Wigan

'The filthy bloody bastards!' he said feelingly. After that he packed his suit-case, went downstairs and, with great strength of mind, told the Brookers that this was not the kind of house he was accustomed to and that he was leaving immediately. The Brookers could never understand why. They were astonished and hurt. The ingratitude of it! Leaving them like that for no reason after a single night! Afterwards they discussed it over and over again, in all its bearings. It was added to their store of grievances. 

On the day when there was a full chamber-pot under the breakfast table I decided to leave. The place was beginning to depress me. It was not only the dirt, the smells, and the vile food, but the feeling of stagnant meaningless decay, of having got down into some subterranean place where people go creeping round and round, just like blackbeetles, in an endless muddle of slovened jobs and mean grievances. The most dreadful thing about people like the Brookers is the way they say the same things over and over again. It gives you the feeling that they are not real people at all, but a kind of ghost for ever rehearsing the same futile rigmarole. In the end Mrs Brooker's self-pitying talk—always the same complaints, over and over, and always ending with the tremulous whine of 'It does seem 'ard, don't it now?'—revolted me even more than her habit of wiping her mouth with bits of newspaper. But it is no use saying that people like the Brookers are just disgusting and trying to put them out of mind. For they exist in tens and hundreds of thousands; they are one of the characteristic by-products of the modern world. You cannot disregard them if you accept the civilization that produced them. For this is part at least of what industrialism has done for us. Columbus sailed the Atlantic, the first steam engines tottered into motion, the British squares stood firm under the French guns at Waterloo, the one-eyed scoundrels of the nineteenth century praised God and filled their pockets; and this is where it all led—to labyrinthine slums and dark back kitchens with sickly, ageing people creeping round and round them like blackbeetles. It is a kind of duty to see and smell such places now and again, especially smell them, lest you should forget that they exist; though perhaps it is better not to stay there too long. 

The train bore me away, through the monstrous scenery of slag-heaps, chimneys, piled scrap-iron, foul canals, paths of cindery mud criss-crossed by the prints of clogs. This was March, but the weather had been horribly cold and everywhere there were mounds of blackened snow. As we moved slowly through the outskirts of the town we passed row after row of little grey slum houses running at right angles to the-embankment. At the back of one of the houses a young woman was kneeling on the stones, poking a stick up the leaden waste-pipe which ran from the sink inside and which I suppose was blocked. I had time to see everything about her—her sacking apron, her clumsy clogs, her arms reddened by the cold. She looked up as the train passed, and I was almost near enough to catch her eye. She had a round pale face, the usual exhausted face of the slum girl who is twenty-five and looks forty, thanks to miscarriages and drudgery; and it wore, for the second in which I saw it, the most desolate, hopeless expression I have ever seen. It struck me then that we are mistaken when we say that 'It isn't the same for them as it would be for us,' and that people bred in the slums can imagine nothing but the slums. For what I saw in her face was not the ignorant suffering of an animal. She knew well enough what was happening to her—understood as well as I did how dreadful a destiny it was to be kneeling there in the bitter cold, on the slimy stones of a slum backyard, poking a stick up a foul drain-pipe. But quite soon the train drew away into open country, and that seemed strange, almost unnatural, as though the open country had been a kind of park; for in the industrial areas one always feels that the smoke and filth must go on for ever and that no part of the earth's surface can escape them. In a crowded, dirty little country like ours one takes defilement almost for granted. Slag-heaps and chimneys seem a more normal, probable landscape than grass and trees, and even in the depths of the country when you drive your fork into the ground you half expect to lever up a broken bottle or a rusty can. But out here the snow was untrodden and lay so deep that only the tops of the stone boundary-walls were showing, winding over the hills like black paths. I remembered that D. H. Lawrence, writing of this same landscape or another near by, said that the snow-covered hills rippled away into the distance 'like muscle'. It was not the simile that would have occurred to me. To my eye the snow and the black walls were more like a white dress with black piping running across it.

Rationality Will NOT Save Us.

Anne Strainchamps: The question of how and why we come to believe lies fascinates filmmaker Errol Morris. It's a theme that runs through all of his films, The Thin Blue Line, the Oscar-winning Fog of War, and his brand new documentary about former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld. It's called The Unknown Known.

Errol Morris: I'm really fascinated about how we propagate error, how we come to believe false things and how we stick with those false beliefs no matter what. Once convinced that we know the truth, even if it isn't the truth, even smacking upside the head with a two by four isn't going to to change much of anything.

Strainchamps: You wrote this series of pieces recently in The New Yorker about a neurological problem. I don't even know how to say it. 

Morris: Anosognosia.

Strainchamps: There you go. 

Morris: The anosognosiak's dilemma.

Strainchamps: Yes.

Morris: It's a neurological problem that prevents you from knowing that you have that neurological problem. 

I was writing about something called the Dunning-Kruger effect, where these two scientists had done an elaborate series of social science experiments about, if you're incompetent you're usually too incompetent to know how incompetent you really are. 

That incompetence prevents you from an awareness of your incompetence. 

The Dunning-Kruger effect, what a wonderful effect. They called it a kind of social anosognosia. It's interesting. In these two movies that I've made, really they are movies about war. The Fog of War and now The Unknown Known, again about war and how we stumble into it for reasons often that can't be reconstructed, that aren't rational. There was a screening of The Fog of War here at the University of Wisconsin campus last night. 

One of the most striking things about that story is that McNamara saw himself as a supremely rational man, that the problems of the world could be solved with rationality, and at the very end of movie he tells us -- and it's one of the really sad lines that I've ever put on film. He says rationality will not save us. It's this idea that somehow there are forces beyond our control that somehow drag us into conflict.

Strainchamps: Is that moment in the film? Actually, I think we've got it queued up. This is when he's talking about the decision to bomb after the Gulf of Tonkin torpedo attack.

Robert McNamara: Where are these torpedoes coming from? We don't know. 

Presumably from these unidentified craft. There were sonar soundings. Torpedoes had been detected. 

Other indications of attack from patrol boats. 

We spent about 10 hours that day trying to find out what in the hell had happened. 

At one point the commander of the ship said we're not certain of the attack. 

Another point they said, yes, we're absolutely positive, and then finally later in the day Admiral Sharp said, yes. we're certain it happened. 

So I reported this to Johnson and as a result there were bombing attacks on target in north Vietnam.

Morris: What's so interesting about this is that... I'm struck just listening to it here in the studio. 

We went to war on the basis of something that never happened. 

We later learned that that second attack in the Gulf of Tonkin did not occur. If you like, it's the WMDs of 40 years before Iraq.

Strainchamps: I'm thinking about our concept of the banality of evil. In a way, what you're interested in or what we're talking about is sort of the banality of the accidental reasons we go to war. It's not as though people all planned or knew even that this was going to be the pivotal moment. 

They got some information, they made a few mistakes. It was probably accidents and errors that kind of compounded from one person to another as they passed bits of information down a chain, but the result was a war that killed hundreds of thousands of people.

Morris: In the case of Vietnam, 58,000 American service men and literally millions of Vietnamese.

Strainchamps: So it seems to me that one of the things that fascinates you is that chain of deception, those lies.

Morris: I'm not sure that I would even call them lies. It's all unanswerable. There's this idea. Everyone's familiar with it: the marketplace of ideas. Somehow if everybody is allowed to chatter away unendingly the truth will will out.

Strainchamps: Right, this idea that we live in an increasingly transparent society.

Morris: This is something I don't agree with it. The Truth doesn't magically appear for any of us. The marketplace of idea--thank you, Adam Smith--doesn't produce Truth. But it's the job of all of us, journalists, historians, investigators--you name it--to pursue the truth. The truth is outside of us and beyond us. We may never be able to grab a hold of it, but we search for it. We try to find out what is true and what is false to the best of our abilities.

Strainchamps: Well, thank you. It's a great place to leave it. Thanks so much for being here.

Morris: Thank you for having me.

Strainchamps: Errol Morris is an Oscar-winning director. His films include The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War, and his latest, The Unknown Known.

GAME FIVE : CREATION OF A SIMPLE PATTERN

GAME FIVE: CREATION OF 

A SIMPLE PATTERN 

In this game, you stop giving away your control to imaginary forces. The previous games train you to look passively for patterns. In this game, you are going to start creating the pattern of the SEs yourself. This game has a simple, but wide frame of reference. You are going to look for SEs happening in any and every place you turn your attention. 

There are no “others” in this game. Just you and the effect you have on the SEs around you. 

First, choose a pattern that is easily recognizable and has some interest for you. You are going to build a thoughtform based on your chosen pattern. Might I suggest a power animal? No, I’m not suggesting you try to align yourself with an animal spirit the way our ancestors did. 

You create your “animal” from your own thoughts and emotions just by thinking about it for 20 minutes a day. 

If you like, look up power animals on the internet. You will find lists of the various qualities different cultures have ascribed to animals. 

Pick one you want to see. 

There are African, Native American, European, and Eskimo power animals. You are going to build your own pet thoughtform. I have a few basic suggestions. 

Pick something you are likely to find in your normal event stream. 

I like to make owls. 

The symbol is represented in the culture commonly enough, but is not so common that it is commonplace. If you choose a rare animal, there is less chance the pattern will be available to pattern match. Duck-billed platypuses are harder to pattern-match than wolves, horses, or bears. 

Your brain stores memories and thinks in associative patterns. Some things remind you of similar things immediately because they share the same storage areas in the brain. Creating patterns of SE always follows your brain function. Aiming at one pattern often produces closely associated SEs, just as one thought often triggers similar ones. If you try to create a pattern of owl SEs, you typically also get series of generalized bird SEs as well. The stronger you make your owl thoughtform, the more specifically “owl” your SEs become. It is possible Jung saw universalized archetypal patterns in SE because we store and process data in such generalized associations. Studying the fish archetype, triggers whole categories in memory of fish-like things. Jung may have been studying the technology of human biological information storage. He may have been the first person systematically exploring genetic neuropsychology. Our ancestors survived to reproduce because we specialized in flexible thinking. The more mentally flexible you are around your patterns of association, the easier it is to create and read SE. By the way, the more fun you have doing this, the better the results become.

French Connection

French Connection Documentary, Mark Kermode

The Castle of Death

Sickness to The Brink of Death

Nixon (1995) HQ "Do you ever think of death, Dick?"

"Oliver Stone's talents as a Director may be erratic 

but they shine at full strength in the richness 

of this scene depicting an uneasy agreement 

between President Richard Nixon 

and CIA Director Richard Helms.

Stone's trademark of combining aesthetic precision 

with playful creativity gives this scene 

a spinning prism-like effect, 

flashing light into a myriad of 

shadowy and suggestive areas.

However the historical inaccuracy 

of Oliver Stone's works is often held up. 

My view is that watching a film 

is like experiencing another person's dream. 

A film cannot really re-create people or events. 

It is inherently too subjective.

Stone's "dreams" make me especially curious 

to know more about historical figures 

and events and in that sense 

I appreciate them. 

I do not watch them expecting to see "what really happened". 

Hopkins is a puppet, Stone a puppeteer 

creating questions and intrigue. 

Like them, we have to find Our Own Truth 

about Nixon and Helms..."

Stalk Him; TEAR Him Apart -- and DESTROY The Matrix

Behold : Megatron.

I Will RIP-OPEN Ultra Magnus,

and EVERY OTHER Autobot,

UNTIL The Matrix has BEEN Destroyed.

To Cybertron!

"Most of the pitfalls of Mag!c can be avoided by paying attention to a few pointers –

Maintain a cynical sense of humor; this is your ultimate number one shield and weapon as a Mag!cian and is where your Ape comes into its own. Learn to TAKE THE PISS. Ruthlessly.

Relentlessly question and/or interrogate any so-called “beliefs”, including, and especially your own, and those of people you regard as experts or role models. Expose yourself to opinions and ideas that you do not share and develop a high-altitude kaleidoscopic view of this multi-faceted, contradictory, prismatic thing we call reality. Having said that, keep in mind that not all ideas are of equal value and practice discrimination.

Examine as many alternate ways to explain your experience as you can.

Learn to practice Mercy but never expect it in return. Judge not lest ye be Judged. Be Strong and Be Kind.

Treat yourself as prey; stalk yourself. Study your weak spots, your habits and patterns, and use the knowledge you gain to successfully hunt, kill and feast upon the parts of yourself that hold you back, or alternatively to tame and make allies of those same elements.

Keep your feet on The Ground and your roots in the material, workaday world (the “Malkuth” of the Qabalists). Never forget to pay the bills, feed your lovely pets, do the shopping, or visit your gran in the hospice with a card. Also perform Mag!cal devotions attendant to each of these acts so that they have an effect in the metaphorical spheres above Malkuth.

If you begin to suspect you are the singular, special Messiah or Chosen One, remind yourself that SO IS EVERYONE ELSE.

Be inspired by and always learn from others where you can but don’t fetishize charismatic personalities, fall for guru narcissists, or follow leaders.

And try not to become them."

80 Years

 

V: Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villian by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. (he carves a "V" into a sign) The only verdict is vengence; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. (giggles) Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.

Evey: Are you like a crazy person?

V: I'm quite sure they will say so.

(broadcasting from a captured TV station.)

V: Good evening, London. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of the everyday routine, the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. 

I enjoy them as much as any bloke. 

But in the spirit of Commemoration - whereby those important events of the past, usually associated with someone's death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, are celebrated with a nice holiday - I thought we could mark this November The Fifth, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat.

There are, of course, those who do not want Us to Speak. I suspect even now orders are being shouted into telephones and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while The Truncheon may be used in lieu of Conversation, Words will always retain their Power. 

Words offer the means to Meaning and for Those Who Will Listen, The Enunciation of Truth. 

And The Truth is, 

There is something terribly wrong with This Country, isn't there?

Cruelty and Injustice... Intolerance and Oppression. And where once you had the Freedom to Object, to Think and Speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance, coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. 

How did this happen? 

Who's to blame? 

Well certainly there are those who are more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable. But again, Truth be told...

if You're looking for The Guilty,

You need only look into a mirror.

I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War. Terror. Disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got The Best of You and in your panic, you turned to the now High Chancellor Adam Sutler. He promised you Order. He promised you Peace. 

And all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient Consent.

Last night, I sought to end that silence. Last night, I Destroyed The Old Bailey to remind This Country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago, a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. 

His hope was to remind The World that Fairness, Justice and Freedom are more than words - they are perspectives. 

So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you, then I would suggest that you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. 

But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek... then I ask you to stand beside me, one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament -- And together, We shall give them a Fifth of November that shall never, ever, be forgot!

(disguised as William Rookwood, meeting with CID Inspector Finch (Stephen Rea).)

Rookwood : Our Story begins, as these stories often do, with a young up-and-coming politician. 

He's a deeply religious man and a member of the conservative party. He's completely single-minded and has no regard for the political process. 

The more Power he attains, the more obvious his zealotry and the more aggressive his supporters become. Eventually, his party launches a special project in the name of National Security. 

At first, it's believed to be a search for biological weapons and is pursued without regard to its cost. However, the true goal of this project is Power. Complete and total hegemonic domination. 

The Project, however, ends violently. 

But the efforts of those involved are not in vain, for a new ability to wage War is born from The Blood of The Victims. 

Imagine a Virus, the most terrifying virus you can, and then imagine that You and You alone have The Cure -- 

But if your ultimate goal is Power, 

How best to use such a weapon?

It is at this point in our story that along comes A Spider : 

He is a man seemingly without a conscience for whom the ends always justify the means, and it is he who suggests that their target should not be an enemy of the country, but rather the country itself. Three targets are chosen to maximize the effect of the attack: a school, a tube station, and a water treatment plant. Several hundred die within the first few weeks.

Fueled by the media, fear and panic spread quickly, fracturing and dividing the country until at last the true goal comes into view. Before the Saint Mary's crisis, no one would have predicted the results of the election that year, no one. And then not long after the election, lo and behold, a miracle! Some believed it was the work of God Himself, but it was a pharmaceutical company controlled by certain party members that made them all obscenely rich. A year later, several extremists are tried, found guilty and executed while a memorial is built to canonize their victims. But the end result, the true genius of the plan, was the fear. Fear became the ultimate tool of this government, and through it our politician was ultimately appointed to the newly created position of High Chancellor.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Finch: Can you prove any of this? V: Why do you think I'm still alive?

He Says

The Chin : 

From The Beginning, she was impossible. 

The Impossible Girl. 

I met her in the Dalek Asylum. 

Never saw her face, 

and she died. 

I met her again in Victorian London, and she died. 

Saved my life both times,

 by giving her own. 

But now she's back and 

we're running together, 

and she's perfect.

 Perfect in every way for me. 

Except she can't remember 

that we ever met. Clara. My Clara. 

Always brave, always funny, 

always exactly what I need. Perfect. 

Too perfect. 

Get used to not knowing. 

I thought I never would. 

I was wrong. 

I know who Clara Oswald is. 

I know how she came to be 

in my life, and I know 

what she will always mean. 

I found out the day we went to Trenzalore.

[Citadel, Gallifrey]

(A very long time ago, an alarm is sounding.) 


ANDRO: 

Something wrong? 


FABIAN: 

It's the repair shop. What kind of idiot would steal a faulty TARDIS? 
(The monitor screen shows a white-haired old man in a black frock coat and a teenaged girl getting into a non-camouflaged Type 40.)

[Repair shop]

CLARA: 

Doctor? Doctor? 


Old Grandfather : 

Yes, what is it? What do you want? 


CLARA: 

Sorry, but you're about to make a very big mistake. 


CLARA [OC]: 

I don't know where I am. It's like I'm breaking into a million pieces and there's only one thing I remember. I have to save the Doctor. He always looks different.
(The sixth Doctor walks across behind her.) 
CLARA: Doctor! 
(The fourth Doctor walks past her, scarf flying - The Invasion of Time.) 
CLARA [OC]: But I always know it's him. Sometimes I think I'm everywhere at once, running every second just to find him. 
(The seventh Doctor is dangling from the ice cliff on the lower levels in Dragonfire.) 


CLARA: Doctor! 
CLARA [OC]: Just to save him. 
(The third Doctor drives past in Bessie - The Five Doctors.) 


CLARA: Doctor! 
(The second Doctor, in his fur coat, runs past her in a palm-fringed park - The Five Doctors with a CGI background? She tries to follow, but falls onto a clear surface, where the fifth Doctor is floating beneath her in the Matrix in Arc of Infinity.) 
CLARA: Doctor? 
CLARA [OC]: But he never hears me. 
(The Eleventh Doctor in Victorian clothes, in The Snowmen.) 
CLARA: Oi. 
CLARA [OC]: Almost never. I blew into this world on a leaf. 
(The leaf that blew into the face of her father, that made him meet her mother.) 


CLARA [OC]: 

I'm still blowing. 

I don't think I'll ever land. 

I'm Clara Oswald. 

I'm The Impossible Girl. 

I was born to Save The Doctor.

She Said

She Said, He Said - 

A Prequel by Steven Moffat

CLARA: 

One day you meet the Doctor. And of course, it's the best day ever. It's just the best day of your life. Because, because he's brilliant, and he's funny, and mad, and best of all, he really needs you. The trick is, don't fall in love. I do that trick quite a lot, sometimes twice a day. And once you start running, you start to forget, slowly. After a while, you just stop asking. Who are you? Where are you from? What set you on your way and where are you going? Oh, and what is your name? You get used to not knowing. I thought I never would. I was wrong. I know who he is. I know how he began and I know where he's going. I know the truth about the Doctor and his greatest secret. The day we went to Trenzalore. 


The Chin : 

From the beginning, she was impossible. The Impossible Girl. I met her in the Dalek Asylum. Never saw her face, and she died. I met her again in Victorian London, and she died. Saved my life both times, by giving her own. But now she's back and we're running together, and she's perfect. Perfect in every way for me. Except she can't remember that we ever met. Clara. My Clara. Always brave, always funny, always exactly what I need. Perfect. Too perfect. Get used to not knowing. I thought I never would. I was wrong. I know who Clara Oswald is. I know how she came to be in my life, and I know what she will always mean. I found out the day we went to Trenzalore.

[Citadel, Gallifrey]

(A very long time ago, an alarm is sounding.) 
ANDRO: Something wrong? 
FABIAN: It's the repair shop. What kind of idiot would steal a faulty Tardis? 
(The monitor screen shows a white-haired old man in a black frock coat and a teenaged girl getting into a non-camouflaged Type 40.)

[Repair shop]

CLARA: Doctor? Doctor? 
DOCTOR 1: Yes, what is it? What do you want? 
CLARA: Sorry, but you're about to make a very big mistake. 
CLARA [OC]: I don't know where I am. It's like I'm breaking into a million pieces and there's only one thing I remember. I have to save the Doctor. He always looks different.
(The sixth Doctor walks across behind her.) 
CLARA: Doctor! 
(The fourth Doctor walks past her, scarf flying - The Invasion of Time.) 
CLARA [OC]: But I always know it's him. Sometimes I think I'm everywhere at once, running every second just to find him. 
(The seventh Doctor is dangling from the ice cliff on the lower levels in Dragonfire.) 
CLARA: Doctor! 
CLARA [OC]: Just to save him. 
(The third Doctor drives past in Bessie - The Five Doctors.) 
CLARA: Doctor! 
(The second Doctor, in his fur coat, runs past her in a palm-fringed park - The Five Doctors with a CGI background? She tries to follow, but falls onto a clear surface, where the fifth Doctor is floating beneath her in the Matrix in Arc of Infinity.) 
CLARA: Doctor? 
CLARA [OC]: But he never hears me. 
(The Eleventh Doctor in Victorian clothes, in The Snowmen.) 
CLARA: Oi. 
CLARA [OC]: Almost never. I blew into this world on a leaf. 
(The leaf that blew into the face of her father, that made him meet her mother.) 
CLARA [OC]: I'm still blowing. I don't think I'll ever land. I'm Clara Oswald. I'm the Impossible Girl. I was born to save the Doctor.

You Don't Understand The Implications

“When I was doing The Invisibles… I kind of went method acting on it. So if I had a transvestite witch character then I had to become a transvestite witch and see what that felt like and I had to summon Mayan and Mexican Gods and deal with Them and see what They look like and copy down what they have to say… I became the King Mob character, the Lord Fanny character… I was living out that book. The idea was to do almost like an art installation… you know I wound up in hospital because I had my lead character in hospital. This shaven headed bald guy who had lots of fun and sex and girls. So when he got sick, I got sick and when he got well I got well.

And I found I could put things in… and it was very weird I still don’t know what it is and I ask other people to try this… 

Try and implicate Your Art and Your Life to such a degree that You can’t tell the difference anymore and strange things start to happen. Reality becomes very plastic. And it seems as if you can press buttons in Your Little Voodoo World, your little fictional Creation… and real things will happen… 

The more We test it the more it becomes a Human Technology that We can give to EVERYONE…”

Read more: http://runesoup.com/2012/04/the-tarot-of-unpopular-futures/#ixzz3IW9TQdBh

The Hand of Xoannon

“On my Fortieth Birthday, rather than merely bore my friends by having anything as mundane as a midlife crisis, I decided it might be more interesting to terrify them, by going •completely• mad, and declaring myself as A Magician. 

This had been something that had been coming for a •while•….

It seemed to be a logical end step in my career as A Writer, and the problem is that with magic, being in many respects a Science of Language, you have to be •very• careful of What You SAY. 

Because if you suddenly declare yourself to be A Magician, without •any• knowledge of what that ENTAILS, then one day you are likely to wake up and to discover that is exactly What You ARE.”

Now I read something a long time ago 

and I don't remember who wrote it, 

but it was written about Jewish commentary on 

The Torah -- God is omniscient, 

omnipotent and omnipresent :

What Does He Lack? 

And The Answers' "Limitation." 

and that's that's a... 

That's a Riddle and an Answer 

of unparalleled brilliance 

as far as I'm concerned 

because I think it speaks deeply 

to something about 

The Central Nature of Existence-Itself 

and that is that, without Limitation, 

there's no Being. 

Now, that's a hard thing to understand 

but I think you can understand it 

in a number of different ways -- 

The first thing you mightwant to understand 

is that I play this game with my students 

sometimes in my class --

I'll come up to 

a student, pick a 

poor victim at random 

and come up to them, say 

"Okay, We're to Play a Game.", say, and they say, 

"Okay --" and I say 

"Well, You Move First --"

Well, they don't know What to Do and 

The Reason for that is because 

The limiting parameters 

of The Game 

have not been defined 

and as a consequence of that 

they're stunned by their infinite freedom into complete immobility 

and what that means in a sense 

is that the --

In The Absence of Serious Constraint 

There can be 

no choice 

no freedom 

no existence 

and I believe this to be 

fundamentally True 

just as the fact that 

Human being is vulnerable is 

fundamentally True. 

These People Thanked The Animal

What do you think our souls 

owe to ancient myths?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Well, the ancient myths were designed to put the minds, the mental system, into accord with this body system, with this inheritance of the body.

BILL MOYERS: 

A harmony?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL:

 To harmonize. The mind can ramble off 

in strange ways, and want things 

that the body does not want. 

And the myths and rites were means 

to put the mind in accord with the body, 

and the way of life in accord with the way 

that nature dictates.

BILL MOYERS: 

So in a way these old stories live in us.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

They do indeed, and the stages of a human development are the same today as they were in the ancient times. 

And the problem of a child brought up in a world of discipline, of obedience, and of his dependency on others, 

has to be transcended when one comes to maturity so that you are living now 

not in dependency but with 

self-responsible authority. 

And the problem of the transition from childhood to maturity, and then from maturity and full capacity to losing those powers and acquiescing in the natural course of, you might say, the autumn-time of life and the passage away, myths are there to help us go with it, accept nature’s way and not hold to 

something else.

BILL MOYERS: 

The stories are sort of to Me 

like messages in a bottle 

from shores Someone Else 

has visited first.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Yes, and you’re visiting those shores now.

BILL MOYERS: And these myths tell me how others have made the passage, and how I can make the passage.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

And also what the beauties are of the way. I feel this now, moving into my own last years, you know, the myths help me to go with it.

BILL MOYERS: What kind of myth? Give me one that has actually helped you.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, the tradition in India, for instance, of actually changing your whole way of dress, even changing your name, as you pass from one stage to another. When I retired from teaching, I knew that I had to create a new life, a new way of life, and I changed my manner of thinking about my life just in terms of that notion, moving out of the sphere of achievement into the sphere of enjoyment and appreciation and relaxing into the wonder of it all.

BILL MOYERS: And then there is that final passage through the dark gate?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, that’s no problem at all. The problem in middle life, when the body has reached its climax of power and begins to lose it, is to identify yourself, not with the body, which is falling away, but with the consciousness of which it is a vehicle. And when you can do that, and this is something learned from my myths, What am I? Am I the bulb that carries the light, or am I the light of which the bulb is a vehicle? And this body is a vehicle of consciousness, and if you can identify with the consciousness, you can watch this thing go, like an old car there goes the fender, there goes this. But it’s expectable, you know, and then gradually the whole thing drops off and consciousness rejoins consciousness. I mean, that’s it’s no longer in this particular environment.

BILL MOYERS: And the myths, the stories have brought this consciousness to ours.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, I live with these myths and they tell me to do this all the time. And this is the problem which can be then metaphorically understood as identifying with the Christ in you, and the Christ in you doesn’t die. The Christ in you survives death and resurrects. Or it can be with Shiva. Shiva hung, I am Shiva. And this is the great meditation of the yogis in the Himalayas. And one doesn’t have even to have a metaphorical image like that, if one has a mind that’s willing to just relax and identify itself with that which moves it.

BILL MOYERS: You say that the image of death is the beginning of mythology. What do you mean? How is that?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, all I can say to that is that the earliest evidence we have of anything like mythological thinking is associated with grave burials.

BILL MOYERS: And they suggest what, that men, women, saw life and then they didn’t see it, and they wondered about it?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: It must have been, I mean, one has only to, you know, imagine what one’s own experience would be. The person was alive and warm before you and talking to you, is now lying there, getting cold, beginning to rot. Something was there that isn’t there, and where is it? Now, animals have this experience, certainly, of their companions dying and so forth, but mere’s no evidence that they’ve had any further thoughts about it. Also before the time of Neanderthal man it’s in his period that the first burials appeared of which we have evidence people were dying and they were just thrown away. But here this, a concern.

BILL MOYERS: Have you ever visited any of these burial sites?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: I’ve been to Le Moustier, that was one of the earliest burial caves that were found.

BILL MOYERS: And you find there what they buried with the dead?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Yes. These grave burials with grave gear, that is to say weapons and sacrifices round about, certainly suggest the idea of the continued life beyond the visible one. The first one that was discovered, the person was put down resting as though asleep, a young boy, with a beautiful hand ax beside him. Now, at the same time we have evidence of shrines devoted to animals that have been killed. The shrines specifically are in the Alps, very high caves, and they are of cave bear skulls. And there is one very interesting one with the long bones of the cave bear in the cave bear’s jaw.

BILL MOYERS: What does that say to you?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Burials. My friend has died and he survives. 

The animals that I’ve killed must also survive. I must make some kind of atonement relationship to them. The indication is of the notion of a plane of being that’s behind the visible plane, and which is somehow supportive of the visible one to which we have to relate. I would say that’s the basic theme of all mythology.

BILL MOYERS: That there is a world?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

That there is an invisible plane supporting the visible one. 

Now, whether it is thought of as a world or simply as energy, that differs from time and time and place to place.

BILL MOYERS: What we don’t know supports what we do know.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: That’s right. The basic hunting myth, I would say, is of a kind of covenant between the animal world and the human world, where the animal gives its life willingly. They are regarded generally as willing victims, with the understanding that their life, which transcends their physical entity, will be returned to the soil or to the mother through some ritual of restoration. And the principal rituals, for instance, and the principal divinities are associated with the main hunting animal, the animal who is the master animal, and sends the flocks to be killed, you know. To the Indians of the American plains, it was the buffalo. You go to the northwest coast, it’s the salmon. The great festivals have to do with the run of salmon coming in. When you go to South Africa, the eland, the big, magnificent antelope, is the principal animal to the Bushmen, for example.

BILL MOYERS: And the principal animal, the master animal

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Is the one that furnishes the food.

BILL MOYERS: So there grew up between human beings and animals, a bonding, as you say, which required one to be consumed by the other.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: That’s the way life is.

BILL MOYERS: 

Do you think this troubled early man, too

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Absolutely, that’s why you have the rites, 

because it did trouble him.

BILL MOYERS: What kind of rites?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Rituals of appeasement to the animals, of thanks to the animal. A very interesting aspect here is the identity of The Hunter with the animal.

BILL MOYERS: 

You mean, after the animal has been shot.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

After the animal has been killed, the hunter then has to fulfill certain rites in a kind of “participation mystique,” a mystic participation with the animals whose death he has brought about, and whose meat is to become his life. 

So the killing is not simply slaughter, at any rate, 

it’s a ritual act. It’s a recognition of your dependency and of the voluntary giving of this food to you by the animal who has given it. It’s a beautiful thing, and it turns life into a mythological experience.

BILL MOYERS: The hunt becomes what?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: It becomes a ritual. The hunt is a ritual.

BILL MOYERS: Expressing a hope of resurrection, that the animal was food and you needed the animal to return.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: And some kind of respect for the animal that was killed; that’s the thing that gets me all the time in this hunting ceremonial system.

BILL MOYERS: Respect for the animal.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: The respect for the animal and more than respect, I mean, that animal becomes a messenger of divine power, do you see.

BILL MOYERS: And you wind up as the hunter killing the messenger.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Killing the god.

BILL MOYERS: What does this do? 

Does it cause guilt, does it cause

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Guilt is what is wiped out by the myth. 

It is not a personal act; you are performing 

The Work of Nature, 

For example, in Japan, in Hokkaido in northern Japan among the Ainu people, whose principal mountain deity is the bear, when it is killed there is a ceremony of feeding the bear a feast of its own flesh, as though he were present, and he is present. He’s served his own meat for dinner, and there’s a conversation between the mountain god, the bear and the people. They say, “If you’ll give us the privilege of entertaining you again, we’ll give you the privilege of another bear sacrifice. ”

BILL MOYERS: If the cave bear were not appeased, the animals wouldn’t appear, and these primitive hunters would starve to death. So they began to perceive some kind of power on which they were dependent, greater than their own.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: And that’s the power of the Animal Master. 

Now, when we sit down to a meal, we thank God, you know, or our idea of God, for having given us this — 

These People Thanked The Animal.

BILL MOYERS: And is this the first evidence we have of an act of worshipó

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Yes.

BILL MOYERS: 

— of Power superior to man?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: And the animal was superior, because the animal provided food.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Well, now, in contrast to our relationship to animals, 

where we see animals as a lower form of life, 

and in the Bible we’re told, you know, 

we’re the masters and so forth, 

early hunting people don’t have that relationship to the animal. 

The animal is in many ways superior, 

He has powers that the human being doesn’t have.

BILL MOYERS: 

And then certain animals take on a persona, 

don’t they the buffalo, the raven, the eagle.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Oh, very strongly. 

Well, I was up on the northwest coast back in 1932, a wonderful trip, 

and the Indians along the way were still carving totem poles. 

The villages had new totem poles, still. And there we saw the ravens and we saw the eagles and we saw the animals that played roles in the myths. 

And they had the character, the quality, of these animals. It was a very intimate knowledge and friendly, neighborly, relationship to these creatures. And then they killed some of the. You see.

The animal had something to do with the shaping of the myths of those people, just as the buffalo for the Indians of the plains played an enormous role. 

They are the ones that bring the tobacco gift, 

the mystical pipe and all this kind of thing, 

it comes from A Buffalo. 

And when the animal becomes the giver of ritual and so forth, 

they do ask the animal for advice, 

and the animal becomes the model for how to live.

BILL MOYERS: You remember the story of the buffalo’s wife?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

That’s a basic legend of the Blackfoot Tribe, 

and is the origin legend of their buffalo dance rituals, 

by which they invoke the cooperation of the animals in this play of life.

When you realize the size of some of these tribal groups, 

to feed them required a good deal of meat. 

And one way of acquiring meat for the winter would be to drive a buffalo herd, to stampede it over a rock cl

Great Party, isn’t it?

“Relationships are constantly evolving works-in-progress. They are four-dimensional, because they exist in time as much as in space. 

The past gives them strength, and the future gives them purpose.

 In her 2017 book Radical Happiness, the Australian academic feminist Lynne Segal argues that the individual pursuit of happiness is a deeply flawed concept because moments of joy and real happiness can only be found with others. As her book's blurb puts it, 'we have lost the art of radical happiness - the art of transformative, collective joy. [Segal] shows that only in the revolutionary potential of coming together is it that we can come to understand the powers of flourishing. Relationships are precious beyond their role in forming your individuality  because, as Segal points out, they are entirely necessary if you are to find life meaningful.

Once the importance of personal connections has been pointed out, it can seem so obvious that it hardly seems worth mention-ing. Yet when you go back to twentieth-cen-tury discussions about meaning, including such insightful and moving works as Victor

E. FrankI's concentration camp writings, you realise that the idea is frequently absent. In the twentieth century, we were so concerned with the ascent of the individual that we failed to notice that it was communal magic which defined us.

"Think of all this as like planning a party; Daisy suggests. 'You put on the right music, you invite the right people, you lay on the right food, you can do everything right - but you don't know whether or not it's going to work. 

You don't know if the hoped-for atmosphere will descend or if the party will become a living thing with a mind of its own. It could just as easily not work. 

Whether or not it does become a party is ultimately an Act of Grace. 

You don't know. You hope. 

You put the things in place, and it happens or it doesn't.'