Entertainment

 

“There is some confusion 

as to what Magic actually is. 

I think this can be cleared up 

if you just look at 

the very earliest 

descriptions of Magic. 

Magic in its earliest form 

is often referred to as “The Art”. 

I believe this is 

completely literal. 

I Believe that Magic is Art 

and that Art, whether it be Writing, 

Music, Sculpture, or any other form 

is literally Magic.

 Art is, like Magic, 

The Science of manipulating 

Symbols, Words, or 

Images, to achieve 

Changes in Consciousness. 

The very language about magic 

seems to be talking as much about 

writing or art as it is about 

supernatural events. 

A grimmoir for example, 

the book of spells 

is simply a fancy way 

of saying grammar. 

Indeed, to cast a spell, 

is simply to spell, 

to manipulate words, 

to change people's consciousness. 

And I believe that this is why an artist or writer is the closest thing in the contemporary world that you are likely to see to a Shaman.

I believe that all Culture must have arisen from Cult. 

Originally, all of the facets of our culture, 

whether they be in the arts or sciences 

were the province of the Shaman.

The fact that in present times, this magical power has degenerated to the level of cheap entertainment and manipulation, is, 

I think, a tragedy. 

At the moment the people 

who are using 

Shamanism and Magic 

to shape our culture 

are advertisers. 

Rather than try 

to wake people up, 

their Shamanism 

is used as an opiate 

to tranquillise people, 

to make people more manipulable. 

Their magic box of television, 

and by their magic words, 

their jingles 

can cause everyone 

in the country 

to be thinking 

the same words 

and have 

the same banal thoughts 

all at exactly 

the same moment. 

In all of magic there is an incredibly large linguistic component. 

The Bardic tradition of Magic 

would place a bard 

as being much higher 

and more fearsome 

than A Magician. 

A Magician might curse you —

That might make your hens lay funny 

or you might have 

a child born with a club foot. 

If a Bard were to place not a curse upon you, but a satire, 

then that could destroy you. 

If it was a clever satire, 

it might not just destroy you 

in the eyes of your associates; 

it would destroy you 

in the eyes of your family. 

It would destroy you 

in your own eyes. 

And if it was a finely worded and clever satire 

that might survive and be remembered for decades, 

even centuries. 

Then years after you were dead people still might be reading it 

and laughing at you 

and your wretchedness 

and your absurdity. 

Writers and people who had command of words 

were respected and feared as people who manipulated magic. 

In latter times I think that 

artists and writers 

have allowed themselves 

to be sold down the river. 

They have accepted 

the prevailing belief 

that art and writing 

are merely forms 

of entertainment. 

They’re not seen as transformative forces 

that can change a human being; 

that can change A Society. 

They are seen as 

simple entertainment; 

things with which we can 

fill 20 minutes, half an hour, 

while we’re waiting to die. 

It’s not the job of The Artist 

to give The Audience 

What The Audience WANTS.

If The Audience knew 

what they needed, 

then they wouldn’t 

be The Audience —

they would be The Artists. 

It is The Job of Artists 

to give The Audience 

what they need.

— Alan Moore

“A vaudeville was originally 

a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, 

based on a comical situation : a dramatic composition or light poetry, 

interspersed with songs or ballets.”

[Big Top]

(It is dark and quiet as The Doctor and Ace enter. They whisper to each other.)

ACE: 

Professor.

Time's Champion : 

Yes?

ACE: 

I can't see a thing.

Time's Champion : 

Neither can I.

ACE: 

And the cheering's stopped.

Time's Champion : 

Perhaps we're between performances. 

Let's see if we can find a seat.

(The Doctor feels his way to the stands and climbs the steps. He stubs his toe.)

ACE: 

Found somewhere to sit, Professor?

Time's Champion : 

That's one way of looking at it, 

if we could see. Over here.

ACE: 

What?

Time's Champion : 

I said, over here.

(They settle down.)

Time's Champion : 

In a moment, our eyes'll 

get used to The Darkness.

ACE: 

Assuming there's 

anything worth seeing.

(There is a rustling noise nearby.)

Time's Champion : 

Listen.

(On the row above them sits a 1950's family, 

Father, Mother 

and a little girl between them. 

They are eating a noisy snack.)

GIRL: 

Daddy. Daddy.

DAD: 

What?

GIRL: 

I want an ice cream.

DAD: 

You've already had one.

GIRL: 

But Daddy.

DAD: 

I told you once 

and I'm not going to 

tell you again. 

Now shut up and 

eat your popcorn.

Time's Champion : 

We're not alone.

ACE: 

Yeah, but it looks like 

it's just Us and Them. 

What a con. 

I mean, where's 

Mags and the Captain?

Time's Champion : 

Perhaps they haven't arrived yet. 

Who knows? 

Anyway, I'm going to have 

an ice cream.

MUM: 

They should be 

starting up again soon. 

Have a crisp, Father.

Time's Champion : 

Greetings. 

Not many in today, are there. 

Are you regulars 

or is this your first visit, too?

 Let me introduce myself. I'm —

(The Mother holds out the bag of crisps.)

Time's Champion : 

Oh, thank you very much. 

Delicious.

(The circus music starts and the lights come up.)

ACE: 

Professor. Professor, it's starting.

Time's Champion : 

Well, it's been a pleasure.

(The Doctor returns to sit with Ace as the ring fills with tumbling and juggling clowns.)

Time's Champion : 

Remarkable.

ACE: 

If you like this sort of thing.

Time's Champion : 

No, no, I mean the memorial stones. 

Do you see them? Look.

(Placed at intervals around the ring are old carved stones. 

The Ringmaster enters and the clowns freeze.)

RINGMASTER: 

Now welcome folks, 

I mean that from the heart, 

because The Greatest Show 

is about to start. 

It's happening right here 

before your very eyes 

and one thing's for sure, 

you're in for quite a surprise. 

But then, nothing's quite 

as it seems to be at 

The Greatest Show in the Galaxy.

(The Ringmaster adjusts the controls in the back of one clown and it does a somersault.)

RINGMASTER: 

Now welcome folks, 

we've got a brand new act. 

He's a real find and no doubt 

that's a fact. 

He'll entertain you, 

he'll make you stare, 

and our great new act 

is seated over there…!

(The spotlight falls on the Doctor.)

Time's Champion : 

Oh, thank you, but —

RINGMASTER: 

Come on, Doctor. Don't be shy.

Time's Champion : 

Well, I'm not really sure 

that I should.

RINGMASTER: 

Oh, no false modesty. 

We know you're Good.

Time's Champion : 

Well, this is most unexpected. 

Are you sure you want me?

RINGMASTER: 

There's no mistake, Doc. 

Come on in. Feel free.

ACE: 

Don't go, Professor.

Time's Champion : 

Why, what harm could it do?

RINGMASTER: 

Exactly. But the decision's up to you.

(Wearing a big grin, the Doctor pushes past Ace and hurries down the ring, to canned applause.)

ACE: 

No, Doctor!

(The Doctor has barely got into the ring when the clowns start throwing their clubs past him, front and back.)

Time's Champion : 

Well, you certainly didn't waste any time. 

I had expected to see what the opposition was up to 

before I put myself forward for the talent contest.

(Ace tries to run out of the Big Top but is surrounded by clowns behind the seating where the Doctor cannot see.)

Time's Champion : 

But since you insist.

RINGMASTER: 

Oh, we do, but no doubt 

you'd like to get yourself 

prepared first.

Time's Champion : 

Well, yes, I —

RINGMASTER: 

Let me show you and your charming assistant to your dressing room.

Time's Champion : 

Oh, thank you very much. Ace!

CLOWN: 

Where did you find that earring?

ACE: 

Are you a robot too?

CLOWN: 

No.

ACE: 

Pity.

CLOWN: 

So tell me where you found it.

(Ace gets away.)

CLOWN: 

After her.

[Backstage]

RINGMASTER: 

Right this way, Doctor.

Time's Champion : 

Thank you very much, but where's Ace? I don't think she —

RINGMASTER: 

Oh, she'll be coming.

CAPTAIN [OC]: Iniphitus, where the Galvanic Catastrophods are not what they were.

(The Doctor looks through to where the Captain is drinking tea and talking at a bored Nord while Mags is staring at nothing.)

CAPTAIN: 

No, but they're still worth a look if you're doing a tour of the southern nebula and have an eon or two to spare. You. Well, well.

Time's Champion : Captain Cook, I presume. So you had arrived after all.

CAPTAIN: 

But of course. Come and join us, Doctor. It's one big happy family here, eh, Nord?

NORD: Except when you're gassing on.

Time's Champion : Well, I don't really think I

CAPTAIN: Nonsense, we're having a ball here.

Time's Champion : Very well then. Mags. Do sit down, Doctor.

(Mags give up her seat next to the Captain and pours out some tea.)

Time's Champion : Thank you very much.

CAPTAIN: Yes, there we are. Comfy?

Time's Champion : Yes.

CAPTAIN: That's the spirit.

(Bars slide down over the entrance, then the curtains are all pulled back to reveal that the quartet are actually in a - )

[Cage]

CAPTAIN: Anything the matter, old chap?

Time's Champion : It's a trap! I've fallen into a trap! I've fallen for it.

CAPTAIN: Yes, I know, old boy. Never mind. Have some tea. A very similar thing happened to me once, you know.

(Ace uses the pin of the earring to slash the billowing fabric of the backstage corridors and hide from the pursuing clowns.)

Time's Champion : Why?

CAPTAIN: Why what?

Time's Champion : Why let me be trapped? It's so pointless. I could have saved you, Nord and Mags.

CAPTAIN: I wouldn't be too sure about that, Doctor. These circus chappies are pretty smart customers for all their let it all hang out mumbo jumbo.

MAGS: Maybe we could have escaped if we'd made a break for it there and then. If only you'd

CAPTAIN: Now, now, Mags. No use in getting upset, and that's an order.

Time's Champion : What about you? I mean, why didn't you speak up?

(Nord growls. The Doctor growls back.)

Time's Champion : What kind of answer's that?

CAPTAIN: Save your energy, Doctor. You'll soon see why. Anyway, all of us in here have developed a survival philosophy, which is why we welcomed you in.

Time's Champion : 

What is all this, then? 

I thought there was 

a talent contest going on.

CAPTAIN: 

Well, yes, but in a way 

it's more like a survival of the fittest.

(A man in a suede jacket pushes a broom round the outside of the cage.)

CAPTAIN: 

Oh, that's Deadbeat. 

Yes, he does odd jobs about the place, 

makes the tea for me, things like that. 

Don't bother too much about him, though. 

Fellow's mind's completely gone.

DEADBEAT: 

Gone. Gone. Oh really gone. 

All really gone down the road again.

[Cage]

(The zapping noise can be heard and the strobing lights seen.)

Time's Champion : 

Is this what you saw before?

MAGS: Not exactly, but just as bad.

(There is a peal of thunder then a big flash, and smoke. The Ringmaster picks up a piece of charred leather from the middle of the ring to canned applause.)

Time's Champion : Would you let something like that happen to you?

MAGS: Would you?

[Ticket office]

WHIZZKID: It must be awfully exciting working for the Psychic Circus, Morgana. Particularly when you did your tour of the Boreatic Wastes. I think that most of your admirers would agree with me that that was one of your finest ever gigs. Well, in so far as you can tell from the posters

MORGANA: Would you like to be getting along inside?

WHIZZKID: You mean I can go in, just like that?

MORGANA: Yes. Go right now, please.

WHIZZKID: Oh wow!

[Cage]

(The Doctor is practising his juggling with Mags.)

CAPTAIN: Mags.

MAGS: What?

CAPTAIN: It's not going to work. I remember when I was on the baleful plains of Grolon, I

MAGS: I don't care.

Time's Champion : Ready?

(Mags and the Doctor go to the cage door, where a pair robot clowns stand guard.)

Time's Champion : I believe I'm on first.

MAGS: No, I'm ahead of you.

Time's Champion : No, you're not.

MAGS: No, I am.

Time's Champion : I insist on going out first.

MAGS: Oh no, you don't.

Time's Champion : Oh yes, I do!

[Big Top]

(The Ringmaster enters.)

RINGMASTER: Now listen folks, we have a great new act. He's a real find, there's no doubt that's a fact. He'll entertain you, he'll make you stare, and our great new act is seated over there!

(The spotlight finds Whizzkid.)

MUM: I hope he's better than the last one.

DAD: Couldn't be much worse.

GIRL: Mum, Mum.

MUM: Shut up and eat your popcorn.

[Cage]

Time's Champion : Look, I insist in going on first.

MAGS: I told you, I am.

Time's Champion : I am!

(The clowns come over and the door slides up. The Doctor and Mags knock them out with the clubs.)

Time's Champion : Join the club. Captain?

CAPTAIN: 

No thanks, old boy. I'll sit this one out. 

Goodbye, Mags.

MAGS: 

Bye, Captain.

ckstage]

Time's Champion : 

Something dreadful's 

happening in the ring. 

Things are getting out of control 

quicker than I expected.

DAD [OC]: 

Calling The Doctor. 

Calling the Doctor.

Time's Champion : 

Nothing will satisfy Them 

but my presence.

MAGS: 

I'm coming back in there with you.

Time's Champion : 

No. You must run and get 

Ace and Deadbeat.

(Mags runs off.)

Time's Champion : 

I must prepare for my entrance. 

Never keep your audience waiting.

(The clowns chase Mags outside, then they head for the hearse. Down in the well, the eye gets bigger.)

[Ticket office]

(A wind starts to blow.)

Time's Champion : 

I'm coming. 

Open a pathway for me. 

Once small step for mankind, 

one great leap, 

or words to that effect —

(The Doctor pulls apart the canvas entrance to the Circus and steps into a kaleidoscope world of noise and colour. He fights his way through with gritted teeth to -)

[Arena]

(A semi-circular sand floor, grey stone walls with one grilled doorway, and three large figures sitting on thrones looking down.)

Time's Champion : 

And here we all are at last. 

I'm surprised you brought me here. 

It must be very difficult for you, 

trying to exist concurrently 

in two different time spaces. 

I know the problem myself. 

No wonder those memorial stones looked familiar. 

The Gods of Ragnarok, 

I presume.

[By the snack stall]

(The stallholder has hitched the stall to her horse and is manoeuvring it to turn round. Mags jumps over the hitch and keeps running.)

STALLHOLDER: 

Don't you frighten my horse like that, you hippie weirdo.

(The hearse has to stop and sound its horn.)

STALLHOLDER: 

Shut up, circus riff-raff. 

You don't own this planet, you know.

[Arena]

Time's Champion : 

How many people have you destroyed, I wonder, 

before Kingpin 

was lured down here. 

Poor Kingpin. 

That's what you like, isn't it. 

Taking someone with a touch 

of individuality and imagination, 

and wearing them down to nothingness 

in Your Service.

DAD: 

Enough.

MUM: 

You have said enough.

Time's Champion : 

Enough? I've hardly started. 

I have fought 

The Gods of Ragnarok 

all through time.

(The Doctor looks at his watch.)

DAD: 

You are in our true 

time space now, Doctor. 

There is no appeal beyond its confines to any other.

Time's Champion : 

Don't tell me what you want me to do. 

Let me guess. Now let me see. 

You want me to —

DAD: 

Entertain us.

MUM: 

Entertain us.

DAD: 

Or die. So long as 

you entertain us, you may live.

MUM: 

When you no longer 

entertain us, you die.

Time's Champion : 

Predictable as ever, 

Gods of Ragnarok. 

As I think it's been said before, 

or was it after? Anyway, 

You ain't seen nothin' yet.

(The Doctor leans and swings round at a remarkable angle.)

[Segonax]

(Ace and Deadbeat meet Mags.)

ACE: 

Hey, Mags! 

Where's The Doctor?

MAGS: 

Back at the circus.

ACE: 

So you're on your own now?

MAGS: 

Not exactly. Look.

(Here comes the hearse. Mags sees the completed medallion.)

MAGS: 

That's what they're after.

DEADBEAT: 

Oh, I might have guessed.

ACE: 

So how do we get it back to The Doctor? 

Oh, dumbo! Not you two, me. 

I've got an idea. Come on!

MAGS: 

Wrong way!

ACE: 

Not for this. 

Come on, Kingpin!

[Arena]

(The Doctor has a table in front of him, with a large pan and its cover.)

Time's Champion : 

Thank you very much, 

Ladies and Gentlemen, 

for that overwhelming reception. 

And now, I would like to begin 

like Life, at The Beginning. 

But how did Life begin? 

Was it with a chicken 

or was it with -

DAD: 

What?

(The Doctor produces an egg from his mouth and puts it in the pan. Then a second one which goes into his hand and disappears.)

MUM: 

Don't try our patience.

(She throws a lightning bolt near the Doctor.)

DAD: 

Don't play games.

Time's Champion : 

You're not interested in beginnings.

 You're only interested in endings.

[Campsite]

MAGS: 

Oh no, not that thing again. 

Come on.

DEADBEAT: 

Dumbo. Bellboy's robot.

ACE: 

Dead right, Kingpin.

(The three hide behind the robot as the hearse pulls up and the clowns run out.)

CLOWN: 

Bellboy's greatest mistake. 

What a place to choose. 

You may have The Eye again, Deadbeat, 

but you won't use it. 

You know that. 

You're not strong enough! 

You weren't before.

DEADBEAT: 

At least I tried. 

You just gave in.

CLOWN: 

Yes, and I shall get my reward. 

Last chance, Deadbeat. 

We really believed in all that talk 

of Peace and Love

ACE: 

This thing had better work, 

or I'll kick its head in.

(Ace jabs at the remote control. After a few moments, the robot lasers one of the robot clowns, then the other three. Finally it kills the clown himself and keeps firing as Ace keeps pushing buttons. Then it goes quiet.)

MAGS: 

For a moment I thought you weren't going to be able to make it stop.

ACE: 

Funny you should say that.

DEADBEAT: 

He used to be a great clown.

ACE: 

I've never liked clowns.

[Arena]

(To the strains of Narcissus being played on a violin, the Doctor produces a length of rope and ties the ends together.)

Time's Champion : 

What, no complaints? 

No arguments? 

No thunderbolts?

(The rope falls into a single length with the knot still in it.)

DAD: 

No, Doctor.

MUM: 

We're not concerned that 

You're Playing for Time.

(The Doctor has untied the knot and is now fastening the two pieces of rope together. Then he stands on a loose end and pulls it into a single piece of rope again.)

DAD: 

We have A Saying :

Time's Champion : 

Let me guess —

Give yourself enough rope 

and you hang yourself.

(The Doctor looks at his watch again.)

[Campsite]

ACE: 

Kingpin.

DEADBEAT: 

I only hope we make it in time. 

The Doctor's stronger than I ever was, 

but even he can't hold out against them forever.

(Mags, Ace and Deadbeat get into the hearse.)

ACE: 

He'll have a good stab at it, though.

[Arena]

DAD: 

You are nearing 

The End, Doctor.

Time's Champion : 

A piece of rope 

has two ends, 

Father Ragnarok.

(The Doctor coils the rope into the pan. 

Then he produces a long candle from his handkerchief and lights it with a flame apparently from his palm. 

He puts the lit candle to the pan with bursts into flames, 

briefly puts the cover over it to extinguish them and removes a snake from it. 

Mum throws a thunderbolt.)

MUM: 

Feel the rain, Doctor.

DAD: 

Feel the chill in your bones.

(The Doctor turns around and the snake turns into his umbrella. He puts it up just before the downpour starts.)

[By the Ticket Office]

(The wind is still howling. Ace stops to look at the crystal ball.)

DEADBEAT: 

Ace, quick! Come on!

[Arena]

(The Doctor is attempting to escape from a strait-jacket whilst hanging by his ankles from a rope.)

DAD: 

Doctor.

Time's Champion : 

Yes?

DAD: 

You are trifling with us.

Time's Champion : 

Really? I thought 

I was entertaining you.

(He gets the strait-jacket off.)

DAD: 

You are on the brink 

of Destruction, Doctor. 

We want something bigger, something better.

Time's Champion : 

Do you, now?

[Big Top]

(Deadbeat, Mags and Ace run into the deserted ring.)

ACE: 

The Doctor must be here somewhere.

DEADBEAT: 

Well, he may already be in 

The Dark Circus with The Gods. 

If so, there's only one way 

we can reach him.

MAGS: 

The Stone Chamber.

ACE: 

And the medallion?

DEADBEAT: 

Yeah. We must be careful. 

They're bound to sense its presence.

[Arena]

(The Doctor is back on his feet.)

Time's Champion : 

Do I have your full attention?

(He checks his wrist watch.)

[Ticket Office]

DEADBEAT: 

You do realise that 

They'll try anything to stop us?

ACE: 

Yes. Let's go.

(Behind the advertising boards, the Captain sits up from the stretcher and puts on his pith helmet.)

[Arena]

Time's Champion : 

The climax of My Act, 

Gods of Ragnarok, 

requires something 

You Do Not Possess 

in great abundance. 

That is, Imagination. 

And it starts with 

A Piece of Metal. 

This Piece of Metal 

once belonged to 

A Sword, 

and that Sword 

belonged to 

A Gladiator.

(The Doctor throws the piece of metal into the air, where it transforms into a gladius, and then a long sword drops into his hand.)

Time's Champion : 

And That Gladiator 

fought and died 

in this ring to 

entertain you.

[Stone chamber]

(Deadbeat stops at the well.)

ACE: 

Go for it, Kingpin.

(But the Eye is staring back up at him. He backs away.)

MAGS: 

Kingpin, please.

ACE: 

Well, one of us had better try.

(Deadbeat holds out the medallion and shuts his eyes. The Captain hits him in the kidneys and catches the medallion as he falls.)

CAPTAIN: 

Perhaps I might relieve you of that.

MAGS: 

Captain, I thought 

You were Dead.

CAPTAIN: 

I am, my dear. I am.

[Arena]

Time's Champion : 

I have fed you enough, 

Gods of Ragnarok, 

and you found 

what I have to offer indigestible. 

So I have taken myself 

off The Menu. 

La comedia e finita.

DAD: 

We Command You.

MUM: 

You Cannot Stop.

Time's Champion : 

I already have.

DAD: 

Then You Will Die.

Time's Champion : 

Probably not --

It's all a matter of Timing, 

don't you know.

(The Doctor points The Sword to The Ground.)

[Stone chamber]

ACE: 

Oi, sarcophagus face!

(The Captain turns and Mags kicks the medallion out of his hand and into the well. It lands on the sword and the Doctor uses it to reflect the Gods' Thunderbolts back at Them.

The Eye in the well grows.)

DEADBEAT: 

Quick.

CAPTAIN: 

You know, when I was on 

The Planet Periboea, 

I met someone who walked around 

when he was already dead. 

I must say, as an experience 

I'd say it's very overrated.

(The Captain falls into the well.)

[Ticket office]

DEADBEAT: 

Look. Get down!

(The crystal ball explodes.

In the arena, the Gods stop firing laser bolts at the Doctor and slump in their seats. The walls crack and buckle. The Doctor throws the sword and medallion at them then raises his hat as the whole place falls apart.

The Big Top crumples as the arena disintegrates. The Doctor walks out and doesn't flinch as an explosion occurs just behind him.)

[Segonax]

(A huge red pillar of smoke climbs to the sky. The Stallholder speaks to her horse.)

STALLHOLDER: 

It's what I've always said --

No consideration for those of us that live here.

[Outside the Circus]

Time's Champion : 

Enjoying The Show, Ace?

ACE : 

Yeah. It was Your Show all along, wasn't it?

MAGS: 

The Captain really is finished now, isn't he?

Time's Champion : 

Yes. But you're just about to start.

DEADBEAT: 

Doctor, I've been thinking.

Time's Champion : 

What better way for a circus to begin 

than with a wonderful new act.

ACE: 

Yeah, weird and wonderful. Nice one, Professor. You'll knock them dead.

MAGS: 

That's just what I'm afraid of. 

What if I can't control it?

Time's Champion : 

Oh, you can, Mags. 

You already have.

DEADBEAT: 

What about it, Doctor? You and Ace. 

Join Kingpin's new circus 

and travel The Galaxy with us.

Time's Champion : 

Thank you, Kingpin, but I'm afraid we've got other galaxies to travel. And besides, I find circuses a little sinister.

Multiple Selves and Information Systems

Multiple Selves and Information Systems
by Robert Anton Wilson

Between 1910 and 1939, Charlie Chaplin always played the same character in all his films — the beloved little Tramp that became world-famous. 

In 1939, Chaplin wrote, directed and starred in The Great Dictator, in which the little Tramp did not appear. 

Instead, Chaplin played two characters — a tyrant, based on Hitler, and a Jewish tailor, one of Hitler's victims. 

Audiences all over The World (except Germany, where the authorities banned the film) complained, mournfully and angrily, that they missed The Little Tramp. 

Chaplin, however, having gotten rid of The Tramp once, never did bring that persona back. 

In later films, he played many characters (a serial killer, a kindly old vaudevillian, a deposed king), but never The Tramp. 

People still complained that they wanted to see The Tramp again, but Chaplin went on creating new characters. 

(We will leave it to Jungians to explain why Chaplin had to become two opposite characters before he could personally escape the Archetype of The Tramp...) 

Many actors have had equally hard battles in getting detached from, if not a specific character, a specific type. 

Humphrey Bogart remained stuck in villain roles, usually gangsters, for nearly a decade before he got to play his first hero. 

Cary Grant never did escape from the hero type — either the romantic hero or the comic hero; when Alfred Hitchcock persuaded him to play a murderer, in Suspicion, the studio over-ruled both of them and tacked on a surprise ending in which the Grant character did not commit the murder, after all. Etc.

Back in "the real world," if a member of a family changes suddenly, the whole family suddenly appears agitated and disturbed. 

Family counselors have learned to expect this, even when the change consists of something everybody considers desirable — e.g., an alcoholic who suddenly stops drinking can "destabilize" the family to the extent that another member becomes clinically depressed, or develops psychosomatic symptoms, or even starts drink-ing heavily (as if the family "needed" an alcoholic). 

It seems that we not only speak and think in sentences like "John is an old grouch" but become disoriented and frightened if John suddenly starts acting friendly and generous. 

(Audiences rejected the previously "lovable" Chaplin most vehemently when he played the multiple wife-killer in Monsieur Verdoux. 

Probably, audiences would not have felt upset if the role had gone to the actor who originally wrote it for himself and sold it to Chaplin when the Hollywood moguls blacklisted him — Orson Welles.) 

If Dickens’s Scrooge had changed, in actuality, as he changed in the book, several people in his social field would have suddenly developed bizarre behaviors they had never shown before... 

Chaplin, amusingly, once made a comedy about the chaos created by a man who conspicuously does not exhibit the "isness" or "essence" our subject-predicate language programs us to expect, City Lights. 

In this film, The Little Tramp encounters a millionaire with two entirely different personalities: a generous and compassionate drunk, and a greedy, somewhat paranoid sober man. 

The Tramp and all the other characters soon exhibit behaviors that would look like clinical insanity to the audience, if we did not know the secret none of the characters guess: namely that each "personality" in the rich man appears when brain chemistry changes. 

The Russian mystic Gurdjieff claimed that we all contain multiple personalities. 

Many researchers in psychology and neuroscience now share that startling view. 

As Gurdjieff indicated, the "I" who toils at a job does not seem the same "I" who makes love with joy and passion, and the third "I" who occasionally gets angry for no evident reason seems a third personality, etc. 

There does not appear anything metaphysical about this; it even appears, measurably, on electroencephalograms. 

Dr. Frank Putnam of the National Institute of Health found that extreme cases of multiple personality — the only ones that ortho-dox psychiatry recognizes — show quite distinct brain waves for each "personality" almost as if the researchers had taken the electrodes off of one subject and attached them to another. (O'Regan. op. cit.) 

Dr. Rossi defines these separate personalities as "state specific information systems." 

Not only do we show different personalities when drunk and when sober, like Chaplin's emblematic millionaire, but we have different information banks ("memories") in these states. 

Thus, most people have noted that something that happened to them while drunk appears totally forgotten, until they get intoxicated again, and then the memory "miraculously" re-appears. 

This observation of state-specific information occurs even more frequently with LSD; nobody really remembers the richness of an LSD voyage until they take another dose. 

Emotional states seem part of a circular-causal loop with brain chemistry — it seems impossible, for science in 1990, to say that one part of the circle "causes" the other parts. Thus, we can now understand a phenomenon mentioned earlier, namely that we tend to remember happy experiences when happy and sad experiences when sad. The separate "personalities" or information systems within a typical human seem to fall into four main groups, with four additional groups appearing only in minorities who have engaged in one form or another of neurological self-research (metaprogramming). 

1. The Oral Bio-Survival System. 

This seems to contain imprints and conditioning dating from early infancy, with subsequent learning built upon that foundation. 

If you stop and think about, you know how a carpet tastes, how the leg of a chair tastes, etc. You may even remember how the dirt in a flower pot tastes. 

This knowledge dates from the oral stage of infancy in which we take nourishment (bio-survival) through the mother's nipples and also judge other objects by putting them in our mouths.

A large part of parenting an infant consists in following the little darling around and shouting "Don't put that in your mouth" whenever they try to taste /test something toxic. 

Dating from Adorno in the 1940s, psychologists who do surveys on large groups (e.g., entering college freshper-sons) have repeatedly noted a correlation between dislike of "foreign" and "exotic" foods and the "fascist" personal-ity. 

A total Gestalt seems to exist — a behavioral/concep-tual cluster of dislike of new food-dislike of "radical" ideas/racism/nationalism/sexism/xenophobia /conserva-tism/phobic and/or compulsive behaviors-fascist ideolo-gies. 

This cluster makes up the well-known F-Scale (F for Fascism). Where more than two of these traits appear, the probabilities indicate that most of the others will appear. 

This seems to result from a neophobic imprint in the bio-survival system. Those with this imprint feel increasingly insecure as they move in space-time away from Mommy and "home-cooked meals." 

Conversely, those who like to experiment with strange and exotic foods seem to have a neophilic imprint and want to explore the world in many dimensions — traveling, moving from one city or country to another, studying new subjects, "playing" with ideas rather than holding rigidly to one static model of the universe. On this baby-level of the brain, some seem to have an imprint that clings to the familiar ("Oh, Mommy, take me home"), some have the opposite imprint that seeks novelty and exploration ("Let's see what's on the other side of the mountain") and most, following the Bell-shaped curve, have an imprint somewhere between these extremes — "conservative" on some issues, innovative on others. Subsequent learning will tend to get processed through these imprints, and those with strong neophobic reflexes will usually, if they ever reject the initial dogmatic family reality-tunnel, settle at once into an equally dogmatic new reality-tunnel. 

E.g., if raised Catholic, they seldom become agnostics or zetetics; rather, they will move, like iron filings drawn by a magnet, to dogmatic atheism or even a crusading atheist "religion" like Marxism, Objectivism or CSICOP. 

Since the mechanical bio-chemical reflexes on this level remain "invisible" (and cannot even reach translation onto the verbal level except in an altered state of consciousness, such as hypnosis, or under certain drugs), this hard-wired infantile information system controls all later information systems (or "selves") without the knowledge of the conscious ego. 

In most cases, the "happiest" or most tranquil areas of the infantile bio-survival system — those imprinted by the Safe Space around Mommy — can only be "remembered" or re-experienced with drugs that trigger neurotransmit-ters similar to those activated during breast-feeding. 

The attempt to re-capture that state may lead to re-imprinting via yoga or martial arts, or to a search for chemical analogs, which will eventually lead to the opiates. "Disturbed" or "unhappy" (ego dystonic) imprints here may account for opiate addictions. This oral bio-survival system makes a feedback loop from mouth to hypothalamus to neuropeptide system to lymph and blood etc. to immunological system. 

What Transactional Analysis calls the Wooden Leg Game — evasion of adult responsibility through chronic illness — does not appear conscious in most cases. 

Rather a Loser Script in this system depresses the sub-systems, including the immunological system, and renders the subject, or victim, statistically prone to more illness than average. Similarly, a Winner Script on this circuit contributes to longevity and may account for cases like Bertrand Russell (still writing philosophy and polemic at 99), George Burns (busy with three careers until 100) etc. 

2. The Anal Territorial System. Since all mammals mark their territories with excretions, the "toddler" stage of development and associated toilet training produces a system of synergetic imprints and conditioning concerned with territory and what Freudians call "anality" (sadomasochism). 

Those who take a Dominant imprint in this system seek power all their lives; those with a Submissive imprint seek Dominant types to lead them (the Reichian Fuhrerprinzip) and most people settle somewhere between these extremes, taking a masochist stance toward those "above" them (government, landlords etc.) and a sadist stance toward selected victims defined as "below" them (wives, children, "inferior races," people on Welfare, etc.) 

The "self" or information system on this toddler level may function as the predominant self or "normal" personality in those whose lives center around power or it may remain "latent" usually and only emerge in conflict situations. 

Usually, it emerges full-blown when enough alcohol enters the brain and alters habitual circuitry. 

The anal-sadist vocabulary of the typical drunk ("Oh, yeah? Stick it up your ass," "You dumb ass-hole," "Up yours, buddy," etc.) recapitulates toilet training and mammalian habits of using excretions as territorial fight-or-flight signals. 

People say later "He was acting like a two-year-old" or more simply "He just wasn't himself last night." 

These remarks signify that the toddler information system — i.e., the mammalian anal-territorial circuits — temporarily took control of the brain. Politicians have great skill in activating this system and easily persuade large crowds to behave like small children having temper tantrums. 

The favorite activating device (dramatized by Shakespeare in Henry V) invokes mammalian pack-solidarity by attacking a rival pack. 

George Bush, perceived as a "wimp" by many, raised his popularity to unprecedented heights, just as I looked about for a contemporary illustration of this point. 

Mr. Bush simply invaded a small, Third World country (Panama) where a quick, easy victory came within a week. 

The "wimp" image vanished overnight. 

Any alpha male in any gorilla or chimpanzee pack, feeling his authority slipping, would have followed the same course. 

This system makes a feedback loop between muscles, adrenaline, the thalamus of the brain, the anus and the larynx. Swelling the body and using the larynx to howl (muscle-flexing and noise) makes up the usual Domination signal among birds, reptiles, mammals and politicians. 

Study the speeches of Hitler and Ronald Reagan for further details, or just watch two ducks disputing territory in a pond. 

Conversely, shrinking the body and muttering (or becoming totally silent) make up the usual Submission reflex. 

"Crawling away with its tail between its legs," the dog's submission reflex, does not differ much from the body-language of an employee who made the mistake of disagreeing with the boss and received a Dominator (flexing/howling) signal in response. 

The ego — or self — defined by this system appears more mammalian and evolutionarily advanced than the quick reptilian reflexes of the self operating on the oral bio-survival system. 

Nonetheless, the personality shrinks back to the primitive bio-survival self whenever real danger appears — whenever confronted by threat to life, rather than mere threat to status. 

This difference between mam-malian strategy and reptilian reflex explains why there seems more "time" in the anal territorial system than in the oral bio-survival system. In the later, mammalian system, one explores relative power signals slowly; in the earlier, reptilian system, one attacks or flees instantly. 

3. The Semantic Time-Binding System. After the growing child acquires language — i.e., learns that the flux of experience has had labels and indexes assigned to it by the tribal game-rules — a new information system becomes imprinted and conditioned, and this system can continue growing and learning for a lifetime. This system allows me to receive signals sent 2500 years ago by persons such as Socrates and Confucius. 

It allows me to send signals which, if I have more luck than most writers, will still find their way to new receivers 2500 years in the future. 

This time-binding function of symbolism gives humans problem-solving capacities impossible to most other animals (except, perhaps, cetaceans) and also allows us to create and suffer from "problems" that do not exist at all, except on the linguistic level. 

With human symbolism we can produce (or learn from their producers) mathematical systems that allow us to predict the behavior of physical systems long before we had the instruments to measure those systems (as Einstein predicted that clocks in outer space would measure time differently than clocks on our planet face). We can even build complex machines that work — most of the time. 

With symbolism we can also write messages so profound that nobody fully understands them but almost everybody agrees they say something important (e.g., Beethoven's Ninth Symphony). 

And with symbolism we can create meaningless meta-physics and Strange Loops so weird that society grows alarmed and either locks us up or insists on "medicating" us. 

With such weird symbols, if not locked up or medicated, we can even persuade multitudes to believe in our gibberish and execute 6,000,000 scapegoats (the Hitler case), line up to drink cyanide cocktails (the Jim Jones case), or perform virtually any idiocy or lunacy imaginable. 

If the imprints in the first two information systems differentiate us into large groups — conservatives and pioneers, dominators and followers, etc. — the semantic system allows us to differentiate ourselves still further, giving humanity more tribal eccentrics, both benevolent and malign, than any other class of animals. 

We do not all live in the same universe. Millions live in a Moslem universe and find it very hard to understand persons living in a Christian universe. Millions of others live in a Marxist universe. 

Most Americans seem quite happy in a mixed 19th Century Capitalist and 13th Century Christian universe, but the literary intelligentsia lives in an early 20th Century Freudian/Marxist universe, and a few well-informed scientists evidently actually live in a 1997 universe. Etc. 

The elaboration of such emic realities or reality-tunnels can reach extremes of creativity, in which a person "invents" a totally new and individualized gloss on the whole of existence. 

Such great creators will either win Nobel prizes (for art or science) or will get thrown in "mental hospitals," depending on how much skill they have at selling their new vision to others. 

Some will even get locked up in nut-houses and later become recognized as great scientific pioneers — e.g., Semmelweiss, the first physician to suggest that surgeons should wash their hands before operating. 

(Ezra Pound had the peculiar distinction of winning an award from the Library of Congress for writing the best poem of the year, in 1948, while government psychiatrists insisted he "was" insane.) 

The semantic time-binding system makes a feedback loop between the verbal left brain hemisphere, the larynx, the right hand (which manipulates the world and checks the accuracy of maps or glosses) and the eyes (which read words and also scan the environment). 

The self existing in this system has more "time" than the self on the mammalian territorial system or the reptilian survival system. 

Indeed, it can speculate about "time", or about other words, and invent philosophies about timeless universes, three-dimensional time (Ouspensky), infinite time dimensions (Dunne) etc. 

It can invent new Gestalts which make quantum jumps in our social information banks and it can wallow in utter nonsense endlessly. 

A "clever" imprint in this system usually lasts for life, as does a "dumb" imprint. Subsequent conditioning and learning all occur with the parameters of a fluent (well-spoken, clear-thinking) self or a dull (inarticulate, "unthinking") self. 

4. The Socio-Sexual System. At puberty, the DNA un-leashes messenger RNA molecules which notify all sub-systems that mating time has arrived. The body metamorphizes totally, and the nervous system ("mind") changes in the process. A new "self" appears. 

 Cat and Mouse 

As usual, imprinting and genetics play a major role, with conditioning and learning modifying but seldom radically altering genetic-imprinted imperatives. If the environment provides a sex-positive imprint, adult sexuality will have a joyous and even "transcendental" quality;. if the environ-ment provides a sex-negative imprint, sexuality will remain disturbed or problematical for life. 

The socio-sexual system feedbacks run from front brain through hormonal and neuropeptide systems to genitalia to breasts and arms (hugging, cuddling, fucking circuitry). 

A "good" sexual imprint creates the archetypal "bright eyes and bushy tails," while a "bad" imprint creates a tense (muscularly armored) and zombie-like appearance. 

The self or ego in this system easily learns adult Game Rules (civilized norms, "ethics"), if the sexual imprint has not had strong negative components. 

Where the imprint does have negative or "kinky" components, adult Game Rules do not set in place and either an "outlaw" personal-ity crystallizes (the rapist/criminal with the archetypal "Born to Lose" tattoo) or else the Jekyll-Hyde dualism appears, well illustrated recently by several sex-negative TV preachers who got caught in some very kinky private sex-games. 

Whatever system dominates at a given time appears as the ego or self at that time, in two senses: 

1. People who meet Mr. A when he has the Oral Submissive self predominant, will remember him as "that sort of person." 

People who meet him when he has the Semantic/rational self predominant remember him as another sort of person. Etc. 

2. Due to state-specific information, as discussed earlier, when you have one of these selves predominant, you "forget" the other selves to a surprising extent and act as if the brain only had access to the information banks of the presently predominant self. 

E.g., when frightened into infantile Oral states, you may actually think "I am always a weakling," quite forgetting the times when your Anal Dominator self was in charge, or the Semantic or Sexual imprints were governing the brain, etc. 

(This analysis owes a great deal to Dr. Timothy Leary's Info-Psychology, Falcon Press, 1988. A discussion at greater length, less technical than Leary's, appears in my Prometheus Rising, op. cit.) 

 

But, if we have a variety of potential selves rather than the one block-like "essential self" of Aristotelian philosophy, and, if each self acts as an observer who creates a reality-tunnel which appears as a whole universe (to those unaware of Transactional and Quantum psychology), then: 

Each time an internal or external trigger causes us to quantum jump from one "self" to another, The Whole World around us appears to change also. 

 

This explains why Mary may say, and honestly believe, "Everybody bullies me" one day and then say, and honestly believe, "Everybody likes me and helps me" on another day, why John may feel "Everybody is a bastard" one hour and "I feel sorry for everybody; they're all suffering" the next hour. 

Every person lives in different umwelt (emic reality) but every self within a person also lives in a different reality-tunnel. 

 

The number of universes perceived by human beings does not equal the population of the planet, but several times the population of the planet. It thus appears some sort of miracle that we sometimes find it possible to communicate with each other at all, at all. 

Quantum mechanics says an electron has a different "essence" every time we measure it (or, more clearly, it has no "essence" at all). 

Neuroscience reveals, similarly, that the Mary we meet on Tuesday may have a different "self" than the Mary we met Monday (or, as the Buddhists said long before neuroscience, Mary has no "essence" at all). 

 

As we said at the beginning, the bedrock claim of existentialism holds that "existence precedes essence," or we have no "essence". 

 

Like electrons, we jump from one information system to another, and only those who have not looked closely believe that one "essence" remains constant through all transformations. 

Cat and Mouse Exercizes 

1. J. Edgar Hoover, Head of our Secret Police for over 50 years, now appears to have lived the life of an active homosexual. 

He kept files on the sexual behavior of politicians, business people, famous actors and anybody who could advance or harm his career, and used these files for blackmail.

 

[ AND he was Secretly Black (his parents generation would have called him a Mulatto), passing as White -- he also spied on and persecuted Black Civil Rights Leaders and had a letter sent to Dr. Martin Luther King threatening sexual blackmail and encouraging him towards suicide. ]

Try to figure out Mr. Hoover's imprinted and conditioned selves, according to the above analysis. 

2. Try the same on Jesus Christ. 

3. Try Thomas Jefferson. 

4. Let each member of the study group pick some subject, or victim — not part of the group, but someone the member sees daily. 

Let the member study that person care-fully and analyze which selves appear most often, how frequently the selves shift, and which self (if any) appears dominant most of the time.

 

5. This exercize will seem the hardest in the book, but try it anyway. 

Observe yourself for a week, and try to see which selves appear most often, if one self appears dominant, etc.