PRIOR CHAPTER

-------------------------------  

The Climax    

-------------------------------  

 

Now is the time the old gods return

- Blue Oyster Cult

The Old Gods Return

 

howling

- TV on the Radio

Wolf Like Me

 

mad (adj.)

Late 13c., from Old English gemædde (plural)

“out of one’s mind” (usually implying also violent excitement),

also “foolish, extremely stupid,” earlier gemæded “rendered insane,”

past participle of a lost verb *gemædan "to“make insane or foolish,”

from proto-Germanic *ga-maid-jan, demonstrative form

of *ga-maid-az “changed (for the worse), abnormal”

(cognates: Old Saxon gimed “foolish,” Old High German gimeit

“foolish, vain, boastful,” Gothic gamaiþs “crippled, wounded,”

Old Norse meiða “to hurt, maim”), from intensive prefix

*ga- + PIE *moito, past participle of root *mei- (1) “to change”

(cognates: Latin mutare “to change,” mutuus “done in exchange,”

migrare “to change one’s place of residence;”

- www.etymonline.com/?search=mad

 

ecstasy (n.)

late 14c., extasie “elation,”

from Old French estaise “ecstasy, rapture,”

from Late Latin exstasis, from Greek ekstasis

 “entrancement, astonishment, insanity;

any displacement or removal from the proper place,”

in New Testament “a trance,”

from existanai “displace, put out of place,”

also “drive out of one’s mind”

(existanai phrenon) from ek “out” (see ex-)

+ histanai “to place, to cause to stand out,”

from PIE root *sta- “to stand” (see stet).

Used by 17c. mystical writers

for “a state of rapture that stupefied the body

while the soul contemplated divine things,”

- www.etymonline.com/?search=ecstasy

 

he metaphorically became as one with the Tree of Life. 

Osiris became the Axis Munde

around which the heavens appear to revolve;

he became the World Pillar,

the link between the terrestrial and celestial worlds. 

- ancientegypt.hypermart.net/treeoflife/

 

The universe has no center

-- Shipquotes

- Frank Herbert & Bill Ransom

The Jesus Incident

 

The old gods laugh

- Blue Oyster Cult

The Old Gods Return

 

I am drowning in noise.

- Simon Buxton

The Shamanic Way of the Bee

 

My heart going boom, boom, boom.

- Peter Gabriel

Solsbury Hill

 

They’ve come to take me home.

- Peter Gabriel

Solsbury Hill

 

-------------------------------  

 

     The drums beat on as the blue gnome priests danced around him.  Two of the more ancient and wizened priests motioned for Louis to kneel down before them.   Louis chose to accept his fate. What would you do?  Escape?  Fight?  Louis felt no such instinct.  He was at peace.  He dropped to his knees as the elders instructed. 

     The two gnarled and wrinkled blue gnomes draped a large, red fish-skin cloak over Louis’ shoulders with ceremonial solemnity. Another elder stepped forward, stretched up, and placed a bull-horned crown adorned with blue feathers on Louis’ head.  The last blood-red and royal-purple rays of sunset scintillated off the scales of the ritual robe.  Louis imagined he looked not unlike a large ruby gemstone or a fiery horned-serpent. 

     The high priestess took hold of his hand, and led him to the base of the idol.  Louis followed obediently.  He would have done what she asked even if he’d been given a choice in the matter.   Her attendant priests helped tie Louis to a timber crucifix in the shape of an “X”.  The fibrous ropes were left loose. Physical restraints were entirely unnecessary.

     The sweet, mind-altering smoke swirling from the lidded cauldron engulfed him as it was brought before the idol and the sacrifice.  Wholly in the cloud, Louis momentarily lost sight of the world around him.  Louis struggled to keep from howling with laughter as the mad ecstasy took hold of him. 

-------------------------------  

 

the other initiates danced around him

in hieroglyphic measures.  It may be imagined

that solemnities of this nature would easily degenerate

into orgies of the most immoral tendency,

as the ancient faith and reverence for sacred things perished,

and such was really the case.  Still,

the primitive institution was pure in form

and beautiful in its mystic signification,

- Lewis Spence 

An Encyclopedia of Occultism

 

-------------------------------  

 

     TAAANNNGGG!!!

     A metallic ringing sounded as a gnome priest struck the cauldron’s lid with an oversized mallet.  Fiery embers shot out, swarming around the giant wooden idol like angry bees.  Louis felt their sharp sting wherever his flesh lay bare and unprotected by his dragon cloak.  His eyes were forced open by the searing pain.  Louis now understood the practical reason the priests covered their bodies in the thick, blue, protective paste.  The blue gnomes felt no pain as they danced in the fiery rain, disappearing into the clouds of smoke before reemerging, leaping and somersaulting. 

     After the initial surprise, Louis ignored the burning stings.  The pain was fleeting.  He wasn’t afraid.  He had accepted his fate.  He smiled a crooked, crescent moon grin and howled out loud as he turned his mind inward.  He was at peace, even as the first flickering tongues of flame began to lick up around him.  

 

-------------------------------  

 

The general idea represented was

the passage through death to a higher life,

and while the outward senses were held

in the thrall of magnetism, it is probable

that revelations, good and evil, were made

to the high priests of these ceremonies.  

- Lewis Spence 

An Encyclopedia of Occultism

 

I was one with them;

wearing their inhuman trappings,

treading their aqueous ways,

and praying monstrously

at their evil sea-bottom temples.

- H.P. Lovecraft

The Shadow over Innsmouth

 

I wait on you inside

- Missio

Bottom of the Deep Blue Sea

 

hidden in the depths

- Frank Herbert & Bill Ransom

The Jesus Incident

 

-------------------------------  

 

     Deep within his ecstatic trance, Louis never heard the drums stop their beating.  All he could hear was his heart. 

     Boom!  Boom!  Boom! 

     The pulsing rythmn of his blood drowned out everything else.  He didn’t hear the growling roar of the the wall of rushing water growing ever closer. He didn’t hear the chanting of the gnomes go suddenly silent as the tsunami washed over them all.  It wouldn’t have mattered if he had.  Fate doesn’t care whether or not you accept it.  

     You’d have to be mad or dreaming to think otherwise. 

 

-------------------------------  

 

here comes this rising

- Fallout Boy

The Phoenix

 

tidal wave of mystery

- Capital Cities

Safe and Sound

a tsunami,

a deluge that rages

forward with unstoppable force!

- Dan Brown

Origin

 

A Wall of Green Water

Destroying Everything in Its Path

- Graham Hancock

Magicians of the Gods

 

And reality twisted...

- A.E. Von Vogt

Earth Factor X 

 

forever

- TV on the Radio

Wolf Like Me

Now he stands underneath the water.

- Australian Aboriginal myth of Cycad Man

in Ronald M. Berndt’s

The Speaking Land

 

Overhead was the sea like a sky

- William Butler Yeats

Irish Fairy & Folk Tales 

 

Now, something is happening.

- The Very Best

Warm Heart of Africa

 

A fundamental change in approach

or underlying assumptions.

- www.oxforddictionaries.comus/definition/american_english/paradigm-shift

 

A scientific revolution occurs, according to Kuhn,

when scientists encounter anomalies that cannot be explained

by the universally accepted paradigm within

which scientific progress has thereto been made.

The paradigm,

in Kuhn’s view,

is not simply the current theory,

but the entire worldview in which it exists,

and all of the implications which come with it.

- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift

 

 “Shifts happen.”

- Mission Control

E.T. 101

 

paradigm (n.)

late 15c., from Late Latin paradigm “pattern, example,”

especially in grammar, from Greek paradeigma

“pattern, model; precedent, example,”

from paradeiknyna “exhibit, represent,

” literally “show side by side,” from para- “beside”

(see para- (1)) + deiknyna “to show”

(cognate with Latin dicere “to show;” 

from PIE root *deik- "to show,"

also "pronounce solemnly").

- www.etymonline.com/?search=paradigm

 

Old High German zeigon, German zeigen “to show,”

Old English teon “to accuse,” tæcan “to teach”).

- www.etymonline.com/word/*deik-

 

the science

- Justice

Civilization

 

in a way unknown

to almost everyone.  

Clandestinely

the ships raised their sails,

the swimmers continued

to teach

swimming

- Idries Shah

The Sufis

-------------------------------  

NEXT CHAPTER