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To Wish Impossible Things
“Alice laughed: “There’s no use trying,” she said; “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Alice in Wonderland
Aristotle once said that the mark of an educated or mature mind is that it’s able to “entertain a thought without accepting it.” Alan Watts has another great quote on that topic:
“I’m not trying to sell you on this idea in the sense of converting you to it; I want you to play with it. I want you to think of its possibilities. I’m not trying to prove it, I’m just putting it forward as a possibility of life to think about.”
What kind of crazy world would we have if all religions and all ideologies operated according to this basic principle of playfulness? It’s pretty tough for me to imagine on a massive scale. But as far as my own life goes, I’m getting more and more successful at imagining “six impossible things before breakfast.” And to be truthful, I almost never eat breakfast.
Lately, I’ve been studying how people use language, especially in terms of religion. I’ll pick on Scientology as an example here because they are so new that their tactics are really obvious and exotic, rather than being something that we’re all familiar with and bored by. One of the major training (indoctrination) elements of Scientology is to re-educate people about the “true” meaning of words. They have this really big thing about the “misunderstood word” and how it’s the major stumbling block to understanding and personal progress. Scientology’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard, studied propaganda tactics, and wrote:
The redefinition of words is done be associating different emotions and symbols with the word than were intended. […] The way to redefine a word is to get the new definition repeated as often as possible.
Compare this to another quote from Lewis Carroll:
What I tell you three times is true.
The Hunting of the Snark
Hubbard taught what we consider a nefarious propaganda technique as a tool for spiritual advancement. Why? I’ve been wracking my brain over this for a couple weeks. If you start reading about Scientology, you’ll be quickly overwhelmed by “Scientologese”, the bizarre jargon invented by Hubbard and his Church. Of such things, Robert Anton Wilson writes in Prometheus Rising:
At this point a certain amount of arbitrary nonsense is of great value. That is, the new reality-tunnel or symbol-system should contain pitfalls (gross violations of previous reality tunnels and common sense) […] The neurological and sociological function of such “nonsense” (which makes the Rationalist gasp in shock) is to sharply segregate those within the new reality-tunnel from those outside. This makes for group solidarity, group-reinforcement, and a strong sense of alienation and discomfort when on rare occasions it is necessary to talk at all with those outside the brainwasher’s semantic system.
As much as Wilson criticizes other groups for it, he himself is certainly a practitioner of these same tactics. Even just from that short passage above, we can grab words like “reality-tunnel” or “Rationalist” as his attempts to slightly redefine how words work for us (nevermind all the other models he proposes in that book). Does this mean Robert Anton Wilson is some kind of crypto-Scientologist, or is something else going on here?
In my estimation, it seems that both Hubbard’s and Wilson’s work stem from the same sources. They both analyzed occult, psychological and linguistic traditions to see how they function, and what they all share underneath in their secret inner workings. Apparently, many other seekers have uncovered these same techniques as well. I’ve never read any of Lewis Carroll’s work myself, but this page of quotes which I’ve been mining indicates to me an extremely deep level of understanding of these topics. Here’s another one:
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master - that’s all.”
Through the Looking Glass
The trail of breadcrumbs I’ve been following in this search has lead me through not only Wilson, Hubbard and Carroll, but all the way back to something which has always been in front of my face, but which I ignored because I didn’t understand what it was for. The Transubstantiation.
I was raised Catholic, confirmed, and the whole nine yards. Since then I’ve obviously gone my own way in large measure. But I often find myself returning to the story-system in which I was raised (alongside comic books and sci-fi, of course). I remember sitting in CCD (which was what they called their religious education classes) as a kid when they would talk about stuff like the Transubstantiation of the Five Mysteries. These are basically the “impossible things” at the core of Catholicism which you must believe, or at least profess to believe. In practice, it seems like few Catholics today actually believe most of it. Like many Protestant groups, they believe the Eucharist is not literally the blood and body of Christ, but is a symbol of it, a reminder.
A reminder of what? Well that’s the strange part. It’s a reminder about a guy who came down from outer space, who was killed on a couple pieces of wood, because of some sins you hadn’t even committed yet. And you’re supposed to thank him. What’s weird about that is that it’s really not a single bit weirder than believing in the Transubstantiation. Both are equally preposterous. Both make Wilson’s “Rationalist” gasp in shock. Both make use of Hubbard’s techniques to redefine meaning through repetition and emotional association.
So that means they must be categorically “bad” right? This is what I’m not sure about. This is what I’m wondering. What exactly is the purpose of believing “six impossible things before breakfast”? Why is it that when we see that quote in a children’s story, it seems positive and charged with magic, but when we hear about it in a religious or cultic context, we get really freaked out? Just what is this power that words have? Or is that a stupid question?
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God
Terence McKenna also has a good piece on the magic of language, in which he says:
Culture replaces authentic feeling with words. As an example of this, imagine an infant lying in its cradle, and the window is open, and into the room comes something, marvelous, mysterious, glittering, shedding light of many colors, movement, sound, a tranformative hierophany of integrated perception and the child is enthralled and then the mother comes into the room and she says to the child, ‘that’s a bird, baby, that’s a bird,’ instantly the complex wave of the angel peacock irridescent transformative mystery is collapsed, into the word. All mystery is gone, the child learns this is a bird, this is a bird, and by the time we’re five or six years old all the mystery of reality has been carefully tiled over with words. This is a bird, this is a house, this is the sky, and we seal ourselves in within a linguistic shell of disempowered perception, and what the psychedelics do is they burst apart this cultural envelope of confinement and return us really to the legacy and birthright of the organism.
So maybe words aren’t the answer. Maybe, like psychedelics, what believing impossible things allows us to do is dismantle the words altogether, and get back to the essentially ineffable experience behind it all.
June 20th, 2005 at 12:57 am
Maybe language is a tool used by the archons to create a shroud, a prison. What if humans were telepathic before the tower of Babel incident (or the incident that it symbolically represents)? What if language was created to disconnect us from the group mind, the collective unconscience (perhaps it was a collective conscience back then)? What if the double edged sword of language was the ability to create inside the prison (much like Neo learning the computer code behind the matrix and manipulating it)? Thus by reprogramming words, it is the first step towards decoding and deconstructing the matrix or the prison.
Just some thoughts.
June 20th, 2005 at 1:09 am
that reminds me of an idea ive liked ever since i heard it, though i forget the source. that its precisely our inability to communicate perfectly that is the cause of all the most beautiful profound things that we create culturally
June 20th, 2005 at 5:18 am
If you haven’t already done so, I’d recommend taking a look at Crowley’s essay “The Soldier and the Hunchback,” which can be found here.
June 20th, 2005 at 5:31 am
reminds me of a cynical little quote by the situationist Attila Kotanyi :
June 20th, 2005 at 8:55 am
William Burroughs said “language is a virus from outer space” and Noam Chomsky said “colorless green ideas sleep furiously” and lastly Krishnamurti said “The fact is one thing and the idea about the fact is another”. So in conclusion “The Tao that can be spoken of is not the enduring and unchanging Tao”.
Aphasics could never become Scientologists.
June 20th, 2005 at 2:56 pm
ever since you posted that deoxy link, ive been listening to terence mckenna interviews & lectures (i already had a bunch, but that deoxy resource is great! thanks).
mckennas ideas are fantastic. its great how somebody can so eloquently rebel against words WITH words.
words are very important in this dimension. its spellcasting.
to go back to youre mention of Rasta the other day, Rasta say “Word, Sound, Power.” and Babylon is to be “chanted down” in particular with music.
in reggae, and Hiphop, when the MC is doing there thing, they spit fire.
and speaking of Hiphop, Lewis Carrol & language….
i highly, highly recommend taking a listen to the artist Aceyalone & his album “A Book Of Human Language” it is IMO one of the absolute best Hiphop albums yet, a masterpiece of thought and modern language……. and it has a great rendition of THe Jaberwocky.
one
human?
June 20th, 2005 at 3:12 pm
if you are interested in terence`s audio files,future hi has a page with 20 or more of his lectures.careful with thier blog though,these people don`t entertain much flexibility in thier thinking.
June 20th, 2005 at 3:17 pm
At this point a certain amount of arbitrary nonsense is of great value. That is, the new reality-tunnel or symbol-system should contain pitfalls (gross violations of previous reality tunnels and common sense) […] The neurological and sociological function of such “nonsense” (which makes the Rationalist gasp in shock) is to sharply segregate those within the new reality-tunnel from those outside. This makes for group solidarity, group-reinforcement, and a strong sense of alienation and discomfort when on rare occasions it is necessary to talk at all with those outside the brainwasher’s semantic system.
this is wilson`s quote from promethius rising.
i believe this is why ritual abuse is widespread in the catholic churh.group-reinforcement,etc……..frightening.
June 20th, 2005 at 3:31 pm
#
if you are interested in terence`s audio files,future hi has a page with 20 or more of his lectures.careful with thier blog though,these people don`t entertain much flexibility in thier thinking.
# alistair
word, thats one of the ones i found yesterday.
this one is good too:
http://mckenna.psychedelic-library.org/
June 20th, 2005 at 3:39 pm
yes,thanks.good link.
regarding chomsky,who is a professor or linguistics,he bothers me in that he raises points about americas shortfalls regarding foriegn policy but offers no real solutions.to me that`s just entertainment,preaching to the choir,as it were,and i think a man with that level of education and experience owes us more.
too many people take the lazy approach,being a critic,without offering solutions.that takes a higher level of commitment,i believe,than some intellectuals can muster.
June 20th, 2005 at 4:07 pm
Ever researched Brion Gysin? He was a co-hort of Burroughs and dabbled in Scientology.
June 20th, 2005 at 4:13 pm
The tangled web the Trickster weaves is indeed made of words. Presumably there was a pre-linguistic era of humanity where we were more telepathic, and some say may have chirped like birds, hence “The Language Of the Birds”, or some call it “The Green Language”.
June 20th, 2005 at 4:16 pm
[…]
Offering Criticism Without Solutions
A reader named “Alistair” left a comment that I’d like to […]
June 20th, 2005 at 5:28 pm
Lewis Carroll seems to be saying a lot with Humpty Dumpty…
Humpty Dumpty always seemed, to me, to be a pure human sprit. This is why Humpty Dumpty knows what all words mean and can have them mean what he wants. Does that mean he see’s past the words? Humpty Dumpty even says, “I can explain all the poems that ever were invented—-and a good many that haven’t been invented just yet.”
The egg shape seems to be a recurring analogy to the human soul or sprit. Don Juan in Carlos Castaneda says that the human sprit was observed to be egg shaped.
If Humpty Dumpty is a pure soul, does that mean that the wall is his body? And why not? In countless lectures and books we are told of the world as illusion. Plato in the Republic describes us chained to a wall in a cave. Others call it the Iron Prison. Basically this is the idea that we might be moving in the material world, but are actually not doing anything in the Real World. Humpty Dumpty, without moving from his spot, knows all. The wall/body is not an obstacle or a means of transportation for him, but rather just something to hold him up. He already knows all.
Philip K Dick in Tractates Cryptica Scriptura writes, “ The universe is information and we are staionary in it, not three-dimensional and not in space or time. The information fed to us we hypostatize into phenomenal world.
June 20th, 2005 at 6:27 pm
Maybe language is a tool used by the archons to create a shroud, a prison. What if humans were telepathic before the tower of Babel incident (or the incident that it symbolically represents)? What if language was created to disconnect us from the group mind
———————
Fuckin’ A, that’s brilliant!
June 20th, 2005 at 6:30 pm
alistair Says:
June 20th, 2005 at 3:39 pm
yes,thanks.good link.
regarding chomsky,who is a professor or linguistics,he bothers me in that he raises points about americas shortfalls regarding foriegn policy but offers no real solutions.to me that`s just entertainment
—————–
Have you ever seen the guy speak live?
“Entertainment” is not the first word that pops to mind
“test of endurance from a guy who speaks in byzantine footnoted paragraphs in a monotone” is more like it
June 20th, 2005 at 11:49 pm
If you want a consideration on “prehistoric” human telepathy, consider what so-called “less-evolved” animals seem to do:
If you have a dog or a cat, why do they seem to be waiting for you by the window? Is it because they just sit there the whole time you are gone, or do they sense your presence returning? (I have a few cats, and I believe they connect to me on a level beyond my own awareness)
Secondly, how can dogs (and sometimes cats) travel hundreds or thousands of miles to places they’ve never been to reunite with their families? Is it some insane sense of smell, or something more?
Also, why is it that your pets can ssometimes sense your emotions, whether it be fear, sadness, etc, and react accordingly?
(And note, there are cases of such “telepathic” or “empathetic” occurances beyond just cats and dogs)
Lastly, consider the story of my dad’s dog (and the reaction of the cats):
Back in the 70s, my dad’s dog had to be put down. My grandmother, realizing the connection between the four cats and the dog (and the dog’s connection to nature), wanted to take the dog to a family cabin a couple hundred miles away and put it to rest and bury it there. The vet gave her the necessary drugs, and she took the dog down, and put it to rest at approx 3pm. The next day, upon returning, my grandfather asked her when she had put the dog down, and she told him about 3pm. His reply astonished her. Between about 2:30 and 4pm, the four cats went absolutely nuts. They were moaning and meowing, clawing everything. It was very sudden and very freakish. It was almost as if they were mourning.
Just consider that, along with notions of mankind being telepathic at one time.
June 21st, 2005 at 12:17 am
ive actually had a telepathic conversation with an ex-girlfriend once while we were stoned. ill have to write about it sometime. i dont think that ability ever went away really. we just sort of forgot
June 21st, 2005 at 3:07 pm
rev max,i have listened extensively to chomsky.i made him a teacher of mine regarding semantic and communication style.my use of the word entertaining is in the way his audience consumed his lectures.the byzantine footnoted paragraphs are a masterful hypnotic induction.the boy has studied milton erickson.he is certainly not entertaining in the sense that his audience isn`t jumping up and down in thier seats and chanting his name.though they do go home planning to buy his books,tapes and desire to think more like him from now on.in that i can compare him to britanny spears or madonna.and,yes college professors do set fashion trends too.i prefer the way r.a.w. of terence mckenna presents material but i give naom full marks for effective style.
June 21st, 2005 at 5:41 pm
i had a telepathic link with a girl once.she told me to stop it!
the experience happened when i discovered that i was thinking her name over and over,in my mind,as we sat together.i could see her eyes in my mind as this occured.
she said “stop it” out loud,and that was enough to break the spell.
June 21st, 2005 at 8:21 pm
I think perhaps we were ‘telepathic’ to a point, and still are. I’m not sure language changed that. As far as it being a tool of archons, that depends, I guess, on how you look at it. We’ve made a lot of so-called “progress” since discovering language, most of it seems to be geared toward controll, but part of me says yes, that’s true, but it might also be our salvation, too. Two telepathic apes still can’t grok the spirit, because they’ve got no pictures of transcendence. They can think “sex,” “apple,” “panther,” or even “like” and “hate.” We’ve been cripppled in one way, freed in another, I think…telepathy in the GP might be fatal at this point.
June 22nd, 2005 at 11:19 am
telepathy would certainly change the rules significantly.lies would be out,along with liars.there is a gut brain that is sensitive to truth but it needs exercise and time away from a culture of lies to be able to distinguish once again.telepathy wouldn`t negate agendas though,and the liars would develop cloaking processes to mask thier thoughts…..hey,maybe we are telepathic and have just stopped using it out of futility.just like we`ve stopped talking too.(except us,of course.)
July 25th, 2005 at 3:24 pm
[…] elsewhere, the redefinition of words and accumulation of jargon is a classic technique to re-imprint people with a new reality tunnel. Whether that reality tunnel […]
January 10th, 2007 at 11:17 pm
[…] The most basic mind control tools are also the most simple. First, manipulate intensity, coloration and continuity of lighting. Want to think and feel like Abraham Lincoln (or his simulacrum)? Create the lighting conditions which surrounded his life. Second is sound. These are part of a continuum of frequency which translate directly by way of the human bio-mechanical operating system into states of consciousness and emotional gratification. Listen to some John Williams scores to see what I mean. Burn some candles in your bedroom. Look at the color of light they give off, the way they flicker. Blow them out. Then look at your computer screen. What color light does that radiate into the darkness of a room? What about a television? Fluorescent light bulb? Incandescent lights? The sun. Grow lights. I used to think light therapy was a crock of shit. The redefinition of words is done be associating different emotions and symbols with the word than were intended. […] The way to redefine a word is to get the new definition repeated as often as possible. […]