Nu-Beta Blues: Through a Glass Grade Darkly

"Break, break, break

At the foot of thy stones, O Sea!

And I would that I could utter

The thoughts that arise in me!"

52

{Kappa-Epsilon-Phi-Alpha-Lambda-Eta Nu-Beta}

THE BULL-BAITING

Fourscore and eleven books wrote I; in each did I

expound THE GREAT WORK fully, from The

beginning even unto The End thereof.

Then at last came certain men unto me, saying:

O Master!  Expound thou THE GREAT WORK

unto us, O Master!

And I held my peace.

O generation of gossipers!  who shall deliver you

from the Wrath that is fallen upon you?

O Babblers, Prattlers, Talkers, Loquacious Ones,

Tatlers, Chewers of the Red Rag that inflameth

Apis the Redeemer to fury, learn first what is

Work!  and THE GREAT WORK is not so far

beyond!

[114]

COMMENTARY ({Nu-Beta})

52 is BN, the number of the Son, Osiris-Apis, the

Redeemer, with whom the Master (Fra. P.) identifies

himself.  he permits himself for a moment the pleasure

of feeling his wounds; and, turning upon his generation,

gores it with his horns.

The fourscore-and-eleven books do not, we think,

refer to the ninety-one chapters of this little master-

piece, or even to the numerous volumes he has penned,

but rather to the fact that 91 is the number of Amen,

implying the completeness of his work.

99.1 %

In the last paragraph is a paranomasia.  "To chew

the red rag" is a phrase for to talk aimlessly and per-

sistently, while it is notorious that a red cloth will excite

the rage of a bull.

The Book of Lies

35 + 56

As Leon’s interrogation continues, Holden poses to him a scenario, “You’re in a desert. You’re walking along in the sand when all of a sudden you look down and see a tortoise…” Leon interrupts with questions like, “Which desert?” and “How come I be there?” To his first question, Holden answers, “It doesn’t matter”, pointing to the truth that there is only one desert, the vast expanse that separates Tiphareth from Keter, along which the 13th path of wisdom runs. To Leon’s second question, the blade runner replies, “Maybe you’re fed up. Maybe you want to be by yourself”, alluding to the environmental prompting that drives consciousness across that expanse to Keter. This “wanting to be by your Self” is the chief motivator for all actions.

The Blade Runner Bible

The phrase, “Early in the 21st Century” provides us with a clue. Tarot Key 21 is The World in most tarot decks. Aleister Crowley names it The Aeon. It symbolizes the cosmic mind forever dancing at the heart of creation, but it also signifies the entirety of our age, our eon. Identification with this cosmic mind is often referred to as enlightenment, though this rude generalization hardly addresses the nuance of identification with the Cosmos itself. So it is that our story is one of ancient origins. It occurs early in the life of the Universal Mind.

The Blade Runner Bible

21 Days

Through a glass grade darkly…

51

{Kappa-Epsilon-Phi-Alpha-Lambda-Eta Nu-Alpha}

TERRIER-WORK

Doubt.

Doubt thyself.

Doubt even if thou doubtest thyself.

Doubt all.

Doubt even if thou doubtest all.

It seems sometimes as if beneath all conscious doubt

there lay some deepest certainty.  O kill it!  Slay the

snake!

The horn of the Doubt-Goat be exalted

Dive deeper, ever deeper, into the Abyss of Mind,

until thou unearth the fox THAT.  On, hounds!

Yoicks!  Tally-ho!  Bring THAT to bay!

Then, wind the Mort!

[112]

COMMENTARY ({Nu-Alpha})

The number 51 means failure and pain, and its

subject is appropriately doubt.

The title of the chapter is borrowed from the health-

giving and fascinating sport of fox-hunting, which

Frater Perdurabo followed in his youth.

This chapter should be read in connection with "The

Soldier and the Hunchback" of which it is in some sort

an epitome.

Its meaning is sufficiently clear, but in paragraphs

6 and 7 it will be noticed that the identification of the

Soldier with the Hunchback has reached such a pitch

that the symbols are interchanged, enthusiasm being

represented as the sinuous snake, scepticism as the

Goat of the Sabbath.  In other words, a state is reached

in which destruction is as much joy as creation.

(Compare Chapter 46.)

Beyond that is a still deeper state of mind, which is

THAT.

The Book Of Lies

I am the Snake that giveth Knowledge & Delight and bright glory, and stir the hearts of men with drunkenness. To worship me take wine and strange drugs whereof I will tell my prophet, & be drunk thereof! They shall not harm ye at all. It is a lie, this folly against self. The exposure of innocence is a lie. Be strong, o man! lust, enjoy all things of sense and rapture: fear not that any God shall deny thee for his.

Liber AL vel Legis

LoG Lit 🔥 

Blades of Canada 4: He Who Shits Out Magic May Shine

Be drawn to what’s wrong and believe everyone

Go ahead touch your nose & off you go up and run

And now comes yet another

The next dose of real freedom

I guess the wait is over

You sat here long enough

Your personal triumph is coming up

Piss away again throwing caution to the wind

Telling lies to friends

Be strong in your aim map your course and set sail

But know well life is quick and very slick

Slick as snails

Robert Pollard

Blades of Canada 3: Remembrance of Things Past, Present, and Future

Lucky for me I had the day off from work on June 3, 2013.  It was a Monday, the sun was out, and Boards of Canada was scheduled to stream their new album live that afternoon.  For most fans this would be the first opportunity to hear the album in it's entirety, for free, a week before it's initial release.  Good guys those Boards of Canada.

What intrigued me most about the event was this:  the album would be streamed only once, starting at exactly 3:00pm EST, meaning that anywhere from 100 to 10,000 to 100,000(?) people would all be connected to the internet and forming their first impressions of the album simultaneously.  If someone asks "When did you first hear "Tomorrow's Harvest"" the most common answer will certainly be "6/3/2013 at 3:00pm EST".

This is quite a psychic event in my opinion, and the engineering behind it was not arbitrary.  I believe it provides some insight into the title of the album.

It's a simple metaphor:  the Soil is the collective mind gathered at one specific time and in one specific place (internet/noösphere).   The Seed is the music contained on "Tomorrow's Harvest".  After the broadcast, or Planting (implanting?), a period of Germination begins.  The next day this process begins to yield substantial critical/emotional feedback:  the Harvest .  The opening track is called Gemini, a not so subtle nod to the importance of timing involved here.

Realizing that I was lucky enough to take part in this epic experiment/operation/ritual, I set out from my home and traveled by train up to the north side of Chicago.  My plan was to walk south along the lakefront while I listened to the new album.  I figured heads across the world would be taking in the scenery of thousands of different environments (psychic components of the Soil), and I wanted the landscape of Chicago's lakefront to be part of the equation.

I have made this specific walk (from the campus of Loyola University Chicago in Rogers Park to Navy Pier) three or four times before in my life.  It's about 6 miles in a straight line, but on foot, more like 8, and usually takes me about four to five hours, depending on how often I stop.  I timed the start of my walk so that the live stream would start about a quarter of the way through my journey.

As I said, it was a beautiful sunny Monday.  I had no responsibilities and nowhere to be except present in the moment.  Lucky me.

The music of Boards of Casteneda is unique, and as the live stream began, it suddenly became absurd to me.  I tried to imagine just exactly what other people could have chosen to do as they listened to the boardcast.  Dance?  Fuck?  Meditate?  Gamble?  Drugs?  Videogames?  Fish?   A million questions regarding the nature of music assaulted me, and I began to wonder about my own choices, and why I had made a trip so far from home just to listen to an album.  As I spiraled inward, meditating upon these questions, the music ceased to be music, and the sound became an environment.  I was in, and I was in deep.  So deep that when I stopped my thoughts and looked around, I had no idea where I was.  I wasn't simply disoriented, I was completely and utterly lost.

The jolt of adrenaline from this realization pierced my entire being and I suddenly flashed on a long forgotten memory.

When I was 5 years old, I was at a family party in the city, an area I was not familiar with.  My sister and I went with a group of kids from the party to a nearby park, a rather massive city park.  It was exciting because the other kids were older than us, and we were going without our parents.  My only instructions:  "Stay with your sister."

Everything was moving so fast.  We crossed a busy street and made our way to the playground.  It seemed like there were a million people at the park.  People were playing soccer, riding bikes, having picnics, and all I know is that one minute I was with the group and the next I was all alone.  I had no idea how I had gotten separated, I had no idea where I was, and I had no idea how to get home.  Every step forward was a step in the wrong direction and I literally became frozen with fear.

"Where the fuck am I?  When the fuck am I?  Who the fuck am I?

What did I do to deserve this?"

  I had no hope of answering these questions when I was 5 years old.  At five years old I couldn't process the emotions or the enormity the situation.  All I could do then was cry.  Hysterically. 

   

Realizing this same situation as an adult hit me like a hammer.  It was a completely pure emotion, and it immediately connected me with my 5 year old self, as if I was in one place (LOST) but at two different times (child, adult).   There wasn't a thought in my head that could offer comfort or clue.  The horror was incredibly real.

As this drama deepened, the music of Boards of Canada continued to stream.  It took what seemed like an eternity to realize that I still had headphones on.  I was somehow oblivious to the fact that the tones and rhythms of the album had become an inseparable soundtrack to my situation.  Oh, did I mention I had smoked marijuana at the start of the live stream?  

I finally recognized one step I could take to alter the situation was to remove myself from the environment the album was creating.  I summoned all of my power in that moment (fear of that magnitude can be crippling) and magically removed the headphones from my ears, thereby lifting a powerful veil from my reality.  I was still lost, but I could feel my feet on the ground, and I could walk.  I turned around 360˚ and scanned my environment, finally recognized the Willis Tower and moved South.   As I slowly moved forward, I began to orient myself and in a few minutes I knew where I was again.  The whole event lasted no more than 15 minutes.

It took me the rest of the next week to process what had occurred.  

I knew I wouldn't have the opportunity to listen to the album again until the official release, but for some reason, I knew exactly how I would listen to it.  There was no doubt in my mind, having experimented extensively with film/album sync, that the way to listen to "Tomorrow's Harvest" was also the way to watch "Tomorrow's Harvest". 

At about 2:00 am on June 11 I downloaded the album from iTunes and cued up the DVD of the Final Cut of Blade Runner.  I smoked up, but this time I did not experience any fear or horror.  I was simply in awe at how grand the whole thing was.  Everything.  

As the movie finished around 4:00am, I had to ask myself if I had ever really seen Blade Runner before.  I've watched that movie five or six times before in my life but I'm not sure I ever really saw it.

As far as "Tomorrow's Harvest",  I had actually only listened to the first fifteen minutes prior to this viewing, so this was the first time I actually listened to the album in full.  I can't imagine listening to it any other way, at least for awhile.  

Start the album "Tomorrow's Harvest" by Boards of Canada at 00:00:09 of the Final Cut of Blade Runner.  This is specific; make sure that when the album is at 00:05, the DVD is at 00:00:14.  Start over if this is not in sync.  The film should play without sound or subtitles.  Listen to "Tomorrow's Harvest" on headphones (put the album on repeat).  You'll know for sure if you are locked in when the clenched fist of Roy Batty appears.  

Also, if you haven't read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep before, I recommend reading it before you watch this.  It's a quick read and, in my opinion, it is essential to appreciate the full scope of this.

I really hope you take the time to experience this one, it's worth the dollars and cents.  If you do, please let me know what you think.  

Update 9/28/2020:  spin Tomorrow’s Harvest at 00:03:14 of the original Blade Runner.  

Blades of Canada 2: Does Don Draper Dream Of Electric Sheep?

20th Century Schizoid Man

Richard "Dick" Whitman

Rachel

Rosen

Richard "Rick" Deckard

Rachael Rosen

Blades of Canada: To The Moon Alice

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'. 

wikipedia.com

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.

eli-lsmerchantile.com

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.

The merger with CGC is a successful one and their new supergroup has won not just the Chevy Vega account, but all of Chevrolet. 

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.  

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"

eli-lsmerchantile.com

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."

eli-lsmerchantile.com

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, 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.  What are you talking about Willis?

ARPANET 

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."

http://ann.skea.com/Moon.htm

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."

http://ann.skea.com/Moon.htm

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.  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’s own private 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.  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."

June Lemen

"To the Moon Alice, to the Moon"

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 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,  Episode 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.

After violently purging into the toilet, Tony leans back against a towel.

 XVIII The Moon

X 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 a 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 as well.

I hope when Don/Dick gets his chance he has built better wings.

  

The Grow Beast Sheet Cheat Part 5: A Formula For Thunder

Common descriptions of the process of meditation: transforming the stormy arisings of thoughts, emotions, and feelings and recognizing them to be impermanent phenomena; like passing clouds in the sky; watch your mind and let the clouds pass by; the sun is always shining behind the clouds let the clouds pass and you will once again find the sun; though thoughts will arise, they are merely clouds passing by the mountain. 

Another extremely poor formula for thunder.

What do I mean when I say thunder?  Thunder is simply the SOUND of lightning.
 If our goal is enlightenment, if what we want is an enlightning experience, how are we supposed to generate lightning without clouds?  How do we breakthrough without the thunder?   

"When a tribal man hears thunder, he says, 'What did he say that time?', as automatically as we say 'Gesundheit.'"

Marshall McLuhan

This makes sense, actually.  It’s just a matter of understanding the difference between a one hundred letter word and one hundred letters.

"I can meditate; I see those damn clouds and have no problem letting em' drift; sometimes I see lightning, but the storm is so far off in the distance that I can't hear the thunder.  To tell the truth, I can't tell the difference between thunder and my own fart."

Is it even possible to design a formula for thunder?  To generate a direct lightening strike?