(Author's note [2014]: There's no question I was under the spell of some heady influences when I wrote the pieces for this zine, which was published and distributed sometime in late 1996. The writing itself began in spring 1994, during a particularly prolific creative period which occurred around my 20th birthday.
As the text makes abundantly clear, I was preoccupied with religious and philosophic ideas at this time, specifically Christian Mysticism, Mormonism and my own religious background, Protestant Baptist.
Now that some time has passed, I can see plainly that I was attempting to 'digest' the entirety of my spiritual and moral upbringing to that point - processing it, if you like - even as I moved away from any sort of formal religious orthodoxy or allegiance.
There are also references to concepts which would become more important to me in the coming years. Neoplatonism, Buddhism, existentialism, science and technology, and even - to some extent - the new age-y ontological assertion which suggests each person 'creates' their own reality.
[In the 20 years since I wrote this piece, however, advances in neurosciences have shown this last aphorism to be quite accurate, whether considering people's commonly held cognitive biases, concepts like Theory of Mind, or the malleability of physical brain itself (neuroplasticity).]
The downside of attempting to unify so many different perspectives meant that I made intuitive associations which could bring the meaning of certain passages into question. Of course, this was a creative project; I didn't need to prove anything I said. All I had to do was ask a few questions and write a couple dialogues. It was more important at the time to imagine what I thought could be a new humanist paradigm than to demonstrate its legitimacy or veracity.
The triskelion - the symbol which appears on the cover of the zine - appears in many ancient cultures. In the Celtic tradition, the triple spiral was associated with motion, progress and revolution while the extensions represented various sacred trinities, like spirit-mind-body, maiden-mother-crone, father-son-holy ghost, past-present-future, etc.
A picture of the Greco-Roman god Mercury appears on the inside cover, as I imagined him to be the patron of my work. Please note: Syntax and spelling errors that appeared in the original document have been [for the most part] corrected.)
There is a wind blowing,
Over the lands and across the sea,
There is a voice whispering,
From the edge of eternity.
And the stars hold no mystery,
All the nations are dreaming,
God left us long ago,
And with God went meaning.
Across the empires of the world,
Shifting signals and signs.
O America, see how integrity,
Turns to decadence with time.
We have visions beamed from space,
We fly in giant air ships,
The fate of the world rests,
On a single computer chip.
There is a wind blowing,
Over the lands and across the sea,
There is a voice whispering,
From the edge of eternity.
**
In a vision I once had, a devil came to me to tempt me with forbidden wisdom, And he had a mate and her name was Death, and she was pale and beautiful, and saw with eyes older than the world. And the devil wore four bands on his arms to symbolize four lessons learned in this life.
This is both a matter of possession and Being. We are angels and devils all, as heaven and hell is only a state of mind. Though let it be known that these possessions indicate mental disposition, for those who think they are in hell are truly damned, and all those who ache for paradise will, in time, find peace.
It was Sunday night and the eve of a new week and I was at home intently studying the book of the Mormon faith. I had been compelled to this evaluation by a spirit I give no name for this spirit is, in truth, many names in one. And as I was reading, the apparition of the eternal prophet came to me. And he wore sackcloth and had all the appearance of a wild beast. And he spoke unto me and I trembled:
"I have come unto you to deliver several truths concerning matters of the faith. I fear I must always be devil and at odds with the issue of religion. But hear my words - they have been long stirring in the netherdeep."
What God truly is,
One cannot say
But one is.
Consider a reality beneath the seeming of things,
Infinite and
timeless.
Where beginning is end,
and end is beginning.
We all participate in this reality,
For we have given unto it,
Many sacred names and blasphemous associations.
But your truth will depend on what point,
You see from this cycle,
And this is how you see the world.
You die a thousand deaths and you will die,
A thousand more before,
You die.
And who's to say life is not a dream?
The world we each create - this is the key for no
man can write or speak from the heart but he must
intend truth. Therefore the seeming of vision and
the appearance of all is symbol, and open to
speculation. But it all comes back to one, that is
the Self.
All men worship the same God as God is the
sum of all men's desires.
All is one is us, and this one is all.
And now concerning bibles and the gods of the west...
Is there faith in unknowable things?
In essence, of course, that is faith,
"the evidence of things unseen".
Perhaps the Devil gave us the Bible,
And anointed himself in the glory of Jehovah,
And the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil,
called Reason and Consciousness in these late days,
Are the cause of all spiritual distress and
anxiety.
Perhaps those in distress are worshiping in,
the wrong temple, for the god of the Jews,
Was a god of Reason,
Infinite Will,
and the eternal I AM.
If this is the case,
and not in violation of sacred texts,
In the past, Reason has been both angel and devil.
But you desire to know the unknowable,
And you reason to maintain faith.
Faith channels vision but the origin of your desire
Is your Self,
It always comes back to
one
And that [one] has been called
by many names,
But in these darkened days,
we call her
Imagination
In the hopes she can envision a new dawn.
One morning, Divine Inspiration, who is called the Holy Spirit,
Came to me and instructed that I record our discourse.
The Bible is a book of married contraries;
It is both fact and fiction.
Indeed, Jesus was crucified for heretical statements,
Within the Jewish community.
And he did rise again, but only insofar as the Eternal
Prophet does rise in another.
Christ was a man,
And the world would say he was somewhat mad.
He recognized the contraries within himself,
But his ego did not allow him to see these
as present in others.
We are all body and soul,
mind and matter.
We are bridges to something deeper.
He knew he was in the proper moment,
The Jews were waiting for a messiah,
Waiting for delivery from Imperial Rome.
Perhaps he got caught up...
A madman genius who saw these prophecies,
(Fulfilled in himself?)
You do not know.
You only know the gospel written by others.
Christ left nothing [of his own] to posterity.
Without doubt, faith would be ignorance.
One morning, the Madonna came to me as I was walking in the Forest. And I bid her to look at a tree, noting particularly the dew shining silver on the fringes of the leaves. And she looked and replied to me, "Indeed, these are sensible objects." And I queried after her response:
"All that is, was at one time imagined. What you perceive by your senses is the fragment of what truly is. There is a reality running beneath the seeming of things. The nature of this reality is limited only by Imagination, the infinite facility of the universe.
And then the Madonna took root in the ground and assumed the form of a tree, her arms becoming the branches and her legs becoming the base. And I walked on, keenly aware that I had heard a compelling, albeit abstract explanation for the nature of the universe.
And as I approached a ridge of trees, I saw old Copernicus drawing circles in the dirt. And he spoke to me as I approached.
"The reasonable mind of science reached, at last, the conclusion of a cycle with the discovery, or rather, the recovery of the atom. Of course, the Greeks knew of this reality for they gave names to it and its properties in the form of deity and spirit. Psychology and physics are the definitions of the apparent irrational reality of the atom and the unconscious. You have recently formulated theories to explain what was, in the past, unreasonable to the reasonable mind. This is the result of Divine Inspiration, who is sometimes called Imagination.
"Modern philosophy would tell you the nature of reality is inside your mind; I say, you are about to become conscious that the nature of the universe is the nature of your mind. All is contingent. This is shown by Einstein, who revealed the relative nature of a finite universe, and created a law to govern this transcendent order. And did he not say imagination is more important than knowledge?
"And what of the unconscious? Dreams are only as useful as their application. A price has been paid for the rational pursuit of the essence of the universe - you forgot you could have visions. Since science is based on observations, and as such can only record the effect of things, in the past the rational mind had disregarded the cause.
"Only now you are able to remember it is a result of unconscious factors and synchronicity, or what the ancients would call 'Fate', that governs your lives and will give you balance if you listen. Know that Carl Jung was a shaman who tried to heal the [human] tribe by putting the unconscious under the cool knife of Reason. He knew where he was, and spoke in a way that gained acceptance in the scientific community. He acquired more merit when he proved Freud's error in neglecting the relativism of unconscious symbols between individuals. Once again, all is contingent. But Jung also discovered a transcendent order he called archetypes, which are the stuff of legend, imagination and symbol."
And I asked Copernicus how he had concluded that true knowledge was imagination. And he pulled back the Forest, and I saw the form of Newton bathed in a spectacular light. And he spoke unto me.
"My revelation came in a moment of quiet introspection. If not for a dropping apple from a nearby tree, I would have never realized my theory of gravity. It was the conscious manifestation of what I already knew unconsciously. This is the true nature of vision."
And I asked if he was content with his revelation and he said unto me:
"Any man who presents imagination, or rather the effect of imagination is bound to meet with resistance. But in the past, faith made the one god of a nomadic tribe the one god of the western world. Some men become bitter with the charge, and their faith manifests as [selfish] ego, but that does not change the reality of the inspiration. All that is, was once only imagined. Physics tells you there was a time before time, when the universe was infinite, and [physical] laws [as you know them] could not apply. These are finite rules governing a finite universe that at the same time admits the infinite capacity in you, that is to create your own universe. You are bounded by your senses: release them, and realize everything affects you. The conscious mind working through the senses does not recognize this deeper reality, that the world is only a symbol in the true eye of creation."
And Newton was consumed in a raging fire. And in the smoke there manifested the restless spirit of Blake walking on a spider's web. And I stared in wonder and humility for all I had been told.
The sound of the 21st century
The whimper of currency &
The soft exchange of information,
A failing heartbeat,
At the core of industry.
***
"We are angels and devils all, heaven and hell being only states of mind. The world is a hell, for we make it hell. And how could it not be? We are adrift in a vast, impersonal cosmos, God is dead, and life has no meaning. Nature is finite and corrupt, and must be destroyed. The ways we have abused the planet reflect the ways we have abused ourselves.
"All religions that teach one path should be called into question. There are always two roads; we can choose one, and have been given the capacity to transcend the other. Man was created to judge himself; to bring about his own apocalypse or his own Eden. I make this call for paradise, for the world has long been in despair. But the decision cannot only be mine; it must be yours also.
"The world needs healing. Perhaps the reason we care so little for our planet is because no one took care of us.
"Our prophets came and went telling of the Kingdom, and of salvation in other places. They told us of the End. And indeed, if we are looking forward to the coming of Eternity, life soon does become hell. But since Eternity has not come to take us home, hope in meaning becomes despair.
"I tell you this - there will be no sky torn asunder that we will not tear asunder ourselves. These are miracle days. Weapons are created to destroy entire cities. Pictures come to us from the other side of the world. Humanity is reaching planet-wide consciousness, and if we can communicate so well, why can't we understand one another."
On the Periphery
Concerning the Usage and Application of Inspiration
On the Periphery
"...What is it that inspires me? Surely it is life
- the greatest art of all..."
"There is a certain peace when one is in consideration
of Paradise, a love unbounded by the barriers of flesh
the aspirations that reach a brighter plane
the echo of an angel's laughter, the quiet praise
of the cherub. Heaven is never so filled with
Music that a moment of silence goes unappreciated.
In darkened dreams, I sought thee in vain,
a form to give distinct definition, to pair with
my soul, to see it flow into your porcelain bosom.
And oh, so soft were the tender dreams,
the innocence of those days. I wore
passion, red and bright atop my brow.
You were all colors, I only a shade in your spectrum,
In an instant, I recollected
the happenings of a thousand lifetimes.
"There is a certain madness when one enters into love,
The unspoken expectations and such questions:
"is this how it is to be?" The only impressions,
I have of you run deep, but as I am alone,
I am left to wander in a restless memory,
the willing prisoner of past triumphs, the victim,
of eternal defeat. Did I lose myself? The questions,
that plague me still. Did I forget you were a
servant of the Divine and not Divine yourself?
Were you a Magdalene, sent to seduce me into
Your deepest chamber, no man could
resist the lure of the silent Virgin, Or were you mad,
given to long silences and flashes of intuition
that endured me to you, a blacken'd Ophelia
who promised me death? And what of my deliverance?
Your eyes spoke more than any book opened
or any teacher taught. And such was our freedom
within a transitory image. And yet, Life is temporary
and beyond lies Eternity. In my waking dream, I greeted you on
the coming of every new sun.
There was no way I could reach you then. Even in
my brightest morning, I could not unveil
your mystery, the suspension of that memory,
which caught me in a noose, left me to rot and wither
with the [changing] seasons...and you promised me death!
This is a testimony to the power of the woman.
"So far I removed myself from divine mercy
and infinite grace, caught up in a whirlwind
of spectres and nightmarish apparitions, no longer
content to discern between Truth and Falsehood;
no longer appeased by your soft touch,
the warming of your spirit, collapsing forever into such a
state of self-annihilation. In frightening visions, I was greeted
by the Angel, and then the Dreamer was born. In recollection
of the Abyss, I tumbled headlong into a void of delusion
and a consuming paranoia.
Did no one understand? Not even you could reach me,
as I spiraled down down down. What distant deeps I uncovered,
What broken roads I traveled. My Fear lacked all
expression; my thoughts so loud,
I could hear naught but the condemnation of Death
and the end of Art and Passion. Reduced to a pitiful state,
I wretched and anxiously awaited the courage
to act on my final desire: The consummation
of my life with a slow and painful sleep,
A fitful end to an existence lived by bad example.
But these are old memories,
Ones I have lived and re-lived in
Infinite and varying degrees. Sometimes I fought
to forget them, perhaps in spite or weakness. Sometimes
I have yearned for their renewal. I have sought healing
finding slowly in secret places, [and in that spirit]
I commit this ballad to you.
It is the story of a rise and a fall, a tragedy and a triumph.
In what hope can I approach the future?
That memory be memory and
Inspiration is sent to carry us above our suffering.
***
- Amends -
The truth is,
There is no truth,
And that is the truth.
