Rex Mundi

Hello there. Mr. VI here, breaking the seal on my guest-post duties.

It's always interesting, this writing in a new space; a new forum for ideas always subtly changes them, even if they are ideas you have discussed before. I'd like to thank James for allowing me to contribute here, and certainly hope to have some good discussions.

There's a certain difficulty in creation, as in other things in life; a certain level of potency to beginnings, and as such to endings too. When we enter a new space, it may be unfamiliar to us at first, and we often instinctively examine the area for something similar to our usual stomping grounds and territories.

So, often – and particularly in shared spaces – there might be an almost animal urge to pick one's spot; to make one's own unique entrance. Be it a little mark, a definite authorial voice, or signature style, it's often ingrained. We are after all, mammals. As James and I mention in our collaborative essay on butchery in Immanence of Myth, there's an urge to make an incision, to open up and begin the process of analysis; the rendering and dissection into pieces.

It's easier to deal with pieces – easier to chew and digest. How do you get your teeth into a new space? How can you incorporate its nuances and topography into the work; take advantage of the new possibilities?

Part of the joy of collaboration is that diversity is possible – a forum itself was originally an open air space in ancient Rome, eventually becoming a place for discussion that is quite literally outside.

Etymologically it shares the same word root as forest and door and I'm quite sure the implication in these links is fairly obvious to anybody with an interest in myth and its resonances. Thus we can say that a forum is a place where ideas are expressed, and where they are explicitly allowed to develop in ways that would not, perhaps, be suitable within the confines of regular life.

Just like a door, an entrance, an exit; like a beginning or an ending, so the forum provides a framework – a door-frame which allows us to actually make the distinction between the inside and outside intelligible. It enables us to turn and look back, to examine the place from which we emerge.

But if this is the case, then is not the forum - the frame - also an artefact of that very same place? Is it not a sanctioned crossing place, not quite one thing or another? The description of outside is contingent on the very existence of the the thing it is outside of!

Suppose this to be the case; how does this alter perception? How does this affect the very shape of the ideas to be expressed - does the frame, the horizon, the very ground of the forum itself tell us something, before anything has been spoken?

What varied fruits could grow in this garden? What wild seeds lie just beneath the surface, waiting for the right context - the right circumstance, to push their way out of the soil? And when they do, how will they cross-pollinate with others?

Georges Dumezil broke Indo-European sovereignty in two functions; the Flamen-jurist-priest who maintained order, and the Rex-magician-king, who bound and captured and shaped. The question for those of us interested in myth as an immanent living thing, is which sovereign decreed that this forum, and indeed any forum, any space, be a particular way?

Once we understand the metaphorical ground, and have carried out a strange kind of reconnaissance, and noted our landmarks, we can begin to build architecture of meaning. Can we operate within the current order as-is, or needs must we subvert, usurp and overthrow?

Perhaps that is missing the point. Perhaps it is not a case of Rex vs. Flamen, but of recognition of Sovereignty? As sovereign myth-makers we have the right to accept or reject any and all material within our reach. The sacred and profane and the division therein, is ours to make.

It's often said that children are innocent, and innocent merely means without guilt. Operating within the spirit of sovereignty, and acknowledging the sovereignty that exists even within the most restrictive narrative, we find that, as in the ancient ways of magic, like calls to like. By guiltless and amoral acknowledgement of our own ability to capture and reshape, we become like children playing.

On my personal blog, I've discussed the notions of childlike attitudes as ways of restructuring narratives, and certainly it's the case that James has used this place as an avenue for discussing his ideas on the structure of literature and other things. So, you might forgive an inveterate occultist for mentioning Crowley – and for suggesting that perhaps his Aeon of Horus, the 'Crowned and Conquering Child' is but another narrative vehicle for this call to a kind of bloody innocence.

I say bloody precisely because, from the outside, such an attitude appears to do violence to the world. After all, the upheaval of the New stimulates rapid attempts at co-option by pre-existing structures.

(Mind you, sometimes this 'rapidity' is relative to the usual speed of the structure. Governments often are late-adopters due to the slowness of their internal metabolism, for example.)

The co-option might be said to appear as a kind of tension or struggle between 'legitimacy' and the 'other'. Depending how this narrative is spun into existence, it can be seen as a 'war' for 'control'.

Supposing this is so, if we separate the idea of inherent sovereignty from royalty as a concept, what do we get except royalty attempting to defend its own legitimacy and its claim to sovereignty? An attempt to keep the throne at the centre of creation, as it were. Defend it from the usurping little bastard illegitimate child!

(I use 'royalty' here to mean those entities, be they corporate, religious or governmental, which derive their authority from the status quo or tradition.)

So why does this occur, this ageless struggle? If sitting on the throne is a matter of 'right' then by definition, 'right' must be a property which is ascribed. It's a problem of perceived scarcity, of resource management – a downright reptile-brain attitude!

So maybe David Icke is right. Maybe the royalty of Britain and the Western World are indeed Reptilians, eh? Alien intelligences with vast subterranean bases beneath the surface of the mammalian world.

Maybe, just maybe they're moving behind the scenes, manipulating everything, all we do, and all we think. They're inside our thoughts with their scaly mind-control devices, our very consciousness gripped by their cold, inhuman claws, can't you see?

But what if, somewhere in their bizarre genetic experiments in ancient antediluvian pasts, some of that alien DNA slipped into the human bloodline? And the royal markers, the ability to use their mind-bogglingly powerful technology - which is so advanced so as to be indistinguishable from magic, what if they were available to all?

Or, if you prefer, what if some of the blood of Qingu, son and war-general of ancient Tiamat – original holder of the Me, the tablets of destiny – has woken up in our veins? That puts us as of the same ilk as the Annunaki, as direct-line offspring of Tiamat and Apsu.

Or, if that doesn't scratch your itch, maybe the Serpent infecting the minds of Adam and Eve, causing them to munch on some fruit and become as the bene elohim will do you?

The implication is hanging here, dear readers; the odd horror masked in strange tales; we're all reptiles, underneath the flesh. The idea of royalty reached out and stole it, drew all of the primal thoughts and shaped them; all the potency, all the drive, all the impulse to live bundled together into a thing called power.

Everything gathered into the crown and the sceptre, the tools used to contour space and time. They say property is theft - and if royal right is a property, then it exists on the back of stolen sovereignty. Fortunately, James has given up his crown here, tossed aside the sceptre, hauled his arse out of the Big Chair, and put on some music so we can all dance around and have a game.

The floor, as they say, is yours. It always was. Remember that.