Top 5 Conspiracy Strategies

There are trends in the "fortean world" too, in the realm of mysteries and occult stuff. In the 19th centrury it was spiritism, then came the Atlantis craze, then we had UFO:s and now we have conspiracies. Verily: conspiracies nowadays seem to be the mainstay of occult lore, of the "weird stuff"-department. So what have I to add to this quagmire, to the wealth of information and desinformation that abounds on the internet? Well, I have this Top 5-list of some rules to remember if you're entering the conspiracy business by yourself. Enjoy.

1. "Action - Reaction - Solution"

David Icke for one calls this syndrom "Problem - Reaction - Solution". Name tags aside this is a central tactic for any secret society bent on controlling Big Politics. It can be illustrated by, e. g., America's top bankers creating financial chaos at the beginning of the century, (action) triggering a public demand to stop recurrence of these turmoils (reaction), resulting in the Federal Reserve System (solution). Or FDR moving the Pacific Fleet from California to Pearl Harbor (action), resulting in Japanese strike (reaction), to which America's entry into the war is the solution.



2. "Divide And Conquer"

That's as old as Noah. The Romans did it among their territorial enemies. And an Elite Group bent on destroying the social fabric in a country can for instance propagate unlimited immigration (we see it all over the westworld today), saying that it's good for Diversity and Humanity's Progress and that resisting it is Racist and Reactionary. When the country's social fabric, traditions and culture is destroyed and it's populated by nothing but media-drugged zombies and ghetto people, then that Elite Group can rule it like child's play.



3. "No Walk-Ins"

When, in your scheme of world-domination, you set up your forces of trusted lieutenants, hitmen, spies and whatnot to carry out the dirtier work, make sure you don't use volountary recruits. No, you've got to have some hold on them, something that makes it impossible for them to defect. Recruits that have heard about your operation and just walk in and want to participate are useless. They tend to have their own will, tending to leave when they don't get a kick from participating anymore. Every secret service in the world knows this. Recruited agents (not rank-and-file agents but agents recruited in foreign countries) must know that if they leave their future will be destroyed by incriminating photos or whatever: that's "having a hold on them".



4. "Sugar-Coating The Message"

Dirty work aside, you could also need a front organisation for your cause. And recruting people to that one is a bit different. Here you shall stress charity and spiritual values and stage hearty gatherings etc. Ask any token Freemason and he says that his organization is all about that. That the higher levels of your secret society is all about Power and Money is only known to the higher initiates. (Related to all this is the phenomenon of "useful idiots", i. e. employing unsuspecting people to promote your goals - like having journalists to "celebrate diversity" as a means to Divide And Conquer, see point 2.)



5. "Two Minds"

Don't bother being so rectilinear and transparent in your society's creed, so clear-cut and rational. Mix old magic and esoteric wisdom with modern techniques, like mind control and propaganda blended with UFO:s and yoga. As for UFO:s: don't get over your head if aliens contact you, no, use it! Use alien technologies and participation in your scheme for world domination. So don't get upset if the existence of aliens rocks your "rational world view": you have to believe the unbelievable if you are to stay your time in the conspiracy business.

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Svensson: Virtual Guru (short story)

In a future military academy the cadets are given a virtual walk through military history.

1.

There was nothing strange about it, just a battle simulation game: just a virtual walk through military history as one of many exercises for the Republican Army Cadets. After graduation those cadets went on to fight a real war against alien aggressors, Saurians and their allies, but never mind that. Never mind the ins and outs of that simulation game either, it’s just a setting for our story.

Well now, a story: we need a main character and that’ll be Cadet Sergeant Yoshi Medon, 22. He had taken part in the war for some time as Private 1st Class, had acted bravely on a forced landing and had been promoted to Sergeant and Squad Leader. Then one day, in 2487, having successfully completed the Jandeba campaign, he was sent to the War Academy on Toryski. And there he studied all the subjects (tactics, the enemy’s organization, astrography etc) and had a good time in all, however busy.

And then one day it was time for the virtual battle, the computer generated military history tour. The cadets’ performance in this game was judged by many standards; for instance there wasn’t any ordinary gaming taboo against being killed, as the rules of bushido were common knowledge in the 25th century: you fight, you die. However there was no intrinsic value in just going out there and being killed either. The game let you endure some self-imagined pain, as well as despair and joy and pride and whatever feelings there were in a battle. It was for real in every sense of the word but the physical.

So our Cadet Medon was led into the actual VR-chamber one day, got strapped to a chair, and was fitted with helmet and sensors measuring handsweat, EEG, and REM. The sensory deprivation made him relax, the input data and the images got him into combat mode – and to make a long story short he was soon fighting from a war chariot before the gates of Troy, he was a hoplite at Marathon, a centurion against the Cimbri, and a trooper at the battle of Zama. He was primus pilus against Attila’s Huns and he was a 14th century knight in France.

He fought virtual battles, fought as a historical soldier in emblematic encounters.

As intimated he had reached the era of the knight, and as such he one day, one virtual day rode through a country with copses of maple and ash. He wore a narrow-brimmed hat, a green tunic, a red surcoat, breeches, and pointed shoes. The horse was grey with a black mane. Riding up on a grassy knoll he descried a castle in the distance, with towers and steeples and flags flying to the wind. He followed an urge to visit the castle so he rode away to it, crossed the draw-bridge, left his horse to a groom, and went inside.

And there, in a resplendent hall with chequered flooring and marble pillars, a white-bearded man in blue cassock was sitting on a throne on a dais. He nodded as Medon entered. Medon for his part bowed and took a seat on a simple chair below the dais. Through a lancet window he could see the fair landscape outside, complete with little fluffy clouds scudding across the sky.

”You are a soldier,” the man on the throne said. ”I am Dioramion, a teacher of sorts, a guru if you will. So what do you want to know? You’ve seen some action already, that I can tell.”

”True,” Medon said.

”Then why did you come here?”

Medon didn’t know – and he was slighty confused as tho why he had to answer a question like this. This was all Virtual Reality, all part of the academy’s hands-on exercise in military history – ”hands-on” in that the cadets shouldn’t just read books about yesterday’s war but experience them too, if only in a computer-generated setting.

It was a rough class in military history – so why then was he here, why was he talking to an odd magician in a dream-castle? Shouldn’t he fight some additional wars, be out there in the thick of battle? But maybe the academy teachers had some motivation for this scene, to see if the cadet could act courteously or ask intelligent questions to men of knowledge or somesuch.

Medon then collected himself and asked what he believed to be an intelligent question:

”Sir, what is the most important thing in the universe?”

”Life,” the teacher said without flinching, ”because everything is life. From electrons revolving around the nucleus of an atom to planets circling a sun. Fish and fowl, insects and mammals, scudding clouds and rotating galaxies; everything you see is life.”

”So what about making death your business then? As I am doing, being a soldier?”

”Well,” the bearded man said, ”if you are a soldier just for the hell of it, just to fight and kill, then you’re beyond relief I’d say. But if you’re fighting a war in order to make a better peace, then I see nothing wrong with it. You’ve got to have ideals.”



2.

Ideals? Medon nodded. He asked himself if he indeed had any ideals. Well, maybe he had. Maybe he didn’t fight just for the hell of it: fight for the love of fighting, like some mercenary soldier of old. But someimes of course, out in the front line of the Ressiboone war, he had felt the pull from the dark forces: he had experienced the allure of the battle itself, had sensed its rough charm. It didn’t matter then if the war ended, if only he could continue to fight and kill and command men and see the rocket ships flash through the skies, about to support their advance with sickly green fluoride lasers –

”To fight is easy, to live is hard,” the guru said. ”So while you fight you’ll have to remember that maybe one day the war will end, and then you’ll need plans, you’ll need mental preparedness for what to do then: set up house, get a proper job... But when the solider starts to love his occupation for its intrinsical values, then he’s in trouble I’d say...”

”But if you want to go career,” Medon said, ”then you must love your work in one way or another.”

”Well do you? Want to go career? Aren’t you training to be an officer in the reserve? Big difference there, I gather.”

Medon had to admit that. He couldn’t see himself working as an officer in a peacetime army. He was simply a reservist, a good one at that, but he would never be a dyed-in-the-wool soldier, one who only thought about ranges of fire, cover and concealement. There were lots of other things in life he valued – as life itself, the planets in their courses, the sea full of fish, the birds in the skies... Smart guy this guru, he made you think Medon mused.

Smart guy – and wise. He had that special aura about him, that indefinable something, that je ne sais quoi that made you want to linger and ask question about this and that. And the guru didn’t seem to be in a hurry, he just sat there as if he had all the time in the world – so Medon cleared his throat and asked:

”Now, if life is the most important thing in the universe, then what is it that creates life?”

”Well,” the teacher said, ”what do you think yourself?”

”I’d say God.”

”Why? Couldn’t life arise out of itself?”

”Hm,” Medon said, ”I’d said no. Because many scientists have tried to create life, but none have succeded. Not in the last 5-6-700 years or so...”

”No?”

”No,” Medon echoed. ”That artificial intelligence thing was just a pipe dream. And as for robots, well – they are nice toys but nothing more.”

”You’re very wise, my son,” Dioramion said.

”Am I?”

”Yes, you truly are. Don’t you want to change career? I mean, after you’ve won the war, look out for a clerical career?”

Now it got strange, Medon thought. Change career, take some spiritual vows; one thing at a time, please... Then again, you never knew. Me, a priest? Stranger things had happened.

”But of course you needn’t be an ordained priest,” Dioramion said. ”You could be a learned man in general, an informal guru.”

Medon nodded and thought, ”Or a virtual guru like you...”



3.

The clouds sailed across the sky. The throne room was quiet. Medon wanted to say something diplomatical, something to round it all out.

”Anyhow,” he finally said, ”your company has been most enlightening.”

”Thank you,” the man said. ”But you already had some of the answers inside you, whatever it was you wanted to know,” the man said. ”I’m like the great Socrates, performing his majeutical practice."

”What?”

”His ”art of the midwife”. Judging by the pupil’s questions you gather what his bent of nature is, what he knows and knows not, and by asking counter questions you get him to realize the truth by himself.”

”Amazing.”

”It truly is.”

”Well, thank you for everything Great Teacher, Guru, Dioramion!”

Medon got up from the chair, bowed and left the hall. And back in the saddle he continued his virtual mission, the march through military history. Next he rode to join the King’s Company and do battle against the English at Crécy; he charged the line of footsoldiers and dismounted knights, only to be hit by an arrow from a longbow. The point penetrated his armour and he fell to the ground bleeding, mortally wounded in the chest.

On the next level of the game he commanded a cavalry squadron for The Lion From The North, in the battle of Lützen. The king fell but the Swedes carried the day, partly because of Medon’s skill with the rapier. Then the scene shifted and he was commanding a platoon at Gettysburg, storming up Cemetery Hill against murderous rifle-fire. His men got hit one after another; their company banner was planted on top of the ridge, only to be shot to ribbons the next moment. Medon for his part was hit in the head with a bullet and was carried into the shade of a massive oak tree, bleeding to his virtual death.

Through the mud of Flander’s Fields as poilou, over the Ukrainian prairie as Austro-Hungarian ulan, through Meuse-Argonne as leatherneck was his way. There were ski-patrols on the Karelian Isthmus, combats between desert rats and desert foxes, parachute jumps and a contest over a bridge too far, a fighting retreat south of the 53rd parallel, and a counter-strike at Hué.

Hué: here Medon was battalion commander, clad in a cowboy-hat and with a .45 revolver at the side. Standing among smoking ruins, with jets passing by spreading their trade-mark ripping thunder, the kerosene smell thick over the land, Medon said to a war correspondent:

”We had to destroy the city to save it...”

GAME OVER



Epilogue

In the VR chamber Medon was unstrapped from the chair and freed from helmet and sensors and could walk away as a free man – or at least as a cadet in the world of the 25th century. For that part the game didn’t have any simulations of 21st century wars, as those were deemed not significant for the tactical and operational development. And after the mid 21st century no more wars were fought, partly because man by then started his Exodus to the stars.

Those were peaceful days, at least politically; there was the adventure and the tribulation of colonizating alien worlds, but as intimated no armed conflicts occured. Then as man was visited by the Saurians in the 25th, the aliens staring an unprovoked war against us, there was a rude awakeing: we had to learn to fight all over again.

But that’s another story. Medon for his part discussed his experiences in the computor game with his fellow cadets, especially the talk with the guru in the castle. Here his friends looked at him in amazement; no one else had experienced anything like that. One of his comrades even reported him to the teachers’ board on these grounds; an investigation was made, trying to find out if Medon maybe was crazy and unfit for command.

However he was acquitted for lack of evidence. But he never again mentioned his encounter in the castle with the glorified teacher, the white-bearded, blue-clad Dioramion. No one ever got to know about their talk about life and death and God, and whether one should go career or stay on as a reservist.

But what did Medon himself make out of it? Was it real, had their meeting actually taken place?

Well, beyond the feeling that it had been real he remembered a discussion from somewhere about the word hallucination.

Like this: his informer cadet ”comrade” surely wanted to classify the encounter as just that, a hallucination. But there should be a distinction beteween ”visions that lead nowhere”, that is ordinary hallucinations such as a drunk person seeing pink elephants, and those visions that lead you somewhere, lead you to a better life, lead you to reassess this condition or that.

Visions that make you think.

And the meeting with Dioramion had been just that. It was no mere ”hallucination”, it was a lucination – an enlightening encounter beyond the Beyond.

By the way Medon met his guru some additional times during the battles that followed: once beyond a dimensional gate on Blazonia IV, once in a coma during a surgical operation (he had been hurt by splinter due to failure of the suit’s force field), and once in the eye of an orbo storm.

These meetings had been enlightening too, true lucinations, but he never told anyone about them either. Not during his life as a soldier that is. But after the war (ending with the Saurian defeated) he became a guru himself of sorts, teaching what Dioramion had told him. And apart from the unusual way in which Medon met his guru, soldiers becoming sages in this way isn’t that unusual. They have already been out there in the ontological landscapes, living a life among the elements: blood and fire, courage and sacrifice, those are primordial states that goes beyond the pale of the everyday world. So being a soldier is, in a way, a truly metaphysical experience.

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Svensson: The Fall of Idallion (short story)

Imagine a pre-modern city with a scholarly man as main character. He's a quietist and a loner but one day he gets an important mission since the rest of the burghers are busy elsewhere.

1.

I stood at my window watching the citizens of Idallion walk up to the palace, their silken robes and plumed hats resplendent in the rays of the setting sun. What a pageant, what a parade, what a fitting epilogue for the history of our city – because tomorrow it would all be over, by then they would all be dead, all those men and women walking up to the palace for a final gathering, a final celebration, a final libation in the name of death.

They strode along the walk of poplars and crossed the courtyard, going up the double stairs and disappearing inside the castle with its cupolas, galleries and balconies. I turned and looked around my study, my drawing-room with hand-painted goldpatterns on the black walls, book-shelves with exquisite volumes and a sideboard with the City Key on a purple cushion. Mine was namely the task to hand it over to the approaching barbarians as they took the city, which probably would be by tomorrow. Because I wasn’t going to join them, the citizens, at their party; I didn’t like the taste of wormwood. Instead I poured myself a glass of sweet wine from a caraffe, sat down in a soft chair and held the goblet to the rays of the sun. In vino veritas, that’s true in more than one sense of the word; I mean, what colour, what hue could be more fetching than the eternal light shining through a vessel of Hymarian wine?

Enjoying the bouquet my eyes happened to rest on a picture on the wall, a painting of my great-grandfather Rodebar Cromsolyn: a fierce warrior, however with a certain cultivated trim about him. He was the symbol of Idallion’s last triumph, having captured the neighbouring city of Horsa, thus giving us some respite before the fall. The following fifty years had for their part only brought us setbacks; Horsa had risen and cast off our yoke, and teaming up with the barbaric hordes of The Blue Banner our fate was sealed. And just a month ago, in the battle of The Crow’s Beak, our last army had been routed. By then Rodebar wasn’t its commander anymore, having gone to his ancestors seven years ago. Instead it was headed by my father Modokar who fell in a final cavalry charge, the last glorious moment of Idallion.

It was all over. And now we only had to await the coming of the hostile army and surrender the city. Our final protest would be the mass suicide at the palace, yea, verily, suicide was the word: sharing a bowl of poisonous drink to the sound of flutes and harps and after some lavish wining and dining. That was the reason for the party, the one I didn’t go to – so it seemed perfectly natural that I would be the one who met with the conquerors and handed over the city to them.

The city’s rulers, however tired of life, wanted the surrender to have some formality about it, and so I was to play the role of herald. And it was said that The Blue Banner respected heralds, parleys and exchange of hostages and the like, they weren’t dyed-in-the-wool barbarians, so the stage was set for a stylish end for our city.

I had warrior ancestors but I hadn’t become a soldier myself. I was a scholar and a learned man, living on inherited riches. I had my own little palace, built in red sandstone with details in limestone, on the city’s main street. And there I sat sipping my wine; how nice to spend your last day as a free man, I thought, nice and cosy in your own study! And tomorrow, then what? Enslavement, or banishment and exile, or just keep on living as a stranger in your own home town? Well come what may. And all flesh is grass, all things must pass. Ours was a beautiful city, renowned for its palaces and orchards, for its university and library, and for its taverns and bars and joyous nightlife. And with a history of glorious achievements in both politics and the arts. We had had a good run.

However, recently a misfortune had hit us: one day, some of the city’s children had been lured away by a pied piper, never to be seen again. There was some argument about the piper’s payment, having ridden the city of rats. And then, shortly afterwards, the rest of our children had been spirited away at Tenarian’s Rock, during a day out. They had been lured into the mountain it was said, their fate unknown.

That’s what broke the city spirit, that’s what made all our citizens so desparing in the face of the barbarians’ approach. We had outlived our fortunes, our luck was gone, and culturrally we were resting on our laurels. We were past our prime. We were just enjoying the last autumn days before the cold set in. Everything had been made, composed and written by our predecessors in the arts; what was left to do? That was the tenor of our thought, the general feeling, and with the children gone and our last army beaten, what reason was there to live on? Therefore the decision to meet in the palace and empty the cup of poison was met with appraisal. From everyone but me, whose spitirual beliefs forbid me to commit suicide.

Such was my decision. Everyone thanked me profusely for this, by the way. It was that element of formality they liked, to go out in style.

From the palace screams and laughter could now be heard. The party was in full swing. I finished the wine, got up and went to my sleeping room, stuffed my ears with some cotton wool, took a volume of poetry and went to bed. I had work to do tomorrow, lots of it: I had to bury my fellow citizens. That was a last favour I had promised them.

As I lay there in my bed recess, lit by an oil lamp, I was charmed by the following poem by Nannvel Storness, a romantic from the north who used to dream about southern belles:

Picking some shells on the beach,
making a necklace of them
and giving it to Atyescha: this I will do.

Will she be glad by it?
Will she wear it tonight?

I don’t know.
I only know that I will go to the beach,
pick some shells, nice shells,
make a necklace of them
and give it to Atyescha.

2.

The next day I got up and dressed, striding out in the morning sun and stepping out on the main street where grass grew in between the cobblestones, one of the many signs of decay in our once flowering city. I went to the nearby Crystal Chapel, a shrine erected to the glory of the Unknown God I visited now and again. I entered the vaulted porch, took off my tricorne, admired the arrases and the marble masonry and sat down to meditate for a while. The lustre from the giant diamond at the chancel had a calming effect on me, as it usually had. And I could need that, it was going to be a busy day: would I have the time to bury my fellow citizens before the barbarians arrived?

Leaving the temple I walked the alley up to the palace and went inside, soon reaching the main hall. I could see them all, all of the city’s cultivated dignitaries and burghers lying there – dead. On a table there stood a flask with a label with skull and bones, the selfsame poison they had mixed in their drink and swallowed: wormwood. I stuffed away the flask in a cupboard, glad to have the grinning death’s head out of my sight.

I approached one of the fallen, queen Zenagia herself, ruler of our state. She was dressed in a ruby red dress with silvery ribbons and a violet train, and to that embroidered stockings, patent-leather shoes and a pearl necklace. Removing a platinum blond tuft of hair from her face I admired the delicate, cultivated features, with a faint smile still playing in the corner of her mouth: ironic to the last. Some way to meet The Absolute: ”I beg your pardon, walk over the Sirat Bridge? You can’t mean that I will walk over it, I must have someone carrying me”...

Maybe she had wished me to be there with her at the moment of death, me having been her lover once upon a time. She was my true Atyescha. And for certain she was still beautiful, her face still stirring some passion in me. Our relationship had been a pure fancy, a vanity, a game to play and had of course not resulted in any offspring, not even a bastard son. No cute, rosy-cheeked little baby ever got to suck at this flat chest...

I held her face in my hands and kissed it, extracting the last romantic afterglow from the exquisite lips.

- - -

I got things going by fetching a barrow, loading bodies onto it and rolling it away to the burial grounds down by the willows. Graves were already dug, so it was just to lay down the bodies into them. Shrouding I didn’t mind, except for Zenagia who was wrapped in an arras. The rest had to make do with a simple prayer, but to my Queen I read a poem which I composed on the spot:

Zenagia, Zenagia, my fair damsel,
you have gone beyond, beyond the Beyond.
So farewell my lovely, will I see you again,
maybe in a garden beyond the Beyond...?

Not exactly immortal lines, but they were heartfelt.

I had to ply back and fort many a-time before I was done with my work, but by sundown I was ready. All the party-goers having taken poison were buried, all the citizens who rather killed themselves than became the subjects to barbarians had been brought to the final rest.

I sat down and watched the earth-filled graves, lit by the rays of the sun setting behind the far mountains. I drank some weater from a bottle and calmed myself.

After some meditation I went back to the palace and sauntered through the empty state-rooms, looking at canvasses and leather wall papers, carved furniture and stuccoes, heavy drapery and busts and reliefs, objets d’art and precious things collected through the centuries by an honourable city state, now at the end of its tether. But we had been maneuvering wisely between our neighbours, more relying on the might of the word than that of the sword, not so much on the whip as on the carrot, having received foreign emissaries and royalties and entertaining them lavishly, giving them presents from our treasuries, and putting on shows and reviews in their honour. This had worked fine for a while – until the threats became more tangible, like then one from Horsa when we had to mobilize our army. Which had been done, with known result. But we had fallen with flying colours.

And now the combined army of Horsa and the barbarians were approaching. I went up into one of the palace towers, looked out over the city and its surrounding Wide Fields, without descrying any nearing army. Well, perhaps tomorrow...

That left me with nothing else to do but to wander along in our beautiful Idallion in the twilight, among weed-choked ponds, over deserted squares and terraces, past exquisite palace fronts and faces and dream about past glory, echoes in the alleys and parades along the streets, ceremonies in the Crystal Temple and receptions in the Palace, with foreign emissairies in their best and the courtiers in gold-emblazoned livery, and at the centre of everything Queen Zenagia in all her debauched beauty.

I was a scholar and a poet enjoying the riches of my heritage, the sandstone house opposite the Palace. My father Modokar’s real home was the war; before the battle of Crow’s Beak he had been a mercenary colonel here and there. As intimated I myself lacked that special soldiery mettle, despite the ancestry from Modokar and Rodebar; I was a dreamer and a rambler, lately living out a lotus eater’s existence in my house. Maybe I could go on living that life even after the barbarians had taken the town.

Or should I just leave Idallion after having surrendered the city, leave my grand palace and be a drifter and a roamer, seeking true adventure in the world at large? I still had some life left in me.



3.

The rattle of arms, agitated voices, cuts of axes, and the trample of heavy shoes awoke me the next day. Freshly awake I got up, got dressed and went down into the drawing-room grabbing the cushion with the City Key. My mission was about to be fulfilled, the invaders were here.

I went out on the steps seeing the main street of Idallion filled with a column of cavalry and infantry, carrying blue banners: a battle-weary crew they were. The poplars of the palace walk were being chopped down by sappers in leather aprons and long beards, their axes flashing in the morning light. We didn’t for one have a city wall, ours was an Open City, and therefore the army had had en easy entry – but diplomatic customs could have a worth of their own, so I got down the stairs, approached the head of the file and a tubby, unshaven fellow on a black horse, clad in cuirass and panached helmet and a rapier at his side, heavy boots in golden stirrups.

The soldiers watched me in awe. Unmoved I bowed to the commander and said:

”Commander of Horsa, honoured Crown Marshal; I am Paralipon Cromsolyn, Idallion’s last surviving citizen. Kindly accept the Keys Of The City.”

”Hmmm,” the commander said. ”Well, darn it, I will!”

A servant approached and accepted the gift, and as for myself I was given a horse on which I could guide the Marshal around the city. I put on my tricorne, swept away the cloak and got into the saddle, and off I went on my grey stallion with this Adrian Edirne, as the commander was called, by my side.

The army of the enemy had taken the city and the looting had begun, even though my house was put under a red seal by the commander. Unperturbed I could ride around with him and show him our parks and palaces, our ponds and gazebos, our winding alleys and straight avenues. I could also tell where the rest of the city’s burghers had gone – to the Great Unknown, the Great Hereafter. And that I had chosed to live on so that I could surrender the city.

The tour was over and we reached Agorá, the city square. I was brought into a tent and served a lavish breakfast. I took a goblet of wine, a pear and a slice of bread flavoured with wort.

”So where are you off to now, Paralipon?” Edirne said to me chewing on a chicken bone. He seemed rather nice for a barbarian; maybe he was born to it, maybe it was the occassion of being victorious general that made him magnanimous.

”Where to? Yes, where...,” I replied, and before I could say anything more he hastened to add:

”Of course you could keep your house; you can stay here as long as you wish.”

I drank some wine and said:

”I thank you, commander. But sometimes I do feel like leaving this town, venturing out into The World.”

”Indeed?” my host said. ”But from our talks this morning I sense that you are a wise man. You could stay in your house and be a teacher for us, a guru. I have a thousand soldiers but I don’t need that to make Idallion great again. Not only.”

”But I know nothing,” I lied. ”I have no particular education. I only dream.”

”A dreamer, eh...? I see. Well, then maybe it’s better to become a Wanderer, a man who walks the Earth and greets people, talks to them – and then moves on, wherever Fate may take him.”

It sounded alluring and it helped me to make up my mind. Idallion was a finished chapter in my life. I finished my meal and declined the offer of a horse, however accepting a flask of water, some dried meat, some herbs and a staff. I took my leave of the Marshal and started along the once proud main street of Idallion, hearing the din of the looting soldiers slowly die away behind me, reaching the outskirts of town and so walking out into the World. An inspiration told me to forget the past and live here and now, not to settle in the murky row of years but to make the day my home.

I strolled out of the town and beheld the mountains in the distance, those lovely beckoning blue ridges. On the spot I composed a poem that summed up my feelings:

Away, away,
heading for that open road
I will find me a palace of golden sunshine,
silvery moonlight, emerald greensward,
topaze cowslip and ruby rose...

Out in the world, away from the barren surroundings of Idallion and off to more fertile lands, lusher and greener; away from this Idallion stinking of Death, heading for Life.

Yea, verily: I would go to more well-watered lands, seek out a beach and there pick some shells, nice shells, make a necklace of them and proffer it – to a little girl passing by, or to a beautiful woman or to the Unknown God, destiny would decide which.

Related
The Dragon's Lair
The Middle Zone

A List of Words and Concepts in the Books of Carlos Castaneda

Carlos Castaneda was a man. Now he is no more. He died in 1998. Before he left this world he wrote some 12 books on shamanism, magic, flying like a crow and speaking to lizards, about meeting Mescalito high on psychotropic cacti and a metaphysical view of the world. That view was fascinating as it used concepts mostly alien to western esoterism, so to decode Castaneda's concepts this overview might be of some help.

Assemblage point - encasing our physical body is an aura and on that aura there's a certain assemblage point, assembling our perceptions. The place of this point decides what we see and how we see it, in other words how the world appears to us. If the assemblage point is moved then we see "something else" and Castaneda experiences this many times with his guru don Juan.

Assuming responsibility - "Assuming responsibility for your actions means that you are ready to die for them." - don Juan

Awareness - consciousness, mindfulness. A glorified, clairvoyant state of mind.

Breaking routines - in order to release energy you can break everyday routines. You are forced to look at things differently, thus becoming more spiritually limber and agile.

Controlled folly - consciously acting the fool, taking things seriously only "as if" they were important. For example, to go after things in everyday life such as status and material success but only using the experience as a means to spiritual fulfillment. This technique of gaining Knowledge (q v) is depicted in "A Separate Reality", book 2 in the series.

Death as an adviser - we're all going to die and by realizing that (= memento mori) you are being taught the essence of being, i e that your physical existence is limited while your spiritual, post-mortal life is infinite. Book 2 in the series, "A Separate Reality", has a lot on this.

Dreaming, the art of dreaming - how to steer your dreams by will. For starters, try to get sight of your hands when dreaming. Castaneda himself learns this technique. Three other techniques to help you in dreaming are (q v) breaking routines, power gait/gait of power and not-doing. Book 9, "The Art of Dreaming" specializes on dreaming but the concept is mentioned throughout the series.

Dreaming body - a special body that emerges when you dream, maybe the same as the astral body you read about in western esoteric literature. This astral body, maybe equal to "the soul", is out flying in impossible worlds while the physical body lies sleeping, protected by the coil of the etheric body.

Earth's boost, the - the power from the earth. Mother Earth is always there to nurture us, protect us and give us energy, "imperceptible jolts of invigourating energy" (book 8, "The Power of Silence"). Earth is a sentient being endowed with an aura. (Book 7, "The Fire From Within", p 222). See also book 8, p 100: the earth is spiritually alive, its mind kan affect the mind of a person. Like Plotinos said: "The earth hears our prayers; she has no organs but she's got senses."

Erasing personal history - toning down the role of the ego by eradicating your existential footprints and becoming someone else - yourself.

First attention - normal consciousness, everyday consciousness, "right side awareness". It belongs to the physical body (while "second attention/left side awareness" belongs to the aura).

Gazing - to fixedly look at some natural phenomenae like clouds, smoke or running water. Thereby you saturate your first attention giving room for your second attention, and thus for a trip out into the Wild Blue Yonder.

Having to believe - well, you have to believe! Like someone said: "Stick to your illusions. There might come a day when they're all that you have left."

Impeccability - being beyond reproach, sinless. A kind of quietist moral with lodestars like modesty, thoughtfulness, simplicity, lack of pride and self-reflectiveness. Instead of endlessly going over personal problems you rise yourself to the level of impeccability.

Inner silence - with inner silence you reach silent knowledge. See "The Power of Silence", book 8 in the series. It's a way of finding calm, silencing your inner monologue. Thereby you activate the higher levels of your mind (q v nagual, second attention).

Intent - "the Spirit", Tao, God, divine energy. Naming God "the Spirit" is fairly common among North American Indians. Castaneda's "intent" is not primarily a being, it's a force you can learn how to use, divine energy as mentioned.



Knowledge - don Juan's way is called "acquiring Knowledge", "becoming a man of Knowledge". The means for this are (q v) stalking, awareness, intent and dreaming.

Left side awareness - the other world, the unknown, the separate reality. See also second attention and nagual.

Losing the human form - when your tonal- and nagual minds are united you reach the totality of oneself.

Losing self-importance - to realize your limitations, toning down your sense of importance. You have to be able to take a joke, withstand ridicule, all in order to release energy to reach Knowledge. Cf what's said in book 5, "The Second Ring of Power", chapter 8: you have to break the mirror of self-reflection. "I used to live in a room full of mirrors / all I could see was me" like Hendrix said.

Nagual - (pronounced nah-wal), the unknown, das Unbedingte, the virgin lands of the metaphysical realm. It reminds you of Tao: "the Tao that can be named is not the True Tao" (Lao Tse). To nagual you can be led by psychotropic drugs (mushrooms, peyote, Jimson Weed, q v book 1, "The Teachings of Don Juan") but this is a somewhat primitive technique, don Juan says. It's better to go the spiritual way, using strategies like (q v) erasing personal history, losing self-importance, assuming responsibility and death as an adviser. - Nagual (capital N) is also the title of the head magician in the circles that Castaneda depicts: "the Nagual don Juan" and, from the fifth book on, "the Nagual Carlos Castaneda".

Not-doings - freeing yourself of everyday doings, executed with strategies like (q v) erasing personal histroy, losing self-importance, breaking routines. Book 3, "Journey to Ixtlan" treats not-doing rather extensively.

Places of power - places of energy. Certain spots in the landscape brings you energy, energetic zones helping you to focus and meditate. In all times churches and temples have been built on such places; Christianity raised its temples on heathen temple grounds not (only) to stamp out the old religion but to gain access to these energetic sweet spots.

Power - energy, probably equal to God and divine energy (q v "intent"). The book "Tales of Power" might then be considered as "Tales of God"...! Don Juan says: "Power provides according to our impeccability." In other words, if we purge our minds of greed and fear then we can more easliy approach God. - Don Juan also says that this and that is "a sign form Power", "Power pointed it out" etc. Good portents are seen as given by Power. A Christian, a Hindu, a Jew or a Muslim might for their part say that this is a work of God, a sign of God etc.

Power gait - an occult technique whereby your way of walking might take you to other worlds. How? Beats me. But Castaneda's world is full of mysteries and shamanic doings. I don't reject their plausibility, I'm just saying that I'm no magician, just an adept and a scholar.

Recapitulation - to scrutinize your past life in the uttermost detail, noting all mistakes done, admitting the faults and thereby getting energy for new ventures, new vistas. It's the same as penitence, confessing your sins and repentance but Castaneda never expresses his system in such Christan terms - almost never.

Right side awareness - normal consciousness linked to this world, the everyday world. See also first attention and tonal.

Second attention - the supernatural, higher consciousness, "left side awareness". Second attention belongs to the aura, "the luminous body"; first attention (q v) for its part belongs to the physical body. - There is also third attention which is the highest you can get: seeing God (or seeing "the Eagle's emanations" as don Juan would put it.)

Seeing - clairvoyance. Emerges when you've (q v) stopped the world by not-doing.

Stalking, the art of stalking - to mysteriously reach (q v) Knowledge by sneaking around in metaphysical hunting grounds.

Stopping the world - to realize à la zen that "it's the mind that moves, not the world". Having reached total inner calm then you've "stopped the world". Book 3 ("Journey to Ixtlan") is about don Juan's concept of "stopping the world" which is done by venturing out on a vision quest, a traditional one-man journey into the wild when you shall meditate, fast and wait for the ensuing visions. Castaneda duly obeys and goes out into the wild, eventually striking up a conversation with a coyote. This is ably parodied in a certain "Simpson's" episode with Johnny Cash doing the coyote's lines, but the truth is fascinating also: the original scene in "Journey to Ixtlan". In Swedish I've blogged about it here.

Related
Auto Interview
Ernst Jünger's Spiritual Quest

Related post on my Swedish blog
Hur det började
Castaneda = kastanj
The Eagle's Gift

Songs I Like

Here's some links to some great songs on Youtube that I like. It's a collection of this and that, rock and pop and classics and whatnot. Enjoy.

1. Suggo Music

By "Suggo" I mean suggestive songs, regardless of genre. So here we have, bookended by some 40's-50's schmooze, modern dance songs. They all have their poetic, indescribable atmosphere. For "Chasing the Sun" I might not have found the ultimate version but anyhoo, these are songs to die for, to write novels inspired by...!

Flamingos, "I Only Have Eyes For You"
Planet Funk, "Chasing the Sun"
Opus 3, "It's a Fine Day"
Heed, "Seldom Seen"
Peggy Lee, "You're My Thrill"



2. Soundtracks to Harmageddon

Youtube videos about aliens, conspiracies and global warming are often accompanied by a demon dance called "Requiem For a Dream". It's written by Clint Mansell. I just love this hectic crescendo of violins. Then we have 009 Sound System's song, a fine fat rock song that to me is "the 2010's, Youtube, end of civilization" and then some. Lastly we have Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana", also a doomsday song of sorts. Love it. - The videos for all but 009's song are pretty cliché but I had to choose them 'cos they happened to have the best musical versions of the songs. So while on Youtube, scroll down if the images distress you or bore you. The songs are what's important, not the cut-and-paste slideshows.

"Requiem For a Dream"
009 Sound System, "With a Spirit"
Carl Orff, "O Fortuna"



3. Other

Under "other" I file to begin with a 70's pop song, suggestive and nifty. I remember hearing the Swedish version as a toddler and it made an impression, therefore it makes the list. Then we have an antique song, eerie and captivating. We don't know much about how the music from ancient Rom and Greece sounded but here we at least have ONE sample. Then I add Stones' "Gimme Shelter" which I find to be their best song. It starts unassumingly secretly and then grows in intensity, volume and instrumentation.

Les Humphries Singers, "We'll Fly You To the Promised Land"
Antique Song
Rolling Stones, "Gimme Shelter"



4. Female Pop

A lot could be said about these videos. Rebecca Black's song came this spring, an amateur 13-year old hitting it big by publishing her song on Youtube. But in essence her song is catchy and the video charmingly innocent. As for Fragma's and MelC's videos, they, like Rebecca's, are TOTALLY FREE OF VULGARITY. And the songs are great. Some commenter on Youtube called "Every Time You Need Me" "epic" and I wouldn't go that far, however the song stays with you.

Fragma, "Every Time You Need Me"
MelC, "I Turn to You"
Rebecca Black, "Friday"



5. Religious

I'm a Christian and I love these songs. "Father God, I Wonder" is special since it isn't so cheeringly glad; it's secretive and quiet. As for the others I love "Jesus Christ, You are My Life". I mean, why be satisfied with secular hymns when you can have the real deal, religious ones...? Note also Hildegard von Bingen's song, a truly traditional medieval hymn. Without the Christian heritage the Westworld would be nothing.

Father God, I Wonder
Reflections of Christ
I Can Only Imagine
Hildegard von Bingen, "Spiritus Sanctus"
"Jesus Christ, You Are My Life"

(Pic Boeing 727)