Aspects of Chaosophy

by Frater Harpo Ben Ishmael Bey


(notes) The man in motley as the archetype: the divine fool, green man- in real life, the Sufi mystic, poet-philosopher, whose tales function on many levels... the artist as initiate-by-intuition. Shaman and Sufi are the root-forms... the "black" in black arts did not originally refer to any association with any prince of darkness, but to the whole complex of spiritual and magical traditions with roots in ancient Africa and Egypt... necessity of secrecy limits groups to small gatherings, inspires in-group signs, code-words, hand- shakes, intimate communion of shared mindspace largely absent from majority culture... a vigilant attention, awareness of true presence in the present, etc... to choose consciousness over consensus is always regarded with suspicion by the majority - the very definition of madness in totalitarian states... and yet, by some sort of Lemarckian evolution, the conspiratorial heart of active imagining has been hard-wired into "mind," a major tool of consciousness, never "meant" to be used once or twice and discarded, its value is as continuous aid to navigation through the chaosea of possibility. The prophet as shining beacon is the symbol of the collective's amplification and projection of its members inner lights... or should be. To each his or her own taproot to the underground source... we all contain the chaosufic circuit, only most of us are too damaged, dazzled and brutalized by the demands of post-modern life and all of our mechanical and electronic masters to ever really hear the song of our own being, let alone sing it, let alone to hear and harmonize with the essential songs of our fellow creatures. The true poets of our time are virtually unknown and largely unheeded, but are nevertheless of the greatest importance. Their invisible influence embraces the whole world.