MSTed: Aleister Crowley on Atlantis-4
M Sampo
>these same gardens too, were salvers and goblets always filled
>with Zro, and after toil, refreshment fitted the workers to
>return to labour.
MIKE: This Zro's for you...
>Now of these workings in the gardens strange tales are told. It
>is said that the inhabitants falling to repose were visited in
>sleep by incubi and succubi (whatever the nature of these may
>be, and I by no means concur in the opinion of Sinistrari),
CROW: Oh, me neither...
> and
>that they welcomed such with eagerness. Nay, darker legends
>tell of infamous commerce and intercourse with demons foul and
>malicious, and pretend that the power of Atlas was devilish, and
>that the catastrophe was the judgment of God. These mediaeval
>fables of the debased and perverted phallicism miscalled
>Christianity
TOM: WHOA!!! You'll go to H-E-double hockey sticks for talking like that!
> are unworthy even to be refuted, founded as they
>are on hypotheses contrary to common sense.
MIKE (chucking): Uh...glass houses, there Aleister...glass houses...
> Nor would they who
>knew themselves masters of the earth have deigned to degrade
>themselves, and moreover to vitiate their whole work by commerce
>with inferiors.
CROW (British): Can't I have just a LITTLE intercourse with the succubi?
TOM: NOW who's doing Python riffs?
> If there be any truth whatever in these
>stories, it will then be more easily supposable that the
>Atlanteans aspiring to journey sunwards to Venus, might invoke
>the beings of that planet, should it be possible for them to
>travel to us. And that this is impossible, who can assert?
MIKE (raising hand): I can! I can!
CROW: Me! Me! Let me!
TOM: Oooh! Oooh! Call on me!!
> On
>the theory of the Magicians, power increases as the sun is
>approached, the inhabitants of Earth being more highly infused
>with the magical force of Our Star than those of Mars, and they
>again more than those of great Jupiter, gloomy and disastrous
>Saturn and Uranus, or Neptune lost in star-dreams.
CROW (drill sergeant): NEPTUNE!! UP AND AT 'EM!!! RISE AND SHINE, MAGGOT!
> Again, the
>powers of each particular planet may, nay, must be wholly
>diverse. So fundamental a condition of existence as the value
>of g being vastly various, must not the inhabitants differ
>equally in body and in mind?
ALL: No.
> What lives on the minute and
>airless Moon can be no inhabitant of what may hide beneath the
>flaming envelope of the sun, with its fountains of hydrogen
>flaming an hundred thousand miles into the aether. And surely
>so wild an ambition as that of Atlas would not have been held by
>beings so wise and powerful for so many centuries had they not
>either a sure memory of coming from Mars, or some earnest of
>their eventual departure to Venus. Man does not persist in the
>chimerical for more than a few generations.
CROW: So Christianity may be perverted phallicism, but I guess it's not
chimerical!
TOM: I've always said that!
CROW: How true. How true.
> Alchemy achieved
>results so startling and so beneficial to humanity at large--one
>need only mention the discovery of zinc, antimony, hydrogen,
>opium, gas itself--that the original ideals were changed for
>others more limited and more practical--or at least more
>immediately realizable.
MIKE: How did we get from Mars to alchemy?
>Nor is this view unsupported by testimony of a sort. "Great and
>glorious, rays of our father the Sun", says one of the poets of
>Atlas, "are they within us. Let us call them forth by utterance
>that is not uttered, by the gesture that is not made, by the
>working that is above all working, for they are great and
>glorious, rays of our father the Sun. Then from our bride that
>waits for us in the nuptial chamber, green in the green West,
>blue in the blue East, exalted above our father in the even and
>in the morn, spring forth our heirs and our hosts, to greet us
>in the darkness.
TOM: Yeah, yeah, so it just goes on like that, huh?
> Dim-glimmering are our gardens in the light of
>the seed of light; they are peopled with shadows; they take
>form; they are as serpents, they are as trees, they are as the
>holy Zcrra, they are as all things straight or curved, they are
>winged, they are wonderful. With us do they work, and that which
>was but one in seven, and that which was two is become eleven!
>With us do they work, and give us of the draught miraculous; us
>do they instruct in magic, and feed us the delicate food. Let us
>call forth them that are within us, that they that are without
>may enter in, as it was made manifest by Him that maketh secret."
CROW: Leteth us goeth to the bar and geteth a drink, this hokum is
makething me nauseous.
>This passage, not devoid of a rude eloquence, makes clear what
>was held in exoteric circles. For in Atlas the poet was not as
>in England a holy and exalted being, one set apart for his high
>calling, throned in the hearts of the people, cherished by kings
>and nobles, one on whom no wealth and honour are too great to
>shower,
MIKE: Jeez, I guess Sylvia Plath missed out!
> but one of the people themselves, of no greater
>consequence than any other. Every man was an artist in so far as
>he was a man; and every man being equally so in nature, whether
>so in achievement or not mattered nothing, as appreciation was
>of no moment.
CROW: A world without critics! I like it!
> Accomplishing Art for the sake of Art, the
>interest of the creator in his work died with its creation. It
>may therefore be possible that these words are those of poetic
>exaggeration, or that there is a concealed meaning in them, or
>that they are intended to mask and mislead, or that the poet was
>not himself fully instructed.
TOM: ...or drunk.
> Indeed it is certain that only the
>High House had the secrets of Atlas, and that the magicians of
>the House held the undeniable if sometimes dangerous doctrine
>that the truth and falsehood of any statement alternated as do
>day and night according to the status of the hearer of the
>statement.
TOM: Uh, is what he just said true?
MIKE: Well...what time is it?
> However, so strong is the tradition concerning the
>'Angel of Venus' that it must at least be considered carefully.
>The theory appears to have been that if the magicians of Venus
>invited the Atlanteans, means would assuredly follow, just as if
>a King summons a paralysed man to his presence, he will also
>send officers to convey him.
CROW: What if he was a really MEAN King?
> Now whether the 'Angel of Venus' is
>really an angel in anything like the modern sense of the word,
>or merely a title of one of the principal magicians of the
>planet, it is evident that the High House ardently desired his
>presence. That this might be manifested by the birth of a child
>'without the stain of Atla' was clearly an ultimate desideratum,
>an outward and visible sign of redemption, an obvious guarantee
>of the reality of the occurrence.
TOM: I'm guessin' a guarantee of reality is something these folks needed a
LOT!
> It was then a Virgin high
>priestess who achieved so notable a renown; whether or not this
>is a mere poetic parable of the abiogenesis--if it is indeed
>fair so to describe it--of the eleventh stage of Zro is another
>and an open question.
MIKE: One I'll be discussing in my new ten-part series...
> In any case, such is the tradition, and
>numerous parodies of it are still extant in the stories of the
>births of Romulus and Remus, Bacchus, Buddha and many other
>legendary heroes of modern times; we even catch an echo in the
>myths of such barbarian lands as Syria.
>So much and no more concerning the Underground Gardens of Atlas,
>and of their commerce with the inhabitants of Venus.
>VII. OF MARRIAGE AND OTHER CURIOUS CUSTOMS OF THE ATLANTEANS:
> AND OF SACRIFICES TO THE GODS.
>I have already adverted to that most singular conception of the
>duty of the married which opposes the customs of Atlas to those
>of any other race on Earth. But the considerations which
>established it have yet to be discussed. I will not insist on
>that gross and cynical point of view which might perceive in
>English marriage today a practical vindication of the Atlantean
>position.
MIKE: But, I'll cynically imply it, just the same.
> On the contrary, in Atlas marriage formed the
>loftiest of ideals. It resembles the 'Hermetic marriage' of
>certain alchemists. The bond between the parties was only
>stronger for the absence of the lower link.
TOM: "The Lower Link"--oooh, I like that!
CROW: It's almost as good as "boing!"
> The idea underlying
>this was in the main a particular case of the general
>proposition that whatever was natural should be transcended. As
>will be seen in the final chapter, the very stigma of success in
>their Great Work was the transcending of the sexual process.
>The bond of marriage was not, however, entirely of this negative
>character. It had its positive side, and here closely resembled
>the so-called Christian doctrine of Christ and the church.
>Husband and wife were to be father and daughter, mother and son,
>brother and sister, teacher and pupil,
MIKE: That's sick!
> and above all, friends.
CROW: That's REALLY sick!
>And this relation was to subsist on all planes. The hieroglyph
>of love was a cross; that of marriage, parallel straight lines,
>and as the cross was to be transcended in the circle, so were
>these lines to converge not on earth, but in Venus.
TOM (singing): ...there is love.....there is love.
> In the
>meanwhile each partner led his own free life; and it often
>occurred that a woman, having borne two children to a man and
>married him, would bear two children to another man, and so on
>perhaps for two centuries, thus acquiring a cohort of husbands.
MIKE: Family reunions must have been complicated...
>Such an arrangement must clearly have lead to grave confusion
>had any question of property and inheritance been involved, but
>notions so unfortunate were unknown. Where all had every
>heart's desire, of what value were they?
CROW: $47.82 plus tax.
> It is true that some
>division of labour (though little) was involved in the social
>scheme, but it occurred to no one to regard the supervision of
>serviles as less honourable than the offering of great
>sacrifices. In a perfect organism one part is as necessary and
>decent as any other part, and no sane observer can reason
>otherwise.
TOM: Which leaves you out, Aleister.
> For a perfect organism has a single definite aim,
>and the only dishonourable feather on an arrow would be one that
>was out of place.
CROW: He got that out of a fortune cookie!
> Human nature being what it is, one may
>nevertheless agree that this measureless content with the
>existing order, except in so far as the purpose of the
>establishment of that order was unfulfilled, was rendered
>possible by the extreme lightness of the toil demanded of any
>individual. But it is impossible for slaves to understand free
>men.
MIKE: Have you checked with the slaves on this? They might disagree.
> It is always a wonder to Englishmen that a man should
>devote himself to unremitting toil for an ideal. He is called a
>crank, basely slandered, the lowest motives being without any
>reason assigned to his actions, mocked, persecuted, perhaps
>crucified. This is partly forgivable, as in England
>philanthropy is almost invariably the mask of vice and fraud.
TOM: SOMEbody definitely was not popular in high school, I think...
>The ceremony of marriage was simple, dignified, yet poignant.
>The lovers in the presence of their whole house, publicly
>embraced for the last time. Their two children pressed them
>apart. Elevating their hands in a crossed clasp they gave way,
>and the children passed through, preceding a most holy image
>which was borne by a priest and priestess between them. Then
>they parted, and each was severally congratulated and embraced
>by any of the others who chose, and the priest and priestess
>then, exalting the image and setting it in a suitable shrine,
CROW: Announced that there would be bars and punch in the fellowship hall.
>closed the ceremony by the command "To work" and adding force to
>the same by their example.
>The education of the children was another important matter in
>which their ideas were wholly opposed to our own. It ceased
>altogether at the age of puberty, which was sometimes as early
>as six,
TOM: Whoa! Six?
CROW (James Mason): Oh, Lolita!
> never later than fourteen. Were it so delayed, the
>delinquent was crowned in mockery with a square black cap,
>sometimes tasselated,
TOM: You ever been tasselated, Mike?
MIKE: I'm not sure...is that when you buy some fruity loafers from Thom
McCann?
> and sent among the serviles to instruct
>them in religion and similar branches of learning, and never
>permitted to return to Atlas. The ignorance and superstition of
>the plains was thus kept at a proper height.
CROW: 4 feet, 9 and one-half inches.
>The method of education was indeed singular. Certain
>Atlanteans who made it their study would place the various
>articles in the hands of the infants, and observe what use they
>made of them. In the course of a few months the experts had
>accurately mapped the psychology of the child, and it was led in
>accordance therewith.
TOM: Well, it makes as much sense as standardized testing!
> The marriage customs of Atlas allowed no
>too rapid growth in numbers, and it was therefore easy to give
>each child attention. The method of opposition was again
>employed in education, the child's natural wish being
>constantly stimulated by a parallel training in the contrary
>subject. Children were also shewn a series of ordered facts,
>and an explanation given.
CROW: This is the Iran-Contra Report...
> But not the least pains was taken to
>ascertain whether the child had retained those instructions;
>they were left as impressions on the mind. The brain was not
>injured by the strain of being constantly forced to bring up its
>stores from the subconscious.
MIKE: Which is how the Aleister got HIS brain injuries....
> It was found in practice that
>every child learnt everything that it was shown, and that this
>learning was always ready for use, while the consciousness was
>never wearied or overcrowded. It was also found that those
>whose memories were what we call good were precisely those who
>failed to develop in other ways more useful to society.
TOM: Um...could you repeat that last part for me again?
>The most peculiar of their methods was the search for genius.
>It was the business of the experts to pay the most serious and
>reverent attention to all that a child did, and whenever they
>failed to understand the workings of its mind, to place it under
>the charge of a special guardian, who did his utmost to
>comprehend sufficiently to be able to encourage it to become yet
>more unintelligible.
CROW: Now known as the Norm Crosby technique.
>Apud eos membrum virile membrano lucido erat; ob quod qualis
>circumscisio die nativitatis facta erat. Vix credere dignum
>est, tanquam verum, feminarum montes venereales similutidine
>facies fuere, facies demonicae, sardonicae, Satyricae, cujus os
>erat os vulvae, res horribiles atque ridiculosa. Ferunt similia
>de virorum membris, quae fingunt sicut imagines homunculorum
>fuere. Lege--Judice--Tace.
MIKE: THAT was the most intelligent thing he's said so far!
TOM: I think he said it's time to leave, fellas.
(they rise and depart)
1.....2......3......4......5.....6 {clunk}
[SOL]
(Mike, standing at one side of the desk, is now completely Dr. F--the
latest and last addition being the glasses. He is busily making notes on a
clipboard and laughing evilly to himself. Pan to the other side of the
desk, where Crow, Tom and Gypsy are cowering.)
GYPSY: Well, I shut off the gas from Deep 13. Do you think it'll wear off
soon and we'll get our own lovable Mike Nelson back?
CROW: Hard to say, Gyps. The transformation might be permanent. And I, for
one, think he looks pretty darned handsome!
TOM: Shut up, Crow. Have faith, Gypsy! I KNOW that the REAL Mike is down
deep in there somewhere, struggling to get out!
GYPSY: If only we could help!
TOM: Hmmm....maybe we can! Follow my lead, guys. (Goes over to Mike). Oh,
um, Mike?
MIKE (turning to the bots, irritably): Huh? Oh, what is it now? Can't you
see I'm busy??
TOM: Well, yes, we can! But we have an important SCIENTIFIC question for
you. We're not sure if this Hostess Snowball here (indicates desk, where a
Hostess Snowball is sitting) is fresh or stale?
CROW (quietly): Good idea, Tom! The old Mike LOVED Hostess Snowballs! (To
Mike). That's right, Mike. We wanted to find out and we went to the
greatest scientific mind of our age to find the answer!
MIKE (flattered, puts down his clipbaord): Well, since you put it that
way. It's really very simple, my pusilanimous pygmies. Since the Hostess
Snowball is drenched in more chemicals than a DDT canister, the only thing
to do is take a bite! (Grabs it and bites it.) Like so!
(Chews...swallows...clutches his throat...gurgles horribly and disappears
behind the desk. Gypsy looks away.
GYPSY: Oh, I can't look! What's happening??
CROW: It's...it's working!! He's changing!!
TOM: You're right!! Look!
(A hand appears above the desk....followed by Mike--his moustache is half
off, his wig is crooked, his glasses are over his mouth and his lab coat
is mostly off. Mike looks at the bots.)
MIKE: What...what happened?
GYPSY: Dr. Forrester's horrible transformation gas turned you into an evil
scientist!
CROW: But a very good looking one!
TOM: Shut up, Crow. Mike, do you feel better?
MIKE (standing up, pulling off the lab coat): I...think so...(reaches up
and gingerly begins pulling off his moustache) Ow! Ow! Ow!
GYPSY: It's going to be a painful road to recovery....
(Commercial sign goes off)
MIKE: It sure is! Ow! (hits commercial sign button)
(into spaghetti ball bumper and into commercial)
COMMERCIAL
(Coming out of commercial...and they're taking their seats in the theater.
Mike is back to normal.)
MIKE: Wow, I feel like my old self again.
CROW: I kinda liked ya the way you were...
TOM: Shut up, Crow.
>Many of the men had ossified extensions of the frontal process
>which amounted to horns,
TOM: Especially after a couple of drinks!
> and the formation was occasionally
>found in the higher types of women. Curiously carven head-
>dresses of gold were worn by both sexes,
CROW: What's so curious about that?
> and those of priestly
>rank adorned these with living serpents, and the high priests
>yet further with feathers or with wings, such being not the
>spoils of dead birds, but the blossoms of the live gold of the
>crowns.
MIKE: No birds were hurt in the making of this head-dress.
> Some tradition of this custom is found in the pictures
>of the 'Gods' of Egypt, these gods being merely the Atlanteans
>whose mission civilized the country. The names of some of the
>earlier gods confirm this. Nu (Hebrew Noah) is Atlantean for
>arch, Zu (Egyptian Shu) for many ideas connecting with wind, Asi
>means 'cum quasi serpens', obviously the name of an actual High
>Priestess.
TOM: And, roughly translates as "Cum on feel the noiz"
> Ra is pure Atlantean for Sun, and 'Mse' (Egyptian
>Chomse) for moon. The idea in 'Mse is that of a strong woman
>('M) closing the mouth of a serpent (S) or dragon, and from this
>we have the XIth card of the Bohemian Tarot, and the legend in
>the Apocalypse.
CROW: The horror...the horror....
> In the mystic Greek used by the Gnostics we
>find similar traces, SOPHIA being from S Ph,
MIKE: ...and the O and the IA.
> giving the idea of
>'serpent breath' i.e. wisdom.
TOM (Carnac): You are WRONG, serpent breath!
> IAO is PHALLOS, KTEIS, PROKTOS.
>The word LOGOS means the Boy (G) naturally engendered of the
>Virgin (L) and the Serpent (S). THEOS (root O, first written 0)
>means the sun in his strength and also the Lingam-Yoni conjoined.
CHRISTOS is 'The love of passion of the Rising Sun (R) and the
>serpent' (S). The I and T indicate certain details which are
>foreign to the present discussion. NEUMA (Atlantean N M) is the
>'Arch of the Woman', MARIA, the Woman of the Sun. The words
>MEITHRAS and ABRAXAS are again derived from Atlas.
CROW: You know, we'd believe anything at this point...
> "The woman
>entered, Lingam being conjoined with Yoni, bears the sun from
>her serpent womb" and "From the womb's mouth the sun (cometh
>seeking) a womb for his desire, even the womb of a serpent", the
>course of the year being signified in this manner, as usual with
>the ancients.
MIKE: What was that about bears from the sun?
TOM: Ya know, I think something dirty went by there and we missed it
completely.
> This plan of an idea corresponding to each letter
>was carried out very strictly: thus TLA, black, means the stigma
>or mark of the virgin's womb, IA (Hail! Greeting!) 'Face to
>Face', from the other peculiarity described above. These few
>examples will suffice to indicate the singular character of the
>language,
CROW: MORE than suffice...
> and the way in which its essential dogmatic symbols
>have been incorporated by the heirs of Atlas in the inmost
>sanctuaries of races which they deemed worthy of such assistance.
>I must not pass over in silence the question of sacrifice to the
>gods, to which a passing reference has already been made. Such
>sacrifices were not very frequent; the victims were the
>'failures', those who were useless to the social economy.
TOM: Failures vill be bred unt slaughtered!
> As
>they represented capital expenditure, the object was to recover
>this, at least, since no interest could be expected. The victim
>was therefore handed over to a High Priest or Priestess, who
>extracted the life by an instrument devised for and excellently
>adapted to the purpose, so that it died of exhaustion. The life
>thus regained was given to 'the gods' in a manner too complex to
>be described in this brief account.
MIKE: But UPS was heavily involved...
>The early age at which puberty occurred was due to design. The
>normal period of gestation had also been shortened to four
>months. This was all part of the scheme to economize time. Old
>age had been almost done away with by the great readiness of the
>Atlanteans to 'go and see' at the first sign of failing power.
CROW: The '74 oil embargo, as I recall.
>No doubt, further improvements would have been made but for the
>loss of interest in the matter, all generation being regarded as
>'the old experiment', not likely to repay the trouble of further
>research. In the 200 or 300 years of a man's full vigour, only
>8 years on an average was the wastage of childhood, and even
>this was not all waste, since some time at least must be
>necessary for the experts to discover and direct the tendencies
>of the mind. The body ought therefore to be regarded as an
>engine, the theoretical limit of whose efficiency had been
>reached.
>So much I mention of the customs of the Atlanteans with regard
>to marriage, education and religious sacrifices.
TOM: Yeah, why so much?
>VIII. OF THE HISTORY OF ATLAS, FROM ITS EARLIEST ORIGINS TO THE
> PERIOD IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING THE CATASTROPHE.
>The origin of Atlas is lost in the obscurity of antiquity. The
>official religious explanation is this: "We came across the
>waters on the living Atla",
MIKE (singing): Way doooowwwwn below the ocean......
CROW: I was wondering when you'd get to that...
> which is pious but improbable. A
>mystic meaning is to be suspected. The lay historian says "We
>came, escaping from destruction, eight persons in a ship,
>bearing the living Zro." This reminds one of later legends of
>presumably equal value. Poets frankly claim "We descended from
>heaven", and it has been seriously urged that seafarers would
>have preferred the plains to the rocks.
TOM: Wouldn't seafarers have preferred the sea?
> The law of contrariety
>to Nature explains this away. Others maintain that the earliest
>settlers came 'by air,' or 'through air'. This must mean
>balloons or airplanes, as flying was not known until centuries
>after.
CROW: EET EES BALLOOOOON!!!
> What is definitely known is that the earliest settlers
>were of a purely fighting race.
MIKE: Klingons?
>An Atlantean Homer,
TOM (Homer): D'oh! Why you little...
> Ylo, has described the first battle in such
>detail as to leave no doubt that he is retelling facts--a marked
>contradiction to his earlier books.
CROW: Which had hobbits and dwarves and stuff.
> There appear to have been
>but few Atlanteans, unless the names given are those of chiefs,
>which internal evidence contraverts. Their valour seems to have
>been prodigious. The natives were armed with every possible
>instrument of precision, having cavalry and artillery in
>abundance,
MIKE: It's the Atlantean militia!
> as well as weapons that must have been as superior to
>the modern rifle (unless Ylo exaggerates)
TOM: Oh, THAT doesn't seem likely, now does it?
MIKE (singing): The call him mellow Ylo!
TOM: I THINK we have reached our Donavan quota for this experiment, Mike.
> as that is to the
>arquebus.
CROW: I think we're all bozos on this arquebus.
> In spite of this the men of Atlas 'smote them with
>rods' or 'fell upon them with their cones',
ALL: EWWWWWWWWW!
MIKE (Beldar): We're from France!
> and routed them
>utterly. This mention of rods and cones has absurdly suggested
>to commentators that the Atlanteans used their eyes, and
>hypnotised the enemy. To state such an opinion is sufficient to
>expose its author to the contempt of the thoughtful.
TOM: And we all know how painful THAT can be!
> Altogether
>86 battles were fought, extending over five years, before the
>natives were reduced to sue for peace.
CROW: I'm Doug Llewellen, and tonight on The People's Court, The Case of
the Angry Atlanteans!
> This was granted on
>generous terms, which the colonists broke, as soon as they dared
>to do so, in accordance with the invariable rule of colonists,
>then as much as today. However, it was nigh on a hundred years
>before the first college of magic was established.
MIKE: Once that happened, all they did was play Magic all the time.
> Previously
>the Atla had been carried about as occasion demanded. It was
>now enshrined with some decency of ceremonial upon a mountain.
>About three hundred years later we find ourselves face to face
>with the first great Mystery of Atlas. This is a translation of
>the record of that most strange event.
>"Now it came to pass that all men turned black and died, and
>that the living Atla abode alone, bearing Mercury, whereof the
>Sun knoweth. Thus came again the true men of Atlas, and their
>women, bearing gods and goddesses. And the void suffered
>nothing, and the earth was at peace. Now then indeed arose Art,
CROW: And his buddy Paul, and they sang the "57th Street Bridge Song."
>and men builded, being blind. And there was light, and some of
>the light wrought mischief. Wherefore the wise men destroyed
>them with their magic, and there is no record because it is
>written in that which is." A sort of 'Si monumentum quaeris,
>circumspice' seems here implied.
TOM: It certainly does!! You are so right!
MIKE: Tom, I'm getting worried about you.
> In any case there were clearly
>two gaps unbridge able between the early struggles of the
>settlers, the period of great buildings, and the modern period,
>which proved stable of 'houses'. The 'houses' were only made
>possible by the perfecting of Zro, and this helps considerably
>to fix the date.
CROW: I'm just going to nod my head like understand...
To be continued...
Sampo
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I've undergone a complex personal evolution wherein painful confusion has
given way to what I like to think of as some degree of wisdom, culminating
in my current Zarathustrian sense of self. Is that it?
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