Monday, September 8, 2014

Hermetic Anarchism and Othering the Other 1

Imagination is a magic carpet
Upon which we may soar
To distant lands and climes
And even go beyond the moon
To any planet in the sky
If we came from nowhere here
Why can’t we go somewhere there?

-- Sun Ra "Imagination"


I end up spending a lot of time in Jimbocho, the old bookseller's district in Tokyo. Hours and hours I rifle through piles and stacks of dusty pulp hunting for gems. Usually my luck is good, and occasionally I find just the book that I need. There are two shops in particular, both specializing in used English books, where uncanny things can happen. At times the course of my life takes bends and twists because of books that find me at these shops. This happened most recently in June.

I noticed Richard Ellmann's The Consciousness of Joyce on one of the shelves. I'd heard about this book before, so I picked it up and started to leaf through it, wondering if I should make the purchase. As I was reading, I became aware that three American(?) students had entered the store. A conversation between two of them caught my attention.

"Have you ever read Ulysses by James Joyce?" one guy asked his friend.

"No, but to tell you the truth it's pretty far down my list of books to read. I'm not that interested. I guess one day I'll read it just to say that I have."

Needless to say, this conversation made the decision for me. I went to the front desk and bought Ellmann's book, which is a study of Joyce's most famous novel, and on my way out I saw that the first guy was now alone, looking through the stacks. I looked over at him, smiled, and sputtered out "Read Ulysses" in a hoarse voice. "Alright," he said and smiled back.

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I have no idea if this guy decided to read Ulysses because of this brief encounter with a disheveled, preoccupied loon. And I have no way of knowing if he enjoyed it if he did. I'd like to think, though, that it changed his life. I remembered soon after this took place that Ulysses is also a novel of encounter. The situation synched with the story. For an instant, at a single intersection of space and time that went beyond both, I had become Bloom and he had become Stephen. And the moment passed.

After reading Ellmann's book, though, I also realized that this moment had greater depth than even this. Bloom is Odysseus. Stephen is Telemachus. For just that instant, I had entered myth. I was back home from a twenty year misadventure in which I had lost all of my companions and barely escaped alive. This was my first word of greeting and advice to my sole heir and confidante. And it loops back again.

How often does this happen to people everywhere, if they only noticed? This is not reincarnation or even metempsychosis. This is much more like putting on a mask, looking through its eye holes for a time, and then setting it down. When we look out through the mask, whether with awareness or not, we give the mask life. Just as we peer through it, whoever or whatever it represents peers through us. The archetype momentarily ruptures the surface.

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Ellmann's book takes up this theme in relation to Ulysses. I knew, though, because of the weirdness in the shop that the book would also point to something else, something most likely unintended by the author, yet something that would show me the next step. That's how it always seems to work. The next stage arrived on July 16th, a few days before I published the last article. This will take some background to explain.

The subject of the present post is really anarchism, and Joyce's peculiar take on anarchism is a major theme of Ellmann's book. In a chapter called "Spacetime," Ellmann demonstrates how deep Joyce's anarchism goes. Ellmann explores this with regard to the question: If Bloom is Ulysses, if Molly is Penelope, etc. then who are the gods?

Joyce needed in his book an element that would correspond to the sense the Greeks possessed, of preterhuman forces governing human life. In the Odyssey the influence came from Olympus, where the gods were real, or almost real, and not simply counters. Joyce found in space and time powers as elemental as Neptune and Hyperion, but secularized. Our lives are on the one hand enforced movements from room to room, concessions to our surroundings. On the other hand, our lives are enforced surrenders to tick and tock, temporal exigencies which wear us down if we like it or not. We are creatures of our maps, and our watches.       

Ellmann implicitly argues that Ulysses is a book of revolt against the tyranny of Space and Time. In the book's third chapter Stephen is walking alone on Sandymount Strand, a beach on the shore of Dublin Bay. In his head there rages a debate between Aristotle and Kant on one side and Berkeley and Jacob Boehme on the opposite, among several others.

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Stephen wonders if it possible to transcend the categories of Space, the "ineluctable modality of the visible," and Time, the "ineluctable modality of the audible," in order to directly experience what Boehme calls, "the signature of all things." This, Stephen realizes, is the true domain of all poets.

He closes his eyes as he walks and contemplates the vanishing of the sensory world and its soul-stifling limitations. He asks himself:

Am I walking into eternity along Sandy mount strand?

But he is not convinced. He knows that he is kidding himself. His imagination has not yet become a faith. He opens his eyes, wondering in jest if all will be a "black adiaphane," an endless, timeless nothing of infinite potential. And yet he does not really expect this. He opens his eyes:

See now. There all the time without you: and ever shall be, world without end.

Space and time reassert themselves as the ultimate barriers to the individual imagination. This evidence of the senses would appear to end the debate. Stephen knows, however, that this "proof" is unsatisfactory. The senses, and even reason itself, are unreliable and incomplete. His soul still longs for something more. The debate within himself and with others continues throughout the book. Eventually there is resolution, at least temporarily, in the most dramatic manner towards the end of the book.

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Ellmann explains that this climax is directly foreshadowed in the second chapter. While ostensibly teaching schoolchildren, Stephen's mind is already churning over the questions he would more deeply explore on Sandymount. He envisions a Blakean end of history, the collective entry into the eternal:

I hear the ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry, and time one livid final flame. What's left us then?

He can contemplate the overthrow of space and time, the end of bitter rule from Olympus, but as he demonstrated on the Strand he cannot yet enact this. Ellmann points out, though, that these words are prophetic. Space and Time do get overthrown. Eternity does burst through. And this was where things began to get very weird for me personally.

In the "Circe" episode, all of the old categories are cast down. Before this episode Dublin is revealed to be a wasteland. There is drought. There is an epidemic of hoof and mouth disease. Desires are unsatisfied, women labour long but cannot give birth, and both the politics and culture of Ireland are shown to be fully repressed by Empire. Suddenly, though, clouds form and a deafening thunder claps. The rain showers down, Mina Purefoy (pure faith) gives birth to a son, and fertility triumphs over sterility. Stephen and his friends rush into the street in wild glossolalia and drunken revelry.

In the second half of the book, these premonitions begin to be realized. Time and space, once so firm and masterful, begin to crumble, and both continuity and contiguity are reduplicated. The bonds that keep things next to or before and after each other are loosened, objects and creatures appear from nowhere and events that should be prior are subsequent and otherwise disarranged.
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Bloom and Stephen are drawn into the inescapable lure of "Circe," a red-lit Walpurgisnacht. Here, anything goes and all boundaries dissolve. The visions begin. Stephen is visited by the emaciated, corpse-like ghost of his mother, "raw head and bloody bones." She inflicts him with painful darts of guilt, for not believing in the Roman Catholic faith, for refusing to pray beside her deathbed.

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Quickly, Stephen appears to realize that this wraith is much more than just the ghost of his dead mother. She is the phantom of restriction. She is the embodiment of the tyranny of time and space, Church and State, the "laws" of physics -- Blake's "vegetable glass of nature." He first shouts his defiant refusal:

The intellectual imagination! With me all or not at all. Non serviam!

I will not serve! There is no greater expression of anarchism. And what is the authority for this cry of utter disobedience? Nothing less than the intellectual imagination. And yet still the cloying pleas from the dead to repent and conform persist. He then strikes out violently with his staff, at once eradicating the demon of denial and shattering a chandelier. And this is the moment when prophecy is fulfilled, history ends, and my mind is blown sky high:

(He lifts his ashplant high with both hands and smashes the chandelier. Time's livid final flame leaps and, in the following darkness, ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.) 

Boehme, Blake and Berkeley have won out over Aristotle and Kant. Matter is revealed to be just a facet of mind. Imagination is victorious. This in itself is sufficient to get the fine neck hairs bristling, but exactly at this point in Ellmann's book the earth opened up and was about to swallow me whole. Ellmann quotes the above passage on page 66, contrasting it with the almost identical quote from the second chapter. In the copy of my book, though, in the margin right beside this passage, which is also marked with a vertical line, someone had handwritten in pencil:

ATU XVI

Eh?? Any Crowley fan will recognize this as as the 16th trump or key in his Book of Thoth tarot deck, the Tower. And anyone fitting this bill would also realize that only a Crowley fan would write such a thing. This blew my head for any number of reasons. I had just been making a clear connection between Joyce and Crowley for a post I would publish on July 20th. I had also been reading Crowley's Moonchild, in which the Tower card prominently features. I felt as if this was written for me alone.

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I discovered this bit of marginalia on the morning of July 16th, while reading Ellmann's book in the train on my way to work. I nearly had to get off the train to take a walk. July 16th, of course, matches with with Atu 16, and besides being a month after Bloomsday, it is also a profoundly sync-rich date in itself. I have written about this date previously in this blog.  

Finding this, nearly the only marginal scribble in a book that I had bought under weird circumstances about a month before, only confirmed the fact that I was meant to go down these obscure passageways.

I have also written on this blog how the Tower trump is connected to 9/11. "ATU XVI," tied to a passage on "shattered glass and toppling masonry," has obvious resonances to 9/11. What this means, though, is that 9/11 is also an echo, from this perspective, of Stephen's smashing of the chandelier. The veil was rent on that day. Very paradoxically, perhaps, on one level history ended on 9/11. The Twin Towers were Time and Space.



Crowley's explanation in The Book of Thoth on the meaning of Atu XVI contains very similar themes: 
 
Briefly, the doctrine is that the ultimate reality (which is Perfection) is Nothingness. Hence all manifestations, however glorious, however delightful, are stains. To obtain perfection, all existing things must be annihilated. The destruction of the garrison may therefore be taken to mean their emancipation from the prison of organized life, which was confining them. It was their unwisdom to cling to it.

Crowley associates this unsettling doctrine with Shiva, the Destroyer, whose sign is that of Nothingness. Joyce also plays with these ideas directly. As he strikes the chandelier/wraith with his ash staff, Stephen shouts out its name: "Nothung!" This is the name of Siegfried's sword in Wagner's Ring Cycle by which the Germanic hero overthrows the tyranny of the God Wotan or Odin, the equivalent deity to Rudra or Shiva in India. And in a Joycean pun, Nothung is clearly Nothing. The old order is ending and everything is being cast down, even death. Stephen takes on yet another mask.

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This act is repeated with far less violence in Finnegans Wake:

He lifts the lifewand and the dumb speak. 
--Quoiquoiquoiquoiquoiquoiquoiq!

Can I assume, then, that the unknown Thelemite who read Ellmann's book at some point before me was directly referring to 9/11? There is no way of knowing this. The paperback edition of my copy of The Consciousness of Joyce was published in 1981. Who knows how many people read this book before me, or if "ATU XVI" was penciled in before or after 9/11.

The only other mark I noticed in the book, a little later on page 70, was next to a passage containing Bloom's own vision in the "Circe" episode. He sees his deceased son Rudy, not as the "mishapen dwarflike creature who died at eleven days" but as a "perfect eleven-year-old boy." In the margin beside Ellmann's passage, with what I assume to be the same pencil, is written: "11!"

Now, is this because my unknown Thelemite was seeing the parallels to 9/11, or was he/she only remarking on Crowley's own fascination with the number eleven? As it is stated in The Book of the Law  (1:60):

My number is 11, as all their numbers who are of us.

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This all raced through my head while sitting on the train. As I got to work, though, the connection seemed confirmed. In my first class one of the students was wearing a white t-shirt with the words "Manhattan NY" and the outline of an apple with a photo of the New York skyline within it. The weird thing was that it was a pre-9/11 photo with the Twin Towers in central position and lined up with the vertical lines of the N in "NY." I excitedly asked him about the shirt, and he didn't seem to think it was any big deal. He was shy that I pointed it out.

The next day, July 17th, a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777, MH17, was apparently shot down over Ukraine. In addition to making the obvious link to MH370, the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 that disappeared in March, many sources connected this incident to 9/11. Apparently it was the deadliest plane crash since 9/11, and in conspiracy circles the temptation to identify this as another false flag, like 9/11, was irresistible.

But what does 9/11 have to do with anarchism, even in the profound sense that Joyce is applying to it? Clearly the crimes of 9/11, regardless of who supplies the narrative, were not carried out by anarchists. They also did not lead to anarchist ends. Superficially 9/11 appeared to be attack on the existing control structure. In the end, though, 9/11 only expanded and more deeply entrenched the coercive capacity of the power elite. 9/11 allowed the police state to come out of the closet.

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In another sense, however, 9/11 was archetypal. However it was orchestrated, and whether this was intended or not, it too was a fissure into the eternal. For me, and I know I am by no means alone, time and space did end for a brief but measureless moment on that day. Like all such moments, and they are of the same quality yet very different scale and intensity of my experiences in the bookshop and on the train, it stripped away the illusion. People speak of "waking up" on 9/11 and I think that this is actually what they mean. 

These moments, Joyce's epiphanies or Pound's luminous details, are at the core of this deep anarchism, or what might be called hermetic anarchism. Or perhaps we prefer to leave out the -ism altogether. From the perspective of conventional anarchism, which is usually strictly materialist in outlook, all of this looks dubiously abstract and unrealistic. Flaky even. Ellmann goes on to show, though, that it is not at all removed from the traditional concerns of the anarchist movement.

Ellmann notes that Joyce's brother Stanislaus recorded that James was fond of quoting a line of Blake's: "the king and the priest must be tied in a tether." This is classical anarchism and both Joyce and Blake were clear devotees to this passionate, anti-authoritarian sentiment. Blake advocated that each man should be the king and priest in his own house. Stephen echoed this feeling in his confrontation with the British soldiers in Ulysses. The State and the Church are primarily in our minds, and it is here, first, where they must be tethered.

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Ellmann points out that both Joyce and Blake found an expression of this idea in Dante. It is a thread that runs, as we'll see, through the whole poetic tradition. In The Divine Comedy, both the crown and the mitre are set upon Dante's head before he enters Paradise. Both of these powers are fully taken on by the individual as he or she encounters eternity. As Ellmann explains:

The priest lays claims to an eternity of time, as the king if he could would rule over infinite space; and against these forces, anthromorphized in earthly authorities, Stephen and Bloom have to muster their own forces.

In more contemporary terms the King is the State, the obvious ruler of Space. The Priest is not as clearly paralleled in our essentially secular societies, but the Corporations, being the pushers and pimps of the dominant religion of consumerism, are well suited to represent the lords of Time. Work and Scientism also conspire to bind us in segmented and suffocating Duration.

Blake is explicit on how these forces must be overthrown. The most powerful weapon we have is the imagination. Everything in our culture is geared towards convincing us to doubt or trivialize this all-important faculty. Let Disney imagine for you. We are told, likely more from friends and family members than by the authorities, that this way of thinking is unrealistic, a waste of time. Even "anarchists" scorn and ridicule the idea that the imagination can lead to liberation. Blake, however, was unequivocal:

The world of imagination is the world of eternity. It is the divine bosom into which we shall all go after the death of the vegetated [i.e. mortal] body. This world of imagination is infinite and eternal, whereas the world of generation is finite and temporal. There exist in that eternal world the eternal realities of everything which we see reflected in this vegetable glass of nature. -- A Vision of the Last Judgment

This should not be interpreted as mere Platonic dualism. Blake also taught that the body is indistinguishable from the soul. The material and spiritual worlds, the world of generation and the world of eternity, are one. Only in our perception are they divided. The split is epistemological, that of knowing, instead of ontological, that of being. And we know that knowing and being end up being the same. There exists a chaos of categories in which only the imagination can thrive. And this chaos is anarchy:

Anarchists have been claiming for years that "anarchy is not chaos." Even anarchism seems to want a natural law, an inner and innate morality in matter, an entelechy or purpose-of-being. (No better than Christians in this respect, or so Nietzsche believed—radical only in the depth of their resentment.) Anarchism says that "the state should be abolished" only to institute a new more radical form of order in its place. Ontological Anarchy however replies that no "state" can "exist" in chaos, that all ontological claims are spurious except the claim of chaos (which however is undetermined) and therefore that governance of any sort is impossible. "Chaos never died." Any form of "order" which we have not imagined and produced directly and spontaneously in sheer "existential freedom" for our own celebratory purposes—is an illusion.

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This is from Hakim Bey's essay, "Ontological Anarchy in a Nutshell." Ontological anarchy is basically synonymous with the terms "deep anarchism" and "hermetic anarchism" from the present post. Perhaps it is better. Bey also introduces the term "utopian poetics" in the same essay. He describes it as:

The penetration of everyday life by the marvelous—the creation of "situations"—belongs to the "material bodily principle", and to the imagination, and to the living fabric of the present.

This very much agrees with Blake and Joyce and my own experience. This "utopian poetics," the penetration of the marvelous, the spontaneous upwelling of indeterminable chaos, is a current that runs through the entire poetic tradition. In, for example, "Another Weeping Woman," poet Wallace Stevens writes:

The magnificent cause of being,
The imagination, the one reality
In this imagined world
 

In the poem, the "weeping woman" is cut off from this "manificent cause of being" because she is consumed by grief at the death of her lover. "Black blooms" of existential poison occlude her vision and paralyze her imagination.

These "black blooms," caused by many things besides grief, are what keep us bound in what Crowley called, in reference to the Tower, "the prison of organized life." Another poet, Robert Graves, describes this prison in his magical book, The White Goddess

‘Nowadays’ is a civilization in which the prime emblems of poetry are dishonoured. In which serpent, lion and eagle belong to the circus-tent; ox, salmon and boar to the cannery; racehorse and greyhound to the betting ring; and the sacred grove to the sawmill. In which the Moon is despised as a burned-out satellite of the Earth and woman reckoned as ‘auxiliary State personnel’. In which money will buy almost anything but truth, and almost anyone but the truth-possessed poet.

Reality is disenchanted. Nature is commodified. The very symbols of poetic truth have had their meanings stripped from them. This is the Waste Land.

This arrives at my central concern with this series of posts. How can we, as visionaries, as individuals who have had glimpses of the eternal, who know that if we pay attention these moments are not at all rare, stay true to vision? How do we avoid the obvious sham, the blatant trap, the absolute bullshit choice, of corporate one-world globalization vs. mutually intolerant tribal, national, racial categorization? How has this false choice even come up in "alternative" circles?

The Tower is tricky. Its destruction can signify the end of Time and Space, but this act can also bind us even more to these vengeful gods. For thirteen years we have traversed the Abyss. The veil may drop once again. Will we, enmired even more deeply in senseless, illusory categories, simply fall with it? Or, with the poets of chaos, have we realized that it has already fallen, that it continues to fall, and that we can see a light behind it?

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19 comments:

  1. Perhaps the use of atomics is a sign of flaws in the space time. Some speculate that we are all dead since the willful use of atomic weapons. Dancing with the dead. Thank you for sharing your sync's. What fun this synchromystic adventure is. Shineforth brave souls. Dennis

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  2. I decided a couple of weeks ago to finish Ulysses once & for all after many attempted starts & stops & start overs over the years. Not quite done yet but almost there. I'm finding it a bit less difficult to follow than Finnegan's Wake but still an extremely challenging read. Thanks for another great post!

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    1. Great to hear, Steve. His earlier stuff is also very worth the read.

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  3. Fallen, fallen has Boaz and Jochin. The Structure (Order) cannot stand. Ordos Ab Chao. The Towers have been replaced with the "New World" Middle Pillar. Novus Ordo Seclorum. "No-thing" is impossible. It's an oxymoron. Genesis 11:16 "And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do." Nothing is impossible. Everything is possible with our imagination. However, our imaginations are not "prisoners of organized life", they are prisoners of sin. Sin stunts the imagination. YHVH knows this, and that is why He separated the languages at Babylon. He wasn't trying to stop us from advancing or from doing great things. He knows what is in our heart, and the things we do reflect that. Everything we make is used for destruction, war, pornography, money, hate, and pride. Anarchy is a contradiction. What law would stop someone from enslaving a group of people? We are already slaves and always will be. Slaves of sin. Slaves of our ego. What does the elite do when they accomplish their one world government? Do they simply say "Hooray!" and click their heels? I believe in Yeshua our Messiah so I see no need to accept nor try to revolt against the government. Revelation 6:10 "And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled." Luke 17:33 "Those who try to save their lives will lose them, and those who lose their lives will save them." What difference does it make if we die now or die when we're 90? There is nothing new under the sun. Everything is vanity. God bless you znore.

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    1. Anon, good to hear from you again. Thanks for you comment and blessing. As you know my theology is not at all orthodox, so I'm not going to try to convince you that it is. But I think we are not so far apart. The connection of the Tower of Babel and the imagination is excellent. This story is another version of the Fall. Leaving aside the Gnostic interpretation, I think we can agree upon the meaning.

      "Sin stunts the imagination." Yes. And what is sin in the broadest, non-theological sense? Sin is separation, Nietzsche answered. It is separation from God -- infinite creative power. When we are separated from this our imagination is stunted. The Tower is an attempt to literalize the imagination -- to literally climb to Heaven like Odysseus tried to storm Mount Purgatory, or the eat the Fruit without first becoming No Man. The fall of Babel, as shown in Atu XVI, and on 9/11 are all versions of the Fall.

      The Fall is reversed by Christ, the perfect union of Spirit and Matter. Christ IS the Imagination according to Blake. This is where my anarchism stems from. This is the heresy of the Free Spirit and it is ultimately where the Reformation culminates. We are already back in the Garden, but the so-called Matrix -- maya in the east -- prevents us from realizing this.

      The categories, the tyrant gods, of Time and Space are illusory. Great suffering exists, but much of this is the result of categorization and separation. "What law would stop someone from enslaving a group of people?" There are only two actual laws as you know -- love others and love God as yourself. Really this is only one great law of liberty. You, and many others, seem to be really asking -- what monopoly of force would stop someone from using force against a group of people? But, what other force would prevent this monopoly of force from doing the same? And so on.

      We are both talking about a change in perception. Maybe you think, along with other Christians, that we are not yet ready for this? Maybe that's right. But we don't really have to worry about "we". Everything else is all just vanity.

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  4. Yes, the more we talk, the more I also feel like our theology is not too far apart. I also wouldn't consider my beliefs orthodox by any means. 1 Thessalonians 5:21 "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." I don't believe in the pre-tribulation rapture, I don't believe in the trinity, and I believe our Father's Law is perfect and that we are expected to follow it (of course this is impossible to accomplish and that is why Yeshua had to be sacrificed). God's Law is why I can't accept anarchism. However, I believe in separation of Church and State. The State shouldn't enforce God's Law, but we, as followers of Yeshua our Messiah, should know and understand the Law, and follow it out of our own free will because we love our Father. If we are forced to follow laws, we no longer follow them out of love, but out of fear of the State. And it's not the fear of the State that gives us knowledge, it's the fear of YHVH. And the fear of YHVH is a loving fear, like when we fear our parents because we know that they only mean to teach us right and wrong. The two Laws sum up the other Laws, but how can the two Laws be accomplished if we don't follow the whole Law? I don't mean to ramble or try to convince you of my beliefs, I only desire to know Truth and I really enjoy our conversations. "What is truth?" asked Pilot. YHVH our Father IS Truth and in Yeshua there is Truth. And the Messiah was physically here. He was born, He lived, He died, and He was resurrected. I can understand that Messiah IS the imagination, but I don't believe the imagination IS Messiah. Just as God IS love, but love IS NOT God. It's not simple philosophy as if A=B then B=A. Messiah is Truth, Light, the Logos, the only "begotten" Son of God." John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Logos and the Logos was with ton Theon and the Logos was Theos." (Yes I know the Logos is an idea from Plato, but John was writing to the Greeks so i believe he was trying to find the best word to describe Messiah). But what is imagination? Can anyone know? You're right, I don't believe we are ready. 1 Corinthians 13:2 "And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing." I stand corrected. "Nothing" is possible without love.

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    1. Great stuff, Anon. Are you familiar with the Christian anarchism of Tolstoy? I'd really like to hear your thoughts on this:

      http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/leo-tolstoy-on-anarchy

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  5. I wasn't familiar with Tolstoy. Thank you for sending that link. I would have to agree with Tolstoy that "There can be only one permanent revolution — a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man". I myself "wish" for Anarchy, but more so, I wish for "Freedom". I think that is what Anarchy is all about- the Freedom to do what we desire without hierarchical suppression. However, I think we all want Anarchy; but only as long as the rest of Society, at least somewhat, agrees with our own morality. Obviously you and I would have a different view of morality than say, Ed Gein or Ted Bundy. So, does the Anarchist accept and integrate these people into their Society, or do they band together in order to either get rid of them or imprison them, thus suppressing their freedom to murder? That sounds like Democracy. That's extreme, but for me it begs the question, what is truly moral? What kind of standards do we set? Is it okay to do what we want as long as we don't hurt anyone else? Can we steal? Do we accept pedophiles and child pornography? We know these things are wrong, but does Wall Street or the Walt Disneys of the world care? Then there's division. The Anarchist cries out that the Government is the problem. The Government cries out that it's the people who are the problem. The "radical Christians" cry out its the "fags". The gays cry out its the "Conservative Christians". Islam cries out its the Jews. Isreal cries out its the Muslims. The Klu Klux Klan cry out its the "niggers and the spicks". The Black Panthers cry out its the "suppressing crackers and redneck honkys" Who is right? "Well, I'm certainly right" says the Individual "If only the rest of the world thought like I did". Then, as Tolstoy was asking, how do we accomplish Anarchy? If we use violence against violence, we are doomed to fail. I agree with him that the Public Opinion is the only way to bring about this change. However, this is where I think we are not only "not ready", but that it is "too late". If we use violence, we will be labeled as "domestic terrorist" and our cause would be shunned (just as Tolstoy said). However, if we revolt peacefully, the Government will spray us with water hoses and tear gas; and this is where I think we are too late. The whole world will watch us, thanks to television and the internet, but also because of television, our cause will be strategically placed between the war in the Middle East and Snookie's new baby or Nicki Minaj's butt implants. And the world will go on doing what they do best- not giving a damn and living their comfortable meaningless lives. Yes, I know I sound very pessimistic, but I'm actually very optimistic about our future because I believe the Messiah will return. But first, we have to go through the system of the Beast. And I don't believe we can stop this from happening. We just have to be patient. Love one another, not to change the world, but to change ourselves. To bring a smile to someone else's face. Deny our "self" for the benefit of our brothers and sisters. I can't change the world, but I can help those around me, even if it only brings them a second of happiness. This is what Messiah taught. "Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's" because it's not yours to begin with. It belongs to the State and the State will do as it wishes. Don't conform, but don't revolt. Live in peace, with love, hope, faith, and contentment, patiently waiting for the return of Yeshua. 1 John 2:15 "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever".

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    1. Aye, there's the rub. You think anarchy is not possible because the Messiah has not yet returned. I think the Messiah never left. What if the miracle you're waiting for is already here and all the rest is illusion?

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  6. Exactly. I believe the Messiah hasn't returned because we are still subjugated by sin and because Yeshua had to go away. John 16:7 "Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you." As you said, sin is separation. Sin is of the flesh. Galations 5:17 "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." In this case, the Flesh (Matter) is contrary to the Spirit (Imagination) because of Sin. When Yeshua returns, the Flesh will be done away with so that the barrier no longer exists. I have to agree with what Blake was saying in the A Vision of the Last Judgement quote. I believe he was saying that the Flesh IS the illusion. Ecclesiastes 3:11 "He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end." (NASV). When Stephen closed his eyes, he imagined eternity, but he wasn't able to produce it externally. He had to wait. It wasn't until "Mina Purfoy" gave birth to a son (Messiah?) that Time and Space had crumbled. Then he was visited by his mother (the Judgement?), but he refused to listen. So he smashes the chandelier (Apocalypse?), and then sadly for Stephen, Hell. Maybe I'm confused with the whole thing but that is the interpretation I received from it (if I am wrong please feel free to tell me. It's probably impossible to offend me). His imagination had become darkness, because he refused to obey. Sin. Just as the "weeping woman" was consumed with "black blooms" because of grief and self pity. Their Sin had destroyed their Spirit.

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  7. "It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you." Doesn't this imply, as you were saying, that Christ needed to depart in the flesh so that he could fully appear in the spirit? The Spirit is therefore here, in everything, yet we do not recognize it. Our imaginations continue to be (self-)bound.

    Stephen's mother represents the false Church which shepherds the flock with guilt and fear instead of releasing it into love and freedom. This is the false image that Stephen smashes. Stephen does not get to Hell, but is reunited, like Telemachus to Odysseus, to his real father.

    Sin, you're right, is the "black blooms" (also the false Bloom) that separate us from the Spirit with grief, guilt and fear. It could be that these barriers already do not exist. The Comforter is already here, although we are kept from this realization by the forces of deception. The Second Coming, in other words, is not something that comes through the nightmare of history, but through our own transformed perceptions -- by waking up.

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  8. Thanks for clearing the whole issue with Stephen up for me. Like I said, I never read the book so that's just the interpretation I was getting, and I realize my interpretation came out of ignorance. Last night I read a little about it and downloaded a copy of Ulysses (appears to be a tough read, but I read Chronicles, so I think I can make it through any book). I see you chose your words carefully. Stephen didn't "get" to Hell...interesting. As far as Yeshua leaving, I don't believe the Comforter is Yeshua Himself, but is the Spirit of YHVH, His Ruach. I do believe the Comforter is here and is with me, but only to serve as a "comfort" until the actual "being" of Messiah returns. I myself am still drenched in sin. Even Peter was sinful, and Paul had to rebuke him for not sitting with the Gentiles. Peter had actually walked with Yeshua and probably knew His teachings better than anyone else. That's why I don't believe one can "obtain" perfection. It will be given to us if we prevail to the end (e.g., not allowing ourselves to conform to the world or practice paganism). I see Hermeticism teaches that there is one common truth among all religions, and I can't believe that, so I hope I don't offend anyone. I understand why you think Yeshua is the Comforter. A majority of "Christianity" teaches that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all the same. But I don't see that. For me there is one God, YHVH, and His Son, Yeshua. I believe The Kingdom of Heaven is neither Anarchy nor Democracy. It's a Monarchy, where YHVH is King. I see nothing wrong with this system. It's what Israel had before Saul and they thrived. It wasn't until the Israelites grew sinful and turned away from YHVH that they begged for a human king. This hurt YHVH, but He gave them their king, and we know how things turned out for him. David was one of the last great kings, until Josiah, but man in his wickedness constantly turned away from YHVH and His Law. Solomon had more wisdom than any other man but that wisdom did not give him perfection. It only gave him grief and then he turned from the one true God to serve the gods of his wives and concubines. That is another reason why I don't believe we can obtain perfection through wisdom. I consider "waking up" as the moment when we get past all the bullshit, we realize there is one God, and we don't allow ourselves to be influenced by the Satanism and false doctrines of the media and the Church. A transformed perception is definitely required, however, 1 Corinthians 15:50 "Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." At the "last trumpet", whenever all prophecy throughout history is fulfilled. I hope you don't think I've hijacked your blog with "Bible-thumping ignorance". I know I write really long comments. This is just my favorite website. One of my favorite verses- 1 Corintinthians 1:20 "Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men." God bless you.

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    1. To me, Anon, a monarchy centred only upon the groundless ground of all being and non-being -- the closest I can come to describing God -- with no other mediation is pretty close to what I mean by anarchy. You may not agree with the Trinity -- I like it because of its poetry -- but I think you would accept the reality of the forgiveness of sins, right? For Blake this was the most unique and wonderful aspect of Christianity. Certain extreme protestant groups like the Brethren of the Free Spirit believed that the forgiveness of sin only needed to happen once, and that was at Calvary. Any "sin" (separation) after this is really illusory. Philip K. Dick had a similar revelation. We are kept separated from eternity by a false matrix, which he called the Black Iron Prison, of space and time. At all points, though, eternity can leak through. It only waits for us to say Yes! We have already been forgiven. Now we only need to truly forgive ourselves and others. Thanks for the inspiring passages.

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  9. This blog has style, so much so that I find it hard to comment for fear of defacing it's awesomeness. I do enjoy reading the comments when I'm checking in for the next one which is pretty much daily. I started reading Ulysses after giving FW a go, both are still getting chopped away at. Got into the Blake, Hardy, and just now finishing EP's Guide to Kulcher. All great reads. Thank you.

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    1. There is no way that your extremely welcomed comments could deface this, Eric. It delights me to no end to hear that people are getting into these cats -- Pound even! Excellent.

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  10. I did a blog post that explores some of the same ground:

    http://www.rawillumination.net/2014/06/illuminatus-online-reading-group-week-15.html

    Simon Moon in Illuminatus! on page 62: "You're both wrong. Freedom won't come through Love, and it won't come through Force. It will come through the Imagination."

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    1. Exactly. Great post. I'll be citing RAW directly again when I finally get around to finishing the second part of this.

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  11. I definitely agree with the forgiveness of sins. Like I said, I myself am drenched in sin, so without Yeshua, I would have no hope. Hebrews 9:27 "And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many;" However I don't believe in the "once saved always saved doctrine". If I got "saved" when I was 20, then join the Church of Satan when I'm 40, I'd say that would invalidate my Salvation. YHVH is faithful though, so John 1:8 "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." But just the act of calling out to Yeshua is not enough. He requires obedience. Matthew 7:21 "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." As far as the trinity, I advocate more towards the teachings of that "heretic" Arius. I know that you're a poet, it's one of the strongest reasons I return to this site. You don't just give hard cold facts. Everything you write is sincere and poetically thought provoking. I believe one of the most beautiful poems ever written is Proverbs 8. It is about Wisdom (referred to as "she" because of Hebrew gender pronouns). This is obviously about Yeshua and it is the most detailed description of His relationship to the Father. However, Proverbs 8:22 "The LORD made (קָנָה kanah)) me at the beginning of His creation, before His works of long ago." (HCSB). I've read several commentaries on this passage, and most translations render this word "possessed". Every commentary either has to jump through many hoops to make this fit with Messiah and to allow Him to be co-eternal (eternal regeneration?), or they have to accept the passage for what it says and deny the most profound poem ever written about Yeshua. I think you'd find that the poetry of the relationship between the Father and the Son to be spectacular. I feel bad for posting a website link onto someone else's blog, but I've seen others do it and you don't seem to mind. This is about as close to what I believe that I've found (except maybe the Archangel Michael- translation Chief of the Messengers One Who is Like God- being Yeshua, although he does give a very good argument for it. I just don't think that's too important). I'd still love to continue talking to you, but I don't want to wear you down with all of this. I'm sure I already have. However, I told you one of the only things I read is the Bible, so I can't help it. YHVH is the perfect poet in all that He does. I'm just very gracious that you keep replying to my comments. I really do appreciate it. Enjoy and God bless you.
    http://www.herealittletherealittle.net/index.cfm?page_name=Godhead&id=66

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  12. I found this page by searching for the Tower card with the balls because I was wondering what year that card was created. The balls are atoms, radioactive nuclei coming from Chernobyl and Fukushima depicting the end of the world. Sorry to say that most of you have it wrong. Christ is God incarnate and no Messiah. Christ is the son of God, not the son of Joseph. I am the son of Joseph the Messiah. Watch my videos on the GoTimothy channel. Follow GoTimothy on twitter and visit my web page www.GoTimothy.com

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