The breaking of the power of time short circuits karma, shortcircuits the dreadful power of world itself, exerted over the individual unless by some salvific event it is cancelled. For the Gnostics, this was Christ's true role. Something must occur that triggers off the final meta-abstracting; Plato spoke of something encountered that reminds us of our forgotten former life. I call it a "disinhibiting stimulus." Maybe it's a large black slab, as in 2001. (I seem to be joking but I am not. My meta-abstracting in February 1974 did not randomly happen; it was induced)
PKD, 2/14/81 in a letter to Patricia Warrick
The OHED (Oxford Hebrew English Dictionary) gives the letter Qoph a transliteration value of 'Q' or 'K' and a final transliteration value as a 'ck'.
The Moon is the Path of Qoph that is between Netzach (victory) with Malkuth (Kingdom) and is the Path of Transition where the Soul begins the process of incorporating the body. It's planetary sign is Pisces. At first, the Path of Qoph is a process of the Soul's organization of the physical body it will "inhabit"
For the student who wishes to reclaim their Universal Inheritance, the journey of awakening from the "Sleep' of incorporation is begun by traveling "upward" along the Path of Qoph, into the Dark recesses of the Unconscious, and its illusions of fear and destruction brought on by the survival mind's fear of Death. In other words we must slay the demons of our own animal death/fear of pain-illusions to remember the multidimensional Daemon consciousness that we are. This awakening process is a conquest of phantoms reflected from the material world, i.e. "Creations of the Created" and so it is a Path out of darkness into the reflected light of the Sun.
In Episode Six of the Sixth Season of Mad Men, Roger Sterling and Don Draper are at the airport waiting to fly to Detroit to meet with Chevrolet. They hope to pitch a successful campaign to win the account of an as yet unnamed "top secret" automobile project. Unbeknownst to them, and to the delight of advertising rivals loudly "coughing" down the way, the SCDP agency has lost another big account, this time it is Vick's, makers of cough drops. A qoph suppressant.
The "top secret" automobile project is the Chevy Vega. Vega is the brightest star in the Lyra constellation (sometimes referred to as "The Falling Eagle"). The spectrum of Vega was first photographed in 1872 by Henry Draper--wait, who?
Henry Draper was the son of John William Draper, who began the art of astrophotography in 1840 when he produced an image of the Moon using the daguerrotype process. It seems as though fate has already chosen Don Draper, but as the moment of truth approaches, the path to Vega looks quite grim for the agency of SCDP.
The Chevy Vega account is all the more essential for the survival of SCDP with the loss of Vick's (cough). The competition is strong, and Don has little confidence that he can bring the big fish (Pisces) home. In a desperate, last minute scramble Don merges his agency with CGC. Not only is CGC home to Peggy Olson, one of Don's most successful proteges, it also is home to Ted Chaough, he of the make-believe surname. What's in a name anyways?
Ted Chaough = Death Cough
"The Moon is the Path of Qoph that is between
Netzach with Malkuth and is the Path of Transition where
the Soul begins the process of incorporating the body."
What will Draper's Soul find when it incorporates into the Body? The lungs and liver of a man twice his age. But this Death Cough is not as dire as it might seem on/under the surface.
As we enter Epsiode 7, entitled A Man With A Plan, we have to wonder, who is the Man and what is his Plan?
The newly merged agency, whether they like it or not, is going to the Moon via the Path of Qoph taking both Vega, the "Falling Eagle", and Don Draper, the once rising, now falling Star of the advertising world.
Another falling eagle/falling star, is the United States of America, which also is on the path to the Moon, based on the directives of John F. Kennedy. Qoph means "back of the head". Ouch.
Both John F. Kennedy and Don Draper have a profound love of women, and for Don, his current fascination is Sylvia Rosen.
Sylvia Rosen = Liver Say No
Don spends the episode attempting to control Sylvia solely for his own desire and satisfaction, much like he has attempted to control all of his desires and mute all of his pain through the use of alcohol. Don's body is rejecting his Soul. His attempt to imprison his body ("You exist for my pleasure") fails: Sylvia Rosen/Liver says no. He then attempts to dismantle his newly merged peer with whiskey, but Ted, although a bit embarrassed, survives. Near the end of the episode, Don enters a small airplane, (evoking the late John Kennedy Jr.) with Ted as his pilot. As they travel through the dark stormy airspace, Don is completely filled with fear.
"The journey of awakening from the "Sleep' of incorporation is begun by traveling "upward" along the Path of Qoph, into the dark recesses of the unconscious, and its illusions of fear and destruction brought on by the survival mind's fear of Death"
But his pilot Ted Chaough has done this before, he has been down this path, and he expertly guides them out of the darkness, above the clouds, and into the light of the sun.
"This awakening process is a conquest of phantoms reflected from the material world, i.e. "Creations of the Created" and so it is a path out of darkness into the reflected light of the Sun. The Moon is representative of such a journey, as it has both a dark side and reflected side. When facing the darkest fears of your own mind, and of the race, a student undergoes some frightening and devastating emotional and mental trials that involve real dangers to the physical and mental health of the individual who sense of self is not strong."
As the Episode comes to a close, and all is seemingly fine Robert "Bobby" Kennedy is assassinated. By a busboy.
Don has a son, named Robert, whom he calls "Bobby". Another Robert works at SCDP, who every one calls Bob. Bob Benson (busboy?), the smiling, affable, regular guy working in accounts.
There was a Robert who played a character named "Benson" in a TV show about a butler who goes from working in the Tate house to working in the mansion of a widowed Governor. It was also has the distinction of being the first TV show to reference the Internet in a 1985 episode that showed characters accessing ARPANET.
ARPANET = A PARENT
The earliest ideas of the Internet were discussed in 1963, with the first working model, ARPANET, born on October 29, 1969, a few months after the first successful trip to the Moon.
" Cabbalists believe that the Tzaddi on this Path (of qoph) can find and unearth the buried Divine Spark and reunite it with the Source."
The first message communicated via ARPANET was very short because the system crashed after only two letters were sent. The message that was intended was "login", but only "lo" were delivered. This message could be misinterpreted as a few things. As a one and a zero (10) or an I and an O (IO).
Io, a moon of Jupiter, is very close to the same size as our Moon.
"The work of the Path of Qoph ends with the dissolution of energy back to its source, which is Netzach (victory). Successful understanding of this path, is to understand the relationship of our personality-consciousness to the physical power-tool built for each incarnation and facilitates an awake Soul, who walks in the light rather than a Soul who sleeps in the dark and doesn't operate the Power-Tool it was given to help continue the Great Work. The Moon Card is a reminder that most people/souls, during the cyclic phase of withdrawal of consciousness from the physical Power-Tool, continue to act on information and phantasmagorical fantasies related to survival subconscious body existence. If not released, the sleeping soul-consciousness becomes a phantom of its own fantasies and are known as Ghosts."
Earlier in this season Don is shown relaxing on the beach with a little light reading, Dante's Divine Comedy, or as it as it is in Italian Divina Commedia (.COM MEDIA?). Dante's work is a journey from the darkest recesses of hell, Inferno, into the mucky muck of Purgatory, and finally into the light of Paradise. There are 100 cantos that comprise the epic poem. This echoes the journey on the path of qoph in design, as well as number: in Hebrew gematria, qoph has a numerical value of 100.
DON-te's Inferno is certainly his awful childhood; his mother died in childbirth, and according to Don, his father beat him on a regular basis. When Don was ten he saw his father kicked in the head by a horse and die. He ran away from his surviving family and found him self in the Korean War, where he finally found an opportunity to escape his past and change the complexion of his life.
Don's enters Purgatory with an assumed identity, where he comes to live with the widow of the real Draper, a woman named Anna who is as much a mother to Don as he ever had, and by this association, grandmother to his children (Anna-gram?). She is familiar with the Tarot and gives Don a reading in Episode 12, The Mountain King, of Season 2.
"In the position of the Present the card is the Sun reversed, with the 8 of cups as the challenging card. In my tarot readings, I would read these cards together: the Sun, reversed, would represent Don in the position he’s in at that moment in time, and the crossing card, the 8 of Cups, as the thing that is getting in his way. I would say that Don’s been favored with luck, and good fortune, and success, but none of that’s important to him — he’s dissatisfied and tired of dealing with all the emotion surrounding him. The Eight of Cups has always seemed to me to have the perfect illustration: the figure in the center walking toward the moon away from all those cups."
"To the Moon Alice, to the Moon"
Yeah, the rabbit hole is confusing, and it takes leaps of faith here and there, so I hope you are following with the required sense of humor and disbelief.
Sylvia Rosen = NY VALIS ROSE
Don Draper is of course not Don Draper, he is correctly Dick Whitman, but where one ends and the other begins is impossible to tell. I remember another Dick who famously struggled with dual identities.
Philip K Dick documented this split in two different novels, one reflecting Inferno, the other Purgatory. In A Scanner Darkly, we have our character lost in the Inferno, literally draped in an identity cloaking device. In VALIS we have our main character, who, by the divine grace of anamnesis, remembers where he is, but is cleaved into two distinct people, Philip and Horselover Fat. The synthesis of these two never arrives.
Dick Whitman is clearly a man cloaked in false identity, and Don Draper can be considered a horse lover, considering what happened to the father who beat him. These identities remain and struggle for a conscious release of Soul into Paradise. This release can not be found in the execution of one identity for the other, it can only happen through synthesis, through a merger of the two. Don/Dick obviously understands this, at least unconsciously. We've seen him do this a few times already. What desperately needs to occur for Don/Dick to actualize this consciously. But what will it take to trigger this realization?
The Planetary sign of qoph is Pisces, the fish. Don used to be a big fish in a small pond, but now he is realizing that the Age of Aquarius is ocean wide. Dick Whitman is realizing that Don Draper has an expiration date, and Don Draper is realizing that underneath it all he is scared and all alone. Both are drowning.
I have been predicting, hoping that the trigger for Don's synthesis will be achieved through the power of a proper psychedelic experience. This is a strong possibility considering the experimentation of the 60's, as well as the positive experiences of Draper's partner Roger Sterling with LSD. And Don has yet to turn down a new and exciting experience.
This opportunity at synthesis was given to another character from Matthew Weiner's other successful show, The Sopranos.
Tony Soprano is a character who also struggled with dual identities, even referenced in the title of Episode 53, "The Two Tony's" (Don imprisons Sylvia in Room 503).
In the second part of Season 6 (season six was split into two halves), Episode 18 (The Moon = 18) entitled "Kennedy and Heidi"(written by David Chase and Matthew Weiner), Tony Soprano takes mescaline, and is thrust into the cosmos, which for him starts in the belly of the beast, a hotel room in Las Vegas. Vega again…hmmmm.
After violently purging into the toilet, Tony leans back against a towel.
The Moon
Wheel of Fortune
"24"
The Empire Never Ended
"He's dead!"
"I get it?" "I get it!"
Tony failed to synthesize the experience, just like the rest of the people in his family. He couldn't get out. Carmela tried to divorce herself from The Family, but she returned. A.J. got a job making minimum wage, and proposed to his girlfriend, but winds up back in the The Family when he accepts a job as a producer in Carmine Lupertazzi's porn studio. Meadow strives to become a lawyer, even working in a law center in the inner city, but she is eventually pulled back into The Family when she becomes engaged to Patrick Parisi.
I hope when Don/Dick gets his chance he has built solid wings.
