the Labyrinth

3 CONNEXIONS

"Surrealism followed Sigmund Freud's theory of the unconscious and his ‘free association’ technique for bypassing the conscious mind."

"Surrealism as a movement in literature had its formal beginning with the publication of the Manifesto of Surrealism by André Breton in 1924.  Prior to that, in 1919, the first automatic text, The Magnetic Fields, was produced by Breton and Philippe Soupault.  In his first manifesto Breton explicitly defines surrealism as "psychic automatism in its pure state" -- the purpose of which is to express and thus reveal "the true functioning of thought."¹  There is a need, of course, to discuss the signal importance of this claim -- that is, if the claim has any meaning, and if the techniques prescribed by surrealism achieve what it purported of them.  Insofar as western civilization (and thus our very lives) is practically built on thought (or was built, and is sustained, by the activities of thought -- to an extent to be determined by the very phenomenological inquiry that surrealism intends to be), then surely it is important to look into surrealism, its basic concepts, to see what is there.  And this is quite apart from the curiosity one might have about the various techniques employed by the surrealist poet; though in fact an understanding of the concepts lends credibility to the techniques and thus one begins to regard them in the light of their own purported expansive possibilities.

The concept of surreality is that of a reality "higher" than that to which we are accustomed: the reality of "waking consciousness."  This surreality is proposed as a unity of the world of waking reality and that of dream; of objectivity and subjectivity; of world and imagination or mind; etc.  In another important work, The Communicating Vessels (1931), Breton expresses this plainly enough:  "the world of dream and the real world are one and the same."²  The analogy contained in the title is that the mind and the world are not separate but are continuously "communicating" like two connected "vessels."

So strong is the belief in life, in what is most fragile in life – real life, I mean – that in the end this belief is lost. Man, that inveterate dreamer, daily more discontent with his destiny, has trouble assessing the objects he has been led to use, objects that his nonchalance has brought his way, or that he has earned through his own efforts, almost always through his own efforts, for he has agreed to work, at least he has not refused to try his luck (or what he calls his luck!). At this point he feels extremely modest: he knows what women he has had, what silly affairs he has been involved in; he is unimpressed by his wealth or his poverty, in this respect he is still a newborn babe and, as for the approval of his conscience, I confess that he does very nicely without it. If he still retains a certain lucidity, all he can do is turn back toward his childhood which, however his guides and mentors may have botched it, still strikes him as somehow charming. There, the absence of any known restrictions allows him the perspective of several lives lived at once; this illusion becomes firmly rooted within him; now he is only interested in the fleeting, the extreme facility of everything. Children set off each day without a worry in the world. Everything is near at hand, the worst material conditions are fine. The woods are white or black, one will never sleep.

a witness.

"The Illuminati is a group that practices a form of faith known as "enlightenment". It is Luciferian, and they teach their followers that their roots go back to the ancient mystery religions of Babylon, Egypt, and Celtic druidism. They have taken what they consider the "best" of each, the foundational practices, and joined them together into a strongly occult discipline. Many groups at the local level worship ancient deities such as "El", "Baal", and "Ashtarte", as well as "Isis and Osiris" and "Set".... I do know that these people teach and practice evil."

The First Empire

We want to understand the human condition.

And thus, we must study history.  History is however, the greatest illusion of all.  It is constantly rewriting itself, by men who are under the illusion of history.  Time itself would appear to be the culprit.  Perhaps there is a master template somewhere that structures our experience?

It was in Egypt after all... the first and greatest empire.

"beginning with the historical observation that societies always have hierachically divided themselves into social classes and castes: the High (who rule); the Middle (who work for, and yearn to supplant the High), and the Low (whose goal is quotidian survival)."

"Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood."

"And the sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan."

"And the story is a metaphor of sorts, but a very powerful metaphor.  It is our story, Man's story.  The story of the spirit restrained by the physical.  The infinite enmeshed in the finite.  Each part is a phase in the egos conversation with the eternal." 

on Gods and Megaphones.

America. Land of free, home of the brave.

They say it doesn't get any better than life in our nation. That we have nothing to complain about, our concerns are a kind of mental flatulence, mere grumblings about the inevitable pains of life on earth. This sums up the chorus of reason on our MSM [1], the 21st century equivalent to a megaphone.

The megaphone was an important invention- because it implied 1-way communication. Most importantly, it drowned out the noises made by the crowd, so any comments and ,god-forbid, criticisms of the message carried by the megaphone were imperceptible. This was technically impossible prior to the 21st century. And with the megaphone, the modern public was born- a miasma of compulsions, desires, and urges that could be shaped like clay if one had the desire and know-how.  Then came the internet, perhaps the greatest advance of our generation.  This changed things a bit, because it warranted electric communications from any 1 point to another in a reliable and relatively cheap way.  Thus I have been invited, at least temporarily, into your living room or study, or internet cafe, or wherever you might have a cell phone or laptop.  I thank you for the invitation and I pledge not to abuse this space of which you have afforded me.

Prior to the invention of the megaphone, other techniques were used to mold the shapeless human mind into something more serviceable.  The pressures to conform to religion were amazingly strong prior to the 20th century, the alternatives were typically insanity, social exclusion and death.  Apparently without cause these institutions evaporated within a few decades, leaving only a husk of their prior functions.  They were left in name perhaps to minimize the shock of the new, to convince people that their world had not changed as radically as they might suspect.  But the old god had died, and a new one was born.  This new god promised us the same things as the old god, but with a fresh face, and we were again tempted to believe its promises.

So can we not rid ourselves of this psychic pestilence?  The problem is that its not that easy.  These basic social aspects go way way back.  As far back as we can see, to Egypt, perhaps further.  This 'media' is far more basic to our experience than some obnoxious character behind a curtain putting on an elaborate show for the benefit of some rich elite.  Its the very thing that shapes our entire perception of the outside world, and in that sense we arrive at a very perilous impasse- how to observe the action of the media through its own lens?  Can we trust the camera to take an accurate picture of itself?

The Eye of Horus

[1] short for Main Stream Media