Saturday, May 30, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
a tribute
I thank you God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again tody,
and this is the sun´s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
-e.e. cummings
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again tody,
and this is the sun´s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
-e.e. cummings
Spiritual Virility
The rite was rather a ´divine technique´, a determining action upon invisible forces and inner states similar in spirit to what today is obtained through physical forces and states of matter.
What was at stake was to be able to understand such relationships so that once a cause was established through a correctly performed rite, a necessary and constant effect would ensue on the plane of ´powers´and invisible forces and states of being.
Thus, the law of action reigned supreme. But the law of action is also the law of freedom; no bond can be spiritually imposed on beings who neither hope nor fear, but rather act.
The king possesses the primordial substance, he affects the divine more than being affected by it.
In the higher forms of Aryan spirituality, whether in Greece, ancient Rome, or the Far East, the role played by doctrine was minimal, only the rituals were mandatory and absolutely necessary.
Orthodoxy was defined through rituals and practices and not through dogmas and theories. Sacrilege and impiety did not consist in ´not believing´ but rather in neglecting rites.
PURE LAW OF SPIRITUAL ACTION
Magic should be understood on the basis of the forms in which it was preserved in an active, luminous, and conscious way. These forms coincide with what I have called the ´spiritual virility´ of the world of Tradition.
An individual became a member of the group of true men who control the community only through the new life awakened in him by initiation, almost as if he partook of a ´mystery´or joined an order.
The Egyptian sahu, created by the rite, thanks to which the deceased go on to live in the company of solar gods, indicates a body that has achieved a high degree of knowledge, power, and glory, and that has becoe everlasting and incorruptible.
This body is referred to in the following formulation:
Your soul lives, your body germinates eternally at Ra´s command without any diminuition or defect, just like Ra´s.
In this context the attainment of immortality or the victory over adverse powers of dissolution is related to wholeness, namely, to the inseparability of the soul from the body - better yet, from a body that does not undergo decay.
There is a very suggestive Vedic formula:
´Leaving behind every fault, go back home. Filled with splendor, be reunited with your body.´
The Christian dogma of the ´resurrection of the flesh´that will take place on Judgement Day is the last echo of this idea, which can be traced back to prehistoric times.
To free human beings from the dominion of the totems, to strengthen them, to address them to the fulfillment of a spiritual form and a limit; and to bring them in an invisible way to the line of influences capable of creating a destiny of heroic and liberating immortality - this was the task of the aristocratic cult.
path of the gods - solar path - leads to the bright dwelling of the immortals. This dwelling was variously represented as a height, heaven, or an island, from the Nordic Valhalla and Asgard to the Aztec-Inca ´House of the Sun´, that was reserved for kings, heroes, and nobles.
This path, leading to Brahman, namely, to the unconditioned state, is analogically associated with fire, light, the day, and the six months of the solar ascent during the year, it leads to the region of thunderbolts located beyond the ´door of the sun´.
-Julius Evola, Revolt Against the Modern World, from Chapter 8
What was at stake was to be able to understand such relationships so that once a cause was established through a correctly performed rite, a necessary and constant effect would ensue on the plane of ´powers´and invisible forces and states of being.
Thus, the law of action reigned supreme. But the law of action is also the law of freedom; no bond can be spiritually imposed on beings who neither hope nor fear, but rather act.
The king possesses the primordial substance, he affects the divine more than being affected by it.
In the higher forms of Aryan spirituality, whether in Greece, ancient Rome, or the Far East, the role played by doctrine was minimal, only the rituals were mandatory and absolutely necessary.
Orthodoxy was defined through rituals and practices and not through dogmas and theories. Sacrilege and impiety did not consist in ´not believing´ but rather in neglecting rites.
PURE LAW OF SPIRITUAL ACTION
Magic should be understood on the basis of the forms in which it was preserved in an active, luminous, and conscious way. These forms coincide with what I have called the ´spiritual virility´ of the world of Tradition.
An individual became a member of the group of true men who control the community only through the new life awakened in him by initiation, almost as if he partook of a ´mystery´or joined an order.
The Egyptian sahu, created by the rite, thanks to which the deceased go on to live in the company of solar gods, indicates a body that has achieved a high degree of knowledge, power, and glory, and that has becoe everlasting and incorruptible.
This body is referred to in the following formulation:
Your soul lives, your body germinates eternally at Ra´s command without any diminuition or defect, just like Ra´s.
In this context the attainment of immortality or the victory over adverse powers of dissolution is related to wholeness, namely, to the inseparability of the soul from the body - better yet, from a body that does not undergo decay.
There is a very suggestive Vedic formula:
´Leaving behind every fault, go back home. Filled with splendor, be reunited with your body.´
The Christian dogma of the ´resurrection of the flesh´that will take place on Judgement Day is the last echo of this idea, which can be traced back to prehistoric times.
To free human beings from the dominion of the totems, to strengthen them, to address them to the fulfillment of a spiritual form and a limit; and to bring them in an invisible way to the line of influences capable of creating a destiny of heroic and liberating immortality - this was the task of the aristocratic cult.
path of the gods - solar path - leads to the bright dwelling of the immortals. This dwelling was variously represented as a height, heaven, or an island, from the Nordic Valhalla and Asgard to the Aztec-Inca ´House of the Sun´, that was reserved for kings, heroes, and nobles.
This path, leading to Brahman, namely, to the unconditioned state, is analogically associated with fire, light, the day, and the six months of the solar ascent during the year, it leads to the region of thunderbolts located beyond the ´door of the sun´.
-Julius Evola, Revolt Against the Modern World, from Chapter 8
legionary spirit
a silent revolution that reaches the depths, so that first inside and in the individual the prerequisites to that order are met that will dominate on the outside at the right moment, by replacing in a flash the form and forces of a ruined and corrupt world...
Act, without heeding the fruits, without letting the prospects of success or failure, victory or loss influence you, nor even joy or pain, or the approval and rejection of others...
Be whole, even in fragments, be upright, even when bent
legionary spirit - The attitude of him who can choose the hardest life, who is able to continue fighting even when he knows that the battle is naterially lost, who holds to the ancient precept that ´loyalty is mightier than fire´and who carries the traditional idea of honor and dishonor within.
This attitude creates a substantial, even existential difference between men, almost as though between one race and another.
The style that must assert itself is the style of one who remains strong in his position of loyalty to himself and to an idea, a strength marked by concentrated intensity, resistance to any compromise, as well as a total engagement that shows in every phase of existence.
Tradition as we understand it is that which is most revolutionary in the face of today´s prevailing values.
FIRE IN ICE, ICE IN FIRE, THE EAGLE´S CRY, THE DEMON OF ACTION
-H.T. HANSEN; preface to Men Among the Ruins
Act, without heeding the fruits, without letting the prospects of success or failure, victory or loss influence you, nor even joy or pain, or the approval and rejection of others...
Be whole, even in fragments, be upright, even when bent
legionary spirit - The attitude of him who can choose the hardest life, who is able to continue fighting even when he knows that the battle is naterially lost, who holds to the ancient precept that ´loyalty is mightier than fire´and who carries the traditional idea of honor and dishonor within.
This attitude creates a substantial, even existential difference between men, almost as though between one race and another.
The style that must assert itself is the style of one who remains strong in his position of loyalty to himself and to an idea, a strength marked by concentrated intensity, resistance to any compromise, as well as a total engagement that shows in every phase of existence.
Tradition as we understand it is that which is most revolutionary in the face of today´s prevailing values.
FIRE IN ICE, ICE IN FIRE, THE EAGLE´S CRY, THE DEMON OF ACTION
-H.T. HANSEN; preface to Men Among the Ruins
Christ
Christ is an impersonal force or intelligence that emanates from the Absolute and is also referred to as the Cosmic Christ...It is held that Christ enters into and exalts any individual who is properly prepared, which denotes the complete annihilation of the ego, the exhaustion of all karma and the birth of the solar vehicles, the latter is necessary to handle the super high voltage of christ.
...only those who choose the Straight Path of the Razor´s Edge can incarnate the Christ because the spiral path is not a path of total sacrifice.
Although Jesus was an individual Christ, he taught the doctrine of the Cosmic Christ, intentionally molding his physical life after the psychological process that one undergoes to incarnate the Christ...Jesus is viewed as the Savior of the World because he is a Paramarthasatya (an inhabitant of the Absolute) that physically incarnated specifically for the sake of suffering humanity.
-Samael
...only those who choose the Straight Path of the Razor´s Edge can incarnate the Christ because the spiral path is not a path of total sacrifice.
Although Jesus was an individual Christ, he taught the doctrine of the Cosmic Christ, intentionally molding his physical life after the psychological process that one undergoes to incarnate the Christ...Jesus is viewed as the Savior of the World because he is a Paramarthasatya (an inhabitant of the Absolute) that physically incarnated specifically for the sake of suffering humanity.
-Samael
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Woevre Saelde
Complete fusion - losing oneself in one's opposite, in the loved one, in an effort to return to the original Androgynous - is not a good thing. It goes against individuation, the immortality of the persona and resurrection, which is differentiation, the individuation of both partners, so that he and she can come together again separated but, in another way, united forever. Resurrected.
'If you have the great good fortune to meet your beloved again, the her of him, in one of the turns of your wheel, don't make the mistake of marrying her. You would both be destroyed. What you must do is help her to die outside you. Love her as if you were committing a crime. The beloved must die in order to return to life as an immortal, placing her eternity in your hands. This is the true Her, who leads the warrior to heaven, who is not an illusion, who does not drag him down into hell, profaning him, castrating his magic virility, turning man into woman. She is not the devouring mother, the widow who is not the Widow, because whe does not resign herself to her widowhood and so castrates her son. Parsifal and Alexander had to employ Phobos (hatred) in order to escape from the Great Mother, the little widow, so as to achieve the Grail, the Stone of Change, which the Greeks called XOANAN. Totality.
It has been said that the man who loves God needs seven incarnations in order to enter Nirvana and liberate himself, and that the man who hates him needs only three. It is without God but with his own FURY that Parsifal achieved the Grail and his individuation, his Self, his totality. This is the difference between the Liquid Road and the Dry Road. We do not know whether, as well as his FURY, his PHOBOS, his fear of the Mother, Parsifal carried with him a "memory of a beloved," as he was supposed to have advised his friend Gawaine to do. Parsifal, with his FURY, or his hatred, was resisting a participation mysticque. Samadhi, fusion with Adhi, the Primordial Being, doesn't await him at the end of his road. Because this would be the way of sainthood. What awaits him is KAIVALYA, total separation, supreme individuation, Absolute Personality, the ultimate solitude of the Superman. This is the way of the magician, the Siddha, the tantric hero of the Grail...
...Isn't this the "Blood Memory," the Minne of the German troubadours, who sang of the memory of a Love lost at the beginning of time? What difference between this and the "Race Spirit" of which the occultists speak? Without doubt, I could have gone much further had I, too, not lost the war. I could have linked my concept of the Collective Unconscious ness with the mysterious Tibetan doctrine of the Tulku and th Hindu-Buddhist doctrine of the Bodhisattva. A Tulku never says "I" but "we" with referring to himself. He is a Race Spirit embodied in an entire people. He possesses all his "I" while also being conscious in various parallel planes or times of existence. He is ubiquitous.
In the West, there was once a way of individual initiation into love: the mystery of the Grail... went from the choice of the initiate by the "glance" of the Lady of the Castle - to the giving of a protective ring. The initiate has been accepted. He is the tantric Sadhaka. He then passes into the degrees of Fenhedor, "Suitor"; Precador, "Implorer," "Bound Man," he who has exchanged hearts, the betrothed - Rebis, the androgynous of the alchemists - he who has surmounted the ultimate test of Asag, uniting with his lady only in the mind; or rather, in the Maithuna, the mystical tantric coitus. The Mysterium Coniunctionis. From there he should achieve resurrection, the state of definite separation, individuation in the Absolute Personality, purushic, kaivalic, with the image of the Beloved in his soul. Nigredo, Albedo, Rubedo resurrection in the red immortal energy matter of Vajra.
What had been a private, unique, aristocratic initiation has become vulgarised in the exotericism of the Church of Rome...The Gnostic lady, Sophia, Woevre Saelde, the feminine holy spirit, Paralaletos, the Dove, has been popularized as the Virgin Mary; the Exchange of Hearts, which is in reality the awakening of the Anahata chakra, has been externalized in the cult of the heart of Jesus. The crown of Thorns and the rosary have replace the Templars' alchemical rose of a thousand petals, the Sahasrara chakra, at the summit of the invisible skull. It is the assassination of the sacred way of Kundalini, of the Tantric road of the chakras. The "loveless love" of the warrior, of the troubadour, is the mystery of the Grail.
The love talked and written about so much in novels, poetry and magazines, the love of one's neighbor, the universal love of the churches, love of humanity, has nothing whatsoever to do with "loveless love" (A-mor, without Death), which is a harsh discipline, as cold as ice, as cutting as a sword, and which aspires to overcome the human condition in order to reach the Kingdom of the Immortals, Ultima Thule.
...The earth is alive, and it feels with you. It follows your footsteps, your search, with equal anxiety, because it will be transfigured in your triumph. The end of Kaliyuga and the entry into a new Golden Age depend on the results of your war. The earth by itself cannot finish the work that Nature leaves incomplete. Today the earth has joined forces with man in his destructive passion. The great catastrophe will occur in the first years of the Age of Aquarius. But if you can find the entrance to the Invisible Double of this earth, fulfilling the mystery of "loveless A-mor," the volcanoes will become calm, the earthquake will cease and the catastrophe will be avoided. There is an essential "synchronicity" between the soul and the landscape. What you achieve in yourself will have repercussions in even the remotest corner of the universe, like the ringing of a bell which announces a triumph or a defeat, producing irreversible effects in a secret centre where Destiny acts. The Archetype is indivisible and, if you once confront it in an essential manner, the effects are universal and valid for all eternity. The old Chinese saying expresses it well: "If a man, sitting in his room, thinks the right thoughts, he will be heard thousands of leagues away." And the alchemical saying, too: "It doesn't matter how alone you are. If you do true work, unknown friends will come to your aid.
What I have called "synchronicity," Nietzsche called "lucky occurences filled with meaning." It becomes a poetic dialogue, a concerto for two violins, between the man-magician and Nature. The world presents you with a "lucky occurence filled with meaning," it hands you a subtle, almost secret message, something which happens without apparent reason, a-causal, but which you feel is full of meaning. This being exactly what the world is looking for, that you should extract that meaning from it, which you alone are capable of seeing, because it "synchronises", it fully coincides with your immediate state of mind, with an event in your life, so that it is able to transform itself, with your assistance, into legend and destiny. A lucky occurrence which transformed itself into Destiny. And once you have achieved this, everything will appear to become the same as before, as if nothing had happened. Nevertheless, everything has changed fundamentally and for all time, although the only ones to know it will be you and the earth - which is now your earth, your world, since it has given itself up to you so that you can make it fruitful. "The earth has made itself invisible inside you:, as Rilke would say, it has become an individualized universe inside of you. And although perhaps nothing may have changed, "it might seem as if it were so, it might seem as if it were so," to use your own words. And you will be a creative god of the world; because you have conceived a Non-existent Flower. You have given a meaning to your flower.
'Das ewig Weibliche zieht uns hinan,' as Goethe said. "The Eternal Feminine leads us to heaven." Because the impulse which drives you to fulfill the ultimate mystery, which I have called individuation, projecting the "ego" into the Persona, into the Monad, into the Self, giving a face to the Gods, "lighting the darkness of the Creator," is none other than love. Only love can make you cross the deep chasm, the drawbridge that separates your "ego" from the castle in which your beloved lies asleep, jumping into the abyss. It is in effect a change, a miracle. It is a Non-Existent Flower: the Self. Fall into this flower and you will find the face of your Beloved there. This love, this impulse, is an icy, red-green fire, which consumes everything and projects you to heaven, loving beyond life and death, for all eternity. This love makes you immortal. This face, this Fire of Love, which the troubadours and Minnesangers called WOEVRE SAELDE, Isolde, I have called Anima in the man and Animus in the Woman.
-Serrano, Another Turn of the Wheel
'If you have the great good fortune to meet your beloved again, the her of him, in one of the turns of your wheel, don't make the mistake of marrying her. You would both be destroyed. What you must do is help her to die outside you. Love her as if you were committing a crime. The beloved must die in order to return to life as an immortal, placing her eternity in your hands. This is the true Her, who leads the warrior to heaven, who is not an illusion, who does not drag him down into hell, profaning him, castrating his magic virility, turning man into woman. She is not the devouring mother, the widow who is not the Widow, because whe does not resign herself to her widowhood and so castrates her son. Parsifal and Alexander had to employ Phobos (hatred) in order to escape from the Great Mother, the little widow, so as to achieve the Grail, the Stone of Change, which the Greeks called XOANAN. Totality.
It has been said that the man who loves God needs seven incarnations in order to enter Nirvana and liberate himself, and that the man who hates him needs only three. It is without God but with his own FURY that Parsifal achieved the Grail and his individuation, his Self, his totality. This is the difference between the Liquid Road and the Dry Road. We do not know whether, as well as his FURY, his PHOBOS, his fear of the Mother, Parsifal carried with him a "memory of a beloved," as he was supposed to have advised his friend Gawaine to do. Parsifal, with his FURY, or his hatred, was resisting a participation mysticque. Samadhi, fusion with Adhi, the Primordial Being, doesn't await him at the end of his road. Because this would be the way of sainthood. What awaits him is KAIVALYA, total separation, supreme individuation, Absolute Personality, the ultimate solitude of the Superman. This is the way of the magician, the Siddha, the tantric hero of the Grail...
...Isn't this the "Blood Memory," the Minne of the German troubadours, who sang of the memory of a Love lost at the beginning of time? What difference between this and the "Race Spirit" of which the occultists speak? Without doubt, I could have gone much further had I, too, not lost the war. I could have linked my concept of the Collective Unconscious ness with the mysterious Tibetan doctrine of the Tulku and th Hindu-Buddhist doctrine of the Bodhisattva. A Tulku never says "I" but "we" with referring to himself. He is a Race Spirit embodied in an entire people. He possesses all his "I" while also being conscious in various parallel planes or times of existence. He is ubiquitous.
In the West, there was once a way of individual initiation into love: the mystery of the Grail... went from the choice of the initiate by the "glance" of the Lady of the Castle - to the giving of a protective ring. The initiate has been accepted. He is the tantric Sadhaka. He then passes into the degrees of Fenhedor, "Suitor"; Precador, "Implorer," "Bound Man," he who has exchanged hearts, the betrothed - Rebis, the androgynous of the alchemists - he who has surmounted the ultimate test of Asag, uniting with his lady only in the mind; or rather, in the Maithuna, the mystical tantric coitus. The Mysterium Coniunctionis. From there he should achieve resurrection, the state of definite separation, individuation in the Absolute Personality, purushic, kaivalic, with the image of the Beloved in his soul. Nigredo, Albedo, Rubedo resurrection in the red immortal energy matter of Vajra.
What had been a private, unique, aristocratic initiation has become vulgarised in the exotericism of the Church of Rome...The Gnostic lady, Sophia, Woevre Saelde, the feminine holy spirit, Paralaletos, the Dove, has been popularized as the Virgin Mary; the Exchange of Hearts, which is in reality the awakening of the Anahata chakra, has been externalized in the cult of the heart of Jesus. The crown of Thorns and the rosary have replace the Templars' alchemical rose of a thousand petals, the Sahasrara chakra, at the summit of the invisible skull. It is the assassination of the sacred way of Kundalini, of the Tantric road of the chakras. The "loveless love" of the warrior, of the troubadour, is the mystery of the Grail.
The love talked and written about so much in novels, poetry and magazines, the love of one's neighbor, the universal love of the churches, love of humanity, has nothing whatsoever to do with "loveless love" (A-mor, without Death), which is a harsh discipline, as cold as ice, as cutting as a sword, and which aspires to overcome the human condition in order to reach the Kingdom of the Immortals, Ultima Thule.
...The earth is alive, and it feels with you. It follows your footsteps, your search, with equal anxiety, because it will be transfigured in your triumph. The end of Kaliyuga and the entry into a new Golden Age depend on the results of your war. The earth by itself cannot finish the work that Nature leaves incomplete. Today the earth has joined forces with man in his destructive passion. The great catastrophe will occur in the first years of the Age of Aquarius. But if you can find the entrance to the Invisible Double of this earth, fulfilling the mystery of "loveless A-mor," the volcanoes will become calm, the earthquake will cease and the catastrophe will be avoided. There is an essential "synchronicity" between the soul and the landscape. What you achieve in yourself will have repercussions in even the remotest corner of the universe, like the ringing of a bell which announces a triumph or a defeat, producing irreversible effects in a secret centre where Destiny acts. The Archetype is indivisible and, if you once confront it in an essential manner, the effects are universal and valid for all eternity. The old Chinese saying expresses it well: "If a man, sitting in his room, thinks the right thoughts, he will be heard thousands of leagues away." And the alchemical saying, too: "It doesn't matter how alone you are. If you do true work, unknown friends will come to your aid.
What I have called "synchronicity," Nietzsche called "lucky occurences filled with meaning." It becomes a poetic dialogue, a concerto for two violins, between the man-magician and Nature. The world presents you with a "lucky occurence filled with meaning," it hands you a subtle, almost secret message, something which happens without apparent reason, a-causal, but which you feel is full of meaning. This being exactly what the world is looking for, that you should extract that meaning from it, which you alone are capable of seeing, because it "synchronises", it fully coincides with your immediate state of mind, with an event in your life, so that it is able to transform itself, with your assistance, into legend and destiny. A lucky occurrence which transformed itself into Destiny. And once you have achieved this, everything will appear to become the same as before, as if nothing had happened. Nevertheless, everything has changed fundamentally and for all time, although the only ones to know it will be you and the earth - which is now your earth, your world, since it has given itself up to you so that you can make it fruitful. "The earth has made itself invisible inside you:, as Rilke would say, it has become an individualized universe inside of you. And although perhaps nothing may have changed, "it might seem as if it were so, it might seem as if it were so," to use your own words. And you will be a creative god of the world; because you have conceived a Non-existent Flower. You have given a meaning to your flower.
'Das ewig Weibliche zieht uns hinan,' as Goethe said. "The Eternal Feminine leads us to heaven." Because the impulse which drives you to fulfill the ultimate mystery, which I have called individuation, projecting the "ego" into the Persona, into the Monad, into the Self, giving a face to the Gods, "lighting the darkness of the Creator," is none other than love. Only love can make you cross the deep chasm, the drawbridge that separates your "ego" from the castle in which your beloved lies asleep, jumping into the abyss. It is in effect a change, a miracle. It is a Non-Existent Flower: the Self. Fall into this flower and you will find the face of your Beloved there. This love, this impulse, is an icy, red-green fire, which consumes everything and projects you to heaven, loving beyond life and death, for all eternity. This love makes you immortal. This face, this Fire of Love, which the troubadours and Minnesangers called WOEVRE SAELDE, Isolde, I have called Anima in the man and Animus in the Woman.
-Serrano, Another Turn of the Wheel
Friday, May 22, 2009
Fiery Milk
Every traditional civilization is characterized by the presence of beings who, by virtue of their innate or acquired superiority over the human condition, embody within the temporal order the living and efficacious presence of a power that comes from above.
One of these types of beings is the Pontifex - which means "builder of bridges" or of "paths" connecting the natural and supernatural dimensions.
In the world of Tradition the most important foundation of the authority and of the right of kings and chiefs, and the reason why they were obeyed, feared, and venerated, was essentially their transcendent and non-human quality.
Beyond the variety of mythical and sacred expressions, the recurrent view of kingship is expressed in temrs of an "immanent transcendence" that is present and active in the world.
The king - who was believed to be a sacred being and not a man - by virtue of his "being," was already the center and apex of the community.
In him was also the supernatural strength that made his ritual actions efficacious. In these actions people could recognized the earthly counterpart of supernatural "ruling" as well as the supernatural support of life in the world of Tradition.
For this reason, kingship was the supreme form of government, and was believed to be in the natural order of things.
It imposed itself mainly and irresistably through the spirit.
"The dignity a god enjoys on earth is splendid, but hard to achieve for the weak. Only he who sets his soul on this objective is worthy to become a king." - Ancient Indo-Aryan text
The ruler appears as a follower of the discipline that is practiced by those who are gods among men.
"Thou art Power, the force of Victory, and Immortal...made of Gold, thou rise, at dawn, together with Indra and with the Sun."
By coming forward, Agni has created kingship in this world...
The solar "glory" or "victory" in reference to kingship was not reduced to a mere symbol, but rather devoted to a metaphysical reality. Eventually it came to be identified with a nonhuman operating force, which the king did not possess in and by himself.
One of the most characteristic symbolic expressions of this idea comes from the Zoroastrian tradition, wherein the hvareno (glory that the king possesses) is a supernatural fire characterizing heavenly (and especially solar) entities that allow the king to partake of immortality and that give him witness through VICTORY.
In the oldest texts, the scepter is portrayed as the zigzag bolt of lightning. The regal "force" thus appears as a manifestation of the dazzling, heavenly force. The combination of signs represented the concept of "life-force" from a word for FIERY MILK (anshas) which is the nourishment of the immortals.
This word is not without relation to uraeus, the divine flame, at times life-giving, at other times dangerously destructive, which crowns the head of the Egyptian king in the shape of a serpent.
The king empowered with a non-terrestrial force with its roots in something that is "more than life," naturally appeared as one who could eminently actualize the power of the rites and open the way leading to the superior world.
...an auspicious event was understood not so much as the absence of the mystical power of fortune abiding in the king, but rather as the consequence of something that the king, as a mortal man, had done, thus compromising the objectiveness of his power.
-Julius Evola, Revolt Against the Modern World, from Chapter 1 - Regality
One of these types of beings is the Pontifex - which means "builder of bridges" or of "paths" connecting the natural and supernatural dimensions.
In the world of Tradition the most important foundation of the authority and of the right of kings and chiefs, and the reason why they were obeyed, feared, and venerated, was essentially their transcendent and non-human quality.
Beyond the variety of mythical and sacred expressions, the recurrent view of kingship is expressed in temrs of an "immanent transcendence" that is present and active in the world.
The king - who was believed to be a sacred being and not a man - by virtue of his "being," was already the center and apex of the community.
In him was also the supernatural strength that made his ritual actions efficacious. In these actions people could recognized the earthly counterpart of supernatural "ruling" as well as the supernatural support of life in the world of Tradition.
For this reason, kingship was the supreme form of government, and was believed to be in the natural order of things.
It imposed itself mainly and irresistably through the spirit.
"The dignity a god enjoys on earth is splendid, but hard to achieve for the weak. Only he who sets his soul on this objective is worthy to become a king." - Ancient Indo-Aryan text
The ruler appears as a follower of the discipline that is practiced by those who are gods among men.
"Thou art Power, the force of Victory, and Immortal...made of Gold, thou rise, at dawn, together with Indra and with the Sun."
By coming forward, Agni has created kingship in this world...
The solar "glory" or "victory" in reference to kingship was not reduced to a mere symbol, but rather devoted to a metaphysical reality. Eventually it came to be identified with a nonhuman operating force, which the king did not possess in and by himself.
One of the most characteristic symbolic expressions of this idea comes from the Zoroastrian tradition, wherein the hvareno (glory that the king possesses) is a supernatural fire characterizing heavenly (and especially solar) entities that allow the king to partake of immortality and that give him witness through VICTORY.
In the oldest texts, the scepter is portrayed as the zigzag bolt of lightning. The regal "force" thus appears as a manifestation of the dazzling, heavenly force. The combination of signs represented the concept of "life-force" from a word for FIERY MILK (anshas) which is the nourishment of the immortals.
This word is not without relation to uraeus, the divine flame, at times life-giving, at other times dangerously destructive, which crowns the head of the Egyptian king in the shape of a serpent.
The king empowered with a non-terrestrial force with its roots in something that is "more than life," naturally appeared as one who could eminently actualize the power of the rites and open the way leading to the superior world.
...an auspicious event was understood not so much as the absence of the mystical power of fortune abiding in the king, but rather as the consequence of something that the king, as a mortal man, had done, thus compromising the objectiveness of his power.
-Julius Evola, Revolt Against the Modern World, from Chapter 1 - Regality
Thursday, May 21, 2009
The Golden Farm
On May 24, 1865 two wagon trains filled with gold, one containing the last of the Confederate Treasury and the other money from Virginia banks, were robbed at Chennault Crossroads in Lincoln County, GA.
Chennault Plantation, owned by Dionysius Chennault who was an elderly planter and Methodist minister, played a significan role in the story. The gold was to be returned to France who had loaned the money to support the Confederacy. Jefferson Davis had given his word that the gold would be returned regardless of the outcome of the war. Towards the end of the war, Captain Parker of the Navy and a group of other volunteers, brought the gold from Richmond, VA to Anderson, SC by train and from there by wagon hoping to get to Savannah to load it on a waiting ship.
Accordinly the group set out on their assigned mission, but unfortunately their scouts met Union troops before they got to Augusta. The group returned to the Chennault Plantation. Parker was unable to receive further instruction from Davis because he had already left Washington. It was on this night that the gold disappeard in a hijacking about 100 yards from the porch of the house. One theory says that the gold was divided among the locals.
Union troops later came to the Chennault Plantation to find the gold. They tortured the occupants of the house trying to force them to reveal where the gold was hidden but to no avail. The entire Chennault family was taken to Washington, DC to undergo intensive interrogation. They were questioned thoroughly as to the whereabouts of the gold, but the Chennaults could not tell anything that was not already known. They were released a few weeks later and returned to their home in Georgia.
As time went by, the Chennault plantation became known as the "golden farm," and for many years after that people came there to search for the missing gold. Down through the years, many gold coins have been found along the dirt roads near the plantation following a heavy rainstorm.
Legend persists that the treasure was hastily buried on the original grounds of Chennault Plantation and remains there today...
Chennault Plantation, owned by Dionysius Chennault who was an elderly planter and Methodist minister, played a significan role in the story. The gold was to be returned to France who had loaned the money to support the Confederacy. Jefferson Davis had given his word that the gold would be returned regardless of the outcome of the war. Towards the end of the war, Captain Parker of the Navy and a group of other volunteers, brought the gold from Richmond, VA to Anderson, SC by train and from there by wagon hoping to get to Savannah to load it on a waiting ship.
Accordinly the group set out on their assigned mission, but unfortunately their scouts met Union troops before they got to Augusta. The group returned to the Chennault Plantation. Parker was unable to receive further instruction from Davis because he had already left Washington. It was on this night that the gold disappeard in a hijacking about 100 yards from the porch of the house. One theory says that the gold was divided among the locals.
Union troops later came to the Chennault Plantation to find the gold. They tortured the occupants of the house trying to force them to reveal where the gold was hidden but to no avail. The entire Chennault family was taken to Washington, DC to undergo intensive interrogation. They were questioned thoroughly as to the whereabouts of the gold, but the Chennaults could not tell anything that was not already known. They were released a few weeks later and returned to their home in Georgia.
As time went by, the Chennault plantation became known as the "golden farm," and for many years after that people came there to search for the missing gold. Down through the years, many gold coins have been found along the dirt roads near the plantation following a heavy rainstorm.
Legend persists that the treasure was hastily buried on the original grounds of Chennault Plantation and remains there today...
The Rattlesnake God
Mr. Henry had traveled several days with the INdians going to Fort Niagara to make peace. One day the wind was blowing so hard that they could not go on. So they camped on a point in Lake Huron.
While the INdians were building a hut, Mr. Henry was lighting a fire. He went off a little way to get dry wood, and while he was picking up sticks he heard a strange sound. It lasted only a little while; but, when Mr. Henery went a little farther, it began again. He looked up into the air to see where it came from. He looked down on the ground, and saw a large rattlesnake coiled close to his naked leg. If he had taken one step more, he would have stepped on it, and it would have bitten him.
He now ran back to the canoe to get his gun to kill the snake.
"What are you doing?" asked the Indians.
"I am going to kill a rattlesnake," he said.
"Oh, no! Don't do that!," they said.
The Indians all go their tobacco bags and pipes, and went to the place where the snake had been seen. It was still lying in a coil.
The Indians now stood round the snake, and one after another spoke to it. They called it their grandfather. But they took care not to go too close to their grandfather. They stood off and filled their pipes with tobacco. Each one in turn blew tobacco smoke at the snake. The snake seemed to like it. For half an hour it lay there in a coil, and breathed the smoke. Then it slowly stretched itself out at full lenth, and seemed in a very good humour. It was more than four feet long...
-Edgar Eggelston. Stories of American Life and Adventure
While the INdians were building a hut, Mr. Henry was lighting a fire. He went off a little way to get dry wood, and while he was picking up sticks he heard a strange sound. It lasted only a little while; but, when Mr. Henery went a little farther, it began again. He looked up into the air to see where it came from. He looked down on the ground, and saw a large rattlesnake coiled close to his naked leg. If he had taken one step more, he would have stepped on it, and it would have bitten him.
He now ran back to the canoe to get his gun to kill the snake.
"What are you doing?" asked the Indians.
"I am going to kill a rattlesnake," he said.
"Oh, no! Don't do that!," they said.
The Indians all go their tobacco bags and pipes, and went to the place where the snake had been seen. It was still lying in a coil.
The Indians now stood round the snake, and one after another spoke to it. They called it their grandfather. But they took care not to go too close to their grandfather. They stood off and filled their pipes with tobacco. Each one in turn blew tobacco smoke at the snake. The snake seemed to like it. For half an hour it lay there in a coil, and breathed the smoke. Then it slowly stretched itself out at full lenth, and seemed in a very good humour. It was more than four feet long...
-Edgar Eggelston. Stories of American Life and Adventure
West of Appomattox
THE YELLOW TEXAS PRAIRIE, for all its hidden dangers, was an old friend to Dan Kilbourne. Long before the first rumblings of a war some people thought had finally stopped two months ago at Appomattox Court House, he had come to know the endless, sometimes malicious tricks the vast land could play with the aid of sun and shadow.
But the silent wagons semicircled about the small stand of cottonwoods and willows were real. Now he could make out, in mottled shadows, the "CSA" markings on rough canvas covers. He rode closer, uncomfortably aware that the blue of his uniform stood out stark and shiny against the sere grass, a prime target for a whistling minnie ball.
He pulled up behind the rear wagon, listened, heard nothing but faint wooden creaks caused by the warming air.
A man could take little for granted in this country, but it seemed a fair bet that he was alone. More than likely, he reasoned, the five vehicles had simply been pillaged and abandoned when some stray rider had brought word that two weeks ago Kirby Smith had surrendered the last of the three great Confederate armies. The troops had taken the mules and whatever else was loose, and started the long trek to Shreveport to add their arms to Smith's sword; or maybe they had gone instead to join the Missouri brigade which formed the core of those who intended to fight on.
Dan began to poke into the rear wagon. He was a tall man, two inches over six feet and appearing taller because of his gauntness. At twenty-eight the strength of his wide shoulders and big, hard hands was rightly mirrored in his taut angular face. Deepset black eyes, burning now with a fever that came intermittently, scanned the contents of the wagon from beneath solid black brows.
Nothing. Only empty boxes, thoroughly ransacked of the tinned foodstuffs they had contained. Supplies against the coming hard times? Or supplies for a fighting army?
He rode on down the line, remembering the words of the old teamster who had shared his campfire yesterday morning.
"Most of the Rebs are stragglin' in to give up, right enough," the old-timer had admitted.
"But some are swarmin' together like yaller jackets and wavin' their guns like tommyhawks. This feller Shelby's the ringleader - him an' part of his Missouri outfit. They're figgerin' on don' some fast recruitin' - afore Texas gets occupied - an' then goin' to Mexico. Say they'll fight on from there, however best they can...
-Harley Duncan, West of Appomattox
But the silent wagons semicircled about the small stand of cottonwoods and willows were real. Now he could make out, in mottled shadows, the "CSA" markings on rough canvas covers. He rode closer, uncomfortably aware that the blue of his uniform stood out stark and shiny against the sere grass, a prime target for a whistling minnie ball.
He pulled up behind the rear wagon, listened, heard nothing but faint wooden creaks caused by the warming air.
A man could take little for granted in this country, but it seemed a fair bet that he was alone. More than likely, he reasoned, the five vehicles had simply been pillaged and abandoned when some stray rider had brought word that two weeks ago Kirby Smith had surrendered the last of the three great Confederate armies. The troops had taken the mules and whatever else was loose, and started the long trek to Shreveport to add their arms to Smith's sword; or maybe they had gone instead to join the Missouri brigade which formed the core of those who intended to fight on.
Dan began to poke into the rear wagon. He was a tall man, two inches over six feet and appearing taller because of his gauntness. At twenty-eight the strength of his wide shoulders and big, hard hands was rightly mirrored in his taut angular face. Deepset black eyes, burning now with a fever that came intermittently, scanned the contents of the wagon from beneath solid black brows.
Nothing. Only empty boxes, thoroughly ransacked of the tinned foodstuffs they had contained. Supplies against the coming hard times? Or supplies for a fighting army?
He rode on down the line, remembering the words of the old teamster who had shared his campfire yesterday morning.
"Most of the Rebs are stragglin' in to give up, right enough," the old-timer had admitted.
"But some are swarmin' together like yaller jackets and wavin' their guns like tommyhawks. This feller Shelby's the ringleader - him an' part of his Missouri outfit. They're figgerin' on don' some fast recruitin' - afore Texas gets occupied - an' then goin' to Mexico. Say they'll fight on from there, however best they can...
-Harley Duncan, West of Appomattox
The Two Frontiers
The fundamental quality of the American took its origin at the outset from an overwhelming passion for land. The innumerable shiploads of people that have sped westeard across the Atlantic from Columbus' first voyage, down to the latest ocean liner, have sought to find land, to achieve land, to settle land, to overrun land, to subdue land (111).
...The Revolution itself was less a war to put an end to British oppression than a successful attempt on the part of the colonial land-holding aristocracy to attain to an indefinite expansion to the westward without British interference. It was directed by Washington who was himself one of the largest landowners of the period, and whose whole life was motivated by the passion for acquiring new land, notably in the Ohio region. Fro the Revolution through the Civil War and down to the fantastic scenes of the Florida land boom of a few years ago, the passion for land has been the motive force - one might also say the virtue - of the great majority of Americans(112).
...the Americans were individualist pioneers, and far from toning down their individualism, Emerson would make it still more acute. His chief ethical doctrine is self-reliance to the uttermost. And self-reliance to him meant in reality reliance on nature and external brute fact, as it must in every pioneer and rapidly developing community. In other words, Emerson's theory logically meant that the backwoodsman was equally if not more important to the scheme of things than the sage, the poet, and the scholar(127).
...Emerson's philosophy was entirely a philosophy for pioneers and with the vanishing of the pioneer type its influence and the influence of the vague mystical land-hunger of the frontier - that marvelous realm where wonderful things were always to be done, but never accomplished - began to diminish in American life. Yet with its insistence on individual self-reliance and on possession, Emerson struck the keynote of the American philosophy of today with its "go-getter" shrewdness, its refrain of "getting as much as you can and giving as little as you can," its assumption of superiority based on individual cunning, its vague and pernicious subsidiary hankering for what is mysterious and occult and esoteric, whereby its crudeness is leavened. All this America owes to one man, to Emerson, and it is obvious that we must forgive this man the enormous damage he did(129).
...The American is afflicted therefore with an incredible nostalgia for the past, but the country he sees about him offers no past at all but that of the wilderness, of the pioneer and the Indian. He therefore aims, according as he is sensitive to beauty, or fundamentally in discord with his own surroundings, either to transfer the riches of Europe bodily to his shores and to strive to live in the midst of the them; or to revert to pure and simple savagery. The first path was that trodden by Irving; the second was that chosen by Cooper(200).
- John Gould Fletcher, The Two Frontiers
...The Revolution itself was less a war to put an end to British oppression than a successful attempt on the part of the colonial land-holding aristocracy to attain to an indefinite expansion to the westward without British interference. It was directed by Washington who was himself one of the largest landowners of the period, and whose whole life was motivated by the passion for acquiring new land, notably in the Ohio region. Fro the Revolution through the Civil War and down to the fantastic scenes of the Florida land boom of a few years ago, the passion for land has been the motive force - one might also say the virtue - of the great majority of Americans(112).
...the Americans were individualist pioneers, and far from toning down their individualism, Emerson would make it still more acute. His chief ethical doctrine is self-reliance to the uttermost. And self-reliance to him meant in reality reliance on nature and external brute fact, as it must in every pioneer and rapidly developing community. In other words, Emerson's theory logically meant that the backwoodsman was equally if not more important to the scheme of things than the sage, the poet, and the scholar(127).
...Emerson's philosophy was entirely a philosophy for pioneers and with the vanishing of the pioneer type its influence and the influence of the vague mystical land-hunger of the frontier - that marvelous realm where wonderful things were always to be done, but never accomplished - began to diminish in American life. Yet with its insistence on individual self-reliance and on possession, Emerson struck the keynote of the American philosophy of today with its "go-getter" shrewdness, its refrain of "getting as much as you can and giving as little as you can," its assumption of superiority based on individual cunning, its vague and pernicious subsidiary hankering for what is mysterious and occult and esoteric, whereby its crudeness is leavened. All this America owes to one man, to Emerson, and it is obvious that we must forgive this man the enormous damage he did(129).
...The American is afflicted therefore with an incredible nostalgia for the past, but the country he sees about him offers no past at all but that of the wilderness, of the pioneer and the Indian. He therefore aims, according as he is sensitive to beauty, or fundamentally in discord with his own surroundings, either to transfer the riches of Europe bodily to his shores and to strive to live in the midst of the them; or to revert to pure and simple savagery. The first path was that trodden by Irving; the second was that chosen by Cooper(200).
- John Gould Fletcher, The Two Frontiers
The Horde
Father remembered the wild pigeons crowding
Beech groves, mast-rich. The flutter in boughs, the cloud
Darkening all, a hurricane circling and surging.
Eye lost count, ear could not measure sound.
Mind hurled measureless with them, feathered the sky.
Men took the New World harvest. Field was fat.
The heavy ear of corn full-drooped in shuck,
Waiting in frost the hand. The muscadine
Spilled on the clearing. The hickory nut on roof
Rattled in wind. Wild turkeys clucked.
Oak was gable; cedar was firewood; trout
Stirred white the water. And everywhere birds' cries
Flung forever, whirling with hurried leaves,
Clans of the trampled skies that echoed back
thunder of buffalo hoofs, the plunge of fish.
A man of the woods, his laughter undefiled,
Ooze of cider flecked on shirt, the stain
Of walnut on his palm, the reek
Of fur and feather about his coal, the light
Of a wilderness autumn sharpening his cheek.
Threaded the path, his Indian step unheard,
And told a boy: "The pigeons came
Thus, when I was a boy, in autumn time,
And still come on, for wilderness is ripe.
-Donald Davidson
Beech groves, mast-rich. The flutter in boughs, the cloud
Darkening all, a hurricane circling and surging.
Eye lost count, ear could not measure sound.
Mind hurled measureless with them, feathered the sky.
Men took the New World harvest. Field was fat.
The heavy ear of corn full-drooped in shuck,
Waiting in frost the hand. The muscadine
Spilled on the clearing. The hickory nut on roof
Rattled in wind. Wild turkeys clucked.
Oak was gable; cedar was firewood; trout
Stirred white the water. And everywhere birds' cries
Flung forever, whirling with hurried leaves,
Clans of the trampled skies that echoed back
thunder of buffalo hoofs, the plunge of fish.
A man of the woods, his laughter undefiled,
Ooze of cider flecked on shirt, the stain
Of walnut on his palm, the reek
Of fur and feather about his coal, the light
Of a wilderness autumn sharpening his cheek.
Threaded the path, his Indian step unheard,
And told a boy: "The pigeons came
Thus, when I was a boy, in autumn time,
And still come on, for wilderness is ripe.
-Donald Davidson
The Last Charge
...Fated, valorous army, who watches you
In this last darkling grapple? Who cheers you on?
Shall you walk in the valley of death without parade,
Knowing the taste of blood and the night too soon?
The hands of mourners will come to gather you
Under the maples of McGavock House,
And presently like you will moulder and sink,
Hearing but pilgrim steps, the pelt of leaves
That cover your ranks...your graves. Farewell,
Army of Tennessee! Rough glory, rooted here,
Feeds the lone vow, the lingering touch
Of a late comrade sworn to remember you!
Lights glow from river and town. The darkness stabs.
And winter sweeps the undefended earth.
-Donald Davidson
In this last darkling grapple? Who cheers you on?
Shall you walk in the valley of death without parade,
Knowing the taste of blood and the night too soon?
The hands of mourners will come to gather you
Under the maples of McGavock House,
And presently like you will moulder and sink,
Hearing but pilgrim steps, the pelt of leaves
That cover your ranks...your graves. Farewell,
Army of Tennessee! Rough glory, rooted here,
Feeds the lone vow, the lingering touch
Of a late comrade sworn to remember you!
Lights glow from river and town. The darkness stabs.
And winter sweeps the undefended earth.
-Donald Davidson
The Last Rider
Then did a fellow smile?
Better - or worse- he knew.
But we know too much of Forrest
Not to believe it true,
And we know what call has a rider
To come between dark and dawn
To the bluegrass that sired him
And the roads he fought on;
And do not doubt that Forrest can come
From Mississippi side
Back where the living do not fight
And only the dead can ride.
-Donald Davidson
Better - or worse- he knew.
But we know too much of Forrest
Not to believe it true,
And we know what call has a rider
To come between dark and dawn
To the bluegrass that sired him
And the roads he fought on;
And do not doubt that Forrest can come
From Mississippi side
Back where the living do not fight
And only the dead can ride.
-Donald Davidson
Lee in the Mountains
It is not the bugle now, or the long roll beating.
The simple stroke of a chapel bell forbids
The hurtling dream recalls the lonely mind.
Young men, the God of your fathers is a just
And merciful God who in this blood once shed
On your green altars fathoms out all days,
And measures out the grace
Whereby alone we live;
And in his might he waits,
Brooding within the certitude of time,
To bring this lost forsaken valor
And the fierce faith undying
And the love quenchless
To flower among the hills to which we cleave,
To fruit upon the mountains whither we flee,
Never forsaking, never denying
His children and his children's children forever
Unto all generations of the faithful heart.
-Donald Davidson
The simple stroke of a chapel bell forbids
The hurtling dream recalls the lonely mind.
Young men, the God of your fathers is a just
And merciful God who in this blood once shed
On your green altars fathoms out all days,
And measures out the grace
Whereby alone we live;
And in his might he waits,
Brooding within the certitude of time,
To bring this lost forsaken valor
And the fierce faith undying
And the love quenchless
To flower among the hills to which we cleave,
To fruit upon the mountains whither we flee,
Never forsaking, never denying
His children and his children's children forever
Unto all generations of the faithful heart.
-Donald Davidson
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Golden Circle Redux
"For a surety! Jimmy, I despise slavery. Yet, an honest man is forced to trust the evidence of this sense. I admit it: wage labor does demean far too many men. To my mind, the wild frontier represents the best possible compromise. A man doesn't mind brutal hard labor when he imposes it on himself, when the fruits of his labor grow on trees he owns."
"Tell the truth and shame the devil, lad. But I've been minding another man's fruit trees too long now. The frontier is for youth, not the bone-weary."
"No, it's not," Evan assured him. His teal eyes glittered with mischief. "Every man needs to go west, at least in his soul."(92)
...The destructive power of the blast surpassed anything Charbonnet had envisioned or ever witnessed. The explosion opened a huge hole in the bow, and the sea immediately rushed into this jagged maw. One skiff, just ahead of Charbonnet on the left, had edged in too close: He watched a flaming chunk of hull slam into a man's chest and kill him instantly.
The Dauntless Lady had been taken completely by surprise - even now it didn't appear that the skiffs had drawn very much attention from the panicked crew. Bright little fireflies appeard all around Charbonnet - his men striking lucifer matches. Moments later the little pinpoints of light gave way to orange spear tips of wind-whipped flame as their guncotton torches - green wood wrapped with nitrocellulose - ignited.
The ship's gunnels were low enough that the Partisan Rangers could easily throw their guncotton up onto the deck. A few hearty souls, emboldened by a generous ration of blackstrap, scaled up on dangling lines and tossed their torches higher up into the vulnerable rigging. Because the floundering ship was almost fully rigged, all three masts flying six sails in addition to extra jibs and a spanker at the stern, the fire spread with stunning rapidity, consuming masts, sails, lines, cables, ropes, spars, blocks, and tackles. Charbonnet saw one man plunge screaming from the ratlines, his clothing ablaze.
Soon enough came the gruesome part, the part Charbonnet found distasteful but unavoidable. The circling skiffs moved in on the rapidly sinking ship like sharks to a feeding frenzy. One by one, as the dazed survivors hit the water or worked to lower lifeboats, the crew of the Dauntless Lady were slaughtered.
The flaming ship abruptly rolled over on its starboard side, then went under with a huge, sucking roar and a surge of boiling foam. In the unnatural stillness that followed, broken only by an isolated shout or musket shot, Charbonnet watched the dark shapes of the skiffs, still circling like predators.
He knew this was a great victory for the Golden Circle plotters. With gold reserves for the new Federal paper currency critically short, this sinking would ensure near panic on Wall Street. It further threatened the financial stability and overall authority of the legitimate government.
But even caught flush in the elation of this coup, Charbonnet was struck by the sight of the huge torches turning the sea into an eerie, glassy, fire-sheening surface like molten lava - almost as if, he couldn't help thinking someone had opened up the earth and provided a glimpse into hell(171).
- John Edward Ames - The Golden Circle
"Tell the truth and shame the devil, lad. But I've been minding another man's fruit trees too long now. The frontier is for youth, not the bone-weary."
"No, it's not," Evan assured him. His teal eyes glittered with mischief. "Every man needs to go west, at least in his soul."(92)
...The destructive power of the blast surpassed anything Charbonnet had envisioned or ever witnessed. The explosion opened a huge hole in the bow, and the sea immediately rushed into this jagged maw. One skiff, just ahead of Charbonnet on the left, had edged in too close: He watched a flaming chunk of hull slam into a man's chest and kill him instantly.
The Dauntless Lady had been taken completely by surprise - even now it didn't appear that the skiffs had drawn very much attention from the panicked crew. Bright little fireflies appeard all around Charbonnet - his men striking lucifer matches. Moments later the little pinpoints of light gave way to orange spear tips of wind-whipped flame as their guncotton torches - green wood wrapped with nitrocellulose - ignited.
The ship's gunnels were low enough that the Partisan Rangers could easily throw their guncotton up onto the deck. A few hearty souls, emboldened by a generous ration of blackstrap, scaled up on dangling lines and tossed their torches higher up into the vulnerable rigging. Because the floundering ship was almost fully rigged, all three masts flying six sails in addition to extra jibs and a spanker at the stern, the fire spread with stunning rapidity, consuming masts, sails, lines, cables, ropes, spars, blocks, and tackles. Charbonnet saw one man plunge screaming from the ratlines, his clothing ablaze.
Soon enough came the gruesome part, the part Charbonnet found distasteful but unavoidable. The circling skiffs moved in on the rapidly sinking ship like sharks to a feeding frenzy. One by one, as the dazed survivors hit the water or worked to lower lifeboats, the crew of the Dauntless Lady were slaughtered.
The flaming ship abruptly rolled over on its starboard side, then went under with a huge, sucking roar and a surge of boiling foam. In the unnatural stillness that followed, broken only by an isolated shout or musket shot, Charbonnet watched the dark shapes of the skiffs, still circling like predators.
He knew this was a great victory for the Golden Circle plotters. With gold reserves for the new Federal paper currency critically short, this sinking would ensure near panic on Wall Street. It further threatened the financial stability and overall authority of the legitimate government.
But even caught flush in the elation of this coup, Charbonnet was struck by the sight of the huge torches turning the sea into an eerie, glassy, fire-sheening surface like molten lava - almost as if, he couldn't help thinking someone had opened up the earth and provided a glimpse into hell(171).
- John Edward Ames - The Golden Circle
A Trooper of Forrest
Time is a puny thing when shadows and lights
Of a man's counting stretch into ninety years.
Evenings he strokes his beard and looks off yonder
The near valleys are dark, without memory.
In them time is stout, with a rattlesnake's measured
Hitch and swell and scaly outreach again.
I leave the snake to his slow business
The snake is yours, my children of dark valleys.
Beyond the fangs of shadow and of time,
Clearer than your faces, come on my mind the hills,
The good riders loping the wilderness road.
I know sunlight on a horse's mane, I hear
The good talk, the saddles creaking, the smoke
Of camp-fires at the river's bend and the mounting
Hoofbeats. The taste of powder in my mouth
And with it a song -
"Good riders, good riders, good riders, we air
A-courtin' your daughter so bright and so fair
Kin we git lodgin' here, O here?
Kin we git lodgin' here?"
And no songs like that, my son, my boy
No such song comes out of the dark valley
Out of which you move, a lean young stranger
Swimming up from darkness to my bench
To find me drowsing here in the late sun
With a late honeysuckle vine and an autumn bee
Sole company
And what is the trouble now?
Something to tousel a shock of hair and knit
the open muscles at your sunburnt throat. The captain
Out of game? An ankle battered? A knee
Chipped in practice? And still the game to play?
And the headlines speaking disaster to the soft
And groaning world, which finds so much each day
To pester it. That is a woman's talk.
And this is a woman's age to take it so hard.
I have known harder days than this and men
Fit to muscle out their heft of trouble
We never waited for trouble then. Our rule -
Old Bedford Forrest's rule was, 'Give 'em a dare!'
If you can't ride to meet your trouble
Then walk. And if you can't walk, crawl.
But face it, hound it, swap licks with it.
You have heard of General Jackson, how he took
Dickinson's bullet, and faced him down. And Houston
Yanking the arrow from his thigh at To-ho-pe-ka
They were good men, and Forrest took after them
And his mother who whipped her 18 year old son
For being too smart and sent him to the mill
He came home in his slick Confederate duds
And thought himself too good to help his mother.
Not Bedford - That was Joseph - there were eight
Brothers in the Confederate war, eight Forrests
And all 'tarnation fighters and hard riders.
And Bedford oldest, hawkeyed, chain-lighting quick
Talk about Marshal ney, Napoleon, Caesar
Or Alexander at Arbela - I've not heard tell
Of a general commanding troops of the line
Who killed his thirty men in personal combat
As Forrest did - he shot them, hacked them, ripped them
Knocked them out of his way. He minded bullets
No more than boys at One-eyed cat mind balls
And met his fill of them from start to finish
And when Lieutenant Gould, who lost the guns
At day's gap, went crazy with shame and anger
And under reprimand whipped out his gun and shot
His own General, then Forrest gripped
The deadly pistol hand, and with his teeth
Opened a knife and stabbed the proud young fool
And Gould died begging forgiveness
Which Forrest gave
For though he could whip us all -
Would whip us if we needed it, we knew
Old Bedford for a tender man. We have seen him
Weep for a perished friend. He loved good soldiers
And he hated bad ones, General Bragg, included -
And had words to tell them just how bad they were.
-Donald Davidson
Of a man's counting stretch into ninety years.
Evenings he strokes his beard and looks off yonder
The near valleys are dark, without memory.
In them time is stout, with a rattlesnake's measured
Hitch and swell and scaly outreach again.
I leave the snake to his slow business
The snake is yours, my children of dark valleys.
Beyond the fangs of shadow and of time,
Clearer than your faces, come on my mind the hills,
The good riders loping the wilderness road.
I know sunlight on a horse's mane, I hear
The good talk, the saddles creaking, the smoke
Of camp-fires at the river's bend and the mounting
Hoofbeats. The taste of powder in my mouth
And with it a song -
"Good riders, good riders, good riders, we air
A-courtin' your daughter so bright and so fair
Kin we git lodgin' here, O here?
Kin we git lodgin' here?"
And no songs like that, my son, my boy
No such song comes out of the dark valley
Out of which you move, a lean young stranger
Swimming up from darkness to my bench
To find me drowsing here in the late sun
With a late honeysuckle vine and an autumn bee
Sole company
And what is the trouble now?
Something to tousel a shock of hair and knit
the open muscles at your sunburnt throat. The captain
Out of game? An ankle battered? A knee
Chipped in practice? And still the game to play?
And the headlines speaking disaster to the soft
And groaning world, which finds so much each day
To pester it. That is a woman's talk.
And this is a woman's age to take it so hard.
I have known harder days than this and men
Fit to muscle out their heft of trouble
We never waited for trouble then. Our rule -
Old Bedford Forrest's rule was, 'Give 'em a dare!'
If you can't ride to meet your trouble
Then walk. And if you can't walk, crawl.
But face it, hound it, swap licks with it.
You have heard of General Jackson, how he took
Dickinson's bullet, and faced him down. And Houston
Yanking the arrow from his thigh at To-ho-pe-ka
They were good men, and Forrest took after them
And his mother who whipped her 18 year old son
For being too smart and sent him to the mill
He came home in his slick Confederate duds
And thought himself too good to help his mother.
Not Bedford - That was Joseph - there were eight
Brothers in the Confederate war, eight Forrests
And all 'tarnation fighters and hard riders.
And Bedford oldest, hawkeyed, chain-lighting quick
Talk about Marshal ney, Napoleon, Caesar
Or Alexander at Arbela - I've not heard tell
Of a general commanding troops of the line
Who killed his thirty men in personal combat
As Forrest did - he shot them, hacked them, ripped them
Knocked them out of his way. He minded bullets
No more than boys at One-eyed cat mind balls
And met his fill of them from start to finish
And when Lieutenant Gould, who lost the guns
At day's gap, went crazy with shame and anger
And under reprimand whipped out his gun and shot
His own General, then Forrest gripped
The deadly pistol hand, and with his teeth
Opened a knife and stabbed the proud young fool
And Gould died begging forgiveness
Which Forrest gave
For though he could whip us all -
Would whip us if we needed it, we knew
Old Bedford for a tender man. We have seen him
Weep for a perished friend. He loved good soldiers
And he hated bad ones, General Bragg, included -
And had words to tell them just how bad they were.
-Donald Davidson
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
The Virginian
What is become of the horseman, the cowpuncher, the last romantic figure upon our soil? For he was romantic. What ever he did, he did with his might. The bread that he earned was earned hard, the wages that he squandered were squandered hard, -- half a year's pay sometimers gone in a night, --"blown in," as he expressed it, or "blowed in," to be perfectly accurate. Well, he will be here among us always, invisible, waiting his chance to live and play as he would like. His wild kind has been among us always, since the beginning: a young man with his temptations, a hero without wings.
The cowpuncher's ungoverned hours did not unman him. If he gave his word, he kept it; Wall Street would have found him behind the times. Nor did he talk lewdly to women; Newport would have thorugh him old-fashioned. He had his brief epoch make a complete picture, for in themselves they were as complete as the pioneers of the land or the explorers of the sea. A transition has followed the horseman of the plains; a shapeless state, a condition of men and manners unlovely as that bald moment in the year when winter is gone and spring not come, and the face of Nature is ugly. I shall not dwell upon it here. Those who have seen it know well what I mean. Such transition was inevitable. Let us give thanks that it is but a transition, and not a finality.
Enter the Man...
Some notable night was drawing the passengers, both men and women, to the window; and therefore I rose and crossed the car to see what it was. I saw near the track an enclosure, and round it some laughying men, and inside it some whirling dust, and amid the dust some horse, plunging, huddling, and dodging. They were cow ponies in a corral, and one of them would not be caught, no matter who threw the rope. We had plenty of time to watch this sport, for our train had stopped that the engine might take water at the tank before it pulled us up beside the station platform of Medicine Bow. We were also six hours late, and starving for entertainment. The pony in the corral was wise, and rapid of limb. Have you seen a skillful boxer watch his antagonist with a quiet, incessant eye? Such an eye as this did the pony keep upon whatever man took the rope. The man might pretend to look at the weather, which was fine; or he mifht afect earnest conversation with a bystander; it was bootless. The pony saw through it. No feint hoodwinked him. This animal was thoroughly a man of the world. His undistracted eye stayed fixed upon the dissembling foe, and the gravity of his horse expression made the matter one of high comedy. Then the rope would sail out at him, but he was already elsewhere; and if horses laugh, gayety must have abounded in that corral. Sometimes the pony took a turn alone; next he had slid in a flash among his brothers, and the whole of them like a school of playful fish whipped round the corral, kicking up the fine dust, and (I take it) roaring with laughter. Through the window-glass of our Pullman the thud of their mischievous hoofs reached us, and the strong humorous curses of the cow-boys. Then for the first time I noticed a man who sat on the high gate of the corral, looking on. For he now comibed down with the undulations of a tiger, smooth and easy, as if his muscles flowed beneath his skin. The others had all visibly whirled the rope, some of them even shoulder high. I did not see his arm lift or move. He appeared to hold the rope down, by his leg. But like a sudden snake I saw the noose go out its length and fall true; and the thing was done. As the captured poney walked in with a sweet, church-door expression, our train moved slowly on to the station, and a passenger remarked, "That man knows his business."
-Owen Wister, The Virginian
The cowpuncher's ungoverned hours did not unman him. If he gave his word, he kept it; Wall Street would have found him behind the times. Nor did he talk lewdly to women; Newport would have thorugh him old-fashioned. He had his brief epoch make a complete picture, for in themselves they were as complete as the pioneers of the land or the explorers of the sea. A transition has followed the horseman of the plains; a shapeless state, a condition of men and manners unlovely as that bald moment in the year when winter is gone and spring not come, and the face of Nature is ugly. I shall not dwell upon it here. Those who have seen it know well what I mean. Such transition was inevitable. Let us give thanks that it is but a transition, and not a finality.
Enter the Man...
Some notable night was drawing the passengers, both men and women, to the window; and therefore I rose and crossed the car to see what it was. I saw near the track an enclosure, and round it some laughying men, and inside it some whirling dust, and amid the dust some horse, plunging, huddling, and dodging. They were cow ponies in a corral, and one of them would not be caught, no matter who threw the rope. We had plenty of time to watch this sport, for our train had stopped that the engine might take water at the tank before it pulled us up beside the station platform of Medicine Bow. We were also six hours late, and starving for entertainment. The pony in the corral was wise, and rapid of limb. Have you seen a skillful boxer watch his antagonist with a quiet, incessant eye? Such an eye as this did the pony keep upon whatever man took the rope. The man might pretend to look at the weather, which was fine; or he mifht afect earnest conversation with a bystander; it was bootless. The pony saw through it. No feint hoodwinked him. This animal was thoroughly a man of the world. His undistracted eye stayed fixed upon the dissembling foe, and the gravity of his horse expression made the matter one of high comedy. Then the rope would sail out at him, but he was already elsewhere; and if horses laugh, gayety must have abounded in that corral. Sometimes the pony took a turn alone; next he had slid in a flash among his brothers, and the whole of them like a school of playful fish whipped round the corral, kicking up the fine dust, and (I take it) roaring with laughter. Through the window-glass of our Pullman the thud of their mischievous hoofs reached us, and the strong humorous curses of the cow-boys. Then for the first time I noticed a man who sat on the high gate of the corral, looking on. For he now comibed down with the undulations of a tiger, smooth and easy, as if his muscles flowed beneath his skin. The others had all visibly whirled the rope, some of them even shoulder high. I did not see his arm lift or move. He appeared to hold the rope down, by his leg. But like a sudden snake I saw the noose go out its length and fall true; and the thing was done. As the captured poney walked in with a sweet, church-door expression, our train moved slowly on to the station, and a passenger remarked, "That man knows his business."
-Owen Wister, The Virginian
Michael
In Biblical and post-Biblical lore, Michael ranks as the greates of all angels, whether in Jewish, Christian, or Islamic writings, secular or religious. He derives originally from the Chaldeans by whom he was worshipped as something of a god. He is chief of the order of virtues, chief of archangels, prince of the presence, angel of repentance, righteousness, mercy, and sanctification; also ruler of the fourth heaven, angelic prince of Israel, guardian of Jacob, conqueror of Satan...His mystery name is Sabbathiel...
...In Islamic writings he is called Mika'il. As the deliverer of the faithful he accords, in the Avesta, with Sayosyhant the Redeemer. Midrash Rabba (Exodus 18) credits Michael with being the author of the whole of Psalm 85. In addition he has been identified with the angel who destroyed the hosts of Sennacherib and as the angel who stayed the hand of Abraham when the latter was on the point of sacrificing his son Isaac...
...In Jewish lore "the fire that Moses saw in the burning bush had the appearance of Michael, who had descended from Heaven as the forerunner of Shekinah."...
In mystic and occult writings, Michael has often been equated with the Holy Ghost, the Logos, God, Metatron, etc. In Baruch III, Michael "holds the keys of the kingdom of Heaven"...
...In Hastings, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics IV, 616, the article, "Demons and Spirits" speaks of the earliest traditions in Muslim lore as locating Michael in the 7th Heaven "on the borders of the Full Sea, crowded with an innumerable array of angels"; and after describing Michael's wings as "of the color of green emerald," goes on to say that he "is covered with saffron hairs, each of them containing a million faces and mouths and as many tongues, which in a million dialects, implore the pardon of Allah...
...In ancient Persian lore, Michael was called Beshter, "one who provides sustenance for mankind," which would equate him with Metatron. Here it is revealed that the cherubim were formed from the tears Michael shed over the sins of the faithful...
...Christians invoke Michael as St. Michael, the benevolent angel of death, in the sense of deliverance and immortality, and for leading the souls of the faithful "into the eternal light"...With Gabriel, Michael is the most commonly pictured angel in the work of the classic masters. He is depicted most often as winged, with unsheathed sword, the warrior of God and slayer of the Dragon. As the angel of the final reckoning and the weigher of souls he holds in his hand the scales of justice.
-Gustav Davidson. A Dictionary of Angels.
...In Islamic writings he is called Mika'il. As the deliverer of the faithful he accords, in the Avesta, with Sayosyhant the Redeemer. Midrash Rabba (Exodus 18) credits Michael with being the author of the whole of Psalm 85. In addition he has been identified with the angel who destroyed the hosts of Sennacherib and as the angel who stayed the hand of Abraham when the latter was on the point of sacrificing his son Isaac...
...In Jewish lore "the fire that Moses saw in the burning bush had the appearance of Michael, who had descended from Heaven as the forerunner of Shekinah."...
In mystic and occult writings, Michael has often been equated with the Holy Ghost, the Logos, God, Metatron, etc. In Baruch III, Michael "holds the keys of the kingdom of Heaven"...
...In Hastings, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics IV, 616, the article, "Demons and Spirits" speaks of the earliest traditions in Muslim lore as locating Michael in the 7th Heaven "on the borders of the Full Sea, crowded with an innumerable array of angels"; and after describing Michael's wings as "of the color of green emerald," goes on to say that he "is covered with saffron hairs, each of them containing a million faces and mouths and as many tongues, which in a million dialects, implore the pardon of Allah...
...In ancient Persian lore, Michael was called Beshter, "one who provides sustenance for mankind," which would equate him with Metatron. Here it is revealed that the cherubim were formed from the tears Michael shed over the sins of the faithful...
...Christians invoke Michael as St. Michael, the benevolent angel of death, in the sense of deliverance and immortality, and for leading the souls of the faithful "into the eternal light"...With Gabriel, Michael is the most commonly pictured angel in the work of the classic masters. He is depicted most often as winged, with unsheathed sword, the warrior of God and slayer of the Dragon. As the angel of the final reckoning and the weigher of souls he holds in his hand the scales of justice.
-Gustav Davidson. A Dictionary of Angels.
density of things
There is a general problem of critical mass of the means which puts an end to ends. What happens when everything has been realized in modernity, when everything is virtually given?
The question is crucial: where does one go from there? That is the problem: from the moment the subject is perfectly realized, it automatically becomes the object, and there is panic. I am not sure that with the virtual world we are moving closer still to happiness, because virtuality only gives possibilities virtually, while taking back the reference and the density of things, their meaning. It gives you everything, and subtly, surreptitiously it takes everything away at the same time. It is a game of which one does not know the rules. One loses what one wins and vice versa. All one can do is refuse to play, but it's not easy in our times.
-Jean Baudrillard
The question is crucial: where does one go from there? That is the problem: from the moment the subject is perfectly realized, it automatically becomes the object, and there is panic. I am not sure that with the virtual world we are moving closer still to happiness, because virtuality only gives possibilities virtually, while taking back the reference and the density of things, their meaning. It gives you everything, and subtly, surreptitiously it takes everything away at the same time. It is a game of which one does not know the rules. One loses what one wins and vice versa. All one can do is refuse to play, but it's not easy in our times.
-Jean Baudrillard
The Last Frontier
Having passed over the world,
And seen three seas and two mountains,
He came to the last frontier
On a hilltop
There were two men making a hole in the earth,
And beside it, his own dead body lay.
The thin man tugged at his beard
And wondered if the grave was deep enough,
The fat man sweated and toiled
And longed for a glass of beer.
Meanwhile his body lay there,
In a shabby sut, on its bead of wet earth;
And the clouds of evening, blown from beyond the world,
Swung lightly over his face.
But he waited until
His old body was dropped and the earth shovelled deeply upon it,
And the lean man put up a cross,
While the fat man stumped away home.
Then he went back from the last frontier
To the countries he had known years ago;
To the seven hotels and the thirty-two deserts
Without hope.
-John Gould Fletcher
And seen three seas and two mountains,
He came to the last frontier
On a hilltop
There were two men making a hole in the earth,
And beside it, his own dead body lay.
The thin man tugged at his beard
And wondered if the grave was deep enough,
The fat man sweated and toiled
And longed for a glass of beer.
Meanwhile his body lay there,
In a shabby sut, on its bead of wet earth;
And the clouds of evening, blown from beyond the world,
Swung lightly over his face.
But he waited until
His old body was dropped and the earth shovelled deeply upon it,
And the lean man put up a cross,
While the fat man stumped away home.
Then he went back from the last frontier
To the countries he had known years ago;
To the seven hotels and the thirty-two deserts
Without hope.
-John Gould Fletcher
Sanctuary
You must remember this when I am gone,
And tell your sons - for you will have tall sons,
And times will come when answers will not wait.
Remember this: if ever defeat is black
Upon your eyelids, go to the wilderness
In the dread last of trouble, for your foe
Tangles there, more than you, and paths are strange
To him, that are your paths, in the wilderness,
And were your father's paths, and once were mine.
...You must remember this, and mark it well
As I have told it - what my eyes have seen
And where my feet have walked beyond forgetting.
But tell it not often, tell it only at last
When your sons know what blood runs in their veins.
And when the danger comes, as come it will,
Go as your fathers went with woodsman's eyes
Uncursed, unflinching, studying only the path...
...First, what you cannot carry, burn or hide.
Leave nothing here for him to take or eat.
Bury, perhaps, what you can surely find
If good chance ever bring you back again.
Level the crops. Take only what you need:
A little corn for an ash-cake, a little
Side-meat for your three-days' wilderness ride.
Horses for your women and your children,
And one to lead, if you should have that many.
...Then go. At once. Do not wait until
You see his great dust rising in the valley.
Then it will be too late.
Go when you hear that he has crossed Will's Ford.
Others will know and will pass the word to you -
A tap on the blinds, a hoot-owl's cry at dusk...
...Do not look back. You can see your roof afire
When you reach high ground. Yet do not look.
Do not turn. Do not look back.
Go further on. Go high. Go deep...
...The line of this rail-fence east across the old-fields
Leads to the cane-bottoms. Back of that,
A white oak tree beside a spring, the one
Chopped with three blazes on the hillward side.
There pick up the trail. I think it was
A buffalo path once or an Indian road.
You follow it three days along the ridge
Until you reach the spruce woods. Then a cliff
Breaks, where the trees are thickest, and you look
Into a cove, and right across, Chilhowee
Is suddenly there, and you are home at last...
...Sweet springs of mountain water in that cove
Run always. Deer and wild turkey range.
Your kin, knowing the way, long there before you
Will have good fires and kettles on to boil
Bough shelters reared and thick beds of balsam.
There in tall timber you will be as free
As were your fathers once when Tryon raged
In Carolina hunting Regulators,
Or Tarleton rode to hang the old-time Whigs...
...Some tell how in that valley young Sam Houston
Lived long ago with his brother, Oo-loo-te-ka,
Reading Homer among the Cherokee;
And others say a Spaniard may have found it
Far from De Soto's wandering turned aside,
And left his legend on a boulder there.
And some that this was a sacred place to all
Old Indian tribes before the Cherokee
Came to our eastern mountains. Men have found
Images carved in bird-shapes there and faces
Moulded into the great kind look of gods...
...These old tales are like prayers. I only know
This is the secret refuge of our race
Told only from a father to his son,
A trust laid on your lips, as though a vow
To generations past and yet to come.
...There, from the bluffs above, you may at last
Look back to all you left, and trace
His dust and flame, and play your harrying
If you would gnaw his ravaging flank, or smite
Him in his glut among the smoldering ricks.
Or else, forgetting ruin, you may lie
On sweet grass by a mountain stream, to watch
The last wild eagle soar or the last raven
Cherish his brood within their rocky nest,
Or see, when mountain shadows first grow long,
The last enchanted white deer come to drink.
-Donald Davidson
And tell your sons - for you will have tall sons,
And times will come when answers will not wait.
Remember this: if ever defeat is black
Upon your eyelids, go to the wilderness
In the dread last of trouble, for your foe
Tangles there, more than you, and paths are strange
To him, that are your paths, in the wilderness,
And were your father's paths, and once were mine.
...You must remember this, and mark it well
As I have told it - what my eyes have seen
And where my feet have walked beyond forgetting.
But tell it not often, tell it only at last
When your sons know what blood runs in their veins.
And when the danger comes, as come it will,
Go as your fathers went with woodsman's eyes
Uncursed, unflinching, studying only the path...
...First, what you cannot carry, burn or hide.
Leave nothing here for him to take or eat.
Bury, perhaps, what you can surely find
If good chance ever bring you back again.
Level the crops. Take only what you need:
A little corn for an ash-cake, a little
Side-meat for your three-days' wilderness ride.
Horses for your women and your children,
And one to lead, if you should have that many.
...Then go. At once. Do not wait until
You see his great dust rising in the valley.
Then it will be too late.
Go when you hear that he has crossed Will's Ford.
Others will know and will pass the word to you -
A tap on the blinds, a hoot-owl's cry at dusk...
...Do not look back. You can see your roof afire
When you reach high ground. Yet do not look.
Do not turn. Do not look back.
Go further on. Go high. Go deep...
...The line of this rail-fence east across the old-fields
Leads to the cane-bottoms. Back of that,
A white oak tree beside a spring, the one
Chopped with three blazes on the hillward side.
There pick up the trail. I think it was
A buffalo path once or an Indian road.
You follow it three days along the ridge
Until you reach the spruce woods. Then a cliff
Breaks, where the trees are thickest, and you look
Into a cove, and right across, Chilhowee
Is suddenly there, and you are home at last...
...Sweet springs of mountain water in that cove
Run always. Deer and wild turkey range.
Your kin, knowing the way, long there before you
Will have good fires and kettles on to boil
Bough shelters reared and thick beds of balsam.
There in tall timber you will be as free
As were your fathers once when Tryon raged
In Carolina hunting Regulators,
Or Tarleton rode to hang the old-time Whigs...
...Some tell how in that valley young Sam Houston
Lived long ago with his brother, Oo-loo-te-ka,
Reading Homer among the Cherokee;
And others say a Spaniard may have found it
Far from De Soto's wandering turned aside,
And left his legend on a boulder there.
And some that this was a sacred place to all
Old Indian tribes before the Cherokee
Came to our eastern mountains. Men have found
Images carved in bird-shapes there and faces
Moulded into the great kind look of gods...
...These old tales are like prayers. I only know
This is the secret refuge of our race
Told only from a father to his son,
A trust laid on your lips, as though a vow
To generations past and yet to come.
...There, from the bluffs above, you may at last
Look back to all you left, and trace
His dust and flame, and play your harrying
If you would gnaw his ravaging flank, or smite
Him in his glut among the smoldering ricks.
Or else, forgetting ruin, you may lie
On sweet grass by a mountain stream, to watch
The last wild eagle soar or the last raven
Cherish his brood within their rocky nest,
Or see, when mountain shadows first grow long,
The last enchanted white deer come to drink.
-Donald Davidson
Blue-Stocking Hollow
Traveler, rest. The time of man runs on;
Our home is far across the western wave
Back of whose steeps, forsaken and foregone,
Lost continents ebb and we have no power to save.
The unending cycle breaks against the strand
Where blue tidewater laps our greener land.
And once the Virginian voyage brings us clear,
The hoodless eagles of the New World skies
Towering, unshackle us, and the wild geese rise,
Hurling southward with invincible wing
Omens unriddled for our journeying.
Rough pilgrims, faring far, whose Hesperus
Stooped by the piney woods or mountain cove,
or whom the Buffalo Gods to the perilous
Lift of the Great Divide and the redwood grove
Spoke on and bid lay down from sea to sea
The sill and hearthstone of our destiny.
Salving our wounds, from the moody kings we came,
And even while kinsmen's shoulders raised and set
The first log true, bethought us of a name
To seal the firm lips of our unregret,
To charm the door against the former age
And bless the lintel of our hermitage.
Recite then while the inviolate hearth-flame leaps
How Ilion fell, and, hound at knee, recall
Platonic converse, Let the screech-owl keep
Watch where the fat maize crowds the forest wall.
High by the talking waters grows the cane;
Wild by the salt-lick herds the forest game.
And let the graybeard say when men and maids
Come for his blessing: "This I leave to you!
The Indian dream came on me in these glades,
And some strange bird-or-beast word named me new
Peace be to all who keep the wilderness.
Cursed be the child who lets the freehold pass.
-Donald Davidson, from "The Hermitage"
Our home is far across the western wave
Back of whose steeps, forsaken and foregone,
Lost continents ebb and we have no power to save.
The unending cycle breaks against the strand
Where blue tidewater laps our greener land.
And once the Virginian voyage brings us clear,
The hoodless eagles of the New World skies
Towering, unshackle us, and the wild geese rise,
Hurling southward with invincible wing
Omens unriddled for our journeying.
Rough pilgrims, faring far, whose Hesperus
Stooped by the piney woods or mountain cove,
or whom the Buffalo Gods to the perilous
Lift of the Great Divide and the redwood grove
Spoke on and bid lay down from sea to sea
The sill and hearthstone of our destiny.
Salving our wounds, from the moody kings we came,
And even while kinsmen's shoulders raised and set
The first log true, bethought us of a name
To seal the firm lips of our unregret,
To charm the door against the former age
And bless the lintel of our hermitage.
Recite then while the inviolate hearth-flame leaps
How Ilion fell, and, hound at knee, recall
Platonic converse, Let the screech-owl keep
Watch where the fat maize crowds the forest wall.
High by the talking waters grows the cane;
Wild by the salt-lick herds the forest game.
And let the graybeard say when men and maids
Come for his blessing: "This I leave to you!
The Indian dream came on me in these glades,
And some strange bird-or-beast word named me new
Peace be to all who keep the wilderness.
Cursed be the child who lets the freehold pass.
-Donald Davidson, from "The Hermitage"
The Immigrant
I cannot see him plain, that far-off sire
Who notched the first oak on this western hill,
And the bronze tablet cannot tell what fire
-Urging the deep bone back to the viking wave -
Kindled his immigrant eye and drove his will.
But in the hearthside tale his rumor grows
As voice to voice into the folk-chain melts
And clamor of danger brings the lost kin close
...The runes run on, the song links stave by stave.
I summon him, the man of flints and pelts,
Alert with gun and axe. The valley-rim
Uplifts the wanderer on the buffalo-path,
First of the host of all who came like him,
Harried from croft and chapel, glen and strath.
Now where the beech mast falls, no pibrochs wail.
The claymore rusts forgetting once how red
The dew lay at Culloden. Old feuds fail,
And nevermore the axe sings on the wall -
Since age on age we fled,
Since we together, Gael and Gaul,
Palatine, Huguenot, came in company
And washed the old bitter wars in the salt sea.
-Donald Davidson, from "The Hermitage"
Who notched the first oak on this western hill,
And the bronze tablet cannot tell what fire
-Urging the deep bone back to the viking wave -
Kindled his immigrant eye and drove his will.
But in the hearthside tale his rumor grows
As voice to voice into the folk-chain melts
And clamor of danger brings the lost kin close
...The runes run on, the song links stave by stave.
I summon him, the man of flints and pelts,
Alert with gun and axe. The valley-rim
Uplifts the wanderer on the buffalo-path,
First of the host of all who came like him,
Harried from croft and chapel, glen and strath.
Now where the beech mast falls, no pibrochs wail.
The claymore rusts forgetting once how red
The dew lay at Culloden. Old feuds fail,
And nevermore the axe sings on the wall -
Since age on age we fled,
Since we together, Gael and Gaul,
Palatine, Huguenot, came in company
And washed the old bitter wars in the salt sea.
-Donald Davidson, from "The Hermitage"
Monday, May 18, 2009
Call to Frontiersmen
Come! freeman! come! to the swirl of the river,
Come! where the wild bison ranges and roams,
Come! where the coyote and timber wolves whimper,
Come! where the prairie dogs build their rough homes.
Come to the hills where the blossoms are swaying,
Come to the glades where the elk shrills his cry,
Come--- for the wild canyon echoes are saying,
Come---only come--- climb my peaks to the sky.
-from Famous Frontiersmen
Come! where the wild bison ranges and roams,
Come! where the coyote and timber wolves whimper,
Come! where the prairie dogs build their rough homes.
Come to the hills where the blossoms are swaying,
Come to the glades where the elk shrills his cry,
Come--- for the wild canyon echoes are saying,
Come---only come--- climb my peaks to the sky.
-from Famous Frontiersmen
Paul Bunyan
Some people say that Paul Bunyan wasn't much taller than an ordinary house. Others say he must have been a lot taller to do all the things he did, like sticking trees into his pockets and blowing birds out of the air when he sneezed. Even when he was a baby, up in Maine, he was so big he knocked down a mile of trees just by rolling over in his sleep.
Paul liked to flash a sky-bright axe over his head. He loved the smell of wood when it was cut and the look of its sap gleaming like honey. He didn't chop trees down in any ordinary way. With four strokes he would lop all the limbs and bark off a tree, making it a tall, square post. After he had squared up miles of forest in a half-hour, he would take an axe head and tie a long rope to it. Then he would stand straddle-legged and swing the axe in a wide circle, yelling, "TIMBER-R-R-R!" With every swing and every yell, a hundred trees would come whooshing down.
Paul and Babe, the blue ox, logged all over the timber country from Maine to Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Paul hired many men to help him. These luberjacks liked Paul Bunyan, because he was always good to them and made sure that they had plenty of food.
The lumber crews like pancakes the best...
Paul liked to flash a sky-bright axe over his head. He loved the smell of wood when it was cut and the look of its sap gleaming like honey. He didn't chop trees down in any ordinary way. With four strokes he would lop all the limbs and bark off a tree, making it a tall, square post. After he had squared up miles of forest in a half-hour, he would take an axe head and tie a long rope to it. Then he would stand straddle-legged and swing the axe in a wide circle, yelling, "TIMBER-R-R-R!" With every swing and every yell, a hundred trees would come whooshing down.
Paul and Babe, the blue ox, logged all over the timber country from Maine to Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Paul hired many men to help him. These luberjacks liked Paul Bunyan, because he was always good to them and made sure that they had plenty of food.
The lumber crews like pancakes the best...
Johnny Appleseed
No one has ever counted all the apple trees in America, but there are a lot of them. According to some people, we have all these apple orchards because a man called Johnny Appleseed (his real name was John Chapman) spent his life planting apple seeds. That was back in the days when most of our country was still a wilderness...
Johnny sat up, rubbing his eyes. He looked at the sky again. Shimmering in the air, like a bridge of braided flowers, was a rainbow.
Johnny Appleseed leaped to his feet. He picked up all of his seed puches and slung them over his shoulder. Then he called to the animals, "Brother Wolf, Sister Sparrow, Brother Bear..."
He started up the rainbow. The animals and the birds followed. Brother Wolf was the first, tagging at Johnny Appleseed's heels. Two orioles rode on the wolf's shoulders.
When they reached the top of the rainbow, Johnny began throwing apple seeds all over the sky. If they stuck in the sky, they would grow into stars. If they fell to the earth, they would become trees. Johnny looked down at the land covered with orchards and knew that his work was done.
Johnny sat up, rubbing his eyes. He looked at the sky again. Shimmering in the air, like a bridge of braided flowers, was a rainbow.
Johnny Appleseed leaped to his feet. He picked up all of his seed puches and slung them over his shoulder. Then he called to the animals, "Brother Wolf, Sister Sparrow, Brother Bear..."
He started up the rainbow. The animals and the birds followed. Brother Wolf was the first, tagging at Johnny Appleseed's heels. Two orioles rode on the wolf's shoulders.
When they reached the top of the rainbow, Johnny began throwing apple seeds all over the sky. If they stuck in the sky, they would grow into stars. If they fell to the earth, they would become trees. Johnny looked down at the land covered with orchards and knew that his work was done.
Meshack Browning
Celebrated Bear Hunter of the Alleghanies
In 1781 was born in Frederick County, Maryland, a pioneer who was truly entitled to the name of 'The Mighty Hunter." The son of one of General Braddock's soldiers, who had settled in this beautiful country, Meshack Browning lived his life in the wild fastness of the then uncleared mountains of the Blue Ridge, and, at the close of a long and eventful career as a huntsman and trapper, could say with pride that he had killed from 1800-2000 deer; from 300-400 beaver, about 50 panthers; and scores of wolves and wildcats. He was the hero of every man's conversation in this mountain republic. All looked up to the hardy pioneer, and, after his long and eventful life was brought to a close, when well beyond eighty years of age, no one was more cordially missed than this sturdy old man of the mountains.
In 1781 was born in Frederick County, Maryland, a pioneer who was truly entitled to the name of 'The Mighty Hunter." The son of one of General Braddock's soldiers, who had settled in this beautiful country, Meshack Browning lived his life in the wild fastness of the then uncleared mountains of the Blue Ridge, and, at the close of a long and eventful career as a huntsman and trapper, could say with pride that he had killed from 1800-2000 deer; from 300-400 beaver, about 50 panthers; and scores of wolves and wildcats. He was the hero of every man's conversation in this mountain republic. All looked up to the hardy pioneer, and, after his long and eventful life was brought to a close, when well beyond eighty years of age, no one was more cordially missed than this sturdy old man of the mountains.
Going West...
...I was heading out down a long bone white road, straight as a string and smooth as glass and glittering and wavering in the heat and humming under the tires like a plucked nerve. I was doing seventy-five but I never seemed to catch up to the pool which seemed to be over the road just this die of the horizon. Then, after a while, the sun was in my eyes, for I was driving West. So I pulled the sunscreen down and squinted and put the throttle to the floor. For West is where we all plan to go someday. It is where you go when the land gives out and the old field pines encroach. It is where you go when you get the letter saying, 'Flee, all is discovered.' It is where you go when you look down and see the blade in your hand and see the blood on it. It is where you go when you hear that 'thar's gold in them thar hills,' It is where you go to grow up with the country. It is where you go to spend your old age. Of it is just where you go.
It was just where I went.
-Robert Penn Warren, from All the King's Men
It was just where I went.
-Robert Penn Warren, from All the King's Men
John Sevier
Xavier my name in the Gascon country till
My great grandsires came to England, and were called
Sevier in the rough English speech, but lost
No chivalry of their ancient name. I loved
The praise of men in hunting-shirts who cheered
For Nolichucky Jack at Watauga Old Fields
And followed me through night and the dripping forest
To King's Mountain. We were the backwoods hornets
Crowding the rocky slopes and buzzing death
To that gaudy lion, Ferguson. Elsewhere
It was the same. The sword of the Lord and of Gideon
In my hands smote the Indian villages
To dust and ashes till I lived in peace,
Governing my country, loving my Bonny Kate,
And seeking the praise of men. But where are they?
Where are Shelby and Campbell? Where is Cosby?
Where are the rifles and the lean hunters
Who strode the long trail with me? Have they left
No tall sons to hate what should be hated
And love what should be loved - the praise of men
Speaking with quiet eyes behind long rifles?
-Donald Davidson, from The Tall Men
My great grandsires came to England, and were called
Sevier in the rough English speech, but lost
No chivalry of their ancient name. I loved
The praise of men in hunting-shirts who cheered
For Nolichucky Jack at Watauga Old Fields
And followed me through night and the dripping forest
To King's Mountain. We were the backwoods hornets
Crowding the rocky slopes and buzzing death
To that gaudy lion, Ferguson. Elsewhere
It was the same. The sword of the Lord and of Gideon
In my hands smote the Indian villages
To dust and ashes till I lived in peace,
Governing my country, loving my Bonny Kate,
And seeking the praise of men. But where are they?
Where are Shelby and Campbell? Where is Cosby?
Where are the rifles and the lean hunters
Who strode the long trail with me? Have they left
No tall sons to hate what should be hated
And love what should be loved - the praise of men
Speaking with quiet eyes behind long rifles?
-Donald Davidson, from The Tall Men
EMF - boardgame version
Object of the Game:
Become a frontiersman by being the first to traverse a light ray across the Electromagnetic Frontier from East to West
Prevent the world from implosion by killing a dragon and shutting down the magnetic mountain that is drawing the world unto itself.
Panic has seized the United States of America after a devastating earthquake saddling the San Andreas Fault has destroyed much of the lower half of California. Lamentations are heard as lava flows through the streets of Hollywood. A chain reaction of explosions deep within the earth has ruptured the planet’s electromagnetic field and caused a warp in the space-time continuum. An enormous volcanic mountain, radiating a strange gamma ray light never seen before, has arisen where coastal California once stood proud. The geothermal radioactivity has ripped a dimensional veil and destroyed the barrier between the past and present. Different peoples and creatures from the past are suddenly walking forth in the present. The world is overcrowded with its history.
Everyone is being drawn in a westward direction toward the volcanic mountain which is attracting the world like an enormous magnetic black hole vortex. An ancient sea creature circles the volcanic mountain and has begun consuming all life that approaches and preventing any attempts to shut down the volcanic mountain or to ascertain why it is exerting an electromagnetic pull. The world is about to implode upon itself as civilization approaches a critical mass. Both theologians and scientists argue that this is the end...
The energy crisis has made it virtually impossible to rectify the situation. Civilization has taught mankind to depend on energy that flows from a cosmopolitan grid. Due to the present chaos, however, people are no longer able to derive their power from artificial sources. Older survival tactics from the period of frontier settlement must be studied so that power can once again be retrieved from natural organic sources. Oil reserves have been disrupted and most roads destroyed because of the earthquakes Mechanical transportation is currently defunct. The only way to travel other than foot or horseback is by light waves on...The Electromagnetic Frontier.
In order to save the World from implosion you have to voyage out upon The Electromagnetic Frontier, crossing the country from East to West and moving from radio waves up to and through the dangerous gamma rays being emitted by the volcanic mountain over which the monster keeps guard. This is the source of the electromagnetic attraction that is pulling everybody to California. You must kill the monster and shut the magnetic mountain down. The roads and highways that you will be using are light rays picked up by a highly sensitive radio transmitter/receiver known as the Super Eye, which sits in a treehouse on Cumberland Island just off the coast of Georgia. This is a battle of East versus West.
It is a stormy night and the lightning provides you with ample energy to fly West through the light tunnels. You must get there without the monster seeing you. There is a red, a green, and a blue ray ahead. Be sure to become adept at shifting gears and switching rays by means of the dirt road rays on the Electromagnetic Frontier. This may be advantageous. You must get to California before the world implodes. Once there you must save the day by turning a gamma ray back on the monster. Do this before any of your opponents and you win the game!
Because of the storm raging, you are able to transpose lightning bolts into Red, Green, or Blue light so that you can utilize the energy to travel along the way and to shoot gamma rays at the monster. Destinations are signified by silver stars. And you are trying to establish yourself down one entire Ray using tacks to mark your path. Every time you stop at a silver star put your tack in the hole. You have the option of gathering energy by rolling the yellow 4-sided die to see how many times you are struck by lightning. With each strike, you receive a lightning bolt. This will become important. You have now "occupied" this territory. One of the prime goals of the game is to fill an entire light ray (RGB) with your tacks traversing the entire country and reaching the volcanic mountain in California.
To begin the game you must understand that you are travelling in terms of light years. This is how you are able to see the ghosts of the old Frontiersman. You are not only travelling through space but also time. The SpEyE is, in this sense, an actual time machine radio transmitter. For the purposes of the game, light years will coordinate with light mileage across the country. After you have spun to see what path you are on then look to see how far it is to the next star. There is a number between each destination. It is always in the range of 10-40. If you roll above the number given then you are able to traverse the distance on this turn. If not then your turn is over and you must wait for another round. What we are looking at is a futuristic highway map of the United States. The road rays do slightly differ in length and also in obstacles/options. It may not at times be wisest to take the "shortest". It may be advantageous to strategize upon the path that you choose.
The trip can be enhanced through the use of the dirt road ray. The dirt road rays lead off of the main paths. This is the joyride short cut/ long cut excursion into the countryside seeking other forgotten forms of power to help the city in its present time of crisis. The dirt road ray may be a connector to another larger Ray but it can also lead to a dead end. This is not a bad thing. At a dead end is the grave of an old Frontiersman whose ghost may appear to you and share wisdom about surviving on the Frontier. The communication is made possible by the warp in the Electromagnetic field caused by the earthquake in California. This wisdom comes in form of a remembrance of a heroic deed that that particular frontiersman accomplished during his life. If pressed they also may give you special magnets that can generate power alone or in combination with the lightning bolts.
You have to have four lightning bolts to generate a gamma ray out of your wand of power. The gamma death ray is symbolized by the large 30 sided die and is the aggressive weapon of the game wielded only by the monster. The player also carries an electric and a magnetic six-shooter which can also generate a gamma death ray through the use of electricity and magnetism symbolized by the two six-sided dice. Once you have at least four bolts, you have the option of trading them in and attempting to shoot a gamma ray at the dragon. To fight the monster, you must roll two six sided die(red and blue signifying electricity and magnetism). It takes a double(electricity plus magnetism) to hit the mosnter. If you shoot and miss then your turn is over. At the beginning of each turn, you must spin the compass to see which path you will attempt. You may freely traverse over your occupied territory as long as the tacks leads lead consecutively back to the SpEyE in the Treehouse at home.
The magnets work a little differently. With the magnets, you may either challenge your opponent to a duel and take his "tacked" territory or combine 1 magnet with one lightning bolt to generate a gamma ray. And if you are able to combine ten charismagnets into a "rod" then you can use the bar to take an automatic gamma ray hit on the monster.
At the beginning of gameplay one of the players(Cyan, Magenta, or Yellow) spins to determine the ray that he will be travel. Then the player turns over the hour glass. His turn can possibly last the duration of the hourglass(if he makes it to a dead end dirt road ray he can pause the hourglass).
After the hourglass has initially been turned, the player rolls the "highway" die (blue-multiple of 10) and moves up appropriately or not. If he lands on "occupied" territory (those with tacks), he either falls back 1 or if he has a magnet he can wager it to oust his opponent from the contested star with his six shooters. He rolls the double six die and if he gets a double he takes over the territory by removing the opponent's tack and replacing it with his own. If he doesn't get a double, then the player is unable to generate enough electromagnetic power to remove his opponent. If this happens, can either wager two of his bolts and "leap over his opponent if there is room to land on the other. If the opponent has a series of tacked stars, the jump cannot be made and the player must drop straight back to the next open star or back to the SpEyE at Home(whichever is closest).
Upon moving to a new destination star, you have the option of gambling to see whether or not you can see the monster. First roll the yellow die to find out how many lightning bolts strike you. Collect the bolts.. If you have at least four bolts, then you can wager to SEE the monster. It costs four bolts for each shot.
Now roll the orange ten sided die the appropriate number of times(depending on bolts that you have wagered) to see if you can see the monster from your current vantage point. 4-5-or 6 enables you to see the monster. And if you see the dragon, then you can have a duel with him. Roll the double- six. If you get a double, then you hit the monster and can roll again. And again. The dragon has twenty four points of life. Keep track of reductions on the chalkboard. It is a common goal to kill the monster. All of the players engage in this pursuit. And though you may not be first to get to the mountain and shut down its magnet, you can take credit for finishing off the monster. The monster's life is symbolized by 24 blood stones. If you get a successful hit then you receive a bloodstone as a trophy.
Now if you roll a 1 or 10 then the monster sees you first. If the monster sees you, roll the gamma die. If the roll is above 15, then he destroys your current efforts to prevent the implosion by knocking you out of your occupied territory and sending you back home . If you cannot see the monster and he cannot see you(2-3-7-8), then take a load off. It's the next player's turn unless there is still time on the hourglass. Of course you could choose not to wager to see the monster until you are all the way on the other side of the country and are locked in on the volcanic mountain.
If you manage to get a tack in the last star then you can duel the monster as long as you have lightning bolts to wager. The advantage in getting across the country to fight is that the Super Eye is able to lock in on the particular ray that you have travelled down. Your opponents are not able to occupy any of your territory. The only way that you can lose it is by getting hit by one of the monster's gamma rays. For each hit, you lose a tack.You may have to back track to collect more bolts. Between some of the stars, you will notice dirt road access. When you move over these you have the option of taking a detour and trying to pick up a couple more charismagnets from old frontiersmen. Roll the eight sided red die. Odd numbers are successful dirt road excursions and allow you to roll the yellow die. Even numbers mean that you were unable to slow down in time. Don't forget that you have a chance to see the monster at each star but not at the dirt roads. They are too deep in the wilderness.
Become a frontiersman by being the first to traverse a light ray across the Electromagnetic Frontier from East to West
Prevent the world from implosion by killing a dragon and shutting down the magnetic mountain that is drawing the world unto itself.
Panic has seized the United States of America after a devastating earthquake saddling the San Andreas Fault has destroyed much of the lower half of California. Lamentations are heard as lava flows through the streets of Hollywood. A chain reaction of explosions deep within the earth has ruptured the planet’s electromagnetic field and caused a warp in the space-time continuum. An enormous volcanic mountain, radiating a strange gamma ray light never seen before, has arisen where coastal California once stood proud. The geothermal radioactivity has ripped a dimensional veil and destroyed the barrier between the past and present. Different peoples and creatures from the past are suddenly walking forth in the present. The world is overcrowded with its history.
Everyone is being drawn in a westward direction toward the volcanic mountain which is attracting the world like an enormous magnetic black hole vortex. An ancient sea creature circles the volcanic mountain and has begun consuming all life that approaches and preventing any attempts to shut down the volcanic mountain or to ascertain why it is exerting an electromagnetic pull. The world is about to implode upon itself as civilization approaches a critical mass. Both theologians and scientists argue that this is the end...
The energy crisis has made it virtually impossible to rectify the situation. Civilization has taught mankind to depend on energy that flows from a cosmopolitan grid. Due to the present chaos, however, people are no longer able to derive their power from artificial sources. Older survival tactics from the period of frontier settlement must be studied so that power can once again be retrieved from natural organic sources. Oil reserves have been disrupted and most roads destroyed because of the earthquakes Mechanical transportation is currently defunct. The only way to travel other than foot or horseback is by light waves on...The Electromagnetic Frontier.
In order to save the World from implosion you have to voyage out upon The Electromagnetic Frontier, crossing the country from East to West and moving from radio waves up to and through the dangerous gamma rays being emitted by the volcanic mountain over which the monster keeps guard. This is the source of the electromagnetic attraction that is pulling everybody to California. You must kill the monster and shut the magnetic mountain down. The roads and highways that you will be using are light rays picked up by a highly sensitive radio transmitter/receiver known as the Super Eye, which sits in a treehouse on Cumberland Island just off the coast of Georgia. This is a battle of East versus West.
It is a stormy night and the lightning provides you with ample energy to fly West through the light tunnels. You must get there without the monster seeing you. There is a red, a green, and a blue ray ahead. Be sure to become adept at shifting gears and switching rays by means of the dirt road rays on the Electromagnetic Frontier. This may be advantageous. You must get to California before the world implodes. Once there you must save the day by turning a gamma ray back on the monster. Do this before any of your opponents and you win the game!
Because of the storm raging, you are able to transpose lightning bolts into Red, Green, or Blue light so that you can utilize the energy to travel along the way and to shoot gamma rays at the monster. Destinations are signified by silver stars. And you are trying to establish yourself down one entire Ray using tacks to mark your path. Every time you stop at a silver star put your tack in the hole. You have the option of gathering energy by rolling the yellow 4-sided die to see how many times you are struck by lightning. With each strike, you receive a lightning bolt. This will become important. You have now "occupied" this territory. One of the prime goals of the game is to fill an entire light ray (RGB) with your tacks traversing the entire country and reaching the volcanic mountain in California.
To begin the game you must understand that you are travelling in terms of light years. This is how you are able to see the ghosts of the old Frontiersman. You are not only travelling through space but also time. The SpEyE is, in this sense, an actual time machine radio transmitter. For the purposes of the game, light years will coordinate with light mileage across the country. After you have spun to see what path you are on then look to see how far it is to the next star. There is a number between each destination. It is always in the range of 10-40. If you roll above the number given then you are able to traverse the distance on this turn. If not then your turn is over and you must wait for another round. What we are looking at is a futuristic highway map of the United States. The road rays do slightly differ in length and also in obstacles/options. It may not at times be wisest to take the "shortest". It may be advantageous to strategize upon the path that you choose.
The trip can be enhanced through the use of the dirt road ray. The dirt road rays lead off of the main paths. This is the joyride short cut/ long cut excursion into the countryside seeking other forgotten forms of power to help the city in its present time of crisis. The dirt road ray may be a connector to another larger Ray but it can also lead to a dead end. This is not a bad thing. At a dead end is the grave of an old Frontiersman whose ghost may appear to you and share wisdom about surviving on the Frontier. The communication is made possible by the warp in the Electromagnetic field caused by the earthquake in California. This wisdom comes in form of a remembrance of a heroic deed that that particular frontiersman accomplished during his life. If pressed they also may give you special magnets that can generate power alone or in combination with the lightning bolts.
You have to have four lightning bolts to generate a gamma ray out of your wand of power. The gamma death ray is symbolized by the large 30 sided die and is the aggressive weapon of the game wielded only by the monster. The player also carries an electric and a magnetic six-shooter which can also generate a gamma death ray through the use of electricity and magnetism symbolized by the two six-sided dice. Once you have at least four bolts, you have the option of trading them in and attempting to shoot a gamma ray at the dragon. To fight the monster, you must roll two six sided die(red and blue signifying electricity and magnetism). It takes a double(electricity plus magnetism) to hit the mosnter. If you shoot and miss then your turn is over. At the beginning of each turn, you must spin the compass to see which path you will attempt. You may freely traverse over your occupied territory as long as the tacks leads lead consecutively back to the SpEyE in the Treehouse at home.
The magnets work a little differently. With the magnets, you may either challenge your opponent to a duel and take his "tacked" territory or combine 1 magnet with one lightning bolt to generate a gamma ray. And if you are able to combine ten charismagnets into a "rod" then you can use the bar to take an automatic gamma ray hit on the monster.
At the beginning of gameplay one of the players(Cyan, Magenta, or Yellow) spins to determine the ray that he will be travel. Then the player turns over the hour glass. His turn can possibly last the duration of the hourglass(if he makes it to a dead end dirt road ray he can pause the hourglass).
After the hourglass has initially been turned, the player rolls the "highway" die (blue-multiple of 10) and moves up appropriately or not. If he lands on "occupied" territory (those with tacks), he either falls back 1 or if he has a magnet he can wager it to oust his opponent from the contested star with his six shooters. He rolls the double six die and if he gets a double he takes over the territory by removing the opponent's tack and replacing it with his own. If he doesn't get a double, then the player is unable to generate enough electromagnetic power to remove his opponent. If this happens, can either wager two of his bolts and "leap over his opponent if there is room to land on the other. If the opponent has a series of tacked stars, the jump cannot be made and the player must drop straight back to the next open star or back to the SpEyE at Home(whichever is closest).
Upon moving to a new destination star, you have the option of gambling to see whether or not you can see the monster. First roll the yellow die to find out how many lightning bolts strike you. Collect the bolts.. If you have at least four bolts, then you can wager to SEE the monster. It costs four bolts for each shot.
Now roll the orange ten sided die the appropriate number of times(depending on bolts that you have wagered) to see if you can see the monster from your current vantage point. 4-5-or 6 enables you to see the monster. And if you see the dragon, then you can have a duel with him. Roll the double- six. If you get a double, then you hit the monster and can roll again. And again. The dragon has twenty four points of life. Keep track of reductions on the chalkboard. It is a common goal to kill the monster. All of the players engage in this pursuit. And though you may not be first to get to the mountain and shut down its magnet, you can take credit for finishing off the monster. The monster's life is symbolized by 24 blood stones. If you get a successful hit then you receive a bloodstone as a trophy.
Now if you roll a 1 or 10 then the monster sees you first. If the monster sees you, roll the gamma die. If the roll is above 15, then he destroys your current efforts to prevent the implosion by knocking you out of your occupied territory and sending you back home . If you cannot see the monster and he cannot see you(2-3-7-8), then take a load off. It's the next player's turn unless there is still time on the hourglass. Of course you could choose not to wager to see the monster until you are all the way on the other side of the country and are locked in on the volcanic mountain.
If you manage to get a tack in the last star then you can duel the monster as long as you have lightning bolts to wager. The advantage in getting across the country to fight is that the Super Eye is able to lock in on the particular ray that you have travelled down. Your opponents are not able to occupy any of your territory. The only way that you can lose it is by getting hit by one of the monster's gamma rays. For each hit, you lose a tack.You may have to back track to collect more bolts. Between some of the stars, you will notice dirt road access. When you move over these you have the option of taking a detour and trying to pick up a couple more charismagnets from old frontiersmen. Roll the eight sided red die. Odd numbers are successful dirt road excursions and allow you to roll the yellow die. Even numbers mean that you were unable to slow down in time. Don't forget that you have a chance to see the monster at each star but not at the dirt roads. They are too deep in the wilderness.
Immersion
On October 31, 2007, he leapt into the game world of Uncle Sam’s Amusement. He discovered a portal on the third floor of an old antique store where he worked. He was on the verge of attaining a master’s degree in video games but failed in this endeavor when he realized that he could actually enter the virtual world that he had created. Actually, it wasn’t a failure but a choice; an opportunity to merge the subject with the object...
To the best of my knowledge...
Uncle Sam is powerful godlike creature who emerged into being on July 4th, 1776.
He ostensibly represents the sovereign Will of the people of the United States.
They created him and ultimately have the power to destroy him.
Though he is nominally an Automaton under their direction, he contains powers which if not carefully controlled devolve into potentially dangerous threats towards his creators.
After 1865, the northeast (“Eastern establishment”) gained command over Uncle Sam’s will through Force.
According to Calhoun this movement can only be countered by a opposite Force of equal strength and ruthlessness.
With Sam’s strength the Eastern Establishment was able, over the course of 150 years, to circumvent Sam’s programmed limitations (the Constitution).
Initially, many of these checks were blown out of whack by means of the bayonet of Civil War.
As time went on, more subtle methods of exploitation were formulated and implemented.
During the 20th century, the hypnagogic power of the media enabled the Eastern establishment through the puppet of Uncle Sam to seduce, persuade, and deceive the people into giving up more of their constitutional rights and liberties to Uncle Sam in the name of human rights and national security. Through subterfuge they were able to gain control of the nation’s currency by giving the power to print currency to a private central bank with the assistance of influential European elites. In the 21st century, the hysteria generated by well-placed false flag terror operations carried out by American and possibly other international intelligence agencies involving high-ranking civilian officers in the U.S. government facilitated further consolidations.
High treason has been committed against the people of the United States but they seem to have lost the ability to organize any meaningful resistance to the corrupt agents at the helm.
The stage has been set for a hitherto unprecedented consolidation of Uncle Sam’s power into an absolute government with no restriction to its expansion.
However, the establishment still lacked one more all-consuming world conflict to achieve their goals. This is the precarious precipice where we now hover…
Enter Rednick…
Rednick is an unreconstructed Southerner who is adept at communicating with his dead ancestors. He frequents cemeteries and old battlefields along ol’ dirt roads almost completely forgotten by civilization.
He gained strength by learning how to raise the dead through a powerful operation known as a “Dead End Remembrance”(DER).
DERs are bits of the ancestral logos power which lie embedded deep inside a psychic energy zone known as the Electromagnetic Frontier. Access to them has been restricted by the Political Correctness Police (PCP). They are considered a forbidden fruit. If you utter the words learned from DERs you will be arrested and punished by the authorities.
After Rednick discovered some of these DERs with his Geode Charismagnetic Detector, he consumed them and to his delight realized that they contained a refreshing and irrestible force that strengthened him and made him feel whole. They rekindled the primary fundamental element at the root of his masculinity.
Then he realized why they were forbidden. You had to have emasculated men if you wanted to perpetuate a tyranny. Television was the best “soft peter” they could ever have dreamed of but DERs released the old Adam in all of the men and that simply could not be tolerated.
They released a fighting defense mechanism, enhancing the human immune system and extending its healing power towards the corrupt organs that lay beyond the microcosm of the body and into the world Soul.
This power could, if focused properly, be used to combat the tyrannical mode that Uncle Sam had recently adopted.
In short, DERs were capable of unleashing the Patriot Hero Wand (PHW) that all true Americans carried submerged in the sheath of their consciousness.
Thus, Rednick began trying to show others the location of these forbidden DERs: old cemeteries, libraries, and the attics of the elders.
His discoveries over time began to grow in complexity…and one night after poring over dark alchemical texts, he discovered a recipe for redirecting Uncle Sam’s persona into his own body.
This was a very dangerous operation but if he succeeded then there was the distinct possibility that Uncle Sam could be redeemed.
In order to accomplish this feat he would have to conjure the spirit of John C. Calhoun(Lord of the Constitution), who, according to the PCP hounds, was the Devil himself, representing the antithesis of the NEW American Way…
He ostensibly represents the sovereign Will of the people of the United States.
They created him and ultimately have the power to destroy him.
Though he is nominally an Automaton under their direction, he contains powers which if not carefully controlled devolve into potentially dangerous threats towards his creators.
After 1865, the northeast (“Eastern establishment”) gained command over Uncle Sam’s will through Force.
According to Calhoun this movement can only be countered by a opposite Force of equal strength and ruthlessness.
With Sam’s strength the Eastern Establishment was able, over the course of 150 years, to circumvent Sam’s programmed limitations (the Constitution).
Initially, many of these checks were blown out of whack by means of the bayonet of Civil War.
As time went on, more subtle methods of exploitation were formulated and implemented.
During the 20th century, the hypnagogic power of the media enabled the Eastern establishment through the puppet of Uncle Sam to seduce, persuade, and deceive the people into giving up more of their constitutional rights and liberties to Uncle Sam in the name of human rights and national security. Through subterfuge they were able to gain control of the nation’s currency by giving the power to print currency to a private central bank with the assistance of influential European elites. In the 21st century, the hysteria generated by well-placed false flag terror operations carried out by American and possibly other international intelligence agencies involving high-ranking civilian officers in the U.S. government facilitated further consolidations.
High treason has been committed against the people of the United States but they seem to have lost the ability to organize any meaningful resistance to the corrupt agents at the helm.
The stage has been set for a hitherto unprecedented consolidation of Uncle Sam’s power into an absolute government with no restriction to its expansion.
However, the establishment still lacked one more all-consuming world conflict to achieve their goals. This is the precarious precipice where we now hover…
Enter Rednick…
Rednick is an unreconstructed Southerner who is adept at communicating with his dead ancestors. He frequents cemeteries and old battlefields along ol’ dirt roads almost completely forgotten by civilization.
He gained strength by learning how to raise the dead through a powerful operation known as a “Dead End Remembrance”(DER).
DERs are bits of the ancestral logos power which lie embedded deep inside a psychic energy zone known as the Electromagnetic Frontier. Access to them has been restricted by the Political Correctness Police (PCP). They are considered a forbidden fruit. If you utter the words learned from DERs you will be arrested and punished by the authorities.
After Rednick discovered some of these DERs with his Geode Charismagnetic Detector, he consumed them and to his delight realized that they contained a refreshing and irrestible force that strengthened him and made him feel whole. They rekindled the primary fundamental element at the root of his masculinity.
Then he realized why they were forbidden. You had to have emasculated men if you wanted to perpetuate a tyranny. Television was the best “soft peter” they could ever have dreamed of but DERs released the old Adam in all of the men and that simply could not be tolerated.
They released a fighting defense mechanism, enhancing the human immune system and extending its healing power towards the corrupt organs that lay beyond the microcosm of the body and into the world Soul.
This power could, if focused properly, be used to combat the tyrannical mode that Uncle Sam had recently adopted.
In short, DERs were capable of unleashing the Patriot Hero Wand (PHW) that all true Americans carried submerged in the sheath of their consciousness.
Thus, Rednick began trying to show others the location of these forbidden DERs: old cemeteries, libraries, and the attics of the elders.
His discoveries over time began to grow in complexity…and one night after poring over dark alchemical texts, he discovered a recipe for redirecting Uncle Sam’s persona into his own body.
This was a very dangerous operation but if he succeeded then there was the distinct possibility that Uncle Sam could be redeemed.
In order to accomplish this feat he would have to conjure the spirit of John C. Calhoun(Lord of the Constitution), who, according to the PCP hounds, was the Devil himself, representing the antithesis of the NEW American Way…
LOGOS
I am the Great God, who created himself, I am the great phoenix, which is in Heliopolis...I am the elect of millions, who emanates from the realm of light.
To burn = to copulate
Fenuh = to create oneself
The phoenix is portrayed as a winged humanoid genius.
Christ is not the image of the phoenix, he is the phoenix himself.
Age and sexual life are closely related. Cooler animals with limited fertility live a long time, lustful, prolific animals for a short time. The ancients say that the phoenix and the salamander that they are cool, sexually inactive and incombustible.
The LOGOS is the patriarch of European man, man in the real sense.
HE IS THE ONE WHO SITS ON THE WHITE HORSE, he is the white stone. He conquers the 3 other types of men: the black, yellow, and red; he is the king of kings, the lord of lords.
The LOGOS = Hermes; Mercury is Wotan
It will not be long before a new priestly race will rise up in the land of the electron, and the Holy Graal...
The First Born possesses a wondrous 'Garment', in him are all bodies, the bodies of 'fire,' or 'water,' of 'air,' and of 'earth', of 'wind', of the angels, archangels, the gods, the lords - so that one can hinder him from going up or down...
Christ was an electric pre-human because Christ is a LOGOS.
To one is given the ability to generate beautiful and good children - to the other to create immortal spiritual works.
-Liebenfels, excerpts from Theozoology
To burn = to copulate
Fenuh = to create oneself
The phoenix is portrayed as a winged humanoid genius.
Christ is not the image of the phoenix, he is the phoenix himself.
Age and sexual life are closely related. Cooler animals with limited fertility live a long time, lustful, prolific animals for a short time. The ancients say that the phoenix and the salamander that they are cool, sexually inactive and incombustible.
The LOGOS is the patriarch of European man, man in the real sense.
HE IS THE ONE WHO SITS ON THE WHITE HORSE, he is the white stone. He conquers the 3 other types of men: the black, yellow, and red; he is the king of kings, the lord of lords.
The LOGOS = Hermes; Mercury is Wotan
It will not be long before a new priestly race will rise up in the land of the electron, and the Holy Graal...
The First Born possesses a wondrous 'Garment', in him are all bodies, the bodies of 'fire,' or 'water,' of 'air,' and of 'earth', of 'wind', of the angels, archangels, the gods, the lords - so that one can hinder him from going up or down...
Christ was an electric pre-human because Christ is a LOGOS.
To one is given the ability to generate beautiful and good children - to the other to create immortal spiritual works.
-Liebenfels, excerpts from Theozoology
To Glow
The original meaning of the term "ascesis" was simply "training" and, in a Roman sense, discipline. The corresponding Indo-Aryan term is tapas and it has a like significance except that from the root 'tap', which means "to be hot" or "to glow," it also contains the idea of an intensive concentration, of glowing, almost of fire.
What example can history furnish as the best suited for examination as a comprehensive and universal ascetic system that is clear and undiluted, well-tried and well set out, in tune with the spirit of Aryan man and yet prevailing in the modern age?
Answer: The Doctrine of Awakening
...an ascesis aims at placing all the energies of the human being under the control of a central principle. In this respect we can, properly speaking, talk of a technique that has, in common with that of modern scientific achievements, the characteristics of objectivity and impersonality.
...develop a pure ascesis - made up of techniques for developing an interior force, the use of which, to begin with , reemains undetermined, like the use of the arms and machines produced by modern industrial tecniques.
ONE THE ART, ONE THE MATERIAL, ONE THE CRUCIBLE - clear and transparent water through which can be seen everything lying on the bottom symbolical of a mind that has left behind all unrest and disturbance.
When an ascesis is understood as a technique for the conscious creation of a force that can be applied, in the first place, at any level, then the disciplines taught by the Doctrine of Awakening can be recognized as those that incorporate the highest degree of crystallinity and independence. However, we encounter inside the system a distinction between the disciplines that "suffice for this life" and those that are necessary to take one beyond. Ascetic achievement in Buddhism is exploted essentially in an upward direction. This is how the sense of such achievements is expressed in the canon:
"And he reaches the admirable path discovered by the intensity, the constancy and the concentration of the will, the admirable path discovered by the intensity, the constancy, and the concentration of the energy, the admirable path discovered by the intensity, the constancy and the concentration of the spirit, the admirable path discovered by the intensity, the constancy, and the concentration of investigation-with-a-heroic-spirit as the fifth...And thus attaining these fifteen heroic qualities, he is able, O disciples, to achieve liberation, to achieve awakening, to attain the incomparable sureness(unshakeable calm).
Either certainty in life, or no return after death.
The peoples of the West are so inured to the religion that has come to predominate in their countries that they consider it as a kind of unit of measure and as a model for every other religion:
They are near denying the dignity of true religion to any concept of the supersensory and to man's relationship to it, when the concept in any way differs from the Judeo-Christian type. The result of this has been that the most ancient traditions of the West itself - beginning with the Aryo-Hellenic and the Aryo-Roman are no longer understood in their real significance or effective value, so it is easy to imagine what happened to older and often more remote traditions, particularly to those created by the Aryan races in Asia. But indeed, this attitude should be reversed: and just as "modern civilization is an anomaly when compared with what has always been true civilization, so the significance and the value of the Christian religion should be measured according to that part of its content that is consonant with a vaster, more Aryan, and more primordial concept of the supersensory.(7-8)
...In this ascent beside the abyss the climber refects all "mythologies," he proceeds by means of pure strenth, he ignores all mirages, he rids himself of any residual human weakness, he acts only according to pure knowledge. Thus the Awakened One(Buddha), the Victor could be called he whose way was unknown to men, angels, and to Brahma himself. Admittedly, this path is not without dangers, yet it is the path open to the virile mind.
Virtuous and devout men go to heaven - but a different path is taken by the Awakened Ones. They go beyond as "a fire which, little by little, consumes every bond," both human and divine. And it is fundamentally an innate attribute of the Aryan soul that causes us never to meet in the Buddhist texts any sign of departure from consciousness, of sentimentalism or devout effusion, or of semi-intimate conversation with a God, although throughout there is a sense of strength inexorably directed toward the unconditioned.(10-11)
-Julius Evola, Doctrine of Awakening
What example can history furnish as the best suited for examination as a comprehensive and universal ascetic system that is clear and undiluted, well-tried and well set out, in tune with the spirit of Aryan man and yet prevailing in the modern age?
Answer: The Doctrine of Awakening
...an ascesis aims at placing all the energies of the human being under the control of a central principle. In this respect we can, properly speaking, talk of a technique that has, in common with that of modern scientific achievements, the characteristics of objectivity and impersonality.
...develop a pure ascesis - made up of techniques for developing an interior force, the use of which, to begin with , reemains undetermined, like the use of the arms and machines produced by modern industrial tecniques.
ONE THE ART, ONE THE MATERIAL, ONE THE CRUCIBLE - clear and transparent water through which can be seen everything lying on the bottom symbolical of a mind that has left behind all unrest and disturbance.
When an ascesis is understood as a technique for the conscious creation of a force that can be applied, in the first place, at any level, then the disciplines taught by the Doctrine of Awakening can be recognized as those that incorporate the highest degree of crystallinity and independence. However, we encounter inside the system a distinction between the disciplines that "suffice for this life" and those that are necessary to take one beyond. Ascetic achievement in Buddhism is exploted essentially in an upward direction. This is how the sense of such achievements is expressed in the canon:
"And he reaches the admirable path discovered by the intensity, the constancy and the concentration of the will, the admirable path discovered by the intensity, the constancy, and the concentration of the energy, the admirable path discovered by the intensity, the constancy and the concentration of the spirit, the admirable path discovered by the intensity, the constancy, and the concentration of investigation-with-a-heroic-spirit as the fifth...And thus attaining these fifteen heroic qualities, he is able, O disciples, to achieve liberation, to achieve awakening, to attain the incomparable sureness(unshakeable calm).
Either certainty in life, or no return after death.
The peoples of the West are so inured to the religion that has come to predominate in their countries that they consider it as a kind of unit of measure and as a model for every other religion:
They are near denying the dignity of true religion to any concept of the supersensory and to man's relationship to it, when the concept in any way differs from the Judeo-Christian type. The result of this has been that the most ancient traditions of the West itself - beginning with the Aryo-Hellenic and the Aryo-Roman are no longer understood in their real significance or effective value, so it is easy to imagine what happened to older and often more remote traditions, particularly to those created by the Aryan races in Asia. But indeed, this attitude should be reversed: and just as "modern civilization is an anomaly when compared with what has always been true civilization, so the significance and the value of the Christian religion should be measured according to that part of its content that is consonant with a vaster, more Aryan, and more primordial concept of the supersensory.(7-8)
...In this ascent beside the abyss the climber refects all "mythologies," he proceeds by means of pure strenth, he ignores all mirages, he rids himself of any residual human weakness, he acts only according to pure knowledge. Thus the Awakened One(Buddha), the Victor could be called he whose way was unknown to men, angels, and to Brahma himself. Admittedly, this path is not without dangers, yet it is the path open to the virile mind.
Virtuous and devout men go to heaven - but a different path is taken by the Awakened Ones. They go beyond as "a fire which, little by little, consumes every bond," both human and divine. And it is fundamentally an innate attribute of the Aryan soul that causes us never to meet in the Buddhist texts any sign of departure from consciousness, of sentimentalism or devout effusion, or of semi-intimate conversation with a God, although throughout there is a sense of strength inexorably directed toward the unconditioned.(10-11)
-Julius Evola, Doctrine of Awakening
Apollo IV
Golden is Apollo's mantle and golden its clasp,
As are his lyre and Lyctian bow and quiver;
golden are his sandals, for Apollo is rich in gold.
Rich in possessions; you might have proof of this at Delphi.
Traces of down touch his blooming cheeks.
His hair drips fragrant oils to the ground
But streaming from the locks of Apollo is not fat.
But panacea. In the city where those dew drops
Fall to the earth all things are secure.
None is so versatile in skill as Apollo.
He watches over the archer; he watches over the bard;
Phoebus's are both the bow and song.
His re the prophets and prophetesses;
from Phoebus physicians learn the skill of postponing death.
"Hie, Hie. Paian" resounds because the people of Delphi first established this refrain
When with your golden bow you gave proof of your skill from afar.
A fantastic beast faced you as you descended to Delphi, a horrible serpent.
You slew him shooting one swift arrow after another.
The people cried "Hid Hie Paian! Shoot the arrow!
Your mother surely begat you as a helper,
and since then you live in song...
-Hymn Callimachus
-
As are his lyre and Lyctian bow and quiver;
golden are his sandals, for Apollo is rich in gold.
Rich in possessions; you might have proof of this at Delphi.
Traces of down touch his blooming cheeks.
His hair drips fragrant oils to the ground
But streaming from the locks of Apollo is not fat.
But panacea. In the city where those dew drops
Fall to the earth all things are secure.
None is so versatile in skill as Apollo.
He watches over the archer; he watches over the bard;
Phoebus's are both the bow and song.
His re the prophets and prophetesses;
from Phoebus physicians learn the skill of postponing death.
"Hie, Hie. Paian" resounds because the people of Delphi first established this refrain
When with your golden bow you gave proof of your skill from afar.
A fantastic beast faced you as you descended to Delphi, a horrible serpent.
You slew him shooting one swift arrow after another.
The people cried "Hid Hie Paian! Shoot the arrow!
Your mother surely begat you as a helper,
and since then you live in song...
-Hymn Callimachus
-
Apollo III
Then, like a star at noonday, the lord, far-working Apollo - leaped from the ship: flashes of fire flew from him thick and their brightness reached to heaven. He entered into his shrine between priceless tripods, and there made a flame to flare up bright, showing forth the splendour of his shafts, so that their radiance filled all Crisa, and the wives and well-girded daughters of the Crisaeans raised a cry at that outburst of Phoebus; for he cast great fear upon them all. From his shrine he sparnag forth again, swift as a thought, to speed again to the ship, bearing the form of a man, brisk and sturdy, in the prime of his youth, while his broad shoulders were covered with his hair; and he spoke to the Cretans, uttering winged words...
-Homeric Hymn, 440-451
-Homeric Hymn, 440-451
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Uncle Sam's Amusement I
A corporation known as Uncle Sam's Amusement has seized control of a country once known as the United States of America. This business promotes a series of lucrative parks in historic cities across the land. In these parks there are fabulous depictions of moments in American History. They sell a "journey through space and time" to a people looking for an escape from truths they can no longer face. USA is now a digital circus with thousands of tunnel vortices combined with more traditional carnival fare leading into subterranean psychic zones where the line between reality and illusion is blurred. The seductive promises made therein are amplified potentials of outlandish proportions. Everything is bigger, better, brighter and more bombastic than the boring mundanity present in other parts of the world.
There has been an infiltration of the park, however, after a massive period of crisis ensuing strange 'natural' disasters, a pole shift from North to South, a warp in the space-time continuum and the bizarre thermonuclear ultraviolet activity of a ride known as 'the derailed ride.' A conflict is now erupting over the nature of the depictions in the parks run by Uncle Sam's Amusement and the safety of the rides therein. Other rides are becoming derailed and people are dying or falling out into weird time zones from the past; or simply disapearing. Rumors abound regarding their fates.
Who really is in charge?
There is a ghost in the machine!
The present is also crowded with historic figures moving West along a new frontier that has emerged from the recently shredded Veil of Mysteries. These figures are light traces enacting the actual settlement of the North American continent. Go West, young Man! Thar's gold in them thar hills! These elementals wreak further havoc on the park's mechanism and proper functioning.
Masonic orders and occult societies are on alert regarding astral disruptions at the gamma ray level. Everything is being drawn towards an unfathomable abyss just off the West Coast where a volcanic mountain has arisen. This is a cosmic balck hole. An ancient sea dragon, the Leviathan, previously thought to be extinct, has emerged from the ocean, encircling the Mountain. The World threatens to collapse upon a single point of concentration as technology accelerates toward event horizon.
Players in this world try to slow down the flow and stop the approaching disaster. The must fight to seize control of Uncle Sam's Amusement. They do this by interacting with the voices of their ancestors and collecting bits of the ancestral logos power imprinted on objects that they retrieve from various locations embedded underneath and beyond the park. This is how they remember who they really are and what they can really do. This zone where these treasure bits lie, which the park cannot completely conceal, is known as the Electromagnetic Frontier...
Once upon a time, long, long ago...
where the dirt road dead ends...you know.
Uncle Sam is currently fighting to maintain his 51% stock share in this amusing affair. His approval ratings are way down and he is trying to bolster USA with multiple reassurances. We join him tonight amidst all of these difficulties, as he unlocks the secrets of a dangerous operation -
TECHNECROMANCY THROUGH LOGOIDAL AMPLIFICATION!
Tell no one what you see tonight!
There has been an infiltration of the park, however, after a massive period of crisis ensuing strange 'natural' disasters, a pole shift from North to South, a warp in the space-time continuum and the bizarre thermonuclear ultraviolet activity of a ride known as 'the derailed ride.' A conflict is now erupting over the nature of the depictions in the parks run by Uncle Sam's Amusement and the safety of the rides therein. Other rides are becoming derailed and people are dying or falling out into weird time zones from the past; or simply disapearing. Rumors abound regarding their fates.
Who really is in charge?
There is a ghost in the machine!
The present is also crowded with historic figures moving West along a new frontier that has emerged from the recently shredded Veil of Mysteries. These figures are light traces enacting the actual settlement of the North American continent. Go West, young Man! Thar's gold in them thar hills! These elementals wreak further havoc on the park's mechanism and proper functioning.
Masonic orders and occult societies are on alert regarding astral disruptions at the gamma ray level. Everything is being drawn towards an unfathomable abyss just off the West Coast where a volcanic mountain has arisen. This is a cosmic balck hole. An ancient sea dragon, the Leviathan, previously thought to be extinct, has emerged from the ocean, encircling the Mountain. The World threatens to collapse upon a single point of concentration as technology accelerates toward event horizon.
Players in this world try to slow down the flow and stop the approaching disaster. The must fight to seize control of Uncle Sam's Amusement. They do this by interacting with the voices of their ancestors and collecting bits of the ancestral logos power imprinted on objects that they retrieve from various locations embedded underneath and beyond the park. This is how they remember who they really are and what they can really do. This zone where these treasure bits lie, which the park cannot completely conceal, is known as the Electromagnetic Frontier...
Once upon a time, long, long ago...
where the dirt road dead ends...you know.
Uncle Sam is currently fighting to maintain his 51% stock share in this amusing affair. His approval ratings are way down and he is trying to bolster USA with multiple reassurances. We join him tonight amidst all of these difficulties, as he unlocks the secrets of a dangerous operation -
TECHNECROMANCY THROUGH LOGOIDAL AMPLIFICATION!
Tell no one what you see tonight!
Monday, May 11, 2009
Being Oneself
...is the valid attitude for the man who must stay standing as a free being, even in the epoch of dissolution: to assume his own being into a willing, making it his own law, a law as absolute and autonomous as Kant's categorical imperative but affirmed without regard for received values, for "good" or "evil," nor for happiness, pleasure, or pain. The man in question affirms and actualizes his own being without considering rewards or punishments, either here or in an afterlife, saying: The way does not exist: this is my will, neither good nor bad, but my own.
In short, Nietzsche hands on the ancient sayings "Be Yourself," "Become what you are" as propositions for today, when all superstructure has fragmented.
Strength and responsibility must be no less than they were long ago, when they were born from religious faith and from a given point of support, in a different human type and a different climate (42).
In all strictness, to be purely oneself and to have a fully free existence, one should be able to accept, will, and say an absolute "yes" to whatever one is - even when there is nothing in one's nature that approaches the ideal of the superman; even if one's own life and destiny do not present heroism, nobility, splendor, generosity, and altruism, but decadence, corruption, debility, and perversion.
"I teach you to say yes to all that strenthens, that gathers energy, that justifies the feeling of vigor."
The claim is justified only when the corresponding command is transposed, internalized, and purified, detached from any specific content and especially from any reference to a greater or lesser vitality. It is rather a matter of either being capable or incapable of holding firm within, in one's own naked absolute being, with nothing to fear and nothing to hope for (43-44).
One can see now how problematic is the very point that has hitherto seemed fixed: fidelity to oneself, the absolute, autonomous law based on one's own "being," when it is formulated in general and abstract terms.
At the moment when they are thrown back on their own naked will, trying to prove it to themselves with an absolute action, they collapse; they collapse precisely because they are divided beings, because they are deluded concerning their true nature and their real strength. Their freedom is turned against them and destroys them; they fail at the very point at which they should have reaffirmed themselves - in their depths they find nothing to sustain them and carry them forward.
To continue our agenda, I will now consider a line of conduct during the reign of dissolution that is not suitable for everyone, but for a differentiated type, and especially for the heir to the man of the traditional world, who retains his roots in that world even though he finds himself devoid of any support for it in his outer existence (46).
Only this kind of man can use those positive aspects gleaned from the preceding analysis as his elementary basis, because when he looks within himself, he does not find a changeable and divided substance, but a fundamental direction, a "dominant," even though shrouded or limited by secondary impulses. What is more, the essential thing is that such a man is characterized by an existential dimension not present in the predominant human type of recent times - that is, the dimension of transcendence.
Nietzsche's solution of the problem of the meaning of life, consisting in the affirmation that this meaning does not exist outside of life, and that life in itself is meaning, is valid only on the presupposition of a being that has transcendence as its essential component.
Spirit is the life that cuts through life (47).
-Julius Evola, Ride the Tiger
In short, Nietzsche hands on the ancient sayings "Be Yourself," "Become what you are" as propositions for today, when all superstructure has fragmented.
Strength and responsibility must be no less than they were long ago, when they were born from religious faith and from a given point of support, in a different human type and a different climate (42).
In all strictness, to be purely oneself and to have a fully free existence, one should be able to accept, will, and say an absolute "yes" to whatever one is - even when there is nothing in one's nature that approaches the ideal of the superman; even if one's own life and destiny do not present heroism, nobility, splendor, generosity, and altruism, but decadence, corruption, debility, and perversion.
"I teach you to say yes to all that strenthens, that gathers energy, that justifies the feeling of vigor."
The claim is justified only when the corresponding command is transposed, internalized, and purified, detached from any specific content and especially from any reference to a greater or lesser vitality. It is rather a matter of either being capable or incapable of holding firm within, in one's own naked absolute being, with nothing to fear and nothing to hope for (43-44).
One can see now how problematic is the very point that has hitherto seemed fixed: fidelity to oneself, the absolute, autonomous law based on one's own "being," when it is formulated in general and abstract terms.
At the moment when they are thrown back on their own naked will, trying to prove it to themselves with an absolute action, they collapse; they collapse precisely because they are divided beings, because they are deluded concerning their true nature and their real strength. Their freedom is turned against them and destroys them; they fail at the very point at which they should have reaffirmed themselves - in their depths they find nothing to sustain them and carry them forward.
To continue our agenda, I will now consider a line of conduct during the reign of dissolution that is not suitable for everyone, but for a differentiated type, and especially for the heir to the man of the traditional world, who retains his roots in that world even though he finds himself devoid of any support for it in his outer existence (46).
Only this kind of man can use those positive aspects gleaned from the preceding analysis as his elementary basis, because when he looks within himself, he does not find a changeable and divided substance, but a fundamental direction, a "dominant," even though shrouded or limited by secondary impulses. What is more, the essential thing is that such a man is characterized by an existential dimension not present in the predominant human type of recent times - that is, the dimension of transcendence.
Nietzsche's solution of the problem of the meaning of life, consisting in the affirmation that this meaning does not exist outside of life, and that life in itself is meaning, is valid only on the presupposition of a being that has transcendence as its essential component.
Spirit is the life that cuts through life (47).
-Julius Evola, Ride the Tiger
Dionysian Apollonism
To sum up, the man for whom the new freedom does not spell ruin, whether because, given his special structure, he already has a firm base in himself, or because he is in the process of conquering it through an existential rupture of levels that reestablishes contact with the higher dimension of "being" - this man will possess a vision of reality stripped of the human and moral element, free from the projections of subjectivity and from conceptual finalistic, and theistic superstructures. This reduction to pure reality of the general view of the world and of existence will be described in what follows: the freedom of pure existence in the outside world is confirmed in the naked assumption of his own nature, from which he draws his own rule. This rule is a law to him to the degree that he does not start from a state of unity, and to the degree that secondary, divergent tendencies coexist and external factors try to influence him.
In the practical field of action, we have considered a regime of experiments with 2 degrees and 2 ends. First there is the proving knowledge of himself as a determined being, then of himself as a being in whom the transcendent dimension is positively present. The latter is the ultimate basis of his own law, and its supreme justification. After everything has collapsed and in a climate of dissolution, there is only one solution to the problem of an unconditioned and intangible meaning to life: THE DIRECT ASSUMPTION OF ONE'S OWN NAKED BEING AS A FUNCTION OF TRANSCENDENCE (75).
As for the modes of behavior toward the world, once a clarification and confirmation of oneself has been achieved as described, the general formula is indicated by an intrepid openness, devoid of ties but united in detachment, in the face of any possible experience. Where this involves a high intensity of life and a regime of achievement that enliven and nourish the calm principle of transcendence within, the orientation has some features in common with Nietzsche's "Dionysian state," but the way in which this state should be integrated suggests that a better term would be "Dionysian Apollonism." When one's relations with the world are not those of lived experience in general, but of the manifestation of oneself through works and active initiatives, the style suggested is that of involvement in every act, of pure and impersonal action, "without desire," without attachment (75-76).
-Julius Evola, Ride the Tiger
In the practical field of action, we have considered a regime of experiments with 2 degrees and 2 ends. First there is the proving knowledge of himself as a determined being, then of himself as a being in whom the transcendent dimension is positively present. The latter is the ultimate basis of his own law, and its supreme justification. After everything has collapsed and in a climate of dissolution, there is only one solution to the problem of an unconditioned and intangible meaning to life: THE DIRECT ASSUMPTION OF ONE'S OWN NAKED BEING AS A FUNCTION OF TRANSCENDENCE (75).
As for the modes of behavior toward the world, once a clarification and confirmation of oneself has been achieved as described, the general formula is indicated by an intrepid openness, devoid of ties but united in detachment, in the face of any possible experience. Where this involves a high intensity of life and a regime of achievement that enliven and nourish the calm principle of transcendence within, the orientation has some features in common with Nietzsche's "Dionysian state," but the way in which this state should be integrated suggests that a better term would be "Dionysian Apollonism." When one's relations with the world are not those of lived experience in general, but of the manifestation of oneself through works and active initiatives, the style suggested is that of involvement in every act, of pure and impersonal action, "without desire," without attachment (75-76).
-Julius Evola, Ride the Tiger
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Jesse James III
from Chap 3
Jesse 'emerges' from the Shadows
Eleven years had passed since the St. Joseph hoax. It was 1893 andd three men were seated in a private railway coach at Chicago's Columbia Exposition or World's Fair. Outside the bright lights of the midway the shouts and laughter of throusands of delighted patrons created excitement in the night.
There was excitement in the railway coach, too. Buffalo Bill Cody, 48, and a year younger than his guest, poured another drink and shook his finger at Robert E. Lee, his 18 year old bodyguard.
"And to think, Bobby, you were about to shoot my friend here," the man with the flowing hair and large goatee exclaimed. "My God, son, this man is the real honest-to-God Jesse James, one of the original backers of my Wild West Show."
The young man stirred uneaasily. "Well, sir, I had no way of knowing your orders have been to keep peole from coming into the railfoad car."
Jess lit a long, black cigar and grinned, "Take it easy on young Mr. Lee, I was kind of pushy so he was just doing his job."
Buffalo Bill chuckled. "Well, it's a damn good thing you didn't tell him you were Jesse James." Turning to young Lee, he said," Jesse here is the deadliest shot in the West. Fellow that used to work for me, Wild Bill Hickock, once thought he was." Cody turned to Jesse and winked.
Robert E. Lee refilled the visitor's glass with brandy. Then he stepped back, but kept his ears open. The two old friends talked for an hour about famous characters of the West. What they told wasn't history as young Lee had been taught. How could his teachers have been so wrong? Fifty-five yeaers later Lee was still wondering.
"Bill," Jess finally said, "how'd you like a real attraction for a few weeks?"
"Always looking for talent, you know that. Got somebody in mind?"
"Yup, me!"
"You?" Cody hastily put his glass down. "You mean Jess James reveals himself?"
"That's what I had in mind, Bill."...
35...Jesse spent three weeks as Buffalo Bill's guest and the multi-millionaire even gave shooting exhibitions at Cody's show. Robert E. Lee recalled years later that he was disturbed by the fact that Buffalo Bill, when he had been drinking, openly introduced his sharpshooter as "the real Jesse Fames" to some of his friends.
But Jesse accepted his old friend's advice and went on helping to shape the history of the West, but about a dozen years after his Chicago talk with Buffalo Bill the bug to "emerge" again hit the outlaw. He hired a "high-priced lawyer with political influence and dispatched him to Washington.
The lawyer asked the U.S. Attornyey-General, "What would you say if I told you that Jesse James is my client?"
"I'd say you were either a damn liar or had been out in the sun too long!"...
...In 1936 when Jesse was 92 he attended a Confederate convention in East Texas and the old soldiers sat around for three days and nights swapping tales of the War Between the States. The old warrior was onpenly accepted as Jesse James. After all, most of the old vets had known him most of their lives.
Four years later in 1940, Col. J. Frank Dalton finally decided to make his move. Although he was 96 and suffering from a broken right hip, he gathered up his documents, got DeWitt Travis(Qunantrill's youngest son) to drive him, and headed toward Missouri for what he called "the showdown." On the way, their car became involved in an accident and the old man returned home disappointed. But Jesse was talking to relatives and friends, revealing his secret past. He even lectured throughout Texas, admitting he was "the real Jesse James." "Colonel Dalton," long a favorite of the Texas Rangers, had opened a hole in the dike. His long-ketp secret was beginning to seep through...
37
...In a separate action, Jesse III had taken his crippled grandfather to Lawton, Oklahoma, and tipped reporters at The Lawton Constitution who were busy with a three week investigation of the old man's claims. Search Magazine Publisher Palmer sent Shevlin to Lawton to personally check out Jess Frank Dalton. Shevlin wired Palmer on May 18, 1948, "He is our man." Palmer went to radio station WMAQ in Chicago where the 10:15 pm news broadcast was preempted and the sensational news that Jesse W. James was still alive was spread across the airwaves.
The next day, Wednesday, May 19, 1948, The Lawton Constitution's page 1 banner read,"Jesse James is Alive! In Lawton" The wire sevices picked up the story and old Jess, finally emerged with a flourish, received excellent, if controversial coverage, all over the world. Newsmen pounded on his door day and night, and oldtimers flocked to Lawton. Parades were held in Oklahoma and the old outlaw thoroughly enjoyed the attention...
...For instance, Jesse toold the Lawton reporters that on September 5, 1914, at the age of 67 he enlisted in the Canadian army and fought four years in Europe, emerging a lieutenant-colonel. More incredible, he said he learend to fly and spent the final 22 months of World War I in the Royal Air Force.
Actually, Jess stayed in the U.S. and patriotically sold war bonds in both World War I and II. He did learn to pilot a plane, but the man who once held the fastest guns in the West couldn't get his lcense because of "bad coordination." He never attempted to drive a car..
Old Jess told Hall and Whitten that after the Civil War he joined th U.S. Fifth Cavalry. Some historians seized upon this as a "whopper." But this was the truth. Using as assumed name, probably "Sergeant Lawrence Schofield," he never advanced beyond the rank of sergeant because he was ex-Confederate. In a few months he "bought his way out." He more likely simply deserted. "I had a reason for joining the Yankees," he told his family, "because there were some things I had to set up."
The Lawton reporters wrote that the famous outlaw "graduated with honors from the University of Michigan: in law because he tried medicine and "couldn't stand the sight of blood." Actually, Jesse, using the name, J.H. James, did get a medical diploma from Missouri Medical college, but studied only enough law for his own use.
Jesse also portrayed himself as a soldier of fortune to the Oklahoma newsmen. He said he fought in the Beer War on the side of the Dutch, rose to the rank of colonel in the Brazilian army, etc. He said he once fought the Hottentots, "that fierce tribe in Africa and the only people I ever ran from." But Jesse hadn't done these things – he was merely covering up for old compadres still alive.
In all, an estimated thirty-thousand people thronged to Lawton for a look or an interview with Jesse James. On July 7, 1948, Guthrie, Oklahoma, staged a giant parade in honor of the emerged outlaw. RKO movie stars waved at the crowds. It was a gala event. Al Jennings, the reformed outlaw; Jim Thorpe, the famous Indian athlete and Captain Roy Aldrich of the Texas Rangers all came forward to identiffy their long-time friend as the real Jesse James.
Riding in the second car at the Guthrie parade was another famous outlaw, William H. Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid. History says Billy was slain by Pat Garrett at the age of 22 in Ft. Cumner, N.M., July14, 1881, but "the Kid" lived a full life as "Brushy Bill' Roberts. In fact, he resided next door to Jesse James for six years of his life. Both old men knew the other's secret.
It seemed the old Kentucky-born outlaw, now turned respectable as he lived on borrowed time, never grew tired shaking the hands of oldtimers he had known through the misty decades. Jess III marveled at the number of old stars, some of them former bandits, still alive in 1948.
But the old man, who once headed the Kinghts of the Golden Circle, top Confederate undrground organization and one of the most efficient the world has ever known, was worried because he had lost track of his first cousin, Jesse R.(Dingus) James, born September 5, 1847, in Clay County, Missouri. Jesse Woodson James knew Dingus was alive, but he didn't know where.
"I'd seen him sitting there the day before – but now I suddenly realized it was cousin Dingus," James III recalls, "so I got two silver dollars, walked by the old man and said, 'Turkey Tracks', and tossed a dollar in his hat. I walked a few steps, came back and dropped another dollar in his hat and asked, 'Seen a turtle go by, my friend?"
Old Dingus looked up and squinted. "Nope, I ain't seen a turtle, but I know you're from the Organization – where's Jesse?" But Dingus refused to accompany Jesse III into the hotel. He came to the room after dark, using the service elevator. The two old cousins staged a tearful reunion and talked until dawn...
-Del Schrader and Jesse James III, Jesse James was One of his names
Jesse 'emerges' from the Shadows
Eleven years had passed since the St. Joseph hoax. It was 1893 andd three men were seated in a private railway coach at Chicago's Columbia Exposition or World's Fair. Outside the bright lights of the midway the shouts and laughter of throusands of delighted patrons created excitement in the night.
There was excitement in the railway coach, too. Buffalo Bill Cody, 48, and a year younger than his guest, poured another drink and shook his finger at Robert E. Lee, his 18 year old bodyguard.
"And to think, Bobby, you were about to shoot my friend here," the man with the flowing hair and large goatee exclaimed. "My God, son, this man is the real honest-to-God Jesse James, one of the original backers of my Wild West Show."
The young man stirred uneaasily. "Well, sir, I had no way of knowing your orders have been to keep peole from coming into the railfoad car."
Jess lit a long, black cigar and grinned, "Take it easy on young Mr. Lee, I was kind of pushy so he was just doing his job."
Buffalo Bill chuckled. "Well, it's a damn good thing you didn't tell him you were Jesse James." Turning to young Lee, he said," Jesse here is the deadliest shot in the West. Fellow that used to work for me, Wild Bill Hickock, once thought he was." Cody turned to Jesse and winked.
Robert E. Lee refilled the visitor's glass with brandy. Then he stepped back, but kept his ears open. The two old friends talked for an hour about famous characters of the West. What they told wasn't history as young Lee had been taught. How could his teachers have been so wrong? Fifty-five yeaers later Lee was still wondering.
"Bill," Jess finally said, "how'd you like a real attraction for a few weeks?"
"Always looking for talent, you know that. Got somebody in mind?"
"Yup, me!"
"You?" Cody hastily put his glass down. "You mean Jess James reveals himself?"
"That's what I had in mind, Bill."...
35...Jesse spent three weeks as Buffalo Bill's guest and the multi-millionaire even gave shooting exhibitions at Cody's show. Robert E. Lee recalled years later that he was disturbed by the fact that Buffalo Bill, when he had been drinking, openly introduced his sharpshooter as "the real Jesse Fames" to some of his friends.
But Jesse accepted his old friend's advice and went on helping to shape the history of the West, but about a dozen years after his Chicago talk with Buffalo Bill the bug to "emerge" again hit the outlaw. He hired a "high-priced lawyer with political influence and dispatched him to Washington.
The lawyer asked the U.S. Attornyey-General, "What would you say if I told you that Jesse James is my client?"
"I'd say you were either a damn liar or had been out in the sun too long!"...
...In 1936 when Jesse was 92 he attended a Confederate convention in East Texas and the old soldiers sat around for three days and nights swapping tales of the War Between the States. The old warrior was onpenly accepted as Jesse James. After all, most of the old vets had known him most of their lives.
Four years later in 1940, Col. J. Frank Dalton finally decided to make his move. Although he was 96 and suffering from a broken right hip, he gathered up his documents, got DeWitt Travis(Qunantrill's youngest son) to drive him, and headed toward Missouri for what he called "the showdown." On the way, their car became involved in an accident and the old man returned home disappointed. But Jesse was talking to relatives and friends, revealing his secret past. He even lectured throughout Texas, admitting he was "the real Jesse James." "Colonel Dalton," long a favorite of the Texas Rangers, had opened a hole in the dike. His long-ketp secret was beginning to seep through...
37
...In a separate action, Jesse III had taken his crippled grandfather to Lawton, Oklahoma, and tipped reporters at The Lawton Constitution who were busy with a three week investigation of the old man's claims. Search Magazine Publisher Palmer sent Shevlin to Lawton to personally check out Jess Frank Dalton. Shevlin wired Palmer on May 18, 1948, "He is our man." Palmer went to radio station WMAQ in Chicago where the 10:15 pm news broadcast was preempted and the sensational news that Jesse W. James was still alive was spread across the airwaves.
The next day, Wednesday, May 19, 1948, The Lawton Constitution's page 1 banner read,"Jesse James is Alive! In Lawton" The wire sevices picked up the story and old Jess, finally emerged with a flourish, received excellent, if controversial coverage, all over the world. Newsmen pounded on his door day and night, and oldtimers flocked to Lawton. Parades were held in Oklahoma and the old outlaw thoroughly enjoyed the attention...
...For instance, Jesse toold the Lawton reporters that on September 5, 1914, at the age of 67 he enlisted in the Canadian army and fought four years in Europe, emerging a lieutenant-colonel. More incredible, he said he learend to fly and spent the final 22 months of World War I in the Royal Air Force.
Actually, Jess stayed in the U.S. and patriotically sold war bonds in both World War I and II. He did learn to pilot a plane, but the man who once held the fastest guns in the West couldn't get his lcense because of "bad coordination." He never attempted to drive a car..
Old Jess told Hall and Whitten that after the Civil War he joined th U.S. Fifth Cavalry. Some historians seized upon this as a "whopper." But this was the truth. Using as assumed name, probably "Sergeant Lawrence Schofield," he never advanced beyond the rank of sergeant because he was ex-Confederate. In a few months he "bought his way out." He more likely simply deserted. "I had a reason for joining the Yankees," he told his family, "because there were some things I had to set up."
The Lawton reporters wrote that the famous outlaw "graduated with honors from the University of Michigan: in law because he tried medicine and "couldn't stand the sight of blood." Actually, Jesse, using the name, J.H. James, did get a medical diploma from Missouri Medical college, but studied only enough law for his own use.
Jesse also portrayed himself as a soldier of fortune to the Oklahoma newsmen. He said he fought in the Beer War on the side of the Dutch, rose to the rank of colonel in the Brazilian army, etc. He said he once fought the Hottentots, "that fierce tribe in Africa and the only people I ever ran from." But Jesse hadn't done these things – he was merely covering up for old compadres still alive.
In all, an estimated thirty-thousand people thronged to Lawton for a look or an interview with Jesse James. On July 7, 1948, Guthrie, Oklahoma, staged a giant parade in honor of the emerged outlaw. RKO movie stars waved at the crowds. It was a gala event. Al Jennings, the reformed outlaw; Jim Thorpe, the famous Indian athlete and Captain Roy Aldrich of the Texas Rangers all came forward to identiffy their long-time friend as the real Jesse James.
Riding in the second car at the Guthrie parade was another famous outlaw, William H. Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid. History says Billy was slain by Pat Garrett at the age of 22 in Ft. Cumner, N.M., July14, 1881, but "the Kid" lived a full life as "Brushy Bill' Roberts. In fact, he resided next door to Jesse James for six years of his life. Both old men knew the other's secret.
It seemed the old Kentucky-born outlaw, now turned respectable as he lived on borrowed time, never grew tired shaking the hands of oldtimers he had known through the misty decades. Jess III marveled at the number of old stars, some of them former bandits, still alive in 1948.
But the old man, who once headed the Kinghts of the Golden Circle, top Confederate undrground organization and one of the most efficient the world has ever known, was worried because he had lost track of his first cousin, Jesse R.(Dingus) James, born September 5, 1847, in Clay County, Missouri. Jesse Woodson James knew Dingus was alive, but he didn't know where.
"I'd seen him sitting there the day before – but now I suddenly realized it was cousin Dingus," James III recalls, "so I got two silver dollars, walked by the old man and said, 'Turkey Tracks', and tossed a dollar in his hat. I walked a few steps, came back and dropped another dollar in his hat and asked, 'Seen a turtle go by, my friend?"
Old Dingus looked up and squinted. "Nope, I ain't seen a turtle, but I know you're from the Organization – where's Jesse?" But Dingus refused to accompany Jesse III into the hotel. He came to the room after dark, using the service elevator. The two old cousins staged a tearful reunion and talked until dawn...
-Del Schrader and Jesse James III, Jesse James was One of his names
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