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Invisibles Virgin

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11:25 / 04.10.02

Okay, after years of Rex insisting that I read the Invisibles, I finally am.

I have gotten into one issue, by three pages and no word of a lie...my bloody head won't stop, my shamanic centre feels as if it has been impaled and I am having strange dreams about my brain being an egg and reptiles (dragons maybe) hatching from my head.

Uhh, what is going on? Like I said, I am only three pages into this and the magick contained therein is most powerful. I am unsure of the intent but, does anyone know?

Besides, now I kinda feel dirty, tainted, you know?

~May

11:28 / 04.10.02

No idea May. Reptiles hatching from your brain sounds kinda fun though. Maybe the big build up to reading it, being on Barbleith etc. has fed into your experience and is making it a bit more intense than normal?

12:57 / 04.10.02

Reptiles hatching from your brain sounds kinda fun though

Yeah, this is your brain on Invisibles.

Maybe it is all the hype Mr. Illmatic.

Really, it is a strange repulsion and attraction....I am not sure if I should continue reading it.

15:03 / 04.10.02

Which issue? The first three pages of #1 are kinda dull, IMHO...True, you've got the cool conversation between KM and Elfayed, but then you just get Dane and his social realism period...The weirder stuff later on in the book is better, tho.

Can't say as I felt exactly the way you feel, May - I have a theory that years of exposure to comics allowed me to build up some kind of immunity to the more extreme effects of issue one - but I do remember thinking, very clearly, as I read the scenes with Gideon and Edith, and the Harmony House sequence, and all that, that this book was gonna be the shit. And it was.

Needless to say, once I'd got a few issues into the series, wyrd shit got going big-style: I think I speak for most of the kids here when I say that The Invisibles was what got me into chaos magic.

Which was, of course, exactly the way Grant planned it...

Go on and keep reading it, May. Those 'dirty' feelings are perfectly natural for a girl - they're not a thing to be ashamed of. Be proud!

15:12 / 04.10.02

Tainted how? I'm curious...

As far as reading more, you've got a bunch of options. You can, of course, stop. You can pause, wait for the unease to settle, let whatever's been triggered get integrated, and then go for another small dose. Or, you can wait until November when the final trade edition comes out, treat this as a full-on shamanic journey and swallow them all at once, then see what comes out the other side...

Interesting that you also have reptiles in your head. I've had the experience of having the snake that lives at the base of my brain wake up, kind of stretch and shift, then curl up and go back to sleep as a physical sensation... ('course, I was on hallucinogens at the time, but it was profound nonetheless)

I like the idea of brain as egg - thanks for that visual. They hatch things out all the time: memes, behaviors, art, worldviews and consensual reality. I'm going to start viewing my magickal acts as launching hatchlings with conscious intent, see what happens from that framing.

[Shrieks of laughter] Darlin' - Grant Morrison just fucked (with) your head (egg). The hatchlings have to be something other than normal! [/shrieks]

16:38 / 04.10.02

Those 'dirty' feelings are perfectly natural for a girl - they're not a thing to be ashamed of. Be proud!

Thank you Velvet, I usually am. These are different though. I'll explain...

Tainted how?

First of all, this fucks with a timeline. I don't know what timeline that is nor do I know what the hell for. I fuck with timelines too, could these timelines meet up or crossover and mess with each other via my intent of being?

I am losing my reference point here and I think I still need that to function here.

I feel tainted because...err, this is hard to explain. Let me think about it.

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

17:15 / 04.10.02

I am losing my reference point here and I think I still need that to function here.

While I have no idea what "here" you are refering to, I know exactly what you are talking about when you say you feel like you are losing your reference point. One night at school, I was by myself in a small house for longer than is probably healthy when all you've got to read are Invisibles issues and books on Qabalah (I got into both for the first time at the same time), and I could have sworn I went insane for a while. It's all kinda hazy, but I remember thinking "my anchor's been pulled up, my anchor's been pulled up...where am I going? Where's the current taking me? Does it matter?" I was cast adriff. It was pretty bizarre.

Then the phone rang and my conditioned response brought me back to "reality" and I felt a lot better. Smoking helps.

17:39 / 04.10.02

Smoking does help, Johnny O. Invisibles really is like a drug, I cannot eat either. I am so happy to know I am not the only one who has/is experienced/ing this, I kinda feel crazy, but, atleast I am in good company.

Your anchor metaphor is perfect too. I feel tossed about a bit by uhnknown currents.

This is effing phenomenal.

18:53 / 04.10.02

I remember not caring for the first issue I read of The Invisibles (somewhere in volume 2), and deciding not to keep buying. After a few months, I felt compelled to reread the comic and reread it and keep doing so until I had no choice anymore. I sometimes think it rewrote my taste in comics specifically to enjoy Grant Morrison. None of this seemed altogether spooky, though. A bit odd, maybe, but not terribly so.

Wrecks City-Zen

20:42 / 04.10.02

>>> Remember the agonizing 30 (sometimes more) days between each Goddamn issue? It would drive me nuts as I would read the issue and then the previous issues...over,and over again until the new installment. God, I miss those days.<<<

BTW There used to be this really great site for talking about the Invisibles...it was Barbapapa or Barbie-something..I'll look it up.

My tounge, your cheek ... Re:XXX

22:36 / 04.10.02

... and exp's rancid anus.

The Invisibles is a heavy one, indeed. It's not something which is easy to decode, but it's very rewarding if you spend enough time dwelling on it. It is certainly not something that should be judgeed until you have read the entire run, and re-read it at least twice.

There are moments that are more difficult than others, for a newbie. Keep at it. It it can depend on which issue you happen to read first. Which one broke your cherry?

04:40 / 05.10.02

There are moments that are more difficult than others, for a newbie. Keep at it. It it can depend on which issue you happen to read first. Which one broke your cherry?

Ohh, that precious piece would be issue #6 from I do not know what volume BUT! ....it was called "The Girl Most Likely To"

Does that help? I hope so.

04:46 / 05.10.02

Perhaps the best issue of the entire run. I can't tell you how many sigils I wanked to trying to win the script to that one.

10:57 / 05.10.02

Ah yes, second part of 'Time Machine Go, in vol 2...The first three pages of that are more than enough to blow anyone's mind.

13:49 / 05.10.02

I have such an Invisibles hangover.

You know the type you get after coming down, where you are famished and could sleep for days? That's the one.

I do not think I am going to read anymore of this. I am, as an experiment, going to buy all the trade paperbacks (once they are all out) and read it all at once, on some long weekend perhaps.

This is way too powerful for me to just grab a bite of it here and there...this is a magickal feast. Besides, I do feel a bit tainted, yes.

Maybe I can explain that now. Arrgh! Maybe I can't. .......................nevermind

Let's just say, I have no intimate, prior knowledge of Invisibles, period.

I think this could be a whole magickal working though. It just freaks me out that I do not know what the hell it is for. Should I bend to GM's will? Is it GM's will? Do The Invisibles have a will of their own? Can anyone answer these questions?

~May

16:15 / 05.10.02

Maybe you should get the trades and read it in order. You know, even if the Invisibles isn't a linear piece there's still method to the madness

16:57 / 05.10.02

Grant has gone on record as saying that the Invisibles is 'an evolving narrative hypersigil', which I would interpret as meaning that while the book certainly does fulfil the requirements Grant set out for it in his sigil programming, it has also taken on something of a will of it's own and is capable of producing chaotic effects. An example would be the evolution of this very board, which started as just somewhere for people to hang out and discuss the Invisibles and which has since became something much bigger, and not GM's to control...

23:26 / 05.10.02

I can understand the 'rewriting your taste' bit - "The Invisibles changed my life..."

It is my favourite thing.

I always loved comics, but this is/was just like the best tune you never heard. A whole new level...

Oh, I could effuse all day, but must agree that Grant sometimes feels demagoguish to me - but that may say more about me rather than he.

02:49 / 06.10.02

I think I am going to do as Imp suggested. This can be treated as a magickal act in itself. I will treat it as such and perform the act of reading the Invisibles in a magickal working. A Ceramonial-Chaos magickal working. Robes, regalia, paraphenalia. Sky-clad, jihad, tantra.

I feel as if I just volunteered to relinquish my tonalli

This should be interesting.

Bring it on!

Now, my esteemed Barbelith consortium, I ask you for your advice. What approach/method/stlye would best serve such an undertaking? Perhaps others may want to try something like this also, or maybe someone has already. Maybe this would be cool to do in a group, if others want to; a marked event for the release (heh) of the complete trade paperback collection. I am assuming it is not fully out on TP. Are there any projections as to when this may happen?

This should be good!

~May Tricks

04:11 / 06.10.02

The last trade is supposed to be out sometime in November... Don't know the date, but I suspect we'll all be able to place advance orders through Amazon and Barnes&Noble, etc...

The idea of a group working sounds very interesting, but I don't know if I have that much self control - I haven't seen any of the individual issues that make up the final trade, and I need to know how all of this ends!!!

Sigh. At least November isn't that far away.

06:46 / 06.10.02

It doesn't.

14:22 / 06.10.02

I had a dream, I think it is related to all this.

I was looking through pages and pages of names from Barbelith. I could hear everyone talking at once. I found that if I concentrated on one name at a time, I would only hear that one person talking to me. Some people didn't have much to say, others had lots, some were just interested in bitching me out. Oops, change names!

I unfortunately do not remember anymore. My two-year old dragged me outta bed by the hair this morning, this does not help recall.

MT

Professor Silly

04:30 / 09.10.02

I think one can also enjoy the Invisibles storyline as its three distinct volumes, perhaps read over the course of three days.

Coincidently, I thought about this curious effect (that drug-like power) seems very similiar to a description in A. Crowley's "Little Essays Toward Truth" of the Trance of Wonder: "This trance...floods the mind with Creative Energy; it fills the Adept with Power, and excites in him the Will to work."

I think the story acts as a spell to fill one with wonder, and the energy to fight on.

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

15:06 / 09.10.02

You could try reading the trades backwards. I did it once, and it really fucked with my head. And you'll still have as good a grasp of what's going on as you would otherwise.

15:34 / 09.10.02

hehehe...

Johnny O, I think I will try it forwards first, you know, just for fun!

hehehehe

~May

17:56 / 09.10.02

Heh. I like the idea of a group reading as a working. I know when I read them, the chaos levels of my life turned WAY up, as did the magick. It really is a bit of a bomb. When I read them, a number of folks with me read them at the same time and we all broke pretty well from it. Though it did make rather a mess, I recall...

I can play along, but I have the comics rather than the TBs. By the way, if you ever get the chance, do read the letters sections of the issues. GM at one point gives a lesson in sigel magick, and instructs readers to wank to a sigel on such and such a date to help boost comic sales of the comic. There are lots of gems like that in there.

Wrecks City-Zen

20:05 / 09.10.02

The letters page sometimes outdid the issue that contained them. Before Barbelith, there was the letters page...

...and then they cut it down to one page and we all came here.

Come back to T dot May, I'll let you read mine...

18:51 / 15.10.02

Don't forget that us gerontocrats who were reading it as it happened had to wait a month, at least, between issues. If you pick up "Say You Want a Revolution" and read it in one sitting, that's close to a YEAR of Invisibles all at once. And if you haven't been previously inoculated... well, ouchies.

I am a bit curious as to how any magical effects might be different, given that you're connecting to a sigil that begain in 1994(?) and concluded in 2000. Perhaps that might be the timeline-fucking you referred to?

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

19:28 / 15.10.02

That's a good theory. No, really, I wish I had thought of that.

Wrecks City-Zen

19:59 / 15.10.02

See, that's my point as well. ..

If you read all the INVISIBLES in one sittin, that's 6 years worth of gradual storytelling[spiralling hypersigil] and the effects may be erm...abrupt to say the least...

21:27 / 15.10.02

I read them in like six days the first time and although abrupt the changes keep on spiralling til now.

21:42 / 15.10.02

Sorry for coming late to the party (as usual) but I've heard mention (on this board) that Barbelith itself is something that will be born or metamorphasized (from pupa) in 2012.
Perhaps that has something to do with the egg brain reptile thinkings.

15:16 / 16.10.02

When Izabelle posted:
...treat this as a full-on shamanic journey and swallow them all at once, then see what comes out the other side...

I thought, this is the way for me to go. At this point in the life of The Invisibles and in my own life, this opportunity has arisen to take full advantage of my own naivete and the completeness of (? possible ?) the work. I am a very interested in the "Journey", part of this. If three pages can do what they did to me then I am terribly interested in the effect that the whole thing can have without being hidden within the folds and intervals of percieved time, such as the scenario of waiting for the next issue might create.

So, granted, there may be some precautions to take and it has been mentioned by Imp that it be done in 6 days rather than 3, as one precaution one might wish to take. I am wondering from all of you Invisibles Initiates and Adepts, if there is more advice you could provide me with to accomplish a working of this nature.

The time-line fuck, I realize, comes from my own training in Sorcery. It relates itself to my ego trying to make sense of what is true and not true at any given time. I am thinking of starting a thread about this so I can get a handle on it before I try to undertake this magick...heh! In the meantime, I need to do much prepatory work for this to come out successful and I am most appreciative of any help in the way of advice, insights, or others who may want to this (even if they have read it before).

From what is put into this thread I and hopefully others would be able to come out with a suitable working/ritual/practice/intent...to
make the journey and use it's force.

Am I making sense?

~May

15:18 / 16.10.02

Vadrice, where did you read that about the metamorphasis?

MT

20:15 / 16.10.02

Hm. You could do it in 9 days instead of 6, being hung from a tree an optional addition.

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