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| Author | Topic: Wrapping Up Incunabula |
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Harla Quinn (Moderator) |
posted 3/28/01 5:27 PM
It's been a busy month - running down the remaining leads, interviewing lots of *key* figures as well as former culture jammers, authors, psychologists, cultural anthropologists, engineers, physicists, and generally tying up the remaining up loose ends. Whew! Like Chinese macrame', the information is so densely interwoven that it is practically impossible to separate it into different *threads* (pun intended) without losing meaning. Thus, a careful and articulate dissemination is required so as not to sound rambling and incoherent. There are a few final areas which require further examination and discussion and I respectfully request everyone's assistance and input. I. The Magical Tool The first of these are the way in which Incunabula and Ong's Hat can be viewed as a "magickal tool". We've begun similar discussions on prior occasions but always gotten lost inside the very fabric of magick, itself. Many of those on this board and who "lurk" here are well versed in hermetic studies. Rather than expound on your own degrees of expertise, let me attempt to break it down into areas which I humbly request your insight and commentary. (1) The Akasa "egg" and its symbolism. Also, the alchemenical "curcurbite" (or "Egg Philosophic" as defined by Regardie). (2) Kabbalistic correspondences, if any. (3) Whether or not I&OH acts as a type of Neophyte initiation toward development of inner knowledge and enhanced perceptual cognition. (4) I&OH as a type of "great work" in and of itself. Outline the framework as to the ways in which it acts as sort of a "ritual" and discuss the possible objectives both to the initiate and to the I&OH architects. (Please don't get too immersed in the LHP/RHP aspects.) Does our *conscious* efforts toward studying and researching I&OH create an intended synergistic force? (5) Karmic ramifications. Should you reach an individual determination that I&OH has been used as a type of intiatory memetic device to further the awakening of the "higher self" existing within us all - does doing so without our awareness bode any Karmic ramifications? What is the psycho-spiritual effect in doing so without proper "protection" being afforded the unwitting? Many of you have written to me to discuss the "wierdness" which you suddenly begin to experience while studying and researching aspects of I&OH and for which you seek some explanation. In most cases I have responded that the experiences are merely an indication of increased perceptual *awareness*. However, that answer, in itself, is not sufficient. Thus, I must humbly counter that I truly don't know and certainly won't hazard a guess. I realize that many of these unexplained phenomena are embarrassing to discuss because they are unfamiliar and unbalancing occurrences and fit neatly into the "textbook definitions" of psychosis, neurosis and delusion. For most, the subconscious connections between the wierdness and I&OH is simply too outrageous and implausible an explanation. We have given insufficient individual attention to these disturbing results. My apologies if I have given the incorrect and untenable impression that we are little more than scientific "eggheads" and that this course is not without psychological and spiritual risk. |
| Pahana |
posted 3/28/01 9:06 PM
"Give me the end of a golden thread, But wind it in a ball, It will you in at Heaven's Gate Built at Jerusalem's Wall" To Blake, gold symbolised man's rational and intellectual faculty, while Jerusalem represented Liberty - complete freedom to do one's true will (see S Foster Damon - "A Blake Dictionary"). Truly that is exactly what we've been doing - following the golden thread :), and I wonder whether you're aware of the connotations there. It's interesting you posted this last night Harla - I was beginning to get worried about the level of quietude on this forum (the 3 day lull). Just last night I was working on the conclusion to my own 4 part series on Incunabula and the Mystery Traditions. I'll be interested to see how closely our views match up. At the same time, no matter what happens I'll be dissatisfied with my work. I feel that no matter how far one goes, there is always more threads to follow. When Ariadne gave Theseus the ball of thread to make the journey inward to the Minotaur, we never knew how many winding passages there would be on our way to the center. I guess because of the broad scope of the subject matter we might never fully exhaust our researches. I think we are making good headway toward a place to start practical researches from. Researches which may not be related to the original Ong's Hat, but could develop into a similar kind of project. What are your thoughts on an eventual attempt at a group practical effort at something like this? Anyone who has an opinion on this, I'm up for it. 142=7 |
| Pahana |
posted 3/28/01 9:11 PM
By the way - the original Diamond Eyes which I told you about in email I've posted in the Poetry Forum. I'm hoping I'll start on the one about the Researcher (et al) soon. I already have a vestigial introduction by Tiresias. 142=7 |
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Harla Quinn (Moderator) |
posted 3/28/01 10:58 PM
This is indeed Ariadne's "golden thread". I could not have couched it in more appropriate terms. Alas, you are quite correct, Pahana, in that I&OH is a winding labrynth which could go on interminably. It is constructed that way - to continue encompassing what we inject into it - by feedback and iteration (which appropriately seques into the next post). And, yes, it can be viewed as a "jumping off point" to start the neXt level of "practical research", if there are more defined goals and encompass a more synasthestic approach. Whether or not I will be involved or "included" at that level still remains to be determined (and is out of my hands, anyway). Craig was not entirely off the mark in his assessment of me. Amassing a great deal of knowledge and information doesn't necessarily result in "wisdom". I concede that. More important to me are the "ends" toward which the neXt level are focused. I remain consistently cautious about the "observer effects" of fully embracing I&OH without taking into account the interdependance of our actions. In seeking to explain this "odd" attitude, Douglas Rushkoff states it much better than I: "What goes on inside any one person's head is reflected, in some manner, on every other level of reality. So any individual being, through feedback and iteration, has the ability to redesign reality at large." Without "wisdom" in the "design", we must necessarily fall victim to reconstructing the same old song - just adding a different verse. |
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Harla Quinn (Moderator) |
posted 3/29/01 2:04 AM
II. Fractals, Feedback and Iteration Most everyone here is familiar with the "butterfly" concept of Chaos Theory which is the best and most simplest example of feedback and iteration, i.e., that a tiny action such as the flapping of the butterfly's wings "feeds back" into the larger system and when it has "iterated" (repeatedly feeding back into the original equation over and over) noticeable changes occur to the system as a whole. Chaos Theory is dependant on the circular equation of fractals - as opposed to traditional linear mathematical equations - which find "order" and patterns in the "noise" and in the seemingly dissimilar systems previously believed to be totally irregular and unexplainable. As with holograms, fractals are often viewed as a smaller but identical components of the whole. Benoit Mandelbrot, while searching for patterns in the "noise", found that linear equations do not adequately reflect "reality" which is rougher and more dimensional than previously perceived. How does this relate to I&OH? Feedback and iteration, like the similar phenomena of self-similarity, can also be utilized to find "the pattern" in human behavior. "Every chaotic system appears to be adhering to an underlying order of self-similarity." Douglas Rushkoff. Like a clock that loses a second each hour, over a long expanse of time - the "iteration of the error" - the clock is completely incorrect (though, I am quick to point out that even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Think about it.) Thus, under chaos theory, a tiny change anywhere in a fractal pattern - which would include an existing "reality structure" of behavior - will lead to tremendous changes in the overall system. "The force causing the change need not be very powerful. Tremendous effects can be wrought by the gentlest of 'feedbacks'." Rushkoff paraphrasing Dr. Ralph Abraham. Though we have also "touched" on this aspect briefly, bouncing around the periphery without really addressing it head on, please offer your insights as to possible applications of chaos theory and the accompanying theory of self-similarity as it could be used to "map" and ultimately "alter" not only the patterns of behavior, but those of consciousness and "reality". Another aspect of chaos mathematics as yet undiscussed is that process known as "phase-locking". Phase-locking is described as a process which brings various cells of an organism into harmonious and synchronous "linked" cycles that promote the creation of a single, interdependent organism where feedback and iteration can take place immediately and effectively. "A phase-locked group begins to take on the look of a fractal equation, where each tiny part reflects the nature and shape of the larger ones." David Rushkoff, Cyberia Is there a methodology, yet unnoticed, at work? Your comments are invited and appreciated. |
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Harla Quinn (Moderator) |
posted 3/29/01 4:15 AM
III. Open Conspiracy It is important that we understand how this concept - coined by it's originator, H.G.Wells in his post-science fiction days - has evolved from its roots to its most current reincarnation. Have Wells' "New Samurai" of ruling scientist/priests who social-engineer the global society been replaced by the psychadelic techno-elitists embarking on a "revolution" which primary result is intended to put them in charge? H.G. Wells sought to completely re-program humanity and to implement "programming" or "social control techniques" which would re-train the masses. In what context has this "open conspiracy" been appropriated by Leary, RAW, et al? Note this remark by Kevin Kelley, Executive Editor of Wired magazine and former publisher and Editor of "Whole Earth Review" (WELL). "In the late 1960's, the science of chaos was discovered by a bunch of hippie physics graduate students at UC Santa Cruz. What their discovery said was that it was very hard, if not impossible, to predict a complex system very long into the future. This is because initial conditions are so sensitive that minute variations at the beginning of an event, could lead to very divergent end points. That's the popular take on chaos theory, but in fact, their theory went even further. It said that chaos is actually a type of order, and even though you can't predict the likely end point with certainty, it will likely will fall into one of several different "basins" of probability. Their true discovery was that there are in fact, ways to determine where those little "pockets of order" are. Recently, this same creative group of people, with the backing of Swiss Bank, formed The Prediction Company to use supercomputers to extract those ephemeral patterns from the financial markets. They can't predict all the time, they can't predict everything, and they can't predict very long. But they can predict enough to have some edge over random chance, and they said that's all that they need. And so far, they will admit only that they are making money." These can't possibly be the same "steal this sign", anarchist, anti-copyright activitists and chaos revolutionaries we all know and love. Can it? "Information wants to be free. It just needs to be protected." Manifesto of TechnoRealism Movement. The Medium is the Message" - "The Audience is the Content." Marshall McLuhan |
| Pahana |
posted 3/29/01 12:06 AM
Interesting thoughts. The only thing I don't take on is the description of the group who discovered Chaos Theory. People like Benoit Mandlebrot and Feigenbaum were no hippies... Feigenbaum was working for the Manhattan Project in the time he began his work. He even had the insight to go and read Goethe's works on colour among other things. As to Craig's validity or invalidity in his assumptions about you, I agree, I have a problem with transferring work to a practical level too. But we have to start somewhere, and group efforts carry more momentum often than singular ones. 142=7. |
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Harla Quinn (Moderator) |
posted 3/29/01 6:53 PM
IV. DOOM PATROL Is it too outrageous an idea to correlate the pastiche of ideas in the early comic book perceptual "cut up" of Grant Morrison's version of DOOM PATROL which are so similarly mirrored in the characters in the Incunabula documents, complete with an encyclopedia about a fictional dimension which comes into existence due to its mere "creation" and where plot lines are derived from old nursery rhymes? Repelete with its own "Brotherhood of Dada" surrealists and following in the Burroughs/Gysin "cut up" style, DOOM PATROL encompasses everything from Gnostic terrorists to chaos theory and Borges, McLuhan and McKenna. Can Incunabula really be a postmodern-critical theory mimicry of a comic book style in the tradition of Burroughs, McLuhan, Deleuze and Guattari? A Borgesian "Garden of Forking Paths"? Is the Cult of the Unwritten Book anything like "The Living Book"? What about the "Chief", a cold manipulating genius who uses people simply to gauge their reactions and satisfy his curiosity in his efforts to create an alternate world? Surely, not! I've never read the early comics (1989-1992), so I would appreciate the input of those who are familiar with it firsthand. You tell me. And the "woman in the mask"? Mr. Nobody with a false face in the truest postmodern abstraction? Image preceding an object reaching into the recesses of archetypal knowledge for meaning? Hmmm.... |
| M. Nasruddin |
posted 3/29/01 10:21 PM
How random is random? The game of life as perceptual cut-up is not a new idea, certainly John Cage was experimenting with chance and indeterminacy in music, the Dadaists were pulling poems out of hats and the Surrealists were making "Exquisite Corpses" long before Burroughs appropriated the Cut-Up from Gysin (who, BTW, was a one-time member of the Surrealists in Paris before Breton kicked him out of a group show). Nonetheless, Burroughs and Co. made good use of it, expanding its possibilities to other realms (audiotape, film, etc.) In fact, one could even say that Burroughs experiments had a direct impact on such things as various forms of modern music (such as hiphop and the various ecclectic mutant electronic styles that rely heavily on sampling-style cut-up) and of course the much-copied "blendo" style of MTV graphix now used ad infinatum in commercials, just as a couple of small examples of how a once experimental technique in randomness, chance and indeterminancy has grown to alter our day-to-day media experience. Of course, the flip-side to these experiments in altered perception through cut-up was the discovery of the much heralded "Third Mind", the creation of an "other" through interaction between self and the tools one uses for achieving cut-up techniques. The Surrealists called it "The Marvelous", when the incongruous meetings of chance achieved a kind of poetic reverie or meaning that reverberated out of nowhere. Burroughs talked about messages from the future. Gyisn talked about magick, as did Crowley when referring to the use of the "Book of Thoth" (ie. Tarot cards). I don't think I need to elaborate on Genesis P.Orridge's further developments of these techniques in both the visual and audio realms, something he continues to engage in above and beyond his involvement in info-war theory (actually a direct outgrowth of that theory, I should say.) Mr. Morrisson's use of the comic-book format as a "hypersigil" to effect change on a grand scale through the use of unfolding narratives and discoveries about the "universe's programming language" accessed through manipulation of word and image bears mentioning as well, in light of your comments Harla and a previous thread on "fiction suits". Here we see the cut-up applied directly to magickal intent, through feedback and iteration on a "triple-loop", between creator and created, between created and audience, and between audience and society. Though Grant applied this conscientiously to both "Flex Mentallo" and "The Invisibles", I don't believe he was esposuing this when he wrote "Doom Patrol". At that time, he was more into the Dada and Surrealist effects, less so involved in magickal techniques in his creations. Nevertheless, we can clearly see the foundations of what was to come. Though Grant relies chiefly on these methods to create his strange worlds or "unfolding narrative hypersigils", he does concede to using "whatever works", including the use of computers in his cut-up/magickal workings, even as so far as utilizing his computer's spell-check function to further alter perceptual reality. Speaking of computers, has anyone brought up the links between cybernetic theory and chaos theory, insofar as AI is concerned? I think this would be a wonderful topic of discussion as well, keeping in mind the techniques of cut-up of course. I think we shall find some very interesting correlations therein. Cheers! |
| Lurker23 |
posted 3/29/01 10:35 PM
Chicken or the Egg? Note the date. Rumor has it that "Glenn Grant" is actually a pseudonym for Grant Morrison. Edge Detector [#1, Summer 1988] ed. Glenn Grant (London, Ontario: self published, $2.50, 36pp, large) 2 � Editorial � Glenn Grant � ed 4 � Access to Tools � Rudy Rucker � ar Astral Avenue #7 �87 7 � Modern Conveniences � Paul Di Filippo � ss 11 � Ong�s Hat � Peter Lamborn Wilson � ss 18 � Nomads � Genetic Lunarian � cs 21 � Have Mercy Will Travel � Esther Vincent � vi 22 � Darkness Falls from the Air � Glenn Grant � ss 26 � Rigor Juvenis � James Bailie � ss 31 � Pea-Green Ploughshares � Mike Gunderloy � ss 34 � Scanalyzer � Glenn Grant � br Sorry if you've already seen this. http://www.locusmag.com/index/t177.html#A15147 |
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Harla Quinn (Moderator) |
posted 3/30/01 7:13 PM
Perfect! Thanks, L23! That's just the type of info which begins to bring I&OH into a narrower perspective. Even though much of this has been "thrown out" before, there was never a clearly defined context or framework in which to place it. Do you know if the PLW short story is vebatim of "Ong's Hat: Gateway to New Dimensions" or a precursor? Though it may seem on the surface that PLW's *claimed* authorship of the narrative (if not the account, itself) is a type of final confirmation as to the identify of at least "one" of the I&OH architects, remember that "appropriation" was a freely accepted concept at that time by the counterculture and those of that ilk. What's your opinion of the post-modernist aspects? However, aside from the possibility that PLW's "Ong's Hat" was merely an "experiment" in utilizing cut-up techniques to foster non-ordinary levels of reality in the reader, suspicions and "sources" point to the premise that "real" document(s) of some sort existed which were written by a collection of individuals, and subsequently cut-up, amalgamated, re-arranged and possibly even fed into a mainframe or network of interconnected computers, and then subjected to a recursive feedback and iteration process until it eventually emerged as the layered effect inherent in the Incunabula Catalogue and the current incarnation of "Ong's Hat: Gateway to New Dimensions". Perhaps it is as simple an explanation of extracting the cut-up narratives from a "hat" (hence the title and synchronous connection) in much the same way as the Dadists threw "cut up" poetry into a hat. IF, however, the cut-up narratives were fed into a computer (consider the year) - we would have to necessarily look to WHO would have not only the access to this type of burgeoning technology, but also the type of programming expertise needed to accomplish the task. Also, let's not discount that mere "chance" may not have been the only factor and consider the use of "other" acausal methods of accessing non-local information into the "mix" such as tossing the I Ching, Tarot cards, automatic writing, or any type of random "generator" which can allow non-linear consciousness to manifest. |
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Harla Quinn (Moderator) |
posted 3/30/01 7:43 PM
M. Nasruddinn, excellent job in pulling these aspects together! Loved the concept of the "Third Mind". MUCH to explore there! If Grant Morrison is Glenn Grant, as L23 points out, perhaps he picked up a few ideas from PLW. (grin) As to interzone. Is this the same publication from which Marshall Barnes says he got the Ong's Hat document? Does anyone know if JM had any connections to interzone? As to your inquiry about exploring the mix of cybernetic theory, chaos theory, and AI - there's so much there which is relevant, but hard to convey. Given my lack expertise, I've asked a few cyberneticists that I know, a psychologist and a cultural anthropologist to evaluate some "theories" in this area. They may not be applicable to I&OH, but rather pertain more to possible future applications of an interface which embraces a synasthestic approach to the ideas we've discussed, but also to evaluate my own theories as to an emerging paradigm I have termed the "convergence of the paraculture". (Wonder if I should put a "copyright" mark there, being that "information" is no longer "free" as I once foolishly imagined? (smile)!) Until all the chads are counted, I won't say anymore about this. |
| Lurker23 |
posted 3/30/01 8:28 PM
Do you know if the PLW short story is vebatim of "Ong's Hat: Gateway to New Dimensions" or a precursor? Though it may seem on the surface that PLW's *claimed* authorship of the narrative (if not the account, itself) is a type of final confirmation as to the identify of at least "one" of the I&OH architects, remember that "appropriation" was a freely accepted concept at that time by the counterculture and those of that ilk. What's your opinion of the post-modernist aspects? ============== He claims in the intro to have found the material. I have no opinion on the postmodern aspects since I don't really know anything about Postmodernism. |
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Harla Quinn (Moderator) |
posted 3/30/01 8:44 PM
Thanks, again, L23. That's very helpful. Do you know where we can get an on-line copy for comparison purposes? |
| Lurker23 |
posted 3/30/01 10:40 PM
I don't know where theres a online version but the print version is the same word for word. I dont have a scanner or I would scan it. |
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Harla Quinn (Moderator) |
posted 3/30/01 11:55 PM
Sorry, L23, not that your source is in error, just can't find anything to match up "Glenn Grant" with GM unless, of course, he could bi-locate or used the Montreal address as a maildrop. Anywhoo - thanks for dating the "Ong's Hat" publication. It was definitely helpful. |
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Harla Quinn (Moderator) |
posted 3/30/01 11:58 PM
More "grist"... Deconstructionism + Post-Structuralism + Feedback = ? [From Gareth Branwyn] Feedback A term used in cybernetics to refer to additive or corrective information in a dynamic system. Negative, or self-corrective, feedback is achieved by feeding the results of past actions back into the system. This allows the system to maintain homeostasis. Positive, or escalating, feedback is additive and will build to a climax (a runaway) if left unchecked. Deconstructionism Deconstructionism is basically the belief that there is no inherent truth to a text. Any work of fiction or non-fiction is subject to multiple interpretations and deconstructions. Deconstructionism refutes the "correspondence theory" of language which holds that the name and the thing named are reflective, that they have a direct correspondence. Post-Structuralism Post-structuralism is a critical philosophy that has grown out of the work of Lacan, Derrida, Focault, Lyotard, Deleuze, and Guatarri. Post-structuralism can be broken down into several critiques: Critique of the human subject: post-structuralists want to deconstruct the notion of the "subject." They hold, as the structuralist Levi-Strauss before them, that the goal of the human sciences is not to constitute man, but to dissolve him. To them, human reality is a social construction and consciousness is decentered. Critique of historicism: Post-structuralists reject the notion that there is an overall pattern to and a reliable text of history. They see no linear historical progression from savage past to civilized present to utopian future. Critique of meaning: As in deconstructionism, post-structuralism holds that there is no inherent truth in a text. The linguistic sign is arbitrary, it "means" something only through use and convention. Post-structuralism stresses the interaction of reader and text as a productivity. Reading loses its status as a passive consumption of product and becomes a performance. http://www.streettech.com/bcp/BCPtext/Glossary/gloss3.html#Post-Modernism |
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Harla Quinn (Moderator) |
posted 3/31/01 0:18 AM
V. The "Real" Ong's Hat Perhaps the final "clue" remains and can only be found by embarking on a trip to the New Jersey Pine Barrens. The forces of cosmic control being at work, again, I have been put in contact with a group of retired individuals living in the closest town to the Pine Barrens who are hoping to make the appropriate arrangements to assist me in searching newspaper archives and to speak with retired fire and law enforcement officials, as well as long time residents in the area. (Marshall Barnes spoke of a "fire" which occurred at Ong's Hat. Parcifal recalls a "raid" which took place in the Pine Barrens.) I am skeptical about any land grants in that area, believing (based on what I have gleaned from my interviews) that if an Ashram existed in any form, it was a group of squatters. However, a cursory review of the local Grantee/Grantor Indices of the county's property records will settle that. This should once and for all determine whether any evidence of an Ashram ever existed in the area or whether "Ong's Hat" is merely a present day Mt. Analogue allegory, or an East coast version of "Elf Land". Right now the trip is slated for the end of May. (Parcifal tells me that's the best time of year.) Input and search ideas will be helpful. |
| Parsifal |
posted 3/31/01 5:32 AM
It is actually nicest around these parts in September. But May is good too, it is before the summer tourists and bugs. As far as fires go, there have been very many forest fires over the years in that area. I can remember quite a few bad ones in the sixties and seventies. I know Matheney posted something about a fire near Chatsworth a while back, but I don't see any connection at all to the ashram. I do not recall any fire associated with the story of the raid I remember hearing about. I am quite up on "piney" lore and happenings, more so than most people. It will be very difficult to find anyone that knows anything more than I have already told you. The only people that probably know anything are the ones that were directly involved, and if the story is true, I doubt that they will do any talking. I agree about the squatters. I have looked into land records a bit (a very little bit since I don't have much to go on) and haven't found diddily. But there are many possible areas (mostly south of route 70) that are accessable by four wheel drive vehicles on the many dirt roads throughout that area where people could just park a trailer and no one would say anything, especially a couple of decades ago. I think that the story we know is probably quite a stretch from what really happened. I would really like to believe it(the story), but I think it was just a bunch of stoned hippies reading RAW sci-fi that were tripping with some people who might have been hanging out with Leary that got busted for growing weed. The Moorish Church figured it was a good story to get wierdo types like myself interested in their church and they probably printed the original material. Anyway, I am always up for a party and May is fine with me! |
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Harla Quinn (Moderator) |
posted 3/31/01 9:21 PM
[Parcifal] I think that the story we know is probably quite a stretch from what really happened. I would really like to believe it(the story), but I think it was just a bunch of stoned hippies reading RAW sci-fi that were tripping with some people who might have been hanging out with Leary that got busted for growing weed. The Moorish Church figured it was a good story to get wierdo types like myself interested in their church and they probably printed the original material. [HQ] No doubt you are correct. When I interviewed one of the Incunabula *book* authors (who didn't know anything about the Inc. documents), he recalled how he met met PLW in NY's Lower East Side, but also "hanging out" in the Pine Barrens during those years. Doesn't it seem odd that the MOC would leave "recruiting" brochures out in the middle of nowhere? |
| Parsifal |
posted 3/31/01 9:39 PM
[HQ] "Doesn't it seem odd that the MOC would leave "recruiting" brochures out in the middle of nowhere?" Not really. The visitor's center in Lebanon State Forest is not really "the middle of nowhere". Route 70 is a very well travelled road connecting Philadelphia to the coastal areas of New Jersey. New Jersey is a very populated state and the state parks have many visitors. All of the state parks have literature racks for brochures of tourist information and nearby places of interest, so this is precisely where I would put such a pamphlet. |
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Harla Quinn (Moderator) |
posted 4/2/01 6:22 PM
Since I have been asked about this. Here is a toooo funny treatise on conspiracies, secret societies, blah blah blah by William Cooper. The majority is just plain ol' disinfo at its VERY best. (I do love how he slams "everybody", though! His mention that Orson Wells' infamous broadcast "War of the Worlds" was sponsored by Princeton as an experiment in psychological warfare is particularly interesting and - yes - true! More interesting is the involvement of Hadley Cantril, formerly of the Frankfurt School in Germany [which transplanted to Columbia University in NY during Hitler's rise to power] and then to Princeton's psych department until 1969....follow the bouncing ball...) However, don't be too quick to discount the "charged" words and phrases - open conspiracy, perfected man, social engineering.. Best as a comparative reader to Morning of the Magicians, which did it much better. http://www.williamcooper.com/majestyt.htm |
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Harla Quinn (Moderator) |
posted 4/8/01 8:53 AM
MORE from the "source".. The Voynich Manuscript The Voynich Manuscript has been dubbed "The Most Mysterious Manuscript in the World". It is some 200 pages long, written in an unknown script of which there is no known other instance in the world. It is abundantly illustrated with awkward coloured drawings. Drawings of unidentified plants; of what seems to be herbal recipes; of tiny naked women frolicking in bathtubs connected by intricate plumbing looking more like anatomical parts than hydraulic contraptions; of mysterious charts in which some have seem astronomical objects seen through a telescope, some live cells seen through a microscope; of charts into which you may see a strange calendar of zodiacal signs, populated by tiny naked people in rubbish bins." Accompanying the manuscript was a letter that stated that it was the work of the Englishman Roger Bacon, who flourished in the thirteenth century and who was a noted pre-Copernican astronomer. Only two years before the appearance of the Voynich Manuscript, John Dee, the great English navigator, astrologer, magician, intelligence agent, and occultist had lectured in Prague on Bacon. In that letter, Marci mentioned the name of Roger Bacon (1214-1292) as a possible author, although no conclusive evidence of authorship is available. A possible link between Rudolph and Bacon is John Dee (an English mathematician and astrologer, collector of Bacon's work) who visited Rudolph's court in 1582-86. The manuscript has several parts and many illustrations. Some believe it to be a book about alchemy. "Computer analysis of the Voynich Manuscript has only deepened the mystery. One finding has been that there are two 'languages' or 'dialects' of Voynichese, which are called Voynich A and Voynich B. The repetitiousness of the text is obvious to casual inspection. Entropy is a numerical measure of the randomness of text. The lower the entropy, the less random and the more repetitious it is. The entropy of samples of Voynich text is lower than that of most human languages; only some Polynesian languages are as low." "Tests show that Voynich text does not have its low h2 [second order entropy] measures solely because of a repetitious underlying text, that is, one that often repeats the same words and phrases. Tests also show that the low h2 measures are probably not due to an underlying low-entropy natural language. A verbose cipher, one which substitutes several ciphertext characters for one plaintext character [i.e., 'fuf' for the letter 'f'], can produce the entropy profile of Voynich text." - Dennis Stallings http://www.crystalinks.com/voynich.html TERENCE McKENNA: Voynich Manuscript, Faustin Interviews. The word wizard casts spells upon spells during the BOOK REVIEW SERIES with Faustin and Brian in Mill Valley. Pandora's box of bizarrities unleashed. TERENCE McKENNA: The Taxonomy of Illusion. An Evening with Terence McKenna at UC Santa Cruz hosted by the student organization Millbrook West. Taxonomy defined as classification, especially in relation to its general laws and principles; that department of science or subject, which consists in or relates to classification. Terence amusingly articulates by enumerating examples of the varied forms of illusions humans are entertained, intrigued and frightened by. This talk is a particularily anecdotal way to approach the study of the imaginal, the illusive and anomalous. Terence McKenna, informs and delights his audiences through many media. As an accomplished author of more than four major works of fiction and non-fiction depending on one's belief system; voice of at least three hundred audio and video titles; and participant in numberous popular CD�s, Terence is infiltrating the mind @ large with his outlandish theories at an alarming pace. This talk is presented in a two audio cassette album, #A1050-93 or in a 120 minute video, #V500-93. http://www.photosynthesis.com/Terence_Mckenna.html |
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