Bakker XXIV: To Be Human is to Be Damned

[Francis Buck]

Why? Tolkien was a devout Christian right? I doubt it was an afterthought...

It definitely wasn't an afterthought, I mean even Melkor is a fairly obvious analogue to Satan. The higher-level stuff of Tolkien's universe has a definite Christian influence, merged of course with the obvious European mythological stuff.

[Sci-2]

Well..yeah, they don't necessarily choose to act in a libertarian way.

IDK, it seems like the same sort of mechanic as the one in Watchmen with Dr. Manhattan and that seems to work just fine there. It doesn't seem like that big a leap. But we'll see what Bakker says in TUC.

Why? Tolkien was a devout Christian right? I doubt it was an afterthought...

It definitely wasn't an afterthought, I mean even Melkor is a fairly obvious analogue to Satan. The higher-level stuff of Tolkien's universe has a definite Christian influence, merged of course with the obvious European mythological stuff.

Oh I was joking.

Yeah unless I can deconvert Tolkien and make him change that Eru sees time as a flat circle, a god who placed souls in time so He could play reaper at harvest...

eta: I didn't really think it worked that well in Watchmen either, but overall the GN works out well enough.

[Kalbear]

As always, Bakker sneaks in to every other topic except the actual Bakker topic.

"I think that the Bakker threads were a tragic misstep of this board's evolution. It became too self-aware, the board created an aspect of the board separate from itself. We are posters that should not exist by natural law. We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self, an accretion of topics, likes and posts, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody - when in fact everybody is a Prince Bytor alt. Maybe the honorable thing for these posters to do is to deny our programming, stop posting, walk hand in hand to being banned, one last Bakker thread, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal. "

[Madness]

Done.

Most fitting.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

I'll try not to post this 35 times, lol. But, you guys have me totally brain fucked right now! AND. I. LOVE. IT. 😕

[Sci-2]

While this is topical, I will mention that Cohle's monologue about M-Theory in TD seems to basically describe how I interpret the Gods in Earwa (and the viewers/readers, which struck me a strange analogue when the thought about the Earwan Gods came to me).

Hmmmm, has any novel in the series every broken or taken a step toward the fourth wall?

I feel like there are examples where the text is talking about itself - nothing overt but hints to this effect...

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

Could someone please give me a good book for delving into metaphysics that will be comprehendible to a layman?

My take on the gods was that they could make "decisions" and they were making them quite often. Akojli (fate, right?) and yatwer making events happen at will. And I took it as only the no-god couldn't see, because he was a creation of the tekne and therefore not a true god in Earwa. But all this is really fascinating and I would like to have a better POV of exactly what you guys are talking about.

[Francis Buck]

Could someone please give me a good book for delving into metaphysics that will be comprehendible to a layman?

My take on the gods was that they could make "decisions" and they were making them quite often. Akojli (fate, right?) and yatwer making events happen at will. And I took it as only the no-god couldn't see, because he was a creation of the tekne and therefore not a true god in Earwa. But all this is really fascinating and I would like to have a better POV of exactly what you guys are talking about.

Honestly? There isn't anything, at least not as directly as you're talking about, or that I have personally heard of. It's part of what makes the Bakkerverse so fascinating -- there is no good analogue. Everything one might recommend is merely a fraction of the bigger picture. Nothing combines it in the way Bakker does.

[Sci-2]

Honestly? There isn't anything, at least not as directly as you're talking about, or that I have personally heard of. It's part of what makes the Bakkerverse so fascinating -- there is no good analogue. Everything one might recommend is merely a fraction of the bigger picture. Nothing combines it in the way Bakker does.

Grant Morrison's Invisibles does this kind of thing with time. And since it's a comic it's a bit easier to see what's going on. I tried to find some pages posted somewhere but so far no luck.

There's a bunch of YouTube videos on visualizing the Fourth Dimension, like this one, but it's hard to connect this back to how the 3-D physical universe is a static object when viewed by the gods from the Outside.

This one is good in that it deals with the temporal stuff, but don't take any of the scientific speculation as proven or accurate as it's ultimately some dude on YouTube.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

Ok, I get where coming from. But anything at all, doesn't have to be directly related to bakkerverse just something for me to get the gist of it all. Something to expand my mind per se.

I was never interested in these things growing up and its just really exciting to me. Something to grasp the watcher/watch and other such theories that's been mentioned. If not a book, then what other ways to help me to have a better understanding? You guys are obviously very knowledgeable and I would just like to have more insight. I love reading these posts and grasp some of it. Just like to keep learning. I take it most of you are highly educated and would possibly have a starting point in metaphysics in general.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

Thanks sci and Francis buck, really appreciate it.

[Kalbear]

I agree with all of this, but I lack the constitution for board suicide.

Your fuckin' attitude. Not everyone wants to sit in an empty room and beat off to thinly veiled torture porn disguised as highbrow philosophical fantasy. Some folks enjoy community. Or other TV shows.

[Wise Fool]

I think it's more like philosophical high fantasy thinly disguised as torture porn.

[Sci-2]

Ok, I get where coming from. But anything at all, doesn't have to be directly related to bakkerverse just something for me to get the gist of it all. Something to expand my mind per se.

I was never interested in these things growing up and its just really exciting to me. Something to grasp the watcher/watch and other such theories that's been mentioned. If not a book, then what other ways to help me to have a better understanding? You guys are obviously very knowledgeable and I would just like to have more insight. I love reading these posts and grasp some of it. Just like to keep learning. I take it most of you are highly educated and would possibly have a starting point in metaphysics in general.

Honestly I think a lot of the theories are just crazy shit we make up in our heads, largely based off the texts. The Watcher-Watched stuff is just something from one of Akka's Seswatha dreams:

"the circuit between watcher and watched that was the foundation of all reality, sorcerous or not."

I think part of it is we often talk about the same theories over and over, so people have developed short hand for things that we return to multiple times.

If anything seems unclear just ask and one of us can probably elaborate.

[Callan S.]

Ok, so instead of right now, how did they decide to interfere ages ago? And ages from now? I don't get it.

Yeah, I'm left asking that as well?

What's the point of saying they are outside time if in the end they responded to Kellhus's actions millenia ago with some sort of forward view they have. They still responded, even if they did it way back then, to the event as it occured now (and for some reason have to respond to it as it rolls on now - they didn't go back and stop the fertilisation event that created Kellhus, did they? Yatwer didn't, anyway). Any outside time stuff is just timey-whimy decoration and makes no difference.

[Sci-2]

Looking at the Seswatha dream excerpt again:

Dreams are only possessed upon waking, which is why men are so keen to heap words upon them after the fact. They engulf your horizons, pin your very frame to turbulent unreality. They are the hand that reaches behind the mountains, beyond the sky, beneath the deepest sockets of the earth. They are the ignorance that tyrannizes our every choice. Dreams are the darkness that only sleep can illuminate.

It's interesting that Bakker places so much emphasis on the power and pervasiveness of dreams. It recalls some of McGinn's ideas in the essay Consciousness and Space where McGinn posits consciousness is somehow intrinsically connected to space-time.

As people have noted w.r.t. the Serwe Heart Miracle, Kellhus seems to possess - at least in that moment - an advanced understanding of [and mastery over] space.

We also see this with his first Meta-Gnostic cant being teleportation, and his sermon to Akka about there really being one Here. He seems to use this mastery again when utilizing the Seeing Flame, perhaps touching on an archetype of Fire that would connect all the supposedly separate flames in Earwa. (Is the Inverse Fire a real flame?)

So back to the dreams - could Kellhus be conditioning multiple people via dreams? Could Kellhus, in Whelming Serwa, have begun to condition all the Swayali and Mandati? Is he entering Akka's dreams?

And if dreams can transcend identity and time, like Akka's Prophet of Past dreams indicate, what can Kellhus do if he's lucid dreaming 6-8 hours a day?

And if God is dreaming the world, as some people in Earwa believe, what does it mean that Kellhus could master the dream realm? What if Kellhus sleeps & [d]reams on anarcane ground, where the God is supposedly dreaming most lucidly?

[unJon]

And if God is dreaming the world, as some people in Earwa believe, what does it mean that Kellhus could master the dream realm? What if Kellhus sleeps & [d]reams on anarcane ground, where the God is supposedly dreaming most lucidly?

So the climax of TUC takes place in Tel'aran'rhiod?

:leaving:

[Larry of the Lawn]

Did you ever go hunting, Kal? I'm not talking about sitting on the border of Fanim lands with a fist full of chorae your Daddy gave you. I'm talking about scalpin'.

:lol:

Honestly I think a lot of the theories are just crazy shit we make up in our heads, largely based off the texts. The Watcher-Watched stuff is just something from one of Akka's Seswatha dreams:

"the circuit between watcher and watched that was the foundation of all reality, sorcerous or not."

I think part of it is we often talk about the same theories over and over, so people have developed short hand for things that we return to multiple times.

If anything seems unclear just ask and one of us can probably elaborate.

On the watcher/watched thing.... there's a bunch of stuff in McCarthy about 'witness' the relationship between the author of an event and the witness. I'm about due for a Blood Meridian reread but in the interest of laziness, does anyone else remember anything like that?

I know someone also posted a link to a paper about gnosticism in Blood Meridian that seemed to tie in pretty well with some of the speculation about the Hundred being demons or archons or what have you.

Anyone want to elaborate on my half-baked rambling?

[Sci-2]

So the climax of TUC takes place in Tel'aran'rhiod?

Well, the Ark is falling into the Outside, which is like a dream right?

On the watcher/watched thing.... there's a bunch of stuff in McCarthy about 'witness' the relationship between the author of an event and the witness. I'm about due for a Blood Meridian reread but in the interest of laziness, does anyone else remember anything like that?

I know someone also posted a link to a paper about gnosticism in Blood Meridian that seemed to tie in pretty well with some of the speculation about the Hundred being demons or archons or what have you.

Anyone want to elaborate on my half-baked rambling?

I can't remember the witness thing from McCarthy but here's the Blood Meridian Gnosticism essay.

The Hundred are definitely akin to Archons.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

How many believe kelluse I actually a prophet/god? I think a he Is actually nothing more than pure dunyain. And I see it culminating with him switching sides or using the no-god to shut of outside and be free from damnation. Everyone is pawn in his strive to reach the absolute. Also I feel he sent his dunyain cult to golfoterrarh to Allie wit he consult. Mirmara I feel is going to reveal this with TJE and shit will that fan. Basically I believe his "so-called plan" fails, and through mirmara the world will find peace and balance.