This is a creepy quote on the topic of “doubles” which we’ve talked about previously:
“The ancients knew the importance of maintaining an intimate conversation with one’s double or daemon, called ‘ genius’ in Latin, ‘ guardian angels’ by Christianity, ‘ reflex man’ by Scots, ‘ vardogr’ by Norwegians, ‘ doppelganger’ by Germans. The idea was that by taking care to develop one’s ‘ genius,’ this spiritual being would provide help throughout the mortal human’s life and into the next. Humans who did not attend to their personal Other became an evil and menacing entity called a ‘ larva,’ given to hovering over terrified sleepers in their beds at night and driving people to madness.”
- Keith Thompson, Aliens and Angels
Bunch of other alien quotes here.
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16 Comments
That is most definitely interesting, thanks for bring that to my attention, Tim.
if you get a chance you should check out this anime called vampire princess miyu.. miyu has a demon servant thing that’s like somehow bound to her, i can’t remember exactly, it’s been years, but he’s this tall death looking guy who protects her, and his name is larva. the imagery is cool.
Thanks, laura jane. There is a movie rental place we go to with massive anime and hentai sections, I shall check it out. My roommates are up on the anime so they may be familiar with it. I am also sitting on Neon Genesis Evangelion which I have yet to sit down and start watching.
embarassingly enough, i just got my BFA in stop motion animation and i’ve yet to watch neon genesis evangelion. HOWEVER if you’re interested in anime-dabbling you should watch ghost in the shell 1 & 2 (i just mentioned 2 in my comment on the transhumanism post)… they’re both really stimulating… 2 is a TOTAL mindfuck and the visuals alone are enough to make you cry. also if you haven’t seen miyazaki’s stuff, it’s WONDERFUL.. my favorites are spirited away and my neighbor totoro.
I hold Mamoru Oshii in earnest adoration, as far as writer/directors go. Ghost in the Shell 2 is one of my favourite movies in that vein, next to Adrian Lyne’s Jacob’s Ladder.
Congratulations on the BFA, that is awesome. An acquaintance of mine was just accepted to a school in Vancouver to study animation.
And of course, this very closely reflects depth psychology’s description of the shadow, the rejected experience of the self that exhibits traits of sentience, seemingly independant of consciousness. Embracing and striving to understand the shadow integrates the personality while rejecting it projects it onto ‘external’ environments.
Particularly interesting is the notion of requiring the genius’ assistance in the afterlife. While I have absolutely no idea what happens when we die, I’m partial to the idea that the bounderies and limits that exist in the human mind (which allow for the development of rational consciousness) disolve and allow rejected and hitherto unkown elements of the self to come rushing into ‘consciousness’. It stands to reason that if you’ve made friends with the shadow, you have the assistance of a more integrated self. If your shadow remains an ‘enemy’, well then it would appear you might be descending into the depths of hell with demons laughing at you all the way.
There is an interesting piece in one of Julius Evola’s books on alchemy that deals with the development of an idealised other. You conceptualise the perfect being in which you’d like to develop yourself, paying attention to your current fears, shortcomings, et cetera, and once you’ve certified this idealised you (essentially creating a sort of servitor, but a mirror of oneself), you begin destroying yourself. Drugs, booze, women, attitude, behaviour, reduce it down to the most basic manifest characteristics.
This is obviously a shortened version of the whole bit, but in doing so you destroy what you thought was once you and at the brink of destruction, transfer consciousness to this idealised being that you’ve created. It’s a very Fight Club–esque sort of methodology.
It’s also bullshit.
PS - What is it with you and Fight Club, anyway? Are you ‘ghey’ for Brad Pitt or something? It was an okay movie, but get over it already!
Why do you have to destroy yourself to become the idealised double? I dont know that I get that part.
Between Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, they are the two most well-known contemporary pieces of literature dealing with ides of an alchemical nature — dealing with metamorphosis and, particularly in The Yellow Wallpaper, what I would consider the birthing of new semiotic interpretations.
I use them because people are familiar with them, and it’s a more effective method of sharing ideas. I apologise if I’ve offended you.
I would have to go back and re-read it. Something to do with the concept of the doppelgänger as an architectural blueprint of yourself on the “astral” or symbolic level. By destroying oneself, I am going to guess As above, so below, and you’ve nothing left except this idealised version of the strengths and beauties that you’d previously consecrated. Through the working, the doppelgänger is implemented when you’ve nothing left of yourself to lose, perhaps in a state of ecstasy or something?
I know I’ve read of similar workings in Buddhist and Gnostic literature. The Gnostic lit had to do with the idea of duality and being able to switch places with a sort of astral or Heavenly Christ-aspect that we all have. I am not sure if it’s in the same Evola text or not.
Now that I think about it, the whole doppelgänger thing reminds of metaphors used in Through the Looking Glass, too. It’s like coming to the brink and then actually switching yourself with the man in the mirror.
Oops, and I missed that part of the question. As to the why one would have to destroy oneself: you don’t have to. It was just one method detailed. I would suppose via trauma, the most intense changes can be wrought. It wasn’t the best suggested model to use, as it’s one of the most dangerous, but it came to mind with all this larval stuff.
Okay, you’ve caught my interest now. I read Fight Club and enjoyed it quite a bit. Found it stirring and well written and more than a little subversive. When the movie came out, I was glad to see that the film-makers didn’t butcher the source material. BUT… I never caught on to any alchemical elements (no pun intended) in either the film or the novel. Is there some place I could check that out?
I think I sort of see what you’re saying Fell. Several years ago, I was going through (yet another) really intense period of introspection, trying to figure out my life at the time. It’s when I first started writing, first started becoming aware of stuff like this.
What I did was made two lists. The first one was easy. It was things that I liked about myself. The second one was things that I didn’t. Guess how many more things were on that list? After a while of doing this it was really excrutiating and depressing to be so brutally honest with myself.
But at some point, it started turning around. I started to realize that all these things that I thought were “flaws” were the same damned things that make me who I am - even though I sometimes get hung up on them. In any event, I didn’t necessarily have to physically enact the attitude of destroying myself. Nor did I hold onto the good only and jettison the bad. But I still see the essential value in the technique you’re describing I think.
In Franz Bardon’s system of magic laid out in Initiation Into Hermetics, one of the first exercises he prescribes is what Tim is describing: the creation of two lists, one describing all of one’s positive traits and the other describing all of one’s negative traits, for future use in self-transformation and positivization.
One of the reasons for this is precisely because of problems such as larvae:
The use of the two lists aka the “black and white soul mirrors” is to discipline the self so as to avoid and eliminate self-created parasites like these larvae.
in sessions and in particular wieght loss sessions i use a guided imagery focus on the ideal(thin) version of the self. this image is generally drawn from the clients past, at a time when the person was thin.if this isn`t available then a constructed image is used, containing as much visual, tactile and auditory information as possible. no prior destruction is needed. obviously the undesired, overwieght person is destroyed, over time but food choices and exercise are the rituals used. my clients do report a sort of magic occuring over time, i am pleased to report.