Letter to Green Egg
Beltane 1975

Dear Green Eggers,

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

Boatloads of blessings to Tom Williams for “Science Fiction/Fantasy: A Contemporary Mythology” (GE 69). Any contemporary mythology, or magick console, must be sci-fi in essense to be believable. The literally unbelieveable eventually becomes absurd and embarassing, as intelligent Christians all realize (although Fundamentalists don’t). Sci-fi being consistent with known facts (1975) is updating previous mythos, all of which were consistent with known facts in their own time.

One can use more antiquated mythologies in practical magick, of course. (As Crowley showed, any nonsense will work, magically, if one puts enough energy into it.) But the absurd does become embarassing in the intellectual market-place eventually. One must then either update the mythology or else fall into one of two errors. First, one denies and conceals the evident absurdity, thereby opening a schizzy crack in one’s own integrity, through which increasing dishonesty and disorientation will occur. Or else, one admits the absurdity and then slowly succumbs to paradoxitus, the condition in which one increasingly glories in one’s inability to communicate with the rest of humanity in the market-place of speech. Both of these errors are rampant in the history of mysticism, and are no credit to any of us. Both habits have contributed to our reputation as nuts.

The Periodic Table of Energy by Dr. Timothy Leary with some small help from an ignorant and incompetent assistant (me), is currently being excerpted in the Berkeley Barb and elsewhere. It is an attempt to translate basic truths of astrology, I Ching, Tarot, comparative mythology etc. into the jargon of modern genetics, neurology and cosmology. Dozens of similar translations will probably appear in the next twenty years, as the breakdown of Christian-Capitalist culture prepares the breakthrough to the Next Step in Evolution.

On the debate “Can a Woman be a Christian,” one is tempted to answer crudely “Yes, if she’s a damned fool.” More constructively, all the major world religions, such as Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism etc., have gone through a complicated evolution in dozens of lands over milleniums of time. Ergo, to speak of “true Christianity” or “true Hinduism” or “true Buddhism” is propaganda, special pleading, polemic. Ergo, to say “true Christianity” is the worst of Christianity, or to say that “true Christianity” is the best of Christianity, is debating-team tactics. In operational and pragmatic terms, the Siegles are responding to the best in Christianity, calling that “true Christianity” and trying to make it grow; while Tim Zell and Carolyn Clark are relating to the worst in Christianity, calling that “true Christianity,” and trying to expunge it. The two are not really incompatible. Although not a Christian myself, I would like to see the good part of it grow just as much as I’d like to see the bad part of it vanish. The Siegles and Clark-Zell may argue about where to affix the label “True Christianity,” but they should remember that this semantic difference does not indicate a difference of practical goals.

Let me bring the wrath of Caradoc down upon my head by dissenting from his criticism of Roth’s statement that a man without a woman, or a woman without a man, are incomplete. While I would not go so far as to say of Caradoc, as he said of Roth, that his position is “bullshit,” “cosmic bullshit” and “sexist,” I would say that it fails to convince me. First, Caradoc’s argument about magnets keeping yin-yang polarity even when cut in half is an argument by analogy only and therefore not an argument at all, but merely the presentation of a viewpoint via poetic metaphor. (One might argue by other analogies that the male-female bond is like head and heart, leading to instant death if there is horizontal surgery at neck level; or that it is like mother-infant, where premature separation is painful to both and leaves mental and physical damage irreparable in the weaker, infant organism.) Second, Caradoc’s argument that a man isn’t pure yang and a woman not pure yin, is true but irrelevant. The unique mixture of heavy yin, weak yang makes women attractive to men, just as the unique mixture of heavy yang, weak yin makes men attractive to women. This is an empirical, nitty-gritty fact not at all contradicted by the equally empirical fact that everybody is bisexual someways-somedays. Third, Caradoc’s final point about finding male-female balance within, while true, is also irrelevant. Fourth, all that we ever know is our own experience, which is limited. My own limited experience (which I will not deny just to be fashionable and agreeable to all) is that those Gay people, and also those neuter (celibate) people, who completely reject the opposite sex, are hysterical, angry, bitter and near-paranoid. They are no model for anyone. Of course, this does not apply to normal Gay people or to those temporarily practising celibacy as a yoga.

Immortality, Higher Intelligence, Eternal Youth, and hope,
    Robert Anton Wilson
    2035 Channing
    Berkeley, CA 94704

 

Letter to the Forum/editor
Green Egg, Vol. VIII, No. 70, Beltane AA15 (May 1, 1975)