LINK TO FREE WEB COMIC VERSION OF TESTAMENT #6 (NSFW)
Quick reminder that TESTAMENT can get pretty explicit!
Original solicitation copy for TESTAMENT #6:
“The series Variety.com calls "impossible to put down" delivers the
mind-bending 2-part story "West of Eden," featuring guest; Art by
Gary Erskine (THE FILTH) and Peter Gross (LUCIFER). Decades
ago, young Alan Stern may have created life — inside his laptop.
Now, he's about to discover the terrible consequences of playing
God.”
Rushkoff’s Chapter Six (#6) Notes are available here.
I’ll add my two cents in the comments again!
And we’ll be back on October 22nd, for issue #7
same TESTAMENT time, same Jechidah channel :)))
And the next day, October 23rd, Tales of Illuminatus! #2 will be released!
Thank you for sharing this. Good luck with "Tales of Illuminatus!" #2. Next month the Pynchon will have arrived, mostly likely. Today marks John Coltrane's birthday, born 99 years ago today.
ReplyDelete‘Breishit’ sounds to me like a pun on Brexit.
ReplyDeleteKrishna eating an apple made me think of Eris.
Alan in Paris reminded me of the Before Sunset-style American rose-tinted view of ‘the city of love.’ I grew up there for 17 years, and have a different take on it, much less romantic I’m afraid. But look at the setting of Alan and Greta’s first encounter: they’re literally in Vineland!
Later on, the police brutality putting an end to the protest is unfortunately pretty accurate.
I like the idea that prophets are creating the origin story. A prophet usually is thought of as someone who is only the messenger, communicating to the world the will of God. But by using words, they are also framing this divine communication in a specific way, solidifying a given version of whatever they are transmitting. By doing so, interpretation and editing necessarily take place, in a way maybe somehow similar to writing down your last dream or mushroom trip.
The whole thing about the letter Beth I found fascinating, and very fitting for the comic book medium.
I wasn’t aware of the two different stories about the origin of Eve. Rushkoff’s interpretation of it as ‘think by yourself, you shmuck’ seems pretty smart to me, but I have my doubts as to this being the original intent of the people who compiled the Torah.
I used to see the story of Eden in light of McKenna’s stoned ape theory. Adam and Eve happily carefree due to their lack of self-consciousness, pretty much at the intellectual level of a non-human mammal, and Nobodaddy wanting to keep it this way so he could stay on top of things. The fruit of the tree as a tool for intellectual development (McKenna thought that repeated ingestion of mushrooms had been a catalyst for the birth and subsequent development of language), which God in all his profound insecurity could not tolerate.
But the bit about being in direct communication with God while still in the garden of Eden, and losing this ability afterward, bring some nuances. Indeed, many cultures have used psychoactive substances to ‘talk with the gods’, so how come the fruit of knowledge could on the contrary cut off this line of communication? Perhaps something to do with the dangers of learning too much too soon. Certainly it seems that language could here be the culprit (“first there was the word”), again with the letter Beth enclosing Adam, Eve and their future offspring into the material world of duality. Maybe if Adam and Eve had had a copy of Science and Sanity, the whole Genesis story would have turned out differently.
On the other hand, the ‘modern’ retelling of the Eden story seems to imply that the downfall will be due to hubris (“to develop a computer-based life form”) rather than sheer innocence. The ‘knowledge’ is being used with technological means, and for material gains rather than spiritual advancement.