11,721. RUDIMENTS, pt. 670

RUDIMENTS, pt. 670

(these numbers kill)

John of Patmos wrote to

seven churches. He exhorted

them to persevere : faithful

obedience to...something.

Then, at that time, already

(I just made time go

backwards!), there was no

'church' to speak of, not even

any doctrine. He was firing

from the hip. A real mystery

hip too, it was. Wildly violent

tribulations, and a divine

judgment soon to come. To

end with the annihilation of

the present world. Now, in

thinking of this  -  and I did,

a lot  -  what could annihilation

of the present world mean? Banks

and cars? Swimming pools and

beaches? NO, of course not. And,

without any real doctrine, this

is where it got crazy : it meant

the 'outside' of, the ending of,

Time. Space. Distinctions.

Meanings. If that isn't (wasn't)

enough to wipe you out, have

another beer. You're a stronger

cat than me.

-

God, here creating a new heaven a
new earth, and a new Jerusalem,

seemed to me to have taken on a

whole bunch of redundant chores.

Why do all that crap twice? An

overwhelmingly violent end that

runs cosmopolitical and covers all

sorts of not really human bases in

order to make a new beginning in

which death and suffering will be

no more. But only for the elect?

And for the others, after 'Time'

is abolished, they get to spend

eternity (no time?) in a constant,

fiery, churning blackness, because

they goofed up? Perhaps it was

just something written, off-handedly,

by a highly disturbed individual?

First off, the guy didn't like women,

and went out of his way to declaim

their monstrousness. That's sort

of weird. In fact, in light of all else,

and especially those nurturing and

Gaia-like attributes all through

mythology and primitive (primitive?

This isn't?) religions, as well as the

portrayals of the women around

Jesus, and all those early days,

it seemed perversely twisted.

Wish I knew more on that count.

No one ever really 'pushed' the

Book of Revelation on me; I

sort of got to it myself. And then

I learned, too, what psychosis was.

Thankfully. Seven seals. Four

horsemen. Red dragon. The 'woman

clothed in the sun.' The mark of

the beast. The grapes of wrath.

The whore of Babylon. The

second coming. This guy had

it all covered.

-

I walked the streets of New York

City, in my own City of god, in a

way as perverse as it all was. All

that  -  once again  -  'God is the

noise in the street' kind of stuff.

I still saw myself as a person

with that kind of mission, a bit  -

lifting the schmuck in the gutter,

putting him or her back on  their

feet and walking with them. In

another way it was 'stressing the

unstressed, and unstressing the

stressed.' If that makes any sense.

You could have all your apocalyptic 

stuff, and hand over foot too.

It didn't go anywhere, and you

couldn't shake hands with it. 

Whenever I see some nitwit using

numbers on his or her concepts,

I shy off. This thing was full of

that. Four horseman. Ok, sure

not five, or three? Seven seals?

OK, why not eight? Second

coming? Why that? Two tries

at oblivion? Thousand year

reign? Yeah, OK. I saw the Son

of Man, seven stars in his right

hand. Seven? Right hand? This

all is psychotic stuff  -  demanding

placement, numbers, sequence.

It's wrong, folks. Don't go there,

I've studied it for you.

-

The best thing one can do, (this

is all Art of War stuff) to blunt

an enemy is co-opt it. Draw the

enemy to you, bring it in. Offer the

person something, Hire him.

Bring it (that enemy) into the

fold. It beats fighting it all out,

expending all that energy, killing

each other in endless sparring. I

think any wise opponent would

know that. It's quite simple. Well,

after all that time, the early church

formings, martyrs, Anti-Christ

bombast about Rome being the

Beast and Whore of Babylon, that's

precisely what it did  -  instead of

going down in flames, the 'whore

of Babylon' was now wed to the

church. "Rome's campaign against

Christianity lasted nearly a decade.

More even. In 313, a year after

Emperor Constantine purportedly

dreamed of a fiery cross inscribed

with the words 'by this sign you

shall conquer,' he and the Eastern

Emperor Licinius signed  the Edict

of Milan, which mandated tolerance

of Christianity, declaring that people

were free to worship as they saw fit.

Then in 324, Constantine moved the

capital to the predominantly Christian

city of Byzantium, renaming it as

Constantinople. [Another little bit

of vain-glory, I'd say, after the one

about 'conquering' under the sign].

And then, a year later (this is the

co-opt section, when real Christianity

got beat for good) he promoted the

unified church and convened the

Council of Nicaea, where all this

conflict and balderdash could be 

sorted out, codified, and turned 

into the law of the Roman land. 

That's how you kill your enemy! 

Take it in. Absorb it all.

-

After that, it was all real estate,

territory, Kingdoms, rules, doctrine, 

rites, procedures, and the rest. Any

religion of it was done  -  secular

serfdom, slavery, men tied to the

land and to working for others.

Thank God for thanking the new

God! Organizational structure,

and church hierarchy. (One time

I had one of those mission

proselytizing types say, about

organized, non-evangelical 

theology  -  'That's not Christianity,

that's Churchianity.'

-

I loved it. I loved it all, and along 

the streets and in the lofts and the

studios, on the bare-naked babes

I'd see, on the kids trouncing

around like half-dressed clowns, 

on the oldsters turning beads and

sideburns hip in  a fortnight, on

the words of the televised masses,

on the returning Vietnam guys,

coming back, late as it was, as

hippies, militant slaves making

peace signs, wearing anti-war

buttons, and making the peace

sign as they exited their transports.

It was all very weird, and, damn it

all, it was a new church of life.

For all of them, and for all of me.
-
Connecting this to something, it all 
came to Art. I was able to make it do 
that: Hildegard of Bingen; for instance  
- Revelation alone wasn't enough for her.
She lived 1098-1179. Hildegard, back then,
was what we'd call a 'picture thinker.'
She took Revelation, and went a step
further. Her image-rich descriptions
and lavish illustrations became more
popular then even the written text was.
'Scivias'  -  Know the Ways Of the Lord',
was a series of twenty-six apocalyptic
visions, ten years in the making. In an
oddly Blakean way (I switched time again,
she came firs by many years. Blake was
1757-1827). Captives of only the best of
their own times, each (and with this I add
Joachim of Fiore, to whom I'll be getting
later), she was the first to really envision
'Art' as encapsulating what the fevered
mind might see : this was easy stuff
for her, a sort of picture-book-gateway
fantasy into another world those
early people had never seen.
-
I'l get back to this later, but for me,
as well, in 1967, my holyland was
the streets I walked. My accompanying
guidebook, to NYC, was going to be,
and be that alone, one I wrote and
illustrated myself.