***UPDATE – a slightly more polished and beautifully typeset version is part of the SYSTEMICS II book.
(made available to read online for free once-in-a-while or generally with a donation based password.)
[ a piece of fictional non-fiction for draft magazine, taking the form of an interview ]
Q: Why are you doing this magazine?
A: Haha, straight in. I think that’s a pretty big question. To keep it simple for the time being, let’s say that I’ve found myself in the exact position to do it. The original idea for a magazine called draft is a couple of years old. When the cosmic climate was ripe to go on and actually do it, the zero issue ‘Unspeakable’ almost created itself on its own. The true roots of its core and content would certainly go deep, though.
On the surface, the idea started off as a multi-platform kind-of online-offline interactive, cultural title that was presented to great acclaim as a student’s project at the London College of Printing, containing top-notch photography by a friend of mine who used to study there (before going on to win the prestgious Observer award for documentary photography). A couple of years later it evolved into a literary magazine of a more ‘intellectual’ slant that envisaged the use of sophisticated Swiss layout and typography done by another friend of mine (who’d done a terrific job as art director of London’s TimeOut during the brief interval that it looked top-shelf). Until it eventually reached the present format that, I feel, will never have to be altered again while its content will never cease to evolve.
Q: How did it go so far and where should it go from here?
A: I’d say it went excellent. It’s been beautifully progressing and growing and has achieved the effect of people understanding that a. they’ve been deceived, b. what scale of deception we’re really talking about and c. that because of this, they might possibly be in great danger. It has also provided a welcoming, genuine and innately kind loophole through which people can escape the denigrating abyss that’s been set-up for everyone the forces of the old cosmos have deemed not worthy of entering the new Era. That’s to reveal some of the reverbrations at its core.
On a more mundane plane, it has managed to re-establish the real purpose and craftmanship of writing and art and will continue to do so. There’s also the opportunity to learn some of the things in cultivation that have so far been kept under great secrecy. The Dao school, just to say, has never talked before about the salvation of sentient beings.
On the even more mundane plane, the rollout of the project involved many tests, both for ourselves and our readers. Like the attempt to pinpoint the true meaning of money and value, for instance. There are many things that run along in the background of the project. It has lots and lots of layers of meaning and levels of accomplishments. So I’m indeed quite happy, how could I not be? Its outlook, repercussion and scope are enormous …
But having said all of this, it’s of course very difficult on a day-to-day basis, trapped in the maze of delusion, torn between faith and doubt, to tell what really goes on behind the scenes and thus to really know what is happening and going to happen. The Three Realms are meant to be that way to provide the perfect possibility to enlighten. When true manifestations do eventually reach the very surface, so that Truth is obvious to see even for the oblivious, then it means that a certain cutting-off point must’ve been reached and things will never be the same again. At that time, it’ll naturally be too late for any regrets on the part of those preferring to live in denial. Where it will go from there and how exactly it will carry on from the Old to the New is certainly not allowed to be fully known. We as cultivators definitely must not know, or aim to know, in order to maximally sustain our environment of upright discernment.
Q: Can you tell us more about the deeper layers of meaning behind the magazine?
A: Well, there’s for one the conceptual matter of Authorship versus Editorship. Where and how is such a line to be drawn? And what are in fact Contributors? What’s Rejection? What’s Qualified? What is True and Upright and what is Fake and Pretentious? After all, there’s cultivation of the Great Law happening in the background of what is subsequently generated and presented as artistic output. So in this resepct also, what is Art? Why would we need it? What is Philopsophy? What are Beliefs? What is Self-interest? What is Intimacy? What constitutes our ‘Reality’ – of course, ultimately? And so, in its somewhat more poetic moments, what will the Future possibly be like? The latter makes the project also quite mysterious and I find that also an interesting layer of the whole thing.
Of course, now we can more and more clearly see what the Past was like and thus perceive with greater clarity the Present. That’s something the magazine would like to have substantially contributed to, as well. Owing to what the Gods are currently orchestrating for the final hour – what mankind didn’t believe in will more and more openly transpire. Everything will be shown to them. The gnashing of teeth that Jesus talked about makes completely sense to me. What else would you do if you’re proven wrong, if your world views and notions of humanness are utterly shattered and if you’re suddenly facing the prospect of the ‘second death’ which makes the ‘death’ that you’ve been so scared of before seem like a laugh?
How complex is this reality, ultimately? Do Gods even know the full extent of complexity? What will the future cosmos be like? What about future earth? Apparently wars will still occur, as positive and negative elements need to co-exist here, as well as quick-fix ways to shed lots of karma. What about Utopia, a new Atlantis? Will there be a society of cultivators? After a new paradigm, a new legacy, will not everyone want to even more get out of here and ‘ascend’? What if the Demon that came to be famous as Death, the Reaper, is also already cultivating the Great Law and even he couldn’t take care of you anymore?
What is right and wrong these days? Is adding messages near the frame or context of draft visibility really helpful or posssibly damaging interference? Maybe some of it is one thing and some of it another? Maybe done one way, it generates blessings of enormity while done in another it puts me in dire peril? With stakes that high, at the peak of the required fa-rectification’s time-spaces here and now – how does one know? Who’s ever heard of Buddhas or Daos punishing anyone who transgresses the law? Without proper cultivation, it’s almost impossible to judge things now. Even if you’re really good and righteous, when faced with the ever-more speeding-up intricacies that are happening. What’s left to do when ‘everything’ crumbles?
Are we not ultimately, with a soft-spoken, unobtrusive tone-of-voice, inviting people to do true cultivation?
Q: What’s the relevance of the Great Law for the magazine. What’s the story about Gnosticism?
A: Well, without the Great Law, there’d be Nothing, haha, so much for that. And thus one could say, at least in its present form, it is entirely the result of someone cultivating the Great Law. Not only creating it requires the cultivation that I do now. There’d be no way of circulating it into the public realm – after I’ve been put through numerous painstaking tests – without having earned the respect by the multitude of Gods who govern this place.
Now, when I say Gods, a lot of Westerners have been brought up on the religious precepts that there’s only one God. At the highest point, this may well be the case. However, to us Gnostics and Cultivators, the Holy Bible’s first commandment is properly read as ‘Only One Cultivation Way’. All cultivation schools are clear about this: do not mix cultivation ways or you’ll end up a mess.
Coming back to your question – again, without cultivating the Great Law, this magazine would not exist and much less be available for you to see. That it has this particular shape and size and flavour has to do with the path I’ve been given to walk in this life, which in turn is the outcome or ‘necessity’ of the paths that I’d walked on in earlier lives as well. This time around I’ve had the privilege to be passed on teachings from Hermeticism, Astrology, Psychology as well as many deeper layers of Scripture, public and secret – so then Gnosticism, the discernment of Gnosis or Knowledge, is what you might want to call the path that I’ve walked. Tradition has shown that there were hardly any notable figures in writing, science and art who wouldn’t have been initiated in Gnostic mysteries one way or the other.
So for all those reasons, I’m telling those who’d like to submit some of their work that it isn’t necessary to cultivate the Great Law in order to write and draw relevant material but it would definitely help to be somewhat versed in the Eastern and / or Western Gnostic traditions. That way, the Craft will also benefit greatly.
While we’re attempting to be as diverse as possible in every imaginable way, we’re at the same time strict about what is true and centred and what is not. Most writers I admire are people who’re traditionally referred to as ‘in the Dao without cultivating the Dao’. They’re genuine truth-seekers and refuse to live a life of hypocrisy. Why otherwise bother? The step to cultivate an upright teaching more consciously isn’t probably even a step, then, but a rather smooth progession into becoming truly serious with one’s life and truly responsible to oneself and to everyone else.
Q: Tell us about your art. Where are the roots? Where did it start? Why writing and drawing?
A: Hm, I’d say, skip this, dear reader or listener, if too private matters bore you. But to those who’re interested, I’d like to say it actually started off with music. Yeah. The Piano. When I was about 12, I wrote scores and although I didn’t practice my daily scales that much back then, I thoroughly enjoyed playing the instrument. Obviously, it’s a blessing if you have parents supporting this. Yet, if you really were to succeed in a career like that, the blessing would need to extend to at least one of your parents already being a professional musician so that by the age of 12 – 15, your skills are prolific enough to properly shine forth on an insanely competitive international stage. That’s the situation. Back then, I didn’t know. So I’ve had a chance to experience my first death of status or role in society when I was about 18 where it became clear that the dream of becoming a pianist and a composer transpired to be only that, a silly dream.
Upon suggestion of my parents (my mother is a painter and my father has always been dabbling in drawing and painting), I picked up drawing lessons. I can’t remember ever having drawn in school but to tell the truth, I can hardly remember anything that I’d done there. What was that all about? School? Anyway, it was there, facing still lifes in a class full of eager draftsmen and -women when I understood that this stuff didn’t really pose much of an effort and with this ‘erkenntnis’ came the revelation of what it means to have a ‘calling’.
The writing bit, I don’t know. That was always there, together with writing scores for the piano, yet it was something that I never took as something to be taken ‘seriously’. Being a writer as a profession seemed simply unthinkable. Even after I’d later-on worked as an exhibtion reviewer and film critic and was put in charge of revamping, art-directing and editing a literature magazine after my first public reading and publishing adventures, it didn’t occur to me that writing as such had any career prospects or even incentives. But also becoming an artist, although I’d attended art college and there specialized in the proably most high-brow practice of electronic, video, concept and performance art (under Valie Export and Peter Weibel) – it wasn’t at all clear what that meant, either. Certainly, I didn’t fancy myself crampingly holding a champagne flute at one of my solo-show openings and pretend to be friends with everyone while exhibiting my outpourings of megalomanic self-importance.
Around the time that I wrote my first piano pieces was also the time where I began to read up anything I could find about astrology, psychology, parapsychology and the magic arts. Since then, this journey of truth-seeking was always in the background of everything that I’ve done. Later, I understood through artists like Joseph Beuys that the practices of Art and Shamanism have been fairly connected throughout history. (Analogous to High Art and Gnosticism).
I recall having heard the great improvisational genius Keith Jarrett talk about what inspires him, or where the roots for his music lay and he said something along the lines of, “if people tell you that their music comes from other music, they’re lying. It is as if they’d say babies come from babies.” Jarrett was influenced heavily from an early age by the Gnostic Teacher G. I. Gurdjeff and some of the secret magic harmonies that Gurdjeff brought back from his Armenian Dervish and Sufi initiations have been compiled and played by Jarret into one of the most unusual and memorable albums of all time, in my opinion, Sacred Hymns.
Looking back at one’s life, I oftentimes find that the best proof of predestination is asking the question: “Could I’ve really done anything different at any given junction?” Why does one make decisions, one time, one way, and doesn’t make other ones, another time, the other way? Why are certain doors opening once in a while and others stay forever closed, no matter how hard you try?
Well – doors opened, during the later years of my media art studies, in the so-called creative industries where I came to be ‘employed’ as a designer and animator for fairly prestigious television clients. Later, in London, teaching the same in higher education, I employed myself into roles of art and creative director. It was an illustrious career ahead, it seemed. More and more fancy clients knocked on my door or at any rate opened theirs when I knocked. It was what most creative folks that you meet in London would consider the ‘Schlaraffenland’ of success. MTV, Coca Cola, ITV, Halifax, Nike, Issey Miyake – even if sometimes only being given a slot as a well-paid hanger-on, it was still a privilege. One still felt ‘chosen’. Now, of course, I’m clear that all of this was only another part of the grand test that I’ve been sent through. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, hahaha. Did you ever forget that most basic premise, my friend?
While everything was thus taken away from me again, and my existence underwent the ritual ‘death’ of status and role for the second time in my life, what rose up from dormant, primordial sediments was eventually the drawing and the writing with all its pent-up force and sincerity. Cirlces closing. Predestined locks and bolts falling in place. Everything came to be what I’m doing now.
What I can say after all is this – I can only recommend the loss of status to anyone, at least for once in their lives. Nothing could be more healing and revealing. Thought you had friends and people to rely on? A conviction and purpose and clear-cut goal ahead? Nodding affirmations that get you out of bed every day to chase your warped views of success?
The phoenix that arises from the ashes, wouldn’t you call him the most magnificent bird? It was apparently the only animal in Eden that didn’t succumb to eat from the forbidden fruit and its peculiar immortality was his reward.
Q: What about the role of the artist in today’s world?
A: Like I said, there’s a shamanic root to producing art and in this context living a dignified life requires everyone to be artistic at least in this particular way. Seeking Growth and Knowledge. Males and females have got different avenues to walk, though, at least that’s what I think. The Art of Tea versus the Art of War, to give a sweet example from John Woo’s movie The Red Cliff.
Generally speaking, further disenfrachising people would further take away from them the chance to create or even discern anything artistic. Look around you, everything’s become a mess. The climate of fake freedom that was required in order to destroy as many ‘unworthy’ people as possible – according to the cosmos’ old forces – gave free reign to people’s inherent demon nature and the totally irrational urge to indulge in one’s own outpourings of creative ooze. Most people have lost any sense of the work that stands behind creating even only one ‘good’ drawing in ones’ life. Today’s youngsters even believe that artificial intelligence can do it for them. And most people have lost all ability to ‘read’ altogether (apart from the regimented Preussian school system’s method of putting words into grammatically coherent sentences). If they can stretch their imagination, they’d already feel really good about themselves when can justify their farcical notions of purpose and self …
So – yes, artists’ roles today are tremendous. Shame, there are so few of them left.
Q: Contributors. Why aren’t there more of them?
A: Well, that would tie into what I’ve just said. But also, as you know, the product we’re doing is just too unique, too out-of-it – too unexpected, essentially, to having emerged from a climate of hyped-up, jumped-up, self-congratulating, happy-pappy, pill-popping, finger-pointing, coke-snorting, cock-sucking and mind-numbing party-crowd culture. Mind you, it’s not our fault that it has become this way and we’ll definitely not be playing a scapegoat for this. If John the Baptist and Socrates have been killed for telling people that there’s something wrong with them, then it was High Levels enticing those who’ve already become too bad for salvation to commit acts of such unpardonable evil that they’d be forever destroyed. Yet, the past was the past. No one was allowed the know the Great Law back then as history hadn’t progressed to that stage. And of course, necessary future karmic ties needed to be woven into the greater plan. And who were (and still are) Salome and hemlock-growing Hecate? Aren’t the True Bodies and Main Consciousnesses of all past Sages and Saints cultivating Dafa now, wherever they are in the world?
Anyway. As the project keeps rolling and words of mouth spreading, more readers and potential contributors are sure to come along. Some others will dare to venture saying ‘hello’ and some will begin to pay something towards what they’ve actually been given. Others will still try and ignore or even go out of their way and sabotage it in order to keep up their chewing-gum-bubble of living in a home-bred world of lies and hypocrisy. Again, in the past they would’ve gotten away with it, as retribution through transmigration wasn’t made known and even if considered a possibility, might’ve been just as well a stirfry of bullshit, no?
Well, today is different as this place has been explicitly created by the Divine, and throughout history mankind reared accordingly, for what is being undertaken right now.
In this light, isn’t it obvious why there aren’t any more contributors? How could there be more? There aren’t any riches to be achieved and we’re both openly and secretly shunning fame, either. Meanwhile, the stakes of struggle have reached an extent that only those working for the government and for global players have a fair chance to pay their rent. We’re not saying that only those lying are still ‘in the game’. But it definitely helps to hide and not tell the truth. Pursuing the Truth can easily lead to no money, no girlfriend, no accomodation, no family, no health insurance, blabla, the list could go on and on. Yet, isn’t this bleak reality the actual, true situation for the time being? Isn’t it ironic that most of those going on the loudest about organic this and local that are actually paying for the premium by working for, and strengthening, the other side?
Reality is just so complex. Who can really take-on the full brunt of hardship that the true picture of contemporary life is presenting us with in exchange for staying true to one’s Self? And even if you do, how can you be so sure that what you belive is ‘you’ is really your true ‘self’? Crazy, isn’t it? Like we’ve said in our essay on Power last time, without cultivating an upright, higher Law, we’ve absolutely no chance of knowing anything. We would literally die like a dog, fade yet again into oblivion, after having spent a lifetime of achieving nothing. Not only nothing, Less than nothing, actually, as we still have to pay next time round for all the karma that would’ve added up in the midst of self-indulgent delusion.
How could there be more contributors? For example, let’s say your background is psychology. That’s not bad, psychology is almost a bit like cultivation, but even the highest level psychology that is out there in ordinary society doesn’t even scratch the surface of a true understanding of the human body or ultimate reality. What about religion then? Religion is also very good, much better than any empirical science, I’d say. But unless you’re lucky to have been passed down esoteric teachings from behind the curtains of public ‘dogma’ through upright, virtous teachers who’re not spirit or animal possessed knowingly or unknowingly – even if they were to help and guide you into reaching the Dao, it would only be your assistant soul that would ascend. Your true self is still stuck in the prison of Samsara. Today, when all of this is to end, where would you go, then? As most prophecies reveal, the original plans were to dissolve it all. That was the wisdom of the old cosmos governed by the prinicples of Formation, Stasis, Degeneration and Destruction.
And philosohy? Someoe passed me Slavoj Zizek’s My Own Private Austria paper the other day and I had a read through. It’s funny, I liked it. He comes across like a really cool guy. But his ‘official’ acknowledgement as a top-notch philosospher also goes to show that even though the mainstream one day hails you to represent the hot new underground, you’re only chosen to become a visible part of the mainstream if you can suit the purpose of A. keep the delusions of an arty-farty crowd alive by providing them, in a ‘modern’ pop-voice, easy-to-digest yet high-sounding philosophical ponderings of the Western world, but have B. proven to the world through a cute Jewish New York documentary filmmaker what a fool you really are by showing off your pseudo-liberal and Atheist persuasions through the self-ironic act of ‘free’ masturbation in front of the camera.
Again, it’s not our fault that everyone has been kept in oblivion and even added fuel to the fire by nurturing the climate of decay. Bills have been adding up in secret. That’s why we’ve been repeating the internet bank’s claim “Pay back early, pay less” on one of our promotional items.
So there are unlikely to be many contributors at present but there will be lots and lots in the future as there are many high level beings who’ve come here for the sole purpose of obtaining the Great Law. Apparently, some of them come from even higher levels than the God(s) who created man out of clay in the first place. They just need to be Made Known first and then Make Themselves Known one by one.
Q: Money issues. And what about those girls?
A: Haha, yeah, that’s a very dear subject to me, I’m glad you’re bringing it up. There’s quite a lot more to say in our Money section this time again. Conceptually, it’s definitely at the core of this project ‘a truly free magazine’. While we cultivators are, as most of you’re certainly aware, not in any way attached to money (or girls, for that matter), the challenge in setting up this project was in finding a way to make accessible to the general public the hard-core material that we’re presenting without having a budget. That we have achieved.
On the other hand, it was clear that in the long run, a project like this will generate the waves that it was predestined to generate. And as a personal cultivation challenge, it meant for me to guide the whole draft magazine and publishing venture into the multimillion worldwide media entity that it is supposed to be without getting entangled in money and power bullshit on the way. Isn’t it the nature and purpose of any business to grow and prosper? So that’s the plan and if we’re meant to stay on for the next phase according to the Divine masterplan, that’s something we’ll definitely achieve.
In the meantime, there was (and of course still is) a variety of tests connected with the whole money thing, both for ourselves and our readers (even for bystanding non-readers). Experimenting with various notions of Money provides us with many opportunities to explore some of the deeper meanings of value and the exchange thereof.
On the one hand, the information that you get is certainly priceless and putting a tag on it would seem ridiculous. Even more so would this be for actual cultivation teachings, by the way. No one is ever allowed to charge a single penny for showing you the Dafa qigong exercises, for example. What we’ve intended was the free availablity of this product regardless of location or status. Thanks to the cosmic climate having made it to the age of internet cafes and portable readers, we’ve fully achieved this.
On the other hand, we wanted to figure out how it really works, the whole thing that is the human Exchange of Values. With the power of truth behind the core of it (this is fiction, don’t forget, so it’s still faith or doubt, up to you), we were in the position to test the full validity of money as such. At the same time, since we’re operating with a stict no-hype, no-soliciting and no-hassling policy, it was also a gigantic test of the feasablity of Democracy – or in other words, the trustworthiness and reliability of the individual in terms of making rational, mature decisions.
And from yet another angle, considering the actual purpose and predicament of human society – which is cultivation – what has ultimately any true value at all and why and how should it be exchanged?
As you can see, there are countless angles and opportunities to understand money matters behind our project. Let’s take the charity stuff. So much hypocrisy and taking people’s good side for a ride are going on there. What does it ultimately take for someone to give freely, and how much would that be? Would that attitude change, let’s say, if the magazine suddenly turned out to become the sole means for survival? That’s of course just to give you an example, we’re certainly not saying that it ‘ll be like that. But following through on this thought – after what has so far transpired, could anyone call it ‘unfair’ if we started to charge 100 Units for the electronic book (copy-protected and un-printable) and 1000 for the hard-copy? We’d still, conceptually and essentially, be ‘free’, wouldn’t we? (And if you have any doubt, we just sell read-only licenses to public libraries …). We’d still be the only truly ‘free’ product in the whole world, probably. Anyway, just another trail of thought.
As you perhaps know, both Plato and his student Aristotle felt that true democracy would never work. Aristotle held that the best government was one where Virtue was being cultivated within the Elite and passed on among royal family lines. That would roughly go in line with Plato’s description of Utopia where 10 divinely imparted Kingdoms meet every 10 years to exchange their gained experience and wisdom as a result of guiding their people towards cultural, intellectual and material prosperity. Both key philosophers felt that people have absolutely no idea, much less time, to ponder any true things. I’d say, they definitely have a point there. Again, without cultivating an upright Law, people don’t know anything. One feels the cup should be red, of Chinese porcelain and with a round handle. The other one feels it should be green and made out of paper but without any handle. One thinks supporting medical treatment of shortsightedness for children in Africa is where money should be spent. The other one thinks, no, it should be spent on how to learn to truly read in all schools local. One thinks, more technology and security jobs. The other one thinks, no, more spare time and tax-free nuggets. One thinks, women should have an equal say in government (Plato), the other thinks, no, they shouldn’t be allowed to have any say at all on such matters (Aristotle). What a difficult job it is to make proper decisions for the public realm … and from a higher level, any personal Karma accrued in the process has still to be paid for, regardless of how high or low is the sense of responsibility.
So in this way, since we’re living in a system (that’s set-up and directed by Gods) where not voting booths are at the heart of democratic decisions but money and time spent on people, ideas and products – draft magazine has so far given people a chance to enlighten for themselves into what a failure their governing, or Own Doing, actually turned out to be. It’s true, knowing the situation at higher levels, since there are so many other beings behind the human surface, people themselves are not entirely to blame. But I think it is fair to say that the extent that they have kept supporting the ‘other side’ while faced with perhaps the only hope for ‘survival’, amounts in equal proportion to the extent that they’re not at all free. Anyone ever tried to stop smoking? That’s just a little exercise to show how hard it really is to be oneself. And yet, for a cultivator, a petty attachement like this, a little demon called Tobacco, is nothing. How enormous are the involvements and entanglements behind the curtain, clinging for dear life to our Souls and Bodies?
There’d be so much more to say on this, but we won’t now. We’ve probably already said too much – but so what, it’s only fiction. It will of course come up again and again as we keep going.
As to the girl(s), haha, well, we increasingly feel that instead of only one, having actually three girls as assistants on board would be an ideal setup. So they’d become board members with 10% shares of the draft venture each, One is proabably too intimate and awkward. Two might slow things down due to ambivalence issues. Four would alread get a bit overcrowded and messy. So three, we thought. Atropos, Lachesis, Clotho – Aglaia, Euphrosyne, Thalia – Alecto, Tisiphone, Megaera. Who knows, there might again be deeper meanings to all of this. On the surface, volunteering combined with a contractual partnerships seems the best way to ensure a genuine long-term commitment and stable growth based on mutual trust. And having ‘young’ girls (at the very least young in their hearts) in charge of all external affairs related to the draft brand (while behind the scenes helping to keep our internal group processes sharp, smooth and clean) seems to be the most appropriate. So if you’ve read our zine, girls, and you like, get in touch. It might as well be you who’s destined to become a part of this.
Q: How do you view your responsibilites?
A: What a question, what can I say? Whoever earnestly thinks through what we’ve so far said and given (meaning, sit down in silence and for once forget everything about the daily ill-founded, hard-selling, opinionated twittering around you) will understand that the responsibilities involved with this project are sheer enormous.
Q: What about the future?
A: Hm, that’s obviously another sensitive subject. As far as what exactly is being orchestrated from top-most levels in Heaven, no level below can possibly know exactly what and how things will be playing out. What is known is that there are two distinctive phases, one being the ‘Fa-rectification of the cosmos’ and the next phase being the ‘Fa rectifying the human world’. It seems clear that as soon as the truth arrives at the surface, to be seen by everyone with their naked eyes, like I said just before, there will have to be a cutting-off point, whatever that means to you. And then the Fa will rectify the human world. Will this be a smooth transition? Will there be a massive weeding out before that or after? How many people will be left and what will be left of the world as we know it? Big questions, right? Gigantic question marks, as well.
When it comes to the draft project and everything that it involves, I somehow feel that part of the higher arrangements could be that its path is supposed to be carried forth into the next phase of this future, perhaps even play a key role. But of course, I must not be aware of this at any rate, nor can or must I ever know whether this is really the case. Whatever is ready for me to see has always been given to me at the right time and the right place. All I need to do for now is to carry on and make it work along the way.
Q: What about a picture?
A: Anything else? What about the size of my penis? What kind of sanitary towels do I use? Do I have a girlfriend? Spaghetti Bolgnese or Carbonara? Seriously, in my opinion, celebrity culture is the most degenerate and empty culture. Didn’t Moses fully get away with smiting all those pathetic golden calf worshippers who just got bored while waiting for their future law to be brought down from the mountain, the law that is to truly save them? Just to make a point. What frame of mind bothers or cares about the private affairs of other people? What kind of person would even go as far as to creep into other people’s affairs? Not enough hardships? Nothing on TV today? What to talk about?
Unless someone offers a piece of work to the public inspection that involves perhaps sensitive, private things (in which case it would probably take great artistry to be perceived true and genuine rather than arranged and iconized), forcefully or sneakingly probing into other people’s private affairs seems like rape, to me. And that would be even more so for Gods’ affairs. Who’d have the mighty virtue to see Artemis / Demeter / Astarte naked? Wouldn’t you have to pay for this by incarnating into a rock for the next hundred-thousand years? (Or if you’re ‘lucky’, by being transformed into a Stag right on the spot, to be torn into little pieces by white Hellhounds with bouncing red ears?) Not even many of the gods would have that amount of virtue. Although, some of course would. That’s actually an interesting topic that should’ve become a bit more clear after deep-reading our Goddesses & Demonesses series in the Unspeakable number.
The other day, a friend told me that he really doesn’t fancy seeing those young girls posing naked on Lewis Carroll’s photographs but he wouldn’t mind to have a peek if the girls were a bit older. What a strange thing to say, I thought. How much older, three, five, seven, ten years? Do they look exploited now and would they then? Is the one taking the picture exploiting? Is the one looking at them? Would they themselves feel exploited if they were ten years older? After some more thinking I came to the conclusion that these days, I wouldn’t want to see any girl naked – unless she specifically wants me to. And even then, I would’ve to consider her motives and reasons before I could let myself watch and partain in such an act of intimacy and privacy to feel right about it.
Coming back to your wish to see a photograph of mine, I’ve already published a picture on my website and on other community portals that should do the job of giving everyone an idea about how this guy looks. It is a picture that I took particularly for this purpose and unlike most other photos taken over the years (mostly without my consent) I can recognise myself on it. Of course, it’s an iconized picture in an artistic sense. But isn’t any self-portrait invariably iconized?
Before I published this, I only used a crop of a flower painting that I’d done as an avatar in the digital world. It was after seeing Jonathan Franzen’s picture, one day, that I changed my view. While being able to read a person’s mind by reading between the lines of their work (every writer is more than naked even if they’re lying or pretending to be someone that they’re not), seeing a picture of them puts everything into yet another persepective, I found. It puts the picture straight. It’s an interesting phenomenon. Seeing the picture of Pauline Reage, Charles Bukowski, Michel Houellebecq, Eric Berne, Franz Kafka, Robert Graves … or likewise, seeing the highly iconized, stylised self-portraits of Albrecht Durer, Ingres, Leonardo, Degas, vanGogh, Gaugin – or indeed of Charles Hodgson alias Lewis Carroll, as they’re being made available in Phaidon’s lovely little book 500 Self Portraits …
Speaking of the online world – of course, it’s quite clear to most now that the vain, self-lusting vanity culture is a culmination of celebrity worship, a kind-of rampant cancer that engulfs all those idle males and females out there into a cocoon of self-aggrandising and the illusion of relevance. How much of this will be left for future man remains to be seen, I guess. Would the culture of ancient Greece have benefitted from iPads? Would the wisdom of Pythagoras and Plato have been given a boost by googling notions of tangible and sublime reality? Would their state of human predicament have been soothed or even transcended in any way by tweeting their daily insights into a virtual city within the city? May be. Maybe not. Isn’t the global community, in its entirety, being totally led astray?
But then again, there might also be good things in it. I’m certainly enjoying trade on eBay. Everything’s exactly the way it should be – wouldn’t you agree?
[ Winter 2013 ]