Mostly Harmless

It is said the tradition we received from the Templars originated from Adam through Salomon. It was kept through the Roman Mystery cults (Eleusis), the school of Pythagoras, the Essenes (the Red Sea Scrolls), the Kabbalists, the Rosicrucians. One of the brotherhoods that passed on the knowledge (gnosis) was said to be a strange group of naked men walking from village to village in India.
When the army of the Macedonian Alexander the Great reached the Indian sub-continent in the fourth century before the Christian era, they dubbed them Gymnosophists (the naked philosophers). Macedonian philosopher Onesicritus was dispatched to try to understand their belief system. The founder of scepticism, Pyrrho, also researched their ideas. As a result, nudity became accepted in some Greek subcultures, among which the Spartans.
Most probably those wandering men were Jains, an offshoot of Hinduism from the 5th century BC, known for promoting non-violence and veganism. Another group called the Ajivikas has similar ideas, but believes we should accept whatever fate throws at us. Both cults give up worldly goods, symbolized by their nakedness.
Further on, the jains themselves separated into two factions, in the North the Svetambar Jains and in the South the Digambar Jains. The former holds the - in hinduist circles - progressive view that women are spiritually equal to men. Also because of the colder climate in the North, they found it impractical to remain naked and started to wear white cloths (hence their name). In contrast, Digambar means ‘clothed with the sky'.

Today in India the Jains still walk the earth, sweeping the ground before their feet to be sure not to kill insects.
And the New Gymnosophist Society in the Western world promotes naturism. Their most famous member was Gerald Gardner, the founder of modern day wicca…

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Pull my finger

Once you'll stop
deciding
from the bottom of your being

and start the action
from your non-being

then
and only then
will you be able to make a new choice

this is the teaching our deaths offer

The Dynamics of Ontology and Eschaton

I just heard an old lecture by Terence McKenna ('Earth Trust') where he mentionned the biblical "in the beginning was the verb, and the verb was made flesh". To him that little sentence stands at the source of our civilisation.
To me it suddenly seems the key to grok the hidden meaning of all three monotheistic religions in the West. In this interpretation, its location at the very beginning of the bible seems quite useful.
Its meaning to me could be synthesized in the following statements:

1. Our world is made of words: the core of our reality consists of language.
2. It is also specified our ideas about the world do not follow our impressions of it, but ‘contrarywise’ - our ideas shape our realitie(s.).
3. The Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is also hidden in there: all we can say about consensus reality is the way we communicate about it.
4. Kinda resonates with the buddhistic concept of reality as the ultimate illusion. Also reminds of Kafka's and Robert Anton Wilson's consecutive parables of the Door of the Law.
   
5. In short it might prove useful if we should realize that everything we experience is a mental construction, so that the only valable object of study would be the way we look at the world. Let's try to expand and explore our reality tunnels, instead of claiming to try to ‘know’ a certain dogmatic truth.

It seems strange how gnosticism, kabbalah and sufism all saw this as the expression of the ontogeny of how we realize our life – every second of it, while christendom, jewdom and islam all interpreted this passage as the ontogeny both in time and space in the beginning of history and through the creation of matter; further on elaborating in the same chronology with the downfall and the idea of punition and redemption; and finally offering the concept of the eschaton as placed on a time belt as well.
Maybe both ontology and eschaton might be considered out of time as a dynamic duo of self-realization. Seeing the world as a hologram - a projection - also means to accept the fractalized universe. Might we therefore imagine infinity in a grain of sand and the angels of beginning and of ending on the same end of a pin, not competing but as two aspects of the same?

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The founding of the ECPR

I exceptionaly translated the founding rapport. In order to read the future posts in its blog, Dutch or more precisely Flemish shall be necessary I'm afraid.

Notes from the first Druidic Conventicle
Founding rapport of the Eburonic Chapter for 'Pataphysical Research

Art. 1
The Eburonic Chapter or 'Pataphysical Research has three types of members:
The Oblates. External members, correspondants, sympathizers and critters who shine for their unconscious pataphysical characteristics.
De Ovates. The main group, full members who have applied for membership according to the rules as mentioned under Art. 2.
The Ornates. People, animals or abstract concepts: from a pure 'pataphysical point of view, they relate to the Ovates as the Ovates relate to the Oblates. Ornates reside in ethernity, and have to account to nobody.

Art. 2
In order to become an Ovate, it is necessary either to show a high 'Pataphysical profile, either to make a donation to the Morosofic(*) Dept. of the Ubulibrary. According membership is at the discrecy of a Druidic Conventicle or an Eburonic Bardo.
(*) a Morosophic book has been defined by Matthijs van Boxsel, and by Raymond Queneau and André Blavier before him, as a publication showing ideas that fall outside of consensus, and who have no followers except for the writer.
Membership is permanent, only an exceptional decision by the Anathematic Court can revoke one. Dying is by no means an excuse to abandon membership.

Art. 3
Every member has one or more titles. De worldly name might be used at will, but have only an anecdotical value.

Art. 4
The Eburonic Chapter or 'Pataphysical Research was founded on the 16th Phalle 134 by the following founding members:
The Apostatical Heresiarch. Bears the highest decision-making rank. Was elected by pure chance. Main characteristic: absence.
The Apostolical Exarch. Assists the Apostatic Heresiarch, offers a bias to the information and makes sure everything goes wrong.
The Apological Eparch. Assists both the Apostatical Heresiarch and the Apostolical Exarch and searches for stupid excuses for their sloppy management.
The Autokefalical Mafrian. The only Ovate who has to report to no one. Because of this prerogative, automatically presides the Anathematic Court.
Whenever these four highest ranking members meet, they form a Druidic Conventicle.

Founding Ovates:
The Chorepiscopic Protonotary. A member who lives in the country, keeps track of the notes of every meeting and collects them for the Blog.
The Apocalyptical Nuntius: the main responsible for the failures in the meetings. Works together with the Megalithical Gardinal.
The Megalithical Gardinal is the host and organizer of the meetings.
The Katatonical Kakapitteleer is the master of ceremonies who works together with the Apocalyptical Nuntius and the Megalithical Gardinal.
In the function of replacing the absent Apostatical Heresiarch, restrains from any activity during the meetings.
The Anacoluthical Iconoclast is responsible for all visuals.

Art. 5
Because of its highly chaotical nature, a meeting of all the members is called an Eburonic Bardo.

Art. 6
The Eburonic Chapter for 'Pataphysical Research is divided into different laboratories. Members can participate in one or more domains of research. As for now, the following chairs have been created (some Flemish expressions cannot survive translation):

The Morosophic Cabinet: researches the Flemish Morosophy, in publication or on the internet.

The Landard of Patadigmas: researches strange and unusual aspects of Dutch folk-lore and legends, according to the model provided by Charles MacKay in his 'Extroardinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds'.

The Avatary of Pataphores: does sociological research for new metaphors born from diverse interactions. Uses the model of the 'meme' but tries to discover as many dissenting interpretations as possible. Its members are called 'memebers'.

The Ambulatory of Tsimtsum: High Patakabbalistic Research. Main source: 'Towards a 'patakabbalah'.

The Saturnian Guild: responsible for all the publications of the Chapter.
Is represented through 'L'Aérolithe d'Orichalque', editor.

The Nering of Treshittery: accounts for the Phynancial side for the Saturnian Guild.

The Gymnasium of Posophy: tries to discover new acrobatical relationships between loose ideas according to the 'Po-relation' of Edward de Bono.

The Habdank Skarbek Questiorium: asks questions from the perpective of Korzybski's Anthropometer. Which questions might or might not recieve feedback from the Avatary of Pataphores.

The Erisian Sorority: accepts only women. Specializes in conspiracy and the organisation of discord. According to its nature, cannot house more than one member.
Because of internal conflicts, the chair remains empty.

The Chamber of Lexicosophical Rhetorics: researches language in a creative manner. New words, aphorisms and contradictory definitions.

The Anathematic Court: is called in whenever the internal disorder is in jeopardy, which has never happened until now.

The Catmachemical Synod: accepts only cats (living or dead). All members are Ornates by definition. Their goal is to soften all dogmas from the Science and replace them with smoother catmas. Their adaptive qualities are used to send other members on the wrong trail. Suggested reading: 'The Catmachemical Marriage of Christian von Katzenjammer'.

New chairs can be created by a Druidic Conventicle or an Eburonic Bardo.

Sighed,
the Chorespicopic Protonotary,
borsky

Nederlandse versie

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The Eburonic Chapter for 'Pataphysical Research

The Eburonic Chapter for 'Pataphysical Research has just been founded.
The founding Ornatic members,
the Apostatical Heresiarch,
the Apostolical Exarch,
the Apological Eparch,
the Autokefalical Maffrian
and the founding Ovatic members,
the Chorepiscopic alProtonotary,
the Apocalyptical Nuntius,
the Megalithical Gardinal,
the Catatonical Cacapitteleer and
the Anacoluthical Iconoclast
Invite you
to learn Dutch and visit the Chapter on the following blog:

Eburoons Kapittel voor 'Patafysische Vorsing

signed,
the Chorepiscopic Protonotary,
borsky

Through the looking glass

Fritz Spiegl (27 January 1926 - 23 March 2003) was a musician, journalist, broadcaster, humorist and collector of Austrian origin who lived and worked in England from 1939. As a jew he fled the nazis and on arrival in Britain, Spiegl was sent to a minor public school, where he learned little beyond "rugger, plane-spotting and a bit of Latin". Every Saturday, for eight years, Spiegl would discuss such bizarre matters as the use of the word "lie", the flagrant misuses of parliamentary language, the prevalence of tautology in popular speech and the verb "jubilize" as it was employed during Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. He kept collecting peculiar notions and anecdotes throughout his life.

On the first of April, 1960 the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra flute player Spiegl played an instrument of his own creation, the Loophonium. You can listen to a podcast here. Or read the transcript. As mentioned during the presentation, "The perfect Surrealist work of art was once described as the meeting of an umbrella and a bicycle on a dissecting table. This is the marriage of a euphonium and a lavatory".

In 1952 he started organising 'April Fool's Day Concerts', such as a concerto for two tuning forks, a Motor Horn Concerto or Rossini's La Cenerentola played on 8 grand piano's by 16 pianists. He left the Liverpool Philharmonic after he decided to play his part on regular concerts half a tune lower than he should have. He became partly deaf, according to him due to the copper section, but remained an active composer - one of his most famous works was BBC's Radio 4 UK theme.




The Loophonium, also called the 'Harpic-phone' whose lid was lifted whenever Rule Brittania was played, can be admired and heard at the Walker Museum in Liverpool.



Spiegl wrote very odd books, amongst them several books on Liverpool dialect, and

• Music Through the Looking Glass: A Very Personal Kind of Dictionary of Musicians' Jargon, Shop-Talk and Nicknames (1984)
  
  
• The Joy of Words: A Bedside Book for English Lovers (1986)
  
  
• A Small Book of Grave Humour (1989) (republished in 2006 strangely bearing the name 'Paul Ross')
  
  
• Fritz Spiegl's Book of Musical Blunders and other Musical Curiosities (1996)
  
  
• Fritz Spiegl's Sick Notes: An Alphabetical Browsing-Book of Derivatives, Abbreviations, Mnemonics and Slang for Amusement (1996)
• MuSick Notes: A Medical Songbook (2001)

"the words and music of forty-two songs and other musical matter, all relating to medicine … Spiegl's anecdotes and historical vignettes provide a  characteristic blend of humour and education, updating the reader on phrenology, laughing gas, Burke and Hare, and the undertaker Bantry who first linked obesity with early death"

from the Journal of the Royal society of Medicine

• Contradictionary: Of Confusibles, Lookalikes and Soundalikes (published posthumously in 2003)

About which a work in progress can be found on the Scouse Press site.

"KORO/KURU With Creutzfeldt-Jakob and “Mad Cow” disease in the news, the MEDIA have become aware of other degenerative brain diseases, like kuru, endemic in parts of New Guinea and caused by cannibal consumption of brain tissue. It is not to be confused with koro, also a complaint suffered by NATIVES. This, though imaginary, causes fear and distress among certain African tribes, whose menfolk believe that witch-doctors have cast a spell on their penises to make them shrink. And, as if by magic, the more they worry about it the worse the condition gets."

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Illumination

noun.
fem.

The sudden realization
that you were illuminated all the time
but had failed to notice it