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The Outer Church

The Natural Way

14:38 / 20.11.02

From a chat I was having with Sypha on the severely abused "What is a fiction suit thread"

'So...Tom "shrinks reality down to a single point", yeah?

So what happens?

He enters into the initiation of The Outer Church. As Satan explains to Jack, as Jack explains to Gaz: "it all shrinks down to a dot...all the stars and all the days". This is the experience of death - the ecstasy of Abaddon (see Counting to None) - ego's full stop. But, as Satan (and the final page of the Invisibles [whoever thought the singularity at the end of time would be a FULL STOP? Brilliant!]) makes clear, this is simply the beginning of the birth process. One can stop there, at the blackhole at the centre of things, and hook up with the terrible, inverted shit that "lives" there, or one can proceed. Freddie realises that. The Outer Church isn't a "place", it's an initiation, and the initiation occurs outside time.'

Okay. Get down on it.

14:43 / 20.11.02

Please define "initiation" in the context you have described. I feel I agree with your view of the story, but I want more

I'm a dumb American who still thinks of fraternity hazings from movies and nightmares.

The Natural Way

15:02 / 20.11.02

Well, I suppose in it's "highest", magickal form initiation refers to an experience of transcendence that involves stepping outwith the confines of the bodymind and getting a cheeky peek at what's really going on. You know, from "above" - the direction you can't (as Mr. Harlequin put it) point to.

Generally, when magicians refer to "initiation" they are refering to an objective stage in the unveiling of ultimate reality (or the Godhead). The novitiate goes through various degrees of initiation which mark the transition from one internal state to another (hence the adoption of a new title at the beginning of each new stage on the mystical path) - the initiation is an occult, internal experience that shifts consciousness into a new position, often induced by a formalised ritual.

The Natural Way

15:04 / 20.11.02

And now back to yr regularly scheduled Outer Church.

--

15:06 / 20.11.02

If he realizes that, though, why does it seemingly drive him insane?

Miles clearly doesn't get past the initiation phase if your theory is correct (then again i feel that the Invisibles didn't want him to anyway: The harlequin needed him to fail so Miles would end up at Westminster Abbey in 1999 for the ceremony. imo).

If the Outer Church is the initation, how come we never see the other Invisibles encounter it (with the possible exception of Boy?) Unless you count the Fanny rape scene as a manifestation of it...

And if it's not a place, doesn't that kind of ruin the whole theory in the book of our universe being a hologram resulting from an overlap/cross-section of two other universes (Outer Church on one side and Invisible College on the other). Hell, even Takashi believed that theory.

15:18 / 20.11.02

I like the initiation idea, but it's sort of torpedoed by the Jack/Satan scenes in 3.2. It's clearly a place, although the mental gymnastics resulting from visiting might indeed be described or interpreted as an initiation.

15:18 / 20.11.02

Boy seeing her brothers killed, KM in the torture chamber(Morrison in a hospital bed,) Jack killing a soldier, Takashi... I dunno... getting his eye slashed, Jolly Roger seeing her cell-members hideously mutated - could these all, with the likely exception of Takashi although he does become a fully fledged Invisible afterwards,) not be considered initiation through trauma?

Jack undergoes about 4 traumatic events, actually.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

15:26 / 20.11.02

Do we see anyone (other than Jack) meet both Barbelith and the Outer Church in their initiation? Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks...

15:51 / 20.11.02

KM, Boy and Fanny meet Barbelith. And let's not forget - "the initiation is ongoing."

15:59 / 20.11.02

Yup. 'It never ends.'

yawn - thing's buddy

19:22 / 20.11.02

I know the feeling.

19:45 / 20.11.02

Very good, yawn.

The Natural Way

08:48 / 21.11.02

When I said it wasn't a place, I was simply underlining the fact that it's a psycho-geography as opposed to a....well...a church. The experience of the Outer Church is a psychic condition - that's its most important aspect. It's the Chod ceremeony where the initiate is devoured by demons (see KM's experience in Ulhuru on the hotplate of the Gods, or on the dentist's chair; Fanny in Hell; Jack, his bed surrounded by demons, feverish, after his contact with the UFO; Boy taken to pieces by Cell 23...); the surgeries of the doctor fish; the dying horse atacked by vultures; Sir Miles loaded on acid...

"I've seen their faces....eating..."

Sure, for the purposes of the sci-fi story, the Church dresses itself up as a place-you-can-touch - the reflection of human fears and agonies across the holographic membrane - but you won't get yr head around it until you understand what it means, not what it looks like.

See KM's little chat with Mason in India - there are as many different lenses on the core experience as there are stars in the sky. The "Outer Curch" is the disintegration aspect of the Barbelith experience. It's only a "place" in as much as anything the 5D larva dreams/plays in/condenses into becomes a "place". But, really, it's probably more profitable and makes more sense to understand our silvery, endlessly reflective essential nature as pure thought/mind - and if pure thought wants to go to hell, it goes to hell. I'd like to expand on this, because its a massive area (and I know some of you are going "Jesus! What's he on about now?"), but this thread's about the Outer Church and that's the way it's gonna stay! Damnit!

*Lada: KM, Boy and Jack experience both - KM beneath Ulhuru/on the dentist's chair (just realised it's the same initiation - time makes no difference); Boy at the hands of Cell 23; Jack in the UFO.

Harold Washington died for you

14:28 / 21.11.02

To connect this to the (har har) real world, would a near-death experience be comparable to the initiation in the Outer Church?

The Natural Way

15:09 / 21.11.02

Fuck knows.

19:38 / 21.11.02

would a near-death experience be comparable to the initiation in the Outer Church?

Well if it scares the shit out you I suppose... same with some MAJOR hallusionogenic trip...

But in theory one could experience the invisible college, or it's outer lawn that way as well...

Keep in mind that KM has used the outerchurch as a shortcut (arcadia storyline) as have others it seems...

19:43 / 21.11.02

Keep in mind that KM has used the outerchurch as a shortcut (arcadia storyline) as have others it seems

This is why the Outer Church is definitely a place, in my opinion. The Invisible College is established as a physical location in 2.6, and we learn in 3.2 that it loops around to the Outer Church. I appreciate the metaphoric aspect too, however.

--

22:11 / 21.11.02

I see both as a place too because it ties in with the whole VALIS-copped notion of our universe being the cross-section of two hyperuniverses that resembles the gnostic fish/picses sign(which seems very imporant to the series). If it weren't a place, how come so many people seem to go there (King Mob and Fanny have been there, so has Tom O'Bedlam, Dane, etc. and in some cases more then once). Not saying that that proves they are places of course, but the evidence does point that way.

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22:13 / 21.11.02

Of course, if you look at it from the angle that "There is no war, there is no story, therefore there is no places" I guess you have a point.

22:39 / 21.11.02

Perhaps the point is that Space reflect consciousness...

Consider that King Mob was able to bring Robin to the Invisible Collage and escape an explosion only after she established a psychic link... (Vol2 TimeMachineGo storyline)
The experience proved healing for the both of 'em a nice contrast to experiencing the outer Church.

08:47 / 22.11.02

I always thought that 'Invisible College Escape Hatch' was a bit of a cop out. If that psychic trap-door was always there, then why not use it in Dulce? Or during the windmill seige? Or anytime they're in a life-threatening situation?

I can grasp the concept of the college being both a physical and a non-physical place, but that was stretching things a bit too much IMHO.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

13:49 / 22.11.02

Mmm, Seems like going to the Invisible College might have been an idea when King Mob had that VERY BIG gunshot wound...

I also had some point to make about no-one seeing both the Outer Church and Barbelith during their initiation (King Mob doesn't under Ulhuru, and Boy doesn't count because that was synthesised by Cell23) {and I know all that stuff about 'the initiation never ends'} but I can't really remember why. It was based around Tom seeing The Outer Church during his... damn this faulty brain!

19:50 / 22.11.02

During the thrird activation of the Hand of Glory.

I agree the physical facilities of the Invisible College and the New Dulce trin ridxe through the Outer Church suburbs were cheap cop outs.

I like the notion of trnascendence and rebirth through these two poles.

VR
El Sharko

20:26 / 22.11.02

I dunno, I thought of it as a possible future for the world, one where the transcendence failed and totalitarian rule snuffed out all personal freedom. Like the world in V For Vendetta, only with nanotech mind control bots, superintelligent autonomous computer systems, and cthuloid demon lords pulling the strings for the lot. Like if the Bushes took over

All stuff the world will soon be able to produce, and will allow to come to pass unless the Freedom Fighters manage to stop it. Kind of like the Invisible church was the future that would be or could be, depending on how things went at a critical juncture in time, and the Invisible College was another possible time line of an enlightened age of man, with their overlapping being the present time. The Church wants to come into being, so it sends its agents into the past to manipulate events to make this happen. The College is what we could be if we get our shit together, and 2012 is when the Church will win the war for the future, if not stopped.

But the metaphorical implications are entertaining as well.

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03:21 / 23.11.02

Actually cusm, that's kinda how I look at it too. The world that could be if the world hadn't woken up...

12:21 / 24.11.02

Cusm,
You should write poltical fiction.

Brave Tom Daschle and Al Gore are all that stand between an unsuspecting world of sheep and...

The cackling, sinister mandarin gangsters, George Senior and George W., as they use their shadowy nanotech mind control bots, superintelligent autonomous computer systems, and knock-on-your-door--and-blow-up-in-your-face smart bombs to serve their ravenous, inhuman masters.

Hear them spouting their war crys -
"American as Cheap Oil" or "Give me Windows 2000 or Give me Death" or "Enlightment or a Fucking /Big Mac?"

But enough of the bollocks.

Volume 3 kinda/sorted tried to introduce the war of ideas and making "friends with them until they beg for mercy". We are all the same and can skip naked into paradise hand-in-hand - assuming someone gets to eliminate all potential conflicts on their terms and make all parties agree to them.

But then Jack Frost is shown as a pop-culture Buddha, not as a lurking, all-consuming insect god waiting to feast on our brains. So his elimination of conflict (on his terms) has to be a good thing becuse it didn't involve guns or brainwashing or those tacky, out-of-style 4D armor worn by the archon foot soldiers.

Does the Outer Church represent lives and thought processes soley based on fear? Based on the eradication of diversity (like democracies in the middle east (Bushie-pooh) or calling the prophets of other religons evil (Falwell the Lovemaker))?

Does a forced solution mean happiness for everyone? I doubt the Asian, American and African colonies ever agreed to this - heck they were born into violent revolution. Mahatma Ghandi was close to a universal saint. Does dumping gas-suspended LSD into the air filters of the US's Capitol building mean happiness for anyone?
(I yield on this last point. If Osama had sex regularly, he wouldn't act like Lex Luthor or Ming the Merciless all the time.)

Chimpanzees and Gorillas duke it out all the time over who gets to be the silverback (wear the strap-on) and who gets to be the frustrated wanker not getting loving from the ladies of the tribe. I do believe disagreement and conflict are the inevitable results of these mutant forebrains.

VR
The Shark