Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Temple >

Invisibles Virgin

Page: 1 2(3)

15:04 / 13.01.03

I'd recently picked up the Anarchy for the Masses Invisibles Annotation and guide, which is quite cool, but hadn't gotten to looking at it yet till this weekend. Well, I finished reading the second Promethia TBK, where one big these was that everything means something, everything is signifigant. I had some time to kill, so I read the guide for the first issue, and then re-read the first issue of the Invisibles again. Now, the funny thing about the first issue is that it contains the entire series in one issue, like a fractal story. Its dense. So, opening to the relevance of information meets massive information density resulting in good head breakyness, opening to syncronicity, and a general raising of magickal awareness.

What I figured out about the impact of the Invisibles is that its just so freaking dense with information. There are sigels in spray paint, references with every other comment, its just amazingly full of stuff to think about. Especially after reading it with the annotations, so you can catch a lot of it you might have missed before. Its so much it overloads your brain, gets you thinking about 10 things at once (much like how in NLP you can overload the listener with distracting references so as to hypnotise and then slip in your payload program to them) and can propel you into a gnostic state through trying to chew on it all. Its overload. I think that is where a lot of the magick happens with it.

So, I think that's going to be my approach. Read the annotation for an issue, read the issue. Maybe about one a day so I can digest them well, and maintain an extended low level gnosis throughout. Good boost to the magick, eh? I think so.

20:08 / 13.01.03

How is that Anotation book? Where'd you pick it up? I heard it was only available on Amazon.com or in the UK or something like that.

When I first read the series I read a few issues and then read the notes on thebomb.com. I think it's a good idea to read the comic and then the anotations.

Taking it nice and slow and really making sure I get the most out of my re-read has worked well for me. Let us know what happens, Rothkoid - how are things, by the way?

20:26 / 13.01.03

The book looks prety good so far. I haven't run comparasons against the Bomb yet. More of that when I have more time. I picked it up at the local comics shop, so it must be out. Incidently, my tactic of reading the annotation and then the comic is useful only because I've already read the comics. So, one reminds me of the other. I like the tactic of preloading my brain with the answers, then reading the comic to soak them all up knowing what to look for. Tis a matter of preference though, really.

20:36 / 17.01.03

So what other INVISIBLES-related stuff is happening to people as they read or re-read this classic tome? The synchroncities keep flyin' with me....

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

00:17 / 18.01.03

I don't go very long without reading The Invisibles, but now all my trades have gone missing. They were right there on the floor next to my dresser before the room got painted, and now I can't find 'em. Which sucks, because they went AWOL not a week before a friend wanted to borrow them all. This may be a sign, like he was not meant to obtain them just yet, or I may be delusional, but at any rate the poor fucker's not getting any Invisibles 'cause I can't find them. Dammit. Looks like he's going to read them in the same order I did when I had to search for individual issues in stores: backwards for half and going the right direction for half. Now that'll fuck you up. I still weep every time I see a tree.

The Return Of Rothkoid

23:30 / 19.01.03

Let us know what happens, Rothkoid - how are things, by the way?
Well, I've finished the first and am moving on to the second. I think I appreciated threads running through the thing a lot more this time around, particularly the stuff about the head of John the Baptist: it seemed to have more resonance this time. I did feel a little buzzy when I'd finished the book, too, like I had a headache. Maybe I just need glasses, though - sigh.

As for everything else? Oh, I dunno. Still very glum and down and crap, but am leaving pharma aside for now, as I don't like how it makes me feel...

18:24 / 20.01.03

First: Rothkoid, don't give up. Anything is possible -- the universe can certainly help you out of this jam. Read CONVERSATIONS WITH GOD for some good thoughts on this.

I feel like I can sympathize because I have gone through several major periods of depression and despair, leading to near-suicidal feelings each time. These were not fun times, psychiatric help was in abundance, even hospitalization at one point. But they always passed, in time, with the help of conventional methods and prayer and focus.

Keep reading THE INVISIBLES. All the way to the finish. Find the balance between putting in your effort to improve things and letting it happen & take its course.

Second: To keep this on-thread, I'm currently just beginning KISSING MR. QUIMPER. It's amazing how re-reading the entire series at once (first time I've done this; I used to just read each trade as they came out and occassionally engage in half-re-reads) really comes together and evokes such things in one's life. I'm having tons of little synch's and good fortune occurring in my life. And the various themes of each arc have a lot of relevance for me, I'm finding, depending on what I'm going through as I read them.

Who else is still doing this? May, how is your read coming along?

19:09 / 20.01.03

I got sidetracked pretty quickly into Magick In Theory And Practice, so the series reading is on hold for me for the moment. Then again, maybe that's less a sidetrack as it is a Barbelith effect, eh?

19:35 / 20.01.03

Hi Hunter,

I haven't started reading them yet. I intend to be fully prepared when I do. Soon though.

Johnny O: You are probably right about your friend not being ready. Curious what will happen when they reappear...hmmm.

Cusm: Fucking intense. It is so fucking intense Barbelith rocks!

18:02 / 22.11.03

I was checking out amazon, I want the whole series and cant figure out what I'm suppoesed to buy, theres too many different books. Which ones send me bonce on a fucking super sigil trip, in search of the Invisible kingdom, which may or may not exist?

18:18 / 22.11.03

While I loved the series as a whole, I found the "Anarchy for the Masses" volume a bit dissapointing. The Morrison interviews were worthwile, but I thought the annotations were a bit tedious and didn't neccesarily agree with some of the given interpretations/commentary. Maybe its better to simply dive in and read the series straight through, digest/ruminate, form your own opinions, and then read the interpretive annotations and shake your head in disagreement from time to time.

Comparable to reading about a hallucinogenic drug vs. trying it yourself.

10:51 / 23.11.03

Well to be honest, I came to Barbelith because it has some of the best damn talk about magick on the web, but I'm definitely going to have to experience The Invisibles. I've been aware of it for some time, as I read Grant Morrison's essays on magick at his site. I've thought about reading them but just haven't got around to it. You all have convinced me to do that. Now with my luck, half of them won't be available where I'm at........ In terms of things like that altering one's consciousness, I've had that happen to me with different things. I had that occur with a Julian Wilde essay that I read once. I found it pretty refreshing, (the shift of reference)! I think that these things occur in synchronicity with the individual, so what shifts one person's point of reference may do nothing to someone else. Damn, now I'm going to have to spend more money.... well..... to me, altering consciousness is money well spent!

13:34 / 25.11.03

Wow - most of this thread was happening while I was reading the series for the first time, borrowing TPBs from a friend...

Has anyone attempted the group-reading/magickal working experiment, and how did it turn out? I'm with a group that has been working through the exercises in RAW's "Quantum Psychology" - which is a mindfuck and a half all by itself - and we're almost finished with the book. There has been talk about either moving on to another RAW book or possibly working through the Invisibles, using the "Anarchy For The Masses" Disinfo book as a reference guide. Some of us have read the series before, some have not; some of us are magickally inclined, some are not.

Anyone tried this? Thoughts on possible results, magickal intentions to carry through, precautions? I know I had some seriously weird synchronicities happen during my first reading, and life has just kept getting weirder ever since. (Last week I was sitting at a bus stop and out of the blue a guy came over, sat down next to me, and started talking about orgone energy, the planet Nibiru, aliens, Atlantis, and the Illuminati. He showed up every day for a week and talked at me, and then the guy just disappeared...)

17:43 / 25.11.03

Don't worry. He's one of ours.

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

04:34 / 27.11.03

I've had some very odd experiences with "The Invisibles" and Alan Moore's "Promethea".

After watching "Die Another Day" I came home and read "The Invisible Kingdom" in one go. The book induced a state somewhere between a trance and a drug trip. I lay on my bed for about 15 minutes and was able to contemplate, and understand, a hypercube (3-D representation of a 4-D object), as well as some concepts that the English language totally lacks the words to describe. There was a third piece of media involved, but I can't quite remember it. But there was something about the combination of Madonna's "Die Another Day" and "The Invisible Kingdom" that triggered some very odd cues in my mind.

I've found that Tom's mentorship of Dane/Jack provides a great deal of urban occult theory. Cities are alive, they have their own spirits and languages. Incidentally, I've seen a homeless guy a few times on the streets of Toronto who looked terribly similar to Mad Tom.

Regarding "Promethea", its pretty much what led me into Hermeticism. After reading the fourth TPB of it, I went to bed. I very distinctly remember having a dream in which, to use the Qabalistic term, I attained, at least for a short time, Ein Sof (at least that's the closest word I have for it...it wasn't just being surrounded by light, it was BEING the light). When I woke up I KNEW what the end intent of Hermeticism was, at least for me. It was an amazingly mystical experience, very much in the classical sense. Once again, I find that my language lacks the vocabulary nessecary to describe these experiences fully.

On an unrelated note, I recently spent last week re-reading the entirety of The Invisibles tradepaperbacks. I was in the cafeteria at my college (Victoria College at the University of Toronto, any other Invisibles fans there please lemme know) reading "The Invisible Kingdom" (what is it with that book?) and this guy comes up to me and asks if I have all the other books. Apparently there are underground Invisibles fans everywhere. Hell...even my TA for History is one of them! (funny story to that one, involving humorous essay mistakes made by college students, one student referred to "the Visible Goths and the Invisible Goths", to which I remarked that it sounded like something Grant Morrison would write...and she got my reference)

11:26 / 27.11.03

just want to add a small experience of my own

read the first invisibles comic last night (the double sized first one), read it 3 years ago borrowed from a mate and thought it was rubbish

last night dreamt that i had had a dream about the invisibles and as a result of that was being persued in my home by monsters like the headmaster from that comic, fought and killed it to protect my wife

never had a dream within a dream before. am not magically inclined but pleasantly shaken by the experience.

may read some of the others sometime to see what the hell is going on.

a

15:27 / 10.12.03

My first brush with the Invisibles was as a comic book I found at a public library, and I read it as such. Pretty damn weird, but quite interesting.
Only recently have I even heard the term Chaos Magick, and I'm now re-reading the whole thing, though in a bit jumbled order. I think I get a bit more now than I did then, not much, but a bit.

Anyway,
I figure I'll just soak in the ideas and let them breed in my head. Let's see what comes out of it

Page: 1 2(3)