ISLAND OF THE BEAST – Chapter Five

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HUNTING KNOWLEDGE

We buried him. We did it quickly. We didn’t really want to think
about it. Henchy and Fist were quiet. Maybe too quiet. But then again,
they had been closest to Rickets. Okay, I had been with them for years,
too, but I was the skipper. Distant. The way of things.

‘What do we do now?’ asked Moira after the burial.
The words didn’t sink in straight away. I was looking at Henchy and Fist. They were stripping branches off trees. Cutting them. Fashioning them. Into bows, arrows and spears.
I looked at Moira. Tried to be reassuring; find my smile. ‘We survive.’
I made my own weapons, then. Although my greatest comfort was my knife. It had been my saviour many times, and I guess I’d rely on it now.
Finally the weapons were ready, and for a while we just stood there, as if we didn’t know what to do. Eventually, Henchy said: ‘We’ve got to follow that trail.’
Moira said: ‘And why are we doing this?’
It was a strange question, I thought, at first. But then her wisdom seemed to filter into our minds. Why indeed? What was the motive for the weapons? Survival was the obvious motive. But Moira could obviously sense in all our thoughts the notion of revenge. But revenge against what? Whatever was out there, it was animal. It didn’t plan to kill Rickets. It was simply what it did. But was that correct? We had all been touched by the presence on the island, and it stank of a kind of intelligence. Yes, we had seen – had sensed – an animal. But there was something about it that was more than simple, raw nature.
Eventually I said to Moira, ‘and what do we do with you?’
‘I don’t understand.’
She stood there, beautiful, feminine. But there was also the hint of the warrior in her. She carried herself with determination, and even in her femininity she was no push over.
‘We’re going to track it, whatever it is. And I don’t think it’s something you should be involved with.’
Moira sighed. ‘So what do you suggest? Leave me here? Alone.’
She knew that was equally out of the question. She went to Fist. Took one of his spears off him, and held it true. Her hair was wild, her clothes increasingly in rags, showing plenty of her supple body, and with the spear she was the huntress. I guess she’d be alright after all.

We’d been following the trail for about an hour when Moira said: ‘You’ve all changed.’
I was confused. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know how to explain it,’ she continued. ‘Your stature, your demeanour. It’s so different; it’s as if you’ve left a little of your humanity behind and you’re changing into a form of beast yourself.’
I couldn’t answer that. Maybe she was right. All I knew at that moment was that one of my friends was dead, and if we weren’t careful, we would all be dead. And we had no intention of dying. Not how Rickets had died, anyway.
Moira became silent again and we continued our way. The jungle seemed to press upon us. For a moment I felt that it was swallowing us, but soon realized that that was an unhealthy thought to have.
Eventually we heard the sounds of the sea and realized we were approaching the shore on the other side of the island. As we did so, the jungle fell back, stopped touching us, and the blue sky was clear above us.
It was Henchy who first noticed the shipwreck. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘we’re not the first to end up here.’
We adopted a more purposeful attitude as we stood next to the vessel. It wasn’t big – maybe had a crew of four. And it had been here about two years, from our estimates.
‘What happened to the crew?’ asked Moira.
Henchy was optimistic. ‘Got rescued, like we will.’
Fist was not. ‘Got killed, like … ‘
As we went inside, it was clear Fist was closer to the mark.
We found three skeletons. At least, what was left of them. It looks like they had made a last stand, against …
Against what?
‘I’m telling you,’ Henchy said, ‘this was a concerted attack. This wasn’t animals on the prowl. It was organized.’
Everything about the scene confirmed what Henchy had said. This wasn’t an attack by wild animals, opportunistically after food. This had been a battle. And the humans had lost.
Moira shivered. And I have to admit, so did I.

We built up the fire well that night. Whatever the beast was, we realized it had some definite animal properties. For a start, a search of the island convinced us the beast was nocturnal. And second, it didn’t like fire. Which left us reasonably safe during the day, with only the night to worry about. And a big fire would turn night into day.
As we sat around the fire, eating, I think we all felt the impenetrable barrier that was the far reach of the light. Suddenly the darkness beyond was dangerous, mysterious, a region of the unknown.
Henchy seemed to feel it acutely. He sat there nervously, which was unusual for him. Perhaps his courage only extended to the knowable. Perhaps that was true of us all. Fist, on the other hand, seemed defiant. He would stand up and prowl the perimeter, a determination on his face, and his weapons to hand. The danger had brought out the warrior.
After we had eaten, we withdrew to our own spaces. I found it strange how man would always find his own space, even in the situation we were now in. We may be social creatures, but that sociability is tempered with a bargain regarding our right to solitude.
Moira’s space had become close to mine, and it seemed there was an open door between our spaces. And it didn’t take long for it to be used.
‘Do you mind?’ she asked as she lay down beside me.
Neither of us moved, then, for a long time. Neither of us spoke. We simply stared at the blackness above us.
Eventually I broke the silence and said: ‘It’s good that you come to me for comfort.’
‘Glad to be of service to your ego,’ she replied.
I laughed; a simple laugh, but without much humour. ‘I didn’t mean … ‘
‘I know.’ A further silence descended. Eventually, Moira said: ‘Anyway, what makes you think I want comfort tonight.’
I turned on my side. Looked at her. Placed my hand on her cheek, then pulled her towards me.
When we kissed, it was magical. At last I held a real woman in my arms, and I felt I could stay like this forever. But as it was, it was for a few seconds only. The roar of the beast made sure of that …

FIGHTING BACK

It came out of the darkness in a frenzy. It was almost as if it had
purposely psyched itself up to face the light. It was huge and hairy,
and for a moment one could think it was a great ape. But rather than
lumber, it seemed to be bipedial, walking in the same way as man.
And its face. This was no beastly face, but most definitely
possessed of a hint of the human.

Fist was the first to let off an arrow. His aim should have been true, but the beast dodged, as if it anticipated what was to come, and soon it was approaching Henchy. Fighting his fear, he took up his spear, held it in front of him, determined to fight a defensive battle, keeping the point between him and the beast whilst Fist and me rounded upon it.
Fist’s second arrow was true, hitting it in the back. And then he threw down his bow and took up his own spear, joining Henchy, side by side in adversity. Moira, too, grabbed a spear, but remained distant. Yet I was sure that, come the time, she, too, would fight to the death.
As for me, it was obvious I was in the position to finish it. I took out my knife, adopted the correct stance and pounced.
The beast’s strength was unbelievable. I jumped straight on its back, held one arm around its neck, whilst with the other, I stabbed time after time in its side. Blood spurted from the beast, but its struggle was monumental, nearly throwing me off. And just as I was about to lose the fight, I saw Fist and Henchy on either side of me, and their spears came true, pinning the beast down in its death throes.
That death was noisy and slow, and we stood around in a group, staring as it died. And we couldn’t help but think, it was a very human death. Indeed, in its last seconds, we saw confusion and fear, as if it understood what was happening to it.
A long time later, we settled, once more, to sleep. Moira was back by my side. And this time I realized the moment was gone. I was back to giving her comfort. But if only I’d realized what I had seen before retiring. The next morning it was so obvious. For after the fight, bald Fist was showing the first sprouting of hair.

It took a long time to find Henchy. Infact, I cannot say for certain we found all of him.
The sun shone fiercely that following morning, and Moira and I felt we were in hell itself. Fist had, of course, disappeared. And it didn’t take us long to realize the incredible facts.
We had buried what was left of Henchy when Moira said: ‘It was Fist, wasn’t it?’
I breathed heavily. Left a theatrical pause. ‘Or whatever he had become.’
‘So I’m not mad. You think it, too. Something about this place turns man into beast.’
I looked at her. Suddenly an urge took me. I felt I could rip off her clothes and take her there and then. Was the human deserting me, too?
‘So something about this island does that to people,’ said Moira.
Of course it did, I thought. Indeed, it was as if I knew.
I felt adrenalin within me wanting to flow, to escape. An irrational thought came to me that I must hunt down Fist and destroy it. But it wasn’t to save Moira or myself. Good God, I simply HAD to do it.
I said: ‘It’s pretty obvious what’s going on.’
‘Enlighten me.’
And I could. The facts were simply in my head. I know I’d not experienced what happened, but I knew, as if my entire consciousness was merging with the island.
‘It began in the village when all the women died.’
After that, no words would come. Images filled my head; of the tribe in mourning, their women folk struck down, and an imbalance in life. Then that damned chimera was inside my head, and I realized it was a symbol of what man had become on this island. At first it had obviously been simply a ceremony to contact the nature spirits, but nature needs balance, and if that balance goes, nature can be a cruel place.
I suppose the first tribesman to change had wiped out many of the others. And then the survivors would have changed. And when the shipwreck turned up, with nothing but more men, the anger of nature would have continued. And with my last reasoned thought, I realized that masculinity can be a curse by itself; the beast is outed, and only femininity can save the human race from its beastly annihilation.
I could see fear in Moira’s eyes as I stood there. ‘Brad,’ she said, ‘what’s happening to you?’
I looked at my hands; at the hair, sprouting fast. And then I gave a howl and I bounded away.

I found Fist in a cave. I had felt deeply tired moving in the daylight. But as if on cue, storm clouds had gathered, and blotted out the sun. Reinvigorated, I had hunted it down, crashing through the jungle, stopping only to vent my rage with more howling.
When we met, it was a titanic struggle. We fought in a rage, throwing each other aside and grappling once more. Eventually I got the upper hand, my claws holding him down, pinned to the ground. Fist struggled, but it was an impossible task. Slowly, I opened my jaws, and razor-sharp teeth bore down, found his neck, and I bit.
He died instantly, but I didn’t stop my assault until I had torn him limb from limb.
I stood tall, then, the beast as king of nature, and howled in triumph. My vision was red hued and I felt my heart pumping in my ears. Then I saw Moira.
She stood, defenceless, just inside the clearing. How she had followed me, I have no idea. I had moved fast. Maybe it was my howling that drew her. But apart from the physical problems of finding me, there were the psychological. How had she found the courage to do so?
But I was the beast, and such human questions were immaterial.
She stood there, barely clothed, her sexuality driving me to fever pitch. I advanced on her, my body hairy and bloodied, towering over her delicate frame. Her breaths came in huge gasps, her breasts rising and falling as she did so, and I could see a mania in her eyes – a mania of fear, or maybe destiny.
I scooped her up in my arms and began to paw at her, roughly, pulling more of her clothing from her, revealing her breasts and thighs. Of course, she struggled, but it was ineffectual. She was in my grasp, and there was no escape.
For a moment, I saw a determination in her eyes and the struggling ceased and she stroked my chin.
The effect was magical. Humanity seemed to burst through my rage, as if balance was reasserting itself. I placed her on the ground, laid on top of her, and she opened her legs to allow me entry.
At first, it was rough, as if I would split her open. Her gasps were of pain, but eventually it changed to love making, and we kissed long into the afternoon as we came together time and time again in our healing. Even the skies brightened once more as we made love, and the sun shone bright. And in the late afternoon we walked hand in hand through the jungle, in balance and in love.

© Anthony North, April 2009

The End

MASOCOLOGY – Chapters Six & Seven

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LOST HORIZONS

I have portrayed mankind as a form of villain; a vandal forever tampering
with nature. But as any criminologist will tell you, criminal behaviour can
usually be understood in terms of psychological inadequacies. One of the
primary causes of such inadequacies concerns the relationship between
mother and child.

**********

Should a child be ripped away from the maternal influences of the mother, psychological trauma can ensue, which, in adulthood, can lead to outbreaks of criminality.
This concept could well apply to the species of man, for our global criminality seems aimed directly at nature; our Mother Earth from whom we were apparently ripped away in our civilised infancy.
Hence, rather than seeing our environmental criminality as a form of blatant vandalism, it could well be that it is due to psychological illness.
The writer Colin Wilson would no doubt agree. Fundamental to his philosophy is his belief that man lives in a state of mind he calls ‘close-upness’. To Wilson, man has a very small view of reality; he sees the world from the ‘worm’s eye view’ unable to complete a world picture in his mind.
Basically, if man had a wider view of reality in normal life, he would be flooded with so much meaning that concentration would be impossible. Such ‘close-upness’ causes a natural state of ‘upside-downness’. This shortsighted state of mind makes man suffer the delusion that the trivia of life is important.
Negative values impinge upon his intellect and his values turn upside down. Hence, boredom results in further boredom, rather than giving man the impetus to rise out of his lethargic state and grasp true meaning within the world.
In the above we have the sad lot of humanity. Bored and disinterested with true meanings in the world about them. And what of Wilson’s idea that ‘upside-downness’ gives us the delusion that the trivia of life is important?
Is it not trivia we now seek with our global pleasure industry? Is not trivia, then, a form of masochism in its own right? Wilson encapsulates the lot of modern man. In his identification of the state of ‘close-upness’ he graphically describes our sickness.
But why have we become so separate, not only from nature, but from society and ourselves? Perhaps a clue is provided when we realise we live in such a state due to our need to concentrate.

Concentration is a vital element of our survival. From studies of hypnosis it is becoming apparent that we input vast amounts of information through our senses. However, information that is deemed of no relevance to our immediate needs is sieved out of consciousness into the unconscious.
In survival terms, if we were aware of every piece of information we perceive, concentration would be impossible. We simply would not be able to prioritise and arrange information in such a way as to allow rational thought.
However, there are times when the information we input is severely restricted and our need to concentrate wanes. Such times are known as altered state of consciousness, or ASC.
The most prevalent ASC we experience is when we go to sleep. It is the dream state, when the conscious and unconscious seem to merge, and unconscious imagery is played out as a dream.
Hypnosis is another ASC. Here we seem to have access to the complete input of information perceived in wakefulness. At its most fantastic, the hypnotic state can manifest the phenomenon of cryptomnesia, where entire texts previously read have been recalled.
And going on to deeper ASCs, we have the deep trance where people have spoken of undergoing the mystical experience. Here, the mind is truly filled with information. Indeed, literature of such mind-invasions speak almost unanimously of the wholeness with which the mind flooded.
We could, of course, dismiss such invasions as mere unconscious delusion. But could it be an appreciation of the wholeness of, not only nature, but the universe itself? However, as concentration is vital to our survival, it is perhaps a good job that we don’t live in such an ASC all the time.
Or is it? In 1976 a lecturer at Princeton University – Dr Julian Jaynes – caused an academic storm with the publication of his book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral mind.
The central theme of his book concerns his observations of ancient writings such as the 0ld Testament, the Epic of Gilgamesh and Homer’s Iliad. He observed that the authors of such books appeared to have no form of self-consciousness.
Basically, man did not have ‘… subjectivity as we do; he had no awareness of his awareness of the world, no internal mind space to introspect upon …’ To Jaynes, the books of ancient times depicted the gods as the conscience, indeed, the very consciousness, of ancient peoples, as if they didn’t have a conscious mind of their own.
Infant, it was as if our ancestors lived within a collective unconscious, with the gods, or archetypal images, directing our lives.
This is a significant observation which can be associated with the dream state we appreciate today. In the dream state the unconscious seems to direct the dream for us, with us having little say in how the dream plays itself out. Similarly, as Jung noted, archetypal images rise in the dream state, holding significance within the dream.
Indeed, not only do we have archetypal images in dreams, but the dead can also rise from the unconscious to play a part in the dream as memory. Which prompts the question, if, in earlier times, man did not have a conscious mind as he does now, would his mind state be similar to our present dream state?
If we decide this could be possible, then ancient man was controlled by instinctual, unconscious imagery which, as in the dream state, he perceived. Is there any wonder, then, that a king, upon death, became a god? For chances are, upon death, he was still seen.

Looking at the monumental building works of ancient times such as the pyramid; the ancient beliefs in animism, or nature’s spirits coming alive; the possibility of such ‘spirits’ being, in fact, a waking dream state becomes attractive. However, if such a mind-state did exist at the dawn of known history, why is it not appreciated today?
Perhaps our need to concentrate is the key. At some point in prehistory, our evolutionary ancestor, Homo Erectus, picked up a stone or branch or bone and realized it could be used to aid him as a tool or weapon. In doing so, he set humanity on the road to technological advancement. He had learnt to adapt nature to his needs and begun the process towards the hi-tech world of today.
Before this event, however, he had no need to concentrate. He was, essentially, an animal and subject to the instinctual drives of the rest of nature. He was locked into a communal conscious that was all he needed to function.
He was an intrinsic part of nature and his own species within nature. But in discovering technology he had begun to break away from nature and needed to learn how to think for himself.
In a word, he had to learn how to ‘concentrate’ on the increasing information his technology was creating above the information endemic to instinctual nature. And to concentrate, he had to have a mind of his own; a consciousness of his own; a consciousness that was separate to nature.
So his brain began the massive explosion in size we know to have occurred during this period, creating the ‘human’ brain as his mind evolved into conscious and unconscious elements – a conscious to allow concentration, and an unconscious in which to store information not required for the present task in hand – thus prizing himself away from the wholeness and instinctuality of nature.
And the more information he created through technology, the greater the need to concentrate, and the more distant man became from his natural harmony with nature, the only remembrance we have of our natural state being a gulf, a longing, deeply rooted in the unconscious; and a longing that manifests in us our sickness.

THE END

From the viewpoint of both psychology and history, the above suggests that mankind is sick. Indeed, the whole of civilised history has been a process of the gathering anxieties of our illness.
We have been a species ripped from the succour and guidance of our mother nature; a lost race, knowing our mother is here, but feeling neglected and, bearing in mind the Christian idea of us having fallen from the grace of God, knowing that we are sinners.
In order to combat our deep longing for the mutualistic life our mother offered, we birthed the human Ego, just as the school bully, locked in his feelings of inadequacy, HAS to show that he is powerful. But also like the bully, we are not.
We are still, after all our attempts to find confidence, to break free, a part of our mother through the unbreakable umbilical cord of nature. It is time we understood our inheritance. It is time we remembered our place, for, just as an adolescent rebels against its mother, lashing out, we are the adolescents lashing out and hurting nature. And we are about to be punished.
All around us the scars of our endeavours are present. Our mother has developed, not just City Pox, but cancer. Like never before she needs our help and love, for she is dying. And what is more, we need her. Just as a child, when growing to manhood, turns to look after his mother, it is time we began to look after ours; to bring her back to health, to nurture, to bring fully alive once more.
This is our only destiny, for if we follow the other road – the road we have trodden for so long – we have only one future in store. Extinction.

© Anthony North, March 2009

The End

ISLAND OF THE BEAST – Chapter Four

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NIGHT & DAWN

By the time we got to the camp, Henchy had done a
good job. Rudimentary shelters had been built from leaves
and branches, a sign for help had been placed on the beach,
Rickets had collected enough fruit to feed us and Fist had
even managed to catch a fish. Indeed, the aroma of the
fish greeted us as it cooked.

**********

‘It’ll be ready soon, skipper,’ said Fist as he knelt over a fire.
Henchy looked serious. ‘I’m not sure about this place,’ he said, a hint of worry on his face.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
He didn’t know how to put it, but said: ‘I keep getting the feeling I’m being watched.’
Fist concurred: ‘That’s right. Down by the beach, it was as if the trees were staring at me. Sent a shiver down the spine, I can tell you.’
For Fist to be spooked, it must be bad. Moira and I sat by the fire, ate some fruit. I never realized how hungry I was. And then I told them about the island, the deserted village, the chimera. I was going to leave out the feeling we had seen something, but Moira was having none of that.
Henchy said: ‘The sooner we get out of here, the better.’
The following couple of hours passed in relative silence. We ate. We drank. The occasional idea was aired concerning our survival in a practical sense. It was as if none of us wanted to think the thoughts that bubbled into our minds. And finally we retired to sleep, on a bed of leaves each.
My thoughts turned to Moira then.
We’d been a week into the voyage, and I’d only known her a day before that. She’d just turned up at the dock, efficient, businesslike and what could only be termed masculine. Okay, she was attractive, but she seemed to use it only in terms of power. Femininity just didn’t seem to exist for her.
It seems she’d been let down with a private charter aircraft, and being a fairly under developed part of the world, there was no alternative. And a passage on my ship was her only alternative. And she was prepared to pay.
During the voyage, nothing had changed. She seemed distant, and at times I thought I’d be glad to see the back of her. But now, a total change had come over her and me. The efficiency was being subsumed by her femininity, and it was powerful, intoxicating, sexual. And I was finding it increasingly difficult to get her out of my mind.
My thoughts were eventually disturbed by a shout. Fist had heard something on the edge of our camp and gone to investigate.
‘I’m telling you, skipper,’ he said. ‘It was about seven feet tall, big built, and hairy. And those eyes just stared.’
I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Henchy said: ‘At least, it doesn’t seem to be dangerous or it would have attacked.
‘I’m not sure about that,’ said Moira.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘Aren’t wild animals afraid of fire?’ she replied.
Nods of acceptance came from all. And we placed more logs on the fire. Plenty of them.

We had a troubled night’s sleep, if you can call it sleep. The sounds of the jungle seemed to mock us, and I realized I wanted to be rescued quickly.
Moira obviously felt the same. In the middle of the night I felt her beside me. ‘Do you mind?’ she asked.
I realized her intention. ‘Of course not,’ I said, and she lay down next to me. I placed an arm around her, and she cuddled close. She smelled perfect, and her body pressed against mine. And the sounds of the jungle temporarily left me as I fought the urges rising in me to take her. It was comfort she wanted. And I abided by her wishes.
The next morning we were up early, before the night had really passed. A strange light pervaded the camp, and a new mood seemed to take us over.
‘So what do we do now?’ asked Henchy.
Rickets answered for me. ‘I’ve done some tracking in the past,’ he said. ‘If there really is something out there, it will have left a trail.’
I wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but I let Rickets see if he could pick it up. ‘But don’t go far,’ I added.
He left the camp almost immediately.
We had a light breakfast of fruit and talked about the previous night. ‘Maybe it was nothing,’ said Henchy. ‘A trick of the jungle, the strange light, the noises. It got into our heads.’
‘You could be right,’ I said, hardly convinced. But Moira clung to it. ‘That’s it,’ she said, ‘we’ve all been a little silly.’
Henchy said: ‘I’m going to check the signal,’ and he departed. But five minutes later, he came running back. ‘Come and look at this.’
He was disturbed, that was obvious. And he wasn’t the type to overreact. Hence, we all ran down to the beach. We had placed a signal of stones and rocks, spelling the word, HELP. But the rocks were now strewn over the beach.
‘Our imagination, eh?’ said Henchy.
Something had certainly been on the beach. And it must have been strong. Some of the rocks had been thrown over a hundred metres.
I said: ‘I think it’s safe to say we’re not alone on this island.’
Suddenly, the same thought came into all our heads. ‘Rickets!’
We ran back to the camp and burst through the tree line where he had departed. There was a clear trail, and we followed it. We didn’t have to go far before we found him. He was hanging from a tree, blood soaked and missing a large part of his body. Moira screamed as she trod on his discarded left arm.

© Anthony North, March 2009

MASOCOLOGY – Chapter Five

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HOMO ANXIOUS

There are few people who don’t feel, at heart, that there is something
missing in their life. This feeling of inadequacy can usually be centred
upon the demands of modern society – the need to succeed; to rise up
the promotional ladder; to BE someone.

**********

We reach out for a goal as if this is the most important thing in life, but few of us can ever REALLY succeed. The success story can only belong to the few. And this realisation leads to a lacking many of us feel.
However, whilst not denying the possibility of inadequacy felt in this life struggle, can it be the total answer to our problem? For instance, it is fascinating that the person who HAS succeeded – risen to the top of the promotional ladder – also births a deep feeling of lacking in his life.
How often the rich and famous turn in on themselves, find solace in drugs or drink, or even become reclusive. So even absolute success in modern life does NOT take away this feeling of lacking. Hence, the cause of such feelings must lie in something more subtle.
Some people D0 find the tranquility of mind that allows them to overcome their feelings of inadequacy. Such people are usually religious, be it monotheistic or pagan. It is as if the realisation of a higher entity cleanses the mind and makes a person feel whole.
Basically, belief in a deity can be seen as a psychological fix for the ills of the world.
We can, if so inclined, discount this notion as a throwback to the security religious myths offered in times past.
The gods are not really gods, but man-made fictions used to control and cleanse. People, today, just find it hard to throw off this influence and, when feeling inadequate, rush into mythological comfort.
Indeed, this is an easy explanation to offer when one looks at the sheer number of supernatural deities religion has offered.

One thing we know about the universe is that universal laws are constant. Hence, if a God or deity did exist, then there could only be one. The sheer number of contradictory deities turns religion into a farce.
But is this really the case? Perhaps the psychoanalyst Carl Jung can help us clear up the matter. He formulated the concept of a collective racial unconscious. This idea grew when he noticed the preponderance of racial, archetypal images in dreams, myths and folklore.
He came to the understanding that, at some subtle mind level, the mind of the human race is shared, and archaic images can rise out of this communality. It is easy to dismiss this idea as peudoscholarship.
In a mechanistic, material world mind is seen as purely the result of chemical interaction within the brain. The empiricist philosopher, John Locke, made it clear that the person is born with a mentally clean slate.
We are each an individual. So there is no room for inherited memory or images coming to us from other than reflection upon personal experience. But this idea does not hold up to experience.
A baby, upon birth, instinctively seeks out and sucks the mother’s breast. This simple act laughs in the face of the empiricist notion of mind. Something from pre-birth is directing the new born to know what it must do to survive.
Instinctual behaviour such as the above speaks volumes for the existence of inherited images surfacing in the mind. Indeed, through DNA we know quite a lot of who we are IS inherited.
We are an amalgam of our parents. We are the product of their collective genes. Just because science may not have found, yet, an instinctual, archetypal form of inheritance, it does not mean that such inheritance does not exist.
Indeed, the inheritance factor of DNA and the initial infant act suggest that such a form of inheritance MUST exist. And this process would represent a form of collective unconscious, for whether we came from Adam and Eve or the primeval slime, we can all trace our genetic inheritance back to the same source.

The above theorising gives credence to the ability of man to hold, within the mind, archetypal images of his deep, ancestral past. Images of Divine representation could well lie deep in the unconscious.
But the important point is that such representations could well be culturally based; NOT existent supernatural beings, but poetic, human representations of how a particular culture identified such beings as existing.
In other words, through a form of collective unconscious, man, as a cultural species, could have brought into existence a whole myriad of symbolic Divine representations. Hence, our varied contradictory deities do NOT preclude the existence of God, but merely show the various theologies we have devised as a means of understanding.
So when we fall back on religion to fill the void of our inadequacies, could the possible existence of a collective unconscious mean we really are finding comfort from a form of God?
The implications of the above question are important. When we go back to the earliest known religion – the pagan – we find that the central Divine image is Mother Earth. Throughout our earliest known cultures people everywhere on planet Earth came to the same idea that nature was Divine.
It is almost as if, when we birthed the human Ego and began to learn how to adapt nature to OUR demands, we broke our links with the Divine; cast ourselves from Eden. And we have been battling with our Ego and insecurity ever since, clumsily creating this god and that god in an attempt to feel adequate.
Indeed, one only has to look at our latest hi-tech endeavours – the internet – to see that we are attempting to create a form of higher consciousness (a Divinity?) ourselves; in a real sense the connectedness, the global reach, of the information super-highway is akin to a form of global brain, with computers representating the individual neurones, grouping together to produce consciousness.
God, it seems, has come down from the sky and been reborn in the microchip.

We may well live in a material, atheistic world, but our longing for creating Divinity is still with us. We have spent the whole of history running from it, devising gods to fill our own, egoistic needs. But the original Divinity – nature itself – is still holding us in her grasp. She will not let go. She, cannot let go. And for a simple reason.
We have iron in our blood. Yet those iron atoms are not ours. They were cooked in primeval stars and released through supernova. And when we die, those iron atoms will go on to perform tasks in some other part of interactive nature.
We have genes at the centre of our biological make-up. But they are not our genes. They came from our parents and reach back through our ancestors and beyond, through our evolutionary forebears and to the original conception of life that BECAME nature.
We can attempt to pull away as much as we like, but it is an impossible task, for everything we are belongs to nature. So how did we come to think we could leave? In the final part next week, I will attempt to show you why – and how it relates directly to our present eco-vandalism.

© Anthony North, March 2009

ISLAND OF THE BEAST – Chapter Three

Click My Fiction for other chapters

THE VILLAGE

The journey towards the village seemed to be easier. It wasn’t that
the terrain was any better. It wasn’t, even, that the descent from the hill
is always easier than climbing up. It was as if we were being absorbed
into the nature of the island.

**********

I said this to Moira and she seemed to agree. ‘It’s as if we’ve found where we really belong,’ she said.
I let her lead for a while. And as she did so, I watched her intently. Whereas to begin with, she stumbled into every obstacle, it was as if a sixth sense was now warning her of the pitfalls before she came to them.
I began to wonder, then, what was happening to us.
The village seemed to appear out of nowhere. There was one large building with about another twenty in a circle around it. Made of wood and mud, it looked like it was built by some endemic, primitive people.
My first thought upon this realization was how could such a small island provide for a tribe. But then another, more sinister thought struck me. Where were they?
‘I don’t understand this,’ I said.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Moira.
A deathly hush pervaded the village. Even the wildlife seemed to remain quiet here. And any sign of life – food, the general implements of living – seemed decayed. What had happened to these people?
Moira had wandered off and presently she called: ‘Look at this.’
I walked over to her. She was stood in the front of the main building, looking at what seemed to be an altar of some kind. Decayed offerings surrounded it, and it looked like a pool of dried blood on the ground.
I shivered.
Moira saw it too. Said: ‘You don’t think it was a sacrifice do you?’
‘That’s not the question.’
‘Oh?’
‘No. The question is, animal or human?’
I guess we both shivered at that. And the feeling intensified when we studied the effigy in the centre of the altar.
‘What is it?’ asked Moira.
I’d seen something similar before. ‘It’s a chimera,’ I said. A representation of a creature, half man, half animal. It exists all around the world from primitive tribal ritual.’
‘And what does it mean?’ she asked.
‘Most researchers think it is a representation of a shaman, or holy man, communing with nature spirits on a vision quest. They literally believed they turned into an animal.’
‘And the other researchers?’
‘They think such beasts really existed, and the effigies were to pacify them.’
Neither of us spoke after that. The night was closing in and we had to get back to the camp. This was a more depressing journey. And it wasn’t helped by the feeling that eyes were watching us. And both Moira and I were convinced that, as we left the village, something large and hairy passed swiftly away at the corner of our vision.

© Anthony North, March 2009

MASOCOLOGY – Chapter Four

Click Thinkers’ Corner for other chapters

WHAT IS MASOCOLOGY?

Many historians would disagree with my new analysis of history
in the previous chapter. The very idea that, throughout history we
have had a siege mentality against nature would be discounted by
them as totally wrong and unproveable.

**********

However, it is not so much a conscious historical impulse I am talking about, but an unconscious scenario, hidden from man’s apparent motives. But if correct, it is nonetheless an impulse that has unconsciously directed man’s history through repression of our initial fears of nature at the dawn of history.
Such an idea is psychologically sound in that repressed trauma is known to affect conscious life, best known under the concept of the repressed abuser going on to abuse others.
But most importantly, the reader will note from the above scenario that our ecological madness is perhaps not a recent phenomenon, but a process we have been working towards from the beginning of history.
Such an idea, if shown to be correct, would leave a feeling of dread in the mind of the environmentalist – for if our ecological problems are a product of deep history, it would make it all the more difficult to break our severe industrial habits.
But by facing up to the possibility of such an all-embracing, historical impulse, we may also find the route out of the problem. Indeed, it is perhaps simply a matter of understanding the nature of the human mind within the above concept.

Consider, we have a species – the human species – fuelled by anxiety regarding his relationship with nature. He sees himself as the greatest element of nature and imbues himself with an egoistic frame of mind to overcome the perils brought out by his foe.
Indeed, we can draw an analogy with the schoolyard bully. Such a person feels a need to constantly prove his superiority over his peer group. He has to do this to grasp self-esteem – similar to the Right Man – for at heart he feels threatened by his peers.
He is smaller than them as a whole. Inside he is a psychological mess, wracked with anxiety. His only aim in life is to constantly prove himself. Most of us are appalled by the antics of the bully. But could such antics be simply an extension of behavioural patterns we all exhibit?
We all seek pleasure. Such pleasures come in many forms. Many gain great pleasure from the odd pint or two of beer. We have tasty food – often food we know is generally bad for us – that is a pleasure to eat. The more adventurous gain pleasure from water-skiing or rock climbing.
Here there is an obvious risk involved. Indeed, many people seek danger to appreciate pleasure, finding the flow of adrenalin the most pleasureable part of the experience.
In a way, such people can be classed as masochistic in their endeavours, intent on a courtship with pain.
Could this be similar to the bully, forever having to prove something – in this case a lack of fear of danger? However, could a similar process be involved in drinking alcohol and eating pleasureable foods we know are bad for us? For instance, what happens when we over eat or drink too much beer?
We feel pain.
I can think of no form of pleasure, involving physical interaction, which does NOT lead to pain if over-indulged. From tickling leading to pain if over-indulged, to the excruciating pain of a prolonged orgasm, all pleasure eventually reverts to pain.
Participation in an act of pleasure can therefore be identified as a process of courting pain or danger. In indulging in pleasure, we are fuelling our self-esteem by approaching the threshold of pain. In other words, we are all masochistic by nature.

As well as showing a psychological offshoot of our ego brought about through our delusions of grandeur, this masochistic angle can be added to our ecological problems presently existent.
For instance, industrialisation long since provided for our needs such as construction, communication and transport. If we simply wanted industrialisation to protect us from nature, we achieved that long ago.
Hence, for industrialisation to be still going full steam ahead, it must be fuelling some other need too. And that need is easy to identify, for our modern industrial might is now geared primarily to flooding consumer society with pleasure products – junk food, hi-tech pleasure systems, more enjoyable cars and novelties.
It could therefore be argued that it is our masochism – our courting pain by indulging in pleasure – that is at the heart of industrial might; and a masochism that could also be propelling us on to approach the abyss of our ecological suicide.
Wouldn’t that be the greatest masochistic act of all? As such, one vital element of coming to grips with our errors of industrialisation could well be an understanding of our need to court pain and danger through the masochistic act – our Masocology.
Cure our masocology and we’re a long way down the road to curing our ecological problems. But what actually happened to our psyche so long ago that gave us such masochistic impulses in the first place?
Was our devising of technology the sole reason for our problems, or did something far more fundamental occur? We will discuss this next week.

© Anthony North, March 2009

SCRIBBLERS’ NEWS #10

Check out my Writers’ Tips posts

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to a revamped Scribblers’ News where I’m going to
list all the prompt sites and the words of the week. I’ll update as
the week progresses, so keep calling back for the latest. If you
think I’ve missed something, tell me in the comments. You’ll
also find my own prompt below.
The idea is to provide a central point for the prompt sites, thus
helping the blogger and advertising the sites themselves. If anyone
wants their site removed just let me know.

THE NEWS

Sunday Scribblings
The phrase is: Dear Past Me, Dear Future Me
Poefusion
This week, Monday Mural. Look at the pic; write a poem
Inspire Me Thursday
The word is ’swirl’. Write or craft post
Weekend Wordsmith
What can you do with the word: Ice
Search Engine Stories
This week’s word is: Beauty – in poem or prose
One Single Impression
Word is ‘Farewells’. Posted Sun
Monday Poetry Train
Any poem can be linked here
Manic Monday
Word will be ‘party’. Post it Mon.
Heads or Tails
Word is: Point. Posted Mon evening GMT
Totally Optional Prompts
Call back Mon for details
ReadWritePoem
Poem about your face. Posted Thurs
ABC Wednesday
The letter is ‘I’. Posted Tues evening GMT
Three Word Wednesday
Call back Wed for details
Thursday Thirteen
Any list of 13 things. Posted Wed evening GMT

PROMPT

This week’s word is:

Couples

Do something on your blog around the word – a poem, story,
essay, list, photo. Come back here and link to it as a comment.
Then come back again and read what others have written,
commenting on their blog.

Don’t forget my latest Magazine Post

Scribblers’ News will be posted every Sat, approx 9am GMT for
as long as interest lasts. I encourage comment on the post
and any writing/blogging related subjects.

ISLAND OF THE BEAST – Chapter Two

Click My Fiction for other chapters

UP THE HILL

It was hard going for Moira. Much of the island was
jungle. She coped well with the noises, the occasional
creature crossing our path. But the undergrowth could
hurt. Not to mention her modesty as her clothes were
being ripped to shreds.

**********

She caught me looking at her. ‘I suppose you’re enjoying this,’ she said, realizing she couldn’t hide her modesty.
‘It’s not unpleasant,’ I said.
I think she was about to give me a telling off, but my smile appeared again, and she simply sighed. Maybe she was warming to me.
‘Why did you bring me on this little trek?’ she asked, realizing that she could have been more comfortable staying at the camp site.
‘Because I’m responsible for you, and I want you close.’
‘How manly,’ she said, sarcastically.
I shook my head. ‘I’m the skipper. It’s my duty.’
She thought it over a moment. ‘Sorry.’ And I actually believe she meant it.
Soon the trees gave way to rock, and above us the summit of a small but rugged hill.
‘Will we see the whole island from up there?’ Moira asked.
She was finding it difficult to climb, and as she finished talking, she stumbled. I grabbed her, pulled her to me and our bodies touched. We were so close I could smell her, and I liked it. Our eyes met, and for a moment there was a knowing.
I replaced the raw male instinct that arose with professionalism. ‘I hope so,’ I said, and we continued to climb.

It was a release as we reached the summit. The trees, the rocks, had given way to a realm of the sky. Claustrophobia had gone, replaced with a dizziness.
‘Look at that view,’ Moira said, taking in the panorama below us. She seemed to smile in a way I’d never seen before; as if a new serenity was taking her over.
I looked down. A rainbow of colour displayed itself, framed majestically by a blue sky, a burning sun seeming to fire it. ‘It’s beautiful,’ I replied.
The island couldn’t be more than three miles by two. Most of it was obscured by a green canopy of forest, with only the occasional break in the trees. Around the whole island was a golden beach, and the hill we stood on was the only high point. Straining my eyes, I could just make out a couple of streams, confirming we could have fresh water. And I guessed the vegetation and trees would provide ample food, even if we failed to catch any of the small animals we had seen evidence of.
‘I think we can survive here,’ I said, ‘until we’re rescued.’ Although a thought entered my head that I could stay here. It was enchanting. Or maybe it was enchanting me.
I looked at Moira. She was becoming increasingly serene. The true woman seemed to be coming out as she psychologically threw off the inhibitions of modern living, of that damned job. It seemed to present itself in her whole being. Not just the smile, but her demeanour, which was becoming increasingly feminine. Even her body seemed to lose its stiffness, and she carried herself like a new woman.
‘What’s that?’ she eventually asked, staring intently at a part of the island.
I strained my eyes. Tried to follow her line of sight.
About a mile away there seemed to be a clearing. But it was more than that. ‘It looks like a village,’ I said, amazed. Indeed, the more I stared, the more a group of small buildings seemed to come into view.
‘Do you mean there are people on the island?’ asked Moira.
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
‘Can we find out?’
I checked the time. Night fall should still be some time off. And anyway, if there WERE other people on the island, we needed to know if they were friendly or not before it got too dark.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’

© Anthony North, March 2009

BERMUDA TRIANGLE REVISITED

Click The ‘Y’ Files for more unexplained essays

The Bermuda Triangle is a triangular area of water going north up the US eastern seaboard, south west into the Caribbean and east as far as the Azores. It is alleged that ships and planes disappear mysteriously in this area.
It was first mentioned in articles in the early 1950s, with Fate Magazine joining in. It became world famous following books by Vincent Gaddis and Charles Berlitz.

The area is the busiest shipping area in the world.

So is it expected that 1,000+ ships and planes could disappear? Lawrence David Kusche argued, in 1975, that disappearances are not greater, the numbers exaggerated by sloppy research.
Well publicised disappearances – such as Flight 19, where a training wing of fighters disappeared in Dec 1945, followed by the plane sent to find them – added to the mystery. The USS Cyclops disappeared in 1918, taking 300 crew with her.

There are many theories.

They include UFO activity, leftover tech from Atlantis and the tormented souls of black slaves thrown overboard. Ivan Sanderson suggested magnetic vortices around the world where warm and cold air meet.
Gas hydrates on the seabed could also play a part, releasing methane in large quantities. Rising to the surface, water would go frothy, buoyancy would fail and a boat would sink. Rising into the air, methane could ignite a plane engine. Wreckage hits the bottom, water disturbance eases and silt covers the evidence.

There are survivors.

They speak of faulty compasses, equipment malfunction, loss of horizon, banks of fog and more. But all these events are common. What could be unusual is congregation leading to a single event.
We all experience such congregations. They are called coincidence. They have inevitability, and coincidences build upon coincidence. So could it be possible that such coincidences could coincidentally happen in a specific location?

The Bermuda Triangle could be statistically inevitable to occur.

But coincidences often have a helping hand from the human mind. Consider: the triangle is a media creation. Disappearances may have happened before the 1950s, but they had no meaning in terms of a mystery.
Now they do. And like a curse, knowing you are in the area could have an effect upon behaviour. Innocuously, it makes you give meaning to a normal event and relate it to the mystery. And in deadly ways, it could affect your reaction to such an event, making disaster inevitable.
The Bermuda Triangle could be vital to understanding the nature of disaster. Often, we describe disasters through human error or congregation of events leading to the disaster. But as in the above idea, it could be coincidence and feelings of inevitability they produce that lead to disaster.
In chaos theory we know of the butterfly’s wings causing a hurricane. A tiny event can build up to cataclysm. Maybe it is time to forget ridiculing the Bermuda Triangle and see it as an opportunity to study processes that could lie behind ALL disasters.

© Anthony North, March 2009

MASOCOLOGY – Chapters Two/Three

Click Thinkers’ Corner for other chapters

A BIGGER MAN

Early man birthed many forms of religion, but regardless of
how such religions developed culturally, they all had three
intrinsic elements, which survive to the religions of today. First
of all, there is a belief in a perfect existence from which man is
barred through normal living.

**********

From the Christian Eden to eastern Nirvana, there is knowledge of a better world or state. And then, of course, there are the opposing forces of good and evil, or light and dark; and the early impulses that led to such beliefs are easily identifiable.
Fundamental to the early religions is the belief in Mother Earth. Symbolised through the Goddess, she was seen as benevolent and fertile. Before agriculture, she was the provider, maternal, protective.
At the time of her conception, man did not realise she enslaved him. Mother Earth was all around man and under his feet. Man was existent in her womb and was forever protected. Man, you could say, was in paradise; and the mutualistic relationship man had with her is clearly indicative in the paradise myth of Eden.
Above Mother Earth was the sky. This was a far more volatile entity, in which existed the two principle gods – the sun and the moon. The moon was basically malevolent, for she brought the power of darkness.
But each morning the gods did battle and up came the benevolent sun god. Man had realised that, no matter how powerful the forces of darkness became, the power of light, of good, would inevitably reign supreme in the morning sun.
In these early religious ideals, man, faced with his approaching anxieties concerning nature, realised the potency available to him in a re-adaptation of his gods. Man, in developing the city, had broken free of the womb of Mother Earth. He had been born to a greater level of evolution. He had begun to conquer the gods. So surely he must have BECOME a god?
The cult of the priest and the political notion of the god-king had been born. But substantially more than this, man, in his theologies, had devised a concept that made him fundamentally ‘bigger’ than he really was.

In a stroke, man had answered the problem of his anxieties by using the city and his deluded greatness as the cornerstone of his ability to devise concepts bigger than himself, such as his godliness. For in becoming bigger, he was in a much more powerful position to reign supreme over nature, as the sun and moon seemed to do.
However, his theologies may well have made him FEEL bigger, but he was still faced with the problem of defeating nature in a material way. But his theologies HAD given him the impulse to sort this problem out.
He realised that if he could build human SYSTEMS bigger than himself – of which the city was the first physical realisation – then he would be better able to use communal resources to subdue nature.
City culture thus formed into hierarchical and specialised units through which the separate professions formulated, and the city-state evolved into the city-centred empire.
There were two spin-offs from this process.
First, man turned his ingeniousness to the devising of philosophies based upon observation of nature. In this way, he gained confidence by intellectual means. However, the second spin-off became counter-productive to his nature-combating desires.

It soon became apparent that too many men wanted to be god-kings. This inevitably led to conflict, embedding man in a never-ending process of warfare.
The first major attempt at breaking this cauldron of conflict amongst men came with the shrewd politic surrounding the figure of Abraham. For every god-king who rose to power, a deity was created to echo his earthly endeavours in the supernatural.
To counter this, Abraham devised the concept of the One God. This ideal became much more powerful than the previous gods, in that it synthesised the common goal of the people.
And as monotheism progressed, the initial impulse to combat nature re-asserted itself with the idea of man being created in God’s image – a separate creation; above nature.
Man was back on track to ease the initial anxieties that first propelled him to civilisation.
However, his Ego again got in the way; namely, an incorrect political interpretation of Jesus in the 4th century AD, again creating a man as a god; and, three centuries later, the rise of Islam, instigating the theological clash that split monotheism from that day to this.

OPERATION EARTHKILL

Looking at modern life, it is easy to delude ourselves that we have subdued nature. Hi-tech industrialisation has raised us to a supreme position on planet Earth. In the western world mankind has a degree of comfort thought impossible just a hundred years ago.
Even in medical science we are eating away at nature’s ability to harm us, with disease after disease seeming to fall to the scientist’s understanding through medicine and genetics. But have we really come to terms with nature?
We live in boxes called homes. Our homes are huddled together in self-protecting groupings surrounded by concrete, as if cows, huddled together in preparation for the storm.
We work in bigger boxes called shops, offices and factories. Today, the shops are situated an even bigger boxes called shopping centres. To move from our little living boxes to the bigger ones, we insulate ourselves in boxes on wheels, and drive along concrete veins, slicing human existence into nature; the nature we see out of the car window being landscaped to put our minds at ease. We even eat treated food, supplied to us in even smaller boxes called packets and tins.
Nature, it seems, has us boxed in.

This situation had to come. Man had advanced away from the popular religions that made us feel great and above nature. The insulation of the benevolent God no longer gives us the confidence to maintain our deluded stance.
The supernatural no longer battles for us and our fight with nature is now a far more personal thing. This process began to gain momentum around the year 1500. Indeed, following this time human history is said to have changed fundamentally.
Until then, religions such as Christianity had provided the psychological certainty that man was greater than nature. But stirrings were beginning to grow among the people, who suddenly realised that it wasn’t fair that some men were more powerful than others.
And such an understanding was the death knell of Christianity’s psychological hold.
This was the time of the Renaissance, during which a new spirit of enquiry rose; an enquiry that viewed nature as a utility to be used to allow man to master it.
The Renaissance, as well as being an explosion of artistic endeavour, rose man’s standing beyond the power of the Gods he had created to protect him. Humanism came to the fore, giving man’s intellectual ability total reign over nature, developing new philosophies and, most importantly, sciences – the means by which nature could be directly understood and adapted to man’s use.
Politically, this new spirit made further inroads, evolving into the Reformation and Age of Enlightenment, the summit of which was American Independence and the French Revolution.
Gods, it seemed, had become redundant, and man suddenly realised he had the confidence to battle with nature directly. He understood that nature could be used to destroy itself.

A new battleplan was drawn up. First of all, people had to be drawn into co-operative society – a re-modelling of man’s bigger systems, but essentially the same impulse that created systems in the first place.
This was achieved by the philosophising of ideologies and the invention of the nation state. And with the nation state as the raw material, his ideologies ending with communism and fascism as the ideal, and his sciences to provide the intellectual know-how, industrialisation was born. And with industrialisation, man had finally gained the security he needed to protect his psyche from the awesome power of nature.
This was achieved in two ways. First of all it depleted the resources of nature, severely wounding it. And second, industrialisation brought about a global community nestled within mega-cities connected by man-made concrete. With industrialisation, man could truly feel that he had removed himself from nature, and created a system big enough to feel safe from it.
But as we will see next week, all he had really expressed was a deep collective psychosis that lies behind practically everything we do, and guarantees that we will continue to damage the planet.

© Anthony North, March 2009