Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (23 page)

Of all the tidbits which pop up in the mail the ones which excite me the most,
which leave me dreaming longest, are the picture postcards from the assholes of creation.
Imagine getting a postcard from a digger attached to some archaeological expedition in the
dreary wastes of Asia Minor who says he has just stumbled on a copy of
Sexus
in the
village of Christ knows what name! Or a cryptic message from a celebrated artist whom you have
worshipped all your life but never dared write, though in your head you’ve written him letters
yards long, and he says: “Having lunch here (on the banks of the Nile, the Ganges or the
Brahmaputra) with some devoted followers of yours”; and there follow the signatures of the
starry members of the Pleiades. Or from some atoll in the far Pacific a message scrawled with
a broom handle states that the Colonel or the Brigadier-General lifted “my only copy of
Capricorn
, please get me another!” Adding, not entirely for effect—“before I am
liquidated.” Or comes a letter in a language unknown to you, informing you that the sender has
just run across a wonderful passage in a manuscript—a passage about
Capricorn
again—written by a man who died alone on a coral reef. Or an elderly gentleman, once a
reviewer and one of the first to acclaim you, writes on crested stationery from his castle in
the Hebrides, inquiring if you are still alive, have you written anything since and what is
it, adding (sorrowfully): “You see, I’ve been knighted since!” Since what? Possibly since
writing the review which cost him his job!

All these messages, inquiries, fond wishes and tokens of affection and
remembrance create an elation which may last for days, not because you’re puffed up but
because, just as when you were
very young and very much in love with a
will-o’-the-wisp, some bedraggled Gypsy, reading your hand, drove you to fever pitch telling
you all the things you already knew when all you wanted to hear were those three magic
words—
“She loves you!”

When the Armenian soothsayer, in Athens, was predicting the varied and
exciting voyages I was yet to undertake, when he was indicating the general directions of
these voyages, one indubitably toward the Orient, another unmistakably toward the South
Pacific, and so on, the question which was hammering in my brain was: “Be specific! Tell me if
I shall ever get to Lhasa, to Mecca, to Timbuctoo!” Today I realize that if I do not get there
in person one of my “emissaries” will, and I’ll one day know everything I long to know, not in
the life to come but in this life here on earth.

They say you can chop off a lizard’s tail and he’ll grow a new one just as
fast as you please. But why chop the poor creature’s tail off? Similarly, it’s useless to
vanquish, or even liquidate, your enemies since the morrow will only bring you new ones. Do we
want peace or do we simply want to be spared a horrible end?

I think in much the same fashion about what we style our needs. Not what we
crave
, for to crave (even sainthood) only piles up more Karma. In Dianetics they
speak of “clears” and of those who have not yet been “cleared,” which means the vast majority
of us. The only “clears” I have met thus far are men and women
who never
heard of Dianetics. When you’re a “clear,” no matter what school of thought you belong to—a
genuine “clear” would belong to none—you usually get what you want when you need it. Neither
too soon nor too late, neither too much nor too little. You and your needs go through the
clearing house together, so to speak. With neurotics it’s the other way round: a neurotic is
always on the outside looking in, or, if he
is
on the inside, he’s like a fish in an
aquarium.

I don’t wish to pretend that I’m a “clear,” but I do know that things are
clarifying for me more and more every day. I didn’t have to reach the age of forty-five to
realize that man is an angelic as well as a diabolic being; but it wasn’t until I reached my
forties that I was able to put the two elements of our being together and regard them as
happily wedded. As soon as I ceased to look for the devil in a man (or woman) I found the
angel, and vice versa. Finally I was able to see a human being for what he is—not two but one.
And when I reached that point I was able to understand many things which before I had
conveniently labeled as white magic or black magic. I became aware eventually only of magic,
pure magic, nothing but magic. If it were used for selfish purposes it worked disastrously; if
used unselfishly the effect was beyond all expectation. But it was the same one substance, no
matter how used.

Today the whole world has been made aware of this simple truth through the
frightening presence of the atom bomb. The difference between thinking in terms of atomic
energy and thinking in terms of magic is the same as between examining a micro-organism
through a microscope and piercing the multiverse with a high-powered telescope. In the one
case you tend to concentrate on nothingness and in the other on infinitude.

When you begin to differentiate between “shadow and substance” you’re already
toying with magic. Or, to put it another way, you have the lamp in your hands but you haven’t
yet learned to wish for the right thing. You rub it absent-mindedly now and then. And, “just
like magic,” things happen. What an odd word—
happen!
Things happen, just like you yourself happened. It takes time to catch on
to just what it is that happens each time, but by dint of repetition you gradually
discover—the speed depending on the ratio between clear and foggy—that “to happen,” which is
only an infinitive, is exactly the right expression, and that you are not dealing with an
intransitive verb (the Chinese have no “intransitives”) but with a thought symbol mysteriously
related to the most potent, continuous energy imaginable, what in good, old-fashioned parlance
is called “the will of God.” Lifted out of the gibberish in which it’s generally wrapped,
these four words simply mean that the Intelligence which directs the universe, or the Mind
which is the Universe, is there to draw on, there to collaborate with, when
you
stop
trying to run the show.

To give a problematic example, here is how this perennial magic works….

Instead of bucking your head against a stone wall (why do we get headaches so
often?), sit quietly with hands folded and wait for the wall to crumble. If you’re willing to
wait an eternity, it may happen in the twinkling of an eye. For walls often give way quicker
than the proud spirit which rules us. Don’t sit and
pray
that it will happen! Just
sit and
watch
it happen. Sit thus, indifferent to everything that has been said and
taught about walls. From dwelling on the headache which you will notice has departed, dwell on
the emptiness between things, and finally on the emptiness
of
things. When this vast
emptiness is filled with nothing but emptiness you will awaken to the fact that what you
regarded as a wall is not a wall at all, but a bridge possibly, or a ladder of fire. The wall
will still be there, of course, and if you had only ordinary vision it would be much like any
other wall, but now you’ve lost that kind of vision and with it the difficulty that a
bricklayer has in understanding what a scientist means when he explains what the elements of a
wall really are. You have an edge over the scientist because you feel no need to explain
anything. What is,
is
.

The foregoing is paregorical. Those who understand will understand.
Those who don’t will still have a bellyache—or a headache. Let me put it
yet another way….

We have all observed how our friends turn themselves over to the surgeon when
the physician’s efforts have failed. Or to the analyst—for psychic surgery—when there is no
other way out. Or to a disciple of the Bates method when the eye specialist confesses his
helplessness. Or to a Christian Scientist practitioner when the only other resort seems
suicide. In one way or another we all, when we get truly desperate, fling ourselves “into the
arms of Jesus.”

Now then…. Throughout the sad history of medicine there are marginal figures
(beside whose names a great question mark is always affixed) who have worked miracles which
the medicos (of all ages) endeavor to nullify, with nothing more, sometimes, than a shrug of
the shoulders. Generally speaking, it is only the hopeless cases which are served up to this
type of healer. It is said of Paracelsus, for example, that in several instances he
resuscitated the dead. Jesus waited three days before raising Lazarus from the grave. And in
Jesus’ own time there lived an even more astounding miracle worker than himself, if we are to
believe the accounts given of his life and work. I refer to Apollonius of Tyana. As for Cabeza
de Vaca, who led an altogether charmed life, until the moment that he was commanded to heal or
die he had no knowledge whatever of his healing powers.

The annals of folklore abound in spectacular cures by men and women whose
names are now forgotten. One of the striking features of these heretical performances is what
might be called the technique of nonrecognition. Just as Gandhi successfully exploited the
doctrine of nonresistance, so these “aberrants” practiced nonrecognition: nonrecognition of
sin, guilt, fear and disease … even death.

The medico, on the other hand, is a type who is not only on the alert for the
slightest symptoms of malaise but who instills in us his predilection for and obsession with
maladies which are Hydraheaded, which increase in the measure that he so “successfully”
copes with them. We pay a heavy price for the dubious benefits which our
authorized “healers” confer. For the privilege of being repaired by a professional expert we
are expected to sacrifice the rewards of years of labor. Those who are unable to afford the
luxury of being carved to pieces by an expert butcher must die or cure themselves. The curious
thing about these expensive overhaulings is that one is offered no guarantee of immunity
(after the event) against other, often worse, ailments. Indeed, it seems to work the other way
round. The more we are patched up the more dilapidated we become. One may continue to exist,
but only as a walking cadaver.

Today the physician, as we once thought him to be, is becoming obsolete. In
his place there rules a queer triumvirate: the diagnostician, the laboratory worker, and the
pharmacist. The holy family which doles out miracle drugs. The surgeon is now getting only the
scraps, juicy scraps, I must say, since he is still extremely prosperous and always on the
point of drinking himself to death.

Now and then, at the sulphur baths, I meet a perfect specimen of health and
vitality who was given up by the doctors years ago. They all tell the same story: they forgot
about their ailments, they ignored them, they found something to do—something of a serviceable
nature—which made them forget themselves.

I wouldn’t be dwelling on this painful subject if it were not for the fact
that I receive so many letters dealing with it, if it were not one of the most frequent topics
of conversation when visitors arrive. Perhaps I attract people who are given to
experimentation. Perhaps I attract individuals who are struggling manfully to pierce the
hocus-pocus which envelops and obstructs our march through life. People are constantly
supplying me with startling facts, amazing events, incredible experiences—as if I were another
Charles Fort. They struggle, they rebel, they experiment, they get glimpses of truth, they are
raised up by spasmodic gusts of self-confidence—and yet they are hopelessly enmeshed. “Dear
fellow-sufferers,” I feel like saying, “I
know
you are perplexed and bewildered, I
know
you are riddled with doubts, I
know
you are
searching and struggling, but would it not be wiser to stop struggling (even against
struggling), wiser to give way to doubt completely, test everything in the light of your own
conscience, and abide by the answer?” One will tell you that the stars are against him,
another that his job is driving him crazy or that his boss is a bloodsucker, another that he
had a bad start in life or that his wife is the cause of all his misery, another that he is
not fit to cope with a world as rotten as ours, and so on and so on.

However true these statements may be—God knows, they may be each and every one
all too true!—however much we feel the need to justify our inexplicable behavior, the fact
remains that once we have decided to live, once we have decided to enjoy life, none of these
disturbing, distressing, crippling factors is of the least importance. I have known cripples
and invalids who were radiant sources of joy and inspiration. And I have known “successful”
men and women who were like running sores. Had we the power to resurrect the dead, what could
we offer that life itself has not already offered, and continues to offer, in full measure?
What
is
one to say to young people who, at the very threshold of manhood or
womanhood, throw themselves like dogs at your feet and beg for a crust of comfort? What has
come over these youngsters who, instead of upsetting the world with their fiery thoughts and
deeds, are already seeking ways of escape from the world? What is happening to make the young
old before their time, frustrated instead of liberated? What is it gives them the notion that
they are useless and unfit for life’s struggles?

What is happening?
Life is making new demands upon us. The cosmic
cataclysms which ancient man had to face have given way to moral cataclysms. The cyclotron not
only smashed atoms, it smashed our moral codes. The day of wrath is upon us, but in an
unexpected guise. Conveniences have been converted to scourges: only the gods know how to
handle thunder and lightning. And yet, a truly young man, a product of the age, as we say—a
Tamerlane,
an Alexander, a Napoleon—would be fixing to throw a bomb which
would restore us to sanity. He would not be thinking of ways of escape but of how to kill off
his elders and all they represent. He would be thinking how to give this tired world a new
lease on life. He would already be writing his name in the sky.