Part 45 (1/2)

”Thelema,” he said, facing her across a room that seemed designed for Martians; it had actually been designed for Welshmen. he said, facing her across a room that seemed designed for Martians; it had actually been designed for Welshmen.

She sat down abruptly on a couch. ”You're in the Order?”

”In the Order and against the Order,” he said. ”The real purpose is to destroy them.”

”I'm one of the top Five in the United States,” she said unsteadily. ”What makes you think I'll turn on them now?”

”Thelema,” he repeated. ”It's not just a pa.s.sword. It means Will.” Will.”

”'The Order is my Will.'” She quoted from Weishaupt's original Oath of Initiation.

”If you really believed that, you wouldn't be here,” he said. ”You're talking to me because part of you knows that a human being's Will is never in an external organization.”

”You sound like a moralist. That's odd-for a heroin merchant.”

”You sound like a moralist, too, and that's very odd-for a servant of Agharti.”

”n.o.body joins that lot,” that lot,” she said with a pert c.o.c.kney accent, ”without being a moralist to start with.” They both laughed. she said with a pert c.o.c.kney accent, ”without being a moralist to start with.” They both laughed.

”I was right about you,” Hagbard said.

But, George interrupted, is he really in the heroin business? That's dirty.

You sound like a moralist too, she said. It's part of his Demonstration. Any government could put him out of business within their borders-as England has done-by legalizing junk. So long as they refuse to do that, there's a black market. He won't let the Mafia monopolize it-he makes sure the black market is a free market. If it wasn't for him a lot of junkies who are alive today would be dead of contaminated heroin. But let me go on with the story.

They rented a villa in Naples to begin the transformation. For a month the only humans she saw-aside from Hagbard-were two servants named Sade and Masoch (she later learned that their real names were Eichmann and Calley). They began each day by serving her breakfast and quarreling. The first day, Sade argued for materialism and Masoch for idealism; the second day, Sade expounded fascism and Masoch communism; the third day, Sade insisted on cracking eggs from the big end and Masoch was equally vehement about the little end. All the debates were on a high and lofty intellectual level, verbally, but seemed absurd because of the simple fact that Sade and Masoch always wore clown suits. The fourth day, they argued for and against abortion; the fifth day, for and against mercy-killing; the sixth day, for and against the proposition ”Life is worth living.” She became more and more aware of the time and money Hagbard had spent in training and preparing them: Each argued with the skill of a first-rate trial lawyer and had a phalanx of carefully researched facts to support his position-and yet the clown suits made it hard to take either of them seriously. The seventh morning, they argued theism versus atheism; the eighth morning, the individual versus the State; the ninth, whether wearing shoes was or was not a s.e.xual perversion. All arguments began to seem equally insubstantial. The tenth morning, they feuded over realism versus antinomianism; the eleventh, whether the statement ”All statements are relative” is or is not self-contradictory; the twelfth, whether a man who sacrifices his life for his country is or is not insane; the fifteenth, whether spaghetti or Dante had had the greater influence on the Italian national character ...

But that was only the start of the day. After breakfast (in her bedroom, where every article of furniture was gold but only vaguely rounded) she went to to Hagbard's study (where everything looked Hagbard's study (where everything looked exactly exactly like a golden apple) and watched doc.u.mentary films concerning the early matriarchal stage of Greek culture. At ten random intervals the name ”Eris” would be called; if she remembered to respond, a chocolate candy arrived from a wall shoot. At ten other random intervals, her own name was called; if she responded to this, she received a mild electric shock. After the tenth day the system was changed and intensified: The shock was stronger if she responded to her previous name, whereas if she responded to ”Eris” Hagbard immediately entered and balled her. like a golden apple) and watched doc.u.mentary films concerning the early matriarchal stage of Greek culture. At ten random intervals the name ”Eris” would be called; if she remembered to respond, a chocolate candy arrived from a wall shoot. At ten other random intervals, her own name was called; if she responded to this, she received a mild electric shock. After the tenth day the system was changed and intensified: The shock was stronger if she responded to her previous name, whereas if she responded to ”Eris” Hagbard immediately entered and balled her.

During lunch (which always ended with golden apfelstrudel) apfelstrudel), Calley and Eichmann danced for her, a complex ballet which Hagbard called ”Hodge-Podge;” as many times as she saw this, she never was able to determine how they changed costumes at the climax, in which Hodge became Podge and Podge became Hodge.

In the afternoon Hagbard came to her suite and gave lessons in yoga, concentrating on pranayama pranayama, with some training in asana asana. ”The important thing is not being able to stand so still that you can balance a saucer of sulphuric acid on your head without getting hurt,” he stressed. ”The important thing is knowing what each muscle is doing, if it must be doing something.”

In the evenings they went to a small chapel that had been part of the villa for centuries. Hagbard had removed all Christian decorations and redesigned it in cla.s.sical Greek with a traditional magic pentagram on the floor. She sat, in the full lotus, within the internal pentagon, while Hagbard danced insanely around the five points (he was totally stoned), calling upon Eris.

”Some of what you're doing seems scientific,” she told him after five days, ”but some is plain d.a.m.nfoolishness.”

”If the science fails,” he replied, ”the d.a.m.nfoolishness may work.”

”But last night you had me in that pentagon for three hours while you called on Eris. And she didn't come.”

”She will,” Hagbard said darkly. ”Before the month is over. We're just establis.h.i.+ng the foundation this week, laying down the proper lines of word and image and emotional energy.”

During the second week she was convinced Hagbard was quite mad as she watched him prance and caper like a goat around the five points, shouting,[image] in the flickering candlelight and amid the heavy bouquet of burning incense and hemp. But at the end of that week she was responding to her former name exactly 0 percent of the time and responding to ”Eris” exactly 100 percent of the time. ”The conditioning is working better than the magic,” she said on the fifteenth day. in the flickering candlelight and amid the heavy bouquet of burning incense and hemp. But at the end of that week she was responding to her former name exactly 0 percent of the time and responding to ”Eris” exactly 100 percent of the time. ”The conditioning is working better than the magic,” she said on the fifteenth day.

”Do you really think there's a difference?” he asked curiously.

That night she felt the air in the chapel change in a strange way during his dancing invocations.

”Something's happening,” she said involuntarily-but he replied only ”Quiet,” and continued, more loudly and insanely, to call upon Eris. The phenomenon-the tingle tingle-remained, but nothing else happened.

”What was it?” she asked later.

”Some call it Orgone and some call it the Holy Ghost,” he said briefly. ”Weishaupt called it the Astral Light. The reason the Order is so f.u.c.ked up is that they've lost contact with it.”

The following days Sade and Masoch argued whether G.o.d was male or female, whether G.o.d was s.e.xed at all or neutral, whether G.o.d was an ent.i.ty or a verb, whether R. Buckminster. Fuller really existed or was a technocratic solar myth, and whether human language was capable of containing truth. Nouns, adjectives, adverbs-all parts of speech-were losing meaning for her as these clowns endlessly debated the basic axioms of ontology and epistemology. Meanwhile, she was no longer rewarded for answering to the name Eris, but only for acting like Eris, the imperious and somewhat nutty G.o.ddess of a people as far gone in matriarchy as the Jews were in patriarchy. Hagbard, in turn, became so submissive as to border on masochism. ”This is ridiculous,” she objected once, ”you're becoming...effeminate.”

”Eris can be...somewhat 'adjusted' ... to modern notions of decorum after we've invoked Her,” he said calmly. ”First we must have Her here. My Lady” My Lady” he added obsequiously. he added obsequiously.

”I'm beginning to see why you had to to pick an actress for this,” she said a few days later, after a bit of Method business had won her an extra reward. She was, in fact, beginning to feel like Eris as well as act like her. pick an actress for this,” she said a few days later, after a bit of Method business had won her an extra reward. She was, in fact, beginning to feel like Eris as well as act like her.

”The only other candidates-if I couldn't get you-were two other actresses and a ballerina,” he replied. ”Actually, any strong-willed woman would do, but it would take much longer without previous theatrical training.”

Books about matriarchy began to supplement the films: Diner's Mothers and Amazons Mothers and Amazons, Bachofen, Engels, Mary Renault, Morgan, Ian Suttie's The Origins of Love and Hate The Origins of Love and Hate, Robert Graves in horse-doctor's doses-The White G.o.ddess, The Black G.o.ddess, Hercules My s.h.i.+pmate, Watch the North Wind Rise. She began to see that matriarchy made as much sense as patriarchy; Hagbard's exaggerated deference toward her began to appear natural; she was far gone on a power trip. The invocations grew wilder and more frantic. Sade and Masoch were brought into the chapel to a.s.sist with demonaic music performed on a tom-tom and an ancient Greek pipe, they ate has.h.i.+sh cakes before the invocation now and she couldn't remember afterward exactly what had happened, the voice of the male called upward to her, ”Mother! Creator! Ruler! Come to me![image] Come to me! Come to me![image] come to me! come to me! Ave, Discordia! Ave, Magna Mater! Venerandum, vente, vente! Ave, Discordia! Ave, Magna Mater! Venerandum, vente, vente!

[image]

Thou bornless ever reborn one! Thou deathless ever-dying one! Come to me as Isis and Artemis and Aphrodite, come as Helen, as Hera, come especially as Eris!”

She was bathing in the rockpool when he appeared, the blood of slain deer and rabbits on his robe- She spoke the word and Hagbard was stricken- As he fell forward his hands became hooves, antlers sprouted from his head -His own dogs could eat him, she didn't care, the hemp smell in the room was gagging her, the tom-tom beat was maddening. She was rising out of the waves, proud of her nudity, riding on the come-colored pearls of foam. He was carrying her back to her bed, murmuring, ”My Lady, my Lady.” She was the Hag, wandering the long Nile, weeping, seeking the fragments of his lost body as they pa.s.sed the closet and the window; he placed her head gently on the pillow. ”We almost made it,” he said. ”Tomorrow night, maybe ...”

They were back in the chapel, a whole day must have pa.s.sed, and she sat immobile in full lotus doing the pranayama pranayama breathing while he danced and chanted and the weird music of the pipe and tom-tom worked on every conditioned reflex that told her she was not American but Greek, not of this age but of a past age, not woman but G.o.ddess ... the White Light came as a series of o.r.g.a.s.ms and stars going nova, she half felt the body of light coming forth from the body of fire...and all three of them were sitting by her bed, watching her gravely, as sunlight came flowing through the window. breathing while he danced and chanted and the weird music of the pipe and tom-tom worked on every conditioned reflex that told her she was not American but Greek, not of this age but of a past age, not woman but G.o.ddess ... the White Light came as a series of o.r.g.a.s.ms and stars going nova, she half felt the body of light coming forth from the body of fire...and all three of them were sitting by her bed, watching her gravely, as sunlight came flowing through the window.

Her first word was crude and angry.

”s.h.i.+t. Is it always going to be like that-a white epileptic spasm and a hole in time? Won't I ever be able to remember it?”

Hagbard laughed. ”I put on my trousers one leg at a time,” he said, ”and I don't pull the corn up by its stalks to help it grow.”

”Can the Taoism and give me a straight answer.”

”Remembering is just a matter of smoothing the transitions,” he said. ”Yes, you'll remember. And control it.”

”You're a madman,” she replied wearily. ”And you're leading me into your own mad universe. I don't know why I still love you.”

”We love him, too,” Sade interjected helpfully. ”And we don't know why either. We don't even have s.e.x as an excuse.”

Hagbard lit one of his foul Sicilian cigars. ”You think I just laid my trip on your head,” he said. ”It's more than that, much more. Eris is an eternal possibility of human nature. She exists quite apart from your mind or mine. And she is the one possibility that the Illuminati cannot cope with. What we started here last night-with Pavlovian conditioning that's considered totalitarian and ancient magic that's believed to be mere superst.i.tion-will change the course of history and make real liberty and real rationality possible at last. Maybe this dream of mine is madness-but if I lay it on enough people it will be sanity, by definition, because it will be statistically normal. We've just started, with me programming the trip for you. The next step is for you to become a self-programmer.”

And he told the truth, Stella said. I did become a self-programmer. The three that you know were all my creations. Possibilities within me, women I could have become, anyway, if genes and environment had been only slightly different. Just small adjustments in the biogram and logogram.

”Holy Mother,” George said hollowly. It seemed the only appropriate comment.

”The only other detail,” she went on calmly, ”was arranging a convincing suicide. That took a while. But it was done, and my old ident.i.ty officially ceased to exist.” She changed to her original form.

”Oh, no,” George said, reeling. ”It can't be. I used to jack off over pictures of you when I was a little boy.”

”Are you disappointed that I'm so much older than you thought?” Her eyes crinkled in amus.e.m.e.nt. He looked into those suddenly thirty-thousand-year-old eyes of one manifestation of Lilith Velkor and all the arguments of Sade and Masoch appeared clownish and he looked through those eyes and saw himself and Joe and Saul and even Hagbard as mere men and all their att.i.tudes as merely manly, and he saw the eternal womanly reb.u.t.tal, and he saw beyond and above that the eternal divine amus.e.m.e.nt, he looked into those eyes of amus.e.m.e.nt, those ancient glittering eyes so gay, and he said, sincerely, ”h.e.l.l, I can never be disappointed about anything, ever again.” (George Dorn entered Nirvana, parenthetically.) All categories collapsed, including the all-important distinction, which Masoch and Sade had never argued, between science fiction and serious literature. N o because Daddy and Mommy were always just that Daddy and Mommy and never once did they become for a change Mommy and Daddy do you dig that important difference? do you dig difference? do you dig the lonely voice when you're lost out here shouting ”me” ”me” justme justme ”I can never be disappointed about anything, ever again,” George Dorn said, coming back.

”The only other time that happened,” he added thoughtfully, ”the only other time I had the feminine viewpoint, I blocked it out of my memory. That was my repression. That was the Primal Scene in this whole puzzle. That was when I really lost ident.i.ty with the Ringmaster.”