LVX23, when I mentioned the "negative vibes" thing it was only in response to trouser's terse 'Happy Now?' comment (and only from that comment, not from anything else he said). Other then that I wouldn't say there's any bad blood here, in fact it's mostly good advice which I appreciate people taking the time of day to write.
I'm not saying the idea itself of magicians using cheat codes as reality hacking is original (for the record I've never read anything by Warren Ellis except "Transmetropolitan", and that was enough for me... In any event, it should be noted that he was looking at such an idea from a fictional viewpoint, whereas I see it as a helpful model that one can temporarily adopt for magical purpose, like any occult system). I would also like to say here that in no way would the entire book be written in the video game model, as that would get dull. There'd be quite a bit of stuff in there that wouldn't have anything to do with magic at all, though in most cases some electronics would still be involved (my techno-exorcism method, for example). The video game format is the carrot on the string to, as Dr. Frasier Crane so eloquently put it, "get the rubes in the tent" (similiar to how "The Invisibles" uses a spy-sci-fi plotline to entice the viewers slowly into it's philosophy, where the real magic lies). In case I come off sounding elitist here I'd like to say that right now I'm listening to Jesse McCartney's CD and later on will be watching a repeat of "Perfect Strangers" and laughing at the antics of Larry Appleton and his Meposian cousin Balki (I wonder if anyone has adopted the mythology of Mepos into their system? There's a rich untapped vein there, I think).
As for books being for nerds, well, they are my target audience in this case. And fanzines might be a good idea, wasn't that how Phil Hine started out? I definetly plan on showing some of this stuff to real life occultists I know and seeing what they get out of it, though it's a very personal system to me so the effects may not be as potent (which I find is often the case with most magical systems). Austin Spare's methods may not do me much good but their real value lies in the weird headspaces and creativity that they bring about in the reader. I would never write a book that wasn't creative, original, and the best i could write: My puritan work ethic alone prevents me from even considering doing something subpar...
As for Mario (and, for that matter, most video game characters) when they run out of "lives" then their game is "over", which, when viewed through a human spectrum, means they "die". In every case the character's divine spark has two choices, return to Hyla, the World of Illusion, Maya, (this is known as "continue") or they can select "end", reject the "Grand Illusion", move on to the Meon, the Void, delete themselves. In the first case the divine spark returns to the world with no knowledge of its former self, while in the second case the player simply chooses to step off the game board and do something else. When most people play video games, they lose quite a bit, but eventually they keep on playing until they beat the game and finally put it aside. In this we have a good metaphor for the idea of reincarnation, how we keep coming back until we reach an elevated state (beating the game) and trying on something new. Perhaps the person who struggles through the entire game reaches the same enlightened message as the player that chose to not play again earlier on: That is is just a game and nothing more, not something to cling to in an obsessive manner like some gamers are prone to do, to the effect it messes up their personal life. Mario, of course, isn't aware of his past lives, just as most of us would be unaware (I certainly am not, though I once did have a vision very much like an atavistic resurgence in which I recalled an existence stretching all the way back to the primal slime).
Of course, it should be said that Cartisian Duality can give birth to complexity. Now, we all know about the universe as hologram formed by two higher dimensions philosophy. When I read Achad's "Anatomy of the Body of God", there was one part that struck me, when he compared the Qabalistic Tree of Life to the body of Horus, formed by the intersection of Nuit and Hadit (a conclusion I myself had considered for quite some time). Now, Nuit (Universe -)is 0 (also symbolic of the vagina) and Hadit (Universe +) is 1, symbolic of the penis, and in the union of opposites we get the Hermaphrodite, and of course we're talking about the interaction between 1 & 0, which is the binary, simple language computers speak to generate complex programs.
I don't mind if you disagree with the model, Seth, to each his own. Surely there are many models out there I don't agree with but I'm not going to beat myself up over it. Knowing myself I'll probably try out many models over my lifetime, but at this present time I've found this model very effective. I'm not saying it's accurate, some kind of higher truth, at all. You don't even need the video game terminology really, I just prefer to use it because it's language I can associate myself with and words I enjoy to look at and type. It's not so much the words themselves but the emotions that lie behind the words. 'Love is just a word.' tee hee...
As for who is in control of us, who knows? Are we individuals, or just masks for beings we cannot even begin to comphrehend. I like to think of "The Sims" quite a bit. On one hand, even though they're computer programs, they do have some limited notions of free will and can act independently, even irrationally and unpreictable at times (once one of my sims was supposed to be sleeping so he'd have energy for work the next day: Then he hopped out of bed at 3:00 AM to go practice shooting hoops in his new basketball net outside). In the end, however, the player has ultimate control and can overide the Sim. Perhaps we're not so different, we think we are in full control of ourselves when in reality we're at the mercy of nature, the universe. Maybe right now as I type this there's some weird fourth dimensional being that just clicked for me to type pretentious "deep" commentary on some forum, and when I chose to go to sleep later my "programmer" simply wants me to regain energy so I'll be able to function well the next day. If this is true, of course, and I ever meet this chap, I'm giving 'im/'er a black eye for making me decided to get involved in retail for a few years. Naturally this is not a line of thinking I advocate on a regular basis, as one can easily see how it can become an excuse for not taking resposability for one's actions ("The Devil made me do it!") I'm just playing Devil's advocate, is all.
Haus, some people think books because they just really, really like books. They're fun to hold, for starters.
I really need to reply to these comments every few posts or so so my replies wouldn't be these long rambling monologues where I attempt to address everything that was said to me. I figure if people take the time to reply to something I write it's the least I can do to return the favor. Speaking of which, X, you don't need to be alone to do spells, in fact you can very easily do them inside your head, via astral temples and creative pathworking (good for getting into trance states). I've found that the people I've talked to who relate to astral temples the greatest are usually those who've designed video/computer games and thus are good at manipulating environments inside their heads. |
