Yes, sometimes – as with Nietzsche – being terse and pithy is everything and aphorisms sail the seas of fate. For, if the world has a dark poetry the analytical mind is blind to, why bother matching words with them? The power of a pithy statement is to get the general drift of something picturesque and pure, unsullied by mind of Man. Read Mishima.

Or, of course, Howard whose decadent, jewel-encrusted cities throb with fire and lust. As I mention in Hybrorian Bridge 37 the 30s was the time of Weird Tales and also of Tintin, even if the latter lasted into the 60s. The dilapidated ferries I mentioned in Neptune – the ferries that as a kid used to cross the Irish Sea (Thiery Laudacieux)

There are those who would say it’s all nostalgia – it depends what you mean, since a computer algorithm has shown The Wizard of Oz to be the most influential film, going by citations in movies. I already knew that..

Origins are everything. Origins are where things just happen, and there is a culture of “happening”. Today there is no culture of happening because things are organized. So, why shouldn’t holidays and cruises and animated films etc be well-run enterprises? Because life is not all order and organization. If you go back to the Romans –Hyborian Bridge 2 – their monuments merge with natural forms, and emerge from them in a powerful way. As with the Danube way, they hew through stone and try to impose their own order on rugged nature.

As with most things Roman, the feat of workmanship is truly impressive, and will stand for all times. There’s no such thing as “pure order” because then you’re in the kingdom of Apollo where all is appearance. This is what the modern world attempts to  do, so what happens is you live in a world that is ordered and organized – as in the monster liner – instead of merging with the seas – as in a dilapidated ferry. You essentially exist in a life-support system that happens to go over water. It might as well go through space; there’s zero difference.

Once you are in a life-support system, everything is electrical and, as already noted, everything becomes a reflection. Everything is heading towards AI (you may have already noticed) and that is the future “they” have mapped out. Anywhere you go on Earth (or space) will exist in a life-support system that is run by AI.

There is no way out of that quandary unless you can merge with nature, and emerge from nature. What that means is that, instead of being electrochemical impulses (of the head) we are athletic figures (body) in a landscape having meaning (epistemology). For that to happen, we would have to not only travel through the landscape, but live in it, from it.

The landscape is strength, darkness, delicacy, the faerie grove of yore, so we’re back in Hyboria..living the surging stream of life and lust that rings out from city and valley, over hill and dale.

Have you ever wondered why they keep saying “As Xmas approaches”? and so on? Isn’t it to convince us that something is actually happening? In days of yore, people celebrated “the twelve days of Christmas”, starting with the birth of Christ on 25th, and ending with the coming of the Magi on Jan 6th, the Epiphany. Basically, the more they tell us things are happening, the more of an illusion it all is, and so the more endless reflections of reflections.

There are two universes. In one, primordial rhythms give the general drift of reality as in medieval days. So, Lent is the time of showers and buds; then there is the sun and flowers; then the golden harvest; then the grass whithers, frost and winter. The meaning of Christmas becomes tied-up with all that; in other words, meaning emerges from the primordial.

Do you see where this is heading? Because we live in a world of thought-processes, the ACTUAL processes are not what our reality is. That is, the twists and turns of worms in loam, the jaunty tune of a thrush, the lithe stretching of an antelope on the plains. Because our world is of the head it is not of the proportionate body (figure); the figurative era that the Renaissance spawned gave rise to thought-processes and we now live in a universe of light – photons, AI – where everything is a reflection.

This applies to everything in “their” future, from “luxury liners” (sic)to taxi-drones. Unless we are merged with natural cycles or emerge from them it’s impossible to tell what is real and what is a reflection.

TATANKA

The semi-hypnotic chanting of traditional AndeanIndians has the meaning of simplicity that endures because it is strength. A melody or a chant gives a general impression of something – rain, hoofbeats birdsong, leaf-canopies – that has enduring strength. The strength comes from predator-prey cycles that are NON PATHOGENIC and lead to fertility. The music celebrates that, much as we do Christmas.

Do you see where this is going? Because our societies are thought-processes we don’t experience the reality of actual processes which emerges from the primordial. Everything is a reflection of thought or, in other words, light (electromagnetism).

You know the phrase, “The lion shall lie down with the lamb”? There you have something that may not literally happen except as a noble ideal. Christianity is not weak because it is an ideal; modern Man is weak because he confuses the ideal (mind) with the real (body).

Therefore, nothing is real EXCEPT the pathogens that need ever more pathogenic life-support systems (as in the case of Gates’ toilet Hyborian Bridge 31). Primordial processes are strong, bloody, pure and therefore NON PATHOGENIC. The blood of sacrifice ritually enshrines that truth.

Here’s a “Howard-like” link, for the silent epic Cabiria, dep[icting the melodramatic struggle of Carthage against Rome in the 2nd Punic war. Carthage’s desperation reached such a pitch that one hundred naked youths were ritually sacrificed to

MOLOCH

Now, I know you’re gonna say that’s not nice and civilization has moved on since BC. Yes, but without that history our civilization wouldn’t exist. These epic struggles are what make Man what he is and they are strong, bloody and pure. Religions cannot change that fact, they can introduce noble idealism into the epic struggle of history, but the march of the seasons and predatory cycles goes on.

To seek to deny primordial forces is to enter a pathological universe of the head. Christianity, as you know, is born of blood and sacrifice and the body of Christ – the Eucharist – so in that respect can’t be called weak or impure. Modern Man denies blood-sacrifice and rituals that connect Man to primordial rhythms that are strong and pure – see Adastra in Africa Tales of Faith 2. BWS’s theme is quite hard-hitting but I think justified given the degradation caused by urbanisation across swathes of the Dark Continent.

The basic problem with the modern system is nothing is real EXCEPT pathology because of the denial (by the head) of the strong and pure forces in nature that generate health and fertility. Strength is enduring, and this is what “they” don’t want. If Africa is now run by bureaucrats, that’s the reason. As with Europe it’s a type of nothingness that exists in the head and not in the muscular body that merges with natural cycles and emerges from them.

Some of BWS’s best barbarian prints, as I’ve been saying for awhile, deal with these types of topics. BWS, I think, is going back to the Renaissance ideal of figurative narrative that emerges from nature and has an enduring strength. Howard obviously believed that the barbarian was a strong surviving figure, and a lot of that comes from their emergence from the bloody, predatory cycles of Man and nature.

The prophecies of Rachel, verse 149.

The mists across the timeless chasm grew thicker till the bridge was all-but obscured and, one dawn, when the lord and lady of Hyborian Hosts trotted along the span for their morning gallop ‘cross mossy forest, they found the bridge in twain, their progress halted. Puzzled, Emmanuel cupped his hands and hollered,

“This is my bridge, for of Hyborian Hosts I be. What do you there?”

The sound continued through the darkness but a voice piped-up.

“It’s ok, squire, no need to talk Middle Englishe with us. We’re the bridge repair gang and this is the time of mossywossy.”

“Mossywossy!” laughed Brigitte. “Sounds like “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” – you remember that from English lessons?”

“Quite. What is mossywossy?”

“All things of Hyborian wood are given life for a day and a night. Moshe gave us the all-clear to cut the spans to fashion a Dark Knight. He will gallop with all speed to Brussels and wander round the corridors of power till daybreak.”

“Ha ha!” Brigitte trilled.

“Doing what?” demanded Emmanuel.

“That you shall see”

(to be continued)