Ong's Hat: Incunabula
Page 6
Perhaps the thorniest of all Quantum paradoxes involves the “collapse of the wave function” — the state of Schroedinger’s famous cat. When does a wave “become” a particle? At the moment of observation? If so, does this implicate human consciousness in the actual Q-structure of reality itself? By observing do we in effect “create?” The ICS team’s ultimate dream was to “ride the wave” and actually experience (rather than merely observe) the function-collapse. Through “participation” in Q-events, it was hoped that the observer/observed duality could be overcome or evaded.
This hope was based on rather “orthodox” Copenhagian interpretations of Quantum reality. After some months of in-tensive work, however, no one had experienced the sought-for and expected “moment”... each wave seemed to flow as far as one cared to ride it, like some perfect surfer’s curl extending to infinity. We began to suspect that the answer to the question “when?” might be “never!”
This contingency had been described rigorously in only one interpretation of Q-reality, that of J. Wheeler — who proved that the wave function need never collapse provided that every Q-event gives rise to an “alternating world” (the Cat is both alive and dead).
To settle this question a fourth generation of the egg was evolved and tested, while simultaneously a burst of research was carried out in the abstruse areas of “Hillbert space” and the topology of n-dimensional geometry, on the intuitive assumptions that new “attractors” could thereby be generated and used to visualize or “grok” the transitions between alternate universes.
Again the ICS triumphed... although the immediate success of the fourth-generation egg provoked a moment of fear and panic unmatched in the whole history of “Cognitive Chaos.”
The first run-through of the “Cat” program was undertaken by a young staff-member of great brilliance (one of the original Paramus runaways) whose nickname happened to be Kit — and it happened to take place on the Spring Equinox. At the precise moment the heavens changed gears, so to speak, the entire egg vanished from the laboratory.
Consternation would be a mild term for what ensued. For about seven minutes the entire ICS lost its collective cool. At that point however the egg reappeared with its passenger intact and beaming... like Alice’s Cheshire Cat rather than Schroedinger’s poor victim.
He had succeeded in riding the wave to its “destination” — an alternate universe. He had observed it and — in his words — “memorized its address.” Instinctively he felt that certain dimensional universes must act as “strange attractors” in their own right, and are thus far easier to access (more “probable”) than others. In practical terms, he had not been dissolved but had found the way to a “universe next door.”
The Gateway had been opened.
Where is Ong’s Hat?
According to Piney legend, the village of Ong’s Hat was founded sometime in the 19th century when a man named Ong threw his hat up in the air, landed it in a tree and was unable to retrieve it (we like to think it vanished into another world). By the 1920s all traces of settlement other than a few crumbling chimneys had faded away. But the name appealed so much to cartographers that some of them retained it — a dot representing nothing in the midst of the most isolated flat dark scrub-pines and sandy creeks in all the vast, empty and perhaps haunted Barrens.
W. Fard’s acreage lies in the invisible suburbs of this invisible town, of which we are the sole inhabitants. You can find it easily on old survey maps, even trace out the the old dirt road leading into the bogs where a little square represents the decrepit “Ong’s Hat Rod & Gun Club,” original residence. However, you might discover that finding the ICS itself is not so simple.
If you compare your old survey map with the very latest, you will note that our area lies perilously close to the region infamous in recent years, the South Jersey Nuclear Waste Dump near Fort Dix. The “accident” that occurred there has made the Barrens even more empty and unpopular, as any hard-core Pineys fled the pollution melting into the state’s last untouched wilderness. The electrified fence shutting off the deadly zone runs less than a mile above our enclave.
The Accident occurred while we were in the first stages of developing the fourth-generation egg, the Gate. At the time we had no idea of its full potential. However all of us, except for the very youngest (who were evacuated), had by then been trained in elementary self-directed generation. A few tests proved that with care and effort we could resist at least the initial onslaught of radiation sickness. We decided to stick it out, at least until “the authorities” (rather than the dump) proved too hot to endure.
Once the Gate was discovered, we realized the situation had been saved. The opening and actual interdimensional travel, can only be effected by a fully trained “cognitive chaote;” so the first priority was to complete the course for all our members. A technique for “carrying” young children was developed (it seems not to work for adult “non-initiates”), and it was discovered that all inanimate matter within the egg is also carried across with the operator.
Little by little we carted our entire establishment (including most of the buildings) across the topological abyss. Unlike Baudelaire who pleaded, “Anywhere! — so long as out of this world!” we knew where we were going. Ong’s Hat has indeed vanished from New Jersey, except for the hidden laboratory deep in the backwoods where the gate “exists.”
On the other side of the Gate we found a Pine Barrens similar to ours but in a world which apparently never developed human life. Of course we have since visited a number of other worlds, but we decided to colonize this one, our first Newfoundland. We still live in the same scattering of weather-gray shacks, Airstream trailers, recycled chicken coops, and mail-order yurts, only a bit more spread out — and considerably more relaxed. We’re still dependent on your world for many things — from coffee to books to computers — and in fact we have no inclination of cutting ourselves off like anchorites and merely scampering into a dreamworld. We intend to spread the word.
The colonization of new worlds — even an infinity of them — can never act as a panacea for the ills of Consensus Reality — only as a palliative.We have always taken our diseases with us to each new frontier... everywhere we go we exterminate aborigines and battle with our weapons of law and order against the chaos of reality.
But this time, we believe, the affair will go differently — because this time the journey outward can only be made simultaneously with the journey inward-and because this bootstrap-trick can only be attained by a consciousness which, to a significant degree, has overcome itself, liberated itself from self-sickness-and “realized itself.”
Not that we think ourselves saints, or try to behave morally, or imagine ourselves a super-race, absolved from good and evil. Simply, we like to consider ourselves awake when we’re awake, sleeping when we sleep. We enjoy good health. We have learned that desire demands the other just as it demands the self. We see no end to growth while life lasts, no cessation of unfolding, of continual outpouring of form from chaos. We’re moving on, nomads or monads of the dimensions. Sometimes we feel almost satisfied... at other times, terrified.
Meanwhile our agents of chaos remain behind to set up ICS courses, distribute Moorish Orthodox literature (a major mask for our propaganda) to subvert and evade our enemies... We haven’t spoken yet of our enemies. Indeed there remains much we have not said. This text, disguised as a sort of New Age vacation brochure, must fall silent at this point, satisfied that it has embedded within itself enough clues for its intended readers (who are already halfway to Ong’s hat in any case) but not enough for those with little faith to follow.
CHAOS NEVER DIED!
INCUNABULA 2.5
Advances in Skin Science: Quantum Tantra
An Interview with Nick Herbert by Joseph Matheny
“It’s always gooiest before it solidifies”
~ Beverly’s Ovation, Beverly Rubik Ph.D
“Quantum Tantra is not just another way to get high using common objects you can find around the house... Caution: Practising Q.T. before you understand Bell’s Theorem of interconnectveness is like walking into the Amazon jungle without a map.”
~ Alternate Dimensions, Jbir ibn Hayyan
Journal entries
October 13, 1992
I finally get a line on INCUNABULA. Following a lead from a culture-jamming club in San Francisco, I arrive in the small New Jersey town of Ong’s Hat. The address that I have for INCUNABULA is a P.O. Box. The local postmaster/general store operator was very helpful. Almost too helpful! He told me that Cranston and INCUNABULA books had fled the area one night about a month ago. I gained access to Cranston’s P.O. box key while the owner had his back turned and returned later to examine the contents. All I found inside were overdraft notices from his bank and some solicitations from a church of geniuses in Dallas, Texas or some such nonsense. Another dead end.
October 14, 1992
I arrive in New York City, get a room, restock supplies and think. I call New Jersey information to get the phone number for the Ong’s Hat general store and post office so I can ask the postmaster a few more questions. I am told by the inbred boob on the other end of the line that there is no such town listed in New Jersey, and after a long and heated debate, we terminate the phone call by mutually insulting each other’s gene pool.
God, I hate the phone company.
October 16, 1992
Two days (and two bottles of Johnnie Walker Black Label) later, I finally get a lead on one of the most intriguing authors listed in the INCUNABULA catalogue, Nick Herbert, author of Quantum Reality, Faster Than Light: Superluminal Loopholes in Physics, and of course, the legendary Alternate Dimensions. Herbert was a former SDI scientist turned renegade researcher. His past areas of renegade research involved pleasure dome technologies, Quantum Tantra (the Egg Yoke method), Time and Dimensional travel theories, and gelatinous substances.
I’ll give you a little background on Alternate Dimensions (A.D.). It was written in 1989 by Herbert, but was suppressed by the publisher, Harper & Row, for unexplained reasons in 1990 (see INCUNABULA & INCUNABULA 3).
INCUNABULA was offering bound, uncorrected galley copies for $100.00 each, or at least they were, until Cranston disappeared with the whole kit-n-kaboodle. In A.D., it seems that Herbert gave away the inner secrets of a Tantric-dimensional travel cult based in northern California. Using techniques that combined Herbert’s own theory of Quantum Tantra, and hardware technology, consisting of an egg-shaped craft of some sort, members of the cult were able to penetrate into other dimensions. There were also intense visualization techniques, and Tantric-Egg-Yoke postures involved, but the Xerox copy I had purchased from MediaKaos seemed to be missing some of the key technical portions.
Herbert was now hiding out in the backwater town of Boulder Creek, CA, deep in the heart of the Santa Cruz Mountains. I hopped aboard a plane to San Jose, and drove a rental car up to Boulder Creek. About a mile away from Herbert’s farm house, I called him on my cellular phone. Surprisingly enough, Herbert was very cordial, and agreed to meet me in town for lunch and conversation. He suggested Adelita’s Mexican Cantina, gave me directions, and promised to meet me there in an hour. I drove into town and went over my notes while I waited.
About an hour later, Dr. Herbert appeared in the parking lot driving a electric Stutz Bearcat kit car. I recognized him instantly from his jacket photos, even with the recently acquired beard. Was he attempting to change his appearance? Was he preparing to flee, like Cranston had 30 days ago? I casually reached into my jacket and activated my pocket recorder. I waved him over to my table, and after shaking hands we settled down to a lunch of Dos Equis and Gorditas.
“Okay,” I said, after some pleasantries about the weather, “let’s start with the obvious question: What is Quantum Tantra?”
“Well, psychology has used a lot of classic metaphors to explain the mind, like the hydraulic metaphor of urges building up, and even when repressed, they’ll find some way to spurt out to the surface. We’re told that releasing your repressions will relieve the pressure, and you’ll become healthy. That’s a very classical metaphor. Now we have this marvelous new way of thinking called quantum mechanics, and it seems right to use these metaphors to explain human behavior. So, what’s the most interesting human behavior of all? Sexual, of course. That’s the idea, to use quantum mechanical metaphors to explore sexuality, to look at it through the lens of quantum physics. I would consider Q.T. successful if we could find new things to do that never would have been thought, of using the old metaphors. I mean, of course, pleasant things (laughter). The core idea of Q.T. stems from Heisenberg’s statement that “atoms are not things.” So, Q.T. naturally extrapolated that statement into “well then people are not things, either.” People are not things in the same way that atoms are not things.”
“What are things?” I asked
“Things are entities that have attributes, whether you look at them or not. They’re big, they’re solid and such. You can list their attributes. Non-things, or Quantum objects, like atoms or molecules, don’t have attributes. They are basically clusters of oscillating possibilities, the possibilities not even being well-defined. It might reward us to look that way at people, as oscillating possibilities.”
He took a long draw off his Dos Equis, and signaled the waiter for another.
“So, try and think of what the essence of quantum theory is,” he continued. “Three adjectives: randomness, thinglessness, and interconectiveness. Randomness I associate with the spontaneity that is within people. Uncertainty is the very essence of romance. It’s what you don’t know that intrigues you.”
“Now, thinglessness is even more renunciatory,” he went on. “The notion of treating people like possibilities rather than fixed structures is a healthy one, I think.”
“Interconnectiveness is the most fantastic feature of Q.T. Things are connected in the quantum world in such a way that only did we not think of it before the discovery of quantum mechanics, but I don’t think we could have thought this way at all. It’s so strange. The terrestrial belief system that comes the closest to quantum connectiveness is Voodoo.”
“Sympathetic magick?” I queried. This was getting good.
“Yes, sympathetic magick,” he replied.
“Of course, the Voodoo conception is naive in comparison to Q.T.’s connectiveness. In Voodoo, you do something like burn someone’s hair to give them a headache. The Quantum connection isn’t that crude. It has more to do with timing. In the Quantum world, you burn someone’s hair, and maybe they miss an appointment. The Newtonian world view emphasized control over the world, whereas, the Quantum world view doesn’t emphasize control so much as timing. You could say that the Newtonian view emphasized force, where the Quantum world emphasizes finesse.”
“One analogy is ordinary steerable dish radar versus phased array antennae. Steerable dish physically moves the whole antenna structure. In the phased array antennae, you have a whole array that are all fixed. None of them move, but by changing the timing on these antennae, you get a virtual antenna that’s pointed in any direction. That’s an example of finesse, rather than force. Quantum connection is like that. It is set up like Voodoo by having something that the other person has interacted with, some sympathetic object.”
“But what does this have to do with sex?” I asked.
Herbert was quick to answer. “I’m getting to that. In Q.T., the Tantra part has to do with sex as well as religion. Every religion has their symbol. The Christians have the cross, Islam has the crescent and star, the Pagans have the pentagram, the wheel for Buddhism, and so forth. Q.T. has it’s symbols, also. One of them is this fork.”
He picked up a salsa-encrusted fork, and stared at it rapturously
.
“It reminds us to see the world as possibilities,” he continued. “In the Newtonian world, starting from now, only one thing could happen. Q.T. sees the future as open possibilities, like the tines of this fork. Actually, if this fork were fuzzy, like Man Ray’s fuzzy cup and spoon...”
I was beginning to understand. That or the Dos Equis was kicking in. I felt lightheaded.
“So the borders would not quite be defined...” I replied.
“Yes,” he said, eyes twinkling in the candlelight. “The possibilities are defined only by your intentions, by how you construe the moment. Quantum possibilities are not quite as defined as dice possibilities even. With a die, only one of six numbers will come up, whereas with Quantum possibilities, it depends on how you look at the moment, and that again, is part of thinglessness. All of these elements have resonances in popular literature. Like the talk of the inexplicable chemistry that occurs between two people, or this notion of ‘it’s bigger than both of us’. The type of connectivity that’s possible in quantum theory allows two connected entities to be in indefinite states , but allows the couple itself to be in a definite state! The mathematics on this are clear. As Heisenberg said, ‘quantum theory has changed our way of thinking completely,’ and it’s changed in such a way that it didn’t dissolve into some unclear fuzzy fog but into this absolute clarity of a new mathematics. Now, the mathematics describes the fog in a very precise way. So, it’s this kind of very precise unclarity.”
“You’re talking like a lot of mystics I know!” I scoffed.
He replied laughing, “Except, this is found in ordinary physics! This is stuff that was discovered 75 years ago. It’s not new stuff at all. It’s only now beginning to permeate popular culture. So, we have this system where each member of the pair, say, a man and a woman, or a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, or whatever, are defined. They’ve gotten themselves into a state where their individualities are not as clear, but the couple itself as an entity, is better defined than the individual members of the set. We use symbols, like the fork, to remind ourselves of these things, because the human mind is not yet used to thinking in parallels.”
“Our data rate is miniscule compared to say, television data rates equivalent to megabits per second, or telephones, which are equivalent to thousands of kilobits per second. Morse code is about 10 bits per second, and that’s pretty close to our attention rate! I mean, when we’re not on robot, when we do come to attention, we don’t bring much to this moment in terms of quantity. It’s been estimated at about 16 bits a second. So, people need simple graphic symbols, like the fork, or the cross, or the crescent, to remind themselves that they’re Moslems, or whatever. So, one symbol I’ve invented to epitomize Randomness, Thinglessness and Interconnectiveness is the trinity of White, Hot and Sticky. White corresponds to Thinglessness, Hot to Randomness, and Sticky to Interconnectiveness. By white, I mean like white light, all the colors together, all human sexual potentials. Thinglessness is wrought with possibilities. As David Finklestein, the inventor of quantum logic said, ‘We are all white light, in the sense that we are all possibilities.’ Hot has to do with newness, spontaneity that we can bring to the moment to remind us that the moment can be ever new. That’s a hard thing to live up to sexually, and otherwise. Sticky, of course, typifies the new kind connectiveness. A metaphor for achieving stickyness are objects that you break in two and each partner keeps one half. The fracture is unique, that I will only match one other person in the whole world! Quantum objects help to enhance this two-person white, hot, sticky state. And music is the connection in this technology.”
“Why music?” I asked.
“Because, these possibilities are vibratory,” he answered. “In the physical world, every atom, or possibility is vibrating at a certain frequency. The higher the energy level, the higher the frequency or pitch of the vibrations. We can’t hear, smell, see, or taste any of these vibrations except indirectly. I’m doing more research with solid state technology, sound sequences.”
“Ok, now what about Alternate Dimensions, the egg craft, the travel cults, Tantric-Yoke techniques, I mean, what about all this stuff!” I finally blurted, unable to hold back any longer.
“Young man, I have no idea what you’re talking about. All I can say is there are some questions that you should not ask directly, and some answers that may come as a result of finesse over force.”
“This interview is now concluded.”
Incunabula 3.0
Joseph Matheny Interviews the Elusive Emory Cranston
Journal entry 1/23/94
After interviewing Nick Herbert and being stuck with the check for lunch, I discovered that Mr. Herbert had scribbled a phone number on the back of the receipt before leaving. It was a New Jersey exchange. I recognized it almost instantly, and underneath it, the letters E.C. were scrawled. Finally, a lead! This had to be the phone number for none other than Emory Cranston, proprietor of INCUNABULA books. So, Cranston was still on Earth Prime, and accessible by phone. I went back to my motel room and dialed the number.
[ring]
[ring]
EC: Hello?
JM: Hi, is this Emory Cranston?
EC: Who wants to know?
JM: My name is Joseph Matheny. I got your phone number from Nick Herbert. I’m a reporter investigating the Ong’s Hat story, and I thought you might give me some insight into where you came across all the material in INCUNABULA. I got the catalogue from a group of Culture Hackers in San Francisco.
(silence)
Is this Emory Cranston?
EC: Who did you say you were again?
JM: A freelance investigative reporter doing a story on the travel cults and the Ong’s Hat Institute.
EC: And who gave you this phone number?
JM: Nick Herbert. I was trying to find out where INCUNABULA is located now.
EC: (Audible sigh on other end of line) Oh, well. At least he could have warned me. But it doesn’t really matter... after all, there’s no “here” here anyway, so I won’t be here tomorrow. Does that answer your first question?
JM: You mean INCUNABULA is located in “virtual space”?
EC: As far as you’re concerned, yes.
JM: Well, in the introduction to the INCUNABULA catalogue, you stated that you had uncovered “... a conspiracy so deep that no other researcher has yet become aware of it (outside of certain intelligence circles, needless to say) ...” Is that still true? Why hasn’t this become a more popular conspiracy theory? How did you come across this information?
EC: No, it’s no longer true. Since I published the catalogue, everything has changed. Everything! And look, this is no longer a “theory.” I admit, when I first published, I really didn’t know jack-shit about anything. Yes, I was a “conspiracy theorist”, how pathetic! Let me ask you, what kind of epistemological black hole... I mean, if the conspiratoligists “know” anything it wouldn’t be a “theory” anymore, would it? It’d be “fact.” Who killed Kennedy? Where are the UFOs from? They don’t “know”, do they?
JM: You have answers to these questions?
EC: Pal, I’ve got lots of answers! Alternative answers. Get it? But that’s not important. You ask why “my theory” isn’t better known or more “popular”? Why aren’t they discussing it at UFO conferences, eh? Why isn’t it on TV? Well, there’s an easy answer to that. The truth is never popular, and it’s never seen on TV! You know in your heart I’m right about this don’t you? If you think about what’s really important to you, you’ll realize it’s not popular and it’s never been seen on TV (or if it has... well then I’m sorry for you). It’s true, when I first came across the information... I was living in Chatsworth, in the Pine Barrens, near Ong’s Hat... I was doing a catalogue... Tesla, Reich, Bioshamanics, Hollow Earth, crop circles, Mae Brussell... that sort of thing. Strange stories were circulati
ng about the Institute out at Ong’s Hat. They wouldn’t talk to me. Then they disappeared. That’s when I got “really” interested and began collecting the literature. A few years later, I published the catalogue to see if they’d get in touch with me. I wanted to flush them out. I wanted to know.
JM: So what happened?
EC: Let’s just say I succeeded in stirring the shit beyond my wildest expectations. You know, most conspiratologists would die of shock if they suddenly received proof that their theories were real. You’ll notice that not one UFO “expert” has ever been abducted. And not one Kennedy-Conspiracy nut has ever been assassinated. These things happen to other people, not to Conspiracy Theorists, right? Well, let’s just say... that’s what I mean when I say... this isn’t a “theory” anymore.
JM: Do you feel endangered in anyway, being so outspoken about info that has obviously gotten some people killed? How do you deal with the danger? What precautions have you taken? Why are you talking to me for example?
EC: Why am I talking to you? There are reasons... reasons you don’t really need to know. Just go ahead and do what ever you intend to do. Publish. But be careful. At this point, the cat’s out of the bag, as Alice Schroedinger’s would say (laughs). I doubt they... I don’t think anyone would bother anymore... it’s gone so far beyond that. Now, as to my state of savvy when I published the INCUNABULA catalogue... you know how conspiracy buffs like to pretend they’re running a great risk... that hidden forces will try to silence them, blah blah. So buy my stuff now, before it’s too late, etc., etc. Not one of them really believes it. I didn’t believe it. I was extremely fortunate. The catalogue fell into the right hands... just about five minutes before it fell into the wrong hands. I was contacted. I was protected. Literally whisked away. In the nick of time. Next question, please.
JM: But...
EC: No no no. Read the catalogue. Think about it. Chances are you’ll figure it out. You were smart enough to find this phone number, after all. That’s why I’m talking to you. Next question.
JM: Ok. How many books have you sold? How many people do you think you’ve convinced?
EC: I’m not really running the catalogue anymore. It can’t be suppressed-it’s out there, it’s circulating. But I’m not selling the books now. Those who need the books, get the books. I don’t need the money, after all. Those who can really read the catalogue and figure out the next step... well, not everything in INCUNABULA is accurate, of course. But the clues are there. Follow the garden of forking paths. Ah, how many, you ask? I can tell you exactly. The answer is precisely 16 people have followed the thread so far. We’re aware of another dozen or so who are working on it. At a certain point in their researches they’ll be helped... if possible. One may blunder, you see. Some tracks lead to the Minotaur, know what I mean? And some of those dozen or so are working for the wrong people. They won’t be helped.
JM: How did you obtain the more “esoteric” material, like Alternate Dimensions by “Jabir ibn Hayaan” aka Nick Herbert?
EC: Oh, Alternate Dimensions can hardly be called one of the more “esoteric” titles in the list. After all, Herbert was still a Theorist when he wrote it. The book is actually wrong on a number of points, though quite brilliant as an approach. The fact is, I tracked down Dr. Herbert when I was assembling the catalogue. I’d read his other work and realized he must be heading in the right direction. At first he wouldn’t talk to me at all. He suspected I was an agent of whatever Shadowy Forces were trying to suppress the book and succeeding. From various angry remarks he dropped I was able to piece together the story. His manuscript and files had been stolen right out of his house, and the publishers refused to return their copies or any of the page proofs. They were stonewalling him. So I... well, I stole it.
JM: What?
EC: I went to the publisher. I had a very strong intuition as to which group was blocking publication. I posed as an agent of that group. Apparently I was correct, and it seems I knew enough to convince the publisher of my bona fides so to speak. He was so glad to hand over the book you’d’ve thought it was a bomb! Later he was fired. I suppose he’s lucky to be alive, the schmuck. I copied the proofs and returned the originals to Dr. Herbert. He agreed to let me list it. After all, it was the only way his work was ever going to be distributed. Of course it’s a moot point now. I mean, the book is seriously out-of-date and there’s not going to be a revised edition.
JM: Well, it’s obvious that you’ve been in contact with some of the travel cult members. Can you tell me who?
EC: That would be telling.
JM: Aw, come on! This is not turning out to be much of an interview.
EC: Nonsense, young man. What I’m giving you is gold, pure gold. All right, then... would it surprise you to hear that you’ve already met a fair number of “cult members”? The heiress in the Berkeley Hills who knows all about Tarantula venom? That Irish humorist who lives in James Joyce’s Martello tower in Howth, outside Dublin? The aging psychedelic guru... the so called Persian Anarchist... the so called Satanic rock-star... the Montana cowboy-secret-agent-hacker... the cyberpunk Sci-Fi Surrealist...
JM: No! They would’ve told me...
EC: Guess again.
JM: I believe you’re... you’re disinforming me here, Mr. Cranston.
EC: Check it out.
JM: I will.
EC: Do. Next question.
JM: Um, ok. Uh... what new information have you come across since the catalogue was published? What new developments have there been in this “science” of travel?
EC: I can’t really tell you that. “Cult member” means nothing now. All the players know who the other players are. I’m not giving anything away. But... new developments on the tech end? No. Certain people could gain an edge just from a vague description... well, I can tell you a few things. A paper came out right after my catalogue, so it’s not listed, but everyone knows about it by now. It’s by Suhrawardi. It’s called Not the Egg, the Joke, a bad pun on yoga. Eggless travel has become S.O.P. for advanced Travellers. Some permanent doorways have been constructed which work even for non-initiates, sort of like The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. They’re very nicely camouflaged. Fu Manchu couldn’t do better. And, of course, they’re guarded.
JM: Raiders of the Lost Ark...
EC: Eh? Oh yes... booby trapped. Definitely. It’s a zero-sum game I’m afraid. Either you’re on the bus or you’re not on the bus. The Gateways... that’s what we call them. The Gateways have to be there for those few who, shall we say, solve the catalogue without any help from any group. People that smart do exist — I have to admit I wasn’t one of them! I compiled the catalogue and even I didn’t “get it” ! But people who are capable of such... such quantum jujitsu, are people we need. For them the Gateways aren’t guarded, but protected. As for the others who might somehow locate the transnational nexi... well, you know who I mean...
JM: No, who?
EC: The Tri-Lateral Commission! Read the catalogue! Figure it out! Who knows? Maybe you’ll need to know one of these days.
JM: Is the secret government still active in this area, and if so what do they hope to achieve?
EC: Are you implying that because a “liberal” regime has taken over from a “conservative” regime that you people are free of “secret government”? Haven’t you heard of the present leader’s fascination with “virtual reality”? Where do you suppose power comes from, an “Invisible College” of “Illuminati”? (I use the terms metaphorically, of course.) Nothing has changed... only gotten hotter. In Baghdad... no, forget I said that. Scratch that. Dump the whole file. Next?
JM: Hmmmm, ok. Have you been to Earth2 or any of the other “worlds” and is this where you’ve been hiding?
EC: Well, no harm in telling you I suppose. Yes, in fact I’ve been spending quite a lot of time in Java2. It’s not even a security thing anymore, really. Or not always. The truth is that, well, you can’t possi
bly imagine a whole world for a utopia, complete with flora, fauna, picturesque ruins, and maybe, oh, ten people per square continent. Fresh air ! That alone is enough to... a universe next door, let’s go! (was it e.e.cummings who said that?)
JM: And if that one gets too crowded?
EC: Precisely. A number of Davy Crockett types have already “moved on” where they can’t see the smoke of their neighbors fires, to put it mildly. We have no idea of the extent of the Series it may be “infinite” for all practical (or impractical) purposes.
JM: Why not just tell everybody, then?
EC: Would you want to be responsible for infecting the halls of infinity with, say the L.A. Police? Do you think the Pentagon deserves infinity? And what if it isn’t infinite, etcetera?
JM: Who were the occupants of Java2, that left behind the ruins?
EC: Well, that’s the biggest news of all really. We found them — or rather they’ve found us. They claim to be an alternative evolutionary branch of Homo Sapiens through H. Javanensis and H. Neanderthalensis. They look like they’re descended from lemurs rather than chimps, like us. A bit like the characters from Javanese shadow puppet plays. They discovered how to travel long ago, in a time we might think of as the time of Atlantis or Mu (only we would be wrong.) It’s all rather Lovecraftian in as much as they claim to be responsible for certain aspects of human culture, aspects which are uncanny but not maleficent. Not only in Java — the Tuatha de Danaan of Ireland who vanished “underground”, and other “faery” and “hollow earth” clues... the whole idea of another physical world, not a heaven or hell, but a Magickal universe next door... anyway, we were wrong about them travelling in time, either fast forward or backward. They simply set out to explore the Series. They think it may be endless, and some decided to return “home” to Java2. They’re a completely non-hierarchic segmentary society, like primitive hunter/gatherers, but with a highly evolved culture. A lot of Terrans have completely “converted” to their way of life, even their language. You should hear their music! The returnees brought back some of their artifacts and... well, “furniture,” I guess you’d call it. Their ancestors built a city during a “High Civilization” period in their history, but they rejected hard technology for cognitive sciences long ago. Our travel techniques are crude by comparison and lacking their whole mythopoetic value system. We’re planning soon to release certain archival material here in Earth Prime, certain bits of art and music which we expect to act in a viral fashion to produce profound paradigm shifts. The traveller’s culture is now, I believe, our most effective “weapon”.
JM: So what’s your bottom line — is this all co-creative or what?
EC: A smartass question.
JM: No, really.
EC: Who can say? What about our own cosmic locale, our own provincial reality? You can’t make it go away by ceasing to believe in it. “Give me a place to stand and I’ll move the world” but there is no noplace-place, no “outside” vantage point, from which to challenge consensus reality. “Magick” is notoriously difficult and vague, and terribly incremental — the utopian imagination seems futile. Reforms of consciousness appear to fail, unless they implement the emergence of new ruling classes or elites. “Religion” is a perfect case in point. But was religion the cause of “civilization” or the effect? Now... however, you see... it’s a whole new game. There is an “outside” now, maybe an infinite number of outsides, places to stand with a lever in one hand and a magic mushroom in the other. The dispossessed have always believed in a millennium, a magickal resistance, a heaven on earth, a world turned upside down. This is it. Well, time’s up.
JM: I had a million more questions. In fact...
EC: This phone number and address will become inoperative. Don’t call us, we’ll call you. And don’t worry. The Reality check is in the mail.
[click]
(JM’s note: the phone was indeed disconnected the next day, and the premises it was registered to vacated with no forwarding address left)
Afterword
by Joseph Matheny
Many people have asked me over the years what I think this all is. So, I’m going to give you what I think in a nutshell. Or should I say Eggshell? What I think the Incunabula represents is an entrainment module for quantum thinking. It is packed full of memes and concepts that do not yield up singular answers but rather lead to a form of quantum logic that supersedes singular answers and, more importantly, the need for singular answers. There may not actually be a secret plan for building an Egg, and the Egg as a physical travel device may not even be the point. However, the Egg as a symbol is all-important. I’m going to do the unthinkable here and refer you to a book. It is available for free on the Internet with a little hunting. That book is John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica, also called The Hieroglyphic Monad. Find it. Read it. That is all I am going to divulge about that connection. It is very important to the process of grokking the connections in the Inucnabula that you make the synthesis all on your own with no hand holding. This is true for several reasons, not least among them the imprint process, which is enhanced by “aha!” moments. I am sure my recommendation will once again go down as the ravings of the “Colonel Kurtz” of the Incunabula crowd, as I have already been called. So be it.
I personally believe that humanity in its present form is not ready or capable of travel to other dimensions. Nor do I think we’d be welcomed by many species that are, or by those we would encounter in other worlds. We still carry too much baggage. At the very least we should be responsible and not carry our disease to other worlds. We should get our own affairs in order, evolve a bit more—or die trying—before venturing out as carriers of the human meme.
Looking back through the ages, one can clearly see that humankind is not the first, nor will it be the last, experiment in consciousness. One only has to look around with clear and honest eyes to see that this present form (humankind) has clearly plateaued and has been skidding across the plateau for some time now. As is the rule with this described state, what sets in is entropy.
One must disentangle from the last traps, namely those of nostalgic romanticism and fear, and get on with the next step. Whether you or I personally want it to happen is of no consequence anyway, now, is it? Why not be a disrupter to the predominant paradigm instead of just going along for the ride? Maybe by participating in the end, we’ll ensure our inclusion in the new beginning.
Humankind only holds the potential to explore other dimensions. It’s not guaranteed. The information stream encrypted within the Incunabula is not for everyone and the laws of evolution would seem to support that. The first appearance of a mutational curve in a species represents 2% of the total population. Through attrition, the 2% which have mutated to be more adaptable to the changing environment eventually become the 100%, and then another 2% pops up; rinse, repeat, ad infinitum.
Evolution=Change=Chaos
If you’re not sure what I mean by chaos, study the nature of chaos in fractals and the work of Ralph Abraham, especially his book Chaos, Gaia, Eros: A Chaos Pioneer Uncovers the Three Great Streams of History. Then, come back to that formula and I think you will see that I am not espousing riots in the streets (although that may be a symptom of the change), but rather a return to the primal matrix of creation, the Qabbalistic 0, the Formless Ocean.
It would seem that our mission as agents of change is to prepare ourselves, our particular consciousness node, for… well, SOMETHING. Should you accept this mission, be aware that it is a long, hard and lonely road, since you are one of only 2% of the total and that is a low overall percentage. However, you can go to sleep each night knowing that you are facilitating the arousal of the new form and, looking around, you may have moments of clarity and say to yourself, “It’s about time.”
I leave you now.
CHAOS NEVER DIED!
Good luck. Will I see
you “over there”?
Joseph Matheny
From somewhere deep in the Santa Cruz Mountains