From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of David Farnell [daf@iwa.att.ne.jp] Sent: Saturday, March 11, 2000 11:10 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: The Vibe (was Re: DG: UUU movie about the King in Yellow) Ah, now we're getting into some meaty stuff. From: Davide Mana > Maybe the human brain is hardwired so that the basic memes that we can > group under the header of 'TKiY' simply spring up once in a while, and a > guy has to put them down in some form. > Or they are free-floating out there waiting for the right receptor. > Or maybe they filter through in our reality from 'somewhere else'. I've been going with the last one for some time, from about way back when we had the big Byakhee Evolution Thread. Actually, it's a combination of all three: Our brains are hardwired to receive the "Hastur Tone" which vibrates through this part of the galaxy (at least), but is especially strong when Aldebaran is not blocked by intervening mass. Certain life forms can receive it--the Byakhee were once free, like us, but became enslaved by it. Many of us have been enslaved by it, but not the race as a whole. Yet. But why can we receive it? It would seem to be a serious handicap, from an evolutionary perspective. Well, it actually isn't, if you think about things like sickle-cell anemia (which, if not a severe case, can protect one from malaria). Receiving the Hastur Vibe, just a little, can feed the creative impulse that leads to technological development, cities, art, religion, on and on. It's those who are too much in tune with it who sink into despair and decadence. But think--as civilization develops, those who receive the vibe more clearer are favored more and more, as they can be the great artists, architects, musicians, etc. They are supported, their genes are more often passed on, and their ideas (more and more twisted and alien) are allowed to flower among the society as a whole. The meme-virus spreads, and entire civilizations go down the path of Carcosa. Now, as I stated back in the Byakhee Thread, we shouldn't imagine that this Hastur Tone will affect other races the same way. The Byakhee probably did not react to the vibe by becoming effete artistes. It may have produced an entirely different tendency in them. Their brains (if they have an organ which could be called a brain) are very differently structured. The vibe might cause some races to commit mass suicide; others might shut down all emotions; others might become psychopathically wild and free. Hell, it might even have an effect that we'd consider positive--but I imagine it would always be negative for the receiving race. > Maybe Hastur is at the origin - the fictional concept of 'The King in > Yellow' might be one expression of Hastur in this universe, just like a > circle is the expression of a sphere on a two-dimension surface. > Expression/impression? Yes. Both. Exposure to those who "hear the vibe" awakens one's own hitherto-dormant receptors. And the play is an extremely-advanced case's attempt to express the vibe, to describe Hastur, which turns on receptors in all who read it (except those--perhaps the majority, perhaps only a few--who have no receptors at all). The vibe is always there, but we don't hear it until we are taught how. > When it comes, the King in Yellow is as blatant, in-your-face and public as > possible. > It's the King in Yellow (TM) - Accept no sobstitute. > It's made readily available and circulated. > It causes 'some trouble'. > Then, it simply fades away, as fashions and fads would. We are constantly exposed to "receptor-awakening expressions" today--to list even a tiny fraction of the movies, books, songs, buildings, and festivals would be impossible, and anyway is constantly being done on this list.The writings of our dear Man from Providence are a prime example. And we can see the effect as we look around at our world with a pessimistic eye. > [Does someone remember Rubik Cubes? Can you still solve them?] Mundane reflections of Clive Barker's puzzle boxes, which were mundane reflections of something far worse. Now we try to solve the puzzle of our genes. What shall we become, as Cassilda sings in the ears of our scientists? Go ask the Byakhee. Dave From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of LizardRoi@aol.com Sent: Sunday, March 12, 2000 7:05 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: The Vibe (was Re: DG: UUU movie about the King in Yellow) In a message dated 00-03-12 18:39:02 EST, SuperDave Farnell wrote: << Now, as I stated back in the Byakhee Thread, we shouldn't imagine that this Hastur Tone will affect other races the same way. The Byakhee probably did not react to the vibe by becoming effete artistes. It may have produced an entirely different tendency in them. Their brains (if they have an organ which could be called a brain) are very differently structured. The vibe might cause some races to commit mass suicide; others might shut down all emotions; others might become psychopathically wild and free. Hell, it might even have an effect that we'd consider positive--but I imagine it would always be negative for the receiving race. >> Hmmmmm. My take is that each race/culture/species reacts to the Hastur Tone/meme/virus/infomercial/catchy-tune-you-can't-get-out-of-your-head differently, but not so much because of the hardware as the OS. Hastur influence is still the siren call of entropy, but the reactions are as different as the cultures. Decadence and decay is relative. Some folk consider a well-stocked adult section in their local video store to be a step forward for western civilization, others see it as the breaking of the First Seal. Some folk eat cheese and declare it yummy scrumptious, others gag at the thought of ingesting rotted milk as they slurp down some tasty raw sea anemone. So the fare at the King's Table will definitely be bereft of mushrooms if my Uncle Bubba heads down Carcosa way after he starts having strange dreams of bass fishing in a lake of clouds. I wonder if the play "The King in Yellow" would have any effect on a non-western culture? I tend to think that the trappings of TKiY, at least as presented so far, indicate the target of that meme. All the languid, decadent atmosphere is lost on anyone without the cultural key. It could come across as silly as a HK fantasy flick can appear to westerners. If you don't know the symbolism of eyebrows to the Chinese, a wizard fighting off flying demons and ninjas with his prehensile eyebrows looks a tad stupid. Consequently, the Hastur meme will not spawn a King in Yellow in Mandarin, but a different vector entirely. IMHO. Which I think is (some of) what Davide was saying. Since that interp allows for a more Felliniesque take on Hastur taint (hehe, I said taint again) as appropriate, with lashings of Carnival and the Wild Hunt, I'm all for it. Mark McFadden Decadent in ways most can't perceive. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Joseph Camp [alphonse@delta-green.com] Sent: Monday, March 13, 2000 1:15 AM To: dgrpg Subject: Re: DG: The King in Yellow: The Movie >Hey, interesting. Reminds me of a book I read called 'The Club Dumas'. Which >had a 3 Musketeers plot in it as well as finding these books with engravings >to summon SATAN. THE NINTH GATE is, in fact, Polanski's adaptation of that novel. be seeing you, Alphonse From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Davide Mana [doctor.dee@libero.it] Sent: Monday, March 13, 2000 7:06 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: The Vibe (was Re: DG: UUU movie about the King in Yellow) Greetings. He Who Should Not Be Named is being Named Big Time on this list recently. Which is fine by me. SuperDave writes > Our brains are hardwired to receive the "Hastur Tone" which vibrates >through this part of the galaxy (at least), but is especially strong when >Aldebaran is not blocked by intervening mass. Which neatly connects with another thing I've been toying with.... The King In Yellow is independent from the written word; A particular teaching not tied with the texts; Pointing directly on one's mind; Scanning one's nature becoming a Hastur; Or so it goes, opportunely paraphrasing Bodhidharma (circa 6th century). After all, when you consider that Zen is the way pointing to 'the kingdom of nothing and emptyness", the Hastur angle is pretty obvious. [disclaimer: I do not mean to offend anyone's religious or phylosophical beliefs. Expecially those of the Hastur Cultists. Just to be on the safe side.... ;>] Davide Mana Torino, Italy doctor.dee@libero.it The Ice Cave - http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/leiber/50/ice_cave.htm From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Colin Creitz [cocst6+@pitt.edu] Sent: Monday, March 13, 2000 11:30 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: The Vibe (was Re: DG: UUU movie about the King in Yellow) On Sun, 12 Mar 2000 LizardRoi@aol.com wrote: > Consequently, the Hastur meme will not spawn a King in Yellow in Mandarin, > but a different vector entirely. IMHO. Unless the KiY plays on 'cultural universals', if such actually exist, and like Stephenson's Young Lady's Primer, or the archaeology underlying Grimm's Fairy Tales, manifests itself in a culturally-appropriate manner each time the underlying memeplex is activated. I don't think the KiY would be a play now, for instance - perhaps it would take the form of a photography exhibit, or a film, or a straight-to-paperback novel with a painting of Fabio on the cover. In Tibet, it wouldn't be any of those things, I'm sure, maybe just an exceptionally catchy story told around Sherpa campfires. But it sems highly likely to me that the theme of the KiY would be preserved as essential. ------------------------ Colin Creitz [cocst6@pitt.edu] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Davide Mana [doctor.dee@libero.it] Sent: Monday, March 13, 2000 11:48 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: The Vibe (was Re: DG: UUU movie about the King in Yellow) Greetings. Colin hit it squarely on the head when he wrote.... >Unless the KiY plays on 'cultural universals', if such actually exist, and >like Stephenson's Young Lady's Primer, or the archaeology underlying >Grimm's Fairy Tales, manifests itself in a culturally-appropriate manner >each time the underlying memeplex is activated. I don't think the KiY >would be a play now, for instance - perhaps it would take the form of a >photography exhibit, or a film, or a straight-to-paperback novel with a >painting of Fabio on the cover. In Tibet, it wouldn't be any of those >things, I'm sure, maybe just an exceptionally catchy story told around >Sherpa campfires. But it sems highly likely to me that the theme of the >KiY would be preserved as essential. Exactly so! That was my take on the thing - there is a small but unchanged and unchangeable seed at the core of whatever cultural product gets around under the title of 'The King in Yellow', something that carries the narrative _and_ the underlying message/imprinting. Local cultural variations due to time and place are to be espected, but at the very heart of the story/song cycle/Playstation game there is always the same, Hastur-generated core. The King in Yellow is ultimately always alike itself, once you discard the coreography. And I like the idea of the memeplex - I'll have to spring that on my players one of these nights. Along these lines.... There is a very interesting book by a Russian author (it's hiding somewhere here on my shelves) called 'Morphology of the Fairy Tale' - this guy has collected fairy tales from all over the globe and stripped them of all local references, in order to get the bare bones, and has as a result found out that there is a small, finite number of basic concepts that can be combined to create just any kind of story. I'll have to go through that one again to see if he indexed the basic King in Yellow building blocks, too. [incidentally, the same concept is the basis of an entertaining little card game called Once Upon a Time - great as 'something fun' to do while you wait for latecoming teammates] And here I stop for the time being. Davide Mana Torino, Italy doctor.dee@libero.it The Ice Cave - http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/leiber/50/ice_cave.htm From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of box_nine@ix.netcom.com Sent: Monday, March 13, 2000 12:50 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: Re: The Vibe (was Re: DG: UUU movie about the King in Yellow) Davide wrote: >Along these lines.... >There is a very interesting book by a Russian author (it's hiding >somewhere here on my shelves) called 'Morphology of the Fairy Tale' >- this guy has collected fairy tales from all over the globe and >stripped them of all local references, in order to get the bare >bones, and has as a result found out that there is a small, finite >number of basic concepts that can be combined to create just any >kind of story. Vladimir Propp, who popularized the idea of structuralism with respect to fairy tales. Levi-Strauss also worked with this concept, talking about "bundles" of related themes. I don't recall the reference work offhand, but there's a standard collection of folk-tale concepts, along the lines of "H.23 Rhino charging through the door." Doubtless after Mr. Harms sobers up and gets the lampshade off his head, he'll be able to provide more detail. Steven Kaye box_nine@ix.netcom.com From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of LizardRoi@aol.com Sent: Monday, March 13, 2000 2:45 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: The Vibe (was Re: DG: UUU movie about the King in Yellow) In a message dated 00-03-13 12:35:27 EST, you write: << < Consequently, the Hastur meme will not spawn a King in Yellow in Mandarin, but a different vector entirely. IMHO.> << Unless the KiY plays on 'cultural universals', if such actually exist, and like Stephenson's Young Lady's Primer, or the archaeology underlying Grimm's Fairy Tales, manifests itself in a culturally-appropriate manner each time the underlying memeplex is activated. I don't think the KiY would be a play now, for instance - perhaps it would take the form of a photography exhibit, or a film, or a straight-to-paperback novel with a painting of Fabio on the cover. In Tibet, it wouldn't be any of those things, I'm sure, maybe just an exceptionally catchy story told around Sherpa campfires. But it sems highly likely to me that the theme of the KiY would be preserved as essential. >> That's what I said. That's what I mean by "vector". As in the mechanism for carrying/hosting/transmitting a disease. Let's try again, since you, I , Davide and Dave seem to be saying the same thing in different ways. Ahem. IMHO, the Hastur signal, when received by a citizen in China, would not cause that citizen to write (literally) the play "The King in Yellow" translated into Mandarin, but would produce some other UUU-inspired work more appropriate to the milieu. And incidentally, I really liked Davide's "Rubik's Cube" metaphor/possible-example. People "addicted" to fiddling with 3D structures in their heads, setting up synapses and skipping logical steps with practice until they produce that "Hellraiser" puzzle-solving ability. Hey, where did all the Rubik's Cube fiddlers go to? Mark McFadden From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Monday, March 13, 2000 3:56 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: The Vibe (was Re: DG: UUU movie about the King in Yellow) ----- Original Message ----- From: > Let's try again, since you, I , Davide and Dave seem to be saying the same > thing in different ways. > Ahem. IMHO, the Hastur signal, when received by a citizen in China, would > not cause that citizen to write (literally) the play "The King in Yellow" > translated into Mandarin, but would produce some other UUU-inspired work more > appropriate to the milieu. > But what IS "the Vibe"? Or am I on a doomed quest for understanding again? It's certainly powerful. I have in my time come across two separate groups of people trying to "write" the true version of "The King In Yellow". I don't refer to the story by Blish or the latest thing from Pagan: these people had no links with gaming, Lovecraft, or the Mythos. One group was a girlfriend's family and friends, the other was (of all things) a subset of people in a church my mum belonged to. All this was twenty years back. They'd never heard of any of that. They weren't SF or Horror readers, and, in the case of the people in the church group, they really weren't much book readers at all. They just picked up the old paperback and got infected. There is "something in space near Aldebaran" - radiating _what_? Its own sorrow? If this is a corrosive decay of space-time why is it so human-seeming? To call it a "Cultural" universal is not enough. It has to be cosmos-wide. But how can it be cosmos-wide and yet touch _us_ so closely? I have nothing to suggest along the science/memes line. That doesn't seem appropriate. I feel somehow that the KIY is a message from something that touches a different (not necessarily superior or stronger) order of being. Andy R From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of box_nine@ix.netcom.com Sent: Monday, March 13, 2000 5:04 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Fwd: [Fwd: [corp-focus] The House of Butterflies] Russell Mokhiber's the co-author of a column FOCUS ON THE CORPORATION, which gives all manner of examples of corporate malfeasance (http://www.essential.org/monitor/focus/focus.index.html). He's also written a book based on past columns, called CORPORATE PREDATORS, IIRC. For Keepers looking for models for NWI, or weird after-effects for their MJ-12/Mi-Go experiments(Why butterflies, I wonder?) Steven -----------(begin forward)------------------------------------------- Robert Weissman wrote: > > The House of Butterflies > By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman > > Is there a prosecutor in this country with the guts to take on the oil and > auto companies? > > If you are one such prosecuting attorney, and you are reading this, go out > and buy the current issue of The Nation magazine. > > Rip out the 30-page investigative article titled "The Secret History of > Lead," by Jamie Lincoln Kitman, drop in your standard indictment form, and > then run down to the courthouse and file it. > > That will be the easy part. The companies will then hire the best > white-collar crime law firms in the business and come after you with all > of their resources to defeat the indictment. > > But reckless endangerment is reckless endangerment. And the people need a > chance to bring justice to those who perpetrated this atrocity. It will be > worth your while. Given the publicity this case will generate, you might > even be elected to higher office. (For precedents, see Rudolph Giuiliani, > former white- collar crime busting U.S. Attorney in the Southern District > of New York, who went on to be mayor of New York, and William Weld, former > Assistant Attorney General who went on to become Governor of > Massachusetts.) > > Kitman's article is about how the makers of leaded gasoline -- duPont, > General Motors, Standard Oil of New Jersey (now ExxonMobil), and Ethyl > Corporation (which started out as a joint venture between GM and Standard > Oil) -- systematically suppressed information about the severe health > hazards of their product for decades. > > These companies knew from mid-1920s that leaded gasoline was a public > health menace, yet they went ahead and put lead in gasoline anyway, to > prevent engine knocking. > > This despite the fact that safe anti-knock substitutes were cheaply > available. But the companies rejected them because they would be > unprofitable. > > >From the 1920s until 1986, when leaded gas was banned from the market in > the United States, lead was spewing from tailpipes of automobiles, where > it entered the bloodstream of humans. > > In children, lead lowers IQs, and increases learning disabilities, > hyperactivity and behavioral problems. In adults, elevated lead levels are > related to blood pressure increases, cardiovascular disease and heart > attacks. > > Lead expert Dr. Paul Mushak, in a 1988 report to Congress, estimated that > 68 million children had toxic exposures to lead from gasoline from 1927 to > 1987. > > A 1985 EPA study estimated that as many as 5,000 Americans were dying > annually from lead-related heart disease before the lead phase-out in the > United States > > Lead was identified as a hazard thousands of years ago. It was not as if > executives at GM and duPont and Standard Oil and Ethyl didn't know what > the hazards were. In fact, those who worked with lead immediately became > sick. Kitman estimates that dozens of workers died from lead poisoning. > > Workers knew that going crazy was an early sign of lead poisoning. > Standard Oil's Bayway facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey was known in the > 1920s as "the house of butterflies," because, as Kitman told us, in some > cases "when you are experiencing acute lead intoxication, you start > hallucinating, and believing that you are being attacked by winged > insects." > > Workers going crazy and dying created a public relations nightmare in the > 1920s. The papers picked up on it, and citizens began believing that they > were being poisoned by the lead coming out of their tailpipes. > > To save their deadly enterprise, in 1924, the corporations pulled lead off > the market and asked the Surgeon General to hold a hearing, which he did > in May 1925, to consider what one public health expert called "the single > most important question in the field of public health that has ever faced > the American public." > > And the hearing lasts for six hours and forty five minutes. The Surgeon > General concluded that the question couldn't be definitively answered and > recommended that a committee of experts be set up. The committee was duly > set up and reported back some months later that a) leaded gasoline can be > manufactured safely, and b) they can't verify that leaded gasoline won't > result in injury and they can't prove that it will in the short time they > have. > > So, this placates the public, and lead gets back in gasoline for another > forty years. Until the public became concerned about air pollution -- smog > -- and the car companies built catalytic converters. Lead had this > wonderful way of destroying the catalytic converter -- so one or the other > had to go -- and finally, lead met its match. > > We called the Lead Industries Association to ask about Kitman's article. > They refused to respond. Then we called Ethyl Corp. which is still selling > tetraethyl lead as a gasoline additive for sale all around the world, > except in the United States and Europe. > > Lloyd Osgood, a spokesperson for the Richmond, Virginia- based Ethyl > Corp., was kind enough to read us a statement. She called Kitman's piece > "a distorted interpretation of known historic events and documents that > have long been in the public record." > > "The spin is extremely negative and biased and is not justified by the > facts," she said. "Ethyl Corp. has always been and continues to be a > responsible corporate citizen and the allegations to the contrary in this > article are unfounded." > > But Osgood refused to specify how the article distorted "known historic > events." She even refused to answer simple questions like: "Is lead > dangerous?" > > This is pure corporate b.s. > > For years, the lead industry denied that lead in gasoline was making its > way into human bloodstreams. If that's so, why did human blood lead levels > drop off dramatically in North America after 1986 when lead was banned > from gasoline? > > Is there a prosecutor in the house? > > Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime > Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based > Multinational Monitor. They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The > Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common > Courage Press, 1999, http://www.corporatepredators.org) > > (c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman > > _______________________________________________ > > Focus on the Corporation is a weekly column written by Russell Mokhiber > and Robert Weissman. Please feel free to forward the column to friends or > repost the column on other lists. If you would like to post the column on > a web site or publish it in print format, we ask that you first contact us > (russell@essential.org or rob@essential.org). > > Focus on the Corporation is distributed to individuals on the listserve > corp-focus@lists.essential.org. To subscribe to corp-focus, send an e-mail > message to corp-focus-request@lists.essential.org with the text: subscribe > > Focus on the Corporation columns are posted at > . > > Postings on corp-focus are limited to the columns. If you would like to > comment on the columns, send a message to russell@essential.org or > rob@essential.org. -- Bryan Alexander http://www.centenary.edu/~balexand (318) 869-5082 (office) (318) 869-5139 (FAX) ---------- From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of David Farnell [daf@iwa.att.ne.jp] Sent: Monday, March 13, 2000 6:18 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Re: The Vibe From: > Hmmmmm. My take is that each race/culture/species reacts to the Hastur > Tone/meme/virus/infomercial/catchy-tune-you-can't-get-out-of-your-head > differently, but not so much because of the hardware as the OS. Hastur > influence is still the siren call of entropy, but the reactions are as > different as the cultures. You're right. But the hardware is equally important. Like with genetics, memetics is not a nature vs. nurture proposition--both are crucial, combining in chaotically complex ways. It's just that we--the only intelligent species we know--don't really have any radically different hardware to compare ours to (even if the dolphins prove to be geniuses, they still evolved alongside us--they'll be very different, but not nearly as alien as the Mi-Go), but we do have plenty of different Operating Systems available for comparison. > I wonder if the play "The King in Yellow" would have any effect on a > non-western culture? I tend to think that the trappings of TKiY, at least as > presented so far, indicate the target of that meme. All the languid, decadent > atmosphere is lost on anyone without the cultural key. Oh, absolutely. And that's a real problem with CoC--why do people go freaking insane when they read a book that wouldn't really impress them? Like with Blair Witch--people who aren't primed for it, who aren't already into such stuff, come away saying "What the fuck was that? I've never been so bored in my life!" It's not just geographic cultural differences, but also temporal. Here we are, (most of us) big fans of an early-20th-century writer who wrote in a pseudo-18th-century style. The stories certainly fail to leave the same impression on everyone. The Necronomicon, etc., would also have little or no effect on anyone who wasn't a Lovecraftian "sensitive" type. (Personal revelation: I was reading "The Colour Out of Space" again last night, and found textures of weirdness and even fear in it that I've never noticed before. I first read it way back in high school--that would be almost 20 years ago, now--and I've probably read it a dozen times since. It's never been one of my favorites, but reading it last night, I absolutely loved it.) > Consequently, the Hastur meme will not spawn a King in Yellow in Mandarin, > but a different vector entirely. IMHO. YHO is correct. TKiY was an attempt to express the awfulness of the Vibe in French (or English, depending on which story you read). It probably wouldn't work today on 99% of its readers--although, oddly enough, I think it would more strongly affect someone like Yukio Mishima than a typical Parisian high schooler. I mean, Mishima was the kind of guy who could get obsessed about a painting of a Catholic martyr getting shot full of arrows. He would have grooved on that Hastur Vibe. In fact, maybe he was, when he sliced his belly open. > Mark McFadden > Decadent in ways most can't perceive. And we are thankful for it. :-) Dave From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of David Farnell [daf@iwa.att.ne.jp] Sent: Monday, March 13, 2000 7:47 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Re: The Vibe (long, multi-response) Curiouser and curiouser... From: Davide Mana > After all, when you consider that Zen is the way pointing to 'the kingdom > of nothing and emptyness", the Hastur angle is pretty obvious. Something I often muse about--assuming that "achieving cosmic understanding" in Zen terms means satori, and in CoC terms means 0 SAN, can we somehow combine these? Is it possible to use a path to adjust one's mind to be in step with the GOO in a positive way, without joining them? Perhaps this is what the Great Race and the Elder Things did--they truly understand the universe (not in terms of "knowing all the facts"--I mean they don't hide from the tru7h like we do) but have maintained their independence, and we can even feel a sort of kinship for them. > [disclaimer: I do not mean to offend anyone's religious or phylosophical > beliefs. Even now, the mullahs are considering how big to make the reward for your head, Mr. Mana. ******* From: Colin Creitz > Unless the KiY plays on 'cultural universals', if such actually exist, and > like Stephenson's Young Lady's Primer, or the archaeology underlying > Grimm's Fairy Tales, manifests itself in a culturally-appropriate manner > each time the underlying memeplex is activated. I don't think the KiY > would be a play now, for instance - perhaps it would take the form of a > photography exhibit, or a film, or a straight-to-paperback novel with a > painting of Fabio on the cover. Yeah, this is what Mark was talking about, except that you've got a different definition for TKiY. As this is getting confusing, I'll define my terms: *TKiY: 1) A 19th-century play, the most famous expression of the Hastur meme. 2) A mysterious being, an avatar of Hastur, perhaps somehow called into being by the dysfunctional mental workings of those who are in the thrall of the Hastur Vibe. *The Hastur Meme: A viral message that infects the brain of the recipient, awakening it to the effects of the Hastur Vibe (or Tone). *The Hastur Vibe (or Tone): A wavelength or "sound" which vibrates through this part of the galaxy, possibly the entire cosmos, possibly originating in the vicinity of Aldebaran. Effects on humans are increased creativity and inventiveness, visions of inhuman metropoli, decadence, ennui, and a gradual destruction of the system of moral feeling and sanity, similar to the way HIV destroys the immune system. > In Tibet, it wouldn't be any of those > things, I'm sure, maybe just an exceptionally catchy story told around > Sherpa campfires. Very disturbing mandalas. In fact, I consider mandalas as THE prime candidate for a meme-virus vector. Sit down, breathe calmly and fully, and stare into a really complex one. Whoa. Those things are actually designed to reprogram your brain. Very useful, but very dangerous. You could think of The Yellow Sign as a mandala--or the remains of a mandala, after all the excess has been stripped from it. A naked virus. ******* From: > Let's try again, since you, I , Davide and Dave seem to be saying the same > thing in different ways. That's what I've assumed all along. > Ahem. IMHO, the Hastur signal, when received by a citizen in China, would > not cause that citizen to write (literally) the play "The King in Yellow" > translated into Mandarin, but would produce some other UUU-inspired work more > appropriate to the milieu. I've forgotten the fellow's name, but there's a Chinese artist who paints and sculpts very disturbing stuff--the subject is always a man who looks very like him, very thin and with a very short buzz cut and a HUGE insane smile. Many people at first find it charming and funny, then after looking for a while, get progressively more unsettled. Which is his point. I've loved his paintings for years, but there was a recent story on him on BBC, I think. Whoa, again. As I write, CNN is reporting on a NY photo-artist named Dunning (I think) who has created a "blob" which is quite Shoggoth-like. Agents are requested to investigate. ******* From: Andy Robertson > But what IS "the Vibe"? Put yourself in a sensory-deprivation chamber, clear your mind, and listen carefully. You'll hear it. It sounds like "UUUuuuUUUuuuUUUuuuUUUuuu~" > Or am I on a doomed quest for understanding again? You are doomed to doomed quests for understanding. :-) But don't follow this one too far--Mr. Tynes could tell you some stories about that. And you've already shown that you are one of HPL's "sensitives." > It's certainly powerful. I have in my time come across two separate groups > of people trying to "write" the true version of "The King In Yellow". I > don't refer to the story by Blish or the latest thing from Pagan: these > people had no links with gaming, Lovecraft, or the Mythos. One group was > a girlfriend's family and friends, the other was (of all things) a subset of > people in a church my mum belonged to. All this was twenty years back. > > They'd never heard of any of that. They weren't SF or Horror readers, and, > in the case of the people in the church group, they really weren't much book > readers at all. They just picked up the old paperback and got infected. By "the old paperback," do you mean the story by Robert Chambers? Anyway, fantastic story--I'd love to hear what they came up with. > There is "something in space near Aldebaran" - radiating _what_? Its > own sorrow? If this is a corrosive decay of space-time why is it so > human-seeming? "Radiating its own sorrow"...I LIKE that! But I think it's so human seeming simply because it's human brains that are receiving/expressing it. > To call it a "Cultural" universal is not enough. It has to be cosmos-wide. > But how can it be cosmos-wide and yet touch _us_ so closely? I have > nothing to suggest along the science/memes line. That doesn't seem > appropriate. I feel somehow that the KIY is a message from something that > touches a different (not necessarily superior or stronger) order of being. You're onto something here. I'm still assuming that it's a hardware thing--some races don't notice the Vibe, as they don't have the reception equipment, same way we don't notice cosmic rays shooting through us. We barely have the equipment, but it can become sensitized by the Hastur Meme. Byakhee have likely been modified to constantly hear the Song of Hastur, becoming an angelic Choir in constant adoration of their God. But hey, I'm constantly evolving my ideas about this. BTW, I've ordered the Pagan version of TKiY, and pre-ordered the upcoming Chaosium collection of Chambers' stories. But they'll take weeks to get here. So when is Shane Ivey going to chime in on this? From reading his fiction, I know he's been grooving on the Vibe for years now. Dave From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of box_nine@ix.netcom.com Sent: Monday, March 13, 2000 9:18 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: The Vibe (long, multi-response) Dave wrote: >Something I often muse about--assuming that "achieving cosmic >understanding" in Zen terms means satori, and in CoC terms means 0 >SAN, can we somehow combine these? Is it possible to use a path to >adjust one's mind to be in step with the GOO in a positive way, >without joining them? One of the 15 zillion things I'm going to do "one of these days" is find a way of incorporating Kult's Mental Balance system into CoC. For those who are unfamiliar with it, Mental Balance can go either positive (you perceive the true nature of the universe, defeat your Shadow, become the Messiah of your choice) or negative (you perceive the true nature of the universe, are overwhelmed by your Shadow, become the unpleasant thing of your choice). So either way, you're not what most people consider human - you're operating on a totally different level. To my mind, a 99 SAN type like the kid in AT YOUR DOOR is just as alien as your 0 SAN cultist. >Perhaps this is what the Great Race and the Elder Things did--they >understand the universe (not in terms of "knowing all the facts"--I >mean they don't hide from the tru7h like we do) but have maintained >their independence, and we can even feel a sort of kinship for them. Pessimistic interpretation - the only way to survive is to become something so insignificant that you escape the notice of greater beings. Bugs. And the Elder Things fell into decadence and lost their civilization. Even vegetables get into the groove. >Very disturbing mandalas. In fact, I consider mandalas as THE prime >candidate for a meme-virus vector. Sit down, breathe calmly and >fully, and stare into a really complex one. Whoa. Those things are >actually designed to reprogram your brain. Very useful, but very >dangerous. THE 37TH MANDALA, by Marc Laidlaw. Read it now. It's a mass market paperback, involving mandalas, the genocide in Cambodia, and vicious satires of New Age types. A similar story is Del Stone Jr.'s "Feeders," in NEW MYTHOS LEGENDS (the title of the anthology is misleading, but the stories are enjoyable for the most part). And speaking of cross-cultural effects, I note that the Sephira Tiphareth ("Beauty") is associated with the color yellow, as well as the rank of Emperor (http://www.hcis.net/users/miltozah/tableb.htm) and is the highest sphere one can reach while still in physical form, by some accounts. Steven