So the Cycles are over and the alchemical process complete. Or is it? The seeds have been planted, will they germinate?
During my annual Yuletide cold, thankfully early this year, I recently found myself contemplating the Meaning of this cyclic journey. In a way this is a hopeless task, for in my view the whole play, or ‘hyper-sigil’ , was essentially meaningless, and in a sense that was the whole point, it was I think a transcendence of Meaning, or at least of ‘meaning’ as normally understood. Paradoxically at the same time it was rich in many meanings, many complex layers of alternative, and sometimes conflicting, meaning, some obviously deliberate, others apparently synchronistically generated. In fact a great part of the whole thing for me was the breakdown of the mono-meaning of conventional reality models, and the encounter with a kaleidoscope of multiple meaning. A rich and paradoxical panorama that better captures the essence of our complex reality. Whose dissonant expression and emotional intensity
accounted for much of the hilarity generated (ably catalysed by some genuinely humorous moments). But it was not mere comedy that we experienced, its dark humour partially cushioned us from the impact of some of its more intense and disturbing moments. It was a true dark night of the soul, a crossing the abyss, and an encounter with a paradoxical reality beyond our everyday world, a liminal space in between. A place that can only be fully reached by a catastrophic fragmentation or death of ego, and its reintegration and rebirth in a new self. The Negrido of the Alchemists that was the first step in turning shit into gold.
In many ways its chief metaphor, the downloading of new software into the hardware of the audience (the desired effect of experiencing this rite on them), reminded me of Dr Timothy Leary’s ‘activation and imprinting’ of higher ‘neural circuits’. And the imagery of the play could be easily read as fitting this model. No doubt other models were also there, but the ‘eight circuit’ model was certainly present in the play for me. What else was the Carnival but the Hedonic Rapture of Leary’s fifth ‘Neurosomatic Circuit’ with its Bacchanalian excesses and ‘seership’, but a place where we are liberated from convention and can glimpse a variety of alternatives across time and space, but can do nothing to really change anything? Probably many things but certainly this. According to Leary it is only when we activate our sixth ‘Neuroelectric Circuit’ that we can really begin to change ourselves and our reality. Here is the realm of simultaneous multiple meaning and alternatives, a chattering chaos of conflicting archetypal forces, until we imprint it with a coherent program that reorders it into something conceivable to us. It is also realm of psychic, non-verbal and non linear communication, where we may commune with other minds and be enlightened by ‘higher beings’ (perhaps parts of our true self), a veritable ‘Spirit Parliament’ in the true sense of the word. Such a shift in perspective is said to expand out consciousness greatly, and we not only become aware of other realities but are able to shift between them and change our own. It is often regarded as equivalent to the opening of our third eye or the birth of a sorcerer. But in order to reach this state we must first enter Chapel Perilous and be torn apart by all our internal conflicts and fears, only to be reborn as a new being. The same process was known to the Alchemists as the Negrido, the Blackening, or the encounter with the Black Sun. I would regard Dr Bleach as essentially the Dweller on the Threshold between these two states the Carnival and the Parliament, enticing the audience to cross it, as well as embodying the very process of the transformation. His Parliament consisting of the Gristly Machine (a container for the Deep Unconscious?), whose drives and powerful images energise the whole process, much like the serpentine Kundalini in Tantra (or Leary’s primal ‘Bio-Survival Circuit’?); the Uber-Marionettes, egoless, driven beings who channel the images and energies from the Machine into powerful, dream like ‘astral’ narratives (Leary’s ‘Emotional Circuit’?); Mr Sam, the rational technician who built and attempts to control the Machine (the egoic and rational ‘Symbolic Circuit’?) ; Aquinas, essentially the Conscience and Karma bearer (perhaps Leary’s domesticating ‘Socio-Sexual Circuit’ responsible for our socialisation);and finally the Queen of Illumination, at first the seer Priestess Kato, and later the Dionysian goddess Kiskil-Lilla, who in different ways could be seen as representing aspects of the ‘Neurosomatic Circuit’. Dr Bleach himself was ostensibly the Ringmaster of the hedonic circus, but really perhaps the demon Asmodai, the Choronzon like figure, who stands at the Threshold of the Abyss, drawing the archetypal energies of these lower states into the abyssal ‘Sixth Circuit’, and forming from these his Parliament, exposed to interrogation and tearing itself apart with its internal conflicts, it attempts to reintegrate into a new reality. An attempt which itself is perhaps a ritual demon-stration to the audience of what is possible, and an attempt to disturb their everyday mindsets and ‘download’ a new program. As Bleach himself claims he brings an Armageddon, perhaps both of an outer civilisation and the inner order of conventional thought and ego structure that underpins it. Though by the end we discover there is no end as we have stepped outside normal time and space. Time has ended. Each declining civilisation faces this possibility it is suggested, and can either change or be fragmented into the chaos and death of the Abyss (though it will formally die whatever path it takes), and Dr Bleach will call his Spirit Parliament in to catalyse this process. Other players emerge of course, not least Jehovah and his angels, who perhaps represent the illusory tunnel realities of the lower circuits, the forces of order , who may have once been ‘Good’ and necessary for the survival and advancement of our ancestors, but who now act as prison wardens, through the agency of the degenerate Christian Demon Joffiert, a tyrannical jail keeper, and her chief agent, the Wound. Forces of ‘Lawful Evil’ who maintain the status quo. In contrast to these is the ‘Chaotic Evil’ of the demon Asmodai and Dr Bleach who seek to break out of this prison into a new more liberated ‘Good’. Between these various hosts stand a range of neutral Elemental Forces, acting under the influence of the tidal forces generated by these great hosts.
Perhaps. Obviously that is just one of many rational cross sections of the complex events of these cycles, and not even a complete one at that for a play of such multi-layered depth and paradox. It, and other interpretations, may serve as a way of exploring and processing the experiences of the cycles, but ultimately it is not the creation of meaning that I suspect the author desired, but rather its disintegration into a chaotic flux in which many new multi-perspectival realities and truths could be experienced and learnt. It would thus be a mistake to diminish this to much by over interpretation.
I had no time to process all this myself immediately after the play as I was already focused on the Dionysian Underground’s own project, mentioned earlier in this blog. Not as ambitious as the Dark Night’s agenda but of equal importance on a planet still trapped in the hellish prison of its ‘everyday reality’. Our mission on the surface was merely the opening rite of a club called the Pleasure Lab, billed as an Erotic Electro club (essentially a cross between a fetish sex club and a 21st century disco). But the reality behind this appearance was as ever much deeper. For a civilisation still dominated by what Leary called the ‘Four Terrestrial Circuits’ of conventional reality, activation of the ‘Hedonic Fifth Circuit’ is of crucial importance, not to mention great fun. A circuit turned on by sex and excitement is never hard work for the Dionysian Underground, and its benefits extend far beyond the liberation of sexuality (crucial in itself), but also involve the Tantric ‘turn on’ of what Leary called the ‘Neurosomatic Circuit’. Bringing the Circus to town! Our own technique for this was a traditional evocation with a (post)modern twist. We first protected our space by generating not a circle but a magically expanding disco ball, reflecting all negative energies from the venue. Then under the guidance of our own Carnivaleque Ringmaster and Hedonic Evoker, and the assistance of daemonic fiddler called Orryelle, we raised up the energies of the Kundalini Serpent, through the ritual union of the twin currents of its energy, manifest as the God and Goddess, before spraying this energy out into the club in an explosive Magical Orgasm, activating the Hedonic Consciousness, whose fertilised Yonic energy then rained down on us all. The residual charge of this energy being stored in wine and bread, given to the audience, and each other, in erotic communion. The God and Goddess invoked for this rite were of course wild Dionysos and his traditional erotic consort Aphrodite, both of whom represent the life force in general, and particularly its sexual manifestation, but also are specifically associated with the Hedonism of ‘Fifth Circuit’ consciousness. There role as bearers of this convention breaking level of consciousness was symbolic emphasised by the invocation of Dionysos into a girl carrying a Yonic Chalice (the Cunt of Bacchus) and of Aphrodite into a Phallus bearing Maenad (the Cock of Venus). It was through the ritual union of these inverted Godforms that the energies were entwined and raised. All with the assistance of the initiating power of a Baphometic Pan, who represented the guardian of the source of the Kundalini in the Root Centre (a bestial god akin to Ganesh), and whose energies split into ‘male’ and ‘female’ forces (through the ritual raising and passing of the yoni and lingam from the altar) and were absorbed into the respective Godforms empowering them. The Hedonic Deities could thus raise and channel the energy into its desired manifestation. The audience then drank from the ‘Cunt of Bacchus’ and ate the ‘Cock of Venus’ in the Erotic Communion. Throughout the ritual two BDSM clowns disrupted any terrestrialising ‘gravity’, that could have been generated by the formal ritual, through their comic mimicry of the rite and foolish antics, thus allowing the energy to achieve ‘escape velocity’ and transcend the conventional domain into Hedonic Rapture. Which to the strains Led Zeppelin’s ‘a Whole Lot of Love’ initiated the orgiastic revels of the Bacchanal. This of course was merely the magical precursor of liberating activity that subsequently occurred in the club, and will hopefully continue in its future manifestations.
Pictures from the Rite can be found here http://trismegistus.org.uk/DU/Events/pleasurelab.htm
A ten minute video of it can be downloaded from here http://z13.zupload.com/download.php?file=getfile&filepath=57910
More on the Pleasure Lab here http://www.pleasurelab.org
Dr Timothy Leary’s theories are explored in more detail in this extract from RAW’s Cosmic Trigger here http://www.futurehi.net/docs/8circuit.html
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