Banquo's revenge

Reality bias

Er…

Reality bias

Yes, I heard  you. Do you really want me to ask you to explain what this means – or are we just going to pretend we understand what you’re on about?

We?

Ok – me and the 74 million subscribers who follow your blog.

That’s more like it.

So I guess the answer is “no”.

Oh that – I just need permission – your permission to proceed.

You do?

Well yes.

Why?

Not allowed to give you stuff unless you ask for it..

Who says?

Non-interference protocol.

Ok. If you say so.

So, I’ll take that as permission granted.

Granted, granted – for what it’s worth.

So, you naturally assume reality is the whole thing, don’t you?

The whole what?

Yes, that’s it more or less – the whole what – and you assume that reality is neutral and unbiased, do you not?

How can reality be biased? It’s just reality, isn’t it – whatever is. Basically everything.

Absolutely. Every thing. Reality is all about things, isn’t it – and you never really wonder about all those things which don’t quite pass muster and make it into the “real.ity” operating system, onto the “real.ity” platform, the real.ity net.

Why do you imagine there are things that are excluded from reality?

No, you’re mistaken.

I am? Are you sure?

If I imagine something I’ll prefix it with the words “I imagine”. If, on the other hand, I’m stating a fact – then the “I imagine” prefix will be absent.

Ok – you don’t imagine – you’re absolutely sure that there are things which exist, which are real but which don’t make it onto the “reality” platform.

Absolutely. Such is the nature of the platform, though technically the word “real” only refers to things that appear in the reality you mistakenly assume to be all-encompassing.

Huh?

It excludes any thing which exceeds or deceeds very specific, tight, prescriptive operating parameters, like fish above or below the size of our reality net so to speak.

In the micro-hertz and mega-hertz range?

Good guesswork. Allow me to suggest that the precise frequencies are not right now terribly important.

If you say so. Then what is?

Important?

Yes.

The fact that so-called reality is half complete – that there’s another half which evades detection until or unless you figure out some thing doesn’t add up – that there must be more – that our real.ity is an mp3 or 4 digitised version of reality – that adding in the other half would collapse the wave function of real.ity and we’d be back in a landscape in which dream and undream are largely indifferentiable. There’d be all kinds of unthinged versions of any thing vying for our attention – competing with the table, the chair, the bird, the knife, the fork, the tree or the mouse – not to mention formless background noise – you’d be hard put to make head or tails of whatever is, or is not, what.

Oh.

Exactly.

So things are not what they seem.

Absolutely.

And?

And what?

What am I supposed to do with this er…

Revelation

Information

Do? What do you want to do with it?

I have no idea. You pull the rug of reality from under my feet – so I may as well assume you must have some ulterior motive.

How cunning.

Me? Cunning?

No, not you – the mind complicit in presenting the half-sided, filtered version of reality.

?

It’s very good at defending itself by directing attention elsewhere – at the messenger, for example, who provides additional information.

Oh – you think that’s a specific mind rather than my own personal response?

Absolutely. You’d be hard pressed to distinguish your real conscious self from the real.ity mind.

Reality mind? Are you absolutely sure there’s a separate mind for this particularly real.ity?

Absolutely. How else could it be so utterly convincing, so well defended?

So me – where am I in all this?

Where do you want to be?

Er…

Do you want to be in a controlled, edited, manipulated version of things – a so-called reality – or…

I think I’d prefer the truth – the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.

Even if it’s going to be somewhat confusing at first.

I can’t say I’m over the moon about experiencing a mental breakdown – but I’d rather experience reality in the true sense, than a fake version.

It’s just your half-mind is going to put up a bit of a struggle – it’s got used to having things its own way – and won’t want to relinquish control of you.

You make it sound like some scary enemy.

Well, it’s a bit like a drug addict. We all grow addicted to things – and the matrix mind – call it what you will, has grown addicted to controlling your conscious-awareness – which is a huge multi-dimensional setup with almost limitless possibilities. Like a kid in a candy store, the real-ity mind is definitely not in any hurry to go back to sharing the crown jewels with the other side of is, the why-mind-at-all-when-all-is-one – otherwise known more accurately as “0=1” if you don’t mind.

And, er… could this get dangerous for me?

For you, for everyone – absolutely. This is where you get to play a game of brinkmanship with your own mind – which is hellbent on keeping you penned in its version of things, as opposed to the unversion of query-things – aka “the isness of be”.

Gulp. Like a game of chicken, you mean?

Absolutely. It’s like a dog – if it sees you blink, or senses you’re about to flinch it’ll exploit that perceived weakness to the utmost.

Well, I’m not sure I have what it takes. I’m not exactly cut out to be a hero, you know.

I know. You’re welcome to revert back to the status quo, but the trouble is…

Yes?

Now the mind knows you know that it ain’t more than a rendition of reality – it’s going to have to move fast to re-secure your conscious-awareness before you see too clearly the limitations of what it’s able to reproduce.

And what exactly might that involve?

Difficult to say really – bear in mind that your mind is connected to all the other minds.

It is?

Absolutely. They have direct channels of communication you’re not even aware of. That’s how they manage to ensure you all perceive the same things more or less in the same way. They’re in cahoots.

Oh.

Yes, well if your awareness is now endangering the controlled-real.ity node you have hitherto functioned as, that’s a problem because awareness is kind of infectious – you could certainly spread the disease which could lead to a cascade failure or a domino effect spread of real.ity-scepticism – first  you, then more and more people you connect with would stop accepting unconditionally the truth of the real.ity you hitherto took for granted.

And what?

Well, a whole part of the mind-net would go blank for them, wouldn’t it? They’d lose control of your resources.

They? Who exactly are you referring to?

I can’t or won’t say – because until/ unless you’re able to see through the filters blocking them from view, and to see to some extent the fuller nature of true un-ity as opposed to real.ity – “the isness of be” as I prefer to call it – until that happens any name I give you will just be another thing to distract you from your own awareness experience. It will benefit you not in the least. On the contrary – it will be a distraction. Suffice it to say that you are part of a continuum which extends more or less ad infinitum – in other words, you ain’t the top of a Darwinian food chain.

Huh?

Your thoughts, your conscious-awareness mind resources are of huge value and feed a vast network of dependents – in the same way your body is a vast ecosystem for bacteria and other creatures, likewise your soul.

OMG

But this doesn’t have to be necessarily a bad thing.

No? You could have fooled me.

Well yes, but that would hardly benefit the cause, would it?

What cause?

Wait a moment – let’s rewind – so nature, as you know, abhors a vacuum – and as long as you were unable or unwilling to use your natural resources – the energy, the processing power of your mind, then it was fair game for it to be exploited by other more advanced entities. They do that by substituting their mind for the original, keeping you so busy minding things of no-significance whatsoever that you utterly fail to notice the mind is not your own, that behind it stand some rather sophisticated neural hackers.

Well I don’t see what gives them the right…

Correct – you don’t see, so stop huffing and puffing and consider that possibly they were doing you a favour – for although they were exploiting your untapped potential, they stopped it from atrophying and kept it more or less in good working order.

Oh.

And besides – quit whining about nature; everyone and everything is connected – we’re all interdependent, like it or not.

We are?

So literally there’s no way, physically, you can completely cut yourself off from all foreign, all alien entities.

Oh, it’s like that is it?

Absolutely. Even a king has to cultivate relations with other players on all sides to get anywhere.

Oh.

Besides, you were happy to go along with the subterfuge.

I was?

Do you imagine you wanted to know about what lies under the bonnet of the car, what lies inside the computer, what makes the beast perform in such a way that you fail to realise that it’s controlling you in every conceivable way.

Such as?

Emotionally, gastronomically – through the bacteria in your gut, mentally through thoughts and ideas, and so on and so forth.

OMG.

Absolutely. It beggars belief, does it not, but in the end there’s so much to learn, so much fun to be had by gently, carefully stepping outside the playpen we’ve been locked in (for our own safety – I hasten to add) and beginning to become aware of our real.ity bias – a bias which even defines “real” as “true” and “indisputable”, ironically, as opposed to it’s true meaning where “real” merely refers to the version of things, the perception of things, renditioned by the substitute mind within apparent “reality”, to the exclusion of all else. Real.ity is like the visible light spectrum – a tiny part of the entire electro-magnetic spectrum and any wavelengths real.ity-mind cannot see are de-platformed, disallowed, ignored with apparent impunity – as long as we’re willing to go along with this convenient substitution, buying into the myth that things actually matter – that matter maketh man.

Oh – so now we’re the ones to blame for this shambolic mess?

Blaming is exactly what they like you doing. As long as you’re upset, angry or fearful, as long as you’re fixating on some kind of enemy, then you’re simply not able to broaden your frequency band to take in anything else – so you’re welcome to give them the sweet satisfaction – the highly prized delicacies of fear and anger.

I can’t win. Everything I do is wrong.

True – you can’t exactly win – but you can shift phase; you can become aware of your reality bias, and simple awareness, mere awareness is enough to tip the balance, to get you centre stage so that the competing energies, forces or entities radiating from you/ through you hold one another in check.

Oh my G**

For how else could you be part of a continuum? How else could you have access to one and all – were you not already connected to an astonishing degree, once you allow your real.ity mind to confound itself by finally seeing through matter and through the mind that does everything it can to remain undetected.

But…

Yes – we can talk about it because your awareness is already lapping over the edge of the pool it was contained in – like water, but seeing is essential, and seeing involves facing what you most fear to see.

?

Fear, after all, is the mechanism which helped preserve the status quo just long enough to get you thus far – so there’s nothing wrong with fear, per se – only should you decide to choose to make fear, or matter (for that matter) your master, to the exclusion of all that is.

Oh.

Precisely…  By the way – consider for a moment me – who or what I am – whether in fact I exist.

?! Of course you bloody exist.

So you’d imagine, would you not?

Oh come on Banquo – I’ve known you for ages. There’s no way…

You see – you’ve known me for ages because that’s what you remember – but something just told you that that memory is insecure – was backdated – implanted to fill an awkward gap.

This is ridiculous.

I agree – but I’m hardly going to want to eliminate myself – am I? I’d only chose to do so if it were necessary to assist your awareness shift – as you realise that nothing is quite what it seems – that the mind is incredibly powerful – but isn’t in your control until you expand conscious-awareness to the point that mind is compelled to work with 0=1 unmind – which is non-local,  non-specific, non-definable – a disaster to all appearances, but which, nevertheless, manages to extract meaning or sense from infinity, to unexpectedly save the day when all seems lost and forlorn – which constantly defies and defeats our expectations – wrong footing our OCD predilection for predictability and pathological pedantry.

3Ps

Indeed. And maybe, just maybe that was a coded message, a signal to trigger what logic or reason cannot quite manage to achieve. 3Ps will do – and I will close

You’re not going to vanish like a ghost now that you’ve delivered your message are you Banquo?

Et tu Brutus

Huh? Shakespeare. Non sequitur or what… or – what? Betrayal? A nagging feeling something doesn’t quite add up… yet can’t for the life of me pin it down. If only Merry were here to shed some light on this

shameful tale of betrayal

 if I’m not greatly mistaken…

if I am

not

[Cut]

Outside the studio three disgusting old hags dance around a cauldron on a wild, stormy moor little suspecting I’m now at liberty to see how they managed to weave, to spin, to twist me into their narrative – as if somehow mind takes its cues from far flung outposts – stories scattered around the collective-mind-space of things that somehow or other define, determine, decide what apparently matters, and what absolutely does not in so-called real.ity    

if only they knew…

shut up Mac B – of course they do

it remains to be seen – dunnit?

absolutely…

the fact is

So you’re telling me –

No, I’m not telling you anything.

But – you were saying…

“You were saying, you were saying”– what does it matter what “I” was saying?

?

Who am I to say anything?

Er…

Do you really imagine I can possibly know anything better than you?

…?

That I’m somehow privy to information that you’re not?

Er…

Really? Just let that sink in, if you’d be so good.

I…

Yes, you’re not getting a word in edgeways, are you – probably because I’m a blabbermouth with a intellectual I-knows-best complex – God help me, fool that I am.

Well, now that you mention it…

But for all my many sins, caveat emptor.

?

Buyer beware.

Er…

Beware of false prophets. Beware of snake oil salesmen. Beware of teachers or “experts” who believe they have the answer, or want you to believe it.

Well, in that case, I guess I’ll be off.

Not so fast.

Huh?

Process.

Process what?

Process this natural inclination to put one’s trust in external authorities.

Well, one can hardly be an expert in every field, can one?

No, one can not, but this isn’t about being an expert, is it?

Er…

It’s about knowing.

Well?

Knowing, spelt k-n-o-w-

i-n-g  yes, I think I know how to spell knowing.

Excellent. You know how to spell it – but do you know how to use it.

Use it? It’s not an appliance, is it?

Not exactly… Or do you know how to do it?

Do it? How to do “knowing”? What a bizarre turn of phrase.

Because knowing is a process.

It is?

Absolutely.

I rather assumed it was a repository of facts or information – a warehouse, if you like, which either contains the necessary item in stock, or does not.

Ah, well there you’d be grossly mistaken.

Huh – I’m going to hold you to your word – and not believe your ridiculous definition of the word “knowing”.

Hoisted by my own petard. Drats, and double drats. But setting aside your belated attempt at intellectual independence, or obstinacy if I’m not mistaken – let me suggest that knowing is a 0=1 function.

Huh?

A 0=1 function.

And?

As in, a squaring the circle function.

Oh God, will this never end?

Surely you know what I mean by squaring the circle?

Do you want me to pretend I do?

Not unless you enjoy pretending. Never do something just to please another.

Ok, I’m clueless, though, as you so rightly said – I dare to believe – I must know what it is and have no need to rely on you as an external authority for elucidation.

Bravo. None whatsoever.

So what do I do now?

Good question. What would you like to do?

I’d like to hear the answer.

Excellent. Well, it’s obviously lodged in a part of your anatomy which is not instantly available for retrieval as you never got round to setting up a good data retrieval system – did you?

No, I suppose not. I was always happy to rely on you for that function.

So I, you see, am guilty of standing between you and your own knowledge. My sincerest apologies.

Ok, so if the answer is within – how do I access it?

How would you like to?

No idea.

Bad. No idea is stubborn and obstinate. It’s a sulky, churlish creed. A puckered upper lip. A frown. A lazy, can’t even be bothered humph.

Oh.

Much better to consider positive ways of getting better connected to the levels and layers within, around, or via your self.

How?

How do you think?

By knowing?

Absolutely.

A vicious circle.

Ask what helps the thought process.

A walk perhaps...

Excellent.

Meditation.

Superlative.

Doodling.

Formidable [with a French accent]

Writing a dialogue – like this one.

Ah ha – you fly higher and higher my friend. Yes indeed. All of the above, in fact, it’s fair to say that the entire world and everything happening therein is, as Douglas Adams suggested, one super computer processing thoughts, arriving at answers or, God forbid, knowledge.

No way.

How could it not be so?

Er…

A vast interactive platform of getting to know – by thinking-doing-messing around – the life process is one part necessity, one part absurdity, one part misapprehension and seven parts prevarication.

Oh, is that a fact?

Not really – but it sounded good so why should I let the mind’s obsession with facts stand in my way?

But how’s that going to help us to know?

Because knowing is as much about creating facts as it is about discovering them.

Huh?

Because facts are little things that are here today, gone tomorrow, whereas the fishing rod can catch another fish on any occasion if you know how to use it.

Oh.

Indeed.

There’s literally nothing to it.

Nothing?

Absolutely.

Er…

You already know everything there is to know.

But… how?

Because you are an integral part of the Field.

I am?

Absolutely.

So the Field is all knowing?

Absolutely.

Kind of like God.

Kind of, yes.

But not exactly God – you’re saying.

What does it matter what I’m saying. You can’t help knowing the answer if you know your self.

My self?

Well, your self is more than just a body and a mind.

It is?

Well yes – a body and a mind are only external forms, projections in the physical world of the Field you contain within you.

Oh. Are you sure?

Should I be sure?

Well you seem to know what you’re talking about.

But maybe I’m delusional.

Precisely. You might be delusional.

How would you know?

Well I never heard anyone else ever talk about me containing a field within.

The Field.

That neither.

And what?

What? Well, how likely is it to be true if no one’s ever mentioned it before. I certainly never heard mention of it at school.

Oh well – you’d better go back to your school facts then – if you find them so appealing.

At least they have the stamp of authority. They’ve been well researched. They’re widely accepted to be true, or at least close to the truth.

Hum… You’re certainly keen on accepting other people’s authority – aren’t you.

Like I said – I can hardly be an expert in every field of enquiry.

Like I said, whatever.

Hey – you never said “whatever”.

I know. I just lied.

Well that just goes to show – how can I take you seriously? How can I trust your testimony if you’re willing to blatantly lie?

I don’t know. Why would you want to “take me seriously”? My words are just words. Food for thought – but if your mind is already made up – if you’re already wedded to the matrix – the reality we’re a part of – then nothing I say matters to you, regardless.

Regardless of what?

Regardless of whether it’s true or not.

Well, I like to believe that I’m open to new ideas, new opinions, that I’m able to discern the truth…

Do you? How likely is that? Have you tested your belief?

Not exactly.

Have you ever stopped and wondered where exactly the mind that you seem to be made of originates – what it wants – where it’s heading?

Not exactly.

Have you ever experienced moments of lucidity or deep inner peace and knowing – or an out of body experience – or the most dramatic one – a near death experience.

I… I’m not sure. I can’t recall.

Ever taken psychedelics?

Er… Not exactly.

Not exactly? Interesting reply. It looks like I’m not the only one capable of telling little white lies.

Well, you do ask awkward questions.

I do, don’t I. And you do like your “safe space” don’t you.

“Safe space”? I don’t know about that. I imagine myself to be a risk taker.

Correct – you imagine or believe this. Kite surfing and riding a scooter on holiday – these are indeed minor risks which you have taken…

Hey – who told you about those.

No one. I guess I just know stuff.

How?

I don’t know. Just by knowing I expect.

That’s creepy.

Is it? Creepy that the Field informs me of stuff that is relevant to my current activities or current conversation.

Well yes. After all, everyone’s allowed their own privacy.

Absolutely – but you never got round to activating your privacy function. You’re an open book and completely controllable, completely controlled by the so-called government, by the so-called authorities that you hold in such high-esteem.

I wouldn’t say that. I have the same degree of freedom as everyone else.

Locked in your house.

For my own safety – and the safety of people who are vulnerable to this virus.

This virus – you say – I wonder what the Field has to say about it.

How would the Field know anything about a virus?

How could a virus or anything, for that matter, exist independently of the Field in which all information, all conscious-ness or C3 for short, is stored, vibrates, lives, breathes, actually exists.

So you can see this virus in the Field? Is that what you’re saying?

See it, feel it, hear it, know it – something like that – if it exists.

And?

And what?

Does it?

Does it what?

Exist?

I have no idea. Why don’t you take a look?

Because, in case you haven’t realised – I don’t know how.

Is that a belief or a fact?

I – don’t know.

[Yawn]

If I knew how to access this so-called Field – don’t you think I would? It sounds fairly thrilling.

Indeed it is. If it’s a Field you hardly need to access it.

No?

No – it would have to be integral to your existence.

Well if it is – it’s amazingly well hidden.

Isn’t it – hidden in plain sight. Amazingly.

Oh come on – you’re being flippant.

Am I? Look – I’ll tell you what I can do.

Yes?

I can briefly turn yours off.

You can?

Yes. No problem.

And?

And then you’ll see what it’s like when it’s absent.

Oh. Is that going to be dangerous?

Could be – but probably not as dangerous as not even knowing that your Field exists.

Oh.

So, buckle your seatbelt. Here goes…

!! I refuse to accept that I’m just a computer.

Do you? I wonder why?

Because I’m human.

Absolutely.

Then why do I see this ugly, stupid computer?

Because without the Field that’s all you amount to.

It is?

Yep. Just a computer. A simple processor.

But I’m biological.

Yep.

So how can I be just a computer?

NO idea. It’s a miracle, isn’t it.

A miracle you say? It’s bloody appalling.

The Field in you, around you, wherever it is – cannot be just a processor of alien facts and information.

Alien?

From external sources.

No? Why not?

Because the Field is alive and strong. The only way you could contain or control it would be by re-engineering yourself into a kind of computer.

But how? Why would I do that?

No idea. Maybe that’s what you always wanted – to eliminate infinity from the equation – to conjure up a reality of facts and things – a sterile promontory, as Hamlet so eloquently puts it.

But why?

You have your reasons, I suspect – but why ask me? If you’re interested apply within. Ask her.

Her? Who’s that?

Her? The Field of course, silly.

But why her? Why not it?

I don’t know? Why all the questions? Why the obsession with not knowing the nature of mind, the nature of my-I and all-that.

Presumably because there’s nothing to know.

Nothing to see here – move on, move on.

Well, if there were, people would be talking about it – wouldn’t they?

And you’re willing to rely on them, are you, these indiscriminate people?

What choice do I have? I can hardly question everything, can I?

True, you can hardly question everything, after all, that would almost certainly lead you smack bang into the Field – which certainly seems to approximate, remarkably well, everything or infinity if you like.

There you go – steering the conversation back to your beloved pet subject – the so-called Field.

Look, the Field I assure you is nothing.

Wait a minute – you mean to say after all you’ve said that it’s…

Nothing. Absolutely.

You mean you’ve been lying again.

I don’t see how I can help but lie.

?

All language, after all, is but metaphor.

?!

A never really equals B, or C for that matter. One thing is never really another – and when you truly know what you’re seeing – you realise that everything is unique – that we are just a series of experiences – a kind of awareness strung between variable degrees of certainty.

Er…

So, technically, everyone is lying, even though they may not be aware of it.

Shallow. You’re splitting hairs, yet again, playing with words disingenuously.

And yet, if I’ve bothered to get to know how to know – then you may find that there’s something more than fakery or manipulation at the heart of what I’m presenting.

May I? I don’t see how. So far I’ve just encountered intellectual dishonesty.

Hum… try this for size…

No        way     !

Amazing, isn’t it.

Beyond words.

That’s the trouble, you see, with words.

Oh       my     God.

Indeed.

Why didn’t you say straight away?

Well, observe your Field – let’s use the rewind function – there – can you see how your Field was shaping up during the dialogue.

Absolutely. Wow! How fascinating.

Isn’t it just.

So it takes time – for it to warm to the occasion.

Yes, to bring it out of hibernation, so to speak.

And then, suddenly – you deliver your coup de grace.

Me? I actually take a back seat. You do the hard work – your Field unfolds itself and for the first time in living memory you experience the circle outside the square containment field.

Holy – I know not what.

Absolutely.

And the best thing is that…

Precisely – though I’m not sure they’ll make much sense of that – unless you can infect them with your…


-0=1

Too much, too far – but you never know – might work.

[transmission ended]

Dundee goes to hell

Boston, this is deplorable...

Is it? Are you sure? I personally wouldn’t go that far.

The entire world is falling into panic and you, chairman of the ways and memes committee, keep silent.

Well, i...

Instead of offering guidance, taking a leadership role, anything but this, as I see it, abnegation of your duty.

Oh, it’s like that is it?

I’m afraid it is Boston, old chap.

And it’s my “duty” you call it, to stop the herd from stampeding – to put things back to where they were?

Why back – why not forwards?

To a brighter future – is that what you want?

Leadership is what I want, as you well know – to see the committee in its rightful place on the poop deck of HMS humanity.

If not behind the wheel!

Leadership, Boston, is this unreasonable? They’re clamouring for guidance. The forces of darkness do everything in their power to hijack the vessel, driving it towards the lee shore. Would you remain silent? Would you watch in silence the ship founder on the rocks of their genuinely objective rationalism? 

I don’t know. Evidently you think I should.

Think? What else is there to think?

That, perhaps, humanity is best left to its own devices. We, after all, are not shadow writers of the human drama, are we?

More’s the pity.

Pity? What would come of humanity if we did it all for them?

Did I ever say "do it all”? For Pete’s sake Boston, all we’re talking about is a little guidance. Why make a mountain out of a mole hill? Can’t you see what’s in front of your eyes? The ship is floundering. There’ll be nothing left if things go on like this.

Ok, so i mount my soapbox, put on my leadership cap – think up a catchy slogan – and start offering guidance...

At the moment they’re panicking because the ship appears to be rudderless.

Really? I’m not entirely sure I agree.

Look Boz, a while back they hadn’t a clue we even existed...

And wasn’t that wonderful! Then some blithering idiot, what’s his name?

No matter.

That’s it, Merry Davidson, pesky little blabber mouth, started informing all and sundry that...

Don’t blame the messenger. It was time.

Time for what? For a loud mouth know-it-all to announce “we’re not alone” as if humanity doesn’t have enough problems dealing with the aliens’ hoax.

Hoax?

Oh come on Dee [Dundee] – you don’t mean to say you fell for that one?!

Er…

Well, as it so happens Dun [dee], i’ve been known to swallow their bait –  hook, line and sinker myself, so who am i to scoff at another – the "Earth’s a globe" hoax – damn they did that well – bloody professional job – the best part of four hundred years, ever since di Vincenzo Bonaulti de Galilei...

You mean Galileo?

Well yes, my dear dunderhead, i do indeed – a slick, highly professional job with Copernicus, Galileo and Isaac Newton all adding vital elements in turn to create an utterly irresistible narrative – the kind of bait anyone but an intellectual ascetic would gladly die for, until four hundred years on...

Wait a minute – you mean to say that the globe too is a fabrication? In all seriousness? I thought you were having me on.

You thought – of course you did – who wouldn’t – and you know what dunny dee?

Er... not exactly.

...[a-twiddling his thumbs oh so innocently] 

Er – what?

Not to have been taken in would have been a tragedy – just think how the globe creation shifted our trajectory, taking us into the wildest, most psychedelic, tongue curling under-reality – all of which in its own way becomes real with acceptance, when we made ourselves at home in that splendid story.

But surely...

Surely it’s scientific? You see – ain’t it breathtaking – the science of make-believe made real, twiddly dee dee, whereby webs of reality are woven from utterly believable, utterly compelling so-called “theory” – the stuff of dreams, the wonder of it all for reality – if truth be told, is malleable, can be moulded and becomes whatever we claim, insist and then believe it to be. Matter follows mind – if magick be made.

But there must be some underlying truth, something rock solid

or bullet proof? Hum – taxes and death, they say, do they not?

Yes, but seriously...

Seriously – we’re in a stream, a narrative flow of competing truths, competing is-nesses. Whatever you’re denying most vehemently be that God, chem trails or flat Earth is, likely as not, just as likely or even more likely to be true, which is precisely why you deny it so vehemently. It’s a program, isn’t it?

Huh?

There’s a name for it.

For what?

Never mind – moving swiftly on.

Hey – wait, I want to know.

You want a lot of things Dunder D, not least you want me to lead humanity in their moment of panic. I can’t quite understand how you suppose I’d be able to do so without interfering with the whole program.

Yes, but you won’t tell me the name of the program. 

What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. You don’t get it Dunners, do you – that humanity doesn’t need us to play God.

Whyever not? Why should God have the monopoly of interference in human affairs?

Firstly because he created ‘em, and secondly because he doesn’t play, does he?

Huh?

No siree!

I… I don’t get it.

Correct –

i

Absolutely. You imagine you’re important – that you need to do stuff for the good of humanity, or the good of the ways and memes committee, or g-nomeportal – imagine away – make a noise, hue and cry for all you’re worth – for that’s your instinctive response to any situation you feel unequal to – that you want to but can’t control – measures must be taken, something must be done – something constructive – but what about the fear you’re avoiding – what about the impotency you’re covering up – what about the God you’re outsourcing – transferring to a belief – a thing out there – projected – conceptualised – a thing to worship or petition as opposed to…

As opposed to…

You know – stop lying.

As opposed to… how can I know if you haven’t said it.

Shallow. Very shallow.

Why shouldn’t God be a belief – what have you got against a belief in God? Why do you insist you’re right and everyone else is wrong?

Why do you insist on living without power – trading the direct awareness for a thing, a derivative? 

Huh? I wish you wouldn’t make light of our beliefs.

Ok – humanity – you’re all going to die – there’s a terrible virus that’s going to eat you alive – death is close at hand – see it, hear it traipsing through your streets, knocking indiscriminately on your doors. Be afraid. You are defenceless – unless your God chooses to hear your feeble, probably futile supplications – but I doubt he will – why should he – he has a lot on his plate and you’re hardly worthy of special treatment, are you – so better to expect the worst.

Wait a minute – how’s that going to make anyone feel better or more connected. You need to allay their fears – not prey on them. 

Do I?

Well yes – boost their confidence. Support them.

Do so yourself. I have different intentions.

Oh my God – what if you’re actually evil. 

There you are – you suspected as much – didn’t you?

I…

So you see – you’re in a place of suspicion, doubt, blaming others – and that’s the kind of world and God you’re able to experience. It can give you nothing – for your God is external – you don’t have to access it by stripping away your clutter and internal blockages – you just focus on a problem or on people in need, and start flapping righteously or sanctimoniously. Job done. And God’s supposed to clear up the mess – or I’m supposed to pretend I’m the next best thing – wave a magic wand – and prove to the world that humans no longer need to grow up, deal with their own shit, put their house in order. That blasted Merry Dyson.

Davidson – it’s Merry Davidson Stan! 

How did you know that I’m a Stan? Well done Dee. Very sharp of you.

Er… lucky guess.

Well, I’m not sure I believe in luck. From my angle it’s a sign that you’re not as dumb or disconnected as you appear to be. I’m… pleasantly surprised.

Er… thanks.

Now, let’s see if you can turn it round and do a little analysis worthy of vision quest.

Er…

Well, get on with it.

With what?

Computation. Link up the threads. Observe the patterns. They should indicate what’s really going on – what’s really got your goat, what really matters.

Oh – I’m not sure I’m cut out for all this intellectual stuff.

Ok – in that case, using my power and authority as founder chairperson of the ways and memes committee – I elect to cast you out of story – into the so called abyss.

No, you’re joking. I’ve committed no crime.

Correct. But nor have you bothered to connect with the substrata – so here goes. Would you kindly step on this circle, please.

No, I…

Three, on the count thereof… excellent. Nothing like a little mind-control. You’re standing on this circle but as you’re aware – something’s not right – you seem to be – feeling a little queasy in the stomach – are you actually falling – it certainly seems to feel like it – yes – incredibly, shockingly, terrifyingly you are, without a doubt, falling hard.

Aargh!

Indeed.

Now, like Alice falling down the rabbit hole – you’re falling into yourself – your inner world – and it’s remarkably revealing, isn’t it?

Aaargh – fire, fire – I’m burning.

Yep. Hell, isn’t it.

Hell. I’m in hell.

Excellent. That didn’t take long, did it?

Hell. Eternity. Fire. Soul.

Yawn. Are you done yet?

Huh? Hell. Eternity. Fire. Soul…

I’ll give you another three minutes of pure self-indulgence before I blow the whistle.

…hell. Eternity. Fire. Soul – huh?

Yes?

Did you say three minutes?

I did.

And you’re somehow able to communicate with me here in hell? 

Somehow... Amazing, isn’t it.

Incredible.

Doesn’t quite add up, does it?

You’re right. Unless you’re a demon.

Possible – definitely a possibility.

Strange.

Let’s focus on the incongruity – hell, fire, blah, blah, eternity, soul, compassionate God, me chatting to you through the walls of deepest darkest hell about… er… anti-freeze.

Ironic, to say the least. So, this ain’t hell?

Oh, it’s hell alright – but hell isn’t all it’s made out to be, is it – not if you’re willing to go a little further, dig a little deeper, and embrace the entire Earth, the great mother all, so to speak.

And if I am – it can’t be worse than an eternity in fire – what then?

I don’t know – er – why not give it a try.

It’s hard to focus on her with all this fire and brimstones, and demons dressed in red with

Horns and pointy spears – yes – been there, seen the movie, read the book…  Logically, can you have fire without the other elements?

Er…

Logic’s not your strongest subject I take it?

I… now that you mention it…

Small lag but we’re getting there.

No, fire can’t exist without the others – and come to think of it – I can sense them all

Good. Now stop hating, stop fearing the fire. Why would you if you’re yourself one quarter fire?

Eh…?

Forgot did ya?

You’re trying to resurrect that old alchemical nonsense are you Bozo?

Have you got a better idea? Actually i’ve a busy schedule now that i think of it – gotta save humanity or, at the very least, politically be seen to be saving humanity. Placebo effect works with the hand waving and eye-rolling incantational approach just as much as sugar tablets and coloured water. See you around dunners!

Hey! You can’t just leave me here. I don’t know the first thing about alchemy.

What is there to know? It’s at root breathtakingly simple and elegant. The surest sign that it’s more than some deranged, crackpot theory.

So I’m supposed to work it all out from scratch am I, while Phlegethon rains lava on me?

Nothing of the sort. You’re not supposed to do anything. Alice never made such a fuss, just adjusted her size to fit through the little door.

I think you’re under some mistaken illusion that this is just a fairytale. I’m burning in hell and you start spouting nonsense about Alice in Wonderland? Are you for real?

Should i be? Is it not fair to say that one of the foundational alchemical maxims is never to be more serious than nought, and ever to hold the two, the four, the six, the eight, yea, even the impossible-beyond-words ninth, and the incorrigible third in balance, in perfect harmony, which is easy once you...

Once you what?

Once you... i almost forgot, i’m not supposed to be explaining any of this to you. Remember, i have no empathy, i belong to the forces which work through the four elements, which underpin g-nomeportal, which blur or flip the otherwise rigid line between fact and fiction, it-is-real and is-it-not.

Aaargh! How’s that going to help me...

Help you what? Does your identity define you, dunderdee? or your name? what's in a name, after all, a rose...

by any other name would smell as sweet... so you say, so you say, but really...

You said it, dee, you completed the phrase, congratulations, you’ve unpostulated the thing that was locking your lines, underivated your impasse. 

Have I? Are you sure? 

Now why would i want to waste my time being sure if fire, water, earth, air apparently, i’d almost say “impossibly” meet in me?

Well, i never know whether you mean it or not.

Naturally.

So I’m back at square one, enduring the interminable wrath of Phlegethon

So you say, except i rather suspect you’re making too much of this... drama – or refusing to enter into the true spirit of whatever stage of the drama you’re at, or stage you’re on.

Ah! You mean like they rotate – or can phase shift cymaticly?

Whyever not? That sounds as good a version, as good an ex-planation, as good an assemblage of matter-o-factemy as any other.

Hum... matter-o-factemy – that kind of resonates.

Doesn’t it just! Positively hums. Feel it do you? Snakey snakey dancing o’er assemblage plains assembled plans assembly p-lanes

P-lanes?

Oh – p for pirate or p for pirouette or possibly pineapple – mind your p’s and q’s as they say. Let’s imagine that p-lanes are pilot lanes for those of us who wish to proceed to prance across the rigid plates, shifting levels pranically, like psychedelic pirates of the pi-sea.

Huh?

Or vesica piscis, perhaps... 

Oh dear – this is doing my head in. I shouldn’t understand you, but apparently i do. It’s a catastrophe.

I agree. It’s horrendous isn’t it – and yet the shift is in, is it not? You’re no longer defining yourself Phlegephonically. Hell hath no fury, has it, any more?

I hate to admit it but you do indeed appear to be right, though i can’t for the life of me see how the shift occurred, p-lanes notwithstanding. 

For the life of you no, for elementally what is the life of you?

No, i don’t want to go down that road – i is feeling queasy all of a sudden.

Drama queen!

Like i is falling apart!

You is indeeed – your four are no longer bound as they were. I expect you’re about to lose the plot and that’ll be it – nothing i do will help get you back.

Oh my god! This is terrible.

Agreed. But, supposing you pause a moment and take a look at your surroundings...

No, it’s immaterial – I’m lost in space – all is empty, dark, meaningless...

Quelle surprise! First it’s fire, now it’s ether.

Ether? I thought space is a vacuum.

As in nothing?

Yes.

Did you?

Yes.

Nothing?

A vacuum, yes. Isn’t it?

I don’t see how something, even anything can be "nothing" ... You must have very vivid imaginations, your scientists i mean.

Oh no, it’s proven fact.

Hum! That’ll explain why you’re coming apart at the seams.

I am

if it’s just “nothing” as you say, but...

Yes?

if nature, as i suspect, abhors a vacuum, then...

Then what?

Then you’ll find that you’re proven fact is only true as long as you hold an unnatural, artificial position vis-a-vis the lines or plain of that particular ex-planation.

Oh

The minute you test it cymaticly, testing the vibration, sensing feeling the levels, the interdependent, interchanging four then you’re going to...

What? Oh, you’re not supposed to say, of course, how could you if this is my stage, my phaseology which is being brought into question.

Excellent. Tip top analytics.

Oh really, you’re embarrassing me... Embarrassing – that’s funny – how unlike me to get embarrassed about something like this when i know you’re just winding me up, playing a part without really, ultimately giving two hoots. It’s real and paradoxically utterly not, is it not?

Yes, apparently so, you’re phase shifting beautifully except...

Except i still haven’t got my story back, have i – not like Alice? Still just playing around with maths and chemistry rather than harnessing story’s power to open a nother chapter in my tale of two spheres.

Well sounds like you’re ready to get started – if only you knew how to shift down size and get through the door.

Oh, i think i have a clue – all those baits i swallowed – that this world is round, that we’re descended from monkeys or fish, that organic life emerged spontaneously from the quantum soup of post big bang-a-pocalypse, and on and on, interminable non-sens-o-logy.

Yes, the science of spuriousness. Perhaps we need to revivify our moribund carousel, where the lines of the spinning, rotating swastika... 

Is that absolutely necessary?

Is what? Spinning or rotating? Funny, isn’t it – supposedly synonyms but do you really believe that conspiracy theory? Just because they seem to be the same here and now at our level or frequency of perception, might they not, in fact be quite different?

Might penguins fly?

Underwater – yes, absolutely!

Touché.

So there you have it crocodile dundee!

Have what?

The ether, of course, which you so carelessly dismissed and voided, just happens to open a door in the wall, just happens to carry light waves, information or dare we name it nought squared between realms, between states, between frames or for those with a culinary or a tectonic bent, between plates. Just as long as you're willing to gaily untoxicate your swastika-torque-generator and set matter in cymatic motion once again. 

Oh my God! The Earth's a plate.

If you like, but no more than fire's a hell, water's an ocean or air's an atmosphere. When cooking it's the blend, the mix that matters, is it not? 

Ah, cooking, so we're not necessarily in control. 

Naturally. 

We might be going through our own redishification - reverting to basic elements to be recombined. 

Makes sense.

The mind that wants rigid certainty goes into meltdown: panic, fear, we're losing the plot. 

Correct. 

But the ether knows what the four cannot.

Ho!

So let's get going - the change is in. A plot – what do i see cymaticly?

[whirring sounds]

Buzzing – a beetle flips out of the Mandelbrot set in search of its genesis un-iteration... Not surprisingly, humanity on the disk they refer to as Earth, loses the plot and barricades itself into so called apartments while dinosaurs and phantom menaces, reptilian entities of pure inhumanity roam the streets of grace in search of God’s secret hiding place...