New Disease: How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love the Superbugs

By Mr. VI

Not to worry you, but you're going to die. If it's not old age that gets you, it's probably going to be some mutated form of the primordial killer – as much an apparent monster as Godzilla, rising up from the depths to cause chaos and destruction in your life.

Unless you're extraordinarily unusual, or a little bit morbid, you don't like to think about it much. After all, there is so much to see and do in life that thinking about it and can be a little distracting, can't it?

But vast amounts of future tech notwithstanding, you're not going to be rejuvenated, or immortal any time soon. Of course, even if the future tech arrives, initially it'll probably belong to this sinister lizardy Methuselah-types like Rupert Murdoch due to the billions of dollars they have in their bank accounts.

The fact is, the majority of the world still doesn't have access to decent healthcare – and those that do tend to live in the richer nations. In the UK there is state healthcare, but in America? Staying healthy is the province of those who can afford it. Now, imagine all those folks in countries which we laughably call the Third World or the developing world.

Imagine what happens when they get ill, and what they do when it comes time to die. Technology and medical care and such may have advanced way beyond the four humours – rationalism may be slowly doing away with snake oil sales but what good is that if you can't get your hands on what you need?

What stories do they tell themselves to make sense out of death and dying? Are they that different to the ones we tell ourselves when disease strikes, seemingly out of the blue?

A Few thoughts on last night's Supernatural

By Wes Unruh

I hated Supernatural when it started out. Well, not hated.. I'd wander out of the room, though... at least until the first appearance of the Trickster in "tall tales" during Season 2.. After a while, however, I started studying what Eric Kripke was doing in the subtext - the larger themes began to emerge - and what has unfolded is an elegant and entertaining conundrum, at the heart of it a question - is this world of ours devoid of gods and magic?

Sure, that's high-minded and melodramatic. Melodrama is fun. It establishes an ironic detachment between audience and stage where identity seepage can occur, few could be so daft as to allow that seepage to possess them so fully that they act out in violent, irrational ways, though there is always someone willing to believe, and map, the worst possible scenario onto their surroundings, and take up the mantle of hunter in a deeply misguided way (see nunez, brea - two real-world cases which would not have been out of place during Season 5 of Supernatural).

Last night's episode, 'the french mistake' (clearly a reference to Blazing Saddles) firmly planted Supernatural into a twilight space where fans, narratives, and producers can freely decontextualize all elements of the show into personal discursive narratives. Seriously... @MishaCollins (and the rest of the writing and production team) accomplished a nice cross-world paradigm shift in how identity actors public self can seep through narrative space. Utilizing himself as caricature, he timed his first tweet in the show with an east coast live tweet on twitter, and his second tweet in the show to the west coast airing. Breaking the frame in a way that they hinted at in Season 5 - this episode went all the way over into what Misha ultimately called "a parallel universe devoid of magic."

If you haven't seen this episode, you should. Of course, you'll need to watch every episode since Season 3 started for it to make any sense... and you'll come back and thank me once you've finished.


Pre-order a copy of The Immanence of Myth, published by Weaponized in July 2011.

Twilight Selves: Cannibalism, Werewolves and Identity Part #2

By Mr. VI

(This is Part 2 of a series. The first is available here.)

So, have you been thinking on the things you know that others do not? The mysteries of code, the runes of circuit and mechanism, the rituals of spreadsheet and year-end? All these and more are incomprehensible to many.

How do you accept such things as normal, as easy and mundane? There are things in your life which appear arcane to those not living as you. Whether it be a hobby, or occupation, take a moment to examine the things in your life which you perform and may sometimes use as an identifier.

I, for example, write things like this. If you look at my profile, you'll see 'writer' there. Not particularly arcane, you may think. Except I spend a good portion of my time stringing together words in varying combinations in order to affect *you*, the reader. I could no more cease stringing these words together than you could stop your heart beating without risk of damage.

Take away a keyboard, and I'll write with a pen and paper. Take those away and I'll compose pieces in my head, use my tongue and lips to form words and speak them out loud. It's like breathing to me. I cannot cease playing with language.

Thus I identify as a writer. Rhythm, language, communication; I love these things, I really, truly do. To me, there is glory and ecstasy in it; to evoke a response in the audience and lead you in a certain way to show you things - this is what I do.

For others though, the idea of choosing to write words on a page is a chore, a necessary evil rather than an attempt at art. It's not a matter of glory and and wonder, it's simply utilitarian.

And that's fine, because it illustrates the point we're making here; there is a difference between the two groups I have outlined. I could say that writers and thinkers will intuitively understand the compulsion I am speaking of. I might say that non-writers will not understand the brutal horror of the blank page, or conversely, are incapable of experiencing the thrill of possibility that same brutality engenders.

Of course, that would be elitist. A cadre of writers, artists and poets who intuitively understand the world in a unique and important way, vital to the rest of humanity; this would be the narrative I would be situating myself within, rubbing shoulders with all others who've identified as a writer.

But in the last post, I promised you I would show you how mythic analysis can help you to parse the seeming contradiction of the wolf-pack and cannibalism:

On my personal blog, I've discussed the Germanic conception of luck and might and how it ties into the notion of kingships, heroes and power. Such things were held as transferable properties, able to be lost or stolen, and more importantly, won through great deeds.

Whereas most feudal monarchies claimed their authority from the Divine Right of Kings, wherein God ordains the lawful king, pre-Christian Germanic traditions often claimed descent from the gods directly – by blood and affiliation rather than dogmatic assertion.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives the following genealogy for Penda, a pagan 7th Century King of Mercia, in a time when most rulers had converted to Christianity:

'Penda was Pybba's offspring, Pybba was Cryda's offspring, Cryda Cynewald's offspring, Cynewald Cnebba's offspring, Cnebba Icel's offspring, Icel Eomer's offspring, Eomer Angeltheow's offspring, Angeltheow Offa's offspring, Offa Wermund's offspring, Wermund Wihtlaeg's offspring, Wihtlaeg Woden's offspring.'

Both the Chronicle and the poet Snorri Sturlson mention such divine genealogies within the Angle and Saxon tribes. The latter, although a Christian, is mainly responsible for the preservation and recording of the tales which we know as Norse mythology.

Snorri was a renowned poet, historian and politician. Twice elected to the highest legal office of Iceland, he was influential enough to be a thorn in the side of King of Norway, which indirectly led to his death at the hand of a chief named Gissar.

History records that Snorri received a warning letter informing him of the intent to kill him, but as the runes were ciphered, he could not read it. For all his influence, it was the arcane and specialised form of writing which prevented him taking steps.

Those myths preserved by Snorri present the god Odin as the chief deity of the Norse – pater familias of a pantheon of gods including Thor, Loki and Freya. This arrangement appears to be something of an attempt to model the old gods along Classical lines.

However, regardless of any such attempts, archaeology seems to indicate that the majority of Icelanders honoured Thor in their pagan days, while Odin was reserved for poets and the aristocracy.

Often sinister and nearly always morally ambiguous, Odin shares a root name with his Anglo Saxon and German counterparts – Woden and Wodan respectively. This Proto-Indo-European root is *wodh which is variously glossed as madness, fury, or poetic inspiration. The suffix implies a mastery thereof, and so it is no surprise that Snorri, as a poet, might seek to place the god in his proper place.

Modern depictions of Odin often focus on his aspect as a god of war and slaughter – legions of metal fans know the name from countless songs. Death, sex, battle and darkness – all these thrill, and more importantly, sell records.

It is Odin who hanged himself for nine nights to gain the runes, pierced by his own spear. It is Odin who is said to have brought the gift of poetry, albeit indirectly, to the world of man. As an exemplar of cryptic wisdom, and even the physical image of the wizard – all long grey beard, funny hat and staff – the god stands squarely in archetypical territory.

But what has this to do with the wolf-pack and the cannibal?

Consider the previously stated fact that it was Odin who was honoured by the aristocracy - the kings and powerful folk in Germanic society. Now, imagine why these luminaries would ally themselves with a figure surrounded by wolves and ravens.

Conjure the images in your mind; the fields of corpses, a veritable feast for the black birds with shining eyes and knowing calls. Or perhaps the speed and lethality of the wolves, acting together to bring down their prey, pitiless in pursuit?

In society where most are illiterate, the power wielded by those who knew the runes as alphabet – quite apart from their purported mystic dimensions – is great. Consider also the notion of Valhalla; a post-mortem existence in which scarcity does not occur, where men may fight, fall, and rise again endlessly, until the final doom of all things where they may perish utterly in one last world-shaking battle.

At first glance this mythological reflex might seem similar to the notion of Paradise or Heaven so beloved by the Peoples of the Book, however it may be examined further in relation to the wolf-pack in ways which are useful to us.

(A subsequent post will address the place of the eschatology of Christianity, Judaism and Islam in relation to these issues.)

First of all, one of Odin's by-names is anglicised as Valfather, literally 'Father of the Slain' implying that all those who fall in battle are inextricably connected to that god. Indeed, though first pick of the fallen warriors passes to Freyja, she takes only half, and Odin the other.

These warriors are hence known as the 'Einherjar', or 'lone fighters' in Old Norse. Bold and valorous, they have attracted the god's attention and are brought to Valhalla by the valkyries. Etymologically, both '-herjar' and 'harry' seem somehow connected:

harry
O.E. hergian "make war, lay waste, ravage, plunder," the word used in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" for what the Vikings did to England, from P.Gmc. *kharohan (v.), from *kharjaz "an armed force" (cf. O.E. here, O.N. herr, O.H.G. har, Ger. Heer "host, army"), from PIE root *koro- "war" (cf. Lith. karas "war, quarrel," karias "host, army;" O.C.S. kara "strife;" M.Ir. cuire "troop;" O.Pers. kara "host, people, army;" Gk. koiranos "ruler, leader, commander"). Related: Harried; harrying.

The former of these two has been linked to the Harii tribe by Orchard, Simek and Lindow, of whom Tacitus writes in his Germania c. 1 AD:

'As for the Harii, quite apart from their strength, which exceeds that of the other tribes I have just listed, they pander to their innate savagery by skill and timing: with black shields and painted bodies, they choose dark nights to fight, and by means of terror and shadow of a ghostly army they cause panic, since no enemy can bear a sight so unexpected and hellish; in every battle the eyes are the first to be conquered.'

Consider the bond between warriors in a given band; an elite grouping capable of striking fear into their enemies; they attack at night and use terror tactics to win their battles, combined with natural skill. By coming out of the night, they defy the usual rules of war, and with fear as their ally they become a feared foe, catching the enemy at its weakest and most unprepared; the victory may be achieved more easily than a straight fight, as proponents of guerilla warfare have found, the world over.

Military hazings, gang tests and ritual initiation – these are born of the same reflex. By ensuring all members are bonded by experience and activity, the individuals identify as part of the group. They are an elite, sharing qualities, experiences and knowledge; identity shifts so that the definition of individual self necessitates partaking of the group-self.

Indeed, the former identity may be destroyed, and the newly initiated pack-member may survive; in short they may 'die' and 'rise again'. Combine this with scenarios which subtly alter the position of consciousness - whether by ritual, ordeal, or entheogenic consumption – and we are presented with a journey of the psyche which may mirror those in other so-called shamanistic cultures.

Indeed, as god of magic, a figure such as Odin may be regarded as having strongly shamanistic overtones.

Plus, the runes themselves are held to be Mysteries, containing more than simple shape and sound values, rather like the notion of the Greek stoicheia - elements – or the mystic attributions to Hebrew letters. The sense of such mysticism is one which is grounded in elitism – only the initiated can comprehend the full utility of the symbolism.

Finally, one cannot invoke the idea of Odin without considering the notion of the berserker. The 9th century skaldic poem Haraldskvæði describes the ulfheðnar 'men clad in wolf skins' as follows, emphasis mine:

I'll ask of the berserks, you tasters of blood,
Those intrepid heroes, how are they treated,
Those who wade out into battle?
Wolf-skinned they are called. In battle
They bear bloody shields.
Red with blood are their spears when they come to fight.
They form a closed group.
The prince in his wisdom puts trust in such men
Who hack through enemy shields.

Further, in Ynglinga Saga, Snorri writes:

Odin could make his enemies in battle blind, or deaf, or terror-struck, and
their weapons so blunt that they could no more but than a willow
wand; on the other hand, his men rushed forwards without armour,
were as mad as dogs or wolves, bit their shields, and were strong
as bears or wild bulls, and killed people at a blow, but neither
fire nor iron told upon themselves

These two quotes suggest a significant change in consciousness which alters the berserker at the biophysical level, a frenzy which caused the Norwegian King Harald Finehair to make good use of them in battle during his campaign to unite the kingdoms of that country.

All these considered, these facts imply that there is a link between the extra-ordinary and the idea of power, something which is deepened when one considers that ravens and wolves are often eaters of carrion. This motif is intrinsically linked with cannibalism as an ability and desire to consume that which is thought beyond use through social convention.

Truly, when one opens up to cannibalism and consumption of the dead, more food becomes immediately available, removing one from the privations of scarcity. This allows prosperity when others are short on resources, something which is extremely valuable when enmeshed in dynamics of power.

The pillar of the community maintains their position by the employment of wolfish tactics; the state cuts the most vulnerable of services and repurposes its funding. The werewolf bite is contagious, and soon it becomes the case that the weaker packs are cannibalized, gobbled up.

The tactics which make the aristocracy/plutocracy so successful are hence demonised when they are external to it – wolves which are not part of the power-bloc are hunted down and killed, just as all berserkers were eventually outlawed in medieval Iceland – by the 12th century, berserker bands had all but disappeared.

But the nature of a werewolf is literally a wolf in human shape, and thus it might be said that it is difficult to discover their existence. Guerilla strategy and tactical dissimulation are still options, despite indications to the contrary. In the next post, we'll examine how eschatology and warfare combine to form acts of creative resistance – in short, how to remain in the twilight and prosper under seemingly impossible conditions, by being true to that '[O]ther who hides in me' as Machen puts it.

Until then,

Be seeing you.

Pre-order a copy of The Immanence of Myth, published by Weaponized in July 2011.

Vampire Sun, Werewolf Moon (pt. 2)

By Wes Unruh

It's VD day, which has come a long way since Lupercalia's formalized whipping ceremonies to make certain the women would be fertile for fall deliveries. Now VD means Valentine's Day, Venereal Disease, and Vampire Diaries, apparently concurrently if the commercials I saw during station breaks on Supernatural are any indication. Irreducible forms of sexual archetypal anxieties been with us forever - literally to pre-literate times and (as if as in a full eclipse) it has been overlayed by VD in the CW's programming. Here's the concise description given in wikipedia of the Lupercalia:

"...the Luperci cut thongs from the skins of the victims, which were called februa, dressed themselves in the skins of the sacrificed goats, in imitation of Lupercus, and ran round the walls of the old Palatine city, the line of which was marked with stones, with the thongs in their hands in two bands, striking the people who crowded near. Girls and young women would line up on their route to receive lashes from these whips. This was supposed to ensure fertility, prevent sterility in women and ease the pains of childbirth."

Who knows how long this had been going on; certainly as far back as the founding of Rome. This kept going until the vampire pope completely lost his shit and deliberately forced it to be enfolded into the purification of the Virgin aka Candlemas. Still, a good deal of the naked flogging is alive and well on V-Day if you go to the right shows. That aside, in part one of this post I labeled vampires and werewolves as lunar and solar inversions of the hero. Of course, labeling vampire solar and werewolf lunar then implies there are other planetary attributes which could manifest archetypes. One can find that the whole planetary array of these forms occurs in Buffy, Supernatural, and True Blood: fairies as Uranian, elves/aliens as Venusian, angelic or dragon forms as Mercurial, demonic or sadistic archetypes from Saturn, etc. - and while these other planetary presences are not always explicit, they are discursive gaps awaiting narration. However, barring the inner planets which perform slow, intricate dances across the night sky (if/when you can see the sky) the planets themselves are not nearly as visible as the sun and the moon - and likewise the impact of vampire and werewolf archetypes economically trumps all other mythic forms.

Secondly, at least as far as the werewolf is concerned, the linkage to the lunar cycle is a very modern invention. Frank Hamel's book Human Animals, published in 1915, relates a good number of 'wer-wolf' tales from the past four hundred or so years and the moon is incidental. The first (and now lost) filmic portrayal of The Werewolf (1913) was more firmly rooted in colonialist fears of vengeance by witchcraft. It wasn't until Werewolf of London (1935) that lunar light and werewolf bite came together to create the first filmic 'bipedal werewolf' - all of the modern tropes of the werewolf were present. And this 'bipedal werewolf' runs naked through the streets looking more like a man wearing goatskins than the traditional origins would have us believe. I'm making the case that Lupercalia is part of the essential mythic strand that generated the werewolf, even more-so than the lunar connection - that the full werewolf form of Twilight's wolves comes from a different folklore than the bipedal werewolf descended from ancient shepherds who were imitating Pan. The werewolf Lon Chaney portrays is almost identical to the Teen Wolf (1985) Michael J. Fox portrayed, a satyr more than a wolf, pure sexual Id run rampant upon transformation.


Now, just as the first filmic appearance of a werewolf's transformation is lost, so too is the first filmic appearance of Count Dracula in Dracula's Death (1923). I can't presume to know the elements in place in a lost film made in a language I don't speak, but in both Nosferatu (1922) and again explicitly with Dracula (1931) the vampire is clearly shown to be destroyed by sunlight - the vampire's position as an inversion of the solar hero seems always to be clear, it was for the 'children of the night' to be entrained into signifying the lunar, a position that didn't fully coalesce until Lon Chaney materialized them in The Wolf Man (1941) and its sequels. The first meeting of the werewolf and the vampire is in House of Dracula (1931) and it is on this tenuous strand that countless reoccurring forms continue to overlap.

But perhaps there's something more going on underneath - this solar, lunar inversion is a clue - the vampire and the werewolf come from the same space, a shadowy understanding of superstitions and an overlay on demonized and outmoded beliefs. It is a long way from House of Dracula to True Blood, both in terms of geographic setting and temporal space, but also in terms of how the idea of the world these entities require to exist has evolved. In True Blood, the vampire elite rule through an elaborate global empire, a regime based on bloodlines, secret allegiances, and brutal violence carried out by vampire assassins and the occasional pack of nazi werewolf henchmen. Unpacking all the new mythographic materials layered into the last few seasons of True Blood will keep some lucky television studies scholar occupied for the next decade.

Where there is an empire, there are the voiceless and often faceless victims of power. Especially in True Blood both vampire and werewolf elite are able to murder with impunity, protected by the invisible empire. In Blade II the vampire elite control the world in ways that go far beyond that, where farming blood is true industrial production. This is a far cry from the fate of the Werewolf of London, as a sole victim murdered was enough to unwind the sole villain into an act of suicidal self-sabotage.

Now the normalized narratives are strewn through with the unacknowledged/unacknowledgable, there only to be consumed in service to the true rulers of the regime. Constantly the theme in these inversionary archetypal tropes is one of social acknowledgment - either as a lover or acknowledgment of hunger - here vampire treads close to zombie perhaps, the starved vampire, strung-out and scrambling through sewers like del Toro's vision in Blade II, contrast the vampire Illuminati bloodlines that orchestrate a vast world government behind the scenes. These archetypal signifiers now carry so much cultural currency that they appeal to the weakest, the unacknowledged, who see themselves as that nameless, voiceless victim and long to be the empowered. Then there are those local news organizations who are willing to exploit those caught up in the glamour of their own fetish and report on it as spectacle:

(more to come)



Pre-order a copy of The Immanence of Myth, published by Weaponized in July 2011.