Path: typhoon.sonic.net!feed.news.sonic.net!sjc70.webusenet.com!rip!news.webusenet.com!peer01.cox.net!cox.net!feed2.news.rcn.net!rcn!dca1-feed2.news.algx.net!allegiance!panix!panix3.panix.com!not-for-mail From: glass@panix.com (Robert Scott Martin) Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick Subject: Re: Crowleyan Religion is Hoax-Driven Date: 9 Jul 2003 09:57:08 -0400 Organization: Samuel Weiser NY Lines: 42 Message-ID: References: <3F04F34E.4060302@houston.rr.com> <8UvOa.9075$%3.411338@typhoon.sonic.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: panix3.panix.com X-Trace: reader1.panix.com 1057759028 11850 166.84.1.3 (9 Jul 2003 13:57:08 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@panix.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 13:57:08 +0000 (UTC) Xref: typhoon.sonic.net alt.magick.tyagi:40337 alt.magick:351370 In article <8UvOa.9075$%3.411338@typhoon.sonic.net>, 333 wrote: ># Baphomet's ass being in such high demand, I would have ># expected him to select for that particular skill [osculation]. >greater diffraction of purposiveness in the selection of >hoax-material. baphomet=> Templars; bloody-cakes-> Jews; Fair enough. >if the joke is being told, when is the punch line revealed? >meanwhile it turns into a religion. irony? sarcasm? >or just predictable human behaviour? In practical terms, some punch lines, exactly like some prophecies, never connect. We distill and precipitate the Conversation again and again, trusting in that lucky ten thousandth interpretation that will Explain the Joke (and glow in the dark and grant immortality, transmute metals and cut wax). "Blinds" or "hidden" jokes or "obscure" precognidigitatia are everywhere because they're an observer (reader) phenomenon. Strikes me that the skill (and responsibility if applicable) of the speaker (joke teller) is to embroider the basic point or punch line with enough clues and pointers to let the audience jump the (semiotic/synaptic) gap or at least get something else interesting out of the encounter. When Aleister does this, he's very, very good. When he stumbles or fails to drop enough bread crumbs, he's vulnerable. Bread crumbs rot with time and the evolution of discourse. This sometimes makes the joke less comprehensible as the pointers weather away -- who cares which one was Gladstone and which was D'Israeli? On the other hand, this sometimes liberates the original meaning as the structures holding it fast erode. Some things just aren't "blinds" any more; they're blindingly obvious (and interestingly, no longer "funny" or prophetic, depending on which field we're plowing). I would call the putrefaction of semiotic bread crumbs the evolution of insight into religion. Birds eat them.