Tuesday 2 May 2017

Aglæca/æglæca



"Until the late 1970s, all scholarship on Grendel’s mother and translations of the phrase “aglæc-wif” were influenced by the edition of noted Beowulf scholar Frederick Klaeber. His edition, Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, has been considered a standard in Beowulf scholarship since its first publication in 1922. According to Klaeber’s glossary, “aglæc-wif” translates as:wretch, or monster of a woman.” Klaeber’s glossary also defines “aglæca/æglæca” as “monster, demon, fiend” when referring to Grendel or Grendel’s mother and as “warrior, hero” when referring to the character Beowulf.

Klaeber has influenced many translations of Beowulf. Notable interpretations of “aglæc-wif” which follow Klaeber include “monstrous hell bride” (Heaney), “monster-woman” (Chickering) “woman, monster-wife” (Donaldson), “Ugly troll-lady” (Trask)  and “monstrous hag” (Kennedy).

Doreen M.E. Gillam’s 1961 essay, “The Use of the Term ‘Æglæca’ in Beowulf at Lines 893 and 2592,” explores Klaeber’s dual use of the term “aglæca/æglæca” for the heroes Sigemund and Beowulf as well as for Grendel and Grendel’s mother.

She argues that “aglæca/æglæca” is used in works besides Beowulf to reference both “devils and human beings”. She further argues that this term is used to imply “supernatural,” “unnatural” or even “inhuman” characteristics, as well as hostility towards other creatures.

Gillam suggests: “Beowulf, the champion of men against monsters, is almost inhuman himself. [Aglæca/æglæca] epitomises, in one word, the altogether exceptional nature of the dragon fight. Beowulf, the champion of good, the ‘monster’ amongst men, challenges the traditional incarnation of evil, the Dragon: æglæca meets æglæcan.”

Faith, Hope and Your New National Health Service




11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

It worked for Joe Smith

12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

Faith, Hope, Your New National Health Service;
And The Greatest of These is...








The start of the NHS 1948

Text of the public leaflet issued at the start of the NHS February 1948

The New National Health Service
*
Your new National Health Service begins on 5th July. What is it? How do you get it?

It will provide you with all medical, dental and nursing care. 

Everyone – rich or poor, man, woman or child-can use it or any part of it. There are no charges, except for a few special items. 

There are no insurance qualifications. But it is not a “charity”. 

You are all paying for it, mainly as tax payers, and it will relieve your money worries in time of illness.

Choose your Doctor Now
You and everyone in your family will be entitled to all usual advice and treatment from a family doctor. Everyone aged 16 and over can choose his or her own doctor. A family need not all have the same doctor, but parents or guardians choose for children under 16.

Your dealings with your doctor will remain as they are now: 

personal and confidential. You will visit his surgery, or he will call on you, as may be necessary. The difference is that the doctor will be paid by the Government, out of funds provided by everybody.

Choose a doctor now- ask him to be your doctor under the new arrangements. Many will choose their present doctors. Any doctor can decline to accept a patient. If one doctor cannot accept you, ask another, or ask to be put in touch with one by the new “Executive Council” which has been set up in your area (you can get its address from the Post Office).

If you are already on a doctor’s list under the old National Health Insurance Scheme, now is the time to decide. Get an application form for each member of the family from the doctor you choose, or from any Post Office, Executive Council Office, or public library. Fill in the forms and give them to the doctor.

Later, your local Executive Council will send a “medical card” to everyone who has been accepted by a doctor. If you want to change your doctor, you can do so at any time without difficulty. If you need a doctor when away from your own district, you can go to any doctor who is taking part in the new arrangements. You will not have to pay.

Help to have the Scheme ready by 5th July by choosing your doctor at once.

For any further information about these arrangements, ask at the offices of the local Executive Council.

Maternity Services
An expectant mother can have the services of a doctor who undertakes maternity work (whether he is her usual doctor or not), and of a midwife, as well as general care before and after confinement. If her usual doctor does not undertake maternity work, he, or the Welfare Centre, will put the expectant mother in touch with another doctor. It will be the doctor’s responsibility, with a midwife, to give all proper care and ( if he considers it necessary or is called in by the midwife) to be present at the confinement.

Hospital and Specialist Services
You will also be entitled to all forms of treatment in general or special hospitals, whether as an in-patient or as an out-patient. These include, for instance, maternity care, sanatorium care, care of mental health, and all surgical operations.

Medicines, Drugs and Appliances
Your doctor will give you a prescription for any medicines and drugs you need. You can get these free from any chemist who takes part in the Scheme. In some country areas the doctor himself may dispense medicines.

The same is true for all necessary appliances. Some of them will be obtainable through hospitals; some your doctor can prescribe for you. There will be no charge, unless careless breakage causes earlier replacement than usual.

Care of the Teeth
A dental service will be provided, but at present there are too few dentists to make a full service available to all without delay.

After 5th July you can go to any dentist taking part in the new arrangements (there will be a list at your Post Office). You need no application form. Just call, by appointment, on the dentist of your choice when you need him. At his surgery you and he will sign a form for your treatment under the new arrangements. All necessary fillings and dentures will be supplied without fee, but if you want anything specially expensive, and beyond what is necessary, you will pay the extra cost yourself.

Until a full dental service, without delays, can be made available, a special priority service for expectant and nursing mothers and young children is being organised by local authorities (in addition to the school dental service). Full information about this priority service can be obtained at Welfare Centres.

Care of the Eyes
Care of the eyes will be undertaken by specialists at hospitals, or at special clinics which will be part of the hospital service, as fast as these can be organised. Meanwhile a Supplementary Eye Service will be available after 5th July.

First get a recommendation from your family doctor that your eyes need testing. Then hand that recommendation to any doctor with special qualifications (lists will be available) or to any ophthalmic optician taking part in the new service.. If you need glasses, these will be provided without charge. For re-testing you can go direct to any of the doctors with special qualifications, or to an ophthalmic optician.

The National Health Service will provide several kinds of spectacles of different types. For specially expensive types you will have to pay the extra cost.

Deafness
Specialist ear clinics will be established as resources allow. At them you will get not only an expert opinion upon deafness but also, if necessary, a new hearing aid invented by a special committee of the Medical Research Council. Production of these aids is now going on, but will not meet all demands at once. They will be supplied free, when ready, together with a reasonable allowance of maintenance batteries

Home Health Services
Special premises known as Health Centres may later be opened in your district. Doctors may be accommodated there instead of in their own surgeries, but you will still have “your own doctor” to give you personal and confidential treatment. He will still come to your home as necessary. At the Health Centre he will be able to use equipment supplied from public funds. These Centres may also offer dentistry and other services on the spot.

Prepared by the Central Office of Information for the Ministry of Health
(83077) Wt.39168 2/48 Hw.

William Probert


Can't you guess...?


To the Cymmrarodorion Society, in London.

GENTLEMEN, 

A descendant of the old Silurians presents himself before you with becoming deference, and very respectfully dedicates his translation of the Welsh Laws to your patronage. 

You, Gentlemen, have set a noble example of patriotism and of true greatness. The efforts you are making to recover the precious, literary productions of our beloved country from decay and oblivion, demand the thanks of every Welshman.

I hope that the praise-worthy example you have exhibited, will rouse the dormant spirit of the great and the affluent in the Principality, and induce them so to co-operate with you, that the Genius of Cambria may awake from the slumber of ages, shake off that darkness and false taste which Gothic barbarity and tyranny imposed upon her, and re-assume her ancient and splendid greatness.

I am,

Gentlemen,
With all due respect,
Your obedient, humble Servant,

WILLIAM PROBERT

Melchizedek The Dark Visitor


The Chin :
Don't Be a Monk...




Six

B C N U
B C N U



The Motley Fool:
Peri. 

PERI: 
Yes? 

The Motley Fool:
How did you come by a name like that? 

PERI: 
It's the diminutive of my proper name, Perpugilliam. 

The Motley Fool: 
Indeed. 

" One morn, a peri at the gate of Eden stood disconsolate. "

Who wrote that? 

PERI: 
I haven't the faintest idea. 

The Motley Fool:: 
Of course you don't. 
You don't even know what a peeri  is, do you, Peri

PERI: 
No. 

The Motley Fool:: 
I'll tell you. 
A peeri is a good and beautiful fairy in Persian mythology. 

The interesting thing is, before it became good, it was evil

And that's what you are

Thoroughly evil. 

PERI: 
Doctor, stop it! 

DOCTOR: 
No. No, not even a fairy.

 An alien spy, sent here to spy on me!

Well, we all know the fate of alien spies...!!!

(The Doctor lunges at Peri and grabs her around the throat. She manages to grab the mirror from the console before he throws her to the floor, then she shows him his reflection. He lets her go, recoiling in tears.)

Original Transcription courtesy of
http://www.chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/21-7.htm

The Ultimate Foe :
The Motley Fool (6) and The Evil One



VALEYARD: 

Why waste your breath on that simple minded oaf? 

 You cannot speak as though reality is a one-dimensional concept. 

 Fortunately, there is a reality that you and I can both agree on. 
The Ultimate Reality. 


The Motley Fool
Death?
VALEYARD: 
The Undiscovered Country - from whose bourn no traveller returns. 


The Motley Fool
:
 Puzzles the will. Hamlet, Act Three Scene One.
VALEYARD: 
I really must curb these urges. 
I've no wish to be contaminated by your whims and idiosyncrasies. 


The Motley Fool
Quite so. But what I don't comprehend... 

GLITZ: 
He's over here, Doc. Slippery customer, your other persona. 


The Motley Fool
What I don't comprehend is why you want me dead. 

No. No, let me rephrase that. 

It would satisfy my curiosity to know why you should go to such extraordinary lengths to kill me

VALEYARD: 
Come now, Doctor. 

How else can I obtain my freedom, operate as a complete entity, unfettered by your side of my existence? 

Only by ridding myself of you and your misplaced morality, your constant crusading, your...

GLITZ: 
Idiotic honesty? 

VALEYARD: 
Oaf. Microbe. 

GLITZ: 
Pardon me for trying to help. I'm neutral in this set-up, you know. 

VALEYARD: 
Only by releasing myself from the misguided maxims that you nurture can I be free. 

GLITZ: 
Sounds to me like Armageddon's beckoning you, Doc. 

VALEYARD: 
With you destroyed and no longer able to constrain me, and with unlimited access to the Matrix, there will be nothing beyond my reach. 

Original Transcription courtesy of
http://www.chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/23-4.htm

The Hex on Planet 6

Well - so, that was unlucky...

The Shadow Knows


Remember that old radio show that went 



"Who Knows
What Evil Lurks in the Minds of Men...?



 The Shadow Knows...".?


Well this is not necessarily about evil but it is about
an intelligence that lurks in the minds of all of us.


Carl Jung called it The Shadow and its really there
and it does know.


Saturnalia







Yes, because in 1963, they saw "Lolita" and thought THIS IS THE GUY WE NEED..!!

This is the guy for The Job!!

Well, the chronology in the song presents it as "We gotta get the President out of the way and hire Stanley Kubrick".

You know - the Spartacus guy...!

All of which Kubrick/Apollo nonsense is, for me, a MASSIVE distraction from the REAL question :

 Why is Stanley so afraid of Saturn...?



The God who ate all his own children and castrated his own father with a scythe in his sleep to steal his power and his throne -

Well - Wouldn't You Be...?

III - BETWEEN PLANETS

 15 - Discovery

 The ship was still only thirty days from Earth, yet David Bowman sometimes found it hard to believe that be had ever known any other existence than the closed little world of Discovery. All his years of training, all his earlier missions to the Moon and Mars, seemed to belong to another man, in another life.

 Frank Poole admitted to the same feelings, and had sometimes jokingly regretted that the nearest psychiatrist was the better part of a hundred million miles away. But this sense of isolation and estrangement was easy enough to understand, and certainly indicated no abnormality.

 In the fifty years since men had ventured into space, there had never been a mission quite like this.

 It had begun, five years ago, as Project Jupiter - the first manned round trip to the greatest of the planets. The ship was nearly ready for the two-year voyage when, somewhat abruptly, the mission profile had been changed.

 Discovery would still go to Jupiter; but she would not stop there. She would not even slacken speed as she raced through the far-ranging Jovian satellite system. On the contrary - she would use the gravitational field of the giant world us a sling to cast her even farther from the Sun.

 Like a comet, she would streak on across the outer reaches of the solar system to her ultimate goal, the ringed glory of Saturn. And she would never return.

 For Discovery, it would be a one-way trip - yet her crew had no intention of committing suicide. If all went  well, they would be back on Earth within seven years - five of which would pass like a flash in the dreamless sleep of hibernation, while they awaited rescue by the still unbuilt Discovery II.

 The word "rescue" was carefully avoided in all the Astronautics Agency's statements and documents; it implied some failure of planning, and the approved jargon was "re-acquisition." If anything went really wrong, there would certainly be no hope of rescue, almost a billion miles from Earth.

 It was a calculated risk, like all voyages into the unknown. But half a century of research had proved that artificially induced human hibernation was perfectly safe, and it had opened up new possibilities in space travel. Not until this mission, however, had they been exploited to the utmost.

 The three members of the survey team, who would not be needed until the ship entered her final orbit around Saturn, would sleep through the entire outward flight. Tons of food and other expendables would thus be saved; almost as important, the team would be fresh and alert, and not fatigued by the ten-month voyage, when they went into action.

 Discovery would enter a parking orbit around Saturn, becoming a new moon of the giant planet.

 She would swing back and forth along a two-million-mile ellipse that took her close to Saturn, and then across the orbits of all its major moons. They would have a hundred days in which to map and study a world with eighty times the area of Earth, and surrounded by a retinue of at least fifteen known satellites - one of them as large as the planet Mercury.



19 - Transit of Jupiter

 Even front twenty million miles away, Jupiter was already the most conspicuous object in the sky ahead. The planet was now a pale, salmon-hued disk, about half the size of the Moon as seen from Earth, with the dark, parallel bands of its cloud belts clearly visible.

 Shuttling back and forth in the equatorial plane were the brilliant stars of Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto - worlds that elsewhere would have counted as planets in their own right, but which here were merely satellites of a giant master.

Through the telescope, Jupiter was a glorious sight - a mottled, multicolored globe that seemed to fill the sky. It was impossible to grasp its real size; Bowman kept reminding himself that it was eleven times the diameter of Earth, but for a long time this was a statistic with no real meaning.

 Then, while he was briefing himself from the tapes in Hal's memory units, he found something that suddenly brought the appalling scale of the planet into focus. It was an illustration that showed the Earth's entire surface peeled off and then pegged, like the skin of an animal, on the disk of Jupiter. Against this background, all the continents and oceans of Earth appeared no larger than India on the terrestrial globe.

 When Bowman used the highest magnification of Discovery's telescopes, he appeared to be hanging above a slightly flattened globe, looking down upon a vista of racing clouds that had been smeared into bands by the giant world's swift rotation. Sometimes those bands congealed into wisps and knots and continent-sized masses of colored vapor; sometimes they were linked by transient bridges thousands of miles in length. Hidden beneath those clouds was enough material to outweigh all the other planets in the Solar System. And what else, Bowman wondered, was also hidden there?

 Over this shifting, turbulent roof of clouds, forever hiding the real surface of the planet, circular patterns of darkness sometimes glided. One of the inner moons was transiting the distant sun, its shadow marching beneath it over the restless Jovian cloudscape.

 There were other, and far smaller, moons even out here - twenty million miles from Jupiter.

 But they were only flying mountains, a few dozen miles in diameter, and the ship would pass nowhere near any of them. Every few minutes the radar transmitter would gather its strength and send out a silent thunderclap of power; no echoes of new satellites came pulsing back from the emptiness.

 What did come, with ever growing intensity, was the roar of Jupiter's own radio voice. In 1955, just before the dawn of the space age, astronomers had been astonished to find that Jupiter was blasting out millions of horsepower on the ten-meter band. It was merely raw noise, associated with haloes of charged particles circling the planet like the Van Allen belts of Earth, but on a far greater scale.

 Sometimes, during lonely hours on the control deck, Bowman would listen to this radiation. He would turn up the gain until the room filled with a crackling, hissing roar; out of this background, at irregular intervals, emerged brief whistles and peeps like the cries of demented birds. It was an eerie sound, for it had nothing to do with Man; it was as lonely and as meaningless as the murmur of waves on a beach, or the distant crash of thunder beyond the horizon.

 Even at her present speed of over a hundred thousand miles an hour, it would take Discovery almost two weeks to cross the orbits of all the Jovian satellites. More moons circled Jupiter than planets orbited the Sun; the Lunar Observatory was discovering new ones every year, and the tally had now reached thirty-six. The outermost - Jupiter XXVII - moved backwards in an unstable path nineteen million miles from its temporary master. It was the prize in a perpetual tug-of-war between Jupiter and the Sun, for the planet was constantly capturing short-lived moons from the asteroid belt, and losing them again after a few million years. Only the inner satellites were its permanent property; the Sun could never wrest them from its grasp.

 Now there was new prey for the clashing gravitation at fields, Discovery was accelerating toward Jupiter along a complex orbit computed months ago by the astronomers on Earth, and constantly checked by Hal. From time to time there would be minute, automatic nudges from the control jets, scarcely perceptible aboard the ship, as they made fine adjustments to the trajectory.

 Over the radio link with Earth, information was flowing back in a constant stream. They were now so far from home that, even traveling at the speed of light, their signals were taking fifty minutes for the journey. Though the whole world was looking over their shoulder, watching through their eyes and their instruments as Jupiter approached, it would be almost an hour before the news of their discoveries reached home.


The telescopic cameras were operating constantly as the ship cut across the orbit of the giant inner satellites - every one of them larger than the Moon, every one of them unknown territory.

 Three hours before transit, Discovery passed only twenty thousand miles from Europa, and all instruments were aimed at the approaching world, as it grew steadily in size, changed from globe to crescent, and swept swiftly sunward.

 Here were fourteen million square miles of land which, until this moment, had never been more than a pinhead in the mightiest telescope. They would race past it in minutes, and must make the most of the encounter, recording all the information they could. There would be months in which they could play it back at leisure.

 From a distance, Europa had seemed like a giant snowball, reflecting the light of the far-off sun with remarkable efficiency. Closer observations confirmed this; unlike the dusty Moon, Europa was a brilliant white, and much of its surface was covered with glittering hunks that looked like stranded icebergs. Almost certainly, these were formed from ammonia and water that Jupiter's gravitational field had somehow failed to capture.

 Only along the equator was bare rock visible; here was an incredibly jagged no-man's-land of canyons and jumbled boulders, forming a darker band that completely surrounded the little world.
 There were a few impact craters, but no sign of vulcanism; Europa had obviously never possessed any internal sources of heat. There was, as had long been known, a trace of atmosphere. When the dark edge of the satellite passed across a star, it dimmed briefly before the moment of eclipse.

 And in somr areas there was a hint of cloud - perhaps a mist of ammonia droplets, borne on tenuous methane winds.

 As swiftly as it had rushed out of the sky ahead, Europa dropped astern; and now Jupiter itself was only two hours away. Hal had checked and rechecked the ship's orbit with infinite care, and there was no need for further speed corrections until the moment of closest approach. Yet, even knowing this, it was a strain on the nerves to watch that giant globe ballooning minute by minute. It was difficult to believe that Discovery was not plunging directly into it, and that the planet's immense gravitational field was not dragging them down to destruction. Now was the time to drop the atmospheric probes - which, it was hoped, would survive long enough to send back some information from below the Jovian cloud deck. Two stubby, bomb-shaped capsules, enclosed in ablative heat-shields, were gently nudged into orbits which for the first few thousand miles deviated scarcely at all from that of Discovery.

 But they slowly drifted away; and now, at last, even the unaided eye could see what Hal had been asserting. The ship was in a near-grazing orbit, not a collision one; she would miss the atmosphere. True, the difference was only a few hundred miles - a mere nothing when one was dealing with a planet ninety thousand miles in diameter - but that was enough.

 Jupiter now filled the entire sky; it was so huge that neither mind nor eye could grasp it any longer, and both had abandoned the attempt. If it had not been for the extraordinary variety of color - the reds and pinks and yellows and salmons and even scarlets - of the atmosphere beneath them, Bowman could have believed that he was flying low over a cloudscape on Earth.

 And now, for the first time in all their journeying, they were about to lose the Sun. Pale and shrunken though it was, it had been Discovery's constant companion since her departure from Earth, five months ago. But now her orbit was diving into the shadow of Jupiter; she would soon pass over the night side of the planet.

 A thousand miles ahead, the band of twilight was hurtling toward them; behind, the Sun was sinking swiftly into the Jovian clouds, its rays spread out along the horizon like two flaming, down-turned horns, then contracted and died in a brief blaze of chromatic glory. The night had come.

 And yet - the great world below was not wholly dark. It was awash with phosphorescence, which grew brighter minute by minute as their eyes grew accustomed to the scene. Dim rivers of light were flowing from horizon to horizon, like the luminous wakes of ships on some tropical sea. Here and there they gathered into pools of liquid fire, trembling with vast, submarine disturbances welling up from the hidden heart of Jupiter. It was a sight so awe-inspiring that Poole and Bowman could have stared for hours; was this, they wondered, merely the result of chemical and electrical forces down there in that seething caldron - or was it the by-product of some fantastic form of life? 

These were questions which scientists might still be debating when the newborn century drew to its close.

 As they drove deeper and deeper into the Jovian night, the glow beneath them grew steadily brighter.
 Once Bowman had flown over northern Canada during the height of an auroral display; the snowcovered landscape had been as bleak and brilliant as this. And that arctic wilderness, he reminded himself, was more than a hundred degrees warmer than the regions over which they were hurtling now.

 "Earth signal is fading rapidly," announced Hal. "We are entering the first diffraction zone."

 They had expected this - indeed, it was one of the mission's objectives, as the absorption of radio waves would give valuable information about the Jovian atmosphere. But now that they had actually passed behind the planet, and it was cutting off communication with Earth, they felt a sudden overwhelming loneliness. The radio blackout would last only an hour; then they would emerge from Jupiter's eclipsing screen, and could resume contact with the human race. That hour, however, would be one of the longest of their lives.

 Despite their relative youth, Poole and Bowman were veterans of a dozen space voyages, but now they felt like novices. They were attempting something for the first lime; never before had any ship traveled at such speeds, or braved so intense a gravitational field. The slightest error in navigation at this critical point and Discovery would go speeding on toward the far limits of the Solar System, beyond any hope of rescue.
 The slow minutes dragged by. Jupiter was now a vertical wall of phosphorescence stretching to infinity above them - and the ship was climbing straight up its glowing face. Though they knew that they were moving far too swiftly for even Jupiter's gravity to capture them, it was hard to believe that Discovery had not become a satellite of this monstrous world.

 At last, far ahead, there was a blaze of light along the horizon. They were emerging from shadow, heading out into the Sun. And at almost the same moment Hal announced: "I am in radio contact with Earth. I am also happy to say that the perturbation maneuver has been successfully completed. Our time to Saturn is one hundred and sixty-seven days, five hours, eleven minutes."

 That was within a minute of the estimate; the fly-by had been carried out with impeccable precision. Like a ball on a cosmic pool table, Discovery had bounced off the moving gravitational field of Jupiter, and had gained momentum from the impact. Without using any fuel, she had increased her speed by several thousand miles an hour.

 Yet there was no violation of the laws of mechanics; Nature always balances her books, and Jupiter had lost exactly as much momentum as Discovery had gained. The planet had been slowed down - but as its mass was a sextillion times greater than the ship's, the change in its orbit was far too small to be detectable. The time had not yet come when Man could leave his mark upon the Solar System.

As the light grew swiftly around them, and the shrunken Sun lifted once more into the Jovian sky, Poole and Bowman reached out silently and shook each other's hands.

 Though they could hardly believe it, the first part of the mission was safely over.



The Fifth Estate



“Numerology…we’re all becoming ciphers.” 
-Patrick McGoohan

1+1+3 = 5


No.113b
DOES NOT WEAR A BADGE OR NUMBER
Ego Sum Nemo
"I am No-One"
A Nobody



113 : 
I am Number 113, and this is my photographic colleague, Number 113b.

How are you going to handle your campaign? 

6 : 
No Comment. 

113 : 
[writing]
 "Intends to fight for freedom at all... 

113b : 
Smile! 

113 : 
...costs." 

How about your internal policy? 

6 : 
No Comment. 

113 : 
"Will tighten up on Village security." 

113b : 
Smile! 

113 : 
How about your external policy? 

6 : 
No Comment. 

113 : 
"Our exports will operate in every corner of the globe." 

How do you feel about life and death? 

6 : 
Mind your own business. 

113 : 
"No Comment."


The Ganeshlingam in the Room : The Problem of Arthur C. Clark


CHAPTER LV
THE SPELL OF THE MYSTERY.

1. He that hath the Magick powers [Teh] of the Tao is like a young child. Insects will not sting him or beasts or birds of prey attack him.

2. The young child’s bones are tender and its sinews are elastic, but its grasp is firm.

[A baby can hang from a bough for quite an indefinitely long period. This is because of monkey-atavism; in other words, it is the subconscious of the child that is at work. This subconsciousness is of its true nature, therefore, in accord with the Tao.] 

It knoweth nothing of the Union of Man and Woman, yet its Organ may be excited. This is because of its natural perfection. It will cry all day long without becoming hoarse, because of the harmony of its being.

3. He who understandeth this harmony knoweth the mystery of the Tao, and becometh a True Sage. All devices for inflaming life, and increasing the vital Breath, [Prana.] by mental effort [Hatha-Yoga, etc.] are evil and factitious.

4. Things become strong, then age. This [forcing-on of strength instead of allowing natural growth.] is in discord with the Tao, and what is not at one with the Tao soon cometh to an end.

The Cavalry

Modernity and Modernism





“Numerology…we’re all becoming ciphers.” 
-Patrick McGoohan


“In short, The Prisoner attacks modernity on the following grounds:

1. Modernity rests upon a materialistic metaphysics (all is matter), and champions materialism as a way of life (the focus on material comfort and satisfaction).

2. Modernity is spiritually empty (again, no church in the Village); it must deny or destroy what is higher in man.

3. Modernity destroys culture, tradition, and ethnic and national identity in the name of “progress” (called “multiculturalism” and “globalization” today). It is significant that we do not know where the Village is, for modern people are really “nowhere.” As Nietzsche’s “Madman” said, “Where are we headed? Are we not endlessly plunging—backwards, sideways, forwards, in all directions? Is there an up and a down anymore? Do we not wander as if through an endless nothingness? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Hasn’t it grown colder?” (The Gay Science).

4. Modernity promises only trivial freedoms (e.g., the freedom to shop) while suppressing freedom of thought, freedom of religion, freedom of association.

5. Modernity involves the belief that nature (including human nature) is infinitely malleable, open to the endless manipulation and “improvement” of science. In a 1977 interview with Canadian journalist Warner Troyer, McGoohan said, “I think we’re progressing too fast. I think that we should pull back and consolidate the things that we’ve discovered.”

5. Modernity systematically suppresses ideals that rise above material concerns: ideals like honor, and dignity, and loyalty (the Village is filled with traitors).

6. Modernity preaches a contradictory ethos of collectivism, and “looking out for No. 1.”

7.Modernity banishes the sacred, and profanes all through oppressive levity, irony, and irreverence (masking cynicism).

8. Modernity places physical security and comfort above the freedom to be self-determining, to be let alone, and to take risks.

9. Modernity fills the emptiness in people’s lives with noise (the TV and radio you can’t turn off). Silence might start people thinking, which could make them unhappy.

In addition to the hostility to religion, the Village also seems to be hostile to marriage, sex, and procreation. It is not clear whether there are any married couples in the Village. Sex is probably forbidden. No children are seen until “The Girl Who Was Death,” and those children are depicted as living in a kind of barracks. There is a touch of Plato’s Republic in The Prisoner.”

In the final analysis, The Prisoner is about modern man as a dead man.  In his final revolution, the revolution of the solitary, atomized individual unit, there is no “Why?” for this man to be the free individual he imagines himself to be.  He is just as much a prisoner of the dialectic as the collective he opposes, as he has no other higher aims than himself.  When he is enthroned as king, his final revolution results in the launching of a revolution that destroys The Village and launches an ICBM that will presumably destroy London.  Having overcome all his inner demons and the prison of his conscience (that is, the Village and its rovers are 6 grappling with his conscience in the afterlife), and realizing his worst enemy is not the system, the people, or the world, but himself, 6 returns to his old life as No. 1.

In fact, the address to 6’s apartment was always “No. 1.”  In like manner, modernity’s “revolution” in the global village, is the revolution of a meaningless numerological quantification where being “No. 1” means nothing more than being No. 2 or No. 86 in a world divested of any meaning beyond the individual’s competing ego desires.  While The Prisoner is a treatise against the collective, it is also a warning to unfettered, meaningless individualism. 

McGoohan foresaw the coming age of dystopian control where all of us would be tracked by a numerological cipher, under the “wandering stars” of the stellar luminaries that emblazon the heavens of the surveillance dome of the Village.  In biblical symbology, the celestial luminaries are guided by angelic intelligences, or Watchers that correspond to earthly potentates. 

In the Village, the control grid of the Watchers is primarily technological and scientific, where man has been converted into a generic number in a long set of numbers, as if he were himself a cipher to be decoded and programmed.

“Numerology…we’re all becoming ciphers.” 
-Patrick McGoohan


Oppositional and defiant. No. 6 
Oppositional and defiant. No. 6 “Fights The System.”
By: Jay Dyer