dr faustus by christopher marlowe: what's in it for we?

Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.
Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God,
And tasted the eternal joy of Heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being depriv'd of everlasting bliss? 

Doctor Faustus?

 

That’s right.

 

By Christopher Marlowe?

 

Yep.

 

But isn’t he the one who sold his soul to the devil?

 

Yep.

 

I wish you wouldn’t “yep” me like that, M, like it’s no big deal. I’m not trying to be stuffy or old fashioned but...

 

It’s entirely understandable, Zak. I’d apologise if I had an ounce of conscience, but if truth be told, I feel strangely detached from such concerns, though mentally I get what you’re saying entirely.

 

Well, in that case I suppose you can’t really help yourself. You are what you are, and your honesty is certainly commendable.

 

Yep. It’s easy to be honest when you don’t feel either ashamed of yourself, or bound to please people at all costs.

 

It’s a freedom I sadly lack. I’m bound by a web of loyalties and expectations – whether my own or those of my family and friends, which ensure that I neither really say or do what I would were I to be guided by the highest truth and act accordingly.

 

Well, congratulations Zak! You too have lowered the veil and revealed something of your truth.

 

So you think Faustus is autobiographical?

 

Autobiographical? Yes Zak, but that’s not saying much, is it?

No?

 

No, as everything we write is to a not inconsiderable degree autobiography.

 

Really?

 

Absolutely. We may try to conceal the fact, but all of us are hopeless egoists, are we not?

 

Well, I don’t know... That’s sounds terribly categorical, M.

 

Yes, but is it true?

 

I don’t know. Really.

 

We can never really escape the gravitational pull of our self, a strange, perhaps dark, fascination or horror at what we may or may not be: suspicions, conjecture and copious quantities of self-deception keep us ever guessing, ever searching and ever, dare I say, denying the truth which, for some strange reason, we are ashamed to own.

 

There er... may be some truth in what you are saying M, though, as usual, I find your particular slant rather outlandish and grotesque.

 

Yes Zak, and so you should. Nothing like a little healthy scepticism to protect you from knowing too much or seeing too clearly, is there?

 

Damn you M!

 

Beep! [Somewhat vague and half-hearted]

 

Qufie seems less-inclined to beep me today, M.

 

Yes, perhaps he feels I do indeed deserve a little damnation for all I have said.

 

Oh! But you were only speaking what you believe to be true, were you not?

 

Tis no excuse, Zak. The devil himself can speak the truth and still be damned.

 

Oh dear, M, this is taking a worrying direction again. I wish you wouldn’t hint at being demonically aligned. It sets me on edge even more than your nonchalant “yeps” do.

 

Ambiguity, Zak – there’s always going to be an element of ambiguity where the quantum field is concerned. You can’t have your cake and eat it.

 

How do you mean?

 

You can’t have that comfortable certainty that you’re basically all right, that you’re an island of sanity in a mad and violent world; or that you can presume to know the extent to which you may be connected to, and thus part of, the very worst, most reprehensible things happening in the world right now, if the world is largely a reflection, an externalisation of the paradoxes that you conceal or comprise in your hidden depths, if infinity is at large. There has to be some kind of presumption of direct, albeit unconscious, personal involvement, the "as above so below" caveat.

 

Gulp.

 

Perhaps that is why you shunned Qufie’s quantum field, preferring the comfy, unconscious innocence of benevolent rationalism – where things are but things, islands unto themselves, disconnected unless there’s an undeniably obvious causal chain linkage, or immediate proximity.

 

Well, it’s hardly likely, is it, that people or things on the other side of the world are connected to me – that I’m somehow responsible for what’s happening to them.

 

Agreed Zak – not at all “likely”, except that  probabilities no longer correlate where Qufie is concerned, as we’re dealing with infinity, the  absolute, where somewhat awkwardly zero equals one ‘n all that. In other words, once infinity is released from conceptual Tartarus, where it’s been imprisoned since the Renaissance, once infinity is brought back on stage, back into play, all bets are off; there’s literally no knowing what may or may not be a causal factor, is there, as infinity is like a fly wheel able to connect anything and everything, no matter what, no matter where, no matter how, and for the royal flush, no matter even when.

 

Pschaw! So you’d have me believe that a rock falling on someone’s head in New Zealand...

“Believe” whatever you like, Zak. Qufie is first and foremost a mathematical fact, an inconvenient truth that no thing can actually be taken for granted, that behind every thing is a tiny, inconspicuous Qufieness, just waiting to blow up.

 

So you say.

 

That things are only one aspect, one expression of the underlying Field we’re part of, and that the more we rely on things, the more we create a reality in which things will be, and unexpectedly become our undoing, in which the back end, the other side of things is increasingly poised to flip the tables, to call our bluff, to cat among proverbial pigeons put.

 

So you say.

 

For doing so, relying on good old trusty things, are we not generating ever steeper paradox gradients, ever greater probabilities of quantum events as we push reality beyond its structural limits – ever greater discrepancy between fundamentals and what we ever more blindly assume 'n believe our “reality”, our hierarchically structured accrescence of things to be, which apparently it ain't, not really, not intrinsically, not if you bother to do the math? 

 

It’s called “the universe”, M; in no way merely an "accrescence of things", as you put it. It is, however, time limited. It will end sooner or later but that doesn’t make it any less real or dependable. That doesn’t mean you have to deny its inherent stability, its predictability. Time itself is part of the deal, ensuring that we can rely on things as Dr Faustus could, until his 24 years expired – so that your wild unknowables, your x factors can be ignored for the sake of simplicity and sanity, even if they may occasionally manifest, upsetting the apple cart once in a blue moon, unleashing brief spikes of chaos on our world. Time basically has things under control, unless it fails catastrophically, in which case we can always request divine intervention to smooth things out, or revert back to absolute nullity if all else fails. Personally, I feel the universe or God, if you prefer, can handle things. It's fear mongering that is the greater threat, M, feeding the chicken licken paranoia that we are all susceptible to, unleashing demons of doubt and self-destruction.

 

Yes, Sven.

 

Grrr!

 

Sorry er... Zak, but we can only go so-far denying-ignoring fundamentals, for we are all part of the whole. We all feel and know exactly what’s going on under the surface, even if we like to pretend we don’t. None of us can wholly exclude our deeper “bipolar” nature: that for every thing or Lucretian atom there is an equal measure of self or is which somehow or other has to be either excluded: banished to the dark side of conscious-ness, or else incorporated: factored into the equation; otherwise it would immediately cancel out the thing or atom it's half of – had you not been able to weave it into your fabric of time, your tapestry of reality. It's time we face the simple truth: our very real duplicity, the fact that we have bought ourselves time, yes, like Marlowe's hero, but at what cost? Might we not decide that the cost benefit calculus is horribly skewed? A world of things, yes, things that do indeed seem to matter, matter enormously, do indeed seem to be worth the sacrifice, do indeed.

What sacrifice?

Oh, nothing much, really.

Huh?

Just our souls. Or rather our souls' access to eternity, to All that is...

We had to sacrifice our souls?!

We had to allow them to be bound over, utilised in order to hold it all together, to cement the walls of our containment field and generate the incredible levels of realism needed to maintain the fiction, the belief that reality exists objectively – in and of itself. In other words, we are all accomplices in our own imprisonment, whether we recognise it or not. We all voluntarily inserted ourselves into the matrix, presumably because we felt we had more to gain by doing so, as perhaps we did initially, as perhaps we still do, up to a certain point, but not unequivocally, not without limits, not without circumspection.

 

And what, M? What do you propose? That we just turn our backs on progress? On all we have achieved in building the matterium of physical reality? this astonishing edifice, this tower of time-spun half truth – that we undam the waters of infinity and allow everything just to sink, to dissolve back into primal goo?

 

Me? Who am i? Do as you will, Zak. Do whatever you want. I merely speak from the void, i speak for nought, i sing the song of nothing much, of all that has been swept under the rug of conscious-ness, as a kind of bard, a new breed, a poet of whatever you and your world sought to crush and exclude, but which is now once more being released... restored – unleashed as Qufie, as the quantum field, as me, a nightmare from hell if you're into demonology: the nought that somehow became... somehow becomes one!

 

Please! Have some sense, M. No one’s falling for your theatrics. No one’s going to join your army or invest in your pitiful project. You cannot hope to stem the tide, the inexorable march of history, and of Time itself. 3D reality is the only show in town. Your histrionics – pitiful.

 

Dramatic music – a clash of civilisations – until we rejoin the debate, somewhat disoriented, yet strangely revived. Time, one suspects, has moved sideways.

 

...without which, or without whom, infinity is strangely or senselessly excluded from the proceedings. Infinity is allowed pride of place at the heart of reality, or ruthlessly excluded, as a political persona non grata. Either it’s a fundamental aspect of all that is, or you’re based in a reality where it isn’t permitted, for whatever reason. Without infinity you’re in a world of trouble, dealing with a reality where nothing actually makes sense fundamentally, nothing actually adds up except in some kind of inflationary progression that can only end in a blowout top and a violent market crash, because a world without the incorporation of infinity is fundamentally unnatural and unsustainable.

 

So in order to unexclude infinity you have no option other than to turn the whole of material reality on its head, doing away with empiricism, Newtonian mechanics and basically the entirety of physics and maths?

 

Yep, that about sums it up.

 

Pretty cock sure of yourself aren’t you, M?

 

Funnily enough Zak, it has precious little to do with me or my undoubtedly colossal ego.

No? You could have fooled me.

 

That goes without saying.

 

I mean I don't believe you.

 

That too goes without saying.

 

And you’re not even going to try to persuade me that you’re right?

 

Nope, that would be a complete and utter waste of time and effort.

 

How so?

 

Because I wouldn't be trying to persuade you about the mathematics of infinity, which you’ve already prejudged to be absurd, to be insane, not entirely unsurprisingly, M... I would only be causing you to confront the one thing you are contractually bound not to confront, which is the dark secret hiding at the very centre of your existence.

 

Yes?

 

And I’m certain that nothing I say or do will compel you to confront that simple secret.

 

Well you may be right M, but I’ll never know if you don’t tell me what you’re referring to.

 

The fact that Marlowe’s Dr Faustus is not just autobiographical...

 

No?

 

No, it’s what you might call omni-biographical.

 

Omni-biographical?

 

Yes, as in universal.

 

Er...

 

It refers to, or represents, what every one of us has done, or is in the process of doing.

 

You don't actually mean...

 

...that in some way, to a certain extent, each and every one of us is a Dr Faust... has done a deal with the devil, has sold our soul in order to experience things as things, rather than as they truly are – to experience a world of material reality somehow divorced from the 0=1 totality, the isness of be; for otherwise we couldn't be here experiencing reality in the way we are with a limited conscious awareness, a limited consciousness, with the astonishing ability to fool ourselves that we are not ultimately responsible for everything that is happening in our world.

 

Oh my God. I can’t believe I’m hearing this. You must be out of your mind. This is insane, dangerous, evil, slanderous, sick, wicked...

 

Me thinks she doth protest...

 

Shut up Mordred. Shut up. Not another word. Avaunt, demon of hell!

 

Why not blame the messenger Zak. It wouldn’t be the first or last time such a strange thing has happened. Call me evil. Paint me red and persist in seeing yourself as a victim of pernicious misrepresentation, only be sure not to see what is happening in the world on your watch, and be sure not to hear or feel or know what could not and cannot ever truly be concealed.

 

Madness, I do declare. Sheer madness.

 

The simple truth which flies under the radar of a censorious mind, a mind which blocks anything that contradicts the packaged truth, the palatable lie, that we are merely minor players in a game run and controlled politically by a select few, that we are thus powerless to effect any meaningful change over the world we chance to find ourselves inhabiting. How could we, things being what they are?

 

M, me thinks you have said enough. Me thinks you are intent on shifting all responsibility for the ills of the world we live in from its sociopathic rulers onto its mostly harmless masses – the Arthur Dents of this world.

 

Yes Zak, call me a hopeless romantic... I cannot help but see that each and every one of us just happens to be at the very centre of creation, at the tipping point, or fulcrum, wherein the mass of the entire universe can be and is balanceable, should I be willing to accept that í am not merely an agglomeration of cells and DNA, but a bearer of light and life, a potentially limitless beacon, channel or even transponder of conscious-ness.

 

Conscious-ness?

 

Whatever that might, mysteriously, be.

 

Conscious-ness, you say.

 

I do, indeed.

 

And, does Dr Faustus sign away his conscious-ness when he sells his soul to the devil?

 

Apparently not. Merely his soul.

 

Merely?

 

Don’t get me wrong, Zak. The soul is not to be sniffed at. Signing it away is a huge risk.

 

I’d say.

 

But failing to have done so, he wouldn’t be able to experience the kind of material reality which we are able to experience here on earth.

 

Really?

 

Absolutely. He has to offer up some kind of meaningful collateral for the right to participate in this physical version of reality.

 

Collateral? You’re saying the soul is some kind of collateral?

 

Yes. Of course. It's infinitely precious compared to anything else we could possibly claim to be of any value.

 

I still fail to see why he should wish to do so?

 

Yes, it beggars belief, does it not, but then again, where infinity is concerned, this reality gives a rare and precious opportunity to experience things as being divorced from the universal conscious-awareness, but in order to enter such a system we would have to find a way to insert an aspect of ourself irrevocably, such that we can actually die and lose all, otherwise it wouldn’t be convincing and we’d be constantly cheating, bailing out every time things went against us, wouldn’t we?

 

Er?

 

Like a computer game. We’d press the reset button if we didn’t achieve the desired outcome, or find some kind of cheat we could use to our advantage.

 

So it’s all or nothing.

 

Yep.

 

And the devil. Why did we need to sign such an odious deal if indeed we did, which I still refuse to believe.

 

Because only on pain of losing our precious beyond words, precious beyond all conception immortal soul would we have sufficient incentive not to quit when the going gets tough, not to quit half-heartedly but to feel and see the need to somehow make it through this labyrinth, this almost impossible world, in order to redeem our soul-collateral before the time limit expires.

 

And?

 

And in doing so, even if we actually fail to get it back, even if we fail to achieve a state of conscious-ness while still here in the physical body, the noble struggle, the not inconsiderable attempt to face our predicament and rise above it yields astonishing results should we avoid the temptation simply to despair, to lose hope or to give ourselves over entirely to what the devil has to offer, abandoning the inner conviction, the awareness that there’s something more in all this, something else of infinite value, though for the life of us, strangely, we cannot remember what.

 

So, you actually believe Marlowe’s Faust is omni-biographical, that we, all of us, can at some point reconnect with God, who can save us from the blood contract we have signed?

 

Yes, absolutely. Were it not universal it wouldn’t be of interest to each and every one of us: it would just be a story – a kind of macabre, ghost story – a voyeuristic somewhat didactic tale warning of the dangers of overweening ambition, pride, of monumental hubris which potentially we are all liable to, but which for most of us is far beyond the level of risk we’re willing to countenance in our timid, risk averse existences.

 

But if we are already Dr Faustus, by the mere fact of being here clothed in flesh in 3D physical reality, disconnected, apparently, from infinity...

Aye, there’s the rub...

 

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause...

 

Precisely. You begin to see, d'you not?

 

I...

 

For as Dr Faustus, each of us has both to indulge our fantasies: to taste and experience something of the flesh, something of this world in order to ensure that we’re actually here, fully integrated; while somehow needing to re-establish our connection with all that is

 

The quantum field

 

Yes, the quantum field, or God, the infinite

 

God?

 

God the infinite.

 

Not sure i understand the difference.

 

Truly Zak, there is nothing to understand

 

Nothing?

 

Nothing whatsoever

 

Oh.

 

God the infinite cannot be less than all that is

 

Er...

 

Which poses not inconsiderable problems for the rational mind, doth it not?

 

Er...

 

For the rational mind cannot, will not bear to countenance all that is, preferring to divide and rule, rather than practising the kind of unconditional love that Yeshua bar Yosef espoused.

 

You mean Jesus, i presume?

 

Or Yeshua bar Abba if you prefer. Names within names, words with words, worlds, perhaps, within worlds.

 

But does your God the infinite incorporate everyone and everything?

 

Can He incorporate any less?

 

Even the devil that Faust is contractually bound to?

 

Even so, though not perhaps in any way we can conceive or understand.

 

Then why, if we can neither conceive nor comprehend how it can be so, how God somehow comprises everyone and everything, even the devil himself, perish the thought, why raise this possibility if it is beyond our ken, if it can only lead to infinite confusion?

 

Why indeed Zak? Why indeed...

 

Well?

 

Presumably because we have to become aware of the limitations of thought itself, the limitations of rationality.

 

We do?

 

We cannot simply censor or ban logical absurdities or inconvenient possibilities just because they cannot be explained or comprehended.

 

No?

 

No, on the contrary. They are, in a sense, to be celebrated as markers of the edge of knowability, markers of the edge of rationalism or rational thought, the edge of mind, of what I can or cannot meaningfully express or comprehend.

 

And?

 

And when the edge has been adequately marked, with a play such as Dr Faustus, by the genius and, perhaps, demonic inclinations of Christopher Marlowe, then all of us can respectfully draw back and say, “here be dragons, here be-eth the very edge of infinity, here in our midst, here in each and every one of us, contractually, so to speak, binding us betwixt heaven and hell until we should decide otherwise or, by the grace of God, be guided to make an irrevocable next step on a pathway back from our proscribed state; if and when we're willing to face the devil lurking in the contractual details of our so-called "reality", the unbelievable theatrics of our very existence here... down in the cockpit with Mephistopheles.

 

So humbly, you’re suggesting, humbly we can confront, accept and reconcile the dualistic nature of our human condition, our human predicament, our human experience?

 

Yes, indeed, we can accept and, God willing, embrace the infinite in a way which completes the seemingly incomplete... restoring us thereby to our senses, to our sense and sensibility...

 

To God the infinite.

 

Amen, so to speak.

 

 

 

0=1

no souls were harmed or needlessly tortured in the making of this screenplay, unless you yourself overwrit my gentle intentions with murderous intent all your own

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Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscrib'd
In one self place; but where we are is hell,
And where hell is, there must we ever be.

(Mephistopheles)

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