The Language of The Heart

“See, I keep meeting these people... 

I mean, just a few days ago... 

I met this man whom I greatly admire. He's a Swedish physicist. Gustav Bjornstrand. And he told me that he no longer watches Television... he doesn't read newspapers, and he doesn't read magazines. 

He's completely cut them out of his life... because he really DOES feel that we're living in some kind of Orwellian nightmare now... and that everything that you hear now contributes to turning you into A Robot. 

And when I was at Findhorn, i met this extraordinary English tree expert, who had devoted his life to saving trees. Just got back from Washington, lobbying to save the redwoods.

He's 84 years old, and he always travels with a backpack... 'cause he never knows where he's gonna be tomorrow. 

And when I met him at Findhorn, he said to me, "Where are you from?" 

I said, "New York." 

He said, "Ah, New York. Yes, that's a very interesting place — Do you know a lot of New Yorkers who keep talking about the fact that they want to leave, but never do?" 

And I said, "Oh, yes." 

And he said, "Why do you think they don't leave?" 

I gave him different banal theories. 

He said,"Oh, I don't think it's that way at all." 

He said, "I think that New York is the new model for the new concentration camp, where The Camp has been built by The Inmates themselves and The Inmates are The Guards, and They have this Pride in This Thing They've Built. 

They've built their own prison.And so they exist in a state of schizophrenia where They are both guards and prisoners. 

And as a result, they no longer have, having been lobotomized the capacity to leave The Prison They've made or to even to See it as A Prison." 

And then he went into his pocket, and he took out A Seed for A Tree and he said, "This is A Pine Tree." 

He put it in my hand and he said,  "Escape, before it's too late." 

See, actually, for two or three years now, Chiquita and I have had this very unpleasant feeling that we really should get out. 

We really feel like Jews in Germany in the late '30s. Get out of here. 

Of course, the problem is where to go. 

'Cause it seems quite obvious that the whole world is going in the same direction. See, I think it's quite possible that the 1960s... represented the last burst of the human being before he was extinguished... and that this is the beginning of the rest of the future, now... and that from now on there'll simply be all these robots walking around... feeling nothing, thinking nothing. And there'll be nobody left almost to remind them... that there once was a species called a human being... with feelings and thoughts... and that history and memory are right now being erased... and soon nobody will really remember... that life existed on the planet. Now, of course, Bjornstrand feels that there's really almost no hope... and that we're probably going back to a very savage... lawless, terrifying period. 

Findhorn people see it a little differently. 

They're feeling that there'll be these pockets of light... springing up in different parts of the world... and that these will be, in a way, invisible planets on this planet... and that as we, or the world, grow colder... we can take invisible space journeys to these different planets... refuel for what it is we need to do on the planet itself... and come back. 

And it's their feeling that there have to be centers now... where people can come and reconstruct a new future for the world. And when I was talking to, Gustav Bjornstrand... he was saying that actually these centers are growing up everywhere now... and that what they're trying to do, which is what Findhorn was trying to do... and, in a way, what I was trying to do... I mean, these things can't be given names... but in a way, these are all attempts at creating a new kind of school... or a new kind of Monastery. 

And Bjornstrand talks about the concept of "reserves" islands of safety where history can be remembered... and the human being can continue to function... in order to maintain the species through a dark age. In other words, we're talking about an underground... which did exist in a different way during the Dark Ages... among the mystical orders of the church. And the purpose of this underground... is to find out how to preserve the light, life, the culture... how to keep things living, You see, I keep thinking that what we need... is a new language... a language of the heart... a language, as in the Polish forest, where language wasn't needed. Some kind of language between people that is a new kind of poetry... that's the poetry of the dancing bee that tells us where the honey is. And I think that in order to create that language... you're going to have to learn how you can go through a looking glass... into another kind of perception... where you have that sense of being united to all things... 

and suddenly you understand everything.”

Giant Scorpion Moses

“ The Downward Spiral expressed itself in darker magic 

as the Invisibles faced bacterial gods from a diseased twin universe. 

After trying out a Voudon ritual in 1993, 

I found myself facing down 

an immense scorpion creature 

that tried to teach me 

how to psychically assassinate people 

by destroying their “auras.” 

When the ritual was done, 

I switched on the TV to decompress 

and caught the last fifteen minutes of Howard the Duck, in which 

nightmarish extradimensional scorpion sorcerers 

attempted to clamber their way into eighties America.”

"You are about to witness The End of The Old World, 

and The Birth of The New.

I am now one of 

The DARK Overlords of The Universe.

Tonight the laser beam hit 

The Nexus of Sominus.

It lies beyond The Planets. 

It is a Region of Demons, 

to which we Dark Overlords were exiled eons ago.

Just as you were brought down here accidentally, 

tonight, the laser beam released me from that Region of Demons 

and pulled me down into that lab.

During the explosion 

I entered Jenning's body.

I have disguised My True Form, 

which would be considered 

hideous and revolting, here.

Howard, The Duck :

Lucky for the people eating…..

OR —

Extremely considerate.

In the Steve Gerber miniseries The Phantom Zone #1-4 (January–April 1982), it is revealed that the Zone not only has a breach through which other inmates had escaped, but that they were never heard from again. 

The imprisoned Superman and Quex-Ul use this method and travel through several dimensional “layers” seeking The Exit into The Physical Universe. They finally encounter a Kryptonian wizard named Thul-Kar, who tells them that he believed Jor-El’s prophecy of Krypton’s doom and entered the Phantom Zone through magic. 

Using the same breach, he discovered The Truth about the Phantom Zone : all its levels are manifestations of the consciousness of a sentient, malevolent entity called Aethyr, The Oversoul.

As explained by Thul-Kar, Aethyr itself came into being uncounted millennia ago when two spiral galaxies collided at an almost primordial stage after the physical universe’s creation. Countless worlds were simultaneously destroyed and the deaths of so many beings merged somehow to form a single, evil consciousness that called itself Aethyr The Oversoul. 

This supremely powerful entity enclosed itself into a dimension outside The Physical Universe within itself, forming The Phantom Zone.

The Zone itself is an interface between the Earth-One dimension (The Physical Universe) and Aethyr’s Mind, the outer layer (where zone criminals are housed) representing its ability for Abstract Thought; The Zone is basically Aethyr’s capacity to imagine other possibilities of existence, and is the outermost template of its consciousness. 

Only by entering Aethyr’s core realm can a zone prisoner escape back to the physical universe, but this process is dangerous since any being who tries risks being destroyed in numerous ways as well as by forever having their souls merged with Aethyr’s essence while within Aethyr’s core realm. This is because as you enter deeper into Aethyr’s consciousness, you no longer exist as an abstract entity and your existence becomes subject to Aethyr’s whims. 

When attacking Superman and Quex-Ul, Aethyr personified itself as an aggressive, purple-skinned dog’s head that breathed flames capable of destroying and absorbing the souls of those that it wishes to conquer. 

While Quex-Ul is killed by Aethyr in this fashion, Superman manages to make his way out of the Phantom Zone by avoiding those flames and flying directly through Aethyr’s skull and its mind, returning to Earth through a tear in the fabric of Aethyr’s mind and the physical universe, but not without encountering the horrific remains of all of the souls entrapped within Aethyr over the millennia.

Mister Mxyzptlk is later possessed by Aethyr. During the process while Myyzptlk is imprisoned on his own home dimension, Thul-Kar communicates with Mxyzptlk and offers him an escape in exchange for the merger. This merger, however, empties the Phantom Zone of its criminal inhabitants. As the Phantom Zone villains head to Earth to conquer it, Thul-Kar and Nam-Ek are re-absorbed into Aethyr. Superman awakes and sees that the Phantom Zone villains are wreaking havoc on Earth, causing destruction to the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. and demanding Superman come out and fight them. Superman battles the Phantom Zone villains in Washington D.C.. While fighting Faora Hu-Ul, he witnesses her disappearing as she is absorbed into Aethyr. Mister Mxyzpltk reveals that his strong personality has taken over Aethyr and he absorbs all the rest of the Phantom Zone inhabitants back into himself, determined to torture them endlessly and wreak havoc as he sees fit. Mxyzpltk-Aethyr leaves, intending to next take over the Fifth Dimension, and Superman is left to put out the fires in Washington and then rid Metropolis of the Kryptonite remains of Argo City.

Behind The Mirrors

"Only The Good" Alternate Ending

[-- 25 - Int. Red Dwarf Landing bay 2 ------------------------------19:26--]

[The Dwarfers approach a dark and empty section of corridors leading

 towards the landing bay. A short way along a corridor, a film of some

 gelatinous, lumpy substance coats the various metal surfaces, and the whole

 section steams and drips steadily as the metal corrodes away]

[Enter KRYTEN, LISTER]

KRYTEN

  The microbe, which destroyed the Hermes - it's on Red Dwarf!

[Enter RIMMER, KOCHANSKI, CAT]

LISTER

  How?

RIMMER

  The microbe's chameleonic, so it must have been the escape pod; the one

Talia whatsername arrived on.

LISTER

  We've gotta go back and tell them.

RIMMER

  But what about our escape?

LISTER

  It could be days before they discover this! If we go back now, they've got

a chance to work on an antidote.

RIMMER

  You're just acting all brave and manly to impress her, aren't you?

KOCHANSKI

  No, Dave's right. He's looking at the big picture.

RIMMER

  Yeah, 'the big picture' involves you, no clothes and a haystack.

[-- 26 - Int. Central chamber, floor 13 ----------------------------20:01--]

[Prisoners, CAPTAIN HOLLISTER present]

[HOLLISTER stands on the the first level balcony that circles the chamber

 and looks down at the inmates]

HOLLISTER

  Red Dwarf is being devoured from within by a corrosive micro-organism. As

you probably know, we don't have enough craft for everyone to be rescued,

so most of you will be staying behind to die. Oh, there's an apology about

that in the internal mail.

[-- 27 - Model/CGI shot --------------------------------------------20:18--]

[Red Dwarf cruises through space, as several squadrons of Blue Midget and

 Starbug transport craft stream away]

[-- 28 - Int. Landing bay 2, corroding corridor --------------------20:28--]

[KRYTEN, LISTER, RIMMER, KOCHANSKI, CAT present]

[KRYTEN holds a test tube, and gingerly collects a quantity of the dark

 brown, jelly-like microbe]

KRYTEN

  Just as I thought. Created in a lab and programmed not to destroy glass.

CAT

  So all we need is a plutonium powered greenhouse and we're home free!

KRYTEN

  We need an antidote. Something that can neutralise the corrosive

negativity of the microbe.

LISTER

  Something with a corrosive *positivity*?

CAT

  So where do we get that?

HOLLY [on LISTER's wristwatch]

  There's nothing in Yellow Pages.

KOCHANSKI

  A mirror universe! A universe where things are diametrically opposite to

this one. There, negative becomes positive, and a virus becomes an antidote.

[-- 29 - Int. Recovery room ----------------------------------------20:59--]

[KRYTEN, CAT, LISTER, KOCHANSKI, RIMMER present]

[KRYTEN fusses over a small device he has placed on a platform in the centre

 of the room. KRYTEN powers up his machine, and a shimmering beam of light

 streams from the unit and into the prism positioned in front of it. The

 light emerges on the other side of the prism, circled by diminishing

 concentric rings, continuing forward until it strikes a tall mirror hung on

 the wall. The mirror 'ripples' as the beam perturbs its surface]

KRYTEN

  If there's even the slightest imperfection in the prism, the mirror

universe may be an imperfect version of our own. That's something we won't

know until we get there.

[LISTER gestures to RIMMER to lead on. Holding the tube of microbes in his

 right hand, RIMMER steps through the mirror...]

[-- 30 - Int. Mirror universe, Recovery room -----------------------21:18--]

[RIMMER present]

[...and emerges in a mirror image of the room he just left. RIMMER holds up

 the test tube, surprised to see that he now holds it in his left hand, and

 that its contents have turned white]

[-- 31 - Int. Recovery room ----------------------------------------21:22--]

[KRYTEN, CAT, LISTER, KOCHANSKI present]

[An angry pop and a flash of sparks come from KRYTEN's machine, and the beam

 of light abruptly cuts off. KOCHANSKI, in the act of following RIMMER,

 finds herself colliding with a suddenly solid mirror]

[-- 32 - Int. Mirror universe, Recovery room -----------------------21:25--]

[RIMMER present]

[RIMMER notices the mirror solidify behind him and spins around, panicked.

 He checks the now-solid surface closely, but there's nothing he can do]

[-- 33 - Int. Recovery room ----------------------------------------21:28--]

[KRYTEN, CAT, LISTER, KOCHANSKI present]

[The machine fizzles and pops, showering sparks and sending a cloud of smoke

 spiralling upwards]

KRYTEN

  It's overloaded! We've lost Mister Rimmer!

CAT

  At last, things are looking up!

LISTER

  How long's it going to take to fix that thing?

KRYTEN

  Well, best guess, about twenty minutes.

[-- 34 - Int. Mirror universe, Recovery room -----------------------21:39--]

[RIMMER looks around the room. We see a close up on a TV screen, which is

 showing an old black and white sci-fi horror movie. A woman is carrying

 a creature dressed in a dark suit and helmet that kicks its legs and howls

 melodramatically.

 There is a knock on the door. RIMMER realises what is going on, and dives

 to the bed, taking off his boots. The caller knocks again, while RIMMER

 finds a blanket tucked behind a pillow on the bed]

[-- 34 - Int. Mirror universe, Corridor outside recovery room ------22:00--]

[CREWMEMBER present]

[Close up: a CREWMEMBER knocks again on the door]

[-- 35 - Int. Mirror universe, Recovery room -----------------------22:02--]

[RIMMER has managed to slip under the blanket. The door slides open and

 RIMMER hastily grabs the microbe tube and stuffs it under the blanket]

[Enter MIRROR HOLLISTER]

[M.HOLLISTER is carrying a tray with a drink and clipboard on it, and smiles

 sycophantically]

M.HOLLISTER

  Can I come in, sir?

  I did knock, sir, perhaps you didn't hear?

  Here's your hot lemon, sir.

[RIMMER takes a sip, before handing the glass back and glancing at the

 insignias on M.HOLLISTER's shirt]

RIMMER

  Thank you, erm... Private... nobody.

M.HOLLISTER

  Oh, er, a few directives to sign, sir.

RIMMER

  Of course, laddie.

[RIMMER takes the clipboard and turns to the second page, then scowls]

RIMMER

  A free pardon, exonerating you from all crimes?

[RIMMER tears out the false directive and throws it away. M.HOLLISTER exhales

 loudly]

M.HOLLISTER

  Oohhh, I don't know how that got in there, sir, I, er... I...

RIMMER

  Want to be an officer, don't you, laddie?

M.HOLLISTER

  Oh, sir, could I? One day, could I be?

RIMMER

  No, I don't think you could.

[RIMMER takes a pen and tries to sign a directive, but his arm refuses to control the pen properly]

RIMMER

  Of course, it's a mirror universe, everything's opposite...

[RIMMER puts the pen in his left hand and signs the directive. Suddenly, a

thought occurs to him and he grins excitedly. Lifting the blanket, he

glances downwards, stares intently for a few moments and swallows]

RIMMER

  My God... this is gonna take some getting used to...

[Enter MIRROR TALIA]

M.TALIA

  They said it was okay to drop by...

  You look wonderful...

RIMMER

  So do you...

  [To M.HOLLISTER:] That'll be all, shambles.

M.HOLLISTER

  Yes, sir.

M.TALIA

  You made Captain -

[Exit MIRROR HOLLISTER]

M.TALIA

  You've done so well. Your own ship... wow! I've got goosebumps.

RIMMER

  So have I!

M.TALIA

  Let me kiss you.

[As M.TALIA leans forward, RIMMER grabs her eagerly and presses her lips to

 his in a passionate kiss. Immediately, though, the woman tries to squirm

 away, making muffled protests. RIMMER realises the problem and releases

 her]

M.TALIA

  What are you doing!?

RIMMER

  I'm giving you a big, wet snog, with oodles of Tommy-tongue!

M.TALIA

  But I'm your sister!

[Shock paints RIMMER's face, and he sits bolt upright in the bed]

RIMMER

  Yes, of course, but I was really pleased to see you. I, erm...

M.TALIA

  You French-kissed me!

RIMMER

  No, it was nearer Antwerp. I Belgium-kissed you. I - I - I... urrrgghh...

I've been really ill... You're the Captain's sister?

[RIMMER begins to hyperventilate, then passes out. Seconds later, he lets

out an abrupt groan and sits up again]

RIMMER

  Oh, my god, what a terrible dream!

  Oh, hi, sis! It's me, Arnie, your bro! Get your big ol' lumpy bum down

here and give'us a big hug!

[RIMMER reaches out, catching M.TALIA's nose between his fingers playfully

 and shaking her head, but she pulls her nose free and backs away, appalled]

M.TALIA

  Captain Rimmer! I am Sister Talia Garrett; your personal spiritual

advisor!

[M.TALIA lets out a strained whimper and flees]

[Exit M.TALIA]

RIMMER

  Sis! Sister... whoever you are!

  Oh, smeg!

[-- 36 - Int. Mirror universe, Science office ----------------------24:50--]

[MIRROR KOCHANSKI present]

[M.KOCHANSKI sits at a desk engrossed in a magazine. In this mirror

 universe, she has tumbling blonde curls, and is wearing a pink satin

 blouse]

[Enter RIMMER]

RIMMER

  Excuse me?

M.KOCHANSKI

  Yes?

[M.KOCHANSKI speaks in a nasal voice, and doesn't look up from her magazine]

RIMMER

  I wonder, could you tell me what this is?

[M.KOCHANSKI frowns at the tube RIMMER holds up]

M.KOCHANSKI

  You'll have to ask the professor, then. He does all that stupid, sciencey

brain-box type stuff.

[A door, marked 'HAZARD AREA' mirrored backwards, swings open]

[Enter MIRROR CAT]

[The MIRROR CAT is wearing a tweed suit, bow tie and glasses, and wears his

 hair in a short afro cut]

M.CAT

  Somebody call?

RIMMER

  Professor!?

M.CAT

  Yes, Captain?

RIMMER

  Perhaps you could help me. What's this?

[RIMMER hands him the test tube, which M.CAT sniffs]

M.CAT

  Hmm.

[M.CAT glances at the tube under a microscope, then holds it up once more

and frowns at the contents]

M.CAT

  Hmmm, its an alkali.

RIMMER

  Oh yes? What's it called?

M.CAT

  Soliciumfrankolithicmixyalebidiumrixydixydoxydexydroxide.

  You look surprised.

RIMMER

  I never thought I'd ever hear you say that. Can you write it down for me?

M.CAT

  Certainly.

[To M.KOCHANSKI:] Can I have an extremely *long* piece of paper, my dear?

[-- 37 - Int. Recovery room ----------------------------------------25:36--]

[The mirror universe machine has apparently been fixed. It sends its beam

through the mirror once more, and is working well enough to allow RIMMER's

leg to pass through the glass, quickly followed by the rest of him]

[Enter RIMMER]

[RIMMER is holding the piece of paper with the formula, but appears to have

 left his test tube behind. As he enters the room fully, the beam of light

 from KRYTEN's machine fades away and disappears]

RIMMER

  The antidote; I did it!

[RIMMER quickly realises that the room is empty. More worryingly, red

warning lights pulse over the metal walls of the corridor outside.

[-- 38 - Int. Corridor outside recovery room -----------------------25:44--]

[Enter RIMMER]

[RIMMER rushes out into the corridor, as blasts of steam gush from

 ruptured pipes and flakes of burnt polycarbons flutter in the air. The ship

 trembles alarmingly, and the sound of twisting metal can be heard all

 around. RIMMER pauses by the troublesome food DISPENSER and looks around in

 panic]

RIMMER

  Wha - Where is everyone?

DISPENSER

  They've repaired the machine and crossed into the mirror universe. You're

the highest ranked crewmember left on the ship, so I *suppose* that makes

you Captain - congratulations, Cap.

RIMMER

  Smeg off!

[-- 39 - Int. Recovery room ----------------------------------------26:05--]

[Enter RIMMER]

[RIMMER dashes back into the recovery room but realises that the device is

 off and the doorway to the mirror universe is closed. He glances at t

The Blue Angel

I Struck Out at My Enemy.

Downward-Looking Sun, You Saw Me

As I Myself Struck Him.

In The Future

When I Meet My Enemy Again

I Will Overcome Him.

-- Crow Warrior's Oath.

“ Dinner was ready at seven fifteen. Afterwards Kinderman soaked in the bathtub, trying to make his mind a blank. As usual he found himself unable to do it. Ryan does it so easily, he reflected. I must ask him his secret. I will wait until he's done something right and feels expansive. His mind went from the concept of a secret to Amfortas. The man is so mysterious, so dark. There was something he was hiding, he knew. What was it? Kinderman reached for a plastic bottle and poured some more bubble fluid into the tub. He could barely keep from dozing off.

The bath over, Kinderman put on a robe and carried the Gemini file to his den. Its walls were covered with movie posters, black-and-white classics from the thirties and forties. The dark wooden desk was strewn with books. Kinderman winced. He was barefoot and had stepped on a sharp-edged copy of Teilhard de Chaidin's The Phenomenon of Man. He bent down and picked it up and then placed it on the desk. He turned on the desk lamp. 

The light caught tinfoil candy wrappers lurking in the rubble like gleaming felons. Kinderman cleared a space for the file, scratched his nose, sat down and tried to focus. He searched among the books and found a pair of reading glasses. He cleaned them with the sleeve of his robe and then put them on. He still couldn't see. He shut one eye and then the other, then he took off the glasses and did it again. He decided he saw better without the left lens. He wrapped his sleeve around the lens and banged it sharply on a corner of the desk. The lens fell out in two pieces. Occam's Razor, Kinderman thought. He put the glasses back on and tried again.

It was no use. The problem was fatigue. He took off the glasses, left the den and went straight to bed.

Kinderman dreamed. He was sitting in a theater watching a film with the inmates of the open ward. He thought he was watching Lost Horizon, although what he saw on the screen was Casablanca. He felt no discrepancy about this. In Rick's Cafe the piano player was Amfortas. He was singing "As Time Goes By'' when the Ingrid Bergman character entered. In Kinderman's dream she was Martina Lazlo and her husband was played by Doctor Temple. Lazlo and Temple approached the piano and Amfortas said, "Leave him alone, Miss Ilse." Then Temple said, "Shoot him," and Lazlo took a scalpel from her purse and stabbed Amfortas in the heart. 

Suddenly Kinderman was in the movie. He was sitting at a table with Humphrey Bogart. "The letters of transit are forged," said Bogart. "Yes, I know," said Kinderman. He asked Bogart whether Max, his brother, was involved, and Bogart shrugged his shoulders and said, "This is Rick's." 

"Yes, everyone comes here," said Kinderman, nodding; "I've seen this picture twenty times." 

"Couldn't hurt," said Bogart. Then Kinderman experienced a feeling of panic because he had forgotten the rest of his lines, and he began a discussion of the problem of evil and gave Bogart a summary of his theory. 

In the dream it took a fraction of a second. "Yes, Ugarte," said Bogart, "I do have more respect for you now." 

Then Bogart began a discussion of Christ. "You left him out of your theory," he said; "the German couriers will find out about that." 

"No, no, I include him," said Kinderman quickly. 

Abruptly Bogart became Father Dyer and Amfortas and Miss Lazlo were sitting at the table, although now she was young and extremely beautiful. Dyer was hearing the neurologist's confession, and when he gave the absolution Lazlo gave Amfortas a single white rose. 

"And I said I'd never leave you," she told him. "Go and live no more," said Dyer.

Instantaneously, Kinderman was back in the audience and he knew that he was dreaming. 

The screen had grown larger, filling his vision, and in place of Casablanca he saw two lights against a pale green wash of endless void. 

The light at the left was large and coruscating, flashing with a bluish radiance. 

Far to its right was a small white sphere that glowed with the brilliance and power of suns, yet did not blind or flare; it was serene. Kinderman experienced a sense of transcendence. 

In his mind he heard the light on the left begin to speak. "I cannot help loving you," it said. 

The other light made no answer. There was a pause. 

"That is what I am," the first light continued. "Pure love. I want to give my love freely," it said. 

Again there was no answer from the brilliant sphere. 

Then at last the first light spoke again. "I want to create myself," it said.

The sphere then spoke. "There will be pain," it said.

"I know."

"You do not understand what it is." 

"I choose it," said the bluish light. 

Then it waited, quietly flickering.

Many more moments passed before the white light spoke again. "I will send Someone to you," it said.

"No, you mustn't. You must not interfere."

"He will be a part of you," said the sphere.

The bluish light drew inward upon itself. Its flarings were muted and minute. 

Then at last it expanded again. "So be it."

Now the silence was longer, much stiller than before. There was a heaviness about it.

At last the white light spoke quietly. "Let time begin," it said.

The bluish light flared up and danced in colors, and then slowly it steadied to its former state. 

For a time there was silence. 

Then the bluish light spoke softly and sadly. "Goodbye. I will return to you.''

"Hasten the day."

The bluish light began to coruscate wildly now. It grew larger and more radiant and beautiful than ever. Then it slowly compacted, until it was almost the size of the sphere. There it seemed to linger for a moment. "I love you," it said. 

The next instant it exploded into far-flinging brilliance, hurtling outward from itself with unthinkable force in a trillion shards of staggering energies of light and shattering sound.

Kinderman bolted awake. He sat upright in bed and felt at his forehead. It was bathed in perspiration. He could still feel the light of the explosion on his retinas. He sat there and thought for a while. Was it real? The dream had seemed so. Not even the dream about Max had had this texture. He didn't think about the portion of the dream in the cinema. The other segment had blotted it out.

He got out of bed and went down to the kitchen where he put on the light and squinted at the pendulum clock on the wall. Ten after four? This is craziness, he thought. Frank Sinatra is just now going to sleep. Yet he felt awake and extremely refreshed. He turned the flame on under the tea kettle and then stood waiting by the stove. He had to watch it and catch it before it whistled. Shirley might come down. 

While he waited, he thought about his dream of the lights. It had affected him deeply. What was this emotion he was feeling? he wondered. It was something like poignance and unbearable loss. He had felt it at the ending of Brief Encounter. He reflected on the book about Satan that he'd read, the one written by Catholic theologians. 

Satan's beauty and perfection were described as breathtaking. "Bearer of Light." "The Morning Star.'' God must have loved him very much. Then how could he have damned him for all of eternity?

So Point The Finger,

Say No More,

Where it Touches,

UltraWar!

The Hidden Princess

“I’ve been trapped inside a Sentient Cave!

You ever been trapped in Sentient Cave?

It’s a DARK PLACE That KNOWS Things..!!”

She’s The Captain’s Daughter AND The Admiral’s Daughter — and because she’s The Captain’s Daughter, they •can’t• get rid of her.....

You can banish a wayward son —

A banished daughter, without support, will quickly lapse into prostitution.

You HAVE to Deal with Her Rebellion.

You can easily organize The Evidence to suggest that there is an Aeon of Horus occurring now. Where Systems are being taken-down, where everything’s being Questioned and Audited, and The Past is subject to Major Revision. 

So, there’s also some fun to be had in thinking “Ok, if this is actually playing out in some symbolic fashion, then what might the Aeon of Ma’at look like, artistically?’

And to me it looks like the rise of marginalized voices, it looks like more women coming into the discourse. It looks like trans people coming into the discourse. It looks like all the opportunities for groups who were disempowered by the Patriarchy, who couldn’t speak before to have their say.

Ma’at – What would her signature disease be? Well it mightbe a distributed network, a viral malady that could attack All of Humanity. What would happen if She emptied The Houses of The Old Gods as a Show of Possibility? 

You remember at the height of the first lockdown, all the churches were empty, all the sports stadiums were empty, all the mosques were empty, all the temples were empty. So, the Dad god had nowhere to go.

In Britain, I know, and I’m sure in America, there was a strange uprising of praise for care workers. People would go out every Thursday here and bang on pots and pans and basically thank the nurturing spirt, this caring spirit, for its very existence. It was a very religious, ritualistic thing that we were all doing. That’s Ma’at right there. 

Then there’s Mother Nature with hurricanes tearing down borders, storms ravaging everyone’s homes. It all suddenly makes sense in a new context if you use the filter of Ma’at to look at The World. 

For me, I’ve found some creative applications for it, like in Brave New World and the Wonder Woman comic that I’ve done.

Let’s talk about Magick. How does one get better at it?

GM: By doing it on a regular basis! It’s like a martial art or a musical talent. 

If you dedicate yourself to Learning and Practice, if you read other magician’s accounts, if you Pay Attention, then you start to notice details that the less engaged will miss and this allows you to do things that other people may regard as magical or even supernatural. 

Just like a stage conjurer, or a great guitarist, or a gifted actor or artist can do. It’s just about really paying attention and Doing The Work to see What Happens. 

It’s just a way of looking at things in a fresh light and then working with this augmented version of reality in ways that can appear supernatural. 

One of Magic’s main attractions involves bringing things Into Being, from the conception or thought all the way to solid materiality. 

Making The Insubstantial tangible.

What advice do you have for the magicians out there who have a story to tell and want to storm the reality studio?

GM: Tell a different story. Tell a fresh story that speaks to its times and the people around you. A story that offers possibilities, exit strategies, rather than apocalypse and ruin. I can’t see that there’s anything else…

In the Wonder Woman book I’m doing, for instance, I’ve actively avoided writing the boy hero story that’s so ubiquitous as to seem inescapable —  the familiar story of the One, the champion, the Joseph Campbell monomyth thing that drives so many Hollywood movies and YA stories. We’ve seen it. The Lion King. The callow youth loses mom or dad, or his comfortable place in the tribe, and he has to fight his way back to save the kingdom from its corrupt old leader, before claiming the captive princess and becoming the new king and… ad infinitum. The Circle of Life if it only applied to boys. I thought, where is the mythic heroine’s story? In Ishtar Rising, Wilson talks about the myth of Inanna, and how she goes down into Hell and has to give up everything of herself to gain the wisdom and experience she can bring back to her tribe. Privileging the network rather than the sovereign individual.

And so, as I thought about the differences between the hero’s and the heroine’s journey, it gave me a bunch of different modes to work in. Finding ways to avoid telling the boy hero story again was quite liberating. It just gave me a bunch of new ideas, an interesting new way of telling stories that didn’t rely on the framework of the hero’s journey that Campbell talks about.

Playing the devil’s advocate here. Today there is a lot of fervor around identity, and there is one strong of thought that people can never truly understand what it is like walking in the shoes of others. Some may ask why a white man would seek to tell the story of a woman, from her perspective, instead of just sticking to what he knows, being a man. 

How authentically real is that character or story, etc.?

GM: It’s important to air these feelings for debate. I must admit, with all respect, that I completely disagree with the idea that we cannot understand one another.

Firstly, there’s a major obvious problem about coming at things from this perspective — if fundamentally, we cannot truly know or have any meaningful opinion on what it feels like to be X, then we may as well stop listening to anything anyone else has to say about their personal experience, on the basis that it can only be irrelevant to our specific lives!

If I can never truly understand you without walking in your shoes and vice versa, what’s the point of listening or talking to anyone about our experience? What’s the point of writing stories, or protesting, or making art if experience cannot by its nature be communicated and understood by anyone who has not shared the experience of the artist, or the writer?

I think we all know it doesn’t really work that way in the real world. We don’t need to be a thing to have some understanding of how it operates. People can be great veterinarians without personally experiencing the day-to-day inner lives of dogs and cats. I can read Solzhenitsyn and shed empathic tears for the inmates of the Gulag without having to reprise their exact experience.

To think otherwise might be, I suspect, a symptom of narcissism painted into its inevitable corner, its private echo chamber – destructive, divided, atomized, individualistic to the point of self-abnegation – and indicative of late stage Osiris pathology.

And you know, we actually do understand one another in so many ways. We can imagine what it’s like to live someone else’s life –— or we can have our imaginations enflamed by well-told tales of other people’s lives and thrill to the ways they resonate exactly with our own lived experience. As a writer, I know this to be true.

We’ve been observing one another’s behavior and drawing conclusions since the dawn of humanity. People aren’t so complicated or new that the basic functions remain a mystery. All our plays, poems, songs and stories are a record of our attempts to understand ourselves and one another. The fact that Greek drama or Shakespeare still speaks to us is evidence that basic human nature has remained fairly consistent for thousands of years.

We figured one another out a long, long time ago.

And ultimately, I’ll say again, we are all the same organism. What we’re seeing is ring fingers fighting with thumbs, eyelashes screaming that eyebrows can never understand them! To point that out is probably an anathema in this current time of narcissistic inflation but it will be understood as a fact of nature in the end.

Maybe I’m wrong and we’re all fucked because humans are a kind of cancer-creature and our only purpose is to destroy each other and all other lifeforms on our planet… there’s still time for Agent Smith to be proved right!

I think everyone should have to imagine what it’s like to be someone else. We can all learn from one other but that means communicating; that means starting with the assumption we do have a common basis for genuine understanding even if our specific circumstances can never be repeated or totally understood by anyone other than ourselves. We all hurt, we all feel joy, we all get turned on, or scared. We all experience loss, and lack of self-worth and feel badly treated by the world at times.

And I understand why everyone should talk and tell stories from their own position you know but it’s also very useful – and a major human talent –  to imagine how other people feel and consider how the world might look through their eyes.  

And you do that by staying informed, listening to voices even when you disagree with them –—and by employing empathy and imagination to put yourself in their place as best as you’re able.

These are difficult times. I’m not a guru. I don’t know what to say to make it all better. There’s seven in a half billion people and it often seems they all fucking hate each other! Yet they all want everyone else to agree with their tiny, restricted, localized points of view. And they’ve all got a piece of ground to defend against perceived foes. I get it, but ultimately, we’re all one thing, one massive organism that’s going through difficult growing pains at the moment, so maybe we need to start thinking about what makes us alike, rather than different.

I hope so

GM: Well, this is part of the boiling process. Capitalist consumer culture has clearly reached its limits and we either advance to a more efficient, stable, less suicidal and aggressive engagement with other people and our environment or we go extinct as a species, taking all the whales and tigers and gorillas with us, before we even figured out how to talk to them and hear their stories! There are few options remaining.

The current questioning, the judgmental audit of where we are and how we got here, is a Horus thing. We can only hope we sublimate from here via Ma’at into something more nurturing and sustainable.

It is a hot moment. Temperatures are rising, Artic ice caps are melting at an alarming rate, and people may be unconsciously registering all that, and doing a horrible job at it. Instead of dealing with one’s own sense of panic, constriction, and fear it looks like many people are just running hot.

GM: I feel like every word we say is now a potential indictment, you know. The last malignant thrashing of the passing Aeon of Osiris. The echoes of the Inquisition, accusations of ‘wrongthink’, the return of Original Sin, the demonic glee taken in any stumble or falter from the approved path seems almost mediaeval. It’s terrifying. The potential for misunderstanding is almost infinite and its almost fated that we will struggle to abide by rules that grow ever more authoritarian and specific every day. Again, all that feels to me like the last ferocious attempts at asserting its fading power by the Osiris energy of the last 2000 years, now gone rotten and unsustainable but trying harder to keep everything and everybody under increasingly deranged levels of control in every area of our lives.

Writers and artists can find more reasons to stop their expression than ever before it seems. The voice of criticism and judgement is easier to find these days, just doom scroll through various social media sites and it’s all over the place.

GM: I regard it all as new input. As tough as it is, there’s an excitement. It’s making me think, it’s making me question myself and my assumptions, it’s making me write different things. I love ideas that challenge my thinking — even if I don’t agree with them in the end.

 

What are your thoughts on Simulation Theory these days?

GM: I was reading New Scientist recently and one of the correspondents on the letters page threw out this random idea that really resonated with me.  The writer was saying that if we live in a simulation then perhaps the world in the past was not as detailed or as high fidelity as it we experience it now! There have been upgrades, developments. In computer game terms, think of the difference between Space Invaders and Red Dead Redemption 2!

And I thought, wow, wouldn’t that be funny if, you know, those medieval painters with the flat landscapes and no perspective, what if they were accurately representing an earlier, more simplistic iteration of our simulated reality? What if they were simply portraying what the world actually looked like in the early stages of the simulation! What if these artists were recording what they saw and that’s how it looked?

Suddenly I saw the history of art in a whole new light! I thought how cool it would be if the cave paintings at Lascaux represented caveman reality perfectly – that’s how the simulated world really looked in an early development of the simulation when we were all just stick figures with antlers and the animals were sketchy semi-abstracts…

I love that idea; that the simulation is becoming more complex and well-rendered as it goes along – and we can see where it’s been.

It almost seems like it will become harder to break the Matrix as it becomes more refined, nuanced and easier to mistake for reality. It is interesting looking at the Simulation theory with the idea of calling it a metaphor for the same thing that the Gnostics came up with.

GM: Yeah, the idea that the universe is a counterfeit created not by god but by some sort of underling of god… that was the gnostic idea. It’s not so much about breaking the Matrix, I feel it’s more about learning to work with it. In the movie, once Neo figures out how it works, he becomes a magician, a superhero. The counterfeit world in the movie seems much more fun than the real one.

 Can magic be a useful tool for navigating VR and AR in IRL?

GM: Yeah, because magic is just about adding meaning or enchantment to the environment and to your life. Magic spices up everything; it’s like hot sauce! Once you add magic, the universe comes to life and starts to dance with you. If you choose to be an exploiter, a black magician, it’s more like a lap dance but otherwise it’s a tango! As I’ve said before, it’s easy to add magic to things. If you decide a certain stone could use some magic power, then carry it with you long enough and it will become first a good luck talisman and will finally accrue the significance and meaning of a Holy Grail if it’s given enough time and attention. So, the more meaning you can add to experience, the more magical it will seem. It’s not difficult or ‘occult’ at all. Magic makes everything more exciting, rich and alive and that’s its job. The more magic you can create around something the more special your interaction with it will feel.