(Stéphane Mallarmé painted by Manet)
This edition of Turfing is dedicated to my friend Morgan, whose revo/evolutionary spirit has deeply moved me over the years. He works incessantly with social/politcal/art issues, touching many lives. He always brings a fresh viewpoint, rooted well in historic and often humourous precedents. To know him is to love him!
As you can tell, Turfing has a new look. I am cracking the PHP code slowly but surely. Necessity is the Mother, I must tell you.
More later, working on The Invisible College and falling behind.
Hot today here in Portland. 90′s plus predicted.
Blessings,
Gwyllm
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On The Menu….
The Links
The Article: Power and Revolution: The Anarchist Century
Poetry: Stéphane Mallarmé
_____________
The Links:
‘Brazilian Stonehenge’ discovered
Born Into Cellblocks
Massive Attack – Special Cases
The musical Mr. Hatch…
Everything, is under Control
Wanted: a warning to last 10,000 years…
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Power and Revolution: The Anarchist Century
by Andrej Grubacic
{This paper is a revised version of the essay co-writen with David Graeber: Anarchism or the Revolutionary Movement for the 21st Century. It is revised and will be revised further for the presentation for the June 1 – 7 2006 Z Sessions on Vision and Strategy, held in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. }
(Jonathan Talbot, “Large Anarchist Patrin,” )
It is becoming increasingly clear that the age of revolutions is not over. It’s becoming equally clear that the global revolutionary movement in the twenty first century, will be one that traces its origins less to the tradition of Marxism, or even of socialism narrowly defined, but of anarchism.
Everywhere from Serbia to Argentina, from Seattle to Bombay, anarchist ideas and principles are generating new radical dreams and visions. Often their exponents do not call themselves “anarchists”. There are a host of other names: autonomism, anti-authoritarianism, horizontality, Zapatismo, direct democracy… Still, everywhere one finds the same core principles: decentralization, voluntary association, mutual aid, the network model, and above all, the rejection of any idea that the end justifies the means, let alone that the business of a revolutionary is to seize state power and then begin imposing one’s vision at the point of a gun. Above all, anarchism, as an ethics of practice-the idea of building a new society “within the shell of the old”-has become the basic inspiration of the “movement of movements”, which has from the start been less about seizing state power than about exposing, de-legitimizing and dismantling mechanisms of rule while winning ever-larger spaces of autonomy and participatory management within it.
There are some obvious reasons for the appeal of anarchist ideas at the beginning of the 21st century: most obviously, the failures and catastrophes resulting from so many efforts to overcome capitalism by seizing control of the apparatus of government in the 20th. Increasing numbers of revolutionaries have begun to recognize that “the revolution” is not going to come as some great apocalyptic moment, the storming of some global equivalent of the Winter Palace, but a very long process that has been going on for most of human history (even if it has like most things come to accelerate of late) full of strategies of flight and evasion as much as dramatic confrontations, and which will never-indeed, most anarchists feel, should never-come to a definitive conclusion.
It’s a little disconcerting, but it offers one enormous consolation: we do not have to wait until “after the revolution” to begin to get a glimpse of what genuine freedom might be like. Freedom only exists in the moment of revolution. And those moments are not as rare as you think. For an anarchist, in fact, to try to create non-alienated experiences, true democracy, is an ethical imperative; only by making one’s form of organization in the present at least a rough approximation of how a free society would actually operate, how everyone, someday, should be able to live, can one guarantee that we will not cascade back into disaster. Grim joyless revolutionaries who sacrifice all pleasure to the cause can only produce grim joyless societies.
These changes have been difficult to document because so far anarchist ideas have received almost no attention in the academy. There are still thousands of academic Marxists, but almost no academic anarchists. This lag is somewhat difficult to interpret. In part, no doubt, it’s because Marxism has always had a certain affinity with the academy which anarchism obviously lacked: Marxism was, after all, the only great social movement that was invented by a Ph.D. Most accounts of the history of anarchism assume it was basically similar to Marxism: anarchism is presented as the brainchild of certain 19th century thinkers (Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin…) that then went on to inspire working-class organizations, became enmeshed in political struggles, divided into sects…
Anarchism, in the standard accounts, usually comes out as Marxism’s poorer cousin, theoretically a bit flat-footed but making up for brains, perhaps, with passion and sincerity. Really the analogy is strained. The “founders” of anarchism did not think of themselves as having invented anything particularly new. The saw its basic principles-mutual aid, voluntary association, egalitarian decision-making-as as old as humanity. The same goes for the rejection of the state and of all forms of structural violence, inequality, or domination (anarchism literally means “without rulers”)-even the assumption that all these forms are somehow related and reinforce each other. None of it was seen as some startling new doctrine, but a longstanding tendency in the history human thought, and one that cannot be encompassed by any general theory of ideology.
On one level it is a kind of faith: a belief that most forms of irresponsibility that seem to make power necessary are in fact the effects of power itself. In practice though it is a constant questioning, an effort to identify every compulsory or hierarchical relation in human life, and challenge them to justify themselves, and if they cannot-which usually turns out to be the case-an effort to limit their power and thus widen the scope of human liberty. Just as a Sufi might say that Sufism is the core of truth behind all religions, an anarchist might argue that anarchism is the urge for freedom behind all political ideologies.
Schools of Marxism always have founders. Just as Marxism sprang from the mind of Marx, so we have Leninists, Maoists,, Althusserians… (Note how the list starts with heads of state and grades almost seamlessly into French professors – who, in turn, can spawn their own sects: Lacanians, Foucauldians….)
Schools of anarchism, in contrast, almost invariably emerge from some kind of organizational principle or form of practice: Anarcho-Syndicalists and Anarcho-Communists, Insurrectionists and Platformists, Cooperativists, Councilists, Individualists, and so on.
Anarchists are distinguished by what they do, and how they organize themselves to go about doing it. And indeed this has always been what anarchists have spent most of their time thinking and arguing about. They have never been much interested in the kinds of broad strategic or philosophical questions that preoccupy Marxists such as Are the peasants a potentially revolutionary class? (anarchists consider this something for peasants to decide) or what is the nature of the commodity form? Rather, they tend to argue about what is the truly democratic way to go about a meeting, at what point organization stops empowering people and starts squelching individual freedom. Is “leadership” necessarily a bad thing? Or, alternately, about the ethics of opposing power: What is direct action? Should one condemn someone who assassinates a head of state? When is it okay to throw a brick?
Marxism, then, has tended to be a theoretical or analytical discourse about revolutionary strategy. Anarchism has tended to be an ethical discourse about revolutionary practice. As a result, where Marxism has produced brilliant theories of praxis, it’s mostly been anarchists who have been working on the praxis itself.
At the moment, there’s something of a rupture between generations of anarchism: I would like to express my affinity with what might be loosely referred to as the “small-a anarchists”, who are, by now, by far the majority. But it is sometimes hard to tell, since so many of them do not trumpet their affinities very loudly. There are many. in fact, who take anarchist principles of anti-sectarianism and open-endedness so seriously that they refuse to refer to themselves as ‘anarchists’ for that very reason .
But the three essentials that run throughout all manifestations of anarchist movement are definitely there – anti-statism, anti-capitalism and prefigurative politics (i.e. modes of organization that consciously resemble the world you want to create. Or, as an anarchist historian of the revolution in Spain has formulated “an effort to think of not only the ideas but the facts of the future itself”. This is present in anything from jamming collectives and on to Indy media, all of which can be called anarchist in the newer sense.
The new anarchists are much more interested in developing new forms of practice than arguing about the finer points of ideology. The most dramatic among these have been the development of new forms of decision-making process, the beginnings, at least, of an alternate culture of democracy. The famous North American spokescouncils, where thousands of activists coordinate large-scale events by consensus, with no formal leadership structure, are only the most spectacular.
Actually, even calling these forms “new” is a little bit deceptive. One of the main inspirations for the new generation of anarchists are the Zapatista autonomous municipalities of Chiapas, based in Tzeltal or Tojolobal-speaking communities who have been using consensus process for thousands of years-only now adopted by revolutionaries to ensure that women and younger people have an equal voice. In North America, “consensus process” emerged more than anything else from the feminist movement in the ’70s, as part of a broad backlash against the macho style of leadership typical of the ’60s New Left. The idea of consensus itself was borrowed from the Quakers, who again, claim to have been inspired by the Six Nations and other Native American practices.
Consensus is often misunderstood. One often hears critics claim it would cause stifling conformity but almost never by anyone who has actually observed consensus in action, at least, as guided by trained, experienced facilitators (some recent experiments in Europe, where there is little tradition of such things, have been somewhat crude). In fact, the operating assumption is that no one could really convert another completely to their point of view, or probably should. Instead, the point of consensus process is to allow a group to decide on a common course of action. Instead of voting proposals up and down, proposals are worked and reworked, scotched or reinvented, there is a process of compromise and synthesis, until one ends up with something everyone can live with. When it comes to the final stage, actually “finding consensus”, there are two levels of possible objection: one can “stand aside”, which is to say “I don’t like this and won’t participate but I wouldn’t stop anyone else from doing it”, or “block”, which has the effect of a veto. One can only block if one feels a proposal is in violation of the fundamental principles or reasons for being of a group. One might say that the function which in the US constitution is relegated to the courts, of striking down legislative decisions that violate constitutional principles, is here relegated with anyone with the courage to actually stand up against the combined will of the group (though of course there are also ways of challenging unprincipled blocks).
One could go on at length about the elaborate and surprisingly sophisticated methods that have been developed to ensure all this works; of forms of modified consensus required for very large groups; of the way consensus itself reinforces the principle of decentralization by ensuring one doesn’t really want to bring proposals before very large groups unless one has to, of means of ensuring gender equity and resolving conflict… The point is this is a form of direct democracy which is very different than the kind we usually associate with the term-or, for that matter, with the kind of majority-vote system usually employed by anarchists in the past. With increasing contact between different movements internationally, the inclusion of indigenous groups and movements from Africa, Asia, and Oceania with radically different traditions, we are seeing the beginnings of a new global reconception of what “democracy” or “revolution” should even mean, one as far as possible from the neoliberal parlaimentarianism currently promoted by the existing powers of the world.
Again, it is difficult to follow this new spirit of synthesis by reading most existing anarchist literature, because those who spend most of their energy on questions of theory, rather than emerging forms of practice, are the most likely to maintain the old sectarian dichotomizing logic. Modern anarchism is imbued with countless contradictions. While small-a anarchists are slowly incorporating ideas and practices learned from indigenous allies into their modes of organizing or alternative communities, the main trace in the written literature has been the emergence of a sect of Primitivists, a notoriously contentious crew who call for the complete abolition of industrial civilization, and, in some cases, even agriculture. Still, it is only a matter of time before this older, either/or logic begins to give way to something more resembling the practice of consensus-based groups.
What would this new synthesis look like? Some of the outlines can already be discerned within the movement. It will insist on constantly expanding the focus of anti-authoritarianism, moving away from class reductionism by trying to grasp the “totality of domination”, that is, to highlight not only the state but also gender relations, and not only the economy but also cultural relations and ecology, sexuality, and freedom in every form it can be sought, and each not only through the sole prism of authority relations, but also informed by richer and more diverse concepts.
This approach does not call for an endless expansion of material production, or hold that technologies are neutral, but it also doesn’t decry technology per se. Instead, it becomes familiar with and employs diverse types of technology as appropriate. It not only doesn’t decry institutions per se, or political forms per se, it tries to conceive new institutions and new political forms for activism and for a new society, including new ways of meeting, new ways of decision making, new ways of coordinating, along the same lines as it already has with revitalized affinity groups and spokes structures. And it not only doesn’t decry reforms per se, but struggles to define and win non-reformist reforms, attentive to people’s immediate needs and bettering their lives in the here-and-now at the same time as moving toward further gains, and eventually, wholesale transformation. It rejects the very opposition between reformism and revolution.
(Yves Tanguy)
And of course theory will have to catch up with practice. The problem at the moment is that anarchists who want to get past old-fashioned, vanguardist habits-the Marxist sectarian hangover that still haunts so much of the radical intellectual world-are not quite sure what their role is supposed to be. Anarchism needs to become reflexive. But how? On one level the answer seems obvious. One should not lecture, not dictate, not even necessarily think of oneself as a teacher, but must listen, explore and discover. To tease out and make explicit the tacit logic already underlying new forms of radical practice. To put oneself at the service of activists by providing information, or exposing the interests of the dominant elite carefully hidden behind supposedly objective, authoritative discourses, rather than trying to impose a new version of the same thing. How to move from ethnography to utopian visions-ideally, as many utopian visions as possible? It is hardly a coincidence that some of the greatest recruiters for anarchism in countries like the United States have been feminist science fiction writers like Starhawk or Ursula K. LeGuin.
One way this is beginning to happen is as anarchists begin to recuperate the experience of other social movements with a more developed body of theory, ideas that come from circles close to, indeed inspired by anarchism. Let’s take for example the idea of participatory economy, which represents an anarchist economist vision par excellence and which supplements and rectifies anarchist economic tradition. Parecon theorists argue for the existence of not just two, but three major classes in advanced capitalism: not only a proletariat and bourgeoisie but a “coordinator class” whose role is to manage and control the labor of the working class. This is the class that includes the management hierarchy and the professional consultants and advisors central to their system of control – as lawyers, key engineers and accountants, and so on. They maintain their class position because of their relative monopolization over knowledge, skills, and connections. As a result, economists and others working in this tradition have been trying to create models of an economy which would systematically eliminate divisions between physical and intellectual labor. Now that anarchism has so clearly become the center of revolutionary creativity, proponents of such models have increasingly been, if not rallying to the flag, exactly, then at least, emphasizing the degree to which their ideas are compatible with an anarchist vision.
This doesn’t mean anarchists have to be against theory. It might not need High Theory, in the sense familiar today. Certainly it will not need one single, Anarchist High Theory. That would be completely inimical to its spirit. Much better, I think, something more in the spirit of anarchist decision-making processes: applied to theory, this would mean accepting the need for a diversity of high theoretical perspectives, united only by certain shared commitments and understandings. Rather than based on the need to prove others’ fundamental assumptions wrong, it seeks to find particular projects on which they reinforce each other. Just because theories are incommensurable in certain respects does not mean they cannot exist or even reinforce each other, any more than the fact that individuals have unique and incommensurable views of the world means they cannot become friends, or lovers, or work on common projects. Even more than High Theory, what anarchism needs is what might be called low theory: a way of grappling with those real, immediate questions that emerge from a transformative project.
Similar things are starting to happen with the development of anarchist political visions. Now, this is an area where classical anarchism already had a leg up over classical Marxism, which never developed a theory of political organization at all. Different schools of anarchism have often advocated very specific forms of social organization, albeit often markedly at variance with one another. Still, anarchism as a whole has tended to advance what liberals like to call ‘negative freedoms,’ ‘freedoms from,’ rather than substantive ‘freedoms to.’ Often it has celebrated this very commitment as evidence of anarchism’s pluralism, ideological tolerance, or creativity. But as a result, there has been a reluctance to go beyond developing small-scale forms of organization, and a faith that larger, more complicated structures can be improvised later in the same spirit.
There have been exceptions, such as the North American Social Ecologists’s “libertarian municipalism”. There’s a lively debate developing, for instance, on how to balance principles of worker’s control-emphasized by the Parecon folk-and direct democracy, emphasized by the Social Ecologists.
Still, there are a lot of details still to be filled in: what are the anarchist’s full sets of positive institutional alternatives to contemporary legislatures, courts, police, and diverse executive agencies? Obviously there could never be an anarchist party line on this, the general feeling among the small-a anarchists at least is that we’ll need many concrete visions and many utopian dialogues. Still, between actual social experiments within expanding self-managing, ungoverned communities in places like Eastern Europe or Latin America, and of the efforts of new anarchists all over the globe, the work is beginning. It is clearly a long-term process. But then, the anarchist century has only just begun.
___________
___________
Poetry: Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898)
SEA-WIND
The flesh is sad, alas! and all the books are read.
Flight, only flight! I feel that birds are wild to tread
The floor of unknown foam, and to attain the skies!
Nought, neither ancient gardens mirrored in the eyes,
Shall hold this heart that bathes in waters its delight,
O nights! nor yet my waking lamp, whose lonely light
Shadows the vacant paper, whiteness profits best,
Nor the young wife who rocks her baby on her breast.
I will depart! O steamer, swaying rope and spar,
Lift anchor for exotic lands that lie afar!
A weariness, outworn by cruel hopes, still clings
To the last farewell handkerchief’s last beckonings!
And are not these, the masts inviting storms, not these
That an awakening wind bends over wrecking seas,
Lost, not a sail, a sail, a flowering isle, ere long?
But, O my heart, hear thou, hear thou, the sailors’ song!
————
Anxiety
Her pure nails sprung up exalting their onyx,
Anxiety, this midnight, bearing light, sustains,
In twilight many dreams burnt up by the Phoenix
Whose scattered ashes no sepulchral urn contains
Atop the sideboards, in the empty room: no ptyx,
That voided toy of vibrant nonsense, left inside,
(Because the Master went to draw the tears from Styx
With that exclusive object wherein Naught takes pride.)
In vacant north seen through the casement frames, a gold
May agonize at times, within the setting, to behold
Fire-breathing unicorns arrayed against a nix,
She, lifeless naked mirror image, repetition
Whom in the twinkling framed forgetting, is to fix
Through sparkling timed in septet, composition.
————
Apparition
La lune s’attristait. Des séraphins en pleurs
Rêvant, l’archet aux doigts, dans le calme des fleurs
Vaporeuses, tiraient de mourantes violes
De blancs sanglots glissant sur l’azur des corolles.
C’était le jour béni de ton premier baiser.
Ma songerie aimant à me martyriser
s’enivrait savamment du parfum de tristesse
Que même sans regret et sans déboire laisse
La cueillaison d’un Rêve au coeur qui l’a cueilli.
J’errais donc, l’oeil rivé sur le pavé vieilli
Quand avec du soleil aux cheveux, dans la rue
Et dans le soir, tu m’es en riant apparue
Et j’ai cru voir la fée au chapeau de clarté
Qui jadis sur mes beaux sommeils d’enfant gâté
Passait, laissant toujours de ses mains mal fermées
Neiger de blancs bouquets d’étoiles parfumées.
————-
The Faun
Those nymphs, I want to perpetuate them.
So bright,
Their light rosy flesh, that it hovers in the air
Drowsy with tangled slumbers.
Did I love a dream?
My doubt, hoard of ancient night, is crowned
In many a subtle branch, which, remaining the true
Woods themselves, proves, alas! that alone I offered
Myself as a triumph the perfect sin of roses.
Let us reflect …
or whether the women you describe
Represent a desire of your fabulous senses!
Faun, the illusion flows from the cold blue eyes
Of the most chaste like a spring of tears:
But the other, all sighs, do you say she contrasts
Like the warm day’s breeze in your fleece?
But no! through the still and weary rapture
Stifling the cool morning with heat should it struggle,
No water murmurs unless poured by my flute
On the thicket sprinkled with melody; and the
Only wind, quick to escape the twin pipes before
Scattering the sound in an arid rain, is,
On the smooth untroubled surface of the horizon,
The visible and serene artificial breath
Of inspiration returning to the sky.
————-
ONE TOSS OF THE DICE
NEVER
NOT EVEN WHEN CAST IN ETERNAL
CIRCUMSTANCES
FROM THE DEPTHS OF A SHIPWRECK
WHETHER
the
Abyss
whitened
becalmed
furious
under an inclination
glides desperately
with wing
its own
in advance refallen with a difficulty in setting up flight
and covering the outpourings
cutting utterly the leaps
very interiorly resumes
the shade buried in the deep by that alternative sail
as to adapt
to its wingspan
its gaping depth as the hull
of a vessel
tilted to one or the other side
THE MASTERoutside old calculations
where the maneuver with age forgotten
arisen
inferringlong ago he grasped the helm
of that conflagration at his feet
of the unanimous horizon
there is preparing
stirring and mixing
in the fist that might clutch it
as one menaces a destiny and the winds
the unique Number which cannot be another
Spirit
to hurl it
in the tempest
refolding the division and passing proud
hesitates
a corpse by the arm set apart from the secret it keeps
rather
than to play
like a hoary maniac
the game
in the name of waves
one invades the chief
flows like a submissive beard
shipwreck that direct from man
sans ship
no matter
where vain
ancestrally to not open the hand
clenched
beyond the useless head
legacy in the disappearance
to someone
ambiguous
the last immemorial demon
having
from null regions
induced
the old man towards this supreme conjunction with probability
he
his puerile shade
caressed and polished and rendered and laved
made supple by the wave and abstracted
from the hard bones lost between the planks
born
of a gambol
the sea with the grandfather tempting or the grandfather against the sea
an idle chance
Betrothal
whose
veil of illusion gushed their phobia
like the phantom of a gesture
will totter
will fall
madnessWILL ABOLISH
AS IF
an insinuation simple
in silence rolled with irony
or
the mystery
precipitated
howled
in some nearby whirlpool of hilarity or horror
flutters around the gulf
without strewing it
nor fleeing
and cradles the virgin index
AS IF
plume solitary distraught
save that encounters or skims it a midnight cap
and immobilizes
in velvet crumpled by a guffaw somber
that rigid whiteness
derisory
in opposition to the sky
too much
for not marking
exiguously
whosoever
bitter prince of the reef
puts it on like the heroic
irresistible but contained
by his little reason virile
in lightning
concerned
expiatory and pubescent
mutelaughter
that
IF
The lucid and seigniorial aigrette of vertigo
with invisible brow
scintillates
then shadows
a stature dainty tenebrous erect
in its siren torsion
time
to slap
with impatient scales ultimate bifurcated
a rock
false manor
right away
evaporated in mists
that imposed
a limit on infinity
IT WAS
stellar issueNUMBER
EXISTED HE
otherwise than scattered hallucination of agony
COMMENCED HE AND CEASED HE
upwelling but denied and closed when apparent
at last
by some profusion widespread in rarity
CIPHERED HE
evidence of the sum if only one
ILLUMINATED HE
IT WOULD BE
worse
no
more nor less
indifferently but as much CHANCE
Falls
the plume
rhythmic suspense of the sinister
to bury itself
in original foams
not long ago whence sprang up its delirium to a peak
withered
by the identical neutrality of the gulf
NOTHING
of the memorable crisis
when might
the event have been accomplished in view of every result null
human
WILL HAVE TAKEN PLACE
an ordinary elevation pours absence
BUT THE PLACE
inferior lapping whatsoever as if to disperse the act void
abruptly which if not
by its falsehood
might have founded
perdition
in those regions
of the wave
in which all reality dissolves
EXCEPT
at the altitude
PERHAPS
as far as a place fuses with beyond
apart from the interest
as to it signaled
in general
according to such obliquity by such declivity
of fires
toward
this must be
the Septentrion also North
A CONSTELLATION
cold from forgetting and desuetude
not so much
that it does not enumerate
on some surface vacant and superior
the successive clash
sidereally
of a total count in formation
watching
doubting
rolling
shining and meditating
before stopping
at some last point that consecrates it
Every Thought sends forth one Toss of the Dice
______________
Stéphane Mallarmé was born in Paris in 1842. He taught English in from 1864 in Tournon, Besançon, Avignon and Paris until his retirement in 1893. Malarmé began writing poetry at an early age under the influence of Charles Baudelaire. His first poems started to appear in magazines in the 1860s. Mallarmé’s most well known poems are L’Aprés Midi D’un Faun (The Afternoon of a Faun) (1865), which inspired Debussy’s tone poem (1894) of the same name and was illustrated by Manet. Among his other works are Hérodiade (1896) and Toast Funèbre (A Funeral Toast), which was written in memory of the author Théopile Gautier. Mallarmé’s later works include the experimental poem Un Coup de Dés (1914), published posthumously.
From the 1880s Mallarmé was the center of a group of french writers in Paris, including André Gide and Paul Valéry, to whom he communicated his ideas on poetry and art. According to his theories, nothing lies beyond reality, but within this nothingness lies the essence of perfect forms and it is the task of the poet to reveal and crystallize these essences. Mallarmé’s poetry employs condensed figures and unorthodox syntax. Each poem is build around a central symbol, idea, or metaphor and consists on subordinate images that illustrate and help to develop the idea. Mallarmé’s vers libre and word music shaped the 1890s Decadent movement.
For the rest of his life Mallarmé devoted himself to putting his literary theories into practice and writing his Grand Oeuvre (Great Work). Mallarmé died in Paris on September 9, 1898 without completing this work. (From Ubuweb)
The Garden of Gnosis
He was born around 858 in Tur, Persia to a cotton-carder (Hallaj means “cotton-carder” in Arabic). Al-Hallaj’s grandfather may have been a Zoroastrian. His father lived a simple life, and this form of lifestyle greatly interested the young al-Hallaj. As a youngster he memorized the Qur’an and would often retreat from worldly pursuits to join other mystics in study.
Arthur Rackham was born September 19, 1867, in London, England. He studied at the Lambeth School of Art, was elected to membership in The Royal Watercolour Society and the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts, and became Master of the Art Workers’ Guild. Books he illustrated included Rip van Winkle (1905), The Ingoldsby Legends (1906), Alice in Wonderland (1907), and many other children’s books and classics throughout the years until his death in 1939. His last work, for The Wind in the Willows, was published posthumously. He won gold medals at Milan (1906) and Barcelona (1911), and his books and original art are now collected in many countries throughout the world.
LI T’AI-PO
In 1808 the illuminated theorist and “Utopian Socialist” Charles Fourier launched the first fullyrealized and consciously revolutionary attack on CIVILIZATION by publishing his Theory of the Four Movements in France. No one noticed — any more than anyone noticed the books of William Blake, the only thinker of the era comparable to Fourier. In this brief text we cannot attempt a full report of Fourier´s brilliant utopian system of society, which he called HARMONY. But we could at least recall his programme involved the reorganization of human life into large groups, called Phalanxes, arranged in “Series” according to “Attraction” — that is, according to shared “Passions”. For Fourier, Passion was the sole possible organizing principe for utopian life. In brief: if everyone were free always to do exactly what they desire, all reason for social discord would vanish. Scarcity of any good — material, spiritual, erotic — can only be artificially imposed on society by CIVILIZATON, For Nature is naturally “generous”. Marriage, poverty, work, morality, loneliness, alienation, violence, boredom — these civilized miseries constitute the perverse results of a system which benefits a few at the expense of the health of Earth herself.
Nobody ever called themselves barbarians. Its not that sort of word. Its a word used about other people. It was used by the ancient Greeks to describe non-Greek people whose language they could not understand and who therefore seemed to babble unintelligibly: ba ba ba. The Romans adopted the Greek word and used it to label (and usually libel) the peoples who surrounded their own world. 
Some people do this dance while fasting, and dance for several days straight. But even a few minutes of dancing helps, and joins with all the other dancing going on, everywhere on Earth. Not everyone can fast these days. Besides, you never know when you’re gonna dance, and you have to eat sometimes! But if you plan to dance, hold off eating till later, or just have a little. It’s easier to dance if you don’t have a hotdog weighing you down.
The night that I encountered “him” proved to be a life-altering event. The presence of this entity provided me with my personal proof of the reality of other dimensions of being, and set me on the quest that has dominated my life path. That night, when I was a child of nearly five, I saw what is commonly referred to as an elf, a brownie-or, in the Scandinavian culture that is my heritage, a nisse. There are probably no cultures that do not have their own version of this often ancestral household spirit. Traditionally, Scandinavian families left a small portion of food out at night for the nisse to enjoy. I remember discussing the nisse with a friend in the Mesquaki (Fox) tribe, who said that they never forgot to leave an offering of food for their household spirits evening nourishment.
Thankfully, before I could shoot any holes in the walls, there was a peculiar whoosh of air around us, a tiny sound of tinkling laughter, and the spooky game was over. Queen shook her head and whined in puzzlement, and I felt an overwhelming sense of relief that there really was no monster in the house about to rend us limb from limb. It had all been a merry prank played on me by the nisse. As I considered the impetus for such an eerie demonstration, I recalled reading an issue of the great old pulp magazine Weird Tales, and my father remonstrating that such stories could pop back into my memory at the most inopportune times to frighten me. Of course I had scoffed at such an ill-founded paternal warning and laughed that a robust 15-year-old such as myself could not be easily frightened by anything.
Sherry, who also enjoys Swedish heritage among her United Nations ancestry of French, Italian, Irish, and Chippewa, soon caught on to the games that nisse play. I will often hear her shouting out from her upstairs office, Nisse! Thats enough. Leave me alone now! Bring back my papers!
When a belief is widely held in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we call it a superstition. By that criterion, the most egrerious superstition of modern times, perhaps of all time, is the “scientific” belief in the non-existence of psi.
