Lives of the Necromancers: Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head

More from Lives of the Necromancers (1834) by William Godwin. See Orpheus for an introduction to Godwin and the book.

Alexander the Paphlagonian

“At about the same time with Apuleius (note: the Numidian writer in Latin, circa 124 – 170 AD) lived Alexander the Paphlagonian, of whom so extraordinary an account is transmitted to us by Lucian (note: also alive during the events he recorded, circa 125 – 180 AD). He was a native of an obscure town, called Abanotica, but was endowed with all that ingenuity and cunning which enables men most effectually to impose upon their fellow-creatures. He was tall of stature, of an impressive aspect, a fair complexion, eyes that sparkled with an awe-commanding fire as if informed by some divinity, and a voice to the last degree powerful and melodious. To these he added the graces of carriage and attire. Being born to none of the goods of fortune, he considered with himself how to turn these advantages to the greatest account; and the plan he fixed upon was that of instituting an oracle entirely under his own direction. He began at Chalcedon on the Thracian Bosphorus; but, continuing but a short time there, he used it principally as an opportunity for publishing that Aesculapius, with Apollo, his father, would in no long time fix his residence at Abanotica…

… coming to Pella in Macedon, [he] found that the environs of this city were distinguished from perhaps all other parts of the world, by a breed of serpents of extraordinary size and beauty. Our author (Lucian) adds that these serpents were so tame, that they inhabited the houses of the province, and slept in bed with the children. If you trod upon them, they did not turn again, or shew tokens of anger, and they sucked the breasts of the women to whom it might be of service to draw off their milk. Lucian says, it was probably one of these serpents, that was found in the bed of Olympias, and gave occasion to the tale that Alexander the Great was begotten by Jupiter under the form of a serpent.

The prophet bought the largest and finest serpent he could find, and conveyed it secretly with him into Asia. When he came to Abonotica, he found the temple that was built surrounded with a moat; and he took an opportunity privately of sinking a goose-egg, which he had first emptied of its contents, inserting instead a young serpent just hatched, and closing it again with great care. He then told his fellow-citizens that the God was arrived, and hastening to the moat, scooped up the egg in an egg-cup in presence of the whole assembly. He next broke the shell, and shewed the young serpent that twisted about his fingers in presence of the admiring multitude. After this he suffered several days to elapse, and then, collecting crowds from every part of Paphlagonia, he exhibited himself, as he had previously announced he should do, with the fine serpent he had brought from Macedon twisted in coils about the prophet’s neck, and its head hid under his arm-pit, while a head artfully formed with linen, and bearing some resemblance to a human face, protruded itself, and passed for the head of the reptile. The spectators were beyond measure astonished to see a little embryo serpent, grown in a few days to so magnificent a size, and exhibiting the features of a human countenance.

Contemporary (2nd century AD) statue of Alexander’s snake-god-puppet Glycon. From the National History and Archaeology Museum, Constanţa, Romania.

Large Papier Mache Heads

“To be worn over head and rest on shoulders. Full size. Fine natural painted. Heads kept in stock can be shipped on short notice.”

Freemasons: plotting in secret to run the world and conceal an age-old conspiracy, or getting drunk and running around wearing a donkey head? On the evidence of this old catalogue of “Burlesque and Side Degree Specialties, Paraphernalia and Costumes” by De Moulin Bros. & Co., I’m afraid the latter scenario seems much more likely. Sorry, conspiracy fans.

OR MAYBE I’M A NWO REPTOID TOO AND I’M IN THE PAY OF THE ILLUMINATI. STAY ASLEEP.

This is more hard drive detritus. I don’t know where these images came from or why I originally stored them. I know only that they’re from late 2001 or early 2002, and they therefore predate the books or sites that came out over the past few years with nutty material from these De Moulin catalogues. If anybody knows their origin and/or who originally scanned them, please let me know in the comments.

I’m not dissing those recent re-publications, incidentally. This stuff is entertaining, and bonkers. How radically culture changes even in so short a period as a hundred years. Sometimes it does 180 degree turns without us even noticing.

Splendid, here’s where we can buy the papier mache head of an Irishman, a Negro, a Jew, a Chinese [sic] or a Wench with movable mouth and eyelids. If you think this is racist, wait until you scroll down a bit. Unfortunately I don’t have the illustrations from page 118.

The mysteries of Freemasonry

“The Mysteries of Freemasonry revealed by Léo Taxil.” Circa 1892-1897.

1890s flyer for a talk in Paris by Léo Taxil, part of a lengthy campaign in which he “exposed”– or in truth, made up– connections between Freemasonry, Satanism and other esoterica of the kind that still exercises simple-minded conspiracy theorists to this day. Taxil or his printer has appropriated occultist Eliphas Levi’s already iconic image of Baphomet (not Satan).

One pretty obvious tip-off should have been that he was already well-known as a disillusioned former Catholic who’d written satirical, mocking books about the evident absurdities, incongruities and logical errors present in Church doctrine and in the Bible, particularly if one took the Bible literally. One of his books was called The Amusing Bible. In the 1880s he alighted on some already existent conspiracy theories about Freemasonry, then spent over ten years puffing them up into grand accusations about the worship of Satan in modern Paris. He had a huge and lasting influence on popular Western culture, though unfortunately most people don’t know that he was making fun of the credulous and didn’t for one moment believe that evil fraternities ruled the world in cahoots with Satan. Taxil’s still sometimes cited in crank texts as an “authority” on occultism or Masons. The image of Baphomet was re-appropriated to Anton La Vey’s little club of genuine Satanists in the 20th century via Arthur Waite, via Taxil; many of their Satanist practices were actually made up originally by Taxil as well. Future founder of Scientology L. Ron Hubbard, Aleister Crowley and the pioneering rocket scientist Jack Parsons were also involved to various degrees in Satanism or occultism created in reality from Taxil’s fiction. I think I need a flowchart or something. Probably not until H.P. Lovecraft was there another individual who so inadvertently and yet so thoroughly provided a gateway for fiction to seep through into the real world.

Taxil was nearly lynched by a Catholic audience in Paris when he revealed that he’d been taking the mickey, thereby finding out that satire and subtlety are wasted on most people; even he had underestimated the gullibility and confirmation bias of the ostentatiously religious, and also their fury at having their pet conspiracy theories attacked with logic. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

“Grandad, why was there a disco backlash?”

Staying Alive: Travolta bears some responsibility but I suspect he could go for the Nuremberg defence here, because a large number of people must have made numerous unforgivable decisions in order for this image to come into being.

Answer: Because no matter how bad disco cash-ins got (Staying Alive, disco version of the theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Xana-fucking-du), somebody always somehow managed to find a way to make something even worse. I have a certain fondness for disco music and style, including some of the stuff that’s entertaining but nonetheless still was and is undeniably not very credible. Both the camp, silly futuristicness and the genuine sense of homo, hetero and bisexual freedom had a massive and in many ways a very positive effect on Western culture and the whole world’s culture. Disco was an enormous influence on Bollywood musicals in the late 70s and early 80s, for example. The same goes for disco’s unjudgemental and/or indiscriminate fusion of black and white musical or cultural influences, and its parallel mixture of black, white and other participants or fans… but if disco had stayed alive (see what I did there?), sooner or later I think it would have escalated into some kind of cataclysmic cultural singularity of awfulness, powerful enough to negate and annihilate the very concept of culture.

And frankly, The Apple is pretty close to being exactly that kind of Strangelovian disco doomsday device.

Footnotes:

1. Startlingly prescient vision of 1994, an unthinkably remote epoch from when this film was made in… er… 1980. And you shall know you are in the future by the squads of disco nuns, and all the real cops and bikers shall be as camp as the pretend ones from The Village People. The perpetrators of this film weren’t wrong about one aspect of the future, though: “the world is controlled by one power: THE APPLE.” True. WHOOOOOAAA PRAISE THE APPLE and their full range of devices, apps and accessories including Mac, iPod, iPhone, iTunes, Final Cut, Safari and iPad.

2. “I waaarntered tooooo rerlease Biiiiibiiii frohom herrrrr contrrrrrract” [BEAT.] “Cheers.”

3. “I’ve never been so high in my life!” [FOR NO APPARENT REASON HER BOYFRIEND CRASHES THROUGH A WINDOW SCREAMING.]

4. “A special experience in movie-going entertainment.” Yes, well, that’s one way of putting it I suppose.

Play him off, Keyboard Cat… Forever. And ever. AND EVER.

What do you get if you combine Eraserhead, Bagpuss and Keyboard Cat? This:

… in which an unfortunate hamster is crammed into a sock and condemned to play the drum part of a song that will never end, a tormented rodent playing Sisyphus as if he were Ringo Starr. A cat’s thousand yard stare conveys the horror of your own fingers playing Hell’s music without your body’s permission or control, like the grafted-on hands of Orlac. And an obese kiddy fiddler with learning disabilities sings in his reedy castrato voice that Jesus loves him, not even realising that Jesus has in fact already condemned him to the blackest pit for all eternity, and that’s precisely where he is now. The souls of all the little victims he stuffed into his attic crawlspace look on.

This was a children’s TV show, apparently. So wrong.

A dream you keep having, whether you realise it or not

My post about Japanese doomsday cult turned terrorists Aum Shinrikyo sent me back to Haruki Murakami’s book of interviews with the victims of Aum’s sarin gas attack on the Tokyo Metro in March of 1995: ‘Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche’.

As I said before, Haruki Murakami is one of those writers that it seems I should completely love. His subject matter and interests mesh very neatly with my own, and many people whose opinions I value speak highly of his work. Even in translation he seems like an insightful writer, but for some reason I’ve never been able to make it more than thirty pages through any of his novels. If you’re also one of these Murakami-blind people as well, I still recommend ‘Underground’.

I was struck by the following section near the end of ‘Underground’ both for its relation to my previous post, and for being in its own right a very cogent analysis of compliance, the banality of evil, conspiracy theories and paranoia, and the narratives we create for and about ourselves as we go through our lives. The best part, I think, is paragraph 3: “Mind control is not something that can be pursued or bestowed just like that. It’s a two-sided affair.” Anyway, here’s the rest:

[from page 201 of the 2001 paperback Harvill Press edition, slightly abridged. Apart from the italicised notes, everything below this point is not by me, it’s from Murakami’s book.]

“How could anyone do such an insane thing? [i.e. murder strangers by gassing them on a train] But conversely, to the cultists it was probably quite comforting. At last they had someone to watch over them, sparing them the anxiety of confronting each new situation on their own, and delivering them from any need to think for themselves.

By tuning in, by merging themselves with [Aum Shinrikyo guru] Shoko Asahara’s ‘greater, more profoundly unbalanced’ Self, they attained a kind of pseudo self-determination. Instead of launching an assault on society as individuals, they handed over the entire strategic responsibility to Asahara. We’ll have one ‘Self-power versus the system’ set-menu, please.

Theirs was not [‘Unabomber’ Theodore] Kaczynski’s ‘battle against the system to attain the power process of self-determination’. The only one fighting was Shoko Asahara: most followers were merely swallowed up and assimilated by his battle-hungry ego. Nor were the followers unilaterally subjected to Asahara’s ‘mind control’. Not passive victims: they themselves actively sought to be controlled by Asahara. ‘Mind control’ is not something that can be pursued or bestowed just like that. It’s a two-sided affair.

Anthrax N Murder N Nerve Gas

EDIT: original video went away due to a copyright claim from Sony. Bizarre. I know Sony is very controlling and often makes batshit crazy decisions, but surely they don’t hold the copyright over all crazy products resulting from batshit crazy decisions? Anyway, the new link works for now.

Anime recruitment video (actually two of them spliced together I think, hence the seemingly random post-credit rocking astral powers montage at 13:20)  for Aum Shinrikyo, the murderous Japanese cult who were in the habit of whacking detractors or defectors and who finally went truly apocalyptic with their random sarin nerve gas attacks in Matsumoto in 1994 and on the Tokyo metro system in 1995. You don’t need to speak Japanese to know that the narrative being presented here is totally mental.