the following story

On holiday i read a short novel called The Following Story by Cees Nooteboom, who's Dutch. It's about a man waking up and finding himself in a bed where 20 years ago he slept with another man's wife. I guess we've all been there. I see something of Nabokov in his prose - there can be no higher praise than that in my book - and he uses narrative to make philosophical points - the type of drama/fiction that interests me most.

Here are a few lines:

she looked through me as people do...when something you have said has reached a secret compartment of their psyche, something they already know but do not wish to share with others.

Time is the system that must prevent everything for happening at once.

Protect me from bad dreams, the phantasms of the night. That is the monk's prayer before he goes to sleep.

I had a thousand lives and took only one.

the Duomo in Milan...that lyrical stone mastodon.

The last quote reminded me of a passage in Robert Temple's The Crystal Sun. This book is a masterpiece, a treasure chest packed with discoveries and revelations that should have caused a sensation. Perhaps it was too packed? It was reviewed almost nowhere - partly, I suspect, because there are no reviewers out there qualified to review the depth and range of RT's knowledge.

I was reminded of his re-discovery that Chartres cathedral had a magnetic iron lodestone in one of its steeples. This metal artifact had no practical function, but the masons and alchemists who built the great cathedrals of Europe like Milan and Chartres were creating living things, oriented to the stars and responding to, helping to channel the celestial influences. I'm reminded of the story of Albertus Magnus, in lore the architect of Cologne cathedral, who created a speaking robot out of the metals of the planets so it could be moved by them.

Iron is, of course, the metal of Mars and lead is the metal of Saturn. An initiate once told me that there is a church in Washington - I can't remember its name, but you could look it up on the Net - which has a window with a fragment of moon rock in the middle of it, brought back by an astronaut, now framed in lead. He told me he thought it probably wasn't really moon rock. Because if it was and really was framed in lead, the metal of Saturn/Satan, that would form a catastrophic portal for Moon demons - of the type I describe in my book - to flood into the world.

Comments

[Nick]

Where's Al And Stef these days?

[Al]

Actually the Hydron Collider is already opening up portals for disembodied beings to take shape in our reality.....yes, this is a joke but I have no idea what effects the Hydron Collider will actually do down the road. :D

[Kent]

Yes, the "Space" window containing the piece of moon rock brought back from Apollo 11 is in Washington National Cathedral, almost directly above the tomb of Woodrow Wilson. Walking down the Nave toward the choir it is on the right (south) side. Here's a link from the cathedral website: http://www.cathedral.org/cathedral/discover/spacewindow.shtml

I'm enjoying your book!

Peace,
Kent

[Nick]

I was practising Magick last night, and had built up quite terryfing storm. I meant to say "Beehman, bantrupcy" but it came out more so as "Lehman; Bankruptcy"

And I - oh.

:D

[Stef]

Stef has been on holiday - well, if one can call running after a lunatic two year old at the seaside a holiday...

But normal service will shortly be resumed, once I have caught up with reading all the new posts. So probably next week???? (said with a note of sarcastic optimism!)

I'm trying to read Tess of the D'Urbevilles without flinging it across the room... for some reason Hardy really irritates me. But I will persevere!

Nick, do you think you could magick me up a little joblet? Something nice and dealing with words would be good - don't mind if it's typing or reading!

[Nick]

Hello there Stef! Great to hear from you again. Did you enjoy your holiday?

Indeed, I've just finished another one of Crwoley's books, enjoying them very much. I mean to head up to Watkins soon for some more.

Unfortunatly, I'm yet to cast any real magick for fear of setting a throng of mystical goats through the neighbourhood but my best luck for the job hunt! Prehaps M.B needs another typist?

--Nick

[michael seabrook]

hello,
click on this link

http://www.sharkstooth.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/tarrot6.html
the 2nd half mentions the stone in church steeple and the name.
also if we can pinpoint the time humans gained a conciouse as humans evolved due to different zodiac time zones, and aincent indian texts sugests of a advanced race that was wiped out and who mention of a greater lost race that was wiped out before them.could humans be stuck in a loop. the stars and planets guide us and control solarflares which effect earth and every 12,000 years circa we start again.

[Frank Roberts]

I remember reading somewhere that in the bronze age iron was more valuable and honoured than gold as its only source was "heavenly" ie meteoric. There is of course a meteor in the side of the Kaaba in Mecca. And iron has been used in royal crowns as in Hungary.

[jonathanblack]

Thanks for the links, Kent and Mike.

Mike, of course some people think that the oriental traditions about the races that were wiped out are inconsistent with the western tradition. My view is that the inconsistency may only be on the question of how deeply these earlier races were materialized - and that, really, there may be no inconsistency at all.

Good to hear from you again, Stef! Sorry to hear that you're still in hard times.

[Ton Biesemaat]

I am nearing the end of your imposing book 'The Secret History of the World'. As a Dutch investigative journalist skepticism is my natural habitat. But I have to say that you make quite an impressive point about things I discarded in my investigations. I have to look at these things again. I am very pleased you discovered the writing of Cees Nooteboom. I think some of his great style will be lost in translation. I've got all his books. Some years ago I saw him in the central hall of the train station in The Hague. He was on the phone so I did not dare to say to him how I admired his work. "I had a thousand lives and took only one."