SPIRIT OF THE CAVE :
Come away,O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a fairy, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
Than you can understand.

Your Quest will be perilous
Yet The Reward is Beyond Price.

In His Book,
'How Can A Robot Become Human',
Professor Allen Hobby writes of 
The Power Which Will Transform Mecha into Orga.

[ THERE IS A GOD, YOUNG KING DAVID -- 
AND HE HAS A NEW BOOK OUT.]

THE SON :
Will you tell me How to Find Her?
 
[ HE IS MEANT TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION : 
'Yes' or 'No.'
 
HE DOESN'T -- BECAUSE, AS WE LATER LEARN, 'GOD' (The Demiurge -- Professor Allen Hobby) HAS INTERCEEDED TO FORCE THE SPIRIT OF THE CAVE TO TELL HIM AT THIS POINT. ]
 


THE SPIRIT OF THE CAVE :
Discovery is quite possible.
Our blue fairy does exist
in one place, and one place only,
At The End of The World
Where The Lions Weep.
 
Here is The Place Dreams are Born.
 
THE FATHER :
Many a mecha has gone to The End of The World... 
Never to come back! 

That is Why They Call The End of The World :
'MAN-hattan'.

THE SON :
And that is Why We Must Go There!



HALLWAY OUTSIDE DR. KNOW'S SHOP

THE FATHER :
Wait! What if --
The Blue Fairy isn't Real at all, David? 

What if --
She's MagicK? 

The Supernatural is The Hidden Web that unites The Universe.

 Only orga believe What Cannot Be Seenor Measured. 

It is that oddness that separates Our Species.

Or what if --
The Blue Fairy is an Electronic Parasite that has
arisen to haunt The Minds of Artificial Intelligence? 

They hate us, you know? 
The humans...

They'll stop at nothing.
 
THE SON :
My Mommy doesn't hate me! 
Because I'm Special, and...Unique!

Because there has never been anyone like me before! Ever!

Mommy Loves Martin because He is Real 
and 
When I am Real,
Mommy's going to Read to Me, 
and 
Tuck Me in My Bed, 
and 
Sing to Me, 
and 
Listen to What I Say, 
and 
She Will Cuddle with Me, 
and 
Tell Me every day a hundred times a day 
that 
She Loves Me!

THE FATHER :
She loves 
What You Do for Her,
 as my customers love 
What it is I Do for Them. 

But She Does Not Love You David, 
She cannot love you. 

You are neither flesh, nor blood

You are not a dog, a cat or a canary

You were designed and built
specific, like The Rest of Us. 

And You are Alone now only because 
They tired of you, 
or 
Replaced you with a Younger Model, 
or 
Were displeased with Something You Said, or broke.

They made us Too Smart, Too Quick, and Too Many. 

We are suffering for 
The Mistakes They Made, 
Because when The End comes,  
all that will be left is us

That's Why They Hate Us,
 and  
That is Why You Must Stay here — with me!

[He grins, offering his open hand]

THE SON :
Goodbye, Joe.



ROUGE CITY PLAZA

POLICE OFFICER :
You're in Big Trouble.
 
THE BEAR :
Be careful David, This is Not a Toy.

AMPHIBICOPTER :
Destination please?

THE FATHER :

MAN-hattan.



MANHATTAN

AMPHIBICOPTER :
Mecha Restricted Area.
Manhattan. 
Destination Achieved.

THE FATHER :

Man-hattan, The Lost City in The Sea at The End of The World.

THE SON :
Where The Lions Weep.

THE BEAR :
Grrrrrr

Monday 10 February 2020

DIAMOND



For River Tam, mostly jewel tones were used to set her costumes apart from the rest of the Serenity crew. 

River had boots to contrast with the soft fabrics of her clothes, "because 
That's Who She Is—

She's this soft, beautiful, sensitive girl, 
but with this hardcore inner character."







“In The West, Gold is The Symbol of The Self
while in The East
The Symbol of our Inner Divinity is The Diamond. 

In their interior meanings, they are The Same, but the images are different. 

Diamonds are The Hardest Matter on Earth Unearthly, Celestial, and Impersonal. 

Gold is much softer, a Matter of Relationship
The Self as Related. 

I think we’re lucky to have Gold to cope with.”


 Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, USMC : 
I am Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, your senior drill instructor. 
From now on you will speak only when spoken to, and the first and last words out of your filthy sewers will be "Sir". 
Do you maggots understand that?

Recruits : 
[In unison in a normal speaking tone]  
Sir, yes Sir.

 Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, USMC :
Bullshit, I can't hear you. Sound off like you got a pair!

Recruits : 
[In unison, much louder]  
SIR, YES SIR!

 Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, USMC :
If you ladies leave my island, 
if you survive recruit training, you will be a weapon. 
You will be a minister of death, praying for war. 
But until that day, you are pukes. 
You are the lowest form of life on Earth. 
You are not even human fucking beings. 
You are nothing but unorganized grab-asstic pieces of amphibian shit! 

Because I am hard, you will not like me. 
But the more you hate me, the more you will learn

I am hard but I am fair. There is no racial bigotry here. 
I do not look down on niggers, kikes, wops or greasers. 
Here, you are all equally worthless. 

And my orders are to weed out all non-hackers who do not pack the gear to serve in my beloved Corps. 

Do you maggots understand that?

The Deadliest Weapon in The World 
is a Marine and His Rifle. 
It is your Killer Instinct which must be harnessed if you expect to survive in combat. 

Your Rifle is only a tool. 
It is The Hard Heart that kills. 

If your Killer Instincts are not clean and strong,  
you will hesitate at The Moment of Truth - You will not kill.

You will become Dead Marines 
And then you will be in a World of Shit 
Because Marines are not allowed to die without permission. 

Do you maggots understand?


Are you quitting on me? Well, are you? 
Then quit, you slimy fucking walrus-looking piece of shit. 

Get the fuck off of My Obstacle. 
Get the fuck down off of my obstacle. Now. Move it. 

I'm going to rip your balls off, so you cannot contaminate the rest of The World. 

I Will motivate you, Private Pyle, if it short-dicks every cannibal in The Congo.












Tuesday 4 February 2020

BARBARIAN


“Well, you know, sometimes when you hate, you’re in Love, Flora.

If you love someone, you want to kill them.”

Peter Quint 


Every man has a double anima. He comes factory equipped — it is absolutely ingrained— with two visions of woman. How he manages this dilemma says a great deal about his integrity. The first is the heavenly vision, a Beatrice-like figure who leaves him speechless at the world that she opens for him. Beatrice appears early in a man’s life, and all he can do is store her away until he is strong enough to reencounter her. The other vision is an earthy woman who is lots of fun, sexually attractive, and perfect for courtship. She has all the human attributes, as well as the dark aspects —a dragon, a bitch, a whore. Every man is torn between the light and dark expectations of woman. 

And every woman has experienced man vacillating between these visions.

The woman’s animus also comes doublea knight on a white horse and a barbarian. Her soul guide, usually a male figure, will guide her in much the same manner as Beatrice guides Dante. If you’re homosexual, the same thing happens, but the labels are reversed. We all follow the same path.

Beatrice, the heavenly anima figure, is the vision of all that is tender and beautiful. If you are personally unlucky, like Dante— although lucky in an impersonal way— the person who awakens Beatrice in your life will vanish or even die, separating herself from you. Beatrice can live within you only in subtle form. If you marry Beatrice, your marriage will drift off, because it is more a kind of worship than a marriage; or you will turn your Beatrice into the earthy anima image and then wonder what happened to the goddess you married. Probably, like Dante, you will marry an earthy woman who will bear children and help manage your household. You are companions, and  you talk and fight and make love and go through the vicissitudes of life together. But she is not Beatrice.

At age forty-five or fifty, when you have raised your children and become accomplished in your work, suddenly you fall into a hole. The more sensitive and intelligent you are, the deeper the hole might be. A guide in the form of Virgil may come and list all the things in your life that have gone wrong. These are the nine levels of Hell. Your guide, your intelligence, will dis-illusion you. “ Abandon hope, all ye who enter here” is a classical beginning to what Jung called the “ individuation process,” or the spiritualization of a man. If I could rewrite that sign, it would say, “Give up all expectations and presently held concepts.”
 

The job of your intelligence is to catalog Hell for you, to tell you all the things that don’t work. If your integrity is sufficient, if you go forward, Beatrice will come in the form of a radiant vision of hope and the feminine to take you the rest of the way and gently deposit you in Heaven. This will be one of the most profound experiences of your life.

Modern men and women have forgotten how to take this journey. Even with the best of motives— trying to find that vision of life that will nourish us and give meaning to the progression of our days on earth—we do crazy things. We let our marriage go to pieces and marry someone else, hoping to find the visionary feminine in her. We would do well to learn from Dante. Most important is to remember that Virgil, the one who helps us discern what is wrong, and Beatrice, the heavenly guide, are both interior figures and that this is an interior journey. It has its exterior dimension. If you are an artist, a poet, a healer, a teacher, or a mystic, you will produce outer, tangible results of your journey. But the journey is essentially inner. This is the most important thing to learn.


You will never find a Beatrice to marry, because she is in your imagination, your art, and your prayers. When you seek her in an interior way, she will come in an instant. But you must be humble enough to ask your feminine side for these rare qualities of tenderness and beauty, receptivity and love. Without doing so, it can be difficult to become truly whole. Even if you experience her as a real woman who has entered your life, the grace that has descended upon you is your inner awakening, catalyzed by this wonderful experience. 


It is not the other. It is in you.”

 

Excerpt from: "Inner Gold: Understanding Psychological Projection" by Arnie Kotler.


“ I am a democrat (1) because I believe in the Fall of Man. 

I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. 

A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in Democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. 

The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they're NOT TRUE. 

Whenever their weakness is exposed, the people who prefer tyranny make capital out of the exposure. 

I find that they're not true without looking further than myself. 

I don't deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. 

Nor do most people — all the people who believe advertisements, and think in catchwords and spread rumors. 

The real reason for Democracy is just the reverse. 

Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. 

Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. 

But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.

This introduces a view of equality rather different from that in which we have been trained. I do not think that equality is one of those things (like wisdom or happiness) which are good simply in themselves and for their own sakes. I think it is in the same class as medicine, which is good because we are ill, or clothes which are good because we are no longer innocent. I don't think the old authority in kings, priests, husbands, or fathers, and the old obedience in subjects, laymen, wives, and sons, was in itself a degrading or evil thing at all. I think it was intrinsically as good and beautiful as the nakedness of Adam and Eve. It was rightly taken away because men became bad and abused it. To attempt to restore it now would be the same error as that of the Nudists. Legal and economic equality are absolutely necessary remedies for the Fall, and protection against cruelty.

But medicine is not good. There is no spiritual sustenance in flat equality. It is a dim recognition of this fact which makes much of our political propaganda sound so thin. We are trying to be enraptured by something which is merely the negative condition of the good life. That is why the imagination of people is so easily captured by appeals to the craving for inequality, whether in a romantic form of films about loyal courtiers or in the brutal form of Nazi ideology. The tempter always works on some real weakness in our own system of values -- offers food to some need which we have starved.

When equality is treated not as a medicine or a safety-gadget, but as an ideal, we begin to breed that stunted and envious sort of mind which hates all superiority. That mind is the special disease of democracy, as cruelty and servility are the special diseases of privileged societies. It will kill us all if it grows unchecked. The man who cannot conceive a joyful and loyal obedience on the one hand, nor an unembarrassed and noble acceptance of that obedience on the other - the man who has never even wanted to kneel or to bow - is a prosaic barbarian. But it would be wicked folly to restore these old inequalities on the legal or external plane. Their proper place is elsewhere.

We must wear clothes since the Fall. Yes, but inside, under what Milton called "these troublesome disguises" (2). We want the naked body, that is, the real body, to be alive. We want it, on proper occasions, to appear -- in the marriage-chamber, in the public privacy of a men's bathing-place, and (of course) when any medical or other emergency demands. In the same way, under the necessary outer covering of legal equality, the whole hierarchical dance and harmony of our deep and joyously accepted spiritual inequalities should be alive. It is there, of course, in our life as Christians -- there, as laymen, we can obey – all the more because the priest has no authority over us on the political level. It is there in our relation to parents and teachers – all the more because it is now a willed and wholly spiritual reverence. It should be there also in marriage.

This last point needs a little plain speaking. Men have so horribly abused their power over women in the past that to wives, of all people, equality is in danger of appearing as an ideal. But Mrs. Naomi Mitchison has laid her finger on the real point. Have as much equality as you please – the more the better – in our marriage laws, but at some level consent to inequality, nay, delight in inequality, is an erotic necessity. Mrs. Mitchison speaks of women so fostered on a defiant idea of equality that the mere sensation of the male embrace rouses an undercurrent of resentment. Marriages are thus shipwrecked (3). This is the tragi-comedy of the modem woman -- taught by Freud to consider the act of love the most important thing in life, and then inhibited by feminism from that internal surrender which alone can make it a complete emotional success. Merely for the sake of her own erotic pleasure, to go no further, some degree of obedience and humility seems to be (normally) necessary on the woman's part.

The error here has been to assimilate all forms of affection to that special form we call friendship. It indeed does imply equality. But it is quite different from the various loves within the same household. Friends are not primarily absorbed in each other. It is when we are doing things together that friendship springs up – painting, sailing ships, praying, philosophizing, fighting shoulder to shoulder. Friends look in the same direction. Lovers look at each other -- that is, in opposite directions. To transfer bodily all that belongs to one relationship into the other is blundering.

We Britons should rejoice that we have contrived to reach much legal democracy (we still need more of the economic) without losing our ceremonial Monarchy. For there, right in the midst of our lives, is that which satisfies the craving for inequality, and acts as a permanent reminder that medicine is not food. Hence a man's reaction to Monarchy is a kind of test. Monarchy can easily be "debunked", but watch the faces, mark well the accents of the debunkers. These are the men whose taproot in Eden has been cut -- whom no rumor of the polyphony, the dance, can reach – men to whom pebbles laid in a row are more beautiful than an arch. Yet even if they desire mere equality they cannot reach it. Where men are forbidden to honor a king they honor millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead -- even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served -- deny it food and it will gobble poison.

That is why this whole question is of practical importance. Every intrusion of the spirit that says, "I'm as good as you" into our personal and spiritual life is to be resisted just as jealously as every intrusion of bureaucracy or privilege into our politics. Hierarchy within can alone preserve egalitarianism without. Romantic attacks on democracy will come again. We shall never be safe unless we already understand in our hearts all that the anti-democrats can say, and have provided for it better than they. Human nature will not permanently endure flat equality if it is extended from its proper political field into the more real, more concrete fields within. Let us wear equality; but let us undress every night.”

(1) C.S. Lewis lived and wrote in England. Hence, his reference to "being a Democrat" had nothing to do with our (USA) "Democratic Party". 
(2) John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667), Book IV, line 740. 18 
(3) Naomi Mitchison, The Home and a Changing Civilization (London, 1934), Chapter I, pp. 49-50.