Saturday 1 July 2017

Equally Cursed and Blessed and Commissioned


" As if the weight of such a commitment to the life and health of America were not enough, another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1964. 

And I cannot forget that the Nobel Peace Prize was also a commission, a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for the brotherhood of man. 

This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances. "


O thou well skill'd in curses, stay awhile,
And teach me how to curse mine enemies!



 HEAR ME!!, you wrangling pirates, that fall out 
In sharing that which you have pill'd from me!!!

Which of you trembles not that looks on me? 

Can curses pierce the clouds and enter Heaven? 

Why, then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses! 




“I am sending my love and prayers to my fellow Israeli citizens. Especially to all the boys and girls who are risking their lives protecting my country against the horrific acts conducted by Hamas, who are hiding like cowards behind women and children…We shall overcome!!! Shabbat Shalom! #weareright #freegazafromhamas #stopterror #coexistance #loveidf”


HekateHekateHekate

Goddess Hekate, Work Thy WillBefore Thee, 

  • Let The Veil be Lifted from Thy Daughter's eyes, the stainĂ©d be washed clean
  • The Prideful-Arrogant be made brought low and made humble so that 
  • She may soon soar all the more High

HekateHekateHekate

  • I do invoke thee Hekate and thy power to SEIZE thy daughter in all thy Glorious majesty, 
  • I do invoke thee again Hekate, to bind thy daughter with a CURSE of thy aspect of awful, terrible wrath,
  • I do invoke thee thricewise Hekate, to BLESS thy daughter in thy aspect of Perfect Charity, Grace and Agape;

Let thy thricewise Will be done - answer the call of Thy True Preist-Forever to confer on Thy wayward daughter thy Blessing/Curse/Divine Commission thy gift of 

  • TRUE DISCERNMENT
  • WISDOM and 
  • INSIGHT.

Answer my thricewise plea to thee O Hekate

  • Queen of Heaven, 
  • Mistress of Wild Beasts and all The Earth, 
  • Ruler of My Heart.

Thy Will Be Done.

In the Name of 

  • The Mother
  • The Daughter and 
  • Aunt Dot,

Amen-Ra.

HekateHekateHekate

The Dismal Science






"There's another fellow," muttered Scrooge; who overheard him: "my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas.  I'll retire to Bedlam."

This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let two other people in.  They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in Scrooge's office.  They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him.

"Scrooge and Marley's, I believe," said one of the gentlemen, referring to his list.  "Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?"

"Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years," Scrooge replied.  "He died seven years ago, this very night."

"We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner," said the gentleman, presenting his credentials.

It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits.  At the ominous word "liberality," Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials back.

"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge," said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and Destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time.  Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."

"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.

"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

"And the Union workhouses?"  demanded Scrooge.  "Are they still in operation?"

"They are.  Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not."

"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?"  said Scrooge.

"Both very busy, sir."

"Oh!  I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course," said Scrooge.  "I'm very glad to hear it."

"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude," returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink and means of warmth.  We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices.  What shall I put you down for?"

"Nothing!" Scrooge replied.

"You wish to be anonymous?"

"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge.  "Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer.  I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry.  I help to support the establishments I have mentioned -- they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there."

"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."

"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.  Besides -- excuse me -- I don't know that."

"But you might know it," observed the gentleman.

"It's not my business," Scrooge returned.  




"It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's.  Mine occupies me constantly.  Good afternoon, gentlemen!"


Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew.  Scrooge returned his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.




Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before his face.
"Mercy!" he said.  "Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?"

"Man of the worldly mind!" replied the Ghost, "do you believe in me or not?"

"I do," said Scrooge.  "I must.  But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?"

"It is required of every man," the Ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death.  It is doomed to wander through the world -- oh, woe is me! -- and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!"

Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and wrung its shadowy hands.

"You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling.  "Tell me why?"

"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.  Is its pattern strange to you?"

Scrooge trembled more and more.

"Or would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself?  It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago.  You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!"

Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he could see nothing.

"Jacob," he said, imploringly.  "Old Jacob Marley, tell me more.  Speak comfort to me, Jacob!"

"I have none to give," the Ghost replied.  "It comes from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of men.  Nor can I tell you what I would.  A very little more, is all permitted to me.  I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere.  My spirit never walked beyond our counting-house -- mark me! -- in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before me!"

It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became thoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches pockets.  Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he did so now, but without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his knees.

"You must have been very slow about it, Jacob," Scrooge observed, in a business-like manner, though with humility and deference.
"Slow!" the Ghost repeated.

"Seven years dead," mused Scrooge.  "And travelling all the time!"
"The whole time," said the Ghost.  "No rest, no peace.  Incessant torture of remorse."

"You travel fast?"  said Scrooge.

"On the wings of the wind," replied the Ghost.

"You might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven years," said Scrooge.

The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night, that the Ward would have been justified in indicting it for a nuisance.

"Oh!  captive, bound, and double-ironed," cried the phantom, "not to know, that ages of incessant labour, by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed.  Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness.  Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused!  Yet such was I!  Oh!  such was I!"

"But you were always a good man of business, Jacob," faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.

"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again.  "Mankind was my business.  The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business.  The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"

It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.

"At this time of the rolling year," the spectre said "I suffer most.  Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode!  Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!"

Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly.

"Hear me!" cried the Ghost.  "My time is nearly gone."

"I will," said Scrooge.  "But don't be hard upon me!  Don't be flowery, Jacob!  Pray!"

"How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may not tell.  I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day."

It was not an agreeable idea.  Scrooge shivered, and wiped the perspiration from his brow.

"That is no light part of my penance," pursued the Ghost.  "I am here to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate.  A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer."

"You were always a good friend to me," said Scrooge.  "Thank `ee!"

"You will be haunted," resumed the Ghost, "by Three Spirits."

Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's had done.

"Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?"  he demanded, in a faltering voice.

"It is."

"I -- I think I'd rather not," said Scrooge.

"Without their visits," said the Ghost, "you cannot hope to shun the path I tread.  Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls one."

"Couldn't I take `em all at once, and have it over, Jacob?"  hinted Scrooge.

"Expect the second on the next night at the same hour.  The third upon the next night when the last stroke of twelve has ceased to vibrate.  Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us!"

When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the table, and bound it round its head, as before.  Scrooge knew this, by the smart sound its teeth made, when the jaws were brought together by the bandage.  He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about its arm.

The apparition walked backward from him; and at every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open.  It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did.  When they were within two paces of each other, Marley's Ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer.  Scrooge stopped.

Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear: for on the raising of the hand, he became sensible of confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory.  The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the bleak, dark night.

Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity.  He looked out.

The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went.  Every one of them wore chains like Marley's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free.  

Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives.  He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step.  





The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever.

Accession : Tyrrel



KING RICHARD III
O bitter consequence,
That Edward still should live! 'True, noble prince!'
Cousin, thou wert not wont to be so dull:
Shall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead;
And I would have it suddenly perform'd.
What sayest thou? speak suddenly; be brief.
BUCKINGHAM
Your grace may do your pleasure.
KING RICHARD III
Tut, tut, thou art all ice, thy kindness freezeth:
Say, have I thy consent that they shall die?
BUCKINGHAM
Give me some breath, some little pause, my lord
Before I positively herein:
I will resolve your grace immediately. 
Exit
CATESBY
[Aside to a stander by
The king is angry: see, he bites the lip.
KING RICHARD III
I will converse with iron-witted fools
And unrespective boys: none are for me
That look into me with considerate eyes:
High-reaching Buckingham grows circumspect.
Boy!
Page
My lord?
KING RICHARD III
Know'st thou not any whom corrupting gold
Would tempt unto a close exploit of death?
Page
My lord, I know a discontented gentleman,
Whose humble means match not his haughty mind:
Gold were as good as twenty orators,
And will, no doubt, tempt him to any thing.
KING RICHARD III
What is his name?
Page
His name, my lord, is Tyrrel.
KING RICHARD III
I partly know the man: go, call him hither. 
Exit Page 
The deep-revolving witty Buckingham
No more shall be the neighbour to my counsel:
Hath he so long held out with me untired,
And stops he now for breath?
Enter STANLEY
How now! what news with you?
STANLEY
My lord, I hear the Marquis Dorset's fled
To Richmond, in those parts beyond the sea
Where he abides.
Stands apart
KING RICHARD III
Catesby!
CATESBY
My lord?
KING RICHARD III
Rumour it abroad
That Anne, my wife, is sick and like to die:
I will take order for her keeping close.
Inquire me out some mean-born gentleman,
Whom I will marry straight to Clarence' daughter:
The boy is foolish, and I fear not him.
Look, how thou dream'st! I say again, give out
That Anne my wife is sick and like to die:
About it; for it stands me much upon,
To stop all hopes whose growth may damage me.
Exit CATESBY
I must be married to my brother's daughter,
Or else my kingdom stands on brittle glass.
Murder her brothers, and then marry her!
Uncertain way of gain! But I am in
So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin:
Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.

Re-enter Page, with TYRREL

Is thy name Tyrrel?
TYRREL
James Tyrrel, and your most obedient subject.
KING RICHARD III
Art thou, indeed?
TYRREL
Prove me, my gracious sovereign.
KING RICHARD III
Darest thou resolve to kill a friend of mine?
TYRREL
Ay, my lord;
But I had rather kill two enemies.
KING RICHARD III
Why, there thou hast it: two deep enemies,
Foes to my rest and my sweet sleep's disturbers
Are they that I would have thee deal upon:
Tyrrel, I mean those bastards in the Tower.
TYRREL
Let me have open means to come to them,
And soon I'll rid you from the fear of them.
KING RICHARD III
Thou sing'st sweet music. Hark, come hither, Tyrrel
Go, by this token: rise, and lend thine ear:
Whispers
There is no more but so: say it is done,
And I will love thee, and prefer thee too.
TYRREL
'Tis done, my gracious lord.
KING RICHARD III
Shall we hear from thee, Tyrrel, ere we sleep?
TYRREL
Ye shall, my Lord.

Exit

Accession : The Swan



Her grave, on the "Round Oval", on the island in the lake.

A path with 36 oak-trees, marking each year of her life, is leading to the "Round Oval". 

Originally the family-animals were buried on this island, including Diana´s  favorite cat Marmalade

The oak and limetrees on the island are planted 
by the family, also by Diana herself. 

White Rambling roses are planted all over. 

At the end of the island stands an urn from Portland stone. 



Four black swans are swimming in the lake, symbolizing sentinels guarding Diana's grave. 

In a dream Charles Spencer saw this vision. 

In the water there are several water lilies. 

White roses and lilies were Diana's favorite flowers.


swan (Latin cygnus or olor) A BIRD of great symbolic significance for the ancient world (despite its rarity in Mediterranean regions); its limber neck and WHITE plumage made it a symbol of noble purity. 

This is why Zeus chose to approach the unsuspecting Leda in this guise. It is interesting that Homer (in Hymn 21) praises the singing swan, which (unlike the mute swan) lives only in more northern latitudes. 

This swan is associated with Apollo, who also was said to be revered especially by the northern mythic race of Hyperboreans

The swan was present at the god's birth, carried him across the sky, and derived from him its gift of prophecy. 

At times the swan is referred to as the enemy or opponent of the EAGLE or (like the eagle) of the SNAKE, each of which the swan frequently defeats. 


The proverbial "swan song" (the significant final words or performance of a great person) goes back to the prophetic talent of the swan, already mentioned by Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.): it supposedly foresees its impending death and emits extraordinary cries bemoaning its own passing.


J. Boschius, 1702
 Swan: "Unblemished radiance." J. Boschius, 1702 

 In fact, the singing swan of Northern Europe (cygnus musicus) can produce a powerful Swan song. A trumpet-like note in the upper register and a weaker one in the lower, even shortly before it is paralyzed by severe cold. If several of these swans cry at once, they do give the impression of song.


According to Germanic superstition, VIRGINS could be transformed into prophetic swan maidens (as in the Nibelungenlied); similar myths (in which the maidens can doff their plumage) are found in a variety of cultural contexts. 

In Christian thought the cygnus musicus came to symbolize the Savior crying out from the Cross in extremis. 

The association of the bird with song (and hence lyrical beauty) led Ben Jonson to call Shakespeare "the sweet swan of Avon."

 The swan often symbolizes feminine grace; Aphrodite and Artemis (Latin DIANA) are often portrayed as accompanied by swans. It is in part because of the association of swans with physical grace that Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake is for many the quintessential classical ballet.

 In the imagery of ALCHEMY the swan symbolizes the element mercury (see SULFUR AND MERCURY) in its volatility.

 The swan is important in HERALDRY as well, frequently appearing in coats of arms (e.g., those of Boulogne-sur-Mer and the Saxon city of Zwickau, whose Latin name was Cygnea). 

A chivalric Order of the Swan was founded in 1440, then renewed in 1843 by the German king Friedrich Wilhelm II as a charitable secular order, but never came into operation.

A strange, negative symbolic interpretation of the swan surfaces in medieval bestiaries. In contrast to its snow-white plumage, it is written, the bird has "utterly BLACK flesh": 

"Thus it is a symbol of the hypocrite, whose black sinful flesh is clothed by white garments. 

When the bird's white plumage is stripped away, its black flesh is roasted in the fire. 

So, too, will the hypocrite, once dead, be stripped of worldly splendor and descend into the fires of hell"
 [Unterkircher]. 

Bockler, on the other hand, writes that swans do battle even with eagles if attacked. 

They "are the royalty among water fowl; the meaning that they carry is of the whiteness of peace" (1688). 

This poetic formulation is reminiscent of the swan knight, Lohengrin.

Friday 30 June 2017

Manson, Esalen and EST


Bobby Beausoleil
San Francisco circa 1967

Erika Scientology Training 
becomes
Erhardt Systems Therapy




"Socialism in One Person"


Esalen Institute

Conference center and hot springs resort in Big Sur, California. Since the early sixties, the Esalen Institute has held many seminars on various esoteric topics, and has been a nexus of many various individuals. Topics explored at the Institute include psychology, gesalt therapy, body work, psychic phenomena, mysticism, religion, psychedelics, human potentiality, and quantum physics

The Institute was founded in 1964 by Mike Murphy and Dick Price out of Murphy's family resort. Murphy and Price had been running seminars at the resort beginning in 1962, with speakers gathered through an expanding network of contacts, beginning with Alan Watts, Aldous HuxleyGeorge Bateson, Gerald Heard, and others. 

(see Anderson, Walter Truett, The Upstart Spring, Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1983 for an expansive history of Esalen) 

Joe K. Adams and Dell Carson led an early conference on psychic phenomena. (Anderson, pg 59). In their first seminar on Human Potentiality, led by Willis Harman, every program leader was involved with LSD research: Adams, Harman, Gregory Bateson, Gerald Heard, Paul Kurtz, and Myron Stolaroff. (Anderson, pg 72) 

Other drug-culture luminaries, such as Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, taught at Esalen, and various psychedlics were used by the staff and students, although drug-use was not officially endorsed. Strangely, the Institute was never raided by the authorities. (Anderson, pg 108) 

Charles Manson and members of his family played an impromptu concert at Esalen three days before their massacre at the Sharon Tate house. (Anderson, 239) 

In the late 1970's, Esalen became involved with an Englishwoman named Jenny O'Connor, who claimed to be in psychic contact with the Nine (probably the same Nine that Andriah Puharich claimed to be in contact with). Dick Price and other members of the Esalen staff became increasingly dependent on the Nine, to the point of listing them as program leaders and members of the Esalen Gesalt Staff in brochures. (Anderson, pg 302-4) 

In the 1970's, Mike Murphy became interested in Russian parapsychology, and visited the country to meet experimenters in this field. This led to a close connection between Esalen and some Russian officials, who set up an exchange program. Lasting into the 1980's, this exchange was dubbed "hot-tub diplomacy". John Mack was reportedly involved in this exchange. 

Esalen also held seminars in quantum physics, and was the birthplace of the Physics/Consciousness Research Group. Some results of these seminars are documented in Zukav, Gary, The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Morrow Quill, 1979. 
In May 1982, Elisabeth and Russell Targ held a workshop on psychic phenomena for twenty-five professionals. This was part of a program with Stanislav Grof, who was studying non-chemical alternatives for altered states of consciousness. The Targs goal was to show that psychic experiences did not require an altered state.

(Targ, Russell and Harary, Keith, Mind Race, Villard Books, 1984, pg 99) 

Other individuals who have come to lead seminars at Esalen at one time or another include Carlos Castaneda, Dutch psychic Peter Hurkos, Ira Einhorn, Rollo May, Jack SarfattiJohn Lilly, Terrance McKenna, Ian Wickramasekera, and Charles TartWerner Erhard was also close with Michael Murphy and Esalen. 




Thursday 29 June 2017

So, All I’m Suggesting Here is That We All Take up Magick. Because Basically, it Works. We Can Change The World.


" You know: the hippies, and those lovely people in the rave era who were all on ecstasy – they tried to pretend we have no Dark Side. 

And what happened was they got fucked up by their own Dark Side. "


" As will always happen. "

My father told me once, he said, 

"If you see something wrong happening in the world, you can either do nothing, or you can do something". 

And I already tried nothing.

So all I’m suggesting here is that we all take up magick. 

Because basically it works. 

We can change The World. 

It’s quite simple; the technology’s there. The Buddhists have been telling us.. as I said, people have been telling us this for so long. 

And in the last two hundred years, it’s been driven underground and we’ve forgotten.

And people like us are here today to try and recover something of that. And the way to recover it, is to do it. Do the techniques. Go buy an Aleister Crowley book; [or] buy one by Phil Hine or Peter Carroll that’s a bit more up to date, and you don’t have to bother with that 18th century fucking language. But do the shit, and you will find it works.

And we stand here now. This is the counterculture. We are the counterculture.. this is like, this shit. I went to this thing in, like, 1987 and it was Robert Anton Wilson and the whole deal – and I remember sitting in the audience thinking “fuck, rave is dead”. Because it was that kind of thing; that version of it’s dead. The hippy version of it’s dead.

We stand here. And we’re looking ahead. What are we gonna do?

Abandon The Personality, is what I suggest.

Get rid of the sense of self. Get rid of the sense of “I”, and make yourself something bigger. Imagine that every time you want to learn something new, it’s a new computer program; you can buy the operating system; the update. You can learn to fly a plane in seven days according to Neuro-Linguistic Programming – so why not? 

Let’s do it.

Do we want to change things? Or are we just sitting here talking?

No answer.

Are we talking at all? Do we want to change things? Yeah! Right – that’s why we’re fucking here, man. That is why we’re here!
So what are we gonna do?

If you want to change things, the first thing you have to change is yourself.


Because if you don’t change yourself, you will take on The aworld as if it is yourself – and fuck up. 

You will really fuck up, because you don’t understand your own Dark Side. 

If you don’t understand your own weird, shitty side.. if you don’t understand the fact that there’s someone in there who will kill your mother, if need be – if you can’t take that on; 

if you can’t take that on board and realise that Charles Manson and me and you are not much different; that John Wayne Gacy and me and you are not much different – except that he did it. 

Y’know, there’s those days when I’m gonna kill that motherfucker over there – but we don’t do it.

But it’s in us, and it’s there. 
And so much of this is denial. 

That we have no dark side. 
You know: the hippies, and those lovely people in the rave era who were all on ecstasy – they tried to pretend we have no dark side. 

And what happened was they got fucked up by their own dark side. As will always happen.

So let’s kiss our dark sides; let’s fuck our dark sides. 
Get him down there where he belongs. 
And he can tell us stuff. 
Y’know, that thing’s useful.

But above all: let’s become plex-creatures. Complex, superplex – be able to take on new personality traits; able to take on new ideas; able to adapt; able to extend our boundaries into what was previously the ‘enemy territory’ – until the point where we become what was once our enemy, and they are us, and there is no distinction.

Mad Cow Disease, or BSE, or CJD – Creutzfeld-Jacob Disease; it’s very interesting. It’s hitting the headlines; people are interested in these new 21st-century fucked up diseases that are gonna wipe us all out, apparently.

This is a disease – I’ve been studying this, coz it seems like a really good metaphor to use – CJD is a disease that attacks the brain and central nervous system and utterly demolishes them. Completely; you’re fucked. You will slide down a ramp like a stupid cow. You’ll fall on the concrete; you won’t be able to walk; your brain will turn to sponge. You’ll be eaten to bits.

You know that CJD does that without the immune system noticing? 

The immune system can’t detect CJD. By the time you’re slipping down the ramp like a cow, it’s all over. The immune system suddenly says: “Oh fuck; we’re in trouble.” Too late, mate.

So what happens if we act like BSE and CJD? What if we colonise the culture? What if we give it something it can’t swallow?

And this is a little bit like what Doug [Rushkoff] was saying earlier: we go in there; they want us. They’re desperate for us, because they think we know this shit; we know something they don’t know. 

We’re attached; we’re connected in some way that they don’t.. “they”, whoever “they” are; these poor bastards. They’re looking at us, like – coz I’ve got a leather jacket, I know something, y’know?!

But that’s what they think. And what I think has actually happened here is: the culture’s getting weirder and weirder.



"So let’s kiss our dark sides; let’s f**k our dark sides. 

Get him down there where he belongs. 

And he can tell us stuff. 

Y’know, that thing’s useful."