LET'S PUT THE CTHULU BACK IN CHRISTMAS

It’s not about the monster show, the man in the rubber suit that jumps out of the dark. A B-movie or a rollercoaster can accomplish as much. That is a momentary scare, not something that freezes your soul until you can never be warm again.

The most frightening thing in the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft isn’t the ichor dripping from the jaws of elder gods, or the thought of vulnerable flesh being pierced and stripped from our bones by the scuttling claws of unnamed things that the very sight of would drive men to insanity. We already have diseases enough that do that to our bodies in microcosm, and in our visible world men build machines to destroy other men, women and children in a hundred ways to teach us that our hopes and dreams and ideas of beauty and truth are easily turned to garbage for dogs and crows.

The horrible perception of reality in Lovecraft comes when his characters feel the weight of aeons before humanity ever existed and the endless stretch of darkness after our last spark is gone. It is the awareness of the indifference of the universe that is represented by the metaphor of Lovecraft’s Elder Gods. You matter no more than a speck of sand that dreamed it was a mountain once.

In contrast, in, I hope, unending opposition, we have the symbolism of Christmas Eve: that an indifferent universe heard Job’s complaint, and took on human form. I am well aware of the historical evidence that makes the baby Jesus just one of many gods and avatars of the same idea; I usually find myself better read on the subject than most of Christianity’s critics and defenders.

It seems to me that these half-informed debates over the historicity of Jesus are beside the point. The conservative Christians and Muslims, with their simpleton’s insistence on their faith as literal and exclusive “fact”, do more damage to religion than the most science-bound atheist.

I have faith in certain metaphors as the potential salvation for mankind. Shelley was right about that much, when he called poets the secret legislators of mankind, even if he was a dope about sailboats. I feel anger and pity for those religionists who claim, “If every word in my holy book [insert title here] is not literally true, then all my faith is in vain.” A pretty shoddy faith, if it’s so easily undone.

It’s the meaning we attach to a vulnerable child that spits in the eye of Lovecraft’s indifferent, cold stars, and the marketplace sensibility of the social Darwinist capitalists who dominate our culture, and the mechanistic reductionists who sneer at love and the nuturing impulse as mere chemical predestination.

The ox and ass of the nativity crèche were once recognized by Egyptians as Osiris and Set, giving their blessing to the new god bedded down in their hay. If the self-important, indifferent to human suffering god of the Old Testament would give up his place of prominence to an unwed mother from a gynophobic culture and an all-too-human child, then surely that’s a good thing for the rest of us? Let us be tender towards the universe tonight as if it were a small child, and if the Elder Gods are still cruel, then that's their problem, not ours. Punk-ass slime monsters.

JAMES MADISON SAY SIGNIFYING MONKEY IS GONNA GET YOUR MOMMA

The science that inspired my Twilight Tales story "Signifying Monkey" [warning: graphic violence and sexual language*] is in the news again with a story about robots controlled by human thoughts and another hopeful story about applications for amputees. And again, I call for a memorial to be built to the experimental subjects, animal and human (remember the yellow fever volunteers, and Dr. Erlich's assistant?) that have given up their agony in the service of humanity. Kalamazoo is a pharmecutical town and I'd like to see a gentle tribute here in Bronson Park, along with our memory of the GAR, Lincoln's visit and the Boxer Rebellion.


I wish humans were benevolent enough to Use This Power Only For Good, but then I know that the military began this line of thought in order to create robotic soldiers. We 're not the only ones; Israel is working on a nanotech "hornet" like the hunter-seeker in DUNE, and Lord knows what the Chinese will get up to.

Reginald Hudlin, in his fine revival of the Black Panther, posits a US fighting force that uses dead soldiers as cybernetically controlled fighting zombies, and I suppose that would be next. Horribly, the thing that makes this a "comic book" idea isn't the outre science: in the real world, most militaries still find it cheaper to use up live meat than to spend all that money on hardware to reanimate the dead.

"If men were angels," James Madison says, "no government would be necessary." My students hear that phrase constantly as an explanation for the Constitution and my sad-but-true refutation of the anarchist dream. Now it seems we need to leash engineers and physicians who use their dark art to hurt rather than heal.



* Five bucks says that warning inspires someone to read the story for the sole purpose of being offended.

JUNG'S TOWER and PERSONAL MYTHOLOGY, Part Three

[Continued from Part Two]...

.... Four years later, Jung's "testament in stone" reached its penultimate state: "I added a courtyard and a loggia by the lake, which formed a fourth element that was separated from the unitary threeness of the house." This fourth element opens the self up to nature and the sky, to the divine and the cosmos. The courtyard is a part of the house but it is also connected to something far beyond the Self. to look into the eye of God.

Twenty years later, after the death of his wife Emma, Jung made his last addition to the building, an upper story added to the central section. "I felt an inner obligation to become what I myself am," Jung explains to himself in Memories, Dreams, Reflections, "I could no longer hide myself behind the 'maternal' [Part I] and the 'spiritual' towers [Part II]. I added an upper story to this section, which represents myself, or my ego-personality."

Why this fifth stage of development in the structure? What more is there to build, after the womb, action taking action in the world, after withdrawal into the self, after the open courtyard perceiving the eternal? There is the final act that mystics speak of as bringing the divine down to this world and rising up to meet it so that the two are one, indistinguishable from one another. This is what the design of the Star of David represents with its two triangles meeting to form a single star: "As above, so below"; "I and the Father are One".

This concept is common to many mystic traditions. In Kundalini yoga, seven "chakras"-- levels of spiritual development-- are imagined at seven points in the human body. The penultimate chakra, on the forehead between the eyes, represents a level of development wherein "God", or the "Universe", has finally revealed itself to the seeker-- but the ultimate chakra is higher still, at the crown of the head, where the mystic becomes one with the divine, no longer separate, beyond polarity. The Christian mystic Meister Eckhardt speaks of "the leaving of God for God for God"-- that is to say, growing beyond one's preconceptions in order to discover the true mystery.

As a caveat, this might be the time to tell the story of the moth who spent all night banging against the glass of a lantern trying to reach the flame within. When he went home the next morning, he told his friends, "I've seen God!", and his friends replied, "You don't look any better for it."

Had Jung attempted this stage of spiritual development at any other time than in his old age, it would have been a gross act of inflation. Coming at this time of life, his acknowledgement of ego is a simple act of recognition, like crowning a piece in the game of checkers when it reaches the other side of the board. "I felt an inner obligation to become what I myself am... Earlier, I would have regarded it as presumptuous self-emphasis. Now it signified an extension of consciousness avhieved in old age."

How much of the tower's evolutionary design was intentional, and how much was unconscious? Jung hints that he knew perfectly well what he was doing with this pun made of stone, when he speaks of the marker stone outside the tower: "The stone stands outside the Tower, and is like an explanation of it. It is a manifestation of the occupant, but one which remains incomprehensible to others. Do you know what I wanted to chisel into the stone? 'Le cri de Merin!' For what the stone expressed reminded me of Merlin's life in the forest, after which he vanished from the world. Men still hear his cries, so the legend runs, but they cannot understand or interpret them."

The truly transcendent experience cannot be described; it cannot be adequately translated to others. As the Sufis say, "To taste is to know"-- words are not experience. As the Sufis (and young animals) say, "To taste is to know"-- words are not experience. It is as the naturalist Loren Eiseley explained, after his own transcendent moment involving a wild fox cub, a chicken bone, and a moment of play: "The universe was swinging in some fantastic fashion around to present its face, and the face was so small that the universe itself was laughing... It is the gravest, most meaningful act I shall ever accomplish, but, as Thoreau remarked of some peculiar errand of his own, there is no use reporting it to the Royal Society."

Jung's Bollingen is like a magician's tower from fable: the edifice is not just a representation of his temporal power, but synonymous with the magician itself. Unlike the tower made from faery dust, Bollingen did not collapse when its magician died, perhaps because of the integrity of the craftsmanship.

'V' FOR VENDETTA IN WASHINGTON DC

A foundation calling itself "We the People" have sponsored first one, then almost 100, and, they hope, 1000 protestors dressed as the Alan Moore character "V" to appear on the streets of Washington DC next year. They wish to present petitions asking for a "redress of grievances" from the government, calling attention to the gross offenses committed against the Constitution by our current government.

This is what happens after fifty years of civics, history and the odious "social studies" teachers whose primary focus is on coaching sports:
".... Some people were interested in conversing with “V,” including a group of 6-10 college age young people who were waiting in a line to tour the Capitol. During the conversation, “V” said he wanted to quiz them on their knowledge of the Rights covered by the First Amendment. “V” asked if they could name the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. Two or three immediately said “Speech.” After a moment or two one said, “Worship God.” “V” restated that freedom for the young man. Then another said “Guns.” “V” corrected him. That was as far as the young people could go in answering the question. “V” then engaged the young people in a discussion of all five of the freedoms and the four outstanding Petitions for Redress. The young people stayed with the conversation, expressing an interest in learning more, until they had to move along in the line."

Martin Nodell, 1915-2006

Martin Nodell, creator of the Green Lantern: "I picked out the name from the train man on the tracks who was waving a lantern, going from red to green.... green meant go and I decided that was it. Then I needed a colorful and interesting costume. I was interested in Greek mythology and so the costume took on elements of that. It just all fell into place. When I sent it in, I waited into the second week before I heard the word to come in... I did the first five pages of an eight page story, and then they called in Bill Finger to help. We worked on it for seven years. After that, I retired from comics and went into advertising. I came back to comics in 1981, when I began touring comic art conventions with my wife, Carrie. I've been at it ever since and have enjoyed every minute. At the Megacon this year, a young lady showed her admiration for the character by dressing up as a member of The Green Lantern Corps-- what a thrill!"
Forgive a moment of tenderness for a man I never met and a childhood remembrance: when I was a very small child, being kept quiet with my neighbors' comic books, long before I discovered the more sophisticated charms of Marvel's Silver Age, I always kind of had a soft spot for DC's Green Lantern.
The stories were never as good as the platonic idea of the character or the imagery of that emerald light and the chiaroscuro it created-- I don't think I've read but one or two "Green Lantern" comics since early childhood, with the exception of Neil Gaiman's wonderful adult fantasy, "The Heart of a Star" in ENDLESS NIGHTS about how the light and the lanterns and the good people of Oa came to be.
The thing is, I always remembered the Oaths, and the Lanterns chosen for being honest and brave, and the importance of the light in so much darkness. A silly child's totem, perhaps, akin to T.H. White's foolish candle in the wind that Arthur tries to guard, or the flickering candle wrapped in barbed wire to represent the prisoners sought by Amnesty International...

And what shall we live by instead, when we become adult and too sophisticated for dreams of justice and the belief that Truth would have a virtue and power of itself? Adopt the cynical pose of the culture of television-baby hipsters? The realpolitik of a Kissinger and his clones? Become small and mean instead?