Lion of Light: Robert Anton Wilson On Aleister Crowley Reading Group
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Welcome! Our corner of the Robert Anton Wilson community, based around Tom Jackson's RAWIllumination, is excited to announce a reading group for the recently published Lion of Light (from Hilaritas Press): it will be hosted here at Jechidah and led by Oz Fritz and Yours Truly.
Oz is a music producer/sound engineer and possesses a masterful knowledge of the lives and times of both Aleister Crowley and Robert Anton Wilson. He is also the best damn practical Qabalist I've ever run across, so I'm personally looking forward to whatever secrets and possible meanings he'll dig up going through the book. I can also vouch that Oz is a great person and happy to share his knowledge without pretense and with an open hand. Check out his blog.
I'm a Rabelaisian windbag and probably mad, but I've spent the majority of my life exploring the works of Crowley, Wilson et al. and trying to put them into practice. Not sure if it was the best decision I made, but it is; I know no other way. Besides, I've witnessed, after a manner, many splendors and phantasms that I wouldn't have otherwise.
Come with us to the borderlands of biography where the shades are at least as real as the shadows on the wall of Plato's cave; a hinterland of serpents, stars and garters...
Or come explore the conversation between two of the wittiest, most brilliant men to have wielded a pen, who transformed the lives of so many people...sometimes for better, sometimes for worse...with two guides who have been listening in to their dialogue with careful attention for years. Perhaps we'll be able to rend Isis' Veil and show some of the truths behind the scintillating obfuscation of occultism and reveal the depths of humor and humanity that lies beneath.
We'll officially begin on Labor Day (September 4th), but keep an eye on this space for updates in the days ahead.
In the meantime, I'd heartily recommend taking up the small practice of prayer in "Appendix Lamed" of The Illuminatus! Trilogy or Crowley's Liber Resh: practice is an essential part of understanding magic. While the resulting experiences are subjective, they do tend to deepen one's relationship with the beliefs and practices of our magical predecessors. I'm always happy to field questions and try to point in a direction!
If we are to end on a number, I would like this to be Ishtar Rising Week Eleven. Although, due to delays, this group has lasted longer than eleven weeks, eleven is a good number to end our account of the unending ascent. Certainly, eleven is the most appropriate number if we are to "seek the light and quit the dark" as we look forward to Wilson's proposed golden dawn.
Ishtar from Myths and Legends of Babylonia and Assyria (1916) (A volume that can be found in Alan Moore's library.)
Ishtar Rising Chapter Seven: Making A Clean Breast Of It
I have never grown out of the infantile belief that the universe was made for me to suck.
This chapter struck me as one that had two authors, more so than the rest of the book. (Alas, my only other copy is the 1989 New Falcon edition.) It seems 1989 Bob felt a need to drop in and add notes to '73 Bob's ideas. Understandable, the mention of the AIDS crisis at the end of one paragraph is an essential update. I'm unsurprised Wilson doesn't say much more about the crises, as he would have been as confused and horrified as the rest of the world with this seemingly unstoppable disease; unlike others, Wilson seemed to prefer not to talk about things he didn't understand. Wilson spent much of his time in the eighties living with Arlen in Ireland, a country where he wouldn't have seen many signs of sexual progress. In America, the Silent Majority backed Reagan's HUAC-toady smile to the forefront of the world's stage and Jerry Falwell's simply toad-like visage to the airwaves as the grim speaking asshole of the Religious Right. Margaret Thatcher ruled as the Iron Lady and despite being a female, wasn't exactly a model of feminism.
Thatcher's legacy is best summed up in this snippet from the often transcendentally funny Eric Andre Show:
Eric Andre: Do you think Margaret Thatcher had girl power?
Mel B (of Spice Girls fame): Yes, of course.
Eric Andre: Do you think she effectively utilized girl power by funneling money into illegal paramilitary death squads in Northern Ireland?
So, there is probably a reason Wilson saw a need to tidy up his "last words" on the subject, as the state of the world had changed so very drastically. Society had shown new ways to tamp down on Consciousness III, whether through persecution (the War on Drugs) or conversion (a la Jerry Rubin and I imagine many of that generation). While the end of the Cold War was only a couple years off, at the time many felt the world was closer to nuclear warfare than ever before.
I know I've said this, you've said this, we've all said this on this site and Tom's: I wonder what Bob would think of Now?
Would the "big if" that we need to get past for a rosy future still be "blowing ourselves to hell?" Perhaps. The major powers still have enough nuclear devices to end our civilization; however, the concern over nuclear war is no longer as ubiquitous as it once was. Perhaps that is simply how our monkey-minds have adapted to the ever-looming threat. Yet, we have at least a couple more "big ifs" that we need to somehow hurdle if we are to leave our descendants a happier, if not happy, inheritance.
First, climate change. While the existential threat of climate change is outside of this book's purview, one could argue that nuclear war was as well and Wilson still felt the need to bring it up. Unlike The Bomb, the red button has already been pushed in this case. If the human race doesn't collectively get our shit together, or more to the point The Powers That Be don't get their shit together, we're fucked three ways till Thursday. Jesus, Fuck.
Second, our culture---indeed that of the world--is more unstable now than it was at the end of the twentieth century. I was born at "the end of history" and remember vividly how that sentiment came crashing down on September 11th, leading to the slow attrition of sanity that simultaneously accompanied the spread of the Internet. We're still up to our thighs in history and the nightmare isn't over yet. The rise of extremism is a clear and present danger to the welfare of all free peoples. The democratization of information and platforms isn't quite what the classical liberals expected as people are extremely stupid and have poor discrimination facilities. There are no arbiters who seem up to the task of stabilizing the boiled-over pot of our varied identities and our different demands.
Wilson's distress over a then-recent Supreme Court ruling is completely understandable as our current Supreme Court seems quite intent on sending us back to '72. Wilson would have a bit of revenge by making many of the Puritan Justices' names slang for body parts in Schrodinger's Cat (Mr. Justice Berger's name was the equivalent of shit.) I'm not sure if there's an ugly enough term to match the name of Barrett.
But that's why these things are "big ifs." The future is dictated by the past, but the past has a way of constantly shifting from the viewpoint of the present. So, I'll try to look into my obsidian mirror and talk to my better angels:
I don't see us ever becoming a purely sensualistic culture and seriously doubt that nudism will ever become the cultural norm, at least not as far into time as I can peer. Indeed, I think that some of the things that we view as signs of sexual liberation at the nonce will probably be looked down upon in the future. The Internet of the last two decades has given birth to sexual identities that seem to "harm no one" but still irritate and offend many people when posted for the world to see. Our societal emphasis on kink has led to a world where Dan Savage advised a woman to be thankful her husband was only sexting with his cousin as she needs to expand her notion of monogamy and be thankful he wasn't fucking anyone else. While I am for the LGBT movement, I see the current trend of pasting on whatever letter the new sexual identity demands being laid to rest. The harsh realities of the "real world" are going to hit the children whose sexual identities shift throughout the day like a ton of bricks. The oversaturation of students attending college, and too much academic thought seeping out into broader discourse, in our society will continue to trigger backlash across economic and societal sectors. I see our current education system as unsustainable.
This could end up yielding net positives, though, if sexuality ends up becoming more about private individualism than about a need for public validation, with the added benefit of more elasticity. While I don't think of myself as a prude, I do find myself raising an eyebrow at the public displays of what-really-doesn't-seem-to-be-any-of-my-business-and-I-don't-see-how-I-figure-in. And while I find the screeds of leftist sexuality advocates hysterical, I appreciate a sense of self-determination. Pornography will continue to be pornography. I don't really know if there's a way to put that djinn back in the bottle and I'm not sure I'd want to, despite what I see as an unhealthy influence on our population. I enjoy porn, a term which encompasses everything from de Sade to Aubrey Beardsley to Ron Jeremy to 2Girls1Cup. We all have our degrees of acceptability, and I really don't care about what happens behind closed doors. Despite the conservative movement to instate onanism as a punishable offense, I believe that most people feel about the same: what I don't know, I don't really consider. On the whole, I think my view of the current sexual milieu could be compared to the "Story of Leonard" in Sex, Drugs & Magick (the next book I believe we'll go through on this blog).
Now, let me describe how to best use your body parts for sex. That part of the chapter struck me as amusing this time through, especially because I'm sure it was educational the first time I read it. Wilson did teach me a lot of things. I did feel that he saved that bit for last as bait to keep the Playboy readers trekking through the book- he finally threw them red meat to accompany the illustrations.
The meshing of East and West will hopefully continue as the world continues to mesh together. Whether we end up figuring out ways to travel around the world with ease without destroying the environment or have to settle for localized communities connected simply through communication, our cultures will continue to find themselves entangled. Refugee surges will continue, and while they will surely initially lead to all sorts of depredations, as some of the world's governments and societies are forced to grapple with an unceasing tide, and those refugees begin to arrive from different, "novel," parts of the world due to the effects of climate change, the refugees will be integrated into a shifting geopolitical landscape. While I doubt this will lead to some sort of pansocietal tantric attitude towards sex, it will have major influences on our mores and ways of relating to one another, often based around attitudes towards sex and gender. Personally I feel that this will lead to a more liberalized attitude towards sex as those from more conservative societies are forced to deal with the already considerably looser sexual mores of the West. I do not believe that extremism, especially "foreign" extremism, poses much of a threat to liberal societies in terms of ideological takeover. Whether we can beat homegrown extremism and that old time religion is another matter entirely. Assuming that we do, conservative Christians will continue to be conservative Christians and a canker sore on the ass and mouth of society.
And I think that's as much of a guess that I'm willing to hazard. So no, we probably won't live to see even the foundations of a truly "tactile, pneumatic society, sensually and sensorially oriented," but parts of that society will continue to bleed through into ours. Even now, I sit amongst "rich fabrics, incenses, psychedelic art and the general paraphernalia of Consciousness III," partly due to the author. Wilson was a vector for this particular disease of language, and he certainly infected me. "Now," as Mr. Green says at the (true) end of Clue, "I'm going to go home and sleep with my wife."
With Wonder Where The Ascent Shall Lead, Without Lust For Result, With Laughter and Love,
A. C.
Stray Thoughts
I think it is perhaps best that we never find ourselves in the sensualist society of Brave New World, which we should remember is a dystopia. All the more attractive is the island of Pala in Island with their discipline of maithuna. However, Huxley seems to indicate that Pala is able to exist as a small miracle, a miracle that is doomed to flicker out. I try to maintain as much of my own practice of "Tantrik Buddhism" in this sea of confusion.
I wonder if Wilson wasn't being purposefully gnomic while talking about his experiments with psychedelics, sex and kundalini energy. He gives a markedly different account of these experiments in Cosmic Triggers I and II as well as other books.
I won't really know when we're beginning Sex, Drugs & Magick until I finish copyediting TSOG. Hopefully I'll have an update within a month.
It's been Illuminating. Thank you Rasa and Christina, Tom, Oz, Eric and Spookah for your support and massive contributions to my reading experience. And thank you to Adie for proofreading everything for my weird ways of writing. And for your breasts.
I read the first part of Chapter Seven last night and dreamed of a fragment of a chandelier from my Grandmother's house being very important to a magical operation. This isn't a novel idea but it is a recently reoccurring one. Happily, I have one of the faux-crystal shards with me. When I woke up from the dream I was compelled to look through a journal where I found an unexpected entry about another dream wherein I learned the alternative names of the Sephiroth. At the time I was only able to recall the alternative titles of Chockmah and Binah, respectively Tadull and Harde. Make of this what you will.
There's a version that is somehow closer to home and my own Magna Mater:
And, I agree with Wilson's statement in the last couple pages that no matter what else, we do need a little more tenderness in this world:
Cardinal Spellman (1946) and Lana Turner (1955): Which would you rather get stuck in an elevator with?
It's been a long week everyone, first week back in the classroom amidst the continuing COVID chaos. All sorts of contradictory directions and goals- it's good to be back.
Ishtar Rising Chapter 6: The Breast Expressed and the Breast Possessed
This is an interesting chapter with a few eyebrow raising ideas; while for the most part I generally find Wilson's anthropological theories in Ishtar Rising compelling, I find myself questioning many of his biological propositions. From the perspective of 2021 it is hard to imagine that there is any weight to the idea that breastfeeding "even helps the vagina return to natural size after childbirth" or that is is statistically likely that there is a real correlation between conventional attractiveness/unattractiveness and intelligence/lack thereof.
Moreover, this chapter is all about contradictions (as indicated by the chapter's title). The contradictory adulation of female archetypes in patriarchal institutions, the role of sexuality in public and the clash of cultural attitudes are laid out by Wilson as a spin-cycle view of the world. We read about Origen who derided women as "sacks of dung," and who castrated himself, but that mad fool was much gentler in his theology than Augustine or that maniac Clement. Wilson explains how the Athenians, progenitors of democracy, were the first society to make insane sexism a social norm and shows how a few centuries later prudery was alive and well in the satirical poetry of Juvenal- Wilson later portrays the "cheerful Greeks and sentimental Romans" favorably in comparison with Christian societies. We read about how Catholicism kept the Cult of Mary, and therefore the mother-goddess, alive while the Protestants violently rejected her, and yet the Catholic Church is the great malefactor throughout this narrative.
Furthermore, Blake's philosophy, which Wilson cheekily endorses at the beginning of the chapter, could be accurately described as ultra-Protestantism. I have encountered this paradox before as having grown up primarily with Protestants, and "non-denominational" ultra-Protestants at that, and as a child I developed a hearty distaste for Luther's spawn. And yet I agree with many of the early Protestants in their critiques of the church and even their draconian theology. While I loathe Calvin and believe he cast a black shadow over humanity that is still unassuaged, I find myself implicitly agreeing with predestination. I do believe that if either "God" is omnipotent and omniscient or if Einsteinian space-time is in fact a different dimension than the one we perceive, it is a given that our ends are writ. I adore the fiery visions of Bunyan but disagree with his Christian bigotry; I adore the idea of a Nation of Saints and shudder when I read about Cromwell. But I digress...
Wilson's musings on Lazarus' poem and his addendum "And we'll send them right back where they came from" is especially timely as we are faced with yet another refugee crises of our own making. The United States is founded on such lofty ideals and we fail them so very often. Reading Wilson agonize over the, at the time of publication, still-fresh Vietnam war while watching in horror at the immediate legacy of our occupation of Afghanistan is all the more poignant. We really don't learn much and we ping-pong our cultural consciousness between a childish desire to be admirable (our "City on a Hill") and our natural selfish, small-minded true selves. Looking again at Afghanistan, where we should never have been in the first place, and the reimplementation of oppression by the Taliban we can see yet another form of godawful patriarchy reasserting itself with a fury that Jack the Ripper could only envy. What little good we've done, unraveled in days.
Cycles. Having gone to brunch earlier today I was able to make some contemporary observations. (My observations were helped by a new found inability to not look around at other people while dining. I hate it but it seems to have developed over the pandemic.) I saw very little repression in anyone's state of dress, male or female. People's dress ranged from looking as if they had rolled out of bed to looking ready for a day about town. There was plenty of skin, which makes sense considering the ninety-degree weather. Our society is as contradictory as ever--witness the recent OnlyFans debacle--but clothing freedom seems to continue apace.
So I end this chapter with a lot of questions. What are we to make of cultural breast modifications? Is it a good thing or merely another way women's bodies are controlled by societal pressures? Should breasts be exposed to venom and stinging nettles? How conscious was Eleanor of Aquitaine of the symbolic significance of her ride through Jerusalem? How consciously has any of this shadow war been fought through the ages? Are we marionettes controlled by our own preconceptions, conditions and unconsciousness? Whose doing what? Was Ovid kicked out of Rome for vegetarianism? Was the heart chakra truly repressed? Are women with breast-implants "plasticized" and unnatural?
At certain points Wilson seems to be just as confused as I was- his discussion of discrimination and sexism seems like it wouldn't be out of place in a contemporary "intersectional" model until he throws up his hands in frustration with the Woman's Liberationists. The colors are beginning to run together.
Stray Thoughts
To answer Wilson's question: Blake's trees, in comparison to Van Gogh's, would have been populated by choirs of angels if his childhood vision at Peckham Rye is anything to go by.
While I think I somewhat understand what Wilson was hitting at at the lack of accurate terminology for describing breasts, I'm not sure how much actual use Max Bartels' 48 types would actually be. Considering my wife's response was "Jesus Christ" when I read the classification system to her, I'm not sure she sees any point to it either.
After I read the quote by Lord McCauley, I am now certain there will be a gravity denialism movement soon. We don't seem to even need a financial interest to discredit reality today.
I agree with Wilson and have always insisted that the aphorism "in the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king" to be incredibly fatuous. The one-eyed man is going slowly insane. The one-eyed monster reigns supreme.
from Robert Crumb's The Book of Genesis (2009) A true masterpiece. Recommended.
Ishtar Rising Chapter Five: The Return of the Repressed
My reading experience of this chapter was mostly Wilson preaching to the Choir. Even Wilson's specifically anti-Catholic stance echoed my current concerns about papist morality in what-should-be a secular society.
Do you want to know why I have such an animus against Christians?
The reasons are far too numerous and subjective to go into at any length. Suffice to say, for now, that it's Christians' attitudes towards sex and the fact that they are incredibly, bafflingly bad at reading. When I was a child I was embarrassed and irritated by the "waiting for marriage" crowd, even as a virgin. When I started having sex, and realized that, to me, it was a profound, lovely and intoxicating mode of existence, I grew to hate the minions of the pulpit even more. While many people find it funny, I would be driven into a rage anytime I heard a Christian friend or acquaintance argue that mutual masturbation, oral or anal sex didn't break "God's" commandments. Foul and ridiculously silly hypocrisy. I was disgusted when I found out a Christian friend tortured himself for months trying not to masturbate (but he still found time to talk about it incessantly). I wanted to vomit every time I heard someone who was obviously gay preach the foul drivel they'd been taught. I didn't feel pity. I felt revulsion.
That isn't very compassionate. And in my more sentimental, calm or enlightened states of mind I can feel empathy for the psycho-sexual torture these people have experienced or continue to subject themselves to- so why the anger? Christians are fucking stupid. Jesus Christ, they are dumb.
Wilson talks at length about the late-nineteenth and twentieth century obsession with masturbation as if was something new. While many people years before didn't go so far as to produce male chastity belts...oh wait, they mutilated their genitals to reduce sexual pleasure so they could think about "God" more a thousand-or-so years before that. The Abrahamic dislike of one of the few, almost-entirely-pleasurable bodily functions is derived from the story of Onan in Genesis. While I'm not going to go into the details at the moment (you're more than welcome to consult your Gideon's Bible) it is a hyper-specific story about God wanting a guy (ole' Onan) to father a child with his brother's widow. He pulls out and "spills his seed." God waxes sorely pissed and kills him.
And somehow that means that touching yourself is evil and that every sperm is sacred. Now, I'll confess that I've only read a little bit of the theological justifications for this leap pole-vault of logic but they were as, if not more, empty than I expected. The gullibility and the idiocy have never ceased to astound.
While I dislike Christianity, I do love the dubious collection of late-antiquarian myths dubbed The Holy Bible. I think it is brilliant, disturbing and fulfilling in a way that at least justifies its popularity. And so as I was nodding along with Wilson I was jarred and annoyed to find myself disagreeing strongly with him.
It's a small passage, but since this post has already become a rant, I'll persist. Wilson claims that adultery can be "beneficial" in some circumstances. I'm willing to say: this is untrue. In a speech from the last ten years, the poet and farmer Wendell Berry discussed his belief that, as a Christian, homosexuality was a non-issue. As an almost passing remark, Berry makes the observation that if Christianity should be obsessed with any sexual behavior, the one most reviled in their holy book, adultery should always take center stage. This is correct from a reading comprehension point of view. (I will grant the only translation of the Bible I've read continually has been the King James.) In this case, I agree strongly with the Bible. As someone who has cheated and been cheated on, only poison fruits come from roots fed on betrayal. (Please understand that I'm not advocating stoning, and I do believe that the bibble also says something about revenge belonging to the Lord anyways, and I admire many people who had their foibles. I am not perfect, by any stretch.)
Anyhow, the point of all this is to say I like tits and touching myself and it's my hot body I do what I want, except cheat.
Perhaps the Matter Above Should Be the Stray Thoughts
I have always been baffled at the idea that there is such a thing as "breast fetishism." I personally agree with Wilson and Brown that the biological-evolutionary evidence points towards the homo sapiens' breasts as being erogenous zones. I've always been of the opinion that I am not a legs, tits or ass "man," I truly hate those terms, but rather, if I have to play the shitty game I'm a "face" man. I have to think someone is pretty to find them attractive. We all have our switches.
The Hayes Code was a bit of historical madness of which I wish I had a better grasp. In The Celluloid Closet, Gore Vidal states that Will Hayes' most distinguished achievement aside from the Motion Picture Production Code was looking strikingly like Mickey Mouse.
(Typing this next sentence felt like a MadLibs.) I guess Larry David got into a pissing match with Alan Dershowitz in Martha's Vineyard. Here's a scene from Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry's natural response to Sophia Loren turns tragic:
I really love Lenny Bruce. However, aside from passages in books and listening to his albums on YouTube, I have very few resources to engage with someone who might have been one of the greatest comedians of all time. If anyone has any biographical recommendations or other resources, I'd be most grateful.
Editorial Note: One thing about my writing process is that I am conscious of a desire to be able to look back and be proud of my work. This causes an amount of perfectionism, dallying and rejection of what seems to me to be slapdash attempts. This is a long excuse for not having the post up until today. I eventually figured out that I was trying to take to large a bite at the apple and needed to divide the chapter into two parts. (This post will cover material from the beginning of the chapter until the top of page 118 where a new paragraph begins.) Happy belated Lammas everyone!
It was upon a Lammas Night when corn rigs were bonnie...
"Eve tempted by the Serpent" William Blake c.1796
Ishtar Rising Chapter Four Part I: Mammary Metaphysics (Hilaritas Press edition pg.95-118)
I believe the telegram quoted from the beginning of the chapter was the first bit of Discordianism I ever encountered in the wild. I was immediately attached to the message and the cheekiness, it wouldn't be long until I found the Principia online, but I'll admit it wasn't until reading Illuminatus! that I truly appreciated the holy book.
I think it is a sign of WoMankind's recognition of our own sticky, drippy biological process that fruit plays such an important part in our symbolism. As someone who was blessed to live on a farm with an orchard, there was always something delightfully heady about the blooms turning into hard knobs and then plumping up into crisp-yet-bursting apples and chin-coating peaches. I hope that the smell of the blossoms in the spring and the soft stink of rot and fermentation as fruit drops to the ground overripe will stay with me my entire span. Like the Mellisai attending the Delian hive, the constant buzzing of bees was a hallmark of trips through the orchard. While the end result was less-than-perfect, my first wedding took place under what remains of the apple boughs and the ceremony, which I penned, mostly contained liturgy from the Canticle of Canticles...
Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved? I raised thee up under the apple tree: there thy mother brought thee forth: there she brought thee forth that bare thee.
As a child, I was troubled by the story of Eden. (I spent a lot of my childhood troubled by stories.) It always seemed like a stacked game and I didn't understand the arbitrary nature of fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. I didn't understand that God would love us and condemn our race for such a simple mistake. Why did you put the Tree there in the first place, asshole? It wasn't until later, when I read about the Rape of Persephone that I began to feel that the fruit in the garden functioned much like the pomegranate seeds offered to Demeter's daughter; a deliberate, shitty trap. I eventually began to see the plight of humanity after Eden as something akin to Persephone's- trapped in a loveless marriage with God. Considering Wilson brings up the theory that at first Eve would have been Mother to Adam and a consort of God, the bad marriage analogy might hold some metaphorical water.
It wasn't until I read the Ophidian Gnostic interpretation of the Eden myth that it made true sense to me: Eden was a trap, designed to keep mankind in thrall to the Demiurge/Jehovah and the Tree was the way out. The Serpent was Christ, emanation of the Pleroma, and Eve was an agent moved by the Shekinah/Sophia to free mankind from the Edenic illusion. Thus we became as gods, knowing good and evil.
As I've mentioned before, I was enchanted with Graves' The White Goddess when I read it before discovering it was mostly a product of Graves' imagination. At the time I still cared about such distinctions. I was enthusiastic about the idea of a Goddess-based religion but I found the Wiccan-inspired books and the revisionist myths of Women's Liberationist scholars charmless and obviously full of shit. My prior knowledge of mythology assured me that these stories were incomplete and left out a lot of detail. Considering that I had expanded beyond Edith Hamilton and Scholastic books on Myth, I felt that I had some basis for this suspicion. I still stand by it and am relieved that Wilson points out that the idyllic yarns about a pre-historical matriarchal golden age are mostly conflation and exaggeration.
I don't know what it says about me that I prefer my Goddesses from the lens of historical esoteric tradition rather than that of twentieth century feminist theory. Does it mean that I am unwilling to accept women on their own terms? Am I still a slave to outdated Apollonian academic authority? Or do I prefer an older style of writing?
Take, for instance, the lovely speech of the Goddess that Wilson heard while attending a coven meeting in Minneapolis. That is from Gerald Gardner's "Prose Charge" which I am almost certain was written by Crowley in his dying days. It was Crowley's genius that seeded Wicca, although modern neopagans tend to despise the man. At the time Gardener was lurking around Hastings trying to pump the Grand Man for ideas, Kenneth Grant was also a member of the milieu. Both Grant and Gardner competed for the attention and affirmation of not only Crowley but Austin Osman Spare in the twilight years of both men. It is from Grant that Wilson received the fallacious information about an all-encompassing pre-historic Cult of Isis. According to the Pyramid Texts and the records of Heliopolis, the first venerated God of Egypt would have been Atum and later Ptah. This quickly evolved into the cult of many gods before the ascension of Osiris. While Grant's theories are entertaining in the extreme and Crowley himself spoke of a pre-historical Isian Age, there's no historical evidence for these ideas. (Grant is one of my favorite magicians, if only for the fact that he was so very, very mad and brilliant in that order. If we are able to complete our upcoming Louis T. Culling series, we'll have to go spelunking in the Tunnels of Set with Mr. Grant.)
I also have to disagree that Homer had any especial dislike or misunderstanding of Achilles in The Iliad. We have to remember that one of the stories surrounding Achilles is that he hated the idea of warfare, although he was made for it, and tried to hide as a maiden when Agamemnon called the Kings of Greece to sail upon Ilium. In fact, Agamemnon sent wily Odysseus to suss out Achilles and remind him of the Oath of Tyndareus. Pity Achilles reader, his doom was sealed by his love of Briseis and Patroclus. Later, of Briseis, a Byzantine would write:
tall and white, her hair was black and curly; she had beautiful breasts and cheeks and nose; she was, also, well -behaved; her smile was bright, her eyebrows big
As Wilson begins to discuss the shift in attitudes towards women and sex with the rise of Christianity, I can feel my blood pressure rising. I will say that Origen is a complicated mess of a human being who seemed blessed with mystical insight that was marred by his own mental deficiency to overcome the cancer of the early Church. I don't think we can rely on assessments of women by someone who castrated themselves. Augustine is an ass and a poison. It's funny how the position of Orthodoxy hasn't changed that much since that nasty-little man did as much as he could to aid the ruination of civilization.
We'll continue with Wilson's Magical Maliciousness Tour next week as we continue to examine how it all kept going wrong.
Stray Thoughts
I appreciated the inclusion of dialogue from Faust. I've always found the plot point that when given immense magical powers, Faust used them to sleep with Helen of Troy extremely relatable.
Considering the vocal number of TERFS (Trans-exclusive radical feminists), I'm not sure that "its(Women's Liberationism) shell of dogma [has] been softened by the noisy splashing of all the other odd and colorful fish swimming about in the free waters of Consciousness III." I'll probably need to read The Greening of America. Perhaps we are simply in a liminal period between major change in sexual expression, after all many on the left have embraced gender identity, and eventually people will be amused or unconcerned about the "noisy splashing" of other people's expression.
Just as Augustine believed that Adam and Eve were perfect because of their lack of feelings before the fall, the credo of the anal personality today is "facts don't care about your feelings" which was made famous by the ultra-orthodox Ben Shapiro and the whole Daily Wire crew of ghouls. In fact I saw coverage this past weekend of the arch-analist, integrationalist and non-ironic theocrat Matt Walsh had taken some time off from insulting Simone Biles to start some dumb controversy about how men shouldn't cry.
While reading about Augustine's theory about Adam and Eve having sex through pure will, I was immediately reminded of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. And now I have to wonder if Dennis Reynolds would be Augustine's perfect man:
This week's music selection is not only inspired by Lammas Night, but the whole idea of The Wicker Man in light of the oncoming narrative which, as far as I remember, I've always considered a film with a happy ending. One of my all-time favorites!
Artwork from the seminal underground publication International Times which used Theda Bara's bewitching gaze as it's icon.
Happy Maybe Day Everyone! Make sure to check out all of the programming and work Bobby Campbell has put together this year!
Ishtar Rising Chapter Three: The Breast Repressed
I well remember the anxieties of being a preteen boy that we all experience; curiously conscious of the changes my body and those of my classmates were going through and anxiously wondering if finding Louise Brooks attractive made me gay.
Like any sweeping model for looking at the world/psychology/sexuality/culture, the matrist/patrist can be overreaching and based on cherry-picked ideas. For me, the 1920's were hardly a decade of sweeping, desexualized repression. Granted, all the ideas that Wilson brings up are true; the Republican administrations drove our country straight into the ground, it was the era of the United States' disastrous experiment with alcohol prohibition, and women's fashion, at least for those women who cared to be fashionable, trended towards a "boyish," androgynous elegance. Yet, let's consider our century-ago chronological counterpart from another perspective.
The Twenties were a time of sexual freedom for many women- as the gorgeous nude photos of Louise Brooks show, whether or not large breasts were as present on the silver screen, the female form was still very much appreciated. Brooks and Theda Bara brought an air of mystery and exoticism to the world with their beauty and acting skills. Brooks' dazzling array of emotions communicated without sound in silent film was enough to inspire Adolfo Bioy Casares' eerie masterpiece, The Invention of Morel. Theda Bara somehow transformed herself from an Ohio girl into the daughter of a French dancer and a Sheikh. Her costuming was so revealing that it was used as one of the reasons for the Hayes Code. Across the pond, despite being unable to perform in her racist homeland, Josephine Baker's "wild" dancing style brought her acclaim on the Continent as "the Black Venus." She would go on to be an instrumental part of the French Resistance and be a spiritual grandmother to the American Civil Rights Movement. (Coretta Scott King even offered Baker the metaphorical reigns of the movement after the assassination of MLK; Baker declined because of her age. She had fought the good fight for most of her life by then.) If these women are only appealing to repressed, plasticized homosexuals I guess you can consider me pegged.
In an interview from the late Seventies, Wilson recommends that then-younger readers seek out the fiction of Thorne Smith. Smith, a hard-drinking author whose fantastic romances are formulaic but incredibly affecting, published his best novels at the end of the Twenties. Indeed, the presence of Prohibition and the fact that Smith's characters loved the bottle as much as he did is responsible for most of the comedic set pieces in his work. These bits of cherry-picked fact don't take into account the "bright young things" of Britain chronicled by Evelyn Waugh in Vile Bodies, the artistic exuberance of Weimar Germany or the myriad of other works that chronicle the Roaring Twenties and its proto-counter culture. Nor does this take into account the lives and preferences of the folk who lived away from the big cities where fashion and trend are the rule of the day (if one can afford it): as someone who was reared in a rural area, I find it hard to believe that farmers were ever turning their noses up at plump women with big bosoms.
The 1920s were a time of shifting sexualities and shitty government, how the times do change.
Stray Thoughts
I realize that these blog posts might seem to be quibbling or focused on what I don't agree with in Wilson's book. I guess I am trying to build a counter-narrative to Ishtar Rising, perhaps trying to build a counter-melody would be more accurate. There wouldn't be a whole lot of new information if I spent the posts repeating Wilson's points and saying "I agree with this." I agree or sympathize with the majority of Wilson's ideas, so assume the parts I don't pick at I more or less agree with. If that makes sense.
I figure no one needs me to explicitly point out the relevance to the anecdote about arguing with Nazis from Wilhelm Reich's Mass Psychology of Fascism.
I have no interest wading into the still-raging debate about breast feeding. While I somewhat understand Wilson's concerns about "the plastic nipple," the person I know best who wasn't breastfed is still one of the most oral personalities in my life.
It is interesting that Wilson never wrote much about male circumcision (he briefly mentions female circumcision in the chapter), which should properly be deemed male genital mutilation. I guess that Wilson was from an earlier generation than the ones that had their dicks slit as infants in masse. Talk about a traumatic experience that could possible warp someone's early psyche. I am still pretty annoyed I had a barbaric surgical procedure performed without my consent.
I always loved the detail about Cretan women. In Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neil's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Gloriana (the fictional counterpart to Queen Elizabeth I) is depicted as wearing clothes cut in the Cretan style. According to Moore, this is to symbolize the reign of Elizabeth as being another example of a female led society on an island. While Elizabethan society wasn't matriarchal by any meaning of the word, we can find evidence to fit the idea that it was a more oral time period in English history after the brutal, bloody reigns of the Plantagenets and Lancasters.
Ishtar Rising Chapter Two: Tales of the Vienna Woods
I don't know if it was a joke or not, but the footnote explaining what a joint was made me guffaw. Perhaps this is another sign of the book's original times.
Looking back at some of my email correspondences around the time I first read Ishtar Rising, I can see that I've always read this book as an indictment or diagnosis of my strong oral-personality. I feel very seen when I read Wilson talking about cathected personalities who dwell on resentment or even when Wilson, as an aside, mentions how he can't imagine men who don't perform orally being satisfying lovers. Given my diatribe earlier this week concerning the Abrahamic God on Tom's blog, that had to be at least the tenth one I've posted there, you can easily see my anger, befuddlement and resentment against the anal values in our society. (While I understand that the oral/anal personality model is simply a model that can't possibly be completely correct, I have found it an extremely useful dialectic. I will also admit that I enjoy the model because of the inherently insulting way of referring to personality types I loathe- no anal person ever enjoys being called that. Try it, it's great fun.)
I will say this about resentment: I do not believe that it is necessarily an irrational result of a stunted personality. It would be wonderful if I could tell my boss to "get the hell out of my way" when they enforce ridiculous rules or neglect their actual responsibilities. Regrettably, I'd be fucking myself out of my source of life-tickets and that just won't do, will it? I think for any rational or mildly intelligent person, resentment is a natural and sane response to the immense amount of bullshit being shoveled on top of us in this society. I certainly don't think positivity for the sake of positivity does much for a world that is so mired amongst withered societal structures and idiot legions. An amount of disgust is necessary to deal with the world in an honest manner. The game is rigged. Please consider any of our great authors and their attitude toward the world: Blake, Joyce and Dickens, all of whom are given credence in this chapter, had quite a bit of resentment towards this world between the angels and the apes. Perhaps becoming an artist or creator is the best course forward for a cathected oralist. Or drugs, those always help. (Let's go ahead and at least agree "resentment" can occasionally produce an unshakeable grim sense of humor that I adore.)
As an example of the oral vs. anal power imbalance, consider the profession of judges. Perhaps the Trump years did a decent job demonstrating to otherwise uninterested Americans how arbitrarily the appointment of these people who literally hold other people's lives and freedom in their hand really operates. The idea that we must speak respectfully to a judge, even if we are the midst of an asinine situation, is one of the most infuriating hypotheticals I have ever contemplated. Imagine being hauled into a courtroom such as the one belonging to the odious Julius Hoffman's and being expected to defer to an asshole like that. Imagine being drawn into a courtroom on a marijuana charge and having to say "yes sir/no sir" while being judged on a matter with which no other person should be concerned. I hate judges, and speaking from personal experience, most of them are pricks. (I have known a couple small-town magistrates who seemed to be truly decent people. At the same time, I had the DA turned Circuit Court Judge as my scout master who was a magnificent bastard. That said, I should have never been in Scouting to begin with.) So, if I am dragged into a courtroom, you best believe I'll most likely be the meekest, most apologetic eunuch this society ever produced- but you damn well better believe I'll be full of resentment against the whole rotten affair. My few visits to family court for divorce were some of the most existentially humiliating experiences I've had since childhood. If only I had a nice pair of tits like Phryne.
Even now, we watch the unbelievable arrogance of Justice Ginsburg replicate itself in that of Justice Breyer- who were/are supposed to be the intelligent part of the bench- refusing to step down at the risk of our democratic society out of a sense of personal pride. We should probably round up the lawyers, but the judges should be some of the very first against the wall.
While this post has transformed into an cathected oral personality defending the cathected oral personalities, I've been neglecting my job to talk about other parts of the chapter. Naturally, considering the title, this chapter deals quite a bit with Freudian theory. I like Freud and think that most of his ideas still hold some amount of metaphorical water. I also think that a big part of why Freud isn't taken seriously today is because the fevered academics and psychoanalysts that came after his life don't really deserve a whole lot of the benefit of the doubt. After reading the humorous/ridiculous theories of Edmund Bergler it was hard for me to sympathize with Wilson's sentiment that Bergler's reputation "is really a pity because some of his notions were probably at least partially true." Who cares? Stalin was right that Russia had problems; doesn't mean that we shouldn't disregard the man and his ideas entirely. The Freudians who pumped out Bergler's hysterically stupid ideas, or Lacan's academic sophistries, are to blame for the modern disregard for the Plumber of the Unconscious.
Wilson's own musings on oral sex throughout the chapter gives an interesting peek into the human psyche. I have experienced one girlfriend who confessed similar hang-ups to the one Freud discussed...she confessed that she found fellatio disgusting because the urethra was also used for the passage of urine. My confusion (in my adolescent mind it was a little late in the game for such a confession considering our previous experiences) soon turned into disgust and yes, resentment. This resentment grew as she began to regret our sexual relationship as being against God. We broke up shortly after she told me she had prayed for forgiveness for "sinning" with me. I was horrified. My subsequent girlfriend, who encouraged receiving oral sex, was terrified of orgasming. Perhaps she, like Wilson's other female subjects, was afraid I would begin ripping and biting as passion grew. (A bizarre idea and one I cannot understand. Although I should perhaps be more cautious, I have never had a fear that my penis would be snapped off. Maybe this is another indicator of the strange and unbalanced relationship between the sexes.) Like Freud, I am also bewildered when people find it disgusting that they have accidently used their partners toothbrush or vice versa. Considering where else your mouth has most likely strayed, that doesn't seem like a big deal. Anyways, finding someone who is actually sexually compatible is paramount and an idea that I am grateful the modern world seems to promulgate, alongside a cornucopia of ideas that are often baffling or insipid. All in all, Wilson is correct that sexual relationships improve with time, given that the relationship is healthy.
Stray Thoughts
I disagree with Wilson that Dickens was probably unaware of the anal connotations of his Mr. Murdstone. As an author who is famous for characters with pun-filled names such as Mr. M'Choakumchild and Gradgrind, he wouldn't have been unware of the obvious French/"shit" allusion.
I didn't write much about Phryne because I don't have a lot to add. I'd like to note I have loved her story from the first time I read it here. The name "Phryne" was not her given name and translates as "toad." Her birthname was Mnesarete and she was given the name Phryne because of her "yellowish complexion." Curiously, "Phryne/toad" was evidently a common nickname for courtesans in Athens. There is a lovely piece of Batrachian erotica by Clark Ashton Smith in his faux-medieval French Averoigne cycle titled "Mother of Toads." Something about his pen writing about a "white and totally hairless body with curious roughness" really cranks the gears. Curiouser and curiouser, the French word for toad, "crapaud," seems to be a reverse of "Murdstone."
The grotesque sexuality in Smith's tale recalls Wilson's last ruminations on the potent nature of werewolves and vampires. I agree that there is a strong sexual edge in the Universal Horror pictures. James Whale's The Bride of Frankenstein might be one of the most stimulating, in many senses of the word, films I have ever viewed. Shelley's Frankenstein itself is alive with vibrant sexuality that tempts and repulses which the sequel really brings to the obvious periphery, if not the forefront of the picture. I was about to write more concerning Frankenstein, but that is a sure avenue to disappearing up my own ass for a long time. I love that book- it contains a good chunk of life itself in its three slim volumes. (And she was nineteen when she wrote it, goddamn/godbless here to eternity for that feat.) Here's Wilson talking about monsters in the aforementioned "Even a Man Who Is Pure Of Heart."
While I'd at least like to imagine I caught it before, I obviously didn't remember: the second chapter of The Illuminatus Trilogy, "Hopalong Horus Rides Again," must have come from Ira Wallach's Hopalong Freud Rides Again. (Right after writing that sentence I had the good sense to Google if "hopalong...rides again" was from somewhere else. Of course it is. I let my mistake stand for posterity.)
While this may be of no interest to anyone aside from Tom and Adie, it would seem Ada Palmer's Adolf Richter Brill must have been inspired by Abraham Brill, the psychoanalyst/translator mentioned in the chapter.
Considering I associate Dennis Hopper primarily with his Frank Booth role in Blue Velvet, it made me laugh when he was described as an actor who always played oral pushovers.
I'm not going to address Polanski or the slur. I have headaches enough.
I am conflicted; I feel as if my post has rambled on and that I haven't covered enough. I haven't even bothered to touch on Reich or Perls and the word "suck," of which I have much and more to say. Oh well, let it stand. As my blessed mother used to say when she'd serve some dinner: "hope it doesn't suck!"
I'm decently sure when you die, you're tricked back into incarnation with the promise of naked ladies.
Ishtar Rising Chapter One: It Began With An Erection
Apologies all, traffic was crazy.
Reading this chapter, I can accede that it is dated, Wilson is talking in full early-Seventies patois and towards an extremely small demographic. Wilson, understandably, considering the publisher and original title, assumes that his audience is made of straight-white males. While I have no personal issue, or stake, in this game it was striking how the voice Wilson employs might alienate readers outside the target demographic. Considering the outpouring of knowledge, curiosity and humor that composes the main bulk of this work, that would be a great shame and hopefully more people were turned on by his scintillating prose than turned off by the mandates of society's circumstance.
Secondly, this chapter is dated insofar as it is an important piece of the foundation of Wilson's corpus. The beginning quote from Tim Wheeler shows Wilson's dedication and involvement with the Discordian religion. Past that we are treated to a long example of Wilson's biological reality checks that he utilizes gleefully and more succinctly in later publications. Decades later in 2021, when terms like "biological determinism" can lead to accusations of bigotry and the field has produced celebrities such as the rather odious Richard Dawkins, it is hard to imagine relying upon biological reality as heavily as Wilson does in the beginning of Ishtar Rising for fear of misinterpretation.
I admit, I have little patience for research in areas that I am not already familiar with and might not have done my homework when it comes to Desmond Morris and his work. However, it seems like there have been no "major" refutations or rejections from the scientific community and I have always found Morris' arguments in The Naked Ape common-sensical and valid. After all, Darwin was able to figure out natural selection from "mere" observation and Morris' observations seem to be just as valid as the shape of finches' beaks. I have very few certainties, but I have suspicions. I suspect that Morris, and Wilson's, suppositions are correct in some (perhaps large) part.
I will admit that I am enough of one of RAW's target audience that I have bristled in the past when I've heard of nefarious "breast fetishization" and argued using Morris' explanation that the breasts are a naturally erogenous zone and object for sexual fascination.
It is odd to read about Jayne Mansfield, knowing her tragic fate. Raised on Hollywood Babylon, it is extremely hard for me to disassociate Mansfield's beauty and sex-symbol-status from her tragic fate. Oh, and all the nonsense surrounding her association with Anton LeVay. Consequently, Mansfield may be one of the least sexy sex-symbols to me personally. It is also tragic, and hopefully something the Goddess will correct when she finishes ascending to the Earth, that our sex-symbols, that bring comfort and joy to so many, are too often raised like lotuses in the mud of exploitation and personal tragedy. Blow-job Ape brought all of us more joy than any other inventor in history, she should have a goddamn statue in every blissful bedroom. (Edit: It strikes me upon rereading this that it is ridiculous to assume whether Blow-job Ape was female or male; God bless 'em, either way,)
Linda Lovelace, a modern incarnation of Blow-job Ape, brought salaciousness mainstream and pure ecstasy to many a man and adolescent. To read about her frank sexuality, coupled with her eventual conversion to the Faith of Misery, well, it is tragic. Yet again, we are faced with flowers in the mud. No doubt Lovelace was exploited in the late-twentieth century culture of pornography (along with simply being born an attractive female) and yet I hope that one can still wish for a sexuality not based around sexual hegemonies, new or old. Wilson's book gives an excellent example of a possible balance; something in between leer and worship, crude jokes and sincere orisons.
Wilson wrote this tract during a time when sexuality seemed perhaps a little less complex but belied a rotten world. Now we constantly have to deal with the complexities, real and imagined, of sexuality and it all speaks to a rotten world; but now we have the honest shot at having love for our crooked neighbor with our crooked soul.
Sex and death are our two primary compulsions. Yet, in the myth of Inanna and the text of Ishtar Rising, we can locate a myth of Sex that overcomes Death, temporarily perhaps, but still. Tend your garden. The green force that flows through the flowers in her hair...
Let us step back sixteen years from our last vantage point and meet the Bob Wilson who was “a product of his times” that we’ve been warned about.
Once we’ve done that, fast forward a few years short of a half-century and there’s this show called Euphoria based on an Israeli show that comes on after Curb Your Enthusiasm. I decide to watch the first episode and subsequently decide that the show is mostly misery-porn and isn’t my cup of tea. However, there is one illuminating scene from that first episode dealing with porn-porn that has stayed with me. A young couple are having theatrical and somewhat violent sex when Zendaya, playing the Little-Nell-gone-bad narrator of the show, asks if the viewers know why the couple are choosing to have performative and pleasureless sex before cutting to a barrage of pornography from across the Internet. The answer is simple- this is learned behavior.
Back to 1973- this snippet of the future occurred to me while I was reading Wilson rhapsodizing about how humans, particularly males, are struck passive, playful and gentle in the presence of breasts. In a healthy society, I would agree with Wilson’s statement, but I’m curious how he could make such a statement while sex has generally had a violent, sexist undercurrent in our decidedly unhealthy society. I hazard a guess that Wilson would have blamed those less-than-pleasant (perversions?) of sexuality on the oppressive, sex-negative society in which many humans (most?) find themselves living. Yet, I think anyone familiar with the sexual anarchism of the modern Internet, always just an incognito page away, would be able to understand that even without Christianity, we’ve managed to keep sex something shallow, exploitative and oftentimes grotesque. I’m not trying to come off as a descendant of Falwell or Dworkin, but I think it is fair to say that the sexuality exuded today is oftentimes deeply unsexy (a position I took while discussing Morrison’s Introduction.) To wit...
For the previously mentioned “Sex” chapter in Stranger Than We Can Imagine, John Higgs begins with the first stanza of Philip Larkin’s Annus Mirabilis:
Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP.
Higgs uses the two cultural references in this excerpt to demonstrate the evolution of sexuality over the mid-twentieth century up until the early-twenty first. Firstly he discussed Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover which was famously blocked from publication, bowdlerized and the cause of multiple courtroom scenes. While Chatterley would be unimpressive to the modern reader, it became shorthand for racy or scandalously plain descriptions of sex and desire. Higgs’ further goes on to discuss how Chatterley was an example of smut-with-a-soul; Lawrence and his lovers sought a spiritual intimacy along with their physical coupling. The lovers sought communion.
Ten years before our starting point with Bob in 1973, a forty one year old Larkin pens Annus Mirabilis looking backwards towards the decades long battle to present an unexpurgated edition of Lady Chatterley's Lover and forward to the Time of Love, heralded by the hysteria-inducing moptops from Liverpool. Yet, for all the beauty and necessary freedom produced by the Sexual Revolution, Higgs notes that things were not all quite “peace and love,” as Ringo would say. Reading Melinda Gebbie’s Barbary Coasters gives a first hand glimpse of the abuse of the new age of sexual freedom where partners were often coerced into couplings and those who refused were treated as “squares” or repressed. Gebbie’s account is but one of many of the darker sides of the Summer(s) of Love. By 1973, it is odd that Wilson, who notes the sexism of Playboy Publications in other places, could feel quite so confident about the gentleness of humanity in the face of bare breasts.
When we look at how sexual over-exposure and frustration has helped revamp far-Right sentiments in young men in the United States and contributed to the exhausting discourse over what is and isn’t acceptable, it is easy to agree with Higgs that the Sexual Revolution missed Lawrence’s point about “sexual communion” and instead skated right past it into the territory of the id. Unlike Wilson, who seems to blame the structures that “guard” against the id, I would point out that the id is primarily selfish and unconcerned about consequences...two qualities that don’t belong in the bedroom. Should you feel prurient in admiring the illustrations in Ishtar Rising? Certainly not! Melida Gebbie lavishly illustrated her and Alan Moore’s nineteen-years-in-the making rauchfest based on children’s stories that celebrates pornography down the ages. Yet, when we exist in a world where I would bet good money you could easily locate a video of a woman being brutalized and being made to eat shit, it is good to be conscious of what you are consuming. De Sade works a lot better on the page. (Save for Pasolini’s astoundingly good Salo.)
Another bit that hasn’t aged as well in the forty three years since Wilson’s Introduction comes right before his statement that “[m]ost men...are on their best behavior when under the spell of that double catenary curve” whilst discussing Ezra Pound. What to do with the Propagandist of Pisa has been a discussion since the end of the second World War and while we can recognize the poetic greatness of The Cantos, I’m not sure Pound is the best example if you’re trying to convince the world it needs more poets than political-pundits. (Also, have you read other people’s poetry? There’s a reason most of mine gets trashed.) Undoubtedly, the world needs less political-pundits and more poetry, but I feel that this may be an example of how Wilson “missed the mark” in that moment. Pound was a genius who expressed contrition for the disgusting views he held, nevertheless I would say that his life still demonstrates how politics, hatred and fear can easily corrupt even the most competent artist.
As far as the rest of the Introduction goes, I agree with Wilson. The Greek epitaph he provides the reader has been echoing through my head since I read again last week and there is great comfort and wisdom to be found in the quotes that he provides throughout.
However, the most striking line of the introduction comes near the end while Wilson is discussing “the force,” sometimes dubbed wakan, elan, prana, qui, kundalini, tao etc. “It is the only rebuttal anywhere to the logic of despair.” Not to beat a dead horse, but Higgs also makes a similar argument that the best antidote to despair is access to what he deems the psychological “flow” state or Colin Wilson’s “peak experience” and which our Wilson presents under a multitude of names. I wish it for you, dear reader, and I hope you wish the experience repeated and perpetual for me as well. We live in an infinitely complex world made up of billions of tiny universes. Be gentle, careful and appreciative when another has been exposed to you. Whether it is the case for most of humanity, or not, you should be playful and grateful in the presence of breasts in life and as we pass through Ishtar Rising.
