Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's midnight, so we can proceed with a new Magic Monday. Ask me anything about occultism and I'll do my best to answer it. Any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer. (Any question received after then will not get an answer, and will likely just be deleted.) If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 143,916th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.0 of The Magic Monday FAQ here.

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With that said, have at it!

***This Magic Monday is now closed. See you next week!***

***Ahem. People have continued to try to post questions, despite the post being closed. I have deleted these. Follow-up comments to existing questions are fine, but other than that, please save it until the next Magic Monday.***

Comments

[ecosophia]

I'd encourage you to make the experiment!

[(Anonymous)]

I already have. It failed. Zip. Zilch.

Anybody else?

—Lady Cutekitten

[ecosophia]

That's what's happened in every case I know of.

[(Anonymous)]

Then I’d say the most likely explanation is either (1) the infinite-realities hypothesis is wrong or (2) if there are infinite realities, man is not mentally or physically equipped to move between them, so we might as well forget it and go about our business in the reality we happen to find ourselves in.

#2 leaves room for the occasional person who does slip through, like the green children or, possibly, the man from Taured or the time-traveling teachers at Versailles. So it looks to me like #2 is the better explanation, until we hear from someone who has managed the switch and brought back a souvenir. I think the souvenir is important because it shows you didn’t just fall asleep and dream the whole excursion. Without the souvenir or a picture you snapped or SOMETHING, you have no way to know for sure.

Now on to a related question. Let’s say I think the Kirk-on-the -wall reality, the road not taken, would be a much more congenial place than the reality in which I now live. Unable to move to Kirkland, I decide to do the next best thing and act AS IF I live in Kirkland—I start drawing and painting more, enter whatever art shows I can get to, sell stuff on Etsy, and so forth. This is the approach used by Method actors to depict a guy who can only move his left foot, for example, and, if I understand JMG correctly, by discursive meditators. This approach will cause your life to change somewhat since you’re living it differently. Now the question is—if you live as Christy Brown, at what point, if any, does Day-Lewisland become Brownland, and can you return to Day-Lewisland? Daniel Day-Lewis returns to D-Lland when the director shouts “That’s a wrap!” But if he decided to stay in Brownland, at what point could Brownland be said to have achieved objective existence and how could Daniel, or anyone else, tell?

Okay. Perhaps Brownland achieves objective existence if Daniel D-L sits in the wheelchair so long his body actually forgets how to move anything but his left foot. It seems to me that at that point we can say he’s in Brownland, and thus, for him at least, and for anyone he meets who gives him a push to the elevator or some such, Brownland exists. What about a less drastic example? Say I think the Men of the West are so cool that I decide to live like one to the extent I can without being arrested, packing swords and arrows being illegal in many jurisdictions. When can we say I’ve become a Man of the West? This question is one I think we can answer! I’ve objectively become a Man of the West when, in moments of great emotional intensity, when the old lizard brain kicks in, I react as a Man of the West would rather than as an American or German, or whatever I used to be, would.

Now. Let’s say a whole bunch of people decide to be Men of the West, so that an Egregor of the West comes into existence. At what point can we say the West has an objective existence? How can we know?

Beats me. We are now into Joanne Greenberg territory. The prevailing theory nowadays is it’s impossible to talk someone out of schizophrenia, even though Frieda Fromm-Reichmann did exactly that for Joanne. Joanne built Iria (“Yr” in the novel) and Frieda tore it down, leaving Joanne with 20th-century America as the only reality. Whether this was a net improvement is, I suppose, a matter of taste; Joanne certainly thought it was.

And suppose a whole bunch of people start believing in Iria? Then what? This has implications for everybody—look what a big mess has resulted from huge numbers of people believing in Infinite-Supply-of-Energyland.

Whew. Now you know why I play silly computer games in the reading room; if I don’t, I start thinking about stuff like this, and it’s not safe to let me out of the potty.

—Lady Cutekitten

[ecosophia]

Joanne Greenberg -- good heavens. The novel (by "Hannah Green") was a serious fave of mine when I was a teenager; my copy is within reach as I type these words. I didn't know that a more detailed account of the original psychosis was available.

You might find it entertaining to read Jorge Luis Borges' story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius," which deals with exactly the question of what happens when a fictional world starts impinging on what we like to call the "real world"...

[(Anonymous)]

There is no nice convenient book (yet) about Joanne and Iria, and of course her medical records are sealed. I hope she’s left instructions for them to be unsealed after she dies. To learn about her, you have to start Googling. She has very interesting interviews on YouTube (sorry—maybe you can turn the screen so you can’t see it, only hear it).

There is a whole chapter on Joanne in Frieda’s biography, To Redeem One Person Is To Redeem The World, by I. Forgethername. (Sorry.). I always thought the secret of what Frieda did for Joanne was the love they so clearly shared. Love can accomplish miracles. It’s also possible that teenage Joanne was outgrowing Iria and Frieda gave her just that additional push she needed to put away childish things. Or both—in the novel, Deborah/Joanne has a substitute psychiatrist for a while, they can’t stand each other, and things don’t go well. Dr. Uncongenial shows D/J how Yri/Irian is bound by the same rules of English and Yiddish grammar by which she is bound. Logically she knows he’s right, but since the feeling is not there, it does her no good. Dr. Uncongenial has a scene where he says ruefully that as a scientist he knows he’s not supposed to admit this, but he and Deborah/Joanne couldn’t get anywhere because they just plain didn’t like each other.

As long as we’re on mental mysteries, were the Genain Quadruplets ever identified? I have always been pretty sure they were the Morlok Quadruplets—how many sets of blonde, female, singing-and-dancing Quadruplets could there have been in Depression-era America? (There are pictures on the Internet of the Genains as adults, showing them to be natural blondes.). I believe the Morloks are all deceased. I haven’t looked up the Genains in ages but if any still live, they must be in their ‘90’s.

I have the book about the Genains. It’s terribly sad. You don’t need Freudian bull[unDruidly word] to explain their problems. Their father was a horrible man who also molested them. Living with that guy would drive most of us nuts.

—Lady Cutekitten

[ecosophia]

I remember the scene with Dr. Uncongenial from the novel; I'll pass on the Youtube stuff, but will see what else I can find. As for the Genains and Morloks, I've literally never heard of them -- hmm.

[(Anonymous)]

The Genain Quadruplets were identical quads who all had schizophrenia. It was the Freudian era and the shrinks at NIMH had a fine old time discussing whether this meant schizophrenia was partly genetic—although even then, a few brave souls pointed out that “If you were trapped with that guy [their dad] you’d go crazy too.” NIMH did get them away from their parents, in time for all but the sickest one to improve. 20 years ago I had little trouble getting hold of their biography, The Genain Quadruplets by David Rosenthal. There may still be surviving copies even though there’s not much left of Freudianism. It’s not available on Kindle. Rosenthal wrote his biography in the ‘60’s so it’s likely still in copyright in the U.S, therefore I didn’t bother to look to see if it’s on Gutenberg or a similar site.

40 or 50 years ago, unfrocked Jesuit Malachi Martin predicted Freudianism would be debunked, and darned if he wasn’t right!

—Lady Cutekitten

[(Anonymous)]

There was a movie of “...Rose Garden.” The Yrians were all costumed like Frank Frazetta characters, for some reason. There’s a scene where Deborah is walking down the hall in the hospital. She turns the corner and is waylaid by a mob of armed Frazetta-ites. It made me jump!

I think whoever cast the picture did not read the book. Anyone who has will remember that Deborah’s blonde hair is an important plot point. Movie-Deborah has inky-black hair.

—Lady Cutekitten

[ecosophia]

There are times I'm glad I don't watch movies much. This is one of them.

[(Anonymous)]

JMG, Frieda’s biographer is Gail Hornstein.

Here’s a summary of the Genain Quadruplets:

https://www.madinamerica.com/2019/10/genain-sisters-hereditary-madness/

I’m 99% sure the Genains were the Morloks. The details all fit and I found a 55-year follow-up. The Genains’s pseudonyms were Nora, Iris, Myra, and Hester (from “NIMH”) and the follow-up used these, except for one sentence where the author called Hester “Helen” and didn’t catch it. The most “frail” Morlok? Helen Morlok. I feel confident in suggesting that if you want to learn about the Genains you should also read whatever you find on the Morloks. The Genains’s biography by David Rosenthal is also worth reading if you can get a copy. It’s a fascinating, though terribly sad, story.

—Lady Cutekitten

Beam me to the alternate universe, please

[(Anonymous)]

"Now. If you could move between realities, by discursive meditation or whatever else works, in at least some instances you could come back with proof of reality-2."

I'm intrigued by this idea, and often wish I could wish myself to a better version of my life.

Darryl Anka presents Bashar, an allegedly channeled spiritual entity, who informs us that there is only one moment of existence, an unchanging eternal instant, with infinite variations. The variations include versions of the past and future of that moment. Our consciousness proceeds to illuminate, expose, perceive one frame after another in sequence, like a movie, quickly enough that it seems to flow continuously (shifting a few billion times per second). If we were to more enthusiastically follow our highest sense of excitement in each moment as far as we could, we'd find that miracles are routine, as we don't need to change the world, only to find our consciousness now following the thread of that alternative history, present, and future. Bashar says that excitement is the signal from our higher selves that we're on the most positive track for us to pursue at any moment.

I'm curious if this New Age type idea relates to magical traditions.

Seth via Jane Roberts said that after death, some people spent a substantial amount of consciousness time in the astral to imagine a better version of their lives, meticulously, painstakingly going over and over all the details.

"what happens when a fictional world starts impinging on what we like to call the "real world"."

For those not averse to flickering blobs of light on screen, the 1953 Warner Bros. cartoon "Duck Amuck" shows Daffy Duck tortured by an insolent cartoonist.

- Mr. New-Writer

Re: Beam me to the alternate universe, please

[(Anonymous)]

Somewhere, there’s a reality as it should have been—one where Duck Amuck won an Oscar!

—Lady Cutekitten

[(Anonymous)]

You know, JMG, I wonder if, at least up until she wrote the book, Joanne Greenberg might have felt, or feared, that the Irians could possibly be real. Why else would she change their names for the novel? It’s not like Antilobia threatened to sue if she used his real name, so she called him Anterrabae..,

...or did he? 😳

—Lady Cutekitten

And if Antilobia wins, Satan will be next to lawyer up. Poor Joanne.

[ecosophia]

"Antilobia"? Oog. "Anterrabae" is a much better name for the Falling God.

[(Anonymous)]

Either way he’s going to get a lot of junk mail that misspells his name. 😄

—Lady Cutekitten