????

"There's no way to rule innocent men ... but just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted, and you create a nation of law-breakers, and then you cash in on the guilt."

ANONIMOUS




First it starts in his chest. His breathing tightens and there is a
sensation which could only be described as a mixture of panic and
pleasure. If the shot is really good, it knocks the wind out of him,
and his heart stutters for a second. This is one of the best parts,
because it is right before the rush hits his head, and he has a
blissful anticipation of what's going to come. It then moves into his
mouth - he can taste the heroin inside of him. His whole body
tightens, but tightening adds to the pleasure of release. It makes him
think of the beginning of the universe - compression, light, and then
an explosion of stars into the void.

Finally it hits his head. A wave, the true apex of bodily pleasure and
psychic euphoria, washes over his body. Every iota of ugliness and
pain that he carries melts away in a sigh, to nothing. It is replaced
by warmth, all that is pure and good, happy and hazy and colorful. All
that is complete in itself, all that needs nothing. History is
rewritten; truly nothing bad has ever happened to him - not that it
matters, since the present is the only point in time he has ever lived
in. He is glowing in mind, body and soul. As though he has ascended to
a higher state of being, rinsing off all the baseness of human
existence and finding a perfect angelic being underneath, who can live
in peace and contentment in its own dreams.

Dramatic, no?

And now, the ballad of the question
What keeps mankind alive?

You gentlemen who think you have a mission
To purge us of the seven deadly sins
Should first sort out the basic food position
Then start your preaching, that's where it all begins

You lot who preach restraint and watch your waist as well
Should learn for once the way the world is run
However much you twist, or whatever lies you tell
Food is the first thing, morals follow on

So first be sure that those, who are now starving
Get proper helpings, when we all start carving

What keeps mankind alive?
What keeps mankind alive, the fact that millions
Are daily tortured, starved, silenced, and oppressed
Mankind can keep alive, thanks to his aptitude
For keeping his humanity repressed
And now for once, you must try to face the facts
Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts
And now for once, you must try to face the facts
Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts

That day we were awakened at three. The day of the execution was probably July 10, 1941. At first we were ordered to line up, armed with "98" rifles and ammunition. The task was to take all the males in the Jewish neighborhood out in the streets. The could get dressed and take as much luggage as they could carry. We were told that Jews were being sent to work in Germany...
The gathering of Jews and their arrangement in the streets inside the Jewish neighborhood went on until six in the morning. Part of our battalion was sent to the site of the execution in trucks. The rest guarded Jews on their way there.

The site was located to the south of Brest-Litovsk, outside the forts, and looked like dunes. A ride to this place from the downtown would take fifteen minutes.

When we arrived, i.e., at 6:30, we were met by an SS unit, obviously a company. The SS soldiers, armed with sub-machine guns surrounded an area (a circle) 600 meters in diameter. Besides the SS, there were SD soldiers in gray uniforms. Judging by what I heard later, these units, after the execution of the men, took care of the women and children who were brought by SS units to the site of the execution after noon. These soldiers were also armed with automatic weapons.

There were twelve ditches: ten meters in length, 2.5 meters in width, and three to four meters deep. I think one could fit 600 corpses in such a pit. To avoid a mistake concerning the number of Jews that were shot that day (since I gave the figure of 10,000 before), I want to emphasize that during the described action about 6,000 male Jews were shot. From later discussions I learned that the figure was 10,000.

We did not have chloride or lime or any other disinfectants. Shortly after we had arrived, a big column of Jews came from the town. It was stopped about 300 meters from the ditches. While the Jews were turning in their luggage, platoon commanders designated shooting soldiers. After this we were given instructions on how the execution should be conducted...

According to the instructions, groups of fifty people were taken to the ditches and laid down on both sides of them, face to the ground, so that their heads stuck out above the pits. Behind each Jew there was a designated soldier with a "98" rifle, bayonet attached. A shot was made as following: the tip of the bayonet was put to the back of a victim's head. After this, a rifle was to be moved to an angle of forty-five degrees, and a shot was to be fired. It often happened that a skull was torn off along a bullet path. From time to time, if an angle was too wide or a victim was holding his head too high during a shot, a bullet would go through the neck. In such cases an officer or a platoon commander would finish off victims, shooting them from hand guns.

We soldiers had to throw corpses into the ditches. No one was putting the corpses into stacks. In such fashion the execution went on until the afternoon. In the beginning, one of the long sides of a ditch would be approached by ten to twelve men to be shot. But later it became impossible to maintain such a uniform rate, and the shooting became sporadic.

The Jews were dressed when approaching the pits. They did not need to undress in advance. This action ended by 4 p.m. After it ended we were taken back to barracks in trucks. Our service for the day was over.

As far as I remember, we did not get any food and, this is for sure, alcoholic beverages during the day. There were no festivities.

We were not to keep the action secret. There were no discussions among us servicemen after the action. And if there were, then only condemning it.

Almost all of the Jews that I am describing accepted their fate with stoicism and heroic self-control. I personally lived throughout this in a state of trance and could not help being amazed by the Jews.

From the testimony of Heinrich, a serviceman in the 307 police battalion, concerning the massacre of the Brest-Litovsk Jews on July 10, 1941.

On the day specified, the gas van arrived from Cherkessk with a driver and his co-driver. An Untersturmfuhrer accompanied them in an automobile. He was to supervise the operation. On the mayor's orders, the Jews assembled in the freight shed of the railroad station. It is not true that I reassured the Jews by telling them they had to climb into the gas vans so that they could be taken to be deloused. That was the group's business.

I was standing next to the gas van. It was the first time I had seen one. It is not true that as the van drove off I reassured the Jews by telling them that those who got into the gas van would return. I did not even enter the freight shed where the Jews were waiting, and I do not remember that the van made several trips. The victims had to strip completely before getting into the vehicle. I drove ahead of it to the mass grave, where I had already stationed some of my men. All the Jews who had been assembled - forty to fifty men - had to get into the van. So far as I can remember, the exhaust was diverted into the interior as it approached the mass grave. Then we heard a muffled trampling sound coming from the inside . . . The van remained stationary, with its engine running, near the mass grave for about ten minutes. Then it backed up to the edge of the grace, the rear doors were opened, and the cargo compartment tipped up. This made the victims fall out into the grace. It was at night, by moonlight, that this operation took place.


Johannes Schlupper, Einsatzkommando 12 Cherkessk

One further incident I remember was a large-scale execution by firing-squad which took place at a well on the way to Kachowa. There was a hole in the steppe measuring about six to seven metres on the upper edge. Near by there were piles of grain in rows.

The grain may have been haystacks or rings of sheaves drying out or something else. We Schutzpolizisten were driven to this well in troop carriers. There was not a village in sight for miles. There was not even a barn in the vicinity. The victims - several hundred, or even a thousand, men and women - were transported in trucks. I cannot recall whether there were any children. These people were made to lie or kneel about a hundred metres from the well in a depression which had been hollowed out by the rain and remove their outer garments there. They were lined up ten at a time at the side of the well and were then shot by a ten-man execution squad, which included myself. When they were shot the people fell forwards into the well. Sometimes they were so frightened that they jumped in alive. The firing-squad was switched a great many times. Because of the psychological pressures to which I too was exposed during the shooting I can no longer say today, try as I might, how many times I stood by that hole and how many times I was relieved from that duty.

Obviously these shootings did not proceed in the clam manner in which one can discuss them today. The women screamed and wept and so did the men. Sometimes people tried to escape. The people whose job it was to get them to stand by the well yelled equally loudly. If the victims didn't do as they were told there were also beatings. I particularly remember a red-haired SD man who had a length of cable on him with which he used to beat people when the action was not going as it should. Many, however, came without resistance to the execution area. It is not as though they had any alternative...

The firing-squad at the well consisted of Schutzpolizisten, Waffen-SS personnel and members of the SD. We Schutzpolizisten used our own carbines, the SD men used sub-machine-guns and pistols. At any rate everyone used his own weapon. All the ammunition we needed was kept ready in boxes. The execution area was a terrible sight. The ground round the well was covered in blood; their was also bits of brain on the ground which the victims had to step in when they were brought over. But it wasn't at that point that they realized what lay ahead for them. They could already hear the shooting and screaming from the place where they were kept waiting...

It took barely an afternoon before the last victim was in the well. Something I still remember clearly about this execution is that afterwards the SD people got drunk, so they must have received a special ration of schnapps. We Schutzpolizisten did not receive anything and I remember that we were very angry about that.

Testimony of Schutzpolizist Togel, Einsatzkommando 10a

Blobel ordered me to have the children executed. I asked him, "By whom should the shooting be carried out?" He answered, "By the Waffen-SS." I raised an objection and said, "They are all young men. How are we going to answer them if we make them shoot small children?" To this he said, "Then use your men." I then said, "How can they do that? They have small children as we" This tug-of-war lasted about ten minutes....I suggested that the Ukrainian militia of the Feldkommandant
should shoot the children. There were no objections from either side to the suggestion....

I went to the woods alone. The Wehrmacht had already dug a grave. The children were brought along in a tractor. I had nothing to do with the technical procedure. The Ukrainians were standing around trembling. The children were taken down from the tractor. They were lined up along the top of the grave and shot so that they fell into it. The Ukrainians did not aim at any particular part of the body. They fell into the grave. The wailing was indescribable. I shall never forget the scene throughout my life. I find it very hard to bear. I particularly remember a small fair-haired girl who took me by the hand. She too was shot later....The grave was near some woods. It was not near the rifle range. The execution must have taken place in the afternoon at about 3:30 - 4:00. It took place the day after the discussions at the Feldkommandanten....Many children were hit four or five times before they died.

SS-Oberstrumfuhrer August Hafner description of Paul Blobels's order to kill of children

"aaaah Revenge. i love Revenge. my whole career is based on getting even with the world for giving me a father i couldn't stand. he made me play Football! so, now, as all great Nihilists, i am prepared to smother all scruples, thoughts of kinship, love, friendship, even honor, and commit to destruction alone."

Karl Otto Thane
the man with the Heckler&Koch VP70

COL. AMEN: "5. On 1 December 1943 1 became Chief of Amt 1 in Amt Group D of the WVHA, and in that office was responsible for co-ordinating all matters arising between RSHA and concentration camps under the administration of WVHA. I held this position until the end of the war. Pohl, as Chief of WVHA, and Kaltenbrunner, as Chief of RSHA, often conferred personally and frequently communicated orally and in writing concerning concentration camps. . . ."
You have already told us about the lengthy report which you took to Kaltenbrunner in Berlin, so I will omit the remainder of Paragraph 5.
"6. The 'final solution' of the Jewish question meant the complete extermination of all Jews in Europe. I was ordered to establish extermination facilities at Auschwitz in June 1941. At that time, there were already in the General Government three other extermination camps: Belzek, Treblinka, and Wolzek. These camps were under the Einsatzkommando of the Security Police and SD. I visited Treblinka to find out how they carried out their exterminations. The camp commandant at Treblinka told me that he had liquidated 80,000 in the course of one-half year. He was principally concerned with liquidating all the Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto. He used monoxide gas, and I did not think that his methods were very efficient. So when I set up the extermination building at Auschwitz, I used Cyklon B, which was a crystallized prussic acid which we dropped into the death chamber from a small opening. It took from 3 to 15 minutes to kill the people in the death chamber, depending upon climatic conditions. We knew when the people were dead because their screaming stopped. We usually waited about one-half hour before we opened the doors and removed the bodies. After the bodies were removed our special Kommandos took off the rings and extracted the gold from the teeth of the corpses."
Is that all true and correct, Witness?
HOESS: Yes.
COL. AMEN: Incidentally, what was done with the gold which was taken from the teeth of the corpses, do you know?
HOESS: Yes.
COL. AMEN: Will you tell the Tribunal?
HOESS: This gold was melted down and brought to the Chief Medical Office of the SS at Berlin.
COL. AMEN:
"7 Another improvement we made over Treblinka was that we built our gas chamber to accommodate 2,000 people at one time whereas at Treblinka their 10 gas chambers only accommodated 200 people each. The way we selected our victims was as follows: We had two SS doctors on duty at Auschwitz to examine the incoming transports of prisoners. The prisoners would be marched by one of the doctors who would make spot decisions as they walked by. Those who were fit for work were sent into the camp. Others were sent immediately to the extermination plants. Children of tender years were invariably exterminated since by reason of their youth they were unable to work. Still another improvement we made over Treblinka was that at Treblinka the victims almost always knew that they were to be exterminated and at Auschwitz we endeavored to fool the victims into thinking that they were to go through a delousing process. Of course, frequently they realized our true intentions and we sometimes had riots and difficulties due to that fact. Very frequently women would hide their children under the clothes, but of course when we found them we would send the children in to be exterminated. We were required to carry out these exterminations in secrecy but of course the foul and nauseating stench from the continuous burning of bodies permeated the entire area and all of the people living in the surrounding communities knew that exterminations were going on at Auschwitz."
Is that all true and correct, Witness?
HOESS: Yes.

excerpt from the testimony of Rudolph Hoess at Nuremberg

ENTRAPMENT


Mutiny of self. Insurrection games convincingly performed
Incapacitated by physical thoughts acting out the will of tendon and bone
Have the bridges of insanity been crossed and forever retracted?
Am I standing among a thousand selves? Is the multitude of laughters mine alone?






Thomas Haake

Duh terorizma



Kao i virusi, terorizam je svuda. U toku je planetarno razgranavanje terorizma, koji je poput senke svakog sistema dominacije svuda spreman da se probudi kao dvostruki agent. Nema više demarkacione crte koja bi ga ograničila, on je u samom srcu kulture koja se bori protiv njega, a vidljiva pukotina (mržnja) što suprotstavlja na globalnom planu ugnjetavane i nerazvijene, na jednoj strani, i zapadnjački svet, na drugoj, potajno se nadovezuje na unutrašnju pukotinu u dominantnom sistemu. Ovaj se može odupreti bilo kojem vidljivom antagonizmu. Ali protiv jednog drukčijeg, strukturiranog poput virusa (kao da svaki aparat dominacije luči vlastiti antidispozitiv, ferment vlastitog poništenja) protiv te gotovo automatske reverzije vlastite sile, sistem ne može ništa. A terorizam je udarni talas te tihe revizije.

Prema tome, posredi nije sudar civilizacija niti religija, to nadaleko nadilazi islam i Ameriku, dva elementa na koja se konflikt nastoji da usredsredi da bi se stekla iluzija o jednom vidljivom sukobljavanju i nasilnom rešenju. Posredi je, doduše, temeljni antagonizam, ali koji ukazuje, kroz sablast Amerike (koja je možda epicentar, ali zacelo ne utelovljenje celokupne mondijalizacije) i kroz sablast islama (koji takođe nije utjelovljenje terorizma), na pobedonosnu mondijalizaciju, koja se bori sa sobom samom. U tom smislu i te kako možemo govoriti o svetskom ratu, ali ne o trećem, nego o četvrtom i jedinom istinski svetskom, stoga što je njegov ulog sama mondijalizacija. Prva dva svetska rata su odgovarala klasičnoj slici. Prvi rat je stavio tačku na evropsku prevlast i kolonijalno doba. U drugom je dokrajčen nacizam. Treći, koji je već dogodio u vidu hladnog rata i nuklearnog zastrašivanja, stao je na put komunizmu. Nakon okončanja svakog rata išli smo sve dalje i dalje prema jedinstvenom svetskom poretku. Danas se taj poredak, koji se virtuelno približio površini, uhvatio ukoštac s antagonističkim silama rasutim svuda u samom srcu globalnosti, u svim aktuelnim trzavicama. To je fraktalni rat svih ćelija, singularnosti koje se bune kao protivtela. To je sučeljavanje tako neuhvatljivo da ponekad treba sačuvati ideju o spektakularno predočenom ratu, kao u zalivskom ili avganistanskom primeru. Ali četvrti svetski rat je negde drugde. On ne da mira bilo kakvom svetskom poretku, bilo kojoj hegemonijskoj dominaciji - kad bi islam vladao svetom, terorizam bi se okomio na islam. Jer se upravo sam svet odupire mondijalizaciji.

Terorizam je amoralan. Događaj Svetskog trgovačkog centra, taj simbolički izazov, jeste amoralan i samo je odgovor na mondijalizaciju koja je takođe amoralna. Pa, budimo i mi amoralni i želimo li da nešto od toga shvatimo, bacimo malo pogled pokraj Dobra i Zla! Kad se već suočavamo s događajem koji je izazov ne samo moralu nego svakoj formi imaginacije, pokušajmo da se poslužimo inteligencijom Zla.

Upravo se tu nalazi ključna tačka - u pogrešnom tumačenju zapadnjačke filozofije, filozofije prosvetiteljstva, kad je u pitanju odnos Dobra i Zla. Naivno verujemo da progres Dobra, vrtoglav uspon u svim područjima (nauke, tehnike, demokratije, ljudskih prava), odgovara porazu Zla. Izgleda da niko još nije shvatio da moć Zla i moć Dobra rastu istovremeno, istom dinamikom. Trijumf jednog ne povlači za sobom iščeznuće drugog. Naprotiv. Zlo metafizički smatramo slučajnom penom na ustima, ali je taj aksiom - iz koga proishode sve manihejske forme borbe Dobra i Zla - zabluda. Dobro ne umanjuje Zlo: jedno se ne može svesti na drugo i njihova relacija je nerazmrsiva. U osnovi, Dobro može stati na put Zlu samo ukoliko odbije da bude Dobro, budući da, prisvajajući svetski monopol moći, ono potpaljuje uzvratni plam proporcionalnog nasilja.

U tradicionalnom univerzumu još je prisutan balans između Dobra i Zla, shodno dijalektičkoj relaciji koja je kako-tako garantovala tenziju i ravnotežu u moralnom univerzumu - kao što je u hladnom ratu sučeljavanje dveju supersila garantovalo ravnotežu straha. Dakle, nema prevage. No, tasovi na vagi su se zaljuljali otkako je obavljena totalna ekstrapolacija Dobra (hegemonija pozitivnog nad bilo kojim oblikom negativnosti, isključenje smrti, svake potencijale protivsile - potpuni trijumf vrednosti Dobra). Tako je ravnoteža poremećena i Zlo kao da stiče nevidljivu autonomiju bujajući geometrijskom progresijom.

Uz značajne razlike, to se dogodilo s političkim poretkom nakon iščezavanja komunizma i svetskog trijumfa liberalne sile. Upravo se tada pojavio fantomski neprijatelj što preplavljuje celu planetu, provlačeći se svuda kao virus, izranjajući iz svih naprslina vlasti - islam. Ali islam je tek promenljivo lice kristalizacije tog antagonizma. Taj je antagonizam svuda i u svakom od nas. Dakle, teror protiv terora. Samo, asimetričan teror. I upravo ta asimetrija svetsku silu sasvim razoružava. Rvajući se sa samom sobom, ona će se samo još više zapetljati u vlastitu logiku odnosa sila, nesposobna da igra na poprištu simboličkog izazova i smrti, o kojima nema pojma budući da ga je izbrisala iz svoje kulture.

Dosad je tada integrišuća sila naširoko uspevala da upije i upija svaku krizu, svaku negativnost, stvarajući upravo tako jedno duboko očajno stanje (ne samo za zemaljsko roblje nego i za bogataše i povlašćene, sklonjene u svoj komfor). Prelomni događaj je u tome što su teroristi prestali da se ubijaju ni za šta, oni igraju na vlastitu smrt ofanzivno i delotvorno, povodeći se za strateškom intuicijom, koja nije ništa drugo do intuicija goleme krhkosti protivnika, sistema koji je gotovo dostigao savršenstvo i, posledično, postao osetljiv na najmanju posekotinu. Teroristi su uspeli da od vlastite smrti naprave apsolutno oružje protiv sistema koji živi od izuzeća smrti i kome je ideal nulta smrt. Svaki je sistem nulte smrti u krajnosti nulti sistem. Sva sredstva zastrašivanja i destrukcije ne mogu ništa protiv neprijatelja koji je od svoje smrti napravio kontraofanzivno oružje. "Baš me briga za američke bombe! Naši ljudi žele da umru kao što Amerikanci žele da žive!" Njihove pogibije se ne mogu izjednačiti s četiri hiljade mrtvih koji su preko noći nametnuti sistemu nulte smrti.

I tako, sav ulog se vrti oko smrti, ne samo brutalnim upadom smrti uživo, u realnom vremenu, nego upadom više nego smrti; simboličke i žrtvene - drugim rečima, apsolutnog i nepovratnog događaja.

Takav je duh terorizma.

Nikad ne napadaj sistem na osnovu odnosa snaga. To je (revolucionarno) imaginarno što ga sam sistem nameće, koji preživljava upravo tako što neprestano nagoni one koji ga napadaju da se bore na terenu realnosti koja je oduvek i zauvek njegova. Premestiti borbu u sferu simboličkog, gde važe zakoni izazova, reverzije i eskalacije. Tako da se na smrt može odgovoriti samo jednakom ili nadmoćnijom smrću. Prkositi sistemu prednošću na koju ovaj može odgovoriti jedino vlastitom smrću ili urušavanjem.

Teroristička hipoteza se zasniva na tome da sam sistem obavlja samoubistvo u znak odgovora na mnogobrojne izazove smrti i suicida. Jer ni sistem ni vlast ne izmiču simboličkoj obavezi - i upravo u toj klopci počiva jedina šansa njihove propasti. U tom mahnitom vrtlogu nemoguće razmene smrti, smrt terorista je infinitezimalna tačka koja uzrokuje velike aspiracije, prazninu i konvekciju. Oko te infinitezimalne tačke čitav se sistem, sistem realnosti i moći, zgušnjava, paralizuje, sklupčava i propada u vlastitu hiperefikasnost.

Taktika terorističkog modela je prouzrokovati višak realnosti i slamanje sistema preopterećenog realnošću. Sva ta poruga situacije, kao i inicirano nasilje vlasti, okreću se protiv nje, jer su teroristički akti istovremeno drečavo ogledalo njenog nasilja i model njoj zabranjenog simboličkog nasilja, jedinog nasilja kojem ne može pribeći, a to je nasilje vlastite smrti.

Upravo stoga sva vidljiva sila ne može ništa protiv sićušne, ali simboličke smrti nekolicine jedinki.

Moramo da priznamo očitu činjenicu: rodio se novi terorizam, novi vid akcije koji se pridržava vlastitih pravila, te prisvaja pravila igre da bi je snažnije uzdrmao. Ne samo da se ti ljudi ne bore na ravnoj nozi, budući da kao ulog stavljaju vlastitu smrt, na koju nije moguće adekvatno reagovati ("to su kukavice"), nego su preuzeli celokupno oružje dominantne sile. Novac i berzanske spekulacije, informatičku i avio-tehnologiju, spektakularnost i medijske mreže: asimilirali su sve što spada u modernitet i mondijalitet, ne promenivši cilj - uništenje svega toga.

Čak su se poslužili - što je vrhunac lukavosti - banalnošću svakodnevnog američkog života kao maskom i dvostrukom igrom. Spavaju po predgrađima, čitaju i studiraju u krugu porodice da bi se jednog dana probudili kao bombe s usporenim delovanjem. Besprekorno vladanje tom tajnovitošću gotovo je jednako tako terorističko kao i spektakularan čin 11. septembra. Jer ono baca senku sumnje na svaku individuu: nije li svako bezazleno biće mogući terorista? Ako su oni mogli da prođu neprimećeni, tada je svako od nas neprimećeni zločinac (kao što svaki avion postaje sumnjiv). U osnovi, biće da je to istina. To možda dobro korespondira s nesvesnim oblikom potencijalnog zločinca, zamaskiranog i brižljivo potisnutog, ali svagda kadrog ako ne da iskoči, o no barem da potajice zatitra pred prizorom Zla. Tako se događaj razgranava sve do u detalj - vrelo još profinjenijeg mentalnog terorizma.


Žan Bodrijar
15.09.2007.

"I Want To Taste Dirty, A Stinging Pistol
In My Mouth, On My Tongue
I Want You To Scrape Me From The Walls
And Go Crazy Like You've Made Me"







Layne Staley

THE POISON PATH II


With the very poison, a little of which would kill any other being, a man who understands poison would dispel another poison.
— Hevajra Tantra
The Sanskrit for "poison" is visam. In Buddhism, three poisons form the hub of
the Wheel of Life: kama-raga, "desire," or "greed," depicted as a red cock;
a grasping quality: reaching out, to attain: meristematic shoots after light,fungal hyphae seeking nourishment;
or hanging on, grasping backwards, clinging.
dvesa, "hatred" or "aversion," a green snake; and moha, "ignorance," "folly," "delusion," represented as a black hog. They chase each other and bite each others tails. Each poison is dependent on the others, and the whole cycle of birth and death is dependent upon them.
the snake's tongue flicking, smell is tasting the air, repellents
as important as attractants: amines of corruption, pheromones of disease,
bitterness in leaves
In rain-forest canopies the trees avoid each other: branches of each tree filling in just up to the others, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but a little space between, just
enough to foil crawling insects.
Some say the black hog is the mother of the other two; others disagree, saying that greed and hatred are equally fundamental.
Some say that all sentient beings can obtain buddhahood; others are less charitable,
as much as charity has anything to do with the veracity of spiritual laws.

What shocks the virtuous philosopher delights the chameleon Poet
-John Keats, letter to Woodhouse, 1818 (in Dun 1970)


The Poison Path is the narrow way, the twisting path, or no path at all. You could make it, O Nobly Born, you just might survive, yes, but who could follow you? Better to send them down the big road, well trodden and paved; this Poison Path is no shortcut. The Poison Path is best suited to tricksters and magicians who, if
the stories are to be believed, come back to life after getting killed.
A special transmission outside the scriptures.
Poisonous dharma, poisonous datura, why be surprised that they grow together? A poison-filled cobra, what's he hiding? Medicines and powers, oak tree in the yard, a turtle-nosed snake.
Even today, right here, people are losing their lives, bitten by this snake.
— Hekigan Roku, The Blue Cliff Record

The poison becomes pervasive, and poisons the path itself.

Socrates compares the written texts Phaedrus has brought along to a PHARMAKON: a "drug"or"medicine," a filter which acts as both remedy and poison. . . . This charm, this spellbinding virtue, this power of fascination can be alternately or simultaneously — beneficent or maleficent. . . . Operating through seduction, the
P H A R M A K O N makes one stray from one's general, natural, habitual paths and laws.
-Jacques Derrida, Plato's Pharmacy

The primary poison is the Word — the Pharmakos — the one who stands-in-for. All other poisons function through this one, the signifying poison. Signifying monkey. Jesus should have been stoned, not crucified.

Pharmakos also meant "poisoner," and "sorcerer," and "magician." Plato banned the pharmakeus, the shaman, from his Republic in 480 B C . The Chinese kicked the shaman out of the government in the first century, along with her whole family.
Standing-in-for, the Logos. Morphine wearing the mask of endorphin, tetra- hydrocannabinol dressed up like anandamide. Molecules standing in for stimuli: sensation symbolized on the cortex, rhodopsin a metaphor of light. Intellect is mediated and mediator, a mapping of pattern to patterns of ions, ratio, concentration of amines, layers of neurotransmitters themselves in flux, charged and shaped by emotion and memory. Mind acts it out, moves moun- tains, changes its own environment, altering the very reactions that led to the alteration.
and that's a good trick
Patterns, likeness of pattern, and some analogous likeness of likeness: the swelling of sound in adagio and its neuronal reflection. The great bead game, poetry is poison — echoes of phonemes, ghosts standing in for ghosts.
Poson as defilement: klesa, the ten deffilements, the seven deadly sins, the speck of dust that spoils the immaculate mirror, Alaya, the "Store-Consciousness." The fly in the ointment is Beelzebub.
In the Lankavatara Sutra the klesa is an uninvited guest, the one who doesn't fit in or belong, Dionysus, perhaps, or a furry critter with pointy ears, Coyote, or maybe two gods, wandering together among mortals, disguised.
If the Tathagata-garbha or Alaya-vignana were not a mysterious mixture of purity and defilement, good and evil, this abrupt transformation (paravritti) of an entire personality would be an impossibility. That is to say, if the Garbha or the Alaya while absolutely neutral and colourless in itself did not yet harbour in itself a certain irrationality, no sentient beings would ever be a
Buddha, no enlightenment would be experienced by any human beings.
- D.T. Suzuki, The Lankavatara Sutra
The Alaya is the Ally.

The defilements are graffiti on the white wall of the Great Warehouse. Or maybe the storehouse walls are transparent, and the apparent graffiti our discrimination, itself the coloring — pigments, makeup — Empedocles' cunning artist mixing and applying his polychromatic pharmaka to votive offerings, creating men and women and trees. The Creator made the World from poisons.
Krankheit ist wohl der letzte Grund Des ganzen Schopferdrangs gewesen; Erschaffend konnte ich genesen, Erschaffend wurde ich gesund.
Disease at bottom brought about Creative urgence for, creating I soon could feel the pain abating, Creating, I could work it out.
— Heinrich Heine (in Freud, "On Narcissism")
There is no point to calling that defined as impure as being pure, or is there? "All the intrinsically pure defilements." All co-created, co-dependent impurities of thought and brain, flying at us like angels, or emerging from their own arising: a leaf, a horn, a dream, a voice that passed and dropped a word.
We are not trying to say that they are nice, these poisons, but "nice" is a relative, not a god.
Poison eyes, poison ears, poison songs: dreams within a dream.

We hope we have not poisoned the world in vain.

The intent of our teaching is like a poison-smeared drum. Once it is
beaten, those who hear it, near and far, all perish. That those who hear it perish is surely true. But what about the deaf?
- Zen Master Shiqi Xinyue, "Stone River" (in Cleary 1990)


DALE PENDELL


excerpt from "Pharmako Poeia- Plant Powers, Poisons and Herbcraft"

E U P H O R IC A

Approach the God of Dreams with sword drawn.

The First Doctor was a woman wise and compassionate. Because of her skill, her receptivity, her strength,and her integrity, the gods looked upon her with favor.
The First Doctor had many patients, but few medicines. She had songs, she had cereals, but the terrible cries of her patients drove her into the mountains seeking a vision of power.
In the mountains she fasted, then ate. Sang, then was quiet. She waited, she lived alone in the mountains. She met the animals, and then she met the plants.
And the gods — the spirits of the earth, the spirit of the sky, the spirits of the plants and the animals and the spirits of her ancestors — pleased with her, granted her a wish.
Briefly, the First Doctor considered. There were so many things for which one might ask: power, sustenance, energy, vision, love.
"You may have whatever you wish," the gods repeated, "from the least to the greatest."
"Then, O Gods, give me that medicine that cures pain, the medicine that eases suffering."
And the gods responded. They gave her the opium poppy, and they told her she had chosen wisely.
"After food," they told her, "this plant is our greatest gift. Use it wisely and unselfishly. It is never wrong to ease the suffering of those who do not know the secret. But remember, for yourself, who are a doctor, this plant shall ever be a poison."

The danger is smoking as a defense against some moral disequilibrium. Then it is difficult to approach the drug in the way it must be approached, as wild beasts should be approached — without fear.
-Jean Cocteau, Opium: Diary of a Cure

Wine robs a man of his self-possession: opium sustains and reinforces it . . . wine constantly leads a man to the brink of absurdity and extravagance; and, beyond a certain point, it is sure to volatilize and to disperse the intellectual energies; whereas opium always seems to compose what had been agitated, and to concentrate what had been distracted.
— Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium Eater

Alcohol provokes fits of madness. Opium provokes fits of wisdom
—Jean Cocteau

Opium: Diary of a Cure


Euphoria is a middle child, born between consciousness and sleep. It is a condition of peace and well-being, like that which follows orgasm, and not everyone reacts to it the same way. Some are entranced by the radical stillness, and lie unmoving, without thoughts. Others are so glad to be freed from the rude pushing and shoving of desire that they take advantage of their reprieve and set about finishing some piece of work. Some just let their minds drift, half awake, half dreaming, and let the yearning visions try to coax their souls up from the somatic twilight of their bodies.

Perhaps we desire death: or why is poison so sweet? Why do the little Sirens
Make kindlier music, for a man caught in the net of the world Between news-cast and work-desk, — The little chirping Sirens, alcohol, amusement, opiates, And the carefully sterilized lust, —
Than the angels of life?
— Robinson Jeffers, "Sirens"

the Ally: Like Mayakovsky, we play Russian roulette. That is why luck is so vitally important.

Pain is the first teacher we deny.


DALE PENDELL


excerpt from "Pharmako Poeia- Plant Powers, Poisons and Herbcraft"

Victor Pelevin
by Leo Kropywiansky
BOMB 79/Spring 2002



Leo Kropywiansky: Your writing career began as the Soviet Union was dissolving, a dissolution that has brought greater literary freedom, capture of the press by oligarchs notwithstanding. Could your second novel, Omon Ra, given its irreverent treatment of the Soviet system, have been published five years earlier than it was, during the time of Gorbachev? Or during the time of Chernenko?

Victor Pelevin: Actually, I don’t think we can use the term “was dissolving.” It attributes some continuity to the process. The Soviet Union collapsed in a flash. But even in 1990, when I was writing Omon Ra, nobody in Moscow expected that the collapse would ever happen. I don’t remember the exact dates, but I do remember that I finished the book days before the coup that finished the Soviet Union. So it might well be the last novel written in the USSR. It would definitely have been possible to publish Omon Ra in the late Gorbachev era, as Gorbachev was exactly the person who gave Russians the widest freedom of speech they’d ever had. Others didn’t add anything to it. Chernenko’s time was a very different story—it was still possible to be put into a loony bin for writing things of that kind.

LK: Then, Omon Ra was written with some confidence that its writing would not land you in the loony bin. A counterfactual: if there had been no Gorbachev, say if Chernenko-ish or Brezhnev-ish times had prevailed for a decade or more, do you believe you would have still written Omon Ra, self-publishing it or burying it in your backyard? Or would it have never been written at all?

VP: Well, I’d rather put it this way: it was written with some confidence that its writing actually took place in the loony bin. Writing Omon Ra, I sometimes felt scared of what I was doing. But this fear was residual, like white noise—there was no real danger. The political aspect of this book wasn’t really important to me. I didn’t write a satire of the Soviet space program, as the book was branded both in Russia and abroad. It was a novel about coming of age in a world that is absurd and scary. My part of the scary world was Russia, so I wrote a book where the space quest—a metaphor of the entire Soviet myth—became a background. The book was dedicated to the heroes of the Soviet Cosmos, not just “space.”

A counterfactual? I really don’t know what to say. Counterfactuals deal with abstract situations, but not a single book was ever written in an abstract situation. Books are only written in concrete circumstances.

LK: What is the first book that you can remember reading as a child? Do you recall your response to it?

VP: My first book—strangely enough, I remember it. It was The Twelve Chairs by Ilf and Petrov, a satirical novel written in the early Soviet era. This book is incredibly funny. It is also very good—Nabokov placed it on his hero’s bookshelf next to his own chess novel, which means a lot if you remember how he treated all things Soviet. But I read it at the age of five and didn’t find it funny at all—though I managed to finish it. I remember my awe and horror, my feeling of how horribly complicated and dangerous was the task of being a grown-up.

LK: Your training and first career were as an engineer. How and when did you decide to take up writing?

VP: I was in my middle twenties at that time and was a postgraduate student. A funny thought came across my mind about secret heirs of Stalin still living in a system of underground caves and tunnels under Moscow. It wasn’t the first funny thought in my head but it was the first time I decided to put it down. As I was doing it, this thought developed itself into a short story. I can’t say that the story was very good, but I liked the feeling I got when I was writing it—it was like nothing else I knew. So I started to write short stories.

LK: Do you ever miss engineering? With its finite problems, as opposed to the more open-ended ones posed by fiction writing?

VP: I can’t say I miss engineering. Perhaps one of the main reasons was that in Russia this field of human activity poses much more open-ended (even metaphysical) problems than writing.

LK: In the U.S., the metaphysics implicit among engineers, and it is only implicit, is a simple form of logical positivism. Although I’ve known a few engineers who secretly dabbled in the occult. This I take to be an understandable response to spending one’s workdays within the confines of a too-narrow worldview. How exactly is it that Russian engineers are able to find, within their professional lives, a healthy outlet for their metaphysical yearnings?

VP: The only American engineer I ever met was a Buddhist monk in Korea, so I can’t totally agree with you. As for metaphysics in the professional life of a Russian engineer, it is of a very different nature. To explain it I have to go back to the origin of the term. As you know, metaphysics literally means “after physics” in Greek. It was a general designation for everything placed after things pertaining to physics in the compendium of Aristotle’s works. In Russia, when you are trained as an engineer, you spend several years studying theoretical physics: from mechanics and electricity to elementary particles. And this training is quite deep and serious. After you graduate from your institute you are assigned to some factory where you have to work for three years (at least it was like this when I was a student and factories were still working). What happens next is they give you a crowbar, a padded coat and a cap with earflaps, and you are entrusted with the leadership of three stone-pissed proletarians (you can’t use the term “worker” here as they never work). And your task is to remove ice in the backyard. That was the metaphysics of engineering in Russia. I say “was” because these days nobody removes the ice anymore.

LK: In 1992, Russia privatized some of its state-owned companies. Citizens received vouchers that could be exchanged for shares in companies. This was early in your career as a writer, perhaps while you were still writing Omon Ra. Did you receive a voucher and if you did what did you do with it?

VP: Yes, I did receive it (I think I was writing The Life of Insects at the time, but I’m not sure). Mr. Yeltsin’s government said it was my share of the motherland and, symbolically enough, it amounted to the value of a vodka bottle. I responded with an act of symmetrical symbolism: together with my nation I squandered it on alcohol.

LK: Sometime after your youthful reading of The Twelve Chairs, you came across the work of Mikhail Bulgakov, who you have in the past cited as a primary influence. Which of his works did you first read? What would you say is the most important lesson you have drawn from his works for your own writing?

VP: The first Bulgakov book I read was The Master and Margarita. As for the lessons I drew, I’m afraid there were none, though it overturned all ideas I had about books before. At that time I wasn’t reading books to draw lessons from them. On the contrary, I often skipped lessons to read the books I liked. That was exactly the case. I read it at 14 in a library during school hours, as it wasn’t published in the USSR as a book at that time, but was only available as a publication in a literary magazine with lots of omissions. I really don’t think we get a lesson when we meet something we like. I’d rather say we get a lesson when we meet something we don’t.

LK: You are of course right. Lesson is a nasty little word to use in this context. Surely, however, the overturning at age 14 of old ideas about books was something that ultimately affected your writing? Were there any especially oppressive old ideas from which that book liberated you?

VP: Since it happened a long time before I started to write, there’s no way to determine how it affected my writing. However, the effect of this book was really fantastic. There’s an expression “out of this world.” This book was totally out of the Soviet world. The evil magic of any totalitarian regime is based on its presumed capability to embrace and explain all the phenomena, their entire totality, because explanation is control. Hence the term totalitarian. So if there’s a book that takes you out of this totality of things explained and understood, it liberates you because it breaks the continuity of explanation and thus dispels the charms. It allows you to look in a different direction for a moment, but this moment is enough to understand that everything you saw before was a hallucination (though what you see in this different direction might well be another hallucination). The Master and Margarita was exactly this kind of book and it is very hard to explain its subtle effect to anybody who didn’t live in the USSR. Solzhenitsyn’s books were very anti-Soviet, but they didn’t liberate you, they only made you more enslaved as they explained to which degree you were a slave. The Master and Margarita didn’t even bother to be anti-Soviet yet reading this book would make you free instantly. It didn’t liberate you from some particular old ideas, but rather from the hypnotism of the entire order of things.

LK: What books have you most enjoyed reading in the last few years? In particular I wonder if there are any American authors among your recent favorites.

VP: I can’t say I read too much fiction. I liked Pastoralia and CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders, but his best story I read so far was “I Can Speak!™” published in The New Yorker. I liked some stories by David Foster Wallace and plan to siege his Infinite Jest one infinite day. Talking of the old guard, I like Robert M. Pirsig. The real heroes in his books are concepts rather than humans, and they change and develop like characters do in more traditional novels: this is incredible.

LK: The ghost of Che Guevara appears in your most recent book, Homo Zapiens, propounding a theory of television as either (1) switched off, in which case it is like any other object, i.e., not any more or less difficult for the unquiet mind to pay attention to than, say, a rock, or (2) switched on, in which case it guides the attention of the viewer to such an extent that he becomes “possessed,” “techno-modified,” “a virtual subject” and no longer himself. In August of 2000, the Ostankino TV tower in Moscow caught fire, interrupting broadcasts for several days and rendering all television sets as objects of type (1). Was there a perceptible change of mood among Moscow citizens at that time?

VP: I think so. People were getting nervous and irritated, like drug addicts without a routine injection. But there were a lot of jokes about it nevertheless. As for me, I hadn’t been watching television for a long time by that moment, so I didn’t experience any personal problems.

LK: A big change over the last decade has been the decline in the influence of Russia’s military, which was called upon to fight a difficult war in Chechnya even as morale was falling and resources available to it were shrinking. Your father, who I understand passed away several years ago, was himself in the military. How did he view this decline in influence?

VP: My father was a rather strange Soviet military man, and never had any particular influence as such. He wasn’t even a party member, which made him kind of a white crow and impeded his career badly. It wasn’t his choice to join the military: the Soviet Union started its missile program when he was a student in Kiev, and many students from technical institutes were drafted to serve in this new branch of armed force as officers. Your consent wasn’t necessary for this at that time. I never had access to the inner workings of my father’s soul but I think he never totally identified himself with the Red Army’s military might, though he was a good specialist. At the time of the decline he was much more concerned with his own health, which was deteriorating quickly. But I think that, like many people who spent their entire lifetime in the USSR, he was too stunned by its demise to take any ensuing events seriously.

LK: In Homo Zapiens, the Russian government is portrayed as “virtual”: three-dimensional dummies on TV whose movements are scripted by screenwriters. This device seems particularly apt in describing the Yeltsin government, held together as it was with television coverage, funding from tycoons and the IMF, multiple heart bypasses and so forth. Do you believe it has become any less apt now, under the leadership of Putin?

VP: Phenomenologically any politician is a TV program, and this doesn’t change from one government to another. But if you want me to compare the government we had under Yeltsin with the one we have under Putin, I won’t be able to do it. Not only because I don’t watch television. For this kind of assessment you need a criterion. I guess the right one would be the way the government handles the economy, because its primary function is to take care of the economy. Politics is usually the function of the latter. To pass a judgment here you need to understand, even approximately, how the economy works. In the Western economy you have a set of instruments that allow you to make this assessment even if you are not a specialist. It is always clear whether it is a bull market or bear market. So you can say: bull market, good government, bear market, bad government (I know it is an oversimplification, but still). But these instruments are not applicable to the Russian economy because its very nature is different. The essence of your business cycle here in Russia is that you always have a pig market, which means that you don’t get whacked as long as you pay the pigs. And sometimes you get whacked even if you pay because it is a real pig market. Russian economy is the dimension where miracle meets subpoena and becomes state secret. How do you compare the numerous different governments that preside over this? The only criterion would be personal appeal of the ministers: a goatee fashion, a necktie color, et cetera. But for this you have to watch television.

LK: Reading philosophy is in some ways a disease, like alcohol or drugs or dog racing or any other addiction. I wonder what Western philosophers you have found most compelling. In particular I wonder if, like the moth Mitya in The Life of Insects, you have a particular affinity for Marcus Aurelius. Here I think of the Marcus Aurelius who insists upon an inner self that can’t be, except by its own assent, corrupted by the outer world. This seems to be a recurring theme in your works: the primacy of the individual mind in the face of a dangerous external world, whether the Soviet one or that of post-Soviet wild capitalism.

VP: If we put it your way, the most compelling Western philosophers in my life were Remy Martin and Jack Daniels. They compelled me to do many things I otherwise would never think of. If seriously, I don’t take professional philosophers seriously even when I understand what they say. Philosophy is a self-propelled thinking, and thinking, no matter how refined, only leads to further thinking. Uncoerced thinking gives us the best it can when it subsides down and halts, because it is the source of nearly all our problems. As far as I’m concerned, thoughts are justified in two cases: when they swiftly make us rich and when they fascinate us with their beauty. Philosophy could sometimes fit into the first category—for instance, if you write “The Philosophy That Burns Fat” or something like “The Philosophy of Swimming with Sharks without Being Eaten”—but it would be an exception. Sometimes philosophy fits into the second category (also an exception), and Marcus Aurelius is exactly the case. I read his book many times when I was a kid but I’m not sure I understood his philosophy—I was simply captivated by the noble beauty of his spirit. By the way, I read somewhere that Bill Clinton’s favorite quote came from Marcus Aurelius: “One could lead a decent life even in a palace.” The very notion of Western philosophy as opposed to Eastern seems to me quite dubious and arbitrary, though Bertrand Russell wrote a very good book on its history. This label implies that your mind starts to generalize in a different manner when it is placed in a different geographical location. But how would you classify Aldous Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy — as Eastern or Western? As for the self, it is a very tricky notion. We should define it before we use it. I prefer the term mind. I think you are absolutely right when you say that my theme is the primacy of the mind. But the external world is also your mind because the categories external and internal are purely mental. Mind is the ultimate paradox because when you start to look for it you can’t find it. But when you start to look for something that is not mind you also can’t find it. Mind is the central issue that interests me as a writer and as a person.

LK: I think the insight that mind can’t be found, as not-mind cannot be, could arbitrarily but not unusefully be called “Eastern.” Certainly it is not, as pepper and potatoes are not, indigenous to Enlightenment France. “Western” philosophy I take to be a line of thought (“insanity” is Bertrand Russell’s term) insisting that there is a substance called “mind,” which line of thought was terribly compelling for a long time, philosophers and readers gravitating to it as men to the bottle or dog track, as moths to the lamp, and residues of which are still so much among us that one might call it the default worldview. Although like the dog track or bottle it is ultimately unsatisfying, or at least has its limits. Which led Huxley, William James, Nietzsche, and others of catholic tastes to study “Eastern” thought, I imagine as a sort of antidote. Which leads me to my next question. You have been a student of Zen Buddhism for some years now, and its influence on your works is pervasive. How did you first become interested in Buddhism?

VP A French Structuralist (a rather modern Western line of thought) might say that both “mind” and “substance” are born in the discourse. This would quite coincide with the position of Madhyamika Prasangika (a rather ancient Eastern school) that all objects, physical and mental, including “mind” and “substance,” are but labels issued by mind. On the other hand, you could find Eastern systems saying that mind has substance, some of them saying that it is the only substance. There have been so many views in the last 3,000 years that whenever we use the term “Western philosophy” we have to redefine it at a certain moment, getting back to the nature of thinking behind the term, as you did. “Western philosophy” is a bit like the name of that biblical soul dweller who introduced himself as Mr. Legion. Generally, it is the vagueness of the subject that allows people to talk about the East and the West at such length. When the theme is so indistinct you can say almost anything and it would safely fit one of the existing clichés. Somebody could say that Eastern philosophy denies that it exists while Western philosophy pretends that it exists. A lower mind—like mine—might add that the real Western philosophy is “money talks bullshit walks” while the real Eastern philosophy is “ultimately money walks too,” written in small font under “money talks.” When you mentioned Enlightenment France, it opened another interesting possibility of comparing the essence of Western and Eastern thought, via the different meaning attributed to the term Enlightenment. Do you know Van Morrison’s song “Enlightenment, Don’t Know What It Is?” I just thought it could make a wonderful Marquis de Sade aria.

I became interested in Buddhism—and other religions—when I was a kid. At that time religious literature of any kind wasn’t easily available in the USSR, but we had tons and tons of atheistic reference books and methodological manuals for lecturers on scientific atheism. They were available in any library and described various religions in such detail that one could call these books a Soviet equivalent of The Varieties of Religious Experience. I used to read these books at the air defense base near Moscow where I spent most of my summertime. I still can’t understand why atheist lecturers needed to know so many things about Taoism—perhaps to be able to fight it in the Moscow region if the pandemic were to begin. Well, Buddhism seemed to me to be the only religion that didn’t resemble the projection of the Soviet power onto the domain of spirit. It was only much later that I understood that it was exactly the other way around—the Soviet power was an attempt to project the alleged heavenly order onto Earth. Well, Buddhism was totally out of this vicious circle and there was something so strangely compelling and soothing about it.

LK: I understand that in the past few years you have been traveling to Asia to further your studies in Buddhism. Which countries have you visited?

VP: First of all, I can’t really say I study Buddhism. I’m not a Buddhologist. I can’t even say I’m a Buddhist in the sense of rigidly belonging to a confession or a sect, following rituals, et cetera. I only study and practice my mind for which the Dharma of Buddha is the best tool I know: and it is exactly what the word Buddhism means to me. And I also totally accept the moral teaching of Buddhism because it is the necessary condition of being able to practice your mind. But it is not too different from the moral teachings of other traditions. I visited South Korea several times to participate in the Buddhist practice. I also visited China and Japan but without any direct connection to Buddhism.

LK: Your subject matter is deeply Russian. As equally it is informed by and interested in Asia. Do you believe you will always live in Russia, or have you thought of living abroad for an extended period?

VP: If you say it’s deeply Russian I don’t dare to argue, though the very fact that you were able to understand what I’m writing about might mean that it is not so deeply Russian. Or maybe it means that there’s nothing deeply Russian in being a Russian these days. As for living abroad, well, everything is possible. But so far I’m not making any plans.

LK: I withdraw the “deeply Russian” and simply claim your works are “Russian.”

The logic is prior to knowledge of Russia or of Victor Pelevin’s works: Pelevin the empirical Russian writes about the empirical Russia, so unless he’s removed himself entirely from his works, they are Russian. Do you believe there’s less to being Russian these days? Or are you referring to a belief, which is on a different level, that humankind has no essence, with corollary that Russia has no essence?

VP: I often think that logic is the missing link between prostitution and law (if we assume there is a gap between them). Logically, my inner lawyer can claim that your writing is more Russian than mine based on the following evidence derived from our exchange: first, you are the one to be strangely interested in this particular issue; secondly, you seem to use the term Russian more often than I do; thirdly—attention of the jury, please—your surname is much more Russian than mine (it sounds like Mr. Nettles for a Russian ear, while Pelevin means nothing at all or me at best). However, as the former CIA director used to say, Thank God I’m not a lawyer. I won’t argue that my books are not Russian because they certainly are. But what does it mean for a book to be Russian? Does it mean being soaked in Orthodox Christianity or a belief in the messianic role of Russia, or any seriously taken ideology, the way it often happened in the last two centuries? In this sense I don’t think I fit the definition as I was never inspired by anything of the kind. Does it mean following the Russian literary tradition? The only real Russian literary tradition is to write good books in a way nobody did before, so to become a part of the tradition you have to reject it—a condition necessary but not sufficient. If you are talking about the reflection of the uniquely Russian life experience, it is just a different combination of the same ingredients that comprise the uniquely French or uniquely German life experience when mixed in another proportion, these ingredients being suffering and joy, hope and despair, compassion and arrogance, the words of love, the cries of hate (I’m listening to Genesis at the moment, sorry), and so forth. Everyone of us is acquainted with each of the ingredients, that’s why you can read Anton Chekhov and I can read Kinky Friedman. But since empirically your life is always a narrow moment that takes place right now, you can’t perceive all these ingredients simultaneously. You can experience them (or describe them when you write) only in a sequence, one after another, thus making the entire difference between various national lifestyles purely statistical. It could matter in life but not in a book. And even in life it matters only if you make it matter. So there’s nothing Russian about being a Russian. More than that, Russian subject matter does not exist at all. Neither does any other. If you try to write something long and coherent about Russia, you won’t be able to do it: even if your first sentence is about Russia, your second and third will have to be about something else. And ultimately you will end up writing about yourself. In my life I have written maximum ten or twenty sentences about Russia, I guess. As every other writer on this planet, I can only write about my mind. However, I understand that the most touchingly naive notions often make the most effective marketing weapons, and when the invisible hand gives you a gold finger at the dawn of your days, you enter into a solemn bond to carry supermarket shelves inside your head for the rest of your life. In this respect the so-called subject matter is nothing compared with the sincere belief in the existence of nonfiction.

LK: I pause here only to note I prefer to translate my deeply Slavic surname as “Of or having to do with nettles (of the stinging variety).” My next question I fear may be more ill-posed even than my others. I dare it only out of an honest interest in your answer. Fiction and poetry use words, which are inherently reductive, in an attempt to say or at least point at that which is unsayable. Your own works refer to this frequently. For example, the Sirruf in Homo Zapiens notes that “any insight of true breadth and profundity will inevitably be reduced to words. And the words will inevitably be reduced to themselves.” While it is your craft and livelihood, and your works achieve a great measure of success in pointing at the unsayable, have you ever imagined reaching a point where writing no longer interests you, or is no longer necessary for you?

VP: I’ve just finished a short story on this subject: about the limits imposed by words. It was my attempt to rewrite The Lord Chandos Letter by Hugo von Hofmannstahl. This is a very interesting topic. The very idea that words are inherently reductive comes into existence within the realm of words and is comprised of words. If you say that there’s something that can’t be spoken about, you contradict yourself because you are already speaking about this unspeakable thing. The only difference is that you use the words unspeakable and unsayable to speak about it. I think that unspeakable might be the only possible one-word oxymoron.

Words can never be reduced to themselves because they simply don’t have anything that could be called a self. They only come into relative existence as objects of your mind and their meaning and emotional charge may vary significantly from one person to another. What exactly can they be reduced to? Words are the only way to deal with the mind, as mind is also a word and you can only tackle one word with another. However, it doesn’t mean that there’s nothing beyond words. But it is beyond words only when we are silent about it from the very beginning.

As for the point where writing no longer interests me—I reached it for the first time five minutes after I had started to write my first short story. But on the sixth minute I felt that writing interested me again. If we take this to be my cycle, I reach this point approximately twelve times every hour that I dedicate to writing. So I don’t have to imagine reaching it, I know it very well. But this point is never the final one. I think there’s no final point at all. Life is a bitch, and then you die. Death is a bitch, and then you are born. Writing is very much like this, as it is living multiple short lives within your longer one.

Viktor Pelevin.

Kroger's Revelation




---------------------------------------------------------------
Виктор Пелевин "Откровение Крегера"
(c) Copyright Виктор Пелевин
(c) Copyright Кирилл Зиканов (radona@bk.ru), перевод
Date: 25 Май 2004
---------------------------------------------------------------



Complete set of documentation
______________________________
ACADEMY OF ANCESTRAL HERITAGE Absolutely secret
DEPARTMENT OF RECONSTRUCTION Urgent
______________________________

To Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler
From Reconstructor of "Annenerbe"
T. Kroger, Standartgemeindevorsteher
AS, AS, junior imperial magician.


R E P O R T


Reichsfuhrer!
I realize what responsibilities there are by addressing You directly. However
the vision I encountered is of such significance, that as a patriot of the
Reich and a true German, I feel obligated to relay a description of it, done
with the utmost precision, personally for your examination, and may my words
speak for me.
10.1.1935, at 14.00 Berlin time, residing in the meditative bunker of
"Annenerbe", I went into the astral for a usual patrol raid. As always, I was
accompanied by the astral body of the dog Theodorich and two fifth category
demons, "Hans" and "Poppel". Arriving in the astral, I noticed that the
fluctuations of Jupiter are strangely stressed and emit an unusual for them
violet radiance. In such cases the instructions recommend to erect a
shielding pentahedron and to stay inside its boundaries. However I - for
which I am ready to be held responsible for - considered it possible to limit
myself to singing "Horst Vessel", since I was located not far from the line
of prospective emission of the will of the German fuhrer Adolf Hitler, which
that night was illuminating the left lower Zodiac quadrant. Suddenly, a
crescent red elemental was isolated itself from Jupiter's fluctuations. After
a few second it intersected with the fuhrer's will-emitting line. A powerful
ether flash followed, and I lost consciousness.
After regaining my senses, I found myself in flattened black space, moreover
the dog Theodorich and the demon "Hans" died, and the demon "Poppel" passed
into a state, defined in the internal language of "Annenerbe" as "flipped
cup".
Suddenly a rarefaction arose in the back, and an obscure silhouette appeared
from it. When it approached, I distinguished an old man of very old age, with
a large beard and a thin belt around a white peasant shirt. In one hand he
carried a burning candle, and in the other one - several brown books with his
own image, extruded on the cover. A medical mirror with an opening in the
middle was fastened on the old man's head, like those that are used by
otolaryngologists, and following him was a white horse, harnessed into a
spring carriage in the form of a decorative plow.
When approaching me, the old man threatened me with a finger, then put down
his books on the lower plane of the surrounding space, fastened the candle on
them, jumped on the horse and did a few laps around the candle, carrying out
complex gymnastic moves on the horse's back. During this, the mirror on his
head sparkled so unbearably, that I was forced to turn away, and the demon
"Poppel" passed into the state "empty pipe". Then the candle faded, and at
the same time the accordion quieted down. (The whole time, an accordion was
playing somewhere far away - a Russian kind of a manual organ.)
Following that I found myself in the astral tunnel N 11, through which I
returned to the meditative bunker of the academy.
Leaving the meditation, I immediately got started with the current report.
Heil Hitler!


Junior imperial magician Kroger.




__________________________________

REICHSFUEHRER SS HEINRICH HIMMLER
__________________________________

"Annenerbe", to Wolf


Wolf!

1. Who put Kroger in jail for the report? Immediately release him. This man
is a patriot of the fuhrer and Germany.

2. I didn't understand what Jupiter had to do with this. Maybe it was Saturn
after all? Have the astrology department check this out.

3. Conduct a reconstruction of the revelation, and present a protocol and
recommendations.

4. That's it.

Heil Hitler!

Himmler.

(I don't know about you, Wolf, but I'm always amused by this pun.)




______________________________
ACADEMY OF ANCESTRAL HERITAGE Absolutely Secret
DEPARTMENT OF RECONSTRUCTION Urgent
______________________________


To Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler

Work note. ("About Kroger's revelation")

Reichsfuhrer!

The significance of T. Kroger's revelation for the Reich is immeasurable.
It's possible to say that it crowns the prolonged activity of "Annenerbe" in
the study of tactics and strategies of the communist plot, and draws a line
under one of its most ominous chapters.
As is known, after the destruction of the majority of the literate population
of Russia, many encoded texts of major von Lennen's reports to the Main
Control, covered up as senseless Russian texts, there received propagation as
so called "works". Among them - a report "About the mobilization of the third
Past-Amur division to the western border" (Encoded - "Leo Tolstoy as a mirror
of the Russian revolution".)
In the mystic system of Molotov and Kaganovich, on which the control of the
country is based, the Russian text of this encoding and especially its title
are given a gigantic importance. Initially Stalin (At present supposedly -
Serop Nalbandyan) and the people around him took Kaganovich's thesis, that
claimed that you had to understand this phrase literally. Such a setup
entails the following conclusion: by manipulating the mirror reflecting the
Russian revolution, it is possible to attain the displacement of its
reflection on any other state, which leads, according to the laws of
sympathetic connection, to an analogous revolution in the chosen country.
This conclusion was made by Kaganovich, according to the Abver data, over 2
years ago. However difficulties arose with the practical realization of this
idea. The construction of a giant reflector in the area of the Yasnaya
clearing, that was supposed to send a ray to the moon, and from the moon -
back to earth, was stopped due to insufficient accuracy of the calculations.
At this point, the reflector construction is stalled (see Img.1).
Continuing. About half a year ago Molotov came to the conclusion, that the
specularity of Leo Tolstoy is spiritually-mystical, and the reflecting
function can be realized with the aid of the publication of a new collection
of the writers works, the coefficient of reflection of which will be
increased through the exclusion of ideologically unacceptable works such as
the translation of the Gospels. In this case the targeting and focusing can
be achieved by variation of the print run of each separate volume. Below is a
table of the print runs of the eight-volume collection of Tolstoy's works in
1934 (RCHA data).

1st volume -- 250 000

2nd volume -- 82 000

3rd volume -- 450 000

4th volume -- 41 000

5th volume -- 22 721

6th volume -- 22 720

7th volume -- 75 241

8th volume -- 24

It is easy to see, that the rough focusing is accomplished through the first
four volumes, and the precise - through volumes five through eight.
The significance of Kroger's revelation in this connection is that it made it
possible to introduce a new method of determining the target of the next red
assault. This time it was possible to obtain completely precise results. The
protocols of the reconstruction and recommendations are attached.

Heil Hitler!

Main reconstructor I. Wolf




______________________________
ACADEMY OF ANCESTRAL HERITAGE Absolutely Secret
DEPARTMENT OF RECONSTRUCTION Urgent
______________________________

Protocol of reconstruction Nr. 320/125

On 12.1.1935 a reconstruction on the Tolstoy-Kaganovich case was carried out
at "Annenerbe". The method of the reconstruction was "Kroger's Revelation".
At 14:35, a gypsum state of Leo Tolstoy was established in the first
reconstruction hall, 1.5 meters high and including a mirror with the area of
11 sq. cm. and with an opening in the middle. A globe with the diameter of 1
m. on a support 0.75 m. high was established there as well. To model the
Russian revolution, a mock-up of Ivan Turgenev's estate "Lipki", scale 1:40,
was set on fire, located in the far right corner of the hall. The distances
between the objects and their precise geometric position were calculated
based on the RSHA data on the print runs of the last Tolstoy publication in
Russia. After this, the light was extinguished by the imperial medium Knecht,
and the reconstructor Marta Eichenblum entered the hall dressed up as Stalin.
The globe was spun by her in the left direction. After its halt the spot of
light from the mirror on Tolstoy's head turned out to be in the region of
Abyssinia.
Afterwards reconstructor Brokmann entered the hall, dressed up as the fuhrer,
and carried out a right spinning of the globe. After its stop the dark spot
in the center of the specular circle ended up on the Apennine peninsula. The
reconstruction ended on that.

Imperial medium I. Knecht Reconstructors M. Eichenblum
P. Brokmann



______________________________
ACADEMY OF ANCESTRAL HERITAGE Absolutely Secret
DEPARTMENT OF RECONSTRUCTION Urgent
______________________________

Conclusions of reconstruction 320/125

1. According to the reconstruction data, at present there is no eminent
danger threatening the Reich.
2. In the nearest time a communistic revolution in Abyssinia should be
expected, however this can be avoided by the involvement of Italian troops in
that area.

Main reconstructor I. Wolf

Note.

For the astral heroism shown, the "Annenerbe" management requests to present
T. Krcger with the reward of a knight cross of the first degree with oak
leaves.

Secret information

Decoding of the tape recording N 462-11 from the archive of the party court,
from NSDAP.
Recording done 14.1.1935 with the spy listening device WS-M/13, located in
Ernst Kaltenbrunner's bedroom.
Emma Kaltenbrunner:
-- What a ridiculous brush you have on your cap, Ernst...
Ernst Kaltenbrunner:
-- Leave me alone...
Emma Kaltenbrunner:
-- What's with you today?
Ernst Kaltenbrunner:
-- People are saying strange things, Emma. My man in "Annenerbe" reported
that a certain Krcger from their department got drunk and presented Himmler
an entirely insane report. And Wolf - the Wolf that we trusted, instead of
putting the scoundrel under tribunal, made up a whole theory, according to
which Italy is going to attack Abyssinia...
Emma Kaltenbrunner:
-- So what?
Ernst Kaltenbrunner:
-- So everything came in motion. Yesterday Ribbentrop talked to Rome for two
hours on a high frequency connection, and in two days there will be an
extended conference with the f'hrer.
Emma Kaltenbrunner:
-- Ernst!
Ernst Kaltenbrunner:
-- What?
Emma Kaltenbrunner:
-- I know what you have to do. You have to go to Himmler and tell him
everything you know.
Ernst Kaltenbrunner:
-- Where do you think I was today? I stood straight in front of him for a
whole hour and talked, and he... He played with a puzzle the whole time - you
know, this glass cube with three balls on the inside... When I finished, he
took off his pince-nez, wiped it with a handkerchief - he has a scull even on
his handkerchief - and said: "Listen, Ernst! Have you by any chance, ever had
a dream, where you're riding in the back of a ragged truck who knows where,
and some monsters are sitting around you?" I didn't say anything. Then he
smiled and said: "Ernst, you know, I know as well as you that no astral
exists. But what do you think, if you, and even Kanaris, have your own people
in "Annenerbe", shouldn't I have my own people there are as well?" I did not
understand what he meant. "Think Ernst, think!" - he said. I kept silent.
Then he smiled and asked: "Whose man do you think is Krcger?"
Emma Kaltenbrunner:
-- Oh God!
Ernst Kaltenbrunner:
-- Yes, Emma... It seems I'm too simple for all these intrigues... But I know
that while the f'hrer needs me, my heart will keep beating... You will be by
my side, right? Come here, Emma...
Emma Kaltenbrunner:
-- Oh Ernst... Be good... Be good...
Ernst Kaltenbrunner:
-- Emma...
Emma Kaltenbrunner:
-- Ernst...
Ernst Kaltenbrunner:
-- You know, Emma... Sometimes it seems to me, that it's not me who is alive,
but the f'hrer living inside me...

"To John Dillinger and hope he is still alive.
Thanksgiving Day November 28 1986"



Thanks for the wild turkey and
the passenger pigeons, destined
to be shat out through wholesome
American guts.


Thanks for a continent to despoil
and poison.

Thanks for Indians to provide a
modicum of challenge and
danger.

Thanks for vast herds of bison to
kill and skin leaving the
carcasses to rot.

Thanks for bounties on wolves
and coyotes.

Thanks for the American dream,
To vulgarize and to falsify until
the bare lies shine through.

Thanks for the KKK.

For nigger-killin' lawmen,
feelin' their notches.

For decent church-goin' women,
with their mean, pinched, bitter,
evil faces.

Thanks for "Kill a Queer for
Christ" stickers.

Thanks for laboratory AIDS.

Thanks for Prohibition and the
war against drugs.

Thanks for a country where
nobody's allowed to mind the
own business.

Thanks for a nation of finks.

Yes, thanks for all the
memories-- all right let's see
your arms!

You always were a headache and
you always were a bore.

Thanks for the last and greatest
betrayal of the last and greatest
of human dreams.

THE POISON PATH I

For instance, one man will have faith enough to eat all kinds of food, while a weaker man eats only vegetables.
The man who eats must not hold in contempt the man who does not, and he who does not eat must not pass
judgement on the one who does; for God has accepted him. . . .

Let us therefore cease judging one another, but rather make this simple judgement: that no obstacle or stumbling-block be placed in a brother's way.
I am absolutely convinced, as a Christian, that nothing is impure in itself; only, if a man considers a particular thing impure, then to him it is impure. . . .
What for you is a good thing must not become an occasion for slanderous talk; for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but justice, peace, and joy, inspired by the Holy Spirit.
— Rom 14:2—3, 13—14, 16—17


The matter of the stumbling brother is the cross of the Poison Path: on this trope turn the intersecting greater and lesser vehicles, the right-hand path and the left. Skilled poisoners avoid ruin, but in the struggle for "justice, peace, and joy" in the Kali Yuga, ruin may come on her own wings. And the Ten of Swords most readily approaches those who are unlucky.

How can you tell if you are lucky or unlucky? This is most important. If you are not lucky, you will surely stumble. Then the lucky ones must share the guilt. The question of the stumbling brother is relevant to the debate about legalization of crack cocaine and the possible "devastation of the Black community" that might result (as if the Black community were not al- ready devastated by the current illegality of crack). Relevant, that's all. But we stray.

How can you tell if you are lucky? In his letter to the Romans, Paul is clear that he has two teachings, that there is an exoteric path and that there is an esoteric path. He states unambiguously that he knows that all substances are by nature pure, that Jesus told him so. The issue then is stumbling. Another's stumbling. An- other who does not understand that all substances are pure. And since our way is the eclectic path of the magicians, we will step over the scores of stumbled bodies that accomplished poisoners such as Aleister Crowley leave in their wake, and toss off a couple of obstacles of our own.

You can tell if someone is lucky by their marks. Scars are particularly revealing. Even the lucky have close calls. But how did the wound heal over? Is the person in question marked for calamity? Or for ruin? The same way that some people bear the marks of survival, others are marked for ruin and failure — it is written on them. And I don't mean in any fatalistic sense, but writ by pattern.

Never share poisons with the unlucky. And, as Nelson Algren said, don't sleep with them, either.

Best for all that they never hear a word about poisons. Or about power. Or about Paul. If they do, later, well, you know the rest . . .

The danger, of course, is that you who are reading this consider yourself, ipso facto, one of the lucky.



DALE PENDELL


excerpt from "Pharmako Poeia- Plant Powers, Poisons and Herbcraft"

Manifesto of Mr. Antipyrine

Dada is our intensity: it sets up inconsequential bayonets the sumatran head of the german baby; Dada is life without carpet-slippers or parallels; it is for and against unity and definitely against the future; we are wise enough to know that our brains will become downy pillows that our anti-dogmatism is as exclusivist as a bureaucrat that we are not free yet shout freedom -

A harsh necessity without discipline or morality and we spit on humanity. Dada remains within the European fram of weaknesses it's shit after all but from now on we mean to shit in assorted colors and bedeck the artistic zoo with the flags of every consulate

We are circus directors whistling amid the winds of carnivals convents bawdy houses theaters realities sentiments restaurants HoHiHoHo Bang

We declare that the auto is a sentiment which has coddled us long enough in its slow abstractions in ocean liners and noises and ideas. Nevertheless we externalize facility we seek the central essence and we are happy when we can hide it; we do not want everybody to understand this because it is the balcony of Dada, I assure you. From which you can hear the military marches and descend slicing the air like a seraph in a public bath to piss and comprehend the parable

Dada is not madness - or wisdom - or irony take a good look at me kind bourgeois Art was a game of trinkets children collected words with a tinkling on the end then they went and shouted stanzas and they put a little doll's shoes on the stanza and the stanza turned into a queen to die a little and the queen turned into a wolverine and the children ran till they all turned green
Then came the great Ambassadors of sentiment and exclaimed historically in chorus
psychology psychology heehee
Science Science Science
vive la France
we are not naive
we are successive
we are exclusive
we are not simple
and we are all quite able to discuss the intelligence.

But we Dada are not of their opinion for art is not serious I assure you and if in exhibiting crime we learnedly say ventilator, it is to give you pleasure kind reader I love you so I swear I do adore you

Tristan Tzara

no nationality.)

DADA EXCITES EVERYTHING

DADA knows everything. DADA spits everything out.

BUT . . . . . . . . .

HAS DADA EVER SPOKEN TO YOU:

about Italy
about accordions
about women's pants
about the fatherland
about sardines
about Fiume
about Art (you exaggerate my friend)
about gentleness
about D'Annunzio
what a horror
about heroism
about mustaches
about lewdness
about sleeping with Verlaine
about the ideal (it's nice)
about Massachusetts
about the past
about odors
about salads
about genius, about genius, about genius
about the eight-hour day
about the Parma violets

NEVER NEVER NEVER

DADA doesn't speak. DADA has no fixed idea. DADA doesn't catch flies.

THE MINISTRY IS OVERTURNED. BY WHOM?

BY DADA

The Futurist is dead. Of What? Of DADA

A Young girl commits suicide. Because of What? DADA
The spirits are telephoned. Who invented it? DADA
Someone walks on your feet. It's DADA
If you have serious ideas about life,
If you make artistic discoveries
and if all of a sudden your head begins to crackle with laughter,
If you find all your ideas useless and ridiculous, know that

IT IS DADA BEGINNING TO SPEAK TO YOU

cubism constructs a cathedral of artistic liver paste
WHAT DOES DADA DO?
expressionism poisons artistic sardines
WHAT DOES DADA DO?
simultaneism is still at its first artistic communion
WHAT DOES DADA DO?
futurism wants to mount in an artistic lyricism-elevator
WHAT DOES DADA DO?
unanism embraces allism and fishes with an artistic line
WHAT DOES DADA DO?
neo-classicism discovers the good deeds of artistic art
WHAT DOES DADA DO?
paroxysm makes a trust of all artistic cheeses
WHAT DOES DADA DO?
ultraism recommends the mixture of these seven artistic things
WHAT DOES DADA DO?
creationism vorticism imagism also propose some artistic recipes
WHAT DOES DADA DO?

WHAT DOES DADA DO?

50 francs reward to the person who finds the best
way to explain DADA to us

Dada passes everything through a new net.
Dada is the bitterness which opens its laugh on all that which has been made consecrated forgotten in our language in our brain in our habits.
It says to you: There is Humanity and the lovely idiocies which have made it happy to this advanced age

DADA HAS ALWAYS EXISTED
THE HOLY VIRGIN WAS ALREADY A DADAIST

DADA IS NEVER RIGHT

Citizens, comrades, ladies, gentlemen

Beware of forgeries!

Imitators of DADA want to present DADA in an artistic form which it has never had

CITIZENS,

You are presented today in a pornographic form, a vulgar and baroque spirit which is not the PURE IDIOCY claimed by DADA

BUT DOGMATISM AND PRETENTIOUS IMBECILITY





Paris January 12, 1921
E. Varèse, Tr. Tzara, Ph. Soupault,
Soubeyran, J. Rigaut, G. Ribe-
mont-Dessaignes, M. Ray, F. Pi-
cabia, B. Péret, C. Pausaers
R.Hülsenbeeks, J. Evola, M. Ernst,
P. Eluard, Suz. Duchamp, M. Du-
champ, Crotti, G. Cantarelli, Marg.
Buffet, Gab. Buffet, a. Breton
Baargeld, Arp., W. C. Arensberg,
L. Aragon